Pro Tour New York Report - Zvi Mowshowitz *Top 4*

**While I was writing this report, I received the news of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Needless to say, I'm no longer in the right mood to be writing the kind of light hearted report I had in mind. I was going to turn it all in at once under the byline " No mercy . No shame. No part two." Instead, I'm going to send as part one everything I'd written before I found out this morning. Rest assured I'm fine, without the news or Alex's phone call to make sure I was fine I probably still wouldn't know as I write this. As it is, I'll try to write part two when I'm mentally ready to do so. Hopefully that will be soon.

The last two years, Alex Shvartsman and I have been ready to draft. Not as ready as we were this year, but definitely ready to do a reasonable job relative to the other teams. The first time we had long time friend Mike Pistulnik as our third, and the next year after realizing that when the three of us play together we never, ever seem to win we instead played with Trevor Blackwell. I mean, I suspect our rating was still under 1600. So in the first round of that tournament, we sit down at tables one through three against a bunch of little kids. I win my match, but then Alex and Trevor both manage to lose and I have to listen to some eight year old tell me how my teammate (not saying which one, not sure if he was right) blew the match. That's not fun, although looking back on it it does actually seem kind of funny. So two Team PTs later I have two T-shirts and two PT points. We still haven't gotten a chance to draft.

This time was going to be different. We'd paid our dues, and we'd picked up Justin Gary as our third. We'd wanted Justin Gary last year, but we got our signals crossed and after a few iterations he ended up on The Fix with Bob Maher and David Williams. They did amazingly in the Sealed Deck, as did Justin's previous team, but this time their drafts didn't go too well. We played Grand Prix: Columbus together to see if we clicked or not. We seemed to be clicking just fine, but our card pools were less than amazing, I actually managed to get a game loss for a deck registration error for the first time in a while and we ended up only going 3-2. This was a team Grand Prix, so that meant we got to watch the next day. Still, we left feeling good about the team, with a slightly higher rating and confident that we could handle Sealed Deck without much additional practice.

Draft was another story. This tour managed to sneak up on me thanks to my scramble to be ready for first Worlds and then Grand Prix: Denver. By the time I started drafting every day, there were only two weeks left! It's even harder to test for a Team PT than a regular tour, especially in advance and especially when your teammates are all over the map, although I was more than fine with one-on-one drafts. If you want to read more about my preparations and general draft strategies, those columns will be running on the Sideboard. Believe me, this is going to be long enough as it is. After two weeks of drafting every day one-on-one with Scott Johns and then often going and looking for another draft either online or at Neutral Ground I felt ready. I would have liked to have more time though. In another week I would have had things a lot more in-depth and precise, and after that I could have started working on more aggressive color switching and such.

The other players started getting to New York on Tuesday. Some players come in from Argentina, and they've literally never team drafted before. Team Deadguy is there, Sigurd Eskeland and a few other Scandinavians as well. Ryan Fuller comes in, and there are two drafts going on so the only players left are him, Alex, me and Mike Pistulnik. We decide to draft two-on-two, with the two players consulting on what the third deck takes. We have a strategy conference, and agree to try Alex's idea of putting five color green on the right. He had some reasons that could have been reasonable. He felt that it won the matchup and helped out the overall structure of the draft. I knew it wasn't going to happen because it meant abandoning the WRb deck that I knew we wanted to try and put in seat A, and I wasn't prepared to give that up. One of my goals was to make sure and convince the rest of my team that I was right, but that was for tomorrow when we'd be testing more privately. Next Ryan and Mike had to decide on a strategy. So Ryan says "we'll play whatever your strategy is" and then tells Mike to tell him what it is! My scouting alarm bell went off, but I figured Mike was smart enough not to give away anything important. Still, that was really frustrating.

So we do that draft with a totally unusual strategy for us, and Ryan is definitely not noticing the important little stuff at all. I also disagree with a bunch of his individual card choice type stuff, but that's just a difference of opinion and I could be wrong. When I was drafting against Scott, it was clear that I could generally get the better of the draft as a team draft but that he knew the individual cards and little tricks for the decks better than I did. I was happy to have teammates who would be very good with that. We get the decks ready to play, and since we each drafted a side I propose that I play the A deck (where I was that time) against Ryan in A while Mike and Alex play. But Ryan only wants to play the B deck, saying he was ABU's green mage. He wasn't green in the one feature match they had. In fact, that feature match was against Mike Pistulnik and the Ancient Kavus, and he played directly against Mike. It also sounds like at the very least he put shenanigans on the stack, although it didn't resolve that time. At any rate, their green deck in the middle pulls it out as our Red/Blue/Black doesn't actually have a way to win, but we win the other two matches.

The next day I got up early to take two trains for about an hour down to the very far end of Brooklyn, arriving at the house of teammate Alex Shvartsman. Meeting us there were Justin Gary, Eivind Nitter and Sigurd Eskeland, and they'd brought along a third. They weren't all playing together, but it was the best we could do. We got in three drafts and won them all. We played the real strategy there with slight modifications, and it was working very well. I demolished Sigurd's white/blue deck in the first draft, lost a close match in the second and won a reasonable one in the third. Sigurd didn't understand why I was doing as well as I was, although he did understand that I lost the one I lost due to a lack of quality green cards in the draft - both teams had very poor green decks. As I'd found, the secret to winning both sides of the blue on green matchup was in the details and the positioning. We also had two specialists in the positions and were coordinating better. In short, things were working out exactly the way I'd hoped they would. However, we also played a Sealed Deck and decided to play out all nine matches. Both of us opened very good Sealed Decks. I lost to their Red/Black/Blue thanks to multiple Jilts and lost to Sigurd's green deck thanks to some double Armadillo Cloaking and something involving Verdeloth the Ancient , who as we'll see later on is an uncommon in Sealed for some reason. I come back to win games four and five and he takes game six while we're waiting for me to get a shot at Nitter, whose deck can't handle mine. We end up losing 5-4 after the last match. We then go to dinner at a Russian restaurant Alex recommended, and I headed home. I was feeling really confident about draft, but worried about the Sealed Deck.

The next day we show up just after noon at Neutral Ground for yet more practice, with instructions to be subtle about the white in Justin's deck so we don't alert anyone else. For our first draft of the day Gary Wise substitutes in for Justin Gary, since he's there, Justin hasn't showed yet since the bus he was on had broken down and cost him an hour and Alex wanted to get a draft going. Since Gary Wise was on Potato Nation he knew the plan. When we were drafting with Justin the day before we basically had the same view of his deck and almost all the time I agreed with what he wanted to pick. The stuff Gary Wise was talking about (and he was indeed talking, since we hadn't worked together before) I didn't agree with much at all. Regardless, we win the draft handily. The next draft, Justin is back in his proper place. Gary Wise fills in for their A player, Dustin Stern takes the B seat and I forget who their C player was. At any rate, my deck goes totally to hell. I get access to so little green that I end up base white and use two Helionauts to try and keep my mana base relatively under control. I wouldn't have exactly had a deck, but we open a Goblin Trenches and Dustin Stern decides to ship me two Captain's Maneuvers since they obviously suck. Still, my deck just can't deal with his flyers. Alex wins his match, but then Justin lost. He then points out that it's now 3-3 and he won games 3, 4 and 5, and I tell him that he won 3-2 since it's best three out of five. Turned out we forgot to clarify that, so all six of us split the cards.

For our third draft of the day, we took on EFro, Kyle Rose and Kamiel Cornelisson, also known as A Little Too Sick. For the first time, we have a real team on our hands. They're not just three opponents, they're a real team that's prepared. When Kyle Rose is clearly happy about getting a Ruham Djinn in the A seat, it's clear that they are using the same strategy we are. And you know what happens? I get outdrafted. Just flat out no excuses outdrafted. I lose the mirror because of his Dead Ringers and Coalition Honor Guard , and I could have adjusted our picks in such a way that he didn't have them. If that happens, I would have won thanks to my usual abundance of fat. Instead, he managed to pull off a situation where I could never quite attack and I just sat there helplessly until he found a way to win. I keep it close, but it's not happening, and because of that we lose the draft. The good news is I learned some hugely important lessons, and knew to think more about the mirror matchup. My basic conclusion was that even as highly as I was taking them Dead Ringers and Coalition Honor Guard were even more ridiculous than previously thought.

Finally it's about time to head over to tournament registration. We're one of the first teams to get there. The problem is we still don't have a good name. For Grand Prix: Columbus Adrian Sullivan hooked us up with the secret of a good Grand Prix team name, which is to use bad Japanese translation, and we were team 100 Super Fun Good Time. That was fine once, but no good for a Pro Tour. It was suggested we call ourselves My Team Part 17 after the My Fires incident, and I was fine with it. It's also great to fit the number 17 into the name. I think if it had been suggested as any other number I would have insisted on changing it to 17. That number appears in the weirdest places, but as an Illuminatus I can't reveal any more information on the subject. You're not cleared for that one.

As an aside now, I will list what I feel looking at the player list are the five most notable or funny team names that won't otherwise get mentioned over the course of the report. They were: All Cards Must Be Mint (James/Romig/Boneau), Fellowship of the Ting (Edwards/Rank/Crosby and my personal favorite), Smooth Criminal (you guessed it, Long/Blackwell/Hubble), Trust the French (Hardie/Croft/Bongiovani) and UKilledMyFatherPrepareToDie (Miller/JensenA/Dull). Coming up with a good team name is a mixture of art and science, but mostly it's just about randomly thinking of something. The rest of my top ten will all get a mention anyway, so keep an eye out for them. Ed. Note - Wow, I never insert notes like this into an article, but I just had to point out how much I liked " [Stalking Tiger Hidden Gibbon" as well - Scott]

After being dragged under Pennsylvania Station to a really bad Pizza place by someone not on the team who should have known better and quickly lost first his restaurant selection privileges and soon afterwards his speaking privileges, we did more work on draft, especially our signals and what had gone wrong against A Little Too Sick. The signals were pretty basic, but they got most of the job done. On the other hand, we did have some really good ones in there, including some fake signaling. Included in our method was a large amount of pointing, a large amount of shrugging and nodding, and a lot of giving the thumbs up and thumbs down. Whatever it takes.

The next morning we get there with plenty of time to spare, and hang out before the players' meeting. We meet up with Chad Ellis and Rob Dougherty. We mention to Rob that we were talking about selling out to them for the team name but we couldn't find him the day before, and Chad informs us his team name is Your Move Games TNG, which evokes much groaning when I figure it out. I of course immediately offer in jest to DS9 it up, since that was a much better show and set on a far off outpost (like say New York) but it never had a real chance of actually happening in any form. Rob could only offer us a box each, which was quite generous of him but means nothing to me and Alex because we write for the Sideboard. If I want product I can basically just ask them to mail it to me at this point.

Since Chad Ellis has come up, this is a good time to give fair warning and offer an apology. First, the warning. There will be no mercy . We were on the receiving end of some exceptionally bad play considering it was a Pro Tour, and I fully intend to come out and say it when it happens. On the bright side there will also be much savage topdecking for match wins. I don't slowroll people. I bring up Chad because he suggested both that he liked getting as much detail as possible in match reports (which I agree with) and because he's super nice in general and in particular about his opponents. The extent to which he'll go out of the way to avoid saying someone just outright blundered is quite extensive. But in this case, I'd like to say that Scott Johns was right overall and particularly right here. You suck. So do I, and I'm working on that. The important thing is to suck less and keep trying to improve. My standards are impossibly high, so stay tuned for more equal opportunity insulting, not to mention butt kicking.

Now for the apology. I failed to procure our decklists. After we were done using our first decklists, I asked a judge to see if we could get our decklists after the tournament for the purposes of this report. We were told this could and would be done, so I didn't save the decks themselves. During day two, I attempted to retrieve them, and was told that they had had multiple requests and not to worry. They would be available later. As it turned out, I was rather busy for a while and when I checked a second time after being eliminated they were gone. So I won't have decklists. I'll try to remember things as best I can, but the chance to build all the Sealed Decks and draft decks is gone. Sorry about that. I think it's a really big help to have the exact decklists and card pools (and if possible draft packs) when writing tournament reports, especially for those looking to improve. I would even have liked to have the decklists of my opponents, if they didn't mind. I love being able to look at everyone's constructed deck on the Sideboard when I'm writing my constructed reports.

We get our seats and are ready to begin building our Sealed Decks. Or we would have, but there were three other teams that thought they were seated at that table. One by one the other teams figured out they weren't supposed to be there, and left. We took our seats and were finally instructed to open our decks. That's right, I can't put it off any longer, the actual tournament is starting! We open our cards, and there's definitely stuff there to work with. The Black/Red deck was clearly forced. So Alex worked on the blue deck, Justin took the Red/Black deck and I took the green cards.

Green had a definite shortage of fat in it, with enough mana fixers to run splashes reasonably. We had a Desolation Giant hanging out in the middle for a while, and we were trying to figure out where the artifacts and potential splash cards were going. Justin was looking at touching blue, and I kept trying to put more fat into the deck. I took the Alloy Golem , I took the Emblazoned Golem , I took the Stratadon . I somehow always seemed to end up with a Stratadon , and I've grown steadily more respectful of 5/5 trampling beatings even at an admittedly high price. I'm also a huge fan of cramming the green decks chock full of gigantic monsters whenever possible. They were still moving the cards around and switching seats a few times, and I was trying to figure out the details of the green deck. I realized that while my mana was off just a Primal Growth and two Lay of the Land (if I remember correctly) that Desolation Giant was very good even splashing for both colors. I had three white sources and three red, which meant that of the nine relevant cards I needed to draw four of them unless I needed to go get the one Island to cast AEther Mutation . There was no need to run a Swamp .

We never really needed to discuss who would get which deck. In my drafting for this tournament, I'd spent a lot of time looking for how green decks worked and had grown quite fond of them when drafted and built correctly. I was going to want the green deck. Alex was going to want the White/Blue deck, since he was happy with that deck even when the two of us thought it was horrible. Similarly, Justin just loves a lot of the cards in Black/Red that I'm basically indifferent towards. Then there's the metagame aspect to consider. Assuming the conventional wisdom holds most of the time for draft, teams should seat themselves to execute it properly and give the Sealed Decks to whichever player can best run them. That means that White/Blue should end up in B, Red/Black in A and Green in C for most teams. That means that we run anti-UW in B, anti-BR in A and anti-G in C. For those of you who are wondering "What if someone puts anti-anti-UW in seat B" then I'm hear to tell you you're overthinking. The first rule of metagaming is "Most don't." Since our draft strategy is focused around the decks to beat those archetypes, it makes sense to put them in the same places in Sealed Deck. Justin got the Black/Red deck, which looked really good in the mirror. By stealing all the fat I felt I had made the green deck sufficiently powerful against blue and green decks. If there's one switch people make, it's reversing B and C. Alex in C was looking good against green decks. My teammates make their final decisions, and we're ready with a little time to spare. In case it gets confusing, Justin is A, I'm B and Alex is C. It was time for:

Round 1: Random Foreigners

I'm not even kidding. I look at the standings, and it's some name that doesn't sound American and that I've never seen before that I can remember. We sit down for our match after struggling more than three people who have been at it this long should have to to find it, and they're nowhere to be seen. The judges are passing out result slips, and I see ours. Their team name is Random Foreigners! So this is just about the best possible situation. The other team isn't just composed of Random Foreigners, they haven't even shown up! Who could ask for anything more? Eventually they do indeed show up, and it turns out that while quite Random they aren't really Foreigners. I think that just makes it funnier. At any rate, I get into a matchup against their green deck, which has a reasonable amount of blue. In game one, I manage to summon Stratadon despite being mana screwed (there's no red), and I'm holding Desolation Giant . It's looking like he can start attacking, and to buy time I return his Coastal Drake with the AEther Mutation, having drawn the one Island . That gives me three tokens, and actually buys me more time than trying to get ten off of Stratadon . He had about six creatures that could block tokens, it wouldn't have had much effect. Then I draw Primal Growth and I know all is well. I play it with kicker, knocking over a token to get two red mana. The Stratadon goes in, and then out comes Mr. Wrath of God . Desolation Giant with Kicker? He doesn't have an answer, and Mr. WoG is joined by additional fat.

In game two, I get severely mana flooded. We're talking way more land than spells the entire game. Luckily what I do get is very effective. I put out an Alpha Kavu with Armadillo Cloak in it, along with the Samite Pilgrim we stole from Alex's deck to give to me when I returned a Scorching Lava to Justin's deck. I knew what I was missing was a permanent combat trick rather than removal, and Alex told me he could spare it. Sealed Deck is all about those kind of decisions, figuring out where cards will have the most impact. Regardless, four points of damage was enough to gain me more life than he could do damage on the counterattack with through a Samite Pilgrim , and he starts holding back to try and gang block the Alpha Kavu with about four creatures, then later five and six. He certainly can't attack because I have an untapped Alpha Kavu with an Armadillo Cloak . In addition, the Alpha Kavu keeps getting even more dangerous because I keep drawing more lands. I didn't really mind, since I knew I basically couldn't lose. I draw a Lay of the Land and go get the Island , moving the Samite Pilgrim up to four points of damage prevention and making the Alpha Kavu big enough to live if there were no combat tricks involved. In he goes, and everyone in the known universe blocks. He has one, I think it was Gerrard's Command , and the Kavu's toast. I kill off a Rooting Kavu and something else, and he takes the opportunity to shuffle a bunch of useless elves back into the deck. I ask him if he's sure he wants to, and he confirms. His deck seemed to have a distinct lack of power and a distinct surplus of elves. I try to act upset about the fact that I've lost the Alpha Kavu , and he tells me "What do you care, you're just going to play Desolation Giant anyway." I tell him "lies", but that poker face lasts all of three seconds and I admit that ok, no lies. I play it, get about ten for three card advantage and follow it up with two other creatures. His hand is all land, and that's match. Alex and Justin both pull their matchups out as well without too much trouble. We definitely won my match in deck construction, where we gave my deck every ounce of power we could and their team was unable to find enough for their green mage, whether or not they were trying.

Round 2: Team $20 Dalla Billz

I'm in another green mirror. I go after their team name, since technically it's either redundant or the bills are actually bigger than just twenties. What's the point of a Team PT if you can't make fun of the names? At least they didn't have to buy any forty-two dollar tickets, since all they had were twenties. At any rate, I'm developing my mana and out pops Verdeloth the Ancient. I try not to show it, but I'm horrified, because I'm holding one in my hand! I try to hang on as best I can while waiting for Desolation Giant for the win, or maybe some other combination of tools. He has overwhelming board advantage thanks to a flagbearer, and every time we get into combat he has a trick. Slowly, the game is slipping away and he's going in. I tap twelve mana, put Verdeloth in the graveyard and take a die from Alex to represent six tokens. My opponent asks why Verdeloth is dead and I have to regret to inform him that he is one very dead Legend. Talk about randomly getting hosed. He's going in with Verdeloth and one other ground pounder, and the chump blockers are running out. The good news is that the pressure could have been a lot faster, but he's playing it way too safe considering his board advantage. Basically my only reasonable outs are cards like Rout or Desolation Giant , and he was giving me maximal time to find one. In fact, he joked about my having Rout . About twenty-seven cards in I can't hold him off any longer and my side collapses. In game two, I keep a hand with everything but a green source drawing first. I never see one.

That reminds me, before I go on, to talk about the decision to play or draw. In every match I played, I wanted to draw first. I don't think it's even a question if either deck is green, and only in very special matchups is it even a question. Look at it this way: If either player is mana screwed or flooded, then the card is almost always worth more than the turn, because that turn is spent waiting to draw the card. If neither player is mana screwed, which happens a lot less than half the time if mana stalls count, then it's an open question which is more important. It has to mean more than just a little extra damage. In short, the decks are all depending on drawing their mana and they're all cheating on colored mana at least a little due to the nature of the format. In addition, I felt I went into the majority of the matches with a substantial edge, and that meant that I should minimize my risks.

If anyone didn't read how our day one went, don't panic, because Alex and Justin saved the day and we're still 2-0.

Round 3: Stalking Tiger , Hidden Gibbons

Matt Urban is one of this format's secret weapons. He and Rich Frangiosa took a team with a virtual match loss from their third seat into PTDC and emerged with a top eight finish. That was team Urban Housing, and he wrote a great report for it. Matt and I won a team qualifier together last year, although of course we renounced, and I've played with him in many successful Team Sealed events. He's great at the team format. In practice, he beat me straight up, one on one, although with a little help from some poor draws by my C deck. He also has a unique drafting philosophy, which is that he puts the green cards not in the B or C seat, but on the other side of the table. Obviously, I respectfully disagree, but it seems to have worked well. At any rate, he's brought along friends from Neutral Ground and we have a lot of fun. I'm always in control in the B matchup against Urban, Justin wins without too much trouble and Alex manages to lose to a truly horrible deck. His opponent has one card, a Lightning Angel , and any resemblance of the rest of his cards to an actual deck is purely coincidental. Alex even has a Lightning Angel of his own. Until now, he hadn't won a game. Alex still pulls the match out though. Afterwards, they're far from upset, and Urban says his goal is to go 4-3. I tell him to go 5-2 and remind him how bad everyone else is at team formats. Matt Urban could be a great player, but he just doesn't seem to care too much about winning. He may be the only person in history to try to lose round one of a tour, and fail.

At this point, we get new decks. They don't look flashy, but there's clearly stuff to work with. The mana fixer situation is hurting though. We lay out the decks and something's not right. Clearly we're not using our cards efficiently. We try switching the colors around to build a Red/Blue deck, but it's really bad. So we go back to the more or less traditional plan, until Justin looks over at the green deck and notices the Red/Black is overflowing. I say that we have to do this, referring to the green deck, and he asks why. I start thinking about it, and Justin suggests building a Green/Red deck splashing black for the Darigaaz. We try building it, and it's a vast improvement over my attempt at a standard green build. Justin's deck is still doing just fine, we split up the removal, and we have three solid decks.

Round 4: Icy Hot Stunnaz

They were a little bit upset about their name being misspelled (or rather not misspelled properly) on the standings, and also not particularly happy with their decks. I remember basically coasting through this one, and we won all three. It's all kind of a blur, and I'm pretty sure I never drew Darigaaz, but the details are lost to me. New Sealed Decks are always a good thing, but having played eight different green decks throughout the tournament makes remembering things hard.

Round 5: Game Empire 2 (Feature Match)

This round was a lesson in contrasts. There were two feature matches, with four teams of professionals. On our side, we had an ultra-friendly match against friends. I'd never played Selden before outside playtest games. The feature match report is pretty accurate. He's playing Red/Black, and gets out some quick threats and starts removing what I play. Eventually I manage to exhaust his removal and start in on the attack. He's down to just a Soul Burn in hand, and I win with him one land short of killing me. In game two, I'm dead, one hundred percent dead, and then I draw Verdeloth. Remember, he's uncommon in Sealed. That gives me the blockers I need to not die. Then I decide to draw Darigaaz off the top. Then I decide that wasn't anywhere near enough topdecking, and flip over Magma Burst.

Meanwhile, Alan Comer is making sure I don't feel bad, because he's putting my idea of a fat crank to utter shame and it's entering running joke mode. If you want details, they're in the feature match report, but let's just say that his Kavu Chameleon was relatively small and ineffective. So after Alex gets squished to death and we can't milk any more jokes out of Comer's deck, it all comes down to Justin against Terry Tsang. Justin had taken game one, but game two seemed to be slipping away and it didn't look like they'd have time for game three. Justin clearly had Terry in paranoia mode, convinced enough of Justin's arsenal of nasty tricks that he took damage from an Urborg Drake rather than block with a new Living Airship . Justin didn't even have a choice, he had to attack. It's not like he was bluffing or anything. Meanwhile, Justin fails to get enough pressure to continue the attack and Terry gets tappers down to help hold him off and goes active with a Benalish Heralds. Things are not looking good. Terry Hypnotic Clouds Justin, knocking out his three lands in hand. Terry is gaining his card advantage one card at a time, while Justin gets his in big chunks. He uses Hypnotic Cloud on Terry, and gets Confound and Gerrard Capashen . He Probes him, and the second Confound falls. The entire time I still assume that Terry's going to win off the Heralds, but suddenly Justin casts Recoil on the Living Airship and I realize that Terry's side is on the verge of collapse. He has tappers but aside from the Airship and Heralds nothing is really holding Justin off, and Justin was still at twenty. Then Justin draws Jilt , and Terry has to work to stay at one life. Justin draws the other Jilt and it's all over.

Time for our third set of Sealed Decks. Now that we've secured our place in the second day, they decided to give us a truly ridiculous card pool.

To be continued...

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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