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Pro Tour Theros – 38th, Part 2

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Hey there! Last week, I wrote about the preparation for Pro Tour Theros and W/U control, the deck I ended up playing. This article will cover the two Drafts along with some interesting stories from the sixteen rounds of play.

First Draft

Heliod, God of the Sun
In the first Draft, the people I recognized were Willy Edel, Marco Cammilluzzi, Brock Parker, and my testing partner Kenny Oeberg. The Draft started out very well, as I opened up a Heliod, God of the Sun and was passed some other good green and white cards in the first booster. In the second booster, it seemed that both of my colors had dried up, which is very strange and something that can easily train-wreck a Draft. I was wondering if both of my left-side neighbors were in my colors, but after the Draft, it turned out that the packs had merely been missing quality cards in my colors. The card pool in the Draft was quite strange overall, as there were two Prophet of Kruphix and five Horizon Chimera present to make for some pretty sick blue and green cards. I picked up a late Fleecemane Lion in the third booster to really reward me for being green and white. I do not have a list of the deck, but it featured at least five 3/3 creatures for 2 or 3 mana along with two Gods Willing as solid tricks.

I won Round 1 against an aggressive black and red deck played by Christopher Norton. His Deathbellow Raiders were not that impressive when staring down Nessian Coursers and Chronicler of Heroes even though he had a fair number of tricks to push them through. In the second Draft, I was paired against Kenny Oeberg. I had hoped we would get to meet each other at 2–0 so that at least one from the team made it to 3–0 the Draft, but that was not to be. I had some very good draws in this match, and my aggressive curve earned me the win.

I was very happy to start out the Draft 2–0 since it’s a long time since I have done well in Pro Tour Drafts—even though I consider myself to be a very good Limited player. Naturally, I feared my next opponent’s deck since mine was in no way incredible—probably closer to a 2–1 deck than to a 3-0 deck. I faced Brock Parker in the finals, and his deck was very good, being the only black drafter at the table. I mulliganed to four in the first game, so that was not really a game, and then in the second game, he had a very slow start and I was able to capitalize. In the third game, I almost got there. He was stuck without a second black mana for a few turns, but I had also skipped some land drops, which meant I couldn’t be as aggressive as I wanted. Once he drew the second Swamp and started dropping Gray Merchant of Asphodels, it was mostly over.

Constructed Day 1

Elspeth, Sun's Champion
It would have been great to 3–0 the Draft, but I just had to refocus and go at least 2–3 in the Standard portion of Day 1 to make it to the second day. The rounds were not all that exciting. First, I was paired against yet another testing partner and two-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor Denniz Rachid. He was playing Boros Auras, and this was a very good matchup for me. I quite easily won the match. Next, I played against Ken Yukuhiro with mono-black, which seemed identical to the list that made Top 8 piloted by Kentarou Yamamoto. This matchup felt favorable for me since he did not have a lot of threats that were fast, so I would have time to handle them. Aside from Underworld Connections, the mono-black deck does not play a lot of card advantage, so as long as I could handle that, I figured I’d be fine even if he played a ton of discard spells. I lost one game in which I was stuck on two lands for a very long time, but I won the other two.

At that point, I was feeling very relieved, as I had guaranteed my place in the second day of play. This would normally not be a huge accomplishment, but during the last year, I failed to make Day 2 at all three Pro Tours, and that was quite a huge blow to my self-confidence. The following round, I was paired against newly-crowned World Magic Cup champion Timothée Simonot, who was playing mono-blue devotion. This should also have been a good matchup for me, but I lost some very close games, each time to Thassa, God of the Sea making creatures unblockable and sneaking through for the last few points of damage. After that, I was paired against Lucas Siow playing G/W, yet another good matchup. I did lose one game to a slight misplay coupled with a large Mistcutter Hydra, but I won the other two games.

Fanatic of Mogis
This meant I was 5–2 going into the last round, and several others from out team were also doing well, so I really wanted to win this last one to have an actual chance for Top 8. I played against mono-red piloted by Victor Bitter, and I lost two games in quick fashion. While mono-red is not an unfavorable matchup, there are several others matchups that I would rather play. When we played a mock tournament within our testing team before the Pro Tour, I think Olle Råde put it well when he said the matchup feels like if something ever “clicks,” mono-red just wins. This can be anything from W/U drawing two expensive spells that clog up the hand to W/U missing a single land drop. The margin for error is so small since most of the decent mono-red draws just punish you instantly if even the slightest thing goes wrong. During this match, there were many situations when I was so close to stabilizing, but there was always some small thing missing. This is why, although I think the matchup is good, I would still rather play a matchup in which there is more play and the games take a few more turns.

After the last round, we headed out for some late dinner and then almost immediately went to bed, as eight of our nine people in the testing group had made it to Day 2. I checked that I would need to go 7–0–1 to make Top 8 and 6–1–1 to make Top 25, which was my main goal, as I was not yet qualified for the Pro Tour in Valencia.

The Second Draft

Ordeal of Erebos
For Draft number two, the only name I really recognized was Wenzel Krautman. I first picked Ordeal of Erebos out of quite a weak pack and followed that up with some decent white and black cards. While white and black is not a color combination I am particularly fond of, it is all right since both the colors are quite strong on their own. This Draft was much worse than the first Draft, and it felt that I was not getting much of anything, and every time I saw a booster with good cards, there were often up to three cards I would gladly have picked. The card pool in this Draft was much weaker than in the first Draft, so taking that into consideration, my deck was decent. The deck had 2–1 potential, but it was definitely not a 3–0 deck.

I played against Narciso Ferreira and his G/W deck in the first round. I won the first game quite handily, and then in the second game, I was trampled by a 5/5 Nessian Courser and an 8/8 Centaur Battlemaster. The funny thing was that even though I was slightly flooded, Insatiable Harpy was able to almost go the whole way; the only thing missing was something to boost its power during an earlier turn. The third game was close, as I got him to a low life total before he started playing huge, green monsters. I drew my second Gods Willing in time and was able to punch through for the last few points of damage.

In the second round of this Draft, I was paired against Wenzel Krautman with a W/U deck. The first game was a very drawn-out affair in which both of us were attacking each other with 5/5 lifelink flyers. He drew a few lands too many, and I managed to scrounge together enough small creatures to eventually turn the race in my favor. The second game was quite uneventful, as he was stuck on only one color of mana and died quite quickly.

Ordeal of Heliod
In the third round, I played against yet another fresh World Magic Cup champion Yann Guthmann. He was playing a G/W deck, so it appeared there were a lot of white drafters at the table. I won the first game thanks to an early Ordeal of Heliod and then mulliganed to five in the second game, and it was not even remotely close. In the deciding game, I had a very good start and he had mulliganed, so I was feeling very confident. However, his draws were just what he needed, and thanks to two Time to Feeds, he managed to stabilize while I drew blanks for a few turns. There was a situation in which he was forced to double-block my creature that had gone through Ordeal of Heliod, and if I had any trick, I would have just won, but unfortunately, I did not. In that same attack, I could have attacked with a few more creatures to force through 4 damage, putting him to 3 instead of 7, and that would probably have been the best play. In the end, it probably didn’t end up mattering, as I could not have beaten the two Time to Feeds that he had.

It was very disappointing to lose this round, as it meant I was out of Top 8 contention. I was happy that I had gone 2–1 with the Draft deck. However, seeing as none of my opponents had awesome decks either, it wouldn’t actually have been all that unrealistic to go 3–0 with my pile of black and white aggressive creatures. While I was dead for Top 8, I was still very much in it for Top 25, needing to win the four next rounds to be able to take a draw in the last round.

Final Five

Supreme Verdict
I started out the second Constructed portion against Feng Da with green devotion. He mulliganed once and I mulliganed twice in the first game, but I think the matchup was very favorable for me, even though he had Mistcutter Hydra and Garruk, Caller of Beasts after sideboard. Supreme Verdict is just so ridiculously good here, as are Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Aetherling. The second game was funny, as he was flooded, and I was able to attack him to death from 16 with a lone Mutavault while I was missing my second blue source for the three Jace, Architect of Thoughts stuck in my hand.

Next up was a feature match against Brad Nelson. You can watch the second and third game here. The first game was a very tight affair in which I had to play around two Stormbreath Dragons and a Ghor-Clan Rampager, so it took quite a long time. To make it to this point, there was an interesting situation in which Brad made a misplay that I did not realize until after the game when he mentioned it. He was attacking with two large creatures and used Ghor-Clan Rampager during combat. I had a fair bit of mana but needed to play Sphinx's Revelation for less than the full amount to survive, leaving up one white and one blue mana along with the Syncopate in my hand. I didn’t draw an Azorius Charm, so I was very afraid of just dying. Brad used Scavening Ooze, leaving up 2 mana, so I was able to counter the Flesh // Blood he played with Syncopate for 1. Using the Ooze for 1 less would have meant I could not Syncopate. I finally was able to stabilize and won Game 1 eventually. In Games 2 and 3, I believe I played zero Supreme Verdicts, so things didn’t quite go as planned. Brad’s start in Game 2 was not very explosive, but I flooded and lost. In the decider, Brad was able to play a turn-three Stormbreath Dragon into a turn-four Hammer of Purphoros making a token, and I died quite quickly.

Losing two rounds so close to each other after the good start of the day was not exactly what I wanted, as I was now probably dead for Top 25, but I still wanted to win all the rounds to have a good finish. I try to approach each round as just another match and not think of what it means and doesn’t mean. Naturally, I might be less motivated to win if the match actually doesn’t matter for anything, but during the matches, I just try to play good Magic and win.

Master of Waves
In Round 14, I played against Kyle Schreiner with W/U Master of Waves. This was a deck that we had tested prior to the Pro Tour, but the control matchup was not very good, so we ditched the deck. I was able to see many of the things we discovered in testing during this match, as often, the Master of Waves side of the table is just the worse control deck since it needs to stick creatures to win—while the control deck does not. This is not a particularly good situation to be in, as it turns all the dead cards in the other deck into actual good cards. The first game was close at some point, but I was able to stick Aetherling and win. The second was not very close, as his draw was not the best, and I was able to beat down with a 2/2 Bird from Swan Song along with a 4/5 vanilla creature (Pithing Needle on Aetherling).

For the penultimate round, I faced Sam Pardee playing G/W, and I was able to discuss Melira Pod in Modern with a real Pod master, so that was nice. As with the previous G/W match, this was also quite a good matchup, though I managed to lose one game in which he had a very fast start and I was missing my important cards. The final round was not all that exciting since there really was no point for me to play, as drawing was just all-around better. If I would have lost, I would probably have been in the Top 75, and either a win or a draw put me in the Top 50. I took the draw against Antoine Ruel and ended up in 38th place when the tournament was over.

Afterthoughts

After last year’s terrible performances at the Pro Tour stage, I would normally have been extremely happy with a solid Top 50 finish. This time, however, this was not that great, as I really needed to perform better to secure a slot for Valencia. The Modern Pro Tour is perhaps the least exciting of all the four Pro Tours, but the fact that it is in Europe makes me really want to qualify. I am happy with the preparation we did for the tournament, and the deck I played was excellent. I felt there were no big holes in our testing, and I was prepared for most opponents all weekend long. I haven’t played any matches of Standard after the Pro Tour, so I can’t say with confidence if the W/U deck is good in the current metagame, with tides of the black devotion and W/B midrange. However, I do think that this deck is very solid in general, and with some tweaks, it should be competitive in almost any metagame.

Looking Forward

I have been playing a lot of Modern on Magic Online in preparation for Grand Prix Antwerp this weekend, so I will probably be writing a piece about Modern in the near future. If there are any other topics you would like me to cover, please let me know. If you have any other comments or ideas, please get in contact either via the comments section below or directly via Twitter.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

You can find my music on: http://soundcloud.com/bloomlive


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