I did not have high hopes going into Grand Prix Austin. My results thus far in Innistrad Limited had been unspectacular: brick Santiago, top 64 San Diego, and 3-3 at Worlds. And because I wasn’t planning on going to this GP until they announced they were bringing back pro points, I hadn’t drafted since Worlds.
After booking my flight, I re-familiarized myself with the format by doing ten-ish drafts on Magic Online in the week and a half before the tournament. Any time I tried to draft a gimmick deck, it was a train-wreck, so I decided to try and stick to the basics for the GP: G/W and U/x mill yourself.
On Friday I went to dinner with the Channel Fireball guys and Cedric at a family-style BBQ place called Stubbs. I don’t know where this places ranks in the hierarchy of Austin BBQ, but it was pretty good and had some sweet sides like Serrano cheese spinach and mashed sweet potatoes. As usual the conversation turned to evaluating the value of ridiculous and impossible things. Since most of these scenarios are centered around BenS, we had things like: “How much would you pay to have Chik-fil-A appear any time you want it?” and, “How much would it take for you to only eat Chik-fil-A for a year?”
After dinner we did a team draft and my deck ended up very mediocre. I had to run Skaab Ruinator and Skaab Goliath with only two ways to mill myself. I went 1-1 and was down a game to Luis when the draft ended. What a good start to the weekend!
Orrin and I headed to our hotel to check in, where I have the following interaction with the manager:
“Didn’t you guys check in earlier?”
“Nope, we just got here.”
“Are you here for the Magic tournament?”
“Yep.”
“If I didn’t see you earlier, how would I know that?”
“Because we look like nerds?”
“I have glasses, do I look like a nerd?”
“Absolutely.”
“Blah blah blah here’s why I’m not a nerd.”
“Can we have some cookies?” (We were staying at the Doubletree.)
We assumed that this meant Reid Duke was staying at the hotel, and has a friend that is a bizarro version of me, but I forgot to ask him about it when I saw him.
Sealed Deck, Where Everyone is the Mayor
This was the second GP to have the sleep-in special, the first being Montreal. For those who don’t know, you pay extra to not have to show up until after your byes. Your pool is also preregistered. This is one of the greatest ideas ever, and I do not know why every TO hasn’t implemented it. It is especially absurd that it hasn’t happened at a Constructed GP yet, since there seems to be very little additional work there.
On Saturday Orrin and I slept until 10 and then ate crepes with BenS before heading to the site. Once there, we got to jump right into building our decks, thanks to the preregistration. I love you, sleep-in special.
Here is what I built:
Typhoid Rats
Deranged Assistant
Manor Skeleton
Ludevic’s Test Subject
One-Eyed Scarecrow
Civilized Scholar
Laboratory Maniac
Village Cannibals
Fortress Crab
Galvanic Juggernaut
Makeshift Mauler x2
Morkrut Banshee
Bloodgift Demon
Murder of Crows
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Dead Weight
Victim of Night x2
Forbidden Alchemy
Claustrophobia
Dissipate
Heretic’s Punishment
Island x7
Swamp x8
Mountain x2
Relevant Sideboard:
Brain Weevil
Vampire Interloper
Invisible Stalker
Rotting Fensnake x2
Ghoulcaller’s Chant x2
Lost in the Mist
Rolling Temblor
Night Terrors
This deck has quite a few sub-par cards in it: Manor Skeleton, One-Eyed Scarecrow, Fortress Crab, Laboratory Maniac, etc. But all of these allowed me to reach to the late game, where my bombs could take over. One nice thing was that these creatures were not totally dead late, since they could untap Grimgrin. If not for needing a decent creature count with the legend, I probably would have played Lost in Mist or Night Terrors over one of the random crappy guys.
The only other color in consideration was white, which had a pretty solid curve highlighted by Slayer of the Wicked, 2 Rebuke, and 2 Voiceless Spirit. Rebuke isn’t great, but it is stronger in sealed and really no more situational than Victim of Night. Playing U/B did force me to play a lot of filler cards, but the power level of the good cards made up for that. I considered splashing Slayer, but I figured Heretic’s Punishment would be better with sealed being a little slower. I am still not sure if that is right, because I only had a couple of games where I was able to take over with it. I had multiple games where it was or would have been too slow.
Rolling Temblor did not make the main deck because small ground creatures are not that prevalent in sealed. It is actually pretty mediocre in this Limited format in general; if it ever makes my draft maindeck, it is the 23rd card. Temblor did come in quite often during the tournament as a way to kill Mayor of Avabruck, which almost all of my opponents had.
Ghoulcaller’s Chant came in if my opponent had removal that actually killed guys. A lot of the removal in the format is enchantments or bounce, so I do not like maindecking Chant typically. But the card is maindeckable if you are milling yourself, or if you do not have many win conditions.
I sided in Rotting Fensnake a few times for Laboratory Maniac and Village Cannibals if they had creatures that were too large to trade with those guys, such as Galvanic Juggernaut.
Vampire Interloper and Invisible Stalker were both terrible in my deck, which was just trying to make it to the late game.
Round 4
I lost game 1 to Mayor of Avabruck. Games 2 and 3 I had Bloodgift and Grimgrin , while he drew a lot of land. After the match he told me he had Garruk Relentless, further proving that you want to play against people with three byes in sealed tournaments. If your opponent is undefeated without byes, his deck is probably bonkers.
4-0
Round 5
I had actually played my opponent in Montreal last year. During that match, I got stuck on lands both game while he did fair things like flip Grave Titan off Djinn of Wishes. This left me pretty sour and I was kind of rude to him after the match, which I later felt bad about. So I was glad to finally have the opportunity to apologize.
Game 1 I took a mulligan to 5, miss a couple of land drops, and quickly scooped to Angelic Overseer. I feared this might be a repeat of our last match, but luckily in Games 2 and 3 I drew Bloodgift Demon and Grimgrin.
5-0
Round 6
My opponent was playing G/W with a splash for Silent Departure. I narrowly won Game 1 through active Mayor of Avabruck, thanks to Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. Game 2 I sided in Rolling Temblor even though it wasn’t a great answer to Mayor both splashed and on the draw, but I figured he won’t always have it turn 2. I had Temblor and Mountain in my opener, so I kept. He played turn 1 Champion of the Parish and turn 2 Mayor. Crap. I had a turn 2 play to stop the flip and luckily he played turn 3 Hamlet Captain instead of flipping, which was almost certainly right since he had no reason to think he needed to play around Temblor. I played Mountain Temblor, which still left him with a Champion. I followed up with Bloodgift Demon, Murder of Crows, and right after he says, “please no more five drops” a morbid Morkrut Banshee.
6-0
Round 7
I was paired against Dave Williams this round, and actually thought I was at the wrong table at first. It turned out there are two Magic players with that name. He told me there is also a Patrick Cox who PTQs in Texas. Weird.
He got a little constricted on mana in the games, stuck at around four lands, while I drew powerful five drops. He did kill Bloodgift Demon in one of the games, but the follow-up Murder of Crows still got the job done.
7-0
Round 8
My opponent mulled to five on the play, while I kept a good hand. “This should be an easy one,” I thought foolishly. He played turn 1 Reckless Waif, turn 2 Mayor of Avabruck, turn 3 Gatstaf Shepherd. I flipped Test Subject relatively early (turn 6 or 7) with three other guys in play, and was already dead on the crack-back if I swung.
Game 2 he played turn 1 Stromkirk Noble and turn 3 Orchard Spirit, but I managed to hold the Noble at bay with Typhoid Rats and Scarecrow. I played Heretic’s Punishment and he played Galvanic Juggernaut, which Rats traded with. He had another Juggernaut to follow up, but I had Victim of Night. I managed to pick off everything he played with Punishment, including a Kruin Outlaw, and gave his nutty deck its first game loss of the day.
Game 3 I killed three guys with Temblor, including both rare werewolves, leaving him one card in hand. So I figured I was in good shape. His follow up was Falkenrath Marauders, which I lost to when my Forbidden Alchemy didn’t yield a Claustrophobia. He told me he had a second copy of Marauders in his deck. He also played Elder of Laurels one game (I forgot which, as I immediately Victimed it). “Yeah, I opened nine rares. I’m playing six.” That is a direct quote.
7-1
Round 9
Game 1 was incredibly drawn out, and mostly involved us just staring at each other on a stalled board. I had a Laboratory Maniac in play, and was reluctant to do anything with it in case I drew Heretic’s Punishment or Deranged Assistant to mill myself. I eventually drew Assistant and managed to mill myself a turn or two before I would die to an Angel of Flight Alabaster with a Butcher’s Cleaver.
The end of the game was actually incredibly awkward because I thought he was scooping a turn early (perhaps realizing he had no outs), and he thought I said I was scooping, but we did not realize the communication error until we had both picked up our cards. Luckily since he was dead the next turn he just checked his top card, found a land, and agreed that I would have won. This was a pretty stand-up way for my opponent (Larry Waymon) to handle the situation, and I definitely appreciated it.
Game 2 was very close, since he has an active Mayor for quite a few turns. He also cast Garruk Relentless into a clogged board with my hand empty, though I did have a Murder of Crows and his Angel of Flight Alabaster was 3/4 thanks to Scarecrow. I topdecked Victim of Night for his Fiend Hunter that had a Morkrut Banshee trapped under it, which killed the Angel and let me kill Garruk that turn. Orrin later pointed out that I should have just killed the Mayor and made him either chump with the Angel or lose Garruk, which was probably correct.
He drew Avacynian Priest for Murder of Crows, while his army grew. His board was three wolves, Mayor, and Priest with me at 11 and him at 5 versus my Manor Skeleton and Murder of Crows. I cast Grimgrin and sacrificed Skeleton, then used Rolling Temblor to kill only Priest. He played an end of turn Ambush Viper to give him 14 power, which I can only block three of, but his Mayor flipped thanks to me casting two spells. He passed back and I attacked with both guys, killing Mayor and trading Viper for Grimgrin. I cast Heretic’s Punishment with him at 1 and Dissipate up, allowing me to finish day one at 8-1!
8-1
Orrin and I headed to the main bar/restaurant street which was conveniently near the convention center. The Mexican place we ended up at had chicken stuffed with cornbread and cheese, which was both awesome and healthy. We ran into BDM on our way out, and he made the usual jokes about how Orrin looks like Evil Reid Duke, which will never get old. He asked me if I had a plan for Sunday, and I told him I only knew how to draft two decks, if that counted as a plan.
Draft 1: G/W Travel Prep
Unfortunately they didn’t have the sleep-in special on day 2, even though I’d have gladly paid another 20 dollars to not get up at 7AM. I obviously got up too early, because the crepes place wasn’t even open yet!
As I said earlier, I have not had much success with the gimmick decks (Spider Spawning, Burning Vengeance, etc), so I was really just looking to go G/W or U/x mill yourself in the drafts. I started this draft with Silent Departure and Deranged Assistant, but getting passed a Travel Preparations third was a pretty strong signal that G/W was open, so I made the switch. Here is what I ended up with:
Selfless Cathar
Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Spectral Rider
Unruly Mob
Gatstaf Shepherd
Elder of Laurels
Elder Cathar x3
Voiceless Spirit
Village Bell-Ringer
Villagers of Estwald
Ulvenwald Mystics
Festerhide Boar
Grizzled Outcasts x2
Prey Upon
Bonds of Faith
Moment of Heroism
Feeling of Dread
Travel Preparations x2
Smite the Monstrous
This deck was about average for the archetype, and I thought it was good for a 2-1. Having two Travel Preparations is great, but I wasn’t thrilled about main-decking Smite the Monstrous or Feeling of Dread in a deck that wasn’t blue. I ran an Island so I wasn’t totally unable to flashback the Feeling, and considered running a second to splash the Silent Departure. I decided I would rather have a Smite that I could definitely cast than a Departure that might get stranded in my hand, though. There were some mediocre creatures in the deck, but none could be cut since you typically want about seventeen guys in a Travel Prep deck and I was sitting at sixteen.
I have mostly drafted this set on MODO, and one cool upside I found drafting this archetype with physical cards is that you can see what werewolves you are likely to get in the next few packs, and adjust your picks accordingly. This is especially true of Villagers of Estwald and Grizzled Outcasts, since no one picks them high but they are good in your deck.
Round 10
I was paired against Melissa De Tora this round. She is also in G/W, and our decks were fairly similar. My deck was probably slightly stronger due to Elder of Laurels and Ulvenwald Mystics, but we had some close games. I won Game 1 largely on the back of Mystics, even though I made a misplay that could have cost me. I had four mana and I intended to Travel Preparations but not flashback, so I could leave regeneration mana up on Mystics and play around Rebuke. I accidentally tapped both green sources when casting Travel Prep, so I just flashed it back so both of my guys were too big to block and luckily she didn’t have the removal spell to punish me.
Game 2 she drew a Travel Prep and the Rebuke I suspected, along with two Feeling of Dread that I did not see coming. She even had a Hinterland Harbor to flash them back! My misplay during this game actually did cost me. She had a 4/4 Abbey Griffin and a 4/4 Darkthicket Wolf that could attack, but would likely be left back on defense. I had Smite the Monstrous and Feeling of Dread in hand. I waited until she attacked with Griffin before Smiting it, and she had Ranger’s Guile. I respond with Feeling of Dread so I am still able to attack next turn, but I take 5 more damage than I needed to.
Game 3 again went long with a clogged board, but I drew Elder of Laurels with 5-6 creatures in play. After she burnt her last card in hand, I felt comfortable attacking into a potential topdecked Rebuke for whichever guy I pumped. She didn’t have it.
9-1
Round 11
One nice upside of being in pod 1 at X-1 is that you could play someone who started the pod at X-0, but lost the first round, which is what happened here. My opponent was playing a U/W/R deck that seemed powerful, but was fairly slow and therefore somewhat ill-equipped to deal with mine.
I do not remember the details of game 1, but based on how large the changes were on my life-pad, there was probably a Travel Preparations involved.
Game 2 I had quite a bit of early pressure: starting with Selfless Cathar, Unruly Mob, Elder Cathar, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, and another creature (blanking, sorry) in the first few turns. He cast a Night Revelers, which I put Bonds of Faith on to keep attacking. The following turn he had Cackling Counterpart to copy the Vampire and blocked one of the guys. I sacrificed Selfless Cathar to get some extra damage in and put a counter on my Unruly Mob. This left him at 4 life. I Prey Upon’d, making Elder Cathar and the Revelers token fight, because I figured the only way I was winning was to make Unruly Mob bigger than a 4/4 and hope he doesn’t have removal. I end the turn with a large Unruly Mob and an Avacyn’s Pilgrim. He didn’t hit a seventh land to flashback Counterpart, but did cast a Makeshift Mauler. Mauler had to chump the Mob, and I got in for 1. He flashed back Counterpart the next turn, but again had to block Mob and take 1. Eventually he ran out of chump blockers and Unruly Mob finished the job.
10-1
Round 12
I was paired against David Ochoa this round. He had a pretty solid U/B mill yourself deck with Ludevic’s Test Subject, Sever the Bloodline, and Skirsdag High Priest. Priest is often kind of eh, but he had at least one Stitcher’s Apprentice to help turn it on. Game 1 he started with Test Subject, which initially soaked up a lot of damage. I played fairly aggressively, doing things like trading Mystics for a Battleground Geist (which Ben later chastised me for), mostly because I did not want the board to stall and have Test Subject flip. This left him using his mana every turn: casting Sever, Forbidden Alchemy, etc. I got him low before casting Gatstaf Shepherd, which he was unable to block.
Game 2 my first creature was hit wih Tribute to Hunger. I did not have much pressure and he cast and flashed back Sever the Bloodline, which was good enough.
Game 3 the board stalls, but I eventually drew Elder of Laurels to go with my Spectral Rider, which started swinging for 7. He dug for an answer with Alchemy and potentially bought himself a turn with Sensory Deprivation, but I drew an eighth mana source to double pump.
11-1
Draft 2: R/B Removal
I was solidly in black after pack one with Curse of Death’s Hold, Dead Weight, and Falkenrath Nobles, but just had an assortment of cards from other colors: Sensory Deprivation, two Ambush Viper, Rakish Heir, etc. So I was pretty open to any second color in pack two. I opened another Dead Weight, and was passed a Slayer of the Wicked with no good black cards in the pack. I took Slayer, and then got Geistflame and Into the Maw of Hell, so I settled on red. In pack three I opened a third Dead Weight and was passed Falkenrath Marauders. I got Isolated Chapel in the middle of the pack, which was fortunate since Slayer is always a prime candidate for splashing.
This is what I played:
Diregraf Ghoul
Ashmouth Hound
Walking Corpse x2
Feral Ridgewolf
Rakish Heir
Screeching Bat
Abattoir Ghoul
Falkenrath Noble
Slayer of the Wicked
Falkenrath Marauders
Night Revelers
Pitchburn Devils
Geistcatcher’s Rig
Geistflame
Ghoulcaller’s Chant
Dead Weight x3
Curse of Death’s Hold
Into the Maw of Hell
Mountain x8
Swamp x7
Plains x2
Isolated Chapel
Relevant Sideboard:
Bitterheart Witch
Rotting Fensnake x2
Stromkirk Patrol
Feral Ridgewolf
Manor Skeleton
Rolling Temblor
Corpse Lunge
I played 18 lands because, while my curve was reasonable, I did have quite a few five and six drops. I said earlier that I don’t typically like Ghoulcaller’s Chant in decks that don’t mill themselves, but I thought it was worth playing with two Flametongue Kavus and a bomb rare with haste. The deck was capable of fairly aggressive starts, so I was not too interested in paying five for a 1/2, even if it could tutor up my Curse. It would have been worth siding in against some decks, though. Corpse Lunge would be pretty bad in this deck, since the deck doesn’t mill itself and has Ghoulcaller’s Chant.
<h3>Round 13
This was a feature match, and the coverage can be found here. Her deck seemed fairly strong: Invisible Stalker, two Moon Heron, two Delver of Secrets with quite a few spells, and a Runechanter’s Pike to pump all of these evasion creatures. Fortunately for me, deadweight.dec is pretty good against a bunch of X/2s. I sided in Rolling Temblor to kill Invisible Stalker, un-flipped Delvers, and Deranged Assistants. I lost Game 2 despite a three for one off Temblor because I never drew a Swamp to cast the two Dead Weights and Falkenrath Noble in my hand. Game 3 I cleared the board early with Rolling Temblor and she had Runechanter’s Pike with both Moon Herons to potentially stop my Falkenrath Marauders, but luckily I had two Dead Weights.
12-1
Rounds 14 and 15
Standings went up and there are four X-1s, with less than 17 X-2s. This meant that the X-1s could draw the next two rounds and be locked for top 8. Sweet! I went to get crepes while waiting for the top 8 to start.
Top 8 Draft: U/B Mill Yourself
The top 8 draft viewer can be found here. All of the packs during pack one seemed fairly weak, at least by the time they passed through my hands. I really did not have a deck after this pack, but rather 3-4 cards each in blue, black, and white.
I knew Ochoa was likely U/W from flip cards, so I hoped the Bloodline Keeper he opened would come to me, but no such luck. I was a little wary of staying in black after that, but some good stuff still came through him: Victim of Night, Deadweight, and Abattoir Ghoul. From looking at his deck later, this is probably because he was picking black rares, but hey, at least I got something.
I was still short on playable cards going into the third pack, but luckily I found a lot there. Ten of the fourteen cards from that pack made my maindeck! I got an Armored Skaab eleventh and Corpse Lunge twelfth. Granted Corpse Lunge is generally mediocre, but it was very good in my deck with the amount of milling and the Snapcaster.
It was probably wrong to play Vampire Interloper and Curiosity. The only other options were more defensive cards, which I felt I had plenty of. I figured I would win most of my games with fliers while I gummed up the ground, and Interloper went with that plan, but not being able to block is a big deal in a deck like this. Curiosity is generally not great, but I’ve played it as the 23rd a few times and it can be good on a flier in a controlling deck. It is awesome on Stitched Drake, since almost nothing kills him, but I only had one. Anyway, I obviously ended up siding both cards out each round.
Quarterfinals
Coverage of this match can be found here. Game 1 was not actually as stalled as the coverage suggests. I was attacking with two Abattoir Ghouls (Cackling Counterpart) that he could not profitably block, but he was attacking me with a Moon Heron. I eventually had to attack with everything, since I was facing down lethal the next turn between the flier and the Pitchburn Devils, but unfortunately he had a Brimstone Volley to finish me off with Abattoir Ghoul’s life-gain on the stack.
Game 2 I had three Stitched Drakes. Thanks Cackling Counterpart!
Game 3 wasn’t even a game. After playing two lands, he spent most of his turns discarding while I attacked with a Walking Corpse and Fortress Crab. My hand had a Zombie Goliath and a Stitched Drake, with no way to put cards in the bin, along with two Victim of Night for the creatures he hadn’t cast. Eventually he had to Harvest Pyre the Walking Corpse, and I am able to get a real clock going with Stitched Drake.
Not that I have so many top 8s, but I have previously always lost in the first round. So after the match I walked up to Orrin and said, “I finally made it past the quarterfinals!”
To which he replied, “Yeah, all it took was the least interactive game I’ve ever seen.”
Whatever, I’ll take it.
Semifinals
Written coverage of this match can be found here. Both the semifinals and the finals were also on camera, so you can find the videos on ggslive.com if you are so inclined. I lost Game 1 fairly quickly, but managed to win the others in drawn-out games, where my deck was favored. Since this match was so long and had so many decision points, I was really glad that it was on camera. I was able to watch it later and find a couple of misplays that I didn’t know about (in addition to the one I realized immediately during the game).
Finals
I did not know Levy’s whole decklist, but I knew the gist of it and I did not like my chances. I lost quickly in two games, the painful details of which can be found here. Game 1 I kept Dead Weight, two Deranged Assistants, three Swamps, and Stromkirk Patrol (I think, not positive on the last card) on the draw. I figure Dead Weight was one of my better cards against him, and when I drew an Island the Assistants would get my deck going. I took too long finding said Island though, and was too far behind by the time I started casting blue spells.
Game 2 I kept Victim of Night, Snapcaster Mage, Makeshift Mauler, Swamp, three Islands on the play. While it was unfortunate that I couldn’t cast Victim yet, this wasn’t really a hand I was going to send back. Victim killed everything in his deck, and I got to cast it twice with Snapcaster. He played one drop, two drop, Silver-Inlaid Dagger, while I missed my second black source and had to use Snapcaster as an Ambush Viper. I hit the Swamp the next turn, and could now cast the Mauler thanks to the dead Snapcaster. He had Grasp of Phantoms for the Mauler, and I could not recast it. Unfortunately, I had also not drawn any spells past my opener, so I just have to “land, go” every turn. I drew Creepy Doll the second to last turn, but he had a Dissipate for it. Frown.
It was admittedly frustrating to get so easily crushed in the finals, but still, a GP finals is a great way to start off the year. Especially since I almost didn’t go! I am close to locked for Gold now, which is a nice spot to be in with two Pro Tours left. If I have another good finish, I should even be able to make a run at Platinum.
Anyway, that’s all I have for today. See you Orlando!
Pat Cox
@wildestnacatl on Twitter