On 2013-03-02, I participated in the 'MTG GPT Utrecht Sealed' (Return to Ravnica + Gatecrash) tourney at Spelfanaat Leuven : my first MTG tourney in 17 years ... Never having played the Sealed Deck format before, I had zero expectations and was mainly interested in the overall experience. It turned out that only half an hour for deck construction (stripping 90 cards into a playable 40-cards deck) without ever having played the Gatecrash card set almost made my head explode. I had studied every Gatecrash 'guild' through the excellent Magic Card Database resource, but that only partially helped me. Because of creature mana curve issues, I eventually produced a reasonable 3-color (Green/Red/White) deck. Under time pressure, I unfortunately included 41 cards instead of 40, overlooked an important creature removal spell, and should perhaps have included 1 more basic land. In retrospect, I should have included more Green and less Red/White for better focus, but I must have been hypnotized by the 3 available Red/White dual lands. Luckily, I was bye during the first Swiss round, so that I could become more familiar with my deck and think ahead about potential sideboarding strategies. During play, I made several mistakes due to card misinterpretations and the combinatorial nature of newly introduced game mechanics. However, I did make it to the round of 8 (with 2 wins and 3 losses), where I got eliminated by the eventual tourney winner.
After that, I wisely followed the advice to focus on more relaxed Prerelease events (instead of regular competitive events).
The 2013-04-27 'Prerelease - Dragon's Maze' Sealed Deck event, organized by Spelfanaat Mechelen, was big fun : more time for deck construction and further sideboarding (which was allowed between all 4 Swiss rounds). The funny thing was that every player had to 'choose' (by rolling a die) 1 of the 10 guilds upfront, introducing some prearranged focus into the available card pools. I ended up with Golgari/scavenge, thus considering my 2 losses + 2 wins a very reasonable result in a 39 players field. I actually lost against an extremely agressive Gruul/bloodrush deck (= the eventual tourney winner) and a very sophisticated Izzet/overload deck.
On 2013-05-17, I participated in a Friday Night Magic Booster Draft event, again hosted by Spelfanaat Mechelen. Never having played that format before, I extensively researched drafting strategies, but decided upfront to primarily focus on my own deck, hoping for a flexible Green creatures basis. My first pick was a Beetleform Mage, after I which I actually managed to primarily stick to Blue and Green, complementing with some Red (for a total of 5 'bloodrush' creatures, including 2 Zhur-Taa Swine) and White (which I gave up during later deck construction). Unfortunately, the drafter at my immediate right took out most Green 'evolve' creatures. Nevertheless, my core pumpable and bloodrush creatures, plus some Green creatures a bit higher up the mana curve, Blue paralyzing spells, and a couple of lovely Give // Take fuse cards proved to be a very solid combination ... except against this right drafting neighbour during the 2nd Swiss round (where I eventually lost 0-2, twice after unblocked long lasting stalemate situations, no doubt partly caused by my suboptimal sideboarding, lacking experience). I convincingly won both other Swiss rounds, resulting in an 11th place (on 27). While I primarily participated for the learning experience, winning some while having great fun was even better !
My first major loss in a Limited event : 3 rounds of 0-2 defeat in the 2013-06-21 'Modern Masters' Booster Draft event, at Spelfanaat Mechelen. Studying a new card set only 1 day before an event (and that event immediately being Booster Draft format instead of Sealed Deck) was a recipe for chaos. Indeed, not having designed any clear drafting strategy upfront, my first couple of picks happened to be Blue, after which I unhappily switched to primarily (mixed instead of Saproling generation oriented) Green creatures and Red damage spells. Since I wasn't presented many low mana creatures, I supplemented those picks by some artifacts and low-cost artifact creatures (which, after the drafting phase smoke cleared, unfortunately happened not to be very synergetic). I definitely should have picked some mana fixers instead. My 'too high on the mana curve' deck didn't get much help from my relatively high 'Suspend' creatures. Even a couple of first turns Durkwood Baloth could never timely close any battlefield development gaps. I'm sure encountering a couple of lifetime top 50 Belgium players didn't strenghten my cause, either ... Nevertheless, as always : I had big fun, and shared some interesting reflections on the game !
I competed in another 'Modern Masters' Booster Draft event on 2013-06-28, where my previously gained insights plus some extra online strategy immersion/preparation paid off. My upfront idea was to go for Black, plus Blue and/or White. After the draft, I would actually have been able to play a mono-color Black deck. However, I decided on about 7 White (mainly removal) spells. I managed to lose only by 1-2 against a sophisticated bootstrapping Storm deck, where I simply couldn't stop any sudden 8 or 10 Goblins horde (generated by means of Empty the Warrens). Second round, I lost 0-2 against a strongly hitting focused Giants deck. During the third round, my Blightspeaker and other key Rebel cards (plus a.o. Horobi's Whisper) finally outperformed a rather slow control deck. In retrospect, the draft phase went very well, although I never saw any bombs. Neither did I actively draft for a sideboard against the other (less than 10) to be expected archetype decks (e.g. I passed on a Echoing Truth, which definitely would have been useful against token creatures). My next Limited (i.e. Booster Draft or Sealed Deck) tourney preparation should incorporate thinking ahead to that level. Apparently, I didn't encounter any meta-game considerations during the drafting phase (e.g. actively blocking presumed colors for other players). That would rather be the final learning step on the ladder (after I will have gained more Booster Draft format experience).
Some time later, on 2013-08-30, meta-game lightning struck at another 'Modern Masters' Booster Draft event. I had planned to go for White, plus either Black or Blue. Quickly sticking to the former, I noticed a lot of Green passing by during the early drafting phase. I stubbornly stuck to my colors, but necessarily picked somewhat average cards. During play, all 3 of my opponents happened also to be playing White, clearly explaining my moderate drafting result. Even worse, my first opponent played Black/White, having hijacked superior removal cards and a couple of bombs. I managed to only lose 0-1, but he clearly had the superior deck (including quite a few 'modular' artifacts as well). The first game, his Executioner's Capsule + Sanctum Gargoyle combo simply crippled me. After that, I lost 1-2 to a Green/White + splash of Blue deck, but during round 3, I obtained a 2-0 win against a relatively slow Red/White Rift Elemental deck. Luckily, my brother (coincidentally sharing the same draft pool) performed better : win - loss - win. Not bad at all for his first tourney after a similar 15+ years MTG break ! Of course, we did prepare, specifically by means of extensive, i.e. multiple 10+ hours, one-on-one Sealed Deck sessions (even including some one-on-one Booster Draft, which was a bit strange but unexpectedly made a lot of sense).
Now, a bit out of reading order : last 2013 MTG happening on December 20. Another Modern Masters Draft event, which I intended to approach as either Black/White, or either Blue/White artifacts. Observing a lot of reasonable but not exceptional Black passing by during the first 2 boosters, I tried going for mono-Black, however picking mostly White cards whenever not given any decent Black choice. I ended up with multiples of Deepcavern Imp, Stinkweed Imp, Rathi Trapper, plus both black and white Rebel seekers. I even picked a couple of Executioner's Capsule , and therefore also a couple of narrowly supporting Sanctum Gargoyle. Nevertheless, 0-2 defeat against horrible 5-color decks in the first 2 rounds : the first one including a couple of Feudkiller's Verdict and (unfortunately entwined) Rude Awakening bombs, and the second one being the strong artifacts deck I actually dreamt about (unfortunately tabling the Kira, Great Glass-Spinner / Ethersworn Canonist combo, totally crippling me). As a general reflection : playing without bombs is really hard, and sticking to 1 main color (which is less flexible during draft picking) apparently never seems to work for me. For completeness: I gained my only points during round 3, where I was 'bye' (because of 9 players in my draft pool). I'll probably remember this tourney result much longer than necessary, but looking back on the 15 Limited events I played this year (after a 15+ years break), I'm happy I obtained a couple of solid results. Most important, never forget : always fun swimming with the Spelfanaat sharks, even after spilling some blood ... !
During both 2013-07-13 M14 Sealed Deck events, I thought I would have a relative advantage over my other recent Limited events. In theory, I should have been familiar with reprinted cards from way back (before my 15+ years break from the game). However, after having extensively studied the card set a couple of days upfront, not many 'old' cards reappeared. Zero multicolored cards and almost zero mana fixers also implied mostly bi-color decks to be expected.
During the first event, I played Green/White, unfortunately misplaying Ajani, Caller of the Pride, due to never having encountered Planeswalkers before. Nevertheless, I managed to obtain a 1-2 loss, 2-1 win, and 2-0 win through some nice middle cards, a.o. a couple of Master of Diversion. I happily ended 12th of 28.
The next (4 Swiss rounds) event was a bit more problematic ... After having fought my horrible card pool for almost half an hour, I finally decided to go for Green/Red, with a splash of Black. After a lucky 2-0 win (yes, mana screw also happens to opponents), a convincing 0-2 loss, and a nagging feeling that I should have incorporated some cheap White early defense (like a couple of Angelic Wall), I hurried to completely reconstruct my deck. Reluctantly, I traded all Red (containing the lovely Flames of the Firebrand) for a reasonable amount of White, thereby also enlarging my splash of Black. Yes, hard to ignore Doom Blade in Limited/Sealed ecosystems ... The next round went 0-1 loss (after a long stalemate against predominantly small flying critters), i.e. 2nd game aborted due to lack of time. I closely lost 1-2 during the last round, where my (also small flyers plus some Blue control) opponent was sweating from paranoia after having experienced my Enlarge. All in all, another great day of Magic spent amongst friendly people, at all times keeping the adrenalin flowing !
My first 2013-08-02 M14 Booster Draft tourney, as usual in a relaxed atmosphere but very well organized by Spelfanaat Mechelen, went quite well : 1-1 draw + 2-0 win + 1-1 draw. (Note to self : I should learn to think/play faster, even under Friday Night fatigue conditions.) I couldn't find many online M14 Limited strategy articles, so as a refresher I necessarily stuck to Grant Hislop 's color by color cards review articles, after having reviewed my earlier M14 cards traversal Sealed Deck preparation notes. I planned upfront to play White plus any secondary color that would reasonably turn up during drafting. It didn't take long before I started drafting Green (partly to interfere with the obvious M14 Sliver danger), happily completing a good mana curve picking White. There was one very hard pick though, being presented Serra Angel, and, yes, Megantic Sliver (plus 2 other semi-bombs). But, no, I didn't pick the latter, not having accumulated enough Slivers, and already having picked the magnificent (as would indeed turn out later) Enlarge (plus a couple of Howl of the Night Pack, which I might have overrated). My White key cards were multiple Pacifism (which especially during the 2nd round really helped against an inventive Black/White Auramancer deck, that was generating horribly strong, though mostly worse than 2-for-1, boosted enchanted creatures) and Capashen Knight. My definitely most useful Green picks were multiple Deadly Recluse. In retrospect, I should have put all my 3 Trollhide into my main deck against the agressive Green/Red 3rd round eventual draft pool winner. Also, I played with a couple of Predatory Sliver fillers, which I picked as a countermeasure against e.g. this last opponent. Again, I learned a lot, including some increased appreciation for Sensory Deprivation, which unfortunately was heavily used on top of flying critters by my 1st round Blue/White opponent.
Strange but true : I achieved my best MTG tourney result to date (place 3 on 20 participants) in the subsequent 2013-08-16 M14 Booster Draft tourney, although I wasn't extremely pleased during the drafting phase (observing zero bombs being presented to me). Score : 2-0 win against a creature-understaffed Blue/Green control deck, 1-1 draw against a 4-colors (mainly White + some Green bombs) Slivers deck, and 1-0 win against a Red/White deck. As usual, I had actively planned upfront, this time intending to play Blue/White. After quickly abandoning the relatively crazy Millstone idea, I stuck to small/medium (primarily White) creatures, plus some great medium Blue Water Servant and Air Servant, various low cost Blue counterspells, and last but noy least no less than 5 almost impenetrable Walls : 2 Angelic Wall, 2 Wall of Swords, and 1 Wall of Frost. It goes without saying that a couple of Pacifism plus a couple of Claustrophobia paralyzed my opponents even further. Honorable mention goes to my lone (because, during drafting, I unfortunately passed up on another) Phantom Warrior, which generated a remarkable return on investment during play.
2013-09-27: Theros Booster Draft (without having attended the Sealed Deck pre-release), at the usual Spelfanaat Mechelen location : 3th of 10 (= 6th of 19). Not so bad without an upfront solid feel for the new Theros game mechanics and potential synergies ... After having studied the new expansion set for a couple of days (as always by means of Gatherer), I decided to try and go for the 'safe' Green (efficient creatures) / White (versatile + good removal) route, perhaps turning one of those colors into Blue as a drafting backup plan. During the 1st drafting round, I indeed managed to stick to some reasonable G/W mix (mainly low Converted Mana Cost, i.e. no bombs). Opening the 2nd booster, I immediately faced the blue mythic rare God : Thassa, God of the Sea. Guess what : I didn't pick it ! A small word of explanation for this seemingly irrational blasphemous move : I play Limited events purely for (competitive) fun, always giving my cards away after the event (either to my brother, or either to my colleague at work). Therefore, I don't care about rarity, monetary value, etc. I wasn't inclined to switch to Blue anymore, hence (after the fact) I explained to my right-hand drafter why I had made him happy. The lovely Green Nemesis of Mortals bomb did come my way, though, so I became happy too. In fact, as would turn out during later play, I did make it monstrous twice to finish off my 2nd and 3rd round opponents. Having decided to start play with a lot of White, and considerably less Green (and therefore only going for 16 lands), I got moderately mana screwed twice against my first Blue/Green opponent. I didn't stand a chance, watching my opponents' small Blue and dreaded Green creatures (most of which I happened also to have in my own deck) : 0-2 loss. After this experience, also having discovered some derived new game mechanics effects, I decided to completely reverse my Green/White balance (plus adding an extra land), which paid off big time. My 2nd (Green/Red) opponent's deck was not so strong, resulting in a quick 2-0 win. My 3rd and last Black/White opponent was more interesting. He got a bit mana screwed on his supporting White color during the first game. After that, I didn't sideboard very wisely against his multiple Baleful Eidolon, so he managed to fight back to 1-1, using a suprise bestowing Nighthowler for the finishing touch. Correcting my sideboarding error before the 3rd game allowed me to relatively easily conclude for a 2-1 win. One of the key cards in my deck was Hopeful Eidolon (3 copies). I also had a couple of very helpful Vanquish the Foul, Gods Willing, single Divine Verdict, Last Breath, and last but not least a very helpful Ordeal of Heliod, which nicely fit my 3 Cavalry Pegasus (although being low on Humans) and 2 Staunch-Hearted Warrior. Special mention goes to both my debatable sideboarded (but in retrospect useful) Ephara's Warden. All in all, another enjoyable Friday Night Magic experience, as a matter of fact also for my brother (who similarly scored 0-2, 2-0, and 2-1 in the other pool).
The 2013-11-08 Booster Draft didn't go so well ... I had planned to just go with the cards that would get presented to me, but, unfortunately, I didn't see any playable bombs. I stuck to Black as main color, with a reasonable Green side color, mainly including 3 Baleful Eidolon, 3 Cavern Lampad, and some other Enchantment Creatures. I won relatively easily 2-0 against my first G/W opponent, but lost both successive rounds : 0-2 against a primarily G/R deck (including Xenagos, the Reveler, Hammer of Purphoros, and other horrors, despite my 3 Fade into Antiquity and 1 Artisan's Sorrow ), and 1-2 against a U/W quickly growing Favored Hoplite plus usual flyers deck (against which I didn't have any defense), respectively. Anyway, my brother managed to obtain his first undefeated tourney win (in his separate draft pool of 8), so at least one of us left the building in great shape ...
Another meager Theros Booster Draft result on 2013-11-22 : 1 win out of 3 rounds, coincidentally against my own brother ... Having planned to go with the flow, but nevertheless avoiding Black and Red, I had put a Green (plus some Blue) deck together, unfortunately missing some (e.g. Time to Feed) removal, Enchantment Creatures, and (e.g. Centaur Battlemaster) Heroic stuff (which happened to appear in my 3rd opponent's deck, as I would observe later on). At least, my irresistible Nemesis of Mortals provided some comfort. At some point, I even switched to mono-Green, but that remained ineffective. Score: 2-1 win, 0-2 loss, and 1-2 loss.
2013-12-06 : last meager Theros Booster Draft result of the year : again only 1 win out of 3 rounds. I went in without preparation, and quickly started collecting Black and Blue. Unfortunately, I picked zero creatures during the first booster picks, since those colors soon dried up. Reversing the cards passing order during the second booster luckily returned some of my breath. As I would notice during round 2, my own brother also went for Black and Blue. In fact, his B/U power cards resulted in my 1-2 loss against him. Before that, I already lost 1-2 against my first round Green/Red (lots of big creatures) opponent. During round 3, I encountered a less experienced opponent (who was playing G/R leftovers, if I remember correctly), hence a 2-0 win. A couple of key cards in my deck were Nighthowler and Sea God's Revenge. I forcibly played with 3 Returned Phalanx and 2 Guardians of Meletis, which was awkward. During the 2nd game of the 1st round, I could target my Wavecrash Triton a couple of times, actually growing it to a 11/14 creature, which really helped. Always fun and a great learning experience playing mostly skilled to very skilled opponents at Spelfanaat Mechelen !