Getting There: Part 2

Introduction
When we left our hero, his latest heroics included falling in a valiant fight to a horde of evil, angry and unpleasant Thundersong Trumpeters, and coming tenth in the most forgettable Pro Tour Qualifier of all time, or something. Hmm, I’ve forgotten what I just said…

I really really really want to write an epic and glamorous intro that shall be remembered through the ages for all eternity, but a) I’m too tired because I stayed up all night rooting for Prof to win PT Honolulu and following the travesty that was the Oscars; and b) I have a lot to get through, lots of princesses to save and dragons to slay all whilst fighting my inner demons.

A few weeks ago Prof showed up at a PTQ and I asked him, “Aren’t you already qualified for Prague?” and he replied, “Nooooo.” So, I obviously claim clairvoyance here as I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Prof didn’t need to bother with anything as low as qualifiers. Congratulations, Prof, on a great and memorable performance! [For those who are oblivious, “Prof” is the nickname of the one and only Craig Jones. — Craig (not Jones).]

As for the Oscars, the best film of the year by far was Walk the Line, and the second best film isn’t deserving of being mentioned in the same paragraph. Most of the best picture nominees took their weighty topics as an excuse to gloss over any attempt to engage the audience on an emotional level, and many seemed more interested in the historical details than in the story they were telling.

The Oscars got it all wrong? You don’t say, that never happened before… Oh look, that was actually an intro, even if it was hardly epic.

Anyway, on with the show. I headed up north to some PTQs and it honestly wasn’t because the level of competition is lower at northern PTQs, especially now that there seems to be a rather large contingent of Scottish players who head there to poach the slots. On the other hand, there is definitely a dearth of regular weekly Drafts, which I know from experience leads to a deterioration of Limited play skills. Magic Online helps a lot, but it isn’t that widely used either and doesn’t quite match up.

The first stop of my northern tour was the “beautiful” city of Bradford. Thirty-five players showed up, everyone registered a deck upon arrival, and the deck construction started soon. I was given the deck my friend Amar Dattani registered, that he described as “complete chod”. Take a look for yourself:

PTQ Card Pool

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (43)

Lands (3)

This card pool is very strange, and I think it perfectly shows what this format is all about. Well, that’s what I thought at the end of that day…

And…

…

The first thing to note about this card pool is that it has each and every mana fixer in the entire history of the world ever. Of course this is a big deal. Seriously, if you open Civic Wayfinder, Silhana Starfletcher, Farseek and Spectral Searchlight in your Sealed pool, then you should do a victory lap unless a) you’re clinically dead, b) the rest of the card pool consists of nothing but Zephyr Spirits and Starved Rusalkas, or c) you don’t want to jinx yourself by counting your chickens before they are hatched. Here’s my deck, I will then explain how I decided on this build and how and why it works.

PTQ Deck

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (15)

Lands (16)

Spells (9)

I believe this deck is definitely the way to go with this card pool and it worked a treat. In the following I will use this deck to illustrate a few points about the format.

#1: The role of mana fixers and color balance.
There are two things that can put a great strain on your mana base: lots of colors, and lots of colored mana symbols in your colors. Having this much mana fixing is a temptress that can pull you in many different directions, and if you don’t fight the vile temptation it is going to pull you limb from limb. I’ve seen people who would suggest playing Pillory of the Sleepless and Disembowel in a deck like this, alongside Brightflame and Skarrgan Skybreaker, even without this much mana fixing. While there are card pools where playing a fourth color is a realistic possibility – or even a necessity – this ain’t one of them. This deck contains double colored mana in all three of its colors, and thanks to all the fixing it is wonderfully consistent, at least relatively speaking.

#2: The role of bombs and power level.
When building this deck I was a bit apprehensive about the three (three!) seven-drops, but in this format they are really good, and there is almost never a problem with getting them out. When things stall, as they often do, then having huge expensive things that can break that up – or at least put your opponent under pressure – is awesome. Decks can win without bombs, but that doesn’t mean anyone should leave their on-color seven- to nine-mana spells in the board, ever.

An interesting mistake people make is to confuse this Sealed situation with Draft. Battering Wurm, for instance, is a bomb in Sealed, but pretty much completely unplayable in Draft. Razia, Boros Archangel wins many Sealed games on her own, but becomes an utterly unreliable occasional filler finisher in Draft. The only spells that are really bombs in both formats no matter what are mass removal spells, but in this block even those generally require Draft decks to be built around them.

#3: The significance of mana curve and tempo.
During deck construction I was actually considering playing a B/U/r deck because it wouldn’t have had such an ugly mana curve. It doesn’t matter as much as it used to; decks can happily succeed with three seven-drops and only one two-drop. A lot of decks are like that these days. Some people seem to believe that there basically is no early game anymore, and they will have many a rude awakening when they face a decent fast-beats-with-a-backup-plan deck. Benevolent Ancestor and Nullmage Shepherd are both excellent defensive creatures, and they combine with Brightflame and the copious mana acceleration to mean this deck doesn’t suffer too badly at the hands of a rush deck.

Let’s see how the deck fared.

Round 1 versus Martin Sylvester (G/W/B)
Game 1 saw me quite seriously manaflooded and his Elvish Skysweeper meant I couldn’t play my flyers out quickly, but I got Hypervolt Grasp on Civic Wayfinder and disposed of that problem. Unfortunately he had Sword of the Paruns; fortunately, he wasn’t using it properly. He was so scared of losing creatures to the Grasp that he just left it on a Courier Hawk. He also forgot about the tap or untap ability of the sword, yet despite his, shall we say, very conservative play he still managed to run his Mourning Thrull into the grasp. I shouldn’t have won this game in a million years, but I somehow pulled it out. This added to my first impression that my deck was somewhat dodgy.

Game 2 he gets out a Selesnya Evangel, followed by a Guildmage of the same persuasion. All I get is a Nullmage Shepherd with Hypervolt Grasp. He then puts Pollenbright Wings on his Guildmage and things are looking almost scary. End of turn I ping him rather than one of his Saprolings because I knew there was a Mountain waiting on top of my deck, I just knew. Brightflame for three solved all my problems and left him with no gas, whereas I had a pinger on the board, two Skarrgan Skybreakers in hand and thirty-six life. I think that could be considered somewhat of a slight turnaround.

1-0, 2-0

Round 2 versus Keith Spragg (U/R)
Keith said before we started that he would like to qualify for Prague, and that he thought he had a deck that could carry him to the top 8. His deck was an aggressive 2-color U/R build that could quickly kill you if it had the tempo edge. As I alluded to plenty of times, I think this is a weak sort of deck, as there is just too much removal, too much lifegain, and too many efficient fatties in the format. It may work occasionally, but the best decks around need either piles of fat, piles of removal, or an otherwise mighty impressive endgame.

Game 1 he mulligans and is stuck on three mana for a long time, while my Burning-Tree Bloodscale eats first his freshly-cast Gelectrode, then all the other monsters he plays, before teaming up with a Conclave Equenaut to eat him.

Game 2 his aggressive start sputters somewhat for lack of a second Blue mana, though it turns into a race, with his flyers racing my seven-mana monsters. Battering Wurm hits him a bit; the first Skybreaker needs to kill one of his dudes to keep me alive; but the second can fulfil his purpose of doming. There’s not much hope for aggressive decks when decks teeming with seven-mana monsters can outrace them.

2-0, 4-0

Round 3 versus Ben Russell (G/U/R)
Ben looked like he was going to pass out at any moment and said that he didn’t feel so good. He had gone out drinking the night before for the first time in ages, and today he managed to pull himself away from World of Warcraft to play Magic. It showed that he was a good player who wasn’t particularly close to the top of his game.

In game 1 he ran his Ledgewalker into my Starfletcher. Interestingly even the judge needed to double-check that the ‘Fletcher can block, something he wouldn’t have had to do had he judged at the Pre-Release in London where I had to answer the “spider-question” about one million times! He made another mistake later on, playing Mark of Eviction on my Bramble Elemental, and then I managed to kill him the turn before his Streetbreaker Wurm wearing Infiltrator’s Magemark would’ve killed me.

Game 2 saw a serious ground stall develop, and I can’t play my flyers because he has a Skysweeper. I find Hypervolt Grasp to kill the offender, and then start swinging with my Equenaut. My bloodthirsted Battering Wurm is held at bay by his bloodthirsted Ghor-Clan Savage, until he tries to play Infiltrator’s Magemark on it, in response to which I play Fiery Conclusion and ping it to remove the offender. There was a definite mistake there, in that he should’ve played the Magemark on another creature, though that would only have bought him a turn.

3-0, 6-0

Round 4 versus Richard Hagon (U/B/G)
Richard had beaten me in the first PTQ of the season so I was out for vengeance. He mulligans and keeps a one land plus signet hand, missing his second land drop, while I accelerate into an early Bramble Elemental. Bramby meets Clinging Darkness, but eventually a Battering Wurm comes to the party and takes home the prize.

Game 2 I try to play Hypervolt Grasp on Bramby. He is Putrefied in response, but then jumps to a fiery conclusion, removing a very threatening Stratozeppelid. My flyers race his infiltrating Mossdog, and I win the race thanks to his mana problems the turn after he plays Dream Leash.

4-0, 8-0

Rounds 5 & 6 versus Eddie Ross and Mike Major
Eddie and I ID and then head for the bar to have a pint and watch the football results come in, then we go back, ID again and I just hang about, relaxing in anticipation of the top 8.

I didn’t think in a million years that my deck could get me through with a second tiebreaker of 100%, but it happened. It turns out the deck was really good. The high curve was a worry beforehand, as was the abundance of Red mana symbols, but it turned out to be fine with all the mana fixing and acceleration. The other concern I had was that there was too much reliance on bloodthirst and not enough ways to ensure I get it. Between the flyers and the Hypervolt Grasp, however, it was never a problem. Hypervolt Grasp was definitely the MVP, never as crushingly awesome as the Skybreakers or the Brightflame, but a workhorse that enabled so many things, from removing Skyweepers to enable air attacks to making Saprolings with Bramby to enabling Bloodthirst on a stalled board. I did outplay one or two opponents, although I probably could’ve made top 8 without playing quite as tight as I did.

In the top 8 Draft I open Hour of Reckoning and start taking Saproling generators really high, but unfortunately there isn’t much White coming my way. Not wanting to lose my bomb I forced White wherever possible. For instance, I first-picked a Ghost Warden and picked White double lands highly. Unfortunately, the deck turned out “torn,” and the Hour was frequently uncastable. Check out this schizophrenic weirdo:

PTQ Draft Deck

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (17)

Lands (16)

Spells (7)

Quarter-final versus Ben Russell
Ben looked a lot better than he did several rounds ago, some of the color had returned to his face. He put together a G/B/w deck and a much better game.

Game 1 was the best game of Magic I’ve played in a long time. At one point I had a bunch of little Green men facing off against a Sewerdreg and a Drooling Groodion. He blocks and I play Cleansing Beam to off his men. Unfortunately, as he can sacrifice the Sewerdreg I need to play it on the Groodion, losing my entire board in the process and leaving me with nothing but land in play or in hand. One turn he attacks me with lethal damage, but is foiled by Boros Fury-Shield. I play Overwhelm with only one creature, a big Ghor-Clan Savage, and attack for lethal, but he survives on two life thanks to Last Gasp. I eventually win it on one life, while controlling a creature enchanted by a Pillory of the Sleepless that I can’t remove. Wow!

Game 2 he beats me down to three life with an Ivy Dancing bloodthirsty Ghor-Clan Savage, until I cast Hour of Reckoning with five tokens in play that Overwhelm him the next turn. This was the sort of match that makes you pity those who don’t play Magic.

Semi-final versus Steve Newberry
After making virtually no mistakes all day this was a scrubfest to end them all. His deck wasn’t all that good, and I took game 1 easily even though I made several mistakes… like pulling the Galvanic Arc out of my hand when I meant to play Cleansing Beam (and, bizarrely, announcing that it was Galvanic Arc I was playing), and not making a Saproling with Evangel at end of turn.

Game 2 all my notes say is “Shouldn’t’ve kept that @#!%$%& hand!” It contained two Forest as only lands, and absolutely zero castable spells even with some more Forests.

Game 3 I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done, as his previously stealthy air force came out and battered me. If I had seen them before I could’ve sideboarded in Crash Landing, leaving me less helpless. Oh well.

While I stumbled on the home stretch, I did manage to take a lot of confidence and valuable lessons away from this PTQ. After winning game 1 of the semis I was already in the final, in my mind and became arrogant and disrespectful. Although his deck wasn’t the best, it was good enough not to beat itself. Unlike me. I was already having daydreams about Prague and about what I could do the following day, having not needing to go to PTQs anymore. I completely forgot that there was still an opponent to overcome, not to mention another waiting to be met in the final.

Never mind, up early and off to Doncaster the next morning; thirty-six players in attendance and this card pool to work with:

PTQ Card Pool 2

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (46)

Lands (1)

1 Orzhov Basilica

The previous deck had awesome mana fixing and some nice late game bombs. This card pool is very different…

…

Here’s the deck I put together:

PTQ Deck 2

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (18)

Lands (16)

Spells (6)

This is quite a patchwork, like a bunch of parts from different good Sealed decks thrown together to somehow form a new functioning Sealed deck. It has some removal, some flyers, and some late game with Wurms, but it doesn’t do any of these things with the aplomb that makes you jump up and shout Hallelujah since you’re making top 8 today, baby. I wish I could’ve fitted the Firebird in somehow, but greed is the downfall of all those wicked enough to succumb to it. Time for some round-by-round action.

Round 1 versus James Love (5c)
James was part of the now obligatory Scottish raiding party and his deck was a powerful 5-color mess. In the first two games we took five mulligans between us, and I lost game 1 as he had turn 3 Moroii, backed up by Selesnya Evangel and Fiery Conclusion.

Game 2 I won because he had very little apart from all the land in the world.

Game 3 he had some game, but too many cards stranded in his hand for lack of the proper mana. Consistency beats power in the end.

2-0, 2-1

Round 2 versus Zead Said (G/W/B/r)
This is exactly the same as the previous round. My rainbow playing opponent wins game 1, loses game 2 to manaflood, and game 3 to color issues. Gotta love facing self-destructive decks.

2-0, 4-2

Round 3 versus Andrew Leeder (removal.dec)
Two Pillory, Mortify, Ribbons of Night, Dismisser, Counterspells, Angel of Despair, and only three colors. I can beat that any day. Not.

2-1, 5-4

Round 4 versus Mark Lowe (G/W/B/R)
For the fourth round in a row I lose game 1, but for the third round out of four I pull off the win against a four-color (or more) deck thanks to more consistent mana. I also had the welcome sight of my opponent playing Master Warcraft as a desperation Fog.

3-1, 7-5

Round 5 versus Mark Voisey
When I saw the pairings I had flashbacks of the last time I was at this venue where I missed top 8 thanks to Mark, his Takeno’s Cavalry, and our unintentional draw in the final round; and considering my deck never seemed particularly special, I thought my tournament would be over at the end of the match.

In game 1 I hold back land to represent cards in hand, and then kick myself when I draw Trophy Hunter and realize I need two more mana to shoot his Cerulean Sphinx out of the sky. I had even come to the conclusion that the Hunter was my one out, but failed to lay the land in preparation for the topdeck.

Game 2 is very close, but I can’t recover from the savage Savage Twister. We finish with about a minute left on the clock and decide not to start game 3 and just call it, yet again, an unintentional draw.

3-1-1, 8-6

Round 6 versus Keat Kuang Lim (R/G/W)
Keat Kuang had a very aggressive deck, but once again it didn’t have enough late game to really trouble me. In game 2 he played Savage Twister, but had little to follow it up. I had a Rotwurm and a Turkey at the ready. He was such a nice guy I felt bad for thrashing him so badly.

After going for seven rounds without losing a single game the previous day, it took me until the final round to get a 2-0 in at this one.

4-1-1, 10-6

So I had to play it out all the way to the end of the final round to make it to the Draft table. To be honest, I think it was a good thing, as the concentration levels remain higher, and I think I was in much better shape going into the Draft.

In the Draft, my opening pack contains a lovely Watchwolf, and I avoid the temptation of taking the Overgrown Tomb for the money. It is obvious that Green and White aren’t very heavily drafted: I get a fourth pick Evangel and a sixth pick Pollenbright Wings. Things get truly silly when I pick up a ninth pick Rotwurm, followed by a Skyknight Legionnaire. At the end of the first booster I am leaning towards G/W/r rather than G/W/b because I prefer Gruul to Orzhov and have a Boros Guildmage as well. This changes when I open Vulturous Zombie in pack two.

Going into the third booster I have a more or less complete deck already, but say to myself that I could do with some lands to improve my manabase. I open my Guildpact booster, there is no Pillory or Blind Hunter and the only cards I can use for my deck are Ghor-Clan Savage and Godless Shrine. I needed the mana fixing more than the five-drop, honest, and in either case it was the right decision as the savage tabled! Here’s my final decklist:

PTQ Draft Deck 2

Martin Dingler

Test deck on 03-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (15)

Lands (16)

Spells (9)

Three guildmages is good times, and this deck has incredible early aggression that can often be extended using the plethora of pump spells, and if that’s not enough, then there are three bombs that can take it home in Vulturous Zombie, Pollenbright Wings and Overwhelm. Removal? Pah, who needs it…?

Quarter-final versus James Sampford
I have a truly awesome start with fast beats backed by Seeds of Strength and game 1 goes to the good guys in no time.

Game 2 sees James go first and get some defenses up, and I don’t have a quick rush. I get the Zombie out, but he meets Clinging Darkness. Of course that is only a speed bump… soon he needs to throw bodies in the way of my big Ghor-Clan Savage – first striking thanks to Boros Guildmage – and the Zombie soon becomes the beast he was always meant to be.

Semi-final versus Craig Smith
Game 1 he gets some beats in and then finishes it with a Mortipede.

Game 2 I am on the play, send back seven, send back six and feel deflated, thinking this tournament is over for me. Then I look at my five: Forest, Plains, Selesnya Evangel, Ghost Warden, Screeching Griffin. Hope rises. It rises even more when he also mulligans to five. He can’t put up any resistance to my army of Saprolings and soon succumbs.

Game 3 he plays Last Gasp on my turn 2 Evangel, and dies because he has no removal for my Zombie.

Final versus James Love
Isn’t it lovely when things come full circle like this? James somehow managed to sneak into the top 8 with his random pile of power [yeah, he knocked me out of top 8 contention in the final round by making turn 4 Glare of Subdual both games. — Craig, not bitter at all]. Now the day ends how it started.

In game 1 I beat down fast and hard, with turn 2 Watchwolf, turn 3 Wayfinder, Seeds of Strength, and eventually a bloodthirsted Savage with Pollenbright Wings.

Game 2 I agonize over whether to mulligan a hand with only one land, but four good two-drops. In the end I ship back the seven. Six go back immediately, as do five. James kept his seven. I’m thinking “oh well, I can still win game 3, much easier on the play anyway.” Then I see my four: Godless Shrine, Plains, Boros Guildmage, Elves of Deep Shadow. I play Guildmage on turn 2, then topdeck the Forest. Before long I have an army out, including the Zombie. James, on the other hand, has very little since he kept a hand with no Blue mana. He bounces the Zombie, I replay it and then he plays Flame Fusillade. Fortunately for me, the one card in my hand is Gather Courage, and it was late in the day, so he made a venerable pig’s breakfast out of the Fusillade and when the dust settled all he killed were a few Saprolings. He died to the Zombie soon thereafter.

Since that day I’ve been a right arse, pissing everyone off by talking down their mulligans by saying I went down to four in the finals of a PTQ and still won that game. Remember that foreshadowing in part one about mulliganing? Here’s the proof: flawless mulliganing wins tournaments! Of course, not every deck mulligans as well as this one, with its infinite two-drops, but it’s still a valuable lesson.

For those of you who followed my Sealed Luck series last year and are wondering why I succeeded this time with less than half the number of PTQs and not then, here is what I did differently:

1) Regular Drafting
Last year I didn’t use Magic Online, and didn’t have reliable weekly Drafts… and those Drafts I did have were usually all with the same players, leading to inbred strategies.

2) Less Distraction due to Writing
I didn’t take as many notes as I did last year, and I think it aided my concentration.

3) More Skilful Block
I think, in Kamigawa block, the quality of card pools had a much greater variance, meaning it was easier for the lesser players to beat better players thanks to good card pools.

4) Less Competition
The PTQ attendance numbers are down considerably, in part due to the fact it’s not in London this time. Another contributing factor is the lack of cash to be won. I think the change to plane tickets has reduced the numbers around here.

5) Better Play
My play on this weekend was (mostly) tighter than a gnat’s chuff. No silly mistakes that cost top 8.

6) Preference
In every previous Draft format I had no preference for any specific archetype; I would always go with the flow. Now I avoid Blue cards like the plague, and take Green ones with extreme prejudice. Is that good or bad? It’s hard to tell, but it does mean that I have more experience with the decks I draft, in exchange for the flexibility of yore. This does help, as the Guild model hinders that flexibility considerably anyway.

7) Luck
That Draft deck should not happen. Really, it’s too good to be true.

That’s it for today. I finally made it to the Pro Tour! That’s a great way to have your schedule screwed up. See y’all in Cardiff and/or Prague!

Martin
darkheartothorny on MTGO and SCG forums

Getting There: Part 2

Creatures (43)

Lands (3)

Spells (29)

Creatures (15)

Lands (16)

Spells (9)

Creatures (17)

Lands (16)

Spells (7)

Creatures (46)

Lands (1)

Spells (28)

Creatures (18)

Lands (16)

Spells (6)

Creatures (15)

Lands (16)

Spells (9)