After departing Thursday afternoon from State College, I arrived in Sacramento from D.C. at about 7:30p, which was a bit ahead of schedule. After a brief cab ride downtown, I was at my destination: the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel.
Greetings from Room 1911
Hungry and with some time to burn before Casey made it in at 10:30 from San Francisco, I checked in and went exploring.
Maybe I'm spoiled from living in a college town for the last decade, but I was surprised to see that EVERYTHING was closed at 8pm on a Thursday night. Hell, even three different liquor and beer stores I looked up were closed. I settled on some snacks from 7-11 and stocked up on a couple of things I forgot to bring with me (aspirin, Chapstick, etc.)
Grand Prix Friday
Fast forward to Friday. After lunch at the Claim Jumper (or as I initially thought, the Clam Jumper), it was time to get into some Grand Prix action. About 10 minutes late for the free Mini Masters we got for pre-registering, Casey and I played some Standard until the 2HG event we were interested in fired at two. Christopher Rush and rk post were also setup already, so we got some cards signed.
The 2HG tournament was underway. Our pool was... mediocre. Casey built a decent UG build looking to abuse Master of Waves, while I piloted a BW build looking at maximizing removal, disruption, and life leach with Gray Merchant and Scholar of Athreos, both of which remind me of the back-breaking nature of Extort in 2HG from last season.
We ended up finishing the tournament 2-3, just missing a prize payout. Two of our losses were to some really close games that ended up swinging out of control due to a well-placed Cutthroat Maneuvers. Our third loss was due to getting our Scholar exiled while their's got to stay online for 6+ turns.
Grand Prix Saturday
Sacramento Convention Center
Time for the main event!
Even though I had two byes from the previous season and an included Sleep-In Special from my VIP registration, I ended up making the Player's Meeting since it was Casey's first Grand Prix, which can be overwhelming if you don't know what's going on.
At 1,854 people, this was the largest Magic Grand Prix in California history and the exhibition hall was PACKED.
Blue side of the pairings
Pass to the right
After round one, it was time to receive my pool and register a deck.
The registered deck with my four common sideboard cards on the right
The stuff I ended up not using
The white in my pool was pretty mediocre, with a couple of playables but nothing I was super excited about.
Red was almost there, as it had a lot of Heroic enablers, but my good Heroic creatures were spread amongst two colors and I didn't like them on my slower curve.
Blue had some solid spells and disruption in Voyage's End and Nimbus Naiad, but, again, nothing I was super-excited about.
With that said, Black and Green were shaping up to be the best colors for the pool and home of most of my rares. Agent of the Fates is a total stud if you land him and get to begin the Heroic engine. Boon of Erebos was also a star in this deck, as Theros removal is generally pretty bad and trading one mana and a card to negate their removal AND trigger Heroic is usually a good value.
Nessian Asp did his usual work as a beater, and he almost always slowed the game down to my pace when he dropped. Shipwreck Singer was also another star of this deck, as her abilities come out of nowhere and completely change the pace of the game and board state.
Agent of the Horizons was the darkhorse of the deck and ended up carrying several games for me, as unblockable + recurrence outlets for him are pretty good.
Round 1 - Bye
Round 2 - Bye
Round 3 - Loss, 1-0-1
Game 1 took us almost 45 minutes to complete, as it was his Scholar of Athreos + 12 mana (at the end of the game) versus my creatures and Whip of Erebos. I was able to keep most of his early and midgame board presence on board due to Agent of the Fates and enablers, but my removal for Scholar came late and my graveyard was picked apart by Whip of Erebos at that point.
This was also the first of several times over the weekend, where I dropped my opponent to 1 health and couldn't seal the deal.
My life total:20-19-16-15-19-23-20-28-26-24-21-31-30-29-41-40-44-41-44-41-43-40-38-40-38-36-34-32-28-11-12
Opponent's life total: 20-19-20-12-14-17-7-8-9-1-2-5-3-6-4-7-5-7-9-13-11-10
Opponent's life total: 20-19-20-12-14-17-7-8-9-1-2-5-3-6-4-7-5-7-9-13-11-10
With 10 minutes to play in Game 2, we ended up drawing, so my opponent got the round.
Round 4 - Win, 2-0
As much as I complained about it in round three, my opponent got me to 1 health twice in Game 2.
This was the round where Shipwreck Singer was an absolute all-star, as my opponent dropped an Elspeth and had 13 soldiers on the board at one point which I was sitting on 7 health and blanked his removal with a Boon of Erebos. Whipping back my Asps AND having the mana to make them Monstrous was also a pretty spicy maneuver and highlight form this round.
Thankfully, Sip of Hemlock has that 2 damage built in, as that was my finisher in game two after holding off the Elspeth beatdown.
Round 5 - Win, 2-1
Nessian Asp was the all-star of this round and carried me in games one and three. Bringing in the Bow of Nylea as a sideboard card also proved to be a surprise for my opponent, as the lifegain and +1/+1 counters on the Asp proved to be hard to deal with.
This was yet another time that Sip of Hemlock's 2 damage was enough to seal the deal for me.
Round 6 - Win, 2-1
After a mulligan in game one, I was unable to gain any traction against my opponent's deck. No green mana rendered half of my hand useless.
Game two was probably the most stressful I played in the tournament. Fade to Antiquity came in to combat my opponent's Spear of Heliod, and I ended up drawing it the turn after he Bestowed a then-unseen Celestial Archon. With no answer in hand to the flying first striker, I had to leave the Spear and exile the Enchantment Creature. With no Whip on board, attacking into the Spear wasn't really in the cards with minimal bombs on board and in deck. Bow of Nylea again did some heavy work by loading up Nessian Asp and Agent of the Horizons with counters to make an alpha strike.
Game three saw the Bow of Nylea stay in, which made a nasty combo with Agent of the Horizon and the Whip of Erebos, which allowed me to come back from 10-23 to a total of 63-3 before my opponent scooped.
Round 7 - Loss, 0-2
With my deck, you can imagine how backbreaking a mulligan to four can be. No chance whatsoever in game one as I got steamrolled hard.
Game two saw Prophet of Kruphix flooding the board before I was able to draw an answer for her. At that point, my opponent's Bow of Nylea was on board and I was stumbling to catch up.
Round 8 - Loss, 1-2
My opponent was running a tight deck of Heroic and Bestow, which made Feral Invocation that much better. I had removal and answers for creatures, but having to deal with the Bestow creatures after they dropped off proved to be too much to deal with.
Shipwreck Singer had another field day in Game 2, though, and was able to allow me to dictate the board state.
Round 9 - Win, 2-1
I actually didn't take any notes on this game, as I was starting to tilt from missing Day 2. From the life pad, it looks like it was a very grindy matchup in my favor, with life gain negating chunk damage my opponent threw at me while slowly whittling his life total down.
Wrap-up
As my opponent and I discussed afterwards, it's almost better feeling to lose that final round, so you finish 5-4 instead of 6-3, as it makes the near miss sting a lot less. Even in the 0-2 loss in round 7, I never felt like winning was completely out of grasp with the deck, and, honestly, I was surprised that it did as well as it did.
The round three loss was also a point of disappointment, as having only one game determine who made it was a total bummer, especially since I got him to 1 life at a point in the game and ended up losing it.
Also, I'm not really sure why or how I missed them, but I think Returned Phalanx should have had a home in this deck. I know I passed on it in early construction due to the Defender and blue mana requirement (and having a very light blue splash), but I think one or both would have made a fine addition to the deck.
Also, I'm not really sure why or how I missed them, but I think Returned Phalanx should have had a home in this deck. I know I passed on it in early construction due to the Defender and blue mana requirement (and having a very light blue splash), but I think one or both would have made a fine addition to the deck.
Checking the rankings today, I came in 268 of 1,854, which is nice I suppose. 208 points is also a nice jumpstart to the current season, especially with Richmond and Cincinnati coming up soon.
At that point, things were wrapped up in the Convention Center and it was time to call it a night.
Afterwards, it was off to try to find SOMETHING in Sacramento that was open on Friday at 9 at night. Thankfully, we found Mayahuel and got some delicious Mexican and spicy tequila drinks.
Dat wall art = <3
Grand Prix Sunday
Still kind of on tilt from a disappointing run on Saturday, Sunday didn't go much better. A 1-3 run with Monoblack in the Sunday Super Series Standard and two first round bump offs in win-a-box events proved to be incredibly disheartening.
At that point, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon. Surprisingly, the artist's lines were still really long (for those that were still there), so I decided I wanted to round up some grub and call it an early day. Again, NOTHING WAS OPEN WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS CITY?!
After wandering around a bit, I ended up finding a place called Pizza Rock and got their Ol' Smokey pizza. Finished off the bottle of bourbon and watched some sports on tv before calling it a night.
Goodbye from Room 1911
Wrapping Up
With SCG Open: Baltimore and Grand Prix Richmond and Grand Prix Cincinnati looming on the horizon, I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of non-PTQ, large-scale tournaments. I'm excited to see where Born of the Gods takes the meta, as this was an uneasy Standard season for me, as no deck ever seemed to properly "click" with me.
Thanks for the great time, GP Sacramento and Channel Fireball... this was definitely a great first impression of the west coast Magic community.
-- Michifus
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