Road to Kyoto '15 - 1/4/15

Went 3-0 split last night, winning Esper Stoneblade, Omnitell and Lands with a split for first place.

The maindeck Diabolic Edicts and sideboard Life from the Loam really shined, with Edict beating Iona on blue, stoneblade's Tasigur and it was an out vs both the really hard to beat Emrakul and Marit Lage.

I tried a Dig Through Time over Dark Confidant #3 and it was really good, providing threats vs an active Punishing Fires lock and it provided very high quality cards. I have to say that they are good in very different parts of the game just like how Standstill and Ancestral Vision were so I think as much as they have dis-synergies with each other, I think that they can coexist well.

That said, Redirect was rather bad against Stoneblade when I was hoping to Redirect a Swords to Plowshares. That made me rethink what I want to play in that slot or how many I should even have since technically the first (if it catches anything) is already a very huge blowout. Perhaps I can free up an additional sideboard slot for something else.

In the middle of the tournament, I bought a foil Thoughseize (since the shop didn't have normal Thoughtseizes anyway) so I can finally replace the Duress slot.

I was also considering running Extirpate in place of Surgical Extraction since the Split second makes blue unable to react to a secret attack like Extirpate on nonbasic land or can break through soft answers like cycle land to save loam.

I have also decided to travel to France for GP Lille (Legacy) right after GP Singapore and I will take 2 months of French lessons prior to the trip (while not expecting to be able to use anything).

My tentative schedule is as follows:

5th April - GPT Kyoto
16th April ~ 20 April - GP Kyoto

Originally wanted to go to GP Chiba at end May for Modern Masters but my friend isn't going (I'm already headed to Kyoto alone) so I can't really bring myself to so I decided to go to Lille instead since it doesn't cost too significantly more.

26th June~28th June - GP Singapore
29th June - Travel to Paris
3rd July~5th July - GP Lille
7th~9th August - GP Hong Kong (Limited)

I've never made day 2 at a GP yet so I hope to do so sometime this year.
I pray that I'll have the luck to make it through the bigger events as I have terrible "serious" luck.