I’m sitting in the San Juan Sheraton typing this after deciding to stay an extra day to get some quality time with friends, and definitely not regretting it. The country is far from amazing, and it certainly rained a lot, but overall it was a pretty sick time.
Part of that had to do with the fire being back! From Atlanta to DC to San Juan, I felt like I played some great Magic, and I know for certain that it will continue. Clearly I’ve had my lesser moments as well, but hey, who doesn’t?
My plan for SJ was to stay in an apartment with Kitt and Megan Holland, Orrin Beasley, Pat Cox, Michael Jacob, and Calosso Fuentes. Definitely an interesting group if I’ve ever seen one. Naturally, Megan planned everything.
I stayed with Calosso for DC, and for some reason, we decided to get different flights than Hollands and company. We saw them when we got to the airport and then headed to our gate. The problem was that I was fairly intoxicated after an excellent night out on the town with Tom Ross. He stole the show by showcasing his absurd drunken backflips.
I passed out at the gate. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as Calosso was still awake. I woke up a few hours later and checked the time. Our flight had left 30 minutes ago. I woke him up and we went to our gate to get new flights, the soonest of which was leaving the next day.
He wanted to figure out how we could take a bus back, but I said screw it and we hopped in a cab, which I took the hit for. It seemed only fair since I was pushing for it. Once back at Casa de Fuentes, we both passed out again, this time for a more lengthy ten hour “nap.”
When I woke up, he was already awake and in the MTGO grind, while I threw some Tombstones in the oven. A few hours later, we were on our way back to the airport, this time for realsies.
After being scolded by Megan for missing our flights (and especially for this being the second flight I missed on my trip), Megan told us about the interesting (i.e. boring) forts they visited, I wrote my Naya article, and then we tried to decide what to do. In the end, we headed to the site hotel, but didn’t really accomplish much.
At that point I literally hadn’t tested a game of Block Constructed, at least post-Rise. I wasn’t worried though, as I had a firm grasp on it pre-Rise, and figured I could just play it by ear. Mostly I was waiting on someone to sell me on something. I was considering playing the Australian Fish deck, but I wasn’t sold. An aggro deck with Spell Pierce was pretty appealing though.
Wednesday, Calosso and I hit the pool with some other gamers while Hollands and co went to the rainforest. Much like the forts, we weren’t interested. Once they got back and met up at the pool, we chilled for a while, then we hung out some more. I witnessed Billy Moreno brewing UW and RDW, while Ben Lundquist had a nice little Mono White Eldrazi deck he liked. While all of those decks had interesting twists, they weren’t enough. I still didn’t have a deck.
Then I hit up the Decks of the Week from Magic Online and saw an interesting brew by (I believe) .sdmgames. It was an UR Control deck with a Fish package in his sideboard, and it seemed well suited for the format as it was shaping up. I proxied it up, but was content to not play any games and just run it cold. Obviously not the best idea, but Block seemed like a tough format to crack, and no one seemed like they had a good deck, so I might as well have a little fun while I play something competitive, right?
On Thursday, Calosso and I met up with James Pirkey and his wife at the pool, where I did a little sunbathing. Problem was, there were only clouds. Still, it was incredibly humid, so I didn’t really mind sitting around with no shirt on.
Calosso continued to say inappropriate things to Pirkey’s wife, up to and including telling her that Pirkey would cheat on him if given the chance. Real smooth, man.
At some point, she took off her shades, gave me an in-depth once over, and then said, “You’re getting a little red.” I didn’t see it, nor did I really believe her, seeing as how it was basically dark outside.
Calosso needed to hit up the LCQ, so we left shortly after, where he proceeded to not even come close to grinding in. I shopped around for a deck and found nothing. Mind Sludge was in the back of my mind, and I didn’t really want to play the UR deck, so when I heard that Kyle Boggemes was playing Vampires, had tested it a lot, and it had done really well, I called him up.
I hated his list.
It was all over the place with one and two ofs, but I knew Kyle had a rational explanation for each. I didn’t really have the time to talk to him about it since it was getting pretty late, so I just copied down his list and decided to think about it.
The one thing I did like about his list was the Abyssal Persecutor/Consuming Vapors package. Having a fast clock to go with your disruption seemed very strong, but also, against Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp, they probably can’t kill you without annihilators, so you don’t even really have to kill your own Persecutor.
I sent a text to Andrew Lipkin asking what I should play. He told me to just jam his Koros deck, but I wasn’t entirely sold.
When we got back to the apartment, I brewed a Vampire list with 2 Kalastria Highborn. Pat Cox told me the card was sweet and that I should play 3. That put me to 61 cards, but I’m not opposed. After all, I did make Top 8 of States a few years ago with a 65-card maindeck. Then, as I was looking through Orrin’s stuff, I saw a Sorin and wanted to play with that spicy number. Out went a Highborn and in went Sorin.
I played a few games against Pat’s UW deck, and the results were solid. I learned a few things about the deck, and just how important the Planeswalkers were. Then I played a few games against Calosso, me with UR and him with UW. Let’s just say I gave him a Calcite Snapping he won’t soon forget.
The Vamp deck was sleeved up and ready to go, whereas I still needed some stuff for the UR deck. Both seemed equally good/bad, so I flipped a coin. Heads would be Vampires, and heads it was. With that decision out of the way, I could safely fall asleep.
I woke up in pain. Apparently I was a “little” red all over. Somehow, I had gotten cloudburned all to hell. And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I don’t leave my house.
This is what I registered:
Creatures (21)
- 4 Bloodghast
- 4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
- 4 Malakir Bloodwitch
- 4 Vampire Hexmage
- 3 Abyssal Persecutor
- 2 Kalastria Highborn
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (25)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
You might think it’s blasphemy to play Nighthawk in the sideboard, but it’s far from a sacred cow. Even against the Red decks, it has such a tiny effect during the game that it’s basically not worth playing at all. Still, you need something in your sideboard for RDW, and that seemed like one of the best cards. I could have played more spot removal instead, but figured that with no real way to draw cards, attempting to attrition out aggro decks might be difficult. I still need a way to actually kill them.
I started 4-0 (beating UW twice and RDW twice) in the PT before falling to Koros, which is a good matchup. Trust me, I ported Koros to Block after I made Top 8 of an MMS with it, and I had some good results, but beating Vampires was incredibly hard. I added Emeria Angels to combat that, which my round 5 opponent, Daniel Grafensteiner, had also done. Game 2 and 3 they tore me apart. I had a lot of removal, but none of it touched a four-mana 3/3. Awkward.
My draft went beautifully. First pick Nest Invader wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but given the opportunity to cut Green, I would take it. I really like a lot of the token decks, and I had definitely cast more than my fair share of Shared Discoveries on Magic Online. I’ve almost never drafted Black, so I wasn’t exactly happy when my second pack had little more than a Vendetta. Still, Bloodthrone Vampire is pretty awesome, Black has some decent spawn makers, and I could always splash it, so it wasn’t like I was committing myself.
However, third pick was a Pestilence Demon, which, while slow in a relatively fast format, takes a huge commitment to Black. Fourth pick seemingly solidified my colors with a Growth Spasm. However, as I got deeper into the draft, I realized that Kibler was most likely in Green, probably paired with Red. I picked up a couple mediocre Blue cards toward the end of the pack just in case.
I figured I would end up in a UB Control deck, but then I opened a pack with Broodwarden and only a Gloomhunter for playable Blue and Black cards. Even with Kibler in Green, I could get reasonable Green cards pack 2, and then probably get shipped good Black in pack 3.
For the most part, my plan worked out, as I picked up a couple more Nest Invaders and another Growth Spasm in pack 2, all the while not passing not much in the way of Blue or Black cards.
I feel like the only controversial pick I made during the draft was a Nest Invader over Pelakka Wurm, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be heavy Green, and probably wouldn’t get very many Green cards in pack 3. That, coupled with the few heavy hitters I already had, and the fact that Pelakka Wurm and Pestilence Demon are hard on the mana, I decided to stick with the more consistent card, and the one that would fill out my curve.
Kibler and I headed to the feature match area for round 6, where I was victorious. His deck seemed a little too slow to compete with my turbo Pestilence Demon draws, although part of that was probably because I was scooping up the Nest Invaders and Spasms.
Round 2 I got absolutely demolished by Travis Woo. He had a pretty sick UW leveler deck with two Time of Heroes and a Training Ground. He was also splashing two Vendettas, one of which he took right out of my deck.
His Skyreach Adepts were always out of reach of my Bala Ged Scorpions, and I didn’t have nearly enough removal to beat his fliers. Consume the Meek (which Kibler passed me) would have been insane, but I never drew it.
I finished strong, with a win in the last round against an aggressive UR Kiln Fiend/Distortion Strike deck. Thankfully, his deck was jam packed with one toughness guys, so in addition to the Consume the Meek, the Shrivel I boarded in was golden.
The second draft could have gone better. I mean, I started with Drana, arguably the best possible card to open, but I was kind of cut from Black. It was one of those situations where you know you should probably switch colors, but there’s just enough to keep you hooked in, plus you already have an absurd rare.
Sadly, I went 1-2. Drana only showed up in one game each match against my UW and GW opponents, but I lost the games where she didn’t. My opponents’ decks were just better than mine.
I won my round 3 rematch against Daniel. First game I had Drana but was stuck on four land and his removal cleared out my chump blockers. Second game I hasted up Drana with Battle Rampant, and surprise, surprise, that was good enough.
In the decider, I cast a midgame Inquisition of Kozilek which revealed his plan of infecting me via All is Dust. Battle Rampart was again key, as hasty Rapacious Ones took chunks out of his life total while giving me blockers for his lethal Zof Shade. Despite starting behind, soon I had the life and board advantage, but resetting with All is Dust wasn’t exactly profitable either.
He attacked with Shade and re-bought a removal spell with Mnemonic Wall. I had a Corpsehatch that was just rotting in my hand, and it got even better when I peeled Kiln Fiend. Conveniently, he only had one blocker, and my giant Fiend got my revenge.
I was incredibly relieved to get back to Constructed, but things didn’t start well. Stephen Neal was playing the New York Mono Green Aggro deck, which I feel was by far the best deck in the tournament. After playing some games against the deck, I can safely say that Persecutor and Marsh Casualties were the only relevant cards in my entire deck for that matchup.
Game 1 looked kind of close, but Vengevine was a little too good. Second game I had on lock down until he peeled a land to play two guys, then Eldrazi Monument to put me at -1 the turn before he would die. Still, not much to complain about as the matchup is that bad.
Next match I got a game loss for showing up late. 61 card decks, not showing up on time? Very professional, I know.
I was playing against RDW though, which I was 4-0 in games against at this point. He didn’t get off to a fast start, but despite keeping two guys back to block, his Kiln Fiend took a large chunk out of my life thanks to his Smoldering Spires and Searing Blaze. Next turn, I did the same thing and kept two guys back while attacking with one.
He had another Spires, another Searing Blaze, and the Bushwhacker/Summons combo. I didn’t mind losing since it was my fault, but I did mind the semi slow roll, and the five minutes it took him trying to “figure out” how to kill me.
The round after that debacle, I got paired against Jon Finkel, who was also playing Zvi’s Mono Green Monument deck. I wasn’t pleased to say the least. Luckily for me, game 1 my duo of Hexmages held off his entire squad since he never drew a Monument or Ascension. Second game, I got crushed as expected, but was holding the full house of Gatekeepers full of Bloodwitches, all the while stuck on two land.
Third game I Casualtied away an Arbor Elf and Lotus Cobra on my turn 3, then played a Persecutor, followed by other removal. Still, double Beastmaster Ascension made it close, and I also needed to peel a way to kill my own Persecutor, which obviously I did at the perfect time.
After that, I beat a UG Summoning Trap deck, and then got paired against another person playing the NY deck. Grr…
Still, I had options. My opponent, Matt Ferrando, needed to qualify for PT: Amsterdam. Despite Matt being one of my least favorite people in the room, I conceded and hoped that he made top fifty, but he got 52nd on tiebreakers.
Megan, Calosso, and I decided to hit the beach (finally). We called a cab from our apartment and hopped in, but he warned us first that he had a few rules. The first one was about touching things…
Suddenly, lights started flashing and strobes were going off, and MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” was blasting. This guy was absurd. We were in awe, but then it was back to conversation like normal. Once he realized we were trying to talk over his ridiculous music, he turned it down and asked what we were up to.
Calosso, being his self deprecating self said, “Hopefully dying.”
The cabbie then put on the “I’ve got a feeling tonight’s gonna be a good night” song. To say that this dude was awesome would be an understatement.
We hit the beach at the Hilton and swam for a while, but decided to go to the pool afterward. I guess I had something else to take care of first, because for some reason I promised Megan that I would go jogging with her on the beach. I was pretty happy that it was the tiniest beach I’ve ever seen. Calosso obviously wanted no part in it, so he told us he’d meet us at the pool.
A few minutes later we were there, but there was no Calosso. We had the only other key to the apartment, he had no money, and he put his phone in Megan’s bag, so we knew he couldn’t have left, so we went looking for him. Twenty minutes later and we still couldn’t find him, so we decided to wait in the pool in case he showed up there eventually.
After a solid twenty minutes of hanging out, we walked around for another 40 minutes or so, but still couldn’t find him. Megan, being the constant caretaker of our little group, was incredibly worried, but there was nothing we could really do. Eventually her husband called her and said that Calosso was back at the apartment, and we were thoroughly confused.
When we got back, we were informed that Calosso stormed in and told everyone that we ditched him at the pool, which wasn’t even remotely possible. Even as I write this, I have no idea how he got home, since it was a solid $20 cab ride. He couldn’t pay for a taxi, and I highly doubt he could have navigated that distance.
Regardless, it was a pretty ridiculous thing to do.
After that, we hit the bars, which overall was fairly uneventful. There were some shenanigans involving a “thick” Puerto Rican girl making out with a few gamers, but that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary.
I stayed up late and hadn’t really slept that much the last few nights, so I got a solid twelve hours of sleep in, woke up at 5pm, and headed to the convention center just in time to see Paulo hoist the trophy.
I spent Sunday out at the bars again, looking to kill time before my 6am flight, but decided to just stay an extra night. To accomplish this, I figured I could just show up on Tuesday and act like my flight was that day rather than Monday and hope they rebook me. It’s not exactly the best of plans, but we’ll see how it works out, I guess.
Naturally, Monday was spent at the bars again. I was supposed to meet up with three different groups at Senor Frog’s, but by the time the first two groups showed up, they had closed the doors, effectively locking us in. Both Brian Kibler and Chris Woltereck said we could just go to Brick Haus, so that seemed like a solid plan. I attempted to get my drink in a to-go cup, but they told me I could just take it as it was.
While at the bar, another “thick” female approached me and told me that her friend thought I was kind of cute, and that I should go talk to her. I told her that we were heading out to Brick Haus soon and they were more than welcome to join me. She pointed me in the direction of her friend and, while I wasn’t immediately repulsed, was not something I wanted to get myself involved in.
Thankfully, Brian Kibler is better looking, more interesting version of me, so I was able to pawn them on him and call it an early night, finish this article, and hopefully make my flight. Overall, a resounding success.
San Juan was cool, but again, it’s the company that makes the trip worthwhile. The Pro Tour itself could have gone better, but at least I got to see a lot of my friends doing well. It would have been if the PT was a relevant format for anyone other than those competing, but oh well. I didn’t waste too much time on the format anyway.
If things go well this week, hopefully I’ll see everyone in Philly for the StarCityGames.com Open!
GerryT
As a little post script, I’d like to congratulate everyone who did well this weekend.
Lipkin, for cashing his first Pro Tour.
Paulo, for finally winning a quarterfinals match. I assume this is a sign of the Kai-ing he’ll be doing in the future.
Brad, for having a pretty sicko week. Winning breeds more winning man, so ride it out.
Noah Swartz, for making the Pro Tour look easy. Keep it up, and good luck in Japan.
Wrapter, for finally getting what he deserves. Hopefully this boosts your confidence and you’ll kill it in Amsterdam.