So this past weekend was the first PTQ Gatecrash in Florida for this season in beautiful Ocoee. Quick aside, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone from Phoenix Games for hosting the event!. Anyways, the morning started out great. I met up with Stephen in the middle of one of his trading endeavors for a foil Liliana of the Veil (I believe he snagged it). I went to Stephen's car like a crack addict about to get his next hit. There, I found it. I picked up.. one of the most epic t-shirts I would ever own.. a CASUAL NET SHIRT!!
Elegant, smooth.. sexy, I know. Stephen did an amazing job on the design and I'm really excited that our group has a logo and an identity. Cheers!
After suiting up like Barney Stinson, I sat down to begin my first qualifier with the dreams of the Pro Tour Gatecrash invite directly in sight. After sitting down around 10:15am, everyone opened their 6 booster packs of M13 and started recording their pulls. I ended up opening a lackluster pool with a noteworthy Elderscale Wurm with no Green support with that 'i dodged a bullet' feeling resonating in my synapses. The judges then instructed us to pass our sealed pool across the table and then to the left two times. After getting my new sealed pool with the hopes of having 6 foil Thundermaw Hellkites in there, I got this. This pool.
Battleflight Eagle
Divine Verdict
Guardians of Akrasa
Pillarfield Ox
Griffin Protector
Pacifism
War Priest of Thune
Silvercoat Lion
2x War Falcon
Rain of Blades
Guardian Lions
Divine Favor
2x Angel's Mercy
Blue (10):
Battle of Wits
Talrand's Invocation
Switcheroo
Encrust
Negate
Courtly Provocateur
Harbor Serpent
Hydrosurge
Index
Scroll Thief
Black (23):
Vampire Nocturnus
Mutilate
3x Crippling Blight
2x Zombie Goliath
Mark of the Vampire
2x Disentomb
2x Mind Rot
Bloodthrone Vampire
Dark Favor
Duty-Bound Dead
Knight of Infamy
Tormented Soul
Servant of Nefarox
Ravenous Rats
Duskmantle Prowler
Cower in Fear
Bloodhunter Bat
Essence Drain
Bladetusk Boar
Chandra's Fury
Furnace Whelp
Reckless Brute
Mogg Flunkies
Crimson Muckwader
Goblin Arsonist
Volcanic Strength
Krenko's Command
Goblin Battle Jester
Kindled Fury
Clever Riot
Wild Guess
Craterize
Smelt
Green (13):
2x Farseek
Revive
2x Yeva's Forcemage
Centaur Courser
Timerpack Wolf
2x Prey Upon
Acidic Slime
Roaring Primadox
Deady Recluse
Titanic Growth
Artifacts (5):
Primal Clay
Ring of Valkas
Ring of Evos Isle
Tormod's Crypt
Trading Post
Lands (2):
Evolving Wilds
Cathedral of War
There are some good solid cards in this pool like Talrand's Invocation and the Cathedral of War, but nothing that really says crushes opponents' dreams like Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis, a planeswalker, or (as you guessed it) the big, bad Thundermaw Hellkite. So, I approached this pool with very strict criteria: 1) I need an aggressive mana cost to play around opponents' 5-7 mana bomb cards; and 2) I need some synergy and staying power to fuel my aggression against the mirror match.
First, I looked at the color with the most playables. In this pool, black has 23 healthy cards, so I decided to start there. I pulled out some of the playables that I liked; keeping my mana cost in mind and favoring cards that were around 1-3 mana over the pair of beefy Zombie Goliaths. Black had a really sweet curve of 1, 2, 3, 4 mana Exalted dudes (and a Cathedral of War too!). Maybe living the dream was in my future this afternoon. The triplet of 3x Crippling Blight was interesting; the card is deceptively very powerful since it kills a lot of the 1 toughness creatures in the format and prevents opposing creatures from blocking which is really important for the aggro-type strategy I'm electing to play. The Mutilate was also really noteworthy, since it helps out in the aggro mirror to kill off the entire board if my opponent over commits (overcommitting in aggro mirros is very common). Good creatures, playable removal spells, a trick here and there. Black as the primary color it is. Deciding on the 2nd color was a little more difficult. Looking at Blue's 10 cards, only 4-5 of them were strong playables with the two best ones (Talrand's Invocation and Encrust) being UU to cast, I decided it wasn't really worth it. This left Red (15), Green (13), and White (15) to choose from.
Red: Offers Crimson Muckwader, a couple aggressive creatures, one swingy card (Clever Riot) strong sideboard cards (Craterize and Smelt), and no hard removal spells
Green: 2x Prey Upon, a combat trick (Titanic Growth), and dudes at a low mana cost.
White: Higher mana cost, two hard removal spells (Pacifism and Divine Verdict), and strong evasive creatures.
Final Decklist that I registered:
1x Duty-Bound Dead
1x Tormented Soul
1x Ravenous Rats
1x Timberpack Wolf
1x Deadly Recluse
1x Knight of Infamy
2x Yeva's Forcemage
1x Centaur Courser
1x Servant of Nefarox
1x Duskmantle Prowler
1x Primal Clay
1x Roaring Primadox
1x Bloodhunter Bat
1x Acidic Slime
Spells (8):
2x Crippling Blight
2x Prey Upon
1x Titanic Growth
1x Cower in Fear
1x Mutilate
1x Essence Drain
Lands (17):
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Cathedral of War
7x Forests
8x Swamps
This was a tough pick between White and Green. I finally opted for Green because of the 2x Prey Upon. The hard removal spell is very difficult to play around and usually works really well with the larger Green creatures in the format. Prey Upon also works incredibly with the Exalted mechanic that I had quite a few of from the Black pool. The White evasive creatures were very tempting. Exalted is phenomenal when your opponents can't block the creature. Unfortunately, the White fliers are relatively small for their mana cost, so they die easily in the aggro mirror, and without any back up from the relatively frail Black creatures, aggressive archetypes like R/W and R/G would be a real problem. My Green pool looked well suited to have a strong early game with enough dudes and a low enough curve to clog the ground. One issue with combat on the ground for M13 are the two popular death touch creatures: Deadly Recluse and Giant Scorpion. How would my Green creatures without evasion overcome Deathtouch creatures? The answer: Crippling Blight. This deceptively high impact enchantment nullifies the more common Deadly Recluse and Giant Scorpion that you'll see between turns 2-4 that could put a halt to my early aggression. With access to 3 copies of blight not only prevents some of my opponents' creatures from blocking, but it gives them 0 power and turns off any opposing Prey Upons. Pretty sweet.
The Green also offered a Roaring Primadox engine that I really, really wanted to work. I've tried to get the engine to work in draft before, but it crashed and burned miserably. The problem with my first iterations of the engine was the lack of strong 'enter the battlefield' triggers. My first iterations were trying to use Elvish Visionary and Bond Beetle as cheap targets to bring back for incremental advantage. Unfortunately, playing 1/1 creatures in the early game doesn't apply enough pressure and didn't work out very well. With this deck, I have an interesting package of a pair of Yeva's Forcemage, Bloodhunter Bat, resetting Primal Clay, Acidic Slime and Ravenous Rats. I think this package was a lot stronger than what I normally paired Roaring Primadox with. Using this engine with Bloodhunter Bat or Yeva's Forcemage to push in the read zone gives so much reach in the mid/late game that I thought would be really strong against dedicated control strategies that stabilized at low life totals. My only reservation to using the primadox was that single copy of Trading Post that is also conveniently 4 mana.
Trading Post is arguably the strongest card in this pool with Mutilate coming in a close second. Honestly, I didn't know whether it was strong enough to have in the original 40 cards. I ultimately decided to use it as a sideboard piece against almost every match up, since it trades excess lands for life in the mid-late game against aggro mirrors and provides some recursion synergy with Primal Clay against the control/late game-focused decks. I played Roaring Primadox over it in the intial 40 and I still don't know what the right call was. I ended up siding primadox out often (about 3/4 games) in favor of Trading Post, since I have so few artifacts in my deck that my opponents would be unlikely to bring in Naturalize or Smelt in Game 2 and the post would go unanswered.
Another popular sideboard choice I made was -1 Tormented Soul for +1 Disentomb. I included Tormented Soul in the original list because it's freakin' unblockable and works great with the Exalted mechanic. On the flip side, it's extremely vulnerable to Chandra's Fury, opposing Crippling Blights, and pretty much every removal spell you can name in the format. Furthermore, it's only really at its peak with Dark Favor and Mark of the Vampire (which I elected not to play because of the amount of removal in the set and I didn't have any Primal Huntbeasts to slap it on). The soul also doesn't block, which was a huge handicap in the aggro mirrors. Disentomb was surprisingly pretty clutch in a lot of the games I brought it in. It works well with the Roaring Primadox package of enter the battlefield creatures and works great with the Exalted creatures and gives my attacker for the turn +1/+1 and commits another creature to the board. This one was a surprisingly good 1x of in my deck and it worked great once the board hit some late game stalemates.
So how did I end up doing?
In Round 1, I played against a R/B aggro deck. The deck tried to take advantage of a low curve of creatures small creatures, but ran into synergy issues with Mogg Flunkies and Exalted creatures that sadly just doesn't work out. The game ended in an early 2-0 victory.
Current Standing: 1-0
In Round 2, I played against a G/W/r aggro/mid-range deck. These games were very close because my opponent was in 3 colors with a pair of Evolving Wilds to support playing several splashable, hard removal spells. His deck was overall mediocre, but his piloting was strong enough. In Game 3, I had a Titanic Growth and Prey Upon in hand. He missed his 4th land drop and I felt like I had the opportunity to press hard. So I suited up a Centaur Courser with +4/+4, dealt 7 to the dome, followed by a lethal Prey Upon to one of his other creatures. At the time I thought that speeding up the clock and taking advantage of his weak mana base would lock up the game quickly. Unfortunately, that wasn't the right play and he top-decked the lands he needed to stabilize and then kill me; the round ended in a 1-2 loss.
Current Standing: 1-1
In Round 3, I played against another R/B aggro deck that I crushed in a very quick 2-0. Just in time to get Firehouse Subs for lunch. =D
Current Standing: 2-1
In Round 4, I played against a R/G aggro deck. My opponent was very friendly and showed me his ANCIENT DCI number that had like 5 digits in it since he had been playing since like 95' or something. It was absolutely ridiculous. After an unfortunate mulligan to 5, I destroyed his Silklash Spider in a war of spiders using my Deadly Recluse and Prey Upon. I got him at a 2-0 victory.Current Standing: 3-1
In Round 5, I don't remember exactly what deck I was playing against, but after defeating my opponent, he dropped out of the tournament and I felt really bad. Easy 2-0? =[
EDIT: I remember who this was! It was against a G/W/b ramp deck running hard removal spells like Pacifism and cards like Farseek to ramp into his late game threats. In Game 2, I faced down a board with his Serra Angel holding TWO Rancors to settle at a 8/4 Flying, Vigilance, Trampling creature. My pair of 2/2s and Centaur Courser that was holding a Pacifism. After sitting and thinking for a while, I went for it. I alpha striked with my 2/2s. My opponent stared at the board for what felt like an hour. There was no dout in either of our minds: I was bluffing Titanic Growth. After an eternity of thinking, he finally elected to assign no blockers. This was the signal. By not electing to block, he was advertising exactly what was in his hand. Absolutely nothing. With two Rancors on the field, he could easily lose the angel and suit up a new creature with +4/+0 and Trample. This Serra Angel was an all-in strategy. This was my out. He swung on the return for 8 and brought me to 12 life. I swung back and he sat and pondered his options again. He took the damage again falling to just 6. On the return, he swung to bring me down to 4 life. One more swing from this angel and I was dead. I needed to kill it. So, I did what any sensible aggro player would do when pushed against a wall. I overcommited to the kill. I used a Prey Upon on my peaceful centaur against his angel followed by a 2nd Prey Upon on one of my 2/2 creatures to finally smite his 8/4 monstrosity. If he had a Show of Valor, he would have survived the fighting and we would have easily moved on to Game 3. After taking down the angel, his next creature quickly died to a Cower in Fear in response to putting on the Rancor suit. Revision: well fought 2-0 victory.
Current Standing: 4-1
In Round 6, this one made me kinda mad. I played against a U/G tempo deck; an archetype that I had never seen before. My opponent was a really nice guy and had been playing Magic for 10yrs or so. Game 1 quickly fell in his favor since I missed my 3rd land drop for 5 or so turns. In Game 2, I took his life total down very quickly and I did get to see the card that would seal my doom: Rancor. In Game 3, we played a nail biter attrition match, where he would play something and I killed it, then I would play something and he killed it. Unfortunately, Rancor came back to rear its ugly head. The attrition match clearly favored my opponent since had the stupid re-curable enchantment. I went for a power play of blocking his beefy Vastwood Gorger with a suited up dude with Titanic Growth, but there it was. That. Clutch. Negate. Seriously.
I extended the handshake and began the walk of shame. How was I not aware of the archetype? Did I do enough testing? After being blindsighted by a deck I had never seen before nor even thought about as a 'thing', I aimlessly sat down and watched some Commander being played. Someone was trying to assemble an infinite combo.. or something; probably Nick. I sat and contemplated what to do now. After some consolation from Stephen, I resumed the grind.
Current Standing: 4-2; Rank 31.. Let's do it.
In Round 7, I played against a G/B/u tempo/control deck that seemed to do nothing but stall. He got land flooded (I think?) two games in a row and when he couldn't follow up his tempo cards like Unsummon with actual pressure, he got swarmed. Ironically, Crippling Blight shined again by shutting down his bomb Sphinx of Uthuun and sealed the deal with a 2-0 victory.
Current Standing: 5-2; Rank 22
With one more game to play, I was feeling exhausted, the onset of a food coma from the crack cocaine that is Firehouse Subs was approaching, and most importantly, I had to pee really badly.
In Round 8, I played against my least favorite matchup, R/W aggro. In Game 1, he opened with an extremely aggressive start and swiftly destroyed me. In Game 2, I was feeling somewhat discouraged and was making a stockpile of mistakes. With my boarded in Trading Post and Disentomb to rebuy a killed creature, I was able to stabilize and draw into enough gas to swing for lethal. In a complete upset in Game 3, my opponent missed his second red source preventing him from playing 3-4 spells in his hand. He was rather angry by this point and it seemed that the day seemed to be getting the best of him too. His bad manner lead to a quick concession without wanting to continue the game. I'm completely ok with that. A messy, messy 2-1 win.
Overall Standing: 16th Place with a 6-2 record and a 73.7% win percentage.
The day was a success! I placed in the Top 16! (granted, last of 16, but it's a start!). I was a little bummed about not getting into the Top 8 to draft for the Pro Tour invite, but I know that I'll get it next time. I'm just really, really glad I don't have to open M13 booster packs ever again.
After the event, we all headed over to Gator Dockside and had an awesome meal while watching the Florida Gators (Go Gators!!) defeat Tennessee. Emily and I had an epic show match at the dinner table. Not only did she get an insane sealed pool, but did the 2nd best out of the group with a 3-3 finish. Her Garruk, Primal Hunter, Thragtusk, and other insane cards that one can only dream to have in their booster packs completely massacred me. She also opened a Liliana of the Dark Realms from one of my prize packs. Packs the best cards in the format and wins a good number of her games? This girl is pretty legit.
The PTQ was an amazing experience and I can't wait for the next one on Oct. 28th hosted by Armada Games in Tampa, Fl. I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to the PTQ two weekends ago; Stephen, Jav, Emily, Chris, Evan, and Nick. It was a blast! I also wanted to thank all my other Magic and non-Magic friends that sent their best wishes and supported me through this journey. My plans now are to get some much needed rest, enjoy some casual Magic, and wait until Return to Ravnica hits to start preparing for the next grind. Until the next PTQ, everyone!
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-David J.
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