Yo!

… ( Yeah I know, ”Yo” is supposed to be used when you leave somewhere/someone, but I’m a frenchie and that’s how my greeting is … You’ll get use to it.)

I would like to start by welcoming you guys to the new Manadeprived.com!

I’m writing here for a bunch of reasons. Let’s start with the essential. Mana Deprived is awesome, KYT is someone with plenty of ambition and I also used to run a website and have the same ambitions as KYT. www.intoblivion.com is where my work could be found. It had coverage, articles, video, decklists and a forum. But all of the content, unfortunately, was in French. I had a lot of fun running it, writing, and covering tournaments. Except that for a 17 year old little guy like me, it was way too much work to run this alone, with a crappy Flash sitebuilder (’cause I have zero experience with HTML). So, the first reason why I’m writing here is that I admire Kar’s effort, hard work and achievement with this website. I also know how hard but so rewarding it is to invest yourself in such a project. Sincerely, good job KYT, keep it up.

Second, Alexander Hayne has been IMPLORING me to write my first article for the 2011 Mana Deprived…

Third, it’s a pleasure to do it!

Now, let’s get on with it.

I’m Pascal Maynard, 17 years old, frenchie, employee of Librairie Donjon in Québec City. Also known as … Maynard, Quebec Kid, “Ti-Gars” [Ed.: Trans. “L’il boy“] (given by the other frenchies) and recently added nickname (by none other than our national champion, after an epic Legacy match in team portion at Worlds) … PMAYNE!

I’ve been playing Magic since I was 10, and discovered the Pro Tour while watching my first live coverage (PT L.A 2005, at that time I was something like 11 and half). I quickly established this as a goal in my life: To get on to the Pro Tour circuit and become just like Antoine Ruel… Ok, that’s quite a fan boy behaviour, but you know, I was 11.

I then started wanting to improve my game. Playing with my friends, who were worse than me, wouldn’t help anything. They were nice but I had to find someone waaaayyy better. My local card shop (Librairie Donjon!) was full of competent and friendly guys (like Arnaud Léger, one of the employees when I began squatting the place, who of course is part of where I am now since he taught me to play Magic), but like I said, I wanted someone over the top! Arnaud, being a full time employee and doing something else of his life, wasn’t the one who could push me onto the next level. That’s where I met Philippe Gareau, who at that time (I still love you Phil …) was the best active player in Quebec City.

I remember the standard format being Mirrodin + Kamigawa (that had just been released). I had finally completed my playset of Arcbound Ravager and was ready to win my first FNM. Everything went good until they banned Ravager and Co. two weeks later…

Crap! I had to play something else. This is where Gareau’s influence came into play. From the time I first started seeing him in the FNMs, he had always ran Tooth and Nail. I don’t have to tell you that I proceeded to try building the same deck as him. Yay! I was finally winning constantly, except for when I faced the mirror match against Phil … I remember the 75-card mirror match being horrible for me. Somehow when I was Mindslavering him, it never seemed to give me the game … When HE was doing it, though, I could never get back in the game…

At that point, I was willing to listen to every single comment, piece of advice, or tip from him and anyone better. It just pushed my game to another level. I wasn’t just an FNM player; I wanted to be more. My relationship with Phil Gareau suddenly translated into more than 25 hours of real life Magic a week as we were always trying to break the format, test and make our game better.

Unfortunately, the 2-3 friends that I started playing with, quickly retired.  The competitve side of the game was not for them. I am different however. I consider myself a competitive player no matter what I get into: Magic, Business, Girls and anything else that requires effort and brains in which to achieve.

My success began when I won my very first big tournament (that I even had to drive to); the Junior Super Series (which doesn’t exist anymore) was a great source of experience for young players as well as a nice starting point to building a collection. It gave me scholarship money, a box of the latest set, and the program called “Magic for a year” which meant that once a set was released they sent you a box of it. The year following, I won that tournament yet again. It helped a lot having a complete collection of Standard and I was also meeting new people. People from Montréal, who not only spoke English (which eventually made my English to what it is nowadays), but who were MUCH better players than people in my home city.

The first player I met and considered really good was Marc-Alexandre Knuepp. He was French just like me and he invited me to crash at his place more than once before tournaments and such. I have a lot to thank him for because we both had the same goals in Magic and we were sharing ideas and stuff through MSN every single day. He’s for sure part of my success.

With this next shoutout, I don’t mean to act as a pet, but Alexander Hayne, Mana Deprived Editor, also became someone that I respected, talked and learned a lot from. I considered him then the best player in Canada and I still do. If I had the chance to play him in the finals of a PTQ, I would concede to him A.N.Y.T.I.M.E. He deserves to be on the Pro Tour more than anyone else I know. Don’t give up Alex!

That is pretty much how everything started. I began travelling outside of Québec City by dint of PTQs, GP and Nationals, I learned to speak English and to use my resourcefulness to find money to travel. (Because yeah, I was not exactly a rich kid, so eating and paying accounts was more than enough to make it tight.)

Like Alex, I just couldn’t quite reach the Pro Tour circuit. I made countless 9th place finishes in PTQs, lost the last round of GP for day 2 a couple times and even 7-2ed the first GP I attended, Grand Prix Montreal in 2007. At that time, 7-2 wasn’t an auto day 2; only top 64 made the cut. Obviously I had no byes for that event and 7-2 without byes hurts your tiebreakers. I ended up something like 69th.
[Ed. Note: 84th, actually, but who’s counting? 21 points Day One is still 21 points!]

The saga had to lead to something. My Dream came true last summer, Canadian Nationals 2010.

Most of the year I had been spending a lot of time with my girlfriend. My rating was low all season because I wasn’t putting enough effort into playtesting and everything related to Magic.

I was something like 2 months before Nationals when I realized my Total Rating was 1850. I needed 100 points to Qualify. I opened www.spellkeeper.com to see there were two upcoming limited PTQs. I consider myself being a much better limited player, than any other format. Going X-2 or better in both of them would probably get me what I need.

Which was exactly what happened. I went 6-2 twice and got my rating up to 1945. I played a random 16k Thursday tournament to get me to something like 1955, which ensured my invitation.

I decided that this Nationals would be mine. I went through over 50 M11 drafts and tested standard a whole week non-stop with the other qualified players from Québec City.

I was ready, though unfortunately, I had what I thought was the best deck, Fauna Bant. I had been playing more than 100 games with it over the past week, but saw in grinders and while chatting with people that Valakut would definitely be the most played deck, and I just couldn’t win this matchup. I had to play something else. Thankfully, Philippe Gareau had also tested a RUG Destructive Force deck which had a pretty good matchup against Valakut. Nice! In our room the night before Nationals, I made some little tweaks to the deck and I was ready.

For reference : *** FAUNA BANT DECKLIST ***
For reference : *** RUG DESTRUCTIVE FORCE DECKLIST ***

Nationals went as well as I predicted. I went 5-1 in limited and 4-1-1 in constructed. (Ironically, not playing against a single Valakut, except for the ID in last round against Vincent Thibeault.)

The Dream came true; I just couldn’t believe I would be in the Top 8 of Nationals. Then I won my 3rd/4th playoff against Kyle Duncan and made the Canadian National Team!

Jay Elarar and Vincent Thibeault both seemed to be really good players. Jay being the National Champion for the second time in a row and Vincent for having such a PTQ Top 8 streak in Montreal.

I was ready. I now had the chance to hit the Pro circuit and stay on it with a good World Championship appearance.

There was Jay, Vincent, Noah Long, myself, and eventually Jon Smithers joined our travelling plans and Facebook thread after winning GP Toronto (for which I congratulate him once again!)

Extended already looked like the format we would have to put the most brain effort into, by looking through Internet for the latest decklists, following Magic Online events and if possible, break the format.

Limited, Scars of Mirrodin draft is one of the most skill intensive formats I ever played since I’m drafting. There are a lot more archetypes than people think. Reading articles on the format is just not enough; I had to play over twenty of it to end up feeling comfortable with it. Once past twenty, you can finally try to create archetypes. I’m a creative player and I love building and creating decks in whatever format. Don’t have to tell you I was excited to draft it at Worlds.

Standard … Standard … Standard … I was worried about this one. I just couldn’t find a deck I was 100% sure of playing for more than three days. The main reason was Magic Online, influencing everyone in the world, even for such a big tournament. The first deck for which I could say “I’m gonna play this for sure, I like it, I’m comfortable with it and it has great matchup against most played decks.” was the Uwr control list that Noah played. I only gave up on that deck because UW began flooding daily events about two days after we optimized the Uwr list. UW beats Uwr, and the matchup is really hard to win even with dedicated sideboard slot against it. I had to give up. This process continued for about one month before Worlds, changing decks and etc … Until I stayed at Vincent’s place four days before getting on my flight. We playtested intensively non-stop. 14 hours of Magic, 8 of sleep, 1 to get to our playtest site and 1 to eat. This quickly reduced my choice of decks to two: UB and UW.

For the team event, as early as two months before the highly awaited event, it was already decided that that I would play the Legacy portion. I play the format about monthly and I was up to date on everything new. Jay and Vincent both agreed.

The Friday I arrived at Vincent’s place, I already knew that my Legacy deck would be either TES or Survival Ooze. I also knew that I shouldn’t waste the time devoted to Standard by putting effort into Legacy. It was the least important format and the one I am the most comfortable with. I only had to select which of those two would be the best for Worlds. Given that, I texted Monsieur Hayne to ask if we could meet up the day before I leave. We played a couple of matches of TES vs Survival Ooze, optimized our lists and borrowed the cards required for Survival. I have to thank Face to Face Games, by the way!

After around 12 games, Survival seemed to have a slight advantage in the matchup. It was enough to convince me that I would be the pilot of a soon-to-be banned card.

Vincent and I made our final preparations, finding cards, getting our luggage ready and then met Jasar at the airport.

I gotta say, I was quite nervous. I was about to board my first flight, which means the first time I get on a plane, which means … High altitude, which I’m totally scared of …Somehow, everything went all right on the 15-hour flight. I got used to the clouds pretty fast and I was even able to sleep. Awesome! The moment I expected to be most anxious about, was past.

When we landed in Narita, Japan, we joined Jon Smithers and shortly after, Noah Long was waiting for us at the Customs exit. Our Canadian group was complete and excited to hit the tournament site for last minute preparations and scouting.

I won’t go through how my matches went and all that. I’ve was quite disappointed in my Standard and Limited performance, going 2-2-2 and 3-3 respectively. This was slightly over 50%, but in a tournament like this you want to be a 80-90% winner. I had two draws with UB Control against Uw, due to the fact that the matches were painfully long, though I feel UB has the advantage. Playing a control mirror for both player is mentally demanding and having to consider the clock at the same time makes it harder when you are playing for $50,000. I’m pretty sure that in any other other tournament besides a Pro Tour, I could’ve finish those match on time. But when you play for 50k, you don’t want to miss a single but of information, trigger, or point of damage. At least I learned and next time I will more deeply test control matchups and find a way to win faster.

In draft, I went 1-2 with a shitty deck. Don’t ask me why, I still can’t figure out what happened while drafting. Since I got back from Japan, I have tried to go back in the draft process, trying to analyze which colour I could’ve picked instead, whether I had misunderstood signals or even passed wrong signals … It has been 22 days since it happened and I’m still wondering…

The second draft went pretty straight forward with a 4 Cystbearer poison deck. I expected to go 3-0, maybe 2-1 losing to an insane deck. I indeed went 2-1 losing to Elspeth Tirel + Sunblast Angel in this insane deck, but the pilot was even more amazing. I rarely get impressed by my opponent when playing Magic, but this “Shou Tagomori” (as my DCI Rating History tells me) totally dazzled me. He was acting like a robot, never seeming to think about his play, but at the same time always making the exact right play. While scouting the Legacy matches going on during Teams, I saw him winning a game, running Storm, where his opponent had 2 Spell Snare, 1 Spell Pierce, 2 Force of Will, 1 Trickbind and 1 Vendillion Clique in hand, Counterbalance, Top, 2 uncracked fetches and 1 Phyrexian Dreadnought in play. He just got his opponent to play exactly how he wanted and then eventually made him make the wrong choice. Well, whatever, I was just exceptionally impressed. This Japanese dude has to be a new MtG Super Star.

For Extended, my choice was set on Affinity, Steel Artifact, The Great Esper Menace or whatsoever name people gave it. Jon had recently been adding Ranger of Eos to it, which made the deck F****** good! No wonder why we both did so well with it.

My poor result after day 2 kind of got me down … As I said, though, being in a Pro Tour is something really special. Hitting the Top 50 will keep me alive for the next two PTs and doing reasonably well at those should get me to Level 4. Of course, I will also try to attend as many Grand Prix as possible to make this attainable.

Overall, I think I could have done slightly better, but it was my first Pro Tour event and I must say I’m still in heaven that it really happened.

I recommend this experience to everyone. Work, investment, and practice with better players than yourself is the key to success, even if it takes a while. Never forget that Magic still has its share of luck – sooner or later it will turn on for you if you don’t give up!

Before leaving you, awesome audience, I would like to mention that www.manadeprived.com is a great source for us Canadians. We’re lucky to have such a host for our stories/reports/results and everything else… Keep supporting it!

If you have questions or comments, if you liked my type of article or not, please let me hear it!

Pascal M
PascalMaynard on MTGO

RUG D-Force

Fauna Bant

Pascal Maynard

Pascal has had a great year in 2012, top 8ing both GP Indianapolis and GP Mexico City. At 19 years of age, the sky is the limit for this kid!