2009 Pro Tour Format Change

I like it. I have yet to play on a PT but hope to next year (really looking forward to Ext and limited PTQ seasons). Limited and constructed are both ways to play Magic. Both are also imperfect.

There are two big downsides to high level limited events and they are linked.

First up is the coverage, I love limited but I willingly admit that it is less interesting to follow along with. The flow of games in more random as most cards are singletons in their respective deck. Looking at winning decklists is also dull. Watching drafts can be cool but that is about it.

The second major stumbling block is connected. The Pro Tour has one over-arching purpose to help WOTC sell Magic cards. Constructed is amazing at this, Tamogoyf rocking every format known to man increased the demand for Future Sight boxes. People watching at home check how many Figures of Destiny to build the latest deck. Limited does do this. No one sees a winning limited deck and says "man I should buy some packs to draft with."


Combing both formats in every PT gets around these downsides. Even in the PT with a t8 draft each year there will be undefeated and t8 constructed decklists. The constructed will make coverage more interesting and help Wizards move more cards. I also think combing formats will make the PT more interesting and challenging.

Many Magic players are regarded as limited or constructed specialists. The best of these cross over. Two great examples are Wafo-Tapa and Kenji. Both were regarded as some of the best constructed players in the world. Their limited game was not bad but it was not where they were making t8s. They both however changed this. Kenji improved so much he was voted into the 2007 Invitational as the Limited Master. Guilluame Wafo-Tapa made t8 of the last Limited PT, Kuala Lumpur.

Combining formats forces players to adapt or fare poorly at PTs. This I think is good, PTs are the highest level of Magic. You can still do well at GPs with just constructed or limited skills but to be the best or the best you'll need both.

Last PTQ of the Season

Last weekend I battled at my second local PTQ to disappointing results. Turbo report:

Pre r1: I had to dig in my box of cards for Arbiters of Knollridge to loan out, this made me smile.

R1: UW Merfolk as would be a trend my opponent clued me into his deck by shuffling it in my direction. I kept a Nameless/Peppersmoke/Shriekmaw hand thinking this would be good versus him. I never drew a non Mistbind Clique Faerie. g2&# I maul his out of date list.

2-1
1-0

R2: 5c Control Don't remember much of the match but I think I got it in three. He was a solid player but I think a slight underdog in this matchup.

2-1
2-0

R3: Faeries, was playing versus a local guy. I mulliganed into good hands he did not. The faeries mirror match is luck based if both players know what to do, he did not.

2-0
3-0

R4: Faeries, another mirror again versus an opponent who probably had 1/10th or fewer the games I have with the deck/mirror.

2-0
4-0

r5: Faeries, I get him g1 in a drawn out affair, drawing both my maindeck Peppersmokes was nice.

G2 I punt. Twice. First time I Peppersmoke a blocker pre combat to try and get in with Mistbind, he had just topdecked a Spellstutter. I then attack with Stillmoon which he is able to trade a Mutavault for. A few turns later (he topdecks business every turn I might add) I put him on Mistbind Clique but don't play another Stillmoon pre combat. On my last turn of the game (15 or so) I topdeck a 3rd blue source for my Cryptic Commands in hand. He is on one life after Bitterblossom resolves and clearly the last card he drew was another Spellstutter. My fault but man did he have to get lucky to capitalize on it.

Here is the other issue he has played very slowly and we have 4 minutes for g3. I draw about one match a PTQ where I don't call my opponent on slow play in g1 or 2. So yeah he mulls to four and I play to win. I go all-in on Stillmoon beats only to have him cast a turn four Sower off his mull to 4. This goes back and forth and I end the game about two turns short of killing him.

1-1-1
4-0-1

R6 5c Control: I play the winner of the event here. G1 I maul him with BB. G2 I have triple Consign to Dreams for his Colossus but that gets me no where and I loose to a pair of 4/4 Changelings. g3 I don't remember except that he had a savage topdeck that won it. He is a nice guy who I kinda know and admitted he got lucky there. :(

4-1-1

R7 Doran?: I play a green deck, I loose knocking me from t8 contention.

4-2-1

R8 Shamans: I win g1, g2 there are 6 Wolf-Skull Shamans played/reanimated. g3 I win.

5-2-1
17th

Well there were two issues this PTQ. I punted r5 in so many ways for the draw. Second I didn't catch much luck in 8 rounds I had t1 Thoughtseize t2 Bitterblossom twice. Wanted to PTQ this weekend but low on funds to looks like Berlin is a no-go.

The format was so-so it was better than first thought and the last few weeks were good but overall Wizards needs to test 2 drops more.

EEE

Well after vowing not to play it several times I've done five EEE drafts. As I'm 14-1 in matches it is hard to stay away. I was 12-0 but then came the draft where I mulliganed more often than not and was mana screwed in every game of the finals. I also was 0/7 on removal in g3 of the finals, can't win em all.

I don't really have much advice for doing well in the format. Everyone knows mimics are sick and my best decks have been loaded with them. That said solid decks, tight play, and removal can beat mimics. Some of the uncommons are also amazing, most drafts I go black I've picked up a Soul Snuffers which just destroys the format as most creatures are x/1 or 2/2. To try and see what has been key to my success I've compared my five decks below.

Deck # Colors Mimics God Auras Removal Lands
1 R 2/1 2/0 2 16
2 Wr 4/3 2/0 4 16
3 GB 4/2 1/1 2 17
4 Bg 4 1 4 17
5 Bg 2/1 2/1 6 16

It should also be noted that all of the black and white focused decks were running BW mimics and BW cards as their base. I think the BW mimic is the best, the other cards in its colors are good, its god aura is great, and it gets 4 power and evasion. My first deck looking back was the worst as it didn't have much of anything impressive. The other four were all very solid offering explosive starts or lots of removal.

I think that I'll keep EEEing as long as it remains up after the restart today. Look for me to post a MED II review later this week.

Couple Cards

Made a few cards figured I'd post them here. Card on the left is for PureMTGO's August make a card contest which wants you to make a zombie card. I think this is a nice "fixed" version of Recurring Nightmare with some flavor added.











Mishra is an attempt to make a few cards to try in the cube. I could see doing trying Endless Horror also. Mishra's pump ability is kinda cool because it can be hard to use, I'd love to see someone pump him and mana burn just cause they needed to do it. I would also love to see:
Turn one Chrome Mox, land.
Turn two land, Mishra, Grim Monolith.
Turn three, Tolarian Academy, hardcast DSC.

His second ablity is pretty basic but solid. His ultimate hits both graveyards because why not but seems fine in the late game.



Next up is another planeswalker who I made mainly because I really liked the art. This is based on the planeswalker (I think) from Ice Age and I like her abilities.

First up she is super aggressively costed at GG. You can cast her turn two and use he as a Hunting Wilds over the next two turns. You can also start stunting your opponent's mana development while working your way up to her ultimate and a one-sided Armageddon.





Next up are a few cards I made playing with echo. Despite two blocks with it I think there are still plenty of places for it to go.

Screaming Zombie is an attempt to make another one drop for a suicide black deck in the cube, and I think it fits the theme.








Mercenary Goblin is a take on FTK/Fire Imp type creatures. I was going to word it "when you pay Mercenary Goblin's echo cost" but figured I might as well open it up. This is another card that is looking at cube use but would make a great cycle in an echo using set.









I wanted a echo card with X but it is fairly hard to make an X effect in echo that is not to powerful or weak. I decided to cheat by making it XX. Like the goblin this is a card where the opponent wants to kill it before you pay echo, unlike most echo cards.

R1 0-2 Loss to 1650

Deck:
12 Plains
5 Islands

Niveous Wisps
Last Breath
Mistmeadow Witch
Safehold Elite
Safehold Sentry
Sonomancer x2
Consign to Dream
Scuttlemutt
Ballynock Cohortx2
Kitchen Finks
Thistledown Duo
Spectral Processionx2
Repeal Intruders
Watchwing Scarecrow
Barrenton Cragtreads
Biting Teher
Resplendant Mentor
Twilight Sheppard

Game one I kept two land missed a ton of land drops and then got Wild Swing'd. Still would have been it it as he had no creatures and I had Repeal Intruders but I missed my one turn window to hit four mana and lost. Game two I mull five lands into four and die with two lands in hand like 15 turns later.

Argh. This was after going 5-1 in my last two drafts with unplayable decks.

Draft Post Tomorrow

Too late to post tonight but I did a draft and won with a mostly mono white deck. The deck and draft was mostly unremarkable (few interesting picks) but I want to test out a post using the draft recorder. There is a good chance this will be my last SSS draft as Monday sees Eventide which means drafts before the end of the week.

Also planning on playing in the Classic event tomorrow with a spicy deck so will post on that as well.

Few Updates

First up we've got the latest patch notes for MODO, Eventide comes out next week and a lot of new features are being added.

The changes of note:

Swiss Pairings have been adjusted. Undefeated players should no longer be paired down inappropriately.

Draft Recorder – a user’s draft picks will be written to a local file. The feature can be activated in the Gameplay Settings scene. The files are written to the application data folder for the windows user account that is in use. The filenames will identify the MOL account that was drafting the cards.

The My Games dock will now display a client side list of games that have been played on that machine. This is really My Games Light; server based My Games lists currently have too much impact on system performance.

Users may note that there are 3 new play lobbies in the system. Casual Drafts, Sealed Swiss Queues, and Daily Events. These rooms will not be hosting any events until after the August 13th build. Specific information on how the rooms will be used will be included in the FAQ for the Eventide release events. Briefly, Daily Events will be used to maintain the normal event schedule separate from the Release Events in the Premier Events room. Sealed Swiss Queues would host the 32 player release events and would fire when full rather than on a schedule. The 32 player swiss queues are still being tested and are not a certainty yet for the EVE release. Casual Drafts would host 0K, no prize drafts from queues.

Hybrid cards will now be hidden during a draft if all of their colors have been hidden. (Example: Silkbind Faerie will be hidden if both “Hide Blue cards” and “Hide White cards” have been selected).

Tournament match scores are updated as games complete.

That last one should have happened long ago but I'm still happy to get it. The Draft Recorder sounds pretty slick and I plan on now posting some draft walkthroughs here. Hopefully someone will write a little program that turns the .txt file into a draftcap like visual showing.



In other news I have decided to add the cycle of hybrid lands to my cube. I'm currently 2/10 on foiling them and will wait to add them till I have 7 or 8 foiled. Also picked up a few cards on ebay I'd been needing for it, most notably a foil Kokusho.



Lastly there is a PTQ in Philly this weekend that I plan on going to. Bringing the fae maindeck is set with one or two sideboard slots still up in the ait. Hopefully can carpool with someone to avoid getting blown out on tolls and gas.