Sunday 1 May 2016

April: Blue, Red and my Enchantment (modern)

The last time I was on my pet deck, excluding The Last PC tournament (March 19 at Madcap Gaming), was Regran Open II (February 2016). After a month and a half of playing Boros Burn and Grixis Vision Control decks, I think it is time for me go back to it. 14th of April,  I checked the calendar: GPT Taiwan at Got Game on Saturday. This made me sleeve my 75 list again. Oh wait, I did change something in the sideboard. Out all Blood Moons, replaced them with an equal number of Defense Grids. I was expecting a ton of Ancestral Vision control decks to show up but I was wrong. The meta was plagued with Project Melira Coco variants, Affinity and Jund/ Junk color decks. Here's a quick recap.

Gbw Coco variant 1-2   
Esper Control 2-0
Merfolk 0-2
UR Storm 2-1
Tron 2-0
Naya Burn 2-0
Gbw Coco 0-2

The Losses

One from Merfolk and a couple from Bgw Coco decks.

Bgw Coco variant. Bear in mind that during game one, a Collected Company deck wins either by: (i) setting up an unlimited cushion (Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Kitchen Finks + Viscera Seer); (ii) unlimited ping damage (Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Murderous Redcap + Viscera Seer); (iii) muscle giving cards (Anafenza, Kin-Tree SpiritGavony Township); (iv) swarm led by Voice of Resurgence or (v) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Restoration Angel combo. We're all aware that time is needed in setting up any of those win condition. Do not be that confident fellow storm trooper, always remind yourself that they have Scavenging Ooze and Qasali Pridemages in their main 60 in the hopes of slowing you down until they're ready to do their thing. Some even have an Eidolon of Rhetoric in it. Chord of Calling fetching that white enchantment creature card usually spells out game two. I dropped two of my matches because they had that white eidolon in their main. This archetype usually brings in Sin Collector, additional Scavenging Ooze, Choke and Duress (for some).  



Merfolks. What card you do not wish to see when you're up against a them? Cursecatcher? Remand? A school of fish, headed by Lord of Atlantis, swimming at you? Me, Spreading Seas. I only have 16/17 lands so getting screwed up by their blue enchantment would really be a big delay. Sadly on that crucial round, he had all the Spreading Seas in the world just to negate my red sources. Effectively putting a period on my aspiration of landing in the top 8. Merfolk usually brings: Echoing Truth, Spell Pierce or Negate, Relic of Progenitus and Chalice of the Void (for some).

The rest of that day

In no particular order, here are the things that I can recall.

Losing a game despite of having an online Pyromancer Ascension plus successfully recycling my graveyard (Past in Flames); yet unable to finish him because the Grapeshots were too deep for my cantrips to reach. A few spectators saw two turn three lucky sweet wins. Fetching an Eidolon of Rhetoric while in the middle of going off. Praying like a saint that no Echoing Truth or Ratchet Bomb or Supreme Verdict will come to his aid. Facing a mirror match.

April 21st, I checked my calendar of activities and saw that there are modern events in the coming weekend. Saturday (April 23) had Modern Mayhem (PC Butlers) while Sunday (April 24) had Regran Open IV (Regran) and GPT Tokyo (Madcap Gaming). Due to my prior commitments for, I only get to play in one event, GPT Tokyo (Madcap Gaming). The night before the 24th, I decided to give the unstorm version a try. I enlisted Pascal Wagner's 60 but had a different set of 15.

TJB_Unstorm 

Sideboard
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Wear / Tear
2 Torpor Orb
2 Timely Reinforcement
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Pithing Needle   
  
There were 22 players, five rounds and cut to 8 play-offs.

Merfolk 1-2
Affinity 0-2
BW Tokens 2-1
Affinity 2-0
Eldrazi 1-2

After getting knockout by team Eldrazi in the fifth round, I tried to be impassive while pondering. What went wrong? Was it the deck? Did I had misplays? Forgot any triggers, recklessness perhaps? Was it how I use its sideboard? Or did I just simply failed to see some favorable line of plays? 

My conclusion: (i) No, I did not missed any of my triggers. It's just that they drew better like Chalice of the Void setting it at one; topdecking an Echoing Truth for my 1/1 tokens. (ii) That I was audacious which resulted in not just causing me a game but also me not recognizing better lines of play. And lastly, (iii) probably, I did miserably during sideboarding.

There was another eternal weekend (April 30 on modern and May 1 on legacy), and unfortunately I had to skip both because of errands. There you have it folks, ending my not so good results April 2016. And if you're looking for some GPT modern here they are.

May 7 (Saturday)

GPT Modern
Raxx Gaming
Marikina City
10am

GPT Modern
HobbyPro Central
BF Homes, ParaƱaque
11am

GPT Modern
Madcap
San Pedro, Laguna    
12nn


May 8 (Sunday)
GPT Modern
Friday Quest
Gabbys, Mandaluyong
10am

GPT Modern
NG Examiner, Quezon City
10am

Until next time! I hope to see you all in those GPTs!

-Paeng4983

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