[Articl-Report] 41st at Grand Prix Columbus

[Master Shake]

This is my report of the Grand Prix where I piloted UWbr Landstill to 41st place. There is no part one/part two here becuase it is all here, all the gory, unsavory details.

http://www.mananation.com/legacy-gp-...s-report-41st/

[Humphrey]

How do you bounce a Progenitus with Karakas? It has Pro Everything including lands

[Shugyosha]

How do you bounce a Progenitus with Karakas? It has Pro Everything including lands

Progenitus was a Legendary 1/1 Hydra without abilities at that time (Humility).

[Purgatory]

I enjoyed this. How did you find the time to play Landstill and take enough notes to put together a report that is this detailed? Or do you have photographic memory? Either way, I'm impressed.

[gesùbeppe]

Great result and report !! thanks for sharing it !!
Interesting and very personal list ;) !
Only a question: in you sideboard, what do you think about playing a perish instead of firespout #2 ? You can catch it with cunning wish and helps also vs progenitus!
Bye!

[CorpT]

Great result and report !! thanks for sharing it !!
Interesting and very personal list ;) !
Only a question: in you sideboard, what do you think about playing a perish instead of firespout #2 ? You can catch it with cunning wish and helps also vs progenitus!
Bye!

Perish is a sorcery, just like Firespout.

[Nihil Credo]

Excellent report and performance, it was a pleasure to read. A rarely-found amount of detail, too.

Now to the nitpicking:

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the number of Brainstorms I’m playing.

I don't think you really did address it, did you?

list

Would you illustrate your reasoning/experiences with regards to your draw suite? Two Fact or Fictions look odd to me when you're playing only one Jace TMS and zero Jace Beleren.

Path to Exile is up there too, even if it is a lot easier to misplay with.

Consider the sadly-forgotten Condemn. In my experience, being occasionally unable to kill a guy on your own turn hurts a lot less than regularly bumping opponents up in the mana curve.

He attacks me for a couple or burns me now and then and I Pulse of the Fields myself back up to 19. However, one turn I plow a guy to get his life total to 23 and I blank when I do math. 19 + 4 = 22, right? Nope. I waste my Pulse of the Fields and now I have to actually win this game, rather than let him burn time off the clock for me.

So the mistake was that you actually cast the Pulse, right?

My opponent sighs as he double bolts my Elspeth. I cycle a Decree for another token and he still doesn’t have any creatures.

Congrats for the discipline. Not many people are willing to recognise when it is right to just DoJ for 1-2.

He gets in with his Hirearch and goes for an end of draw step Vendillion Clique. Erk! This is the guy that I don’t like to see from these decks, at least, not when I’m lacking a good way to find my Karakas.

You really don't want to Karakas VClique.

On a separate note, consider playing one or two Cliques yourself. They've been an excellent Counterspell-friendly, sort-of-CA-providing, occasionally-blocking-cats three-drop for me. Losing them hurts even less than losing a Factory.

He gets his Progenitus, tapping out. I untap, look at his top card to make sure it isn’t another Natural Order, play Humility and send Progenitus back to his hand with Karakas.

Wouldn't Natural Order in such a situation be pretty much *the* best topdeck you could hope for, and the worst he could fear?

Now… what kind of deck plays Volcanic and Tropical but doesn’t have a play by turn three? I wait on my draw step but there is no Clique. I play a land, go, he plays a Tundra, go. Now it makes sense, this is a Thopter deck.

Loved this (assuming you weren't embellishing a little). I'll be using this part whenever I have to explain how important format knowledge is in Legacy.

. He attempts Sword of the Meek on his turn, I Counterspell, he Force of Wills dropping to 1, I Force of Will, myself and drop to 16.

Why would you two bother having a counter-war over Sword of the Meek? It's almost as good in the graveyard as in play, since you said he had extra artifacts to sac. Even a Wish in hand doesn't change that.

he is forced to play around the Force of Will for many, many turns, he finally gets two threats before tapping his top and I Engineered Explosives the other. Now he stands to lose his Top if he casts it, so this cuts out his card filtering.

I didn't quite follow here. He expected you to have to blow the Force on one of two threats, but you could EE them both out (and thus save FoW for Top, forcing him either to bite the trade or hope to draw a discard)?

[Rune]

I am a bit confused, did the Doomsday player lose the whole match for looking at extra cards? I didn't think the punishment was that harsh.

[Master Shake]

Excellent report and performance, it was a pleasure to read. A rarely-found amount of detail, too.

Now to the nitpicking:

I don't think you really did address it, did you?

You're right, I never got to that. I play Brainstorm as a mid game draw spell, I use them sparingly to carve out my hand for the late game. Obviously it's nice to pack 4 against combo, but that is really the only time I need to dig in the early game, other than to dig for lands.

Would you illustrate your reasoning/experiences with regards to your draw suite? Two Fact or Fictions look odd to me when you're playing only one Jace TMS and zero Jace Beleren.

I wish I could point to specific cards and say that his is why these numbers came about, but this list has been tweaked or over a year. I played mix of 3/3/3 on Brainstorm, Fof, Standstill for a while and I played little Jace, but he came out for Ajani Vengeant who then was replayed by Jace the Mindsculptor.Traditionally I'll say that the 3rd FoF was cut for Jace, but it was actually cut for another spot removal spell in the main. I play FoF as a draw spell along with Standstill and Brainstorm but I play ace as a win condition and much less as a draw spell. I seldom play him early and I don't often have my planeswalkers die, so playing multiple copies isn't really clutch for me. I have played two Jace in the past and probably will again in the future, but it has more to do with fighting opposing Jaces than anything else.

I like Fact or Fiction becuase so many players are bad at it, even if they are good at it the card is huge and they still have to guess what I need. and then Standstill is in the deck's name, but I feel that 4 is seldom right for any metagames.

Consider the sadly-forgotten Condemn. In my experience, being occasionally unable to kill a guy on your own turn hurts a lot less than regularly bumping opponents up in the mana curve.

I have certainly considered Condemn and think its a fine card, but my issue with it is that against an aggro deck I can't just Condemn their one-drop and follow it up with Standsitll, unless this guy is Goblin Guide. If I was ballsy enough to go heavier into red I would have Access to Lightning Bolt, but this is the choice I feel comfortable with right now.

So the mistake was that you actually cast the Pulse, right?

yeah, I blow the Pulse and then am no longer able to just sit in game one and grind on the clock

You really don't want to Karakas VClique.

I think this point is debatable, I've had very good experiences with it in the past, of course these are instances where I just don't have the removal spell. I would ideally just plow it, but if that isn't an option, I'm more willing to let him keep trying to screw my hand rather than take three damage every turn.

On a separate note, consider playing one or two Cliques yourself. They've been an excellent Counterspell-friendly, sort-of-CA-providing, occasionally-blocking-cats three-drop for me. Losing them hurts even less than losing a Factory.

I can see playing it in a heavier control and combo metagame, which isn't what my local metagame is and wasn't what I was expecting for this event. I'm not really familiar with playing the card but I've been thinking about it now seeing as how the metagame seems to really be shifting toward a much higher ratio of combo and control deck.

Wouldn't Natural Order in such a situation be pretty much *the* best top deck you could hope for, and the worst he could fear?

This was actually a huge misplay on my part. I have Cunning Wish > Negate open to me, but I decide that I just have this Humility sitting around and he's tapped out so, why not? I forget to Jace him before I play the Humility but he doesn't get the Natural Oder (There is really only about a 5% chance he would have it anyway) so I end up with a cool story. But the lesson is that if you have a 100% chance to win, don't give your opponent 5% off the top just because you want to do something cool.

Loved this (assuming you weren't embellishing a little). I'll be using this part whenever I have to explain how important format knowledge is in Legacy.

This was actually my thought process during the game. I think he goes something like Volcanic, Tropical, Volcanic, Tundra. When I see the Tundra I breathe a sigh of relief and the day goes much smoother.

Why would you two bother having a counter-war over Sword of the Meek? It's almost as good in the graveyard as in play, since you said he had extra artifacts to sac. Even a Wish in hand doesn't change that.

I believe the situation here was that he was at tow life when casting the Sword, he had just tapped his top to draw the Sword and the only artifact in play was Thopter Foundry, so without the Sword in play, he is only able to generate one token which isn't enough to save him, and that is why we fought so hard over the Sword.

I didn't quite follow here. He expected you to have to blow the Force on one of two threats, but you could EE them both out (and thus save FoW for Top, forcing him either to bite the trade or hope to draw a discard)?

Yeah, he knows that I have something like Force + Counterspell in hand and he doesn't want to walk his top into a Force, so he must slowly build up into threats, which I just generally am able to deal with through EOT removal or a cheaper counterspell.

I am a bit confused, did the Doomsday player lose the whole match for looking at extra cards? I didn't think the punishment was that harsh.

He conceded to me, which is why there was no game 3. I didn't as too many questions about it.

I enjoyed this. How did you find the time to play Landstill and take enough notes to put together a report that is this detailed? Or do you have photographic memory? Either way, I'm impressed.

I have a pretty good memory, the amount of notes that someone would need to take to act a a mnemonic device should generally be pretty low, or maybe I'm just lucky.



I've considered Perish, even the Sorcery speed ones, but Firespout seemed like the best call as it splashes against Merfolk too.

[Shawn]

There doesn’t seem to be a good way for me to survive an Emrakul without playing Moat,

Humility? :P

Consider the sadly-forgotten Condemn. In my experience, being occasionally unable to kill a guy on your own turn hurts a lot less than regularly bumping opponents up in the mana curve.

I tried it before Path was printed, and it was pretty bad.



I enjoyed the article, and congrats on the solid performance.

[mchainmail]

Very well-written report, I look forward to reading more from you.

[Master Shake]

Humility? :P

No, Mot. I need to have permanents to saciice. That may no have been clear.

I enjoyed the article, and congrats on the solid performance.

Thank you very much, I'm glad so many people enjoyed the article.

[gesùbeppe]

I apologize for my epic fail about perish...sorry ;) !

You will change something in this list or you are satisfied by these 76 cards ?

Grats again for the result !

Bye!