Reposted on 12/28/06.  ~Streetz~

Hello, and welcome to Learning from the Best. As many of you who have read my previous columns know, I follow the pro tour fairly religiously. And, as many of you also know, we are currently in the middle of the biggest tournament of the pro season, The World Championships.

Now, the point of this new column is going to be taking a look at the world of competitive, professional Magic, and applying it to the casual world. As the title implies, we’ll be learning from the best. These guys are professionals for a reason: they know how to play the game very, very well. Thanks to the coverage on sites like MTG.com and the podcasts by Dom and company, we are able to take their skill and learn from it.

This isn’t the opening article that I had originally planned on writing. I had intended on waiting until after Worlds, then writing an all-encompassing article about it. But then an idea hit me last night: what if I do a day-by-day series covering Worlds. I liked the idea, so I decided to run with it. Then, as seemingly always with my luck, I hit a snag, and couldn’t finish the day one recap. So, we improvise, meaning that today you get to read up on both Day 1 and Day 2 from the World Championships of Magic: The Gathering in Paris, France.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Worlds works, here’s a brief primer (if you know how Worlds works and how Swiss works, skip down to the “Last Year” section): The World Championship is a five day tournament. Day 1 is six rounds of Standard Constructed. Day 2 is six rounds of Booster Draft (so two drafts, each being triple Time Spiral). Day 3 is six rounds of Extended Constructed. Day 4 is an off-day for the individual competitors, as the national teams play 4 rounds of Team Rochester draft. Day 5 is the big day. The top 8 individual competitors square off in a single-elimination Standard shootout. Also, the top two national teams compete in one more Team Rochester to determine the world team champions.

Worlds, as all Magic tournaments, is run using the Swiss pairing system. Again, a primer: Standing are based on points accrued during the tournament. Everyone starts with 0. A win nets you 3 points. A draw is worth 1 for each player, and a loss earns you 0 points. Pairings are arranged according to each player’s point total. You get matched up with someone that has the same point total as you (assuming there is more than one). If there are odd point totals, those people will get paired with those who have the closest point total.

Last Year

Last year’s Worlds was a coming out party for Japan. Japanese player Katsuhiro Mori won the World Championship, Team Japan won the team title, and Kenji Tsumura walked away with the Player of the Year crown. To top it all off, they won in Yokohama, Japan. Mori was the first Japanese player to ever win the World Title.

Day One

356 players entered the arena Wednesday morning in Paris. By Sunday, only one would still be standing.

There were a lot of storylines surrounding this tournament, with one of the biggest being the return of the German Juggernaut, Kai Budde. Kai is arguably the best player ever, and is making a return as he is eligible for the Hall of Fame next year (and is expected to be voted in unanimously). On top of that, 5 players were inducted into the Hall this year, including the Dark Confidant himself, Bob “The Great One” Maher Jr.

Once all the pomp and circumstance was over, it was time to get down to some actual spell-slinging. There was a lot of buzz surrounding Day 1, as Standard is a relatively untamed format. Champs has really been the only non-online tournament to feature this format. Most people expected this format to be pretty wide open, and to a large degree they were correct. 32 people decided on Boros Deck Wins, there were 36 Dragonstormers, 40 people played some variation of Solar Flare or Solar Birth (which uses Proclamation of Rebirth to great effect), 57 players ran some form of Urzatron decks (15 Triscuitron [the Japanese deck of choice], 5 Martyrtron, and 37 Izzettron), 33 ran Zoo, 36 ran Simic Aggro (with most being Scryb Force decks that revolved around the combo of Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force, 27 ran Glare of Subdal based decks, revolving around a plethora of different support cards, and over thirty people ran Blue/X control, with just about every color but green showing up in the X spot, most notably being CounterMesa decks that win with Sacred Mesa.

So, from that mass of information, we can see that Standard is truly a diverse format right now. Now, lets take a look at some of this stuff individually. 5 people went 6-0 on day one, and four of them played Boros Deck Wins. The interesting part of that fact is that only two of them mirror. The deck that I want to highlight was played by Nicholas Levett:

The 21/23/16 split is fairly standard amongst Boros Deck Wins decks, with Fujita (6-0) running a full 23 spells, relying more on burn than beats. But the thing that sets Levett’s deck apart is the 4X Wildfire Emissary. Why is that card so important? It is a house in the current metagame. It is impossible to Condemn, it doesn’t die to Rift Bolt, it can’t be Glared, it doesn’t die to Lightning Helix and doesn’t give them lifegain either, and it shuts down Knight of the Holy Nimbus in the mirror match. With so many players playing Boros decks or U/W control that rely on Condemns, that one card helped greatly in his undefeated run.

This brings me to my first “learning from the pros” tip: Have some ideas of the metagame, and figure out what cards are good against it. Knowing the meta doesn’t necessarily mean knowing exactly which decks are going to be played. In this instance, Levett benefited because he knew that white was going to be a strong color. He knew about Boros, obviously, and its dependence on white creatures. Control decks that run white almost always use it for removal, which makes the Emissary relevant. Most often, that removal is in the form of Condemn, Faith’s Fetters, and Wrath of God. While there isn’t a whole lot you can do about Wrath of God, Emissary just laughs in the face of Condemn, while pumping himself up and swinging for massive damage.

Coming into Worlds, the deck that I was most excited about was Dragonstorm. Unfortunately, a lot of other people were expecting it as well, and there was a lot of Dragonstom hate in the format. The best placing ‘storm player was 15th.

Once again, the Japanese players seem to have come up with the great tech, as Itaru Ishida held the top spot after the first day (for those unfamiliar with Swiss: there are no ties, even if two or more players have the same point totals. The ranking are determined by a series of tie-breakers). Ishida, along with 12 other Japanese players, ran a deck called TriscuitTron, named in honor of the tron pieces and Triskelavus, the deck’s win condition, and designed by reining world champ Katsuhiro Mori:

It’s control, there isn’t much more to say about it. U/W with a touch of black to be able to Mystical Teachings and tutor up Teferi and Draining Whelk. Tron allows you all the mana you’ll need to shoot down just about anything via Draining Whelk.

Pro tip #2: If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. There’s nothing overly fancy about this deck. Aside from the tron pieces, it is your basic control deck. Tron adds that little bit of extra punch that allows you to make sure Draining Whelk hits their best spell and becomes extremely large in the process. Keep this in mind while building decks. I know that many of you love your Rube Goldberg machine combo engines. There’s nothing wrong with this. But in the end, nothing beats sheer consistency. Don’t make your decks try to do too much.

Well, the sun set on Day 1, bringing hopes of opening busted packs for the booster drafts of Day 2.

Day 2

It was time for arguable the most exciting part of playing Magic: cracking open those booster packs. Paying homage to the now past Aether Pool column, we’re going to do a draft viewer walkthrough for draft #2, pod 1

Click here to launch draft viewer

This may be the most ridiculously busted pack I’ve ever seen. Cards in this pack that could be legitimately picked first or second include, but are not limited to: Void, Stonewood Invocation, Dark Withering, Clockwork Hydra, and Brine Elemental. There’s also a Search for Tomorrow, which is going to be a very nice late gift for someone.

Despite the absurd power level in the pack, the pick is actually fairly simple. Void is just too good to consider passing. Taking a look at the remainder of the pack, we might actually get the Goblin Skycutter back. If we don’t get the skycutter, the Rager will almost certainly still be there.

This leads to my next tip, applying to booster draft: scan your packs and try and figure out what you could potentially get back. This will help influence some of your decisions down the road.

Time to go to the next pack.

The power level of the first two packs is really, really high. The pick pretty much comes down to a decision between Sedge Sliver and Sudden Death. Both are extremely high quality cards, and sitting in that seat I most likely would have taken Sudden Death. But, because creatures are so important in limited, Sedge Sliver went face down into the pile. Side note: I’m hoping the Lancer comes back around.

Next tip: Don’t drown in removal in limited. I mentioned this as the major flaw in my draft deck from my prerelease article. Sure, it’s nice to get rid of your opponent’s guys. But if you have now way of applying a major threat, eventually you’ll run out of answers.

Pack #3

Not too difficult of a choice here. We’ve already got one sliver, meaning Ghostflame just gets better as the game goes on. And by himself he’s a 2/2 for two, which is always playable. Looking at what we might get back; Mogg War Marshal probably won’t table, but the wall has a chance. Time to go to the next pack. No tips on this pack.

That is a gift Sudden Shock in pack 4. Easy choice here.

Tip from that pack: don’t get sucked in to try and design a specific archtype. I’m sure that many people are seeing that Bonespliter Sliver and saying “Slivers.dec here I come.” Doing that does two things. First, it locks you into a type of deck that may be difficult to put together. Drafting for archtype is a tricky thing in limited, because the cards aren’t always guaranteed to be there. Second, it has the potential to ship cards that are good in any deck. Bonesplitter Sliver is decent in a random red deck, but it won’t be gamebreaking. Sudden Shock is extremely good in every red deck. Next pack, please.

We see a fairly late Ivory Giant, but nothing else overly exciting. It comes down to Grapeshot v. Faceless Devourer. With the importance of creatures, and the fact that the ability maybe randomly hits something good, the critter goes into the pile.

Next tip: When in doubt, take the creature. Faceless Devourer and Grapeshot are somewhat similar in the playability: middle to low. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen Grapeshot do some amazing things, but overall it isn’t at the same level as Sudden Shock or Sudden Death. With the relevance of having bodies on the table in limited, taking a creature in a situation like this is usually the right pick. Onward.

Some late blue stuff floating around, but once again nothing overly exciting here. Empty the Warrens is a little tempting, but we aren’t really building the storm deck. Terramorphic Expanse is the pick here, as it allows arguable the best non-green mana fixing in the set.

Next tip: always have a mind on the mana situation of your deck. How does the curve look? How color heavy am I? It can be a lot to think about, but it is very important. The deck right now is very dependent on having both red and black mana on the table (2 gold cards, and a Sedge Sliver with the off-color activation). Being able to fix that is going to be very important. Pack #7 is up.

So much for blue floating around. Once again, nothing to exiting here. Curse generally isn’t very good. To me the decision comes down to Venser’s Sliver and Dread Return. He took Dread Return, which I think I probably would have too. There aren’t enough slivers in the deck right now to constitute running one without any abilities, especially with Ghosflame Sliver’s ability being fairly pointless. Once again, I’ve got no tips from this pack. So we move ahead.

Ouch. There’s nothing playable in our colors, meaning its D-draft time. Blue seems to have suddenly reappeared in this pack. Looking at the best cards, Drifter and Think Twice jump to mind. Seeing we have a Faceless Devourer, the shadow isn’t as scary, so Think Twice gets defensively drafted.

Tip: don’t be scared to draft defensively. There is a misconception that if you D-daft or hate draft a card, everyone at the table will instantly know and hate you for it. This isn’t the case. Rarely does anyone know if you D’ed something up. You have to be careful about D-drafting, however. You don’t want to do too much of it. I would suggest not D-drafting unless there is nothing even remotely playable in your pack (as in here), or the card is insanely powerful. The latter will usually only happen upon opening the second or third packs. On to pick #9. Let’s see what made it back around the table.

Dang, the Skycutter didn’t make it. I’m shocked that Search is still there, however. The Rager and Bladescout made it back, as expected. Bladescout makes an addition to the deck, once again just adding meat to the deck.

The tip for this pack is an example for the last tip about hate drafting. Many people would probably be tempted to D up the Search for Tomorrows there. The reason for not doing that: worry about your own deck first. There are still playable cards in your colors left. Bladescout probably makes the deck, while Search would simply sit in the sideboard.

That’s as far as I’m going to go with this walkthough. I think we’ve learned enough from it. This is also where I wrap up this column. Be sure to tune in tomorrow as we wade our way through 6 rounds of Extended Constructed.

Nate Lisko ~lionden_56~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

Articles Spotlights from 2006
The Games People Play - Tactical Magic.
If I worked at R&D
The Beginner’s Guide to Rogue
Druid Week Primer
Opting In: Ravnica
MDV Idol: Finale!
Avatar Week Primer
Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
Raiding Ravnica: Guildmages and You!
Lands-More than Mana: Part One