Afterthoughts about PTQ Indy

Alright, so it took a few more days than I expected, but spring break caught up with me and I felt like getting out of the house and relaxing a bit.

So, post PTQ Barcelona notes...  Well, BW Tokens was really powerful and steady.  To be blunt, I was under-rested and underfed and I was still able to pilot this wonderfully fun brew to a solid finish.  If I had had a good night's rest and a proper breakfast, I might have been sharp enough to avoid making some of the mistakes that cost me a few of those games.  I will concede however that one game loss was purely the result of a lack of experience in the format on my part.  Veldakin Shackles in a control deck is just too powerful.

Also, after a little more playtesting, U control seems to be my deck's biggest weakness.  Which, all things considered isn't that bad.  Control decks like UW Control and monoU Fairies don't make up a very big percentage of the field in most of the modern format tourneys I've read through.  Especially not at the top end.  My deck beat a few of the nastier decks that the format has to offer and came through pretty easily.  The one deck that beat it that wasn't outright control was still not really a bad matchup, it was just a bad game for me and a close race for the two decks.

As far as personal play notes... Bob is a pain in the ass.  If you get anxious and forget his trigger during your upkeep, you instantly screw up and get a game play warning, and if you do it enough times, and automatic game loss.  After my second warning, I managed to remember the rest of the day.  But he's still a lurker that can cost you.  Secondly, it is important to slow down and do things one step at a time and in the proper order.  Fortunately, my first opponent was nice enough to let me take back a step in combat to avoid screwing up a bad play.  My other opponents were not so lenient, and honestly shouldn't have been.  So, slow down, take things through the phases of each step one at a time, and keep your head in the game.  Speaking of focus... I wasn't able to block out the outside world from the game as easily as I usually do.  That's saying something.  Typically when I sit down to play competitive Magic, nothing shy of a hurricane can break my concentration.  That day, I couldn't keep my head in a game for a minute.  I'll chalk that up to lack of good rest.

Lessons learned in summary?  Slow down and do it right, get a good night's sleep, eat breakfast, and be aware of the tricks that at least most of the field have to offer.  I think next time those are my goals.  There are no more PTQs for this season, so I'm going to shoot for Grand Prix events to fill out the rest of the calendar year.  My goal is four more competitive level events this year.  I think I have an honest shot at doing great things if I keep learning at the pace I am.

SD13