Hey there! A few weeks ago, I finished fifty-third at Grand Prix Prague, and this week, I will be bringing you some stories from the tournament. While the finish was in no way spectacular, it was quite important for me since I have done quite poorly at Limited Grand Prix events. After returning from Prague, I calculated that I’ve made Day 2 at 71% of the Constructed Grand Prix tournaments I’ve played in, but only at 18% of the Limited Grand Prix tournaments I’ve played in.

About Grand Prix Formats

Brian Kibler recently wrote an article about not planning to go to any Limited Grand Prix tournaments in the foreseeable future, and I can say that I agree with many of the points he makes. I can imagine many professional players having the same thoughts, if maybe not for the same reasons. The fact that only your five best Grand Prix performances are counted toward the seasonal Pro Point total means that there are fewer incentives than before to go to all the Grand Prix events. For me, this is not a very significant problem since we have so many fewer Grand Prix tournaments in Europe that I will not get “too many” of them during the season. I do, however, take the format into consideration when planning my trips. If Grand Prix Valencia were Legacy, for example, I would be much more likely to go, but as actually making it there is a bit difficult, I am most likely skipping the event, as it is Limited.

Prague

I was not overly impressed with the pool I opened, as there were not very many bombs present. I had zero actual removal spells, but I did have a Cancel and some tempo spells, such as Disperse. The only really good rare I had was Liliana's Reaver, and other good cards included Sengir Vampire, Fireshrieker, and Air Servant. Other than that, my deck was mainly a collection of random blue and black spells. I had two byes, so I needed to win five of my seven matches to advance to Day 2, and I thought my chances were fifty-fifty at best. I had a lot of very close matches during Day 1 and won most of them 2–1, only losing one match to the U/B mirror, wherein my opponent’s deck was strictly better than mine. This put me 8–1 going into the second day, which was much better than I had hoped for with this Sealed pool, so I was very happy with the result.

Day 2

The first Draft started well, with my first four picks (in order) being Rumbling Baloth, Kalonian Tusker, Deadly Recluse, and Rootwalla. Then green dried up, and I picked up about five decent red cards to round out the pack. I thought I had cut green quite effectively since the only good card I had passed was a Rumbling Baloth when I took the Kalonian Tusker. Therefore, I was surprised to not see many green cards in the second or third booster. My deck ended up being a decidedly average red and green aggressive deck with no rares and just a few removal spell.

I lost the first match against another R/G deck. I won the first but then was mana-screwed in the second and never really had a chance. The third game was very interesting since I had a bit of a head start, but I knew he had a lot of spells in hand, and I never really was able to attack for any significant amount of damage. The most crucial play was when I played a Gladecover Scout since I thought I needed an additional blocker. This came back to haunt me two turns later when I was able to loot with Academy Raider. At this point, I had Act of Treason in hand and had drawn Woodborn Behemoth that turn. I had seven lands in play, so I desperately wanted to find the eight, making me discard Act of Treason. My opponent then proceeded to play Trollhide on his 7/5 Groundshaker Sliver, which meant I could not attack. Had I kept the Act of Treason, I would most likely have been able to win that game, if not directly that turn, in a few turns’ time. Playing the Gladecover Scout really backfired, but I’m not totally unhappy about the decision. One of the few scenarios in which it was correct not to play it is if I draw the Woodborn Behemoth, so it was not a total punt.

In the second Draft, the actual draft process was not as clear as in the first one. I started off with some good white cards and then picked up a blue card and a black card. I had passed a lot of green, including a fifth-pick Manaweft Sliver when I took an Accursed Spirit over it. I was then passed yet another decent green card as a sixth pick, in the form of Predatory Sliver. At this point, I decided I needed to switch into green, as it seemed to be so open. In the end, this was a decent strategy, but it would have been much better had I picked up green cards earlier. This deck was much better than the first one, with two Serra Angels and Enlarge being the best cards. I won the first two matches quite quickly, mainly thanks to the combination of Bonescythe Sliver and Enlarge. In the finals of the Draft pod, I faced Florian Koch. The winner would maybe make Top 16, but at least Top 32, while the loser would almost certainly be in the Top 64. We split the first two games, and his deck seemed really good with a lot of removal, including two Shocks, Chandra's Outrage, and Flames of the Firebrand. Game 2, which I lost, had been very tight, and I had been close to winning, but in the third game, I mulliganed, and I was just demolished due to his good curve.

At first, I thought M14 was quite a nice Limited format, but after having played it some more, I’m not quite sure about that. Other than an upcoming Pro Tour Qualifier this weekend, I don’t think I will be playing much of the format, as Theros is fast approaching. Flavorwise, Theros seems to be a really awesome set, and as for Standard, it seems that things are really slowing down. It will be interesting to see which cards that still remain to be spoiled will be major players in the new format.

Signing Off

These were my thoughts on Grand Prix Prague and Limited in general. I will be writing biweekly during the fall, so I will be back in a few weeks’ time, perhaps with some thoughts on Theros. As always, if you have any ideas, comments, suggestions, or questions, please contact me either directly via Twitter or through the comments section below.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

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