Hello! This is Tsumura Kenji. Over the past few weeks I’ve participated in two limited Grand Prix tournaments: Grand Prix Richmond and Grand Prix Dortmund. Today, I’ll be writing about the impressions I took from both Drafting and playing Sealed Deck in this Ravnica/Guildpact format. First off, I’ll be writing about my Sealed Deck and Draft experience from Grand Prix Richmond.
Before I get into the details of the whole Grand Prix experience, here are some impressions I got from my preliminary drafting of this format. People may have noticed already, but when drafting this format you generally want to draft a color combination that involves at least one of the Guildpact guild color combinations (being, of course, Izzet, Gruul, and Orzhov). So, color combinations such as Blue/Black/Green have considerably less chance to pick up decent cards from Guildpact, so those combinations are going to be relatively weak. Also, playing three colors has now become the norm, and playing four colors has become much more common since triple-Ravnica as well.
Now, I’ll move onto my experiences at the two Grand Prix tournaments I recently attended.
Please take a look at the following sealed pool I received for Grand Prix Richmond:
Creatures (39)
- 1 Carrion Howler
- 1 Centaur Safeguard
- 1 Cerulean Sphinx
- 1 Coalhauler Swine
- 1 Courier Hawk
- 1 Drake Familiar
- 1 Drift of Phantasms
- 1 Gate Hound
- 1 Golgari Brownscale
- 1 Golgari Guildmage
- 1 Junktroller
- 1 Lurking Informant
- 1 Netherborn Phalanx
- 1 Sadistic Augermage
- 1 Screeching Griffin
- 1 Selesnya Evangel
- 1 Sewerdreg
- 1 Stoneshaker Shaman
- 1 Transluminant
- 1 Viashino Fangtail
- 1 Woodwraith Strangler
- 1 Angel of Despair
- 1 Blind Hunter
- 1 Gruul Nodorog
- 1 Living Inferno
- 1 Ogre Savant
- 1 Order of the Stars
- 1 Ostiary Thrull
- 1 Petrahydrox
- 1 Restless Bones
- 1 Revenant Patriarch
- 1 Scab-Clan Mauler
- 1 Scorched Rusalka
- 1 Shrieking Grotesque
- 1 Silhana Ledgewalker
- 1 Skarrgan Skybreaker
- 1 Steamcore Weird
- 1 Tin Street Hooligan
- 1 Wee Dragonauts
Lands (5)
Spells (30)
- 1 Smash
- 1 Bathe in Light
- 1 Clinging Darkness
- 1 Compulsive Research
- 1 Convolute
- 1 Crown of Convergence
- 1 Dimir Machinations
- 1 Faith's Fetters
- 1 Galvanic Arc
- 1 Golgari Germination
- 1 Incite Hysteria
- 1 Last Gasp
- 1 Life from the Loam
- 1 Muddle the Mixture
- 1 Rally the Righteous
- 1 Remand
- 1 Shred Memory
- 1 Strands of Undeath
- 1 Surge of Zeal
- 1 Telling Time
- 1 Terrarion
- 1 Castigate
- 1 Fencer's Magemark
- 1 Gigadrowse
- 1 Gruul Signet
- 1 Guardian's Magemark
- 1 Necromancer's Magemark
- 1 Runeboggle
- 1 Wildsize
- 1 Wreak Havoc
For the record, my Pro Player Card was Kai Budde. *grin*
Here is the deck I finally settled on:
Creatures (15)
- 1 Centaur Safeguard
- 1 Golgari Guildmage
- 1 Junktroller
- 1 Lurking Informant
- 1 Netherborn Phalanx
- 1 Screeching Griffin
- 1 Sewerdreg
- 1 Angel of Despair
- 1 Blind Hunter
- 1 Living Inferno
- 1 Order of the Stars
- 1 Ostiary Thrull
- 1 Restless Bones
- 1 Revenant Patriarch
- 1 Shrieking Grotesque
Lands (17)
Spells (8)
When I saw this pool, I quickly decided I would be playing Black/White, with a splash for either Red or Blue. However, I had a pretty tough time trying to figure out on which color I’d be splashing. In the end, I chose W/B/r because I felt removal was important. This deck can stall the game out with cards like Order of the Stars/Junktroller then use cards like Living Inferno which is strong to begin with, and this deck will also have combos like Golgari Guildmage and Strands of Undeath.
Which direction do you guys think is better?
Either way, I realized during matches that there were some deck construction errors I made from this pool.
First, Castigate should definitely have been in the deck. I don’t like this card very much in Draft, so naturally I didn’t include it… but in Sealed, everyone is holding bombs until they have the mana to cast them. The ability to take their bomb for a paltry two mana is pretty solid.
I also felt I should have included Courier Hawk in the maindeck. Guildpact has two solid types of two-drop flyers: Mourning Thrull and Silhana Ledgewalker (of course, the Ledgewalker is only a functional flyer). Mourning Thrull can be played if you’re in either Black or White (or both), so a lot of people end up including it in their deck. Silhana Ledgewalker’s abilities are good at best, but since it interacts so well with bloodthirst, I felt many people would be playing to enable larger creatures in the mid and late game. Courier Hawk can stop both of these cards, and trade with any one-toughness flyer, so I felt I should have included this card.
Finally, I think I made the wrong call on whether or not I include the fourth bounce land. Personally, I felt four would be fine, but since I had a signet as well I only included three. Even if I were to only play three, I’m not sure why I played a Dimir Aqueduct that has no use for its Blue mana rather then the useful Gruul Turf, heh.
If I were to rebuild this deck, I’d probably take out a Magemark, a random creature, and a Mountain for the above cards. However, there were a couple of games I won because of Magemark, so it’s hard to say…
Also, when deciding to play or draw, personally I feel it’s better to draw in this format. There aren’t a lot of games where you get out-tempoed in this format, and against the three- and four-color decks you definitely don’t want them to draw the extra card. With a very defensive deck like the one above, I especially feel drawing is better.
I ended up Day 1 with a fourth round draw after my three byes, but ended up winning every other match and finished the day at 7-0-1.
The thing I remember the most from this day was that one of my opponents received a match loss. The reason was that some of the cards in his deck were upside down – although it was clear he wasn’t trying to cheat, as he shuffled properly a number of times before the match. But as a judge, whether the infraction was intentional or not, they must give some kind of punishment. Remember: to have more fun playing Magic, please check your decks before every match. Pay careful attention to the following:
Are all the cards in your deck facing the right way?
Does your deck contain the correct amount of cards?
Are any of the sleeves ripped, or marked in any way?
Just by checking these small things, the chance of getting an unintentional penalty should decrease considerably.
For me, Day 2 finished when I lost my first Draft pod with a 1-2 record… and then repeated the 1-2 in my second Draft pod. I barely made money, which was kind of embarrassing. It was especially embarrassing since I had such a good record on Day 1. I think all I can do about that is to practice more. I especially glad that Guildpact has finally arrived on Magic Online.
My first Draft deck for Day 2 is posted on MagictheGathering.com. If anyone’s interested, feel free to take a look… but my deck was really bad so I don’t want too many people looking at it!
This was my second Draft deck:
Creatures (14)
- 1 Snapping Drake
- 1 Goblin Spelunkers
- 2 Terraformer
- 1 Tidewater Minion
- 1 Vedalken Dismisser
- 2 Vedalken Entrancer
- 1 Izzet Chronarch
- 1 Stratozeppelid
- 2 Torch Drake
- 1 Vertigo Spawn
- 1 Wee Dragonauts
Lands (17)
Spells (10)
Yes, this would be another terrible deck… *frown*
After the Draft, I felt my deck was passable… but when I look at it now it seems pretty weak. The only match I ended up winning in this pod was due to my opponent’s manascrew. His deck was much stronger than mine, so I felt pretty bad about it.
As you can see the draft went atrociously, but the GP was very fun (.
Thanks for everyone at StarCityGames.com for hosting such a great Grand Prix tournament. I would like to take this time to give out my thanks. And to Rich Hoaen… congratulations on your victory!
Next, I’ll be writing my Grand Prix Dortmund report… but I have to start practicing for Hawaii, so I don’t think I’ll be able to write until after that.
After Hawaii, I’m intending to write a Pro Tour report, so I hope that’ll be something to anticipate.
It would be great if this article was of any help to you guys.
Thank you very much for reading!
Tsumura Kenji
Translated by Taka Sato