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...

RTR REMOVAL - RED-GREEN

Sorry for the delay guys... So we continue with RED. And what a good start! Annihilating fire, despite being double red and costing one mana more than Incinerate and Searing Spear, is probably going to be one of the best commons in the set. Removing the creature is not that relevant for limited (except against Golgari creatures), but it will be important in the new standard (INFESTED by zombies, but thats another post).

Ok, so this is not M13 limited where an effect like this could destroy your opponents Krenko's Tokens, or all his exalted creatures... And if Twin was still a deck in modern, it could be a good sideboard card.

There was a time that you could not play a 3 toughness creature because of lightning bolt. Than, anything less then a titan would die to dismember. Than we had the Jace/Vapor Snag test. Well... in the new standard, if your opponent plays red, this is probably replacing/playing alongside Bonefire... oh wait, Im suppose to talk about limited! All right... this is just, BONKERS. Period.

Another very good removal, specially if the format really leans towards slower strategies. Keep in mind though that the 2 best ones are a RARE and an unco.










GREEN - As the color pie demands, green does not get real removal (Pray upon was probably the best one in the last few years), but we do get one plummet effect:

Nothing to comment, i dont think the life gain will be that relevant...

RTR REMOVAL - BLACK

Black normally has the best removals, so, lets see what is there for us:

Sorcery speed Murder that costs 6, and they discard a card? By the time you cast this spell they probably are holding a land in hand... But its still a removal. Again, depends on how the format is going to shape up.

With no undying this is a 2 for 1 that costs 4, even if its instant speed and he looses 2 life... Playable, but probably worst than Assassin's strike.

Love this! Really good against Unleashed creatures, it has a lot of potential! Its no crippling bite, but everything seems to cost a little bit more on this set.

Thats our ULTIMATE doom blade! No its not... See, there are a bunch of multicolored creatures on the format (probably the best ones), but its still a decent removal spell. Just pray not die with this in hand when the play Niv-mizzet....








Thats it for black, Ill try to do RED and GREEN this afternoon, following with multicolor.

See you!

Thiago Rodrigues

RTR REMOVALS - BLUE

Dont think we can actually call the blue ones removal, BUT, lets take a look:

I cant imagine playing this for its normal cost, but if I do, I have probably already lost. The only situation that comes to mind, is if he left only one blocker left and Im his dead on board next turn... but wait, if he left too creatures, I can still pay overload and tap them both. So, SLEEP it is.

 One mana more, draw a card, and sorcery speed... Probably a filler? Sometimes a timewalk? No idea.

Now we are talking! Into the Roil with no card drawing, but with a upheaval effect in the late game... sign me in! This card is really powerful, and im ALWAYS going to play it. Or splash it.

Good old "doesnt untap blablabla... BORING.

Thats it for blue... Ill be right BLACK!

RTR REMOVALS - WHITE

The first thing I do when preparing for a Pre-Release (and in this case, the next PTQ season), is to evaluate the removal spells of the set. Not just evaluate, but list them and memorize. If you are a competitive player, you normaly dont have that desire to discover the cards as you open then, just to be crushed by your opponents that have done their homework. So... lets get into it:

WHITE:

I know its a creature, its mythique, and it costs 8 mana, but STILL, this is the most powerful removal spell in the set and you probably wont be able to play around it anyway, but its important to remember and UNDERSTAND what card does. It seem pretty obvious to me that people are still going to use their removal on this expecting to get their creatures back to the battlefield, and be disappointed that they have all gone back to their hands. If I have this angel, Im going to try my best to play white.

We all know arrest from Scars of Mirrodin, and pacifism effects are important to limited. But this card seems really important on this set, considering we have a lot of creatures with activated habilities, and powerful ones. It might be worth splashing in some decks.

I love the flavor of this card! Specially because is a Selesnya card, and with all the token generators, it doesn't seem very hard to chump block and then ambush their creature. Isn't awesome, as sometimes you are going to 2x1 to get them, but its a solid removal spell.

Another unconditional removal in common, but the effectiveness of this depends of how fast the format will be. The upside can be very powerful if you have a powerful token in play, and being an instant can change the curse of a game in one turn.

Im going to separate the posts, so Blue is coming up next.

Thiago Rodrigues

Modern and a failed GP Trial...

Hi again
So last Saturday I got the chance to play a GP Trial at Uchronie Games, a small but very nice shop in the Parisian area. We were 33 players, a reasonable number for a Modern tournament (They were 46 at the last GP Trial, a week before this one). Before we get to my results, I would like to go back a few months back...

The first Modern GP in Europe took place in Torino, Italy, in march. I did quite some testing, and the expected decks at the time were Twin, Jund, Affinity, Melira Combo, Delver (U/W/R, RUG), Storm, Loam, and the RG TRON, recently broken by Charles Gindy on a MTGO PTQ. You see, I love playing with the graveyard, and the Loam deck was a decent choice, specially because most people didn't know how to play against it. When we got there, we saw that almost 80% of the GP Trials were won by RG TRON. The deck was everywhere. Every single copy of Sowing Salt (Exile target nonbasic land. Search its controller's graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that land and exile them. Then that player shuffles his or her library.) was sold out, meaning people were really afraid of the deck. I finished day one at 6x3, loosing against TRON, Affinity (damn Relic of Progenitus), and finaly Melira pod.

The GP was won by Antonino da Rosa with Delver,  and you can find the coverage here 

I decided to mention the GP Turin to give you a overall look at the modern metagame. Even with the printing of Avacyn Restored and M13, we only really got Restoration Angel that made an impact in the format, giving birth to the Pod-Kiki-Angel deck. The next 2 modern GPs were in Japan (where the POD deck dominated despite the WB tokens taking the title) and in the US (Robot wins), with no big changes to the format.

Then, we have the players Championship. 16 of the best players in the world battling through 3 days of modern, cube and m13 draft. The only real surprise was the deck builder master Yasooka presenting the world his last creation: Eternal command. (Dech-Tech ).

So, what can we learn from all of this? Modern is a very wide format, with no broken (at least for now) decks, and most people play what they are familiar with. Jund is probably a little bit ahead the other ones, considering its raw power, but its not unbeatable. But if you are thinking about going to GP LYON, be prepared  to face JUND. With only half of Return to Ravnica spoiled, we cant say much about the format
after October, and considering that Pro-Tour Seattle it Is MODERN, Im myself going to wait for the results before making my final choice for the GP.

Wait a second, what about the GP Trial? Well... I haven't play modern since GP Turin, so I called a friend and asked him if he had a deck available... So he asked me if I would like to play Eternal Command... The deck seemed fun, and I watched Yasooka crush everyone (except Alexander Hayne and Watanabe in the finals) with it. So lets give it a try!!
I started with a win against Affinity, with turn 1 Vial both games, and just crushed his mulling to 6 game one. Game 2 I had 2 eternal witness, vial and ancient grudge, draw a spell snare turn 1, and that was fast.

The rest of the rounds... not even worthy mentioning. Lost  against RUG Delver, and RG TRON after my perfect draws in the first round. Got stuck with 2 lands in play both games, with my Cryptic Commands staring at me. =(  It was over after 1x2... The deck is extremely hard to play, and probably needs more lands, or more spells like serum visions. I wouldn't recommend it except if you are Japanese and a hall of famer...

You can find the link to thet top 8 here, won by watchdamatch (probably the only French magic website) modern specialist Arnaud H! He played Esper Teachings, a solid control deck that haven't being putting good results recently...
http://www.watchdamatch.com/coverage/report-trial-gp-lyon-uchronies-games/

That was a little bit long, but hope you guys have enjoy it!

Small introduction and 2012 Schedule

Dont fool yourself. Im not the real snapcaster mage. Or even Tiago Chan. I just love the card and decided to use its name... Coincidence or not, my name is Thiago, so... why not?

I dont have any tales to tell you about how I won a Pro-Tour, or how I made top 8 of a GP... Im just an average Magic Player as many others out there. I started playing in M11, after a 15 years break (not really a break considering that I was only 13 and played for 6 months). I got the opportunity to meet some awesome guys that played magic in Paris a few months after my arrival in France, and here I am, completely addicted! I have a BUNCH of top 16 finishes in PTQ's and WCMQ's, and a couple of GP's day 2. I read, watch and breath Magic for the most part of time, so I think I know a few things about the game now... The majority of the French community knows me and respect me, but being a brazilian in the middle of French players might have helped my reputation.

Im writing this blog to share with you not my endeavours, but my expectations for the future and my preparation for the next tournaments. Here is the schedule that I have for the next few months:

September:

- Saturday 15 - GP LYON TRIAL - MODERN

- Saturday 28/Sunday 29 - RTR Prereleases

October:

- Saturday 14 - PTQ GATECRASH AnGers, France


November:

GP LYON - First weekend

- Saturday 10, PTQ GATECRASH Nancy, France

GP BOCHUM - Third weekend

- Sunday 25, PTQ GATECRASH Paris, France


December:

GP LISBON - First weekend

Not to mention the MTGO PTQs, Ill try to give you un update on that as well.