Punting to Cool Things

So how did we get here? Last time I wrote about my test drive of Goblins and my relative success with Talrand Delver at a SCG IQ last weekend. Since then, I played in a warmup at the local store and the PTQ mentioned in the above tweet. There's a theme running through both events: The Danger Of Cool Things.

Rounds one and two I beat an Esper deck with Trading Post and a UB Delver deck featuring the Killing Wave/Blood Artist combo. Both are 2-0 and nothing much of interest happens.

Round three I am paired against Andrew. Andrew, Dave, and myself constitute the group of guys that's been hitting up PTQs and the like together over the past few months. Andrew has been playing an Esper control deck for months, and on Saturday it paid off for him with a Top 8 performance. He had good matchups against the entire Top 8 except for Infect, and got paired against Infect and mulliganned to 5 both games.

Andrew beats me 2-0. I made one mistake worth remarking on in these games. I have a choice of countering Day of Judgment with Mana Leak or Negate, and I choose Leak. He is on five lands, and I figure that there's a good chance that he's sandbagging Cavern of Souls for a Titan. This was a poor assumption because he probably would have played the Cavern on a turn when he missed a land drop earlier. In any case, he has the Titan next turn and I lose.

That sets up round 4, where I am paired up against a GW aggro deck. He takes it 2-1. The pivotal mistake I made was a classic "Danger of Cool Things" blunder. I have a Mana Leak in hand that is holding off his Wolfir Silverheart. He has a Birds of Paradise, a Strangleroot Giest and a 3/3 Beast Token and is at 8. I have an Augur of Bolas, a Flipped Delver, and a Sword of Feast and Famine. I am at 4. My draw for the turn is Phantasmal Image. I calculate that if I copy his SRG with my Image, I can force him to block with his Birds of Paradise. I can then target my Image with Swords to have it come back as an untapped 2/4 Augur of Bolas. I run this plan, dropping him to 3 and finding some irrelevant spell with the Undying Image. He uses Cloudshift (which I knew he had) to keep his Birds alive.

On his turn, he draws his 6th land to resolve Oblivion Ring through my Mana Leak and I die. The correct play for me was, of course, to just play the Image as a Strangleroot and attack with only the eqipped Delver. He's dead just as fast, and I'm dead to way fewer things.

For the PTQ, I changed the Sword of Feast and Famine for the second Runechanter's Pike. I probably should have made this switch even sooner. It just fits the curve better. I didn't sleep especially well the night before since my biological clock is sort of off these days. I had a 5 hour energy about an hour before round 1. If the lack of sleep was going to affect me, it was going to be in round 7 and 8, not round 1 and 2.

Because there's nothing the Fates love more than delicious irony, round one I get paired up against a young woman piloting--wait for it--Goblins. It turns out I just can't beat active Krenko. In retrospect, I probably sideboarded wrong here. I swapped Mutagenic Growth for Negates and brought in one of my Steel Sabotage because she showed me Shrine of Burning Rage. I should have taken out my Talrands and my Pikes for 4 Angel 1 Cavern of Souls. I sort of wanted Dismembers to deal with Krenko and Hellrider (She had Hellrider where I had Brimstone Volley, I'm pretty sure), but I feel like then I just die to Goblin Grenade. She kills me in three games.

I tracked down the woman later to find out how she was doing. She was 3-3, which she felt pretty good about, because her goal was to win two matches. I told her I was glad I could help get her halfway to her goal.

Round 2 I get paired against Naya Pod. Game 1 is not close. I bring in Steel Sabotage but not Negate because the only noncreature spell he has shown me is Pod. I think about whether he has Bonfire, and decide that based on what I've seen he probably doesn't. Do most Naya Pod lists play Bonfire to the point where I need to assume he has it even if I haven't seen it? My thought process was that Pod lists have to be heavy on the dudes and light on the spells. I guess if you're going to play one spell though, it would be Bonfire. Spoiler alert: I lose to Bonfire.

But not before punting twice. And I didn't punt twice before making the following awesome play. My board is Talrand and Pike and his board is 2 Restoration Angel and Strangleroot Geist. I am at 9, he is at 12. I have been sandbagging a Steel Sabotage for Pod (or to bounce a Golem token from Blade Splicer). The turn before I am dead (he attacks me to six with the one angel that can attack). On my turn, I bounce my Pike with Steel Sabotage to make a drake, replay Pike, equip it to my token. He passes and says "go." He hits a land run to the point where he can activate 2 Gavony Township each turn. I then make the following 2 punts:

First, I vapor snag his Restoration Angel rather than his Geist, and attack him with a sworded up Talrand. At the time I thought it would have been better, probably, to Snag his Geist and get him to block with Angel, although in retrospect it's possible that I then just die to the fact that he can play Geist and activate Township on his turn. I feel like I have to defer to my judgement on the spot though and assume that wasn't a possibility.

Here's where things get ugly. I finally start hitting spells and making Drakes to the point that I'm now on the offensive. Here's the critical sequence. I draw Phantasmal Image, Copy his Angel, flicker my Snapcaster Mage. SCM rebuys Ponder. I forget exactly how, but one of his angels has died and the other is tapped (probably he swung with both and I blocked one). So the way is clear for me to get in for 10 dropping him to 2. Of course, if I had attacked with Talrand and another drake token, he's just dead. My opponent untaps and plays Bonfire of the Damned for 3. GG.

My opponent also points out that I could have targeted Gut Shot with SCM, attacked for 11, and finished him with Gut Shot after combat. Thinking about it later, I'm pretty sure I could have used the Ponder to set up a lethal thought scour, but I'd need to see the exact board state. So I had him dead on board at least two ways and potentially three, and decided to not kill him instead. And then I died to Bonfire.

This isn't strictly a "danger of cool things" mistake, but there's something deeply similar going on, I think, where I'm able to see the cool, puzzle-like play to not die, but them miss the easy kill later. It certainly felt a lot like the round 4 loss from earlier in the week.

I think what happened was that I had become so focused on the subgame of getting through his defenses with an equipped drake twice that I neglected to consider "just killing him" an option. Also I wasn't even thinking about Bonfire, and not attacking with everything seemed safer when he was basically on what was in my head 2 hits away from death regardless of how things went.

So I dropped out and proceeded to win a side draft, getting 10 packs. I parlayed my winnings into another draft where I lost round 1. Brief aside on M13 limited: I have yet to win a match with any Green cards in my deck. Still trying to figure out whether this is just variance or something deeper is going on.

That brings the current PTQ season to a close for me. It was wholly disappointing. I'm looking forward to Return to Ravnica sealed, though. There's an SCG Open next weekend here but I don't think I'll go. I don't really care about prizes or whatever, except to the extent that they subsidize my gathering of magics. I just want to play on the Pro Tour at least once. If I do end up going, I will probably just play Legacy on Sunday. I haven't busted out the Goblins in a while and I'm excited to play with Krenko and Cavern of Souls.

So this is probably my last post for a while. I would appreciate any comments you all have to offer, either here or on Facebook, about this post or about Magic generally.

Fake Deck, Real Deck

Well here we are again. Two more events under my belt. One fake deck, one real deck. Last Wednesday I took the following spicy brew to the local shop:

4 Goblin Arsonist
1 Spikeshot Elder
1 Goblin Fireslinger
1 Goblin Wardriver
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Krenko's Command
4 Goblin Chieftain
3 Krenko, Mob Boss

3 Arc Trail
4 Goblin Grenade
1 Burn at the Stake
4 Brimstone Volley

3 Shrine of Burning Rage

15 Mountain
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Hellion Crucible
2 Ghost Quarter

Sideboard:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Zealous Conscripts
3 Manic Vandal
2 Manabarbs
4 Combust
4 Whipflare

Round 1 I played against some kind of Bant-y concoction (my notes for this match are sparse as to the details). I killed him in 2 games with Burn at the Stake (BatS!) for 12 when he was at 11 and 12, respectively.

Round 2 I played against Mono-Green Aggro. Won in two. He probably handed me the first game after landing an early Sword of War and Peace and just never attacking with it.

Round 3 I played against GW Aggro. Game 1 this happened:

I lost game 2 after a double mulligan into an awkward hand. Game 3 things were going okay despite a mulligan and then my opponent hardcast  Elesh Norn and I died, along with my goblin army.

Round 4 I played against a control-ish Esper deck. We split the first two games. Game 3 I had a draw with multiple shrines. The game effectively ended on a turn where he had Oblivion Ring for my 7-counter shrine the turn before he was dead. Instead of untapping and killing him, I ended up running out of gas after killing a few guys with my burn to stay at a positive life total.

So, 2-2 against questionable opposition. If I were to play this deck again, I would cut a Wardriver and a Fireslinger for a Burn at the Stake and a Spikeshot Elder. In the side, I would add a Zealous Conscripts (I only have 1) and take out the Cage. I don't expect to run into Frites at a "real" event.

I am going to keep an eye on this deck, as it does some powerful things. I don't think it's well positioned right now. Rotation will be interesting as you lose Goblin Chieftain and Goblin Grenade, and you sort of really need those two cards for the deck to tick. If something gets printed that can step in, this deck will benefit from a probably slower format.

Today I went to a Star City Games Invitational Qualifier in Glen Burnie, Maryland. It was at a store called Squabbles inside a small shopping mall. I would play there again, as there is ample parking and a Five Guys and a Chik-fil-a within walking distance. I ditched the goblins in favor of Adam Prosak's (nearly) Mono-Blue Delver list. Prosak did a deck tech at the last SCG Open where he finished 4th with the deck. My list is the same as his except for two cars. I played Runechanter's Pike over Sword of War and Peace because I don't have a SWOP. I played Rewind over Dissipate in the side because I liked the interaction with Restoration Angel, and with the other instants I'm playing more generally. Downsides are the added mana making it harder to cast the first time and substantially harder to cast with Snapcaster Mage. Six is asking a lot from this deck.

For this event I took BJB's advice of writing down a mistake I made every round. I think that this will be helpful.

In the first round I played against UR Delver. I beat him in two relatively uneventful games.

Round 2 I played against the near-mirror; he was playing 21 lands and maindeck Angels. I lost the first one narrowly. Game 2 I made my first real punt...I needed to hold back a Augur of Bolas to block his Snapcaster Mage because I was one point short of killing him. I had the Vapor Snag to close it, but I knew he had Negate for it and failed to play around it correctly.

Round 3 I played against a Bant Venser/Stonehorn Dignitary deck. I got locked out of game 1, but things got much better (a) after I could side in Negates and Dismembers and (b) once I knew what he was up to. I have it written down that at some point in this match I milled away a Runechanter's Pike that I wanted to draw--I'm pretty sure it was the third card down on a Ponder.

I beat Mono-Green Infect in two games in round 4. I'm pretty sure this is a very positive matchup for me pre-board, and post-board it gets nigh-unlosable. I have millions of Phyrexian mana spells and I get to ignore my life total. You side out your equipment and your Talrands and side in more 0-1 mana Vindicates (effectively Vindicates, anyway) and a few flash Angels. I also swapped in Negate for Mutagenic Growth. I played fairly tight this round, noting only a few minor things. I showed him a lethal Vapor Snag a bit early--he could have had a Ranger's Guile or something. There were also a few times where I should have paid some mana for free spells and didn't--I could have put myself in a position late where Dismember was a dead card.

Round five I played against a white deck splashing for Thragtusk. He had Trading Post and Rhox Faithmender. This may actually be a real deck, given that he was 4-1 and took me to three games. On the other hand, I just punted the game I lost by Steel Sabotaging a Cavern of Souls-infused Wurmcoil Engine, allowing him to resolve a Trading Post later that basically won him the game.

So at this point I'm 4-1 with two rounds to go. Next round is a "win-and-in," as the kids say. This round I play against UG Infect. Game one is close as I kill him at 8 poison. Game 2 is not close at all, really. I did try to Mental Misstep an Apostle's Blessing this round, but other than that no major errors.

I'm 5-1 with one round to go. Obviously, I get paired down. He's Mono-Black with Vampire Nighthawk, Mutilate, Lashwrithe, and Disciple of Bolas. Game one I mulligan to a six card hand with two Probes and a Ponder. The second Probe gets me the land I want, but I have to shuffle the Ponder. I'm able to make a game out of it but eventually his better late-game kicks in. Game 2 I keep seven, but his turn 1 Despise turn 2 Distress ensures that I mostly durdle and then die. I played pretty well here, I think, except for the time I tried to save my guy from Black Sun's Zenith with Mutagenic Growth. I'm pretty sure that's not the first time I've forgotten that BSZ adds counters rather than giving -X/-X until end of turn, actually, although it hasn't come up recently in any of my games.

For the full rub-ins, the guy I played in round 7 was the same guy who I managed to gift a free win via game loss against during the last PTQ.

I sound salty about this now, but at the time I feel like my head was in a good place, which is encouraging. I felt good in the round I thought was a win-and-in as well, so that's something for me to build on.

So I didn't get there. I do, however, think this deck is awesome. I'm going to try to acquisit or borrow the Sword of War and Peace for the PTQ next weekend, although honestly the Pike was servicable. I'm not 100% sold on the Mutagenic Growths, but I didn't play many Bonfire decks.

I finish 12th, with one of the other 5-2s making it, which suggests that had I been able to draw in the last round, I would have been in. The money and the Top 8 swag would have been nice, and I am a bit disappointed, but that feeling is running up against the good feeling I'm getting from the improvement in my performance compared to the last few "big" events I've done.

I'm going to battle again on Wednesday as a tune up, and then head to the PTQ in Baltimore on the 28th. Hopefully I will be able to carry over my momentum from this weekend's experience.

There is always more Magic

It's been a little over three weeks since I kicked off this blog. I've played a little bit of Magic since then--M13 prerelease--but not much in the way of Standard. Now that M13 is street legal, I can start getting a feel for what the format looks like with the new additions.

 

I watched a lot of the videos from the Magic Cruise on Channel Fireball. Some great stuff in there. Chapin's talk on brewing was good, as was the Cruise edition of Magic TV with LSV and TSG. I have a spicy brew going, so it was good to hear some deckbuilding advice. Depending on how tonight goes, I might get out a similar deck from the past and try the "template" method. This starts with stripping a base list down to leave a "mold," i.e. instead of "4 Llanowar Elf" put "4 cheap accelerators" or instead of "3 lightning bolt" put "3 cheap burn spells." Then you fill in the gaps with cards legal in the format right now. I've been aware of this way of deckbuilding for some time, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet.

The LSV/TSG segment was loaded with good advice. During the Q&A, someone asked about getting better at dealing with losing and tilt in general. The advice LSV gave was "lose a lot." He then expanded to "lose until it doesn't bother you." He then expanded further, comparing two hypothetical players. One guy plays FNM once a week, and his mindset is "well, this is all the Magic I have, better make it count." He puts himself under a lot of pressure to win, and when he doesn't win it bothers him a lot. The other guy plays FNM every week, but he also hits up a weeknight tournament once a week and plays MODO a couple of times a week, too. When the second guy 0-2-drops an event, his mindset is that it's just a thing that happened. There will be more Magic. There is always more Magic.

Now, I'm fairly certain I was tilting a bit during my bad run there, so this applies to me, certainly. I have also noticed that sometimes in close/high pressure games I tend to become visibly uncomfortable--tense facial muscles, constant foot-tapping, etc. The challenge for me is to bring the mindset of "always more Magic" to the table every time I play--even if it's the last PTQ of the season, even if it's a win-and-in, even if I'm playing against a well-known pro.

What I'm going to try to do is this: when I recognize the physical symptoms of nervousness, I'm going to think back to a time I was in a "big" match and got a good result. For example, I've beaten Cedric Phillips in a PTQ and Gerard Fabiano in the semis of a GP grinder.

Thinking back to the match against Fabiano now I am struck by the fact that my nerves didn't really hurt me during that match, but they did during the finals. I was mentally exhausted after winning the semifinal and had nothing left in the tank for my finals match. So that's something to watch out for, I guess.

One way my mental game being off manifested itself at the last few PTQs was I found myself keeping hands that I would mulligan at FNM. I found myself thinking things like "that will have to be good enough, I guess" or "I can't win if I mulligan again, so I'd better take a chance on this hand." That should have tipped me off then and there that I was punting, and I'm going to have that be a trigger for myself now--if I think something along those lines, ship the hand.

There's a PTQ in Baltimore on the 28th and an SCG IQ this weekend. I'm going to use tonight and the IQ to prepare for the PTQ at the end of the month. I want to play either a deck involving Snapcaster Mage and Augur of Bolas or--wait for it--Goblins. Krenko's Command into Goblin Chieftain or Goblin Chieftain into Krenko, Mob Boss are both so dirty. Goblin Grenade is Standard legal. Chieftain rotates out in a few months, so now's the time if I'm going to try it. If Goblins turns out to be terribad, my backup plan is this Adam Prosak build or maybe a more "stock" Delver deck.

I'll be back after the IQ this weekend, if not sooner. See you then.