Soldiering On In Dublin

So I built White Weenie and Boros on Cockatrice and started testing them a few weeks before the Pro Tour, mostly against Matt Sperling. I was crushed to discover that they stunk, but also encouraged by a few specific cards. Soldier of the Pantheon was just objectively powerful. Precinct Captain ported over nicely from Block Constructed, serving to both pressure control and play defense against aggro. But the secondary drops were just too ineffectual. Whether Dryad Militant, Boros Elite, Judge’s Familiar, Daring Skyjek, or Imposing Sovereign, they were all situationally acceptable but never powerful. They were filler to make sure you hit your curve and powered up Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Spear of Heliod, Brave the Elements, or Heliod, God of the Sun.

This is in sharp contrast to our Amsterdam white weenies. While Steppe Lynx was the unequivocal all-star, the high power level of Student of Warfare, Figure of Destiny and Knight of the White Orchid combined with the format-specific efficacy of Ethersworn Canonist allowed us to play a low-curve deck that didn’t make significant power level sacrifices.

There was another problem. We had Spectral Procession and Ranger of Eos to get ahead on cards in Amsterdam. My Boros deck in Paris had Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk. But contemporary white aggro lacked a similar presence. Heliod could pump out creatures, but was woefully slow and inefficient. And Ajani provided a repetitive advantage and inevitability, but was fragile and lacked raw power. We were basically just playing a red deck; curve out and finish them with actual (Boros Charm) or functional (Brave the Elements) burn spells. It was OK, but I boarded my plane for Oklahoma City hoping for something better.

I made the decision to attend Grand Prix Oklahoma City rather than go straight to The Castle in Dublin for a few reasons. First, it’s close to my new home in Arizona, a quick 90-minute flight. Second, I needed the Pro Points if I’m going to stay on the Pro Tour. Finally, I expected it to be useful practice for the Limited portion of PT Theros. Not only would I get to play with the set, but I’d get to interact with a wide cross-section of draft experts. Once in Ireland I’d be confined to the castle, with the accompanying insular perspectives and inbred drafting.

The tournament itself was uneventful – I lost the last round of Day One to miss Day Two and spent a good deal of Sunday watching football. However, sharing a room with Ben Stark for the weekend presented me with a unique ethical quandary that I wasn’t equipped to handle. While watching him dominate a prerelease draft on Magic Online and discussing picks with him, he clicked over to his Facebook page briefly. It was enough time for me to see a post from Luis Scott-Vargas to the ChannelFireball team page requesting a high number of Minotaur Skullcleavers in case they needed them for the team constructed deck.

My first instinct was to just ignore this. Since I had come across the information in a hotel room rather than some public place like a tournament hall, it felt like spying to just email my team the name of the card. Still, I wasn’t spying. I wasn’t looking at Ben’s computer without permission, rustling through his bag, or perusing a closed notebook. And I had a duty to my team as well; I really wasn’t sure what to do. I resolved to ask my team how to proceed, hoping they’d tell me to keep it to myself.

I’m proud to say that’s exactly what they did. Jon Finkel and Reid Duke specifically were outspoken in objection to the sharing of this information, so I did not share it. In retrospect, I’m really happy that this happened. We faced the ethical dilemma and handled it correctly. Moving forward, it would be a shame if friends felt like they couldn’t share hotel rooms and needed to be extremely secretive with each other in the weeks leading up to Pro Tours just because they were preparing for the tournament with different groups. The ChannelFireball team was grateful for the discretion and assured us that they’d extend us the same professional courtesy moving forward. They didn’t even end up playing the card.

After a travel day on Monday, I arrived in Dublin early Tuesday morning and took a convenient bus to Navan, a small town to the north and the childhood home of Pierce Brosnan. From there it was just a quick cab to Durhamstown Castle, a 600-year-old privately-held residence that would be team headquarters for the first part of the week. Reid Duke was drinking instant coffee, Matt Sperling had a cold, Sam Black was on Magic Online, and Jon Finkel was wearing rainbow pajamas. I was home.

Rather than unpacking, I dove into preparation. There was a palpable energy in the house. Playtesting for an event can sometimes feel like work – the tenth game of a brutally mismatched set where you are playing a deck you are not seriously considering for the event is not anyone’s idea of fun. Anyone but Reid, that is.

Very early on, most people seemed to gravitate towards G/R Monstrous championed by Brad or the Mono Blue Devotion deck designed largely by Kai Budde and Gabriel Nassif. (Aside: apparently they sketched out the deck in the kitchen, where they’d do most of their good work over the week). Patrick Chapin was the lone holdout, preferring an Orzhov midrange build of his own design against what he perceived as the expected metagame. It was somewhat similar to decks I’d seen online, but used an Soldier of the Pantheon-and-Precinct Captain early game to combat aggro and pressure pure control decks. Soldier itself had stood out to me in my independent testing as a card whose resiliency, base stats, and incidental life gain combined to form an extremely efficient and potent package.

Eh, who am I kidding? It’s a 2/1 for W. I’m in.

Patrick does an excellent job in his report discussing a lot of the individual card choices and deck philosophy, so I’ll focus on places where I was able to contribute. The first thing I pushed for was a more consistent manabase. I got Patrick to quickly agree to shave the third Mutavault, and eventually we cut the second as well, going up to the full 4 Orzhov Guildgate to minimize the chances of mana issues. I’m a big fan of avoiding greedy manabases in general. The power level of cards scale more steeply today than in years past and stumbling is punished severely. The second addition was Whip of Erebos. I’d seen enough of the card in Limited to know it had a high raw power level and the two-card combo with Obzedat was attractive. After testing against other grindy decks like Dega and B/R Control, I was sold on one copy.

But there was another (fairly specious) reason why I pushed for the Whip. I explained to Patrick that when you look at the Pro Tour winner’s decklist, it often contains seemingly random one-ofs. I feel like playing 1-2 copies of a high-impact card in a Pro Tour and hoping to draw it in the right situations is a good way to slightly increase your variance as long as it’s done in a smart way. Wescoe had one Civic Saber, Martell one Restoration Angel, and I had two Mana Tithes in Amsterdam. If I was wrong, the cost would be real but small, but I thought Whip had the potential to be game-breaking in the right situation. In tournaments with extremely top-heavy reward structures like Pro Tours, adding a bit of variance is a good thing if you aren’t sacrificing expectation. As it turned out, I never drew Whip in a close game but it was excellent for Patrick, so I don’t regret it.

The final way I was able to contribute was in developing the sideboard. I suggested we replace Glare of Heresy with Lifebane Zombie. While Glare was obviously excellent against White Weenie and Voice of Resurgence, Lifebane Zombie gave us another card against Dega, R/G Monstrous and Esper with Blood Baron of Vizkopa. It also would help us fight against mono-green decks, which we expected to mostly be aggressive and based around Nylea. Most importantly it was a proactive card and would allow us to put pressure on planeswalkers, which our deck was naturally soft against.

Critically, Patrick and I spent hours considering the implications of our sideboard decisions on each matchup. We used The Elephant Method, a technique coined by teammate Zvi Mowshowitz. The gist is that we knew how we wanted our deck to be configured post-sideboarding in every conceivable matchup, and tweaked numbers to fit.

Here is the decklist we settled on:

B/W Midrange

Paul Rietzl

6th Place at Pro Tour on 10-13-2013

Standard

Creatures (18)

• 4 Desecration Demon
• 4 Precinct Captain
• 3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
• 2 Sin Collector
• 1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
• 4 Soldier of the Pantheon

Planeswalkers (1)

• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Lands (26)

• 7 Plains
• 6 Swamp
• 4 Godless Shrine
• 1 Mutavault
• 4 Orzhov Guildgate
• 4 Temple of Silence

Spells (15)

• 4 Thoughtseize
• 3 Doom Blade
• 3 Read the Bones
• 4 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Whip of Erebos

Sideboard

• 1 Last Breath
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Underworld Connections
• 1 Devour Flesh
• 2 Sin Collector
• 1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
• 3 Fiendslayer Paladin
• 2 Lifebane Zombie
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Pharika's Cure

Here is a handy sideboarding guide for each matchup:

*Optional, depends on exact list

Vs. Wafo-Tapa Esper (Same for WU Control)

+2 Sin Collector
+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Underworld Connections
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Lifebane Zombie
-3 Doom Blade
-1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
-2 Desecration Demon

Vs. Mono Blue Devotion

+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Last Breath
+1 Underworld Connections*
-2 Sin Collector
-1 Whip of Erebos
-1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
-1 Obzedat, Ghost Council*

Vs. Mono Green Devotion and GR Monstrous

+2 Lifebane Zombie
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Pharika’s Cure
+1 Underworld Connections
-4 Soldier of the Pantheon
-2 Sin Collector
-1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
-1 Precinct Captain

Vs. GW Beatdown

+2 Lifebane Zombie
+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Last Breath
+1 Sin Collector
-4 Thoughtseize
-1 Whip of Erebos
-1 Read the Bones
-2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Vs. Mono Red Aggro

+3 Fiendslayer Paladin
+1 Sin Collector
+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Pharika’s Cure
+1 Last Breath
-4 Thoughtseize
-3 Read the Bones
-2 Desecration Demon

Vs. Dega

+2 Lifebane Zombie
+2 Sin Collector
+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Underworld Connections
-4 Precinct Captain
-3 Doom Blade
-1 Soldier of the Pantheon

Vs. White Weenie

+2 Lifebane Zombie
+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
+1 Devour Flesh
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Pharika’s Cure
+1 Last Breath
-4 Thoughtseize
-2 Sin Collector
-1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
-1 Whip of Erebos

With my Standard deck ready to go, I was mostly concerned with draft. I was getting absolutely smoked in our drafts at the house – I think I won three matches over four drafts at one point. Discouraged, I looked at some of the decks I’d drafted and they weren’t that bad. My play was poor and my opposition extremely strong. I thought I was in reasonable shape if I just kept plugging away, but an event Wednesday night at The Castle shaped the future of my tournament.

We had a team meeting to discuss Limited. First, we went over each of the two-color archetypes. What commons were important? How did they win? Were there traps to avoid? What did a good deck look like? Then, I made a suggestion. Could we go over each rare and mythic in the set and discuss what we’d do if we opened the card first pick, first pack? Too frequently, I’ve found myself opening a relatively obscure card and being unsure what to do. I figured we could use the group’s collective wisdom to run through a very young Limited format.

Taken together, the meeting was the highest-level conversation I’ve ever seen on Booster Draft. I left feeling like I’d be ready for opening any kind of pack and drafting any sort of deck, a degree and style of preparedness I’ve found correlates extremely strongly with good performances. When I feel like I want to force an archetype or just can’t seem to win with one of the colors, I’ve always struggled.

It wasn’t uncommon for many of us to huddle around a laptop whenever Jon or Kai were drafting. Indeed, collaborative discussions on draft picks were revelatory in terms of triangulating the actual power level of cards and how to construct a winning draft deck in real time. At one point I was at the helm of a draft when I opened a good pack whose best card was Wingsteed Rider but also contained a Thoughtseize. Although I always want to practice like I play, Thoughtseize would’ve put a nice dent in the onerous costs of drafting. Ten seconds later, Matt Costa had pledged $5 and Kai Budde 2 Euros if I would take the Rider. Too good to pass up, I ended up drafting a nice WU Heroic deck that I won two rounds with before forgetting I was in a draft and timing out in the finals.

On our last night at The Castle, Kai cooked this delicious masterpiece:

Kai and Nassif had done the grocery shopping earlier in the day. Time and again I was impressed and humbled by the selflessness with which each member of our team approached the run-up to this tournament. Here are all these people who have not just dominated professional Magic but been very successful in their other lives constantly sacrificing for the team as a whole. Reid Duke playing the “other deck” and brewing coffee in the morning. Gabriel Nassif making eggs, Kai Budde making dinner. Jon Finkel agreeing to put on actual pants for the team photo. Before I left The Castle, I was even able to snap this picture of Huey and Owen talking strategy:

We were ready.

As I sat down for my first pod Friday morning I was overcome with apprehension. Never before in my life had I invested so much time and energy into preparing for a tournament. And I was ready. I wasn’t sick or jetlagged. My deck was good and I knew was to do in draft. For the first time in my Magic career, there were no excuses. I opened a pack where the two best cards were Triad of Fates and Triton Fortune Hunter. I smiled inside; thanks to the team meeting the night before, I knew that Triad of Fates was a good card, but not a bomb. I took the mono-colored card and stayed open. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I grabbed my next booster and saw Prophet of Kruphix staring back at me. In my estimation, this is the best non-mythic in the set. I settled very early into U/G and drafted this masterpiece:

PT Theros Draft #1

Paul Rietzl

6th Place at Pro Tour on 10-13-2013

Limited

Creatures (13)

• 2 Thassa's Emissary
• 1 Omenspeaker
• 1 Artisan of Forms
• 1 Nimbus Naiad
• 1 Prophet of Kruphix
• 1 Triton Fortune Hunter
• 1 Benthic Giant
• 1 Agent of Horizons
• 1 Nylea's Disciple
• 1 Voyaging Satyr
• 1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior
• 1 Nylea's Emissary

Lands (18)

• 9 Forest
• 9 Island

Spells (9)

• 2 Aqueous Form
• 2 Fate Foretold
• 1 Feral Invocation
• 1 Time to Feed
• 1 Sea God's Revenge
• 1 Artisan's Sorrow
• 1 Warriors' Lesson

Relevant Sideboard: 1 Gainsay, 1 Lost in a Labyrinth

Short of opening a bunch of busted rares, this is as good as it gets in Theros draft. I had a good curve, lots of synergy, high card quality and ways to interact with my opponent. I thought I had a great shot at a 3-0.

Round 1 – Garry Wong (Australia) – W/B

I mistakenly thought Garry was from Austria when we sat down at the draft table, and was embarrassed at my silly mistake. Garry was a really nice guy, and had a good but underpowered W/B deck. We split the first two games before getting into a race in game three that involved his Hundred-Handed One against my heavily-buffed Agent of Horizons. I set it up using Aqueous Form so that I could attack, play Prophet of Kruphix, say go, untap, play another chump blocker, block enough creatures to live, untap, draw another Bestow creature and kill him exactly. Thankfully, he didn’t have anything, and my plan barely worked. At the end of the game, my Agent of Horizons was enchanted by 2 Fate Foretold, Aqueous Form, Feral Invocation, and the lethal Thassa’s Emissary. Phew.

1-0

Round 2 – Joel Larsson (Sweden) – W/G

Joel and I had a strong feeling that we’d have to get through each other to 3-0 the pod. He had a good, aggressive W/G deck that also featured Hundred-Handed One. In the first game, he attacked with it, enhanced by Feral Invocation. I had an Artisan of Forms, also enchanted by Feral Invocation, copying Hundred-Handed One. I studied Joel for some time, trying to get a clue, weighing the need to save five damage with the risk of losing my 5/7 monster. Ultimately I went with my gut feeling that he really didn’t want me to block, so I did. Joel didn’t have a pump spell, and although I ended up losing a very close first game, I felt invigorated by my good read. Knowing that I had my A-game, I was able to take the second game with Sea God’s Revenge and the third by defeating his mulligan and slow draw.

2-0

Round 3 – Ervin Hosszu (Hungary) – W/R

I was able to handle a suboptimal draw Game One, as Ervin was forced to use Scry instants in suboptimal situations in order to smooth his mana situation. He put me under duress early in Game Three with an Ordeal of Heliod on Spearpoint Oread. When he had a Minotaur Skullcleaver to follow, I was in a ton of trouble. Interestingly, one turn he attacked with the Oread, triggered the Ordeal and sacrificed it to gain 10 life, then attacked with the Skullcleaver. Ten years ago, I certainly would’ve called a judge and argued that a sacrificed Ordeal indicated we were past the Declare Attackers step. These days, it might just be out-of-order sequencing since he did it all in one motion. Perhaps I still should’ve called a judge, but I chose not to since his intent was clearly to attack with both and I was tapped out (so there was 0% chance of an angle shot). As it happened, I was able to use Prophet of Kruphix to fight my way back into the game, eventually dropping a backbreaking instant-speed Nylea’s Disciple that turned the tide and let me crack back for the win.

3-0

I dusted off Matt Sperling Beta Plains and readied myself for Constructed.

Round 4 – Till Riffert (Germany) – Mono Blue Devotion

Things went pretty much to plan here. I killed whatever I needed to whenever I needed to in order to keep him off devotion and finished him off with Obzedats and Desecration Demons in two quick games. So far, so good.

4-0

Round 5 – Michael Bonde (Denmark) – Dega

This match basically came down to our more-reliable manabase. Soldiers of the Pantheon dominated Game One. He took the second game on the back of a Blood Baron that I could not strip from his hand. In Game Three, I was able to tear his hand apart with Sin Collector, Lifebane Zombie and Thoughtseize, while his own disruption remained stranded by frustrating mana issues.

5-0

Round 6 – Luis Scott-Vargas (USA) – Red Devotion

This is covered here: Round 6 Coverage

I don’t have much to add; I’ve run significantly above expectation lifetime against LSV in my career and expect to do so in the future. I am just statistically luckier than most people.

6-0

Round 7 – Lukas Tajak (Germany) – Mono Blue Devotion

Lukas was a really nice guy who was relatively new to the pro scene. I got pretty lucky to split the first two games before a crippling triple mulligan made for an anticlimactic finale. Lukas was able to finish exactly 25th at the Pro Tour, earning him a trip to Valencia. I’m looking forward to more chats about Oktoberfest.

7-0

Round 8 – David Caplan (Canada) – Mono Red Aggro

You can watch this here: Round 8 Coverage

In hindsight, David could’ve won Game One had he waited with Lightning Strike, since I needed to play an untapped Godless Shrine to cast Hero’s Downfall, dropping me to two. He obliterated me Game Two before a pretty interesting third game. Even after dropping Blood Baron of Vizkopa and Obzedat, a victory was far from assured. I intentionally left Obzedat in play rather than risk phasing it out and dying to a crazy alpha strike, and was able to finally escape unscathed.

8-0

Well then. I’ve had success at the Pro Tour before, but running the tables felt awesome. It was a slightly weird dynamic to know I’d be matched up with teammate Sam Black in the first round on Saturday, but I was thrilled to be in the driver’s seat after one day. Still, needing a 4-3 record over seven rounds against the best players in the world, I knew I still had my work cut out for me.

I went out to dinner with some teammates, including Patrick Chapin, Gabriel Nassif, Matt Sperling, Gaudenis Vidugiris, Tom Martell, Sam Black, as well as ChannelFireball David Ochoa. Naturally, while suffering through the worst day of his Magic career Gaudenis was randomly selected to pay the bill as well.

My draft to start Day Two was pretty poor, as I started with Polis Crusher, dabbled in blue, and scrambled to put together a good deck. I should’ve picked up on Lukas Jaklovsky’s strong black signal and abandoned the Polis Crusher, but I could not. I salvaged this:

PT Theros Draft #2

Paul Rietzl

6th Place at Pro Tour on 10-13-2013

Limited

Creatures (14)

• 1 Satyr Hedonist
• 1 Nessian Asp
• 1 Polis Crusher
• 1 Fanatic of Mogis
• 1 Mistcutter Hydra
• 1 Borderland Minotaur
• 1 Minotaur Skullcleaver
• 1 Satyr Rambler
• 1 Agent of Horizons
• 1 Nylea's Disciple
• 1 Sedge Scorpion
• 1 Voyaging Satyr
• 1 Arena Athlete
• 1 Nemesis of Mortals

Lands (17)

• 9 Forest
• 8 Mountain

Spells (9)

• 1 Magma Jet
• 2 Destructive Revelry
• 1 Ordeal of Purphoros
• 1 Lightning Strike
• 1 Ordeal of Nylea
• 1 Spark Jolt
• 1 Nylea's Presence
• 1 Time to Feed

Relevant Sideboard: 1 Boulderfall, 1 Karametra’s Acolyte, 2 Two-Headed Cerberus, 1 Satyr Piper, 1 Shredding Winds, 1 Portent of Betrayal

I maindecked Spark Jolt over some more generally-useful cards because I knew I’d be playing Sam first and he had a propensity for W/R Heroic decks in the house, especially featuring Akroan Crusader and cantrip enchantments. I knew 2-1 would put me in fantastic shape for Top Eight, while a 1-2 at least left me a shot.

Round 9 – Sam Black (USA) – U/G

You can watch this here: Round 9 Coverage

Unfortunately there were not many interesting decision points. I have an easy time of it Game One, and he evens the score in the second. I keep a hand without red mana Game Three and get punished completely, putting up no resistance.

8-1

Round 10 – Lukas Jaklovsky (Czech Republic) – W/R

In Game One, I’m forced to put two Ordeals on Nylea’s Disciple against RW open and one card in hand for Lukas, as I have nothing else going on. Lukas has Lightning Strike. In Game Two, I again place an Ordeal on a random creature and start going to work. On turn five, Lukas lets out a sigh and scrunches his face in frustration before sending over the turn with four mana up and an Ill-Tempered Cyclops against my 4/4 creature. Because I had Lightning Strike to respond to any kind of pump spell on the Cyclops, I was really only scared of Divine Verdict. The math said to attack, but my gut/brain/heart/experience said: This guy has Divine Verdict. Ultimately, I sent in my enchanted creature, got blown out, and lost.

8-2

Round 11 – Jon Finkel (USA) – B/U

I curve out nicely in the first game and beat a poor draw from Jon, aided by a timely Time to Feed allowing me to trade Sedge Scorpion for Shipbreaker Kraken. In the second, I have a Satyr Hedonist, Mistcutter Hydra, Destructive Revelry, and some land in hand. After Jon plays nothing but Islands for the first two turns, I decide to sacrifice my Hedonist to power out a 4/4 Haste, pro-blue monster. Jon’s response of Guardians of Meletis provides a perfect target for my Revelry, and I’m able to win on the back of my 4/4.

9-2

At 0-2 in a pod, tournament circling down the drain, Jon Finkel sitting across from you, I could’ve packed it in, but I didn’t. Now I just needed my excellent Standard deck to get me a 3-1 record.

Round 12 – Pierre Dagen (France) – Mono Blue Devotion

We split the first two games and are locked into a nail-biting Game Three. I get down a Pithing Needle on Jace, Architect of Thought, which my Thoughtseize clued me in on, but he promptly deploys Jace, Memory Adept from the top of his deck. The flow of cards allows him to keep my Desecration Demon under wraps, and we are locked in an old-fashioned race. Using my removal to control his board, I maneuver the game where I’m at five life with Soldier of the Pantheon and multiple Desecration Demons out threatening lethal next turn. Pierre has Thassa and the Memor Adept with no cards in hand. Basically Pierre needs one of the top three cards of his deck to turn on his devotion without giving me a life, or two of the top three cards to be blue and cheap enough for him to cast. His top card is Tidebinder Mage, unfortunately, and my spiral continues.

9-3

Round 13 – Marcello Mazzarino (Italy) – W/G Beatdown

Thankfully, I get paired against my best matchup. As long as I didn’t do something stupid like run removal into Rootborn Defenses or randomly die to the double strike provided by Ajani, Caller of the Pride, this is pretty safe. Luckily I didn’t do anything stupid. In Game One, I even got to ultimate Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, but as I rustled through my bag for my super-cool emblem, Marcello was cleaning up his cards.

What is the point of Emblems anyway?

10-3

Round 14 – Nico Bohny (Switzerland) – B/G Midrange

This is so deep into the tournament that I don’t remember much from the match. It was a three-game tactical battle as we slung Thoughtseizes, Hero’s Downfall, and Lifebane Zombies at each other. Ultimately, Obzedat and Blood Baron proved more resilient to his removal than his late game of Polukranos, which was a handy target for Doom Blade. I had put myself in another win-and-in situation.

11-3

Round 15 – Lukas Jaklovsky (Czech Republic) – B/R Control

You can watch this here: Round 15 Coverage

Playing for Top Eight of a Pro Tour is an incredible feeling. All the preparation, 3AM drafts, red-eye flights, Days Inns in Hoboken and cumulative disappointment hang in the balance. Another crushing defeat? Or that singular relief that comes with having it all be worth something? Because no matter how much we love the game, it’s difficult to explain to a non-Magic player how proud you are of that 23rd-place finish. Plus, the sweat is incredible.

12-3

Round 16 – Makahito Mihara (Japan) – G/R Devotion

Makahito and I drew into Top 8.

12-3-1.

After buying dinner for a few friends, we found a spot to test my quarterfinal match against Mihara. Major thanks to Thomas Pannell, owner of +EV Games, for providing us with a copy of Mihara’s deck with real cards. And huge thanks to everyone who helped me prepare, specifically Patrick Chapin, Gabriel Nassif, and William Jensen, but also including Jon Finkel, Matt Costa, Reid Duke, Owen Turtenwald, Tom Martell, Kai Budde and even Zvi Mowshowitz chiming in from New York.

Unfortunately the matchup looked very hard. My early pressure was completely ineffective, and all of his planeswalkers were problematic and attacked in different ways. Garruk, Caller of Beasts in particular was a nightmare. Often one activation would put him way too far ahead. Any Nykthos meant that I didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his mana creatures and going after the big threats – he could simply power out too many too fast. I had to try to keep him bottled up.

Quarterfinals – Makahito Mihara (Japan) – G/R Devotion

You can watch this here: Quarterfinals

After he finished dispatching with me, I walked with Patrick and Matt Sperling (who woke up early after a night on the town to support me) to a pub for a Guinness and some Irish Stew. What struck me was how sudden the exit felt. To play sixteen grueling rounds over two days, have three distinct phases (the 8-0 start, 1-3 collapse, and 3-0 comeback), and then have it all end in one anticlimactic Game Five felt wrong. But that’s the nature of professional Magic. It’s a zero-sum game – some guy gets to hold the trophy while the rest of us cry into our Cheerios.

Once I had decompressed a bit, a bunch of us headed over to the hotel to watch American football for a while. I thanked my friends and teammates for all the help. I’m really grateful to have been a part of such an amazing collection of intellect and Magic talent. I hope they’ll have me again for the Pro Tour in Valencia. Out of fourteen team members to advance past the first round in Dublin, twelve finished in the top 55 and three in the top nine. Incredible.

After everyone had been drinking for a while, we started talking about ridiculous propositions and debating things for no reason, as Magic players are wont to do. At some point, I turned around and very seriously asked “If you had to be Vampire or a Zombie, which would you be?” Most were pensive, but Owen Turtenwald exclaimed:

“Vampire, not close.”

“Why?”

“Cause zombies are stupid and vampires are awesome. Plus, they can walk through walls.”

I want to be a part of the Pro Tour forever.

Thanks for reading.

Paul