One Month Full of Challenges

Introduction

The last weekend of February was the date of Mythic Championship 1 (MC1) in Cleveland. While it was technically the second Pro Tour of the season, it was marked as MC1 and the first big tournament of this new era of competitive Magic. Despite not many information being out, it looks like the MCs are going to have a major weight in the future. I was also 7 points short of Platinum and I was planning on getting them. As if all this wasn’t enough, I’ve added some very strict restrictions to my lifestyle. I’ve included our deck’s SB plan in the end, so feel free to jump right into it.

The Challenges

20th of February was marked on my calendar as the day of departure to Cleveland, place of MC1. I felt like I needed to do something different for this tournament in terms of preparation. Not that I think that the last one was terrible, but there were certainly things that could be improved.

I’ve been really consistent with the gym for the last few months. I feel like I am in a pretty good spot in terms of frequency and type training, so I wanted to challenge myself to do a bit more in terms of health habits to try to improve my game. For the 20 days prior my departure to the US I wanted to do the following:

Drink only water, coffee or green team. (no sodas, no natural juices, no alcohol)
No foods with refined sugar. (no cakes, no candy, no breakfast cereal, flavored yogurt etc.)
16/8 Intermittent fasting (this means that you are only allowed to eat during a 8h window, in my case it was from 14 to 22)
And the biggest of all – No smoking.

I’m not a huge smoker. A pack of 20 cigarettes can last for a week for me. The problem is that during a Magic tournament I can go crazy and chain smoke one after another. GP Strasburg was going to be the biggest challenge for this, but I was planning on stopping all of these before going to the US, because some of the things would not be doable, with the drastic change on culture and time zone.

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Online Testing and MOCS

One of our major flaws last time was that we relied too much on Magic Online league results to pick our deck. It was certainly not a UB Zombies from other days, but it was far from being good. In Atlanta, with our Boros Mentor deck, we thought that we had in our hands the next Caw Blade and it was a bit disappointing to see all the elements of our team who decided to play it had some very mediocre results. Matchups we thought were great, we barely OK and we ended up being dogs on some matchups we though were OK. This time we played much more against each other and would jam some leagues only to get a grip on the decks and to have a better feel on the meta.

With that said, MOCS monthly came around and I thought it was a great opportunity to test a deck in one of the best fields Magic Online can have. I was ready to play a pretty stock list of Izzet Drakes, but a few hours before the event started, a friend messaged me a list that splashed green for 《Hydroid Krasis》, that I decided to give a try without any previous test. I ended up finishing 6-2 which was good for the playoff qualification but wasn’t sure if 《Hydroid Krasis》 was worth the splash. To note that I submitted an extra 《Mountain》, because I was replacing the lands to my online Guru basics and accidentally clicked on “add 4 to the list”. Worth it.

u_mad_bro
– Temur Drakes

Standard MOCS on 02/10/2019
(6-2)

4 《Mountain》
2 《Island》
4 《Steam Vents》
3 《Breeding Pool》
1 《Stomping Ground》
4 《Sulfur Falls》
3 《Hinterland Harbor》
1 《Rootbound Crag》
-Lands (22)- 4 《Pteramander》
3 《Hydroid Krasis》
4 《Crackling Drake》
2 《Niv-Mizzet, Parun》
-Creatures (13)-

4 《Opt》
4 《Shock》
3 《Dive Down》
3 《Spell Pierce》
4 《Chart a Course》
4 《Lava Coil》
4 《Discovery // Dispersal》 -Spells (26)-

3 《Fiery Cannonade》
2 《Banefire》
2 《Disdainful Stroke》
2 《Entrancing Melody》
2 《Crushing Canopy》
2 《Ral, Izzet Viceroy》
1 《Sailor of Means》
1 《Star of Extinction》
-Sideboard (15)-

The biggest surprise from our testing came when we realized that testing in Mythic Arena BO3 was super effective. The race to the Top 8 of the ladder made the games super reliable, as everyone was doing their maximum to win, with good decks and good sideboard plans. At some point we barely played against each other, unless we wanted to test something really specific.

Drafting on the other hand was a nightmare. Bots on Arena were pretty bad as pretty much every deck ended in a gate deck and drafts on MTGO were just taking too long to fire.

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GP Strasburg

My personal challenges were going pretty well and I was being very disciplined with the goals I’ve set, but I was really afraid of not being able to not smoke on this one. I was also not feeling too good about Limited, but having to spend a weekend with Marcio Carvalho and Mentor, Bernardo Santos was certainly going to help.

This is How Thursday Started…

Which in case you don’t understand Portuguese, it’s a mix of laughs and curse words from Marcio telling me that despite booking a wonderful trip to Strasburg, he was not going to the GP.

On Friday, I’ve met Bernardo and Alvas on the airport and we suffered our second loss, because the Legacy specialist who decided to book the flight earlier in the week, after reaching #1 Mythic on the Limited Arena Ladder, had both passport AND Portuguese ID expired and was not allowed to board.

I was left alone with Bernardo and to my biggest surprise, he had quit smoking as well. This was definitely going to help me not falling for the old habit.

On Saturday, I opened an OK pool and built a RG splashing B Monsters deck. With 3 byes and a above average draws I managed to go 8-1, which was something that I was really happy with.

Sealed Deck: RG splashing B Monsters

On day 2, I drafted a very good Azorius deck but finished with a disappointing 1-2.

1st Draft Deck: Azorius

Even though I was sad to be dead to Top 8 with this deck, I was still playing for important pro points. A 3-0 would mean a 12-3 final record and 3 extra pro points, which meant that a 9-7 record on the MC would give me Platinum, while a 1-2 record would be enough to 1 extra pro point, to be able to reach Platinum with a 10-6.

The world started to fall apart, when I drafted this super train wreck and was sure that I was going to 0-3 the pod.

2nd Draft Deck: Orzhov splashing Blue

This deck had everything. Bad mana, bad curve, no removal and TONS of fillers. My only plan was to try to set up a flyer or a lifelinker with the 《Angelic Exaltation》. I was already 0-2 (0-4 in games) when somehow I caught a bye on the final round! The other 0-2 decided to drop and I caught this HUGE break on a free extra pro point.

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Mythic Championship 1

After the GP, I knew I had some catch up to do on Limited but I still haven’t figure out which Standard deck I was going to be playing. I had Izzet Drakes as a back up because it was the deck I was playing MTG Arena with for the last 2 or 3 months, but I wasn’t feeling like playing it on the MC. I got excited with the Rakdos deck that won the GP Memphis but after playing few games with it, wasn’t feeling it either.

Bernardo, Marcio and Bolov0 (Thiago Saporito) were super locked on White Weenie splashing Blue, but the deck never impressed me when I played it. After watching a few of their games, it clicked me the most important thing I was doing wrong. This deck wasn’t much about tempo as it was about board presence. I was trying to squeeze some points of damage instead of building a bigger board many times and because this deck has no direct damage or haste creatures I was falling short of the last few points of damage very often. After adjusting this, I started winning more and the deck felt much better.

The list was not very innovating and Marcio does a very good job explaining most of the card choices HERE.

The biggest difference between most of the lists at the time was the 2 maindeck 《Baffling End》, which were a much cleaner answer than 《Conclave Tribunal》 to some of the problem creatures of the format. Not attacking has a big cost with this deck, since you rely only on your creatures to deal damage to your opponent and don’t forget that you are also playing 《Venerated Loxodon》. The other stand out card was the maindeck 《Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants》, which was a concession to a 16 card sideboard we had at the time.

I ran 2 cards different than the rest of the team, the 3rd 《Disdainful Stroke》 for their 《Spell Pierce》, which I felt like I needed one extra card against Sultai. And a 《Demystify》 for an 《Unbreakable Formation》. I am still very happy with this decision, and I think I should even play a second one. This card is very, very good against Nexus and in Mirror allowing you to make very important and game changing tempo plays.

Goncalo Pinto
– Azorius Aggro

Mythic Championship 1 Cleveland
(6-4)

12 《Plains》
4 《Hallowed Fountain》
4 《Glacial Fortress》
-Lands (20)- 4 《Dauntless Bodyguard》
4 《Skymarcher Aspirant》
4 《Snubhorn Sentry》
4 《Tithe Taker》
2 《Adanto Vanguard》
4 《Benalish Marshal》
4 《Venerated Loxodon》
-Creatures (26)-

4 《Legion's Landing》
2 《Baffling End》
4 《History of Benalia》
3 《Conclave Tribunal》
1 《Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants》
-Spells (14)-

4 《Tocatli Honor Guard》
3 《Disdainful Stroke》
2 《Negate》
2 《Baffling End》
2 《Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants》
1 《Island》
1 《Demystify》
-Sideboard (15)-

I finished 6-4 in the Standard portion, losing to 2 Nexus and a Mono-Blue, which I feel these are OK matchups. Not great, but certainly matchups that I was not sad to play against. My other loss was to the same version of Esper that made it into the finals which we can all agree that is a bad matchup.

I managed to 2-1 both drafts, which is something that I was happy with.

First draft was a VERY GOOD TEMUR deck with some gates subtheme on it.

1st Draft Deck: Temur with some gates

The second draft was a Azorius aggro deck that performed much better than I expected, losing only a super close match against our new fellow Hareruya Pros and Hall of Famer, Raphael Levy.

2nd Draft Deck: Azorius Aggro

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Conclusion

PLATINUM!!!!#2019MC1 #HareruyaPros #MTGManager
— Goncalo Pinto (@u_mad_bro_MTGO) 2019年2月23日

In the end, the month was a success. Not only I was able to get the 7 points I needed to hit Platinum, I was also able to keep the restrictions I imposed myself in terms of health. I actually decided to ride the wave and keep my hand out of the cigarettes for as long as I can. I am also cutting on sugar and alcohol, and while I am “allowed” to get those once in a while, it rather pass on it most of the times. I’ve also kept the 16/8 Intermitted fasting as I feel that is a good way to keep myself focus during the day while also restraining my calories intake to a reasonable level without too much effort.

Huge congrats to my teammates Marcio and Michael Bonde for the MC1 Top 8! Also congrats to Thomas Enevoldsen for the 12-4 record, enough to hit Platinum as well!

Before I go, here you have the SB plans for most of the decks of the format!