Even though there weren’t any big events, this was a Magic-filled week for me.
Wednesday Night Draft
Easily the highlight of the week was this sweet Wednesday night draft deck. We had a pod of 10, so instead of the usual 2 rounds of play followed by a finals split, we ended up playing out 4 full rounds of matches. I finished as the only undefeated, going 4-0 (dropping only one game) with this beauty of a Gearhulk Reanimator deck.
Let’s be honest. This deck is not good but it was incredibly fun to play so I’m glad it did well. I was floundering to put together a black based artifact deck but was low on artifact count heading late into pack 2. I had taken an early Unlicensed Disintegration, but red wasn’t open. I was lucky enough to open the black Gearhulk in pack 2. I thought I was in blue for a long time, picking up some filler, Contraband Kingpin and Gearseeker Serpeants. But when I got a 3rd pick Combustible Gearhulk in pack 3 I snapped it up, unsure if I’d play it or not.
Heading into deck building I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be UB or RB. This RB deck was just too sweet not to play, and it ended up playing out really well. The core of this deck ended up being comprised of mostly last pick filler cards that just happened to end up in my pile: 2 Workshop Assistants, 2 Cathartic Reunions and Incendiary Sabotage. I didn’t pick any of them with the intention of playing them, but the stars aligned and these draft dregs turned into an undefeated deck. Incendiary Sabotage was a complete all-star as I played against a few aggressive decks. It’s not often you see a Consulate Skygate / Scrapheap Scrounger deck go undefeated but I won’t complain!
Sealed PPTQ
I bombed out of a Sealed PPTQ on Saturday. I was pumped to go play some limited after going 6-0 in the double draft on Wednesday night. My pool was pretty medium and I think I made the right choice in my deck build. Unfortunately, I got a little unlucky and I ended up losing round 1 to a Grixis strategy featuring Nightmarket Lookout along side Aetherworks Marvel. Unfortunately for me, my opponent also had two Unlicensed Disintegration which he drew every game. I dropped at 1-2.
I did play a really good, close match in round 3 against a cool dude. Jeff runs the store at Batter Up that hosted the PPTQ. He served in the Army and was recovering from knee surgery that he just had this past Wednesday to repair an on-duty injury. We played a really tight GW mirror and Jeff came out on top. It was a fun match, so shout out to Jeff for his service and I hope he has a good recovery!
Magic Online and Streaming
I streamed a couple of times again this week. I had Friday off so I planned to stream a bunch during the day. I woke up way too early by accident and after some errands fired up the stream for some KLD sealed and draft. After an 0-7 record, I decided to pack it in. It was not a successful day.
After coming home from the Saturday PPTQ early I decided to play some standard online. After running through another league with Mardu Vehicles, I was enjoying the deck but I wanted to try and put together my own take on it. I wasn’t impressed with most of the red cards and I decided to brew a more BW focused aggro deck. I put a list together and took it for a spin in an impromptu stream Saturday night. We ended up going 5-0 in a league and the deck played out really well. I’m going to continue playing some games with it and will probably write up a deck tech for it so look for that sometime soon.
I planned to stream again on Sunday, but I’ve started getting sick so I decided against it. I bounced around between the SCG Open coverage, World Magic Cup, Epic Card Game World Championships and the replays of a Hearthstone event. I usually only watch Magic, but it was cool to see coverage of a couple other card games. The SCG Open was disappointing since every single match was some combination of UW Flash or GB Delirium decks on both sides. The numbers I heard were that each deck represented about 30% of Day 2. It’s going to be a long season….
And that was my week in Magic!
Here’s a sample hand from Gearhulk Reanimator:
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