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Thread: SCG New Orleans - Losing Record (3-4) – Still in the Motha’ Fuckin’ Prizes!

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    SCG New Orleans - Losing Record (3-4) – Still in the Motha’ Fuckin’ Prizes!

    I live literally 10 minutes away from the convention center, so I couldn’t miss it. I played Goblins the night before the open in the Legacy side event, going 3-1 against 4 combo decks: Omnishow (0-2), Lands (go, go gadget GY hate, 2-0), a very well built and well played Cephalid Breakfast (Grand Abolisher in games 2 and 3 hurt, 2-1), and Hive Mind w/Emrakul (2-0). I should have taken this as a clue not to play Goblins. But, Goblins is so much fun to play.

    Here is my list:

    // Lands - 23
    3 Mountain
    3 Cavern of Souls
    1 Taiga
    4 Scalding Tarn
    4 Arid Mesa
    4 Rishadan Port
    4 Wasteland

    // Raw Tempo – 12
    4 AEther Vial
    4 Goblin Lackey
    4 Goblin Warchief

    // Card Quality/Advantage – 8
    4 Goblin Ringleader
    4 Goblin Matron

    // Creature Removal - 11
    4 Mogg Fanatic
    4 Gempalm Incinerator
    1 Stingscourger
    2 Siege-Gang Commander

    // Random Stuff - 6
    4 Goblin Piledriver
    1 Tin Street Hooligan
    1 Tuktuk Scrapper

    // Sideboard
    SB: 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
    SB: 4 Pyrokinesis
    SB: 3 Krosan Grip
    SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
    SB: 1 Tormod’s Crypt
    SB: 2 Grafdigger’s Cage
    SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast

    I wish I went -1 Fetch, +1 Mountain, perhaps another -1 Fetch, +1 Cavern of Souls as well. I’m considering -1 KGrip, +1 REB.

    • Only 90-ish people showed up to the tournament. Top 64 got prizes.
    • All my opponents were respectful, intelligent people. It was a pleasure to play magic with these people.
    • I’m following my notes, but I may not have it perfect. Corrections are welcome.



    Round 1 = 0-2 vs. Timothy with BG Rock (maybe a variant of Nic Fit, it wasn’t exactly clear)

    He was a good player. I did not expect his deck, and I consider it be a pretty bad matchup for goblins. He sat at the top tables for most of the rounds (thanks for the tiebreakers!).

    Game 1: Therapy hits 2 Warchiefs and 2 Piledrivers. Veteran Explorer explodes his manabase, he drops some big dudes (Grave Titan being the worst of them). I got wrecked.

    SB: -1 Tuktuk; +1 Relic. Honestly, not much worth bringing in from what I saw.

    Game 2: He has Abrupt Decay, a 2-for-1 Pulse, Therapy + Veteran Explorer wreck me and accelerate him, E-witness buys more time, Deed clears my board, and then he drops a Grave titan and GSZ’s into a bomb. I chump block until I die.



    Round 2 = 0-2 vs. Devon with TES

    Game 1: He mulls. I get him to 9. He pulls it out with the only play available to him: BW->Past in Flames->Hardcasts Tendrils in hand for 18 (I fetched twice).

    SB: -2 Incinerator, -1 Stingscourger; +1 Crypt, +1 Relic, +1 Sharpshooter

    Game 2: He Mulls. I go T1 Vial, Crypt. He Ponders. I waste. He plays a land and wins.



    Round 3 = 1-2 vs. Cody with OmniShow

    Game 1: He won the roll, T1 Show->Emrakul + FoW backup. That hand was, as they say, ‘the tits.’

    SB: -1 Tuktuk, -1 TSH, -3 Incinerator, -1 Fanatic; +3 Grip (yeah, not amazing, but better than nothing, right?), +3 REB

    Game 2: He fucks up and doesn’t counter Piledriver when he had the chance (yeah, maybe I really should have the 4th Cavern – it was ‘da bomb’ all day). Hydroblast sits dead in his hand for a turn. I feed the board to feed Piledriver while he blasts many cards away. I put on enough pressure that he had to Intuition not for the combo but for more blasts/bounce to live. I get there.

    Game 3: He mulls twice. Turn 2 Show-> Griselbrand->Draw 7->Rape me. No Stingscourger to be had.



    Round 4 = 2-1 vs. Phillip with UW Miracles

    Game 1: We both mull, I keep without Vials, Caverns, or Lackeys. He gets CBTop lock on turn 2 with 2 FoW’s up. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but it mattered. Still, I get there (lord knows how, ‘cause I don’t).

    SB: -1 Incinerator; +1 Grip (never know what random shit I might see).

    Game 2: I keep a slow (no Vials or Lackey) but keepable hand with Caverns (which played nicely through the CB he dropped in this game). I do my thing, and slowly whittle him down to 3 life despite the following cards: 2 Terminus, 3 Jace (he kept Brainstorming, meh), 2 Supreme Verdict (Merfolk is officially dead). I was very careful not to overextend, and that’s why I could play through 4 sweepers and still keep the pressure up. On his last turn, he topdecks + plays Entreat@6. I can’t swing through it and/or control it and he’s got lethal on the board. GG.

    SB: -1 Grip; +1 Incinerator (I know he saw the Grip off a +2 Jace effect. He put it on the bottom, but given how the games had played out and how much I saw of his deck, I believed he had just made a mistake).

    Game 3: Not much time in round, so I play aggressively. I believe I dropped a Vial and then Lackey and started building my board. He plays Terminus. I start building my board again, and I get him to 11 before he end steps E-Tutor (awwwwww shit) for Moat. Yeah, I fucked up on the Grip. Time is called, and I’m turn 0, so I only have 2 turns afterwards. He Cliques, seeing a juicy hand, and instead of taking my SGC, he takes my Matron (mistake). He’s going to beat with Clique, but I can’t die. I’ve got 2 Fanatics. I play them and some stuff, pass, get hit for 3. I topdeck the 2nd SGC. Vial pushes the 1st SGC into play, he PtE’s in response to the SGC’s trigger, and I sac 1 random goblin and the SGC in response. I’m at 5 land. He doesn’t realize he is still in danger and doesn’t play appropriately. On my last turn, I topdeck a land (woot), vial the 2nd SGC, and shoot for 6 more with 2 Fanatics, 1 to answer StP on his Clique, and the last to kill him.

    This kinda’ annoyed me: at the beginning of first main phase of my final turn, a judge warned to me “play faster” after literally 10 seconds of sitting to think (I do not play slowly), as he believed I couldn’t actually win. I challenged him politely. Then I won.

    On a side note, I just have bad luck with SCG judges. In my last tournament, I was playing against a SCG judge (who claimed to have been a head judge at one of these tournaments) with LED Dredge. I go T1 LED and crack it, and he says I can’t do it. He reads it, pulls out his phone, and points out “why” he believes I can’t: I’m not casting an instant. We call a judge, a friend of his, who confirms my explanation. Not enough, so he calls the head judge, and she had to explain to him as well. That must have been why Four Horsemen (post rulings) could possibly get to 17th place in one of these tournaments.



    Round 5 = 2-1 vs. Jyl with RG Goblins

    We both know the other player is playing goblins.

    Game 1: She mulls. I have Lackey, Tuktuk for her Vial, and more control. I win.
    I joked with her about not bringing in Kinesis. Apparently, she then decides not to board them in. She doesn’t play goblins often /shrug.

    SB: -3 Piledriver, -1 Stingscourger, -1 SGC; +4 Kinesis, +1 SShooter

    Game 2: I keep a mediocre hand and she’s got the nuts. I should have mulled.

    Game 3: I keep a land heavy, no Vial, no Lackey hand with Matron, Kinesis, and Fanatic. I disrupt her manabase, and drop TSH on her Vial. I controlled the game into oblivion, not even needing to use Kinesis, as Incinerators and Fanatics did all the work for me.



    Round 6 = 1-2 vs. David with OmniSneak&Show

    Game 1: Cavern->Lackey + Piledrivers get there. He chose to Intuition for Show and Tell, but just scooped right after. He could have left me in the dark if he didn’t Intuition.

    SB: -1 Tuktuk, -1 TSH, -3 Incinerator, -1 Fanatic; +3 Grip, +3 REB

    Game 2: I mull twice. He goes T1 Fetch, Petal, Petal, Show->Grisel, and I drop SGC off Show. I go Fetch->Lackey. He plays a fetch, swings with Grisel, and I goto 12, he to 26. I topdeck a Caverns, swing for 6 (he goes to 20), Lackey trigger puts Matron into play, get Stingscourger, drop Caverns and play him to bounce Grisel, and he draw’s 7 in response, going to 13. He plays another Fetch, cracks both (putting him at 11) and Shows Grisel into play again. I SGC the Stingscourger on upkeep (putting him at 9), and play a land. He swings, and I go to 5, he to 16. I play a land and pass. I think he must have BEB’d my SGC end step, because I was forced to Incinerate Grisel for 6 and then SGC it for 2. In response, he draws 14, going to 2. Then he plays Sneak attack and Emrakul’s my board.

    Game 3: T2 Show, I REB. T3 Show->Emrakul. GG.



    Round 7 = 2-0 vs. Jeff with RG Goblins

    We both know the other player is playing goblins.

    Game 1: I drop Lackey, who goes unanswered. From there I pressure his manabase while building a quick combo board with Warchief+Piledriver+etc.

    SB: -3 Piledriver, -1 Stingscourger, -1 SGC; +4 Kinesis, +1 SShooter

    Game 2: This was a very long game with a lot of back and forth. He opens Lackey and I open Vial. He connects, dropping Warren Instigator (while he had SGC in hand, yuck). I drop a land, pass. He swings, I Incinerate and Vial a Fanatic to trade. I try to build a board, but it gets Kinesis’d away. He tries to build, and even used a Kinesis on my lone Lackey to force a Lackey connect. My Kinesis handles his board. I end up using all 4 Ringleaders in this game (I drew at least 40 cards), and whiffed entirely on 2 of them and only picked up 1 off another. I had to blow another Kinesis on a lone Ringleader (that flipped a Kiki). That said, I just had way more control cards and card advantage in the end. I slowly pinged him to death and had a Sharpshooter to answer his board for a couple turns.

    • So, I went 3-4 in the tournament. I placed 64th. I got $50 as my prize.
    • I’ve never done so poorly and received real prizes before.
    • All 4 of my losses were to decks that I expect to lose against.
    • All 3 of my wins were to decks that I expect to win against.
    • While it was fun, from a competitive standpoint, I should not have played Goblins.
    • I got to meet a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a while (such as Joe Mauer).



    peace,
    4eak
    Last edited by 4eak; 10-29-2012 at 12:11 PM.

  2. #2
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    Re: SCG New Orleans - Losing Record (3-4) – Still in the Motha’ Fuckin’ Prizes!

    Congrats on making top 64 Mike!

    Congrats on the prize money and a free subscription for Starcitygames!
    Last edited by joemauer; 10-29-2012 at 10:00 AM.

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