October 14th Modern Daily Event recap

For those of you who didn't had the chance to watch the live stream this is what happened:

After I wrote the article about my UWR Kiki-Midrange deck I received some feedback, mostly people interested in playing with my list and asking me about changes / updates / sideboarding. So far the results have been extremely positive, as far as I know, an Italian player Won an Italian Modern Open and received a cash prize of 1500 € and both Frederico Bastos and Joao Gonçalves who played my list at the White Gargula League tournament Top 8'd.

I haven't playtested much with the deck, I played the Cascais tournament (5-2) mostly against Jund. There are a lot of Modern decks I only have a vague idea how they work, or what cards are they playing. For example, I only discovered during Round 6 in Cascais that Violent Outburst was Instant. It was my first time playing against or actually seeing Living End in action.

Both the Italian and the Portuguese players expressed concern about certain matchups. The deck was favorable matchups but also has some very unfavorable ones. It is impossible to be prepared against everything in a format as wide as Modern. Even Jund has bad matchups.

With that in mind, I changed the whole SB, built heavily against Pod decks, because I wanted to try as many cards as possible against them in order to better develop a strategy. Frederico Bastos said he lost twice to pod, and altough I haven't played against it yet after I've done the major changes to the January list I also feel it might not be enough.

Round 1 I played precisely against Pod, not only Pod, but also the same player who beat Frederico Bastos in the Top 8 of the White Gargula tournament: Luis Gobern.

He mulliganed Game 1, never got a Pod on the table, and I had some topdecks to contain his side, and I say contain because it was temporary, I couldn't control his development. I managed to attack for lethal the turn things could get out of control with Chord of Calling.

G2 he mulliganed and stalled on 2 lands for a while, never resolved a pod, and I didn't get to try any of the sb cards.

1-0

Round 2: I played against GR Tron. Another not so good matchup. My January version has very little chances of winning against this deck. It was the same as round 1, he mulliganed, had weak draws, and I contained the tron long enough to attack for lethal, and didn't had the chance to try sideboard cards. I also played against Tron in Cascais and won, but I don't feel it's a good matchup.

2-0

Round 3: Infect

Lost Game 1 which was balanced altough better for him, because I didn't know there was a Green instant that pumped and granted Hexproof (Vines of Vastwood if I'm not mistaken)

Lost game 2 from an very favorable, almost unlosable position because I miscounted my mana: I had 4 lands in play and was holding Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix (plus more stuff). These instant removal spells cost 4, so I draw Sacred Foundry and played tapped. Then realized didn't had 2 white mana and lost. Also didn't know there was a Pump spell that costed ZERO mana, so I should've played Path instead of Helix.

Punted 3 times, in 2 games in no more than ten turns total both games. Lost because of it.
It was the first time I saw that deck in action, I'm sure next time, I'll be more aware of the tricks.

2-1

Round 4: Grixis Delver

Won G1 where I had no idea what he was doing. I just couldn't understand any of his plays.

G2 I mull to 5 and run out of resources, G3 I mull to 6 and never drew white mana despite multiple Remands. In both these games, since I was in a bad position, my opponent's plays were much more focused: He just threw everything at me, as fast as he could, including main phase Coral Merfolks (I mean, Snapcasters) just to attack for 2. Of all the 4 matches, this was the one I wouldn't mind replaying.

2 - 2

This daily event was awkward I felt my opponent's drew poorly in my unfavorable matchups, and I felt I drew poorly in a decent matchup. The key moment for not profiting was punting several times against Infect.

Afterwards I asked if any of the viewers of the stream had a Pod deck who wanted to battle, since I couldn't test any of the sideboard cards properly, and a Brazilian friend volunteered for the task. I won 2 quick matches, where I felt the Pod deck had once again draws that underperformed. I went 3-0 in matches against Pod decks, but I'm sure that's not representative, I estime it more accurate results to be 1-2 and probably closer to 0-3 than 2-1.

I already have intensive testing with this deck against Jund, I'm looking to do the same in the future against Pod. Message me If you're interested in playing Pod against me.

It seems there are many lovers of the Modern format in Portugal even when it's not relevant at competitive level, since many stores run several Modern tournaments a month. It also seems to be a very large and strong Portuguese participation for the upcoming Grand Prix Antwerp, ab event I plan to attend as well, and therefore the reason I'm focusing on Modern right now.

Thank you for watching yesterday and / or for reading this recap.

Tiago Chan

An open letter about the early 2012 Grand Prix schedule

To whoever it may interest: My disappointment on the announcement

For those of you who don't know me, (and I will be happy if you don't because it means I'm reaching new readers and audiences now that I will write something more serious) my name is Tiago Chan from Portugal. I used to be a Magic Pro Player between 2005 and 2008 and I even reached Level 8 on the Pro Tour Player's club which helped me play Pro Tours wherever the DCI would host them and Grand Prixs all over the world. I played events all over Europe and North America, several countries of Asia and Australia.

I love Magic, but as much as I love it, I believe the persons who make decisions about Magic, either rules, design, development, organized play, marketing, love it more than I do. I usually trust and try to accept every change they make to the game, and truth is most of the times their actions prove to be right, and when don't they keep on changing.

I am however extremely disappointed with the teaser preview revealing the calendar for the early 2012.

I'm disappointed with what was done. I'm disappointed with what was not done and could've been.

8 Grand Prixs in the USA, 1 in Japan, 1 in Malaysia, 1 in Australia, 1 in Mexico, 3 in Europe.

Looking back in time, I was sad when they decided to cut the number of Pro Tours and Grand Prixs even tough attendance was rising and rising to absurd numbers. I was obviously happy when earlier they announced they would be largely increasing the number of Grand Prixs.
So, what's wrong with the early 2012 calendar?

1 a) It is USA centered
1 b) It's an answer to the SCG Open Series

One country has more events than the rest of the World combined.

The SCG Open series proved to be the most sucessful tournament circuit outside the Pro Tour and Grand Prix circuit. It grew to a whole US National level, and from here it is very well possible it's globalization, there is already an SCG Qualifier in Germany. It took advantage of the many free weekends caused by the reduction of events, created a realiable tournament system, already made some stars, showed that in the US there is enough demand for week after week high level events across the country. It helped cause the boom of Legacy and eternal formats. If SCG dared to host an Open Event on the same date of a Grand Prix, there would be players opting for the SCG.

As a costumer I feel Wotc / DCI main motives aren't improving the overall experience at competitive events, but instead to reclaim the US tournament scene which they gradually lost over the years to independent TO's, due to Wotc own negligence. But while doing so, atractting the US players will raise concerns on the rest of the World.

And how are they going to award points to the POY race? Under the new calendar the old Pro Points distribution will not make for a fair competition. Other than Shuuhei, Saito, Martin Juza and PV I don't think any non US-player has a chance to be POY in 2012. But I'm confident that new announcements will come, either the extinction of the POY Title, or making a Pro Tour POY and a Grand Prix POY, or just a never thought before method of awarding points, whatever it is, without changes there isn't a fair POY competition.

2 - The Grand Prixs in the rest of the world have all been done before.

I had high expectation when they announced the high increase of GP numbers, I tought they could go back to, or explore new GP locations, but even when I ignore the USA GP's and focus on the rest of the world, I'm unexcited. Try to understand, months earlier I was excited with the hype created about upcoming chances, and when a teaser shows up, it reveals nothing new, nothing to be excited, nothing to get us wondering on the rest of the calendar.

Japan - every year hosts multiple GP's.

Malaysia - every year there's a GP in Southeast Asia, in between Thailand, Phillipines, Malaysia or Singapore.

Australia - same as above.

Mexico City - Hosted Grand Prixs before, but this was the one who excited me the most.

It's even worse in Europe. GP's in Spain, France and Italy? I mean, that's a given, no matter if there are 6 or 10 Grand Prixs in Europe they will host in those countries. After hearing of Grand Prixs in Spain, Italy, and France, and calculating that the Grand Prixs in Europe will be increased to 10, here is my speculation for the remaining European ones.

UK (tip don't do it in London duting the Olympics)
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Scandinavia
Poland or Czech Republic
Austria or Switzerland

Because every single year is like that.

But imagine what would happen, the hype that would be created if there was a GP in for example Turkey, or Russia, Greece, or a country east of Austria, a country never visited or visited so long ago. But by announcing Spain, France and Italy in the teaser-trailer of the calendar, the reaction is: There are major changes in the USA, but everything remains as it is in the rest of the World.

3- Honolulu as a Pro Tour location is starting to get worned out.

I admit it the first one was nice and received nice feedback from the players. The second one lost some of the magic, and the third one I feel it's totally deja-vu, it doesn't create excitement. But Wizards seems to think that by announcing Pro Tour Honolulu #3 everyone will jump from his chair and high 5 the closest person.

Newsflash. When you see all those facebook status updates like "DING Q'd for Honolulu", "Won a PTQ for Honolulu" with 87 likes below, or "Yes Honolulu here I come", replace Honolulu with any other Pro Tour location. People are just excited that they Qualified for the Pro Tour.

Give the following Poll at Pro Tour Philadelphia to every competitor: You can only choose to attend one: PT Honolulu or PT Japan. (and note how frequent are PT's in Japan). I would be more excited with PT NY than PT Honolulu.

So if Wotc thinks that announcing PT Honolulu was a trump card, I hope they have a better one. Honolulu as nice as it may be, and while appreciated by the players, it didn't made any player anywhere in the World thrilled with excitement. But what about, if in the teaser release of the early 2012 calendar, the first revealed Pro Tour was Rio de Janeiro?

An entire continent would explode in excitement in particular Brazil of course. The regular Gravy trainers who actually enjoy to sightsee would probably be more excited going to Rio than Honolulu. And it would pass a clear message: There are new things happening in 2012 Stay tuned!

Maybe it was just my expectations were too high, but I feel unfair the disproportion between USA and the rest of the World feels the upgrades were made because of and for the USA scene, and I'm unexcited with the rest of the world locations revealed because there's nothing that can make me curious of what will happen, but rather more of the same.

If you like me are disappointed or unsatisfied or unexcited with the announcement or feel it's unfair, or just liked what I wrote, please help me pass the message. Share this link, I would like to have as many players and Wotc employees reading it.

Thank you

Tiago Chan

PT Nats 2011 - Report

Friday Night before Nats I couldn't come up with a list, so I went to sleep at 2AM without knowing the full 75.

I knew I wanted my curve to end at Hero of Bladehold, since this was now a Hero of Bladehold deck, hence the Spellskites main deck they protect your Hero from Ring and Dismember and also being good against Splinter-Twin, carrying a Sword, etc. After putting my own ideas with the ones from Marcio, Tiago Fonseca and Goncalo Pinto, and talking to Mauro Peleira on site I settled on this list.

4 Plains

4 Island

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Tectonic Edge

2 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Squadron Hawk

4 Blade Splicer

4 Hero of Bladehold

4 Mana Leak

4 Preordain

3 Oblivion Ring

2 Dismember

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Sword of War and Peace

3 Spell Pierce

3 Spellskite

Sideboard

1 Flashfreeze

2 Deprive

2 Gideon Jura

3 Timely Reinforcements

2 Ratchet Bomb

3 Day of Judgment

2 Celestial Purge

If I played this deck the Monday after Nats (3 weeks have passed, so not a good advice) I would cut the Nexus for coloured mana. My list was different from Marcio and Mauro two cards, and from Tiago Fonseca and Goncalo Pinto 4 cards, they had Mirran Crusader.

I posted on Facebook on much I hated the deck I was playing, so many creatures. We just couldn't come up with anything better by the 23rd of July.

Round 1: Video Feature Match vs Rafael Batalha (Caw Blade)

Rafael is a kid I never saw his name or face before, but then again I'm out of the country for 3 years. I asked him if he had been posting good results lately, he said last year had been ok, this year not so much, an ambiguous enough answer depending on one's definition of ok.
I asked the coverage team about why was this match featured, they told me they just wanted to get me on camera. In my mind, I finished their sentence with a "before I drop from the tournament", obv. I felt like Jakub Slemr getting a Round 2 Feature Match at a Grand Prix Prague, with all the respect to Jakub Slemr.

Game one I'm on the play and I have a pretty good draw, Spellskite, Blade Splicer, Hero of Bladehold, play and equip the miser's Sword of War and Peace. I won.

During sideboard one of the spectators, a friend on Facebook who had checked my status the day before, told me: "See the deck is good you're winning". I gave the short and polite answer I could while I was sideboarding, something like "Yeah we'll see" or "the match isn't over haven't won yet" but my feelings about the deck had not changed. Clearly, this was just a prank from destiny trying to get my hopes high, making it feel you could grasp the win, before delivering the final blow with a "Did you really tought you were winning? Clearly not".

Game two I spent the first ten minutes of video shuffling. No, Mr shall remain unnamed judge, that is not a slow play warning or failure to present deck after 3 minutes. I mulliganed to 4, had a playable 4 card hand, but unsurprisingly run out of gas.

Game three I always tought I was going to win, I had everything, being on the play having Squadron Hawk, Spellskite, Sword of War and Peace, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce. I tought I was a little unfortunate on lands. I had 4 on turn 6, and then 3 on turn 7, two of them being Nexus, so I'll probably be cutting them. Tiago Fonseca was watching and said I could've played the Sword of War and Peace that was Spell Pierced earlier, but Rafael had a Divine Offering in his hand all the time. Still it was probably a better play, as it would increase my clock with Hawk.

One interesting thing, the turn where he Tectonic Edge my untapped Blue mana so he could cast his Hero of Bladehold safely, he activated Edge, I binned my Land silently (altough worried because that Tectonic Edge was his land drop for the turn I hadn't seen it before), and he asked me. Did you added mana?

This question is him just making sure and having the game state as clear as possible (tough if I had added, I would have to announce it someway) What I think is, had I added a Blue mana, it would be very disrespectful of me towards my opponent, to judge him as somone who would on an empty board from his side except lands, to forget to announce his attack step and play his Hero into my Blue mana. Of course that now without Mana Burn it is technically correct to do it, but come on give some respect to your oponents.

0 - 1

Round 2: vs Black Red Vampires

Game 1 I just remember him running out of gas and me on the late game activating Nexus, equipping both Swords on it attacking, untapping and doing some other stuff, I won by poison.

Game two, I made my worst mistake of the tournament. I have Hero of Bladehold which is very huge clock. He has one 2/2 creature, but I'm only at 6. He holds one card. I draw Timely Reinforcements. If I go back to 12, I feel pretty safe and I can end the game prob the next turn with Hero. So what do I do? I swing with hero, hitting him for 7. Then after combat, whooaa.... yup... Go. And I had to hope he didn't topdeck anything to finish me me. How embarassing. Should've lost this game just because of that.

1 - 1

Round 3: vs Valakut

I don't remember this round, I won 2-1 but I don't remember if I won the first or the second. I do remember his list had Summoning Trap, and that I tilted a bit on game three because I almost got colour screwed in Game 3 by drawing two Nexus. However the feeling of getting the 2-1 in Standard with so little faith in the deck was amazing and made me think I could actually pull out something this Nats.

2 - 1

Lunch break, something like 45 mins, with nowhere nearby to eat but we were lucky to ask some persons on the street and find a Cuban Grill Restaurant just a few blocks away where we asked for a turbo service. The funniest thing happened, and probably just a bunch of people who know Frederico Bastos well will understand why is so funny, but I have to write it just for a select few who will understand.

Me: (while looking at the menu) Judging by the pics, I don't think there's anything here you will eat.

Fred Bastos: I don't see how hard can it be to find something I like at a Cuban Grill Restaurant.

Me: Trust me, skip all the pictures and go straight to the last page to the hand written stuff.

Fred Bastos (after not taking my advice and wasting 5 mins looking at the menu): You know me too well...

For you to understand you would have to know Frederico Bastos well, and when I say well I mean at least having went to a Pizzaria with him, and had looked at the Cuban Grill menu. I think only a couple of persons qualify for that, but for those this was one of the highlights of the weekend.

I was in a really high mood, thanks to a delicious (altough in a hurry, and delicious at least for me, others might have different opinions) meal, and because of my 2-1 score with a deck I had no confidence in. I knew I had to make a move in the draft portion, but I was ready for that.

My pod it's all 2-1 players, I recognize Helder Coelho and Daniel Teixeira. Daniel Teixeira is from Porto but I played him twice in my last 4 tournaments, a PTQ and Nats both last year. His play seemed solid and with a reason, and the advanced stages of the tournaments when we played indicated he posted reasonable finishes in both. Helder Coelho was in all our practice drafts, I mean he is the one good friends with the owner of the place. He quitted Magic like 8 years ago but decide to give Magic another go. Despite that, I believe Helder to be Top 5 in an all-time list of best Portuguese players, ahead of names like my good friends Paulo Carvalho (and his 2 PT Top 8) and Rui Mariani. Point is, there are few names I'd rather face in Portugal instead of Helder, despite his long absence. (Hey I also quitted 3 years ago)

And check my blog next week where I'll reveal who I believe are the Top 10 Portuguese Magic players of all time.

I don't remember what I first picked, probably a Red removal spell, followed it with Merfolk Looter and Phantasmal Image, then it became obvious that Green was open and Blue was not (unsurprisingly) so not happy with it, I made the switch, and was rewarded with the best deck I drafted in M12 at that point.

1 Shock

1 Incinerate

2 Chandra's Outrage

2 Bloodthirst Ogre

1 Goblin Piker

1 Bonebraeak Giant

2 Arachnus Web

1 Trollhide

2 Rhyno 4G 4/4 Trample

1 Overrun

1 Garruk's Companion

1 Titanic Growth

2 Sacred Wolf

1 Primordial Hydra

2 Jade Mage

2 Elvish Archdruid

I also had a perfect Sideboard

1 Naturalize

2 Plummet

2 Vastwood Gorger, the 5/6 for 5G against other Green decks

1 Goblin Arsonist if I needed an early blocker

Sorry the cards are in Portuguese so some cards might have incorrect names.

I mentally fist pumped when the draft was over and tought to myself, I'm not gonna have a better chance at 3-0 this weekend than now.

Round 4: Daniel Teixeira with BW fliers

Game 1 I mulliganed a hand of 5 lands, Bonebreak Giant and either Trollhide or Titanic Growth. Kept the next one, 4 lands, the same giant and Arachnus Web. He had a super fast start, I think he killed me before I played the Giant even tough I played Arachnus Web on some guy.

Game 2 I won just by putting some pressure, early guys, removal.

Game 3 I had another decent start, but his turn 4 Solemn Simulacrum threatened to be a 3 for 1, and turn 5 Siege Mastodon disencouraged me from attacking. Overall I felt I drew really poorly this round, a fact later confirmed by Daniel after watching my deck.

2 - 2

Clearly not going according the plan.

Round 5: vs White / Green

Historically, RG has troubles against GW in draft. GW has the same size monsters but the white ones have evasion and are cheaper. Red removal is too small for the bigger monsters, and there usually aren't creatures with repeatable activated abilities that have to be killed, so not having removal is less of a drawback for GW.

Game one I lost to Serra Angel enchanted with Trollhide, Divine Favour and Lifelink. How do I beat that, not even drawing my whole deck.

I won the other two, one of them I was on the offensive the whole time, and had Red removal or Pump all the time, so every turn he played a guy, and every turn I kept swinging. But one of the games I won was very close, I tought I was going to lose, but topdecked Incinerate to kill his creature enchanted with Trollhide. Thank god it's Incinerate and not Lightning Bolt.

3 - 2 (but it was so close to being a 2-3)

Round 6: Black/Red

I won the first, Jade Mage survived enough turns to have an impact.

I lost the second to Sorin Markov.

Game three I'm on the offensive, on his turn 6, he didn't have a sixth land, so I managed to kill him before Sorin Markov. How lucky.

4 - 2

I tought this draft had a shot at 3-0 but after playing with it I felt much closer to a 0-3 as I could have easily lost all other matches than 3-0. After the draft I grabbed Helder and we played some games with our drafts and I won.

Second Draft

Highlights of my Draft Pod at 4-2 were Luis Sousa, who I also consider to be in the Top 10 of Portugal all time, Sergio Preto, Limited expert when Andre Coimbra was on the train and could pick any player with at least 1 pro point on the season to team with he choose Sergio Preto. Sergio has 6-0 the draft portion of PT Nats several times, has played in a bunch of PT's and made some Limited GP's Top 32. Pedro Cavaleiro another strong player who has made the National Team before and has Pro Tour experience, he was on Zvi, Steve Sadin and other New Yorkers playtest group for Worlds 2008. There were a couple more familiar faces, opposition wasn't easy.

This is the famous draft I talked about on my Facebook multiple status, the worst deck I ever drafted, not only in M12, but in my whole life. I never played with so many garbage cards and despite the low power level and fillers, the deck as absolutely ZERO synergy. It has the spells of a control deck, and the creatures of an aggro one. After the draft my feeling was the exact opposite of the end of the first draft, Nats was over.

Also after the draft the coverage team informed me that during the draft there was a reporter behind me who covered my draft. First, I must say I feel very flattered that me being 4-2 was still chosen to be the draft covered out of 120 players. Second feeling was "doh" I drafted the worst deck ever and it's now tracked down.

Booster 1 Picks 1-14

Day of Judgment

Incinerate

Stormfront Pegasus

Consume Spirit

Consume Spirit

Rusted Sentinel

Stave off

Auramancer

Brink of Disaster

Zombie Goliath

Act of Treason

Griffin Sentinel

Zombie Infestation

Flight

Booster 2 Picks 1-14
Stormfront Pegasus

Mind Rot

Serra Angel

Duskhunter Bat

Elite Vanguard

Warpath Ghoul

Bloodseeker

Combust

Disstress

Dragonskull Summit

SmallpoxLure

Wurm’s Tooth

Negate

Booster 3 Picks 1-14

Assault Griffin

Stormfront Pegasus

Sorin’s Thirst

Crown of Empires

Mighty Leap

Consume Spirit

Lurking Crocodile

Smallpox

Mind Unbound

Plummet

Hideous Visage

Gladecover Scout

Negate

Rampant Growth

Greater Basilisk

The player to my right first picked Fireball and shipped me Incinerate. I never saw another Red card for the rest of the draft, but didn't try to force it. Third pick I had to choose between Stormfront Pegasus or Giant Spider. Should have taken the Spider. Later in the draft it was clear that Green was open again (it always is) and I would probably ended up with an average Green/Black deck, normal guys, light on removal, not necessarly synergetic but at least not so disfunctional. I also think my seat wasn't good, a couple of seats away from me the packs opened were the ones Bad for Sealed, a couple of good cards and then 10 mediocre cards, since I never saw anything good after the third pick in every booster.

1 Sorin’s Thirst

3 Consume Spirit

2 Smallpox

1 Crown of Empires

1 Mind Rot

1 Day of Judgment

1 Disstress

1 Zombie Goliath

1 Elite Vanguard

1 Duskhunter Bat

1 Blood Seeker

1 Warpath Goul

1 Griffin Sentinel

1 Rusted Sentinel

1 Serra Angel

11 Swamp

7 Plains

Playing with this deck was an interesting challenge, because it forces you to play Limited like you would play Constructed. If you just cast what you have when you have the mana, for sure you're not gonna win, every game you need to visualize how you're gonna win.

For example.
- Always choose to draw.

- Don't try to go aggro despite your creatures might indicate so. Most of them are there to trade in combat or bail out stuff.

- Distress, before you play Serra Angel is one of your best chances to win.

Round 7: vs UW fliers

He plays some guys, I'm lacking the second plains to play Day of Judgement, and even before I drew it, I just realize he his holding a Cancel. The way he thinks and pauses, counts and taps it's mana, it's written all over the place. Anyway, I draw the second Plains, and I need to play Day of Judgement or I will die, I didn't had anything good enough to bail out the Cancel before. And who knows, maybe he's just bluffing it, since he didn't bother to counter any of my horrible cards so far, or who knows, maybe my reading skills are getting worse. Still I tapped 4 and played it saying, I know you have a Cancel.

That wasn't me whinning and going, of course they always have it. That was me, knowing for several turns he had it.

Game two I'm on the draw, played Smallpox getting his first guy, but it didn't slowed him down enough, actually I believed the land sacrifice from Smallpox hurted me more than him.

4 - 3

End of Day 1, but not of this Report.

So I'm feeling pretty dejected. I have given away all the losses I could afford and would have to 5-0 the second day. With the first two rounds being with this deck. I like to be optimistic, so what did that meant?

First, we went for Dinner, always a nice plan. Second, Luis Sousa had dropped from the event, so I had a 33% shot of having a Bye. Third, after the bye, I would play against someone, choose to draw first and mana screw him with Smallpox. Then I would needed to 3-0 with Caw Blade. And now, after playing with this draft, I felt Caw Blade was the best deck ever, and I couldn't wait to play with it again, so always optimistic! Even if I lost a round before 11am, I could still drop and play the PTQ.

When I woke up the next day, I tried my best to not think about the deck, and keep praying to get the Bye. But instead I would be playing my friend Pedro Cavaleiro who was feeding me during the draft.

Round 8: Pedro Cavaleiro with B/R aggro

I won 2-1 (!!!) I don't remember the games, they were all very long and grinded out, and also very exciting for both of us and our audience. I think our decks interacted nicely and even tough I won I wouldn't be slightly upset had I lost given the way the games happened. There was however a stain on it.

Game 3, three turns before ending.

I attack with Stormfront Pegasus to put him at 6. Play the Serra Angel I drew.

He plays Goblin Arsonist, gives him Haste with Crimson Mage and attacks. I look at the board, tought about it for a while, meh, I'll block, what's the worst it could happen? Pedro's jaw dropped. The audience erupted! Whoa Tiago fell for it. "What" I asked to myself? Pedro continues playng. Goblin dies, 1 damage to Stormfront Pegasus. Oh, right! That was it.

Every once in a while you see bad plays like this happen, and you wonder what was that guy thinking, so I'll tell you what was I. I didn't saw Stormfront Pegasus in play, because it was tapped and slightly aside. He had a bunch of untapped creatures. a Tapped Goblin attacking me on the center of the table, and I had a bunch of untapped creatures. Had I realized the Pegasus was in play, I wouldn't block, just like that.

Next turn I attack with Serra Angel to put him at 2. He drews and extends the hand. I apologized to Pedro for my mistake, he didn't deserve to lose like that.

5 - 3

Round 9: vs BW

Game one he mulliganed to 5 on the play, I played Smallpox, but since I couldn't kill him, he recovered and killed me with some guys.

This opponent had been awarded the Bye last round and he watched my match against Pedro Cavaleiro. He knows exactly how unorthodox my draft his and what are my ways of gaining advantage and winning. I sided out one Plains and Day of Judgement, as I couldn't believe there was a situation where this card could be good given the circumstances. I added an extra Swamp for value on the triple Consume Spirit and some other filler.

Just like with Pedro Cavaleiro, all the games were so long, since my deck has very few winning conditions. I just remember the end of game three, I'm dead on his next attack, my turn I attack for two with Stormfront Pegasus, and then played Consume Spirit for exactly lethal maybe 7.

The following conversation happened:

Him: Did you drew it?

Me: No, I had it.

Him: Isn't it your third copy? (checks my graveyard)

Me: Yes.

Him: I tought you had 2 only, so I felt safe. Well lucky you, GGs!

For the record, I think that this round opponent played perfectly every turn, every decision he had to make. But remember, he watched my match with Pedro Cavaleiro, so he had close to full information, my deck really benefits from the surprise element, but anyway congratulations to my opponent who made a really good interpretation of the information he acquired and played accordingly.

6 - 3

After this match I was finally free of this deck. I took out the Constructed deck box and hugged my sweet sweet beloved Caw Blade. I never tought six rounds of Draft could change so much my opinion of my Constructed deck. I was ready for the final 3-0, after 2-1 every part of the tournament so far.

Round 10: Dinis Maia with GW Good Stuff

Dinis is also a former National Champion, him in 2001 me in 2003, but I know him from more than 10 years. When we were kids we played a Team Limited PTQ together, but then we started playing at different stores with different people and we gradually lost contact. We also grew up, got jobs and changed priorities, so we only see each other maybe once a year. But I think we have a mutual great deal of respect for each other not only as Magic players, but more importantly as two persons, and I enjoy his presence in Magic tournaments and playing with him.

Game 1 he started with Birds into Birthing Pod. I don't know exactly what he's playing, but this looks very very bad for me. He got one activation, where he sac his Birds for Nest Invader. I had an Oblivion Ring next turn, and I can safely guess his deck has Acidic Slime, so I have to hope he doesn't draw it. He followed with Lorwyn Garruk, but from here I can somehow control the damages, and his GW deck ran out of gas quicker than me.

Game 2 is all about one play. Nothing else mattered really. On his turn 3 he has 4 mana and goes into the tank. I have only one land untapped. I'm sure he's debating which card to play, Lorwyn Garruk or Bladehold Hero, do I have the Spell Pierce or the Dismember. He tought about it for a really long time, but I never interrupted as it's a pretty tough choice. I don't even remember which one he played, and I don't even remember which one of Spell Pierce / Dismember I was holding. I just knew I was hoping all the time, play the wrong one, play the wrong one. When he did, and I tapped one mana to answer it, just like that the game was over.

7 - 3

3 - 0 for the day, it's happening, two more to go.

Pairings for Round 11 go up and it's me against Marcio. We shrug and sit down at our table. But there was an idiot who started shouting: "New pairings are coming, New pairings are coming, Frederico Bastos is not listed on the pairings". Me and Marcio instantly got up, hi5'd each other and yelled: YAUUUUSSSSS!

Upon checking that the idiot was Frederico Costa we just sat down again embarassed everyone looking and started shuffling.

Round 11: Video Feature Match vs Marcio Carvalho with Mirror Blade

Upon the announcement of this Feature Match, the crowd reaction described the magnitude and context match. Elimination Match, Son Goku vs Vegeta one would be out of Top 8 for sure.

However this was not as epic as it could have been, as the rivals, altough with similar potentials were currently at unbalanced states of power. Think of it as a Goku vs Vegeta match, but a black hair Son Goku unable to change into super warrior state, against a blonde hair Vegeta.

Game 1 Marcio was on the play and had turn 2 Hawk, while I had it a couple turns later, so he was on the offensive, and the Nexus was slightly disrupting my plays. I managed to solve the Hawks with Hawks of my own, the momentum changed back and forth, but eventually he won landing a threat that sticked. I lost the game with several counters on my hand, which I couldn't properly use because of my mana.

In Marcio's words: "Punished! Playing with Inkmoth Nexus, you have to be punished." (Punished is Marcio's currently pet expression, you will likely year it hundreds of time if you spend a day with him)

Game two I have the cards to be on the offensive, I went all in played the cards and Tectonic Edge, Marcio's Edge instead of Colonnade really trying to go all-in with Sword draw, ensuring Nexus could carry a sword if needed, but he had all the answers.

I tried to discuss the games a little, but despite winning Marcio was not on the mood, so I'm not really sure how different things could have been, other possible plays. I have zero experience playing these UW Blade decks, so it seems fairly natural that I lost both mirrors, tough in round 1 I was very close of mising a win, while against Marcio I always felt he had it under control.

7 - 4

Out of Top 8 contention and the PTQ had already started, how unfortunate. However Top 12 is 2 Pro Points and Top 16 is one Pro Point. I figure I should just play the final round and see what happens, since it's basically free pro points. My decision of not dropping received many dejective and I believe irrational comments along the lines of.

"You are pathetic, playing for Pro Points. You had a mediocre performance at Nats, don't humiliate yourself more playing for Pro Points, just drop and save some pride, that is, if you still have some left."

I really don't understand! Really.

I made the trip to Nats. I put a deck together after some playtest. I spent two days here. No shame in not dropping and playing the last round. It's just one more match. And to those who say that Pro Points are worth nothing, and in fact they might end up being irrelevant, the true fact is it costs me nothing to play one more match. It's not that I have to do another card ride to another tournament site. It's not that I have something better to do if I drop. I can't go home as I have to wait for the others, I can't go for an early dinner as well, and there just isn't any reason to drop like wanting to watch a Football match or something. If I dropped, what I would do was to watch others play Magic.

So either you are ultra cool because you drop and show that you don't care about Magic at all and you proceed to go railbird the matches of people playing for Top 8 or the PTQ.

Or you could play one more match, that should take half hour of your life, see what happens and then go bird matches or try to get a draft going.

I clearly took the option who made me look pathetic, I guess I don't have any self esteem left in me.

Round 12: vs Valakut

I didn't recognize my opponent, and I had no idea what he was playing. Happens all the time in Portugal, after Round 1 everyone knows what I'm playing, and here I am in the final round of Nats completely clueless. I asked one of my friends who played him earlier, and I was told he was playing Caw Blade. "Caw Blade with main deck Wrath of God be careful"

I kept a hand good for the mirror, he led with Valakut, I looked at my hand, and mentally scooped game one there. I had absolutely no chance, my hand was auto mulligan vs Valakut. The draws didn't help, I decided to play a while longer to have his Oracle of Mull Daya reveal me some contents of his deck since I couldn't rely on people.

I guess the person who provided me with the information wanted to "punish" me for being pathetic and not dropping.

My opponent played 9 mana Titan, attacked me once. I didn't played a single card in this game. but I got to see Wurmcoil Engine and Summoning Trap for my efforts.

I won the next two games, don't really remember how, except for one. He has 11 mana and three cards. I have a creature in play, and 5 lands, holding Mana Leak, Spell Pierce, Sword of Feast and Famine plus more stuff.

He taps 6 for Primeval Titan, 5 mana open. I Mana Leak it, he pays, 2 mana open. On my turn I draw the sixth land, comes into play untapped. Played Sword, equip it on my guy, attack, he plays Nature's Claim one mana open and I Spell Pierce it, discarding his last card. The Primeval Titan will not kill me next turn, and either the game state or the contents of my hand will solve it or make it irrelevant, so he has one window to draw something. He didn't, so I was lucky here, but I was also lucky when I burned my Mana Leak just in case he had a Nature's Claim and I drew my sixth untapped land.

8 - 4 (4x 2-1 a nice definition of mediocre tournament)

Standings after Swiss

As someone would say it: "You got punished for being pathetic and not dropping". Looking at the Standings also made me realize had I won against Marcio it would probably me finishing 9th. It is a bit sad that the only person in the room who kind of cared for Pro Points, as in having in the Pro Points a reason for not dropping, would be the one who missed them on breakers.

Another thing is, the five players who played our list, me, Marcio, Goncalo Pinto, Tiago Fonseca and Mauro Peleira did pretty well. 3 in the Top 8, one 9th on breakers, and me being the black sheep on 17th. However none of us was particularly happy with this version of Caw Blade with lots of guys, and now 3 weeks later the version with guys seems to have been dismissed. It was a valid choice at the time, I just don't like having so many creatures.

After Nats me and Helder wanted to team draft, we got ourselves a third and went looking for opponents, which is kind oif hard, since the average Portuguese player doesn't like to draft and even less to team draft. Mario Azevedo, the captain of the Magic in Braga accepted the challenge probably to kill some time as they were waiting for a guy playing in the PTQ to go back to Braga. They were 4, so it was me Helder Coelho, Narciso Ferreira and Pedro Reis.

I drafted an unspectacular R/G Bloodthirst deck, for some reason Green is always open. Got lucky and won against two much better decks, got unlucky and lost to their worst deck. Going into round 4, score is 8-6 for us with two matches left, mine being one of them. I'm against their avarege deck too, a UW deck. He has something like a Trained Warhorse who is shutting me down, so I have to overextend. He plays Wrath of God.

I didn't knew about it, shrugged, but randomly asked, did any of you 3 knew about Wog? They had all saw it, so yay, go team go. I peeled Jade Mage right after the Wrath which was my best draw, and eventually won. The lack of team spirit was compensanted with a complimentary high 5 after my win.

And that was the end of my competitive Magic for know. There were 8 amazing playtesting days, and 2 amazing competitive Magic days. I would like to thank everyone who surrounded me those days, everyone I played against or chatted with at Nats. I might be back in 6 months or a year again, and it's all because of you, the Portuguese Magic community.

2011 Hall of Fame

I already submitted my 2011 Hall of Fame votes, 4 of them were very easy for me, but I had a really tough time picking the last one. I considered for a while just doing a "PV" thing and not submit the full 5 votes, not because I feel there aren't five names worthy of HOF but because it was so hard to come up with one.

First, my four easy votes.

Shuuhei Nakamura

Cut Shuuhei's accomplishments in half, and he would still be inducted. Because with Shuuhei almost everyone is voting for the man, and not the player.

Anton Jonsson

I voted for him last year, will do it again this year, and I believe he will make it this time. There are better persons out there to explain why voting for Anton should be a must. My personal experience with Anton is losing countless semifinals of the now extinct 9-5 queues.

Osyp Lebedowicz

I don't think I ever played or even talked to Osyp before, but he's my favourite writer, one of my favourite players to watch. As a fan at home, reading coverage, articles and watching videos I would like to have Osyp on the tour again. Isn't the HOF also about players who everyone wanted to watch for one reason or another (read Mark Rosewater on Mike Long).

However Osyp is not only a fan favourite, an entertainer. His stats are comparable to Mark Herberholz's. They're both PT Champions, have 3 and 4 PT Top 8 respectively, both have 4 GP Top 8, Osyp even won one with Affinity. But by reading other persons opinions some think Mark Herberholz is HOF eligible and very few mention Osyp which I think is kind of unfair.

I also never played Mark Herberholz before, so I can't really compare them with my former-Pro Player point of view, but as a fan, I vote Osyp over Heezy. (more on Heezy later).

Carlos Romao

Why I will always vote for Carlos Romão: If Tsuyoshi Fujita was an auto vote for most of us because of being the pioneer of Japanese Magic, Carlos Romão is the Latin American Tsuyoshi Fujita, a community lacking the resources of Japanese Magic which has and keeps producing some of the finest players around.

Tsuyoshi Fujita was inducted in this ballot. Rubin and Turian were left out, in 2007 Top 5 would make it.

1 Kai Budde 90.42%
2 Zvi Mowshowitz 62.28%
3 Tsuyoshi Fujita 49.74%
4 Nicolai Herzog 41.50%
5 Randy Buehler 35.58%

6 Ben Rubin 35.21%
7 Michael Turian 31.87%

If you voted Tsuyoshi Fujita over Rubin, Turian, or even Nico, then you should probably be voting Carlos Romao over someone else. I did voted Tsuyoshi Fujita by the way. If I remember correctly I think I voted Kai, Nico, Zvi, Fujita, Turian. After the results were announced, Jelger made me promisse to vote for Ben Rubin the following year.

Fifth Vote

I considered many names for my final vote, and eventually I decided I would vote for an American because most of the names on the list were American and more or less from the same timeline so it would be easier to compare them.

Patrick Chapin; Antonino de Rosa; Eugene Harvey; Mark Herberholz; William Jensen;

Even tough Antonino is the one I know best, he has 1 PT Top 8 while the others all have 4. I like to vote on the man over the stats, but here Antonino had to go. I was surprised, because some years ago I used to see Antonino's pictures holding a trophy week after week on the coverage.

About Heezy. I read all his recent articles, at least the non-premium ones. They were all highly entertaining. I liked the fact that not only he cared about the HOF, and he actually did something to put him back on everyone's radar. He has an impressive curriculum, seems like he's impersonating the modern days Pro Tout stereotype of a bad boy to make a point. Clearly what makes Heezy different from the other 4 on that small list his is attitude. But that's what I get from reading. I never played or talked with him before. So in my mind I kind of picked Osyp vs Heezy, but I will keep considering Heezy in future ballots.

I already talked a little about Chapin last year, so I'll focus on William Jensen and Eugene Harvey. By watching them play, I was most impressed with these two. And I did played against them and watch them play behind them. I'm sure this vote will be unfair to a dozen of other players on the ballot, but I had to choose and in the end I voted William Jensen. Let's imagine I had forgotten who I voted for, and I had to through the process again, the fifth name would probably be different.

So My 2011 Ballot

Shuuhei Nakamura
Anton Jonsson
Osyp Lebedowicz
Carlos Romao
William Jensen

Bonus section: About Steve OMS

Steve OMS is only a name for me, altough a name with a high place in Magic history. I never played him, talked to him or even saw him. I didn't read about him in the coverage and I never read anything written by him. He's just too old school for me. You have to understand that with so many players on the list that I played against, watched them play live, read their stuff, and got to know the person behind them, it's very dificult for me to vote for just a name and stats.

However, most of the community seems to be supporting Steve OMS as a deserving Hall of Famer. So many of us can't be wrong. That's why I promisse, if Steve OMS doesn't make it into the HOF this year, he will be the first name on my 2012 ballot, regardless of whoever else is in there.

Next on my Blog:

- The second part of my PT Nats report I'm almost finishing writting it
- My list of the Top 10 greatest Portuguese players of all time
- My Magic Invitational created card, the biggest Magic leak since... uh well New Phyrexia I guess!

So you have plenty of reasons to keep checking it.

PT Nats 2011 - Tournament Preparation

Despite my mediocre performance at PT Nats 2011 I decided to write a tournament report. I encourage all Portuguese players to write more articles or tournament reports and here I am showing an example. As long as you have something to say, and I do, plus a website willing to publish what you write, which I don't but I have a Blog I guess that will do. ~

My Nats 2011 tournament report starts in September 2010. After Pro Tour Amsterdam I returned to China for a new job which killed any chances to play Magic. I skipped the whole Block of Mirrodin 2, Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia. I did however planned to play M12 Core Set for Limited for about a Month since there was a GP in August in my "hometown" of Shanghai, a Limited GP. I had already made plans with Magic and non-Magic friends to take a week off work and be in Shanghai with them the week before or after the Grand Prix.

To my disappointment, things changed, due to some circumstances in China and in Portugal I was requested to leave China as soon as possible and stay the whole summer in Portugal. When I say as soon as possible, it means I was on the waiting list for the next available flights during the summer season. There went the GP and all the plans I had.

That however opened another window, I would most likely arrive just in time to compete at PT Nats, the question was, Do I want to play PT Nats? I had never done a draft of the current block, and the last time I played t2 I was Bloodbraiding into Blightning and redirecting the damage to Elspeth, Knight Errant. Luckily for me, two things happened. Our Nats was scheduled for after the M12 release, which meant everyone had 2 weeks to prepare for a new draft format, and Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic were banned, it didn't meant a new constructed format, but at least it reduced my disadvantage of catching up.

My playtesting started still in China. I work from 7.30AM till 16:30. In Portuguese time that means 00:30 AM till 9:30AM. The only person from my contact list who was online during the whole night was Goncalo Pinto Madcat. We talked about the format and played some MWS games. Madcat was convinced that Garruk 2.0 was going to be the nuts, the new keycard of the format, everyone would be playing 4 of, or at least he would. At the time I knew nothing about Standard, so I believed him and with that information and after reading all the Red cards of the format I made a Land Destruction deck. I tought that if the key card of the format costs 5 mana, attacking the lands was a good idea. Plus the deck played like a Mono Red aggro, and it had a oops I win card, Tectonic Rift.

God draw would be. Turn 1 Goblin Guide (18), turn 2 Kiln Fiend (16), turn 3 Staggershock your guy (10), turn 4 rebound target you (8) Tectonic Rift attack for lethal.

However the Red creatures didn't hit hard enough except for Kiln Fiend, so eventually I shifted into this list.

4 Goblin Guide
4 Steppe Lynx
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Plated Geopede
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Staggershock
4 Tectonic Rift
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Terramorphic Expanse
Mountains and Plains

I was very happy with this deck. I think it's the perfect deck for Tectonic Rift since the creatures hit very hard, and everyone is tapping out in this format. Then something happened. Someone played Timely Reinforcements against me, which made me have the "Is that for real" look.

Arriving in Portugal

I landed in Portugal on July 15th at 3:00AM with 8 days to go before Nationals. Less than 12 hours later I was already cracking my first M12 pack. But let me first talk about the scenario I found in Portugal.

I started my preparation on MSN with Madcat. He is a good friend who happened to be Online at the same hours I was. He is a very capable Magic player, one of the best of our country, and I like to listen what he has to say and playtest with him. He gets mocked all the time, because he has been Marcio Carvalho #1 apprentice for like 7 years. His game did get better by getting close to him, but still far from the Master. I will talk about Madcat later in some other post, for now the relevant thing is because of his Master/Apprentice relation with Marcio, playtesting with Madcat in Portugal means the following main core.

Marcio Carvalho
Goncalo Pinto "Madcat"
Tiago Fonseca
Pedro Pereira "Rossa"

Some of my best friends are in this group.

There is another playtesting group which also has some of my best friends, it's sort of the remaining Team Next Level members plus some old school guys, so Let's call them New Team Next Level until they come up with a name by themselves.

Narciso Ferreira "Goon"
Vasco Bonifacio
Manuel Luis
Frederico Bastos
Helder Coelho
Pedro Reis

Problem is, there are persons from Marcios group who don't speak with persons from Next Level, the situation even got a bit physical last year. Plus, Marcio and Fred Bastos they like to be annoying to each other just for the fun of it, and their new funny thing was keeping information secret from each other for Nats. Now if there are two persons to which I talk openly about Magic are Marcio and Fred Bastos, so the situation became a little awkward.

There was also Mauro Peleira. Mauro is also a good friend and very strong Magic strategist. We often talk about Magic related stuff, and he helped me prepare for many tournaments which he wasn't even attending or profiting from it. He wrote some articles for international websites, including Starcity and I believe he mentioned me in most of them either as an example of a situation or story or whatever. Some readers might think that he wanted to captivate audience or make a point by name dropping me. which is false. I owe him lots of things in Magic, if there was ever a book like 100 most influential Magic players in your carreer, Mauro Peleira would be on mine. What happened was, while I was on China still unsure of attending Nats I messaged Mauro and said, "I might need a decklist and the cards for it to play Nats". Mauro answered: "Ok".

His playtest group has the following core:

Mauro Peleira
Joao Andre
Igor Barreiras
Andre Mendes

They are 4 friends from the Mem Martins suburban area of Lisbon who play together. I playtested with them for Nats 2010 and I felt very well prepared. These guys always have an edge in Portuguese constructed tournaments, even when they play stocklists. They often show up with different decks matching personal playing styles and they will have good performances. I compare their presence in Portuguese constructed Magic, to Your Move Games in the USA back in the old days.

But now I didn't wanted to be shipped a decklist anymore, I had one week and I wanted to be active in playtesting, to contribute and to help. Problem was, subway to the train station, plus train to Mem Martins plus from the station to their places took too much time to be done everyday twice a day, and it put time constrains on my returning hours back home.

For Portuguese Magic I usually don't use the concept of a playtesting team. I have my friends, with who I like to play, chat and hang out and I prepare with them and whoever else shows up at where we're playing. Only this year, the plan of Magic friends from the Lisbon area wasn't going to work due to some rifts caused by misunderstandings, silly attitudes or overreactions.

Friday, July 15th

At 4:00 AM before going to sleep I talked to Madcat on MSN and we left open the possibility for me to go to his place for the weekend, then to his area local store play some Constructed games, crash at Madcat's for the night then play the M12 Release on Saturday, and play some more Constructed afterwards. However due to my long travel, and to Madcat weird sleeping hours we were both unsure at what time we would wake up, so we decided to talk it over after we wake up.

I woke up a couple of hours later, waited until after lunch for Madcat, but he never log in online. I also didn't felt so much to go far away, his place is outside Lisbon and you need to cross the river by boat. Meanwhile I heard of a draft starting in Lisbon that afternoon, with Frederico Bastos, Narciso Ferreira, Tiago Fonseca, Marcio Carvalho, among others, but more important with my friends from both opposite groups. I talked my way to be invited for it, and Marcio Carvalho offered himself to bird the draft and let me be the 8th.

What do I mean for "being invited". A Portuguese singles dealer bought 6 Boxes of M12 and offered to let us draft during this period to prepare for Nats. It's not like you show up and pay the draft fee. You draft for free, and afterwards you separate all your cards by rarity and return them. Sleeves are a must, and I personally consider to be rude if you are invited for these drafts and don't sleeve.

Invited also meant the drafts were played at non-Magic place, but perhaps the best place I ever played Magic in Portugal. It's a members only association, a small cozy place with some tables to play Role Play and Board games mostly. It has a bar, a small catering service and sometimes they run events like Quizz nights. However the owner is good friends with some old school Magic players who were into Role Play, so he let us playtest for Nats there. I would like to thank everyone for being invited for the drafts and invited to the association.

First draft I opened Aegis Angel. Ended up with a decent WB aggro deck topped by the Angel and two Serra Angels, with some Black removal. The mana wasn't so good as usually happens with WB, so many double WW and BB. I won rounds 1 and 2 by close 2-1 that could go either way, and 2-0 the finals against a better deck by nut drawing him twice.

After dinner, we ran a second draft, I first picked Garruk 2.0 which is ridiculous enough for me to force Green, which isn't that hard actually since everyone avoids it unless they open a bomb.I ended with a GR deck with a Fireball as well. I won the first two rounds, but Garruk only showed in the finals. Game one I played Garruk on turn 4, could have been turn three but he killed my elf. I made a token, next turn played a 5/6 and drew 5 cards, eventually won. Game two he kind of has me locked with a Call to Grave, but mid game I draw Garruk, and start making tokens every turn, until I made ten 6/6 tokens.

The night ended with everyone saying "Same time tomorrow? Don't be late". Since I've been invited to draft here, invited to show up at the association and between drafts I was playing games with their Constructed decks and typing the results on their database, I felt I that I was accepted and would be playtesting here for Nats. Great place, great friends, free drafts, gamer's paradise?

Saturday, July 16th

someone: "Who won the drafts yesterday?"
Me: "I did"
someone: "Which one?"
Me: "Both of them" (smirk)

Yup, it's these little things I miss the most when I'm not active.

For the third draft I opened Bloodlord of Vaasgoth. So many bombs in M12. Second pick I took Cemetery Reaper. Ok, so with two picks only I have a Vampire Lord and a Zombie lord, but both cards are good by their own. Third pick I took Adaptive Automaton, and I got a good feeling about this draft. With 3 picks, I already had, 2 Vampire Lords, 2 Zombie Lords, and a Zombie or a Vampire to go with them. Later in the draft I got a Call to Grave, and for the first time I played with Zombie Infestation. The deck was nearly Black splashing White for Pacifism and 2 Assault Pegasus (added value for Adaptive Automaton).

I easily won Round 1, and could I be keeping this winning streak for long. It did seemed so, looking at this deck.

Round 2 was the most interesting. Game 1 I'm heavily mana screw, but played Zombie Infestation with my 2 lands, so instead of discarding on my end step back to 7, I can discard to make a Zombie. This is also gaining me time, since opponent is not attacking, as I can make 3 Zombies from Infestation to block. When I drew my third land, I'm very very behind on tempo, so I feel I can't cast my cards one by one. I played land and Cemetery Reaper and discarded my hand for Zombies. I can now make one 3/3 Zombie from Reaper every turn, and one from Infestation every two turns. It wasn't enough, but it was close and interesting. Game two I won with Call to Grave, Game three I have once again Call to Grave but he has one last remaining creature, a big flyer I can't block. Last turn he needs to draw a creature to sac to keep his flyer alive and he does. I did won the final round to end 2-1 with this draft.

Fourth draft I finally went into Blue for the first time with a first pick Mind Control over Angelic Destiny. I ended with an agressive Blue/Red deck, with 3 Phantasmal Bear, Phantasmal Illusion and Phantasmal Dragon. There was a Lord of Illusions in the draft but I didn't get it. I split the first two rounds, and play Frederico on round 3 to see who goes 2-1. His deck had Alabaster Mage, Crimson Mage, 2 Gideon Lawkeeper, 2 Goblin Bangchucker, so I lose the first game and have to side out all the Phantasmal creatures, leaving me with a very sub optimal deck. I won the second but lost the third, being grinded out by his Druidic Satchel.

Draft 5, was depressing even tough it looks very good on paper. It's a white weenie, with 2 Gideon Lawkeeper, Vanguard Elite, 3 Stormfront Pegasus, 2 Armored Warhorse, 2 Griffin Rider, multiples of Sentinel and Assault Griffins and most important 3 Guardian's Pledge, splash of Fireball. Playing with it, you just feel underpowered when facing better guys, and you run out of gas much quicker than everyone else. One game I just scooped on turn 4, I had two or three creatures on the table, one more in hand, and I knew I didn't have enough gas to battle against his 6 cards hand. I ended 1-1 with this draft and didn't play the last round to play Constructed.

So from 6-0 on Day 1 of testing, to 4-4 on Day two.

Sunday July 17th, Monday July 18th

The place was closed these two days as well as the local store, so I just stayed home looking at the results of SCG and Japan Nats. Based on them, I predicted the metagame for Nats the following week to be 15% Caw Blade, 15% Valakut and 12% Tempered Steel. Since I only had a week to catchup one year of Constructed Magic and we were drafting twice a day, I decided I couldn't afford much time to get a big picture, and just stick myself to playing one of these 3 or my Boros.

I liked our Valakut decklist, it's really straightforward, no removal, no cute things, it's all ramp or monsters. List was something like:

4 Explore
4 Rampant Growth
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Primeval Titan
3 Inferno Titan
1 Avenger of Zendikar
3 Green Sun Zenith
3 Summoning Trap
2 Harrow

What I like about this deck is, what are you gonna do on your turn three? Because I will most likely have 6 mana on turn four, and from there you're close to dead.

What I don't like is, because I never played with the card Valakut Molten Pinnacle before, I missed lots of interactions, and I would often fetch the wrong land or pair of lands, and do small subtle mistakes. It took me while than I would like to make really small decisions in Valakut, something which I wasn't happy with, so I put this deck as my Option 4, behind all others.

Meanwhile I burgled Marcio Carvalho's 75 card decklist for Nats. Caw-Blade with Emeria Angel and Consecrated Sphinx. I opened two MWS applications and run some games vs myself. 14-6 for Boros pre sb, 18-2 for Caw Blade after. Yes, Timely Reinforcements keeps red decks in check no matter all the quality burn spells available for now. Played some more games with Marcio's Caw Blade, and it was losing to Valakut and Steel.

In my view, the metagame had 3 tier 1 decks, the three I mentioned before, and something like 8 tier 1.5 decks. When your deck loses against 2/3 of the tier 1 and it's 50% against the other, it can't be a good choice. I addressed this concern to Marcio on MSN, here's the conversation we had 5 days before Nats.

Me: Bla Bla Bla, decklist not so good, loses in important matchups Bla Bla Bla.

Marcio: it's my decklist, and I'm not gonna change a single card out of the 75. You want to play it, play it, don't want to play it, don't play it, just don't bother me cause I'm busy playing Cube drafts 1 on 1.

Me: Have you played against Valakut and Steel at least?

Marcio: Uh... I think I have the other day. I won. Easily.

Me: I think it's not as simple.

Marcio: If you're afraid of losing, then don't play Magic. Bye, and don't bother me, cause I'm busy doing things way too cool and totally not related to Magic, which by the way I don't care a single bit.

Tuesday, July 19th

Limited: tried a bunch of wacky decks, including a UB Mill which killed more opponents by attacking 4 times with Harbor Serpent than milling. Another one where I first picked Call to Grave to try and see how broken it could be, and another draft where I went 4 color Green. I 2-1 with all of them, never starting 2-0.

Standard: Most of the guys were leaning towards Tempered Steel, because it had good game pre board vs the other decks. I liked a mono white version with no Glint Hawk and no Ornitopthers. Everytime I landed a Tempered Steel on turn 3 I won, 100% of the times. Everytime I didn't the deck was underperforming. That and the fact that I would probably not get the cards made me abandon the deck.

Wednesday, July 20th

I warned the guys the day before that I would be arriving late, maybe at dinner time. I had somewhere to go. I went to Marcio's place, where some guys were staying for the week to test. My conversations with them on MSN weren't very productive, as usually happens when 3 or 4 guys were there playing. Marcio's sister opened the door and invited me in. I head across the hall to Marcio's room and I'm warmly welcomed with a: "Why didn't my sister told you we already left?"

After some talking and exchanging impressions based on what we played, it seemed that Marcio and Pedro Pereira disagreed with some of my opinions. I did however raised questions on Madcat who had found the same problems I had, and later with Tiago Fonseca.

We went to the local store where Marcio played cube 1 on 1 all the time while saying you guys are non sense I'm not changing the list. After some games and brainstorming, me and Madcat changed the decklist to something very similar to what we would end up playing. We cut all the expensive stuff, the biggest casting cost was now Hero of the Bladehold. I also added a couple of Deprives now that we got rid of the big casting costs.

The list I had when I left Madcat.

4 preordain
3 spellskite
4 squadrow hawk
4 mana leak
2 Deprive
4 Blade splicer
3 Oblivion ring
2 dismember
3 mix and match of Sword of Feast and Famine or War and Peace
4 Hero of the Bladehold
1 open slot (Spell Pierce, Into the Roil, 4th Sword)

First thing Marcio said after I left: "So what changes did you guys made?"

Thursday July 21st

Standard:

I guess I'm kind of set on playing Caw-Blade after eliminating the other possibilities, either because of the existance of Timely Reinforcements, the need to have a Tempered Steel on the table on turn 3, or the many subtle things with fetching lands with Valakut.

That meant I had to start scrambling for the cards, a big thanks to Vasco Bonifacio for half of the deck, and to Nuno Amorim and Jordao Pereira for the other half. Narciso Ferreira, Mauro Peleira, Madcat and Sergio Ventura also contributed with one or two cards each, so I had a deck ready, altough a deck in which I had no faith as I was losing so much in so many matchups.

Limited:

I warned Frederico Bastos, with only packs for two more drafts before Nats, it was time for me to start drafting seriously. No more White weenies, Phantasmal decks, Mill decks, theme decks or wacky decks.

I started with a huge dillema, Sorin Markov or Flameblast Dragon. I agonized on this pick for ages. They both have the same casting cost and require a color commitment.

I think creatures are the worst card type in Magic. I also think Planeswalkers, despite being good for marketing, were bad for game play because the card type is way too powerful. Despite being easier to deal with Flameblast Dragon (also not that many cards who will deal with him), and Sorin Markov not having summoning sickness, so he will do something even if he dies, I went with Flameblast Dragon. I think Flameblast will end the game if you untap, while Sorin Markov might not. I'm probably wrong because everyone I asked the pick said Sorin Markov, except for Marcio.

Second pick I got passed a Sengir Vampire, oh well, you had to choose between 50-50, Red or Black, I choose Red, and it landed on Black. Final pack I opened Rune-Scarred Demon and I passed to the same player I passed Sorin Markov, so yeah definitely bet on black.

I did end up with a very solid RW agressive deck, and I won the draft without swinging a single time with Flameblast. Only time I played it, it was Mind Controled.

Friday July 22nd

The least action packed day. Did one draft, a non spectacular Green/Black deck, with a Druidic Satchet, went 3-0 with it, which at least allowed me to end the draft sessions with a "I told you I was going to start drafting seriously again" to Frederico Bastos.

Drafts recap:
3-0 (BW aggro)
3-0 (GR Garruk)
2-1 (Zombie / Vampires Bw deck)
1-2 (Phantasmal creatures UR aggro deck)
1-1 (white weenie)
2-1 (UB Mill)
2-1 (First pick Call to Grave deck)
2-1 (4 color Green, 2 Rampant Growth, 2 Manalith deck)
3-0 (RW aggro Flameblast Dragon)
3-0 (GB average deck)

Nats is split like 4 small 3 rounds tournaments, Standard, Draft, Draft and Standard. You need 9-3 for Top 8 which means you have to win a mini tournament. Given that I wasn't satisfied with my deckchoice, and given the results from the 10 live drafts, I figured I could maybe with some luck 3-0 one of the pods. After all 40% chances of 3-0, 40% chances of 2-1 and 20% chances of something going very wrong. Of course these numbers are very unreal, but at the time I did believe that at any random pod of PT Nats my chances of 3-0 were better than the mathematical 12,5%.

The rest of the day I spent mostly silent thinking to myself about the numbers of the cards in my decklist and sideboard numbers and plans. I'll give you my decklist and sideboard on my next post where I'll write about the tournament itself.

Tiago's advices #1

After creating the column "Awkward situations" where I report awkward situations that I witnessed or went through, I now present you a new column named "Tiago's advices" where surprise surprise I will be sharing useful advices based on my acquired experience.

One of these afternoons at work, or in Madcat's timezone one of these dawns where he wasn't sleeping, we were talking about... uhm... many things. Eventually when the conversation turn to Asian girls, Madcat only had as a reference Japanese girls, he went to Pro Tour Yokohama with me.

Madcat: I'm not so impressed with Asian girls, but then again I only saw Japanese ones.

Me: Japanese girls are quite ok actually. You weren't so impressed because in Japan most of the girls we saw had their knees bend to the inside while walking making it look like their legs have a problem, plus their teeth aren't arranged. Here's my advice to you: Never go to the dentist in Japan or buy a Japanese toothpaste. The tooth paste I'm actually using was bought in Japan (true story), and everytime I finish brushing my teeth they don't feel like they're clean, so I have to brush them again. And this, is the advice that I leave you.

Awkward Situations #2: Being Terry Soh

Even when I was at the top of my game my reputation as a player was far from being worldwide spread. The whole population of the United States including the Statue of Liberty itself all considered me a bad player (I'll talk about that in some other post). In Asia, I was always treated as a local player, with everyone in the building talking to me in the native language of whatever Asian country the tournament was being held. However in Europe my popularity was ok, and I was always warmly welcomed specially in the South European countries. Everytime I went to a tournament in Spain, Italy, Greece, France, etc I would bring my felter marker because of the expected requests to sign cards.

Side note #1: Its much easier to write on a Magic card with a marker rather than a roller ball pen.

Side note #2: Actually I used to carry the marker with me all the time, you never knew when you might need to proxy some cards for an emergency playtest session.

This situation happened in the summer of 2007, at some European Time Spiral block constructed Grand Prix where I played Blue/Black Teachings, can't remember exactly which event (I played Teachings in all Grand Prixs of that format). During my Byes, I was playing some games against Tomoharu Saito playing Mono Red (also doesn't help remembering that much since he probably played Mono Red in all those Grand Prixs), while some friends were watching.

At some point a player gets by and asks everyone for signatures on cards, playmat, etc. Everyone's happy to do it of course, I think no Pro Player would ever refuse to do it, except for occasionally Kai.

Side note #3: In the distant year of 2003 I wanted to get a Voidmage Prodigy signed by Kai, but I was afraid Kai would just say "No". My friend Rui Oliveira was at the time the Sideboard coverage reporter for European Grand Prixs, so I gave him the card and asked him to go find Kai in the Grand Prix to sign it, hoping that Rui as a sideboard reporter would have better chances to get the card signed, rather than me, a poor lonely no one.

Back to the awkward situation, the guy also asked me to sign a card, the problem was he handed me over this specific card to sign:

This card, Rakdos Augermage is the card Terry Soh created, oops sorry Terry, I mean Wizards created for Terry Soh for his Invitational win in 2005, and the guy pictured in the card is also supposed to be Terry Soh, as it is a long tradition to portrait the winner's face in the card he creates. So usually you ask that specific person to sign that specific card, just like I kind of did (or asked Rui to) with Voidmage Prodigy and Kai.

So here's what happened when I was given the Rakdos Augermage.

Me: You know, I'm not Terry Soh...

Him: You don't want to sign it?

Me: It's not that I don't want to sign it, but this specific card kind of represents Terry Soh

Him: No, it's ok, you don't want to sign, I get it. Thanks a lot man, sorry for disturbing your game.

Me: You're getting it wrong, I'll be happy to sign a card for you, but perhaps a different card would be more appropriate.

Him: You don't want, you don't want, it's ok, no need for excuses.

Me: I'm not making excuses it's just that I feel... ah, you know what, forget it, just give me the Rakdos Augermage.

Him: Whatever.

Me: Do you want me to sign my name, or just write "Terry Soh" on it?

Him: Meh, up to you, I don't care anymore.

I obv signed "Terry Soh". And that my friends, despite our similar looks, was the closest I've ever been to being Terry Soh. Judging from his facebook pictures, I wouldn't mind occasionally switching with him and living "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" style of life.

To Terry: If you ever come across that Rakdos Augermage, sorry about that!

To Oli: Stop saying "Hi Terry" everytime you meet me at an Asian tournament.