My Invitational Experience

The Invitational

So Jason and I just got back from Indianapolis after the Star City Games Invitational and Open. I’m not going to say I was completely disappointed with my performance – I finished no less than .500 in all three events of the weekend, but I can say that I wished that I had tested more. For some reason or another, Jason and I didn’t take the tournament as seriously as we should have until the two weeks leading up to the tournament. But even then, we made a huge mistake in testing. We ended up hitting up about four or five nightly Standard tournaments at different shops in preparation in the first week of testing. Not a bad idea in theory – after all we’d test against different people, get used to other people’s playstyles and such. Except, of course, this was the Invitational. I have absolutely nothing against the people that I played, but I think everyone can agree that decks at a nightly tournament aren’t exactly the ones that I would see at the Invitational. If, we were instead testing solely for the Open, then the nightly tournaments would be fine, because there are a wide range of decks seen there.

How did I qualify for the Invitational? My best performance was at the Star City Games Open: Phoenix, where I got 16th with Maverick. Obviously, that alone wasn’t enough to qualify, and there’s not nearly enough events on the west coast (within a reasonable drive) to grind out the points. It might be possible, but I haven’t tried it. I actually won a Legacy IQ in Tucson at Amazing Discoveries to earn my invite; I split with Jon Kornacki in the finals for it, so thanks to him for giving me the invite.

The deck I had sleeved up for Standard was RG Aggro. It was a typically run-of-the-mill list, though I had switched out the Metamorphs for Hellriders in testing. But I found I wasn’t hitting the double red consistently enough, so I ended up switching back, though I could have probably just change my Mountain count to make it easier for Hellrider. The list isn’t important; what was important was that I wasn’t happy with the deck. I kept losing to tokens decks (though I didn’t have Ratchet Bomb in the sideboard until much later). If you’re reading this and seriously questioning “Why does losing to tokens matter? You’re not going to see this at the Invitational!” And well, yeah, you’re right. My continual losing to tokens clouded my judgment and I failed to realize that no pro actually plays tokens. So I could have actually stuck with RG Aggro, as I was doing decent with the deck (aside from the abysmal tokens matchup). And if RG Aggro actually has a good matchup against tokens, let me know, please. I don’t play enough Standard to really know. Bonfire of the Damned probably changes the matchup, but I haven’t played with it enough to see how it does.

The next deck I switched to was Naya Aggro. I ran one Birthing Pod, so it wasn’t a Pod deck; it just used it for value. I loved the build I had before I switched yet again; the mana was atrocious but it was still a fun deck to play. I definitely loved the versatility of the deck, and it felt like a Standard version of Maverick. Restoration Angel on a Wolfir Silverheart to re-soulbond was just dirty.

But, something else happened. The Tuesday night before we left on Thursday, we were lent a Solar Flare deck to test against. But, we figured, hey – why not build the Delver-less Delver deck? And sure enough, we had most of the pieces for it, and we built it.

Well, I’m not going to say I regret it, but it was probably a bad idea.

Going into the Invitational, I realized it was the first real tournament I was playing this deck in. Yeah. Not a good idea. I have played Delver in the past before, and this deck operates similarly, but really? This is the Invitational. I have no idea why I audibled this last minute.

So, how did I do in Standard? 0-4. Won ONE game the whole four rounds. Was I mad about it? No, not at all. The thing about this tournament is that there is no shame in losing! These people are all people who know what they are doing, or know enough at least to get by. It’s not as if I lost to a new player who didn’t know how triggered abilities worked. Losing that kind of match due to variance can be extremely frustrating. What you see at these Invitationals are the people that did extremely well – Gerry Thompson, Eli Kassis, AJ Sacher, etc. What you didn’t see are the people that scrubbed out – there was one pro player that scrubbed out of all three events in Indianapolis. I faced Reid Duke in the 0-2 bracket. It happens.

Of course, since I did go 0-4 in Standard, I doubt you really want to read a tournament on it (I don’t remember all that much, though, anyway). I can give you an overview of it. I don’t think you’ll be surprised by the matchups though.

Round 1: UW Delver. 0-2
Round 2: UW Delver. 0-2
Round 3: Reid Duke, Grixis. 0-2
Round 4: UW Delver. 1-2 (Woo! One win!)
0-4

Well, I have to say, we did ‘test’ the UW Delver matchup with my deck. It wasn’t horrible in testing, but to date I’m still largely unfamiliar with the matchup. But hey, we tested for Delver, we expected it, and we were right (though I am sure most people would be right about it as well).

My hardest time against the Delver decks was stabilizing. I was running one Day of Judgment main deck, but couldn’t seem to find it in the times that it mattered. In addition, my Blade Splicers ran into Vapor Snag all day so I just died to Geist of Saint Traft most of the time.

Though, Round 4 was the most interesting match. It involved a total of five Consecrated Sphinxes (three on my side, two on his) – but of course, his deck was running Sword of War and Peace, and I didn’t board in my Divine Offerings (as I didn’t see them games 1 or 2). Ouch. Of course I know that was a mistake.

What about Legacy? Well, nothing was poetic as Day 1. I 4-0’d Legacy. Considering that I am primarily a Legacy player, I’m very happy about this result. At least I won where it mattered (to me). And for anyone that knows me, I’ve been a Maverick player for a very long time, ever since Green Sun’s Zenith and Mental Misstep were printed. GW Survival was my favorite deck of all time, and this one is basically the same deck, minus the combo kill of Vengevine and the tutoring of Survival. So of course this was the deck I piloted.

With Standard, we tested extensively for the Delver match up. With Legacy, we expected the Sneak Show matchup (though we didn’t test it as much as we should have). I put three Phyrexian Revokers in my sideboard to stop Griselbrand and Sneak Attack (as you can actually see the card your opponent puts into play from the Show and Tell before you name it, and it stops them from activating it completely). I also ran Path to Exile instead of Gut Shot to fight Griselbrand. I also ran two Aven Mindcensor main deck – a card that I previously had in when I first built the deck, but took out when it wasn’t working as much as I wanted to. But, in a combo heavy metagame, there is almost no better feeling than flashing in an Aven Mindcensor in against an Intuition, especially when there is already a Thalia in play. And speaking of Thalia, I had been running a 4th Thalia in my side board as a way to fight combo, but I figured – why not just run Thorn of Amethyst? Surely, having to pay 3 mana to cast a Brainstorm hurts a lot rather than having the Thalia stuck in my hand. Plus, Thorn is better in a control matchup, where it doesn’t get hit by Swords to Plowshares, Wrath, or Terminus.

Anyway, you probably want to hear about my matchups at the Invitational. And well – it was the opposite of Standard. I only faced one Sneak Show in the four rounds (actually make that thirteen rounds – I didn’t face it at all in the Legacy Open, and it was everywhere).

Round 1: Sneak Show. 2-1
Round 2: Burn. 2-0
Round 3: Combo Elves. 2-1
Round 4: Team America. 2-0.
4-0

The Combo Elves matchup was odd. Apparently, my opponent did something for a misregistered decklist the round before, and he got a game loss in the first game of the match with me? I’m not sure how that happened, but… I’ll take it. I’ve said this before, but I am a Combo Elf magnet. If you play combo elves in the same tournament as me, chances are you’ll face me. And I generally play a deck that has a terrible matchup against Combo Elves. But I was able to pull it off this time – an Aven Mindcensor shut off a Crop Rotation, several Green Sun’s Zenith and fetches, and a Phyrexian Revoker shut off two Heritage Druids. I guess the hate for Sneak Show just spilled over into Combo Elves.

Anyway, I had tons of fun at the Invitational. It’s a completely different experience. These people – not just the people at the Invitational, but at the Open as well – have a completely different mindset for Magic than us West Coasters (or Arizonans, more specifically). These people grind out large events weekly. Another player just casually mentioned that he had played in two tournaments with 7+ rounds the week before. I’ve played in maybe less than 10 7+ round tournaments in my life? And these people can drive less than four hours to get to a decent sized tournament. That only gets you halfway to Los Angeles here.

Lessons Learned:

1. If you are going to an Invitational, testing at your local FNM is a complete waste of time. Obviously, most of you (I hope) will know better – but on the off chance that you didn’t know (for example if you solely play Legacy and just happened to stumble yourself into an invite), or thought that you are good enough anyway with the game, that just familiarizing yourself with Standard is enough, don’t do it. It’s nothing against the players at FNM; some may be Invitational-caliber, but sometimes the decks that you face just aren’t the decks you’ll face at a higher level event. If you’re testing for the Open, then FNMs are OK, if only for the diversity of the decks you’ll face.
2. Try not to audible. I know tons of pros do it, but most likely you won’t be able to pull it off as effectively as they did. Especially in the Delver mirror match, where it plays a lot like the Caw Blade mirror, it really comes down to the better player (or whichever player nut draws on the other). Obviously, with my audible in Standard, I didn’t know the matchup as well as I should have. However, with Legacy, even though my matchup against Sneak Show is meh, and my matchup against Combo Elves is also meh, me knowing the deck and how it operates against those two decks is more important than its actual win percentages against either deck. After all, when variance hits, it can hit very hard in your favor (or against it). And at that point, win percentages don’t matter. It’s really hypocritical of me to take Maverick (a deck that I am very familiar with, but was advised against in favor of a deck with Griselbrand) to the Invitational for Legacy, and then audible in Standard, especially when it’s a format I know very little about.
3. Get lots of rest. Thankfully my brother and I got a very nice hotel that was literally next door to the convention center (Hyatt Regency). It was also next to Steak and Shake (all day err day) and pretty much any other restaurant you wanted. It was even connected to a mall. Jason and I made sure to get around 6-8 hours of sleep a night. The tournament runs very, very long; to the point where when you’re in round 6 or 7, it feels that round 1 of that morning was round 1 of last week’s FNM.
4. Access to food. Of course, we didn’t obey this perfectly, since on Sunday for the Legacy Open, we ate nothing more than a slice of bread and coffee from Starbucks – the next meal we ate was at 10pm at night. I’d advise eating a bit more often (and more) than that.
5. Learn that variance is part of the game. Yes, it is extremely frustrating to lose to your opponent’s topdecks. And sometimes I’m really bad at handling this. But at the same time, you’ve also had your share of lucky top decks. Learning to accept this stops you from going on tilt and messing up further plays. It’s probably one of the toughest things to accept.
6. Test test test. We probably should have tested a lot more. No, wait, not probably. We should have tested more than we did. Get a good playtesting group together. Try not to do tournaments. Even if you can earn some prize (we did open up a Cavern of Souls in prize packs that we used in my Maverick deck), you can grind out tons of more games just at the kitchen table or during open play at a local shop.
7. Be prepared. You’ll be facing tons of named players at the Invitational. Don’t be intimidated. Take it round by round; don’t think to yourself I just have to win the next three rounds and I’m in. It creates too much pressure for yourself. Instead, just think in the moment (“okay, I just have to win this game” vs “okay, I just have to win two more matches”). I feel that it allows you to concentrate more on the turn by turn plays, which in turn contributes to your overall tournament performances. At SCG Open: Phoenix, even though going into round 6 I was 3-2 (having lost two matches in a row), I never thought “I just need to win out to place in the money”. Instead, I simply thought “Okay. It’s round 6. You can do this.” Then I ended up winning out. But I felt like I was more relaxed (though except when round 8 went to time).

Standard Open
Well, this was a lot more relaxing than the Invitational. Kind of. It was ten rounds. Biggest tournament I’ve been to. But, of course, given my Standard record, I didn’t finish it. I ended up 3-3. It turns out x-3 could have placed, but I’ll be honest – even if I did place, I misplayed so much due to my experience in the format that I would have felt bad that I cashed in over someone else who might have deserved it over me. I had some horrible, horrible misplays that would make most players cringe and make you question why I even qualified for the Invitational (hint: one of them involves a Phantasmal Image).

Matchups:
Round 1 – Esper Control. 0-2
Round 2 – UW Delver. 2-1. Yay! First Standard match I won!
Round 3 – UW Delver. 1-2
Round 4 – Wolf Run. 2-1
Round 5 – GBW Tokens. 2-1.
Round 6 – UW Delver. 0-2.
3-3

So yeah, 3 of the decks were Delver. At least I faced some other decks! I didn’t test against Wolf Run at all with my UW Midrange, so I am happy I managed to lucksack that win.
Also, the GBW Tokens matchup was really funny. Ended up casting not one, not two, not three, but a total of six Day of Judgments in Game 2. I had a Tamiyo and a Gideon out, then he casts Entreat the Angels, miracle, for ten Angels. I +2 Gideon and +1 Tamiyo on his Vault of the Archangel (after all, making him gain 40 life seems like bad news for me), then the next turn after Gideon was completely obliterated out of existence, I -2’d Tamiyo to draw ten cards. Seems pretty good. I drew into two Snapcasters and two Day of Judgments with those cards, so it would be tough for my opponent to come back.

What did I learn from this? I need to learn the format better. I’m sure I could do better in Standard, but my inexperience really shows. Quite frankly it was embarrassing.

Legacy Open
I made one change from my sideboard from the Invitational to the Open. I bought a Linvala, Keeper of Silence (since I had forgotten mine at home) and put it in place of the 3rd Revoker. Of course I was expecting Sneak Show, but Linvala also answers Griselbrand, and obviously she is amazing in the mirror match. Here were my matchups:

Round 1 – Burn. 2-0.
Round 2 – UW Miracles. 1-1-1.
Round 3 – Aggro Loam. 0-2.
Round 4 – UB Delver/Stiflenought. 2-0.
Round 5 – James Rynkiewicz, RUG Delver. 0-2.
Round 6 – UR Delver. 0-2
Round 7 – UR Delver. 2-0.
Round 8 – Maverick. 2-1.
Round 9 – Austin Yost, Maverick. 2-1.
5-3-1

The UW Miracles match was interesting. Game 2 I locked him out of the game with Gaddock Teeg + Sylvan Safekeeper. He can’t Terminus, he can’t Entreat the Angels, he can’t Wrath, he can’t Jace. He was running one O-Ring maindeck, but Safekeeper stops that. He would need some number of Swords to Plowshares, where the number of Swords is greater than the amount of lands that I have. Game 3, I Green Sun for two for a Scryb Ranger to help block some Angels (I had Mom in play). Unfortunately, he Entreated the Angels again, to help block more and eventually draw the game. If I had gotten Gaddock Teeg, I could have won; he told me he would have scooped on the spot if I had gotten Teeg. Oh well. Lesson learned.
The Maverick mirrors were incredibly difficult. It’s extremely grindy and relies on who ever sticks a Mother of Runes first, or gets more Knights than the other. My first Maverick mirror was running a Linvala maindeck, which won him the first game. He admitted he was new to the deck, and it showed a little bit – those small misplays he had allowed me to incrementally gain advantage over him.

The second Maverick mirror match was with an admittedly more skilled pilot: Austin Yost. I aggroed out on him with two large Knight of the Reliquaries versus his Ooze and his own Knight. He had an Ooze, Hierarch, and Knight in play, with a Savannah, Dryad Arbor, and a Karakas. I use both Knights to Wasteland his Arbor and Savannah, making it so his Ooze couldn’t shrink my Knights fast enough before I could kill him. Game 2 was similar, except it was him that was killing me with the Knights. Game 3 was incredibly close. He got out two Knights and an Ooze, whereas I had only a Scryb Ranger and two Mother of Runes. Eventually, I find an Aven Mindcensor which stop him from Knighting too aggressively. Then, when his Knights are something like 15/15s or something (I never bothered to check), I find my own Knight. I immediately find my Bojuka Bog to even out the game. At this point in time, his Ooze was only a 3/3 – no other creatures were in the graveyard. And because he had been so aggressively using Knights, he didn’t have much land in play. He did land an Elspeth though, and started grinding out Soldier tokens. Then he lands a Gideon. Uh oh. He +2s Gideon. On my turn, I use both Moms to give my Knight pro green and white, and kill the Gideon in one hit with the Knight, Scryb Ranger, and Aven Mindcensor. Then on his turn, he attacks with the Ooze, both Knights, and two Soldier tokens (one was pumped with Elspeth). I use Ranger to untap my Knight, he responds by tapping his Mother of Runes to target his Knight. I respond by Swords-ing the Knight, putting him at 26. Then I block the other Knight with my own, then fetch Maze of Ith to stop the flying Soldier token. I take only 4 damage from the alpha strike, and he had to Wasteland his own Cavern of Souls to trade his Knight for mine, since his had shrunk from the Bojuka Bog. Soon after that, Elspeth dies, then I have to take him down from 26 down to 0 with 2 minutes or so left on the clock. I do so, and take the match. I finish 5-3-1, good for 67th place – just out of the money on tiebreakers.

So that concludes my report. Pretty much the whole weekend was devoted to the three tournaments. Plus Steak and Shake. It’s definitely the most Magic I’ve played in a row – 8 rounds Friday, 6 rounds Saturday, and 9 rounds on Sunday. But, it’s also another perspective. Many of the players are used to these kinds of weekends. It’s nothing special for them. And Jason and I are here in Arizona, playing, what, maybe one time a week? And it’s just a four round Legacy tournament. Maybe an FNM every so often, or just a game here and there for fun. I’ve learned a lot in these past two weeks. Hopefully I’ll get the heart to play at FNMs more often since now I’ve started getting used to Standard (kind of).

I know that to most people, the lessons learned are “well, duh”. But out here in Arizona, it’s incredibly difficult to grind out the tournaments that the mid-westers, east coasters, and Californians do. Most of the Magic played are just the weekly Legacy or Standard. There is a Magic scene, so if you happen to move here, you won’t be out of your fix for card slinging, but it’s no where near the competition elsewhere. And after all, I am really just a Legacy player, so getting into a Magic grinder’s mindset is eye opening.

I know I haven’t posted any decklists. If there’s any interest in it, I can. Feel free to ask any questions about my performance or any general questions about the Invitational.