Hello!
First, a point in my previous article, on the “play a land during combat” thing. Some people said I should just have stopped him no matter what, as even if I couldn’t think of a reason, he was likely doing it for a reason. I agree, I should have stopped him no matter what. Still, that would not have won me the game. The point I wanted to come across with that situation was that I was in position to infer the correct play from what he did, but I failed to recognize it.
Another point is that some people suggested I should have gone UW. That is certainly a possibility, and might be a reflection of my misunderstanding of the format earlier on. When I got to Brighton, I talked to Manuel Bucher, who is apparently the only person who actually likes this Sealed format, and he pointed out that my Green cards, though solid creatures, wouldn’t help me win against bombs, whereas my Blue cards (Ponder, Negate, Mind Control) would. His point was that there were so many bomb-type cards that if I just played my Green guys they would play their big guys, and we would end up trading and trading, and then they would draw a bomb and beat me with it, for I had none myself. That made a lot of sense, so I kept it in mind.
I arrived in London on Monday, though very late, courtesy of the time zone. My friend Peter Dun, of UK Nationals Top 8 fame, picked me up at the airport and we went to his house. We were planning on going to the tournament on Thursday morning, so that gave me two free days to explore London.
I had been to London before, but it was not at a very fortunate time. As you probably know, Pro Tour: London 2002 was during the bombings, which meant some things were just outside of my reach at the time, and people were not very pleasant. PT: London will definitely be a part of “My Story: Part 2”, so I’m not going to dwell on it, but the impression I got from the city and its inhabitants was, let’s say, not the best. This time, things were different.
On Tuesday afternoon I met Pete’s friend Daniel and his girlfriend Elizabeth, and the three of them decided to give me a tour of the city. The weather was much nicer than in Boston, and we walked through a lot of different buildings. Though we could not enter most places — Westminster Abbey being the most disappointing, since we missed the time for visitation for about three minutes — they kept pointing stuff out to me that I would basically never know if I was not walking with local people. They told me, for example, that the Queen legally owns all the swans (well, technically not all of them, but one race of swans, which is 2/3 of the swan population). Also, the statue of Churchill is electrified, so that pigeons cannot stand on it, which was a request in his own will. And also that no building in London can be constructed in a way that it obstructs the view of the St Paul’s Cathedral from any other building that already exists. I’m generally fascinated by such curiosities that have absolutely no use, so it was very interesting.
Other than those things, I was also given a lesson on British politics, their voting system, the current situation of their Prime Minister, and especially on their education system: how you get into college, which exams you need, how many As, which are the best schools for each subject. Studying abroad was always a big possibility in my life, so I liked being able to collect all sorts of information on this. And, of course, the people were pleasant to talk to.
On Wednesday, we found out that the Spanish contingent we were expecting (who were the only reason for us going on Thursday morning and not Wednesday evening) were landing in Gatwick, which was substantially closer to Brighton than to Peter’s house in London, so they just went directly to the venue, as it’d be cheaper to pay a hotel there for a day than to transport themselves all the way and then back in the next day. So we decided to go to the site on Wednesday ourselves.
We took the train to Brighton and got there at about 8:30pm. There were a considerable number of people there, with grinders for UK Nationals running. We found a group of Peter’s friends and went to eat at a Fish & Chips place nearby (there were approximately 150 of them on the coast). During my stay, people there seemed to make a point of it that I try every single thing that can be considered British food — so I tried the Fish & Chips (which are Fish with some kind of french fries, not chips — don’t let them lie to you); Rock (a kind of sugar bar that looks like dynamite and has different flavors; I bought two bars, and I’m pretty sure they will last me until I visit London again); Pimm’s (a drink with a lot of fruits and mint that would probably be much better if it didn’t have alcohol), and Scones (a biscuit with cream and jam). I have to say, though, that the best thing I ate there was not British, but French. Right outside Peter’s house there was a crepe place called Le Creperie de Hampstead (I believe) that was probably better than all the ones I had in France. If you live in London or happen to go there, I recommend it!
After coming back from dinner, I had the small problem of not having a place to stay, since I was planning on getting there on Thursday. I couldn’t go to the hostel I was staying at, since the “office” closed at nine, but then I saw Rasmus Sibast standing there, looking very much like a person who had extra space in his room. I talked to him, and it turned out they were expecting a third on Friday only, and their room was for three people, so I was welcome to stay there for the day if I wanted. I went to the hotel with him and Thomas, another Dane I didn’t previously know and who happens to have been born on the exact same day as myself, and I was then able to offer my excellent electrician skills (and the adaptors Peter’s mother had lent me) so that we could plug in his computer. It was pretty awkward, because the outlet was slightly higher up on the wall than we would like, so we had to use all the tools at our disposal… which consisted of a glass and a small container with milk (which Thomas kept checking to see if it would boil and blow up) to be able to finally charge it.
The next day we woke up and went to have breakfast at the hotel. They had a list with how many people there should be for each room, but since at that point I thought they had a room for three for all days, I didn’t give it much thought… that is, until the lady stopped us and told us there was only breakfast for two. Apparently, they had booked the room for two people for this day, and for three on the others (which does make sense, but I hadn’t thought of that). We discuss whether we are going to split the £15, when she comes and says “you know what, as long as you don’t go overboard, just go in and have breakfast, all three of you.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this!
We arrived at the venue pretty early, and there wasn’t really much to do. People suggested I applied to do coverage, and I considered asking, but I just don’t think I’d be a good coverage reporter. I tried to envision my featured match; it’d probably start with “hello, I’m Paulo Vitor, and this is my first time doing coverage,” which would already be pretty bad, since if you are reading coverage you probably want to know what is happening to the players, and not things about me. I could also not resist supplying sharp criticisms such as “And his opponent John was playing a UW Reveillark deck, which I think is a terrible idea since I don’t see how he can possibly beat Faeries,” or “John attacked, and Jack played Plumeveil, which was a surprise… I’m not playing Plumeveil in my list, since I don’t think it’s good versus the current format.” You get the point, right? It’s just that I’ve spent so much time writing about myself, what I do, and what I think, that I don’t think I’d be able to ignore that all of a sudden, and be a good, impartial coverage reporter. Besides, they already had a ton of people doing it.
So, instead, I just drafted, and followed UK Nationals where I could. I was participating in the Fantasy Nationals, that had a free pre-release for the winner. The TO said he would pay for my pre-release in Brazil if I won. Whether he knew or not that we haven’t had a pre-release in about two years when he promised that, I cannot say, but it doesn’t really make a difference. I still wanted to win, just so I could be the winner.
For those of you who do not know, Fantasy Nationals (or “Fantasy Anything,” for that matter) is a competition in which you pick a number of players that total a set number of points (in this case, points were based on rating, which is not the best system to evaluate players but doesn’t really give room for disagreement. The last one we had in Brazil had arbitrary values that someone suggested, and that generated some discussion of the “why is he 5 and me 3 if I’m so much better” kind), and then you are awarded points for their finishes. My four picks were Stuart Wright, for 6; Matteo Orsini-Jones, for 6; Peter Dun, for 5; and Tom Baker (sorry if I misspelled your name Tom; I remember it being something like this), whom I didn’t really know but was told was a good pick for the points, for 2 — that totaled 19 of the 20 I had. I’m not sure how I did, but I don’t think I won, since no one told me anything.
After some more drafts (and I might add that Rasmus Sibast was the only person to win all the team drafts we did, though his combined record was 2-7), I went to my hostel with Joel and Rodry. It was a nice hostel, very cheap for England – £13 a night — but it had the downside of us being in an 18-bed room. I’ve had many experiences with hostels — I generally don’t mind them — but this one was somewhat awkward.
It started when I got there, at midnight, and everyone was already sleeping, so the light was off. That would not have been a problem, except that my bed was not made, and it was on the top. I kicked some luggage on my way to it, and then had to ninja the sheets in total darkness. When I finally managed it and went to try to sleep, the two people below me started to whisper. It wasn’t that bad — I couldn’t even hear what they were saying — but the girl in front of me clearly could, and she kept complaining — and that I could hear very clearly.
At some point, tired of saying “guys, stop talking,” she rose from her bed and stared at the bed below, and they silenced in an instant. She kept staring at them for about five minutes, and they didn’t say a word. Then she lay back on her bed, and as soon as her head touched the pillow they resumed talking. She then said some profanity and stormed out of the room. I was expecting her to come back with the hostel manager, but she never came back while I was awake. It was quite funny to watch, if anything. I sympathized with her, but not enough to intervene since it wasn’t really bothering me that much (I didn’t have to wake up early the next day anyway), and something in what she said gave me the impression that she was one of those people who complain about absolutely everything. Also, I wanted to see what the outcome would be.
After that, I managed to sleep, wake up, go to the event, draft, go back to my hostel, sleep again (no whispering this time), and wake up for the first day of the GP. See, I can be succinct sometimes!
We went to the Grand Prix site early, because Rodry had to register, so I had breakfast there and waited for a while for the tournament to start. I registered my pool (after having some trouble with building the deckbox they gave us), and then after the passing ended up with a very good sealed deck. This is what I got:
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Gorgon Flail
1 Divine Verdict
1 Pacifism
1 Blinding Mage
2 Serra Angel
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Veteran Armorsmith
1 White Knight
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Silvercoat Lion
1 Griffin Sentinel
2 Safe Passage
1 Glorious Charge
1 Wall of Faith
1 Air Elemental
1 Djinn of Wishes
1 Ice Cage
1 Negate
1 Horned Turtle
1 Snapping Drake
1 Unsummon
1 Coral Merfolk
1 Serpent of the Endless Sea
1 Zephyr Sprite
2 Doom Blade
2 Gravedigger
2 Dread Warlock
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Wall of Bone
1 Mind Rot
1 Duress
1 Looming Shade
1 Zombie Goliath
1 Disentomb
1 Child of Night
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Fireball
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Seismic Strike
1 Viashino Spearhunter
1 Canyon Minotaur
1 Berserkers of the Blood Ridge
1 Lightning Elemental
1 Kindled Fury
1 Raging Goblin
1 Trumpet Blast
1 Ant Queen
1 Great Sable Stag
1 Acidic Slime
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Giant Spider
1 Rampant Growth
1 Howl of the Night Pack
1 Giant Growth
1 Craw Wurm
1 Runeclaw Bears
1 Oakenform
1 Windstorm
If you are like me and just skip the Sealed pools in all the articles, I recommend you go back and give a bit of time to this one… it’s very interesting because it’s so GOOD! This Sealed pool is pretty unique in that all the colors are very good, all the colors have bombs and reasons to be played. I’m generally pretty fast in deciding which colors and strategies I want, and then spend the rest of my time deciding on the 23rd card or the manabase. This time, I agonized over which colors to play for almost the entire time, and had to rush when writing the decklist not to time out.
My first thought was that, though Blue was good, it was just the worst color and I could not play it. A lot of people suggested Blue/White, and though I did have a Blue/White deck in my sideboard that was better than almost everyone’s deck, I thought that this pool could do better. It was not like my Boston pool, where I should have played Blue because I didn’t have answer to the bombs — this time, I had the bombs.
That left me Green/White/Black/Red to work with. Of those, White and Black are the most appealing — White because it’s so good and Black because it has both removal and card advantage, which are great in this (well, in all) sealed format. The problem with White/Black was the mana. I’d be playing White Knight and Veteran Armorsmith alongside two Dread Warlocks and a Tendrils, for example. I’d also be unable to splash the Fireball and Lightning Bolt, and I’d miss the Siege-Gang Commander which is probably the best card in my pool (and has insane synergy with Gravedigger).
Red was, other than those three cards, kind of weak — though I do not mind playing the vanilla dorks, they don’t do much.
Green I had mixed feelings on, because its best cards weren’t as good as the other color’s best cards, but its average cards were very good to my overall strategy — Visionaries and Spiders stalled the board so my multiple bombs could come in, and Rampant Growth would allow me to splash another color. In the end, I decided the Green was worth it, and my thoughts went to Green/Black splash Red for Bolt and Ball.
That deck was fine — better than fine, it was very good. But as I tinkered with the cards, with some minutes left, I started thinking that maybe having a little bit more Red would be better — Siege-Gang is such a strong card after all, and I did have two Gravediggers. In the end, I had to decide between:
Siege-Gang Commander
Seismic Strike
Canyon Minotaur
Viashino Spearhunter
Berserkers of the Blood Ridge
… And…
2 Dread Warlock
Tendrils of Corruption
Child of Night
Wall of Bone/Mind Rot/Duress
Black having more playables didn’t really mean anything, since I would have to make cuts. Both Doom Blades, Gravediggers, Lightning Bolt, and Fireball would be in the final version anyway.
In the end, I settled for this:
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Fireball
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Seismic Strike
1 Viashino Spearhunter
1 Canyon Minotaur
1 Berserkers of the Blood Ridge
1 Ant Queen
1 Great Sable Stag
1 Acidic Slime
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Giant Spider
1 Rampant Growth
1 Howl of the Night Pack
1 Giant Growth
1 Craw Wurm
1 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Forest
5 Mountain
3 Swamp
That was what I thought gave me the biggest amount of powerful cards and consistency ratio. The mana supposedly worked fine — 9 Green, 7 Red and 5 Black — with my cheap Green creatures (two cantripping) plus any color being solid enough to give me time to draw the mana I was missing for the other color, if that happened. Had I played BGr, my mana would be Terramorphic, 1 Mountain, 8 Forests, 7 Swamps — giving me 9/9/3, which is better but not by much, considering the good Black cards are heavy Black.
I decided not to play Whispersilk Cloak there because I didn’t feel like I would have problems with stalls, or with killing them. With Siege Gang, Ant Queen, Fireball, two Gravediggers, and sufficient removal, as well as decent-sized guys, I figured that would not be a problem. Oakenform is a card I like, with two Visionaries especially, but I had to pick between that and Giant Growth, and in the end I decided the instant speed removal-like effect of Giant Growth was more valuable than having an early big guy. If I had played BGr, Oakenform would have been very good, because there would be Dread Warlock and Child of Night to go with it.
After the tournament, I gave my pool to Tomoharo Saito to see what he would do. He laid out the cards, instantly said the Blue could not be played, and then conducted a BW experiment and concluded White could also not be played. Then he tried the various configurations of GBR, and in the end had to decide between the two options as I had: BGr or GRb. He settled for this:
1 Ant Queen
1 Great Sable Stag
1 Acidic Slime
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Giant Spider
1 Rampant Growth
1 Oakenform
1 Craw Wurm
1 Gorgon Flail
1 Fireball
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Dread Warlock
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Duress
1 Zombie Goliath
1 Child of Night
2 Doom Blade
2 Gravedigger
This is a little bit different than what I had in my configuration for this color combination, but not much. For instance, he values Duress much more than I do. I don’t think I would have played it in this build. He also cut the Howl of the Night Pack, which I consider to be a very good card, but perhaps I overvalue it a bit. He also didn’t play the Whispersilk Cloak (though his deck does have 2 Warlocks more than mine).
His reasoning for this over more Red was that the mana was better, and he would be playing less sub-optimal cards this way, namely Viashino, Minotaur, and Berserkers, though he does have Zombie Goliath. I’m still not sure what’s the correct thing to do. I think this is definitely the color combination to be in, and as appealing as White is you just have to forget it because it doesn’t really go well with anything else, but I don’t know which build is better. It might be that his is, I honestly can’t tell — it does look “prettier,” which is a good indication, but it doesn’t have Siege-Gang, which is just so powerful in my deck. In the end, his has a bit more consistency over power.
Also worth noting, after he helped me I said “thank you,” to which he replied “no, thank you, this is good practice for me”. One wonders…
During the byes I showed it to Martin Juza, and he said he would probably have gone UW — but after I beat his own UW deck over and over, he said that he had changed his mind and I was probably correct in the way I built it.
I was very happy with my deck, with full knowledge that I might have misbuilt it. I did almost time out trying to decide which colors to play, after all, so it didn’t leave much time for the cards, but also knowing that, even if I had misbuilt it, it was still better than almost everyone else’s deck.
My games were… well, not as good. I’ll try to be brief!
For the first match, my opponent is BW. He has a 3/3 First Striker, that I can’t do anything about except chump every turn with double Gravedigger. We play draw go for a long time, with me having about 12 lands. At some point I draw a Craw Wurm and play it, and he draws Armored Ascension, equips his Vampire Aristocrat, and kills me.
Game 2 he mulligans to 5 and stops on one land.
Game 3 he made turn 2 Blinding Mage, turn 3 Griffin Sentinel. Turn 4 he passed with four Plains, and turn 5 played Armored Ascension on his Griffin, without playing a fifth land. I didn’t draw an answer to it, and it was too big for me to Fireball, so I had to race (or try to draw Bolt/Doom Blade/Slime/Recluse, and in that case I can kill his tapper with the Fireball if I have to). In the end, I go to one and I’m going to attack him plus Fireball for exactly lethal, but he has the Harm’s Way and I die.
1-2
3-1
Fifth round, my opponent didn’t really do anything. I have flashbacks of 1997 when I Lightning Bolt his Hypnotic Specter, and in the end I just kill all his guys and him with a lot to spare.
2-0
4-1
Round 6 my opponent won the die roll and elected to play. I always draw in this Sealed. He made turn 2 Visionary, turn 3 Borderland Ranger, turn 4 Master of the Wild Hunt. I didn’t draw any of my removal spells, but he’s not doing much with it either, until he plays a turn 7 Xathrid Demon. He has a Wall of Bones to go with his Master, and he ends up getting rid of all the Wolf tokens, so on his upkeep he asks me if he can put a wolf onto the battlefield and then sacrifice it. I tell him that yes, he can do that. He then asks a nearby judge how he has to do it. The judge tells him that he can put the order of the effects on the stack any way he wants, so he looks at me and says “okay, I’ll do this.” I tell him “wait, how are you putting the effects on the stack?” He thinks for a long while and then finally says “okay, okay, I’ll just sacrifice Wall of Bones then”. Of course, it doesn’t matter and he ends up killing me anyway, but it’d have been funny if Master and Demon were his only two creatures on the battlefield at that point. I’m reasonably sure he would have ended up sacrificing his Master.
Game 2 he starts again with Visionary and Ranger, while I’m stuck on three lands — two Forests and one Mountain. On turn 4, he attacks with both and plays Might of Oaks on his 1/1. I then Seismic Strike it in response. If he does that on the 2/2, I can’t do anything about it.
The game goes on, and when he has 5 Swamps, 1 Forest, he plays Nightmare. I Acid Slime his Forest and play a Deadly Recluse, but he has a sixth Swamp and a Tendrils for it, which makes it impossible for me to race him. In the end I lose with my four Black cards in hand and no Black mana. If I had drawn a Swamp I’d have been able to bring back the Recluse to deal with the Nightmare.
That loss was particularly infuriating to me, because my opponent didn’t really know what was going on; he was just playing his rares. It might be that his deck was even better than mine, but still, it didn’t seem… fair. I guess that’s the price I’ll pay for being greedy and trying to splash four cards, but, still, couldn’t he have drawn, say, six Forests and one Swamp to go with his Nightmare? Or at least three of each, so that I’d have almost twice as many turns? Did it really have to be six Swamps and one Forest?
0-2
4-2
My opponent in round 7 was pretty surprised that I was 4-2 when I threw bomb after bomb at him. I made a lot of bad plays in both games, but it never really mattered. Both games ended with me having three creatures on the battlefield to his zero, and at least a Fireball and a Gravedigger in hand.
2-0
5-2
Round 8 I get paired against a Czech guy, whom I knew. He said he had watched me playing against Martin and knew my entire deck, so he offered his deck for me to look through before the match, which was really nice of him. He was playing GW, and barring some Cudgel Troll and Overrun shenanigans, I didn’t really think I could lose — and neither did he.
Well, in game 1 he played three fliers and Cudgel Troll, and killed me.
I sided in my Windstorm.
Game 2 he started with a lot of guys, but I had Deadly Recluse and Visionary with Gorgon Flail, so he couldn’t profitably attack. My hand was a lot of removal – Windstorm, Bolt, and Doom Blade – but I don’t have a lot of mana. I also have Ant Queen and Acidic Slime, but no double Green. If he plays Overrun, I can survive by casting two removal spells, but if I tap out to play something on my turn I just die to it. I have the choice to start killing his 1/1s at the end of the turn to preemptively deal with Overrun, but it seems like a total waste of my cards at that point, so I just pass and wait for more lands, or more worthy targets. He plays Cudgel Troll, and after two attacks I have to act. I play Lightning Bolt on a small guy, and then when he attacks and Naturalizes my Gorgon Flail after blockers, I have Giant Growth and Doom Blade to kill two more guys.
On my turn I finally draw my Green Mana and play my Ant Queen, but then he has Overrun and it’s enough to kill me.
0-2
5-3
At this point, I dropped. I was pretty upset, because my deck was so good, so I didn’t really have any excuses. If you ask me why I lost, I honestly can’t tell you. In the games I won (which included basically all the practice games during the byes), my opponents were just completely destroyed, and I always had leftover removal and such that I didn’t even need to play. In the games I lost, it seems like they played decent cards and I just couldn’t deal with them. For example, I had five answers to Master of the Wild Hunt at that point in my deck, but I didn’t draw any of them. Could I have won by playing differently? Could I have won by even building my deck differently? It’s hard to say, but, looking back, I don’t think so. My match against the Czech guy would have certainly been better if I was playing White, for it had better ways to deal with Overrun and Troll, which were his only good cards, so maybe I should have boarded into some kind of WB or UW build against him. At the time I didn’t really consider it, though, because I couldn’t see how I was going to lose either way. I guess now I can! To be honest, the thought only occurred to me now, as I’m writing this — maybe I am more to blame than I thought?
After I was done, I watched the top tables. One of the guys at x-1 had Ant Queen onto the battlefield, and just forgot to make tokens for two straight turns, when he was not going to use his mana for anything else. That made me want to jump off a bridge. I mean, I am a good player; even if I’m not playing optimally, I’m better than average. I would certainly not forget to make Ant Queen tokens for two straight turns, and I know how to stack my abilities to do what I want. My deck might not have been built correctly, but it was still better than most decks… so, I was an above average player, with an above average deck, and I just got destroyed anyway!
It might be that I misunderstand the format. That’s certainly a possibility. Anyway, I think I’m done with it. I’m not going to Bangkok, Nigata or Prague. It’s just too expensive, and I’d need a Japanese visa, so I don’t think there is a reason for me to touch it again (unless Melbourne is also M10 and not Zendikar… I’m not sure of that). Whether the blame lies on the format for being bad, or on me for not understanding it, I’m glad to see it gone from my point of view.
During the next day, I hung out with people at the site. I didn’t feel like drafting anymore, because it’s not going to be any useful for me. I played Cube and Articulate (which is basically the board version of the Catch Phrase game; watch out, my vocabulary is getting better every day) all day long, as well as watching some GP and PTQ games, but not with a lot of interest. I guess I just wanted to go home, after all.
So, now I am home, after a 26-hour flight that had to go through New York and São Paulo. My next tournament is pretty far away — Melbourne, most likely — so that’ll be some Magic vacation for me. Bridge Worlds is in Brazil this year, in September, and though I’m not qualified to play in the main event because I’m not nearly that good, I might use that Magic hiatus to go there and watch some of it, as well as play in the side events, which are pretty big. Before I go, a big thanks for everyone who hosted me during this three week trip — Celso and Leit, in São Paulo; Tim and James, in Boston; and Peter, in London.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope this helps with your understanding of the format. There are some conclusions to be drawn, even if it is just that the format is far too bomb-oriented. At least it changes the way you evaluate your cards, with Counterspells and Discard being worth more. Also, if you have an opinion on my Sealed deck, I’ll gladly hear it. I do think it’s a most interesting Sealed pool to build, and there is a lot of room for improvement in what I did.
See you next week!
PV