SOI League, the third and most recent of Face to Face Games Montreal’s series of league tournaments, has just come to a close after a seven-week meat-grinder of eliminations. For the last month of the competition, nine gladiators have been battling it out with each other just to see who would make the Top 8 and qualify for the finals, with no one giving an inch of ground. The Top 8 was finally decided on tie-breakers with a triple elimination at the end of Week 7. When the dust settled post-finals, it was the store’s own Operations Manager, Peter Sachlas, who hoisted the trophy and won glory after what he called “a cut-throat month and a half of gaming, with players honing their skills week by week.”

Tightening the Screw: Why League Play Gets More Intense Week after Week

Each league starts with players cracking six packs of the most newly-released expansion, with which they construct sixty-card decks. Whenever players lose a match, they may at that time add a ‘punishment pack’ (a Standard-legal pack of Magic cards) to their card pool to strengthen it. After they’ve added ten packs, no more packs may be added, and players are eliminated when they take their eleventh loss.

So, as more losses accrue weekly, more packs get added to players’ league pools, and the level of competition gets higher and fiercer, as players vie to stave off elimination with their improved decks. As a rule of thumb, around Week 5 league decks begin to gravitate closer to Standard than Sealed in terms of their raw power level. Players’ decklists also get polished for optimal playability and ‘feel’, since they’re being used in matches week in and week out.

For reference, see Peter’s (the eventual winner’s) decklist below, as it stood at the end of the league season:

[deck]
[Lands]
10 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
10 Swamp
2 Westvale Abbey
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Aim High
1 Call the Bloodline
3 Dead Weight
1 Explosive Apparatus
1 Grotesque Mutation
1 Murderous Compulsion
1 Neglected Heirloom
1 Rabid Bite
1 Shard of Broken Glass
1 Slayer’s Plate
2 Throttle
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
2 Briarbridge Patrol
1 Deathcap Cultivator
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Elusive Tormentor
2 Kindly Stranger
1 Mindwrack Demon
1 Obsessive Skinner
1 Pack Guardian
1 Pale Rider of Trostad
1 Quilled Wolf
3 Sanitarium Skeleton
1 Solitary Hunter
1 Stoic Builder
1 Tooth Collector
1 Twins of Maurer Estate
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Seven weeks is the longest a league in this series has gone, and as there was no great disparity in players’ skill levels or strength of card pools, it was anyone’s guess as to who would make Top 8. From Peter’s perspective, his deck was far from the best and it was an uphill battle to clinch his place in the finals:

I had a strong record at the beginning of the League, with an awesome Abzan build that included [card]Sorin, Grim Nemesis[/card]. As the League progressed, I cut the white so that my deck could be more consistent. However, I got a little lazy and made few changes each week despite losing more and more. Other players kept crying out in outrage that I could ever have removed Sorin from my list (as I had clinched a number of games by slamming him on a somewhat even board). As such, I was almost eliminated towards the end, and had to claw my way back into the Top 8. The deciding match was a nail-biter. If I won, I would make Top 8; if I lost, I would be kicked out and lose out on my chance to play the MegaDraft. Luckily, I was able to get Delirium online at lightning speed and take advantage of my double copies of [card]Westvale Abbey[/card], and my prayers to Ormendahl were answered. I made the Top 8, but just barely!

League Finals / MegaDraft Math

Once again, the league’s Top 8 performers were treated to a MegaDraft finals event. MegaDraft is a format where you draft one pack of every Standard-legal expansion, in chronological order according to release date, to create a sixty-card limited deck. So for this MegaDraft, the top eight players of the league got to open one pack of DTK, passing to the left, one pack of ORI, passing to the right, one pack of BFZ, passing left, OGW passing right, and finally SOI passing left. Players recorded their picks as they drafted, so that we were able to recreate the winner’s drafting process.
Because at the end of last league there were 6 Standard-legal expansions in the MegaDraft, expectations were skewed high among those players who had returned to this Top 8. Sifting 84 cards and only using 36 of them meant that players required a mere 43% of their card pool, which led to some fairly absurd builds.

In this 5-pack MegaDraft, players sifted 70 cards and needed to use about 36 of them. They were only forced to utilize 51% of their picks in this case, which meant that the decks they built for the league finals were marginally stronger than an average draft deck (because they were forced to use fewer of their picks).

For comparison, in a regular 3-pack draft, players sift out 42 cards and need to use about 23 of these to make a deck. Thus, they’re forced to use 55% of their card pools on average, which means slightly fewer meaningful choices to make. On the other hand, 3-pack draft is a more popular and better-researched format, which might serve to bridge the power divide. Though the two are numerically comparable, Peter concurs that MegaDraft is the better test of your raw deck-building skills:

In Constructed formats (or even some limited formats that have been around for a long time), players gain an advantage by knowing all the decks and practicing over and over again. When MegaDrafting five different booster packs, deck-building and planning skills are tested from the get-go!

We followed Peter’s picks over the course of the MegaDraft, so you can see how he put together his winning deck by viewing his card selections below. The bolded picks represent cards which he included in his final decklist, and his comments on specific picks are italicized:

~Dragons of Tarkir~

1 – [card]Silumgar’s Command[/card] (Best card in the pack by far. Hesitant to take a multicolored card first pick, but gambled anyway.)
2 – [card]Zephyr Scribe[/card] (Picked this highly with thoughts of Delirium and Madness in last pack [SOI]. Already thinking super long term.)
3 – [card]Youthful Scholar[/card] 
4 – [card]Encase in Ice[/card] (Thought if I was solidly U/B, then there’d be plenty of G/R decks floating around to make this a premium sideboard card.)
5 – [card]Ojutai’s Summons[/card] 
6 – [card]Duress[/card] 
7 – [card]Blood-Chin Rager[/card] 
8 – [card]Aerie Bowmasters[/card] (Having been passed this really late, I started thinking Green might be open.)
9 – [card]Colossodon Yearling[/card] 
10 – [card]Guardian Shield-Bearer[/card] (Having been passed this really late, confirmed that Green was going to be open.)
11 – [card]Center Soul[/card] 
12 – [card]Pinion Feast[/card] 
13 – [card]Naturalize[/card] 
14 – [card]Colossodon Yearling[/card] 
15 – [card]Plains[/card] 

~Magic Origins~

1 – [card]Whirler Rogue[/card] (Was super excited to take this powerhouse card. My rare was [card]The Great Aurora[/card], so it was not a difficult choice.)
2 – [card]Elvish Visionary[/card] 
3 – [card]Reave Soul[/card] (Still unsure of 2-color combination, which is why I was high picking Black cards.)
4 – [card]Somberwald Alpha[/card] (Start getting rewarded for changing to Green.)
5 – [card]Unholy Hunger[/card] 
6 – [card]Timberpack Wolf[/card] 
7 – [card]Disperse[/card] 
8 – [card]Scrapskin Drake[/card] 
9 – [card]Negate[/card] 
10 – [card]Blightcaster[/card] 
11 – [card]Hitchclaw Recluse[/card] 
12 – [card]Ringwarden Owl[/card] (Passed super late; I’m ecstatic that Blue’s still open. Solidly on the Green/Blue plan now.)
13 – [card]Cobblebrute[/card] 
14 – [card]Faerie Miscreant[/card] 
15 – [card]Swamp[/card] 

~Battle for Zendikar~

1 – [card]Coastal Discovery[/card] 
2 – [card]Territorial Baloth[/card] (Really weak pack for me, but card ended up being a powerhouse.)
3 – [card]Snapping Gnarlid[/card] 
4 – [card]Clutch of Currents[/card] 
5 – [card]Swell of Growth[/card] 
6 – [card]Tajuru Warcaller[/card] (Late pick; once again, super glad to have changed to Green.)
7 – [card]Broodhunter Wurm[/card] 
8 – [card]Tajuru Beastmaster[/card] 
9 – [card]Swell of Growth[/card] 
10 – [card]Jaddi Offshoot[/card] 
11 – [card]Fertile Thicket[/card] 
12 – [card]Swell of Growth[/card] 
13 – [card]Kalastria Nightwatch[/card] 
14 – [card]Kozilek’s Sentinel[/card] 
15 – [card]Swamp[/card] 

~Oath of the Gatewatch~

1 – [card]Dimensional Infiltrator[/card] (Not too happy that colorless sources will be hard to obtain, but solid flash flyer for two mana.)
2 – [card]Scion Summoner[/card] 
3 – [card]Nissa’s Judgment[/card] 
4 – [card]Crumbling Vestige[/card] 
5 – [card]Roiling Waters[/card] 
6 – [card]Unity of Purpose[/card] 
7 – [card]Ancient Crab[/card] 
8 – [card]Gravity Negator[/card] 
9 – [card]Tajuru Pathwarden[/card] 
10 – [card]Elemental Uprising[/card] 
11 – [card]Swamp[/card] (Full Art)
12 – [card]Reaver Drone[/card] 
13 – [card]Forest[/card] (Full Art)
14 – [card]Slip Through Space[/card] 
15 – [card]Lead by Example[/card] 

~Shadows Over Innistrad~

1 – [card]Stormrider Spirit[/card] 
2 – [card]Stitchwing Skaab[/card] 
3 – [card]Reckless Scholar[/card] 
4 – [card]Stormrider Spirit[/card] 
5 – [card]Quilled Wolf[/card] 
6 – [card]Broken Concentration[/card] 
7 – [card]Press for Answers[/card] 
8 – [card]Silent Observer[/card] 
9 – [card]Moldgraf Scavenger[/card] 
10 – [card]Fork in the Road[/card] 
11 – [card]Clip Wings[/card] 
12 – [card]Vessel of Nascency[/card] 
13 – [card]Hulking Devil[/card] 
14 – [card]Vessel of Paramnesia[/card] 
15 – [card]Plains[/card] 

In the end, this is the U/G decklist that Peter settled on:

[deck]
[Lands]
1 Fertile Thicket
12 Forest
12 Island
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Broken Concentration
1 Clutch of Currents
1 Coastal Discovery
1 Disperse
1 Elemental Uprising
1 Negate
1 Nissa’s Judgment
1 Ojutai’s Summons
1 Roiling Waters
1 Swell of Growth
1 Unity of Purpose
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Aerie Bowmasters
1 Broodhunter Wurm
2 Colossodon Yearling
1 Dimensional Infiltrator
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Guardian Shield-Bearer
1 Quilled Wolf
1 Reckless Scholar
1 Ringwarden Owl
1 Scion Summoner
1 Scrapskin Drake
1 Silent Observer
1 Snapping Gnarlid
1 Somberwald Alpha
1 Stitchwing Skaab
2 Stormrider Spirit
1 Tajuru Pathwarden
1 Tajuru Warcaller
1 Territorial Baloth
1 Whirler Rogue
1 Youthful Scholar
1 Zephyr Scribe
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

After a bit of a muddled start in Sultai territory, ORI and BFZ filled out Peter’s decklist significantly with tons of Simic beef, which helped him focus his draft. All of the creatures in his final build are rock-solid on their own and either have evasion or bring other creatures into play with them, or draw cards on their way onto (or way off) the battlefield. To protect this assault force he included a suite of combat tricks and a minor control element. Let’s see how his list performed in the league finals.

Peter’s MegaDraft Matches

Peter’s first opponent was Julien Schroeter, a new player to the league who had locked himself for the finals by Week 5, as a fellow devotee of Ormendahl.

Julien was running G/B Elves, complete with [card]Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen[/card] and [card]Ruinous Path[/card], with [card]Corpseweft[/card] as a Plan B. Peter took the match 2-1, but in his words they were:

Really close games all around. I had to mulligan to 5 in Game 3 and it was looking grim. Luckily, there was a board stall and I wiped Julien’s board when he attempted to crack back, only to be met with a [card]Unity of Purpose[/card] that untapped all of my creatures (some of them already had counters on them, including a 4/4 Awakened Land).

In Round 2, Peter was paired against draft dominator and league stalwart Richard Koffler. A Limited specialist, Richard would prove to be a tough matchup for our protagonist. Nevertheless, Peter survived the encounter with another 2-1 result, despite:

…super close games. Huge board stall in Game 3, but I had a looter. After ten or so turns, I made my move, playing my [card]Tajuru Warcaller[/card] and swinging with eight or so creatures that had a minimum of 4-power each. I also had a [card]Broken Concentration[/card] as backup in case I needed to counter something.

In the final round, Peter played Phil Martin, the two-time league champ who was gunning for a hat trick. Phil had put together an extremely lethal R/W aggro deck that had knocked out his first two opponents in record time. As this was Peter’s first league Top 8, the smart money would have been on Phil going into this match. To the surprise of many, it was Peter who swept the finals 2-0:

In Game 1, Phil landed a [card]Thunderbreak Regent[/card] on turn 4 and I was already in trouble. With the help of [card]Whirler Rogue[/card], [card]Ojutai’s Summons[/card], and [card]Unity of Purpose[/card], I somehow made a comeback. Luckily for me, Phil flooded out with lands. Game 2 was quick, with Phil also having some bad luck. [card]Unity of Purpose[/card] clinched the final game. What an amazing combat trick! After the games, Phil flashed me [card]Gideon, Ally of Zendikar[/card] and [card]Tragic Arrogance[/card]. I was relieved that he hadn’t drawn them in either game. I had stopped Phil’s winning streak and dethroned the Champion! As such, I named myself “Kingslayer” on the Booster League trophy.

To Be Continued

Once again, a well-deserved congratulations to Peter Sachlas on his breakout league win! Looking back, Peter had this to say when I asked him for his overall impression of his league experience:

I greatly enjoyed the camaraderie throughout the whole season. Seeing familiar faces each and every week and discussing deck changes was a lot of fun. I also greatly enjoyed the deck-building process and seeing the evolution of everyone’s decks. In the end, I had a fantastic time with a great group of players, and I urge everyone to participate in a Booster League if they get the chance in the future. See you all in the next League!