Survival gets there again, kind of. The tale of my epic quest to Vestal

[beastman]

The list:
4 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath
4 taiga
4 bayou
5 forest
4 survival
4 thoughtsieze
4 birds of paradise
4 tarmagoyf
3 burning wish
3 eternal witness
3 cabal therapy
1 shriekmaw
1 fleshbag marauder
1 big game hunter
1 masticore
1 roffellos
1 quirion ranger
1 anger
1 genesis
1 squee
1 faerie macabre
1 magus of the moon
1 wickerbough elder
1 tin street hooligan
1 spike feeder

SB:
4 krosan grip
4 engineered plague
2 duress
1 rough/tumble
1 chainers edict
1 cabal therapy
1 primal command
1 gleeful sabotage


So last weekend, Me, Jesse Krieger (Krieger), and Dave Price (Quicksilver), all decided to head up to jupiter games in Vestal for the Bazaar tournament. It was a long drive, filled with stupid road signs. We reach vestal at about 1:00, and check into a motel. We stop at Ihop the next morning, then we're off to the tournament.


Round 1: Micheal Melnick/Goyf Sligh
G1: I keep a hand without survival but lots of beaters. He quickly drops me to ten, with his burn, then runs out of steam. He manages to get rid of my goyf with a fanatic post combat, and I drop a masticore, which wrecks his board. the turn before masticore kills him though, he draws keldon marauders to chump. the next turn he gets another one, which puts me at 2 when it dies. He then slams a chain lightning onto the table for his turn, ending the whole debacle.
G2: I have a survival in my hand, and get spike feeder going on turn 4. I never drop below 12 life.
G3: He mulls, and I get survival going, and swarm him with large angry goyfs.


Round 2:That kid you all hate/Moon Thresh
G1: I start with a mulligan into a slightly keepable hand sans disruption. he plays turn 1 top. I fetch a land and pass. He drops counterbalance, and passes. I attempt to cast survival, which he blindly hits with goyf off counterbalance, he then has his lock going, and kills me shortly thereafter with a goyf.
G2: I mull yet again, and keep a decent hand. I land a turn 2 survival, but I'm stuck on 3 lands, meanwhile he plays first turn goose, second turn goyf, third turn goyf, kill you on turn 6 by accident.


Round 3:Adam Phillips/Tombstone
G1: I resolve an early survival, and a bunch of tarmagoyfs are able to beat him to death.
G2: I get a decent hand with lots of disruption and a goyf, after I take a few choice cards from his hand, I get no more lands, and my goyf is killed. He gets a tombstalker which beats my head in after a turn or two.
G3: I keep a hand with 2 land goyf shriekmaw, and wish. I go through the top 10 cards of my library without seeing another land.

Round 4:Tariq Zahzam/ U/W/b landstill
G1: The game is most easily summarized by the fact that he countered 6 key spells in the first 10 turns, then killed me with factory.
G2: I thoughtsieze, take his force and land a survival, which slowly grinds him down.
G3: I believe he chained 3 standstills, while I managed to resolve my survival. He got 3 relic of progenitus going, making survival almost dead, and then gets a large decree, along with factories to kill me.


Round 5:Robert Cusick/ Goblins
G1: I get a late survival going, but its not enough to keep his army of goblins from overunning me.
G2: I get down 2 E. plagues, and he fails to find a Krosan grip.
G3: I get a quick survival, allowing me to deal with all of his threats, and kill him with 7/8 goyfs.

So the main event went horrible, I decided I would try the Mana Drain side event.

Round 1:BYE
How this happened, I have no idea, but I'll take it I guess.


Round 2: Adam Phillips/Tombstone
G1: I'm able to get a survival going early, and goyfs make short work of him.
G2: This game goes on for awhile. I was able to establish a bit of control with a goyf, then supreme rule with a second. His doran wasn't big enough to even trade with them, he rips an explosives off the top though, and kills my goyfs, and applies beats. I return the favor by dropping the survival in my hand, and going crazy. The nex turn, I am able to kill his entire side with various removal, and then kill him with random creatures.


Round 3: ???/Affinity
G1: I keep a hand without survival, but with masticore, rofellos, and quirion ranger. He manages to get me pretty low, but I masticore his disciples, and get tin street on a crucial turn, and manage to pull it out.
G2: I get double grip for his early threats, and get survival going after that. I eventually kill him with 9 attacking creatures, 3 of which are goyfs.

Round 4: Connor ?/Trinket painter stone.
G1: I get an early survival, which lets me get tin street for his combo pieces. I then beat him up with large goyfs.
G2: I have control early, and I tap out to get a wickerbough elder out to prevent him from accidentally killing me. He obligingly draws a swords for wickerbough, and then draws the second combo piece, and, well, accidentally kills me.
G3: I get survival going, and have lots of men early on, but he is threatening to combo. but I manage to draw a grip, and have witnesses for it for the rest of the game.

So even though the main event was terrible, I managed to salvage the day with an english mana drain.


Props:
-Eli, for holding an awesome tournament, and keeping the prize structure even though there were'nt many people there.
-Jesse for slaughtering bitches and winning yourself a Bay-zar.
-Red roof inn, for being cheap, and more comfortable than my car.

Slops:
-Pennsylvania, for stupid, confusing signs, and generally being a miserable state to drive in.
-Dave Price, I told you to play survival but you never listen.
-scrubbing against landstill.
-Callasso, just because.

[ansset]

Slops: Calosso, just because.


::wub::

[quicksilver]

Round 3: ???/Affinity
G1: I keep a hand without survival, but with masticore, rofellos, and quirion ranger. He manages to get me pretty low, but I masticore his disciples, and get tin street on a crucial turn, and manage to pull it out.

This was a painful game to watch. He almsot doesn't kill your rofellos with his jitte, but then descides to, but he still doesn't kill your birds for no reason. He's not keeping track of your or even his life. He misses 2 disciple triggers (you remind him of the rest, I think he only remebereed once the whole match) and you end the game at two life. He's also swinging for lethal but decides not to sac the ravager to modular onto the frogmite to kill you. I don't think he new ravager had modular. He had that game won 5 times over but tried really really hard to throw it away.

And to think that if he won that match he would have gotten a mana drain. I don't know how he made it so far. Maybe I'm just bitter cause I got paired against infinite-wasteland.deck while getting mana screwed to begin with. How do I get oppoennts like that? Or even better the people he beat?


But congradualtions on the mana drain. I always like seeing survival do well.

[nitewolf9]

What did you wind up playing, Dave?

And nice work getting that Mana Drain, Kev. Let me know if you're selling it.

[quicksilver]

What did you wind up playing, Dave?

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...765#post330765

[nitewolf9]

Just saw that, thanks. Seems like an interesting build.

[quicksilver]

Just saw that, thanks. Seems like an interesting build.

By interesting do you mean bad? I know Doran and vindicate can seem janky.

[nitewolf9]

By interesting do you mean bad? I know Doran and vindicate can seem janky.

I've always liked Vindicate in threshold, as you know. Doran seems pretty cool. I think you could run a large variety of things in that 3cc spot and be successful.

[quicksilver]

I think you could run a large variety of things in that 3cc spot and be successful.

I'm interested, what other cards do you think will fit well here?

[Nightmare]

I'm interested, what other cards do you think will fit well here?

Maindeck Shackles. I've tried it a bunch of times, and it was always saucy.
Trygon Predator. It's the tits, apparently.
Maindeck Krosan Grip. Pros seem to like it.

[nitewolf9]

Grip could actually be an option, but Vindicate seems like it would pull more weight in the main. I tried MD Shackles and liked it but I think Vindicate is better than Trygon Predator. Three Vindicate actually might be the way to go, maybe with a random 1 of Shackles or Doran?

I also think Mystic Enforcer may be better than Tombstalker in this deck.

[quicksilver]

Grip could actually be an option, but Vindicate seems like it would pull more weight in the main. I tried MD Shackles and liked it but I think Vindicate is better than Trygon Predator. Three Vindicate actually might be the way to go, maybe with a random 1 of Shackles or Doran?

I also think Mystic Enforcer may be better than Tombstalker in this deck.

The casting cost was very relevant. In almsot every situaltion I cast tombstalker I would not have been able to cast msytic enforcer. Whether it be not having 4 mana, needing to leave mana open for countertop, neededing to play around daze, or using the mana to cantrip into it that turn. Only having to pay 2 instead of 4 has been huge for me. Also tombstalker can come online a little earlier than enforcer. Enforcer does however have better synergy with confidant and counterbalance.

[nitewolf9]

Double black was never a problem for him? That was the reason I didn't like him very much in 5 color. Also, he is slower in counter/top decks than in sui or "tempo" threshold. I can understand that having more mana open for top is very good though.

[quicksilver]

No, double black hasn't been an issue for me. Then again black is the heaviest color in this deck next to blue, which may not be the case for the 5 color list.

[beastman]

Personally, I think you should have played the 5 color version with tradewind rider and magus of the moon. But thats just a metagame call.