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PPTQ Winner! BFZ Sealed Report and Deck Pool Analysis

“What are you doing this weekend? Well, you know, as usual, grinding.”

“So are you going out to a dance club? Where’s the best spot? Also, doesn’t your wife mind? That’s cool!”

“No, no, no, not that kind of grinding, I’m playing Magic: The Gathering, I want to get back on the Pro Tour, a massive tournament often in an exotic location where you need to have a special invitation and you can win some money.”

“Ah, Magic, yeah I know. How exciting… You are sure you don’t want to go out instead?”

It is always fun trying to explain to the uninitiated what I am doing without falling into Magic lingo that only aficionados can understand and that sounds like Klingon gibberish to outsiders. No, I am not dressing up as a mage in my free time. No, there is nothing amazing that will pop out of my hat, anyway I usually do not wear a hat, the only one I use is what we call here a tuque which could be described as a woolly hat.

Rant over, let’s get to business.

When I last wrote to you, my faithful reader(s), I was ecstatic because I just went undefeated on the BFZ prerelease weekend. The following weekend I played in a PPTQ and managed to grab my second invite for an RPTQ since I started grinding back last December. As a personal challenge, as I am an ambitious person and have a high view of my magical abilities, I set myself the goal of getting back on the Pro Tour and, along the way, becoming a better player. Writing for ManaDeprived.com is helping for sure, forcing me to reflect upon the way I play and having to clarify in concise sentences what would have been vague and not clearly defined intuition.

So on the tournament day, 29 players showed up, so quite a small event with only 5 Swiss rounds before the cut to top 8. Upon opening their pools, two players decided to drop, having opened the mysterious Zendikar expeditions. I was glad not to be put in the position, as I wanted to play, feeling quite confident about the format. That week I had playtested with Jon Stern and Alexander Hayne, playing 2 drafts so THEY could get ready for the last Pro Tour, and I had managed to win one of them, drafting a sick, removal heavy BR devoid-ingest-processor-super-aggro deck. I was hoping to open a great and solid pool, and then maybe draft again BR if it was opened. After all the passing around and double-checking the content of the deck, my pool was finally right in front of me.

Here it is for you to analyse if you fancy doing some mental gymnastics today.

Deck Pool

Build it on SealedMagic.se

[deck]
[Colorless]
Deathless Behemoth
Eldrazi Devastator
Scour from Existence
[/Colorless]
[White]
Cliffside Lookout
Expedition Envoy
Felidar Cub
2 Gideon’s Reproach
3 Ghostly Sentinel
2 Kor Castigator
Kor Entanglers
Inspired Charge
Shadow Glider
Sheer Drop
2 Tandem Tactics
[/White]
[Blue]
Anticipate
Brilliant Spectrum
Cloud Manta
Clutch of Currents
2 Coastal Discovery
Guardian of Tazeem
Mist Intruder
Murk Strider
Oracle of Dust
Ruination Guide
Scatter to the Winds
Tightening Coils
[/Blue]
[Black]
Culling Drone
Demon’s Grasp
2 Dominator Drone
Grave Birthing
Mind Raker
Mire’s Malice
Sludge Crawler
2 Voracious Null
[/Black]
[Red]
Belligerent Whiptail
Goblin War Paint
Lavastep Raider
Ondu Champion
Outnumber
Shatterskull Recruit
2 Sure Strike
Tunneling Geopede
Valakut Invoker
Valakut Predator
2 Vestige of Emrakul
[/Red]
[Green]
Blisterpod
Brood Monitor
2 Giant Mantis
Jaddi Offshoot
Natural Connection
Oran-Rief Invoker
Plummet
2 Reclaiming Vines
2 Scythe Leopard
Sylvan Scrying
Tajuru Stalwart
Territorial Baloth
Unnatural Aggression
[/Green]
[Multicolor]
Forerunner of Slaughter
Grovetender Druids
Herald of Kozilek
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
Omnath, Locus of Rage
[/Multicolor]
[Artifact]
Hedron Archive
Slab Hammer
[/Artifact]
[Lands]
Blighted Fen
Fertile Thicket
Looming Spires
Prairie Stream
Sandstone Bridge
Sunken Hollow
[/Lands]
[/deck]

How is that pool? Not too shabby.

Let’s check the rares and see if they send me in a certain direction. First I had [card]Omnath, Locus of Rage[/card], a solid mythic that could quickly get out of hand, but I needed to ramp to it, and its color requirement meant that I had to go RG and forget about my other rares. I would sometimes have to wait until I got 8 lands so I could play it and get value straight away by making a token.

To my delight, blue was deep: [card]Guardian of Tazeem[/card], [card]Scatter to the Winds[/card] and [card]Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper[/card]. The two creatures only cost 5 and they could take over the game quickly. [card]Scatter to the Winds[/card] could easily be a two for one and counterspell is great in a format where people often ramp to expensive spells. I had [card]Sunken Hollow[/card] and [card]Prairie Stream[/card], so I could be Esper if I wanted to. Opening rare lands is often a bummer as they take the place of a potentially dangerous rare, but I needed them for Standard and my rares were pretty much all in the same color so if I had enough supporting common and uncommon I could have a good deck.

After trying to build a UB splashed W I realized I did not have enough exile effects to play a processor deck that could consistently play cards like [card]Mind Raker[/card] and [card]Oracle of Dust[/card] to their full capacity, I ended up building a UW aggro with some early beaters and late game bombs and flyers. The plan would be to deal some early damage, then when the opponent would stabilize, my fliers and awaken lands would finish the job.

Here is what I built:

VincentBuild

[deck]
[Colorless]
Deathless Behemoth
[/Colorless]
[White]
Expedition Envoy
Felidar Cub
2 Gideon’s Reproach
2 Ghostly Sentinel
2 Kor Castigator
Kor Entanglers
Shadow Glider
Sheer Drop
Tandem Tactics
[/White]
[Blue]
Cloud Manta
Clutch of Currents
2 Coastal Discovery
Guardian of Tazeem
Ruination Guide
Scatter to the Winds
Tightening Coils
[/Blue]
[Multicolor]
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
[/Multicolor]
[Artifact]
Hedron Archive
[/Artifact]
[Lands]
Prairie Stream
Sandstone Bridge
8 Plains
7 Island
[/Lands]
[/deck]

The deck played itself really well and was surprisingly resilient. I ended up not sideboarding once in all my matches, not seeing anything that could improve it. The only other card I considered playing was [card]Anticipate[/card], but I felt I had enough card draw already and wanted to keep my creature count high (17 including the awaken spells).

Let’s look at some of the card choices.

[card]Ruination Guide[/card] is at its best in a devoid deck or a deck with plenty of Eldrazi Scions. However, a 3/2 for three mana is fine, and it can attract removal because of its potential. Besides boosting [card]Deathless Behemoth[/card], which is not that relevant, [card]Ruination Guide[/card] is also quite useful with all my 6 awaken effects, giving a slight boost to my lands.

The deck had a few ways to deal with creatures, namely two [card]Gideon’s Reproach[/card], [card]Kor Entanglers[/card], [card]Sheer Drop[/card], [card]Clutch of Currents[/card], [card]Guardian of Tazeem[/card] and [card]Tightening Coils[/card]. That would help me in my early game aggro plan where I would remove their blockers, but they also could be used defensively if the other deck was faster than mine, like RG landfall. I could also go for the plan where I race them with fliers while at the same time dealing with their more powerful ground guys.

My early rush plan consisted of [card]Expedition Envoy[/card], [card]Felidar Cub[/card], two [card]Kor Castigator[/card], [card]Ruination Guide[/card] and [card]Shadow Glider[/card]. My flier plan depended on two [card]Ghostly Sentinel[/card], [card]Shadow Glider[/card], [card]Cloud Manta[/card] and [card]Guardian of Tazeem[/card]. If the match-up was grindy and we were in top deck mode, I had some card draw spells (two [card]Coastal Discovery[/card] and [card]Hedron Archive[/card]) and some late game bombs like [card]Deathless Behemoth[/card], [card]Guardian of Tazeem[/card] and [card]Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper[/card]. For the Noyan, I had four instant spells and four sorcery spells, which was more than enough to take advantage of it.

[card]Hedron Archive[/card] is a card that really impressed me with its flexibility. Worst case I sacrifice it straight away to draw cards. However, it often allowed me to cast my awaken spells to their full capacity, which was rather satisfying.

I had 5 Allies, with just one that had a Rally ability. Despite that, I got to use the tapping ability of [card]Kor Entanglers[/card] quite a few times.

At last, I had one [card]Tandem Tactics[/card]; I always try to play one or two combat tricks and I was satisfied with this one. Saving two guys and gaining 2 life is enjoyable to do, even if I did not always manage to use it in such an efficient way.

The PPTQ was in downtown Montreal, there were about 29 people and I recognize just a few fellow grinders. I lost first round to Xavier Allegrucci, a young up-and-coming player, very polite and gifted, who managed to top 8 GP Ottawa the previous year. I got destroyed by his early Drana, and then some mana screw. “I will see you in the top 8”, I told him, ominously, confident in my ability to outplay the rest of the field. I checked again the content of my pool, asked some friends about changes I could make, wondering about potential sideboard plans and concluded that I built the best deck I could and I would have to stick with it. I won the next three rounds, drew in the top 8 finishing 7th and getting to draft. You have to remember that it was during the release week and the draft format was quite new to a lot of players. I had two drafts under my belt, helping local MTG superstars Alexander Hayne and Jon Stern to prepare for Pro Tour Milwaukee, and I won one of them, reassuring me of my capacity to play against the best.

We started to draft and I was hoping to get into BR devoid aggro, which was the archetype that I used to win my previous draft. I would obviously not force it, and stay open to signals. In an average pack with a [card]Prairie Stream[/card], a [card]Brood Monitor[/card] and not much else, I picked the [card]Brood Monitor[/card], a card I never played with before. It looked very powerful, helping me to go large if I could find some Overrun-type effect, or to ramp if I decided to get into Eldrazi business. Maybe both? I got a [card]Forerunner of Slaughter[/card] over a [card]Call the Scions[/card] next pack, still hoping that RB would be open despite my strong first pick. Known water was reassuring; a new strategy would take me into uncharted territories. When I picked [card]Eyeless Watcher[/card] as my third pick, I thought I could be onto something and decided to go Eldrazi ramp and cut green as much as I could to stay flexible when it came to choosing my second colour. Also, I did not want to indicate to the guys on my left that green was open for them. I carried on drafting and I ended up with a really sweet deck.

VincentBuild2

[deck]
[Lands]
7 Mountain
9 Forest
Fertile Thicket
Blighted Woodland
[/Lands]
[Red]
Ondu Champion
Outnumber
Valakut Invoker
Vile Aggregate
[/Red]
[Green]
Blisterpod
2 Brood Monitor
3 Call the Scions
2 Eyeless Watcher
Oran-Rief Invoker
Plated Crusher
Rot Shambler
2 Tajuru Beastmaster
Tajuru Warcaller
Territorial Baloth
[/Green]
[Artifact]
Hedron Archive
[/Artifact]
[Colorless]
Breaker of Armies
Eldrazi Devastator
[/Colorless]
[/deck]

The deck seemed a bit low on low drops, but it could accelerate in some nasty monsters like [card]Breaker of Armies[/card], [card]Eldrazi Devastator[/card] and [card]Plated Crusher[/card], creatures that are hard to deal with and can quickly close the game. Moreover, the two [card]Tajuru Beastmaster[/card] and [card]Tajuru Warcaller[/card] were fantastic, allowing me to deal tons of damage very quickly, without my opponent being able to block much. I had a fourth ally, [card]Ondu Champion[/card], and it could trigger the other two for a proper Overrun-type devastating effect. [card]Rot Shambler[/card] could get very scary very quickly, same as [card]Vile Aggregate[/card] and their synergy with Eldrazi scions was off the hook. I had eight ways to make Eldrazi Scions and they could be used aggressively to overwhelm the opponent, for defense as chumpers or bands of brothers blocking together, or as mana fodder to cast my expensive cards or activate powerful abilities of [card]Valakut Invoker[/card] and [card]Oran-Rief Invoker[/card]. My only removal effect beside the [card]Valakut Invoker[/card] was [card]Outnumber[/card], which is premium removal in this deck.

The deck felt extremely powerful, I could put a lot of pressure early and could do well in grindy matches in top deck mode. I beat Allugrucci, my first round opponent, in the semi-final before winning the whole thing. It felt good to be on top, and I was satisfied with the way I played and my general attitude of being zen about it and not getting over excited about the whole thing. I even managed to keep my cool when some spectators started to chat about the card [card]Brutal Expulsion[/card], speculating about its deeper meaning while lowering themselves to some scatological considerations. They took a picture of the winner, me, holding a booster box over my head as if it was a priceless artefact from some mysterious ruins, posing like a barbarian holding defiantly the decapitated head of his enemy.

I started to reflect upon my future. I was getting one step closer to my goal, getting back on the Pro Tour. Maybe I would at last succeed in going back to the big league. I was qualified for the next two RPTQs, and I was preparing for the upcoming GP Quebec. I could get there, I felt it. Greater successes were within my grasp. I needed to train more, playtest, study through reading and listening to the best, and I needed, one time, to be as excellent as I could be, giving it my best shot as if it was the most important thing in the world. I would not be alone trying though, and the water would be infested with sharks. I knew, as I was becoming one of them. I would have to play the best Magic of my life, pushing my analysis deeper, reading minds and hearts, guessing correctly sideboard strategies and following the right plans. It would be an extreme challenge, and I could fail, numerous times, but, right now after this PPTQ, feeling already triumphant, I knew, in my heart, that I was up to the task. People of Quebec city, I am coming for you! But for now, celebration time! Shall I go out to a dance club?

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