Top 8 with ANT in the Scandinavian Open in Febuary 2015

[Narcind]

Alright, so this is my tournament report for placing top 8 in the Scandinavian Open legacy event on Febuary 22nd with ANT.
I'll start off by saying that I did not expect to be writing a report, so a few points might be a bit vague as the only things I have to go off are my lifepad and memory.

Here's the deck I registered for the open:
John Granvik - ANT (Storm) - 5th-8th

Lands (15)
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

Other spells (45)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard (15)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Flusterstorm
2 Dread of Night
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Empty the Warrens

I even decided to be fancy and include pictures of the deck and sideboard:

Aren't I stylish with only the storm cards being foil

Also, sorry about the shitty quality

So, onto the report.

Round 1: Loam pox hex depths stuff 2-0

Shuffling up for round 1, I was feeling very nervous, not having tested that much coming into the event, barely having gotten any sleep the night before, not being used to playing in large tournaments, as well as never having seen my opponent before, giving me no clues to what he might be on. But, I win the die roll, and both of us keep seven for game 1.
I start off with a probe, and I see the hand: liliana, loam, inquisition, verdant catacombs, swamp, entomb, entomb, which I'm quite relieved to see. The following couple turns are me cantripping and him attempting to discard my hand, and before long he has assembled thesipan's stage + dark depths, but marit lage doesn't have haste, so he passes the turn, on which I go off and kill him through past in flames.

-2 duress
-1 cabal therapy
+2 chain of vapor
+1 sensei's divining top

Game 2 we both mulligan to six, and he starts off with a bayou and a pass. On my first turn play a basic swamp and duress him to see: entomb, wasteland, hymn to tourach, dark depths, loam. I take the hymn and pass the turn. The next few turns consist of him entombing a nether spirit to start beating down, playing discard spells, along with wastelanding an underground sea, while I just keep on sculpting my hand. Around turn 4 however, he draws a card and immediately asks to see my graveyard, which feels like a strong indication of him having just drawn a surgical extraction, so instead of saving the duress that is currently in my hand for protection against mindbreak trap during the turn I decide to go off, I instead fire it off as soon as I can, which he responds to by extirpating the underground sea he wasted earlier, in an attempt to limit my access to black mana. Luckily, my list contains a bayou, so it really wasn't that bad. Another few turns pass, I cantrip, he discards and lands a liliana. He has me at 8 life when my hand is good enough to kill him, so I probe to make sure the coast is clear, going down to 6, and seeing yet another extirpate in his hand. I think for a while, and realize that he either has to mess up with his extirpate, I need to hit something off a flashbacked ponder, or I'm fizzling, but because I'm so close to dying and he has an active liliana, I figure I probably won't get a much better shot at it, and if I lose, I'll always be on the play in game 3. So I start playing rituals, LED, and my last card is an infernal tutor, which he responds to by extirpating dark ritual. I count the storm one last time, and realize that he's at 16 from fetching, I have 6 mana in the pool, and the extirpate is spell number 6, so I tutor for another tutor, which finds tendrils for exactsies.

1-0

Round 2: Reanimator 2-1

Round 2 soon starts, and I find myself paired against yet another person I do not have the slightest idea what he might be on. I notice the smell of popcorn in the air, since the venue was right next to a cinema, and I win the die roll, but mulligan to six while he keeps seven. I start off with a ponder to begin sculpting my hand, and then pass the turn. He plays a scalding tarn to fetch for an underground sea, followed by a thoughtseize, at which point my heart drops, figuring that the combination fetch into a U/B dual into thoughtseize only really makes sense out of reanimator, or possibly storm, though not as likely. He takes the ad nauseam I was hoping to try and play the following turn, so instead I keep on cantripping, while he confirms my fears by casting careful study, reanimating stuff and killing me in a short couple of turns.

-2 preordain
-1 gitaxian probe
-1 swamp
+2 xantid swarm
+2 flusterstorm

Game 2 I look at an opening hand with a couple of discard spells, a ponder, a tutor, a flusterstorm and two lands, which seems close to optimal, so I keep. My opponent meanwhile, keeps on mulliganing, and reluctantly settles on a four card hand. I lead with a duress and see: underground sea, sire of insanity, griselbrand, griselbrand. My duress doesn't get to take anything, but knowing the contents of his hand, I'm really not unhappy with the situation, and pass the turn. He plays underground sea followed by a ponder, so I figure we might have an actual game after all. The next few turns I play very carefully, making sure to always leave flusterstorm mana open as to not throw the game, but he never finds anything to actually start doing things, and I soon assemble a hand that can kill him.
Game 3 we both keep seven, he leads with underground sea into ponder and a pass, while I probe him and see: lotus petal, daze, scalding tarn, reanimate, force of will, polluted delta. My hand once again contains two discard spells, so I fire off a cabal therapy, figuring I might as well make him use the daze, which he does. On his turn, he plays the sea again and ponders, before passing. We both then cantrip for a few turns while poking at eachother with discard spells. He seems to brick while I eventually find a xantid swarm, along with a hand that is good enough to kill, and so I somehow move on to 2-0 after beating what might be my worst matchup.

2-0

Round 3: Death and taxes 2-1

When I sit down for round 3, I realize that I actually know my opponent for this round, having played against him in a few tournaments before, so I know that it's pretty likely for him to be on death and taxes, but likewise, he's probably aware that I'm playing storm.
I'm not certain, but I believe I lose the die roll and we both keep seven. He starts with a plains and passes, while I preordain and keep both on top, as they'd allow me to kill on my next turn. On his turn, he plays a thalia. Scratch what I said earlier, no kill this turn, but maybe in a couple of turns because my hand contains two cabal rituals, with a redundant infernal tutor to get a third one, so I cantrip again, looking for more mana. Turn 3 he plays revoker on LED. Scratch what I said earlier, this kill is going to take a while to set up. The next few turns I keep on trying to find a winning hand while he ports me and beats down with his 2/1 creatures, soon adding another revoker on lotus petal to make my life even harder. Eventually, I'm at 4 life, with my board being a swamp, a misty rainforest and two underground seas, with dark ritual, dark ritual, cabal ritual, cabal ritual, cabal ritual, infernal tutor, past in flames being my hand. In my upkeep, he ports down both of my underground seas, meaning I need to rip a land that produces red or black mana, and then fetch the other one with the misty to have every color of mana I need to go through a past in flames loop. I do not draw a land, but a cabal therapy, so since I'm facing lethal, I go for a tendrils to gain me some life, hopefully giving me enough time to find what I need to finish the game. I do not however, and he soon kills me.

-3 duress
-1 preordain
+2 chain of vapor
+2 dread of night

Game 2 I look at my hand, see a fetchland, dark ritual, cabal ritual, lotus petal, ad nauseam, as well as two other cards that I honestly don't even remember. I keep and go for it on turn 1, and at about 9 life or so, I've flipped a combination of cards that allows me to win.
As we were shuffling up for game 3, a judge comes up and asks us if we'd object to being moved to the feature match area, since the featured match didn't take very long. My opponent and I both shrug and head off to a fairly small, very silent room, which is always nice, shuffle some more, and start off game 3.
Here's a vod of the game here if you would like to watch: http://www.twitch.tv/svmtv/b/628201747?t=3h20m49s
Since there's a vod available, I won't go too in depth here. A short summary is basically: dread of night is a good card, I brick on quite a few draw steps, then on the last turn of the game, as I'm getting ready to admit defeat and extend my hand, I luck into a brainstorm for my draw step, followed by some more good cards on the top of my deck. Better to be lucky than skilled, I suppose.

3-0

Round 4: Elves 0-2

The next round soon rolls around, yet again I am paired against someone that I have no idea what he might be playing. I win the die roll however, and we both keep seven. My hand is something like: fetchland, duress, duress, cabal therapy, preordain, lotus petal, infernal tutor. It's kinda slow and not great vs wasteland, but I figured it'll probably be good enough vs most decks. I start by playing a duress, and seeing a hand of: bayou, windswept heath, deathrite shaman, nettle sentinel, quirion ranger, wirewood symbiote, natural order. So the good news is that he's on elves, bad news is that my hand immediately got a lot worse since the second duress is completely dead and his hand is quite good. Pass the turn, he plays bayou deathrite and passes back. I cantrip to try and find more action, but with him more or less emptying his hand on turn 2, he kills me by beating down on turn 4 as I wasn't able to cobble together a hand that can win through deathrite shaman.

-1 swamp
-1 duress
+2 chain of vapor

Game 2 I'm on the play again, I mulligan to 6 and I believe I keep a hand with: fetchland, fetchland, infernal tutor, gitaxian probe, lotus petal, ponder. I probe him to see: heritage druid, heritage druid, glimpse of nature, cabal therapy, verdant catacombs, gaea's cradle, dryad arbor. With the probe, I draw another probe, with which I draw another lotus petal. I then fetch an underground sea and ponder, seeing a land, dark ritual and chain of vapor, which I don't think is good enough, so I shuffle and draw a lion's eye diamond. Nice.
On his turn he fetches up a bayou cabal therapies me naming infernal tutor before passing back, I draw my volcanic island and play the fetchland left from my opening hand. On his turn 2 he plays heritage druid, cradle, nettle sentinel, then sacrifices hertiage druid to flashback cabal therapy, naming lotus petal. I draw a dark ritual, play my volcanic island and pass the turn back again. On his turn 3 he goes for a glimpse that ends up being enough to put another 6-8 or so creatures into play, along with stripping my hand with another cabal therapy. I know I cannot win next turn, and on his next turn I'm guaranteed to die, so I concede.
A bit disappointed in losing a matchup where I really should be favored, but, shit happens, can't expect to win every time.

3-1

Round 5: Death and taxes 2-0

By now I'm starting to get really hungry, it's around 3 in the afternoon, I haven't eaten anything since breakfast around 7, and the rounds have gone on for long enough that I haven't been able to run off to get something. Note to self: bring a sandwich or a fruit or anything next time.
I sit down across from someone I recoginize as having judged at large events like PTQ's, WMCQ's and GP stockholm before. I have absolutely no clue on what he might be playing though. I win the die roll, and then a couple of seconds later, a judge comes over and informs us that we have been selected for a deck check. I sigh a bit as I just wanted this round to be over quickly so I could get something to eat, but it doesn't take that long. We get a time extension and we start playing, both keeping seven.
My opening hand is: fetchland, ponder, brainstorm, cabal ritual, cabal therapy, infernal tutor, lion's eye diamond. Not bad at all. I start off by fetching an island and pondering, seeing underground sea, cabal ritual, duress. Again, not bad. I draw the land and pass the turn over to my opponent. He goes plains, aether vial and passes. I quickly do the math in my head as I draw the cabal ritual for my turn, realizing that I do indeed have enough mana to tutor up and play ad nauseam with no mana floating from 19 life. I flip a lot of petals rituals to start, so now all I need is a win condition, but it just doesn't want to come. I start to get worried as there still is no tutor or lion's eye diamond however, and then at 9 life, I flip a grim tutor, going down to 6. I immediately stop, play all the petals and rituals, before playing grim tutor, going down to 3, and finding tendrils.

-3 duress
-1 preordain
+2 chain of vapor
+2 dread of night

Game 2 my opponent mulligans down to six, while I keep on seven again. He leads with a plains and a passing of the turn. I don't exactly remember what my hand looked like, but it had a probe, a cabal therapy, one or cabal rituals rituals, ad nauseam as well as some amount of lands. I probe him to see plains, cavern of souls, serra avenger, phyrexian revoker and rest in peace. Because of the cabal rituals currently in my hand, I currently fear the rest in peace more than I do the revoker, so I therapy him for the rest in peace and pass it back. His turn is, as expected, another land followed by revoker on lion's eye diamond. I draw for my turn, and once again, the top of my deck provides me with just enough mana to go for an ad nauseam with no mana floating, so I decide to go for it. I end up going down all the way to 5 life, before stopping, not wanting to risk anything, and realizing that I have a more or less guaranteed kill next turn, so I play a petal, two LED's, and discard a bunch of lands at the end of my turn, my hand now containing: infernal tutor, cabal ritual, dark ritual, cabal therapy, brainstorm, dread of night, volcanic island. I figure there are very things he can do to stop me from setting up a kill next turn, and again, as expected, he hits me down to 3 with his revoker and plays a stoneforge mystic to get sword of fire and ice. I draw for my turn and see another cabal therapy. I think for a while if there's any way I can play around a mindbreak trap without having to brainstorm and risk not being able to go hellbent, but conclude that I'm a mana short, so I end up plaing my rituals, therapying myself for brainstorm and dread of night, followed by tutor into past in flames loop into kill.
Very happy with how quickly this round was over, I go over to a friend and see him and his quirion ranger looking at about 15 cards revealed off an ad nauseam. Well, shit. I ask if he wants me to get anything while I'm buying food, and he nods. About 10 minutes later, I get back to find out that he, unsurprsingly, lost that round.

4-1

Round 6: Shardless BUG 2-0

Before this round started, we got to see the standings. I was 6th, meaning if I were to win this round, I would very, very likely be able to draw into the top 8.
This player was another one I recoginized, I had been sitting next to him the past two rounds, so I knew for sure that he was on shardless BUG, with a white splash for meddling mage out of the sideboard. Despite this splash however, I feel pretty confident in this matchup since they're usually pretty slow, giving you plenty of time to setup, and the only permission they bring is usually some force of wills and hymn to tourachs, sometimes not even a full playset of either.
I'm pretty sure he won the die roll, but I'm not 100% certain. What I do remember is that we both went to six, and that I probed him on my first turn to see a hand of abrupt decay, dig through time, force of will and hymn to tourach, with his turn one playing being bayou into deathrite shaman. So, he's pretty reliant on me fetching, or him drawing another land to do much of anything. Luckily for me, my opening hand had an underground sea, so I didn't need to fetch to cast spells. Then, to be safe, I therapied away his hymn on my first turn. He proceeds to brick on lands for another couple of turns, while I cantrip and discard away his hand, and by the time he hits a fetchland to play shardless agent, cascading into another deathrite shaman, I've assembled a hand that is more than enough to kill him with.

-2 preordain
-1 gitaxian probe
+2 chain of vapor
+1 sensei's divining top

Game 2 is a lot closer, my starting hand had a lot of lands, ponder, brainstorm and dark ritual, so while it's a bit clunky, I figured it's probably good enough vs shardless BUG. He again has deathrite turn 1, while I draw a lotus petal, play a delta and ponder, which I believe I shuffle with, which ends up with me drawing a cabal ritual. On his turn two, he hymns me, unfortunately, his hymn hit both of my rituals, severely slowing me down. He then passes the turn back. Things aren't looking too great anymore, but I manage to brainstorm into some more cantrips and get rid of a couple of lands, to allow me to sculpt a bit further. His next turn consists of wastelanding my underground sea, along with playing a liliana. Now it's starting to get really rough, but I just keep cantripping, looking for the sided in divining top in particular, since it's nothing short of amazing vs discard strategies. His next turn he just keeps putting things on the board, shardless agent cascading into tarmogoyf to put a clock on me while liliana keeps doing her thing. I'm starting to get to close to a winning hand however, and he doesn't seem to have any more discard spells, aside from the liliana. On his next turn, he hits me down to 4, makes me discard another card, and drops a jace, which he uses to brainstorm. So, I'm dead if I pass the turn, but I don't have a discard spell to protect my combo. Unfortunately I don't have a choice, so I go for a past in flames kill, simply hoping that he doesn't have it. Good thing for me, he doesn't, as I start to flashback my rituals, he shows me the two thoughtseizes he brainstormed into with jace, and extends the hand.

5-1

Round 7: Intentional draw

I am now 4th on standings, and am completely certain I'm a lock for top 8 if my opponent for this round wants to draw. He does, and so I get to take a break, go around and look at a couple of friends who maybe, possibly had a win and in for the top 8, if the tiebreakers worked their way. Unfortunately, none of them did, one of them ending up 9th on standings :(
But, oh well. On to the top 8.

Top 8, quarterfinals: UWR delver 0-2

Quite a bit later, the top 8 finally gets going, me #5 on standings. I'm paired against someone that I somehow haven't noticed around the top tables at all, so I guess he must've gotten a lot of his matches featured, leaving me unsure of what he's playing.
We shuffle up, I'm on the draw since my opponent was #4 on standings, we both keep seven, and start playing. His turn one is tundra into delver of secrets. Welp, guess I know exactly what my opponent is on now. On my turn I probe, seeing wasteland, swords to plowshares, lightning bolt, true name nemesis and daze, so not a very impressive hand. Unfortunately, my hand wasn't exactly great either, since I only had one land, and it being an underground sea. But, not doing anything isn't going to make the situation any better, so I play the underground sea and try to ponder, which he immediately dazes. I pass the turn back, and he fortunately doesn't get to flip his delver, but he does get to waste my sea. I take my turn and am gifted a basic island from the top of my deck, which lets me keep on digging, though my deck was a bit too generous with the lands. His next turn he still doesn't flip his delver, he does however find another delver, so I'm now getting beat down by two fugitive wizards, rather than just one. The awkwardness from both sides of me cantripping into tons and tons of lands, and him not managing to ever flip his delvers finally ends a few turns later though, as I ponder to see dark ritual, lion's eye diamond and polluted delta. This gives me two options, I can either use the ad nauseam I've picked up from all the cantripping this turn, with 0 mana floating from 12 life (though more like 9, because of the lightning bolt in his hand), or I can wait until next turn and go for a guaranteed kill through a past in flames loop, knowing that he doesn't have any countermagic for next turn. I do what any greedy player would, and I still stand by that this was the correct line, and decide to wait. On his upkeep, he reveals a lightning bolt to the delvers, causing them both to flip, followed by two bolts aimed at my face for the win. Well, fuck.

-2 preordain
-2 cabal ritual
-1 ad nauseam
+2 chain of vapor
+2 carpet of flowers
+1 empty the warrens

Game 2 I see a seven card hand that is capable of killing on turn 1 through force of will, problem is there's no lands, so I ship it back. Again, my six card hand doesn't have any lands, it does however have gitaxian probe, gitaxian probe, lotus petal, ponder, brainstorm and cabal therapy. I make the probably incorrect(?, I would love feedback on this) choice of keeping the hand, figuring that it'll be better than 5 random cards. Meanwhile, my opponent has kept seven. I probe him to see: polluted delta, tundra, stoneforge mystic, snapcaster mage, true name nemesis, ponder and swords to plowshares. I draw a card off the probe, and past in flames shows up to the party. Next probe turns up with a duress. I sigh a bit and play the lotus petal, crack it for blue and ponder, which shows carpet of flowers, cabal therapy and chain of vapor. Shuffle. Draw a cabal therapy. The next few turns consist of me drawing a couple of tutors and a dark ritual, before finally hitting a land, basic swamp. Meanwhile my opponent has gotten a flipped delver, a stoneforge mystic and a jitte into play, and despite having drawn the swamp, my hand still doesn't really do anything. I duress him, to see if I've still got a reason to not scoop, and he shows me the snapcaster, swords to plowshares, wear//tear and vendilion clique. I figure I might as well stick it out, he end step cliques me, and seems a bit surprised at the contents of my hand, and gives the comment: "Oh, wow. I see. After game one I thought you were probably on some sort of BUG list." He lets me keep the hand, and kills me in the following two turns. After the game he shows me what a mess his sideboarding for game two was, bringing in cards like wear//tear and pithing needle, since he really had no idea what to put me on, and we laugh for a bit. Before I pack up to get ready to leave, I wish him luck in the next round, and go to collect my prize, a judge promo sword of fire and ice. I stick around for a little bit longer, to cheer on some of my local players who were still alive in the tournament, including a crazy game between Jesper Holm on food chain and Nils Brolin on RUG delver, where the tumble side of rough//tumble was cast.

In the end, I'm satisfied with the tournament and how the deck performed, in the top 8 interview form I stated that I wouldn't change a single card if I were to play in another another tournament, which I stand by. I like the current configuration of the deck a lot, I do however think I need to playtest more against delver decks, since no one really plays them in my local meta.

Thanks a lot for reading, I hoped it was enjoyable even though I'm quite good at rambling and the formating might not be great. And who knows, if I get enough positive feedback, I might even write another one if I ever place well in a tournament again!

[JamieW89]

Congratulations, and nice report! Always good to read storm reports :)

[davelin]

Enjoyed the report immensely, congrats!

[paeng4983]

Very nice! ^_^