Thursday

The luxury of a 7am sleep-in is something I'll be missing over the next few days, as heading east means setting my watch forward two hours. I enjoy it while I can, then my wonderfully understanding girlfriend drives me to the airport, stopping by at my friend Jason's house. Jason is going to Nats to judge which means he has his own accommodation sorted, but it's nice to have some company on the flight over. My carry-on consists of my rare binders and my laptop, while Jason has brought some packs to crack – we forgot to bring any basic lands (this will become a theme) so we couldn't do Winston draft, so instead we just opened each pack and discussed the pick. This was my first look at M11 packs, I had my head down in study during the prerelease and release events and I am still hoping to find Fauna Shamans, Obstinate Baloths or Leylines or whatever I need on Friday. Red seems very weak on the whole, though Jason insists it's not that bad – he does like to first pick Berserkers of Blood Ridge though, so take that as you will. I really like the look of Blue with all its man o' wars and fliers, though we both expect people to be attracted to the shininess of playing with Mana Leak again and that blue will probably be heavily drafted. White, Green and Black all look decent, but I get the feeling the best plan with so little practice is just to open Grave Titan and draft 4 Gravediggers to go with it.

We also brew some decks based on existing archetypes, since learning a brand new one in 2 days seems like a bad idea – Jund, Naya, Next Level Bant and Mono Red are what we come up with between ourselves and notepad.exe. It was interesting to be disconnected from online lists for once, I don't know if it was good or not but it did lead to such ‘innovations' as those found in the following list. I give you:

"Grave Monument Jund Fling n Toast"

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Grave Titan
• 4 BloodbraidElf
• 4 Abyssal Persecutor
• 4 Sprouting Thrinax
• 4 Lotus Cobra
• 4 Nest Invader

• Spells (12)
• 4 Eldrazi Monument
• 4 Maelstrom Pulse
• 3 Fling
• 1 Terminate

• Lands (26)
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Raging Ravine
• 4 Savage Lands
• 2 Dragonskull Summit
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Swamp
• 3 Forest
• 2 Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Obstinate Baloth
• 3 MalakirBloodwitch
• 3 Cunning Sparkmage
• 2 Terminate
• 2 Back to Nature
• 1 Sarkhan Vol

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I wanted to play Monument and Bloodbraid Elf, but once you have Bloodbraid Elf written down and not Ranger of Eos, it becomes very tempting to go to the dark side and play Pulses and Thrinaxes. I also stuck in Abyssal Persecutors because they seem like a good way to fight Titans, and they give me an excuse to play Fling. Bash for 6, Fling for 6 saccing Persecutor just seems so damn cool, so it must be good right? I was rather worried about cascading into it though, that seems completely miserable, but it's no worse than cascading into removal on an empty board. Which is miserable, I'll grant you. At this stage this was just a list in a .txt file though, and we landed in Sydney for our connecting flight. A ritual for all Perth travellers going through Sydney is that you must have a Krispy Kreme donut. Now Krispy Kreme donuts are pretty decent donuts, but they are way hyped in Perth just because we don't have them. People act like you go to the eastern states just to eat these damn donuts at the airport, and everyone returning brings home a box full to great rejoicing at their work morning teas or whatever.

Aside over! We hopped the short flight to Canberra and met up with @thatdamnaussie, BazDiwell, at the airport along with his Canberran friend Kari, who kindly drove us to the hotel. There we were joined by @mtgsalivanth(Jay Bailey) who had driven down with his stepdad, along with about 5 other people in an apartment with four beds. Being Q-ed already I mised one of the beds and we settled in to test. We were joined over the weekend by a varying crowd of dudes, with the common link being Mark from Good Games who had booked the rooms – hi to Ed, Mark, Jeff, Adam, Spud, Wei Bien, the Pauls and everyone else!

We expected a lot of red in the grinders and so I volunteered to play my list from the plane as the villain. Though I had trouble with Jay's grinder Jund with maindeck Baloths I really enjoyed playing the deck, which is as follows:

"Red Deck Wins"

• Spells (20)
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Searing Blaze
• 4 Forked Bolt
• 4 Flame Slash
• 4 Earthquake

• Creatures (18)
• 4 Goblin Guide
• 4 Hellspark Elemental
• 4 Ball Lightning
• 4 Hell's Thunder
• 2 Ember Hauler

• Lands (22)
• 4 Teetering Peaks
• 4 Smouldering Spires
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 6 Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Quenchable Fire
• 4 Manabarbs
• 3 Dragon's Claw
• 3 Leyline of Punishment
• 3 Combust

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Now I wouldn't recommend this exact list for reasons I'll elaborate on at the end – foreshadowing. We tested til about 3 in the morning until we were fairly happy that Jay and Baz would be able to grind in, Jay with Jund and Baz with GW Grinder special. We got roughly four hours sleep and over my body clock's protests that it was only 5:30am Perth time we headed to the venue for a long day grinding for the guys and spectating for me.

Friday

Nationals Grinder day is a grueling series of 16 man, single elim standard tournaments with 2 boxes of cards and the Nationals entry on the line. As soon as you bomb out of a grinder you can go and sign up for the next one, and they fire as soon as they have sixteen players signed up. As such we expected a lot of red decks, because you either win quickly or lose quickly with red and can go for another chance. Often the two 3-0 players will agree a prize split, with one player collecting the boxes and the other getting into Nationals, but with the boxes mostly being the low-EV Rise of the Eldrazi most people were keen on the chance to play on Saturday.

This year's was by far the biggest day ever, with 39 grinders eventually qualifying for Nationals from hundreds of entrants. There were also three sealed grinders as well, which were 32 player single elims with both the 4-0s qualifying. I went to do touristy things mid-morning since there were no side drafts to be had that I could find, and in the afternoon I came back to scout the grinders. To give you an idea of just how diverse the standard metagame is at the moment, I counted at least seventeen distinct decktypes – UW, Jund, Red, Naya, and Titan Ramp were the most common decks but there were more out there things as well – RB Megrim, UW aggro with SejiriMerfolk and Sun Titan, Turboland splash red for Buswhacker, and a uw enchantment control deck with Leyline of Anticipation.

Baz and Jay bashed all day, unfortunately without scoring the coveted Nationals entry. Jay did make it to round four once and agreed a prize split but then had to play it out because his opponent wanted the entry as well, and lost to his Valakut ramp opponent. He did score 48 packs for his trouble, which was a nice consolation prize. Baz's deck was completely nuts against RDW and strong against Jund but unfortunately the metagame wasn't as unbalanced as we expected, and he had to play UW several rounds in a row at one stage. The most entertaining win Baz had over UW, game 3 has gone to time and it's down to the first life total change to decide the match. He plays a Noble Hierarch, then the following turn plays Sejiri Steppe on it calling white. The opponent shrugs, it's got zero power right? Not when attacking, and he is left to look at his untapped white mana and Path in hand as his life total ticks down a single point.

Friday night we finally get a draft going, with all the Qed guys and a couple of ringers sitting down to have a practice ahead of the main event. I get drawn into red and black by the removal that is coming by, but unfortunately I don't get the beaters to back it up and am left to try and get there with Fiery Hellhound and Goblin Tunneler. I play a couple of matches, losing both and give up on the deck. Chatting to the other guys it seems like blue and green are both very strong, and red is good as a second colour if you get some sweet removal spells like Fireball. I resolve to stay clear of red/black if I can in the main event and we play a few more practice games before heading to bed.

Saturday

This is it – the main event. 138 players are registered, qualifying either via grinders, regionals or on rating. We have three rounds of standard first up, and I am battling with an unchanged red deck – it seems good against the Titan Ramp decks, at least the RG and RGU builds, as well as Turboland and any other big mana deck, which I saw plenty of on Friday. UW I feel is reasonable, depending on their sideboard options, and GWx decks are the ones I want to dodge, especially Naya, though my Earthquakes help there.

Round 1: Joseph, UW Control

Game 1 I misplay by running Hell's Thunder into Mana Leak – I read him for the Leak but for some reason I thought it was a good idea to draw it out with an unearthing guy rather than unearth my Hellspark Elemental turn 3. It doesn't make a difference to the result though, as he hits Baneslayer Angel on turn 4 and I don't have an answer for it. I side in Leyline, Combust and Manabarbs for Hellspark, and Forked Bolt. I essentially god draw on the play, having turn 0 Leyline and leading off with T1 Goblin Guide, T2 Peaks and second Guide, T3 Ember Hauler. I have manabarbs but I am waiting for him to tap out so I can resolve it, when he eventually does it is for Gideon. By that point though I just play a second Ember Hauler and throw them both at his face. Goblin Guide showed me Leyline of Sanctity in his deck, so I brought my Hellsparks back in as well as a Pithing Needle and took out Lightning Bolts. We both have slow, removal heavy draws and he counters or exiles all of my threats, but can't keep one down himself as I have double combust for his BSA and Colonnade. My two Flame Slashes are useless though, and I am basically drawing dead. His second Colonnade takes it home under his counter wall – I am at 6 playing 10 or something like that and try to Earthquake for my life total, but he Negates it. I ask "You know that kills me, right?" He laughs and says it's too late to take it back, and he bashes me dead two turns later anyway. Joseph top-32ed the PTQ on Sunday, so I guess it went downhill from there.

Mana Leak is more troublesome than I expected – getting creatures countered really sucks when I am playing so few. It will take some more practice to play around. I also misboarded – I should have taken out removal when bringing in Combusts the first time, as he doesn't play that many creatures and Combust almost completely supersedes Slash in this matchup. Not the start I wanted in a 12 round swiss, but it happens. On to round 2, where I hope to hit one of the Valakut Ramp decks that my deck should make mincemeat out of.

0-1 (1-2 games)

Round 2: Aaron Tan, UW Control

I am really starting to hate the maindeck Earthquakes as I face another UW opponent but it does the job for me here. I beat down with double Hellspark, getting 3 from both sides of each and while my first Earthquake gets Negated, the follow up on the next turn with another to end it. I go with the same sideboard plan from round 1 game 3, and game two I lead off with Guide and bash for some damage and land Manabarbs. He takes a little bit of pain to play Firewalkers which is real bad news, as it means every spell I play basically Lightning Helixes me. He taps out but stays at reasonably high life and plays Gideon Jura which I just can't beat. Game 3 on the play I keep double Leyline and Goblin Guide. I start laying the beats but he goes Celestial Purge, Celestial Purge, Firewalker, Firewalker. Four sideboard cards by turn 5? I tank for a few minutes considering my outs, can't think of any, and scoop it up.

0-2 (2-4 games)

Round 3: Matt X Trull, RGU Force

I don't know what the X stands for but it was on the pairings sheet so I guess it is core to Matt's identity and as such I repeat it here. I tell Matt I hope he's not playing UW like my last two opponents, and he says he is. We're in the 0-2 bracket dude, why lie? I mull to five and watch my record sliding towards 0-3 but keep Teetering Peaks, Earthquake, Forked Bolt and double Guide. Matt gets a lot of lands out but has no defence against the two Guides who knock him to five. He finally Forces but he doesn't have a follow up and while we both draw dead for a bit I get Hellspark Elemental and bash him with both sides of it unopposed. For game two I bring in Manabarbs which seems really nasty for him and Needle for Jace. His sideboard cards are better than mine though, and he goes double Baloth, PelakkaWurm to gain 15 life. He wins at 14. Game 3 I bring back in the Flame Slashes I took out as well as Leyline, removing Earthquakes. This game is real close, I land Manabarbs the turn before he hits PelakkaWurm – he has to play it anyway. He is using his fetchlands to shuffle his library, looking for… something to handle barbs I guess, but crucially he goes to two before Pelakka bashes me to five. I rip Guide off the top and kill him. Trull also top-32ed the PTQ, so at least he salvaged his rating.

1-2 (4-5 games)

Continued Next Week!