Grafting a GP| Greg Jolins GP Kansas City Top 8 Report – Part 1

Most people probably would not fly out to a Grand Prix they have no byes for. I am not most people. I have always been a Limited player, and I never turn down an opportunity to play a limited Grand Prix reasonably close to me. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really expecting much from the event. I hadn’t made Day 2 of a Grand Prix since Kansas City 2008 and I hadn’t even so much as made Top 8 of a PTQ since early 2009. My primary reason for going was the same as the reason I go to only paper events these days: to hang out with people, probably team draft a bunch, and of course the off chance of actually having a good tournament.

Naturally, I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted the night before day 1 (as Magic players rarely do). Even though I was short on sleep and I had no byes to work with, I felt good in the morning. The sealed pool I received was one of the most difficult sealed pools I’ve ever had to build, with options in every color.

White:
Chancellor of the Annex
Dispense Justice
Glimmerpoint Stag
Loxodon Convert
Loxodon Partisan
Loxodon Wayfarer
Porcelain Legionnaire
Remember the Fallen
Sensor Splicer
Tine Shrike
True Conviction

Blue:
Bonds of Quicksilver
Chained Throatseeker
Deceiver Exarch
Defensive Stance
Mindculling
Mirran Spy
Spined Thopter
Stoic Rebuttal
Steel Sabotage
Turn the Tide
Vault Skyward
Vedalken Anatomist
Vedalken Infuser

Black:
Evil Presence
Grasp of Darkness
Grim Affliction
2 Horrifying Revelation
Ichor Rats
Mortis Dogs
Relic Putrescence
Phyrexian Rager
Phyrexian Vatmother
Postmortem Lunge
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Spread the Sickness

Red:
Arc Trail
2 Concussive Bolt
Galvanic Blast
Ogre Geargrabber
Ogre Menial
2 Turn to Slag
Volt Charge

Green:
Beast Within
2 Blunt the Assault
Death-Hood Cobra
Fresh Meat
Lead the Stampede
2 Leeching Bite
Melira’s Keepers
Mirran Mettle
Mutagenic Growth
Mycosynth Fiend
Pistus Strike
Praetor’s Counsel
Tel-Jilad Defiance
Thundering Tanadon
Viridian Corrupter

Artifact:
Copper Carapace
Copper Myr
Dross Ripper
Flight Spellbomb
Golem Foundry
Gremlin Mine
Heavy Arbalest
2 Hexplate Golem
Ichorclaw Myr
Immolating Souleater
Insatiable Souleater
Lumengrid Gargoyle
Myr Sire
Rusted Slasher
2 Snapsail Glider
Vulshok Replica

Land:
Darkslick Shores
Phyrexia’s Core

This is what I came up with:
Ichorclaw Myr
Myr Sire
Deceiver Exarch
Ichor Rats
Phyrexian Rager
Vedalken Anatomist
Dross Ripper
Phyrexian Vatmother
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Chained Throatseeker
Lumengrid Gargoyle
Flight Spellbomb
Gremlin Mine
Mutagenic Growth
Steel Sabotage
Arc Trail
Grasp of Darkness
Grim Affliction
Heavy Arbalest
Stoic Rebuttal
Volt Charge
Spread the Sickness
Mindculling
7 Swamp
6 Island
3 Mountain
Darkslick Shores

Despite the presence of True Conviction, Chancellor of the Annex, Remember the Fallen, and Glimmerpoint Stag, I fairly easily dismissed the white cards as too shallow and not working well with the rest of the pool. I also decided black would be one of my main colors since Skithiryx was by far the biggest bomb and best win condition in the pool. From there, it was more difficult. I tried to make green-black work but there were not enough infect creatures to go full infect and I didn’t think it was as good as other potential builds.

That left black-blue splashing red or black/red splashing blue as the two options, and I debated for a long time. The decision really came down to Stoic Rebuttal or two Turn to Slag. In the end I went with the blue because I had plenty of creature removal, even without the two Turn to Slag, and I wanted the Stoic Rebuttal so I could answer just about anything. I value Stoic Rebuttal very highly in this sealed format which has so many bombs. Other players disagreed with this decision when I showed them my pool, but I still feel like it was the right choice. In addition, I sided into the red deck as appropriate, such as against dinosaur decks or heavy equipment decks.

After that decision was made, the final build was still not simple, as there were several choices for the last few cards. I splashed only the Arc Trail and Volt Charge so as to keep the red splash to a minimum, since Galvanic Blast was only ever going to be a Shock in my deck. The most controversial choice I made was to play Ichorclaw Myr, Ichor Rats, and Chained Throatseeker. My rationale behind the choice was that my only real win conditions were Skithiryx, Lumengrid Gargoyle, and maybe Phyrexian Vatmother. By playing the cheap infect creatures, I thought I would be able to get one infect counter on my opponent to turn Chained Throatseeker into another route to victory. The other choice would have been to play random artifact dudes like Hexplate Golem, Porcelain Legionnaire, and Spined Thopter, and to be honest that would probably have been just better. Obviously, my build worked pretty well, but that’s just results-based thinking and it doesn’t mean that my build was right.

Other somewhat controversial choices I made were Mutagenic Growth and Heavy Arbalest. This also had to do with my lack of win conditions. The Mutagenic Growth was a free way to protect my x/4s and x/5s from cards like Grasp of Darkness, Artillerize, and Turn to Slag. I rarely had four black mana available to be able to play Skithiryx and hold up regeneration mana, so I often just had to throw him down early and the Growth gave me an added level of protection. The Heavy Arbalest was another potential way to win a game (and it would play a key role in two of my most important game wins on Day 1), and with a few infect creatures in my deck it gained added value.
My tournament started off inauspiciously. Despite the presence of an Inkmoth Nexus for my W/B opponent, I chose not to use my Steel Sabotage on a Flayer Husk. I felt like I had enough instant speed removal in my deck I could draw to deal with that problem, and he had no infect creatures other than the Nexus so I should have had time to draw an answer. He got me up to 6 poison counters but then I put enough pressure onto him to force him to defend. I tapped out for Skithiryx and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

One Act of Aggression later, we were on to game 2 and my good feeling from the start of the day was dissipating. I flew to Kansas City on no byes, and this is how my tournament was going to be? (SPOILERS: That was not how my tournament was going to be.)

Fortunately, the next two games were a lot more straightforward. In game 2 I put two quick poison counters on him from Ichorclaw Myr and then played Phyrexian Vatmother. He took the first Vatmother swing and I played Flight Spellbomb. He tapped out for Elspeth Tirel and made three tokens. I just kind of gave him a look, gave my Vatmother flying, and won the game. Knowledge of the Elspeth proved crucial for Game 3. I was able to empty his hand with a Mindculling on an even board and then sat back on a Stoic Rebuttal. I was pressuring him when he played a Blinding Souleater which could shut down my offense. I considered the Rebuttal, but the existence of so much removal in my deck and Elspeth in his deck made me hold back. Sure enough, I drew a Spread the Sickness for the Souleater and had the Rebuttal in reserve to counter Elspeth when he drew it a few turns later.

Unfortunately, rounds 2 through 6 are a bit of a blur in my mind. When you play 16 rounds of Magic on little sleep through a weekend, some details can get lost along the way. Most of the games played out the same way; I killed or countered a lot of their creatures, then I played Skithiryx and won. Two of my opponents played Swords of some sort, so I boarded into my red configuration to get the two Turn to Slag into my deck. One of my opponents was infect, so I boarded into a B/G splashing R deck to gain access to Melira’s Keepers and 2 Leeching Bites.

Round 7 was a lot more interesting. My opponent resolved Elesh Norn in game 1, but I already had Skithiryx in play and I simply killed Elesh Norn with Spread the Sickness and won comfortably. In game 2 he resolved Elesh Norn again, and this time I didn’t have a dominating board position or an answer so I died quickly. Game 3 would prove to be a lot closer, and it would show even more mythic rares.

Neither of us really did anything until he tapped out for Hero of Bladehold on turn 4. I had Stoic Rebuttal at the ready, but I had really hoped to be able to save it for Elesh Norn. He played Molder Beast turn 5, and I felt compelled to kill it with Spread the Sickness on my turn. I knew the play was somewhat greedy and left me without a realistic answer to Elesh Norn in my deck, but I had no other answer to the Beast in hand and I knew my turn 6 play was going to be Mindculling. If I didn’t kill the Beast there, I would take at least 10 damage from the Beast and additional damage from whatever he played on turn 6, and I would likely just have to kill the Beast on turn 7 anyway. He ended up doing nothing on turn 6 and passed with four cards in hand. I cast Mindculling and my stomach turned when he discarded Grim Affliction and Contagion Clasp, as this surely meant his remaining two cards were land seven and Elesh Norn. He played his seventh land and…passed the turn. Now I was just baffled. What in the world did he hold on to? (In retrospect, I think he may indeed have already had the Elesh Norn and just held it back until I overcommitted, since he had no other creatures in play.)

The game progressed with him doing basically nothing and me playing random creatures and a Heavy Arbalest. I had a bunch of lands and a very threatening Dross Ripper when I made a crucial misplay. With Deceiver Exarch in hand and the ability to shoot twice with Arbalest, I decided to move the Arbalest to Ichor Rats even though I was a lot closer to winning through regular damage. My thinking was that if he played Elesh Norn, I wanted to shrink it to 3 toughness so I could kill it. Of course, Magic does not work this way. Once Elesh Norn resolves, the Rats die and there’s no window where I can shoot it. To punish me for my mistake, he played Elesh Norn. By this time, I’ve realized my mistake, so I just shot him twice to push him up to 5 infect counters in case I drew another infect creature that lives through Elesh Norn. Over the next couple of turns, I took some hits and shot him a couple times. I would barely win the race…then he drew a second Swamp and played Geth.

On my turn I drew Lumengrid Gargoyle. We were both at 8 life. He had one card in hand, 11 lands, Elesh Norn, and Geth. I had 12 lands, Heavy Arbalest, Dross Ripper, and Deceiver Exarch. I figured out that I would win the game if the card in his hand and the card on the top of his deck were both blanks. I could shoot him to 6 with Exarch, move the Arbalest to Ripper, and play Gargoyle. On his turn, I would chump block Geth with Ripper and shoot him to 4. Then on my turn, I would swing for 2 with Gargoyle and shoot him for the last two with Exarch. I enacted my plan and hoped for the best. He drew for his turn and clearly missed, and it was time to play the Geth game. He played land number 12 and reanimated something costing 3 (8 mana remaining). My [card]Phyrexian Rager got milled, so I had to sweat out one more topdeck when he reanimated that (4 mana remaining). He clearly missed again, as he used his last 4 mana to reanimate something completely irrelevant and I killed him on my turn to go to 7-0. I have to admit that winning that one felt pretty good.

Round 8 was against a red/green dinosaur deck. After taking game 1 thanks to Skithiryx (what a surprise), I boarded into my red configuration to get Turn to Slag. Mindculling was huge in game 2, as I cast it when he had two cards in hand, which turned out to be Blightwidow and Beast Within. However, from there I made the mistake of burning a removal spell on Viridian Emissary, and after that he drew fatty after fatty. I was able to kill most of them but a Thundering Tanadon stuck eventually. At some point I drew Skithiryx and won a tight race through some chump blocking. It was certainly a good thing that he didn’t have Blightwidow or Beast Within available to him.

To finish an undefeated day 1 from no byes, I would have to beat my second infect deck of the day in round 9. Game 1 contained my worst mistake of the day. I was very far ahead and attacking on both fronts with Skithiryx and Lumengrid Gargoyle. On one turn after my attack with the two fliers, he stole my Skithiryx with Act of Aggression and I neglected to put a regeneration shield on it. Awkward. Despite this attempted punt, I was so far ahead that I won anyway. I boarded into my green anti-infect configuration and was ahead in the game with 2 Leeching Bites in my hand…then he played Asceticism. I failed to draw Beast Within and died pretty quickly to regenerating, untargetable infectors. I flip-flopped on my sideboarding decision and went back to my maindeck for game 3.

This game was a back-and-forth affair and very attritional. At one point, I had to spend a Volt Charge on my own Phyrexian Vatmother after it had ticked me up to 8 poison counters. The board got whittled down to just a Fume Spitter for him against my Myr Sire, Phyrexian Rager, and Heavy Arbalest (with him at 10 life) when he drew and played Asceticism. The game got weird from here, as we each kept drawing blanks. I couldn’t find another creature to speed up my Arbalest clock and he couldn’t find removal or an infect guy. I drew a Stoic Rebuttal just in time to counter his Flesh-Eater Imp, which would have been instantly lethal, and killed him with the Arbalest for the undefeated day 1.

I had to get very fortunate to achieve this record, as you would expect. The only truly insane deck I had to beat was the Hero of Bladehold/Geth/Elesh Norn deck. I drew Skithiryx a lot and it very rarely died, even though I often had to play it without any sort of protection. I didn’t have to play anyone who I consider to be a pro player. On the other hand, despite the mistakes I mentioned, I played better than I have in a long time, and for the most part managed to keep my focus through the long day. I probably didn’t ‘deserve’ the 9-0 record, but I took advantage of the opportunities I had.
This ran a bit longer than I expected it to, so the part 2 of the report will have to wait for another time. I will of course cover my draft strategies, the matches themselves, and a certain incident in the top 8. Until next time!
–Greg Jolin