Misplayer
04-02-2009, 10:21 AM
I was planning to write a report because I enjoy writing about Magic especially when it doesn’t involve me scrubbing, but I forgot to bring my game notes to work with me until now. I’m mostly writing this to speak to the power of Dreadnought in Merfolk, and also to maybe figure out who a few of my opponents are on this site. As I said before, everyone I played was a really cool guy and that makes for a very positive experience, win or lose.
So I had planned on playing Merfolk at this event after seeing how much success Jay Richardson has had with it locally. I usually play strictly control/aggro-control (MUC, Stax, Landstill, ITF, Thresh), so going aggro was definitely out of my comfort zone. I arrived and found the ever-distracted Ben Lukas who was going to lend me the deck. After about 20 minutes of trying to get his attention, I got the deck and started to look it over. There were originally 3 Vials and 3 V. Cliques which seemed wrong, so I had to go back to Ben for another Vial. I also added a Sower to the main, and came up with a sideboard I felt OK about. I left the rest of the maindeck as what Jay had tuned it up to be. Here’s the resulting list:
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
11 Island
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Waterfront Bouncer
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Daze
3 Standstill
2 Trickbind
Sideboard (I think…):
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Back to Basics
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Standstill
It was my first time with the deck aside from a few quick MWS sessions, so all told things went very well.
Round 1: Matt with UGbw Counter-Top/NLU/Thresh/NQG/Format.dec
Game 1: I play Standstill, he cracks it and I draw into Dreadnought and double Trickbind, plus Stifle in my hand. He has Counterbalance but I go for it anyway. He’d flipped Force previously and I know he has that +2 cards. I play ‘Nought, he flips Goyf. Hmmm, there goes my Trickbind plan. I think if there’s any tricks I can do to get this to resolve and realize there are none so I just go for Stifle. He says “OK”, or in other words, on to game 2.
Game 2: Bob resolves on Matt’s side and he has double Force plus Goyf. I can’t outrace him.
Game 3: Matt gets CB but can’t hit a blindflip so I roll him with my army.
1-0
Round 2: Pat with White Stax
I had heard Pat earlier say something about playing with Elspeth so I put him on Landstill. Sweet!
Game 1: On the play, I Daze his first turn Ghostly Prison. He follows up with another GP but I get Dreadnought. He resolves a huge ‘Geddon, O-Rings my ‘Nought, resolves Trinisphere, unmorphs an Angel and plays Smokestack. I scoop at 12 life. I also forgot that Reejery can untap (my) permanents. That was pretty dumb of me. I feel less dumb when Pat has to also read the card to remember that it does that.
Game 2: I believe I open with Vial and he opens with Chalice at 1. Let’s hear it for choosing to play first for the win. I let Trinisphere resolve and keep 3 up so I can Force something more relevant (probably Ghostly Prison??). I can afford to not pay mana for threats thanks to Vial. I’m beating for 5+ a turn and he has no outs.
Game 3: I think Pat gets stuck on land this match. I think I get Waste on a Factory(?). I let a Ghostly Prison resolve because I have Reej + Lord and 4+ mana. Pat’s life goes 17, 14, 8, 0.
2-0
Round 3: John with BGW Eva Green
I know John from playing locally in Worcester. He’s a very good player and told me he’s playing the Eva Green with white list from the GP. I have no idea how this matchup will shake out.
Game 1: I win pretty easily here, leading with Vial into Silvergill, Lord effect, Mutavault, swing for 11 in one turn. John manipulates his Top a bunch and find’s Bob plus Goyf(?) and Fetches himself down to one. I have just enough men to get through for the win.
Game 2: John opens with Thoughtseize and only loses life to that and Fetches. Meanwhile he lands double Goyf and crushes me.
Game 3: I get stuck on land this game, and neglect to Stifle his 2nd turn fetch. Awesome. He’s more than set up by the time I recover and I can do little more than play one merman per turn to chump his Goyf.
2-1
Round 4: Dan with UGbw Counter-Top/NLU/Thresh/NQG/Format.dec
Game 1: This is a tight match, I have Vial and get in for a good 10 damage before Dan gets Shackles onine. He makes a Goyf and we start racing. I’m swinging into my own men with double Silvergill and double Mutavault, taking him to 6 with Vial set to 3. I have double Mutavault left after my own Silvergills trade. EOT I Vial in Vendillion Clique, seeing Daze and Island in Dan’s hand. I’m feeling nice so I let him keep those two game-ending bombs. On my turn I draw my only Sower of Temptation. I don’t know how to play magic so I go to combat without activating my Mutavaults. I swing with just Clique, which he steals. On his turn he untaps Shackles and beats me to 3 with Goyf. I untap, ramp Vial to 4, go to combat with double-mutavault, a third Silvergill and Clique. He takes Clique as expected so I Vial in Sower before attack, taking back my Clique and just barely get there as he has no other blockers.
At this point Dan thinks I’m playing some strange Faeries concoction as he saw both Cliques (I pitched one to Force), my only Sower and zero merfolk lord effects.
Game 2: I think I get Vial again, and I’m able to Force through a Dreadnought. He has no answer and I take it down.
3-1
Parings go up and I see I’m playing Mike (rockout, I believe) and I’ve seen him with Landstill. Sweet! We sit down and they announce a repair. Aw nuts.
Round 5: Justin (sunshine) with Burn
Game 1: I know Justin is playing “mono-red” burn because we were both at the annoying standing tables in the first round. I don’t think I like this matchup but I know I can race. I look at my opening grip and see Dreadnought + Stifle. Looks like I’ll be up 1-0 in this match. I go for it on turn 2 thinking that I’ve pretty much just won the game. On my turn I play an overkill Standstill and he responds with Smash to Smithereens. Seems good. Standstill resolves and I still have Vial, so all is not lost. He Chain Lightnings me into Standstill which finds me another Stifle to play the other Dreadnought in my hand. I get in for a few with Silvergill + LoA so one swing from Dreadnought is all it takes to finish him.
Game 2: He opens by shooting me for 3, I open with Vial. He Bolts me to 14, I crank my Vial to 2 and hardcast Lord. EOT I Vial in another Lord, play Silvergill and swing for 3. Justin does nothing and passes. Sweet. I crank Vial to 3, Vial in Reej and swing for 13 taking him to 4. Seems good. He’d need some mighty big sweepers to take down my board of 4/4, 4/4, 4/4 and 5/4 men, so he instead extends his hand.
4-1
So I’m sitting at 4-1 thinking/hoping I can draw in. Standings go up and I’m sitting in 7th on breakers. There are two 13-pointers, six of us at 12 points and two more at 10 to fudge everything up. Having the second-worse breakers means drawing in does not look good for me. Pairings go up and I get Jaynel and I know he’s playing stupid LED-less Ichorid. Seems bad (for me). We discuss drawing forever and come to the sad realization we have to play. We agree to put lethal damage on the stack and see if we can draw-in if both 10 pointers lose.
Round 6: Jared (Jaynel) with 5c Survival-less Survival
Game 1: I win the die roll. I open with Vial and have Stifle/Nought so I’m hoping I can somehow race. He makes a Tireless Tribe. Fudge, that can easily chump my Dreadnought plus further his gameplan. He passes, I set Vial to 1 and decide I can at least hope he swings in with his Tribe and I can get in for a quick 12 by going EOT Dreadnought. He flips 2/3rds of his library upside-down, hitting four bridges, no Ichorids, and one Narcomoeba. I realize my game-plan has to change now, and Stifle the Narcomoeba trigger. He flashes back Therapy with his Tribe, and I Vial in Dreadnought with the Bridge triggers on the stack. Seems good!! Having no Ichorids and no Bridges is a bad plan for Dredge, so I’m able to start Vialing in my guys and swing him to 14, 6, he makes a blocker to stay at 1, but it’s not enough. I miraculously steal Game 1.
Game 2: He mulls at least once, I think twice. He has no dredgers and starts beating with 2x Tribe maybe? He finds a Stinkweed and starts slow dredging into nothing. I get a Relic online and start to apply very little pressure, but he’s taking City of Brass damage as well. I get triple Wasteland and keep him off his mana-sources, while I slowly reduce his life. He had Ichorid for a while but ran out of food and stalls with me at 3. During his EOT he discards his Stinkweed because I have lethal damage on the board, I respond with Relic and he has no outs. I feel bad having to knock out Jared because he’s a good guy and a fun opponent, but both 10 pointers won and my breakers were horrible, so I did what I had to do.
5-1
The top 8 looks pretty rough for me, including 2 Aggro-Loam decks, Goblins, John who was my only loss, Survival, a Thresh variant and a mystery deck that I put on Aggro-Loam. Of course I get the mystery deck, I’m hoping it’s blue.
Top 8: Ed with RGw Zoo
Game 1: He opens with Fetch, Plateau, Kird Ape. So much for blue. I get mana-screwed hard and he has Grim Lavamancer. My blockers die and I get crushed without a chance to get going.
Game 2: I open with Vial, and do the EOT Dreadnought thang. Ed grimly responds “that’s cute”. I’m liking his reaction. He’s forced to double block with 3/4 Goyfs, but it only delays the inevitable.
Game 3: My notes are terrible because I keep writing the other players life in the wrong column. I get a Relic which is promptly met by Grip. Ouch, that was huge as he has a big Goyf that I have a hard time answering. He plays a Lavamancer that I answer with Needle. I only have Mutavault to block, he comes with both, I block the Lavamancer foolishly. Goyf takes me to 3 and burn seals it. Definitely could have played better this match, I think I was too satisfied with just making top 8.
Thoughts on the deck: I can’t imagine playing Merfolk without Dreadnought. It takes a nice deck and makes it a powerhouse. I didn’t miss Cursecatcher once. While I did get Dreadnoughts and Stifles stuck in my hand on a few occasions, that’s something I’m more than willing to live with for the opportunity to go “Oops, I win”. I cut a Standstill because I expected to see a lot of Dreadstill/Landstill, but I didn’t end up missing it too much despite my bad judgment on the metagame. I never got to use a Stifle effect on an opponent’s land, probably because I wasn’t actively looking for it. Waterfront Bouncer, while not huge, was definitely solid. B2B felt really weak in the sideboard, as it is a control card in an aggro deck, I never wanted to weaken my threat density to have the chance to make life tough for my opponent, I almost always would rather be playing men and smashing with them.
The moral of the story is: playing Merfolk without Dreadnought is wrong.
Props:
- OffTheWall Games for a great event
- Jay Richardson for designing 95% of the deck
- Ben Lukas for lending me the deck
- My opponents for being good guys
- Dreadnought for winning games
- Meeting many cool people
- Brian for riding my Mox Diamonds to a top 4 finish
Slops:
- Me not knowing how to play my deck, or Magic in general
- Having to dreamcrush Jaynel in Round 6
- Not getting a chance to go Dreadnought, then Vial in Dreadnought with trigger on the stack
- Ben scrubbing, and allegedly quitting Magic
- Spending a beautiful day slinging cards
So I had planned on playing Merfolk at this event after seeing how much success Jay Richardson has had with it locally. I usually play strictly control/aggro-control (MUC, Stax, Landstill, ITF, Thresh), so going aggro was definitely out of my comfort zone. I arrived and found the ever-distracted Ben Lukas who was going to lend me the deck. After about 20 minutes of trying to get his attention, I got the deck and started to look it over. There were originally 3 Vials and 3 V. Cliques which seemed wrong, so I had to go back to Ben for another Vial. I also added a Sower to the main, and came up with a sideboard I felt OK about. I left the rest of the maindeck as what Jay had tuned it up to be. Here’s the resulting list:
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
11 Island
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Waterfront Bouncer
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Daze
3 Standstill
2 Trickbind
Sideboard (I think…):
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Back to Basics
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Standstill
It was my first time with the deck aside from a few quick MWS sessions, so all told things went very well.
Round 1: Matt with UGbw Counter-Top/NLU/Thresh/NQG/Format.dec
Game 1: I play Standstill, he cracks it and I draw into Dreadnought and double Trickbind, plus Stifle in my hand. He has Counterbalance but I go for it anyway. He’d flipped Force previously and I know he has that +2 cards. I play ‘Nought, he flips Goyf. Hmmm, there goes my Trickbind plan. I think if there’s any tricks I can do to get this to resolve and realize there are none so I just go for Stifle. He says “OK”, or in other words, on to game 2.
Game 2: Bob resolves on Matt’s side and he has double Force plus Goyf. I can’t outrace him.
Game 3: Matt gets CB but can’t hit a blindflip so I roll him with my army.
1-0
Round 2: Pat with White Stax
I had heard Pat earlier say something about playing with Elspeth so I put him on Landstill. Sweet!
Game 1: On the play, I Daze his first turn Ghostly Prison. He follows up with another GP but I get Dreadnought. He resolves a huge ‘Geddon, O-Rings my ‘Nought, resolves Trinisphere, unmorphs an Angel and plays Smokestack. I scoop at 12 life. I also forgot that Reejery can untap (my) permanents. That was pretty dumb of me. I feel less dumb when Pat has to also read the card to remember that it does that.
Game 2: I believe I open with Vial and he opens with Chalice at 1. Let’s hear it for choosing to play first for the win. I let Trinisphere resolve and keep 3 up so I can Force something more relevant (probably Ghostly Prison??). I can afford to not pay mana for threats thanks to Vial. I’m beating for 5+ a turn and he has no outs.
Game 3: I think Pat gets stuck on land this match. I think I get Waste on a Factory(?). I let a Ghostly Prison resolve because I have Reej + Lord and 4+ mana. Pat’s life goes 17, 14, 8, 0.
2-0
Round 3: John with BGW Eva Green
I know John from playing locally in Worcester. He’s a very good player and told me he’s playing the Eva Green with white list from the GP. I have no idea how this matchup will shake out.
Game 1: I win pretty easily here, leading with Vial into Silvergill, Lord effect, Mutavault, swing for 11 in one turn. John manipulates his Top a bunch and find’s Bob plus Goyf(?) and Fetches himself down to one. I have just enough men to get through for the win.
Game 2: John opens with Thoughtseize and only loses life to that and Fetches. Meanwhile he lands double Goyf and crushes me.
Game 3: I get stuck on land this game, and neglect to Stifle his 2nd turn fetch. Awesome. He’s more than set up by the time I recover and I can do little more than play one merman per turn to chump his Goyf.
2-1
Round 4: Dan with UGbw Counter-Top/NLU/Thresh/NQG/Format.dec
Game 1: This is a tight match, I have Vial and get in for a good 10 damage before Dan gets Shackles onine. He makes a Goyf and we start racing. I’m swinging into my own men with double Silvergill and double Mutavault, taking him to 6 with Vial set to 3. I have double Mutavault left after my own Silvergills trade. EOT I Vial in Vendillion Clique, seeing Daze and Island in Dan’s hand. I’m feeling nice so I let him keep those two game-ending bombs. On my turn I draw my only Sower of Temptation. I don’t know how to play magic so I go to combat without activating my Mutavaults. I swing with just Clique, which he steals. On his turn he untaps Shackles and beats me to 3 with Goyf. I untap, ramp Vial to 4, go to combat with double-mutavault, a third Silvergill and Clique. He takes Clique as expected so I Vial in Sower before attack, taking back my Clique and just barely get there as he has no other blockers.
At this point Dan thinks I’m playing some strange Faeries concoction as he saw both Cliques (I pitched one to Force), my only Sower and zero merfolk lord effects.
Game 2: I think I get Vial again, and I’m able to Force through a Dreadnought. He has no answer and I take it down.
3-1
Parings go up and I see I’m playing Mike (rockout, I believe) and I’ve seen him with Landstill. Sweet! We sit down and they announce a repair. Aw nuts.
Round 5: Justin (sunshine) with Burn
Game 1: I know Justin is playing “mono-red” burn because we were both at the annoying standing tables in the first round. I don’t think I like this matchup but I know I can race. I look at my opening grip and see Dreadnought + Stifle. Looks like I’ll be up 1-0 in this match. I go for it on turn 2 thinking that I’ve pretty much just won the game. On my turn I play an overkill Standstill and he responds with Smash to Smithereens. Seems good. Standstill resolves and I still have Vial, so all is not lost. He Chain Lightnings me into Standstill which finds me another Stifle to play the other Dreadnought in my hand. I get in for a few with Silvergill + LoA so one swing from Dreadnought is all it takes to finish him.
Game 2: He opens by shooting me for 3, I open with Vial. He Bolts me to 14, I crank my Vial to 2 and hardcast Lord. EOT I Vial in another Lord, play Silvergill and swing for 3. Justin does nothing and passes. Sweet. I crank Vial to 3, Vial in Reej and swing for 13 taking him to 4. Seems good. He’d need some mighty big sweepers to take down my board of 4/4, 4/4, 4/4 and 5/4 men, so he instead extends his hand.
4-1
So I’m sitting at 4-1 thinking/hoping I can draw in. Standings go up and I’m sitting in 7th on breakers. There are two 13-pointers, six of us at 12 points and two more at 10 to fudge everything up. Having the second-worse breakers means drawing in does not look good for me. Pairings go up and I get Jaynel and I know he’s playing stupid LED-less Ichorid. Seems bad (for me). We discuss drawing forever and come to the sad realization we have to play. We agree to put lethal damage on the stack and see if we can draw-in if both 10 pointers lose.
Round 6: Jared (Jaynel) with 5c Survival-less Survival
Game 1: I win the die roll. I open with Vial and have Stifle/Nought so I’m hoping I can somehow race. He makes a Tireless Tribe. Fudge, that can easily chump my Dreadnought plus further his gameplan. He passes, I set Vial to 1 and decide I can at least hope he swings in with his Tribe and I can get in for a quick 12 by going EOT Dreadnought. He flips 2/3rds of his library upside-down, hitting four bridges, no Ichorids, and one Narcomoeba. I realize my game-plan has to change now, and Stifle the Narcomoeba trigger. He flashes back Therapy with his Tribe, and I Vial in Dreadnought with the Bridge triggers on the stack. Seems good!! Having no Ichorids and no Bridges is a bad plan for Dredge, so I’m able to start Vialing in my guys and swing him to 14, 6, he makes a blocker to stay at 1, but it’s not enough. I miraculously steal Game 1.
Game 2: He mulls at least once, I think twice. He has no dredgers and starts beating with 2x Tribe maybe? He finds a Stinkweed and starts slow dredging into nothing. I get a Relic online and start to apply very little pressure, but he’s taking City of Brass damage as well. I get triple Wasteland and keep him off his mana-sources, while I slowly reduce his life. He had Ichorid for a while but ran out of food and stalls with me at 3. During his EOT he discards his Stinkweed because I have lethal damage on the board, I respond with Relic and he has no outs. I feel bad having to knock out Jared because he’s a good guy and a fun opponent, but both 10 pointers won and my breakers were horrible, so I did what I had to do.
5-1
The top 8 looks pretty rough for me, including 2 Aggro-Loam decks, Goblins, John who was my only loss, Survival, a Thresh variant and a mystery deck that I put on Aggro-Loam. Of course I get the mystery deck, I’m hoping it’s blue.
Top 8: Ed with RGw Zoo
Game 1: He opens with Fetch, Plateau, Kird Ape. So much for blue. I get mana-screwed hard and he has Grim Lavamancer. My blockers die and I get crushed without a chance to get going.
Game 2: I open with Vial, and do the EOT Dreadnought thang. Ed grimly responds “that’s cute”. I’m liking his reaction. He’s forced to double block with 3/4 Goyfs, but it only delays the inevitable.
Game 3: My notes are terrible because I keep writing the other players life in the wrong column. I get a Relic which is promptly met by Grip. Ouch, that was huge as he has a big Goyf that I have a hard time answering. He plays a Lavamancer that I answer with Needle. I only have Mutavault to block, he comes with both, I block the Lavamancer foolishly. Goyf takes me to 3 and burn seals it. Definitely could have played better this match, I think I was too satisfied with just making top 8.
Thoughts on the deck: I can’t imagine playing Merfolk without Dreadnought. It takes a nice deck and makes it a powerhouse. I didn’t miss Cursecatcher once. While I did get Dreadnoughts and Stifles stuck in my hand on a few occasions, that’s something I’m more than willing to live with for the opportunity to go “Oops, I win”. I cut a Standstill because I expected to see a lot of Dreadstill/Landstill, but I didn’t end up missing it too much despite my bad judgment on the metagame. I never got to use a Stifle effect on an opponent’s land, probably because I wasn’t actively looking for it. Waterfront Bouncer, while not huge, was definitely solid. B2B felt really weak in the sideboard, as it is a control card in an aggro deck, I never wanted to weaken my threat density to have the chance to make life tough for my opponent, I almost always would rather be playing men and smashing with them.
The moral of the story is: playing Merfolk without Dreadnought is wrong.
Props:
- OffTheWall Games for a great event
- Jay Richardson for designing 95% of the deck
- Ben Lukas for lending me the deck
- My opponents for being good guys
- Dreadnought for winning games
- Meeting many cool people
- Brian for riding my Mox Diamonds to a top 4 finish
Slops:
- Me not knowing how to play my deck, or Magic in general
- Having to dreamcrush Jaynel in Round 6
- Not getting a chance to go Dreadnought, then Vial in Dreadnought with trigger on the stack
- Ben scrubbing, and allegedly quitting Magic
- Spending a beautiful day slinging cards