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Trying To Get To Praguers, Part I

Noah begins his quest for qualification. In his own words…

Having practiced with — and now played a tournament with — Ravnica/Guildpact Sealed, I am sure it’s one of the hardest formats of all time. The options available to you are staggering, which is both good and bad. I learned an awful lot this time around, and even developed a new system that practically guarantees the perfect Sealed Deck.

Having practiced with — and now played a tournament with — Ravnica/Guildpact Sealed, I am sure it’s one of the hardest formats of all time. The options available to you are staggering, which is both good and bad. I learned an awful lot this time around, and even developed a new system that practically guarantees the perfect Sealed Deck.

Actually, we thought we knew what we were doing beforehand. When the Pro Tour Qualifier schedule was announced, Seattle players Christian “Treat” Robertson, Dan “Diamond” Diamant, Eric “Think About It” Reasoner, and myself knew we were going to hit the Spokane qualifier. Spokane is a dirty little town at the edge of Washington, a five-hour drive through the state, and we were quite interested in attending. As such, we all put a lot of time into Sealed and Draft practice.

Once again, Rav-G is a tricky affair. Straight Ravnica is simple enough to recognize quality stratagems, and in Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissention it’s likely you can just play anything. But for the time being, you’ve got some tough decisions to make. The first time we cracked some Sealed product, only one of the four was down to three colors. Everything else was four or more. We thought the decks were destined to be atrocious in the color department, and you almost have to accept that possibility. Really, the mana is the most interesting part of the environment, and it’s where you have the most potential to look brilliant or completely screw yourself. Kind of.

Let’s say that 20% of regular games are decided by mana. In Rav-G, that number might go up to 40%. It seems logical that if you have perfect mana and adequate cards, you can take advantage of people trying to do everything, and run them over with your primo consistency. Unfortunately, that idea is a little flawed.

Let’s say that every single one of your opponents in the seven round event plays the strongest cards, almost regardless of cost requirements. Angel of Despair/Razia/Putrefy.dec. So, 40% of the time you get to win or get great early advantage. Unfortunately, that means 60% of the time you get run over by stronger cards. Add this up over seven rounds and you can see that even if you pluck two to three rounds from having a superior manabase, it’s not enough to win the tournament outright. Therefore, you have to gamble a little yourself. Essentially, you need to find the ideal balance between power and mana, and probably erring on the side of power. There are simply too many folk that can mise out domain and run you over if your deck is underpowered.

However, as always… there are a couple of exceptions.

The first is the speedy build. If you can punish any kind of misstep in their mana base with an extra five to seven damage, you can have an archetype. Usually, this kind of deck is particularly weak against standard good draws or an overly defensive deck, but in this kind of format, it has extra appeal. I saw a lot of people choosing to draw first just for extra opportunity to find their colors. Big mistake, but if it continues it certainly helps the speedy deck.

The other idea is to have lots and lots of card drawing. This is my favorite method for Sealed Deck right now, playing almost all the cantrips and card advantage engines you can. It gives you the chance for crazy starts, while still remaining consistent enough to eventually get all your mana together. My particular Sealed Deck had incredible amounts of card advantage, even though it was a little short on power. Still, that card drawing was enough to find my colors consistently, to both get ahead as well as win any kind of attrition war. Most of the Top 8 decks were either standard bomb-tastic decks, or ones that seemed to find extra ways to draw cards.

Of course, all those ideas were discovered as the day wore on, as well as discussed on the ride down. Other highlights of the drive included talking about life, chicks, psychology, and driving through the stunning Cascades mountain range. Should a reader ever make it out to Washington, try to take a trip out there; it’s quite the beautiful.

Arriving in Spokane, the plan was to grab a cheap hotel, find some food and hit the local shop for a quick draft. Christian had thoughtfully provided a bottle of Aquavit from his private stores, so there were extra options as well.

The hotel was no problem at all, and it was within walking distance of an Indian joint. Obviously we took a pull before the naan. Dinner was tasty but pretty embarrassing. We kept getting mixed signals from the store about when a draft was actually going to happen. To be safe, half way through the cooking we asked for the food to go. Ten minutes later it turns out they would actually wait for us as long as needed, so we could take our time. So we told the gracious waitress we’ve yet again changed our collective, stupid minds and we’re going to eat in. She was a good sport. 12%.

The restaurant was well chosen; lots of compliments of the food en route to the comic store. Our best decision of the evening (courtesy of a little more Sauce) was to transform our critical pre-qualifier practice Draft into a Stipulation Draft. For those that haven’t heard the news, Stip Drafts are tons o’ fun. It’s basically a handicap/variant on standard Drafting. Everyone writes down a bunch of stipulations, such as “must play five rares”, or “play only cards A-M” or “draft four-color-no-green”, etc. Then people draw a stipulation out of a hat and must obey it during the draft and deck construction. While it’s fun enough with a table of eight, the really amusing scenarios happen when half the table is drafting normally and half is under a geas. As one might expect, some kind of altering substance is often involved. For this particular Stipulation draft there were:

*No card can have the word “flying.”
*You must draft 40% White 40% Blue and 20% Green.
*You can’t use a creature with more than one “in play” ability. (Convoke good, Guildmage bad)
*All your cards must cost four or less.

Not too prohibitive by Stipulation Draft standards, but there were some odd occurrences. I was under the one ability per creature rule. I was doing fine with a Rotwurm deck, but was sad to pass both Golgari Guildmage and Savra (twice). In Guildpact, the person on my right opened Skeletal Vampire and took it, a generally correct pick. However in this instance it would have tabled right back to him as every stipulation prevented it from being drafted, and the other civilian wasn’t playing Black. Seattle managed to take the crown despite the self-imposed restrictions, much to Spokane’s embarrassment.

Of course we had slipped the half empty bottle into the game store, but how to continue our noble work? QB sneak the backpack into the bathroom and then slowwwly keep putting more men into the small room. Dan almost dropped the ball here when he loudly proclaimed his need to follow a guy into the bathroom for lustful purposes, but I think the locals expected that from them there Seattle folk. Regardless, or perhaps because of all the homoeroticism, the buzz was maintained. A good night was had by all.

After a hectic week at MagicTheGathering.com, Teddy Card Game has a well-earned coffee break

Saturday morning was an uneventful, slightly hung-over drive to get precious, precious coffee. Recharged, we entered the arena and waited for the product. Good luck with registration! Haha, that never gets old.

Sixty-four people. Head Judge: Mike Goodman. He ran a pretty tight ship, especially when the site ran out of chairs. He did get some wrong info for a bit, and thought everyone got three packs of Guildpact instead of two. That would have been a serious tragedy, but luckily more logical heads prevailed. Disaster averted, we registered our pools and got ready for the real deal. Here’s the selection I had to work with:

White
Boros Fury-shield
Leave No Trace
2 Guardian’s Magemark
Sinstriker’s Will
Spelltithe Enforcer
2 Withstand
Conclave Equenaut
Conclave Phalanx
Courier Hawk

Blue
Compulsive Research
Convolute
Flight of Fancy
Remand
Quickchange
Infiltrator’s Magemark
Train of Thought
Drake Familiar
Drift of Phantasms
Vedalken Dismisser
Aetherplasm
Stratozeppelid

Black
Brainspoil
Disembowel
Shred Memory
Strands of Undeath
Carrion Howler
Dark Confidant
Dimir House Guard
Infectious Host
Woebringer Demon
2 Ostiary Thrull
Poisonbelly Ogre

Red
Dogpile
Rain of Embers
Surge of Zeal
Coalhauler Swine
Sell-Sword Brute
Stoneshaker Shaman
War-Torch Goblin
Bloodscale Prowler

Green
Fists of Ironwood
Gather Courage
Perilous Forays
Birds of Paradise
Dowsing Shaman
Elves of Deep Shadow
Golgari Brownscale
Root-Kin Ally
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
Battering Wurm
Gruul Scrapper
2 Silhana Ledgewalker
Starved Rusalka

Gold
Psychic Drain
2 Leap of Flame
Woodwraith Strangler
Ink-Treader Nephilim
2 Streetbreaker Wurm

Hybrid
Dimir Guildmage
Izzet Guildmage
2 Mourning Thrull

Artifact
Boros Signet
Gruul Signet
Junktroller

Really Important Cards
Dimir Aqueduct
Golgari Rot Farm
2 Izzet Boilerworks

For those who like to tinker, you can download this cardpool — in various compatible formats — here.

Space to build…

I want to say it’s a tough build, and it was, but very few aren’t. For some weird reason I dismissed Green way too early, thinking it didn’t have the necessary cards to be good enough. I’m not exactly sure what those mysterious necessary Green cards are, but Green, as it turns out, was definitely good enough, once it was all figured out, rounds later. For the beginning, here’s the deck with which I started each round. Relevant sideboard cards are included.


Why not Strands of Undeath maindeck? I was trying to minimize the Black requirements. In addition, the effect isn’t as good as you may think, even with all the Magemarks. It’s easy for opponents to discard the two cards of their fourth color they can’t cast anyway. Frankly, if I had room for another spell it would have been the second Withstand. All the deck was interested in doing was winning as quickly as possible, with enchantments and evasive/quick creatures. I think the ratio is about right, although there were one or two times where I was creature light relative to enchantments. Strands would certainly do nothing to alleviate that issue. By the same token, Junktroller was just too defensive and pricey. Even with the opportunity to make it a 1/7.

Altogether, this is an odd concoction, and not really my style. Frankly I thought my card pool was pretty weak, so I just ran the speed/card advantage engine detailed above. You know, it wasn’t that bad a plan. Good quick beats counts for a lot, especially with Dogpile and Remand backup. How could you not play Dogpile in that deck? The Red splash was too free. All that being said, this build couldn’t have been right. There were no gold cards! The correct version is down a little farther.

Round 1 — Steven Obrist
Steve and I bonded a little before the round started. It turns out we had both been playing for only a couple of months. This was my second tournament and his third. Hey, he seemed nervous! Just trying to engage him. I do think it helped a little. We chatted about miscellaneous stuff while he piled and riffed his sixty-odd card deck. Finally, everything was nice and random and we began.

Game 1: The turn 2 Mourning Thrull received a turn 4 Flight of Fancy. I Drake it back to my hand a little later and begin planning the card advantage assault. I have an odd hand, which has lots of creature enchantments but very few actual critters. Even though Steve is missing land drops and a color or two, I’m hesitant to go all-in on my little guys. Luckily I pluck a Poisonbelly Ogre and a Guildmage soon after. Everyone gets a bonus and it’s enough to take game 1.

Game 2: This time Steve has the opposite problem. Off a Wayfinder, he gets four different land types in play on turn 4, which allows him an Ostiary Thrull and have the mana to activate it. Unfortunately, he continues to draw mana cards and little actual spells. I do the standard plinking attack and drawing cards plan (common theme). Woebringer Demon sticks and Wraths his board, and all the fliers finish him off.

Even though Steven went 0-6 on the day, he was always friendly to his opponents, and always had a local cheering him on. Nice guy.

1-0

While my deck wasn’t really that bad, it definitely wasn’t ideal. It’s a very rare Sealed in this format that starts totally correct. Luckily, I have very intelligent friends. Sharing with them my card pool, everyone is surprised and dismayed I’m not playing Green. Laying out the Green and Blue cards, I’m forced to agree that Green should definitely be in there. Adding a little Red and Black, the deck looks quite strong. It has gold cards! Giving up a little speed for more card advantage, power, and a better mana base is a great trade. Despite the wonderful new build, there’s a danger. All this switching cards around is kind of consuming. What if there’s not enough time between rounds to get it right, or worse, I leave a sideboard card in the maindeck? Maybe…

Me: “Hey Mr. Head judge, is it alright if I mark the front of my cards with a design or symbol?”
Head Judge: “Ummm, sure. As long as the abilities and casting cost and art aren’t hidden, and the backs are uniform.”
Me: “Super.”

Finding a Sharpie, I place a black dot at the top of every maindeck card. Viola! The initial forty, every time.

Round 2 — Gavin Verhey
Gavin was one of the dozen Seattle players who made the trip. Often seen judging Pre-Releases, Gavin seemed to have some skill on the other side of the shirt as well.

Game 1: Gavin was one of the people who saw the new build being constructed, so it was unlikely there would be many surprises. I didn’t know much about his deck, except he had a Glare of Subdual and lots of colors. My draw was speedy enough, with some Thrull and Guildmage action on the front end. Gavin, while looking confident, didn’t actually play anything until a turn 5 Streetbreaker Wurm. This gave me the window to play Flight of Fancy on my ground guy, which comboed nicely with my Magemark on another guy. A big hit ensued, which put him in a precarious spot. The big play of the game was a couple of turns later, where he played Glare. I had more guys than he did so I got some damage in, then played Drake Familiar to get the Glare back to his hand. On Gavin’s turn, he tapped his only White mana to play the Glare again… which I Remanded. Scoop.

Game 2: I make the Green switch, although the deck isn’t quite defined yet. Gavin graciously gives me the play, which I appreciate with my four Karoos. Unfortunately, I get stuck with too many Forests and not enough Islands. Glare hits, and I’m too far behind to make a comeback.

Game 3: I side in double Ledgewalker, a card I’m not normally fond of. However Gavin’s deck is really slow and is particularly short on flying defense, so I figure they’re outs even with Glare, or just for a speedy start. However, they’re completely unneeded as I get the sickest draw of the tournament.

Turn 1: Birds of Paradise.
Turn 2: Dimir Guildmage.
Turn 3: Fists of Ironwood, targeting the Guildmage, and Gather Courage to trample over Gavin’s Roofstalker Wight.
Turn 4: Stratozeppelid.
Turn 5: Flight of Fancy the Guildmage, attack, and Drake the Flight back to my hand.
Turn 6: Flight again.

This is totally nuts, but Gavin was actually making a game of it. My problem was that despite drawing a lot of extra cards, they were all lands. In addition, Gavin had Ostiary Thrull for the Stratozeppelid, and Sunhome Enforcer to negate the other fliers. Gavin would go down to one on my attacks, then gain 4 from Enforcer. All the while I kept drawing lands. I wasn’t worried, because I had drawn so many lands something was bound to turn up. Gavin’s mana was tied up every turn so it didn’t matter what he drew, he was stuck in the same mode. On the other hand, technically he was winning the game if nothing changed for the next four turns. However, the averages worked out, and after six lands in a row, it went Dowsing Shaman and Streetbreaker. Good enough.

2-0

After this round I realized I needed more dots on my cards, in addition to figuring out the exact contents of Deck Beta. Eric and I hit up McDonalds after the round, where I ordered the spicy chicken sandwich. It was neither spicy nor chicken. After choking it down, I spread out all the cards and we figured out deck two. After some juggling things around, here was the final correct build:


Now we got a keeper. The double splash was still pretty easy, especially with the Karoos and Birds. In addition, look at all that card advantage! Train of Thought was fantastic every time I drew it, as well as the standard Guildmage, Flight, Compulsive gems. This version, within one card at most, was definitely the strongest build. I mean, it’s got gold cards in it! Thanks to the 3Dot System™, I never had a problem remembering the second, better build.

The 3Dot System is very simple. You have one dot on the cards that are solely in your first deck. You have two dots on the cards that are solely in deck two, and three dots on cards that are in both. It makes things incredibly easy to sideboard into your better deck, as well as make sure you have the initial forty you registered. Is everything one and three dots, or two and three dots? Then you have no problem, plus extra time for (necessary) shuffling. In a format as difficult as this, having your two-plus decks ready to go is a great boon. Give it a shot next time you’ve got the space between rounds, although ideally you would do this before round 1.

Yes this meant I put two black dots on my Birds of Paradise. People were shocked, shocked, I would deface a money card like that. Well, the people who didn’t make Top 8, anyway.

Oh by the way, the reason I recommend doing all this before round 1 is that it’s a little time consuming. There’s a chance, just a small one really, that you’ll spend so long in a McDonalds playing with markers that you’ll miss the beginning of your next round. I’m not saying it’s happened, but there’s always that possibility. So, watch that time.

Round 3 Dale Kim
Game 1: I seem to have lost my notes for this one… and I didn’t sideboard either… [How unfortunate! — Craig, eyebrow raised.]

Game 2: Mourning Thrull versus Mourning Thrull. However, mine was enchanted, giving me the tiny advantage. Our little dorks went back and forth for a while until Courier Hawk shut down his men. Dale was pretty color screwed, and then my deck went into the standard “draw cards like crazy” mode. After the flurry of hand doublers, Dale started taking bigger hits from more guys. Quickly enough, he was too far behind and got overwhelmed.

Game 3: Deck the Second. This one was a little more back and forth. A crucial Train of Though for three put me way ahead, but Dale had some pretty strong cards. His Sewerdreg threatened to go wild over my single swamp until I drew a Rot Farm to remove it. We had a bit of a stalemate, with his three large guys against my five small ones. Root-Kin Ally was my biggest man on the board, but there weren’t enough helpers to punch through his defenses. Then, a plucked Fists of Ironwood. While a fine card on its own, in combination with the Root-Kin in play and Drake Familiar in hand, it looked to be an All-Star. Suddenly I added trample and five more creatures to my Ally. He came in and did eleven damage. Next turn it finished the job. My stipulation this round was not being able to tell time.

♪We shall overcome…♪

3-0

Round 4 — Jeff Elvigan
Jeff, I was later told, was the best local player around. I certainly believe it; he definitely played with the most precision of anyone all day. His deck wasn’t too shabby either. However he still made a faux pas by choosing to draw first. Play first! If only to opportune screwing them on their double lands, besides the easy enabling of your own.

Game 1: This was by far the tightest game of the tournament. I, of course, get the quick early Thrull beats. That early life gain is enough to get me out of immediate hot water. Jeff’s cards totally outclass mine, although he’s definitely short on flying defense. I continue to just lay out fliers and draw cards, the normal stuff. Jeff gets Selesnya Guildmage, and while I do kill it, it makes a token on the way out. Next turn Jeff uses Golgari Guildmage to replace his lost brother, and we’re off to the races. The Thrulls and a Phalanx were a big help in staying alive, and Jeff is a little stymied using a White for Ostiary Thrull each turn.

In addition to all this, I find a Dimir Guildmage. Since I’ve drawn all three Karoo lands by this point, I have a lot of mana to work with. First Jeff’s hand gets tossed and then I start drawing two to four cards per turn. In addition, I’m whittling his life away with my dorks minor. However, Jeff’s Guildmage interactions are quite solid and Jeff is working on building up an army of his own; even starting to push enough through to start damaging me. I still continue to draw cards and play more creatures, drawing so much we have to count my library (six). Finally, after making Jeff pitch the singleton Forest he was holding, I make a massive swing with everything. The Dogpile was enough to finish it. Jeff’s cards were way better, but I was up something crazy like ten to twelve extra cards. There aren’t many decks that can overcome that kind of deficit.

Game 2: The big play of this game was my Izzet Guildmage Forking Gather Courage twice. It wasn’t absolutely back breaking because Jeff had a double pump with his Selesnya one, but it was enough for our Guildmages to trade. Jeff then looked bored and bemused as I started casting Flight/Drake/Flight again, and once more, overran him with sheer quantity. “Your deck sure does draw cards”. Indeed.

4-0

Four-and-Oh s a nice place to be for a six round event. For the record:

Round 5 — Peter Beckfield: ID
Round 6 — Dylan Linde: ID

Sadly, no one else from the car made the Top 8. Eric got me-ed out of the last round, the final member of the car in contention. Dan was so distraught over his performance that he actually left Spokane and hitchhiked back to Seattle after he went 2-2. I’m not exactly sure how Dan is going to show his gratitude to all these people giving him rides, but he’s resourceful like that.

He Who Walks Backwards

Before the final round was over and the Top 8 was officially announced, my tummy started doing flippidy-doo-dah. Yes, I was excited for the upcoming Draft… but not so much as to get a case of nervous stomach nausea. No, this was a combination of adrenaline and the spicy McPickAMeat. Those in tandem apparently sync up into some kind of poison. I was literally doubled over on the way to the drafting table. But whatever, some f***ing clown wasn’t enough to prevent kicking some Draft booty! Rawrrrr! Bring It!

Hours later, as we were lamenting final performance, Christian and Eric came up with an interesting tidbit of information. It seems that in the absence of drafting experience or drafting strategy, a Pro Tour Qualifier Top 8 competitor will simply draft the same colors as his bomb Sealed Deck. If you play the odds, that means you’re going to have a disproportionate amount of folk who are drafting Green/Black. Case in point:

On my left there were not one, not two, not three, but four G/B drafters in a row. The gentleman one over opened Argus Kos, who I’m told went 5th pick. This was the same fella who second and third picked Sewerdreg, a card I’m sure was instrumental in his Top 8 achievements. Alas, this draft was a total train wreck. Next time, ask your neighbors and your opponent what they played in the Sealed!

My opener was a real head-scratcher: Civic Wayfinder or Primordial Sage. My two interests going into the Draft were either Blue or Red. Wayfinder is great in Blue decks, and Sage is great with Red, so there was no help there. Ultimately, I went with the Sage, both because the person on my left obviously goes heavy green if I pass the 4/5, and because it can just auto-win games. I’m honestly not sure which pick is correct today, and I’m curious if anyone has a strong opinion on the matter.

After that I made a brief foray into Black, which obviously went nowhere. Sell-Sword Brute at tenth pick for me, so G/R it was. A few late White cards made the deck’s style pretty clear. I wanted to go Blue, I really did, but the cards simply were not there until wayyy late in Guildpact. G/R/w was the correct deck, as the guy on my left was B/U. However, people were dropping in and out of colors so much I was pretty much at their mercy.

My personal biggest mistake of the draft was passing a fairly late Ulasht, The Hate Seed. I had no idea the card was as useful as it was, thinking it was kind of “eh” during the preview. In retrospect, it was a card that definitely had a place in the deck, although the Signet I took over it was pretty necessary too. The entire draft was full of feast-or-famine picks like that, either giving me three-plus options or zero. A frustrating experience overall. Here’s the build:


Pretty unimpressive. My only consolation was that except for a sick R/W and R/U deck out there, everyone was fairly weak. When everyone tramples everyone else’s colors like that, you hope a speedy consistent deck is enough to win. Transluminant plus Bloodthirst is still a combo. After the deck was submitted, I was told my first round opponent had first picked a Golgari Rotwurm over a Last Gasp. Easy money, right? Sigh…

Quarterfinals: Jeremy Lochridge — G/B (obv)
Game 1: On the play I mulligan, and keep a mediocre hand. Jeremy comes out tight with Ledgewalker plus Shambling Shell, a rather brutal combination against R/G. Double Rotwurm turns later seal the deal.

Game 2: I mulligan again into slowness. My turn 4 Wojek Embermage plus Scatter the Seeds beats the first Rotwurm, but the second takes a Strands and starts going to work. Actually, that Strands was pretty funny. One could tell Jeremy wanted to play it on turn 4, but didn’t want to give my creature regeneration. The sad part came when the Primordial Sage got killed off. Had it lived for one untap, I would have laid two small creatures the following turn and been in a decent position. Unfortunately, I was on the backpedal with my smaller guys and below average tricks. To my advantage, Jeremy played pretty badly. Well, maybe that’s harsh. Yes, I was three life when Jeremy had a Rotwurm and Lurking Informant in play, with a Shambling Shell in the graveyard. It’s correct I had no cards in my hand, and it’s also true Jeremy gave me six extra turns before Rotwurm plus Netherborn Phalanx finally ended it. But I can’t say bad. Some people just have their own style/stipulations.

Despite the unfortunate result, the tournament and road trip were good times. We’ve a new system for deck construction, and lots of experience in a relevant format. Lots of XL talk, too. The Hawks almost beat the feared duo of the Steelers plus the Refs. Ah well, next year in Jerusalem Miami.

Questions, comments: [email protected]. Good luck this season; I’ll keep the readers posted with results.

Noah Weil