STANDARD, THE COME BACK!

Hello everyone!

First of all I would like to thank all of you for your support! More than 200 views of my last report, and even though I know its complicated to leave a comment, feel free to do it!

After almost 3 months dedicating myself to Modern and Limited, its time to play some Standard again! This week I'm going to GP Bochum in Germany, and Im very excited about it! First of all, I have never been to Germany. It might be that Bochum and Dusseldorf (where I am landing on saturday) aren't the best places to start visiting, but I am pretty sure its going to be a great time!

Second, after 6 exhaustive months of Delver of secrets, it feels great to be back at the format where I got to learn how to play, and where I got my best results until now. Before getting this job, I was a student, and had most of my afternoons free. That means twice a week I would be battling at Magic Corporation for a few boosters and other prizes. I knew the format inside out, and last season was Delver season... It was just hard to play something else. Anyway, since RTR came out, I didn't really give that much attention to standard, only watching some videos and occasional coverage. Before actually playing the new format, it seemed that Zombies would be the Deck to beat, mostly for not loosing anything from the rotation. Well, people decided to gain life. And Lots of Life. Huntmaster gives me 2? I want more? Centaur Healer 3 life? Not enough. Thragtusk 5 life?? Almost there... 

Sphinx's Revelation Its probably the card that makes all things possible. Too far, I know. Have you ever cast it? I guess thats what a revelation feels... You feel actually iluminated after casting it. This is actually the reason why you want to ramp in your control deck. Speaking of which, it seems that's what everyone is playing nowadays... UWR Control, Bant Control, Grixis Control, Mono black Control, UW... Zombies, Mono Red, Humans and Selesnya agro decks are still there, but the only ones really having any relevant results are the ones that remembered that Cavern of Souls is still legal... And that probably explains the recent success of the new Delver decks. If everybody is only playing their threats turns 4 or 5, Im just going to put a small creature into play and counter whatever they do. Does that sound familiar?

After playing with Bant control at the Standard Championship in Lyon, with a list full of one of (One Jace, One Tamyio, One Angel of Serenity), and I could feel the power of the deck. It was far from an ideal list, but it was enough to convince me that that's what I want to do in Standard.

I played in a win a box on saturday, and went 4x1. Tomorrow Ill give you the report of that tournament. Got to go back to work now.

See you guys soon!

GP LYON

The weekend has arrived!!! It was time for me to get my third Day 2 in a GP, and this time, I was prepared for it! We did a lot of testing, and the deck seem as solid as possible! I got to Lyon on Thursday afternoon with my Fiancé, as Lyon its her hometown. It would be great to have a day just to relax and have sometime with her and her family, as a fresh mind is a great recipt for success. We slept in the afternoon and had an awesome dinner at night at my (to be) brother in law birthday party. Friday morning I woke up at 10, and got ready to go to the Venue.
The GP was in a big convetion center, a very nice place in the middle of Lyon. I still had to pick up some cards that were missing, and help friends building their decks for the trials. I got pretty good deals with the German stores (they always have great prices at GPs), and I just had to wait for a friend to arrive with the Vendilion Cliques and my deck would be done. Here is the list I played at the trial:

4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Seachrome Coast
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Arid Mesa
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains

2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Consacrated Sphinx

 3 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
2 Cryptic Command
2 Izzet Charm

Sideboard
2 Supreme Veredict


1 Pyroclasm
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 detention sphere
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Dispel
2 spell pierce 
1 Negate
1 Dumping Matrix
2 Stone Silence 
1 Graffdigger's Cage

We realized that Geist was definatly the worst card in the pack, but we didnt want to cut all of them, because against combo decks can still win the game on its own. Consacrated Sphinx was the creature to go over the top against Jund and other creature decks, and the rest was pretty much the same. I decided to cut the Eiganjo Castle as we didnt rely on Geist as much as before, adding another fetch land to make sure we would have our red early in the game.
The room was fool of TRON, Poison and Affiniy, as we expected, and it felt really good to be playing this deck. I won Round 1 against robots, in game 2 playing pyroclasm T2, and Stone Silence T3. He conceded right after. Round 2 was against tron, and my opponent mulligan to 6 both games didnt help him much. Round 3 was a pretty easy win against a Naya deck, where we both had about the same amount of creatures on the board, just until I landed Sphinx. So much card advantage! At 3-0 I was up for the Top 4, but I couldnt beat TRON this time. I mulliganed G1 to five, without any counterspell, and he had the tron on t3. Game 2 another mulligan to 6, and one turn before killing him, he tutors Emrakul up, I vendilion click at his draw step to make sure not to get Annihilated that turn, and take away his Giant. What he draws? All is dust. I loose my geist, clique and detention sphere, he gets his Karn back, and I lost. =( I still feel favorable in this much up, and even though I couldnt get to the finals, I was pretty confidant with the deck.

So, it was time to go home and rest for day 1!

SATURDAY

I did a couple of changes before giving my list in the morning: After reading PV's article about the Pro-Tour, where he suggests that Baneslayer Angel would be a nice addition to the UW decks, I decided to replace the sphinx for it. I felt I could use some life gain, and one less mana was a big deal. Another change was to add a Surgical extraction and take out the Dumping Matrix, that didnt do much. After my byes (2), I was ready to battle:

Round 3 - Kohl, Reinhold - Boremandos.

I think I have played him before, and I asked him if he remembered me, and his answer was: Yeah, when was the last Pro-Tour you played? ... Sigh...

He starts with Delver T1, and I didnt have any removal in hand. After a long game he burns me out, and we are up for game 2. On the play, he starts with step lynx, and turn 2 adds a delver and a delver to the board. I pyroclasm everything away, and we Draw-Go for a while, Until I resolve a Clique and a Restoration Angel, telling me that his hand was all burn spells. I won that one, but we didnt have time to finish game 3... Draw. Not a very good way to start, as in day 1 a draw is worthy as much as a loss.

Round 4 - DURIF, Vincent - JUND

My opponent starts with inquisition, taking out my spell snare and leaving me with snapcasters and restoration angels in hand. He plays dark confidant, and just overwhelms me.
Game 2 I did probably the WORST MISPLAY IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME. It was so bad that I wanted to concede right away. I had 3 lands, a celestial colonade, a mountain and an island. My hand was: Kitchen Finks, Snapcaster Mage, Angel, Baneslayer, and Supreme Veridict. I had a Lightning bolt and a Path to exile on my graveyard, that I used to took out his Tarmogoyf and His Dark Confidant. I used my clique at his draw step and he kills it right away, and I see that all he had was a tarmogoyf and lands in hand. I leave it, as I had the veridict and even baneslayer once I draw my lands. He attacks me with TreeTop, plays another one, and sais go. I draw another kitchen finks, but still no forth land, so my plan was to path to exile my own snapcaster at his turn. For some reason I forgot that treetop has trample, and when he attacks me with his treetops I play my snapcaster, and say: "Block, than flashback path to exile on my own snapcaster". My opponent says: Sorry, but you didnt anounce that you target path to exile with your snapcaster. You forgot your trigger. I kept looking to the board, and move my snapcaster to the cemitery, without complaining, and thinking that I was the one who should be put in the cemitery, not the snapcaster.
Guess what happened? Never draw my 4th land, and I was dead with 2 attacks to his treetops.
I was devasted by this, how could I make such a thing? It was a horrible mistake, and now I couldnt loose anymore games for the rest of the day.

Round 5 and 6 - Fernandez, David and Hanke, Dustin
I won both of this rounds, but I dont remember against what it was. I guess I was still a little bit dizzy with round 4.

Round 7 - Collinet, Patrick - JUND

Do I really have to tell you? I lost. Not with misplays this time, but because I think the Match Up its 50/50, and this time I was out of favor. On game 3 his draws were much better than mine, and after 3 bloodbraid elves, there wasnt much I could do.

So I was out of contention, and pretty disapointed. Not with the deck, but with myself, for that round 4, and even for not playing faster on round 3 to avoid the draw. I droped after that, and went to see some games at the feature tables.

The GP was a great experience, despise things not going so well for me, but I had a great time with my friends and got to see some great names of the game playing. Next week Ill be going to GP Bochum, so next post it will be about standard!

Have a great week!