03.30.07
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 6:37 pm by Roy
Artifacts (1)
————
1 Foriysian Totem
Spells (8)
———
1 Fiery Temper
1 Funeral Charm
1 Orcish Cannonade
2 Premature Burial
2 Sudden Death
1 Sudden Shock
Enchantments (1)
—————–
1 Melancholy
Creatures (13)
————–
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Blazing Blade Askari
1 Clockwork Hydra
1 Deathspore Thallid
1 Dragon Whelp
1 Dunerider Outlaw
1 Flowstone Channeler
1 Mana Skimmer
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Skirk Shaman
1 Stingscourger
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Viashino Bladescout
Land (17)
———
8 Mountains
9 Swamp
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Ironclaw Buzzardiers (in for the Dunerider Outlaw against non-green opponents)
1 Vampiric Sliver (in for Big Game Hunter against white weenie type decks)
Red/black isn’t a great combination in Time Spiral/Planar Chaos drafts because the creatures are fairly weak. I like red because of all the removal and I was in red early after a first pick Dragon Whelp. I was thinking of going with white or green as the second color but I kept getting passed black removal. Both of the Sudden Deaths and both of the Premature Burials were passed to me. I think one Sudden Death was as low as a fifth or sixth pick.
Round 1 - Brian Miller - UR
Game one started fairly evenly but then Brian started suspending larger creatures than I had, most importantly the Errant Ephemeron. I misplayed and blocked Keldon Halberdiers with my Deathspore Thallid, somehow forgetting that the Halberdiers have first strike. Oops. I killed the Ephemeron with my Big Game Hunter but I took too much damage too quickly to come back. I couldn’t find very many creatures and didn’t find enough removal to keep up.
Game two I had a bit better start but then drew nothing but land. I did a total of nine damage in both games. Not a good start.
Matches: 0-1
Games: 0-2
Round 2 - Pat Moldovan - W
Losing round one put me squarely in a kid bracket. There were 26 players on Friday night—apparently spring break brought out the students because most of them looked to be about 12 years old. Naturally I was paired up against a non-kid. The way round one started I figured I was in for another beating but Pat stalled on two Plains for at least four turns. He had suspended a Divine Congregation and gained 10 life but it didn’t help because his only creature was a Brass Gnat. He tried to hold off my army with the white charm “Fog” but I swarmed him in a couple of turns. Where were all these creatures in round one?
Game two was much of the same. He found land but didn’t find many creatures and I killed the ones which did come out. He had another Congregation and another white Fog but neither helped. He started playing a lot of creatures after his Congregate but I was able to just keep swarming in with my little inferior ones and flying over with the Whelp for the win.
Matches: 1-1
Games: 2-2
Round 3 - Sam Fleig - GWB
Sam and I traded blows in the first game but he attacked into a couple of combat tricks. I used Deathspore Thallid’s ability to kill one of his creatures after blocking and used Sudden Death to get rid of his Magus of the Disk before starting to play my good creatures. He played Stormfront Riders to turn Serf token into 1/1 white Soldiers but I found the Sulfur Elemental to kill the soldiers. Then I got the Hydra and the Whelp out and started swinging.
Game two my removal came out in force and I kept him to minimal creatures. He got the Sengir Autocrat again but I forced him to block with all his creatures by attacking relentlessly. I had Fiery Temper and Melancholy in my hand in case he found Savage Thallid or another big creature but none of his beasts came out to play.
Matches: 2-1
Games: 4-2
Round 4 - Ben Luff - URW
Aside: I was surprised how many people played three colors and somehow hit all three land types on turn three. Very risky.
My removal came out in force against Ben. He played a creature and I killed it. That’s pretty much how it went. He played a Ghost Tactician (discard a card, your creatures get +1/+0) with one card left in hand. I was starting to lose the creature advantage and figured he had another critter in hand so I used Funeral Charm to make him discard at the end of his turn. It was an Island. Hmm. Later on that turned out to be crucial as my Whelp killed him the turn before he would have drawn another land which would have allowed him to play the one card in his hand: a foil Akroma.
Game two the Whelp came out again and I killed his flyers. I got rid of Crovax with Sudden Death, which is one of the few ways to kill that creature. He got me down to four but I sent in the Whelp one more time for lethal damage.
Matches: 3-1
Games: 6-2
Permalink
02.03.07
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:43 pm by Roy
Here’s the triple Planar Chaos draft deck I wound up with:
Creatures
———
3 Aven Riftwatcher
3 Blightspeaker (definitely the MVP of the deck)
1 Cautery Sliver
1 Dunerider Outlaw
1 Firefright Mage (I put him in to Madness out the Wurm but this was a wasted slot. Should have been something else, perhaps a Midnight Charrm or another random 1 drop. Maybe Ridged Kusite.)
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Oros, the Avenger
2 Prodigal Pyromancer
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Reckless Wurm
1 Simian Spirit Guide (actually more useful than I thought)
3 Sulfur Elemental
1 Whitemane Lion (Lion + Riftwatcher = win in many cases)
Spells
—–
1 Damnation
1 Dead // Gone
1 Sunlance
Land
—-
7 Mountain
4 Plains
6 Swamp
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Midnight Charm
I still haven’t read the full Planar Chaos spoiler so I went into this draft a little blind. I wasn’t sure how to value some of the cards. My first pick was actually Reckless Wurm, largely because the rare was awful and I knew there were a lot of discard effects. I took white creatures with most of the rest of pack one along with a couple of green fatties. I was all over the place.
I opened the second pack and revealed Damnation, which naturally I kept. After that I kept getting passed Blightspeaker so I started taking those and gradually shifted to mainly black and red with a splash of white. My third pack rare was Oros which landed me solid into three color territory. There is precious little mana fixing in Planar Chaos so I was reluctant to go three colors but with the good gold Slivers and the dragon I figured it was worth the risk.
Round 1 - Jeremy “Slick” Bilisari - BW
Jeremy and I had a very similar deck. He had one Blightspeaker and two or three Aven Riftwatchers. Unfortunately for him I also had the Pyromancers and more rebels — eight total in the deck. Game one took about 30 minutes but I finally prevailed with my end of turn Timmy effects. Game two was close but my annoying Timmy’s prevailed.
This game showed me how amazing Blightspeaker is, especially against a deck light on removal. If you get Blightspeaker out turn two and hit all four of your first four land drops, it’s very hard to beat. I think BW rebels is definitely a solid draft strategy, especially in triple Planar Chaos but also in Time Spiral/Planar Chaos mixed drafts.
Games: 2-0
Matches: 1-0
Round 2 - Chris Heino - GWr
Green/white is a tough color to pull off because of the lack of removal but Chris made up for it with a ton of Saproling generators and recurring tricks like Whitemane Lion to bounce Aven Riftwatchers or Deadwood Treefolk (which brings a creature back from the graveyard). Game one, again, took over thirty minutes until he finally found Rough, which killed most of my little Timmy ground troops. After that he quickly swooped in and killed me off. Before the Rough I had spent most of the game above 25 life thanks to the Riftwatchers. I would have killed him pretty quickly except for the Mycologist, the timeshifted Elvish Farmer, which kept gaining him two or more life on demand.
They announced the ten minute warning as we shuffled up for game two. I got two Riftwatchers going quickly and killed him in five minutes or less. Game three started a bit slower but the Blightspeaker did his thing and summoned some reinforcements. We went to turns but two Pyromancers did the final four damage in time.
Games: 4-1
Matches: 2-0
Round 3 - Peter Zaworski - UR
Peter is a very good drafter and usually does well at Rainy Day events. Game one I he played three Shaper Parasites and killed off several of my guys but the Blightkeeper kept finding more. The Riftwatchers eventually did him in with me still at 18.
Game two I made several dumb play mistakes, especially after he had Frozen Æther in play (the new Kismet). I kept forgetting to put things into play tapped. For some reason I just couldn’t remember to do it. On one turn that caused me to have three land untapped after casting a creature instead of four and that allowed Peter to kill the Blightspeaker when he couldn’t call for backup. The mistakes and the tempo loss to the Kismet cost me the game.
Game three I played Blightspeaker turn two and he did his thing. I never found a Plains but Blightspeaker put the Riftwatchers directly into play and proved too much.
Games: 6-2
Matches: 3-0
Round 4 - David Stroud - UR
David and I drew but we played it out for fun. In both games I got a turn two Blightspeaker and went to town. I even got Oros into play both games. The deck just went off. Guess I shouldn’t have drawn after all.
Games: 8-2
Matches: 4-0 (but 3-0-1 with the ID)
Permalink
01.21.07
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:43 pm by Roy
After waiting an hour and a half to start building our deck they let us skip straight to deck construction with no registration of the card pool or the deck itself. I’m not sure how much cheating this enabled but at least I couldn’t make stupid mistakes with my deck registration like I did last time. (Aside: please, Cascade Games, get your heads out of your asses and start the events on time. I got there at 8:25 and didn’t start playing until just before 11:00, which is simply inexcusable.)
My card pool was OK but I didn’t have any bombs and precious little removal. The only removal spell I didn’t play was Orcish Cannonade. I didn’t have enough good red to go into it and I certainly couldn’t splash it with the double red requirement. I put in the black at the last minute to have some sort of removal with the Dark Withering and the Necrotic Sliver.
Here’s the deck I went with, from a rather tame card pool:
Creatures
———
1 Amrou Scout (fetches Aven Riftwatcher and Errant Doomsayers)
1 Ana Battlemage
1 Aven Riftwatcher (better than I expected, especially with the Whitemane Lion)
1 Castle Raptors
1 D’Avenant Healer
1 Errant Doomsayers
1 Giant Dustwasp
1 Icatian Crier
1 Malach of the Dawn (a timeshifted Ghost Ship for white!?)
1 Mindlash Sliver (feeds Madness and also works with the Necrotic Sliver)
1 Mire Boa
1 Nantuko Shaman
1 Necrotic Sliver (Vindicate on a body at instant speed!)
1 Plated Pegasus
1 Uktabi Drake
1 Whitemane Lion
1 Witch Hunter
1 Wurmcalling (the closest I had to a bomb)
1 Yavimaya Dryad
Spells
—–
1 Dark Withering
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Strength in Numbers
1 Sunlance
Enchantments
————-
1 Griffin Guide
Land
—-
5 Forest
7 Plains
4 Swamp
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Basal Sliver (if I needed more to feed to the Necrotic Sliver, probably should have been main)
1 Sporesower Thallid (for beef, I didn’t have a single other Fungus for him to help)
Round 1 - Jeremiah Haney - RWb
My deck actually worked as planned. I got a fairly fast start and got him down to three fairly quickly. I sent an alpha strike at one point but he had the white Fog charm and soaked up all the damage. He didn’t have enough creatures to mount an alpha strike of his own but had been starting to chip away at my creatures with Magus of the Arena. By the time I got him down to three I had only one creature left and he had several on the board.
Game two he got the RWB dragon Oros, the Avenger (not the prerelease version) out—I don’t remember which one it was but I knew that I had literally no way in the deck to kill it unless he fell for a combat trick with the Strength in Numbers. Unfortunately I was stuck on one Forest and one Plains and everything in my hand needed two of one or the other.
I was not feeling good after this match. I thought my lack of removal was going to lead to a very long day.
Matches: 0-1
Games: 0-2
Round 2 - Adam Bailey - WG (with a surprise)
The first game against Adam went much as the first game against Jeremiah had but this time I finished the job. In game two he played a Mountain on turn one and I thought, “Aha, that’s why he held a couple of cards all the last game, he was color screwed!” When he played the Island on turn two I was really confused. Was he playing a five color deck? When he played the turn three Swamp he admitted that he’d boarded to a different deck using the other three colors. His new deck got off to a fast start with two of the 1/1 pinger guys that drain life and a Tiefling which slowly but surely killed off my creatures. It was over relatively quickly.
Game three was back to the flyers for me and I was able to get them rolling pretty quickly. Thanks to the Aven Riftwatcher I ended the game with 22 life when I hit him for the final six.
I was joking around with Adam throughout the match and he was the first of two people to tell me our match was the most fun he’d had all day. Perhaps that didn’t mean too much in round two but still, a nice thing to say.
Matches: 1-1
Games: 2-3
Round 3 - Tim Siekawitch - RGW
Another aside: I’m surprised at all the three color decks especially when very few of them are running mana fixing. The storage lands seem to be enabling a lot of this. I think a bit of spot land destruction from the sideboard might be a good play. Now, back to the countdown.
Our first game went back and forth. Aven Riftwatcher kept me in the game for a long time but I wasn’t able to do any damage and Tim had be down to seven when I found Wurmcalling. By that time I had a ton of land and was able to create a 6/6 wurm every turn even with keeping three white open for the Malach of the Dawn. Eventually my flyers and wurms beat Tim down.
Game two I was color screwed at first but Tim was totally mana screwed. He was stuck on two land for much of the game and my flyers did their work.
Matches: 2-1
Games: 4-3
Round 4 - Benny Gonzalez - RWB
This round started with another game one that went back and forth. He killed my Malach of the Dawn with the 3RR sorcery that does 13 damage to a creature but I had Benny on the ropes and down to five. Then he cast a Bogardan Hellkite and killed all three of my creatures. This after I had already killed a Serra Avenger—the guy got some bombs.
Game two he just pounded me with the Serra Avenger. I was able to kill it but then the Hellkite made another appearance. I even killed it by blocking with a flyer and casting Strength in Numbers on it but it wasn’t enough to save me.
Benny was the second person who said ours was the most enjoyable match of the day. At least I’m getting better at entertaining my opponents.
Matches: 2-2
Games: 4-5
Round 5 - J.W. Dalton - BR
A two color deck! Amazing. J.W. had the full removal suite including a FOIL Damnation, which he got in all three games. I walked right into it in the first game. I was beating down with flyers and he cast Damnation at nine life, then smushed me. I took game two by holding a flyer back and forcing him into the Damnation. It was close though, he had me down to six. Every time I cast a creature he killed it with spot removal or Melancholy until I finally got enough on the board for him to cast Damnation.
Game three I got a faster start. He cast Damnation again but I bounced my Riftwatcher and sacrificed the Lion instead. Then I drew the Dustwasp to go along with the Uktabi Drake and he finally ran out of removal.
Matches: 3-2
Games: 6-6
So basically a .500 finish which is about what I expected with this card pool. As it turns out, having removal that costs less than six is really handy.
Permalink
11.07.06
Posted in Limited at 7:40 pm by Roy
Whew! I just made one of the biggest comebacks in my life, and in the fifth match of a Time Spiral release league that put me at a perfect 5-0! That was fun.
I was at 1 life (yes, count ‘em, one) and my opponent was at 15 and came back to win. Here’s what lead up to that situation.
He had two Amrou Seekers (which had been pounding me all game) an Essense Sliver and a Quilled Sliver in play. I had a Two-Headed Sliver, a Deathspore Thallid, and a Saproling in play and a Greater Gargadon with three Suspend counters on it.
I had a Bonesplitter Sliver in hand and a face down Thelonite Hermit in play. I passed the turn with six mana available. He smelled a rat because he only attacked with the Amrou Seekers, leaving the Slivers back.
I flipped the Hermit, creating four 2/2 Saprolings and making my existing Saproling a 2/2. I sacrificed four of the Saprolings to kill his Amrou Seekers, all the while waiting for the Momentary Blink which would ruin my whole plan. Fortunately it didn’t come and he was left with just the two slivers.
He played Candles of Leng and passed the turn.
On my turn I flashed back Strangling Soot to kill his Essence Sliver but was wary of surprises so I passed the turn without attacking. I knew he was playing red but he had several cards in his hand and no Mountains in play. I figured if he found a Mountain I was dead either way and I didn’t have enough to kill him this turn so I didn’t want to leave myself open to any flash creatures or other end of turn tricks like Tendrils of Corruption to kill the one blocker I would have left back. Besides, all I had were 1/1’s and I didn’t want to trade for his Quilled Sliver when I had plans for it at the end of his turn.
He activated the Candles and revealed a Plains. He played the Plains and passed.
At the end of his turn I sacrificed my remaining Saproling to kill off his Quilled Sliver and sacrificed a land to remove one of the two counters from the Gargadon. At the beginning of my turn the Gargadon came into play. Then I ripped Might Sliver and my Two-Headed Sliver was suddenly a 3/3. I swung for 14 leaving him at one.
On his turn he activated the Candles and revealed a Mountain, which he’d probably been waiting for for some time. He played the Mountain and conceded (thank goodness, no Grapeshot).
It required some luck but it was still the most exciting come from behind victory I’ve had in awhile. I should have killed his Sliver on my turn and swung with two of the three 1/1’s, which would have left him dead at the end of my next turn. I gave him an extra turn. But at least I didn’t panic or concede when down 15 to 1.
Permalink
10.29.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:39 pm by Roy
Some days you’re just better off staying in bed. Last Saturday was one of those days. It was possibly my worst tournament experience ever.
This is an off the cuff write up. I didn’t take many notes because, frankly, I’d rather forget this tournament. But for you masochists out there and in the interests of posterity, here’s how it went. I recommend turning off your iPods first if you’re listening to The Smiths or The Cure.
Round 1 – Robbie Chan – WG
Once again it’s Rob Roy time. Robbie beat me twice at States and I didn’t provide any competition for him here. An early Herd Gnarr (a 2/2 for 3G which gets +2/+2 when you play another creature) enchanted with Griffin Guide swung for six several times and I was done. In game two I decided again to not draw any removal and instead drew land five or six turns in a row.
Games: 0-2
Matches: 0-1
Round 2 – James C.
Before the round started we got the deck check call. Usually I don’t worry about these but for some reason I was immediately nervous. My spidey-sense was accurate. I had made a last minute change to the deck but forgot to update the registration sheet. D’Oh. Also, I just plain forgot to register two cards in the deck. What the heck was I thinking? Game loss, started 0-1. The one game James and I played was close and I had him down to two or three life but he had too many fliers and one swampwalker and I couldn’t kill him in time.
Games: 0-4
Matches: 0-2
Round 3 – can’t remember
My opponent was a similarly-frustrated 0-2 starter who said he’d made a number of mistakes already. Mainly against me he forgot to put a counter on his storage land. In game two, for the only game of the day I actually found my one bomb (Jaya Ballard) and actually drew non land cards. My deck functioned much better that way. I never even drew, much less played, Jaya all day.
Games: 2-4
Matches: 1-2
Round 4 – Russ Jerkboy (ok, not his real last name, but an accurate description)
We rolled dice as usual. He rolled a standard six sided die and got a four. I rolled one of my black dice and got a five. He said “How about with this die?” motioning toward his. I went off. I forget exactly what I said but it was something like “Look, dude, you rolled a four and I rolled a five. You lost. It’s a die roll. Get over it. If you want to call a judge over to inspect my die, go ahead.” He declined to do so and instead just played a TON of removal and killed almost every creature I cast. How the heck was this guy only 1-2?
Games: 2-6
Matches: 1-3
At this point it should have been obvious it wasn’t my day, but a draft was starting up. I managed to get the last slot and started pack one with a decent amount of burn. Packs two and three weren’t that great and I found out one other guy across the table had also gone RG and two others were heavily green. Naturally I didn’t draw any of that burn and lost 0-2. In the second game I had him totally on the ropes, he had one creature and I had four. Then I drew nothing but land and he started to stabilize. I drew land so long that he was able to get more creatures out than me and play Tromp the Domain to stomp over me.
Let’s never speak of PTQ Geneva again.
Permalink
09.24.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:39 pm by Roy
I saw the notice about the Timeshifted cards a couple of days before the prerelease on a spoiler site. I was dubious about it because the list brought back so many cards which break the color pie wide open, like Disenchant and Psionic Blast, but at the same time I thought it would be cool to see so many old favorites again.
When the guy across from me opened a Psionic Blast I knew the rumors were true.
I didn’t get anything quite that good but I had playable cards in every color. I had some good blue and white but the best cards required double blue or white and I liked the removal I had in red and black. I chose to go with those two colors even though my mana curve was a bit high and I didn’t have any acceleration.
I went with this build:
Creatures (19)
————–
1 Basalt Gargoyle
1 Bogardan Hellkite (I actually cast him several times and never lost when he hit the table.)
2 Drudge Reavers
1 Flamecore Elemental
1 Fury Sliver
1 Goblin Skycutter
1 Jhoria’s Timebug (to power out the Pardic Dragon, although I never got that combo)
2 Mana Skimmer (black fliers which tap down your opponent are good)
1 Nether Traitor
1 Pardic Dragon (the Dragonmaster is back!)
1 Pit Keeper (usually just a 2/1 for 1B, not as good as I thought he’d be)
1 Sangrophage
1 Subterranean Shambler (awesome in limited and could be a good board card against Glare decks)
1 Thick-Skinned Goblin (to power out those Echo creatures)
1 Urborg Syphon-Mage (this will be great in black Madness decks)
2 Vampiric Sliver
Spells (3)
———
2 Lightning Axe (the discard cost wasn’t much of a drawback, between Sangrophage which is useless late and cards which I sometimes can’t cast)
1 Orcish Cannonade
Artifacts (1)
————
1 Hivestone (Never made a difference but sure scared my opponents. I probably should have just main decked the Assembly-Worker.)
Land (17)
———
1 Molten Slagheap
8 Mountain
8 Swamp
Sideboard (used)
—————–
1 Assembly-Worker (brought in for the Fury Sliver against faster decks)
Round 1 - Christopher Rubio - RB (somehow, with no removal)
Chris was slow. Not dumb at all, just Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssslow. If this were a more serious tournament I would have called a judge on him for stalling. It took him like ten minutes to look through his deck and shuffle up before the first game. I beat him pretty quickly with an early Sangrophage Mana Skimmers and a Vampiric Sliver. Then he took another five or ten to sideboard. I reminded him that he only had five minutes to sideboard and he wrapped it up. Then I beat him down with Nether Traitor (I think he did eight damage by himself) and then some four casting cost creatures.
Rounds: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Round 2 - Frank Diaz - RBU
There was a ton of red/black running around. There is a lot of good black removal in this set and the red Echo creatures are quite good in sealed so expect to fight over red and black in Time Spiral drafts.
I got another quick start in game one and Frank never did any damage to me. He laid down a Molten Slagheap on turn one and tried to tap it to put a counter on it. Sorry, no can do. I’m pretty sure he just made a mistake rather than trying to cheat. Then he put down another Slagheap. Then land. Then more mountains and swamps. Then an Urza’s Factory, which he actually used to generate a 2/2 for 7. Unfortunately for Frank that was the only creature he cast. Meanwhile I had the Flamecore Elemental on turn four and he went to town, doing 15 damage in three turns until Frank generated the 2/2 for one chump block.
In game two it became apparent what had happened when he led with an Island. He played creatures pretty quickly this time and the game was very close. Then I top decked Bogardan Hellkite with him at four.
Rounds: 2-0
Games: 4-0
Round 3 - William (Shawn) Walter - RGW
I kept a two swamp hand with a mix of red and black cards, but I had the Nether Traitor and I figured I’d draw into a Mountain. Fortunately I drew one on the first turn. I played creatures, he played creatures, eventually I beat down. Sorry, but for some reason a lot of these games tended to blend together with all the red critters running about.
Game two turned into a huge, classic Sealed-style creature stalemate. He had some white flyers but I had the Basalt Gargoyle and tons of sources of red. In fact, went went through a lot of “draw go” turns where one of us drew a land, played it, and said go. I had 14 of 17 land in play at the end of the game and at one point I had ten counters on the Slagheap.
Shawn had beaten me down to ten with his white shadow guy when I top decked the Hellkite. I attacked with my Gargoyle, figuring he’d probably let it through but hoping he’d block with one of his flyers (he had a Plated Pegasus and a Serra Avenger). He blocked with the Pegasus. Then on his turn he attacked with Avenger. I Flashed the Hellkite into play, killed the Avenger, and sealed the game.
Rounds: 3-0
Games: 6-0
Round 4 - Tyson Gilbert - RW
Tyson is the guy who sat across from me and opened the Psionic Blast. He also opened (and played!) Orgg. But he beat me with good old fashioned mana screw on my part in both games. I played a Thick-Skinned Goblin and Tyson took great glee in killing with Tivadar (thank goodness they didn’t bring his Crusade back). I continued to not play land (my only source of black was the Slagheap) and he continued to play creatures. I fought him off as long as I could but he ended the game at 24 life and I never attacked.
Game two was a replay. I got to four land by turn six or seven but was only able to cast one creature a turn while Tyson already had three in play. He just swarmed me with little guys.
Rounds: 3-1
Games: 6-2
Round 5 - Eric Faulk - RB
Eric and I decided before the match started to take the intentional draw so we’d both get six packs. The other choice was to play it out which would have left the winner with 12 packs but the loser with none. I didn’t want to start the day 3-0 and walk away with nothing.
As it turned out I made the right choice because the mana gods had definitely abandoned me. I got mana screwed again and it wasn’t much of a challenge for Eric. Game two was more competitive but I was still short on mana.
Rounds: 3-1-1 (really 3-2)
Games: 6-4
Permalink
09.02.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:37 pm by Roy
Before we started drafting I was trying to remember my Ravnica block draft strategy. I usually like to go red if it’s open because that sets you up to either go Izzet in Guildpact or to splash black and set up Rakdos in Dissension. I opened Sunforger in the first pack so that reinforced my strategy.
I got passed more Ravnica red so I was feeling pretty good after the first pack, but the Guildpact didn’t give me as much good Orzhov as I’d hoped. Dissension didn’t seem much better although everyone kept passing me Freewind Equenauts. I know it’s a 2/2 for three but it flies, which is even better when carrying a big hammer. I was also getting nervous about my manabase in Guildpact after passing multiple Terrarions but fortunately I got a 15th(!) pick Basilica and a late Orzhov Signet.
So my RW/BWR/BWR strategy worked out this way:
Creatures (15)
————–
1 Azorius Guildmage
1 Beacon Hawk
1 Blind Hunter
1 Demon’s Jester
1 Droning Bureaucrats
4 Freewind Equenaut
1 Order of the Stars
1 Ostiary Thrull
1 Sewerdreg
1 Souls of the Faultless
1 Viashino Fangtail
1 Wojek Embermage (my 2nd or 3rd pick)
Spells (5)
———
1 Brainspoil
1 Castigate
1 Douse in Gloom
1 Pyromantics
1 Wrecking Ball (a valid Sunforger target, yay!)
Artifacts (2)
————
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Sunforger
Enchantments (2)
—————–
1 Galvanic Arc
1 Seal of Doom
Land (16)
———
2 Boros Garrison
4 Mountain
2 Orzhov Basilica
4 Plains
4 Swamp
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Absolver Thrull (a relatively cheap 3/1 which I brought in against faster decks)
1 Sadistic Augermage (anti-enchantment)
I joked that my deck didn’t have a mana curve so much as a plateau. I have one one drop (and it’s a wall that I’ll often hold in game one to see what colors they’re playing) but I did rework it after my first cut to get more into the two slot. I wish I could have found more Sunforger targets but +4/+0 by itself is good, especially on a flyer. And I had plenty of those.
Round 1 - Cal (unknown last name but big fuzzy pink hat) - RG weenie
Cal was joking through the entire draft that he was ignoring mana fixing and going strictly for grizzly bears. You know, two drops for a converted mana cost of two. Turns out he wasn’t joking. He started off with a creature on turn two and started swinging, but then I found my defense. Order of the Stars shut off his red cards (and, I hoped, his removal). Then I started finding flyers. Then the Bureaucrat, which is almost game over for him because most of his deck has the same cmc. Azorius Guildmage sealed the deal.
He was stunned that I was actually playing walls but let me say that Order of the Stars is quite good, especially in a format with so many gold spells and creatures.
Game two was more of the same except I also found Souls of the Faultless. I took damage early and then locked him down and swung over with flyers and pings from the Fangtail.
Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Round 2 - Michael House - RGw
Michael and I had a standoff for awhile, playing land-go and then playing similar creatures. Eventually the Guildmage came out and I was able to tap his flyers (or green creatures which blocked flyers) and swing. One fun note: he played a Silhana Starfletcher (the 1/3 guy which produces mana and can block flyers) and named red. I took out the little slip of paper from the first match where I had written “red” (for the Order) and dropped it on the Starfletcher. Michael was quite surprised.
I played a Wojek Embermage relatively early and he had a lot of x/1 creatures which I kept killing. As game one started to turn he shook his head and said, “I haven’t played anyone of your…uh, skill in awhile. Certainly no-one of your age.” I think he meant experience rather than an old man crack but I still got a chuckle out of it.
Game two he got a slower start, which was very good for me because I was stuck on two land until at least turn six or seven. When I finally found land the flyers and the removal started coming out. I also cast a well-timed Castigate revealing a land, Valor Made Real and Stalking Vengeance. A 5/5 haste which hurts me when creatures die, yikes! He got removed and my flyers and red Timmy’s did the rest.
I found out after the match that he was playing 20 land, two signets and two bounce lands. I suggested he go down to 16 land after game one. I guess he won the next round because I know Joel beat him in round 4 in the 2-1 slot.
Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-0
Round 3 - Jesus Molina - BRG
Jesus keeps crushing me in constructed so I wasn’t too happy to see him sit down across the table from me, other than the fact that he is a very nice guy. He was 1-0-1 after just drawing with Peter (and knowing that Peter would have beaten him given more time) and wasn’t too sure about his deck.
Game one he and I both played land-go, then I found a cheap creature, removal and Sunforger. I also found the Guildmage to tap his remaining creature so the Sunforger’ed dude could get through.
Game two was very back and forth. He got an early creature rush and I was down to 10 before I knew it. Then I started hitting the top of my mana plateau and playing creatures. I found a Equenaut and equipped it and started swinging for 6. He played a Goliath Spider but I unequipped a creature and found Wrecking Ball for the spider. He went from 24 life to zero in, well, four turns. He got me down to four and I was waiting for Cackling Flames or Demonfire but fortunately if he had them, he didn’t find them.
Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-0
Round 4 - Ben Watson (aka Mr. Owling Mine) - URB
Ben usually plays some variety of UR in constructed. The last time we played he beat my slow BRW control deck (which is designed around drawing cards) with a UR variant that still plays Sudden Impact.
He thought my tiebreakers were better and wanted to intentionally draw, thus giving me first and him second as we were the only 3-0’s. I was getting tired and figured what the heck so I agreed. We still played it out for fun.
Game one I found plenty of removal and Sunforger and hit him pretty quickly. I was starting to regret the whole draw thing.
Game two took awhile and I could tell I was getting tired because I kept making stupid mistakes with bounce land timing. He killed two of my creatures with a replicated Last Gasp (via Izzet Guildmage), which was also dumb because I could have killed the Guildmage earlier with Douse in Gloom. I let it live because I’d never seen it actually be a threat before. Eventually he got three enchantments on his Flaring Flame-Kin and I couldn’t kill it.
I couldn’t find quite as many creatures as game two but I found good ones, especially against his deck. I had dropped Sunforger on turn three and kept finding flyers and then a Sewerdreg but he managed to kill them before I could swing with the Forger. He ended the game with six but I had zero. So I guess that draw was a good idea after all, although I think I could have won the match with better use of my removal and tighter play.
Matches: 3-0-1
Games: (unofficially) 7-2
I wound up second because every one of my prior opponents lost in the last round, but that was fine with me. I was pretty tired at the end of the night and 3-1 would have dropped me farther down than second.
I’m definitely liking the red in Ravnica strategy. Cal’s experience (he finished 2-2) also reinforced my thinking that going with fast, cheap creatures usually doesn’t work in draft or limited unless you somehow also get a lot of burn or other removal. You run out of cards too quickly and lose when your opponent starts casting beef.
Permalink
08.23.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:36 pm by Roy
I did another triple Coldsnap draft last Friday at Rainy Day Games and finished my usual 2-2. I can’t seem to get over the .500 mark with Coldsnap events. I started a Coldsnap release league online last week and just got horrible cards. My cards were OK this time but I found myself playing UB again. I think I’ve gone UB in every Coldsnap draft I’ve done because everyone is fighting over red and green. I think I need to fight for Into the North and Boreal Druid more and try for that acceleration trick. The format is usually pretty slow, even for draft. Most games turn into creature stalemates since there’s only one board sweeper and it costs 5WW or two other white cards to play. I also think that I should value Rune Snag higher if I go with blue again. It’s quite good especially when most mana curves are on the high side.
I did get to play in a unique Monday night Vintage tournament at a new local store called The Mana Curve. Unfortunately they seem to be behind the curve because there was almost nobody there—just four people including me. We played round robin and my rustiness with the old Slaver deck showed as I finished 1-2. I got horrible draws against Shared Fate (of all things) and Oath including getting my only source of blue Strip Mined away in the last game. Combine that with stupid mistakes like tutoring for a Goblin Welder when there’s an Engineered Plague in play set to Goblin and it just wasn’t to be that night.
Thanks, Eddie, for the Slaver tips though. I will adjust my deck accordingly (insert evil laughter here). I still like Jester’s Cap main though—Oath is one of the decks that it’s designed to face. I’ve activated the Cap before and literally stripped all their win conditions away in one fell swoop. But I have to be able to get it into play and counter that first Oath and I couldn’t do either on Monday night.
Permalink
07.09.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:35 pm by Roy
As usual for a summer prerelease, the Coldsnap event didn’t attract the crowds of a rainy-day event in the fall or winter. Still, when I got there at about 8:45 one flight of 64 had already begun and the second flight was filling up fast. I didn’t even have time to play any Legacy or Vintage before getting my give Coldsnap boosters.
The cardpool I opened was interesting but not overwhelming. I did get an Allosaurus Rider but nothing else I remember so I was happy to pass those cards over. The pool I got was good but confusing. There were a lot of good cards and two bombs, but in totally different colors. I got an Adarkar Valkyrie and some other good white flyers but they all had WW in their casting cost. I saw a potential blue and white deck but that would have absolutely no removal. The other possible direction was RBG with one Snow-Covered Island to get Garza Zol, Plague Queen into play. She’s a 5/5 flying hasted legendary Vampire that gets bigger if she kills a creature. Oh, and you draw a card if she does combat damage to a player. Between her and the black and red removal I decided to go with that build. So I wound up with:
1 Arctic Nishoba
1 Boreal Druid
1 Chill to the Bone
2 Deathmark
5 Forest
1 Freyalise’s Radiance
1 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
2 Goblin Furrier (there’s lots of Grizzly Bears in this set)
1 Grim Harvest
2 Gutless Ghoul
1 Into the North
2 Krovikan Scoundrel
1 Lightning Storm
5 Mountain
1 Ohran Yeti
1 Orcish Bloodpainter
1 Ronom Hulk
1 Sheltering Ancient
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Stalking Yeti
1 Surging Flame
5 Swamp
1 Thermopod
1 Zombie Musher
Seems like a pretty good list, I think, but it quickly became apparent how valuable the Ravnica-block color fixers are.
Round 1 - Keyden Hammer - WG
OK, I hate losing in the first round but I don’t really feel that I need to be paired against an eight year old either. Yes, I got paired against an eight year old girl with her Dad playing next to her. She had to ask him what a couple of the cards did—clearly he helped her build her deck. She actually did pretty well. She understood how the cards worked but she didn’t understand when to attack and when to stop attacking. Game one I had to mulligan but still won easily. The Stalking Yeti killed her only creature and she was stuck on one Plains with WW creatures in her hand. Game two was closer but she played the 1/8 wall with a cumulative upkeep of me gaining a life. She actually worked that pretty well and stopped paying the upkeep probably close to when I would have, but my creatures still did the trick.
Not really much of a test. I wasn’t sure after this round if it was my deck or my opponent which led to the 1-0 start.
Games: 2-0
Matches: 1-0
Round 2 - Orie Waggoner - BR
And the color screw parade begins. I had all forests and mountains and five, yes five black cards in my hand when the game was over. And it was over quickly. I started the next game with a mulligan and then two swamps with some black cards on the play. Given this slow format I figured I could draw into at least one of my other colors. Nope. I finished game two with four swamps in play and a hand full of green cards. Ugh. Neither of these games were even close — I only did two damage each game. And of course the decision to main deck Deathmark came back to haunt me quickly. I boarded those out for some more creatures.
Games: 2-2
Matches: 1-1
Round 3 - Jason Powell - RBg
Jason’s a good guy and another Rainy Day Gamer. He had Lovisa Coldeyes plus eight warriors/berserkers/barbarians to boost and he also had Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper and Gutless Ghoul, which results in him gaining life and putting creatures with haste into play. I didn’t have to deal with either in game one but I did get my third color screw in a row as I got stuck with a nearly mono-green deck. Game two I mulliganed (again—you’d think 17 land would be enough) and the game was actually fairly close until he got that combo into play.
Games: 2-4
Matches: 1-2
As we played I told Jason that if I lost I was going to remake my deck into UW. I never even drew Garza Zol much less played her so I figured she was too shy to come out to play today. Also, I had little to lose since the best I could hope for was 2-2 and one pack (woo hoo!). So that’s what I did. I actually went UWg to use the Into the North’s. I wound up with this deck list for version 2. It had better creatures but almost no removal at all.
1 Arctic Nishoba
1 Adarkar Valkyrie
1 Boreal Druid
1 Boreal Griffin
1 Boreal Shelf
1 Drelnoch
5 Forest
1 Frozen Solid
3 Into the North
2 Island
1 Jotun Owl Keeper
1 Kjeldoran Javelineer
1 Krovikan Whispers
1 Phyrexian Ironfoot
5 Plains
1 Rimehorn Aurochs (I was reduced to playing Aurochs, for pity’s sake!)
2 Ronom Hulk
1 Ronom Serpent
1 Sheltering Ancient
1 Simian Brawler
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Squall Drifter
1 Surging Aether
1 White Shield Crusader
1 Woolly Razorback
Round 4 - Sam Skinner - WBg
Sam also had the Valkyrie, and he had a nice combo to go with it: Disciple of Tevesh Szat. Game one was fairly even until he got that little dance number into play and then he was able to kill a creature of mine a turn. I would have killed him pretty early if he hadn’t recovered Sun’s Bounty oh, I don’t know, about 1,000 times. Or at least it seemed like it. Once that Tevesh Szat combo hit I scooped.
Game two was pretty quick - I got the Nishoba and a Ronom Hulk out quickly thanks to Into the North and the Druid and they went the distance. Game three was closer and I made a couple of misplays with the Javelineer that cost me a couple of creatures. I was getting tired and I was running on no coffee. But eventually I pulled my head out of my you know where and pushed my big critters through for the win. A hard won one pack!
Games: 4-5
Matches: 2-2
I also did a draft afterward, which was fun but very weird because it was tough to know how highly to value the snow-related spells and creatures. I went BU and got tons of removal, but then got paired up against Alex Shvartsman (or something like that), a very good limited player who had almost the same deck. Game one took forever but he finally won after recovering Grim Harvest oh, I don’t know, about 1,000 times. I’m pretty sure it should have been removed from the game at one point but I only realized that after the match was over. Game two was more Tevesh Szat and Zombie Musher battles (we both had multiples of those cards) but he was able to race faster than I was.
Coldsnap is going to be fun to draft. I made the mistake of not getting my snow-covered land early enough. I figured I’d pick it up in pack three but there wasn’t much left when I went for it. I had a number of snow creatures which weren’t as effective as they could have been if I’d gotten a couple more snow-covered lands. Alex’s deck was full of them and it made the difference. Another important lesson which I learned in the sealed deck: stick to two colors. The days of Ravnica-type color and mana fixing are over with Coldsnap.
Permalink
06.25.06
Posted in Tournament Reports, Limited at 7:35 pm by Roy
I was starting to think I wasn’t going to make it to Limited States. I was up much of the night with an illness which—well, let’s just say if the tournament had been held then I would have been too busy doing something else to play cards. So on Saturday morning I tentatively packed up and headed off for the tournament, not sure if I’d have to go dashing off mid-round to the little gamers’ room.
I opened my packs and as I registered the cards I was very glad that we would be playing a different card pool than we registered. The highlight of the group was Lightning Helix. A good card, sure, but it’s not going to win the game for you by itself. There was some other playable red and white but as I write this I can’t even remember any of the rares except Glimpse, which is, of course, unplayable in Boros.
We turned in our cards and then I went to play some Legacy with Joel Allen, Top 8 Regionals finisher a few weeks ago. Aluren vs. Sneak Attack sure breaks up the Standard monotony of Jitte + random creature.
Soon enough we were called back to our seats and given the cards we would actually play. As I verified the Ravnica cards I wondered “Did this guy get any rares?” Then I got to the gold cards. Glare. Uh huh, that seems good. Oh, plus Tolsimir. Wow! I also got Rakdos Pit Dragon but the rest of the red was weak and he’s not really splashable with the double mana requirement. Plus I had to go with black for the removal.
The deck basically built itself with just the Ravnica tournament deck. Here’s what I ran with:
1 Brainspoil
1 Castigate
1 Centaur Safeguard
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Conclave Equenaut
1 Darkblast
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Disembowel
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
6 Forest
1 Freewind Equenaut
1 Ghor-Clan Savage
1 Glare of Subdual
1 Golgari Brownscale
1 Greater Mossdog
1 Guardian of the Guildpact
5 Plains
1 Sadistic Augermage
1 Scatter the Seeds
1 Seal of Doom
1 Selesnya Guildmage
1 Selesnya Sagittars
1 Selesnya Sancutary
1 Shambling Shell
4 Swamp
1 Tolsimir Wolfblood
1 Verdant Eidolon
1 Wild Cantor
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Nightmare Void
I should have brought in Sewerdreg from the board but I really didn’t need another 5cc creature, especially another double black requirement. He’s good but when you can tap out your opponent’s creatures at will he’s not absolutely required. I probably should have run him but it worked out well the way it was.
Round 1 - Todd Martin
Todd was playing every color but green, a common theme of the day. I saw a lot of four color decks and even some five color decks. With my build and the mana fixers I had I figured I’d win at least a few games due to my opponent’s color screw. Game one of round one proved that theory. I cast a couple of quick creatures and then we both played draw go for awhile, looking for land to match our spells. Fortunately I had been pinging him for two or three the whole time and by the time he started playing creatures he was too low on life to survive my alpha strikes. Game two I drew Glare. That was pretty much it. For a couple of turns he had three creatures to my two and he got me down to 11 but then I found more creatures and killed him quickly thereafter.
Nick saw me playing and told me he had Glare too. “See you in the Top 8!” he said joyfully as he played.
Games: 2-0
Matches: 1-0
Round 2 - Charlie Weber
This deck really wasn’t very hard to play, even against a good opponent like Charlie (he also Top 8′d Regionals). I kept playing better and better creatures as Charlie exclaimed how ridiculous my deck was. Turn one Elves, turn two Freewind Equenaut, turn three Greater Mossdog, then a Selesnya Guildmage. Then Tolsimir came out and they all got bigger and I overran him. Game two I started the same way and then found Glare. He came very close to scooping on the spot but stuck it out until the end (which wasn’t much longer).
Games: 4-0
Matches: 2-0
Round 3 - Michael Olesen
By now others were starting to talk about my deck and Nick Moreno’s, a fellow Rainy Day Gamer who also got Glare and was also 2-0. Michael’s deck just never gave him a chance. He double mulliganed in game one and was stuck on one land for at least the first three or four turns. I never took any damage. Game two was more of the same as he was stuck on two and even when he started drawing land it didn’t match the color of his spells. I can’t really tell you much about his deck because I didn’t see much of it. I offered him the handshake after game two but he was obviously disgusted at the way the match went. I talked to him afterward and he seemed in better spirits.
Games: 6-0
Matches: 3-0
Round 4 - Robbie Chen
After round three I heard Robbie, another very good player, talk about how he didn’t like his deck but he liked the opponents he was getting. I watched part of his round three and his opponent definitely made some play mistakes. Of course his opponent was also the one who took Battle of Wits to States last year so I know he builds decks a bit differently.
Unfortunately this round was my deck’s turn to crap out. In game one I played some early creatures but his blue bounce plus bigger green guys were able to take care of them and I never found Glare or Tolsimir. Robbie was still wondering what the bombs were in my deck—people sitting next to us were talking about how good it was as we sat down but fortunately they didn’t give anything specific away. In round two Robbie just played creature after creature and swarmed me with Overwhelm-powered Saprolings. After the game I showed him the bombs which never came out to play and tried to gird myself up for another round. I was really hoping for the 4-0 draw in strategy.
Games: 6-2
Matches: 3-1
Round 5 - Nick Turula
Nick is a very nice guy who played his Type I Singleton deck against my Control Slaver deck before the tournament started. Gorilla Shaman tore him up but he took it very well and we had fun playing our broken decks. Now we were both fighting for our tournament lives as the loser was out.
Game one I played quick creatures and swarmed him. Again, no Glare but I still only took one point of damage. Fortunately Castigate revealed a Savage Twister which I promptly removed. For game two I boarded in the Nightmare Void to try to get rid of Savage Twister. I mulliganed and started out slowly. He was playing tons of creatures and Skullmead Cauldron. I was able to start fighting him off by blocking with the Eidolon, letting it die, then casting a multicolored creature to get it back (the Wild Cantor even served this purpose). Eventually we both had about ten creatures each and I was able to stabilize at five life and start chipping away at his total, which had grown to 29, with the Dimir House Guard and Freewind Equenaut. Our libraries were getting pretty low and I was still looking for Glare. He found Thundersong Trumpeter but I found Darkblast. He found another one and I had to dredge Darkblast back, even with a relatively high chance of dredging my own Glare. But if I didn’t find Glare I’d be dead as he’d make my one flyer unable to block his one flyer. I revealed two lands and a meaningless creature. Whew. I killed his Trumpeter. Unfortunately he found some removal for my flyer and finished me off.
Game three my deck was on. He was color screwed and I played the Selesnya Guildmage and the Wayfinder. Every turn I tapped out to give them both +1/+1 and hit for six. He didn’t last long at that rate as he couldn’t get out a blocker.
Whew again! I was pretty sure I was in since my tiebreakers were great but I waited anxiously for the standings. I was fourth, the highest ranked of the 4-1’s. As long as I got paired up against one of the top three I could definitely draw in.
Games: 8-3
Matches: 4-1
Round 6 - Ryan Engbrecht
Woo hoo! Ryan was ranked third and undefeated so we quickly agreed to a draw. We played for fun and I played badly. I played the House Guard instead of dredging him for Glare and I tried to set up Ghor-Clan Savage with Bloodthirst even though I didn’t have two Forests in play. We shuffled up and played again and he beat me again (with no Glare or Tolsimir). Good thing we drew.
Games: 8-3
Matches: 4-1-1
After the sixth round ended they announced the top 8. I was fifth.
Top 8 Draft
I was sandwiched between Dan Schomburg, a perennial Portland Magic Top 8 finisher, and Brett Gadberry, who rode Sunforger and tons of good instants to the Top 8. They announced the rules and everyone gathered around the table to watch the draft. They told us to begin but I almost couldn’t get the stupid Ravnica pack open! I finally did to reveal—Grozoth. Oh goody. I decided to go for the Lightning Helix and I was very glad I did because I got passed a parade of great Boros cards. Wojek Embermage, Indentured Oaf, and Sunhome Enforcer. I drafted almost exclusively Boros in the Ravnica pack except for a lone Transluminant and a couple of lousy 14th and 15th picks. I figured I’d go black for Orzhov in Guildpact and Rakdos in Dissension. With this many good players I figured they’d all be fighting over blue.
The Guildpact pack showed me another crappy rare and I took Mortify, passing a Blind Hunter and a Pillory. I actually got the Blind Hunter back and also grabbed a couple of Cry of Contrition late just in case I faced something I couldn’t handle. I got Djinn Illuminatus very late and, since there was nothing better, I went ahead and took him. I figured he’d pass for my beef.
I was hoping for some real Rakdos goodies but didn’t get a single Ickspitter or Cackling Flames. I did get a Hit in the middle of the run and a Seal of Doom but I was forced to take the Azorius Signet just to try for some sort of acceleration and mana fixing. Playing three colors without green is risky and I only found one Rakdos Carnarium, but I felt I had a decent if not overpowering deck.
I went with this build:
1 Agent of Masks
1 Azorius Signet
1 Beacon Hawk
1 Blind Hunter
1 Centaur Safeguard
1 Conclave Equenaut
1 Courier Hawk
1 Demon’s Jester
1 Djinn Illuminatus
1 Douse in Gloom
1 Ghost Warden
1 Hit // Run
1 Indentured Oaf
1 Lightning Helix
1 Mortify
5 Mountain
1 Ordruun Commando
1 Parallectric Feedback
5 Plains
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Scorched Rusalka
1 Seal of Doom
1 Slaugherhouse Bouncer
1 Sunhome Enforcer
5 Swamp
1 Thundersong Trumpeter
1 Vesper Ghoul
1 Wojek Embermage
Sideboard (used)
—————-
1 Cry of Contrition
Round 1 - Nicholas Moreno
Well, good and bad—one of us was going to make it to the semis but one of us would definitely be out.
I mulliganed a one Swamp hand into one with four lands but it didn’t really matter because this game went on a long, long time. I don’t know how long but it seemed like at least an hour. Everyone else was finished before we were done with game one. I got him down to ten quickly but then he stabilized with bigger creatures and started getting real card advantage with Bottled Cloister. He kept counting his land and I was holding Parallectric Feedback to try to finish him off with him at eight. But then he started getting through for a point here and a point there and my life total was dwindling. I used the Feedback in response to a Sewerdreg that he’d fetched with Congragation at Dawn, bringing him down to three. All I needed was the Helix. Eventually, eventually he was able to alpha strike with everything and finish me off with Golgari Rotwurm and a Blind Hunter-haunted creature. He did exactly enough damage with him at three.
Game two was a different story. I got lots of removal and swarmed him very quickly without taking a point of damage. Game three I did the same with early removal and a big Hit.
Games: 2-1
Matches: 1-0
Round 2 - Charlie Weber
After Charlie laid down his second land and gestured toward me I asked him if he was done. “It’s possible, pig,” he said in a dead on Dread Pirate Roberts voice and when I got the reference he threw his hands up and smiled big. “Finally, someone who gets my references!” We spent most of the rest of the match riffing Princess Bride and Family Guy references while we played.
Game one, again, took a long long time. Charlie was right when he told me before round one that he got ridiculous amounts of removal. I played a creature and he killed it. Repeat. Fortunately he wasn’t playing many creatures of his own until he got a Streetbreaker Wurm out. I Hit him for five and was able to finish him off.
Game two was close as well with us playing creatures and killing the other’s creatures. I was down to nine and he was at six. He cast something, the Streetbreaker I think?, and I responded with Parallectric Feedback. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Charlie was down to one and I finished him off the next turn.
Games: 4-1
Matches: 2-0
Round 3 - States Finals - Robbie Chan
I asked Robbie to please let me play this time since my deck didn’t do anything against him in the Swiss. “Oh yeah, Rob Roy again” he said and we shuffled up for the finals.
Game one was all Robbie. I was a bit mana screwed and could only get one or two creatures in play. He kept bouncing them with Ogre Savants or Repealing them. I just couldn’t keep enough creatures on the board to block them all, especially once Court Hussar showed up and started flying over me, and I never did a point of damage.
Game two should have been mine. It was back and forth and I had him down to four. After blocking I sac’d a creature to the Rusalka and then started thinking. “What is your Haunt target?” Robbie asked and I picked the Silkwing Scout. You know, the one he can sac for green and get a basic land. So in response he sac’d it and exhaled while he searched for the Mountain he needed. As soon as I picked the Scout I knew I had made a mistake and that mistake did cost me the game. I was able to get him down to three which exactly the missing damage which I could have done if I’d haunted one of my own creatures. I was able to hold him off for five or six turns (”You held on much longer than I expected,” the head judge remarked afterward) but I couldn’t kill off his Simic Ragwurm equipped with Grifter’s Blade and backed up by Skarrg. I kept blocking but Skarrg kept forcing through a couple of points a turn. I even got the Djinn out but he couldn’t kill the suddenly 5/5 wurm.
I was down to one and he was at three. He had a tapped Ragwurm (with one blue open) and one other creature, untapped. I had a Scorched Rusalka and a Wojek Embermage (that was another mistake I made in this game—I held the Embermage too long and played other creatures before him, which forced me to take Scatter the Seeds tokens once and take five or six damage in one turn). I exhaled and drew my card, praying for the Helix. I ripped a Plains. I thought for a minute and attacked with both creatures. He untapped the Ragwurm and I extended my hand. “I was hoping you’d have a brain fart or something,” I explained—it was my only chance after making my fatal mistake earlier.
Games: 4-3
Matches: 2-1
Here’s how the Top 8 played out:
Robbie Chan def. Brett Gadberry 2-0
Dan Schomburg def. Ryan Engbrecht 2-0
Charlie Weber def. Tom Huteson
me def. Nicholas Moreno 2-1
Robbie Chan def. Dan Schomburg 2-0
me def. Charlie Weber 2-0
Robbie Chan def. me 2-0
Oh, and by the way, if you’re reading this Nathan Saunders—hi Nathan!
Permalink
« Previous entries
