Salut!
Last weekend, the French National Champion was crowned. Unfortunately, I was there to witness it. It’s not that I am unhappy about the outcome, it’s just that, once again, I couldn’t make it to the top and be crowned champion myself. In fact, I’m quite glad the Top 4 contained very good players. Julien Parez had a Top 32 finish at Grand Prix: Lyon, and he proved to be a fierce competitor when he knocked out rising star Lucas Florent from the Top 4 to eventually capture the title. Seeing the good players win is a big deal to me, as I advocate the skilful aspect of the game; why would I be writing here otherwise!
I said “unfortunately” above because it pains me to admit that a in which good players emerge victorious can’t be a bad format, and therefore I have no excuse for scrubbing out. I am usually looking for reasons more than for excuses, I haven’t been running so well lately, and I have to find out why. Of course, there’s always this random factor that can totally change the course of your fate in a tournament, but how come I posted a good result in every single tournament for the last two years without posting a positive one this year?
I was a lot more confident about my deck choice this time than I was in San Juan, where I played a deck “by default.” I was also quite confident about the M11 draft format.
The deck I chose to play was the tweaked version of the deck I posted here a few weeks ago:
Creatures (21)
- 3 Hell's Thunder
- 2 Hellspark Elemental
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Goblin Bushwhacker
- 4 Goblin Guide
- 4 Nest Invader
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (10)
Sideboard
The week following a crazy PTQ in Japan in which six Primeval Titan decks made the Top 8, Primeval Titan reached 50 Euros, and everybody was fighting for them. Had I decided to play a Titan deck, I would have had a hard time getting them, since I don’t really own any cards myself.
I expected the metagame to be a mix of Jund, Mono Red, U/W Control, R/G Titan, and Bant decks. With that in mind, I had to find out what deck was best. I had reasons not to play any of the aforementioned decks: I didn’t want to play Jund because everyone was expecting it, because I would most likely be facing very uncomfortable situations with Blightnings against any deck running Green mana sources potentially holding an Obstinate Baloth at any time, and because it had a very tough time against the new popular Green/Red Titan deck. It is so easy to hate out Mono Red, with Dragon’s Claws that can fit in any sideboard. I’ve never really liked U/W Control, and I’m not sure I can actually play it correctly. I didn’t have time to find the best Titan deck, but I had an eye on the Last Chance Qualifier the day before to see if there was a version I actually liked. I had already tried Bant at Grand Prix: DC, and I’d kinda had enough with it…
So I looked for an alternative. I put together the RG Token deck and figured out how it faired in what I expected to be the metagame.
– Against Jund: Probably the best matchup. Jund has a tough time dealing with this kind of aggression (too many sources of damage), Hell’s Thunder, Beastmaster Ascension, and Sarkhan Vol… basically all of your deck. It takes a while for Jund to kill you, so you have the time to gather the combination of cards that will eventually win the match.
Sideboard suggestions:
-4 Goblin Guide
+3 Goblin Ruinblaster
+1 Manabarbs
Goblin Guides are a lot less impressive after boarding, when Jund sometimes boards in Jund Charms and you board in Ruinblasters. It is unsure whether Jund keeps Blightnings in against you, since they will want to deal with your threats on the board first, you are running unearth creatures, and you may very well have Obstinate Baloths after board. If they do keep their Blightnings after game 1, and you get to play a third game, board in a couple of the 4/4s beasts.
– Against UW: Recovering after a Day of Judgment is usually the tough part for creature decks against U/W. This is not exactly the case in this matchup, since you don’t really have to over-commit to the board as much as other creature decks, and you can have a bunch of back-up creatures swarming onto the battlefield in no time. Unless U/W counters or Oblivion Rings Beastmaster Ascension and Sarkhan Vol, they will both win you the game. An early Baneslayer Angel, without a Sarkhan Vol to keep it in check for a while, is the real problem for RG. Still a pretty good matchup.
Sideboard suggestions:
-2 Hellspark Elemental
-1 Dragon Fodder
-1 Goblin Guide
-1 Hell’s Thunder
+3 Goblin Assault
+2 Manabarbs
Goblin Assaults and Manabarbs are two huge sideboard cards. You don’t really want as many of your Goblin Guides (you can cut one more) and Hellspark Elementals, since they will probably meet Wall of Omens on their way into battle.
– Against Naya/Bant: This is the weak point of the deck. While not unwinnable, these matchups are really tough. It mostly depends on how many Baneslayer Angels / Behemoth Sledges / Basilisk Collars they are playing. While Obstinate Baloth is usually not a big deal, the three permanent sources of lifegain are a lot more annoying. Baneslayer Angel is the most played, and by far your worst nightmare. You have ways to win when the Angel is on the board, and they involve either Sarkhan Vol, Beastmaster Ascension, or — and this is usually how you do it – both. Since you have no way to get rid of any of them, you have to get rid of your opponent first, which is usually a better idea… when you can actually do it.
Sideboard suggestion:
– 0
+ 0
You don’t really have anything that would help you improve this matchup by much. The first thing I had in mind was to add Forked Bolts and Cunning Sparkmages to slow their draw, but they will get to five mana eventually, and you won’t be able to kill them before they play Baneslayer Angel, especially if you replace your aggression with Bolts and Sparkmages. Maybe they do improve your odds, along with Ruinblasters, but they do so by so little that the sideboard slots would be a lot more efficient when dedicated to other matchups.
Combust isn’t an option either. The card is so situational, and basically it only kills Baneslayer Angel. It will slow your regular draws, and won’t improve your overall matchup at all.
– Against Mono Red: This is a 50-50 matchup preboard. And the matchup you are most likely to win after board. Mono Red has virtually nothing against you, and you have slots against it in the board. Every Dragon’s Claw / Obstinate Baloth you have in the sideboard raises your chances by a relevant amount. Unless your mana fizzles in games 2 and 3, this is a very hard matchup to lose in this configuration:
Sideboard suggestions:
-4 Beastmaster Ascension
-2 Hellspark Elemental
-1 Bloodbraid Elf
+4 Obstinate Baloth
+3 Dragon’s Claw
Beastmaster Ascension is a dead card in game 1, a card that you will never be able to charge up. Your guys miss back-up when it comes to attacking. Earthquake usually takes care of your tokens, and tapping out on your turn 3 for Ascension gives your opponent an extra turn, an extra turn that is usually enough to finish you off. This is the only matchup where the Ascension isn’t the nuts.
– Against RG and UG Titan decks / Turboland / Polymorph: You apply constant early pressure that makes them need to go off quickly. There are so many different main deck versions of these decks that it’s hard to figure out exactly how each match can go. Sarkhan Vol is a key card once again, one that usually steals a Titan or even Emrakul against Polymorph for lethal damage. They have no real way to keep you from charging up your Ascension, and the plant tokens from Avenger of Zendikar will most likely have to chump block.
Sideboard suggestion:
-2 Bloodbraid Elf
+2 Manabarbs
You need to keep your mana curve low enough, and you don’t want to have your hand jammed with four-mana spells. Since you want your four Sarkhan Vols, Bloodbraid Elf takes the shaft. Bloodbraid Elf is not as impressive in R/G as it is in Jund, for example. It usually brings one or two other guys onto the battlefield, but it won’t really matter in these matchups since your creatures will survive anyway.
Manabarbs can be a huge card in the right matchup. I usually advocate playing only one in Mono Red against slower decks. I have seen players with two or more Manabarbs in hand so many times, happy to play it on turn 4 but being stuck because they were behind on the board and couldn’t draw more threats. You definitely want one Manabarbs in your deck in the right matchups; however, you don’t really want to have more than one, as drawing two is often really bad. It’s a bit different in R/G since you will have threats on the board more often than Mono Red, and Manabarbs is likely to stop your opponent from playing any spells until the end of the game, which possibly leads you to victory.
I felt confident that this was the deck to play in the current metagame, with favorable matchups against Mono Red, U/W Control, Jund, and Titan decks. The deck is stable, the manabase is solid, and the enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands don’t really affect your development. It is extremely fast and will punish any slow draws from your opponents. It can’t be as hated-out as Mono Red, and it can be very surprising, as no one expects you to attack with three 2/2s on any given turn (Goblin Bushwhacker with Dragon Fodder), or to take 14 points out of nowhere via Devastating Summons. Bant was becoming less and less popular, and Baneslayer Angels were slowly getting cut from decks with White, only appearing in Naya decklists.
So what happened?
The tournament started with three round of Constructed. I was first paired against Naya running Obstinate Baloths, Baneslayer Angels, and the equipment package. It was a very tough three-game match that I eventually lost to an 11/11 trampling lifelinked Knight of the Reliquary the turn before I could deal him lethal damage.
Then I was paired against a young player that I know from Toulouse, running his own Titan brew. Unlike other combo-oriented Titan decks with Valakut or Oracle, Simon was running White for Knight of the Reliquary and my good friend Baneslayer Angel, along with Momentous Falls… probably the worst matchup I could face in the whole tournament. I still managed to win a game, but his arsenal was just too much for me to handle.
And for my last match in Constructed, I was paired against a friend of Simon’s that I also know from Toulouse… and he confessed he was playing the exact same 75 as Simon. I managed to beat a turn 3 Baneslayer Angel (powered out by Lotus Cobra) thanks to a Cascaded Beastmaster Ascension and the help of Sarkhan Vol on the following turn. I was also able to get game 2, proving that you can win even your worst matchups. But I’m not going to lie to you… it was very close.
I was disappointed after the Constructed portion of the tournament. I had what I thought was a fine-tuned version of the deck (that can probably still be improved). A deck that I thought had a fair chance in the current metagame. But I didn’t get the chance to show its real potential.
I will go over the Draft portion of the tournament, along with some M11 Limited preparation tips I had from before the tournament, in the next article. The Limited section didn’t go as planned either, but that’s another story. There are still lessons to keep in mind for upcoming the Grand Prix: Gothenburg and Pro Tour: Amsterdam.
There are a few things about the weekend that make me feel better:
First, when I see the decks in the Top 8, I am still happy with the deck I chose to play. I wasn’t paired as well as I hoped I would be, but I would have rocked that Top 8…
Guillaume Wafo-Tapa hops back onto the gravy train, Guillaume Matignon levels up, Antoine finally makes the team for the first time, and Lucas Florent falls short but proves once again that he’s a force to be reckoned with.
The finals of the Team French Cup took place on the Friday before the Nationals Championship. The Team French Cup is a long tradition of tournaments that started back in 1998. Every year, a team tournament is held and a new team is crowned. For 10 years, the event gathered more than 100 teams every time, teams of three at first, then Two-Headed Giant teams. The structure changed last year. Now, eight qualifier tournaments are held all over France, to grant tickets to the eight team finalists.
Earlier this year, Olivier was on a road trip and stopped by Toulouse on his way down to Spain. Luckily, that was the day the qualifier was held in Toulouse, and we played together in a Zendikar Team Sealed deck – along with Laurent Cestaro, a long time friend of mine – to earn a spot in the Top 8 tournament.
The Top 8 consisted of a single elimination Team Rochester Draft. Rise of the Eldrazi for the quarters, Zendikar-Worldwake for the semis, and a “secret format” for the finals that ended up being an all-foil Alara block draft (the special boosters that were once sold in stores).
We managed to win the whole thing! Oli won his fourth title, and I won my second, but it was our first time as winners in the same team. It made me very nostalgic for the time when Rochester Draft was played in teams. Most of the time, when I believe I have a significant edge, I win the tournament… and I have never felt as confident as I did at that time in the game’s history. We were the most experienced players in the Top 8, and we just HAD to win. I miss Team events. Not these silly Two-Headed Giant tournaments, but the actual three-man Team tournaments…
So please, bring back team events!
Until next time…