This report won’t be as thorough as some of my past ones have been. I’ve been writing every night this week and I kinda wanna catch up on my reality TV addiction. Also, I need to battle some gym leaders. Do you guys have Pokemon XY? You should get it! Don’t be a prude!
No time to be clever. Here we go. Decklist here.
R1: Death and Taxes 2-0
My opponent admits to being slightly hungover and when I offer up my own confession of having indigestion, he upgrades his admission from a hangover to full on alcoholism. Needless to say, he was an entertaining fellow. I actually don’t drink but my empathetic response made him think I did, so I was polite and we talked about hangovers and stuff. He may even be drinking at this very moment. If he is, I hope he doesn’t feel too gross in the morning and at least has a fun night.
G1: I have no idea what happened so I’ll just copy what my notes show. I consider this matchup extremely favorable.
19 |
18 |
16 |
13 | 6 Topdeck G.Cradle off Visionary
W
G2:
T3 Progenitus. My opponent’s hand was just lands and 2/2s.
I hope I’m not boring you with this extremely detailed and long-winded essay I’m forcing you to read right now.
R2: Junk Depths 2-0
I can tell my opponent is a newer player based on the way he shuffles and manipulates his cards. I pray he isn’t playing Divining Tops. He needed to read most of my cards.
G1:I mull to 4 and keep a sketchy hand on the play and lead with Dryad Arbor. His turn sees a Thoughtseize taking my DRS, leaving me with 2 cards in hand. I play a G.Cradle into Visionary. My opponent makes a Goyf. I naturally draw into the BFF team and start grinding away, keeping that Goyf busy while drawing cards. Meanwhile my opponent Crop Rotates for a Thespian's Stage and then naturally draws into a Dark Depths. He makes a Marit Lage. Luckily all that BFF grinding drew me enough cards to Hoof past the 20/20 the turn before he could attack.
G2: In this game I saw the other half of his deck. He had Go for the Throats and Dismembers and things like that, but he didn’t understand how priority worked. So I would play a guy, ask if it resolves, and he would immediately try to kill it. This gave away enough of his hand for me to just serve him things to kill and stick the stuff that mattered. I made a Progenitus and he cast Massacre with 4 Swamps on board. He then asked to read Progenitus.
R3: Shardless BUG 2-1
G1:I think I was on the play. I lead with DRS. He fetches with Verdant Catacombs and plays his own DRS. On my turn I make a bunch of dudes. On his turn he plays a Polluted Delta and Decays one of my guys. On my T3 I go for Hoof and it sticks for lethal. I killed him, sure, but I didn’t see enough of his deck to know exactly what he was playing. I put him on BUG Delver.
-4 whatever, + 2 Scooze, 1 NO, 1 Prog
G2: I keep a speculative dude hand and my opponent leads with DRS. I make a bunch of guys but just draw more 1/1s. My opponent makes more things plus two more Deathrites. It turns out he was playing the best deck for making stupid things to clog up the board - Shardless BUG. He fills the ground with silly creatures and I fill the ground with silly, but smaller creatures. He gets there off of Deathrite advantage. I drew no non-creature spells.
G3. I keep a risky hand: Birchlore, Glimpse x2, GSZ, 2 land, G.Cradle. I lead with GSZ into Arbor. He does stuff. I drop Cradle and try to live the dream with Glimpse. It resolves but I make a couple more guys and then brick. He does stuff. I try for another Glimpse on my next turn and he Forces. I topdeck a Natural Order.
R4: U/W/R Delver 0-2
G1: He wastes my opening Bayou and then kills the next 4 dudes I play. Then Dazes the 5th. GG
G2: He kills all my guys and Wastelands me twice. I have a single Forest in play and a full grip, but I can’t get out from under his removal long enough to play more than one thing per turn. He plays a Grim Lavamancer. I have no idea how to beat this damn deck. GG.
R5: Merfolk 2-1
G1: On the play, he makes a Cursecatcher. I make a Nettle Sentinel. He Forces. He attacks for 1. I make another Nettle. He Dazes. He attacks for 1. I cast GSZ. He Spell Pierces. He attacks for 1. I make a Deathrite Shaman. He Dazes. He attacks for 1. I make a Llanowar Elf and it sticks. He attacks for 1.
Fuck it. I block that bitch. We trade.
I fetch Dryad Arbor into a NO. He Forces. We are both Hellbent. I draw into the BFF team and win out from there.
G2: He Dazes my first turn play and has a godhand. He has pressure and countermagic and I couldn’t build up enough resources to race. Him seeing 3 Silvergil Adepts surely didn’t hurt. Right before he would alpha strike for lethal, I am able to make exactly enough mana to hardcast a Hoof to steal the game. Exactly enough and no more. I have to go for it. He has the Daze.
G3: This time I have the godhand and all he has are dudes. I win on my Turn 3, seeing no countermagic from him.
R6: Tin Fins 2-0
G1: I’m on the play and mull to 6. He mulls to 5.
I make a thing and he takes his first turn to cast a Brainstorm in the mainphase off of a basic Island. I do more things and he casts a Preordain. I assume he is on Omni show. I go for NO on Turn 3 with 2 extra mana just in case he has a Pierce and he has no Force. Boom boom. Hoof.
G2: I mull to 4. He keeps his 7 on the play. I have G.Cradle, Deathrite, Fetchland, Heritage Druid.
He Ponders. I make DRS off of Fetchland into Bayou. He Forces, pitching Pact of Negation. Seems like Omni to me. I play Heritage Druid. He cantrips. I rip and play a morphed Birchlore Ranger, because if he isn’t going to do anything then I might as well get in there for some damage. I also fetch for an Arbor.
If you do nothing but cantrip against me, then I will have no choice but to attack you with a druid chick, an elf hiding in a grey spider suit, and a walking lady-tree. Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me. SON!
He cantrips again. I have a second G.Cradle in hand and rip a GSZ. I tap Cradle 1 for 3. Tap Bayou and Arbor for 2. Play and tap my second Cradle for 3, making 8. If I had not played my Birchlore morphed, I could have tapped Heritage+Birchlore for an additional mana to get around Spell Pierce. For that reason I hesitated a little bit. But my opponent looked kinda sad so I decided to go for it. Anyway I have 8 and cast GSZ for 6, leaving 1 mana floating. It resolves and I grab Ruric Thar. My opponent stares at it and then takes his turn. He then plays 3 Lotus Petals and shows me a hand full of lands. GG.
R7: Ad Nauseam Tendrils 2-1
My opponent is Jesse Hampton. He just won the Standard Open and has been carrying around that trophy thing all day. What a crazy guy. He also has been on the Pro Tour and played to a Top 8 finish at the first Modern PT. I knew what he was on. He is a very powerful wizard.
G1: He wins the roll and I start complaining about the matchup because I’m a whiner. He just tells me to win on Turn 2 like I’m supposed to.
He goes Fetch, pass. I make DRS. He casts Brainstorm EOT. Then casts another Brainstorm in his mainphase. Then goes Scalding Tarn into U.Sea into Ponder, pass. On my Turn 2 I cast a Glimpse and play a bunch of dudes and NO for a 10/10 Hoof that unfortunately must attack alone. I figured I should make my opponent’s Ad Nausem as awkward as possible, so I didn’t want to slowroll my Hoof at all. Also I could just alpha strike next turn for lethal. He draws and tries to go off but once he realizes he can’t get there, he scoops.
G2: I bring in 4 Therapies, 2 Thorns, and Ruric Thar.
We both mull to 6. He is on the play and Therapies me, naming DRS. He gets one. I take my turn and cast my own Therapy. I stare into his wizardly eyes and see deep into his soul of souls. He is a thinking man. He is analytical and logical but also patient. He is a ponderer. I name Ponder. He drops his hand and calls me a god. His hand is Ponder (!), Delta x2, Past in Flames, Infernal Tutor. Lemme get dat Ponder, SON! He draws and passes. I make an elf, Fetch into Arbor, flashback Therapy and take his Infernal Tutor. I start playing out elves and he cantrips a few times. I have very little pressure. He eventually decides that he has enough to go off with Past in Flames and he gets there.
G3: On the play I keep Thorn of Amethyst, Cabal Therapy, 2 Fetchlands, 1 DRS, and 2 other elves. This seems pretty spicy, right?
I start and Fetch into Bayou, cast Therapy. I look again into his sorcerer eyes. I kind of want to name Preordain, because I’m channeling the spirit of Charles Xavier and that’s what he’s telling me. Then I think about naming Cabal Therapy to try and tag his Therapy, so he can’t steal this Thorn out of my hand. If I stick this Thorn, it will definitely make it hard for him to get into this game. Then I think about naming Ponder again just because I’m feeling slightly lucky and I think it would be hilarious to hit Ponder again and double up on my first gamble. I’m a good player and never give in to baser instincts at large events so of course I name Ponder. LOL.
He shows me Gix Probe x2, Preordain (dammit!), Ritual, Delta, Duress, Cabal Therapy. Dammit! My Thorn is dead regardless, it seems. Shoulda named Preordain!
I pass.
He Probes, peeks, draws. Casts Therapy naming Thorn. Pass. I drop DRS, fetch into Arbor, flashback Therapy, take his Preordain like I should have originally. He cantrips and Duresses me, taking a Green Sun I think. I play a 2nd DRS and a Quirion Ranger. He keeps cantripping and whatnot and I start eating all his relevant flashback spells out of the yard with DRS activation, Ranger untap, bounce Bayou, replay Bayou, 2nd DRS activation. I get him down to 7 and pass.
My board is Deathrite, Deathrite, Q.Ranger, B.Ranger, Bayou, Forest. Everything is tapped except for 1 active DRS and the two Rangers. My opponent is effectively at 5 since I can activate that 2nd DRS, and I briefly thought about attacking, but I knew at this point that eating spells out of his yard, and being able to wait for the right one, was more important than attacking for an additional damage with the 3 elves. I can also activate and then alpha+DRS for lethal next turn.
He has to go off right now.
He starts doing stuff doing stormy stuff, casting rituals and LEDs. He casts Infernal Tutor and cracks LED in response, discarding Tendrils of Agony. He tutors up Ad Nauseum and plays it. In response I DRS eat his Tendrils out of the yard and he scoops. He only has 1 Tendrils in the deck, apparently.
After the game, spectators, and Jesse himself, tell me that I should have named Infernal or LED or something, not blue cantrips. They might be right, but my first choices were all solid hits, had I followed my first instinct. Sometimes you just have to be a Jedi.
R8: Omni-Tell 2-0
G1: He’s on the play and casts Preordain off a basic. I make a Bayou into DRS, pass. He casts mainphase Brainstorm and passes. On my Turn 2 I shoot a Glimpse and it resolves. Then I start going a little crazy. I just start chaining and trying to net mana and see where this takes me. I’m dropping dudes, untapping dudes, tapping shiz, etc. My mana constantly floats around 2-4 and I’m digging for a NO + enough guys on board to attack for lethal that turn. After a few iterations I get there and with a Q.Ranger untap on my opening turn DRS, him and the Hoof get there for lethal.
G2: I killed him so fast that I never saw enough of his deck to accurately determine what he was playing. I assume he’s on Sneak Attack. He cantrips and I lead with Bayou, DRS, just like last game. He asks me if I’ll kill him on Turn 2 again. LOL. Sometimes you just don’t know until you try. He does some cantrip stuff, pass. I make Nettle, play fetch, cast Therapy off DRS. It resolves and I name Sneak Attack.
He shows me Tarn, Island x2, City of Traitors, Wipe Away, Ponder.
Whiff.
I play Fetch into Arbor, flashback Therapy and take his Ponder. Now his hand is just doodoo plus Wipe Away. He draws and passes. On my turn I rip Natural Order off the top. Now I wish I had taken that Wipe Away. This is okay though. I can make this work. I attack with Nettle. After combat, play and tap Cradle for 2, Bayou for 1, DRS for 1, NO saccing Nettle Sentinel. It resolves and I find Ruric Thar, pass. EOT he bounces it with Wipe Away. Then he cantrips and passes it back. I play Quirion Ranger, tap Cradle for :GG:, Bayou for :G:, DRS for :R:, Q.Ranger bounces Bayou and untaps DRS, tap those two for another :GG: and replay Ruric Thar. He shows me a hand full of lands and scoops.
R9: Affinity ID into T8.
My T8 match was a gross loss and you won’t really learn anything from it but you can read about it here if you really want to. I definitely got very lucky against that little string of combo decks I faced, but sometimes those derpy combo decks just can't put together the correct hands and some 1/1s can get there.
I can't say it was a fun day. It was actually extremely stressful. I wrote a little diddy about it on SCG but if you just wanted the round by round stuff, then you have already found it here!
Thanks for reading and hopefully I do well at another big tournament so I have a reason to write a more entertaining report for you guys.
Always a pleasure to read your reports. The quips here and there are definitely the highlights. Your line in Game 2 of the Tin Fins match made me laugh the most since killing someone with 1/1s makes the game much more enjoyable.Originally Posted by danyul
I expect a 10,000 word essay here the Monday after GPDC (whether you're going or not)!
How nice of your Round 2 opponent to tickle Progenitus' back with that Massacre. Even hydra avatars like a back tickle.
So, Dan.
Are you convinced about The Ogre Warrior?
Rurir Thar is the shit.
i always enjoy your reports. keep rurictharing!
I am a believer in the great Ogre Warrior.
I unfortunately won't be going. But our Seattle group is sending a small contingent of our strongest fighters to battle against the hordes of the Eastern tribes.
Proggy has protection from everything, including tickles!
Thanks man. I'll put more energy into the next one, promise.
We still have room for one more! But just curious, do I count as one of our strongest fighters? Or am I a renegade member of the Eastern tribes?
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
For you? You can be both. I'll let you deal with the inevitable existential crisis on your own. Does your healthcare plan cover therapy sessions?
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