Grand Prix-Cape Town Offers Up The Best Of South Africa

Alex Shvartsman

For part one of Alex's report, click here.

Despite the mistakes I made when constructing my sealed deck, I was winning my early matches due to a solid card pool, occasional good plays, and a secret weapon.

What secret weapon, you say? It's simple. If I win a die roll during any sealed deck match, I opt to draw, rather than play first. This is really not some kind of an unorthodox decision - you will find virtually all pro and higher-level PTQ players doing the same thing. Here is the reasoning behind it: your deck, as well as your opponent's, will be weaker on average than a draft deck. Thus, even if your opponent's deck is pretty aggressive, he will not often be able to take great advantage from playing first. On the other hand, you and your opponent are both likely playing three colors. If your opponent is not an experienced player, he might even be playing three colors evenly in his deck, rather than just splashing a touch of the third color. Thus, poor mana draws will always play a more significant role in this format than in draft. You want to decrease the chances of getting a poor mana draw as much as possible, while at the same time pushing the advantage of having your opponent get a poor draw further.

There is also a matter of mulligans. When you are playing second, a mulligan is a minor disadvantage. If you are playing first however, you are now down not one, but two cards, making it far more difficult to win the match. It is surprising how few people realize this though. As a matter of fact, I often determine whether I can expect a tough match based on what my opponent opts to do when he wins a die roll.

My first few rounds went off without a hitch. I defeated Jaco Prinsloo 2-1, then swept John Wood 2-0. Both were South African players, and both played reasonably well, but not at pro level and I was able to take advantages of their minor misplays here and there to ensure victory. For the last match of the day (Cape Town was the first Grand Prix in years to play only six rounds on Day 1, because of lower attendance), I had to face probably the toughest opponent I could get paired up against in this tournament - another visiting pro, Ryan Fuller.

Ryan and I have battled many times in the past, at Grand Prix, Pro Tours and even the Masters Series. Despite his less-than-stellar reputation, we never really had a problem. Our matches have always been pretty intense, with some amount of trash talking, but nothing either of us had a problem with. This match would prove different.

A judge was dispatched to watch the match from the very start, apparently because of some problems Ryan had earlier in the tournament. We began to play, with Fuller getting a solid early advantage. My draw was very slow, and I had not played a spell till turn four or five. Fuller summoned several creatures and was beating me down quickly. When I say quickly here, I am referring to the number of turns rather than the actual time that passed. Ryan was taking his time every turn, apparently deciding whether or not to swing at me for about five points of damage required some serious thought on his part. I was never in a solid position to make a comeback, but a game that should have taken me less than ten minutes to lose, took up easily twenty.

Fuller was also ahead in the second game, beating me down to about ten life points before I stabilized. At that point, his play slowed down even further. It is a common tactic among unscrupulous players to try to win game one and then play slowly enough so that the second game never finishes. If they happen to lose game one, they will suddenly play quickly in order to make sure they have a chance to win the two remaining games. I definitely felt I was being "slowballed" here. Several appeals to the judge who was watching all this did not produce any notable results. Ryan was asked to "play faster" but it was not actually enforced in any way, nor was there a penalty issued. At this point, I had a total control of the table and would definitely win the game as long as the time did not run out. Fuller had a Squirrel Nest out as well as a good number of creatures still left over, so he was just trying to survive long enough to get this game to end in a draw, thereby winning the match.

He would have succeeded, too. I might have missed killing him by a single turn, had I not drawn Pulsating Illusion on third of the five extra turns. I was able to win the game on the very last turn, tying the match. Not only did neither of us have an undefeated record we fought for, we were the ONLY players in the tournament at a 5-0-1 record, which meant we would get paired against each other during the first round of the draft next morning.

The judge later apologized to me for not issuing Fuller a penalty. "I was incorrect," he said after being talked to by the head judge. Unfortunately, players like Fuller are often able to take advantage of the less experienced judging staff in countries where the game is still relatively young and get away with bending the rules far further than they would be able to at the Pro Tour.

During the first draft, I was hoping to pick up a blue-green deck as no one was playing those colors in the two seats to my right. However, there simply weren't many blue cards being opened. I kept picking up green cards and was able to pick up a pair of Hallowed Healers passed to me later than they normally should have arrived, so I ended up drafting white-green. I apologize for not posting the deck lists here. I misplaced my draft decks from this tournament before writing the report. I will be posting all decks from the next two Grand Prix in parts 3 and 4 of this report.

As expected earlier, I faced Fuller again in the first round. To his credit, he did play a bit faster this time around and we split the first two games with plenty of time left over to play out the deciding game. Fuller drafted a blue-white deck that was very strong, but a little slow. I could beat him by summoning a horde of creatures early on, and overwhelming his defenses, but he would get more of an advantage if he could survive the initial eight or ten turns of the game.

Unfortunately for me, the draw I got in the third game was a little too slow. I did not summon a creature until turn four, and Fuller already had an Angelic Wall and a Cephalid Looter in play by then. My g-w deck had no way to remove the Looter, so any time it shows up things will look grim - one of the main arguments against playing this particular archetype. Cephalid Looter is one of the most overlooked cards by inexperienced drafters, but serious players will almost always take it as a first pick. The ability to throw away excess lands and dig deeper into your deck for some of your best cards is extremely important and should never be underrated.

I was not in a losing position yet, but the long-term prospects weren't good. At this point, a gaggle of judges arrived at the table and asked Fuller to "come with us". Moments later, a judge watching the match told me that I won it and can pack up my cards. Apparently, Fuller was observed breaking the rules on Day 1, and the judges just now collected enough solid evidence to issue him a match loss penalty. I don't think I should go into the specifics of what he did, but it was very clearly against the rules, and the judging staff acted to punish him. I walked away with a match win and an inability to feel bad for Ryan after our exhausting battle the day before.

I defeated Deslin Naidoo 2-0 in the next round, and faced South Africa's best-known player Andrew Mitchell, to see which of us would win the table. Andrew drafted a very fast red-green deck, but it was actually a very good matchup for my green-white deck as I had larger creatures and Hallowed Healers. However, I finally ran into some poor draws. Andrew was able to come back from being down a game to win the next two, taking the match and guaranteeing himself a place in the Top 8 as he was two points ahead of me in the standings at the time we got paired up. I would need to go 2-1 in the next draft in order to place in the Top 8 as well.

Problem was, my next draft deck was terrible. There were several contributing factors here. First, Andrew Mitchell who was passing to me accidentally took a Werebear, even though he did not intend to move in on the color. This caused me to waste two picks on a different color before I was able to confirm that he was not indeed trying to draft green. But the real problem was the guy sitting to my left. He decided that it was a good idea to draft the same colors as me! Of course, this meant that he would get the leftovers from two of the three packs, but it also meant that he would weaken my deck during the second pack, when cards are being filtered through him. Pieter Loubser ended up playing a three-color deck with his land configuration being 6 islands, 6 mountains, and 6 forests - but it did not help me very much. I still managed to draft a number of bombs, but my deck was not very strong overall. I faced that very player in the first round, and he managed to beat me, avoiding mana problems for that one match. He apologized for screwing me during the draft. His reason: I had to either move into your colors, or the colors of the guy on MY left, and he is my friend. This reasoning is clearly very bad since you are only shooting yourself in the foot by competing with the guy passing to you for your colors. I could not really stay mad at him or Andrew - it's not like they were "out to get me", they simply made some mistakes during the draft, and I ended up suffering for it. It happens.

I managed to win round 11, and was now about to play a deciding match against Kruger Wagner, the winner advancing to the single elimination rounds. It wasn't even close. Kruger opened game one by summoning a turn two Wild Mongrel and enchanting it with Seton's Desire on turn 3. He attacked with it three times and summoned one more creature. I played out a couple of smaller creatures that could not really block his monster, and then Kruger cast Overrun, killing me on turn 6!

Kruger summoned his only Wild Mongrel on turn two yet again in the second game, and proceeded to complement it with a barrage of monsters. He brought me very low with an Overrun, though I managed to survive the attack by casting AEther Burst on his largest monster, and then went on to summon a few more creatures and beat me senseless with them. The entire match took less than ten minutes. Kruger drafted what was clearly the best deck at the table. He had two Overruns and two Beast Attacks, not to mention great many solid green monsters. Kruger got really unlucky to lose the first two rounds of the draft, but his luck returned at a very inopportune time for me, offering Kruger a well-deserved Top 8 slot, while leaving me in 13th place overall.

I cheered on Justin Polin as he made the bid for the title, but Ben Seck took him out in Top 4. Ben proceeded to win the final match, becoming the first Australian Grand Prix champion. Later in the evening, the organizers surprised us by offering to pay foreign players their prize money in cash. I was given $500 in Rand (South African currency), and Justin picked up a wad of cash totaling $1200. He actually got hassled at the airport, when he attempted to exchange money. The exchange clerks demanded to know whether he earned this money in South Africa, and if not, to see his exchange receipt from bringing this money into the country. We spent almost half an hour sorting this out and were finally able to convince the clerks that we did not come to South Africa to steal their jobs.

Overall, this was a very fun trip. I got to watch, and help cover, the Magic Invitational. I played some good Magic, and earned $500 for it. Between the prize money, compensation for helping cover the Invitational, and the extremely inexpensive hotel room, I was able to almost break even on the trip - more than worth it for a visit to Africa. I was now looking forward for my two week long trip to Asia-Pacific, which I will cover in the remaining two installments of my report.