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Thread: [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

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    [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

    (Reposted from TheManaDrain.)

    [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

    Alternate Universe
    Portland, Oregon
    March 25, 2006
    Format: Legacy
    Weather: Partly sunny, occasional rain
    16 players

    Saturday morning. I woke up with what felt like a pride of lions tearing a zebra to bits of flesh in my brain. This was, quite possibly, the worst hangover in the past year. Pwned. Painfully. But when I got home, I was far too wasted to remember my anti-hangover ritual: a liter of water, ibuprofen and some multi-vitamins and vitamin-B complex. It had slipped my mind, hence the lions in the brain thing, etc.

    Before the tournament. Mostly I just sat around talking with Max (Frogboy), Pat (GodzillA) and Dan (Belzebozo) but eventually got around to testing my W/R Rifter deck against Zilla's B/W Confidant.

    Legacy W/R Rift-Slide
    by Bardo

    4 Renewed Faith
    2 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Lightning Helix
    2 Enlightened Tutor

    3 Slice and Dice
    3 Pyroclasm
    2 Wrath of God

    4 Lightning Rift
    3 Humility
    2 Astral Slide
    1 Rune of Protection: Red

    3 Eternal Dragon
    2 Exalted Angel
    2 Decree of Justice

    4 Secluded Steppe
    4 Forgotten Cave
    9 Plains
    7 Mountain
    1 Plateau

    sb 4 Rule of Law
    sb 3 Pyroblast
    sb 3 Boil
    sb 2 Seal of Cleansing
    sb 2 Wrath of God
    sb 1 Pyroclasm

    I'll admit it could be build better, but playing this deck is just more work than it's worth. Angel + Slide is a tech from Standard four years removed; the Helixes needed to be tested, but will end up being 2 additional StP; Wrath is just good in the creature-dominated Legacy format; Enlightened Tutor is Lightning Rift 5-6, Humility 4-5, or additional Runes of Protection, etc.; I cut a land because I only own 1 Plateau and in testing with Belzebozo on Friday I was drawing a hell of a lot of land -- the usual list runs 26; Renewed Faith is terrible, but this deck really needs generic cyclers and this card fits that bill respectably. But there's just something dirty and unseemly about any dedicated control deck that isn't running Force of Will and Brainstorm. But as Machinus has said, "Cycling is such a bad-ass mechanic." Oh man, so true.

    Round 1. Bye* :) / :(

    Overheard: "The guy with the best deck [me, :)] gets the bye and I have to play you [Zilla]? This sucks." Pwned**.

    I check out the scene; watch Zilla beat on Goblin Sligh, Froggy beat on Loam-a-Tog; Sneak Attack do its thing; etc. I also go back to my car to snack on these Trader Joe's "Authentic Indian Style" Tandori-Masala flavored papadums. Concentrated Heaven, in chip form.

    Still I came here to play, not watch other people play and eat delicious snacks.

    1-0

    Round 2. Pat (Zilla on The Source) with (mono-White) Angel Stompy vs. me with U/G/W Threshold

    I suppose I should type up my deck list at this point.

    Legacy 3-color Threshold
    by Bardo

    4 Serum Visions
    4 Mental Note
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Sleight of Hand

    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    2 Counterspell

    4 Swords to Plowshares
    1 Engineered Explosives

    4 Nimble Mongoose
    4 Werebear
    4 Meddling Mage
    1 Mystic Enforcer

    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Polluted Delta
    2 Windswept Heath
    3 Tropical Island
    3 Tundra
    2 Island
    1 Forest
    1 Plains

    sb 4 Hydroblast
    sb 2 Tivadar's Crusade
    sb 2 Tormod's Crypt
    sb 2 Armageddon
    sb 2 Worship
    sb 1 Engineered Explosives
    sb 1 Mystic Enforcer
    sb 1 Naturalize

    Nothing revolutionary, but I really missed some more artifact removal in the sideboard. One Enforcer in the maindeck seems fine, but I may remove him altogether one of these days. There are some games you won't win without him (often the games where you'll likely deck yourself from some misplay that seemed inconsequential earlier in the game); but there are many games you'll wish you drew anything other than him. But he's strong as hell in the mirror and is a key component in the Worship-plan.

    Game 1. I didn't take notes all day, but the story on my life pad tells me I get him down to 3 life in game 1. From there, a Soltari Priest wielding Umezawa's Stupid Jitte does me in. And yeah, Pithing Needle would have really helped.

    Sideboarding: -2 Sleight of Hand, -1 Meddling Mage; +1 Worship, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Naturalize

    A note about my sideboarding technique: Sleight of Hand fills a comfortable "proxy slot" in the maindeck and I remove them in just about every match except against creature-less combo, where I'll remove the Swords to Plowshares instead. Sleight is not strictly necessary in these builds (they could be Pithing Needle, for instance); but since the deck has everything it needs to win against anything thrown at it, Sleight works to dig for whatever I need and makes sideboarding a breeze.

    Game 2. I fatally neglect to counter a Mother of Runes who goes on to wreck all manner of havoc on the board. In retrospect, I should have brought in Enforcer #2 for another Meddling Mage.

    Afterwards, we both agreed these matches could have gone either way. I don't know an approximate match percentage for U/G/R Threshold, but with U/G/W against Angel Stompy I'd say it's about 50/50. I was just on the losing end of one of the 50s. So it goes. Still, there are worse things than losing to a friend. And finally, I'm happy to battle my way through the x-1 bracket.

    1-1

    Round 3. Tom with mono-Red Burn

    I win game 1 at 6 life. Looking at my life pad, it seems a Meddling Mage did most of the damage. How utterly peculiar.

    Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Sleight of Hand; +4 Hydroblast, +2 Worship

    When the last turn of game 2 began, I was sitting at a comfortable 13 life. But triple Lightning Bolt and a Fireblast, backed up with a Pyroblast for my Hydroblast, made things less comfortable.

    Worships win game 3. That card is just ridiculous; especially when paired with the inimitable Nimble Mongoose. There's nothing they can do other than wait to die.

    2-1

    Between rounds I play Don (AngryTroll on The Source) in the pseudo-mirror, U/G/W (me) vs. U/G/R (him)

    Summing it up, U/G/W has Swords to Plowshares to remove anything it wants, sans Mongeese, and U/G/R has to combine burn with combat damage or more burn to remove most of U/G/W's threats (though FTK is pretty sexy). Honestly, I've only played the pseudo-mirror match four times, and I haven't lost once. And Worship here is really unfair. If you're on the losing end of Mental Note advantage you can just deck them or, more likely, get your ass comfortable in your chair and win with Mystic Enforcer. It's not the most elegant thing to witness, but it works.

    The rest of the margin is composed of some combination of play skill and deck-building (my Engineered Explosives, for instance), and knowing what really matters at each phase of the game. Even though it doens't matter, I win this game.

    Unbeknownst to me, this game was warm-up for the following round.

    Round 4. Louis with U/G/R Threshold

    Game 1. This began as a fairly generic, fetchland, cantrip, play a dude, float U - Daze something, cantrip, kill a dude, etc. volley. No one really gaining ground and no one really losing it. But just at the pivotal turn of the game, my opponent turns cockily to Froggy and Zilla -- who are playing their match next to us -- and remarks "I've got him." The next turn, I play and detonate Engineered Explosives with one counter to blow up his two Nimble Mongeese, Swords to Plowshares his Werebear and he's left with an empty board and frowning face. The following turn I drop Mystic Enforcer on the board and ride that thing to victory. Who's got who now, buddy? Eh?

    Sideboarding: -3 Meddling Mage, -2 Sleight of Hand; +2 Tormod's Crypt, +1 Mystic Enforcer, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Worship

    Meddling Mage is just bolt-bait and is completely outclassed by everything either deck is playing; where Crypt is a key part in threshold-advantage and Worship is just stupidly good. Engineered Explovsives are brought in to fight back if you lose partity on either Werebear or Mongoose-advantage.

    I lose game 2 while my opponent is at something like 29 life. I have no idea what happened here. And my memory is a complete blank. Total la-la land stuff.

    Game 3 is much closer but my sideboard and tight play win it for me. Mystic Enforcer is such a brick shit-house in the mirror, and Engineered Explosives are also surprisingly very good.

    3-1

    My tie-breakers are good enough to place me in 3rd seed.

    Round 5 (Semifinals). Max (Frogboy) with U/W/R Control aka trade binder.dec

    Fresh from GP: Honolulu, I fully expect to lose this to Max. But since this was the Top 4, the matches were untimed, so it would take an exceptionally long amount of time to formalize the whole losing thing.

    I don't recall very much of the beginning and middle of each of our games, only the ends; but luckily I have Max's mini-report to fill in some gaps.

    Here's the part of his report relevant to me. :)

    Quote Originally Posted by Frogboy
    T4: Dan (Bardo) UGW Thresh

    I scout savagely while Dan hands his list over to AngryTroll when I'm hanging out waiting for the round to start. It wasn't particularly relevant since I knew Dan didn't have Pithing Needles, but it did happen.

    Game one: I screw up somewhere and let his Daze trade for my Counterspell on his Nimble Mongoose, but then he plays a Werebear and I resolve Vedalken Shackles with three Islands. He bashes me and counters my Fact or Fiction, then my Force of Will pitching Fact or Fiction, and then I rip the island anyway. I had Brainstorm + Fetchland + 20 outs or so, so it wasn't savage lucksackery, but it was a good topdeck. After a while I have Eternal Dragon sitting around with nothing to do (thinned all the Plains out) and decided to just cast him and hope Dan didn't have Swords, since if he did I couldn't deal with it. I certainly wasn't going to spend permission countering Plow when I had Decree still and could just kill him that way; I just wanted to get things over with. I cast Dragon, he cast Plow, I topdecked Miren. FUCK! Forgot that I did have an out to StP. Eventually I get like three Shackles out and manage to have a counter when he plays EE (That I'd totally forgotten about and hadn't factored into my thinking) and so I win. God, I'm bad at Magic.

    Board: None.
    Yeah, that sounds about right. I remember a lot of nothing going on, a difficult Fact split; me building up my board, him Wrathing and Shackling my shit and seeing my only outs as Nimble Mongoose, but I didn't have a coherent strategy worked out in my mind until it was to late.

    Sideboard: -2 Sleight of Hand, -1 Werebear, -1 Meddling Mage; +2 Armageddon, +1 Naturalize, +1 Engineered Explosives

    Game two: I Force an early Nimble Mongoose, then resolve Wrath and Shackles after a while. I think I cast Wrath or something I forgot most of the game except for letting Dan resolve Armageddon for all of his white sources while I had three land in hand, but then managing to fuck up and not counter his Engineered Explosives for three (he tapped out) when I was at six, he had Nimble Mongoose and Mage on Wrath, to my Shackles + borrowed Werebear. I had Wrath in hand and outthought myself and decided I didn't want to Force since then he could beat me with Naturalize, and I could just Wrath and play my in-hand Shackles after he blew EE and that was his last Mongoose so he couldn't win anymore...yeah.

    I didn't Force the EE, then I cast Fact or Fiction at the end of his turn (Had to Force his Daze going to five), realized, oh shit, what've I done, didn't hit Swords off the Fact to kill his Mage so I could Wrath, realized they were all in the graveyard, realized my only out was Cunning Wish so that I could actually get a Swords, realized I was probably kold. I played out my other Shackles and stole his Mage so that he'd have to wait a turn to attack me for lethal damage with all his guys, then didn't topdeck Cunning Wish. God, I'm bad at Magic. He literally had no outs to Force on that EE. Oh well.

    Actually, now that I write this, it occurs to me that after that Armageddon, Dan realized he had no white sources left, but then he cast EE for three. So he probably didn't kill all his white sources.
    A late game Armageddon puts me back in the game. He's still hiding behind my Shackled Werebear and I get Mongoose in play somewhere in there. I'm sitting with a Delta and StP in my hand when I play the 'Geddon. With all our lands gone, I play and sac the Delta looking for a Tundra to StP my Werebear and swing with Mongoose (or maybe it was Meddling Mage). I curse my terrible Magic skillz when I realize all of my Tundras are in my graveyard; I settle for a Tropical Island instead since I didn't have to fear Wasteland.

    Since he has a ton of land in his deck he rebuilds quickly. I fumble a little bit on my land drops, but draw into an EE and then Windswept Heath. I sac the Heath for anything that will produce mana and flop my deck into my palm, and lo! sitting right on the bottom is my gorgeous Rebecca Guay APAC Plains! It was unfetchable with Delta, but I hadn't noticed it before when I was looking for my white-bordered duals (all of my duals are from Revised; but two of my basics are from Beta [Island and Forest] and the rest are APAC ["Hong Kong" Island and the aforementioned Rebecca Guay "Great Wall of China" Plains]. I play the EE for 3, sac it to destroy his Shackles and begin to beat face with a Meddling Mage on "Wrath of God" a Werebear and maybe a Mongoose. And that is the story of my mysterious white mana that won the game. :)

    Game three: I Force a Nimble Mongoose instead of getting Counterspell Dazed and thus raping me, plus letting me plainscycle Dragon and hit my next drop. I countered another one, then I played Shackles and Wrathed or something. I don't remember exactly what happened; I know I stalled on six land but had a lot of counterspells, had to counter two Armageddons, managed to draw all four Fact or Fictions and still no land, but Dan didn't have much for threats and I eventually drew land. Then I let him Counterspell my Absorb on his last Mongoose and Wrathed it away. Then he played Sleight of Hand and Brainstorm on his turn, and I played Wish and a bunch of counters, then Brain Freezed him.
    A few intense early game counter-wars finds our hands pretty much empty. I counter every effort of his to recoup card advantage, he counters my every effort to kill him. Shackles, as before, gums up most the board and keeps me from playing my threats -- which are beginning to stockplile. Soon I'm discarding at my end step, as is he.

    Looking back, turn 6 or so is pivotal. I have at least seven cards in the graveyard, Max has Shackles on the board with only 5 Islands in play, and I have an Enforcer in hand. He's missed a couple of land drops and I'm not sure if he's filling up his hand with unnecessary lands or if he really is missing his drops because he doesn't have the land. I consider dropping Enforcer and swinging three times for the win. But even one top-decked Island may be fatal -- Shackling my dude and beating me senseless with it. I figure the odds he find an island in three turns is a lot better than me finding and resolving a Geddon again, and reason that patience is key. I have no idea if I made the right move.

    Unfortunately both of my efforts to Armageddon are countered, and that's pretty much game.

    Eventually, I play a bunch of spells on one of my turns and he Wishes for Brain Freeze and casts it. With Freeze on the stack I concede. I don't think this is a particularly bad match-up for me, and I'm quite certain I would have won against a lesser player. Max just happens to be really fucking good at this game. Major props.

    Here's another of Max's reports.

    A short aside. Max's deck is an interesting exercise in deckbuilding. Most the "good" decks in Legacy exploit objectively "bad" cards to make powerful synergistic decks. Examples include Serum Visions and Werebear in Threshold; the tribal synergies of Goblins; Slice and Dice and Humility in Rifter, etc. Max's approach: screw synergy, just play the best cards in the format: Fact or Fiction, an arsenal of dual lands, Brainstorm, Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares, Wrath of God, Vedalken Shackles, Counterspell, etc. From there, just rely on your play skill to get you out of any jam.

    In the end, my only losses were to friends of mine who ended up taking first and second place. Not too shabby. Some kind of prize split was arranged and I ended up with enough store credit to finish off my Rift-Slide deck and have enough left over for another Vedalken Shackles. I also paid off my tab with the store owners for some bottled water I swindled earlier.

    I finished off the night by giving GodzillA's car-less ass a ride home. On the way there we waxed sagely on all matters sundry and magical.

    Props:
    * Worship
    * Trader Joes
    * Zilla and Frogboy for beating me, and all-around coolness
    * Alternate Universe for hosting such a fine event and everyone for showing up.

    Slops: That crazy light in the bathroom.

    * Which I don't understand since there was supposedly an even number of players...

    ** At this point in its life-cycle "pwned" is such a kitschy*** cliché; realize that I'm using it in this manner.

    *** Incidentally, I believe "kitsch" is similarly tacky, just like adding "uber-" to foo.****

    **** Foo: everyone's favorite canonical metasyntactic variable.
    Last edited by Bardo; 03-28-2006 at 05:16 PM.

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    Re: [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

    GJ Dan. But you're too young to be drinking.
    If I say something dumb, I'm drunk. Trust me.

  3. #3
    Arbitrary Wielder of Justice

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    Re: [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

    Er, heh.

    I think the matchup favors UWR, because Vedalken Shackles is a thermonuclear bomb against Threshold, and basically makes their deck 4 Mongoose, X ways to kill Shackles, 6-ish counters, and a bunch of cards. I almost brought in Red Elemental Blast to make sure Shackles resolved, but couldn't cut anything. You can't really goldfish against a deck with Plow and Wrath and their own counters, and I'll probably just play Shackles or Wrath on turn four or five (Daze is such a little bitch) and ruin you with it.

    There were actually 15 people.

    I noticed you actually forgot to attack me with Mongoose the turn you blew your EE in game two, but it wasn't very relevant. As far as playing Enforcer goes, I'm not sure. I had onboard Shackles, and more counters in my deck than you had outs and counters. Plus, y'know, more Shackles. I probably would've run out the Enforcer since I don't think I could've won the long game in your position. I had StP and Wrath in hand anyway, but like I said, you're such a gigantic dog right there you have to hope my draw is awful.

    But just at the pivotal turn of the game, my opponent turns cockily to Froggy and Zilla -- who are playing their match next to us -- and remarks "I've got him." The next turn, I play and detonate Engineered Explosives with one counter to blow up his two Nimble Mongeese, Swords to Plowshares his Werebear and he's left with an empty board and frowning face. The following turn I drop Mystic Enforcer on the board and ride that thing to victory.
    This was hilarious because everyone in the room but him saw it coming.
    When in doubt, mumble.

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    Re: [Report] U/G/W Threshold *3rd Place*

    I few observations/clarifacations:

    1.
    Overheard: "The guy with the best deck [me, :)] gets the bye and I have to play you [Zilla]? This sucks.
    was in my response to my gently pointing out that my deck was originally designed to utterly destroy red, which was what he was playing. He also said he was thinking of quitting the game. It would appear he's had a streak of bad luck lately. I feel for him; he was a polite guy and a good opponent.

    Ironically, game 1 in this matchup was one of the only games I lost all day.

    2.
    Worships win game 3. That card is just ridiculous; especially when paired with the inimitable Nimble Mongoose. There's nothing they can do other than wait to die.
    Clarification: Flamebreak answers Threshed 'Geese. White splash has Disenchant for Worship. That said, it's still an overwhelmingly positive matchup in favor of Thresh, unless Burn happens to be running multiple Price of Progress.

    3. With regards to our match, one minor clarification: The Moms were brutal in game 2, but it was the Tormod's Crypt on the board that really kept me in control of that game. I had double-Mom and Crypt on the board. You had 3 green beaters (some combination of Mongoose and Werebear). Without the Crypts, you could have repeatedly attacked into active Moms and still forced through 3 points of damage per turn. The threat of Crypt obviated this tactic, because the Moms could kill your threats unthreshed.

    4. With regards to the matchup analysis, I think that Angel Stompy has a slightly positive game against UGw Thresh, but not overwhelmingly so. It's very close to 50/50, particularly if you're running Engineered Explosives, which most builds are not. UGr Thresh is quite positive, however. Red removal is rather ineffectual against Angel Stompy.


    That's about all. Nice report. It was a pleasure playing against you, as always. Next time you should bring W/u Angel Stompy. I wanna see who wins the "mirror".

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