MTG Salvation

Sene and I just started building for the MOCS championship. Here's the pool I opened, and I'll put the deck I built afterward. I wasn't too happy with the pool at first, but the deck seems decent:

And here's the deck I built. I'm not sure if it's correct, but I'm still figuring out this format:



Edit: Dropped at 2-2. I won 2 straight then lost to some really, really frustrating stuff in the next 2 rounds. Game 3 of round 3, I was 1 land away from Ulamog's Crusher to basically win the game (he had used his removal throughout the earlier turns), and I proceeded to not draw one for 6 turns. On the turn before I drew one, he cast Nirkana Revenant and followed it up with Kozilek the next turn. Round 4, in game 3 I kept a 3 land hand and activated Enclave Cryptologist once (he Heat Rayed it), and I didn't draw another land for 5 turns. What can I say; I'm no Tahn!

Quote from Semantics

I won 2 straight then lost to some really, really frustrating stuff in the next 2 rounds.

Not drawing lands, it sounds like. Well... shiny new Magic set is still Magic after all.

How did you find Splinter Twin? I'm not sure I'd have run it in your deck - it doesn't seem to have many exciting targets. On the other hand, maybe it's still good with unexciting targets?

Splinter Twin was cute, but it was only good once, on a Hatcher. I wanted to give it a try to see how it was, but it was very little more than cute.

I don't know what I should have replaced it with. I didn't think World at War was very good for my deck, but that might have been the better call.

Quote from Promatim

Do you guys want to do the current clan contest?

It seems fairly low-impact, and not too hard.

I nominate mulldrifter.

I don't know what it's about, but I'd also like to nominate Mulldrifter.

Quote from Promatim »

I enjoyed Rakka Mar back in the day. I always thought she was undervalued.

"Back in the day", huh? More like "one year ago"

@Semantics: I think I'd have played Lay Bare. A 4CC counter seems decent in this sealed format.

Hey guys, thanks for signing up for the contest!

Just one thing, do you have a preference for whether your Survivor candidate is a Lorwyn Mulldrifter or a Promo Mulldrifter?

Me either, it's only because I'm going through the submitted cards with a fine-toothed comb that I noticed it.

Quote from Promatim

In other news, anyone heard the rumor about a new sealed format?

If you mean the one in the Rumor Mill, yes.

My guess - They'll bring back tournament packs in some form or another. Maybe 90 card tournament packs just for sealed.

Very unlikely. WotC try to keep all the online products closely matched to paper products.

My guess is that the "format" won't be for the decks, which will still be 6-booster Sealed, but will instead be something to do with who plays who in which round and how the standings are calculated.

Hey, thanks for the support guys!! I'm very happy about my GP obviously.

Here's a short report; I'll focus on some interesting things because round-by-round is not that interesting, and more importantly, I wouldn't remember half of it.

Day one Sealed:

Quote from bateleur

Wow - check out this decklist...

Tahn's Day One DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land (16) 1 Evolving Wilds 7 Forest 6 Island 2 Mountain Creatures (13) 1 Artisan of Kozilek 1 Frostwind Invoker 1 Jaddi Lifestrider 1 Joraga Treespeaker 2 Mnemonic Wall 1 Mul Daya Channelers 1 Nest Invader 1 Ondu Giant 1 Sea Gate Oracle 1 Skywatcher Adept 1 Ulamog's Crusher 1 Wildheart Invoker	Spells (11) 1 Awakening Zone 1 Domestication 1 Flame Slash 1 Growth Spasm 1 Heat Ray 1 Prophetic Prism 1 Regress 1 See Beyond 1 Spawning Breath 1 Staggershock 1 Warmonger's Chariot

16 land is pretty brave... and apparently a great call!

Only 16 land was definitely a controversial choice. But I had a ton of mana sources in the deck, as well as a bit of library manipulation, so I felt it was correct. Four cards in the deck provide a reliable mana sources as their primary effect, and three others provide temporary mana. I found myself hoping to draw a spell much more often than land, and felt I lost more to flooding than screw. So I'm still 100% behind this choice.

The deck itself was awesome to play. It had no real bomb but all the cards were just really good, and I had great mana, good late game cards, good removal and card advantage. I had a great time with it. However, the sideboard was also very important, because I could adapt my deck very well to the opponent's. The card I boarded out almost every time was Warmonger's Chariot, and the one I boarded in the most was the second Regress; that was certainly a mistake in deckbuilding. Against aggressive decks I also brought in the second Jaddi Lifestrider (gain 14? did that). One match I played against a GR deck that made a million Spawns but didn't do much. I lost the first game to Gelatinous Genesis and boarded in a Spawnsire of Ulamog. Game two I ultimated it like turn ten or so. It brought two Hand of Emrakul, Ulamog's Crusher and two Emrakul's Hatcher. My opponent called the judge and the headjudge to check if I really was allowed to cast cards from my sideboard this way.

I had several more playables in the sideboard, don't remember them all though. There were two Emrakul's Hatcher and a Lavafume Invoker, so GRu or GR was also possible as a build, but this one seems better to me. There was also stuff like Stomper Cub, Prey's Vengeance, Ogre's Cleaver and some more. But in the end I was pretty happy with how I built it, because finding the optimal list from this pool was hard and in my opinion and in hindsight, I feel I got 39 cards out of 40 right.

I had two byes, won the next seven and lost the "extra" round ten. It always gets me.


First draft:

My first draft went awful. I have to reconstruct the deck from memory, because the deck ended up in a dirt bin.



I simply saw no playable two-drops in my colours during the entire draft and ended up playing the Tunnelers.

I lost the first round with this deck to a BR deck with a ton of instant-speed removal, especially Induce Despairs, and Surreal Memoir. So even if I could stick an Aura I'd probably get 2-for-1ed, my "can't block" effects were useless against him, etc. I could play this match-up 100 times and I wouldn't win a game in which he drew spells and lands.

After the match I tried to be optimistic; since my opponent had so many of the cards that were good against me, the others at the table probably didn't have many! That was in fact true and I won the next two but both matches were very close. Something like this:
R2G1: He starts with Student of Warfare, levels it all the way and smashes me. Not close.
R2G2: I win narrowly thanks to some rather bad plays of him (I tricked him into it a bit but still, it's his mistake for just using his Staggershock on an unimportant target).
R2G3: I topdeck the Boar Umbra to turn a losing position into a winning one.
R3G1: My opponent fails to make his third land drop before turn eight.
R3G2: I get smashed because his creatures are all better than mine.
R3G3: He's blue-green so I boarded in a white splash for Dawnglare Invoker, which wins.

So, having scrambled to 2-1 with that pile I set out to draft a good deck. And succeeded.


Second draft

What a beauty!



For this format, this deck was extremely fast. I was quite happy with it and hoping it could get me there. The one thing it's weak against is of course spoiler creatures. But as long as I'm not facing Drana or Guul Draz Assassin I should be fine.

First round with the deck, first game, opponent is on the play and goes Swamp, Guul Draz Assassin.

But in game two he only draws it too late, when he's already under too much pressure, and game three he has it turn three or so but only one Swamp so it can't really get anywhere. When his only black mana is tapped (he's BR) I play Mammoth Umbra on Jaddi Lifestrider. Try killing that. I also have a Pelakka the turn after so I get to do some neat smashing in the feature match area, which is fun.

The second round is against GR which is an easy matchup for me, as my creatures are just so fat. Game two he's mana-screwed so I get an even easier ticket to the top 8. My third opponent accepts the draw, but I saw his deck and I'm quite sure I was winning that too, and it turned out that even with a loss I would've been 7th so I was comfortable.


Top 8 draft

Quote from Sene

Tahn's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
8 Island 10 Plains 2 Caravan Escort 1 Deathless Angel 1 Frostwind Invoker 1 Halimar Wavewatch 1 Hedron-Field Purists 1 Kor Line-Slinger 1 Kor Spiritdancer 2 Makindi Griffin 1 Sea Gate Oracle 1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest 1 Venerated Teacher	1 Deprive 2 Guard Duty 2 Hyena Umbra 2 Mammoth Umbra 2 Narcolepsy	Sideboard 1 Brood Birthing 1 Champion's Drake 1 Dormant Gomazoa 1 Echo Mage 1 Guard Duty 1 Guul Draz Assassin 1 Haze Frog 1 Lightmine Field 1 Lone Missionary 1 Merfolk Observer 1 Mnemonic Wall 1 Perish the Thought 2 Repel the Darkness 1 Smite 1 Soul's Attendant 1 Spider Umbra 1 Stalwart Shield-Bearers 1 Valakut Fireboar

I can't say I'm a fan of the deck, but maybe it can get there. Seems like there just didn't come enough levelers.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan either. Not enough levelers is exactly what happened. White was wide open with only me and the Italian I played in the quarters drafting it. That's because white is just bad. Unfortunately the three Knight of Cliffhaven in the draft all went to his side. I had some nice rares, but I knew I had a glaring weakness to Invokers so I wasn't optimistic about my chances. Also, black instant removal was good against me as I can't play my Auras if they have those. So basically my semifinals was the nightmare matchup, with 3 Vendetta and some more removals, and 2 black Invokers. I knew my deck was very soft so that so I could only be happy I had dodged my weak spots in the quarters. Also, Florian Koch was a nice guy and I'm happy he won it.

Quote from Sene

Well well, officially on the train now?

Yessir! 5 points from San Diego plus 6 from Lyon, and at least two each from San Juan (Q'd by top50 SD) and Amsterdam (Q'd by Lyon) means 15 PP, which allows to play one PT so that Q's me for Worlds as well. And at least 17 points next season, so the 20 points needed to get on the train should be easy to get. (And I'm hoping to level up more of course. )

Quote from Promatim

His player profile is odd. It lists no previous magic accomplishments. We know that's not true. I wonder if he just didn't comment on them.

Well I guess I could have put San Diego top 50 in there, but that's really all I had before this. I have a string of GP money finishes but the highest was 19th place, which I didn't feel like putting up there.


But next time I can put GP Lyon top 8 there.

Quote from Tahn

My opponent called the judge and the headjudge to check if I really was allowed to cast cards from my sideboard this way.

Head judge! That's brilliant - I bet it really made his day.

R3G3: He's blue-green so I boarded in a white splash for Dawnglare Invoker, which wins.

Ooh, nice play!

First round with the deck, first game, opponent is on the play and goes Swamp, Guul Draz Assassin.

Wow, that would have put me so badly on tilt!

So basically my semifinals was the nightmare matchup, with 3 Vendetta and some more removals

I'm pretty sure that should never happen once people know the format.

so that Q's me for Worlds as well

Japan this year isn't it? I hope you like travelling!

What happened to our plan to start a new thread?

Thread retired.