Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 2-4 with a Dimir deck; had all the good top end stuff but between a mediocre early game, my rustiness, and my usual terrible luck didn't fair so well.

Lost the first to a Boros deck that was just better in the first round, guy went either 4-2 or 5-1.
Ran roughshod over a pair of Orzhov decks in rounds 2 and 3.
Against Gruul in round 4, drew no mana in my opening hand at 7, mulled to 6, no mana, had to play a bad 5 hand to start and lost the first because of that; screwed up the second round when I somehow kept myself in it despite him dropping 7/6 wurms on me... twice but got overly aggressive in endgame and screwed it up.
Round 5 was an Orzhov deck that beat me clean in the first match, second match I had a massive advantage but in what ended up being late game I drew seven consecutive lands with no hand and that'll allow anyone to climb back in the game.
Round 6 I didn't care any more and got beat by a better Simic deck.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I also have zero way to get rid of indestructible stuff, any g/r cards that do that, or is that just going to be my weakness?

A quick browing of all green, red, and green/red instants and sorceries with converted mana cost four or less that are standard legal says that's going to be a weakness.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I would likely play Standard to give the deck I'm building IRL some test runs and maybe Modern; not interested in Legacy or Vintage.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Might as well solicit ideas here, I'm building a Blue/Black Standard deck using cipher to mill; shooting for either a mill win or more likely using that to pump Jace's Phantasm and/or Consuming Aberration to smash through to victory. Deck currently looks something like this (and yes I realize it's 61 cards, call it a personal quirk)...

Creatures (14)

4x Jace's Phantasm
4x Invisible Stalker
1x Nightveil Specter
1x Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
4x Consuming Aberration

Planeswalkers (2)

2x Jace, Memory Adept

Instants (12)

3x Thought Scour
3x Tragic Slip
4x Dimir Charm
2x Aetherize

Sorceries (9)

3x Hands of Binding
4x Paranoid Delusions
2x Mind Grind

Mana Base (24)

1x Watery Grave
2x Drowned Catacombs
11x Islands
10x Swamps

Potential Options/Sideboard

Extra copies of most everything above except Jace
Dispel
Psychic Strike
Whispering Madness
Wight of Precinct Six
Mizzium Skin
Artful Dodge

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I don't think mind grind is worth it. Straight mill effects aren't that good. I'd want another Hands of binding and anesthetized. If you're trying to feed on the graveyard for consuming aberration, then duskmantle guildmage and psychic strike could both be nice.

Psychic Strike got sideboarded because I was doing most of my playtesting against this deck and running Cavern of Souls + Humans means whenever that happened there were all of nine things I could counter but it probably should find it's way back into the main deck. Duskmantle Guildmage's big problem is that his ability costs are fairly high that they're tough to use with first casting of other spells, but he would compliment ciphered copies of Paranoid Delusions and he goes HAM with Jace.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I would agree with sudo in the sense that I don't think that "aggro mill" is viable. If I were to build a deck with mill as its win con I'd devote like 90% of my slots to controlling the board. Once you've done that, it shouldn't be too hard to win with whichever repeatable mill effect you choose.

Alright, leave in Invisible Stalker, Paranoid Delusions, and Jace as the primary millers. Dimir Charm and Psychic Strike offer a little mill or mills options along with control. What else represents the best blue/black board control in Standard.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I have a feeling I'm going to try and turn my deck into three different kinds of decks (straight mill control, duskmage/Jace control, and further refined Mill Aggro) and see what works best.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Only parts I'm curious about is the Wolfir Avenger; in terms of three drops I'd probably rather have either Frontline Medic and/or Loxodon Smiter though you might not just have those laying around.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I understand that, but 8 slots seems like a little much to devote to 1-drops, especially when you won't be happy to see them later on. I would just experiment with having 6 or 7 instead.

The odds of not having Cloudfin Raptor or Experiment One in his opening hand on the play is 34% already and 29% on the draw as it stands. Cutting down to six copies raises those odds to 46% and 41% respectively.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So what's everyone here looking to play for Prerelease? I'm thinking I'm going to go Golgari, just for the sheer power and fun of Scavenge.

Boros + hoping for Azorious/Izzet; played Dimir at Gatecrash prerelease and don't want any part of that again.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 3-3 with Boros/Azorious on Friday; started 3-1 which got me powered into some better decks. Two of my losses came to other Boros based decks that dropped Aurelia in my face in at least one game and the other came against a straight Orzhov deck that managed to drop a ton of extort creatures on the board quickly. I really needed one or two more guildgates to make better use of my gatekeepers and a bomb or two since I think my creatures topped out at 3 power.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I will say the prize support for all the "main" side tourneys at Origins/SCG was hilariously good; RTR block sealed 2HG for $26, solid deal already for 8 packs. 8 teams register and prize support to... Top 8 with top two teams getting From The Vault: Legends or Realms for each head. Bomb out going 1-2, as long as you stick around here have four packs and crack a Voice of Resurgence and make the entire thing profitable, fantastic.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I ... I don't really see her that playable.

She's probably not in the current standard; but I'd say she can fit into the UWR decks (like this one) in Modern, top ability pings for one and clears a blocker, mid ability is card draw, and ultimate is good for nine damage (or six damage and three cards or twelve if you swap in Boros Charm) with the burn spells that deck carries. Other than that however, not seeing her reach play, no.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

If you guys can't come to terms I've got 2 Jaces,, 2 Drowned Catacombs, and 4 Drownyards that I'm willing to move.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Basically I'm looking for many of the pieces and parts to the UWR midrange/control decks that are near top of the modern pile right now.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I've got a couple verdicts and a Glacial Forttess

Eh, I prefer the more creature based version of the build, so add Geist of St. Traft, Thundermaw, and Reckoners (sic) as things beyond that list.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Current deck for this:

4x Syndic of Tithes
4x Basilca Screecher
4x Tithe Drinker
4x Kingpin's Pet

4x Ethereal Armor
4x Pacifism
4x Stab Wound

4x Tragic Slip
2x Sign in Blood
2x Executioner's Swing
4x Murder

4x Orzhov Guildgate
8x Plains
8x Swamp

~~

SB is completely negotiable as it's just whatever I tossed in there for now.

I love the enchantment sub theme but there's too much bounce in pauper for the Armor and Pacifism to work well, so looking mostly for suggestions to replace those.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And Team MS goes up 1-0; rest of you bums go get it!

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Current list:

4 Tragic Slip
2 Angelic Wall
2 Capashen Knight
4 Syndic of Tithes
4 Basilica Screecher
4 Sign in Blood
4 Tithe Drinker
2 Basilica Guards
2 Griffin Sentinel
4 Stab Wound
4 Murder
4 Kingpin's Pet

4 Orzhov Guildgate
8 Plains
8 Swamps

SB:
3 Ethereal Armor
3 Pacifism
2 Celestial Flare
2 Contaminated Ground
2 Dark Favor
3 Devour Flesh

~~

I get mulched by Flickergate and need to get some idea how to stop it.

Idea #1: Up the Contaminated Grounds to four and side them in, throw them on Gates to try and slow/prevent gatekeepers from going off
Idea #2: Get even more aggressive, pull the walls and sentinel griffins; add Rakdos Shred-Freak for BB as a 2/1 Haste creature and attack!
Idea #3: Up the toughness of my creatures... Vanguard's Shield, downside is slow and does nothing to stop Devour Flesh/Murder just the Black Gatekeeper
Idea #4: Add Undying Evil in response to mudering, bring back my creatures even stronger than before

Any other ideas?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I still dont understand why you dont play serif of dawn.

Because my curve is super low to get as many extorters on the board and hit as many triggers as I can and Seraph is a four drop of which I have none. Additionally I have enough life gain so the lifelink isn't super useful so we're talking a 2/4 flyer for 4. It's too slow against aggro decks and against Flickergate I need removal and I need speed as far as I can tell because I'm not going to win once they begin flickering and it doesn't offer either of those things, it offers a body that a single black gatekeeper can't kill but between Murder, Slip, and Devour there's enough black ways to remove it and with multiple flickers it's way dead.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Hey DDD, still looking for a playset of Geists?

Also, do you have anything interesting up for trade? I may do it for a playset of Deathrites if you'd be able to spare them.

Trust me, I don't have anything worth trading that I'm willing to trade for some Geists as much as I'd like them.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Cremate / Beckon Appiration work wonders, hit their ghostly in response to the Archomancer trigger.Much more reliable then trying to add beatdown / contimained grounds.

Agreed that sounds like the trick I might need to pull it out, I think I'd rather have another card rather than a 1/1 flyer for them to just gatekeeper so anyone got any MTGO cremates I can borrow?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So far MS is 4-0 this week.

Make it 5-0, boyo.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Okay.

You can easily, with a new account, accumulate enough value to keep playing for free. A new player phantom draft is 1 new player ticket + 1 regular ticket, which means you're spending $1 at most to draft. If you win, you get a pack of M14, which is worth 3 tix from bots. Rinse, repeat.

phantom events actually give out a pack? hmm.

The New Player 4-Person Phantom Draft and Sealed tourneys hand out one pack to the winner, your ten dollars is already a sunk cost and for a dollar each your break even percent is 28.57% tourney wins with M14 packs selling at 3.5 tickets. I just went 9/17 in those drafts (and 1/3 in Sealed) so basically I covered my the $10 initial investment and the 20$ to play those events and came up five tickets ahead.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Sometimes, you get to play magic.

Other times, you draw 10 lands in the first 12 turns.

*sigh*

That was the sweetest UW deck ever, too.

I'm with you there, made the finals of an 8-4 and kept a 3 card, 4 land opening hand and five of my next six draws were land. Second game wasn't much better but between the second place payout and the Chandra, Pyromaster and Mutavault I pulled it worked out.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Pie, that's not a bad deck for M14 limited and it might work against slower decks but I can see GW, GR, or RW (basically if someone forced Slivers you're in trouble) running over you before you can do anything about it.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

White red and Green white are like the two weakest color combinations in m14, I wouldn't worry too much about getting beared out in that deck. Maybe a reason to run an 18th land.

I took a GW aggro to the finals of the 8-4 I mentioned like two pages ago, where I lost after flooding to a RW aggro deck. I find the idea that blue is obviously the best color in M14 color and that white is obviously the worst to be way overblown.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Pie, that's not a bad deck for M14 limited and it might work against slower decks but I can see GW, GR, or RW (basically if someone forced Slivers you're in trouble) running over you before you can do anything about it.

I find that decks running anyone over almost never happens in M14.

I went 2-0, 2-0 with matches running 5-8 minutes each in the first two rounds; I was just playing what felt open but I admit to having read this article the day before; good enough to Top 8 a GP, good enough for me.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=11368

interesting article involving drafting W/GW/RW in M14.

...

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Oh and it looks like some of you guys haven't reported for the Standard Pauper tourney, might want to get on that.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

For those in the Pauper Tournament, What decks have you played so far?

1) UB Delver
2) UWG (Limited Flicker) Gates
3) UBGR Flickergate

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is there anything worse than conceding a game at 58 life? I think not.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 3-1-1 (would've been 4-1 if not for clock and turns) running RBu, good enough for fifth and a small payout. My brother and I are doing a 2HG sealed prerelease event tomorrow as well. Also I'd agree to Chamber's tempo assessment but I have no idea why he's recommending white over blue as the tempo play.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

(12:40:34 AM) Danny DiPietro: got back from Theros PR 2HG sealed
(12:42:42 AM) Danny DiPietro: me and my brother were the only 4-0 team but unfortunately 17 people meant there were 5 rounds which meant we lost in the fifth and dropped from 1st place (2 boxes of Theros) to 2nd (1 box of Theros)
(12:44:14 AM) thesheamuffin: Why didnt you split?
(12:45:11 AM) Danny DiPietro: they weren't undefeated
(12:45:30 AM) Danny DiPietro: they were 3-1, so we couldn't offer a draw/chop with them because a draw would've sent them to 4th
(12:46:41 AM) thesheamuffin: Sounds shitty
(12:47:14 AM) thesheamuffin: anything good in the box?
(12:48:05 AM) Danny DiPietro: my brother pulled the Thoughtseize and the UB Planeswalker, I pulled the devotion land, the RB mythic, and a foil Ember Swallower which I now have a playset of
(12:48:23 AM) Danny DiPietro: and I pulled the worst of the Gods (white)

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-2 at a release day/GP Qualifier/TGCPlayer Gold sealed event; sadly that wasn't good enough to crack the Top 8 (though 1 or 2 4-2s with better tiebreaks did) and draft for the actual prizes.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So Uhhh. I got 10th at the TCG Player 5k. Also I Got an amazing Story to tell you about Atherling.

Looks like part of the payout is enough TGCPlayer points to go to the 50K invitational in Columbus; if you haven't sold or traded those or don't plan on coming up for it I could find some people who could make use of those.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So far I have about 30 points and another 5 points somewhere in my cards. I was going to try to go to the 50k invitational.

Coolio, let me know if you need any Columbus related information if you do.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Can people help me out and tell me why this card is so good?

Because it reminds older players of a card that was actually good when creatures mostly sucked.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

The only problem is the guy sitting at 16 points who can go to 19 points with a win in the final round creating 7 or 8 people at 6-1-1 behind the two at 6-0-2; either way time to start brewing Theros legal standard pauper decks.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

We've been sent out the tiebreakers, and it turns out my OMW% is the second highest in the whole damn thing - plus I'm up against one of the two people at effectively 20, so we'll be IDing in.

Interesting, not what my calculations were showing but then again mine was incomplete and I was just scratching things together from the publicly available information; I'd obviously trust the guy whose running it's calculations over mine.

Edit: If you can post the complete standings/pairings for the last round from the e-mail that'd be great for me since they aren't up on the site yet.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Yeah this is what I have before Rd 8...

1. Charlie S 19 points (67.62%)
2. Conor Moran 19 points (59.09%)
3. Jason Grey 18 points (62.58%)
4. Hugh Kramer 18 points (61.63%)
5. P. Dalton 18 points (59.93%)
6. Ben H 18 points (59.93%)
7. Justin Beckert 18 points (56.69%)
8. Andrzej 18 points (55.39%)
9. Andrew 16 points (58.28%)
10. aceracerff 16 points (58.12%)

Wonder what I'm screwing up for you because that looks like the big difference. Then again even if I were right ID probably would be the way to go.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So these are the decent decks (lol Azorious Detention) I've seen playing Standard Pauper the last few days to think about building upon or that you might have to face...

Extort

(what I'm playing and am obviously partial to, Tragic Slip and Murder rolling out hurts since there's not as much cheap targeted removable available but I've still been having success with it)

Boros Aggro

(only faced it in a one game and kept a dumb hand and since have curved my deck lower again but it did what it said on the tin and won that game)

Bant Hexproof

(have only faced it for one game and my deck has been changed up since then but it did exactly what you'd think it'd do; perhaps I was too eager with my early celestial flares and didn't take out enough enchantments by waiting, the 1/1 lifelink enchantment creature that betows for four makes this deck hard to race as well)

Mono Black

(this deck gives my deck fits because it carries enough removal to make it so I can extort nearly as much as I want, I think I sport a 3-1 record against it but each win has been a 2-1 affair, I actually brought in Duress the last match from my sb and it did great work stealing a Read the Bones each time and without that reach the deck was relatively DoA.)

Mono-Green Stompy

(I've seen two different builds for this, one vastly better than the other, the bad one played guildgates just for the Saruuli Gatekeepers but they're totally not worth it, the good one was busy dropping Battering Krasis and evolving it with Advocate of the Beast and Ivy Lane Denizen and while I never saw a Rumbling Baloth they had to be there as well)

Izzet-Clops

(hurt massively by Delver and flashback rotating out which steals away the card advantage this deck needed to be top tier, it simply doesn't have enough threats against a good removal suite in my opinion)

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Took 3rd/4th in a 64 person release draft last night on MTGO; went 3-0 in the first part running GreyMerchants.dec and then while MTGO decided to crash during the end of the first round of my second draft I still managed to get back for Pack 2, Pick 3 and salvage an alright Uwb deck that was based around bestowing dudes on Artisan of Forms and/or Agent of Fates that let me win the first match with a 10/9 deathtouching, trampling Artisan of Forms in game 3, then my second match went to game three where I kept a five lander, with a two drop (1/2 Flyer) and three drop (1/4 - extort for 3), ran my opponent down to 3 life on just those two creatures and if I had drawn one more threat in the first seven turns I would've won; instead, of my first seven draws, six of them were lands and eventually he threw the lifelink bestower on a 3/3 and got himself out of the danger zone and I kept mostly drawing lands.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And went 4-0 in another 64 person release draft only to have the entire tournament freeze; they've said they'll automatically redeem entry fees but I'm going to be pissed if that's all I get sent after grinding and working for five hours to place in at very least the Top 4 again.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And an ex-scummer wins the Legacy Championships!

Congrats to Ari Lax, aka armlx.

And he just took down Grand Prix Toronto as well.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 5-1 at my prerelease running RW aggro, went 5-0 and offered a draw/split with the other guy in the final but he rebuffed me and then he beat me game 1 and my lands beat me game 2. Luckily my tiebreakers were high enough to keep me in second and scored me 24 packs. Got a 2HG prerelease with my brother tomorrow.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-1 and took second in the 2HG prerelease which meant me and my brother scored a box to split. On the positive side I know have two Kioras, on the negative side we still have no Brimaz.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-1 then draw into the Top 8 at a GPT running Mono Blue, unfortunately faced the guy who won SC Columbus in the first round of the Top 8 and missed a billion Thassa scry triggers in losing to him 2-1; my brother was on Maze's End and took it to a respectable 4-2, ninth place finish.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Didn't run into it at all, lost to UW Control, beat Maze's End (of course I faced my brother after we both opened 0-1), BUG Control-ish, RG Courser/Domri, and WRB Control and then lost to W splash U good stuff in the Top 8.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I mean it depends on what we're talking about but this is what I faced in the Top 8 and while it struck me as more good stuff than aggro obviously it can have some seriously aggressive starts, the BNG is pretty up in the air except the addition of Courser to RG Monsters seems like it'll help it plenty.

Spoiler:

4th: Mike Keknee – Go Islanders Happy Jazz Time Band
MAIN DECK:
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
2 Imposing Sovereign
4 Precinct Captain
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Ephara, God of the Polis
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Lavinia of the Tenth
1 Angel of Serenity
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
4 Detention Sphere
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Spear of Heliod
4 Mutavault
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Azorius Guildgate
8 Plains
2 Island

SIDEBOARD:
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Essence Scatter
1 Boros Reckoner
2 Rapid Hybridization
3 Glare of Heresy
1 Lavinia of the Tenth
2 Negate
1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
1 Jace, Architect of Thought

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Shea is 3-3 in the Pink bracket after 6 rounds at Richmond.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Any idea what he ended up running?

Nah I didn't talk with him, just started searching through the tournament listings.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

What did his final record for Day 1 look like?

Looks like 4-5. Coincidentally it looks like in his seventh round match when I checked earlier he was playing right next to a Columbus area player who I played in my recent GPT.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I went 5-2 and took ninth at a PTQ over the weekend; so damn close to making the cut and drafting for a spot at the PT.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyone going to GP Chicago?

I'd love to meet up with anyone in the area, and I'm hosting a beer/pizza/testing shindig at my place on friday night.

Also, if anyone is going and still looking for accomodations I can offer a free floor to crash on.

I'm playing UW. I think we're going to see a serious overreaction to the SCG open last weekend, which will bring in many mono red decks which are a good matchup anyway, in addition to the other decks packing tons of cards meant to fight that matchup (anger of the gods, for instance) which are completely dead against UW. I think it's pretty well positioned. I kinda want to play 2 detention sphere and 4 syncopate, but that just can't be right. Still ironing out last few MD choices and some sb stuff.

I considered it briefly but a six hour drive by myself to play a deck I like but not love with no byes didn't seem worth it.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 3-3 by myself and 5-0 in 2HG with my brother, got a box, time to play lots of Mini Master.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is divination a first pick?

The answer to this question will mainly be what I used to determine how much I play this format.

No? Then again I'd have to open the world's worst M14 pack for me to first pick a divination so maybe I'm not the best person to answer that question.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Divination was probably the best common in m14.

Definitely in the top 5-10. If you weren't first picking divination some significant amount of the time then you were probably playing the format incorrectly.

Well I don't agree with the first at all but I don't disagree with the last half of the last sentence. Hence, "maybe I'm not the best person to answer that question."

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Nope, next time I'm leaving the state for magic is GP Nashville though I'm considering GP Orlando; could use a vacation about then.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Opened a Mox Jet and a foil Force of Will last night in a Vintage Masters draft; I don't play legacy or vintage so I cashed out on them immediately and my drafting for the next month or so online is now covered.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

What did you sell them for? I probably would have beaten it.

Probably, I was just looking to move them and my last VMA pack (ironically Mox + Force was my worst performance in a VMA draft) and rack up tickets for M15/Khans.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Well the GP schedule works out nicely for me next year, I can probably hit...

San Jose
Cleveland
Indy
Detroit
Pittsburgh

without any problems, biggest issues will be finding teammates for San Jose and possibly Detroit.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I don't think buying into a deck that loses as much as Mono Black does with rotation (Pack Rat, Mutavault, D. Demon, Lifebane/Nightveil, Connections | Blood Baron/Ghost Council in the white version) in just two months is a sensible idea at all; if anything you should just be buying thoughtseizes for the next standard because it'd be a bizarre standard where thoughtseize isn't automatically in the best five or so cards in that standard.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I'd probably play with you in Detroit. Of the ones you listed Detroit, Indy and Cleveland are all on my list.

Well my brother and I are headed to Nashville for the Team GP this October and we think we've got a third from Columbus and if that goes well then I might already be set but if that doesn't work out or my brother moves away or who knows what else I might be in touch. (And if you want to fly to San Jose in January I'm totally on board with having you as a partner there)

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Hmm. Detroit is close enough to tempt me towards maybe going. Not sure I'd play in the main event, but it would still be a fun trip...

Not that you shouldn't come to Detroit but you know what's even closer to Madison (assuming that's still where you are)? Madison (Oct 10-11 2015, Limited)

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And while I enjoy being the guy in the know I guess I'll just post the link so everyone can check out the schedule if they haven't.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

A magic player complaining about something utterly meaningless and not nearly as bad as they think it is? Shocker. That never happens.

In other news, playing a PTQ in madison this weekend. Taking UR twin with MD blood moon and vedalken shackles. If you're in the area, stop into misty mountain games and say hello. If you need to borrow a deck, let me know, I can probably hook you up.

And I'll be at a PTQ in Columbus this weekend, on 8Rack because I'm cheap (though the plan is to eventually transform it into a UB tempo fairies build).

And Wizard's new website really does suck.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Its fine. It's just jarring because its not what we're used to. The other one was roughly the same level of functionality.

Disagree, I found tracking down GP/PT results as they were happening incredibly easy on the old one; now it's just a labyrinth. I can see how some of the design choices are a push and just come down to preference but some things have just gotten worse.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

You know what deck 8Rack really doesn't want to face? Affinity. Want to know what deck I faced twice in my first three rounds? Affinity.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Hey Shea, if you're still interested in buying power on MTGO I have an Ancestral Recall I just cracked and am looking to move. Hit me up before Monday or I'll find some generic buyer to take it off my hands.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is it "without white" or "without a third color"?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Add Black then and play Cruel Control?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I want to play a snap-bolt

control

shell in modern without twin or white. Wat do.

Seems clunky. I'm thinking some sort of rug

midrange

abomination ATM.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Just play UR Tempo then? 4x of Delver, Young Pyro, and Snapcaster; season with instants and sorceries to taste.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

TL;DR: M15 is the last core set. Khans is the last 3-set block. Two 2-set blocks a year, Standard rotates after 18 months.

One correction, there'll be a core set next year and that'll be the last.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyone doing midnight prereleases tonight? I'm going to the Dice Dojo in Chicago and a good time will be had until I fall asleep at my table.

My play massively falls apart about two AM, so I'd rather not have two decent rounds and then four awful ones after. I've got a 9:30a and then a 4:30p 2HG on Saturday and probably another 2HG at 6:30p on Sunday.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 11-0 today; 6-0 in singles, 5-0 in 2HG, I now have 49 unopened KTK packs to my names along with the Flooded Strand in one of my boxes.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I just burnt all my phantom points that I amassed from... somewhere? to do a bunch of cube drafts. For the first time I didn't just lose round 1, built some sweet decks, made two finals, lost both. But was worth it, would do it again.

Wait, it's possible to lose phantom points in the Cube? I mean I generally play Swiss unless I really want to play the Flashback format (and I had no interest or Tempest/Innistrad) but I'm a 2-1/3-0 machine in those getting my points back and sometimes more.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I typically force mono red in the 8-4s and win them pretty easily to freeroll both new 8-4s and phantom packs, but they've made mono red basically unplayable in this recent cube iteration.

I did actually lose to mono-red the other day but yeah, Shrine and Fireblast being taken out are massive cuts for Mono-Red. Usually I draft Gr or Gw because it feels like the big dumb beaters are usually underrated by people who are all fighting over Blue.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

It also just seems like they've taken out all the one drops.

Nah, only other changes to the cube from past unpowered iterations at least wrt mono-red is removing Hellspark Elemental, Ball Lightning, Genju of the Spires, and Zo-Zu (with the addition of Rabblemaster certainly offsetting the last two). Link

And yeah, I force Eureka/Tooth&Nail/Sneak Attack whenever it's an option.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Going to be streaming a KTK PPTQ in five minutes, link is in the sig.

EDIT: Apparently XSplit and Twitch aren't going to play nice for me so no stream.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Ari just Zurgo Helmsmashed Yuuya Watanabe to go to 9-1 at the PT.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 6-2 and took 12th at the Dayton PTQ; one of my losses was to PT San Diego runner-up Kyle Boggemes who had a double Zurgo/Sorin deck. Not much you can do against that except hope they get mana-screwed.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Nah two Zurgos, one Sorin.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Also, my brother and I are headed to GP Nashville this next weekend for the Team Sealed GP and are still looking for a third if anyone is interested/available.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I can ask around in the Chicago scene for you if you'd like.

We are at the point were we'll accept any mercenary, so can't hurt.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I just beat Reid Duke.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Team lost though

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

2-1; earlier than you'd like to face the Peach Garden Oath

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Beat Turtenwald in the first round of an 8-4 lost in the second round

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I mean I personally disagree with the "default to a four/five color deck" crowd and I'd much rather build a base two colored clan deck. I went 6-2 at my last PTQ with UR Temur while my brother playing Abzan featuring Blue went 4-4 and that was despite him having reasonable fixing into blue sometimes he'd be just missing white or something. I know in one of the two rounds I lost that I lost game one to drawing eight lands including both my RG tap lands, four mountains and two forests aka no blue sources; Thousand Winds is a powerful card but not when you have to desperation cast it as a Gray Ogre, same with all the commons five colors morphs.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Oh and I don't think we have any of our MTG players on the left coast but I do intend to be in San Jose for the Team GP at the end of January so if I'm wrong let me know because I'll be looking for a team.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

California. And D1 and D2 are Team Sealed, Top 4 is Team Draft.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Its sealed/draft so no actual cards required! Bonus! Lol.

(Teams are 3 or 4?)

Three.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Ddd, how are you planning transportation/lodging?

My sister works in Palo Alto so staying with her; right now the cheap flight are Fri-Wed but I'd rather do Wed-Mon because delayed flights on Wednesday are annoying, delayed flights on Friday are possibly backbreaking.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

irt to the earlier pool I think that should've been a RGu Temur build, maybe you can splash white for Crane Kick/Weaponmaster but I'd try to avoid it as stupidly good as Crane Kick can be.

irt to Shanba's pool it just makes me cry about how bad the common and uncommon creatures in it are.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

In draft where you have some level of control over that sort of thing, sure building enemy colors is preferred; but we're talking about sealed pools and in that case you build what you got.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I don't think either of those two are that far above Smoke Teller and that all three are better than Bloodfire Mentor which is still massively better than the unplayable nonsense that is Kheru Dreadmaw.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 2-1 with mono-white Human aggro in cube last night, outraced mono red in round 1, made a joke of Naya midrange in round 2, and lost 2-1 to Vedalken Shackles / being on the play in the finals.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-3 at my PTQ; played what felt like a relatively powerful Jeskai deck (Herald of Anafenza, Mantis Rider, High Sentinels of Arashin, Kheru Spellsnatcher; not played: Narset) but was lacking in removal other than basically one Kill Shot and a few tempo plays (Crippling Chills, Force Away) and lost the first two rounds before rattling off four straight wins and closing with a loss in the last round. A last round win wouldn't have even likely gotten me into prize support because there were so many X-2 players and my breakers were so awful.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-3 at my PTQ; played what felt like a relatively powerful Jeskai deck (Herald of Anafenza, Mantis Rider, High Sentinels of Arashin, Kheru Spellsnatcher; not played: Narset) but was lacking in removal other than basically one Kill Shot and a few tempo plays (Crippling Chills, Force Away) and lost the first two rounds before rattling off four straight wins and closing with a loss in the last round. A last round win wouldn't have even likely gotten me into prize support because there were so many X-2 players and my breakers were so awful.

Curious about your thoughts on the Herald of Anafenza. I think the card is pretty good, but it is glacially slow. Have you been impressed with it generally?

I mean there's a bunch of uncommons I pick over it in draft but it's a fine role player doing a bunch of useful things. For example in my deck it helped with the insane curveout (on the play) of Herald into War Name Aspriant (turning it into a 3/2) and then Mantis Rider attacking for 7 on turn 3. It also allows you to miss a turn 3 play in this format and not just be dead (assuming you have a turn 4 play) and turn 3 outlast into High Sentinels is amazing specifically.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Would there be any interest from anyone here in renting a house in vegas for the week of MM2015 GP? Looks like it would cost ~100-150 per week per person.

Would be super fun I think.

Almost certainly going to be on vacation in the Caribbean that week(end) otherwise I'd be in.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Think I would cut the act of treason before the two that BV mentioned (its a moderate at best card, prefers to be in an aggressive deck and yours is very controlling, and is in your least important colour), but yeah no reason not to run 18 lands in that deck. It takes quite an unusual deck to make me go to 17 in this format, and that one in particular just wants to his lands forever.

Triple Smite is awful in draft though, I mean it's reasonable against some decks, though not exactly cheap but it's just dead against a lot of Mardu and Jeskai builds and I've been burnt by having Double Smite before in the maindeck let alone a third.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Oh it's going to be a headache; both in terms of playing around possible facedown creatures; confusing morphs and manifests and reveal procedures.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Why is Boonweaver Giant in the deck? The only card he fetches is Raised By Wolves. Furthermore, if you're insisting on running an enchantment theme/subtheme wouldn't Spectral Ward be a better choice, not that I would dare run an Aura deck in this current standard that's just asking to get blown out with all the Abzan removal.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

It's also a two piece combo in which one of the pieces is a seven drop that doesn't immediately win you the game and for which you don't have redundant effects for either. Now obviously the Skybind offers a different combo with Lightform but the critical mass of things that are worthwhile to flicker with Skybind is so low in your deck, there's four cards you really want to hit and that's it. I know you've got a little Courser manipulation but it's a 60 card deck with not much of a card advantage engine. I mean if you've already got the coursers, caryatids, and heaths then it might be amusing enough to play on the tabletop like the UR Artifact deck I assembled was but that's about it.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

UB is sweet, but I think it is actually unfavored vs abzan post-frf.

Define Abzan; I'm currently on Abzan midrange and I feel like the UB control matchup is really bad for me. Now Abzan aggro and Abzan whip probably have more game against UB control but if there's a reason to play UB control it's how good it seems against Abzan midrange.

Huey Jenson wrote an article about Mono-Red devotion for CFB, you should look it up if you haven't already looked it over.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 9-2; 5-1 in singles and 4-1 in 2HG, just need to not take those losses in the first round so my breakers don't suck.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

My team started 6-0 at the GP and played at the top table in round 5 next to the Pork Bun Oath, unfortunately we finished the day 0-3 to miss day two.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

That's always the worst feeling.

It's even worse when it's a team event, you have the bad deck and can barely win a game during the second half of the day.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I don't even know where to begin, it's like you got a bunch of pieces for different decks all slammed together into one, I see things for an enchantment theme, red devotion, red heroic, and about three different kinds of red combo.

The first thing I would do is cut the shrapnel blast/artifact theme; just to enable shrapnel blast you have like six cards that are just dead in the deck and the slightly playable hammer. I tried to build a red/blue artifact deck right after KTK came out and it wasn't nearly consistent enough with even more artifacts than you're running.

Then I would try to figure out a singular direction for things, do you want to go all in on a single creature, do you want to get wide, burn versus creatures and just go with it.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Extended would be the worst format right now, you think Modern is dominated by a single deck? Well watch as literally no one plays anything other than RestoRhinoTusk or UW control in Extended.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I just play Bogles in both Modern and Pauper because I don't like people and they don't like me.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I want to know what you consider the difference between mono green and stompy. Is mono green, elves and aurochs?

Pauper
Bogles favored against Stompy, Affinity, Tron, UR Delver, Burn, White Weenie
Completely un-interactive matchup: Esper Familiar
Slight underdog to Mono blue delver tempo, Mono green
Bad matchups: Mono blue delver control, Mono black, Slivers

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is slivers really a bad matchup? I'm a bit surprised by that - I thought the deck had an edge over everything trying to beat down with creatures thanks to being able to make 12/12 first striking lifelinkers.

I'm like 1-5 against the deck, basically there's no real removal in Bogles so the key slivers stay around forever. They can kill you super fast with virulent sliver via poison and if even with normal damage they'll get you unless you have an Armadillo Cloak.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyways Modern:

Aggro

GW Abzan
Burn (~330)
Infect
Affinity (~540)
~
Bogles (~470)
Merfolk (~340)
BW Tokens
~
Zoo
UR Delver

Combo

Twin
Bloom Titan (~460)
~
Pyromancer's Ascension (~375)
Ascendency Combo
~
Living End (~450)

Combo/Control

Scapeshift

Midrange

Abzan
~
UWR Midrange

Something else entirely

Tron (~585)

Control

Hahahahahaha

~~

I wouldn't play anything in the third tier or UWR Midrange and I listed everything under 600 dollars (Ascendancy combo probably is as well but there's no real definitive list right now) but price also depends on what you already have. There's only one true format staple in Tarmogoyf and that's crazy expensive; the real staples are fetches and shocks.

If you insist on building something new instead of playing an already well defined archetype then you need to ask yourself the question of what is how your deck is winning the game. What does mono black offer you? Phyrexian Obliterator is awesome against other creature decks but doesn't help you against combo decks; Grey Merchant is probably too slow for modern though, and you absolutely are going to want to run 4 Thoughtseize and 4 LotV to make a remotely competitive mono black list and those aren't cheap cards. A playset of Lilly will set you back as much as the entire burn list and thoughtseize tacks on another 80.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Liliana of the Veil

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

BW Tokens is my tech in Modern right now, I think. Sort of.

Bad vs twin+Bloom Titan, Insane vs Abzan+affinity, Positive vs Burn+Control, ? vs Infect.

Actually you nailed the matchups based on the PT at least. It went 8-2 vs. Abzan Midrange and 2-0 vs. Affinity; 0-4 against Twin; didn't play Amulet combo; and unfortunately went 0-4 against Infect.

Personally, if I was trying to get into the format, Zoo is where I'd be looking. Something like this http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/264253#online is a pretty good starting point, especially if you have Windswept Heath/Wooded Foothills from Standard.

I mean Zoo is cheap and simple but it's not very good, why would you get in on the eighth or so best aggro deck when there are reasonable budget options that are much better situated.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Finally built Modern Bogles online, went 4-0 in my first daily with it <3

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 4-0 in my second daily with Bogles online, add to that going 2-0 in the 2-man queues and I'm now 10-0 in "sanctioned" games online with the slippery ones.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Dude, nice! I'm still struggling through learning Affinity. The deck's a ton of fun, but there's way too many little mistakes that fuck you up if you don't avoid them.

Yeah, I think Affinity's most explosive draws put the explosive draws of every other linear aggro deck (Burn, Bogles) other than maybe Infect to shame but Affinity and Infect require a ton more skill to play at the highest level than Bogles and Burn. Affinity also has the problem that it's so brutally and easily hated on and the fact that such hate actually gets used in sideboards, Bogles is still somehow low enough on people's radars that you don't really see mass enchantment hate in the sideboards except for some Aggro Abzan lists which run some Fracturing Gusts and I beat an Engineered Explosives from the Twin player last night because I run the full playset of 8 Umbras which provide the key protection you need against it.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Just a few days until GP Cleveland, here's hoping for a good pool.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

7-2, made day two

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Very good obviously, played five of my six rares (Herald of Anafenza, Ashcloud Phoenix, Dragonscale General, Daghatar, and Dramoka) in my RW splash green deck. Beat Andrew Baeckstrom and played no other notable names. My brother lost his win and in and lost to Paul Reitzl in round 7.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Going to need to run super hot to get anywhere near coverage given I'm 200 something of 220 to make D2.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And 0-2 then a Bye in my first pod, probably need to 3-0 the second one to cash. Another local grinder is X-1 playing in the finals of his pod right now.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

And here I thought I had figured out how to draft this set, lolnope, think I was probably locking into colors too quickly. 0-1 in the second pod and dropped since even a 2-0 finish to the pod would've left me short of the 31 points that was needed to cash.

Making my first day two in four attempts does however have me considering adding another Grand Prix to my slate for this year (Detroit, Indy, Pittsburgh); probably Dallas/Fort Worth since it's limited and airfare to there is actually relatively cheap.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Damn, DDD, that's awesome.

Yeah, it absolutely felt good, especially since I didn't have any byes to just go 7-2 on the first day and make day two and check that off my to-do list. Unfortunately the lack of sleep probably wore on me more than I thought it would on day two and that led me to lock into colors way too early and completely punt away my first game in round 10. So, I've drafted FKK twice on MTGO already since Sunday and went 2-1 and 2-0-1 in a pair of 8-4's so a little annoyed at the poor performance in the draft because I knew after some early struggles when the format was knew I had figured out the format to a decent degree recently.

But hey, on to a new limited environment already; I'm taking Dramoka at the prerelease because looking at the cycles of rares/mythics that are likely to be in the seeded pack I think GW is very clearly the best of them.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Speaking of Eldrazi, last night I drafted Ur Emrakul in the legacy cube; my only other win condition was a Greater Gargadon; I went 2-1 and should've won the first round but I punted by not Dazing something (which they could've paid for) just to create another token with Talarand.

There are not enough Emrakul decks in modern given how absolutely busted he is.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

4-2 in singles with an awful pool where I played one rare, 4-1 in 2HG with an awesomely busted pool.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Also I have now acquired enough planeswalker points this year to have a bye at all GPs I attend next year.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I took 2nd in one of the 64 man drafts on MTGO last night; probably will give one another go sometime this week.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

4-1 at a Standard PPTQ, top seed in the cut to top 4. I was on Abzan Control/Midrange, the other three who made the cut were all on Esper Dragon Control, sufficed to say I did not make the finals.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Missed the Top 8 cut at today's PPTQ by .0667, blech.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Just made the Top 8 of today's online PTQ, rebooting the client while the last round finishes up before the Top 8 draft.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Boom, won my PPTQ today, got to decide if I'm going to Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, or flying out to San Jose.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyone doing gp detroit?

I'll be there with my team; feel free to come by and say hi, though I'm probably more likely to see you and your beard (assuming it still exists) than you are to see me.

Edit: armlx will be there as well but that's not exactly a surprise.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Got GP Denver champion Andrew Brown's team in R1. My team went 6-0 in games.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Scrubbed out at 5-3.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I actually liked Mirrodin limited when I did it in flashback drafts. I didn't really care for full block NPH/Besieged/Scars limited in flashback.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is Merfolk that common? I feel like I'd see more Bloom Titan (and Suicide Zoo is a deck I'm letting esu try out, not necessarily using it for testing). On the other hand it also seems like a difficult deck to pilot properly with a bunch of inexperienced players attempting to learn their own decks so idk

Bloom Titan looks scary at first but once you get taught the basic lines of play you can probably run it at 70% of optimal play and it's still a very real threat at that level of skill because the deck is that powerful. However, I think grinding out the improvement from 70% to 100% optimum play is probably harder with Bloom Titan than nearly any other Modern deck, maybe the midrange/attrition Jund/Junk variants and Lantern Prison are on the same tier of skill curve. Bloom Titan is what I'm playing at the RPTQ in a week and a half and the only other deck I'd personally consider is Twin and I have Titan built and nearly nothing for Twin so Titan it is.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

As a tier 3/casual deck it's probably fine; it has a coherent theme and can generate value. In any sort of competitive environment I'm having a hard time seeing what it matches up well against. Maybe the Lone Missionary and Wall of Omens and relatively non painful mana base would give you game against Burn. But it doesn't get any sort of pressure to force Twin into rushing into a mistake; Jund/Junk would just grind you out; Affinity largely doesn't care other than the two main deck wraths, not enough real interaction for Bloom Titan to be interested.

This is basically the non-budget version of that list and Yuuya took it to a 3-1 result at Worlds.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

As a tier 3/casual deck it's probably fine; it has a coherent theme and can generate value. In any sort of competitive environment I'm having a hard time seeing what it matches up well against. Maybe the Lone Missionary and Wall of Omens and relatively non painful mana base would give you game against Burn. But it doesn't get any sort of pressure to force Twin into rushing into a mistake; Jund/Junk would just grind you out; Affinity largely doesn't care other than the two main deck wraths, not enough real interaction for Bloom Titan to be interested.

This is basically the non-budget version of that list and Yuuya took it to a 3-1 result at Worlds.

It actually out-grinds Jund/Abzan very well.

Someone at my LGS has run it for Modern night a couple times, and it's very, VERY successful. The grindy decks basically can't win once Emeria gets online, and Lone Missionary and Wall of Omens are great to help you get there.

Heck, it won the Modern Premier IQ at SCG Milwaukee a month ago. The deck is surprisingly strong compared to how it looks, and is definitely competitively-viable.

I also wouldn't really compare it to Yuuya's worlds deck. It has some similarities, but they're very different decks.

I guess I have a hard time seeing a nonfetchable land that requires seven other lands to trigger to be a consistent engine; especially when finding that out the Jund/Junk decks should be boarding in their Fulminator Mages. But hey, I could be wrong but I can tell you as a Bogles player I would delight in seeing that across the table from me and I don't think it's got enough disruption maindeck to regularly beat Bloom Titan either. Gonna take more than a single mid-size SCG toruney where he got a dream Top 8 (Living End, Burn, Burn) to convince me to pay attention to the deck.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Netdecking in a healthy format is fine; netdecking in Modern means you could pick up like twenty different decks. Netdecking in RTR/Theros Standard meant you were playing Monoblue, Monoblack, or UW Control.

~~

Hascow (or chamber), either you coming down to GP Indy next weekend?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

It's starting to feel odd how often I have to reiterate the difference between that and copying a deck card for card and just using it as is like a scrub. That's a thing that an enormous number of players do and you ought not to defend something other than what's being criticized.

In your arbitrary crusade against netdeckers where do you draw the line? Am I still on your shitlist if I change just one sideboard card; it's not the same list any more. How many cards do I have to change? What if you've honestly looked at the complete 75 and you don't see anything that needs changed, it's literally perfect for your local meta; are you supposed to arbitrarily change things as not to netdeck despite it making your deck actively worse?

Like I get that your local meta/play group apparently isn't to your liking but it seems like it has you tilting at windmills.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Just ego search me I'm pretty sure the thread won't break.

It probably won't break but he'll probably just find you throwing an angry incoherent tantrum that when asked about specifics just caterwauls in anger some more.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Letting Ythan know that I'm netdecking the hell out of GP Indy when my brew fell apart in testing.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

GP was meh, 4-4, deck was fine, just needed to face more Jeskai and Abzan decks. Think the Esper token version that Ray Perez played in the finals is better than Bant tokens and I lost to a similar list during the tourney. RPTQ I went 5-2 which is obviously a fine showing. Unfortunately, there were 126 people there which means I didn't even prize out since I placed 25th and they only prize to Top 24; guess I should've traveled to San Jose and skipped the GP to just play up my odds of making the PT.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I've been playing a Modern Allies deck on XMage and the deck gets stomped by things like Infect and Twin and most of the tier 1 strategies but dear lord is the deck king of every single tier 2 and 3 deck; my most recent obliteration was milling out Storm but I've trucked mono-Black, TWoo's UG Extra turns deck, and a bunch of other random things.

Also I love 2HG so pleased with this news.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Follow-up, have since beaten Bloom Titan, Lantern Control (awful pilot), and the old Goryo's Vengeance deck; is this deck for real (for some definition of real).

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

It's funny how completely different out builds are; we share literally two creatures because mine is a completely combo-centric build. In my last game I just cast Bring to Light to get Rite of Replication and then kick it targeting Kalestria Healer putting 30 drain 1/gain 1 triggers on the stack.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

So here's the list: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/342771#paper; it's based around a Standard deck my brother played back in Zendikar with Harabaz Druid + Halimar Excavator + Rite of Replication updated with new tools. Some number of Skyrider Elves, Veteran Warleader, and Kabira Evangel should be copies of Mirror Entity and it could probably use a sideboard.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

This deck has to get free wins just on people not understanding what's going on. It seems a little discordant.

Yeah, the Goryo's Vengeance player didn't respect the instant speed mill so in both games he went to Goryo's and so I'd Vial/Collected Company in an ally and mill him 10 or so and mill an Emrakul thus resetting his yard leaving him with no target and then proceed to poke him to death with my tiny attackers. Like I said, I haven't exactly faced the top tier of decks with this thing and the XMage player base seems pretty low quality but it's a funny deck and it keeps winning.

I don't know if I'd describe the deck as discordant; the two primary attack lines of Healer/Excavator don't play particularly well together on their own but you need them both to make sure you have a way to win the game so they're discordant but also important redundancy (I'd say like Primetime/Hive Mind for Bloom Titan), the only card that doesn't really fit with the gameplan is the Skyrider Elf who is an ally, a two drop and makes use of the four color mana base but plays very poorly with Vial/Company and doesn't do anything other than provide a mild to decent flying threat and like I said, some number of them should be cut for Mirror Entity to have yet another way to make use of Harabaz Druid's big mana.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I wasn't talking about the 2 different combo plans, that made sense. You have a set of creatures(elf and warleader) that seem to want to promote some sort of alternate beatdown secondary win con, but it just doesn't seem supported anywhere else (other than maybe the ally clone and protect ally which are clearly there for other reasons primarily).

Well sometimes you do need to beat down to finish off a fair game that involves Healer triggers and I think the Warleader is reasonable at that and can also play some important defense for you. And I did just discuss why I think Skyrider Elf is the weak spot in the deck and my latest version pulls them for two Phantasmal Image and two copies of Mirror Entity.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Any worry that too many clones hurts the CC's?

Not really, they both get put into play off CC. Jawari SS can be awkward if you're say casting a t3 CC off a t2 Harabaz Druid because "all" you're getting is another HD but at least it locks you into big mana and Phantasmal can copy their creatures as well so that gives you a safety net for not having a target and the deck really starts thrumming when you get two or three copies of Healer/Excavator and you can start stacking triggers so it's worth the slight risks.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I more meant that they are blanks into an empty board.

The odds of not having a Druid or Healer or Excavator on the play on turn 2 is 14.7% and 11.3% on the draw and some of those percentage of hands would be mulligans anyways due to land issues. I think that percentage is solid enough especially when there aren't really any other good options (see previous Skyrider Elf discussion) unless you think Shapesharer's delayed/temporary cloning is that much better.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I've never played the deck, I just assumed some % of the time they kill your first guy and then you cc with nothing hoping to reestablish.

The odds of hitting at least two non-clones on a CC ignoring that we've already gone through some cards is 72.5%. That being said, yes, that's how the deck loses and why it's not and basically cannot become a tier 1 deck, instead it is simply the king of second and third tier nonsense.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyone in Pitt for the GP?

Was eliminated from D2 relatively early but ground out a 6-3 record. My brother went 7-1-1 so I'm waiting for a draft to fire while he plays round 10.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Apparently the company running it are really terrible. Capped a Modern GP at like 2500 players, which is really low. According to Twitter, people were scalping tickets to get in to the main event.

2500 is not "really low"; GP Pitt ended up as the 8th biggest GP of all-time and the only bigger ones were either Modern Masters limited or hosted by Star City who push insanely hard for huge attendance figures. That being said, their organization sucked and the cap should've been LOWER because they didn't have space for their side events; on Saturday the 10 AM side events weren't firing off until 12:30-1 and on demand events weren't available until late in the afternoon; and they didn't have enough judges/staff for the crowd.

And Wizards prohibited the sale of spots in the main event, so while people offered to both buy and sell spots in the main event at various points, I don't think it actually happened or if it did it only happened that first day and then the process was halted.

Turns out my brother was one of only two people to beat eventual GP champion Alex Bianchi (round 7) but he failed to cash losing to Reid Duke in the 15th round.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Lived the Modern dream of milling my opponent 240 cards on turn 4 against Bloom Titan with my Allies deck tonight, that was fun.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Nice! I've come around a lot on Bloom, to the point that I'm probably buying it on MTGO in the next day or so. Shit's fun, yo.

Bloom Titan is great, I'm just worried that despite not posting any insane results it'll get nerfed with the next ban list update.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Had the most busted sealed pool I've ever opened this past week in an online PPTQ; I opened eight rares and played them all, 13/14 of my creatures were Allies for crazy synergy oh and then there was a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar in the pool. 10-2 in games for a slightly more difficult 5-0 than expected. Which of course rewards me with one of the worst sealed pools I can remember opening for the actual PTQ, three rare lands in colors I didn't want to play; three rares with converge (including a foil Prism Array, be still my beating heart), and Cancel with upside.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

That bites. This format is super weird.

It feels like there's not a lot of play to the sealed format because of how synergy driven the set is and the strata on the rare quality. You can draw the pool with insane synergy and rares and you basically can't lose, or you can open trash with no synergy and basically not have a chance to win; very different (and worse) than say Origins or Khans which had flatter rare levels and less must have synergy and thus it felt like build skill actually mattered. I'll post my 5-0 deck when I get back home; it was so busted, sometimes I didn't even have to attack, I just played Kalestria Healer(s) and then just played more allies.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Bit hard to see but good enough.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Will any MS type people be in either DC or Detroit?

Those are my next two GPs.

Hoping to be at both.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I will definitely be at detroit. It's looking less and less likely I'll be at DC (teammate backed out)

Me and my brother need a third since ours backed out... (assuming you play better than Grant because he was a nice guy but not exactly a standout at the Magics).

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I will definitely be at detroit. It's looking less and less likely I'll be at DC (teammate backed out)

Me and my brother need a third since ours backed out... (assuming you play better than Grant because he was a nice guy but not exactly a standout at the Magics).

So we're two teams of two without a third? lol.

I'm going to see if I can find a third for the teammate I ever have first and then if I can't I'll hit you back.

Fair enough, I'm still searching the Columbus scene but I've already contacted most players I'd be interested in playing with from here with no luck.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Shea is playing Kiki-Chord (I think) and thus makes poor life choices.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Anyone coming to Columbus for the Legacy GP?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I was at GP Louisville this weekend for Team Sealed. It was a fun weekend. I may give a fuller explanation when I am back in front of a computer and not on my phone.

Hey me too. It did not go as well as we'd hoped. :/

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

HAHAHAHA. This is a small world. So I wanted to see how Cow did before he said anything so I pulled Cow's name off his fantasy football team and started going through the GP Louisville coverage page, while it's not as small as us playing each other our teams actually sat right next to each other in the first round. We were on the end of the row of tables and they were right next to us.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Fantastic. I wasn't paying that much attention to the tables around me round 1, due to our opponents being team East-West Bowl.

Yeah, I wouldn't have remembered table numbers but I remembered that Hwang, Brown, and Tao were diagonal of us in the first round because at GP Detroit we actually played them in the first round (and beat them down) and then when I saw you played them first round it clicked.

I was on a WU tempo deck with Gisela, Always Watching, Odric, and Niblis of Frist and mulliganed way too much and had way too many draws that didn't do what the deck wanted to do. My brother was on RG werewolves but it was mediocre due to the lack of good two drops and cheap removal and our third was playing a GBu emerge/delirium thing, in retrospect it probably should've been straight GB and streamlined a bit and then the blue boarded in situationally instead of being boarded out on occasion.

We lost our first round to gold level pro Eric Severson and some other respectable teammates. We rallied back to win two straight and then dropped round 4 as well. We picked up round 5 and were hoping the 1-2 pattern would repeat but we took another loss in round 6. So we needed to go 3-0 to make day two, our round 7 opponents didn't show up and we handled round 8 well enough but in round 9 we got roughed up and finished 5-4.

~~

So your SSS pool is interesting, good creature base in every color, bad removal in every color. You probably played white because double Lancers and Thalia is so strong but then the other color is just a crapshoot other than I'd say not red.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

That pool doesn't seem weak to me. I agree with DDD otherwise.

*Shrug* If my object was simply to cash an event that required a winning record and I could have that pool or a random pool, I'd take the random one. That suggests below average and thus slightly weak to me as well.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

what about xmage

Xmage or not interested.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

tried it, couldnt make it work, would much prefer cockatrice

It should be noted that I was unable to download the most recent version, seems like a problem with the installer, I imagine it'll be fixed soon.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I am completely unfamiliar with xmage. I know what Cockatrice is, but have found it inferior to OCTGN. I'll check out xmage this week.

xmage has built in drafting and rules enforcement, it's so nice.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

A) No, xmage doesn't have

all

the cards for modern. It does seem to have every relevant modern card. I've put together a ton of more uncommon decks (along with more common ones) and never run into a card availability issue; Bloom Titan, 8 Rack, Ad Nauseum, Puresteel Paladin Storm, Combo Allies, Turbo Fog, no issues.

B) xmage allows spectators.

~~

@Nati, maybe your toaster shouldn't double as your computer?

/s

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Is anyone going to Eternal Weekend

Wasn't planning on it despite being in Columbus and having a legacy deck, got a PPTQ the weekend after, then SC Columbus the next weekend, then a fun regional event the week after that so was planning on taking the weekend off.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Got to play a No Ban List Modern event this last weekend. I played Blazing Infect beating Dredge, Pod (with regular damage... twice), and UR Delver and a loss to Elves.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I would've made the long drive but I qualified to a local store championship that guarantees 100 dollars just for showing up and playing six rounds and 200-700 dollars for top 8'ing the event. If only the event weren't mostly standard.

Planning on being in Louisville and San Jose for GPs in January though.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Made Top 8 and $200 of my tournament, good day. It also appears Shea took on a buddy of mine in Round 11 of GPM.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

In louisville this weekend. Battling.

See you there.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Went 11-4 in Louisville. Very happy with my performance.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Nope went 1-4 in the ptq.

Really miserable weekend for me overall.

Yeah that was my weekend in Indy as well. Feels like another bad limited format where whoever gets to start coming downhill without wasting mana/turns first wins.