Tournaments reports are always in a way demanding in terms of the publication time as it should be out in my personal schedule the week after the event. As of the current, I still have three more to write and thoroughly discuss but then being not in a mood is taking its toll. Plus, that I have to cope up with the office work and preparation for graduate school’s Urban Planning diploma next semester.

What I am sharing today is the Grand Prix Hong Kong 2017 Day 1 recap. It is very long overdue but I still wanted to share the experience anyway. I can also say that this is a relevant tournament for me as it was the first time I made it on Day 2 in a major Limited event. With the deck building practice and familiarization of the archetypes in Ixalan Limited, that maybe sort of helped me and a little luck of course. Let me follow up my Part 1 report with what we did on that Friday afternoon.

Day 0 Revisited

After registering for that Standard LCQ, we still could not make it to the right number of players so we could get the byes as the first prize. On-site registration for the Grand Prix was about to open that time and so JayR and I went to fall in line on that side of the venue. After a few moments, the registration started. Each was given lanyards, IDs, a sling bag and the GP HK Playmat after confirming our registration online. I think the foil promo card will be distributed that Saturday morning.

I then went to back to check on the Standard LCQ as there was still no announcement or update from the judges. It was still short of four players so I just decided to tell the organizers to erase my name and move it to the other event that JayR was joining which was the Turbo Sealed event. They had a registration fee of 90 HKD but since we already registered months ago, we were given 3 vouchers for a 50% discount on selected side events. We each used one voucher so it only cost us 45 HKD. We were then paired as there will be only one round match and then given six Ixalan boosters each. We were given a time limit to build a 40-card deck out of those boosters. I recall to have built a Black-White Vampires aggro deck and JayR made a Red-Green Dinosaurs.

My Turbo Sealed deck, a mix of Vampires and Dinos in Black and White

We then started the match and ended with me winning in three games. He had a good card pool but I think I was able to answer all his threats while pushing my damage with small life linking Vampires. We submitted our results and got the winning points tallied before we go to the Airbnb apartment. Before that I dropped by RK Post’s booth to buy some tokens to be used tomorrow.

The venue, Kowloonbay International Trade & Exhibition Centre, was two-MTR rides away from the Air BnB apartment that we rented as I stayed with JayR’s family. We were not familiar with the exact location of the apartment at first so after dropping off the nearest MTR station, we used Google maps to locate the address. It was a two-block walk from the station but the hard part is that the block going to the apartment is somewhat inclined and it was difficult to walk upward while carrying the baggage. I think I had my best sleep that afternoon after an overnight travel and Friday gaming. I woke up that evening and prepared my things and other stuff needed for the big day tomorrow. I also discussed with JayR his card choices for his pool earlier from that Turbo Sealed event and the possible deck setup. I wrapped up the night with two cans of Tiger Beer while checking some Ixalan draft videos.

The possible build from JayR’s card pool which we also discussed.

Main Event Day 1

I woke up around 7:00am and checked on JayR if he is also up. I checked to see if there is coffee available and immediately got a cup along with some bread. I then rechecked my stuff to bring to the Grand Prix: ballpen, pad paper, sleeves, dice and deck box, towels, my wallet and a power bank for recharging. We left at around 7:30 am and since we only have to travel by train, we would still be arriving early. The player meeting is set to be at 9:00 am. We arrived at around past 8:00am so we dropped by McDonald’s located on the ground floor for the breakfast meal. It was just in time when we went back to the venue that the player seating was being posted.

The Sealed Deck

The player meeting started with a short introduction and welcome message by the head judge. A total of 731 participants was announced in the Grand Prix. The sealed packages were then distributed on the tables, which were previously listed and registered. That saved us time opening the packs, listing them on the checklist and passing them on a judge count like those done in the previous GPs. We were then instructed to double check the cards on the list if it really were included in the package.

My Day 1 Sealed deck already registered and ready for deck building.

While listing the cards, I had noticed some decent Rares from the Black color but the relevant ones were Settle the Wreckage and Wakening Sun’s Avatar for White and Rampaging Ferocidon for Red. With some playable removals (i.e. Ixalan’s Binding) and cheap-costed creatures that go along with the theme, that convinced me to go to the Red-White Dinos route. I then added a Green splash for the RG Dinosaur that deals one damage to each creature when it enters the battlefield. Here is what the deck looked like.

The Day 1 Deck on a Red-White Dinosaurs strategy with Settle the Wreckage & WSA reset card.

The Matchups

Here is the recap of the matchups results per round.

Round 1 vs Yau, Winnie – Won
Round 2 vs Chun Yuan, Liu – Won
Round 3 vs Yu, Yin – Lost
Round 4 vs Ka Chun, Chu – Won
Round 5 vs Jeong, Wonjun – Lost
Round 6 vs Chong, Ernest – Won
Round 7 vs Lark, Robert – Lost
Round 8 vs Gu, Ruo Chen – Won
Round 9 vs Profeta, Francis Robert – Won

I would recall one of the highlights in the matches was during Round 8 Game 3 wherein we were just top decking and outlasting each other’s creatures. We were trading up until I have drawn a new creature and he had none. That took two more turns of attack before I got him down to zero and he just had drawn blanks.

The match with Francis Profeta, a Philippine National Champion, was also intense as it was the elimination stage. The good thing though was that my two White bombs answered his threats until I was able to push through the lethal damage. Final Day 1 Record, 6-3 and qualified for Day 2. Woot!

I was very happy that time to be able to qualify in a limited major event. I guess the preparation had its worth. After a few browsing at the sellers’ booth looking for the cards needed for our Modern deck back at home, we decided to go back to the apartment. It was just in time that JayR’s mother-in-law bought some ingredients for her planned hotpot dinner and we got excited to have a taste of it. It was a heavy meal and I enjoyed every sip and bite of the noodles, squid balls, kimchi, tofu, and stuff.

Our GP HK Post Day 1 Hotpot Dinner

I then rested for a while after dinner and checked the GP coverage at the mothership website. There were three 9-0 players on Day 1, one of which was the hometown favorite Lee Shi Tian. I think there were only five or six of us Filipinos that made it to the second day. With that setup, I focused on the previous draft practice we did and noting the possible archetypes and signals which I am still not very familiar. I then read some more Ixalan draft guide before I ended the night.

That is a wrap for Day 1. Day 2 to be continued.

Last weekend was the Prerelease for the MtG Hour of Devastation set and it was the first time that I signed up for two events on both days (Saturday & Sunday). Players old and new gathered to open and play the fresh new cards from the set and it was the Saturday event at Rob Jaro that was almost jam-packed. We expected 36 players to attend but only 28 signed up as heavy rains hit around lunch time just before the start of the event.

Anyhow, the PR started past 1 pm and I opened my kit with a Mirage Mirror promo foil. The rest of the six boosters after sorting the colors offered that Red will be my primary color due to efficient spot removals like Open Fire and the sweep card Hour of Devastation. The second color was Black with the additional removals with a splash of Blue for a 5/5 Hexproof creature. The final deck setup was somewhat midrange. Here below is a picture of the deck I played.

I initially lost to a Temur midrange with large creatures’ deck but managed to win the rest of the rounds. The MVP card was the mirror as I just copy my own creatures for additional attack damage or copy that of the opponents’ if it was bigger and just kill them with my spot removals. I finished 3-1 and won 3 HOU booster packs. I opened the packs and the relevant money card is only Solemnity.

The next day’s PR event was at Critical Hit: Comics and Games. Registration was scheduled around 12 noon and I arrived just ten minutes past that hour. About only three to four players were there and I was thinking like I was too early. I then learned that only a few preregistered and I was hoping that more players will drop by and play on the spot. It was past 1pm already and Johann decided to start the event despite having only 8 players.

I opened my kit and was surprised to see the same Mirage Mirror as my promo foil. What could this artifact copy this time? After sorting out the cards by color and checking each of the possible synergy and power-level, I came up with the deck below.

The build is Red Green based with Black as the splash color for the two spot removals. Green was used here to lower the curve because of a number of three-mana creatures and also access for a few combat tricks. Relevant cards include Chaos Maw was the bomb and of course, the mirror was added again for a few copy effect plan that I did yesterday. I went 2-1 and lost to a better RG build with Glorybringer and Rhonas.

Overall it was a fun weekend playing Hour of Devastation cards. The new set gave a huge support to Amonkhet and with the newer card interactions, I am pretty excited to try drafting these two expansions in the upcoming weeks. That might also be in time for us to practice for Nationals.

That is a wrap for this tourney report. Until the next post.

The past weekend was a travel to Manila for me as I went to participate in the first leg of the World Magic Cup Qualifiers. The tournament did not go well so I decided to just check the players’ binders so I could complete my buy list for that trip.

A beginner player has asked me to buy components for his planned Mono-Blue control mill deck. He needs the cards Thing in the Ice and a playset of Startled Awake. I was able to buy the three things whereas I was not able to acquire the Startled Awakes. Given that it is not a popular Mythic rare of the Shadows over Innistrad set, I was surprised that it was not found in most of the for-sale binders. I then looked for a few planeswalker cards from the current set to complete if needed for future deck builds.

Eternal Masters was just released and most of the binders were filled with cards from this special print set. I was able to check out foil versions of old cards such as Sink Hole, Wasteland, and Chrome Mox. Even though they would be essential for our Commander Card pool, I opted to just look for foil versions of Blue common cards that are usually included in Blue-based Commander decks.

On the last day (Sunday), I decided to meet up with the rest of Team Iloilo at Megamall. They were having lunch at Ippudo that time I arrived so I just went around to check the shops there and came upon Fully Booked. I remembered then that I bought the book 44 Laws of Power online so I checked if they had the other book that I was looking for: The Art of Seduction. Sadly they don’t have one in stock at that time so I decided to just look around and browse book titles as well as some Marvel Comics. I then saw at the front table the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Not much of a fan of novels but I’ve heard that the author is popular so I decided to buy a copy, a small softbound print.

To recap here is a picture of my hauls from that WMCQ I trip:

Here is another short wrap-up of this weekend’s MtG happenings here in Iloilo City. First off is on last Friday’s FNM tournament wherein fifteen players gathered to battle Standard. That means four Swiss rounds and the top 4 players will receive the KTK booster pack prizes and foil FNM promo cards. I piloted an updated version of Abzan Constellations, based the list from the Manila players. I unfortunately just went 2-2 as I have lost to Temur Monsters and Rei’s Black White Midrange deck. Here are the top 4 finishers after those rounds.

Friday Night Magic (Nov. 21, 2014)
1st, Herbert (Mono Red)
2nd, Speedy (Jeskai Tempo)
3rd, Dean (Mardu Midrange)
4th, Rei (Black White Midrange)

Saturday’s scheduled events were Duel Commander morning session and another Standard tournament in the afternoon. Five players were present for the Commander tournament which I still managed to have it as a three-round event. I again piloted Marath to further practice on the deck as our card pool is slowly buying the needed components of the deck. I did perform well, finishing 3-0 and got the first place. The deciding game against Ezuri was pretty much very complicated but I managed to pull off the win. The top two finishers for the Duel Commander were:

Duel Commander (Nov. 22, 2014)
1st, Mark Ian (Marath, Will of the Wild)
2nd, John Marcelo (Ezuri, Renegade Leader)

Sunday was another session for Duel Commander as we practiced the currently built decks. Only three of us went to the said tambayan which was just a small session of playtest. At the least I was able to playtest Marath against the top tier Commander, specifically Vendilion Clique and GST. We are looking forward for the community to have more fandom on the format as we planning to expand to a bigger tournament with of course bigger prizes. Hopefully that tambayan will be finally completed by next month, for the establishment’s soft opening.

That’s about it for this local scene report. Next weekend will have a Modern Saturday tournament and I’ll try to detail it on the next report (i.e. decklists, matches summary, etc).

Until next post and thanks for reading.

I have been playing the game for years on end and preparing for a major MtG event usually gets me into serious mode. The recent Pro Tour Qualifier for Journey to Nyx was no exception. It felt like the schedule was a bit too early. The preparation time was a little short due to Born of the Gods becoming a part of the Standard format two weeks before the tournament. My team wasn’t able to do a lot of playtesting on paper but reading up on new technology and predicting how the new cards in the set will affect the metagame helped a lot somehow.

The Deck Choice

Before Born of the Gods Standard, playing various archetypes to some extent helped me learn more about how every deck operates. During the year-ender tournament in Iloilo last December, I played a Devotion to Boros deck that I have tested for a month prior to that event. It got me into a top 4 finish for that event. The metagame shift heralded the rise of Blue White Control and Mono Black. These decks are the Boros Deck’s weak matchups. It made me decide to move on to another deck archetype.

I tried my hand with Red Green Monsters. I was initially not a fan of the deck as most of its threats are easy prey to Black spot removal. The recent SCG tournaments and also the Grand Prix showed that the deck has potential to be a Tier 1 archetype for Standard. Xenagos, the Reveler and Domri Rade have proven to be solid threats against control decks. Stormbreath Dragon is also a viable threat as it can close out games and can also stop white aggro decks in their tracks. Polukranos trumps most creatures in the format with its cheap cost to P/T ratio and a monstrous ability that also helps to remove threats. The mana acceleration from Elvish Mystic and Sylvan Caryatid completes the package.

The initial playtesting was just Red and Green with the Magma Jet tech as based from the Dundee PTQ article. The Born of the Gods first batch of card inclusions were Xenagos, God of Revels and Fanatic of Xenagos. The latter was then changed to Courser of Kruphix.

Testing showed that the deck was still vulnerable to Mono Blue and could not kill a full-blast Master of Waves without a Polukranos to go monstrous and kill it. Thassa also posed another problem. The God was hard to remove once the devotion is turned on and her ablility to make others go unblockable was a pain. Even with Mistcutter Hydra in the sideboard they can still run the damage race. Adjustments in the sideboard were made which included cards like Time to Feed and Ratchet Bomb but those did not seem to be enough. The solution we came up with was to splash a third color.

The first color that came to mind was White for Chained to the Rocks. As referenced from its use in Boros Devotion. A detailed explanation of this archetype splash can be found on my blog post here.

Initial playtest showed that the white splash improved the deck’s Mono Blue matchup, but it was performing weak against Mono Black. The addition of Lifebane Zombie post board made it all the more difficult. We assumed that if we could at least disrupt their hand then their game plan might crumble. The color splash of choice was Black.

Fellow Ilonggo player Mao Gonzalez presented the idea of using Black to make the deck operate like Jund Midrange. The splash gave the deck access to powerful cards like Dreadbore, Putrefy, Rakdos’s Return, Slaughter Games and Golgari Charm.

We came up with this list:

Dark Monsters v. 1.0
Standard

Lands
5 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Stomping Ground
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Blood Crypt

Creatures
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Xenagos, God of Revels
1 Reaper of the Wilds

Spells
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Domri Rade
1 Putrefy
2 Dreadbore

Sideboard
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Doom Blade
2 Golgari Charm
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Putrefy
2 Rakdos’s Return
2 Slaughter Games

The deck initially was a carbon copy of Mao’s list but then he preferred a fourth Ghor-Clan Rampager instead of the lone Reaper of the Wilds. He also added a Mutavault over a Forest in the lands.

The main deck access to Dreadbore makes it easy to deal with planeswalkers and it kills Desecration Demon and Polukranos when facing the mirror. The lone Putrefy served as instant speed removal and for dealing with pesky threats. It also kills Obzedat which can be problematic in some matchups. Reaper of the Wilds was a personal choice.

Coming from the sideboard, Slaughter Games proved to be great against control decks. It helps to remove their win conditions which the deck can’t answer (e.g. Aetherling) and it takes away Sphinx’s Revelation which runs them out of gas. Rakdos’s Return can be a good finisher and it also helps to destroy the opponent’s hand which helps out a lot in winning the card advantage war.

Here is the sideboard plan:

Vs. Mono Black Devotion

-1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
-2 Polukranos, World Eater,
-1 Xenagos, God of Revels,
-1 Courser of Kruphix

+1 Golgari Charm,
+1 Putrefy,
+2 Rakdos’s Return
+1 Slaughter Games,

Vs. Mono Blue Devotion

-3 Ghor-Clan Rampager,
-4 Stormbreath Dragon,
-2 Xenagos, God of Revels,
-2 Xenagos, the Reveler

+2 Anger of the Gods,
+1 Doom Blade,
+4 Mistcutter Hydra,
+1 Mortars,
+2 Golgari Charm,
+1 Putrefy

Vs. U/W Control

-2 Ghor-Clan Rampager,
-2 Mizzium Mortars,
-4 Polukranos,
-1 Putrefy,
-1 Sylvan Caryatid

+4 Mistcutter Hydra,
+2 Rakdos’s Return,
+2 Golgari Charm,
+2 Slaughter Games

Vs. RG Monsters

-2 Xenagos, the Reveler,
-1 Courser of Kruphix

+1 Doom Blade,
+1 Putrefy,
+1 Mizzium Mortars

Vs. Red Deck Wins variants, or splashed with White

-4 Stormbreath Dragon,
-2 Xenagos, God of Revels,

+2 Anger of the Gods,
+1 Doom Blade,
+1 Putrefy,
+1 Golgari Charm,
+1 Mizzium Mortars

Vs. Boros Devotion

-3 Ghor-Clan Rampager,
-1 Xenagos, God of Revels,
-2 Xenagos, the Reveler

+2 Anger of the Gods,
+1 Doom Blade,
+1 Golgari Charm,
+1 Mizzium Mortars,
+1 Putrefy

Vs. White Aggro, or splashed with Black

-3 Ghor-Clan Rampager,
-2 Xenagos, God of Revels,
-2 Xenagos, the Reveler,

+2 Anger of the Gods,
+1 Doom Blade,
+2 Golgari Charm,
+1 Mizzium Mortars
+1 Putrefy

Part two will feature the PTQ tournament summary and a few details of my trip so stay tuned for that one.

This would be all for now. Thanks for reading.

Hey all. I apologize for the blog’s short hiatus. I was on travel to Malaysia for the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur, which I am going to tell you about in this post. For a short trivia, GP KL was just the second Grand Prix tournament event I’ve joined,

and the second country that I’ve traveled to. Yeah, just practicing the “Play the game, See the world” motto of the card game. Anyhow, I’ll try to go into detail about my GP experience in Kuala Lumpur.

First off is the deck. Since I’ve decided already to pilot W/B Tokens, here is my final list:

Lands
4 Isolated Chapel
13 Plains
4 Swamp
3 Vault of the Archangel

Creatures
2 Hero of Bladehold
4 Blade Splicer
3 Doomed Traveler

Spells
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mortarpod
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Elspeth Tirel
3 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Revoke Existence

The last-minute change to Revoke Existence is to adjust to a more flexible approach on the pre-board. Also, I don’t think Doomed Traveler is that effective on most of the matchups so I cut one in favor of a third Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.

At this time, the sideboard list is not yet finalized so I just made a short list for testing on the Grand Prix Trials. Stony Silence was my initial option to stop Ratchet Bombs and also works against equipment.

The Travel Preparations

I think I am already used to backpacking preparations for my travels, from my first trip to Cebu for the Regionals in 2007 and learning from that until the present. It was a good thing that Wizards’ early announcement of the Grand Prix schedule and format made me adjust my budget early for plane ticket promos.

It was in the 1st week of January that we were able to book for Malaysia, with the Team Iloilo travelers. We were scheduled by batch, (me with Oli, and Pete) and we leave for KL on the 21st of March. The bad thing about that schedule is we had to leave for Manila on the first flight at 6:10am. I needed to be awake by 3 am so I ended up sleeping for only an hour.

We arrived past 7 am at NAIA 3, with a lot of time to spare as the trip to KL was at 2pm. We went to MOA to grab some coffee & breakfast and maybe playtest a bit. Since we didn’t bring extra decks, I just watched how the UB Zombie mirror match goes about.

We were back by 11 am & met up with my girlfriend at the airport. After a few payment processing and immigration stuff, we were on the waiting area by 12:30. More time to spare so I test-played with UB Zombies again with the sideboard cards. The matchup was still easily favored to Tokens, as they could not deal with the card advantage, as well as the sideboard Mirran Crusader (which I had three).

We were en-route to KL by 2 pm and arrived around 5:15pm. This is where the “Lost in the Woods” happened. After we arrived at KL Central, the hotel where we were supposed to go to was the Hotel Chinatown in Jalan Petaling. We thought it was on the Petaling Station along the train lane. We ended up in a residential area of the city and had to ride a train back. Good thing Pete brought a KL City Map application on his iPad which we used to locate the exact Jalan Petaling street. After walking a few blocks, we found the night market and the hotel, and we were obviously tired and exhausted. I guess next time, knowing more about the “exact” location and hiring a taxi is the best choice.

R&R was the initial plan the next day and the place we decided to visit was the famous Petronas Twin Towers and the suggested temples (from Pete’s City Map app) near the hotel. Exploring the city via public transportation was a good experience. Their trains were almost similar to that of Singapore’s except that I didn’t get to understand their announcements on the next station stop.

In part two, I will discuss how the GP Trials went the main event and my personal incites of the metagame. Thanks for reading and until the next post.