PT Final Fantasy Tournament Report

2025-06-28

This tournament began for me with a prolonged struggle to decide whether I even wanted to attend. I’ve talked about quitting for about as long as I have been playing and the EV is so clearly bad that there can never be any longevity. For a while I was chasing requalifying for the PT and MOCS and felt like I had something to prove but having done that the next bar to clear is actually being a good player at the PT level which is much tougher. After discussing this with dozens of people and agonizing for hours I eventually made the maybe predictable decision to keep going and accepted an offer to join Daniel’s Rampant Growth turning down Burkhart’s Flexslot and a group of South American players. This was also a difficult decision with as much if not more impact than anything during actual prep but it’s really hard to predict how a group will play out, after asking everyone a lot of questions you’re mostly still left going off vibes.

I was planning to skip the Standard RC season and start prep with spoilers coming out but at the last minute decided that paper reps have enough of a premium for me that I should play RC Hartford with Cutter. My prep there was rushed and I did not perform very well but it was a nice warmup for the real pre-PT grind.

With the addition of Scrollshift to Omni the deck became a lot more attractive to me but after some testing I ended up estimating it as 60/40 pre and 45/55 postboard against Cutter meaning the matchup was not a reason to play a deck. I also dismissed Mono-R modeling it as only having been good into Cutter for a weekend or two before the deck began to respect it which in hindsight was possibly a mistake (I’m still not quite sure how to interpret the stats we got from the event). Cutter always remained my main focus since it seemed like it would never be a bad choice and the deck is very difficult to build and play. Our team was testing Vivi as soon as it got spoiled but were not very high on it as a result of poorly built lists and overindexing on mirrors. The other major branch was me and Abe being high on Elusive Otter believing one drops to be better than Drake Hatcher in mirrors while the rest of the team disagreed. This pushed us towards a config that wanted less to be midrangey with hard counters and additional value targets for TTABE. Otter performed well for me and I still have no idea who had the right side but do regret not playing the first Roaring Furnace, TTABE + Talent is just too strong as a way to break parity in mirrors and I don’t think you can have TTABE in your deck without additional targets.

As usual I was very cognizant of my relative weakness in limited and focused a lot on it once the full set was available firing twenty Cockatrice drafts before set release and another nineteen single elims on MTGO afterwards. I was farming Cockatrice drafts presumably as a function of people not caring very much then did much worse in single elims going ~58%. My focus was on learning

1. all instant speed effects
2. card evals by archetype
3. what causes you to end up in an archetype
4. to generate probabilistic estimates of final colour combo at specific points during the draft
5. which cards are misevaluated by general population and I think I was able to do that effectively feeling very comfortable about limited going into the PT.

This covers the broad strokes of the entire prep process but before getting into the event itself I will break continuitiy to briefly touch on the testing house. Leading up the house I was having a really bad time. I felt like the concept of communication efficiency was not being taken seriously in our Discord, struggled to find opponents to play against, and experienced the flipside of me having a long-standing relationship with Daniel in that that relationship often involves unproductive argument. At the house all those issues were alleviated with people being naturally more focused and it being easier to communicate. After getting to address some of my paper jitters and enjoy access to a pool for a week I was feeling much better after the house than before it.

On Thursday after checking out of the house I spent the bulk of the day hanging out with Lucas, whose background is either an indictment of EMH or an equally depressing showcase of people who get into Magic being somehow defective depending on how you look at it, and Max. We played some mirrors and talked about mulligan theory before going our separate ways. Towards the evening I made a 1.5 mile trek to a Subway located in a nearby children’s hospital to buy some cheap non-Huel provisions, cut in line at player registration to get through in a reasonable time, and went to bed early getting a solid nine hours of sleep.

The morning draft was fairly straightforward with me opening a Seifer and then getting a pick five or six Ranger-Captain which I had just been discussing the high stats of before the start of the draft. I was somewhat short on cheap spells and was extremely relieved to wheel a Monk’s Fist in pack three. My final decision of the draft was actually fairly interesting between second Zidane and a Warrior’s Sword. It seemed like I maybe should have gotten into black somehow but I’m not really sure how I could have done so. In round one I paired into Ryan Condon who had been on my direct right. I straightforwardly won game one curving out on the play, lost a grindier game two where I was never really able to make any headway, and lost a sad game three after keeping three mountains, katana, ultima, and two white spells to drawing only additional white spells. Before the next round I met up with a prearranged group to review decks and got it confirmed that as I had feared I punted not playing 10/7 over 9/8. I again won preboard and lost twice postboard to the game stalling out without me drawing my good cards to a mediocre UW deck the following round then paired into Andrew Baeckstrom who had been on my direct left. Once again I curved out in game one and lost a game two that stalled out more to his Sultai soup deck that seemed like it maybe had a bad curve because all the cards he showed me were pretty good but it still seemed like his deck was not that functional. In game three I was applying good pressure and had a decision on whether to use removal on a Gigantoad to try to push more damage. I did so and then got punished by removal into a Sin setting him up to stabilize. Luckily I faded Sin flipping something very impactful on ETB and on its first attacking before drawing removal to let me push through just enough damage on the final turn. I felt like I had gotten unlucky with a good deck which was a bit disappointing but at that point was also relieved to have dodged the nightmare 0-3 and was just ready to get into Constructed.

In round four I lost in two to the mirror where the opponent had no creatures besides Vivi and Thundertrap Trainer. I got him to one in game one but was a spell short of closing and then was never in it postboard. In round five I faced Eliott Boussaud twith no creatures besides Drake Hatcher, two maindeck Fiery Annihiliations, and a maindeck TTABE package. I don’t recall much about the games other at point feeling like I was behind enough that I could not play around Annihilation and then getting wrecked by Annihilation and him eventually winning in three. My mental game is usually solid while an event is ongoing but I had struggled quite a bit with meta level mental game going into the event and at this point was definitely feeling some doubt and pressure. My next opponent seemed to be feeling this even more than me though which I guess is what matters as he was totally checked out and I won a fairly straightforward against his Slickshots and Opera Love Songs. After that I faced Delirium where I just had ridiculously strong draws to my opponents lackluster ones and took four damage over the course of two games despite losing the die roll. With the wind somewhat back in my sails I was feeling and ready to lock in for the last round of the day against a maindeck Vivi, Hatcher, TTABE config similar to what most of my team had played. I was somewhat scared when my opponent started pulling out his things from an Optiver backpack but was fortunate to win the die roll and win in three in games where the person on the draw never really had a chance.

I was relieved to have made it and the difference between my overall feelings here and at the end of day 1 in Chicago where I had had the same record was stark but was also not able to clear my mind of the stakes and hyper polarized outcomes I would face tomorrow. 5-3 or better for everything, two pro tour invites, a strong shot at worlds, and getting on the train where with three consecutive pro tour invites it becomes far easier to keep requalifying or 4-4 or worse for nothing. I went to bed early again but kept tossing and turning and did not sleep well.

At the hall the following morning I saw that I was the bottommost person who had made day two which I found somewhat amusing and also saw that I was in a nine person pod. I asked my teammates if this should influence what I was doing in any way and someone pointed that I should value Magitek Infantry marginally higher which I was happy to do since we had also discussed it seeming like blue was very cut on day 1. I opened Dion and then I think made a suboptimal pick that I would probably run back with Weapons Vendor over Vayne’s Treachery. How attached you should be to early picks is something I had discussed a lot before the event including with the specific example of Dion. Treachery is almost stronger enough that you are supposed to take it but I felt somewhat more comfortable forcing white as at least my secondary colour. From there I don’t recall too much of the rest of my draft as I waffled a bit between black, red, and blue but eventually solidifed myself in blue as I somehow kept as I kept getting passed Counterspell notably passing Edgar for another Counterspell in mid pack two and getting somewhat bailed out in pack three with Cid and some good glue to end up with a very solid deck. With build time almost over Ginky on the sidelines was the first person I knew I found to ask about the build and he confirmed that this made sense to him though Drood who I spoke to after the round said that I had made a mistake starting Magic Damper instead of Choco/Mog.

I whiffed on my 11% bye and paired into Eliott again. We played some long games with a lot of decisions but unfortunately I hard threw at multiple points (most notably moving an equipment after combat killing my creature) as I tried to keep up the pace of the games with him not responding to my repeated comments that the games are going too slowly. I again whiffed on my 25% bye and won a pretty straightforward match against an Esper deck with a lot of bad cards in it. Notable elements of the match were me buying an extra turn by single blocking a Demon Wall in a game I was horificially behind in and clicking a Counterspell on a Noctis, Prince of Lucis that would not impact the board at all despite pausing to think for no reason at all which then forced me to make a suboptimal block to play around Vincent’s Limit Break and gave my opponent extra outs. In round eleven I paired into Marc Peral and we started off strong with a twenty minute plus judge call after he realized in my endstep that on his last turn he had discarded without drawing to G.F. Ifrit. I contested this because I had a Counterspell in hand and chose to tap out in part on the basis of starting the turn by asking how many cards he had. Eventually it was ruled that he would just get the card at which point I tried to argue that he should put back the Mountain he got from him tapping out for Call the Mountain Chocobo before drawing which the judge was also not convinced by. The game went on for a while from there and I suspect I played too defensively but eventually pushed through also winning a more straightforward game two where he missed his fourth or fifth land for a while which allowed me to start deploying threats with Counterspell backup to lock him out. The real punish here was that the judge call meant that both of us lost the majority of the lunch break. Nevertheless at this point I was feeling pretty good and getting a sense of some momentum having rallied from 1-4 to 6-5. That feeling stayed with me as I won a die roll in the mirror against Keisuke Sato but I lost a tight game one after getting him to one and we then played two games where the person on the draw was never in it. Round thirteen brough another mirror against Mike Hron who had also been on my team but very disengaged and apparently ended up playing 74 out of the same 75 as me. This was a relaxing round in the sense it was the only time I did not need to take notes on decklists and also in the sense that I won the die roll and we basically played three non-games determined by play draw.

In round fourteen I faced jenara19 on another mirror. I do not remember how I lost game one but unfortunately remember game two very clearly. After some initial trading he played a Vivi on an empty board on turn three and I had three lands in play with Stock Up and multiple pieces of interaction in hand including Lithomantic Barrage. I played Stock Up which I am pretty confident is clearly correct, missed on land, and instantly died. I was getting a bit frustrated at this point as it felt like any time I was starting to get the separation I needed I got pushed back down. Overall I had been fortunate with die rolls and in general but not really getting to play something besides a mirror also rankled somewhat. In any case now at 7-7 with most of my potential opponents presumably being dead for any invite equity I was also hoping to realize some scoop equity. I rolled another maindeck Vivi, Hatcher, TTABE config mirror and tried to convince my opponent to concede. He declined on the grounds that my next opponent would also need to concede for it to mirror, I won the die roll, and we played a very tense game one where he put me to one and I had lethal the next turn. Two more non-games determined by die roll followed and I was left in the max sweat spot of needing to win the final round.

I had about fifteen minutes to kill before the next round and spent them trying to calm down but largely unsuccessfully. I attempted to prepare myself for needing to play and ignore the stakes but with five minutes to go my hands were still shaking and my heart rate and breathing were uneven, I suppose my meditation practice still has a long way to go. When pairing went up I saw I was facing Mono-R with four Opera Love Songs splashing white for Charring Bite. Fortunately while my opponent was Japanese and we had to communicate by typing on his phone he eventually agreed to scoop bringing me to a 9-7 record for 118th place.

I felt some relief but that was about it. In the past I’d described my mental state during tournaments as a spring that absorbs then later releases some stress but here I didn’t really feel anything and typing this now a week later I still never felt happy or like there was something to celebrate. Part of it is it’s hard to feel good about a 9-7 record but seems like a cope since I did feel happy qualifying for the MOCS last December either. I know I can force myself to do a lot of work no matter how I feel and in fact I probably did more work for this event than for Chicago but on the timeframe of years this seems unsustainable.

The other element that feels weird is that it is hard to communicate to people that there is no difference between the version of me that got +/- 3.5 match wins in this event. I narrowly hit and some of the other people in the same AMP race spot as me hit but Weiser and many of my neighbors in possibility space didn’t. The math I did after Chicago had me at 53.8% to requalify and if I had set down to redo it right before the event I would likely have said even lower as I did not feel I would be realizing meaningful edge in Constructed. If I had gotten one less win I would have quit but now I have invites for at least another half year and if I choose to use them am likely to keep playing for quite a while to come. It’s hard to feel too good about that.

What I am somewhat proud is having drafted two reasonable decks and doing reasonably well with them. Limited is still my weakest point and after Chicago I wrote that I felt conflicted about my finishing coming from two blessed draft seats. Here that was not the case and the finish feels somewhat more earned. The other element I mentioned after Chicago was my preparation having issues and that has a remained a constant, at this point I am starting to doubt it can be solved. I still am not willing to do less than go all out so if I decide to keep playing which I likely will I look forward to battling in Atlanta to secure my worlds invite. Credit to team Rampant Growth as well as Corey and Marcelo for extending me invites I did not accept.