FMI: February 2016

I’ve been thinking about updating my Fearless Magical Inventory for a little while now, and reading Emma Handy’s list on Card Confidants yesterday inspired me. Every month, I’m going to post a list of ways I’ve improved at Magic recently and ways I’d like to continue improving in the future.

How I’ve Improved:

1. I’ve been spending a lot more time playing Magic. Since I created my first inventory a few months ago, I’ve been spending significantly more time playing Magic. I log into Magic Online almost every day and play for at least an hour, if not three.

2. I’m getting more comfortable with streaming. I’ve streamed about ten times since the turn of the year and have been enjoying it much more than I did in 2015. Taking the time off to actually learn the quirks of Magic Online has made me a much more competent streamer and quelled most of the anxiety I feel about playing in front of an audience. I still get nervous and make mistakes, but on the whole, I’ve been playing with much more confidence and winning a lot more.

3. I’m getting better at seeing the “big picture.” I know I make a lot of Magic-and-rock-climbing analogies, but I can’t think of a story that better illustrates my point, so bear with me. 

After about a month of trying to figure out climbing on our own, my friend Zoe and I decided to take some lessons with a trainer so we could learn proper technique and address some issues we were having. During our third lesson, our trainer asked me to choose a route that I found easy and climb it. I chose a 5.8 route that I’d been practicing for weeks and scrambled up to the top in under two minutes. Once I was back on the ground, the trainer told me that I had done a fine job, but I hadn’t followed the sequence the route-setter had in mind. I was getting by on upper body strength and endurance, but I wouldn’t be able to climb harder routes until I started working on my technique. 

We mapped out the correct route together, and my second attempt was even easier than the first. Before that lesson, I would just start climbing and make my way up the wall however I could; now, whenever I approach a new route, I spend a few minutes planning my moves ahead of time. Sometimes I misjudge a distance and have to deviate from my original plan, but I’m still putting myself in a better position to complete the route as safely and efficiently as possible. Since that lesson, I’ve leveled up from 5.8 to 5.9, and even attempted a 5.10a during my last visit to the gym.

If you aren’t seeing the Magic parallel yet, take it from LSV (as quoted in this article by Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa): “Good players play cards. Great players play games.” Around the same time I started going into each climb with a plan, I started applying the same principle to games of Magic. I don’t just think about my role in the match-up (i.e. beatdown or control) -- I develop an overall strategy and spend each turn of the game figuring out how best to execute it. Sometimes, this leads to unorthodox lines of play -- one time, in a Standard Abzan v. Eldrazi Ramp game, I used Abzan Charm to put +1/+1 counters on two attacking creatures that I knew were just going to get Ugin’d away the next turn, completely eschewing everything I’ve ever learned about card advantage. But if your plan for winning the game is, “Put them to 3, make them have to tap out to exile your board, and then cast a Siege Rhino,” you do what needs to be done.

4. I always play to my outs. My friends, playtesting partners, and opponents frequently compliment me on the fact that I “never concede.” I’ve always made a point of asking myself what my outs are whenever I’m in a sticky situation, but recently, I’ve started focusing on putting myself in the best position to win if I draw my outs. “Make the play that wins you the game, not the play that prevents you from losing” has been my mantra for the past month or so.

Things To Work On:

1. I put too much pressure on myself to do well in tournaments. I’ve been devoting more time to tournament preparation than ever before, but I haven’t noticed any improvement in my results at large-scale events like GPs. There are countless explanations for this -- poor deck choice, variance, misplays, jetlag, tournament fatigue -- but one thing I need to consider is how much pressure I’m putting on myself at each event. Many of my habits have changed since GP Vegas 2015, the first major event I attended after we launched The Girlfriend Bracket. I may be a competitive player, but my primary goal in attending each Grand Prix I’ve attending over the years has always been to have fun. I never felt obligated to travel to GPs -- if I couldn’t go, or didn’t feel prepared enough, it wasn’t a big deal. After Vegas, I felt the need to go to more GPs, so I went to four in seven months and did poorly in all of them. Most recently, at GP Vancouver, I watched from the losers’ bracket as two of my more casual friends made Day 2 of their first Grand Prix. They both went into the event with no expectations, hoping to just have a fun weekend playing a game they enjoy, and I worried so much about what was expected of me that I set myself up for failure. (I should also note that I opened a below-average pool and was paired against many players who opened above-average pools, but I’m trying to focus on factors I can control here.)

This is a mental hurdle that I need to clear on my own, but thankfully, the people around me have been very supportive. My friends have reiterated that they want to see me succeed on my own terms, and my cohosts have made it clear that I shouldn’t think of my tournament experiences as plotlines for the show. (I went into my last several GPs telling myself that I couldn’t mess up or else I’d have to talk about how much I messed up on the following week’s podcast. Naturally, I psyched myself out and messed up a lot.) I’ve also requested that my boyfriend stop telling me to “crush it” before each tournament and start reminding me to have fun.

2. My proficiency with Magic Online isn’t nearly as high as my proficiency with paper cards. I’ve been getting much better at using appropriate F-keys and playing at a reasonable pace on MTGO, but I still miss a lot of details of board states that I know I wouldn’t miss if I were playing in paper. Just last week, for example, I threw away a League match because I didn’t account for a creature-land that my opponent had in play. My sequencing is also slightly worse, and I can’t base my plays on my opponent’s body language, as I so often do when I play live. I’m proud of myself for learning as much as I have in such a short time, however, and I know I’ll get rid of these bad habits if I keep playing on MTGO regularly.

3. I’m much better at playing from behind than I am at playing from ahead. When I’m behind, I’m constantly asking myself how I can win the game. When I’m ahead, however, I don’t always ask myself how I can lose. I know not to overextend into board-wipes, but I need to work on the subtler plays. Here’s a great example: One of my friends was once ahead in a Jund mirror. He drew a Tarmogoyf and decided not to play it, even though it would represent lethal damage -- he already had a Goyf in play, and he realized he’d fall too far behind if his opponent top-decked a Maelstrom Pulse. His opponent eventually had to Pulse the lone Goyf in play in order to stay alive, and my friend played out his second Goyf and won the game. I need to take those sorts of lines more often.

4. I can be really cocky sometimes. I touched on this a bit in my last post, but I think it bears repeating. I get cocky when I play against casual players, and I beat myself up when players who I perceive to be worse than me have better tournament performances than I do. Again, there are dozens of reasons why a player who is less experienced than me would place higher than me -- they chose a better deck, they prepared more, their opponents made more mistakes, or they just got lucky and drew the right cards when they needed them. I think it’s very likely that I’m over-confident because I spend so much time playing against people who are less experienced or less interested in playing Magic professionally. Plus, I’ve always been “the teacher” in the group, so it’s natural that the people around me are learning from me and getting better while I’m stagnating. Finding playtesting partners who are at or above my level would probably do me a world of good. However...

5. I’m afraid to approach players who I perceive to be better than me about playtesting because I feel I have nothing to offer them. The rational part of my brain knows that this simply isn’t true. I need to listen to the rational part of my brain more often.

I could go on and on, but I want to keep this list relatively brief, since I plan on setting new goals and evaluating my progress every month. I have several tournaments coming up, so I should be blogging more often in the coming weeks.

Two PPTQs

Since I published my inventory of things I need to work on last week, I’ve been trying to make good on my promises to myself. I’ve spent significantly more time on Magic Online and have been dedicating more hours to PPTQ testing. I wanted to recap the last two PPTQs I’ve competed in -- what I played, how I did, and what I learned.

Part I: Sealed

I almost didn’t get to play in the Sealed PPTQ at Card Kingdom two Saturdays ago. I RSVP’d to the event on Facebook; the event description read, “Registration starts at 10 AM; event starts at noon,” so I assumed their new event coordinator was trying some new “first-come-first-served” experiment and stopped reading there. Had I clicked “See More” at the bottom of the event description, I would have found a link to preregistration. But I didn’t preregister, and I found out the night before that the tournament had sold out. I was livid, but Robert calmed me down and offered to drive me to the store first thing in the morning so I could be first on the wait-list.

I was the first customer in the store the next morning, but as I was writing my name on the wait-list, I noticed another name printed in the first slot. I inquired about the mysterious absent person and found out that his name had been added to the wait-list because some technical difficulty had prevented him from preregistering on the website the previous day. I was beside myself again until I got a message from my friend Rob, who had just come into the store to pick up some cards and seen my name on the list. Rob had preregistered for the event, but decided at the last minute that he’d rather play in a smaller Standard PPTQ on the other side of town, since he’d been having a lot of success with 4-Color Rally on Magic Online that week. The decision turned out to be mutually beneficial: I got into the Sealed tournament, and he would go on to win the Standard PPTQ.

I killed two hours playing Standard and chatting with friends before the tournament started. My pool left a lot to be desired, but it certainly wasn’t the worst I’d seen in Battle for Zendikar Sealed. Black was shallow, red was awkward, and green was... well, green, so I cobbled together a mediocre U/W Flyers deck. I had two Sheer Drops, but none of the other solid white removal spells, and I had to make do with Rush of Ice even though I really would’ve liked a Clutch of Currents. I played a Deathless Behemoth as a vigilant 6/6 for 6 even though I had no Scion production, and my Ruin Processor would likely be a vanilla 7/8 for 7 most of the time because I only had one Mist Intruder and a Scour from Existence to get cards into the exile zone. I didn’t even have a Tightening Coils to bring down opposing flyers. I didn’t have high hopes for the tournament, but I built the best deck I could and resolved to play my best.

And somehow, I did manage to play my best. I didn’t waste an opportunity to get in for crucial damage with my half dozen or so evasive creatures and stopped my opponents short with Dampening Pulse. I was conscious of how little removal I had, so I tried to be flexible with my combat tricks, using them as removal spells when I had to and chipping away for extra damage when I could. I went up against a terrifying RW Allies deck and won by shrinking down my opponent’s creatures and playing around Outnumber. I miraculously finished the tournament with a 5-1-1 record, having lost one round to an excellent Esper Awaken deck and drawn into Top 8 with my Round 7 opponent.

Once the Swiss was over, I participated in my first Top 8 draft. I slammed a Pack 1 Pick 1 Rolling Thunder and wandered into U/R Devoid after picking up an Eldrazi Skyspawner and a fairly late Mist Intruder. Guardian of Tazeem was a great card to open Pack 2 Pick 1, and I continued to round out my deck with Clutch of Currents and Ruination Guide in Pack 3. It wasn’t my best BFZ draft -- I had to play one or two cards that I would’ve preferred not to main-deck -- but considering how unaccustomed I am to having to memorize my picks, I’d say the draft went pretty swimmingly.

In the quarterfinals, I had my first experience playing against 5-Color Converge. Our first two games were one-sided: I curved out perfectly in Game 1, and I stumbled in Game 2 while he made a 6/6 Woodland Wanderer and Roil Spouted my blocker with Noyan Dar in play. Game 3 was a struggle for both of us: I mulliganed to four, and he only had access to blue and green mana for most of the game. Fortunately, the four-card hand I was forced to keep contained a Hedron Archive, which I eventually cashed in for answers. Once I put a Dampening Pulse on the field, my opponent had very few good attacks, so I was able to chip away with Benthic Infiltrator. Ruination Guide eventually came along to buff the tiny drone, and I ended up taking the match. I was amazed that I’d managed to win the match and barely had time to collect myself before I had to face my semifinal opponent.

My semifinal opponent turned out to be the Awaken player I’d lost to in the Swiss, and this time he was armed with a fast BR Devoid deck. He always managed to get in for damage early with Sludge Crawler or Culling Drone and follow up with a Wasteland Strangler to take out my blocker. I was able to stabilize with Guardian of Tazeem to win Game 2, but Processor Assault took out the Sphinx in the deciding Game 3. I had passed a couple Processor Assaults during the draft because the card had done nothing for me previously, and I found myself questioning whether I’d undervalued it. I also may have erred when I enchanted my opponent’s largest creature with Tightening Coils, since his Silent Skimmer eventually did me in. I treated myself to consolation ice cream after the match was over, took an Uber back to my house, and preregistered for a Standard PPTQ the following weekend.

Part II: Standard

As you could probably gather from my Fearless Magic Inventory, I don’t consider myself a very good Constructed player. I’ve fared pretty well in a handful of Standard tournaments by keeping up with tournament results and making good metagame calls, but the truth is I’ve never put in enough reps with a deck to really get comfortable with it. Limited and Constructed tournaments require different methods of preparation, obviously, but if I could put the same amount of time into Constructed as I did Limited, I’d be much better off.

Thus, I spent the past week grinding League matches on Magic Online and jamming games with some new friends I met through a Facebook group I recently started for competitive female Magic players. I worried about my 4-Color Rally match-up and made a point of Skyping with a friend to discuss the match-up and get a few games in. I didn’t make it to FNM, and I turned down two invitations to attend seemingly casual Standard-testing nights during the week. I hit my goal preparation-wise -- I had played a sufficient amount of games and tested all the match-ups that concerned me -- but in retrospect, it seems my singlemindedness cost me.

Forty players showed up for the PPTQ, and just a handful of noteworthy grinders were scattered throughout the field. I registered Abzan Aggro, substituting Snapping Gnarlid for Hangarback Walker per Ross Merriam’s suggestion. The Gnarlids provided some essential early pressure against control decks, but they were mediocre in the mirror, so I may go looking for another two-drop.

My first three rounds were fairly easy. Wingmate Roc and timely removal helped me take out a fellow Abzan player in Round 1. I put my Esper Control opponent under a ton of pressure in Round 2, and I clinched the second game shortly after realizing that he had mis-sequenced his lands such that he couldn’t cast any of the spells in his hand. I had no idea what my Round 3 opponent was even playing because he conceded on Turn 5 of both games after doing virtually nothing. (I later found out he was on Bant Extra Turns.) Halfway through the tournament, I was on track to make my second Top 8 in a week.

Things started going downhill after that. I played the Abzan mirror a second time in Round 4, but the going was much rougher. I never drew a fifth land in either of our two games, while my opponent made all his land-drops, and his ability to play multiple spells each turn made it nearly impossible for me to keep up. I wasn’t too shaken up after my first loss; 3-1 was still nothing to sneeze at, and my tiebreakers were excellent.

In the next round, I faced one of the friends who had invited me to play Standard earlier in the week. He was on B/W Tokens -- sort of a hybrid between Craig Wescoe’s GP Indianapolis list and some of the Esper Tokens decks that have been cropping up. Secure the Wastes, Wingmate Roc, Hangarback Walker, and Sorin seemed to be the key ingredients, but he borrowed the fun Silkwrap/Wasteland Strangler interaction from Wescoe. I didn’t see that coming, nor did I expect him to board in Planar Outburst, but I admit I didn’t study the match-up at all. Should’ve tested with him, I said to myself after the match was over, shaking my head.

I had the best record of the 3-2′s, which meant I could make Top 8 with a win in Round 6. My opponent for that round was a member of the other Standard testing group that had reached out to me earlier in the week. (I chose not to attend because none of them had any experience playing Rally, the one match-up I felt I hadn’t practiced enough at the time.) I admit I underestimated this guy because he played sloppily the last time I faced him, and that may have influenced my decision to keep an awkward hand. For the first time since I’d been playing the deck, I opened with a Shambling Vent + Llanowar Wastes + Smoldering Marsh hand, and probably should have mulliganed. I stumbled, my opponent cast three Rhinos to my one, and we shuffled up for Game 2. On his third turn of Game 2, my opponent fetched a Sunken Hollow to complement his two basics and said “go,” and I assumed he was readying an Abzan Charm for the Rhino I was preparing to cast. Instead, I ended up running my Rhino right into a Disdainful Stroke. Had the Rhino resolved, I would have had enough life to stay afloat, but once again, my opponent resolved more Rhinos than I did, and although I was able to banish them from the battlefield, every ETB trigger made it harder for me to keep up. I shook my opponent’s hand and promptly left the shop.

Some Conclusions

Here are a couple things I learned in my two weekends of PPTQ-ing:

- Magic Online is an invaluable tool for preparing for large tournaments, but success in a PPTQ often requires knowledge of the quirks of one’s local metagame. Don’t lose touch with your community.

- Don’t underestimate casual players, or players for whom Magic is a lower priority than it is for you.

- Abzan needs a better two-drop. Potential candidates: Heir of the Wilds, Rattleclaw Mystic... and that’s about it.

- Dampening Pulse is the truth.

- Processor Assault may actually be playable in decks that can Ingest early and consistently.

- Your friends are your most valuable resource.

Till next time!

Fearless Magic Inventory

Nearly eight years ago, Sam Stoddard published an article on StarCityGames.com about creating a “Fearless Magical Inventory,” an honest assessment of his Magic game and how he could stand to improve. I’m just starting to work my way out of a nearly year-long slump and thought it might be a good idea to take an inventory of my own. Here are ten things I feel I need to work on.

1. I make a lot of excuses for myself, e.g. “I’ve only been playing for X years, of course I haven’t qualified for the Pro Tour [or reached some other milestone] yet.” I am inexperienced compared to most of the grinders here in Seattle, but that doesn’t mean I’m inexperienced, or that I should use my relative lack of experience to justify my misuse of resources.

2. I choose challenging decks (decks that require precise sequencing or extensive knowledge of a format; decks that have a lot of possible lines of play) and then don’t practice with them as much as I should.

3. I make a lot of assumptions about what my opponent could have based on what I’ve seen in stock lists. I don’t give my opponents enough credit for being creative.

4. I don’t take PPTQs seriously enough, or go to enough of them.

5. I spend more time helping newer players prepare for competitive events than I spend seeking out better players for my own benefit.

6. I sometimes get stuck in my own head and don’t get enough input from others.

7. I feel obligated to go to big events, like west coast Grand Prix, even when I don’t feel prepared enough.

8. I make more mistakes than usual when other people are watching me play.

9. The chess clock on Magic Online makes me anxious. I make rushed plays when I’m in no danger of timing out, just because I feel the need to have more time on my clock than my opponent does.

10. My visual memory for game states is awful, and I often have a difficult time recreating game states immediately after a match is over.

Admitting that I need to improve is a great first step, but I won’t achieve my goals unless I actually change my bad habits. Here are some resolutions I have for the future.

1. Spend more time playing Magic, obviously. I became a competent Magic player pretty quickly because I used to spend 3-4 days a week playing at various stores around town. These days, I’m lucky if I play twice a week. Let’s up it to at least five.

2. Spend less time playing at Regular/Casual REL store tournaments and more time playing on Magic Online. This is going to be a tough one for me, because I enjoy face-to-face Magic and mentoring people so much. I still intend to be a prominent figure at The Lady Planeswalkers Society and in our greater community, but I won’t be there every week.

3. Go to as many local PPTQs as possible, even ones outside of Seattle. Ask friends for rides. Spend the week leading up to each tournament testing online.

4. Travel to more Grand Prix with friends. Start testing and gathering data about the format at least a month in advance. If there are multiple Grand Prix coming up with different formats, find a way to split the difference. I plan on attending a Standard Grand Prix in Oakland and a Sealed Grand Prix in Vancouver within a few weeks of each other at the beginning of 2016. My plan is to spend most of the next eight weeks testing Standard while making time for a draft or two each week, then ramp up after Oakland.

5. Learn to say “no” to people. A few months ago, I realized that I was unhappy because I was spending too much time serving others and not enough time taking care of myself. This applied to most areas in my life, including Magic: I found that I was spending so much time helping other people learn how to play various formats competently that I didn’t have the time to master them myself. My goal is to set a schedule for myself and adhere to it; if I have free time, I can devote it to helping others. Or, I can get better AND help others at the same time if I... 

6. Return to streaming. I streamed a couple times earlier this year, then stopped because: a) I got nervous and played terribly, b) I spewed a lot of tickets that way, which made streaming hard to sustain, c) I had a lot of other commitments and an inconsistent schedule of night classes,  d) I was self-conscious about my unpolished overlay and set-up, and e) My puppy, who is normally very well-behaved, would act out to get my attention because he isn’t used to seeing me glued to a computer screen for hours on end. Some of those problems are harder to fix than others, but none of them will just go away on their own. If I put time and effort into streaming, I’ll eventually work through everything. I’m going to work on getting more comfortable playing MTGO and hopefully have the stream up and running again by the turn of the year.

7. Make time to learn Modern and Legacy. These formats always seem to fall by the wayside when I have a more immediate need to practice for Standard and Limited tournaments. If I don’t have a big tournament coming up, or if I have a free night, I’d like to devote some time to them.

8. Pick people’s brains. Ask for second opinions. Ask what the right play is. Ask for sideboarding advice. Ask people you respect, and when all else fails, #kiblergoogle.

I spent every day this past week playing Magic -- mostly online -- and made Top 4 of a Sealed PPTQ for the first time. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I may have fallen short of my goal of qualifying for an RPTQ, but I know I’m getting closer.

Exemplary decks from Cube Draft #7:

1. Temur Metalcraft, 3-0, by David 2. UB Control, 3-0*, by Robert 3. Grixis Control, 2-1, by James 4. BW Tokens, 2-1, by Parker

Notes: - We had 9 players for this draft. Colors were evenly distributed again (4 drafters in white, 3 in blue, 4 in black, 5 in red, 3 in green). - We had more red players in this draft than ever before. Notably, the two drafters who splashed a few red cards ended up at the top of the heap, while the three players who were trying to build predominantly red decks ended up at the bottom, having cut each other too much. - Prior to the draft, we made 14 substitutions in response to feedback we’d received from drafters. I had been tracking underpowered cards for the last several drafts -- which cards consistently went late in drafts? which cards were consistently relegated to sideboards? -- and decided to upgrade several of them. We also added more support for Reanimator, which we had heard was difficult to build. Sadly, no one was in Reanimator in this draft, so I’ll have to wait awhile to see how effective our changes were. - This is the second time David has gone undefeated with a Metalcraft deck. This deck is much stronger than we anticipated: it can outrace creature decks with Etched Champion AND out-reach control decks with Thopter Spy Network, plus its low color commitments leave the drafter open to build up a support system of removal, card-draw, and countermagic. This deck is sweet, and I’m glad to see it flourishing, but watching it 3-0 both its appearances gives me pause. - Robert had a first-round bye and won Rounds 2 and 3. He reported that Extract from Darkness was great and that Reef Worm is the best card in Cube. - Cube may have too many Clone effects. - Considering including Song of the Dryads as a catch-all answer to Planeswalkers, utility lands, and other hard-to-deal-with permanents.

View our Cube on CubeTutor!

As I mentioned, I didn't get to draft on MTGO on Tuesday... because I was drafting at the Lady Planeswalkers Society instead. We use cross-pod pairings at LPS, and we've had five pods of drafters at our last several events, so it's nearly impossible to predict what sorts of decks you'll run into. I won a close match in Round 1 against a RW deck with two Sentinels of the Eternal Watch and Chandra's Ignition, then lost an equally close match to UB Control. Robert and I were paired in the final round and ID'd, since he had stayed up late working overtime the previous night. This deck had the strongest early game of any deck I've drafted in this format, but often failed to close things out. Raving Blaze provided some reach, but I could have used a strong finisher.

I wasn’t able to play on Magic Online on Monday or Tuesday, but finally found time this evening to jump into an 8-4 queue. Mom n Pop Nalaar were my first choice, and I was on track to draft a sweet blue/red artifacts deck until the colors started drying up towards the end of pack 2. I salvaged the draft, and though my deck left a lot to be desired, I made it to the finals, where I lost to a much more aggressive blue/red deck with no artifacts that I could see. (My opponent played a turn 1 Faerie Miscreant and a turn 2 Dragon Fodder in all three games.) Scryfish and Willbreaker pulled the most weight; I was able to filter through my library quickly to find ways to steal my opponent’s creatures. Most of my artifacts were fine, but not amazing: Meteorite killed a couple small creatures and Guardians of Meletis held off some Renown creatures, and I occasionally got to throw them at my opponent, but they aren’t cards I’d normally look to play in this type of deck. Guardian Automaton was actually quite impressive; it held off an Akroan Sergeant pretty well in the finals, and I was able to get out of a jam by sacrificing it with Pia and Kiran. The biggest mistake I made in the tournament was not playing around Calculated Dismissal in the final game, though I got so far behind so quickly that not casting spells wouldn’t have helped much. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how well this deck played and hope I can draft an even better version of it next time.

In today’s 8-4, I tried something new yet again. Kothophed was my first pick, and black seemed reasonably open, so I found my way into UB Control and got demolished by WR Aggro in the first round. Cards I saw on the other side of the battlefield included Akroan Sergeant and Kytheon’s Irregulars, for which my Fetid Imps were no match. It’s possible I read the draft incorrectly and could have avoided making myself vulnerable to aggro; I saw no sign of Reave Soul, Disperse, or Possessed Skaab, and passing up on a Separatist Voidmage in favor of a Tower Geist was a difficult (and probably incorrect) pick. (I have a slight preference for Geist in a vacuum, but this deck had no shortage of evasive creatures and card selection and probably could’ve used more tempo spells.) The foil Starfield was not a bad consolation prize, however; I’m now 10 tickets richer.

Exemplary decks from Cube Draft #5: 

1. Ub Artifacts, 3-0, by David 2. GWr Tokens, 2-1, by yours truly 3. GU Ramp, 2-1, by Robert 4. BW Midrange, 2-1, by Parker 

Notes: - We had 8 players, and color distribution was more even than ever before (4 people were in white, 4 in blue, 3 in black, 2 in red, and 4 in green). The red cards happened to be clumped together, and I'm convinced more people would have drafted them if they had been distributed more evenly. - We were pleasantly surprised and happy that the Blue Artifacts deck won the draft. Our drafters have generally shied away from artifacts, so we were unsure whether to continue supporting the archetype in cube. Thanks to David for changing our minds. - I was fairly happy with my deck, though I would have liked more access to mana creatures. I may consider adding more mana creatures to the cube in general. - Parker reported that new additions Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Hero's Downfall were excellent.

View our Cube on CubeTutor!

Some exemplary decks from Cube Draft #4: 

1. GUr Ramp, 3-0, by yours truly  2. BG Midrange, 2-1, by Andrew* 3. Naya Midrange, 2-1, by Jordan 

Notes: - White got a slight downgrade after we realized that it had more game-breaking cards than any other color. Black will be getting a slight upgrade for next draft. - We need to have a minimum of seven drafters for future drafts, or else too many key cards get left out of the pool.  - I had never drafted GU in the cube before, so I maindecked several cards for the purpose of experimenting with them. Master Biomancer was amazing in one game, but just fine across the board; I probably would’ve been better served running Wickerbough Elder in its place. Garruk, Prime Speaker, Pelakka Wurm, Surrak, and Treespeaker were all excellent. Edric was decent, but could’ve been better. I never cast Sky Swallower or Courser.

* Andrew had to leave early, so I'm unsure exactly which cards he ran in the draft. I've laid out some important sideboard cards along with his maindeck.

View our Cube on CubeTutor!

Trying to get into some new habits: a) Drafting on MODO more often (preferably every day); b) Posting my decklists online so I can reflect on my drafts and receive constructive feedback.

Here’s my Magic Origins draft deck du jour. I went undefeated in an 8-4, though I admit this deck wasn’t perfect -- Wingmare and Languish were both a bit out of place at times, and I would have taken a Topan Freeblade over a Shambling Ghoul in a heartbeat. Removal, flyers, and well-timed Enshrouding Mists got the job done, however, and Blood-Cursed Knight provided an 8-point life swing more often than not. Would definitely try drafting BW Enchantments again.

Only Built 4 Cubin’ Lynx

Cube has been my favorite format from the time it was introduced to me. I play equal amounts of Limited and Constructed Magic because they scratch different itches for me, and Cube combines most of the things I like about the two formats. Unlike most booster draft formats, which grow stale or are “solved” after just a few months (or a few drafts, in the case of Magic Origins), Cube is deep and dynamic; each new set adds more prospective cards to your draft environment. I’ve toyed with the idea of building a Cube of my own for the last two years or so, but wasn’t sure what restrictions to impose. So I became a Cube Connoisseur: in the last two years, I estimate that I’ve drafted eight different Cubes, and I’ve spent countless hours picking various Cube designers’ brains about their creations. Once we had the space to hold drafts of our own, Robert and I dug out the box of cards we’d set aside to add to a Cube and completed our project.

We made Steppe Lynx our mascot because we love one-drops (and Raekwon, and puns). Maybe we should get one altered to look like Kirby?

What is Cube, anyway?

Before I get much further, I wanted to take a moment to briefly explain Cube to those of you poor souls who haven’t had an opportunity to draft one before. Cube is a draft format whose card pool comprises 360 or more unique cards of the designer’s choice. The cards are randomized and organized into fifteen-card “packs,” much like the fifteen-card packs you’d use in a booster draft, and drafted as normal. You can personalize your Cube by emphasizing certain themes or mechanics or restricting the card pool (there are even some Cube variants that only include cards from a specific set or block), so long as you focus on maximizing replay value. The Cubes I’ve enjoyed most and wanted to draft multiple times yielded a variety of viable decks -- no individual cards are oppressive or format-warping; no strategy is so weak that it isn’t worth trying.

Building the Anti-Cube

When I first drafted the original Modern Masters set in May 2013, I agreed with Cameron from LoadingReadyRun: drafting MMA was like drafting a Cube. In fact, what if I could somehow expand upon the set -- add more fixing, more bomb rares, more cards to support each archetype -- and use it as the backbone for a 360-card Cube of my own? Robert was onboard, and we hashed out a rough draft of the Modern Masters Cube. But as we added newer, more powerful cards, the commons in Modern Masters began to seem underwhelming. Some of the narrower decks also wanted multiple copies of key cards -- the tribal decks needed a critical mass of creatures, and Storm couldn’t go off consistently with one copy of Empty the Warrens and one Grapeshot. We’d have to start from scratch.

...Well, maybe not. I knew I still wanted to build a Modern Cube, or at least a mostly Modern one. At the very least, I wanted my Cube to be emblematic of what I liked about Modern Limited Magic: strong creatures, efficient removal, and synergy. There would be enough fixing to allow for easy splashes, but not so much that drafters would be incentivized to play Five-Color Good Stuff. Two-color decks would be the norm, though certain cards could compel drafters to play three colors or just one. Most importantly, games would be interactive and combat-based: landwalk, protection, hexproof, and infinite combos would be kept to a minimum. In many respects, it would be an anti-Cube.

The First Two Drafts

We completed the Cube about a month ago and drafted it for the first time on the Fourth of July. Of the five friends we expected to see at our Fourth of July party, four played Magic regularly and the last had played the game a few times and was familiar with the rules. We resolved to hold a seven-person draft, and whoever got the bye would help the least experienced player with her games.

I found my way into WU Control after getting back-to-back white planeswalkers (Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and Gideon Jura) in Pack 1. My plan was to stall the early-to-mid-game with tokens and Wraths before landing haymakers. I bested Sultai Control in round one, thanks to Elspeth, and brought GB Tokens to a halt with Mirran Crusader in round two. (Mirran Crusader was promptly removed from the Cube and replaced with Brimaz.) I faced RW Aggro in the finals, and while my opponent’s draws weren’t particularly aggressive, Zo-Zu the Punisher punished me for missing my land-drops nonetheless. I couldn’t find an answer for Assemble the Legion, so I was put in the uncomfortable position of having to Wrath my opponent knowing full well that he could immediately refill his board with tokens. 

The first draft wasn’t perfect, but the Cube was already close to meeting my expectations. Color distribution was fairly even, and all seven players enjoyed their decks. Some players requested more answers to non-land, non-creature permanents, noting that certain enchantments and planeswalkers were difficult to deal with. Robert and I wrote down all our friends’ suggestions, and we tacitly agreed to keep an eye on Red Aggro.

A few weeks went by before we found time to hold a second draft. We unintentionally ended up drafting with three people from the previous trial and three newcomers, but the balance seemed appropriate: some drafters would come to the Cube without preconceived notions, while the rest would be able to draw on previous experiences during the exit interview. 

Once again, I ended up in WU, though I’d classify my second deck as “Tempo” rather than “Control.” After picking up a fairly early Venser, I decided to find a few creatures with good ETB effects, and Cogwork Librarian helped me acquire both Grand Arbiter and Brago Pack 2 Pick 2. Here’s what I ended up with:

Creatures (16): Soldier of the Pantheon Accorder Paladin Daring Skyjek Kor Skyfisher Suture Priest Blinding Souleater Brimaz, King of Oreskos Man-o’-War Pestermite Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest Brago, King Eternal Grand Arbiter Augustin IV Sanctum Gargoyle Consecrated Sphinx Thousand Winds Myr Battlesphere

Spells (7): Ponder Crystal Shard Detention Sphere Grafted Wargear Oblivion Ring Venser, the Sojourner Triplicate Spirits

Lands (17): 1 Glacial Fortress 7 Island 8 Plains 1 Scalding Tarn

I faced GW Ramp in the first round. My opponent’s deck was mostly green, splashing white for Voice of Resurgence, Qasali Pridemage, and Mirari’s Wake. Avenger of Zendikar and Mirari’s Wake won him the second game, but I was able to get ahead early in games 1 and 3 and stay ahead thanks to Pestermite and Crystal Shard.

In Round 2, I played against Abzan Tokens. My opponent had grabbed a lot of the spot removal I was missing (most notably Path to Exile), and Mother of Runes helped him take the first game. The protective matriarch never appeared again, however, so I could Oblivion Ring my opponent’s Grave Titan with impunity. Other highlights of the match: getting through with Brago and blinking Man-o’-War to get rid of my opponent’s tokens. I picked up my cards and immediately regretted not taking a photo of my board state to show Marshall Sutcliffe.

Once again, I made the finals of my own Cube draft with WU, and once again, my last opponent was playing Red Aggro. More specifically, my last opponent was Simon, my first Magic teacher and the most loyal red mage I know, who had forced Mono-Red just to see if he could. In each of our games, he had a hasty one-drop, a turn two Ash Zealot, and a removal spell for whatever I played on turn three. (Smash to Smithereens on my Blinding Souleater hurt quite a bit.) I extended my hand, and Simon thanked me for giving him the opportunity to draft all his favorite cards after a months-long hiatus from playing Magic.

Red Aggro had won both our trial drafts, so Robert and I decided to make some changes to the Cube. The problem wasn’t that any one card in the Mono-Red decks was particularly overpowered or oppressive, but that too many red cards went uncontested in the draft. That could be a matter of player preference -- six of our eight participants built decks that were consistent with what they typically like to play, myself included -- or our pool of red cards might be too aggressive overall. After conferring with Simon, we agreed to remove Hellspark Elemental, which he cited as an all-star in his deck, and add Goblin Rabblemaster -- an objectively more powerful, but more flexible card. My opponents also complained about Crystal Shard, and I couldn’t say I blamed them -- I have bad memories of playing against it in a friend’s Cube and was initially skeptical about adding it to mine. We made about twenty changes overall, mostly removing narrow “artifacts matter” cards and replacing them with more flexible cards, since the all-in artifacts deck we planned on supporting didn’t seem to be coming together.

Our Cube is available in its entirety at CubeTutor.com, so feel free to have a look. It’s still a work in progress -- I’d like to add more fixing and squeeze in some powerful cards I’ve enjoyed drafting in other Cubes -- but overall, I’m quite happy with it.

Checking In

I started this blog over a year ago to help myself get over a bad case of writer’s block. At the time, it was an invaluable avenue for me to express myself and find my place in the Magic community; once I got back into the habit of writing regularly and found a new home at Gathering Magic, I didn’t have much of a need for it anymore. Now, I find myself struggling again -- it’s been over two months since I’ve written anything of note -- so I’m back, hoping to reignite my writing spark.

Before I start writing new tournament reports or essays on cube design, however, I wanted to take a moment to talk about what I’ve been up to in the last six months. In the winter, my friend Erin Campbell approached me about joining the cast of a new podcast she planned on starting. The “ladies’ roundtable” shows she recorded for The Deck Tease proved to be so popular that she thought the format deserved a show of its own, so she set out to find three ladies to discuss current events with her each week. Within a few weeks, Katie Neal, Kriz Schultz and I signed on; within a few episodes, The Girlfriend Bracket was racking up five-star reviews on iTunes, and my co-hosts had become some of my best friends.

A few months later, I began streaming games on Magic Online. I had wanted to stream for over a year, but didn’t have a PC or space to house one in my one-bedroom apartment. When Robert and I moved into a two-bedroom rental house in February, we purchased an Alienware desktop and turned the smaller bedroom into an office. I’ve only streamed a handful of times, but I’m already closing in on 200 followers and 800 total views on Twitch. I’m grateful for all the support I’ve received from the streamer community and am eager to continue improving my broadcasts.

Unfortunately -- perhaps because I’ve spent so much more time talking and writing about Magic and so much less time playing -- my tournament results haven’t been up to snuff. I still have yet to Top 8 a PPTQ, though I’ve made Top 16 of all but three that I’ve competed in. I also haven’t been able to travel to as many GPs as I’d like -- I missed GP Vancouver in February because we were moving that weekend -- but I hope to rectify that in the next several months. There are some specific aspects of my game that I want to work on, but I’ll save those musings for a future post.

I’ve spent most of my spare time co-designing a cube with Robert, so I’d like to use this blog to track its evolution and growth. Look for a cube post in a day or two!

Gathering Magic (& Realism)

Hello, friends! You've probably noticed that this blog has changed a bit since you last visited. Photosets were taking up an unreasonable amount of space in the previous layout, so I installed a new theme today which should make posts look a bit more balanced. One of these days, I'll have actual web development skills and can create a blog of my own; until then, we're at the mercy of free Tumblr themes. 

I also haven't been posting here much since the turn of the year because I've been busy writing for GatheringMagic.com. I joined the writing staff in late December and author a weekly column about tournament preparation. My articles have covered deck selection, playtesting, metagaming, and tournament rituals: all topics that I've written about on this very blog.

Magic & Realism isn't going anywhere, but it will have a slightly different focus now that I'll be writing about competitive play for larger audiences. I will continue to chart my personal growth here and provide commentary on issues facing the Magic community. (I plan on publishing a post on women in competitive Magic in the coming days.) Basically, if there's a topic that doesn't fit the parameters of my column, I'll write about it here.

While I'm in housekeeping mode, I'd also like to announce that I'm finally getting my act together and starting a stream sometime in March. I've wanted to stream for over a year now, but Robert and I haven't had the space to house a desktop and streaming equipment. Fortunately, we'll be moving into a rental house at the end of the month and plan on turning one of the bedrooms into an office. I'll have more information on showtimes and format once we get settled in.

Those are all the announcements I have for now. Till next time!

"Play What You Know"...or Not

Magic players are products of their own experiences with the game -- and, to a lesser extent, the experiences of their friends and teachers. Perhaps that's why the "play what you know" mantra is so ingrained in my head.

Simon, my first Magic mentor, learned the hard way that it's better to stay the well-trodden course than to try to spike a tournament with an unfamiliar deck. After winning JSS Regionals with Affinity in 2004, he audibled to Elf and Nail for Nationals and finished with an unsatisfactory record. Though Simon correctly predicted that Tooth and Nail was well-positioned -- green decks took top honors in both the main tournament and the junior division -- he believes his lack of experience with the deck cost him, and he hasn't audibled again since.

When I asked Simon what he thought I should play in the recent SCG Open in Seattle, his reply was, "You know what I'm gonna say." And I did. "Play what you know." At the time, I was most comfortable playing Mardu Midrange, the deck that had earned me a Top 8 finish at the Super IQ, but Whip of Erebos decks had such a strong showing at SCG Portland that Mardu was practically obsolete. The deck couldn't race the lifegain that Whip provided or get away with one-for-one-ing an opponent with removal, and all the deathtouch bees buzzing around made Butcher of the Horde, Wingmate Roc, and Crackling Doom sound unexciting. But what else was I to play? I briefly considered revisiting BG Constellation (now with game-ending threats like Hornet Queen!), but the thought of playing the mirror made my skin crawl. I resolved to stick with the deck I knew, for better or for worse. "If my opponents are on UW Heroic, I'll be happy," I told my friends before the event. "And if they're on Whip decks... well, then I won't be."

Unfortunately, my match-ups were far from favorable, and before I knew it, I was 0-3. I faced UB Control, a deck I felt I had no business beating at the IQ, and a pair of Abzan Whip decks. Boarding in Hushwing Gryffs against Abzan proved less beneficial than I anticipated -- while shutting down Hornet Queen is a big plus, preventing Siege Rhino's ETB trigger didn't stop a 4/5 with trample from hitting me in the face repeatedly. Much to my chagrin, one of my opponents killed my Gryff and played two more Rhinos before I could find another. I wished Torpor Orb had been legal instead.

The following day, I looked through the top decklists from the Open, plotting my next move. I came upon a pair of nearly identical Abzan Aggro decks, piloted by Andrew Tenjum and my friend Thea Steele. Thea had put out the bat signal on Twitter the night before the Open, looking for an "Anafenza deck," and got a hold of Tenjum's list. Happy as I was for her, her success with an unfamiliar deck (and my embarrassing defeat with a deck I knew well) completely contradicted my mantra and brought on days of confusion and self-doubt. When is "play what you know" the best option, and when is it okay to take a risk and audible?

After days of self-reflection, I came to the conclusion that knowing a format is often more beneficial than knowing a particular deck. All my Limited play has reinforced this: I draft formidable Cube decks when I know the Cube well, and I've put up good results in several draft environments by trying as many different strategies as possible (and eventually settling on a favorite or two). Then, I realized, the same could be said of Constructed formats, even the non-rotating ones. Reid Duke once wrote that succeeding in Legacy is all about knowing your deck, but he also claimed that succeeding with a fair deck is all about knowing your match-ups. In fact, I hadn't Top 8'd the IQ because I was comfortable with my deck -- I Top 8'd because I knew what I was up against, and because Mardu happened to be well-positioned in a field of Mono-Red and UW Heroic. I made a good metagame choice -- maybe I could make another.

Mox Boarding House, Card Kingdom's new Bellevue branch, hosted its first major Standard tournament on Saturday, a $4K with payout to Top 32. It seemed like good value, and I wanted to support the new store, so I got a ride with my friend CML. I chose to play Thea's list from the Open after realizing that Anafenza hoses the Whip decks I had been losing to with Mardu, and because the sideboard looked comprehensive. My friends, who were still on Abzan Whip, told me that my deck seemed "reasonable." "Better than Mardu," Rob said with a smirk. I shrugged and double-checked my decklist.

The first several rounds of the tournament were a breeze, considering how little experience I had with the deck. I owe much of my success to my sideboard, as Drown in Sorrow kept my RG and Temur opponents' mana elves and morphs at bay, and Back to Nature cleared my BG Constellation opponent's board. Of course, it didn't hurt that my creatures provided a fast clock: Turn 2 Fleecemane Lion, Turn 3 Anafenza, Turn 4 Siege Rhino, Turn 5 Wingmate Roc is one of the most efficient curves I've ever seen. After I won my third match, I scouted the rest of the top tables and saw three other Abzan Aggro players, all of whom I consider better players than me. It was only a matter of time before I would have to face one of them, so I needed to figure out a sideboard plan for the mirror on the fly.

In Round 4, I found myself paired against Gerry Thompson, whom I had met at the IQ. We had both lost in the Top 8, so I introduced myself during the semifinals and told him that I enjoyed reading his articles. (As someone who has published writing on the internet and received more than her fair share of harassment from commenters, I always go out of my way to let other writers know that I appreciate their work. A little bit of positive feedback goes a long way.) Gerry was piloting Sidisi Whip, so I figured my Anafenzas and Bile Blights would serve me well, but the combination of my Thoughtseizes and Gerry's Coursers provided invaluable information that sealed my eventual victory. In Game 2, Wingmate Roc helped me play around Dead Drop, and I scried a Bile Blight to the top of my library knowing that he was waiting to cast a Hornet Queen. I attacked with a Rhino and he declined to block with his lone Courser, so I cast one of two Anafenzas in my hand and passed. He tapped out to play the Queen, just as I expected, and when I swung in on my next turn, he made the best blocks I could have hoped for. Hornet Queen blocked Anafenza; Courser and a bee prevented any Rhino damage from trampling over -- or, I should say, they would have, if I hadn't Bile Blighted the tokens before damage. Siege Rhino was spared a grisly fate, and I didn't mind trading Anafenza for the Queen, since I could play the second copy post-combat. I had no cards left in hand, but Gerry had seen enough and scooped up his cards. I was proud of myself for playing well, especially given my history of punting against players I respect.

My high didn't last long, as I ended up playing the dreaded mirror match against Thea in the following round. We made polite conversation before Game 1 -- she asked about my puppy; we discussed holiday travel plans -- but I had difficulty hiding my nerves. When the match started, she went on the offensive early, playing Fleecemane Lions on Turns 2 and 3, but I managed to dispatch them both with some timely Hero's Downfalls. I made a miscalculation in the midgame, leading to an unanticipated two-for-two involving Rakshasa Deathdealers, but she ultimately won thanks to Wingmate Roc. Sideboarding seemed like a big guessing game to me -- would she be boarding in what I was boarding in? could I next-level her somehow? -- and my head was pounding as I shuffled up for Game 2. Our second game was a slog: we had nearly identical draws and made nearly identical plays, resulting in a stalled board state full of 4/5 Rhinos and 3/4 flyers. By the end of the match, I had learned a valuable lesson: flying is the key to breaking stalemates in the mirror. Whoever can attack with the most birds or ultimate Elspeth first wins. In both cases, that was Thea.

After our match, I stepped outside and drank some water, but my headache wouldn't subside. It was already 5 PM, but I had eaten such a hearty breakfast before the tournament that I never got hungry. The thought of eating nauseated me, so I left my banana and granola bars in my bag and played my last two matches. I played against Abzan Midrange and Abzan Whip in Rounds 6 and 7, but I don't remember much about the games. I kept some risky hands and missed some land-drops. One of my opponents automatically discarded a Hero's Downfall to my Thoughtseize when I would have preferred to take his Utter End, but I didn't bother to correct him or call a judge. My last game ended with me casting Abzan Charm, searching in vain for a Drown in Sorrow to clear out my opponent's bees and leaving myself vulnerable to a lethal crack-back. I didn't play my best, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that I ended the day with a 4-3 record. 

I was unhappy that I had lost three matches in a row after such a strong start, but I did accomplish my goal of cashing out. (Some 4-3's made Top 32, and I had the best tiebreakers in my bracket, since all the opponents who beat me made Top 8.) Thea would go on to split the finals with CML, proving that Abzan Aggro was a good metagame call on my part -- I just didn't know the deck nearly as well as she did. I kept too many two-land hands with a deck that, as I learned, isn't really "aggro," and I thought I made suboptimal decisions with Rakshasa Deathdealers all day. And I probably should have eaten the banana at some point.

Robert picked me up after I collected my $50 gift card, and we debriefed about the tournament in the car. I excitedly recounted my first four matches, but had difficulty hiding my disappointment about the latter three. Robert pointed out that my deck choice and positive record indicated that I was getting much more comfortable playing Standard competitively, and I agreed. I may have audibled to Abzan Aggro, but I did play what I knew. I played Standard.

Top 8 at the SCG IQ

Whenever I go to a Magic tournament with low expectations -- or whenever I have something else to do that day -- I seem to win more than usual.

I've only won prizes at Competitive REL once before -- this past May, when I finished 25th at a PTQ I almost didn't attend. I had wanted to go to LRRCon that day, but chose instead to play Theros full-block Sealed for the first time, just to get my bearings with the new Limited format. I found my pool underwhelming and assumed I'd scrub out by mid-afternoon, but ended up spending the entire day battling with Xenagos and burn spells.

My plan for last Saturday was to spend my afternoon competing in an SCG Super IQ and then join one of my close friends at her parents' house later in the evening to sit shiva for her grandfather, who had died of a stroke on Wednesday. I hadn't played Standard competitively in months or followed much recent Standard coverage, so my goals for the day were to learn the local metagame and decide on a deck for the upcoming SCG Standard Open(s). I chose Mardu, a versatile midrange deck with strong threats and arguably stronger answers, but had no experience with the deck aside from one recent outing at a Lady Planeswalkers Society Standard night. (I had missed FNM the previous night after getting stuck in rainy rush hour traffic.) I didn't expect to win many matches, but looked forward to scouting the field and playing against as many different decks as possible.

There were 117 players in attendance at the beginning of Round 1, the vast majority of whom were on Abzan. I saw at least three different Abzan builds: Steve Rubin's stock list, an aggressive variant with Fleecemane Lions and other two-drops, and the sluggish Whip of Erebos/Hornet Queen/Soul of Theros deck that most of my friends brought to the event. (I was told it performed well against Abzan Prime in testing.) UW Heroic seemed to be the second-most popular deck, followed by Mono-Red Aggro. There were a handful of RG Monsters players and a couple on UB Control; other known quantities, including Temur Midrange and Jeskai Burn, were scattered throughout the field. There were about half a dozen of us on Mardu, so I didn't anticipate playing many mirror matches... but I did, twice, before the end of the night.

Round 1: 1-0

I faced a fellow Mardu player in my very first match of the day, in fact. Game 1 played out as I expected: I won the match by putting on more pressure in the early game and answering more of my opponent's threats as the game went on. My opponent started to stabilize in the midgame, gaining eight life with a pair of Seekers of the Way and Sorin, Solemn Visitor, but a hasty Butcher of the Horde took out the planeswalker on my following turn. My opponent attacked with the pair of Seekers and passed the turn with no plays (he appeared to be flooding out); I attacked with Butcher, played a post-combat Wingmate Roc, and drew a concession from him.

Game 2 was much less interactive: my opponent evidently couldn't get my Turn 3 Goblin Rabblemaster off the table and took several points of damage from painlands that he couldn't recoup. On my fourth turn, I attacked into an empty board with a Rabblemaster and two tokens and was surprised when he did nothing, falling to ten life. I watched eagerly as he took two more damage to cast Sorin -- I had a fifth land and a Murderous Cut in hand to deal with his vampire token and clear the way for a lethal attack next turn.

Round 2: 1-1

In Round 2, I faced my friend CML, known throughout the Seattle Magic scene and beyond for his unorthodox views on Cube design, his trollish tendencies, and a love for Martyr of Sands that rivals Jon Loucks's. At the behest of our friend Rob, CML was playing the Abzan Reanimator deck -- which, incidentally, was the only deck I struggled against during my trial run with Mardu at LPS. The match-up went one of two ways, I realized: either I got off to an unusually fast start and won; or, more likely, the Abzan player durdled around for several turns, gained a bunch of life, and played Hornet Queen, preventing me from ever profitably attacking again. I brought in a total of ten sideboard cards against CML -- including Anger of the Gods to kill the bees; Stormbreath Dragons to dodge opposing removal; and Banishing Light and Utter End to deal with Souls, Whip, and other difficult permanents -- but drew them in the entirely wrong order. (Rob later advised me that clearing the board with End Hostilities and then landing an Elspeth probably gave me the best chance to win the game post-board; I was wary of filling my opponent's graveyard with creatures, despite the resulting tempo loss, and didn't think Elspeth stood a chance against Wingmate Roc and killer bees.) I'm not sure how prevalent this deck will be at the Seattle Open, but I plan to devote at least a bit more time to improving the match-up for myself.

Round 3: 2-1

Most of the local grinders I knew who weren't playing Abzan Reanimator were playing UW Heroic, the deck I faced in the third round. Heroic was the deck I was least familiar with and least prepared to face going into the tournament -- I hadn't seen Tom Ross's third-place list from SCG Columbus -- but having drafted UW countless times last year, I had a basic understanding of how the deck worked and could infer which cards were likely involved. I was mainly unsure which and how many removal spells and counterspells I might face; thankfully, the answer was "none." Then again, the games I played were entirely one-sided: in Game 1, my opponent cycled two Defiant Strikes, targeting my creatures, and conceded after failing to draw a creature of his own. He got off to a stronger start in Game 2 with a Turn 1 Favored Hoplite, but quickly ran out of steam. Crackling Doom, one of the most compelling reasons to play Mardu, shines especially bright in this match-up -- sorry, Gods Willing -- though I would be wary of Stubborn Denial in post-board games.

Round 4: 3-1

In Round 4, I faced Jeskai Burn, the deck I'd played for the first month that Khans was legal in Standard. I'm a tempo player at heart, so I gladly sleeved up Mantis Riders and Jeskai Charms, but the deck's strict mana requirements and lack of answers to Siege Rhino prompted me to shelve it for several weeks and shift my focus to Khans draft. My opponent seemed to be losing interest in Jeskai, too: he expressed many of the same concerns I had after the match and commented during sideboarding that my deck was "a better version of [his]." (Jeskai Burn and Mardu Midrange play quite differently, but I agree that my deck is currently better positioned.)

I've played this match-up from the Jeskai side in the past, so I had a good idea of how to win. I knew that my deck had a better late-game, but that a single Jeskai Charm had the potential to swing the game back in my opponent's favor. Thankfully, I had plenty of cheap removal to deal with my opponent's early threats -- two Magma Jets, two Lightning Strikes, and three copies of Chained to the Rocks. (I tried to save Crackling Doom for Sarkhans and Stormbreath Dragons.) I was fortunate that my opponent never cast a Jeskai Charm in the entire match; I almost always had the tempo advantage. Wingmate Roc was also fantastic in this match-up: a single Stoke the Flames will kill a Butcher, but two 3/4 flyers present a huge challenge for Jeskai. 

Round 5: 4-1

More than halfway through the IQ, I had a winning record and began to wonder when my good luck would run out. Then, my opponent said the three words I had most wanted to hear all day: "Mountain, Monastery Swiftspear." I was playing against Mono-Red, my best match-up, which only got better in Game 2, after I exchanged two Crackling Dooms for two copies of Anger of the Gods. My opponent seemed new to competitive play and a bit nervous -- he accidentally flipped over the top card of his library, a Firedrinker Satyr, during Game 1, so we called a judge over to rectify the situation. After I won the game, I briefly recounted the story of the time I knocked over my deck at my first GP and got a warning; my opponent smiled and seemed to feel a bit better.

Game 2 was a challenge. I had an Anger of the Gods in my opening hand that I could easily cast, but I also had a Caves of Koilos and a Battlefield Forge. I fought through the initial onslaught, but had to take two points of damage from Battlefield Forge to cast Anger of the Gods on Turn 3 and Hordeling Outburst on Turn 4. By Turn 5, I was barely hanging on at three life, but my opponent just had two Mountains on his side of the field. If I wanted to stay alive long enough to win the game, I had to take a risk.

"I'll go to two to cast Butcher of the Horde," I said.

"Okay," said my opponent.

He didn't seem like the kind of person who would just slow-roll a burn spell, but I couldn't be sure.

"Sac a token for haste..." He nodded. I attacked with the Butcher and he declared no blocks. What could he have? I wondered. A hand full of Rabblemasters and Stoke the Flames?

"Before damage, I'll sac another token for lifelink..."

OH GOD OH GOD WHAT IF HE MAGMA JETS ME IN RESPONSE

...But he didn't. I went to seven, and he conceded the match shortly thereafter.

Round 6: 5-1

After Game 1 of Round 6, I thought I would be out of the tournament for sure. I played what seemed like a fairly textbook game against UB Control: my opponent countered or destroyed each of my threats, cast Dig Through Time, found a Pearl Lake Ancient, and rode it to victory. It didn't help that my hand was full of useless removal spells; I delayed the inevitable by about three turns, but my opponent's hand was full of so many answers that I couldn't resolve a threat against him.

I turned to my sideboard and found that it was full of blanks. I planned to play against a lot of midrange decks, so my sideboard had plenty of answers to permanents; the only permanents in my opponent's deck were Pearl Lake Ancient, which dodged removal, and Perilous Vault, which he could play and immediately sacrifice if he had nine mana. The best thing I could do, I realized, was to just bring in more threats in place of my creature removal. I took out three Chained to the Rocks and my one-of Murderous Cut and added two Stormbreath Dragons and two Elspeths. Crackling Doom was also terrible here, but it could still buy me a turn against a Pearl Lake Ancient, and since it didn't target, I could use it as a three-mana shock if I had nothing better to do.

Game 2 was close to ideal for me. I kept an aggressive opening hand and was able to commit several threats to the board while my opponent struggled to make land-drops. Game 3 was much different, however -- I got off to a much slower start, but had so many late-game threats that I doubted my opponent could deal with them all. Things started looking grim, however, when he started chaining Dig Through Times, but he still couldn't quite find what he was looking for. I was surprised when I finally resolved a Stormbreath Dragon and got through for four damage. My opponent tried to stabilize with two Jorubai Murk Lurkers, but had no response when I added a Wingmate Roc and bird token to the board. By the time he found a Pearl Lake Ancient, it was too late: I had lethal damage in the air, plus Crackling Doom to keep myself alive for another turn. My hands were shaking as I signed the match slip; I didn't think I'd had a chance.

Round 7: 6-1

At the beginning of Round 7, there were four players at X-0-1 who had intentionally drawn in the previous round and another eight at X-1. My tiebreakers were among the worst in my bracket, so there was no way I could draw in. In fact, none of the X-1's could, since it appeared the X-0-1's were all planning on drawing again. Round 7 was going to be a nail-biter for all of us.

I had encountered my Round 7 opponent earlier in the day, as it turned out. He was sitting nearby during Round 3, and I overheard him remark about how he always lost to women at Magic tournaments. I was the only woman in attendance that day, so what were the odds that we would meet in the final round of the swiss? He continued his schtick when we sat down for our match -- he appeared to be joking around and made polite conversation with me while we shuffled our cards.

He won the die roll and started the game by playing a Mountain and a Firedrinker Satyr. I was giddy.

My opponent went on to win Game 1. He seemed to have deviated from the stock list by playing Borderland Marauders, and the damage added up faster than I anticipated. Unlike my Round 5 opponent, he was able to kill my Butcher with Stoke the Flames before I could gain life, so I folded and went to my sideboard.

Once again, I boarded in two copies of Anger of the Gods and was fortunate enough to have one in my opening hand in Games 2 and 3. I had to fight through two Eidolons of the Great Revel in Game 2, but eventually stabilized thanks to Sorin and Butcher. For the final Game 3, I kept a more aggressive Rabblemaster/Hordeling Outburst hand, but figured I'd play a Turn 3 Anger of the Gods and then start refilling the board. My plan worked out perfectly, as it turned out my opponent had kept a one-land hand containing several one-drop creatures and never drew a second land. Rabblemaster and his token army got through for massive damage, and my opponent extended his hand and congratulated me on making Top 8.

Top 8 Quarterfinals

After I won Round 7, I stepped outside the mall to call Robert and tell him the good news. He was proud of me and glad I had found a deck I enjoyed playing in Standard. He commented that I sounded very excited, however, and told me to take some time to relax before the Top 8. But I didn't -- I wasn't sure how much time I had before Top 8 matches began -- so I went straight back into the mall and tried to figure out who my opponent was and what he was playing. Maybe that was the biggest mistake I made.

My opponent and I were two of three Mardu players who made it to Top 8. I had only played the mirror once, in Round 1, and didn't feel confident in my knowledge of the match-up. My Round 1 win felt like a fluke to me; my opponent did next to nothing in Game 2. I wasn't sure that I would be quite so lucky again.

For Game 1 of the Quarterfinals, I kept a hand that was fairly close to ideal: two pieces of removal, a Wingmate Roc to close out the game, a Hordeling Outburst to trigger Raid, and three lands that provided me with every color of mana I needed. When I played a Temple of Triumph on Turn 1 and saw a Butcher on top of my library, I confidently left it on top. Now I had all the pieces I needed to win the game.

As I've come to expect from Mardu mirror matches, my opponent and I spent most of the game trading resources. He played a Turn 2 Seeker; I Magma Jetted it. I cast Hordeling Outburst; he played a Rabblemaster on his following turn; I let one of my tokens trade for his (which may have been a mistake). The turn after I played my Butcher, he played one of his own; a Crackling Doom killed his Butcher, and then Sarkhan killed mine. My last Goblin token finished off Sarkhan and enabled Raid, but I resolved to trade the bird token with the Rabblemaster that was still on the table, and my Roc died to a Crackling Doom from my opponent.

Twelve turns had gone by. I was at five life, my opponent at seven, and I had a second Butcher in hand and six lands in play. If only my Roc had lived, I thought, I would've had this game. I drew my card for the turn, hoping to find one of four lethal two-mana burn spells, and found a Seeker of the Way instead. I cast the Butcher, sacrificed my last token to grant haste, and attacked.

There were a lot of things I could've done differently in that game. I could have just cast the Butcher and the Seeker and passed the turn. I could have played the Seeker pre-combat and sacrificed it to give my Butcher lifelink or vigilance. I could have refused to trade one of my Goblin tokens for one of my opponent's several turns prior. I could have looked at my score pad and done something to preserve my life total, so as not to leave myself vulnerable to a hasty Butcher on the following turn. Of course, I had reasons for making the plays I made: I wanted to get in as much damage with my Butcher as quickly as possible, before it died to whatever piece of removal my opponent had next, and I played the Seeker post-combat to represent lethal damage. It all made sense to me at the time, but it probably wasn't correct.

Game 2 was difficult from the outset. I didn't know how my opponent would board against me, so I made minimal changes to my deck during sideboarding. My opponent, meanwhile, completely changed course post-board, siding out most of his early aggressive creatures and bringing in Elspeths and Anger of the Gods. For this game, I kept what I thought was a reasonable hand -- Wingmate Roc, Lightning Strike, two Chained to the Rocks, Temple of Silence, Battlefield Forge, and Bloodstained Mire -- not realizing that my removal would be dead in my hand for most of the game. I found a Seeker to play on Turn 2, but once my opponent exiled it with Glare of Heresy, I had a difficult time finding another creature to get value out of Wingmate Roc. I even scried a Murderous Cut to the bottom of my library looking for one, but ended up drawing several lands instead. Meanwhile, my opponent cast a Mardu Charm to make two tokens and pinged away at me while searching for threats of his own. I eventually got impatient and played the Roc with no Raid trigger, but my opponent had a second Mardu Charm to kill it. On the next turn, I finally drew a Hordeling Outburst, but still wasn't applying nearly enough pressure. I was able to Chain my opponent's first Butcher to a Rock, but the second one, hastily dispatched by one of Elspeth's soldiers, hit me for five, bringing me down within burn range. 

I was disappointed that my first Top 8 was over so soon after it began, but I'm still proud of myself for playing well and for making it as far as I did. I cashed the first tournament of my Magic career and walked away with 24 packs of Khans and a bunch of cool SCG swag. I'm looking forward to holding a draft in honor of my accomplishments, but most of all, I can't wait to play Mardu in a Standard Open. Here's my full decklist, for reference:

Lands (25): 3 Battlefield Forge 3 Bloodstained Mire 2 Caves of Koilos 6 Mountain 4 Nomad Outpost 1 Swamp 2 Temple of Silence 3 Temple of Triumph 1 Wooded Foothills

Creatures (15): 4 Butcher of the Horde 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 4 Seeker of the Way 3 Wingmate Roc

Other Spells (20): 3 Chained to the Rocks 4 Crackling Doom 4 Hordeling Outburst 2 Magma Jet 1 Murderous Cut 2 Lightning Strike 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker 2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Sideboard (15): 2 Anger of the Gods 2 Banishing Light 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion 2 End Hostilities 2 Glare of Heresy 2 Stormbreath Dragon 3 Utter End

(Author's note: Special thanks to Adam, who took play-by-play notes during my Quarterfinal match and sent them to me the next day. Hopefully I will start taking better notes soon myself for the purpose of these tournament reports, since my visual memory is so terrible.)

Primer: Sealed Deck at Competitive REL

Sometimes, everyone needs to step back for a moment and take a break. I've been dealing with some health issues over the last several weeks, so I haven't been able to update M&R as often as I usually do. I'm fine -- I just needed to have surgery on short notice because of an awful genetic condition I have that causes certain types of cancer (most notably melanoma). I'm almost fully healed and will be having my stitches removed tomorrow, so I can go back to taking long walks, playing with my puppy, and doing all the other things I usually do. 

Thankfully, my procedure didn't affect my ability to play Magic. I visited The Lady Planeswalkers Society last week, drafted on Magic Online half a dozen times, and even competed in a PTQ. (All my matches took place at Table 1 -- or "The Disabled Table," as I called it -- until I dropped.) I look forward to returning to FNM this Friday and attending Card Kingdom's Limited PTQ next weekend.

From the looks of it, the PTQ is going to have a large turnout, and several of my friends who don't play much competitive Magic are considering attending. Since my Team Sealed primer garnered such positive responses back in July, I wanted to write another primer focusing on single-player Sealed at Competitive REL. This post is intended for newer players, so if you're a Sealed pro, feel free to stop reading here.

How to Register a Sealed Deck

Once event registration closes, you'll participate in what's called a Player Meeting. A Player Meeting takes place at the beginning of any Competitive REL event, regardless of format. Players are seated alphabetically by last name, so if you participate in enough local PTQs, you'll gradually get to know the people seated around you and become Player Meeting Buddies. Don't spend too much time talking amongst yourselves, though -- the head judge will make some important announcements during the Player Meeting and may have you all practice making a judge call. You'll also find out how many people are in attendance and how many rounds you'll be playing that day.

Before a Constructed event, you'll present your decklist during the Player Meeting and judges will come around to collect them before sending you on your way to your first match. Player Meetings take much longer at Limited events, however, because you'll need to register a Sealed pool and swap pools with your neighbors. Once the preliminary announcements are over, judges will give each player six sealed booster packs and a deck checklist that looks like this:

(Resolution too low? Download the PDF here.)

Write your name and DCI number in the "Player Registering Deck" section, then crack all your packs when the head judge gives the signal. You'll have 20 minutes to register 84 cards, so you're best off sorting the cards alphabetically by color (or by collector's number). All the cards in the pool must be accounted for in the "total" column of each section; leave the "played" column alone for now. Treat foils like regular cards (if you have a foil Jeskai Windscout and a non-foil one, just write "2" in the "total" column), but make a note next to the "Basic Land" section if you open any foil basics. If you finish registering the pool with time to spare, check your work, and call a judge if you spot a mistake. The judge will not penalize you for your error, but will simply correct your mistake and initial your checklist.

Once you've finished registering your pool, the head judge will instruct you to swap pools with the person across from you and verify his/her work. Verification is an important step to further discourage cheating and clerical errors. If your neighbor registered "1 Sultai Charm" instead of "1 Sultai Soothsayer," this is a good time to call a judge over to take care of it. Deck verification only takes about five minutes, and then your neighbor will hand you back the deck you registered.

After the pools have been verified, players will execute a pool swap. During this penultimate phase of the Player Meeting, you'll wrap the pool you registered in the checklist and pass it an arbitrary number of spaces in any direction, according to the whims of your head judge. (At the last PTQ I attended, for example, we were instructed to pass our pools three spaces to the left.) You will most likely end up with a pool that someone else registered, though the closer you are to the end of the table, the more likely you are to get your pool back. When the deck swap is complete, write your name and DCI number in the "Player Using Deck" section and take a look at your cards!

If you've played in a few prereleases, odds are you're fairly comfortable building a Sealed deck. Go through the same process, but be aware that you only have half an hour to assemble a 40-card deck. (Most prereleases allow 50-60 minutes for deck construction.) Once you've decided which cards you're playing, account for them in the "played" column, and fill out the "Basic Land" section. Check your work one last time, then grab your lands from the land station and hand your checklist to a judge. Congratulations, you've registered your first Sealed deck! Now you're ready to win some matches.

If you have any more questions about Sealed deck registration or want some tips for your next Khans Limited event, drop me a line in the "Ask" section above. Until next time, good luck PTQ-ing!