Magic Online PTQ - 6/17

I went 6-2 in the PTQ this past Thursday evening. Here are the replays:

R1 W vs. Turboland


R2 W vs. Jund


R3 W vs. Mythic


R4 W vs. UB Hedron Crab/Vengevine


R5 L vs. Jund


R6 L vs. Boros Bushwacker


R7 W vs. Next Level Bant


R8 W vs. Turboland

My Jund list

And if your curious what I'm running:

4 Putrid Leech
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Sprouting Thrinax
2 Borderland Ranger
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Vengevine
2 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bituminous Blast
2 Eldrazi Monument

4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Mountain

Sideboard:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Doom Blade
4 Blightning
3 Royal Assassin

Things I'm consdering:
* I'm bringing Blightning in a lot, but I cut different things for it. Against Blue control decks, it's Thrinax, in the mirror it's Maelstrom Pulse, and I certainly don't really want it main deck against dedicated Vengevine decks.
* Royal Assassin may not be correct against Mythic, they may become some other removal spell. It's also kind of difficult to cast.
* Lightning Bolt is for Mythic, but it's not Forked Bolt because I'd rather have Bolt against Red Deck Wins, which is very much a deck online.
* Eldrazi Monument > Sarkhan the Mad in a fight, and it isn't even close. I could see running both, but definitely not the planeswalker over the artifact.

Summary of Standard season

My Standard PTQ season has been extremely mediocre after Extended season:

Portland: 5-3, knocked out in 4th round of 8
Indy Regionals: 3-2 drop (8 rounds)
Seattle: 3-2 drop (8 rounds)
MODO PTQ 6/6: 4-4, knocked out in 6th round of 8
SCG 5K Seattle: 5-3 drop, knocked out of T8 in 7th round of 9, knocked out of money in 8th

All of these I played Jund, and for monetary reasons, I'd probably continue playing Jund. Plus I think the deck's still the most powerful deck in the format. And I'm more or less +EV in 2-man queues with the deck. Since putting the deck together, my online rating has gone from 1590 to swinging between 1650 and 1730, mostly in the 1690-1700 range. I guess at the height of my Magical powers, I was 1750-1800 in Limited, but still not even close to infinite, but I don't know what the gamut of ratings in Constructed is.

Anyway, I'm very comfortable with Jund and think I can keep tuning it to the metagame and put up good numbers and keep getting better with the deck. I'm not convinced it's super draw/cascade dependent because I know I'm playing very loosely. Will continue on with the PTQ schedule, and should probably get my Limited chops going too: I've drafted maybe 5 times since Standard season started, and all of the drafts have gone terribly!

This summer is the summer I actively get better at Magic, because although I think people regard me as a decent/not bad player, I'm really tired of losing to good players late in tournaments and would like to put up some damn finishes!

Online PTQs

The eternal quest for a balance between Magic and social life has likely axed another PTQ from my schedule, so I think I'm going to commit to investing more in MODO cards and play in online PTQ's. Here are the ones I think I can do:

Sunday, 6/6/10   7AM PDT
Sunday, 6/13/10   3AM PDT
Thursday, 6/17/10   6PM PDT
Sunday, 6/20/10   3AM PST
Thursday, 7/8/10   6PM PDT
Sunday, 7/11/10   7AM PDT
Sunday, 7/18/10   7AM PDT
Sunday, 7/25/10   11AM PDT

Seriously, I'm going to do every single one of these.

End of the season, and start of Standard

Extended is over, and I'm pretty sad to see it go. I 6-2'd the last PTQ with Faeries Thopter again, a deck which I've never had as much success as I have this season:

R1 W vs. Dark Depths
R2 W vs. Bant Foundry
R3 W vs. Dredge
R4 L vs. Jon Zoo (Scapeshift Zoo)
R5 W vs. Dredge
R6 W vs. Bant Foundry
R7 L vs. Dark Depths
R8 W vs. Blood Moon Zoo

I made a pretty subtle judgment error against Jon in Game 3 because, knowing that he had Scapeshift in hand, I auto-piloted and presumed that Scapeshift would take away all my life points. However, since he has Mountains in play, he doesn't have enough left in his deck to go for the full amount. The board is me with the Thopter Combo online at about 22 and five mana up, and him with lots of lands, a Knight of the Reliquary and a Scapeshift. He casts Scapeshift, and I tap 3 for Thirst for Knowledge because I think I'm just dead. I don't find Muddle the Mixture, and he sacs 4 lands to do 12 to me. He then plays a Sejiri Steppe to give Knight of the Reliquary pro Thopter Combo and attacks. I can gain 2 life, but I still end up about 1 short. What should have happened is me not tapping 3 for Thirst so I have more life to gain and I don't die. I'm bad.

So this is what my PTQ Puerto Rico season looked like:

EXTENDED Record Deck knocked out?
PTQ Seattle I 2-2 UG Scapeshift R4/8
GP Oakland 3-3-1 Bant Charm Zoo R5/9
PTQ Oakland 5-3 Bant Charm Zoo R7/8
PTQ Vancouver 4-3 Thopter Faeries R5/7
PTQ Boise 5-2 Thopter Faeries R6/7
PTQ Seattle II 6-2 Thopter Faeries R7/8
SEASON TOTAL 25-15-1 (61.79%)

I bested my win rate from last PTQ season, so this was my best PTQ season to date, but no blue envelope and no Top 8 pins yet. I think the deck mattered tons; it was a mix of raw power with it's sick T1 starts of Bob and Bitterblossom, and surprise with the Thopter Foundry combo jammed in there.

My rating is currently 1921, possibly 10-15 points higher if I can successfully hound a tournament organizer to submit a 16K sealed at a convention that I 5-0'd. This month I have two PTQ's, but I cannot attend Regionals and the cut off is the beginning of June. I have to get to about 2020 to qualify for Nats by then, and I'm thinking about booking a ticket and going right now even if I don't qualify. If I don't grind in there, I will have at least another PTQ to grind to add to the paltry three I'm currently slated for.

So I have the lofty goal of qualifying for Regionals off of rating this coming month. I think I'm going to book a ticket for Minneapolis to commit myself to it. If I don't make it, I will go to grind in. That next month will be a Star City 5K and another PTQ, then nothing for the rest of the season until Nationals in August and Grand Prix Portland in September.

I think I'm insane. I asked a couple friends who are in the GP/Magic jet set if I was insane. Response?

Yes (see: anyone who plays magic)

PTQ Boise

I went to Boise this weekend for a PTQ and played Thopter Faeries again. The only change I really made was make an Island an Academy Ruins, which was never relevant, and make the Negate in the sideboard a third Damnation to shore up the Zoo matchup.

I went 5-2. I lost in Round 6 playing for the top 8, which makes me 0-5 lifetime in such situations.

More relevantly, in Round 1 I'm playing the stone mirror. I win Game 1, and Game 2 I keep a hand with Bitterblossom, Spell Snare and mana and nearly instantly keep. He plays a land and announces Thoughtseize. I think about what he's going to take, and of course it's the Leyline of the Void in my hand.

Huh?

Yup, that just happened. I was so tunnel visioned on seeing a Bitterblossom and Bitterblossom counters (which I thought would matter in the matchup) that I totally forgot to play Leyline when the game started! Of course, that game, he puts together the combo and wins. He wins Game 3 after that too.

I made excuses like that it was the first time I've ever had Leyline of the Void in my opening hand in a match. I don't know if it was my focus at the table or what that made me not think to start with that on the table, but whatever it is, it's probably the reason I'm 0-5 in getting into top 8's.

The rest of the day on my scorepad, in addition to writing "BPV" at the top of the page (ironic because PV doesn't do things like miss Leylines), but under it "SLOW DOWN". I went 5-1* after that abortion of an opening round.

You can console me all you want, but the player I want to be doesn't make mistakes like that.

Anyway, I'm behind the deck more and more now. I really think it beats everything in the format that isn't Zoo. You also have the rogue advantage of people not knowing your deck from the cards you play, tricking people into thinking you're straight up Faeries and then getting off the combo. I'm so behind the deck that I'm considering buying a ticket to Houston for the Grand Prix in two weeks.

* My results if you care:
R1 L Thopter Faeries
R2 W Brozek Deck Wins
R3 W Bant
R4 W Thopter Ironworks
R5 W Bant Charm Zoo
R6 L UW Thopter Control
R7 W Mono Red Burn

PTQ Vancouver

So I went 4-3 in Vancouver with Matej Zatlkaj's Faeries Thopter deck. I should have probably been 5-2 if I weren't bad at Magic and possibly Top 8 if I had also gotten a little more fortunate in one match, but mostly because I'm retarded.

Anyway, I don't know what to play in Boise in two weeks. I'm expecting a similar metagame to Vancouver: very spread out ,so I'd like to play deck with power. Decks on the radar:

- Faeries Thopter, so long as I don't see a Zoo deck or Night of Souls' Betrayal, I think this deck beats everything else in the format.
- Zoo, also good against most of the format, but I don't have a clue in the mirror, for some reason. 0-2 in Oakland in the mirror, which seems to depend very heavily on deck construction since the game play seems straight forward.
- Into the Depths (GB Depths with Rite of Consumption) - I dismissed this because someone who played it said it wasn't good against random decks in the format, but it is pretty good against Zoo and Thopter Depths.
- Grixis Haterator - I'm willing to give the deck a try after seeing Gavin X-2 with it.
- Loucks Zoo - This deck looks like a great upgrade to Zoo.
- Bant - Also seems like a good alternative to Zoo.

Oakland... and mental blocks

Oakland was a really fun weekend, hanging out with the Northwest guys I know, old East Coast friends, and making some new ones (at the expense of losing the credit card game mostly).

I ended up playing Zoo. I got a list from Dan Hanson in the middle of the week, started trying it out against some common matchups, and did some tweaking. Dan gave a suggestion on the mana base to help out with Bant Charm, but it ended up not being very good and I got that message from him that it would suck when I arrived back in Seattle on Monday. Oops.

So here's the list I played on Sunday in the PTQ (not certain about the fetches off the top of my head):

Bant Charm Zoo

4 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Plains

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Bant Charm
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Meddling Mage
3 Damping Matrix
3 Ranger of Eos
2 Extirpate
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog

Meddling Mage was serviceable, but it may be 4 Thoughtseizes instead, they were pretty bad against Scapeshift.

Anyway, the Grand Prix went pretty badly and isn't really worth talking, except for maybe the guy first round who was very rude to me after we drew and I wouldn't scoop a position he had stabilized. Who scoops Round 1?

The PTQ started out much better, though. Here's a small report.

Round 1 - Faeries (W) He presents 61 cards and when I ask him, he looks through his board and he says I should call a judge. Turns out he put 5x of a card in his deck while building and got a Game Loss. I appreciated him being honest, since I probably wouldn't have asked for a deck check if he had told me it was legit.

Round 2 - Teachings (W) I play against Seattle ringer Martin Goldman-Kirst and blow him out in two.

Round 3 - Boros (W) Kasey Koerber, another local Seattle guy, picked up the deck of the tournament. I knew this before hand but forgot and put him on Teachings and toss back the nuts against him (2 Lightning Bolts and a Path). I beat him in three. I don't think I'd play this deck unless it's a very small tournament that is extremely disconnected from the Internet.

Round 4 - Dark Depths (W) This wasn't a very pleasurable match, as he complained about every answer I had. At the end of the match, his wife came over and he started getting snippy with her. I decided to desideboard somewhere else before things got more awkward.

Round 5 - Dark Depths (W) This game went to three, and in Game 3 he mulliganed to a one-lander.

Round 6 - Scapeshift (L) This is for Top 8, and I lose in three. In Game 2 when he went off, I thought might have played land #6, Searched for tomorrowed, then played a Valakut for whatever reason, and Scapeshifted. I ask him to hold while I try to figure out what the first land he played was, and he got a little agitated in Korean which I didn't appreciate. The only way this is shady is if he has Valakut #2 in hand, but I ask him to flash his hand and he doesn't have it, so I just concede. I'm upset that I couldn't remember the game state well enough and had to put him through that.

Round 7 - Zoo (L) In with a win again. Game 1 I get burned out. I think I could have put him to two the turn before he plays two burn spells since that required him playing a Red dual land untapped, but I'm not sure. Game 2 I have to mulligan and draw zero Knights of the Reliquary to his two. Things get bad when he draws Jitte, and I have to quadruple block to kill one of his Knights and Bant Charm the other, leaving me with a Kird Ape (which should have been dead but he chose not to pump his Knight with the other as much as possible). The board is now him with a Jitte with counters and no cards in hand, and me with a Kird Ape and no cards in hand. I'm at about 9 and he's at 18, but at that point I couldn't ask for a better board. I really want to draw a Knight or my last Ranger of Eos or a Tarmogoyf or a Jitte, but my deck gives me lands and a couple of chump blockers once he draws a guy and Jitte's it up.

Round 8 - (Scoop) The top four tables draw, but I get paired up against Gabe Carleton-Barnes, a former Portland ringer transplanted to the Northeast. I scoop him in after seeing the four draws and there being zero chance of me getting lucky. It's like letting someone on the road change lanes ahead of you; you do it because you'd like someone to do that for you in the other situation.

This season makes one Grand Prix, and two PTQ's. My record is now 10-8-1 (10-7-1 if you don't count concessions.) That PTQ also makes me 0-4 in matches where a win puts me in Top 8. I don't know if this is because of skill level or I'm playing worse in the moment. I know against Scapeshift I kept a pretty bad hand Game 2, and by bad I mean awful: 2 Meddling Mages, 1 Qasali Pridemage, Forest, Hallowed Fountain, and some other card. I thought I could cast Meddling Mage, but I'm actually just retarded. And I already talked about my possible mistake in Game 1 against Zoo.

The fact is that in four shots at top 8, I haven't gotten there once. Hell, I'm measuring myself by shots at top 8 and not even pins. I think I just need an IV of ice water with me to calm me down, even though this time I didn't feel nervous, but maybe a little less risk-averse than usual.

I may play this list next weekend, but it depends on how much of a deck Elves will be. If not, I've got a great Faeries list I can get my hands on that would be excellent for such a metagame.

Ruthlessness

I was bored on the plane Sunday night, my iPod was dead, and I didn't really feel like reading the book I had brought, so I scribbled at the top of a piece of paper "Fearless Magical Inventory 2010".

One of the things I wrote was that I'm not ruthless enough anymore, if I ever was. I don't find it pleasurable when players pout and complain about losing matches, so it almost gives me an excuse to not win. I feel like I should look forward to such situations, if my goal is to win.

It became very apparent last night in the finals of a draft at First Pick. My opponent was at three with a Sea Gate Loremaster active with another Ally. I ship the turn, and he draws a card, and then realizes his mistake and asks to activate Sea Gate Loremaster. I didn't really care, so I let him. He draws utter gas off of it and I get blown out from there.

Obviously I was upset, and I justified it to myself by thinking that I don't really care about getting more Magic packs, and that the stakes weren't that high. I was about to blow up when he wouldn't shut up about how nice I was, when in fact you probably shouldn't even ask for takebacks in the first place, but I just kept my mouth shut. I got over throwing temper tantrums when I was about 13.

Anyway, that incident is an absolute wake up call for me as a Magic player. I like the game, but I like it more when I am winning. I stay with the game because I still think I can win more often than I currently am, and being a nice guy to worse players won't help me win more.

I'll try to flesh out Fearless Magical Inventory 2010 more. It's definitely harder to come up with things, but I know for a fact that I'm hitting a wall.

Preparation, or lack thereof

I have two weeks until Grand Prix Oakland, and I've been playing very little actual Extended matches. I haven't even been doing side-by-side testing, because of a lack of faith in it. When you can't figure out how Dark Depths beats Scapeshift when it's supposed to be a very good matchup according to people who actually play Magic, or similarly when you think Faeries can beat Burn, your methods may be flawed.

Also consider that there are a MILLION viable decks, unlike Standard where Jund was the big bogeyman and I was basically trying three or four decks to see if they beat Jund. I've come to the conclusion that if I pick out a top tier deck and come armed with a solid sideboard, I can do fine as long as I like my deck.

Add to the fact that Worldwake may not have added many cards to the format, except maybe the new Wasteland which only really nerfs Scapeshift, and I can just use the current metagame to figure out what the most powerful decks are.

I'm proxying four or five decks I could conceivably play:
- Steppe Lynx Zoo
- Faeries
- Aggro-Scapeshift
- Thopter Depths
- Red Burn

I'm bringing them with me to the prerelease this Saturday pretty early and battling anyone who will battle me. In fact, I'll probably be going to a lot of events just with these decks battling anyone who will battle me. I'm not interested in collecting data, but instead just finding a deck I "like", and figuring out how matchups go. I think all these decks are the most powerful decks in the format, it will just be a matter of getting comfortable with them and knowing the interactions.

I'll probably end up purchasing the cards for ALL of these decks and bringing them to Oakland and then making a metagame decision and adjusting my sideboard accordingly. Maybe in the meantime I will stumble upon a brew I like that has good matchups against most decks in the format and that people won't have a clue about, ala my Naya deck last May for the Grand Prix. (I went 16-5 with that deck that weekend. One poor match away from top 8'ing the PTQ!)

I've said it many times, but Constructed is hard...

Tracking and evaluating your performance, or lamenting over bad results

A couple times today I started to write depressing pieces about how awful I am at Magic and how frustrating Constructed is. (For your information, I went 2-2 in the PTQ and 1-3 in the subsequent GPT with Scapeshift. My commentary will only be speculative, ask someone who actually did well.) I asked myself the question "Am I actually doing well in PTQs", and decided to track my performance.

I accumulated the records in all of the PTQs and Grand Prixs that I have participated in. That would be 23 PTQs and 5 GP's. Here are my results:

PTQ Yokohama (T1.x) - 1 PTQ, 3-3-1
PTQ Valencia (TSP Block Constructed) - 2 PTQs, 1-6
2007 Total - 4-9-1

PTQ Hollywood (T1.x) - 3 PTQs and 1 GP, 17-13
PTQ Kyoto (Shards Limited) - 4 PTQs and 1 GP, 14-20
2008 Total - 7 PTQs and 2 GPs, 31-33

PTQ Honolulu (T1.x) - 5 PTQs and 1 GP, 10-12-5
PTQ Austin (T2) - 3 PTQs and 1 GP, 16-13
Grand Prix Boston (M10 Limited) - 11-4
PTQ San Diego (Zendikar Limited) - 4 PTQs, 15-10-1
2009 Total - 12 PTQs and 3 GPs, 52-41-6

Unlike the Magic meme that went around a while back, I didn't put down what Top 8's I've had or anything like that because I don't have any. If out of dumb luck I were to Top 8 a major event and they asked me my major finishes, I'd write down "I've won FNMs" and that wouldn't be facetious in any sense.

I crunched the numbers for 2009 to look for any indication if I were "due" for a PTQ Top 8. Under the very strong assumption that a 52% win percentage is valid for every round of the PTQ, and that to Top 8 a PTQ you must win the first 6 out of 8 rounds (and ID twice) or otherwise win 7 of 8, I'd top 8 a PTQ 4.9% of the time, or once every 20 PTQs. Crunching these numbers further, the probability of not making a single Top 8 in the 12 PTQs in which I participated in 2009 is 54%. (For fun, the probability under such assumptions that I could win a given PTQ is 0.7%.)

The conclusion? Yes, I am getting better. I have played in more PTQs and Grand Prixes, and I have won more every year. I am still a mile away from Top 8'ing a PTQ. I think people (at least ones I'd consider friends) think I'm a competent Magic player, but would you have considered the Seattle Mariners a competent baseball team this past season?

Another alarming conclusion is that in 2009 my record is better in Limited than in Constructed. Maybe it's because I can afford to draft for fun on paper and online because of getting to collect/sell paper cards and because I'm close to breaking even drafting online. I guess I really need to re-evaluate my Constructed preparation.

My next major tournament, besides any GPT's that pop up in the area, will be Grand Prix Oakland in six weeks. I'm not sure if it will be more beneficial to take a break from Extended and Magic for a while or if eating and breathing more Extended will help me get there. The last two Constructed events I had the benefit of Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations on the East Coast to spend sitting on my computer bashing decks together on my computer. Without those now, do I start my preparation now, or figure out how to work smarter and not harder?