Getting There: Part 1

Since I started writing for this here site here, about my attempts to make it to the big show, I have to face a lot of self-doubt and soul-searching. I started writing about how I was doing in Pro Tour Qualifiers, and I went into these PTQs with an expectation of making Top 8 almost every time, and then eventually winning one. After the Pro Tour London qualifying season I felt deeply humbled. I failed to make Top 8 in 33-player PTQs, I lost out on Top 8 due to Takeno’s (censored) *beep* crash boom bang friggin’ Cavalry, and on the rare occasions I did make it to the Top 8 I screwed up somewhere to deny myself the chance to play that one match for the big prize.

One Magic writer whose writing I always loved, and who inspired me to take up this malarkey in the first place, is John Friggin’ Rizzo. When I started writing he was, of course, dead, having died for our sins, and there was a definite void to fill. Unfortunately, my endeavours resembled his much more in the quality of my playing than that of my writing. Just look at my Grand Prix Nottingham report — it’s a great read, even if I say so myself, and it details a tournament at which I went 4-4. How Rizzoesque is that? At least talking about the old Rizzo, not the new world class deck designer, obliterator of formats, and scourge of the seven seas.

Now, however, He has returned. Rizzo the White has come back to us now, at the turn of the tide. He now has much more clout in the Magic community, has become a Tier 1 theorist of the game rather than someone who people love because he has style, class, and knows the correct spelling of chyx.

If someone like Him, with a resur-erection, can move up and become the dog’s bollocks at what He has always been doing, then maybe, just maybe, so can I.

Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo…

That’s my impression of the Twilight Zone theme, and indicates ominous foreshadowing. I will use it frequently and repeatedly, and everyone will be scared out of their socks at the ominousness of it all. I know my regular readers will probably go insane at the mere suggestion that I could be any good at Magic. Much like the idea that Rizzo could design a deck that wins a Grand Prix. Gives me flashbacks to a hospital in Munich.

Anyway, time to slow things down and go back to the beginning. After my triumph at a huge seventeen-player Grand Prix Trial, it was back to the PTQ circuit the following weekend, where a mere forty players descended on the city of Birmingham. Here’s my card pool:

PTQ Card Pool

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-12-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (42)

Lands (3)

This doesn’t quite have the beatdown opportunities that I’d like, and it doesn’t have the Blue cards to tempt me into playing an awful deck. Red has little to recommend it beyond the solitary Arc, and Blue doesn’t even have that, hence the deck has got to be G/W/B. The question here is: in what proportion? There are several awesome gold cards in all three appropriate guilds, meaning there is an advantage to having an even spread of colors. Here’s the deck I put together:

PTQ Sealed Deck

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-12-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (14)

Lands (6)

4 Swamp
2 Gruul Turf

Spells (20)

I was tempted to remove the Belfry Spirit and replace it with something less color intensive, such as Gaze of the Gorgon, Gruul Scrapper, or Lurking Informant. Sewerdreg didn’t make the cut in this deck due to the double Black in his mana cost, though this was a painful cut. I don’t think there has ever been a format where landwalk is as good as it is in Ravnica: it’s almost designed to make cards that look awful, like Ivy Dancer and Sewerdreg, become absolute bombs.

This seems to be a good time to talk about Lurking Informant, which everybody seems to have a hard-on about at the moment. It’s a very good effect, sure, and most of the time the Informant will do a great job at either denying your opponent the goods or pulling out a removal spell. That being said, the situations where he actually wins the game are few and far between, and paying two mana a turn for a creature that doesn’t get involved in combat and doesn’t otherwise affect the board is often rather undesirable. I frequently find myself wanting something else when I draw or play this guy; namely another attacker when I’m on the offensive or a proper blocker when I’m not. It’s only in the late game when things are fairly under control that he truly shines. He’s a little bit more than a “win more” card, but he is not the auto-include (or even bomb) that some people think he is.

Coming back to this deck, it has everything you could want: flyers, removal, and bombs. Moldervine Cloak seems less fair every time I play with or against it, and a quick Grave-Shell Scarab definitely warms the cockles. I find that four flyers is the ideal number, as more than that tends to lead to terrible situations where your deck just gets wrecked by a single Skysweeper or Trophy Hunter. Any fewer and you are most likely somewhat short on evasive threats, unless you have lots of landwalkers or Infiltrator’s Magemarks.

Time for the quick run-down of what happened in the Swiss:

Round 1 versus Mick Wright (5cG)
Mick’s much like me, he shows up to every PTQ available, often makes top 8, but hasn’t so far qualified (at least to my knowledge). His card pool had the colors spread pretty thin, so he just threw all the best cards together with some lands. Incidentally this is the sort of deck he enjoys playing, so that’s clearly a bonus.

Game 1 he’s manascrewed, and the only spells he plays are a signet, a Veteran Armorer (quickly Doused in Gloom), and a Sunforger with nothing to equip. I beat him down fast and I beat him down hard.

Game 2 he has the nuts and, surprisingly, the mana to cast it all. Tolsimir Wolfblood, Streetbreaker Wurm, Pollenbright Wings, and a well-timed Schizmotivate.

Game 3 I have an early Cloak, and even his Pollenbright Wings (on a non-bloodthirsty Ghor-Clan Savage) couldn’t save him as I had the Pillory handy. Bloodthirst really isn’t all that great if you spend your early turns either fixing mana or doing nothing because your mana ain’t fixed.

Did you know that, according to Microsoft Word, bloodthirsty is a word, but bloodthirst is a spelling error?

1-0, 2-1

Round 2 versus Tom Johnson (B/W)
I think Tom had a two-color deck, which people often seem to be very happy about when they can get it. They shouldn’t be. Two-color decks just don’t have the power to run with the best of them. While consistency has its benefits, two-color decks in this format always sacrifice way too much power to be justifiable.

Game 1 he had some guys, whereas I had some guys, some life gain, some removal…Yeah, it wasn’t even close. Game 2 I have a Cloaked Blind Hunter and he has no answer. Can’t get that in a two-color deck!

2-0, 4-1

Round 3 vs. Pete Hill (G/W/R)
I don’t have good notes because I felt too helpless after losing games 1 and 3 without the hint of a chance because he had Ursapine, and Chord of Calling to find it, and enough acceleration to get it out early with mana open to stop the Last Gasp. On the plus side, all the games were nonetheless close and I did manage to win game 2, which bodes well for the remaining rounds.

2-1, 5-3

Round 4 vs. Matteo Orsini-Jones (G/W/B)
We both opened with turn 1 Elves of Deep Shadow and play some random dudes. I get a Cloak on Stinkweed Imp and he plays Clinging Darkness on it. I have the Seed Spark and his Golgari Guildmage tries to make a game of it, but it just isn’t enough.

Game 2 it takes me a while to find Black mana, but I have a bunch of flyers whereas he only has a bunch of groundpounders. I again Seed Spark his Clinging Darkness, and the flyers take home the prize.

3-1, 7-3

Round 5 vs. James Howl (U/R/B)
Game 1 I curve out beautifully, from a turn 2 Veteran Armorer to a turn 5 Grave-Shell Scarab, and manage the undisputed tempo win.

Game 2 I keep a hand with only two Forests for mana and little action, and die being unable to cast much. This reminds me of…

Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo…

Game 3 he is manaflooded, yet can’t find any Blue mana. He soon succumbs to mighty beats. My car mate Simon O’Keeffe and I decide it would be best if we got paired against each other so we can quickly ID and go grab something to eat.

4-1, 9-4

Round 6 vs. Darryl Tweedale
Simon and I both get paired up, both our opponents are happy to ID and we go get something to eat. It’s generally quite good to have a break before the top 8, which I always thought was the best argument for going for IDs. Maybe, just maybe, however there are arguments for playing till the end…

Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo…

4-1-1, 9-4

I’m hoping to go G/R/w or G/W/x in the top 8 Draft. The booster I open contains the following as relevant cards: Master Warcraft, Boros Guildmage, Siege Wurm, and Halcyon Glaze. I look at this booster and think that the obvious pick would be the Glaze. However, I dislike Blue in this format and haven’t played with it much, so the decision comes down to either the Warcraft or the Wurm. For some reason the presence of the Guildmage put me off and I took the Wurm, which was a huge mistake. I should’ve either taken the Master Warcraft or sucked it up and taken the Glaze… the strange compromise pick didn’t help at all. I take a Last Gasp from the next pack. Seeing as I didn’t pass any decent Black I thought it would be a good move to go G/B.

The next pack has no playable Green or Black cards except Savra, Queen of the Golgari.

So I started drafting the Savra deck, taking Shambling Shells like there’s no tomorrow and Thoughtpicker Witches so highly that they must’ve gotten vertigo. After all’s been said and done, I ended up with this deck:

PTQ Draft Deck

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-12-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (16)

Lands (9)

Spells (15)

This looks promising on paper, what with three Shells and all, but when you look closer… this is a stinking pile of excrement. It has no way of finding Savra, and not much game without her. No evasion, too many random spells that are there mostly to retrieve or protect Savra etc.

In fact, it’s probably not that bad; it’s just the way it got whupped in the one match I played that made it go sour. I must say, though, that I don’t think this is a very good strategy in this brave new world of Guildpact, since there are hardly any cards for it in the brave new part of said world, so you only have two boosters to draft a more or less complete deck that is built around one card. Yeah, great stuff.

Quarterfinal vs. Christopher Harrold (R/W)
This is where I realized just how freakish that Draft was. You think it’s unusual that I got three Shambling Shells (and could’ve had another one if I hadn’t taken Drooling Groodion over it)? Well, it came about because all the boosters in the Draft had the same common runs, more or less. Some people got loads of Shells… others got four Thundersong Trumpeters, three Rally the Righteous, and two Skyknight Legionnaires. My deck was almost hilariously ill-equipped to deal with this sort of thing. I was actually considering sideboarding in two mountains and the Hypervolt Grasp that I got thirteenth pick, because all the Guildpact boosters had the same uncommon run.

Game 1, and I was on nine life with two decent blockers against his Thundersong Trumpeter and Fangtail. His turn?

“That guy can’t block, ping you, Rally the Righteous. The other guy can’t block, ping you, Rally the Righteous. Swing for thirteen, good game.”

I tried to pick my jaw up from the ground but had to admit defeat to gravity once again.

Game 2 was kinda sorta almost a real game, in spite of him playing Thundersong Trumpeters on turns 2, 3, 4, and 5! I got Savra plus Shambling Shell going, but he came out really fast. Thanks to the song of thunder, my creatures could never ever block. There was an interesting situation where, after I managed to clear out all the Trumpeters, I blocked a 2/2 with Savra who had two +1/+1 counters from shells on her. The other guy then played Graven Dominator hoping to kill Savra. Thanks to the recent rules changes, however, the counters still count and Savra survived. Unfortunately, I was at two life and facing the Dominator and a Legionnaire… and could only make him sac one of them. I am still shocked by how ridiculous his deck was.

Chris went on to lose in the final to Simon and his Darkblast. I really wish I had picked up that Darkblast! It was an absolute wrecking ball against Chris’s deck; it was like watching a cat torture a mouse. Simon’s multiple Entrancers then performed the mercy killing.

This Draft demonstrates that you ignore Guildpact at your peril. You just can’t draft the way you did in triple-Ravnica anymore. The best Drafts are the ones where you set yourself up beautifully to receive the goods in Guildpact, and when you don’t, then it tends to never be enough stuff you picked up in the first two boosters.

Bonus Section: The day after the PTQ above I went to another one in Gravesend. This is my card pool:

PTQ Card Pool 2

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-12-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (41)

Lands (5)

Spells (29)

This looks very solid. In fact it looks awesome. This is my deck:

PTQ Deck 2

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-12-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (15)

Lands (4)

Spells (21)

It was a tiny PTQ with only twenty-seven players, and I failed to make top 8 with this deck. I’m still unsure why. Did I not play well enough? I didn’t notice making too many mistakes, although I could’ve mulliganed more.

Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo Doo doo…

Was I just unlucky with my draws? Most of the games I lost I had some sort of mana issue, and that shouldn’t really happen in a deck that has three on-color double lands and two on-color signets. Or is this deck maybe, just maybe, not actually that good. Does it need more evasion? Are the bombs too conditional? Is the removal too conditional/not enough? Does it contain too many mana sources? Too few? Not the right ones? Should it have been Black instead of Red? Does it need a better mana curve? Discuss!

Most games it either blew the opponent away in spectacular fashion or lost. Not much middle ground.

Join me for the conclusion in part II where the suspense shall be released and everything shall be explained. So of course it’ll tarnish the memory of part one’s fabulosity.

‘Ave a good ‘un,

Martin

darkheartothorny on SCG forums and MTGO

Creatures (42)

Lands (3)

Spells (30)

Creatures (14)

Lands (6)

Spells (20)

Creatures (16)

Lands (9)

Spells (15)

Creatures (41)

Lands (5)

Spells (29)

Creatures (15)

Lands (4)

Spells (21)