It’s a shame that Magic the Gathering team events are so few and far between nowadays. It’ll probably be another two years before the next Team Sealed Grand Prix on the East Coast. I feel like I squandered a great opportunity at GP Providence, but I also made the absolute best out of it.

Friday afternoon, my friends and I arrived in Providence. Team confidence was high, and I was feeling quite confident myself. We quickly and smoothly took down a grinder to earn our second bye in the main event.

Saturday was a huge disappointment, as we fell more than a bit short of making the cut. Throughout the day, I felt like I was making all of the right plays but just not getting there. My personal match record at the end of the day was an embarrassing 1-6. I did not win a SINGLE MATCH until the last round.

I had let down my teammates horribly. I knew I was better than that. I tried chalking it up to a combination of variance, poor deckbuilding, bad seat-A matchups, and maybe one or two bad keeps. All the could’ves, should’ves, would’ves ran through my head. I’m normally pretty good at identifying when and why things go wrong. I felt that I was mostly right to blame it on the universe, but I still found it hard to reason with my terrible results.

Sunday, I arrived at the tournament site to cheer on all of my friends’ teams who did make day two-but also to redeem myself, in some way. I warmed up by splitting in the finals of a quick Standard win-a-box before the Super Sunday Series Standard event began at 11 a.m. (That felt great, by the way, like hitting perfect shots at the driving range before a round of golf.) I registered the following:

[deck title=Aristocrats by Alex Bianchi]

[Lands]

4 Godless Shrine

4 Blood Crypt

4 Sacred Foundry

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Dragonskull Summit

2 Clifftop Retreat

2 Plains

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

4 Doomed Traveler

4 Blood Artist

4 Cartel Aristocrat

3 Skirsdag High Priest

4 Boros Reckoner

4 Falkenrath Aristocrat

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

4 Tragic Slip

4 Lingering Souls

3 Blasphemous Act

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

1 Cavern of Souls

1 Appetite for Brains

1 Electrickery

2 Pillar of Flame

2 Liliana of the Veil

2 Mark of Mutiny

1 Sin Collector

1 Assemble the Legion

2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

1 Thundermaw Hellkite

1 Zealous Conscripts

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

…and finished fourth after the Swiss with a 7-1 record.

Now, in case you’ve never scrubbed out of a Grand Prix before and aren’t familiar with how the Super Sunday Series works, here’s a quick rundown. There is a Sealed event and a Standard event, and the top four players after Swiss-plus-one from each event make it into the top eight. A final draft then determines the winner.

The round-by-round summary of the Swiss:

Round 1: Win vs. RGw Aggro (nearly Mono-Red, splashing for [card]Boros Charm[/card])

Round 2: Win vs. Bant Delver (with Auras and [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card])

Round 3: Win vs. Junk Aristocrats

Round 4: Loss vs. BWR Reanimator

Round 5: Win vs. Jund Aggro (with [card]Zhur-Taa Druid[/card] and [card]Flesh // Blood[/card])

Round 6: Win vs. Aristocrats (Act II)

Round 7: Win vs. Jund Midrange

Round 8: Win vs. UWR Control (with [card]Boros Reckoner[/card])

Act II was designed to crush Junk Reanimator, but the former juggernaut of Standard is not as prominent as it used to be. If you look at the decks I faced, you’ll notice a wide variety of archetypes, no Junk Reanimator, and a lot of matchups in which I was not exactly well positioned. Half of the decks that I faced had their own [card]Boros Reckoner[/card]s, which made [card]Blasphemous Act[/card] pretty awkward. But one advantage of playing The Aristocrats of any variety is that it requires a lot of knowledge from your opponents’ sides and puts them in difficult situations. If they misstep or miscalculate, you can punish them for it.

One crowded board state, in particular, had both me and my opponent at less than 13 life with one [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] a side. I attacked with just two 1/1 lifelink Vampire tokens. My opponent declared no blocks, and I went up to 14 life and cast [card]Blasphemous Act[/card] to survive at one life and kill him. He was playing around [card]Tragic Slip[/card], but the correct move was to block a token with his [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] and redirect one point of damage to me.

Unlike a lot of past tournaments that I’ve played in, I finished strong. Most of the pros were still in the main event, but there were several players at the top tables who I noticed throughout the day, namely, Reid Duke, Andrejs Prost, and Zac Hill. I was hoping to dodge Zac, who was on Bant Hexproof, and the surprisingly numerous blue decks going into the final stretch.

Of course, I got paired against a UWR Control deck in the win-and-in round, but I managed to curve out turns one through four in both games to secure the win and squeak into the top four on tiebreakers.

Going forward, there aren’t many changes to Act II that you can tinker with besides the [card]Skirsdag High Priest[/card]s and Sorins. Even then, those are probably the best options right now, though I could see maindecking Obzedat, [card]Orzhov Charm[/card], or both. The land base could be stretched for [card]Cavern of Souls[/card], [card]Vault of the Archangel[/card], or [card]Slayers’ Stronghold[/card], but I prefer the consistency for casting [card]Boros Reckoner[/card]. The sideboard is flexible; [card]Mark of Mutiny[/card] is the only card that should be there 100%. I’m looking to try things like [card]Blood Baron of Vizkopa[/card], [card]Duress[/card], and maybe a [card]Slaughter Games[/card]. With the rise in popularity of Junk Aristocrats, there may also be a need for answers to other decks’ hate cards: [card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card] and [card]Rest in Peace[/card]. I’m partial to [card]War Priest of Thune[/card], or maybe [card]Keening Apparition[/card]. Those would also help in the Bant Hexproof matchup.

After waiting for the ninth-and-final-round of the neighboring Sealed event to finish, we sat down for the deciding top-eight draft at what must have been 9 p.m. The top four of the Grand Prix main event was happening simultaneously, so we had a completely secluded corner to ourselves. I saw Zac Hill sitting across the table from me, and Grand Prix champion Tyler Lytle directly to my left. One full-block draft for all of the glory.

I opened and took a [card]Lavinia of the Tenth[/card] from pack one, then [card]Jelenn Sphinx[/card], followed by two [card]Wind Drake[/card]s, [card]Boros Mastiff[/card], [card]Haazda Snare Squad[/card], and [card]Deputy of Acquittals[/card]. I was setting up to be a focused, two-color “Skies” deck.

Pack two, pick two, I got passed a foil [card]Duskmantle Seer[/card] and [card]Aurelia’s Fury[/card]. Either of these would have made a fine splash, but I had no fixing so far. I went with the Fury and hoped to maybe see some more good Boros cards, perhaps even switching into Boros and splashing the Lavinia. But I stayed on course, picking up an [card]Urbis Protector[/card], [card]Angelic Edict[/card], and [card]Daring Skyjek[/card].

I was expecting to get rewarded with Azorius cards in pack three and made out okay with Lyev Skynight, [card]Knightly Valor[/card], [card]Dramatic Rescue[/card], [card]Trostani’s Judgment[/card], and [card]Azorius Justiciar[/card].

Here’s what I registered:

[deck title=Top 8 Draft Deck]

[Lands]

8 Plains

7 Island

2 Mountain

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

1 Boros Mastiff

1 Concordia Pegasus

1 Daring Skyjek

1 Deputy of Acquittals

1 Armored Transport

1 Haazda Snare Squad

1 Lyev Skyknight

1 Vassal Soul

2 Wind Drake

1 Azorius Justiciar

1 Runewing

1 Jelenn Sphinx

1 Lavinia of the Tenth

1 Urbis Protector

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Swift Justice

1 Aerial Maneuver

1 Dramatic Rescue

1 Azorius Cluestone

1 Angelic Edict

1 Knightly Valor

1 Trostani’s Judgment

1 Aurelia’s Fury

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

1 Shielded Passage

1 Gleam of Battle

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

My quarterfinals opponent had a seemingly janky Esper deck with [card]Shadow Alley Denizen[/card] and multiple [card]Perilous Shadow[/card]s. I lost game one but still felt confident that my deck was better than his. In game two, he played the [card]Duskmantle Seer[/card] that I had passed in the draft. With him at six life, I attacked with my Lyev Skynight and Knightly Valored [card]Wind Drake[/card]. He blocked the Lyev Skynight, and I chose to [card]Swift Justice[/card] my [card]Wind Drake[/card] to put him at one. On his upkeep, he revealed a land off of the [card]Duskmantle Seer[/card] trigger, and I revealed a land. We each passed the turn again. He revealed a land again…and I revealed [card]Aurelia’s Fury[/card]. He said, “Go to my draw step?” and I Fireballed him to death.

I won a grindy game three, and he showed me the [card]Pack Rat[/card] and [card]Blood Baron of Vizkopa[/card] that he had in his deck. Boy, did I dodge those bullets.

I met Zac Hill in the semifinals, which was an uneventful matchup of me attacking in the air over his [card]Lobber Crew[/card]s and [card]Maze Sentinel[/card]s. The [card]Gleam of Battle[/card] that I boarded in for game two did good work against his defensive deck.

My opponent in the finals had a BWR deck with [card]Ogre Slumlord[/card] and [card]Blood Scrivener[/card]. He suited up a guy with [card]Gift of Orzhova[/card] in both games, and both games I had the hard removal spell to deal with it. Expensive cards like [card]Angelic Edict[/card] and [card]Trostani’s Judgment[/card] can sometimes be clunky in an Aggro deck, but they got the job done. A little past midnight, my opponent extended the hand, and I closed out an awesome day of Magic with my teammates and best friends, Jon and Matt, there with me. (Well, they were forced to be there. I had to drive them home.)

So, what exactly did I win?

“The winner of the Super Sunday Series Final will earn an invitation and travel award for the Super Sunday Series Championship, to be held in January 2014 in Seattle with a prize purse of $20,000. The Super Sunday Series Championship experience also includes a tour of Wizards of the Coast, dinner with Wizards employees, and more. (Details about the Championship will be announced later in 2013.).”

A free trip, which is the first flight that I’ve won via MTG. Besides that, I have no idea what kind of tournament I’ll be playing in. But it sounds like a great time, and I’m looking forward to it!

Alex Bianchi

Gemmanite on Twitter and MTGO

Stream at twitch.tv/gemmanite

Shoutouts to:

KYT, Travis Sowers, and Josh “solebush1” Frankel – 5th Place

Dean Bilz and the bros from Rochester – 15th Place

Ryan O’Donnell, Kai Burnett, and John Blevins – 25th Place

Derrick Garner and Eric Cieszynski – 33rd Place

And my teammates, Matt and Jon, who carried me PRETTY DAMN FAR.