This past weekend I attended the Providence, Rhode Island Pro Tour Qualifier in the attempt to win a slot for Honolulu and at worst pick up some much needed planeswalker points. My efforts fell short as I lost in the Top 8 to a friend of mine, Michael Farrell, who lost to the eventual winner of the PTQ, Matt Costa.
Now I haven’t wrote any articles in a while, but this new Limited format has given me the fire again to start writing. In the past I’ve really despised Limited formats because I felt as if the skill of the player didn’t matter as much as in Constructed and it only really came down to the power of your cards. This format has shown me that skill is starting to play a much higher role in doing well.
This is my second PTQ Top 8 so far this season, and each time, I really felt that my sealeds were 6-3 or 7-2 at best, yet I went on to top 8. So there must be something that I’m doing right and others may be doing wrong, whether it’s in skill or card evaluations.
Here is the pool I opened:
- 1 Cobbled Wings
- 1 Ghoulcaller’s Bell
- 1 Inquisitor’s Flail
- 1 Wooden Stake
- 1 Creepy Doll
- 1 One-Eyed Scarecrow
- 1 Battleground Geist
- 1 Bloodcrazed Neonate
- 2 Chapel Geist
- 1 Crossway Vampire
- 2 Darkthicket Wolf
- 1 Delver of Secrets
- 1 Feral Ridgewolf
- 1 Festerhide Boar
- 1 Grave Bramble
- 1 Grizzled Outcasts
- 1 Kessig Wolf
- 1 Kindercatch
- 1 Lumberknot
- 1 Manor Skeleton
- 1 Mentor of the Meek
- 1 Moon Heron
- 1 Morkrut Banshee
- 2 Murder of Crows
- 1 Night Revelers
- 1 Orchard Spirit
- 1 Pitchburn Devils
- 1 Rakish Heir
- 1 Reckless Waif
- 1 Rotting Fensnake
- 2 Silverchase Fox
- 1 Skaab Goliath
- 1 Skirsdag Cultist
- 1 Stitched Drake
- 1 Stitcher’s Apprentice
- 1 Thraben Sentry
- 1 Tormented Pariah
- 1 Unruly Mob
- 1 Village Bell-Ringer
- 1 Village Cannibals
- 1 Villagers of Estwald
- 1 Back from the Brink
- 1 Bonds of Faith
- 2 Curiosity
- 1 Curse of Death’s Hold
- 1 Curse of the Nightly Hunt
- 2 Curse of the Pierced Heart
- 1 Rooftop Storm
- 1 Skeletal Grimace
- 1 Spectral Flight
- 1 Altar’s Reap
- 1 Feeling of Dread
- 1 Frightful Delusion
- 1 Geistflame
- 1 Hysterical Blindness
- 1 Lost in the Mist
- 1 Memory’s Journey
- 1 Midnight Haunting
- 1 Moment of Heroism
- 1 Ranger’s Guile
- 1 Spidery Grasp
- 3 Think Twice
- 1 Urgent Exorcism
- 1 Into the Maw of Hell
- 2 Maw of the Mire
- 1 Mulch
- 1 Night Terrors
- 1 Nightbird’s Clutches
- 1 Paraselene
- 1 Sever the Bloodline
- 1 Silent Departure
- 2 Travel Preparations
- 1 Unburial Rites
- 1 Moorland Haunt
I felt like I could take multiple directions with this sealed pool, which led to me taking almost the whole 30 minutes for deck construction. Here are some of the available possibilities:
Creatures (17)
- 1 Mentor of the Meek
- 1 Bloodcrazed Neonate
- 1 Skirsdag Cultist
- 1 Rakish Heir
- 2 Chapel Geist
- 1 Crossway Vampire
- 1 Kessig Wolf
- 1 Night Revelers
- 1 Pitchburn Devils
- 2 Silverchase Fox
- 1 Unruly Mob
- 1 Village Bell-Ringer
- 1 Reckless Waif
- 1 Thraben Sentry
- 1 Tormented Pariah
Lands (17)
Spells (6)
I liked this version because it had immense speed along with some decent removal. The creatures weren’t all on a premium level, but generally in the creature-heavy decks there are mostly going to be a lot of dorks just looking to trade and get in some quick damage.
Creatures (16)
- 1 Mentor of the Meek
- 2 Darkthicket Wolf
- 2 Chapel Geist
- 1 Festerhide Boar
- 1 Kindercatch
- 1 Lumberknot
- 1 Orchard Spirit
- 2 Silverchase Fox
- 1 Unruly Mob
- 1 Village Bell-Ringer
- 1 Grizzled Outcasts
- 1 Thraben Sentry
- 1 Villagers of Estwald
Lands (17)
Spells (7)
This version was basically a more hyper aggressive version of the R/W deck. It let me utilize Travel Preparation more, which has shown to be an extremely powerful spell for the aggro decks. Not only does it make your dorks into enormous monsters, but it also can be used to flip over Werewolves. I didn’t end up on this version or the R/W one.
Here’s the version I ended up on:
Creatures (16)
- 1 Mentor of the Meek
- 1 Battleground Geist
- 2 Murder of Crows
- 1 Stitched Drake
- 1 Stitcher's Apprentice
- 1 Skaab Goliath
- 2 Chapel Geist
- 1 Moon Heron
- 2 Silverchase Fox
- 1 Unruly Mob
- 1 Village Bell-Ringer
- 1 Delver of Secrets
- 1 Thraben Sentry
Lands (17)
Spells (7)
I felt like this version gave me the perfect mix of synergy and aggression along with the ability to utilize Moorland Haunt. After playing with it for seven rounds before double drawing into Top 8, it showed me some amazing synergy that I hadn’t even noticed at first glance. Combos such as Stitcher’s Apprentice with Murder of Crows, Mentor of the Meek, Unruly Mob, and Thraben Sentry. It was easily one of my top MVPs.
Cards that I overlooked at first:
Lost in the Mist:
I’ve always thought this card was average, but last weekend it proved to be my number one MVP. As U/W, when I leave five mana open, I represent more possibilities than just Lost in the Mist, which can normally be played around pretty easily. With this deck I would start out with 2-3 creatures for my first four turns, and right when my opponent would try to catch up, I would 2-for-1 them with Lost in the Mist. After the tempo swing of countering one of your opponent’s better spells and leaving them without a blocker, you get so far ahead. You should definitely be playing this in your sealed decks, ladies and gentlemen!
Stitcher’s Apprentice:
As I said before, this had amazing synergy with most of my deck, but I can just not stress it enough. It let me draw cards off of Murder of Crows, made my Unruly Mob bigger, drew cards off of Mentor of the Meek, and in the worst-case scenario, let me play my Zombies such as Stitched Drake and Skaab Goliath. It also makes your opponents think twice (no pun intended) when you have two mana and a Stitcher’s Apprentice and they are about to kill one of your creatures, knowing that you will just respond and make a 2/2 Homunculus.
Feeling of Dread:
In U/W it is just the perfect card for when your opponents begin to stabilize. Just when they think that they can keep your army of creatures at bay, you tap four of their guys, and the game is over. I wouldn’t recommend it so much in other non U/W decks, but it is extremely powerful otherwise.
Things that I wish I had done differently:
I felt like I had misbuilt my sealed by only one card, and I think you will be pretty shocked when I say which one. The card I wish I had in my deck was Urgent Exorcism over the Skaab Goliath. Now you might be saying to yourself, How could you want a card that goes 11th or 12th in Draft over a 6/9 trampler for only six mana? The reason is that I feel my deck wasn’t really meant to support Skaab Goliath because the only way to really get creatures in my graveyard was through Stitcher’s Apprentice or just purely trading creature for creature, while Urgent Exorcism I boarded in every single match I played. Against blue, white, and green, there are a decent amount of creatures to kill with it. For it to be bad, more than half of my opponents would have to be B/R. I highly advise you to play this main deck, as it was definitely a good card for me last weekend.
Now looking at my deck, you may ask how I Top 8ed with only Mentor of the Meek and Moorland Haunt as my only rares without any ways to kill creatures. The reason is that this format is not about the rares. If your deck doesn’t have 3-5 rares, you need to make your sealed deck as aggro- and tempo-based as possible. I beat decks that had Bloodline Vampires, Mayor of Avabrucks, and much more. I just got my creatures out quickly and started pounding face with evasive guys and used Lost in the Mist and Silent Departure to maintain tempo.
A perfect example is my friend, Michael Farrell. At the beginning of round 1, we sat next to each other and asked how each other’s pools were; both of us responded by saying they were very lackluster due to the lack of rares and that our decks were just being a bunch of dorky creatures with no removal. Yet we found each other in the Top 8 with a combined record of 15-1-2 because we played quick creatures and used cards like Silent Departure, Lost in the Mist, and Grasp of Phantoms to put our opponents far behind even with all of their bombs. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
So my advice to all of you out there is that if you can’t seem to peel the bomb rares in your upcoming sealed pools, then go for the second option and be a fast, aggressive deck with quick removal and tempo cards. Cards like Grasp of Phantoms and Silent Departure can be the biggest blowouts when your opponents have slow starts, facing a multitude of creatures about to beat the living crap out of them.
On a side note, there is something I would like to discuss some things I have been noticing in the Magic scene. Don’t complain about how you didn’t draw your best cards or how you got unlucky by missing land drops or drawing too many lands. These are things you can’t control. Try to look back on your game and see how you misplayed, or maybe between rounds review the way you built your sealed pool and see how you could have built it differently.
During a recent PTQ, I was playing a U/R version of my sealed where I was playing two Spectral Flights and some other mediocre cards. Instead of moping around and wondering why in the world I was 3-2, I sat myself down and reconstructed my sealed pool and pulled out a 5-3 after siding into a new deck every round. The point I’m trying to make here is: how do you expect to get better if you always have an excuse for everything that goes wrong?
Maybe instead of wondering why the same people are winning tournaments over and over again, go watch them during a Grand Prix or a Pro Tour and watch how they play. More than likely they are playing better than you are and building better than you are, which is leading to better results.
I felt that even though my deck this previous weekend didn’t have as many bombs as most or all of my opponents, I was able to build correctly and possibly outplay them in order to obtain victory. As much as people say “must be nice” or “how lucky,” Magic is a skill game, which has been proven time and time again.
Due to variance, worse players are going to win Magic tournaments, but for the most part, people like Luis Scott-Vargas, Yuuya Watanabe, and Dan Jordan are going to win a good number of them. So play hard and practice a lot, and you can definitely be the next big thing.
See ya later…