One of the things I love about the Pro Player’s life that I haven’t mentioned yet – and there are far too many such things – is how much free time I have for reading. Even though I have already graduated and don’t have job, I’m amazed that I don’t have any extra time to do certain things I enjoy. However, since I started attending all these Magic tournaments in a row, I’ve found myself with lots of spare time on planes, or waiting for connecting flights. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to convert this spare time into playtest time. After Grand Prix: Stockholm, I had close to ten days to start preparing for Strasbourg, and the fact that it was the same format as Pro Tour: Yokohama helped a great deal.
I started the process of finding a deck by eliminating the deck I played in Yokohama – Black/Red control splashing Aeon Chronicler. I also Blue/Black Teachings, because both these decks take too much time to pilot to victory, and Grand Prix tournaments are very unforgiving due to the fifty-minutes rounds.
Right after Grand Prix: Stockholm, I thought I’d found the deck to play. André Coimbra had been playing with the Japanese Mono-Blue deck. André had completely rebuilt the sideboard and added Voidmage Prodigy to the maindeck. He kindly shared his decklist with me, and I immediatly thought it was neat. I really hoped the deck was good so that I could play it at the Grand Prix. I spent the first days playing the deck on MTGO, winning an 8 man queue where I only played mirrors, and posting a 2-2 in a Premier Event. On the weekend in between Stokcholm and Strasbourg, there was a 4x Premier Event where I played the Mono-Blue deck to a 1-5 finish, my single win being a a mirror match. I figured it would be a wise choice to discard the deck, since I was only winning against the mirror.
I went back to the search.
I considered the possibility of running White Weenie mostly because many players were removing some of the hate, and it seemed that now could be the time for White Weenie make a comeback. Curiously, Frank Karsten had also the same thinking and showed me his list with some very interesting ideas. After one day of trying to find the cards for the deck, I put it temporarly aside since I was still missing around thirty of the key components. Next, I tried what was (in my opinion) the best metagame choice before the Grand Prix: Green/Red Big Mana, with Chroniclers replacing the Spectral Forces. As always happens when I try a Green deck, I played with it for half an hour… and then cast the deck aside. I think I’ve already voiced my opinion on Green, so let’s move to the next deck.
Next, I went back to the drawing board, and looked at the deck I’d told myself I wouldn’t play at the Grand Prix: Blue/Black Teachings. With everything considered it seemed the best deck, as no deck could claim a good matchup against it. If there was such a deck, I would grab it with both hands, as I suspected that U/B would be the most predominant deck. After losing some precious time that I could’ve spent practicing with the deck, I started by picking Heezy’s version and slowly making some adjustments as I was learnt more through testing. Most of my testing was against U/G Morph / Bind, a new deck that emerged on Magic Online. As has happened many times before, every time there’s new deck or tech available people jump on it. Many Pro Players tried it and told me it wasn’t as good as it seemed, so I trusted them and didn’t even bother, although I tested a lot against it. This proved to be quite useful, because I faced it a lot at the Grand Prix.
My main innovation for Heezy’s deck was adding Shadowmage Infiltrators maindeck. I did this for a number of reasons. First, they’re quite good against Green decks, and they’re decent against mono-Red for the sole reason they absorb at least three points of damage. They also seemed amazing against U/G Morph and Mono-Blue, two decks with very similar game plans. They seemed to be an improvement to the deck for all these matchups, and still okay versus White Weenie and the mirror. Another reason was I hadn’t playtested the deck enough, and the Infiltrators served as a way to simplify strategies. You aren’t forced to play a long game and establish control, as you can randomly play an early Infiltrator and ride the card advantage to victory. This means you don’t need to play this deck masterfully. If I was a better player, or at least more practiced with the deck before the Grand Prix, I think I would probably not have them in there.
With the Infiltrators in the mix, I was pretty set on my main deck, or at least 58 or 59 cards from it. The sideboard was a completely different story, and I was clueless about it. I only made the fifteen-card sideboard the night before, because I had to, and I set on the final version a couple of minutes before the Grand Prix started. That meant tracking the sideboard plans for each matchup after submitting the decklist, which didn’t worked out very well. Me, Frank Karsten, Rogier Maaten, Kenji Tsumura, Gabriel Nassif and some others played similar versions of this same deck, but I believe only Frank and I had the Infiltrators main. Just like in Yokohama, my list had one card difference from Frank – a different land – and one card different in the sideboard.
Creatures (8)
Lands (18)
Spells (34)
During the byes, we made some notes on which cards to side out in each matchup and reached the conclusion that we had too many against some decks, and too few against anothers. If I could build a different sideboard, I would probably remove the Brine Elemental for an Aeon Chronicler. The sideboard plans we had with this sideboard looked like this:
Mono Red
+ 2 Aven Riftwatcher
+ 2 Teferi’s Moat
+ 1 Tendrils of Corruption
+ 1 Strangling Soot
– 1 Draining Whelk
– 1 Haunting Hymn
– 2 Mystical Teachings
– 1 Damnation
– 1 Temporal Isolation
Their best card is Greater Gargadon, as it nullifies your Tendrils, is safe from removal, and can come into play whenever they want, taking advantage of your low life totals or you being tapped. Teferi’s Moat counters him and all the creatures, forcing them to burn you directly. Aven Riftwatcher makes that task difficult and also gives you some more turns to find the Moat.
U/G Morphs
+ 2 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
+ 1 Strangling Soot
+ 1 Dismal Failure
+ 1 Disenchant (if they have Stormbind)
+ 3 Plague Sliver (if there’s little time left)
– 1 Temporal Isolation
– 1 Pull from Etermity (if they don’t have Detritivore or Aeon Chronicler)
– 1 Haunting Hymn (if you’re on the draw)
– 2 Mystical Teachings
– 1 Draining Whelk
– 1 Careful Consideration
As you can see, there are a lot of “if’s” when sideboarding for this matchup. Frank always likes to bring in the Slivers, but I believe we don’t have to play a fast game, as the matchup is good for the U/B deck unless they draw multiple Fathom Seers. With this list as a reference, the sideboarding should be done based on the information you have available.
Blue / Black variants
+ 3 Plague Sliver
+ 1 Dismal Failure
+ 1 Brine Elemental
+ 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
– 1 Temporal Isolation
– 1 Tendrils of Corruption
– 1 Aeon Chronicler
– 2 or 3 Damnation
If you have a 1-0 lead, that’ll force your opponent to take the game offensive, which means he has to take out slower control cards to play more creatures, and you should keep in two Damnations. We choose to run Plague Sliver because Detritivore is too slow, it has a slow effect on the mirror and sometimes you need to win fast, but also because it can be Pulled From Eternity. This sideboarding plan makes Pull from Eternity a dead card for the opponent, as you should only suspend the lone remaining Aeon Chronicler if it’s turn 4 and they don’t have access to White mana, or if it’s late game and you know they’re not holding a Pull. Otherwise, play it as a five mana 4/4 or 5/5 the turn when they tap to deal with the Plague Sliver.
Mono Blue
+ 2 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
+ 1 Strangling Soot
+ 1 Dismal Failure
+ 3 Plague Sliver
– 1 Temporal Isolation
– 1 Haunting Hymn
– 1 Careful Consideration
– 2 Damnation
– 1 Draining Whelk
– the second Careful Consideration, or the third Damnation, or a Shadowmage Infiltrator
Mono Blue seems to be a deck very capable of beating the slower Blue / Black control decks, so it seems reasonable to try to be a little more aggressive. This matchup reminds me of the U/G match, as they have a lot of morphs in common, but this one has a lot more countermagic.
Green / Red versions
At first I tried to make different sideboard plans against all the versions of Green decks from the Yokohama Top 8 (Masashi Oiso, Paulo Carvalho, and Sebastien Thaler). You’ll usually want to bring the Brine and Shapeshifter combo, the Dismal Failure, the Temporal Isolation, and against Paulo and Sebastien decks, the three Plague Slivers.
Against Masashi’s deck you don’t want the anti suspend cards Pull and Teferi. Against Sebastien, I believe you can cut the Damnations, as the main threats are the land destruction and the suspend spells. Against the big creatures of Paulo’s deck, Sudden Death is no good, and perhaps the Teachings are too slow. I believe we have too many cards to bring in against Green decks, which makes it difficult to sideboard correctly.
We forgot to make a sideboard plan for White Weenie, so of course that was the first deck I faced.
Round 4: Julien Nuijten (White Weenie), 2 – 1
Round 5: Shouta Yasooka (Blue/Black Teachings), 2 – 1
Round 6: William Cavaglieri (Blue/Black Pickles) 1 – 1
Round 7: Mehdi Chelil (Blue/Green Morphs) 1 – 0
Round 8: Nicolas Kientzler (Blue/Green/Red Morphs) 2 – 1
Round 9: Philipp Ziemmer (Mono Red) 0 – 2
7 – 1 – 1
Fortunately, before Pro Tour: Yokohama ,the matchup against White Weenie was one of the most tested and even though the maindeck of the Blue/Black is different now, you still have the same sense of their regular draws, of how fast they can be, and when to or not to cast Damnation. We split the first two, but I won the third. The game Julien won was a beating, and didn’t last more than three minutes, while the other two were kind of close. The matchup isn’t exactly bad for White Weenie, but the problem is that if White Weenie falls behind by just a single turn then it’s out of the game.
Shouta is probably the player you least want to face when you’re playing a control deck, as most of the times he’s running a control deck to beat control decks. Players like Shouta not only have exceptional playskill, but they also have many years of experience in playing control on control matchups. There are many cliches that try to help you play the Blue/Black Teachings matchup, such as “the one with more mana wins,” or “don’t position yourself out of Teachings,” or “don’t expose yourself to a Draining Whelk,” but none of them replace the experience of actually playing and drawing your own conclusions. Nevertheless, I lost the first because I exposed myself to a Draining Whelk, in a game where the board was empty and the mana was even. I mulliganed in game 2, but still play a turn 3 Infiltrator that Shouta killed, and a turn 4 Infiltrator that stayed alive. Shouta missed many land drops from here, while I drew two cards a turn. I believe he sided out his Damnations to bring in more creatures after sideboard. I won the third with Plague Sliver beats. He killed the first with a Tendrils that he Mystically Taught for, but he had a lot of trouble dealing with the second that eventually killed him. He never found a way to get rid of it, and his creatures were all smaller than the Sliver.
Against my next two opponents I managed to win very long first games. William Cavaglieri managed to win the second on the last extra turn, while Mehdi Chelil was clearly not winning when the extra turns ended as I had a Shapeshifter that copied a Spectral Force, while he had nothing. William thinks he might have made a misplay when he cast a spell and I used a Draining Whelk on it, as the board was very stable with Urza’s Factory tokens trading each turn… as I was probably losing to a Eventual Death By Milling. I managed to force the Whelk to resolve, and I protected it from removal.
Mehdi Chelil also made some misplays that could’ve cost him game 1, but I also made many mistakes. After the match, we counted three for each side, altough to my defense I can say that one of them was a distraction. I didn’t tap to make an Urza’s Factory token because he had an unsleeved card faced down, which I thought it was a morph (after all, he was playing U/G Morphs)… but it was just a Factory token. I was scared it was a Brine Elemental, and only when he made the second token, I realized that face down cards were just vanilla 2/2s and not morphs. Perhaps I’m playing too much Limited, as I’m used to seeing face-down unsleeved cards as morphs.
My rounds against Julien and Shouta weren’t featured, and in my opinion the round against Shouta could’ve been, but hey, at Pro Tour: Yokohama they didn’t feature Kenji versus Shouta so who knows what’s the criteria. At Grand Prix: Strasbourg they did feature me against Nicolas Kientzler, nicknamed by Hanno Terbuyken in the coverage as “Matador”. You can find the coverage here.
I can’t believe it took me so long to win game 1, as I drew so many extra cards and always had the game more or less under control, but maybe I played it too carefully. I mulliganed in the second game and kept a not-so-great hand against a creature deck, and was punished for that as he played turn 2 and 3 Riptide Pilferers. I struggled for a while, but ended up playing from the top, and it was only to be expected that he had gas after the Pilferers. It was enough to take me down. I brought in the Plague Slivers for the third, with little time remaining on the clock. I obviously mulliganed away a hand of three Urborgs but my second hand is quite acceptable. The three-Urborg hand has only happened to me three times: once on MTGO, another playtesting against Paulo Carvalho the day before the tournament, and this one. Despite the mulligan I have the tempo, since I played first and his hand isn’t so fast. With a some luck involved, I managed to win on the very last turn.
At the time, I blamed my loss in the final round to Mono Red to some very weak draws, but now I think the matchup isn’t favorable. Still, I mulliganed to five in the first game and kept with two Urborgs, one Island, one Prismatic Lens, and a business spell. I wasn’t winning against any normal draw from Mono Red. For the second game I kept with Island, Dreadship Reef, Prismatic Lens, and a Shadowmage. That allowed me to play a turn 3 Finkel with a little luck, but I didn’t draw a third land. I wasn’t manascrewed, as I ended up playing four Prismatic Lenses, but the tempo advantage of a turn 3 Finkel had clearly been lost. Even with me drawing into an Urborg, my Tendrils were very unspectacular with three or four lands plus four Prismatic Lens.
Lately I’ve been enjoying Constructed Magic. Previously I saw myself as a Limited Player, mostly because I didn’t had access to good decklists for tournaments. Now that I have the priviledge of playing and testing with some of the best players in the World, I believe I’ve improved myself a lot as a Constructed player, and therefore the format suddenly became a lot more fun. Other reason is that when you’re performing well at a tournament you know that you have a solid deck by your side, while in Limited that can all change from one draft to another.
As usual, we’re informed that Round 1 of Day 2 would start at exactly 8am sharp, and we should be there before that. I figured 7:15am would be a good time to leave the hotel and catch the Tram, a 15-minute ride from the site, as it would leave us some backup time to wait for it at the stop. After waiting for a while, we realize Line B wasn’t working on Sunday morning, since all the Trams passing were from the other line. Paulo Carvalho and I decided to go back to the hotel and ask for a taxi, but after a couple of tries the recepcionist informs us there wasn’t any available for the next half hour. It was already past 7:30, and while we could just sit there and wait hoping to get to the site on time, trying to find a taxi by ourselves seemed a better plan.
We went to the city centre, and then to the Bus Terminal and Train Station trying to find a taxi stop, but we found none. Strangely, the few taxis passing by weren’t stopping even though they were empty and we waved at them, with the taxi drivers gesturing something. As someone told us later, the taxi drivers won’t stop for passengers – we had to call one. I had called the Dutchies earlier, wondering if they were still at the hotel so we could share a ride, but by 7:30 they were already at the site, and by 7:55 Frank called me back to know how things were. By this time, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it on time for the first round, and asked him to tell the judges not to drop me from the tournament. I ‘d take additional losses if necessary, because I would eventually make it to the site even if I had to walk there along the Tram line.
Paulo suggested we called a taxi from one of the the Hotels in the city center. We were kicked out of the first two as they would only call taxis for guests – such French hospitality… it almost remind me of being kicked out from the Hotel at the Worlds in Paris (okay, so this time it wasn’t anything physically agressive) – until we were finally told to wait for ten minutes outside a hotel at the third time of asking, and indeed the taxi. We made it to the site some time after the hour, and I seriously hoped the tournament would be delayed. Luckily it was, as everyone was still filling paperwork. After arriving, it was announced that the round would be starting shortly.
Round 10: Nicolas Massat (Blue/Green Morphs), Win 2-0
Round 11: Invernizzi Marc (Blue/Green Morphs), Win 1-0
Round 12: Tomoharu Saito (Mono Red), Loss 0-2
Round 13: Simon Gortzen (Mono Red), Draw 1-1
Round 14: Julien Goron (Blue/Black Teachings), Win 2-0
Round 15: Frederic Timmer (Blue/Black Teachings), Win 2-0
11 – 2 – 2
I still remember the days where 11-2-2 was enough wins to Top 8 with room to spare, now the things are a little harder. The overall play level is a quite good, and the bigger the tournament is, the less room you have for accidents. Fortunately, nowadays Grand Prix tournaments have increased the payout and the pro points, so it was still a great weekend for me. I wish I could say the same about Portuguese Nationals, which are the largest Nationals in the World – bigger than the American, French, and Japanese, and where the prize money is nothing. My humble opinion would be to award fewer invites to Portuguese Nationals, or at least add some prize money… I still don’t get it why such a small country with a small player base has the largest Nationals in terms of attendance.
Enough ranting, let’s get back to the second day of Strasbourg.
My first two rounds of the day was against Blue/Green Morphs, a matchup I had already faced (and won) twice the day before. It was by far the matchup I tested the most the week before the Grand Prix, so I guess it paid off. I believe their best chance is to draw multiple Fathom Seers, as if you’re careful enough you can avoid getting hard locked with Brine Elemental and Vesuvan Shapeshifter. The first round was quite easy, and in the first game my opponent was heavily mana flooded (this is quite common with Green decks, heh), and while I was a little stuck on mana in the second, his mulligan to five didn’t apply much pressure.
The second match was a lot more troublesome, but I can only blame myself. I managed to win a close and long game 1, but made a mistake in the second. We were both left with almost nothing in the mid game, until he drew and played a morph. I could’ve flashbacked the Teachings to get a Cancel, but I allowed it to resolve and did something else. The morph revealed to be a Fathom Seer, that brought along more Fathom Seers, which in turn found Shapeshifters. After a while, he had drawn twenty extra cards. I gained huge amounts of life with multiple Tendrils, and thanks to some Factory tokens I survived the extra turns still with a comfortable life total, netting the 1-0 win.
Round 12 was a feature match against Tomoharu Saito, and it was covered here, almost turn by turn.
In the first game Tomoharu didn’t have the Gargadon on turn 1, but suspended one on turn 4 ready to fizzle the Tendrils I was holding. Gargadon is by far their best card against Blue/Black Teachings, and fizzling the Tendrils is just half of the damage. When facing a suspended Gargadon, you can’t tap out, and if you cast a Damnation, you will take nine after that. When you can’t rely on Tendrils, the best plan is to play an Aeon Chronicler, which is a big 5/5 or 6/6 creature. I did it on turn 4 thanks to two charge counters from a storage land, but Tomoharu had the Dead/Gone for it, and the Disintegrate when it came back. I had the perfect draw to win the second, which included Teferi’s Moat and Aven Riftwatcher along with Terramorphic Expanse to get the Plains. Tomoharu only had creatures, so the Moat would probably be game, but I never drew my fourth land. And I lost with three lands and a Prismatic Lens in play.
Against Simon Gortzen, also playing Mono Red, I quickly lost game 1. I have no clue how I won the second, as looking back now I think Mono Red is not a very good matchup, but that’s not the feeling you get from playtesting when you’re not tracking the results. Every time the Red deck wins, the Blue/Black says if it had one more turn, one more life point, one more mana, it would have won, while when the Blue/Black deck wins it’s a complete massacre. But I think the Red deck still scores most of the wins. What happen is, if you play the matchup for two hours, most of the actual elapsed time will see the Blue/Black deck winning, but the Red deck will win most of the games. Despite all that, I think I was in a good position in game 3, as my life was around twenty thanks to multiple life gain spells, and we were both on topdeck mode. We didn’t even bother to finish the extra turns, as it was clear none of us could win in the time provided.
With two rounds to go I faced Julien Goron in a mirror match. In the first game he drew more extra cards with Careful Consideration and Think Twice, but I managed to sneak in two attacks with a Chronicler for twelve or fourteen points of damage. I did the remaining with Urza’s Factory tokens, with him just trying to stay alive with removal spells. It was my only chance, as he had drawn many more cards. I boarded in the creatures for game 2. He went agressive with a Phyrexian Totem, attacking twice for ten points, but I had a trick in my sleeve I learned watching André Coimbra play Akira Asahara. Julien attacked once again with the Totem, and I blocked with my morph. After stacking damage I unmorphed the Shapeshifter, copying the Totem. This resulted in the Shapeshifter staying alive, him sacrificing two permanents, and me none. I’m not sure how that exactly works, but I double checked with a judge before doing it just to make sure. On my next turn I played a morph and stayed with both on defense with mana to unmorph. Julien now knew about the Shapeshifter, so he didn’t attack with the Totem. Instead he tapped out for Haunting Hymn. I untapped and unmorphed Brine Elemental, which caught him tapped out (just five lands and the Totem after sacrificing two permanents). Knowing the other morph was a Shapeshifter, he conceded the game.
My final round was once again a mirror. I started with a huge advantage as he was forced to discard a couple of times. I won the die roll and kept with five lands and two spells. I played turn 1 Storage land, and so did he. I played turn 2 Urborg, and charged the land right away on my turn, as this deck does nothing on turn 2 except for the Lens. He played also a turn 2 Urborg, but couldn’t charge his own Storage land, and I took this as a sign he didn’t had another land. He later revealed me he had kept with Urborg, Dreadship Reef, and two Prismatic Lens. Curiously, there’s less chance of being manascrewed if you’re on the draw, but had he been on the play, he could’ve played a turn 2 Lens. Sometimes it’s relevant to know what land to play in the beginning, or which ones to fetch with Terramorphic Expanse. He had a much better draw for game 2, which saw him have more lands and more cards, thanks to the ones he drew with Careful Consideration and the ones I discarded to his Haunting Hymn, but one thing he didn’t have was a lot of life points. I got a Teferi in play one of the turns he tapped to draw cards, and with it I also resolved a Plague Sliver and hoped he didn’t have a Damnation. He eventually killed the Teferi with Sudden Death, but not the big Sliver. He admitted that he forgot about Teferi’s limiting nature, so he planned and made a couple of plays he wouldn’t have if he’d remembered he couldn’t play spells at instant speed with Teferi in play.
My opponent was an amateur and unqualified for Pro Tour: Valencia, and he was hoping to win and get into the Top 16, but I pointed out that even a win was probably not enough. To my own dismay I was right, and I finished 19th. A couple of extra points, some extra cash for the Top 20, and drop by drop I already have my glass half full or still half empty, depending how you see it. Some "critics" claim I’m having a crappy season, but with two 2HG Grand Prixs and with no Top 8 so far, it doesn’t look so bad.
After the Grand Prix, one would think I’d had enough of playing with Blue/Black Teachings, which wasn’t the case. I volunteered for Gunslinging, not only so I could have some more fun (as playing Magic is always fun), but aslo so I could test my deck some more. Gunslinging at a Constructed tournament is good, because you have a Constructed deck, and everyone in the room has a deck in the same format because of the main event. Gunslinging at Limited Grand Prix tournaments is not so fair sometimes, as we’re playing with our Sealed decks against whatever’s coming, be it an insanely broken draft from a side event, or a Goblin Lackey into Siege-Gang Commander draw. But for Constructed events I think it’s perfect – it’s a win/win situation, I feel I’m doing something useful, I’m getting practice with my deck, and the challengers gets to play relevant games of the same format against experienced players.
Later that night, after a couple of drafts, I went for dinner with the drafters to a French restaurant. I tried fois gras and some strange raw meat for the first time, and then we met up with some more friends. The meeting point was the hotel where the Japanese players were camped, which was close to the site. At that time of night, there weren’t any Trams, so I turned to Paulo and asked if we should go back to their hotel and call a taxi. No sir, we decided against it. This time we had no rush to get to anywhere, so after checking the distance on the tram map, we set off down the line. We wanted to know how long it would have taken us that morning, but we also felt like doing something stupid. For the record, it took us 44 minutes.
Would I reccommed sticking with this deck with Future Sight entering the metagame? My answer is evasive. If you have been playing with this deck since the beginning, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be good. Arguably, its the best (or the more balanced) deck if you know how to play it. Don’t use me as an example, as I kept making silly mistakes. I would like to go through the Mono Red matchup in detail once again, as it doesn’t seem very good, but other than that no other deck can claim a better than 50 to 60 percent against it. Maybe Green/Red… depending on the versions and sideboards.
On the other hand, I’m not sure it pays off to jump on to this deck if you haven’t played it before, because if you haven’t so far it’s because you are probably not attracted to this kind of deck, and Future Sight seems to bring cards for every existing archtype, therefore it seems they would all be around once the format kicks in again. The Mono Red deck especially seems to gain some very appealing cards, and maybe I’ll write an article about it when I start testing for Grand Prix: Montreal, which is Block Constructed with the three sets. I’m working on an idea of my own, but so far I’m not getting much positive feedback from people who hear it. We’ll see how it develops around Montreal, but first I think I’m gonna enjoy this short break with no travel, until the long trip to North America for the Grand Prix and the Pro Tour.
Thank you for your time,
Tiago