Van Phanel
08-27-2008, 08:02 AM
I just got kicked out of the Top8 of the Source Tournament by Nihil Credo and this is how it all happened:
Now I absolutely know that Solidarity is not as surprising in the Top8 as Wildfire, but I still think, I can feel pretty comfortable with me getting to the semifinals. Sorry if some games are described in a rather short way, but I didn't take any notes and at least the earlier rounds happened quite some time ago. Also in most of the games, not very much happened as my matchups in the swiss round were rather easy to play without many hard decisions. One more thing: I am not sure about my sideboarding in the swiss rounds so I excluded that.
I'll start with my list:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
4 High Tide
4 Brainstorm
3 Opt
1 Peek
4 Reset
4 Impulse
3 Remand
2 Brain Freeze
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
2 Cryptic Command
4 Force of Will
2 Flash of Insight
SB:
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
3 Echoing Truth
3 Hydroblast
2 Twincast
1 Gaea's Blessing
Most of the cardchoices are more or less the standard since a long time, but there are some uncertain slots.
3 Opt/ 1 Peek: I feel that 4 additional 1-mana cantrips are needed and I like Opt more on my opening hand as getting landdrops is more important than seeing your opponents hand then. Also Peek gets way worse in multiples.
3 Remand: Remand is not very good against any deck playing Daze because Remanding their turn-2 play only to have them Daze it doesn't accomplish much. Also it gets hit by Spell Snare rather often. Still it's versatility and general usefulness are enough to play it, just not as a four-of.
2 Cryptic Command: "My" tech against today's meta that is rather infested with Counterbalance. It will rarely be countered by CB and is never a dead card. I have actually used every combination of modes so far in tournament games even though more often than not you'll use X + draw.
Sideboard:
only 2 Wipe Away: I never want to have more than one in hand, but it still is the best blue instant to answer a Counterbalance that is already in play.
Gaea's Blessing: I thought that some people who wouldn't buy Imperial Recruiter in reallife might use the deck in the MWS tournament. At the same time I hoped that nobody else was using this for his sideboard.
Now about my actual tournament:
Round 1 against IBA (with Quinn the Eskimo featuring Painter)
He has the first play with a Grindstone and I know that I can only lose to a Chant-protected combo. He can't do so and at some point he tries to cycle an Abeyance at my eot. I figure that I'll be able to win past two more Chant-Effects and if he has a third, I'll still be able to resolve a Meditate and an untap to go off again in his turn if necessary. He has exactly two more Chant-Effects and I mill him for lethal.
G2: He has Grindstone and no Painter again and at some point he cycles a Decree of Justice at my EOT. As he is tapped out, I use the opportunity to kill him.
1-0
Round 2 against Mister Agent (?)
We don't manage to get our game played in time and draw.
1-0-1
Round 3 against Slay (Dragon Stompy)
We have problems scheduling our game and only find a small window of time. When we start our games his MWs crashes seven times after around three minutes. I was totally winning in four of those games, he was winning in one of them and two were undecided. Still we get a draw.
1-0-2
This means that I have to win four in a row in order to make Top8. Should be some work.
Round 4 against Adan (U-W-b Cunning Landstill)
G1: He has no chance as usual because he can't find a decent clock in addition to his counters. At some point I work through his hand and Brain Freeze him for enough.
G2: He starts with a second turn Meddling Mage and turn 3 Factory. That is enough to beat me coupled with three counters when I face lethal damage.
G3: He doesn't get a Meddling Mage and on six lands I go for a fake-combo attempt in order to run him out of blue mana. He counters my High Tide and my untap and I resolve a Meditate in my first mainphase. That hits the High Tide I need to go off again and he loses in his next drawstep.
2-0-2
Round 5 against mishima_kazuya (TES)
G1: I don't know what I play against, so I keep a hand without FoW. This means that his turn 2 Chant resolves and his Diminishing Returns find the kill.
G2: I keep a hand with Brainstorm, Fetchland and Remand. When he goes for it on turn three, I Remand his Chant, he Chants me again and it resolves. He plays some spells and Diminishing Returns again but can't do anything but produce 24 goblin-tokens. I untap play Echoing Truth and the game is essentially over.
G3: I keep Twincast + Fow and when I Twincast his first Chant I am sure I have won. I also find the second FoW some turns later. He then goes for it again, plays some rituals and a Burning Wish. I Brainstorm in response to find a Hydroblast, but only see Echoing Truth which I put on top. He Wishes for Thoughtseize, sees two FoWs and takes Cunning Wish and then has a Dark Ritual. I let it resolve and he plays ETW for 10+ Goblins. I untap, play Echoing Truth and never get even close to losing again.
3-0-2
Round 6 against Hummingbird TG (Deadguy)
G1: He starts with a little bit of disruption but can't really tear my hand apart. I still hold a lot of Gas around turn 4 and at some point kill him in response to a hymn or Duress.
G2: He resolves turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Duress and turn 3 Hyppie. That one tears my hand totally apart and I never get over one card in hand again.
G3: He has a second turn Thoughtseize and I Twincast it. I see Jitte, Confidant and two lands and take his Bob away. When he tries to play Hyppie some turns later I can counter it and draw a card with Command. The turn after that he resolves a second Hyppie, but before it gets to attack me, I mill his deck.
4-0-2
Round 7 against Pinder playing for Giles (Aggro-Loam)
G1 His first play (except a Life from the Loam) is Countryside Crusher which I counter with a Cunning Wish for Hydroblast as my hand is rather clunky, but has more landdrops and good spells. A second Crusher gets hardcast FoWed. At some point when he has another semi-threatening spell I go off.
G2: He keeps a hand with Loam, and no pressure and manages to draw 5 lands from the top in a row. I end the so-called game.
5-0-2
When I get back home on Monday evening, I see that I'll have to work through two of three Threshold decks to make it to the finals. Wow.
Quarterfinals against Phantom IT
G1: I am on the play and he starts with a Top. I play some cantrips and he is stuck on Forest + Island so he can only play some creatures. When he finally finds a Volcanic Island in a Ponder he can play his Counterbalance a turn later, but I am already set up to kill him past two counters while he only has one.
- 2 Remand, + 1 Twincast, + 1 Wipe Away
G2: He starts with turn 2 CB and we trade Forces. I can't really play any setup spells which means that I don't see a High Tide. I do resolve a Wish for Wipe Away though and draw my seond Wipe Away from the top. That means I can use my first Wipe Away as bait at his EoT and he actually has a Trygon Predator on Top. That means I get to use the second Wipe Away on his upkeep but when I play a Reset, he double Bolts me to death as I am on six thanks to Goyf-beats.
G3: He again has turn 2 CB which I Force, he Forces, I Force again. My hand is rather empty but I can slowly rebuild it. He attacks with two Mongeese and later a 3/4 Goyf for some turns and then I have to go off. I resolve Reset + Meditate and find High Tide in there but no other draw. I have to Turnabout his creatures and Wipe Away his Goyf and still go to 5 in his extraturn. I hold Reset and Force and need a Drawspell but only draw another land in my turn, so I'm dead.
G4: He mulligans to four. I force a Counterbalance and kill him on his turn 5.
G5: I mulligan to six and he starts with a Sensei's Divining Top. Turn2 he has a Forest and Top activation and turn 3 he plays Ponder to find his second blue source. That means that he can try for a Counterbalance on turn 4. I Force, he Forces back and I Twincast his Force. On his next turn he goes for another Counterbalance and I hold Meditate, Reset, Cryptic Command and land. I had played a mainphase Brainstorm so I couldn't play Command and the Cunterbalance resolves. In my turn I go for Meditate, play land and let him have an extraturn. He plays Tarmogoyf as a beater and attacks for 3. In my next turn I get to play my sixth land and at the end of his turn I manage to bounce his Counterbalance with Cryptic Command. When he tries to replay it I have to go off with 2 Reset, Meditate, Turnabout, Brainstorm and Brain Freeze on six lands. My Reset resolves and Meditate finds only an Impulse which in turn only finds the High Tide. Brainstorm hits no relevant spell and I have to Brain Freeze myself. I am lucky and mill only 2 Cunning Wish and 1 Brain Freeze away so Remand and the third Wish are still in the deck. I stack my library, get a Meditate with Flash, Remand my Brain Freeze, Cunning Wish for Stroke and I Brain Freeze + Stroke him out.
Semifinals against Nihil Credo:
G1: He gets turn 1 Top and turn 3 Counterbalance. I pitch Turnabout to Force instead of Reset which might have been a mistake because of his Spell Snares. He Forces back and his Balance resolves. I get to Cunning Wish but he has another Force. My hope to win is that he has no 1CC-spell in his Top 3and I go for it. I play High Tide, he tries to draw from Top in response. I play another High Tide which resolves. Then I go for Reset but he has the Spell Snare. I can only Meditate but don't find the Force I would have needed. Having Turnabout instead of Reset would have totally won this game.
-2 Remand, - 1 Impulse, + 1 Wipe Away, + 2 Twincast
G2: I keep Brain Freeze, Turnabout and five lands and he has a Top and turn 2 Counterbalance. I draw Wipe Away from the Top and at some point before I go to very low life Wipe his Counterbalance Away. In his next turn I have six lands and play High Tide, he Forces, I Force back, he Forces back I try to play Turnabout and he Forces again which means that his Mongeese kill me within two turns.
G3: He has a first turn Top for the third time and I Peek him in response to his Counterbalance. He shows: FoW, FoW, Daze, Spell Snare, Red Elemental Blast. Wow. Not bad. I have Wipe Away already in hand and when I'm on five lands I Wipe Away his Counterbalance. I drop my sixth land and my hand consist of High Tide, High Tide, Reset, Reset, FoW, Brain Freeze and I go for it in response to his replayed Counterbalance. I play High Tide, he Forces pitch Brainstorm. I play another High Tide, he Red Blasts. I play Reset, he Forces pitch a Ponder he had drawn with Top. I Force pitch Reset, he Spell Snares my Reset and I Brain Freeze myself for 27 (40 cards in my librarY) and him for 3. He Dazes the copy on him because he wants to keep his Top. I hit the single Flash that is left (already used the other one earlier) but unfortunately mill all 3 Meditates, the second Brain Freeze and all but one Cunning Wish. In my upkeep I Flashback Flash to stack my library but as I would have to use a Cunning Wish for Brain Freeze, I have to wait for another turn and when he replays his Top I won't be able to resolve a High Tide. With a Meditate left in my 13 it would have been easy as his second card was likely a land, but it shouldn't be. His Goyf beats me to death before I can even try to do another combo-attempt.
I feel that Solidarity is underplayed nowadays, it has problems with the best deck, but it has no autolosses (except maybe dredge) and a whole lot of good matchups. The problem is that more often than not you have to earn every single game with tight plays and a single small mistake where you didn't even realize that it was a mistake can kill you. For the future, maybe Krosan Grip really is the way to go to beat Counterbalance, but we'll see.
Props:
- Solidarity
- Cryptic Command
- Good and cool players during all rounds
- Solidarity
- Solidarity (yeah, you get the pattern)
Slops:
- Counterbalance
- Nihil drawing 3+ counters every game in addition to his turn 2/3 Counterbalance
- Van
Now I absolutely know that Solidarity is not as surprising in the Top8 as Wildfire, but I still think, I can feel pretty comfortable with me getting to the semifinals. Sorry if some games are described in a rather short way, but I didn't take any notes and at least the earlier rounds happened quite some time ago. Also in most of the games, not very much happened as my matchups in the swiss round were rather easy to play without many hard decisions. One more thing: I am not sure about my sideboarding in the swiss rounds so I excluded that.
I'll start with my list:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
4 High Tide
4 Brainstorm
3 Opt
1 Peek
4 Reset
4 Impulse
3 Remand
2 Brain Freeze
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
2 Cryptic Command
4 Force of Will
2 Flash of Insight
SB:
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
3 Echoing Truth
3 Hydroblast
2 Twincast
1 Gaea's Blessing
Most of the cardchoices are more or less the standard since a long time, but there are some uncertain slots.
3 Opt/ 1 Peek: I feel that 4 additional 1-mana cantrips are needed and I like Opt more on my opening hand as getting landdrops is more important than seeing your opponents hand then. Also Peek gets way worse in multiples.
3 Remand: Remand is not very good against any deck playing Daze because Remanding their turn-2 play only to have them Daze it doesn't accomplish much. Also it gets hit by Spell Snare rather often. Still it's versatility and general usefulness are enough to play it, just not as a four-of.
2 Cryptic Command: "My" tech against today's meta that is rather infested with Counterbalance. It will rarely be countered by CB and is never a dead card. I have actually used every combination of modes so far in tournament games even though more often than not you'll use X + draw.
Sideboard:
only 2 Wipe Away: I never want to have more than one in hand, but it still is the best blue instant to answer a Counterbalance that is already in play.
Gaea's Blessing: I thought that some people who wouldn't buy Imperial Recruiter in reallife might use the deck in the MWS tournament. At the same time I hoped that nobody else was using this for his sideboard.
Now about my actual tournament:
Round 1 against IBA (with Quinn the Eskimo featuring Painter)
He has the first play with a Grindstone and I know that I can only lose to a Chant-protected combo. He can't do so and at some point he tries to cycle an Abeyance at my eot. I figure that I'll be able to win past two more Chant-Effects and if he has a third, I'll still be able to resolve a Meditate and an untap to go off again in his turn if necessary. He has exactly two more Chant-Effects and I mill him for lethal.
G2: He has Grindstone and no Painter again and at some point he cycles a Decree of Justice at my EOT. As he is tapped out, I use the opportunity to kill him.
1-0
Round 2 against Mister Agent (?)
We don't manage to get our game played in time and draw.
1-0-1
Round 3 against Slay (Dragon Stompy)
We have problems scheduling our game and only find a small window of time. When we start our games his MWs crashes seven times after around three minutes. I was totally winning in four of those games, he was winning in one of them and two were undecided. Still we get a draw.
1-0-2
This means that I have to win four in a row in order to make Top8. Should be some work.
Round 4 against Adan (U-W-b Cunning Landstill)
G1: He has no chance as usual because he can't find a decent clock in addition to his counters. At some point I work through his hand and Brain Freeze him for enough.
G2: He starts with a second turn Meddling Mage and turn 3 Factory. That is enough to beat me coupled with three counters when I face lethal damage.
G3: He doesn't get a Meddling Mage and on six lands I go for a fake-combo attempt in order to run him out of blue mana. He counters my High Tide and my untap and I resolve a Meditate in my first mainphase. That hits the High Tide I need to go off again and he loses in his next drawstep.
2-0-2
Round 5 against mishima_kazuya (TES)
G1: I don't know what I play against, so I keep a hand without FoW. This means that his turn 2 Chant resolves and his Diminishing Returns find the kill.
G2: I keep a hand with Brainstorm, Fetchland and Remand. When he goes for it on turn three, I Remand his Chant, he Chants me again and it resolves. He plays some spells and Diminishing Returns again but can't do anything but produce 24 goblin-tokens. I untap play Echoing Truth and the game is essentially over.
G3: I keep Twincast + Fow and when I Twincast his first Chant I am sure I have won. I also find the second FoW some turns later. He then goes for it again, plays some rituals and a Burning Wish. I Brainstorm in response to find a Hydroblast, but only see Echoing Truth which I put on top. He Wishes for Thoughtseize, sees two FoWs and takes Cunning Wish and then has a Dark Ritual. I let it resolve and he plays ETW for 10+ Goblins. I untap, play Echoing Truth and never get even close to losing again.
3-0-2
Round 6 against Hummingbird TG (Deadguy)
G1: He starts with a little bit of disruption but can't really tear my hand apart. I still hold a lot of Gas around turn 4 and at some point kill him in response to a hymn or Duress.
G2: He resolves turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Duress and turn 3 Hyppie. That one tears my hand totally apart and I never get over one card in hand again.
G3: He has a second turn Thoughtseize and I Twincast it. I see Jitte, Confidant and two lands and take his Bob away. When he tries to play Hyppie some turns later I can counter it and draw a card with Command. The turn after that he resolves a second Hyppie, but before it gets to attack me, I mill his deck.
4-0-2
Round 7 against Pinder playing for Giles (Aggro-Loam)
G1 His first play (except a Life from the Loam) is Countryside Crusher which I counter with a Cunning Wish for Hydroblast as my hand is rather clunky, but has more landdrops and good spells. A second Crusher gets hardcast FoWed. At some point when he has another semi-threatening spell I go off.
G2: He keeps a hand with Loam, and no pressure and manages to draw 5 lands from the top in a row. I end the so-called game.
5-0-2
When I get back home on Monday evening, I see that I'll have to work through two of three Threshold decks to make it to the finals. Wow.
Quarterfinals against Phantom IT
G1: I am on the play and he starts with a Top. I play some cantrips and he is stuck on Forest + Island so he can only play some creatures. When he finally finds a Volcanic Island in a Ponder he can play his Counterbalance a turn later, but I am already set up to kill him past two counters while he only has one.
- 2 Remand, + 1 Twincast, + 1 Wipe Away
G2: He starts with turn 2 CB and we trade Forces. I can't really play any setup spells which means that I don't see a High Tide. I do resolve a Wish for Wipe Away though and draw my seond Wipe Away from the top. That means I can use my first Wipe Away as bait at his EoT and he actually has a Trygon Predator on Top. That means I get to use the second Wipe Away on his upkeep but when I play a Reset, he double Bolts me to death as I am on six thanks to Goyf-beats.
G3: He again has turn 2 CB which I Force, he Forces, I Force again. My hand is rather empty but I can slowly rebuild it. He attacks with two Mongeese and later a 3/4 Goyf for some turns and then I have to go off. I resolve Reset + Meditate and find High Tide in there but no other draw. I have to Turnabout his creatures and Wipe Away his Goyf and still go to 5 in his extraturn. I hold Reset and Force and need a Drawspell but only draw another land in my turn, so I'm dead.
G4: He mulligans to four. I force a Counterbalance and kill him on his turn 5.
G5: I mulligan to six and he starts with a Sensei's Divining Top. Turn2 he has a Forest and Top activation and turn 3 he plays Ponder to find his second blue source. That means that he can try for a Counterbalance on turn 4. I Force, he Forces back and I Twincast his Force. On his next turn he goes for another Counterbalance and I hold Meditate, Reset, Cryptic Command and land. I had played a mainphase Brainstorm so I couldn't play Command and the Cunterbalance resolves. In my turn I go for Meditate, play land and let him have an extraturn. He plays Tarmogoyf as a beater and attacks for 3. In my next turn I get to play my sixth land and at the end of his turn I manage to bounce his Counterbalance with Cryptic Command. When he tries to replay it I have to go off with 2 Reset, Meditate, Turnabout, Brainstorm and Brain Freeze on six lands. My Reset resolves and Meditate finds only an Impulse which in turn only finds the High Tide. Brainstorm hits no relevant spell and I have to Brain Freeze myself. I am lucky and mill only 2 Cunning Wish and 1 Brain Freeze away so Remand and the third Wish are still in the deck. I stack my library, get a Meditate with Flash, Remand my Brain Freeze, Cunning Wish for Stroke and I Brain Freeze + Stroke him out.
Semifinals against Nihil Credo:
G1: He gets turn 1 Top and turn 3 Counterbalance. I pitch Turnabout to Force instead of Reset which might have been a mistake because of his Spell Snares. He Forces back and his Balance resolves. I get to Cunning Wish but he has another Force. My hope to win is that he has no 1CC-spell in his Top 3and I go for it. I play High Tide, he tries to draw from Top in response. I play another High Tide which resolves. Then I go for Reset but he has the Spell Snare. I can only Meditate but don't find the Force I would have needed. Having Turnabout instead of Reset would have totally won this game.
-2 Remand, - 1 Impulse, + 1 Wipe Away, + 2 Twincast
G2: I keep Brain Freeze, Turnabout and five lands and he has a Top and turn 2 Counterbalance. I draw Wipe Away from the Top and at some point before I go to very low life Wipe his Counterbalance Away. In his next turn I have six lands and play High Tide, he Forces, I Force back, he Forces back I try to play Turnabout and he Forces again which means that his Mongeese kill me within two turns.
G3: He has a first turn Top for the third time and I Peek him in response to his Counterbalance. He shows: FoW, FoW, Daze, Spell Snare, Red Elemental Blast. Wow. Not bad. I have Wipe Away already in hand and when I'm on five lands I Wipe Away his Counterbalance. I drop my sixth land and my hand consist of High Tide, High Tide, Reset, Reset, FoW, Brain Freeze and I go for it in response to his replayed Counterbalance. I play High Tide, he Forces pitch Brainstorm. I play another High Tide, he Red Blasts. I play Reset, he Forces pitch a Ponder he had drawn with Top. I Force pitch Reset, he Spell Snares my Reset and I Brain Freeze myself for 27 (40 cards in my librarY) and him for 3. He Dazes the copy on him because he wants to keep his Top. I hit the single Flash that is left (already used the other one earlier) but unfortunately mill all 3 Meditates, the second Brain Freeze and all but one Cunning Wish. In my upkeep I Flashback Flash to stack my library but as I would have to use a Cunning Wish for Brain Freeze, I have to wait for another turn and when he replays his Top I won't be able to resolve a High Tide. With a Meditate left in my 13 it would have been easy as his second card was likely a land, but it shouldn't be. His Goyf beats me to death before I can even try to do another combo-attempt.
I feel that Solidarity is underplayed nowadays, it has problems with the best deck, but it has no autolosses (except maybe dredge) and a whole lot of good matchups. The problem is that more often than not you have to earn every single game with tight plays and a single small mistake where you didn't even realize that it was a mistake can kill you. For the future, maybe Krosan Grip really is the way to go to beat Counterbalance, but we'll see.
Props:
- Solidarity
- Cryptic Command
- Good and cool players during all rounds
- Solidarity
- Solidarity (yeah, you get the pattern)
Slops:
- Counterbalance
- Nihil drawing 3+ counters every game in addition to his turn 2/3 Counterbalance
- Van