PPTQ Double Header Weekend and Ramunap Red Mirror

So this weekend I played in two nearby Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers. The first was Sealed Deck on Friday. The field was 28 players which is pretty respectable considering the store was small and the entry fee was $35. I wasn't too happy with my pool but I rarely am when it comes to Sealed. I ended up playing a Green/Blue Merfolk/Dinos deck. Red had absolutely nothing. White only had a few playables and black had good removal but no real win conditions.

My 'bombs' were in green in the form of Colossal Dreadmaw, Ripjaw Raptor, River Heralds' Boon and Thundering Spineback. I had some strong blue cards as well including two One With the Wind, Tempest Caller, and some Depths of Desires.

I lost round one to a pirates deck that was just too fast for me. I took round two against a very similar green/blue Merfolk/Dinos deck which also had Jace so I think it may have been better. Round three I also won against Red/White dinos. I then took round four versus mono white vampire tokens. Finally, lost round five against pirates again.

I went 3-2 in the Swiss but my tiebreakers weren't good enough to get into the top 8. The thing is I was 3-1 in the final round and if my opponent had simply drawn with me, we both would have gotten in. He didn't want to though for whatever reason and my dreams got crushed.

Since I was so close to getting top 8 at least I decided to go to another one on Sunday which was about an hour away. This was Standard rather than Sealed and I have been playing Ramunap Red to great success on a weekly basis at the Standard Showdown and FNM. This tournament had 20 players and our weekly Showdowns pull 40-50 so I felt confident going in.

I started off the day well, taking down a Blue/White Second Sun deck. Round two I saw Ramunap Red mirror. Even though I outplayed my opponent greatly throughout the match I still ended up losing because he won the initial die roll. This is a big problem for this deck because the entire match is left up to chance. He won the die roll so he got to play first - which means I lost game one barring some sort of land screw or poor draws on his side (which didn't happen). So I play first in game two - I take it. Then he gets to play first in game three and again he takes that. Even making better decisions still wasn't enough to overcome the tempo advantage.

For example, at one point he had Soul Scar Mage and Aethersphere Harvester. I have Soul Scar Mage and Earthshaker Khenra. I attack with both with three untapped lands. He crews the Harvester with Soul Scar and then blocks my Soul Scar. I Lightning Strike the Harvester before damage. He responds by giving Harvester lifelink. Okay...? So his now 0/2 Harvester has lifelink and dies to my 2/3 Soul Scar. Owned.

Anyway back to reports, round three I played against yet another Second Sun deck. This is an easy match up for me and I take it quite handily.

Round four I play against God Pharaoh's Gift. I was watching some of this guy's matches early

because I hadn't actually played against this deck yet and I thought it would give me trouble. I was correct. I literally couldn't do anything.  I saw zero Abrades in the matchup despite running four.  Game one he had Gift on board on turn three or four and was already pulling Angel of Inventions out with it. Nothing I can really do there. Then game two He Hostage Taker'd one of my Ahn Crop Crashers and then cast it against me. He also hit me with three Fatal Pushes in game two so I couldn't keep anything on board to hit him with. I 0-2'd and he said "normally I lose right away to Ramunap I don't know what happened." Yeah ok.

Game five I needed to win in order to top 8. My breakers were good this time around so 3-2 would get me in. It ended up being another mirror match. We roll and he wins the roll. Like before, this means he takes game one. Just too fast. I go first game in game two and I win it. Game three he goes first, and wins it again. Same as before, like clockwork.  It's actually quite stupid that this game literally boils down to just a chance die roll. I'm going to have to look at sideboarding more against mirror because it was ridiculous. Currently my board looks like this:

2 Chandra's Defeat
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Glorybringer
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Harsh Mentor (for energy decks of which I saw ZERO)
3 Rampaging Ferocidon

I am currently thinking of taking Pia out of the main and putting Rampaging Ferocidon in the main, then replacing him in my sideboard with Sand Stranglers and maybe adding a third Chandra's Defeat then going down to three Mentors? I don't know.

I ended at 2-3 on the day with a side of salt. There's another standard PPTQ in my hometown this Saturday I am going to go to as well. Hopefully I can at least top 8 it.