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Bardo
05-01-2006, 02:11 AM
Cross-posted at TheManaDrain.

April 29, 2006
Alternate Universe Games
Portland, Oregon

Prologue.

I woke and stumbled through the early part of the day not feeling a lot of love for Magic: the Gathering. But I've been trying to organize sanctioned Legacy tournaments in Portland and I'd be a bit of an ass to blow off the one scheduled for today.

The ride to Alternate Universe was uneventful except for picking up the checkbook that I'd left at my doctor's office. This would usually be such a mundane and uninteresting activity that it wouldn't be worth mentioning, but I do have a fun story to tell.

A week ago, I got a call from someone at my doctor's office telling me I'd accidentally left my checkbook in their office. I'm like, "Thanks, I'll pick it up soon," but the woman on the other end of the line was acting nervous and generally sounded like there was something she wanted to say but couldn't. At first I shrugged it off, until I realized what was in my checkbook.

A couple of Christmas' ago, one of my friends gave me these flashcard of erotic Kama Sutra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_sutra) positions that eventually found their way into my checkbook where most people put their credit/debit cards or pictures of their wife, girlfriend, children, or whatever. It was kind of amusing at first, but eventually made paying the bills and whatnot a little more bearable. So this poor woman must have went looking for some identification in my checkbook to call me and got a full-on shot of the 'Embrace of the Jaghana' in all its glory.

Anyway, I stopped by my doctor's office on the way to the tournament and got my checkbook from some grizzled old security guard that seemed like he'd rather be dead than working on a nice Saturday afternoon. So it goes. The security guard didn't blush when he verified who I was, he just gave it back; and that was that.

This was a minor event in my day and completely pales to the time I got a call about the wrong movie I'd returned at Trilogy Video, a store that caters to nerdy film-geeks like me in Northwest Portland. Presumably this has happened to everyone or someone they know, but I'll bet you've never met anyone who accidentally returned Filthy Fuckers #36 - 1 in the Pink, 1 in the Stink in the case of Alain Resnais's soul-crushing Nuit et Brouillard (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/) (aka 'Night and Fog'), a documentary on Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz. If you haven't seen Night and Fog, you really should; and if you have seen it, you know it makes Schindler's List look like the motherfucking Joy Luck Club (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107282/).

But when I made the exchange of the video, I asked the store clerk: "This happens all the time, right?" And he answers matter-of-factly: "No. Not really." Eh, so maybe it's an urban myth after all.

Confronted with such a potentially embarrassing exposure of hidden vice, you can respond in one of two ways: quietly apologizing and walking away with your tail between your legs; or being boldly self-assured that you appreciate the mastery of a well executed documentary AND you enjoy some raunchy ass-pounding hard-core pornography. Where possible, I adopt the latter temperament here. There is no middle path here. Well, there really is, but then you wouldn't be the type to rent Filthy Fuckers #36, or anything else in that series of depravity.

Have you ever had a similar experience?

At the event. (What a terrible segue.)

Sadly, half as many showed up this month as last's tourney. So with 7 players, we just played a round-robin tournament, with everyone playing against everyone else -- with first, second and third place getting prizes.

Unsurprisingly, I played my signature deck. (Changes from last month's tourney (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=a20d78c747dced69e5cca519abd399ae&topic=27767.0) in bold.)

Legacy UGW Threshold
by Bardo

4 Serum Visions
4 Mental Note
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Counterspell

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Meddling Mage
1 Mystic Enforcer

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

sb 4 Hydroblast
sb 3 Armageddon
sb 2 Tivadar's Crusade
sb 2 Worship
sb 2 Naturalize
sb 1 Mystic Enforcer
sb 1 Engineered Explosives

The only notable change was me breaking down and paying out the ass for a pair of Pithing Needles on eBay. Basically, my only two losses in the last tourney were from me being cheap and having no good answers to Tormod's Crypt, Vedalken Shackles and Umezawa's Jitte. The Sleight of Hands, that I dropped to make room for the Needles, had been on the 'cut list' for at least six months. Their last days were written on the walls.

In the sideboard, I dropped my two Tormod's Crypts since I was gambling I wouldn't run into matches where it would really matter or matches where I could use my play skill to pull out a close game (i.e. the mirror). In place of the Crypts I upped my Armageddon count to 3, which I've wanted to do for a while, and increased my artifact/enchant removal, since it was at an all-time low the last time around.

The event was somewhat unorganized, but the decks were uniformly strong (with one notable exception), so take this "report" as a detailed explanation of a long testing session.

Round 1: Will with Mono-Red Burn

Game 1.

By turn 4 or so he's taking 7 damage a turn from a threshed Mongoose and Werebear and scoopage quickly ensues.

It may seem unusual that Thresh is favored over Burn, but this has been my experience after a couple of dozen matches. The burn deck will get you low on life, but your one and two mana investments (comparing the long term benefit of Mongoose and Werebear, respectively, to Lightning Bolt and Incinerate) do easily twice as much damage as theirs’. Basically, Thresh's cards are just better -- except for StP which sucks in all but very unlikely scenarios (i.e. buying yourself an attack and draw phase at the expense of sending one of your own dudes farming).

Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Pithing Needle; +4 Hydroblast, +2 Worship

Game 2.

I don't remember much about this game except for Hydroblasting his turn-2 Pyrostatic Pillar and then Hydroblasting a late-game Price of Progress. The rest was a blur. He gets me down to 2 life, while I get him down to -8.

Games: 2-0
Games, total: 2-0
Rounds, total: 1-0

Round 2: Jason with a really bad U/B Limited deck

Game 1.

This is a round best left unmentioned, but here goes. His deck was mostly composed of late Ravnica draft picks, with some salty FNM Lobotomies thrown in for taste. And the only thing I hate more than regular foil cards are FNM foils.

His life as recorded on my pad: "19, 15, 8, -2 or so."

Sideboarding: I just didn't have it in me to board in a single thing.

Game 2.

In this game Jason is the subject of an unspeakable beating. His life total in this game: "19, 14, 3, -8."

The details of the match aren't important, but the match was over quick enough for me to read the first half of Marcel Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394712439/sr=8-2/qid=1146497624/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-9843124-1255934?%5Fencoding=UTF8). Man, I love that book.

Games: 2-0
Games, total: 4-0
Rounds, total: 2-0

Round 3: Peter with U/G Madness

Game 1.

My notes for this match read as follows: "UGLY! For him." We both get off to an aggressive start but I'm having a hard time hitting threshold, as I'm drawing too many permanents and not enough draw spells and counters. Luckily it doesn't matter. I have my turn-2 Meddling Mage chanting against "Arrogant Wurm," since he was on the play and will have 3 mana up and an Aquamoeba in play on turn 3. The following turn, I follow up with a Pithing Needle naming "Aquamoeba" and another Meddling Mage for Wild Mongrel. This effectively seals the game.

This game also sees me make one of the coolest sequence of plays with 3cThreshold. On one of his turns he activates his Dust Bowl, sacrificing one of his Forests and targets my Tundra -- my only source of white mana. At the time I have a Tropical Island and the Tundra untapped. With the Dust Bowl ability on the stack, I tap my Tundra to StP his Basking Rootwalla and respond to my StP by Dazing it, paying the alternate cost to return the Tundra to my hand and tapping my Trop to make sure my StP goes through.

The rest of the game plays out similarly and is a complete rout for him.

Sideboarding: -2 Meddling Mage, -1 Daze, -1 Mongoose; +2 Worship, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Mystic Enforcer

This wasn't a match I had planned on, but the sideboarding seems adequate in retrospect.

Game 2.

Over the course of this game, Peter does 9 damage to himself flashing back his Deep Analyses, and I wail on him with Werebear after I've contained his board. On a crucial turn he plays his spells in the wrong order and he leave his Jitte vulnerable to Daze.

I also lure him into playing multiple 2cc Madness outlets while I'm hoarding Werebears. On turn four he has an Aquamoeba and Mongrel on the board; on my turn, I untap, drop Engineered Explosives for 2 and detonate them, clearing his board.

A little later he dumps Wonder into his graveyard and attacks with double 'Moeba bringing me to 6 and thinking that he's finally stabilized. The following turn I drop Worship and watch him turn pale, and then watch him freak out for a bit. The turn after that I play Mystic Enforcer and proceed to win a long but inevitable war of attrition with me slow-playing my threats until his life total is in the negatives.

Games: 2-0
Games, total: 6-0
Rounds, total: 3-0

Round 4: Mike with R/G Survival

Mike is the only other undefeated in the tournament, so I approach this match cautiously. I've played him before -- two months ago when I was playing Loam-a-Tog (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11397.html) and he was playing Rifter -- and know that he's a careful player and good deckbuilder. For the first time in the tourney I win the die roll and wonder if that's an auspicious omen.

Game 1.

I lead with a turn 1 Mongoose. He leads with a turn 1 Taiga into Kird Ape, and Rancors up the Ape a turn later. I land Mongoose #2, hit threshold on turn 3 and we're off to a race to the death. We both make a couple of play errors; the painful one for me being to forget to play a land the turn after I bounced my Tundra to Daze something, while I was holding onto a StP. Things could have turned ugly, but luckily, it doesn't matter.

The Rancored Ape gets me down to 7 before I send it farming; bringing him up to 9 which is equal to three more Mongoose whacks.

Sideboarding: -1 Daze, -1 Mystic Enforcer; +2 Naturalize. Nothing fancy here.

Game 2.

A total four points of damage are done to me this game: all self-inflicted (2 FoW and two fetchlands).

Mike tries to get some early pressure on the board with a turn-2 Ascetic (FoW'd) and a turn-3 Giant Solifuge (also FoW'd). I play an early Meddling Mage on "Survival of the Fittest" which gets in one swing before getting a blast of lava to the face from a Flametongue Kavu. The following turn Mike tries to resolve Rancor on the FTK, but I respond with StP, recouping some lost card advantage.

Looking back, the sequence of events on his second turn always makes me wonder. With the help of a Birds of Paradise, he puts Troll Ascetic on the stack. A generally manageable threat, but something I don't want to deal with so early in the game. My hand, at the time, was composed of Brainstorm, Force of Will, and four or five other non-Blue spells. I can play it safe and just pitch the Brainstorm to Force and be done with it, but that seems like a painful waste of Brainstorm. But if I Brainstorm and whif on finding any blue cards, I'm in a really tight spot. Given the number of blue spells in the deck, what would you do?

Being a gambler, I took a chance and cast the Brainstorm, reasoning I had “good enough chance” of finding another blue card. Thankfully, my gamble pays off and I draw into Force of Will, Serum Vision, Force of Will. Sweet. This little play also give me the ammo to counter the Giant Solifuge he tries to play the following turn.

As the game goes on, my deck produces a never-ending stream of awesomeness and I'm never in a bad position. I let an Umezawa's Jitte resolve since I'm holding a Pithing Needle, but just decide to proactively play the Needle on "Survival" instead and then drop Engineered Explosives for 2 in case Mike ever finds a dude to stick the Jitte on. He eventually does find something, but that something is a Birds of Paradise, which is hardly a threat in the late game, without something like Sword of Fire and Ice.

A lone Mongoose works him over and I counter or ignore every effort of his to get back in the game.

Games: 2-0
Games, total: 8-0
Rounds, total: 4-0

Round 5: Steven with U/R Illusion-Donate

Yay! I've been looking forward to this round all afternoon. As in days of yore (like, 2002 or so), Gro is the natural predator of Trix and I figured this would be academic -- even though I've never read the textbook, having never played against the deck before.

Game 1.

I forget who wins the die roll (I think he did), but I am savagely screwed on land for the beginning of the game. I keep a one-land hand with Serum Visions, but even five cards down and two turns later I'm still on one land. A couple of turns later I let him tap out for Intuition for Accumulated Knowledge and just counter the AK for 3 with Counterspell instead. I also prevent him from resolving the two Fact or Fictions he tries to cast.

I get one Meddling Mage down on "Donate" before it gets hit with Fire/Ice. I eventually get down one or two more and just work him over with Meddling Mage beatdown.

Here's a question for the forums: do you name Illusions or Donate with Meddling Mage in this match-up?

Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Pithing Needle, -1 Mystic Enforcer; +3 Hydroblast, +2 Armageddon, +2 Naturalize

Game 2.

This is an insanely long match that drags on for what seems like 45 minutes. I get buried in a mound of card advantage as Steven resolves AK for 3 and then AK for 4, but I'm able to keep his FoFs from resolving, except for the last one which finally finds a Donate (which I split in 4-1 piles -- he takes the 1-card pile [Donate]). But it is all for naught as he's at 2 life with a threshed Mongoose on the board and doesn't have enough mana to do everything he needs to do without killing himself with his Ancient Tomb.

But mind you, this was after he resolved Illusions of Grandeur three separate times, requiring me to inflict a whopping 37 points of damage through this all. Looking back, my two attempts to resolve Armageddon met two Force of Wills.

Somewhere during the middle of this match an excited commotion erupts on table next to us and Steven goes to see what's up. Apparently Mike, my round 4 opponent, had to resort to winning his match by beating his opponent down with a Rancored hard-cast Squee. :)

On second thought, what the hell was I thinking naming "Donate" with Meddling Mage?! "Illusions" is the culprit here. I believe I was even dumb enough to set a spare Meddling Mage on "Burnish Wish" (for fear of Pyroclasm -- when I should have just named Pyroclasm if I was worried about that) when he wasn't even running Burning Wish. Man, oh man....

Games: 2-0
Games, total: 10-0
Rounds, total: 5-0

Round 6: Jacob with W/R Rifter

Game 1.

I've tested this match many times at my "Dining Room Table Gauntlet," and I'm sad to say that this match is bizarrely bad for me. The real problem is that Rifter casts very few spells, as most of their effects cycle. Thresh doesn't like this arrangement, and like every other deck that's trying to win in the Combat Phase, hates the ever-loving piss out of Humility.

I lead with a turn-1 Serum Visions; him: land-go; following with me dropping Pithing Needle on Eternal Dragon and casting Nimble Mongoose. I Force of Will the first Humility, but he resolves Humility #2 when he's at 7 life and then things get ugly for me.

Sideboarding: -2 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Daze, -2 Pithing Needle, -1 Mystic Enforcer; +3 Armageddon, +2 Naturalize +2 Hydroblast (sideboarding in Game 3, I bring in my Pithing Needles in place of the Hydroblasts)

Game 2.

This match is all decided by a mid-game Armageddon. Even though I have half the land as he in my deck, I rebuild quicker and start beating down with a Werebear that I protect with my counters. At 4 life Jacob begins to rebuild, but I flash him Armageddon #2 and he scoops up his cards.

Game 3.

Finally, I take my first mulligan of the day. But as it happens, my deck completely craps out, finally. I can't find any counters or threats for far too long and just get run over. I valiantly StP two Eternal Dragons, but it doesn't matter. Somewhere late in the game Jacob cycles Degree of Justice for six Masashi Osio (or whatever) tokens and I dig like a fiend through my deck to find my lone Engineered Explosives. But it doesn't happen and I finally get my first match loss.

Games: 1-2
Games, total: 11-2
Rounds, total: 5-1

With my record (as the only 5-1) I still have first place and take home a mint Survival of the Fittest with my store credit.

Atwa
05-01-2006, 07:48 AM
Congrats with the win. Nice report.

PS: you should have named Illusions :)

Peter_Rotten
05-01-2006, 10:40 AM
Here's a question for the forums: do you name Illusions or Donate with Meddling Mage in this match-up?


Illusions. It could possibly give him a few turns to draw into a Fire/Ice or B.Wish. The chances are slim, but Illusions could give him a little extra time to find an answer, and if he is casting it in hopes of buying a few turns, then he is likely losing anyway. Donate is always useless without its partner in crime.

Bardo
05-01-2006, 11:11 AM
Illusions. It could possibly give him a few turns to draw into a Fire/Ice or B.Wish. The chances are slim, but Illusions could give him a little extra time to find an answer, and if he is casting it in hopes of buying a few turns, then he is likely losing anyway. Donate is always useless without its partner in crime.

Yeah, I should probably edit out that portion of the report. A couple of paragraphs after I pose the question, I came to the right conclusion.


On second thought, what the hell was I thinking naming "Donate" with Meddling Mage?! "Illusions" is the culprit here. I believe I was even dumb enough to set a spare Meddling Mage on "Burnish Wish" (for fear of Pyroclasm -- when I should have just named Pyroclasm if I was worried about that) when he wasn't even running Burning Wish. Man, oh man....

dj.quack
05-01-2006, 11:40 PM
Great report man, and congrats on the finish! A few corrections and comments, though: the Steven was running at least one copy of Burning Wish in his main deck (at least from my understanding), so naming Burning Wish wasn't all that bad. And the Rancor + Squee situation wasn't me attacking, unfortunately, but me attempting desperately to hold back Peter's board full o' Madness creatures. (Infinitely recurring blocker!!!)

Finally, just to be a complete dick, how did Game 3 with Jacob end, again? :tongue:

Bardo
05-03-2006, 12:23 PM
Finally, just to be a complete dick, how did Game 3 with Jacob end, again? :tongue:

Game 3 just got off to a bad start. Thresh is remarkably consistent, but it really needs a good pile-shuffling every other round (at the least). And, due to laziness and hunger, I just stopped shuffling adequately after round 3 or so.

I'll concede that Rifter has the advantage in game 1 (maybe, 60-40?), but when Thresh brings in Armageddon and Naturalize (solely for Humility, since it can easily outrace Lightning Rift), the match is comfortably in Thresh's advantage.

In short, after so many rounds, my deck was poorly randomized and so was my head. ;)