GP STRASBOURG REPORT #TOP16

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:

Main Deck 60 cards
1  Badlands 2  Bayou 2  Misty Rainforest 4  Polluted Delta 2  Tropical Island 3  Underground Sea 4  Verdant Catacombs 4  Wasteland 22 lands 3  Baleful Strix 4  Deathrite Shaman 4  Shardless Agent 4  Tarmogoyf 14 creatures	4  Abrupt Decay 4  Ancestral Vision 4  Brainstorm 4  Force of Will 1 Hymn to Tourach  18 other spells 3  Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3  Liliana of the Veil 6 planeswalkers Sideboard 2  Grafdigger's Cage 2  Phyrexian Revoker 2  Sower of Temptation 4  Thoughtseize 2  Vendilion Clique 3  Whipflare 15 sideboard cards

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

Main Deck 60 cards
1  Badlands 2  Bayou 2  Misty Rainforest 4  Polluted Delta 2  Tropical Island 3  Underground Sea 4  Verdant Catacombs 4  Wasteland 22 lands 2  Baleful Strix 4  Deathrite Shaman 4  Shardless Agent 4  Tarmogoyf 14 creatures	4  Abrupt Decay 4  Ancestral Vision 4  Brainstorm 4  Force of Will 2  Thoughtseize 18 other spells 3  Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3  Liliana of the Veil 6 planeswalkers Sideboard 2  Grafdigger's Cage 1  Hymn to Tourach 1  Maelstrom Pulse 2  Phyrexian Revoker 2  Sower of Temptation 2  Thoughtseize 2  Vendilion Clique 3  Whipflare 15 sideboard cards

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

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!

Finaly... MODERN

PRE RELEASE THOUGHTS!

Hello everyone!

The first thing I have to say about this weekend is, IT WAS A BLAST! Its been sometime now that wizards is trying to make the pre-release experience different, and after the Mirrodin/Phyrexian war, the the Innistrad block finishing with the Hellvault in Avacyn Restored, we all felt that something was still missing. Specially with the last, I personally think that miracle was already too frustrating mechanic to play against (BONEFIRE YOU), the opening of the Vault was just, tedious. Angel tokens? Oversized cards? And yet to know that some people got special ones and others not?

But not this time... Wizards nailed it with the guilds! None of the rares that were given with the guild packs were that overpowered, and you could choose any guild and do well with it. The boxes were really nice, and at least here in Paris I didnt hear much stories about shops going out of supplies and not letting people choosing their guilds (except for sunday night). Every store was full, and I know that a bunch of people didnt get the chance to play for not finding a place... But I guess that's how things are going to be from now on. Its unfortunate that most of this people only come to pre-releases, and as a competitive player I would love to see other formats bring that many players to our tournaments, but that's another topic.

Later this week Ill provide you with the deck lists of all the 3 PR that I went, as well as the interesting things that happened in some of the matches, so for now I just want to talk about some of the impressions I had for the format:

- THIS IS NOT HOW ITS GOING TO LOOK LIKE

Even though you still have 5 normal ravnica boosters, the weight of having a guild oriented pack, was too heavy. Being sure that you will always have at least one gate, or one keyrune made all the difference... so even if your other packs didn't offer you nothing to your guild, you always had the possibility to splash your original colors. My first pool, I didn't open any door (except of the one in my guild pack), any keyrune, any Promenades, or duals. I was basically obliged to stick to Azorious, without any splash (most of the azorious good cards are the gold ones), so I didn't want to take the risk to play a 3rd color without fixing... My deck was fine, but playing straight 2 colors also means you are probably doing less powerful stuff than your opponents. Not having the guild pack also means you are not always going to have a big finisher. Some games really came down to having balance decks, and being able to get your Guild card to the field before your opponent does. A special note should be made to Rakdos, where you have more than 60% of the set's removal, and that's the reason most of the wining decks were from this guild. I am looking forward to being able to play a normal sealed to really see how its going to look like.

- GREEN IS BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE

One of the readers came to me on facebook to tell me that he thought green was the best color to be playing with at the Pre-Release. I asked him why, and he said becouse of the color fixing. I told him that I didn't think that was necessarily truth, as you already had the keyrunes and the gates, so that would be enough fixing. Well, he was right. And the reason is that this three cards were just awesome:

Having 2 or 3 of this means that you can play almost any cards from your pool, and only playing powerful spells its what you want to be doing in this format. The best decks I saw this weekend were 3 or 4 colors, and they all played some amount of green. You also get creatures to sacrifice to edict effects, and to some of your own black removal. I think I will pick this cards high in draft.

- LAST CONSIDERATIONS

A lot of the games that I saw and played, both players were able to establish a good board presence, and weren't able to do anything to change the situation, so it came down to:

- One creature with evasion;
- Populate;
- Combat tricks;
- Other forms of damages than combat.

With that information, I want to highlight a few cards:





This are some of the cards that can completly change the board state, or force you to go in a different direction... In draft isnt going to be that easy to see the Mythiques and Rares, but in sealed you never know what your opponent can have.

Thats it for today, hope you have enjoyed!

See you guys soon!

PRE-RELEASE DAY!

 Friday, september 28. 11:59 pm. In one minute the guild gates that takes us to different locations in the city of light, intrigue, and conspiracy will be opened... So many years after the guild pact and now Niv m'izzet is consulting with one of the most powerful planeswalkers of all time... What are his plans? Are the other guilds aware of this? What is actually going on in RAVNICA?????? Its up to us to unveil this mystery...

First thing to do, is find out where to start. Prematurely, i booked a visit to the Izzet guild quarters on Saturday morning, disguised as a visiting professor from another realm trying to find a missing ingredient for a potion. All the rumors in the weeks before my arrival lead me to start my investigation at Niv m'izzet's lab... but now Im not so sure anymore... It seems that the real power behind this events might come from the everlasting courts of AZORIOUS... So much hidden power behind the the sky patrols of the keepers of the law... But how to enter that house during the day? With all the guards? Its impossible... Wait a second... Will I be able to sacrifice a night of sleep trying to get to know RAVNICA through its on defenses? Thats it! Ill start my incursion in the home of the law keepers...


-------------------------------------------

If you didnt get my intro text (or the title)! Today is pre-release day! Everybody is so excited about RTR, and this will be our first experience with the next PTQ format. Of course the Guild Packs are in the mix, so we can't say that this is exactly how sealed will be, and most people wont be prepared as everybody is just getting to know the cards and etc, but it will be a good intro!
Im playing for sure in 3 events this weekend:

- Friday-Saturday at Midnight: At Magic Bazar (their website can be found here) (around 70 players)
- Saturday at 09:30 am organized by Le Repaire du Dragon (facebook event information) (between 100 and 150 players)

- Sunday at 16:30 at Magic Corporation ( their website)


Im going to try to find a 4th one to do, but not sure if time (or places) will allow me.

I chose Izzet for the pre-release on saturday, but Im inclined to believe that Azorious is the best choice. The way I think the format will play, is that your multicolored commons and uncommons are the ones who are defining the pool you should play. Azorious has by far the best ones, with  solid flyers and Azorious Charm. As I told you guys before, most of the removal blue have are tempo removal, and adding white, your opponent may not have the chance to stop your flyers.

 

I will post a report of every one of the Pre-Releases, and give you other impressions as I play more... Its going to be a awesome weekend!

REMOVAL - GOLD

The card the promises to change/define the eternal formats (and probably standard), does not seem that powerful in limited... You are probably going to play it if you have in your pool, but I dont think its a first pick in draft. Most of the powerful things of the format are expensive, and abrupt decay wont take care of them.

Auger Spree is a awesome removal spell, specially for being common, and probably worth splashing. Its going to kill a reasonable sized creature, or diminish it enough to be eaten in combat! Be careful with the +4 as well, it can kill you out of nowhere...

To some, the best of the charms, to others, the worse of them... For me, Azorious Charm is one of the most powerful for limited, since life gain can swing a race in your favor, and the excommunication effect can totally blow out an attack, getting also rid of auras or saving a bomb from removal...

I think detention Sphere will be an Oblivion Ring and nothing else, except if you are playing against a populate deck, but we are yet to see how that strategy is going to develop... Its still a solid removal spell, and you should play it even without the Pulse effect in mind... But its a rare, so I wouldn't be that worried about it.

Add dramatic rescue to the mix and you will see that there are a bunch of tempo oriented spells to make a U/W aggressive strategy possible... I still have to check if the creatures are there to make it work...

Its rare, and its one of the best ones! It kills everything they can play, and also takes care of Jace and Vraska... Black and Red have already some awesome commons, and they got the ultimate removal spell...

If you are playing against an IZZET mage, be sure: They have Izzet Charm. Play around it all the time, the card is just too good. Shock + Spell Pierce + Faithless Looting in the same card? OMG!!









I guess that's all of them! I'm so excited about this pre-release, its going to be an awesome weekend! And don't worry, you wont be "Bonefired" out of the tournament this time...