Nationals has never been a good tournament for me. The last ten years I’ve made Top 16 several times, but I had never made it to the last eight before.
I’m not the kind of person to blame luck for my failings in the last ten years. I always try to find the reasons behind things and came to the conclusion that I was just not concentrating enough during Nationals. At a Pro Tour, for example, the people playing at the tables next to you are probably foreigners. But at Nationals, that’s different. You know almost everyone in the room, and you’re rooting for several of them, so you’ll easily get distracted. This ‘distraction’ problem not only occurs when you are playing, but also during breaks. Everyone wants to know how you are doing, so if you’re losing, your friends will make sure you get reminded of that in between rounds.
Enter IPod (preferably playing The Killers) and headphones (preferably really ugly ones)!
While I don’t have Brian Kibler dashing good looks, I sometimes try to ask myself “What Would Brian Kibler Do?” Since I always see him with headphones on at the start of his matches, I thought I would try it as well. While the music itself of course cannot “fix” whatever happened in earlier rounds, I find that it helps me take my mind off things, and helps me focus for the next round. In some ways, it’s similar to what Zac Hill was doing at PT: Honolulu, writing “Focus on what you are doing right now” on his hand and looking at it every now and then.
Another thing I learned from Kibler (this time from reading his articles) is that it’s always good to have some food and drink with you during tournaments. Magic tournaments take a long time (although Nationals is kind of an exception, with only 6 rounds a day) and sometimes the catering is just awful.
Enter food and drinks.
Another thing one needs when he wants to win Nationals is a Standard deck, of course. In the weeks leading to Nationals I focused mainly on Jund. Things had changed. Existing decks were getting better (UW and Mythic), and new decks were built to beat Jund (NLB and Turboland). I was still winning more than half my matches, but I wanted something better. Some people told me to play Turboland, so I wanted to test that deck on Magic Online. I checked the marketplace, and searched for Jace, the Mind Sculptor only to see the following:
Human selling Jace for 100.
Great!
Another deck that caught my attention was the RG Monument deck, and as I was ‘only’ missing 8 mythics for that deck, I decided to give it a try. About a 100 tix and three tournaments later, it turned out not to be such a good idea. The deck does not play a lot of lands, and tends to get in trouble if your early mana producers don’t survive, leaving you stranded with too many expensive cards. Another issue was that Bloodbraid Elf was at its absolute worst, as the only thing to cascade in was a bad creature.
There was an upside to these three tournament failures: the fact that I lost to Mono Red four times, which rekindled my love for the little Red men. Whenever I am in doubt of what deck to play, I tend to end up talking myself into Mono Red, and I’ve mostly done well with it. This time was no different, as I had Turboland all sleeved up and ready to go about 30 minutes before the start of the tournament, but turned around and played Mono Red anyway. Here is the decklist I ended up playing:
Creatures (16)
Lands (13)
Spells (31)
Sideboard
Let’s take a look at some choices I made:
– No Black: The reason I did not choose to run the black lands + sideboard, is because I feel Teetering Peaks and Smoldering Spires are too important not to play. Mono Red often comes up short by just an inch, and those lands can really help you get there. I also felt like not many players would have Firewalkers in their sideboard. Firewalkers don’t show up in the NLB and Mythic sideboards, and UW control & Super Friends have not been popular choices lately, mostly due to the increased popularity of Turboland and Next Level Bant. Although now, after the recent surge in Mono Red, I would definitely consider running the Black version. Not only because more people will be gunning for Mono Red, but also because Suffer The Past is the absolute nuts in the mirror.
– No Kargan Dragonlord: During testing I had the impression that Kargan was too slow for this format. Against Mythic and Turboland leveling your guy is just too slow, and against Jund or in the mirror he just gets killed before he becomes a 4/4. The only matchup where Kargan shines is against NLB, but that matchup is more than solid anyway.
– No Devastating Summons and/or Goblin Bushwhacker: I think Devastating Summons is one of the reason why Mono Red has not put up any results recently. Both Chapin and PV were advocates of the Summons/Bushwhacker combo, and a lot of people followed them haphazardly. I personally think the combo makes Mono Red less consistent as you’ll end up drawing one part without the other much too often. I feel like Mono Red is supposed to work like this: bring your opponent down to 6 life and burn him out after that. The Summons combo is a completely different plan that doesn’t cooperate with the rest of your deck.
– 25 lands: Some people only play 23 but I really wanted 4 Spires / 4 Peaks, so I think running 25 is fine as long as you optimize your Peaks / Spires. Drawing excess lands isn’t really a problem anyway, as you have enough ways to use your mana (kick Burst Lightning, a big Earthquake or Unearth Hell’s Thunder).
– The sideboard: One of the biggest problems of Mono Red is that it just doesn’t have any decent sideboard options right now. The cards you can play don’t really solve any of your problems while your opponent can just completely destroy you with cards like Kor Firewalker, Baneslayer Angel, and Wall of Denial. The only card I really liked in my sideboard was Quenchable Fire (and that’s probably only because it won me two games against Naya). Manabarbs and Flame Slash were also fine, but all the other cards seemed unnecessary. 4 Forked Bolt after boarding is just too much (even against Mythic),and Dragon’s Claw is just too narrow to devote sideboard slots to it.
So, on Friday morning I checked my shopping list one last time and saw everything was there:
– IPod: Check!
– Hideous headphones: Check!
– Food and drinks: Check!
– Turboland: Check!
– Backup Red deck: Check!
I arrived a little bit early, which gave me the time to walk around the room and take a glimpse at what people were playing. I also played some more games with Turboland and realized this was not what I wanted. Turboland is definitely a powerful deck, but it’s also extremely complicated. For example, it’s very important to figure out when exactly you’ll be casting your Oracle, as you want to have a land on top at that time. After four games I grabbed a Deck Registration Street and started writing down: 4 Goblin Guide, 4 Hellspark Elemental… and I felt I’d made the right decision.
Round 1: versus Vengevine Jund
The advantage of playing a lot of 8-man tournaments online is that you get to know every deck in the format. My round 1 opponent was still able to surprise me, though. Apparently the Vengevine Jund deck runs a singleton Hell’s Thunder so I was pretty confused when he tapped his Savage Lands Raging Ravine and Forest to cast the 4/4 flying haste creature. I don’t remember a lot from the games, but I won 2-0 and the games weren’t very close. My opponent had also sideboarded Goblin Ruinblaster, not the best choice one can make versus Mono Red. I sideboarded like this:
+3 Quenchable Fire, -2 Forked Bolt, -1 Earthquake
I didn’t play against Jund for the rest of the tournament, but this is how I’d sideboard against normal Jund too. On the draw you can probably take out a Ball Lightning instead of the Earthquake, but I’m not 100% sure that’s correct. It looks like everyone is sideboarding a lot of instant removal anyway, so sometimes it’s better to clear the board and burn them out.
1-0
Round 2: versus Boros
My opponent was stuck in 2009 apparently, as he was still playing Boros without any cards from ROE. I didn’t mind though, as Boros is just a bad Mono Red deck (at least in the mirror), since they don’t have Searing Blaze, but instead run creatures that die to Searing Blaze. In game 1 I had to mulligan to five on the play, but I still killed him on turn 6 thanks to Staggershock, Earthquake for 4, Earthquake for 4. Game 2 I didn’t have to mulligan and just killed all of his guys (including 4 Cunning Sparkmage) before finishing him with Ball Lightning and Hellspark Elemental. Sideboarding:
-3 Earthquake, +2 Forked Bolt, +1 Chandra Nalaar
As for bringing in Chandra: I expected the game to go longer after sideboard, as I knew he was bringing in 4 Celestial Purge. I also wanted to bring in Quenchable Fire but couldn’t find something to take out. I figured the only way I could lose was an unanswered Lynx or Geopede, so I wanted to keep all my removal.
2-0
Round 3: versus Boros
Ding! Boros again! At least this guy had updated his list with Kiln Fiend and Emerge Unscathed. He still didn’t have any Searing Blaze though, and the games were once again not really close.
3-0 (6-0 in games and none of them were close), guess I’d made the right decision.
Unfortunately It was time to draft. Most of the time at Nationals I’m happy when the first three rounds are over, as drafting is just so much more fun than Constructed, but this time I kinda wanted the tournament to be Standard only, as I felt I had one of the best decks in the room.
Triple ROE draft is coming to an end, and a lot has been said about it already so I won’t get into detail about my drafts. My strategy was rather simple: take whatever comes. I didn’t mind drafting White, unlike most of the other pros, and my favorite archetypes are RB Tokens and UW (levelers or control with lots of Hartebeests). I do try to avoid Gxx ramp decks, as I had little experience with that kind of deck, and had put up poor results whenever I did try.
My first deck wasn’t very good. It had some good cards like double Vendetta, Flame Slash and Corpsehatch, but it was missing the key cards like Bloodthrone Vampire and Emrakul’s Hatcher for a good RB Token deck. I think the Top 10 commons for RB Tokens looks something like this:
1. Staggershock
2. Vendetta
3. Flame Slash
4. Induce Despair
5. Heath Ray
6. Bloodthrone Vampire
7. Emrakul’s Hatcher
8. Last Kiss
9. Cadaver Imp
10. Bala Ged Scorpion
Bloodthrone Vampire is pretty high on that list, but I really think he’s essential. Not only does he make all the cards that produce Spawn tokens a lot better, but he’s also very good against Domestication and Staggershock (two cards which can destroy RB on their own).
I split my first two matches of the draft (losing to Christophe Gregoir’s WG Aura deck), and was paired against Dennis Stone’s RB double Reinforced Bulwark deck in the third round of the draft. Unfortunately, his deck also included 2 Staggershock, Hellcarver Demon and Disaster Radius, four cards my deck couldn’t really handle. Guess I’d need some help from my opponent.
Game 1: Dennis attacks with his level three Null Champion into my Akoum Boulderfoot. Unfortunately he sandbags his Disaster Radius just long enough and wins the game with Splinter Twin on his Hellcarver Demon.
Game 2: Dennis forgets to regenerate his Null Champion when I block with my 4/4. I win the game shortly after.
Game 3: Dennis is winning with Null Champion but I keep playing, because you never know… he’s also got Splinter Twin + Emrakul’s Hatcher, so things are looking grim. At some point during the game Dennis says “I’m not forgetting to regenerate this time…”
Guess what happened next turn?
5-1
I was relieved to get a 2-1 out of this deck. The match I lost wasn’t very close, and had Dennis played better I’d have lost for sure.
My second draft deck looked really good, but I felt like it was missing real synergy .
– It had Echo Mage but only few spells to copy (1 Staggershock, 1 Regress, and something I don’t remember)
– It had triple Guard Gomazoa, but didn’t have any Vent Sentinel
– It didn’t have counters and only a single Narcolepsy to handle the Eldrazi (triple Gomazoa doesn’t really help versus Annihilate).
The deck performed just as I expected. I won two close matches against UW and RB but lost against Pascal’s Pestilence Demon two games in a row.
7-2, and for the first time in several years things were actually looking good after the draft portion. I had a good Constructed deck and only needed to go 2-1 to make Top 8. I went out to get some fresh air and food, put on some more The Killers, and was ready to battle.
Round 10: versus NLB
Next Level Bant was one of the decks I had actually tested against, and I knew it was a good matchup. NLB just doesn’t do a whole lot before turn 3 (or turn 4 if you kill their Hierarchs and Birds), and your only fear is a fast Vengevine followed by a Sphinx of the Lost Truths. I got a bit afraid when I double-mulliganed into 4 land + Staggershock game 1, but I drew very well after that and won on turn 6 or 7.
Sideboarding: +1 Forked Bolt, -1 Burst Lightning
I like to keep in Hellspark Elemental, as Wall of Omens isn’t really a problem with 4 Spires + 4 Peaks, and there is not much to bring in anyway.
Game 2 was pretty typical for this matchup, as my opponent was always on the back foot and I couldn’t really cast things to get back in the game out of fear for Ball Lightning or Hell’s Thunder. The game took a bit longer because of that, but it still wasn’t close.
8-2
Round 11: versus Naya
From what I’d heard, Naya was a pretty bad matchup for RDW. The deck is similar to NLB (Vengevine + acceleration), but replaces the bad defensive cards versus RDW (like Wall of Omens, Sea Gate Oracle, and Jace) for good offensive cards (Knight of the Reliquary and Bloodbraid Elf). On top of that, there is Behemoth Sledge and Basilisk Collar, both which cause trouble in the late-game.
I lost game 1 due to Stirring Wildwood + Behemoth Sledge (while I was holding Earthquake and Lightning Bolt), but won the next two (despite another mulligan to 5) thanks to Quenchable Fire. Game 2 could have gone either way, but a small mistake from my opponent cost him the game. The turn after I played Quenchable Fire he could have played Lotus Cobra, made a land to produce Blue mana and pay for the Quenchable Fire, but instead opted to just play Knight of Reliquary.
9-2 aaaaaaand… Top 8! And that after ‘only’ 10 failures!
Round 12: Concession Draw versus Pascal Vieren with Mythic
A rather interested situation came up in round 12. Both Pascal and I didn’t want to be first after the swiss, as the winner of our match would be paired either against Pascal’s brother Peter or against a guy playing Brilliant Ultimatum (a bad matchup for both me and Pascal). As we were first and second after round 11, a draw was not possible either. So we both wanted to concede… but who’s got priority? I tried convincing Pascal to just play it out (Mono Red is pretty good at killing itself) but he didn’t fall for that. We consulted the judges and the solution was simple: we would be playing for it, and the winner of the match got to concede. When Pascal won game 1 on turn 5, I decided to just offer the draw so I could scout what my Top opponent was playing.
9-2-1
Luck was not on my side when standings went up. I was indeed in first place, but the guy playing Brilliant Ultimatum had beaten Peter and we would have to play each other the next day.
At least I had scouted his sideboard…
– 3 Pithing Needle
– 1 Oust
– 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
– 1 All is Dust
– 2 Duress
Looking great… Oh wait, that’s only 8.
– 4 Kor Firewalker
– 3 Baneslayer Angel
Yep, you guessed it. Quarterfinals exit.
AGAIN.
As predicted, I won game 1 easily (killing him on turn 5 despite Turn 2 Wall of Omens, Turn 3 Wall of Omens) but after that things went downhill. I was able to steal one more game due to some misplays on my opponent’s side, but the other 3 games were never close, as Kor Firewalker showed up on turn 2 three times in a row.
Despite my loss in the quarterfinals, I still think Mono Red is the way to go in the current metagame (and I guess Katsuhiro Mori has proven me right). UW is your only bad matchup, and NLB or Turboland are both very good matchups. Here is the list I’d play right now:
Creatures (18)
Lands (13)
Spells (29)
Sideboard
If you need any more help, feel free to contact me on the forums or on facebook. I’m always glad to help.
Thanks for reading, and good luck at your Nationals!