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Thread: 9th place GP: Seattle

  1. #1

    9th place GP: Seattle

    So I attended GP Seattle with no byes, with the intention of trying to beat my last record of 11-4 at GP Las Vegas last year. I was really torn on a few card choices but ended up registering the following list the night before at around 11:30PM. This is all a recollection of my memories from the games, so I apologize if I missed any weird details.


    1 Academy Ruins
    1 Bojuka Bog
    3 Dark Depths
    1 Forest
    3 Ghost Quarter
    1 Glacial Chasm
    3 Grove of the Burnwillows
    1 Karakas
    2 Maze of Ith
    1 Mishra's Factory
    1 Misty Rainforest
    1 Sheltered Thicket
    2 Taiga
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    4 Thespian's Stage
    1 Tranquil Thicket
    1 Tropical Island
    1 Verdant Catacombs
    4 Wasteland
    1 Windswept Heath
    4 Crop Rotation
    1 Crucible of Worlds
    2 Engineered Explosives
    4 Exploration
    4 Gamble
    4 Life from the Loam
    1 Molten Vortex
    4 Mox Diamond
    3 Punishing Fire

    Sideboard:
    1 Ancient Grudge
    1 Ancient Tomb
    1 Chalice of the Void
    3 Krosan Grip
    1 Song of the Dryads
    1 Sorcerous Spyglass
    3 Sphere of Resistance
    1 Thorn of Amethyst
    3 Tireless Tracker


    R1: DNT
    G1: No mother of runes this game means all of his creatures die really fast to a punishing fire lock while I have the ability to jam marit lage over and over.
    G2: He has a turn 1 mother of runes, which I believe I EE away. I ancient grudge his Sword of Fire and Ice, and play a tracker and start beating down. One turn, before blocks, he activates SFM to put in a batterskull, but I flashback the grudge the blow it up and tracker goes the entire way uncontested.

    R2: BuG Turbo Depths
    G1: He leads Verdant Catacombs into Gemstone Mine, brainstorm, fetch bayou, then brainstorm again while I set up some wastelands and play a stage. He brainstorms again, then taps out for hexmage, and I rotate a depths to kill him.
    G2: I draw some awkward cards but have a wasteland and ghost quarter, but he eventually wastes my own waste to start the war and has a stifle to stop my GQ and wins.
    G3: This game goes super long and drawn out. I’ve got probably 10 lands in play, 2 GQ, 2 Wasteland among others and he’s got 3 stages (one being waste), a wasteland and a dark depths. He needles GQ and we have a big fight over dark depths and he makes a marit lage, but I have the roto for a karakas when all is done. We play draw go for another 5-6 turns, I find EE and cast it for X=1 for the needle, and play a molten vortex. I start to shoot him since he was pretty low from multiple thoughtseize and fetches and he can’t win in time to beat 2 GQ, maze and karakas.

    R3: UW Control/Miracles
    G1: I get a great start with active Pfire and exploration, but around turn 4 or 5 he slams a MAINDECK Back to Basics. I ghost quarter myself for a forest and simply cast loam off a mox diamond, get back double ghost quarter and quarter him out of the game.
    G2: I keep a pretty decent hand, but get punished by a Mentor, Force your PFire, Back to Basics hand and I get wrecked.
    G3: This game goes LONG. He council’s judgments my first tireless tracker, and plows the second, while I’m building up lands. He cast back to basics, I copy one of his basic islands in response, leaving me with 2 Mox diamonds, a forest and the island as re-usable mana sources. We play draw go for a few turns, and I find a grip to free up my mana. He surgicals me three times this game, on Loam, Dark Depths and Pfire, and plays two back to basics and things look bleak. I draw EE, EE 3 both back to basics away, and gamble for crucible and slam it. I start to ghost away all his lands while trying to keep my life total in check from double snapcaster + Clique. I get to this awkward point where I have to double maze the snaps then karakas the clique to not die, but clique is extra value for him. I recur EE for 2 to blow the snaps and the mazes keep the clique at bay. Time is called and I quickly copy my Mishra’s Facotry twice with stage and start to beat down. He is turn 5, with 5 life left, no lands left in the deck while I have 3 mishra’s factory and we draw. Heartbreaking.

    R4: UWb Taxes
    G1: He plays a Tundra and passes, which I waste. He plays a scrubland, vial, which I also waste. He starts to tick vial up, and vials in a judge’s familiar, and plays a Mother of Runes. My plan was to tabernacle him on light mana, but he vials in double true-name with mana to pay for a few turns and I’m late on wasting him out of the game. Before I die however, I ghost quarter him 3 times to find out he’s playing 2 Islands and a single plains.
    G2: I play a tracker while his only game is a Judge’s Familiar with active loam, and he has nothing for it. The tracker grows to be an 8/7 while I keep him off some mana and it goes the distance.
    G3: He gets super mana screwed this game, but has his basics, I have a molten vortex to keep the board relatively clean, but am not drawing a ton of lands. I ghost his only basic plains (Knowledge is tech!). He’s got two judge familiar, so while he’s only got two islands, I EOT make a Marit Lage, Pfire one bird, and I just have to rip a land to kill the other and win. I draw. Crop Rotation. Dammit. I attack and he blocks. He draws a flooded strand, and fetches up a tundra and passes. I waste the tundra EoT and he flashes in a Spell Queller. I attack, he blocks once more, he draws a card and extends the hand.

    R5: Aluren
    G1: I have an early tabernacle + Vortex against what seems to be a BUG Control deck, but my opponent drops an Aluren onto the board by accident. He eventually tries to go for it with Aluren + harpy + strix at around 8 life, but he goes down to 2 and I shoot him with the vortex.
    G2: This was a super weird game. He’s got double deathrite, but all nonbasics and I somehow drew 4 loams and the tabernacle, so he’d tap his nonbasics to pay for DRS, but I’d waste him, cast a loam and he’d go ahead and eat it every turn. I get down to around 10 life this way, but eventually there’s not enough lands for deathrite and he’s stuck paying tabernacle over and over to tie up his mana. He goes to fetch to eat my last loam and he concedes, saying he’s out of black sources.

    R6: Eldrazi
    G1: I lead on a Mox Diamond, cast loam hand, he goes Urborg pass on a mull to 6. Turbo depths. Okay. I play a stage and pass, and my opponent goes basic wastes, eldrazi mimic. Awesome. I pfire the mimic, waste the urborg and pass. He plays an Eye of Ugin, Endless one X = 3. I loam, waste the eye and pass, take a hit from the endless one, and draw gamble. I gamble for ghost quarter, hit the wastes and he fails to find and never recovers.
    G2: He goes T1 Ancient Tomb, Spyglass naming stage, T2 matter reshaper. I have a T2 tracker if I draw a land, keeping a Mox Diamond + two lander. I draw Maze of Ith, and it taps for mana through Urborg, so I play a tracker and pass. He plays ancient tomb, Jitte, equip attack and I block. I grudge the spyglass and the jitte, and he plays out more mana before making an Endless one X = 7, followed by another endless one X = 5 after I waste him. I EE both endless one away, before making a marit lage and attacking him, while the last card in his hand is dismember.

    R7: Junkfit + leovold
    G1: I don’t see a ton of stuff here, Pfire keeps the board relatively clear while I eventually make a Marit Lage to clean things up
    G2: I get wrecked in this attrition war as I don’t have an immediate answer to leovold, and I get chipped down by Treetop Village, Leovold + Eternal Witness and Volrath’s stronghold.
    G3: We play another weird game where we both end up in topdeck mode with some lands after multiple therapies + veteran explorers, I draw double tracker but am struggling to draw a land to start making clues, while he draws his own tracker. I get him down to 8 life or so while making a bunch of clues finally, and draw a crop rotation, letting me make a marit lage while he’s hellbent.

    R8: Grixis Control
    G1: I get thoughtseized T1, losing gamble. I mox diamond, play a molten vortex and we play draw go for two turns before he KCommands my mox. I can’t draw ANY colored mana sources within the next 6 or so turns, besides copying his basic mountain to make some extra red sources and at least keep Pyromancers at bay. I eventually plays out a snap and another pyro, but is notably down to 8 life from multiple Probes, Fetches and thoughtseizes. I realize I have to go for broke, and he fetched a tropical, so I copy it EOT, untap, cast loam and get back glacial chasm while I’m at 7. I end of turn shoot him down to 6, pay 2 life down to 5 to keep chasm, cast loam to get back 3 lands and end EOT, shoot for 4, upkeep shoot for 2 to steal the game.
    G2: I get WRECKED. He has the turn 3 blood moon which I’m actually fairly okay with as I have mox diamond, basic forest and a stage copying an island. I play a spyglass which he quickly forces, then slams down Chandra, torch of defiance, and gets to emblem and I die real quick. Man. 
    G3: I Mox diamond, land PFire T1 deathrite. He follows up with a pyro. On my turn I get greedy and try to rotate for a grove but he forces. I play out some lands while he beats me down with pyro and friends. In the last crucial turn of the game, I dredge into dark depths with stage in play, play it and pass, facing down Pyromancer, 5 tokens and a snap. He ponders, shuffles, deploys another pyromancer off of Chandra +1, and passes with Island + Swamp up. Can’t win any other ways, so I make a Marit Lage, and he doesn’t have it.

    R9: TES (Bryant Cook)
    G1: He fetches with a JPN foil ONS Polluted Delta, into a FBB USea + JPN Foil ponder and I compliment his deck. He probes me and sees my deck and says “Wow, nice deck too! But I have bad news for you” He goes petal, dark rit, dark rit, LED, Ad Nauseum and I’m very very dead.
    G2: I mull to 6 with a chalice + tomb in hand and scry sphere of resistance to the top. I decided to make my land drop and chalice 0, and get probed, and untap and slam sphere turn 2. We play draw go for a bit, and like the magic pro I am, I let two chrome moxes resolve with chalice In play, which lets him burning wish for Pulverize. I’m pretty sure he’s only playing 2 red sources, so I wasteland him off badlands while I gamble for Life from the Loam. Next turn dredge and waste the volcanic too. I eventually find marit lage and the game ends.
    G3: I have a crop rotation -> tomb -> sphere of resistance hand, and draw a second sphere off the top to add to my first on turn 2. We play draw go for a bit as I can’t find a green or red source for the gamble or crop roation in my hand, and in the meantime he builds up mana with double chrome mox + island + swamp, and EOT Echoing truth’s my spheres, before Ad Nauseum’ing down to 3, with a cool line involving a third chrome mox + ritual -> echoing truth the three moxen, play them all out with your newly filled Naus hand, ritual, rite of flame, burning wish tendrils kill. This matchup while bad was enjoyable.

    R10: Grixis Delver (Eli Kassis)
    G1: I play a T1 exploration + land, followed by a stage and a depths, and quickly make a mainphase 20/20 before I see any wastelands, knowing he’s on grixis delver.
    G2: He goes T1 USea Deathrite, I go with T1 Taiga, exploration, wasteland pass. He goes T2 cantrip + Usea, deathrite, pass. I go taiga, wasteland, double waste you, cast loam. He pauses for a second, eats a wasteland and forces the loam. He untaps and passes with no land. I untap, play a stage and depths and pass. He taps DRS and exiles a land to play a brainstorm, which I figure is digging for a land + edict, and then taps the other DRS, which at this point I realize the only out is wasteland, so I make a 20/20 in response and he scoops it up.

    R11: Czech Pile
    G1: We trade resources for a bit, but he gets stuck on swamp + volcanic with double deathrite. while I draw multiple loams. I waste him and crop rotate for a tabernacle, and he gets stuck paying for them, while I purposefully toss some extra loams into the yard to retrieve my wasteland effects. When he’s finally at just the swamp + deathrite, I draw pfire for the turn, shoot it and he packs it in.
    G2: He bricks on some draws while I play an early tireless tracker, and a turn or two later make a marit lage. He blocks with a strix, then next turn Lily Last Hope minuses to bring the strix back to stall for another turn. He even surgicals my Pfires to make sure that’s not an insta-kill. I play another tracker, and attack once more, tracker taking out Liliana and the strix chumping. He finds a jace to bounce marit lage, but double tracker + factory get there really, really fast.

    R12: Blood Moon Stompy
    G1: On the play, he plays a Chalice for 1 off an ancient tomb. My hand contains gamble, crop rotation, exploration. Nuts. I hope for eldrazi and play a land and pass, and he plays a basic mountain into a Captain Lannery Storm, but forgets to attack. I untap, play a land and punishing fire it, and am met with a T3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance the next turn. This is quickly followed up with another Captain, as well as a blood moon and I die.
    G2: I mull to 5 looking for a hand with some sort of moon interaction but am met with weird colorless only land hands or hands that simply do nothing. I find an okay hand and am put on the moonless aggro plan with multiple Captain Lannery’s and thunderbreak reagent. I lose with a grip and some other useless cards in hand. Thunderbreak is super hard to deal with.

    R13: Soldier Stompy
    G1: She plays T1 suppression field, followed by another field and a recruiter of the guard, fetching Preeminent captain. She adds a thalia to the fray and I manage to at least shoot down the captain. I tutor up a grove and start slowly taking out creatures, until an Aerial Responder comes down. On an attack, I cast a crop rotation, tap 6 mana and make a marit lage to block the Aerial responder. Marit Lage gets taken out by a Palace Jailer, and I loam everything back to try again. This time around, I make lage EOT, and have enough mana to Pfire the second responder.
    G2: She floods quite a bit, playing barely anything while I deploy a tracker and start setting up a dominate board presence. I know in the past they’ve played blessed alliance, so I attack with both a marit lage and tracker and am met with Selfless Squire. Awkward. I have a maze to hold back the now 26/26 creature, and get to untap and swing once more to finish the game.

    R14: Turbo Depths
    G1: I get thoughtseized turn 1 and he takes my gamble, leaving me with crop rotation, Pfire, mox diamond and some lands. I set up a few wasteland effects in the first few turns to protect myself and tap out for crucible, then play a fetch from my yard to hold up roto. My opponent casts a sylvan scrying and realizes they forgot to completely unsideboard. A judge is called and my opponent is given a warning the deck changes back to normal. They fetch up a ghost quarter. On my turn, I exploration, ghost his GQ, and go to replay it and he scoops it up. I think it was a bit pre-mature given the fast mana in the deck but it would’ve been very difficult nonetheless.
    G2: I establish another quick board state, in which I have loam going to ghost quarter both my opponents basics. With a surgical on my GQ on the stack, I rotate into another GQ and let it resolve to save a copy. He plays a sylvan library and takes at least 5 extra cards from it, before I play a tracker and threaten his very low life total. He gets me into a position where he needles wasteland, and crop rotates bog to get my last GQ. I attack him down and pass to him. He goes from 7 to 3 from library and plays a depths out, taps bog to float mana, spirit guide, crop rotation for urborg, cast hexmage, make a lage, say go. I assume he has Rite of Consumption in hand, and my wastelands are turned off so he just needs a land drop next turn. I ask for karakas one time and my second card off my dredge is karakas. If I don’t hit karakas there, I have glacial chasm in hand, so the game becomes a weird race where I hide behind my chasm while I crack a ton of clues to find karakas or a way to blow up the needle, or Pfire to shoot him down from 3.

    R15: Elves
    G1: I have an early tabernacle and a few Pfires to slow him down, but he manages to muster up 4 mana for a Natural Order for a MD Progenitus. I make a marit lage, fly over him for 20, and shoot a Pfire for the remaining 2 extra life I’d given him from groves.
    G2: My opponent on the play simply says go. Interesting… I build up a few mana and cast a crucible. He finally draws a fetches a basic forest before playing out a deathrite. With only one rotation in hand and no way to pressure marit lage, I decide to go for the tax route here, so I crop rotate into tabernacle, with wasteland crucible at the ready. I then draw and cast gamble, looking for a Ghost Quarter to fully deal with all of my opponents lands, but discard it to the spell, and my opponent casts surgical extraction. My wasteland gets eaten by the deathrite, which lets my opponent cradle into a Progenitus, and then another NO into a crafterhoof after surgical’ing my crop rotations as well to give me less outs.
    G3: I play a mox diamond and a land and say go. He plays out a bayou and GSZ’s for a dryad arbor. On my turn, I play a land and Pfire the arbor, holding up crop rotation for a grove incase of a surgical. He misses a land drop and plays a symbiote. I untap, play a tracker, and wasteland his only land. He draws and passes. I start cracking clues, attack, and rotate for a tabernacle which kills his only dude. Tracker goes the entire way, as long as I remember to pay my own tabernacle tax, which I do.


    So I end up with a 12-2-1 record at this GP, getting 9th by breakers. The deck felt really solid, and there’s not much I would change. I lost two matchups that I’m generally supposed to lose so I can’t feel too bad about those, and will just have to get luckier next time.


    Props:
    CFB for hosting a well run GP event, having the online pairings made things SO easy. Walking across the entire floor to a paper pairing was TERRIBLE. Rounds were generally 10 minutes over or so, but you can’t ask for much more than that. Judges were generally fast.
    Seattle convention center food was actually really good compared to some other GP’s. I had a nice panini sandwich with fresh mozzarella and prosciutto, and the food and drinks walking distance from the venue was also impressive.
    The GF for bringing me boba and various food during the event.
    All my local players support!

    Slops:
    Losing top 8 by breakers (I’m kidding)
    Not having one more turn against miracles
    Not playing enough Delver decks
    Song of the Dryads was playing where’s Waldo
    TES not being one turn slower ;)
    Last edited by Sparkii; 04-10-2018 at 01:56 AM.

  2. #2

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Hi Sparkii,

    Congrats on the result, and thanks for sharing the report!
    I've enjoyed especially parts where EE, Crucible (cards that set RugLands apart from RG) played their role.
    In the end you mentioned you wouldn't change much, but what are the minor tweaks that you change?

  3. #3
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    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    thanx for the great tourney report.

    really enjoyed your play by play...

  4. #4
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    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Sick report Zack, was great to read! GZ on the finish and sorry about those breakers - you'll get em next time!

  5. #5
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    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Congrats on the result.Thanks for your report and I learn a lot

  6. #6

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by Ingo View Post
    Hi Sparkii,

    Congrats on the result, and thanks for sharing the report!
    I've enjoyed especially parts where EE, Crucible (cards that set RugLands apart from RG) played their role.
    In the end you mentioned you wouldn't change much, but what are the minor tweaks that you change?
    I never saw song in any of my matches, but probably wouldn't mind it being another impactful 3 drop, maybe even the 4th tracker? Tracker was just an insane magic card all weekend and I was never unhappy to see it.

    I've also debated cutting the factory and a GQ for a port, and going with a 2/2 split and the 3 drop I just mentioned could be a choke. Factory was nice for me during the weekend though, so not sure if I'm just ready to cut it, but that's the current flex slot alongside karakas. Unfortunately playing the extra cards makes space super super tight.

  7. #7
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    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Hey nice report! Thanks for sharing.

    Your opponent only getting a warning for not de-sideboarding -- I assume it was relatively easy to "roll back"? Since the sideboarded cards were in his deck and not in hand?

    I've always wondered what would happen in that case, haven't come across it yet.
    A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"

  8. #8

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by Plague Sliver View Post
    Hey nice report! Thanks for sharing.

    Your opponent only getting a warning for not de-sideboarding -- I assume it was relatively easy to "roll back"? Since the sideboarded cards were in his deck and not in hand?

    I've always wondered what would happen in that case, haven't come across it yet.
    He had cast a Sylvan Scrying and realized it mid-tutor. The judge did mention those type of infections used to be game losses but not anymore. I thought for sure it was going to be a game loss. The cards were simply switched to the way it should’ve been and the tutor resolved as normal.

    I believe it is a different scenario if they have the card in hand.

  9. #9

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by Sparkii View Post
    I never saw song in any of my matches, but probably wouldn't mind it being another impactful 3 drop, maybe even the 4th tracker? Tracker was just an insane magic card all weekend and I was never unhappy to see it.

    I've also debated cutting the factory and a GQ for a port, and going with a 2/2 split and the 3 drop I just mentioned could be a choke. Factory was nice for me during the weekend though, so not sure if I'm just ready to cut it, but that's the current flex slot alongside karakas. Unfortunately playing the extra cards makes space super super tight.
    Awesome report and congrats on the finish. Any idea about these changes that you mentioned about the GC/port split or still including the factory?

  10. #10

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by Goose View Post
    Awesome report and congrats on the finish. Any idea about these changes that you mentioned about the GC/port split or still including the factory?
    I am still moving forward with the GQ/factory. I really like both and ports are just lacking for me. I changed the song to a choke and even without ports it’s been good.

  11. #11
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    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by Sparkii View Post
    He had cast a Sylvan Scrying and realized it mid-tutor. The judge did mention those type of infections used to be game losses but not anymore. I thought for sure it was going to be a game loss. The cards were simply switched to the way it should’ve been and the tutor resolved as normal.

    I believe it is a different scenario if they have the card in hand.
    Afaik this depends on the amount of the card in question in both the MD and the SB and the time this has been realized. E.g. if you play an Extraction MD and another one in the SB but you realize you have both in your MD AFTER the game has begun, you get a game loss. You also get a game loss if the card in question is revealed to your opponent somehow (e.g. Counterbalance flip).

  12. #12

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Quote Originally Posted by JDK View Post
    Afaik this depends on the amount of the card in question in both the MD and the SB and the time this has been realized. E.g. if you play an Extraction MD and another one in the SB but you realize you have both in your MD AFTER the game has begun, you get a game loss. You also get a game loss if the card in question is revealed to your opponent somehow (e.g. Counterbalance flip).
    Good to know! I’m sure it’s not something that happens too often; it was certainly my first time having it come up in one of my games.

  13. #13

    Re: 9th place GP: Seattle

    Here's the relevant IPG section:

    https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg3-5/

    In most situations, if you call a judge on yourself as soon as you realize, it's a warning + you lose the card if it's in your hand. The "Upgrade" section at the bottom covers the situations where Decklist Problem becomes a game loss.
    “It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.
    -David DeLaney

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