What i did on my Holidays: AKA my First Nationals

UK Nationals happened this past weekend.  It was in Sheffield - practically my home town (Barnsley doesn't have a real book shop, ergo it is not a real town) - so I pulled together a blue/black control list for Patriot Games pre-nats standard tournament, packed up about 50% of my belongings and headed to my Gran's house to live in Chapeltown for four nights.

Night one was literally as medicore as possible.  I went 2-1-2 (the middle is a tie, for Americans who don't know how numbers work), which I kind of expected.  I think blue/black control is fine in general, but the meta game at Patriot is sporadic, and with a bunch of unknown (to me) players attending as well, I was pretty worried about the aggro decks.  My losses came against an interesting Jund pod deck by Rob, which I feel like I should've won, and Quinton's mono red, which is basically a write-off.  The whole match with Quinton lasted about ten minutes, including sideboard and shuffling time - that should tell you all you need to know.  The draw came against a pod-less version of RUG.  I had only played against that deck once before, months ago, and i think i made a couple of play errors.  It was a very intense game, which i feel like i could have won if i was more experienced in the matchup, but that's what happens when you only play a handful of standard games per month.

My wins were fairly straight forward, not really worth talking about.  I beat a homebrew red/blue control list, which got mana screwed in both games, and a bizarre red/white/black homebrew with hawks, equipment and Dark Tutelage.  My opponent, Matt, who borrowed the deck from a friend, graciously killed himself with the enchantment in game one, while game two was a fairly straightforward Solemn-into-Sphinx demolition job.

I went home feeling like i would probably skip the standard LCQ next day, even if i scrubbed out in the limited one.  The meta felt pretty stacked against U/B, and i'm far from the best pilot for it so i went to bed hoping to open some titans in the morning.

A quick word on M12 limited.  So far, it has been cruel to me.  At the prerelease i used up all my bomb-luck by opening a Grave Titan and Sphinx of Uthuun.  Since then, i have lucked-out horribly in every draft, even if i had a decent deck (see the post about game day, for example).  In short, i felt like i was due some luck.

But if there is such a person as lady luck, i must've pissed her off more than i thought.  The first - and, tellingly, only draft - actually went okay.  I opened a Sorin's Vengeance in pack one and passed nothing in black except for a Wring Flesh.  I picked up a Berserker and Incinerate back-to-back, then saw basically zero red playables for the rest of pack one.  No problem, I would just play blue/black control in limited, too.

Pack two continued down that path, with a handy Doom Blade being the highlight.  In pack three, i don't really remember what happened, except that i somehow got a third pick Sorin's Vengeance.  Now, that seems pretty good to me; if i can stall out until seven, the game should be pretty un-losable, right?  The problem is that i got pretty greedy.  With little decent removal, i decided to splash the Incinerate and a Shock - yep, i splashed with two triple-black spells in my deck.  And no, i didn't have a single Manalith.  In retrospect i don't really know what i was thinking, but i at least had the decency to cut my Devouring Swams so i didn't need any double-mana until turn five.

The first match actually went surprisingly well, lulling me into a fall sense of security.  I won the entire match with just five attacks.  Granted, in game two he wrecked me with green beaters before i could do a single point of damage, but games one and three were comfortable wins.

Match two showed me just what was wrong with my deck, however.  I played against the U/W aggro deck with a bunch of pegasi and drakes.  Game one lasted a LONG time before he managed to "out-dude" me and finish the game off.  I did resolve a Vengeance - my only damage of the whole match, as it turned out - but i didn't see the 2nd one and couldn't draw enough guys to keep up.  In game two i mulliganed to five and got stuck on lands.  My only spell - a Skywinder Drake - got Mana Leaked and i quickly scooped.

At this point, i figured that i would drop out if i didn't win my last match.  A 1-2 record would make it so that even 3-0'ing the 2nd draft probably wouldn't be good enough.  So when i sat down opposite Russel (of Worldslayer and card-throwing fame) i did so with equal measures of excitement and dread.  Excitement because i know i'm a better player than him, but dread because i know how shitty i would feel if i exited nationals because of losing to him.

Sure enough, i cast a Vengeance after his green and white dorks beat me down to 13.  I stablised comfortably from there and killed him.  A few nerves dealt with, but in game two it was almost as one-sided as my mull to five in the previous match.  I did zero damage while his crappy dudes, and a massacre wurm, ate my life very quickly.  So, game three, i was on the play, and I kept two Vengeances, four lands and a dude.  Oh, god, why?  I've read a lot of pro players speaking about how they will play worse and keep bad hands against a player they view as inferior and this was a perfect example.

But rather than simply crushing me, the game teased me cruelly.  I drew pretty well, and we stalled out for quite a while - me at 15 life and him at 11.  I bashed him down to 6 but then he drew guys and i stumbled.  His board was big and scary - including an un-thirsted Wurm - but I had a chump blocker and Royal Assasin with six lands, including triple black.  I untapped, failed to draw a land and passed the turn.  He untapped, slammed a Celstial Purge and killed my Royal Assasin.  No worries, I still have a chump blocker and plenty of life.  He passed the turn, I untapped, miss on land but played another chump blocker before i passed.  I still had plenty of time, I assumed.  He untapped, slammed a Crown of Empires, tapped my biggest blocker and killed me with exactly 15 damage.  Oops.

Still, with four days hindsight, there's no point in crying about bad luck.  My first nationals taught me a harsh but important lesson - one that i can apply to any of the competitive games i play.  Concentrate on the game, not on my opponent.  Sure, keep an eye for mistakes and know where you can get an edge, but you still have to play well.  Magic isn't a game where the best player always wins.  Underestimating an opponent is almost as bad as, oh, lets say, splashing cards in a deck with triple-black spells.  Splashing in a deck with two triple-black cards is stupidly greedy, especially in a high-ish level event like nationals.

I can bitch about getting unlucky with the mulligan in round two and not drawing land in round three, but they wouldn't have been such problems if i had built a better deck.  Having basically one win condition is not a viable option unless you really build around it.  This weekend showed me that i need to play a lot more than i do.

Still, on the plus side, i did play my first ever minimasters, which is pretty awesome fun.  I even won at my first ever attempt, thanks in no small part to Fireball.  I did volunteer my services to Rich Hagon, who seemed like a thoroughly decent bloke, but i ended up being too addled and busy to actually go and see him again to do some writing.  Ho-hum, i definitely need to be more prepared for the next event like this.

But overall, i was pretty disappointed with my performance at nationals.  I enjoyed the weekend as a whole, but I feel like i let myself down in terms of playing and drafting.  And as for two-headed giant, well... that seriously was annoying unlucky, completely outplaying our opponents, only to die to a stupid overrun.  Best-of-one is not cool, and if i'd known it was like that i probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place.  I still think we could've gone 4-2 if Tom had stuck around though (he went home when we were 1-2).  Our pool was incredible!

Oh well... next year, eh?

What i did last weekend (or: my first Nats qualifier)

After missing last years nationals qualifiers by being blissfully unaware of their existence, i figured it would be pretty stupid to do the same again.  With a year's extra experience and a handful of cards borrowed from Tom, I arrived bright and early after getting up at 6.30AM to watch the GSL finals, finally putting my deck together at about 8AM.  Who needs playtesting and preperation anyway?  Given my budget and card collection, there's only about six cards i would change in retrospect anyway.

Oh, right, yeah... i was playing Esper CawBlade but with Sword of Vengeance and Sword of B+M due to monetary issues.  I also have alternative finishers in the shape of Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine.

Round one vs Elves: As other attendees have pointed out, Patriot was pretty heavily over-capacity, but i managed to dodge having to play any games at the café over road.  Indeed, round one looked pretty comfortable indeed as i got paired against Kieran who i had recently met at last weekend's Steel City and proceded to beat thanks to a blistering array of skill (top-decking three Flashfreezes in a row vs his Valakut deck ;D!).  But the luck was decidedly on his side this weekend as his elf deck got off to a start so fast that i was unable to recover.  Like most people, i wasn't expecting elves, so my sideboard was pretty dead to it.  Never the less, i felt like i was in a pretty good spot in game two with both Black Sun's Zenith and Day of Judgment in hand as he continued to commit dudes to the board. Yep, one black or white mana source and i'm going to wreck this game... any turn now...  Okay, down to eight life, no problem, just gimme a plains... Suffice to say, i lost 2-0: not the start i had hoped for. 0-2 (0-1)

Round two vs Valakut: And so it began.  My epic struggle against Valakut would be the theme of the day, as i faced it three times.  After beating it comfortably last week i was fairly confident but this game (like the other Valakut games later in the day) were super intense.  I've never enjoyed playing against Valakut but this game was actually pretty exciting - so much so that we both got a warning for missing a wolf trigger from my sword.  The milling was what really made the difference, however, as i managed to mill almost all of his threats (including mountains) in both games.  In game two he killed me from 18 life when i had him down to 8.  That's how Valakut rolls.  Game three was pretty similar to game one, and i managed to keep him off Valakut triggers thanks to Tec Edge and Seas.  2-1 (1-1)

Round three vs Valakut: There's  not really much else to say about Valakut vs this deck.  Game one i controlled the game as my deck is supposed to, countering or removing any threats he played.  In game two i was in a good spot but forgot to play around Avenger of Zendikar.  Any topdeck for him except a fetchland would've seen me win on the next turn, to be fair as he was down to 3 at the time.  Apparently game three was super one-sided, however, as i didn't even write down the life totals in my notes.  I countered an early Cultivate which really set back his three-land hand.  It's pretty insane when a Valakut deck can't get lands out and i proceded to win comfortably. 2-1 (2-1)

Round four vs Grixis Tezzeret: Urgh.  I really wish i'd played heavier white and put Divine Offering in the sideboard.  I didn't, and so this was the most crushing defeat of the day.  In game one i had no chance, since roughly 50% of my non-land cards do nothing against his deck.  It was so boring and uninteractive that i can't remember how he got me in Galvanic Blast range for the kill.  Game two was even more depressing as his combined brainstorm/tezz +1 failed to hit anything useful for about five straight turns.  Still, Tumble Magnets kept my hawks at bay until he inevitably hit some ridiculously huge artifact that i couldn't deal with.  I feel like this match was pretty much unwinnable for my deck in its current state.0-2 (2-2)

Round five vs UW Control: Having managed to dodge any kind of Cawblade mirror so far, i was disappointed to see him play blue and white lands.  But when he played a turn two Luminarch Ascension i was mostly just confued.  Is that card even remotely playable in the current meta?  If our match was anything to go by, the answer is no and he made no secret of the fact that he sided it out.  When even the control decks are playing aggressive two drops, the ascension seems pretty awful.  In game two he managed to resolve a Sun Titan but he nothing except Tec Edges in his yard, which was irrelevant due to my superior board-state.  My manlands did a lot of work in this game, and when i killed his Titan it was on to round six. 2-0 (3-2)

Round six vs Valakut: Another Valakut.  My opponent was quite the talker and this was another typically tumor-inducing match.  Game one was pretty close, with both of us dropping bomb after bomb, only to see them killed by the opponent next turn.  In the end i managed to topdeck removal for his Primeval Titan which allowed my Wurmcoil Engine to finish the job.  Game two was quite the rape, with me frantically struggling to find removal or counters, and eventually failing.  Game three was pretty excruciating for my opponent as he proceded to basically miss on two Summoning Traps - he didn't consider Lotus Cobra to be a hit, strangely.  My deck was kind, and i managed to get my mill game going yet again.  He was pretty pissed but that's Magic.  Now i had to try and figure out the maths of qualifying, the whole thing bemuses and confuses me, since it's my first "major" tournament.  2-1 (4-2)

Round seven vs Eldrazi Ramp: As it turned out, the unexpected elf loss in round one really cost me.  I would have to win my last game and just hope that the other people on 12 points all drew.  Not much chance, but still worth a try.  Oh, what's that?  Eldrazi Temple?  Oh dear... I don't seem to be able to build a deck that puts up a meaningful fight against this mindless "hurp durp lets play huge guys you can't deal with" deck.  Game one has precisely zero notes in my pad, he trapped up an Emrakul on turn six... awesome.  Can't wait till ROE rotates out, really.  In game two i managed to draw land denial and stall him long enough to bash his face in, despite milling an Emrakul with my sword.  The luck of my turn two Mystic in game two was completely balanced out by my inability to get off three lands in the vital game three.  When i eventually got up to four, he tec-edged my tar pit and then acidic slime took out my own tec edge.  Ironically, i managed to draw another land next turn but it wasn't enough to stop him cheating out an Ulamog via Eldrazi Temple/Eye of Ugin.

All-in-all i was pretty satisfied with my performance.  For a thrown-together budget deck with no Jaces it performed pretty well.  Two of my losses felt pretty unwinnable without a healthy dose of luck while the elf match was painful in nature.  I really feel like i should win that matchup, and getting stuck with two uncastable wraths in-hand was fairly frustrating.  As for Eldrazi green, fuck that deck.  I swear you could give it to a handicapped monkey and he could win at least 50% of games - not that my opponent was a handicapped monkey, but the point stands.

I was pretty satisfied with my own performance too.  I haven't played much standard in the past year, and my record isn't great (1544 constructed rating before the qualifier results go online), but i think i played fairly tightly.  No glaring errors come to mind, although i have to get rid of my bad habit of playing lands before drawing a card off Jace/Preordain.  It never really made a difference on Saturday, at least.

I feel pretty confident about the Huddersfield qualifier (probably the only other one i can get to, unforunately),  not least because i now know i can borrow a playset of Jaces from Bob.  If the meta game doesn't change drastically in the next three weeks i think i might do okay.