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Around the World in Three Grand Prix: Part 4Alex Shvartsman The first thing for those traveling to Australia to remember is that it's far away. Really far away. No, further than that. No matter where you are traveling from. I flew to Brisbane from Tokyo, which seems a lot closer than going there from United States (it actually is only half the distance) and the flight still took about twelve hours. It was well worth it.
You see, the second thing to remember is that Australia is one of the coolest places in the world to visit. I have traveled to about thirty countries, so I would not make that statement lightly. Australia has beautiful scenery, friendly people, inexpensive lodging and lots to do for a tourist. AND it hosts an occasional Grand Prix. Is it any wonder I chose Australia for my four day long vacation? I flew to Brisbane straight after Grand Prix-Shizuoka, arriving there by Tuesday afternoon. That gave me four days to relax and have some fun before returning to the world of Magic to compete in the Grand Prix. The Australian dollar is worth almost exactly one half of a U.S. dollar, whereas prices are pretty much equal to U.S. prices - which means everything was 50% off for me. My hotel cast $AUS 82 per night, which is just an amazing deal - a deal that was really helpful since I was spending a whole week. Brisbane is an Australian version of San Diego. It boasts over 320 sunny days a year, with sub-tropical climate, gorgeous beaches near the city and a ton of cool touristy stuff to do. I visited an actual rain forest, got pictures taken of me holding a Koala, fed a Kangaroo and did all sorts of other things you would pretty much have to travel to Australia for. By Friday, I was back in the Magic-playing mode, ready to take on the local competition. During the Grand Prix trial, they had a sealed deck tournament open to players with three byes only. I signed up as I wanted to see what kind of a competition I will be facing. Although I have traveled to Australia before, it was to play in the Magic Invitational, so this was my first chance to play in an open event on this continent. I opened the following deck: 1 Patchwork Gnomes 1 Sungrass Egg 1 Cabal Inquisitor 1 Dusk Imp 1 Face of Fear 1 Frightcrawler 1 Ghastly Demise 1 Overeager Apprentice 1 Skeletal Scrying 1 Whispering Shade 3 Zombie Assassin 1 Zombie Cannibal 2 Aven Flock 1 Auramancer 2 Dedicated Martyr 1 Devoted Caretaker 1 Life Burst 1 Mystic Penitent 1 Mystic Visionary 1 Nomad Decoy 2 Ray of Distortion 1 Shelter 2 Soulcatcher 1 Tireless Tribe 1 Aether Burst 1 Aboshan's Desire 2 Aven Fisher 1 Aven Windreader 1 Cephalid Looter 1 Dreamwinder 1 Morbid Hunger 1 Rites of Refusal 1 Standstill 1 Syncopate 1 Upheaval 1 Words of Wisdom 2 Cartographer 1 Dilligent Farmhand 1 Gorilla Titan 1 Howling Gale 2 Moment's Peace 1 Nantuko Disciple 1 Seton's Desire 1 Springing Tiger 1 Werebear 1 Acceptable Losses 1 Anarchist 1 Blazing Salvo 1 Chainflinger 1 Demoralize 1 Mad Dog 1 Molten Influence 1 Mudhole 1 Pardic Miner 2 Pardic Swordsmith 1 Shower of Coals 1 Spark Mage 1 Steam Vines 1 Thermal Blast 1 Tremble 2 Abandoned Outpost 1 Cabal Pit 1 Nomad Stadium 1 Seafloor Debris
Blue was considerably deeper, with plenty of solid cards. I knew that it would be one of my two main colors almost immediately. Finally, red offered some excellent splash cards in form of more removal. Shower of Coals is a double red card, which makes it very difficult to splash, but it is also a card you do not expect to cast until later in a game. With Seafloor Debris, an Egg, and a pair of Aven Fishers, I felt relatively confident that I would draw into two sources of red mana in time to use it. So I built the following deck:
Those of you with a fair amount of experience in Odyssey Limited should immediately spot one tremendous mistake I made when building the deck. Hint: it has to do with card valuation. I will talk about the deck a bit and give you a chance to try and figure out what my biggest mistake was in the meantime.
The tournament gathered a total of 8 people, so it was three rounds with a winner walking away with a box of Odyssey. I won my first round easily, then sweated to win a very close round 2. I met Ben Seck in the finals and we split the box, then he proceeded to win the match we chose to play out anyway. Ben had a better deck and, if memory serves me right, I did not play incredibly well either. I tend to actually play better than the pressure is on, sliding into horrible error mode when playing just for fun. Guess I can't complain though - it would be far worse if I was afflicted by the reverse of that problem and caved in under pressure instead. Saturday saw me open the following sealed deck: 1 Patchwork Gnomes 1 Steamclaw 1 Sarcatog 1 Aboshan's Desire 1 Aether Burst 1 Cephalid Looter 1 Cephalid Scout 1 Immobilizing Link 1 Laquatus' Creativity 1 Peek 1 Psionic Gift 1 Scrivener 2 Syncopate 1 Thought Nibbler 1 Afflict 1 Cabal Inquisitor 1 Coffin Purge 1 Crypt Keeper 1 Decompose 1 Dirty Wererat 1 Dusk Imp 1 Fledgling Imp 1 Frightcrawler 1 Hint of Insanity 1 Infected Vermin 2 Mind Burst 1 Patriarch's Desire 1 Zombify 1 Acceptable Losses 1 Barbarian Lunatic 1 Blazing Salvo 1 Chance Encounter 1 Dwarven Recruiter 1 Ember Beast 1 Epicenter 1 Firebolt 1 Flame Burst 1 Frenetic Ogre 1 Rites of Initiation 1 Scorching Missile 1 Thermal Blast 1 Tremble 1 Auromancer 1 Aven Archer 1 Confessor 1 Devoted Caretaker 1 Embolden 1 Hallowed Healer 1 Karmic Justice 1 Life Burst 1 Mystic Visionary 1 Sphere of Reason 1 Spiritualize 1 Tireless Tribe 1 Chatter of the Squirrel 1 Druid Lyrist 1 Druid's Call 1 Krosan Archer 1 Krosan Avenger 1 Leaf Dancer 1 Nantuko Disciple 1 Overrun 3 Seton's Desire 1 Springing Tiger 1 Refresh 1 Roar of the Wurm 1 Twigwalker 1 Wild Mongrel 1 Abandoned Outpost 1 Bog Wreckage Finally, a solid card pool! I almost immediately settled into black and green as my main colors, but it was a bit more difficult to settle on a splash. Blue offered up a Looter and a pair of Syncopates. White had a Healer and an Embolden (the least attractive of the three options). Red had Firebolt, Flame Burst, and Thermal Blast. As black did not have almost any direct removal, and my deck was very aggressive, I chose red over blue. My deck ended up looking as follows:
After sitting out my three byes (and getting fed some lunch by the ever-gracious Ben Seck), I started off with a feature match right away, as I did in Shizuoka. My first opponent was Rob Nadebaum, Australian National Champion. Our game was delayed considerably by a deck check - with both of us receiving warnings for marked sleeves! My warning was pretty understandable, as I used the same Japanese sleeves from last weekend - but Rob only played for one round with his. Both of us desleeved our decks and just played without them.
I defeated Brenton Cumberpatch in the next round. It was here, if memory serves me right, when I managed to set up another cool combo. I enchanted Diseased Vermin with Seton's Desire, which not only made it into a viable attacker, but allowed me to Pestilence for two every turn without my Vermin dying. In the next round I beat Tristan Gall, with a close game ending in the extra turns. To Tristan's credit, he played fast even when he was losing, where a less scrupulous player could have slowed down just enough to force a draw. My last round opponent Daniel Romans played far more slowly - though I very much doubt it was intentional. Things looked good for me in game one, but he recovered and went on to win the game eventually. I managed to win the second game, but there were VERY little time left for game 3. My opening hand for game three was very slow - normally not really a problem, but I could not win in time with that hand so I was forced to take a mulligan and keep a hand that was not very good. Romands on the other hand was able to play a Shadowmage Infiltrator, which I could not remove or block at the moment, riding it to victory. So instead of an undefeated record, I had to settle for 6-1 going into Day 2. My first draft deck looked excellent:
Now at a 7-2-1 record, I needed to win my final table in order to get into the Top 8. The deck I drafted hardly seemed capable of doing so:
That was it - one round away from a Top 8. I've been in that position at least five times over the course of the last season, but only managed one Top 8 finish, losing this crucial match in Moscow, Cape Town, Gothenburg and several other places. Could I finally break this unfortunate streak? My last round opponent was Micah Green. I have nothing but praise for him - he did not let the pressure of the match get to him and both of us had a lot of fun - and I am not just saying that because I won! Finally, another Top 8 finish. Top 8 draft is different from a normal Rochester because everybody knows who his or her first round opponent will be. This lets people draft against each other, trying to increase the chances of winning the first round and advance into the Top 4. I was able to maneuver the draft very well in that regard. My first round opponent was going to be Dan Romans, the same guy who beat me in the last round of Day 1. I picked up a bunch of white cards and a couple of blue ones early on, so Dan got busy drafting a blue-black strategy that would beat me - picking several Frightcrawlers incredibly high. Imagine his surprise when, later into a draft, I started adding black cards to my virtually mono-white deck. Instead of game-breakers, his three Frightcrawlers became terrible. This is the deck I ended up with:
My Top 4 match was against Richard Johnston, who played me to a draw earlier that day. He was playing an ultra-controlling blue-white deck that was every bit as good as mine. Our first game took forever - almost an hour. Both of us played out hordes of creatures, with neither able to attack successfully. This is where not maindecking the Frightcrawler really hurt me - it could have literally gone all the way, even without Threshold. Richard was able to deck me in the first game - I have gone through my entire library without finding a way to kill him, certainly not good for my morale.
The final game was a bit anti-climatic. I drew something like eleven lands and six spells, not nearly enough to hold off Johnston. Despite his own draw being relatively slow, he was able to cast creatures whereas I played more land. Johnston defeated me 2-1, and then went on to win the Grand Prix, beating New Zealand's Roger Miller in the finals. I earned a third place finish, and $1200 in prize money, as well as guaranteeing myself a seat at the upcoming Masters Series event. Not a bad weekend at all. The international Grand Prix circuit is an amazing opportunity for players such as I to visit exotic countries, and play some great games, without spending a fortune. Even if your circumstances do not allow you to travel regularly, you should look into traveling to another country for a Grand Prix one of these days. You will likely find it does not cost as much money as you fear it might, and it is an excellent experience for anyone from a top pro to a PTQ player. You might even set away some time to sightsee. I will probably be there, so make sure to say hello! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Not an amazing card pool, but enough to work with. Black offered some solid cards including three Zombie Assassins - an impressive amount of removal for a sealed deck already. However, the black cards were hopelessly slow and would need some inexpensive cards to be combined with. White was neither here nor there - it had some very good cards and a few decent ones, but not enough to play it as one of the two main colors. 
The deck is a little slow, but it is almost certain to win if it survives early game. It is chock full of removal that can handle most cards, with exception of a handful of overpowered rares. So what was my mistake you ask? It is one of those overpowered rares that I neglected to play with. Upheaval is an extremely powerful late game card in Limited. It can reset the game if you are about to lose, or it can set up nearly an autowin: tap eight or nine mana into your pool, cast Upheaval, play a land, and summon a 2/2 or bigger creature. It will be several turns before an opponent can even match that - and if you summon something like Psychatog or Wild Mongrel, you will certainly win well before then. Of course, Upheaval would make my deck even slower - but it still should have been in the deck over 
Things looked pretty grim for me in the first game as Rob unleashed some really good green and black creatures on me. However, he made a mistake toward the end of the game, forgetting to sacrifice a land to his 
It was a solid combination of cards, with plenty of powerful creatures. I even had to leave a Windreader in the sideboard, as I did not want to play more than 5 five casting cost cards. I easily defeated Jeremy Wright in the first round, but could not win quickly enough against Richard Johnston in the second. Our match ended in a draw, as I needed at most two more turns to win. Not that he played too slow - sometimes the game just takes that long, though not often. I consider myself a fast player, but I was going into extra turns way too often in this tournament. Good thing about the third round was that it took about ten minutes. Bad thing was that I got horribly crushed. Dante Rosati's green deck rolled over me as though I was not even there. For all the powerful cards I had, my deck did not deal well with a turn 2 Wild Mongrel.
I had some very good cards, but also a number of mediocre ones - and the games would come down to how well I drew. I don't remember the details too well, but I managed to beat Matt Dickinson. My next match was another feature, against Andrew Gordon. I quickly lost game 1, but things looked far better in the second game as I drew into a Looter/Roar of the Wurm combo. On turn 4 I activated a Looter and opted to discard the Wurm. However, I managed to clumsily grab a 
I kept my own Frightcrawler in the sideboard. It can be pretty good against other archetypes, but it certainly would not help me win round one. As I expected, the match was no contest. I won in two games, despite my opponent getting a 
Second game started off poorly, as I did not have an early play. My first play was Mystic Zealot, which got removed from the game with Syncopate, and the Aven Flock I played on the following turn got Repelled. Despite such a poor start, I was able to come back and win that game. Johnston did not draw any offense, and could not deal with the solid creatures I eventually managed to get on the table. The match would go into game three.
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