This week in Magic: Making Day 2 of GP Boston-Worcester

Thursday, July 31st, 2014

This past weekend was definitely a good weekend for me. In case you missed it, I made Day 2 of GP Boston-Worcester. It was so much of a surprise to myself that I was not at all prepared. I was such a mess that day, I didn’t even have a belt, and my pants were falling all day. Long story-short, I am in the middle of a move and my belt is in storage.

Not only was I missing a belt, but when I made Day 2 I was in scramble mode to find a place to sleep since my buddy Josh didn’t make it and wasn’t planning on driving into Worcester from the South Shore again. I was lucky enough to have a couple of offers to crash on the floor of friends’ hotel rooms. (Thanks to both Carl and Jason, by the way).

It should be no surprise what I played at the GP. If you’ve been following me for a while now, you’d know that I played Mono Red Burn. I went 7-2 on Day One, and unfortunately finished 2-3 on Day Two. While I missed out on cashing, I was just happy to make Day Two, as well as many of my other friends.

The journey to this point was not easy. I did a fair share of testing, and while testing, I got my fair share of stares and losses. There were times I felt defeated playing this deck. Day Two was never in my sights. I didn’t even pack a bag. Still, I managed to persevere. For your enjoyment, here is the list I ran:

Mono Red Burn aka 20 Mountains

Main Board:
4x Goblin Guide
4x Hellspark Elemental
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Shard Volley
4x Searing Blaze
4x Rift Bolt
4x Skull Crack
4x Flames of the Blood Hand
20x Mountain

Side Board:
3x Combust
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Molten Rain
3x Shattering Spree
3x Searing Blood

Hellspark Elemental was a last minute change over Spark Elemental. After some playtesting with my friend Jay, I had come to the conclusion that Spark Elemental was missing something. That something was being able to use itself over again. Hellspark Elemental’s ability to Unearth itself is huge. You’re essentially running eight of them.

I came across a nice variety of decks at the GP. In fact, during Day One, I played against two 8Rack decks. My two losses came against Merfolk and Fairies. I’ve never had a good run against Fairies, even when the deck was in Standard. I also did not test against it much outside of the tournament. My wins came against Jund, 2x 8Rack, 2x Scapeshift, GB, and UR Twin. Aside from the Twin match, the other decks were great opponents for me. As for my Twin matchup, he got land screwed game one, and then I just out burned him game two. He was gracious in his loss, and wished me luck after the match.

I should add that my two losses were within the first four rounds of the day. Thus, I had to win out the entire day. I definitely felt the heart palpitations coming on near the end of the final match. It went to third game, and thankfully I won it.

Day 2 was a little rough for me. Round one had me against my worst matchup in round one, Ad Nauseum. My only two wins came from another 8Rack match and a Jund match. The losses came from Ad Nauseum, Affinity (which was a heartbreaker for me), and Twin. Those last two losses were very close. Both my opponents let out big sighs of relief. Although, I’m not sure if it was because the matches were close, or they didn’t want to lose to Mono Red Burn. It could have been a combination of both.

Overall, I had a good time at the event. I mean, if you make Day 2, then there isn’t much to complain. Especially if you’ve never done it before. Sadly, I have been sick the past several years that a GP has been in the area – whether it was in Massachusetts or in Rhode Island. One year I made showed up on the second day of GP Boston the last time it was held in the Hynes Convention Center. However, I was so sick that day, I don’t remember much of it.

There were some things to be said about the GP on a finer level, but I’ll save that for another time.

Making changes to the deck

You already know I changed my Spark Elementals to Hellspark Elementals. There is very little I would change in the deck. If you’re looking for a very budget deck to run in Modern that has a good shot of winning a small sized tournament, this is your deck. If I were to run it in another major tournament, maybe something that is coming up in a couple of weeks, I would definitely throw in fetch lands. I would need to do more testing before I suggest running four or eight fetch lands, but, either way, they need to be run. The main reason: Searing Blaze.

This card can really make or break the deck. Alone, it can be both the best card in the deck and it can be the absolute worse thing ever. It all depends on the landfall trigger. Even then, you can only cast this card on your turn. Thus, you’re never able to take full advantage of the spell. I’m sure if I had fetchlands in this deck, it would have run a lot more efficiently. I would have been able to thin the deck out and almost guaranteed I would have a way to trigger landfall.

In the end, the call is yours. Just remember it can mean the difference between a $50 deck and a $410 deck.

About the author

Simeon is now the Community Manager for Battleground Games & Hobbies. If you have any questions or inquiries, then you can reach him at Sims@battlegroundgames.com. He is also an avid gamer who loves to play board games and video games. He graduated college with a degree in Political Science, and now serves the public by writing about games. You can check that out here. Don’t forget to “like” him on Facebook as well. It’ll update you on all of his newest content. Best of all, you can follow Simeon on Twitter (@SimeonCortezano) for some real time hilarity. Thanks for reading!

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Tags: gp boston-worcester, Magic the Gathering, Modern, MTG, Simeon Cortezano, Wizards of the Coast
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