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Thread: 22nd place with uw stoneblade at ew 2018 pt1 - friday trials....

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    22nd place with uw stoneblade at ew 2018 pt1 - friday trials....

    Eternal Weekend 2018 Tournament Trial Report

    Alex Caviris - Blue-White Stoneblade, 22nd Place

    Decklist:

    Creatrues: 11

    Snapcaster Mage x3
    Stoneforge Mystic x3
    True-Name Nemisis x3
    Vendillion Clique x1
    Venser, Shaper Savant x1

    Artifacts: 2

    Umezawa's Jitte x1
    Batterskull x1

    Sorceries: 6

    Ponder x4
    Council's Judgement x1
    Supreme Verdict x1

    Instants: 18

    Brainstorm x4
    Spell Pierce x1
    Spell Snare x1
    Swords to Plowshares x1
    Accumulated Knowledge x4
    Force of Will x4

    Planeswalkers: 3

    Jace, The Mindsculptor x2
    Teferi, Hero of Dominaria x1

    Lands: 20

    Cavern of Souls x1
    Flooded Strand x4
    Island x7
    Karakas x1
    Misty Rainforest x1
    Plains x2
    Polluted Delta x1
    Scalding Tarn x1
    Tundra x2

    Sideboard: 15

    Containment Priest x1
    Vendillion Clique x1
    Flusterstorm x2
    Path to Exile x1
    Surgical Extraction x2
    Disenchant x1
    Rest In Peace x1
    Back to Basics x2
    Council's Judgement x1
    Sword of Fire and Ice x1

    11/1/18 Tourney Trial Report By rd

    When I got to eternal weekend on Thursday afternoon, I had not yet decided to play my usual MUDpost deck, or UW Stoneblade. I was leaning towards stoneblade bu decided to play a trial just to test out where my skill level was for the sake of the sake.. I will include my first five round Trial as well as the 11 rd Eternal Weekend Legacy Champs main event.

    Friday Morning, last chance trial. Overall record, 4.0.1, with a scoop last rd to go 4.1

    Rd 1 vs Eldrazi Aggro win 2x0

    Game 1 My opponent mulligans to 6, presumably to slam a t1 chalice. It was sight unseen for both of us, as I hadn't met her before. So, I kept a decent hand, and was on the draw. And, t1 she plays a tomb, goes to 18 to cast a chalice on one. So, my 'decent' hand instantly got worse. Mildly worse. My hand was fetch, island, stoneforge, snap, ponder, force, ak. I was in the tank for about ten seconds, but I let the chalice resolve based on the information that I had and what I had in my hand. I then went to my turn. I play my tarn and pass. My draw for the turn was a very dead swords. Her next turn she plays an eldrazi temple and a thought knot seer. That, once again, I let resolve, which felt off, but I didn't want to two for one myself and I was honestly interested to see her skill level by what she chose to take and to see if she knew exactly what I was on. She resolves the trigger and takes the force. I was actually mildly relieved. I go to my turn and choose to not upkeep crack. I am rewarded with a basic plains. I play the plains, crack the tarn for a tundra, and cast the mystic. I feel that the best route is the batterskull, so I grab it.

    Next turn, sh plays mimic and swings for 4. I choose to not block, and go to 15. Most of the damage that gets done in this match, I will be honest, she inflicts on herfself via the ancient tomb. She correctly feels that she needs to close out the game relatively quickly. I draw a council's judgment on her end step with ak, and exile the tks, drawing a force off the trigger. After that she's never really back in the saddle until very late in the game. I snap back the judgment two turns later to exile the chalice, and unlock my hand. She hits a smasher off of a cavern that I exile with a swords. Ultimately, she sticks a ballista with my shields down. It was an odd play. She had several tombs in play. She played it on like 6 or so, and went to 3 life off of it. The odd part was that it was not enough to kill me, but if she had gone to 1 and put it on 7 it would have been. Magic is a tricky game, and she didn't completely math correctly. I had stuck a tnn a few turns earlier and swing lethal.

    Game two wasn't really much of a game. She does eldrazi things off tempo a little. A t2 chalice meets a snare, I counter some of the more prolematic plays, like a jitte and etc. Things get dicey for a few turns towards the end where she casts two smashers through caverns. I stabilize at two life after tripple blocking a smasher with two sfm and a tnn, activating the sfm to poop in a batterskull. Long story short, it ends up equipped to my tnn, and the game is virtually over.

    1-0

    G2 Miracles, 2-1 Win

    This was one of the four times I went to close to time all weekend. I hate hearing that UW cannot close out a match. It kinda bugs me. It has more to do with the players, their pace, and their familiarity with their lines than the colors of the deck, in my opinion. My opponent towards time in rd really seemed to decide drawing was his best line for making some tickets. I took the choice out of his hands. I am going to skip basically to g3. It became a fairly technical match of when to and not to utilize accumulated knowledge in a mirror where both people were using them. I tended to be much more proactive on playing them out of my hand as long as I had counter backup for the ramifications. I had sided into two vcliques to respond to miracle triggers, ofc sided in flusters, and kept every piece of one for one permission and two forces. I was on the draw g3. On the friday trial I also had a hydro in my sb, in place of an rip. I had chosen to not side it in, as I was unclear if he had sided in any pyros or even ran red. Anyway. As I said, the game was a serious clinic in using ak correctly in the current meta. I tended to be aggressive casting out of hand and reactive when sngwould tend to counter it if I could and garnered more than two cards, but if he were to try to snapcaster them, I would snapcaster mine in response so that I could always draw minimum one more coard than he did. I am not sure he ever caught on. About five minutes out from hitting turns, I got the distinct impression I had him shelled up against a wall and he had resigned to try to play defensively and draw. We were the last two to be playing so we had everyone else watching us, too. I pushed that out of my mind, although it did register that the element of surprise was dead for the rest of the tournament. Oh well. I had an active tnn with a batterskull on it. He used his third terminus to push it to the bottom. I had a stocked hand of 7 cards, but I allowed it to happen so that I wouldn't die to a my endstep miracled entreat. God, I played my friend Charlie too many times. I soul read him. I try to look sad and go to discard with 8 in hand. These were my 8. Snap, vclique, venser, snare, fluster, brainstorm, fetch, force. I announce discard. He plays a brainstorm and attempts to miracle an entreat for 7 angels, leaving open some amount of open mana. I allowed the brainstorm to resolve already, knowing full well that he would have the entreat with the trigger in his hand for me to vclique, but I wanted to make him use maximum resources to accomplish this. So, I cast Venser and bounce the entreat. He recasts another brainstorm, and I assume entreat is now back on top of his library. We go to his draw step, and he again hits entreat for what would be lethal. This time we go to war. I cast vclique to get the entreat out of his hand in response to the trigger. He fetches and casts a snapcaster, I assume to counter the vclique, so I snare the snapcaster. He looks at his mana and realizes that he is almost entirely tapped out at this point on turn zero. He also only has 2 cards in his hand. He casts ak with his last two open mana, it would have been for five, so I fluster it. He does not have the mana to pay for it. The stack resolves and I claim his entreat. He resdraws on his draw step with two cards in his hand, and passes to my turn. I have left in my hand, snap, bs, force and fetch. This was the end of t2, at this point I realize. I have four open mana. I consider my options and cast snapcaster. He sighs and taps his third from final open land to cast snare. I force pitching brainstorm. Lol. I get to redraw 6 cards. I refill my hand by snapping back ak for six. I go to my turn refilled. My board is now almost certainly lethal I assume with my opponent with one card in hand, which, during my upkeep he casts. It's his final ak. God. Freaking. Damnit. We are on t3 of turns. I consider my options I am untapped with an almost lethal board. I have a vclique, a snap, some other garbage...and my own last ak. Sigh. It was incredibly tricky to let an ak resolve for full value, so I snap back one of my aks in response, and draw five more cards. I look at my hand which is now overloaded with good stuff and pass priority. Bc life is strange, his first draw is a miracle blind terminus, and he puts the trigger on the stack and finishes drawing his three other cards. Once again I am presented with a difficult situation to navigate. I can clique his terminus like I did his entreat, or I can play around it. In my and after my own ak, in addition to what I had already, I now had a tnn and my sword of fire and ice. I sigh, AND I let the terminus resolve and go to my draw step with 8 cards in library. I cast tnn, and it resolves. He brainstorms on my endstep with a snapcaster/bs, and I swords his snap to test for any thoughts of countermagic. The swords brings him to exactly 7 life. Lolz. So, I go to discard, and pass turn. He miracles an entreat on his draw step for 4. It's t4 anyway, and he probably thinks he has successfully drawn the game. I allow it to resolve. He casts jace and brainstorms. He disenchants my batterskull. He goes to endstep, and I clique him to see if the path is clear. He had around 14 cards in library and four in hand. I have 7 in library, and 7 in hand. Odd life. I resolve clique and he lays down his hand. He has force, pierce, snare, bs. Oh, that's some stuff. I clique his bs. I don't want to deal with the unknown. I consider drawing all the cards left in my deck with my last ak, and then think better of it. So. T5 is my turn. Untap, upkeep, draw. Oh look. That snapcaster is back. I think I had every mana producing land in my deck on the field and a dead fetch. Here's how it went. First. Thing. First. It is possible that I clicked him into a fluster, so I cast my sofi to bait the counterwar. He pierces first. I assume that means he has fluster. It was worse. I go ahead and force with my second of two forces the pierce, he casts force pitching snare, I fluster the force. Fluster resolves. I realize later I SHOULD HAVE flustered the original spell, but it wound up not mattering. He casts snap to fluster, I assume, which was his last card in hand. I cast snap in response and snare his snap. He extends his hand as I have a bunch of open mana when the sword of fire and ice resolves. 3/1 tnn, plus two from sword plus two from shock equals exactly 7 damage on t5. I got a round of applause for navigating that clogged situation.

    2-0

    Match three: Death and Taxes

    I don't remember too much about this match, to be honest. It is overwhelmingly likely I was going on instinct after that draining game vs miracles. I played d and t like three times over the course of the weekend, and was never impressed with how it lined up vs my deck. I feel like I do a better impression of what it tries to do, and run a zillion basics. I even found that back to bascis locks them out hard even though they're technically a mono colored deck. Looking at the life totals in my pad, it doesnt look like my opponent ever got much going.

    3-0

    Match 4: Grixis / 4c Control

    Match 4 also went to time. In fact, of the four timed I went to time all weekend three were on Friday. The majority of the reason why this match went to time was a general lack of ways to deal with a resolved liliana g1 in the deck if the board got too stalled and he could manage the tnns. G2 and 3 were much less in his favor. I sided in my second judgement, my sofi and 2nd clique to add more evasion and a gideon to spam the board and keep edicts from being as effective, and ways to hit fast and hard. I got a scoop in turns after keeping his board eitherunder control (g2), or just putting on way too much pressure that couldn't be edicted to deal (with gideon) game 3. Overall I was still a little tired, but felt that I did generally ok.

    4-0

    Match 5: Lands.

    I had previously played this lands pilot last year in my win and in with mud. He remembered me and I remembered him. He was a deliberate and honest player. I had basically already made up my mind that if I couldn't win cleanly I would scoop bc I had dreamcrushed last year, and I liked him, and didn't feel like doing it again. G1 was a grind. I feel like g1 vs lands I am very much an underdog if I cannot navigate with the utmost of control elements and keep tight lines. I was actually able to do that, though. I tended to be more disrutptive than anything else. I didn't counter recursive spells, unless they were able to disrupt me. I fetched for the correct lands at the correct times, and kept constant pressure on with tnns, until he had no choiec but to play lands and fetch for a glcial chasm with no exploration. It was a grind. G1 the winning sequence was on his endstep to venser his chasm back to his hand. He predictably staged his chasm. He was well within lethal range. He had to repeadly pay for chasm, and had been beaten down by tnn for several turns. I then play karakas for turn, bounce venser, bounce his thespians staged chasm and swing lethal. G1 took like 38 minutes to win tho. Ick. G2 was like 3 minutes long. He stuck his second tracker. It got big. I never saw a third land to snap a swords, and i died. We only had like 4 minutes for g3. We both push hard into the pace. When we hit turns, he had tapped out for a tracker, I swordsed it, untapped and slammed a back to basics. That said, there would have been a long stall in the board. I scooped to him so he could have the byes. I felt like it was the correct thing to do.

    Technically, 4.0.1. I discovered that I hated going to time. I only did once in the main event.

    I will put a full main event report in the report section in the next couple of days.
    We speak for no one, we hear no one, we see no one

  2. #2
    Mudslinger
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    Re: 22nd place with uw stoneblade at ew 2018 pt1 - friday trials....

    All my trial opponents were stellar, and gracious. I hope the woman who played eldrazi reads this and next time succeeds where she goofed. Lol. I wish all my former opponents all the luck and hope they enjoyed the main event on saturday.
    We speak for no one, we hear no one, we see no one

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