I begin our story by saying that this was only my second Grand Prix I've ever played in. My goal was pretty much to day 2 and go from there. I didn't have any byes going into the event, but I'm confident in my ability to beat random people in the first couple of rounds. We leave GA at about 7PM on Thursday because we stopped in Nashville for the night so we didn't have to do the whole 6 1/2 hour drive in one day, plus we wanted to feast upon dead pig. Ate a full rack of ribs and had a few beers at Peg Leg Porker and went back to the hotel room to watch "I Come in Peace" and "playtest". Get about 3 games of Need For Speed enchantress versus miracles in which I promptly lose every one while Zack, Matt and Sean have Enchantress, Enchantress, and UR Delver. Wake up in the morning and we drive the rest of the way to Louisville. On the way up I see that Surgical Extraction has spiked up to $25 as well. I get to the event hall and promptly buy each copy of Surgical I can for $10 and sit on them. After awhile I get bored and simply cash them out to vendors for break even. I'm a bad tax man. I jump into a 4 round event at 2 to attempt to win byes with Enchantress.
Round 1: Merfolk
Game 1: Zack was telling me he played enchantress drunk once and sat down and his opponent went island vial pass and he simply laughed because of how hilariously easy the match up is for enchantress. So my opponent did the same thing and I got a good chuckle on the inside. He gets a turn 2 chalice, but it doesn't matter. I get rolling and he eventually scoops to a Doomwake Giant.
Game 2: Goes fairly similarly. He has a slow chalice hand and I get rolling and crush him.
Round 2: Shardless BUG
I dont remember the games that well, I just know I lost both sideboard games because he had all of the forces and all of the lilianas for Enchantress.
I drop because everyone else is going back to hotel and getting ready to go out. We go out to a german place in the ghetto of Louisville and meet up with all of the Seattle, Chicago, and many other degenerates. I get fairly drunk, but get to try out 5 or 6 different beers and chugging a couple Strohs which were just absolutely vile. The bratwurst was fucking on point though. Brian and I go back to our hotel while the others participate in extracurricular activities. All I know was that one of the Atlanta people woke up with his hands smelling like Salmon.
Get to the venue the next morning after popping an Advil and I am pretty much ready to die. I put in a SoFaI and an Armageddon over a choke and Cabal Therapy in my sideboard, but I forgot to make the actual change on my decklist so I have to take them out. The list I played as follows:
4 Deathrite
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Mom
2 Pridemage
3 Thalia, GOT
2 Thalia, HTC
1 Scryb
1 Scooze
4 KOTR
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Stoneforge
1 Teeg
4 Swords
2 Decay
1 BSkull
1 Jitte
4 GSZ
1 Library
4 Windswept
3 Foothills
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Cradle
1 Rogues Passage
SB:
2 Macabre
1 Surgical
2 Choke
1 Scooze
1 Canonist
1 Pithing Needle
2 Duress
1 Therapy
1 Dromokas Command
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Zealous Persecution
I sit down for round 1 expecting some weird off the wall stuff and am surprised by net decks.
Round 1: Shardless BUG
The games are lost to memory because hangover, but I defeat him fairly easily despite him 2-for-1 me with a Deluge plus Ancestral because Mom is a good card and he drew all of the tarmogoyfs instead of answers.
1-0
Round 2: Deathblade
As my opponent shuffles I see a Deathrite and a Tundra and immediately know what I'm up against. Game 1 he goes land, brainstorm, pass. So I already know that I will be winning this match because my opponent doesn't know what he's doing. I crush him with triple Mom despite his 2 True Names. Game 2 I waste him off of mana and he wastes me, but I keep a dork around, find a land, green sun for Deathrite, and it snowballs from there to crush him as he doesn't find 3rd land.
2-0
Round 3: Painter
Nice guy coming off of byes. Round 1 he gets painter going but I have many answers in the form of STP, Pridemage, and Green Sun and have him cut on mana with a wasteland on his tomb and a Thalia out. Eventually despite him getting active welder I push through damage to win and keep him off of his combo. Game 2 he has fetch pass. I make a forest and deathrite. He turn 2 Moons me but it doesn't matter as I have plains in hand. He has a second moon but in the end it doesnt matter at all and I kill him quickly.
3-0
Round 4: Death and Taxes
I play against a nice guy who is also a Maverick player but is on DnT today. He mulls to not many cards and I roll him quickly. Game 2 he tries a quick stoneforge for jitte, but I have the STP, assemble my Jitte while he's tapped out, and ravage him. I know at one point jitte had 8 counters on it while I poked him for 1.
4-0
Round 5: Sneak and Show
Game 1 he has volc plus cantrip so I pretty much know he's on sneak and show. I have mom attacking, a dryad arbor, and another mom attacking but draw nothing but lands. He plays a Sneak attack and passes. I beat him for 3 until he dies despite him casting about 6 cantrips and never finding a fatty. Game 2 he has a quick moon and locks me out. Game 3 I duress his brainstorm, swords his lavamancer, have a dryad arbor, and never draw another spell in about 8 turns. #NoBrainstormLyfe
4-1
Round 6: Death and Taxes
I don't remember anything but the third game. He has vial but only 1 land and I'm feeling great. Put BSkull with Jitte. He vials in Crusader for the blowout, but it's all good. Then he takes over with Palace Jailer, plus being the monarch. He has Revoker on my Jitte, BSkull, Crusader, Moms, Serra Avenger, vial, lands and is the monarch. I top decked a Knight the turn before and put batterskull on it. He's at 13 and I'm at about 22, but I'm basically dead. I rip Scryb Ranger for the turn. Do some math. Attack with Knight with batterskull, before blocks, activate getting a fetch, fetch, flash in scryb ranger, untap knight, activate knight, get Rogue's Passage, make knight unblockable and watch my opponents face simply drop as I hit him for 15.
5-1
Round 7: Burn
Game 1 I have all of my basics, I get thalia out with jitte and I go to town. Game 2 He gets an Eidolon and I have an awkward but not terrible hand, it just cant beat a Price of Progress. In response to the second Eidolon, I cast Dromokas Command making him sacrifice an enchantment. I didn't know that with that card though you get to choose two abilities. Wow this card is awesome. So a ten minute judge call laer, I get a warning, I put a +1+1 counter on his eidolon then have him sacrifice it. I kill the other one with Pridemage while he pokes me for 1 with Swiftspear and then get jitte going and he dies.
6-1
Round 8: Sneak and Show
He's on the play. Volcanic, Ponder, shuffle, I see his hand a bit and he drew Griselbrand. I take a chance. Wasteland his Volcanic. He proceeds to not cast a spell for the rest of the game. Game 2, similar affair. Thalia (both of them) plus eventually a Teeg comes out and he dies quickly.
The venue was pretty terrible in terms of bathrooms, so because I finally finished a round early I got to use the restroom. It was pretty miserable with only 6 stalls in the entire place for 2000+ people.
7-1
Round 9: Greedy 4 color Leovold pile
I get demolished by Trop, USea, Deathrite cast KCommand on my mana dork and make me discard a card. complete misery. Game 2 I sneak a game in because Mom is a good card and Scooze keeps him off of Deathrites or ever having 2 cards in the graveyard with a red source open for his lavamancer. That was a tricky game. In response to his fetches I would eat the fetch out of his yard before he could get a red source to activate. Game 3 I get run over by painful truths plus about every removal spell in the format.
7-2
Sick. Had a really good run despite not having byes. Hoping for a good day 2, but I accomplished what I came to do. We hit up a pizza place and they only have 1 waitress working so it takes awhile, but I get a beer plus solid pizza in as a prize.
Day 2:
Round 10: Belcher
Game 1 he makes 16 goblins so I simply scoop without showing him any cards. He boards in Pyroblast which is sweet, and I duress his Belcher, make many hate bears, and crush him. Game 3 he mulls to 6, passes. I top deck needle like a champ, name belcher. He makes 12 goblins. I had Zealous Persecution in my hand the whole time for the blowout.
8-2
Round 11: Greedy 4 Color Leovold True Name pile.
Game 1 he runs me over with a True name fairly quickly because I have no way to interact with that piece of shit.
Game 2 he puts jitte on a delver, attacks, gets stonewalled by Scryb Ranger and I begin taking over the game, but he assembles 2 True Names and can now connect with Jitte and I get rolled as I misplay to attempt to hit him for exactsies by Diabolic Edict.
8-3
Round 12: Sneak and Show
I draw stoneforges game 1 and get rolled because I drew stoneforges and lands the whole game. Game 2 I get new thalia down quickly, choke him, mind game him with a needle and get to name scalding tarn after he said resolves, and I run him over. Game 3 I mull to 5, keep it on merit of a Teeg, whiff on Cabal Therapy, and die to Pyroclasm.
8-4 Drop
I'm out of contention for anything and am pretty miserable at this point wondering why any man would travel great distances to play in a 15 round event without 4 Brainstorm in his deck. The tournament was fun overall, and the deck felt great, but that will probably be my last GP as it's pretty awful to go 12-3 and get nothing and my deck pooped on me a couple of times and I didn't have the unmulliganer card to dig out of it. Get home about 11PM and find my car with a 10 foot radius of ice around it. Takes about an hour but we finally hoe off the off and shovel my car out. That was a pretty good way to end the trip.
There were actually a lot of bathrooms. The big one out front, one next to the cheesesteak stands, one in front of the side event registration, and one behind the side event reg. Maybe one more. Those last two were pretty much empty the whole weekend, but I guess the main event players didn't venture out into that area.The venue was pretty terrible in terms of bathrooms, so because I finally finished a round early I got to use the restroom. It was pretty miserable with only 6 stalls in the entire place for 2000+ people.
Also, I think I heard 11-4 prized out, but might be mistaken.
I only knew of the three, two in the lobby, one by cheese steak area. Venue kind of sucked overall. The chairs day two were pieces of shit in particular. I know a guy from Atlanta finished 10-2-3 and got 66th. So that's basically 11-4 points wise. Yeah I'm not going to grind those last three rounds to get defeated by more brainstorms and be salty and get home even later for the outside chance of getting a bit of money
x-4 is all the way down to 112th place, looks like only 15 x-4s made it into top 64 on breakers.
Tusk up.
(Not so) Current Decks: GB Elves, GW Maverick, GWb Maverick, LED Dredge, ANT, TES, Jund Storm.
Excellent report and nice run. What'd you think of Duress > Thoughtseize? I'm sketching out my Maverick board and will take whatever opportunity I can get to play 7th Edition whitebordered cards.
Duress because not often I want to take creatures and it's something I can bring in against burn. Which I expected to play against burn at least once since I had no byes. Therapy was probably wrong, but I wanted a third discard spell and decided to try it. The downside to duress is that there's a non zero chance you want thought seize against stone forge decks and duress is bad too bring in against them. Dunno. I want to go back to a 4 discard spell deck. Might try out some rock list with rhinos
Jesus, we drove 13 hours in one shot. Jelly.we didn't have to do the whole 6 1/2 hour drive in one day
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
Founding member of Team Scrubbad: Legacy Legends
Sick run. Maybe you should just take 4 random spells out of your deck and add a Tundra and a Trop and play Brainstorm x 4 .... VOILA DECK TO BEAT!
I hope it never matter that you didn't have the Hierarch I forgot to loan you at german dinner the night before.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
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