Hey everyone!

Today I’m going to try something different. Rather than just document the results of my pro tour experience I will also add my thoughts and testing process leading up to the tournament. When I prepare for a Pro Tour I view it like studying for a test. Regardless of how many hours I dedicate there was always something I could have done better. Coming into the Pro Tour is always an uneasy feeling since I don’t know what the other players are bringing to the Standard portion. Afterward, I will talk about how my tournament went; what I did right and what could have been better.

Standard Preparation

When I choose my deck for the Pro Tour I will assume that Red is beatable. The teams that break the format will come with an under-the-radar strategy that is inherently good against Red aggro. Don’t get me wrong, Smuggler's Copter is great, but it’s no Collected Company. I’ve already built many decks with inherent strengths against Red aggro. It’s a litmus test, not the fun police.

Even though I think the talented teams will come well prepared, Red aggro will show up in droves. This is because many players deferred their Pro Tour invite from Sydney last season and Silver invites reset. I qualified for this tournament by deferring my invite from Sydney, but I also had a silver invite. My prediction is that there will be close to 500 players and not all of these are pros. Most players pick a deck based on what does the best in prior events which makes Red aggro a great choice. Some players always pick Red decks because they’re comfortable with being the aggressor. The conventional wisdom is that playing proactive strategies in an unknown metagame is a good choice which makes Red solid. If you want to come to Hawaii for a vacation, but also qualified for the Pro Tour, Red is a good choice in that case, too. If you qualified for one of your first Pro Tours and feel you need some luck to beat the world’s finest then playing Red aggro can give you the needed luck to pull out some wins. What I’m trying to say is that I expect a lot of Red for many reasons.

Here are the factors that will go into my deck selection:

My ideal deck is a Jeskai Flash deck I made:

Jeskai Flash ? Kaladesh Standard | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Archangel Avacyn
• 4 Spell Queller
• 4 Torrential Gearhulk

• Spells (24)
• 2 Blessed Alliance
• 2 Scatter to the Winds
• 3 Negate
• 3 Skywhaler's Shot
• 4 Anticipate
• 4 Glimmer of Genius
• 4 Harnessed Lightning
• 2 Stasis Snare

• Lands (26)
• 6 Island
• 6 Plains
• 2 Blighted Cataract
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Spirebluff Canal

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 2 Blessed Alliance
• 1 Negate
• 3 Summary Dismissal
• 1 Fragmentize
• 1 Stasis Snare
• 3 Ceremonious Rejection

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I went for a small Red splash with Harnessed Lightning. There are two different fast-lands in the form of Spirebluff Canal and Inspiring Vantage; it’s important my Red lands enter the battlefield untapped when I’m splashing 2-drops. There’s even more fast Red mana with Aether Hub.

There are 61 cards because Anticipate helps me hit land drops early. I only have seven cards that cost more than 4 mana so it’s all right to get mana screwed in the mid-game and just play interaction spells. The ideal end-game is to scry lands to the bottom with various spells and have Torrential Gearhulks chain into more flash bombs.

This deck is very fun to play so I would do well in Standard if it’s good against the field. I loaned the physical 75 in a local Standard event to see how it would fare. What I learned from that is it’s weak to B/G Delirium. I think B/G is going to be a popular deck because it’s powerful and many of the top-end threats are currently well-positioned. Many Standard articles are saying Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, and Mindwrack Demon naturally beat Smuggler's Copter and that’s a good place to be.

Even though I try and play decks that are fun for me to play it’s also important to be realistic. This is currently the deck I would register if the Pro Tour was tomorrow:

B/G Delirium ? Kaladesh Standard | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Sylvan Advocate
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Verdurous Gearhulk
• 2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 2 Mindwrack Demon
• 3 Filigree Familiar
• 4 Grim Flayer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana, the Last Hope

• Spells (16)
• 2 Murder
• 3 Grapple with the Past
• 4 Grasp of Darkness
• 1 Ruinous Path
• 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 2 Vessel of Nascency

• Lands (24)
• 6 Forest
• 8 Swamp
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Hissing Quagmire

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 To the Slaughter
• 2 Pick the Brain
• 3 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Appetite for the Unnatural
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 2 Dead Weight
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1 Essence Extraction

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I saw Ben Wienberg’s 12th place list from SCG Indianapolis and was instantly hooked. I made some changes over the last couple weeks as the metagame is developing, but the core idea remains intact.

Mindwrack Demon gets delirium quickly to make the primary 2-drop, Grim Flayer, a 4/4 that sets up future draws. This suits my play style of a controlling deck with the ability to kill quickly. There are artifacts and enchantments to make Emrakul, the Promised End cost as little as 6 mana to cast.

When I prepare for a Pro Tour I’m a fan of making my latest lists public to get as much feedback as possible. I think this is a better approach than secrecy because I work with small groups. Secrecy becomes important when teams get as large as 15.

I also like to play in local events to force myself to go over sideboard choices to make the deck more tuned. Winning or losing is less important than the overall feel of the deck. I often play practice games before an event and get crushed, but feel confident due to the fluidity of the draws. It’s important to be honest with yourself about how well the decks actually perform with wins or losses. In most cases I will beat someone in a local Standard tournament because I’ve been practicing so much. I know that my Pro Tour opponents will be well-prepared so my deck needs to be a well-oiled machine.

Limited

My Limited testing began at the prerelease. Although the sealed format with the additional promo rare isn’t the same format as the Pro Tour I still get a feel for what the cards do in a general sense. It’s also a way to win packs to draft with local players. I think having a strong testing team of local players to provide different perspectives on new cards is extremely important.

Setting up a draft of eight people can be like herding cats, but I need as many games in as possible so it’s worth the effort. Once Magic Online releases the set it’s much easier to practice Limited.

I started with draft leagues, but quickly realized that hate drafting is a waste of time. Since you’re drafting with 8 players, but can get paired against thousands of opponents it’s better value to take cards for sideboard. This is going to be different at the Pro Tour and taking note of powerful cards being passed is key. Since this is still the Magic Online prerelease, the other players at the pod aren’t making the optimal picks all of the time.

The most important difference between Pro Tour drafts and practice beforehand is that everyone will be taking the best card nearly all of the time. More casual drafts let you end up with 26-28 playables for your deck. It’s not uncommon to cut good cards from your deck. When I have an average FNM draft deck at the Pro Tour it’s actually quite good. This is because the powerful cards get picked quickly and I need to make do with less optimal cards. Each Pro Tour specific second-rank combat tricks see play because removal is taken so highly. A couple examples of this are Jace's Scrutiny in Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad and Roilmage's Trick in Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar. My pick for surprise trick that sees a large amount of play is Aether Tradewinds.

Pro Tour Retrospective

There were a few surprises in the Standard portion of the event:

I still hit the nail on the head for some other aspects of the tournament:

I worked with Brian Demars, Max McVety, and Tyler Hill the day before the Pro Tour to arrive at this list:

Pro Tour B/G Delirium ? Kaladesh Standard| Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Sylvan Advocate
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Verdurous Gearhulk
• 2 Filigree Familiar
• 2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 3 Mindwrack Demon
• 4 Grim Flayer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana, the Last Hope

• Spells (16)
• 2 Murder
• 3 Grapple with the Past
• 4 Grasp of Darkness
• 1 Ruinous Path
• 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 2 Vessel of Nascency

• Lands (24)
• 6 Forest
• 8 Swamp
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Hissing Quagmire

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 To the Slaughter
• 1 Pick the Brain
• 3 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Appetite for the Unnatural
• 2 Tireless Tracker
• 2 Dead Weight
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Reignited
• 2 Gnarlwood Dryad

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All four of us played the exact 75 cards which has never happened in my entire tournament history.

There wasn’t much difference between the deck I brought and the one I registered for the event. I managed to go 8-2 with the deck — my best constructed record at a Pro Tour. This deck was very solid against everything without Aetherworks Marvel which were my two losses.

I think this deck is a great call for Standard events this weekend because more Blue decks means less Aetherworks Marvel. Most players I talked to that chose Marvel didn’t feel great about their choice. Matt Nass was the only one to top 8 and he did it off of a 6-0 limited performance. The 8-2 and better deck lists had very few Marvel lists as well.

If I were to play Delirium at Grand Prix Providence this weekend I would register this list:

Post Pro Tour B/G Delirium? Kaladesh Standard| Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 2 Filigree Familiar
• 2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 2 Mindwrack Demon
• 2 Sylvan Advocate
• 2 Verdurous Gearhulk
• 4 Grim Flayer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana, the Last Hope

• Spells (15)
• 2 Murder
• 3 Grapple with the Past
• 4 Grasp of Darkness
• 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 2 Vessel of Nascency

• Lands (24)
• 6 Forest
• 8 Swamp
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Hissing Quagmire

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 To the Slaughter
• 2 Pick the Brain
• 2 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Appetite for the Unnatural
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 2 Dead Weight
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Nissa Vital Force
• 2 Gnarlwood Dryad

Buy This Deck

Limited

This was easily the most frustrating part of the event. I did plenty of practice drafts and read the Grand Prix Atlanta coverage to see where everyone else was with the format. My first and second deck didn’t work out I got muscled into U/B Control in Draft 1 which happened to be a weak color combination. Starting out 1-2 can be disheartening, but I learned you can lose a lot of Magic and still come out with extra pro points at a Pro Tour.

The second draft was also a 1-2 deck: G/W Cards. My pods were difficult and my two wins were against people playing in their first Pro Tour. I lost four draft rounds to players I knew coming into the event.

It didn’t seem like there was a surprise breakout trick in this format and I had experience playing against all of the decks I faced in prior drafts. My main take-away from the Limited portion was that I overcame a large amount of losses to start the day and rallied to 4-1 finishes in Standard. It wasn’t easy because playing tight after getting bashed with mediocre decks is disheartening. Since the odds were against me to do well it motivated me even more. I had the chance to right the ship and I did.

I was one match away from winning a flight to Dublin which was closer than I expected throughout the tournament. I look forward to playing another Pro Tour because preparing for an unknown metagame against the best players in the world is why I still play this game.

Thanks for reading,

Kyle