I feel like I should apologize.
The prospect of going to Pro Tour Amsterdam was exciting, and I liked the format. However, traveling, especially to Europe, has become increasingly tiresome. Money was part of the issue, of course, but I could still easily afford the trip. After I made the decision to not go, I made sure to forego getting a new passport after mine was stolen during Pro Tour San Diego.
Still, I should have gone. Everybody needs someone to root for — or what I’ve typically found in my case, someone to root against. So for that, I’m sorry. At least there are the Moris and Carvalhos — but they both finished in the money, so there’s no satisfaction in that.
Anyway, deeply filled with regret as I was, I decided that I was going to put my entire being into getting to Worlds in Chiba. Grand Prix in Portland, Toronto, and Nashville were at the top of my list. I had to wait until the very last second to buy my ticket to Portland, due to an incredibly long story.
The short of it is that I don’t like banks, and cash my checks through my friend’s account. Sometimes he spends my money, then I have to wait for him to get paid, which is no big deal. It was the Wednesday before the Grand Prix, and I still didn’t have a ticket, but I finally got the go ahead.
It was $480, which was annoying. It went up a hundred since I last checked, and anything over $300 is pretty expensive for a domestic Grand Prix. Now, I would have to top 8 to make money, discounting the value of accumulating Pro points or hanging out with friends.
I turned to the wise people of Twitter, and was told to bid on Priceline (by, I think, Osyp). The website said I could save up to 50% — so I bid $250, roughly half, and got there! I probably could have saved more, but didn’t know what would happen if I bid $50 and got no-sirred. Would they refuse service from my IP for the rest of time for trying to game them? I decided that $300 would be a price I was happy paying, so I aimed for a little less.
Gabriel Carleton-Barnes made me a generous offer to stay at his dad and stepmom’s house, as he was initially from Portland, and I gladly took him up on his offer. America’s favorite national team member, Conrad Kolos, would be joining us.
Conrad gets a bad rap for creating controversy during matches, and I myself have been guilty of spreading that bad rap, but he’s a pretty cool dude outside of Magic. He’s also not one of those dudes that does something that’s scumbaggish or self-serving, and then tries to deny that it’s either of those things. I can really respect someone who knows who he is and doesn’t apologize for it, or try to lie to make himself seem better in the eye of the public.
GCB was getting into Portland on Thursday night, so I Pricelined my flight for the same day. As it turns out, Priceline is a magical creature that can predict exactly what times you don’t want to fly. I would arrive in Portland at 1 p.m., and leave Monday night at 11 p.m. I suppose this is the price to pay for half price tickets.
So what to do in Portland for ten hours? GCB gave me directions to a nice little coffee shop with Wi-Fi called Backspace. Limited tournaments are great because I normally don’t need to pack anything — but in this case, I needed to bring my enormous laptop.
I also brought two Standard decks just in case I didn’t make day two or someone needed to borrow them. Naturally, I didn’t touch either deck box the entire trip.
Backspace had no menus that I saw, so I just ordered a plain bagel rather than enquire as to what they served. I took a chance and also ordered a raspberry soda, since everything else looked sketchy at best. I was definitely out of my element here, surrounded by hipsters.
What to do? Fire up Magic Online, clearly. Perfecting my M11 skills were the target, and I figured I could get some quality battling in before GCB landed. My first draft was solid, but I lost a close one in round two. Second draft, I cracked a very mediocre pack, and ran the LSV strategy, selecting Wild Griffin. My deck ended up a pile of garbage, but thankfully, Backspace’s internet went down. While I “lost” some packs, I wasn’t very confident with that deck anyway, and probably wasn’t going to win.
At that point, I had been sitting around for about four hours, mooching their internet, and had spent under $5. Portland is about the most laid-back place I’ve ever been to, so I was probably fine just loitering and not paying a dime, but I didn’t feel right. I was also getting kind of tired, so I decided to head back to the airport, take a nap, and wait for GCB.
I passed out for about three hours, which was nice, and then did some reading while I waited. Soon enough, I was at Gabe’s, and out for the night. In the morning, I slept in while Gabe met some friends, then we went to the site. I grabbed some food at the local Burgerville, which was about as good as I expected it to be.
There were some drafts going on at the site, but I didn’t partake. Instead, I registered, paying a hefty $40, durdled around, and eventually went back to sleep. First, I ran into Jon Loucks, who was about to play in his first Limited Grand Prix ever, but with only one bye. He told me he was playing in a Grand Prix Trial — but then I informed him that meant he would be giving up the obligatory round two Writer Feature Match. (Granted, I only had two byes and wasn’t bothering to trial.)
Sadly, sleep ended too quickly, and I was forced to register my Sealed deck and stay awake for two hours before I could play. It would be unbelievably nice if you could register your Sealed deck the night before or something, and then sleep through your byes.
I hit up Burgerville again, this time waiting a full thirty minutes before I received my “fast” food. Their breakfast stuff was at least far better than their burgers.
Early on, it was clear that Grand Prix Portland was going to be one of the worst-run events in the history. Eventually, they delayed round ten until Sunday; otherwise, we’d be playing until at least 3 a.m.
My Sealed deck was solid, but unspectacular. I thought I would do well — but as it turns out, everyone else’s deck seemed much better than mine. It was going to be a constant struggle, starting with my round three feature match.
During the byes, I played some games against Michael Jacob. I was nearly Mono-Black (and could have been if I wanted to), but would have had some chaff in my deck. I didn’t have a whole lot of decisions to make. I could have played my Phylactery Lich, as I had four good artifact creatures — but the problem with that was they were all creatures.
In the end, I decided to play two Stormfront Pegasus, Wild Griffin, Serra Angel, Vengeful Archon, and Condemn in addition to my black cards. The flyers filled out my curve and gave me a chance to get some solid beatdown draws. I wanted to play first every game because of my two Sign in Bloods, so it seemed better to have something resembling a mana curve.
As I learned against MJ, I wanted my creatures to give me some value, even if they died. Flying, while a solid ability, just didn’t cut it in my control deck. In my sideboard, I had several blue cards, but they seemed worse than my white. Depending on my matchup, I would board in some amount of:
Cloud Elemental
Mana Leak
2 Phantom Beast
Jace’s Ingenuity
Aether Adept
Scroll Thief
Diminish
Augury Owl
Cancel
Alluring Siren
The blue was much more synergetic with the rest of my deck.
Loucks walked by my feature match and told me that he won the Trial. I told him it could have been him sitting in the feature match area. He went on to
make top eight (congrats!), whereas I lost round three to Ornithopter. Thankfully, my match was recorded by ggslive, so
it’s there for everyone to see
.
I lost to Royal Assassin game one, crushed him game two, and then was stuck on one Swamp game three. Meanwhile, he was four lands, all of his colors, and all spells, including an Ornithopter.
So I started 0-1. I knew this could only go one of two ways: either I lose all my matches from here on out. (Since if I can’t beat that guy, who
can
I beat?) The other option is that I win the remainder of matches and am therefore able to say, “I only lost to Ornithopter on day one.” No matter what, it was going to be a long day.
I trudged on, trying not to get discouraged. Nearly every opponent I played against was solid, and some of them had their bombs, but it didn’t seem to matter. My U/B deck was much better than my W/B deck — and while I lost a lot of game ones, I won the rest of my matches!
I wasn’t exactly happy with having to start day two by playing another match with my Sealed deck… and sure enough, I lost. My opponent was good and I lost game one, and he managed to squeak out the third game.
I wasn’t sure how the draft would go. I had been putting up fine results in the MTGO drafts, but online and real life are always so different. I constantly hear stories of players winning all of their MTGO drafts, but not being able to buy a win live.
Things seemed to be looking up with a first-pick Baneslayer Angel. I can only imagine what MJ thinks when he cracks a Baneslayer, since I can’t even fathom how many animal crackers it could buy. Doom Blade was my second pick over a Foresee. I had passed two blue cards in my first pack, and while I would rather be U/W, I was more than comfortable drafting black as well.
Third pick was an Excommunicate over basically nothing in an attempt to stay white, but after that I shifted into U/B. When I opened up an Assault Griffin and nothing in U/B, I took a chance to reclaim my white status.
From there, things went swimmingly. I ended up with three Scroll Thieves, and therefore started taking Unsummons fairly high. An eighth-pick, pack three Sleep was an amazing gift, and the Scroll Thief I received after that made my deck a thing of beauty.
Aether Adept
Alluring Siren
Mana Leak
4 Scroll Thief
Sleep
2 Unsummon
Assault Griffin
Baneslayer Angel
Blinding Mage
Excommunicate
Inspired Charge
Mighty Leap
Silvercoat Lion
3 Stormfront Pegasus
Wild Griffin
Gargoyle Sentinel
Phantom Beast
Notable Sideboard:
Safe Passage
I lost the first game I played against a hyper-aggressive R/W deck after I missed some land drops. Second game, I missed a land drop again, and was knocked down to three life before I could cast Baneslayer Angel. His body language gave away that he had nothing, so soon, we were moving to game three. I didn’t miss land drops this time, was able to cast my spells, and he couldn’t compete.
Second round I crushed a U/G deck, although he was mana-screwed twice. Seemed like a good matchup regardless.
My draw in the first game of the finals was absurd; he was missing land drops, and complaining about how good my deck was. I thought I was money in the second game, but he stabilized at two life. It was kind of weird, because he had Prodigal Pyromancer and Whispersilk Cloak, but neglected to equip it. He also kept open blue and red mana, but never countered any of my spells.
He didn’t have any other creatures, so it probably meant that he was looking to enchant his Pyromancer. The only thing I could think of was Shiv’s Embrace, which seemed likely.
He cast Augury Owl, kept two on top, and then I put his Pyromancer and Augury Owl to Sleep, attacked him to two, cast Alluring Siren, and passed. One of the weird cards in his hand turned out to be a Call to Mind, and he used the Bolt and Call to reduce me to the Siren and nothing.
I drew an Assault Griffin and could either attack him for one, or force his Owl to attack. If he had nothing left, I would win, but he scryed two to the top — and although I had forgotten about this at the time, he
did
still have that Shiv’s Embrace.
In the end, I got him to one and passed. The Owl became Embraced and Cloaked, and he passed back. I drew a Blinding Mage and traded the Griffin for his mega-Owl. He shot the Siren and cast Ancient Hellkite, but didn’t have enough mana to Cloak it.
I drew a Scroll Thief. If he drew nothing, he’d die — but if he did have something, Hellkite would start mowing down my team. Awkwardly, the something he drew was Manic Vandals, which killed his Cloak and allowed me to keep his Dragon tapped.
Mana Leak was my draw step, but it gave me some kind of insurance. I needed him to draw nothing and he’d die — but it needed to be a little something. It was pretty awesome that he drew a Fireball…. but instead of killing my two guys, he just targeted my Blinding Mage, making me unable to Leak it. Playing around Mana Leak seemed foolish since two turns earlier I didn’t have it, and then if I drew anything, my Scroll Thief would kill him.
I drew some blanks, and his draw steps were kind, so we were on to game three. Sadly, it was over quickly, as he killed all of my creatures, thus ending my top 8 dreams.
The second draft went incredibly well. I took Nantuko Shade out of a poor pack, again showing my preference for black. Then I took Doom Blade over Foresee and Jace’s Ingenuity, then Foresee over another Ingenuity, and then a fourth-pick Corrupt.
I continued on with the removal and card drawing theme, opening another Corrupt in pack two and selecting some Sign in Bloods. I placed very little value on random beaters like Barony Vampire, and ignored cards that kill me, like Howling Banshee. Going into pack three, I was hoping to get a shot at Elixir of Immortality — and while I had to take it early, I was very pleased to have it.
I could prolong the game, kill all of their guys, draw some cards, and gain the life back via Corrupts. The problem was potentially decking myself, or just not being able to kill them. Elixir gave me inevitability and some valuable life gain.
Here is my masterpiece:
Armored Cancrix
Call to Mind
Foresee
Jace’s Ingenuity
Mind Control
Scroll Thief
2 Assassinate
Barony Vampire
Black Knight
2 Child of Night
2 Corrupt
Diabolic Tutor
Doom Blade
Nantuko Shade
Reassembling Skeleton
3 Sign in Blood
Drowned Catacombs
5 Island
12 Swamp
Notable Sideboard:
2 Demon’s Horn
2 Phylactery Lich
Mind Rot
Cloud Elemental
A few brief notes:
A) I considered playing the Horns and at least one Lich maindeck, but decided that my deck was good enough without it.
B) Cloud Elemental doesn’t block. While Cancrix isn’t a great card, it invalidates their squad of Grizzly Bears, making it so that I don’t have to Assassinate all of their creatures, even the ones not worth killing. You need the virtual card advantage in these types of decks.
C) I like Mana Leak a lot — but in these types of decks, the games are going to go very late. Mana Leak will be a terrible draw most of the time, but you can circumvent that by drafting a lot of Liliana’s Specters or a Mind Rot.
Now, I don’t like Mind Rot as much as I used to, but sometimes you can use it to blow them out. People have played enough Core Set at this point to where it’s common knowledge how to play around it. Still, even if it’s the worst-case scenario and they discard two excess lands, that means your Mana Leaks are probably hard counters.
D) Assassinate is terrible with Sign in Blood and Scroll Thief, but ultimately a necessity. I don’t like Howling Banshee or Assassinate in my black control decks, since they require life to be good. In black, life is one of your most valuable resources, so you can’t afford to just go throwing it away.
Round one ended with double Corrupt twice. If I had one complaint about this deck, it’s that I never had a chance to go infinite, because I never needed to. I would just find two Corrupts and end it that way.
My second round was against
Brian Kowal in a feature match
. I recommend that you go read it now.
This is by far my favorite match of the weekend, so I’m glad it was covered. We were both nearly Mono-Black, and I mulliganed in game one and stumbled on lands. I quickly reached for my Horns and Liches, looking to win with style in the Feature Match area.
A Horn came down on turn 2 and nearly put me up to thirty life before anything happened. As I said, life is a resource — and while sometimes gaining a few life isn’t worth a card, the Horn is very much worth it in this match, since I had multiple Sign in Bloods and Kowal had multiple Banshees.
The life buffer allowed me to sit back and sculpt a beautiful hand rather than be forced to deal with his crappy dudes. He had deployed a Royal Assassin and another motley crew of dudes, but those were embarrassing in comparison to the Lich. Surprisingly, he had a way to deal with it in the form of Necrotic Plague, but that just cleared both of our boards.
While he was trying to rebuild, I was entering noclipping mode.
When Kowal Duressed me, and pointed at the Horn, I asked him to speak up. He said, loudly for the crowd to hear, “I’ll Duress your Demon’s Horn!”
Even without my life gain engine, I was still doing okay. Nantuko Shade hit him a few times (I assumed he sided out his Stabbing Pain, especially after getting Duressed twice, so running it out there turn 2 seemed fine) and I cast a few Sign in Bloods. I Mind Controlled his first Howling Banshee, and Corrupted his second. At that point, he was low enough on life that I just swarmed him.
With one round to go, I checked the standings. If I won, I would be in the top sixteen, but likely not top twelve. If I lost, I would be relegated to a mere top sixty-four finish. My opponent, Joe Timidaiski, also had his sights set on top sixteen, and enquired about a concession. As I needed the Pro points to get to Worlds, that was a no-go.
In the first game, he attempted to beat me down with assorted durdles, and he was assisted by the fact that I was stuck on land. Finally, a main-phase Ingenuity served up land number six, and when I finally untapped and played my seventh, I was going to cast Corrupt.
I was at seven life facing down a 4/4, 2/2, and 1/1 with no board, while Corrupt would hit for five. He had been holding three cards the entire game, so some of them had to be tricks. I couldn’t beat a Safe Passage, but I could play around numerous other things.
Instead, I chose the obvious target of 4/4, which he Mighty Leaped. Then he used Thunder Strike and Inspired Charge to kill me. If I get to untap, I fire off another Corrupt — so I should have just targeted the 2/2, which would allow me to play around virtually everything.
Sigh.
Thankfully, game two and three, my deck overpowered him and did what it was supposed to do.
13-3 overall. Good for fourteenth place.
GCB’s flight left later that night, so I needed to find a place to crash. Luckily, LSV, Brad, and Matt Kurtin had space in their room, and we retired there fairly early. Return of the King was on, and while Brad made an attempt to watch it, he was soon sprawled on the bed, passed out. We were watching LSV draft when some monsters started battling during the movie. Soon, their snarling and Brad’s snoring were in synch. It was truly wonderful.
LSV left in the afternoon, while Chapin and I had flights at night. We hung out in the lobby, did a two-on-two, but overall just hung out.
Surprisingly, at the airport I discovered that roughly a million other gamers had the same flight that I did. Apparently, they too, had been tricked by Priceline. While waiting for our flight to board, we did a three-on-three (for funsies) with random teams. Rather than play out the games, Patrick Chapin, an impartial observer, would rate the decks to determine who won the draft.
Eddie Bontkowski, Matt Boccio, and I were victorious, as Chapin correctly rated our decks #1, #2, and #3 overall.
Finally, I was getting situated on the plane when a flight attendant asked for Craig Wescoe, if he were indeed on the plane, to press his call button. Ryan O’Connon, seated in front of me, couldn’t believe that the airline was doing an actual Wescoe Check.
Not long after that, he was asking Jasper and Misha, who were sitting in my row, if he could play Ascension with them. I told him that it was a two-player game (which it most certainly isn’t), but he informed me that if that was the case, he would simply call a judge and get one of them disqualified.
Then I got home, and made plans to do it all over again.
GerryT