Roy Tang

Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.

Blog Notes Photos Links Archives About

Grand Prix Trial Manila I

The GPT was today: Sunday, 25-May-2008 as Robinson’s Galleria.

I’m sad that the GPTs are all scheduled on Sundays.

The deck I brought:

I felt unsure bringing in this deck (or any other deck actually). I’m walking into a tournament again with no playtesting, so it’s almost sure to bite me in the ass. Still, it’s a solid choice; hopefully I could just make some skill matter. I probably should have splashed white for some removal, but I didn’t have time to gather Crib Swaps.

Round 1: 1-2 Loss vs Monowhite/Kithkin: Not a good start. All three games were close races decided by his Thistledown Liege; if I actually did have white and Crib Swaps, they would have been awesome here. I also made the mistake of not boarding in Cloudthresher to handle the Spirit tokens off Spectral Procession, since the Liege makes them a powerful clock. Ironic, since I was winning using the same combo in the draft yesterday.

Round 2: 2-0 win vs Red Black: No surprise here, the matchup is probably something like 90-10 in my favor. In the second game, he played Countryside Crusher off one mountain and two Reflecting Pools. I played, in succession: Oversoul of Dusk (stops the Crusher), Primal Command (bounce mountain to top and search for second Oversoul), Oversoul of Dusk. At that point, his deck had no point of recovery.

Round 3: 1-2 loss vs Green/white/black: His deck is the same as mine, except with more removal. Skill came into play here, but sadly it was my lack of skill Game one was close, but I lost game two to a 4/4 indestructible Vanquisher that suddenly became 7/1 courtesy of Nameless Inversion. I could have blocked the Vanquisher for at least two more turns; I knew he had the Inversion in hand (he revealed it for the Vanquisher) when he attacked with me at six life, still I said “take.” =( Checking the top cards of my library afterwards, I might have won in two more turns, since he was at one life with no fliers and I was going to draw the Shield.

Final Record: 1-2-Drop

Sigh. Despite doing well in drafts, I’m on a bad streak constructed-wise. At least the deck is definitely better in block compared to standard; no real bad matchups as far as I can tell. The games I lost were winnable games this time, instead of lopsided matchups. The difference lies in playing skill. Since I still don’t have time to playtest, there’s not much to do but to be more careful in making my decisions.

Next week: Probably nothing, as I can’t play in GPT II due to another appointment.

Posted by under post at #mtg
/ 0 / 505 words

See Also