Hey guys!!
Today’s article is going to be a little bit different than it normally is. Usually, after a big tournament, I provide a tournament report and discuss the deck(s) that I played. However, after my less than stellar performance of 66th in the Invitational, I figure that I can talk about something that most people fail to mention. That topic is the days leading up to an event.
The thing is that regardless of performance, everyone has a different way of preparing for an event, and I think it is great to hear other people tell stories of what happened behind the scenes. View this article as a story instead of an informative article. Enjoy!
It all started Thursday at 8 pm.
I just got out of my Partial Differential Equations class with my super awesome roommate Ian, and we were heading back to my campus, which takes about forever (as in 30 minutes at least). One thing I really like about both Ian and my apartment-mate Mike is that they have both played Magic at one point in their life and support me in playing it. Mike even goes as far as to ask what types of decks I am playing and the interactions that can occur. It is always nice having people who accept you for who you are. They both wished me luck, since I would be heading back to the apartment and leaving before they came back.
While at my apartment, I packed up all of the stuff I was going to bring to Charlotte. Clothes. Cards. Money. Toiletries. Video Games. IPod. Decklists from Magic Online. That was pretty much it.
Now, what decklists did I print from Magic Online? There have been various U/W lists I like online. Particularly, I wanted to play decks with Snapcaster Mage, Midnight Haunting, and Sword of Feast and Famine. I felt like in a format that cares so much about the early game, a Sword of Feast and Famine can really hurt people that have a small hand size (due to playing so many cards early). Another combination I liked was Snapcaster Mage with Gut Shot. Gotta shoot those one-drops somehow!
As for Legacy, I printed out the Counterbalance list that Todd Anderson and Gerry Thompson played the week before along with the new U/R Delver list. I didn’t really know anything about the new Legacy format, so I expected to just netdeck a random deck. Josh Gang from the suite at Rutgers lent me most of the cards for the deck, so it was a good fallback plan.
While pondering about all of these decklists on my living room table, my father called to pick me up and drive me an hour and thirty minutes to drop me off at Ray “The Ray Train” Wickersham’s house. He helped me with my luggage, and then we drove off.
My dad told me that he brought the auxiliary cable so that way we could both listen to my iPod. He alluded to a Chicago song, so we led off the car ride with Chicago, which turned into the Eagles, the Bee Gees, and lastly, Michael Jackson. In case you didn’t realize, I sure love a lot of old music (and Japanese music that Eric Tang gave me!).
I really do love having my dad drive me to events, though. It is one place that we can always talk about things that have been going on. He tends to ask me questions about either school or Magic. This time was no different. I told him about how my finals were going to be very hard and that I would need to study a lot. He reassured me that I would do well. I sure hope I do! Double majoring is some hard stuff.
After that, I decided to ask him about how work was going. Even though my dad has a degree in Electrical Engineering, he is a Computer Programmer. He always tells me how much Magic is like programming. In fact, Magic keeps him humble, since he is really good at programming and only average/respectable at Magic. Not everyone could be good at everything or else life would be boring, right?
My dad proceeded to tell me about some stories from work. Some of them involved people he didn’t like and had to “deal with” while some were funny stories with him and his coworkers. I have been hearing stories about the same people for so many years that I feel like I know them on a personal level despite only meeting them maybe once or twice. It is pretty funny how that can just happen. It is almost like when I read articles and someone keeps on mentioning someone that I have never met (for example, how Luis Scott-Vargas mentions Paul Cheon to people who weren’t around when he was).
Eventually, we get to Ray’s house, and I say my goodbyes to my father and wish him a safe ride home. Ray helps me bring my stuff inside, and I see that upstairs, Ray, Jon “Valakut!” Fleming, and Anthony “Grabbit” have been testing for a while. Naturally, Jon has Wolf Run Ramp built and is telling me how it just poops over everything. Anthony has the 4-Color Control list that Gerry Thompson and Michael Jacob posted the week before. Lastly, Ray has Tom Martell U/W Control list.
At first, we discussed how we felt about the format. I tried to express how I felt like Snapcaster Mage, Midnight Haunting, Gut Shot, and Sword of Feast and Famine was the way to go. Jon supported Wolf Run Ramp since he is such a die-hard fan. Ray knew that he doesn’t like the U/W Control list at all. Anthony… didn’t really have an opinion. He is really more of a card trader/supplier.
As testing normally goes, we get sidetracked and start talking about tons of random things. We found it comical how Olivia Voldaren deals with all of the threats in Standard. Examples would be Delver of Secrets, Grim Lavamancer, and Mirran Crusader. Oh wait… she can’t target the last one. Back to the drawing board…
After a series of storytelling and more nonsense, Jon and Anthony left to go home early because they were going to fly to Charlotte from New Jersey in the morning. I sure hope their wings didn’t get too tired from all of that flying. Ray and I were going to go for the more time-consuming but cheaper means of travel, which was driving.
However, Ray and I didn’t want to sleep; we wanted to brew! I really do enjoy working with Ray on decks, especially considering he was the first person to ever run the same deck as me in a tournament and do well. (See the debut of Night Shift at the StarCityGames.com Open in Pittsburgh this past summer. He got 9th while I lost in Top 8.)
“So, you really want to play with Blades, Snapcaster Mage, and Gut Shot, huh?” Ray questioned. That was exactly the direction I wanted to go in. We observed how there was a version of Illusions that Todd Anderson ran the day before that cut Lord of the Unreal for Porcelain Legionnaire. I noticed that this was probably done to see if you can just play an efficient creature instead of playing something you don’t want to get Phantasmal Imaged. I just wish that there was a different lord that we could play in blue…
Ray replied with, “I got the answer. Grand Architect!”
He was definitely on to something. (Keep in mind that it is about 12:30 am at this point in time.) Grand Architect would give us the potential of a nut draw into Wurmcoil Engine, which would surely win us all of the aggressive matchups. We could still run Vapor Snag, Mana Leak, Gut Shot, and Snapcaster Mage in order to keep our opponent in check. Lastly, it would accelerate playing and equipping a Sword. However, we felt like Sword of War and Peace would be more appropriate.
With all of these thoughts in our head, we went onto the computer and started researching some things. We wanted to know if we were missing any blue creatures or artifacts. I felt like if we weren’t playing white, we could definitely play Molten-Tail Masticore, since it won’t conflict with Moorland Haunt. I suggested that we check out Nick Spagnolo Grand Architect from earlier this year, but it was a more controlling version.
Out of nowhere, Ray came up with the idea of running a Puresteel Paladin deck. It had everything we wanted. A nut draw… card advantage… Blades… Mortarpod (instead of Gut Shot)… and who doesn’t want to play with Invisible Stalker! I know Tony Qian from the suite would love to know the fact that I considered playing with Invisible Stalker at the Invitational. We looked at the list that did decently at Worlds and observed what things we would and wouldn’t change.
Eventually, we went to bed and left to go to Charlotte in the morning. In terms of Legacy, we were able to narrow down decks very quickly. Ray is a long-time Legacy B/U/G Still player from pre-Mental Misstep’s banning. He felt like Pernicious Deed was in a perfect position in this format, being answer to these new Delver of Secrets decks. Another deck he was championing was G/W Maverick. This meant a lot from Ray considering how much he hates green decks that aren’t Legacy Junk.
I came to the conclusion that he was probably right, and I could just play the deck he didn’t play. It turned out that he decided to play the control deck, and I got stuck with Maverick and went 4-0 (but I had two byes) in Legacy. That deck is so awesome, and I really want to start trading for cards for it.
After ten long hours of being in a car and laughing at the man at the hotel front desk (oh boy was he weird/funny/nerdy/weird… did I mention that he was weird?), Ray and I met up with Jon, Anthony, Kevin “Always Happy” Michael, and Dom. We wanted to go to the Convention Center to see the people who were still playing and to test the deck that both Ray and I wanted to play (Puresteel Paladin).
Luckily, once we got there, I got to meet up with my favorite people that I got to know through the StarCityGames.com circuit. First, I ran into the Ohio Crew of Chris Kronenberger, Dan Musser, Nick Montaquilla, and Max Jacob. These guys are just so awesome and congrats to Max for making money at the Invitational and Dan for making the finals of the Legacy Open.
The last person I got to meet up with on Friday was none other than Ben Friedman. He readily greeted me with a hug and questions of how I was doing. For those who don’t know him, Ben is a really great guy and has really had a great run during the second half of this year. Congrats to him for Top 8ing the Invitational!
Anyhow, back to the story, Ben decided to play Tempered Steel, and I wanted to jam some games with Puresteel Paladin. So we played about six to seven games. I won a total of… zero of them. That is right. Zero. None. Nada. I knew that we needed to play a different deck. Ray was set on playing Wolf Run Ramp, since it was, in his opinion, the best deck in the format.
I, on the other hand, could not play that type of deck. Remember that G/W/U deck that I posted last week? Our friend Jake Taft grinded into the Invitational with a variant of that list. I figured if Jake could win with it, so could I! I got his list, changed it up a little bit to my liking, and played that in the Standard portion of the Invitational and went 3-1. The deck just wasn’t well positioned at all, and I didn’t exactly get to play a lot with the deck before the tournament.
So, what are the lessons that can be learned here? First of all, friends are awesome! They are what make this game! It was great hanging out with so many people I have met through Magic. You guys are awesome.
Another lesson that you could learn is that it could be a good idea to audible to a safer choice sometimes. For example, Max Jacob was the only person to 7-0 Standard… and it was with Red Deck Wins. I wanted to do that but couldn’t bring myself to do it. However, I am not saying that it is good to always audible. It is just important to consider other possibilities and be willing to switch to something a little bit more established.
Lastly, I had a ton of fun this past weekend, even though I lost. People sometimes need to realize that this is just a game. Win or lose, you should be having fun, or else you shouldn’t be playing. It is great to be competitive, but just try to have fun at the same time. I hope this article didn’t just seem random and that you guys enjoyed my story of what led me to fail at the Invitational at Charlotte. Don’t worry guys; I’ll get ’em next time!!!
Thanks for reading,
Jonathan “Watchwolf92” Sukenik