IsThisACatInAHat?
06-07-2010, 11:07 PM
So, yesterday was SCG Philadelphia- 236 players and 9 rounds of swiss. I was happy to be there, this being my 4th MtG tournament, but I've been working pretty hard the past few months to become familiar with my deck and the format, so I felt mostly ready.
My list was this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15562-%5BDeck%5D-UW-Tempo&p=443606&viewfull=1#post443606) -3 Windswept Heath, +3 Arid Mesa and -1 Plains, +1 Karakas. I agonized over the strictly inferior Karakas change, but got the impression from recent results that the metagame was full of pseudo-combo jank trying to SnT Iona or Emrakul into play, which I wanted a maindeck out to. I walked the floor the day of an didn't see anything strange, but decided to take my chances on Karakas. Anyway, on to the report.
Round 1 vs. Josh with ANT
Josh was a pretty nice guy and seemed familiar with his deck. I won the roll and play. I kept a pretty strong hand with force, avenger and jitte. He did nothing but ponder and brainstorm making landdrops for 5 turns, while I landed jitte on avenger and swung. Then, he blindsided me with brainstorm petal petal LED LED rit rit adnauseam, which I forced. With his last card in hand, he cast tendrils for 22, with me at 18 and 2 counters on jitte. Well, that woke me up...
SB in: all but Curfew, out: MoM, 3 Swords, Sphinx, Vial.
G2 I kept a strong hand with daze and double force, he mulls twice and still isn't happy. I topdeck a Canonist off the top after he resolves a t1 rit Confidant. His only mana source is mox with duress imprint, which I consider dazing, but decided it was probably just bait to compensate for an otherwise weak hand that wouldn't beat double force. Either way, grunt, avenger and wayfarer join canonist and he folds.
G3 I keep a bad hand with only daze and relic, but 2 land and grunt/ avenger. I topdeck pierce, canonist, thorn, force. Better lucky than good, since he tries to go off t3 without protection with rit rit adnauseam, which I pierce. Beats under thorn/ canonist get there. I'm pretty excited (and surprised) to have won my first round 1 match ever, but resolve to play tighter and be more careful, since my mistakes very nearly cost me.
(1-0 matches, 2-1 games)
Round 2 vs. Stan with Merfolk
Another pretty cool guy, Stan accidently dropped an echoing truth face up while pile shuffling, so I put him on Merfolk, which made me pretty confident since it's a matchup I've tested and won pretty extensively. In keeping with my epic lucksacking, he rolls 11 on 2 dice, I roll 12. My notes are incomplete, but G1 he drops double coralhelm commander, forcing my swords and beating me to 2 before I can land jitte on an unmorphed seer. I swung without much hope (commanders were level 4 and 2, he was at 15), but he etruth'd the seer in my attack step to seal it.
G2 I don't side anything and keep a 1-land hand with wayfarer, which resolves. He drops t2 mutavault, standstill. I waste the vault in my turn and force him to break his own standstill turn 5, giving me a hand with something like 9 relevant cards. He folds after I drop vial mom avenger with grunt avenger seer and some countermagic in my hand.
G3 he goes island vial pass. I play tundra vial pass. He drops t2 standstill, which I'm less happy about when he answers my wayfarer avenger with double coralhelm. I'm forced to break the standstill with swords when they're at level 4 and 1. My notes are incomplete, but he counters swords, I vial in grunt to kill the level 1 commander and then swing with grunt, wayfarer and avenger to put him him on 4 life and me on 5. Commander is 4/4 and he doesn't topdeck LoA. I show him force seer, he shows me force standstill. Whew. Not the bye matchup I thought it would be, but my opponent seemed pretty knowledgeable, so I attribute that more to player skill than anything else.
(2-0 matches, 4-2 games)
Round 3 vs. Dave with Reanimator
Dave was another really cool guy who was interesting to talk to, so I was definitely glad to be getting opponents I liked. I put him on reanimator before we started, so decided to try for an aggressive hand to race rather than try to win a counter war over reanimate spells. According to my notes, I landed t1 vial for wayfarer and 2x avenger, giving me a 2-turn clock after he reanimated Inkwell. I topdecked a mystic turn 5, vialed it in and we were off to g2.
G2 I side in curfew, relic, wheel and thorn. Out were sphinx, mom, vial and 2 swords. I mull to 6 and keep a hand that managed to include both my swords but was otherwise a great 4 of land, vial, daze, grunt. Wayfarer and avenger quickly join grunt and put him at 4 by the time he exhumes Inkwell. It turns out if he had 1 more life, he could have fetched, entombed Empyrial Archangel and exhumed it without risk of dying in my turn. So far, my luck was holding out and NG was dead set to deliver.
(3-0 matches, 6-2 games)
Round 4 vs. Brian with BG Rock homebrew
Brian was less talkative than my previous opponents, but seemed nice enough. I don't remember much from this game since it took the full 50 minutes plus 2 extra turns. The game went back and forth, after an early deed cleared my first jitte and maelstrom pulse cleared the avengers I was sandbagging in my hand. A couple of seers kept me in it after about 45 minutes when he began looping a profane command with eternal witness, but didn't have enough mana for both in one turn and still play around the spell pierce in my hand (which he saw with flashbacked cabal therapy). By then he was down to about 1 or 3 life, so he had to keep clearing creatures and reanimating witness rather than target me, which gave the time to unmorph seer into my second jitte and a mom.
I felt like I could have pulled the game out much sooner, but I made 2 major play mistakes kept it in the balance when I could have taken a huge lead. The first was forcing confidant when I had 2 counters on jitte, which let him resolve a second deed. I don't remember the second, but I do remember realizing it immediately after the fact. In any event, my opponent returned the favor when he maelstrom pulsed a pair of fathom seers instead of my second jitte. Once I found mom, it was over.
(4-0 matches, 7-2 games)
Round 5 vs. Joe with Zoo (featured match)
So, my first featured match and more wins so far than in any tournament I've ever had previous, I was pretty nervous. I sat down and Joe came with a Jace? playmat and blue sleeves, which gave me the impression he was playing Zoo or some nonblue control deck. I won the roll to go first again and kept a 1-lander with tons of creatures and no countermagic. I played tundra mom pass, which he bolted in his turn, confirming my suspicions. While I spent the next 2 or 3 turns regretting not mulling, I watched as he landed ape, teeg, goyf, nacatl, lavamancer. By the time I found my second land and cast grunt, he pathed it and attacked for the win.
G2 I had nothing to side and found no land in my opener despite pile shuffling twice and several riffle shuffles. My 6 had relic, wayfarer, daze and 3 land. Despite knowing it was more or less dead, I also felt like if I kept mulling I would lose anyway to a bunch of early creatures and the wayfarer could fetch wastelands to keep him off of land for long enough to let me topdeck into gas. Unfortunately for me, my opponent's first 3 lands were 3 different basics, accompanied by figure of destiny, nacatl and double goyf. In hindsight I should have mulled, but beating Zoo has been hard enough with a decent 7 that I thought the wayfarer could do it (and when Zoo has only nonbasics, he usually can). Joe commented that the wayfarer was giving me some nice CA, which I agreed to. Still, picking up extra lands is a lot nicer when I'm not being buttfucked by the Thundercats on turn 2. Joe also played extremely tight all match, so that only exacerbated my problems. Either game, he only lost 1 life. Oh well, practice harder and play better is my resolution.
4-1 matches, 7-4 games
Round 6 vs. Chas with 4c Thoptersword combo
My notes are just life totals for this match, but g1 I get an aggressive hand early and he fails to find a thopter foundry after resolving sword somewhere around turn 5. The game took about 20 or 25 minutes, but ended with avenger, wayfarer and seer facing down the sword, an SDT and some land. When I force oblivion ring he tops into daze, I tap an extra land and we go to g2.
G2 was looking grim when I tapped out to play grunt and vial, leaving my spell pierce dead in hand next turn when he cast thopter foundry. He followed up with sword of the meek pass. Still, I had relic, avenger, jitte and wayfarer already out and enlightened tutor in-hand to find aura. Somewhere about half way through we called a judge because I was unclear on how the return-to-play trigger on sword works, which caused me to miss an opportunity to nuke his grave. It ended up not mattering, as I was able to resolve a second tutor (the first ate force), land aura and destroy the foundry. Eventually the pressure from grunt, avenger and jitte was too much to handle for his manabase to simultaneously perpetuate the combo and play his hand. Eventually, I overrun him just as time is called after the foundry is gone.
5-1 matches, 9-4 games
Round 7 vs. Mike with Zoo
Yet another opponent who I liked, if nothing else I was at least lucksacking into meeting some cool new people. I won the roll to go first and played tundra pass. He dropped a foothills and my heart sank. He followed up with Steppe Lynx and passed. The game went back and forth for a bit but eventually I built up some significant CA with a pair of fathom seers. He conceded at 24 life, no cards in hand and only lynx nacatl on-board while I had 8 life, a full hand and jitt'd avenger protected by mom. I felt lucky to have won, but hoped to repeat my success by playing similarly (for one, keeping better hands than I had in round 4).
G2 I side nothing and keep a 1-land hand with Karakas, vial, mom, avenger, spierce and double swords. I figured as long as I kept Karakas, I would take this easily. Since Zoo doesn't run wastelands, I fancied my chances. About 10 turns later, I was still waiting to topdeck into a land with double swords and mom in hand (the first was bolted) after he legend ruled my Karakas with his own on turn 3. Fuck me, +1 for plains, -1 for maindeck Karakas.
G3 Mike is stuck on Taiga + Plateau, but still manages to play out most of his hand. I get excited when I have tundra fetch wayfarer out and plan to shut him off white early in the game, but am disappointed when he attempts a sylvan library, forcing me to fetch so I can pierce it. I topdeck into a wasteland anyway 2 turns later and shut him off white until his turn, when he finds his own fetch. Meanwhile, the board was stalled by wayfarer mom seer on one side and nacatl steppe lynx on the other. He eventually lands library, but by then I've got jitt'd avenger to ping lavamancer when he tries it. Neither my notes nor report convey how close and epic this game felt, as there were about 10 onlookers and the game went through about half our decks. Afterwards he shows me the krosan grip in his hand, which was there from his opener. Apparently, that topdecked wasteland came just in time.
6-1 matches, 10-5 games
Round 8 vs. Matt Elias with Zoo
I recognize the name on the sheet as the guy who writes for SCG, which was pretty awesome since I'm mostly confined to watching games with players like that rather than playing in them. We chat a little beforehand with the guys playing next to us at table 3 and get started. G1 ends quickly with double avenger and jitte after an early wayfarer into double wasteland keeps him from developing his board for several turns.
G2 is similarly non-interactive as he lands a handful of quick nacatls, pridemages and tarmogoyfs. Double swords on the goyfs is nowhere near enough to stop the wave creatures.
G3 is a little better, but Matt's got 3 nacatls and a lavamancer by turn 4 while I've got vial, mom and wayfarer. Needless to say, my board is considerably less impressive and when he activates mom EOT and follows up with path, I'm done. Matt remarked at how non-interactive the games were, which I agree kind of sucks, but to be honest I was too happy to get to play against a high profile player to really mind. I found out later that if 10 fewer players had registered, we could have ID'd this round into the 8.
6-2 matches, 11-7 games.
Round 9 vs. Jesse Hatfield with CBtop/ New Horizons hybrid
After checking my tiebreakers, I find that I could still make the 8 if I won and a handful of matches went my way (but no one could ID me out, so that was good). I sit down to play my last match, against another big name in the format. G1 took about 45 minutes to play and ended when I had only 3 cards left in my library. I wait on wayfarer and 2 lands for a turn to sculpt my hand into something useful, while he tops, brainstorms, ponders and portents until he drops a basic and counterbalance to take control of the game. He eventually lands 2 6/7 goyfs, while I force a SFM through for jitte and sneak triple fathom seer onto the board past cbtop. Despite the massive consecutive card draw, I literally draw into irrelevant jank and more irrelevant jank. The board is stalled until Jesse plays EE@2 and clears it, then plays another counterbalance. In hindsight, I should have been attacking to charge my jitte, since I could have pretty easily forced a favorable trade with the counters already on it or put him on dangerously low life.
After the EE, I somehow manage to land a vial, which gives me hope. He plays an 11/11 knight, which forces me to vial in wayfarer to stay alive. He then lands another knight afterwards and passes. Something I did in my turn forces him to activate top to put it back on top of his library, then subsequently fetch to hardcast force. I swords a knight EOT and the blind flip reveals another counterbalance. I topdeck a second swords in my turn to stay alive, but in a precarious position. We play draw-go for a half dozen or so turns, until I start beating with double avenger to take him down from an epic 32 life. He eventually flips a swords off counterbalance to counter mom and burns the one in his hand to kill an avenger. He then lands yet another goyf and reestablishes the cbtop lock. Eventually I've got a sphinx, avenger and some goyfbait (wayfarer). After some turns of taking swings I'm down to 6 with 3 cards left in my library and sphinx on 2 counters and enough jank in hand to pitch it away when it got to 3. I figure I can win if I topdeck grunt and recycle swordses and forces, then draw 5 when sphinx eats it, but he swordses my sphinx EOT and forces me to chump with avenger in my turn. I topdeck vial anyway, so that's game. Had I won, the results of round 9 would've put me in the 8. We only have about 5 minutes for game 2, so we play a few turns and I wished him luck to make the 8 which he does, so that was kind of nice.
6-3 matches, 11-8-1 games.
Overall I had a great time, got my best tournament finish ever (the 9th round loss dropped me to 25th) and found new inspiration for future testing. I've never written a report before, so I haven't quite gotten the brevity thing yet. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far.
My list was this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15562-%5BDeck%5D-UW-Tempo&p=443606&viewfull=1#post443606) -3 Windswept Heath, +3 Arid Mesa and -1 Plains, +1 Karakas. I agonized over the strictly inferior Karakas change, but got the impression from recent results that the metagame was full of pseudo-combo jank trying to SnT Iona or Emrakul into play, which I wanted a maindeck out to. I walked the floor the day of an didn't see anything strange, but decided to take my chances on Karakas. Anyway, on to the report.
Round 1 vs. Josh with ANT
Josh was a pretty nice guy and seemed familiar with his deck. I won the roll and play. I kept a pretty strong hand with force, avenger and jitte. He did nothing but ponder and brainstorm making landdrops for 5 turns, while I landed jitte on avenger and swung. Then, he blindsided me with brainstorm petal petal LED LED rit rit adnauseam, which I forced. With his last card in hand, he cast tendrils for 22, with me at 18 and 2 counters on jitte. Well, that woke me up...
SB in: all but Curfew, out: MoM, 3 Swords, Sphinx, Vial.
G2 I kept a strong hand with daze and double force, he mulls twice and still isn't happy. I topdeck a Canonist off the top after he resolves a t1 rit Confidant. His only mana source is mox with duress imprint, which I consider dazing, but decided it was probably just bait to compensate for an otherwise weak hand that wouldn't beat double force. Either way, grunt, avenger and wayfarer join canonist and he folds.
G3 I keep a bad hand with only daze and relic, but 2 land and grunt/ avenger. I topdeck pierce, canonist, thorn, force. Better lucky than good, since he tries to go off t3 without protection with rit rit adnauseam, which I pierce. Beats under thorn/ canonist get there. I'm pretty excited (and surprised) to have won my first round 1 match ever, but resolve to play tighter and be more careful, since my mistakes very nearly cost me.
(1-0 matches, 2-1 games)
Round 2 vs. Stan with Merfolk
Another pretty cool guy, Stan accidently dropped an echoing truth face up while pile shuffling, so I put him on Merfolk, which made me pretty confident since it's a matchup I've tested and won pretty extensively. In keeping with my epic lucksacking, he rolls 11 on 2 dice, I roll 12. My notes are incomplete, but G1 he drops double coralhelm commander, forcing my swords and beating me to 2 before I can land jitte on an unmorphed seer. I swung without much hope (commanders were level 4 and 2, he was at 15), but he etruth'd the seer in my attack step to seal it.
G2 I don't side anything and keep a 1-land hand with wayfarer, which resolves. He drops t2 mutavault, standstill. I waste the vault in my turn and force him to break his own standstill turn 5, giving me a hand with something like 9 relevant cards. He folds after I drop vial mom avenger with grunt avenger seer and some countermagic in my hand.
G3 he goes island vial pass. I play tundra vial pass. He drops t2 standstill, which I'm less happy about when he answers my wayfarer avenger with double coralhelm. I'm forced to break the standstill with swords when they're at level 4 and 1. My notes are incomplete, but he counters swords, I vial in grunt to kill the level 1 commander and then swing with grunt, wayfarer and avenger to put him him on 4 life and me on 5. Commander is 4/4 and he doesn't topdeck LoA. I show him force seer, he shows me force standstill. Whew. Not the bye matchup I thought it would be, but my opponent seemed pretty knowledgeable, so I attribute that more to player skill than anything else.
(2-0 matches, 4-2 games)
Round 3 vs. Dave with Reanimator
Dave was another really cool guy who was interesting to talk to, so I was definitely glad to be getting opponents I liked. I put him on reanimator before we started, so decided to try for an aggressive hand to race rather than try to win a counter war over reanimate spells. According to my notes, I landed t1 vial for wayfarer and 2x avenger, giving me a 2-turn clock after he reanimated Inkwell. I topdecked a mystic turn 5, vialed it in and we were off to g2.
G2 I side in curfew, relic, wheel and thorn. Out were sphinx, mom, vial and 2 swords. I mull to 6 and keep a hand that managed to include both my swords but was otherwise a great 4 of land, vial, daze, grunt. Wayfarer and avenger quickly join grunt and put him at 4 by the time he exhumes Inkwell. It turns out if he had 1 more life, he could have fetched, entombed Empyrial Archangel and exhumed it without risk of dying in my turn. So far, my luck was holding out and NG was dead set to deliver.
(3-0 matches, 6-2 games)
Round 4 vs. Brian with BG Rock homebrew
Brian was less talkative than my previous opponents, but seemed nice enough. I don't remember much from this game since it took the full 50 minutes plus 2 extra turns. The game went back and forth, after an early deed cleared my first jitte and maelstrom pulse cleared the avengers I was sandbagging in my hand. A couple of seers kept me in it after about 45 minutes when he began looping a profane command with eternal witness, but didn't have enough mana for both in one turn and still play around the spell pierce in my hand (which he saw with flashbacked cabal therapy). By then he was down to about 1 or 3 life, so he had to keep clearing creatures and reanimating witness rather than target me, which gave the time to unmorph seer into my second jitte and a mom.
I felt like I could have pulled the game out much sooner, but I made 2 major play mistakes kept it in the balance when I could have taken a huge lead. The first was forcing confidant when I had 2 counters on jitte, which let him resolve a second deed. I don't remember the second, but I do remember realizing it immediately after the fact. In any event, my opponent returned the favor when he maelstrom pulsed a pair of fathom seers instead of my second jitte. Once I found mom, it was over.
(4-0 matches, 7-2 games)
Round 5 vs. Joe with Zoo (featured match)
So, my first featured match and more wins so far than in any tournament I've ever had previous, I was pretty nervous. I sat down and Joe came with a Jace? playmat and blue sleeves, which gave me the impression he was playing Zoo or some nonblue control deck. I won the roll to go first again and kept a 1-lander with tons of creatures and no countermagic. I played tundra mom pass, which he bolted in his turn, confirming my suspicions. While I spent the next 2 or 3 turns regretting not mulling, I watched as he landed ape, teeg, goyf, nacatl, lavamancer. By the time I found my second land and cast grunt, he pathed it and attacked for the win.
G2 I had nothing to side and found no land in my opener despite pile shuffling twice and several riffle shuffles. My 6 had relic, wayfarer, daze and 3 land. Despite knowing it was more or less dead, I also felt like if I kept mulling I would lose anyway to a bunch of early creatures and the wayfarer could fetch wastelands to keep him off of land for long enough to let me topdeck into gas. Unfortunately for me, my opponent's first 3 lands were 3 different basics, accompanied by figure of destiny, nacatl and double goyf. In hindsight I should have mulled, but beating Zoo has been hard enough with a decent 7 that I thought the wayfarer could do it (and when Zoo has only nonbasics, he usually can). Joe commented that the wayfarer was giving me some nice CA, which I agreed to. Still, picking up extra lands is a lot nicer when I'm not being buttfucked by the Thundercats on turn 2. Joe also played extremely tight all match, so that only exacerbated my problems. Either game, he only lost 1 life. Oh well, practice harder and play better is my resolution.
4-1 matches, 7-4 games
Round 6 vs. Chas with 4c Thoptersword combo
My notes are just life totals for this match, but g1 I get an aggressive hand early and he fails to find a thopter foundry after resolving sword somewhere around turn 5. The game took about 20 or 25 minutes, but ended with avenger, wayfarer and seer facing down the sword, an SDT and some land. When I force oblivion ring he tops into daze, I tap an extra land and we go to g2.
G2 was looking grim when I tapped out to play grunt and vial, leaving my spell pierce dead in hand next turn when he cast thopter foundry. He followed up with sword of the meek pass. Still, I had relic, avenger, jitte and wayfarer already out and enlightened tutor in-hand to find aura. Somewhere about half way through we called a judge because I was unclear on how the return-to-play trigger on sword works, which caused me to miss an opportunity to nuke his grave. It ended up not mattering, as I was able to resolve a second tutor (the first ate force), land aura and destroy the foundry. Eventually the pressure from grunt, avenger and jitte was too much to handle for his manabase to simultaneously perpetuate the combo and play his hand. Eventually, I overrun him just as time is called after the foundry is gone.
5-1 matches, 9-4 games
Round 7 vs. Mike with Zoo
Yet another opponent who I liked, if nothing else I was at least lucksacking into meeting some cool new people. I won the roll to go first and played tundra pass. He dropped a foothills and my heart sank. He followed up with Steppe Lynx and passed. The game went back and forth for a bit but eventually I built up some significant CA with a pair of fathom seers. He conceded at 24 life, no cards in hand and only lynx nacatl on-board while I had 8 life, a full hand and jitt'd avenger protected by mom. I felt lucky to have won, but hoped to repeat my success by playing similarly (for one, keeping better hands than I had in round 4).
G2 I side nothing and keep a 1-land hand with Karakas, vial, mom, avenger, spierce and double swords. I figured as long as I kept Karakas, I would take this easily. Since Zoo doesn't run wastelands, I fancied my chances. About 10 turns later, I was still waiting to topdeck into a land with double swords and mom in hand (the first was bolted) after he legend ruled my Karakas with his own on turn 3. Fuck me, +1 for plains, -1 for maindeck Karakas.
G3 Mike is stuck on Taiga + Plateau, but still manages to play out most of his hand. I get excited when I have tundra fetch wayfarer out and plan to shut him off white early in the game, but am disappointed when he attempts a sylvan library, forcing me to fetch so I can pierce it. I topdeck into a wasteland anyway 2 turns later and shut him off white until his turn, when he finds his own fetch. Meanwhile, the board was stalled by wayfarer mom seer on one side and nacatl steppe lynx on the other. He eventually lands library, but by then I've got jitt'd avenger to ping lavamancer when he tries it. Neither my notes nor report convey how close and epic this game felt, as there were about 10 onlookers and the game went through about half our decks. Afterwards he shows me the krosan grip in his hand, which was there from his opener. Apparently, that topdecked wasteland came just in time.
6-1 matches, 10-5 games
Round 8 vs. Matt Elias with Zoo
I recognize the name on the sheet as the guy who writes for SCG, which was pretty awesome since I'm mostly confined to watching games with players like that rather than playing in them. We chat a little beforehand with the guys playing next to us at table 3 and get started. G1 ends quickly with double avenger and jitte after an early wayfarer into double wasteland keeps him from developing his board for several turns.
G2 is similarly non-interactive as he lands a handful of quick nacatls, pridemages and tarmogoyfs. Double swords on the goyfs is nowhere near enough to stop the wave creatures.
G3 is a little better, but Matt's got 3 nacatls and a lavamancer by turn 4 while I've got vial, mom and wayfarer. Needless to say, my board is considerably less impressive and when he activates mom EOT and follows up with path, I'm done. Matt remarked at how non-interactive the games were, which I agree kind of sucks, but to be honest I was too happy to get to play against a high profile player to really mind. I found out later that if 10 fewer players had registered, we could have ID'd this round into the 8.
6-2 matches, 11-7 games.
Round 9 vs. Jesse Hatfield with CBtop/ New Horizons hybrid
After checking my tiebreakers, I find that I could still make the 8 if I won and a handful of matches went my way (but no one could ID me out, so that was good). I sit down to play my last match, against another big name in the format. G1 took about 45 minutes to play and ended when I had only 3 cards left in my library. I wait on wayfarer and 2 lands for a turn to sculpt my hand into something useful, while he tops, brainstorms, ponders and portents until he drops a basic and counterbalance to take control of the game. He eventually lands 2 6/7 goyfs, while I force a SFM through for jitte and sneak triple fathom seer onto the board past cbtop. Despite the massive consecutive card draw, I literally draw into irrelevant jank and more irrelevant jank. The board is stalled until Jesse plays EE@2 and clears it, then plays another counterbalance. In hindsight, I should have been attacking to charge my jitte, since I could have pretty easily forced a favorable trade with the counters already on it or put him on dangerously low life.
After the EE, I somehow manage to land a vial, which gives me hope. He plays an 11/11 knight, which forces me to vial in wayfarer to stay alive. He then lands another knight afterwards and passes. Something I did in my turn forces him to activate top to put it back on top of his library, then subsequently fetch to hardcast force. I swords a knight EOT and the blind flip reveals another counterbalance. I topdeck a second swords in my turn to stay alive, but in a precarious position. We play draw-go for a half dozen or so turns, until I start beating with double avenger to take him down from an epic 32 life. He eventually flips a swords off counterbalance to counter mom and burns the one in his hand to kill an avenger. He then lands yet another goyf and reestablishes the cbtop lock. Eventually I've got a sphinx, avenger and some goyfbait (wayfarer). After some turns of taking swings I'm down to 6 with 3 cards left in my library and sphinx on 2 counters and enough jank in hand to pitch it away when it got to 3. I figure I can win if I topdeck grunt and recycle swordses and forces, then draw 5 when sphinx eats it, but he swordses my sphinx EOT and forces me to chump with avenger in my turn. I topdeck vial anyway, so that's game. Had I won, the results of round 9 would've put me in the 8. We only have about 5 minutes for game 2, so we play a few turns and I wished him luck to make the 8 which he does, so that was kind of nice.
6-3 matches, 11-8-1 games.
Overall I had a great time, got my best tournament finish ever (the 9th round loss dropped me to 25th) and found new inspiration for future testing. I've never written a report before, so I haven't quite gotten the brevity thing yet. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far.