Washington DC GPT - Top 4 with GWu Maverick
Last year at GP Atlanta I snatched top 64 from the jaws of top 16 with a bad misplay while playing Maverick in the final round of swiss. The deck is my kind of deck and I've decided to pick it up again largely unchanged from my GP list last year.
I played GWu Maverick at a GPT for Washington DC and placed in the top 4.
The list is:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Savannah
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Tropical Island
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
Sideboard
3 Choke
3 Spell Pierce
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Flusterstorm
1 Batterskull
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Maze of Ith
1 Krosan Grip
1 Path to Exile
1 Life from the Loam
Round 1: UWB Stiflenought (with Geist and Delver)
I lose the die roll for game 1 and we start out land go. He Geists but I'm able to race with a Qasali Pridemage and blockers. He attacks me to 3 and plays another Geist to chump. I've got a plow for his Delver to put him up to 2 life. He's forced to block and a Knight of the Reliquary forces him to concede as he can't draw 2 cards to answer my lethal attackers.
Game 2 I mulligan to 6. He fetches up a Tundra. I match with a Savannah and he goes for another Tundra and casts Phyrexian Dreadnought and Stifles the ETB trigger. I EOT Plow and he forces. I untap and slam another Plow and he goes up to 30 life. He fumbles around and passes without doing anything. My turn 3 I play Pridemage (I really was going to kill the damn Dreadnought). I've got Choke in my hand but he's not tapped out. I want to get him to tap low so I can land a Choke. All of his lands are Islands...
Pridemage gets him down to a reasonable amount and then I land a Choke with him tapped down. He has no answers and a Thalia on my next turn forces him to Brainstorm to answer another threat (tapping all of his lands) and he realizes how fucked he is and packs it in.
1-0.
Round 2: Elves
I win the die roll and get Hoofed down low but survive the turn and kill his Craterhoof with a large Knight. I was able to land several attacks with Umezawa's Jitte and eventually suit up a Thalia with a Jitte but my opponent peeled a Wirewood Symbiote when he needed exactly Wirewood Symbiote and was able to attack with his army of guys to finish the job with exactsies.
I had to kill the Symbiote before blockers or he would just return the Elf I block and I'd not get Jitte counters. Unfortunately that was the last Jitte counter and that was damning enough to make me lose.
Game 2 I'm on the play again and land a Canonist, Thalia and Aven Mindcensor. He slowly builds up and Hoofs me, but I plow the Hoof to avoid dying. I've got Scavenging Ooze in hand plus another Canonist so I trade my team intending to play Ooze and gain life to brick his attacks on my next turn. I go to 8 life on that attack and feel very safe.
On my turn I play Ooze and pass with 2 green up to eat my dead creatures. I didn't notice that he had 4+ cards in hand and when he untapped he lead off with Glimpse of Nature and found another Craterhoof to finish me off. I died with the card that blanks his plan and didn't play it because I wasn't paying attention. Bad form. Real bad and I got punished.
1-1.
Round 3: UWR Young Pyromancer/Stoneforge/Delver
After this match I'm wondering what the fuck is wrong with the metagame. Seriously? Esper Stiflenought with no Bobs? Stoneforge and Young Pyromancer? Ugh.
In any event, I lose the die roll for game 1 and my opponent mulligans to 5. It's not a game and I'm able to ignore what he does and Dark Depths/Stage him out.
Game 2 I land Choke plus two giant knights plus wasteland plus, plus, plus... It wasn't a real game. He played Stoneforge to get Batterskull but a wasteland on his only white source locked it up. His cards matched up very poorly and he didn't get any value off the Pyromancer. Weird...
2-1
Round 4: WBg (kinda Deadguy + green splash)
I lose the die roll and my opponent starts game 1 off on the play after a mulligan to 6. I'm able to control the board and get a Knight to stick. Played a Thespian's Stage in my turn and went to make Merit Liege on my turn. Of course he flips Karakas to Dark Confidant.
At this point I realize that Dark Depths/Stage is an all in strategy with Maverick this early in the game. I was left with very few resources and he was able to blow me out. I end up getting rolled in game 1 because I was down so far in resources.
Game 2 I start on the play with a much better start and get to showcase how absurd Sword of Light and Shadow is against a WB deck. Mother of Runes went unanswered and was able to protect my cards. He lands a Batterskull and I don't care because I've got a SoLaS returning creatures and gaining life. I get a Batterskull into play and suit it up with SoLaS and that's game. He negates my Sword raise dead with a Deathrite Shaman but it doesn't matter. Ten life a turn (exalted) is unbeatable when his own Batterskull can't attack profitably. He sees the writing on the wall and packs it in.
Game 3 starts much better for me. I've got Life from the Loam and fetchlands which sets me up for the long game. My opponent misses his third land drop and I'm able to punish him by sticking threats and Loaming back for value. He has to Pithing Needle Wasteland to avoid getting blown out and I'm OK with that. We both have Batterskull and Jittes, he has 2 counters on his Jitte attached to Dark Confidant. Closer to 5 minutes than 10 minutes left in the round I EOT Krosan Grip his Batterskull to finish the game out since I can beat his Bob and Confidant.
I suit up my Germ with the Jitte and serve in. He blocks with Bob and pumps to trade for my Germ. He realizes his mistake. He'll never have a creature to suit up with Jitte and I can reset Batterskull. He concedes at 19 life.
3-1
Round 5: ID
Had Subway for food, pretty nice BMT.
3-1-1
Top 8: Elves rematch from round 2
I'm 7th seed and always on the draw.
Game 1 I keep a hand with Dryad Arbor, Noble Hierarch, Lands and Jitte. Elves can't beat Jitte. Nothing major happens.
Game 2 I make a "YOLO" keep of 6 cards: 5 lands and Jitte. The plan is to Windswept Heath into Dryad Arbor, play Jitte and on turn 3 suit up and begin killing his team. I draw a Noble Hierarch so opt to play that instead. I draw GSZ and realize I sided out Gaddock Teeg - which is a huge mistake - and get punished when my opponent makes a ton of mana and casts his own GSZ for Craterhoof. Punished.
Game 3 my opponent mulligans to 5. I lead with Noble Hiarch and plow his mana dork. The game is over when I've got Gaddock Teeg, Mother of Runes, Ethersworn Canonist in play and get a Knight into play. My opponent sees the writing on the wall and scoops up his cards. He's so far behind and stuck on mana and my board is overwhelming. I make an attack of Teeg and Canonist and he double blocks with Symbiote and Visionary trying to force a trade on Teeg but I use Mom to save giving him a one turn window to answer Canonist and go off before I kill him. He's unable to get there and packs in his cards.
Victory!
4-1-1
Top 4 - Deadguy Ale
Top 4 agrees to a split: Force of Will each plus $205 store credit and my opponent and I play for byes. Everyone agrees to scoop to one of us in the finals.
I'm up against another person in the car who has a reputation for playing Deadguy all the time (except when he randomly plays Tin Fins). He's quite good with the deck.
Game 1 I realize I have the win and make Merit Liege after my opponent taps his only white source to cast Lingering Souls. I untap, give the 20/20 pro white and get there. It's embarrassing how long it took me to realize I had the win. Long day.
Game 2 is a grind and starts poorly with me on a mulligan to 5. Humility happens and I run out of cards getting unfavourable trades with Engineered Explosives and Zealous Persecution. I had a bunch of outs to the Batterskull (Maze of Ith, Krosan Grip, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, etc) but never saw them in time.
Game 3 starts better. I've got a great hand with two Knights. I start Savannah, GSZ for Dryad Arbor intending to play turn 2 and 3 Knights. My opponent, of course, has his singleton Cabal Therapy (never saw it game 1 or 2) and blind names Knight of the Reliquary. I'm left with very little action and get whittled down by a Lingering Souls token and later by Deathrite. I had a ton of cards to draw to get back into it between Stoneforge, my last Knight (one was killed), Scavenging Ooze, Batterskull and Jitte but it wasn't meant to be.
The Deadguy matchup seems alright if I can keep them off Zealous and EE. Humility is beatable since I play 26 creatures.
4-2-1
Maverick is sweet. The Depths/Stage combo sucks and I'll be going back to maindeck Maze and Gaea's Cradle. I also want to find room for Elspeth and maybe another Path to Exile for the board. There will definitely be a Kitchen Finks in the board to deal with the abusrd number of Burn decks that infest Grand Prix.
♀
Congratulations on the top 4 and thanks for the report.
How have you liked the blue splash out of the sideboard? Bringing in a few counterspells seems fine in some matchups, I'd be curious to know what your board plan looks like and what matchups you like those against.
The blue is there for the combo matchups like show and tell and storm (and probably the cascade strategies but I haven't tested versus that). They're sometimes too fast for me to fight through hate bears so sometimes being able to keep an opening hand of 2 fetchlands, flusterstorm, and hate bears can give you enough time to get the bear lockdown going. The first time you Flusterstorm a hellbent Infernal Tutor will make you very giddy.Originally Posted by haganbmj
You can also get people wondering about potential counterspells by showing Tropical Island in game 1 and they could alter their gameplan because of it.
Tropical Islands can be a bit worse with Choke but you're not often bringing Choke in with the countermagic.
♀
Congrats on the finish! Very interesting sideboard too.
Why did you make Marit Lage on your turn? It's always been an EOT play for me. You could have waited and fetched Wasteland to kill Karakas instead.
Re: Eldritch Moon and Emrakul
Thanks for the report.
I agree the meta was kinda whacked, bu such is the Oshawa metagame, its like a box of chocolates really :P
I was next you round 1 and seen the choke and the sad faces it made my foil unhinged islands have just watching it hahah.
Haha, yeah that guy was not happy about the Choke, but he was a real good sport about it though.
I'm not sure. I didn't really expect him to have such a devastating answer for it. It was clearly wrong to make the play and I usually make them on end step too, not sure what I was thinking.
♀
Certainly makes sense, I've never seen someone with blue entirely in the sideboard - I like it much better than the typical bant builds.
I might have to give it a try at some point.
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