Pro Tour Theros 2013

[img width=550 height=106]http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/ptths13/welcome_facebook.jpg[/img] Thanks to Falkenrath Aristocrat back in April 2013, I was fortunate enough to qualify for Pro Tour Theros, held in Dublin, Ireland a couple of weeks back. This marked my return to the PT after a 10-year absence and it felt great to be back in this level of competition. Theros was relatively a new set and with no playtest team and limited time (due to work commitments) I was forced to make do with a couple of live drafts and building a deck for the PT based on my own playing experience. Its quite funny now looking back, that the first decklist I posted in MTG Salvation for comments was a mono blue Thassa deck only to be shot down like a fly. I took the deck to a local FNM and it got raped before I shelved it for good for my deck of choice – Big Boros. I shared my list with Malaysia’s finest with mixed reviews but took my list (along with a backup mono-red) anyway to Europe. Just a week before I flew to Europe, MTG Madness (a sponsor to 1MTG) had sent me some shirts and offered me spot on their team to play along side them for the upcoming PT. It was a non-obligation offer, but I took the shirts anyway with me to Europe. My flight to Paris was on the 7th October, and the day before we had our PTQ Born to the Gods at Eternal Magic. Kudos to EM for a well-organized event. I drew a sick pool with aggressive green red and top end Xenagos and went 6-0-1 in the swiss. My draft was a solid black blue deck only to lose to Jason Yap and his “heroic combat” tricks in the quarterfinals. I had still several chances to qualify to Valencia so I finally got packed and off I went to Europe! I arrived in Dublin two days before the event (after a brief stay at Paris) and met up with the Singaporean team the evening before. They shared with me their tech-brew – a Jund concoction which basically just played a lot of good cards and ramp. With zero testing, I was not confident to ride with it. So the night before the main event, I sat in the hotel room pondering the last few changes and went with the following: 4 Stormbreath Dragon 4 Frostburn Weird 4 Boros Reckoner 4 Chandra’s Phoenix 2 Chandra, Pyromaster 4 Lightning Strike 4 Anger of the Gods 4 Chained to the Rocks 4 Magma Jet 4 Mutavault 4 Temple of Triumph 4 Sacred Foundry 14 Mountain Sideboard: 3 Burning Earth 3 Boros Charm 1 Chandra Pyromaster 2 Assemble the Legions 2 Ratchet Bomb 2 Glare of Heresy 2 Wear / Tear Why I chose Boros? Based on experience in an unknown metagame, I stuck with a few basic principles. 1. Play something that had a simple objective – eg. Aggressive, lots of creatures, ways to kill your opponent 2. Keep deck simple with as little as “one or two” ofs and play a simple mana base. 3. New metagame involved a lot of combat so ensure your creatures had edge in combat – ie Boros Reckoner, Boros Charm, Stormbreath Dragon, Mutavault. 4. Try to include little advantages – eg. Scrye (via Temple and Magma Jet), card advantage (via Chandra and Anger) 5. Ways to remove opposing threats reliably – eg Chained to the Rocks 6. Play Burning Earth to punish greediness. The deck may look awful on paper (maindeck Phoenix + Anger, 26 lands, maindeck 4 Chains) but in action it was an absolute machine. Post PT, would I play this deck again? Maybe if Esper is not in full force, or perhaps have Mizzium Mortars to deal with Blood Baron's 1-for-1. But aside from that, its a thumbs up for me. Back to the PT….. Draft 1 I had drafted a decent blue red deck sporting 3 Spellheart Chimera and 10 instants/sorceries (including 2 Voyage’s End, 2 Lightning Strike and Griptide) and 2 Ordeal of Purphoros. Sadly I lost to Patrick Chapin round 1 in three close games, died to Steve Mann round 2 to double mulligans both games but managed to beat at hapless Tzu Ching Kuo in Round 3. 1-2 is not how I wanted to start the PT, but felt confident with my constructed. Drifting aside for a moment, I was middle of the tense game in the first round against Patrick Chaplin and I noticed two guys in MTG Madness t-shirts waving their arms. I paid no notice at first, but later I met up with them who turned out to be Fernando Corenstein – the founder of MTG Madness. Fernando introduced me to several of the team members including Pierre Dagen (who eventually finished second in the PT) and a couple others. I was finally good that both sides could put a face with all the emails. Fernando was keeping score on how the team was doing and was updating live on the website’s blog. Pressure on!!! After dispatching a Selesnya aggro in Round 4, I lost a tight match to Alexander Hayne (playing Esper as expected) as I couldn’t draw the Burning Earth I needed in turn 4 to seal the decider. But I smashed my opponents in the final three rounds including recently minted GP Hong Kong champion - Shuhei Nakamura and also Shota Yasooka. The deck went fast when it needed too, applying pressure to Shota (playing UB control) with Chandra’s Phoenix and Mutavault, and stayed controllish against Shuhei (playing mono red devotion) with Anger and Reckoner. Riding high at 5-3 and placed 100 at end of day 1 overall and on the leaderboard in Team Madness. Feels good. But in Day 2, things start to fall apart. I took Chye’s advise in pack 2 and switch colors (and gears) by picking a Sea God’s Revenge and went into green blue. Deck was solid and won my first round to an aggressive boros deck. But that’s when it went all downhill. Ben Stark curved me out with Air Force One in games 2 and 3 followed by another loss in third round of draft to double Underworld Cerebus. PT draft record – a disappointing 2-4. I wasn’t out yet and sat at 6-5 record, still have chance to make some cash. But my first standard opponent of the day was nothing but standard – Yuuya Watanabe. Yuuya sported the Red/Green devotion and absolutely smashed my face with the ultimate devotion machine. Turn 1 – Temple of Abandon (scrye) Turn 2 – Burning Tree, Burning Tree, Voyaging Satyr. Turn 3 – Nykthos a. Add 5 green to the pool, uptap Nykthos b. Add 4 red to the pool + 3 green remaining c. Cast Xenagos (2 red + 1 green remaining) d. +1 Xenagos to add 3 green (4 green + 2 red) e. Cast Garruk Caller of Beasts f. +1 revealing Polukranos and 2 x Arbor Colossus. Game 2, rinse and repeat. I won the next round against Gruul but Olle Rade finally ended my PT run by casting back-to-back Stormbreath Dragons and I ended 7-7 before calling it quits. The PT may have ended poorly in the tournament hall but MTG Madness captain Fernando knows how to throw a great party for the team – with loads of loads of food + Irish finest Guinness. MTG Madness sported the oddest bunch of players – French, Italians, Portuguese, Israelis, Spanish + 1 random Asian. But highlight of the night was seasoned pro, Guillame Wafo-Tapa, shook hands with Fernando to officially agree to join Team Madness the night before his top 8, raised cheers by the crowd and an emotional embrace from Fernando. So I ended the PT on a great note and off to my next adventure in Grand Prix Hong Kong. My taking from this event was – my drafting was not as good as i think it is and I really need to get into Magic Online!!!! (this echoes again in GP HK) And finally a big shout out to Jeremy and Pierre – big congratulations to their success! Go Madness!! [img width=550 height=365]http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/ptths13/620_dezani.jpg[/img]