bigbear102
08-17-2008, 11:04 AM
Waking up at 5:30 sucks, especially on a Saturday, especially when your alarm isn't supposed to go off until 6:30. Friday I sat at home most of the day nursing a wicked sore throat and headache, hoping I would feel better for the trip to Hadley. My headache wasn't too bad, but my throat didn't feel too good, the reason I woke up at 5:30.
Anyway, I got to Nightmare's house at 7:30, and he, Trevor (getsickanddie), Bryant (Jackass) and myself were on our way before 8. The trip was reasonably uneventful, except when we drove by the driveway for the store in Hadley. Nightmare prepared to make a left into a Chinese food place, but mis-judged and instead he hit the curb and popped the left front tire on his new car.
Luckily there was a dealership about 10 feet away, and they were ready and willing to help, at what I heard was a very very small charge.... yeah right.
Anyway, we get to the event at about 11:20. I'm going through the Goyf Sligh deck that Zach Tartell had built with my cards, and planned on making a few changes. Sulfuric Vortex is a decent metagame call in the Cuse, but Hadley doesn't seem like a place where it would shine. Bryant had the amazing idea of Figure of Destiny to replace the 3-of (as Adam said later, the card was sitting on top of my box, and we were all looking at it, but Bryant whined to me enough that I gave in and said I would give him a little credit). So, with the 3 card switch in the main, and I swapping of some board cards, the decklist looked like this:
Kithkin Sligh:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Mogg Fanatic
3x Figure of Destiny
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Rift Bolt
3x Incinerate
4x Fireblast
4x Price of Progress
4x Magma Jet
3x Krosan Grip
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Taiga
2x Barbarian Ring
6x Mountain
SB:
3x Shattering Spree
3x Pyroclasm
4x Tordod's Crypt
1x Krosan Grip
4x Pithing Needle
The best choice in this deck is MD Grip. Most of my opponents were quite surprised when I Gripped something game 1. It was awesome. Seeing as this deck gets pretty hosed by Counterbalance, having Grip available helped a lot.
Here are my matchups. I can't ever remember games very well for reports, so most of this is just going to be interesting plays and how the deck performed against the field I faced.
Round 1 Rodney (Roodmistah) with U/R Dreadstill
I knew going into this match that he had the advantage.
At one point in the match up he had Counterbalance and Standstill on the board, but had Brainstormed before the Standstill so he knew what was on top. I suspended a Rift Bolt and on my upkeep when it got played, he put the Standstill trigger on the stack and used Counterbalance. Knowing that it was obviously a 3 drop on top, I saw the opportunity and cast Price of Progress. Instead of letting the Standstill resolve and hope to hit a 2 drop, he cast Spell Snare on it. At that point I paused, looked at the board, and said "So I draw 3 right?" It was a very confusing board state, and I can't blame Rodney for missing it, but it is totally awesome to draw 3 cards from an oppenent's Standstill when playing burn.
Anyway, I won game 1, he won game 2. Game 3 came down to him beating with factories while I tried to burn him out through a Countertop lock. The life totals were 3-2 in his favor when he swung for lethal with the Factories.
Oh well, I did better than I thought I would against the deck, so I wasn't too bummed.
0-1
Round 2: Jimmy w/ UBg control
His deck had goyfs and trygon predators and deeds and cantrips and deeds and tombstalkers. It was very interesting.
Game 1 he mulled to 6, and life his life total went from 20-18-14-13-11-7-5-2-0. At least 1 of those 4 point drops was from Snuff Out on Figure of Destiny, which I was fine with, cuz that's a Fireblast for me. I was at 18 and felt pretty good about the match. He made a comment that he didn't see any green that game, so from there I assumed he was playing Goyf.
Game 2 he definitely showed me these goyfs. and a Tombstalker, and a deed early to wipe my board. I lost pretty handily.
Game 3 he again went aggro, but didn't do so until about turn 5. I had already been swinging for a few turns, and drew the right cards to burn him out after he amassed a formidable force of Stalker and Goyfs.
1-1
Round 3: Bryant Cook w/ T.E.S.
This sucked. I was going into round 3, needing a win, and was not only playing a bad matchup, but a teammate.
Game 1:
Turn 1 he does something irrelevant involving City of Brass. I play figure of Destiny. Bryant is at 19.
Turn 2 he does something irrelevant involving 2 City of Brass. I pump figure and swing, suspending a Rift Bolt. Bryant is at 15.
Turn 3 he decides to go off making 18 goblin tokens and again tapping 2x City. He also lost another life somehow. Bryant is at 12. On my turn Rift Bolt goes off, 9, Price puts him at 3. Either Fireblast or Bolt killed him.
I was stoked to take game 1, he was not.
Game 2:
He does nothing turn 1. Neither do I apparently.
He taps 2 Cities turn 2. I believe I play Goyf.
He taps 2 Cities turn 3. The problem is in doing so he sent a 22 point Tendrils in my direction. This was after a Diminishing Returns that removed like 4 of his outs, only to give him exactly what he needed. Had he not killed me I had Lethal on my 3rd turn. I was not happy.
Game 3: Finally I get to go first!
I get a Mogg and a Figure in the first turns and beat a couple of times. On his 3rd turn he goes off. He casts IGG, and I debate whether or not to use my one untapped land to bolt him so as to get more damage out of my hand. I decide not to, partially because my land was a Barb Ring, and partially so I didn't add to his storm count. Turns out that decision won me the game. He can only get to 9 storm, so he goes for 18 gobs again. I was at 18, so attacking was out I suspend a rift bolt, he swings with 15 guys, leaving 3 home to block. I block 2 and ping him with Fanatic, leaving me at 4. He was at 13 now. Rift bolt puts him to 10, lightning bolt puts him to 7. With a Fireblast off the top and the PoP in my hand that was enough to end it in my favor.
Again, I was elated to have won a tough match and stay in the running, but also totally bummed to beat a fellow EPIC member.
Round 4:Ben w/ Survival (w/ Burning Wish)
Game 1 I get him to 10, but he has an active survival and gets Feeder. I put him down to 6 but from there it was his game with recursion and beats. At one point I almost grabbed his deck and played it for him because he was taking so long to decide that fetching Rofellos and going nuts was the right play. I was extremely frustrated to lose that match because he was obviously inexperienced with the deck.
Game 2 Pithing Needle hits Survival and it is pretty elementary from there. He got me to 7, but I just raced him and won.
Game 3 I can't remember what happened most of the game, I'm pretty sure he never got an active survival. The problem was he topdecked what he needed. Life totals were 4-3 in my favor, and I had a blocker to live into my next turn and hopefully topdeck the win. He had shriekmaw in his hand though, so that was my 2nd (and last) match loss of the tournament.
Round 5: Jared w/ Dragon Stompy
Before the round began I contemplated dropping because x-2 wasn't a good position to be in, but I had the best tiebreakers and figured I'd go for it.
When I sat down my opponent was very nice, and we discussed that we would both have to win to have a chance. He then told me that I would probably win because the only matches he had won were because his opponents got mana screwed/flooded.
Game 1 He is on the play and drops Chalice at 1. Luckily I only had 1 Lightning Bolt in my hand, so it wasn't devastating. He ended up dropping Dragon on turn 2 off of Seething Song. I had a turn 2 Goyf. Dropped Magus. I Incinerated his Dragon and Magma Jetted his Magus in response to a sword equip. From there I just burned and beat him. At one point I Gripped his Chalice, allowing me to end it about 2 turns faster.
Game 2 He had turn 1 Trinisphere. I ended up Gripping it turn 3 and from it again was just elementary.
He was flooded one of the games, and after the match I told him that 11 mountains was way too many for that deck, which he agreed with saying that his friends had given it to him. Jared was a nice guy and a nice opponent. He took the loss very graciously.
3-2
Round 6: Myself and Roodmistah determine that if both of us win, one of us will make it. We both had 9 points and were paired up against 10 pointers.
I was paired against Paul playing the EPIC Painter list.
Game 1: I Chain an early Painter. He proceeds to drop Confidants and Trinket Mages. I don't see many blockers and succumb to the Counterbalance enforced weenie attacks.
Game 2: I drop Needle turn 1 naming Grindstone. He eventually gets Countertop going, which is a bitch to play though. I get him down to 3, and can't do much else. He has 2 cards in hand, I have a Fireblast and a Bolt. He hasn't played a force yet. I sac 2 mountains to Fireblast him, knowing my bolt will just get topped, and hoping he doesn't have the force. He looks at his hand, then smiles and activates top to draw a card. I tell him I have a response and Bolt him with the top activation on the stack. With the force on top of his library and top waiting to draw it, the Bolt deals lethal and we are onto a quick game 3.
Going into game 3 we had 4 minutes left. That's not good when we both need a win to make top 8, with me only being on the bubble with a win.
He is on the play and drops top turn 1. Turn 2 he drops dark confidant. I can't remember what my first few plays were, except for a needle on Grindstone again. I left the Confidant alone hoping he would damage himself seeing as we were low on time. He passed the turn as time was called, putting me on turn 0. At this point life totals were 18-16. During my main phase I tapped out to Grip Top. He looked at me funny, and then said "Ok." Well, that play was what put me into top 8. On his upkeep he flipped over Tombstalker off of Bob. His life total went from 16-8. I'm not sure what he did on his turn. My turn consisted of bolting him to 5, casting price of progress for 6 points, with a Fireblast still in my hand and a Fanatic on the board. He would have needed 2x Force to not die.
We were the last match going, so before I even had my stuff picked up Top 8 was announced and I had made it as the 8th seed!
Going into top 8 I had no idea what my opponent was playing. Turns out it was my Survival. I knew I could beat the deck and was excited to get a rematch. It turns out that he was friends with the other kid I had lost to with Survival.
Game 1 I burn him out the turn after he wished for Primal Command and the turn before he could cast it.
Game 2 He did what survival does and went nutty before I could finish him off.
Game 3 He drew his hand, looked at it, and said "This isn't good". I was expecting him to destroy me after saying that. Turns out my turn 1 Pithing Needle made his "not good" 2x survival hand really not good. I guess he was expecting Grip... too bad I boarded it out because he played 8 discard spells and needle was so much better being turn 1 on the play. He beat me a couple of times with Goyf, but it wasn't enough.
A word of advice for this match, always trade your fanatics for their birds.
Top 4: Andy w/ Ichorid.
Game 1 I ended up Pricing myself twice for 8, while only dealing him 4. He didn't get what he needed on his dredges though, and I ended up burning him out before there was anything scary he could do.
Game 2 I kept a hand with 2x Crypt, Mogg Fanatic, 1 burn spell and 3 land. He was on the play and dropped Chalice at 0. Oops, I boarded out Grips. I wait for him to dredge some Bridges into his yard, and eventually get rid of 2 of them with my Fanatic. He already has 1 Zombie, and begins the Ichorid beats. I eventually die to 3/1 haste dudes recurring every turn.
Game 3 was pretty good for me, as Figure came down turn 1, with a Crypt before he could drop Chalice, which he did on his first turn. My Crypt lets me invalidate his Breakthrough, giving him no way to dredge off of it, and the game is mine in a matter of about 4 turns.
So here I am, going into the Finals with essentially a Burn deck. I was pretty stoked seeing as I figured burn just wasn't good in a counterbalance meta. Turns out when you play a varied curve with some small beaters and Grips MD the deck works pretty well.
My opponent and I talk about splitting, but both agree that we will play it out. First is Tundras second is Volcs, not a huge difference. I wanted to play so that I could win the tourney. And if I did lose, like I said, Volcs aren't much worse than Tundras.
Game 1 I'm not sure what all happened, but he was dead and I was at 20.
Game 2 I drop turn 1 figure after he makes a top. Turn 2 I drop Goyf. I believe he gets countertop going, but I already have Figure and Goyf in play. I make figure a 4/4 and beat for 8 a couple of times for the win.
There you have it. Burn wins a tourney. Some would call it goyf sligh, but I'm a burn player at heart.
Props:
Off the Wall Games for a good tourney (more in slops)
Bryant for allegedly giving me the Figure of Destiny tech
Zach for giving me my cards back
Trevor for making top 8.
Roodmistah for winning his match so that I would be in.
Adam for driving there and back.
Everybody who was there for making it an awesome event and all of my opponents for being cool.
Slops:
Adam for missing the bounce back on Chain of Vapor for the win, TWICE
Off the Wall Games for taking in a lot more than they put out in prizes. I am not complaining about my prize, but 5-8 getting like 15 in credit when they banked over 400 dollars is pretty shitty, especially when you figure that giving out credit is like making a sale when entry fees are more than the prizes given out.
Anyway, I got to Nightmare's house at 7:30, and he, Trevor (getsickanddie), Bryant (Jackass) and myself were on our way before 8. The trip was reasonably uneventful, except when we drove by the driveway for the store in Hadley. Nightmare prepared to make a left into a Chinese food place, but mis-judged and instead he hit the curb and popped the left front tire on his new car.
Luckily there was a dealership about 10 feet away, and they were ready and willing to help, at what I heard was a very very small charge.... yeah right.
Anyway, we get to the event at about 11:20. I'm going through the Goyf Sligh deck that Zach Tartell had built with my cards, and planned on making a few changes. Sulfuric Vortex is a decent metagame call in the Cuse, but Hadley doesn't seem like a place where it would shine. Bryant had the amazing idea of Figure of Destiny to replace the 3-of (as Adam said later, the card was sitting on top of my box, and we were all looking at it, but Bryant whined to me enough that I gave in and said I would give him a little credit). So, with the 3 card switch in the main, and I swapping of some board cards, the decklist looked like this:
Kithkin Sligh:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Mogg Fanatic
3x Figure of Destiny
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Rift Bolt
3x Incinerate
4x Fireblast
4x Price of Progress
4x Magma Jet
3x Krosan Grip
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Taiga
2x Barbarian Ring
6x Mountain
SB:
3x Shattering Spree
3x Pyroclasm
4x Tordod's Crypt
1x Krosan Grip
4x Pithing Needle
The best choice in this deck is MD Grip. Most of my opponents were quite surprised when I Gripped something game 1. It was awesome. Seeing as this deck gets pretty hosed by Counterbalance, having Grip available helped a lot.
Here are my matchups. I can't ever remember games very well for reports, so most of this is just going to be interesting plays and how the deck performed against the field I faced.
Round 1 Rodney (Roodmistah) with U/R Dreadstill
I knew going into this match that he had the advantage.
At one point in the match up he had Counterbalance and Standstill on the board, but had Brainstormed before the Standstill so he knew what was on top. I suspended a Rift Bolt and on my upkeep when it got played, he put the Standstill trigger on the stack and used Counterbalance. Knowing that it was obviously a 3 drop on top, I saw the opportunity and cast Price of Progress. Instead of letting the Standstill resolve and hope to hit a 2 drop, he cast Spell Snare on it. At that point I paused, looked at the board, and said "So I draw 3 right?" It was a very confusing board state, and I can't blame Rodney for missing it, but it is totally awesome to draw 3 cards from an oppenent's Standstill when playing burn.
Anyway, I won game 1, he won game 2. Game 3 came down to him beating with factories while I tried to burn him out through a Countertop lock. The life totals were 3-2 in his favor when he swung for lethal with the Factories.
Oh well, I did better than I thought I would against the deck, so I wasn't too bummed.
0-1
Round 2: Jimmy w/ UBg control
His deck had goyfs and trygon predators and deeds and cantrips and deeds and tombstalkers. It was very interesting.
Game 1 he mulled to 6, and life his life total went from 20-18-14-13-11-7-5-2-0. At least 1 of those 4 point drops was from Snuff Out on Figure of Destiny, which I was fine with, cuz that's a Fireblast for me. I was at 18 and felt pretty good about the match. He made a comment that he didn't see any green that game, so from there I assumed he was playing Goyf.
Game 2 he definitely showed me these goyfs. and a Tombstalker, and a deed early to wipe my board. I lost pretty handily.
Game 3 he again went aggro, but didn't do so until about turn 5. I had already been swinging for a few turns, and drew the right cards to burn him out after he amassed a formidable force of Stalker and Goyfs.
1-1
Round 3: Bryant Cook w/ T.E.S.
This sucked. I was going into round 3, needing a win, and was not only playing a bad matchup, but a teammate.
Game 1:
Turn 1 he does something irrelevant involving City of Brass. I play figure of Destiny. Bryant is at 19.
Turn 2 he does something irrelevant involving 2 City of Brass. I pump figure and swing, suspending a Rift Bolt. Bryant is at 15.
Turn 3 he decides to go off making 18 goblin tokens and again tapping 2x City. He also lost another life somehow. Bryant is at 12. On my turn Rift Bolt goes off, 9, Price puts him at 3. Either Fireblast or Bolt killed him.
I was stoked to take game 1, he was not.
Game 2:
He does nothing turn 1. Neither do I apparently.
He taps 2 Cities turn 2. I believe I play Goyf.
He taps 2 Cities turn 3. The problem is in doing so he sent a 22 point Tendrils in my direction. This was after a Diminishing Returns that removed like 4 of his outs, only to give him exactly what he needed. Had he not killed me I had Lethal on my 3rd turn. I was not happy.
Game 3: Finally I get to go first!
I get a Mogg and a Figure in the first turns and beat a couple of times. On his 3rd turn he goes off. He casts IGG, and I debate whether or not to use my one untapped land to bolt him so as to get more damage out of my hand. I decide not to, partially because my land was a Barb Ring, and partially so I didn't add to his storm count. Turns out that decision won me the game. He can only get to 9 storm, so he goes for 18 gobs again. I was at 18, so attacking was out I suspend a rift bolt, he swings with 15 guys, leaving 3 home to block. I block 2 and ping him with Fanatic, leaving me at 4. He was at 13 now. Rift bolt puts him to 10, lightning bolt puts him to 7. With a Fireblast off the top and the PoP in my hand that was enough to end it in my favor.
Again, I was elated to have won a tough match and stay in the running, but also totally bummed to beat a fellow EPIC member.
Round 4:Ben w/ Survival (w/ Burning Wish)
Game 1 I get him to 10, but he has an active survival and gets Feeder. I put him down to 6 but from there it was his game with recursion and beats. At one point I almost grabbed his deck and played it for him because he was taking so long to decide that fetching Rofellos and going nuts was the right play. I was extremely frustrated to lose that match because he was obviously inexperienced with the deck.
Game 2 Pithing Needle hits Survival and it is pretty elementary from there. He got me to 7, but I just raced him and won.
Game 3 I can't remember what happened most of the game, I'm pretty sure he never got an active survival. The problem was he topdecked what he needed. Life totals were 4-3 in my favor, and I had a blocker to live into my next turn and hopefully topdeck the win. He had shriekmaw in his hand though, so that was my 2nd (and last) match loss of the tournament.
Round 5: Jared w/ Dragon Stompy
Before the round began I contemplated dropping because x-2 wasn't a good position to be in, but I had the best tiebreakers and figured I'd go for it.
When I sat down my opponent was very nice, and we discussed that we would both have to win to have a chance. He then told me that I would probably win because the only matches he had won were because his opponents got mana screwed/flooded.
Game 1 He is on the play and drops Chalice at 1. Luckily I only had 1 Lightning Bolt in my hand, so it wasn't devastating. He ended up dropping Dragon on turn 2 off of Seething Song. I had a turn 2 Goyf. Dropped Magus. I Incinerated his Dragon and Magma Jetted his Magus in response to a sword equip. From there I just burned and beat him. At one point I Gripped his Chalice, allowing me to end it about 2 turns faster.
Game 2 He had turn 1 Trinisphere. I ended up Gripping it turn 3 and from it again was just elementary.
He was flooded one of the games, and after the match I told him that 11 mountains was way too many for that deck, which he agreed with saying that his friends had given it to him. Jared was a nice guy and a nice opponent. He took the loss very graciously.
3-2
Round 6: Myself and Roodmistah determine that if both of us win, one of us will make it. We both had 9 points and were paired up against 10 pointers.
I was paired against Paul playing the EPIC Painter list.
Game 1: I Chain an early Painter. He proceeds to drop Confidants and Trinket Mages. I don't see many blockers and succumb to the Counterbalance enforced weenie attacks.
Game 2: I drop Needle turn 1 naming Grindstone. He eventually gets Countertop going, which is a bitch to play though. I get him down to 3, and can't do much else. He has 2 cards in hand, I have a Fireblast and a Bolt. He hasn't played a force yet. I sac 2 mountains to Fireblast him, knowing my bolt will just get topped, and hoping he doesn't have the force. He looks at his hand, then smiles and activates top to draw a card. I tell him I have a response and Bolt him with the top activation on the stack. With the force on top of his library and top waiting to draw it, the Bolt deals lethal and we are onto a quick game 3.
Going into game 3 we had 4 minutes left. That's not good when we both need a win to make top 8, with me only being on the bubble with a win.
He is on the play and drops top turn 1. Turn 2 he drops dark confidant. I can't remember what my first few plays were, except for a needle on Grindstone again. I left the Confidant alone hoping he would damage himself seeing as we were low on time. He passed the turn as time was called, putting me on turn 0. At this point life totals were 18-16. During my main phase I tapped out to Grip Top. He looked at me funny, and then said "Ok." Well, that play was what put me into top 8. On his upkeep he flipped over Tombstalker off of Bob. His life total went from 16-8. I'm not sure what he did on his turn. My turn consisted of bolting him to 5, casting price of progress for 6 points, with a Fireblast still in my hand and a Fanatic on the board. He would have needed 2x Force to not die.
We were the last match going, so before I even had my stuff picked up Top 8 was announced and I had made it as the 8th seed!
Going into top 8 I had no idea what my opponent was playing. Turns out it was my Survival. I knew I could beat the deck and was excited to get a rematch. It turns out that he was friends with the other kid I had lost to with Survival.
Game 1 I burn him out the turn after he wished for Primal Command and the turn before he could cast it.
Game 2 He did what survival does and went nutty before I could finish him off.
Game 3 He drew his hand, looked at it, and said "This isn't good". I was expecting him to destroy me after saying that. Turns out my turn 1 Pithing Needle made his "not good" 2x survival hand really not good. I guess he was expecting Grip... too bad I boarded it out because he played 8 discard spells and needle was so much better being turn 1 on the play. He beat me a couple of times with Goyf, but it wasn't enough.
A word of advice for this match, always trade your fanatics for their birds.
Top 4: Andy w/ Ichorid.
Game 1 I ended up Pricing myself twice for 8, while only dealing him 4. He didn't get what he needed on his dredges though, and I ended up burning him out before there was anything scary he could do.
Game 2 I kept a hand with 2x Crypt, Mogg Fanatic, 1 burn spell and 3 land. He was on the play and dropped Chalice at 0. Oops, I boarded out Grips. I wait for him to dredge some Bridges into his yard, and eventually get rid of 2 of them with my Fanatic. He already has 1 Zombie, and begins the Ichorid beats. I eventually die to 3/1 haste dudes recurring every turn.
Game 3 was pretty good for me, as Figure came down turn 1, with a Crypt before he could drop Chalice, which he did on his first turn. My Crypt lets me invalidate his Breakthrough, giving him no way to dredge off of it, and the game is mine in a matter of about 4 turns.
So here I am, going into the Finals with essentially a Burn deck. I was pretty stoked seeing as I figured burn just wasn't good in a counterbalance meta. Turns out when you play a varied curve with some small beaters and Grips MD the deck works pretty well.
My opponent and I talk about splitting, but both agree that we will play it out. First is Tundras second is Volcs, not a huge difference. I wanted to play so that I could win the tourney. And if I did lose, like I said, Volcs aren't much worse than Tundras.
Game 1 I'm not sure what all happened, but he was dead and I was at 20.
Game 2 I drop turn 1 figure after he makes a top. Turn 2 I drop Goyf. I believe he gets countertop going, but I already have Figure and Goyf in play. I make figure a 4/4 and beat for 8 a couple of times for the win.
There you have it. Burn wins a tourney. Some would call it goyf sligh, but I'm a burn player at heart.
Props:
Off the Wall Games for a good tourney (more in slops)
Bryant for allegedly giving me the Figure of Destiny tech
Zach for giving me my cards back
Trevor for making top 8.
Roodmistah for winning his match so that I would be in.
Adam for driving there and back.
Everybody who was there for making it an awesome event and all of my opponents for being cool.
Slops:
Adam for missing the bounce back on Chain of Vapor for the win, TWICE
Off the Wall Games for taking in a lot more than they put out in prizes. I am not complaining about my prize, but 5-8 getting like 15 in credit when they banked over 400 dollars is pretty shitty, especially when you figure that giving out credit is like making a sale when entry fees are more than the prizes given out.