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View Full Version : THE LITTLE KIRD APE WHO COULD *TML Top 8*



Dxfiler
09-05-2006, 06:17 AM
This is my first time posting on this site. I've read it for a very long time, just never felt like I had anything worth typing until now. Here's my report:

I had wanted to play in The Mana Leak since first hearing about it at Waterbury. I started testing legacy almost immediately. Going in to it, I laid out a set of rules that would guide my playtesting:

1) I did not want to play goblins or threshold. Both are too well known and would be gunned for constantly. Because of the strength and popularity of both decks, 1-2 of each archtype would probably sneak into top 8, but I didn't want to take that gamble. I'd rather try to find a deck that can consistently beat both, if such a deck exists.

2) I would not be playing combo. Dave Feinstein don't do combo.

3) I would not be playing control. Dave Feinstein don't do control.

4) I would not under any circumstances play a deck with Kird Ape in it. I found the discipline to get away from it in type one and it paid off. If I do the same in legacy, good things should theoretically follow.

One of these rules ended up being broken, guess which one. :p


The problem with my rules is that I basically only wanted to play aggro, and that wouldn't be a problem except that I ruled out the best performing two aggro decks from the start. I did not let this stop me though, and furiously tested lots of different decks. For a very long time, I had my sights set on UW vial fish. It was solid and stood toe to toe with most decks. It just couldnt get really powerful draws randomly, like gobs or thresh, so I ruled it out. I then looked heavily into cocaine. Just kidding. Next stop was Green/Black aggro. The deck had therapies, duress, mesmeric fiend and withered wretch main. It even had diabolic edicts if reanimator randomly showed up. Unsurprisingly, it had the best results against combo out of anything I tested. It absolutely whooped on Iggy and solidarity. With trolls and sword of f/i main, the goblins match was also a solid 50/50. Going into the final few days before the tournament, I had pretty much set it as my deck. I never bothered to test the threshold matchup, thinking it would be a cakewalk with wretches, trolls and mongrels. The one known as Brassman suggested I should test this match, and so we did. I got my ass kicked. Horribly. My faith in the deck suddenly dwindled. It didn't have a good match against thresh and was only going even with goblins. Based on those results, I had no choice but to look into something else.

I frantically looked for a new deck to play. I saw that faerie stompy thing, and it looked interesting but not really aggro enough for my tastes. The gimmick of sea drake was cute, but it looked like it needed an early drake or serendib every time in order to compete. Also, without drawing sea sprite, the deck looks like it flat out gets pwned by goblins. The final decision into not testing this deck came from the fact that Sea Drakes were 1 million dollars each. I could proxy them, but I wanted to be in contention for the non proxied deck prize, as well as the normal prizes.

I took quick a peek at UG madness. As much as I respect Roland and am sure he will continue to take names and numbers with that particular deck, I dismissed it almost as quickly as I peeked at it because unlike Roland, I don't believe I'll be fortunate enough to dodge goblins all day with it. Don't get me wrong, it's a real deck and Roland deserves all the credit in the world for bringing it to the legacy forefront, it just can't beat goblins.

Rich Shay suggested affinity. Not so much because affinity is arguably the best raw power aggro deck of all time, but because it ran Atog. Rich likes his atogs. So I tested flingaffinity, and it had potential. It was whooping on ***** and had a decent gobs matchup. The problem was I didn't feel comfy with the list. There were key decisions such as m. factory or d. citadel, chrome sphere or terrarion, and lotus petal or mishras bauble. I just didn't feel comfortable running it when I knew I couldn't answer those questions with 100% confidence. If I had started testing this earlier, I would have opted for affinity hands down, since it was being completely ignored in legacy. As it stood, I didn't want to go in with a suboptimal version.

So that left me with one more deck to look at. The red-headed stepchild of every format: GR beats. I threw it together and decided to give it a chance. Of course, me not giving GR beats a chance is like Mother Theresa turning down a homeless person.

I started by doing 14-15 games against waterbury winner Rich Meyst with his goblins. I won the first dozen or so. I let Crossman take over and play another 8 or so against gobs. He won six. Ok, the deck crushes goblins. That's good. I then played against Brassman's threshold. I won the first four handily. He got the next two off quickly ramping to ******** and overwhelming me with monsters, then never won another game. Hmm... good threshold match, great goblins match. Let's try combo...

Ouch.

So ok, iggy and solidarity bent me over most of the time. Guess i'll build a sideboard directed at them. Four pyrostatic pillars and REB's later, I had a very good post SB game against them, but I'd still rather not go against either deck.

Alright, so I found my deck... I think. Time to try it out. A local store near me had a Wednesday night legacy tourney and I gave GR beats a spin.

This is was the first version I played:

Apeshit

4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Scab-Clan Mauler
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Incinerate
4 Magma Jet
4 Fireblast
4 Tagia
4 Mountain
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills

SB:
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Naturalize
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blood Moon (I forgot to bring the other Reb's)

TJ's Wed night Legacy tournament had 10 people. Four rounds straight swiss. Here's the mini-report you didn't ask for:

Rd 1 vs. Elves. Game 1 I play Kird Apes and burn his priests of Titania. He almost ramps up to the mana he needs off Gaea's Cradle. I had cut wasteland for stomping ground. It dawns on me this was incorrect. Luckily I burn him out before he overruns me. Game 2 I play more Kird apes and this time they have jitte to play with.

1-0

Rd 2 vs. High Tide. Game 1 he wins the die roll and thus I am one turn short of killing him. Game 2 I drop turn two pillar. Game 3 He mulligans and can't find enough juice to go off in time. I think I also had my one random Reb this game. Next time I leave the house, I make sure I have them all.

2-0

Rd 3 Vs. Scepter Chant. Game 1 I drop guys and get him low enough that by the time he eventually drops scepter/chant I can burn him out. I draw appropriate burn and make sure I have enough, wait for him to scepter, and burn him out in response to a scepter and one counterspell. Game 2 he drops three scepters. One with helix, one with chant, one with counterspell. I still manage to get him to one before crumbling. Game 3 I drop turn two pyrostatic pillar. It proceeds to do 14 points to him. I think a random lavamancer took it home for me.

3-0

Rd 4 Vs. Justin Valley /w ANGEL STOMPY. Game 1 He vials out silver knights and paladins. Swords to plowshares, serendib efreets and meddling mages all make their way to his graveyard. Im able to setup a kill on my turn after an extremely long game. I just have to cross my fingers and hope he doesn't draw... Umezawa's jitte. The exact final turn he could draw it to save him he does. Jitte on a paladin pulls out the game. Game 2 he whoops my ass. Quickly, painfully, and unmercifully. This match goes from bad to basically unwinnable after sideboard. I bring in naturalizes and jittes of my own... while after board he has more jittes, swords of fire and ice, exalted angels and jotun grunts to accompany his maindeck paladins, silver knights and swords to plowshares. So um, yeah. That sucks for me, but Justin is a good player and very into the format, so the loss was fine.

3-1

Scrumdogg was at this tournament but I never got to play him. Still, it was good enough testing for me. The results were satisfactory enough that I decided I'd be playing this for the mana leak open. I just hope to never randomly run into Angel Stompy again. I mean, what are the odds?

So a few days later and it was showtime. The final version of the deck I played was exactly as above, except stomping grounds were wastelands and blood moons were three more REB's. I drove up Stefan, playing Aluren, and Brassman, playing tournament organizer helper. Final count was I believe 110. I say hello to familiar faces, register my 'deck' and away we go... 7 rounds of swiss /w cut top top 8.

Round 1 - Devin /w Enduring Ideal

Game 1 he sakura tribe elders into turn three Hierarch. I manage to burn it away and start swinging with Scabby. I wasteland to keep him off seven mana, but he manages to get ideal through Temple of the False God. One turn later and im facing solitary confinement/eternal dragon lock. He remarks that he hopes I don't have naturalize. The thought of sitting there bluffing it went through my head, but all that does is waste time. I ponder if he'll ever forget to pay upkeep on confinement. I play it out for a few turns, then after being convinced he'll never forget I concede.

I board in naturalizes for chain lightnings.

Game 2 Wastelands go to town on him as he's stuck on three land. By the time he has the fourth for Hierarch I have all the burn I need.

Game 3 He leads out with Sterling Grove. I have but a lowly lavamancer beating him down while my hand fills up with burn and I prepeare for the worst. He's slowly setting up for Ideal lock. I'm eating away at his life total in increments of 2, while throwing pieces of burn to his head. I'm not seeing any magma jets so I have to hope to keep drawing burn. He's at seven the turn before he's readu to go off and I'm holding incinerate. I draw the fireblast. He frowns. Devin was a nice guy and took the loss well.

1-0

Round 2- Brandon /w Burning Tog

Game 1- I have no idea what he's playing but my opening hand of Foothills, 2 Kird Apes, 2 Mancers, Fanatic and Chain seems good enough to keep on the draw. I don't draw a second land for the following six turns. This matchup is pretty decent for me, because even on one land I'm still beating down. He eventually stabalizes with Flametongue Kavu, two nightscape familiars and a couple chainer's edicts. I eventually find land number two and repeatedly try to burn him out, but he has too many counters by that point and I die with him at three.

I board in Rebs for Chains.

Game 2- My opening hand is Fanatic, Kird Ape, ReB, Mongrel, Mongrel, Tagia, Foothills. I drop taiga/Kird Ape, which is GG 99.999999999 percent of the time. Unfortuantely, I get wastelanded then chalice'd for one. I never draw another land to accompany my foothills. He fire imps and flametongues my board away while I die with 4 mongrels in my hand.

I was not happy at losing this match. I talked with Brandon after and looked at his deck. We both agreed the match favored me. Oh well, he was a nice guy. I sucked the loss up, got a pep talk from my Kird Apes, and moved on.

1-1

Round 3- Brandon /w UG madness

Game 1- He draws alot of cards, but cannot find a mongrel or Arrogant Wurm for the life of him. Those are the two scariest cards for me, hands down. He does draw three Aquamoebas. Behind Door number one is a chain lightning, number two holds a lightning bolt, and door number three is incinerate. He should have gone for the mystery box. I take the game home with dubs scabby.

I board out Chains for Rebs and Jets for Jittes.

Game 2- I lead with some guys and a jitte. He responds by droppnig his own jitte. I drop another jitte. He pithing needles naming jitte. We trade guys, then both go for a very long time drawing no creatures. I keep wasting to keep him off seven lands, not knowing if I'm up against Roar of the Wurm or not.
I eventually draw into Scab-Clan maulers and they again prove to be big. He drops Aquamoebas and we trade, but he's forced to pitch cards while I'm able to trample through damage. He's left with very few cards in hand. He finally draws Arrogant Wurm but I have the fireblast. I draw my mongrels while he never sees any both games. The mongrels with burn backup take it home.

2-1

Round 4- Jesse /w Iggy Pop

Jesse was the friendliest opponent on the day. I could tell he knew the format very well. He came up with a group of Source regulars from Virginia. I put him on Iggy or Solidarity. I was hoping to be wrong.

Game 1- I wasteland him early and he's stuck on one land. He's brainstorms a couple times. The mystical tutor for Dark Ritual confirms my suspicions. Not like there's anything I can do about it. I continue to burn him and swing with Kird apes. The turn before I win he finds a second land and goes off.

I side out Chains for Rebs (Notice a theme?) and Jets for Pillars.

Game 2- I drop turn two pillar.

Game 3- I again drop turn 2 pillar, but this time on the draw. On his third turn he goes for it, but after casting a bunch of spells seemingly falls short. I was under the impression he had no outs, as was he, so he conceeded after thinking for a very long time. A spectator points out a sequence where he could have done a fourteen point tendrils. This would not have been lethal, but it would have brought him up to 17 and me down to three. With pillar out, I pretty much couldn't cast anything else under this scenario and would hope to finish the job with Kird ape and lavamancer before he could find another tendrils. Thankfully for me that scenario didn't come up. Iggy is a ridiculously hard deck to play for the record. Kevin noted the mistake and took the loss graciously. We would continue to talk throughout the day.

3-1

Round 5 vs. Nick /w Goblins

Game 1- We both mulligan, with him going to five on the play. He starts with plateau and passes. I immediately wasteland and pass back. He drops a mountain and passes. I drop mountain and pass back. Not exactly how GR vs. Goblins usually goes. He gets out a piledriver, and I respond with mongrel followed by two scabbies. He tries to get something going with ringleader, but only nets gempalm incinerator off it. My 3/3's with mongrel backup take it down.

I board out chains for jittes.

Game 2- He leads with Goblin Lackey. I fire back with mogg fanatic. He drops piledriver, I again answer with mongrel. It gets plowed and I drop another one, then jitte. Jitte + mongrel go all the way.

4-1

Round 6- Justin Valley /w ANGEL STOMPY.

:-(

I know I'm going to need power from up on high to have any shot in hell at winning this match.

Game 1- He drops an early jitte and simply needs a creature to stick. With no silver knight in sight, he drops seven creatures in a row and I burn every single one away. He plows away three of mine which leads to a massive stall. About 7 turns go by of Draw, go from both sides. He's visibly upset while growing his hand. On five lands with 5-6 cards in hand I put him on exalted angel, and start going waste crazy. All he has out is a vial. I eventually get a mongrel to stick and accompanied with burn, does the job. He never sees a silver knight. After the game he shows me his hand of 3 more vials and 2 more jittes. I like Justin, but this is the worst match in the room for me, so I'll take what I can get. :-p

I side out Chains for Jittes. In our previous encounter, I went crazier on the sideboarding and took out more burn for naturalizes and rebs. That just isn't the way to go about it. This time around, I realized the only way I can win post board is if I burn him out. The jittes are there simply to combat his. I'll never get any counters on mine.

Game 2- He leads with silver knight and paladin. I have a mongrel. We both drop jittes. My mongrel starts getting in there. Scab clans follow. He can't swing in because Scabbies will come right back at him, and he can't block because I'm more than willing to dump my hand to take out both of his pro-red creatures. He continues to take two a couple times. Sword of fire/ice comes out to play but he has to wait a turn before he can decimate me. I see my window of opportunity and go for it. Eot I magma jet into what will be a lethal burn chain if he lets mongrel through. I have 3 lands out and after I draw, 6 cards in hand. He's at 14, so the chances of him not blocking one more time are very high. I cross my fingers and go for the attack. I'm pretty sure he won't block, because if he does he's left with just one pro-red creature instead of two. Yes, it can be equppied with sword, but he's then racing two maulers and a mongrel with one creature. By not blocking, he basically wins if he survives the turn. He can safely swing with one pro-red creature with sword, then equip the other one that didn't attack after combat. He pauses for a very long while and ultimately decides to not block. I discard enough cards to bring him to 9. With three lands out and three cards left in hand I cast incinerate. He asks if I have both a lightning bolt and a fireblast to go along with it... those have to be my reamaining two cards and they are.

Justin probably wins this match 80% of the time. Maybe more. Things just fell exactly the way I needed them to.

5-1

I check in on my only loss and find that after beating me, he lost the next round then dropped. That can't be good for my tiebreakers. Standings go up before the final round and confirm this. Looks like I'm gonna have to play it out.

Round 7- Bobby /w Goblins

Bobby is a youngster from nearby who started playing tournaments earlier this year. I had seen him at many local tourneys recently. He told me at the beginning of the round that I was the reason he started playing goblins. I scratch my head, trying to figure out when the last time I played goblins was. Turns out I did play it like five months ago in a local tourney and he happened to be there. He told me he's been playing the deck ever since and got 13th at the Legacy Gencon tourney. Bobby's a good kid, but unfortunately I can't draw with him. He understands and immediately shuffles up to play. This is nice, because most of the time when someone wants to ID into the top 8 and you decline them, they flip out. This happened in a neighboring match.

Game 1- He gets a nice lackey/piledriver/warchief draw, and I'm forced to burn them all. He drops a ringleader, but it reveals all blanks. That was lucky. Testing showed the main way goblins wins this match is off the back of ringleader. Despite missing with it, he does matron into siege gang and all the pieces start to come together. I have to do heavy scrying with magma jets, but it pays off and I manage to burn him out from 16 the turn before he's able to untap and easily swing for the win.

I do the same chain for jitte swap.

Game 2- I drop three mongrels and a jitte. He tries to get going with lots of cycling, but once the jitte is equipped that's all she wrote.

Bobby is very mature for his age and plays very solid. I expect him to do very well in tourney magic in the near future.

6-1

Alright, step one of goal accomplished: Top 8 with Kird Ape. Time for step two: win tournament with Kird Ape. I'm third seed and get paired against what I believe to be my best non-goblin match in top 8.

Quarterfinals: Cody /w Faerie stompy

I think this match is golden for me. He was from far away and didn't know me, so I waited to introduce myself to him until it was time to play. This would minimize the amount of scouting he could do. As Cody sits down, he's completely bewildered as to what I'm playing. He leans over to his goblin playing friend who is also in top 8 and asks what he's up against. I overhear him say "red creatures and burn." My knowledge on his deck is a little more thorough, as I know going in he has no sea sprites, daze or stifle. The only card I'm really worried about is chalice of the void.

Game 1- I lead with turn 1 kird ape. He leads chrome mox/land chalice for one. Oh great. I'm holding lavamancer and a bunch of chains/bolts. I manage to get a mongrel out and that swings for a little bit, but sea drake come out to play. I'm forced to fireblast it in order to keep swinging. No more mongrels or scabs can join the party because he then drops chalice for two. He eventually gets out Juggernaut with sword of fire/ice and that was all she wrote.

I side out chains for rebs, jets for jittes, and three mogg fanatics for 3 naturalize.

Game 2- I lead out with little creatures, he leads out with sword of f/i but can't get a creature to stick. I burn four in a row. He pitched a serendib djiin early on to chrome mox, which I feel is a big mistake. I can't do anything to djinn short of REB. His ass is too big. Not Jlo big, so I could double burn it, but I definitely don't want to waste two burn on it if I don't have to. Luckily, I don't. Mongrel /w jitte proceeds to win the game for like the 1000th time today. After the game he states that he had about 20 outs to beat me. I stay quiet and don't mention the two fireblasts I was holding.

In between games I go back and forth about siding out fireblasts for chain lightning. Chain hits every single non-serendib creature in his deck. The problem is it's awful under chalice for one. I decide not to bring it in, since having 20 cards dead under chalice one is better than 24 cards. Before we start the game, he does the rosary on himself. The temptation to yell out, "GOD CANNOT SAVE YOU FROM KIRD APE" was very great, but I chose to be respectful and kept my mouth shut.

Game 3- He leads island go. He'd only keep this hand if he was holding chalice. I stare down at my hand of rebs, lightning bolts and kird apes and brace for impact. Kird Ape comes out to play, and he does in fact cast turn two chalice. All I can do is setup a turn where I can fireblast him and cast some scabbies when he's tapped out. If the fireblast resolves then I'm in good shape, but it with a full grip he counters it... with misdirection. Didn't know he had that one. :/ Didn't really matter though, as FOW does the same thing and I had no choice but to go for it there. Once he coutners the fireblast, I'm left with scab-clans in hand and a bunch of rebs. Sword of f/i with juggernaut easily does me in.

Sigh. I still think that's a great match for me, but it was about time I got unlucky. It was a really good run. For the record, I think Cody's deck is very good and I could tell he put alot of work into it. Faerie stompy is a very strong archtype, and as mentioned earlier, would be played more often if Sea Drake didn't cost 1 million dollars each.

Final record: 6-2

I get what amounts to about $75 total in prizes. Ray tacked on a ton of additional prize support out of his own pocket, so I got about $40 more than what was advertised. I cannot stress exactly how valuable Ray Robillard is as a tournament organizer. When he does something, he goes all out. He easily outdoes any corporations that hold tourneys, including Wizards.

So Top 8 was acceptable for me. Top 4 or better would have been even nicer :p, but I'll take what I can get with the deck. I do feel it's a solid deck and it has game against just about everything. Like affinity or goblins or any other aggro, it prefers not to be sitting across from combo. Unlike those decks, mine has reach. You don't have to just swing with guys or just burn. Usually you're forced to do a combination of the two, and that comes off as much harder than it sounds. The hardest thing about the deck is setting up proper Magma Jets. Even if you screw up with scrying, as I'm sure I did at least a few times, the deck can rely on raw power to burn its way out of a hole. If I were to make any changes to the deck, I'd consider hearth kami. It'd be very useful against chalice and vial. Other than that, I don't see anything I would consider changing. I'm very happy with the deck in general. Some have suggested pillar main over chain lightning. The thing about that is that pillar is strictly only good against combo, and chain lightning, bless its little heart, is very useful in all of my game ones. Yes, I sided it out virtually every single time, but it's ok to have cards like that. You want to have cards like that. The worst thing that can happen when sideboarding is be staring at useful cards and not having an easy card to side out.

On a random note, half my opponents played 61 cards. I wondered if this was an anomaly, but after checking with Brassman, who helped ran the event, he told me around 40 people had 61 card decks. That's absolutely astounding to me. It means that almost half the room built their decks wrong. That might come off as harsh, but 61 cards is wrong 99% of the time. Any time you go over your base 60 and aren't playing Battle of Wits :p, you decrease your odds to draw what you need when you need it. Anyone who argues that going over 60 gives you more options is going about it the wrong way. Having more options is why you have a sideboard. All 61+ cards does is ensure that your draws won't flow as well as they should.

I enjoy legacy very much and look forward to future tournaments in my area. I'm amazed at the lack of legacy given the dozens upon dozens of monthly vintage events around New England. Thanks to Ray, I suspect legacy will pick up significantly in the area.

Well, that's my report. I hope you enjoyed it. Comments always looked at and appreciated.

<This report is dedicated to the memory of the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. "Crikey!">

- Dave Feinstein

Nightmare
09-05-2006, 06:23 AM
TO DAVE FEINSTEIN!!!

Great to meet you man, and congratulations on the finish!

Adam

Eldariel
09-05-2006, 07:23 AM
Nice job on the Top 8! RG Beats is definately nice and Scab-Clan Mauler is much better than many people give it credit for; getting through isn't hard and 3/3 trample for 2 is just about the best deal for the mana you can get (give or take Jötun Grunt), great against decks like Gobbos with small blockers and just against decks, where you need solid beef. I've personally had decent experiences with Quirion Dryad. Even 2 red spells after it (and every spell save Mongrel in your deck is red, so...) already make her a Watchwolf and she has the potency to grow to Dragon-like proportions very easily.

Although I think your evaluation of FS match-up is kinda weird as 8 Chalices+creatures with 4+ toughness + Jittes and SoFIs + pro-red Sprites are kinda good against you. That's almost half the deck and the rest are free counters, removal and creatures, which are always good.

SuckerPunch
09-05-2006, 09:30 AM
Congrats on the win.

Just wondering but why did you consistently side out Chains for REBs (and Jets for Pillar) instead of Incinerates or something else against all sorts of nonred decks.

For example against Iggy Pop, how often would the sorcery speed of Chain versus Incinerate really hurt more than the lower cc helps since there's no combat involved.

You have lots of other instants to mess with damage calculations. But the lower cc of Chains lets you play multiple threats turn two and deal damage faster. Isn't that more important.

Not sure why you think Fairie Stompy is a good matchup for you. Both Efreet and Sea Sprite (Or War Beast) are a huge pain to deal with. Jitte and Swords of Fire and Ice are a massive pain as well. But most importantly, you deck is almost entirely 1cc and 2cc. A deck that runs 4 Chalices and 4 Trinket Mages has wet dreams about facing curves liket that.

Also, do you have any particular opinion on Zilla Stompy, the most tested RG Beats deck, though one that leans far heavier on green than on red unlike this deck. Did you find the deck too slow?

Whit3 Ghost
09-05-2006, 10:24 AM
TO DAVE FEINSTEIN!!!
I was sad when I heard that you stopped playing Kird Apes.:wink:
Congrats on the finish and I'm glad straight Agro isn't totally dead.

scrumdogg
09-05-2006, 10:26 AM
Congrats on the Top 8 and playing a deck no one gave credit to. Gotta tell ya, we were happy to see matched with Justin Round 6 and you played perfectly. Have you considered Tin-Street Hooligan at all, either main or side? There is very little burn played in the format, he kills Chalice at 1 & then swings, you have absolutely nothing that gets affected by him Game 1 & Game 2 he swaps for the Jittes against non-artifact opponents & lets your Jitte be useful against opponents with artifacts. Just a thought, as it would diversify your Chalice options without diluting the purpose of your deck.

umbowta
09-05-2006, 11:05 AM
Thanks for the report Dave. Like I said on TMD, if there is only one report I read from TML #1, its this one.

I question the ommision of Cursed Scroll and, to a lesser extent, Rancor. Scroll makes the Angel Stompy match alot more bearable and Rancor is just cool.

Also...
If I were to make any changes to the deck, I'd consider hearth kami. It'd be very useful against chalice and vial. You may want to consider Tin Street Hooligan instead. It takes out Chalice and Vial for half of the total mana investment and you get to keep the dood.

Congrats on the top 8, and here's a real gem from one of TMD's naysayers.
...mindless Aggro with no Control elements, it cannot be a solid strategy.

Ewokslayer
09-05-2006, 11:33 AM
Congrats on the top 8, and here's a real gem from one of TMD's naysayers.


...mindless Aggro with no Control elements, it cannot be a solid strategy.
Burn is a control element.

Congrats on the Top 8,
GO KIRD APE (yummy Arabian Nights BB Goodness)

Dxfiler
09-05-2006, 02:51 PM
Faerie stompy in general doesn't seem to be a great match, but the particular version I was up against had no trinket mages and NO SEA SPRITE. He gave those up for more stax-ish elements in trinisphere and juggernaut. That is why I thought my match was good.

I agree with the consensus opinion that in general, a normal faerie stompy is very hard for me to deal with.

As for why I'm boarding out chain vs. combo when it costs when less than incinerate... chain is a sorcery. After sidebaord, I want to minimize the number of times I'm tapping out on my turn to keep combo on their feet. I always want them to play around REB. If I'm tapping on my turn to chain lightning, that's one less mana I have up to bluff REB. It's minor, but it matters.

- Dave Feinstein

Ta Jugs
09-05-2006, 03:52 PM
Hey its me, the Faerie Stompy player who beat Dave in top 8. You actually have a 90-10 matchup vs. Faerie Stompy (in Stompy's favor), but you still managed to beat me one game.

Hey Cody, welcome to The Source. Congratulations on the top4, and we're glad to have you. That said, please visit the forum rules (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/announcement.php?f=24), and maybe stop by the FAQ for New Members (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3468), too. Thanks.

SuckerPunch
09-05-2006, 05:38 PM
As for why I'm boarding out chain vs. combo when it costs when less than incinerate... chain is a sorcery. After sidebaord, I want to minimize the number of times I'm tapping out on my turn to keep combo on their feet. I always want them to play around REB. If I'm tapping on my turn to chain lightning, that's one less mana I have up to bluff REB. It's minor, but it matters.

But Incinerate costs 2 mana, both Chain and REB only cost one. In a situation where you have only one land, you don't have to cast chains, you can still bluff REB. It's not like you could've casted Incinerate with that 1 mana even if you wanted to, you're forced to bluff REB with Incinerate, with Chains, you have the option to.

When you have the 2 mana that would let you cast Incinerate at the end of their turn, you could have just as easily cast Chain and leave the one land untapped to bluff REB. Best of all, if you have REB and they don't buy your bluff, you can actually cast, while already having dealt the 3 damage that Incinerate would have done.

Zilla
09-05-2006, 06:52 PM
Very well written tournament report. Incidentally, Angel Stompy should beat you about 90% of the time. Your game 1 against Justin is a perfect example of why I've always been against Aether Vial in the deck - you cut threats for accellerants and all you get is a hand full of equipment with no threats to put them on. If those Vials were, say, Soltari Priests, the match would almost certainly have gone the other way.

Anyway, good job, and congrats on the T8 Dave!

Machinus
09-05-2006, 07:05 PM
Thanks for the report Dave.

Can I ask what happened to fish?

scrumdogg
09-06-2006, 12:50 AM
Very well written tournament report. Incidentally, Angel Stompy should beat you about 90% of the time. Your game 1 against Justin is a perfect example of why I've always been against Aether Vial in the deck - you cut threats for accellerants and all you get is a hand full of equipment with no threats to put them on. If those Vials were, say, Soltari Priests, the match would almost certainly have gone the other way.

Anyway, good job, and congrats on the T8 Dave!

Shenanigans, the deck simply screwed him, we still run 26 creatures with Vial & assorted stuff. Vial is the element that allows us to run on 20 land (and Vial & Wayfarer) and turns combo from a near auto-loss like aggro-style ASStompy to an extremely winnable matchup (regardless of the combo - testing has been positive to date against Solidarity, Iggy Pop, Salvagers Game, & Sunrise Eggs. We truthfully don't test against Eggs, it gets played in one of our local metas...but it is combo & they lose :) Dave played it right, took advantage of the opportunity, and was classy about it - which was appreciated. But you're meat next time Feinstein :)

Zilla
09-06-2006, 01:02 AM
I'm skeptical Scrumm. Let's see the list.

Dxfiler
09-06-2006, 01:28 AM
This isn't directed at anyone in particular, I just noticed that there's alot of talk about 90% matchups on here...

Let me say that I feel that no such match percentage exists. In my opinion, the closest a deck can get to consistently owning another deck is roughly 80%

This belief comes from the fact that mulligans exist, god hands exist, and random luck exists. It feels good to say something is 90% against something else (I myself am guilty of making this statement in the past), but it's just not a realistic statement. You play 100 games of any competitive deck versus any other competitive deck, with two competitive players behind each one, and you'll find more often than not that either deck can pull out at LEAST twenty games in a 100 game bubble. Yes, I have done marathon testing sessions like that... plenty of times.

I have no life :p

Now, as for my deck...if something did have close to 90% on me, it's undoubtedly the angel stompy deck that is suddenly under scrutiny. I think Justin's deck is VERY good, and for those questioning the vials... they are necessary. I almost played the deck myself, mainly because the vials let me do unfair things. He just happened to draw them in clumps and I was able to take advantage of it, as already mentioned.

About shock... I don't like it... at all. Originally in the chain lightning spot was seal of fire... mainly because it fueled the adorable scab-clan maulers. As time went on, I realized they weren't needed, so I just went for another 3 damage 1 drop in that spot for the raw power factor. The chains help contribute to the deck's raw power game one. In a broad field, all you're really going for with this deck is brute force game one. If you run into a terrible matchup, you focus the deck to whatever you need to post board. Since you can't control what you're going to run into, the chains boost up the times you can burn someone out game one much more than shock or seal ever could do. For the record, the amount of times where someone could do more harm to me than I could to them off chaining back my chains has come up maybe twice in the 200+ games I've played with it. If someone actually gets into a chain war with me (which usually does not happen), I'm probably going to come out on top more often than not. Burn decks like being able to do extra damage off of just one burn spell. :smile:

I appreciate all of the comments and thank everyone for the feedback. Glad to see people enjoyed the report and are giving the deck some respect.

- Dave Feinstein

M.Maddox
09-06-2006, 02:15 AM
Awesome (and hilarious) report. I've always loved R/G beats (been playing something r/g and beaty since invasion) and it's badass to see one go a long way. Grats, dude.

Volt
09-06-2006, 02:16 AM
@Dave: We all (should) know Fireblast is the shizzit, but did you ever find them clumping in your hand? I've felt for a while now that if you're going to run 4 Fireblasts, you should be running at least 18 mountains/fetchers.

scrumdogg
09-06-2006, 10:41 AM
Dave F is making a serious and valid point. To which I agree, although I would not argue 80-85% and would fiercely defend any attempt to peg the match at less than 75% and that includes god draws, god screws, & random luck. Over a decent span of time (like a large tournament) you are going to get screwed by some aspect of your deck in several games, the trick is to be able to recover (or hope it happens to your opponent simultaneously). In Game 3, Round 2, versus the Rakdos guy I kept a 3 land hand with 2 critters & 2 spells. I drew 6 straight land and a Jitte....in a deck with 20 land. Game 1, Round 5, versus Phil Stoltze I kept a 2 land hand (1 Waste) with a Wayfarer (I believe). Wayfarer went farming, Wasteland took out a fetched Tundra & I did nothing for a looooong time. Actually it wasn't that long, it just seemed long. I won Game 2, worked my ass off to do so as he had a flipped Exalted wearing Sword of Fire/Ice for a long time. That felt really good, but we ran out of time for Game 3.

As for the list, Godzilla, look in the "You took 11th, WTF?" report, my build differed only in the choice of Sword & lack of Paladins (I ran +1 Wayfarer, +1 Grunt) partly from testing, partly from lack.

MattH
09-09-2006, 03:50 AM
Vial is the element that allows us to run on 20 land
Sounds exactly like what I was saying back when I was saying that Vial should sub in for mana, not threats. :D

Good job on the T8, loved your report (as always).

scrumdogg
09-09-2006, 07:21 AM
Sounds exactly like what I was saying back when I was saying that Vial should sub in for mana, not threats. :D

Good job on the T8, loved your report (as always).

The reason we subbed it in for mana, not threats, is that is an obvious point. I don't pay much attention to your comments usually because either they are condescending or obvious (Matt, not Dave). Played Dave last Wednesday again. The deck actually gave me creatures & therefore the outcome was not in doubt. Game 1 Turn 2 Silver Knight, Turn 3 Jitte, Turn 4 equip was all I could ask for, Game 2 involved STP, Jotun Grunt, stall into Turn 4-5 Silver Knight-Jitte. The matchup is almost unfair unless one deck completely shoots the boot.

MattH
09-09-2006, 01:03 PM
You speak from ignorance. That comment wasn't even primarily directed at you, but at Zilla. Over a year ago (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2576&page=2) I reccommended putting Vials in Angel Stompy, and he said that he tried Vial and it wasn't good, but then we found out that's because he was dropping business cards for them, and wouldn't hear different. I never did get a satisfactory explanation of why someone would drop threats for Vials instead of mana-for-Vials.

It's no skin off my back if you would rather take an entire year to figure stuff out rather than pay attention to me.

Zilla
09-09-2006, 08:11 PM
@Scrumm: Keep it civil, please. No matter how you may feel about Matt or anyone else, to say so publicly can only exacerbate the problem. Please avoid it.


You speak from ignorance. That comment wasn't even primarily directed at you, but at Zilla. Over a year ago (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2576&page=2) I reccommended putting Vials in Angel Stompy, and he said that he tried Vial and it wasn't good, but then we found out that's because he was dropping business cards for them, and wouldn't hear different. I never did get a satisfactory explanation of why someone would drop threats for Vials instead of mana-for-Vials.
The reason I never tested Vials in place of mana sources is the same reason I never played Wasteland in the deck. You absolutely must have at least 16 white sources for the deck to operate optimally, Vials or no. To get a playset of Vials in the mix, you have to drop Tombs, which inherently slows your ability to play equipment, Angels, Parallax Wave, and Armageddon, and these are the truly game-breaking cards that make Angel Stompy as potent as it is. If you can find a way to run 16 Plains, 4 Tombs, and 4 Vials without dropping threats, I'm all ears. Thus far, Scrumm hasn't bothered to show me a list which accomplishes this.

Evil Roopey
09-10-2006, 01:26 PM
This discussion should really be held in the AS thread, you are taking away from the discusion of the list and accomplishment it made at TML Open.

Zilla
09-10-2006, 08:34 PM
This discussion should really be held in the AS thread, you are taking away from the discusion of the list and accomplishment it made at TML Open.
Agreed, I apologize for instigating off-topicness in the first place. On the topic of the deck, has maindeck Rancor been considered, perhaps over Incinerate? The only reason I suggest it is that without it, you have a grand total of 4 cards (Mauler) which can answer a threshed Mongoose, and a threshed Bear will always be a 2 for 1 trade. With Rancor, every threat in your deck will trade 1 for 1 with threshed 'geese, and both Apes and Maulers can trade 1 for 1 with a threshed Bear.

It also gives you a bit more maneuverability on the ground against Goblins, although Incinerate is arguably as strong there.

One other thing I noticed was that green mana production seemed a bit shaky. I'm sure this had something to do with the fact that I was using MWS to test, and its shuffler sucks ass, but even so, I'd often find myself with only a Wasteland and a Mountain in my opening grip, and no way to cast that turn 2 bloodthirsted Mauler. A first turn Wasteland on that Taiga you used to cast Kird Ape can seriously fuck up your day too. I don't know what solution you could come up with really, short of dropping a Taiga for a basic Forest and a couple Mountains for a couple Heaths. It may not be worth it, but I thought I'd mention it since it came up a few times in testing for me.

scrumdogg
09-11-2006, 10:31 AM
It has been an issue IRL as well, at least from the perspective of an opponenyt with Wasteland. Every game in which we have found Wasteland versus Dave earlier than Turn 4 has been very difficult to use green effectively. Not having good early access to green drastically slows the beats option of the deck, making the burn less scary. Also, time to build for the opponent is a Bad Thing (TM)


Side note to Zilla, go check out the "You got 11th place with WHAT???" thread in the Tournament Report Forum for a decklist. I run a slightly different build but within 4 cards (other than choice of fetches & if we had enough Needles to run them in both sideboards, even those would be the same).

Firebrothers
09-20-2006, 12:16 AM
i played this deck at my local tournement with 2 jittes main decked because of the heavy aggro in my meta and it worked well i went 3-1 and placed second. The only problem i came across was rgsa and its onslaught of creatures and another random aggro deck with big dudes like ravenous baloth and Burning Tree Shaman plus tons of burn to kill my dudes. Does anyone have some possible answers to improve these matchups or any ideas to help this deck even more? I think it has alot of potential and would like to see it tweaked around with.

bigbear102
09-21-2006, 01:14 PM
Fat creatures and RGSA will always give this deck a problem.... they are not necessarily better versions of this deck, but just beefier. They are not as quick, but can slow this deck down enough to smash. Jitte should help a lot in both matchups. Against RGSA burn their mana critters. About the only thing you could really do against something like Zilla stompy or some other RG beats with bigger guys is SB big guys too.