Examining the Aftermath

- A Return to Ravnica sealed PTQ report

By: "GCB" Gabe Carleton-Barnes

In the world of Magic: The Gathering, I'm kind of an old man. I won the first Magic tournament I ever played in and the first prize was a box of a set that hadn't yet been released: Fallen Empires. I was 15, and I was hooked.

In the intervening years, I've played on the Pro Tour a few times. I've made great friends through Magic. I even tried to make a documentary about the game. I also got older, started working "real jobs", and perfected a wry smile to respond to the idea that I could any longer be a true PTQ grinder.

But that doesn't mean I've been skipping a lot of PTQs. And in recent months, I've managed to find quite a bit of time to play Return to Ravnica limited. I haven't found a lot of time to read other people's ideas about Ravnica, but I've come to understand that my ideas are a little unorthodox. I have refined them with the help of Portland's true PTQ grinders and the non-stop theorizing of one Conrad Kolos. So, here they are. How unlikely is an old man with ideas like this to win a 320-person PTQ?

1. Splashing is not desirable: good decks are 2 colors

2. 18 lands is correct more often than 17

3. Keyrunes are 23rd cards that you shouldn't be happy to run

4. A good mana curve is miles better than a good top-end

5. Transguild Promenade is rarely playable

Here is a partial list of my "pet cards" -- ones that I rate much higher than others seem to:

Judge's Familiar (first is an auto-include in any deck that can cast it)

Skull Rend (happy to run as my 22nd card)

Essence Backlash (up to 2 are fine in the right deck, more if I have 2+ Goblin Electromancers)

Electrickery (great 22nd card and SB favorite, but I've always liked cards like this)

After reading that, some of you may be thinking "this guy is the worst." I guess I had better get to the tournament so you have more material for your mockery.

320 people showed up to Seattle Center, meaning this would be an epic nine-rounder. However, unlike the last PTQ in Seattle, the organizers had actually rented enough space to house everyone, so we had elbow room to build our sealed decks. I received a pretty confusing pile of cards, tried building 4 different decks without having anything stand out, and had to take a step back and re-think things. Below is the pool I opened. Here's the .dek so you can try building it in Modo. Before you read on, decide what you would do with this:

Since we're looking at a nine-round PTQ, let's start with rares:

Pithing Needle

Death's Presence

Counterflux

Corpsejack Menace

Isperia, Supreme Whatever

Cyclonic Rift

Well, that was ugly. On the bright side, at least our 2 best rares are in the same color, and both are helped by our only Guildgates (two Azorius.) However, the Azorius deck here is a pile of barely-mediocre cards with no synergy after the 2 rares. Selesnya splashing blue seems promising, but once you get past the 4 gold cards and the splash, it goes from "nice" to "filler" in a hurry. How are you going to live long enough to get 7 mana and cast Cyclonic Rift even if you draw it? Even if I can buy time to the late game am I really better than the bombs I'm bound to face in a long tournament?

Golgari raises similar questions to Selesnya. Lots of splashing options, but the core of the deck is unexciting and the splash isn't powerful enough to overcome the rest.

But if we just forget about playing rares, there's a pretty clean little Rakdos deck in there. And where the rares are thin, the uncommons are quite tasty:

Rakdos Cackler

Civic Saber

Thrill-Kill Assassin

Rix-Maudi Guildmage

Ultimate Price

Hellhole Flailer

Street Spasm

Rogue's Passage

That's almost half the uncommons in my pool. The deck, once built, is deceptively plain, but it's got a strong "better than the sum of its parts" smell to it:

I know what you're thinking: "Skull Rend?"

Yes, Skull Rend. This is Sealed Deck, and everyone is playing either awesome 6-casting-cost spells, awkward mana bases, or both. Also, there's enough removal here to give me a chance if I don't get a super-aggressive draw, but I don't have much of a top-end. Skull Rend hits at just the right time and in just the right way to avoid having to deal with my opponent's bombs. This was Skull Rend's scorecard on the day:

Rakdos Return

Explosive Impact

Tenement Crasher

Carnival Hellstead

Niv-Mizzet

Mizzium Skins

Golgari Keyrune

Druid's Deliverance (he had a Centaur Token)

Golgari Keyrune

Stoneforge Crocodile

2 Kills

In addition, it forced 2 spells to be played:

Cyclonic Rift (at 2 mana)

Common Bond

Skull Rend looks bad, but I recommend you give it a try, especially in Sealed.

If I were to re-build the deck I might play Batterhorn over Perilous Shadow. The plan here was to take advantage of other people's awkward mana bases, and Batterhorn kills keyrunes and works better with Rogue's Passage. I often made that switch, and I was siding out Racketeer on the play to bring in an 18th land.

The deck performed very well. My first two opponents were bigger Rakdos decks, and Skull Rend was key in pushing my early-game advantage. Round 3 I played against an Izzet deck with lots of very powerful cards, but lots of chaff as well. He discarded Niv-Mizzet one game, and game 3 I had him at 7 when he played his sixth land and cast Niv-Mizzet. I had the Traitorous Instinct.

After that I played against a lot of mixed green decks. The closest I came to losing was when facing Trostani all 3 games, and in one of them I had mulliganed to a slow hand. I fought to a board state where I was at 2 life and the only creature was his Trostani with a Stab Wound on it. I played a creature, he decided not to block it with Trostani, and he missed drawing a creature for 2 turns. I cast another creature, then cast Traitorous Instinct on Trostani and attacked him for lethal.

I overran a few more players before they could cast all their spells, had enough removal & speed for the obligatory "Pack Rat" round (he played it on 5 mana,) and I was quickly 7-0 and drawing into the top 8.

I think I only played against one player that stuck to two colors. With a reasonably low curve and quality cards, this deck took advantage of any stumble from my opponents. I haven't been able to stay to two colors in sealed every time, but I try to far more often than other people. I recommend you try it out.

The top 8 draft was pretty good for a Northwest PTQ. Dan Hansen, Greg Peloquin, some other PTQ regulars and limited master Brian Wong. I'm not a big fan of green in this draft format, and I like Izzet much more than most. Rakdos is my second-favorite place to be, but my usual strategy is to just take the best card in every pack, leaning towards those with less color requirements, and wait until the end of pack 1 to figure out what guild is open. Invariably there is an underdrafted guild. This top 8 draft was no different.

I started out leaning towards red because of my guild preferences and blue because I expected it to be open. The tendency in PTQ top 8s is for players to lean towards the colors that were in their sealed decks (the old "dance with the one what brung ya"), and that means a lot of players on black and green is this set, usually. I started with a Soulsworn Spirit over a Voidwielder and some similarly-powered cards in other colors. The Packs were quite weak so I didn't get pulled strongly in any particular direction at first. There did seem to be more Golgari cards than anything else, but I stuck to mostly mono-colored stuff. Then, near the end of the pack, a Korozda Guildmage that I had passed for a mono-color card came around. At this point, I should have accepted that Golgari was open and gone for it full-bore. I did pick up some more Golgari cards at the end of the pack.

At the end of pack 1 I had something like 4 cards for Golgari, 5 for Izzet, 3 for Azorius, 4 for Rakdos, and only one white card that could be Selesnya. Because of the overlap of cards and my submissive strategy, this is usually how decks look after pack 1. I could still go anywhere except Selesnya, and Golgari was open.

My second pack showed me a Stab Wound, and it seem the fates had me going Golgari. The next best card in the pack, though, was Frostburn Weird, and I have a huge crush on this card. Not only does it fit very well into 3 different guilds, but it only costs 2 mana and it does everything you want a creature to do in this format.

I convinced myself to take it, since it fit into 3 of the guilds I was still open to, where Stab Wound only fit into 2. The next pack had another Frostburn Weird and that got pulled in. I settled into Izzet but the packs quickly started to look shallow. It was too late to turn back when I saw another Korozda Guildmage a few picks later. I passed it regretfully, and it tabled. At least no one else had figured it out!

When I sat down to build my deck I was pretty nervous. I had just enough playables and was going to have to run some questionable stuff, but the deck knew what it wanted to do, and it is the kind of deck I like to play. Here's what I registered:

Judge's Familiar

2x Goblin Electromancer

2x Frostburn Weird

Gore-house Chainwalker

Lobber Crew

2x Viashino Racketeer

Tower Drake

Soulsworn Spirit

2x Runewing

Voidweiler

Tenement Crasher

Skyline Predator

Dispel

Downsize

Annhilating Fire

Cancel

Traitorous Instinct

Essence Backlash

8x Mountain

8x Island

Rogue's Passage

Isset Guildgate

The only sideboard cards that were red or blue:

2x Hussar Patrol

Rakdos Guildgate

Skull Rend

Doorkeeper

Survey the Wreckage

So not a lot of options.

Some of the Portland crew stuck around to watch and I could tell they were worried about my draft. Red and blue had both been overdrafted and missing out on Golgari was a huge lost opportunity. If I was going to win this thing, I'd have to run well and work for it.

Quarterfinals vs Jiachen Tao

He was also on Izzet, but spent some early picks on Rakdos Keyrunes in order to splash some removal. He was much slower than I was. Game 1 looked good early but I drew too much land and he soon deployed 2 Rakdos Keyrunes with enough mana to activate both, and I had nothing that could break through to finish him. I hate losing to Keyrunes, especially since I talk so much garbage about them. He had 2 Izzet Staticasters, which are quite good against me, so I sided out a Racketeer and brought in a bad card. During this game we showed each other lots of counters. We both had Essence Backlash, Cancel, and Dispel in our decks.

Game 2 he had mana issues, I drew the good half of my deck on curve, and I was able to counter a key Staticaster.

Game 3 he played a turn-2 Electromancer, and I played a turn-2 unleashed Chainwalker. Turn 3 he played another Mountain, thought for a while, and attacks with his Goblin, then passed the turn.

My hand was Cancel, Downsize, Traitorous Instinct, two lands, and a three-drop. I played an Island (Cancel mana up), attacked, and refused to play my creature into his obvious Essence Backlash. He played Rakdos Guildgate, attacked, and passed back. This continued for a few turns, with neither of us willing to play into the other person's counter, just attacking with our creatures. He didn't play a second blue source ever, and we reached a point where he had 6 lands, only one of which is blue. I had two Islands and three Mountains. He was at 8 after I attacked with my Chainwalker, and I was at 10 from his goblin. I drew my sideboard card, said "You'll never guess what I'm going to do next", tapped all my lands, and targeted his lone Island with Survey the Wreckage.

I passed into his board of red and black mana. He drew a Mountain, played it, and held back his goblin to block. I drew Dispel, cast Traitorous Instinct on his goblin, and Dispelled his second Electrickery, dropping him to one on the attack. He drew an Island but couldn't get back into the game at that point.

Semifinals vs Mike French

Mike was on Selesnya. Game 1, I kept:

2x Mountain

2x Island

2x Frostburn Weird

Downsize

My first Weird got detained by an Arrester. He followed up with a Seller of Songbirds and a Wild Beastmaster. I attacked into his board with a single Weird and pumped it to 4 when he didn't block. The next turn he tapped all his mana to Common Bond his Beastmaster to 3/3 and attacked with four creatures into my Frostburn Weird and one untapped land. After the head judge double-checked the Downsize/Beastmaster ruling, Wild Beastmaster had killed his bird token and Arrester as well as sending an 0/1 Seller into the waiting arms of a Frostburn Weird. I cracked back hard with the Weirds, played a freshly-drawn Rogue's Passage, and he couldn't catch up.

I don't remember the details of our second game, but I wound up winning relatively easily and was on to the finals.

Finals vs Brian Wong

Brian drafted Azorius to my right, and his deck featured such hits as two Crosstown Courier. Nonetheless, he'd fought his way to the finals.

Game 1 was a long, drawn out affair as we both mana flooded badly. We reached a point where his Isperia Skywatch was staring down my Runewing and Lobber Crew. I had one more ground attacker than he had blockers if I decide to alpha strike, but they aren't big attackers. I was at 4 life, and his life total was falling quickly to Lobber Crew. Skywatch stopped attacking when he was at 7 and I Essence Backlashed his Crosstown Courier: it got three extra damage including the Lobber Crew untap, and the Runewing, the ground attack, and the Lobber crew were so close to lethal that he couldn't risk attacking.

A few turns later he was down to 3, and he finally attacked. I decided he had something, and even though I'm representing a lethal crack-back with Lobber Crew and Runewing, I block with runewing. This gives me 3 draw phases to hit one gold card and win the race with Lobber Crew or another relevant spell. He responded to the draw trigger by casting Trostani's Judgement on Lobber Crew, leaving him at two and me at four. I drew a land, then on my turn a Racketeer, and cycled a land into a land. He drew a land, attacked for 3, and passed. I drew another Racketeer and cycle another land, and passed back at 1 life. He attacked and I cast Skyline Predator.

He had Voidwielder to stave off the inevitable for a turn, but I won game one.

Game two turned into a big creature stall, but I had Soulsworn Spirit to serve as a clock and Judge's Familiar to make his life harder as he was stuck on 4 mana for a long time. When he finally hit 5 mana and cast Knightly Valor on a Sunspire Griffin, I had the opening I needed to cast Traitorous Instinct and attack for the win.

Props:

The entire draft-pdx crew, who played a ton of Return to Ravnica limited together this fall, and learned a lot.

Seamus Campbell, Riley Meinershagen, Erin Deezie, Kale Sata-Hutton,Tom Beare, and Henry Romero for sticking around and cheering me on until midnight: the emotional support in these long tournaments is huge!

Seamus, Riley, and Erin for going out to celebrate with me after.

Card Kingdom for a well-run tournament and an absurd trophy.

My opponents, who were all gentlemen even when I ran very well, especially Brian Wong (who is a master.)

Dean, Darla, and Scott for putting me up in Seattle.

Conrad Kolos for helping me develop some unusual (& effective!) ideas about the format.

John Carter for head judging with patience and integrity, even after a long day and some very anxious Magic players.

Uncommons & commons, since the only rares I used were my opponent's most Traitorous ones.

Frostburn Weird, who, despite being very handsome and popular, is always there when I really need him.