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09-25-2009, 12:38 AM
Our journey to 4 Tropical Islands started out like almost all of my tournament preparations, figuring out what terrible cards I could play in a format they aren't played in yet.
For those that don't know who I am, my name is Rich Meyst and I play all formats of Magic from Vintage to Legacy to all the PTQ formats. I am always one to innovate new ideas and try new cards out. I once won a very famous Vintage tournament with terrible terrible green creatures in my deck just because I wanted to play with a creature type of plant.
Needless to say this tournament report actually started a couple months ago at the Boston 5K Legacy event when I saw a local player Tom Strong playing a very perplexing but interesting B/G Rock Deck. I looked at it for one moment and suggested he change a couple of cards around to increase some inherent synergies of the deck, and it worked..kinda. He was 4-0-1 at one point but through some misfortunes missed the cut.
A couple of weeks later me and my teammates were discussing Tom's deck and came up with the list I ended up running at Dave's event:
TPS ROCKS! (Deck named after my team name. Team Perfect Scrubs)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Putrid Leech
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
2 Shriekmaw
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Maelstorm Pulse
2 Putrefy
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Unearth
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Treetop Village
3 Swamp
2 Forest
Sideboard
4 Duress
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Shriekmaw
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Krosan Grip
Now, some cards instantly jump out at you there, let me explain some.
Putrid Leech- This card was nothing short of amazing in testing. The card outclassed Tarmogoyf on turn three more often than you would think. The card in fact, was often larger than Tarmogoyf in the mid game.
Kitchen Finks- This card has so much synergy with the deck its not even funny. Casting him on turn three, gaining turn life, flashingback Therapy, gaining two more life and taking a known card from their hand (you cast Therapy once) now THAT is card advantage.
Maelstorm Pulse- A lot of people look at me and ask why not play Vindicate or something along those lines, well the main point of this card is to generate CA. Look at like this, this is a format defined by Tarmogoyf. Love it or hate it, it is. The winnner of a standard game of Legacy will be won by the player that plays and answers the most Tarmogoyfs. Many board positions arise where two Tarmogoyfs are staring down two Tarmogoyfs, well TPS ROCKS! can attack this strategy with Maelstorm Pulse. Regardless if you hit your own Goyf or not this card almost always will give you an edge in any situation because of the other cards in your deck, which brings us too..
Eternal Witness- This card is nuts. Enough said. It is also just as good with Cabal Therapy as Finks as well as getting back your best card all the time. Returning Goyf means you have more Goyfs than your opponent which I have learned leads to more game wins in Legacy. But the best card to return with Eternal Witness has to be..
Unearth- Thats right, some of you will have to look this up but is hands down my favorite card in the deck. The card returned every creature in your deck and cycles when it is not needed. Returning a Finks will spell doom to any opponent planning to kill you with Lightning Bolts. Returning Bob will give you gas in the late game when they have answered all your threats. Returning Goyf will lead to more victories because more Goyfs=Wins. But best of all is returning you Eternal Witness, Witness comes into play and you can return anything you want or the Unearth itself and you have a perma-blocker, or you can just chain some Unearths together and rebuild a shattered board. Its a card that will pull you out of plenty of holes.
Treetop Village- The deck felt like it wanted a little more threat density but the list was so tight we had to add some form of manland we figured. We were thinking of the colorless ones like Factory but settled on Treetop because of how color intensive the rest of the deck is. Treetop is very underrated.
Now on to the report!
Round 1 Mono Red Sligh
I know my opponent is playing a mono red deck of some form of fashion as I see a deadman sit down across from me. This has to be a good matchup I think as I have 4 Finks, 3 Witness, and 2 Jitte to help. Lots of life gain. Game 1 is pretty damn close though. I stick a Bob a couple turns in and he of course reveals me a Shriekmaw, just what my opponent needed, a free Lava Axe. There was a turn when I was at a low enough life total where the correct play was to Pulse one of my two Kitchen Finks to gain four life and stay alive and boy did those 4 points matter. Game 2 is a blowout thanks to a well timed Maelstorm Pulse 2 for 1.
1-0
Round 2 Zoo Homebrew
This was def a homebrew of Zoo but still had plenty of Cats Apes and Lhugoyfs and plenty of Bolts and Lightnings to be called Zoo. Another easy match as I have way too much removal and way too much life gain for them to stand a chance. Jitte was huge in both games.
2-0
Round 3 43 Land
As I sat down, I knew my opponent was 43 Land and I thought to myself, "Boy, this matchup seems abysmal." I was so wrong. It was impossible. I had no answer to his two Maze of Ith game one and game two he kept a 6 lander with Loam, topdecked a Manabound to dump his hand turn one, I then was able to Relic away his Loam thinking he now has almost no gas and he topdecks Intuition the next turn and I am toast. This matchup, although not popular, is tough.
2-1
Round 4 Gbw Survival
This is the matchup where my Leeches were best. Game 1 I drew three Leeches while he drew three Goyfs, problem being there were no Instants, Enchantments, Artifacts, Tribal, or Planeswalkers in the graveyard. Count that up and you get 3/4's. Four 4/4's beats three 3/4's I hear. Game two is a long drawn out game where I Deed his board, he Deeds mine, he Deeds mine again and we draw go for a couple turns til I find an Unearth that rebuilds my board and he cannot recover.
3-1
Round 5 WGu Enchantress
This round I am matched against a deck I feel okay against game one because of my MD answer to any enchantments in my way, bad news was I was playing against the best player in the room in my mind. He hasn't played too much Legacy but playing on three different Pro Tours and Top 8ing a GP makes you a good player. Game 1 he blows me out while drawing a ton of cards, I scoop it up to a Words of Wind in the middle of his combo knowing I have no shot. I scouted him earlier and knew what his win conditions were. Game 2 he starts to combo out and needs to pass the turn to continue but he does so only after dropping Elephant Grass and a Solitary Confinement and a Parallax Tide taking most of my land thinking he is safe. On my turn I cast Therapy and Duress to take 2 Words of Wind and his Sigil of the Empty Throne. Two turns later, when I get my lands back, he started to combo off again. He casts a Sigil of the Empty Throne and after that casts a Cloud of Faeries trying to net a ton of mana off Sanctum and a supped up forest, this was his HUGE mistake. He knew I was holding Krosan Grip which I used to destroy his Sigil leaving him with no angels. He is upset by this and continues to go through his deck. With just 2 cards left in his deck he proclaims that is not enough cards to win with and we move on to game 3. Game 3 starts with me laying some beef and ripping his hand a part a little bit. He stalls out and has just one card left in hand and I am able to rip the enchantment from it with Duress and beat in some more. He draws running lands as my Goyf and Leech finish him off.
4-1
Round 6 ID
Top 8 Zoo
Another Zoo match. The matchup is good and this time I am playing a very technically sound player so I know I must be on top of my game. He was playing the build of Zoo with 1 Jitte and 2 Sylvan Library. Game 1 is pretty close until he draws his lone Jitte, a card I fail to answer. Game 2 lasted a long time with him drawing 6 Plow/Paths to answer my Finks and other cards. I eventually stick a Bob and he sticks a Library. My Bob shows me cards while his Library shows him lands. The game looked close but my life total never dipped below 19. Game 3 came down to me having a Jitte to ruin his day. It took a long while and plenty of "animate Treetop, equip Treetop, attack, pass" but it worked.
Top 4 WGr Enchantress
I am never really in this match as my opponent has pretty superb draws. Can be a tough match. Game 2 I tried to set up a big turn with a Deed in my hand but the turn before I pull it off he drops a Karmic Justice. Now that is justice.
For my endeavors I receive 4 Tropical Islands. Not bad for Putrid Leech.
Props-
Tom Strong for playing Putrid Leech before me
Ross Merriam for some deck ideas
Jared Lefkowitz for loaning me 1/2 the deck
Nichol Coggins for loaning me 1/2 the deck
Dan Gagooch for driving
Dave Feinstein for hosting a great event
Slops-
The pizza-tasted like frozen pizza. Free nonetheless.
Carebear for topdecking Armored Ascension in the sidedarft
Ben Lukas for playing the most annoying deck to play against ever...and most annoying deck to watch...ever.
I wonder what terrible cards I will be playing with next?...
For those that don't know who I am, my name is Rich Meyst and I play all formats of Magic from Vintage to Legacy to all the PTQ formats. I am always one to innovate new ideas and try new cards out. I once won a very famous Vintage tournament with terrible terrible green creatures in my deck just because I wanted to play with a creature type of plant.
Needless to say this tournament report actually started a couple months ago at the Boston 5K Legacy event when I saw a local player Tom Strong playing a very perplexing but interesting B/G Rock Deck. I looked at it for one moment and suggested he change a couple of cards around to increase some inherent synergies of the deck, and it worked..kinda. He was 4-0-1 at one point but through some misfortunes missed the cut.
A couple of weeks later me and my teammates were discussing Tom's deck and came up with the list I ended up running at Dave's event:
TPS ROCKS! (Deck named after my team name. Team Perfect Scrubs)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Putrid Leech
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
2 Shriekmaw
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Maelstorm Pulse
2 Putrefy
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Unearth
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Treetop Village
3 Swamp
2 Forest
Sideboard
4 Duress
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Shriekmaw
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Krosan Grip
Now, some cards instantly jump out at you there, let me explain some.
Putrid Leech- This card was nothing short of amazing in testing. The card outclassed Tarmogoyf on turn three more often than you would think. The card in fact, was often larger than Tarmogoyf in the mid game.
Kitchen Finks- This card has so much synergy with the deck its not even funny. Casting him on turn three, gaining turn life, flashingback Therapy, gaining two more life and taking a known card from their hand (you cast Therapy once) now THAT is card advantage.
Maelstorm Pulse- A lot of people look at me and ask why not play Vindicate or something along those lines, well the main point of this card is to generate CA. Look at like this, this is a format defined by Tarmogoyf. Love it or hate it, it is. The winnner of a standard game of Legacy will be won by the player that plays and answers the most Tarmogoyfs. Many board positions arise where two Tarmogoyfs are staring down two Tarmogoyfs, well TPS ROCKS! can attack this strategy with Maelstorm Pulse. Regardless if you hit your own Goyf or not this card almost always will give you an edge in any situation because of the other cards in your deck, which brings us too..
Eternal Witness- This card is nuts. Enough said. It is also just as good with Cabal Therapy as Finks as well as getting back your best card all the time. Returning Goyf means you have more Goyfs than your opponent which I have learned leads to more game wins in Legacy. But the best card to return with Eternal Witness has to be..
Unearth- Thats right, some of you will have to look this up but is hands down my favorite card in the deck. The card returned every creature in your deck and cycles when it is not needed. Returning a Finks will spell doom to any opponent planning to kill you with Lightning Bolts. Returning Bob will give you gas in the late game when they have answered all your threats. Returning Goyf will lead to more victories because more Goyfs=Wins. But best of all is returning you Eternal Witness, Witness comes into play and you can return anything you want or the Unearth itself and you have a perma-blocker, or you can just chain some Unearths together and rebuild a shattered board. Its a card that will pull you out of plenty of holes.
Treetop Village- The deck felt like it wanted a little more threat density but the list was so tight we had to add some form of manland we figured. We were thinking of the colorless ones like Factory but settled on Treetop because of how color intensive the rest of the deck is. Treetop is very underrated.
Now on to the report!
Round 1 Mono Red Sligh
I know my opponent is playing a mono red deck of some form of fashion as I see a deadman sit down across from me. This has to be a good matchup I think as I have 4 Finks, 3 Witness, and 2 Jitte to help. Lots of life gain. Game 1 is pretty damn close though. I stick a Bob a couple turns in and he of course reveals me a Shriekmaw, just what my opponent needed, a free Lava Axe. There was a turn when I was at a low enough life total where the correct play was to Pulse one of my two Kitchen Finks to gain four life and stay alive and boy did those 4 points matter. Game 2 is a blowout thanks to a well timed Maelstorm Pulse 2 for 1.
1-0
Round 2 Zoo Homebrew
This was def a homebrew of Zoo but still had plenty of Cats Apes and Lhugoyfs and plenty of Bolts and Lightnings to be called Zoo. Another easy match as I have way too much removal and way too much life gain for them to stand a chance. Jitte was huge in both games.
2-0
Round 3 43 Land
As I sat down, I knew my opponent was 43 Land and I thought to myself, "Boy, this matchup seems abysmal." I was so wrong. It was impossible. I had no answer to his two Maze of Ith game one and game two he kept a 6 lander with Loam, topdecked a Manabound to dump his hand turn one, I then was able to Relic away his Loam thinking he now has almost no gas and he topdecks Intuition the next turn and I am toast. This matchup, although not popular, is tough.
2-1
Round 4 Gbw Survival
This is the matchup where my Leeches were best. Game 1 I drew three Leeches while he drew three Goyfs, problem being there were no Instants, Enchantments, Artifacts, Tribal, or Planeswalkers in the graveyard. Count that up and you get 3/4's. Four 4/4's beats three 3/4's I hear. Game two is a long drawn out game where I Deed his board, he Deeds mine, he Deeds mine again and we draw go for a couple turns til I find an Unearth that rebuilds my board and he cannot recover.
3-1
Round 5 WGu Enchantress
This round I am matched against a deck I feel okay against game one because of my MD answer to any enchantments in my way, bad news was I was playing against the best player in the room in my mind. He hasn't played too much Legacy but playing on three different Pro Tours and Top 8ing a GP makes you a good player. Game 1 he blows me out while drawing a ton of cards, I scoop it up to a Words of Wind in the middle of his combo knowing I have no shot. I scouted him earlier and knew what his win conditions were. Game 2 he starts to combo out and needs to pass the turn to continue but he does so only after dropping Elephant Grass and a Solitary Confinement and a Parallax Tide taking most of my land thinking he is safe. On my turn I cast Therapy and Duress to take 2 Words of Wind and his Sigil of the Empty Throne. Two turns later, when I get my lands back, he started to combo off again. He casts a Sigil of the Empty Throne and after that casts a Cloud of Faeries trying to net a ton of mana off Sanctum and a supped up forest, this was his HUGE mistake. He knew I was holding Krosan Grip which I used to destroy his Sigil leaving him with no angels. He is upset by this and continues to go through his deck. With just 2 cards left in his deck he proclaims that is not enough cards to win with and we move on to game 3. Game 3 starts with me laying some beef and ripping his hand a part a little bit. He stalls out and has just one card left in hand and I am able to rip the enchantment from it with Duress and beat in some more. He draws running lands as my Goyf and Leech finish him off.
4-1
Round 6 ID
Top 8 Zoo
Another Zoo match. The matchup is good and this time I am playing a very technically sound player so I know I must be on top of my game. He was playing the build of Zoo with 1 Jitte and 2 Sylvan Library. Game 1 is pretty close until he draws his lone Jitte, a card I fail to answer. Game 2 lasted a long time with him drawing 6 Plow/Paths to answer my Finks and other cards. I eventually stick a Bob and he sticks a Library. My Bob shows me cards while his Library shows him lands. The game looked close but my life total never dipped below 19. Game 3 came down to me having a Jitte to ruin his day. It took a long while and plenty of "animate Treetop, equip Treetop, attack, pass" but it worked.
Top 4 WGr Enchantress
I am never really in this match as my opponent has pretty superb draws. Can be a tough match. Game 2 I tried to set up a big turn with a Deed in my hand but the turn before I pull it off he drops a Karmic Justice. Now that is justice.
For my endeavors I receive 4 Tropical Islands. Not bad for Putrid Leech.
Props-
Tom Strong for playing Putrid Leech before me
Ross Merriam for some deck ideas
Jared Lefkowitz for loaning me 1/2 the deck
Nichol Coggins for loaning me 1/2 the deck
Dan Gagooch for driving
Dave Feinstein for hosting a great event
Slops-
The pizza-tasted like frozen pizza. Free nonetheless.
Carebear for topdecking Armored Ascension in the sidedarft
Ben Lukas for playing the most annoying deck to play against ever...and most annoying deck to watch...ever.
I wonder what terrible cards I will be playing with next?...