GP Dallas, Regionals, and Judging

Apparently I'm addicted to 6-3 performances. That's what I did at GP Dallas piloting UW CawBlade. I was pretty happy about the deck choice, however, I am very, very tired of mirror matches. As a result I'm either going to take something like Conley's UB Go Big deck or RUG to the Regio...ahem...Nationals Qualifier Tournaments. Standard has got rather stale for me so I'm not really going to talk much more about it right now. It's been hashed out pretty throughly at this point: Jace is controversial, CawBlade is the elephant in the room, Valakut is lame, etc., etc.

I'll probably be attending as many NQs as I can (read: how many my wife allows me to attend) until either I've gone to all of them or qualified. I'm looking forward to trying out this experience for real. I've never really tried "The Grind" before (mostly due to college *shakes fist*). I have a blast going to these tournaments and just getting to meet some really cool people. A lot of the people I've played at tournaments have been really great guys despite the fact that I've been running Public Enemy Number One. I've very rarely had anything but a blast playing and when I get to laugh and enjoy it with my opponent regardless of the result, it's even better.

I feel like, from my experience at the Grand Prix, that some of the pros have missed that. I had a similar or better record than some of them and looking around and seeing them with sort of dejected or downtrodden looks was sort of saddening to me. I mean, come on guy, you may not have done great at GP Dallas, but you get paid to travel the world playing an awesomely fun game. I know winning is what lets you keep doing that, but unless you are at serious risk of losing that (hint: you aren't right now) enjoy yourself. I know I would love to have a chance to do magic as my job, so don't take it for granted.

[Not that I expect any of them to read this, but hey, you gotta write what you're thinking. It is a blog after all]

Anyway, I recently judged my first event. It was just an FNM at the local shop, but it was surprisingly a lot of fun and a lot of work. It was great to help people understand the rules, although it was less fun to have to issue unfavorable rulings and resolve illegal plays and mistake when it was too late to back up. Still, on the whole people seemed to really like having a dedicated judge as opposed to our normal situation where the store manager is the only one and he is trying to both deal with all the customers and judge and record all the tournament happenings. It was a great way to help out, still get to hang out with friends, and not have to risk rating points* and whatnot. The manager said he'd love for me to keep doing it and I think I will. I'm actually going to be the head judge for the GP Trial for GP Providence at the shop since I don't have any Legacy cards and they really need help since the event is likely to be huge (for a local shop event anyway).

*I'm in an awkward situation where losing at the shop costs me like 20-30 rating points and winning gets me 1. Since that's a win rate no one in their right mind could ever hope to achieve I've been struggling to find a way to stay active in the local shop that I love without screwing my attempts to play at higher levels. So far, judging is looking like the perfect outlet.

That's all I've got for today, hopefully I'll be doing some practice with RUG and Conley's UB and I'll let everyone know what I'm running and why.

Next Level Me

Wow it's been a while since I've had a chance to sit down and write about something. I've been settling into the routine of my new job and had a flurry of tournaments and testing going on. I'm glad to be writing something again, though.

I had to think for a little bit on what to write about. I've built a variety of decks in the time since I last wrote. I tried out Juza's Tezzeret, UW Caw Blade, Spark Blade, Esper Caw Blade, and Grixis Tezzeret. I went to SCG DC and SCG Dallas. Did poorly and DC and got 42nd in Dallas. Would have made 16th if I hadn't punted my last game against Drew Levin. A lot has happened in all of that time, but what I think is most important in all that is what I've really learned:

If I want to get better at Magic I need to improve myself.

I'm not talking about any sort of play skill or tournament skill. Although I am nowhere near perfect at those, and they are important, I'm talking about a more personal sort of improvement. To get better and perform better, I need to have the best attitude and and the best version of myself I can get.

This was made abundantly clear to me several times in the past few weeks. At SCG DC I got on tilt and totally blew myself out of the tournament. I may have lost to a guy who asked "What's Vigilance?" but that's no reason to get upset. I was in Washington D.C. playing my favorite game and hanging out with some really great friends! What was I mad about? That I didn't go all the way in my first large tournament ever? Please. I needed a reality check. It was time for me to improve my attitude.

Fortunately, I was given plenty of tests to that resolve. (Funny how life does that to you, huh?) I lost to some pretty bad beats against decks that I probably had >90% to win against. I played in tournaments online where I made some stupid mistakes, had some really bad misclicks, and/or had some pretty bad luck. As it started to happen more, my reactions have gradually moved from frustration and anger to a grin and a "Well, that's Magic."

I think this sort of training was a major contributor to my improved performance and SCG Dallas. My first loss was to an...interesting version of Caw Blade. I'm pretty sure the deck was not very good (Although, it did manage to make top 8 in the end, so what do I know?). But instead of getting frustrated at losing to a match-up I was advantaged in, I laughed, shook the guy's hand, and signed my match slip. My better outlook helped me to play better in future rounds, feel better about myself, and allowed me to just have fun playing an awesome game!

To top it all off, Conley Woods's latest article hit home directly for me. I don't think anyone could have put it better:

I have grown in the last few months. At times I knew it was happening, but I miss-attributed why and now that shrouded gem has been revealed. It is OK to recognize the game for what it actually is. It is more than a game to be sure, but it is not something to get frustrated with. It is something to cherish and to admire for you may never be apart of something so amazing ever again.

If I have anything to say about it, Magic will never be a source of frustration for me ever again.

PS: As a side note, a congratulatory shout out to my friend back in Norman, Chris Allen who just nearly missed Top 8ing at SCG Dallas with Grixis Tezzeret! Congrats on a nice performance and good luck at whatever your next event is!

Taking Control of an Unknown Meta

So recently I've moved (hence the lack of any blog posts since it happened basically after I made that first one). Finally things have slowed down so I wanted to talk about my recent experience going to play at the local stores and what I did to prepare.

Lately I had been playing UB Control before I moved with moderate success. However, it was nothing to write home about. I was winning more than I was losing but not by a long shot. My local FNM often sees some homebrewing and sometimes you just hit a deck that you have immense difficulty with.

For instance, in the last round of my last FNM at my old town I played against a player running a sort of mono-green beats deck. Normally, a straightforward aggro deck is pretty easy for control to handle. However, he was going for a bit of a tokens strategy and while my Consume the Meeks easily dealt with all his early drops and tokens, it missed his Kozilek's Predators and Wolfbrier Elementals which smashed through my Sea Gate Oracles. This required me to run out Grave Titan without having total board control, which usually gave him room to drop an Eldrazi Monument or Overwhelming Stampede for game. These larger CMC drops also caused me to whiff every single time I played Inquisition of Kozilek.

Now, I probably didn't play it perfectly, but the green deck did what it was supposed to do and it dodged some of the normal strengths of UB control. I mention all of this really because it was this match in particular which prompted me to consider UW instead of UB. I frequently found myself longing for the safety of a Day of Judgement and this match wasn't the only time. So, when I moved and was considering which deck to play, I was looking between UW and UB.

Normally, picking control is not the safest choice for going to a completely blank metagame. Not only that, this is an FNM not a PTQ or GP. That means the likelyhood of random-bad-matchup-homebrew decks is way higher than normal. However, I had cards for control or Valakut, and since I hate Valakut with the white hot passion of a thousand suns, I was sticking with what I had. Since I was going with control and the metagame was completely unknown, I spent a lot of time trying to make sure my deck was prepared for everything. This is the list I ended up with:

3 Condemn

2 Journey to Nowhere

3 Day of Judgment

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Jace Beleren

4 Mana Leak

2 Negate

3 Wall of Omens

4 Spreading Seas

4 Preordain

3 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Tectonic Edge

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Seachrome Coast

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Marsh Flats

5 Island

3 Plains

Sideboard

3 Ratchet Bomb

4 Leyline of Sanctity

3 Revoke Existence

1 Day of Judgment

1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

3 Spell Pierce

The idea in this build was to try to be ready for anything. Condemn covered my cheap, instant removal while Journey covered removal for things that either wouldn't or I could afford to let attack. Negate maindeck gave me a bit of a control edge and is never completely dead. Wall of Omens, Spreading Seas, and Preordain all smooth draws and provide some value. (And by value, I of course mean Spreading Seas is ridiculous and sometimes you just win with it) Of course, cards like Jace, Day, and Mana Leak need no explanation.

The biggest dilemma I had was over the finisher. I had the sort of "normal" options of Frost and Sun Titans, the "old school" option of Baneslayer Angel, and the more rogue option of Wurmcoil Engine. Sun Titan went out pretty quickly. While very good in a meta where incremental card advantage is king (see: Jund), Sun Titan is vulnerable to removal, has no evasion, no lifelink, and the value you get out of him if he dies is pretty minimal. This meta is not friendly to Sun Titan. Frost Titan got the boot too. I didn't know if UB was going to be popular, but a lot of decks deal with Frost Titan without too much trouble. Frosty was great when then meta was 80% Primeval Titans. Now, he's just barely harder to kill than Sun Titan, has no evasion or lifelink, and you get basically nothing from him if he dies.

So it came down to Baneslayer and Wurmcoil Engine. I love Baneslayer and nearly put her in here. However, when I compared the two Wurmcoil seemed just better. It trades with Titans, you get some value when it dies (in the form of having to kill it twice, basically), it also has lifelink (on a bigger body), and it's colorless, which very occasionally matters. Baneslayer's only real advantage was that it flies. Evasion seemed less important when I'd be bashing for 6 lifelinking, deathtouching damage a turn. Especially when I'd lose all the other above benefits of Wurmcoil Engine just to get flying. Wurmcoil seemed like a more universal answer than Baneslayer, who gives aggro nightmares.

The sideboard was pretty typical. Spell Pierce for ramp/control, Leyline for Valakut/Vampires/random stuff, An extra Day to buff up the aggro matches, Revokes and Ratchet Bombs as a sort of catch-all. Kozilek, while seeming sort of random was for any mill decks I might come across. I just couldn't lose to mill that'd be awful.

So far I've taken this deck to my first two FNMs and won first place both times. The flexibility of all these answers has allowed me to deal with many different strategies. I've played UW Allies, RDW, Infect, Elves, GW Quest, Eldrazi Green, and BR Vamps. There's possibly one other deck but I can't recall it. Nevertheless, the deck has preformed well for me. While I expect the meta to change drastically with the upcoming release of MBS, I would recommend the list for people looking to play UW at their FNM.

As a side note: a massive thanks to everyone at the new shop. Everyone has been so welcoming and friendly to me I really appreciate everyone! (Not to diminish all my old friends back in OK, I miss all of you!)

The First Quest Counter

So I guess this is supposed to be one of those awkward first blog posts where I explain the theme of this blog and then wistfully hope that someday I'll have a million followers and be famous or something. But, truth is, I don't really care about that. This is for me and anyone who might happen to enjoy what I put here.

That said, I will talk a little about what this is for. This is my own pseudo-journal for my personal quest:

I want to go to the Magic: the Gathering Worlds Tournament and play.

I don't mean that I want this like "Hey that'd be pretty cool, sounds like a blast." I want this. It's a passion, a work of love (and occasionally hate), and I will pursue it until I succeed or are outright prevented from doing it somehow. I'll be sharing my quest towards this goal with anyone who cares to read it, because this simple act of typing it out and getting my thoughts out there helps me focus and keeps me sane. I don't know if I will succeed, but I will do what I can to make it happen and this blog will be a legacy to that attempt.

So, let the quest begin. It's going to be a bumpy ride...