SCG Legacy IQ in Cincinnati with RG Lands

[gigapatrick]

Hello all. I got third place last night at the SCG Cincinnati Legacy IQ. It was a fun, exhausting experience. I took this list:

Main

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

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

Board

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Sphere of Resistance
4 Trinisphere
4 Krosan Grip
2 Choke
1 Boil

Notes on the list: I decided, for this tournament, to up the number of Punishing Fires in the main to four, and I’m glad I did. Grove plus Fire is simply a prison that many decks cannot get out of. In two or three rounds alone it took me to victory. Additionally, the Boil in the sideboard (which I never got to cast, unfortunately) should have been the third Choke, but I was unable to find a third at my local store and I refuse to purchase cards from SCG anymore, since they decided to diminish their Legacy coverage a million percent. If I want to play big Legacy events, I’ve still got to pay to enter the SCG IQs, but I never have to buy a single card from them again.

Additional thoughts: Though the tournament was short compared to some others I’ve played in (only seven rounds at one hundred twenty-three people), by the time I was playing in the quarterfinals match my mind was a fog. I’ll try to remember all pertinent details, but I may forget some of them. If you were involved in these matches, I apologize and welcome your corrections.

The Tournament

Swiss

Round One: Elves

Game One: I keep a really good hand of Punishing Fire, Mox, Loam, Exploration, and lands. Elves plays a turn one Deathrite, and I immediately rip a Grove of the Burnwillows off the top. I accelerate and kill his Deathrite with Fire, and Elves then plays a Nettle Sentinel, which dies. On his next turn, Elves plays a Deathrite and then Green Sun Zenith’s for a second Deathrite, hoping that I can’t kill both. I do, however, have the resources to kill both with one Fire. From there, Elves simply can’t build up his army and my Loaming yields Wastelands and the combo.

I board out: 1 Manabond, 1 Maze of Ith
I board in: 2 Trinisphere

Game Two: My initial seven is all lands and acceleration, but nothing of good utility. I ship it back for six, yielding me a grip of four non-utility lands and two Loams. Seems super super slow and likely to give my opponent a free win on turn three. I ship it back for five and see a loser hand of Crop Rotation, Wasteland, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, and Gamble. I keep, hoping to draw a green source to Crop Rote for Tabernacle. My opponent plays several dudes on his second turn but can’t quite go off, and on my second turn I topdeck Grove to Crop Rote for Tabernacle. This slows him down quite a bit, and my triple Wasteland draw (I see a third after the Grove) keeps him off of Cradle and Bayou. His creatures are gradually whittled down, and he plays a Sylvan Library. I draw into more lands and a Trinisphere, and a game that looked awful at the outset becomes unwinnable for my opponent. He scoops to an on board Trinsiphere, a Port on one his basic Forests, and Loam in the yard.

1-0

Sidenote: next to me the first round was another Lands player who was fighting Aggro Loam, and he was a character. Later he gave me some advice about playing against Telemin Performance, which apparently Saheen Soorani has been advocating as a board option for Lands. My Lands fellow said we’d have to play Phage the Untouchable in our board to combat it.

Round Two: Grixis Delver

Game One: Very textbook. Delver plays a Delver that gets Fired, another Delver that gets Fired, and a Gurmag Angler that gets lost in a maze. I assemble the combo at my leisure.

I board out: 1 Crop Rotation, 1 Manabond
I board in: 2 Choke

I debate this board plan in my head, thinking maybe that I should board in a Krosan Grip or two, but I decided that instead I’m just gonna get him with Choke.

Game Two: Delver plays a turn one Deathrite, and I stare at a decent hand of Exploration, Loam, lands, and a Punishing Fire. I lead with Exploration, which resolves, and then a second land. Delver untaps and plays a Wasteland alongside his Tropical Island. I figure now that he’s stuck on the Trop and doesn’t have the black to exile my Loam, so that’s what I cast. He Spell Pierces the Loam, which is why I opted for it instead of Fire (since I don’t have a Grove). He draws, doesn’t play a land, and passes. I Loam again, which gets Dazed. I can’t pay for the Daze because my other mana-producing lands are in the yard, not on board. He untaps, finds his black source, and exiles my Loam. Figuring he’s out of counterspells, I fire his Shaman, which resolves. From here, I topdeck Rotation and a combo piece, allowing me to kill him without ever resolving a Loam.

2-0

Round Three: Shardless Bug

Game One: I keep a clunky seven with four non-man producing lands, a Mox, a Crop Rote, and a Gamble. Michael (my opponent, who plays in my area) leads with Polluted Delta pass, and I play Mox (discarding one of three Dark Depths), then a Depths, and use Mox to Crop Rote the Depths into a Grove, and then I use the Grove to Gamble and find Loam. Michael plays a Tarmogoyf on his second turn, and on mine I return two Depths to hand and play a Maze of Ith. Michael plays a Shardless Agent on his third turn, which finds him a second Tarmogoyf. Ugh. I dredge Loam, see nothing good, and watch as Michael plays a turn four Jace. He brainstorms, I go to my turn knowing I’m probably toast, and can’t mount a defense in time to save me from his brawny army.

I board out: 2 Manabond
I board in: 2 Choke

Again, I debate adding a Krosan Grip but decide instead I’m just gonna get him with Choke.

Game Two: I lead with Mox and land into Loam, and Michael plays a land and passes. I Loam, add to my board, and pass. Michael plays a second land, one of which is a Savannah (so I’m reasonably sure he’s on the Meddling Mage splash), and then plays Tarmgoyf. I Loam, Waste his Savannah, and he bricks on land. He attacks, I Waste his Underground Sea, he attacks, and then I Loam Tabernacle. He scoops.

Game Three: Michael leads with basic Island, and I play Exploration. He plays a Scavenging Ooze after fetching for a Tropical Island, and I second turn Choke him. It resolves, he attacks for two, and then I assemble to combo.

3-0

Round Four: Infect (My opponent this round ended up in eighth place.)

Game One: I see a seven-grip of lands and accelerants, but no Loam or P-Fire. I ship, figuring that accelerating into nothing relevant isn’t good enough. My six-grip looks essentially like my seven-grip with one less card, so I figure I have to ship again. My five-grip looks like my seven-grip with two less cards and so green mana, so I keep. I do nothing relevant this game as my opponent whittles me down with a Blighted Agent getting a Noble Hierarch trigger.

I board out: nothing
I board in: nothing

To be honest, nothing in my board looks decent for Infect, as want I really want to do against them is accelerate into Punishing Fire.

Game Two: I keep a turn two combo hand, and on my second turn, while my opponent is tapped out, I make a token. He proceeds to untap and Crop Rote for a Karakas. He bounces the token, I take my turn and do nothing of interest, he untaps and plays Rest in Peace. Again I do nothing and he untaps and murders me with a Berserked creature.

After the match, we chitchat a second and he seems to think the matchup is in his favor (he said I have to get lucky to get game one). Maybe this is true, but whenever I talk to a Lands player, he seems to think it is in our favor. All I know is that this is the second time I’ve faced Infect and the second time I’ve gotten quonked by it.

3-1

Round Five: Storm

Game One: I do nothing as my opponent casts a Tendrils on turn two with a high storm count.

I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Maze of Ith, 1 Glacial Chasm, 3 Punishing Fire
I board in: 4 Trinisphere, 2 Sphere of Resistance, 1 Bojuka Bog

Game Two: I open a seven-grip of Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, and lands. Keep. I play a land and pass. He cantrips. I play a Sphere. He cantrips for two mana. I rip another Sphere and play it and that’s all she wrote. Waste and Port keep him from doing anything while I assemble the combo.

Game Three: I open a seven-grip with a Trinisphere but no accelerants. I reason that I can’t really mull this since I can’t expect to win without some type of Thorn in play. My opponent mulls to six, cantrips, cantrips, and I get to turn three with the Trinisphere still in my hand. I play it, he can’t find a third land, and Waste and Port take me home.

4-1

Round Six: Esper Stoneblade (My opponent this round ended up in eleventh place.)

Game One: I keep a good Exploration and Loam hand, and I don’t see much of my opponent’s deck before I make a witch token and kill him. He had white mana up, but I figured I had Loam going so I might as well make my opponent have the answer.

I board out: 2 Manabond
I board in: 2 Krosan Grip

Game Two: I do some Loam shenanigans on my first turn and my opponent casts Rest in Peace on his second turn. I have another Loam in hand and rip a Krosan Grip off the top. I Grip the peace, put Loam back in my yard, and after he casts a True-Name with white mana up, I make a witch since I have Loam going. He doesn’t have Swords to Plowshares and loses.

5-1

Round Seven: Burn

I’m in ninth place at this point and have to win this match to make top eight. If I do, I’ll be a reasonably high seed, as the top four spots get to ID into top eight with seventeen points each. I sit across from my opponent and say, Well, we’re ninth and tenth, so unfortunately we just have to try to crush each other. My opponent agrees and we proceed.

Game One: I keep a turn-two combo hand with Exploration, which is faster than my Burn opponent can handle. It didn’t help that he cast Price of Progress incorrectly, allowing me to make the token in response and only take two damgage.

I board out: 1 Maze of Ith, 2 Punishing Fire
I board in: 3 Trinisphere

Game Two: I keep a turn-three combo hand with Mox Diamond and hope that it is good enough. My opponent hits me down to nine life. On his fourth turn, with two mountains in play, he casts Price of Progress. I have to fetch, cast a Crop Rote, and make the token in response, which I do, putting me down to six from Price and the fetch. My life total is now out of range of his Fireblast, and I win. I don’t say this to him, but this match probably goes much differently if he casts Price correctly.

Top Eight

Quarterfinals: Death and Taxes

By this point, I’m pretty tired and I end up making a lot of mistakes in this match. On two or three occasions, I could have gotten rid of my opponent’s Mother of Runes but neglected to do so. I did not make proper use of Punishing Fire in this first game.

Game One: I’m top seed, so I lead off with land pass. My opponent casts an Aether Vial and eventually masses a small army of two Revokers and a Mom. My opponent doesn’t know what to name with Revoker though, so his first one names Top and the second one names Punishing Fire (which he can name but which doesn’t work). I get Loam going and when I have seven cards in hand, I Gamble for a Manabond. Unfortunately, I discard Manabond and get beaten down to ten life. A couple turns later I rip another Gamble and, with six card in hand, Gamble for a Manabond. This time I keep the Manabond and play it. From here, my fortress is so great that Death and Taxes can’t do much, but because I’ve messed up with Punishing Fire so much, I have to assemble a Glacial Chasm lock (the only time I’ve gotten to do this in tournament play, and boy is it fun). Eventually, behind the Chasm and several intricate labyrinths, I run my opponent out of resources and am able to kill him with a witch. All the other matchups have long since finished, and we’ve just reached the grindy end of our first game.

I board out: 2 Manabond, 1 Rishadan Port, 1 Crop Rotation
I board in: 4 Krosan Grip

I think about boarding in Karakas for Thalia, but reason that I’d rather just Fire it instead of losing out on another important land.

Game Two: I keep a hand with accelerants and Grove-Fire. Grove-Fire does massive work this game in keeping my opponent from running away with the game. Eventually, he finds an Enlightened Tutor and goes for Rest in Peace. His RIP takes away my Fire, but I’ve got a board of Tabernacle and three Mazes (one of which is a Thespian’s Stage), so I’ve got plenty of defense. I find a Grip, get rid of the RIP, and start to Loam again, but only a couple of turns later, my opponent finds his second RIP. Stalemate for a while. I get a bunch of Fires in my hand, and my opponent can’t do much between Tabernacle and the Mazes. He finds a Wasteland for the Tabernacle so he can keep developing his board, but then I find my second Grip so I can get Grove-Fire going again. We stare at each other for a while as I don’t have the combo but he can’t get past Fire or Maze. When I do see the combo, I go for it on my turn, reasoning that I can’t beat Swords or Karakas either way but can beat Wasteland if I go for the combo now. I forget that Flickerwisp is an answer too, and that’s what my opponent does on his turn. I shake my head at this dumb mistake and trudge on. The crucial play of this game is my opponent’s Cataclysm, which lets me keep a Grove, a Mox, and an Exploration. My opponent, however, in my opinion misplays, choosing to keep a Sword of Fire and Ice over an Aether Vial ticked up to three and to not to Wasteland my Grove, instead preferring to keep it and a Plains that he plays as his land for turn after the Cataclysm. He plays a Stoneforge with his two lands, I immediately rip a Loam off the top, and build my board back up in zero time. From here, my opponent is severely crippled and can’t combat a witch token.

Semifinals: Omnitell

Game One: My opponent cantrips for a bit, can’t seem to find a piece of his combo, and looks a little worried when I put down my own combo on the board. After cantripping a couple times the turn before he would have died, my opponent goes Show into Omniscience into Emrakul. I’m toast.

I board out: 2 Manabond, 4 Punishing Fire, 1 Life from the Loam, 3 Maze of Ith, 1 Glacial Chasm, 1 Tabernacle
I board in: 4 Trinisphere, 2 Sphere of Resistance, 3 Krosan Grip, 2 Choke, 1 Boil

Game Two: My opponent Git Probes me and sees a hand of Trinisphere and krosan grip and lands. I rip a second Trinisphere and play one to bait a Force and a Show and Tell. This is exactly what happens. My opponent casts Show, I lay down Trini and he puts Omniscience into play. I K-Grip the Omniscience on my turn, and assemble the combo a couple of turns later.

I board out: 1 Life from the Loam
I board in: 1 Krosan Grip

Game Three: With two Trinispheres in hand, I play one. It doesn’t get Forced, but we sit in stalemate for a while as my opponent is greatly slowed down and I can’t seem to locate my combo pieces. Eventually, I do find them and I go for it. He has Wipe Away and then he Surgicals my Thespian’s Stages. I then Loam back the Depths and try to manually tick down (forgetting to sometimes). I don’t get there before my opponent Shows in an Emrakul and I lose. Before I concede, I Gamble to make sure I didn’t board in my Karakas, which I stupidly didn’t. I think if I had, and with a little better play on my part, I might have gotten this game. For a long, long time I was sandbagging two Gambles in my hand, and I should, I think, have at least tried to Gamble for Choke. I might have won if I had.

In any case, that’s the report. Good enough for third place, a pin, a playmat, and a cash prize. Peace out.

[barcode]

Good report.

The infect match is decided in the first three or four turns. If the game goes past that turn lands will probably win, otherwise infect will probably win.

For Death and Taxes I prefer to board out a Wasteland instead of Rishadan Port. Port still has utility whereas Wasteland is more likely to be dead.

[Chatto]

Nice going! Looks like you made some good desicions, which also paid out! I usually take Thicket and Manabond out against DnT.

Regarding Phage: say what?

[philharmonika]

Notes on the list: I decided, for this tournament, to up the number of Punishing Fires in the main to four, and I’m glad I did. Grove plus Fire is simply a prison that many decks cannot get out of. In two or three rounds alone it took me to victory. Additionally, the Boil in the sideboard (which I never got to cast, unfortunately) should have been the third Choke, but I was unable to find a third at my local store and I refuse to purchase cards from SCG anymore, since they decided to diminish their Legacy coverage a million percent. If I want to play big Legacy events, I’ve still got to pay to enter the SCG IQs, but I never have to buy a single card from them again.

nice report !

wp!

and nice notes ;-)

[gigapatrick]

Nice going! Looks like you made some good desicions, which also paid out! I usually take Thicket and Manabond out against DnT.

Regarding Phage: say what?

So telemin performance mills the opponents deck until a creature is revealed. Normally we have no creatures and we lose. If however we board in phage the untouchable the opponent puts it into play off performance and loses.

[Holiday]

Nice report!

In your match-up against Burn, what would have been the correct way for your opponent to play Price of Progress?

[gigapatrick]

Nice report!

In your match-up against Burn, what would have been the correct way for your opponent to play Price of Progress?

Well, take this with a grain of salt as I'm not a Burn player, but I'm fairly certain he should have waited to cast Progress in response to me trying to make a token. I mean, I can't just sit there and not do it, so if he responds instead of casting it so that I can respond, I take a lot more damage.

[iamajellydonut]

Nice report!

In your match-up against Burn, what would have been the correct way for your opponent to play Price of Progress?

I would imagine the proper play would be to hold the Price of Progress in hand and cast it either in response to the Stage activation or whenever Patrick happens to be tapped out.

edit: dat 'nath.

[Chatto]

As a Burn-enthusiast I would say in in response of making a token. Much like in response of a Wasteland targetting your land.

@ Patrick: thanks for the explanation. Seems solid, but not sure if it's worth it.

[Rivfader]

Nice work Patrick, and thanks for the report!

[gigapatrick]

As a Burn-enthusiast I would say in in response of making a token. Much like in response of a Wasteland targetting your land.

@ Patrick: thanks for the explanation. Seems solid, but not sure if it's worth it.

Completely agreed. I'm not sure why a person would think boarding in a five-mana spell against us (even if it did win the game once resolved) would be a great plan, but the Lands player who suggested the whole scenario to me seemed insistent.

[ESG]

Later he gave me some advice about playing against Telemin Performance, which apparently Saheen Soorani has been advocating as a board option for Lands. My Lands fellow said we’d have to play Phage the Untouchable in our board to combat it.

This is the most hilarious piece of tech ever! Why get 'em with Choke when you can get 'em with Phage? I can't imagine a room so small that I would be boarding in a direct answer to Telemin Performance, but I love these next-level booby traps. Miles of style.

Congrats on your finish.