Zvi's Grand Prix Manchester Report, Part 1 *Top 8*

**The Event: Grand Prix: Manchester

The Place: Manchester, England

The Venue: A convention hall near Victoria Station, standard except for the open bar.

The Problem: I need at least 11 points by PT:Chicago to qualify for the third masters.

The Asset: Three byes on PT Points.

The Trip: An overnight flight, arriving Saturday morning

The Reason: A class I have to be at that doesn't end until 12pm Friday.

The Sleep: None.

The Set: Invasion.

The Format: Sealed Deck and Rodchester Draft

The Practice: One real four man draft, one round of Sealed Deck (which I lost to a Pyre Zombie)

The Rule: Draft blue unless everyone else knows The Rule.

The Theory: Try and draft W/U or if that's impossible U/B, based on my few netdrafts.

The Goal: The Quick Six (up to 6 Pro Points can be picked up at 1 Grand Prix)

So that set of facts set up a pretty crazy mission. In a format where my primary goal the day before I left was to learn what all the commons looked like, I had to leave New York City late on Friday afternoon, losing five hours and getting whatever sleep I could (and it turned out I couldn't) on the plane, arriving in Manchester with about two and half hours before the end of registration. From Manchester Airport, I took a train that cost more than any train staying within city limits has a right to and then a Taxi to the convention hall. I got there just as they were booting up their computers, registered, and went over to the side events area since it was still early. There I met some locals, looked over the dealer's prices for Invasion and looked over the dealer's copies of Invasion cards; I still wasn't too comfortable with the pictures. The most expensive single in Invasion was Utopia Tree for some strange reason, and I wasn't alone in saying that was crazy. I also got to look at their 15-card Highlander format and talk about it a little, although I didn't try and build a deck. After a while I went up to the tournament area.

There I met with more Americans than I suspected would come. Old friends Alex Shvartsman and Mike Pistulnik were expected, as were the others who I knew had come to Porto: Edward Fear , David Price, Steve OMS and David Williams. Darwin Kastle and Rob Dougherty from Your Move Games were no big surprise. Justin Gary made sense after I remembered he's currently living in England. But then there was Chad Ellis from Your Move Games, and local New York players Brook North, Eric Kesselman and Ben Murray, not to mention Mark Le Pine. Mike La Beau and European-American hybrid Trey Van Cleave finished out our roster according to the player list.

When the tournament started, the players got to enjoy the kind of common respect that really helps a tournament. We sat down to deck registration sheets and free pens (which we'd get more of every time we registered) and re-registered decks in cases we could carry them around in. What a concept! It was a relief not to feel like you were some kind of secretary before you got to make a single strategic decision, and it was great fun trying to tilt the box just so and get a look at what cards we had. I kept cutting to the same Agonizing Demise , so I didn't have too much info but I wasn't complaining. Finally, we got to build our decks. I know it's a big help to have the exact card pool from a Sealed Deck, but technical difficulties are not going to permit that. Actually, I had the easiest to build Invasion Sealed Deck I've ever seen. There were three Fertile Grounds, a Querion Trailblazer and three good green creatures, but everything else pointed to W/U/B. I assembled the W/U/B complete with a Salt Marsh and a Coastal Tower , and I had I think 26 non-land cards I wanted to play. Problem solved. Green mana's fine for when you need it, but I had the chance to build a classic Sealed Deck with a normal mana base and wasn't about to pass it up. I can't find enough of the remnants for an exact decklist, but I do remember a lot of it. I had Yawgmoth's Agenda , with Probe and Reviving Vapors to fuel it. My removal was an Annihilate and two Agonizing Demise , plus an Exclude . The creature mix was slow (I played a Spirit Weaver for speed) but powerful, including most of the good expensive kicker dudes and flyers all the way up to Lotus Guardian , plus Stormscape Apprentice and a Benalish Trapper . The mana was helped a lot by the two dual lands, which made 17 lands feel fine for me. I shuffled it up, and my first two test draws both broke Yawgmoth's Agenda. When registering, I noticed the judges registered 2 of something as 11, which we're always told not to do. But they're judges, they can do whatever they want.

Outside, all the Pros then started using their three rounds of byes to playtest their decks. I played a few games against Justin Gary, who wasn't all that happy about his deck. I took control of every game after a while, but I was going dangerously low on life a lot. I started to worry my deck was too slow, especially after watching a few people bust out some fast Black/Red attack decks. A lot of people were unsure if they built their decks right. Brook North had an 'A' deck and a 'B' deck, both sleeved; if the first one wasn't working, he'd say "Look, over there!" and quickly swap the four overlapping cards into the B deck. Ben Murray decided he'd played the wrong colors, and changed for every game two. But I got lucky, and my deck was built right; I sideboarded a card or two against specific opponents, but I think I built it right. And rather than playtest too much, I decided to try and get some rest.

Round 4:

I have a nasty habit of finding a way to lose my first round. This makes me worry about the Masters, since that one loss means you get to watch the rest of the tournament. Anyway, my opponent seemed to have poor card quality and a very iffy mana base on top of that. Game one I took control and went on to win, letting my deck basically do all the work since he didn't put me under any pressure. Game two we both stalled on land but he pulled out of it first, and near the end of game two I called over a judge to watch for slow play. Game three I was mana screwed again, and he killed me in extra turns because I decided that just because he was playing slowly didn't mean I had the right to stall him out. I have a rant to give about what happened this round, but it's about the rules for these situations. This is not the right place for it.

Round 5: Van_Leeuwen, Gerard

I got a big scare this round, and thought for a second I might be in danger of not getting to draft. He kept putting out 2/2 creatures every turn starting on turn two, and when I put out the first of my two Razerfoot Griffins, he used Scorching Lava to kill it. The second one came out and could kill a creature every attack, but my life total was sinking fast. I knew that if he had more tricks I was finished, but he didn't. So he attacked for the kill, and I used Agonizing Demise to stay alive while the Griffin knocked off an attacker. He attacked for the kill again, and I used Reviving Vapors ; three lands would have killed me. Instead I hit Lotus Guardian, which gave me seven life and I rode the extra cards I'd gotten from his Alpha Strikes to victory. The other game I didn't fall behind and I won easily.

Round 6: Kahn, Mahboob

This match was everything I hate about this format, with the small exception that I won the match. Games one and two were mirror images of each other: One of us stalled on land or color and couldn't cast spells, the other won easily. The third game he stalled without enough land or his main color of mana, and by the time he recovered it was too late. I think he took risks in deck construction on color, but that's a necessity a lot of the time in this format. People WILL get screwed twice in the same match with a properly constructed deck, they WILL lose and not make second day because of it and they WILL be pissed off about it. But in exchange there's a ton more skill needed to build these decks. So far, I think it's worth it, but Mahboob Kahn definitely got a raw deal.

Round 7: Norris, Peter

I'd looked at his deck earlier and it wasn't as good as mine, and he reminded me of this when he saw we were paired since I'd forgotten. But he was right. His cards weren't as good, and he basically sat there as his deck failed to give him the tools he needed to win. I roll over him in due course, and I end up in 18th after day one while he ends up in (drum roll please!) 65th. Ouch. At least he wouldn't have made it if he'd taken a game off me.

So I go to get some sleep (finally!) with a good chance to make a run at the top eight. Having come without a room, I'm lucky to find that Edward Fear 's room has an extra bed not in use, so we split the room. We come back at 8am, and I enter the following table with the (public) plan of drafting W/U:

Xavier didn't show up in time to draft, so that put Justin into seat 1 of a seven man draft, followed by Le Pine and then me, with Fuller in last position. The first pack contains both of the good Apprentices, Thornscape and Stormscape, plus Wings of Hope and Urborg Drake . Uh oh. Even if no one takes either the Apprentice or the Wings before I get to draft, someone's going to get the other one and I'll probably end up fighting them. Justin starts with Urborg Drake because his version of The Rule is to draft U/B, and Le Pine takes the Thornscape Apprentice . So far so good, so I take the Stormscape Apprentice . Finally, the pack gets to Fuller with the Wings still in it and I expect him to wheel that and the Prison Barricade and fight me. At least he's across the table, this won't be all that bad. But he takes Explosive Growth as his second card instead! By some miracle, the Wings gets back to me! I take it, and the pack has turned out better than I could have hoped. Mattias seemed to make an actual effort to stay out of my colors, to the extent that the one time he took a Benalish Lancer he actually apologized, seeming as if he'd just forgotten. It's very much a 'Sorry!' format, since some people are constantly splashing colors.

But aside from a few small battles over individual cards, I got along with everyone after that. I made only one mistake, letting the five color green mage have a free Ordered Migration I could have easily counterdrafted (and it's W/U so he could hardly complain), and that would come back to haunt me. I made one mistake in deck construction, where I played Samite Ministration since I thought it worked on creatures. Strangely, I didn't get a chance to realize this for two and a half rounds. My deck had three Stormscape Apprentices at the one level, two Sky Weavers as its two drop and its curve went all the way to Lotus Guardian again along with two Wings of Hope and other good tricks, so I played eighteen land so I could pay my kicker costs reliably. I thought I had the second best deck and could beat anyone except Justin Gary, who I expected to crush me.

To be continued tomorrow with Day 2...

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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