Instead of writing a traditional report, I have decided to discuss the preparations and thought processes that went into my deck choices and draft strategies over the course of the two three format tourneys I played in at Worlds 2011. I want to give you an idea of what it felt like to be there, and how my opinions of each format evolved over the course of our preparation time and the weekend. Most of all, I want this article to serve as a lesson about community, and how important it is to succeed in Magic. While I wish I could provide more match specific information, I played 31 matches of magic over the course of the weekend, and it’s all kind of a blur.
Preparation/Deck Choices:
Standard:
My use of Magic Online was strictly for limited events (unless someone was kind enough to lend me an entire deck for a PTQ) until I was required to prepare for Worlds. I never wanted to make the investment into a full constructed deck, as my limited events seemed to fund themselves over time, and I found them much more entertaining. After Innistrad came out, I finally took the plunge, keeping all the cards I drafted instead of selling them and building a bunch of standard decks to test online. I spent the majority of my time working on [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card] lists, developing it further week to week to adapt to the ever-changing online metagame. Eventually I got bored, and decided to work on U/W control with a very small black splash for [card]Doom Blade[/card] and [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]. After a week of testing that, I decided that running a control deck in this format (u/w, u/b) was just not what I wanted to be doing. While my opponents were playing threats I was busy digging for answers with mana-intensive cards like [card]Think Twice[/card] and [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]. I felt like I was always forced to have the correct answer to their threats, and the mana to answer them, which was very tricky. On top of this, current Standard decks attack from many angles. I may have a hand full of draw spells, counters and Day of Judgement while my opponent is attacking with a Wolf Run’d [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] and there was just nothing I could do about it. Tokens could cast a high impact creature on top of a few weenies, like [card]Hero of Bladehold[/card], forcing me to use my [card]Day of Judgment[/card], just to have them cast an Elspeth as soon as I tap out. Luckily for me, I found this out early thanks to testing sessions in Halifax, where many of my friends volunteered to build gauntlet decks for me to test against. I had a Wolf Run list in mind with 4 [card]Arc Trail[/card], 4 [card]Inferno Titan[/card] and 8 1 mana accelerants maindeck that Noah Long and myself had been working on, and Rich Hoaen ended up playing, but decided that my best bet was to wait for my trip to begin to decide on a deck. I had tested all the decks, but I wanted to see how other Canadians felt about the format, and what decks were testing well for them.
Limited:
This format was very difficult for me to get a handle on. My first few drafts taught me that I can’t just snap up the removal in this set, as much of it is conditional and worse than picking strong creatures. I was first picking [card]Victim of Night[/card]s when I should have been looking at efficient creatures. The next lesson I learned after picking up many losses locally, is that it is not sufficient to take high quality cards in this format, you really need to be conscious of the deck you are trying to build and the cards that fit best in it. While this is true in all limited formats, it seems to be even more important in Innistrad limited where archetypes are of utmost importance. After about 30 drafts online, and a few drafts locally, I still didn’t feel prepared to draft this format at a professional level.
Modern:
I am sure this was the most feared format by the players at Worlds. Despite me managing to get a fair amount of testing in online, when the Canadians got together and started testing, I saw how flawed my idea of modern was. Magic Online wasn’t at all representative of the metagame nor the lists that were present, and it turns out all my testing was useless. I was totally reliant on what the other Canadians would tell me about the format and deck options. My attempt at a streamlined Twin list just didn’t beat Zoo or Affinity, and I was forced to try to find another deck.
Decks/Strategies
I came to Worlds without a deck having been chosen, and without feeling prepared for the limited portion of the event. My trip to San Diego on my way to worlds was filled with worry; I felt I had ruined my chances in both events by not preparing collectively. In truth, I was far more prepared than I had led myself to believe. The 6 months prior to Worlds, I had played more magic than I ever had before. I had tried every standard deck I could get my hands on and did as many drafts online as I could. I was just ignoring the obvious: I needed to play an archetype I wouldn’t normally play.
For standard, the only deck that seemed to fit my style was Illusions, which I was told by the others was very hard to play and unforgiving of mistakes. After Hayne showed me the mono-red list he had brought along, and after watching it play a couple of games against Illusions, I was hooked. I knew this was the deck to play, the list was very aggressive and tailored well to play against creature decks, of which I expected many. The thing I really liked about this list is how little it relied on your creatures attacking on the ground. The 1 drops were mostly capable of dealing damage without attacking, and the rest of the creatures all have some sort of evasion. This means that in an aggro mirror, you can use your removal on their big threats/throw it at their face rather than worry about removing blockers. This may not seem to be the most relevant distinction, but there is certainly a difference between burning a [card]Blade Splicer[/card] token that can’t block anything on your board, and burning an Elspeth. The low land count and efficient burn spells also increased the value of [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card], which is by far the most powerful card in the red deck. The only difference between my main event deck and my MOCS deck was 1 extra sideboard [card]Manic Vandal[/card] in light of the popularity of [card]Tempered Steel[/card] on day 1 and it ended up really paying off in my MOCS matchup against _Sipitholla.
For limited, I kind of fell into B/R in all three of my drafts. When I don’t feel at home in a format, my gut instinct is always to build as aggressive a deck as possible, which is exactly what I defaulted to during my drafts. All three drafts ended in a mediocre 2-1 record, and I wasn’t really a fan of the archetype, besides obviously the sweet bombs that I opened. My test drafts and limited discussions with the other Canadians really showed me how open the format was, and how narrow my strategies had been. Not that my drafts in the actual events reflected this openness, but I certainly understood the types of decks my opponents were playing far better after these test drafts.
I didn’t know what I was playing for Modern until the morning of. I arrived in San Diego expecting to play Twin, leaving expecting to play [card]Ad Nauseam[/card]. When we discovered that the list we had was really no good at all, we started to brew B/G DeathCloud rock which Noah ended up playing in the teams portion of the event. Noah was not sold on the deck after the first day, and no one felt comfortable playing it. We spent the night working the 5c Snapcaster Zoo list which Hoaen had given us, without knowing if we would be able to get the cards for it to play the next day. You see, the dealers at Worlds apparently don’t understand magic players and decided to come with almost no stock. None of the dealers brought modern commons and uncommons and we were lacking 2 full playsets of [card]Tribal Flames[/card]. We were forced to run around the hall during the team portion of the competition, approaching backpack dealers and offering up to 5 dollars each for a 10 cent common. In the end, we found someone nice enough to take a cab back to their hotel room to pick us up the [card]Tribal Flames[/card] right in time for the start of the event. The one cool innovation we had in our list was that we played Thrun in the sideboard for the Zoo mirror. In the main event I only played one, but after being thoroughly underwhelmed by Elspeth, I added a second for the MOCS.
My final record was 13-5 in the main event, 3 losses in Modern, 2 in Limited, with all 5 losses coming at the hands of the Channel Fireball crew (3 to Conley, 1 to LSV and 1 to PV). I managed to slay Kibler day one, and PV in the quarters, but didn’t manage to get my revenge on Conley. Next time Conley!
The Top 8
So there I was, sitting across from Paulo Vitor Dama Da Rosa, 8 time pro-tour top 8er, and unarguably one of the best players playing the game. We sit down for our match, and I inform him that he is the hardest PTQ finalist I will ever have to face. Keep in mind that at the time, we were told that under the new PWP system, top 50’ing a Pro Tour no longer qualified you for the next Pro Tour. Seeing as my qualification for Worlds came from Magic Online, and not Nationals, Pro Level or a GP Finish, I had no pro points for this season going into the event. The only way for me to qualify for Honolulu (of course, that has changed now) was to defeat one of the best players of the game in a best of 5 match and become a level 3 pro off a single event. Not to mention everything else we were playing for on the Sunday stage with all my friends and family watching at home. No pressure or anything. Surprisingly, PV seemed very nervous during our match, which I tried to take advantage of by playing as quickly and confidently as possible. I found that being around the cameras was far less nerve-racking than having my teammates and friends watching games from over my shoulder.
I knew I needed LSV to win, which is something I am certain most people on the Sunday stage wouldn’t say, but I knew Bland’s deck was going to be a nightmare matchup for me. As Noah, Hayne and I discussed; I informed BDM that my plan for the semis was to board out my 1 drops to blank his [card]Gut Shot[/card]s and [card]Mortarpod[/card] suite, but I just didn’t have enough good cards to bring in. I decided during the lunch break to keep in [card]Stromkirk Noble[/card]s on the play, but the lone [card]Spikeshot Elder[/card] and Fireslingers on the draw. The logic behind this is that a turn 1 [card]Stromkirk Noble[/card] could only be answered by a [card]Gut Shot[/card], while all my other 1 drops were vulnerable to both [card]Gut Shot[/card] and [card]Mortarpod[/card] by the 2nd turn of the game. On the draw, Fireslingers are low impact, and he might be tempted to save his [card]Gut Shot[/card]s and [card]Mortarpod[/card]s for my higher quality one drops (which hopefully he wouldn’t clue into the fact that I had boarded them out), by doing so, hopefully get in some damage or enable a [card]Stormblood Berserker[/card]. Spikeshot can come down and ping something immediately if I have enough mana, making him the best one drop assuming he has the kill spell.
All 3 games were blowouts. My best chance of getting back in was when I landed a Koth to his empty board, but he was quickly [card]Celestial Purge[/card]d and followed up with a Hero.
My weekend ended quickly, but I couldn’t have been happier. Not only had I finished 4th in both Worlds and the MOCS, I got the chance to go on an awesome trip with awesome people. My biggest takeaway from the event is the importance of community. The constant support I received through the weekend from not only my family and friends, but many other Canadians I had never even met was overwhelming. Thank you for all your messages of support and congratulations. My deck choices and knowledge about this limited format were due to the large amount of input I received from all the Canadians who helped me prepare for worlds, and especially those who were on the trip with me. Each person had different views of both the constructed and limited environment, and talking to them and watching them draft allowed me to make the correct deck choices for both formats, and be more competent at Innistrad limited. I am looking forward to the next year, and am very relieved given the new WPN changes. I intend on continuing to write for Manadeprived.com through the year; with content ranging for draft walkthroughs/videos, constructed deck techs to Eternal (yes, maybe even Vintage). If you guys have any questions or suggestions about one of my articles, always feel free to post in the comments or add me on Facebook and send me a message.
Cya soon!
David Caplan
Credited with popularizing Canadian Threshold, David Caplan top 4ed Worlds and the Magic Online Championship in 2011.
