[Report] Team SPOD @ August Hassloch Legacy Event aka. The Suckening

[spirit of the wretch]

Or: How to completly exhaust you metabolism - The Story of a weekend

So our little story of self-destruction and nerdiness started friday noon. I finished work early and drove to Marius place to have a small, classy get-together: a LAN-party. Everything progressed in a fairly standard manner:
- get a beer
- get the hardware started
- get another beer
- start playing
- mix the beer up with a little dope and hard liquor, so you don't get bored
- keep yourself stuffed with these substances until you fall into a coma.
In that particular case that happened around seven in the morning.

Break.

Eleven o'clock. I wake up, slightly spacy in a strange bed that I'm sharing with another man. Oh, one of those days... I stagger into the bathroom take a glimpse at my blood-shot eyes and decide to go back to sleep. Yeah, that's the reasonable thing to do. But then again, reasonable isn't exactly the motto for this weekend. And a little voice in the back of my head keeps babbling. Something about the MSL quarter-finals. And you know how it is with these voices, you really don't want to resist them, they're just too tempting. So f**k sleep, get a breakfast beer and watch Jaedong demolish Sea with all the might of the swarm. Frigging beautiful! But I digress...

Then the alcohol and gaming abuse continues. Days like this you really start to wonder where the hell you're going to get a new liver at age 30.

Break.

Nine o'clock. I wake up, slightly spacy in a strange bed that I'm sharing with another man. I can't help but sensing a deja-vu here. Just hope this doesn't become a habit...
I'm too old for that stuff!
To quell that feeling I head for another breakfast beer and as Manuel arrives to pick us up my alcohol-level is already adjusted to give me that warm, glowing, nurturing feeling to face the day. Godda love that magical liquor!

In Hassloch we meet the rest of the gang, have a few more happy beers and then start to do our thing.
53 people => 6 rounds

That's what the team decided to bring to battle:

• Manuel “DerHeiler” Heiler: GWB Rock
• Marius “Laber” Laber: Uwr Dreadstill
• Harald “Locutus” Herrlich: Rbg Goblins
• Thomas “Yulyn” Dörner: RGW Cat-Sligh
• Clemens “Der_imaginäre_Freund” Wolff: Ichorid
• Daniel “Adan” Scherer: UGr Thresh
• Stefan "spirit of the wretch" Czolk: UWr Survival

My list is covered by Clemens here



A few comments about the deck. This is the consequent evolution of Zoo. It all started when Clemens decided to f**k the convention and throw some Survivals in Zoo for a better lategame and overall domination. It worked pretty well and so he and I started to refine the concept and that's the result.
Bottom line: this is a complete teched out SPOD list and as such optimal by definition. I dare you doubt that!

Round 1: Michael with Survival-Elves
Game 1: I start out pretty awesome with an early Survival. He doesn't have a Survival, but really doesn't need it either: Just draw myself into Lys Alana Huntmaster and Gilt-Leaf Archdruid with my Ringleader, add a healthy amount of Gaea's Cradle and Priest of Titania and top it with some Joraga Warcaller. Having neither Iona nor any form of evasion maindeck, I simply fold to a lot of obscenely huge elves. Yeah, Elves: not really a deck but raping you nevertheless!

Game 2: This isn't much of a nail-biter either: He gets a fast enchantment going and then a ridiculous angel locks me out of the game. Well played, sir! Well played indeed...


0/1/0

Brilliant, it's half past twelve on a Sunday morning, I'm sobering up and I started the event with a loss against a deck that in my opinion is on a level with mono brown Enchantress and Homarid-Tribal. Frigging hilarious!

Round 2: Stefan with Survival-Elves
There it is again, this nagging feeling of deja-vu...

Game 1: We both get our enchantment going and while he keeps coughing up tree huggers, I produce an Aven Mindcensor. Now these little birds are in the deck mostly because of Survival, but if you have a gazillion mana (read: Cradle, multiple Priests, Quirion Ranger... You know what I'm talking about, right?) you can pretty much simply ignore them: Look at the top four, take a sucky elf, throw him in the Survival and start all over again. Very funny to watch. Like sawing your own leg of with a rusty spoon. Top is nothing compared to this agonizing sequence!
At some point he kicks an Warcaller ten (!!!) times and decides to swing with his army into my 3 untaped 7/7 KoTRs. So block, fetch three Wastelands, kill three of his lands, two Priests and an Elvish Archdruid. So much for the infinite mana. He doesn't really recover from that brilliant and thoroughly thought through attack.

Game 2: Neither one of us draws his enchantment and so it shows: bolts > lords and basically every creature > a tree hugger (yeah, I'm sticking with "hugger" although a similar sounding word strikes me as even more descriptive). Long story short, I kill his few relevant elves and send my hordes pillaging and burning through Yavimaya!


1/1/0

Revenge! For Gondor!

Round 3: ??? with Goblins
Son of a bitch, I can't help but slowly realize, that maindeck An-Zerrin Ruins would actually have been a pretty decend metagame choice for me!

Game 1: I start on the play with a first turn Noble Hierarch, while he counters with a Goblin Lackey. On my turn I have the removal and a Survival. Awesome! And that pretty much spells Game Over for him right there. He tries to fight my cardadvantage off with multiple Goblin Chieftains and Ringleader, but in the end the steady stream of human knights and Lhurgoyfs is way too much for him to handle.
Nah, this doesn't read nearly impressive enough:
endless hordes of blood-frenzied goblins try to crush my army while my brave soldiers tear through them with razor-sharp swords. Bagpipes in the background, streams of whiskey, wolves howling and fire in the sky. In the end nothing is left but a bloody pile of goblin leftovers!
Yeah, that sounds way more epic.

Game 2: I have the Survival turn two again (I haven't mentioned how awesome I am, right? I am THAT awesome!) and his start isn't too busted. He finds his Perish the turn AFTER he's forced to chump my big guys to clear the board, but there still is that Survival. He watches mildly frustrated (this might be quite the understatement) how I just keep making big creatures like toilet seats and then concedes in utter disgust. Yeah, this wasn't particularly pretty, but still fun. For me, that is of course.


2/1/0

Round 4: Fabian with Tempo Thresh[/B]
Ok, by the time I play this match the sleep deprivation and the intoxicants in my metabolism finally get the better of me. I start some really mean trashtalking. Fabian, if you read this: Sorry, bro! Hope I wasn't too insulting. I'll get you a beer next time we meet =)

Game 1: He does what Tempo usually tries to do: Mess up my mana. I do what a deck with 26 mana sources usually does: ignore his pathetic attempts. One turn he decides it would be appropriate to tap out to stifle another one of my Fetchlands so I'm deciding now might be a good time to cast that Survival. He thinks, frowns and succumbs to Lhurgoyf-beats in short order.

Game 2: He starts out with a couple of quick Mongeese (which obviously are puny 1/1 and only provoke another wave of malicious trashtalk), which I counter with a Goyf. He plays a Goyf of his own and casts a Submerge on mine. At that point the board actually looks pretty decent for him. That is until I redblast his Submerge, sword his Goyf and crush his Mongeese with real creatures (read: creatures with more than 1 power...).He tries his best to keep himself in the game but once I reach the midgame with this deck Tempo doesn't have a lot of good tool against it. He continues to filter through his deck while I continue to filter through his life. You see where this is going.


3/1/0

Round 5: Adan with Ugr Thresh (2005 style)
Yeah, my personal Bye =) Adan walks into this match pretty unenthusiastic. And rightfully so! After all, I am pretty awesome.

Game 1: I have ye olde Survival again, but he immidiately needles it. I am however able to fetch myself a Qasali Pridemage and resolve it. I refuse to nuke the needle as I fear Vedalken Shackles (which I know he plays) and decide to rather bring the beats with Goyf and cat against another pathetic 'Goose. Don't ask me why on earth I didn't kill the Needle to fetch another Pridemage. But brilliant player that I am, I'm sure I had my reasons that non of you lesser minds could even hope to understand. Adan cantrips into like a madman while I reenforce, casts a Shackles (which I nuke) and all the time gets beaten down by my creatures. He can't bring any real threat to the table (as there is non in his deck) and so he is done in a rather unspectacular fashion. Your strategy against blue-based aggro-control: Play dudes and turn them left. GG.

After the game Adan tells me he had the needle in his opening hand and didn't want to play it (on Survival, which he knew I was playing) immediately but rather wait for targets. Kids, this isn't a particularly good idea. Not at all! That's rather a horribly suicidal idea, that's what it is.

Game 2: This MU plays out like the Tempo MU but without the Stifle/Wasteland, which means Adan doesn't have a single thing to stop me from reaching the midgame. And in the midgame I have the shotgun in the knife-fight. Contrary to his toothpick... So anyway I don't play around Daze because my hand is pure gas (and hey, I'm the man. Playing careful is for pussies!) and sadly for him, Adan doesn't even have the Daze. So I overload the board with guys while he can only look sad and watch as they manhandle him in truly animalistic fashion. As I said: Play dudes, bash face! Pretty fun way to approach Magic =)


4/1/0

Round 6: ??? with UG Survival Madness (exact copy of the Columbus deck)

Game 1: I run a Fetchland into a Stifle and a Dual into a Wasteland each time trying to play around the other. This annoys the f**k out of me and I decide that I'm done playing carefully (you see, never gets you anywhere that overrated caution) and instead start playing awesome: Survival => Game.

Game 2: He mulligans into Survival, I don't. Although he really doesn't want to win (or at least his plays highly suggest that conclusion) it's really hard to lose with the active enchantment. An so he doesn't.
As I'm writing these lines, I realize that an awful lot of this report reads like one in the old CounterTop meta: I resolve my enchantment, I win. He resolves his enchantment, I lose... Not all too terribly interesting to read I imagine, but it sure displays the power of Survival.

Game 3: He mulligans into Survival again, while I keep a Pridemage-hand. We both stall on two lands for a while (I beat with the cat, he beats with a Rootwalla), until he finds his third land for Survival + Stifle. Yeah, this can't be good! I still stall on two mana but at least he's stuck at three, so he can't do his plant-rape all too fast. As "broken enchantment"-style seems to be no option for me this game, I decide to go the traditional route and drop a Tarmogoyf. And another one. AAAAAAAAAAND another one. Ok, I managed to resolve three Goyfs technically I can't lose this game. To my bitter disappointment my opponent obviously hasn't heard of that rule and decides to drop a Wonder in his yard. Boy, that REALLY can't be good. On my last possible turn (I'm at three life) I finally draw into Faerie Macabre and go into the tank. Deep.
The board is two Vengevines, two Hierarchs and a Survival for my opponent with two cards in hand (one of which is a Hierarch) and three tapped lands. He's at 9 life
I have three lands, three Goyfs and the Faerie a Squee and an Aven Mindscencor in hand. Time gets called, what do you do? Go!
I decide to swing with one Goyf (Hierarch chumps) and remove his Wonder immediately (to not give him the additional draw step to find Stifle). He pitches his own Faerie into Survival and I cast the bird. He misses in his top four! (Yeah, still pretty awesome) Then an attacking Vengevine trades with a Goyf.
I draw Sword (god-mode: Online), kill the Hierarch and again it's time to think long and hard: If I go all in here, I lose to Submerge, any topdecked creature with casting cost two or less and any weird shit I can't even imagine. On the other hand, I am here to win this and hell be my witness, I am the way more awesome player. So an all-in attack it is!

[Climatic suspense-building pause/]

He fails in his drawstep and I got the match!

5/1/0

So in the end I get fourth (due to my abysmal opp-score) and take home a Mox Diamond for my troubles. Fair!

To wrap things up, here's the performance of the team:

• Manuel “DerHeiler” Heiler: 3/2/1
• Marius “Laber” Laber: 4/2/0
• Harald “Locutus” Herrlich: 3/3/0
• Thomas “Yulyn” Dörner: RGW 5/0/1 and 1st! Congratz dude!
• Clemens “Der_imaginäre_Freund” Wolff: 4/2/0
• Daniel “Adan” Scherer: 3/3/0
• Stefan "spirit of the wretch" Czolk: 5/1/0 and 4th

Let me just take this time before I get to the obligatory props/slops section for a little advertisement:
The Legacy-community in Karlsruhe is growing and we're having our own tournament again. So far there have been 10-15 participants but we have big plans. So if you don't have anything better to do the first Saturday each month, want to see the lovely city of Karlsruhe or meet the local pirates, this is the place to be!
Informations

So now that this has been said

Props

• Thomas for rocking it. Especially with CATS! Mad Props!
• Laber for hosting that incredibly excessive party!
• Clemens for tinkering with Survival in Zoo lists and overall being awesome!
• The rest of the team for being great company.
• My opponent last round for not winning =)
• Me obviously
• Alcohol, even more obviously
• Jaedong for being the man.

Slops

• Weed for not satisfying me like booze
• Sleep for being necessary
• Elves
• Work for being so damn time consuming

So long, see you next weekend at the German Legacy Championship.

[MaFF1n]

Playing against you was just THAT frustrating. In game 1 I saw 4 Volcanic Islands but no Tropical or Fetchland. In game 2 I had only 1 Stifle for your Survival.
However, congratz on the finish! You're just awesome ;)
@offtopic cause you're talking about mixing beer: Did you ever try to mix beer with green tea? I tried that stuff at the Wacken Open Air and it was really good. You can drink it like water. :P

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

watch Jaedong demolish Sea with all the might of the swarm. Frigging beautiful! But I digress...

This. I was trying to think of something else MSL could possibly stand for because I don't believe other non-Koreans actually watch pro SC. LJD needs an MSL hatrick before Flash wins the golden mouse, I've had enough with dominant terrans.

Oh, nice report too. Always a fan of SPOD's contributions, you guys always write entertaining reports. Keep em coming!