2024-08-04 GenCon Championships MH3x6 (3-3)

GenCon Tournament Reports

• August 1 BLB Sealed RCQ/GenQ
  
• August 2 Modern for Original Art
• August 3 Legacy Secret Lair Showdown Qualifiers
• August 4 MH3 Sealed GenCon Championship

https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/122457 

Introduction

I didn't set out to play four different formats across four days, but it started to work out that way and I leaned in by registering for Legacy on Saturday.

Modern Horizons 3 is a pretty high power format. Every card has a few things going on, fitting across archetypes or just being a decent card on its own. There are a few standouts. Writhing Chrysalis is insane at common, since it doesn't require additional pieces to make it insane.

I would describe MH3 as a synergy format - you are trying to put pieces together that become more than the sum of their parts.

Pool

Built BW splashing G. Lots of fixing, possibly should have been going W main then splashing BGU for the four or so U rares. Breathe Your Last underperformed, I forgot that Hydra is XGG to bestow, and Wing It was only so-so.

Deck did have low-key aristocrat synergy across Ophiomancer, Marionette Apprentice, Warren Soultrader, Nadier's Nightblade (not in the initial build) but not a lot of consistency or other support components (ex. Eviscerator's Insight).

Rounds

• R1 Gabriel Roberts UG WLW (1-0)
  
• R2 Richard Richey UBW LWL (1-1)
  
• R3 Justin Stigger RG WW (2-1)
  
• R4 Austin Graham RGU LL (2-2)
  
• R5 Jack Komer 4C no U LWW (3-2)
  
• R5 Ian Starkenbaun RUG splashing B for Toxic Deluge LWL (3-3)
  

Not much to say about matches. Sometimes I had aggro starts, sometimes I had to play more midrangey. Eldrazi matchups felt unwinnable once they started casting 5+ drops.

Overall GenCon thoughts

Did well a couple of days, picked up some wins on every day in each different format. Picked up a bunch of promos from entry, won several boxes, had fun playing (competitive) Magic. Good chats with opponents and judges. Look forward to attending GenCon again.

2024-08-01 BLBx6 RCQ/GenQ (5-1, 0-1)

GenCon Tournament Reports

• August 1 BLB Sealed RCQ/GenQ
  
• August 2 Modern for Original Art
• August 3 Legacy Secret Lair Showdown Qualifiers
• August 4 MH3 Sealed GenCon Championship

https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/122449 

Introduction

First time going to GenCon. I initially signed up for three BLB sealed events, but the later ones started much later in the day (and also I qualified for the Sunday championship via the first).

I played one Friday prerelease, two MTGA sealed pools, and did a few rounds of Draftsim. See also: Las Vegas prep. Glanced at 17Lands data, which is still early, just for the color winrates.

Bloomburrow sealed feels like you usually won't have a high synergy deck, but all the creature statlines are pushed so the format leans towards playing to the board heavily. Tricks are decent but not as insane or efficient as OTJ or ONE.

Sealed pool and deck

Playing 5 rares. Lifecreed Duo should have been cut for Whiskerquill Scribe, Mabel (Cragflame) is insane, blue splash was free af, Hearthborn Battler was an underperformer. Green was very shallow while black had a crazy amount of removal and no creatures.

Swiss rounds

• R1 Andrew Zinny GW WW (1-0)
• R2 Braden Yates RW WLW (2-0)
• R3 Justin Warden WB LWL (2-1)
• R4 Spencer Nelson GBx 4C ?? WW (3-1)
• R5 Jon Boyd RBu for Wick WW (4-1)
• R6 Nick Schreider GB WW (5-1)

Not a lot to say. Splash was great. Fliers were great, Cragflame was insane, Fountainport Bell feels great.

Draft deck

Passed a Vren P1P1 trying to signal my neighbor into UB, then waffled between RW and GW for basically the whole draft. Based on 17Lands IWD that's a total punt, but alas. I also went heavy on rabbits despite RW being mice, so my left neighbor ended up being in RW and I had low synergy.

• QF Phillip Li UW Skies LL
  Flooded out quite hard. Saw about 12 lands in G1, 10 lands in G2
  

Player Behavior & Healthy Habits

During one of my rounds, I had an opponent who was mm, aggressively unfriendly. Won't go into details, so instead I'll talk about something more positive.

When I play a match of Magic, there are many rituals and routines that I do to ensure clean and clear gameplay. By building these habits, I aim to cultivate a competitive but friendly match of Magic:

• Greet opponent by their name when we sit down. Record name in notebook.
  Ensures that I have the correct opponent, establishes baseline communications, good for my recordkeeping.
• Don't take out my deck until I have my opponent.
  Avoids possibility of someone sneaking a peek at my deck if I sit down first.
  
• Shuffle after we're both seated. Present deck, offer even/odd 2d6 roll.
  Even/odd requires rolling once, while high roll requires minimum of 2 rolls and the possibility of more. Refusing even/odd can suggest a fundamental weakness in statistics.
  Verbally confirm their choice, as well as the roll result.
  Verbally confirm the winner's choice of play/draw, write down in notebook as OTP (On The Play) or OTD (On the Draw).
  
• During mulligans, track mulligans as soon as they happen.
  Possibly make a note for self ex. 0L or 1L. If no mulligans were taken, fill this in as 7 vs 7 later.
  
• Track life totals on pen & paper as opposed to dice.
  Additionally track other public information ex. floating mana, poison counters, energy counters, etc. on paper as is proper practice at competitive REL.
• Note revealed cards, combat tricks in limited, SB cards, etc.
• Make conversation while I have no cards in hand, no available mana, etc.
  Reduces mental load, builds rapport, makes small human connections in this great big world.
  
• Announce untap upkeep draw (then do sagas)
  
• Announce triggered abilities. If my opponent misses a trigger, I usually choose not to point it out explicitly, but rather ask them to repeat their next announced action several times, sometimes quite pointedly.
• Double-check turn step changes and zone changes esp. in complex board states
  ex. beginning of combat triggers in limited, Dauthi Voidwalker in constructed.
• In Modern and other fetchland formats, shortcut fetch targets by announcing what I intend to grab and revealing what I intend to cast.
  This is a habit built to avoid going to time as Omnath.
  
• When the game ends, mark a W in the column of the triumphant player.
• While presenting decks for sideboarded games, verbally confirm that the [losing] player will be taking the play.
  
• Bring requisite tokens for limited where possible, dice for Wall of Roots, etc.
  
• Build the gut-instinct-action of calling for a judge immediately when realizing something is amiss
  See: Friday
  
• Pioneer Amalia: ability tokens to create stack clarity when they occur and explain the combo to Pioneer newbies
  Example scenario it's design for: I resolved Collected Company vs UR Phoenix who may be holding Spell Pierce, bounce removal, or damage removal for the right moment.
  
• Modern Nadu: green sleeves for insect tokens.
  The deck uses a couple other tokens, but insects are 95% of the tokens seen, so identifying them at a glance is helpful.
  

2024-02-18 Dragon Snack Games RCQ MKM Limited Win* (6-1-1)

Introduction

First time the store was running a limited RCQ. Fortunately we had several experienced players and an L5 judge on hand to keep things on track. I had played one prerelease and several Arena Bo1 drafts before this.

Morph formats are inherently mid-size, if that makes sense? Lots of cards will trade into a 2/2 with no (combat) abilities. The combat tricks are very high quality, reminding me a bit of ONE. A successful trick will almost always blow a game open, and vice versa a counterplayed trick can lose the game.

Fixing is above average in terms of quality and availability. More on that during discussion of my draft deck.

Sealed Pool

• Blue was the deepest color but low on creatures. Black had some okay individual cards but not deep enough.
• Red green and white covered all the bases: bodies, fixing, removal, tricks. Even Treacherous Terrain as a win-con since nobody else researched the MKM List cards ahead of time. Also very powerful to have your opponent on a one-turn clock that they don't know about.
• Might even have had too much fixing - Gravestone Strider played defense duty very well and I don't think I filtered with it at all in any games.
• Changes, probably cut the Absolving Lammasu for a Push // Pull. Consider adding a second Mountain for late game.
  

Sealed Rounds

• R1 Nick R on RW WW (1-0)
  
• R2 Michael N on GRu LWW (2-0)
  
• R3 Aaron M on RGW WLL (2-1)
  
• R4 James B on RWG WLW (3-1)
  
• R5 ID (3-1-1, 3rd in Swiss)
  

Draft deck

• P1P1 Vein Ripper, hadn't seen the card before but clearly S-tier bomb
• P1P2 get passed Hide in Plain Sight and another rare. Either a 3-rare pack or neighbor is setting me up in green I'll take it.
• For the rest of the draft I tried to keep myself open, picking up numerous pieces of fixing and morph disguise creatures to keep creature counter reasonable.
• White was clearly not open, and pack 3 passed an early pack with two Rubblebelt Mavericks neither of which wheeled.
• Blue was a back-up plan but very splashable.
• Because Vein Ripper was a first pick it allowed be to draft the color balance. Green was a ramp color but never had to be a primary (it wasn't open enough to be a primary color). The color-fixing between Escape Tunnel and They Went This Way (my unofficial invitational card) also doubled as deck-thinning for finding my Vein Ripper.
• I should have played Make Your Mark and a Plains over Cryptex and an Island. Cryptex would have been better if I had two-three more graveyard payoffs/enablers.
  

Draft rounds

• QF Michael N on GBr splashing Incinerator of the Guilty. Won via insane topdecks
  
• SF Aaron M on RGu. Won via mana screw
  
• F Patrick P on WB. Not terribly aggressive, but high quality removal suite. He had to boardwipe 7 creatures in G3 with Vein Ripper out, then I rebought it with Macabre Reconstruction.

* I split the finals and gave Patrick the invite.

Thoughts

• I enjoy formats with quality fixing that enables moderate amounts of nonsense.
• Cheap 1/3s and 1/4s are key to stalling out board states. Much worse if people are appropriately valuing combat tricks.
• Bo1 league draft continues to be vastly different from paper pod & Bo3. Generally I think pod draft power level is down because you're actually fighting over lanes and cards, and you have a general idea of threats you'll run into.
• Enjoyed playing against all of my opponents and battling it out (and the triumph)
• Got to do the top 2 split draft I had been thinking about. Instead of proposing a fixed split: put all prize items into a pool, then draft them with finals winner getting first pick. That said I misplayed my pick 1 because shiny treasure go ooh
  

2023-09-22 & 23 Las Vegas 100k - Wilds of Eldraine Limited (11-3, 18th)

Un-prep (things I did not do)

• Follow spoiler season. Following MtG spoilers and product releases in 2023 is a full-time job or hobby, I swear.
• Draft at all
• This is foreshadowing of later.
  
• Play on Magic Arena. So many things that turn me off trying to grind Arena 
• Dominance of Bo1 queues
• Cross-pod draft play
• Priority interaction with combat tricks
• Low mental investment/commitment of digital play
• Value-drafting
  

Prep (things that I did do)

• Search up the signpost uncommons on Scryfall before my first event of the format and call it a day.
• Play four prereleases at SCG Columbus across Friday & Sunday, winning six out of eight matches (only playing the first two rounds per three-round event, since the third was always worth drawing).
• Judge three different Two-Headed Giants tournaments on Saturday.
• Practice WOE sealed deckbuilding using DraftSim.
• Read the Magic.gg World Championship Draft primer
• Five color nonsense huh? Someone on my Discord said to avoid that, but I really like the fixing because I'm a greed monster who loves multiple pieces of fixing at common - Prophetic Prism, Evolving Wilds, Brave the Wilds and Return from the Wilds? Hell yeah
• This is foreshadowing of later.
• Except the next paragraph itself is nonsensical, that someone will simply pass a third pack Gruff Triplets or Virtue of Persistence?? Maybe in cross-pod league play, but in high-stakes limited no way in hell are those cards going to be passed to pick 2.
• Use 17Lands data to identify cards with the highest and lowest IWD (Improvement When Drawn) rates.
• Use 17Lands draft data after qualifying for day 2 to see cards with gaps between ALSA (Average Last Seen At) and IWD metrics.
• So remember when that article mentioned players passing over rare bombs like Gruff Triplets and Virtue of Persistence? Well guess which two cards have the absolute lowest ALSAs but highest IWDs.

Day 1 - Sealed

Sat down for registration. After laying out pack 1, my registration partner requests that I count out my cards commons, uncommons, rares, etc. Sure, that's reasonable.

I lay out pack 1 again. 9 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare, 1 enchantment, 1 basic land. 15 cards, all normal.

Pack 2. One two three four five commons... uncommon? One two three four five six seven uncommons JUDGE.

Props to my partner for keeping an eye out. Also turns out that our neighbors are experiencing the same issue. Judges rule that we will get to keep the extra uncommons in our pool, which checks out with tournament policy. I end up with three packs with extra uncommons, totaling 29 uncommons in my pool (expected: 18). My partner unfortunately ends up with six perfectly normal packs.

Sealed Deck (Scryfall) | Registration sheet

I rule out white and red almost immediately for no creatures (identified visually and counting spells during registration). Green and black are both super deep, so it's a no-brainer really.

The thing to understand about modern Magic sets is that every card does things now. There hasn't been a vanilla creature printed in years. Every card does something, but in order to build a cohesive deck you need cards that do something together. A lot of cards are secretly multicolor, and mostly dead/filler for other archetypes.
Zooming in on my deep green pool: Graceful Takedown, Redtooth Vanguard, and Tanglespan Lookout are secret GW cards. Verdant Outrider and Garruk's Uprising are secret GR cards.

A ton of solid spells. Splash into blue for Goose Mother and Restless Vinestalk, with three fixing spells - effectively five blue sources for Goose Mother, four for Vinestalk.

• I played 4 of my 7 rares, with The End being a foil rare. All solid
  
• I played 7 of my 29 uncommons.
• During deckbuilding I tunnel-visioned in on playing extra uncommons, and sided 2 of them out in every match. Not an especially egregious error.
  

What I would have changed: -2 Faerie Dreamthief, -1 Rowan's Grim Search, +1 Leaping Ambush, +2 Stingblade Assassin.

I ended up siding in Decadent Dragon in most matches (basically any green or black opponent), but I think it's correct to start it in the side when not playing red.

Round 1 vs Noah Root LWW (1-0)

OTP, keep a 7 and miss land 3. He's on GB as well. Forget the details, but I definitely bring in Decadent Dragon and in a sideboard game I Titanic Growth my creature in response to a Faunbane Troll for blowout.

Round 2 vs Rob Pisano LWW (2-0)

Game 1 he rushes me down with RW, including a Goddric. Games 2 and 3 he switches over to Sultai/BUG, which is coherent but not as powerful as my own. Game 3 I have to eat five Food tokens to stabilize.

Round 3 vs Matt Barber LL (2-1)

BG. In game 2 he's beating me down with a flying 3/5 (High Fae Negotiator). I attack with my 5/5 Gingerbread Hunter, figuring I can Leaping Ambush it next turn to get the flyer. I forget that he has the double block with a 1/4 + 4/3 and welp that's my trick wasted.

Round 4 vs Lander WW (3-1)

BR w/ Bitterblossom. I'm OTP in G1 and am able to pressure through the first few tokens, then manage to remove it before getting out of hand.

Game 2 he draws seven and finds two cards hiding under his lifepad and that's a judge call. Reset the seven card hand, he keeps a 1 land Bitterblossom and I put him away pretty cleanly. He called it a risky keep, but I feel like he self-pressured himself after the judge call (no penalty issued, no real problem) because a 1 lander OTP is veeerry risky.

Round 5 vs Sebastian Pineda LWW (4-1)

He's on RG and aggros me out of G1. During game 2 I cast The End and peep through his library which includes a Royal Treatment, some other generic tricks. Game 3 he telegraphs the Royal Treatment and I slow roll my own trick, blowing him out when he goes for a win in combat. He drops a Rotisserie Elemental in game 3 which I found highly questionable - the card wasn't even good on an empty board!

Round 6 vs Daniel Deckmann LWW (5-1)

Another Bitterblossom player. I keep a 5 lander on the play and draw 8 lands in G1.

Sideboard games I answer the Bitterblossom with .. I forget, Ouphe probably, and grind him out. Iirc I exhaust his resources and finish with Goose Mother.

Round 7 vs Matt WW (6-1)

He's on some kind of RGW Naya deck. Game 2 I get a bunch of foods out and have to calculate if I can lethal with Night of Sweet's Revenge w/ two tramplers + three non-tramplers, vs about four blockers (I don't, but he's at 3 with no meaningful board vs 16 life).

Sixth win locks me for day 2.

Round 8 vs Ben Anderson WW (7-1)

GBr. He has a The End which he uses in both! games to hit my Gingerbread Hunter, my only two-of in the deck! In both games though I make a ton of food, build out a board with Night of Sweet's Revenge, and top off with a big ol' Goose Mother.

Game 2 is funny because we both keep double swamp hands and discard to hand size. But I'm able to adventure Decadent Dragon to yoink a Mountain off his deck, draw my own Forest, cast Night of Sweet's Revenge and four? turns after discarding to hand size I have about nine mana to play with & a bunch of board permanents.

Really happy with my blue splash. I have one loss to play with for day 2. One bad fumble of a combat trick, and should have changed my main deck by 3 different cards.

Draft 1 - Pod 6

 

 

 

Pack 1 pick 1 was a choice between Decadent Dragon and an Imodane's Recruiter. Both very playable, but took Dragon and picked up a different Recruiter later. RB was open - solid deck but a little light on creatures (14) esp. considering the number of tricks/pumps.

Round 9 vs Jason Chan aka Amaz WW (8-1)

The great part of playing people on social media is that we get to see their decklists!

Wasn't feeling great about the deck but it popped off vs Amaz. Game 1 OTP, turn 3 I attack my Grand Ball Guest (2/2) into his Octopus (1/3). Cast Pest Problem at instant speed to build board state & win combat easily. Turn 4 Voracious Vermin into turn 5 Twisted Sewer-Witch was basically the nuts. Then Bellowing Bruiser // Beat a Path to cruise through blockers. 

Game 2 was slower and I ended up playing a control role, but had a solid hit off Expensive Taste to hit island + Obyra's Attendants. He bounces it back to his own hand eventually, but my spells are pretty good while his UR stuff feels like a lot of wheel-spinning.

Round 10 vs Adam D WLW (9-1)

He's on BG splashing W. Game 2 I use Scarecrow to sneak a Rat Out trick by him (holding up Mountain, filtering for B). Few turns later I cast the knight token half of Imodane's Recruiter, so I have a pump effect at the ready but he manages to plays ton of blockers preventing profitable attacks. I stall out at five mana when I really want six to keep adding bodies & having access to tricks, but lose this one. Game 3 we try to play quickly with 8 mins on the clock, but he keeps a triple swamp hand and gets mana screwed.

Round 11 vs Jesse Hampton aka Slax LL (9-2)

Pretty brutal. Seemed that he got all the B removal, went for the Hatching Plans + Ice Out plan with Farsight Ritual. Immense card advantage, got buried very quickly.

WWL 2-1 in pretty solid for my first draft in the format, but I need to win out my second draft to make top 8. Also realize during this write-up that Jesse's been to sixteen PTs, so facing strong opponents is definitely the theme of the day.

Draft 2 - Pod 3

 

Pod 3 now and it's pretty stacked! If you zoom in, you'll see me in the green facemask here!

Decided to try forcing what Jesse did to me - P1P1 Horned Loch-Whale which is a solid and splashable bomb, P1P2 Candy Grapple, P1P3 Faerie Dreamthief into see no more B cards for pack 1. I get passed a lot of big blue/green creatures, some white stuff but see zero fixing or black removal from my right. Pack 2 I pass about 5 blue/green cards in one pack that I'd be happy to wheel, but none of them come back. I pick a number of white cards thinking I might pivot to UW but nothing remotely exciting. My signal senses are tingling.

Round 12 vs Justin Bliek WW (10-1)

Justin is on a blue-black perfectly fine draft deck. He didn't get the Hatching Plans-Farsight Ritual that Jesse did to me, so I'm okay. Game 2 comes down to a race with my Hollow Scavengers, and I tempo him out. Iirc Royal Treatment got a sick trick off.

Round 13 vs Dominick Paolercio aka karatedom LWW (11-1)

Forest swamp plains mountain ... ah, this is the 5-color deck that was foretold. Game 1 I make a percentage misplay - I'm sitting on 3x Island 2x Forest with a Forest and land drop in hand. I live the Jesse Hampton-inspired dream and Farsight Ritual off Hatching Plans to effectively draw 5. But because I didn't play the Forest first, I am unable to hold up UU for a bargained Ice Out!!! This is bad because he casts Seek the Beast (adventure side of Questing Druid) on my end of turn, which he rides to victory in 5C. I am forced to bounce it at some point but he's got a range of white removal and what-have-you.

Boarded into 2x Swamp + Candy Grapple + Back for Seconds to grind a bit. Games 2 and 3 he stumbles on mana and the Hollow Scavengers are solid again.
Candy Grapple is solid & my splash is pretty clean.
He bluffs a Kellan's Lightblades on the last turn of game 3, but I draw Vantress Transmuter which guarantees me a safe attack and post-game reveals that he didn't even have it. Also mentions that he didn't get a lot of fixing. Foreshadowing

I'm still live for top 8!!

So something that started around round 6 or 7 was that I started to mind-read my opponents. Observing their mana and posture (physical and in gameplay) to determine that they have an instant-speed action, then playing around it.
Matched up against skillful limited players, they always have something going on, flooding very rarely due to clean deckbuilding, so we end up playing around each other's tricks - lot of respect going on. There was a lot more draw-go than one might expect in a "normal" limited experience.

Round 14 vs Jason Ye LL (11-3, bubbled down to 18th on tiebreakers)

Looks like they posted their own tournament report. Game 1 I keep a four with Hatching Plans, Wolf, Ice Out but no second Island. Miss a food crack game 1 on EoT for 3 life, but I get pretty run over.

Game 2 we grind for a while, then I get combo'd twice: Freeze in Place + Tenacious Tomeseeker + Gadwick's First Duel to basically tap down my team for the whole game. Then Song of Totentanz + second Tenacious Tomeseeker to lethal me with a bajillion rats.

Welp there it goes. Sucks to lose the last and most important match like that.

Round 14 excuses/copes/perfectly rational explanations

• Kept a hand that didn't do anything in R14G1. I think this is defensible - I could have worked with a lot of draws but drew poorly.
• Didn't see Song or Tenacious Tomeseekers in R14G1, had the option of boarding into 2x Ground Seal out of the board. This could have made a huge difference for G2.
  
• Boarded into Candy Grapple and Back for Seconds again, but this wasn't as impactful as their greed-monster 5C deck.
• Part of why I beat Dom in R13 was his lack of fixing - Jason was upstream on packs 2 & 3 and took at least six pieces of fixing.
• Melee issues delayed the round by most of an hour, which cooled me off a bit too much
• I had never drafted the set before Las Vegas, versus
  
• Jason who did seriously solid prep ahead of Vegas, including 20-something MTGA drafts, *at least a week of in-house team draft testing*, card evaluations, and misc. Twitter thoughts
• In both drafts I lost to opponents who drafted "3-0 decks" while I drafted more conventional "2-1" decks
• My opponent Jason ended up 3-0ing the day 3 draft too, so clearly they're pretty good at this format
• Also my draft 1 finals opponent was the other day 3 finalist WELP
  
• My signal senses were triggered correctly: Dom was directly to my right (5C), Justin was 3 seats right (UB), and Jason (5C) was right past them. So they yoinked all the fixing and removal, not to mention the others in the pod. Given that ... it's probably really impressive that I cobbled together what I did.
  

Summary

• I never expected to make it as far as I did, and this is definitely my deepest run at a GP-level event.
• My prep pales in comparison to some of my opponents, but I thought it was spectacular from a time-efficiency standpoint.
• I think my opinions on modern limited formats holds. To excel, you can't just draft "good and consistent" decks - the cards need to come together to make 2+2 = 5. 1-for-1s are rough unless well-costed. 2-for-1s are obviously great. But if you can combine something like Freeze in Place + Gadwick's First Duel that's something like a 4-for-2.
• Props to all my opponents, who were very strong. Every match felt like a battle of wits and mettle.
  

2019-04-19/20 MagicFest Niagara Falls

Bought the constructed package, since I don't play Legacy.

Friday 11 AM Modern Double-Up with Dredge
Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1821610#paper

Round 1 vs Andy G on Affinity (1-2, 0-1)
Won game 1, then games 2 & 3 he had turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage :/

Round 2 vs David L on Boros Burn (1-2, 0-2)
Won game 1, then lost to RIP in games 2 & 3 though I had a Claim in game 3.
Then I dropped :s

On to the interesting stuff!

Friday 6 PM Modern with Sultai Reclamation
Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1774456#paper

Round 1 vs Andrew S on RGb Breach Titan (2-0, 1-0)
Very close games both times. Basically, I didn't counter the ramp spells but was able to go off before his natural land drops killed me. Countered his Through the Breaches and Primeval Titans - Remand is a big tempo play vs both. In game 2 I fired off an Assassin's Trophy on Valakut without a Surgical/Extirpate ready, and he surprised me with his own Pulse of Murasa.

Round 2 vs Tanner on Bant Spirits (2-0, 2-0)
He has a pretty slow start, leading with Noble into a Drogskol Captain. When he casts a Phantasmal Image, I fetch-Push the Captain, leaving him with double Hierarch. Over the next couple turns, he tries to resolve Collected Company. I Remand it twice and when he finally manages to resolve it the third time, it whiffs. Whew. Meanwhile, the Hierarch is swinging for a meager 2 per turn lol
Eventually I land Reclamation. If I remember correctly, he drops Deputy of Detention, I cast Teachings in response, which he then exiles with Spell Queller? and Deputy hits Reclamation. At this point I have 8 lands, Snapcaster in hand, Fatal Push and Pulse of Murasa in the graveyard. I pass the turn. He swings with Noble, and I consider chumping with Snapcaster Mage to trigger Revolt for a flashback Fatal Push. But wait, there's a better line!

1. Opponent attacks with a Noble Hierarch with 2 Exalted triggers
2. Flash in Snapcaster Mage, target Pulse of Murasa.
3. Chump block the Hierarch. Snapcaster dies.
4. End of turn: flash back Pulse, getting back Snapcaster Mage and 6 life.
5. Recast Snapcaster, targeting Fatal Push
6. Push Deputy, get back Wilderness Reclamation. Snapcaster is still alive on board.

Game 2 he has a RIP but I counter it. He applies more pressure than game 1, and also plays out Eidolon of Rhetoric and Damping Sphere. Both are roadblocks, but I push through and finish the game at 1 life.

Went for the 2-0-1 facilitated split. I should probably be writing down how big my USZs are for each game.

Saturday 2:30 PM Modern Double-Up with Sultai Reclamation

Round 1 vs Bethany on Jund (2-0, 1-0)
Bethany was a newbie to modern, apparently only having just borrowed the deck from a friend 30 mins prior. I countered or removed all her threats, and went off. Her inexperience with the deck showed when she tried to play Liliana of the Veil for 4 mana, not using Twilight Mire to filter mana & leave mana open, and not knowing that Raging Ravine could animate into a threat.
That said, I had the answers for most of those things - BBE is the scariest card in her deck.
I dug up my Summary Dismissal and may be adding it to my SB moving forward.

Round 2 vs Stephen on Boros burn (0-2, 1-1)
Beats. Game 2 I'm almost able to stabilize, but I misplay. I land Reclamation, then float some mana and Teachings for Pulse of Murasa. I have Dispel and Snapcaster in hand, but mistakenly think that I should Pulse immediately to play around Skullcrack. Next turn he slams a RIP, when I could have waited with Snapcaster Mage for Spell Snare and Dispel backup! I was at 7 life, which mostly caused my hasty misplay.

Round 3 vs Forrest on Hardened Scales (2-1, 2-1)
Game 1 he goes off with just a Steel Overseer and Animation Module, while I'm sitting around with counterspells.
Post-board is way better. Game 2 I tutor for a Fracturing Gust and sit on it as my back up plan since I'm under pretty low pressure. I tutor for another Teachings, then I decide to Consume the Meek. He has a Karn, Scion of Urza which I bounce with Cryptic then counter on the way back down (hello Ceremonius Rejection). I manage a swing with Snap + Tar Pit, and he concedes knowing the game is over. It felt a little premature, but at the same time I think it's a pretty high level skill to know when the control deck has enough resources that you can simply no longer win. Props to you, Forrest.
Game 3 he keeps a 1 lander while I get to Reclamation & a bunch of mana. His hand was pretty decent, and only needed 1 more land to get off the ground - I think it was something like Forest + Worker + Hardened Scales + 2 drops.

Saturday 6:30 PM Modern with Sultai Reclamation
Round 1 vs Chris M on GDS (1-2, 0-1)
Game 1 he has low pressure, mainly Delve threats. I Devour Flesh his Gurmag Angler and he Dismembers it in response lol
Game 2 he has a quick Zombie Fish, Stubs my spells, and I die. I am able to Surgical him and see 3 Surgical Extraction, 2 Disdainful Strokes. Also a JVP, which wasn't relevant to the game.
Game 3 he lands another early Angler... I'm almost able to stabilize at 8... I Snapcaster to Devour Flesh... he Snaps, putting flashback on Disdainful Stroke, saccing Snap to Devour Flesh... then I go for an end of turn Nexus of Fate forgetting about the Stroke. Oops.

Round 2 vs Reshad on GB elves (2-1, 1-1)
Game 1 he plays out about a half-dozen dorks and beats me in with them. He heckles my deck, asking how my durdle fest can ever beat an Ezuri deck. I nod in agreement and silently sideboard in Consume the Meek + Crypt Incursion. He also reveals that he's sideboarding in 4x Reclamation Sage, but that's totally expected & not really giving away extra information - CtM is the only card that will matter in the matchup.
Game 2... by turn 4 I'm not yet dead, so I tutor up Consume on his end step. His next turn, he plays Ezuri and asks if Consume the Meek prevents regeneration. Yeeeup. Next turn I tutor for that Crypt Incursion and go to 20 from 2 life (iirc I had to shock for Consume mana). He drops some dudes again but I flashback Consume and finish him off.
Game 3 I keep an opener with Crypt Incursion and Teachings. It's a little rough going, since I need to Cryptic-tap to stay alive for a few turns, but then draw Consume naturally!! Crypt Incursion puts me to 28 from 4 and he concedes!! How do I beat Ezuri decks indeed.

Round 3 vs Ken on UR Phoenixs (2-1, 2-1)
Game 1 he has an atrocious start - something like 10 lands drawn by the time I cast a huge USZ.
Game 2 I Surgical his Phoenix on his turn 1, seeing a Blood Moon. He cantrips for several, then plays Blood Moon and I realize I was an idiot.
Game 3 he leads triple Spirebluff, so Blood Moon isn't as much of a threat. He isn't able to turn Phoenixes online until turn 4 or so, which I proceed to Extirpate. I see that he's boarded in Ral Izzet Viceroy (in hand) and a Chandra ToD in the deck, which I counter on the next turn, and later in the game respectively. I accumulate more mana and cards, eventually getting the win with double Creeping Tar Pits.

Sultai:

• Overall game record: 13-6
• Overall match record: 6-2
• Cards drawn: a lot

Cards I'm considering for the 75 / have ordered:

• Torrential Gearhulk
• Spring // Mind
• Far // Away (maaaybe okay?)
• Shadow of Doubt
• Ravenous Trap
• Nimble Obstructionist
• Silumgar's Command (lol)

Draft 1: Accidentally screwed up the seating which messed up the pairings. Sorry judge!
Rakdos with several rares. Don't really know how to draft Rakdos, and could tell that I was splitting the archetype with someone. Lost in round 2 vs a guy with better Rakdos - more removal and two Rix Maadi Revelers

Draft 2: P1P1 Gatebreaker Ram. Don't see any other payoffs, pick up a late Sneak in pack 2 and a Gates Ablaze in pack 3. Cruised off of Ram, mainly. Round 2 was against a guy who spammed irl [shrug emoji] which was a little annoying. Split in round 3.

Draft 3: P1P1 Precognitive Perception. Eventually drifted into Esper, picking up a decent number of guildgates for fixing. P2P1 Kaya, P3P2?  got passed Emergency Powers lol. During deckbuilding, I realized that Undercity's Embrace was terrible with all my aura removal.
Smashed all my opponents by countering or enchanting all of their threats. The ones that I couldn't were blocked by Azorius Knight-Arbiter. Round 1 I actually won my first game through decking with Kaya + EP LOL

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1832128#paper

2019-03-31 Iron Buffalo RNAx3 3-0-1

Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1773207#paper

Draft:

• So the draft was 10 players, with some of them looking a little green (experience wise). This affected my decision making in that 1) I can't necessarily trust signals, 2) I can't expect cards to wheel because there are 10 people, and 3) it's possible for totally playable cards to wheel because they evaluate cards differently than I do
• Rares opened (in order): Simic split Stifle//Clone (Repudiate//Replicate), Angel of Grace, Bedeck//Bedazzle
• Pack 1 pick 1: rare is garbage, nothing special in commons or uncommons... but oh wait there's a Gatebreaker Ram
• Pack 1 pick 2: really nothing special, but I took Ram so I might as well stay open and take this Simic Guildgate
• Pack 1 pick 3: simultaneously stayed open AND money drafted a Breeding Pool
• Rest of pack 1: got passed two Gateway Sneaks, one Gates Ablaze, and a late Archway Angel. Gates is obviously open and with 5 payoffs I just need to draft a bunch of gates and some support spells.
• Pack 2 pick 1: The great thing about being in gates is that you can grab good rares and not care about sending/receiving signals. So I take the Angel of Grace, though I never draft it ever.
• Rest of pack 2: I'm in base Simic, but grab almost every Gate I see. Halfway through the pack I realize that Azorius is pretty open, and I've picked up some random blue playables. I pass alone a pack with both High Alert and Azorius Knight-Arbiter, then take the High Alert from the next pack.
• Pack 3: more gates, prioritize some high toughness creatures. Simic is pretty open too from what I could tell - P3P14 Skatewing Spy WHAT.

Round 1 vs Liam on Rakdos (2-0, 1-0)
He's got a few good rares (Theater of Horrors, Rix Maadi Reveler), but they just can't beat a huge Gatebreaker Ram. His deck is only okay, which I'll get to in the post-match discussion.
Game 2 I don't find Ram, but I found High Alert and some big butts which works just as well.

Round 2 vs John R on Gruul (2-0, 2-0)
Game 1 he gets me pretty low, but then I drop some random blockers. After stalling out the board with High Alert + butts, Gates Ablaze sends him back to the stone age and I play out Gatebreaker Ram for lethal.
Game 2 he has a much slower start. I play out a Gatebreaker Ram but he gets multiple blockers out so I hold off on attacking with it. So the game stalls out again, then I swing my 8/8 Ram into his board of 5 creatures. He triple blocks with a total of 8/9, then Applied Biomancy for +1/+1 & bounce another guy makes the game unwinnable for him.

Round 3 vs ??? dropped (N/A, 3-0)
Got the pair down because it's 10 people. He was a newbie and thought he needed to play 60 cards... so he was playing some kind of Simic-based 5 color 60 card deck. After round 2, he'd had enough and unofficially dropped from the tournament, only officially dropping now... so I was 2-0 and got a bye huh

Round 4 vs Michael N. (ID, 3-0-1)
Mutually agreed, went home.

Thoughts:

• Managed to draft all the gate payoffs early (IN PACK ONE), which made the draft super easy mode.
• Recognized that if I had to, I could easily pivot into either Simic or Azorius, which looked pretty open, since I was drafting a lot of blue cards.
• Breakdown of what I saw from the draft pod: 2 players on Orzhov, 1 Orzhov splashing U/Azorius, 2 Rakdos, 2 on Gruul, and 1 on UGwbr???, me on Gates, 1 unknown
• Black was super overdrafted at the table, and as a result I only picked up a single Dead Revels, passing a few decent cards (ex. Get the Point) for gates/blue playables. Pack 2 signaled to me that the High Alert deck was open, and I picked some support creatures up for that before & after (I think 8 of my creatures work well with it?)
• Nice side benefit of drafting most of the gates is that it screws with everyone else's mana, making their deck weaker & unable to splash good cards.
• Definitely felt like I had the best deck in the pod. After all, I was only playing ONE BASIC

2018-10-21 Casual Dragon Games PPTQ 3-3

My sealed pool had six rares only spanning three colors, which made that decision relatively easy: Camaraderie, Temple Garden, Trostani Discordant, Vraska Golgari Queen, Gruesome Menagerie, and Mausoleum Secrets. Camaraderie and Mausoleum Secrets are pretty unplayable, and I probably shouldn't have played Menagerie either. I assembled a pretty clean Golgari (GB) deck splashing Temple Garden and a Selesnya Guildgate using 3 District Guide for Trostani Discordant.

Round 1 vs Colin (1-0)

I play against the player whose pool I registered. Both of us knew all the possible cards the other could be playing, and I had a good idea of what he probably built - also Golgari, but without the bombs. Sure enough, my deck was superior.

Round 2 vs Lucas (2-0)

Memory is kind of hazy on the details, since it's been a week since the event.

Lucas was on Boros splashing blue. I beat him game 1, lose game 2 to his super fast start, and stabilize game 3 at 1 life (I think it was that game?) I encourage him to play faster, since a draw is essentially equivalent to a loss, and the time is closing in on us. He misplays a card pretty badly and I manage to close out the game.

Round 3 vs Scott (2-1)

Scott is the first opponent I recognize from the area. He's a shorter quirky guy but friendly.

I lose both the games to a Doom Whisperer.

Round 4 vs "Leon" (3-1)

If that name doesn't mean anything to you, you should watch Blade Runner.

Round 5 vs Brandon (3-2)

Izzet with Ral Izzet Viceroy and other assorted spells. So my 3-1 (9 pts) record should allow me to draw into the top 8, but unfortunately two players drew in round 4 (2-1-1, 7 pts). So four players are able to draw into the top 8, but four 3-1s are paired against one another and forced to play it out. By the time I lose my two games for the round, the other 3-1 match is concluded and one of the 2-1-1s is now a 3-1-1, with the other still going. That's 7 of the top 8 slots determined, so the only way I can make it in is on tie-breakers. Brandon reports, and eventually it comes out that the 7 pointer lost his match. I MAKE IT IN

Top 8

I go into the draft with the wrong mindset. I've heard some experts say that green is a weak color, and I don't see any particularly standout green cards pass to me, so I stick to UB maybe R colors in the draft. I have a pretty good surveil theme going on, but lack late game power.

Quarterfinals vs Michael (3-3)

0-2 for games

His threats outpace my counterspells, and although I'm able to drag the game out for many many turns, it seems that his draft went way better than mine and my deck lacks the ability to return from the brink. I made a questionable decision in the first game, and in the second slightly less so. He's pretty good, and later won the whole event so overall I'm not too upset. I'm just happy to be here.

Lessons:

Uh, don't draft what I want to to draft, but rather what is open in my seat.

I don't think I have enough experience in drafting the other color combinations (Boros, Golgari, Selesnya), but I ended up fighting for blue and black cards with several of my neighbors, to the point where I had essentially no removal or win conditions.

Overall I should definitely learn to play more aggressive decks, and beat down more often.