When preparing for an important tournament like a PTQ, there are a few things you should always do: Learn the format by reading articles and looking at decklists; find a deck that you know how to play, and playtest against the most popular archetypes; know ahead of time what cards to sideboard in or out for each matchup; for tournaments held shortly after a new set is released, think about how the format has changed; and last, make sure to get a good night’s sleep and a full breakfast before the tournament.

I literally did none of those things.

During the week leading up to the PTQ, I had an insane workload at school. I had three midterms in a twenty-four-hour period and two assignments due, and I had to summarize a sixty-page paper about the credit crisis of 2007.

This didn’t leave much time for Magic, so I had all of one day to find a deck, put the cards together, and play enough games to not look like a fool. I did manage to assemble a motley crew of goons at my house to playtest Friday night, including Canadian Nationals Top 4 competitor Kyle Duncan, my boy Vince, and my roommate Dane.

I looked at Magic Online lists before class on Friday and saw that Draccon136 was still tearing it up with his Scepter-Delver deck that I previously wrote about here.

I knew I wasn’t going to have time to figure out how to change the list, so I just ran his exact seventy-five:

"Draccon136’s Scepter-Delver"

• Creatures (14)
• 3 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Steppe Lynx
• 1 Geist of Saint Traft
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (25)
• 1 Spell Snare
• 2 Deprive
• 2 Magma Jet
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Lightning Helix
• 4 Path to Exile
• 2 Serum Visions
• 4 Isochron Scepter

• Lands (21)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Steam Vents
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Deprive
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 2 Geist of Saint Traft
• 3 Gifts Ungiven
• 3 Grim Lavamancer
• 1 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1 Thirst for Knowledge
• 1 Unburial Rites

Buy This Deck

I should have run some number of Grafdigger's Cages, but no one I knew had any, and I was too cheap to buy them from my local store.

The full extent of my testing amounted to playing a few games against Vince’s Affinity before a Draft broke out. We ended up watching Internet videos until around 3:00 A.M., so I only had about an hour of sleep.

A few hours later, I was shuffling up for Round 1.

Round 1 versus Mono-Red

Game 1, I started off by mulliganing into a one-land hand. My opponent turned out to be mono-red, and when I missed my second land drop, I knew I was in trouble. I had a couple Lightning Helixes so if I drew into a second land, I was probably going to be okay, but I took too much damage early and wasn’t able to stabilize.

For Game 2, I ’boarded into the Gifts/Sphinx package. I kept a decent hand with some lands, which is what I wanted, but I awkwardly drew the Sphinx, followed by a now-deadish Gifts Ungiven. My only chance was to pull a Vendilion Clique or Thirst for Knowledge to get the Sphinx out of my hand, but I didn’t have the time before I died to maneuver out of the ugly situation I found myself in.

Not a good start to be sure, but either I can lose next round and run the old drink-and-Draft, or I can start actually winning some matches.

Round 2 versus Derek Lansche (Mirror)

Before the round started, they announced that if your name was highlighted on the pairings sheet, you needed to go talk to a judge. My opponent had one of those names (how lucky!), so I only needed to win one game.

He had an early Isochron Scepter, whereas I was again stuck on two lands after a mulligan. A second Scepter was just too much for me to handle, so my back was to the wall early on.

In Game 2 (or is that Game 3?), it was my opponent’s turn to have land problems, as he drew far too many of them. I countered his turn-two Scepter, played a Steppe Lynx or something, and killed him with a million Lightning Bolts in response to an end-step Vendilion Clique.

Round 3 versus Mirror

I once again started things off with a mulligan. My opponent started with a Celestial Colonnade, and I put him on Caw-Blade. I opted to play a Delver of Secrets turn one instead of leaving mana up for Spell Pierce. My opponent untapped and played a Scepter with Magma Jet on it. Yeeeesh. I scryd into my one-of Geist of Saint Traft, so my new plan was to burn him out as quickly as possible. I drew enough Lightning Bolts and, combined with a couple attacks from my legend and some timely counterspells, I successfully burned him out.

Game 2, I had a Spell Snare for his turn-two Scepter, and when he was stuck on three lands, he couldn’t deal with all the threats I presented. I played a Scepter on turn four with Lightning Bolt on it, and a few pew-pews later, he was scooping up his cards.

Round 4 versus Splinter Twin (Maksym Gryn)

We have feature matches in our local PTQs, and for some reason, my match was selected. Maksym was one of the guys I roomed with in Nagoya, but our history goes back a little further than that. I had a feature match in an Extended PTQ for PT: San Juan against him. I was playing the Dark Depths combo deck against his Boros. I made a misplay against him that cost me the match, and you can read about it here.

I’ve since gotten to know Maksym, but since that first time I played him, I wanted revenge. We were in a very similar situation—we both had crazy school schedules that prevented us from doing any real testing. This time, the tables were turned; I was packing the Lightning Bolts while he was playing a dirty combo deck. Game 1, I mulliganed to six cards as per tradition and didn’t have much of anything going on. He spent his first few turns playing cantrips, and he had a Dispel for my attempt to fizzle his combo. The next couple of games went much better for me—I had a 1-drop followed by a ton of burn spells. I got a little lucky with my Delvers in the match, and he missed on drawing Splinter Twin the one turn he could have killed me.

Round 5 versus Jon Boutin (W/U Caw-Blade)

It was another round I had to play against a friend, but that’s inevitable for me at Toronto PTQs. Jon is one of my favorite people to hang out and go to Magic tournaments with, so if I was going to lose, I didn’t have any problems losing to him. I mulliganed to six cards Game 1 (that’s five rounds in a row, but who’s counting?), but I couldn’t get much of an offense going. My first couple of attempts at sticking (pun very much intended) an Isochron Scepter were Spell Snared, and I tried my best to race his squadron of Hawks with my Insectile Aberration and burn spells, but Jon was able to contain my aggression with a Path to Exile and a counter for my Lightning Helix. I went out of my way to avoid using any burn spells on his creatures, both so that I could go to the dome and to prevent him from making any tokens with his Moorland Haunt.

Game 1 took about thirty minutes, so I sideboarded into the most aggressive deck possible. I also brought in the Gifts package with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Although he had many answers for my Praetor, using it as a one-sided Wrath of God/Tempered Steel was going to be very strong—even if it died right away. I had a fast start in Game 2, with a turn-one Delver of Secrets, turn-two Grim Lavamancer, and a Serum Visions to ensure that Jeff Goldblum would get his wings. I killed Jon in about ten minutes without showing him any part of the Gifts package.

For Game 3, I again started with a turn-one Delver of Secrets. Jon was afraid of being run over again, and he played a Path to Exile immediately in case I had a Spell Pierce during my upkeep. Little did he know that I ’boarded out all of my counters and I was going to be able to play a turn-two Geist of Saint Traft. Since I had very little time left, I didn’t have time to durdle around and play around Mana Leak, so I ran out the Geist right away. Jon played a Snapcaster Mage at the end of my turn, presumably to make sure it resolved. My opponent played a land and passed the turn back with no other plays. I could have burned the Snapcaster away in order to attack, but I’d rather send any and all burn to the dome. There’s also the Grim Lavamancers that do a pretty good job of clearing away blockers without costing me a card. Also, I had a Gifts Ungiven I wanted to resolve, so I passed the turn back. Jon played a Vendilion Clique on my end step, to which I responded by playing Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn. After taking 5, I flashed back my reanimation spell and attacked twice for 20 with Geist of Saint Traft.

Round 6 versus Affinity

Ah, the only matchup I actually playtested! I knew what my opponent was playing since his loss was to my boy Vince. The matchup comes down to Isochron Scepter, so I kept a hand with one stick and a bunch of removal spells. There was enough pressure on me that I couldn’t just run out the Scepter on turn two, and I spent my first couple turns dealing with his threats. Eventually, I did have a Scepter with a Magma Jet on it and cleaned up what was left.

Game 2 went more or less the same. My turn-one Grim Lavamancer ate a Galvanic Blast, but a couple of turns with Lightning Bolt on Isochron Scepter prompted the concession.

Since I lost Round 1, I assumed that I wouldn’t be able to draw into Top 8, but Jon Boutin and my Round 3 opponent did me a solid by staying in the tournament and winning the rest of their matches. As a result, my tie-breakers shot up, and I was in fourth place heading into the last round of Swiss. I examined the standings and determined I was a lock with a draw barring some kind of extreme shenanigans.

My last round opponent was Matt Mealing, whom we affectionately call The Champ since he won . . . well . . . Champs a few years ago. His tie-breakers were much worse than mine, but he felt that he had a bad matchup against me. He thought he was better off taking the gamble and risk drawing himself into ninth rather than play me for the spot, so he took me up on my offer to draw.

When the dust settled, I ended up in sixth place, and Matt squeaked in at eighth. After turning my deck over to the judges, I talked to some people to learn as much information about my quarterfinals opponent as possible. He had a very aggressive W/B tokens homebrew, but he had a really hard time dealing with a resolved Isochron Scepter—all he had was Oblivion Ring in the sideboard.

It turned out that my scouting was unnecessary because we got to look at each other’s decklists. I wasn’t expecting that, as that had never happened in any of my previous PTQ Top 8s. I might not have won my PTQ for Nagoya if decklists were shared—my opponent would have known to play around my maindeck Firespouts. I lost a lot of my surprise value, and I gained almost nothing from looking at my opponent’s list since I already knew his relevant cards.

Quarterfinals

My deck picked this particular moment to give me the worst draws of the day. I looked at my opening seven cards and saw Isochron Scepter, two Lightning Helixes, and a Delver, but only one land, and no Serum Visions.

As an aside, when I playtest, I try to find out how sketchy of a hand I can keep. During the course of . . . well . . . Friday, I determined that I couldn’t keep a one-land hand unless one of the cards was Serum Visions. This deck simply runs too few lands, and every time I tried to keep a one-lander, I was punished.

I thought about keeping that hand for a long time. I was on the play, so I had something like a 65% chance of missing my second land drop. Missing again was about a one in four chance, and it would probably lose me the game instantly. I was very tempted to keep, but I just kept thinking back to all the times I couldn’t draw land with this deck, so I sent it back.

My next hand was also a one-lander. The land was Boros Garrison, so I went to five cards and kept three lands, Spell Snare, and Geist of Saint Traft. I led with a tapped Hallowed Fountain, and my opponent didn’t have a turn-one play. I Snared his Gather the Townsfolk and slammed down Geist on turn three. He had a Lingering Souls, but I fearlessly ran my Legend right into it. He correctly surmised that I must have a removal spell and took the full 6. He tried for a Tidehollow Sculler, and I showed him two Path to Exiles and a Lightning Bolt. Regardless of what he took, I was going to Path the Sculler and get it back. He made enough tokens that I could no longer attack with the Geist, but I drew into a Vendilion Clique to keep up the pressure. He had a Zealous Persecution to put a stop to that, though. I fought the good fight for as long as I could, but his token army kept growing, and an Honor of the Pure was enough to finish me off.

In Game 2, I was again forced to mulligan—this time to six cards. It wasn’t a spectacular hand, in that it had an Isochron Scepter with nothing to put on it, but it was better than going to five again. My first draw of the game was Elesh Norn.

Not like this!

I even ’boarded out my Cliques to avoid being blown out by Zealous Persecution. I desperately looked for something good to put on my Scepter, since that was going to be the only way I was going to win this game. I played a Serum Visions, drawing into a second Scepter, scrying away the other two Scepters.

My opponent, meanwhile, had Champion of the Parish turns one and two and an ever-growing army of Spirit tokens. Insectile Aberration managed to hold things off for a little while, and I eventually put a Path to Exile on one of my Scepters, but pretty soon, he drew an Honor of the Pure to attack for roughly one million points of damage.

I can handle losing, but it’s very frustrating to lose like that. I wished my opponent luck and was uncharacteristically grumpy for the rest of the evening. He ended up losing to Matt Mealing in the finals, so I guess there’s some justice after all.

I’m not sure how viable Draccon’s deck will remain once the format gets fully discovered, but my impressions after playing the PTQ is that it needs to either play more lands, more cantrips, or both. Also, I lost more matches because of the Gifts package than I won . . . but insufficient sample size and all that. Now that everyone knows about it, a more straightforward sideboard might be more effective.

Hope you guys enjoyed the report, and until next time, may you always draw enough burn spells to kill your opponents.

Nassim Ketita