This pool was significantly worse; I basically just put together all the removal I had and hoped I could control the board.
I only went 2 and 2 this time though; I lost round one after my opponent hit the cycling off Resounding Thunder before I did. I lost round four in two games - both to a resolved Realm Razer that left me defenseless.
So, 5-3 in eight rounds. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either.
Slops to the venue at Eastwood. The playing area was in the open, it was humid and later in the night we had to play in the dark and with rain pouring on the tents.
Anyway, Alara seems pretty good, especially in limited. The multicolor theme is always fun, and there’s surprisingly a lot of color-fixing available for four or five color decks. However, we probably won’t play at the release party, seeing as how we played the prerelease TWICE.
I’m playing the same deck as I did in the GP Manila Day Two PTQs.
Round 1 vs 5-color merfolk: 2-0 win.
Round 2 vs Kithkin (mirror match) 0-2 loss. I generally don’t know how to play the mirror match.
Round 3 vs 5-color control: 1-2 loss. His build was too strong against Kithkin; in addition to Firespouts and Hallowed Burials, he also had Soul Snuffers.
Drop. Tournament record: 1-2-drop. This turned out to be a mistake, as I found out the following week that X-2 might have had a chance of winning prerelease passes.
I changed the sideboard, taking out the janky Pollen Lullabies and putting in 3 Knight of Meadowgrain to improve my creature battles in the mirror. I also went with +3 Kinsbaile Borderguard, -2 Order of Whiteclay, -1 Crib Swap to better fight mass removal.
Round 1 vs Kithkin (mirror match): 2-1 win. I basically just overloaded with Spectrals and Cloudgoats to take game 3.
Round 2 vs Faeries: 2-0 win. My opponent had what he called “the three-land curse” in game two and hardly put up a fight.
Round 3 vs Unknown deck (no notes): 2-0 win. I’ll update this if I figure it out.
Round 4 vs Switch with 5-color control (Quick and Toast): 2-1 win. Switch and I seem to play each other often if we’re in the same tournament. He won our practice games earlier, but this time I was serious :p
Round 5 vs Monogreen splashing red (Firespout) and black (Thoughtseize, Profane Command): 2-0 win.
Round 6 vs Faeries: 0-2 loss. I kept subpar hands both games. My opponent told me I should be boarding out the Cloudgoat Rangers. Is this true?
Round 7 vs Monoblack: 2-0 win. My opponent is a regular player and we often meet at tournaments, and I’ve borrowed cards from him in the past. One time we happened to be riding the same jeepney together, and he treated me to the jeepney fare, but jokingly said I should give him the win next time we meet in a tournament and I begged off of course. Lolz, lucky.
Tournament result: 5-2, enough for sixth place and a prerelease pass! Free Ajani Vengeant!
For the PTQ on day two, I decided to just use the Kithkin build we made for Paul, except that I put in Stillmoon Cavaliers maindeck, taking out Knight of Meadowgrain. I also fixed up the sideboard a bit. The list I played:
Edit: I forgot that I managed to borrow an Ajani Goldmane on the day of the PTQ and swapped it out for a Wilt-Leaf Liege.
I have a couple more tournament reports to wrap up after this, so I’ll make this quick.
Round 1 vs Faeries: 0-2 loss. The opponent was a guy from HK; luckily I’m pretty used to talking with HK-accented people, so we had almost no communication trouble at all. The only time I couldn’t understand him was when he tried to bounce something using Cryptic Command, I had no idea what the phrase he was using for bouncing was! I made a misplay in game two by playing a Spectral Procession from my hand instead of from under Windbrisk Heights when it was available. I also had a sideboarding problem where I didn’t think he would have Stillmoon Cavaliers (and hence had no Moonglove Extract). Those same cavaliers helped him stabilize at 3 life to take game two.
Round 2 vs Demigod DW: 2-1 win. My opponent didn’t board out Ashenmoor Gougers, which are so bad in this format. He was stuck on three lands for game three, and I had a Forge-Tender on the board to stop Spout, and he couldn’t cast the Soul Snuffers.
Round 3 vs Unknown Deck (I have something scribbled in my notes, but I couldn’t read it!): 2-1 win.
Round 4 vs Gbw No Doran: 0-2 loss. In game three, he had two Stillmoon Cavaliers that I didn’t see at all in the first two games. Those guys went all the way.
Round 5 vs Little Kid GW: 2-0 win. It was fun for the Stillmoon Cavalier to jump on block 5/6 flying indestructible vigilance guys. His two big guys on the board were no match to my seven + Mirrorweave in game one. In game two, apparently he boarded in Runed Halo, which are pretty bad vs Spectral Procession.
Round 6 vs Doran the Explorer: 2-1 win. My opponent drew no Firespouts in game three; he really had no chance here.
Round 7 vs Demigod DW: 2-0 win.
Tournament record: 5-2. I finished the PTQ in 14th place, good enough to win 4 booster packs. My prize rares were: Balefire Liege, Glamerdye, Ashling the Extinguisher, Scarecrone (Not so good)
I watched the finals of the Grand Prix of course. The official coverage is okay, but it doesn’t capture some of the unique FIlipino elements. Even though I was still playing in the PTQ during the quarters, we immediately knew that Luis Magisa had won his match since every Filipino in the crowd watching literally burst into cheers. Contrast to the lackluster clapping when Magisa lost to a Japanese Faerie player in the semis.
During the awarding ceremony, the crowd was very rowdy, chanting “Burger! Burger!” when Luis Magisa accepted his giant check. (Bry would hate that.) The winner of the event, Sugaya pandered to the crowd as well, more than willing to pose for photos after accepting his giant check. (His get-up was ridiculous.)
A lot of players were asking name players such as Tomoharu Saito or Raphael Levy to sign some cards for them; I’m not sure if it’s good for us to treat them that way. They’re Magic celebrities sure, but I don’t think their signature adds anything to the cards. It’s ok to look up to them for their gameplay or deck ideas or what not, but I don’t think we should idolize them or anything - they’re still Magic players like the rest of us, except they’re more willing to devote their time to the game.And someday, we’re going to have to rise up and challenge their dominance of Magic in the Asia-Pacific region.
That’s all for GP Manila, hopefully we can have another big event in the Philippines soon. Props go out to the people at Neutral Grounds for organizing the event and being able to support 600+ people even though the DCI people were only expecting around 400+.
Grand Prix Manila 08 has come and gone and is in the history books. While the Wizards official coverage gives you the play-by-play and the results, I’ll see if I can’t provide any interesting stories about my first constructed Grand Prix event.
Day One Tournament Report
As mentioned in the previous post, I’m playing QnT and I hope to fight aggro decks all day long.
Round 1. I shuffle up with my first round opponent. I keep a two-lander with some good creature control spells. He starts with a Forest and I realize he’splaying some sort of monogreen elves deck. Unfortunately, it was a bad keep for me and my hand never got past the 2 lands. My notes show I never dealt a single point of damage in this game.
I board in Sowers and Austere Commands. For game two, the tides are reversed, as I gain two life off a Kitchen Finks and never change my life total after that. An early Wren’s Run Packmaster that got Sower’ed basically won me the game.
For game three, we didn’t have much time, with barely 15 minutes left in the clock. However, my opponent had to mulligan to four cards, so we started with twelve minutes left on the clock. Not enough time for the control deck to win normally, I instead went aggro with Finks. I sowered the first creature he played - a Wren’s Run Vanquisher, planning to aggro with it. Unfortunately, the very next turn he managed to play out a second Vanquisher AND a Packmaster, following up later turns with two consecutive Colossus, making it difficult to advance on the ground. I had managed to bring him to 3 life by this point, but then he slowly started climbing up in life via Sapseep Forest. We hit time and it was clear neither of us could win in the five extra turns.
I was a bit frustrated at this point since I was wondering whether he took too long in mulliganning, but I realized three minutes for three mulligans seemed reasonable. On the fifth turn I offered “Would you like to concede?” but neither of us would give way so my first round ended in a draw. I was well in control of the game and would have won easily if we only had ten or fifteen more minutes.
This was one thing I had not planned - I would be hitting extra time more often than not; I needed to learn to play faster.
Match Record: 0-0-1
Game Record: 1-1-1
Round 2. He led with Silvergill Adept and mostly islands, so I figured I was up against traditional UW merfolk. Unfortunately not! His deck had loads of card advantage: Silvergill Adept, Wistful Selkie, Sage’s Dousing, Familiar’s Ruse (to reset the Adepts and Selkie!) which made it difficult for me to keep pace with mass removal. He also had the usual Reejerey and Mirror Entity. But the biggest problem for me had to be the Inkfathom Infiltrators, who needed a Firespout to be killed (could not be Shriekmawed!) I eventually lost game three to a pair of Infiltrators that I was unable to answer.
Match record: 0-1-1
Game record: 2-3-1
Obviously not a very good start. However, it could only get better, right? (Famous last words)
Round 3. This one was traditional UW merfolk. I lost game one to an aggro rush, making a mistake of walking a Cryptic Command into a Cursecatcher (curses, haven’t fought against those in a while!) In game two I managed to take control and win the game. In game three, I had a nice hand: 3 lands and four relevant spells (Firepout, Cryptic Command x2, Kitchen FInks). However, all 3 lands were filter lands! I figured it was okay… i had two draws to get there, and drawing any other non-filter lands would get me running. Of course, it turned out to be a bad keep, and I never went beyond those 3 lands.
Match record: 0-2-1
Game record: 3-5-1
At this point I was thinking of dropping since I knew an X-2-1 record wouldn’t make it in, given the high attendance. My opponent seemed to think otherwise, so I decided to proceed. (She later turned out to be wrong)
Round 4. I was facing a ramp-style Doran deck, with Fertile Grounds to accelerate into fatties such as Chameleon Colossus and Cloudthresher. I won game three off playing three Runed Halos (two of them for Chameleon Colossus), and my opponent complained about how he’d been Runed Halo’ed all day.
Yes, I finally won!
Match record: 1-2-1
Game record: 5-6-1
Round 5. He starts out with a Plains and a Stalwart, and I know the enemy. My chances are good as long as he doesn’t have that 1-2-3 punch autopilot draw. Oh wait, yes he did - almost. I stayed alive but had to use up my Shriekmaw to take out a Wizened Cenn, which meant I was helpless against the Burrenton Forge-Tender and Spectral Procession that followed. He got an even more insane draw on the next game; I could only remember that I was unable to fight back.
Match record: 1-3-1
Game record: 5-8-1
At this point I was tired of losing and decided to drop. I remember ticking drop on my result slip, but based on the play history at the DCI webapp, I actually got a match loss for the next round. Huh. Oh well, I don’t feel like contesting it - I’m sure the guy appreciated the free DCI rating points (I lost about 20-30 in that one)
So, my Grand Prix was over - I spent the rest of the day watching my teammates play and watching feature matches. It was great seeing Levy, Saito, Shuhei, etc. in action. The Japanese especially, they make their moves quickly, never hesitating, it’s amazing. We also got some Chameleon Colossuses and Makeshift Mannequins signed by the artist Darrel Riche.
Bonus Tournament Report: Switch playing 5-color Elementals
The following section is unedited from a Yahoo Messenger conversation!
(20:45:21) switch_nftzu: round 1: RDW (with deuses of calamity instead of demigods) 1-2. apparently, this guy went 3-0
(20:45:31) switch_nftzu: round 2: QnT 1-2
(20:45:40) switch_nftzu: round 3: faeries 2-0
(20:45:59) switch_nftzu: round 4: mana acc/landie: 2-1
(20:46:40) switch_nftzu: round 5: doran (though i didn’t know until the last turn, where he played a treefolk harbinger, and i noticed one too many draws) 2-0
(20:47:27) switch_nftzu: round 6: doran 2-0
(20:48:28) switch_nftzu: round 7: RDW 2-1
(20:48:40) switch_nftzu: round 8: cairn wanderer 0-2
(20:56:21) switch_nftzu: round 1: lost in extra turns to a topdecked redcap when i was down to 2: was playing for the draw
(20:56:32) switch_nftzu: round 2: death by oona
(20:49:35) switch_nftzu: wins: rd 3: guy didn’t know how to play the deck (e.g. snakeform on colossus before declaring attacks)
(20:50:19) switch_nftzu: rd 4: win game one, beat down by oversoul & colossus, mull to 5, kill turn 2 and turn 3 devoted druids, he gets stuck on 3 lands long enough for me to bash
(20:51:11) switch_nftzu: rd 5: he had no plays game 1 except for austere command, he mulls to 6 on game two, has 2 lands and 6 cards in hand by turn 2: game loss
(20:52:55) switch_nftzu: rd 6: round after riche signs colossi, they immediately pay dividends by stomping in game 1. game 2 he gets down runed halo on gouger and horde, i get him down to 2 white vivids and 1 black vivid, all with no counters with fulminator mages for a few turns, eventually bash with 8/8 colossus
switch_nftzu: i think he faerie macabres the two fulminator mages in the grave
(20:55:42) switch_nftzu: rd 7: i suppose colossus wins me game 1, last life standings were 11-12 against me. i flag a bit (2 land, smokebraider hand against a deck with spout) and get chomped by demigod. round three: harbinger for smokebraider, smokebraider. he thoughtseizes and chooses colossus over fulminator. i kill his vivid, harbinger for fulminator, kill his next vivid, leaving him with a filterland for maybe 6 turns where i case another smokebraider, mulldrifter and eventually lark to fetch the fulminators to kill his only land and have a fulminator in play
(20:55:49) switch_nftzu: you saw my death in round 8
Indeed, I did see him die in the final round - to a 4/4 Protection from Black, red and white, protection from converted mana cost 3 or greater, first strike, lifelink, vigilance monster. Of course, it was some guy from HK playing with a deck that had Mistmeadow Skulk and Cairn Wanderer! It was quite awesome to behold, and the HK guy was quite ecstatic to win.
Switch finished with a 5-3 record.
Alex unfortunately, dropped out at the same round I did, finishing with a 1-4 record.
Paul was still playing with a long shot of making the top 64. We found him battling a Caucasian guy in a Kithkin mirror match. He was well ahead - having something like eight creatures to his opponents two, and didn’t even bother taking down the opposing Ajani Goldmane instead going straight for the head. After he won the match, his opponent commented that he should have spared two Spirit tokens to take out Ajani, given how comfortably ahead he was - an untimely Spectral Procession might have turned the game around.
Paul just shrugged, enjoying his 6-2 finish. (What a lucksack! :p) Unfortunately, this was only good enough for a 90+ finish, not enough for him to make day two.
Overall Team Snafubar match record: 13-12-1. Alex and I brought the average down, but I think we still had fun playing. This was easily my worst constructed weekend so far, and I would definitely lose somewhere around a hundred points of Constructed rating, but it wasn’t so bad.
We left the mall and decided to crash at a friend’s place. Sometime around 1 AM, I decided to come back the next day to PTQ with Kithkin. I wouldn’t have much sleep, but what the hell - I planned on a 3-day Magic weekend, so I might as well go on with it!
…starts next week.
Taking a break from typing up my Grand Prix Manila blog entries, here’s my prediction for the type of manafixing we’ll see in Alara:
Grixis Land
Land (Common)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
2, T: Add RBU to your mana pool.
Whenever you would add G or W to your mana pool, add 1 to your mana pool instead.
Grand Prix Manila 08 has come and gone and is in the history books. While the Wizards official coverage gives you the play-by-play and the results, I’ll see if I can’t provide any interesting stories about my first constructed Grand Prix event.
Grand Prix Manila, Day Zero
I met up with Switch and Alex at the venue (Megatrade hall in SM Megamall) early and got in by 10 am. I had originally been planning to play the grinders with Kithkin; but since I was planning to play five-color control in the main event I figured I might as well get some practice in and hopefully get 3 byes.
However, I was unable to assemble it in the morning; so I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 minutes to assemble it after signing up for the second trial. The mistake was that I didn’t have a 5-color control decklist to reference, and I built it with only 25 lands. We had to buy Runed Halos from the dealers (they were a bit cheap)
The 25 land count would come back to haunt me, as I kept a two-land hand in the first round of the first trial and never recovered. I believe my opponent then was from South Korea and was playing Doran. I quickly lost and was thus eliminated from the trial.
Stubbornly, I thought it was only bad luck and went in for another trial. In round one I faced a Kithkin player from Singapore. I was able to keep him under control and win in two games. In round two I faced Elementals, a pretty bad matchup for 5-color control in general, but even worse when I only had 25 lands! Two Fulminator mages sealed game one for him, and in game two I managed to get myself hit by Mind Shatter for 5! Obviously I quickly lost and was dropped from the trial.
“Ang brutal naman ng trials!” –Alex
Alex gave it a try as well, playing Kithkin, but lost in round one of his trial as well.
Switch on the other hand, had decided to give limited a try, playing sealed deck in the Super FNM tournament. He only managed a 1-2 record before dropping; at least he had a card pool with a Reflecting Pool!
We spent the rest of the day watching grinders, trading and building a deck for Switch. We had decided to assemble an elementals build for him and the Reflecting Pool he got from the Super FNM would help.
At the end of the day, more than 480 players had signed up for the Grand Prix. The turnout would be larger than expected.
Grand Prix Manila, Day One
Switch, Alex and I again made it to the venue early. Paul made it just before they closed off registration. The turnout was a lot more than expected and the venue couldn’t handle it, so they had to cut the registrants at 640.
These are the decks we played:
Roy, playing Five-Color Knuckle-Breaker Control
I have Call the Skybreaker here because I wanted a finisher and didn’t feel like looking for an Oona. Skybreaker seems like it would be awesome in the long game for the mirror. I almost didn’t play the 3 Broken Ambitions; I initially had 2 Negate and 1 Crib Swap in that slot, but on the way to the venue I figured the early game defense was better.
Switch, playing Elementals
The manabase here is pretty iffy. We basically tossed in whatever spare duals we had and looked for a third Primal Beyond to assemble this deck. Those Colossuses were signed by Darrel Riche after round five!
Paul, playing Mirror Master
Paul came in and I handed him the Kithkin deck he would be playing, and we had a few test games; him so that he actually knows how to play his deck, and me so that I would actually know how to beat Kithkin.
Alex playing Necroskitter
(Alex, this was the last decklist you gave me, just tell me if it’s wrong) The Demigods were a last-minute addition to the sideboard because after building all four decks we didn’t have any deck that would use them. We also had four Bitterblossoms that went unused.
Next: Tournament Reports!
