Nightmare
09-04-2006, 01:35 PM
5pm, Saturday evening. Jim, regged as “Jim” on The Source, should be here any minute to pick my carless ass up and drive me to Strafford, CT for the first The Mana Leak Open. And what am I doing? Sitting on my couch, watching You’ve Got Mail. Meg Ryan is one of those women who you never get sick of looking at. Even if the movie sucks, which it does, and the plot is thin and recycled, which it is (have you seen Sleepless in Seattle? Then you’ve seen You’ve got Mail), Meg Ryan is worth watching.
Jim stops by and at the conveniently same time, so do Mike and Paul Herbig (herbig and herbigtoo, respectively). Jim picked up Matt Abold (bigbear102) and his girlfriend Nicole on the way, so everyone is ready to roll. We hop in the minivan, and we’re off.
Thirty seconds into the trip, Jim turns the wrong way on the highway onramp, and we head into one-way oncoming traffic. Fortnately, we back our way down the offramp, and manage to head the right way.
Six uneventful hours later, we arrive in Strafford, CT, where a storm has knocked out power all over, and check into a Hotel for the night. Six people in a hotel room is cramped, but cheap, and after using all the furniture and a blanket to set myself up wih a fort (“No Fatties” sign included), we fell asleep.
Bright and early in the am, we all get up and head to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. There we meet the rest of my team, who made the drive down that morning. Bryant (wastedlife) required a stop at nearly every rest area the whole trip, to use the facilities, as he has a bad case of the squirts. He also managed to vomit in the driveway just before leaving. Nonetheless, he’s here. After a refreshing cup of Java, we’re off to Gamigetc.com’s Tournament center to play.
Here’s the decklist I played:
EPIC UGW Thresh
Land -18
4x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
2x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
4x Windswept Heath
2x Island
1x Forest
Creatures – 13
4x Meddling Mage
4x Werebear
4x Nimble Mongoose
1x Mystic Enforcer
Cantrips – 14
4x Brainstorm
4x Serum Visions
3x Portent
3x Mental Note
Counters – 9
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Counterspell
Other – 6
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
Sideboard:
2x Naturalize
3x Jotun Grunt
1x Mystic Enforcer
3x Armageddon
2x Pithing Needle
2x Hydroblast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
Minor discussion on card choices:
Mental Note over Predict – I got asked this question countless times throughout the day. There are a couple reasons why. First (and maybe foremost), I sent my foil Predicts to Rebecca Guay for signing, and they aren’t back yet. Rather than play non-foil cards, I ran foil Notes. More realistically, though, Mental Note can be surprisingly important post-board when Jotun Grunt hits the table. Sometimes you find the need to throw cards in your yard, just to keep him around one more turn. I may stick with Note after seeing this dude in action.
Engineered Explosives – I was scared to death of Chalice of the Void this weekend. Chalice for 1 may as well be GG for me. I wanted a MD out for it, and Explosives turned out to be much more than that. A fine addition.
No Black Splash – After Kadilak’s Dual Land Draft 2, where my team played 4c Gro to some success, I decided to drop Black for this tournament. This had much to do with Roland Chang’s performance at Gencon, since he was running 4x Wasteland and 4x Stifle. I expected a large presence of players not familiar with Legacy, who would NetDeck their way into the tournament, and as such, I wanted a stronger manabase rather than the draw power of Bob.
Jotun Grunt – Watch out for this man. He is the best creature printed in the last 3 sets. You will be seeing a lot of him soon, I expect. He is nothing short of phenomenal in the mirror, and amazing vs. Survival, IGG, Solidarity, etc. At worst, he’s a 4/4 for 2. Not too shabby. If they didn’t already have a slight edge, UGW just got a giant edge in the pseudo-mirror as well.
On to matches! And To Dave Feinstein!
Round 1 – Kaleb Abalan – U/G Madness
Kaleb is a relatively new player with zero experience in Legacy. He did quite well in this match, making a few play mistakes which I pointed out to him to hopefully help him get better. I was never really in danger of losing this match.
Games 2-0, Matches 1-0
Round 2 – Josh Schneider (fireandice) – UGW Thresh
Josh has this insane ability to draw every correct card at the right time. I, on the other hand, only do that like twice a match.
Game 1: We both get some guys on the table, stalling each other out, while fetching and FoWing our life down. Eventually, I have 2 Mongeese on the table, and he has a couple Werebears. I find Engineered Explosives, drop it for 2 with Force backup, blow up his bears and swing for the win.
Game 2: Josh blows me out with threshed Bears and his single Jotun Grunt, keeping my guys little. He finishes me at a comfortable 12 life.
Game 3: We’re in turn 1 of turns, and stalemated with 3 Geese and a Mage on my side, and 2 bears and a Grunt on Josh’s (Grunt has 1 age counter, I have 11 cards in yard). Mage is naming Engineered explosives, because I thought I sided mine out. I offer the draw. He declines. I draw for turn and it’s Explosives… I pass the turn, turn 2, and he swings with a Bear! I block with Mage, and worried about his Explosives, cringe. He passes, we go to turn 3. I rip FoW to go with the Daze in my hand, drop EE for 2, wipe his board, and swing in for 9. He goes to 3, and draws nothing relevant on his turn. On turn 5 I swing in for the win.
Games 4-1, Matches 2-0
Round 3 – Jack Elgin (TheInfamousBearAssasin) – Truffle Shuffle
Jack is the creator of the deck, and his goal in life is to make Threshold’s game as one-sided on his side as possible. He may lose to Solidarity and Goblins, but his decks kick the crap out of Thresh. I go into this match thinking the worst.
Game 1: Jack wins the die roll and I ask, So drawing first, right? He thinks it over, and decides I’m right, and elects to draw first. Jack, this was a mistake. I open with Island, go. He drops a plains, and says “Here, have a target for Daze,” and plays Sensei’s Divining Top. I Daze it. He then draws like crap, while I drop 2 Geese and beat him down.
Game 2: Jack chooses to play this game, and opens with land, go. I cantrip a bit and drop Werebear, which is Swordsed. I eventually drop 2 threshed Geese, but they do nothing more than hold back Jack’s 2 Loxodon Hierarchs, until eventually I find 2 STPs, and swing for 32 this game. One of my worst matchups, and a W.
Games 6-1, Matches 3-0
At this point, I’m feeling good, like I have a snowball’s chance in Hell of making it.
Round 4 – Zac Rider – B/R Rakdos stuff
Zac is playing a B/R block constructed deck with Hymn to Tourach and Lightning Bolt. How he made it to 3-0 is beyond me, and him. As I have no idea how he smashed my face in, I will simply say, he did, and move on. This round was disheartening, and I was pretty upset afterword.
Games 7-3, Matches 3-1
Round 5 – Osyp Lebedowitz (yeah, the pro) – IGGy Pop
Well, I’m intimidated. But I know this is an insanely good matchup for me, and I know both decks well. If I had to pick a Legacy matchup to play vs. a pro, this would be it.
Game 1: I open with turn 2 Mage on Tendrils. His turn he goes for main phase Intuition, I Daze. My turn I replay land, and Portent. He reads it, and asks “There’s no card better than this?!” No, Osyp. That card is nuts. He again goes for main phase Intuition, it resolves, and he gets 3x Brainstorm. On my turn I drop Mage on ETruth and Pithing Needle on Cabal Pit and he scoops.
Game 2: This game, I drop another Mage on Tendrils, followed by a Grun that eats his threshold. He Intuitions for Cabal Ritual on my EOT, and tries to go off, but I counter the ritual leaving him only Lotus Petal for mana. With him at 8, I drop Mage on ETruth, and on his turn he Brainstorms, sits for at least 10 minutes looking at what cards to put back, and finally says “I can’t win,” and gives up. I am, justifiably, ecstatic about beating a pro of his calibur.
Games 9-3, Matches 4-1
Round 6 – Greg (Nantuko_Shady) – Solidarity
I got paired down, and Greg is 3-1-1, and he would have to win out to make it. This was unlikely, since I have a phenomenal Solidarity matchup. After looking at standings and some discussion, we realized he was guaranteed top 32, and if he won next round, top 16, so he was amazingly generous and scooped me in. Greg, you’re an awesome dude, and if I’m ever in a position to, the favor will be returned.
Round 7 – Jason (name fails me right now, but he t8s) – UGR Thresh
Jason and I look at standings, and as 2 and 3 of the 15 (to be 16) pointers, we ID. It ended up being the right decision, but the opportunity was there for the match between the 13 pointers to knock one of us out. Fortunately for us both, it didn’t happen.
Top 8 – Rodrigo (Rodgon666) – B/G Reanimator
I really want to win this match, since the 5-8 support pales in comparison to the 1-4. I am extremely interested in getting an Imperial Seal, so I’m going out both guns blazing for this one.
Game 1: I manage to Force his reanimate spell on turn 1 or 2, and make a stupid mistake of chumping his Putrid Imp with an unthreshed Goose, without remembering he gets +1/+1 with threshold. Rodrigo dumps his hand to kill the Goose. I end up brainstorming 2 Werebears on the top during my turn, and Rodrigo therapies me naming Werebear. I then drop 2 in a row on him, surprising him, and taking away his life quickly. I Portent him, giving him his second land, but also drop Meddling Mage on Animate Dead to prevent him from winning.
Game 2: I open Land, land, Force, Daze, Brainstorm, Swords, Meddling Mage. A keeper if I ever saw one. On Rodrigo’s turn 1 he therapies himself to get SSS in the yard. I then see Land, therapy, Reanimate, buried alive. I see since he has 2 land, I can Daze or Force the Reanimate because he can’t get both. He therapies for Force, Reanimate, I Daze, and on my turn I drop Bears. The game was short work from there.
Top 4 – Cody – Faerie Stompy
Chalice. Ewwww.
Game 1: I win the die roll and get things started with turn 1 Mongoose. He drops a land and says go. On my turn I Portent into a Force, and when he goes for Chalice I have the Daze. He tries for Sea Drake but it gets Forced. Finally he resolves Juggernaut, but it can’t race my 2 Mongeese and his own Ancient Tomb.
Game 2: He goes for turn 1 Chalice and I force. He chooses not to Force back, and passes. On his turn 2 he goes for 3sphere, I daze, he forces back. It resolves. If he had forced back on Chalice it was game. I eventually get to 3 lands and can Swords his Drakes, and hit four lands to Naturalize his Trinisphere and Swords his Juggernaut. I used all 4 Swords this game, but eventually he ran out of steam and I swung home.
Finals – Jeff – Goblins/W
Jeff and I wanted to split, so we got out the prize list and attempted to work out how he could get a Mox and I could get Imperial Seal. We needed to wait for Ray, but he was busy with the Trivia Competition, so we played it out for standings. I’ll be honest, I played extremely sloppy during this match, I was tired, excited, and already secured my prize. I apparently had game 1 won, but I guess I missed it. Jeff is a good player, and a nice guy, so I’m happy for him to be the winner of TMLopen 1. I’ll get it next time, I suppose!
And now what you all scrolled down for:
Props –
- Ray for holding this tournament. You don’t know how much it means to the Legacy community for you to do this for us. I hope you plan to keep it up.
- My team, The EPIC Syndicate, for working hours and hours on testing for this, and for ultimately convincing me not to play Solidarity.
- The waitress at that little diner for making good Whiskey Sours for me.
- Abold’s GF for riding down with us and not making it a sausage fest.
- That little kid’s mom for being HOT!
- Evan (LegoArmyMan) for letting me borrow a BB Armageddon. That white border would have jinxed me!
- Jim for driving
- Greg for Scooping
- Jotun Grunt for being the nut high
- Scoops and Brassman for Judging. Hopefully I’ll see you in Boston!
- 105 other players for coming out and making this a success.
Slops –
- Me for not playing tight in the finals
- Me for not caring I played sloppy in the finals
- Imperial Seal for being so damned hard to find
- Red Thresh
- The Rakdos Guild
Jim stops by and at the conveniently same time, so do Mike and Paul Herbig (herbig and herbigtoo, respectively). Jim picked up Matt Abold (bigbear102) and his girlfriend Nicole on the way, so everyone is ready to roll. We hop in the minivan, and we’re off.
Thirty seconds into the trip, Jim turns the wrong way on the highway onramp, and we head into one-way oncoming traffic. Fortnately, we back our way down the offramp, and manage to head the right way.
Six uneventful hours later, we arrive in Strafford, CT, where a storm has knocked out power all over, and check into a Hotel for the night. Six people in a hotel room is cramped, but cheap, and after using all the furniture and a blanket to set myself up wih a fort (“No Fatties” sign included), we fell asleep.
Bright and early in the am, we all get up and head to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. There we meet the rest of my team, who made the drive down that morning. Bryant (wastedlife) required a stop at nearly every rest area the whole trip, to use the facilities, as he has a bad case of the squirts. He also managed to vomit in the driveway just before leaving. Nonetheless, he’s here. After a refreshing cup of Java, we’re off to Gamigetc.com’s Tournament center to play.
Here’s the decklist I played:
EPIC UGW Thresh
Land -18
4x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
2x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
4x Windswept Heath
2x Island
1x Forest
Creatures – 13
4x Meddling Mage
4x Werebear
4x Nimble Mongoose
1x Mystic Enforcer
Cantrips – 14
4x Brainstorm
4x Serum Visions
3x Portent
3x Mental Note
Counters – 9
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Counterspell
Other – 6
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
Sideboard:
2x Naturalize
3x Jotun Grunt
1x Mystic Enforcer
3x Armageddon
2x Pithing Needle
2x Hydroblast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
Minor discussion on card choices:
Mental Note over Predict – I got asked this question countless times throughout the day. There are a couple reasons why. First (and maybe foremost), I sent my foil Predicts to Rebecca Guay for signing, and they aren’t back yet. Rather than play non-foil cards, I ran foil Notes. More realistically, though, Mental Note can be surprisingly important post-board when Jotun Grunt hits the table. Sometimes you find the need to throw cards in your yard, just to keep him around one more turn. I may stick with Note after seeing this dude in action.
Engineered Explosives – I was scared to death of Chalice of the Void this weekend. Chalice for 1 may as well be GG for me. I wanted a MD out for it, and Explosives turned out to be much more than that. A fine addition.
No Black Splash – After Kadilak’s Dual Land Draft 2, where my team played 4c Gro to some success, I decided to drop Black for this tournament. This had much to do with Roland Chang’s performance at Gencon, since he was running 4x Wasteland and 4x Stifle. I expected a large presence of players not familiar with Legacy, who would NetDeck their way into the tournament, and as such, I wanted a stronger manabase rather than the draw power of Bob.
Jotun Grunt – Watch out for this man. He is the best creature printed in the last 3 sets. You will be seeing a lot of him soon, I expect. He is nothing short of phenomenal in the mirror, and amazing vs. Survival, IGG, Solidarity, etc. At worst, he’s a 4/4 for 2. Not too shabby. If they didn’t already have a slight edge, UGW just got a giant edge in the pseudo-mirror as well.
On to matches! And To Dave Feinstein!
Round 1 – Kaleb Abalan – U/G Madness
Kaleb is a relatively new player with zero experience in Legacy. He did quite well in this match, making a few play mistakes which I pointed out to him to hopefully help him get better. I was never really in danger of losing this match.
Games 2-0, Matches 1-0
Round 2 – Josh Schneider (fireandice) – UGW Thresh
Josh has this insane ability to draw every correct card at the right time. I, on the other hand, only do that like twice a match.
Game 1: We both get some guys on the table, stalling each other out, while fetching and FoWing our life down. Eventually, I have 2 Mongeese on the table, and he has a couple Werebears. I find Engineered Explosives, drop it for 2 with Force backup, blow up his bears and swing for the win.
Game 2: Josh blows me out with threshed Bears and his single Jotun Grunt, keeping my guys little. He finishes me at a comfortable 12 life.
Game 3: We’re in turn 1 of turns, and stalemated with 3 Geese and a Mage on my side, and 2 bears and a Grunt on Josh’s (Grunt has 1 age counter, I have 11 cards in yard). Mage is naming Engineered explosives, because I thought I sided mine out. I offer the draw. He declines. I draw for turn and it’s Explosives… I pass the turn, turn 2, and he swings with a Bear! I block with Mage, and worried about his Explosives, cringe. He passes, we go to turn 3. I rip FoW to go with the Daze in my hand, drop EE for 2, wipe his board, and swing in for 9. He goes to 3, and draws nothing relevant on his turn. On turn 5 I swing in for the win.
Games 4-1, Matches 2-0
Round 3 – Jack Elgin (TheInfamousBearAssasin) – Truffle Shuffle
Jack is the creator of the deck, and his goal in life is to make Threshold’s game as one-sided on his side as possible. He may lose to Solidarity and Goblins, but his decks kick the crap out of Thresh. I go into this match thinking the worst.
Game 1: Jack wins the die roll and I ask, So drawing first, right? He thinks it over, and decides I’m right, and elects to draw first. Jack, this was a mistake. I open with Island, go. He drops a plains, and says “Here, have a target for Daze,” and plays Sensei’s Divining Top. I Daze it. He then draws like crap, while I drop 2 Geese and beat him down.
Game 2: Jack chooses to play this game, and opens with land, go. I cantrip a bit and drop Werebear, which is Swordsed. I eventually drop 2 threshed Geese, but they do nothing more than hold back Jack’s 2 Loxodon Hierarchs, until eventually I find 2 STPs, and swing for 32 this game. One of my worst matchups, and a W.
Games 6-1, Matches 3-0
At this point, I’m feeling good, like I have a snowball’s chance in Hell of making it.
Round 4 – Zac Rider – B/R Rakdos stuff
Zac is playing a B/R block constructed deck with Hymn to Tourach and Lightning Bolt. How he made it to 3-0 is beyond me, and him. As I have no idea how he smashed my face in, I will simply say, he did, and move on. This round was disheartening, and I was pretty upset afterword.
Games 7-3, Matches 3-1
Round 5 – Osyp Lebedowitz (yeah, the pro) – IGGy Pop
Well, I’m intimidated. But I know this is an insanely good matchup for me, and I know both decks well. If I had to pick a Legacy matchup to play vs. a pro, this would be it.
Game 1: I open with turn 2 Mage on Tendrils. His turn he goes for main phase Intuition, I Daze. My turn I replay land, and Portent. He reads it, and asks “There’s no card better than this?!” No, Osyp. That card is nuts. He again goes for main phase Intuition, it resolves, and he gets 3x Brainstorm. On my turn I drop Mage on ETruth and Pithing Needle on Cabal Pit and he scoops.
Game 2: This game, I drop another Mage on Tendrils, followed by a Grun that eats his threshold. He Intuitions for Cabal Ritual on my EOT, and tries to go off, but I counter the ritual leaving him only Lotus Petal for mana. With him at 8, I drop Mage on ETruth, and on his turn he Brainstorms, sits for at least 10 minutes looking at what cards to put back, and finally says “I can’t win,” and gives up. I am, justifiably, ecstatic about beating a pro of his calibur.
Games 9-3, Matches 4-1
Round 6 – Greg (Nantuko_Shady) – Solidarity
I got paired down, and Greg is 3-1-1, and he would have to win out to make it. This was unlikely, since I have a phenomenal Solidarity matchup. After looking at standings and some discussion, we realized he was guaranteed top 32, and if he won next round, top 16, so he was amazingly generous and scooped me in. Greg, you’re an awesome dude, and if I’m ever in a position to, the favor will be returned.
Round 7 – Jason (name fails me right now, but he t8s) – UGR Thresh
Jason and I look at standings, and as 2 and 3 of the 15 (to be 16) pointers, we ID. It ended up being the right decision, but the opportunity was there for the match between the 13 pointers to knock one of us out. Fortunately for us both, it didn’t happen.
Top 8 – Rodrigo (Rodgon666) – B/G Reanimator
I really want to win this match, since the 5-8 support pales in comparison to the 1-4. I am extremely interested in getting an Imperial Seal, so I’m going out both guns blazing for this one.
Game 1: I manage to Force his reanimate spell on turn 1 or 2, and make a stupid mistake of chumping his Putrid Imp with an unthreshed Goose, without remembering he gets +1/+1 with threshold. Rodrigo dumps his hand to kill the Goose. I end up brainstorming 2 Werebears on the top during my turn, and Rodrigo therapies me naming Werebear. I then drop 2 in a row on him, surprising him, and taking away his life quickly. I Portent him, giving him his second land, but also drop Meddling Mage on Animate Dead to prevent him from winning.
Game 2: I open Land, land, Force, Daze, Brainstorm, Swords, Meddling Mage. A keeper if I ever saw one. On Rodrigo’s turn 1 he therapies himself to get SSS in the yard. I then see Land, therapy, Reanimate, buried alive. I see since he has 2 land, I can Daze or Force the Reanimate because he can’t get both. He therapies for Force, Reanimate, I Daze, and on my turn I drop Bears. The game was short work from there.
Top 4 – Cody – Faerie Stompy
Chalice. Ewwww.
Game 1: I win the die roll and get things started with turn 1 Mongoose. He drops a land and says go. On my turn I Portent into a Force, and when he goes for Chalice I have the Daze. He tries for Sea Drake but it gets Forced. Finally he resolves Juggernaut, but it can’t race my 2 Mongeese and his own Ancient Tomb.
Game 2: He goes for turn 1 Chalice and I force. He chooses not to Force back, and passes. On his turn 2 he goes for 3sphere, I daze, he forces back. It resolves. If he had forced back on Chalice it was game. I eventually get to 3 lands and can Swords his Drakes, and hit four lands to Naturalize his Trinisphere and Swords his Juggernaut. I used all 4 Swords this game, but eventually he ran out of steam and I swung home.
Finals – Jeff – Goblins/W
Jeff and I wanted to split, so we got out the prize list and attempted to work out how he could get a Mox and I could get Imperial Seal. We needed to wait for Ray, but he was busy with the Trivia Competition, so we played it out for standings. I’ll be honest, I played extremely sloppy during this match, I was tired, excited, and already secured my prize. I apparently had game 1 won, but I guess I missed it. Jeff is a good player, and a nice guy, so I’m happy for him to be the winner of TMLopen 1. I’ll get it next time, I suppose!
And now what you all scrolled down for:
Props –
- Ray for holding this tournament. You don’t know how much it means to the Legacy community for you to do this for us. I hope you plan to keep it up.
- My team, The EPIC Syndicate, for working hours and hours on testing for this, and for ultimately convincing me not to play Solidarity.
- The waitress at that little diner for making good Whiskey Sours for me.
- Abold’s GF for riding down with us and not making it a sausage fest.
- That little kid’s mom for being HOT!
- Evan (LegoArmyMan) for letting me borrow a BB Armageddon. That white border would have jinxed me!
- Jim for driving
- Greg for Scooping
- Jotun Grunt for being the nut high
- Scoops and Brassman for Judging. Hopefully I’ll see you in Boston!
- 105 other players for coming out and making this a success.
Slops –
- Me for not playing tight in the finals
- Me for not caring I played sloppy in the finals
- Imperial Seal for being so damned hard to find
- Red Thresh
- The Rakdos Guild