Mana Tutors – Page 3

Cube Crafting

A Cube-Builder’s Work is Never Done: A history of one cube and considerations for making your own.

Welcome friends, young and old! Please gather round. I wanted to tell you about the first cube.

“The first Cube ever?”

Well, no. Not exactly. But a very early cube. One that grew on it’s own, before MTGO was making and sharing such a variety of fantastic cubes with all of us. It’s interesting to me to look back and see how a cube grows organically – like watching microbes evolve over generations into a complex organism.

Put on your lab coat, get your sample jars, and let’s examine this organism’s history.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the expression, a “cube” is a general term for a curated card pool used for playing Magic drafts or other limited formats. You see, people have been playing Magic in creative ways since, well, since there were Magic players. Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s magic players began collecting their favorite cards together to create a fun or interesting pool of cards to use in booster drafts. That way they could draft over and over without opening (and purchasing) new packs each time.

Long ago a younger wizard who looked a lot like me but with less grey hair, began lamenting that out of the thousands of spells he knew, he was only casting a small number of them. And he lamented that if friends came over to play Magic, not everyone had decks and, even if they did, there was such a wide disparity of power in everyone’s personal card pools that it led to some very lopsided and un-fun games.

Hmmm… what to do? What to do?

Related image — Sorting cards. Peaceful therapy for Magic players.

One peaceful afternoon I began sorting my collection which spanned Legends, The Dark, and Ice Age through Apocalypse (‘94-’01). As I sorted I collected one single copy of each card that I owned. This included top notch cards like Birds of Paradise, Tundra, Sol Ring, and Pernicious Deed along with everything else.. And I mean EVERYTHING else…

Hipparion, Enraging Licid, Giant Albatross, Glyph of Doom, Arcum’s Whistle (!?) and on and on…

These all went into a shoe box. A Mephisto shoe box. And we would draft and make sealed decks from this card pool.

Whenever we drafted from this random interesting pile of cards we called it a Mephisto draft and the name stuck. As the years went by I’d do the annual Mephisto Box update where I’d look at all the cards from the last year’s sets and take one of each to add to Mephisto’s open arms. As you might expect, the Mephisto box soon became a +5,000 card monstrosity but we still played it often and with joy because it offered a unique challenge each time we drafted and we discovered it was fun to remember old cards that we had not seen in years.

We had plenty of matches where an Obsianus Golem with Dragon Wings was really a solid game plan because of how low power the pool of commons and uncommons was back in the day. There were often drafts where you’d see only 3 creatures in a pack of 15 cards!

Lo and behold, the smarter minds of better magic players had also been doing things like this and had made the obvious and sensible leap to include only a certain select group of cards in this ‘draft box’ and they called their format Cube. (I still think Mephisto Draft has a nice ring to it.) Many great insights into various Cube formats have been written by folks and I recommend you go read some of them. (Two I recommend are here and here.)

As fans of this format have said before, building a cube is a labor of love. You, the creator, are trying to collate a collection of cards that will deliver on a goal for your players – maybe you love long drawn out games that go 15+ turns, maybe you love surprising and random dice rolling cards, maybe you love only playing green spells – whatever your desired experience happens to be, you can craft a cube to meet that end result.

I currently have 3 cubes , and you can see from these three what kinds of games I’m trying to create for my players:

THE Cube – This is what I think of as our default cube. It has one of each of my favorite cards from Beta to the newest set. It is a singleton 600-700 card monstrosity. This cube gets the most play and is updated about 3 times per year. It is the default way to play Magic at our house.
The Multiplayer Cube – this cube is focused on multiplayer interaction. It has a ton of cards from the Conspiracy sets (and includes conspiracy cards too) as well as many cards that I think make for fun and interesting multiplayer games. It has singleton rares & mythics, but has multiples of select commons and uncommons that I felt made for interesting draft choices.
Zelnoc’s Unhinged Cube – This cube is basically a pared-down pile of Unstable commons and uncommons based on how awesome I think it is to graft a Shark-Zombie or a Ninja-Kitten! Because the themes of this set tend to play well together the only non-silverboardered things I’ve added are 1x of each bounceland for some color fixing. Though I think there is room to take the augment mechanic and pair it with other themes so this cube may be ripe for modification.

Considerations when Cube Crafting

Image result for hammer and measuring tape

Firstly, as mentioned above, consider your goals. The gameplay you are hoping to achieve, the feeling the players will get when drafting and playing these cards should be your guiding light. Once you’ve gotten a feel for the mood or tone you want to create, it will help you with all the upcoming card choices. (Because maybe you forgot – but Magic has more than 18,000 cards and counting!)

Second, do some math. You’ll want to decide on the size of your cube – if you want to support a full 8 player draft you’ll need 45 cards x 8 players = a 360 card minimum. The consensus is that 540 cards allows a consistent draft environment with enough variation to keep it fresh. Those who prefer an experience with more variety may want to push that number higher. I keep my main cube around 700 cards and use the following starting ratios: 80 cards of each of the 5 colors, 80 multicolored cards, 80 artifacts, and 80 lands lets you come in at 640.

Third, pay attention to themes. This is like applying rule number one to each color or color pair. Think about linear strategies that require a critical mass of cards and make sure you support them properly or consider removing linear strategies all together (affinity, energy, allies, slivers, etc). And it applies to single cards too. There are so many red 5 drops you are going to have to choose from among many fantastic cards and the choice should be driven by what themes and subthemes your cube is supporting. If your cube has a lot of +1/+1 counter and token interactions then perhaps you consider Falkenrath Marauders or Skarrgan Hellkite over some of the other options.

Fourth, watch the mana curve. Usually you’ll want your mana curve to match a draft deck in that there are more 1, 2 and 3 casting cost cards then 5 and 6. And that applies to each color on its own as well as the cube as a whole. My penchant for splashy powerful effects means I struggle to keep the +6CC cards down to a reasonable number.

Pondering the converted mana cost layout of the multicolor cards… what to cut?

Finally, consider function. Think of what you want to do to make the physical experience interesting and enjoyable as well as considerations for cube transport and management.

An example of a sleek, ready-to-travel cube

Sleeve up lands and keep them with the cube. (find a style of sleeve you like and stock up!)
Have most of the relevant tokens available.
Make sure you have a safe and easy way to transport your cube.
Keep a list of your cube cards so you can quickly reference what’s in or out and plan new trades/purchases.

One of the most memorable physical experiences with a cube I can recall was 5 players around a folding table in the woods. The sun had set long ago, fingers were chilled, lanterns and flashlights were illuminating players hunched over Platinum Angels and very large Forgotten Ancients. It ended the way many multiplayer games tend to where the player with the last haymaker in their hand wins it. I think a large Overrun effect eventually ended the epic battle and people moved back around the campfire.

This game was not memorable for the cards themselves, but it was because 5 players of varied skill level, in the middle of the woods, were able to draft some sweet multiplayer decks and have a great time playing magic! It was possible because I can carry playmats, dice, counters, and a 600 card double sleeved multiplayer cube all in a nice little camping package.

My old Mephisto cube of ancient commons and uncommons now sits gathering dust under a dresser as, long ago, I harvested my favorite cube cards from it and forgot about it. It has evolved into new and more satisfying ways to play and that’s ok.

… but I may shake off the dust some day – just to remember what it feels like to cast Psychic Venom on a land and use a Floodbringer to venom my opponent to death! … ah… those were the days…

I encourage you to look at your collection of Magic cards with new eyes. Think about maximizing the fun you can have with your cards and, for me, Cube drafting is my favorite way to do that!

Thanks for reading, please share any amazing cube moments you will never forget, and until next time, may your cube keep evolving!

Sketch-The Sniff

Video Description:
www.manatutors.com
iamjaredspires productions
iamjaredspires.com

Ad Nauseam Tendrils: What’s the Play?

Legacy Storm is a deck that often functions off of gut, reads, mind-games, calculated risks, and overall tight play, which is something I like about the deck. It brings uncertainty along with excitement with every decision. Although the deck has great capability to play a slow, grindy game, some hands you have to play as dealt.

-Today I’m going to look at a play made by a friend of mine in round 13 of GP Atlanta against RUG Delver, piloted by Jarvis Yu. At 12-3, Max Carini (wonderperaux on modo) ended up in the top 16 of the GP with an interesting, slower take on ANT.

Storm by Max Carini

RUG delver by Jarvis Yu

Game 2, Turn 1

We find Max, our storm player is on the play for game 2 and keeps the following hand:

Take a minute and decide what you think you would do on turn 1. Seems simple, right?

Max took a line on turn 1 that i think most people wouldn’t consider. Max stepped on the pedal (petal?) turn 1 by fetching an Island, playing 3 LEDs, casting ponder, and cracking all 3 Diamonds.

Initially I would dismiss this play and not think twice and many I asked would do the same. However, this list is quite different from lists that I am used to so I decided to use more than my intuition to figure this one out.

Why would you make this play in the first place?

Storm has a really strong game plan of grinding out fair blue decks. That being said, Lion’s Eye Diamond is quite a bit worse than dark ritual in both this hand and this match up. LED is in my opinion the most powerful card in the deck, after the most powerful card in legacy, Brainstorm. It is normally a useful piece of the puzzle but is a lot worse than dark ritual in multiples or in conjunction with Past in Flames.

One of the keys to the RUG matchup from the storm side is to establish a stable manabase and try to blank their soft or conditional permission. Part of LED’s strength in the storm deck is speed and unlocking a hellbent Infernal Tutor. These are 2 issues you generally do not run into against delver as much as other matchups since you are playing a slower game. The card is much more important to the Ad Nauseam plan than the Past in Flames, grindy plan of multiple Tendrils that Max has chosen to register.

Considering all of this I think this hand has a lot less late-game equity than most keepable hands and I feel Max likely also identified this when making his turn 1 decision. This configuration only has 6 discard spells as opposed to the stock 8, choosing to fight against countermagic with a slow grind, a game plan that really does not involve 3 Lion’s Eye Diamonds.

How likely are we to hit on a goldfish?

As I said before, this list has a lot more business than a stock storm list. Let’s take a look at Max’s postboard configuration.

4 Ponder

6 Discard

8 Rituals

8 Artifact Mana

16 Land (8 fetches 8 targets)

Once again here is the scenario

Ponder on stack, UUU BBB RRR mana from 3 LEDs
Storm = 4
Infernal Tutor, Tendrils of Agony, Misty Rainforest and 3x LED in graveyard
- 52 cards in library

So in order to keep ponder we need to see one of the following:

An Action Spell: Infernal Tutor, Grim Tutor, and Empty the Warrens are all wins if we find them. There are 7 postboard and 1 in the hand so 6 left in the deck.

A Past in Flames: Finding this requires a flashback ponder to find a 1 mana spell for storm count. We need to group this separately since there is around a 1% chance we still brick if we find this.

A Second Ponder: Brainstorm and preordain are not worth keeping since you are spending a mana and gaining a look. Ponder however shows you 1 additional card since you see one lower and the shuffle card.

With these conditions we are 51.765% to Keep ponder, which breaks down as follows:

The breakdown is a little complicated on ponder but you can see it here if interested.

Now a lot of the time we are going to shuffle Ponder in which we can flip the following:

An Action Spell: You are officially now a Noob Lucker

A Past in Flames: Once again almost always good enough but around 1% to whiff

A Blue Card: Redraws! Remember we have 3 Ponders, 4 Brainstorms, and 1 Preordain left in the Deck

Anything Else: We brick: This is the most common case and will happen 31.54% of the time. Once we shuffle the Ponder, this of course goes up by a lot (to nearly 70 Percent!).

This brings our total goldfish rate to… 61.57%

Part of this final calculation involves a couple extra percent from chain cantrip lines, such as Ponder into Ponder into Past in Flames. I calculated all lines that seemed to add up to at least 0.1% and took an educated guess summing up the dozens of miniscule possibilities.

In all honesty, this is much higher than I expected it to be. It is worth remembering that we are using a very Business-heavy list and this number will probably be a lot lower with a stock storm list. Knowing this now, if I were to play a list like this against a horrendous match up, like Eldrazi Stompy or White Eldrazi, I would feel much more confident taking those chances on a ponder than fighting through a mountain of permanent-based lock pieces.

Now how likely are we to win beyond the goldfish?

You may have once heard while talking about Leylines or Force of Will that a player is roughly 40% (39.95%) to have a 4-of in their opening hand. One could also argue that the number is higher since it is a reason to keep or mulligan a hand. While this is true, the other side must also be taken into account. A card like Force of Will not only needs a blue card to cast it on turn 1, but also needs to be in a hand worth keeping. Most 7s without a colored source, a threat or cantrip, or an appropriate spell : land ratio are probably better off as a 6. Since this is a very subjective measurement, and I feel both sides will come close to offsetting, I’m going to use these numbers as estimates of what to expect across the table.

Jarvis has 4 Force of Will and 2 Force of Negation, which at the time I think is a good number to assume from RUG Delver, although I think I would put the average around 5.7 or so leading up to the Event. This puts Jarvis on a 54.14% to have interaction on a random 7 with Forces alone. Our odds of winning the goldfish and dodging the force check are now down to just 28.24%

We could now look at how this number changes when we add 1 copy of Surgical Extraction but I don’t feel a need to consider that after seeing this number. It would be a hard sell to try and tell me that this opening 7 is less than 28% to win on the play, which is where I would probably need to make this play.

What happened in the game?

Once again, I think Max’s play had merit from the position he was in. After showing him this number, he agreed that it is the incorrect play looking from a number standpoint. Unfortunately we will never know if Max’s ponder would have hit because it was met by one of the 2 Force of Wills in Jarvis’s opening hand.

If you are interested in seeing all the calculations done for this article, you can once again see them <Here>.

Thanks and keep storming,

-Cliffy

A Fresh Take on Battlebox

This being my first article on the site let me introduce myself for those of you who haven’t met me. My name is Isaac Sears I’m a 2 time grand prix Top8er, 2014 World Magic Cup United States Member and World Magic Cup Semi Finalist, and am a huge fan of modern, legacy, cube, and especially battlebox.

What is battlebox? You may ask. Don’t worry

Battlebox was originally named Danger Room named that after the X-men’s training room. The format, as far as I can tell at a cursory glance, was made by Brian De Mars around June 2014 and popularized by Ben Stark. Each player starts the game with 1 of each basic and 5 comes into play tapped dual lands. After you count all the mana sources each color should be represented exactly 3 times (easiest to use all the ally or enemy guildgates). These lands start in a command zone of sorts from which you may play 1 land each turn. My group likes to have a shared library but separate graveyards, this makes scry decisions more interesting but may not be for everyone. Each player starts with 20 life and 4 cards in hand. 4 cards sounds like too few until you realize there are no lands in the box and a good amount of cards have the text “draw 2” on them. Guess what? your hand size is still 7 mothersmurfer.

One of the things you will realize after playing the format for a while or looking at my list below is that there are no planeswalkers. In fact, oddly enough, in this great format there aren’t too many “great cards” (at least not ones that you’d classically refer to as such). Sure, there’s lightning bolt and fatal push but there’s no Snapcaster, no Tarmogoyf, no Jace, not even a Kolaghans’ Command. “But how can this be Isaac? you said this was a great format.” Well, you know how sometimes you’re playing a game of magic and you’ve out-thought your opponent and jedi mind-tricked them into 3 for 1-ing themselves, or its just a favorable matchup when somehow you draw 16 lands in a row and they rip all 5 of their fireblasts? Well this can’t happen in battlebox.

For one, in battlebox you can never get land screwed or flooded as both players start with the same lands in a zone that doesn’t conflict with either of their draws. And two, the cards (in my battlebox at least) are balanced so that you don’t have these busted unbeatable cards or card advantage machines that then you smush your opponent because:

This is very different design philosophy from other common battlebox choices, as the goal is to reward tight play and remove excessively high variance in top-decks. In short, my box is closer to the more evenly powered Ben Stark interpretation as opposed to the more powerful and swingy Brian DeMars version.

This is also why battlebox was initially called The Danger Room. Like the X-men’s training area, the battlebox is a place for people to sharpen their skills and improve. My cards are more like 5 or 6s on the overall play-ability level in magic, more like a decent 2nd pick in a draft rather than what you’d put in your PTQ deck.

My Battlebox List:

apostle of purifying light

belligerent hatchling

cartouche of ambition

cartouche of knowledge

discovery // dispersal

gatekeeper of malakir

ghoulcaller’s accomplice

grapple with the past

hieroglyphic illumination

illusionist’s stratagem

integrity // inteverntion

ninja of the deep hours

pillory of the sleepless

restoration specialist

scour all possibilities

settle beyond reality

sling-gang lieutenant

stormscape apprentice

string of disappearances

submerge

subtle strike

succumb to temptation

thornscape apprentice

thought erasure

thrill of the hunt

thunderscape apprentice

vizier of tumbling sands

voice of the provinces

Between-Round Games for the Unprepared Mage

So you’re at an event with some friends, and the rounds are taking forever. Maybe it’s a limited GP and everyone is going to time. Maybe you all showed up with aggro today. Bad beat stories can only cover so much time in a day before your brain melts out of your head and you flop mindlessly on the floor. For this reason I provide my favorite games that are available, and quite good, without requiring forethought or any special equipment (just a land box and some people).

The Land Game

This is an old one with several variations. Some of the oldest variations were a bit on the odd side. Jeremy Dezani recently did an updated version that is very similar to the version I will be describing, which is in turn very similar to an old Reddit thread describing the same game. My version has several variations that probably come as a result of mis-remembered information among people in our play group as the game gets passed along. The best part about the land game is that you only need one extra person and it is very fast. We spent a surprising amount of time in GP Vegas 2019 while waiting for our cohorts to finish their respective MCQs playing this.

Both players start with a randomized deck with 6 copies of each basic land type. Each player draws one card per turn and plays one card per turn (first player doesn’t draw on first turn, per normal magics). Lands you play go face up in front of you until game end, or until your opponent interacts with them. The first player to have 1 of each basic land type in front of them or 5 of a single basic land type is the winner. Each basic land type does something different:

Plains draw a card when they enter play. It’s a Thraben inspector.

Swamp causes each opponent to discard a card at random when it enters play. It’s a mini Hymn to Tourach.

Mountain destroys target land when it enters play. It’s a stone rain

Forest lets you bring target land from your graveyard back to your hand when it enters play. It’s a regrowth.

Island does nothing when it comes into play. But, island can cancel an opponent’s play when discarded from hand. Whenever an opponent tries to play a card, you may discard an island and another basic land card of the type the opponent is playing to cancel the effect of their land and put it into the graveyard. For example if my opponent plays a mountain to destroy one of my lands, I can discard an isand plus a mountain to cancel the effect and have them put their mountain in their discard. Yes, you can counter their islands with your islands by discarding a second island. It’s a Disrupting Shoal.

Strategically you want to start with a swamp or plains early. Islands are interesting in that they provide negative card advantage, but can be a huge tempo swing; I tend to hold onto them for protection late in the game. Using mountains to blow up your opponent’s lands can be interesting strategically, because you often want to keep from making their forests live for good cards.

In general this game is great. There’s more strategy involved than you’d think at first glance, and can be constructed from any sufficiently stocked land-box. Having specifically sized decks for each player gives better knowledge of how many outs a player has at any given time and provides more interesting tension than some of the older versions, and alternate win conditions allow for more tension in games and protection from variance.

Skull and Roses (Swamp and Plains)

This is a direct ripoff from a favorite board-game of mine. If you like the game I recommend getting the official version, it’s pretty great. If I do an insufficient job of explaining the rules, check here for more explanation. If you’ve ever played liar’s dice or watched too much Pirates of the Caribbean this might seem familiar. If you enjoy lying to your friends this may be the game for you.

Each player starts with 3 plains and 1 swamp. Each player looks at the cards in their hand and places one face down in front of them.

The first player may play a card face down on top of their previous card, or may make a bet. If they play a card the next player in clockwise order is given the same decision. If they choose not to place a card (or are unable to), they make a bet.

The betting player announces the size of their bet, which is the number of cards they can flip among faceup cards without flipping a swamp. Each player, going clockwise, must then either raise the bet or pass. Continue until all players have passed except the remaining highest bidder.

The high bidder must then reveal a number of cards, one at a time, equal to their bet. They start by revealing cards from the their own pile first. Cards are flipped from the top (most recent) down. After finishing with their pile the high bidder must then move on to cards in other player’s piles. They can do this in any order they see fit.

If the high bidder reveals a swamp, they stop immediately and everyone picks their cards back up. The owner of the revealed swamp chooses a card which is removed from the game face down. The owner of the card gets to know what type of card it is, but no other player gets to know. The new first player is the owner of the swamp that was revealed (if you revealed your own swamp, you choose someone else to be first player).

If the high bidder matches his bid without revealing any swamps, they get a point (I recommend using Islands as points, best card in magic). Everyone picks up their non-removed cards, the high bidder is the new first player.

Continue with a new round and a new first player until a player gets two points, they are the winner.

This one is incredibly deep and while simple to play, will take a long time to master. Should be played with 3 or more players, 5-6 is probably best but not required.

Both of these games are fast and perfect for downtime. Both also help with basic magic skills. Tempo, bluffing, aggro, and the fun of land destruction are all important elements. Go forth, and never be bored during down-time again!

Metacognition: the real Magic Meta

“I am not a savant.”

-me, just now.

As someone who has been spellslinging for a quarter of a century, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that length of time and gameplay expertise are not directly proportional. This is not to say that there will not be some relevant correlation of any kind, but merely to say that Magic the Gathering is a versatile game that serves many functions for the people that play it. The collective “we” play Magic to fulfill various roles in our existence on this planet. Some enjoy the rich fantasy back-drop, immersing themselves in a world filled with heroes and villains. Some enjoy gathering with family and friends, sharing laughter, food and drink, and creating fond memories. Then there are some that have the Fires of Yavimaya in their soul, pushing them to perform at the highest levels of competitive Magic. Naturally, these are not mutually exclusive, but for the purpose of this musing, I will be focusing on the latter.

So, I have been playing Magic for over 25 years. Why haven’t I made the Pro Tour, the Players Tour, or ever played in a Mythic Championship? Is it bad luck? Am I a bad player? Do I play bad decks(mayyyyybe)? Though it is true, I haven’t always had that “fire,” I have always considered myself to be a competitive player. The hardest step and most important step in becoming successful is correctly assessing your ability. This is easier said than done.

“If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent…The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.”

-David Dunning

Some of you may be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect. I was once again reminded of its existence and applicability while reading a fantastic article by 2019 GP Vegas champion Allen Wu. In his article he states “people who cling to toxic mindsets and faulty frameworks invariably wind up stuck at the MCQ and GP level.” TRUTH.

Essentially, this phenomenon occurs when an individual mistakenly assesses their own cognitive ability as greater than it is. Be wary of those that are overly certain(I’m certain of this by the way). Okay, but how does this fit into the greater scheme, how does this help me get better at Magic? For most of my 25 plus years of playing, I decided I was great at Magic. I didn’t need to “study.” I was that person that is in every class who boasts about their grade when they “didn’t even read the material.” I would show up to tournaments and expect to crush it on my ability alone. I reveled in a couple top 8 pins but never won an event. I was convinced that the players that won were luckier than I was. They opened a better pool than I did. They had easier matchups, all the excuses. Here is the most difficult part: There ARE players who can win these types of events with little to no preparation. I am not one of those players. This last sentence is difficult to accept. To change the way you think about yourself, and how you fit into the rest of the world is never easy. Self-perception and self realization are not the same thing. Once I was able to readjust my world view to fit with something closer to the “truth,” only then was I able to move beyond some of those cognitive biases I had about myself and others.

I am not the best Magic player in the world. In fact, there are many, many players who are better. So, if I accept that I am not naturally the best, I must also accept that to be competitive I will have to work harder to see the results that I want. The best way to get results? Play a lot of Magic of course! Okay, but here I’m going to go a little further. Is there a way to improve your game outside of playing or reading about Magic (which you should absolutely still do)? For me, I found that there was.

In addition to playing MTG, I am also an avid poker player, and play Texas Holdem as my game of choice. In the poker world, you have strengths in your poker game, and then there are your holes. These are the areas in which you are weakest. It is the same for Magic. Some of the most common holes in a player’s game may be card knowledge, card interactions, or advanced rulings (like layering for instance). The good news is, these can be remedied by studying the format, the cards and doing independent research. What about the holes in your game that can’t be fixed by a book, an article, or repetitions? The first step is to identify what those holes are. For me, I have the same hole in Magic and poker… impulse control. I can play great poker for 3-4 hours, but almost invariably there will come a point when I will make a call or raise that I know to be incorrect, but choose to make that play anyway. Magic and poker are both games of discipline. You need to keep your temperament and urges in check, and make decisions based on the game state. A GP is a marathon, not a sprint. The top performers are the ones that can play very high level Magic over a prolonged period of time. Over the last year I have made several changes to my “game” outside the game that have helped a great deal. These three things are rest, diet and exercise.

I stopped drinking alcohol and ingesting foods with added sugars. My body is sensitive to sugar and can cause mood swings. These highs and lows are represented in a game of Magic by keeping hands that I shouldn’t, conceding too early, or just making a straight up blunder like tapping the wrong land or not noticing my opponent had not one, but two blockers. I try and go to bed early before a tournament and take extra precautions to make sure that I’m hydrated throughout the day. Going for walks, or doing cardio increases blood flow to the brain and can cause better in-game decision making. Also, in addition to cutting out items with added sugar, I’m much more conscientious of what food I am consuming and how that will impact my overall function. We all spend hours and hours agonizing over decklists, the meta, and sideboard choices- all to give us that extra perceived edge, or added EV. Should we not also do that in our day to day decisions? What should I have for breakfast? Two eggs or a pop tart? If you said pop tart, I’m sorry, that’s a misplay. Thinking about what will help me think best has now become part of my tournament routine and has greatly increased my win percentages as a Magic player. I have prized the last two GPs that I attended (Seattle and Vegas). Here is the breakdown:

Be honest with yourself about your ability
Identify holes in your game
Eat an egg
Cash a GP

All of this has left me wondering… If I can use life choices to improve my magic results, could I also use “magic choices” to improve life results?

To be continued…

A medium meta-game modernization

This article is a recap of what happened to modern in the last 3 months, along with some specific predictions about what will happen in the modern meta-game in the next 3 months.

A few months ago I spent some time writing about how Magic: The Gathering meta-games tend to evolve over time in a predictable way. At the time I included this delightful (and graphically questionable) image to put at the top.

While I don’t think this image perfectly captures the mtg circle of life, I do think it’s an amusing indicator of what things magic players expect to beat what things. I think it also represents the circle we all tend to move around when deciding on decks. Magic’s older formats have had some huge shakeups in the last few months with the advent of the London mulligan, War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, the faithless looting ban, and the stoneforge mystic unban. These changes have in many ways reset the modern and legacy formats. I think this provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the modern meta-game, try a guess at where they’re heading, and generally check in and see if my previous article has any merit.

The funniest part about a modern meta-gaming article is that it is a largely pointless endeavor. Everyone will show up with whatever they feel like, no matter how bad it is (*cough* uw control *cough*). Even better, no matter what actually happens in the future, my predictions will look correct( but not overwhelmingly so) because every reasonable deck remains at less than 5, but more than 1 percent of the meta. I do, however, plan to point out which decks I think are well positioned and which are not. By “well positioned,” I of course mean, “is the most efficient way to do a very linear thing.” Mostly I’ll just make fun of bad decks, because it’s much easier to punch down.

Disclaimer: Just because I say a deck is poorly positioned, or even bad, this does not mean you shouldn’t play it. Any deck can top 8 a modern event, especially if they win the match up lottery. Modern, more than any format, is a place where you can play whatever deck you want and still have a reasonable chance at winning some games. The margins are smaller because the match ups could be anything, even a boat.

First, let’s start with the customary greeting in mtg articles, a picture of the mtggoldfish metagame (9/16).

Friends don’t let friends bring Niv to anywhere

Most of these decks seem like reasonable piles of cards. Minus of course, bring-to-niv.

Let’s talk historically. How did we get here? and how did pillar of the paruns become a $35 card? First, the London mulligan unleashed a wave of tron and dredge onto an unsuspecting populace. This filled the format with oodles of combo and big mana decks. Then, Modern Horizons added so many highly playable cards to the format that it made some linear decks overly linear and needed to be banned (Hogaak). The initial wave of busted graveyard decks took a strong strike to its consistency, which unlocked some of the slower linear decks (Valakut, tron, burn). Stoneforge came out of exile, which led to the false belief that finally the promised time had come, making modern a fair and linear format again. This led to people jamming stoneforges into their control decks and just about any other deck that will tolerate it. This leads us to now, where I believe the format is re-learning how to linear without it’s good buddy faithless looting.

From here, we being to look at what is actually happening. I put the graphic back up with numbers added so that I can show contrast between that image and this one:

Stoneforge is the new face of midrange and niv I just wanted to have an explosion on top of (additionally, it is a card in a control deck). Also of note, stoneforge doesn’t actually beat burn, one of many reasons why burn is a popular deck at the moment. We also see urza and death’s shadow standing over the smoking ruins of midrange and control, which seems appropriate. Urza and shadow are also weirdly midrange adjacent, like many “fair” decks that happen to have a combo win in modern.

From here, I would define the 1 tier decks of modern to be whirza, burn, and Valakut. Shadow, tron and humans are mighty close, I’ll call them tier 1.5 for simplicity. Jund is probably on top of the heap for tier 2, followed by just about everything else down there in garbage tier territory. If your goal is to maximize your win percentage playing modern, I recommend not playing modern. If you insist, I would recommend a deck in tier 1.

As the format settles I expect modern to follow the trajectory it always follows and linearize quickly as busted decks find the most efficient way to murder each other. My specific predictions from here I shall bulletize for review later, much in the manner of a financial article. My specific predictions I will give percentages based on mtggoldfish meta percentages; these percentages are largely useless, but provide a metric by which you can prove to me how wrong I am.

I suspect that the number of whirza players will increase over time as it holds a splinter twin-like hold over the meta. I expect over 6% in the next 3 months.
Burn may slowly dry up as a tier one deck as it receives more attention and more sideboard slots. I expect less than 4% in the next 3 months .
I expect other linear options such as affinity and mono red prowess to increase in play as the number of fair decks decreases. I expect hardened scales affinity to be in the top 10 by next year.
I expect stoneforge mystic will slowly dwindle into irrelevancy unless buoyed by play in unfair decks such as whirza or creature combos. It will be played way more than it’s win-rate should allow. I expect no more than 4 stoneforges in any GP top 8, but I do expect it to represent more than 2% of the meta at any given time.
Valakut will remain a solid choice that is criminally underrepresented in the meta (check out the Valakut website, it’s great and it got me on the pro tour one time). I expect no more than 3% of the meta.

I will revisit these points next year to see how things did. In traditional modern fashion, I expect some kind of massive shakeup will happen early next year and render everything said in this article useless beyond repair.

In the meantime, may you never draw more than 3 lands playing burn. Unless they’re horizon lands, those are probably fine.

MADMAN, GENIUS, OR BOTH? CHAPTER THREE: MÈNAGE À TROIS-MBO

Welcome to the latest edition of Madman Genius or Both? For this article, I will be discussing a deck I found awhile back while combing through the daily modern 5-0 lists. This deck jumped off the page at me because I hadn’t seen it before and because it seemed so simple.

This list is from a July 23, 2019 5-0 list by DRDUB on MTGO:

“Do less, accomplish more.” – Every self-help charlatan on the internet

This is not the most complicated deck as combo decks go. It’s kind of like Tron in that you’re really just looking to assemble one of each piece of your three card combo and once you do, you basically just win the game. This is one of those decks that likely gets an advantage in game one because your opponent probably hasn’t played against it and may have no idea what’s going on.

Here’s how the deck wins:

(1) Play one of your eight win conditions in Altar of Dementia or Blasting Station;

(2) Play one of your eight enablers in Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit or Solemnity;

(3) Play one of your twelve persist creatures and win the game. Your persist creatures won’t have counters on them when they come back due to either Anafenza or Solemnity, so you’ll either machine gun them out or mill their library and pass the turn depending on which engine piece you drew.

Yep, that’s the deck. Were you hoping for more? Sorry. There’s not more.

Given that I’ve played zero actual games with the deck, here is how I imagine the games playing out:

Turn one: Lead with Plains into Thraben Inspector. Your opponent should have no idea what is going on and may even wonder if they’ve been paired against someone who mistakenly queued some kind of standard Boros vehicles deck into a Modern event.

Turn two: If you look down at your hand and you don’t yet have the ability to win on turn four, you should probably hold up your mana and crack the clue on your opponent’s end step. Otherwise, you’ll have to run out one of your two drop persist creatures just to use your mana. Some opponents will figure out what is going on if you do that, which is unavoidable to a degree. Cards like Lesser Masticore and Safehold Elite are largely unplayable unless you’re creating an infinite loop by abusing the persist mechanic. The other turn two options you have are to run out Altar of Dementia or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. Just be aware that once your opponent sees Altar of Dementia, Anafenza, Solemnity, or Blasting Station, the jig is up.

Turn three: Depending on what you’ve done thus far in the game, you have options. On the one hand, you can cast Kitchen Finks and continue the savage white weenie beats. On the other hand, you probably just want to cast whichever piece of the combo you haven’t already played yet and set up a win the following turn.

Turn four: Win the game, hopefully. Put those four beautiful Plains to work by casting Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit followed by Altar of Dementia. Then sacrifice whichever persist creature you have in play as many times as you need to mill your opponents whole deck. The loop works equally well with Blasting Station, if not better depending on whether they have any Eldrazi that shuffle their library when milled.

DECK GRADE: MADMAN

This deck feels like a test version of a deck idea that has not yet been refined. The good news is that this 5-0 list was posted during Hogaak’s reign, and it seems like it should only have gotten better now that Hogaak is banned (and, presumably, the environment is less hostile to graveyard shenanigans). I think adding a card like Aether Vial would be a very interesting experiment because it not only gives you something good to do on Turn 1, it also would speed up your high roll games to a turn 3 clock, and allow you to win at instant speed.

Next, while I do love the 20 Plains 2 Ghost Quarter mana base, we can almost certainly afford to run some number of Horizon Canopys as flood insurance, if not the full suite of four.

Last, I’d like to squeeze in some number of Pact of Negation here, probably two to start with. Faith’s Shield is a fine card, but with 22 lands in the deck, you’re going to be in an awkward spot fairly often where you have access to three mana, and also have to spend all three of said mana to complete your combo. Pact gives you the ability to beat cards like Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push even if its worse against Abrupt Decay.

If you like what you see, give the deck a spin and let me know how it goes. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave any questions, comments or suggestions below!

Kethis Combo- The Lowdown

A lot of people know about this deck. They know that it is one of the best and most popular standard decks in this meta and a lot of Pro’s are playing it and calling it the best deck. But what a lot of people don’t know is, where it came from and who is responsible for breaking the Standard format and (depending on your perspective) made it more fun/satisfying or ruined it.

And to those people I say, “you’re welcome! and/or #SorryNotSorry”

That’s right, it was me…Brandon/Allfunlover! (Who’s that?)

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2139071#paper

This was an early draft I posted to share easily with my friends and teammates. A lot has changed since then but the core engine has remained the same.

I’d like to tell you the story of what I consider my greatest deck (so far) and then some tips on how to play with it as well as against it. If you’re just here for the strategy then feel free to skip to it.

The Origin

People that know me know that there is a reason that I am the ‘Limited Expert’ on the Team. I am not known for my Constructed performance. However, the people that know me well know that the reason that I almost exclusively play Limited is because of my love of deck-building.

And every so often, I get in the mood to brew with 75 cards…

It all started with one weird M20 Mythic (not even a good limited card).

One night in Late July, this card was really inspiring me and I decided to brew. At first it was a bunch of fair, midrange decks. I had a couple of different builds that showed promise. In those builds Mox Amber was really good. I started playing four copies because they would ramp me and later I could exile them to Kethis to cast my sweet legends from the graveyard. Oh how times have changed! I realized early on that Mox Amber could be cast from the graveyard as a lotus petal which I would do occasionally for a boost in mana but it was too fair. But what if it wasn’t so fair?

I started writing down more ideas and that’s when I remembered the missing link from Dominaria that basically no one remembered, Diligent Excavator!

*The perfect marriage and the bling to bring* these soulmates together.

For those of you that are not in the know, this is your core engine. With these three cards and a bunch of legends, you too can make your deck disappear! Jace, Wielder of Mysteries was a natural fit after that. After beating up on Sparky (MTGA’s Practice Mode Bot) to see if it worked, I knew this deck was extremely powerful. I couldn’t wait to jump into the Ranked Queues. I just kept on winning, and winning some more. At the end of the night, I uploaded this list and sent it to all my friends and teammates.

By the next day, I had some friends that were interested and one friend, Bro_Cobra, that quickly fell in love with the deck on his Twitch stream. Once he started, he couldn’t put the deck down, we tried out a few different cards and ideas. For example, he tried Glowspore Shaman but I never liked it or what it did to your manabase. After a couple of days Bro_Cobra was climbing back to Mythic playing only this deck. That’s when I proposed trying out Lazav, the Multifarious. We collaborated on the manabase and sideboard, and that’s when the deck leveled up!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2146670#paper

Lazav added a new dimension to the deck; more ways to ramp to four with Mox Amber, and a whole lot more resiliency! Bro_Cobra kept playing the deck and winning even more with it. Soon he was in up into Mythic top 50-100 and that’s when he played Stanislav Cifka. After that, Cifka started to play the deck too and really popularized it when he and his team Qualified for the Arena Mythic Championship playing the deck.

The Strategy

A lot of people don’t know this but this deck isn’t just a simple combo deck. It is surprisingly robust, resilient, and complicated. This deck is very good at being unfair and you can pretty easily mill yourself out and win with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or mill your opponent to death. However, that is simply Plan A and you don’t win all of your games that way.

These are your plans to victory:

Plan A: Mill yourself and/or your opponent
Plan B: Card advantage- you wouldn’t expect this at first glance but this deck can grind extremely well.
Plan C: Burn them out (Surprise!)

Plan A: Mill

The deck is capable of winning very quickly this way. It is even possible to win turn three! It can also win pretty consistently on turn four or five using this plan. What you need to win this way is the Trinity (Diligent Excavator, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, and Mox Amber).

Diligent Excavator, KEthis, the Hidden had, Mox Amber — The Trinity.

You want to mill yourself using these three and/or Ashiok, Dream Render. Using Kethis’ activated ability, you play your Mox Ambers and net one mana per mox for each Kethis activation. Note: You will need to activate Kethis again to be able to cast legends put into your graveyard since the last activation. If you’re playing the deck in paper, set aside all the cards that go to your graveyard after each activation of Kethis. Those cards can’t be cast until the next activation.

You always want to target yourself with Diligent Excavator until you’re ready to win. It’s much easier to win with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries but if that is not an option, you boarded out Jace, or your goal is to mill your opponent–you still want to mill yourself until you have multiple Diligent Excavators and multiple Mox Ambers. I start to do the math once I’m getting 3-4 Diligent Excavator triggers per Kethis activation. One easy way to do this math is to count up the number of legendary, non-moxen cards in your graveyard and you have half that many activations of Kethis to get there multiplied by two times the amount of Diligent Excavator triggers you’re getting per Kethis activation. If that number is greater than or equal to the number of cards remaining in your opponent’s library (and they’re not playing Nexus of Fate) you win!

That’s the basics of your main game plan. The Trinity is the most important part, that’s your engine. The next most important card in many match-ups is actually Teferi, Time Raveler. Most of the time he is all the disruption that you need and when you have him in play, you know your opponent can’t interact. He is the ultimate counter bait because if they don’t counter him, they’re not countering anything the rest of the turn. Some not so common but important play patterns with Teferi are bouncing Fblthp, the Lost for two cards, bouncing Oath of Kaya for Lightning Helixs, and when you have the trinity, you can use Teferi to bounce Mox Amber and gain a card and two Excavator triggers for the investment of net one mana.

You really only need the Trinity to start going off, but even then the deck has ways to find/recover the missing pieces and Ashiok, Dream Render can be a reasonable substitute for Diligent Excavator. The rest of the deck mostly plays support. You have cards like Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord, Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, Lazav, the Multifarious[/c], and Teshar, Ancestor’s Apostle to get back your missing pieces. Once you assemble the Trinity and are milling yourself for 4-6 each Kethis activation, it is almost impossible not to be able to put your whole deck into the graveyard and either win the Jace, or mill your opponent.

Plan B: Card advantage/attrition- the ‘fair’ game

That’s right, the deck can pretty easily win playing normal, fair Magic. The deck has a lot of card advantage built in. The most important card for winning a ‘fair’ game is Kethis. If your opponent is trying to stop you with counterspells when you have Kethis, you can cast Teferi, Time Raveler until it sticks. if you have Teferi, you can do anything you want on your turn and they can’t interact anymore. I often will play Teferi first to force interaction before I play my engine or other important cards.

You have other cards as well that are even better for running your opponent out of answers. A lot of the fair games I win are simply by playing the ‘Protect the Kethis’ game. Essentially. if you have Kethis and a graveyard, it’s very hard to lose to anyone. If you have Kethis and at least one way to get back a Kethis such as Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord, Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, Lazav, the Multifarious, and Teshar, Ancestor’s Apostle it makes it very hard for your opponent to stop you especially with the Planeswalkers. They need to have multiple pieces of interaction to beat that board and also each Kethis and each thing that can get you back a Kethis will take them multiple cards to properly disrupt as well.

Many lists I have seen do not play Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord and I believe that is a mistake. I would always play at least one copy in the 75. The reason is that he is so good in a fair game and he also gets you any missing creature from your graveyard for only 3-4 mana and 2-4 loyalty. His passive makes you almost impossible to burn out or race. His +2 is great for harassing planeswalkers, especially Teferi and Narset and others that have a habit of dropping to one loyalty.

Depending on the match-up as well, Oath of Kaya goes a long way towards winning a fair game too. It’s very powerful against decks that are attacking your life total directly but also it punishes them and can put them in a bad spot if they try to interact with your planeswalkers by attacking. Which leads me to the secret third win condition….

Plan C: Burn Them Out

This doesn’t come up much but is possible with Oath of Kaya. Many games your opponent takes a lot of damage from attacking your planeswalkers when you have it. They may not even know that Oath can target players but it definitely can, and it wins games that way sometimes. It’s important to know that if you have two or more Oaths and Kethis, each activation of Kethis can get you at least one WB Lightning Helix per activation minus one mana for each Mox. It doesn’t take many of those to win. This plan can also be effective to win against a deck with Nexus of Fate without Jace, because you simply cannot mill those decks out.

Lazav

I also want to talk in depth about the card that leveled up the deck Lazav, the Multifarious

He adds a lot or resilience and utility. Here are some important things you might not know about how he works and also some tricks.

When you activate his ability he has all the characteristics of the creature you chose except that he keeps his name and his legendary supertype. This means a few key things:
Mox Amber will only see the colors that he becomes. It doesn’t matter if that creature is not Legendary.
Even if he is copying a non-legendary creature you can still use him to cast a Legendary Sorcery such as your Urza’s Ruinous Blast and he will never get exiled by it. It also means that he can never be targeted with Cast Down.
With Shalai, Voice of Plenty, you can copy her to give your other permanents hexproof at instant speed. This can importantly stop burn, or other interaction.
Because he keeps his name it is possible to effectively have multiple copies of the same Legendary creature he copies. Which leads me to the trickiest plays with our friend Lazav…
It is possible to win with Lazav and the entire Trinity in the graveyard and enough mana. To do this, copy Kethis, the Hidden Hand with his ability. Activate the Kethis ability the Lazav now has and play Kethis. Then you can copy Diligent Excavator with Lazav and suddenly you can start going off depending on how full your graveyard is.

The Deck Now

Granted, I haven’t played this deck since it was just my team playing it but this is close to what I would be playing now.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2254375#paper

The deck is everywhere now. The biggest changes that I would make now is to play 4 Lazavs and to add Ashioks to the maindeck. Ashioks help your main plan and also are one of your best cards against the Scapeshift deck and the mirror which are both very popular. You never exile your own graveyard with Ashiok, Dream Renderso you basically always want to target yourself with the mill. With this meta, I don’t think Urza’s Ruinous Blast does enough to be in the maindeck. Also, I haven’t tested it but I prefer my manabase without temples because I think it’s better to have all of your lands enter the battlefield untapped or at least have the potential to do so.

Playing against the Deck

Whether you’re playing against the mirror or just playing against the deck, the most important card your opponent has is Kethis. It’s the first card I would always name for Unmoored Ego. I have heard an argument for naming Mox Amber but I simply don’t agree with that. Losing mox makes you lose mana when you’re going off but you are still very capable of winning without it. Without Mox, the deck is still a very good midrange deck. Without Kethis, the deck is medium at best. You can’t combo off and your fair game is fairly poor.

In my opinion, the best ways to disrupt this deck is fighting Kethis with cards like Unmoored Ego or fighting threats with exile removal. For example, Legion’s End can be very annoying too. It only hits Lazav, the Multifarious or Diligent Excavator but it also hits any copies that you have found also. Ashiok, Dream Render is also pretty good at disrupting the deck’s plan and it can help your game in the mirror by milling yourself too. I don’t recommend trying to fight this deck with cards like Leyline of the Void, Sorcerous Spyglass, or any other permanent that Teferi, Time Raveler can interact with, even temporarily.

Sometimes your mana can be your greatest enemy. You’re four colors and you have no basic lands. Because of that, you can be susceptible to cards like Assassin’s Trophy and Field of Ruin. I think most lists, including mine, are not building around that weakness right now so it’s still a pretty good avenue of attack and you may want to consider adding a basic to the 75 because of that. I would recommend basic Island if that’s the way you want to go.

Overall

I’m very proud of the deck and what it has become. It’s a real treat, very fun to play, and it plays very differently than any other deck in Standard. I hope that you at least learned something. My hope is that now, armed with my knowledge, you are ready to play with and/or against the deck. Let me know your thoughts.

Happy Comboing!

–Brandon aka Twitch Allfunlover or @allfunlover1

Thoughts on Las Vegas and MagicFest

I have stories from Vegas trips of long ago that might make a few of you blush but I will not be divulging those dark secrets at this time… Here are some thoughts on our most recent Magical adventures in Sin City.

The cursed Monday morning alarm urged me to wake up… cried at me to make lunches, drive kids to school, to get to work! My bloodshot eyes struggled to open as the 3 hours of sleep after arriving home from GP Vegas 2019 rattled around in my head telling me they needed about 7 more before they would allow me to function properly… but I struggled onward. I had successfully navigated the 4 days of GP Vegas and lived to tell the tale.

This is not a champions tournament report – you wont get high level top 8 draft strategies from this mage today… Nor is this a drunken debauchery report – I have many a tale from my younger years, but this trip was focused on gaming … But I did have some thoughts I wanted to share with all of you on our Magical adventures in Sin City.

I have always enjoyed reading (and later watching) magic coverage and I remember reading the coverage of the first Vegas GP. It was an Extended event back in 2001, won by Michael Pustilnik with one of my favorite decks “The Rock and his Millions”. Many a Pernicious Deed and Spiritmonger have I cast in my day.

Vegas was Silenced for 12 years until a record breaking horde of over 4,492 people converged in 2013 and Neal Oliver came out on top. That throng was topped only by Vegas again in May of 2015 when 7,551 players came out to do battle with the spells and creatures of Modern Masters. There were two full tournaments with two champions.

I had never been able to get away from work/kids/life to make one of these newer, bigger Vegas GPs and so when I got the chance this year I jumped at it and I was not disappointed.

Was Vegas Big?

Of course. This tournament, while smaller than some previous Vegas bashes had a respectable 1800+ players in the Constructed Modern event and 1400+ playing Modern Horizons Limited.

How do you prepare for a MagicFest in Vegas?

1. Plan your Expenses

1 loaf of bread, 1 lb of meat, 1 head of lettuce, 1 lb of cheese = delicious AND thrifty

Flights, hotels, and food are very costly and can triple the cost of your event if you plan them poorly. I recommend bringing some healthy food with you, a refillable water bottle, make sure you know where you’re staying, and plan how you are getting to and from the tournament site. Vegas is a damn desert and you don’t want to walk anywhere that isn’t air conditioned for very long.

2. Plan your tournaments

I knew I wanted to play the limited Modern Horizons format so I practiced as much online and in person as I was able. I went in knowing I wasn’t as prepared as a serious tester, but I knew the format, it’s synergies and where I wanted to be in each color pair.

I would have loved to practice more but there were two limiting factors: (1) life responsibilities were such that I spent a lot of time doing dad things and ‘work guy’ things instead of gaming and (2) Modern Horizons is freakin EXPENSIVE!

Once you get to the site – hopefully you can go a day early – plan to play in some of the other tournaments at the event. If you are like me – not a hardcore tournament grinder – but someone who goes to an occasional FNM or pre-release and plays lots of kitchen table Magic – I have the following suggestions:

Do not play single elimination events the first day. Dash the enticing dreams of going 4-0 and having 2 precious byes in the main event. You will get so much more value out of playing a normal 3 or 5 round event because you need your reps! Those rounds of high level competitive play will get your brain locked back into its rhythm and you can hopefully get a few mistakes/jitters out of your system before the main event. I was very unsatisfied with going 1-1 and 0-1 in my two single elim events. I ‘wasted’ those entry fees and did not get in enough useful practice games for my liking.
Play to win. You are at a competitive tournament with cash prizes on the line and you should play to win. I’m not suggesting you act like an asshole or cheat – that’s not it at all – but admit to yourself that this is a high stakes event and you will treat it as such. I have a hard time keeping my ‘helping dad’ gear disengaged. When an opponent asks “you have three blockers?” I immediately knee-jerk and say “no, Changeling Outcast cant block” instead of just saying nothing or “these three are untapped.” You can feel bad for other folks who are making obvious mistakes but you should not coach your opponent into beating you.

3. plan your fun

Think about what you’ll be doing each day and make sure to prepare to have fun regardless of your tournament success. Bring cards to get signed by the artists. Bring commander decks to play casually. Make some new friends – don’t be afraid to talk to other people who love the same game you do! Play some Pai Gow magic with your packs that you get with your prize tickets. Just make sure you are getting enjoyment out of your time – its the most precious commodity.

At every GP we attend I bring my cube because inevitably it brings out some of the best memories of each trip. I may talk more in depth about it in another article, but our tradition for a while has been to sign a significant cube card after each big event. This trip Jay Trojan did some very busted things with Booster Tutor so it got the treatment this year.

How did the Main Event go?

Great. Modern did it’s Mondern-y stuff and Hogaak wiped up the competition and had its last hurrah in the Modern format before narrowing its eyes and blowing some kisses to Legacy.

Two of our Mana Tutors crew cashed the Modern Horizons tournament and there were some great matches to enjoy. Congrats to Simon Nielsen and Allan Wu on their respective victories.

Oh, how did MY tournament go you ask?… Well, I opened a very reasonable B/W pool and built a deck that I think should have made day 2 – possibly needed a more stable pilot. The removal was good, the creatures were small but worked together well, and there was a Rotwidow Pack waiting to help end long board stalls.

Cordial Vampire and Carrion Feeder were so much fun with all the Changelings!

I had some fantastic matches of Magic and wonderful opponents. I ended up losing out in Round 7. Many of my game losses came from not utilizing that sweet sweet London Mulligan enough. Just Mulligan, ok? Make sure your hand is doing something and has a plan. If that plan is play four lands and a creature that doesn’t block, that’s a bad plan! The other losses came from green and red decks making big dudes and rolling over me in short order. All in all, I love Modern Horizons and doff my hat to the Wizards team on what may very well be my favorite design ever for a limited set.

4. make good memories

We celebrated Tony and Brandon making day 2 by doing some late night feasting and Cube Drafting. Vegas is very good at providing you food, alcohol, and tables for gaming at all hours and we took full advantage.

Yawgmoth’s Will was definitely cast so that Booster Tutor could be re-cast…

Each GP I attend I always try to make time for the artists. Because I have a soft spot for a lot of the early cards I grew up with, I was thrilled to see Anson Maddox, Dan Frazier, and a lot of the early generations of MTG artists along with some amazing new talent.

I handed my Juggernaut to Dan Frazier and waited. After a few minutes of quick inking and hunching over the card, he hands it back to me, gives me a slightly wild eyed look and mutters, “You better bloody well like it”. Which I did.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. If this sparked any great tournament memories or plans to make some, please let me know. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

As always, happy gaming!