One More Level to Go: GP DC Report by Ari Lax (With Extras!)

Ari 9-0'd day one of Grand Prix DC with Jund, but day two was not kind to him as he managed to miss Top 8 after the Kibleresque start. Here's what he had to say about his adventures and tournament experience with bonus material on PT San Juan.


DC was sicko, except the walking across the highway to the event site thing. I battles Jund, as it is clearly just the best. I made some last minute changes that ended up being the nuts. The list is on the website as I 9-0ed D1, basic card notes follow.

Lotus Cobra: The nuts.
Garruk: Captain Mise.
Sarkhan the Mad: Should have been main.
Master of the Wild Hunt: All value.

Highlights of the event:
-Broke the Naya match up during my byes. Now too easy.
-Went 3-0 in game 1's against Mythic. In testing, was 20%.
-Opponent swung into a Bloodwitch and a Leech with a 7/7 Knight, I double block, and he puts Witch first.
-Opponent casts Lighting Bolt when I am at 3 life, I win. He targets my Thrinax, then post-board Pulses the tokens. After he dies, he flips his top card and says "Oh man, Lightning Bolt, I could have killed you with that".
-Curve G1 vs Saito: Leech (no Seas!), rip Mountain to play Thrinax, gets Pathed so I can Elf into Pulse for his Elspeth, Elf again into Pulse for Gideon, flash the 6 points of burn in my hand when he taps out. Still had the 3rd Pulse the whole time.
-UR Polymorph opponent's deck was something a 5 year old could stack. Half Beta lands + 4 Beta bolts, a bunch of curved foils, and non-foil Jaces and Iona.

Losses were to Jund (1 punted, 1 varianced), UR Polymorph (kept clunky double Elf hand into Double Negatives G1, got Spreading Sea'd G3), and WUr Walkers (he had lots of Spreading Seas).

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San Juan was the worst. Worse than Atlanta. The house was booby trapped (as has been explained by many other people better) and the city was like the shitty parts of Detroit, only not stripped bare due to the fact every house had razor fences. Not razor wire, but 8 foot tall steel fences with razor sharp metal blades on top. Everything was also DI dollars as it was a giant tourist trap.

Deck for the event was sick, I played the G/U tempo deck designed by  Gavin Verhey, Craig Wescoe, and myself. The sideboard was 2-3 cards off though; Paralyzing Grasp didn't really beat Sparkmage due to Kor Skyfisher and Pelakka Wurm was a little clunky. Should have been 2 Whiplash Trap and one other card. I think the combined record was like x-2 or 3 vs everything but Red decks, mulls to 5, and mana screw. I went 6-4, with losses being 2 punts to Red, one getting smashed by Boros, and a double mull to 5 round one against Mono-Green. Ben Hayes played our deck to a 10-0 record.

As for Limited, draft one I opened Gideon and Sphinx of Magosi, lost one to Raid issues. Draft two I beat some pile, lost to Finkel ripping out of Perish the Thought twice (first he had all 4+ drops, took the 3 drop, he rips land, second I take Crusher, he draws it when he hits 8 mana then All is Dusts me), then lost to Efro when he had double Broodwarden then double Pelakka Wurm. Made 4 possible mispicks:

Draft 1, P2P1: White is very open, you have 4 Levelers and a Time of Heroes in it. You P1P1'ed Sphinx of Magosi then didn't see any Blue, and P3'ed Heat Ray and didn't see Red. Pick is Enclave Cryptologist or Knight of Cliffhaven. I took Knight as I didn't want to move into Blue unless it was very open this pack.

Draft 1, P2P2: You see Champion's Drake and Enclave Cryptologist. I took Drake as I wanted more incentive cards for my levelers.

Draft 2, P1P3: I had Lord of Shatterskull Pass (shipping Green) and some rando Red card. I took Pawn of Ulamogg over Induce Despair as I wanted to be all in. Definitely wrong in retrospect.

Draft 2, P2P1: I took Hatcher over Brimstone Mage as I was still all in. Probably wrong.

Ended up top 100ing for 4 pro points. Currently have 10, so 2 more levels to go.