Hey guys, I didn't do very well at GP Denver so I'm going to try to entertain you with a story of the event as much as a recap of the rounds. If you're interested in the gory details of the matches, skip on ahead to the report itself.
I flew back from home to Atlanta on Thursday, the start of what seemed like to me a Neverending Torment of early mornings and plane flights. Almost without rest, I flew out Friday arriving at 5, looking forward to the tournament and to seeing my relatives (whom I'd be staying with). So when I called them up to get a ride from the airport, I was a little surprised to hear my cousin say, "Oh, we took a last-minute vacation to Mexico. We'll be flying in around 8." Well then.
So I followed the backpacks to the shuttle from the airport to the venue and had a fun ride talking with Wilson from Jackson City, TN (don't remember your Source name, sorry!) and Mr. David Ochoa. The venue was pretty nice, but the dealers had absolutely no sweet non-foil foreign stuff! Come on! What do you think this is, pokemon?
I entered an 8-man win-a-box (only $5!) and had the pleasure of meeting Ben from Boston (also don't remember your Source name...). My head wasn't really in it, and he rolled me with Sneaky Science, a reasonably difficult matchup for TES.
Nursing my wounds, I called .dk to finally meet up. He is an awesome guy and played probably the sweetest deck in the tournament. Definitely check out his list in the TinFins thread! Finally my uncle picked me up, drove me to his place, only for me to head right back to the airport to pick up alphastryk. Flying is pretty hungry work, so we drove to McDonalds, only to find that Denver is hell on earth - it was closed! Exhausted and famished, we passed out at my relatives'.
The day of the tournament dawned...an hour or two after we woke up. I had 3 byes from a poorly advertised GPT that I showed up to (props to nedleeds for hauling my ass to the GPT then scooping me in), so I took the opportunity to bird some matches and get shit signed by the artists. Nedleeds had given me a stack of sweet terrible cards to get signed, like a Soldevi Simulacrum that was signed by the model. After that, it was finally time to battle!
LIST (Bryant's 73 with some board changes)
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chrome Mox
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Silence
3 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Hull Breech
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Karakas
The Thoughtseize was because I found that I wasn't boarding in all 3 Therapies and all the ADs and wanted a disruption piece I could Wish for without hand knowledge. The Karakas / Chain split was a hedge against Thalia and Teeg - Chain is ok against them but is also more versatile.
REPORT (just imagine General Pepper briefing you):
Round 4 - Chase - Reanimator
I was shocked to see Reanimator had raw-dogged its way to 3-0. It's one of TES's worst matchups and it shouldn't be there!
Game 1 - He casually turn 2'd Griselbrand. I Brainstormed to try to find some mana for a Burning Wish kill, but couldn't get the right colors. He was able to find a Force in the second 7 when I tried to go off next turn.
Game 2 - I'm always off my first round and threw this one away with poor mulliganing. Kept a hand with Karakas and some mana, but no action. He slammed Pithing Needle turn 2, and was able to find a kill after 7 turns of Hapless Researcher beats.
3-1
Round 5 - Johnny - UR Stiflenaught
It was cool to see a classic list like Stiflenaught doing well. Johnny had slogged through all the rounds bye-less.
Game 1 - He played a Delver, I Pondered, he Brainstormed on upkeep and played a Top, then I killed him with Ad Nauseam after resolving Silence. This game wasn't even close to fair and felt so good
Game 2 - His hand was pretty weak - just Snare for protection. He got me to a strong 15 before I killed him with some tutor chain action into Tendrils. That's what this deck does, punish loose keeps and easy prey.
4-1
Round 6 - Sean - 4c EsperBlade with Deathrite
Sean was a great opponent and seemed pretty knowledgeable. I feel that I was a strong favorite in this match but had some couple bad breaks G3.
Game 1 - I Probed him on the play, saw EE and some slow shit, then straight killed him with a Petal into Brainstorm into sperm on your face (mana and tutor chain Tendrils).
Game 2 - I kept an ok hand with cantrips and a lot of disruption. He Thoughtseized some business then dropped Deathrite into Lingering Souls and got swinging. I was struggling to find mana and ended up Diminishing Returns'ing on 3 life with nothing floating and bricked on the 5%er.
Game 3 - Kept a reasonable hand with business and cantrips. I saw that he had only Counterspell, so on my turn 3 after he Wasted and dropped Deathrite, I went for Diminishing Returns with BR floating before he got Counterspell active. Drew a Duress, 2 Infernal Tutors, LED, and a bunch of lands, so Duressed him and shipped. His hand was Lingering Souls and lands after I took Intuition (I knew he had Therapies). It may have been correct to IF for LED using the 2 floating, because I had to take a turn off to get an LED. He Wasted me and got swing with Souls. I was at 11 when I went for Ad Nauseam and bricked (a couple Petals and Moxen were RFG from Returns). It was a fun match and close game. I think I played well this match (with the possible exception of g2's keep) but got a bit unlucky.
4-2
Round 7 - David Ho - Aggro Loam
David was nice and knew what was up. He mentioned he was thinking about switching to TES before the tournament...pretty different deck choices. I didn't ask if he is a Sourcer but suspected that he is.
Game 1 - Kept a very weak hand with a little disruption but 2 Chrome Moxen, no real mana or business. I struggled to find what I needed and died to Crusher beats.
Game 2 - He didn't even have chalice to board in! I saw a lot of nothing, but I kept a hand with nothing either. Pretty much did nothing until I died from Assault.
This match really showed me I need to mulligan more aggressively. I think that's my biggest weakness with the deck. I was dead in the tournament but might as well get PP, right?
4-3
Round 8 - Bryant - Jund
I absolutely steamrolled the guy and I could tell he was a bit disappointed to be so out of the match when he was already out of the tournament. Ah well, should have played blue.
Game 1 - I Emptied for 18 t1 on the play after Duressing away his Bolt in a hand with nothing. He scooped.
Game 2 - I Pondered turn 1, he gave me a taste of the Hymen on his turn 2 and hit irrelevant land and ritual, then I untapped and killed him with Ad Nauseam. Close game.
5-3
The whole crew from Atlanta had done pretty poorly (X-3) and 4 of us headed to the Falling Rock taphouse to drown our sorrows. The place was incredible, with about a hundred brews on tap and hundreds more taps decorating the walls. We had some tasty burgers and delicious local beer, then headed back to get ready for the next day.
Day 2 alphastryk and I went upstairs to get breakfast with my relatives when my aunt dropped a bombshell - "You're eating dinner with us, right? I was hoping to spend time with you." You got me...guess no Legacy Redux for us. Played in an 8-man with Next-Level Reanimator and got destroyed by one of the Atlanta crew borrowing ANT. So what was that about a good matchup?
We cubed, then turned in for the 6AM flight out.
Seems rough. Especially Aggro Loam. Isn't that a reasonably favorable MU for you? I guess they run Seize but even then it still seems more than positive. I guess thats what happens you play a deck built to beat blue and then don't play blue right? ;) \\I was overall surprised to hear that Storm decks weren't doing well.
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Yeah, the Aggro Loam matchup is insanely favorable if they're not playing Chalice - if I had to put numbers on it, probably 60 or 70% in our favor. I just needed to mulligan to faster hands and hands that do things before they can disrupt us.
I was surprised TES didn't put a pilot in the t8 too. There was a lot of Show and Tell at the top tables Day 1, which is not the most favorable matchup, but we should have crushed decks like the 2 Jund lists that T8'd. There was a guy from Jupiter games playing TES at the top tables in round 8, but I watched him miswrite his floating mana then scoop when he had a tutor-chain kill. Maybe he wasn't very experienced?
I played a Show & Tell deck and sadly through the entire tournament (I did Day 2) I only faced 1 deck that ran Deathrite Shaman / Abrupt Decay...
Clearly you should have just audibled to the pile of Dan Frazier cards you got signed for me and the Tarmogoyfs ... with some basics from the draft box thrown in. Berserk-Statue-Forcefieldstompy LD.
Sounds legit. Is Dan Frazier the one with the sig that looks like Dad? Or is that Dan Scott?
That was me. I lost my first round to MUD then won six in a row. Totally punted round eight. Had the win on the table, but didn't see it. I was fatigued at this point in the day. Could have something to do with that I slept two hours the night before, had to change cars because my roommate's was hit by a semi on I-80, drove 12-hours straight the night before or it was 7:40 p.m. and I hadn't eaten dinner yet...
Maybe one of those things.
Follow me on Twitter @RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
That's some terrible luck with your roommate... Is he ok? I hear ya with the fatigue, I definitely was feeling out of it round 7. Congrats on the day 2!
No one was hurt. Ended up driving back about two hours to grab my car. Didn't switch drivers like usual because I'm the only one who can drive a manual.
Would have definitely went 7-1 day one if we arrived in Denver at 4 p.m. instead of 8 p.m.
Follow me on Twitter @RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
That's Dan Scott's signature.
Dan Fraziers sig is slightly less dogshit than Wayne A Reynolds.
Dan was a grumpy old man. He tried to play nice, but I don't think he was excited to be signing pieces of paper for countless nerds. Steve Argyle, on the other hand, had the most perfect fake smile I've seen. He's at every event pimping his art out with his fan club / walking tits helping out.
This was me. It was great meeting you and hopefully I'll see you at GP DC coming up later this year!
T: @feingersh
Steve Argyle is the hardest working man in magic computer arts. Quick story, he came to Gencon with a fucking broken hand. An artist with his drawing hand in a cast at the largest nerd gaming anime pr0n humpfest in the universe. He had a stamp made of his signature so he could sign cards. All of this after WotC gave him the big fuck you about selling playmats of his art. They licensed all that shit to Ultrapro so he can't sell the actual Liliana of the Veil art on a playmat any more (I got one from him before the ban and it shows her vageeene area a little more and is borderline hentai pr0n). That same month he also got C&Ded from Lucas Films about using the art he did for the WotC Star Wars RPG on playmats (this he likely should have expected from Fuhrer Lucas). So the guy has no sellable Magic or Star Wars shit, a broken hand and still shows up with a smile. I bought some playmat with a blood soaked japanese samurai chick who looks like she just creamed herself just to support the poor guy.
Sorry Frazier was a douche. But signed Korean Mox Diamonds had to happen.
Wow, that is some dedication. I think I just go turned off by his fanservice working his booth with him.
Eh, I got a pretty good story out of Dan even if he wasn't as personable as Argyle.
So I asked him what his most memorable piece of art was. He paused, set down his pen, then told me about one time he was doing the art for Mox Diamond on a houseboat on some lake. His kid's swim stuff got washed overboard in this big squall, so he jumped in to get it. Problem is, he's not a great swimmer and there's huge waves! So as he's drowning, all he could think about was that he hoped some other artist could finish Mox Diamond in time because he had never turned in an assignment late.
Steve Argyle has always been great to talk with whenever I've gotten stuff signed by him over the years.
I will also never complain about him a cute nerdy gf/wife hanging around talking to us while we're waiting in line as well...
Sorry to see that you didn't make it to day 2. I was the reanimator player in round 4. Was good to play against you in any case.
All those talking about Steve Argyle, his gold card signatures look so sweet, never thought about people signing them in 2 colors before.
Great report - thanks for the shoutout and the TinFins link! Was awesome meeting you as well - hopefully next time we'll have some more time to actually jam some games. See you in DC...? :)
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
Ah, cool! I didn't think to ask if you were a Sourcer. Good to meet you too.
Definitely, the 2-color signatures look awesome.
I'll definitely try to make it to DC. I'm going to be out of school and starting work by that point, hopefully I'll be able to take some time off the first couple months.
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