Grand Prix Portland was pretty good times. I was out of the main event almost immediately, but still had good times hanging out with awesome people, birding some Standard (Mythic decklist below!), and splitting a Legacy event on Sunday.
I showed up to the Oregon Convention Center at about ten o’clock the night before Grand Prix: Portland and ran into Alex West outside. I told Alex that I didn’t have a lot of experience with M11 Limited, and asked him for some pointers as we made our way over to the main room. We got to talking about the differences between M11 Draft and Sealed; namely, that while the Draft format was pretty fast, most Sealed pools couldn’t really support incredibly aggressive decks. That meant that stronger Sealed decks tended to feature a solid mid- and late-game with evasive creatures. Blue was the best color, and many games would end because of Mind Control, Sleep, or Fireball.
Then Alex asked me exactly how much preparation I’d done for the tournament.
“Well, I went to the Prerelease. And, um, I 0-3’d a draft.”
He did not look impressed.
Fortunately, we then ran into Corbett Gray and Steven Birklid, who were staying at my house for the weekend and got a draft going with a crew of Alaskans.
I opened Ajani Goldmane and drafted a mediocre U/W fliers deck that was a couple of Assault Griffins and a Pacifism short. I had a bunch of copies of Stormfront Pegasus, though, and I had some Ice Cages to make up for my lack of real removal spells.
So my first match, naturally, was against Alex’s Mono-Red deck.
In game one I drew Ajani Goldmane and played Stormfront Pegasus, Wild Griffin, Cloud Crusader, Ajani, and annihilated him. My draw in game two wasn’t that great, and Alex ran me over with a “turn 2 Goblin Piker, turn 3 Goblin Chieftain” draw. I brought two Maritime Guards off the bench for game three, and was pretty confident when I played a Stormfront Pegasus, Alex played a Goblin Piker, and I had a Maritime Guard to hold the fort.
…Then Alex played Prodigal Pyromancer and shot down my Pegasus.
I was a little flooded, but I had a second Maritime Guard to hold the fort while I drew some fliers that could withstand the Pyromancer.
…Then Alex played Goblin Tunneler and started sending Goblin Piker through the tunnel at me.
The next turn, he added Goblin Balloon Brigade.
The next turn, Alex was exuberantly shouting, “
Get in the tunnel
!
Inflate the Toad
!
” and burrowing Goblin Piker past my defenses while Goblin Balloon Brigade floated by overhead. I lost to that squad from eighteen.
…
An auspicious start to the weekend, to be sure.
—
My Sealed deck was fairly mediocre; I ended up with a slowish U/G deck splashing Fireball. Stormtide Leviathan, and Platinum Angel topped the curve, but I had a bunch of four- and five-mana green idiots paired up with a few blue fliers.
It turns out that when all you’ve got are a bunch of two-power fliers and Giant Spiders, Air Servant is pretty hard to beat — especially when your opponent Mind Controls whatever huge Green creature you were planning on racing with. I 0-2’d the main event in pretty much record time, then dropped to avoid prolonging the misery.
Steven, meanwhile, had gone 2-0 in the main event, then dropped to play in a Standard side event rather than continue on with a miserable pool. First place in the tournament was an iPad. There were twenty-five people. Never in my life have I been so envious; Steven was getting to play Constructed in a tournament with a $400 overlay. Sick. Life.
He was playing Mythic:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
- 3 Dauntless Escort
- 4 Lotus Cobra
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (25)
Spells (6)
Sideboard
The list came from Cedric Phillips, who played the same 75 at Nationals and finished thirteenth. As Cedric and Steven put it: “Mythic is the sheriff in town. It isn’t trying to do anything clever or cute; it’s just obliterating the people who are.”
Cedric’s maindeck is very close to what
Josh Utter-Leyton used to win U.S. Nationals
, except that Cedric has three Dauntless Escorts where Josh has two Explores and an Elspeth, Knight-Errant. However, the Escorts are crucial for getting Knight of the Reliquary active against Jund, while also keeping your creature count high.
Plus, sometimes, your opponent is a Day of Judgment deck. Ding!
The sideboard is fairly straightforward; Linvala is a mirror trump that is also good against any Cunning Sparkmages that are still running around. You get access to Baloth to help out against Blightning, and the Deprives come in for the mirror and any deck that is slower than you are. Jace Beleren is a huge blowout against U/W decks that are leaning on Jace, the Mind Sculptor for card advantage, and Telemin Performance is a headshot against the Pyromancer’s Ascension decks. 3UU mill your deck is pretty good…unless, of course, they’ve boarded into a Polymorph plan, in which case you ‘merely’ get Progenitus and blank their gameplan.
Obviously, Steven won the tournament.
Afterwards, we hung around waiting for Day One to finish before heading out to get food. This turned out to be a mistake; because several hundred more people showed up to the Grand Prix than expected, the tournament started forty-five minutes late, and every round went way past time. Round six didn’t start until after 6:00. Mercifully, the tenth round of Day One, which would have been after the nine-round cut, was delayed until Sunday…. but even so, we left the site at midnight after round nine was over, picking up another dozen or so people from Seattle on our way out the door.
Finding a restaurant for fifteen people at midnight is tricky business. The only place I could think of was the Hotcake House, a twenty-four hour, short-order diner. Gavin Verhey will tell you that the Hotcake House is mediocre at best. Gavin is sorely mistaken. The food is unbelievable. Hash browns for days alongside eggs fried up in butter with a plate the size of a basketball piled high with biscuits and gravy? Sign me up.
Also, a word of advice: When you go to a restaurant that has a food item featured prominently in the name,
order that item
. Going to Outback Steakhouse and ordering a burger is probably the only mistake Brad Nelson has ever made. You are at the
Hotcake House
. Order the pancakes! Jeez!
We get out of the restaurant and back to the house just before two in the morning. At the last minute, Cedric comes back with Corbett, Steven, and I, since the couch at my parent’s house is more comfortable than the floor of his hotel room. Fortunately, Portland is a pretty liberal city, so my parents were pretty understanding when my mom came into my room the next morning to ask who the large black man on her sofa was and found me in bed with Steven.
—
On Sunday, I got to sleep in before playing in a Legacy tournament. I played Dredge:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Tireless Tribe
- 4 Putrid Imp
- 3 Ichorid
- 1 Flame-Kin Zealot
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 3 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
Lands (15)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
For a long time, I took the position that maindeck Dread Return targets weren’t necessary in Dredge, because they made the deck less consistent,
and
because when you were putting a ton of Grave-Trolls into play while stripping your opponent’s hand with Cabal Therapy, it didn’t matter if you actually won the game a turn or two later.
However, that’s not necessarily the case anymore. Against decks like Lands, you really do need to kill your opponent before he sets up Glacial Chasm, and the Tendrils decks can use Ponder or Brainstorm to sculpt a hand that’s resilient to a Cabal Therapy or two.
The Zealot kill is also pretty important against some fringe decks, like Enchantress and the mirror. You also don’t really lose that much value, because the Therapy and the Ichorid that the Sphinx and the Zealot replaced are in the sideboard, and you can just bring them in when you don’t need to hypercombofinish your opponent. You can swap the Therapy and Ichorid into the maindeck for the Dread Return targets, if you feel so inclined.
The rest of the sideboard is pretty basic. Wheel of Sun and Moon is pretty hard to beat, hence the Ray of Revelations. I can pretty much promise that as long as a Darkblast is in your sideboard, you’ll never play against Goblin Sharpshooter or Spore Frog — but as soon as you cut the Darkblast, your opponents will have both against you early and often.
Firestorm is a recent addition. Basically, I got tired of losing to Merfolk and other random aggro decks that you want to board out Breakthrough against, but don’t really have anything sweet to bring in. Breakthrough almost always wins a game from parity, but if you’re behind because they have Crypt in play or something, it isn’t that great. Firestorm, on the other hand, is pretty much always a huge gigantic beating if your opponent was planning on attacking you.
Round
O
ne: Zoo.
I won the roll and played Tireless Tribe. He played Kird Ape. I discarded Grave-Troll, dredged it back, discarded it again, and cast Breakthrough, dredging twenty cards. One of them was Sphinx of Lost Truths, and a couple others were Narcomoebas. I Dread Returned the Sphinx, dredged away the rest of my library, Dread Returned the Flame-Kin Zealot, and sent a bunch of Zombies after my opponent’s brains.
Close game, lots of skill.
Sideboarding:
-1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-4 Breakthrough
-1 Cabal Therapy
+4 Ancient Grudge
+3 Firestorm
Game two was going well for a while. I had Tireless Tribe holding off a Tarmogoyf for a few turns — until Luis Scott-Vargas, playing next to me, glanced over while shuffling and observed that the Ancient Grudge that I had just used to pump the Tribe made the Tarmogoyf a 5/6.
Tribe down.
Awkward.
Without my caffeinated blocker, I started hemorrhaging life quickly and lost to the Tarmogoyf and other assorted animals before I could find enough Zombies to stem the tide.
I brought in a third Therapy for one of the Careful Studies for game three. Cabal Therapy is a lot better when you’re on the play and can dredge into it and cast it before the opponent’s second turn.
In game three, my Therapy for Tarmogoyf on turn 2 bricked, but revealed three Grim Lavamancers. I flashbacked the Therapy and nailed the Lavamancers, but kept dredging blanks. Meanwhile, my opponent found a Sylvan Library and began pulling back into the game with the extra cards. Finally, with him at eleven, he looked at three cards and went into the tank.
I sighed and looked him. “Keeping all of them, I assume?”
“Uh, yeah. I’ll go to three.”
Then he tapped below Lightning Helix mana for Knight of the Reliquary, so I promptly killed him with Firestorm.
U/G/R/W Counterbalance with Trygon Predator and Noble Hierarch
The side events weren’t being announced over the loudspeaker, so players had to stay clustered near the tables of the Legacy tournament in order not to miss their pairings. I found this out by accidentally strolling by when pairings went up; my opponent wasn’t so lucky. He was eight minutes late and picked up a game loss.
Game losses are bad things to be awarded when your opponent is Dredge.
He played Tropical Island, Noble Hierarch. I played nothing and discarded a Grave-Troll. On his turn, he cast Brainstorm and played Counterbalance. I dredged the Troll and hit on a hard-cast Therapy for Natural Order. He untapped and played Counterbalance, but on my next turn I activated Cephalid Coliseum and buried him in Zombies.
Round Three: U/G/W Threshold with a Natural Order package
I lost the roll. My opponent played a Noble Hierarch. I discarded Stinkweed Imp with no land drop. He played a Tarmogoyf. I dredged, played a land, and was done. He untapped and cast Natural Order, fetching Progenitus.
Progenitus is pretty tough to race in game one situations when Ancestor’s Chosen isn’t in the deck,
unless
you can get to Flame-Kin Zealot. Because most Tarmogoyf-based aggro-control decks can’t remove Bridge from Below from the game, Progenitus is essentially the only way those decks can win before you overwhelm them with Zombies.
Unfortunately, I didn’t dredge into a Narcomoeba to fuel the Cabal Therapy I’d dredged up earlier, and so my Breakthrough got countered by Force of Will and I lost to the Soul of the World.
Sideboarding:
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-4 Breakthrough
+1 Ancestor’s Chosen
+1 Ichorid
+3 Ray of Revelation
Game two was pretty easy; my Putrid Imp resolved. My land got hit by Wasteland immediately, but I didn’t need it anymore. When he didn’t play Tarmogoyf on turn 2, I cast Therapy and named Knight of the Reliquary. It hit, and I took it down with Putrid Imp, Narcomoeba, and some Ichorids.
I only had one discard outlet in game three, so I discarded a Grave-Troll on turn one rather than walk my Putrid Imp into Daze or Force of Will and immediately lose the game. Meanwhile, my opponent was busy opening with Noble Hierarch and Tarmogoyf. I played a land, hoping to activate Cephalid Coliseum on my next turn, but got hit by Wasteland. Then he showed me Natural Order, Progenitus made an appearance, and I lost.
Round Four: Enchantress
I won the roll and played Putrid Imp. He played Utopia Sprawl on a Forest. I discarded a Stinkweed Imp, dredged it back, played and activated Cephalid Coliseum, and dredged a ton of cards. One of them was Sphinx of Lost Truths, so I used Dread Return to cheat Sphinx into play and dredge away most of the rest of my library.
Unfortunately, both of the remaining Dread Returns were in the bottom ten cards of my deck — so rather than killing him immediately with Flame-Kin Zealot, I had to settle for flashing back a bunch of Cabal Therapies and making a ton of Zombies to kill him with the next turn.
Rough life.
Sideboarding:
-2 Ichorid
-1 Cabal Therapy
+3 Ray of Revelation.
You don’t want to board out any Breakthroughs when you’re on the draw, because the matchup is basically a race and you want to maximize the chance that you kill on turn 2. Ichorid is too slow to race with… but you need to keep one in the deck so that you can kickstart a zombie engine with Bridge from Below if you run out of Narcomoebas.
I opened game two with Tireless Tribe, and between Tribe, a Grave-Troll, and Careful Study, I had about half of my deck in the bin on turn 2. However, I didn’t have any Rays or Dread Returns, so I had to pass the turn. He set up double Sterling Grove to lock out my Rays, then got Moat into play. Sigil of the Empty Throne started pumping out Angels, and I conceded.
For game three, I cut two Breakthroughs for two Cabal Therapies — because if I can hit Argothian Enchantress or Enchantress’s Presence on my second turn, I can get pretty far ahead. Then I mulliganned to four, keeping Breakthrough, Therapy, Therapy, Golgari Thug.
I had nothing on turn 1, obviously, so he played a land and Utopia Sprawl. I drew City of Brass (ding!) and Therapied myself, discarding the Thug. He played Argothian Enchantress and was done. I dredged back Thug and didn’t hit any new dredge cards, so I Therapied myself for Thug again and passed. He played Enchantress’s Presence, a Wild Growth or two, and was done.
I untapped and cast Breakthrough to dredge a ton of cards, but none of them were Sphinx or Zealot in the yard, so I had to settle for a Grave-Troll. stripping his hand down to nothing with Cabal Therapy. He drew Sterling Grove and cast it, then cast another Sterling Grove. I hit his first Grove with Ray of Revelation, and he used it to tutor up an Elephant Grass. Then he cast Elephant Grass. I hit his second Grove with a Ray and passed, but he had drawn into Moat, so I was basically locked out of combat. I lost to Words of War a few turns later.
Fortunately, there were only about twenty-five people in the tournament, so one person with two losses would probably make top eight, and my tiebreakers were pretty good since I’d won the first two rounds.
Round Five: Merfolk
I lost the roll and my opponent played Cursecatcher. Unfortunately, I only had one land, and I’d been planning on using Careful Study to get my Grave-Troll into the yard… So I didn’t play a land and discarded the Grave-Troll from eight cards.
He played Standstill on turn 2. Sold!
Neither of us cast a spell for the rest of the game. I destroyed him, dredging back the Grave-Troll and discarding it again repeatedly while getting a bunch of free Narcomoebas, Ichorids, and Zombies.
Sideboarding:
-4 Breakthrough
-1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Golgari Thug
+4 Ancient Grudge
+3 Firestorm
+1 Darkblast
Game two was a bit harder; he played Cursecatcher and Tormod’s Crypt on turn one, then hit my only land with Wasteland after I resolved a Tireless Tribe. His Crypt meant that he could nuke my graveyard as soon as it became remotely threatening, and if he had any sort of clock to go with it I would lose.
I had two Firestorms in my hand, and decided that the only way I could win was by drawing a land and using Firestorm to get rid of first his Cursecatcher, and then the rest of his creatures. I drew a land and killed his Cursecatcher. He drew another Wasteland. Frown. He put Umezawa’s Jitte on a Merrow Reejerey and killed me.
I mulliganned to four before starting game three. One of the spectators observed that he quit playing Dredge because of how often he had to mulligan. I pointed out that the deck probably mulliganed better than any other deck in the format. To prove my point, I fanned out a hand of Putrid Imp, Golgari Grave-Troll, Cephalid Coliseum, City of Brass.
I played the Imp. My opponent played a Mutavault and Aether Vial. I discarded and dredged the Troll, then activated Cephalid Coliseum, and dredged a bunch of cards before using Dread Return to put the Troll and a bunch of Zombies into play.
Quarterfinals: U/G Survival Madness with Vengevine
After the brackets for the top eight went up, we had to wait for a little while to track down the folks who had intentionally drawn into the top eight during round five before wandering off. I knew my quarterfinals opponent was playing Vengevine Survival, but I didn’t know what exactly was in the deck, so I asked Ari Lax if he could fill me in.
“Why don’t you ask Caleb Durward, the inventor of the deck? He’s sitting right there.”
Caleb was gracious enough to answer my questions, and told me that while the matchup was pretty good for Dredge, I should watch out for Daze and Faerie Macabre. Caleb also cautioned me that my opponent might have Wheel of Sun and Moon out of the board, but most people he knew had been cutting their Dredge hate.
(Nowadays days everybody wanna talk like they got somethin’ to say, but nothin’ comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish. And mother******s act like they forgot about Dredge.)*
I won the roll in game one and had another Putrid Imp, Grave-Troll, Breakthrough hand. My opponent didn’t get a second turn.
Sideboarding:
-1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-2 Breakthrough
+3 Ray of Revelation
+1 Cabal Therapy
We both mulliganed for game two. He just had Tropical Island. I aimed Cabal Therapy at him. It resolved; I named Survival of the Fittest and hit. Survival was his only gas, so even though my turn 2 Imp was countered by Force of Will, I cast Golgari Thug and sacrificed it to Therapy to get the dredge engine going and won a few turns later.
—
The top four all split, so I wandered off and watched Jon Loucks make top eight before getting in the car, heading out to dinner, and driving back to Seattle.
It was a pretty good weekend.
Max McCall
max dot mccall at gmail dot com
* – Richard Feldman has never uttered anything that is more true.