This is my tournament report for the Legacy GPT for Atlanta and Dual Lands event I top 8ed last weekend.
Bear in mind that this is my first TR which I am writing entirely from memory and my life point notes, so details will be spotty in places, and I certainly don't remember what I sideboarded. I hope nevertheless you find the report entertaining, or at least informative.
Initially I wasn't even planning to go; I wasn't going to Atlanta for sure, and my impression was that the LA metagame was extremely combo dominated. However, my friend Jacob "Koby" Kory who I met at GP:Anaheim last weekend offered me a ride and a deck, and the prize payout included dual lands, which I needed for my EDH deck.
I skip breakfast (play mistake #1) and James Vogel, our driver, tells me that Koby isn't coming. Apparently he won a GPT yesterday and celebrated by going out drinking. "Well, how am I going to have a deck, then?" It turns out Koby's friend Chuck has almost the exact same list and Koby asked him to bring me a deck to borrow.
After making a few last-minute swaps to suit my preferences, this is the list I registered at the tournament:
Maindeck (60)
Creatures (25)
4x Mother of Runes
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Fauna Shaman
1x Gaddock Teeg
3x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Noncreature Spells (11)
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Sylvan Library
2x Umezawa's Jitte
Lands (23)
4x Windswept Heath
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Savannah
3x Forest
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Karakas
1x Maze of Ith
4x Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
2x Choke
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2x Path to Exile
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Krosan Grip
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
Now, those of you who are math majors might notice something a bit...off about the numbers. We'll get to that in a bit.
The deck is better known as Maverick, which Koby gets a lot of credit for having popularized in the LA metagame. It's fairly straightforward on the surface - play creatures, turn them sideways - but the wealth of tutoring and activated abilities in the deck means that you have to picture the board state several turns ahead, starting with your opening hand, and play accordingly. In particular, Green Sun's Zenith is the glue that holds this deck together, since between it and Fauna Shaman you have six extra virtual copies of every creature in your deck. Having a favored matchup against RUG Delver, the most popular deck in the format, is a bonus as well.
The sideboard is your pretty standard collection of silver bullets: Choke against blue control, Canonist against any combo deck that relies on casting a bunch of spells in one turn, SOLAS and Linvala in the mirror, Elspeth in the mirror and against control decks, Paths against all decks that cast creatures, gravehate against graveyard combo (sometimes a Bog against RUG Delver and Knight-based decks), K-Grip against Stoneblade and miscellaneous Show and Tell decks, Thrun against blue non-combo decks, and Metamorph against combo decks with must-kill legends (mostly Progenitus, since you cannot Karakas him).
(Feminist screed aside: I call it "Pretty Girls" because seriously, look at all the explicitly female-gendered cards in this deck! There are only three male-gendered cards, and two of those are legendary one-of tutor targets.)
A few notes on the list:
-In addition to bouncing Emrakuls, Karakas can also be used to save your legendary creatures from removal spells.
-At Competitive REL, you are not required to tell your opponent how big your Knight of the Reliquary is, but you are required to show him/her your graveyard so he/she can count your land cards.
-Maze of Ith can be activated during the end of combat step to untap an attacking creature you control, after the damage has already been dealt. In particular, this allows you to get value out of Knight of the Reliquary.
-Scavenging Ooze can exile any card, not just a creature card. You will only gain the counter/life if you exile a creature.
-Some lists run Stoneforge Mystic and/or SOLAS in the maindeck; mine doesn't. While being able to have Jitte on demand is nice, Mystic is often a fairly durdly draw, and I haven't found legendary to be enough of a drawback to offset the usefulness of Jitte.
-Sylvan Library is a very oddly worded card. Because players are allowed to rearrange the cards in their hands, what most judges will typically recommend you do to avoid suspicions of cheating is set your hand down, look at the top three cards as though you were resolving a Ponder, then announce which of those you will draw (paying life as appropriate) and which you will put back. If you draw a card and shuffle it into your hand, you can't choose to put it back when you resolve Library's trigger - you can still rearrange the top two cards, but you'll have to pay life if you want to actually draw them.
The particular deck I was running had a lot of foreign-language cards in it. If you are ever in a situation where you have a foreign-language card and your opponent asks what it does, the safest thing to do ALWAYS is to call a judge and have the judge provide the Oracle text to the player. This way, you can assume the opponent won't receive any strategic advice (looking up Gatherer on your smartphone, while legal, may inadvertently let you see examples of card interactions in the rulings section) and the opponent can be sure he/she isn't receiving an incorrect or misleading answer.
Anyway, on to the matches!
Round 1 - Michael Swager with RUG Delver
...or not.
Michael's an L2 judge friend who I met at GP:Anaheim. I'm an L1. Surely we should have no problems following the rules, right?
As I'm pile counting (seriously, it's not "shuffling") my deck before we begin the first game, I suddenly realize that I'm a card short. Frantically, I recount, then riffle through my deck to try to remember what missing card I might have dropped on the floor during testing, only to realize that I can't. I call a judge, explain the situation, and Michael suggests I ask to see my decklist away from the table. Kevin Long, the HJ, counts my list and tells me that I registered 59. Oops.
Because I called the error on myself immediately after I discovered it and it was before I had an opportunity to take advantage of the mistake, Kevin exercises his discretion to downgrade the Game Loss to a Warning, and I fill in the 60th slot of my deck with an extra basic Plains. I return to my table with a 10 minute time extension and we begin to play.
Round 1 - Michael Swager with RUG Delver
Game 1: I lose the die roll, which sucks, since you always want to win the die roll against Delver - the advantage is huge if they can't Stifle or Daze your turn 1 fetch/play. Yet another judge call occurs when Michael accidentally flips the top card of his deck onto his hand after drawing his opening seven. Between the call, the appeal, and the HJ's fix (put back the 8th card, and shuffle), we add another three minutes onto our time.
My opponent gets in some early beats with Mongooses and a Delver. I STP the Aberration, since you always want to deal with those first before going on the attack - they fly over your Moms, and Delver has Wastelands for your Maze of Ith. (Aside: sometimes it's even worth it to STP a Delver before it flips, since they gain less life and banking on it not flipping is a horrible proposition.) I eventually land Scavenging Ooze and gain a steady stream of life, and when Knight of the Reliquary touches down, he scoops at 16 life.
Game 2: I turn one Delver into a farmer before stumbling on tempo and getting eaten alive by Goyfs. This one was not close.
Game 3: As we're shuffling up for game three, time is called. Tempo trades back and forth a bit, my opponent Brainstorms a lot and eventually the game comes down to the wire in extra turns (yes, even with the time extension; the rest of the room must have been steaming at us). I have a 5/5 Knight, two Moms, and an Ooze in play. He flings a Bolt at one of my Moms, which I protect, and then at my Knight, which I protect with my other Mom. This gives him a window to Submerge my Knight and send a third Bolt at one of my now-tapped Moms. On extra turn #1, I replay Knight, which is a 5/5, and he throws a chump in front of the Ooze. On extra turn #3, I topdeck and slam the miser's Thrun I boarded in, give my Knight protection from chumps, and swing with everything, eating his blocker with Ooze and threatening lethal on the last turn I have to kill him. On extra turn #4, he digs with a Brainstorm, but can't find a way to keep two creatures out of the red zone, and scoops.
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 - Benjamin Brueseke with RUG Delver
Game 1: Our odyssey into the diverse, wide-open format of Legacy continues with yet another Delver deck! Unfortunately for my opponent, he misses a nonzero number of land drops which allows me to Waste him out, forcing him to start discarding spells during the cleanup step. The game is basically over at that point.
Game 2: This game plays out much like the first one, except that he manages to beat me down to 13 life before I chain three Wastelands and resolve an enormous Knight of the Reliquary, which closes out the game in two swings.
2-0 (4-1)
Round 3 - Casey Hupke with Sneak Show
(I hope Casey will forgive me for the throwback to David Ochoa's writing style here; nothing personal against him, but combo is my worst matchup, and I've developed a loathing for it thanks in no small part to my combo-obsessed playtesting partner Danny Batterman.)
Game 1: Evil leads off with a mulligan to six, a Ponder, and a Preordain. Our attempt to summon a valiant knight of Bant is stymied by a display of sheer Force of Will. Evil musters all of his resources for a Show of dual summoning, and we simultaneously reveal our chosen champions. Evil must feel pretty confident as he unveils Griselbrand; even if we were to have a second Knight (we don't), his bargain with the demon would allow him to replenish his mental energies before it disappeared off into the nether. However, that is not to pass, for at our side is: Linvala, Keeper of Silence?!
(At this point, John Harduvel, who is sitting next to Evil, leans over and remarks, "...Never seen that before.")
With the demon's life-draining powers locked away, Evil can do nothing but watch as Griselbrand is whisked into the Helvault to pursue a more peaceful farming life of using his hook-hands as Plowshares. With Linvala leading the charge, we amass a small army and smite down Evil before he can recover his wits.
Game 2: Evil has learned a new trick since our last clash. He calls upon the fell powers of the Harvest Moon, drenching the land in crimson and making our row of nonbasics look silly indeed. Griselbrand and Linvala face off again, but the tables have turned. Our prayers to Avacyn yield only another Swords to Plowshares and two Windswept Heath and we fall to the brute claws of a 7/7 Demon, helpless before the dark.
Game 3: Humanity strikes back with a vengeance! A Noble Hierarch emerges early onto the battlefield. We Wasteland an Ancient Tomb, though not before Evil calls upon his Intuition to search out triplet memories of a steaming Zendikar lake. With the druid's aid, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is called to the side of Good. An awkward situation ensues when Good's vigilance lapses, unlawfully allowing Evil a moment to Ponder; a mighty agent of justice descends from on high and issues both combatants a stern Warning before bidding them continue. Between Thalia's relentless strikes and Evil's own masochistic manabase, his life force steadily dwindles. A second Wasting blast is delivered to his replacement Tomb, and on the brink of death, Evil concedes defeat.
It's quite possible that the correct play in game 1 would have been to hold off on the Knight, let him resolve SNT, and choose it instead of Linvala, just because of the threat of Emrakul, though it would have let my opponent with a FOW in hand. As it turned out, the gamble paid off that time, but oftentimes the matchup just comes down to luck - in all three games I had Linvala in my opening hand, and in both games I won, my opponent mulled to six. You're pretty much never going to win if both you and your opponent have average draws, since your tutoring power is better, but they have so much more top-of-library filtering.
3-0 (6-2)
I go get food with a few friends and arrive back at the shop just as pairings are about to go up. I quickly gobble down a few bites before sitting down to my match.
Round 4 - Ryan Martin-Patterson with Elves
We get deck-checked, and HJ Kevin Long remarks on how my decklist credits my deck designer as "Jakoby Kory," while my opponent's was "Kevin Long" (he was borrowing the deck). Apparently Kevin and Koby love to troll each other, since it was a sore spot for Kevin's pride when I won.
Game 1: I cast a Mother of Runes into Fauna Shaman and tutor up Linvala as soon as possible, but the turn after, my opponent casts Glimpse of Nature and reveals his hand. I tell him to please go through the motions, partly because it's one of the few that my combo-obsessed playtesting partner Danny Batterman hadn't demonstrated to me ad nauseam, and partly because I honestly don't think he's got the win locked up. My opponent vomits a dozen Elves onto the board... before hitting four Forests in a row and fizzling. I cast Linvala, and with his combo shut off, he turns all his creatures sideways to hit me for ten damage - Elves hardly plays any interactive cards, so I declare all my creatures as blockers without fear. Salvation arrives off the top of my library in the form of a Scavenging Ooze, and I start to stabilize, though I lose my Mom when I absentmindedly forget to give it protection before assigning combat damage.
My opponent makes a misplay when he tutors up Elvish Archdruid with Summoner's Pact, and slams in with eight creatures against my four blockers and 8 life. He thinks he has me dead when I point out that his unblocked Wirewood Symbiote is not an Elf. His army chopped down to a more manageable size, I claw my way back from the brink with Ooze. I attack with only Linvala for a few turns. I'm probably over-cautious in not sending ground creatures to get chumped - but I feel that I can't lose this game as long as I keep up a line of blockers, but I can lose this game if I send in everyone on the attack and he has another Archdruid. I like my chances in game two as well unless he has the nuts and kills me on turn 4 with an onslaught of Birchlore Rangers. When I'm back up to 10 life and he appears to be flooded, I attack with most of my creatures, including an Emrakul-sized Ooze, and he scoops.
An interesting judge call occurred when my opponent wanted to know if he could tap Llanowar Elves or Heritage Druid for mana while Linvala was in play. (Answer: No.) The responding floor judge knew the right answer, but he sounded unsure in his ruling, which prompted my opponent to appeal. I felt a little bad for him, but it reminded me of the importance of acting and being confident. If I had just scooped in game one because I thought "Maverick is bad against combo, there's no way I can come back once he goes off," I would not have won game one - and who knows whether I could have stayed enough off tilt to win games two or three?
Game 2: My worries about going to time are for naught when I keep an amazing seven. I play turn 1 Mother of Runes, turn 2 Ethersworn Canonist, turn 3 give Canonist protection from Viridian Shaman. He plays Thoughtseize and I show him Linvala, Jitte, Green Sun's Zenith, and Ooze. Seeing my hand prompts him to extend his own.
4-0 (8-2)
After the match, I take a bite of my rapidly cooling quesadilla and immediately feel nauseous. I hardly eat anything for the rest of the day.
Round 5 - Forrest Pitts with RUG Delver
Game 1: He asks me for the draw, but I figure, I'm undefeated, I can afford to dreamcrush and play it out. After I figure out he's on RUG Delver, I grow even more confident in my choice. The brunt of the action involves me dealing with his two Delvers, first by using Fauna Shaman to tutor and cast Scryb Ranger at instant speed, then by getting a Maze of Ith with Knight.
On the penultimate turn of the game, I've got a 7/7 Knight, a Mother of Runes, a Scryb Ranger, a Scavenging Ooze, a Fauna Shaman, and a Thalia against his board of two Insectile Aberrations and I believe two Nimble Mongoose and a Tarmogoyf. He's at 8 life, I'm at 9. When he goes to attack with his Aberrations, I block one and ask to use the Maze on the other. This prompts him to crack a fetch and use the Stifle I know he has in his hand because he revealed it to flip Delver, and Thalia forces him to tap out for it. Without fear of any tricks now, I take the 3 damage, going to 6, then on my next turn use Mother of Runes, swinging Knight past his tapped blue creatures and untapped green ones for lethal.
Game 2: He flips an early Insectile Aberration and has Spell Snares for days (as well as multiple Daze), countering and Submerging every creature I attempt to cast. I die beneath the angry buzzing of an overgrown fly.
Game 3: He achieves threshold on a pair of Mongeese while I fling Swords to Plowshares at his Delver and Goyfs. The Mongeese nearly beat my head in before I land an Ooze and time is called. With his threshold taken away, he can't kill me, while I don't have a prayer of whittling down his 26 life, even ignoring his blockers. We draw.
4-0-1 (9-3-1)
Round 6 - Weston Brown with The Epic Storm (TES)
After five rounds, even with the unintentional draw, I'm still at the top of the standings (somehow). I offer the draw immediately and my opponent accepts.
4-0-2 (9-3-2)
During my free hour, I watch my combo-obsessed playtesting partner Danny Batterman crush RUG with his Eureka homebrew in the X-3 bracket before Koby (who decided to show up after all) offers to help me test the Sneak Show matchup. I take minuscule nibbles of my quesadilla and drink a can of Coke instead of water (play mistake #42). After six rounds, even with the double draw, I'm still at the top of the standings! After bringing my deck to the HJ for the third time that day, it's time for my top 8 match.
Quarterfinals Top 8 - Alex Gellerman with Bant Midrange
Game 1: Quite honestly, this game is a blur. I think I won the Knight war and beat him down.
Game 2: We jockey back and forth for position until he lands a Jace, bounces my only creature for two turns in a row, and starts drawing a billion cards. I get beaten to death by two large Knights.
At this point I'm really nervous, and trying to psych myself up to just win the next one; I want the blue duals for my EDH deck; a Jace that sticks around for a few turns is far from unbeatable; and it doesn't matter that I've been ripping more sleeves in the top 8 than in all my swiss matches combined, I just really want to win...
Game 3: Fatigue and malnourishment finally catch up to me, and I misplay horribly and lose. Here's the short list:
-I board in Chokes against a deck with Knight of the Reliquary, forgetting that all his dual lands are either Plains or Forests. I play a turn 3 Choke, which fails at keeping him off Jace and sticks around looking silly for a few turns before being sent to its final resting place by a Qasali Pridemage.
-When he has Jace out, I drop in a Thrun off Green Sun's Zenith, but I'm scared of taking damage from his large Knights, so I hang Thrun back on defense instead of attacking Jace (with Mother of Runes protection) through his Maze of Ith.
-He attempts to STP my Knight, and I respond with Mom's pro-white, at which point he flashes in Snapcaster and flashes back a STP out of the graveyard. What I should do is respond to Snapcaster's triggered ability with Bojuka Bog, which I was planning to do anyway to shrink his three Knights, but I miss the timing and once he announces the target of STP, it's too late.
After taking a quick poll of the top 4 and determining the blue duals are all locked up, I opt for the Savannahs.
So, would I play this deck again? Definitely; it'd be my first choice if I were going to a tournament tomorrow. Personally, the fun of this deck is its ability to respond flexibly to changing board states, so no two matches play out quite the same, and I feel like I'm learning a lot every time I play the deck - it's the farthest thing from autopilot. For people who like tinkering with deck builds, a lot of the flex slots can be swapped around based on your read of the meta. (For another take on Maverick, which also top 8ed, you can see Guillermo Mercado's list here. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ght-Ware-Inc.&)
This deck might be for you if...
-You like having a "toolbox" of cards to counter a variety of opposing strategies
-You have fun playing creatures and making them huge
-Your meta is overrun with RUG Delver decks
-You can find a Counterpunch precon on sale at MSRP
This deck is definitely not for you if...
-You favor unfair decks with extremely lopsided matchups
-You're allergic to winning in the red zone
-You dislike shuffling a lot
Shout outs:
To Lori Saul, Kevin Long, and Joel Bouzaglou
for making this event possible
To Chuck Madla, James Vogel, and Jacob Kory
for making it possible for me to play in the event (and I really am sorry about the sleeves)
To Michael Swager
for helping refresh my memory on a lot of things
To all my opponents
for being awesome guys I'd be happy to come back and play against
To Nick Beatman
for proofreading and editing
To my combo-obsessed playtesting partner Danny "Batterskull"-senpai
for telling me to be myself and believe in myself
...and to all of you for reading
Very cool report and congratulations on your finish!
What do you think of the new Ajani?
Well written report- informative and funny.
Quick question in round 3, game 3, could you expand a bit upon the Ponder situation that resulted in the calling of a judge? Did your opponent accidentally cast Ponder as an instant?
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