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View Full Version : The Unicorn Special #5: Return of the King (Not the Jamie Wakefield One)



TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-30-2007, 07:20 PM
Enjoy.

In the springtime, bears
Awaken majestically
Hulk Flash? What the f-

- Ancient Japanese Haiku (Last Line Lost to Time)


In retrospect, while one has the right to go to a tournament, and even to get into an argument without being physically attacked, there are better responses then trying to jump over a table and losing a shoe. Live and learn.

About midway through the Spring semester, I get into a conversation with a classmate that results in my going down to the recruiters later in the week and enlisting. Well, okay, technically I’m not fully enlisted yet, but about all the paperwork’s done. This also being about two months before Grand Prix Columbus, I decide that I should just go ahead and ask Andy Heckt if I can get unbanned for the first Legacy Grand Prix in a googolplex years.

A googol is a one followed by a hundred zeros. A googolplex is a one followed by a googol zeroes. If you took every known particle of matter in the Universe and converted them into paper and ink, it would still be impossible to write down the number googolplex in decimal notation. The Universe would have to be about sextillion times larger than it currently is for it to be possible to express the number this way. For comparison, the Moon is about sextillion times larger than a fairly small mouse. Clearly, my saying that this was the first Legacy Grand Prix in a googolplex years was hyperbole. I would like to apologize to anyone who was offended.

Long story short, Andy Heckt agrees to end my suspension early, since I’ll be unable to play serious Magic for some time after I go into the army, which would effectively make the suspension much longer than seems reasonable, and since we’ve agreed that the point about not jumping over tables has been proven.

I was debating between Landstill and Truffle Shuffle, when a meteor struck the Legacy metagame in the form of Hulk-Flash, and most of the format was rendered obsolete.

I was not aware, at first, that this was a meteor. My first thought was the same as most peoples’: "Oh, look at that pretty star. I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. I’ll bet it just scoops to decks running Force of Will."

Rather than focus on preparing for my finals and research papers that were soon to be due, I wasted time with Godzilla (Patrick Maeder) playtesting the deck.

Now, the Source, and Northern Virginians in particular, and me in particularly particular have a long track record of, if anything, being conservative on new decks. For instance, I had to explain to people why Goblin Charbelcher was bad in the format when it was first separated (before Empty the Warrens), despite being able to kill turn 1, and why Hunted Horror and Extirpate weren’t very good cards (side note- Extirpate isn’t a very good card. Yeah, recurring it a million times is cute. Boseiju + Haunting Echoes is cuter).

That being said, I reached the unfortunate conclusion that nothing in the old format actually beat Hulk-Flash more often than it lost to it. I was including Threshold and Fish in this testing. The Hatfields (Ob Freely and Mad Zur, who have both won a number of Dual lands with Threshold) and Anwar (Creator of Red Death), amongst other Virginians, agreed with this testing. Stifle in place of Pithing Needle made the deck reasonably better against it, but still, it seemed impossible to actually manage a more than marginally favorable game against Hulk-Flash.

I should mention again that speed in combo doesn’t scare me. Charbelcher’s been able to kill on turn one since forever. CRET Belcher is a much better engine that’s just as fast, but it’s literally nothing but 49 mana sources, Burning Wish, Empty the Warrens and Goblin Charbelchers. No, the problem in my testing, and the testing of others, was Hulk-Flash’s ability to protect and force through it’s combo with a heavy disruption suite, it’s low vulnerability to peripheral hate and it’s strength in the lategame. For comparison, Dragon was vulnerable to cheap instants from literally every single color, Wasteland, and Tormod’s Crypt, and that was still probably the best deck in the old 1.5 where Mishra’s Workshop and Mana Drain were legal. Moreover, if you fizzled Dragon, all their lands would be removed from the game- Hulk Flash can simply wait and cast another Flash. Hell, drawing multiple Flash’s is usually better than drawing multiple Force of Wills.

Early on in testing I take a cue after Dragon and move from the blazing fast version, to a slower build that runs more disruption. For some reason Lim-Dul’s Vault wasn’t included in every single list early on, but I rectify this mistake by adding the world’s best Vampiric Tutor (and yes, I’m including the actual Vampiric Tutor in this). I stumble on Body Snatcher, which Godzilla tells me Rich Shay discovered a week ago. Damn you, Rich Shay!

The sequence of events goes thuswise:

16:05, May 1st, 2007: I make a post on the Team Unicorn Forums on the Hulk-Flash Development thread about the Body Snatcher tech.
16:08, May 1st, 2007: Dominic Lodovichetti, aka Happy Gilmore, tells approximately everyone in the entire fucking world about the Body Snatcher tech.

Oh well.

The tech doesn’t actually become completely public knowledge until that Saturday, when a bunch of the Froggers enter the Richmond Grand Prix Trial with that kill, although I don’t think anyone’s running my exact list. Unmask will remain a grievously underplayed card throughout this metagame, apparently. John R., aka Mr. Nipples, does win the GPT with a similar list sporting Duress, Body Snatchers, and all one Lim-Dul’s Vault he could find.

Another side note: I fully expect that Flash will be banned on June 1st, and I understand that many of the pros simply picked up the deck with little playtesting, but really, play two Body Snatchers. For the cost of one card slot, you get numerous extra tricks, including the ability to combo off again if you’re fizzled, or to dodge Red removal thuswise:

Step 1: End of opponent’s turn, cast Flash. Sacrifice Hulk to get Carrion Feeder, Body Snatcher #1, and Benevolent Bodyguard as normal. Sacrifice Body Snatcher to return Hulk, go grab Karmic Guide, return Hulk, sac Hulk again to get Kiki Jiki. As per normal, so far.
Step 2: Copy Karmic Guide with Kiki Jiki, but without sacrificing Kiki Jiki. This will "fizzle" the combo, in that you can’t immediately make an infinite army, but it will mean that you don’t care about giving Karmic Guide pro-red. Return Hulk to play and allow priority to pass.
Step 3: Take your turn, untap. Echo trigger on the stack for Karmic Guide, copy her with Kiki Jiki, and this time sacrifice Mirror Breaker before passing priority as per normal. This is where they try to Lightning Bolt Karmic Guide. However, now you can simply sacrifice the Protean Hulk in response to go grab Body Snatcher #2, sacrifice it to Carrion Feeder, and return Kiki-Jiki to play. Now you can combo off as per normal with the Lightning Bolt still on the stack.

Also, if you’re a better man than me and still run Unmask, being able to toss a Body Snatcher to it and up your black count is useful.

At this point, the U/B list for Jack Flash is fully developed. The sideboard is still in a state of flux- I’m pondering a transitional board, but so far have only added Plague Slivers as an efficient beater that also hoses one of the few matchups I’m at all worried about, Counterslivers.

Lands
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp

Combo
4 Flash
4 Protean Hulk
1 Karmic Guide
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Body Snatcher
1 Benevolent Bodyguard

Dig
3 Diabolic Vision
3 Portent
4 Brainstorm
4 Lim-Dul's Vault

Protection/Disruption
3 Daze
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Unmask
1 Wipe Away
1 Echoing Truth

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Plague Sliver
4 Massacre
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Gloomdrifter

This is the period during which the sky is falling, as the hype over Hulk-Flash reaches a fevered pitch and numerous people called for emergency bannings. The argument against emergency bannings, that they make players afraid that the format will suddenly be swept out from under them without any warning, instead of with each new set, doesn’t apply to the case of un-errata; in fact, the exact same argument might have been used for an emergency banning on Hulk-Flash, as it destroyed the months of testing and tournament results that had gone beforehand. Nonetheless, time ticks by and it becomes obvious that it will be too late to issue such a banning, and Aaron Forsythe confirms that the DCI will stick to it’s policy. We will have GP: Hulk-Flash.

As this realization sinks in, most of the development on Hulk-Flash goes incognito. Although there is much tension in discussion over whether or not Hulk-Flash is actually banworthy or over-rated, very few people are still sharing new developments or sideboard plans.

Allow me a moment to inject a personal opinion:

There are only a handful of conceivable reasons that anyone could argue that Hulk-Flash was not far too powerful for the Legacy metagame. The first is that they simply have not playtested it, and are arguing from ignorance and conjecture. This is the crowd that will, for instance, assert that all you have to do is to Force of Will the Flash, and the deck falls apart. The second might be that they’re simply bad at Magic, and are unable to distinguish good cards from banned- see the hype around Hunted Horror when it was first released, for instance. The third is sheer disingenuousness; this includes those that simply wanted to sell the Grand Prix, and those that wanted to earn brownie points with those who wanted to sell the Grand Prix. I know all too well how rare high level support of the Legacy format is, but I find the idea of lying or being less than honest about the format warping power of the combo, simply to entice people to the GP, to be not only immoral, but simply impractical. Nothing could be worse for the format’s publicity than for people such as Kevin Binswanger and Ben Bleiweiss to label themselves Legacy experts, assure potential attendees that Hulk-Flash was "fair", and "just another combo deck", and for those so deceived to attend the GP unprepared only to be completely destroyed by a deck which is fundamentally unfair, and far more resilient and consistent than a turn 1-3 combo deck has any right to be.

On the other hand, it warms the cockles of my heart to see the unanimity of the Legacy community in general at this hour. Of all the Legacy regulars I have any reason to respect for their success at deckbuilding or tournament performances, not a one attempts to convince people that the deck is in any way fair or good for the format. There is the predictable Team Meandeck shenanigans of telling people that the deck isn’t that good and that it will be hated out and that they shouldn’t both playing or preparing for it, and the predictable Team Meandeck showing up playing the deck at the actual tournament, but the community actually comes together very well. Despite the fact that the Grand Prix did, of course, end up being heavily warped by and dominated by a deck that made up perhaps 10% of the field, it could have been much worse if less people had been prepared. If nothing else, this event was a fine opportunity to discover who was actually interested in the long-term health of the format, and who was merely interested in accolades.

Right, Right, the Actual Tournament Report

So, slight problem: I don’t own any Force of Wills, Blue Duals, or Blue fetchlands. In fact, a quick scouring of the Elgin collection reveals that we don’t own Brainstorms. Frowntown.

Luckily, this is why the Jack Elgin Fanclub exists. Less than a week before I leave for Columbus, after leaving work and with only a short time before the mail office closes, Evn, aka, Lego Army Man throws together most of the expensive cards in my deck, (including Trops, an Underground Sea, Deltas, Strands, Morphlings, Force of Wills, Brainstorms, and Cabal Therapies and Unmasks that I won’t end up using) and hops onto his bike, speeding through heavy traffic and fighting at least three hungry tigers to arrive at the post office at the last second, tossing the blood-stained package through the closing glass doors and into the Outgoing box with nary a second to spare.

Or so he tells me. I’m borrowing his cards, so I’m not going to say shit about it, although there are suspiciously few bloodstains on the package.

I do own Deeds and Bayous, as well as most of the actual combo cards, so the only cards I’ll end up buying are 3x Crime/Punishment, the Kiki-Jiki, 2x Sudden Death (I own plenty, but I was in Ohio by the time I decided I wanted to bring them), and a ten-cent Benevolent Bodyguard I have to dig through a box of commons for. Why enterprising traders weren’t plopping their Benevolent Bodyguards out there for a buck a piece I’ll never know. Did you guys think that they hadn’t yet reached their prime value or something?

After a seven-hour Unicorn car ride that features, amongst other things, my being thoroughly mocked by Allen, Scott, and Kyle (Urabanh, Overlord95, and Sain respectively) for suggesting buying apples and granola bars for road snacks next time (instead of more cheetos and doritos), we arrive in surprisingly gorgeous Columbus, Ohio. After checking into the Hotel, we go over to find the convention center. Allen, who is the official champion of inefficient parking, stations us about four blocks away from the Convention Center... or, more specifically, the furthest possible corner of the Convention Center, which is shockingly big. The hall is also surprisingly full for the night before, with at least three hundred people trading and playing in GPTs; this was about as many as I had anticipated for the actual Grand Prix, so apparently I’m not always right about everything. Weird. I decide to waste twenty bucks on the Grinders, so now I have to decide what I’m going to actually play. Hulk-Flash, being about the most low-maintenance game-winning combo ever, is at this point to my mind almost an entire archetype in and of itself (the archetype being "Decks that like to win all of the times").

I’ve fiddled around with a dozen builds of a conversional sideboard for Fishy decks, as it’s one of only three matchups I’m worried about, with Landstill and the mirror being the others, and not expecting the latter two to be as popular/difficult respectively. I briefly consider a build that I’ve had much success with against Fish in testing, running heavy discard, no counterspells at all, and the savage combo of Unmask + Cabal Therapy. However, it’s also been much worse against the mirror in testing.

I really don’t want to share the list that I ran at the GPT. I will take this opportunity to issue a statement to the Magic playing community:

Friends don’t let friends play Recoil.

After going 0-1-WhattheHellthesearesingleelimination?, I hang around for a while meeting various Sourcers. I receive numerous "Aren’t you banned?" comments, and then we retire for dinner. This evening is only part one of my harrowing (but ultimately successful) weekend-long attempt to avoid eating at White Castle, but I’m able to convince Allen that he really wants to eat at Steak and Shake. The Steak was good, the Shake was over-rated, but through a misdelivery we didn’t actually have to end up paying for them, so it’s all good. I go to sleep around two a.m., trying to decide on my final sideboard plan. I’ve reached a policy at this point of refusing to play any list in a tournament that isn’t at least a day old. All I can say about making last minute changes to try and be clever is that I’ve played Golgari Guildmage in a Pro Tour... and it wasn’t Limited (to be fair, it was David Gearhart’s fault for not stopping me).

Here is the list I sleeve in shiny new brown Dragonshields shortly before going to sleep:

Mana:
4x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
1x Island

Draw:
4x Brainstorm
4x Portent
3x Impulse
3x Lim-Dul's Vault

Control:
4x Daze
4x FoW
4x Duress
3x Deed

Combo:
4x Hulk
4x Flash
2x Body Snatcher
1x Kiki
1x Karmic Guide
1x Carrion Feeder
1x Benevolent Bodyguard

The Transitional Sideboard:
2x Bayou (Most frequently sideboarded card, surprisingly)
2x Sudden Death
2x Gigapede
3x Morphling
3x Crime/Punishment
3x Massacre

On another side note, never play Sylvan Safekeeper in this version. I have no idea why it’s in Gadiel’s list- it literally does nothing to save the combo, as he doesn’t even have a second Body Snatcher.

Morning. Breakfast. Tournament. Registration. Decklist. Strawberry yogurt on a hot fresh waffle is delicious.

Round 1- Bye
I still have Pro points from my mighty 381st place finish at Honolulu, so I’m in the clear this round. I go up to check the matchup listing just to be sure and... the Hell?

Round 1- Aaron Parks with U/W Fish
Do Pro Points expire after one year instead of two? Do they go away when you get suspended? Was that unintelligible garbling on the speakers a request for people to confirm their byes with the judges? (The last thought doesn’t actually cross my mind until I go up to speak to one of the judges later and find out that the unintelligible garbling on the speakers was a request for people to confirm their byes with the judges)

I shrug and move on. Okay. I didn’t really want to sit on the sidelines and watch anyway. We fight some early counter wars, he resolves a Meddling Mage on Flash and another on Chain of Vapor. A Deed clears the Mages and a Duress clears the path for the win.

Game 2: The conversional plan. -4 Flash, -2 Protean Hulk, -6 Bad Combo Creatures, -3 Lim-Dul’s Vault, +15 the entire board. This game is more of a blowout, with a Gigapede catching him completely by surprise and without answers- I think he might’ve even boarded out Silver Knight, although I’m not sure. Plentiful board clearers mean it doesn’t really matter, as he’s unable to keep a creature around and Gigapede goes all the way.

Interesting side note: Have you ever looked closely at the art for Gigapede? Those little white things are birds. That bug’s furking huge.

Round 2- Ben Lukas with Green Goblins
Game 1: We talk briefly about how ridiculously bad this matchup is for him. I go through three Portents and a Brainstorm throughout this game. He repeatedly asks me if he’s dead yet. Turn six, when he has lethal next turn, I cast Flash. He asks me the same question again. I show him a hand full of Duresses, Flashes, lands and Dazes. No Protean Hulks for Jack.
Sideboard: -1 Duress, -1 Daze, -1 Lim-Dul’s Vault, +1 Bayou, +2 Massacre. I’m slightly worried about my mana base, and most of his threats are going to be based around having Fanatics in play for the Feeder, or having Gempalm active for the Karmic Guide.
Game 2: I think I Duress a REB or something, then combo off turn 3 with Daze backup.
Game 3: I keep a hand with Portent, Porten, Force of Will, a single land, a dead combo piece, Flash and something else I forget. He opens with Rishadan Port on Aether Vial. I think a minute, and then Force it, removing a Portent and hoping to buy time. I crack the Fetchland for basic Island and play Portent. Seeing no land, I shuffle it back. I draw for his upkeep. No land. I draw for my turn as he taps down my Island... no land.
He tears apart my mana base as I try to piece it together long enough to win, and kills me around turn 6 with a Lackey and friends.

Round 3- Nick Boomer with 43Land.dec
Game 1: He opens with a Children of Korliss followed by Wasteland, Wasteland, unthreshed Werebear. End of one of his turns, I cast Lim-Dul’s Vault with 47 cards left in my library. He’s one card away from Threshold and has a Monastery on the board, so I have to win this turn or lose to a Fetchland. I have a hand that includes Flash, double Daze, Force of Will and Carrion Feeder, but because of the Wastelands I only have the two lands. I need to find a stack that contains a Brainstorm, a land, and a Protean Hulk in order to draw into the combo + the land to cast it, and put Carrion Feeder back. Unfortunately, I suck at stacking, and with one life left stare at a top five of Hulk and Brainstorm but no land. I put it back and draw the Hulk, then stare at my hand for a good long minute, almost ready to scoop. Instead, I cast the Flash and Daze it, returning one land, and then Daze the Daze without passing priority. Both lands are now in my hand and Flash resolves. I get Karmic Guide and Benevolent Bodyguard, returning Hulk. Then I play an Underground Sea for my land and cast the Carrion Feeder. Maybe I’m not so terrible after all.
Game 2: I side out a couple of Dazes, I think, for Bayous, as Wasteland is the scariest card here. I don’t know if he had any real hate to bring in. I don’t remember seeing any. He actually is able to draw Life from the Loam this game, but it doesn’t matter much in this matchup and I win before he’s able to do much with it.

Round 4- Caleb Williams with U/b/w Fish.

Game 1: He resolves early Mages and threats, but has no answer to a board-clearing Deed. I win a couple of turns later. I think I drew three Duresses and two Force of Wills this game. I remember him being pissed.
Game 2: Same change as the last Fish matchup. Early Duresses show me a hand full of creature removal, including Darkblast- I guess he’s trying to out-hate Benevolent Bodyguard. I play a Morphling with Blue open. He rolls his eyes in frustration as Superman goes to town.

Round 5- Justin Young with White Weenie.
Game 1- I Lim-Dul’s Vault to 1 without assembling the combo, as I draw a metric fuckton of lands, and just put Deed on top to deal with his threats. I have enough to cast the Protean Hulk in my hand as a blocker... and he plays Icatian Javelineers. Ouch.
Game 2 & 3- I don’t know if I used the sideboard or not. I have almost no recollection of these games besides winning them, so probably I kept the combo in. I know I brought in Massacres.

Round 6- Cedric Phillips with U/w/r Landstill

Game 1 lasts thirty minutes and involves a lot of trading back and forth. I seem to remember killing Crucible with a Deed, and him topdecking some sort of answer at some very dramatic moment, but I lost my notes.
Game 2, I suppose eight of the cards in my board are of minimal relevance, and I’m not sure whether or not to sideboard. For some reason, the fact that he is undoubtedly boarding in Mages doesn’t occur to me, and I don’t board in extra creature kill, and thus lose to double Mage on Flash and Deed. I decide that I must be tired.
I go to drink more water. Always stay hydrated.

Round 7- Jeremy Moore with Mono-Black Suicide (Unless it was Goblins)

Game 1, he plays a first turn Engineered Plague on Zombie off of a Dark Ritual. Second turn, I play a Flash into into a Protean Hulk to go get Benevolent Bodyguard and Karmic Guide, reanimating the Protean Hulk. I get him down to 8, but then have to sit back and block for a couple turns until I can Deed away a Shade and a Negator.

Game 2 I side out: 4 Duress, 4 Force of Will, and 4 Daze for the entire board except for Massacres. I spend several turns killing his threats and trying to get to five mana to play the Morphling he’s seen in my hand, while he tries to keep me from doing so. Then I topdeck into the combo win. Yay threat diversity.

Round 8- Daniel Wells with Goblins (Unless it was Mono Black Sui)

Games 1 & 2- It’s like I’m suddenly playing that broken deck everyone talks about, instead of some painfully slow control deck. I get a turn 2 and a turn 3 kill with Force of Will/Daze backup. I might’ve gotten round 7 & 8 confused, though.

Round 9- Ben Angel with Goblins.

Games 1 & 2- We talk briefly of drawing in, but there’s no real point in doing so- 6-2-1 has a very poor chance of making a relevant placing. If we play it out, at least the loser can sleep in tomorrow. I did breathe a sigh of relief when I found out that he was playing Goblins, though. All I remember of this round is getting more ridiculously unfair and overpowered hands and winning like a dirty fucking Spike.

I check my standings, and I’m in 69th position. Team Unicorn engages in many a merry jest about this, and a huge group of Sourcers go to celebrate at some Mongolian Barbeque that Caboose is in love with. Unfortunately, they’re not open at midnight, but Dominic’s Italian senses start tingling and we find a really cool Italian place underneath a nightclub. It looks like a small, cozy family place, but it actually has nigh-infinite small dining rooms going back into an effing labyrinth. The apple gorgonzola salad is amazing. I have absolutely no idea what this place was called, but I recommend that anyone visiting Columbus wander around til they find it.

Five hours of sleep, an apple and two donuts later, I’m staring at a pairings sheet.

Round 10- Kenta Hiroki with Goblins
I become increasingly convinced that my round 2 loss was a fluke. The most interesting thing that happened was that I bent a Crime/Punishment and needed to replace the sleeve this round. No offense intended to my opponent, but Hulk-Flash is just silly good against Goblins... actually, against just about anything. Game 2 I win around a potential Pyrokinesis by putting a Karmic Guide and a Protean Hulk in the path of a few attackers, then beat down for a few turns before drawing another Flash and Hulk and comboing off fully with Force of Will backup.

Round 11- Jeff Rabovsky with U/g/w/r Gro
Game 1 I actually force through the combo early on, which feels really good, as I’m sure my sideboard is going to serve me as well as it did against Fish yesterday. Game 2 I draw land and removal, but get stuck on only four land with two Morphlings and a Gigapede in hand while he’s able to eke out lethal. Game 3 I’m not even able to get that far, drawing a grand total of two land with a Mage naming Massacre. Ouch. On tilt, I decide I just didn’t mulligan aggressively enough into land.

Round 12- Steven Wolfman with U/w/b Fish
Game 1 I lose to Wasteland and Stifle eating my mana base, while Daze counters my relevant spells. I switch into the combo, and this time I rectify my earlier mistake by mulliganing a decent hand that’s light on mana into a hand of five lands and a Portent. I’m more worried about mana denial than anything, and I definitely have mana to work with here. Portent should start drawing me into some removal. I was even so sure to hit my mana that I let him play first. He goes first turn fetch, crack for Underground Sea, Chrome Mox imprinting Lim-Dul’s Vault. Uh-oh. I draw another land for my turn and see a top three of Force (dead with no other Blue cards) and irrelevant spells, and shuffle it back. I hope to see a Daze. He end of turn Lim-Dul’s Vault, then untaps, draws, and casts Flash without passing priority.

Check that again. So I call the Judge over and get my Portent draw here, right? Nope. I say "Okay". He puts the Protean Hulk into play. Only then do I stop to ask, "Wait, is this in response to Portent?" I’d love to say that I noticed the inconsistency, but it was only when he was up to Kiki-Jiki that he stopped and realized that this was impossible.
We call the Judge and try to figure the situation out. We end up agreeing that it’s only relevant if the top card was a Daze anyway, so I flip it and.... it’s the Daze. Now we’re in some crap. The judge says that I can play the Daze on the Flash, but he says that the next card down off of the Lim-Dul’s Vault was another Flash. I have no reason to disbelieve him, but I can’t really make the decision. He appeals to the head judge. We wait on tenterhooks for ages before the head judge arrives and reverses the previous decision, moving us to the game state where Flash had already resolved and letting me draw Daze then. Not that that’s relevant. I wish, not for the first time, that I could remember how slowtrips work. We both get warnings, and after making sure he’s not going to punt the combo, we shake hands. I’m feeling down from the sheer number of play mistakes I’ve made the past two games and thinking back over how I could’ve remained in top 8 contention. Oh well. I’m still in contention for prizes.

Round 13- Ben Lundquist with Hulk-Flash

Alix Hatfield, aka ObfuscateFreely, has already told me about losing to this guy in the mirror and having a Mexican hat dance performed on his face. I’m a little bit nervous coming in. And apparently I should be, because I just get blown out of the water on game 1 with what seems like the perfect hand, turn 1 kill with Force backup.
Game 2 I bring in Sudden Death and, I think, a Gigapede. He opens with a land, Petal, Petal, and we spend several turns not doing anything as I make land drops. He Duresses me. My hand is Flash, Flash, Hulk, Lim-Dul’s Vault, Sudden Death, Pernicious Deed. I consider trying to combo off in response, but let him take the Flash. End of his turn I ponder, but decide to cast Lim-Dul’s Vault. He Flashes in response. I Flash in turn and he has the Force of Will, making a million dudes, but I figure I can still cast Deed. Then I remember about Deed not killing Karmic Guide tokens. Then I figure at least I can kill Carrion Feeder and they’ll all die on his upkeep. I untap and do that. He ponders, then copies a Karmic Guide on his upkeep to return Carrion Feeder to play. Or maybe he does it end of turn? Stack tricks in this deck are sillily complicated. I remember dying somehow.

Round 14- Analynn Bustamante with Vial Goblins.

I need to win out to have any shot of prize, but Goblins has been my lord and savior all weekend. I remember losing a game here, but I don’t remember how. I think it was game 1, oddly. Game 2 I reanimate Hulk and go beatdown to avoid Pyrokinesis tech, and game 3 a Duress clears the way for the full combo. Too many rounds of Goblins over the weekend blur together- all I remember is something about playing a stupid unfair deck that ought to be banned.

Round 15- Cory Furrow with Burn

I had actually discussed with Matt, aka SpatulaOfTheAges, aka my brother, how this matchup could potentially be really bad, as a ton of red removal could interfere with the combo. The actual practice wasn’t that bad. Game 1 is very close, but he has to send the burn to my head to win, so can’t really hold back. I save my counters for Price of Progress, and I win at 1 life as he topdecks a Mountain too many. Game 2 isn’t anywhere near as exciting, and I simply win through, I believe sideboarded REBs with double Daze backup.

Finally they put up the rankings, and I’m now at.... 69th Position.

I’m a little annoyed, as the lack of a first round Bye probably cost me top 64, but at least I can make jokes about how 69 is a good position to maintain. Insert comment about stiff neck here.

Let’s end this in classical style, with the props and slops:

Props:
n Random Italian restaurants/labyrinths. High on quality salads and root beer refills, low on minotaurs.
n My opponents, who were all class acts. Well, except Caleb, but then losing to infinite disruption combo.dec, and then sideboarded Morphling beats must be rough.
n Jon R, myself, Dominic, Alix Hatfield, Diefendorf, Kaddi, Phil Stolze, myself, Zohar, myself, and all the other Sourcers who day 2’d.
n All the Sourcers and players of the format that attended. Despite the warped metagame, this tournament had a (generally) great, friendly atmosphere.
n Allen, Alix, and Caboose, for bummed rides.
n Evn, for lending me pretty much the entire deck.
n Godzilla, for testing a thousand incarnations of the deck with me.
n Adam, aka Mr. Nightmare. For no real reason, I just like his glasses.
n Chris Coppola, for being much less of a dick in person.
n David Gearhart, for being much more of a dick in person.
n Matt, for lending me Underground Seas and 40 bucks.
n Torgar, for going 4-0 with Rabid Wombat before being Wombated (drawn) out of contention.
n Mike Flores and Steve Sadin, the latter for winning and both for identifying the obvious broken power level of Hulk-Flash... which, you know, you’d have thought would be obvious, but apparently not.

Slops:
n David Gearhart, for losing to Smennen.
n Ben Bleiweiss, for misrepresenting the threat of Hulk-Flash to countless innocent, ill-informed players.
n Kevin Binswanger, aka Anusien for misrepresenting the threat of Hulk-Flash to countless innocent, ill-informed players, maintaining how great the GP would be... and then not even showing up. Yeah, great representative of the format you are.
n Doug Lynn, aka Hi-Val, for badmouthing me to people and then not having the testicular fortitude to stand behind it when I actually walked up to him and asked him if he had anything he wanted to talk about.
n Some guy with a Waterbury playmat I sat next to in my seventh round who, when I and then my opponent asked to borrow a dice, alternately glared at and/or ignored us.
n Zohar, for shamelessly trying to abuse Cheatyface.
n 50 Minute Round Limits and five-turn rules, for being the bane of board control decks everywhere.
n Five dollar slices of pizza.
n People that play Super Mario Smash Brothers in your hotel room at the foot of your bed until five in the morning.
n Losing out on tiebreakers.
n The bye system. Seriously, if Pros are so much better than us at this game, let them actually play the rounds. I have friends that didn’t make day 2 going 6-3 with bad luck, but Antonino De Rosa makes it in going 3-2-1? Is this justice?

revenge_inc
05-30-2007, 08:23 PM
"testicular fortitude" FTW

Good read, thanks.

Jak
05-30-2007, 08:32 PM
Great report and nice finish. I really like the Deed in the main. Good read.

Pinder
05-30-2007, 11:29 PM
Round 14- Analynn Bustamante with Vial Goblins.


ROFLs, I lost to her in Round 13. You can thank me for that later.

Excellent read, and reminds me that I need to write my own.

ForceofWill
05-30-2007, 11:50 PM
That round 2 match was fun for me. I just sat there game one wondering when I was going to die :S.

frogboy
05-31-2007, 01:28 AM
I think I'm just gonna come right out with my mancrush on IBA.

WRT playing Golgari Guildmage at a Pro Tour: You also played Loxodon Warhammer at that event, lest we forget.

scrumdogg
05-31-2007, 02:15 AM
Well written - entertaining, informative, & nary a condescension in sight. Gratz on the finish.

Cerryl
05-31-2007, 02:29 AM
Great report. Best I've read in ages.

URABAHN
05-31-2007, 08:21 AM
n Doug Lynn, aka Hi-Val, for badmouthing me to people and then not having the testicular fortitude to stand behind it when I actually walked up to him and asked him if he had anything he wanted to talk about.

Good CHRIST, that was funny! I heard him talking to a couple other folks about how unfair it was that someone who got banned for assaulting another player got unbanned! Doug Lynn said (among other things) to his buddies, "What if I want to go teach English in Korea? What if I enter the Peace Corps?" And just then, IBA appeared right next to Doug and asked him if he had a problem. Fuck-ing GREAT.


After a seven-hour Unicorn car ride that features, amongst other things, my being thoroughly mocked by Allen, Scott, and Kyle (Urabahn, Overlord95, and Sain respectively) for suggesting buying apples and granola bars for road snacks next time (instead of more cheetos and doritos)

Good freakin' God, you'd think the King of Legacy would eat more fucking junk food. I suppose those Cheetos and Doritos were too rough for your sophisticated palate, perhaps some of the finest spices from Indo-China would've been in order. Although your love of apples reminds me of a certain Death God (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/43/Ryuuk.gif). If more people start dying of heart attacks at sanctioned events, I think we'll know for sure.

Machinus
05-31-2007, 11:46 AM
perhaps some of the finest spices from Indo-China would've been in order.

This impression is hilarious IRL.

dre4m
05-31-2007, 12:39 PM
One of the titans of Legacy tournament reports. I also have a mancrush on Jack Elgin.

TheMightyQuinn
05-31-2007, 06:25 PM
a huge group of Sourcers go to celebrate at some Mongolian Barbeque that Caboose is in love with.

Holy shit, Kahn's Mongolian Barbeque is the best fucking restaurant ever. Go there next time you have the opportunity. And Caboose, I commend you on your selection of restaurants.

This is probably the most entertaining report I've read in a while. Kudos.

noobslayer
05-31-2007, 07:18 PM
Good read. What ever happened to those 3x Impulse I loaned your bear like ass?

TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-31-2007, 07:23 PM
Good read. What ever happened to those 3x Impulse I loaned your bear like ass?

Ask Nightmare. I think he has them.

dre4m
05-31-2007, 10:42 PM
Good read. What ever happened to those 3x Impulse I loaned your bear like ass?

Are you really worried about losing Impulse?

MattH
05-31-2007, 11:29 PM
Good CHRIST, that was funny! I heard him talking to a couple other folks about how unfair it was that someone who got banned for assaulting another player got unbanned!
Well, It Just Doesn't Make Sense.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-01-2007, 12:12 AM
Well, It Just Doesn't Make Sense.

Don't make me lose a shoe.

I've gone over this a dozen times, but a) It wasn't actually assault, and b) I was hit first. That's not saying I reacted great, but I don't think the level of the offense is such that you could actually say eight months was an unreasonably short ban unless you had something personal against the person in question.

jazzykat
06-01-2007, 03:36 AM
Well, It Just Doesn't Make Sense.


The whole series that got him banned in the first place was rather absurd as well (However, violence is never the answer unless your safety is threatened and all other alternatives have been exhausted).

Regardless, the judge banned him and then unbanned him and in reality it is the only thing that matters.

SpatulaOfTheAges
06-01-2007, 08:03 AM
Matt, for lending me Underground Seas and 40 bucks.

Fuck you.

MattH
06-01-2007, 08:16 AM
The whole series that got him banned in the first place was rather absurd as well (However, violence is never the answer unless your safety is threatened and all other alternatives have been exhausted).

Regardless, the judge banned him and then unbanned him and in reality it is the only thing that matters.

I think you're missing the joke, which is that later at an Unhinged draft someone cheated illegally with Cheatyface and Jack went off on a tirade about it, and "It just doesn't make sense!" was one thing he said (Caboose has youtube'd it), and the group decided to ban him from further Unhinged drafting with them.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-01-2007, 08:22 AM
I should clarify that they cheated illegaly with Cheatyface.

MattH
06-01-2007, 08:42 AM
I should clarify that they cheated illegaly with Cheatyface.

Ah yes, definitely. Edited this in.

troopatroop
06-01-2007, 11:40 AM
I should clarify that they cheated illegaly with Cheatyface.

All you had to do was watch the board, and have a sense of humor guy.

Caboose
06-01-2007, 11:51 AM
I have absolutely no idea what this place was called, but I recommend that anyone visiting Columbus wander around til they find it.

It's called Buca di Beppo. There are a couple more in Columbus, but they're more like regular restaurants, and not mazes with the pope's head randomly in the middle of a table :wink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buca_di_Beppo

Also, Mongolian Barbeque is indeed the shiz. You put your choice of meat, noodles, vegetables, sauces, and spices into a bowl and then everyone gathers around an 8 foot diameter grill, and some dudes cook everyone's food on it. It's good fun!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bd%27s_Mongolian_Barbeque

jazzykat
06-01-2007, 12:47 PM
I think you're missing the joke, which is that later at an Unhinged draft someone cheated illegally with Cheatyface and Jack went off on a tirade about it, and "It just doesn't make sense!" was one thing he said (Caboose has youtube'd it), and the group decided to ban him from further Unhinged drafting with them.


Matt, you are right I had no idea. Accept my apology.
JK

MattH
06-01-2007, 04:44 PM
Matt, you are right I had no idea. Accept my apology.
JK

No harm no foul!

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-01-2007, 04:58 PM
All you had to do was watch the board, and have a sense of humor guy.

No, all I had to do was play by the actual Unhinged rules. Those involved Cheatyface, when I caught him, being removed from the game. That doesn't include Zohar getting to try again every ten seconds. That's not "having a sense of humor", that's, "letting someone, in a draft for real prizes, blatantly rape the spirit of the game in order to try and get an unfair advantage".

I could pick up your deck in said draft, toss it into the garbage can, and when you got upset about your reduced chances of winning, started saying, "It's Cheatyface! Have a sense of humor, guy!" But that probably wouldn't make you feel better about the situation. The truth is that I was winning the round, and Zohar cheated his way out of it in a way that the card clearly did not allow.

Mad Zur
06-01-2007, 07:14 PM
I could pick up your deck in said draft, toss it into the garbage can, and when you got upset about your reduced chances of winning, started saying, "It's Cheatyface! Have a sense of humor, guy!"I doubt a judge would rule in your favor if you did that.

You got a bad ruling. That's unfortunate, but that sort of thing happens all the time, particularly when dealing with cards the judge is probably not familiar with (such as cards that are not legal for sanctioned play) or when he is not officially judging the tournament in question (such as an Unhinged booster draft). If you had accepted the ruling and gone on to lose, this would have been a case of bad beats and you would deserve sympathy.

Instead, you refused to accept the ruling or to continue the game until it was reversed. Reversing a ruling because of a belligerent player is clearly not an option, so the only way the tournament could proceed was without you.

If you want to talk about real prizes, suppose you had lost to Zohar as a result of the bad ruling (as you assert). What prize would you have received? As it is, you were refunded your $5, so I doubt it was a great financial loss.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-01-2007, 07:34 PM
I appealed to the head judge, who wasn't around at the time. Players always have the right to appeal to the head judge. Zohar tried to move the game on ahead before the head judge returned to the floor. Players also always have the right to request Oracle readings, but none were available when I asked for them.

Furthermore, the Judge's ruling was that "Cheatyface doesn't say you can't play it from RFG". Now, ignoring the incredulousness of such a ruling, Cheatyface doesn't say that you can't take it from your opponent and put it into play on your side of the board, or alternately, that you can't stuff it down your pants. Erego, if we operate on this logic, stuffing Cheatyface down my pants was a fair and perfectly appropriate way of dealing with the creature. I'd love to see Zohar sneak it into play from there.

Mad Zur
06-01-2007, 11:54 PM
The tournament was not sanctioned, there was no other judge, there was no access to Oracle, and the card's Oracle text is identical to its printed text.

The fact that you still think disagreeing with a ruling gives you the right to refuse to abide by it is evidence enough that removing you from the tournament was the only way to proceed.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-02-2007, 03:34 AM
The tournament was not sanctioned

But up until that point, neither we nor the judges had any problem pretending that it was and abiding by the same rules, so your point here is irrelevant.


there was no other judge

There were a dozen other Judges. The head judge was still supposed to be in the hall, but must've been using the restroom or something.


there was no access to Oracle, and the card's Oracle text is identical to its printed text.

I'm fairly certain that Judges normally have some way to check official rulings. Maybe I'm wrong.


The fact that you still think disagreeing with a ruling gives you the right to refuse to abide by it is evidence enough that removing you from the tournament was the only way to proceed.

Every player always has the right to appeal a bad decision to the head judge. The fact that you think they don't have the right is evidence enough that you're a gigantic stupid face.

ForceofWill
06-02-2007, 03:41 AM
Jack was right now get off his back for fucking sake.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-02-2007, 06:17 AM
Meh. I suppose I got a little annoyed. I think it's bullshit to just call me out on supposedly "ruining the spirit of Unhinged". Part of the reason I was actually irritated was that this was supposed to be a fun draft, and Zohar was abusing the rules in a way that was clearly irrational and illegal to try and win. And that wasn't fun, that was skeazy. Note that I didn't get annoyed that people were randomly Ass-Whupping my board from random games, because that's actually in the spirit of Unhinged. Doing anything to win isn't.

Ultimately... again, meh. It's not like it's the end of the world. I got the five dollars back, but I probably should have won the draft. Zohar got a judge to actually confirm his stupid ruling, and the head judge wasn't there at the moment and their computers were off. I'm not saying I was entirely in the right, but... actually, wait, no, I am saying that. I was entirely in the right. Fuck Zohar.

Caboose
06-02-2007, 12:43 PM
Meh. I suppose I got a little annoyed. I think it's bullshit to just call me out on supposedly "ruining the spirit of Unhinged". Part of the reason I was actually irritated was that this was supposed to be a fun draft, and Zohar was abusing the rules in a way that was clearly irrational and illegal to try and win. And that wasn't fun, that was skeazy. Note that I didn't get annoyed that people were randomly Ass-Whupping my board from random games, because that's actually in the spirit of Unhinged. Doing anything to win isn't.

Ultimately... again, meh. It's not like it's the end of the world. I got the five dollars back, but I probably should have won the draft. Zohar got a judge to actually confirm his stupid ruling, and the head judge wasn't there at the moment and their computers were off. I'm not saying I was entirely in the right, but... actually, wait, no, I am saying that. I was entirely in the right. Fuck Zohar.

It just doesn't make ANY sense!!

Pinder
06-02-2007, 02:32 PM
The tournament was not sanctioned, there was no other judge

Here's another judge. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/jc16)




Q: How cheaty can I get with Cheatyface?

A: Probably not as cheaty as you want. For example, you can cheaty Mr. Face into play only if he's in your hand.
The game you're in can't see the text on hidden cards (ones in your library, for example) or cards in piles near your game. So no, playing Pandemonium and then pulling out a nine inch stack of Cheatyfaces is not going to work. Sorry, (h34tx0r.



It's really not Jack's fault that the judge didn't know the most current rulings, no?

I mean, Jack probably should have just sucked it up and taken a bad ruling (even though he technically had the option of appealing to the head judge), but without his righteous indignation I wouldn't have had the highlight of that afternoon. So I side with Jack on this one.

And plus, Zohar was technically breaking the "don't be a jerk" rule, as referenced a few times in Mark Rosewater's Unhinged FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/faq/unhinged). I suppose a case could be made that Jack was also breaking that rule when he got all angry, but as far as I can tell, Zohar's infraction was the more greivous of the two, especially since Jack was defending something he was technically right about.

In my personal opinion, Unhinged is entirely about having fun, not being competetive. Regardless of rulings and whatnot, I think more than in any other instance the intent of the cards is what matters. Sure, I suppose with it's current wording you might make a case for being able to sneak Cheatyface into play from RFG, but is it fun for your opponent to have to constantly watch your board, living in neverending fear of an impending 2/2 Genie? Certainly not. Is it fun to consider Goblin Secret Agent (http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?name=Goblin%20Secret%20Agent)'s ID number as a number for Pygmy Giant (http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?name=Pygmy%20Giant)? Of course, what's more fun than dealing 42,198 damage to a creature? If Pygmy Giant could damage players, however, I would most certainly rule against that, because 2 card combos in the same color that instantly kill a player (in limited) are decidedly not fun.

Sims
06-03-2007, 01:30 PM
Wow.. It's amazing that after someone actually posted the links to the rulings about Cheatyface the thread got quiet.....

/Necro



Good job at Columbus, btw, Jack. This was an interesting read, i enjoyed it.

Mijorre
06-09-2007, 08:50 AM
Is it fun to consider Goblin Secret Agent's ID number as a number for Pygmy Giant? Of course, what's more fun than dealing 42,198 damage to a creature? If Pygmy Giant could damage players, however, I would most certainly rule against that, because 2 card combos in the same color that instantly kill a player (in limited) are decidedly not fun.

...Stuffy doll makes that a fair 3 card combo ^_^.

Lego
06-12-2007, 04:43 PM
I haven't been around forever, so sorry if I'm a bit late in responding to this obviously awesome tournament report.


So, slight problem: I don’t own any Force of Wills, Blue Duals, or Blue fetchlands. In fact, a quick scouring of the Elgin collection reveals that we don’t own Brainstorms. Frowntown.

Luckily, this is why the Jack Elgin Fanclub exists. Less than a week before I leave for Columbus, after leaving work and with only a short time before the mail office closes, Evn, aka, Lego Army Man throws together most of the expensive cards in my deck, (including Trops, an Underground Sea, Deltas, Strands, Morphlings, Force of Wills, Brainstorms, and Cabal Therapies and Unmasks that I won’t end up using) and hops onto his bike, speeding through heavy traffic and fighting at least three hungry tigers to arrive at the post office at the last second, tossing the blood-stained package through the closing glass doors and into the Outgoing box with nary a second to spare.

Or so he tells me. I’m borrowing his cards, so I’m not going to say shit about it, although there are suspiciously few bloodstains on the package.

Jack made up the tigers and blood stains. The rest is all true.


I do own Deeds and Bayous, as well as most of the actual combo cards, so the only cards I’ll end up buying are 3x Crime/Punishment, the Kiki-Jiki, 2x Sudden Death (I own plenty, but I was in Ohio by the time I decided I wanted to bring them), and a ten-cent Benevolent Bodyguard I have to dig through a box of commons for.

A) You never told me you needed Sudden Death
B) Didn't I send you Kiki-Jiki AND Benevolent Bodyguard?


Anyway, I'm glad that you had a good time, and congratulations on Day 2. I'm sorry that I couldn't make it. That's what happens when you have a job and commitments and things.

And now that you mention it, did I ever get those cards back?