Two Sealed Deck flights

I'll post my pools during the week, because I don't really want to write about how to build my decks right now, but about my play. I'll probably post my decks in the middle of the week, since I probably won't be SSE'ing one more time on Wednesday before the official release date.

In my first flight that morning, I had a decent BRGw deck with a lot of burn and some spot removal too. Round 1 Game 1 I get blown out, Game 2 I blow him out, and then Game 3 I mulligan to 5 and get blown out. Round 2 I played against a newer player and won. Round 3, Game 1 he has a pretty good deck and I can't remove his black guys with my Executioner's Capsule, and Game 2 he blows me out and there's not a whole lot I can do about that. I drop at 1-2.

In my second flight, I have a way better deck, RGWu with some pretty dirty bombs. Round 1 I play against someone who was not very good. Round 2 I play some pretty good Magic. Before I sit down, I pile and have 39 cards and can't find where I dropped the other card or what it was, so I throw my last cut into a sleeve. Game 1 was pretty much a blow out because he goes to town with a Deft Duelist and a couple of Exalted guys, while keeping me off my colors by destroying my Obelisks.

Round 2 I mulligan to 6 on the draw and I think I'm going to lose again. He plays Rhox pancake flipper and an Exalted guy and the Exalted enchantment, so the score goes to 11 to 26. I crack with a Wild Nacatl a couple of times behind my Naya Battlemage to tap guys. He plops down some more guys and a Stoic Angel and it looks really really bad for me, but I'm holding 2 Naya Charms to tap down his guys, and I've got Angelsong in hand too. I draw enough land to plop down a Flameblast Dragon, which prevents him from attacking. The score goes from 6-25 to 6-19 for me to play Naya Charm number two, then 6-11, then he taps out, plays some dude on the ground, so I tap his Angel, then finally play out the Rafiq of the Many to do 12 points. Yeah I had bombs, but I really had to plan out how I was going to win that game without losing to letting a guy through and playing a pump spell. Or maybe it was just two Naya Charms turning his Stoic Angel against him.

He then makes a comment along the lines of "Well I guess you can only hope for a draw" and I could feel it was getting pretty tense because he just lost from being up 6 to 25, made some questionable plays and untaps, and I had been a little snippier than I think I come across with responses and stuff. Time is short, so I play a little faster and try to speed him up, because I think my deck is better and I can absolutely get there. I ramp up pretty quickly and make I think a Wild Nacatl, Mayael the Anima, then serve up a fatty with Mayael, while he was beating me with a Deft Duelist and I think a Mosstodon. Time is called as he's making his Mosstodon, so I draw and pass with like those 3 guys and a Naya mana elf. He serves with Mosstodon which I let through, putting the score 6-11 in his favor, then plays some ramp stuff but doesn't leave colored mana up, at least not enough for Bant Charm. I draw for turn 2/5 extra turns, think for a little bit about the Resounding Thunder in my hand, and attack with all my guys, then mutter "Shit" trying to play like I goofed and I'd lose to a crack back or something. He blocks my 1/1, letting 10 through, and as soon as he let's the 10 through I flip Thunder onto the table and that's the game. I'm sure he was really miffed, so I didn't jump up and down like I have before when I make really sick plays to steal a win.

Round 3 I play against Joey, a First Pick regular and flood two games in a row. We play more for fun after that and I blow him out in 2 games thanks to Rafiq of the Many serving up 10-12 point deaths, then I misread my hand in the 5th game and get blown out by keeping a hand that didn't let me cast spells. Round 4 I play against someone who to me seemed like more of a casual player, and he blows me out in two. I get nothing, although I wouldn't have won much anyway.

I thought my mulligan decisions were pretty suspect, and I think I need to learn what's par for openings in the new format. Do I want to ramp, or do I still want an early game, and how much do I value having a hand with all my colors of land and just drawing into spells and playing all of them? I was REALLY bad about accounting for Unearth cards on the other side of the table. I would make trades with them that would be fine under normal circumstances, but the guys come back and wreck me. It's almost as if some of the really good Unearth guys are better left on the board than dying. I also felt myself giving away Naya Charm when I would contemplate letting damage go through, but I always ended up playing it out because I was thinking about it the turn before, maybe I take a page from poker and just think about every attack long and hard like I've got things to think about, but that doesn't really go well with me wanting to speed up my game.

I didn't think I punted any games, just some unfortunate floods and mana screws. It does concern me that I'm going 2-2 against randoms, where starting 2-2 in the PTQ will mean the end of my day. I need to get myself to the point where as long as I have a decent pool I can make good plays that will help me beat better decks, and I have 3 weeks to do that, along with 3 weeks of figuring out how to build the sealed decks and ultimately deciding what cards are actually good and what cards are actually bad.

Tomorrow (today, Sunday) I'm off to Redmond for a store prerelease, which will be giving out regular store credit in addition to packs, so a lot to play for, especially with new people coming in just for the prerelease.