Quick hits

I've been out of the country for a family issue, but I have had my laptop and been able to do a little bit of testing. Here's what I know so far:

Tezzeret is really freaking hard to play! For a million dollars, if I had to correctly cast Gifts Ungiven, I wouldn't be able to do it. Heck, for $100 if I had to split Gifts Ungiven correctly, I wouldn't be able to do it. Trinket Mage and the Transmute cards are also really hard to play because you can get so many things, and depending your list, if you misuse one of your tutor targets, you're screwed for the game. My plan is to proxy the deck up and just goldfish it tons to see what the plays are, without the pressure of real game situations.

Other than that, it seems like Rubin Zoo is the deck to beat, and I'm leaning toward something that outraces it. Probably not Steppe Lynx Zoo since that version of Zoo actually makes Punishing Fire pretty good, but more like the bogeyman from two years ago: Dredge. Tuning that deck will come to guessing how much hate people will be packing in their maindeck and adjusting the Dredge maindeck appropriately. For example, I think I want Darkblast to have some kind of answer to Gaddock Teeg. If I think people will be packing Ravenous Traps and Leylines, however, maybe I'd be better off playing Rubin Zoo or Tezzeret.

I also haven't touched sideboards yet. It seems that you can tune your sideboard to beat any deck in the format. Again, comes down to guessing what the metagame will be and what other adjustments decks will be making between now and the first PTQ (which happens to be Seattle this season!)

Still plugging along...

Let's talk about Extended and Testing

I went 5-3 at States with Bram Snepvanger's Boros list. I was happy with the deck excpet that I'd probably make the Burst Lightnings into Earthquakes, which may necessitate swapping Teetering Peaks for Terramorphic Expanse to make my dudes more likely to live through it, but I like Kor Skyfisher too much to take it out for something else in that case.

One thing I'd like to do more of at the beginning of the season for Extended is side-by-side testing to play both sides of the matchup. It was great for learning the format because instead of trying out one deck for yourself at a time, you're trying out two. It's also important to know how the other deck plays to read into your opponent's plays. A valuable piece of advice I read back in the day on, believe or not, Team Academy was about how the writer (probably Andystok) couldn't beat a certain deck, so he switched to that deck and bashed it tons. Then he couldn't beat a deck that beat that deck, so he bashed that tons. But, then couldn't beat his original deck, so he switched, but now he could beat the deck he originally couldn't beat since he knew how it played and what it cared about.

Switching decks in playtesting is also a good idea for learning the format. It also takes the playskill skew out of the picture if you really want to learn what the matchup is actually like. But the common playtest partner will probably be reluctant to switch since he'd rather get as many games in with his deck than a deck he isn't going to play. With side-by-side testing, there is no skew. Even though you've seen the other hand, it makes you ask the question if playing/not playing into something is worth it.

I could also go as slow or as fast as I wanted when figuring out lines and plays, and I could learn about the matchups I cared about, rather than whatever the person at the store with a deck was battling. A lot of times I'd make a play from the other side of the Boros deck, and then switch windows to my Boros hand and blow him out the next turn, so I'd back up and make a tighter play and see if would change the outcome of the game.

Other logistical considerations for side-by-side testing is that coordinating games and playtest sessions is a pain when you or your playtest partners have real life to juggle, the awkwardness of discussing over MWS, and the time it takes to proxy up paper decks for live testing. I think I'd consider traditional live testing more of practice and side-by-side testing true testing and experimentation and discovery. I'm going to have a lot of time this week to bash the Extended decks from Worlds against each other, so I'll probably be keeping tabs here about what I learn.

For those interested, my gauntlet is Tezzeret, Rubin Zoo, Dredge, Hypergenesis, and All-In Red, as these were the decks that put multiple people into 5-1 at Worlds. With the exception of All-In Red, off the top of my head, I think these also all had representatives in the 6-0 bracket. The other decks I'll try but not necessarily consider part of the litmus test for other decks are Bant, Scapeshift, Dark Depths, UB Faeries, UW Control, and Mono-Red Burn.

Fear of Constructed

When I sit down for most Constructed tournaments, I have a fear that I don't have in Limited tournaments.

Bad matchups scare the crap out of me. When your opponent can play his first land and you know you've only got a 40% chance of winning this game, that scares the crap out of me.

When your opponent can play a card that just ruins your entire plan like Kataki, that scares me.

When your opponent draws more relevant cards in a mirror match than you and you just lose, that scares me.

I've never had the same confidence in Constructed as Limited. In Limited, your decks are much more even, and you can plan for bombs, and you can attack and block, and you'll hardly ever be surprised by card choices. In Constructed, so much work happens before you sit down and draw any cards.

Tomorrow I'm playing Boros Bushwhacker at State Championships. I think I'm even to a slight favorite against Jund since you can blow them out and their mana can be really awkward, even though I am declining on Goblin Ruinblasters since I don't think deck can reliably get to four mana on turn 4 (the only turn where it's really good). The deck's also really good against GW strategies that try to beat Jund since you're just faster and they rely on Noble Hierarchs which you can burn. I really don't see an edge in the Jund matchup, and I've been playing that online since it came out. I like Boros because it can feel like a combo deck like UR Dragonstorm back from Standard. I've played a lot of games in side-by-side testing with it, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

I think afterwards I'll evaluate my preparation for this tournament and figure out what needs to change for Extended season. As of right now, I really prefer side-by-side testing to random playtesting since you can be much more methodical with what matchups you want to test and what data you want to collect, rather than being at the mercy of the person in your group you're playing against getting bored with a deck or wanting to battle the deck he's already decided on. I also like being able to backup and revisit different lines of play that you don't understand without bogging down a playtest partner.

Bobbie McRae

I grew up in Raleigh, NC, and my weekends in high school usually included time at All Fun 'n Games in Apex, NC. Now, I sucked. I couldn't draft for the life of me, played loose as hell, and only came out ahead in Constructed because I was playing better decks than half the room since I used the Internet.

A fixture there was Bobbie McRae, one of the two women who ran the store. I went off to college a million miles away, but on my breaks home would find time to make a visit and draft, and Bobbie would always be excited to see an old familiar face.

I hadn't been to the store for probably the past year since my trips home had been much more serious with the health and the passing of my father, but I recently got a message from an old Magic baller friend from this time period about playing Two-Headed Giant this weekend at AFNG. (The last time he played was four years ago when I was home, he hadn't played for a year, and he asked me to play 2HG with him at the store also! How can I say no to an old friend?)

I went to the site for info about the tournament, and to my shock, the front page had a blurb that Bobbie had passed away this year to a long fight with cancer. I knew she had been sick, but she always seemed so cheerful when she was at the store that you wouldn't believe that she was undergoing treatment if you didn't hear it from someone.

I'm upset that the last time I saw her was probably over a year ago, but if she were still around, I'd thank Bobbie for being a part of my Magic experience and my growing up, and hope that she and those by whom she is survived are proud of her work sharing gaming with a lot of people.

My Grand Prix Wish List

I guess it's almost Christmas time, so here's my Grand Prix wish list for 2010. The entire 2010 schedule is here. These are the one's I'm probably making plans for:

Feb. 13-14 Oakland, CA, T1.x
April 3-4 Houston, TX, T1.x
June 12-13 Manila, Philippines, T2
Sept. 11-12 Portland, OR, M2010 Limited
Oct. 23-24 Toronto, ON, "Lights" Limited

The North American Grand Prixs are pending the location not being somewhere awful, like GP Tampa or GP Atlanta. Oakland's close, and Houston and Toronto should be pretty awesome places to visit... right?

Random thoughts

Skill with a stupid pool

"My pool was busted... but it actually took a lot of skill to play."

Someone got upset by this comment regarding the last PTQ. I mean, it's a kind of silly comment to make, but it has some merit. When you're deep in a Limited PTQ, you're going to play against really really stupid pools, pools as ridiculous as yours. So what becomes a factor? Being really bad at Magic. Sometimes the power of your pool will get you into the top 8, but it will happen less often if you suck.

Jedi Mind Tricks

I've also heard talk about Jedi Mind Tricks. LSV said it best in one of the clips from Worlds: it's not as valuable as playing correctly. Trying to "bluff" a combat trick when you're thinking ahead to attacks? Not that valuable if you ask me. You know what is valuable? Not giving away anything so he has no clue what you might have.

Looking weak when you've got a blowout trick? Poker Tells 101: if he's acting weak, he's strong; if he's acting strong, he's weak.

You know what's really more valuable than Jedi Mind Tricks? Learning to attack and block correctly. Or planning out your turns and pacing your spells appropriately. Or finding sideboard cards or unconventional plays that will give you an edge against an opponent's deck in Limited.

I certainly do not work on Jedi Mind Tricks at all. I make too many mistakes on the board that I would rather patch those up than make up for them with such a slight edge. I think you should too, you're hardly flawless. Those situations where it was your only out? Don't get in those situations in the first place!

Sideboarding

So I am an atrocious sideboarder in Constructed. Probably because I'm not very good at building my own decks. I mean, I guess I knew how to sideboard my "Bant Plus" deck since that was my baby for two months before the rotation, but any other net deck, I'm hopeless. I can guess what comes in, but can never figure out what comes out.

The problem lies in that you want a fully functional 60 cards for Games 2 and 3 and not just a pile. With aggro decks, if you're not just taking flat out dead cards, you could be messing with the consistency of the deck: less solid starts. This was the problem with sideboarding with Affinity; if you take out too many artifacts, you're not Affinity anymore.

So what's a player to do? I think you have to consider the role of the cards you bring in and leave in.

- If they're good in multiples or you will just dominate the game if this spell is cast, you want 4 in the deck. You'll start with the card in your seven in 40% if your games, 44% after your first draw, 48% after two, 52% after three, 56% after four, and 60% after turn 5.

- What about 3? 31% of the time you'll start with it in your 7, and by you're sixth draw you'll see it 53% of the time.

- Two copies? You'll start with it 22% of the time, and by your 11th draw, you'll see it 51% of the time.

- And the miser's copy? You'll see it by your 23rd draw half the time. Good luck with that.

Now there are things to be said for tutors and redundancy. Some analysis on mana curve is also probably warranted, so that you can actually cast spells and use your mana. Cascade probably throws things for a loop as well. I think these are the things to think about when you're considering what to take out in a matchup. When considering how to board, I like laying out the deck by mana curve to make sure that I still have a deck, and then thinking about how effective is having 1-2-3-4 copies of a sideboard or main deck card. Sideboarding is super hard for me, so I'm welcome to any other tips.

PTQ Portland damage report

I opened a good pool in Portland this weekend, featuring such hits as Ob Nixilis, Marsh Casualties, Vampire Nighthawk, Burst Lightning, Disfigure, Hideous End, and double Quest for the Gravelord.

I think I did my deck justice by going 6-2. I lost round 3 in three games. I remember Game 1 was a blowout, and Game 3 I mulliganed to 5 to his 6 and was never in it.

I was knocked out of contention in round 6. I think Game 2 I was blown out, and in Game 3 I kept a two lander and got stuck on two for a couple turns and by the time I drew lands and cast spells, it was too late.

I managed to win the rest. Granted, my deck was pretty darn powerful, but I didn't feel jittery at all and was able to make pretty sound decisions. In Round 2 Game 2 I made an odd play involving a Crypt Ripper in hand that I thought about for a while where my opponent and a spectator were surprised I didn't haste him in there. I couldn't remember the board after the match, but I remember thinking about it for a while and being pretty sure of my decision.

In Round 4 after my loss, we go to Game 3 and I mulligan to 5, and evil thoughts enter my head about another two-in-a-row for me. I have to keep a hand of Gravelord, Geopede, and maybe three mountains? It was pretty bad and I envisioned myself getting blown out. I play a Mountain, he plays a Guul Draz Vampire and thankfully not a Lacerator. I rip a Swamp and play the Geopede. He plays a Surrakar Maurauders. I rip again and draw a Seismic Shudder, which was the most insane thing I could have drawn there. Gravelord, land, Seismic you to put two counters on Gravelord, swing? Absolutely insane.

So I thought I played one of my best PTQ's yet and still didn't make Top 8. I lost to really good decks and they had better draws than I did. I'd hate to play that card, so to speak, but it's hard for me to think back to any mistakes I made. So I think I'm doing the right things, just have to keep plugging away.

No online PTQ this weekend for me probably, since it's family time and all. I've started looking at possible decks for States. Manuel Bucher's Bant deck has caught my eye in the side-by-side testing I've done so far. Seems good against Jund, hopefully it doesn't blow against everything else in the field.

Drafting with fourouttheforty

So I've been on a pretty hot streak the past week in 8-4's on MODO, with three 3-0's and a 14-4 record in the past seven drafts. I haven't really been trying to force anything, just been trying to play nice with my neighbors and then focusing on my play across the board. I've been trying to do one draft a day, and I've really been working on my concentration: no TV, no web surfing, no music. Who knew when there are no distractions, you play better? If I can keep this kind of focus in Portland this Saturday, I think I've got a shot, because I'm feeling really good about Limited right now.

Here's the last draft I did. I thought my deck was bad at first, but I 3-0'd.

Pack 1 pick 1:
Narrow Escape, Giant Scorpion, Carnage Altar, Paralyzing Grasp, Goblin Shortcutter, Shepherd of the Lost, Swamp, Journey to Nowhere, Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Vines of Vastwood, Ruinous Minotaur, Pillarfield Ox, Turntimber Grove, Gomazoa, Desecrated Earth

My pick:
Shepherd of the Lost - I have no idea if it should have been Journey. This card's pretty darn good though, and I at least think it was between these two.

Pack 1 pick 2:
Hellfire Mongrel, Blood Seeker, Highland Berserker, Hedron Scrabbler, Lethargy Trap, Goblin Bushwhacker, Sejiri Refuge, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Swamp, Adventuring Gear, Kabira Crossroads, Giant Scorpion, Reckless Scholar, Savage Silhouette

My pick:
Adventuring Gear - I thought about Hellfire Mongrel, possibly also the Scorpion, but I've been in love with Gear so I went with the non-commitment pick.

Pack 1 pick 3:
Khalni Heart Expedition, Trailblazer's Boots, Magma Rift, Grazing Gladehart, Mire Blight, Zendikar Farguide, Swamp, Piranha Marsh, Shieldmate's Blessing, Murasa Pyromancer, Ravenous Trap, Molten Ravager, Cliff Threader

My pick:
Grazing Gladehart - I thought it's better than the 2/1 Cliff Threader, and Green might be open.

Pack 1 pick 4:
Whiplash Trap, Khalni Gem, Hedron Crab, Tuktuk Grunts, Vastwood Gorger, Spidersilk Net, Highland Berserker, Adventuring Gear, Oran-Rief Recluse, Plains, Nimana Sell-Sword, Electropotence

My pick:
Adventuring Gear - Took another Gear, seemed more powerful than the Highland Berserker, but maybe it could have been Nimana Sell-Sword? That's not a very strong signal in my opinion.

Pack 1 pick 5:
Into the Roil, Makindi Shieldmate, Graypelt Refuge, Quest for Ancient Secrets, Tanglesap, Ruinous Minotaur, Spreading Seas, Pillarfield Ox, Mountain, Stonework Puma, Eternity Vessel

My pick:
Into the Roil - This is a pretty powerful Blue card. It could have been Stonework Puma, since that will almost always make the cut to block Bladetusk Boars.

Pack 1 pick 6:
Guul Draz Vampire, Kor Duelist, Mountain, Piranha Marsh, Sky Ruin Drake, Goblin Shortcutter, Spreading Seas, Summoner's Bane, Cliff Threader, Narrow Escape

My pick:
Sky Ruin Drake - Went with the Blue creature to go with my previous pick. Shipped another Cliff Threader, but I really like Sky Ruin Drake.

Pack 1 pick 7:
Khalni Heart Expedition, Archmage Ascension, Seascape Aerialist, Soul Stair Expedition, Shieldmate's Blessing, Shoal Serpent, Plains, Beast Hunt, Hagra Crocodile

My pick:
Khalni Heart Expedition - Most relevant card in the pack, so it looks like we'll be trying a Blue-Green deck. Maybe we'll get some more fixing at play the Shepherd.

Pack 1 pick 8:
Ior Ruin Expedition, Stonework Puma, Plains, Quest for Pure Flame, Savage Silhouette, Hagra Crocodile, Teetering Peaks, Turntimber Basilisk

My pick:
Turntimber Basilisk - I think it's etter than Puma.

Pack 1 pick 9:
Narrow Escape, Carnage Altar, Swamp, Pillarfield Ox, Turntimber Grove, Gomazoa, Desecrated Earth

My pick:
Gomazoa - It's better than the Ox.

Pack 1 pick 10:
Hedron Scrabbler, Lethargy Trap, Sejiri Refuge, Swamp, Kabira Crossroads, Savage Silhouette

My pick:
Hedron Scrabbler - Most relevant card, and I've been playing it a lot, so it might make the cut.

Pack 1 pick 11:
Trailblazer's Boots, Mire Blight, Swamp, Shieldmate's Blessing, Ravenous Trap

My pick:
Shieldmate's Blessing

Pack 1 pick 12:
Khalni Gem, Hedron Crab, Spidersilk Net, Plains

My pick:
Hedron Crab - Are we going to get to Crab it up?

Pack 1 pick 13:
Quest for Ancient Secrets, Tanglesap, Mountain

My pick:
Quest for Ancient Secrets

Pack 1 pick 14:
Kor Duelist, Mountain

My pick:
Kor Duelist

Pack 1 pick 15:
Beast Hunt

My pick:
Beast Hunt

Pack 2 pick 1:
Scythe Tiger, Trapfinder's Trick, Baloth Woodcrasher, Swamp, Shepherd of the Lost, Timbermaw Larva, Jwar Isle Refuge, Beast Hunt, Paralyzing Grasp, Sadistic Sacrament, Burst Lightning, Explorer's Scope, Vampire's Bite, Disfigure, Kor Outfitter

My pick:
Baloth Woodcrasher - There's another Shepherd, but I went with the Green card that we're probably going to play.

Pack 2 pick 2:
Kabira Crossroads, Reckless Scholar, Hagra Crocodile, Goblin War Paint, Mold Shambler, Teetering Peaks, Brave the Elements, Forest, Vastwood Gorger, Nissa's Chosen, Inferno Trap, Kraken Hatchling, Ondu Cleric, Vampire Nighthawk

My pick:
Nissa's Chosen - Best card on color.

Pack 2 pick 3:
Disfigure, Spire Barrage, Kor Hookmaster, Pillarfield Ox, Paralyzing Grasp, Sejiri Refuge, Island, Timbermaw Larva, Scute Mob, Explorer's Scope, Soaring Seacliff, Vampire Lacerator, Quest for the Gravelord

My pick:
Timbermaw Larva - I guess this could have been Scute Mob, but I'm not sold on it yet. Paralyzing Grasp is also playable, but I think the Larva is more powerful than the Grasp.

Pack 2 pick 4:
Caravan Hurda, Seismic Shudder, Goblin War Paint, Crypt Ripper, Narrow Escape, Kraken Hatchling, Soaring Seacliff, Expedition Map, Quest for the Holy Relic, Caller of Gales, Armament Master, Forest

My pick:
Kraken Hatchling - Only relevant card. This deck might be kind of slow, so these guys might save us from getting blow us out.

Pack 2 pick 5:
Plains, Harrow, Vampire Lacerator, Quest for the Gravelord, Hagra Crocodile, Kazandu Refuge, Mold Shambler, Trapmaker's Snare, Teetering Peaks, Cliff Threader, Kabira Crossroads

My pick:
Harrow - Woo hoo, we really needed this one! Now we can splash for stuff like that first pick Shepherd.

Pack 2 pick 6:
Oran-Rief Recluse, Demolish, Kor Duelist, Noble Vestige, Merfolk Wayfinder, Molten Ravager, Grim Discovery, Cancel, Swamp, Beast Hunt

My pick:
Oran-Rief Recluse - Best on-color card.

Pack 2 pick 7:
Scythe Tiger, Magosi, the Waterveil, Slaughter Cry, Swamp, Tempest Owl, Murasa Pyromancer, Hedron Scrabbler, Zektar Shrine Expedition, Runeflare Trap

My pick:
Hedron Scrabbler - I thought Scythe Tiger was playable at first, but it's not.

Pack 2 pick 8:
Vastwood Gorger, Expedition Map, Surrakar Marauder, Teetering Peaks, Brave the Elements, Forest, Torch Slinger, Hagra Crocodile

My pick:
Vastwood Gorger - That's a late Torch Slinger, but we'll stay on color and play the fat that we could ramp up to.

Pack 2 pick 9:
Scythe Tiger, Trapfinder's Trick, Swamp, Timbermaw Larva, Jwar Isle Refuge, Beast Hunt, Vampire's Bite

My pick:
Timbermaw Larva

Pack 2 pick 10:
Kabira Crossroads, Teetering Peaks, Brave the Elements, Forest, Vastwood Gorger, Kraken Hatchling

My pick:
Kraken Hatchling - I like fat, but I've already got one of these and a Baloth Woodcrashers.

Pack 2 pick 11:
Pillarfield Ox, Sejiri Refuge, Island, Explorer's Scope, Soaring Seacliff

My pick:
Sejiri Refuge - Now we can play our Shepherd.

Pack 2 pick 12:
Narrow Escape, Quest for the Holy Relic, Caller of Gales, Forest

My pick:
Narrow Escape

Pack 2 pick 13:
Plains, Hagra Crocodile, Kazandu Refuge

My pick:
Hagra Crocodile

Pack 2 pick 14:
Merfolk Wayfinder, Beast Hunt

My pick:
Merfolk Wayfinder

Pack 2 pick 15:
Scythe Tiger

My pick:
Scythe Tiger

Pack 3 pick 1:
Demolish, Vampire's Bite, Ior Ruin Expedition, Hellfire Mongrel, Zendikar Farguide, Trailblazer's Boots, Zektar Shrine Expedition, Relic Crush, Cosi's Trickster, Bog Tatters, Plated Geopede, Swamp, Kor Hookmaster, Territorial Baloth, Blazing Torch

My pick:
Blazing Torch - We don't have removal, so I picked this.

Pack 3 pick 2:
Adventuring Gear, Greenweaver Druid, Nimana Sell-Sword, Gomazoa, Sky Ruin Drake, Spreading Seas, Journey to Nowhere, Seismic Shudder, Nissa's Chosen, Vastwood Gorger, Guul Draz Vampire, Seascape Aerialist, Pyromancer Ascension, Forest

My pick:
Journey to Nowhere - Since we have Harrow and Khalni Heart and the UW land in our pool, I can splash this.

Pack 3 pick 3:
Island, Giant Scorpion, Khalni Heart Expedition, Nimbus Wings, Vines of Vastwood, Island (FOIL), Shieldmate's Blessing, Shoal Serpent, Windborne Charge, Quest for the Gemblades, Soul Stair Expedition, Trapfinder's Trick, Feast of Blood

My pick:
Vines of Vastwood - Not sure how good multiple Khalni Hearts are, but I do know that this card is very solid.

Pack 3 pick 4:
Ior Ruin Expedition, Kraken Hatchling, Forest, Makindi Shieldmate, Spire Barrage, Tanglesap, Turntimber Grove, Kabira Evangel, Surrakar Marauder, Seismic Shudder, Harrow, Caravan Hurda

My pick:
Harrow

Pack 3 pick 5:
Joraga Bard, Tempest Owl, Mindless Null, Sky Ruin Drake, Kor Aeronaut, Nimbus Wings (FOIL), Lullmage Mentor, Bold Defense, Frontier Guide, Brave the Elements, Plains

My pick:
Sky Ruin Drake - Thought about Frontier Guide, but I think this is better.

Pack 3 pick 6:
Kor Outfitter, Cancel, Welkin Tern, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Bog Tatters, Mountain, Beast Hunt, Windborne Charge, Quest for Pure Flame, Scythe Tiger

My pick:
Welkin Tern - Another two drop.

Pack 3 pick 7:
Kraken Hatchling, Ondu Cleric, Grappling Hook, Unstable Footing, Goblin War Paint, Steppe Lynx, Expedition Map, Caller of Gales, Mountain

My pick:
Kraken Hatchling - Grappling Hook's pretty bad.

Pack 3 pick 8:
Shieldmate's Blessing, Shoal Serpent, Molten Ravager, Grim Discovery, Beast Hunt, Mountain, Celestial Mantle, Bold Defense

My pick:
Bold Defense - Messed this one up, should've been Shoal Serpent.

Pack 3 pick 9:
Vampire's Bite, Ior Ruin Expedition, Zendikar Farguide, Trailblazer's Boots, Relic Crush, Bog Tatters, Swamp

My pick:
Zendikar Farguide -

Pack 3 pick 10:
Greenweaver Druid, Gomazoa, Spreading Seas, Vastwood Gorger, Seascape Aerialist, Forest

My pick:
Greenweaver Druid - Definitely playing this to ramp to our six drops.

Pack 3 pick 11:
Island, Khalni Heart Expedition, Shieldmate's Blessing, Shoal Serpent, Trapfinder's Trick

My pick:
Khalni Heart Expedition - Guess it came back.

Pack 3 pick 12:
Forest, Makindi Shieldmate, Tanglesap, Caravan Hurda

My pick:
Tanglesap

Pack 3 pick 13:
Joraga Bard, Tempest Owl, Plains

My pick:
Joraga Bard

Pack 3 pick 14:
Mountain, Beast Hunt

My pick:
Beast Hunt

Pack 3 pick 15:
Caller of Gales

My pick:
Caller of Gales

Here's my final deck. The two hidden cards are 2 Sky Ruin Drakes. I left the second Khalni Heart Expedition in the side because two really isn't very good.

Blazing Torch also stayed in the side since I had removal with Journey and could stay in the game with Into the Roil, and I didn't really want to cut a creature or any of the other spells. I boarded it in against faster decks and decks with cards I really needed to deal with like Bladetusk Boar.

The other card I brought in a lot was Gomazoa for decks that had creatures I could easily remove, like two decks that had Vampire Nighthawk, and one of those decks having a Halo Hunter. I think I should've started it.

MODO event coverage

Definitely had no idea this existed:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnline.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/whatshappening

Metagame bliss

Interesting theoretical idea... I tried this on paper, but I messed up my algebra :/

Suppose a simple Rock-Paper-Scissors format with three decks (Rock, Paper, and Scissors) defined by W(RP), W(PS), and W(SR) (percentage chance of Rock beating Paper, Paper beating Scissors, and Scissors beating Rock). These are constant.

To keep this simple, define a perfect metagame to be one where each deck in the format has the same expected winning percentage versus the field. (I say keep this simple because we could determine decks likely to win a tournament with Top 8, which isn't as simple as a weighted average, at least with real examples.)

Now, given the definition of the format (win percentage of all three matchups), which metagames (% of the field for each deck) are perfect? What conditions for a format make a perfect metagame impossible? (Intuitively, a deck that doesn't have a weak matchup is one.) For formats that are not strictly Rock-Paper-Scissors, i.e. for each of the three decks in the format, the sum of the win percentages for its other two matchups is 100%, is a perfect metagame possible?

Go.

My love affair with Ondu Cleric

And by love affair I mean chance hookup turned into a crazy psychopath who won't stop drunk dialing you. And that I apparently have not been able to get away from despite the mounds of regret the morning after/0-2 later.

But I have all these allies like Turntimber Ranger, Umara Raptor, Oran-Rief Survivalist, and Nimana-Sell Sword! They make each other awesome!

But how often will you draw them with Ondu Cleric? Probably not as often as you think. How often will you just have Ondu Cleric? More often than you think. And how good is Ondu Cleric by itself? Dreadful.

But I opened three Ondu Clerics!

Congrats, you made all your allies Loxodon Hierarches. Too bad Loxodon Hierarch was a 4/4 and Ondu Cleric is a 1/1.

Yeah, I way overvalue this card in sealed. Lifegain doesn't matter as much as I thought it did, especially when it's your T2 that you waste getting it online when it should be Kor Skyfisher or Plated Geopede. Those guys know how to battle, and are worth way more than a few life.

Restate my assumptions

The PTQ in Seattle was a pretty good day if we're not talking about Magic. The suits were incredible, and the effort even more so as people were scrambling for clothing parts like they were scrambling for Constructed cards.

Magic-wise, I had a deck that I thought wanted to play White for Luminarch Ascension and good White guys, and I decided to pair it with Green for Allies and Turntimber Ranger to go with a Kazandu Blademaster and double Ondu Cleric. I considered Blue if I wanted to slow it down and really focus on getting Luminarch Ascension online, and then there was Red and Black for an extra piece of removal, but I stuck with what I thought mattered in the format and went with cheap beaters. I should post the pool as a MODO file so you can try out building it.

I started out 2-0, but then lost the next match in three and the following match in three also to knock me out. In the deciding matches, I got stuck on mana for key spells in my hand and then proceeded to get beat down. I was pretty sure my hands were keepable, but it sucks so much for me to blame a match on mana screw. A couple of people that I have relayed this sentiment to have said that while they agree using mana screw as an excuse for losing is a trap for getting better, it is a valid reason that you can lose because there were not lands at the top of your deck. I could get over this if I were a much more solid player.

The thing is, I haven't been doing great on MODO either in Limited. I think I overvalue White too much, as I don't remember the last time I didn't play it, nor do I remember the last time I started Red in a Sealed deck. I should try something different, or just start looking at the decks that beat me and re-evaluate what cards/strategies matter.

I want to start playing Constructed, but MODO won't pay out Zen for their 2-man queues yet. I liquidated a ton of M10 planeswalkers and things that are valuable but probably shouldn't be, like Lotus Cobra and Sorin Markov, so I can actually get the lands for the Jund deck. But the price on M10 makes it not worth it to grind 2-man queues yet. States is coming up in a little over a month, so I'd like to start evaluating if there are good decks that can beat Jund cascade. (I think I'd agree that there are decks that can beat Jund, but they suck against other decks.)

Passive cheating with Brian Kibler

If you haven't watched the Pro Tour coverage, Brian Kibler won Game 5 of his Quarterfinals thanks to his opponent forgetting to destroy a permanent with his Angel of Despair after Hypergenesis. (You can watch Kibler's Game 5 on YouTube, starting at 3:50.)

The issue is that Angel of Despairs comes-into-play ability is not a may, so under the Tournament Rules, Brian is obligated to make sure the trigger is played. A local ringer who played in Austin had a similar situation happen to him when his opponent forgot to draw a card after an Ancestral Vision. In his tournament report, he mentions that he knows it's cheating, but then questions what you would do in his situation. As an extension, what would you do if thousands of dollars were riding on the match?

To be fair, it is entirely possible that Brian forgot just as his opponent forgot. Since it's a trigger, you don't name targets until someone has priority, not in the middle of resolving Hypergenesis. Or he could have known, and under the rules, if that was the case then he cheated for intentionally failing to maintain the game state.

I respect the game like you'd respect the game of golf: if you mess up, you own up to it and the penalty. It's the only way I can justify holding my opponent's to the same standard when they mess up and expect them to play the game honestly the way it is designed to be played. However, if my opponent messes up or is sloppy , the only punishment he can get, as an honest tournament player (and if he hasn't accumulated warnings), is usually a warning. I don't know anything about Kibler's opponent, but I'd trade a warning for a few thousand dollars.

If my opponent forgets to draw a card, he'll get a warning if I decide to call my opponent on it. He's either being careless or was going to try the how-can-you-have-that-many-cards-if-I-have-this-many cheat. And he'd get a warning if you have the heart to call a judge for forgetting to draw a card. Calling a judge for such sloppy play is so tedious and has little reward for you: what are the chances you accumulate three warnings in a match?

Could you modify the tournament rules for Magic to give opponent some incentive for your opponent's failing to maintain the game state? If you forget to draw a card, what if your opponent can call you on it and decide whether you get that card or not? If you forget a trigger, what if your opponent gets to play the trigger for you and Mindslaver-Time Stop you for the rest of the turn? It may require a lot more thought and language to create these kind of rules in the general case, but I don't entirely like to think of what Brian Kibler did in the top 8 (if he was aware of the trigger) as cheating.

P.S. Brian Kibler has ridden the Batmobile before.

Suit up for Seattle!

Joe Timidaiski is an absolute baller. Despite having to go to a wedding the weekend of Grand Prix: Seattle, he was the brain behind the Northwest Magic community growing mustaches for the largest Magic tournament in the Pacific Northwest in history. And he's at it again.

From the Facebook group:

Hey everyone! Joe T had the AMAZING idea of Suitting up for this weekends PTQ. If you are going to the PTQ, wear your sunday best, and lets bring some class to Seattle Center.

If I ever get on the Pro Tour, I'm bringing a suit, but might as well start now. If you're reading this and attending the Seattle PTQ this weekend, you should totally suit up!

Foraying into Constructed on MODO

I liquidated my set of Master's Edition II and my remaining M10 packs and ended up with a bunch of tix, so I decided when Zendikar came out I would build a constructed deck. I decided to buy the cards for Jund, so I built this:

4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Broodmate Dragon
4 Putrid Leech
4 Sprouting Thrinax
3 Bituminous Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Resounding Thunder
2 Terminate
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Blightning
3 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Swamp
3 Dragonskull Summit
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Jund Charm
4 Duress
1 Pyroclasm
2 Thought Hemorrhage

I didn't have enough for fetchlands, so I just replaced it with 2 Swamps and 2 Forests, and since I haven't played any Zendikar events yet, I don't have Goblin Ruinblasters so I just made them Anathemancers.

I started 2-man queues because there are no Zendikar events until tomorrow. Two-man queues are pretty awesome because you just have to win a little better than half your matches to have positive EV (about 57% right now since they're paying M10 and M10 sells for 3.5 Tix). And there are some really bad budget decks there too (that you might see kids play at FNM), so you can mise free wins that way.

One thing that is frustrating me is the freaking mirror match. I have no idea what the keys are and how to win it. Do you literally just have to Cascade better than your opponent? And freaking Sprouting Thranax, what's the proper way to deal with this guy? I figured that trading Thranax for Thranax is pretty good, Thranax for a Bloodbraid too? No idea. I'm boarding in 2 Thought Hemmorhage and I usually name Bloodbraid Elf if I hit it T4 or Bituminious Blast if I have a guy I don't want to die or something.

PTQ Boise damage report

I went to lovely Boise, ID this weekend to try and snag an invite. I've done a lot of preparation for Sealed with the boxes that I bought and have a good feel for where a lot of cards stand in the format, and I've been playing pretty well in drafts I've been doing.

The PTQ was just over enough for seven rounds, so you could 5-1 and draw in, and then an X-2 could probably sneak in too. I open a pretty good pool and register this:

1 Steppe Lynx
1 Kraken Hatchling
1 Kazandu Blademaster
1 Kor Skyfisher
1 Cliff Threader
1 Kor Hookmaster
1 Kor Sanctifiers
1 Makindi Shieldmate
1 Reckless Scholar
2 Umara Raptor
1 Pillarfield Ox
2 Windrider Eel
1 Living Tsunami
1 Seascape Aerialist
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

2 Burst Lightning
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Summoner's Bane

1 Teetering Peaks
1 Soaring Seacliff
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain
7 Plains
7 Island

I had a Cancel and a Seismic Shudder to bring in from the board, and I was taking out Cliff Threader most of the time when I would board one of them in.

I actually drew my first round of the day against a local, who didn't seem awful but was playing awfully slow. At the beginning of the day I decided I was going to take some advice Alex West had given me and take my time, because getting a slow play warning and getting a draw is less bad than making a mistake and losing a match. I was taking my time, but my opponent was playing very deliberately and tanking too, and we ended up starting Game 3 with less than 10 minutes to go. We end up drawing, but it was a little ironic because while a draw sucks, I was in a very bad position in that game.

In Round 2 I mess up a race by messing up my math and losing to a crackback when he draws a land off the top for Landfall. I wasn't going to get knocked out by a loss, but I realized that I needed to tighten up right then. In Game 2 I was able to get double Umara Raptors online and a Windrider Eel active and won the race. Game 3 I won with Jar Jar Sphinx.

Round 3 I lose to Veen, who's a new Portland player, where I auto-pilot in Game 2 and let a Kazandu Blademaster resolve with Summoner's Bane in hand and mana up like I had planned before I shipped the turn. As scrubby as it sounds, I got distracted when he asked if he could use one of my dice as counters, and he puts the counter on and ships the turn while I stare at the counter in my hand. I ended up wasting a Burst Lightning in hand on it which could have ended up doming him out in a race.

At this point I realize I can't lose again. I had three carmates still in the tournament at X-2, so if I get paired down, I have people that will scoop to me, and I can ask for scoops anyway if I get paired down, which wouldn't happen for the rest of the day. In Round 4 I win a match in three and felt really really nervous and excited toward the end of the match even though I was winning a race that I probably couldn't lose. I don't think it made me play worse, but I definitely wasn't comfortable, so I tried to calm myself down between rounds. In Round 5 I play against a guy who punts Game 1 to me when he tries to Windborn Charge in combat instead of in his main phase (since it's a sorcery) that I would have been cold to. I win the second game when he stumbles on mana.

In the match that knocks me out of contention, I get blown out Game 1 by by Allies on Turns 2, 3, and 4. Game 2 is a blowout in my favor with double Umara Raptors and a mountainwalking Cliff Threader. In the third game, I was trying to race with a 3/3 Umara Raptor. I'm able to make some double blocks resulting in trading up with his guys, but his removal leads to a board where I have a 2/3 holding off three of his 2/2's with me at 11 and him at 9 and both of us drawing off the top of our decks, meaning someone's going to get lucky to win this game. He draws a Hideous End to kill my guy and then beats me for 3, and I lose the next turn. There was one play where I had a Reckless Scholar block a 4/2 because I just didn't want to take 4 damage and go to 7. It felt like it'd be too low a life total and if he draws much more removal I'd lose the game sooner as opposed to trying to loot probably only once more.

In the last round I blow out my opponent with Jar Jar Sphinx both games. I end up in the top 16 and earn a draft set. Mike Dipetrillo from our car top 8'd along with three other Northwest ringers, but he decided the Top 8 of a Pro Tour Qualifier was a good time to experiment with Hedron Crab. Still, he deserves congratulations for his first Top 8.

I started playing better toward the end of the day. In the second to last round where I got eliminated, I felt down after Game 1 and at the beginning of Game 3 when I thought I was going to lose and started feeling excitement when I thought I was going to get out of that match and had good board position, whereas I'd rather just be able to concentrate on the game. I feel I'm getting closer to being capable of making the top 8 of a PTQ. Winning an M10 Daily Event and then Day 2'ing and winning my first draft at Grand Prix: Boston at least showed me that at the very least I can get lucky and succeed, and has given me a little boost of confidence in my game.

It sucks to not top 8 with a deck that seemed really solid, especially since at the next PTQ in Seattle I'll need a deck that can win 7 of 8 matches (or even 8 of 9 matches) to make it to the draft. Of course, your only responsibility in any tournament is to win your next match, so I just hope I win Round 1 next Saturday.

Sportsmanship in Magic

Claim: There is little to no sportsmanship in competitive Magic.
Claim: This is bad.

I used to think I was a good sport. In high school and my first year of college, the only time I got to play Magic competitively was at FNM and weekly tournaments, I didn't have the heart or the means to start PTQ'ing to the extent that I do now. I had a habit of shaking hands at the end of every match. I guess people at my store thought I was a class act, since I wasn't that good. (All Fun 'N Games in Apex, NC and Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh, PA for the random plug/Google hit.)

Then one FNM in college, I'm playing this guy from a group of friends from the dorm I lived in. I didn't particularly like this group because they were weird and just wasn't my kind of crowd, and I guess they didn't like me either because a friend who was invited to draft brought me along and I played the role of the ringer. Nonetheless, I'd like to think I was still respectful at the table. Anyway, it's Constructed and he's playing a Stuffy Doll-burn deck (before Skred), and I'm playing Dragonstorm. Game 3 he basically gets manascrewed and I get there. I extended my hand, and he gives me an absolute stink eye. "It's not fun to get manascrewed!"

To me, I offered the handshake gesture to thank him for playing the games of Magic with me, because I really like playing Magic, so I was offended. It wasn't like I just typed in "GG" before the winning play. But whatever, I don't like offending people, so from then on, I never offered my hand after a win but only after losses.

But there are people that don't even do this! They just acknowledge the end of the game, sign the slip, and leave. Maybe they think they didn't deserve this? Of course they deserved it! Either A) You made mistakes to cost you the game, or B) their draw was supposed to beat your draw, regardless of whether they made mistakes or not. Sure, people don't like losing to worse players or people who make mistakes, but it happens, and Magic will never change to the point where this cannot happen. Now I can understand at an FNM or friendly draft not extending the hand if the stakes are not particularly important, but at a PTQ or GP against strangers, for god's sake, offer your hand when you lose at least!

Another thing I hate is people complaining way too much about games they lose. I don't know that anyone likes listening to people complain about things as petty as Magic cards. So don't complain about bad draws or bad plays your opponent makes. The worst I've heard:

- After a game I played in a tournament that I won, my opponent turns to his friend next to him and says "I love it when my opponent still wins after he misplays." Apparently I didn't deserve this win, but I obviously did since my draw was so good. I got lucky? Sure, but that's why we shuffle the cards.
- I beat someone in a draft who got flooded. Sorry bud, I've been there. He went on about how his deck has so much removal, and even later on, he fans his deck out and shows me all the removal in his deck that would have ruined me. I get it, you flooded. But again, my draw was supposed to beat your draw that game. It would have been more injustice for me not to win that game with that draw.
- We went back and laughed this situation off in recounting, but a player in a Limited PTQ lost a match but decided to berate his opponent and tell him "You do not deserve this win." Honestly, if someone said this to me, my hand's going up for the head judge and I'm going to ask him why I should have to endure this kind of verbal abuse, especially when the match is over? If this isn't unsportsmanlike conduct, what is?

There are some things to be said for tilting your opponent in match, and there are some tactics for tilting that I don't think are very sportsmanlike than should be ruled as such. Magic should be about casting spells, attacking and blocking, and tight technical, not about being surly and witty. If I were a level 80 DCI judge, I'd make an effort to raise the level of sportsmanship in Magic, because I'm not particularly happy with it.

The best Magic compliment I've received wasn't for any kind of tight technically play, and I don't think I'll ever receive a comment for tight play that will top this one. In college I was back home at All Fun 'N Games drafting, and I played against a guy I played once back when I was in high school. When I first played him, he was a new player and wasn't very good, and I can remember him mulliganing to 6 being very upset, mulliganing to 5 being very upset, and looking at his 4 and just deciding to go on to Game 2. I just thought he was bad.

Fast forward to now, and he's gotten much better to the point of competency. We go to Game 3 and I'm mana screwed and he wins. After I shake his hand, he does the whole "Sorry about that" thing, and I tell him the obligatory "It happens". He then tells me that he was impressed with my composure and how years ago and maybe even then he would have thrown a hissy fit in the same situation, but that I was able to brush it off as part of the game.

Best. Magic compliment. Ever.

You Make The Play: Solution?

If you haven't seen the original post, I'll just repost the situation:

Him (W/R, 6 life, 2 cards in hand):
5/4 Highland Barbarian (2/1 and 3 +1/+1 counters), equipped with Blade of the Bloodchief
4/4 Tuktuk Grunts (2/2 with 2 +1/+1 counters)
7 land

Me (G/B, 7 life, 0 cards, on top of deck Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet)
2/2 Oran-Rief Survivalist (1/1 with 1 +1/+1 counters)
2/2 Vampire Lacerator
2/2 tapped Timbermaw Larva
3/2 tapped Guul Draz Vampire equipped with Explorer Scope
3 Forests
3 Swamps
1 Piranha Marsh

He attacks with his two guys. How do you block?


Here's what actually happened:
I double chump and his 5/4 becomes a 7/6. He plays a Kor Sanctifiers and destroys my Explorer's Scope, which is irrelevant. I untap and draw my Kalitas. I decide that I'm only going to give him one draw phase to get out of this one, so I attack with just my 3/2 Intimidate guy to put him to 3. The 5/5 comes down and my plan is to chump his two bigs and take 2. If he draws something like Journey to Nowhere, I can still chump the biggest guy and also let the 4/4 through and go to 1. I suppose the commons I'd lose to are the Red burn spells to my 2/2 if he equips his 4/4 first, but he has to draw those off the top, which is precisely why I attacked him to 3.

He drew Murasa Pyromancer off the top to burn my 2/2 and buff the Tuktuk Grunts off the Ally bonus and attacked for 7. Darn.

I started writing out on paper what the plays should be if he has certain hands, i.e. combinations of burn, guy, or non-burn removal. It was actually pretty darn complex and I couldn't bring myself to finish it all the way, and even what I did I stopped branching at the end of my turn and evaluated what the board would be.

What I realized is that such deep analysis, unless you are a really fast thinker (and I know people like this), cannot be done in real-time situations. Writing this play analysis out fully would have probably taken me an hour, how much would I tank if I really wanted to do this analysis?

This is where we must rely on heuristics and shortcuts: what is usually the right play in this situation? Play experience helps here; one of the best players I've met, in a conversation about the idea of Magic strategy guides ala Patrick Chapin, said to get better, said to get better "Just play more". Sure, a computer could compute the entire choice tree and find the right play, but you're not a computer. So much Magic strategy ends in generalizing statements like "You'll probably be in fine shape now" without really much quantification.

The point of all this was that maybe the kind of analysis I wanted to do, at least to the level of detail I wanted to do, was overkill, but maybe it's good to go through such analysis so that it becomes intuitive. I don't think I'm going to type up my notes on the play, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader.

As for my conclusion about the play, I think the double block was right at a very cursory level, i.e. I lose to common burn if I let one guy through, but attacking with the 3/2 was wrong, in the case of what actually happened, and that untapping with the 5/5 will actually swing the board way in my favor: the 5/5 kills a big and gives me a big if he doesn't topdeck a Magma Rift or Journey to Nowhere right away, and I'd just chump with my 3/2 and 2/2 if he decides to attack so that I can take control of the board when I untap, and he really has to topdeck to take the game back. I guess I was thinking too much in terms of tempo and denying him draw phases and not enough about board advantage and inevitability.

Playing against douchebags

I hate playing against douchebags.

I played against a guy at the Canterbury bar who, from observing previous interactions, is a huge douchebag. At an FNM which has a fair amount of kids, he berated a player who might actually have been a little slow, if not just nervous and awkward, for not knowing how rules in the game worked, saying/yelling something to the effect of "Learn the rules, son!"

Yeah, it's as awkward as you read it. I wanted to punch this douchebag in the face, and Zaiem did end up confronting him. But what can you do? Weird people are weird, and douchebags are douches.

Anyway, I had the displeasure of playing against him in this draft. In Game 2 he has Hagra Crocodile and some other guys, and I've got a Disfigure in my hand. He plays a land, and then sends his guys in. I haven't said a word, so I say "Okay, back up, in response to Landfall, I'll kill your Croc." He throws his hands up and goes "Fine!" like he was letting me get away with something. If we want to talk about rules, I never explicitly passed priority at any point, so I'm obligated to back the game up.

Now go to Game 3, and it's tight again. I have the lifelink dude and he had previously played a Punishing Fire. My lifelink guy blocked and I wrote my life change down, and he ships the turn. I draw and play a land, and this goes down:

Him: "Actually... when you gain life, I'll pay 2 to return Punishing Fire."
Me: (looks at the card) "This is a 'may' ability , and you've already passed priority."
Him: "When did I do that?"
Me: "When you said 'Go'..."
Him: "FINE. Well, if we're going to play like that, you never announced the life gain."
Me: (said something to the effect of Nice try, but was probably more polite than that)
Him: "FINE."

Again, if I were a judge explaining this to him, Lifelink is a mandatory ability, and even a static ability, so it's not like it went on the stack. What pissed me off even more was how upset he was getting.

First off, you're not the first person ever to miss a trigger and not get a takeback. Cry about it some more.
Second off, you're throwing a hissy fit in a bar. I think Magic can be more socially acceptable if it weren't for people like you.
Third off, you're making the game less enjoyable for me, your opponent. If this were a PTQ, then sure, tilt me. If I'm a newer player to this scene, I'm probably not coming back here thanks to you, because why would I ever want to play against someone like you?

A friend watched all this go down and after our villain got up, expressed her pleasure in seeing me be a jerk to him. No doubt, I was glad to beat him because he was a jerk, but I don't take much pleasure in playing the game the right way and my opponent expressing his displeasure because of it.

It's okay, you're a douchebag anyway. Go own some noob 14-year olds at FNM, weirdo, or whatever it is you enjoy about this game, because "learning from your mistakes" isn't it. I don't mean for this to sound like Gerry Thompson's Moron of the Week, but this isn't a case of being a jerk because you're on the Internet, but being a jerk and making people not want to play the game and giving people a false impression of the game.

Your first PTQ

A friend of mine used to be a MODO ringer in high school, took a break from the game in college, but now is in the real world and wants to play more Magic with his copious spare time. He's been asking me what he should know before jumping into the shark-infested waters of Pro Tour Qualifiers.

I told him to read an article Zaiem wrote this for Channel Fireball, and I'm sure he's written it for other sites too: Tournament Mistakes.

The best way to get used to playing in PTQ's is... to play in PTQ's, so I was a little worried about overloading him with information. I think the right way to go about this is to go through my routine. I'm a little bit more of a nit than others, and all I have to show for it is a Day 2 of a Grand Prix, but if you're still curious...

Deck registration - Don't misregister your deck. Just don't do it. Be careful, count the cards you write down, count the cards in your deck/pool. That's all there is to it, but it's still bound to happen if you're careless. I misregistered my second draft of Grand Prix: Boston, and it probably cost me $200.

Pairings - Make sure you have the table number right, and also the guy's name. That way you can be sure you're in the right place and playing the right person when your opponent sits down. Sitting at the wrong table is Game Loss worthy.

Tardiness - If your opponent is not in his seat when the round starts, call a judge. Depending on the head judge, your opponent either has three minutes to show up or else gets game loss or he gets one right off the bat, but you should call a judge anyway so he knows to look for you when 3 minutes is up. Ten minutes is a match loss. You should write down the time from your cell so you know when to call the judge.

Shuffling and presenting your deck - I always pile shuffle my deck to make sure I have everything in my deck. It unclumps your deck and keeps you from giving up game losses for presenting an illegal deck. In Constructed, I also look through my sideboard to make sure it's correct before officially presenting, in case you get deck checked.

You have three minutes before each game to shuffle your deck. With sideboarding, it's a little wishy washy, but definitely after 3 minutes you should call a judge and let him know. He'll probably present right away when your hand goes up.

You should always shuffle your opponents deck. I start by piling his deck, and if he's short a card, my hand goes up for a judge because he's getting a game loss. I'd also shuffle his deck pretty well before hand.

Life totals - I'm more of a nit than others when it comes to this. I write down both life totals with every life change (so I always see the current life totals right next to each other), and make a note of where the life change came from, usually with just the initials of the relevant card. This way, if there's a discrepancy in life, then you have an accurate representation of the game. Of course, you shouldn't try to cheat like this, but you're basically protecting yourself from someone who tries to work you on life totals.

Hands - God almighty, make sure your opponent keeps his hands above the table at all times. If you see them dip, make him keep them up. A lot of players don't mean to do it, but this is why it's a way to cheat.

Being clear about the game state - Your opponent must always answer what phase the game is in, what cards are in what zone, must let you search his graveyard and count the cards in his hand or library, and relevant actions that have taken place (i.e. playing a land, casting a spell). There are some questions that your opponent is actually not obligated to answer, like the P/T of a creature, the number of cards in hand, but he must let you be able to figure it out. Most players, however, don't know that they aren't obligated to answer such questions and will do it anyway, so this is actually moot. I'm planning an article about why players aren't taking advantage of the Derived Information and communication guidelines.

Slow play - You can at any time call a judge and ask him to watch your game for slow play. You can also urge your opponent on if he's tanking for an unreasonable amount of time. Calling for a judge with two minutes to go in the round is pretty moot, so you can be vigilant about it. I usually keep an eye on the clock and see if we're making good time to finish three games: 15 minutes per game should be the pace.

A very good player has said that when he's tanking toward the end of the game, he will actually call a judge to keep himself honest with slow play. And by the way, pretending your thinking to take advantage of the time limit is Stalling and is considered cheating, but making actions to prolong the game and playing for a 1-0 win or 1-1 draw is fine.

Illegal game state and missed triggers - If you and your opponent fail to note a mandatory trigger, you will both get warnings for failure to maintain the game state. If you note the trigger that your opponent missed before it's too late (like forgetting to draw a card), you can call a judge and he will get a warning.

For upkeep triggers you don't want to forget, you can put a die or a pen on top of your deck. For upkeep costs, you can put tapped lands under the relevant card so you don't accidentally untap them.

Judge calls - You're entitled to appeal any ruling you get from a floor judge to the head judge. Do this if you think you got an incorrect ruling.

If you're receiving a lengthy ruling from a judge, you should write down the time the judge comes over, and then ask the judge for extra time. He may or may not grant it, but you can always appeal, and you know how long the judge call took because you wrote down the time.

Drawing extra cards - Drawing a card/extra card when you're not supposed to is a game loss. All I can say is don't do it.

Deals - You are not allowed to prize split *in exchange* for a draw or a scoop. You can prize split without a draw or scoop being a contingency. You can ask for a scoop or and ID without any agreement. If you get caught doing one of these things you're not allowed to do, you're getting Disqualified. If you want to be a jerk (i.e. the win will get you or a buddy into Top 8), you should call a judge when your opponent or someone you see does one of these illegal things before submitting their match slip. If you don't want to be a jerk, though, you can very firmly say "I cannot accept that."

Drawing into the Top 8 - If you've never done the math before, consult with someone who has done it before the final round to see if you should draw in or offer a draw to your opponent.

That's all I can think of. Feel free to chime in some more.

You Make The Play - Zendikar edition

I drafted last night at the Canterbury bar, and while I could write about certain people (who on past occasions have also verbally abused children at FNM) throwing hissy fits, I'll write about a situation where I have absolutely no idea what the right play is.

This is Game 1 of a draft match and he's already drawn his card.

Him (W/R, 6 life, 2 cards in hand):
5/4 Highland Barbarian (2/1 and 3 +1/+1 counters), equipped with Blade of the Bloodchief
4/4 Tuktuk Grunts (2/2 with 2 +1/+1 counters)
7 land

Me (G/B, 7 life, 0 cards, on top of deck Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet)
2/2 Oran-Rief Survivalist (1/1 with 1 +1/+1 counters)
2/2 Vampire Lacerator
2/2 tapped Timbermaw Larva
3/2 tapped Guul Draz Vampire equipped with Explorer Scope
3 Forests
3 Swamps
1 Piranha Marsh

He attacks with his two guys. How do you block?

Drafting with Zendikar: Thoughts on invidual cards

I drafted Zendikar three times this past weekend, and I really really like this format. You're almost always attacking and it seems way more tempo-oriented than M10. Your most important cards in the game cost 2 or 3, so mana screw doesn't hurt you as badly as it does in M10 or Shards either, and with landfall, you're almost never drawing dead.

There are some cards that I'm not sure how to evaluate. I've gotten mixed opinions from people I've talked to about these guys.

Scythe Tiger: Someone compared it to Mist Leopard in M10, which is pretty darn mediocre and a card I'm not really happy to have to start in that format. But if you think about how much mana you actually need in play vs. how much you need the actually land for Landfall and other effects, to me the sac a land hardly seems like a drawback. Turn 4 play a three drop and play this guy? Clear the board and now deal with a 3 power attacker and his friends? I like this guy.

Ruinous Minotaur: I had multiples of these in a Sealed pool but wasn't sure how great it was to have that many. In draft I can see building the right deck around him, but multiples in Sealed seems so awkward if this is a critical portion of your three-drop slot.

Vampire's Bite: Someone really liked this card. Seems bad to me. Your results may vary, but I think I'd only run this in an extremely extremely aggressive weenie deck.

Into the Roil: I love this card in this kind of format, it's like Temporal Eddy. I opened 3 of these in a pool, a couple of Blue evasion guys, and the Blue 5/5 flyer with Shroud, and wondered if it was worth maining the color for. I guess in Sealed they can keep you alive for a while until you get your good late game cards and then they're still good late. Good thing I saved that pool and I can try it again.

Kor Cartographer: I guess he's fine for enabling landfall, but you couldn't give him three toughness so that he impacts the board more than just trading with some dork? Don't know that I'd be happy having to play this guy in a draft.

Romanticising Magic

I wish I had someone like Rich Hagon narrating my life. In fact, probably any British sportscaster would do, since they're the only people on the planet that could make me want to watch dart throwing on TV, but I think I'd prefer Rich Hagon. If professional Magic were shown weekly like professional football, it'd sound exactly like the PT Kuala Lumpur coverage with the dramatic play-by-play.

Anyway, I don't read a whole lot of Magic articles nowadays, but I did read this one, the story of a young British Magic player who recently ended a long bout with cancer. If they ever made a movie or documentary about what it's like to be a PTQ grinder (I'm not sure how I'll feel about I Came To Game. Being a pro's a little different than driving to PTQ's every weekend), it'd go a little something like this article. And Rich Hagon would beat out Morgan Freeman for the part of narrator.

"The lands continue to burn" - Zendikar Prerelease

I went to the Seattle prerelease and played in one flight. I didn't open any power, but I'll talk about some of the cards I did open:

Harrow - Okay, I didn't know this card was an instant. How sick is it to Harrow at instant speed for your splash color and play a combat trick... not that Harrow isn't a combat trick already with landfall guys.

Punishing Fire - I made the mistake of splashing this with only 1 Mountain in my deck.

Relic Crush - Maindeckable in Sealed with all the Expeditions and Equipment and Journey to Nowhere?

Quest for the Gemblades - This card's really good, but maybe suited for a deck that actually had lots of two and three drops that want to trade early on, which my deck wasn't. It was never relevant.

Oracle of Mul Daya - Sick. Put spells to the top of my deck. Landfall twice a turn. Seems good.

Pillarfield Ox - I think this card's okay? I mean, he blocks stuff... good ol' Giant Spider.

Kor Cartographer - I don't know if this guy's that good. He accelerates and triggers landfall... but just doesn't seem exciting.

Kor Skyfisher - Awesome with a 1-drop equipment! And also awesome for bouncing lands for Landfall.

Will probably start doing Sealeds on Magic-League and stuff... anyway, that's all I've got on the Prerelease. This format seems fun!

Competitive vs. Casual

I try to make non-Magic friends. I really do. It turns out one of my non-Magic friends is actually a Magic friend getting back into it, but he's very much a casual player and just drafted for the first time at a pub that does EDH every Wednesday and a draft every month. Now why did it take so long to figure out beer and Magic together is awesome?

One night this friend offered to cover my tab if I gave him some of the unopened Magic packs I was talking about. Just mised not paying a $20 tab! Anyway, I hand over 8 packs, and of course he cracks them on the spot.

His commentary was one of the most interesting things I had heard in a very long while. My eyes immediately shot to the rare every pack, and then I started thinking "Well, first pack first pick what do I take?" But he'd make comments like "Sweet, an Oblivion Ring, this card's pretty awesome!" or "Word, an Air Elemental, that'll be good in a blue deck." He cracked all 8 of those packs, and was genuinely happy that I gave him these packs at a discount (consider MSRP is $3.99 and even a draft set is generally $8).

Moral of the story: Every time Mark Rosewater writes on the Mothership about designing cards for different psychographics, he's telling the truth. People play Magic for different reasons. The commons you throw away after a draft could make up nearly an entire deck for another person, and people are sure to value cards differently than eBay. Drafting and Type II are not the be-all end-all for Magic!

Just an interesting tidbit I couldn't get out of my head.

Walking to San Diego 2009

The Zendikar prerelease weekend is next weekend, and with that will be preparations for the upcoming PTQ season. For whatever reason, I wasn't into Standard last month... maybe it was only having one PTQ and not wanting to acquire cards that are rotating out. But now it's Limited season!

Here's the plan:
Sat October 17 - PTQ Boise
Sat October 24 - PTQ Seattle
Sun November 8 - MODO
Sun November 15 - MODO
Sat November 21 - PTQ Portland
Sun November 22 - MODO
Fri November 27 - MODO (pending)
Sun November 29 - MODO
Sun December 6 - MODO
Sat December 19 - PTQ Seattle
Sun December 20 - MODO
Sat December 26 - MODO
Sun December 27 - PTQ Rockville, MD (not sure, but I'll be on the East coast for sure for Christmas)

If you haven't heard about the MODO qualifiers, there are basically shootout tournaments that you have to 5-1 to qualify for the main event, which is the actual PTQ. These will probably be pretty difficult, but what would you be doing instead? Drafting. Seems like good practice and good way to examine your game in a high stakes situation.

Anyway, before Zendikar comes out on MODO, I'll be rocking Magic-League and reviving the M-L Sealed stats script. I'm also long overdue to look at some MODO replays of mine to tighten up my game and look for the right plays... right now I'm not taking the time to make the right play. Waaaaay too often I auto-pilot and start doing something and decide that something completely different would have been better. Probably a discipline thing.

If you had access to all the draft data you wanted...

what would you do with all of it?

With Limited season fast approaching, I've been toying around with idea of creating a new site for improving one's Limited game collectively. The first phase would pretty much be a Modosharks-type deal, where you'd upload a draft file from your MODO directory, insert your comments for each pick, write a post-mortem and match reports afterward, and then others can comment on your picks and deck and such.

Ideally, I'd also like to do one for Sealed pools, but if you're like me, building a Sealed deck just from a text list of a cards is pretty impossible, so the next step would be to create a nice MODO-like interface for interacting with a Sealed pool within the browser.

The part that truly excites me is learning about trends in the format with large amounts of data. For Shards limited season, I had written a script that gleans Sealed decks from Magic-League's site and computed some simple stats. I'll be looking to rewrite this script, since I lost it :(

But then for draft, I'd like to start a repository of drafts to compute any relevant data that can be obtained. The idea would be to get people to install a tool that would upload to this site all of their draft recaps, in addition to drafts people post for review. (Don't worry, a draft won't be made public unless you want it to, so that people don't heckle you for messing up or drunk drafting or whatever.) Anyway, with hopefully hundreds of drafts at your disposal, what would be the relevant stats?

Here's my rough draft (heh, get it?) of what I'd compute:

- Average pick for a card/pack (1-15): pretty basic
- % of time picked when in pick 1-45: the idea is that your pick might change in pack 2 or pack 3.

From these you could filter to situations like this:
- In color: when the color of the card is your "main" (largest portion of your pool)
- Out of color: opposite of In color
- In W/U/B/R/G: when one specific color is your main
- In X/Y: when two specific colors are your main
- In X/Y/Z: when three specific colors are your main.
- (not sure how helpful four colors would be)
- With N in your pool: When you already have N copies of the card in your pool.

Leave comments if you have more ideas. Remember, all you'd have is the draft itself, not how they'd necessarily build it. Another problem with this idea is that the draft log doesn't tell you if it's an 8-4, 4-3-2-2, or Premier Event, so either each user specifies what queue they usually play in, or just mash them all together, which may not be all that terrible.

Anyway, this will probably be a weekend project while I wait for Zendikar to come out on MODO and I really try to Q again. By the way, I really should write about why I was so dispassionate about trying to qualify this month and played mediocre decks, and also reassess why I'm bad at Magic...

Setting Myself on Fire: Grand Prix Boston report (Day 2)

(I wrote this on a train from Boston to New Jersey the day after, and I never got the flesh it out. I’m not gonna spend much more work on this, but I did get down the ideas that stuck out most in my head. In short, my deck Day 1 was really stupid and made it impossible for me not to Day 2, and after nearly every match, Joey, James Dykes, and my NC friend Harry berated me for playing so awfully and still managing wins.)

(This was my sealed deck: Trips Lightning Bolt, Overrun, Howl of the Night Pack, Baneslayer Angel, Lightwielder Paladin, Prodigal Pyromancer, etc. The guy who registered told me at deck building “Congrats on making Day 2.” I left Armored Ascension and Planar Cleansing in the board, along with Magma Phoenix and Inferno Elemental.)

Round 3 I play against a BWr deck. Game 1 he scoops them up on one land before he has to discard to 7. Game 2 goes on for 40 minutes and involved me holding an Acidic Slime instead of destroying his one Mountain which obviously had to be for the Fireball that killed something like 2 Soul Wardens, a Pyromancer, and probably a Piker. I casted a Baneslayer Angel, and it was Doom Bladed and Risen from the Grave. I lost the game from about 35, after making an all in with Wolf tokens and friends when I really should have just been more passive, looking at the clock. We go to Game 3 with about 6 minutes left and I’m fully expecting a draw, until a miracle happens after I present and chop his deck a few times.

Him: “Oh, I forgot this card too.” (points at a sleeved card in front of him)
Me: “……………. JUDGE!”

My friends were all watching my match and could not believe my luck. This should have been a draw at this point, which would be as bad as a loss. What a brutal beat, but this now means I’ve avenged my Grinder disappointment from the night before.

In Round 5 of the swiss, I played against a GB deck. I get absolutely blown out Game 1 by his curve and his Overrun. In Game 2 I elect to draw and am short on land, but luckily he doesn’t curve out and I can stay in the game. He played the 9/9 Shroud guy and had a Kelinore Bat, Warpath Ghoul, and a Child of Knight. I was chumping the big guy and holding down the other guys with Baneslayer Angel. I drew a Lightwielder Paladin and was holding two Lightning Bolts in hand with a Mountain up. He’s pretty much playing off the top of his deck, and casts Overrun. I start doing math, looking for something to Lightning Bolt, and if I do it right, I Bolt the Kelinore Bat, block the Ghoul with the Angel, block the Child of Night with the Lightwielder Paladin, take 12 and gain 5, which would have put me to not dead and with a pretty darn good board position. So you would think.

Me: (doing math)
Him: “I think this is it exactly. Does this resolve?”
Me: “It’s resolvesohwaitlightningbolt………. oh my goodness.”

And I wanted to set myself on fire, especially since there was a crowd. My worst fear in Magic: looking like a donk in front of others.

Round 8 I’m sitting at 6-1 playing my first of two shots at Day 2. Game 1 he floods. Game 2 I have an early board of Soul Warden and Griffin Sentinel, and he swings with a bear, so I block with Griffin Sentinel. He Giant Growths and then Harm’s Ways Soul Warden from Griffin Sentinel.

Me: “… absolutely.”

He continued to make really really weird plays, until one point where he Armored Ascensioned a guy, which I killed and with only Green up on his side I went for the Overrun. Joey can tell you better than I can how wired his hand was and that I had no business winning that game.

In my first draft of Day 2, there was a kid in his first Day 2 who probably wanted to crawl into a hole after a while. Before the draft, he was psyching himself up aloud to himself: “You can do this, you can do this.” He then proceeds to get called for looking at his pile in the middle of the draft, and then gets called for looking at the next pack ahead of the caller, garnering the head judge to stand behind him and tell him exactly what to do. Granted, I think at the player meeting they could have explained how the draft process works, since there will be players who have not Top 8 drafted or made Day 2 of a Limited GP. I played him in the first round of the draft, and it didn’t seem like he was very good either.

Just as I had told people who complained about their pools, tight play delivered me in that first draft. In Game 3 of the my second match I was staring down a Sphinx Ambassador and Air Elemental, with a Wall of Frost holding me back too. I had Prodigal Pyromancer, Gravedigger, and a Merfolk Looter I stole with Rise from the Grave, and my hand was Diabolic Tutor, Dragon Whelp, and Fiery Hellhound. I had 6 Swamps and a Mountain in play. I Tutor up for my Doom Blade… which I had already used on his Merfolk Looter! Joey was watching my match and saw me tutor for Mountain #2 to play Dragon Whelp and thought I was done.
Enter his following turn. I take 9 right in the face and he searches through my deck. The first card that came to mind was Bog Wraith, since I really can’t answer both that and the fliers, at least soon enough. He searches for a card, so I name Bog Wraith. DING DING DING! He flips over Bog Wraith. Next turn I trade Dragon Whelp for Sphinx Ambassador thanks to Pyromancer, take another 4 on the chin, and finally run out Rise from the Grave. My next draw after that was Whispersilk Cloak, and then a Looming Shade. He doesn’t draw answers off the top of his deck. Joey comes back and sees that the match is over. “You WON that game?!?!” and onlookers are just laughing at the Sphinx Ambassador on my side. Boards involving Rise from the Grave are almost always hilarious.

The last round of this draft I played against guy who said he was at Nationals last weekend on rating, so presumably he was not terrible at Magic, and did turn out to be a pretty solid player. I’d like to thank Whispersilk Cloak and Gargoyle Castle for getting me through this match and for 3-0’ing my first Grand Prix draft EVER. I played three Blue decks in a row, so Blue may have been over drafted, you do the math.

So let’s set the stage a little bit. I sit down at an 8-man draft pod. If I win this draft pod, I Top 8 a freaking Grand Prix. But if I just 2-0 and get an ID, I qualify for the freaking Pro Tour. Hell, if I win one of my first two matches, I win at least $200 playing Magic cards.

I play against Zach Efland, who is a Florida ringer. Game 1 he mulligans and I win, Game 2 I mulligan and he wins. (From my observations, you can’t win when mulligan more than your opponent.) Game 3 he mulligans (go observations!) but his Griffin Sentinel and Armorsmiths keep me from blowing him out of the water, even with Honor of the Pure. I keep thinking he’s baiting out Pyroclasm to cast something like Captain of the Watch, but he actually is drawing off the top. After my Pyroclasm, I made a questionable no attack when I could have traded for his last guy, but since I was putting him on Captain of the Watch, I held. I end up missing about four points of damage with Elite Vanguard buffed by Armorsmith, which would make me feel absolutely awful if he didn’t draw Platinum freaking Angel anyway. I didn’t see it Game 1 or 2, and my only out is Harm’s Way + Lightning Bolt, none of which I had in hand yet.

The next round they apply deck registration penalties. I drafted three red cards: Pyroclasm and Lightning Bolt were two of them, and I registered those. Wall of Flame was also in the pool, but who needs to register that? (sigh) The next round I play I blow the guy out in Game 2, but Game 3 I flood and he has Jackal Familiar beats. Yes, Jackal Familiar beats. I played three spells and didn’t draw red mana for Pyroclasm. Pretty sure I beat him in another Game 3, and I’m pretty sure my carelessness cost me at least $200. I want to set myself on fire. Twice.

The last round it says I have a bye, so I think that my tournament is done and I have to wait and see what the tiebreaker gods serve to me. I commiserate with Alex West as he goes to the mall to get a snack. As we head back to the site, I see I have a text from Joey saying that they keep calling me to the judge station. What could possibly go wrong now? It turns out that they messed up the pairings and mistakenly dropped someone from my pod. I sit down and play against the guy I played in Round 3 of the Swiss (it’s not awkward anymore since we talked earlier in the day when we saw we both Day 2’d). We agree to prize split $100-100 if the winner cashes, but since my tiebreakers are probably worse than his, I should have probably scooped at that point, but $100 isn’t worth potentially getting questioned and potentially getting banned just for the shadiness of it all (even though it was not a prize split on the condition of a scoop or ID). Anyway, I don’t really curve out and his deck ends up being pretty awful except for Mind Control, but he wins Game 1. Game 2 I win another weird one where I just beat him down with dorks. Game 3 I play loose as hell, and by loose I mean he Excommunicates my T2 Deadly Recluse, and I leave the board as is as say go. Without playing a land. Legitimate to him. NOT legitimate to me and everyone behind me, especially since I had a Razorfoot Griffin and another land in hand, making that Griffin very very late. The awful thing was he was at 2 for the longest time, and I would have to set myself on fire and jump through a window if I lost that game. I couldn’t even play Serra Angel because of Mind Control, and having not seen it and him having 10 cards left in his deck, it was not a risk I was about to take, and I was pretty sure the rest of his deck was bad.

So I avoid the 3-0 0-3 and end my first Grand Prix at 11-4. I check the standings to see if I cash… and I’m 69th. FML.

It’s definitely my best performance on results and the closest I’ve come to qualifying, but I played loose as hell in some matches on Day 1, but my deck didn’t let me lose, so I don’t know how much stock to put on it. I thought I played pretty freaking well in the first pod, pretty mediocre against Zack, and then horribly against my deck list and my counting skills. My focus was amazing until probably the last match since I didn’t really have anything to lose with our prize split. I didn’t even have to consciously do anything either, I was just in the zone from when time started. Maybe it’s just the simpler cards and lack of Algae Gharial-type triggers and I can focus on attacking and blocking. I don’t know what it was, but I want that to happen again.

Don’t know if another Grand Prix will happen this year. Minneapolis sounds like a terrible idea in November, and Tampa would be cool if it was actually in Tampa, but it’s in some town 40 minutes away. This GP was pretty awesome because were in the middle of Boston, which might be one of the coolest places I’ve been to. Too bad I had to play Magic cards on Sunday.

(Zaiem Beg tells me I'm very due for some material, and he's right. I have a lot of Magical things to reflect on.)

Grand Prix Boston, or I'm back to writing, I swear

I'm traveling to Boston this weekend for the Grand Prix. Originally, the plan was to pick up a second bye off my Total rating in Boise, ID the week after a good (but not successful) weekend at Grand Prix: Seattle (starting 3-0 + byes via grinder, then 0-3, then a 7-2 at the PTQ the next day).

That was a wash.

Then I bombed my prerelease weekend to dip my Limited rating below 1800. So now I'm flying across the country with zero byes in hand. Time to get my grind on.

I don't think there's a whole lot of depth to this sealed format than others. There isn't a whole lot of card advantage to be gained by trickery in combat, and you really would rather save your removal for bombs rather than look for tempo. That being said, two drops are still important on the off chance your opponent doesn't establish a board early and you can blow them out with your Fireball or a Sleep. If I'm totally wrong with this, I'll figure it out in the grinders on Friday.

One thing that I think helped me play (for at least 20 out of 21 matches) my best Magic in Seattle was my focus. I read The Inner Game of Tennis, which is a seminal book in sports psychology literature dealing with performance anxiety. While about half of the content is dedicated to tennis, and a lot relates to anxiety affecting your physical state, a lot of the main ideas relate to your overall focus. The crux of the book is that there are two "selfs" to a player: one which tells the other how to do things, when the other half really doesn't need any assistance. The idea is to tune out the critical Self and let the Self do the work.

That's a pretty awful explanation, but I don't want to get too deep into it, and you really should just read the book. Anyway, I drew three points from the book that I apply to my Magic game that I remind myself of before major tournaments now.

- BPV. Be PV (or whoever you think is the best Magic player). The book talks about how people will watch a great Grand Slam final performance, and then get inspired to play well, and they do end up playing better! Assume the role of a great Magic player that you want to be.
- Observe, don't critique. Mistakes happen, but the match is not the time to dwell on them, because what matters is the current game state. Even after the match, recognizing the misplay is fine so that you don't do it again, but getting upset at yourself does you no good except ruin your mental state.
- Breathe. Focus on breathing. This is to keep your mind from wandering. The book talks about watching the approaching ball spin, which isn't relevant, but between points it recommends observing your breathing, mostly so you don't focus on bad things like an out. If you really have nothing to think about during the game, this is fine, so you don't think about your misplays, the luck of your opponent, some girl walking by, or how trashed you're going to get with your friends. And of course between games it also keeps you from dwelling on negative thoughts.

BPV. Observe, don't critique. Focus on breathing. This is what I think about in a tournament besides Magical cards.

I'll try to update some in Boston, and I think I'll Twitter. So if you happen to read this, wish me luck!

ACR Draft #8 - Esper

(The weird number is for my own bookkeeping: I'm keeping my own log of every draft I do now.)

So I figured out how I want to do replays and commentary. Here are the games, please leave comments! (But be gentle, it's the first time the Intarweb has heard my voice.)

Round 1: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3
Round 2: Game 1, Game 2
Round 3: Game 1 (MIA), Game 2, Game 3

I can't find the draft record either (Where'd they go? I thought it was in C:\Documents and Settings\(me)\Application Data\Wizards of the Coast\Magic Online\3.0, but nothing's been recorded there for months!), so here's the decklist:
1 Court Homunculus
2 Darklit Gargoyle
3 Esper Stormblade
1 Ethercaste Knight
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Aven Squire
1 Ethersworn Shieldmage
2 Parasitic Strix
1 Brackwater Elemental
1 Frontline Sage
2 Cloudheath Drake
1 Glassdust Hulk

1 Path to Exile
1 Call to Heel
1 Excommunicate
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Resounding Silence
1 Traumatic Visions

1 Mistvein Borderpost
1 Arcane Sanctum
7 Plains
6 Island
2 Swamp

Relevant Sideboard:
1 Cancel
1 Bone Splinters

One comment: I boarded in Cancel a lot, so maybe I should have played that instead of Excommunicate (the card I boarded out most often).

Incremental Growth Reborn?

So I haven't written anything about my Grand Prix. In short, with the three byes, I went 3-0 then 0-3. In the PTQ I lost my first round, won 7 straight, then lost playing for the Top 8. (I do have some interesting thoughts about playing for the Top 8, though.)

I went to Boise this past weekend and went an abysmal 2-4 with the same deck. I lost to a Five-Color Blood/Control player who Top 8'd and a pretty awful Doran player, and some other gems like a Makeshift Mannequin deck with lots of removal and Shriekmaw (fair enough) and Oona's Prowler and Beacon of Destruction as a win condition (not cool), and then another Naya deck (of course in the hands of a terrible player) with fatties like Blitz Hellion, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and Knight of New Alara, threatening to dome me with Brion Stoutarm and, wait for it, Minion Reflector. FML.

The moral of the story? Play an inherently powerful deck next time! My deck was probably fine against the metagame, but those random decks are actually pretty awful for my deck. The first one generates card advantage off of Makeshift Mannequin vs. my deck's zero card advantage and disruption. The second Naya deck has more fat than I do, so if I don't get a blowout hand, he's going to win most of the time if I go to combat, and his deck has reach with Brion Stoutarm. Especially in a place like Boise, I need to make absolutely sure I can beat random decks off the radar. Faeries and Five-Color do that for sure. I should have made a push to play Faeries.

Anyway, I won't be worried about playtesting Constructed for the next month, so until then there is Limited. I plan on doing more MODO reports on this blog, with draft recaps and also some videos of my replays and DVD-style commentary where I reflect on what I did, instead of the live commentary that is prevalent. I'll also have some more thoughts about my mental game, since I've been thinking a lot about it. It's good to be able to find the right play, but of course the goal is to find it in a timely manner every time.

Grand Prix Seattle, Day 0

It's Saturday morning and the main event starts in about three hours, but THIS GUY doesn't have to worry about it until Round 4, because I won one of the meat grinder trials Saturday night.

The Life Aquatic with Kyle Boddy

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Woolly Thoctar
4 Dauntless Escort
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege

4 Naya Charm
4 Path to Exile

4 Forest
2 Plains
2 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Brushland
3 Karplusan Forest
3 Wooded Bastion
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Treetop Village

Sideboard:
3 Guttural Response
3 Aura of Silence
3 Cloudthresher
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Windborn Muse
2 Pollen Lullaby

No girls allowed

Zac Hill's Star City Games article was about how Magic players play and act differently when a girl sits across from them in a tournament. So while it is relevant, I'd like to discuss a few issues involving the other chromosome and Magical spells.

Robin is a female Seattle player who is pretty well known among the First Pick Games crowd. She tells me a story about her Round 7 opponent, who is relatively known as well, trying to intimidate her, but justice prevailed and she won the match. Presumably, he thought he could intimidate Robin because she is a girl and presumably would not have the mental toughness to not pay heed to any of that, but it's also not unreasonable that a player might do that to everyone he plays against.

I happen to get paired against this player in the next round, and he's talking about what he played against, and makes a statement like "And then I lost to some girl last round" in a can-you-believe-that tone of voice, at which point I can make a judgment about his intentions in Robin's match. Justice does not prevail in my match, as I mulligan to four in Game 1 (but still make some mistakes) and keep a questionable hand Game 2 and lose.

If he had said "I lost to some scrub", I'd be upset because it was about a friend, but whatever, I'd move on. But the obvious prejudice, after hearing how he acted in the previous match, I found absolutely disgusting and has no place anywhere. If he had made such a statement and it weren't about a friend, I'd still think it's scummy and be a little upset.

While I'm talking about Regionals, I thought it was kind of funny hearing locker room comments about other girls playing in the tournament, when it wasn't exactly a locker room situation since they could be standing behind you watching your match. Maybe that's just me...

Anyway, wanted to jot those down while those encounters were still fresh in my head and there was a relative article out in the Magic article-sphere (was going for a blogosphere-type word). As for playing against them, I try to treat it like a game of MODO (like I'm trying to treat every game) where I don't see faces or even a person. Plus, it would suck to sit down at the Grand Prix across from a girl, start playing loosely because of it, then look at the result slip and say "Oh, YOU'RE Melissa DeTora", down a game and having to win two in a row against a ringer.

Someone took my deck!!!

Okay, not really, but this list made Top 8 down in Portland:

Daniel Lopez
7th Place - Oregon - Portland
4 Ancient Ziggurat
2 Brushland
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Mosswort Bridge
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Reflecting Pool

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
3 Cliffrunner Behemoth
3 Dauntless Escort
4 Mycoid Shepherd
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Spellbreaker Behemoth
3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
4 Woolly Thoctar

3 Naya Charm
4 Path to Exile

Sideboard:
3 Anathemancer
1 Brion Stoutarm
1 Dauntless Escort
4 Gaddock Teeg
1 Naya Charm
4 Volcanic Fallout
1 Wilt-Leaf Liege

First thing I noticed is that the deck plays twice as few lands as I do... maybe I'm just a big chicken, but 22 lands gives me so many one-landers that I generally send away unless I have 2 Birds that I can cast off of it. I already have to mulligan tons with my list, although I would consider cutting one land for a three-drop.

Then, this deck is just filled with four drops and absolutely devoid of two-drops. In fact, let's look at the mana curve for creatures:

1cc: 8
2cc: 0
3cc: 11
4cc: 14

I do like some of the creatures he did play, like Cliffrunner Behemoth (although my deck will only trigger it's haste off of one guy, where he has a few more). Spellbreaker Behemoth doesn't have a very relevant ability, unless you consider being enormous an ability.

He runs Anathemancer in the side, which he can only cast off of Birds and Ancient Ziggurat. I have problems with running the full set of Ziggurats because it can't cast Path or Naya Charm. I like the idea of Brion Stoutarm to add more reach to the deck, as if Naya Charm weren't enough (against the Fog-ish decks, however...)

Anyway, he probably rode to the top 8 on those Naya Charms, as they are so good when you play creatures like these and they're tapping out to clog the board out every turn. Go go Naya Charm!

My Regionals

Yesterday was Regionals, and this is the deck that I've been tuning:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Woolly Thoctar
4 Dauntless Escort
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege

4 Path to Exile
4 Naya Charm

4 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Treetop Village
2 Ancient Ziggurat
2 Wooded Bastion
2 Karplusan Forest
4 Brushland
3 Fire-Lit Thicket

Sideboard:
3 Guttural Response
3 Windborn Muse
3 Cloudthresher
2 Behemoth Sledge
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Pollen Lullaby

This originally started as an idea of how to use Bloodbraid Elf, but he's not that good unless you can hit for 3 right away and not get chumped by a stupid Spectral Procession token, or worse, trade with a buffed Spectral Procession token.

I modeled it off of the Dark Bant deck, playing Woolly Thoctar instead of Rhox War Monk and Doran. A lot of decks can't deal with a Woolly Thoctar on Turn 2. I also chose to run some of the new GW cards like Qasali Pridemage and Dauntless Escort, and Gaddock Teeg (which shuts off Spectral Procession and Ajani Goldmane among others), and then obviously ran Wilt-Leaf Liege, which is insane.

Naya Charm ended winning so many games against BW Tokens that I ran the full set. Possibly this can go down to 3, as starting with two in hand isn't that great. I also ran 4 Gaddock Teeg in the main because it shuts off Spectral Procession and Ajani Goldmane, and gives you game against Five-Color Control.

I thought a lot about the mana base, trying to figure out how best to hit Woolly Thoctar mana on turn 2 and 3, and how to hit Naya Charm mana by turn 3. Because of Naya Charm, I'm not running the full set of Ancient Ziggurats. Plus, Ziggurat is pretty awkward with the Shadowmoor lands like Wooded Bastion.

The sideboard was a little bit thrown together, and there are changes I'd definitely make. Behemoth Sledge I actually didn't like in the maindeck because it's slow and it's really bad with Ancient Ziggurat when I need to play a threat. I bring it in against Red decks. The 3rd and 4th Kitchen Finks were also kind of just a throw-in, so I'm looking to put something actually good in.

I was hoping to play a lot of Tokens and Red decks, as I thought that's what the metagame was going to be largely comprised of. What ended up showing up was a more spread field, including various Jund flavors, Doran, Five-Color Control, and Faeries. Here was my day:

Round 1 (W) Five-Color Control - Game 1 I hit turn 1 Woolly Thoctar and have double Path. Game 2 he hits Hallowed Burial and takes control. Game 3 I stick Gaddock Teeg with Dauntless Escort backup and he can't do anything.
Round 2 (W) BW Tokens - Two absolute blowout games.

At this point we took a lunch break, and I was feeling pretty confident about the deck since things were going according to plan.

Round 3 (L) BG Rock - Game 1 I get eaten by two Cloudthreshers, I take Game 2 on the back of Naya Charm, and Game 3 I cannot deal with Garruk + double Chameleon Colossus.

After this round, they announce that there will be a delay, as the computer running the tournament ran out of batteries and corrupted the back-up file, and they had to manually reconstruct the tournament from entering the players in to manually pairing and entering three rounds of swiss. James Lee is a good man, and in that two hours we did a Cube draft (outside on the beautiful lawn on a beautiful Seattle day!). Someone needs to teach me how to Cube... I thought I would get out of the funk of losing my first two in a row in what seems like my past five premier-level tournaments.

Round 4 (L) Doran - I found out that Doran > Woolly Thoctar... also similar problems with Chameleon Colossus as the last round. So much for breaking the funk...

Round 5 (L) Five-Color Control - I messed up Game 1 not thinking about getting blown out by Volcanic Fallout (it ended up being a Pyroclasm, a miser's Pyroclasm at that), and throughout the match I kept attacking into Runed Halos for no reason... Joe let me off the hook a few times for being really freaking retarded, and I did hear about it at dinner.
Round 6 (W) - Jund Rock
Round 7 (W) - BW Kitkin - This plays similar to BW Tokens except they have one-drops and Wizened Cenn, so you can get blown out if you don't hit one of your three-drops very early on.
Round 8 (L) - Faeries - I mulled to 4 in Game 1 and still didn't play that well, walking into a Broken Ambitions on the threat that I drew. Game 2 I may have been tilting and kept 4 lands, a Treetop, and 2 Noble Hierarchs and don't draw much gas for the entire game. I'm not sure if this is a poor matchup or not, but I don't want to dedicate too many board slots for it.

So most of the matches I lost I can pin to not playing very well, which is good for my deck since I like it a lot, but bad for me since it means I suck. I would definitely rather play this deck for the Grand Prix than BW Tokens.

The mana's definitely a little weird and I had to pitch a lot of hands because of bad mana. If I add more painlands, however, I take a LOT of pain because of my color-intensive spells like Wilt-Leaf Liege, Naya Charm, and Woolly Thoctar.

While I'm very good against token creature decks that play a lot of dudes, I wasn't very successful against decks that play fat like Doran, Chameleon Colossus, and Cloudthresher. Unfortunately, my colors don't let me play a lot of great removal like Terror, but I do have Condemn, which is very efficient. I'd probably replace two Kitchen Finks in the board for 2 Condemns, just as Path to Exile #5 and #6.

Guttural Response could also become Vexing Shusher or Eyes of the Wizent, but with Guttural Response being just fine and Sanity Grinding lurking, that change probably won't happen. All the other cards in the sideboard are just fine. Pollen Lullaby had to be my favorite card of the day, almost more than Naya Charm.

I'll be running this deck next weekend at First Pick's cash tournament. I would recommend trying the deck against the field, there's nothing like a turn two Woolly Thoctar or blowing people out with a Cryptic Command-like tap-your-team effect from a green deck.