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How I made it back home after a 53-hour trip, and a few words on my “favorite” format: M10 Limited.

Play or Draw in M10 Sealed?

The best reasons to draw in Limited are the following:

A) Your deck is not stable. In this case, the extra card you draw gives you better chance to find the right mana in the first few turns.

B) Your opponent’s deck is not stable. You usually don’t know that before game 2, but if your opponent is running Overrun, Goblin Artillery and Pacifism, his deck is very likely to produce extremely bad draws, and this possibility is higher on the play. In general, you’ll draw against a non-Green (and therefore almost unable to fix his mana) three-color guy.

C) You run cards which are specifically better on the draw. A double Mind Rot deck will be able to hurt his opponent a lot more if he has one less card. “Assuming you have more bombs than your opponent” also belongs to in this section, as an extra draw will give you better chance to find one of them. You should assume everyone has two bombs in this format.

D) The format is not very tempo-oriented. When you know decks in the format are not very aggressive, drawing before your opponent can compensate for the tempo disadvantage. In M10 Sealed deck, it’s even truer, as a curve rarely win games, while expensive bombs win a lot.

In this format, things are a little different. Fast and stable decks usually don’t exist, which is the reason why I didn’t mention those two very good reasons to decline initiative.

Therefore, you should draw first when three or four of the above reasons apply. You should play first if only one of the above reasons applies (D usually applies in M10 Sealed). When two of them apply, you should draw if it’s game 1 (how would you know the stability of your opponent’s deck anyway?). For games 2 and 3, either option is okay. If you trust your opponent, you can simply select the opposite option to what he decided when he last had the choice.

In Brighton for instance, I had a very stable deck, which was very controlling. I decided to play first in every game 1, so I could compensate for my lack of early drops by playing my three-mana guys on the same turn that they would play their two-mana guy. After sideboarding, whenever my opponent’s deck seemed really slow and/or irregular, I switched to drawing first.

In Bangkok, my deck was super aggressive and stable, which is an exception in this format. With lots of bad cards but a great curve and a pair of Sleep, playing first was amazing, and I actually considered switching to the UB build against an opponent deciding to start. None of them did, luckily.

In Niigata my deck was three-color, and its only fixer was a dual land. Stability was a concern, and I had about as many removal spells as guys, so I wasn’t very interested in having the first attack. Therefore I never played first, and neither did any of my opponents. And I feel like it was the best decision.

In draft, even though the format is still not very fast, decks are stable, which is the reason why I play first 90% of the time. The remaining 10% in which I draw are usually post-sideboard games in an unstable-versus-unstable matchup.

M10 Limited at the Grand Prix… Almost Done!

I went to Japan, my favorite country of all, and almost everything went well.

I made it through immigration without any trouble (which was actually almost disappointing… where was the suspense?).

I met up with the Kurodas - as I usually do when I visit Japan - staying with Masashiro and his wife Chicaco, and spending half of my time hanging around Osaka, and the other half playing with their awesome kids and enjoying the company of the family in general.

I went to the tournament and met with so many people I like, in a great venue, and I opened quite a good sealed cardpool. I even played some poker during the last two weeks, and even though it’s not my specialty, I surprisingly managed to win enough to pay for my whole trip.

And yet, when I arrived home a few days ago, I was feeling pretty bad.

Was it the 95 hours of train / night bus / plane / transit travel, on my own, over the last two weeks?

Was it the fact there had been something wrong on every single of my planes? Screens not working, several chairs I couldn’t push back for ten hours. Flights are annoying, as is the awful food, the snoring neighbor, the travelers who put their feet on my legs when sleeping.

Watching the worthless Dragon Ball movie on the plane? That didn’t help much either. I had decided never to see that movie, so not to spoil my childhood memories (I watched this anime show every week from the age of 9 to the age of 18). But I did. And I shouldn’t have. It was awful.

I’d heard the new Star Trek was quite good. I fear I have to disagree with that. I mean, I didn’t watch that show as a kid, so I was pretty new to it. But why does the hero have to be so dumb and like himself that much? It meant I could never like him. I definitely have a big problem with movies in which I don’t like the heroes.

Talking about Heroes, Sylar playing Spock? Seriously?

Still, I watched, and found the movie entertaining if not fascinating… until the first big scene in the USS Enterprise took place. You have the hero - the cool and strong white guy - surrounded by a black girl, a Russian everyone mocks because of his accent, an Asian who can obviously use Kung Fu and wield a Katana (and who probably carries sushi and sake in his back-pack for snacks), and the extra-terrestrial to show us the great connections between all people. Even Benetton wouldn’t have dared make an advertisement of this!

It would be nice, by the way, if someday a Russian in an American movie was not shown as “the random drunk guy.” Do people in Hollywood know the Cold War is over?

From that scene I couldn’t see the movie the same way, and the average movie it should have been became a n average-low one to be. Special mention however to the fact the girl the hero has a crush on actually ends up with his rival. That part was actually quite surprising and compensated a bit with the rest!

So, back to my trip. The problem was not the 53-hour trip that had taken me from Niigata to Lille via Osaka, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Helsinki, and London. You can’t make these kind of trips if you don’t get used to such Time Warps/Stretches.

No, the only problem was M10 Sealed, which was definitely the least skill-intensive format I had ever played.

At the GP, I lost the last round for Day 2. Missing a Day 2 is okay, and I know I’ve been globally lucky over the Brighton/Bangkok/Niigata trip. But in nearly none of the games did playing skill matter over pack-opening skill. These tournaments, plus the fact that Wizards have cancelled so many others, and because of the Cascade Block Pro Tour, I’m losing my Level 8 status, if not my Level 7, with the feeling I can do nothing about it. That makes me sad. I’m glad I won the lottery once, but now I’m wondering if I’ll get to Level 5.

Here’s my super fast report. No decklist or build here, as the deck was pretty easy to build and not very original. It had nine removal spells, plus Siege-Gang Commander and Fireball as key cards.

Round 4: I play Siege-Gang once. He has Ant Queen once. I win the game in which we don’t draw rares.

4-0

Round 5: I’m not called in the feature match. Good news! I’m not facing Kurihara and his insane deck. Pairings, pairings, let’s see…

Kurihara, Shingou (12) versus Ruel, Olivier (12)

Sweet. Here are the cards I’ve seen in his deck:

Pyroclasm
Air Elemental
Air Elemental
Sparkmage Apprentice
Goblin Artillery
Snapping Drake
Snapping Drake
Mind Spring
Mind Control
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Seismic Strike
Divination
Cancel
Chandra Nalaar
Chandra Nalaar

In game 1 I almost won, but he had Pyroclasm for Siege-Gang and Cancel on my Lightning Bolt for the win. In game 2 I played Pithing Needle on Chandra but I didn’t draw a third land. Anyway, we could have played 100 games, and I would have won five… maybe.

4-1

Round 6: Saito. No! Not Saito! Why would I play against another pro? Oh, never mind, it’s not Tomoharu. I win easily.

5-1

Round 7: Saito. No! Not… Wait! “Tomoharu”. Oh right, were was I? No! Not Saito! Why would I play against another pro?

Infinite one-for-one removal spells don’t stop Captain of the Watch. Neither do they stop Howl of the Night Pack. I lose 2-1 and must win the next two.

5-2

Round 8: Yasooka Shouta. Seriously? Thankfully, I have Siege-Gang twice. I’ll be playing last round for Day 2.

Round 9: I’m pretty sure I was playing the same guy as I played last week in the last round of Grand Prix: Bangkok. He takes game 1, and the only way he loses game 2 is for him not to play around anything I could draw. He outnumbers me on the creature front by far, thanks to Ant Queen, but thanks to some questionable attacks, I manage to set up a situation in which I can counter-attack for the win if I have a removal spell. As a matter of fact, I do.

In game 3, life totals are 11-7 in my favor, and I have Goblin Piker and Razorfoot Griffin. We have no hands, and I have seen only one way for him to deal with the flyer so far: an Assassinate already in his graveyard. He draws Ant Queen. Sweet… can I please stop facing that card one round out of two at every Grand Prix? It’s still okay… I can win the race. I draw Lightning Bolt and put him down to five life. He draws Deadly Recluse. I attack, he chump blocks and must topdeck again. This time, if he does topdeck an answer, I’m almost dead. Another Recluse… so he drew an answer that leaves him just enough mana to make exactly enough tokens to force my hand and play Lightning Bolt on a token on next turn. I don’t draw any of my six removal spells left, and must therefore Bolt one of his guys. On the next turn, I can topdeck Fireball or Siege-Gang Commander for the win. I draw? Harm’s Way, just enough to put him down to one life. He doesn’t attack me for the win for some reason, but I had to leave my flyer in defense so he’s still on 5. I draw land, and miss another Day 2.

As you can probably see, I’m a little disillusioned with Magic at the moment. My Friday article will include some of my predictions for the game going forward. You have been warned...

Until next time…

Oli