Shugyosha
10-06-2008, 03:54 PM
From my Blog (http://mtgevo.blogspot.com/) with some re-writing. Please keep in mind that I'm not a native speaker. Corrections of really bad errors via PM would be appreciated.
Shortly after my 10th place in Dülmen (see here (http://mtgevo.blogspot.com/2008/08/hybrids.html)) the German Legacy Champs were following in Hannover. Some guys and I traditionally attend this event as it's the biggest Legacy Tournament you can get in Germany and the player count raises throughout the years. My success with Swanthresh made me believe it would be a good deck to play in the event... error No. 1.
Sleeping well and too long was error No. 2. Not that I overslept, no I was present... well, at least physically. My play skills however were dazed simply because there was no adrenaline in my body. I made play mistakes and misjudged board situations like I never did before in tournament magic. A really embarrassing day that ended with a 4-4-0.
Fast forward to the next Dülmen Tourney Round 6: 3-1-1 is my score and my opp. score is around 60%+. All I need is a win with my UGw Threshold list. I get paired against UGb Bitterblossom Thresh. Winnable? Yes! But my opponent decided that round 6 should be his lucky round: Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > hey, even UGw Thresh has it's limits > Bitterblossom > Okay, the fourth Confidant would have been bad news but Bitterblossom is soo fair. I scoop, make my head clear for game 2 and the following happens: Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > hey, even UGw Thresh has it's limits > Bitterblossom > Jitte > Goyf > I scoop and the 4th place in case of a win becomes the 15th place. Price support 1st to 14th place...
Fast forward to yesterday. The amount of Zoo decks (now with Wild Nacatl) and Faerie/Fish decks at the moment pushed me into two directions regarding deck choices: Swanthresh or UWb Landstill. The possible combo kill and with Swans and lots of burn were the reason I picked Threshold again.
As I disliked the fact that you can't handle difficult permanents at least temporarily with the list so I added Bounce.
Ugr Swanthresh [60]
played at Iserlohn (59 players)
2008-10-06
Lands [18]
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
2 Island
Creatures [11]
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Swans of Bryn Argoll
Draw and CQ [11]
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
Permission [10]
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
Removal & Combo [8]
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain of Plasma
1 Lightning Storm
Bounce [2]
1 Wipe Away
1 Rushing River
Sideboard [15]
3 Krosan Grip
3 Hydroblast
3 Pyroblast
3 Blood Moon
3 Mind Harness
Price of Progress got replaced by Moons and with the current absence of Ichorid and Aggro Loam in our meta I replaced the Crypts with Mind Harness against Beatdown decks and the mirror.
Round 1: Eugen L. with MUC (Plains/Swamp for E. Explosives)
Game 1: My Balance gets countered. Some turns later I have four mana and a Chain of Plasma in my hand. I play Swan, he Cryptic Commands it. During the next 3-4 turns I play my second and my third Swan and guess what... Command, Command! After some draw go he has "a hell of a card advantage" and I scoop to have enough time.
Game 2: First turn Nimble Mongoose goes all the way unthreshed while we battle over everything else I'm trying to resolve or beat face with. Notable play: He plays Morphling with one mana open. I Daze which he grudgegingly pays and I Bolt the creature during my turn. The wicked lategame power of Daze ;-)
Game 3: It's like game one but one turn before I can kill him with my finally threshed Mongoose he resolves a Morphling and simply kills me in four turns.
0-1-0
Round 2: Alexander S. with Stasis
Game 1: He only plays Islands and I'm already thinking: Noooooo, not again. His first business is a pair of Propaganda. I let them resolve with Force on my hand as I have no attack force at the moment anyways. The Force counters the Stasis (with me fully tapped) however, phew! After that I resolve Balance + Top and outcontrol him while slowly beating him to death with a Goyf (paying four mana every attack).
Game 2: The only signifcant spell is a Jace which I let resolve. He has no board position and still lets us both draw cards. I beat him burn Jace to reasonable loyality twice and win.
Later a friend of mine (now teammate) Prowls a Earwig Squad against him and snatches his 3 Jaces as they are the only win condition of the deck :-)
1-1-0
Round 3: Jasmin A. (yes it sounds like a she but she is actually a he) with 1-Land Belcher
Game 1: His behaviour makes it so obvious that he plays Belcher that I keep seven cards with Force, two Daze and duds. He Therapies me off a Lotus Petal turn one...WTF! After discarding my Force he has to say go however. With a Daze ready I say go and he topdecks Land Grant > Land Grant > Land Grant during the next three turns. I Daze the first two ones as a Land would kickstart his hand (which I know since Land Grant one). After that I have found Balance to "end" the game.
Game 2: Let me just say Force, Hydroblast, pitchcard, draw Hydroblast turn.
After the round a sideevent Draft starts in which Jasmin participates. My opp. score also decides to drop and draft...
Nevertheless Jasmin was a really nice opponent. He was friendly even as I bashed him and we talked a bit about Therapy in Belcher. Guess I have to test this one.
2-1-0
Round 4: Michael H.with UWB Fish
Game 1: My turn two Counterbalance and burn on his Trinkets and Confidants owns him. He has a Crypt out to shrink my only beater but I bounce it with Wipe Away (thank you Split Second) and counter it with a Volcanic on top.
Game 2: I have everything but red mana and fall to a pair of Trinket Mages with Bolt, Chain, Pyroblast and Blood Moon on hand. The Moon would have cut him of off white and black completely. Oh yeah I had Goyfs but Trinket on EE is > Goyf.
Game 3: I burn his early critters, play my own and Grip his Needle to pump my pair of Goyfs to lethal.
3-1-0
Round 5: Philipp S. with UWB Fish
The first error he did was to exchange his Balances for Jittes before the tourney starts.
Game 1: He lets a Balance through although he could have Forced it and I only have to deal with some Meddling Mages. With Bolt and Chain of Plasma, Mages of any kind are usually not much of a problem (Okay Chameleon Colossus would be...)
Game 2: He stifles my land and I'm screwed on a Volcanic....shit. Last tournament he didn't play Stifle. Luckily he only draws lands while I draw none. Then he plays an Armageddon to kill my lonely land! 5:1 exchange and board parity, I take it. I draw a land thereafter which might seem very lucky but I hadn't drawn one for three turns straight. He builds up lands quicker than me however and castes stuff. I counter or burn the nasty critters and only a Meddling Mage resolves. He names Ponder. What? Ponder! I...take...it. I draw a Tropical some time later and bash him with my hand full of goodies left over from many turns of draw-go.
He drew a shitton of land during game 2 and none of his Grunts so luck was still involved on my side :-)
4-1-0
Round 6: Forgot to write his name down with 5c Zoo
Game 1: He drops a ton of beaters and burns me while I sacrifice everything to find land number four and a Chain of Plasma. When things start to get nasty on the board I finally have it together and drop the Swan I had all the time. The turn later a Lighting Storm strucks him down.
Game 2: I counter/burn his early stuff to let my Balance handle things. A lonely Doran gets through however and beats me for 15 before I find a Goyf in frantic fetch/cantrip/Top action. Goyf is 5/5 thanks to Doran and they both die. After that he just draws and plays two-drops one round after another. Everything gets countered by the same Chain of Plasma I hover at the top of my library. With a strong manabase I drop Blood Moon cutting him off from white and black and beat with Goyf and Goose while Force and Hydroblast still waiting on my hand.
5-1-0
(We don't play out Top8 at monthly tournaments)
As my opp. score was still busy drafting Alara (only my loss round 1 did well by winning the tourney) I ended up 6th place with three 15 pts. players in front of me. But I'm not complaining. 6th out of 59 players is pretty good :-)
This time I only won one game with the combo but it would have been lost without it. I also had the opportunity to combo twice but Swans got taken care of first. As I predicted the high burn count was incredibly good in the meta. it basically felt like playing red Threshold with Incinerates instead of Fire/Ice and Counterbalance of course. No opponent copied Chain even once and Swans made a whopping four damage during the whole tourney. Still I like the raw power of the combo.
The only time I saw the Rushing River was when boarding it out. Same with Wipe Away safe the one game against UWB Fish. So the epic search for cards to play in these slots continues...
Props:
-The deck worked
-vicious three copies clashes (Swan>Command/land Grant>Daze). I tend to see them often...
-Krosan Grip
-The Stasis deck, somehow
Slops:
-Opponent Score (I had 71% when it didn't matter and 50% when it mattered)
-Driving back took sooo long (at least it seemed so)
-Mind Harness
Shortly after my 10th place in Dülmen (see here (http://mtgevo.blogspot.com/2008/08/hybrids.html)) the German Legacy Champs were following in Hannover. Some guys and I traditionally attend this event as it's the biggest Legacy Tournament you can get in Germany and the player count raises throughout the years. My success with Swanthresh made me believe it would be a good deck to play in the event... error No. 1.
Sleeping well and too long was error No. 2. Not that I overslept, no I was present... well, at least physically. My play skills however were dazed simply because there was no adrenaline in my body. I made play mistakes and misjudged board situations like I never did before in tournament magic. A really embarrassing day that ended with a 4-4-0.
Fast forward to the next Dülmen Tourney Round 6: 3-1-1 is my score and my opp. score is around 60%+. All I need is a win with my UGw Threshold list. I get paired against UGb Bitterblossom Thresh. Winnable? Yes! But my opponent decided that round 6 should be his lucky round: Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > hey, even UGw Thresh has it's limits > Bitterblossom > Okay, the fourth Confidant would have been bad news but Bitterblossom is soo fair. I scoop, make my head clear for game 2 and the following happens: Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > I handle it > Confidant > hey, even UGw Thresh has it's limits > Bitterblossom > Jitte > Goyf > I scoop and the 4th place in case of a win becomes the 15th place. Price support 1st to 14th place...
Fast forward to yesterday. The amount of Zoo decks (now with Wild Nacatl) and Faerie/Fish decks at the moment pushed me into two directions regarding deck choices: Swanthresh or UWb Landstill. The possible combo kill and with Swans and lots of burn were the reason I picked Threshold again.
As I disliked the fact that you can't handle difficult permanents at least temporarily with the list so I added Bounce.
Ugr Swanthresh [60]
played at Iserlohn (59 players)
2008-10-06
Lands [18]
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
2 Island
Creatures [11]
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Swans of Bryn Argoll
Draw and CQ [11]
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
Permission [10]
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
Removal & Combo [8]
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain of Plasma
1 Lightning Storm
Bounce [2]
1 Wipe Away
1 Rushing River
Sideboard [15]
3 Krosan Grip
3 Hydroblast
3 Pyroblast
3 Blood Moon
3 Mind Harness
Price of Progress got replaced by Moons and with the current absence of Ichorid and Aggro Loam in our meta I replaced the Crypts with Mind Harness against Beatdown decks and the mirror.
Round 1: Eugen L. with MUC (Plains/Swamp for E. Explosives)
Game 1: My Balance gets countered. Some turns later I have four mana and a Chain of Plasma in my hand. I play Swan, he Cryptic Commands it. During the next 3-4 turns I play my second and my third Swan and guess what... Command, Command! After some draw go he has "a hell of a card advantage" and I scoop to have enough time.
Game 2: First turn Nimble Mongoose goes all the way unthreshed while we battle over everything else I'm trying to resolve or beat face with. Notable play: He plays Morphling with one mana open. I Daze which he grudgegingly pays and I Bolt the creature during my turn. The wicked lategame power of Daze ;-)
Game 3: It's like game one but one turn before I can kill him with my finally threshed Mongoose he resolves a Morphling and simply kills me in four turns.
0-1-0
Round 2: Alexander S. with Stasis
Game 1: He only plays Islands and I'm already thinking: Noooooo, not again. His first business is a pair of Propaganda. I let them resolve with Force on my hand as I have no attack force at the moment anyways. The Force counters the Stasis (with me fully tapped) however, phew! After that I resolve Balance + Top and outcontrol him while slowly beating him to death with a Goyf (paying four mana every attack).
Game 2: The only signifcant spell is a Jace which I let resolve. He has no board position and still lets us both draw cards. I beat him burn Jace to reasonable loyality twice and win.
Later a friend of mine (now teammate) Prowls a Earwig Squad against him and snatches his 3 Jaces as they are the only win condition of the deck :-)
1-1-0
Round 3: Jasmin A. (yes it sounds like a she but she is actually a he) with 1-Land Belcher
Game 1: His behaviour makes it so obvious that he plays Belcher that I keep seven cards with Force, two Daze and duds. He Therapies me off a Lotus Petal turn one...WTF! After discarding my Force he has to say go however. With a Daze ready I say go and he topdecks Land Grant > Land Grant > Land Grant during the next three turns. I Daze the first two ones as a Land would kickstart his hand (which I know since Land Grant one). After that I have found Balance to "end" the game.
Game 2: Let me just say Force, Hydroblast, pitchcard, draw Hydroblast turn.
After the round a sideevent Draft starts in which Jasmin participates. My opp. score also decides to drop and draft...
Nevertheless Jasmin was a really nice opponent. He was friendly even as I bashed him and we talked a bit about Therapy in Belcher. Guess I have to test this one.
2-1-0
Round 4: Michael H.with UWB Fish
Game 1: My turn two Counterbalance and burn on his Trinkets and Confidants owns him. He has a Crypt out to shrink my only beater but I bounce it with Wipe Away (thank you Split Second) and counter it with a Volcanic on top.
Game 2: I have everything but red mana and fall to a pair of Trinket Mages with Bolt, Chain, Pyroblast and Blood Moon on hand. The Moon would have cut him of off white and black completely. Oh yeah I had Goyfs but Trinket on EE is > Goyf.
Game 3: I burn his early critters, play my own and Grip his Needle to pump my pair of Goyfs to lethal.
3-1-0
Round 5: Philipp S. with UWB Fish
The first error he did was to exchange his Balances for Jittes before the tourney starts.
Game 1: He lets a Balance through although he could have Forced it and I only have to deal with some Meddling Mages. With Bolt and Chain of Plasma, Mages of any kind are usually not much of a problem (Okay Chameleon Colossus would be...)
Game 2: He stifles my land and I'm screwed on a Volcanic....shit. Last tournament he didn't play Stifle. Luckily he only draws lands while I draw none. Then he plays an Armageddon to kill my lonely land! 5:1 exchange and board parity, I take it. I draw a land thereafter which might seem very lucky but I hadn't drawn one for three turns straight. He builds up lands quicker than me however and castes stuff. I counter or burn the nasty critters and only a Meddling Mage resolves. He names Ponder. What? Ponder! I...take...it. I draw a Tropical some time later and bash him with my hand full of goodies left over from many turns of draw-go.
He drew a shitton of land during game 2 and none of his Grunts so luck was still involved on my side :-)
4-1-0
Round 6: Forgot to write his name down with 5c Zoo
Game 1: He drops a ton of beaters and burns me while I sacrifice everything to find land number four and a Chain of Plasma. When things start to get nasty on the board I finally have it together and drop the Swan I had all the time. The turn later a Lighting Storm strucks him down.
Game 2: I counter/burn his early stuff to let my Balance handle things. A lonely Doran gets through however and beats me for 15 before I find a Goyf in frantic fetch/cantrip/Top action. Goyf is 5/5 thanks to Doran and they both die. After that he just draws and plays two-drops one round after another. Everything gets countered by the same Chain of Plasma I hover at the top of my library. With a strong manabase I drop Blood Moon cutting him off from white and black and beat with Goyf and Goose while Force and Hydroblast still waiting on my hand.
5-1-0
(We don't play out Top8 at monthly tournaments)
As my opp. score was still busy drafting Alara (only my loss round 1 did well by winning the tourney) I ended up 6th place with three 15 pts. players in front of me. But I'm not complaining. 6th out of 59 players is pretty good :-)
This time I only won one game with the combo but it would have been lost without it. I also had the opportunity to combo twice but Swans got taken care of first. As I predicted the high burn count was incredibly good in the meta. it basically felt like playing red Threshold with Incinerates instead of Fire/Ice and Counterbalance of course. No opponent copied Chain even once and Swans made a whopping four damage during the whole tourney. Still I like the raw power of the combo.
The only time I saw the Rushing River was when boarding it out. Same with Wipe Away safe the one game against UWB Fish. So the epic search for cards to play in these slots continues...
Props:
-The deck worked
-vicious three copies clashes (Swan>Command/land Grant>Daze). I tend to see them often...
-Krosan Grip
-The Stasis deck, somehow
Slops:
-Opponent Score (I had 71% when it didn't matter and 50% when it mattered)
-Driving back took sooo long (at least it seemed so)
-Mind Harness