Hey everybody! Today I'd like to share with you guys some of the things I've learned about M15 limited since doing Pre-release events, drafts and a Team Sealed Grand Prix last weekend in Portland. With an individual M15 sealed GP coming up soon in Salt Lake, I'm staying focused on my goals of making day two at a GP for the first time and in a format where I usually excel in, I'm hoping to make that a reality!
First off, one of the biggest things I picked up at GP Portland last weekend, was that your success can heavily depend on the pool you receive. My team went undefeated with a pretty sick pool in a Team Sealed Practice event the night before the main event and we were super stoked going into Day-1. Once we got our pool for the GP, we quickly determined that it did not build as good of decks as our pool the previous night did. However, I also noticed that we forced the same archetypes we had done so well with before and even though we blatantly knew that our decks were weaker, we stuck with it anyway. It came back to bite us as we quickly dropped at 1-3. The biggest thing to take from this(myself included) is that if you are used to forcing a certain archetype or color combination in M15 limited(or any limited format for that matter) because it's really good, you need to be careful that you realize when it's bad and to try something else. Instead of forcing the Red/Green stompy deck that is usually really good in M15, we should have looked at a Black/Green or Blue/Red to see if they fit better. We would have had a much better shot at the GP if we just took the time to line up the combinations and weigh the differences. We literally just went straight for building Black/Blue, Red/Green, and Green/White like we usually do and didn't look at anything else.
Don't do that!
Another interesting thing I've picked up is not to be close minded on certain cards. When I look at my pools, I usually sort each color in two piles. One with cards I consider playable, and the other is non-playable cards. One example is Satyr Wayfinder. It's a card I generally would never play for the risk of throwing away your bombs. However, I had the amazing opportunity to play against two of the Channel Fireball pros; Matthew Costa and Owen Turtenwald and BOTH of them were playing Satyr Wayfinder against me. Costa cast Restock a couple of times in our round so it was obvious that it wasn't the worst thing to be doing there, but I saw no graveyard interaction from Owen after he played a Wayfinder. It really got me thinking outside the box on the card.
I'm going to do a quick relevant aside and come back to the Satyr and hopefully things will make sense on my thought process to figuring out this "more than meets the eye" creature.
I hate gambling. I've been to Vegas a few times now and have never put even a single nickel in a machine. For Magic, when I look at my opening hand, It's usually pretty clear that it's bad or good. There's not a lot of grey area there for me. If it looks like I need to get lucky a bit to make the hand pay off, I'll usually just mulligan. I don't like to take the chance. I'd rather have the game be decided by tight-technical play than luck if I can help it. Basically, I just want to give myself the best chance to NOT have to rely on luck throughout a game. The same notion takes affect when I get milled. I don't like to make myself upset over something that gets milled away so sometimes I tend not to even look. However, I figured that if you get some cards milled, there's basically the same chance of drawing the card you want afterwards as there is before you get milled. Technically, you have a better chance of drawing it if it doesn't go to the yard, but the point is that it's important to understand that there's the same chance for any card in your deck to get milled as any other. It's a little bit of luck, but I try to look at it scientifically and not mess with my own mind and make myself upset the rest of the game. You can't control what goes to the yard, but if you focus on that too much, you'll forget about what you can control.
Anyway, back to the Wayfinder. The reason why it's a good card is because it can find you a land. Probably a land of the color you might be missing. Yes, it can throw away some bombs, but they're no good anyway if you don't have the land to cast them. M15 actually has a lot of cards that interact with the graveyard too so it's really pretty good. The Souls, at worst, can at least get 1 use from the graveyard. Black has cards that bring back creatures to your hand or put one into play. Green has Restock and the powerful Undergrowth Scavenger. I might not necessarily recommend playing the Wayfinder with no graveyard interaction spells, but like I said, he makes sure you hit your land drops, not to mention he's great at stopping Oreskos Swiftclaws!
Finally, another thing I picked up at the GP is that Pros can be beaten. I beat one myself! It made me realize that I have the ability to be on their level and achieve the results I want out of a major event. It all came down to attitude. I sat down across from my opponents with the expectation that I'm going to win. I made correct plays and played tight Magic. I think that you see a lot of the pros winning event after event because people sit across from them and get nervous. When you get your next sealed pool, build the best deck you can and go in with the attitude that you can beat anyone across from you. Too many times have I psyched myself out just by looking at someone, especially someone I don't know. I tell myself that my opponent "Looks like someone who will beat me". And then they do. Don't do that!
Thanks for reading guys! Good luck in Salt Lake!
DannyO
WizardDen.com
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