1st at monthly Hassloch, August 9th 2009

[Adan]

Now that I seem to be on a upswing after a long period of suck-out, I finally have a reason to write a report again.

I'll try to retain Clemens' structure because it's quite good and maybe I can improve my writing style with that, although it's not creative...

Preamble

A few days ago, Clemens made some pressure and told me that I have to go Top8 under any circumstances as I will be the only SPOD guy who is attending to our monthly Hassloch. Why? Because they are all going to some kind of metal festival or something and get wasted with infinite booze. Well, the second is actually independant from festivals, but anyway, I was discussing with Clemens which deck I could play. I was actually tired of playing Counterbalance and therefore I considered to play nonLED Dredge as I am keeping track of that thread currently or black Tempo Thresh because I was quite satisfied with my 4-1 finish at Mannheim before.

Since arguing with Clemens always leads to nothing and my arguments degrade to "Fuck you, Clemens!" the longer the discussion goes, I decided that I'll just play something which looks expansive and can counter things.

When I arrived at the tournament site, I surprisingly met Heiler. Nice! So I'm not going to be the lone SPOD rep. After I tested a couple of games with him (Me Dredge vs. Him Rock), I found Ichorid to be slow, lame, tiresome, other synonyms for "boring".

I ended up - very unspectacular - with sleeving up LSV's Baseruption/Nassif NLU with a different sideboard because I felt that Aggro needs a swift kick right into their testicles:

[SPOD] CounterbalanceTopGoyf FU Legacy

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [B] Tundra
3 [B] Underground Sea
4 [B] Tropical Island
2 [A] Island (1)

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [DIS] Trygon Predator
2 [LRW] Sower of Temptation

// Spells
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [NE] Daze
2 [LRW] Ponder
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
1 [TSP] Krosan Grip

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
SB: 3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus

It has Counterbalance, it has Sensei's Divining Top, it has Tarmogoyfs. There's nothing that can go wrong here.

Now for the Report:

Match 1 against *didn'twritethenamedown* with... BW whatever?

Game 1 I keep a hand with Force, Daze, 2 Goyf and 3 lands.
I play Land go, he Thoughtseizes away my Force.
I play a Goyf and go. He plays a Confidant into the Daze. Okay. I drop the land again, play a second Goyf and win within 2 Turns without any resistance.

Didn't board anything because I had no clue what he was playing.

Game 2: 1st Turn Top, 2nd Turn Balance, some time later reveal Shackles for Vindicate, play Confidant and he scoops immediately as he is somewhat demoralized.

2-0, 1-0-0

Match 2 against Florian Poppe with BWG Suicide.

He won the last Hassloch tournament with a very odd looking Suicide or Rock deck.

Game 1 I don't remember very much, but I guess I assembled CounterTop which he dismantled with a Vindicate, but later on we both have a Goyf and stall around. He tries to break the stall with Tombstalker and I can find 2 Shackles with the Top and beat him down with his own guys.

Didn't board as I can't figure out how his deck looks like or works.

Game 2 went similar, I had Countertop and he played cards that I counter. Some time later, he tres to play other guys which I let resolve. I ended up stealing again 3 creatures with Shackles, Sower, Sower and bash him with his Goyf, Stalker and Nantuko Shade.

4-0, 2-0-0

3rd Match against Alex Würtz with ANT

Game 1 I am under pressure as he has a lot of tutors, but so is he because I have 2 Goyfs. He assembled himself a hand with protection and Ad Nauseam, but the Goyfs drag his lifetotal down very fast. He uses Orim's Chant to buy one Turn, then Ad Nauseams himself to death.

Boarding: -2 Shackles, - 2 Sower, -1 KGrip, - 1 Swords, + 3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Rhox War Monk

I didn't board out Swords because I knew he will be boarding in Confidants.

Game 2 he plays 2 Confidants which I StoP. A Goyf beats him while he is low on resources and he desperately Ad Nauseams unprotected right into my Force.

6-0, 3-0-0

Match 4 against Lukas Ansorge with Mono R Gobs.

I watched him playing Aggroloam, Landstill and Burn for the last 10 tournaments or something. So when I won the diceroll, I kept a hand with:

Force, Force, Daze, Counterbalance, Top, 2 Lands. SICK SHIT!

So I do Island, Top. And he goes Mountain, Aether Vial. Well, fuck. My hand is ashes. I force Aether Vial pitching the second Force and try to hit things with Balance (I still have the hope to hit all his important Goblins like Piledriver, Matron and the new Lord with a CC3 spell, but no, nothing).

He wears me down after playing 3 Ringleaders, Stingscourger for my Goyf and I believe a Piledriver for lethal.

Anyway, I promised him the above mentioned kick into his testicles game 2 and game 3 by boarding as follows:

- 4 Balance, -1 Top, - 1 Confidant, - 1 KGrip, - 2 Sower, - 1 Trygon, + 3 Explosives, + 3 Rhox War Monk, + 4 BEB

Game 2 I somwhow beat him down with a Goyf and a fuckload of spotremoval and counters.

Game 3 he seems to keep a hand with 1 land and multiple Relics. He cracks his first few Relics because he has some mana issues but keeps the last one on the table and I play a Predator and a Goyf. I swing for a whimsy amount of Damage as he pops the Relic before I wreck it with Trygon and then he gets his lands and can offer resistance. However, i make Goyf big again by Brainstorm-Fetch-Ponder and my hand consists of spotremoval and Rhox War Monk.
I wear all his creatures down and the last one he plays gets stolen by Shackles.

8-1, 4-0-0

Match 5 against Christian Freiberger with Dredge.

I am a bit nervous and have mixed feelings about how this match will be going. On one hand, I know he is actually a awful player alongside his brother, but on the other hand: it's Dredge and despite him being an awful player, he also made it to 4-0 with it.

I win the diceroll, I keep a solid hand (I just remember land land Daze Ponder Goyf as this was the important thing, I had to try to race him if he slowdredges and doesn't go off with land LED BThrough).
Well, he slowdredges and so I beat him with a mediocre Goyf.

But he dredges pretty good and I basically lost my hope in winning this, but he Dread Returns for Cephalid Sage and dredges his library until he has only 1 card left. I can't see a second Dread Return in his GY and kept a FoW floating on top of my library with 5 mana open. So he passed the turn.
He has 8 tokens and 2 Moebas and the Sage which si not enough to kill me after he forgot to recurr his Ichorids. So he Cabal Therapies me for Force (miss), Cabal Therapies my Daze and with his last Therapy he targets himself for the DR.
He DRs for FKZ, I exchange Top and FoW it. He can't kill me and is decked.

Now you can choose: Call him a scrub or call me a lucksack.

Anyway, I board as follows:

- 2 Sower, - 2 Shackles, - 4 Counterbalance, + 3 Explosives, +2 Crypt, + 1 Relic, + 2 Rhox War Monk.

I keep a solid hand with Top and Confidant but no GY hate because I expect him to slowdredge, but no, he starts with Land, LED, cracks LED for UUU and flashbacks a Deep Analysis, dredging 1 Grave Troll and fails to find a second dredger but a second Deep Analysis which he doesn't flashback... hum, okay.

I topdeck a Relic. Wow. I play Relic, go. He draws a Coliseum and flashbacks his Deep Analysis right into my Daze.
So I just slowroll the few turns after. He then plays a Breakthrough for 0, draws 4 cards, discard his hand. I pop Relic and play a Goyf. He's dead because he has no resources anymore.

10-1, 5-0-0

Lucky me...

I find out that I am the only one with 15 points after 5 rounds (all others 12 or worse), so a ID would bring me safely on Place 1.

I get paired against Stefan Ball who IDs with me without any discussion. Maybe because he's cool, maybe because he was annoyed from the tournament after playing 3 Dredges with Aggroloam or he was just afraid that I could kick him out of the Top8. We play for fun and I win 2-0.

Anyway, 10-1, 5-0-1

And I end up being first place. So, after 2 years of playing Legacy I finally won once at Hassloch.

Props:

- Heiler for being Top8 as well with a 4-1-1 performance
- In consequence, 100% of the SPOD attendance invaded the Top8 once again
- the deck for being consistent, even multiple Wastelands couldn't fuck me up with that base
- having won in Hassloch once after so many failed attempts

Slops:

- It somehow wasn't really funny without the SPOD guys.
- a lot of my matched were just 15-20 minutes long, sitting around and waiting for that Mighty Quinn guy just blows.

IBA, YOUR DECKS CAN ONLY WIN IF YOU WOULD HAVE 75 MINUTES!!!

- I still don't know what I should play at the German Nationals Legacy SE.

I'll be attending to the German Nationals Legacy SE next week and I am looking foward to write a report if I don't suck out or something.

I apologize for my grammar and the report for being quite hectic, but I have to rush to work again now.

[spirit of the wretch]

Congrats on the win. About time I'd say =)

[beastman]

Congrats on the win. I always like reading you SPOD guys' reports. Why don't they do a top 8 at Hassloch?

[Muradin]

Oh, you never won your local tournament? And I thought you are the NQG goddrawer ; ).

Congrats however and nice report.

[LegacyFTW]

Great report man... the only thing I don't get is the game 1 with goblins, where you say you play a land and then top, with a hand of force, force, daze, cb, and land left. you said he plays mountain and the vial. You said you forced this and pitched the other force. Are you sure you didn't just daze? because to me that would be the obvious play, but maybe you just typed the report wrong and daze wasn't in your hand idk. Can you clear this up for me haha ?

[Muradin]

Great report man... the only thing I don't get is the game 1 with goblins, where you say you play a land and then top, with a hand of force, force, daze, cb, and land left. you said he plays mountain and the vial. You said you forced this and pitched the other force. Are you sure you didn't just daze? because to me that would be the obvious play, but maybe you just typed the report wrong and daze wasn't in your hand idk. Can you clear this up for me haha ?

Probably he just forced the Vial to be able to drop Counterbalance on turn 2 as this was his only possibility to win this matchup preboard with his rather bad opener against goblins.

[Adan]

Great report man... the only thing I don't get is the game 1 with goblins, where you say you play a land and then top, with a hand of force, force, daze, cb, and land left. you said he plays mountain and the vial. You said you forced this and pitched the other force. Are you sure you didn't just daze? because to me that would be the obvious play, but maybe you just typed the report wrong and daze wasn't in your hand idk. Can you clear this up for me haha ?

You have a point, but Muradin was correct:

Probably he just forced the Vial to be able to drop Counterbalance on turn 2 as this was his only possibility to win this matchup preboard with his rather bad opener against goblins.

Another point why I did that is because I thought that my opponent isn't such a skillful player and will most likely throw a threat into my Daze, but early, I just can't afford the tempo disadvantage after keeping such a bad hand.

And well, he did throw a Matron into it a few turns later.

[NQN]

Nice report Adan, but I´m sorry I have to tellya that you will at least lose once at the legacy SE since I´ll be there too :=)

[TheMightyQuinn]

- a lot of my matched were just 15-20 minutes long, sitting around and waiting for that Mighty Quinn guy just blows.

My first reaction was "Wtf, I've never even been to Germany." Then I continued reading and all was well. Nice report, and way to go on the finish!