My First MTGO League experience

Having played nothing but casual since joining MTGO I thought that I would like to have a go in a league environment. Mirrodin block sounded good as I knew those cards better. So signed up for a league that had started little more than an hour before, 16 players out of the maximum 256 signed on. For anybody that doesn’t know what a league involves here are the basics. You have to purchase a Mirrodin Tournament pack and 1 Darksteel and 1 5th Dawn booster. From these cards you construct a deck of minimum 40 cards. You can add extra lands for free.

The league runs for 4 weeks, each week you are allowed to play 5 matches for points, 1 for a loss and 2 for a win. After you have played your 5 matches for that week you can play for tiebreaker points. Each win gives you 1 TB point. At the start of each subsequent week you have the chance to purchase another booster to improve your card pool. 2nd week Mirrodin, 3rd week Darksteel and 4th week 5th Dawn. Well, do I need some improvement! The cards I got were pretty average. Some white flyers, a couple of decent equipment, a shatter and a shrapnel blast. Not much creature removal to speak of apart from that.

Match 1
Lose 0-2 – I am sure that I have built the deck wrong, too many colours and not focussed enough.

Match 2
Lose 0-2 – Persevered with the deck, that was a mistake, another drubbing.

Match 3
Lose 0-2 – Tweaked the deck a bit, didn’t a scrap of difference another loss.

Before match 4 I thought it’s time for a radical makeover. Changed to 2 colours, red and white, put all the flyers in that I had. And all the red removal, mostly for artifacts.

Match 4
Going much better, then in the first game lost the connection. Doh! That counts as a loss as I couldn’t get it back in the time limit (5 mins I think).

Match 5
Win 2-0. Hurray! A win at last. That Slith Ascendent with the bonesplitter comes good.

OK, now having the deck something like reasonable I played a couple of TB games. What do you know, played 3 won 2. So a little too late I think. Now there are the maximum 256 players signed up and the first 2 guys I played are both in the top 10. :(

So waiting for next week to see if the booster makes a significant difference, could do with some creature removal.

To be continued.