I had the amazing opportunity to play in my first Mythic Championship in London this past weekend. Honestly it has been my dream since I started playing competitive Magic to be able to play on the game’s biggest stage. Achieving that dream feels incredible. Today I want to take you through the journey I experienced in preparing for the tournament, playing the event, and everything going forward.
The Past
When I make the trip to Toronto in February for the modern Grand Prix, little did I know where the journey would lead. I hadn’t prepared a ton for this tournament, and planned to play Phoenix because it was the best deck. I ended up making what turned out to be an excellent choice and audibled to my favorite deck, Grixis Death’s Shadow. As the rounds went by—7-0, 8-0, 9-0—I felt the growing sense that I could convert this run into a Mythic Championship invitation.
I had to stay calm and play my best Magic on day two—11-0, 12-0, 13-0—and I had done it! I qualified for the Mythic Championship. For those of you that follow me, you know how the rest of my weekend went. Trophy in hand, I left Toronto after a life-changing event.
Preparing for the Event
When I qualified, I expected to register Death’s Shadow. I would still play some Modern to see if anything felt busted, but focusing the majority of my time on learning the Limited format felt more important. Well, this all changed when the Fire Nation attacked—just kidding, but the announcement of the London Mulligan rule did throw quite a wrench into things. Now I had to test Modern because for all anyone knows the format could have been completely different. I tried things like Narset Combo, Infect, Bogles, Tron, Dredge, and Phoenix. While some of these decks were good, and others not, I couldn’t find anything that was putting up the same results that I was with Shadow.
Then we learned that this was going to be a prerelease for War of the Spark Limited. No one was going to get to draft online beforehand, and drafting in paper would be convoluted and a lot of work. That put another wrench in my testing plans. Suddenly I had to test a ton of Modern, and no longer had to opportunity to test the Limited format at all. Players with established testing teams already have an advantage over people on smaller teams or without a team. The lack of Limited prep time gave an advantage to large teams that could proxy multiple copies of the set to actually simulate drafts before anyone could get their hands on the cards.
Wizards of the Coast eventually announced they would be sponsoring everyone queued for the MC and providing them with one day of early access on MTG Arena. While this was good exposure to the cards, the only Limited mode available was sealed, which we all know is a different beast than draft. I did reasonably well in that event, going something like 19-6, but didn’t get the experience of drafting an archetype. When surrounded by some of the best limited minds in the world, that matters.
The public decklist rule was then announced, and at that point I was basically locked on playing Death’s Shadow. The combination of the mulligan rule being excellent for decks with situational cards, and the public decklist rule being excellent to improve sequencing in the early turns were both very good changes for Grixis Death’s Shadow. Thoughtseize gets much better when people are incentivized to mulligan more aggressively, and our mulligans get much easier when we know what the opponent is playing.
The Present
Playing in the Mythic Championship was one of the highlights of my Magic career. I sat down to draft day one, nervous that I had never drafted this set, but confident that I belonged at the table. I ended up drafting a pretty medium Selesnya aggressive deck that I felt could either 2-1 or 1-2 depending on how things broke. My first match came against Pascal Maynard with a RBg deck that was well suited to handle my early aggression and had powerful bombs to end the game, so I picked up my first L. In round two I played the mirror, except my opponent had a better version of the deck than I did, resulting in an 0-2 start.
I needed to regroup and try to salvage a win in this draft. In round 3 I played against Eric Froehlich who was also playing Selesnya. No wonder my deck was medium. I picked up a close set to improve to 1-2. That wasn’t the start I had hoped for, but I felt very confident going into Modern. My matches went as follows: wins over Storm, Burn, and Ad Nauseam; losses to Humans and Vannifar Pod. That put me at 4-4 and secured my place on day two.
I had done it! I met the goal I set out to achieve: make day two of my first Mythic Championship. This time I drafted a GB deck splashing Widespread Brutality. I lost round nine to a bomb-heavy Azorius deck. Round ten I evened the score over an aggressive Gruul deck. My final round of draft came against the five-color green deck of the pod. I won game one, but couldn’t pick up a second win in the sideboard games. That sent me back to Modern at 5-6.
I was feeling a little low after another 1-2 draft performance, but I had the chance to right the ship. My modern matches on day two were as follows: two wins over Burn, but losses to the mirror, Whir Prison, and Izzet Phoenix. I came out on the wrong side of a few very close games to close out the day at an unspectacular 7-9. Overall, I learned a lot about how the best players in the world approach some matchups, and how they think about things in a different way than the average player.
The Future
Nothing can prepare you for playing your first Mythic Championsip like playing one. It was somehow exactly what I expected and nothing like I expected all at the same time. The game is still Magic with the same rules, but the atmosphere is different. There is a heightened seriousness in the air. Everyone is there to do the same thing: compete on the game’s biggest stage.
I look forward to trying my hardest to qualify again, and to coming out with a better performance when I do. Always keep trying, always keep asking questions, and always keep improving.
Michael Rapp is a Boston-area grinder who started playing competitively in 2014. Loves Modern but plays everything. His favorite card is Thoughtseize has a soft spot for Tarmogoyf. GP Toronto 2019 Champion. Always happy to answer questions or just chat on Twitter or Facebook.