Sunlight flitted in and out of the room as the air conditioning unit blew the curtain open and closed. The rattles and whirs of the machine were drowned out by the snoring of six others, and the continual sighs of one person in particular – me.
Another sleepless night in Minneapolis.
I looked at the clock. It was six in the morning.
If I wasn’t going to be getting any sleep, I might as well be productive.
I readied myself for the day, grabbed my iPod, and headed out for a brisk walk to breakfast. The music filled my ears and nourished my weary mind as my shoes trod over warm pavement. Unlike most mornings, today it was just me. No group of people clamoring over a meal, no bickering about Extended rotations, no hour-long inundation of bad beat stories. It was time to run and focus.
I had selected a breakfast location a decent walk away, just to get my body pumped up for the day. The actual food was overpriced and unmemorable, but the experience of the day opening in such a growing crescendo was a lot more welcome than the zero-to-sixty feeling you get when you have an only hour to shower, inhale breakfast, and make it over to the venue in time.
I took my time walking back to soak in the colors of the city, then arrived to my pod with time to spare. I was ready for my Draft pod.
When we last left off, I was 5-2. This Draft pod was much stronger than my last, featuring Steve Sadin and Eric Froehlich, both of which were sitting directly to my right. I knew they would probably both want Blue, but that also means it would end up totally cut off so I could potentially pick up some good Blue cards from the left in my second pack. As far as I knew, neither of them had a preference for White, so hopefully that would leave me wide open to draft my favorite color in M11.
I started off the draft with an interesting pick. I opened the pack and immediately some of the cards were standouts: Liliana’s Specter, Quag Sickness, Black Knight, Nantuko Shade. Then I fanned the pack out. And there it was. Staring back at me. The king of the draft table. The one card I wanted to see:
That deal was sealed!
In all seriousness, it was close, but I had reasons. Some would say that it sends better signals, but I have always disagreed with that theorem of drafting. You control what’s going to your left. You can cut them all off of Black later on if you want, plus you have two packs coming from your right to make Black work.
My reasoning wasn’t really that at all. Instead, I thought I would end up with better White cards than Black. I felt like one of the two drafters on my right would likely be Black, as U/B is a combination a lot of the pros seem to like.
Finally, White is a lot more comfortable to me because I have drafted it more. Yes, I am aware that this is giving into a weakness. If I had drafted other colors more often, I would be more comfortable playing them – but in my mind, this is playing to my strengths. Look, you’re in a top Draft pod at Nationals. You can’t afford to be figuring out your pick orders in Black while you’re drafting, or which cards are necessary to make a Black deck work. I’d rather take a risk and go with what I knew I could draft best.
After Wild Griffin I pick up an Azure Drake, and then a third-pick Blinding Mage —Â exactly what I want to see. After that, my picks are good mono-White cards for the next few, then I pick up some random late cards in other colors. Second pack, I pick up a Cloud Elemental out of a weak first pack, and take a couple more White cards in the next picks. I begin to worry that White has dried up, but then I see a sixth pick of choice between Blinding Mage or Assault Griffin! I take the Mage, though Griffin is excellent in this kind of deck.
The White keeps coming, and I end up with a pretty late Inspired Charge (my pick for most underrated common in the set) which makes me pretty happy. Other than that, I see a few good Red and Green cards late and nab them in case I need them for a second color. With that in mind, I turn to pack 3.
In the third pack, the same kind of problem happens: I first-pick a second Blinding Mage, then pick up a few weak odds and ends in the next few picks. Then, fourth pick, I see a choice between Doom Blade, Honor of the Pure, and Stormfront Pegasus!
I consider splashing the Blade, but don’t really see a way to make it work so I ship it along in favor of Honor, which is a bomb in this kind of deck. In the next pick, I have a choice between a second Condemn or Stormfront Pegasus. I think for a while on this choice, but eventually settle on Condemn. In retrospect, maybe that was wrong because I just want to curve out every game, and I had seen very few Silvercoat Lions. I finally see a third Stormfront Pegasus and pick it up, then round out my deck with the rest of the picks.
It’s actually kind of weird when I go to the deck construction table. My deck is nearly mono-White, but I have three or four slots to splash another color. I can build my deck a few different ways with Red, Green, or Blue. However, the Green is too committal and would make me splash for cards like Greater Basilisk with GG in their mana cost, and the Red is too weak and doesn’t really help my deck do anything better. My deck ends up nearly mono-White, splashing only a few good blue fliers, since the splash is essentially free.
Creatures
1 Assault Griffin
2 Blinding Mage
3 Infantry Veteran
2 Palace Guard
1 Stormfront Pegasus
2 Wild Griffin
1 War Priest of Thune
1 Azure Drake
1 Cloud Elemental
Spells
2 Inspired Charge
2 Condemn
1 Honor of the Pure
1 Mighty Leap
1 Mana Leak
Round Eight – Slow G/B
As with every other draft, I play the person immediately to my left. After feeding him Plummets and a late Doom Blade, I was a little worried.
Game one I mulligan and get a slightly slow start, and he has removal as I start to get things rolling. He has the Nantuko Shade I passed, but I draw a couple more guys and start to apply a small amount of pressure.
Then he plays a second Nantuko Shade and things start to get messy.
You wouldn’t think the second is much scarier than the first, because it just means you can divide your pumps —Â but it makes blocking near impossible. I make a block to try to kill one of them, and he blows me out with Stabbing Pain. I try and buy some time to dig for Condemns, but it’s no good and his Shades beat me up.
I compliment him on his double Nantuko Shades and he lets me know he didn’t even take the first one I passed! Two came from the other direction. Now, I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth or not as it seems rather unlikely, but that’s good to keep in mind for now.
Game two, I have an insane opening: Infantry Veteran into Pegasus into Wild Griffin into Honor of the Pure plus Veteran, then I blew him out with Inspired Charge the next turn. That’s just how I drew it up in the locker room.
Game three is much closer. I have a really fast draw with double Infantry Veteran and a Pegasus, but some removal on his end threatens to make it a lot closer. I draw some spells, but end up in topdeck mode with him stabilizing. I figure I have about two turns to finish him off before I am out of the game. I take my turn, and…
Inspired Charge? Why, thank you!
6-2
Round Nine – U/B Vampires
This guy’s deck was insane. After the match, I went up and told Nate Price he had to do a feature on it. You can see what he had here. Triple Captivating Vampire, with the comrades to pull it off. And if that wasn’t enough, he had both Royal Assassin and Sword of Vengeance in case things got dicey! Needless to say, it wasn’t going to be easy.
Before game one, he warns me his deck is pretty good. Then he mulligans and he has a slow start. I get a decent enough start, and he’s racing me with a Child of Night. No big deal.
Then come the vampires.
He plays a Captivating Vampire and starts to get in the game. I keep racing him, but he hits four vampires. If he hits one more, he starts taking my creatures and I lose. Fortunately, he doesn’t see another vampire and I kill him.
Game two, he draws action and has a vampire curve, and starts stealing my guys. The game wasn’t very close.
Game three, I make a gigantic durdle-like blunder on turn 3. It’s very simple: It’s turn 3, and he is attacking with Child of Night and I think it’s advantageous to trade the Wild Griffin in my hand with it instead of casting my Cloud Elemental. In game one I didn’t make this trade, so he’s especially likely to keep attacking. So I reach for my Griffin, arrange my mana, flick my cards around a little bit, set the top card of my hand into play…
And it’s a Cloud Elemental.
…
Fortunately, I go on to win the game after a long arduous affair that takes up most of the round, because, via trading early, I manage to strand him with four vampires, and then have a Condemn on his Child of Night to put him at exactly lethal next turn instead of lethal-plus-one from the Child’s lifelink. But there were multiple times where I could have just killed him if he hadn’t picked up the two points of life gain.
What I was happy about, though, is that I didn’t let my idiotic mistake tilt me or change my gameplay. I made the play, then played the game ignoring that mistake and playing to the best of my ability —Â which is something I can be satisfied with.
Still. Tighten up, buddy!
(And yes, I know Monty’s coverage of my opponent’s deck says I lost this match. I did, in fact, win. Probably tricked you, though, didn’t it?)
7-2
Round Nine – U/B Control
I’m paired against Eric Froehlich this round.
I have another excellent start in game one, and he just continues to play land after land with a removal spell for good measure. I feel like I am way ahead, and then he plays a whammy: Air Servant. But all of my good creatures fly! That’s how I win! Noooooo!
He taps down my team every turn and I try to desperately push through damage in any way possible to trick him into attacking so I can cast Condemn, but it doesn’t work. He holds back and plays the long game, which he eventually wins.
I deliberate for a long time on Merfolk Spy and decide to keep it in the board —Â but I’ll bring it in if there’s a game three, since I’ll be on the play. He can’t Air Servant it, and against him I just want a continual source of damage, especially with my Infantry Veterans around.
Game two, I manage to run him over with my Honor of the Pure.
Game three, I board in the Spy and mulligan. I play Veteran on turn 1 and he starts getting in. I follow it up with a Wild Griffin on turn 3, and continue to follow it up with pressure. I keep bringing the attacks, and he has some removal spells.
On turn 6, something pivotal happens: he casts Deathmark on my Wild Griffin. I have Mana Leak and Negate in my hand, as well as a Gargoyle Sentinel. My board is Griffin, Veteran, and Cloud Elemental, to his two cards and six lands, and he’s around ten life. I only have four lands. I know he has Mind Control and Corrupt in his deck.
Do you Negate it?
I decide to let it pass, and then play Gargoyle next turn, leaving two mana up if I draw my long overdue land. I don’t draw a land but instead draw a Veteran, then cast both and pass. He untaps, and casts Platinum Angel.
Uh oh.
My deck has no way to beat a Platinum Angel besides Condemn. He doesn’t attack with it, and easily defeats me.
After the game, he showed me he had a Rise From the Grave in his hand too. Even if I had Mana Leaked the Angel, I would have Negated the Deathmark and he would have just brought the Angel back anyway.
Oh well.
7-3
At 7-3, we move back to four rounds of Standard. If I 4-0 I lock up top 8 for sure, and at 3-0 I might be able to draw the last round. Time to get started!
Round Eleven – Naya
This entire match is over in under fifteen minutes. There’s not really a lot to say here. He mulliganed twice in the second game, and I Soul Wardened into Pridemate both games while he had Sparkmage neither time.
8-3
Round Twelve – Dredgevine
This round, I sat down across from one of the New York guys, who was playing Dredgevine. I had been told this matchup was insane for me, but of course I had never played any matches against it. Game one seemed pretty good, as I didn’t have an early Pridemate — but I did have a ton of Soul Wardens backed up by a Ranger for Ascendants.
Game two starts poorly for me, as he Mana Leaks my second-turn Pridemate and I don’t have a lot after that. However, he starts Hedron Crabbing me, which does basically nothing I am worried about, and I eventually end up beating him. He tells me after the match he had been told the only way he could beat our deck was by milling us, which I didn’t feel ever mattered.
9-3
Round Thirteen – Dredgevine
So here it was: The cusp match. Me against Brad Nelson. We had looked at the standings, and I think we were both pretty sure we could draw into the top 8 if we won this match. It was even supposed to be a good matchup for me.
Of course, as you may have noticed, that’s not what happened.
The match is pretty well covered by Monty Ashley here, but I have just a couple notes to add.
Game one, I mulliganed and saw a hand that I was pretty sure would easily win the game if I drew a land. Plains, Soul’s Attendant, double-Pridemate, Survival Cache, and I think either a Brave the Elements or an Oblivion Ring. On six cards, I was fine taking that risk. Obviously, it didn’t pan out. He had an insane draw, and I got rolled over.
Game two, as you can read in the coverage, wasn’t close.
Game three, I mulliganed into a hand of Kabira Crossroads, double Tectonic Edge, Serra Ascendant, War Priest of Thune, and Oblivion Ring. I thought about it for a while, and kept.
It was easily the worst play mistake I made all event. Worse than the Palace Guard keep. Worse than playing Cloud Elemental over Wild Griffin. It’s so bad that I can’t even go back in my mind and figure out why I did it. That hand was terrible. I even drew a Soul Warden on my first turn, and I still got beaten pretty quickly. The deck has so much redundancy than even on a mulligan to five there are still a lot of insane hands I could draw, plus I get a draw step on the first turn to help me out.
It’s these small things that separate a competitor from greatness. If I won that match, I think I had a really good chance at winning the whole tournament and becoming National champion. The top 8 had a lot of really good matchups for me —Â and if I fought down the same bracket Brad was in, I am confident I could have least made the third-place National team.
I made a mistake, and Brad deserved to win. I hope matches like this inspire me to play better in the future.
I wished Brad well in the top 8, and went on to fight my next round.
10-4
Round Fourteen – Naya
I had to face Brad last round, and this round I had to play against his little brother Corey. We’re playing for $500 and a couple of pro points, so there’s a decent amount on the line.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot to this match. Game one I had a good start and he didn’t have Sparkmage, game two he had turn 2 Sparkmage on the play, and game three he had turn 2 Sparkmage on the draw – plus two others by the time I dealt with the first one.
10-5
The event had its ups and downs. I stayed long enough to see if I cashed at all. (I didn’t.)
Sounds like it’s time for some food.
Now, if you’ve ever been to a major event, having a small quiet dinner is near impossible. When you tell one person, they tell everybody else, and you end up with a thousand people. Even if you try and be quiet about it and slip out, people will catch up to you as you are heading out of the convention center and ask, “Are you going to get food?”
This time, I was determined to not let this happen.
I found Alex West, and we hatched a plan for a nice, small dinner. We took Brian Kowal and Lauren Lee aside and figured out our strategy.
We walked about halfway to the doors safely. Then people we knew were starting to close in on us like famished zombies.
So we ran. Literally.
We ran out the doors, and began to run up the escalator. People lingering outside began to ask the question to us, but, before they could chant the binding sentence, we screamed “NO!” at them and continued running. We did this a couple more times, then made it outside safely.
Somehow, we did it.
We made it to the Indian restaurant, and swapped stories in silence. As always, many good ones were told, but one remains king. That story is Brian Kowal’s tale of how Josh Utter-Leyton and David Ochoa are actually robots. I warned him if he didn’t have a Facebook note or article up about it by the time my article went up, it was mine to tell. And so here it goes.
It is well known that Josh Utter-Leyton and David Ochoa (Wrapterbot and Webbot, respectively) aren’t the most emotional of people. Zaiem Beg said that a Webbot smile was as rare as a double rainbow, and Wrapterbot, while more emotional in general, can still seem rather mechanical.
But, it wasn’t until Brian Kowal played against Wrapterbot that he put it all together.
They’re playing in round 10 to be 3-0 in their draft pod. In the second game, Kowal is struggling to find a sixth land so he can cast Harbor Serpent and defeat Wrapterbot. It never happens, and Kowal ends up shy of being able to get the attack he needed with his Serpent. The two players pack up their cards, Kowal goes to sign the slip, and a conversation ensues.
Kowal: “Yeah, I guess it makes sense I lost to your deck, I’m U/G and you’re U/B, it seems like you would have the upper hand there.”
Wrapterbot: “Actually. When I constructed my deck. I thought my slower. Blue. And. Black. Deck. Would have difficulty against a. Blue. And. Green. Deck. With creatures. And some permission. And card draw. As your deck has.”
Kowal: “Yeah, I can see that, I had this Harbor Serpent in my hand and if I had just drawn a sixth land at some point I would have obliterated you. I just couldn’t control finding that land.
Wrapterbot: “Actually. On turn 3. You cast a Preordain. And put both cards on the top of your library. On turn 5. You cast a Foresee. And put three cards on the top of your library and one card on the bottom of your library. If you had put more cards on the bottom. Your odds of drawing a land would have been greater.”
Kowal: “Fine, fine, whatever, I messed up and lost, it’s all my fault, just leave me alone!”
Wrapterbot: “Actually. There is a twenty-two percent margin for variance in this instance. Losing the match is not entirely your fault.”
Okay, so maybe the last exchange isn’t entirely true and the robotic full stops are added. But that’s what you should tell your friends to start, because it makes for a better story.
In any case, we eventually hashed out the conclusion that Paul Cheon and Luis Scott-Vargas began to build robots to conquer the Magic community. Cheon, however, took it too far and became “experiment zero,” as he began tinkering with himself. As a result, he became faulty and had to be sent away. LSV finished their work without Cheon and Webbot and Wrapterbot are the products of their labors.
Look, all I’m saying is I’m carrying a magnet to Pro Tours from now on.
We went back to the site, and I hopped in a Ravnica Draft that was forming. I retreated to the room before it got too late, however. Nobody else was there yet.
For the first time in four days, I was able to soundly sleep.
Sunday was not filled with very much Magic, as I wanted to sit on any rating points I might have acquired for Grand Prix: Portland this weekend. So I played some Power Grid, Learned Ascension, and spent time around what matters most to me at these events: the people.
Well, I’ll hopefully see you guys around at Grand Prix: Portland this weekend. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while, and I’m confident it’s going to be a blast. Portland is a great city, and I’d love to hang out with you in it. Come say hi if you’re going to be there!
Talk to you soon!
Gavin Verhey
Rabon on Magic Online, GavinVerhey on Twitter, Lesurgo everywhere else