Friday, May 4th
It’s been a while since I last set foot in the kingdom of Sweden. I left about five months ago, leaving some of my stuff in Gothenburg as I didn’t exactly know what I would be up to for the next few months. I thought I would come back earlier, but… I just couldn’t. And now I’m here simply to retrieve my bags for Toulouse. I’m not sure I’m going to live in Sweden again, it became really difficult for me to effectively plan for the near future.
When I landed in Arlanda today, I felt a strange “good to be home” feeling, even though I haven’t been to Stockholm in the last six years. The atmosphere, people around me speaking Swedish, it all felt so familiar. It took a few minutes for me to switch my brain back into “Swedish mode.” I hadn’t been studying Swedish for a year and a half to fall back and speak English in Sweden…
I made my way to UppländsVäsby, a small town next to Stockholm. Unfortunately, the tournament isn’t hosted in the capital, which saddens me much as not many of the players will have the time to enjoy the city. I’ll have to visit at some point on Monday for a little sightseeing, of the city where I have so many memories of past loves…
Hmm… anyway, moving on…
It was about 11pm when I reached the Scandic Infra City Hotel. Everyone was there, having a drink, discussing the new set, realizing how little clue they had about the new format. I shared my room with Julien (Nuijten), and tried to sleep a little…
Saturday, May 5th
GP: Stockholm, Day 1
When it comes to sleeping, there are things I can do, and things that I can’t. I can sleep easily in almost any vehicle: car, bus, train, or plane, I’ll be falling asleep quickly. I’ve acquired some special abilities and mastered secret positions that set myself up for comfortable sleep in most planes, whether I’m in a window or a middle seat. But the thing is, in a regular bed… I don’t fall asleep that easily. Any noise wakes me, or prevents me from falling asleep.
After years on the Pro Tour, I have shared my room with a lot of different players. I even created a Black List of people I would never share a room with again. They are people who snore, or even just occasionally snore. Julien, unfortunately, has joined this list.
I made the mistake of travelling during the day. As I usually don’t have much to do on planes, I sleep. When it’s early in the morning, I don’t go to bed the night before. I sleep during the trip, and feel rested when I arrive. When you sleep during the day, you have quite a tough time sleeping at night.
This is why, on Saturday, you could see me with the reddest eyes you’ve seen since the last remake of Dracula. Unfortunately, lack of sleep is one reason I don’t play so well some days.
The pool I opened is quite interesting, and I advise anyone who wants to try out their Sealed Deckbuilding skills to make a deck out of it before checking out what I built.
Creatures (44)
- 1 Merfolk Assassin
- 1 Defiant Vanguard
- 1 Basal Sliver
- 1 Bonesplitter Sliver
- 1 Chronosavant
- 1 Coal Stoker
- 1 Coral Trickster
- 1 Dementia Sliver
- 1 Drifter il-Dal
- 1 Durkwood Baloth
- 1 Errant Doomsayers
- 1 Foriysian Interceptor
- 1 Gemhide Sliver
- 1 Glass Asp
- 1 Greater Gargadon
- 1 Greenseeker
- 1 Icatian Crier
- 1 Ith, High Arcanist
- 1 Ivory Giant
- 1 Mindlash Sliver
- 1 Pendelhaven Elder
- 1 Penumbra Spider
- 1 Phantom Wurm
- 1 Subterranean Shambler
- 1 Venser's Sliver
- 1 Voidmage Husher
- 1 Cautery Sliver
- 1 Dreamscape Artist
- 1 Dunerider Outlaw
- 1 Merfolk Thaumaturgist
- 1 Ridged Kusite
- 1 Shade of Trokair
- 1 Shaper Parasite
- 1 Sinew Sliver
- 1 Vitaspore Thallid
- 1 Cutthroat il-Dal
- 1 Grave Scrabbler
- 1 Homing Sliver
- 1 Imperiosaur
- 1 Lost Auramancers
- 1 Lymph Sliver
- 1 Ravaging Riftwurm
- 1 Rift Elemental
- 1 Sporoloth Ancient
Lands (1)
Spells (30)
- 1 Conspiracy
- 1 Aether Web
- 1 Ancient Grudge
- 1 Conflagrate
- 1 Dread Return
- 1 Eternity Snare
- 1 Foriysian Totem
- 1 Gaze of Justice
- 1 Mindstab
- 1 Molder
- 1 Phyrexian Totem
- 1 Plunder
- 1 Rift Bolt
- 1 Strangling Soot
- 1 Sudden Death
- 1 Tendrils of Corruption
- 1 Think Twice
- 1 Traitor's Clutch
- 1 Cradle to Grave
- 1 Dawn Charm
- 1 Fury Charm
- 1 Mantle of Leadership
- 1 Spellshift
- 1 Vampiric Link
- 1 Fatal Attraction
- 1 Foresee
- 1 Gift of Granite
- 1 Lumithread Field
- 1 Quiet Disrepair
- 1 Summoner's Pact
Opening the pool, we notice:
- The removal spells are spread across two colors: Red and Black. Red has the splashable ones (Rift Bolt, Conflagrate, Fatal Attraction). Black would need to be a primary color as, expect for Strangling Soot, the other removal spells require at least two Black mana apiece (Sudden Death, Tendrils of Corruption).
- With many playables, including high quality ones such as Greater Gargadon, Red is the deepest color.
- White doesn’t offer much quality, but it has decent cheap creatures and a sliver sub-theme.
- Green has a lot of fat creatures, mostly quality ones – Durkwood Baloth, Imperiosaur, Phantom Wurm Sporoloth Ancient – but it lacks early drops.
- Blue is the shallowest color, but can offer a fine splash option with Ith, High Arcanist; Foresee; and Shaper Parasite.
The first conclusions we can draw:
- Black has too few cards to be played as a primary color.
- The same goes for Blue.
- The deck will have to be a combination of Red, Green, and White, with splash options to consider.
The first deck I tried to build was Green/Red. With very few early drops, the deck was too expensive, and needed to reach four mana on turn 4 to even hope to win games.
The deck must either be White/Green or White/Red. The White/Green deck had the problem of being poorly balanced in terms of mana. In order to be playable it would need a Red splash, for a few removal spells and the slivers. With most of the green fatties costing GG, the manabase would end up being inconsistent.
The best option I found to have both a good curve and a consistent manabase is the following build:
Creatures (17)
- 1 Defiant Vanguard
- 1 Bonesplitter Sliver
- 1 Chronosavant
- 1 Coal Stoker
- 1 Errant Doomsayers
- 1 Greater Gargadon
- 1 Icatian Crier
- 1 Ivory Giant
- 1 Subterranean Shambler
- 1 Venser's Sliver
- 1 Cautery Sliver
- 1 Shade of Trokair
- 1 Sinew Sliver
- 1 Homing Sliver
- 1 Lost Auramancers
- 1 Lymph Sliver
- 1 Rift Elemental
Lands (17)
Spells (6)
The sliver sub-theme, along with a fast curve, make this build the most reliable of the pool. The deck can’t really deal with large creatures, especially if they fly (no cards in the pool could help this failing). It doesn’t pack that many removal spells either; that’s why splashing the Strangling Soot was necessary.
The other splash option was to play a couple of Islands for Shaper Parasite and Ith, but I figured splashing for the Soot was simply better. Shaper Parasite has a use when you don’t have the Island, but once it’s dead it doesn’t do much anymore. Unless you have one of your two Islands in your starting hand, Ith isn’t that awesome. When you hit your seventh land and your splash mana, you want something that’ll have a direct influence on the game. You can argue that when it’s in play, the balance of the game is changed, but not so much if you’re on the aggressive side when you can only cast it for seven mana. Of course, they’re still fine options, just weaker when held up against Strangling Soot… I would have splashed Blue if I hadn’t had the Soot.
Edit from May 7th – I gave the pool to Tomoharu Saito, and ask him to build the deck. The difference between our two builds are that he cut: Icatian Crier, Lost Auramancers, Coal Stoker, and Strangling Soot for… Ith, Shaper Parasite, Foresee, and an 18th land (an Island).
I played a Swamp over Phyrexian Totem, as the deck didn’t really need extra mana –by that I mean it reached five or six mana fast. Having both the Swamp and the Totem in play at the same time isn’t good enough compared to the advantage you can have to cast your Soot on turn 3, or on the turn you draw your Swamp – something that maybe won’t happen if you draw the Totem, as you’d need five lands to cast both on the same turn.
The Soot is one of the reasons why I play Icatian Crier. I don’t like it so much in most decks, but it allows you to find another way to cast the Black removal spell (you discard it and flash it back). Or, of course, you can simply get rid of it for two tokens, as the spellshapers used to do in Mercadian Masques. It goes fairly well with Greater Gargadon, too.
Rift Elemental fits in the deck for a few reasons: it helps the Gargadon arrive a few turns earlier; it can have Ivory Giant tap your opponent’s creatures during his turn; or it pumps during attack step, before declaring blockers, and make a nice combat trick with Lost Auramancers – put damage on the stack, remove the last counter, and fetch one of your two auras (usually Fatal Attraction, unless you’ve drawn it already).
The two cards I considered playing but that ended in the sideboard are Dawn Charm and Fury Charm. Both are tricks, and the deck doesn’t pack many of them. I couldn’t make up my mind on which one I should play, and just ended up playing the Crier. Both Charms are, however, good sideboard options. Gaze of Justice is a valuable weapon against Dragons, Verdant Embrace, or Griffin Guide.
The deck is quite fine overall, can have explosive draws with suspend cards and Slivers. I’m satisfied with my build, and enter the tournament after round 3.
Round 1-3: Bye.
Round 4: Andersen, Mark. 2-0
Round 5: Cornelissen, Kamiel. 0-2
Round 6: Kvalo, Tarjei. 2-0
Round 7: (Sorry, I can’t find my opponent’s name, and the coverage link is broken.) 2-0
Round 8: Karlsson, Morgan. 2-0
Round 9: Refsdal, Thomas. 1-2
A few facts about day 1…
- I played about ten games against Kamiel during the byes. The games were quite even, but it was only during our match that he revealed he had both Baru, Fist of Krosa and Verdant Embrace.
- In the same match, in game 2, Kamiel is dead on the board next turn, with no cards in hand. He draws, casts Riddle of Lightning, scrys 3 and sends all three to the bottom… he reveals the first card, and it’s Errant Ephemeron. Yes, I was on seven, and yes, it was his only out. Oh well…
- Morgan Karlsson lost game 1 with three spells in hand, and the mana to cast them: Sunlance, Saltblast, and Celestial Crusader. Guess what my board was…
- I won every game in which I played Greater Gargadon.
- The more the day passes, and the more I’m tired, the more I feel I play badly. I don’t know if I did play badly, but I definitely felt I could do better. I’m getting old, and I need more sleep before the tournaments…
- I’m 29th before the last round, and Thomas Refsdal offers me the ID. I decline, as I’d rather go to my room with an extra loss than go there thinking I didn’t even play my last round. We played, and he beat me, and I realized there was a much higher chance than I thought that I wouldn’t make day 2.
- I finished day 1 in 63rd, losing 34 places in the last round.
I was quite relieved to make it, and win at least one Pro Tour Point to pass Guillaume (Wafo-Tapa) in the Player of the Year race, as he failed to make day 2. I made my way to bed, exhausted.
Sunday, May 6th
Julien was a little quieter last night. He still woke me up a couple of times, but I managed to get a little more rest than the night before… But even then I wasn’t totally fresh.
Sitting in pod 8:
57 – Ruel, Olivier [FRA] – 21
58 – Maaten, Rogier [NLD] – 21
59 – Schreurs, Jos [NLD] – 21
60 – Larsson, David K [SWE] – 21
61 – Meulders, Fried [BEL] – 21
62 – Ruess, Jan H [DEU] – 21
63 – Levy, Raphael [FRA] – 21
64 – Martin, Quentin [SWE] – 21
Quite a pod for a last table of a GP.
Unlike with Pimp my Draft, where you can see how badly I draft and where I mess up, I’ve not been able to record my picks. So I’ll just list the decks and share a few thoughts:
Creatures (14)
- 1 Deep-Sea Kraken
- 1 Dream Stalker
- 1 Jhoira's Timebug
- 1 Phantom Wurm
- 1 Scryb Ranger
- 1 Yavimaya Dryad
- 4 Giant Dustwasp
- 1 Baru, Fist of Krosa
- 1 Nessian Courser
- 1 Thornweald Archer
- 1 Unblinking Bleb
Lands (17)
Spells (7)
Relevant sideboard cards:
Petrified Plating
Quiet Disrepair
Aether Web
Essence Warden
Ashcoat Bear
Piracy Charm
I love Jhoira’s Timebug now. There are so many new combos with it. It also works fine with a card I like more and more, Reality Acid. The latter is not spectacular in my deck, as I’m missing a Sentinel to have it work at its best. During the draft, I couldn’t get a hold on Black or Red removal, so I had to search for Blue equivalents. Erratic Mutation, Leaden Fists, Second Wind, and Reality Acid is what I found. The bounce spells buy some time so the Dustwasps can do their job, or they can bounce the Acids and work as removal spells. The deck was also missing mid-range creatures, like random 3/3s or 4/4s for four or five mana.
The deck is far from being amazing, but was probably good enough for a 2-1.
Round 10: Quentin Martin. 0-2
Round 11: David Larsson. 1-2
Round 12: Olivier Ruel. 2-1
My match against Quentin is covered here. David managed to burn me out in both game 1 and 2 with his Red/White aggro / burn deck (he couldn’t beat a turn 1 Essence Warden in game 2 that gained me thirteen life before he finally dealt with it), and Olivier couldn’t believe I was facing him in the 0-2 bracket with such a deck…
Sitting at the penultimate table for the final draft, I had to 3-0 in order to capture an extra PT point.
49 – Doise, Jan [BEL] – 24
50 – Darras, Alexandre [BEL] – 24
51 – Warmenhoven, Ruud [NLD] – 24
52 – Sisask, Erkki [EST] – 24
53 – Gorski, Michal M [POL] – 24
54 – Maaten, Rogier [NLD] – 24
55 – Levy, Raphael [FRA] – 24
56 – Glinin, Timofey [RUS] – 24
Creatures (16)
- 1 Ashcoat Bear
- 1 Durkwood Baloth
- 1 Greater Gargadon
- 1 Herd Gnarr
- 1 Nantuko Shaman
- 1 Thick-Skinned Goblin
- 1 Deadwood Treefolk
- 1 Lavacore Elemental
- 1 Magus of the Arena
- 1 Emberwilde Augur
- 1 Llanowar Empath
- 1 Llanowar Mentor
- 2 Nessian Courser
- 1 Rift Elemental
- 1 Skizzik Surger
Lands (17)
Spells (7)
Relevant sideboard cards:
The first pack I opened offered Call of the Herd and Errant Ephemeron. Call of the Herd isn’t a game-winning card on its own. It’s the kind of card that you know is going to be between good and amazing, especially against heavy removal decks. It was definitely the right choice as I didn’t see a single Blue card in the draft. I was then passed Strangling Soot and Greater Gargadon. The Gargadon had been extremely good for me the day before, and I wanted to give the beast another shot at impressing me (apart from that, it’s also the better card).
Dead / Gone or Magus of the Arena? I picked the Magus. I had the same choice to make a week ago in that online draft, and wasn’t sure it was the right pick. I haven’t played Magus of the Arena enough to be able to rate it correctly. I’ve played against it a couple of times. Half of the time it was nuts, and the other half it didn’t do much. Between the cheap reliable removal and the potential bomb, I opted for the potential bomb. But I’m still not convinced about that pick.
Later, I had the choice twice between Nessian Courser and Flowstone Embrace. They are on the same common run, and it’s probably going to be a choice R/G players will have to make often. Both times I picked Nessian Courser, I had already three removal spells for small creatures (Arc Blade, Dead / Gone, Flowstone Embrace), but I thought numerous quality creatures would win games on their own. The reason I chose the Centaurs both times was because the Embrace doesn’t take care of big creatures, and I thought they (the big creatures) would be a problem to which I needed other answers.
Except for the lack of big creature removal, the deck was quite spectacular for a R/G aggro build.
Round 13: Rogier Maaten. 0-2
Round 14: Ruud Warmenhoven. 1-2
Round 15: Erkki Sisask. 2-0
1-2 with that deck was quite disappointing. I lost to Rogier’s Dragon deck (I believe he had two of them) and to his Tolarian Sentinel / Firemaw Kavu combo in game 2. Then I lost to Ruud’s R/G deck, which was worse than mine overall but which packed three cards that I had no way to handle: Jedit Ojanen of Efrava, Tarox Bladewing, and the best common of all time, Sprout Swarm.
I was probably lacking some motivation during the tournament, probably due to extreme tiredness. That should be an element every serious player should take into account. Rest is just as important as training.
Not leaving a disappointing tournament empty-handed is a huge satisfaction nonetheless. The PT points are worth so much these days that even racking up one is fine, especially considering the conditions in which I played. That point also locks me for Level 5 next season. It wasn’t quite the battle I fought last year, when I had to make Top 48 at Worlds to make it. But now the goal is somewhat different. I’ll be at least fighting for Level 6, and the Player of the Year race… yes, it will be tough, with rivals like Kenji, Tomoharu, and Guillaume.
Still, I’ll give it my best shot. Wish me luck!
Raph