Report: Winning a GPT (29 Jan 2015)

Here's my round-by-round write up on the GPT this past Saturday (the 29th of January) at Sci-Fi.

Event: GPT for Auckland
Format: Modern
Deck: Junk
Deck List: DeckStats
REL: Competitive
Structure: 5 round swiss with cut to top 4.

This event is primarily advertised as a "Win-A-Goyf" event--my FLGS runs them every last Saturday of the month. It's always a Modern event and they piggyback it on a GPT to help turnout and so that it's at Competitive REL.
None of us were planning to go to Auckland (that I know of, anyway) but it's always fun to have a Win-A-Goyf event!

Round 1 - R/G Through the Breach
Result: Loss in 2.
I played against my good friend Jason in the first round. Jason is the reason I built Jund 18 months ago when we went to GP Richmond and I owe a lot of my knowledge of the Jund/Junk archetype to him.
Unfortunately, he just flat out drew me in this match! Liliana and discard spells are  my biggest weapon in this match and I drew a few of them... but not enough. I even drew the clutch removal for Primeval Titan but, unfortunately, the ETB triggers got him Valakuts... and the next turn he played another Prime Time. I died to Valakut triggers one game and to trample damage in game two.
We went and grabbed coffee after the match and I was determined to win out.

Round 2 - UWR Twin
Result: Win in 2.
One of the fun things about playing your friends/teammates is that you know their decks. Matt was  playing UWR Twin--specifically the deck two or three of us had put together to test out the white splash just the day before.
Junk is a rough matchup for any Twin deck but the UWR one seems to have a decent leg up--Path to Exile does work against Rhinos and Tarmogoyfs, after all.
I took two mulligans in game one and ground a win out of him then ran it back to win game two as well (without mulligan.)

Round 3 - RG Tron
Result: Win in 3.
I knew what deck he was playing before I walked up to the table and joked that he was probably just getting the win. Well, he won a game, at least. Game one he played Sundering Titan on turn four and I just couldn't recover.
In game two he took two mulligans and kept a decent five card hand... which I proceeded to shred with discard spells. His out was Sylvan Scrying in hand and his only green source was to crack Chromatic Sphere. Naturally, I took the Sphere with an Inquisition.
Game three wasn't much different. He had a better hand (no mulligan) but I had Fulminator Mage in my opening hand to keep him off of Tron.

Round 4 - Junk
Result: Loss in 3.
Oh the mirror match. I won game one by playing my spicy meatball one-of... Tombstalker. In game two we traded for a while until he resolved a Thrun and then we lost board state parity. Game three was tight--lots of back and forth--until he played Sigarda. Thankfully I had Tombstalker again but he drew more threats over the next couple of turns and I drew land instead of removal for his other creatures.

Round 5 - UWR Control
Result: Win in 2.
This is usually a very interesting match but Alex stalled on land in both games. In game one he really needed a second white source for the Wrath of God in hand. I even held back a couple of creatures to rebuild after the Wrath.
In game two it wasn't much better and I held a Fulminator Mage to blow up any extra land he might have played after four. He bought time with two Cryptic Commands but I took it in the end.


Cut to Top 4:
I thought I had very low odds of making top 4 after the last round but was surprised to see my tie breakers were better than the other player with 9 points. I was the bottom seed but I was in!

Semi Finals - RG Through the Breach
Result: Win in 3.
I took this in three games. Discard (when you draw it) is too good against this deck. Then in game three he kept a shaky hand and couldn't draw any green sources for his ramp spells.

Finals - Robots
Result: Win in 3.
On paper, I gave the win to my friend Chris. I have four Tarmogoyfs and he could use the trade value to finish his Robots deck (he borrows most of it for events like this. Good player.)
He won the first game as I drew no removal at all. In games two and three we traded blows but I was able to keep him from critical momentum with Creeping Corrosion and judicious use of spot removal.

Report: GP Omaha Last Minute Trials (Grinders)

Event: GP Omaha Last Minute Trials (aka Grinders) x3
Format: Modern
Deck: U/R Delver, U/R Delver, Burn
Deck List: U/R Delver, Burn
REL: Competitive

This past weekend I flew up to Omaha with two of my friends, Jason  and James, to play in GP Omaha. I love the Grand Prix experience and I love getting to spend  a weekend with good people.

Last year I quickly earned byes by playing at GP Richmond and carried those byes for most of the year unable to use them. I changed jobs in November and so between my work, family, and the switch to yearly points earning byes I had a whopping zero going into this GP.

Normally there's at least one GP Trial in the DFW area for any GP I intend to go to--possibly just for any GP happening in the country--but somehow there wasn't one for Omaha, so I had no chance to earn two byes that way. Upon arrival in the frozen tundra of Nebraska, I decided to just hit the Grinder events and try to gain some  byes that way. What follows is a rough accounting of a rough series of events for me.
(Not to steal my own thunder but variance was high on Friday.)

The First Grinder
I scribbled my deck list and signed up for a grinder. My first round opponent, Kevin, was a really nice guy who made some comment about how he wasn't very well prepared for the Modern meta. You never really know  what to  expect  in these last minute GPTs--sometimes it's people who just lost byes because they stopped playing for 6 months and sometimes it's random amateur or casual players. I thought maybe Kevin was a casual player.

Kevin wrecked me.

Let's just say I hadn't exactly prepared for Naya Zoo to be a deck at the GP. I think we all know that 4-Colour and Domain Zoo type decks did pretty well overall this weekend, but I can say that I had no way to deal with double Ghor-Clan Rampager when I drew ZERO copies of Lightning Bolt in game one.

"No worries--I'll just run it back in the next grinder" is what I was thinking...

The Second Grinder
I already wasn't super hot on Delver for the weekend. I knew Pod was going to be a big thing so I was trying to convince myself to play Delver instead of Burn.
Ironically, my opponent in round one of the second grinder was on... Burn. Good old RB Burn, actually--so no Boros Charm or Helix in favour of Bump in the Night. He had splashed blue for Treasure Cruise, thankfully.

I couldn't flip a Delver to save my life.

I faded three land in a row on one Delver. Still, I managed to get him to 5 life in game one and 10 life in game two.
But mostly I drew land.

The Third Grinder
At this point I said something to the effect of "forget this--I'm going to play Burn and just roll through a grinder." Well, I nearly did.
Daniel was on an interesting RW Midrange deck I have seen a few variants of. When I saw Arid Mesa and Rugged Prairie I feared the worst-- Soul Sisters splashing for Norin.

I nailed him down to 6 life twice but he kept casting Lightning Helix and I never drew Skullcrack.

I ended game two with 6 land in play and 3 in hand. I'll let you guess who took the match.


Conclusions:
I had fun playing these grinders. After each devastating loss I talked with Jason and James and we concluded there really wasn't anything I could have done--sometimes you just draw land, sometimes you just don't win the race to twenty, and sometimes you just draw land again.

We had an awesome dinner with a buddy of mine who lives in Omaha (steaks, beers, and bread pudding), then retired to the hotel to prepare for the main event.
I settled on playing Burn and tweaked my side board a little bit (the list posted above has the 60 from the grinders but the 15 from the main event. I couldn't remember what I registered for the grinder as a sideboard.)

I'll post about the main event soon enough.