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Thread: RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

  1. #1

    RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

    Hello everyone. I went to SCG Columbus on Sunday to play in the Legacy Open. My goal was to at least cash, but I hoped to top sixteen to get my list and name on the Internet (oh digital fame, how mercurial and elusive you are). I brought this list:

    4 Exploration
    2 Manabond
    4 Life from the Loam
    4 Mox Diamond
    4 Punishing Fire
    4 Gamble
    4 Crop Rotation

    4 Grove of the Burnwillows
    2 Taiga
    1 Forest
    1 Misty Rainforest
    1 Verdant Catacombs
    1 Wooded Foothills
    3 Tranquil Thicket
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    1 Glacial Chasm
    1 Karakas
    1 Bojuka Bog
    4 Wasteland
    4 Rishadan Port
    4 Thespian’s Stage
    2 Dark Depths
    3 Maze of Ith

    Sideboard:

    4 Sphere of Resistance
    4 Krosan Grip
    3 Chalice of the Void
    2 Choke
    2 Dark Depths

    This tournament was long and grueling, and on the two hour drive home I felt like my faint, spinning head was connected to a gelatinous bag filled with fluid—which is all to say, I’ll try to be as accurate in this report as possible, though I may not remember everything as keenly as I should.

    Round One: Welder Mud

    Game One: Mud does nothing of consequence, laying three Caverns of Souls on the battlefield, each naming Goblin, casting a Goblin Welder on turn three. I make a flying witch creature and Mud concedes.

    I’m uncertain about what I’m up against, since Cavern of Souls in Mud should (I think) name Construct and Goblins shouldn’t (I think) play Goblin Welder.

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Karakas, 1 Bojuka Bog
    I board in: 4 Krosan Grip

    Game Two: Mud plays an early Blood Moon, but I’ve got a Krosan Grip in hand. When I’ve assembled Stage-Depths, I Grip the Moon at sorcery speed and make a Marit Lage right then, so that neither a Wasteland nor a second Moon are live. I pass, and now that Mud’s lands aren’t Mountains, he has enough mana to cast a One-Shot, the Robot. He passes, I swing with my Marit Lage, and he say’s, Okay, I’m at one life. Dumbfounded, I realize that he had, in fact, gained life from a Grove of the Burnwillows. In an even greater blunder, I realize, a few seconds too late, that I could use my Maze of Ith on my Marit Lage after damage, allowing me to block and survive to swing again. Too much time passes in my surprise though, and I pass, knowing that I won’t be able to use my Maze on Blightsteel because he’s got Crucible of Worlds in hand and a Wasteland in the graveyard.

    Boarding remains the same.

    Game Three: I mull to six, seeing a keepable but not excellent hand of Loam and Exploration but very little in the way of utility. As such, I do nothing of consequence while Mud makes a Kuldotha Forgemaster and sacs three artifacts for another One-Shot, the Robot.

    Unfortunately, my punt in game two really affects my mental state, especially since I haven’t lost the first round of a tournament in quite a while. I’m super bummed and beating myself up for playing stupid. I commiserate with my friends. I also get to meet a guy I know from MTGO who is from Switzerland and who has come to the U.S. for two week’s vacation and a bunch of MTG tournaments. He jokingly chastises me for not playing Pox anymore, which he is on and which he has used to crush his first round opponent.

    0-1

    Round Two: Bug Midrange

    This guy is on neither Shardless Bug nor Bug Delver, but rather something in between, utilizing Tarmogoyf, Umezawa’s Jitte (without Stoneforge), a playset of Baleful Strix, but not Jace, the Mindsculptors.

    Game One: Bug deploys a Deathrite Shaman, which I Punishing Fire. Bug then deploys a second Shaman, which gets to eat the Punishing Fire since I don’t have a Grove. I play some lands, find a second Fire and a Grove while Bug casts three Baleful Strixes (just as correct, in fact, as the alternate plural, Striges) and an Umezawa’s Jitte. I get rid of the Shaman, but Bug connects with an equipped Strix. I still feel okay, since I’ve now got Loam going and have found Stage-Depths. I make the token, he blocks with the equipped Strix, it dies, and I Maze my Marit Lage (imagine that!) to block one of his other Strixes. He sees what’s going on and concedes.

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Karakas, 1 Glacial Chasm (since it doesn’t stop Deathrite)
    I board in: 2 Krosan Grip, 2 Choke

    Game Two: Bug counters my Choke, plays a Tarmogoyf, and I go for the combo, since I don’t have much control going on. Bug Diabolic Edicts me and I can’t find a Loam to set the combo back up before Tarmogoyf obliterates me.

    Boarding remains the same.

    Game Three: I keep a Loam and Punishing Fire hand, which hampers Bug’s early development. He plays a Tarmogoyf and starts hitting me, getting me down to six. I assemble the combo, but he plays Diabolic Edict again. He also has a Loam-Wasteland thing going, so of the two lands I get to play each turn, one has to be a Maze of Ith to partner with the one I’ve already got in play so that Tarmogoyf doesn’t eat me alive. I assemble the combo a second time, but he Submerges Marit Lage. At this point, time is called, and since he has a Baleful Strix in play and I have to play at least one Maze a turn, I just don’t have the mana to Loam, Punishing Fire the bird, play a Maze, AND make a Marit Lage. I play to not lose for these turns since I can’t win in time. I’m not certain who is favored at this point, since I can eventually make a token that he can’t answer, but that possibility is offset by the fact that he can rip another Goyf.

    Second match ends in a draw. Bummer. Hopes of surrounding trespassing wizards in mountainous forests, glacial chasms, and squirming labyrinths dim.

    0-1-1

    Round Three: Miracles

    Game One: I make a Marit Lage three different times, all of which retreat into the exile of agricultural regions. Eventually, while I’m trying to pull off a fourth Marit Lage, Miracles assembles CounterTop and Jace, Mindsculptor. When he finds a two-drop to keep on top of his library to prevent further Loaming, I concede at sixty-some life. The first match has taken over twenty-five minutes.

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, 1 Glacial Chasm, 3 Maze of Ith, 4 Crop Rotation
    I board in: 4 Krosan Grip, 2 Choke, 3 Chalice of the Void, 2 Dark Depths

    Game Two: I keep a hand with a Choke and a Krosan Grip, and on my second turn, I draw a Chalice of the Void. It resolves at one counter, and from there I assemble Marit Lage naturally (which takes quite a few draw steps with both of us doing very little besides me Gripping the Top Miracles played on his turn one and him countering the Choke I try to resolve). Once Lage is in play, Miracles just can’t clear a path to exile for it like he had in the previous game because of Chalice. I’ve played as fast as I can, but the timer has ticked down and down.

    Boarding remains the same.

    Game Three: On turn one, time is called. We each play lands and can’t win in the time allotted.

    After round three, my results are

    0-1-2.

    Utter dejection. The idea of dropping, getting some food, and going home creeps into my brain. I heave a sigh and decide to play at least one more round.

    Round Four: Monoblack Prison (also known as Pox)

    Game One: Pox is late to the table, so he gets a game loss.

    No boarding, as per the rules a judge informs us.

    Game Two: Having been on the other end of this match a couple of times, I know that it is simply unloseable for Lands. Pox makes me discard a Life from the Loam, so I dredge it back and Waste his Mishra’s Factory. He gets a couple of Swamps into play and I assemble Marit Lage. He plays an Urborg and slams an Ensnaring Bridge. I Waste his Urborg, he Smallpoxes away one his lands and my Marit Lage, and from there he does nothing because I keep him at one Swamp and win the game with a Manabond that allows me to put enough lands into play to Fire him for a net loss of three each turn.

    This easy one does little to ameliorate the overall lackluster feeling plaguing me, but at least my friend Matthias (the Pox player from Switzerland, whose MTGO handle is FatherOblivion) cheers me up a little again by mentioning with a grin the fact that he’s 4-0 and I’m just

    1-1-2.

    Round Five: Loam Pox

    During this match, I actually began to enjoy myself. One of the games was super interesting, and my opponent was an amiable fellow. Since I’ve never really piloted Loam Pox before, I felt less certain about the matchup, especially when I realized the guy was also playing the StageDepths combo, which, it seems to me, has no real place in any type of Pox list, since at that point you should just be playing Lands. I’d say for Loam alone you should be piloting Lands, since it’s the best Loam deck. In any case, my opponent made the match enjoyable.

    Game One: I play Exploration, Loam Pox Abrupt Decays it, I play Mox Diamond, which he also Abrupt Decays, and then nothing much happens until I assemble StageDepths for the win.

    Reasoning that the person who wins this match will be the one who has access to Marit Lage the soonest, I want to increase the amount of Depths in my deck.
    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, 2 Maze of Ith, 1 Punishing Fire
    I board in: 2 Dark Depths, 4 Krosan Grip

    Game Two: We both assemble the combo quickly, but I have to make my Marit at sorcery speed to play around Wasteland while he gets to make his at the end of my turn. Two Marits stare at one another for a while. Loam Pox extirpates my Loam and my Dark Depths, and then a Liliana of the Veil makes me sac my Marit. I lose to a freakish monster eating my head.

    I board out: 2 Krosan Grips
    I board in: 2 Chalice of the Void (for Extirpate)
    This configuration seems less than optimal in hindsight.

    Game Three: Loam Pox mulls to six and on his first turn plays a Swamp, two Mox Diamonds, a Life from the Loam, and an Entomb for Nether Spirit. On my second turn, I Crop Rotate for a Bojuka Bog, crushing his forward momentum. From there we build up our lands for a while. As soon as I see Thespian’s Stage, I copy one of his Swamps with it (since I don’t have a basic Forest), both to play around Wasteland and around Pithing Needle. Eventually, he plays a Liliana and ticks her up. I play a Depths and pass. He plays a Pithing Needle, I say ok, he names Thespian’s Stage. EOT, I copy Depths with a Swamp. He points to his Needle naming Stage. I say, It’s a Swamp, not a Stage. He says he wants to hear a judge say that that move is legal. I say okay, the judge decides in my favor, and the creature I’ve unearthed from a frozen pit chomps his body in half. Luckily, he is amicable and congratulates me on the nice play.

    Now feeling somewhat heartened that I’m at

    2-1-2.

    If I keep winning I might still make top 32.

    Round Six: Delver Cruise (also known as Counterburn)

    I’m sitting across from one of those effusive opponents who speaks very quickly, almost in a nervous way, and who likes to narrate the events of the game. While this guy was perfectly friendly, opponents of his type are the ones I dislike facing. I prefer to speak infrequently during the game so that I can have a clear head when making decisions. Whenever I face opponents who talk about game events as they occur, I get a little muddled, wondering if the opponent is trying to next level me by discussing the things I could do next, wondering if what I’m doing is what the opponent wants me to do or if it is what I should do. In any case, I felt like this guy was a step ahead of me on each play.

    Game One: Counterburn gets out three dudes, two Delvers and one Swiftspear, and pummels me down very, very quickly. Before I know it, I’m at two life with only five lands on board. At the last moment, I topdeck an Exploration, cast it, and Crop Rotate for a Glacial Chasm. Unfortunately, while I’ve got him locked out of combat damage and sorcery speed damage, I don’t have him locked out of instant speed damage. I get a couple of turns of returning Chasm from the graveyard before he finds a Lighting Bolt to kill me.

    Specific question for my readers: I had four lands on the battlefield (Grove, Port, Stage, Chasm) and my Exploration. During my first upkeep with Chasm on the battlefield, I elected to copy it with Stage instead of Loaming, but I didn’t have a mana-producing land to put on the field from my hand. Then, the next turn, I had to let Stage go down and return it and Chasm with Loam. How do I handle this situation optimally so that I have to let Chasm go the least amount of times?

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Karakas, 1 Bojuka Bog
    I board in: 2 Krosan Grip, 2 Choke

    Game Two: I see a hand with Loam, Mox, Maze of Ith, Depths, and a fetch. I keep, thinking the Maze will buy me time to my Loam engine on line. Counterburn casts a Needle on my Maze and beats me down to seven with a Delver. Crap. I haven’t seen the combo yet, but I do find a Krosan Grip. During his combat step, I Grip the Needle to so I can Maze the Delver, and in response he casts Price of Progress. I take eight. He extends his hand first to shake, which seems like bad etiquette to me, but I shake and wish him good luck with the rest of the tournament.

    Delver Cruise may be a worse matchup than I initially thought. It’s clock is just so, so fast. Oh well. Still possibly in it for fifty bucks if I win my next three rounds.

    2-2-2

    Round Seven: RIP Helm Miracles

    Game One: I get RIP Helmed before anything of consequence on my side of the board happens.

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 3 Maze of Ith, 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, 4 Crop Rotation, 1 Glacial Chasm
    I board in: 4 Krosan Grip, 3 Chalice of the Void, 2 Dark Depths, 2 Choke

    Game Two: I keep a hand with a natural StageDepths, some green mana, a Punishing Fire, and a Krosan Grip. Miracles plays two RIPs, I assemble the combo, she flashes in a V-Clique, I Punishing Fire it, the Fire gets countered, and then the V-Clique sacrifices itself to Marit Lage. Miracles has to topdeck something, but she doesn’t. She reveals a hand of four lands and concedes.

    Boarding remains the same.

    Game Three: This was a magnificent grindfest that saw me play two Chalices (one on one counter and one on four counters to counter Jace and Helm) and a Choke, while Miracles played three RIPs and two Blood Moons. We each end up discarding to hand size for about twenty turns because neither of us can really function under the cages that we’ve fashioned for one another. I play Mountain after Mountain, and she plays Plains after Mountain after Plains. Eventually, I see two Grips to deal with the two Blood Moons and make a Marit then and there. Chalice counters Swords and Chalice counters Jace. Her only out is Entreat the Angels, which when she concedes she sees is on the bottom of her library. We each have only ten or twelve cards left to draw.

    Whoa. What a spectacular game of do-nothing for a billion years, but I emerge the survivor.

    3-2-2

    Two more wins and I get fifty bucks.

    Round Eight: Bug Delver

    Game One: I keep a hand with an Exploration, two Manabonds, and the natural combo. I keep. Bug Delver plays a turn one Deathrite Shaman. I attempt a Manabond, that gets countered. Bug Delver plays two more Shamans. My second Manabond resolves and I make a Marit immediately, playing around a possible topdecked Wasteland and reasoning that Bug Delver doesn’t usually play more than one maindeck Jace, if at all. Bug Delver Concedes.

    I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Karakas, 1 Glacial Chasm (since it doesn’t stop Deathrite Shaman)
    I board in: 2 Choke, 2 Krosan Grip

    Game Two: I’ve got an Exploration to set up an early Loam-Wastelock, and the lonely Tarmogoyf that Bug gets to cast gets lost in a Maze. I then find a Tabernacle and Delver’s remaining permanent perishes. I dredge for the combo at my leisure.

    Awesome! That type of game is the reason I want to play Lands. And only one more win needed. Can I do it?

    4-2-2

    Round Nine: Death and Taxes

    Incidentally, during this match, my Swiss friend Matthias sits next to me for his match, and I get to watch an old rivalry: Monoblack Pox versus Rug Delver. Matthias’s playmat features a cowled, sickle-wielding skeleton, hence his online moniker, FatherOblivion. Unfortunately, with Treasure Cruise now in the meta, what once was one of Pox’s best matchup now has a card eighty percent as good as Ancestral Recall to keep it in the game. FatherOblivion loses in three, though in game two I get to see an Engineered Plague naming Human keep Pyromancers and Delvers off the field. On to my match, however.

    Game One: Death and Taxes arrives about seven minutes late, his eyes red-rimmed and a sloppy I-don’t-give-a-shit look plastered on his face. Game loss for my friendly, slap-happy opponent.

    Game Two: I have slow Loam going, no Exploration, and I’m on the Grove-Fire plan. Death and Taxes has a Vial out and uses it to put a whole bunch of creatures into play. I’ve got Tabernacle out, which caps his creatures at the number of lands he has on the field, but I’m taking heavy damage. I find the combo and assemble it mainphase to avoid Wasteland, but Death and Taxes topdecks Karakas. I take more damage. I don’t have time to assemble the combo again, but on the turn that DnT is about to alpha-strike me, he forgets his four Tabernacle triggers, draws, and nods his head sheepishly when I tell him all his creatures are dead. He does get a Brimaz down to put more pressure on me, put I find a Manabond, put all my lands into play, including the combo and a Glacial Chasm, and Death and Taxes concedes.

    Then, he says he’s very new to Legacy and wants to play a third game for fun. We do, in which two Kor Firewalkers beat me down to four life before I assemble another Marit Lage.

    Hurray! Final results are 5-2-2. I get 53rd place and fifty bucks, with quite a bit of luck in that final round. On my way out to the car with a friend, I pass by Bobby Kovacs, whom I played against in Cleveland a while ago with Pox. He asks how I did. I say I cashed at 5-2-2, and he says, With Pox? I answer, No, I’m on Lands now. He celebrates.

    Analysis

    Keep in mind that these thoughts come from a person who has only piloted this deck twice in a tournament setting.

    Despite the number of times that I comboed out quickly for the win, I felt that Marit Lage met with quite a bit of natural hate. I expected Swords to Plowshares, but even when I made a token against non-white decks, I felt like it was a gamble. Perhaps I feel this way only because my Bug Midrange opponent was packing Edicts and Submerges, but I sure do wish this deck had a harder lock capability. I like its speed, and I think this speed is what makes it better than Rug Lands, but I wish there were a way to port over some of Rug’s deep prison aspects, like Ensnaring Bridge and recurring Explosives. I’d also like the all purpose sweeper of Explosives, since the opponent’s strategy is often to overload Krosan Grip targets post board. Lastly, while Choke did do some work against my Miracles opponent, I think that the 2 Choke / 3 Chalice configuration I took to the open is inferior to a 1 Choke / 4 Chalice configuration. Chalice is just phenomenal.

    Cumulative Tournament Results

    [Aggro]

    UR Delver Cruise: 0-2
    Napoleonic Delver: 1-0
    Merfolk: 1-0
    Bug Delver: 1-0

    [Combo]

    Storm: 1-1

    [Midrange]

    Bug Midrange: 0-0-1

    [Control]

    Death and Taxes: 1-0
    Pox: 1-0
    Loam Pox: 1-0
    Miracles: 1-0-1
    Mud: 0-1

    I'm a little iffy on even adding a Midrange section, and Mud could go in both Combo and in Control (as could RG Lands), but at heart it seems to me a prison deck.

    Okay. That’s it everyone. I might try a slightly revised list when I get to play again in a month or so. Until then, live long and prosper.

  2. #2
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    Re: RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

    Thks for report!
    byes are for girls!

  3. #3
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    Re: RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

    Wow, that round5, game3 winning play was just... just... just... I never thought that it works like this, amazing!
    Thx for the report.

  4. #4

    Re: RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

    Quote Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer View Post
    Wow, that round5, game3 winning play was just... just... just... I never thought that it works like this, amazing!
    Thx for the report.
    It comes up surprisingly often so anyone playing depths/stage should know the interaction for sure. Even if they play it correctly and name the card you copy the rest of your stages are still live or you can just wasteland the one they turned off and replay it via loam. If you have a stage ready to go when they play the needle you can usually get out from under it pretty easily.

  5. #5

    Re: RG Lands #2: SCG Columbus

    Quote Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer View Post
    Wow, that round5, game3 winning play was just... just... just... I never thought that it works like this, amazing!
    Thx for the report.
    Glad you enjoyed the report. Like your signature pic a lot. Still bummed about his death.

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