The basic stats for my first FNM with a deck that I really worked on myself was I played 11 matches, and won five of them, however I played four rounds and won 1 of them. So my win rate per match is 48% and per round is 25% 2-0. 2-1, 2-1, 2-1
Ok – so the benefits of sleep really do make a difference at least to my level of sportsmanship and things that are weird to me before continue to maybe make me uncomfortable later.
There’s a point in OP where I get confused because people can agree to draw or immediately concede to help out someone else with standing. Team Channel Fireball (which looks like an OP Pro team but is really just a group of pros trying to work together) has publicly taken draws or conceded matches in tournament to help teammates top 8. There’s also apparently some legitimate forms of dropping in order to help other people with standing. If the FNM record doesn’t really matter to OP then the next question becomes is it also OK to do this or concede a game in order to help someone where being able to pick a better booster pack is THE most important thing to them?
And is it fair to say "no" after pretty much everyone else in OP has told me that FNM doesn’t mean a damn thing unless I’m trying to get to Pro Tour? ( And by “everyone” this I actually mean being asked directly by Aaron Forsythe why I would even care about the multiplier if I wasn’t good enough to place in a PTQ ). My fellow newbs are more traditionally tournament spikey and they don’t necessarily care about standings or points or ratings as much as they care about winning in the “now”. They might care later if they get good enough to place regularly at FNM but we pretty much established that in my crowd, at my store, I’m probably the only one using PWP as competitive markers for progress competing against my own record.
But I can also tell you that the multiplier went down and all of a sudden everything else at the FNM was rouge decks and competing for “stuff” – lots more trading between rounds too.
Before the Rounds
I went to play my version of a snapless Delver Illusions Deck because I honestly had no place else to playtest it seriously. I’m still pretty uninterested in Magic Online until I can play it on my IPad. I want real cards, or real mobility, I’m uninterested in being tied to a computer to practice Magic.
I met up with David Who Will Be Returning College Soon. Which will make me sad because he’s like the absolute mythical good welcoming high level player ( he has placed 1st at every single event I’ve attended that he’s been at) but he never brags, is always friendly and helpful and you never even notice that he’s placed first because as soon as he gets his store credit or pack he just turns around and gives complete focus to whoever he was talking to about whatever he was talking about. He makes taking big leaps forward in magic seem safe (like drafting blue). I wish there were ten more like him for every store.
Preparation –
I drafted blue on Weds before specifically to get playtime with more blue cards and I’d started working on the deck with the Steampunk Marchioness the weekend before. She loaned me the phantasmal images I needed to run 4 and a seachrome coast so I could see if it made a big difference.
This is the list I ran:
Main deck (60 cards)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Lord of the Unreal
1 Merfolk Looter
4 Phantasmal Image
2 AEther Adept
1 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
1 Vapor Snag
4 Mana Leak
2 Think Twice
2 Dissipate
1 Ghost Quarter
5 Glacial Fortress
12 Island
3 Moorland Haunt
1 Seachrome Coast
2 Shimmering Grotto
Sideboard (15 cards)
2 Frost Breath
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Adaptive Automaton
1 Geist-Honored Monk
2 Flashfreeze
3 Master Thief
3 Oblivion Ring
The Nihil Spellbombs were for the two control decks that raid their graveyard that I had played against several times, the Frost Breath I had intended to use like Feelings of Dread and that I knew would be safe to cast even if I pulled no glacial fortresses, Flashfreezes were for the various Wolfrun ramps and Stompy humans. The Looter, Automaton and Monk were there incase I was running creature light or there were problems with either getting to my cards or having strong enough win conditions. Master Thief and Oblivion Rings were there as anti-infect deck and anti-artifact conditions since our FNM Johnnies really love their artifacts.
Comfort Level –
I would say exactly at “comfortable” I wasn’t playing with any strange cards and using the Delvers with the higher level players I was playing against on Wednesday night meant I had confidence in how to use the cards. Ironically because of all of the trouble I had getting real answers or understanding Illusions and Snapcasters it also meant that in the deck I was actually playing I wasn’t going to get sideswiped by not understanding basic card interactions which let me really appreciate some of the nuances of the deck. Between getting enough sleep and having realized this deck was an aggro deck it was possibly the first time I felt like I wasn’t swimming in water that had undertow as well as being over my head.
Results
- Yeah, I posted them at the top – there’s a reason for this. One of the 2-1 matches asked me to report at 2-0 no matter who won the tiebreaker – that would move said winner-take-all further up the chain to select cards if they placed first. If FNM is “casual and friendly” the way Helene Beurgerot and Aaron Forsythe and Melissa Del Toro and Patrick Chapin have all basically told me, well then why the hell should I care about in effect one of us conceding a match, to in effect give a position advantage to a teammate? Doing so moves my personal win percentage from 48% of matches played to 40%, but it wouldn’t change my 25% round win rate. But the guy who it really matters to gets to choose a booster back and FNM card two slots sooner. What does FNM mean now anyway? What constitutes your Magic Team if there are no teams in OP but you’re encouraged to build one?
We had no ranked judge present. I’m not sure I would have asked one over anyway because I had no desire to get someone who I would want on my magic team in potential trouble if it were different from the pros. I know I wouldn’t have even been asked when the multipliers were 3x because the stakes were different than stuff and saying you were working for a personal ratings goal meant competing priority.
I know it makes me uncomfortable enough not to ever agree to it in the future.
Round 1 – A player who came over from playing competitive YughiO who had the white humans deck I have been struggling over buying the cards for.
He explained how cheap the “good” cards in Magic are compared to Yughi O cards – ( 30 vs 180!). I took the game 2-0 mostly because the Delvers came up and flipped really early and Moorland Haunts ( which he was playing too) came out midgame. I made sure to point out interactions he might have missed in his own deck and loaned him my angel token when his Geist of St Traft came out. Mana Leaks and various control cards helped me here. He had some very effective removal on my creatures until the Lords came out.
2-0
Round 2 - A player who I’ve played before playing an infect /artifact deck. I hate infect. In both cases where he won it was specifically because I didn’t really “get” how his artifacts worked it was lots of charges and such. I sideboarded Oblivion rings but I should have more aggressively switched Aether Adepts for Master Thiefs.
2-1
Round -3 Played against one of my very first opponents – who I played the Illusions 2012 event deck against. He generally plays Red Deck Wins the “GoodStuff” version.
*newb note “Goodstuff” is apparently when you make a deck out of all of the best (and therefore most expensive) cards. The theory and indeed the proof in practice is that even if you aren’t the best player the cards are SO GOOD that most of the time they’ll take you to a win even if you’re not using them in the most advanced manner.
He told me he was “going rouge” this time. He put out a mountain and a Blood Crazed Neonate - I laughed and said it looked like he was playing the same kind of deck he usually played. He was it was just GoodStuff Vampires instead of Red Deck Wins. Did it have Lilliana’s and Bloodkeepers and Oliva’s and some other Planeswalker I don’t remember because I got rid of it quick? Yes it did.
I lost game one, sideboarded in all of the Oblivion Rings ( Because I hate Planeswalkers so much) and the Flashfreezes switching out with 2 mana leaks, the 1shimmering grottos, 1 island and 1 aether adept. I won the second game.
The third game didn’t let me get rid of Lilliana fast enough and couldn’t stop an unblockable vampire because I was pulling counterspells and nothing to remove threats after they resolved
2-1
Round 4 – I don’t remember his name. He was a really good player who was bringing a competitive deck that had been running iffy for him in terms of tempo- it was artifact, planeswalker infect running green.
*Newb Note – between rounds you have to return your deck to it’s original configuration if you sideboarded during the previous round. I asked and was told you couldn’t sideboard before the first round.
I held in for a while but he won with infect even though I had the better board state until the last minute. I brought in oblivions, flashfreezes and master thieves but won the second game because I flipped two delvers in two turns plus managed to get bears and a lord of the unreal out by turn 4
The third game was epic. Really epic, we ran out the clock, I held him at bay I but he was holding on to 6 life with me at 17 we were overtime and clocking down to 2 turns left before the board state slipped just enough for him to proliferate because my Master Theives were awol. A last minute ( literally) combo proliferated two poison counters to 10 winning him the game before I got in for last turn lethal
2-1
Takeaways:
Round 1's error showed I really need to find a way to process the sacrifice and exile requirements in word text blocks better – I’m pretty sure since this is a consistent problem of mine that it’s an LD issue – plus it’s taking me a while to get comfortable with the new timing/layer/sacrifice rules. I got better with it with the white and blue cards but having it on the land card made it kind of a starting point. However the proper amount of sleep seems to have made a difference in how I handled finding out about the mistake. I apologized, informed my fellow newb, and made a note to double check myself if I used the card again that night ( which I did)
Round 2 makes it clear that my dislike of Infect is actually more intesne when I am in a good mood and have had enough sleep because my true offence at the disruption of the design space is clearer to me and ultimately I'm a fan of the game desgin almost more than the game itself. Infect takes a 20 point game and makes it a 10 point game. For very little reason and with very little tech to fix it. He was playing enough control to slow me down all he had to do was outlast me when he had an unblockable infect. He basically won by getting a single poison counter on me and using some kind of combo I still don’t get to proliferate up to 10 in three rounds without using creatures.
The third game of the third round was when I saw what my “multiple instants/effects + tired + rules confusion” looks like from the other side of the table. Even though I was now playing against two of my least favorite mechanics, I wasn’t particularly upset about the mechanics of playing them it was sort of neutrally “unfun” but I was getting to see how the phantasmal images were giving me all sorts of strategic mobility that I didn’t have without them. I was wishing more of my instants had flashback. But my poor opponent was really overwhelmed trying to use multiple instants and effect on me when I responded by casting a response instant that did something for me without changing his board state. He was also under the impression that he wouldn't have to discard a card for Lilliana since I made him exile a different card, I suggested that we call over the judge ( who in our earlier game came over and tried to correct a boardstate that didn't need correcting but did manage to really disrupt both of us as players until we were able to walk it back and explain why I had a -1/-1 counter even though I had hexproof ( it was because he had blocked me using damage the old fashioned way but the phantasmal bears didn't disappear because they were hexproof) but I was pretty OK with everything even if it was the least fun round of the night and felt for him when he came out of the exchange having gained board advantage but still unsure of how.
Round 4’s game I learned a lot and played the hell out of that game. It was high pressure and really intense but not bad, or overwhelming or any of the other things that could have happened. I would have liked to win that game or even drawn, but I’m really proud of my level of play in that game. I think I need to become more familiar with the lower level artifacts in the Scars Block. I’m sure I didn’t play against them properly.
For the first time since I’ve played them I had a Glacial Fortress come in tapped, which was salvaged by the fact that Seachrome Coast was coming in untapped at that point, but I did wonder what if I was pulling seachromes late game – are they really a good choice to run so many multiples?
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