The return of team events?!

[Dan Barrett]

From Aaron Forsythe on Twitter:

 

".@PVDDR There will be at least one team event on the GP calendar at some point in 2012 so long as I have anything to do with it."

 

 

If there is one in Europe, I think this will probably be the event I most want to play in next year. 

 

I remember starting a discussion at the Southampton NQ about who we'd team up with if/when team events returned, so let's revive that now it's actually relevant:

 

- Who would you want as your two team mates? 

- What would be the best* London/UK/world team?

 

 

(* = most fun? best chance to win? best looking?)

[Philip Dickinson]

just to chime in re: the heroes of a forgotten era - i don't know if i ever beat gomersall or ormerod a single time. the last time i played against ormerod, he was playing accelerated blue, so you can see how long ago this was!

 

i remember during kami block ptq season we were winning a lot of product and i played a whole ton of topdeck out of boosters with moore. the score after the first couple of boxes worth of product was something totally obscene like 32-4 to him - i think that's something that shows how much richard moore was on a whole other level; even in a "format" that is almost entirely luck he still managed to crush again and again.

 

eagerly awaiting the next constructed season so that i can start on operation get good at magic again. maybe then i can crawl my way onto a good team for this gp...

[Daniel Royde]

I've enjoyed succeeding with pete's decks for ages!
Time sieve was a good deck early in 2009 summer standard.
Eldrazi....
Didn't you give me dragonstorm before other people had it?
And GB rock type deck in standard 3 years ago- goyf and BB in it. That was fun.
Snow ramp in 2008.

[Charlie Grover]

Eldraxi green was fine, and even then Dan got lucky with matchups (0 games against valakut..).... but you saw me and the OJ's 4c mythic and the naya deck which were both so much better than OTV for that nationals, you tried to convince me WB kithkin was the best deck for PT amsterdam etc. I mean as long as the deck is non-terrible its fine, but sometimes your janky ideas are a bi too bad pete :P

Peter Dun said:

if anybody of you guys would actually tell me I was WRONG and STUPID for liking a particular deck using logical reasoning (i.e. no "don't play Eldrazi Green, its just worse than valakut because this is what ppl keep telling me"). I wouldn't play bad decks. The reason I played OTV at nats that year was because I was unsure of the deck, and after play 8 games vs Marco with Jund where I went 7-1 he managed to convince me the deck was not terrible. In that t2 jund was just oppressive, so I only wanted to play a deck that beat jund....

[Nick Lovett]

Ah to hell with the lot of you!

I will drag Roy W out of his retirement in Costa Rica and crush the lot of you.

[Peter Dun]

I won't drag the discussion on this point too long... but in my defence Charlie:

 

2010: (Alara/Zenikar)

Deck           Should have played

Sieve (T2)    GR Valakut ramp, I had the decklist, but was convinced Sieve had a better jund matchup, and why would you play anything except jund.... 

Sieve (Ext.)  Didn't, although wish I had... The deck was INSANELY hard to play, lost to gy hate, lost to artifact hate, lost to teeg. But man was it FUN. I once saw Dan draw with Mike although he had priority for 45/50 mins, and nearly make an opponent cry after he took 6 turns in the whole round playing some aggro deck.

 

2009 Lorwynn/ALara

WU Lark (T2)     Best deck in the format. Beat everything except faeries and elves (only w/Witch+Walls relevant at nats) and was 70/30 vs. faeries personally (think the matchup was closer to 50/50 though). WB Kithkin was better than tokens....

 

All in Red with 8 moon, Slogger and Akroma (Ext)

Didn't like zoo mirrors, felt that everything else lost to faeries. Lost first PTQ of season badly with dredge. I know you hated this deck, but with storage lands, and no demigods the deck was actually pretty good and very consistent... 2/2 PTQ 9ths on breakers... maybe could argue this was bad. Should have played BG Deathcloud, but didn't have the cards.

 

Kithkin (Block)   Faeries obviously... someone should have told me this was wrong.

 

2008   TSP/LRW

Pickles -> Elves -> Snow Ramp 

Pickles was a great choice before blossom was printed. PT                                                         Hollywood was the PT where the best deck for the day was clearly GB elves (best deck was faeries...), but couldn't play it because noone would lend me cards for the PT... Snow ramp was a great choice for nats that year.

Elf Combo (Ext)   Nothing to see here... move along

Poison Sliver w/Shapeshifter

This was obviously a very good deck, and making it slower made it more consistent. The alternative was teachings mirrors all day, and this deck beat teachings....

 

2007   TSP/Rav

Mana Ramp          You can argue that this one is wrong, but Panglacial Wurm was GREAT in a format with condemn as the best removal spell and playing 12 life gain spells (Hierarch, Fetters, Helix) was good vs aggro. You can make the argument that a deck like this has issues with confidant... but noone did, and you can answer confidant with things like md seal of fire.

Enduring Ideal (Ext)

 

Didn't play block as I was teaching English in China at the time. Everything else was before I would have encouraged you to play anything although there were some promising decks there like dragonstorm/various UR LD decks etc. (like I said, will be short). Before that everything else gets a bit hazy.... even in 2010 I argue mittigating factor of being in China and not having that much time to test due to hectic study schedule :P

 

Heh, that was actually quite a fun exercise.... anyone else have fond memories of those formats?

[Daniel Royde]

Yes.

The fondest probably being that one time you used my deck to win. It made a change.

Peter Dun said:

I won't drag the discussion on this point too long... but in my defence Charlie:

 

2010: (Alara/Zenikar)

Deck           Should have played

Sieve (T2)    GR Valakut ramp, I had the decklist, but was convinced Sieve had a better jund matchup, and why would you play anything except jund.... 

Sieve (Ext.)  Didn't, although wish I had... The deck was INSANELY hard to play, lost to gy hate, lost to artifact hate, lost to teeg. But man was it FUN. I once saw Dan draw with Mike although he had priority for 45/50 mins, and nearly make an opponent cry after he took 6 turns in the whole round playing some aggro deck.

 

2009 Lorwynn/ALara

WU Lark (T2)     Best deck in the format. Beat everything except faeries and elves (only w/Witch+Walls relevant at nats) and was 70/30 vs. faeries personally (think the matchup was closer to 50/50 though). WB Kithkin was better than tokens....

 

All in Red with 8 moon, Slogger and Akroma (Ext)

Didn't like zoo mirrors, felt that everything else lost to faeries. Lost first PTQ of season badly with dredge. I know you hated this deck, but with storage lands, and no demigods the deck was actually pretty good and very consistent... 2/2 PTQ 9ths on breakers... maybe could argue this was bad. Should have played BG Deathcloud, but didn't have the cards.

 

Kithkin (Block)   Faeries obviously... someone should have told me this was wrong.

 

2008   TSP/LRW

Pickles -> Elves -> Snow Ramp 

Pickles was a great choice before blossom was printed. PT                                                         Hollywood was the PT where the best deck for the day was clearly GB elves (best deck was faeries...), but couldn't play it because noone would lend me cards for the PT... Snow ramp was a great choice for nats that year.

Elf Combo (Ext)   Nothing to see here... move along

Poison Sliver w/Shapeshifter

This was obviously a very good deck, and making it slower made it more consistent. The alternative was teachings mirrors all day, and this deck beat teachings....

 

2007   TSP/Rav

Mana Ramp          You can argue that this one is wrong, but Panglacial Wurm was GREAT in a format with condemn as the best removal spell and playing 12 life gain spells (Hierarch, Fetters, Helix) was good vs aggro. You can make the argument that a deck like this has issues with confidant... but noone did, and you can answer confidant with things like md seal of fire.

Enduring Ideal (Ext)

 

Didn't play block as I was teaching English in China at the time. Everything else was before I would have encouraged you to play anything although there were some promising decks there like dragonstorm/various UR LD decks etc. (like I said, will be short). Before that everything else gets a bit hazy.... even in 2010 I argue mittigating factor of being in China and not having that much time to test due to hectic study schedule :P

 

Heh, that was actually quite a fun exercise.... anyone else have fond memories of those formats?

[Dan Barrett]

WU Lark "best deck in the format" - and yet it lost to Faeries, which was widely considered the "deck to beat"?

 

WB Kithkin was legit though, made 9th at a PTQ and then Q'd for Nats with it. And the only reason I didn't t8 that PTQ was because I totally choked my win-and-in.

[Peter Dun]

danG won nats that year with a modded version of the lark deck....

 

I personally don't think the wall of reverence lark deck lost to faeries because a wall alive for 2-3 turns made it very difficult for them to alpha strike you with commands, and mistmeadow witch made sowers dead draws for them going long (sower was the best card faeries had vs lark). also, the deck had more ways to interract on their turn than a regular lark deck (plumeveil, ambitions + the usual command/path) and didn't play cards that were terrible vs faeries like wrath.... people kept telling me the deck lost in the matchup though.... no matter what my own personal testing kept telling me :P

[MarcoOJ]

That deck def lost to faeries if the fae player was anywhere near competent. Doesn't mean it wasn't still the best deck for nats tho (at least the good version anyway :P). And obviously i disagree with all your other played/shouldve playeds as none of them seem to mention any control/faerie decks which are always the best in every format. I will say tho for both pt berlin and amsterdam the english players shouldve have listened to you a lot more as you had elves/kithkin as the deck to beat pretty early both times and were correct. Luckily for i played elves unluckily for me i didnt play kithkin.