This is my first report so hopefully I do this right. I wake up on sunday feeling pretty good, just lacking a bit of sleep. I have been playing this deck intensely for about 3 months now and putting up decent results for myself. Top 10 at the last Knight Ware (40+ ppl) and 28th at the SCG 5k in LA. Had I won the last round I would have been able to crack top16. Although the list I have been playing is pretty much the full 75 of Cook's list I did make a few last minute changes thinking that I would run into alot of thresh and merfolk hence the 3 carpet of flowers in the sb. I also stuck in another chant MD, taking out a mox, because there were too many times that I draw into double mox hands so I wanted to see if this would be any better. Enough of my rambling, heres the list and report to the best of my memory.
Main Deck
Lands
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
Creatures
2 Simian Spirit Guide
Other
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Orim's Chant
1 Silence
3 Duress
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard
3 Carpet Of Flowers
2 Deathmark
2 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Echoing Truth
Round 1 - Mono Red Goblins
G1: Im sitting across from one of the judges who decided to play today and I always hear these horror stories of judges who are playing calling opponents on stupid stuff because of bad operations and such so I make sure to do everything correctly. Hes on the play and opens on lackey. My hand is very slow but I have cantrips to dig me out of it. Long story short, I draw into a huge land clump and succumb to a thousand green men.
G2: I dont think he has any idea what Im playing because I didn't play much G1. I open my hand and immediately see the T2 win. I play land go, and he goes vial go. I brainstorm eot and my hand ends up being LED, rite of flame, petal, dark ritual, infernal tutor, city of brass, chrome mox. I untap play my hand cast ad nauseam, draw alot and tendrils him out.
G3: Now that he knows Im playing storm he brings in 7 cards. I know its most likely some combination of mindbreak trap and thorn of amethyst, so I keep in some chants but bring in the sprees. I put the reads on him because when he draws his 7 he kinda slumps and when I open my 7, I mean, this is why I love this deck. LED, LED, dark ritual, lotus petal, sea, infernal tutor, brainstorm. I play my hand and ad nauseam, draw a bunch play a bunch and tendrils out. He didnt have any of his hate cards in his 7.
1-0
Round 2 Supreme Blue
G1: As we are shuffling the judge comes over and calls my opponent over to his table so Im assuming hes probably got some deck reg issue. The judge comes back and informs me my opponent did something wrong on his decklist and is receiving a game loss. Mental fist pump but it sucks when stuff like that happens to me but, a win is a win and I want some duals lol.
G2: Dont really wanna talk about this game, he goes T2 naked counterbalance and proceeds to blind flip me 3 times in a row backed up by double FoW. Rough...
G3: Now that I know hes playing supreme blue I bring in the carpet of flowers because I saw he also md's spell pierce. Pretty much this game is a repeat of G2. I dont draw carpet of flowers but I sculpt my hand to play thru several counter spells. Long story short, double spell pierce, fow, daze in that one turn. FML. In hindsight had his goyf not been 4/5 I coulda waited it out and dug for carpet of flowers cuz that card should nullify all those daze effects
Round 3 Enchantress
G1: My teammates were just talking to me about this matchup asking me to pls dispatch all the enchantress deck (i think there were 4 that day) because they all had horrendous matchups while mine was especially good. However we had determined game 1 if he goes turn 2 runed halo its pretty bad but I can still warrens for a million and take it that way. post board I have bounce.
Of course t1 he goes savannah uptopia sprawl naming white followed by a turn 2 runed halo on tendrils. Hmm, well thats stupid, but I look at my hand and I know turn 3 I most likely can warrens for alot before he can set up his lock. He follows up his runed halo play with aura of silence. when my hand was full of LEDs and lotus petals, and only one land in play I scoop to game 2 because I know i can take g2 and g3 and I dont want to waste any time.
G2: I draw a decent hand including echoing truth. He again lays down the runed halo t2 but follows it up with a t3 sterling grove. Ok, this is gonna be tough but I have echoing truth in hand and also IGG. Turn 5 i go off by simply going Ad nauseam drawing a bunch, echoing truth the grove, IGG loop, echoing truth his halo and tendrils out.
G3: By his reaction it doesnt look like hes drawn his hate after i see a turn 1 growth into turn 2 argothian enchantress. My hand is full of the hotness so I just lay down everything into Ad Nauseam, draw a bunch play a bunch and tendrils him out
2-1
Round 4 Mono Red Goblins
G1: I have to mulligan to 5 and my opponent seems fairly happy. However I could not have drawn a better 5 cards. LED, burning wish, rite of flame, gemstone mine, chrome mox. I play gemstone mine and pass while he goes T1 vial pass. I untap and draw another LED! I lay my other land and play my hand to burning wish into infernal tutor into Ad Nauseam. Draw alot of cards and play alot of cards to tendrils him out.
G2: I put the reads on him as he lets out a small facial expression most likely indicating he didnt draw any hate cards in his opener. But he decides to keep it. I keep a very good hand with a potential turn 2 win so long as he doesnt wasteland me. His turn 2 he lays down a second mountain into warren instigator and pass. my Turn 2 i do what storm always does and duressing before i Ad nauseam to make sure he didnt have a mindbreak trap, which he didnt, and I Ad Nauseam into alot of cards to tendrils him out.
3-1
Round 5 BGW Survival Rock
I see him and his friend all the time at these tournaments and they are really cool guys. It sucks that Im paired against him cuz his matchup against me is pretty bad.
G1: Hes on the play and plays a birds and passes. I simply lay a land and ponder into the sickness, (LED, dark ritual, lotus petal). I draw the LED and pass. He plays a t2 survival of the fittest and passes but misses his land drop. I untap draw, mainphase a brainstorm to draw the rest of the good stuff and just play my hand into IGG Loop ftw.
G2: He thoughtseizes me 3 times in this matchup but at the expense of his life total. After fetching a bunch he is at 11 as I untap for my turn 6. I simply go off with a small storm to tendrils him for 14.
4-1
They put up the standings and Im 6th after 5 rounds and I know that I can safely draw into the top8
Round 6 Enchantress
The 2nd enchantress deck I faced today and hes 3rd in the swiss so far. I convince him that drawing is safe for us so we just ID. Playing him did cross my mind to dream crush but I didn't want to be THAT guy today.
4-1-1
Top8
Pretty diverse
1 UBR Tempo Faeries
1 Aggro Loam (non wish version)
1 Enchantress
1 Eva Green (sporting vampire nighthawk)
1 TES (me)
1 White Stax
1 Goblins
1 Dragon Stompy
Quarters
Eric staffa with Aggro Loam
Eric is a guy in my test group so it sucks that I gotta play him
G1: He doesnt have the chalice turn 1, so I proceed to go off turn 3 with a double IGG Loop and tendrils him out
G2: He goes nuts on me turn 1 by having a leyline of the void on turn 0, laying a chalice on 1 and play zuran orb. My hand is pretty slow and I cant keep up with his constant wastelands and me not being able to dig with my cantrips.
G3: THis is a long game and it goes back and forth constantly. Everytime he lays down his hate I answer it. There was a point in time that I could have won this match had I seen the tech play with hurkyl's recall in my hand. My hand was 2x chrome mox, 2x LED, burning wish, hurkyl's recall. He was at 22 life with chalice on 1 but no zuran orb in play. I could have played out my 0cc artifacts, recall myself, replay them, burning wish into tendrils for exactly 22. Not seeing this cost me the game as I discarded the recall thinking I didnt need it anymore because I had spree in my hand now, and I just succumbed to a couple goyfs and countryside crushers. In hindsight had I not been so tired I know I would have seen that play, but this was my first top 8 with this deck and I was pretty nervous. I didnt mind losing to my teammate at all though. In the end, I place 6th and go away with 2 revised Taigas for my efforts. Awesome tournament, extremely diverse top 8, great deck. Thanks for reading
