Thursday, August 19^th

My flight is scheduled to arrive in Minneapolis around 4:30pm. I head to the airport and get there more than 2 hours before my departure time because I'm always paranoid about missing flights.

I end up sitting in the sports bar for an hour. It turns out to be a good thing that I'm so earlier, because it takes the entire hour for any waitstaff to notice me. The service and food are terrible, but I didn't expect much from an airport. Boarding for my flight is delayed, but eventually starts, and we're off. The flight is pleasantly uneventful and we arrive around 5pm local time.

After walking around the airport for a while, I find out that there's a long wait for the 16$ shuttle so I opt for a 40$ cab and I arrive at the Hyatt in no time. I try calling my friends who are playing in grinders but none of them are picking up, so I head over to the site.

At this point, I still haven't decided what deck to play at all. I'm flip-flopping between Pyromancer and UW Control by the hour. I don't want to play Pyromancer and just get hated out, but I don't really want to play UW Control because I feel like everyone will be gunning for that too. At the same time, I feel like the right choice is one or the other, but I don't have a great explanation for why I think that.

Anyway, once I'm at the site I talk to a bunch of people who are qualified, trying to get some inspiration. Gerry Thompson continues to suggest Pyromancer, Zvi+team seem to be playing Fauna Shaman Bant with Sovereigns, and BDM as well as a few others are talking about DredgeVine. There doesn't seem to be much of a consensus out there. I'm leaning towards UW Control because it's the deck that I feel most comfortable with, but I can't say I'm very confident in it's positioning in the metagame. I resolve at this point to decide on my deck by the time I get back to my hotel room.

In the meantime, I find Yoni as the 4^th round of his Grinder is starting. He's playing Fauna Shaman Naya and I've got a good feeling about his chances. He tends to do very well when he's playing a deck that attacks, and when I see him about to start his round it just feels like he's going to win.

I decide that I have enough time for a draft so I get in one with Zvi+team. We're playing individual with single elimination and I end up with a MonoRed deck, featuring double Lightning Bolt, double Fire Servant, and some Flings and Act of Treason's. This is a draft archetype that I've been trying to make work since the release of M11. The biggest advantage is definitely that most people at the table will stay out of Red, unfortunately that's because most of the Red cards in the set aren't very good. My deck ends up being about as good as a bad Blue deck, but probably a bit better than what I would have had if I had tried to fight my neighbors for non-Red cards. I win Round 1 when my Goblin Balloon Brigade deals 15 damage (helped along by Thunder Strike, Fling, and Fire Servant), and my Lightning Bolt for 6 finishes the job. Round 2 I get crushed by Craig Wescoe playing a GW deck. Safe Passage and pump spells end up wrecking me pretty well.

After my draft, I see that Yoni is in the Finals, but he and his opponent don't appear to be playing. I walk over to his table and Yoni tells me "the head judge is deciding whether I win now or later". First of all, what a baller. Second, here's what happened; Yoni attacked his opponent with a Sun Titan and his opponent said something between "no blocks" and "take 6". When Yoni informed his opponent that his Sun Titan was a 9/9 because of Exalted, his opponent wanted to run the take backs. After almost an hour of deliberation and appealing (by "opponent") the ruling goes in Yoni's favor and he wins the grinder.

Thoroughly exhausted, but very hungry, I decide to look for food with Yoni, Matt Costa, Jason Ford and a few others. We settle on a BBQ place, but I honestly can't remember anything beyond this point due to a splitting headache. I think I gave Jason a bit of Extended technology and I vaguely remember deciding to play UW Control with main deck Relic of Progenitus before passing out. I'm pretty sure I also talked Yoni out of playing Sarkhan Vol in his Naya deck, but that part may have been a dream.

Friday, August 20^th

Up fairly early and switching out all the win conditions in my UW deck for Relic of Progenitus (we'll get back to this later). I get to the site and confer with Nick Spagnolo about my UW changes. He mostly supports them and suggests a few other minor changes that I listen to such as -1 Deprive +1 Cancel (seemed fine) and running some Martial Coup's (really not fine, but my sample size might have been too small). In the end I register this:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Wall of Omens

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Jace Beleren

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

1 Gideon Jura

4 Mana Leak

2 Cancel

1 Deprive

2 Path to Exile

2 Condemn

2 Jace's Ingenuity

2 Day of Judgment

1 Martial Coup

2 Oblivion Ring

3 Relic of Progenitus

[/Spells]

[Lands]

5 Island

4 Plains

4 Sejiri Refuge

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Tectonic Edge

1 Scalding Tarn

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Celestial Purge

3 Flashfreeze

3 Negate

1 Gather Specimens

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Day of Judgment

1 Martial Coup

1 Spell Pierce

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

As you may notice, this deck does not have a lot of win conditions. Yeah, not at a lot at all. I'm chalking it up to lack of testing that I didn't realize how hard it would be for me to actually WIN THE GAME, when I registered this list.

Nothing too special about my sideboard. Celestial Purge maxed out for Jund, Pyromancer, and RDW. Flashfreeze for Jund, Ramp decks and Naya. Negate for Control. Some singletons to adjust my numbers with. I tend to really like sideboards with 3 cards played in high numbers and a few singletons to round it out. I find that having the ability to swap in slightly unusual cards can really throw people off.

Round 1 – Jund

I win Game 1 off Jace, the Mind Sculptor after answering all his threats.

I keep Island, Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge, Jace, Flashfreeze, Wall of Omens, Celestial Purge on the draw. He plays Duress taking my Flashfreeze, followed by Leech, Leech, and then Bloodbraid on turn 4 to my board of... Island, Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge. Now, it was a sketchy keep, but I can't think of many hands that could have beaten his draw.

Game 3 I answer all of his threats but I can't actually kill him, which gives him infinite time to just draw more threats. On the critical turn he chooses to attack me down to 2 as opposed to killing my Elspeth. I Martial Coup all his guys away and pass with lethal on the table only to die to a Blightning off the top.

0-1

Round 2 – Esper Control

Game 1 he leads off with Duress, Mana Leak's my first spell, Duress' again on turn 4, and then Mana Leak's my 2^nd spell. He resolves a Planeswalker and wins pretty easily after that.

Game 2 I keep a hand with multiple counters and multiple Planeswalkers. He Duress' me and takes a Planeswalker. We play draw-go for a while and eventually he decides to start running his spells into my counters. This allows me to resolve a Planeswalker, and then another, and then another, and he concedes.

Game 3 goes very long and turns into a real grind. I resolve a Planeswalker in the mid-game and play very tight to grind through about 5 of his man-lands. I have Planeswalker advantage and a hand full of counterspells but time is quickly running out. With just a minute left on the clock he Duress' me, seeing 6 counterspells and concedes. I probably couldn't have won the game with the time we had left, and I thank my opponent for being a nice guy.

1-1

Round 3 – Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp

Game 1 he's on the play and he resolves a Turn 4 Primeval Titan fetching 2 Tectonic Edge's. I'm locked out from this point and even though the game goes on for a bit since I remove his Titan, I'm never really in it.

Game 2 I aggressively counter his early acceleration and use my removal on his Chalice's and Battlements. I think I used Jace to fateseal him out of this game.

Game 3 I use my counters and removal fairly aggressively again. I manage to stall him just long enough so that on the critical turn I can counter his Primeval Titan and his Summoning Trap. Unfortunately my lack of ways to kill him allows this game to drag on for a very long time. I don't remember all the details, but I think he resolved Kozilek multiple times. He also resolved a Terrastodon, and in the end I kill him by using Elspeth to jump one of the Elephants he gave me.

2-1

I'm feeling pretty good at this point, having taken down two bad match-ups in a row. I'm definitely noticing my lack of win conditions as a problem, but it's too late to fix that now, so I resolve to just power through.

Round 4 – Jund

Game 1 I mulligan a couple times a lose to a fairly aggressive draw.

Game 2 I answer all his threats and then use the 1 Jace, TMS that I left in the deck to fateseal him out of the game.

Game 3 I mulligan into a slow hand but manage to stabilize. Unfortunately he answers the small amount of pressure that I have and he eventually draws into more gas. I have a would-be-game-ending Martial Coup for 3 turns in a row without a 7^th land and I end up casting it for chump blockers and losing a couple turns later after not drawing anything.

2-2 is disappointing, but I try to regroup and focus on draft.

I start the draft off well with a 1^st pick Sword of Vengeance, passing a pack with Fireball and Fire Servant. I follow that up with Condemn, Condemn, and a 4^th pick Cloud Elemental, followed by another decent blue card 5^th pick. The Fire Servant tables, which makes me briefly consider moving into Red, but I opt not to, hoping to put the person on my left solidly into Red by passing the Servant along. My deck ends up pretty solid with 2 Sleep, 1 Mind Control, 1 Crystal Ball, 1 Sword of Vengeance, and 2 Preordain to find them. I only have 10 creatures (not including Mind Control), but other than that I like the deck a lot. I win my first 2 rounds of draft mostly on the back of Sleep, before losing to a NYC local playing, Robert Shilander, and his Mono Green deck featuring a billion Garruk's Companion and something like quad Giant Growth.

After the draft is over I go to a good Thai restaurant with a ton of people, do a team draft with Tom Lapille and Gerry Thompson. I force Mono-Red again and don't do particularly well. My team loses. After that I head back to the hotel to get a decent amount of sleep.

Saturday, August 21^st

The 2^nd draft starts out decently with a first pick Garruk's Packleader out of a fairly weak pack. I pick up a few more green fatties and a late Aether Adept in pack 1. Pack 2 yields more good Green a couple more blue playables. I end up with 1 Cultivate and 1 Sylvan Ranger, so I'm on the lookout for something juicy to splash in pack 3. I open Sword of Vengeance and windmill it, taking more decent blue and green cards, and seriously considering taking a Royal Assassin to splash. In the end my deck ends up looking pretty good. Double Preordain, double Cultivate, double Elvish Archdruid, Ranger, Llanowar Elves, along with green fatties, 3 Mana Leak, Sword of Vengeance and Crystal Ball. I decide to run 15 lands, given my abundance of filtering and non-land mana. Obviously, I get severely flooded in my first two rounds and drop at 4-5.

I hang out around the site for a while, mostly testing Extended and watching feature matches. I run a team draft with Yoni, Matt Costa, and Matt Ferrando against the Long Island crew of Jim Davis, Max Tietze, Jay Imperiale, and Pete Ingram. We lose the tiebreaker match, which we only have to play because of some shady prison ruling on the other teams part. I leave the draft feeling pretty sour and end up in another draft with Gerry T and my hotelmates where I open yet another Sword of Vengeance and draft a ridiculously powerful White aggro deck, splashing for just a Mitotic Slime that I hate drafted.

My team wins the draft around midnight and talk of going to sleep begins... instead, we go back to the hotel and decide to draft again in the lobby. Matt Ferrando and Brian David-Marshall join us and the draft goes horribly wrong from the start. We're playing in a small space, so passing gets mixed up and I know something is wrong when I take my 3^rd pick and the person to my right only has 1 card in front of them. I end up with a 2 Reassembling Skeleton 2 Jinxed Idol deck which I 0-2 with before we lose the draft.

Before heading up to my room I watch the opposing team Italian Game the rares which includes 2 Primeval Titans. Two people end up unhappy and I fall asleep shortly after, around 4am.

Sunday, August 22^nd

I wake up to my alarm, which has apparently been going off for quite a while, as I have about 90 minutes to get on a plane leaving from an airport that is a 30 minute drive from my location. I dash around the room gathering up my belongings, immediately hop in a cab and somehow, miraculously, make it to the airport and through security with 15 minutes to spare.

The flight is much more eventful than my earlier one, and we fly through a thunderstorm at one point that freaked me out pretty badly. If you've seen the movie Almost Famous, it was a little worse than the scene in that where the plane is going crazy. Anyway, I end up on the ground despite being 100% sure I was going to die – mise!

Now

Yoni is staying with me for this week and we're testing a ton of Extended in preparation for Pro Tour: Amsterdam. I'm happy with the deck choices I have available right now, so overall I'm pretty confident for the event.

In terms of Standard, I don't think UW is a good choice right now. All of my games were just such grinds, and I felt like I had to both play tight and get lucky to win the 2 Constructed matches I did win.

DredgeVine and Soul Sister's are both good options for people looking for rogue decks. If you're playing on Magic Online I would suggest playing something other than UW that you think has a good Soul Sister's match-up, as that deck is quite cheap and seems to be everywhere right now. I'm probably not going to play any Standard until after the Pro Tour, so next week I think I'll switch gears and write about M11 draft.

-Benjamin Hayes