I DID IT!!! Finally, I top 16ed a Grand Prix. I never thought that I’d be able to qualify for another Pro Tour through another PTQ. Well I guess now I can just sit back and concentrate on practicing for Barcelo…
THEY DID WHAT?!
…You’ve got to be kidding me…Well, with this finish maybe I’ll start grinding Planeswalker Points…
Wait….So they don’t give you invites from that anymore? What do they do now?
…Byes you say, and now you’re going to tell me that they aren’t giving out Ratings invites anymore…
SON OF A *****!!!
While it may seem like I’m trying to put down Wizards with all the changes that they decided to make, I’m actually not trying to do that. I’m just pointing out the conundrum that I’ve been put in. I actually like that they figured out what they wanted to do as well as acknowledged their mistakes, fixing them, when they decided to enact the new Planeswalker Point system and more recently the new competitive system that blew the Planeswalker Point system out of the water.
Wizards is simply trying to make it easier for the casual player to get into the competitive scene and at the same time giving higher rewards to the pros that are actually proving themselves. But in all honesty the way they executed makes it feel like they’ve made it harder for the “grinders” with the new GP and PT structures. On one end of the spectrum you have the “Pro” and on the other you have the “casual player” and in the middle you have the grinders, and for me these changes feel like they’re cutting out the middleman. I accept that and have come to the realization that I just wouldn’t be playing as much anymore. It was already tough for me to qualify, and with school and work, I knew I just wasn’t going to have the time to grind, and my time as a “never was” was coming to an end.
But in this particular instance for GP Austin I’ve managed to find a lot of humor in it. If you knew me better you’d feel a little sorry for me, and then immediately think it’s hilarious that I’d top 16 under the new tournament structure. You know how Owen Turtenwald is always a Bridesmaid and never a Bride. Well if that’s the case I’m always a Flower Girl, and being a 21-year old Flower Boy is embarrassing. I have countless losses from win-and-ins as well as 9ths on tiebreakers. It sucks but the only thing you can really do is be better and I don’t really know if I have it in me anymore.
THE STORY
I don’t really like doing tournament reports because I think that the round by rounds are kind of boring, but I’ve got a story to tell: I even think there was a song about that. So you must be wondering to yourself, “Matt, why did you go to this GP? I thought you said you have school and work?” Well as it happens dear readers, the great thing about January is that there is no such thing as school, and good bosses hours can be flexible. And after this semester I really needed some “Me Time.”
Originally my plan was to go to GP Orlando. I mean who wouldn’t want to go to Orlando a day or two early and enjoy such great hits as Harry Potter World, Disney World, and Universal Studios. I’d even have the prospect of having Wizards Limited Information writer and Star City Games Editor Steve Sadin as a potential partner in crime.
“So Matt, what changed your mind to go to Austin?”
Basically the conversation pretty closely resembled this:
Me: You going to Orlando?
Jason Ford: No. Going to Austin.
Me: You’re killin’ me smalls.
Jason Ford: I have school stuff to do.
Me: Well looks like I got a reason to go to Austin now.
Jason Ford: Dawwww. Oh and Happy Birthday goofus. Thanks for not telling me.
Me: Didn’t want to brag.
Ben Swartz also played a minor role in my decision-making processes. Since our conversation wasn’t in text form I can’t really use anything for reference. But it went a little something like this:
*15-30 minutes earlier
Ben: Are you going to Austin?
Me: Nah. I’m probably going to Orlando. I think Jason Ford, Matt Costa, and a bunch of other people are going.
Ben: Huh? I didn’t think Jason Ford was going to Orlando. I know he’s gonna be at Austin.
While in my venerable-birthday-state I was wined, dined, boozed and coerced by the likes of Jason Ford, Ben Swartz and Steve Sadin. I suddenly had a little bit of a spark, but not really a full blown fire for traveling. I did the grind for a while and when it wasn’t very rewarding at points, it started to feel more like a job and I only went for the people. But I had just enough of a spark to amuse myself by looking at flights and see if there was anything I could get on the cheap. Kind just like how I’m amusing myself right now with flights to Orlando (DON’T JUDGE ME I CAN STOP LOOKING AT FLIGHTS WHENEVER I WANT).
On the Monday before the GP I was a little hesitant about it but I finally decided to pull the trigger and found a relatively cheap flight. The reason I was more than a little hesitant was because my experience with the format wasn’t very prosperous. Every sealed deck I got always seemed reasonable but the swings that this format handed out was just too much. However when you consider that Austin is supposed to be an awesome city, there is gonna be awesome people and this was one of the best draft formats ever I decided to go.
The week passed and I was off to Austin. Now I wasn’t really out of practice. I played a moderate amount of these last couple of weeks a handful of live and MTGO drafts, irrelevant formats and playing vicariously through others. I didn’t really feel like I was prepared for a GP, but worse case scenario I’d bomb out and there would be even more time for activities, but that wasn’t the case. I wouldn’t have the fortune of going to “Blazer Tag” which houses Texas’ largest laser tag arena. Instead I would end up playing Magic over the course of two days for 15 rounds.
I got in pretty late to Texas. Luckily Matt Boccio and Gaudenis Vidugiris were on my flight and we grabbed a cab with Lauren Lee who also had a late flight. The cabbie dropped us off at our different hotels. I got to the room and it consisted of Jason Ford, Matt Costa, Ben Friedman and Greg Jolin. I was starving but as it turned out everyone else had already eaten and I don’t blame them as it was already midnight. They suggested that I try the Denny’s next to the hotel, but I had a few issues with that:
(1) I’d be eating alone
(2) It was Friday at midnight
(3) I wasn’t drunk
(4) I’d be eating at a Denny’s
I don’t actually know what a Denny’s is like at midnight on a Friday in Austin, because I decided against it on principle. I also don’t really have anything against the establishment itself, but taking all of those variables into account, I could only imagine that being there would immediately become the most depressing event in my life. It would be more depressing than when I found out last year that my dog died or the year before that when I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. The mental picture of me being in that Denny’s, alone, eating my dinner and desert like Steven Glansberg, was just way too much for me. So I did what any reasonable man-child would do. I moseyed on down to the pantry and microwaved a nice hardy dinner of “Campbell’s Tomato soup in hand” with an ice cream cookie sandwich on the side. With the dinner of champions in me, and by champions I mean a college student that can just barely get by, everyone went to sleep with I’m sure was dreams of opening a bomb heavy pool that could let them sail by the Day 1 of swiss.
DAY 1
So with a not so great night’s rest in me, my room headed over to the site. I got my pool and registered it. My pool was slightly above average, but If I know me, I knew I’d find a way to screw it up. Apparently Sam Black, Reid Duke and others knew me pretty well and they could also see that I screwed up. I had a pretty good idea what my pool should have been, but I cracked under pressure and switched to a much weaker build. Now I’m not really sure what was in my pool, but the deckbox I had it in contained 86 cards instead of 84, so here’s a free deck-building exercise with two freebies.
Land
Shimmering Grotto
Artifacts
2 Traveler’s Amulet
1 Wooden Stake
1 Graveyard Shovel
1 Silver-Inlaid Dagger
1 Blazing Torch
White
1 Elite Inquisitor
1 Voiceless Spirit
1 Chapel Geist
1 Doomed Traveler
1 Elder Cather
1 Thraben Purebloods
1 Thraben Sentry
1 Slayer of the Wicked
1 Bonds of Faith
1 Rebuke
1 Urgent Exorcism
1 Spare from Evil
1 Ghostly Possession
2 Smite the Monstrous
Blue
1 Delver of Secrets
1 Skaab Goliath
1 Invisible Stalker
1 Lantern Spirit
1 Battleground Geist
1 Civilized Scholar
1 Armored Skaab
1 Undead Alchemist
1 Rooftop Storm
2 Runic Repetition
1 Memory’s Journey
1 Claustrophobia
2 Lost in Mist
1 Think Twice
Black
1 Manor Skeleton
2 Vampire Interloper
1 Bitterheart Witch
1 Typhoid Rats
1 Brain Weevil
1 Rotting Fensnake
1 Walking Corpse
1 Disciple of Griselbrand
1 Morkrut Banshee
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Unbreathing Horde
2 Ghoulcaller’s Chant
1 Tribute to Hunger
1 Corpse Lunge
2 Victim of Night
2 Maw of the Mire
1 Curse of Oblivion
Red
2 Hanweir Watchkeep
1 Crossway Vampire
1 Bloodcrazed Neonate
1 Devil’s Play
1 Rolling Temblor
1 Harvest Pyre
1 Geistflame
1 Curse of the Pierced Heart
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Furor of the Bitten
1 Nightbird’s Clutches
Green
2 Hamlet Captain
1 Darkthicket Wolf
1 Lumberknot
1 Kindercatch
1 Grave Bramble
1 Gutter Grime
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Ranger’s Guile
1 Spidery Grasp
1 Traveler’s Preparations
1 Mulch
1 Moonmist
Everyone in the room had at least one bye so after the build we headed out to the local IHOP and talked shop (see what I did there). I only had one bye so I had to head back right after the breakfast round. We got back to the site, did a little more deck tweaking, and Jason Ford wanted to spend the rest of his byes at the local Farmer’s Market. There isn’t a lot I took away from Saturday. The only thing I really took away from it was “Don’t get almonds from a CVS”. Let me explain:
Jason Ford: I’m gonna go to the farmer’s market to pick up some snacks.
Me: Can you pick me up a tub of almonds.
Jason Ford: What’s a tub of almonds?
Me: Really?? It’s just a bunch of almonds in a small plastic tub.
Jason Ford: I mean I’ll try…
An hour or so later:
Jason Ford: Here you go.
Me: CVS….?
Jason Ford: Yeah the market was closing up and there weren’t as many vendors as I thought there’d be.
Me: Alright…How bad could they be.
Jason Ford: For me… pretty bad. (He’s allergic to nuts)
I don’t really know why, but I proceeded to eat a little more than half of that tin, and I’m pretty sure they made me sick. I didn’t want to throw them away though, because I still needed tokens and counters for the rest of the day.
I’m not going to do the round by round. The only thing really to note was that in the 9th round and down a game I punted the potential 8-1 match and I ended the day at 7-2. I felt like I was playing reasonably well, but there were definitely points where I felt like I was on autopilot and that’s definitely not a good place to be. I usually contribute that to not getting good sleep at these things, there is always just too much on my mind before a tournament, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this and instead seeing a doctor about it. The room ate a delicious meal courtesy of Ben Friedman at a local cantina called Serrano’s. Blah…Blah….Blah…we headed back to the room…Blah…Blah…Blah…we went to sleep. Wait…I forgot to mention something…let’s rewind to the end of Day 1 at the tournament site:
Cedric Phillips: Hey Ferrando are you coming to dinner with us?
Me: Nah I’m gonna Tex-Mex it with my room tonight.
Cedric Phillips: Alright but you’re missing out…
He’s right though, and I missed out on a real opportunity to eat an awesome dinner with a pretty awesome crew of Cedric, The Ben Seck, Matt Boccio, and Matt Nasty. I also missed out on that moment when we all would have found out that our pod consisted of Cedric, The Ben Seck, Matt Boccio, Matt Nasty and me.
DAY 2
Now I went into Day 2 only really wanting to draft two decks. I knew that G/W would probably end up being over-drafted, but the reason I liked it was that because its powerful, has a low curve, and you could tell from the first pack how it was being drafted because of flip cards and it had such a diverse number of sideboarding options that allowed you to cope with a lot of the archetypes in the format. I don’t really know what happened in the first pack, but I suddenly came down with a severe case of tunnel vision and it actually ended up carrying over in the second draft. My pack was actually pretty above average and it had plenty of reasonable cards, but as soon as I saw that Forbidden Alchemy I shoved my stack and went all in.
The second deck I wanted to draft was U/G self mill for one reason and one reason only, because it was the best deck you could draft. Once you’ve had a taste of the U/G mill archetype you actually can’t enough of it. I’ve only been playing this game about five years and I’ve drafted all of the formats up until now and this is the only deck you can draft that actually feels like you’re playing Constructed Magic. The reason I probably came down with tunnel vision was because of the way the table was set up. I had a pretty good feeling that Cedric wanted to just draft a real deck and his first pick of Reckless Waif was proof of that. But I also knew that TBS and Boccio loved the self mill decks just as much as I did.
To put it into context just a little more, I once did a team draft with a one Matt Boccio. I told him that I passed a Spider Spawning his way. I felt sorry for him. “You passed a Spider Spawning?”, was said in the same way by Boccio that a 9 year-old says, ” Mommy and Daddy are getting a divorce?” His world crumbled in that instance.
And you’re probably thinking, “But Ferrando, why ever would you want to draft that deck if the cards are probably going to be eaten up by TBS and Boccio?”
Well fellow readers, thanks to the Gods of Chance and/or Variance they decided to bless me, as they sat TBS and Boccio next to each other, and the cherry on top of the situation was that they were opposite to me in seating. I decided that this was the perfect opening and I didn’t look back after seeing a fourth pick Spider Spawning, which was in fact in TBS’ opening pack.
* Now I’m not 100% if this was the exact list, because I ended up throwing the deck away before the second draft because I had no room to put it anywhere.
1 Armored Skaab
1 Undead Alchemist
1 Evil Twin
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Grizzled Outcasts
1 Selhoff Occultist
1 Fortress Crab
1 Stitcher’s Apprentice
1 Deranged Assistant
1 Boneyard Wurm
1 Gatstaf Shepherd?
2 Dream Twist
1 Think Twice
2 Mulch
2 Spider Spawning
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Runic Repetition
1 Memory’s Journey
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 ?????
1 Shimmering Grotto
2 Swamp
7 Island
7 Forest
I know I played 41 for a fact, but that’s all I can remember.
Now as much as I love to draft this deck, I only really have one problem with this deck and that’s the fact that it’s basically the equivalent of drafting crack. Once you’ve gotten a taste of it you don’t want to stop, even when you know it’s bad for you and you feel like you’ve created a train wreck, yet you always find a way down the slippery slope. The first time you do it you’re not really sure about it. Maybe you have someone there, a friend, holding your hand through your picks. Someone that says they know what they’re doing. Low and behold the first time you successfully draft it you feel great, maybe you win, and you tell yourself you’ll just do one more time today. Then before you know it you’ve already done five 8-4s and lost all of your tickets, because each and every time you tell yourself that the Spider Spawning will be there, but then it just never comes. It’s also like the “Gateway Deck”, except instead of trying new drugs you just end up drafting slightly odder versions of the deck and justify you being able to win with it just because you have one or two win conditions, one of which is a Grizzled Outcasts.
Now I think I’ve personally only drafted this deck on MTGO four times, but I’ve drafted it at least 20 or so times vicariously through others. In particular Brian David-Marshall. About two out of every three U/G mill drafts was like watching two trains collide in slow motion but there isn’t quite anything you can do about it. You just have to be flexible and hope your earlier picks gave you just enough wiggle room to allow you to jump into a new archetype.
The reason, Kids, I bring up this dangerous fact is because that’s exactly what happened to me in the second draft. I was still in a slight high after drafting that masterpiece which let me take down Matt Nass, Ben Seck and Phu Q. Dao in order to 3-0 in the process. I was on top of the world and I felt like I could do it again. I didn’t recognize anyone in my second pod, so I felt like there was a definite possibility that I would be able to do it again, and boy was I wrong…ish.
1 Splinterfright
2 Selhoff Occultist
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Geistcatcher’s Rig
1 Moon Heron
1 Fortress Crab
1 Civilized Scholar
1 Deranged Assistant
1 Somberwald Spider
1 Lantern Spirit
1 Ambush Viper
1 Wreath of Geists
1 Dream Twist
1 Runic Repetition
2 Mulch
1 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Sensory Deprivation
1 Claustrophobia
1 Burning Vengeance
1 Memory’s Journey
1 Think Twice
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Sulfur Falls
7 Forest
6 Island
1 Kessig Wolf Run
42 Total
My deck was almost close to salvageable, but there just weren’t any Spider Spawnings. I could have even been in a better spot if I got one of the other Burning Vengeance enchantments or if there was a second Gnaw to the Bone in the draft. Kids, remember how I was talking about the other slightly weirder and much more elaborate versions of this deck? You don’t? Well that’s alright because this was one of them. Basically after drafting this deck my plan was to stall the board to a point where I either Vengeance or Dream Twist people out. The problem with that was that I just didn’t have enough mill engines in my deck, so I would be a lot slower and games would be grinds, and boy, were they ever.
The games I had to play felt like nails on a chalkboard. I knew that for my 13th round opponent, Louis J. Corso, he was in hell. I felt sorry for the guy because as bad as my deck looked on paper, I actually felt like I had him outclassed at every point in the game. I’m not sure if this went to three games but it felt like two. I’m pretty sure that he had to mulligan to six in the games he did lose.
Next round was a little different for my opponent, Chris C. Lidner. I still thought that my deck was outclassed and I knew that he had a Bloodline Keeper. In Game 1 I stabilized at 1 before I found a Gnaw to the Bone and managed to go over the top before he could present any relevant threats. Game 2 was short and simple. I played a turn 3 Burning Vengeance and he ran out a Bloodline Keeper on turn 4. I killed it on my turn 5 with a Think Twice and a Memory’s Journey in the bin. He eventually did me in with a prompt turn 6 Charmbreaker Devils with the assistance of a Geistflame and a Brimstone Volley. Game 3 was somewhat grindish, but it came with the assistance of him being stalled on lands. I eventually took it down just because I had a dominant board position. I was 5-0 on the day and I was really excited of the prospect of top 8ing my first GP. I was talking to people about decks.
Reid Duke: YOU FIRST PICKED A MULCH OVER ELITE INQUISITOR?!
Reid Duke: I can’t believe you’re probably gonna top 8 this GP.
Reid Duke: Yeah… I think you should just win.
Easier said than done Reid. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be and Eric Downing would take it down in two games. If you want to watch me get destroyed by this guy you can do it here, just look for GP Austin Round 15. Now I don’t really feel like I did much wrong in my plays, but there was definitely a point in Game 2 that should have been different. Going back to the tape, where his Ironfang was a 3/1, it should have actually been a 1/1 because of the earlier turn where Eric played two spells. I missed it because I was too busy gaining life off of Gnaw to the Bone. I’m not sure if that means I could have won but it definitely could have changed things.
The room ended the night with a dinner at Stubbs BBQ and it was great. Until we all saw a giant cockroach on the wall. You know that awkward moment when the server comes over and says “Is everything alright?” Yeah, I never know what to do in those situations. I know we can get a free or at least a discounted meal, but I don’t like being that guy. And no one else at the table wanted to be that guy either. The night ended with the dessert at the local Denny’s, Jason Ford stealing a bottle of ketchup, and me introducing Ben Friedman to a new drug called U/G self-mill.
All in all, yeah it sucks that I’m not qualified under the new rules, and if this was changed it a year ago and I top 16’d I would probably be furious, but that’s not so much the case anymore. I had a good time with good people, and life is too short and I’m too young to care that badly about it. If I ever do manage to hit up the Pro Tour again, that would be awesome, otherwise I won’t be upset if I don’t. Props to Jason Ford on his finish. You should feel a little more sorry for him because he lost his win-and-in twice playing for top 8. Good Luck to anyone going to Orlando. I’m not going unless by some miracle there is a flight that magically appears for less than my current checking account.
And now I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom that have played a vital role in my childhood:
Stay Classy
You’ll shoot your eye, Kid
Goonies Never Say Die
Don’t feed your Mogwais after midnight
Ferrando Out!