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AngryTroll
07-20-2008, 10:57 PM
Top 8 Syracuse $1000 Legacy Event
July 19, 2008

Although the tournament was yesterday, my story starts several months ago. I applied for a summer program at Brookhaven National Lab, on Long Island, NY, early this year. I knew that if I got the position, I would miss the Batcave Dual for Duels on July ???. Of course, that guaranteed that I would get into the program, and I headed for New York as soon as I got out of school. Before I left, I knew that the 1K event would be happening in New York while I was there, so I began hoping to make the event. I ended up being able to grab a train from Penn Station to Syracuse (5:40 hours), sat next to a hot, friendly chick the whole way, and was met at the station by Zach, AKA Lonely Baritone (he’s kind of a big deal). Mad props to him for picking me up from the station and giving me a place to stay.

After being picked up from the train station, we went over to Adam (Nightmare)’s place and played some magic for a while. I broke out White Thresh, with which I managed to win a single game all night. I was running almost the standard list, with 2 basic Island, 1 Forest, 1 Plains, 2 Oblivion Rings, and 2 Counterspells main. Zach crushed me with Enchantress for a while, then I got smashed by Roodmistah playing Dreadstill. I even managed to get kicked around by Red Thresh for a while before calling it a night.

After delicious French toast in the morning, we made it to the tournament site and I laid out White Thresh to fill out the decklist. There were a total of 68 players there, with two cars from Virginia, one from Massachusetts (the mAsshats), the Syracuse Crew, and one Oregonian. The tournament started right around 12:40, and things got going. Of course, Thresh went back in the bag and I broke out NorthWest Not Quite Nourishing Lich (NQL). I knew there would be way too much Landstill, Dreadstill, Imperial Painter, Survival, and Dragon Stompy to play Thresh. Someone remarks that with this many rounds, after round five it will be an endurance run (cue foreshadowing to round 6).

NorthWest Not Quite Lich

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eternal Witnes
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Shriekmaw
1 Flametongue Kavu

1 Anger
1 Squee
1 Genesis
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Rofellos

4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Burning Wish
4 Survival of the FIttest

3 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
4 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Mountain

Sideboard:
1 Deathmark
1 Gleeful Sabotage
1 Rough//Tumble
1 Reverant Silence
1 Primal Command
1 Tsunami
3 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Engineered Plague
3 Krosan Grip

I received a lot of flak and general unhappiness about the non-forest basics in the deck, but I keep winning games by dropping Magus and still being able to cast everything in the deck. The Swamp is amazing, allowing for Shriekmaw and disruption. The Mountain is a lot weaker than the Swamp, but I run it for Burning Wish into Pyroclasm against Goblins, where a Taiga is not likely to survive for two turns, especially if they get to see the Pyroclasm coming. Finally, the Plains is also weak, but lets you cast Harmonic under a Blood Moon. I will probably end up swapping the mountain and plains out for forests, but I mulliganned maybe one hand all day for the basics not being forests. I feel like I win a lot more games from having them available then I lose to mulligans.
There are three creatures going for the Kavu slot. First is Kavu himself, and then is Fire Imp and Big Game Hunter. Now, BGH is amazing. I feel like the body on the Kavu makes it worth the one extra mana over Fire Imp, and Big Game Hunter can’t nail Dark Confidant, Affinity Creatures, Hypnotic Specter (I hate losing to randomness in the first few rounds) or several other creatures. He wins the Goyf War if you both have them, and leaves behind a body that kills Geese and opponents.

My first round opponent was Paul. He had a playmat with “Top 8” of some fancy big event on it, and I later learned that he was the one that Top 8ed the Legacy GP: Columbus with Golden Grahms. I’m on the draw, and I mulligan my first hand into a hand with Thoughtseize, a Survival, and some gas. I Seize a Painter, find a Survival, Shriekmaw a Magus, Harmonic two of his Chrome Moxen, and go to town. In game two, he leads with an Imperial Recruiter for Painter’s Servant, so I open with a Therapy. He topdecks a Grindstone and plays it, and I drop a Rofellos. He played a Dragon Whelp, so I find a Harmonic and blow the Grindstone. He draws, and finds a Painter’s Servant! It names black, and I make a play mistake by finding a Shriekmaw to try to kill it instead of a Kavu. Well, he gets one extra turn with the Painter for my mistake, but I kill it the next turn. Now, for this tournament, I actually kept track of life totals and how each point of life was lost for each player. Paul swings at me with a Dragon Whelp, with two red Chrome Moxen in play. He’s been hitting me for 4 a turn while I dealt with his artifacts. I have no block and he only pumps it once, I take it, and he says he has me at 4. Now, I have me at 5, and we go back and look through my notes, and we decide that I am right. Well, with me at 5 and him with only two red sources in play, he has to find a red land on his next turn. With the Survival in play, though, it’s a moot point, so I sent Shriekmaw after the Dragon and swing for the win. He did 8 to himself with his own Tomb, so Goyfs ended the game in a turn.

Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0

Round two, I was sitting at Table 1, and paired against none other but Jesse Hatfield. I get out a camera and tell someone to take a picture, and that I’ll claim it was round six or seven. I win the roll, and Jesse mulligans. I Thoughtseize and see Daze, Force, Enforcer, Volcanic Island, Flooded Strand, and Counterbalance. I take the Counterbalance, and go to town. He Thoughtseizes me, and sees 2x Magus and 2x Witness. Eventually I resolve a Magus, and Jesse cracks two fetchlands…finding duals, but giving his Goose Thresh. He never plays another spell, and scoops when I Wish up a Primal Command.

Game two, I Thoughtseize him again early, and see Pyroclasm, Grip, Ponder, Strand, and Tundra. I take the Ponder, as I have no Survival but do have Goyfs. Well, one Goyf goes farming, one is Thoughtseized away, but the third sticks. At one point I sword an Enforcer, and my Goyfs go the distance.

Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-0

Round Three I sit down against Shawn, a guy that wasn’t on the Source. He tells me his rounds keep going the full time, and I groan-so far I have finished in the first half an hour or so each round. I’m on the play, and I keep while he mulligans. I Thoughtseize and see two Islands, an EE, Fact or Fiction, and two Augery Adepts. I take the EE, and on my second turn Therapy away both Augery Adepts. On my third turn, I flashback a Bird for his Fact or Fiction and see a Force. My hand is spent at this point, but he literally has one card in hand. Well, I make my next twelve land drops, and he makes half of them and starts playing Fact or Fictions and stuff. I lose.
Game two, things go as planned. Actually….after this game, the only cards in my deck my opponent has seen are Quirion Ranger, Birds, Thoughtseize, Therapy, Goyf, Rofellos, and a ton of duals. I win game two easily, though, and it’s on to game three. This game I Thoughtseize him a third time(!) and see Spell Snare, Brainstorm, Fact, Meloku, and Propaganda. I take the Brainstorm because he only has two lands, drop a Survival after he taps out to Counterspell something else, and he groans…he didn’t realize that was what I was playing, despite the duals and Rofellos he saw earlier. He doesn’t draw a third land for ages, and when he does, Propaganda is far too little far too late, and I win through it with a Harmonic.

Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-1

Round Four Anwar, with Ichorid.

Game one: He wins the die roll and I never get a turn.
Game Two: All I have to board is Tormod’s Crypt. I know that this matchup is unwinnable game one, and it is not worth devoting enough sideboard slots to make the second two games even. I mull to five, and find a hand with Wish in it for Pyroclasm. It is way too slow, but I do get to play two land and Wish before dying.

Matches: 3-1
Games: 6-3

Round 5: Kevin (Beatsman) with GBrwSA (The mirror)
We went to lunch together earlier, and we knew we might end up paired. He won the die roll and mulligans. I Therapy him for Survival, and see Bird, Wish, and three land. Well, a few turns later I grab the Wish. He Thoughtseized me and took my Wish, but I still had a Goyf to start getting in there. I topdeck another Wish, find Primal Command, and do silly things. I didn’t have enough lands to get Witness and bounce one of his lands, and I wanted something that would make an impact on the board, so I got a Shriekmaw with it. A few turns later, I do find a Witness and some more land, so I give him another land on top of his library and find Genesis (instead of Witness, because I believe at this point that I am either out of Witnesses or close to swinging in for lethal?) I sac the Witness to Cabal Therapy, get Genesis, and kill his creatures every turn until I win. He Wished for Chainer’s Edict at one point and nailed a Goyf, but I had a second one in play, and played the Bird I’d been holding for a topdecked Survival to protect the Goyf from flashback and win.

Game two, he draws lots of land. My notes go: Don: 20. Kevin: 20(fetch), 19(fetch), 15 (Goyf), 11 (Goyf), 7 (Goyf), X.

Matches: 4-1
Games: 8-3
At this point, I need one more win to guarantee Top 8.

Round 6: David (Deep6er) with It’s The Fear
We had talked about playing each other, and I thought it’d be an interesting matchup. He claims that it is about even (but I’d bet if he claims that, then it is slightly in his favor), but we both know if one player has the nuts and the other does not, he will win. Also, I know that playskill will probably make the difference, and I have never tested the matchup.
Game one, he drops a Crypt against me. I get a Survival down, go get a Harmonic, and then realize I don’t have white mana. Time walk for David. I do a poor job playing around Crypt, making him blow it to get Harmonic and Genesis, but take far too long to do it, giving him a real advantage. I get some pictures of the game when I have dominant board position, but somehow failed to get any while he was crushing me. Go figure.
Between games, I ask where I lost control, and David (who turns out is a really nice guy) explains it to me, which is awesome. Props for doing it between games, even though we still had to keep playing. Game two, I make one really bad play mistake, and I lose handily. He has a Crypt early again, and I blow it up with Grip for no reason, as I don’t have Survival. He untaps and plays Counterbalance, and I am blown out by the top that follows it. I do resolve a Tsunami, but I do not realize that I don’t get my Goyf back from his Shackles. Major frowns. This game ended with a lot of land on my side versus Shackles, Deed, Counterbalance, Top, and just as many land on his side of the table. Major frowns.
This was the only match where I felt like I had been outplayed. The comment at the start about endurance caught up to me here-I was really excited about being close to Top 8, and I was exhausted from playing for so many rounds. David was a great opponent though, and he continued to be awesome for the rest of the tournament.

Matches: 4-2
Games: 8-5

Round 7: Jeff with Red Thresh
YES, my best matchup in the whole place for round 7. He is ranked 9th, and I am 10th. The theory is that one 5-2 player will make it, and I think my Tiebreakers are solid because my two losses are 5-1-1 and in the Top 8.

Game one, I make a dumb mistake. I have a Survival, I go fetch a Shriekmaw and try to play it. In response, Jeff Bolts my untapped Bird. I think and let it die, then my dude gets Dazed. It doesn’t really matter, though, because Survival had already stuck. I go find a Genesis, and Shriekmaw him every turn and make Goyfs.
Game two, I evoke Shriekmaw again. That card is nuts. I take one at a time from Geese for a while, then hardcast a Genesis, tapping out. Let me just say how awesome that is against Red Thresh. Without Swords, they really don’t want him in play or in the yard. He thinks long and hard, and I dare him to Daze it. I may have had a Goyf in the yard too, but I know there was a Shriekmaw. Well, it sticks, and I start winning the damage race with a stream of blockers (Anger, again, is awesome to cast against red Thresh without Swords). He decided to swing into it with an unthreshed Goose, which gives him Threshold. I win a few turns later, though, without any trouble.

Matches: 5-2
Games: 10-5

I am excited to have gone 5-2 against the East Coast, and we go back and forth for half an hour trying to figure out the tiebreakers. In the end, I make spot number 8, with pretty definitive tiebreakers. The top eight is Bryant Cook with TES, Anwar with Ichorid, Alex Hatfield with 5C Thresh, a Thrash deck, Dreadstill, Landstill, me with GBrwSA, and David Gearhart with It’s the Fear. Unfortunately, Bryant is in first, and I am in eighth. I lose these games, but in game two he Diminishing Returns me into a hand with Thoughtseize and 2x Therapy. Unfortunately, I do not have a Bayou to go with my Quirion Ranger (not a Bird) and Forest. I had mulliganed into a Crypt, which is why I got a second turn. Bryant went on to play Thash, which defeated him and went to the finals.

Afterwards, I meet a bunch of people, including (but not limited to): Krieger, Parcher, Quicksilver, KirdApe3, Di, Teeniebopper, of course the Hatfields MadZur and ObfuscateFreely, HammafistRoob, and a ton of other people. I play some more against Thresh, and go 5-1.


Total: Top 8, 68 players.
My record against New York: 4-0 in the Swiss, 4-1 overall
My record against Virginia: 1-2 (win against Jesse, lose to Anwar and David)
Percentage of Oregonians that made top 8: 100%
Percentage of Team Info Ninja that made top 8: 100%
Percentage of metagame that were Survival decks: 5/68, 7.35%
Percentage of Survival in the Top 8: 12.5%

Really, I picked a great deck for the day. Of the 7 rounds of Swiss, four were autopilots. Imperial Painter, 5c Thresh, MUC, and Red Thresh were never really in the game against me. I won the mirror quite handily, but I had better draws than he did two games in a row. He should have mulliganed more aggressively-I had great mulligans all day. Finally, I knew Ichorid was unwinnable. I bet that if I had playtested against It’s the Fear beforehand, I would have had a much better matchup. If that round had come earlier, it may have been more interesting too. As it was, I got blown out in two because of poor play.

Anyways, I got a sweet $50 bill, and we take off to go find some food, and more importantly, alcohol. The young kids to go Kadishacks, and the rest of us to go to Nightmare’s place and walk downtown. Downtown Syracuse was hopping. There were seriously 7 cop cars just parked in a few block strip, hundreds of college-aged people walking around, and lots of hot women. We go to a bar and have some delicious Blueberry Wheat beer and some sort of Stout (beer count: 2). Four of us go across the street to a pizza place (beer count 3), and get some delicious pizza. Adam takes us to Daisy Dukes and gets us in for free (major props), gets us free shots of something delicious (a shot for each of us, about 10 shots total, super mad props), and is generally awesome. Daisy Dukes is awesome: country music blasting; a mechanical bull we are unable to convince Teeniebopper to ride; hot bartenders that were not wearing much, got up and danced on the counters, and had a water fight. I consume a rum and coke, another Coors, a Carbomb, and a Yingying(?) that Krieger talks me into trying. I finally get it, and go to cheers him….to unleash the ninja Top attack! He is forced to chug his beer. Drink Count: 9. We go to one more bar, and Adam orders a pitcher. When the bartender (also good looking, but not as much so as the last bar) asks him how many cups he wants, and we all think he is awesome for saying one. I get one more drink (drink count: 10), and spend the rest of the night making fun of the East Coast crew for being such lightweights. Seriously, the DDs are sober, I’m tipsy, and the rest of these idiots are stumbling around, drunk dialing the world, wrestling, and being generally awesome.

From here, Zach drives us to Kadishacks at around 3:30 in the morningto meet up with the underage guys. The entire way there, Teeniebopper is trying to convince Zach to cross the yellow line. “Look around, Zach! You can see no one is coming. Go over there. It’s calling us. Come on, dude!” At the same time, the guy in shotgun (I’m not sure who it was) is trying to high five Zach every few seconds. Finally, to make matters even better for Zach, we are relying on Teeniebopper for directions. “Go this way. For a while. Yeah.” “We’re going to turn left up here. Hey, that was our turn, you missed it!” “Um, that was a right turn.” Kadishacks place is awesome, and we have a giant sleepover. Seriously, sleeping bags, giggling, unicorn cuddling, a loud drunk guy (Teeniebopper), a pillowfight, everything. One of those is not true-you figure it out..

In the morning, Kadishack drives me to the train station, and I start my adventure back to the Big City. I thank Zach again for driving us the night before, and get this awesome text in response:
“You were a much appreciated rock of sobriety in a sea of drunk assholes.”
Which just proves the East Coast guys (minus designated drivers and Adam) are sissy lightweights.

Props:
Zach and other designated drivers for us on Saturday night, and for loaning me one Primal Command and a Playmat.
All the awesome Sourcers I met in person.
David, Deep6er, for being awesome and talking over the games while we were playing
A game of Ichorid vs Thresh where the Ichorid player won with Narcomoeba and Stinkweed Imp beatdown after the Thresh player mulled to five and kept a hand with no land and a Crypt.
A game of Ichorid vs Enchantress, where an Elephant Grass stopped Ichorid in its tracks. Instead, Ichorid Dread Returned a 20/20 Golgari Grave Troll, Dread Returned a Flame Kin Zealot, paid the mana to get through the Grass, and won with a 21/21 Grave Troll.

Mad Props:
Zach, for picking me up, letting me stay with him, and French toast
Kadishack, for letting me spend the night and driving me to the train station
Nightmare, for having people stay, taking us to the awesome bars, and getting us in for free
Tiebreakers, for working out for me for once

Slops:
Syracuse / The West Coast for being so far apart.
Prize Support. 68 people, $30 each = $2040 entry fees.
$1000 to the Top 8, then 10 boosters each to 9 through 16. Boosters = $240
Store profit: $800. Prize to 5 through 8: $50. $20 over the entry fee for Top 8ing a 68 person tournament?

It was an awesome experience to come play in the tournament, and making Top 8 was icing on the cake. I was glad I did not make just a mediocre showing, and I laughed with the judge asking him if he maybe had the paper upside down and I was really supposed to be 1-4. 5-2 was great, and making Top 8 was even better.

Rood
07-20-2008, 11:07 PM
Congrats on your finish man it was really cool meeting you and everyone else from the Source.

HammafistRoob
07-20-2008, 11:18 PM
We had 2 cars from Mass, and the Shotgun dude you were talking about is unregged.

EDIT- gratz on the top8 man, you deserved it.

Volt
07-20-2008, 11:46 PM
.

goobafish
07-21-2008, 12:50 AM
Nice meeting you Troll, congrats on the top 8. Also, when you were talking to me about the Canadian Thresh vs. Survival match, I am convinced it is not as bad for Thresh as people make it seem. I have only lost to Survival once in a tournament, which was in the Top 4 of Winter Wonderland against Di.

J.V.
07-21-2008, 03:25 AM
Seriously, sleeping bags, giggling, unicorn cuddling, a loud drunk guy (Teeniebopper), a pillowfight, everything. One of those is not true-you figure it out..
What is: a pillow fight!

Anyways, congrats on the finish Don it was great meeting you.

Whit3 Ghost
07-21-2008, 10:29 AM
Congrats on the finish!

Lego
07-21-2008, 11:36 AM
That's a pretty interesting list. I'm intrigued, certainly. Do Harmonic Sliver and StP feel worth the hurt on the manabase?

And Congrats on the T8! Always love to see Survival continuing to do well :) Too slow for the environment indeed...

Michael Keller
07-21-2008, 11:47 AM
Congrats on the finish, dude.

I totally would have gone but by the time Geoff was done it was past midnight and we were hungry as hell and my box of Cheerios wasn't cutting it anymore...sounded like good times!

Nightmare
07-21-2008, 11:50 AM
Excellent to meet you Don! Glad I could be a good host, and happy to hear you enjoyed our humble city!

frogboy
07-21-2008, 04:02 PM
Prize to 5 through 8: $50. $20 over the entry fee for Top 8ing a 68 person tournament?

someone losing in the quarters of a PTQ gets half a box. this is fairly standard, although since the store didn't have to cover venue costs they should probably be told to fuck themselves anyway.

AngryTroll
07-21-2008, 07:38 PM
That's a pretty interesting list. I'm intrigued, certainly. Do Harmonic Sliver and StP feel worth the hurt on the manabase?

And Congrats on the T8! Always love to see Survival continuing to do well :) Too slow for the environment indeed...

Well, it's only one Savannah and one Plains (insert flak about the basic plains). Once in a while, I can't find white, like against Deep6er with It's the Fear. -1 Plains, +1 Savannah. However, with Darkheart out of the list, and Wickerbough Elder in the new set, Harmonic will probably be cut. At that point, it might not be worth running White for just Swords, but I'll have to play with it.

Since I put in the Swords and the Harmonic, I haven't looked back. Swords is amazing at killing Tombstalkers and Mystic Enforcers, and instant speed removal is always awesome (obviously). Harmonic costs three, which is awesome against Thresh. The list could go either way.

I'll be testing -3 Swords, -1 Harmonic, +1 BWish, +1 Wickerbough Elder, +1 Big Game Hunter, and one slot to play with (Shriekmaw #3, Masticore, Gigapede, cut to be 60 cards total).

4 mana for a 3/3 > > 3 mana for a 1/1 > 5 mana for a 4/4 >>> Zealot.