Posts Tagged ‘Modern’

One Week Away – Modern Pre-PTQ for Pro Tour Milwaukee!

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Just one week away! Join us for our first of two Pre-PTQ’s leading up to Pro Tour Milwaukee! We look forward to seeing you there.

Format: Modern
Date: March 15th, 2014 a SUNDAY
Time: Doors open at 11:00am, Round 1 pairings at 12:00pm
Entrance Fee: $25.00 per person
Address:
25 Taunton Street
Plainville MA 02762
508.316.1195

Parking on site

Google Maps
Battleground’s Facebook Page

This event is being run as a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier for Milwaukee:
• Competitive REL
• Decklists required
• Cut to top 8

Prizes:
6 Booster Packs per person will be entered into the prize pool.  These packs will be awarded to the top 8 finishers.  Additional prizes may be awarded based on turnout.

 

 

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Announcing Next Round of MTG Preliminary-PTQ’s for Pro Tour Vancouver

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Battleground Games & Hobbies is proud to announce the dates for our up-coming round of Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers! This time, we’re going to mix up the formats a bit offering a Modern and a Standard event. Each event qualifies the winner to play in the invitation-only Regional Qualifier held at a later date. Additional prizes awarded as well. Check out the details below! We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Modern Pre-PTQ Sunday, March 15th:

Format: Modern
Date: March 15th, 2014 a SUNDAY
Time: Doors open at 11:00am, Round 1 pairings at 12:00pm
Entrance Fee: $25.00 per person

Address:
25 Taunton Street
Plainville MA 02762
508.316.1195

Parking on site

Google Maps
Battleground’s Facebook Page

This event is being run as a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier for Pro Tour Vancouver:
• Competitive REL
• Decklists required
• Cut to top 8

Prizes:
6 Booster Packs per person will be entered into the prize pool.  These packs will be awarded to the top 8 finishers.  Additional prizes may be awarded based on turnout.

 

 

Standard Pre-PTQ, Sunday April 12th:

 

Format: Standard
Date: April 12th, 2015 a SUNDAY
Time: Doors open at 10:00am, Round 1 pairings at 12:00pm
Entrance Fee: $25.00 per person
Address:
1423 Bedford Street
Abington MA 02351
781.261.9669

Parking on site

Google Maps
Battleground’s Facebook Page

This event is being run as a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier for Pro Tour Vancouver:
• Competitive REL
• Decklists required
• Cut to top 8
Prizes:
6 Booster Packs per person will be entered into the prize pool.  These packs will be awarded to the top 8 finishers.  Additional prizes may be awarded based on turnout.

 

 

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This week in Magic: Back to Burn

searing blaze
 

It’s time for another installment of “This Week in Magic.” With the recent bannings in Modern, I’ve been having a tough time coming up with a deck I want to play. For a while, I was playing UR Delver like many other people, and like many, I had a very successful run with it. However, that is no longer the case and it’s almost like times have reverted back to pre-Khans of Tarkir periods with a a few exceptions.

 

First thing on the agenda is to figure out what I’m going to play. I don’t think it’s a terrible choice to go back to playing what I was playing before – Mono Red Burn. In fact, thanks to the recent bannings, it may have gotten better in a way. Before Treasure Cruise was removed from the picture, I had seen many Mono Red Burn lists forcing the card into the decklists. I tried it out myself. At that point, you might as well be playing UR Delver. However, without the Delver package, it had become a whole new beast. I felt it was trying to do too much.

 

Now that we know what we’re playing let’s take a look at a sample decklist.

 

Mono Red Burn
4 Goblin Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Grim Lavamancer

 

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shard Volley
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
4 Skull Crack
3 Flames of the Blood Hand

 

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
9 Mountain
1 Stomping Ground

 

When it comes to Mono Red Burn, I want to burn you as fast as possible. With such a low mana curve, I don’t want to risk any chance of flooding. In this case, I will gladly go with an 18 land package. I feel that the eight fetchlands are self-explanatory. Not triggering the landfall on Searing Blaze is the worse thing that can happen to a Burn player. More importantly it helps fuel the fire for Grim Lavamancer.

 

Helping make sure that there is plenty of wood to burn for your Grim Lavamancer is very important because Affinity is sure to make a surge thanks to the recent bannings. Grim Lavamancer will be one of your keys to being successful on a consistent basis.

 

The biggest change from the list I ran at GP Boston last summer has to be the Monastery Swiftspear. Some would consider her to be better than the Goblin Guide. However, I say we take the best of both worlds and run them together. There is a catch though. When it comes to running the Swiftspear, I feel that it’s important to remember that it’s okay to swing with her as a 1/2. When you start pouring your instant spells into her just to make her bigger, you begin to put yourself at a disadvantage. If you have patience with her, she’ll take you a long way.

 

For the most part, the deck hasn’t really changed. We’ve added a creature to the list and cut down on one burn spell. Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged didn’t help us out either way. One thing you may have all been wondering about is why is there a long Stomping Ground? This is for the multiple copies of Destructive Revelry that will most likely go in the side board. Speaking of side board, let’s take a look at the rest of our possible side.

 

2 Blood Moon
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Combust
2 Torpor Orb
4 Searing Blood
3 Destructive Revelry

 

Thanks to the bannings Junk is set to take the number one spot in Modern. A big reason is due to Siege Rhino. It was one of the biggest reasons why Birthing Pod began to get out of hand. There was a reason Birthing Pod changed it’s name to Rhino Pod.

 

I’m not going to get into too much detail here, but this side board is pretty versatile against different versions of Junk. Blood Moons are pretty good here, but are not completely necessary for the matchup. Keep in mind, though, we are dealing with a deck that is greedy when it comes to it’s mana. While it doesn’t need to, it wants to hit that third color. Combust will be one of our best removal spells against Siege Rhino. As for Torpor Orb, this is another card that is not necessary, but can still help the cause by stopping those Siege Rhino activations.

 

Surprisingly enough, Relic of Progenitus is a solid choice to bring in here. While Burn decks can typically outburn a Tarmogoyf, having a backup plan is still nice. Not to mention Scavenging Ooze could potentially be a problem. Relic can help make sure the graveyards are clear of any creatures. Once an Ooze gets going it can be a little hard to stop.

 

I feel Mono Red is poised to be one of the top decks, again, in Modern. Any deck that has a high chance to play a turn one fetchland, into an untapped shock land, followed by casting Thoughtseize is our best friend. Sadly, not everyone will be playing Junk. If Affinity makes a move for the top, that’s when Mono Red Burn players will have to be concerned. This has always been a coin flip in my experience. Nonetheless, have confidence in your play and you’ll be just fine.

 

Well that’s it for now. I hope you all enjoyed this week’s topic and if there is a specific topic you’d like me to cover, then let me know.

 

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!

Join the Battleground Games & Hobbies community forums!

Please don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @battleground_gh!

 

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This week in Magic: Feelings, Bannings, and PPTQS

treasure cruise
 

Welcome back to another “This week in Magic.” For our time together we’ll be covering several topics. To start things off let me share my experience at the first PPTQ held at the Abington store on January 11. On a Sunday, I felt we had a pretty good turn out. I can’t remember exactly how many people showed up, but I believe the attendance was somewhere around 50. I can definitely tell you there were six rounds of swiss with a cut to the Top 8.

 

Losing gracefully

The reason I want to share my experience at the PPTQ is because I was reminded about something important. As Magic players, I think it’s safe to say that we’re mostly competitive players by nature. By this I mean losing is not an option we take lightly. Winning is obviously preferred. If losing does happen, we’d rather not talk about it and, sometimes, we’d rather just move on.

 

However, at some point or another, we’re going to have to accept losing and take it with grace. In fact, it’s the only way, as players, we’re going to get better at the game. Let me pose a question to many of you out there. This question doesn’t just apply to those who play Magic. This question applies to anyone who plays any kind of game.

 

What tends to be your initial reaction when you lose? Do you rage and flip tables? Are you the type that suddenly becomes quiet and refuses to talk to even your closest friends? Well, whatever happens, I feel like keeping it in is the worst thing you can do.

 

I lost a close match at that PPTQ. Actually, I felt I should never have lost that match. I admit I went into thinking I was going to win, or at least, I should win. However, I also reminded myself of terrible past experiences where I lost matches to players who had only been playing for a couple of months.

 

When I lost that match, time stood still for me. I imagined flipping the table at screaming at the top of my lungs. Of course, in real life this didn’t happen. I kind of just stared off into the distance. All the while my opponent had continued to talk to me expressing how he thought he shouldn’t have won that game and how lucky he was to get such a “great opening hand.”

 

It’s time like that which are the most humbling. I may have been a little bit distant at the very end of that match. When it was all said and done, and my slip was passed in, my friends had come up to me and asked how my last match had gone. Obviously I had replayed some of the table flipping I imagined, but, in the end, I laughed and said, “I just got my butt whipped.”

 

Take your loss and move on. Why is losing so important? Losing makes you such a better player both in terms of play and sportsmanship.

 

Recent changes to banned/restricted list

In other news, Wizards of the Cost released their latest changes to the Banned/Restricted list for all formats. For those of you who may have missed the daily memo here is a breakdown of what happened:

 

 

Standard players typically need not worry about these kind of rulings. Rarely have they been affected. However, as you can see, if you play an older format, then you may want to pay attention whenever these announcements come out.

 

I believe for a while we all knew out of Jeskai Ascendancy, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time, that one of those was going to be banned. Right before the announcement was made, many people had made up their mind that the enchantment was most likely to get the axe. As we all know by now, this was not the case and the news certainly shook things up a bit.

 

Treasure Cruise is not a surprise. Like I said, it was one of three to be banned. Dig Through Time may have been a tiny bit surprising. I can see the banning of one card or the other, but to ban both at the same time caught me off guard. I can see it though. If you aren’t playing with one, you’re going to use the other. Each card has almost the same effect in regards to getting a player tons of information for a potentially small amount of mana. Banning both cards at the same time was probably the right choice.

 

As far as Birthing Pod is concerned, why wasn’t this banned earlier? Some may have felt that the people at Wizards needed a little more convincing. Well that certainly came in the form of Siege Rhino.

 

In the end, I understand why the bannings took place. It will definitely shake things up in Modern. As far as Legacy goes, I feel it just removes UR Delver from the equation. Which isn’t much if you ask me.

 

Upcoming events

As a quick wrap up, I just wanted to remind you all that this Friday, January 23, is the Fate Reforged Fatpack Challenge. These have been a great hit and a wonderful reason to open up more packs. So, if you think you have what it takes to take on the challenge, click here for more information about the event.

 

fatpack hallenge
 

Finally, on January 25, there will be another PPTQ held at the Abington store. The format will be Standard. Doors open at 10 AM, Registration at 11 AM, and Round 1 Pairings at 12 PM. For more information on this event, click here.

 

PPTQ 1252015
 

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!

Join the Battleground Games & Hobbies community forums!

Please don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @battleground_gh!

 

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‘Magic the Gathering’ Banned & Restricted List Update

WOTC

 

Wizards of the Coast announced today their quarterly update to the Magic the Gathering Banned & Restricted list; a list of cards deemed to be, typically, too powerful to be allowed in tournament play in an effort to keep the various formats fun, diverse and healthy.

 

Many speculated across social media that major updates were eminent. Today’s announcement certainly lives up to that speculation.

 

In it’s entirety, here is the Banned & Restricted Announcement:

 

Announcement Date: January 19, 2015

Effective Date: January 23, 2015

Magic Online Effective Date: January 28, 2015

Modern:

Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Birthing Pod are banned.

Golgari Grave-Troll is no longer banned.

Legacy:

Treasure Cruise is banned.

Worldgorger Dragon is no longer banned.

Vintage:

Treasure Cruise is restricted.

Gifts Ungiven is no longer restricted.

The complete list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.

Next B&R Announcement: March 23, 2015

 

Explanation of Changes

 

Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive Constructed format. When a format becomes imbalanced, we examine the cause. Sometimes, a card-drawing card can be too efficient. The decks that draw cards so efficiently push out many other decks, limiting the field to the strong decks that best use those card drawers and decks that don’t play in interactive games with those strong decks. In that case, the best option might be to ban the overly efficient card drawer.

Since Wizards looks to limit the number of cards banned, each format is evaluated on its own merits. The same card might be banned in some formats, and not others, in a way that might appear uneven. That happens because the card is banned in the formats where, in practice, it is problematic.

Here are our changes:

Modern

Decks playing the powerful card drawers have been winning a lot, and pushing a lot of other decks down in competitive play. Blue-Red Delver decks, playing efficient creatures, card drawers, burn, and some permission spells have been the most successful. Also, decks focused on more burn, or combination decks using Jeskai Ascendancy, have done well. However, as these decks have occupied a large portion of the competitive metagame, the overall variety of successful decks has been suppressed. It is imbalanced enough that Wizards of the Coast has decided to act. In Modern, these cards are easy replacements for one another—while a Delver deck might use Treasure Cruise overDig Through Time, banning one but not the other would do little to change the deck. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned.

Over the past year, Birthing Pod decks have won significantly more Grand Prix than any other Modern decks and compose the largest percentage of the field. Each year, new powerful options are printed, most recently Siege Rhino. Over time, this creates a growing gap between the strength of the Pod deck and other creature decks. Pod won five of the twelve Grand Prix over the past year, including winning the last two. The high percentage of the field playing Pod suppresses decks, especially other creature decks, that have an unfavorable matchup. In the interest of supporting a diverse format, Birthing Pod is banned.

When cards are banned from a format, Wizards investigates whether there is a banned card that, if not banned, might add new decks to competitive play. We look for cards that are unlikely to add power to existing top decks, but instead add new strategies or augment decks that are not currently as successful. Golgari Grave-Troll is very powerful in a deck based on getting a lot of cards into its graveyard. Replacing a card draw with dredge 6 is a terrific rate. However, that type of deck has not been as successful in Modern tournaments recently. While taking such a card off the banned list has some risks, this is a good time to see what happens. Golgari Grave-Troll is no longer banned.

Legacy

Blue-Red Delver decks have been so successful at tournament play that they are hurting the diversity of the format. While other decks can have some success, the diversity is significantly less than it had been. Treasure Cruise is banned.

Worldgorger Dragon has a strange and powerful interaction with Animate Dead. This used to be too powerful for Legacy. It is not clear that this is more powerful than animating Griselbrand, and this interaction may add an interesting variant. Worldgorger Dragon is no longer banned.

Vintage

Again, Blue-Red Delver decks have been so successful at tournament play that they are hurting the diversity of the format. Treasure Cruise is restricted.

Years ago, Gifts Ungiven was dominating Vintage tournament play. However, this has not been the case recently, and the card might invigorate some less-played Vintage decks. Gifts Ungiven is no longer restricted.

 

What do you think of these changes? Are you happy with them? Sound off in the comments below!

 

 

 

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This week in Magic: Modern UR Delver pt. 2

Delver
 

Welcome back to another segment of “This week in Magic.” The last time we were here, I discussed some main board options for UR Delver for Modern. This week, I’m going to go over some side board options. If there is time, I’ll try to go over a local Modern tournament I 4-0’d with UR Delver. So, as a quick reminder, here is the full list that I ran:

 

Main board
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Young Pyromancer

 

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
3 Thought Scour
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
2 Vapor Snag
2 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
1 Electrolyze
4 Treasure Cruise

 

2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Steam Vents
2 Island
3 Mountain

 

Side board
2 Blood Moon
2 Electrickery
1 Negate
1 Dispel
2 Dragon Claw
1 Pithing Needle
1 Counterflux
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Combust
2 Smash to Smithereens

 

I’ve been playing the deck for a couple of weeks now, and I can say with much certainty that Electrickery is now open. I initially had it in the side board for the mirror match. However, I realized the main focus in the mirror tends to be taking care of your opponent’s Young Pyromancer. A really interesting option I came across was running Izzet Staticaster. As an 0/3, the only way to kill it is with a Lightning Bolt, and it can survive most attacks.

 

I’ve been very happy with the many one of’s in the side board like Negate and Dispel. Some of the problem cards I’ve been running into have been other counterspells and Lightning Bolts. In those situations, Dispel really shows its strength. Negate has been great in countering some of those random spells that you were expecting or even forget exist in the format. Mana Leak and Spell Pierce are great early counters, but later on, their power takes a big dip. Having a hard counter like Negate is great during those times.

 

As for the rest of the side board, I think I need more time with it. Up to now, I’ve had no problem, but there haven’t been many opportunities to test it. For example, I have yet to try the deck against Affinity or Tron. What have I played against? Good question. To answer that, I’ll go over a local tournament I attended and won.

 

In the first round, I played against Merfolk. As someone who has played Mono Red Burn, and played against this match up a lot, I was not a fan. However, I have to find a way to remind myself, that I’m not playing burn anymore. My opponent had an okay start. They opened with a Cursecatcher and then followed that up with one of their lords. I was on the draw and I opener was a Swiftspear. I followed that up with a Lightning Bolt, then another Swiftspear. Now, I know I could have done it the other way around, but with Cursecatcher on the board, I needed to be sure I could pay for the one mana in case they sacrificed it to counter the Bolt. My opponent didn’t and let their lord die. When I followed the Bolt up with another Swiftspear they were a little confused.

 

Now with two Swiftspears on the board, things began to get out of hand. I played spells without hesitation to help grow my monks and eventually take game one.

 

Unfortunately, for my opponent, the only creatures he saw were two Spellskites. I would land a turn two Young Pyromancer and it would stick. Numerous spells later, I had acquired a fleet of elementals and the game was over.

 

For the sake of time, I’m going to skip ahead to the fourth and final round. This was a match against Splinter Twin that had no Tarmogoyfs. Game one did not go well for me. However, it went as well as it could for the Twin player. How perfectly well did it go? At the end of my third turn, they played Deceiver. It resolved and tapped my only other blue source. Of course they could just be leading me on, but my opponent untapped, drew their card, and then played their Twin. On to game two!

 

In game two, I brought in a Dispel, a Negate, and two Combusts. I took out an Electrolyze, both Forked Bolts, and a Gitaxian Probe. Something tells me that a probe is the wrong thing to take out here, but I am still unsure what is better. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

 

Game three, I realized I needed to get an aggressive start. So I mulled with the intent to get turn one creature down. I know Lightning Bolt is a serious issue here, but if I can get it to stick, I’ll feel a lot better about the match. If I remember correctly, I mulled to five cards before I was satisfied. I landed a first turn Delver, but it didn’t last long as it was bolted the next turn. I got very lucky and drew into a Young Pyromancer. I was lucky enough to have the Pyromancer stick around for quite a few turns. My opponent even had landed a Ratchet Bomb at one point, but hesitated in blowing it up. Later in the game, I played a Delver with the Bomb still in play. My opponent had made a big play mistake when they ticked the Bomb up to one counter. When my Delver finished resolving it’s flip, they had decided to blow up the Bomb forgetting that it’s converted mana cost was now zero.

 

The third and final game was still a little exciting even though my opponent didn’t do much but draw cards. Once again, a Young Pyromancer had made an early appearance only to be followed up by a handful of spells to create an army of Elementals. The thing about Twin is that sometimes it can win without any kind of warning. I guess that’s why the game was a little exciting for myself. It may have been a bit boring for my opponent, but how was I supposed to know they were drawing blanks most of the game.

 

Well it seems I’ve gone of my time for this week. Tune in next week as I wrap things up and give some final thoughts on the deck for now. Thanks for reading!

 

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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