Philadelphia Failings

I did a booster draft in Pittsburgh two weeks back. In round 2 I sit down for the match and we roll for choice. My opponent has a 4 on a d6. "That's pretty high," I remark. I roll a 5 and choose to play. My opponent then observed, "I'm still more high than you." And so he was. I proceeded to drop 2 straight games to his RUG Defenders/Mill deck. So that happened.

I had a lovely visit to Philadelphia this weekend. I didn't win a whole lot of matches. I was up early Friday, having managed to get myself on a GP-appropriate sleep schedule just in time. Around noon I learned that my carpool mates would be bailing on me and I'd be making the trip to Philly solo. I was at the event site and registered for the main event by 4 PM or so, just in time to get one of the awesome playmats.

I entered a grinder and opened a pool that would have been average with 2 more average or better rares. As it was, I had Wild Beastmaster, and that was on the splash in my UW deck. The best part of the event was when a judge arrived at the table next to mine and determined that "Ahj Sah-chur" was the missing party. In the judge's defence, the first name had a lowercase 'j' as printed. I recently corrected my name in the DCI's records because my last name wasn't capitalized for some reason. It occurs to me now that I could change it to anything I wanted, although I imagine it would be difficult to prove that I was the real "Reginald J. Pumpernickel" if someone had cause to doubt.

I pounced on my opponent's slow start game 1, defeating a late Jace that only delayed his death by a turn. Game 2 I put him on having Rakdos's Return--he kept looking carefully at his lands and asking how many cards I had in hand--and dumped my hand into the Mizzium Mortars he had instead. Game 3 I double mulliganned and died. It was a tough match to lose because my opponent didn't know what his cards did, at one point overloading a Street Spasm for 1 in an attempt to kill my Tower Drake along with my 2/1 ground guy.

I grabbed CMU Dan, who also died in the first round of the same grinder, and we headed back to Jordan's place. We were all asleep around midnight, which was awesome. I felt great in the morning--rested and awake. We got to the event site with time to spare, which allowed us a brief misadventure getting to the hall from the parking garage. Breakfast was hummus and pita from Wawa. I confirmed my round 1 bye and sat down for deck registration.

My pool:

WHITE 1 Armory Guard 1 Arrest 2 Azorius Arrester 1 Bazaar Krovod 1 Eyes in the Skies 1 Keening Apparition 1 Ethereal Armor 1 Phantom General 1 Security Blockade 1 Seller of Songbirds 1 Trostani's Judgment	BLUE 1 Dispel 1 Doorkeeper 2 Paralyzing Grasp 1 Psychic Spiral 1 Runewing 1 Skyline Predator 1 Tower Drake	BLACK 2 Catacomb Slug 1 Daggerdrome Imp 1 Dead Reveler 1 Destroy the Evidence 1 Deviant Glee 1 Launch Party 1 Mind Rot 2 Perilous Shadow 1 Sewer Shambler 1 Shrieking Affliction
RED 1 Bellows Lizard 1 Dynacharge 2 Explosive Impact 1 Goblin Rally 1 Gore-House Chainwalker 1 Guild Feud 1 Lobber Crew 1 Pursuit of Flight 1 Racecourse Fury 1 Splatter Thug 1 Survey the Wreckage 1 Tenement Crasher	GREEN 2 Axebane Guardian 2 Axebane Stag 2 Centaur's Herald 1 Chorus of Might 1 Gatecreeper Vine 1 Gobbling Ooze 1 Horncaller's Chant 1 Oak Street Innkeeper 1 Rubbleback Rhino 1 Stonefare Crocodile	HYBRID 1 Dryad Militant 1 Golgari Longlegs 1 Rakdos Cackler 1 Sundering Growth 1 Vassal Soul 1 Deathrite Shaman 1 Cryptborn Horror
AZORIUS 1 Fall of the Gavel 2 Search Warrant	IZZET 1 Goblin Electromancer 1 Teleportal 1 Firemind's Foresight	RAKDOS 1 Augur Spree 1 Rakdos's Return 1 Rakdos Ringleader 1 Skull Rend
GOLGARI 1 Dreg Mangler 1 Grisly Salvage 1 Korozda Guildmage 1 Treasured Find	SELESNYA 1 Centaur Healer	ARTIFACTS (None) LANDS 1 Azorius Guildgate 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Rakdos Guildgate 1 Transguild Promenade

My initial impression of the pool was that my White and Green were pretty deep, offering some tokens to go with Phantom General but not much in the way of Populate tricks. The second thing I noticed was that blue was shallow. Given my UW lands I looked for splashable blue cards and didn't find anything too exciting. I laid out the Green/White build to see how it looked, and it was okay but seemed to have a pretty low ceiling in terms of the help it would be able to give me. I had played against Rakdos's Return in Sealed before and given the experience really wanted it in my deck. Noticing the 2 Axebane Guardians, the Rakdos Guildgate, and the splashability of my red removal and bombs, I decided to see what Golgari splash Red looked like. After doing that, I debated whether with two Guardians and a Gatecreeper Vine I should jam a Plains in my deck and play the Arrest and the Trostani's Judgment. I decided I really wanted the additional Black source to support my Perilous Shadows instead, although in retrospect maybe I should have been greedier.

I built it this way:

2 Axebane Guardian
1 Axebane Stag
1 Centaur's Herald
1 Gatecreeper Vine
1 Rubbleback Rhino
1 Stonefare Crocodile
1 Dead Reveler
2 Perilous Shadow
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Korozda Guildmage
1 Rakdos Cackler
1 Dryad Militant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Golgari Longlegs
1 Launch Party
1 Deviant Glee
1 Mind Rot
2 Explosive Impact
1 Augur Spree
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Transguild Promenade
7 Forest
6 Swamp
2 Mountain

My last few cuts were the second Centaur's Herald, the Sewer Shambler, the Chorus of Might, and the Grisly Salvage. Daggerdrome Imp was never in as I didn't think I had enough Scavenge/pump effects to support him, but also merits consideration. I was busy at both 1 and 3, so the Herald was cut for curve reasons. I think I have been undervaluing Sewer Shambler, treating him as a sideboard option against Black decks. After registering, I met up with Dan and we played a game that went well for him and poorly for me. Then the two of us met Dan's friend at a suboptimal noodle place (luckily for me I packed my lunch) and they took a look at my build. They wanted to cut Rakdos Cackler, Deviant Glee, and Dryad Militant for the second Centaur's Herald, the Imp, and the Shambler, reasoning that the three one-drops weren't working toward the same plan as the rest of my deck, which wanted to be a bit grindier.

At this point it was time to head back for round 2. My opponent opened with Thrill-Kill Assassin into Rakdos Cackler and second two-drop. I was able to get down an Axebane Guardian to stem the bleeding, but after landing a Rakdos Ragemutt he was able to attack me down to 4 when a judge arrived. The judge told us to pick up our cards, and for my opponent to come with him. One deck registration error later, I was up a game. It was the last game win I would manage until round 5.

The round was over quickly enough that I had time to stand in line for rk post. One of my sub-hobbies is collecting custom tokens. This time I asked for a Halloween-themed spirit token. I would be waiting for several more hours to see how it came out, but I'd hate to hold you all in suspense.

Awesome, am I right? Anyway, just as I dropped off the blank spirit token, pairings for round 3 went up. About all I can reconstruct from this game is that I lost a close game 1 and game 2 ended with Collective Blessing. Back against the wall.

I had a quick opening in game 1, getting Deviant Glee on a turn 1 Rakdos Cackler. I was able to get him down to eight before he stabilized. Importantly, I couldn't stick a second creature, and ended up having the Launch Party sacrificing my Cackler to avoid dying. I kept a dicey hand game two--probably should have mulliganned to five--but ended up drawing the land I needed. It didn't end up mattering and I was dead at 1-3.

It's like they knew I was in town and set up shop just for me.

I won round five 2-0. My opponent wasn't very good. He kept chump blocking on high life totals and missing on-board tricks.

In round six I had a quick start of Korozda Guildmage into Dreg Mangler. My opponent killed me on two life. It's possible trying to race his Rakdos deck got me in trouble, but honestly I don't think so. There was a turn where I could have either attacked him from 10 to 5 or left back my guys to block. At the time putting him a swing away from dead seemed best, in retrospect that was the turn to stop trying to race if that was indeed the correct plan for the matchup. Game 2 he steamrolls me.

I win round seven. The guy's girlfriend arrives late in the match. I've put him to 2-5, she's 5-2. I really appreciate symmetry in relationships. My round 8 opponent decides to not show up, and given the way the his day's ostensibly been going, I can't say I blame him..

Round nine is interesting as I'm paired against what seems to be a competent player with a poor deck. I lose in 3 games, none of which are particularly close. His friend arrives after the match and the three of us start talking about my deck. They lay out the GW build I had looked at, conclude GBr is better, and end up saying that Rakdos Cackler and Deviant Glee should have been cut for Sewer Shambler and Centaur's Herald.

Having played seven matches with the deck (9 rounds, 1 bye, 1 no-show) I'm pretty sure that this is the correct build. Dryad Militant is fine as it blocks early. There's a little bit of anti-synergy with my Deathrite Shaman but nothing so bad as to put me off playing the Militant.

Dan ends up losing his round 9 win-and-in. Dan, Jordan, myself, and a fellow I don't remember (sorry!) head over to Barcade for some food, drink, and retro arcade awesomeness. Highlights include Digdug, Crystal Castles, Joust, and my mac-and-cheese and pulled pork sandwich.

Sunday morning I woke up early-ish, drove Dan to the train station, and went back to Jordan's place. We had an awesome morning involving waffles, Ouran High School Host Club, and drafting on MODO. Shortly after noon I picked up a fellow from the DC area who plays at my store sometimes and drove home to Arlington. It rained a little bit along the way but nothing too crazy.

I came away from the weekend sitting on 487 Planeswalker Points for the season. The participation points from the side event aren't up yet but I can't imagine that being more than 5 more. I've now officially wrapped up one bye for next season's GPs and am within striking distance of 2. I need 263 more points by December 16th.

Most of those points probably need to come in November. Next weekend there's a PTQ in Roanoke. The weekend after that I have the choice of either a 3h 35m drive to Virginia Beach or a 3h 18m drive to Fairless Hills, PA (near Trenton, NJ). The drive to Virginia Beach might actually be shorter because I'm less likely to hit traffic. THe drive to Fairless Hills goes through DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, whereas the Virgiania Beach drive is more rural. The last PTQ of the season that's drivable for me is the November 17th tournament in Philadelphia. That means I'd need about 14 match wins over 2 of the tournaments or about 12 match wins over 3 of them, assuming those are the only events I go to before the end of the season. If I attend two of the PTQs and do poorly (say 4-3 or 4-4), I'll end up about 100 points short. If I attend two and do well (say 5 or 6 match wins), I'll be about 50 points short. I can grind that out of FNMs and weekday Standard and Legacy events at my local shop in about 2 weeks.

I'm planning to hit up Roanoke for sure. I'll be back with a tournament report on that.

Congrats to Harry on his second GP Top 8. It makes me happy to see people from the old CMU crowd doing well.

I have two questions for you all:
1.) Have you read Zvi's My Files or Chapin's Next Level Magic? Would reading either help me?
2.) How do you like the blog so far? What would you like me to do more of, what less?