Grand Prix Manchester Champion – Theros Block Constructed on June 1st 2014
Winner of ‘the other’ Theros Block Constructed tournament was Fabrizio Anteri playing a powerful BUG Midrange deck. This deck is the flip side of the Elspeth, Sun’s Champion coin and as such runs the means to beat it rather then join it. As was proven at Pro Tour Journey into Nyx that the battle lines were drawn with the majority taking sides between either Elspeth and Prognostic Sphinx then jamming in the formats Green acceleration package.
In this format the most commonly played cards it turns out are a pair of Green mana accelerants which most likely are going to become the dynamic duo come the next Standard season. This decks ideal opening lies with a turn one Scry land into a turn two Sylvan Caryatid followed by a turn three Courser of Kruphix before making your land drop. That provides the deck with the possibility of rushing out that early five drop which is where the deck plays into. The main avenue of attack lies in the Prognostic Sphinx which was discovered to be the main foil to Elspeth as it not only will fly over her ground forces but also is able to skirt her destroy creatures ability by virtue of being not too powerful. There is also additional beatdown provided by Reaper of the Wilds which sports great stats as a 4/5 for four mana able to protect itself if necessary, but also provides some added bonus with a Scry whenever another creature dies. A pair of planeswalkers are included with Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver doing a lot of heavy lifting by not only milling away possible threats and answers from the opponent but also stealing some of those threats away, and Kiora, the Crashing Wave which can add extra draw and acceleration, lock down a particularly troublesome creature or even ‘Call the Kraken’ if allowed to build up enough loyalty. As this deck chose the Midrange route instead of Control the only disruption in the deck is provided from a set of Thoughtseize to not only strip them of their most bothersome card but also provide you with all the information about their plans so you are able to set yourself up properly. Then we have the removal suite which is as robust as they come. Centering around the formats best there is a full set of Hero’s Downfall to rid the board of creatures or planeswalkers alike, a trio of the pseudo-sweeper in Silence the Believers which can often hit two or three necessary targets, a pair of Bile Blight that is extremely good at taking care of an army of Elspeth tokens, and a misers Unravel the Æther to deal with any troublesome artifacts or enchantments including Gods as they are shuffled back into the library. A solitary Read the Bones provides the deck just a tiny bit of draw power to help dig for the cards it needs.
So, I got my first up close and personal look at full Theros Block Draft and I have to say I enjoyed the experience. The format has good flexibility and variance making for a wide variety of decks and lots of interesting choices. Today I’ll share some of my thoughts on the format and recap my draft…hopefully some of you don’t make the same mistakes that I made.
First off, I ended up playing Junk (G/W/B) which is pretty unusual for a draft deck. Most players would opt to play 2 colours and perhaps splash a third colour, but I ended up playing a full suite of all three colours. In the Journey into Nyx pack I was looking through and had a rare of Revel of the Fallen God…which is a funny card but it is ambitious to cast and tough to get in to because it is 2 colours to cast. However, in the same pack there was a Banishing Light. Banishing Light is premium removal in White in both Standard and Limited, so this was an easy pick and set me up to go into white.
My second pick had a variety of interesting cards but the Golden Hind looked like an easy second pick and had me going into White and Green. Normally this is a colour combination that I’m very comfortable with and really felt at ease with being set up in those 2 colours. With a pick 3 Ravenous Leucrocota I was well on my way to W/G beat down deck I would be expecting myself to play. However pick four is where things got off the rails.
Pick 4 had me looking at a pack that had no green cards of any sort and poor white cards, so it would appear as if I was being cut off from my colours (or is was a lousy pack) but I was looking at a Brain Maggot. Now, I thought to myself, Brain Maggot is a pretty solid card…and with both of my other colours seemingly closed off, Black might be an option. So, Brain Maggot was the pick, opening the door a crack to play Black.
Pick 5 was another Ravenous Leucrocota and I was back on W/G. However, again, pick 6 I was out of luck in either of my colours, but looking at a pack with a Spiteful Blow. Normally I don’t get excited for 6 mana removal spells, but in a draft where removal is a tad tough to come by, the fact that this destroys a creature AND a land made it easily the best pick…and at pick 6 was a pretty good sign Black was open. So, Spiteful Blow and my thought process was very seriously to play either W/B or G/B and abandon the W/G deck idea.
Well, Born of the Gods opened up and my first pack had Tromokratis which was far from ideal as I hadn’t picked a single Blue Card yet. However, Bile Blight was looking at me and I made sure to grab it. Passed my pack…and picked up the next one…which also had a Bile Blight! Ok, so now I was very seriously playing Black…I had perhaps two of the best removal spells back to back and to not play them would be foolhardy. With the next couple of picks I grabbed a couple of green creatures like Nyxborn Wolf, Phere-Band Tromper, and Swordwise Centaur and was really and truly looking to play G/B.
Well the plan totally changed again with Theros when I got passed a pack early in the round and was looking at Scholar of Athreos and a bunch of White, Blue, and Red cards…and nothing in my other two colours. I wondered if I was being cut off again because someone down the table had decided to jump colours too! I was unimpressed. Scholar is an awesome card in a B/W deck…but I committed to playing G/B…unless I was prepared to play all three colours or basically toss this pick. I grabbed the Scholar. I was rewarded with a second one in the next pack too. Oh boy. Now I was in a pickle. So, more or less I spent the rest of the Theros round grabbing utility creatures in White like Leonin Snarecaster, Hopeful Eidolon and an Ordeal of Heliod. I also lucked in to a Sip of Hemlock but most of the rest was just filler and not very good.
So, here’s my Draft deck
Junk (G/W/B)
Now, my first thoughts when I finished building this deck from my picks was ” wow…am I GREEDY! ” Almost every draft deck I have ever seen built, that is any good, is two colours and MAYBE splashes a third. I was full on running three colours…and had virtually no mana fixing. On top of that, I pushed the envelope and played 24 spells and 16 land instead of the more traditional 23 and 17. I was clearly pushing my luck. I kept telling myself I had plenty of removal…all I had to do was hold down the board long enough to get to 4 land (and have all three colours) and I was golden because my highest casting cost on a creature was 4.
Well, I went 2-1…which is normally a pretty decent record…but that one loss left me somewhat frustrated because I played my way to that loss more than I got beat by my opponent. We went the full three games and he won game 1, I won game 2, and then he took game 3…but it was the loss in game 1 that left me bummed. The exchange that left turned the game in his favour was one where I attacked with a Ravenous Leucrocota into his 2 creatures that combined had enough power to kill Ravenous Leucrocota. I didn’t expect him to team block, but he did. But all was not lost…I had Bile Blight in my hand and 2 open black mana. However, I got greedy…again. I opted not to pull the trigger on the Bile Blight on one of his creatures (voyaging Satyr I think) in favour of trying to get a better target with it later. So, my leucrocota died, so did his Satyr…and that left him with a creature and me with an open board. Next turn he Bestowed Nylea’s Emissary on his dude and the beat down was on. That HUGE misplay cost me the game and a chance to go 3-0. I’m not going to say I would have won for sure, but my odds would have been at least even if not better…but instead I had to swallow a loss due to some poor play. All in all, it was a pretty successful draft and had a blast and can hardly wait for my next one to try and rectify those playing mistakes.
Other Ramdom Thoughts:
Ravenous Leucrocota- In my review of Journey Into Nyx I reviewed Ravenous Leucrocota favourably and compared it to Nessian Asp, a bomb in triple Theros draft. Well, Ravenous Leucrocota might be better than the Asp. The difference is the Vigilance. Once this thing goes Monstrous and is 5/7 it is house! It can attack and defend, and if you can Bestow it with anything it is HUGE and really hard to manage.
Brain Maggot grossly over performed for me. The ability to strip your opponent of a key card early in the game is extremely valuable and if that allows you to get out in front and force them to expend resources on other things, well, you are in luck. I have to admit, I also under rated this card in my review.
Leonin Snarecaster and Deathbringer Lampads both played similar roles in the deck, namely provide a form of evasion for some of my bigger creatures to exploit. The snarecaster would tap down pesky blockers and the Lampads just let something sneak in for extra damage and allow me to get into the red zone. These were both surprisingly useful. Especially the Lampads. I was skeptical at first but I have changed my tune.
Consign to dust vs. Fade into Antiquity. I had the option of running either one of these and opted for the Consign to Dust. I liked the option of the Strive mechanic despite the fact that I feel that it, in most situations isn’t all that relevant. Fade can be excellent with the exile ability instead of Destroy, but unless you are facing down a god, the ability to hit multiple targets is key.
Normally I really like Blue, but I really got the sense from the packs going around the table that Blue is pretty weak in this format. Unless no one else is drafting Blue you are usually scrambling to find playable cards. Most of the players who were drafting Blue in my pod really struggled and couldn’t dig up enough answers to stay in the game for long. The one exception was the guy in G/U because he was able to back his blue up with the Green muscle he needed.
A good friend of mine in the military, Major Observation, told me that Bile Blight and Banishing Light are REALLY good removal…and of course he was right.
As much as I hate 6 mana removal, I had never been so happy to see that 6th land show up and then be able to cast Sip of Hemlock. That Hemlock never tasted so good and putting the final nail in the coffin of your opponent.
Fellhide Brawler largely stinks. He’s a bad Grizzly Bear. Mogis Marauder isn’t far behind.
White Cheddar popcorn is outstandingly tasty. Every time I have it I am surprised at how good it is. Why don’t I ever pick any of this stuff up on my own?
Well, that’s all I’ve got for today. If you have thoughts or experiences you want to share about your Drafting JBT, go ahead, let me know. I’d love to hear about them. Fire me a Tweet and tell me your tale or share your wisdom.
Thanks for reading and until next time Keep it fun, Keep it safe…Keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
It was an amazing weekend of Theros at the latest stop on the Pro Tour showcasing both the draft format and Block Constructed. As has become tradition at the Pro Tour after the release of the final set of the block they debut this fresh and largely unknown constructed format. For those that aren’t familiar with Block Constructed your card pool is limited to just the cards from the three sets, or in the case of the Lorwyn Block four, from that particular block only. You follow regular deck construction rules with a minimum 60 card deck that has no more then four copies of any card other then basic lands and a sideboard of 15 cards or less. You can imagine that with this restricted selection of cards that you would find only a very few deck types dominate but the top 8 had five distinct archetypes which is what you would expect to find at any other constructed elimination.
Aside from this deck there was also what emerged as the two pillars of the format with BUG Control and RG Elspeth, Boros Heroic and the other finalist who’s Junk Constellation deck just couldn’t hold up against Patricks creation. The benchmark for power was widely accepted to be Elspeth, Sun’s Champion which led to the flipside of Prognostic Sphinx as her natural foil since it conveniently skirted the destroy ability on Elspeth, was able to fly over the top of most defenders and with the ability to gain hexproof on a whim resilient to other removal spells. The other power combination arose from Green with the excelerent duo of Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix which are both conveniently strong walls against Aggro decks and fast mana to help quickly power out Midrange or big monster strategies.
Patrick chose to go with the power player of Elspeth in a marriage with the Caryatid/Courser combo and then tacked on Black for its strong removal. In order for the deck to pull ahead to solidify distinct advantage your early creature plays always want to be the Sylvan Caryatid which provides you with any color mana to fight against any deficiency your lands might throw you and Courser of Kruphix that while it does provide information to your opponent will often net you additional cards whenever you’re able to play a land off the top, not to mention the very relevant additional points of life you’ll grind out over the game. The beatdown then starts with Fleecemane Lion which is a solid 3/3 for two mana able to attack through opposing Caryatids and eventually able to go monstrous transforming into a near unremovable beast. Next we find the regal cat Brimaz, King of Oreskos who brings with him some of his pride of soldiers whenever he attacks or blocks ensuring that you continuously clutter the board with more and more creatures. The other creature found in the deck is another legendary character with Polukranos, World Eater which doubles as removal with his Monstrosity ability and usually turns into a humongous threat that demands removal or a long line of chump blockers. The next step after starting with some creature threats usually ramps up into an Elspeth, Sun’s Champion who when protected will undoubtedly finish off the game with her combination of creatures, removal and eventually even an over the top pump. We then get into the krux of the black in the deck from the removal which includes the blocks best from Hero’s Downfall which is amazing instant speed against both creatures and planeswalkers alike, and Silence the Believers which with the ramp from this deck can quite easily hit two or sometimes even three targets if necessary then exile them so if the target happens to be indestructible that’s just too bad. As a catchall against other permant problems there’s a misers copy of Banishing Light to exile anything from enchantments or planeswalker to creatures or artifacts, even if it’s a god you need to deal with. As far as one ofs in the deck the only real draw comes from one copy of Read the Bones which does a little digging into the deck before drawing, but is also backed by full sets of all the on color Scry lands and to a lesser extent Courser as well. The final cog on the wheel is found in disruption with Thoughtseize which can not only strip your opponent of a very valuable card but also provides you with information about what his plan is going forward.
So there we have the birth of a new Block format from Theros. While the Block constructed isn’t usually a very widely played format there is going to be a Grand Prix stop in Manchester at the end of the month which is the other big tournament for this format. The interesting facet that we can extrapolate information for is that Block does help act as a precursor for the upcoming Standard landscape after the next rotation. While it is ofcouse not a fully accurate portrayal since M15 and Khans of Tarkir will also play into the equation, there is still a wealth of knowledge and forsight we can study to get some advance preparations. It will also be interesting to see if the Grand Prix continues to tweek the metagame or if the pros solved everything in Atlanta. But I can’t wait to see if any of these strategies are good enough to hold up or if new mechanics will shake up everything. Only time will tell and there’s still four months left to go…I can hardly wait.
Montreal is a fantastic city. There are lots of interesting things to see, do, and experience around every corner. It’s extremely diverse meaning you can find almost any language on the planet , and almost as many delectable foods to try and smells to discover. The city is crazy for their favorite hockey team, the beloved Canadiens de Montréal, and the shopping is first rate. The city is a first rate city right up there on the world stage and when the latest GP descended on Montreal I knew I had to attend.
I had never been to a GP before and when I was taking stock of where all the GP’s were being held, the dates in Montreal all but jumped of the page. Here was an opportunity to experience something new, something unique, something truly special in a special city and I was going to be darned if I missed it.
So, I rallied a few of my friends and left my house at 5:30 am looking to make the 2 ½ hour drive to arrive at the GP in time for the morning events. I really had no intention of playing in the main event (the side events appealed just as much) but I wanted to witness the mass of humanity gathering to play Magic . So, after 3 stops to collect my friends, and another stop for breakfast/coffee at the local Timmies, and then another stop for a bathroom, we finally pulled into Montreal at 9am ready and raring to go.
My first impression of the location was full out awe. I’ve seen big crowds before, that wasn’t a concern, but to imagine all these people gathering to play Magic was something I’m not sure I could fully comprehend. The room seemed to be wall to wall people paired off and ready to play Magic. There were pros and Magic personalities that I recognized from a range of spots and they were rubbing elbows with regular players just there for the day. The organization of this many people must have been astronomical. I give kudos to everyone for the monumental task and I was very glad to see the event kick off because I was anxious to play on some of the side events.
Once I got my fill of the spectacle I turned my attention to the side events. My friends and I opted for the 10am sealed side event, which seemed like a solid idea. I like to play sealed as it forces you to think creatively and to play some cards you wouldn’t normally play. So, we signed up and then we waited. This was one of the hardest waiting games I’ve ever played but I suppose the process of organizing a venue as large as a GP has logistical issues. Our 10am event didn’t start until almost 12:30pm and our first game wasn’t until well after 1pm by which point I was hungry, a little annoyed, and eager to get my games in.
My sealed pool seemed solid to me with some really top notch cards like Anger of the Gods, Courser of Kruphix, Soldier of the Pantheon and Temple of Plenty. All the signs pointed to a solid G/W deck with some fun Heroic creatures, nifty enablers and some reasonable removal. So, I set about building my deck and sleeved up my cards. I was ready to rock and roll!
From this point on my games went terrible. At every turn I got smashed, by every manner of deck of almost every description. Sure, my deck would get the pieces together to win a game here and there, but never enough to win a match. I spent my afternoon getting drubbed over and over again and wondering what went wrong. I kept flipping through my extra cards wondering what I could side in…and saw no obvious answer. So, what was I missing?
It took 3 days after the GP for me to sit down and really reflect on what transpired during the sealed event we played. First off, there were a few errors during game play that I committed that I will need to correct, but I think those are manageable. What really sat with me were the errors I made in deck construction. Some of these lessons are things that I already knew and forgot about and others are newer issues that will need to be corrected for the next time.
1- Keep an open mind! The first issue was that I limited my card pool too quickly. I evaluated my cards and identified that Green and White were by far my best colours and immediately set about building a two colour deck. In some situations, if your sealed pool is deep enough, this can work just fine, but in my case after the first couple of cards the pool in both Green and White dried up significantly, meaning I was playing some suspect cards. The problem was that I was overly committed, in my own mind, to playing only two colours that I blinded myself to other options, and so instead of playing strong cards, regardless of colour, I forced myself to play substandard cards of only 2 colours. The lesson learned is to slow down and to be flexible when building your deck because three (or maybe 4 colours) is not the end of the world if they have the cards and abilities you need.
2- You can never have too many creatures! The second lesson I re-learned was that in limited format it is all about creatures. Rarely do you have enough strong combat tricks that you can full on trade your creatures for tricks in your 23 card slots. I routinely got stuck looking for creatures to cast my tricks on, but my creatures were too few and far between. Even if I was able to cast a couple of creatures they usually got targeted with the removal straight away meaning I was still looking for creatures. In some sets I would have been stuck running creatures OR spells. However, with Theros/Born of the Gods sealed I didn’t HAVE to choose because I could have opted for Bestow creatures that would have offered me benefits while enchanting my creatures and left with a body once the enchanted creature died. However, I was limited in terms of the number of Bestow creatures in Green or White, but had several in other colours. Once again, I should have opted to add a third colour, but this time for the benefit of the Bestow abilities.
3- Run as much removal as you can find…of any variety! The third lesson I re-learned is that removal, even if it doesn’t look like removal, is vital. Case in point is Griptide. This was one of my extras in Blue and I opted not to run it. It wasn’t really removal because the creature didn’t die, right? Wrong. What Griptide does do is it does remove a creature from the battlefield, even if only temporarily giving me a chance to find a better answer to deal with the threat or to change the board state suitably that my opponent no longer wanted to cast the spell. So, I needed to take off my blinders and allow myself to see that there were spells available to be used as removal, even if they weren’t the most conventional methods.
4- Play spells that will improve your board state in all situations! The final piece I learned is that cutesy spells like Warrior’s Lesson really have no place in a sealed deck. It neither provides damage or protection to my board state and at no point did I lack for cards so the card draw it afforded would be of minimum value. Quite the opposite, my hand was routinely well stocked with cards and filling my hand with more cards was not needed. It did make for a nifty Heroic trigger, but it was too infrequently used and would have been better off with another body instead. The question I should have asked myself is this: “In what situations do I want to top deck this spell?”. If the answer isn’t “in almost every situation” then I should be looking for something different. So, while the ability would have been neat, the fact remains that I was not well served by spells of this nature and would have been better off with spells that offered more.
Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience for me as I’m not accustomed to losing that frequently and it was a tad embarrassing. The long car drive home with my friends was hard to stomach as they chatted away merrily about the games they played and the wins they scrounged together. I ended up just having to bite my tongue and take their ridicule. The only real saving grace of the experience was that the other players I met were all very nice guys just looking to have some fun. Up and down the table there was not a single guy who acted like a jerk and many of them actually helped out their opponent by pointing out triggers that may have been missed. All in all, while the experience of playing with a bunch of decent guys was refreshing and lots of fun to meet the new guys, it was tough to accept being beaten as soundly as I was all day long.
So, in the end, I have to say I did enjoy the experience of attending my first ever GP and it was even better in Montreal. I didn’t get the results I was looking for from my matches, but I did enjoy the first hand experience and taking in the ambiance of the event. It was something I’ve never seen before and something to behold. I have absolutely no regrets about going and in fact will happily go again when there is a GP close to home again to get just a little taste of the event again. However, until then, I will need to content myself with some smaller events and to take the lessons learned in Montreal moving forward to the next I sit down to play in a limited format.
So, until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
