What I have been learning

So since the weekend I have tested at least a little bit every day this week. At the beginning of the week I was thinking about switching to Affinity, and I started with Ben Wienberg's list and modified it to put Thoughtcast for the Ethersworn Canonists, conceding a little to Elves, and then trying a few other things:

4 Tree of Tails
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers

4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
3 Atog
4 Frogmite
4 Master of Etherium
4 Ornithopter
4 Chromatic Star
4 Cranial Plating

2 Fatal Frenzy
1 Soul's Fire
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Thoughtcast

The lack of Myr Enforcer is weird, and I did get smacked in a set against Mono Blue Faeries. Atog seemed underwhemling in that matchup, as it doesn't give you the explosiveness that a Myr Enforcer for 1 would give you, so I think if I were to run Affinity I'd swap the Atogs for Myr Enforcer. Maybe Atog goes into the sideboard, I haven't thought enough about the sideboard to run the deck this weekend. Oh, and Jitte is especially bad for you in this matchup because it's more difficult to resolve a sac outlet, much less have a blocker for their Jitte-wielding Faerie. This is different than Jitte from Zoo because you can resolve an Atog and Arcbound Ravager and you can block with any Artifact man, sacrifice it and they do not get counters.

Some people think Master of Etherium is too slow for this deck, and I disagree with them. It gets past Spellstutter Sprite and Spell Snare and often will get around Vedalken Shackles. The card is a house. I could justify cutting 1 because it is a little expensive, but it is definitely good enough.

Also what scares me is this decks bad game against Mono Red Burn, especially since Smash to Smithereens main deck is apparently the new coolest thing.

So of course I'm coming back to Zoo. Here are the changes I've made so far:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Steam Vents
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Shadow Guildmage

4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Seal of Fire
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Duergar Hedge-Mage
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Jund Charm

First off, getting flooded in the late game blows, so I caved in and cut a land. Seems okay so far...

Gaddock Teeg has been pretty darn good every time I cast him. Faeries' only ways to deal with it are Vedalken Shackles, in which case you might be able to burn them out, and Threads of Disloyalty, in which case you could try running out Tarmogoyf and comment them on their nice play. It turns off Repeal and Engineered Explosives in that deck, and he does beat down. He is also relevant against UB Tron, Elves, Affinity (turning off Thoughtcast), Death Cloud (turns off Damnation or draws out a kill spell which is not directed to your huge face-beating Tarmogoyf), TEPS and Swans.

That extra Teeg could also become a third Umezawa's Jitte. The way you lose often against Faeries is they stick an Umezawa's Jitte and connect with it, taking them out of range of a burn overload. I don't know if I'll have time to try both. What the extra slot is not going to become is a third Shadow Guildmage. It's good... but not great. It's good against Faeries and Elves, but against other decks it is very underwhelming and is often the first thing look to I take out after Game 1. I think I'm fine with 2 and would rather have a Jitte or Gaddock Teeg.

I need to reevaluate what comes in and what comes out from the sideboard, but I replaced the Ancient Grudges for Katakis again because Affinity is a large enough portion of the field and poor enough a matchup that I would be willing to run 4 slots just against it. Plus Ancient Grudge actually doesn't come in against a lot of other things. I brought it in for UB Tron and I think I overreacted to it, it's actually a pretty good matchup, especially if you stick Gaddock Teeg and especially now that I run three of those guys. I kind of want a fourth Duergar Hedge-Mage and a Kitchen Finks or Ranger of Eos may be getting cut. It will probably be a Ranger.

So those are the format-specific things I have been learning about the format... but am I getting better at Magic? After all, this is what this blog is supposed to be about.

- I'm not planning ahead and executing well-enough. When the game is seemingly lost, I'm not taking risks or giving my opponent chances to blow the game.
- I feel differently when I'm in pressure situations against good players. I felt this way in the T4 of the Saturday GPT and in the T2 against Alex of the Sunday GPT. Maybe that's just how I'm going to feel and I need to get used to it.
- Deck-specific... I'm forgetting to play land and then leaving myself open to Mana Leak, or being forced to Lightning Bolt myself because I didn't play a sac land the previous turn. Again, planning.

In chess there's a concept of strategy (or setting up for the late game) and tactics (making immediate plays to gain an advantage right now). I feel like Limited focuses on tactics: attacking and blocking, setting up two-for-ones with your tricks, setting up a clock. In a word, execution. And Constructed values strategy: what is my path to victory, what cards are worth fighting for, what do I need the board to look like in four turns, and even before you sit down, what do I want this deck I'm building to do. Planning.

At least that's what I have in my head, we actually had a discussion about the parallels of chess and Magic (I think chess is closer to Magic than poker is, but I'm a math-guy when I play poker, and I think I could write an entire post about chess, poker, and Magic). I think that's why you've got Limited specialists and Constructed specialists. I definitely feel a shift in the way I have to think about the game this season as opposed to last season, and the change is welcome (or else I'd get pretty bored with the game).

That's all I've got right now.

The Extended metagame according to Portland

So I walked around the room Round 3 of the PTQ (since I was not playing anymore) and wrote down what decks I saw.

Top Tables (2-0 at the time)
6 Mono Red Burn
5 Zoo
3 Affinity
2 Faeries (I lump Mono Blue as Faeries even if you might call it Wizards... most Faeries decks were of this variety)
2 Tezzerator
1 Swans
1 Proclamation
1 GB
1 UB Tron

All Tables (presumably all decks not 0-2 drop)
12 Mono Red Burn
10 Zoo
10 Faeries
9 Affinity
7 UB Tron
6 GB
4 Swans
3 TEPS
3 Tezzerator
And then the fringe decks...
2 Proclamation
2 Bant
1 All In
1 Dredge
1 UW Cloudpost
1 Beach House
1 Mono Red Beats (think Arc-Slogger)

The top 8 ended up being
3 Mono Red Burn
1 Tezzerator
1 Proclamation
1 Zoo
1 GB Death Cloud
1 Faeries

In the quarters, Burn beat Burn, Faeries beat Zoo, GB beat Proclamation (in 108 minutes), and Burn beat Tezzerator. In the semis, Burn beat Burn and GB beat Proclamation. Burn beat GB in the Finals. (Congratulations Eric Shaller!)

PTQ Portland damage report

We left Salem pretty late, decided to stop for dinner (Indian food twice in three nights... but doesn't beat Red Robin three times in one night), thought we wouldn't be able to make the trip up that night, but then ventured out anyway when it stopped snowing and started raining.

More tonight, as I am very late for work, but here are my results:
PTQ (97 players) - 0-2 drop
Sat. GPT (14 players) - 3-1 (received a scoop), lost in T4
Sun. GPT (11 players) - 3-1 (received a scoop in last round), received a scoop in T4, beat carmate Alex West in the final

Saturday the scoop was from Zaiem who likely could not make T4 (he maaaaaybe could have because there was an ill-advised ID at the top)

One of the scoops I actually lost but he scooped me in when his friend who was trying to get in lost (a little shady, more later), I received a scoop going into Game 3 in the T4 from someone who was not sure he was going.

I played Zoo all weekend, with a minor tweak to the sideboard to adjust for the metagame. (Since I was not playing Round 3, I took the opportunity to scout the room. That straw poll also comes later.)

This weekend I might be switching decks to a more positioned deck. In LA we may be playing something even more different. More on that... later. Real life beckons.

Domain Zoo in Extended: a little test run

So I'm going to be playing Domain Zoo this weekend in Oregon. I decided on the deck a few weeks ago because I had a lot of the cards for it, and I knew that it would be a top deck and that it was very powerful, and I think playing a powerful deck is more of a sure thing that predicting the field, building a deck to beat the field, and then playing against the decks you were expecting to make up the field. I played in a Magic-League mini (8-man single elim) to try it out. Here's the list I'm running:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Shadow Guildmage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Gaddock Teeg

4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Seal of Fire
3 Oblivion Ring

Sideboard:
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Ranger of Eos
3 Jund Charm
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Duergar Hedge-Mage

I tried cutting Dark Confidant because a lot of people don't like it, and I haven't noticed it being really amazing for me, and I wanted to try Gaddock Teeg. What has been really good is Tidehollow Sculler, even in the mirror because it tends to slow down as guys come onto the board.

Round 1 I play the mirror. I pretty much get blown out Game 1. I brought in the Finkses and the Rangers and took out 2 Seal of Fire, 2 Shadow Guildmage, and 2 Mogg Fanatic. The second game I get 3 Kitchen Finkses down and he floods. Kitchen Finks is really good. Point taken.

I bring in a Shadow Guildmage and take a Mogg Fanatic for tutoring because he'd be good at taking out opposing Kitchen Finkses. I Tidehollow Sculler and see an Umezawa's Jitte in hand, and then I'm able to stick a Shadow Guildmage with mana up for Lightning Helix to whatever he's about to equip. Then I get a Ranger of Eos down leaving a Steam Vents up, so now as long as I bounce whatever blocks Jitte (which will be Ranger of Eos every time), I'm good to go. He scoops when he realizes Jitte will not get counters.

Game 2 I had a bye, so I sat around for an hour really late to wait to play Magic. Game 3 I play against Faeries, which turns out to be the Japanese variety with Azami, Lady of Scrolls. He gets stuck on land Game 1. Game 2 I play pretty sketchily. I know he has Threads in hand from a Tidehollow Sculler, and I'm holding 2 Tarmogoyfs and Jitte on the board, so I run them out, he steals one, I equip and attack and he double blocks with a Mutavault and my Goyf, and I finish off my own Tarmogoyf. I think there was an Ancestral Vision ticking down, but still no reason to be that impatient. Game 3 I keep a very slow hand and he takes control of the game. I think for this matchup I need a 1 drop, then another 1 drop, bait an Engineered Explosives, then stick my good cards, like a Shadow Guildmage, Gaddock Teeg, Tarmogoyf with Threads backup, one drop + Jitte. This Japanese version doesn't make me want to bring in Slice and Dice or Jund Charm... the worst cards for me are Threads and Shackles, so Duergar Hedge-Mage I think is fine.

I'm agonizing over the Ancient Grudge slot. The people I was testing with the other day think it should be Kataki, since if Grudge is for Affinity, Kataki is infinitely better. I didn't like it because it was narrow. I think it may also need to be Ethersworn Canonist, because it comes in against All-In Red, a deck I am equally afraid of being blown out by and I currently have no board against, and it comes in against TEPS and Elves. I'll hopefully be testing all day Thursday, and I'd like to figure out how to play against Faeries, the mirror, and play a little bit against the fringe decks like All-In and TEPS.

PTQ Honolulu 2009 schedule ...... NOT POSTED!

This is more of a trick to get people using Google to come here, because I know people will be searching for it since it seems to be non-existent on the mothership. So conceivably there could be a PTQ in your state but you may not know about it unless you're tournament organizer publicizes extremely well, or your tournament organizer has a web site and you are extremely web-savvy. (I asked someone who has said he wants to get more competitive at Magic and has the means to travel why he didn't go down to Portland a month ago, and he didn't know about it. To anyone reading this from the area... www.northwestmagic.com and www.cascadegames.com)

No more Shards Sealed! PTQ Portland damage report

This past weekend was the Portland PTQ, the last PTQ of the season for most of us. I rode up with Zaiem, Dave Derrickson, and Chris Pauly on Friday night, so there wasn't a quiet moment the entire trip, for the better of course, and had some kickass Indian food at India House. I'm normally not a fan of Indian food, but man did this Indian food rock. The hotel room Zaiem and I stayed was entirely too cold.

The sealed pool I got back was similar to the PTQ pool from Atlanta, except no double-Mycoloth triple-Squire for me to get there with. It was very much GR and I splashed White for Naya Charm and Realm Razer. I kept siding in 2 Resounding Silences. Initially I just wanted to avoid color screw as much as possible, but splashing for 4 in a color isn't all THAT bad since other than the Charm and Razer, I didn't have Gold cards or double casting costs.

Round 1 I play against a girl who was clearly someone's girlfriend and was just tagging along.
Round 2 I lose to a Eugene player who made Top 8.
Round 3 I play against very chatty person and come back after losing the first one. Round 4 I play against Dwayne who's a Washington player who Top 8'd the Seattle PTQ. Our first two games were absolute epics, we played like 15 spells each game 1, then 20 spells each game 2 and I pretty much had his entire deck written down at this point. I play faster because I don't want to draw the third game, and he keeps a 2 lander game 3 and doesn't get there.

Round 5 I play Peter Beckfield, who has rallied the Seattle troops, so to speak, to come to Portland and steal this PTQ. If anyone deserved to win this one, he did. Game 1 he blows me out. Game 2 I blow him out with Realm Razer. I had played a Relic of Progentius in that game and cycled it in the midgame. Game 3 goes to the midgame and I stick a Realm Razer. I throw the lands to the side and see some extra cards in my sleeves. It turns out they were from the Relic of Progentius cycling from Game 2... I don't want to beat anyone dishonestly, especially someone I know, so I point it out and fill out the win for him on the sheet. He even offered to replay Game 3, but we both realize that it wouldn't be smart for whoever's in his seat if we're trying to Top 8.

SERVES ME RIGHT FOR NOT PILING GAME 3. I often neglect pile shuffling Game 3 because generally the clock becomes a factor, but this time it bit me. Chalk another loss up to being lazy.

The next two rounds the wheels fall off, and Round 8 I totally blowout a Blue Moon and a Bayou Burger at Red Robin. I left my credit card in the bill envelope, so not even that round ended without a bad beat story.

I felt pretty good after 3-1, but then I started thinking about how I have to win the next 3, maybe even 4 to top 8, and it started to feel really daunting, especially since I'd have to beat four really good players. I somewhat felt it in Atlanta when I started 3-0 then fell to 3-1 and realized I wasn't even halfway through with the tournament. Oddly, I didn't feel that when I started 4-1 in the Philadelphia PTQ, so maybe I'm more confident about Constructed formats than Limited, since I haven't had much success with Limited or even felt comfortable in the slightest sense about my skills until very recently. I've got to learn to have amnesia and just take it one match... or something.

So the PTQ season is over, but the next one is about to start! Here's my tentative schedule:

Jan 3 - Portland (GPT LA same day same venue)
Jan 10 - Seattle (GPT LA same day same venue)
Jan 16-18 - Grand Prix Los Angeles
Feb 21 - Vancouver
March 21 - Seattle
May 20 - Grand Prix Seattle (Standard... actually not sure if this feeds Honolulu or Austin)

I am not sure about GP LA right now, as while plane tickets are cheap, I don't really want to take a day off of work, which I can probably do, but would involve flying out Friday night and missing the trials, and flying back in Monday morning and going back to work from the airport.

I told Alex that I was going to qualify. Here's to only needing one!

Getting ready for Portland

I've played a lot of Magic Online last week with Nix Tix and being confined to my apartment thanks to being on-call for work. (I did get paged in the first round of a draft and had to drop it though.) I have tons of replays I can go through and I've already started to note the mistakes I've been making. They range from "ticks", or really dumb mistakes that would make you slap your forehead, like forgetting to fetch or cycle at end step; bonehead mistakes that aren't the same as ticks, per se, but mistakes that just shouldn't happen if you're more aware, like tapping mana incorrectly when you were planning a second play, or walking into a trick you saw, or missing a point of damage, or not seeing a kill on the board; and then there are the high-level planning mistakes that could have altered the game in the long run, like not being aggressive enough in the early game, or playing a less-optimal creature for a particular drop, or playing the wrong removal on a creature.

The point is there are lots of things going wrong. While I cannot pinpoint patterns in them where I could just tell myself to stop doing X and I'll get rid of 90% of my mistakes, I think it's fine to analyze what you could have done differently. Tonight I will probably do a draft, and then go through as many more replays as I can and write down the mistakes and go over them on the trip Friday night to Portland.

I did my first Shards paper draft since Atlanta last night at First Pick at (finally!) managed to 4-0. Since Alara was released I had been running really cold at First Pick. I've done maybe 20 drafts at First Pick and cashed at maybe 4 of these... which, I'm pretty sure, is worse than flipping a coin every match.

Anyway, I drafted a Naya deck that had some pretty good cards like double Wild Nacatl and double Naya Battlmage, but also had some holes, like missing some bears and having to start Incurable Ogre (with nothing for it to activate) and Thorn-Thrash Viashino (without good things to eat).

I've started writing down every card I see again because I was forgetting them on MODO and then not knowing what to sideboard and also walking into them. I've started initialing damage sources on my score pad too, which I started in Atlanta. So WN is damage from Wild Nacatl, VS is Stinger, VD is Viscera Dragger... I also just felt a lot less pressure when I play against the best players. Normally I'm very afraid to make a mistake and I get very nervous, but I don't know if it was just awareness or getting used to playing against good people who are just computer screens to me or just watching better players in Atlanta, but I was way more calm, and I just focused on playing correctly rather than not blowing the game.

It was watching in Atlanta an old friend and former state champion from NC Orrin play that maybe inspired me to be more calm when I play. It was a game in the last rounds of Day 1, and he hardly said a word. I don't think I'm a real talkative player, but if eliminates a chance to get overexcited, why not? Of course, I don't want my plays to be unintentionally ambiguous as far as game state, but it was a little inspiring to see his operations. It's probably an interesting exercise to try to say as little as possible in a match and see if it affects your play and thought process for the better.

But anyway, it certainly felt different tapping the cards than it has all season, but I couldn't be convinced that I was actually outplaying people because so many of my games were blowouts or manascrew wins! I mean, that's the game my deck wanted to play, and I did tick a few times, like forgetting two counters on a Algae Gharial or tapping wrong so I couldn't run out a second guy or even represent a pump, but still... it's hard to objectively say that I went 4-0 and beat good people because I have gotten better. Again, why MODO is such a great tool because you can review the wins and see if you really did play optimally.