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By: JXClaytor, Joshua Claytor
Jan 19 2016 1:00pm
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Last week our 23 year old hero had been playing some of the best Magic of his life.  He had played on the first of what should be many Pro Tours, and even though he finished in third to last place, came home to do well in a 1k event and multiple local events.  

Darksteel was the next set out, and the hero was excited to continue playing Magic.  A new local venue opened up for events, and while he won his fair share of them, mistakes were made.  This was during a time where the ELO rating was used for events, and at the time, a rating close to 2000 got you invited to the tour.  Sitting around 1995, (it's been 13 years and while Planeswalker Points are the hip cool thing now) he figured a few first places would get him near the invite mark again.  

This period of time was weird in Magic.  The ELO system was neat and all, but it pretty much made you quit playing.  My rating got to 2000, and I probably should have sat on it then, as I recall 2000 being the low end cut off of rating invites.  The thing is, Magic is a super fun game, and it's great to play!  The wheels fell off of my ratings invite plan when I played in another 1k in Lexington, KY.  I went 0-2, and just spilled rating points all over the place.  You see when you're highly rated, and losing to lower rated players, it wasn't a one or two point penalty.  I think I went from 2000 to closer to 1960 in that event.  

The only option then was to keep playing.  Yeah I went on a run of like 13 events won, but because of the lower ratings of others, I was not exactly gaining those points back.  My plan was to do well enough during the early rounds of Grand Prix Columbus and drop then.  Those were rated at like 32k, and going like 5-0 would have bumped me back up into a safe range to drop for the invite.  I even gave up my byes so I could play in the first three rounds!  

I had a sick sealed pool.  Multiple Spikeshot Goblins, a Loxodon Warhammer, quality removal.  In any one else's hands, the deck is a solid x-1 deck.  

In my hands, under the "pressure" I put myself under, it was a 6-3 deck. I started the Grand Prix off with a quick 2-0, then lost my next two.  Which sucked, but I figured I could win out, maybe day two, and try this rating thing again the next day. I won my next three rounds to sit at 5-2, needing to win my next one to draw into day two (yeah that was a thing too, you drew in to day two if you were x-2, Magic was weird then).  So I sit down for my "play-in" round needing to win one more to secure the draft portion of the event.  I had just run through three of the Ohio Valley end bosses, players that were consistently doing well in PTQs, Regionals, Nationals and such, and got paired against another quality player in Dan Rodemann.  

Dan's deck was absurd.  If you could register a constructed deck in a limited event, that is what he did.  He decided that he was gonna play Broodstar Affinity during this limited Grand Prix.  The games were not even close, and I think out of 864 players we were among the first finished.  I got beat, and ended up winning my last round to finish 6-3 (which I do believe is good enough for Day Two in Modern Grand Prix).  

Had I just not played, I probably would have gotten rating invites to Nationals, to the next Pro Tour (which I could not have gone too, but by not playing again, could have rolled over to another one.)

The ELO system hurt Magic, and I'm glad it's been replaced by Planeswalker Points, because you never should feel compelled to not play this amazing game.  

After Grand Prix Columbus, I started to work on stuff for Regionals, which at the time were gigantic events that fed in Nationals.  This large Standard event was the highlight for most players during the Magic year, and I knew that if I wanted to do well, I would have to either play Affinity or Tooth and Nail. 

I didn't want to play either of those decks. 

I ended up testing a Mono Red Land Destruction deck that went heavy on Artifact removal, to deal with Affinity, and Land Destruction to deal with the Tron pieces of Tooth and Nail.  Slith Firewalker and (Arc Slogger) were the main threats of the deck, but Goblin Charbelcher was one of the win conditions as well. 

I am pretty sure the rough skeleton for the deck came from an email that Mike Long sent.  Yeah back in the day, before Starcity went premium, Mike Long started a deck building newsletter, that I if I recall correctly came with a payment plan, or you could get random emails from his list.  The red deck was in a random one, and because it had Stone Rain in it, I loved it. 

Anyways, testing went well, and Regionals started off well, as I went 5-0, beating Affinity and Tooth and Nail just like I was supposed to!  Then I got paired up against one of the first people to play Elf and Nail in an event, split the first two games, and was winning the third game, when I missed a Culling Scales trigger. 

It would have killed a Chrome Mox which I played with the intention of not losing a giant Firewalker, but missing triggers back in 2003 was pretty much a death sentence.  My opponent was cool with not calling a judge, and in hindsight, I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, but I had integrity, and a good reputation for honest play, so I insisted on calling a judge, knowing full well what the ruling was going to be. 

It was a game loss. 

Yeah Magic rulings were weird back then too. 

I packed my cards, shook hands, won my next round, got a feature match for the next one, and things were going back to plan.  My opponent was on Affinity, and I took down game one easily.  Game two I boarded like I normally would, and got mana screwed, not a big deal it happens.  Game three I sided out some of the mass removal for more targeted removal, had a great hand, and then got wrecked by Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer

So in the two big events of the year so far, I ended up going 6-3.  Ratings invites were out of the question, Nationals invites would have to be done via Grinders at Nationals, and Fifth Dawn was coming out.  On top of that I took a job at The Lotus Guardian in Owensboro, KY (this turned out to be the future Legitmtg), so there was a lot of Magic to be played in the coming months. 

And then I met a girl. 

This week Fifth Dawn is added to the draft rotation, and in next week's article, we'll see how those Grinders went! 

Here is this week's draft! 

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Draft Video


Decklist


Gosh I really need to come off Affinity in the first draft of the week.  This deck was serviceable, but I knew that it was not a 3-0 deck.  Megatog would have been killer in this deck over the Myr Enforcer

Round 1


Round 2


I will be back next week with MD5! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

1 Comments

Apparently my computer has by Sensei at Tue, 01/19/2016 - 14:34
Sensei's picture

Apparently my computer has gotten more laggy since I last recorded a video. I made a video of the draft picks of the deck I played against you but when I tried the recorder and MTGOv4 simultaneously, it was a no go.