Hey, there! I’ve finally gotten over the flu I caught on my way home from Seattle. Sorry about the lack of content last week, but I hope this week makes up for it. Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica did not exactly go well for me, and I finished a very disappointing 3–5. I still learned a lot, and this week, I’ll cover the tournament. I won’t go into too much detail on the deck or about our trip, but instead save that for next week.

Fighting Time

Friday rolled around, and we boarded the shuttle bus to the very weird area where the PT was being held. The tournament site seemed to be some sort of cruise ship terminal and event hall in the middle of an industrial area mostly occupied by fishing boats and other vessels. At least the inside of the site was better than in San Francisco last year, and the food trucks that were present during the weekend really made a difference.

Here is the list I played.

"Twin"

• Creatures (12)
• 3 Pestermite
• 4 Deceiver Exarch
• 2 Spellskite
• 3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

• Spells (25)
• 1 Mizzium Skin
• 2 Spell Snare
• 3 Remand
• 4 Dispel
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 2 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Serum Visions
• 4 Sleight of Hand
• 4 Splinter Twin

• Lands (23)
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Blood Moon
• 2 Sowing Salt
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Vendilion Clique
• 2 Flame Slash
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Mizzium Skin

Buy This Deck

Round 1 vs. Noah Long with Second Breakfast

It didn’t take very long for me to realize my opponent was playing some version of Eggs, and it seemed to be a really good matchup for me. It turned out it was, as all I needed was a Dispel in both games along with my combo to make it a quick win.

1–0

Round 2 vs. Yuuya Watanabe with Jund

1–1

Round 3 vs. Nico Bohny with Griselbrand

I didn’t really know what to make of my opponent’s deck, but after a Gitaxian Probe, I discovered he was playing the Griselbrand reanimation deck with Through the Breach and Fury of the Horde. I won the first game with a quick combo and then lost the second one even though I had two counterspells and a blue combo piece to tap down the Griselbrand. Unfortunately, Nico drew a second Pact of Negation from the last possible card (one Griselbrand activation and an Izzet Charm), which meant I lost. In the third game, Nico had to mulligan to five, and it was never even close.

2-1

Round 4 vs. Randy Cummings with R/W/U Delver

2–2

This was one of the games I’ve thought the most about after the tournament, as I could have won by playing differently. I might have made a huge mistake the turn after the whole turn with Deceiver Exarch and Dispel, but I only realized long after the game, so I was not sure if I drew a land or not. If I drew a land, that meant I had seven in play, enough to kill with Deceiver Exarch and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on my own turn (play Exarch, untap a land, combo). I try not to beat myself up too much over this, as I’m not actually sure I even had the seventh land. I could also probably have waited on even playing the Deceiver Exarch, as the clock my opponent had was not very fast, and if I drew any disruption (Spellskite, Dispel, or Mizzium Skin), I could protect my combo better. It would definitely have won against his hand of two Path to Exile and one Dissipate, as he could not play all of those in the same turn with only three lands. To my defense, Dissipate was not a card I had seen in Modern ever, but Deprive could have been worth considering.

Now was the time to turn this around, I thought, as 3–2 in Constructed was still okay, if not ideal.

Round 5 vs. Jan Pruchniewicz with Jund

2–3

Going 2–3 in Constructed has become a bit of a habit this year, as in the previous two Pro Tours, I’ve gone 1–4 and 2–3 respectively. Not the best start of a PT, but at least I was still alive for Day 2—and even Top 8.

Drafto!

The Draft started out well, as I opened Jace, Architect of Thought and followed that up with Thoughtflare, Hover Barrier, and Izzet Charm. After this, the red cards dried up, and I ended up drafting a controlling Azorius deck. I had seen a Korozda Guildmage in the Draft, which was almost unbeatable for me unless I could race it with flyers, so I had some concerns. However, I still felt the deck was really good and that I could easily go 2–1, and 3–0 was not out of the question. I didn’t remember to take a picture of the deck, so my memory of what was in it is a bit hazy, but here is an approximate decklist.

"Azorius Control"

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Armory Guard
• 1 Doorkeeper
• 1 Hussar Patrol
• 1 Selesnya Sentry
• 1 Voidwielder
• 2 Hover Barrier
• 2 Runewing
• 2 Sunspire Griffin
• 2 Tower Drake
• 2 Vassal Soul

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, Architect of Thought

• Spells (7)
• 1 Avenging Arrow
• 1 Azorius Charm
• 1 Blustersquall
• 1 Dramatic Rescue
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation
• 1 Syncopate
• 1 Paralyzing Grasp

• Lands (17)
• 8 Island
• 9 Plains

Buy This Deck

Round 6 vs. Anthony Hallett with Golgari

2–4

This meant I had to go 2–0 to even be able to Draft a second time, which put on quite a bit of pressure.

Round 7 vs. Nicholas Marriott with Selesnya

My opponent was screwed in the exact same way I had been during the previous round, so Game 1 did not involve much Magic being played. Game 2 was a very drawn-out affair, with my opponent playing Trostani, Selesnya's Voice early on. Let me tell you: Trostani is one of the scariest cards to see on the other side of the table when you are piloting a slow W/U deck with almost no answers. This is the game I am most pleased about in retrospect, as I managed to play quite well and finally got rid of the Trostani with an Avenging Arrow. My opponent did make some weird lines of play, including blocking aggressively with his Bird tokens, which meant he had no flyers to populate later in the game.

3–4

Round 8 vs. Anthony Huynh, Rakdos

3–5

The 3–5 result felt really disappointing, and I felt quite upset, but at least I managed to be courteous to my opponent who was very excited he had made Day 2. It feels that the Pro Tours of 2012 have not really been kind to me, and I look forward to next year breaking that pattern. In Honolulu, I felt I was underprepared, so I can blame myself more for not doing well there, but both in Barcelona and here, I felt I ran into some bad luck, along with small mistakes causing losses at critical points. I should probably have spent more time practicing my deck after I switched to it the day before the Pro Tour, as that might have helped me avoid some of the mistakes I made during the tournament.

On the Horizon

If you are going to GP: Lyon or are just otherwise playing Modern, I would really recommend this deck even though my record was not that impressive. The list was very solid, and the only thing I would change would be to maybe cut a few of the nonbasic lands for two more Islands, as you really need that basic Island once you are bringing in Blood Moon.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, be sure to let me know either through Twitter or the comments section below. Next week, I’ll talk some more about our testing process and the choices I made regarding deck selection. I had initially planned to write about that this week as well, but the tournament report portion itself was quite long.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

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