I've been intentionally delaying for a while writing about PT Nats because I don't have my draft decks with me at the moment, and I don't want to write about PT Nats without the decklists I used for 50% of the tournament am I right? But since I'm not going home for a while I did the clever thing of start writing and then make a break when the draft part comes, how clever is that.
The week preceding Nationals I was spending my free time preparing for the Draft portion, since I was already set on playing Jund. However, the Draft Challenge, which was a preview for Nats went awful, which left me wondering, what was I doing wrong.
Basically, here is my approach for ROE drafts:
1- Don't draft Green. In any format, Green just auto scoops to a turn 1 Island, so why would you want to be on the wrong side of the table? The whole game is gonna be agonizing for you, it might even seemed close, but in fact, it never was.
2- Don't draft awkward color combinations, which in this format are BW, WR, UG, WG and on a personal note also RB. I mean, RB tokens is fine and can be very powerful, but I don't like it, and the traditional all removal BR decks just don't seem to work in this format no matter how good they look on paper, the creatures are just better than the removal.
3- Don't draft aggro decks, please you are better than that!
After crossing these rules, what's left? UB, UR, UW (classic control, not levelers)
Of course, it's not a perfect world and more often than I would like I find myself playing Forests.
At the end of my last post, I mentioned I accepted Marcio Carvalho's invite to drop by his place sometimes. We exchanged some point of views, I watched him play a couple of drafts, and he also followed some of mine and we discussed them AFTERWARDS, I repeat AFTERWARDS no comments during draft or game play.
I come to realize I wasn't doing so wrong, I had some correct notions, and while not being a great drafter Pro Tour quality, I was good enough to have a decent performance at Nats.
I made one change in the main deck and one change in the sideboard of my winning list of the PTQ, because I wanted to improve a little the deck against UW. I consider my irl drafting friends to be all of them contenders for the National Title. When 6 out of 7 are going to play UW, I knew that if I made it alive to the last 3 constructed rounds, I would have to get past some of them. I changed one Broodmate Dragon for 1 Malakir, and in the sideboard took out 1 Consuming Vapors for one extra Doom Blade.
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
3 Lotus Cobra
3 Putrid Leech
4 Blightning
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Bituminous Blast
1 Malakir the Bloodwitch
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Swamp
Sideboard:
2 Duress
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Doomblade
1 Malakir the Bloodwitch
PS: The raw power of this deck still amazes me, how come people don't like it?
I would like to thank Mauro Peleira for lending me all the cards of the deck. One of these days, I'll be writting one post about him.
You might not realize, but the impact of adding one Malakir to the main, is much bigger than adding for example one Sarkhan main vs Jund. Jund vs UW matchup should go long enough to give you some chances of seeing that Malakir, not like you need to lucksack your Sarkhan on turn 5 vs Jund. Besides, just the simple presence of him in your deck, can give you more options during your gameplay, and after sideboard you have 2 copies instead of one like before.
I think the matchup of Jund vs UW is an amazing one, the games take long enough that you actually have to plan, and there is a lot of strategy going on. I could write a whole article about the Jund vs UW matchup, but it's not relevant now, or at least it's not going to be until we reach round 11 of Nats. For the same reason, now that M11 is around, no use for my sideboard plans, no one's playing these decks anymore.
The day before Nats Paulo Carvalho came to Lisbon to stay at my place. He and all his test buddies from his city were going to play his version of Jund, like the one he used to win the PTQ the week before I did. It's almost the same, except they don't have the 3 Lotus Cobra, and have the 4th Leech and 2 Sarkhans instead.
His argument is he doesn't want to Cascade into Lotus Cobra, and Sarkhan is good on the mirror, but I already explained that I'd rather have Malakir main against UW than Sarkhan main versus Jund, the tempo and the variance in those matchups are totally different that is better to tech against UW rather than Jund.
Round 1: Jund, 2-1
A very tough and intense round, I lost game one, but was fortunate enough to take the other two, with absolute no skill involved.
Round 2: UW, 2-0
My easiest win of the tournament, my draws just crushed his, pretty much no decisions to make again.
Round 3: Jund, 0-2
This round I remember because of Paulo Carvalho.
Game one I force some damage to put him at exactly 3 life, and then I sit back on a stalled board waiting to topdeck the last 3 points of damage. But he drew Sarkhan and killed me from close to 20 life in 2 or 3 turns, which is fine, since he actually played with Sarkhan, drew it in a situation where he wasn't very behind on board or already winning, yeah it was a game breaker.
Game two we are racing, I topdeck Bloodbraid Elf, and cascading into any spell wins me the game here, or any creature which wasn't Lotus Cobra would win me the game next turn. Of course cascaded into Cobra, and my following attack could only put him at one, and I lost shortly after.
Just because I lost with both ways Paulo Carvalho said it would happen, doesn't mean that he's right.
The difference from 2-1 to 3-0 is so huge, in these events where they fragment the tournament in 4 parts, you have to 3-0 one of them, and the best one is indeed to first part. Of the whole Top 8, at least 5, FIVE of them started 3-0 in Constructed, while 2-1 you are alive, but playing the rest of the tournament against all the other regulars.
I went to my draft pod with other seven 2-1 players. When I got there, it was a very difficult to evaluate Draft Pod. Since all the other seven players were not from Lisbon, and I wasn't even in Portugal for the past two years, can't really tell who's playing hot lately. I actually kind of knew all of them, from the ocasional chat outside of a tournament, all of them cool guys, but other than knowing that they all had zero Pro Tour experience, and most likely even zero Grand Prix experience, it was very hard to tell their currrent draft skills. So it was like an online queue, playing in the machine, and not with the players.
I'm making a forced break here, I will resume writting when I grab my draft decks. I will continue from the first pick, first pack, until the end of Nationals. Stay tuned!
Thank you for reading!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
2000€ Portuguese Draft Challenge
Looking at the title, it seems today I'll be talking about draft, so draft it is.
After winning PTQ Porto i thought most of the questions I had about picking a deck for Nationals had been answered. However, draft is still worth like 35% of your Nats if you're planning to go all the way, and for most of the people, it represents the bigger parte of what they play, since very few reach the last 3 standard rounds alive. Now let me start by stating something that is going to be controversial.
I like to draft Swiss Queues.
I come from the Limited school of the "Draft and Play". Sure, your deck may seem amazing, but is it really? Sometimes, it's hard to evaluate the power of a draft deck since you cannot compare it in an abstract, the power is relative to the card pool of the draft pod. I've had very crappy decks, which were solid 2-1, just because no one could put a good deck together with the card pool of those 24 boosters. Also, I don't like single elimination drafts rounds. In constructed, your deck will always be deck "X" in the same format, with the same cards available, but in Limited, your deck is always different, as well as the other decks. So, you may think you drafted perfectly, and then you lose screw, screw and you can't take conclusions other than assuming. Or the opposite, you draft the worst deck ever, but you just lose quickly round 1, and then shrug and join another queue. The thing is, GP's and Nats have 3 rounds with the same deck, if you have a bad deck, you will suffer the agony of having to play 3 rounds with it.
Anyway, I'm not saying swiss draft is a better tool to practice, but it covers for some flaws of single elimination. However, I noticed that everytime i drafted swiss I ended with 27 playables while drafting 8-4 I had troubles assmbling 18 playables, let alone 22. (I may or may not be exagerating on these numbers, up to you). I ended up doing some sort of mix between the two kinds of drafts, more swiss in the beginning when I was focusing on playing with the cards, and more on the 8-4 when I was testing draft archtypes, lesson here is, don't be so dejective with swiss drafts.
Between the PTQ Amsterdam and Nats there was a weekend with an LCQ for Nats on Saturday and a 2k euros Draft Challenge on Sunday. About the Draft Challenge:
It was an initiative which came from a Portuguese card dealer who attends all the Pro Tours. He saw there was always a Draft Challenge on Sunday for a high amount of money, so he bought lots of booster cases and decided to try that in Portugal. I tought it wouldn't work, despite his optimistic views, and here's why.
At the Pro Tour there are at least 500 players gathered in a single place, who don't have anything to do on Sunday, and didn't bother to bring an extra deck, and who are confident on their draft skills, so it's no surprise it easily reaches the 128 players required.
But at local stores, for my experience, people don't really draft. They just play their own and the same constructed decks everyday, against the same decks and persons, and they thing draft is a waste of time and money. If they don't give 12 euros to draft, no way they would be paying 35 euros to join a tournament likely to attract all the sharks in Portugal. It was no surprise to anyone that the first ever Portuguese draft challenge only had 4 draft pods, sme of them with 7 players. But let me say, this was for sure the tournament in Portugal with the less EV, as all the good players from the Lisbon area had come.
However, it is silly that some players opted not to go just because they thought attendance would be low, while some players who actually showed up, waited until the end of registration to see how many players had joined and then decided not to join. If all of these potential players had joined, I believe the number could reach 50, which is still somewhat shy. Reflecting the low attendance, prizes were cut down from 2000 to 400 euros.
My first draft pod was in theory the strongest of the 4, which made things more interesting and challenging.
7 players pod:
Seat 1: Márcio Carvalho
Seat 2: Gonçalo Pinto (Márcio's Apprentice for like 6 years)
Seat 3: Narciso Ferreira (who I beat in the PTQ final the previous week and would become vice-champion on the following week)
Seat 4: a local "good kid"
Seat 5: Me
Seats 6 and 7 I didn't recognize
My first pick was Enclave Cryptologist, which is probably the best uncommon of the set.
Second pick I took Narcolepsy from a pack missing the rare.
Third pack still had the nuts, I don't remember exactly what, but I took Staggershock.
Fourth pick I took Mnemonic Wall over Forked Bolt.
Fifth pick I took a risk and drafted Kiln Fiend, because I remember packs 1 and 2 had a Distortion Strike, which I hoped to table. I got them both, and at that point, I thought my deck was going to be ridiculous.
Unfortunately, in the rest of the draft no one else opened a single Kiln Fiend, and the player to my right had indeed first picked Sphinx of Magosi, and as I tought it might happen, the Forked Bolt, despite being a weaker pick, by passing him, it send wrong signals. The problem is, some players have wrong card evaluations, some players here consider Forked Bolt first pick quality, so seeing one late they take it as a clear go red signal. I ended up with this deck:
1 goblin arsonist
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Goblin Tunnerler
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Grotag Siege-Runner
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Valakut Fireboar
1 Magmaw
2 Enclave Cryptologist
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Kiln Fiend
1 Lust for War
3 Fleeting Distraction
2 Wrap in Flame
1 Traitorous Instinct
1 Narcolepsy
1 Staggershock
2 Distortion Strike
9 Mountain
8 Island
For me, this deck is quite acceptable, 2 cards short of being very good, which are 2 Kiln Fiends. I won the first two rounds against the local kid and Narciso Ferreira. I lost the final round to Márcio's Apprentice, we both screwed one game, and he got the third thanks to a sideboard card, whenever Enchanted creature attacks or blocks he gains 4 life. I make an aggressive attack with Strike, which puts him at 2 the following turn, which will give me enough time to find something, I think, as his board was reduced, and he had to stay back with everyone in case I had something. Problem was he played that aura, so the turn he was supposed to be at 2, he went up to 10 instead, so he never had to stay back, and kept attacking me.
2-1 was a fair result, but there were lost of people being dejective on my deck and how lucky I must had been in order to 2-1 with this deck, which was annoying me a little. Of course, Distortion Strike, Fleeting Distraction, Kiln Fiend, Wrap in Flames are sub optimal cards on abstract in Limited, but... well no matter what I said, I still had to battle some extra games just to prove my point that this deck wasn't bad, and I would be happy to skip the second draft and just play the remaining 3 rounds with it. I wish that could be done, as my second draft was just horrible.
Funny curiosity, I was 2-1 (Win/Win/Loss) and I went to Draft Pod 1 with all the 3-0 and Portugal regulars, I believe everyone on that pod had Pro Tour experience, and Márcio Carvalho with 2-1 (Loss/Bye/Win) went to pod 3 of 4, with 6 players I didn't recognize whose scores were 1-2.
The cut for Top 8 was 4-1-1, so Márcio ID his first round of the second pod against one of our friends, the other 2-1 of the Pod. By Round 6, all the other players from that Pod dropped, which meant both Márcio and his friend had Byes for Top 8. So Marcio's score for Top 8 was 2-1 plus one ID plus 2 Byes Must be!
Enough with lots of Byes for Top 8, back to draft Pod 1. I opened a pack with absolutely nothing except Kozilek Butcher of Truths, and very unhappily took him, as I hate, hate drafting Green,it just auto loses to Islands in Limited, why would you do that to yourself. Second pick another dry pack, just Overgrown Battlement, which happens to be a great start for a Green Ramp deck. I went for it, but it just didn't happened, so I was stuck with the worst deck ever.
2 Overgrown Battlement
2 Wildheart Invoker
1 Grotag Siege-Runner
1 Stomper Cub
3 Vent Sentinel
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Emrakul Hatcher
1 Might of the Masses
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Aura Gnarlid
1 Nest Invader
1 Soulsurge Elemental
2 Lagac Lizard
10 Forest
8 Mountain
I lost the first round to a Red/Black, it seemed very very weak, but he played 3 rares in both games, Drana, Conquering Manticore and Lord of the Shatterskull pass.
Then I lost to a BLue/Red/Black all good spells deck. Never had a chance, it was for sure his easiest win of the tournament. Actually one game, I had turn 4 Crusher on the play, thanks to 2 Overgrown Battlement. He Deprived it. Then turn 5 Wildheart Invoker, he also Deprived it. Then turn 6 I had 4 Forest and 2 Wall in play, my hand was all Red. I passed. He played Consuming Vapours, and I went from 8 mana back to 4, and his life up to 28. Not nice! However, I think I lost well, had we played 8 games, I think my deck would be able to win 1, and it was probably this one.
Not surprisingly, the same persons who tought my first deck was awful and couldn't understand how I went 2-1 with it, they tought this second draft was solid, and couldn't understand how I went 0-2 with it. In their own words, all these cards are solid, not running bad cards like in the other, you have ramp and creatures.
First, I think their card evaluation sucks, as this second deck is full of mediocre cards. Second, it has absolute no sinergy, or solutions. However I agree with them saying I had one good deck, and one bad deck in this tournament, we just disagree which one's the good and the bad. LOL
But yes, with Nationals coming in one week, I wanted to improve my Limited game, so I accepted Márcio Carvalho's invite and I went to his place a couple of times during the following week for some draft sessions and exchanging points of view.
With the PTQ and the Draft Challenge behind, I had already tried my hands in Standard and Draft in real live tournaments. Keep following my blog, until we finally reach the big prize, Nationals!
And... Big Congratulations to Gonçalo Pinto Madcat, winner of the First Ever 2k Portuguese Draft Challenge!
Thank you for reading!
After winning PTQ Porto i thought most of the questions I had about picking a deck for Nationals had been answered. However, draft is still worth like 35% of your Nats if you're planning to go all the way, and for most of the people, it represents the bigger parte of what they play, since very few reach the last 3 standard rounds alive. Now let me start by stating something that is going to be controversial.
I like to draft Swiss Queues.
I come from the Limited school of the "Draft and Play". Sure, your deck may seem amazing, but is it really? Sometimes, it's hard to evaluate the power of a draft deck since you cannot compare it in an abstract, the power is relative to the card pool of the draft pod. I've had very crappy decks, which were solid 2-1, just because no one could put a good deck together with the card pool of those 24 boosters. Also, I don't like single elimination drafts rounds. In constructed, your deck will always be deck "X" in the same format, with the same cards available, but in Limited, your deck is always different, as well as the other decks. So, you may think you drafted perfectly, and then you lose screw, screw and you can't take conclusions other than assuming. Or the opposite, you draft the worst deck ever, but you just lose quickly round 1, and then shrug and join another queue. The thing is, GP's and Nats have 3 rounds with the same deck, if you have a bad deck, you will suffer the agony of having to play 3 rounds with it.
Anyway, I'm not saying swiss draft is a better tool to practice, but it covers for some flaws of single elimination. However, I noticed that everytime i drafted swiss I ended with 27 playables while drafting 8-4 I had troubles assmbling 18 playables, let alone 22. (I may or may not be exagerating on these numbers, up to you). I ended up doing some sort of mix between the two kinds of drafts, more swiss in the beginning when I was focusing on playing with the cards, and more on the 8-4 when I was testing draft archtypes, lesson here is, don't be so dejective with swiss drafts.
Between the PTQ Amsterdam and Nats there was a weekend with an LCQ for Nats on Saturday and a 2k euros Draft Challenge on Sunday. About the Draft Challenge:
It was an initiative which came from a Portuguese card dealer who attends all the Pro Tours. He saw there was always a Draft Challenge on Sunday for a high amount of money, so he bought lots of booster cases and decided to try that in Portugal. I tought it wouldn't work, despite his optimistic views, and here's why.
At the Pro Tour there are at least 500 players gathered in a single place, who don't have anything to do on Sunday, and didn't bother to bring an extra deck, and who are confident on their draft skills, so it's no surprise it easily reaches the 128 players required.
But at local stores, for my experience, people don't really draft. They just play their own and the same constructed decks everyday, against the same decks and persons, and they thing draft is a waste of time and money. If they don't give 12 euros to draft, no way they would be paying 35 euros to join a tournament likely to attract all the sharks in Portugal. It was no surprise to anyone that the first ever Portuguese draft challenge only had 4 draft pods, sme of them with 7 players. But let me say, this was for sure the tournament in Portugal with the less EV, as all the good players from the Lisbon area had come.
However, it is silly that some players opted not to go just because they thought attendance would be low, while some players who actually showed up, waited until the end of registration to see how many players had joined and then decided not to join. If all of these potential players had joined, I believe the number could reach 50, which is still somewhat shy. Reflecting the low attendance, prizes were cut down from 2000 to 400 euros.
My first draft pod was in theory the strongest of the 4, which made things more interesting and challenging.
7 players pod:
Seat 1: Márcio Carvalho
Seat 2: Gonçalo Pinto (Márcio's Apprentice for like 6 years)
Seat 3: Narciso Ferreira (who I beat in the PTQ final the previous week and would become vice-champion on the following week)
Seat 4: a local "good kid"
Seat 5: Me
Seats 6 and 7 I didn't recognize
My first pick was Enclave Cryptologist, which is probably the best uncommon of the set.
Second pick I took Narcolepsy from a pack missing the rare.
Third pack still had the nuts, I don't remember exactly what, but I took Staggershock.
Fourth pick I took Mnemonic Wall over Forked Bolt.
Fifth pick I took a risk and drafted Kiln Fiend, because I remember packs 1 and 2 had a Distortion Strike, which I hoped to table. I got them both, and at that point, I thought my deck was going to be ridiculous.
Unfortunately, in the rest of the draft no one else opened a single Kiln Fiend, and the player to my right had indeed first picked Sphinx of Magosi, and as I tought it might happen, the Forked Bolt, despite being a weaker pick, by passing him, it send wrong signals. The problem is, some players have wrong card evaluations, some players here consider Forked Bolt first pick quality, so seeing one late they take it as a clear go red signal. I ended up with this deck:
1 goblin arsonist
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Goblin Tunnerler
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Grotag Siege-Runner
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Valakut Fireboar
1 Magmaw
2 Enclave Cryptologist
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Kiln Fiend
1 Lust for War
3 Fleeting Distraction
2 Wrap in Flame
1 Traitorous Instinct
1 Narcolepsy
1 Staggershock
2 Distortion Strike
9 Mountain
8 Island
For me, this deck is quite acceptable, 2 cards short of being very good, which are 2 Kiln Fiends. I won the first two rounds against the local kid and Narciso Ferreira. I lost the final round to Márcio's Apprentice, we both screwed one game, and he got the third thanks to a sideboard card, whenever Enchanted creature attacks or blocks he gains 4 life. I make an aggressive attack with Strike, which puts him at 2 the following turn, which will give me enough time to find something, I think, as his board was reduced, and he had to stay back with everyone in case I had something. Problem was he played that aura, so the turn he was supposed to be at 2, he went up to 10 instead, so he never had to stay back, and kept attacking me.
2-1 was a fair result, but there were lost of people being dejective on my deck and how lucky I must had been in order to 2-1 with this deck, which was annoying me a little. Of course, Distortion Strike, Fleeting Distraction, Kiln Fiend, Wrap in Flames are sub optimal cards on abstract in Limited, but... well no matter what I said, I still had to battle some extra games just to prove my point that this deck wasn't bad, and I would be happy to skip the second draft and just play the remaining 3 rounds with it. I wish that could be done, as my second draft was just horrible.
Funny curiosity, I was 2-1 (Win/Win/Loss) and I went to Draft Pod 1 with all the 3-0 and Portugal regulars, I believe everyone on that pod had Pro Tour experience, and Márcio Carvalho with 2-1 (Loss/Bye/Win) went to pod 3 of 4, with 6 players I didn't recognize whose scores were 1-2.
The cut for Top 8 was 4-1-1, so Márcio ID his first round of the second pod against one of our friends, the other 2-1 of the Pod. By Round 6, all the other players from that Pod dropped, which meant both Márcio and his friend had Byes for Top 8. So Marcio's score for Top 8 was 2-1 plus one ID plus 2 Byes Must be!
Enough with lots of Byes for Top 8, back to draft Pod 1. I opened a pack with absolutely nothing except Kozilek Butcher of Truths, and very unhappily took him, as I hate, hate drafting Green,it just auto loses to Islands in Limited, why would you do that to yourself. Second pick another dry pack, just Overgrown Battlement, which happens to be a great start for a Green Ramp deck. I went for it, but it just didn't happened, so I was stuck with the worst deck ever.
2 Overgrown Battlement
2 Wildheart Invoker
1 Grotag Siege-Runner
1 Stomper Cub
3 Vent Sentinel
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Emrakul Hatcher
1 Might of the Masses
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Aura Gnarlid
1 Nest Invader
1 Soulsurge Elemental
2 Lagac Lizard
10 Forest
8 Mountain
I lost the first round to a Red/Black, it seemed very very weak, but he played 3 rares in both games, Drana, Conquering Manticore and Lord of the Shatterskull pass.
Then I lost to a BLue/Red/Black all good spells deck. Never had a chance, it was for sure his easiest win of the tournament. Actually one game, I had turn 4 Crusher on the play, thanks to 2 Overgrown Battlement. He Deprived it. Then turn 5 Wildheart Invoker, he also Deprived it. Then turn 6 I had 4 Forest and 2 Wall in play, my hand was all Red. I passed. He played Consuming Vapours, and I went from 8 mana back to 4, and his life up to 28. Not nice! However, I think I lost well, had we played 8 games, I think my deck would be able to win 1, and it was probably this one.
Not surprisingly, the same persons who tought my first deck was awful and couldn't understand how I went 2-1 with it, they tought this second draft was solid, and couldn't understand how I went 0-2 with it. In their own words, all these cards are solid, not running bad cards like in the other, you have ramp and creatures.
First, I think their card evaluation sucks, as this second deck is full of mediocre cards. Second, it has absolute no sinergy, or solutions. However I agree with them saying I had one good deck, and one bad deck in this tournament, we just disagree which one's the good and the bad. LOL
But yes, with Nationals coming in one week, I wanted to improve my Limited game, so I accepted Márcio Carvalho's invite and I went to his place a couple of times during the following week for some draft sessions and exchanging points of view.
With the PTQ and the Draft Challenge behind, I had already tried my hands in Standard and Draft in real live tournaments. Keep following my blog, until we finally reach the big prize, Nationals!
And... Big Congratulations to Gonçalo Pinto Madcat, winner of the First Ever 2k Portuguese Draft Challenge!
Thank you for reading!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
PTQ Amsterdam 19/6 Porto
As most of you probably know by now, I recently won a PTQ for Amsterdam playing Jund. Due to my absence from the competitive scene in the past years, I don't have the oportunity to write about it for a strategy site, so today I will be using my blog to share the tournament and some considerations about standard with you.
When I first come back to Portugal, I had a lot to catch up. I didn't knew cards from Shadowmoor, Eventide, M10, Zendikar and Worldwake, except for the ocasional Baneslayer or Jace. But as soon as I saw decklists I decided I would only play UW control for Standard if I ever needed. (as a side note, I actually had to qualify for Nats playing Mythic at Regionals, because it was the deck my friends gave me. At that point I had just came back from Asia and I was clueless).
Enter GP Lyon. I travelled to Lyon with a UW control on my bag because there was a PTQ on Day 2, which I ended up playing. I played 3 or 4 rounds, before losing twice to strange combo decks with Howling Mines and lots of extra turns. I couldn't do anything to disrupt them, and I lost lots of faith in the deck. Monday at the airport, we were told we couldn't travel back to Portugal because Lisbon airport was closed thanks to some unfriendly Icelandic Volcano. Fortunately, TAP Air Portugal paid for all our expenses during the extra days we had to stay in Lyon. I saw these days as an excellent opportunity to playtest and catchup in constructed, as we were stuck in the airport or the nearby hotel with 2 Junds and 1 UW. During these days we played dozens of games, and I learned a lot about two of the most important decks of the format.
I also found myself atracted to the Jund deck. Why? Because I think the Jund deck was something new to me which I was not sick of playing with or against it unlike most of the other players, so I liked the raw power of the deck, and it seemed silly to me NOT to play it. Back from Lyon I also discovered that it was much easier to assemble a Jund deck online rather than a UW with Baneslayers, Elsepths, Jaces, etc. I played some 4 rounds Daily events when time allowed me to (I'm kind of working now) and I did 4-0 once, 2-2 twice, and 3-1 all the others, which showed that Jund was indeed a powerful and consistent deck. I actually never played a tournament with the same 60 cards Jund maindeck, tough the sideboard stayed more or less the same since the beginning until now.
My first real live tournament with Jund was a PTQ where I missed Top 8 by an inch. I was 5-1 and ready to ID myself into the Top 8, but my opponent had to play and I lost against NL Bant game 3 with 3 lands in play and all the good stuff in hand. But at this point I was set on playing Jund for the remaining PTQ's and for Nats, since I was happy with my maindeck, sideboard and gameplans for all matchups. I still think UW is the best choice for t2 now, but I had experience playing Jund, something I couldn't say with any other deck in t2.
For the PTQ Amsterdam in Porto which I won I sleeved the following 75 cards:
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
3 Lotus Cobra
3 Putrid Leech
4 Blightning
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Bituminous Blast
1 Broodmate Dragon
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Swamp
Sideboard:
2 Duress
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Doomblade
1 Malakir the Bloodwitch
1 Consuming Vapors
People at the tournament asked what did I cut to include card X or card Z. The answer is, I don't know, because I didn't start with an existing decklist. I came very late into this metagame, so I saw a bunch of Jund decklist, and I start building what I wanted for mine, so I never had to cut, but add instead, until I had this Jund list.
I think this is a pretty standard Jund decklist, no tech cards like Eldrazi Monument or Sarkhan the Mad, and playing with all the obvious cards. Generally speaking, this list is like 50-50, or 40-60, 55-45 etc against everything, with all the matchups improving slightly against sideboard (except the mirror obv).
The more intriguing choice is Lotus Cobra. I wanted this card to fight the abundance of Spreading Seas, and it can ocasionally give you some nut draws. I know people claim turn two Putrid Leech is a must, but if you're playing 3 Lotus Cobra, you don't have room for 4 Leeches.
4 Lightning Bolt are a must because of all the Green decks and Mono Red. Together with your 4 Blightnings and oposing fetchlands, it means you probably only need to actually deal 10 damage, because if the stabilize the board you are in a position where you can defend and wait to topdeck a third copy of one of the package 4 Bolts and 4 Blightnings.
For the cards costing 4 mana or more, the bigger threats, if you take Bloodbraid Elf as an automatic inclusion, I would say that 6 is the right number to have them. In every tournament I played I believe I never had the same 6, it was always a mix and match of Siege-Gangs, Sarkhan, Malakir, Master of the Wild Hunt, Broodmate.... tough now I believe the right combination to be 3 Siege-Gangs, 2 Bituminous Blasts and a sixth one.
I will say again that UW control or that Jund with Eldrazi monument to be better decks than this "regular" Jund, but I was really comfortable playing this list and especially this sideboard. I will talk more about the sideboard and give you the sideboard plans in my Nationals Report, since it will have an updated sideboard. Now, I will restrain myself to the PTQ.
Round 1: Jund, Win 2-1
Round 2: Mythic, Win 2-0
Round 3: Jund, Win 2-1
Round 4: Jund, Win
Round 5: Grixis, Win 2-1
Round 6: Jund, Loss, 1-2
Round 7: ID
Quarter-Finals: Jund, Win 2-1
Semi-Finals: Bye
Finals: Monument Jund, Win 2-0
I'm sorry if I'm unable to give you a round by round description, but those Jund vs Jund games they kind of all look the same, so it's quite confusing to actually recall details from the matches.
For my experience, the worst Jund matchup is White Weenie, with Mythic being the second, but I remember my opponent probably mulliganing and being forced to keep some sup- optimal draws, and in game one I had the nuts opening thanks to Lotus Cobra.
Against Grixis I was demolished in Game one, but after sideboard I put a better fight.
I had a bye in the Semis, I was going to play against Márcio Carvalho, he had already won his
Quarter-finals and waiting for mine to end. As soon as I finished he offered to concede, since he's Level something which gives him one invite to a Pro Tour of his choice, and he doesn't want to pay to go to Worlds in Chiba, so either he makes National Team or not. Which means, that free invite he has, he will cash it in Amsterdam.
About Jund matchups, what can I say, I'm a miser! In a matchup which can't be better than 5-0-50 I did a 5-1 score. I cannot control my draws, so here's what I do when I face the mirror match to try to get some edges.
- Understand that pre and post sideboard are two diferent matchups, and your plans and mulligan decisions are also diferent, is the most important thing you can control.
- You shouldn't keep a hand which doesn't have access to all the colours.
- You also need a good feeling of the game you are currently playing to know when to attack when and how to block, do you chump, take or trade, which cannot be taught, you have to "feel" each game independant from the others.
- Broodmate and Siege are game breakers pre sideboard, but worse cards after because of Ruinblaster.
So here's how I sideboard for the mirror.
+ 4 Goblin Ruinblaster
+ 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
- 4 Maelstorm Pulse
- 1 Broodmate Dragon
- 1 Siege-Gang Commander
After sideboard the crucial turns are turns 3 and 4. Most of the games will have a winner by then, so Inquisiton of Kozilek really shines because it deals with 3 of the 4 most important cards after sideboard (Gob Ruinblaster, Sprouting Thrinax and Blightning), the other being Bloodbraid Elf. I would've bring in more copies of Inquisiton of Kozilek, but I need some of them to be Duress for the UW matchups.
To give you an idea of how crucial turns 3 and 4 are, if you're on the draw, you shouldn't play Lotus Cobra on turn two if your opponent has untapped mana, unless it can potentially give you a turn 3 Elf or Ruinblaster. The reason is, if they kill the Cobra at the end of your turn, and follow it with a turn 3 Thrinax and 4 Gob Ruinblaster, you just lost right there.
But if they tap out for Thrinax on turn three, and you play your Cobra on turn 3, you have protection against Goblin Ruinblaster, since they cannot Ruinblaster your land and kill the Cobra on the same turn. If they didn't play Thrinnax or Blightning turn three, then even if they Ruinblaster you, your clock is much smaller.
Despite all of this, the real skill of the matchup is to out draw your opponent.
The funny curiosity about winning this PTQ was, that in January 2009 I took a month of holidays in Portugal, which allowed me to familiarize myself with Shards of Alara and Conflux and I won a constructed PTQ during that month, exactly in the same city (Porto) and venue of this one.
This time, in 2010, I came to Portugal to renew my passport and apply for a new visa. I arrived not qualified for Nats, and totally unfamiliar with the cards once again. After a week, I had to battle Regionals for a Nats slot, and somehow, not even knowing the new M10 rules I managed to do it. At the time, I wrote for a Portuguese website about playing Regionals and said my goal for Nats is to put a good performance, I wouldn't say a Top 8, but at least to be in contention for it until the last rounds instead of an early drop.
Then came Rise of Eldrazi and 3xROE drafts. That was sweet, suddenly I was even with all the players in the world for Limited play. Together with the experience with the Jund deck, I put the bar much higher for myself at Nats, without being arrogant or afraid to fail. Even tough many preview articles doubted about my chances for Nats, I was sure I had the conditions to be a tough opponent for anybody at this Nats.
Keep following my blog to check how I did in the first ever 2000 Euro Portuguese Draft Challenge the week preceding Nats, and at Nats itself, where I'll give you my most updated list and all the sideboard plans.
Thank you for reading!
When I first come back to Portugal, I had a lot to catch up. I didn't knew cards from Shadowmoor, Eventide, M10, Zendikar and Worldwake, except for the ocasional Baneslayer or Jace. But as soon as I saw decklists I decided I would only play UW control for Standard if I ever needed. (as a side note, I actually had to qualify for Nats playing Mythic at Regionals, because it was the deck my friends gave me. At that point I had just came back from Asia and I was clueless).
Enter GP Lyon. I travelled to Lyon with a UW control on my bag because there was a PTQ on Day 2, which I ended up playing. I played 3 or 4 rounds, before losing twice to strange combo decks with Howling Mines and lots of extra turns. I couldn't do anything to disrupt them, and I lost lots of faith in the deck. Monday at the airport, we were told we couldn't travel back to Portugal because Lisbon airport was closed thanks to some unfriendly Icelandic Volcano. Fortunately, TAP Air Portugal paid for all our expenses during the extra days we had to stay in Lyon. I saw these days as an excellent opportunity to playtest and catchup in constructed, as we were stuck in the airport or the nearby hotel with 2 Junds and 1 UW. During these days we played dozens of games, and I learned a lot about two of the most important decks of the format.
I also found myself atracted to the Jund deck. Why? Because I think the Jund deck was something new to me which I was not sick of playing with or against it unlike most of the other players, so I liked the raw power of the deck, and it seemed silly to me NOT to play it. Back from Lyon I also discovered that it was much easier to assemble a Jund deck online rather than a UW with Baneslayers, Elsepths, Jaces, etc. I played some 4 rounds Daily events when time allowed me to (I'm kind of working now) and I did 4-0 once, 2-2 twice, and 3-1 all the others, which showed that Jund was indeed a powerful and consistent deck. I actually never played a tournament with the same 60 cards Jund maindeck, tough the sideboard stayed more or less the same since the beginning until now.
My first real live tournament with Jund was a PTQ where I missed Top 8 by an inch. I was 5-1 and ready to ID myself into the Top 8, but my opponent had to play and I lost against NL Bant game 3 with 3 lands in play and all the good stuff in hand. But at this point I was set on playing Jund for the remaining PTQ's and for Nats, since I was happy with my maindeck, sideboard and gameplans for all matchups. I still think UW is the best choice for t2 now, but I had experience playing Jund, something I couldn't say with any other deck in t2.
For the PTQ Amsterdam in Porto which I won I sleeved the following 75 cards:
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
3 Lotus Cobra
3 Putrid Leech
4 Blightning
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Bituminous Blast
1 Broodmate Dragon
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Swamp
Sideboard:
2 Duress
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Doomblade
1 Malakir the Bloodwitch
1 Consuming Vapors
People at the tournament asked what did I cut to include card X or card Z. The answer is, I don't know, because I didn't start with an existing decklist. I came very late into this metagame, so I saw a bunch of Jund decklist, and I start building what I wanted for mine, so I never had to cut, but add instead, until I had this Jund list.
I think this is a pretty standard Jund decklist, no tech cards like Eldrazi Monument or Sarkhan the Mad, and playing with all the obvious cards. Generally speaking, this list is like 50-50, or 40-60, 55-45 etc against everything, with all the matchups improving slightly against sideboard (except the mirror obv).
The more intriguing choice is Lotus Cobra. I wanted this card to fight the abundance of Spreading Seas, and it can ocasionally give you some nut draws. I know people claim turn two Putrid Leech is a must, but if you're playing 3 Lotus Cobra, you don't have room for 4 Leeches.
4 Lightning Bolt are a must because of all the Green decks and Mono Red. Together with your 4 Blightnings and oposing fetchlands, it means you probably only need to actually deal 10 damage, because if the stabilize the board you are in a position where you can defend and wait to topdeck a third copy of one of the package 4 Bolts and 4 Blightnings.
For the cards costing 4 mana or more, the bigger threats, if you take Bloodbraid Elf as an automatic inclusion, I would say that 6 is the right number to have them. In every tournament I played I believe I never had the same 6, it was always a mix and match of Siege-Gangs, Sarkhan, Malakir, Master of the Wild Hunt, Broodmate.... tough now I believe the right combination to be 3 Siege-Gangs, 2 Bituminous Blasts and a sixth one.
I will say again that UW control or that Jund with Eldrazi monument to be better decks than this "regular" Jund, but I was really comfortable playing this list and especially this sideboard. I will talk more about the sideboard and give you the sideboard plans in my Nationals Report, since it will have an updated sideboard. Now, I will restrain myself to the PTQ.
Round 1: Jund, Win 2-1
Round 2: Mythic, Win 2-0
Round 3: Jund, Win 2-1
Round 4: Jund, Win
Round 5: Grixis, Win 2-1
Round 6: Jund, Loss, 1-2
Round 7: ID
Quarter-Finals: Jund, Win 2-1
Semi-Finals: Bye
Finals: Monument Jund, Win 2-0
I'm sorry if I'm unable to give you a round by round description, but those Jund vs Jund games they kind of all look the same, so it's quite confusing to actually recall details from the matches.
For my experience, the worst Jund matchup is White Weenie, with Mythic being the second, but I remember my opponent probably mulliganing and being forced to keep some sup- optimal draws, and in game one I had the nuts opening thanks to Lotus Cobra.
Against Grixis I was demolished in Game one, but after sideboard I put a better fight.
I had a bye in the Semis, I was going to play against Márcio Carvalho, he had already won his
Quarter-finals and waiting for mine to end. As soon as I finished he offered to concede, since he's Level something which gives him one invite to a Pro Tour of his choice, and he doesn't want to pay to go to Worlds in Chiba, so either he makes National Team or not. Which means, that free invite he has, he will cash it in Amsterdam.
About Jund matchups, what can I say, I'm a miser! In a matchup which can't be better than 5-0-50 I did a 5-1 score. I cannot control my draws, so here's what I do when I face the mirror match to try to get some edges.
- Understand that pre and post sideboard are two diferent matchups, and your plans and mulligan decisions are also diferent, is the most important thing you can control.
- You shouldn't keep a hand which doesn't have access to all the colours.
- You also need a good feeling of the game you are currently playing to know when to attack when and how to block, do you chump, take or trade, which cannot be taught, you have to "feel" each game independant from the others.
- Broodmate and Siege are game breakers pre sideboard, but worse cards after because of Ruinblaster.
So here's how I sideboard for the mirror.
+ 4 Goblin Ruinblaster
+ 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
- 4 Maelstorm Pulse
- 1 Broodmate Dragon
- 1 Siege-Gang Commander
After sideboard the crucial turns are turns 3 and 4. Most of the games will have a winner by then, so Inquisiton of Kozilek really shines because it deals with 3 of the 4 most important cards after sideboard (Gob Ruinblaster, Sprouting Thrinax and Blightning), the other being Bloodbraid Elf. I would've bring in more copies of Inquisiton of Kozilek, but I need some of them to be Duress for the UW matchups.
To give you an idea of how crucial turns 3 and 4 are, if you're on the draw, you shouldn't play Lotus Cobra on turn two if your opponent has untapped mana, unless it can potentially give you a turn 3 Elf or Ruinblaster. The reason is, if they kill the Cobra at the end of your turn, and follow it with a turn 3 Thrinax and 4 Gob Ruinblaster, you just lost right there.
But if they tap out for Thrinax on turn three, and you play your Cobra on turn 3, you have protection against Goblin Ruinblaster, since they cannot Ruinblaster your land and kill the Cobra on the same turn. If they didn't play Thrinnax or Blightning turn three, then even if they Ruinblaster you, your clock is much smaller.
Despite all of this, the real skill of the matchup is to out draw your opponent.
The funny curiosity about winning this PTQ was, that in January 2009 I took a month of holidays in Portugal, which allowed me to familiarize myself with Shards of Alara and Conflux and I won a constructed PTQ during that month, exactly in the same city (Porto) and venue of this one.
This time, in 2010, I came to Portugal to renew my passport and apply for a new visa. I arrived not qualified for Nats, and totally unfamiliar with the cards once again. After a week, I had to battle Regionals for a Nats slot, and somehow, not even knowing the new M10 rules I managed to do it. At the time, I wrote for a Portuguese website about playing Regionals and said my goal for Nats is to put a good performance, I wouldn't say a Top 8, but at least to be in contention for it until the last rounds instead of an early drop.
Then came Rise of Eldrazi and 3xROE drafts. That was sweet, suddenly I was even with all the players in the world for Limited play. Together with the experience with the Jund deck, I put the bar much higher for myself at Nats, without being arrogant or afraid to fail. Even tough many preview articles doubted about my chances for Nats, I was sure I had the conditions to be a tough opponent for anybody at this Nats.
Keep following my blog to check how I did in the first ever 2000 Euro Portuguese Draft Challenge the week preceding Nats, and at Nats itself, where I'll give you my most updated list and all the sideboard plans.
Thank you for reading!
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