Old PTQ Reports Part 2

The second PTQ report comes from Mirrodin-Darksteel Sealed deck tournament in Austin in 2004. This was my 4th PTQ top 8 in a year time span. I guess I was better at the game than I remember?



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San Diego is in the country, so of course you have to work hard to qualify. It's an easy trip.

I went to Austin late Thursday night after the type 2 tournament. We arrived around 330 am Friday morning, went to IHOP and stuff. Friday was a hang out day, and I got to see all my friends who sold out and went to UT.

Saturday morning was the most beautiful day ever. It had snowed overnight, and now the sun was out. Driving around the snow was melting off the hood of my car and flying up into my windshield. It was really cool.

When we got to the tournament, it looked like the snow had kept some of the other out of towners from showing up. There was only 61 people there, and the quality of competition was slightly lacking. I know for a fact some of my friends got in an accident just south of Austin on their way and missed the tournament, how unfortunate.

The deck I opened was pretty poor I think, I didn't pay too much attention because I was hoping I wouldn't get it back. Luckily, i got a ridiculous deck passed to me. Here is what I played:

Island x6

Plains x6

Swamp

Vault of Whispers

Arrest

Blinding Beam

Raise the Alarm

Neurok Spy

Thirst for Knowledge

Terror

Aether Spellbomb

Clockwork Condor

Crystal Shard

Frogmite

Gold Myr

Isochron Scepter

Leaden Myr

Soldier Replica

Wizard Replica

Pteron Ghost x2

Test of Faith

Quicksilver Behemoth

Vedalken Engineer

Echoing Decay

Arcbound Stinger

Razor Golem

Specter’s Shroud

Spire Golem

Vulshok Morningstar

Notable sideboard cards included Goblin Dirigible, Yotian Soldier, and Goblin Replica. If I could do it again, I wouldn't play the engineer and would add in Scavenging Scarab and some more black mana. However, I was really happy. This is the kind of deck I like to play: cheap creatures and blinding beams. The rinky dink strategy. The nickel and dime strategy. The stealing blinds strategy.

Round 1 - Mike Lynch

He is playing black green and he mentions having 18 lands. 18 lands?!?! Thats 4 more than I am playing. Mirrodin is all about the really low land counts and it shows. both games I stop at 4 lands and deal with hes few threats then win. One game involves scepter-raise the alarm. Not much to say, my deck was a lot better.

1-0 2-0

Round 2 - David Cerda

David is playing green something, I don't remember. I do remember that he is one of two opponents to ever play artifact removal against me, creeping molding my crystal shard in the first 2 games which we split. Game 3 he stalls on lands and my 1/1's get in some beats. Eventually he gets out empyrial plate and equips, but i have the blinding beam for just enough.

2-0 4-1

Round 3 - Steven Livingston

Steven is a good player and he beat me last time I was in Austin. This was going to be tough. Mulliganing to 5 didn't help either. I get some early beats, and my Pteron Ghosts are getting through unblocked. One of them stays back to block a turn, and then has a test of faith, and then is much bigger allowing me to win the race. 5 card hand wins. Game 2 we trade early dudes, then i make a mistake and attack after arresting his bonesplitter elf replica. I forgot he could move the bonesplitter to his myr and attack, so I take 2 more than i should have. This turns out to be crucial as right when I thirst into total gas, he draws the last land he needs to fireball me. Game 3 I once again start the beatdown, and he has to fireball to stabilize. Eventually I run out of gas, but my Spire Golem is holding his team off. We sit for a few turns when he maybe should of been attacking with dirigible, maybe not, but time is called and he is 1 point short of killing me and decides to play i! t safe and stay back in case i have something. All I have is lands, so it is a draw.

2-0-1 5-2-1

Round 4 - Paul M Hagan

Game 1 he is land screwed, so my cheap beat sticks do 20 really quick. Game 2 he mulligans to 4. And he lost. Coincidence?

3-0-1 7-2-1

Round 5 - Damien W Mayfield

Game 1 I keep a 5 land, myr, crystal shard hand. I draw 3 more land and only 1 more creature, and I can't keep up. Game 2 my deck plays like it does, and doesn't meet too much resistance. Game 3 I play some early fliers, and he has turn 3 Warhammer. If you know me, you know I love to race Warhammer, and without any artifact removal, it looked like i would have to. I put spectral Shroud on a flier and he discards land. Then he plays Wand of the Elements. Ok, this might be tricky. Luckily, I have crystal shard, and after he discards another land, i play some more guys for more pressure. He plays Myr Enforcer, which i bounce on my turn with Aether Spellbomb, then attack with the team. Then he plays Spikeshot, and it looks like he might gain control. Unfortunately for him, he has to go to my dome because i can bounce any of my guys with crystal shard if he tries to get them. Anyway it turns out he taps out somewhere, i have raise the alarm, he kills my condor with spikeshot, i attack him down to 3 after sharding his blockers, then cast the 2nd ability only of blinding beam to keep the spikeshot down. He can only play 2 blockers, and i have 5 dudes, so i get just enough and notch another win vs. the big dumb elephant.

4-0-1 9-3-1

Round 6 - Alex Duran ID

We draw because there is no reason to play really with random top 8 seating, and I am exhausted after racing warhammer.

4-0-2

Basically my top 8 draft boiled down to my first pick. The relevant cards were Bosh, Iron Golem, Viridian Shaman, and Myr Enforcer. The guy to my right seemed kinda random, so I didn't want to take the Shaman in case he went green. Bosh is terrible if you are like me and play 14 lands as much as possible. So I took myr enforcer hoping to put Jeff Meyerson to my left in green and then draft affinity. But somehow he doesn't take the shaman, and instead takes bosh, and we end up in the exact same colors. Looking over the deck lists, it seems that whoever got the shaman didn't play it. And i got a lot of late green picks, meaning i probably screwed this one up. Oh well. I think Jason Krysak had a good point though. How can you take Bosh, and pass Altar of Shadows?

Deck lists are here http://www.ehevents.com/eh2003/articles/article_00034.asp

My deck isn't really as bad as it says, i think my registration sheet may have been hard to read because i kept messing up.

Island x5 *

Swamp x4 *

Mountain x2 *

Tree of Tales

Vault of Whispers

Mirrodin’s Core

Neurok Spy x2

Thoughtcast x2

Moriok Scavenger

Woebearer

Electrostatic Bolt

Frogmite

Goblin Replica

Iron Myr x2

Lifespark Spellbomb

Mask of Memory

Myr Enforcer

Sunbeam Spellbomb

Vulshok Gauntlets

Wizard Replica

Psychic Overload

Nim Abomination

Scavenging Scarab

Echoing Ruin

Arcbound Bruiser

Arcbound Stinger x2

Genesis Chamber

This is what i really played, and I never drew my 3rd pick mask of memory, and well, my opponents deck was a lot better. Because the guy to his right had never seen the set before. Both sets. So his deck is pretty yummy, and mine is one step away from being completely weak.

Anyway, I lost in 2 quick games, despite how slow I was playing to make it last. But I had a good time, and learned a lot.

Maybe next time I can make the final push in the top 8, and not have to play mirrodin sealed again.

Old PTQ Reports

I found a couple of my old PTQ reports hiding on the internet archive. I'm reposting them here as an interesting look back in time. The first comes from a pre-banning extended ptq in 2003 (right after PT Tinker) that I played in New Orleans. Enjoy!


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'Twas the night before Christmas when I realized I had gone a week without playing Magic. This was very odd, and it didn't look like i would be able to play until the Friday night draft. What to my wondering eye should appear? An email from my buddy Justin Hohenstein. It seems that some of the crew were going to make the trip to Louisiana and play in the last PTQ where all the brokeness was legal. I sent a reply saying I would go if I was back from the family trip to Dallas.

I returned Thursday evening, so then on Friday I had to find a deck to play. I toyed with the idea of playing the mono-blue Nether-Go deck like we played last year, but I was soon persuaded to play Red Deck Wins. Unfortunately, Michael Musser was out of town and I couldn't borrow cards. I made a few calls and soon had the cards for this list:

4 Jackal Pup

4 Slith Firewalker

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Blistering Firecat

4 Volcanic Hammer

4 Firebolt

4 Seal of Fire

4 Pillage

4 Tangle Wire

4 Chrome Mox

4 Wooded Foothills

2 Bloodstained Mire

6 Mountain

4 Rishadan Port

4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

1 Forest

4 Naturalize

4 Lava Dart

3 Sulfuric Vortex

2 Psychogenic Probe

1 Rack and Ruin

The maindeck is pretty standard, and probably perfect given the expected metagame. The sideboard is pretty janky because I had a limited card pool. Naturalize is to bring in against decks that want you to Chill out, Lava Dart is my favorite burn spell so I had to play 4, though 2 or 3 is probably right. I played Vortex because I didn't have access to Cursed Scrolls, but it gave me something to bring in against the rock or dump truck decks, as well as when scroll would normally come in. The probes were there for Twiddle-Desire, so they were pretty useless.

The metagame was really odd considering that this was the last time people could play decks with Tinker, Monolith, and such. (As an aside about the bannings, I feel most everything was covered, though I still think Chrome Mox, Mind's Desire, and Mana Severance should have been on the list as well. See my last article.) There were maybe 4 Tinker decks, 2 of those the Welder version, and 1 a crazy white version with Enlightened Tutor and Leonin Abunas played by Taylor Williams, who was in my car on the ride over. There was no Twiddle-Desire, Angry Hermit, or Oath at all. The rest of the field was RDW, Psychatog, and the Rock, as well as the above average amount of rogue decks, because this was Baton Rouge. There was also 5 or 6 people playing Dump Truck.

Round 1 - Jackson Price - Psychatog

Game 1 he gets a turn 1 scepter on fire/ice, and then has the mana leak for both of my pillages even though he was stuck on 1 land and a mox. My continuous drawing of the mana sources did not help. Game 2 I force through a vortex, and when he is at 11 I cast a morph. He has scepter on counterspell, but only 3 land open. He brainstorms in response, then says that it resolves. He had no red mana open, so he could be trying to ice or edict my firecat. I think about it and call his bluff (he may have just forgot to counter it) and he had nothing and took 7. 2 turns later vortex did him in. Game three my early beats don't look to be enough when he gets 2 togs out, but he can't get lethal damage fast enough, and is one point short when I attack for the win. He double blocks my jackal pup, and pumps his tog so that i will die. I explain that my firecat kills him first before the ability triggers, and I start my day with a match win.

2-1

1-0

Round 2 - Teddy Morrow - The Rock

This guy stayed in our room at regionals this past year, so i wasn't completely unfamiliar with him. Game 1 I play a turn 1 slith with 2 moxes because i had no red lands. All that i had left in hand was a wasteland and a port, but after I topdeck tangle wire, he dies while only casting 2 spells. Game 2 was much the same, as a few wastelands and ports keep him from casting anything more than 3cc stuff. There wasn't much he could do either game. When I turn in the result slip, I see that I am the first one done. I like this deck!

2-0

2-0

Round 3 - Ronnie Jones - Psychatog

Ronnie is from Dallas, and I know from playing him at states he's a pretty good player. Game 1 wasn't that interesting, as I get him to 2 before he kills me. Game 2 is only interesting because I forced through a turn 3 vortex, but he wishes for boomerang right before he dies and kills me. I am not sure who is favored in this matchup.

0-2

2-1

Round 4 - Carlos Moreno - Tinker Stax

At the beginning of the match he complains when I pile shuffle his deck, and asks a judge to shuffle my deck. I feel this is kind of insulting, especially considering he was using transparent sleaves and had several cards that were beat up and easily distinguishable in his deck, so I tell the judge and get him to change sleaves. Game 1 he draws 4 Welders, and I draw 3 Tangle Wires to keep them from doing anything. Game 2 I lose to Platinum Angel - Lightning Greaves, and I realize I need to board in my lava darts to kill his welders. Game 3 I destroy his first 3 or so artifacts and we both end up in topdeck mode. He gets a Masticore out, but then I draw Naturalize and am able to use it when he attempts to untap his monolith end of my turn, leaving only 1 mana open to regenerate. Then he draws Bosh, but I top deck once again with Pillage. Soon a couple of Lavamancers take him down. After the match we both apologize about the pre-match shenanigans, and return to friendly terms ! later on in the day when we play a few games for fun. So the lesson is when you make someone spend ten dollars on new sleaves, try to at least act like you are sorry. Or something like that.

2-1

3-1

Round 5 - Devin Manuel - The Rock

He cast a total of 2 spells the entire match. Game 1 he didn't draw a green source until really late, and I had drawn all 4 of my ports. Game 2 is fairly similar as he is discarding cards from his hand due to lack of mana on turn 5. This lets my creatures do whatever they want, and they want to kill him.

2-0

4-1

Round 6 - Joseph Falcon - The Rock

I check the standings because my travel buddies want me to play so they could have a chance at 4-2, but I don't think either of them will make it, and I would much rather have the Rock be one of my opponents in the top 8 than either of their decks, so we ID.

ID

4-1-1

Quarter Finals - Adam Case - Monogreen Beatdown

I am the 6th seed in the top 8, so I get to play the Mono Green beatdown deck. I am worried about this matchup because he has Nimble Mongoose and Troll Ascetics. Game 1 I kill his early mongrel with a hammer, and then get a Tangle Wire to resolve. This clears ths way for my Slith Firewalker who gets to be a 4/4 by the time he can cast his troll. He doesn't have regeneration mana so he has to chump. Game 2 i draw all 4 Jackal Pups, but his 2 Trolls let him stabalize. He can never attack though without me killing him on my turn. At some point he looks to plow under 2 of my 4 mountains to buy some time. I use the 2 lava darts in my hand and then flash them both back to keep from getting time walk twice. 2 turns later i draw the 2nd seal of fire i need to kill him.

Semifinals - Jason Tate - Dump Truck

I played against Jason last time I was in Baton Rouge for a qualifier when he beat me in the Astral Slide mirror. This time we are playing decks that aren't boring to play. Playing first game 1 I mulligan to a 6 card hand with 2 pups, Slith, but only 1 mountain. The other 2 cards were firecats. I keep hoping to draw some land, but all i get is a wasteland before he vindicates my only red source and i die. Game 2 he draws 3 chills, but I had the naturalize for 2 of them, and then I can cast what I want fairly easily. Game 3 he gets turn 1, 2, and 3 chill, and then follows it up with triple vindicate. I only drew 1 naturalize, and soon my only green source was gone.

So I lost in the semifinals of a constructed PTQ again. This time it wasn't due to a huge play mistake on my part, though it may have been because of a mulliganing mistake Game 1. I did have a good time which always seems to happen when you do fairly well. Maybe I can win the next one in Houston. Maybe not.

Time Travel to a Pro Tour in the past?

Earlier today I asked a question on Twitter that I think needs to be discussed in greater than 140 characters. The question was “Knowing what you know now, which PT from the past would you go back to play and have the highest EV?” I had a certain one in mind that I think is best, but I received many responses and I wanted to cover them here.

The “Time Travel to a PT” has been an interesting thought experiment of mine for several years. There are many ways that you can exploit your knowledge gap to gain an edge at these past tournaments. The most obvious way is to just play the deck that won the tournament. If I went to PT Paris with Caw Blade, I would have a very good shot of making the money. But the best team in the world also had Caw Blade for the PT, so it would be a stretch to say I would be a favorite to beat all of them.

Another way to exploit the knowledge gap is to travel to a time where players just weren’t as good. The first PT didn’t require anything other than a phone call to qualify. Early limited PTs are notorious for just an elite few players actually knowing how to draft.

The best way to exploit the knowledge would be to play a deck that is absolutely head and shoulders better than the rest that no one else has. This has actually happened a couple of times, and leads to some of the better scenarios.

I’ve ranked the top options here, with some explanation on each.

6. Worlds 2010 – Any Worlds would be very difficult to get an edge in because of the nature of the multiple formats. 2010 was mentioned because you could play Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, TMS, and no one really did. However, instead of Batterskull or Sword of Feast and Famine you would be limited to Sword of Body and Mind. This might be good enough, and I’m sure playing some games against the winning UB lists you could tell quickly if this was a good idea.

5. Any Limited PT before Tempest –This includes LA 96, Atlanta 96, LA 97, and NY 97. I can’t really say first hand that people were bad at limited before this, and it might be tough going back to a time when sets were designed differently, but I think 20 years of draft theory would help immensely in these tournaments. Maybe not Atlanta since it was sealed deck, but I included it the same.  Tempest release coincided with a pretty sick run of limited PT winners that might be difficult to get through, even with the extra experience: Matt Place (R&D member), Jon Finkel, Dirk Baberowski, Steve OMS (All HoF), with a down tournament of Trevor Blackwell winnings before Michael Pustilnik and Kai Budde. Limited is quite a difficult thing to get an edge on, so I would advise against trying these.

4. PT Austin 2009 – More recent PTs have the problem of being split format, so even if you show up to Austin with Thepths (truly the best deck of the format and for the PT), you would still need to know something about ZZZ draft. I’d say playing Thepths optimally would guarantee a top 50 finish, and if you manage to 4-2 or better the draft you could top 8 and probably easily win the PT. This is a good choice.

3. PT 1 – Play Necro (any build is good enough). Play against a weak field. You could probably top 8 this with several different decks, given the leaps that deck construction theory has gone through since then. Only a couple of factors keep it from being the top spot: the Paris Mulligan rule had not been implemented yet, so more variance, and judging was still poor, so you could just get cheated and not be able to do anything about it (probably a risk for any PT before 2000 based on what I’ve heard over the years). Also the prize money wasn’t as large as the later PTs.

2. PT Chicago 1999 – Bob Maher won with Oath of Druids defeated Free-Spell Necro in the Finals. Both of these decks are pretty good, but not as good as fully powered Illusions-Donate.  I’m not sure you always win the PT, since Duress and Unmask were widely played, but you probably win more often than not.

1. PT Los Angeles 2005 – Sometimes I think about it, and I’m surprised it took two months for Dredge to be the best deck, but some of the PT lists were pretty close. Billy Moreno made the finals on the strength of dredge, and Craig Jones was undefeated day one with a similar list. Kenji’s Dredgeatog list from the top 8 wasn’t really a dredge deck but it recognized some of the broken aspects of the mechanic. However, none of these decks were Friggorid. There also wasn’t any graveyard hate available since Leyline of the Void wasn’t printed until the next set. I think the Ichorid deck would top 8 99+% of the time, and win the tournament 95% of the time. This is the best bet. All of the deck lists for the tournament are available on the coverage site, so if you want to prove me wrong you just have to play 2000 matches or so.