[Report] Team SPOD @ May Haßloch Event

[diffy]

More, non-SPOD centric information can be found here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=236130&postcount=644).

Photos taken during the event can be found here (http://www.magic-speyer.de/zen/index.php?album=Legacy%20Turnier%20im%20Mai%202008). Damn, I'm even on one of them...

Preamble

I rarely play on Legacy events these days, mainly because there are only few big events in the region and at the moment (I don't want to play in the smaller events because it's just not worth it: you just have a too high potential to loose too much rating and time (!) for a minimal pay-out) but for the Haßloch-May event which traditionally is one of the larger events, if not the largest, each month, I decided to play again.
There were a couple of factors influencing this decision, the most notables being Stefan 'spirit of the wretch' Czolk leaving me behind rating-wise (I can't accept not having the highest rating of my team) due to him playing and doing well in a series of events lately. I also just wanted to play again as my last Legacy event dated from nearly two months ago (the January (!) Haßloch event I won with UWb Landstill).

At 9:30, GMT+1, the day starts for me with a quick shower, breakfast (feat. Deep Purple) and then heading off to meet Thomas. We then pick up Harrald Herrlich and proceed to meet the other Team SPOD car featuring Manuel Heiler, Stefan Czolk and Marius Laber - so basically all the Team SPOD members from Karlsruhe would be at the event, with only Adan missing out.
The 50 minutes drive to the location passes quickly thanks to some truly great music (Eluveitie (http://youtube.com/results?search_query=eluveitie&search_type=) followed by Alestorm (http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Alestorm&search_type=)).

We arrive way too early at the location and so have some time for EPIC (not the American Legacy team one) Highlander [aka 100cards singleton] which is, as everyone knows, the only one and only true format. I end up 1-1 with my UWbg(r) 'Pile of Money' Control against Stefan's UGB Kodama's Reach Control - loosing the first game to mana screw (38 lands and 6 accelerants seem to still not be enough) and winning the second game out of a truly EPIC position: after a resolved Rude Awakening left me at 1 life and with no cards in hand... draw Allied Strategies (draw5), draw Concentrate (draw3), fetch out some control elements (Future Sight, Moat) and win.

The tournament starts very punctually - and way too early in the morning for me liking... 12:00am is just not a very humane time to start a tournament at.
As on the same week-end the Bazaar of Moxen Vintage tournament is held in Anency, France, the turnout is lower than expected as only around 30 people show up.

This is what Team SPOD ended up playing:
Manuel derheiler Heiler: BG The Rock
Thomas Yulyn Dörner: RG 8Moon Aggro Loam
Stefan spirit of the wretch Czolk: Mono-U Big Fish
Marius Chefkoch Laber: GWr Aggro Slide
Harrald Locutus Herrlich: Ubg Balanced Landstill
Clemens Der_imaginäre_Freund - me Wolff: Not Quite Balanced /w (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=226600&postcount=1074)

Short report:

Round1 vs. Peter Hauck with RBg Vial Goblins

Game1

He wins the roll and I keep a rather slowish hand with some cantrips, double Counterbalance and a Goyf but neither permission nor removal. I didn't know what he was playing but I figured that the hand would be pretty busted against anything that isn't aggro so I kept.
He obviously has the Lackey which I can't answer... but no truly broken gas so that he can 'only' cheat a Mad Aunty into play which, accompanied by double Mogg Fanatic and double Wasteland quickly put me out of answers and bring me down to 0.

-4 Counterbalance
-3 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Hoofprints of the Stag (too slow)
+4 Hydroblast
+2 Blue Elemental Blast
+2 Trygon Predator (more for the body and evasion than for the Naturalize effect)

Game2

I chose to play. He has a rather slow start with neither Vial nor Lackey and I get a quick 3/4 Tarmogoyf on-line which tries to race his Piledriver + later Mogg Fanatic while I keep mildly disrupting him via countering his key spells (a Goblin Warchief and a Ringleader) with Blue Blasts.
By the time he finds a solution to the Goyf in the form of Matron -> Warren Weirding, he's at 11 and I at 15. I also have created enough card quality due to him not applying enough pressure to be able to immediately follow up the Goyf with another one plus a Nimble Mongoose. I then force him into a bad position with a now massive 5/6 beater from which he has to start chump-blocking. His last attempt to come back into the game, a Siege-Gang, is handled with a Hydroblast.

Game3

He has a nutty hand and leads with AEther Vial on turn1 which I can't handle as I kept the hand with Swords to Plowshares, two lands and two cantrips. He follows up his Vial with another one on the second turn and starts wasting my lands with two consecutive Wastelands. I manage to not be completely over-run by swording his vialed-in Lackey and by trading his second one for the Nimble Mongoose I found in the meantime with my cantrips.
I stabilize at around 12 life from where I start applying beats with Tarmogoyf + Trygon Predator. The Predator puts him into a rather bad position by destroying his Vials and therewith screwing him. At around 10 life he finds a Ringleader to which I don't have a solution and tries to get back into the game by applying pressure to my life-total. I deliberately drop down to 7, kill his blocker and swing in for the win.

2:1
1-0-0 (2:1)

Random Trivia: I didn't see a single Pithing Needle in any of the three games.

Round2 vs. Stefan Benisch with BWG Suicide

I get paired down.

Game1

He wins the roll. I keep a land heavy hand which was golden for this matchup as he starts with consecutive Sinkholes on my first two lands but then runs out of gas as I am able to Swords both his Dark Confidant and his Doran while swinging in with my first turn Nimble Mongoose. He then runs out of gas and even has to stop disrupting me because it would have brought me closer towards threshold. At around 12 life he finds a blocker, but I've been been able to cantrip/predict into a Force of Will in the meantime so that we move on to game2.

Boarding: none.

He mulligans down to three but still wants to play the game out. He doesn't have a bad draw at all, especially not for a mulligan: he leads with double Wasteland (which I Pithing Needle), Confidant (Force) and Tarmogoyf (brings me down to 12) until I stabilize with two Tarmogoyfs of my own.

2:0
2-0-0 (4:1)

Round3 vs. didn't write down the name with Ugr Painter's Servant Combo

Game1

I know what he's playing and so expect a hard matchup as he has a lot of tools against NQG: 8 Red-Blasts, CounterTop, Goyfs and a potential combo finish are nothing to sneeze at with a deck that only has a rather limited amount of answers.
I win the roll and keep a perfect hand with Counterbalance, Top and removal that is only lacking a beater.
By turn3 we both have a CounterTop assembled which drags the game out. I manage to get more lands than him and so am favoured. At one point, he tries to combo out and nearly manages to do so by Stifling my Counterbalance trigger but I still have a Swords to Plowshares as backup (playing it in response to him drawing a card with his Top). On the following turn I finally resolve a Tarmogoyf and a Pithing Needle naming Engineered Explosives to protect him and proceed to win from there on.

-1 Daze
-1 Pithing Needle
-2 Ponder
+2 Trygon Predator
+2 Krosan Grip

Game2

I play an early Needle on Grindstone which severely sets him back as he doesn't find any of his alternatives to the combo (Dreadnought, Goyf).
I win the counter-war over my Counterbalance despite his Red Blasts. On the following turn, he drops a pair of Tarmogoyfs (found in an endstep Brainstorm). On my next turn, I play a Goyf of my own to hold his at bay, Swords the other, drop a Hoofprints and fly in overhead and win from there on, ignoring his further attempts to counter-race my two Elemental tokkens.

2:0
3-0-0 (6:1)

At the time, only two other people are in my bracket (one playing The Rock, the other one playing Dragon Stompy), and I have the best tie-breakers so that I assume that I will play against Dragon Stompy (next best tie-breakers) next - not an easy matchup but manageable, especially after boarding.

Round4 vs. Mathias Passin with Ichorid

Yey, I managed it to get paired down against the worst possible matchup - against the only Ichorid player in the room... I am pretty frustrated as this is just a pure auto-loss and an unlucky one too as I had a 1/3 * 1/9 chance of playing against him (nine people being 2-1 and therewith a possible candidate for pairing up). Also, this was my second time being paired-down which was also pretty random.

Game1

I win the roll, keep a hand with double Swords to Plowshares. He comboes out on turn2.

-1 Hoofprints of the Stag
-1 Mystic Enforcer
-1 Ponder
+3 Gaddock Teeg

Game2
(see Game1)

0:2
3-1-0 (6:3)

There's just nothing you can do in the matchup, it's just that bad.

Round4 vs. Fabian with Tempo NQG/b

I suppose that this should be a bad matchup... it isn't: the tempo builds are just pretty inconsistent so that you don't have that great a problem, especially not if playing 3+ basics and 4 Counterbalances. They also have a pretty slow clock so that you have a lot of time to recover from their initial disruption in order to make your superior card-quality and card-advantage work their weight.

Game1

I keep a 5 land, 2 cantrip hand which was just perfect for this matchup as he has 3 (!) Stifles for my first three fetchlands... which I just ignore, drop more lands, play some cantrips, play some Predicts, counter his Dark Confidant, trade my Nimble Mongoose with his, drop a Counterbalance and win from there on.

While boarding, I see that he boards in a pack of three card... I guess these are Trygon Predators and so board in mine in order to have more outs to his.

-1 Pithing Needle
-1 Ponder
+2 Trygon Predator

Game2

See Game1 - the sole difference was that I dropped the Counterbalance earlier and shut off his Life from the Loam (singleton) / Wasteland Engine with a Pithing Needle.

2:0
4-1-0 (8:3)

Other Tournament Stuff

After finishing the match, I go to table1 to watch the last match still being played: my team mate Manuel Heiler with Rock against Ichorid. If the Ichorid player wins, chances are that I am first... he doesn't because he can't play around hate and consecutively looses terribly to a first turn Extirpate on Bridge from Below. He could easily have won the game from there on but he doesn't get the synergies between the two Golgari Thugs and the Narcomoeba (alongside sac-outlets) in his graveyard and so can't race the opposing Goyf. After a while he offers the draw, my team mate accepts.

This makes me second with Manuel being first - I get a Force of Will and Manuel a Tundra which is a lousy price support if compared to the last few tournaments.

Overall Team SPOD performance:
[1st] Heiler: 4-0-1
[2nd] Me: 4-1-0
Harrald: 2-2-1
Stefan: 2-3-0
Thomas: 2-3-0
Laber: 2-3-0


This is in no way comparable to the last tournament with all Team SPOD members on the site going top9 (damn you Adan for making 9th), but I'd guess that a double Team SPOD top2 is still a pretty solid showing.

Props:
For Manuel for his second good showing... I still don't know how he's doing that with such scrubish playskill and random piles.
For NQG/w for being awesome
For Good Music
For Highlander!

Slops:
For the guy that copied my UWb Landstill list from the March Haßloch event for not having a clue of playing (he placed terribly) and for telling me that I didn't have a clue of the deck after having a quick talk with him.
For people netdecking and not thinking a minute about the list (or even testing it) and for not knowing whom to give credit (see above)
For the price support.
For Harrald, Stefan, Laber, Thomas for not placing well

Postlude

After the tournament, we quickly head back to Karlsruhe (now with Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden and Avantasia (http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Avantasia&search_type=) as backing) and start another EPIC Highlander session...
I urge everyone to try this format as it is a very enjoyable format that still stays fun after countless hours (very unlike Legacy) but still is competitive and challenging, especially the deck building and refining part. You only have to use a correct banned list (http://majin.covers.de/mtg/phpBB2//viewtopic.php?t=3) with no 1card 'I win' crap (Intuition, Gifts Ungiven, Survival of the Fittest, Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds etc.).

[Silverdragon]

In game 1 of your round 3 match your opponent made a mistake when you played the Swords because he had Force of Will in hand but I think he didn't realize that the Sensei's Divining Top right next to it was blue due to the Servant.
Anyway nice report. Grats on your finish and the continuing dominance of your team.
@prize support Well, we were only 25 people so at 6€ per person you shouldn't expect too much. Maybe if they made the payout more top-heavy but that should be discussed with the organizers.

[thefreakaccident]

Congratulations!!!

I really like your thresh list as well, seems very well thought out/planned.

Why didn't you play LS instead?

I think you would have beaten all the same decks and the ichorid as well, however it does get boring to play LS all the time... I understand your decision.

How did you like the armageddon effects in the board? Aren't they a little outdated?

[Mister Agent]

I actually really like the singleton mystic enforcer/hoofprints split Clemens. Considering hoofprints is like having a second enforcer while it can do more in the mid to late game as a continuous threat. Congrats on the finish Clemens and nice deck.

Armageddons are usually for the landstill matchup which is a common archetype in the germany metagame.

[spirit of the wretch]

Props:
For Manuel for his second good showing... I still don't know how he's doing that with such scrubish playskill and random piles.
For Highlander!

Slops:
For Harrald, Stefan, Laber, Thomas for not placing well


QFT!
On a side note: Playing bad cards will lead to game losses... now who would have thought of that. Fuck Fish!

[Hightower]

Can you post the list of the monoU "big fish" deck your teammate played? (or you can PM to me if you want)

Nice report btw =)

[spirit of the wretch]

Here's what I played, but seriously: This deck plays bad cards! So if you pick it up, you should expect to lose =)

[SPOD] Fish

4 Polluted Delta
1 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
1 Swamp
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island

2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Coast Watcher
3 Sea Drake

2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Vedalken Shackles

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell


[SB] 1 Academy Ruins
[SB] 4 Propaganda
[SB] 3 Back to Basics
[SB] 4 Blue Elemental Blast/Mind Harness
[SB] 3 Rebuild

Main problem is the lack of removal and Tarmogoyfs (no kidding!). Serendib Efreet and Sea Drake just can't rush that Lhurgoyf...

[Bardo]

Very nice report. Well organized and a pleasure to read. Well done. :)

[Adan]

This is in no way comparable to the last tournament with all Team SPOD members on the site going top9 (damn you Adan for making 9th), but I'd guess that a double Team SPOD top2 is still a pretty solid showing.

Gimme a break, I won Heidelberg with NQGb in exchange for that while you didn't even appeared...

And please, my dear team colleagues, stop playing such experimental crap on such a big tournament, it's just a waste of money and it's no fun to get owned all day long. Dropping is no fun either.

[Shugyosha]

Grats,

I like the Enforcer/Hoofprints split too. Had the same problems with double Hoofprints. I think I will test it.

As you can see (http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/Decks/2007-12-T15.html) we play very similar lists. Do you think the Needles MD are better than 2x Oblivion Ring or Repeal. The added cmc 3 of Rings would make the CB engine much more versatile (together with my singleton Threads :-).
My initial thought to put Needles main was to combat EE and Deed but I noticed that its not that bad even in this permanent heavy list (though you still have to run them SB obviously).

[diffy]

@prize support Well, we were only 25 people so at 6€ per person you shouldn't expect too much. Maybe if they made the payout more top-heavy but that should be discussed with the organizers.

Someone please help me complete this so that comparisons can be drawn.

Month(players)/Payout:
February(38):BB Savannah Savannah Playset Chants Foil Deed Foil Wasteland Chrome Mox Boosters
March(37):Playset Japanese Wastelands BB Bayou Judge Balance Plateau Polluted Delta Windswept Heath Misdirection Chinese Yawgmoth's Will
April(40):BB Scrubland Volcanic Island Flooded Strand Playset Chalice of the Void Thoughtseize Playset Nantuko Shade Foil Oath of Druids Playset Humility
May(3x):Tundra Force of Will Two Doran, the Siege Tower Playset Metal Worker ? Can't remember - someone help me out with this

Explanation for the non-Germans:
In most German tournaments you don't have a fixed price structure but rather the organizers give out prices on the site so that they are more flexible if turnout is good/bad etc. These prices are then put into a pool from which the top8 then proceeds to pick their prices in order of standings.



Why didn't you play LS instead?


I'm currently testing a massive update to Landstill and so am playing the deck a lot - but the update isn't yet thought out enough to be played in a tournament so that I didn't want to play the new list and was too sick of Landstill to play the old list.
Also, the day before the tournament I got savagely ripped apart by Adan in testing and I believe in Omens :wink: .
On top of all that, NQG was just the right meta-choice because many people played Aggro Loam (bad matchup for Landstill, okay matchup for NQG, especially after boarding) and quite a few Goblins (borderline for Landstill, pretty good for NQG).



Armageddons are usually for the landstill matchup which is a common archetype in the germany metagame.

Armageddons are pretty good in the Landstill matchup, but their prime use is for the other control matchups aka. for control that doesn't play counters.
Stuff like Train Wreck or Mono Black Control are at times much harder than Landstill because they have even more removal and aren't hit by Gaddock Teeg and Pithing Needle that hard - and in these matchups resolving an Armageddon with a threat on the table equals the win in nine cases out of ten.


Gimme a break, I won Heidelberg with NQGb in exchange for that while you didn't even appeared...


Small tournaments = teh suck.



And please, my dear team colleagues, stop playing such experimental crap on such a big tournament.

QFMFT.



I like the Enforcer/Hoofprints split too. Had the same problems with double Hoofprints. I think I will test it.


While Mystic Enforcer is the better card if you need pressure now, Hoofprints are better in most control matchups as they create card advantage for you. Also, Hoofprints allow for some nice tricks with Predict (instant +2/+2 for Goyf) and are better in conjunction with Counterbalance (I'd rather counter everything for 1 and 2 for sure than have a random chance to hit something else - this only hurts consistency).



Do you think the Needles MD are better than 2x Oblivion Ring or Repeal. The added cmc 3 of Rings would make the CB engine much more versatile.

I wouldn't ever cut Pithing Needle.
You only have few bad matchups, and these help winning some of them (control) so that I don't see how you would want to remove something for your bad matchups in favour to make your already good matchups even better.
Also, I don't really like Oblivion Ring because it makes Counterbalance less consistent (you really need more than a few slots [2-4 is about all we can play in the 3-slot] to be able to reliably hit something for cmc3) and because it's worse on the mana.
Repeal is a good card, but I'd rather play it in a more tempo-orientated version of the deck. As my list is pretty controlling you always want a permanent solution to your problems because you can't always make good use of the tempo advantage Repeal creates.

[Shugyosha]

While Mystic Enforcer is the better card if you need pressure now, Hoofprints are better in most control matchups as they create card advantage for you. Also, Hoofprints allow for some nice tricks with Predict (instant +2/+2 for Goyf) and are better in conjunction with Counterbalance (I'd rather counter everything for 1 and 2 for sure than have a random chance to hit something else - this only hurts consistency).

The Goyf trick is the only one I do mostly. Its rarely the case that Hoofprints stick during my games. I won more games with the +2/+2 boost then with 4/4 token. But I also play Grunts SB which can end games pretty fast.


I wouldn't ever cut Pithing Needle.
You only have few bad matchups, and these help winning some of them (control) so that I don't see how you would want to remove something for your bad matchups in favour to make your already good matchups even better. Repeal is a good card, but I'd rather play it in a more tempo-orientated version of the deck. As my list is pretty controlling you always want a permanent solution to your problems because you can't always make good use of the tempo advantage Repeal creates.

Oblivion Ring and Repeal both handle Humility, Blood Moon (mostly Repeal), Chalice (Ring), Needle on SDT/Prints (Repeal+CB), Crucible (Ring) to name a few cards of bad matchups. Needle can be entirely useless or not very effective. Oblivion Ring is almost always useful, especially since your opponent's mainboard is rarely equipped to destroy it.

The role of Repeal in this build is to buy time to get into the control role or if you are in control via CB to bounce stuff on the board and counter it when it hits play again.

I'm also glad to have something for cmc 3 for the CB. A long list of cards that hose thresh cost 3 mana: Moons, Choke, Deed, Trinisphere, Crucible, Grip (granted the opponent is stupid), Oblivion Ring, Perish, even EE played on 2 for 3 mana to name the most played ones.

[diffy]

The Goyf trick is the only one I do mostly. Its rarely the case that Hoofprints stick during my games. I won more games with the +2/+2 boost then with 4/4 token. But I also play Grunts SB which can end games pretty fast.


The tokens are amazing in stalemates.



Oblivion Ring and Repeal both handle Humility, Blood Moon (mostly Repeal), Chalice (Ring), Needle on SDT/Prints (Repeal+CB), Crucible (Ring) to name a few cards of bad matchups. Needle can be entirely useless or not very effective. Oblivion Ring is almost always useful, especially since your opponent's mainboard is rarely equipped to destroy it.


True, but I have to add that Pithing Needle handles more of the problematic stuff (Deed and EE are more common than any of the cards above which range rather in the popularity scale of Survival or Vial which are both also addressed by Needle very efficiently): you can play around a non-t1 Blood Moon or Crucible+Waste with my list pretty easily [basics ftw.] and Humility... well that's what your hardcounters are for.
As far as Chalice and Humility are concerned the point clearly goes to Oblivion Ring but you always have to weigh it up to the presence of said cards in the metagame - only Cunning Landstill and the occasional MWC play Humility whereas Survival, Vial and other good Needle targets are quite frequent.



I'm also glad to have something for cmc 3 for the CB. A long list of cards that hose thresh cost 3 mana: Moons, Choke, Deed, Trinisphere, Crucible, Grip (granted the opponent is stupid), Oblivion Ring, Perish, even EE played on 2 for 3 mana to name the most played ones.

What would you rather have:
A 5% chance of countering stuff with cmc3 and a 70% chance of countering stuff with cmc1 or cmc2
A 0% chance of countering stuff with cmc3 and a 75% chance of countering stuff with cmc1 or cmc2

I would always go with the second option. Although the numbers in above example are just completely arbitrary, they illustrate the problem: playing things with cmc3 offers a too weak probability of hitting things with Counterbalance while harming your overall consistency.

[Shugyosha]

What would you rather have:
A 5% chance of countering stuff with cmc3 and a 70% chance of countering stuff with cmc1 or cmc2
A 0% chance of countering stuff with cmc3 and a 75% chance of countering stuff with cmc1 or cmc2


These numbers are matchup dependend and a bit off I think because you need a Top to use the engine efficiently and with Top(s) you can counter the important spells for cmc 1 anyway. We are not talking about cmc 2 here, just Needle or Ring. With Krosan Grips boarded the probability of cmc 3 increases further sometimes.
Its a playstyle thing I guess. I rather have cmc 0-5 covered with CB. It just happens very often to me that I can Brainstorm back a card of the more rare cmc that fits the opponents spell cmc. The lonely Threads for example won me a game against tons of Deeds and Putrefys. It was luck sure but thats why I'm playing Rings at the moment.

[diffy]

I updated the first post. Amongst others, the photos the judge+TOs took during the event are finally hosted and can be found here (http://www.magic-speyer.de/zen/index.php?album=Legacy%20Turnier%20im%20Mai%202008).