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.)