5-2 Spiral Tide at Paulinia. 01/05/2011

[ScatmanX]

Third tournament with the deck, third report.

Maindeck (60)

Lands (18)

4x Flooded Strand
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Misty Rainforest
11x Island

Protection (8)

4x Force of Will
3x Counterspell
1x Pact of Negation

Cantrips (10)

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Preordain

Tutor (7)

4x Merchant Scroll
2x Cunning Wish
1x Intuition

Bussiness (17)

4 x High Tide
4x Time Spiral
4x Turnabout
3x Cloud of Faeries
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Meditate

SB:
3 Snap
3 Pierce
2 Wipe Away
2 Pact of Negation
1 Brain Freeze
1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
1 Meditate
1 Dispel
1 Rebuild

104 Players showed up.

Round 1: Burn

Game 1: We both mull. He Starts with Bolt, I with Ponder. His turn he Chain Lightning’s me, and in my eot he Bolt’s me. I search for High Tide. He Suspends Rift Bolt. I cantrip and pass. I Counterspell the Rift Bolt, and he Lava Spike’s me (at 8 now). I Draw my fetch, but decide not to crack it, since otherwise I could die to Bolt+Fireblast post Spiral. So I just cast High Tide+Turnabout+Turnabout+Timespiral, get a good grip, and win with BF + BSZ.

SB: I bring in Pierces, but don’t know what I took out. Maybe Meditate, BSZ and Pact.

Game 2: He begins burning me again. I draw a great hand and Pierce something turn 3, while he was low on cards already. At my 4th turn I pass, and Couterspell a Fireblast on his turn. I was at 6. I pass again. He does nothing, so I eot Turnabout him. He Magma Jet’s me, getting me to 4. Turnabout resolves, and in my turn, I cast High Tide + Spiral. I get a good grip again, and finish him even with Pierce backup against Fireblast. After the game he showed me he had drawn 2 Red Elemental Blast after Time Spiral.

1-0

Round 2: Mono black

Game 1: He starts with Duress. I show him 3 lands, 3 cantrips and a High Tide. He takes the Tide, and I cantrip in my turn. His turn 2, he Duress me again, taking something, and Extirpate (o.O) My Tide. I decide that, if I wasn’t going to win, neither was he. I Scroll for FoW, and FoW a dude. Next turn I Scroll for Counterspell and counter a BoB. Next Turn I found another Counterspell, and hit another threat. This slow him down to a crawl, and I see a chance of winning after all. I hit lots and lots of land drops, Until there’s a turn where I begin to srew things up. He duress me while I have lots of lands and 4 cards (3 Turnabouts and a Zenith). I cast them all, and draw something like 19 cards, and Fow his Duress. In my turn, I cast some cantrips, and decide to go for it 2 turns later. I discard a bunch of cards, including (and this is the ultimate mistake) 2 Islands. Next turn I Brainstorm and crack a fetch, only to realize I’m out of Islands in my deck. So I scroll up My last Turnabout, and passes. He cast a Nighthawk, and I eot Turnabout him (to do not get hit by Extirpate again. My turn I simply Time Spiral. My hand was good, with Spiral, FoW, Wish and cantrips. I have 9 lands up. I need a Turnabout here to win. I Preordain, then Ponder, shuffle, Ponder and shuffle again. Up until now a Scroll would have helped me too. When I cast another ponder, I see only a scroll, and can’t Scroll>Turnabout with only 5 lands up. I then proceed to pass the turn, and lose to his full grip.
*Had I not discarded those 2 Islands, I would be able to continue the combo, and would probably have won this match. Lesson learned…
(Had I won this G1 without Tide, it would be so epic… to bad I punted…)

Game 2: I Pierce something, and Counterspell something, then let Bitterblossom and something else resolve. I eventually kill him turn 5 I guess, casting 2 High Tides + Spiral, while he Extirpated Scroll. I kill him easily,

Game 3: He leads with nothing, I Pierce a turn 2 IoK, a turn 3 Seize, and Counterspell a Hymn to Tourach. He resolves Bitterblossom, and tries a Jitte next turn, that I should have let resolve, but I FoW (this probably cost me the game). He then casts Bob. I had 5 lands, and a Meditate and a land in my hand, and pass. He duress’s me. I respond with Meditate, and draw land, Tide, 2x Spiral. Crap. He takes the Tide (wrong) and Extirpate it. He plays again, and hit me again to 11. My turn I untap, play land, and cast Spiral. My new grip was: Wish, Scroll, Counterspell, Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain and something else. Had I 1 more land I could have went for Wish>Tide, Scroll>Turnabout, cantrips into win. With only 6, I had to pass. His turn he Duress, I counterspell (probably wrong…) he then Hymn’s me. I respond with Wish for Tide, and Brainstorm, getting Scroll and 2 lands, and leave Tide on top, to go off next turn. He gets Ponder and a Scroll. He then Extirpate my Scroll, and all hope is lots. Not only he shuffles my library, but he also gets the other Scroll in my hand, making me unable to win next turn, with only lands and a fucking Preordain. I curse myself to death. There were other lines of play that could probably have won me the game.

1-1

Round 3: Bant

Game 1: He cast Noble, into Trigon, which I let resolve. Then he gets Jitte, and hits me twice. He takes me to 5. Meanwhile, in my own game, I cantrip trying to find a 3rd land. I do the turn before he would take me to 5, so I pass so I could get another land drop after Spiral. In my combo Turn I just Tide into Turnabout + Spiral, while Pacting something, with FoW backup.
I draw a lousy hand of lands, Intuition, FoW and BSZ. I drop my land, Intuition for Spiral, and do it again. Resolves. Now I get a good 7 and kill him.

I bring in Pacts and Snaps (fear of Tegg/Canonist) for something.

Game 2: I open the combo in my hand. He mulls. I don’t find a 4th land drop (even though I could have gone without it), and pass. He cast 2 goyfs, and brings me down to 12. I found my land, and cast High Tide, Snap his guy, Time Spiral. He didn’t had ANY counter (had a Stifle, so I didn’t cast my CoF), while I had 2 Pacts, FoW and CoF. I draw something risky, which would lose to Stifle + FoW. Fortunately he had only FoW, which I Pact. I turnabout him empting my manapoll, he floats mana, and I pass to my 2nd main phase, and Time Spiral Again. I get a nice grip, and kill him.

2-1

Round 4: Lands

Game 1: He starts (noticing a padron here?) with Mishra, and begins to beatdown. I drop lands. I make a mistake when I with for Dispel to counter a Crop Rotation. Next turn he was able to Wish for Canonist and play it. I Scroll for for Wish, then Wish for Snap. My turn I Snap, and go off.

Brought Snaps only I guess, instead of Pact, 1 CoF and a Meditate/Zenith/Intuition.

Game 2: He only cast Loam, dredge, cast again, dredge again, this time revealing 2 Ports, so I counterspell his Loam. Next turn he dredges, and I Turnabout him. I go off next turn.

3-1

Round 5: Dragon Stompy

Game 1: I start with mulligan, and Crantrip. He opens with Tomb+ESG+Trinisphere. I FoW. I cantrip and keep another FoW and not much else. He CotV @1, I FoW. My hand now is High Tide+Time Spiral. I get a 3rd land. He plays a Revoker (naming Candelabra). I draw High Tide. He plays Magus. I draw Time Spiral. He cast some dude. I draw Time Spiral. He kills me. Had I not drawn 3 blanks (I needed CoF, land or Turnabout) I’d have won.

+2 Wipe Away, +1 Rebuild, +3 Snap,

Game 2: I cast nothing, so does he. I cast nothing, he goes for Song. I let resolve. He plays CotV@1, I FoW. He plays Revoker. I draw, play my 3rd land, and pass with 2 Pierce, Wipe Away, High Tide and Spiral. He cast a Jitte and Revoker. I draw nothing. He equips and hits. I draw nothing. He hits, bringing me to 9. I draw nothing. He hits, and after he removed the counters from the Jitte, I Wipe Away his Revoker, taking 2. He cast dragon. I need to rip something relevant for crying out loud!!! I get a land, and High Tide+Spiral. My 7 new cards are: 4 lands, FoW, Pierce, Turnabout. Crap. I pass, FoW a Chalice, and Turnabout his dudes. I draw a land.

This got me pissed. I thought the MU would be tuff, but 2 Conterspells or 1 + a bounce, nets you tons of time. Not finding lands sux hard. And fizzling with 0 cantrips/anything on the new 7 sux. This got me out of the top 8. I decided to play to practice.

3-2

Round 6: Merfolk
“Crap, I’m going to 3-3 this shit” I thought.

Game 1: I start with a Ponder, finding my 2nd land, and a Scroll. He plays Vial. I FoW, to get a Daze, and be able to Scroll next turn, that resolves for High Tide. He drops Mutavault. My turn I Brainstorm and don’t find a 3rd land (again), so I pass. He pass. I pass. He vial a Lord. He cast Standstill. I counterspell. Resolves. I pass. He hits. I pass. He hits. I pass. There were like 4 blanks in a row, after the 2 cards I put back from Brainstorm.

Game 2: I cantrip. He Vial. I cantrip and sculpt, while he hits me 3 times. I go off with 5 lands. I cast Tide. He Pierce. I pact. He Daze, I pay. He Daze, I pact. He FoW, I FoW. He sac Cursecachter, I pay. Resolves. I cast Turnabout and Spiral, and win from there.

Game 3: He leads with nothing, I cantrip. He plays Mutavault and Standstill. I smile and let it resolves (have 4 lands in my hand). I drop all my lands, while the drops only 1 other, and hits me to 10. I eot Brainstorm. Resolves, I fetch away the junk, and he discard 4 cards. I go for it, and get pass 3 counters. After spiral I had only 1 counter as protection, and ponder if I should continue, since I had an ok 7, while he had only Mutavault in play. I keep going, and counterspell his only FoW.

4-2

Round 7: Madness

Game 1: I start with nothing, so does he. I pass again, he cast Fauna Shaman. I counterspell. I pass, and he cast Green Sun’s Zenith @2. I think a lot. I had another lands, Spiral, and Intuition. I let it resolve, and he searches for the Shaman again. I Intuition for Tide, and win nest turn.

Game 2: He mulls a lot, and start with Rootwala, then Mother of Runes, then Vengenive, and next turn Zenith @4, which I counter, and go off next turn, completely unprotected, but he had nothing.

5-2
11-5 in games (looking at this, I went quite good)

I got 13th or 15th, can’t remember. Some 5-2’s could top 8, due to some DQ last round.

I think this is the best deck right now. Every game I lost I could have won. Lost to play mistake and fizzle… But nonetheless, this is SO consistent, it’s awesome.

The Counterspells were great all day, and saved me some times, and let me combo with another land other times.
I really wish I had another land, another cantrip, another Meditate, and another Wish in my list, but no way I can fit them all…

Any questions/comments are appreciated.

Props:
Deck, for being awesome.
Teamates, for putting 2 at top 8, and 1 being the winner.
Location, that was awesome.
104 people. It’s quite rare to play in something this large around here…

Slops:
Fizzle
Manascrew
Play mistake.

[Shimi]

You should change your signature to: "Beating Tarmogoyfs and fishs with islands"

[1maarten1]

I did not know you could Cunning wish for cards that have been hit by Extirpate? Anyway too bad of the playmistakes! Was a nice read.

[3eowulf]

You can't, but it's common practice to side one copy out when playing against extirpates.

[ScatmanX]

You can't, but it's common practice to side one copy out when playing against extirpates.

Yes, I side one out everytime I think the opponent may have Extirpate. This one wasan't too dificult to predict...

[RexFTW]

had a Stifle, so I didn’t cast my CoF

Stifle doesnt stop cloud of faeries.

[Koby]

It most definitely stops the EtB trigger.

[RexFTW]

Ah this is true. Snap you can not.

CoF was erattad at some point to stop great whale/palinchron infinite mana combos but it has been changed back since.

[Koby]

Ah this is true. Snap you can not.

CoF was erattad at some point to stop great whale/palinchron infinite mana combos but it has been changed back since.

Great Whale was at one point errata'd to be "if you played it from your hand" to prevent infinite combo with Recurring Nightmare. Palinchron could just combo off with Mana Flare, so it didn't care about that errata for the most part.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Sweet report! The round against MonoB is really a heartbreaker, would have been great to see you win game one after nerly pulling of the no-Tide win against maindeck Extirpate. Also shows of how good the deck gets at being control once you add Counterspell :) Kinda makes me want to try out a Palinchron...
Also, the stack against Merfolk R5G2 is pretty cool. Nice counterduel!

I agree on the nineteenth land by now (after having cut to 18 before myself), making your landdrops is just that important and with the Cantrips one more land makes a major difference. Seems like you got pretty unlucky in that department, too. Otherwise the list seems sweet for a meta without CB.
Also, don't get annoyed at the fizzles. Those are the natural by-product of playing a draw-7 based combo deck and what you pay for blanking all those removal-spells in your opponents hand.