The man with the gun: TOP 4 @ GRAND PRIX KYOTO
Dear Reader,
My name is Kai Sawatari (Thiele), Top 4 competitor of Legacy Grand Prix Kyoto 2015.
I'm now 23 years old and a “Jerman”. Yes, that's how you call people who are half German, half Japanese. I was born in Tokyo and lived there for the first 5 years of my life. Then my family moved to Germany and more specifically to Regensburg, which is in Bavaria. During secondary school I got my first magic cards from older students and I started to play casual magic. As you all know, these ridiculous games during teenage years where everyone just slams gigantic monsters on the battlefield because these creatures were considered the most powerful cards. What a time this was! When we moved to Berlin during 2009, I got into Legacy. This format is a very expensive but challenging, which is why I fell in love with it. After starting with decks like RUG Delver, UG Madness and Miracle Control, Carsten Kotter introduced me to a deck which has gotten my entire attention until now, Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT).
He told me that ANT is one of the most difficult decks to play in Legacy, but once you have mastered the deck, you will become unstoppable. He was right. There is a reason why you always see the same storm players finishing with good results. The deck has the power to kill on turn 1-2 with protection, but it is also able to grind a longer game which is important against decks with countermagic. This makes the deck so powerful.
I remember the first 3 months playing the deck and getting crushed by decks with no countermagic or discard. I got wrecked during this time and while there was the feeling of frustration, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Carsten told me to be patient, that there would be the day when everything would turn out for the best.
This day was the 19th of April 2015.
I had gathered as much experience with Storm as possible for 3 years while having many decent finishes, most notably my victory at Prague Eternal 2014, 17th at Bazaar of Moxen 2014 and Top 4 at Hareruya Legacy Championship. There were even times when I played “The Epic Storm” or “Ad Nauseam Tendrils” with exotic sideboard cards like Young Pyromancer.
Grand Prix Kyoto 2015
I moved to Tokyo 2 months ago to work at TokyoMTG. Currently I work with an awesome team on coverage work, international shipping and judging.
We went to Kyoto the Thursday before the GP and were able to met a lot of friends at the event.
Friday was my working day. Besides our booth, I did some coverage for the Grand Prix Kyoto side event “TokyoMTG Vintage Open”. I also did some other videos including deck techs for Legacy and I will upload the videos soon.
Saturday was the big day, Day 1 of the Legacy main event. After some metagame discussion with my friends in Tokyo, I tuned my deck against the top tier 1 decks in Japan: Omnitell, Grixis Delver, Miracle Control, Jeskai Stoneblade, and Elves.
Kai Sawatari
“The Machine Gun by Team TokyoMTG” – Top 4 Grand Prix Kyoto 2015
Sorcery (23)
4*Gitaxian Probe
4*Ponder
3*Cabal Therapy
3*Duress
2*Preordain
4*Infernal Tutor
2*Past in Flames
1*Tendrils of Agony
Instant (14)
4*Brainstorm
4*Dark Ritual
1*Rain of Filth
4*Cabal Ritual
1*Ad Nauseam
Artifact (8)
4*Lion's Eye Diamond
4*Lotus Petal
Land (15)
1*Island
1*Swamp
2*Underground Sea
1*Tropical Island
1*Volcanic Island
1*Bayou
4*Misty Rainforest
3*Polluted Delta
1*Flooded Strand
Sideboard (15)
2*Xantid Swarm
3*Dread of Night
2*Chain of Vapor
2*Flusterstorm
4*Abrupt Decay*
1*Krosan Grip
1*Empty the Warrens
There are 2 things I would like to point out here. As many of you have already mentioned, I only play 3 Polluted Deltas. Yes, this is not a typing error. I was simply not able to find a 4th Onslaught Foil Polluted Delta before the GP and I refuse to play nonfoil cards that don't match, so I had to
go with an Onlsaught Foil Flooded Strand instead
Secondly, Rain of Filth should get more attention. This card won me so many games because it's basically Dark Ritual #5, which also enables fast threshold for Cabal Rituals. I almost want a second copy, but having two of them in your hand sucks of course.
I have been really satisfied with my maindeck, although I think that Ad Nauseam in the maindeck is unnecessary since you almost always win game one with past in flames or tutor chain.
The special card in my sideboard is Flusterstorm. Remember that there is a game even before we combo off, so preventing our opponent from killing us before we do is crucial.
Flusterstorm is a great tool to fight discard decks and dig through time decks as well.
Sometimes you can also defend your first rituals while comboing off.
Starting with 2 Byes I earned from the GP Trial in Kawasaki, I pushed through Day 1, defeating Esperstoneblade, Lands, Omnitell, Bug Delver, Jeskai Delver and Esper Blade.
In round 6, I lost against Kusakabe Kyouhei, who is one of the best Miracle Control pilots in Tokyo.
With an 80 record on Day 1, I went back to our hotel with the rest of our TokyoMTG crew.
My friend Winston Liao also did a good job with his Bug Vengevine Madness deck. There was a time when we both played this deck in Tokyo.
Day 2
I did not get enough sleep during the entire weekend because as a store we are the first ones who get in the event hall in the morning and the last ones who leave in the evening. This said, I was kinda sleepy when I sat down for the player meeting. This changed immediately when round 10 got announced. I got paired against Platinum Pro Player Kentarou Yamamoto who was on Omnitell.
Both games were really intense. During G2 Yamamoto resolved a Show and Tell, but luckily it was only an Emrakul, so I got another turn for the victory.
90
Now things went worse. My Round 11 opponent Murakami Kazuya played an interesting Stoneforge Mystic + Monastery Mentor deck with Counterbalance but also Daze alongside Force of Will. He already knew that I was on Storm, so he mulliganed pretty aggressively on G1 and established the Counter-top-lock on Turn 2 with an blind cc2 on Top.
G2 was nearly the same except for him having an additional Meddling Mage naming Abrupt Decay.
I had two abrupt decays in my hand...
90
Round 12 was a funny one. I opened with Gitaxian Probe and saw 3 lands, 1 Jace the Mind Sculptor , 2 Nissa,Worldwaker and 1 Cabal Therapy. Then I cast Dark Ritual.
It is nearly impossible to lose against Nic Fit if they don't have Glen Elendra Archmage because even if they have discard and countermagic, they are not able to kill you fast enough. You will have enough time to gather a new winning hand.
100
I sat down and somehow my gut told me that my opponent was on a combo deck. Maybe belcher or the mirror match. I mulliganed to a hand without lands but a pretty fast kill if I hit one. Well, I was wrong.
He was on RUG Delver and my only fetchland I drew on turn 3 got stifled away.
On G2, he kept a hand without lands but 2 active Force of Wills. Don't do this kids !
I got infinite time to setup a hand with triple protection on turn 10 when he finally got 2 lands down but still no clock. With only a few minutes left on the clock, we rushed for game 3 with him laying down Delver followed by Tarmogoyf, while I got both my basic Island and Swamp out.
On the very last turn, I topdecked Rain of Filth, which produced 5 black mana on it's own, so that won me the game with Past in Flames and Tutor waiting in my hand.
RUG Delver is maybe the easiest Delverdeck matchup among all Delver strategies just because they can't interact with your graveyard or hand.
110
“The feature match for round 14 is table 6: “Kai Sawatari vs. Yuki Nimura” was the announcement.
You can see the written coverage here: http://coverage.mtg-jp.com/gpkyo15/article/014836/
120
After round 14, I saw my name on the standing sheet at 7th place with 36 points. Since there were also other players with the same record, there was no chance to ID for Top8. Let's go for the Win and In for the Top 8 !
I sat down at table 4 and faced a guy who made Top8 at the Big Magic Open tournament last month in Yokohama. I knew he was on Grixisdelver, so I expected to face some kind of a tempoish Deck with a ton of countermagic and discard.
Both games he kept a hand without a clock but had disruption and cantrips.
I was able to finish him off both games on turn 2 before he was even able to cast his cantrips because he was holding spell pierces and pyroblasts instead.
Victory and my first Top 8 in a Legacy Grand Prix!
At this point I cried a little for joy...<3
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Here you see the Top 8 profiles:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...ers-2015-04-19
http://coverage.mtg-jp.com/gpkyo15/article/014839/
Here you see the Top 8 decklists:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpkyo15
Quarter Final
Here is the written coverage in English and Japanese:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...aga-2015-04-19
http://coverage.mtg-jp.com/gpkyo15/article/014842/
Semi Final
Here is the written coverage in English and Japanese:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...ami-2015-04-19
http://coverage.mtg-jp.com/gpkyo15/article/014846/
Here is the Video coverage, enjoy (50:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aass...sMay3S&index=5
There was even a turn in Game 2 when I was able to win when my opponent had only Force of Will and two lands in hand while having a Ponder (1) on top of his library. But comboing off without any information about my opponent's hand is, as you know, out of discussion especially if he is on a control deck.
It is kind of unfortunate that I lost all my rounds to counterbalance decks during the Grand Prix although they are still beatable.
This means Top 4 @ Grand Prix Kyoto among 1943 Players summed up in one word: awesome :D
Special thanks to:
Carsten Kotter who taught me how to play Storm in Legacy 3 years ago. He also commented on it in his most recent article on Star City Games: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...Spotlight.html
TokyoMTG.com , I really enjoy my time at work.
The tournament organizers and the Head judge Ricardo Tessitory.
All my friends in Europe (especially Germany) and Japan who cheered at me the entire weekend. Starting with Luca Bruno, Robert Swicki, Matteo Defant, Eike J, Jonathan Alexander Kurz,Tobias Maucher, Winston Liao, Claudio Bonanni, Johannes Gutbrod, Tani Levi, Elmar Poschet, Julian Knab, Thomas Vlcek, Thomas Mar, Martin Nielsen, Martin Vonnasek, Stefan Schuetz, Justin Robb, Chris van Dell, Ryuichi Suzuki, Nobuo Saito, Rodrigo Togores, Kalim Oldziey, Rafael Lagasca, Brent Boehner, Heiko Sonoda, Malte Milbrandt and many more. Guys, you are the best !
So thanks for reading and let's meet in the future at the Legacy Grand Prix or the Pro Tour, both coming up in July this year.
Kai Sawatari
Last edited by sawatarix; 04-24-2015 at 08:49 AM.
Forged in the fires of Germany Legacy, a man and his tentacles travel to Japan to rise above the competition!
Man, I am really so incredibly happy for you! I just really like when nice guys do well in Magic When you picked up your 2nd loss in Day2 I was first really worried but then immensly impressed at how you just pulled through and ended up in the Top8! Your whole story really sounds like a fairy tale come true. Btw, which PT did you qualify for?
Let's celebrate in Lille! :-)
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Kai aka the machine gun. Extremely happy to see what you've achieved after years of hard work.
GG buddy!
Already congratualtes you a lot, but one more timemis never wrong.
Really good job, hope you keep storming them to dead!
Lets see when I get time to see your videos and how you headshot everyone.
Mfg
Gratz man, and nice report :).
Hopefully a repeat in Lille ^^
37th GP Ams'11 | 80th GP Stras '13 | 5th BoM Paris '13 | 12th GP Lille '15
Awesome result! The man with the gun strikes again.
WantToPonder
former: Team SpasticalAction & Team RugStar Berlin
Team MTG Berlin
The Dragonstorm
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...he-Dragonstorm
Good report and well deserved finish, keep it up! Looking forward to seeing what kind of tech you'll bring to lille.
Good job bro!!!!!
Next time we must make a GP top8 with grixstill!!!!
Woo! I'm glad you decided not to try out Miracles or whatever other crap you toyed with.
p.s. Most of your links are broken. For example, "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aass...sMay3S&index=5" takes you exactly where it says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aass...sMay3S&index=5
Congrats on your well-deserved result. As a storm-aficionado, just curious on your sideboard/card choices and when you brought them in -
Flusterstorm - brought in against other combo decks, perhaps Delver to combat Stifle or discard?
Empty - also brought in against Delver, swap with Ad Nauseum in those matchups?
Ad Naus - left in G2 and 3 against other combo decks, discard decks and Miracles?
Congratulations again for your well deserved top finish. It really is a shame that you live so far abroad now, with the time lag, we can't even Skype-Test anymore :D
Greetings Johannes
Dedication pays off. Good job.
Congratulations! Well done Sir!
Great show.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Congratulations on your finish!
Would you mind sharing you BUG Vengevine deck?
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