Where do I even begin?
I wasn’t too thrilled about the Extended Grand Prix in Dallas because, well, I didn’t really like any of the decks in the format. There were actually infinite decks and not a single one tickled my fancy. I’d also just recently finished 0-4 in the Extended portion of Worlds in Paris, with Boros (ouch).
I definitely wasn’t looking forward to this Grand Prix.
Then Ben Lundquist told me about a Blue/Green Tron deck in which both Gift’s Ungiven and Life from the Loam were present. Now that’s what I’m talking about! I tested the deck on Magic Online for a week with Ben, although he did far more testing than me. Here’s the final list, and what Ben decided to play at the Grand Prix:
1 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Chrome Mox
4 Condescend
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Island
1 Life from the Loam
1 Lonely Sandbar
3 Memory Lapse
2 Mindslaver
3 Moment’s Peace
1 Platinum Angel
4 Remand
3 Repeal
1 Sundering Titan
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
2 Yavimaya Coast
1 Academy Ruins
4 Breeding Pool
4 Simic Signet
Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Deep Analysis
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Moment’s Peace
2 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
1 Repeal
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Krosan Grip
If you noticed, Mike Flores recently did a segment covering this deck played by Phil “P-Naps” Napoli to a Top 4 finish in a PTQ. Ben’s sidekick also known as “Emo Kid” also decided to play the deck at Grand Prix: Dallas, and finished a respectable 30th.
The goal is basically to resolve a Gift’s Ungiven. If you do, you are most likely going to win that game. Simple as that. Get the last Tron piece you need, Academy Ruins, Life from the Loam, and Mindslaver for the infinite lock (or Moment’s Peace to save the day).
I tested for a couple days on Magic Online with this deck, and I liked it a lot. However, there were random Destructive Flow decks with Dwarven Blastminer that I couldn’t beat. Then decks started splashing for Dwarven Blastminer and the like. It was unreal.
You see, Blue/White Tron was already on the map and all of the sideboard cards against it (Blastminer especially) would crush my deck as well. I wanted to play something under the radar. Something people weren’t going to expect.
I then remembered how people were talking about the lack of Boros in this Extended metagame. I had been a fan of Affinity in formats previous to this, and something just clicked. It’s the most explosive deck in the format currently (consistancy wise), and it doesn’t have any awful matchups besides Boros. The only card the deck needs to avoid is Kataki. The Trinket Tog deck had also just become very popular, and Affinity runs right over that.
I put the deck together online and just kept winning 8-man after 8-man with it. People talked about how lucky I would get and how bad Affinity was. What was happening really was that I was getting regular draws, and people just didn’t realize that’s how broken the deck can be when you don’t have to worry about Kataki anymore.
Here’s what I ended up with, and what I played at the Grand Prix:
Creatures (19)
Lands (20)
Spells (21)
Sideboard
I figured that the Grand Prix: Dallas metagame would be very similar to the current Magic Online metagame, so therefore I played something that was good for me online.
A couple of things about the deck
Fire / Ice
I know what you’re thinking. What the hell??? So there was one slot open in my deck, and I didn’t know what to put in it. My options were basically Chromatic Sphere, Pyrite Spellbomb, or Welding Jar. The Jar would have been far too random, and I already felt like the color ration was fine as it was. I had Spellbomb in there for a while, but it just felt a bit underpowered to me.
Then Gadiel mentioned to me he had been playing with Fire / Ice in his main deck and had been loving it. I tried it out, and it was actually very good for me. Here’s a list of things it does:
Taps Urza lands in upkeep
Kills Kataki
Taps Isochron Scepter
Taps Psychatog
Kills Dark Confidant
Taps Terravore
Kills Kataki
Kills Exalted Angel morphs
Taps Exalted Angels later in the game
Kills Kataki
Need I say more??
1 City of Brass and 1 Glimmervoid
Here’s another awkward piece of the deck, but it does make sense if you think about it. You need a certain amount of colored lands in the deck to be able to cast all your colored spells. The options for these 2 land slots are Glimmervoid, City of Brass, and Gemstone Mine. While the Mine seems good on paper, you get way too many draws with just 2 land and I didn’t want to take the risk of having Mine be one of them. That leaves us with the City and Glimmervoid. I didn’t want to play 2 City of Brass because of the chance of drawing both against an agro deck and didn’t want to play 2 Glimmervoid incase you run into something like the Rock that has Pernicious Deed. Ultimately leading us to play 1 of each.
4 Pithing Needle
Some people played three of them, and others brought them in from the sideboard. I think they’re all crazy to not play four main-deck. I’m not even going to bother giving you the list of cards this stops… or wait, yes I am.
Ghost Quarter
Academy Ruins
Psychatog
Sensei’s Diving Top
Grim Lavamancer
Mindslaver
Sword of Fire and Ice
Umezawa’s Jitte
Troll Ascetic
Isochron Scepter
Seismic Assault
Pernicious Deed
I’m sure there are many that I’m forgetting, but all of those cards are being played right now, and a lot of them are bad for you.
The Cabal Therapies are pretty standard and definitely deserve the slot. They were the MVP out of the sideboard for me on the weekend.
Tormod’s Crypt is another card that deserves its slot. It can be an absolute wrecking ball against Loam and is good against random decks with Moment’s Peace. It can also lead to some really fast draws, being a zero mana casting cost artifact and all.
The Stifles are there for the combo decks, anything with Pernicious Deed, and for Loam when you are on the draw. You board it in against Loam on the draw because Cabal Therapy is too slow against them on the draw. They usually board into more Shattering Sprees as well, which is a difficult card to beat.
Other than that, the deck is pretty straightforward.
During the bye rounds we head over to the mall across the street, and I almost get food poisoning from the food court. We also see cowboy hats selling at $500, and cowboy hat “carrying cases” for another $50. Only in Texas.
Here’s how the tournament went:
Round 4: Eugene Levin
Great, right off the bat I have to play against a friend of mine. The last person I wanted to play against probably. I know he is playing Heartbeat, but I wasn’t sure what the exact list was or if there were any changes from Planar Chaos.
Game: 1 I lead with a first turn Pithing Needle, think for a while, then proceed to name Sensei’s Diving Top…
It isn’t even in the deck, and Eugene goes on to combo me out turn 5. Off to a great start!
Game 2: Eugene mulligans into a hand with no Green mana and fails to draw a Green source before I kill him.
Game 3: A pair of Cabal Therapies rip apart Eugene’s hand for game 3. He does manage to stabilize for a couple of turns with Moment’s Peace, but eventually runs out of gas.
Record: 4-0
Round 5: Benjamin Lundquist
First Eugene, now Ben? Who else could possibly be on deck?
Game 1: He gets a blazing fast draw involving a turn 2 Gift’s Ungiven for the Mindslaver lock. I am able to Needle the Mindslaver and start beating with an Ornithopter equipped with Cranial Plating. Moment’s Peace buys him some time, but not enough as I am able to finish him off with a Shrapnel Blast after he is forced to tap out.
Game 2: This game was very similar to game 1, but he drew three Moment’s Peaces, which hurt a lot. I find a Tormod’s Crypt and wait to blow it at the end of his turn. So he untaps, Krosan Grips it, and seals the deal with Tron and Mindslaver.
Game 3: I get a Cranial Plating on Frogmite early and start attacking. He only has Yavimaya Coast and Cephalid Coliseum for mana so he is taking a bunch of damage from his own lands. On his fourth turn he lays the Green Seal of Primordium and passes the turn. My hand at this point is two land and two more Cranial Platings. On my fourth turn I have the option of playing another Plating and equipping my Frogmite before I attack, but that would lead him to kill the Frogmite and possibly my chances at winning the game. I just attack, and he does kill the plating. I play and equip Plating after the attack phase, and he has no more land or answers for it.
Record: 5-0
Round 6: D.J. Mayer
I’ve seen this name somewhere before, but couldn’t recall from where it originated. He is playing Tog also, which is a very good match-up for me.
Game 1: This game goes as planned as I start with the early beats and follow it up with an Arcbound Ravager. He gets a couple Togs in play, but I am able to draw Pithing Needle to stop the Togs, and he concedes.
Game 2: He plays a Top turn 1 and I Needle it the following turn. My draw is once again fairly good, and he has nothing special in his sideboard for the Affinity match-up so a Cranial Plating on an Ornithopter was all it took.
Record: 6-0
Round 7: Kirk Dalton
Game 1: Kirk starts out with Plains and Isamaru leading me to believe he is Boros, man! However, he plays a turn Spectral Lynx off a Bloodstained Mire, and I get a little hope back because he’s Black/White aggro. I Needle the Lynx and he has a rough time dealing with a Myr Enforcer. He eventually finds Vindicate for the Enforcer and the game comes to a halt. I draw an Arcbound Ravager after a couple turns and all the counters get transferred to a Blinkmoth Nexus, which finishes him off.
Game 2: This is the first time I have to play against Kataki I think to myself, so I bring in the Darkblasts and Fire / Ice. He leads with Isamaru again, but has Dark Confidant of turn 2 this time. Descendent of Kiyomaro also makes an appearance, but gets taken out by a Shrapnel Blast. He draws a couple of Disenchants, but no Kataki. I eventually draw Ravager and it basically goes uncontested as he continued to draw lands.
Record: 7-0
Round 8: Jim Davis
I saw that Jim was playing Goblins in a feature match prior to this round, which I think is probably 50/50 or a little better.
Game 1: He gets the early Piledriver draw, but I am able to trade with it after one attack. Myr Enforcer and Frogmite are holding the fort as he continues to add random Goblins to the board. Ravager makes a timely appearance and he is forced to start chumping it with War Marshal tokens. He doesn’t draw anything after that point and game 1 goes to me.
Game 2: I’m off to a slow start, but multiple Thoughtcasts gain me huge card advantage. I also get very lucky and draw both Fire / Ice’s, which are very good against him. Myr Enforcer and Frogmite start bashing and I even get to Stifle a Goblin Matron ability. Awesome.
Record: 8-0
Wow, eight wins and zero losses. The last time I had that record was, well, in the previous GP I played in. Could we make it back to back 9-0 Day 1s?
Round 9: Raphael Levy
Raph is definitely not a person you want to have sitting across from you at any tournament, unless you are Gadiel Szleifer who is currently 27-0 against him.
Game 1: He gets a fairly fast start, but my draw is a little bit faster. Turn 4 he could have Lavamancer’d a Frogmite main phase, but chose not to. This led to me playing around 5 spells the next turn, of which two of them were Myr Enforcers. He puts up a good fight, but the 4/4’s are just too big for him to deal with in the end.
Game 2: I play a turn 2 Arcbound Ravager and he has the choice between Sudden Shocking it or Tribal Flamesing it. He ends up using Tribal Flames so I sac enough artifacts to keep it alive. The next turn I play two more guys and he shrugs. If he had Shocked the Ravager instead of Flamesing it, he would have won for sure because I really had nothing else besides the Ravager. The Ravager accompanied with some other attackers and a timely Shrapnel Blast seals the deal.
Record: 9-0
Sweet, not a single Kataki was cast against me Day 1, and my record shows just that. I was very confident going into Day 2 because nothing at the top tables looked like they were running Kataki sideboard. The “under the radar” plan was working. As long as I could avoid the dreaded legend at least four rounds tomorrow, I figured I should be in great shape for Top 8.
Round 10: Tiago Chan
Tiago is playing Blue/White Tron, which I’m sure is a good matchup for me. I just hoped he wasn’t running Kataki.
Game 1: I get a fairly fast draw with a Cranial Plating, but he stabilizes with a couple of Wrath of Gods. Just when I think that I’m going to get Slaver locked, I draw Pithing Needle to stop that nonsense and play a Ravager off a Chromatic Star in the same turn. He then plays Gifts and gets Triskelion and Exalted Angel put into his hand. I respond to the Trisk by making my Nexus huge, and he losing to it next turn combined with a Shrapnel Blast.
Game 2: He mulligans not to 6, not to 5, but to 4. 4!!! He still would have easily won the game had he drawn one of his two Katakis, but he didn’t.
Record: 10-0
From this point I need to go 2-2-1 to make Top 8. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
Round 11: David Howard
For those of you that don’t know, this man is a legend. The “smokesmccloaks” on Magic Online!
I was very nervous going into this round.
Game 1 I start on the play with a fairly fast draw. He Therapies me for Arcbound Ravager, but misses. I then proceed to draw Cranial Plating off the top, with like eight other artifacts in play. He digs for Burning Wish or Devastating Dreams, but fails to find either within the next couple turns. Game 2 was all about Pithing Needle baby. He ended the game with three Seismic Assault in hand, and I won on the back of a huge Ravager.
Record: 11-0
Round 12: Thomas Lapille (or “Big Pills” as he likes to be called)
Game 1 he gets an early Counterbalance on the table, but I am able to Pithing Needle Sensei’s Diving Top so he can’t combo me out. Psychatog makes an appearance, but it stands no match for my flying creature with Cranial Plating equipped to it.
Game 2 is similar to game 1 as Pithing Needle naming Sensei’s Diving Top makes an early appearance. He does gain some card advantage with Thirst for Knowledge, but my deck is just too fast for his.
Record: 12-0
Yeah, actually twelve and zero. Pretty sure I was locked up for Top 8 at this point, which was a rather nice feeling knowing there were three rounds remaining.
Oh and by the way, that’s nine consecutive rounds without seeing Kataki on the other side of the table.
Round 13: Kenji Tsumura
Kenji and I talk frequently over Magic Online. A normal conversation between us might look something like this…
Me: SAKE?
Kenji: SAAAAKEEEEE
Me: drinking???
Kenji: SOOOOO DRUUUUUNK
Anyway, the man clearly knows what’s up. Also prior to this Grand Prix, I was teasing myself with the idea of going to GP: Kyoto. I really love traveling to Japan and I thought it would be a fun time. Not to mention I was invited to stay at Shuhei’s house for the entirety of my trip. However, tickets were an astounding $1,500 when I checked, but I promised to go if I won GP: Dallas.
As our names were called out for a feature match, I consider conceding right there on the spot because of the fact he got me a place to stay for GP: Kyoto. We sit down and a crowd gathers immediately. I then realized, this is the kid everyone came here to watch. Why not give the people what they want?
So I decide to play with the intentions of conceding if I was going to win. He was a full five points behind me going into the round also, even further emphasizing my decision.
The match was covered and can be read about here.
Julien Nutlow, who was doing coverage for the match, makes me look like a complete buffoon. I was indeed a little unsure how to sideboard against Loam, but if you want to bring in colored spells, you have to bring some out. That’s just how the deck works. There’s a perfect balance of number of artifacts to non-artifacts and disruptive that balance destroys the deck. By shaving off small number of Thoughtcasts and Shrapnel Blasts, you leave your deck with the same explosive capabilities it had pre-sideboarding. Both Shrapnel Blast and Thoughtcast are important cards to draw, so it just made the most sense to me to cut a few of each in the end.
Record: 11-1
Round 14: Paul Cheon
I end up giving him the win because I was still a lock for Top 8. He’s also a friend of mine, and I’ve got to support U.S.A whenever possible.
Record: 12-2
Round 15: Paul Nguyen
We I.D. into Top 8.
Record: 12-2-1
I end up in second place after the swiss and I get paired against Alex Ledbetter in the Top 8. His deck was pretty interesting. It was basically a Scepter / Chant deck fitted with the Counterbalance / Sensei’s Diving Top combo. He also played the full amount of Lightning Angels.
Top 8: Alex Ledbetter
Game 1: I play a first turn Pithing Needle naming Isochron Scepter, and follow it up with a second turn Arcbound Ravager. He then Lightning Helixes the Ravager on his second turn. I have the option of sacrificing the Needle and my only two lands to save the Ravager, but that leaves me with nothing. I however have another land and Arcbound Worker in my hand, so I decide to go for it. He then proceeds to lock me with Scepter / Chant and I concede when he gets Counterbalance / Top out.
Game 2: I lead once again with an early Pithing Needle naming Isochron Scepter. This time I let it stick and begin beating with an Arcbound Ravager and Worker. He has Lightning Angel on his side of the board, but with a timely Ice at the end of his turn, I play and equip Cranial Playing and start dealing massive amounts of damage. He tries to set up the lock, but I have a backup Needle just to make sure.
Game 3: I mulligan to five this game, not a good way to start out game 3 of Top 8. He then proceeds to play turn 1 Chrome Mox, Island, Isochron Scepter imprinting Fire / Ice. How the hell am I supposed to beat that?
My opening hand featured Darksteel Citadel, Arcbound Ravager, Chromatic Star, Arcbound Worker, and Thoughtcast. I draw another artifact land off the top, and I think to myself I might have a shot if I draw Needle fairly shortly. He ends up tapping my land for a turn or two, but is forced to cast Thirst for Knowledge to draw more land himself. This gives me an opening to play the Ravager. A Seat off the top leads to me casting multiple Thoughtcasts in the same turn drawing me in Pithing Needle. I then Shrapnel Blast his freshly cast Lightning Angel, play the Needle, and start going to town with Ravager. He eventually kills the Ravager, but he is on low life and I have a Nexus withering away his life total. He is using Sensei’s Diving Top every turn to make sure he draws a spell, but eventually runs out of gas and I win what seemed like an impossible game to come back from.
Top 4: Paul Cheon
Paul is definitely at the top of the U.S. Magic chain right now and has quickly made a name for himself on the tour. He is running an awkward version of Aggro Loam.
Game 1: I get a very fast start for this game, and he takes eight damage from a Frogmite on turn 3. He tries to go for Devastating Dreams, but I have a second Plating to finish him the turn before he can cast it.
Game 2: This game wasn’t even close as he casts an early Baloth and follows it up with three or four spot removal spells, killing all of my creatures.
Game 3: This was probably the most exciting game for me throughout the entire tournament. I manage to Needle Seismic Assault early on in the game to get that out of the way, then proceed to cast a couple of Frogmites and Myr Enforcers. His spot removal trades for a couple of my guys, but I dig deeper into my deck with Thoughtcast. The game eventually gets to a point where I have 2 lethal creatures in play both equipped with Cranial Platings. His side of the board features nothing but a bunch of measly Birds of Paradise. Should be easy right?
Wrong.
His next five draws consisted of; Smother, Hull Breach, Shattering Spree, Hull Breach, Life from the Loam. I got him down to eleven, and I was even holding double Shrapnel Blast, but it was to no avail. He plays around double Shrapnel Blast, eventually dredges into Ancient Grudge, which he uses to kill my Pithing Needle. He then casts Seismic assault and dumps his hand onto the table. I go from an almost un-losable position to actually losing the game. Oh well, I guess I deserve it with all the luck I was receiving throughout the tournament.
And for those of you keeping track at home, that’s 14, yes fourteen consecutive rounds in a row without having to play against Kataki, War’s Wage. Must be nice!
If I had to do it all over again, I think I would play 3 Shrapnel Blast and 2 Fire / Ice instead of 4 and 1. Besides that I felt like I had a very solid list, and would be confident enough to run it again for sure.
…
So there you have it, another GP down, another solid finish. Hopefully the streak will continue. The U.S. Grand Prix sites have definitely been lacking lately… can we get a Grand Prix: Orlando again sometime soon?
See you soon!