Hello Hareruya boys and girls! Before I start complaining about mana screw or opponent’s top decks let me introduce myself. My name is Carlos Romao, I am a Brazilian pro player and part of the Hareruya Latin Team. I have been in the game for more than fifteen years. My first Pro Tour was back in 1999 and just to give an idea, the top8s of that season had to played without sleeves because the plastic would reflect the light, and nobody could see the cards.

After this brief introduction, let’s talk about Magic: The Gathering and the Pro Tour Albuquerque. On this article I will talk about the preparation for the tournament, the tournament itself, our deck and cry a little bit about bad luck!

The Ixalan Draft

This part of the testing was the most difficult one for me. I consider myself a very good limited player, but this is the first format that took me a long time to understand. I had a bad start on my draft run in Magic Online and, even though, the team’s discussions were showing me that I was not doing everything wrong, the lack of confidence interfered on my curve of learning.

I don’t want to bother you with a lot of information that you already know. The format has been drafted for a while, a lot of good players have wrote complete guidelines so I will just point some of thoughts about the format:

Cards of your color will simply fade away from the boosters! It happened with me a lot of times. It happened to me a lot of times and happened again on the Pro Tour. During the first draft, I opened 《Sanctum Seeker》 and the guy four seats at my right opened 《Legion's Landing》 and took it. It was a clearly statement for all his left drafters that he was going for white and probably Vampires! I was completely happy because I knew I would have at least three decent picks since nobody would like to split cards with a left drafter. The first boosters went very good and I was getting excited since I blocked all the decent cards and probably my left drafters were not in Vampires! I was excited, thinking “Carlos, you are such a genius!” and waiting for the second pack to be opened. I knew I would ended up with a really good deck and I knew, I really knew, that the gods of Magic were smiling to me! The truth was they weren’t smiling to me, they were laughing at me! Second pack was a disaster and third just made me feel like a complete noob! I managed to do 2-1 at the pod but this draft was not good enough for this.

I really love blue-black pirate’s decks and my feelings are not because of Jack Sparrow and his buddies but because the pirates can create treasures and treasures allows you to splash very good cards and allows you to play with less land then usual! Lots of love to 《Sailor of Means》 and 《Pirate's Prize》 (I feel the judgment in your eyes!). In a very fast format, I tend to build a midrange deck with this colors and 《Pirate's Prize》 is such a good card to help on the mid and late game. The treasure it leaves behind doesn’t help you to grow on mana (Most of the time you won’t cast it on turn four) but still helps you to fix the mana. Remember, we are talking about a black and blue with one or two other colors splash!

The Hareruya Latin devaluated the five mana spot removals during the testing because the format is fast, two mana creatures are very important and the only way to have a fair mana trade is against GW and RG architypes. Just to make it clear, of course you want to use it, but it is not a high pick as removals usually are in a limited format.

To finish the limited section, how amazing is to build up a Megazord? I always dreamed about been a Power Ranger and build up my own giant robot! Ixalan allows you to draft and play with auras and small and medium creatures can get big and powerful very quick! The format lacks on good removals and this is a natural protection for the former small creatures with auras! Go Go Power Rangers!

The Temur format (aka The Standard format)

I am so glad Temur didn’t win the Pro Tour! If he did, I could imagine the hammer ban going and start to aim some of my beloved deck cards! Don’t get me wrong, the pro players should not love decks and stick with them forever but Temur is not just good, it is fun to play! The Pro Tour is a tense tournament. You will spend hours testing Standard, Drafting and hoping that everything goes as you thought and when you have the chance to play with a fun deck, all this worries get a little bit small. This was the first Pro Tour that I was waiting the draft part to end so I could play the Standard portion. Usually things work the other way around!

Because of all the time from the release of Ixalan and the Pro Tour, the metagame was established and we clearly had a best deck around. The Hareruya Latin Player Sebastian Pozzo played the Worlds with a similar version of what would be our deck in the PT. Part of the team really liked the list and even with two weeks to test, 3 of the 6 players were locked on Temur. Since we live in different cities and countries, we decided to talk through Facebook group and Magic Online would be the best way to find the right list. We knew the four-color deck was a better option for the energy match up but we had concerns about the aggressive decks and sacrificing the mana base for 《The Scarab God》 and maybe 《Vraska, Relic Seeker》 were not in our plans. The 《Vizier of Many Faces》/《Confiscation Coup》 plan was doing good during the test and we have no intention to change it. During the testing, I got the chance to play and won the Brazilian nationals. This result put me in one of the best teams of the World Magic Cup and helped me to make up my mind.

With Temur been the best deck and with my decision made, it was time to tune the deck up. Our sideboard plan for the mirror was 《Nissa, Steward of Elements》. During the test, most of the players we faced at Magic Online or Real-life tournaments were sideboarding out the 《Longtusk Cub》s on the mirror and making the deck way to slow to answer a turn three 《Nissa, Steward of Elements》 scrying for two. There were a couple of articles defending that there wasn’t no room for 《Longtusk Cub》 on the modern Temurs! Besides the mirrors, 《Nissa, Steward of Elements》 was also good against controls decks and BW Tokens!

《Torrential Gearhulk》 was cogitated as a mirror and control sideboard plan but it required to many slots to work. Without 《Essence Scatter》 and 《Glimmer of Genius》, the card won’t work since you have no way to get a lot of value from this amazing card. Actually, it was the first plan we thought to face the temur mirror, but we needed a more balanced sideboard for a very long tournament.

The list was done, the cards were sleeved, and the team was ready to show up and make a good Pro Tour Albuquerque. I was feeling good; the expectations were very high and I was dying to do well again in a Pro Tour! Besides my second place in Hawaii 2016, I didn’t even make day 2 in any of the last three Pro Tours! Platinum was there but the ego was hurt! I knew I had to do well to get back my PT confidence! I prayed for the Magic: The Gathering gods, I promised the sacrifice of three Twix bars and I offered a foil 《Nissa, Steward of Elements》 in return of good fortune and amazing topdecks! Maybe the line was broken or it didn’t hear me on purpose and I didn’t have my request granted! My final result was 8-8 (3-3 at the Draft portion and 5-5 on the Standard portion) and threw away 16 rounds of Magic: The Gathering. There was no regret about choosing the Temur deck. The Brazilian Nationals gave me confidence to play with the deck and I still think it is the best deck in town!

I maybe play Grand Prix Atlanta next week and the Temur will be my deck. It need to be changed a little bit in the main deck and 《Magma Spray》s is about to leave the deck box and one more main deck 《Confiscation Coup》 and second 《Abrade》 were about to come in. 《Magma Spray》 is very good against aggro decks and sometimes helps you against green energy decks, but I need to improve my Pro Tour champion deck match up. The second 《Abrade》 is an answer to possible 《God-Pharaoh's Gift》 decks and is a better removal against 《Hostage Taker》 decks!

The Trip

If you are a fan of Breaking bad, the word Albuquerque is not strange to your eyes. If you are not a fan of the TV Show and you don’t live in America, you probably never heard of it. The Small big city of New Mexico has one quarter of all the state population and the weather is dry but very warm (I love warm!!!).

Besides the TV Show tour around the sites used to shooting the episodes and I very rocky mountain, there is no action on the city. The highlight of the trip was a very funny dinner at a fondue house after the first day of the Pro Tour. A lot of good old histories, good food and good time. If you ever go to Albuquerque, The Melting Pot is the place to go!

The Future

Late November and early December going to be crazy! Like I told you before, you are reading the Brazilian National Champion article and our team is sick! We have Paulo Vitor damo da Rosa and Lucas Berthoud (Fellow Hareruya Latin). We are all Platinum players, we have the best player in the world and probably in the history and we have a passionate crowd cheering for us to be champion of this very important tournament.

Our great team for this years' WMC. You guys can start to pratice now to join us in the top8 there. #MTGNationals pic.twitter.com/2lNmGUHYt3

— Willy Edel (@bazardebagda) 2017年10月15日

The week before I will play the Grand Prix Lyon trios and my team is Paulo Vitor and Ondrej Strasky. Another great team and another high expectation for a tournament! Like I told you, this end of the year will be crazy!

The Crying

This is the part where I cry about mana screw and mana flood on the Pro Tour! Please someone let me know where I can remove these two curses from my life. Does anyone know a shaman or priest that has enough power to banish it?

The Pro Tour is too important to suffer from this evil!

Carlos