Last weekend, I went to Grand Prix Austin with some friends. This GP was the first of the many GPs I will be attending this season. I had three byes at this event from Planeswalker Points, so I had high hopes for a strong finish. I am pretty experienced with Innistrad Limited, and I think the format is both skill-intensive and fun.

I got to Austin and registered for the event on Friday. I was looking forward to the Sleep in Special, with which you can pay extra money and not have to show up to the event until 12:00 P.M. on Saturday. The only problem was that they were charging $20 for it, which is, in my opinion, way too much. Everyone in my hotel room had three byes, and we all felt the same way. We would have paid up to $10 for it, but I can’t really justify paying $60 to enter a Grand Prix ($40 for the tournament, $20 for the Sleep in Special). I think that if Legion Events charged only $10, a lot more people would have done it.

So, I arrived at the event bright and early at 9:00 A.M., and to my surprise, we were seated for the player meeting at 9:20 A.M. I’ve been to a lot of GPs in my life, and usually when they push for a 9:00 A.M. start time, the player meeting won’t start until at least 9:45 A.M. In San Diego, they didn’t even start until 10:30 A.M.! Props to Legion Events for running a very well organized tournament.

I registered a pretty solid pool, and in return, I was passed one of the worst pools I’ve ever seen. I was very frustrated after taking a look at the list I would be building with. It had so many bad commons and no real bombs. Here’s the pool:

My first thought was that I wanted to play Blue. It has some pretty solid creatures and two Grasp of Phantoms—one of my favorite cards in the format. I tried some different builds with the Blue, such as W/U and U/B, but the decks just looked awful. The mana curve was terrible, and it had way too many 4-drops. It may not look that way, but the two Stitched Drakes are technically 4-drops as well. There is no way in this deck to cast them on turn three unless one of your early creatures dies. The Blue was just so clunky and slow that there was no way I could play it.

I hate playing Green in Innistrad Sealed. The creatures are slow and just not that powerful. This pool did have an Elder of Laurels, which is a bomb as long as you have plenty of creatures and mana. I tried the Green, and the mana curve of the deck looked a lot better. I paired it with White because it offered the best creatures and removal. I had to splash a color because I just didn’t have enough playables. The Red splash gave me two good removal spells—Brimstone Volley and Harvest Pyre—but I decided to go with the Black splash because of Sever the Bloodline, Unburial Rites, and the Flashback of Spider Spawning.

Here’s the deck I registered:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Abbey Griffin

1 Ambush Viper

1 Avacynian Priest

1 Avacyn's Pilgrim

1 Darkthicket Wolf

1 Elder Cathar

1 Elder of Laurels

1 Festerhide Boar

1 Grizzled Outcasts

1 Hollowhenge Scavenger

1 Slayer of the Wicked

1 Spectral Rider

1 Thraben Sentry

1 Villagers of Estwald

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Moment of Heroism

1 Ranger's Guile

1 Rebuke

1 Make a Wish

1 Mulch

1 Prey Upon

1 Sever the Bloodline

1 Spider Spawning

1 Unburial Rites

[/Spells]

[Lands]

2 Swamp

7 Plains

8 Forest

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

1 Naturalize

1 Urgent Exorcism

1 Woodland Sleuth

1 Unruly Mob

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I like to sideboard in Woodland Sleuth against decks that are high on instant-speed removal so Morbid will trigger more frequently. I also sided out Abbey Griffin for the Sleuth a lot when I was playing against a deck that had a Geistcatcher's Rig. The Abbey Griffin was my only flyer, so why would I give my opponent a chance to two-for-one me?

I also swapped out Spectral Rider for Unruly Mob against White decks, since the Spectral Rider didn't have functional evasion against White.

I sided out the Mulch and Spider Spawning against mostly Green or White decks—they have hardly any removal, and there usually weren’t a lot of creatures in my graveyard against those decks.

The only mistake I think I made in deck-building is playing the Spectral Rider. Since White is the most popular color in Innistrad Sealed, the Rider was pretty underwhelming. I would have played Unruly Mob in that slot, but even that card isn’t that great.

I was pretty unhappy with my deck overall, but it had a very solid mana curve, so I was able to curve out a lot and overwhelm my opponents. Luckily, I didn’t play against too many opponents with insane bombs, so I was able to win most of my matches and finish Day 1 with a record of 8–0–1.

I’m not going to go into a match-by-match analysis here because it will take way too long, but I will tell you about some of the interesting things that happened on Day 1.

I had byes during the first three rounds and easily won Rounds 4 and 5. In Round 6, my opponent was very friendly and asked me things like where I was from, how long I’ve been playing Magic, and so on. He had a ridiculous W/B deck with multiple rare bombs, tons of removal, and amazing creatures like Fiend Hunter and Mentor of the Meek.

Game 1 took a really long time; I drew a lot of lands early and did not put any pressure on him until late in the game. He stabilized with a Reaper from the Abyss and took the game down. He continued to be very talkative during sideboarding and shuffling up for Game 2. I won Game 2, and we had about eighteen minutes for the third game.

Game 3 again took a while and was incredibly close. I came out fast, but he stabilized with removal and Reaper from the Abyss. I cast Spider Spawning for a ton of Spiders, but it still wasn’t enough to deal the final points of damage. We ended up going to time and drawing the match. Even though his deck was a lot better than mine, I probably could have won that game given I had more time. If I could go back, I would have not been so talkative with my opponent. The five or so minutes that we lost by being friendly was the time I needed to close out the game.

In Round 8, I played against a player with a pretty good U/B deck. He had a lot of removal, card advantage, and creatures that were hard for me to deal with. It was a horrible matchup for me. In Game 1, he played Forbidden Alchemy on turn three and put a Skaab Ruinator, a land, and another creature in his graveyard. He spent the rest of the game trying to mill himself and trade creatures as much as possible in order to cast his Skaab Ruinator from his graveyard. He played it once, but I had Rebuke, and he still continued to aggressively mill himself with his Selhoff Occultist. He ended up decking himself because he ran out of ways to win. If he just started milling me, he might have been able to win—the board was in such a stalemate, and most of my good creatures were already dead. I had no way to win that game if he didn’t mill himself to death.

In Game 2, he chose to draw, and luckily, I had a very aggressive start and played a threat on turns one through five. He had a hard time keeping up, and I won easily. I felt lucky to pull this win out because his deck was so much better than mine.

I was extremely happy finishing 8–0–1 with such a mediocre deck. I got sushi for dinner and went back to my hotel room to get some sleep.

I woke up early for Day 2, ate breakfast, and headed over to the site. The judges were setting up for the Draft, and I noticed that they were using regular booster packs instead of stamped product. For those of you who don’t know, for Pro Tours and Day 2s of Grand Prix events, the judges open all of the packs and replace any foil card with a random common. They do that because most of the time the foil cards are marked, and they want to prevent anyone who will use that to his or her advantage. They also put a stamp on each card in the pack—that way, players won’t add cards to their decks.

It turned out that the stamped product was stuck in Seattle and never made it to Austin. So, we had to use regular sealed boosters. To prevent cheating, judges walked around and recorded every first pick that every player made. They also took a picture of each player’s card pool. It was pretty funny to see all of the judges with cameras taking pictures of everything.

I was in Pod 1, and the players of note in my pod were David Ochoa, Josh Utter-Leyton, and Pat Cox. I first-picked a Chapel Geist over the safer pick, Geistcatcher's Rig. I really like White in Draft, and I wasn’t necessarily going to force it, but I felt that the Chapel Geist was better, and if I didn’t see any other White cards, I was fine with abandoning my first pick. I second-picked Travel Preparations, then was fed a really good G/W aggro deck. In pack three, I was even passed a Geist-Honored Monk and a second Travel Preparations. I was very happy with my deck and felt that I could easily go 2–1 with it. Here’s the deck:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Abbey Griffin

1 Ambush Viper

1 Avacyn's Pilgrim

1 Chapel Geist

1 Cloistered Youth

1 Doomed Traveler

1 Festerhide Boar

1 Geist-Honored Monk

1 Orchard Spirit

1 Spectral Rider

1 Splinterfright

2 Village Bell-Ringer

3 Darkthicket Wolf

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Ranger's Guile

2 Feeling of Dread

2 Travel Preparations

2 Silver-Inlaid Dagger

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Island

7 Forest

8 Plains

1 Hinterland Harbor

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

I played against Pat Cox in Round 10. He had practically the same deck as I had, but better. He had better creatures, and he had removal, which was something my deck lacked. We had three close games, but he ended up pulling it out with a transformed Ulvenwald Mystics.

Round 11 was a feature match on camera against Josh Utter-Leyton. I got very mana flooded Game 1. Game 2, I played and flashed back a Travel Preparations on turn four, and Josh couldn’t keep up. I had a great opener for Game 3, but Josh was on the play and played a turn-one and turn-two Diregraf Ghoul. I traded with one of the Ghouls, but he brought it back with a Ghoulraiser on turn three. Then on turn four, he played Falkenrath Noble, and things were looking pretty bad for me. If I drew my fifth land, I could maybe stabilize with a Geist-Honored Monk, but I never drew the land. I lost shortly afterward.

I played a really nice guy from the Czech Republic in Round 12 (not Martin Juza). I drew really well and won the match in about ten minutes. I felt really bad about going 1–2 with a deck I thought was amazing.

I had about forty minutes before the second Draft started, so I went for a walk to Starbucks to clear my head and get focused on the next Draft. If I won the last three rounds, I had a good shot at making Top 8. I was in Pod 5 and drafted with Sam Black, Tom Martell, and Josh Utter-Leyton. I drafted an okay B/R deck with solid creatures and a lot of removal. I felt that the deck was capable of winning two matches easily, but it didn’t feel like a 3–0 deck.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Ashmouth Hound

1 Bloodcrazed Neonate

1 Brain Weevil

1 Crossway Vampire

1 Diregraf Ghoul

1 Disciple of Griselbrand

1 Falkenrath Noble

1 Hanweir Watchkeep

1 Kessig Wolf

1 Rage Thrower

1 Village Ironsmith

2 Ghoulraiser

2 Pitchburn Devils

1 Manor Gargoyle

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Harvest Pyre

1 Victim of Night

1 Nightbird's Clutches

2 Dead Weight

1 Blazing Torch

[/Spells]

[Lands]

8 Mountain

9 Plains

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

In Round 13, I played against the guy who opened a Bloodline Keeper, arguably the best card in the format. I had very few ways to deal with that card, so I was a bit frustrated to get paired against him first. In Game 1, he, of course, played the Bloodline Keeper on turn four, made a ton of Vampires, and crushed me. I felt that the tournament was slipping away from me. Game 2, my opponent kept a pretty bad hand. He kept a Blazing Torch, a Morkrut Banshee, a Corpse Lunge, and land. He didn’t play a creature until the Banshee on turn five, and I easily overwhelmed him. He was never even able to cast the Corpse Lunge. If my opponent just mulliganed, it could have been a totally different game. Game 3 was almost the same. He kept a very land-heavy hand with spells he couldn’t cast. My opponent’s deck was clearly better than mine, but I won because of poor mulligan decisions on his part.

My Round 14 opponent had a pretty slow deck, and I got him down to 3 life before he was able to stabilize and take over the game. Things were looking pretty bad for me, but I could win the game if my opponent didn’t attack with all of his creatures. If he attacked with everything, I was forced to chump-block, and I wouldn’t be able to swing back for the win on the next turn. Luckily, my opponent was playing very conservatively and attacked with only one creature. I took it and went to 2 life. He then tapped out to play a big guy and passed the turn. I was holding a Nightbird's Clutches, so I was able to cast it and flash it back on all of his untapped guys and swing for exactly 3 to kill him. I definitely should have lost this game; there was no reason for my opponent to hold back, especially because I was forced to chump-block just to stay alive. Game 2 went very much like Game 1, and I took down the match pretty easily.

After looking at the standings after Round 14, I realized that if I won and Craig Edwards lost, I would make Top 8. Unfortunately, Craig got paired up, and his opponent scooped him into Top 8. So, now I had no shot at all. If I won, I’d only come in ninth place.

I played against Josh Utter-Leyton again in Round 15. He drafted the G/U self-mill deck with a lot of good creatures, including a Mindshrieker. He even gained 12 life with Gnaw to the Bone after I thought I was going to win. I didn’t even have a shot to win that match.

I finished the tournament in twenty-first place, good for $500 and 2 Pro Points. Overall, I had a great time in Austin. Steve and Lindsey Port of Legion Events ran a great tournament. My friend Dan Hartman even made his first Grand Prix Day 2! Congrats, Dan!

Austin is an amazing city. The nightlife on 6th Street was great, the weather was warm, and the restaurants were amazing. After the tournament, I went to a bar called Kung Fu Saloon that had a bunch of video game like Pac-Man and Street Fighter 2. They also had a giant Jenga game. We ended up putting two of the Jengas together to make a super-giant Jenga game! Here’s what it looked like in the midgame.

This weekend, I’ll be in Orlando for the next Grand Prix. The format is Standard, which is something I haven’t played in a while. I’m going to have to get started in figuring out what to play for that. I hope you enjoyed the report, and I’ll see you next week!