Jupiter Games 9/14: 8th Place with UWb Landstill

[RogueMTG]

My memory is a little foggy as this happened on Saturday, I got sick Sunday night and I have been sick until now so my opponents please forgive me if some of this is inaccurate. If you see something that is wrong and would like it fixed or know any of the names of the people I can't remember, please let me know.

We show up around 10:30, I’m packing UWb Landstill, Amber is playing Goyfsligh, my buddy Travis decided on Counterslivers with crazy Winter Orb backup. Turns out our friend (Travy’s gf) Kelly is working at the event.
As the pairings for round 1 go up I’m excited to get to take Landstill back out for a spin. My last tournament with it I ended a disappointing 3-3 after a solid 3-0 start.

My List:
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 ScrubLand
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
4 Standstill
3 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Wrath of God
1 Humility
1 Crucible of the Worlds
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Elspeth Knight Errant
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

sb
2 Vindicate
2 Duress
3 Meddling Mage
2 Negate
1 Counterspell
1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Path to Exile

Round 1: Ben with Canadian Thresh
Game 1: I manage to win a long game 1. I land a top early which helps me hit land drops and find an answer for all of his guys. Eventually he runs out of cards while I’m still up a few, and I drop an Eternal Dragon that ends the game quickly.

Game 2: He sided in a bunch of spell pierce. I think I swapped in some PtE. Stifles my EE on his turn 1 mongoose, I can’t resolve Crucible or Elspeth and he gets there pretty quickly.

Game 3: I take some early beats, dropping down to 6 before I stabilize. Once I do I have some factories to hold the fort and I cut him off of red mana so he can’t burn me out. Unfortunately time is called, and neither of us can kill the other in turns.

Result: Draw (1-1-1) Overall: (0-0-1)

I hate drawing round one, but what can you do.

Round 2: Zach Tartell with Tendrils Combo of some kind.

He lets me know that it’s his birthday, often. We shuffle up for game one, present the decks, and then get deck checked. Fun. He tells me he lost the first round, so I got paired down. Oh well.

Eventually the judge comes back with our decks, gives us 12 extra minutes on our round, we reshuffle and begin.

Game 1: I’m not sure what he’s playing, I keep a generically good hand with removal and standstill and lands but no Force. He plays a dual land, Brainstorms 3 times and Ponders twice in the first 3 turns. I smack him with a Mishra’s Factory once. He proceeds to combo off, I do have a counter for his LED, but it doesn’t slow him down, he IGG’s to get it back, should have waited on that counter I guess.

Game 2: I bring in all the counterspells, the duresses, the meddling mages, and the lone Ajani. I took out all the swords, wrath, humility and an EE or two. I open a nutty hand with double force and some lands, I keep. He tries to go off early, I hose him with the Forces and drop an Elspeth. I peel the Ajani to follow it. I start gaining life and bashing with a 4/4 flyer. He drops a Lotus Petal and sacs it to hard cast a 2/2 SSG. He starts using it to beat down my Ajani. By the time Ajani dies I’m up to 30 some odd life and I find both Duresses to pull the Orim’s Chant and an Infernal Tutor from his hand. He manages to play a brainstorm or something, then a Chrome Mox imprinting nothing and casts Tendrils with just lands to stay alive an extra turn or two, but Game 2 is mine.

Game 3: I pull another sick hand with Force, Duress, and Meddling Mage. I start with a turn 1 duress taking LED seeing 2x Rite of Flame, a tutor and some lands. I drop a Meddling Mage turn 2 on Rite of Flame because he has no other mana production, I have a fistful of counter magic, and I bring the beats. I give him a high five for sideboarding wrong.

Result: Win (2-1) Overall: (1-0-1)

Round 3: (I can’t remember your name, I’m sorry) Bant Survival

Game 1: He starts off with basic forest into Noble Hierarch. Turn 2 he plays a Trop and goes for a Survival, I Force, he Forces back, it sticks. He beats me for 1 with his Hierarch. On my turn I pull a wasteland and decide to go for the mana screw plan. I waste his Trop and swords his Hierarch, leaving him with just a basic Forest. He tries to get out of it by Survivaling for more Hierarchs, but each time I kill them while building my mana base. Eventually I land a Humility and an Elspeth. He finds some lands eventually and starts casting 1/1s that have flying from Wonder in the graveyard. Still, he can’t stop my guys and 2/2 Factories. I end up winning.

Game 2: This is very foggy for me, but I’m fairly certain we go to time.

Result: Win (1-0-1) Overall: (2-0-1)

Round 4: One of the Unicorn’s with Ug Merfolk

Game 1: I get crushed by Aether Vial, I try EE but he has the counter.

Game 2: I side in 2 Paths (wishing I had more) along with the 2 Vindicate, figuring removal is good. He starts turn 1 with Cursecatcher, followed turn 2 with curse catcher, followed turn 3 with a grossly protected Aether Vial. I am dead before I can do anything useful.

Result: Lose (0-2) Overall: (2-1-1)

Round 5: Tivon with Dragon Stompy
Game 1: I have an answer for all of his guys, Humility eventually comes down and 5 mana 1/1s can’t compete with Elspeth.

Game 2: See game one except I blow up a bunch of Blood Moons. He does resolve a Boil but it's way too late and only hits 3 or 4 lands.

Result: Win (2-0) Overall: (3-1-1)

Round 6: The Fat Man with UGB Intuition/Dark Depths/Loam craziness.
Game 1: He has a counter for my early standstill and follows the play with a Dark Confidant, the Confidant punches him and me for 4 before I kill it. Putting 2x Smother into his hand. He tries for Intuition at the end of one of my turns, I respond with Fact or Fiction scoop up some removal and let Intuition resolve. He gets Loam and Dark Depths and Volrath’s Stronghold. I think I give him Dark Depths. Once I get the turn back I drop Humility, neutering his combo and any real way to kill me. Eventually Elspeth comes down and we’re on to game 2.

Game 2: This is similar to game one, except he Hexmages my Elspeth in response to my Humility, but still Humility sticks, and Mishra’s Factories and a Decree for 5 Dudes goes the distance.

Result: Win (2-0) Overall: (4-1-1)

Round 7: Jamied with the UWb Landstill Mirror
Game 1: His deck is way pimpier than mine. We have a long game 1, as is to be expected, we fight back and forth over Elspeths and Mishra’s Factories, he eventually pulls the trigger on his super secret 1 of tech and Extirpates my Swords to gain a Factory advantage. We both have tops going, and we’re both fairly low on life. He manages to set up Crucible but I have an EE for it and a Wasteland for his Academy Ruins. Hoping to soon drop a Crucible of my own and take the game over. He’s spent 3 EE’s in a row on my tokens to get in there with a Factory. I finally find and drop my own Factory when I’m at 4 life and he’s at 9. He activates and swings with his lone factory, I activate mine and move to block, he Swords, I Force, he Swords, I top, see Standstill, Brainstorm, Wasteland. I draw with top to Force again (down to 2). A woman comes over and somewhat angrily whispers something to him before walking away. He shows a 3rd Swords and says I can just have the match because he has to go. I’m not sure what all that was about but I’ll take it I guess.

I really would have liked to have finished that match out, the next turn would have had me wasting his lonely Factory and setting up Crucible. Still, makes me glad that my girl plays Magic.

Result: Win (concession) Overall: (5-1-1)

Round 8: Louis with Natural Order Bant
Game 1: We shuffle up and get deck checked… again. He’s worried about the judges giving him grief about his is altered art cards. We do nothing for about 20 minutes except watch the match next to us come to an end and complain about how much we hate Dredge. Eventually the judges come back and say they need to speak to my opponent, he goes back over to talk with them and seems pretty bummed when he comes back. He says he starts with a game loss for a registration mistake. And says his win condition is totally neutered.

Game 2: He starts first with a noble Hierarch. I start with a Top. I ask him if he forgot to register a Progenitus. He just shakes his head. Eventually I land an Elspeth and he drops a Natural Order sacing a Dryad Arbor. He is super pissed, admits that they made him take out the Progenitus because it wasn’t on his list, and puts a Rhox War Monk into play and asks “Can I just win?” I block his Monk with a token and he just scoops. To be fair, even if he had pulled a Progenitus instead of the War Monk, I still had a WoG and Humility to deal with it.

I really dislike winning this way. But after getting deck checked twice, it does make me thankful that I triple checked my decklist before turning it in.

Result: Win (2-0) Overall: 6-1-1

Top 8: There are eight 19 pointers and one 22. I take 8th place going in, one 19 pointer getting locked out in 9th place. Damn am I exhausted at this point.

Ben Lukas playing 43 Land
Game 1: He mulls to five, I have a turn 3 wastelock, he packs it in quickly for game 2.

Game 2: Pretty sure I sideboarded wrong, I don’t even remember what I did though. I am never able to have 4 mana available on my main phase to cast Elspeth to turn the game in my favor. He starts ghost quartering all of my lands until I don’t have any basics left in play or to fetch. I just scoop to game 3.

Game 3: I have an early top and I avoid wastes with basics and fight back some with Relic and I land a Crucible, he Gambles, gets an Ancient Grudge and blows up my Crucible and my Relic while I’m tapped out. (ouch) I can’t stop his Loaming, I try to stall with counters for a number of turns but I can never get lands untapped and alive to cast anything useful, on the turn before I would die I had relic and wasteland on top of my deck, he has Monastery and Factory. I desperately want to Ruins my crucible back, but if I do that I die. I grumpily draw, play relic and blow it, getting rid of the graveyards and drawing me wasteland, I play wasteland and blow it… on the Monastery that I just neutered instead of the Factory that kills me on his turn. I don’t know if I was just tired, or if I thought for some reason he wouldn’t tap my Factory so it could block his. Either way I wasn’t winning, but I punt that play that would have let me live another couple turns.

I end up 8th place over all, and pick up another play set of Tundras. Amber and I head out, pick up some questionable food from the only place still open (Denny's) and go home to sleep.

Props:
Landstill for being awesome
Jupiter Games crew for continuing to support the format on an insane level
Tartell’s Birthday & Sideboarding
My girlfriend, for understanding magic and waiting with me for the top 8 to finish so I could pick up my prizes.

Slops:
43 Land for being obnoxious
Long deck checks
Girls that steal your opponent mid-match
Drunk dudes that hit on my girlfriend
Random douchebag that wouldn’t shut up about Tarmogoyf being “bad”
Printers, for breaking at the most inopportune times.

[whiteshepherdman]

My main sideboarding plan against 43 lands is usually running 4 swords 3 paths, 4 EE's, a crucible and I've never tried this but I'd imagine if you ran engineered plague that you could name their nantuko monasteries. For you, I'd first of all side in Meddling Mage to name Life from the loam seeing the options you have in your sideboard. This is what i would do, +2 path +2 relic +3 Meddling mage, then taking out wrath's humilities what not that don't do anything in the matchup. just my 2 cents :)

[cwt1220]

I was the one 19 pointer that didn't make it. I lost the first round. I like the report, it was a good read.

-Chris-

[Tivon]

I was the dragon stompy player that you absolutely molested with humility's and swords and paths and counters and EE's to make my round very sad panda. Glad to see you did well though. That was a really frustrating (but really fun) match... lol.

[Mark Sun]

I was the dragon stompy player that you absolutely molested with humility's and swords and paths and counters and EE's to make my round very sad panda. Glad to see you did well though. That was a really frustrating match... lol.

That first sentence makes my day, sir

This was a great read! That's interesting that you moved Vindicate to the SB and decided to put in the Tops. Did you ever side it in besides against UG Merfolk? I have recently reintroduced Humility (mainly to deal with Zoo/Goblins + big dudes like Progenitus or Marit Lage, but it hits everything else) to my list, did you like it as a 1-of?

By the way, how many people came to this tournament? I'm jealous, would love to have the same type of support for Legacy in Ohio.

[cwt1220]

By the way, how many people came to this tournament? I'm jealous, would love to have the same type of support for Legacy in Ohio.

177 people. Great turnout and prize support with a lot of great people.

-Chris-

[neon_havoc]

i love to draw round 1 :D

[RogueMTG]

...
This was a great read! That's interesting that you moved Vindicate to the SB and decided to put in the Tops. Did you ever side it in besides against UG Merfolk? I have recently reintroduced Humility (mainly to deal with Zoo/Goblins + big dudes like Progenitus or Marit Lage, but it hits everything else) to my list, did you like it as a 1-of?
...

I appreciate all of the positive feedback guys :D. Thanks!

Vindicate's also came in against Mr. Dragon Stompy, and if the Landstill mirror had gone to a game 2 I would have brought them in there too.

Tops and Humility were awesome. I don't think I'd run more than 2 tops, multiples suck and it's awkward topping into top instead of an answer.

Humility as a 1-of really out-did itself, easily MVP of the day. I'm trying to come up with something to cut for a second one in the main. I can't see playing Landstill without it at this point.

@Tivon: Sorry about that >_>. I'm glad you still had fun though . I'll edit your user name into the OP in place of my "Sorry I forgot your name" thing.

I forgot to mention that pretty much everyone I played against seemed like a good guy. Everyone was pretty talkative, no one was a jerk, overall an awesome tournament.

..sideboard suggestions..

Thanks! Makes a lot of sense.

I was the one 19 pointer that didn't make it. I lost the first round. I like the report, it was a good read.

-Chris-

Sorry you got the short end of the tiebreaker stick.

[snorlaxcom]

Great job with landstill and happy for Team Unicorn to hand you your only loss in the swiss rounds. I had some pretty nutty draws those games and Cursecatcher was the nuts all day.

[sauce]

"I finally find and drop my own Factory when I’m at 2 life and he’s at 9. He activates and swings with his lone factory, I activate mine and move to block, he Swords, I Force, he Swords, I top, see Standstill, Brainstorm, Wasteland. I draw with top to Force again."

are you hard casting forces or are you dead from the 2nd one?

[RogueMTG]

"I finally find and drop my own Factory when I’m at 2 life and he’s at 9. He activates and swings with his lone factory, I activate mine and move to block, he Swords, I Force, he Swords, I top, see Standstill, Brainstorm, Wasteland. I draw with top to Force again."

are you hard casting forces or are you dead from the 2nd one?

Oops, that's a good point, I believe the forces dropped me to 2, I'll reword that a bit.

[Getsickanddie]

Nice job dude! I'm glad one half of the coolest couple in eternal magic was able to take home some prizes. Next time you both have top 8 though, no excuses.

[ForceofWill]

To be fair my monastery was jap so how could you know I needed threshold :).

[RogueMTG]

Nice job dude! I'm glad one half of the coolest couple in eternal magic was able to take home some prizes. Next time you both have top 8 though, no excuses.

Haha, thanks dude. Now that you've left us with no excuses we'll just have to split the finals at the next one I suppose.

Any chance you remembered to bring your "real" deck this last time?

To be fair my monastery was jap so how could you know I needed threshold :).

Touche. I'll blame it on the foreign cards. Congratz on the finish .