Welcome, Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts! By reading this you are witnessing one more voice being added to the MTG blogosphere. I would like to make these articles entertaining as well as insightful, so I would like to hear your feedback (good or bad). Let me know what you did and did not like about anything you read here and you will have my thanks.
I suppose I should give a bit of background before I get into today's topic. My name is Daniel Dusang and I am playing Magic out of Norman, Oklahoma, at the University of Oklahoma specifically. I have been playing Magic competitively for about a year and a half (I started right at RoE release). In that time my greatest accomplishment is Top 8ing a PTQ in Oklahoma City at the beginning of this year. That was my first constructed PTQ and proved to me that sometime the 12 year old kitchen-table player in your head is right; You should just play the funnest deck possible (I played Soul Sisters, that little kid in me just loves life-gain...).
Since then I have been slowly improving my skills in both constructed and limited at Wizards Asylum in Norman. The atmosphere in that store is both competitive and friendly, which drives us all to become better while not hating one another. In my time in that store I have discovered that I feel most at home playing a borderline aggressive/midrange deck. This fact holds true in every format so far. I hate how quickly you can run out of cards as a pure aggro deck, and I always draw my counterspells the turn after they resolve a big threat. So, midrange (typically beatdown) it is.
This preference lends well to today's topic: Innistrad sealed deck. When I play limited I always craft the best beatdown deck possible. Innistrad gives you plenty of chances to do exactly that (but don't go overboard and take werewolves higher than removal in draft...that was an experiment that didn't go so well >_>). White is easily my favorite color in this format. It has the ability to be super-aggressive but also packs the most diverse removal suite of any color. In the 4 sealed-deck events that I have played, my decks have been W/B, W/G, W/R, and W/B. I have gone X-2 at most of these events (losing to misplays, mostly) so the main color can't be too bad.
One thing that I have discovered (and this might just be a personal thing) is that I cannot play 17 lands in this format...not with my style of deck. My curve has invariably stopped at 5 (only playing 2-3 5-drops) and I cannot stand losing to land flood. I understand that variance is a part of the game, and everyone has to take their lumps because of it. In those first 2 events I felt like I was getting flooded in at least 1 game every match (which I contest to be more than my fair share). Since then I have been cutting the 17th land and adding a 1 or 2-drop and I couldn't be more pleased.
Do I miss a land-drop every few games? Yes, but in a removal heavy deck this can actually be to your advantage. Every limited player ever sees land-screw as a sign to press their advantage. This typically means playing out their hand in a mostly care-free manner. This can easily allow you to pick off their bigger threats with cheap removal until you have the lands to play your mid-to-end-game cards. Am I advocating intentional land-screw as a strategy? No. What I am advocating is disciplined play, even when your opponent is stuck on 2 lands. Is there really a good reason to put them on any faster than a 3-turn clock when they have an empty board and 2-3 lands? Don't play your juicy threats before you make them deal with your mediocre ones.
This sealed-deck format is pretty good, and I don't hate playing it (like I did with all of Scars block...). Good thing too, as this current PTQ season is Sealed-deck. Now, I have played in PTQs in the past, but I have never been a "grinder" by any means. That changes this year with the advent of Planeswalker Points (You mean and schlub like me can get on the Pro Tour??? Just by playing a bunch of Magic?!?!). Myself and a core group from the store just got back from a weekend trip to San Antonio. This PTQ trip comes as the first leg of a month and a half tournament-a-weekend grindfest. This weekend we have States, followed by a trip to Lenexa, KS, and finishing out the month with SCG Kansas City. Next month we have PTQ Forth Worth followed by PTQ Springfield, MO. I have also heard tell of a possible trip to San Diego for a Grand Prix...
In any PTQ season you should make sure to take something away from any event that you didn't win. What did I learn from not winning in San Antonio? That sometimes you just need to leave an indestructible, flying, hexproof mythic creature home to block. I lost 3 matches last Saturday and Angelic Overseer resolved in each one. Each of those losses came from getting too aggressive with my endboss. My advice to you, dear reader, is to make sure you have the combat math right. There is no need to race if the board is stalled and you have outs to the situation. You definitely need to know what outs you have in your pool though.
I learned the value of a few underestimated cards this weekend. Feeling of Dread, Rally the Peasants, and Spare from Evil can all break a stalled board pretty well. Even without playing the flashback colors for the first two these cards can all break a game open. If you don't maindeck these cards (and you probably should maindeck Rally the Peasants) make sure you know if they are in your sideboard or not. Aggressive decks tend to simply clutter the ground in the mirror, and if you're playing white these cards can win you the game if played at the right time.
This first entry was mostly introduction, but I hope it wasn't a bore. Again, please leave me comments about what I could do better or even a topic you would like to hear about.
You can reach me on twitter, @CapnTopDeck, and if you want to hear me and a few guys from the shop ramble like this in person make sure to listen to our podcast, Planeswalker Asylum over on Couch Pirate Radio!
Thanks for reading!
"You know what I will remember most about San Antonio? That Haibing Hu laughed at me for doing combat math wrong..."
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