Hello Everyone!
Quick recap with what has been going on :
(Just jump to the Report session if you don't want to read about me)
It has been quite a while since the last time I wrote, but I have a good reason: I got promoted, and what was a quite place where I could play Magic Online at least 2 hours everyday, became a nightmare. I mean, I like it a lot, especially because I am the one who decides peoples schedules (So I can always finish early on Friday and begin late on Monday - very useful for travel arrangements), but I do not have as much spare time as I use to. That meant that my time spent with Magic would take a hit, so I just assumed my results would reflect that.
Since last time I wrote, I went to 4 Grand Prixs: Bilbao (Modern), London (Limited), Rio (Standard) and Utrecht (Team Limited).
I am not going to give you details on those, as I am here to talk about Legacy this time, but I will tell you briefly how they went:
Bilbao: Played JUND and got destroyed. 5x3 drop. I have no luck (or skills on this format).
London: Finish day one at 8x2, and felt pretty confidant going to day 2. Manage to 2x1 my first draft, and needed to 2x1 the second one to be able to top 64 (and cash in my first GP). Lost the last round playing for top 64, finishing X-5.
RIO: This GP deserved a report, as it was as much fun as a GP can be. I met a lot of people that I only knew online: Jose Dantas (@kaOz_Zeh) - who won the GP, Willy Edel (@bazardebagda) and Pedro Carvalho (@_Megafone_) are amongst them, and they have been encouraging me to do better and not give up, so a big thanks to them. I missed day 2 at RIO because of a Draw that could have become a Win haven't I screwed up at the second game... anyway, I will write about this another time.
UTRECHT: I teamed up with Antoine Maugard and Pierre Sommen, and what promised to be a awesome GP turned in a disapointement. We had average decks, but we faced awesome decks with lots of bombs, got a game loss for deck list, and saw Antoine get very Unluckly to barely win a match the whole day. Droped right after.
After this results, and not much time to PTQ this season ( I am getting married in June, so between the preparations and playing the drums at church on sunday, I was going to be pretty busy this semester), I was not very proud of myself in magic. I had a bunch of below average results, and as I much as I could think of myself as a good player, my results were not helping. Everybody seems to be writing about losing on Magic nowadays, and I can say that I have been doing it a LOT. Except in drafts. This a fun fact actually, but in 3 of this 4 events I decided to play in drafts on sunday, and I won 90% the drafts I played (2 each). I started to think that I should stick to casual... Than comes GP Strasbourg.
GP STRASBOURG
I played in a total of 6 Legacy events since 2011 (When I started playing Magic). 1 GP (Ghent 2012), 1 GP Trial and 3 FNM's. When I was learning how to play, Pierre Sommen (GP Amsterdam 2011 champion - Probably one of the best Legacy Players in the World) and I jammed a bunch of games in a store where he worked during a summer, but thats that. I didn't have any other Legacy experience, and therefore no expectation about doing well at this GP. I just wanted to play in a high level event before my wedding, and have a good weekend with my friends.
I told Sommen that I would play whatever 75 he tolds me to play, as I didn't know much about the format, and when he told me that he wanted to play BUG Shardless. I jumped in right away, and was great to see Gerry Thompson win the Invitational the week before in Atlanta with the deck. I watched a bunch of videos during the week to see his line of plays, and thought that the deck fitted my play style very well. I asked around for some cards, and I was ready to go.
We booked a house 30 minutes from the site with 10 other Frenchies, and it was THE place to be: Louis Deltour, Guillaume Vincent, Cyril Terroy, Pierre Sommen, Maxime Mangenot and others excellent Legacy players. They arrived on thursday to start testing, but because of work I had to take the train on Friday afternoon. I arrived on the site at 4 pm, and as I still had to collect a few cards with people I did not had time to play in a Trial. I watched my friends play and got back to the house.
After some food (Cyril Terroy made a "Risotto" that should be able to be used as ciment or super glue, but it was pretty good) and boozes (And bad jokes by Pierre Picot and Louis Deltour), we were ready to discuss the maindeck and sideboard. Here is the list that we came out:
I thought that was really weird to have only one random Hymn on the main, but I couldn't argue much with them. (Vincent and Sommen were the ones working on the list). I thought the maindeck was pretty solid, but asked why we were not playing any thoughtseizes. They argue that the deck is not made to win against Combo (The deck's worst MU) game 1 anyway, so it was 4 or nothing.
The Whipflares were an awesome addition against Elves, Goblins, Maverick, WW and even StoneBlade (Sometimes good against storm if you feel they will play Empty the Warrens), and the red/black dual wasn't so BAD ;). The revokers and Sower were mainly against Show and Tell, Thoughtseize against all the combo decks (and some control) and cage, well, don't need to say. The plan seemed pretty solid.
We jammed in some games, and were quite happy with the final list, and went to sleep.
I waked up quite early, and felt like something was missing. I knew that I didn't have the same knowledge of the format as the other guys, and some games I would just loose for not knowing what I was playing against. So, I decided that I was going to bring 2 thoughtseizes to the main deck to give me an edge game one against this unknown decks, allowing me to sideboard properly. I also knew I wanted at least one maelstrom pulse in the 75 to deal with annoying permanents like Sneak Attack, Jace and Batterskull, and it can also act as the 4th Whipflare in some cases.
So, this is what I ended up playing:
Thiago Rodrigues, 16th
Grand Prix Strasbourg 2013 – Legacy
I needed to make room for the 2 thoughtseizes so I moved the Hymn to the sideboard and cut one Strix.
My rounds day one went like this:
Bye 2
Round 3: Maverick - 2x0
Round 4: Jund - 2x1
Round 5: Goblins - 2x1
Round 6: UW Miracles - 2x0
Round 7: Esper - 2x0
Round 8: Alluren 2x0
Round 9: Show and Tell Omniscience 0x2
Ok, so this was unexpected! I have to confess that until round 5, I just felt that I was getting lucky. The deck was awesome, well tuned and I was winning because I was playing against good MU... 5x0 wasn't a big of a deal and I have done it before, but when I won round 6 against Miracles, I knew I was running good. Something really interesting happened this round, as in game 2, he plays fetch, look for an island and say go. I play a Deathrite shaman out of a bayou, and pass the turn back. During his turn he plays a Rest In peace. I think for a while, and say ok. He puts it into play, don't do anything, and say GO. So here, I untap, draw my card, and realize that when he put RIP into play, he didn't actually exile his graveyard. He didn't announce the trigger, he didn't made any motions towards it or anything. I decided to call a judge to ask if I could activate my shaman, seen that the trigger from RIP requires a visual representation (exiling your graveyard), and he didn't do it. He asked me to describe what exactly happened, and I did. He asked my opponent to do the same, and he says that he made a movement with his hand pointing to his graveyard, but didn't actually moved it, and I said that it was not true. After some discussion, I feel like the judge will rule in my favor, but he decides to check with a Head Judge. When he comes, he call both of us aside (My opponent first), and then asked me to describe what happened. I did, and he asked me if I was familiar of what RIP did, and I said of course, so I felt that his tone changed like if I was saying something wrong, or a different version of what I said earlier. I have saw this happening many times, and I knew he was trying to see if I was telling 2 different versions of the story, and that would mean a DQ. I was up one game, there was not much time left on the clock, and we were both at 5x0, it would be a shame to be out of the tournament because of this, and tell him: "Look, all I did was asking the judge if it was POSSIBLE to assume he missed the trigger. I haven't tried to perform an illegal action or even said anything during the game about activating my shaman. He was the one who decided to call you to get your opinion, so please take that into consideration. I am only asking a question and would like an answer so I can play accordingly." He thinks for one moment, and tell me to be very careful with what I say next time. He ruled that the trigger resolved, and we continue the game. I won anyway.
Round 8 I won despite not having any clue what I was playing against. I saw a bunch of creatures and all I did was destroy his lands and mana creatures and kill him quickly with a Tarmogoyf. He seemed very mad because he could see I didn't know what he was playing, and still won anyway.
I was 8x0 in a legacy GP. I could not believe that. I was playing really well, getting some amount of luck, and the deck did the rest. I played round 9 against Jean Mary Accart, the guy that actually made the list we were playing (he came up with the whipflares on Magic Online), and he smashed me with his ST Omniscience deck. 8x1 was still a really good result (my best day one finish so far) and I was really excited to play 6 more rounds on sunday with Brainstorm, Jace and Ancestral Vision.
Only me and Deltour made day 2 from the house, so the mood wasn't the best around us. Still, they helped me review a few sideboard plans for sunday, and we got some rest.
DAY 2
This is how my rounds went:
Round 10: ROCK - 2x1
Round 11: MIRROR - 2x1
Round 12: Jund - 2x1
Round 13: Merfolk - 0x2
Round 14: UW Miracles - 1x1
Round 15: Cloudpost 2x0
Round 16: Death and Taxes 0x2
Against Merfolk I made a lot of mistakes and lost game one because I forgot that they have dismember on their deck. I probably could have won this game if it wasn't for this, but who knows.
My draw against Miracles came in the worst way possible, as I had a Jace on 9 counters on game 3 by the final additional round. I hated myself even more because I called a judge when my opponent talked in german to a guy behind him, and we lost 10 minutes discussing about it, but nothing happened. The thing is that they only gave 6 minutes of extra time, so in the end I paid for it... Winning this match would probably have changed everything, as with a Win I could draw in to top 8... But thats not how things happened, and I ended up playing on camera against Death and Taxes round 16 (you can see the game on the coverage archive at twitch.tv/magicprotour) and I mulled to 5 game one, didn't know how exactly Thalia, cascade and a fetch land worked (Could not play my spell in the end), and got Crusaded game 2.
After the match I was still pretty happy with my performance. I knew I was probably going to finish in the top 16, witch is pretty good for my first money appearance at a GP, but did not realize that I have just lost on the finals of a PTQ. That was the game that separated me from Dublin, and was not until later that day that I felt the frustration of loosing this shot. Its really hard to top 8 a GP nowadays, and one bad decision can take everything away from you, and I know that is what happened.
I asked myself what has changed. What made me play so well that weekend, with a deck full of complicated interactions in such a deep format as legacy? I would say that not putting pressure on myself and luck were the reason, not forgetting about the awesome team mates we had at the house, but something else has changed that week: I started working out again. I know that a lot of people have talked about it, and its not that easy to believe but I actually could feel that my mind and my body were much more prepared than ever, and it certainly made a difference. If I could give an advice to anyone after this GP is: Don't take yourself for granted. As any sport, if you want to play the best of your magic, put yourself in the position to be on the best state of mind and as healthy as possible. You will see the results for yourself.
Thanks everyone for the support and kind words. They meant a lot, for real.
I Hope I have some other good stories to tell you soon.
Thiago Rodrigues
