Grand Prix Madrid is coming soon, very soon! At this point, no one  doubts about this tournament being the most important event on eternal this year.

Europe has a huge tradition of playing Vintage and Legacy. Tournaments like the Eurovino, Bazaar of Moxen, UAL Power9 Series, DDAY, etc… had proven to be successful at gathering eternal players from all around the continent. Those tournaments had turnouts between 100 and 400 players. Some (standard) GPs hardly get better turnouts than some of the previously mentioned tournaments. I believe, GP Madrid is going to set a new participation record on any eternal tournament ever done.

GP Madrid is an excellent movement by WotC. They knew in advance than placing a Legacy GP in Spain would be a total blast. They made the small mistake of placing it in Madrid instead of Barcelona, but we can forgive them about that. Spain is a well connected with the rest of the world. The east american coast is just 6-7h by plain from Madrid. Biggest cities in Europe are about 2h away as well.  All in all, it seems to me that WotC is experimenting the impact of an eternal format in the professional scene. They couldn’t have chosen a better moment, a better place.

Spanish players are motivated and excited about the GP. The eternal communities in Spain are all moving to Madrid to play this event. There’s no reason to not show up there unless you can’t really make it. Traveling to and sleeping in Madrid isn’t expensive at all. You can sleep 2 nights and go by plain there for less than 100€ from almost any point of the country.

Personally, I’m also very excited about this event. I know I haven’t playtested a lot, but I feel confident about my 75 card choice. I’ve played combo for years already, and no matter what pro is sitting in front of me, that I’ll go for the win. I trust in myself and in my deck, as it is probably one of the most competitive decks at the moment.

Of course, to win a Grand Prix you need more than a deck. You need to stay calmed and focused, you need to play well during many rounds, you can’t make lots of mistakes/misplays, and of course, you need a bit of luck.

I always liked how Mike Flores uses this illustration to express a state of mind of a winner player:

Believe in yourself, believe in your luck & believe your deck.

While being totally sure what and how to play in Legacy, something different happens to me with Vintage. If my performance at the GP aren’t as I expected, there’s a very interesting Vintage tournament I’d like to play on Sunday.

http://www.team-pataners.com/gp-madrid-vintage-side-event-info/

I’m not certain about what decks are the decks to beat in Vintage at the moment. I love playing control, but decks like Tezzeret start to lose power against some other archetypes such as Noble Fish and the Golem Aggro Staxx.

Shall I…

… play Confidants?

… play Spell Snare?

… play Spell Pierce?

… play DSC, Sphinx or Leviathan?

… play red or green for SB?

… play none, 1 or 2 Tezzerets MD?

… play Misdirection?

And these are just a few of the questions I get while building a control deck. If I start thinking of building a combo deck, then I’d get even more.

People say that Spell Pierce are good. People say that Tarmogoyfs are good. People say, people say.

I can’t say what’s the right thing to play because I haven’t played enough lately. I would have loved to play every Vintage tournament held lately, but my work has made it impossible for me to attend to most of them. Anyways, no matter what 75 cards I sleeve (if I play that Vintage side event), I’m sure it’s not going to be good enough. Not good enough, because there’s no deck capable of not losing stupidly against Time Vault + Voltaic Key in the early game. Some times, you have an excellent hand with Force of Will, 2 lands, Mana Drain + some bussiness spells, and you get owned by first turn time vault + key with FoW backup from them. Ok, it’s a 2 card combo, and he got lucky… but dude, your hand was fucking awesome and you still lose without being able to play a fucking turn.

Two years ago, when Time Vault wasn’t working as it is right now, I was 100% sure of my deck being able to defeat ANY deck in the format. I was playing Gifts Tendrils and had great success with that deck. I knew what to play, how to play and when to play it. Now I’m a bit lost as the format is a bit random, luck depending and less skilled based. Of course skill counts, but when they Vault/Key you first turn, there’s nothing much you can do rather than Force of Will.

I hope we get some changes to the restricted/banned Vintage list in June. I hope they fix the problem, and I also hope they finally print some good business spells for the control players. All we do now is watch how all blue cards get restricted while awesome creatures and artifacts are printed collection after collection.

To end this post, I’d like to tell you guys that I’ll try to update the blog during this weekend with news about the GP. I probably will be broadcasting some games (you’ll find that at the top menu labels – “live TV“) live from there.

Stay tuned and wish me luck!

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