Kirblinx's MTGO Adventures + Sometimes Cube

[Kirblinx]

GP Sydney 2019

I said that I was going to write up any significant MTG things that I went to earlier in the year, so even though the GP (or Magicfest now I guess) was about 4 weeks ago now, I thought I would write up what I can remember.

Thursday
There was 10 of us from my hometown that decided to go to the GP, and we all decided it was better to drive to a town 1.5 hours away as the flights to Sydney were significantly cheaper (including parking for 4 days at the airport). The fun part was, the road was cut off the day before due to floods. So we were all a bit nervous that we wouldn't be able to make our flight. I was one of the poor suckers that had to drive, and while the water was lapping the road when we passed, we were still able to make it to the flight (with hitting a lot of potholes along the way).

Sydney was much nicer in terms of weather, was there wasn't rain pouring down everywhere, except for the fact there was the strongest gusts of wind that I have ever experienced in a city. I almost got blown off my feet when walking to the hotel, which was right in the middle of chinatown, only a 5 minute walk from the convention centre. The hotel room looked like it was under renovation, as there was all sorts of missing paint from where things had been removed from walls. But the practicality of the room was fine so I was happy enough. Not that I was going to be spending many hours here anyway.

Friday
I had signed up for a cheap mega last chance trial with my main event registration, so that was my first event of the day. Opened an okay Orzhov pool. I remember in the first round having a Hero of Precinct One and spewing around 4 tokens on the field, but he a pile of flyers taht I could nothing about. It happened the same in the second game as well, so I got knocked out in the first round. A little dejected, but was about expected. Decided to try again.

Second sealed was a much nicer pool. Going Esper with double Azorius Skyguard. Easily dispatched my first round opponent. I wasn't expecting to do too well after that, so I signed up for a 2HG that would happen about 2 hours later, as my freind kept insisting. This turned out to be a mistake. The second round was a bit of luck with my opponent losing some crucial flips on a Mirror March, which was a very fun and close game. I then had a dilemma of trying to continue on or go to the 2HG. Me mulling over this decision was made for me, as when I came to check back up on my trail, the round had already commenced and I had been given the match loss. Serves me right I guess. Oh well, 100 tix is decent enough.

2HG was quite fun, but pretty linear, as it seems to be highly based on how many Ill-Gotten Inheritance each team we got, as they make for a quick clock. We ended up with 3 of them and 2 Grasping Thrulls and just swept the floor with everyone. ID'd in the last round to make we got 200 tix a piece and that was pretty much the end of Friday. I was happy enough. Picked up 4 playmats from the prize booth that I liked, as I didn't think they may last the rest of the weekend (Blood Sun, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, Twilight Prophet and Trostani Discordant).
I REALLY like the Trostani one. Looks very pretty.

My peeps offer to go to Korean BBQ, but I am not feeling up for it. Just get a nice burrito from Guzman Y Gomez and watch National Treasure on TV (who doesn't love Nicholas Cage). Nice way to chill and get ready for the big day tomorrow.

Saturday
Main event day. Open my pool and am not too ecstatic. Nothing that clearly pulls me into any particular direction. I waste a lot of time trying to decide and end up going Gruul splashing a couple of black cards. My thought process was that it didn't have any bombs, but the curve was there and it should be able to compete if I hit the decent curve.

Round 1 I play against a mardu control build and I play a creature on turns 2 and 3, but it doesn't help when there is a Twilight Panther in the road. Then once I make decent headway, an Ethereal Absolution hits the field and I just keep hitting lands.
Game 2 more of the same happens and I lose round 1.
0-1

So I am not happy with the Gruul deck, so I build an esper deck as my second deck, as I have my own Ethereal Absolution to help with the long game. This deck I feel has more of the tools I need to win sealed games, but still doesn't feel all there.

Round 2 I play against a nice guy on Temur and we keep making mistakes and not worrying about calling a judge. We have a fun time and I actually curve out with the Gruul deck and beat him. Switch to the Esper deck and lose due to double scuttlegator. Decide to stick with the esper deck and eek out the win. Still like the esper deck more, but my hopes of doing well are not sky high.
1-1

Round 3 I mulligan to oblivion with the Gruul deck and scoop really early on. I don't remember the rest of this round. I just know that I won. Feeling really bad about the deck I registered, but at least the second deck can get me there.
2-1

Round 4 I win with a nice curve out with the Gruul deck against this Simic concoction. I decide to switch to the esper deck, even though his creatures will be all bigger than mine, just so I have some flyers. Seems to be the correct option, as the guy has 3 Chillbringer. I manage to stabilise with Ethereal Absolution, but a Zegana comes down and I can't handle the trampling Scuttlegators. Decide to stick with the Esper deck for game 3 and I had a decent chance this game. It got close, but I tried to race too early, and I Consign to the Pit a Chillbringer to try and produce a clock, but a Zegana comes down the turn later and two swings plus a combat trick I wasn't expecting got there. All I needed to do was hold the removal for the Zegana, as I knew it was the main thing I would lose to. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it now. I wasn't playing tight magic today.
2-2

Round 5 Was against Rakdos with 2 Rakdos Firewheeler. I mulliganed to oblivion again with Gruul and did a real quick snap to game 2. Which I managed to control the game to the point where I coud kill him with my flyers. Game 3 he just had all the card advantage by making me discard cards. There wasn't really much I could do. With that I was 2-3. Disappointed, but at least it gave me a reason to go do something else now, and there was pauper starting soon
2-3 DROP

So I found out that the other two peeps I was with had also dropped, so at least I wasn't alone. I do like this sealed format. I find it more enjoyable than Guilds of Ravnica, as Boros isn't there to makes you scared of the gun curve. This feels very more midrangey, which is nice. Anyway, my pauper event was about to start.

Pauper
I brought my trusted WB Pestilence deck, as it is all I know, and I enjoy EOT burning someone out. You can see a list probably about 2 posts ago in my thread. Round 1 was against Turbofog Mill, which was hilarious. The idea is to Jace's Erasure and just stack draw spells (Accumulated Knowledge, Brainstorm) and fogs (Moment's Peace, Tangle) until you mill them out. He got me pretty close game 1, with no cards left in my library, but luckily I had resolved a Pestilence on turn 4 and managed to burn for 5, then untap and kill in upkeep for the rest. Game 2 was much easier with Kor Sanctifiers and Relic of Progenitus to make his life a lot harder. Best part was he got to play against W Heroic next round and he stood absolutely no chance, so it was nice to see him have some retribution.

Round 2 was against RB Tortured existence, which a very fun deck to play. I run 2 Bojuka Bog main, so I kept ruining his graveyard plans. I just kept playing value guys and we both kept sweeping the field. He just ran out of gas because he couldn't get his Grave Scrabbler - Tortured Existence engine online and he died to 2/3 flyers.
Game 2 I boarded in Relics and made his life even worse. Guy had no graveyard and just struggles with mana all game :\

Round 3 was against Mono Black Control. We ID'd but played it out anyway. He beats me game 1 with a double Gray Merchant draw and I couldn't find the removal to keep the mana symbols off the board. I beat him game 2 after hitting monarch early and gaining too many cards. Game 3 was very anti-climatic as I play a turn 2 bounceland only to have it Choking Sands away and never finding another land for 3 turns and scooping. I'm happy I took the draw then.
2-0-1

I contemplated if I wanted to do a turbo draft or the like, but decided against it. End on a high.

Sunday
I realise I have what I have always done now and gone way overboard with details and this has taken me way too long to post. Just going to do a real quick hit of Sunday.

Went 2-1 in pauper double up. Losing to UR Kiln Fiend, beating the second round bye and WR Monarch. Just want to mention that the people of the Sydney pauper community are small but great. There was a lot of overlap in players in the 2 I played in and they were all great opponents and all interesting in my deck and how it functions. Hope to play them at future magic fests.

Went 0-3 in another 2HG sealed. Thought we would do alright after our last 3-0. That did not happen. I made a really bad decision in match 1 when we were clearly ahead with a Captive Audience, went to 4 and they had 3 removal spells to get us for lethal. Should have just given them the zombies. Then I made a bad mulligan decision in match 2 and did absolutely nothing while my teammate did their best by themselves. Round 3 we just gave up and did a turbo draft, as we needed 100 tix for each of us to get a box of boosters to take home.

Turbo draft, I drafted 5-colour black gates. Managed to hit Gatebreaker Ram on turn 3 both games and just rode the angry boy to victory.

At the end me and my partner managed to take home 8 playmats and 2 booster boxes, which I feel is a decent time out. A little disappointed with my main even result, but happy I got to crush in Pauper.

Monday
Went to the Taronga Zoo and just chilled. Was a great day. Apparently the rest of our crew won 100 army men from an arcade and decided to hide them throughout their hotel, which I felt the need to mention for some reason.

Tuesday
The main thing I wanted to mention about our trip home was that it was still pouring at home, so we were concerened that we might not make it back. We got the clear from our airline and we made it to the flight on time. The trip was nice and smooth, but when we were going to land they decided to undo and climb back up into the sky much to everyones concern. They said the visuals were bad and they were going to take another go at it. 10 minutes later we land and there is a cheering roar from the cabin. Felt weird to be part of a cheering crowd landing a plane, but it was nice to able to go home without any major hiccups. Although the drive back was pretty terrible, rain was everywhere, but I didn't die, which my mother appreciates.

Okay, will try and make these more concise next time, so I don't take 5 weeks to post it. They finally just announced MF Brisbane for the end of the year, so there is something to look forward to now. Hoping it is going to be modern. I am ready to start playing some ElectroBalance.

 

[Kirblinx]

Retirement of the Wobbly Cube
It's been a long time since I have done a cube draft, and even longer since I have given my 'main' cube, the 'wobbly cube' a draft. Around 2 years, if I am correct. Or at least that is how long since it has been updated (according to cubetutor). I have been threatening to do a rebuild for quite some time as well. Out of the blue, my LGS had a spare slot on it's usual commander nights ( after a month long league had just finished) and someone suggested we do a cube night. I thought it would be a great opportunity to give one last hurrah to the WOBBLY CUBE and see what kind of monsters it could create from it's long unmaintained glory.

We managed to get a whole 8 people to draft, which was nice. This was also the first time I got to test out the cubeamajigs, which were quite handy, although everyone was scared to open them as they thought they may break them.
I had prepared the packs last night, so even if more people had showed, I didn't have time to rearrange packs to make enough to suit 10, so the exact number showing up was perfect.

Here were the results of the night:

Spoiler: Phil (3-0): RW Aggro

Sometimes a simple aggro plan will get you there. Deck seemed to have the right mix of go-wide and reach that it needed to eek out the long games. Most of the other decks were unprepared for this kind of assault and that let it come through with the goods. I just really like the bushwhackers. The original Heroic Reinforcements.

Spoiler: Rodney (2-1): Esper Tempo

The other deck that made it to the finals. I didn't get to see any games of it so am unsure as to how it played and what cards were good/bad. It is a very interesting deck and one I can't say I have seen before. Looked like it wanted to drop a couple of efficient creatures then if that doesn't work, drop a 6 drop and let the momentum swing in your favour. I think it needed a little more interaction, but it seemed to serve him well throughout the night.

Spoiler: Jamie (2-1) UR Tinker Wildfire

This was my deck, and I noticed that the artifact deck was open so slotted into it. The Anger of the Gods and Precursor Golem were my MVPs. Even got a Welder/Slaver soft lock going which was pretty cool. The match I lost was to the deck below, because I don't have the early interaction to deal with big threats, so Managorger Hydra and a quickly leveled Figure of Destiny just wrecked me. Otherwise if I could use one sweeper, I could generally win the game from there. The Swans was also a fun addition, and actually the cause of most of my wins. As a flying 4-powered threat can apparently represent a quick clock.

Spoiler: Shane (2-1): Naya Token CoCo

There seemed to be many 4-drops for a CoCo deck. He managed to whiff a couple of times, and also had some mana issues, but the strong low drops and the reach in Goblin Bombardment and Boros Charm led to a decent amount of wins. Suprised he managed to get as much as he did considering he was next to the RW drafter, but I guess there was enough to spread around. The two werewolves in the same deck was also pretty cute.

Spoiler: Ethan (1-2): Mostly Green Jund

This deck was broken up after the draft and I didn't get to see any of the games in action. So the deck above is a rough estimate as to what I believe the best build with the pool he had. During the draft, it was obvoius that green was open, which is why he managed to go almost mono-green. This is a deck that tries to cross ramp with the grindy-ness of jund, and his games did seem to drag out, so I think it accomplished what it needed to. I think it just struggled in the early game. Needed a couple of mana dorks.

Spoiler: Michael (1-2): UB Doomsday Control

Ah doomsday. It was nice to see someone try and build a deck around it. He was actually pretty successful, and most of his losses were to quick aggro decks and not being able to make doomsday piles correctly. Shelldock Isle is surprisingly sneaky as a Doomsday card, as you can put it in the pile with a pile of draw spells and hide the lab man under it and activate it just before a draw resolves. I think he needed a sweeper to help his aggro problem, but I think this is probably the best doomsday was going to do and I am glad it finally got it's time in the sun before the cube retired.

Spoiler: Riley (0-2-1): WB Aristocrat Humans

Ah, Black-White Humans. The deck seemed fine, but he always just ran out of gas in the end. I think the Terminus goes against the aggro plant the rest of the deck is trying to accomplish. The Scourge of Nel Toth has no way of being reanimated early, so it should also be something else. Also surprised he got no fixing, which I know had a bearing on at least one game. I didn't want Humans to go out this way, but he still had a fun time. Mikaeus and Secure the Wastesare no joke. Anafeza was surprisingly effective the games she came out as well. I think he needed the Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat to get the extra reach he needed, except that the deck below took them...

Spoiler: Caylem (0-2-1): Sidisi Dredge

Hey, it's the graveyard deck. I didn't draft if for a change. It was very grindy and managed to have some decent looking board positions, but just didn't have the oomph to get over the line. He was also very unlucky, missing zombies off 3! Sidisi triggers. I think it was going in too many directions, like he was trying to be aggressive, but also defensive with the Languish and Mana Leak. Evolutionary Leap also looks mildly out of place. I think if he ever hit Mikaeus, he won, so at least he has that going for him.

The Quick Hits:

• Electrolyze on a Presursor Golem or Swans of Bryn Argoll is a rather sweet draw 3. Did it a couple of times. Should have main decked it.
• Shriekmaw was terrible, it couldn't hit anything almost every game Caylem played. I guess that is what sideboards are for.
• Mesmeric Orb watch! I had it in my SB, and sided it in against Caylem as he was milling himself pretty heavily. I discarded it to Daretti as I was too far behind, oh well.

Don't really have much else to say. Didn't take too much of what happened as I was just enjoying the draft and the games. Oh, Wobbly Cube, you taught me a lot of lessons that will show through into the new cube. I will keep your cubetutor list intact so you will still exist in digital form, when your physical existence is gone.
Farewell Wobbly.
Wobbly Wobbly Wobbly.

 

[Kirblinx]

Just wanted to pop in and say that Modern Horizons is shaking up pauper something fierce.
Mainly due to this one insignificant rock:


Here is the current deck I am working on:

Went 3-2 and 2-3 so far in leagues. Nothing too spectacular, but geez can this deck grind.
Ephemerate has been pretty sweet as a 3-for-1 (save creature from removal spell, return a bauble, then return another bauble on upkeep). The Ponyback is just a meme at this stage, but has been better than Gurmag Angler at this stage.

 

[Aston]

Okiba-Gang Shinobi returning Kor Skyfisher to return Astrolabe is the stuff dreams are made of.

 

[Kirblinx]

Long time no cube draft.

Had a player from my LGS ask if anyone wanted to draft his cube, so being the cube draft enthusiast that I am, I decided to organise a draft at my house. We only got 7 people, so not the whole 360 got used, and he didn't have a list posted anywhere for us to get an idea what was in it. I always like going into cubes blind anyway.
Here is what I ended up with:

I first picked Siege Rhino, as it seemed easily the strongest card in the pack, followed it up with an Untethered Express to have the two best rhinos in MTG history. Then just tried to pick fixing and any other strong cards I could find and ended up with this pile.
Having 2 creatures that acted as board sweepers was insane (Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Deathbringer Regent) and I think just having them as spells would have made my deck worse, as I wouldn't have a threat to push through after the wrath.

This deck had a pretty easy 3-0. Only dropping 1 game because I couldn't find my third land for 3 turns. Not much to say in may games other than I play a decent threat on turn 4, stabilise from the early aggression, then push ahead with the rest of my topend. Gravediggering a Siege Rhino just feels unfair.

The decks I played against was a UB aggro deck, that utilised small evasive beaters backed up by removal to stay in the race and had a nice endgame of Nantuko Husk + Zulaport Cutthroat.
The second round was against Wg counters. He picked up nearly every white removal spell, and had efficient creatures that worked at every point on the curve (Apex Hawks, Benalish Lancer, Good-Fortune Unicorn, Crocanura). I did struggle against this deck, as all his removal made showed my lack of threats, and ended up beating him down with a Thornweld Archer, as I was out of options.
The third round was the cube owner and he was on RB Minotaurs/Madness, and while a turn 4 Hazoret did scare me a little, Pacification Array helped stall until I could give it it's Final Reward. Then the Baloths took over.

The cube owner even said he put in minimal fixing so decks like this wouldn't be the norm. There was two of us at the table that managed to do it though (he was on bant). Maybe it was because there were too many good gold cards that incentivised splashing. I am unsure, as building has never really been my strong suit. I just like to draft midrange piles and see how they go.

Overall it was a good night and I look forward to the next cube draft we do.
Makes me want to rebuild the wobbly cube again.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Long time no cube draft.

Had a player from my LGS ask if anyone wanted to draft his cube, so being the cube draft enthusiast that I am, I decided to organise a draft at my house. We only got 7 people, so not the whole 360 got used, and he didn't have a list posted anywhere for us to get an idea what was in it. I always like going into cubes blind anyway.
Here is what I ended up with:

That cube's power band is wiiiiiiiide.

 

[Kirblinx]

That cube's power band is wiiiiiiiide.

I mean it was their first attempt at a cube. It had more cohesion than a pile of cards thrown in a box as you could see the outline of archetypes throughout the drafting process (UB Mill, GW Counters, WR First Strike, etc.).

I made a joke at the start of the draft looking at my opening pack asking 'who would ever want to draft Unburden?', and everyone after that when looking at the same pack would echo the sentiment, and I ended up getting it last pick.

I mean you need some spice to get people excited, and in retail sets, there are always mythics that are just bombs and hard to interact with (Oko anyone?).

Could you elaborate which direction the powerband needs to shorten? Are the bombs to bomby? or are the bad cards too bad? I gave my insight that I think Untethered Express is just too much of an easy pick and a very strong card. The fixing is terrible that I think Siege Rhino can be alright. The Gearhulk was way too efficient all night, so it is probably a bit too high as well, but let me know what you think.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I mean it was their first attempt at a cube. It had more cohesion than a pile of cards thrown in a box as you could see the outline of archetypes throughout the drafting process (UB Mill, GW Counters, WR First Strike, etc.).

I can see that. To this individual's credit, their cube is not as bad as my first cube (although I was also like 13 when I built it, so that may not be a fair comparison for either of us).

Could you elaborate which direction the powerband needs to shorten? Are the bombs to bomby? or are the bad cards too bad? I gave my insight that I think Untethered Express is just too much of an easy pick and a very strong card. The fixing is terrible that I think Siege Rhino can be alright. The Gearhulk was way too efficient all night, so it is probably a bit too high as well, but let me know what you think.

Although I don't have a large enough sample size of this cube to accurately say one way or the other, to me it looks like the bad cards are too bad. I don't think there has ever been a healthy environment where a turn three Crocanura was followed up by a turn four Hazoret, or a turn five Cataclysmic Gearhulk was tailed by a turn six kicked Benalish Lancer. Plus, some of the removal just seems bad. Why is Final Reward here over a Murder or Terror variant? This designer seems not to be opposed to cheap removal by the inclusion of regicide, so why are they running a clunky kill spell like Final Reward?

I think this person would be wise to cut their Crocanuras, bad kicker commons, and overpriced removal if they want to run their splashy rares and mythics. Rampaging Baloths looks like it can snowball out of control way too quickly, and I think it would be a wise card to cut. Hazoret the Fervent doesn't seem too egregious as long as red decks aren't able to be consistently heckbent by turn 4.

Stuff like Thraben Inspector, Attended Knight, and Thornweald Archer are a good baseline for the power level of more "generic" cards, and I think they will work well with the other cards I have seen out of this list.

I would recommend adding more 2 and 3 mana removal for the big bomby threats in this cube as well.

Hopefully that helps!

 

[Kirblinx]

MTGO Pauper Playoffs

So, my grinding on MtGO actually paid off, and I didn't realise that until earlier this week.

Spoiler

I qualified for the pauper format playoff. This means I have a chance to play against 39 others for a chance to be named pauper champion. The champion also gets flown out to Renton to compete in the MTGO Championship for an actual cash prize. This is all very exciting, as I have never gotten this close in any big MtG tournament. I am not expecting too much, and just enjoy the fact that all participants get a decent prize payout just for being in the format championship.

How did I get to this point? Well, I did say I was going to post any significant magic events I did. Which this was one of them, but I was just so tilted at the end of this event, as I needed to win my last round to get top 8, which I got eeked out on. I ended up 11th, so I didn't think I made the qualification. Heck, I thought I was 1 position off, as I knew two of the top 8 had already qualified. Little did I know, that I had snuck in. Also, these playoff events that I play in happen at 3am on Monday morning for me. This was one of the only ones I could do, as I was having an electrician come over to install an aircon. So I had the excuse to stay home and grind out the rest of the tournament instead of having to drop when it hit 7am.

Let me introduce you to the beauty that got me there:

Astro Rites

So I affectionately called this deck 'Astro-Rites' and is a blazingly fast metalcraft aggressive deck. I got the idea from the Thraben Inspector/Kor Skyfisher engine but wondering what would happen if I put Goblin Bushwhacker along with them. It just sort of evolved from there, taking hints and tips from what others were playing with at the time. From my knowledge I was the only one to take up either Bushwacker or Rites, which is a shame as those cards are what really gives it some spice. They are what makes the Rebirth worth having. There were several times where I have just had one land and managed to snipe people out of nowhere. Having 2 Glint Hawks and 7 cards in hand is a potential 16 damage and that can happen on turn 3.

Be aware that this was during the astrolabe era, which was awash with Jeskai Ephemerate and Tron. This deck was designed to cut them in the jugular before they could get their value engines going.
I can't really go through all my rounds as it was 3 months ago now and mtgo replays won't load. All I can show you is this:

So I started on the hard end by losing (to I believe Jeskai) then just going on a tear and not dropping a game until I lose a hard fought match in the finals.

So now that Astrolabe has been banned I have just gone back to my WB Pestilence. In the last playoff I went 2-3 drop (as I didn't know I had qualified for the championship) losing to Mono Red Aggro (couldn't find a Lone Missionary to save my life in any game), Affinity (That is always a bad matchup) and Mono U Delver (had some bad draws, it is a 50/50 matchup). So I don't know what I want to play in the championship when it comes around. I'm going to try all sorts of things throughout the holidays as I want to give myself a decent chance.

Here's to hoping I do alright and make the best out of it. I'll post how I go when it comes around (Jan 12th I believe).

 

[Kirblinx]

Magicfest Brisbane 2019
I like how as soon as I got back from Magicfest Brisbane, the first thing I post here is something I did like 6 months ago. I guess I am like 5 months ahead now!
Anyway, Magicfest Brisbane was on a couple of weekends ago and I wanted to do my usual little (it is never little) write up. There was a pile of us from my town going down to this Magicfest, as it is the closest one we will ever get, there was about 12 of us. It was great having so many people to bounce off of throughout the weekend and it was much more fun than if I was there grinding by myself.

Preparation
So the GP was going to be Standard and only a week (maybe two) after Oko was banned. I had given up on standard at that point, as I was playing mono-black aggro and it was doing alright at FNM, but not good enough to take to a 400 person tournament. Plus I wanted to just play weird formats in paper that I don't get to normally (my LGS only plays Standard and Commander). So I loaded up my Modern, Pioneer and Pauper decks and signed up for constructed fanatic and was going to have a fun time grinding sides. Only 3 of our group was playing in the event, 3 were doing constructed fanatic and the rest were doing limited fanatic.

Friday
Get to the venue earlyish and the line to collect the fanatic package is already really long. It is just one giant line, and by the time I get to near the front they finally decide to split the line up into 3 for all the different fanatic packages to makes things easier, but makes it takes 10 minutes longer for me to pick up my stuff that it would have otherwise. This always seems to happen with the CFB events, I would hope they can fix this as waiting is never fun but this would be the only time I had to wait in a line all weekend, so it wasn't that bad.
I only had about 10 minutes until cutoff for the first modern double-up of the day and that is what I decided to play, with this bad boy:

Spoiler: Rhino Balance

Rhino Balance

Round 1 was against dredge, which isn't a good matchup as balance just does nothing against them. They army just comes back. I wasn't really prepared for this, as I used to have Leyline of the Void in the board, but took it out as dredge was on the downswing. I lost both these games pretty handily.

Round 2 was interesting as I played against 'Dice Factory', it plays a lot of artifacts with charge counters and ends up going infinite with Magistrate's Scepter. Game 1 I lost because Balance doesn't interact with artifacts. Game 2 I won due to a nicely times Shattering Spree from the board to cut him off mana rocks until I found the rhinos to win. Game 3 he kept a no lander with a Astral Cornucopia and Mox Opal. He hits a land on turn 2 and drops a Surge Node and an Everflowing Chalice. I exile 2 Spirit Guides and Shattering Spree for 3 leaving a lone Cornucopia with no counters and think I am fine for a while. I was wrong. I should have left the Opal, as he hit a Surge Node the next turn and starts getting mana. I do nothing but play lands and tick down my Gargadon. He then gets to play Karn, searches for a Mycosynth Lattice. I sac all my lands to get the Gargodon in and kill Karn and hope, but he has another Karn and gets an Ensnaring Bridge and can play it in the same turn and I an effectively locked out.
Deck is very cool.

Depressed I used a double up voucher on my 2 losses I head into round 3 against WU Spirits. Game 1 I can't really do anything as he just counters anything relevant I do and get beaten handily.
Game 2: Turn 1, Mountain Pass. He attempts a Mausoleum Wanderer, in response; Spirit Guide, Electrodominance for 0, Crashing Footfalls. Turn 2, Mountain, Finale of Promise target Crashing Footfalls, he sacs the Wanderer, I exile a Spirit guide. He scoops facing 4 4/4 Rhinos on turn 2 (the god draw).
Game 3 was really close, I remember trying to Electrodominance for 0 at end of turn, he asks what to target, pointing at his creatures, I fell for the trap, as I should have pointed it at his face as he flashes in a Rattlechains to counter my spell. I manage to clean the board drawing all 3 of my bolts and end up at a point where he has 2 vials, I have 2 rhinos and a hard cast spirit guide and I am on 2. He needs to draw pretty much any creature over two turns to kill me in the air. He whiffs twice and I breathe a sigh of relief.
1-2, 40 tix.

At this point I was asked to do a 2HG sealed with one of my peeps, which was in about 2 hours, so I couldn't really do another event, I could however do an on demand event. There was Mystery Booster drafts firing, so I decided to give them a go. It was a very fun draft format, the things that you see are really out of the ordinary. This was the only deck I didn't take a picture of, but I was Blue Black with the following bomb cards: Nemesis of Reason, Fallen Angel, Hypnotic Specter, Soothsaying, Buried Ogre and Djinn of Wishes. My opponent was on WG with a lot of pacifism effects. Game 1 I steam roll him with good creatures on curve. Game 2 he pacifies my Erg Raiders and I die to the obscene damage I am taking per turn. Game 3 was a slog, as we got to a opint were he had a Crystal Shard bouncing and replaying a Briarhorn to keep killing my blockers, while Will-o-the-wisp was holding back the air attack. I get to a point where I can Soothsaying for 8 and see 8 lands. This is after all of my good threats have already been dealt with. A couple of turns later he hits a Decree of Justice and I die. It was a good deck, I just didn't leverage my threats correctly.
0-1

Also I should mention this now, but there was an option if you were 2-0, that you could drop and you would end up at 2-0-1 and get 300 tix. It was to save people who were trying to ID to not waste the peoples time who wanted to play and also meant they were likely to spend more money in events? I don't know, but it felt really weird to take the tix after two rounds, but I ended up using this option throughout the weekend.

It was a good thing I didn't win I guess as my 2HG was about to start. We opened up a decent amount of solid rares I built WG adventures feat Questing Beast. Partner built UB artifact control feat Emry. We both had very solid decks. I don't remember too much of these matches other than I save one of my teammates creatures from Reave Soul with a Garenbrig Carver, when I was doing a hell of a lot of nothing at that stage. Also saved my Oakhame Adversary with Shepard of the Flock as a critical time. Round 2 we won by attacking with our entire team which included a frogged Syr Konrad, the Grim. Once blockers were declared, the Turn to Frog was Turned into Pumpkin and the all the death triggers killed them.
At that point we decided we wanted to take the drop and get the 300 tix, but by the time we realised this was an option the next round was about to start. We hoped that our opponents were as tired as us and didn't want to play. This ended up being the case and we all went home happy with 300 tix.
2-0-1
300 tix

It was 8pm by this stage, so we headed back to the hotel and hit up Guzman Y Gomez, what I like to call the McDonalds of Burritos for an Enchilada. Took it back to the hotel and watched the end of some Sarah Jessica Parker movie (failure to launch maybe?). We then made a plan of going in as early as we could tomorrow to hit up the Mystery Drafts, as we realised the amount of value that could be had out of these things.

Saturday
Got to the centre by 9am, which was when the drafts were supposed to fire, got into draft number 5, so I guess people were onto the mystery draft value train. Fired at 9:15 and drafted this little beauty:

Spoiler: WGr Wurms

I probably didn't need to do the red splash, but the cards were a little too spicy not to put in. My games weren't really that much to write home about, I got past...
Round 1 (Jund): by playing turn 2 Mirran Crusader, Turn 3 Angelic Destiny (gross). Then game 2 was just beating down with an Irontread Crusher.
Match 2 (WB Aggro): Game 1 was the same as the first round, just a turn slower. Game 2 and 3 I have the same issue of keeping a land heavy hand with a Tireless Tracker. I feel like the card is good enough to get me there, but both times it gets Pillory of the Sleepless when aggressive 2 and 3 drops get played and I don't draw anything significant to stop the very quick haemorrhaging of life.
1-1
20 tix

We finished that round pretty quickly, so I think to myself, yeah I can do one more draft before the Pioneer event. I line up and get the 4th ticket into draft 20. So I am in the last draft of the day and it is only 11am. Feels weird. I channelled my pioneer deck that I was about to go use and ended up with this aggressive unicycle:

Spoiler: Artifact Aggro

This deck looked really cool. It is amazing the synergies you can get in Mystery Booster. I would have liked a big artifact to reanimate with Daretti, but it was passed to me, so I will consider it a gift anyway.
Round 1 (WG dudes): It got to a point were I was racing with a Chronobot equipped with every equipment I had and their team of creatures. I was one swing off until they hit Congregate, and then the race became really lopsided and I conceded.
During game 2, I kept a sketchy hand with 2 land, Ensoul Artifact and a Domen Gate, I thought it would be great, until they dropped turn 2 Qasali Pridemate didn't draw another land and realised the pioneer event announced over the loudspeaker. Not wanting to see how badly I could drag this out, I conceded and ran to the other side of the convention centre to check my pairings. I was here to win, and win fast:

Spoiler: Running With Scissors

Running With Scissors

Round 1 (Bw Vampires): Game 1 I had a turn 2 Ensouled Stonecoil and was hitting for 6. She didn't have the Fatal Push and died in quick order. Game 2, was more wide than tall, and the creatures she blocked got Shrapnel Blasted to the face. Managed to get an Ensoul on a Darksteel Citadel, and she just decided to concede even though she had an active Sorin that could keep the game going for a bit longer.
Round 2 (Nexus Reclamation): Game 1, a turn 2 5/5 was a bit too quick for him. Game 2 he managed to fog for 5 turns before finally running our of gas. I think this is a really good matchup, not that Nexus exists in pioneer anymore.
Round 3 (UR Phoenix) I decided to play as the pauper event wasn't on for a decent amount of time. I managed to win game 1 by managing to find the shrapnel blast after the early damage. Games 2 and 3 I lose in really close fashion with a lot of back and forth. He managed to hit a turn 2 Thing in the Ice both games and I can't deal with them. He goes down to 5 in both games, but I can't find the last bit to finish him off. I wish I could remember more of these games, as they were probably the best games I had all weekend. Props to the opponent for the 3-0. I really need to add Fry to my sideboard.
2-1
200 tix

So after a really good run in a new format that I am not that familiar with, we go to an old format that is right in my wheelhouse. Pauper. It isn't a very played format in Australia, and there was only 8 people who signed up for this event. I brought ye old faithful:

Spoiler: WB Pestilence

WB Pestilence

Since there was only 8 people I could see the metagame: 1 Stompy, 1 Elves, 2 Tron, 1 Mono U Faeries, 1 Slivers, 1 UB Control and me. Well, I am favoured in 50% of these matchups, so here's to hoping I don't have to play tron.
Round 1 (Slivers): This is a 50/50 matchup, as you need to kill the lards early then pestilence will clean the rest away. This is not what happened in round 1, as I struggle on land and he hits 3 lords and I only hit 1 removal spell. Game 2 he draws a lot of lands and I take control of the game. Game 3 I keep drawing lone missionaries after the initial run of lords eat removal spells. He just keep drawing the lords and there isn't anything I can do about it, except gain life then die.
Round 2 (Faeries): This is also a 50/50 matchup. If you stick the pestilence they lose, so you just have to keep playing with that goal in mind. Game 1 was a real grind and I take too much initial damage and by the time I can stick the pestilence and clear the board I am left on 2, and he eventually flashes in a Sentinels of Glen Elendra and I die. Game 2 I get a turn 4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi that he can't deal with and ends the game pretty quickly. Game 3 is a slog until I cast 3 must answer spells to resolve a pestilence and ride it plus one Skyfisher to a slow victory.
This makes me feel good going into the last round excpet for the fact I now have a 50/50 chance of playing against tron.
Round 3 (Stompy): Phew. This is a great matchup. Game 1 he didn't hit any buff effects, just a pile of creatures, so with the missionary stabilising me until I hit the pestilence, as soon as it comes back to my turn, he no longer has any creatures and I take it from there. Game 2 he had the opposite problem and I Castigate him 3 times removing a Savage Swipe every time, when he only had a Quirion Ranger in play. The army of Skyfishers I draw eventually finish him off.
2-1
200 tix

Deck felt about the same as when I run it online. Feels good to play things in proper cardboard though. I was contemplating what I wanted to play on Sunday as I still had 2 event tickets left from my package and there was all the options of Modern, Pioneer and Pauper on the event list. There was also a Sealed PTQ that piqued my interest, but in the end decided against as I never really have to much luck in the high stakes events. I settled on Pauper and Pioneer, as the 1-2 in the modern double up really rattled my confidence in the deck.

This ended another late night. Had some weird deconstructed kebab from Yiros and had the same plan to Mystery Draft early.

Sunday
We get to the convention centre by 8:30, and we sign up for pod 13 for Mystery Booster draft. They don't even start firing until 9am, and by that point they are all sold out. So happy we got here early. A little sad that we can't do more than one. I guess I better make this one count:

Spoiler: Return of Nemesis

By this point I had realised there was a collation issue with each box of Mystery Boosters... They only had 2 colours of playtest cards in each box. This one had green and red cards, I ended up with 3 green ones in my SB (as they are surprisingly pricey).
This is similar to my first Mystery draft, except I feel it has less bombs but a more solid creature base.
The $$ of Collective Brutality and Demonic Tutor also helped.
Round 1 (RG Goblins); They kept average hands and flooded out both games. Checked their deck after and they had a lot of cool synergies but luck is a harsh mistress.
Round 2 (WU Card Draw); I lost round 1 to Turn 5 Ojutai with Lightning Greaves. I had the removal, but it doesn't help when you can't target it.
Game 2 I got in the same position, but he shifted the boots onto another creature to give it haste, which gave me the opportunity to kill the Dragon. I then managed to stabilise and the Rager I played on turn 3 slowly but effectively got him down to 0.
Game 3 he Palace Jailered at the wrong time, and I stole the monarchy and drowned myself in card advantage and stopped him from ever taking it back.
Round 3 (BG Ramp); I asked if we wanted to ID and split the prizes, because seemed like a nice thing to do, he said sure, but we played it out anyway. I curved Windrider Eel into Wind Strider both games, while he only plaed creatures on turns 4 and 6 and I kill them both in both games. Felt good to get the 3-0, even though in 7 games I did not get to play Nemesis of Reason
2-0-1
300 tix

A this point I look at the prize wall, as the prize costs are all over the place. It is 720 tix for a Throne box, but there are some older sets such as Guilds of Ravnica that are only 600 tix. I decide to pick up a Guilds box now as it seemed like decent value, and I look away for 10 minutes and the 6 that were left on the wall have now all gone.

Onto Pioneer Double up! Back on the Scissors Train.
Round 1 (UR Phoenix): My last pioneer event comes back to haunt me as first round I play against Phoenix. Game 1 his only blue source is a Shivan Reef and he has been taking a lot of damage and he gets really low. But he manages to flip his thing in the ice and keep back a phoenix to block my potential hastey creatures. All I needed to do was hit a burn spell for 3 turns, but it didn't happen.
Game 2 I am on the play and hit a turn 2 6/6 Stonecoil. I manage to protect it over two turns with Metallic Rebuke and go to game 3. Game 3 I feel a bit bad as we get to a point where I have no hand and play a freshly drawn Skilled Animator and swing with a 5/5 Darksteel Citadel, he uses a lightning axe targeting the citadel. I call for a judge. Just to make sure that he can't take it back, the judge says that it is a legal target, resolves and he takes 5. He couldn't come back from that. Feels like some sort of angle shooting, but I got to take the win when I can I guess :\
Round 2 (UR Ensoul): Oh the mirror. I had to mulligan because I kept drawing colourless lands. He ran ornithopter and we were racing with our 5/5's. I attempted to Blast his skilled animator when I was on 10, but I sacced the artifact I was holding up to improvise the Metallic Rebuke and he double blasts me and I die. I will learn from this mistake. Game 2 I mulligan to 5 and keep 2 colourless lands and can't draw a colours source and fold to a turn 2 5/5.
Round 3 (UR Eldrazi Flash): Game 1 he spins his wheels a lot but I have a fast draw and kill him. Everything he played made him look like UR Phoenix except that he discarded a Sanctum of Ugin with a Chart a Course, so I had a vague idea what he was doing. Game 2 my early ensouled Stonecoil gets Entrancing Melody a card I was not expecting, and I ahve to abrade it and the 3-for-1 istoo much for me to come back from. Game 3 I have a turn 2 Ensouled Stonecoil. On his turn he decides to Lightning Axe it... It resolves then he realises it is a 6/6 and it gets abraded a turn later. I then keep drawing lands, but ghostfire blades and mutavaults keep me in the game and apparently the people behind him said there was a line where he could Kozilek's Return in response to my equip and I would have been left with nothing, but he didn't see the line and he dies.
2-1
400 tix

So now I only had one event left which was in 2 hours, the 4pm pauper. So I decide to have my first attempt of the convetion food. I had the Rueben. The portion size of the fries was pretty large and the sandwich tasted really good. Probably the best convention food I have ever had. I'd give it a A.
I also took the time to sell my HP Alpha Psionic Blast. None of the vendoers really knew what to price it, I tried two and they both offered $110, which I was happy enough with, so I traded it with a Foil Exploration and some other cards and got a Lion's Eye Diamond. It is going in a commander deck of some description. I just always wanted one.

So it gets to 4:10, and I haven't heard any announcement of my pauper event firing. I go over to the announcement desk and they tell me that it didn't fire, I was the only entrant
I knew it would have few people, but I didn't think it would be only one. So they give me back my ticket and look at what I can enter, which is modern at 6pm, I try and haggle to try and convert my ticket for a sealed event by paying extra, but they won't allow it. I'm just tired and am a little sad that my event didn't fire, so I take the option to cash in my ticket for 60 prize tix.
0-0-0
60 tix

Total: 1520 tix
I use my last tickets to get a Throne box and a couple of packs of Iconic Masters, one of which contains a Azusa, so it was a decent option.

Nothing to mention for dinner, just had pizza, but the trip on the way home wasn't smooth sailing.
I woke up at 7am and my flight was at 8:45am. I needed to get to airport by 8:15am. I finish packing and getting an uber by 7:30am, but there was roadworks that I was not expecting. My 22 minute trip took 40 minutes and I got to the airport with 3 minutes to spare. The check-in ladies were not impressed. I didn't get a chance to add on extra baggage for the booster boxes that didn't fit in my bag, so I had to pay $60 for baggage to carry on, but at least I didn't have to buy another plane ticket.

Overall I had a good time and played a lot of formats I don't get to usually. My pioneer deck was really sweet and the modern one still needs work. A shame we only get one Magicfest next year (right at the end of year again), I did like going to 2 a year, but I guess I will make the next one could even more.

 

[Kirblinx]

The MTGO Pauper Championship

Well boys and girls, last Monday I got to wake up at 4am and play pauper in the hope of getting some free packs. Over the past week I had been meta gaming the data and tried to figure out was the best deck to play was. Here is my spreadsheet (I posted it in the discord). From this, I knew that there would be a ton of Tron, so I couldn't play my beloved WB Pestilence. So instead I decided on the deck that people love to hate:

Spoiler

Bogles

My main thought was there will not be many black decks for edict effects and it was fast enough to have a chance against Tron. To edge my bets a little more against Tron, I put the 2 Essence Harvest main, which I had seen no one ever do before. It is unaffected by Dispel (unlike Fling and Soul's Fire) and harder to counter with prohibit, and helps break through their fog lock.

and well...

Spoiler

Most of the time it just felt like luck that I got there, but seeing that I knew Tron would be in force and that 5/6 swiss rounds was against Tron, maybe it was just fate? I did lose to it in the first round but then I just won die rolls, had turn 4 kills and had opponents that mulliganed down to 5. But in a world dominted by Tron, the little Boggly boi's wouldn't let me down.

So yeah, this win got me a qualification to the MOCS, which will happen in late Spring and has a lowest payout of US$5000, so I mean, that is incentive enough to go. I am also now qualified for Q2 of the Players Tour, which I don't know if I will follow, but it is nice to know I have the option.

So yeah, it has been a whirlwind couple of days going from nothing to being crowned Format Champion, being qualified for the Players Tour and the MOCS. So the next post I do of these may be from when I was on the big stage (probably not being that successful).

So for now, at least Dom isn't the only successful magic player we have around here

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Well done!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You killed it with your approach to this tournament, great to see your research paid off!

 

[Dom Harvey]

Ahh that's fantastic, good luck! Let me know if I can help with preparation at all

 

[Chriskool]

Oh man, you're going to have to paper grid now that you're coming to Seattle

Congrats!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

No One:
Kirblinx:

Spoiler

Just kidding man Congratulations on the win. We will watch your career with great interest.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Give it up for admin Kirb!

 

[Kirblinx]

I was on a podcast discussing my road to and win of the Pauper Championship. I feel like it is an entertaining listen even if you don't follow pauper. Check it out if you want to hear my story:

Or if you listen like a podcast instead of on youtube, search for the Pauper Player's Podcast on your podcast friendly device. I'm episode 21.

 

[Kirblinx]

MTGO Sealed Super Qualifier 14/4/20

So I had 40 QPs that I had to use up before they expired on the 15/4/20, so I decided to join the sealed as It was at a convenient time (8pm) my time, I could get some free packs play some games, drop and go to bed and maybe hit top 128 for 100 Play Points. It didn't end up that way, as the first thing I saw when the cards got added to my collection was:

Uhh, wut. Who opens 4 of the same uncommon? Let alone an actual good one. But man the hits didn't stop there:


Hmm... This pool was GODLY. Here is what I ended up with:

The splash was a bad idea, the Spawn, while good, had no fodder in this deck and it always got exiled.
I ended up always taking it out and putting a second Thirst For Meaning and second Flicker of Fate.

The deck as an absolute machine

Only losing in round 6 of the 9 round swiss. Then after that we cut to top 8 draft, which I wasn't expecting, but hey more free cards. I got passed a Storm's Wrath and assumed red was open, which it was, but red is aggressive not controlly and I ended up with this:

It didn't really matter too much though as my opponent mulliganed down to 5 both games 1 and 3, so I made it to top 4.

The only issue was that I already had a PT invite from the Pauper Champs, so if I made it to the top 2 I would be making an invite just disappear into the ether, so In my top 4 match I asked my opponent if he would give me the difference in prizes between 1st and 3rd if I conceded so he got the invite. He agreed and I walked away with a bucketload of prizes.

I am currently writing this while I am playing in the Pauper Super Qualifier, which started an hour after that sealed finished. So here I am half in a daze from not having slept for 26 hours playing a stupid meme, just because I can:

Stompy Infect

 

[TrainmasterGT]

So we have two god-tier magic players on this site.

Good to know.

 

[Kirblinx]

Whatever you do, don't play that infect deck. It was horrible. Dies to every piece of interaction. I went 2-6, and wish I would have just gone to bed instead

 

[Kirblinx]

Players Tour 3 – June 19: 5:00 PM (17:00)

So, when I won the pauper champs, I got a player tour invite, that I did not think I would be needing, as I couldn't afford to travel to Japan/US to do the actual event. Then COVID-19 happens and no one can go anywhere anyway...
So they give us an online Pro Tour, which is pretty cool. Just a shame it is on Arena, not a big fan, but hey apparently I get US$250 just for showing up, so that is nice.
There were 4 PTs you could enrol in, which were over 2 weeks and had various times. I decided to go with number 3, as that gave me a week of seeing how the meta would shake out, and also it started at 10am Saturday my time, so it seemed to be the best bet. All that week I spent playing pauper, as I just enjoy it more. I knew I needed to make a decision, so with 2 days to go I just went on arena and started playing with random decks in BO1. Every aggro deck seemed to run out of steam, and Temur Rec was the boogeyman, so I needed something with Teferi to stand a chance. This is the deck I ended up with:

Esper Bolas Control

Deck works great against Temur Reclamation as all the 3 Cost Walkers screw up their game plan. Teferi is just nuts. My main issue was against aggro, as my deck doesn't really start until turn 3, but I was hoping that the Cry of Carnarium should be able to clean the board so I can start my PW value train going.

I am not going to do a play by play, as it is all a blur (I am doing this the next day) but here is how I ended up after Day 1:

It was a bit soul crushing to be 4-2 into 4-4 expecting to crash out of day 1, but managed to get there. So, 5-4 is good enough for day 2!

So what I said above was what happened, had good game against Bant Ramp and Temur Rec, but bad against aggro. The mono red win was luck game 1 when I hit 2 of my 3 cries in the first couple of turns. Bant Flash was an unexpected deck, and it just absolutely crushed me.

Anyway, pretty happy with the deck, we will see if that changes after day 2

 

[Kirblinx]

Players Tour 3 - Day 2

Not really much to say here except that it wasn't my day. Played against Bant Ramp x 3 and Temur Rec and lost all of them due to wild variance. Beat Mono Black Aggro and go the last round pity bye to end up at 7-8. I missed out on the next cash bracket, but I did manage to become a meme:

Nice.

Still, not a terrible run for my first ever PT. Don't know if I will ever qualify again, but at least it makes for a good story

 

[Chriskool]

Kirblinx hwaiting!!!

Good luck, Jamie, at the Mocs! Bummed you didn't get to come to Seattle for it, but see you next year after the win?

Event starts nov 13 for all looking to spectate! https://magic.gg/news/2019-magic-online-championship-viewers-guide

 

[Kirblinx]

Kirblinx hwaiting!!!

Good luck, Jamie, at the Mocs! Bummed you didn't get to come to Seattle for it, but see you next year after the win?

Event starts nov 13 for all looking to spectate! https://magic.gg/news/2019-magic-online-championship-viewers-guide

Thanks for the support!

I'm not expecting to go all that well, considering the strength of the competition, but luck can always go in your favour.
This is why my constructed decks I submitted have more variance than a usual deck, just to see if I can spike the competition that way (heck, it worked for the pauper championship).

Plus being around cube for so long should help me in those vintage cube drafts hopefully.

Also, I have now setup a twitter, where I post decks that I go undefeated with on MTGO if people want to check that out.

We'll see if I write up a report for this one, as there is decent coverage I may not even need to