Sadistic Skymarcher was one of the best individual cards in my vampire deck, so I tried my best to protect it. Sometimes you have to play your best stuff and just hope they don't have the answer, but what about when you know that they have the answer?
I had Skyblade of the Legion in play and Sadistic Skymarcher in my hand, and my opponent played a card with explore, which required him to reveal the top card of his library and either keep it or put it in his graveyard. The card was Plummet, and he kept it on top. So I played other cards for a couple turns and held back Sadistic Skymarcher, and he eventually used Plummet on the much less useful Skyblade, allowing me to safely cast the Skymarcher.
In a separate instance, I had a Skymarcher and a vampire in hand to reveal, but I chose to pay the extra mana to cast Skymarcher instead of showing my vampire. There are times when it would have been better to leave the mana open and represent a 1-mana card in hand, but in this case I decided to withhold information from the opponent. It seems like a simple thing, but sometimes having more information than the other guy can make a big difference in how they play.
Ok, so now, Grand Prix Houston Day 1! The Main Event!
The Main Event
Well, first I visited the Prize Wall because I've heard the prizes get kind of sparse the longer you wait. I blew my 170 tickets on a couple sideboard staple cards for Modern.
For the main event, we started by sitting at our assigned tables (alphabetically by last name), and each of us got a deck box like this:
When we were all set up, everyone opened their deck boxes and found a folded up decklist printout, a clear plastic bag of cards with a serial number matching the decklist, and our Mutavault participation promo card. Unlike the Last Chance Trial, the list showed only the cards that were actually in our pool, so we didn't have to go through the opening, counting, and tabulating process. We just checked that the list matched the cards. Judges came around and noted who had each serial numbered packet.
Then, 30 minutes for deckbuilding. In the Trial, I had a very clear linear vampire deck with very few rares that accumulate value over time, and no mana fixing, so it was easy to put together my deck with time to spare. For the main event, my pool was much more difficult to parse. I only had 10 blue cards, so that was out -- except I had great mana fixing, so if I wanted to play a few, I could have. White was similar. So I was stuck between red, black, and green, with several multicolor cards that I also wanted to play. As time was running out (2 minutes left), I realized that I had only marked 22 nonland cards on my sheet and I had 23 nonlands in my actual cards. I tried to find the missing card on the list, and when I couldn't find it, I figured out and marked my basic lands (which was also tough because I had 4 nonbasic lands and needed to split the other 13 between 4 colors). Then I went back to the list and realized it was Shapers of Nature that I hadn't marked, and I filled in the last details on my sheet with a judge standing over me waiting. And that's how I ended up with this 4-color mess:
I had an additional moment of panic after turning in the deck sheet when I realized I had two double-faced cards in my deck and my sleeves aren't fully opaque, so I had to hunt through my token box for the checklist cards to replace them. Playing a DFC without opaque sleeves is considered the same as using a marked card, which constitutes cheating. One of the guys from my local game store actually got a game win in this Grand Prix because a judge noticed his opponent had a DFC in a non-opaque sleeve, so it was a real concern and I'm glad I caught it in time.
Here are the back sides of the two flip cards, both of which provide great long-game value. One of the hardest things to manage was when to use the scry ability on Treasure Map. You really want it to flip early, but you also don't want to hinder your curve too much.
The other big payoff in the deck was Needletooth Raptor, so I prioritized ways to make it take damage without dying, and of course Journey/Atzal, which allows it to die multiple times. The biggest problems with this deck were that it was slow (3 lands that enter tapped, multiple mana sinks) and complicated with very little early game defense. All my 2-drops were offensive creatures that don't block well. Jade Bearer is a 1-drop that I'd rather play on turn 4 or 5 to pump up a hexproof merfolk (Jungleborn Pioneer's token or Jade Guardian).
Here was my primary sideboard. After I figured out how to play my deck by losing in Round 1, I did a lot of sideboarding, and my deck was usually much better in games 2 and 3 than in Game 1 (when I was required to play the deck I registered).
Cards like Orazca Raptor (3/4 for 2RR) are usually not very good cards in Limited, but I found that almost everyone had 3/3 creatures, and the Raptor could block well unlike my early game creatures (which I often partially sided out). It also made a good attacker with Mark of the Vampire if I couldn't find one of my hexproof creatures. Dire Fleet Poisoner came in occasionally when I felt like I needed another good surprise -- I often took out Buccaneer's Bravado after the opponent had seen it, and Poisoner gave me a change-up kill spell that people didn't expect at all. Crushing Canopy came in any time I saw fliers or enchantments worth killing, or even just against any white or blue deck. Shake the Foundations was bad against my own low-drops, but it's a great play with Needletooth Raptor, so I put it in and took out some of the 1/1's and 2/1's when I saw the opponent using cards like Call to the Feast (which makes three 1/1 vampires).
By the way, you can see my results online HERE. I don't know how long this page stays up after the tournament is over.
Round 1 vs. Aaron Tobey.
He was ready to go and not very talkative, so I assumed he was probably a tournament regular. I had an untested mess of a deck full of cards I knew to be intrinsically good but had never actually played with before. I was also still jittery from my last second deck registration and had a ton of other things on my mind, like not playing too slowly, not missing triggers, not knocking my cards off the top of my deck with my elbow, and so on. I was getting into my groove and partway through game 1 I played Unclaimed Territory. He said "what are you naming?" I looked at it and realized I had gone through the entire deckbuilding process under the assumption that it was Unknown Shores, which is common and looks almost identical to Unclaimed Territory:
Kind of a design fail, right? I told Aaron that I honestly thought it was Unknown Shores when I built my deck, and since my deck had merfolk, pirates, dinosaurs, and other random stuff in it, so I just looked at my hand and just picked what I thought was most useful. I don't remember a lot of the other particulars of the match, but I ended up losing 0-2 in two semi-competitive games. The clock was projected on the wall, so I was able to track the time, and the games were going at a reasonable pace. In future rounds I tried to set myself up on the side of the table facing the clock.
Aaron ended up going 4-3 after a strong 3-0 start.
Round 2 vs. Glen Guan.
Loser's bracket time! Glen was playing some similar cards to me, but he was Temur (blue-red-green), mostly in red-green. In game 1 I had Strength of the Pack and was able to set up an attack that crippled his position to a point where he had very few possible ways out, but he followed up with his own Strength of the Pack and attacked back for the win. In game 2 I mulliganed to 6 and he went down to 5. I had my sideboard plan figured out at this point, and I got off to a good start and rolled him. In game 3, he kept a 1-land hand and was stuck for several turns, which was good for me because my hand had 3 tap lands (Foul Orchard and 2 Evolving Wilds) and I got off to a slow start as well. But my slow start was better than his, and I managed to blow him out on defense with a Dire Fleet Poisoner out of the sideboard. Orazca Raptor with Mark of the Vampire, also both from the sideboard, made for an unstoppable force. Win, 2-1.
Glen dropped at 0-2.
Round 3 vs. Stephen Wilcox.
Stephen was on white-black vampires, with lots of combat tricks and Profane Procession as his big payoff. In game 1 he got Profane Procession down, and for a while all I had going for me was a Jade Guardian (hexproof), but eventually I had to play other creatures and lose to the Procession. I sideboarded toward my hexproof creatures, keeping anything that could make them bigger. And it worked! In game 2 I was able to keep up with his lifegain effects and out-value him, and in game 3 I built a giant Jade Guardian with Mark of the Vampire, and by the time I won I was at 41 life. Win, 2-1.
Stephen played 7 rounds but only won 2 of them for a 2-5 record.
Round 4 vs. Matthew Goslar.
Matthew was on Mardu (white-black-red) vampires? This time I got the game 1 win for once. In game 2 I was too slow and game 3 was going the same way when I got to an interesting point. He had 3 creatures and I had one creature with Luminous Bonds. I was at 1 life. I looked at the cards in my hand and realized I could survive the next turn if he didn't have any other attackers, and I cast Journey to Eternity and passed the turn. As it turned out, he played a big creature with haste (Charging Monstrosaur), so I ended up losing anyway, but can you solve the puzzle below? You have Fanatical Firebrand with the two enchantments on it, and you have 1 red mana available and Reckless Rage in your hand. The three white creatures are attacking. How do you survive the turn? The answer is below the picture.
There are two sequences that both work. The one I used was:
- Sacrifice Firebrand to do 1 damage to Paladin, killing it. Journey to Eternity returns Firebrand to play, and Journey returns flipped over.
- Go to blockers and block a Legion Conquistador.
- Cast Reckless Rage, targeting the other Conquistador and the Firebrand. Both die.
- The other Conquistador was blocked, so you take 0 damage.
Alternately, you can cast Reckless Rage in step 1 and sacrifice Firebrand in step 3, with the same result. The best part is that now your opponent has lost two creatures, and you get to untap with Atzal, Cave of Eternity to return a creature to play next turn. In the long run, I could have conceivably gotten back into the game, but as Journey to Eternity says, "Every journey has its inevitable end..." Loss, 1-2.
Matthew went 5-3 with a round 8 loss, just missing the cut to go to Day 2.
It was about 2 PM, so I decided it was time for some lunch. Yum.
Round 5 vs. Anselmo Rodriguez.
I had actually played Anselmo in the Last Chance Trial on Friday and won, so this was a bit of a coincidence. He was late to sit down on Friday, and he was also late for the Saturday round. As they started the clock, I turned around and caught a judge's attention, but he pointed behind me and Anselmo was just arriving. Failing to show up at the start of your match is a game loss, but he was just in time. Anselmo was on Esper (white-blue-black) vampires -- by this time it felt like basically everyone was playing some variation of vampires. He beat me in game 1, but in game 2 I started to pick up some steam and I felt good about my chances. Then he played Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, the white elder dinosaur (4/8 flying, indestructible, vigilance, double strike, trample). There are very few ways to deal with Zetalpa, and I had none of them, so I quickly fell. Loss, 0-2.
Anselmo also went 5-3 with a round 8 loss to just miss the cut.
At 2-3 I dropped out of the tournament. My game record was 5-8, which I'm fine with considering it was my first GP and considering how messy my deck was. Here are the value cards and rares from my sealed pool. Unclaimed Territory is shockingly up to about $3.50 with lots of demand from Standard, Modern, and Commander. The Poisoner and Journey are both around $3. Blood Sun is about $5. Treasure Map is about $2. Interesting side note on Awakened Amalgam, a generally maligned card in this set -- I almost felt like it was good enough to play in my deck, since I could get as many as 9 different lands in play (including the flipped DFC's), and often had 4 - 5 different lands during my games. Maybe I should have played it, since I was getting good use from cards like Orazca Raptor. Anyway, this seems like a pretty good sealed pool for value, somewhere in the $18 - $20 range overall. Over the long haul, it will probably drop off a bit.
Freed from the rigors of Competitive REL Magic, I headed over to the side event registration area to find one more fun thing to do. They only needed one more person to start an Iconic Masters draft, so I jumped in on that. As it turned out, most of the people in this draft had also just lost and dropped from the main event at 2-3 also. The judge helping out in the on-demand area was a guy who plays at my local store, so that was kind of cool too.
So let's switch gears and draft some IMA!
Iconic Masters Draft
Here is what I drafted, from bottom left to top right:
In addition to looking like a complete badass, Sheoldred is sickening value if you can get her onto the battlefield, and she's also a $10 card, so my first pick was very easy. Malfegor seemed like he might also fit into a Sheoldred deck, despite being another expensive card to cast, and after a third-pick Draconic Roar, I prioritized dragons and mana producers. Black and red both seemed pretty open, and I got better removal spells than I expected. Guttersnipe turned out to be an amazing pick near the bottom of Pack 1 -- more on that in a minute.
Pack 2 Pick 1 had nothing exciting, so I drafted the rare land. As you can see, my second pick from that pack (9th overall) was an unexciting Tormenting Voice. Two more big dragons, Hoarding Dragon at 3rd pick and Bladewing the Risen at 5th pick, confirmed that my dragon deck was completely available. Dragons of Tarkir was supposed to have a "dragon deck" possible in draft, but they messed it up by making all the good dragons rare and spreading the dragons across all five colors. Iconic Masters fixed the problem by making a true dragon deck possible with dragon enablers, mana ramp, and big powerful dragons show up often enough in black and red, and that was the deck I was gunning for.
Pack 3 Pick 1 was disappointing again, and I was perfectly happy to money-draft Austere Command over the middling-to-bad red and black cards. The rest of Pack 3 was more filler than fuel for the dragons deck, but it gave me some good sideboard options.
Here is the deck in the form I played most:
And here are some of the built-in synergies that made it really tick:
I only had 5 cards with creature type dragon, but that turned out to be enough to reliably turn on the extra text of Foul-Tongue Invocation and Draconic Roar. What really made it dirty though was Guttersnipe. Now, instead of Draconic Roar saying "kill a small creature," it says "kill a small creature and do 5 damage to the opponent." Similarly, Foul-Tongue Invocation kills a creature, gains 4 life, and does 2 damage. Nasty.
Here are my most-used sideboard cards. The top row are aggressive cards in case I ended up against a controlling opponent, and the bottom row is some situational cards for specific matchups.
This was a single-elimination 8-player draft, so it went 3 rounds. I was a little concerned about the level of competition because I was spreading my cards face-up on the table like people normally do at FNM, and the other guys were mostly being all secretive and building their decks face down.
Round 1 vs. Ed.
Ed had a Grixis (blue-black-red) control/mill deck. In game 1 I got him down to 6, but he kept slowing me down and he eventually used his strong mill effects to empty my library. I sideboarded out most of my removal spells and brought in the aggro package to try to race. In game 2 and 3, my life total stayed at 20 and my plan worked perfectly. One level-up moment came in game 3. I had Hoarding Dragon and Bladewing the Risen in my hand with enough mana to cast Hoarding Dragon, and he had enough mana to cast a counterspell that I had seen in previous games. I ran Hoarding Dragon right into the potential counterspell, and sure enough, he countered it. The next turn, he had tapped down to only 2 mana up, so I knew I was clear to cast Bladewing. Bladewing resolved and Hoarding Dragon came back from the dead. Win, 2-1.
Round 2 vs. Alec.
Alec had a blue-green ramp/wall deck with Assault Formation and some really big green creatures. In one of the games I got my Guttersnipe combo working and was able to outrace and chump block his giant monsters. In the other game I just had too many big fliers over the top -- Dragon Egg worked well because his monsters had to attack into it, and then it could attack for a bunch on the rebound. Win, 2-0.
Round 3 vs. John.
John had a white-blue prowess and Skywise Teachings deck. In the first game I used Malfegor to clear the board and was set up with an advantage. He used Mishra's Bauble to look at the top card of my deck, and sighed in disappointment. I drew Indulgent Tormentor and he didn't have any answers. On my upkeep he took 3 damage from it instead of letting me draw a card, bringing him to 3 life, then I cast Draconic Roar before combat to close the game out. In the second game, he got his Skywise Teachings going with his rebound spells to make lots of 2/2 Djinn Monk fliers. I got Guttersnipe working a bit and picked at the Djinns, and then I dropped Bladewing the Risen to put on the pressure. He had a Claustrophobia for Bladewing, but the next turn I finally got to cast Sheoldred, and he was stuck in eternal chump block mode until he ran out of spells to make Djinns. I closed the game out, and he found a couple good removal spells for Sheoldred were just a couple cards deeper in his deck. Win, 2-0.
So that was a great way to go out, 3-0 with a 6-1 game record. I got 200 prize tix for winning the draft, and I spent them on expensive packs from the Prize Wall:
I did ok but not great on the draft itself. I drafted 4 rare/mythic, which is slightly above average, 9 uncommon, which is exactly average, and 3 foil, which is normal since there is a foil in each pack. Sheoldred is about $10, Austere Command is about $3.50, and Nimbus Maze is about $1.50. So in total, maybe $15 - 17 in value. Unlike the RIX cards, these are much more stable value, with a chance to rise over time.
So, all in all it was a great Grand Prix experience. I didn't play a single game in any constructed format. I got a bunch of useless cards and a few good ones, and I got a bunch of competitive experience. I also learned that my Limited kit with lots of sleeves and pre-sleeved lands is better prep than most people do. I saw people unsleeving old decks just before the main event, and the guy across from me was getting antsy because he needed to go buy sleeves between building his deck and start of the tournament. Everyone was very pleasant and I didn't run into any opponents without good fundamental rules knowledge themselves, so it made for a good play experience. I hope I don't have to wait two years for the next one!
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