Hello!
I was going to write about my experiences in Hawaii (not much about my matches, which were not very interesting, but the thought process behind choosing a deck and the actual trip to Hawaii), but my friend Kaesh convinced me that, since Nationals are on the horizon for a lot of people, I should write about São Paulo first. What I learned from Hawaii is timeless, since it’s not tied to any particular deck or format. I believe he is right, so I’m writing about Grand Prix: São Paulo instead.
I left Hawaii on my way to Dallas on Tuesday afternoon. Despite being an almost eight- hour flight, Hawaii-Dallas is considered domestic, so I had the chance to use those US-domestic-flights-only-upgrade-points, of which I’ve accrued around a billion with no opportunity to ever use them. I get them by traveling internationally, and can only spend them on domestic U.S. flights, and I usually get many more than I can spend. Happily, I was able to upgrade my trip to First Class. That was pretty convenient, because I was somewhat sick — I couldn’t really enjoy my last day in Hawaii as much as I wanted, and I ended up departing for the airport early simply because I didn’t feel like doing anything. Chances are I caught it from Sam Black, who was mega-sick the night before and shared a room with me that day. As I was on the plane, coughing and febrile, the only thing I could think of was how much I hated Sam Black. (Kidding, kidding).
Though the chair in the first class reclines completely (be very jealous), I still couldn’t sleep, so I spent most of my flight eating, drinking Mai Tais, and reading Phantom, which is the penultimate book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. As I might or might not have mentioned before, that series was quite a find, since it’s exactly the kind of book I like to read, and it’s not one but twelve, so they lasted for three trips instead of the usual half-trip. I read a lot. Too bad they are over now.
I arrived in Dallas and had a less than pleasant 12 hour layover, which I spent reading the next (and final) book of the series, Confessor (which is also one of the best), and sleeping a little when I could. My flight to São Paulo was delayed because of a thunderstorm, during which they frantically announced “please stay clear of the glass windows, stay in the center of the airport,” which was pretty scary… If the wind is strong enough to shatter the windows of the airport and hit whoever is close to it, what is it going to do to my airplane? About one and a half hours later, I took the flight to São Paulo, which was overnight so that people could theoretically sleep on it, and since I couldn’t sleep (even though I had barely slept the night before) I just annoyed everyone with my reading light all night. I also finally gave in and watched Bride Wars, which was playing on all the planes I took for this trip. I never really had the desire to watch, and I didn’t really like it much. I also watched Taken, and that one was pretty good.
I arrived in São Paulo on Thursday morning, and Gaudenis was waiting for me at the airport. Gaudenis was supposed to stay with Sam, but Sam found out he was not allowed in the country (as well as Saito and Shuhei) so Gaudenis had nowhere to stay, and ended up staying with us at my friend’s house. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t live in São Paulo (which is São Paulo, by the way, not São Paolo, as a lot of people spell it… Poor city, I know your pain), but in Porto Alegre, which is a little less than a two-hour flight to the South (or 18 hours on the bus, heh), but it’s the biggest MTG pole in the country, so I have a lot of friends there and finding a place to stay wasn’t really problematic.
I went to my friend Lucas’s house, so I could be picked up by my other friend at whose house I was staying. Lucas is nicknamed Bertu — in Brazil, almost everyone has a nickname. It might be something derived from your first name, like mine; from your last name, like his; from a character you resemble; or from a singular characteristic you have. The important part is that you have a nickname, and everyone calls you by it instead of by your real name. All you can do is hope it’s a good one that sticks — usually you don’t have much say in the matter. Lucas had a deck he had been working on with Eduardo (Shooter) and Paulo (just Paulo, no nicknames this time) that he believed was good, and I also thought it was good, but after playing some games I decided to just stick to what I had instead of changing to something new that I didn’t really know about. In the end, I discovered that it’s a pretty good deck, since he made Top 16 with it, and Diego (another friend) made Top 8. It was the Cascade deck at the final table.
We talked about many things, but very little Magic. I wanted to do well, of course, but I had just played not one but two Standard GPs — I knew the format already, and I knew what I wanted to play. By now, you probably know what I played, and if you don’t you have a pretty good chance to guess correctly. I played Faeries. I can’t say I seriously considered playing anything else, other than maybe Bertu’s deck which I quickly dismissed. Gaudenis (Gau from now on) was also set on playing Faeries, and also didn’t really want to talk about it or playtest anything, so we just went didn’t talk about it. My friend Luiz (nicknamed Leit, which means milk) came to pick us up, and we went to eat. Leit was undecided between Faeries and Swans. All he had to do was decide between one of them, and he already knew most things about the two decks too so we didn’t have much to talk about or play — most of our conversations went like this:
“Which deck should I play?”
“Faeries.”
“But I don’t like Faeries…”
“Then play Swans.”
“But you think Faeries is better?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t like Faeries…”
This dragged on and on — I couldn’t really offer any more input than that I thought Faeries was the better deck. I mean, what else can I do, other than play the deck myself, to show my belief that it is better? Clearly if I thought any other deck was better to play, I’d have played that and not Faeries. Since I was playing Faeries, to me that is the ultimate proof that I believe in what I’m saying, and I couldn’t really do anything else to convince him.
So why did I decide to play Faeries?
First, because I believe it’s the most powerful deck in this format. I expect Faeries to have a winning record against every deck except for Mono Red (which some people also have a winning record against, and to be honest I might have a lifetime winning record against it too). It might not be a slaughter, but I truly believe you are favored against anything else — there are only two decks I’m unhappy to sit opposite, and those are the mirror and Mono-Red. This did not change during this GP — if your Nationals is approaching fast, I think Faeries is the best deck to play.
Second, I’m really comfortable with the deck. I’ve probably played more competitive matches with Faeries than anyone else, and I’ve had a lot of success with it, so I know pretty much everything that there is to know (except for the perfect sideboarding strategy… I don’t think I’ll ever come to know that). I can understand that Leit didn’t want to play Faeries — it’s just not his style of deck, and he likes combo more. He even placed second in our Nationals last year playing the Swans combo, so he was inclined towards Swans (in fact, I was sure he would end up playing Swans). I have no such excuse — Faeries is the style of deck I like to play, it’s the deck I’ve come to love playing. Most important of all, I really feel good playing it. I feel like I can always win the game, that there is no challenge I can’t overcome.
Overall, it seemed to me that playing Faeries was just the right choice. Maybe not for everyone, and maybe not for you at Nationals, but for me it clearly was… and I think there is a high chance it is for you too, if you don’t know what you are playing. That was also very convenient for me, since I just wanted to sleep, and it was nice for a change not to agonize over a deck or a list before a tournament.
The following day we went to the site — it took us 45 minutes — and we found the delegation from Rio (which is about six hours by bus from São Paulo), which included some unexpected foreigners — Martin Juza, Manuel Bucher, and Matej Zatlkaj (whose name I have now learned to pronounce, hah). They really wanted to go to a steakhouse — it seems there is some fascination about Brazilian steakhouses — so we went. We were ten people, in two cars.
It was at the steak house that the realization of what a Brazilian GP meant hit me. I had been asked before what I thought about it, and I said that, even though it was nice and saved on travel costs, to me it was just another GP — if it didn’t exist it meant I was going to play 9 instead of 10 GPs in the season. There was a time in which I tested for an entire year for the GP, and we took that 18 hour bus ride in a big group from Porto Alegre to go play in it. It was the event of the season, what I played Magic for, my contact with the game at a real professional level. Nowadays? On a personal level, it’s just another one.
But there were my friends. Most people who play Magic at our local store had never had that contact with the professional Magic scene. They hadn’t seen those foreign pros, they hadn’t had their cards signed, they had never had to play in a different language. That was an experience I liked having, and an experience I was glad they could have too, for it changes the way someone looks at the game. That, I had already thought about.
What I hadn’t thought about was the other side — how I could show, for the first time ever, what my country looked like to my fellow pros. Not sightseeing places for tourists, for São Paulo really doesn’t have those despite being one of the biggest cities in the world, and if it had I’d not be in the position to show those places to them because I don’t know São Paulo. No, I meant I could simply show them our everyday life. Everyone has their ideas of Brazil, but they probably aren’t accurate — it’s not that it’s better or worse, it’s just different to what most people expect. Seeing those foreign people there, at the steak house enjoying themselves, made me feel really good.
It was also pretty entertaining, since they had no clue what they were eating most of the time. Brazilian steakhouses work in a “rodizio” way — they come with food at your table and you say if you want it or not. Sometimes the waiter is really aggressive and looks almost offended if you don’t get what he is offering, and sometimes you have to call him again because he is about to skip you, so it’s not really easy to judge what you are going to get by whether the waiter looks excited or not. Their solution? They asked us.
The problem is that, even though I know a lot of English words, the names of the meat cuts are not among them. The waiters would come with a cut, say, Maminha, and then Manuel would ask me what it was, and I’d reply “meat.” Then they would come with another, Picanha, and I couldn’t do much better than “good meat.” Some things are just plain different and not usually eaten there, such as chicken heart and fried banana, and it is nice to introduce those things to people who consider them alien food. In the end, I think they enjoyed themselves, even if they didn’t really know what they were eating — they wanted meat, and they got a lot of that. I know I enjoyed myself.
It was also interesting to listen to Manuel talk about his Elementals deck, trying to coerce me into a wager about anything with him. At one point it got interesting because he tried to bet that Anathemancer was not a Zombie Wizard, when I thought it was — and other people at the table had told me they were 100% sure it was. We went through different things we could wager, and all of them involved the person who lost doing something bad but no profit for the person who won — like the person who won choosing a card for the other to play at the sideboard in the GP – so I didn’t see any point. That, and I absolutely hate gambling. We ended up not betting, and it turned out it was, yes, a Zombie Wizard, and I would have won. I missed the opportunity of making Manuel play a card of my choice in his sideboard, but he ended up playing Shields of Velis Vel, so I feel like I won that bet anyway.
We left the steakhouse and went back to the event, and then to Leit’s house. Gau was pretty settled on his list, and I had my Seattle list as a starting point.
I knew not much would change, since I was happy with my list. The first important change was adding Agony Warps — I wanted at least two, possibly more. I decided that I would have four removal spells instead of the 3 I was playing, and one Sower was going to leave for that. That gave me one spot — the second Sower. I could play a maindeck Puppeteer Clique, a Loxodon Warhammer, a Vendilion Clique, a Sower of Temptation, or the fourth Spellstutter Sprite.
Most people play four Spellstutters, and I can understand that. To me, however, Spellstutter is at its best when you are already winning — i.e. have Bitterblossom — and Bitterblossom is still going to win you the game when you only have three. I was tired of having Spellstutters stuck in my hand or having to play them to beat for one, so I cut one in Kyoto and have been playing three since. I know LSV likes three as well, but I understand wanting four — maybe if people start playing Lightning Bolt — but right now I’m happy with three.
I agonized between those choices, with a chorus of “Spellstutter #4, Spellstutter #4” from Leit and Gau as the background. I told them I was not going to play the Spellstutter no matter what, and they gave their opinions about what card they liked best. I knew I wanted 2 Sowers, 3 Puppeteers and 1 Warhammer between deck and board, so it would have to be one of those cards, since my sideboard had 16 at the time. I settled for the Sower.
At this point Leit decided he would also play Faeries, and would just play the same list I decided to play. Then he started arguing even more for Spellstutter, because he wanted to play four, but at the same time didn’t want to play a list that was different from mine. In the end, he played the Sower too.
The other change I made was removing an Underground River for a Swamp. A long time ago, I said that people who played less than 4 Rivers were just wrong and apparently didn’t want to cast their spells — I was wrong. With Sunken Ruins, you are fine with more basics, and I was losing too many games to my own lands, especially in this format with Anathemancer. Removing one River made double River, Ruins, Mutavault games less common, and the only reason I did not remove another one was the Plumeveils in the sideboard.
What was left for me to decide was my removal package. I knew I wanted four, and I knew I liked Agony Warp better — I settled for 3 Agony Warp, 1 Terror. The reason I played 1 Terror and not 4 Warps is not that I don’t know which is better, as sometimes people do when they split cards like this — I think Agony Warp is better. It’s just that I want to have some way in my deck to deal with Cloudthresher, Mistbind Clique, and Figure of Destiny. I just want to know that, somewhere, I can draw a Terror. Maybe 2-2 is the correct split — 2 Terrors has always been a good number, I don’t think nowadays you need more — I just wanted more Agony Warps because the meta has became increasingly aggro those past days.
Also, by playing both Terrors and Warps, there is the chance you confuse them. If they see one they might not expect the other, and if they see both they might think you are playing a billion removal spells. The two Peppersmokes I, again, don’t like or dislike, they are just there. They were good in some situations, never really bad, so I left them there. They are pretty good in the mirror, at least. I don’t really count them as removal, though.
Here is the list I played:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
Before I start, those are my “sideboarding guides.” I generally like to do that as I write the matches and they come up, but it seems to be, by far, the question I get the most in forums and PMs, so here it is. I don’t claim this to be 100% correct, but this is what I do. Also, be aware that nowadays you CAN have 1-2 pages of sideboard notes to look at in between games. This is basically a copy/paste of a forum post from my last article, but it was kinda late so I’ll just repost here with some added information.
Versus Faeries:
On the play:
-2 Mistbind Clique
-1 Agony Warp (if you know they take out the Mistbinds, the Terror is worse)
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Sower of temptation
On the draw:
-1 Broken Ambitions
+1 Loxodon Warhammer
Versus BW:
On the play:
-1 Terror
-1 Agony Warp
+1 Sower
+1 Loxodon Warhammer
On the draw:
-1 Jace Beleren
+1 Thoughtseize
You can take a Jace out instead of an Agony Warp, but I think they have a lot of discard game 2 and both players should mulligan aggressively, so Jace helps in those situations, and he’s never really bad on the play.
Versus Kithkin:
-3 Jace Beleren
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 something (might be a Peppersmoke, might be a Spellstutter or Ambitions on the draw. I’m not really happy about cutting any of that but I think the sideboard cards are better. It might be that you can just take out a Deathmark from the sideboard, since you have to cut good cards to bring it in anyway. I’m really unsure about this).
+3 Deathmark
+2 Plumeveil
+1 Sower of Temptation
Versus 5CB:
-4 Scion of Oona
-3 Jace Beleren
-2 Thoughtseize
-2 Peppersmoke
-1 Sower
+3 Puppeteer Clique
+2 Plumeveil
+1 Loxodon Warhammer
+3 Flashfreeze
+3 Deathmark
Someone PMed me asking what I did if they took out Anathemancers. While I think it’s actually correct them to do so, I don’t think anyone does it, and you’ll have no way of knowing if they do unless you personally know them. Even if they don’t have Anathemancers, Puppeteer is just a good card because it’s a big body and good in races, so I’d board the three every time.
Versus Swans:
-3 Jace Beleren
-1 Sower of Temptation
-2 Peppersmoke
-1 Scion of Oona (I’m not happy to take this out either, but you have to take something out and I think this is the worst card left in your deck)
+2 Thoughtseize
+3 Flashfreeze
+2 Plumeveil
Versus Elves:
On the play:
-2 Broken Ambitions
-3 Jace Beleren
-4 Scion of Oona
-2 Peppersmoke
-2 Thoughtseize
+3 Puppeteer Clique
+3 Flashfreeze
+3 Deathmark
+1 Sower of Temptation
+1 Loxodon Warhammer
+2 Plumeveil
On the draw:
-1 Spellstutter Sprite
+1 Thoughtseize
Maybe -1 Broken, +1 Thoughtseize
This is the matchup I think is the hardest to sideboard, and I’ll admit I have no clue if that is correct. If they have Pulses and no instant removal, Scion gets much better. My ideal world would have me keeping Scions, but I just see nothing else to take out. Jace also looks like he would be good, since you are boarding into a more controllish deck with 1x1s and all, but how do you get Jaces AND Plumeveils in there? I don’t really know. I dislike boarding out two Ambitions on the play, because of Colossus, but you just have to take something out. It’s possible that taking out all Ambitions and all Spellstutters and leaving Scions in is a good plan — my friend has reported some success with that. I didn’t play against any Elves in both GPs, so I don’t have empirical data.
We got to the event on Saturday pretty early, and had to wait for what seemed to be three days for the announcements. I was expecting delay — in fact I would have been shocked if there hadn’t been any — but the delay throughout the tournament was just absurd. It was nine rounds and it ended after midnight, which is at least a five-hour delay.
We also had to wait for the announcements standing, since the 200-odd tables were in the other room and we couldn’t hear the microphone. It also took a pretty long time, since no one knew exactly where they were supposed to be, and they had announcements such as “be careful, there are many steps in this building, you might fall,” in not one but three different languages. I understand your concern, but… really? Be careful with the steps?
There were many things wrong with this GP, unfortunately. Some of them I would not have cared about if they were isolated, such as the fact that there was not enough light, or that the tables were numbered in a spiral pattern to the point that they looked almost random, so that knowing where table 20 was didn’t really help if you were looking for table 40, and if you ever missed your way in the spiral you had to go back all the way because there was no opening in the end. Some of the problems were pretty bad, like the enormous delay and the fact that there was simply not enough room on the table for whoever had the intention of having more than six permanents in play at any given time. I had to put the table number on the floor in most of my matches, and I had a lot of trouble managing my lands when I started getting Bitterblossom tokens. Overall, I would say this was one of the worst GPs I’ve ever played — almost on league with the 2HG Amsterdam GP that had to have two rounds cut in the end because of the delay. Not that bad, but almost. It’s pretty sad that we hadn’t had a GP in ages, and when we do we put up such a poor showing. I can only hope they learned from their mistakes if the opportunity ever presents itself again.
I went to eat during the byes, and when I came back I was informed I had been challenged. Apparently, there was a guy who said he had never lost to Faeries with his Kithkin, and he had challenged and beaten a good Faeries player the day before and now wanted to play against me. I got my deck ready and said sure, I would play him — I don’t think anyone was expecting me to actually play.
We attracted a huge crowd that was comparable to any feature match, and people were loudly cheering for one or another. If you’ve ever seen the Brazilians at an international tournament, you know we can be pretty loud — that and the fact that coincidentally the Brazilian gravy trainers are all very tall makes us pretty easy to spot. In the end, he had pretty poor draws, with multiple mulligans, and even though I could see I was making a lot of mistakes I won in two quick games — my reputation was intact!
There was one play during those games that I think is worth mentioning, though. At one point, I had Plumeveil in hand, and a Secluded Glen (with a Faerie) — it was turn 2. I also had a basic land and something that I wanted to play turn 2 — I think an Agony Warp. What I did was play the basic, the Warp, and since I didn’t draw a land I had to play the Secluded Glen turn 3, revealing a Faerie. He attacked into my Plumeveil anyway, but I realized how bad that had been — I was pretty much giving away that I had something turn 3. It might be that, just because I play it untapped, he starts thinking what I can possibly have and arrives at Plumeveil. What I should have done was to play the land turn 2 — I’d given him one extra bit of information earlier than before (but he would have that information anyway the following turn), but then I would not give anything away the turn I want him to walk into Plumeveil. It also has the added benefit of making him think I topdecked that land, for whatever that is worth.
Onto the tournament!
I started round 4 against a friend, who was also playing Faeries. I played almost all the rounds against friends, since I know basically everyone who plays competitive Magic in Brazil.
The games were pretty anti-climatic. In the first one we both mulliganed to 5, he Thoughtseized my Blossom and I drew another, and in the second one we both had Blossom but I had a second, and he didn’t have any follow-up.
2-0
4-0
Round 5 was an interesting one, against BW. Game 1 it looks like I’m clearly going to win, since he doesn’t have anything, but I just can’t stop drawing lands. I have a Scion of Oona and a Faerie Conclave, and I play Mistbind at one point, fully aware that I can get blown by Zealous Persecution plus Removal. I don’t recall exactly what happened, but I know my Mistbind resolved when it shouldn’t have — I think he messed up there. I think he had two Persecutions, and somehow I didn’t lose my board. In the end I had to block his Mutavault with Mistbind and trade that very same turn, and got back my Conclave. We traded some more blows but I kept drawing lands and couldn’t do anything.
Game 2 he mulliganed to 5, and I think I played pretty badly throughout. I decided to play a turn 2 Spellstutter when he passed with Mutavault and Fetid Heath, so I could put some pressure before he started drawing lands, but then he drew one and played Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom in the same turn, and I immediately regretted it — I would have been able to counter his Thoughtseize, though I wouldn’t be able to Broken Ambitions the Bitterblossom anyway. As it was, I lost the Broken.
He ended up playing a second Blossom, and I manage to resolve mine. The game becomes a race — I’m killing his tokens with Peppersmokes and Agony Warps and attacking with mine, the Stutter, Conclave and a Mutavault. At one point he plays a Kitchen Finks and I just attack with everything again, like I was planning on doing, and he blocks the Mutavault with the Glorious Anthem-ed Kitchen Finks, so it just embarrassingly dies. I was just so caught up in the heat of the moment that I chump attacked my Vault.
He plays a lot of guys, so the point where if he attacks once I die, but my hand is double Command and Mistbind, and he has double Blossom, so I figure I’m going to win. I tap his guys for one turn and he goes to six, but then he Thoughtseizes me, going to four, and takes the last Command. I have a bunch of tokens and a Vault, and he has one Vault. If he doesn’t have Persecution, he is dead no matter what, so I have to find the play for when he does have it. What I figured out was to just play my Mistbind before attacking (I did it on upkeep so there would be no confusion on my part, I admit) so if he wanted to Persecution he would have to do it then, and then I’d be able to activate my Vault and attack for two, putting him to two and he’d die to his double Blossom… and that’s what happened. I’ve found out that, in decks that don’t have access to Counterspells (basically any non-Faeries deck), the double Blossom gambit against Faeries usually results in you losing. Even in Faeries versus Faeries, you have to be careful with it, though in that match it’s usually right to play a second, especially if it’s early on.
Game 3 I mulliganed three hands that had one land total and kept a one-lander on four cards. I missed my second land drop, and then stalled on 3 for the rest of the game. Had I drawn the fourth land soon, there is a chance I’d have won that game I think, but once I missed it for more than one turn it was just too late.
1-2
4-1
Round 6 was against Swans. I win game 1 pretty easily, and game 2 I find out he boarded into the LD plan which, as I said in the last article, I think is good for me. I have a Bitterblossom in play, and he Wickerbough Elders it. Then I play another one, and as I’m about to win with it, because he doesn’t have Assault, he plays Aura of Silence and destroys it. Then I die to a bunch of random beaters.
Game 3 I was stuck on lands, so the LD plan worked somehow. I got three Blossom tokens before he destroyed it with Elder, and then he played Bloodbraid Elf and revealed Aura of Silence — some justice at least. He Deny Realitied one of my tokens, hitting Bloodbraid Elf and Fulminator Mage, and I used Flashfreeze on the Fulminator. I finally drew the third Land and played a Scion, that he couldn’t race along with my two tokens. At some point during the match, the judge stepped in and said he had put the Deny Reality on the bottom along with the other Cascaded cards, which I admit I hadn’t even noticed, so he got a warning.
2-1
5-1
Round 6 was again against Swans. Game 1 I counter everything he plays and even ambush a Bloodbraid with a Mistbind, and he is never really in it. This is awkward, since, to me, game 1 should be the hardest.
Game 2 I Thoughtseize two spells and Plumeveil a Treetop, to a point where my hand is 3 Broken Ambitions and Flashfreeze and he has one or two relevant cards left. Five turns later, and three clashed cards on the bottom of my library, he resolves a Seismic Assault and kills me. I don’t know how people manage to draw so many spells with that deck — surely I was feeling pretty safe with four counters against a deck that plays 40 Lands (okay, 35 after board) when I play 25 myself, but he just drew a spell per turn while I was drawing lands.
Game three I mulliganed to 5, but my hand had Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize, so I was happy. I Thoughtseize one spell, play my Bitterblossom, Flashfreeze another spell, and the key point is when I have a Command in hand and three lands. If I draw a land there, I think I just win, but I drew a Mistbind. He then played Bloodbraid Elf and hit Assault (why hadn’t he boarded the LD? If he doesn’t hit Assault, I can’t ever lose there), and I drew another Mistbind, then another Command before I died with 3 lands.
1-2
5-2
Had to win my last two!
During this past match, I heard my opponent’s friend talking to some other guy about how I played Faeries differently than most people he had seen, that I would just start attacking out of nowhere — I understand what he means, and I believe that’s how you have to play Faeries; you cannot just control the board, you have to kill them!
My round 8 match was featured. About time, I thought — whenever I go to foreign GPs, the first feature matches are always of the local known guys. In GP: SP, however, they just featured all the foreign pros first, no matter who they were playing against, instead of the local guys. Playing in the feature match was good, because I could actually tap my lands one at a time instead of just piling them for lack of room like I had to do on the normal tables.
My opponent was clearly nervous. He was on the play, and kept his seven, and I was struggling with mine. My hand was one of those that you know you have to mulligan, but you want to keep just because — it was Scion, Jace, Mistbind, Mistbind, Command and two good lands. Most of the time when I struggle I just mulligan, because I know it’s me trying to find a reason to keep a hand that I shouldn’t. As I was about to ship it back, the judge steps in.
“How many cards do you have?”
“Oh… eight”
So my opponent had a forced mulligan. Then he mulliganed again. At this point, I’m already considering keeping my hand, since he is on five. But then…
“Wait… now how many cards do you have??”
“Oh… six”
So he had yet another forced mulligan, down to four. He drew his four cards and threw his hand in play in disgust of having no lands, showing me he was playing BW, which I already knew but he had no real way of knowing that. He kept his three-card hand, and I… decided to keep my 7.
I won.
Game 2 was trickier — I Ambitions his turn 3 Finks and then have the choice of playing Island, Jace or Underground River, Thoughtseize, attack with Vault. If I play the Jace, I can power it up or down. Powering down is the best play, unless he has Murderous Redcap (which I believe you shouldn’t even keep versus Faeries most of the time, but everyone does). Since he hadn’t played anything, I figured there was a chance he had big spells in hand, maybe a Redcap, but even if he didn’t, powering it up wouldn’t do him much good since he would only play one spell per turn. Thinking back, I think I should just have used up a counter and pray for no Redcap, but at the time powering it up seemed like the best choice.
Then I set on playing Jace and powering it up. Then I played my land, went to tap them and realized I had played the Underground River — apparently I had flipped them in my hand and not realized.
At this point, I started to consider my plays. If I played the Jace, I’d take one point of damage for not playing the Island. The Thoughtseize play was starting to sound more appealing by the minute. Besides, it was a feature match, so I’d look really silly if I took that one damage to play the Jace.
But then I realized that I was there to win, not to make a show. Let other people think what they will, I have to own up to my mistake and not let it harm my game any more than it is already going to.
It reminds me something that happened in Seattle. Tim Landale was telling me and LSV about a game he played and LSV watched, and then LSV said:
“I think you played that correctly, but I don’t understand why you attacked with the Mutavault and left the Conclave to block and not the opposite.”
“Well”, Tim replied, “I realized the mistake as soon as I activated Mutavault to attack, but by then I had already activated it.”
“I guess at that point you just own up to your mistake, activate the Conclave as well and attack with it, leaving the Mutavault to block anyway even though you’ve already animated it.”
“I… didn’t think of that.”
I recalled that situation in my head vividly. I had to play my best, even if I ended up looking like an idiot because I picked the wrong card from my hand. I took one, and played Jace. Not playing that Island there ended up costing me about 4 life throughout the match, and since I ended the game at one and a Bitterblossom in play, we can say it was very relevant.
The game was tricky. He had triple Procession (one of which I Thoughtseized later), but I drew triple Cryptic, so I tapped his guys while bouncing some tokens and in the end as I also drew plenty of Scions — even though I did not need to topdeck one in the last turn, like the feature match says, it was already in my hand.
2-0
6-2
When I got home I checked the coverage, and was shocked to see that it mentioned my opponent mulliganing to 3 in search of lands, and how he hadn’t even complained about the bad luck. I thought he couldn’t very well complain about luck when he had drawn an extra card twice, but then it hit me — everything that went on went on in Portuguese, with a Brazilian judge. Nate had no clue what was actually happening, he just saw him mulligan over and over.
It was also funny that some guy inquired about the Underground River play, and I told them I had simply picked the wrong card from my hand, to which he replied “I knew it! I told my friends that, but they said that no, that you were really good and were just playing way ahead.” Maybe in my fear of looking stupid, I looked even smarter? Anyway, I really liked to know that people had such faith in me that they could turn this obvious mistake into a masterful play.
My last match was against Kithkin splash Black. I think Kithkin is a pretty good matchup — if they splash Black it gets a bit harder, but it’s still easier than BW, since they don’t have Bitterblossom, which is the best card against you. Their mana is also much worse since they only have 8 sources for Zealous Persecution.
Game 1 I mulligan to five but manage to make up a card when I ambush his Meadowgrain with a Mistbind. I’m soon in topdecking mode, and I draw Thoughtseize, which I cast to see Cloudgoat Ranger and Spectral Procession with four lands in play. He complains about how lucky I am and then promptly draws the land for the Cloudgoat. He attacks me again and I have one turn to draw Agony Warp or Command, or I die, since I’m at 1 and he has two more creatures than me, though I have two Scions and mine are all bigger. Instead of Agony Warp or Command I draw Sower, which also works, and win next turn. He didn’t seem very happy about that.
Game 2 he walks into my Plumeveil, and after that he is very careful to never attack into anything for the rest of the game. I draw three Deathmarks, but only have an Underground River for Black mana, so I can pretty much only play one spell per turn and I take pain to do it. One turn before I kill him he attacks with three tokens, while I’m at six and he has four lands, one a Windbrisk. He Paths my Plumeveil, I play another and he also Paths it, and with his two remaining Lands he flips Zealous Persecution and deals me exact 6.
Game 3 I have a very good start but a terrible follow-up, since I’m very flooded. I have Scion and Conclave attacking for a few turns, and he seems to do nothing. Eventually he just dies, and his hand is a bunch of Persecutions he can’t cast. I have to mulligan my hands because I don’t have Black mana (once in every three games, and I run 14, so it seemed only fair that he wouldn’t get them once with 8).
Overall, both our draws were just terrible in the three games, with me flooding and him not playing spells all the games.
2-1
7-2
I had made it!
I was really, really glad — doing well in this GP meant a lot to me. I’ve always done unexplainably bad at Brazilian Nationals, I didn’t want the same to happen at the GP.
At this point, it was past midnight. It took us a long time to find everyone, get food and go home (remember, 45 mins), so we didn’t get much sleep. I think it was impossible to get more than 7 hours of sleep unless you were sleeping at the event, though.
Day 2 started with some delay as well, mainly because we never have these tournaments and no one knew how to fill the form so that they could get paid, and the forms were in English on top of that. Still, it didn’t take nearly as long as day 1.
Round 10 I was paired against Mono Red. Game 1 he started with Mogg Fanatic, Mogg Fanatic, Ram-Gang and I had Bitterblossom and removal, but I missed my fourth land drop twice. By the time I got to play Mistbind I was on two life and he had the second Fallout to kill me.
Game 2 I mulliganed to 5, and had turn 2 Bitterblossom, but again I just couldn’t draw my fourth land in time. I blocked his Ghitu Encampment with my token for about three turns, still not drawing my fourth land. When I drew it, it was a Faerie Conclave. When I finally managed to untap with my four lands, he had six, and when I attempted to Clique him at the end of his turn, he double Javelined me down to two, and had the Fallout.
I was pretty sad, because both of those games I felt I could have really pulled out if I had drawn my fourth land in time. It seems like I lose far too many games to not having four lands in play by turn 4 — maybe I should go back to the 26 I was playing at Worlds.
0-2
7-3
Next round I played against Leit. Game 1 we both had Bitterblossom, but then he played a second. I attacked at one point, he blocked and I went to play Mistbind Clique on my turn, but I realized I had attacked without playing my fourth land, so I couldn’t do it. I then played my fourth land and decided to mainphase it anyway, losing yet another token. In the end, I had a Scion and that was enough to push for lethal.
Game 2 he just destroyed me — I mulliganed to five and he went land Thoughtseize, land Bitterblossom, land Jace, Spellstutter Command.
Game 3 I Thoughtseize his Bitterblossom, but he has another turn 2. The game is pretty close, because he is stuck on those two lands, and I have Mutavault attacking. I also mainphased a Mistbind onto a Spellstutter, and he played a second Blossom. At some point I know he has Sower and I have to tap out to counter a Scion, so if he draws his fourth land and I don’t draw anything he probably wins, but he didn’t. I am unable to capitalize on his relatively slow start because I keep drawing lands, but in the end he dies to one of his Bitterblossoms (he only managed to get rid of one) when he had about 15 power in play to my nothing with 3 lands in hand.
2-1
8-3
Next round was against Doran. Game 1 he just destroyed me by making turn 1 Noble Hierarch, turn 2 Knotvine Paladin, Treefolk Harbinger, turn 3 Doran, attack for a billion when I had a Bitterblossom. I tried to fight back with Command but was just overwhelmed.
Game 2 he didn’t have Black mana and I managed to kill everything he could play with his Plains/Forests, always holding my Flashfreeze for his Colossus. I had two Spellstutters in play and they just attacked for 20.
Game 3 we both have slow starts. I draw a Bitterblossom turn 2, but can’t play it because he has Qasali Pridemage. I can’t play it turn 3, because I only have Flashfreeze as an answer to Colossus, so I have to wait until I have four lands. The game drags on and I eventually find it, and play Bitterblossom to his Treetop Village, with counter backup. I Thoughtseize him and see Cloudthresher, which surprised me because I was expecting a carbon copy of the Seattle-winning list, which ran Zealous Persecution instead. I knew he had a Path, from the Thoughtseize, so I had to leave four Tokens to block his Treetop else it wouldn’t die. I eventually drew a Cryptic and was able to send everyone in, killing him in two attacks.
2-1
9-3
Next, I played the mirror again.
Game 2 we both had Bitterblossom, but he stalled on lands and I won easily.
Game 2 I mulliganed a lot and neither played had Bitterblossom, but I was stuck on two lands for a long while. He pumped up Jace and played a Vendilion Clique on me, but I was still stuck on three lands despite the extra draws, and only went to draw my fourth after he powered Jace up again. He cast an Infest to kill a Scion and a Spellstutter this game, which I made a mental note of, and in the end I just couldn’t recover from being land-light for so many turns and then only playing one spell per turn.
Game 3 started well — he mulliganed, and I played Ambitions on his Bitterblossom, and Spellstutter (with Vault) on his second Bitterblossom, and then I had two Mutavaults to attack. I attack aggressively and he has his back to the wall pretty soon, and I play a Scion. He also plays a Scion, and I Sower it. Right now the table is 3 Mutavaults, a Spellstutter, 2 Scion, 1 Sower for me, and a Mistbind Clique championing a Mutavault for him.
At that point, I realize I cannot possibly lose, unless he has Infest. He is at 9. If he does have Infest, though, I’m going to be left with three Mutavaults fighting his Mistbind Clique, so neither of us will be able to attack, and this is not a position I want to be in. So, I considered my plays.
If I attack with Sower there, he will trade with the Mistbind. That gives me three Vaults, a Spellstutter and a Scion against Scion and Vault, which is a very good position to be in. If he Infests there, I am still in a good position — three Vaults versus one.
If he doesn’t have Infest but Agony Warp, another Scion, or a Sower, this play is bad. If he has nothing this play is worse, but I’m still probably going to win, instead of winning for sure if he doesn’t have Infest on the other play.
Basically it can be narrowed into something like this:
Not attacking gives me 100% to win if he doesn’t have Infest, and 50-60% if he does.
Attacking gives me 75% to win if he doesn’t have Infest and 75% if he does.
Of course, I just made up those percentages, but it serves to illustrate it.
In the end, what tipped the scale was that I knew he didn’t have Scion, Sower, or Agony Warp — he would have played those already if he had had the opportunity. He would not have played the Infest. So, though he could draw any of those cards, he could also draw the Infest and there was also the chance he already had it in hand. So I attacked.
He blocked, and then after that he drew Agony Warp, so he killed my Scion (before I attacked, which was very weird, because I would have just ran one of my Vaults into his if he had waited). I drew two lands (though one a Faerie Conclave). Then he drew Sower, stealing my Spellstutter. I drew a Bitterblossom. He drew a Jace, and played it and drew a card. I drew a land. He attacked and I activated my Conclave to block the Sower with it plus a token, and he played Agony Warp. Then I drew a Thoughtseize, which I didn’t play, and he played Command at the end of the turn to tap my blockers and kill me.
In the end, I don’t know if he had Infest or not, though I’m pretty sure he just drew all those cards while I was drawing lands and Thoughtseizes, because if he had any of them before he would have played them. In retrospect, I don’t know if my play was right or not — right now it obviously seems like I should not have attacked, since it lost me the game, but what if he does have Infest? At the time, what I did made sense to me, so there is probably some merit to it, but I just can’t stop thinking that I threw that game away. It was probably the only match in the tournament after which I wanted to kill myself, and not the deck, for losing, because the path to win was clearly there and I decided to take a different one. I did get unlucky after that, but I knew at the time that my play had risks, and I chose to make it anyway.
2-1
9-4
At this point I had to win my last two for Top 32, and one for Top 64.
My next match was against Mono Red, and things worked out pretty well for me. Game 1 I had Blossom and Mistbind, and he had a pretty slow start, so I won. Game 2 he started with Needle on Mutavault, and though I had one in hand and it was slightly troublesome, I was glad it was Needle and not, well, anything else. After that I dealt with everything he played, and when I had about 10 lands in play and a Mistbind, counters, and Warhammer in hand, I drew Bitterblossom. I played the Mistbind on his upkeep, and he played Volcanic Fallout just to deal me two, bringing me to 9 — fine with me. On my turn I equipped the Mistbind with Warhammer and at that point I knew I could not lose the game anymore. I Flashfreezed his Terminate, and the Mistbind did its job.
2-0
10-4
My last match was against the 5CB deck.
Game 1 I was with my back to the wall for the entire time. I was at four life, and he had Anathemancer in his graveyard with five lands in play, though I only had three non-basics. At some point he attacked with Boggart Ram-Gang, and I had to play Mistbind and hope he could not kill my Scion. He couldn’t, and I killed his Ram-Gang at the expense of 3 counters for my Faerie. I was attacking him for one and he finally found his seventh land for the Anathemancer, putting me to one, but I had Command to tap his guys (just the Anathemancer) and bounce my Mistbind Clique back to my hand, which was awesome because it not only stole another turn from him but also reset it back to 4/4. In my turn I drew Bitterblossom, which was even better because I would get to keep my Scion with the Mistbind. Then I drew another Mistbind, and he didn’t draw Fallout, so I won.
I was really proud of myself this game — it seemed like I couldn’t possibly win, and I had pulled it off. I think my opponent probably still doesn’t know how he could lose that game.
Game 2 I mulliganed to five and got destroyed.
Game 3 he stalled on lands a little, and I had Puppeteer Clique and Loxodon Warhammer in hand, so I had my game plan from the beginning. I knew he played Chameleon Colossus, so I was trying to play around it with my Flashfreeze by not tapping out. At one point I finally drew my sixth land, and played the Puppeteer, hitting him with something irrelevant. He passed, so I figured he had Fallout, and didn’t play the Warhammer, just attacking instead. He played the Fallout, and I got a 2/1 Puppeteer. On his turn he tapped out for something, which I countered, and then I finally got to equip and attack. He tried to Pulse my Warhammer, but I had a counter for that too, and that was it.
In the end, I finished 25th, with a 11-4 record. In any other GP I would have been happy, since 25th is a good place, but in this one, I was disappointed — I wanted to do better in “my” GP. It seems everyone was expecting me to do well, including myself, and it felt like I had just failed everyone. While I couldn’t care less about failing other people, I care a lot about failing myself, and I had had higher expectations for this tournament. Still, it’s two pro points, which I welcomed.
I’m now on a big hiatus from tournaments — the next thing is Nationals, which is only at the end of July for us. I’ll have plenty of time to test with M10, though not nearly enough time to get the cards, since we still have custom problems and cannot get them — to give you an idea, Maelstrom Pulse was selling for $35.00 and Boggart Ram-Gang for $5.00 because we simply have no way to get cards here other than people bringing boxes when they go to the U.S.
I was planning on talking about the changes to the deck with the M10 rules and spoiled cards, but this is pretty long already so I’ll just sneak them into a future article, since there is plenty of time before M10 becomes legal. If I had Nationals tomorrow, I’d play this exact list. The only thing I would consider changing is removing something for a land, probably either a Thoughtseize, a Peppersmoke, or the Sower, but maybe I’m biased because I lost too many games due to lands in this tournament. Still, I was happy with 26 at Worlds, and I could see playing 26 now, though the sideboard would have to be changed accordingly. In the end, I don’t think I’d do it, but I understand if someone does.
That’s it! I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and good luck in your Nationals!
See you next week…
PV