Report from Grand Prix Baltimore

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Cableguy

28 February 2012

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The weekend was a long, full of magic, and events than can only be described by watching the movie Tommy Boy. It was an easy 4 or so hour drive to Baltimore even with DC traffic at its finest on a Friday but in the end the traffic would prove to be no match for the return home. My teammate and I left Roanoke, VA around 10:30pm after picking up a play set of Stormblood Berserkers for mafteechr and hit only the DC traffic. We ended up checking into the hotel and heading immediately to the convention center to see what events would be going on (the grinders, etc.). After deciding my deck was where I wanted it to be at my partner flip flopped from wanting to play BW Control to UW Humans and began making trades to get the cards required and so on.

I myself was content on playing UB Control and felt it was well positioned and more consistent than Grixis based off of the amount of control decks I had seen flying around. I ended up seeing a lot of familiar faces there including a few Pros. While my partner Koalhtahk (yes that’s his name) fiddled with his deck I found mafteechr and learned how bad UB Control is against good old fashioned Mono Red Goblin’s; I was surprised I had even won a single game in the match. My Batterskull got there regardless of him siding in Manic Vandal (FYI mafteechr try not to shuffle to where your opponent can see your cards :P ). Mono Red scared me a lot and as such I decided to add in Steel Sabotage simply for Shrine of Burning Rage. Oh yeah and Epochalyptik stopped by to tell me just how bad standard was as a format and that there was no format except for EDH.

Come Saturday I felt prepared and my partner and I paced around the room trying to get a grasp of a metagame but it was no use 1,548 people had showed up which meant it was all about the luck of the draw. My first match up was against an opponent playing Esper Control with the Sun Titan + Phantasmal Image trick, overall I wasn’t too worried. Game 1 I lost because I had no answer for Liliana of the Veil and my top decks were just not getting there. Game 2 I won via playing Karn Liberated and destroying his Ratchet Bomb which was at 5. I than played Grave Titan and passed, he played Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Which on my turn I Volition Reinsed and proceeded to win. Game 3 Lost simply because of not drawing any counter spells, and even though I was very far ahead with 10 or so Zombie tokens on the field from Grave Titan. He top decked a Sun Titan and chained with Phantasmal Image and brought out Ratchet Bomb and top decked an Oblivion Ring to win him the game. If I had drawn a single counter spell in all of this it could have been an entirely different game. That and Increasing Confusion is only good on the flashback.

Round 2 I was paired against a very bad player piloting a RB Zombie/Vampire deck that I had played against before. However this player was so bad that the loss to him do to bad draws made it that much more painful. I recall being at 6 life and having a Grave Titan and 2 zombie tokens and he used 3 Galvanic Blasts….one on each token and one to me, than Tragic Slipped my Titan, the catch is he did “not” swing for game the next turn. I asked mafteechr what the odds were when my game 3 against this opponent came down to me having 4 lands and drawing in this sequence Curse of Death's Hold X3!, Grave Titan X2,and a Consecrated Sphinx. He was baffled to say the least and mentioned it going into extremes of math and would rather not get into it. Slightly aggravated I went to round 3.

To make the cut you needed to be X-2 meaning no more than 2 losses so at this point I was on the chopping block for every single match of the tournament moving forward. This is obviously NOT the position you wanted to be in but I was going to keep going till I was beaten out. My next match was against Frites or Five-Color Reanimator, which I was happy to see. UB control has a side win condition and sometimes main of milling your opponent out and Frites only made it that much easier to mill. Game 1 he played rampers which all died thanks to Tragic Slip and Black Sun's Zenith and I would kill him with a Karn Liberated and Consecrated Sphinx. Game 2 was much of the same except he landed an Inferno Titan. I copied it with Phantasmal Image shot his bird and used Tragic Slip on the titan killing it. The titan would come back from the graveyard 2 more times all 3 points of damage each time targeting me. It wasn’t till won game 2 that I reminded him targeting image with inferno’s ability would immediately kill image.

Round 3 I was paired against a RG Aggro deck which I was truthfully prepared for to a high extent. Game 1 I lost as expected because he could not have drawn a better hand. Game 2 I side boarded well and braced myself. The first creature for him was Strangleroot Geist which met Mana Leak, than came Thrun, the Last Troll which met Phantasmal Image, than came Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip X 3, 1st met Dissipate, 2nd met Snapcaster Mage + Doom Blade, the 3rd met Black Sun's Zenith. I landed Batterskull and won from there. Game 3 my opening hand was Tragic Slip, Doom Blade, Mana Leak, Dissipate , Darkslick Shores X2, and an Island. I felt awesome about the hand and kept it. However for the next 7 turns I only drew mana and ended up losing.

I finished Grand Prix with a 1-3 record and my Teammate a 6-3 record where he managed to lose to Bant Birthing pod with UW Humans.

Moral of the story is this: “You cannot plan for luck.”

Pro players are pros because they can do the best with what they have but in the end they have to draw well and not get flooded or shorted on mana to win; just like everyone else. Luck is a bigger part of this game than most tend to realize.

The following day (Sunday) we stopped by the convention center to visit the vendors and watch a bit of the feature matches. I ended up getting into a short conversation with Brian Kibler about the possibility of Witchbane Orb seeing sideboard slots just as Patrick Chapin won with Jace, Memory Adept. Brian would go on to say it seems feasible in mirror matches of UB control, stops liliana and mill, and etc. Very approachable guy and knows what he is talking about.

So…remember when I said Tommy Boy earlier?

On the way back from Baltimore the car we were driving had its battery die and we rolled into Wal-Mart just as the mechanic shop closed. Bought a new battery and installed it in the parking lot. Got 30 minutes away and the battery died again meaning the alternator was bad and we were stranded..again. We called the tow truck and it found us on the side of the road. Just before we were getting ready to go a truck passed into the sleep strips hit the door of the car, which was open a bit and overextended the door and slammed it shut. Which means the door can no longer open as it is over the fender. We had to pay even more money to stay at a hotel, eat, and etc. Rented a card get insurance involved and finally drove back after missing work and class.

Hopefully that’s the last bit of bad luck we have for a long time.

If you guys would like to know more about the decks that we saw there that were interesting comment below.