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This is the tale of an extraordinary triumph of fat Green men in a world of silly Blue mages with their silly Blue tricks. It illustrates the importance of the metagame in Limited, and exactly how card advantage works in Ravnica Limited, and why it doesn't matter if not one of your cards reads “draw a card.” And it's all from the perspective of a Grand Prix champion who is still baffled by how it came about.

I've had somewhat mixed fortunes since my Pro Tour Qualifier win a few weeks ago. I made top 4 in a Trial for Grand Prix Barcelona, and Simon O'Keeffe and I won 2HG Champs here in London, but I have found myself unable to win any Drafts anywhere, neither online nor in real life. I usually got to the semis, or went 2-1 in Swiss Drafts, but I never quite managed that final push to win it all. This seems slightly odd, considering I didn't lose a single match in the Draft portion of the Grand Prix and used pretty much the same strategy. There were two major differences I can identify: I had a much clearer focus that emphasized large creatures over cheap aggressive ones, and the metagame.

The Grand Prix Day 2 Metagame
Three byes makes a ginormous difference when it comes to making Day 2, and, as there aren't nearly enough Grand Prix Trials that not nearly enough players take seriously, the established Pros have such an advantage on top of their natural play skill that Day 2 consists of an unnaturally high percentage of Pros. These players tend to like their fancy, controlling Blue decks, with their trickery and their card drawing, leading to a clear metagame where avoiding Blue - like I have been doing ever since the release of Ravnica - is an awesome strategy.

The Pros' preference for Blue is exacerbated still by the fact that online, and in many other places, Green is over-drafted as it is much more forgiving for players of lesser skill levels. This is why I haven't been winning; I never managed to draft particularly impressive decks, because others were snatching up all my Green cards. On Day 2 of the Grand Prix, however, everyone else was fighting for Blue cards and ended up with slim pickings and 4-color decks with awful mana, whereas I got everything I wanted in spades, and then some.

It'll be interesting to see how my win affects Grand Prix Barcelona, the last remaining major tournament to use this format. I reckon it will be a lot bigger and there will be a lot more, shall we say, “random” players around who are more likely to go into Green, and split it to the point where those filthy Blue mages regain the advantage they thought they had going into Grand Prix Cardiff. We'll see.

I'm getting ahead of myself. It's time to start at the beginning of the story.

The Calm (or Lack Thereof) before the Storm
My fellow two-headed Giant champ Simon and I drove down to Cardiff on Friday afternoon. On the road, we were thinking of ways to please the almighty Grozoth, by sacrificing virgins, and designing various formats and cards around Grozoth. Cards like the legendary Tidewater, Minion of Grozoth, various things that make tokens with defender and ‘4: Loses Defender,' and Grozoth or Fiction. Coz, y'know, Grozoth is Fact. We were also thinking about rituals we could use when playing in the team Pro Tour Qualifiers as The Cult of Grozoth.

After arriving at the venue, registering, playing some BGD (big Green deck), having a single beer (stupid driving) and doing possibly the worst Draft I've ever done, we drove to Newport where we were staying at a friend's parents' house. There we played some Magic Online, with Nick's most awesome 5-color slops deck that was random as hell, hence hilarious. Gotta love them Earthshaker control decks, especially when your opponent plays the awesome Darkblast to prevent one point of damage to himself.

I got to bed at about 3am and slept really, really badly. The following morning we grabbed some breakfast, got to the venue, I said hi to scores of people from all over the country, and then we finally sat down to register and construct decks.

The Sealed Deck

I immediately dismissed the Blue cards as they weren't the stone cold nuts, and I hate Blue in this format. Next I dismissed the Red cards, as they were only a bunch of Torpid Molochs and Coalhauler Swines. I kept Moroii and Galvanic Arc as possible splash options, but didn't need them in the end. I really liked my deck as it had some awesome White flyers, some solid Black removal, and all the token generators in the world. Yay! I was gonna be able to beat my opponents down with their own Pro Player cards! Here's my deck.

GP Cardiff Sealed Deck A Ravnica Block deck, by Martin Dingler 1st place at a Grand Prix tournament in Cardiff on 2006-04-02 Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 1 Orzhov Signet 1 Terrarion Artifact Creatures 1 Junktroller Creatures 1 Belfry Spirit 1 Blind Hunter 1 Centaur Safeguard 1 Courier Hawk 1 Elves of Deep Shadow 1 Grave-Shell Scarab 1 Graven Dominator 1 Mortipede 1 Restless Bones 1 Selesnya Evangel 1 Selesnya Guildmage 1 Selesnya Sagittars 1 Shrieking Grotesque 1 Silhana Starfletcher 1 Veteran Armorer	Enchantments 1