MKM Frankfurt Top 8 with Grim Storm

[CabalTherapy]

MKM Frankfurt Top 8 with Grim Storm

http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/cov...acy/#top8decks

What a weekend. I am sitting here at home again thinking about how to start my report and the most important thing that comes to my mind is to thank you guys first. Big thanks to my friends Andy the Driver and Jan the Expert with whom I shared the car with. Also I wouldn’t ever forget my good friend Sloshthedark who is a constant source of inspiration regarding new ways of playing storm, JPA, Big D. and Basti for being awesome people as usual and supporting me during that exciting day, and all my other mtg friends who have congratulated me at the site or via message. The list would go and and on but be sure that I had you in mind when writing this.

We gathered at Andy’s working place on Friday afternoon and drove around six hours to Frankfurt listening to a mix of classy and trashy music. Our hotel was quite decent but usually I don’t care as long as there is a bed, a shower, and a fridge where I can store my energy drinks. Since Andy decided to play modern on Saturday which started at 10 and I was going to play the Legacy trial at 14, I had some time going to the supermarket, resleeving my deck, and watch TV. The trial got relocated to a bigger local game shop because they wanted to make room for the modern main event. Luckily it was only 1km away and so I could walk there alone easily without struggling with public transportation. Slosh arrived as well and we talked about the deck and the low price pay out of the site event and I felt less inclined participating; even more so because I wasn’t happy with my list. Nonetheless I went for it. 114 meant 7 rounds without top8. I won’t be going into details here but I made some mistakes and I my feeling for the deck was gone.

0:2 ANT
1:2 Elves
Bye
0:2 ANT

At least I was able to leave earlier and joined Slosh and his friends for dinner.
Later in the hotel I resleeved my deck once again and watched Klitschko got knocked out; everything but mtg was enjoyable. I have decided to run my 2015 main set up again not caring about a new meta. It is the list I am most comfortable with and at least for me a proven one.

The main event started on time with around 440 players. I am not able to provide my boarding plans because I don’t have anything set. Let’s dive into my MUs.

Round 1 Manaless Dredge 2:0
Alright. An easy one as a starter. He wins the roll and wants me to start. I keep a hand accordingly to this MU, discard his bridge, and basically timewalking into a turn3 Pif loop. In game 2, he shows me Chancellor and I pay for my Petal tapping my land. I only have Brainstorm and a couple of rituals in hand and fail to find anything relevant for the next two turns but his deck refuses to kill me and so I get to draw an Infernal Tutor in my last turn possible. He shoals one of my Cabal Rituals and realizes that I only had the tutor as a business spell.
1-0

Round 2 RUG Delver 2:0
We are the lucky ones for the deck check and after 15 minutes we are finally good to go. I start and see his hand with Stifle but no FoW and draw into a Pif loop on my turn 1. He starts with a Delver on his turn 1 in the following game but I fatally push him and he is unable to find another threat for some turns. I only play draw>go and when a delved monkey hits me for 4, I decide that it’s time to make a move. Funny enough he thinks the same and plays Extraction on my Cabal Therapy. I show him my hand, present my deck, but he only writes down the cards in my hand and refuses to take out the Cabal Therapy out of my graveyard and deck (thanks to Slosh for making me aware of this kind of play). He realizes it in my main phase but it’s too late and we have a judge sitting next to us. I have a lethal Toa line from hand for him in that turn discarding a Spell Snare and Stifle.
2-0

Round 3 Jund 2:0
My opponent was a nice guy and I only realized after the match that he hasn’t played a single spell in both games. I have a turn 2 kill after seeing Badlands and his hand in game 1. He mulligans to 5 in the next one and I kill him on my third turn I think making 14 dudes.
3-0

Round 4 BUG Control 2:0
I can’t really remember this round because it was over rather fast as well. I think I discard him on my third turn and have to go with Ad Nauseam into some pretty good flips in game 1 involving a glorious appearance of Grim Tutor. I haven’t seen much of his deck but and I put him on some BUG(x) brew. In the next one I keep a heavy discard hand, pushing his Deathrite, and leaving him empty handed with two Surgicals which do nothing against my Goblins.
4-0

Round 5 Esperdeathblade 2:1
I keep a sketchy hand with only Petal as the only mana source but good potential for a fast kill because my opponent shows me a Stoneforge Mystic while shuffling and has a white deck box. Understandably I am surprised seeing him play Tropical > Shaman. At some point I am able to resolve an Ad Nauseam from 9 life but it’s just not good enough. In the next game he discards my only Tendrils and plays Rest in Peace which leaves Empty the Warrens to be my single win possible and because he struggles to find a real clock I am lucky enough to draw into it and make 12 Goblins which overwhelm his board. He starts discarding me in game 3 and plays a Shaman. We doesn’t do much damage though and his only relevant card is Surgical which let’s me go for another Empty; this time for 14 guys which are enough to win the match.
5-0

Round 6 BUG Foodchain 1:2
I recognize my opponent as a regular grinder of Legacy events but I have no clue what he is playing. Since he usually plays well-positioned decks I put him on SneakShow, which seems to be a decent choice to casually go 5-0 without any real obstacles. He starts, plays Island and passes. My hand isn’t the fastest so I decide to not discard him or play GP but rather go for Tropical>go. He fetches for a Swamp and plays Baleful Strix. At least now I know that he is on some kind of BUG(x) deck. Nevertheless, I still need some pieces of the puzzle in my hand and go for a Grim Tutor on my third turn which gets answered by a fourth turn kill via Foodchain and Ballista. The next game is interesting because he starts discarding me a bit but doesn’t have any relevant plays on his own. Then a wild Chalice on 1 appears and I find my Empty and play it for 6 Goblins which are enough because he lost 10 life all by himself. My third game starts with a mulligan to 5 and he discards my only cantrip leaving me depending on the mercy of my topdecks which are slightly too weak to be able to start a come back.
5-1

Round 7 DarkBantblade 2:1
I have a turn 2 or 3 kill against his weak hand with only one FoW. In the second game I make a mistake thinking about a line that is doomed to fail sequencing my spells not good enough and eventually die to a bad Ad Nauseam. The deciding game is much more exciting as he plays Meddling Mage on Infernal Tutor equipping it with Sword of Fire and Ice. In my last turn possible I start a Pif loop with only cantrips in my graveyard and find the Tendrils on top of my deck. I still had Fatal Push active so even an Infernal Tutor would have been a good draw.
6-1

Round 8 BUG Foodchain 2:0
Foodchain once again but this time I have a delicious turn 2 kill protected with a Duress in game 1. Game 2 starts with a Thoughtseize taking my Tutor. My hand doesn’t develop well enough and he has a Leovold that I have to destroy using a Decay. Fortunately for me he makes a small misplay not countering a ritual after he forced my first one and I am able to Toa him from hand for a lethal amount.
7-1

Round 9 SneakShow 2:1
My opponent plays Tarn and passes. I look at his hand with a GP and have a turn 1 kill ready for him. He comments on my luck and I can’t resist to tell him that he shouldn’t be too angry because he plays SneakShow and that it’s also a deck well-known for fast and stupid wins. In the next game I am stuck on one land and he develops his position till the point when he gets to cast Cunning Wish for Through the Breach sneaking in Emrakul. A couple of turns later he finds another kill with me having to discard to hand size. The deciding match is defined by my first turn Ponder. I have a great hand and see Dark Ritual and two Cabal Rituals. I know if he let’s a ritual resolve next turn I will win most likely. I decide to go for it. Keep the Ponder and hope he doesn’t have a turn 1 play on his own. He only plays Ponder though letting my Ritual resolve the following turn. I therapy him for Force, which he has, and then proceed to make my final Pif loop in the swiss.
8-1

Round 10 ID with SneakShow into 7th place.
8-1-1

Top8 Grixis Delver 1:2
I haven’t seen this guy and don’t know what he is playing. Therefore I keep a rather weak hand against him and eventually lose to him not using his counterspells and not stifling my fetchlands. He was quite chatty and visibly satisfied with his performance during that day. I win game 2 with Ad Nauseam and lose the next one to Therapies and a fast clock.

Luckily we split the top8 so my loss wasn’t of too much importance since I don’t care about the MKM points for this year’s super finals.
One thing that really pissed me off was the sturdy handling of the price payout by MKM and their organizer JK; both stating that Wizards doesn’t want them to have split prices, which is completely senseless because it’s common practice to split when there is a lot of money involved. They only had preconstructed vouchers and we had to find a way to buy coupons on MKM (some guy casually had 1400E on his account there) and then redeem them on our accounts. Quite a chaos and when the head judge told us to slowly leave the hall I repeated that it’s their fault and that I won’t go outside in the dark, thrown out of the site, to have my price voucher redeemed on my account. Eventually, lights went off and the janitor had to close the hall which was a bad move to have the players split their vouchers in the dark in front of the hall.

[Chatto]

First of all, congrats! Second, what? Did the organisation really do such a thing? That is really messed up...

[CptHaddock]

Luckily we split the top8 so my loss wasn’t of too much importance since I don’t care about the MKM points for this year’s super finals.
One thing that really pissed me off was the sturdy handling of the price payout by MKM and their organizer JK; both stating that Wizards doesn’t want them to have split prices, which is completely senseless because it’s common practice to split when there is a lot of money involved. They only had preconstructed vouchers and we had to find a way to buy coupons on MKM (some guy casually had 1400E on his account there) and then redeem them on our accounts. Quite a chaos and when the head judge told us to slowly leave the hall I repeated that it’s their fault and that I won’t go outside in the dark, thrown out of the site, to have my price voucher redeemed on my account. Eventually, lights went off and the janitor had to close the hall which was a bad move to have the players split their vouchers in the dark in front of the hall.

Woah what? So you guys ended up getting paid in Bison bucks rather than actual money?

[Sloshthedark]

Congrats! everyone fiddling around with BWs while the answer was clearly a GT ... Was a nice weekend, thanks my friend...

First of all, congrats! Second, what? Did the organisation really do such a thing? That is really messed up...

these casual events

I wonder whether the 114 ppl trial really had a:

1st: 2 Byes for the Legacy Main Event on Sunday, 40 € MKM voucher, 1 playmat
Top 25% of participants: single cards worth 50% of the entry fee

structure at 20 € entry... cause that's retarded as well...

[Togores]

Congrats again!

2 questions:


Whats the reasoning for plyainf push vs rug? Reasons? How you thought after it?


You like adn vs grixis? Why?

Thanks!

[Stuart]

Congrats on the run. It was great reading a report with more personal/human details, instead of just match results.

[CabalTherapy]

Thanks guys. Yeah, unfortunately only MKM vouchers for us and they truely messed things up. I don't know whose fault it was in the end but the players were the ones to struggle with that.

I kept AdN against Grixis because I thought that I could abuse it more on the play against him. Usually it's not great but I like it against discard.
And the funny thing about Push vs. Rug was that I didn't know what he was playing until game 2. Probe revealed some lands, cantrips, and a Delver in the first game. It might be bad regarding
Mandrils but I was lucky to hit his early Delver.

[Dio0]

Congrats man, time to give Grim Tutor the proper respect it deserves​!

Enviado desde mi Moto G (4) mediante Tapatalk

[acidhead]

Woah what? So you guys ended up getting paid in Bison bucks rather than actual money?

This is germany. If they would payout real money they would have to fulfill a lot of gambling regulations and also have a much harder time to find event sides.

[Julian23]

To be fair, MKM Coupons are as close to real money as it gets. And if you really want hard cash, people will buy them from you at 95 cents on the Euro.

[CabalTherapy]

To be fair, MKM Coupons are as close to real money as it gets. And if you really want hard cash, people will buy them from you at 95 cents on the Euro.

I am totally fine with the coupons but was disappointed by the rigid organisation.

[Barschrampe]

I wonder whether the 114 ppl trial really had a:

1st: 2 Byes for the Legacy Main Event on Sunday, 40 € MKM voucher, 1 playmat
Top 25% of participants: single cards worth 50% of the entry fee

structure at 20 € entry... cause that's retarded as well...

Top 8 got a bye and cards. I can tell you that 3rd place got a Force of Will and a bye. Then, up to 29th place got 50% in single cards, for example 2 sphere of resistance.

In any case, uncertainty about the prize payout persisted throughout the trial.

There was an announcement which amounted to "we know there was conflicting information on the German and international websites, we are figuring it out, please bear with us". Up until the last round concluded, no one was quite certain what the prizes were going to be. It turned out alright, but there were definitely communication mishaps between JK, MKM and the players along the way.

[CptHaddock]

This is germany. If they would payout real money they would have to fulfill a lot of gambling regulations and also have a much harder time to find event sides.

My bad, I completely forgot about the the gambling rules in regards to Germany. The prize support makes more sense given that, guess my American is showing.

[janchu88]

I was the Round 8 dude and I think that i still Suffer from letting that cabal Ritual resolve... :(

But congratulations for the top 8 Performance anyway!

[CabalTherapy]

I was the Round 8 dude and I think that i still Suffer from letting that cabal Ritual resolve... :(

But congratulations for the top 8 Performance anyway!

Hi and thanks.

True. The Cabal Ritual-Mindbreak Trap situation was a crucial moment of the game. Still there would have been a third game then.