Media314r8
08-10-2009, 10:10 PM
I played RB Goblins at the Ann Arbor Mox Sapphire event (32 or 34 players, I don’t remember) to go 4-0-1 in swiss rounds, cut to top eight, and split for prize, taking second in top eight standings. The list I played:
// Lands
4 [R] Badlands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Swamp (3)
6 [TSP] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
4 [MOR] Frogtosser Banneret
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
3 [10E] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [M10] Goblin Chieftain
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [LRW] Mad Auntie
3 [MOR] Earwig Squad
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
1 [LRW] Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 [MOR] Lightning Crafter
// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [MOR] Warren Weirding
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [LRW] Mad Auntie
SB: 3 [AT] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
The round-by-round report:
Round 1: Vs Tony with Zoo
I run out a first turn vial, and he answers with a fetch into a grim lavamancer. Ouch. I bump up vial, and make a banneret, baiting the grim ping. He plays a SECOND lavamancer and another fetch to go active, and I have a very sad lackey (which I drew) through the vial. I draw and play a goblin chieftain, which eats it to lavamancer as my lackey trades for the untapped one and frogtosser hits for one. He untaps and plays a goyf with no third land drop. I have no fourth land, and I make a matron into an edict, which he sacs goyf to, followed by a mad auntie to allow frogtosser to swing in for two. He draws, passes, and I vial in a ringleader who nets me a SGC and a chieftain. Lacking the fourth land to hit SGC, autie falls to grim with chieftain on the stack, regen-shielding ringleader, and chief eats a bolt once he resolves, but I still swing in for 4 with my utility guys. He makes an ape, but my SGC through the vial lives just long enough to clear away the pesky lavamancer, and fling himself at Tony in response to grim’s reprisal. Another SCG in my hand tells me I have enough to win with two swings so long as he doesn’t have a land + fire/ice, and then he’s hellbent against my army of 1/1s. He doesn’t and I swarm for the win.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
He is on the play and decides to mull, so I keep my hand of badlands, vial, relic, wierding, auntie, matron, chieftain, being on the draw with my cantrip-hate in hand to supplement vial should I really need to make a second land drop. He leads with a Savannah ‘go’, and I draw a ringleader and make my vial. He answers with a PRIDEMAGE, and I frown as I do not draw a land my second draw step, and sadly make my relic. He plays a second pridemage and swings four before destroying my hopes and dreams. I draw a non-land for the thrid time in a row, pop relic, and don’t see another land. He makes another dude and we’re off to game three.
Turn two banneret into a turn three chieftain, edict his goyf is followed by a turn four auntie, chieftain to bring him down to one life and a single mongoose on board. Hasty SGC and friends turn five for 19 additional power seals it.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games
Round 2: Vs. Kyle with Zoo
He wins the die roll and mulls once into the best possible hand of 6: 2x fetch, 2x grim, 2x goyf, and draws something like bolt, rift bolt, fireblast. We go to game two.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
I lead with a vial, and he makes a kird ape. I bump up vial, play banneret, and pass. He fails to play a second land, swings 2, and makes a second ape. I waste his Tiaga, make a matron for auntie, and offer the trade with my banneret. He does, and fails to play a land for the next few turns while my goblins become much bigger than his 1/1 kird ape.
Game three he fetches a taiaga, and leads with an ape once again. I make a vial, and we repeat the last game ala him not playing a second land turn two, and me wasting it my next turn. He doesn’t hit another land, and goblins do as goblins does.
2-0 matches, 4-2 games
Round 3: Vs Jon with mono-U Merfolk (his list cut spell snare for 3 merfolk sovereigns)
Game one I lead with lackey, which resolves and is not faced down by a rebuttal cursecatcher. Turn two I make a banneret, and swing in for two, dumping in a SGC with the lackey trigger. He makes a mutavault and passes, and I play my wasteland, chieftain resolves, then waste his muta to come in for 15 turn three.
-4 lackey, + 3 auntie, +1 sharpshooter
It’s his turn to god-draw me, and he leads with turn one cursecatcher into turn two LOA into turn three reejery, daze matron, sovereign for the win.
-3 earwig squad, -1 wierding, +4 lackey
I do the turn one lackey, but he has a cursecatcher for it this time, but no force/daze for my wierding on it, and lackey and SGC hold hands and skip to victory.
3-0 matches, 6-3 games.
Round 4: Vs Nathan with Canadian Thresh (running 4 goyf, 4 goose, 1 clique)
He is on the play, and makes a turn one goose off a trop. I throw a lackey into a counter (wanting to resolve the vial in hand), which doesn’t happen, so I suspect the fire/ice. He essentially admits to having it when he attacks with goose and does not follow with a goyf second main to go with his volc. I attack into the fire, and second main play a wasteland, vial, waste his trop. He ponders, and not finding a second green source, shuffles and plays a waste of his own, attacking for one. I bump vial up to one, and fetch my basic swamp while his blue source is tapped, then run a banneret into a daze. He replays the volc and goose turns sideways. I tap vial while still inside attackers, but he doesn’t show me the stifle I was looking for, and vial’s ability only wishes it could drop a one mana guy in to block the 1/1 goose. I make my third land drop with vial at two, and attempt a mad auntie, which eats a bolt endstep. He continues to whiff on drawing green sources, and the goose comes in again with six cards in the bin. After attacks, I offer him thresh by tapping vial at two, but he doesn’t bite, and I again don’t have any creatures to match the counters. I finally get going with vial’s ability again resolving at three, and matron hits the table next turn, but he does have the stifle for the enters the battlefield trigger. I finally take three from the goose, and an ineffective ringleader (via another stifle) teams up with matron to team block his threshed goose. He doesn’t have a bolt or fire, and the table is clear for a turn. He finally brainstorms into a goyf, but has to tap both of his blue sources to make the goyf that turn, and I take the opportunity to make a SGC through the vial, and play a waste on my turn to kill his newly acquired green source. SGC and goyf have a staring match during his turn and his endstep my second SGC meets his THIRD stifle. After I resolve a ringleader on my turn revealing matron, ringleader, I decide that the odds of him having/drawing a bolt at this point are slim, and the team comes in and loses one commander. The next swing SCG throws himself at Nate, leaving him at just enough a life total for me to finish him off despite one of my guys being countered.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
He leads with a cantrip, and I take the opportunity to fetch a black source and ready my warren wierding. He makes a goyf, and I make a vial. He fails to make a second guy, and doesn’t have the force, which is most unfortunate for him, as I again go wateland, daze-proof spell, waste green source. He recovers his green mana much faster this time, but alas only to drop a mongoose, which is outraced by my auntie + chieftain. Late in the game, after the board is reduced to threshed goose on his side, untapped auntie, tapped chieftain on my side, his calls a judge over for tea and crumpets. (they were at it a while, but I feel that the judge may have mis-ruled here, as he seemed to have absolutely no idea how humility worked ala a bad call made earlier about ‘CiP triggers trigger, but the creature has no ability when it resolves’) Anyhow, Nathan strides confidently back to the table and practically windmills a pyroclasm onto the board. Barring something like a sudden shock on chieftain, I use the priority to put a regen shield on chieftain, as auntie wasn’t planning on blocking anyhow. “Resolves,” says I... and he pauses and allows me time to bin my team, which I and the game rules had no inclination to do. He facepalms, and I win shortly thereafter.
4-0 matches, 8-3 games.
Round 5: Vs X-1 with Aggro loam.
I didn’t have any big plans of losing ratings points to a random devastating dreams, so we both are happy to tie into the top eight. We use the time to watch Rich (who eventually faced my in the finals and won the tournament with zoo sporting KotR) get paired down and win a game he shouldn’t to an opponent who missed at LEAST three blind counterbalance triggers, on swords, knight of the reliquary, and krosan grip sequentially. I wish I could say he knew the top cards via a brainstorm/ponder effect and just didn’t want to reveal them, but that was not the case, and Rich’s opponent was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
4-0-1 matches, 8-3 games
Quarterfinals: Vs Jacob playing mono-U merfolk (traditional list with 4-4-2 LOA, Reejery, Wakethrasher with snares, standstills, relics, and jittes)
Jacob and I drove up together, and have been playing legacy together on a team for years, so we have fun with this match. Game one he forgets to force a lord, but his deck forgives him, nad he gets the vial, LOA, Reejery, vial in LOA, Reejery draw.
-4 wierding, -3 Earwig squad, +3 goblin tinkerer + 3 auntie, +1 sharpshooter
I kill his jitte early with a chieftain into tinkerer which are both destroyed by the five BEB effects out of the board. I manage to vial in a matron at a later end step for my singleton lightning crafter while he has only a vial on board. He allows me to untap with vial, move it to four, and on my ENDSTEP, he goes “BEB your matron,” and I respond with vial into champion matron. Whoops on Jacob, that was supposed to happen in the opposite order and be a 2-1 the OTHER way.
Despite Jacob’s incredible luck, charisma, and strategic planning, I manage to fight an uphill battle to finally emerge the victor. It should be noted that merit determined the victor, and it CERTAINLY was not the field of fast red decks who had already finished their quarterfinal matches that determined who would progress into the top four.
5-0-1 matches, 10-4 games
Semifinals: Vs ____ with burn.
The lifetotals/notepads for the top four matches were lost in the chaos of escaping from Michigan back to Ohio, and I cannot remember much other than this and the following match were close, and everyone in the top four was happy with the results.
6-0-1 matches 12-4 games
Finals: Vs Rich with KotR zoo
6-1-1 matches, 12-6 games
Rich really cared about his DCI rating, so I’m glad he took a few points from my meager 1850s rating. Good for him. At least I’m glad the top four all walked away happy. You wouldn’t expect that with the proposed prize distribution of:
1st: NM Unlimited Mox Sapphire
2nd: NM Revised Underground Sea
3rd-8th: $5 store credit (!!!!!!)
Who knows how I walked away with a set of forces, the burn player walked away with two goyfs and two fetches to work on goyfsleigh, as did Rich and his affinity-wielding opponent leave with similar prizes. The tournament ended by DCI guidelines, and the DCI certified judge okayed everything.
Notes on the deck:
I continue to be pleased with frogtosser over warchief, as in hands you rely on a warchief effect to get you there, turn two frogtosser into turn three matron for edict, edict -or- chieftain/auntie, edict your goyf, swing 2-4 -or- turn three daze-proof matron into turn four daze-proof ringleader is soooooo much better than turn three warchief, go.
Chieftain performed very well, making SGC much, much scarier than before, and turning armies of utility dorks into scary hordes with haste. Auntie was incredible at holding the ground in situations where the deck needed to play defense and grind out card advantage before going on the offensive, and then transitioned well into the offensive role, allowing you to swing with important players like SGC and chieftains without fear of losing them post-combat.
I never drew earwig squad, but I was lucky in that I never had to go up against any of the four landstill decks in attendance, as I would have wished to have them against all the MD humilities and moats in the room. I still maintain the cards’ place in the MD, as both a shot against combo/decks packing ‘I win’ cards main, and as a sizeable alternative to driver who can BLOCK and trade with goyf, as well as being unreal with mad auntie.
The meta for magus of the moon was there, but I happened to play against non-basic packing decks that ran 6-12 red removal spells main. Again, had I played against any of the landstill decks or Ugb/ Ugw thresh decks there, I would be glad to have had these in the sideboard.
Props:
The physical size and inventory of ‘Get Your Game On,’ (the venue) it’s not often you see all the duals, fetches, playsets of forces in the case alongside original NES, SNES, and SEGA consoles and cartridges.
All my friends that made the trip up with me, for those of us that didn’t do well, we all learned something about our decks that will hopefully lead to more top8s in the future.
Burger King and the Jr. Whopper, for being the sweetest victory availible for under a dollar.
Wasteland, for single-handedly winning me two matches.
Slops:
Michigan in general. It rained nearly the entire time while we were going to and at the tournament, and the fast-food shops charge tax on to go items. $1.06 menu?!?! WTF!
The disparity in the prize structure, and prizes for 2nd-8th remaining a mystery until we had arrived at the venue. It’s nice that they upgraded the played mox to a NM one with the attendance above the desired threshold, but a prize structure of:
1st: GD Mox
2nd: U Sea, delta
3rd: Trop, strand
4th Taiga, foothills
would have been better IMO, and people who played seven rounds of magic to finish third in a 30+ person tournament wouldn’t get screwed walking away with 25% of their entry fee because they happened to have a bad draw against burn or affinity. If having decent top8 prize support is really that much of a profit concern, at least give out some packs, or up the entry fee by $5 and make the whole top8 happy with their prize rather than just the top2. Also, no door prizes, what gives?!?!
My team mates, for playing unfamiliar decks and not knowing what their cards do. Reading is savage tech, as is knowing your own deck evidently.
// Lands
4 [R] Badlands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Swamp (3)
6 [TSP] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
4 [MOR] Frogtosser Banneret
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
3 [10E] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [M10] Goblin Chieftain
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [LRW] Mad Auntie
3 [MOR] Earwig Squad
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
1 [LRW] Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 [MOR] Lightning Crafter
// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [MOR] Warren Weirding
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [LRW] Mad Auntie
SB: 3 [AT] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
The round-by-round report:
Round 1: Vs Tony with Zoo
I run out a first turn vial, and he answers with a fetch into a grim lavamancer. Ouch. I bump up vial, and make a banneret, baiting the grim ping. He plays a SECOND lavamancer and another fetch to go active, and I have a very sad lackey (which I drew) through the vial. I draw and play a goblin chieftain, which eats it to lavamancer as my lackey trades for the untapped one and frogtosser hits for one. He untaps and plays a goyf with no third land drop. I have no fourth land, and I make a matron into an edict, which he sacs goyf to, followed by a mad auntie to allow frogtosser to swing in for two. He draws, passes, and I vial in a ringleader who nets me a SGC and a chieftain. Lacking the fourth land to hit SGC, autie falls to grim with chieftain on the stack, regen-shielding ringleader, and chief eats a bolt once he resolves, but I still swing in for 4 with my utility guys. He makes an ape, but my SGC through the vial lives just long enough to clear away the pesky lavamancer, and fling himself at Tony in response to grim’s reprisal. Another SCG in my hand tells me I have enough to win with two swings so long as he doesn’t have a land + fire/ice, and then he’s hellbent against my army of 1/1s. He doesn’t and I swarm for the win.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
He is on the play and decides to mull, so I keep my hand of badlands, vial, relic, wierding, auntie, matron, chieftain, being on the draw with my cantrip-hate in hand to supplement vial should I really need to make a second land drop. He leads with a Savannah ‘go’, and I draw a ringleader and make my vial. He answers with a PRIDEMAGE, and I frown as I do not draw a land my second draw step, and sadly make my relic. He plays a second pridemage and swings four before destroying my hopes and dreams. I draw a non-land for the thrid time in a row, pop relic, and don’t see another land. He makes another dude and we’re off to game three.
Turn two banneret into a turn three chieftain, edict his goyf is followed by a turn four auntie, chieftain to bring him down to one life and a single mongoose on board. Hasty SGC and friends turn five for 19 additional power seals it.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games
Round 2: Vs. Kyle with Zoo
He wins the die roll and mulls once into the best possible hand of 6: 2x fetch, 2x grim, 2x goyf, and draws something like bolt, rift bolt, fireblast. We go to game two.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
I lead with a vial, and he makes a kird ape. I bump up vial, play banneret, and pass. He fails to play a second land, swings 2, and makes a second ape. I waste his Tiaga, make a matron for auntie, and offer the trade with my banneret. He does, and fails to play a land for the next few turns while my goblins become much bigger than his 1/1 kird ape.
Game three he fetches a taiaga, and leads with an ape once again. I make a vial, and we repeat the last game ala him not playing a second land turn two, and me wasting it my next turn. He doesn’t hit another land, and goblins do as goblins does.
2-0 matches, 4-2 games
Round 3: Vs Jon with mono-U Merfolk (his list cut spell snare for 3 merfolk sovereigns)
Game one I lead with lackey, which resolves and is not faced down by a rebuttal cursecatcher. Turn two I make a banneret, and swing in for two, dumping in a SGC with the lackey trigger. He makes a mutavault and passes, and I play my wasteland, chieftain resolves, then waste his muta to come in for 15 turn three.
-4 lackey, + 3 auntie, +1 sharpshooter
It’s his turn to god-draw me, and he leads with turn one cursecatcher into turn two LOA into turn three reejery, daze matron, sovereign for the win.
-3 earwig squad, -1 wierding, +4 lackey
I do the turn one lackey, but he has a cursecatcher for it this time, but no force/daze for my wierding on it, and lackey and SGC hold hands and skip to victory.
3-0 matches, 6-3 games.
Round 4: Vs Nathan with Canadian Thresh (running 4 goyf, 4 goose, 1 clique)
He is on the play, and makes a turn one goose off a trop. I throw a lackey into a counter (wanting to resolve the vial in hand), which doesn’t happen, so I suspect the fire/ice. He essentially admits to having it when he attacks with goose and does not follow with a goyf second main to go with his volc. I attack into the fire, and second main play a wasteland, vial, waste his trop. He ponders, and not finding a second green source, shuffles and plays a waste of his own, attacking for one. I bump vial up to one, and fetch my basic swamp while his blue source is tapped, then run a banneret into a daze. He replays the volc and goose turns sideways. I tap vial while still inside attackers, but he doesn’t show me the stifle I was looking for, and vial’s ability only wishes it could drop a one mana guy in to block the 1/1 goose. I make my third land drop with vial at two, and attempt a mad auntie, which eats a bolt endstep. He continues to whiff on drawing green sources, and the goose comes in again with six cards in the bin. After attacks, I offer him thresh by tapping vial at two, but he doesn’t bite, and I again don’t have any creatures to match the counters. I finally get going with vial’s ability again resolving at three, and matron hits the table next turn, but he does have the stifle for the enters the battlefield trigger. I finally take three from the goose, and an ineffective ringleader (via another stifle) teams up with matron to team block his threshed goose. He doesn’t have a bolt or fire, and the table is clear for a turn. He finally brainstorms into a goyf, but has to tap both of his blue sources to make the goyf that turn, and I take the opportunity to make a SGC through the vial, and play a waste on my turn to kill his newly acquired green source. SGC and goyf have a staring match during his turn and his endstep my second SGC meets his THIRD stifle. After I resolve a ringleader on my turn revealing matron, ringleader, I decide that the odds of him having/drawing a bolt at this point are slim, and the team comes in and loses one commander. The next swing SCG throws himself at Nate, leaving him at just enough a life total for me to finish him off despite one of my guys being countered.
-4 lackey -3 earwig squads, +4 relic, +3 mad auntie
He leads with a cantrip, and I take the opportunity to fetch a black source and ready my warren wierding. He makes a goyf, and I make a vial. He fails to make a second guy, and doesn’t have the force, which is most unfortunate for him, as I again go wateland, daze-proof spell, waste green source. He recovers his green mana much faster this time, but alas only to drop a mongoose, which is outraced by my auntie + chieftain. Late in the game, after the board is reduced to threshed goose on his side, untapped auntie, tapped chieftain on my side, his calls a judge over for tea and crumpets. (they were at it a while, but I feel that the judge may have mis-ruled here, as he seemed to have absolutely no idea how humility worked ala a bad call made earlier about ‘CiP triggers trigger, but the creature has no ability when it resolves’) Anyhow, Nathan strides confidently back to the table and practically windmills a pyroclasm onto the board. Barring something like a sudden shock on chieftain, I use the priority to put a regen shield on chieftain, as auntie wasn’t planning on blocking anyhow. “Resolves,” says I... and he pauses and allows me time to bin my team, which I and the game rules had no inclination to do. He facepalms, and I win shortly thereafter.
4-0 matches, 8-3 games.
Round 5: Vs X-1 with Aggro loam.
I didn’t have any big plans of losing ratings points to a random devastating dreams, so we both are happy to tie into the top eight. We use the time to watch Rich (who eventually faced my in the finals and won the tournament with zoo sporting KotR) get paired down and win a game he shouldn’t to an opponent who missed at LEAST three blind counterbalance triggers, on swords, knight of the reliquary, and krosan grip sequentially. I wish I could say he knew the top cards via a brainstorm/ponder effect and just didn’t want to reveal them, but that was not the case, and Rich’s opponent was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
4-0-1 matches, 8-3 games
Quarterfinals: Vs Jacob playing mono-U merfolk (traditional list with 4-4-2 LOA, Reejery, Wakethrasher with snares, standstills, relics, and jittes)
Jacob and I drove up together, and have been playing legacy together on a team for years, so we have fun with this match. Game one he forgets to force a lord, but his deck forgives him, nad he gets the vial, LOA, Reejery, vial in LOA, Reejery draw.
-4 wierding, -3 Earwig squad, +3 goblin tinkerer + 3 auntie, +1 sharpshooter
I kill his jitte early with a chieftain into tinkerer which are both destroyed by the five BEB effects out of the board. I manage to vial in a matron at a later end step for my singleton lightning crafter while he has only a vial on board. He allows me to untap with vial, move it to four, and on my ENDSTEP, he goes “BEB your matron,” and I respond with vial into champion matron. Whoops on Jacob, that was supposed to happen in the opposite order and be a 2-1 the OTHER way.
Despite Jacob’s incredible luck, charisma, and strategic planning, I manage to fight an uphill battle to finally emerge the victor. It should be noted that merit determined the victor, and it CERTAINLY was not the field of fast red decks who had already finished their quarterfinal matches that determined who would progress into the top four.
5-0-1 matches, 10-4 games
Semifinals: Vs ____ with burn.
The lifetotals/notepads for the top four matches were lost in the chaos of escaping from Michigan back to Ohio, and I cannot remember much other than this and the following match were close, and everyone in the top four was happy with the results.
6-0-1 matches 12-4 games
Finals: Vs Rich with KotR zoo
6-1-1 matches, 12-6 games
Rich really cared about his DCI rating, so I’m glad he took a few points from my meager 1850s rating. Good for him. At least I’m glad the top four all walked away happy. You wouldn’t expect that with the proposed prize distribution of:
1st: NM Unlimited Mox Sapphire
2nd: NM Revised Underground Sea
3rd-8th: $5 store credit (!!!!!!)
Who knows how I walked away with a set of forces, the burn player walked away with two goyfs and two fetches to work on goyfsleigh, as did Rich and his affinity-wielding opponent leave with similar prizes. The tournament ended by DCI guidelines, and the DCI certified judge okayed everything.
Notes on the deck:
I continue to be pleased with frogtosser over warchief, as in hands you rely on a warchief effect to get you there, turn two frogtosser into turn three matron for edict, edict -or- chieftain/auntie, edict your goyf, swing 2-4 -or- turn three daze-proof matron into turn four daze-proof ringleader is soooooo much better than turn three warchief, go.
Chieftain performed very well, making SGC much, much scarier than before, and turning armies of utility dorks into scary hordes with haste. Auntie was incredible at holding the ground in situations where the deck needed to play defense and grind out card advantage before going on the offensive, and then transitioned well into the offensive role, allowing you to swing with important players like SGC and chieftains without fear of losing them post-combat.
I never drew earwig squad, but I was lucky in that I never had to go up against any of the four landstill decks in attendance, as I would have wished to have them against all the MD humilities and moats in the room. I still maintain the cards’ place in the MD, as both a shot against combo/decks packing ‘I win’ cards main, and as a sizeable alternative to driver who can BLOCK and trade with goyf, as well as being unreal with mad auntie.
The meta for magus of the moon was there, but I happened to play against non-basic packing decks that ran 6-12 red removal spells main. Again, had I played against any of the landstill decks or Ugb/ Ugw thresh decks there, I would be glad to have had these in the sideboard.
Props:
The physical size and inventory of ‘Get Your Game On,’ (the venue) it’s not often you see all the duals, fetches, playsets of forces in the case alongside original NES, SNES, and SEGA consoles and cartridges.
All my friends that made the trip up with me, for those of us that didn’t do well, we all learned something about our decks that will hopefully lead to more top8s in the future.
Burger King and the Jr. Whopper, for being the sweetest victory availible for under a dollar.
Wasteland, for single-handedly winning me two matches.
Slops:
Michigan in general. It rained nearly the entire time while we were going to and at the tournament, and the fast-food shops charge tax on to go items. $1.06 menu?!?! WTF!
The disparity in the prize structure, and prizes for 2nd-8th remaining a mystery until we had arrived at the venue. It’s nice that they upgraded the played mox to a NM one with the attendance above the desired threshold, but a prize structure of:
1st: GD Mox
2nd: U Sea, delta
3rd: Trop, strand
4th Taiga, foothills
would have been better IMO, and people who played seven rounds of magic to finish third in a 30+ person tournament wouldn’t get screwed walking away with 25% of their entry fee because they happened to have a bad draw against burn or affinity. If having decent top8 prize support is really that much of a profit concern, at least give out some packs, or up the entry fee by $5 and make the whole top8 happy with their prize rather than just the top2. Also, no door prizes, what gives?!?!
My team mates, for playing unfamiliar decks and not knowing what their cards do. Reading is savage tech, as is knowing your own deck evidently.