[Report] Hadley, Fetchland Tendrils

[J.V.]

Hadley's March 8th tournament had a good showing of 40 players. I Went 4-0-2 in the Swiss finishing in 2nd Place, and then lost in Top 8 coming in 5th place overall. Anyway on to my list that I played:

Lands:14
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

Creatures:4
4 Street Wraith

Noncreature Spells:42
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Orim's Chant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Ponder
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Wipe Away

Sideboard:15
3 Dark Confidant
3 Pyroblast
3 Abeyance
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Sudden Death

Round 1: Aaron (B4R0N), Rgb Vial Goblins
Game 1: I combo out and Tendrils for 22 early.
Game 2: He drops Chalice at 0 but I end up have thresh and double cabal ritual into an iggy loop for another 20+ Tendrils.
Rounds: 1-0, Games:2-0

Round 2: Zach Tartell (Lonelybaritone), GW Enchantress
Game 1: He manages to get Solitary Confinement +2 Sterling Groves so I scoop.
Game 2: I Orim's Chant Him 3 turns in a row while assembling a good combo hand and then I tendrils him for 24.
Game 3: See Game 2.
Rounds: 2-0, Games: 4-1

Round 3: Evan (LegoArmyMan), Ichorid
He asks to I.D. and I'm feeling super nice so I do.
Rounds 2-0-1, Games: 4-1

Round 4: FoolofaTook, UB Stifle-Nought
Game 1: I Stall him with Orim's Chant until I eventually Combo out after another Orim's Chant around turn 5/6.
Game 2: He starts with Leyline of the Void in play and drops a turn 1 chalice then he starts swing with a tombstalker which I Wipe Away and then at EOT I Chain of Vapor his Leyline into his hand. On my turn I Orim's Chant him and he forces then I follow up by abeyancing him and then combo for win while he looks at his Tormod's Crypt with a sad face on.
Rounds: 3-0-1, Games: 6-1

Round 5: Alan (Scrumdogg), I Will Survive
Game 1: I combo out very quickly and kill with a tendrils.
Game 2: I combo for some EtW's tokens, but he combo's too and 10 Goblins can't deal infinite damage... so on to g3.
Game 3: I Combo out for 16 tokens then the turn before I kill him he needs to topdeck a land so he can combo for infinite Life but he top-decks MURMURING BOSK which comes into play tapped and I then swing for lethal.
Rounds: 4-0-1, Games: 8-2

Round 6: Jared (Jaynel), GRB Burning Survival
Boring thing about the 1/2 seeds in the last round of swiss is they draw.
Rounds: 4-0-2, Games: 8-2
At the end of Swiss I was in 2nd place with 14 points.

Top 8: Geoff (Konsultant), Tombstone
Game 1: Neither of us no what the other is playing but his turn 1 Cabal therapy basically clears that up. I top-deck a dark ritual and combo out on my turn.
Game 2: I'm in mid combo for the win and when I go to play the Ill-Gotten Gains in my hand someone said something to me and I play infernal tutor instead and pick up my library. Since it is top 8 I'm not going to ask him if I can undo it because of the distraction and I lose.
Game 3: It not looking good, I start by mulling down to 5. Then he cabal therapy's me 11 (this is not an exaggeration or typo, I kept tally.) with Eternal Witness' etc. The 11th is on a brainstorm he know I have and he kills me the following turn with the 2 eternal witness' after the game we look at the 3 card I would have brainstormed into and it turn out I would have got Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor, throwing back Volcanic island and a Lotus petal and I would have combo'd for the win. Oh well They were good games and the tournament was a blast.

Props:
-Kevin for once again hosting a phenomenal tournament and holding 2 Orim's Chants for me.
-Iggy Pop for being amazing
-Jaynel for giving me a bagel, it was maim!
-Rodney for once again top 8ing with Dreadstill that
-The lady at burger king for going "IT'S WOPPER TIME" into the order box thing at like 11:30pm

Slops:
-Jon's Cell dying and losing us our directions half way there getting us savagely lost.
-My gargantuan play error in top 8
-Ben (ForceOfWill) for being a nub and taking forever in 3rd/4th place game and making me wait to get back my Bloodstained Mires and Badlands.

[ForceofWill]

my 3rd/4th game was half the time as my top 4 match...

[J.V.]

you still made me wait like 20 minutes. I wanted to go home...

[FoolofaTook]

That was me round 4. I had no realistic way to deal with Iggy Pop with the chants and abeyances except to have Leylines in play and hope to Stifle-Nought or Stifle-Shriekmaw early enough to kill you. That's the first time I've seen that version of Iggy Pop and it's definitely the best version so far.

[J.V.]

Ah, sorry I fixed that. And thanks.

[FoolofaTook]

That deck is tempting me to put 4 Dark Rituals in the sideboard, which is an absurd idea, except that it would let me run Iggy on you turn 2 or 3 which is when it might still matter. And of course my demented thoughts are running to Hoodwink in the board also which tells you how much I think I won't beat that deck.

[J.V.]

you could just not let Orim's Chant/Abeyance resolve and then stifle my tendrils/Empty
Granted thats much much easier said than done, but meh.

[FoolofaTook]

you could just not let Orim's Chant/Abeyance resolve and then stifle my tendrils/Empty
Granted thats much much easier said than done, but meh.

Yeah, I'd need to be playing more counters to do that reliably though. And you'd still be able to build up two or three of them in hand and go off in sequence burning my counters. That's what happened in game 2.

An Iggy before you're ready for it or a turn 2 or 2 Nought seems like the most likely options to actually beat that.

BTW, I was maindecking Leylines and a Tormod's, I chose not to mulligan for one of them in game 1 because until I know what you're playing it's not worth mulling for.

It's a great deck though and I think it would give me real trouble regardless of the draw, unless Stifle-Nought landed fast.

I made a real play error in game 1, although it's one I chose to make knowingly and would probably make again. I was holding Stifle and Force of Will when you Iggy'd after building your storm count and I chose not to FoW the Iggy on the theory that with no Leylines in play I'd be able to pick the Stifle and Force back out of the graveyard and control the situation that way. Then you discarded an Orim's Chant, which you were then able to power with an LED that you cracked after Iggy and it was game over. If I Force the Ill-Gotten Gains I might have won that game. The huge play error there was in allowing you any control of the situation. If I FoW the Iggy then I've maintained a semblance of control even though I'd have to pitch the Stifle to do it. It just seemed more powerful to preserve both options and it was much the weaker move in retrospect.

[Jak]

Round 2: Zach Tartell (Lonelybaritone), UW Enchantress

Are you sure? Or was it GWU or something? I want to see his list, but it would be hard to play Sterling Groves without green, so I am guessing green was in the deck.

[J.V.]

Are you sure? Or was it GWU or something? I want to see his list, but it would be hard to play Sterling Groves without green, so I am guessing green was in the deck.

lol it was GW, typos FTL.

[Jaynel]

Nice jorb. I do think that you would have beaten me in the swiss if we had played it out. I'm interested in testing that matchup.

[J.V.]

Yeah I'm actually fairly confidant that I would have won the tournament if I didn't make that play error in Top 8 since my next two rounds would have been Vial Goblins (A bye) and then Survival which is like 70-30 my favor. Oh well next time I just wont make play errors.

[Jaynel]

Yeah I'm actually fairly confidant that I would have won the tournament if I didn't make that play error in Top 8 since my next two rounds would have been Vial Goblins (A bye) and then Survival which is like 70-30 my favor. Oh well next time I just wont make play errors.

How punny.

[scrumdogg]

Gratz on the finish, never have I been Abeyanced or Chanted so many times by a black deck..... And yeah, drawing the one CIPT land in the deck was demoralizing, especially since drawing an Eternal Witness (3 left), a Loyal Retainers (either 3 or 4 left), and EE (all three left...) as well as any of the 12 lands that DON"T CIPT would have resulted in an arbitrarily large life total But, c'est la vie, it was an interesting match & nice to meet a lot of new people. Remember, PM is your friend, uuuuuse the PM Luke.....

[Isamaru]

Alan (scrumdogg) wasn't playing MB 4x Glowrider? That would have been hot.

Why is Murmuring Bosk in the deck? (Are you playing black now? For EE?) It isn't worth being nonbasic (DragonStompy) just to tap for a third color over a Bayou/Savannah/Scrubland. I am sad to hear it cost you that game. If you have time, post a quick tournament report- I'd love to hear how your other matches went. You have all 4 Retainers now? yay ^_^

I hope you all had fun at the tournament. Did Street Wraith ever screw you, JanValentine?

[Cavius The Great]

You have all 4 Retainers now?

You're looking at a man that has 4 of every odd end playable card.

[J.V.]

I hope you all had fun at the tournament. Did Street Wraith ever screw you, JanValentine?

Nope. He was amazing all day long.

[Jaiminho]

I made a real play error in game 1, although it's one I chose to make knowingly and would probably make again. I was holding Stifle and Force of Will when you Iggy'd after building your storm count and I chose not to FoW the Iggy on the theory that with no Leylines in play I'd be able to pick the Stifle and Force back out of the graveyard and control the situation that way. Then you discarded an Orim's Chant, which you were then able to power with an LED that you cracked after Iggy and it was game over. If I Force the Ill-Gotten Gains I might have won that game. The huge play error there was in allowing you any control of the situation. If I FoW the Iggy then I've maintained a semblance of control even though I'd have to pitch the Stifle to do it. It just seemed more powerful to preserve both options and it was much the weaker move in retrospect.

I don't get it. Did he discard Orim's Chant to LED in response to IGG? If he did, you could counter that IGG, since he has to repond before you do. If you do nothing, stuff resolves and no LED cracking for him.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't get it. Did he discard Orim's Chant to LED in response to IGG? If he did, you could counter that IGG, since he has to repond before you do. If you do nothing, stuff resolves and no LED cracking for him.

He cast Ill-Gotten Gains and I let it go. He cracked the LED at that point with IGG on the stack and you're right I should have waited to see what hit his graveyard from the LED before deciding whether to go back and Force the Ill-Gotten Gains. It was a play mistake that probably cost me the game, it being turn 1 and all and his hand being empty with 1 LED and a land on the board at that point.

I also think I was not aggressive enough in mulliganing all day long to get the Leylines in the opening hand I went 6-6 on the day and the split was 5-2 with opening Leylines and 1-4 without. The one win w/o Leylines was a turn 2 Dreadnought and a very unlucky draw from the Ichorid deck I was playing against in the first game of a 2-0 round.

[J.V.]

Yeah but on the other Hand game 2 I played through Leyline of the Void, Tormod's Crypt, and a fast clock and still combo'd so mulling for Leyline might not have been that effective since it probably means you have less counter backup to protect it.