Shards of Alara block constructed notes, episode 1

When I started my preparations for Pro Tour Honolulu, I was focused on the draft portion. Drafting at least once a day was the target. It was just last week that I realized that the format of the Pro Tour is as follows:

Day 1:
5 rounds Shards of Alara block constructed
3 rounds SOA-CON-ARB booster draft

Day 2:
3 rounds SOA-CON-ARB booster draft
5 rounds Shards of Alara block constructed

Top 8:
Single elimination SOA-CON-ARB booster draft

So why the hell am I preparing more for the 6 out of 16 rounds of the Pro Tour? It did not seem like a good idea if you think about it, and so I shifted my focus.

I tested out a couple of decks and was becoming frustrated. The format seemed to heavily favor whomever has the better draw. I brought a Naya splash Lavalanche deck over at Robinson's Galleria last Wednesday to play a few casual games. It was ok, and yes, results show that the player who draws better wins.

I built a homebrew 5-color deck when I got back home. The deck was designed to be very redundant and full of cards that will yield card advantage. Unlike the Naya deck, it is not very strict on the cost curve.

I took the 5-color deck to Mike Ongkeco's shop and played in his regular Thursday night block constructed tournament (May 14, 2009). I went 4-0 but was not very happy with how the deck ran. It still has a lot of room for improvement, specially the sideboard. I will have to keep the decklist a secret until the Pro Tour is over though; sorry about that.

I talked to a few players after the tournament to brainstorm for possible decks. Patrick Bausa won the tournament the previous week using a Jund control deck. He however claims that his deck is no good against the GW deck that is being run in Magic Workstation lately. Lloyd Tan, being himself, was promoting his Bant deck with so much conviction, but had no results to back his claim up. Basta malakas lang daw yung Bant. Sure.

The decks and metagame are still uncertain but one thing is for sure; Lavalanche is broken (and probably is the best card) in the format and I will be playing a deck that can support and run 4 copies of it.