Hey there! Last weekend, I had the pleasure of traveling to a Scandinavian Grand Prix, which is very nice for me since I am able to minimize the traveling time. The flight was only a bit over an hour, and I even returned home late on Sunday evening, ready for the new week. While the trip was nice, the actual tournament did not go particularly well, which was unfortunate. However, this meant I had more time to do other stuff, such as play other forms of Magic! During the weekend, I did three Modern Masters Drafts, and this week, I will be talking about the things I learned while drafting as well as some general stories from the Grand Prix.

Grand Prix: Gothenburg

I arrived in Gothenburg with some other Finns around noon, which left us plenty of time to play trials. As I am Silver Level this year, I have two byes for each Grand Prix, and while this is nice and all, I still wanted to have that third bye. Gothenburg is among the last events to award Grand Prix Trial winners with three byes, so I signed up for a Constructed trial. I chose Constructed because the events take less time due to a lack of deck-building; plus, they are cheaper. I played a version of R/W/U control that recently won a Magic Online Premier Event. I had expected to not face very tough competition, but for Round 1, I sat down opposite Kenny Oeberg—so not quite what I had expected. I eventually lost in the semifinals of the event to mono-red even though I feel that is a good matchup. By the time the event finished, it was already becoming a bit late, so I didn’t bother signing up for another trial. The deck I played felt decent, and I might consider playing it in future events. For those of you interested in a list, here you go.

"R/W/U Control"

• Creatures (6)
• 2 Aetherling
• 2 Augur of Bolas
• 2 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Jace, Memory Adept
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (27)
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 2 Searing Spear
• 2 Syncopate
• 2 Turn // Burn
• 2 Warleader's Helix
• 3 Dissipate
• 3 Sphinx's Revelation
• 3 Think Twice
• 4 Azorius Charm
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 3 Pillar of Flame

• Lands (25)
• 2 Island
• 1 Desolate Lighthouse
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Clifftop Retreat
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Izzet Staticaster
• 2 Negate
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 2 Detention Sphere
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 1 Counterflux
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Jace, Memory Adept
• 1 Pillar of Flame

Buy This Deck

I had not played with Warleader's Helix in Standard before, but it was super-impressive, and I might go up to three in the main—or at least play one in the sideboard. Especially against aggressive decks, the ability to gain a bunch of life while killing a creature is crucial. Sphinx's Revelation also gains you some life, but sometimes, you can’t afford the tempo loss it brings.

I had a bunch of good uncommons, though, with cards such as Boros Guildmage, Gruul War Chant, and Bloodfray Giant. The biggest problem was that my deck wanted to be aggressive, but the curve did not quite support it. Also, because I wanted to be aggressive, I did not have time to draw the right colors of mana, as I ideally wanted them during the first four turns of the game. I felt that the deck I built was the optimal build based on my pool, and if I only would have had a few more playable red and green cards so that I wouldn’t have had to splash so many white cards, the situation would have been a whole lot better.

I had a lot of fun and was able to catch up with some of the Swedish players I’ve come to know during the last year or so, and there were also quite a few Finnish players in Gothenburg, so finding people to draft with was not all that hard. On Sunday, we even stumbled on an insanely good brunch in the Italian restaurant located in the hotel adjacent to the Grand Prix site. At first, I was suspicious, as brunch in Helsinki mostly means more breakfasty stuff, and we wanted lunch, but it turned out brunch in this case meant a full Italian style lunch buffet with the works. There was even a generous dessert buffet to go along with the other food!

Drafting MM

Whenever I see the acronym MM online, I immediately start thinking about Mercadian Masques (MM) and the very underwhelming Limited format associated with it. But let me tell you, Modern Masters (MMA) is miles ahead of Mercadian Masques as a Draft format! So far, the few Drafts I have done have been really interesting, with loads of different archetypes. One of the Drafts I did was a Two-Headed Giant Winston Draft, so that doesn’t really count, but from the two Team Drafts, here are the twelve decks that were drafted.

• 3 G/U Ramp
• 2 B/R Goblins
• 2 U/R Affinity
• 1 B/R Aggro
• 1 W/U Tempo
• 1 R/W Rebels
• 1 U/R Suspend
• 1 G/W Saprolings

So far, I’ve seen no Dampen Thought decks, but I intend to see if you can draft one of those as soon as the set is available on Magic Online. As for decks that were under-drafted in our Drafts, I think both Rebels and Giants deserve more credit. If you open a Thundercloud Shaman, you might be wise in moving in to the biggest of tribes. There are a lot of nongreen decks that just can’t beat a Thundercloud Shaman with one or two other Giants in play. And even among the green decks, the Saproling decks are not pleased to see Mr. Thundercloud on the other side of the table.

Overall, drafting the set really feels like something between normal drafting and Cube drafting, in that the decks are very powerful but there are no super-sick cards such as Tinker or Channel. In the B/R Goblins deck I drafted and went 3–0 with, I even had to leave some removal in the sideboard—something that never happens in normal Limited.

There are a lot of decks that rely on synergies, such as Affinity, Rebels, suspend, and Goblins, but there are also a lot of decks playing just normal Magic. The G/U ramp deck I drafted featured a bunch of powerful 4-drops such as three Imperiosaurs and two Penumbra Spiders, and it was just looking to slam powerful creatures as soon as possible. A deck like that will always be solid but never insane. On the other hand, a Goblins deck can end up very lackluster if you don’t pick up the key cards, but if you do, you will have an extremely powerful deck. Speaking of Goblins, Mad Auntie is super-good with all the cards that make Goblin tokens, and it’s something you should be looking to pick up early. I also liked that they have made cards like this uncommon so that you have a better chance of seeing them. As I said last week, it’s nice to have several tribes within the same color, as it means people drafting the same colors near each other are not necessarily screwed since they might want different cards.

Signing Off

I recommend giving Modern Masters Draft a try either on Magic Online or with your friends if your local store still has some product left. It will be interesting to see which archetypes will be successful at Grand Prix: Las Vegas in just a bit over a week. Sealed play with Modern Masters is surely also going to be very interesting, although the various synergy and gimmick decks will be much worse. Unfortunately, the only opportunity for Modern Masters Sealed on Magic Online is the one Pro Tour Qualifier and the Magic Online Championship Series Season Championship.

As always, if you have any suggestions, questions, ideas, or comments, be sure to let me know. The best way to contact me directly is via Twitter or, otherwise, the comments section below.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

You can find my music on: http://soundcloud.com/bloomlive