Last month, Team Good Manners played in the last big event for the year – the Got Game Nationals 2023. It was a 2-day event comprised of multiple tournaments, but we aimed for the biggest ones: the Modern 200k and the Pauper 50k tournaments. I managed to go on an undefeated run, securing a top 8 finish for Modern while Craig bagged the top 8 spot for the Pauper event (both events had top 8 prize splits). Here’s how we prepared for the event:

 

Part 1: The Lineup

                For context, this event was announced a month earlier during the Regional Championships in Singapore. Hot on the heels of Jerson securing the PT invite for Chicago and Craig garnering a top 8 finish in the RC Open, everyone wanted a piece of the action in Manila. However, due to scheduling conflicts, ultimately we ended up fielding a much smaller contingent: Jerson Po, Craig Garces, and me. Lyndel Amora from Cebu also ended up teaming up and bunking with us for this run.

Part 2: Deck Selection

                I haven’t played Modern since the start of the elementals era wherein Fury killed my pet deck (5C Humans). Despite that, anticipating the RC Open in Singapore, we have been closely following the metagame. Initial talks had us concluding that either Rhinos or Merfolk (which we were pretty sure was going to be a dark horse in the format) would be a good choice. Ultimately we decided on playing the boogeyman of the format: Rakdos Scam.

 

YungDingo’s list which we ended up using for the Nationals.

                 Unfortunately, I felt that I was ill-prepared for the RC Open and opted not to play, since I made it a rule to never play in a tournament that I wasn’t confident that I would win. Erickson Borabo (TDErickson) already pulled some strings to help me complete the deck but I felt it wasn’t enough to get there.

                Fast forward a few weeks after, we were already for the Nationals. Inspired by Craig’s win and all our initial theorycrafting, I decided to follow through and stick with our decision to play Rakdos. Jerson decided to go Merfolk, everyone sticking to their guns.

 

Part 3: The Grind

                This is the first time I ever tried this approach, and probably mostly because of what deck I’m playing. I usually just start jamming some reps in MTGO and in TopDeck until all the lines of play come naturally to me. This time, I spent more time studying than playing the deck. I felt it was more important to learn how to interact against the other decks in the meta rather than worrying about my own lines of play. Because of how Scam was designed, learning how to quickly disable your opponent’s decks was more important than learning how to kill them.  To this end, we referred extensively to YungDingo’s guide, almost running the exact 75 that he recommended (we used Terminates instead of Molten Collapse). Most of the prep was spent with Craig giving me guidance and coaching sessions, then some playtesting with Jerson’s Merfolk since it wasn’t covered in the guide, but we felt that we had to be prepared for the matchup.

                In the middle of all this, we were also making preparations for Pauper. Being the one with the most experience in the format, I took the lead on this one and we decided early on to play Burn, with the following list recommended by one of my friends:

                Luckily this deck was much more straightforward and we didn’t have to spend too much time on it, aside from explaining what the rest of the metagame was like for the format. We also had Philip Rama III (PRThree) helping us out with some metagame info and acquiring some of the cards, taking care of some of our problems.  Personally I wasn’t even able to get reps in for this deck as well, relying on my previous experience of grinding MTGO with a similar list.

Part 4: The Event

                We arrived in Manila a day before the tournament, which has become our routine ever since we started traveling for events. Met up with Lyndel and got ourselves settled down, completed all the decks and last minute testing for the weekend.

 

                Since we were staying only a few minutes away from the venue, we were able to get there at a comfortable pace, arriving early enough to catch up with some familiar (and new) faces before the event. I didn’t want the rest of the team to know but my nerves felt off for this tournament. I recalled telling one of my friends that they should power through when it’s game time, so I decided I would do the same.

 

 Luckily for round 1 I got paired with one of our friends from Cebu, Daniel Acusar with the Scam mirror match. This gave me a chance to settle down and get into the zone, managing to grab the first round. The rest of the day went as planned, with me getting paired with familiar decks, dismantling them before they got the chance to do anything.

There were two matchups that were not extensively covered in my prep but were covered by my experience: Affinity and Merfolk. Affinity was actually my first ever deck in MTG which although I didn’t get to play as much as I wanted (with life getting in the way), I understood enough how the deck worked. With Merfolk, all the prep we had with Jerson paid off in the most poetic manner, allowing me to clutch my win-and-in match against it and completing my undefeated run before drawing into the top 8 split. Craig and Jerson also had money finishes, with Craig narrowly losing his win-and-in match. For day 2 we were able to get more or less the same results, with Craig making the podium this time.

Part 5: Wrap-up

                In the end it was a successful run for the team, making this the fourth top 8 finish in as many major events that we joined for the year. Here are my takeaways from the 2023 run:

1. Knowledge is Power – knowing the metagame and how the decks and matchups work is crucial to winning. This takes away a lot of cognitive load while playing and allows you to focus on the match instead of figuring things out.
2. Practice makes Perfect – still a proponent of getting reps in. The lines of play and interactions become second nature and make the game easier for you.
3. Know your Weaknesses – realize where your weak points are and improve them instead of working on areas that you’re already doing well on. This will allow you to manage your time and make your preparation more efficient and fruitful.
4. Make Friends/Form a Team – to quote one of my favorite anime characters: “There is a limit to how much you can fight alone”. Collaborating with other individuals, making connections will help solve a lot of your problems and help you do things faster and better. Two people will almost always perform better than one person.

 That’s it for now. See you guys in the next one.

-Paulo Achacoso