Well, midterms are mostly over for me, and I’ve got editors breathing down my neck left and right so it’s time for another article. (My editors are actually very awesome people and I’m thankful for all of their help, but I was just kind of hoping to have a better excuse for not being as prolific as usual.) Anyways, since I haven’t written in a while, I thought I should start off by complaining for a bit. Don’t worry though, this article will be full of interesting thoughts about Scars of Mirrodin sealed, and (Spoiler Alert!) will contain some sound clips from the Broken City Faculty.
We are now into the meat of PTQ season here in Alberta. I don’t know how it works for everyone else, but for any given Pro Tour, Alberta usually gets two PTQs, one in Calgary and one in Edmonton. This is actually a fairly recent development, and is hopefully based on the fact that we have a growing scene here in Alberta. Edmonton is only a three-hour drive away, so that’s not too bad. I’m not even certain if Saskachewan gets a PTQ, but if they do it would either be in Saskatoon or Regina, which are both approximately eight-hour drives away. Point is, I get a little jealous when I read articles about having three or four PTQs within a six-hour radius, as it seems is the case for some in the US, at least from what I have read. Even with practice and skill, it is still difficult to defeat the other hundred people in a PTQ, and so attending more of them will of course give you a better chance to win. Having less PTQs within a
reasonable travel distance is just another hurdle of being a Canadian magic player. Still, I accept that Wizards of the Coast is an American-based company, and that there are simply more people and more players in most areas of the US. Also, I am optimistic about the growth of our local scene here in Alberta, and the inroads that have been made with the Canadian magic community in general. I think that the Broken City School’s partnership with Manadeprived is a good example of KYT’s efforts in creating a unified Canadian magic scene.
At this time, you may be wondering why I am going on about PTQs. Well, there was one last weekend. As usual, I finished x-2 and did not make top eight. It is getting a bit frustrating to consistently play well, yet fall a bit short of the mark. In GP: Portland, I was one win away from day two. At champs, I was a win away from top eight. For the National Qualifiers, I lost to my friend Paul MacKinnon (another notorious x-2er, although he avoided that fate at this particular tournament) in the last round and was not able to go to Montreal. As with growth in anything, growth in magic starts off quickly and then plateaus. I am currently on one of those plateaus. I am satisfied with my results in that I am typically playing well, and am winning a lot more matches than I am losing, and my DCI ranking has increased significantly as a result, but I would much rather have a trip to Paris than a thousand DCI points. I realize now that I have entered what many magic players refer to as “The Grind.” I have the skill, and will to win a PTQ, but I need to put everything together and do it. I need to have the complete package, rather than just coming close. I think it’s mostly a matter of practice, and a matter of perseverance. To win a PTQ, I will have to mostly keep practicing and keep playing PTQs. That seems obvious, and of course is, but it’s easy to fall into a line of thinking that I’m just not good enough to do it. I will win a PTQ eventually, I’m just not sure when. Maybe it’ll be November 27th, in Edmonton. I just have to play through the frustration, and be aware that there are people who have been at this level for longer than I have. So, for all those other PTQ grinders out there, keep at it, and hopefully I’ll see you at a Pro Tour sometime.
The format of the PTQ was of course Scars of Mirrodin sealed/draft, a format that I have been playing a heap of. On the eve of the prerelease of any given magic set, the Broken City Faculty gets together, drinks some beers, and then goes over each card in the spoiler and discusses its value in limited play. Often we’re right, less often we’re wrong, and more often we just discuss things completely unrelated to the value of the card and go off on lengthy tangents about nothing. The people you will hear on these clips are: myself and fellow writers Jared Maguire and Shawn Petsche, as well as our friend John Frosst, who is newer but has improved by leaps and bounds since he first started coming to Broken City. Anyways, I’m going to talk about a few cards and then mostly let the sound clips speak for themselves, and give you a look into the strange inner workings of the Broken City School of Magic.
Asceticism
At the PTQ, I ended up opening hand of the Praetors as well as nine other infect creatures and made a sealed infect deck. It was better than I thought it was going to be, but did contain a contagion clasp as well as two tumble magnets, so that was good. My pool also contained Asceticism, a card that I had never played but was quite good in my infect deck. Green is a pretty weak colour in SOM sealed, especially outside of infect, but if your infect deck is not super aggressive, as mine was not; I think Asceticism is a good inclusion. It blanks their removal, and allows you to get even more value out of combat situations that would normally be trades. Obviously you’d want to sideboard it out vs. another infect deck, however. If you’ve got some decent proliferate cards, Asceticism is a good choice. At one point during the PTQ, my opponent attempted to play an arrest on one of my creatures when I had asceticism on board, and of course I pointed out he couldn’t. He then discarded the arrest off of a Sky-Eel School, and said that he couldn’t believe that he was doing it. I could believe it.
During the coverage for GP: Toronto, Brad Nelson discussed how he felt that the two-drop infect creatures are the most important. I agree with his assessment, as having a Plague Stinger, Ichorclaw Myr, or Necropede on turn two is important, but there are very solid creatures at the three and four drop slots as well. Cystbearer is excellent mostly because of his three toughness in a set of bears. Ichor rats is either not very good or excellent, but the ability to just give out a poison counter is occasionally a game winner, especially with proliferate. Tel-Jilad Fallen beats some decks single-handedly, and his only failing is that you can’t hook him up with your sweet equipment. Well, that and he just dies to Embersmith.
Bloodshot Trainee
Bloodshot Trainee is obviously a card that is phenomenal when you have the right cards with him, but is pretty bad otherwise. I am not a fan of including cute combos in my limited decks and attempting to live the dream, but in the case of the trainee, the equipment cards (or the trigon of rage) you are including are usually quite playable in their own right, and if you assemble the combo, it is very powerful. Shawn asked me how many cards that turn on the trainee you’d need before you’d feel good about playing him, and I think the answer is two. In my first match of the PTQ, I had to face down a trainee with Strata Scythe all three of the games, and I was surprised that I won one of the three. Anyways, here’s us talking about some of the equipment cards that are good with Trainee, and you will get to hear me make an embarrassing mistake about the rules of the game. (I was drunk?)
Mythics and rares that you should probably play
I am just making a section so that I can post some sound clips about Mindslaver, Venser, and Kuldotha Phoenix. You should probably play all of those cards if you open them and they work in your deck. Mindslaver can be pretty bad occasionally, but during the pre-release I was Mindslavered and then had to kill my own Arbalest-equipped Soliton in response. Kuldotha Phoenix is a 4/4 flying haste creature even if you don’t have metalcraft, and Red is the best colour in SOM sealed, in my opinion. Venser is really solid in limited, because there’s lots of good blink targets, and everyone seems to forget about his -1 ability, which should read: Win target race.
Cards you should not play
I can’t really think of any decks that I would want to play Razorfield Thresher in. Tunnel Ignus is pretty bad but might make the cut in some red decks. Here’s us talking about them!
What is a Chim?
I am sure you’ve always wanted to know.
Anyways, this week was a bit all over the place, but I hope the sound clips, at the very least, amused you. I’m sure I’ll see most of you sitting beside me, grinding PTQs.
-Ian “The Doctor” Baker
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.