As expected, I did terribly at PT Gatecrash. A combination of school and moving and other real life issues in the month prior to leaving left me with actually zero time to prepare. I hadn't drafted the set at all prior to the first draft of the Pro Tour, and the only games of constructed I had played were the night before. That said, I was brewing lots of decks in my little free time, and I think I actually had a good feel for what to expect from the field. Unfortunately, that didn't translate to any results.
I'll start with constructed. Here is the deck I played:
4 Stomping Ground
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Blood Crypt
4 Woodland Cemetery
1 Forest
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
4 Experiment One
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Gyre Sage
4 Dreg Mangler
4 Hellrider
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Searing Spear
3 Abrupt Decay
Sideboard:
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Duress
2 Dreadbore
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Gruul Charm
1 Golgari Charm
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Triumph of Ferocity
Nothing impressive about the deck. I didn't like the way it played after playing 5 rounds at the PT. 24 lands and 10 four drops just isn't what i ever want to do. I let myself play Hellrider even though I knew i wouldn't like it. I trusted the people that i knew that had done testing and went against my instincts. If I had time to test more, I may have ended up with a deck close to this (i had thought of both cackler and flunkies, just never had time to try it):
Ari Lax
4 Blood Crypt
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
2 Woodland Cemetery
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Dreg Mangler
4 Experiment One
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Rakdos Cackler
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Dreadbore
2 Searing Spear
Sideboard
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Domri Rade
3 Duress
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Olivia Voldaren
1 Searing Spear
3 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Wolfir Silverheart
There were also a couple of other lists that I had that I think I would have been happier playing. I also might have been the victim of poor matchups, since overall Jund Aggro won 60% of its matches at the PT
Round 4 I defeated Jund Midrange/Control, then lost to RUG Flash, The Aristocrats, Esper Control, and Naya Midrange. I think the Esper loss was bad luck, as I was stuck on three land for almost all of game 3 and still almost won, but the other losses felt like bad matchups.
As for draft, I ended up in Boros. I think it was right for my seat (I got passed Aurelia's Fury pack 3 pick 2), I just was fighting with too many neighbors for creatures and was left with only 14, 3 of them being 5 drops. I had a pick between Martial Glory and Boros Charm that was the only one I wasn't sure about, assuming I was Boros. I took Martial Glory, and its been split 50/50 between everyone I talk to.
Round 1 I lost to Dimir. We split two games being mana screwed, and game 3 I had plenty of mana, but no creature. I was still only 4 points short of killing him with Fury and Massive Raid at the end of the game, but he was still at twenty because I didn't play a creature until turn 5. He milled me out with 2 Mind Grind, neither player having taken any damage. Round 2 I lost to a better boros deck, round 3 I beat a worse boros deck.
It's really hard to prepare for a PT by yourself. I know this, and I valued the advice I got from other people who had done testing. I may have valued it too much, since a lot of it went against my instincts. I also didn't play particularly great at the tournament, and just a lack of any play experience was a huge factor.
