Road to Kyoto '15 - 6/4/15

Yesterday, I played in the GPT Kyoto (Legacy) in an attempt to get the 2 round byes.
Unfortunately for me, I was on my alternate art Force of Will playmat (my serious playmat that I went 0-3 with last year in the local Legacy big event) and I carried on the lifetime losing streak of another 0-3 to a total of 0-6 before finally getting 2 wins (dredge and RUG delver), going 2-3 in the event.

Last minute, at the event, I changed the squid for Umezawa's Jitte to test whether or not that card belongs in the deck.

Round 1, I played against Miracles.
Miracles is tough because I do not have reach so this means that as long as my opponent is not at 0, there is a chance that I might just outright lose. (More on this later on)
The key point in the game was the last turn of game 3 where my opponent used Sensei's Divining Top to get to Pyroclasm which wiped my board which threatened lethal damage next turn.

Round 2, I faced a BUG delver deck.
The opponent was playing rather sloppily but my hands were not very good. He managed to stick down Dark Confidant protected by Deathrite Shamans vs my Diabolic Edicts in game 2 and in the last game he had 2 Force of Wills for my Marsh Casualties and my True-Name Nemesis. I had in play an Umezawa's Jitte (but no creatures - hoping that True-Name Nemesis + Jitte would go all the way) and had Redirect in hand but he misplayed early and locked himself out of green so he couldn't cast his Abrupt Decays. -_-"

Round 3, I faced Painter.
I won game 1 but I lost game 2 to a Sudden Shock off the Sensei's Divining Top on the turn before I would beat for lethal damage and in that game Bob hit both Dig through Time and Force of Will so I was trying very hard to manage the life totals. Game 3 my opponent had multiple Painter's Savant versus my plan to destroy the Painter in response to the Grindstone activation.

0-3

Round 4, I faced Dredge.
This is a rather bad matchup (traditionally) but I somehow won game 1 on the back of Deathrite Shaman doing its best to control the graveyard, joined by 2 more.
Game 2, I had Extirpate for Bridge from Below and Stifled a Narcomoeba trigger along the way.
2x Ichorid was beating me down.
I eventually managed to get Deathrite Shaman to deal with his Ichorid but he had a 8/8 Golgari Grave Troll beating down. However, his deck was really small by then and I easily chumped all the way to the last card.

Round 5, I faced RUG delver.
Game 1, the RUG king didn't play around Stifle so that and Wasteland went a long way.
Game 2, the game came down to a creature faceoff and my opponent down to 3, I had Abrupt Decay for his flipped delver so I managed to win.

2-3

Eventually, the top 8 split and gave the byes to a friend who is also going to Kyoto so I'm happy for him.
(I was quite happy to finally get out of the losing streak of the Force of Will playmat.)

After that I playtested against Miracles to get a feel of how to beat the deck.
I concluded that I would want to have 1-2 threats pressuring my opponent and that Jace would wreck me.
In the end, I found myself wanting to replace Spell Pierce (maybe 2), Daze (1 copy) for hard spells like Counterspell since Spell Pierce doesn't do anything against many decks in the format (like what is it supposed to hit vs BUG or Stoneblade). Ultimately, I am faced with the same line that made me go away from Divert in that people do not have to do anything too special to naturally play around it so I might as well play a hard version.
I know that that weakens my combo matchup so I'm not sure how I want to approach it.
I do know that if I do, my deck would look really different from whatever is currently being played.

I also need to figure out whether or not to use my playmat. Maybe I should just use what I get from the event. =/ Or did I exhaust all its bad luck already?
I play rather well in my own understanding but I don't have the luck to get through any serious events and that boggles me to no end.