Pro Tour Theros - Coverage

For the first time ever I watched a significant amount of Magic event coverage on the weekend. Previously all I had seen were grainy videos where it was really hard to tell what was going on and 90% of the time nothing was happening. Watching people thinking, shuffling or talking to a judge is not exciting.

I started watching Pro Tour Theros because my friend Levi was playing in it. I quickly realized he wasn’t going to get camera time even though he made day two. I really enjoyed the coverage and was amazed at how professional it was. I think Theros is a great set to cover because it’s quite fast in both formats and there are not a lot of counters so people tend to only go into the tank before something really significant is about to happen.

I only play limited and Modern but I still enjoyed the standard coverage and some of the decks were fun to watch. In particular the two Japanese decks. Mihara’s green red deck was fun to watch with some really splashy plays but the mono black devotion deck featuring pack rat had me checking my binder to see how many cards I would need to make the deck (way too many).

The way they handle the feature match area is awesome and I enjoyed some of the features like the deck techs and 1^st pick 1^st pack. When there is a pod with only a couple of “name” players I wouldn’t mind a feature that goes into there 2^nd and third picks etc until the archetype they are into is obvious.

You can get that via the draft viewer but that breaks up the flow for me because I had the coverage showing on my TV set watching it just like I watch a football game.

There are a few articles about the coverage and I was surprised (though I shouldn’t have been) that a lot of people complain about it.

There is a good piece on Star City by John Butler.

That unfortunately was very poorly edited (like I can talk) that raised some pretty good points.

Implementing a ranking system looks to be something Wizards have already taken on board.

A lot of Butler’s suggestions would give the games a lot more edge and we might lose a bit of the “nice’ vibe about how the major pros treat each other. I think that would be a little sad but it really would increase the drama if more players showed that they really wanted the win and acted more like Poker players rather than the awesome collection of nice guys we seem to have now.

Booom

I'm feeling better about Thero's draft now. 
Getting the right mix on your mana curve is very important and it has a slightly different feel. There is no particular slot where you must stack with cards but you need to be playing your mana and using it every turn. 
My deck the week before had some great cards and hit hard in the fith and sixth spot (2 Horizon Scholars, 2 Sea God's Revenge and 3 Prescient Chimera) but losing the mana race against the green decks was the end of me.

This week I drafted a blue black deck that turned out quite solid despite my neigbours again fighting with me over blue. And the player to the left drafted blue black as well.
I won the first and third rounds 2 nil but lost the second round 2-1. The deck felt great because it always felt like my 5th or 6th drop was pushing me over the edge rather than evening up the game. There were a couple of games where my opponent thought we were racing until I played a Grey Merchant or two to show otherwise (insert evil laugh).

In the final game of the round I lost I came off second best against a Bow of Nylea which felt like playing against Umezawa's Jitte, in that as long as he had creatures it was sad times. I eventually killed all his creatures which gave me a window of about 3 turns to either kill him or put him on the defensive.
Despite having a Prescient Chimera and a Carven Lampad in play to his nothing but the bow I still couldn't do enough (thanks to the bow switching from combat nightmare mode to life gain mode) to worry him before he drew some very good fat. 

I'm not sure if the bow is good enough for constructed but a lot of the time cards that are that good in limited eventually get there. 

2-1 and a couple of packs as prizes felt good. Opening and drafting Espleth (third pack over a Lash of the Whip) was sweet icing on top.

Our hero has been slain

After going undefeated in the two M14 drafts I did the false economy has crashed and I got hit with a big Theros hammer of reality.

I drafted a pretty solid red blue deck that played hard but fair. Unfortunately both the player to my left and to my right were also in blue which didn't seem to effect pack one and two but I really felt the pinch in pack 3. 
I did well in red for the first pack getting a third pick Hammer of Purphoros from a guy (2nd to the right) who eventually drafted red white and cut
me in pack 3.

My deck was fairly good, good enough to get there with a bit of luck but would have been much stronger with just a few more early turn drops. Not bombs but say a couple of Vaporkins and another Nimbus Naiad and we would have been away. This is where being in the blue corner of the draft really hurt because pack 3 was barren with only 3 or 4 playables arriving.

As it played out unless I continuously hit my land drops then the decks featuring big green creatures didn't have to worry about their life total before they were dropping giant guys. Big green monsters proved my nemesis, what me being mortal and all.

Mistcutter Hydra hitting the board when I had 2 blue creatures on the field and 3 blue cards in hand was also saddish times. I ended up 1-2 but had fun overall and I think I learnt a bit about the format and how important those pressurizing early plays are to compliment those medium range dudes that can get scary (the big blue flyers and red monstrosity guys). 

Places to play - Kindle

EDIT: This store is permanently closed.

How to get there:
Use exit one from the subway and then turn right. You will walk past a Burger King which is set up to show them making your burger for you.

My experience:
This along with DiveDice is the main shop for foreigners now that OZ is leaving the scene. At the moment their are English drafts scheduled for 2:00 pm. 

It is very close to the Konkuk University subway stop on the light (and dark) green subway line.  I can't remember but I think the on board Korean subway system calls it something different. I am sorry I cant recall what it was.

Kindle is located on the 5th floor of the Pizza Hut building further along that main road. 

It's a very spacious and clean looking shop but is also very popular so for big events it can get pretty full.

There was a heated falling out between the Manager and a group of foreigners though and some have decided to boycott this store.

Contact Details

Phone number: 010-4588-7548

Email address: kminjjan@hanmail.net

Korean Street address: 서울시 광진구 화양동 49-18 번지 동흥빌딩 5층

Korean - Theros

Theros keywords:

Heroic 영웅

Bestow 권능

Monstrosity 괴수화

Scry 점술

I also think you need to look for "Enchantment creature" so you know what creatures on the board you can kill with your various disenchants (which seem super powerful to me).

Enchantment creature 부여마법 생물

부여마법 = Enchantment

생물 = creature

Korean - Keywords

For creatures:

Flying  비행

Reach 대공

Trample 돌진

First strike 선제공격

Double strike 이단공격

Intimidate 위험

Hexproof 방호

Haste 신속

Flash 섬광

Lifelink 생명연결

Deathtouch 지명타

Defender 수비태세

Vigilance 경계

For spells:

Sorcery 집중마법

Instant 순간마법

Korean - The colours

This entry is a very basic 10 words (the suggested amount of new vocabulary for one lesson). 

White 백색

Plains 들

Blue 청색

Island 섬

Black 흑색

Swamp 늪

Red 적색

Mountain 산

Green 녹색

Forest 숲


Before they started printing Korean cards again plains were often called 평원.