Grand Prix Denver Tournament Report

How it Started

I didn't originally plan to participate in any Grand Prix Events this autumn – especially not on another continent – but when my friends from Salzburg, Mark Loh and Helmut Summersberger, told me they wanted to go to the Guilds of Ravnica Team Sealed Grand Prix in Denver and wanted to team up with me, I couldn't say yes fast enough.

Helmut might be a bit of an unknown today, but his past results still make him the most successful Austrian magic player of all time and he was always someone I looked up to. When I figured out that he is playing again, I made it my goal to play a team event with him by the end of the year – I guess that plan worked out.

Mark, on the other hand, is a local Community builder and tournament preparation genius from the local Salzburg scene. While he doesn't want to become a magic pro himself and doesn't travel to a lot of GP or PTQ Events, he has an outstanding talent for the game and figures out limited formats like no one else. He enjoys helping his friends with their goals and was heavily involved with the preparation process for Eldritch Moon limited, which led to my first Grand Prix Semifinals appearance. I couldn't have asked for better teammates from my region and was really excited for this tournament.

The Journey

We met up at Munich central station on Wednesday evening and took an overnight train to Frankfurt airport, where Mark was able to book a surprisingly cheap flight to Denver, Colorado that connected through Charlotte. We spent the night building more Team Sealed pools and playing the decks against others from different pools to get more knowledge about the metagame and matchups. Early in the morning, we boarded our flight and I had prepared some documents to learn all the Guilds of Ravnica cards inside and out. As expected, I was too exhausted and tired on the flight and, thus, I wasn't able to focus on studying the cards perfectly. Instead, I slept a lot and watched Solo and Jurassic World.

Due to weather difficulties, we weren't allowed to land in Charlotte and missed our connecting flight. We were able to find another flight but needed to wait for several hours at the airport before finally getting on a plane to Denver. After 30 hours of travel, we made it to our hotel room on Thursday night at 2 am local time.

Friday

We slept in and got a decent American breakfast with self-made waffles, toasted bagels, and everything else a European tourist could ask for. We played a Sealed Double-Up Event and Helmut and I split the finals. We used our winnings to build more Team Sealed pools and get some final games in. Since I'm a collector and have a soft spot for old cards, I was very happy to get my Beta Basic Lands signed by Douglas Shuler and Dan Frazier as well.

Saturday – the Main Event

Since we practiced a lot, the deck building process went very smoothly for us. We have a pretty good grasp on the format and knew exactly how we wanted to build every guild. We still had 20 minutes left on the clock when our decks where already built, sleeved, registered, and equipped with proper sideboarding plans. This was the first team tournament I've played in where this was the case. Usually, deckbuilding is really challenging since a team opens 12 booster packs and has a lot of options available to them. It's not often the case that the important commons to build the backbone of each archetype are missing completely and there should be enough powerful cards in there to make an argument for more than three decks. Also, decks will often compete for strong cards and to keep a rational view on where the card increases the team's chances the most is difficult for a lot of players.

Here are the decks we built:

Helmut's Dimir 7-1

Kai Budde still remembers Helmut as the young and upcoming control player from the late 90s and he hasn't changed since then. Kai's comment on the deck was "exactly what Helmut is always doing" and he was so right. Helmut even refused to side out against Boros decks because he's afraid of dragging out games and decking himself before actually winning. That's also the reason we decided to splash some powerful Golgari Cards like and . It worked out perfectly. The deck was consistent and had enough generic answers that Helmut was able to answer all of his opponents' important cards until he eventually won with whatever was left. He only lost one Match to Oliver Tius's , a card that is very difficult for control decks.

Dimir is a great deck to have in your team since it's easy to build with commons and is therefore almost always accessible. In the hand of a deliberate and patient player, it has slightly positive matchups against every other guild except for Izzet, as Jump-Start and direct damage really gives control mages a hard time.

Mark's Izzet, 3-2-1

Izzet goes well alongside with Dimir since the blue cards that are good in Dimir are better there than in Izzet and vice versa. Sure, is an awesome card in Dimir Control as well, but with the proactive approach of the Izzet Guild and a flurry of Jump-Start spells that love dealing damage to your opponents, the birds are much more useful in the Izzet League than in the House of Dimir. Also, what would a Dimir Control deck do with powerful Izzet tools like , which can deal important amounts of damage to an opponent in an Izzet Tempo deck. This deck is hard to build because it is relying on specific cards that are uncommons or even rares in order to be great. To make it even worse, you need a decent curve since most cards power level scales with your decks ability to put pressure on. Remember that Izzet is an aggressive and tempo oriented Guild, so don't put it into the hands of your teams control player. Izzet has troubles beating lifelink creatures and green decks at times, so sideboard accordingly.

Andy's Boros, 6-2

This deck stood out to us very early while deckbuilding. Two copies of s and three s make for a great aggressive curve alongside a plethora of Mentors, other pump effects, and solid removal spells. We decided to put into this deck because it's at a premium in a deck full of cheap spells that are not situational and can be played for full effect at the earliest opportunity. This makes it fit Boros more than other Guilds. This archetype has fair chances against all guilds but can lack some ways to get through good blockers and the life gain effects Golgari and Selesnya bring. Side in against those. Also find your [Sworn Companion]s that, while not ideal for the main deck, are useful against other Boros Mages and the Izzet League, where Lifelink and going wide is tremendously powerful.

Interesting Matches

I'm quite happy with our individual records. Unfortunately though, we didn't spread out our losses well and ended up 5-3. Our last match was a win-and-in for the second day of competition but ended in a draw. Since 5-2-1 would eliminate both teams from the competition we decided to concede to our opponents since they would have won the match that ended in a draw almost certainly. They appreciated this gesture very much and it felt good for me to do so. No one is obligated to concede a game or match that naturally ends in a draw – even if one player contributed more to that draw by playing slower – please remember that. But in situations like this one, I'll almost always concede and suggest you do the same if you feel comfortable doing it.

What really bugs me about our performance was one particular match though. Helmut already won and I'd already lost, so Marks Izzet Deck faced a Dimir Deck as the decider. Helmut and I were watching from the sidelines while Mark's opponent casted and connected with several times. Mark was certainly losing the long game due to card disadvantage, but, rather luckily, his had survived. His opponent was down to 2 life and a copy of [Hypersonic Assault] was available in Mark's graveyard. We don't discuss plays much since we're all very experienced and focused players that trust each other so we weren't debating how this last turn of the game should play out. Mark was 100% sure nothing could go wrong with his opponent's three untapped lands and jump-started the Assault, kept priority and activated the Guild Mage in order to make a copy – just in case. He didn't realize that a counterspell in response to the activation would fizzle the ability because there would be no legal targets left, making it better to just jump-start it, waiting for the opponent to respond before committing to further action. It was too late for me to intervene when I had realized what was going to happen.

There are several lessons to take away from this situation:

• Don't discuss every turn or game with your teammates, but in important spots, where time doesn't matter anymore, slow down and ask for advice, provide input, or simply think things through multiple times
• Don't undersell yourself to your teammates
• Don't think you've got the game state sorted out perfectly by yourself before committing the match-ending game action
• Don't blame yourself or teammates for losses or misplays – win and lose together!
• If you can't figure out all possibilities quickly just, put your lethal spell or attack onto the stack and make them respond, save your responses for their reactions.

Conclusion

I'm writing this on the airplane back to Germany. Despite catching a cold and being pretty ill during the journey, several travel issues and long delays, and a somewhat disappointing Main Event finish, I'm still very satisfied and happy about the weekend. Our records were great, showing that our preparation paid off. I had so many insanely nice opponents to play Magic with and learned a lot about Guilds of Ravnica Limited, the Magic scene in North America, and team tournaments. In the end, it just strengthened the bonds I have with my friends since traveling and competing alongside them is always a great experience.

Tell me about your Team Tournaments or Guilds of Ravnica impressions in the comments!

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