The Modern Format...
Our local TO wants to try to push Modern into our monthly rotation of TNM events. We had a 21-person Modern Masters draft and the hope is that MM will catapult players into playing Modern.
Unexpectedly (to me), he was right. We had 16 people show up for Modern; quite the increase over the 3 we had last time around. I took three decks with me: R/G Tron, Storm (by Jon Finkel), and $5 Mono-green infect. The plan was to lend out decks to those who did not have one.
I ended up loaning out Infect and playing Storm. I guess it is worth noting that I assembled the Storm deck 2 hours before the tournament began. I also had no sideboard. Entry was $18, but the prize packs would be payed out in Modern Masters.
Round 1: Chris with Mono-Green infect. (The deck I loaned out)
In game one, I misplayed by not producing the right color (blue) from manamorphose. I stall on my combo and scoop.
In game two, I am able to combo out on turn four. There was a bit of a learning curve, I will admit.
In game three, I played two lands, a pyromancers ascension, then died to one attack from a Glistener Elf who had been pumped to lethal.
0-1
Round 2: Cody with a 70-card, unsleeved, w/b control.
Cody does not have explosive starts or any kind of discernible disruption; I combo off on turn five. In game two I stalled a bit and left myself open to a turn five Painful Quandry. I scoop, as I have no way to deal with it. In game three I combo off on turn 4-5. I waited a bit until I knew the coast was clear thanks to Gitaxian Probe.
1-1
Round 3: Nick with Esper Urzatron.
The only reason I beat Nick was because he did not know how to thoroughly abuse Gifts Ungiven. His copies are Kamigawa block and read that you must search for "four cards with different names" he would casually reveal things like Iona, Unburial Rites, Urza's Mine, along with something else. I ended up setting up my combo off in both games before he could drop something awful like Elesh Norn or Iona.
After the match, I explained how he could have easily won both games if he had known about how to properly exploit Gifts Ungiven.
2-1
Round 4: Ian with Orzhov
Ian had another tempo based deck without any kind of disruption. We basically raced each game.
I took game one on a relatively slow combo-off on turn 6+. In game two I stalled and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad was there to make me pay. It did not help that he had Thrull Parasite to lock down Pyromancers Ascension. In game three he got out a Blood Baron of Vizkopa on turn 5 and was at a healthy 23 life. The best I could do on my turn was unleash Grapeshot for ~12 killing his three creatures (Baron, Tithe Drinker, and Thrull Parasite). It would be another 3 turns before I top decked a Sleight of Hand to grab Past in Flames netting me the storm kill. (At this point we were the last game and well past time in the round, almost every other player was watching our game)
3-1
So, I went 3-1, which netted me 4 packs of Modern Masters. The packs were unremarkable.
The one thing I could not help but notice was that during my games, my opponents looked bored and generally disinterested in what I was doing. At one point I declared "Casting Manamorphose, hold priority, cast Increasing Vengeance targeting Manamorphose, two triggers from Pyromancers Ascension", an onlooker then stated, "who are you talking to? He (my opponent) is not paying attention." Well, he was right. At this point all I could think of was that this was of no fault of my opponent; I am playing an uninteractive "self-pleasure" deck. I had fun piloting Storm as it was both difficult and rewarding, but I doubt my opponents saw it that was or had any fun. One guy stopped me to ask why I was marking up "Storm Count", he had never heard of Storm. It was his first Modern tournament.
I kind of felt like the "that guy" of the tournament.
Until next time.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Modern Masters Draft! 6/13/13 and DGM on 6/12/13.
I went to a $35 Modern Masters draft at Beyond Comics in Frederick, MD.
I studied in advance for the draft and went in knowing that I wanted to draft Red/Blue Arcane, possibly with a Green splash. 23 players showed up.
In my first pack I pick Peer through Depths, for the next three packs, I see ZERO playables in my forced colors. (The guy to my right was drafting the same thing) I now wasted my first four picks on across the board cards of Mulldrifter, Maelstrom Pulse, and an Affinity artifact. I grab the next pack for ANY open signals. I get passed Worm Harvest. Perhaps dredge is open. The following pack contained a Life from the Loam. All in.
I end up with the following limited Dredge deck.
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Phthisis
1 Death Rattle
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Horobi's Whisper
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Tombstalker
1 Marsh Flitter
3 Street Wraith
2 Stinkweed Imp
1 Life from the Loam
2 Raven's Crime
2 Warren weirding
2 Worm Harvest
2 Syphon Life
3 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vivid marsh
1 Dakmor Salvage
10 Swamp
3 Forest
My first opponent was Carter/Porter(?) with Mono-White. My opponent was new to magic and new to drafting, but knew the rules well enough that he did not have any questions about play. He did not draft well and his deck was a mixture of Rebels, Thallids, and Giants. I got my discard engine going (Loam+Raven's Crime) to remove his hand since he was on a slow start (probably with a lot of expensive fatties).
I finally got Divinity of Pride and Tombstalker down to take control.
In game two, I did not draw into my discard engine but did draw into my Worm engine and Tombstalker.
2-0
I then played against Toby with his Bant Thallid/Suspend deck. He had some Errant Ephemerons that were easily held at bay by Stinkweed Imp. Toby was reluctant to attack into the Imp's as I had previously been dredging them. I was able to stall long enough to get my big fliers (Tombstalker and Divinity of Pride) into play. In game two I got my discard engine AND my worm engine going.
2-0
At this point I am 2-0 and an ID nets me and my opponent 4 packs of MM, so we ID'd.
Sean and I then played, since neither of us had lost a game yet. He drafted Red/White Giants. In game one, I chose to be on the draw and began Dredging from turn 1, due to cycling a Street Wraith at Sean's EoT. I took game one off of my worm tokens. In game two Sean wiped the board with Thundercloud Shaman, then the Giants came in and finished me off. In game three I made 6 Worms on turn 5. I followed that up with back-to-back Worm Harvests off of top decked land. (making 7 then 8 Worm tokens)
I opened a Vedalken Shackles in my prize packs, and nothing else of interest.
REWIND TO THURSDAY!
I went to Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD to play a DGM draft. The following are lists of my pick ones in each round.
1: Beetleform Mage
2: Domri Rade
3: Vraska the Unseen
The guy sitting to my right, this was his second draft ever. Needless to say, my deck was very very good. I had enough playables in BUG that I initially built a 60 card deck that, depending on which half I drew, could either be aggro-control or Mill. I put the 20 aggro cards into the sideboard and went with the mill plan.
I won four games in a row the following ways Mill, Mill, Mill, Vraska Ultimate. I split in the final round in order to play the Holodeck (something I have not yet addressed on this blog) with the tournament organizer.
So, two very good back-to-back drafts. (Which to be fair were preceded by a poor draft and a poor sealed.)
Until next time.
I studied in advance for the draft and went in knowing that I wanted to draft Red/Blue Arcane, possibly with a Green splash. 23 players showed up.
In my first pack I pick Peer through Depths, for the next three packs, I see ZERO playables in my forced colors. (The guy to my right was drafting the same thing) I now wasted my first four picks on across the board cards of Mulldrifter, Maelstrom Pulse, and an Affinity artifact. I grab the next pack for ANY open signals. I get passed Worm Harvest. Perhaps dredge is open. The following pack contained a Life from the Loam. All in.
I end up with the following limited Dredge deck.
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Phthisis
1 Death Rattle
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Horobi's Whisper
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Tombstalker
1 Marsh Flitter
3 Street Wraith
2 Stinkweed Imp
1 Life from the Loam
2 Raven's Crime
2 Warren weirding
2 Worm Harvest
2 Syphon Life
3 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vivid marsh
1 Dakmor Salvage
10 Swamp
3 Forest
My first opponent was Carter/Porter(?) with Mono-White. My opponent was new to magic and new to drafting, but knew the rules well enough that he did not have any questions about play. He did not draft well and his deck was a mixture of Rebels, Thallids, and Giants. I got my discard engine going (Loam+Raven's Crime) to remove his hand since he was on a slow start (probably with a lot of expensive fatties).
I finally got Divinity of Pride and Tombstalker down to take control.
In game two, I did not draw into my discard engine but did draw into my Worm engine and Tombstalker.
2-0
I then played against Toby with his Bant Thallid/Suspend deck. He had some Errant Ephemerons that were easily held at bay by Stinkweed Imp. Toby was reluctant to attack into the Imp's as I had previously been dredging them. I was able to stall long enough to get my big fliers (Tombstalker and Divinity of Pride) into play. In game two I got my discard engine AND my worm engine going.
2-0
At this point I am 2-0 and an ID nets me and my opponent 4 packs of MM, so we ID'd.
Sean and I then played, since neither of us had lost a game yet. He drafted Red/White Giants. In game one, I chose to be on the draw and began Dredging from turn 1, due to cycling a Street Wraith at Sean's EoT. I took game one off of my worm tokens. In game two Sean wiped the board with Thundercloud Shaman, then the Giants came in and finished me off. In game three I made 6 Worms on turn 5. I followed that up with back-to-back Worm Harvests off of top decked land. (making 7 then 8 Worm tokens)
I opened a Vedalken Shackles in my prize packs, and nothing else of interest.
REWIND TO THURSDAY!
I went to Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD to play a DGM draft. The following are lists of my pick ones in each round.
1: Beetleform Mage
2: Domri Rade
3: Vraska the Unseen
The guy sitting to my right, this was his second draft ever. Needless to say, my deck was very very good. I had enough playables in BUG that I initially built a 60 card deck that, depending on which half I drew, could either be aggro-control or Mill. I put the 20 aggro cards into the sideboard and went with the mill plan.
I won four games in a row the following ways Mill, Mill, Mill, Vraska Ultimate. I split in the final round in order to play the Holodeck (something I have not yet addressed on this blog) with the tournament organizer.
So, two very good back-to-back drafts. (Which to be fair were preceded by a poor draft and a poor sealed.)
Until next time.
Monday, June 10, 2013
A month's worth of mediocrity...
Not many great finishes since Mother's Day, hence the lack of posts. Here's a quick run-down of my performances across several formats.
FNM 5/17
I played the same list I played Mother's Day, but went 3-2 at G&S, losing to little kids playing bad decks poorly. This was enough to push me away from R/G and I picked up the cards to play BUG Aggro which looked like a ton of fun...
Super IQ 5/18
Playing BUG Aggro, went 2-3 drop, going 1-3 vs R/g Aggro with Pillar of Flames... ugh, not a great metagame call by me to be running Strangleroots and Young Wolves.
FNM 5/24
Playing BUG again, I start off 2-0 then ID'd with Nick (also at 2-0). I then lose round 4 after being up a game and throwing away game two on a horrible math mistake (shocked myself to play an untapped land thinking he had enough on board to put me to 1... he had enough to put me to 0). I leave after this round at 2-1-1 to head to the beach. I don't drop since I expect to be paired against a friend who is also 2-1-1 so he can get the free win. So technically I finish 2-2-1.
SCG Open Baltimore 6/1 & 6/2
I play BUG once again on Saturday to a 3-3 finish. I still love the deck as it can be both fun and explosive at times, but I think it's just underpowered in this metagame. The other grindy/synergistic decks like Aristocrats (both BWR and BWG) at least have powerful cards like Sorin and Skirsdag High Priest mixed in with their "Young Wolves". I haven't played Standard since this tourney and am having a hard time finding a competitive deck that I actually like (the same reason Mike has been absent from every Standard tourney for over a month).
I joined a Commander Pod after dropping from the main event. Don't play in SCG open Commander pods without a buddy! My pod had two guys who were friends, a random dude who never did anything of relevance the entire game, and myself. The entire game I have to hold up counterspell mana to stop one of the friends from going off.. I'm able to do this for several turns, even with his non-combo friend attacking me and killing my Talrand and my planeswalkers. Eventually I run out of counterspells (I only play like 7 in the deck) and the combo deck kills us while he's at 7 life from a combination of Necropotence and Drake beats.
Sunday I'm super excited to play Omni-Tell w/ Enter the Infinite. It's a deck that had been getting results online the week leading up to the open and Baltimore was a breakout tournament for this deck, with 3 copies making the top 16. Unfortunately, I lost the last round to finish 5-4 and out of the money. Some Defense Grids in the side would have been nice since all my loses were to opponents with more counter-magic than I - at least on the turns I cast Show and Tell.
FNM 6/7
I decided to play in the modern FNM since G&S is increasing their prize support by $100 for every Modern tournament the rest of the year. The tourney also starts at 7 instead of 6, and is only 4 rounds instead of 5. Playing my Esper Aggro Mill I win the first round, then lose the next 3. I think I'm going to try out Storm in modern over the next month. I still love beating down with Jace's Phantasms and Nihiliths but the deck is too inconsistent. My records in sanctioned tournaments with the deck have been 0-4, 4-4 (started 4-0), 0-2, 3-1 (second place) and this 1-3.
I didn't get to play any magic this past Saturday, but Sunday morning I headed to Xanadu actually hoping to draft, even though they had a GPT (Standard) scheduled. Luckily, not enough people showed up for standard and we drafted Modern Masters instead. For prize we would draft cards to keep from the entire pool in order of finish, so there was no point at all in rare drafting. I opened a weak pack and took Frogmite tihnking maybe I could pull a few more. Second pick Shrapnel Blast, third pick Frogmite and I was set. I finished with a ton of modular guys, 2x Faerie Machinists, 3x Frogmites, 4x Etherium Sculpters and a good amount of burn, including the Shrapnel Blast, Rift Bolt and Electrolyze as the best of those. I even had a Pyrite Spellbomb and Academy Ruins! Oh yeah, and a Keiga too. I 3-0'd the draft and got the obvious first choice of Elspeth from the pool. I got a handful of other goodies as well, including 2x City of Brass. These cities look so cool that I immediately dusted off the Dredge deck when I got home and plan to play it this week. I looked over recent Open finishes by Dredge and found a list with 3x Winds of Change in the side. I have no idea what they're sided against, but the card alone looks fun as Hell. I think I'll pick up a couple to try out.
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FNM 5/17
I played the same list I played Mother's Day, but went 3-2 at G&S, losing to little kids playing bad decks poorly. This was enough to push me away from R/G and I picked up the cards to play BUG Aggro which looked like a ton of fun...
Super IQ 5/18
Playing BUG Aggro, went 2-3 drop, going 1-3 vs R/g Aggro with Pillar of Flames... ugh, not a great metagame call by me to be running Strangleroots and Young Wolves.
FNM 5/24
Playing BUG again, I start off 2-0 then ID'd with Nick (also at 2-0). I then lose round 4 after being up a game and throwing away game two on a horrible math mistake (shocked myself to play an untapped land thinking he had enough on board to put me to 1... he had enough to put me to 0). I leave after this round at 2-1-1 to head to the beach. I don't drop since I expect to be paired against a friend who is also 2-1-1 so he can get the free win. So technically I finish 2-2-1.
SCG Open Baltimore 6/1 & 6/2
I play BUG once again on Saturday to a 3-3 finish. I still love the deck as it can be both fun and explosive at times, but I think it's just underpowered in this metagame. The other grindy/synergistic decks like Aristocrats (both BWR and BWG) at least have powerful cards like Sorin and Skirsdag High Priest mixed in with their "Young Wolves". I haven't played Standard since this tourney and am having a hard time finding a competitive deck that I actually like (the same reason Mike has been absent from every Standard tourney for over a month).
I joined a Commander Pod after dropping from the main event. Don't play in SCG open Commander pods without a buddy! My pod had two guys who were friends, a random dude who never did anything of relevance the entire game, and myself. The entire game I have to hold up counterspell mana to stop one of the friends from going off.. I'm able to do this for several turns, even with his non-combo friend attacking me and killing my Talrand and my planeswalkers. Eventually I run out of counterspells (I only play like 7 in the deck) and the combo deck kills us while he's at 7 life from a combination of Necropotence and Drake beats.
Sunday I'm super excited to play Omni-Tell w/ Enter the Infinite. It's a deck that had been getting results online the week leading up to the open and Baltimore was a breakout tournament for this deck, with 3 copies making the top 16. Unfortunately, I lost the last round to finish 5-4 and out of the money. Some Defense Grids in the side would have been nice since all my loses were to opponents with more counter-magic than I - at least on the turns I cast Show and Tell.
FNM 6/7
I decided to play in the modern FNM since G&S is increasing their prize support by $100 for every Modern tournament the rest of the year. The tourney also starts at 7 instead of 6, and is only 4 rounds instead of 5. Playing my Esper Aggro Mill I win the first round, then lose the next 3. I think I'm going to try out Storm in modern over the next month. I still love beating down with Jace's Phantasms and Nihiliths but the deck is too inconsistent. My records in sanctioned tournaments with the deck have been 0-4, 4-4 (started 4-0), 0-2, 3-1 (second place) and this 1-3.
I didn't get to play any magic this past Saturday, but Sunday morning I headed to Xanadu actually hoping to draft, even though they had a GPT (Standard) scheduled. Luckily, not enough people showed up for standard and we drafted Modern Masters instead. For prize we would draft cards to keep from the entire pool in order of finish, so there was no point at all in rare drafting. I opened a weak pack and took Frogmite tihnking maybe I could pull a few more. Second pick Shrapnel Blast, third pick Frogmite and I was set. I finished with a ton of modular guys, 2x Faerie Machinists, 3x Frogmites, 4x Etherium Sculpters and a good amount of burn, including the Shrapnel Blast, Rift Bolt and Electrolyze as the best of those. I even had a Pyrite Spellbomb and Academy Ruins! Oh yeah, and a Keiga too. I 3-0'd the draft and got the obvious first choice of Elspeth from the pool. I got a handful of other goodies as well, including 2x City of Brass. These cities look so cool that I immediately dusted off the Dredge deck when I got home and plan to play it this week. I looked over recent Open finishes by Dredge and found a list with 3x Winds of Change in the side. I have no idea what they're sided against, but the card alone looks fun as Hell. I think I'll pick up a couple to try out.
e
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