Translated by Daijiro Ueno

We participated in the 2017 World Magic Cup (WMC) held a couple of days ago. This time I’ll give you an event report.

Summary

Since I won the 2017 Japan National Championship this September, I obtained the right to fight in the WMC as representatives of Japan.

We had to fight as a team of three. Me, Yaso (Team Cygames, Shota Yasooka) who I fought in the finals of the 2017 Japan National Championship, and Nabe (Team Cygames, Yuuya Watanabe), the highest pro-point holder during the 2016-2017 season.

Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast

Both of them are “Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame” inducted and “Platinum level” pros. Only they retain such status in Japan. It’s inevitable to refer to them when we talk about who the strongest players in Japan are, surely they can compete with high-ranked rivals worldwide.

It had been rumored that our team was one of the closest ones to win it with those two big names. My strength wouldn’t quite match theirs, but I decided to try my best to meet Japan’s and the world’s expectations as a representative.

WMC Overview

First, I’ll explain the event. The format adopted in WMC 2017 was “Team Sealed” and “Team Unified Standard”.

Team Sealed

The format is familiar to us since Grand Prix Shizuoka (Autumn) 2017 in the fall adopted it previously. The Packs we were going to use were also the same, 12 Ixalan booster packs. Each team would construct 3 decks and each player uses their deck to compete.

Team Unified Standard

Construct 3 decks which consist of standard cards and compete with them. Notable points are that we can use only 4 of the same cards and can’t share the same cards within the team. For example, if a player adopts 《Negate》 in their deck, the other team mates can’t put that card into their decks.

Construction Practice

Of course we can’t all go with the same deck due to the previous restriction. Otherwise we would go with three “Temur Energy” decks. That’s boring at all.

As starting practice, we had a meeting together. After considering possible combinations, the following patterns emerged as candidates for consideration.

We should start our consideration with two tier 1 decks in mind, “Temur” and “Ramunap Red”.

Pros and Cons of Each Pattern

The pro of pattern A is that each deck can exhibit 100% performance. The con is that we can’t help but use “Sultai”, which is surely in a bad position as an “Energy deck”.

The pro of pattern B is that we can use both of the two strongest decks in standard. The con is that significant and necessary cards like 《Abrade》, 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》, 《Glorybringer》, and 《Chandra's Defeat》 will be duplicated between “Temur” and “Ramunap Red”, and that makes each deck weaker.

The pro of pattern C is that “Temur”, which is said to be the strongest in standard, can exhibit 100% performance. The con is that the other two deck’s power will decrease significantly.

There are more considerable patterns, but most likely it will settle down like this. As a result of this argument, we had decided to go with pattern B.

There must be “Temur” and “Ramunap Red” in other teams, so “Sultai” would not be favored, and it was out of question to go with two tier 2 decks. There’s no guarantee we would win when we thought about accidents and mirror matches even if “Temur” is the absolute ace. Therefore, we thought that pattern B would be an optimum choice due to both win rate, and our deck construction expectations overall.

Each Member’s Deck Responsibility

As for each member’s deck, notably Nabe, who placed in the top 8 of Grand Prix Shanghai 2017, was put in charge of “Temur”. We can say that Nabe qualifies because he had been studying “Black Temur” without 《Glorybringer》, and we had to secure the dragon or 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》 for our “Ramunap Red” deck.

Then Yaso was put in charge of “Ramunap Red”.

Even though he’s known as the control master, he can handle aggro as well (simply put, he’s really good at Magic).

You will notice that when you see his neat and sophisticated combat strategy. On top of that, since many parts of “Temur” and “Ramunap Red” are duplicated as I mentioned before, we had to be really careful about which cards each deck should have, and obviously, the coordination required high skill, I thought it was appropriate that they were in charge of those decks.

Inevitably, I took responsibility of the “third deck”. After we decided, each member started to practice on Magic Online (MO).

Selection of the Third Deck

Unlike the other two, I hadn’t even decided on a archetype, so I had to find a suitable deck first.

“Mono-White Aggro”, “Mono-Black Aggro”, “UW Approach of the Second Sun”, and “UW God-Pharaoh’s Gift” were the decks which would be decent when constructed from the rest of the card pool. Soon I began to brew, but this was a really tough road.

First I tested “Mono-White Aggro” and “Mono-Black Aggro”.

Before testing, I thought “How do these decks work?” and suspected their potential. They unexpectedly exhibited surprisingly good performance. In MO leagues they mostly finished 3-2 and sometimes 4-1.

However, as I tested again and again, I found the reason why these decks are not for tournaments. It’s because《Glorybringer》was critical.

In addition to that, these decks aren’t so good against third decks, and they’re just too weak against UW decks like “Gift”, “Approach”, and “Cycling”. “Mono-Black” was a little decent against “Approach”, but it means almost nothing to win against just one third deck. Soon I started to seek a better choice.

Second I tested “Esper Approach”.

I liked the feeling of unfair games that I got from smashing my opponents in the game1. Then I got into the deck, making adjustments over and over, but hit a wall. That was the “Post board games”. It’s a common thing for decks like that to experience tough matches post board, and my deck was no exception.

The hardest match ups after sideboarding were “Temur” and “Ramunap Red”. Yes, it’s out of question not to be able to beat these two decks. If the major choices are “Temur” and “Ramnap Red” as we decided, I will only be able to win 33% of the time.

After considering numerous solutions to the problem, I wasn’t able to find an answer. Especially, 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》 broke me. Just because of her, I lost 6 games and quit brewing the deck after going 2-3 in a MO league.

Frustration seemed endless. It’s easy to say but it’s actually tough beyond imagination since I had already played up to around 50 matches or more with those decks which culminated in “Giving up”.

However, this process wasn’t just hardships. Since I’ve been playing “The Champion” decks like “4C Saheeli”, “Aetherworks Marvel”, “Temur Energy”, this was the first experience to play tier 3 decks again and again.

While tired out seeing my tickets (currency on MO, 1 ticket is 1 US dollar) wasted so quickly, I found a small sliver of delight in the testing and brewing of my deck.

It is so important to maintain motivation during continued practice, I’d even say it’s lucky that I could come to find delight in the process.

It had been really tough work, but finally, I found a deck to put an end to these hardships, that was, “UW Gift”.

In the beginning I was playing the deck like “This is not good, but also not bad at all”. However, I found the true value of the deck when I came up with a plan to put out combos post board.

I had been playing “UW Token” before I played “UW Gift”, and the deck was not really good at all, but It was a really good experience to have knowledge of a midrange strategy that plays 《Chart a Course》, 《Champion of Wits》, 《Cast Out》, and《Angel of Sanctions》. It really worked well in standard.

From this experience, I took out cards like《Minister of Inquiries》 and 《Refurbish》 which are key cards for making a combo in non-favored match ups, and switched to a midrange strategy. Then the plan had a dramatically increased win rate, which reached a satisfactory level.

At this point, each countries representatives started their practice seriously, and the number of matches like “They must be practicing playing the third deck” increased. I never lost matches like this, and it means my win rate against third decks was 100%.

At the same time, the win rate against “Ramunap Red” was quite high post board (90% win rate of 9 wins, 1 loss), so I reported to my teammates that “I found a powerful deck”.

After confirming my decision, I put all my energy into practicing “Gift”.

I consulted with Mr. Sebata (Team Cygames, Yuuki Ichikawa), who had won the prize in Grand Prix Shanghai 2017 with the “Gift” deck, about the game plan, getting knowledge based on his experience in real fights.

(I’m awaiting your gratitude for 2 lines replying when you asked me about a post board game plan for “Gift”. From Sebata)

Note that it was actually not 2 lines but much more. I really appreciate that.

Sealed Practice

The WMC also adopts “Team Sealed” format. However, we have never practiced for this. There are two reasons for this.

One is that returns are low.

The WMC consists of 16 rounds including 13 swiss rounds and 3 final rounds. We only have 3 Team Sealed rounds in there. Therefore, we seldom see returns even though we took a lot of time to practice.

The other is that we decided to participate in Grand Prix Lyon 2017.

We decided to participate in the event held in France one week before the WMC. Of course the format was Team Sealed. The plan was to obtain experience and aim for high ranks if possible.

On the first day we made day two going 6-2-1, dropping on the second day going 2-2. The result wasn’t good, but I got back the feeling of Team Sealed that I felt in Grand Prix Shizuoka (Autumn) 2017. Moreover, I also reaped the fruits of my labors.

That was the “seating arrangements”. I was sitting in seat B through the entire event, playing “RW Aggro” and “weak WB Vampire”. Both of them are not favored against “WB Vampires” which is stronger than usual. Surprisingly, I faced “WB Vampires” 8 times in 13 rounds.

It was too much just to say that it was an unfortunate coincidence. This fact proved that “The leader is supposed to sit in seat B and use the deck with the highest win rate”, then we decided to “Place the deck which is strong against WB Vampires in seat B”.

Practically, it’s “Dinosaur deck” or “Green Multi-Color deck”. Nabe was in charge of the deck, replaced by me, and placed in seat B.

Constructed Deck Decisions

We had the last meeting within our team after landing in Nice.

– Yaso’s Ramunap Red –

・《Abrade》 and 《Glorybringer》 are necessary.

・Putting 《Chandra's Defeat》 in this deck would be better, but it’s possible to give it to the other team mates.

・《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》 is unnecessary, so hand it over to the others.

– Nabe’s Temur –

・《Glorybringer》 is unnecessary if he adds black to his deck.

・Putting 《Abrade》 would be better, but 《Cut // Ribbons》 barely substitutes for it, in that case, 《Chandra's Defeat》 is necessary.

・It would be great to have 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》.

– Harane’s Gift –

・Need 《Negate》, but it’s out of question and too selfish to say, so just shut up and cast 《Disallow》. Yes, I’ve never countered creatures.

After the last adjustment, the final lists are below.

The biggest point in this meeting was that Yaso had come to a conclusion that 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》 was unnecessary.

He said “Chandra makes both winning and losing patterns, and the match ups that she can demonstrate her potential are only against control decks.”

Control decks seldom adopt creatures, so dealing with Chandra makes them waste cards. The other decks can deal with her with creatures, so she would potentially be a loss of a card.

With that point in mind, Chandra in Nabe’s deck can freely demonstrate her ability. While shutting out creature’s attacks with 《Whirler Virtuoso》, she can prevent both mana screw and mana flood which commonly happens in “Temur”, and with the linear deployment from 《Servant of the Conduit》. She surely increases the win rate of the deck.

Since 《Abrade》 has been handed over, it’s great to have more cards which can interfere with the board.

WMC Report (Day 1)

On this day, there would be 3 rounds of Team Sealed first, then 4 rounds of Standard at most. If we won 4 times, we could go to Day 2.

Sealed Rounds

The card pool was like 65 points out of 100.

Yaso had been using a “Pirate deck” with 2 《Pirate's Cutlass》 4 times in a row from Grand Prix Shizuoka to Grand Prix Lyon, but finally, there was only one Cutlass this time.

Instead of that card, he got 3 《Favorable Winds》, which made him sigh and say “I don’t need so many…”. However, after calmly counting the number of the flying creatures, there were 11 in black and blue, and they were beautifully distributed among each mana cost. It seemed like we could construct a practical “Favorable Winds deck”.

“Favorable Winds deck” has very restrictive conditions to construct (multiple 《Favorable Winds》 and ample flying creatures are needed), so it was very rare case, and I think that maybe such a deck had never existed in the past.

In this situation, the “Favorable Winds deck” which Yaso constructed seemed well-balanced, and it showed the high potential of the members to be able to immediately adapt to such irregular situations.

Finally, the decks are determined as below.

To get more detailed overview of construction and pictures of the decks, see the event report written by Team Cygames.

Every deck could potentially finish 2-1, so the expectation was 2-1 or even 3-0 if things went well, and it was actually 2-1, as expected.

Since we won first 2 matches, we thought “This is going to be 3-0!”. After that, we had the match with 3 mighty players from Wales, and their rare cards were magnificent, like《Hostage Taker》. And they overwhelmed us. However, we kept our mouths shut with a 2-1 finish in a not bad pool.

On a side note, Nabe in seat B had matches against “WB Vampire” twice, and as for the other teams, they didn’t have that deck. Our plan went well. Nicely done.

Standard Rounds

The seating arrangements for Standard were as below.

We predicted that the captain of the team should be in seat B, and they would use the decks with the highest win rate (= “Temur”), so Nabe, using the deck which is strong against “Temur”, was supposed to sit in seat B. Based on the experience that the third deck would most likely sit in seat C, I, “the third deck crusher”, sat in it. The left seat A was for Yaso.

As we expected, I beat the third deck, and the remaining 1 win was stolen by the other two.

Thus we had had 4 wins. R6 and R7 were Byes, and playing on the next day had been confirmed. We are relieved although it just started now.

WMC Report (Day2)

Day 2, the rounds were separated into “Stage 1” and “Stage 2”.

In “Stage 1”, the 32 teams which passed the first day were divided into 8 groups consisting of 4 teams each, and the teams which won 2 out of 3 would step into “Stage 2”. It can also be same that in “Stage 2”. 2 wins gives the team the right to step into the finals.

Stage 1

As expected, in “Stage 1”, the third decks were in seat C, and I could win easily. The reason why the “Gift” deck is strong against third decks, especially against the “Blue-White” decks, is the amount of draw sources.

《Champion of Wits》, 《Strategic Planning》, 《Chart a Course》, and 《Search for Azcanta》. 14 draw sources make the deck consistent and secure key cards needed for the game plan. On top of that, there are so many moves to deal with, such as 《Refurbish》, 《God-Pharaoh's Gift》, and eternalize on 《Champion of Wits》. From the opponent’s point of view, it’s really difficult to fight.

The mirror match of “UW Gift” is a level playing field, so some luck is needed, but due to the level of understanding of one another, a significant variation arises. Refer to the sideboarding guide being written later on how to think about this.

Stage 2

One more win against Slovakia would confirm making Day 3.

I lost the first game because after my first mulligan, I got screwed on 1 land. As for the second game, I kept my best hand with 《Minister of Inquiries》, 《Chart a Course》, 《Champion of Wits》, 《Refurbish》, 《God-Pharaoh's Gift》, and 2 lands. However, this time I wasn’t able to draw third land, and lost. Luck wasn’t with us this time. I was disappointed and the team also lost.

The final match of Day 2 was against Belgium again. We had won once before, but it’s a bad match up for us. Especially, my opponent was on “Sultai”, which is really good against my deck. 2 consecutive wins in the last couple games were unexpected, and I was actually suffering, but my team mates immediately stole the games!

WMC Report (Day3)

Finally, we reached Day 3, the finals.

On this day, we had to wait so long between the games due to video coverage. A tense atmosphere increased little by little, and when it reached its peak, I lost my concentration and slept without noticing. Just before the match started, Yaso woke me up (laugh).

However, that might have made me relaxed.

Quarter Finals : vs Austria

All the seats were far in our favor. Moreover, we secured going on the play since we had finished the swiss rounds at a high rank. We were talking about how we couldn’t lose unless we got bad luck. The actual match went well without any risks, as expected.

Semi Finals : vs Italy

The match expected as the hardest match up.

The opponents had confirmed going on the play because of the swiss round ranks, and especially the seat B match up, was hopeless. I had the most favored match, but it was hard to secure a win against “Ramunap Red” on the draw. As expected, I lost the first game, won the second one, and in the third one, I controlled the board but my life was too low. Eventually, I lost to a topdecked burn spell.

However, Nabe in seat B was winning because of the opponent’s accident, and Yaso in seat A also won the match due to his astounding playing. As far as I know, the members are always reliable in important situations.

Finals : vs Poland

Each match up in the final was relatively good. Besides, we would go on the play. However, as is suitable for finals, the opponents are strong. The whole table rushed into the third game, then I won first, and in the end, Yaso made it, as expected.

Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast

By the way, on this day Yaso finished all 3 matches. I’m not sure if they wanted the scenes or what, but Yaso was always kept waiting in order to be in the last games, so he was grumbling “The waiting time is too long” (laugh).

Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast

Anyway, we managed to achieve the greatest outcome. This result was reached by nothing other than the fact that we, the greatest teammates, were able to fight together to achieve victory. These 3 days, we were faced with numerous occasions where we wouldn’t have been able to win if it were not for them.

It was meaningful to have exchanged precise opinions in adjustment meetings in addition to the individual strengths of each member. Because of that, each member could accurately make the right choices, and that was one of the reasons for success. Team construction is closely related with deck selection and card adoption. If we go wrong just once, it will cause chain faults.

If those things we got wrong accumulated over time and we didn’t notice, it would turn into huge mistakes in real matches. Even though we could have noticed that, wasting precious time cant be avoided and decreases accuracy. Their experience and might was what lead us to victory.

My Thanks to the members. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve joined our powers and have been able to fight together.

Reached Silver level, ascended to Gold level, and won the 2017 Japan National Championship. In the end, it ended with victory the WMC. 2017 has been a tumultuous year.

It has been a good year. This irreplaceable experience will make me much stronger.

Sideboarding Guide

In the end, for people who come to be interested in “UW Gift” through this result and article, here I present the sideboarding guide, which shows how to make it work.

I’m a kind of a person who would exchange cards often corresponding to situations in post board game, but this time I practiced so many times, brewed the sideboard plan carefully, so in all the rounds, the sideboarding plan was almost the same by the situations.

I’m confident in my prepared plan. However, if it’s known, the opponent’s sideboarding plan may change, so whenever you sense this, you need to change your plan as well.

If they don’t side in 《Negate》, then the plan to cast 《Refurbish》 actively isn’t bad. See the example for the game below.

Basics of Sideboarding – Maintain Combos or Not –

Well, first, the basics of sideboarding starts with the concept of “maintain combos or not”. In the first place, there might be concerns that “Is it OK to take out combos?”. Actually, I never thought of this at first, but it would be better to be aware that aiming for combos comes with risks. The best situation is if the opponent doesn’t have any answers to our combos, but if they do, the situation radically worsens.

Post board, siding in 3 《Fairgrounds Warden》 and 4 《Angel of Sanctions》 can turn the deck into “UW midrange”, and if this game plan is effective against them, you should do so.

Most of the opponent’s hate cards like 《Deathgorge Scavenger》, 《Negate》, and 《Abrade》 don’t work, so you can play the game as you like.

Temur (without Black)