Smmenen
01-25-2009, 10:39 PM
There were 30 players, five rounds of swiss, and a top 8 playoff.
The top 4 prize split, so the top 4 placement is based on swiss standings.
I offered to post the top 8 decklists, since I know these things tend to get put off.
Enjoy!
1st Anthony Vermilya (Rw Burn)
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jotun Grunt
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Goblin Legionaire
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Helix
3 Cave-In
4 Magma Jet
4 Fireblast
3 Price of Progress
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Plateau
2 Plains
5 Mountain
Sideboard:
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Pithing Needle
4 Vexing Shusher
4 Crash
2nd Place
Stephen Menendian (4c Counterbalance-Goyf)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Confidant
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmagoyf
2 Trygon Predator
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Island
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Krosan Grip
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Engineered Plague
3rd: Brian Fisher (Landstill)
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Wrath of God
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Spell Snare
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Plains
3 Island
1 Polluted Delta
Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Energy Flux
3 Krosan Grip
1 Wrath of God
4th Mark Trogdon (UR Faeries)
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Scion of the Oona
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Counterspell
3 Vedalkin Shackles
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
4 Fire/Ice
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
9 Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Mutavault
1 Ripetide Laboratory
Sideboard:
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Price of Progress
3 Back to Basics
3 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
1 Gaea's Blessing
5th Christopher Walton (UW Control/Landstill
)
3 Wrath of God
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Eternal Dragon
3 Decree of Justice
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Humility
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
2 Island
3 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
Sideboard:
2 Ajani Goldmane
3 Runed Halo
3 Serenity
3 Meddling Mage
2 Chainer's Edict
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Curcible of Worlds
6th Stephen Judd (???)
2 Riptide Laboratory
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Swamp
2 Island
4 Gilded Drake
4 Hunted Horror
4 Dark Confidant
4 Sage of Epityr
3 Trinket Mage
2 Relic of Prognetus
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ponder
3 Repeal
2 Smother
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Aether Vial
3 Tel-Jilad Stylus
1 Despotic Scepter
Sideboard:
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Augur of Skulls
2 Propoganda
4 Hydroblast
2 Relic of Prognitus
7th Anthony Bucchioni (Goblins)
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Seige-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
3 Warren Weirding
1 Word, Bogart Auntie
4 Aether Vial
3 Chrome Mox
4 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
2 Barbarian Ring
Sideboard:
3 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Blood Moon
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Earwig Squad
1 Mad Auntie
8th Anthony Michaels (Landstill)
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monestary
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
3 Wasteland
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Spell Snare
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Engineered Explosiveds
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Stifle
Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Engineered Plague
2 Duress
3 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt
Congratulations to the top 8!
Patrick
01-26-2009, 10:43 PM
I really don't get those choices. MD Cave-In in a Landstill meta???
Also, Duergar Hedge-Mage > Abolish > Crash
And Faerie Macabre are worse then Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. The deck is also already playing 4x Grunt MD.
Gather 'round class. Gather 'round.....
I'm a pretty good friend of Tony, the guy who piloted this deck Saturday. This metagame was unpredictable, I don't think anyone EVER EVER considers 60% Force of Will metagame to be the case. In weekly tournaments where Tony and I play there are between 1 and 3 Stax players in the event, and the R/W deck can get blown out by Stax without an aggressive enough hand. Crash allows him to either knock out an early Chalice@1, or dump spells and blow something up in response to Armageddon (usually Crucible....). Cave In gets that last couple damage in there, and probably wipes goblins clean off the board. I know he was using Hedge Mage, I don't know why he stopped. The Fae Macabre was probably a solution to not having Crypt or Relic. Also, it can't be countered.
Citrus-God
01-27-2009, 03:42 AM
Well it was the first Legacy tournament that we've held so far. Perhaps, you should come to the next one and show all of us RIW 'newbs' how the Legacy 'masters' do it.
I was mocking Menendian's view on Landstill from GP Philly era.
I would go (mainly for proxy endorsement), but money and school keeps me from me from getting to places.
Master Shake
01-27-2009, 02:10 PM
I really like the Elspeths in the landstill decks. I would be curious how the pilots of the decks felt about playing her post tournament. It's nice to know that some of the planeswalkers other than Tezzeret translate to eternal formats.
I played the U/W list with 2 Elspeths. Originally I wanted to play 3 Vindicate in that slot and another, but it turned out to be quite fantastic that I did not play it as every deck I played against featured at least one creature with shroud. (I'll do a mini-report later in this post)
Overall, Elspeth was pretty good for me, but there were some issues with the card. I didn't want the card to be as good as it was to show a friend that it just wasn't good enough.
Foremost, it costs a lot, which means it doesn't get countered by silly things, but also means I can't keep hands that are not laden with land.
It is a bit frustrating that there are only two relevant abilities on the card, although The threat of the final caused one concession and prevented another opponent from being able to win. There were a lot of times that I was wishing that it was just Sacred Mesa, its more mana intensive but it allows me to act at instant speed and put more blockers/attackers into play. The first times I was playing with the card, I just kept wishing that it was somehow Garruk and not Elspeth, but I didn't want to dilute the deck with a bunch of green.
There are of course, good things about Elspeth, that's why I started this out with some mild praise for the card:
The most important quality of the card was that it prevented me from taking damage in two ways. First, the obvious way, it produces a blocker every turn and secondly, when the option is available, people were forced to decide if to attack Elspeth or reduce my life total. The most memorable occasion was when Smmenen spent roughly four minutes aiming his Nimble Mongoose. It was a difficult decision for a lot of people because the card just keeps adding counters onto itself.
Being manaless, Elspeth allowed me to do more important things, like Wrath of God or Fact or Fiction.
While it wasn't a big issue for me, Elspeth can end games much more quickly than traditional cards in that slot. Personally, I'm comfortable winning all of my matches 1-0 when playing Landstill, but I was also content winning 2-0.
The aspect of the card that I appreciated the most is that it forces your opponent to commit extra cards to the table to be able to damage you or kill Elspeth, this is the same reason that Ajani is in the board, because its a non-creature, non-mana intensive way of forcing your opponent to expend extra resources to either kill you, or kill something that isn't you.
Here is a small report:
Round 1: CJ (Meat Hooks, although, I suppose its counter-sliver because... it had a lot of counters.)
Game 1: I win the roll and start off with a Factory. He leads with Fetch > Tundra > Plated Sliver. I look at my hand of Force of Will, Wrath of God, Sword to Plowshares Tundra, Tundra Wasteland and feel pretty good about how this is going to go. I draw into Humility, play Tundra and pass the turn. He plays Tropical Island, Sinew Sliver and attacks with his Plated Sliver, I rejoice as I block with my Factory and kill his sliver. I draw into Standstill, play a land go to play Standstill but he Forces it pitching Misdirection. He plays another Sinew Sliver (He's still on 2 lands) and my life total drops to 17. I draw into my 5th land (which is Wasteland number 2), which makes me feel pretty comfortable, now I won't walk into Daze. I hold back on playing anything but the Wasteland and pass the turn. He plays a Muscle Sliver and attacks for 8. I'm faced with quite a problem of if I should try to StP an attacker to bait a counter or not. If he has the counter, I win because he'll be left tapped out with one card in hand, but if the StP resolves I'll basically wasted a card if WoG resolves, or perhaps he won't counter the StP and he'll anticipate the WoG After a moment of deliberation I go for it and he Forces, removing Stifle. I breath a sigh of relief as I take 8 damage (down to 9.) I untap, draw Elspeth and play WoG. He puts all of his creatures into the grave yard, I wasteland his Tundra and pass. He draws and passes. I draw another land, go to play Elspeth and he Forces again. I wasteland his last remaining land and he goes into a period of draw Go. I play Humility and start attacking him with lands until I play a FoF that gets me an Elspeth, he concedes.
Sideboarding: I start to dread the thought of his Vials and how bad my deck is against uncounterable, walking Coat of Arms with shroud and at instant speed Why didn't I put Plague in my board? (Mistake of the day). +2 Chainer's Edict -2 Standstill
He leads with Plated Sliver, still worried about Vial (which he obviously doesn't have) I play EE @ 1 and pass, he plays Crystaline sliver (I'm not happy about that) and attacks. I make my EE go away and start to brood over how bad of a play that was but then, a funny thing happens, he runs out of slivers that I card about (more plated Slviers and Crystaline Slivers). I find a Humility and we [may have] gotten into a counter war over it, but it sticks, eventually I cycle a Decree to kill all of his creatures and play Elspeth, which forces him to lose the game.
Matches: 1-0-0
Games: 2-0-0
Round Two: Smmenen (Its posted in the first post)
Game 1: I win the second roll of the day, I suspect that he's playing U/G/b threshold because vintage players (of which there were a lot of) Like to play Brainstorm and Dark Confidant. I keep a two-land hand which has Spell Snare, StP, Humility, WoG, Brainstorm and Standstill. I play an Island (I'm really hoping he isn't playing Team America or is just tossing Wasteland in his deck) and pass, he leads with Nimble Mongoose, I go for Standstill, he Dazes it. We were talking about this after the match and I'm a bit fuzzy about the order of events, but this all happened but perhaps not in this order: This turn 2. He plays a Top, I draw not a land and pass. He tops at Eot. His turn 3. He plays Thoughtseize taking my Humility (I forget to Brainstorm in response and he doesn't take my Brainstorm, which I end up being quite happy about) I got for a main phase Brainstorm, drawing FoF, Plains, Polluted Delta, I don't recall what I put back at some point I counter or StP a Dark Confidant and the next turn WoG the Mongoose and another Confidant. He plays Counterbalance in the confusion, but this game it doesn't counter anything. I EE away his counterbalance and a Goyf, leaving him with a Mongoose and eventually stick Elspeth. I make a token and he starts looking for another creature. We go for a few turns until he finds another mongoose. I Cycle a for 3 tokens decree with Elspeth at 7 counters and he concedes.
Sideboarding: I brought the Edicts for Mongoose, and there it is. -1 Decree of Justice -1 Fact or Fiction +2 Chainer's Edict.
I don't even remember what happens, he didn't sideboard out Counterbalance and it catches me off guard. It doesn't counter a ton, but my land problems are amplified by not being able to Brainstorm. I even wasted an early FoW on a turn 2 Counterbalance only to have him play another counterbalance. At this point I wish I had played Enchantress or Stax and just get to ignore that card. He gets a Goyf and it gets fairly big.
I don't change sideboarding between games, He wants me to hurry up which [no offense intended] is ironic considering that he played at a very leisurely pace up until this third game. There are three minutes. I toy around with the idea of mulliganing the time away but that seems like its in poor sport. I staunchly decide against it, but when I look at my opening hand, I can't keep it. I don't allow myself to be rushed and shuffle at a normal pace. I draw my six and am content with seeing a bunch of cards that will make it impossible for him to win in the time allowed: StP, Spell Snare, EE, Factory, Strand, Tundra. I don't stall but time comes up very early into the game, I offer him the draw saying [while he has no creatures on the table] that neither of us can win in the 5 turns. He says he wants to play it out which is allowed to him under the rules, so I sit back and say draw-go, he agrees to the draw once I StP or Spell Snare something of his.
Games: 3-1-1
Matches: 1-0-1
I felt good that at least I didn't lose, although I think I could have won that game had I been given more time.
Round 3: Mark Trogdon (He top 8ed as well, so you can see his list.)
Game 1: I know him somewhat by reputation as a burn player. and so when I see him lead with Island, Suspend Ancestral Visions I assume he's playing MUC, which scares me because I don't want to see Back to Basics. I am somewhat relieved when he plays an end of turn Spellstutter Sprite I decide that I have kind of a slow start, so having any creatures over there is a bad idea, so I StP it. He misses his third land drop and passes. Then he misses his fourth fourth, and just about every other land drop. At some point I wasteland his land, and I eventually win with Humility + Elspeth
Sideboarding:-4 Standstill (I don't need him responding with one or more faeries) +3 Runed Halo +1 Crucible of Worlds. I'm afraid of Price of Progress, which at the time seemed silly, but I couldn't think of a good reason to be in Faeries and be playing red.
Game 2: he is apparently flooded with lands and I start slow-playing my threats assuming that he has a billion or so counters. But, I'm able to counterspell an Ancestral Visions, and then several turns later, another. I decide to start commiting cards to the table. He gets a Mistbind clique on the table, I was fearing that he used it, and he did. I kill it and some other faerie(s) with a WoG and Crucible (but I just have wasteland and Flooded Strand in there) then the next turn I return my Eternal Dragon I keep drawing lands, which prevents me from ever getting to the Strand, and I decide not to Wasteland his stuff, because he has like 10 Islands and his red cards are Fire, which is bad. Start attacking with Factories (We're getting close to time.) I play my Dragon and then he doesn't do anything for a long time. I'm wondering what he is up to. I'm sitting at 14 life and he's at 8, he has just fired a Factory, and I replay it from the yard. And then, something crazy happens, he has two cards in hand and he plays Price of Progress. I stand to lose the game if this resolves as is and I've wasted all of my counters are really silly cards of his. I Wasteland my own Academy Ruins (which brings me down to 7 non-basics) and then StP my own Mishra's Factory. His other card in hand is a blank, and what he doesn't realize is that the 4 damage he just took off the PoP ended the game for him, allowing my Dragon to come in for the win.
Games 5-1-1
Matches 2-0-1
I was really quite shaken by the Price of Progress, that card is stupid good.
Round 4: (Meat Hooks)
Game 1: The difference between this match and my previous match is that this chap drew Ęther Vials. I lose game one swiftly
Sideboarding: -2 Standstill +2 Chainer's Edict
Game 2: He gets another Vial start, but luckily for me is short of Slivers. I Wrath>Humility>Elspeth>Decree for the win.
Game 3: I have to mulligan, but I get a hand of Humility, WoG, Tundra, Tundra, Factory. He plays Plated Sliver and two Crystaline Slivers and two more plated slivers. He can't attack because I've drawn all three of my factories so we stalemate for a while, I EoT FoF into a WoG/Counterspell/Land and FoF/Stp, I get to WoG away all of his stuff and then in the Humility. I thought I had lost this game when I saw Crystaline Sliver, but instead I won.
Games: 7-2-1
Matches: 3-0-1
I can draw in; so I do, but Tony and I play a couple of games anyway.
Round 5: Tony (Boros, his deck is in the T8 too)
Game 1: He plays a lot of things that deal me damage, I StP a grunt that comes after I FoF and it hits me for 4, he plays some other stuff, but eventually goes all in on a Lethal Fireblast (A.K.A. loses his lands) I go down to one after Stping a Factory. I win before he can hit a second land.
I don't sideboard, becuase I want to keep his spirits up, seriously, there are so many bad cards in there for him.
Game 2: I lose on like turn 5. I had two Elspeths, it was awful.
Game 3: We didn't play it.
Top 8: against Mark Trogdon
Game 1: I stp his early 1/1s to keep pressure off me (and Cliques away.) I eot FoF, he counters it, I topdeck the 2nd and play it in response to his eot Mistblind clique, he gives me Brainstorm/Land/Spell Snare/WoG or Stp as the options. I think for a moment, I really want to 2-1 him taking his sower (with nothing controlled) and Cliqeu, but Instead I go for more cards, then I brainstorm into Humility, Force, Elspeth force his clique and play Humilty next turn. Eventually he play Shackles and that seems like it will cause some problems, but... Elspeth keeps pumping out damage guys and I win.
Sideboarding: EE is useless here, or so I thought at the time, I take it out for 3 Runed Halo, I realize that Standstill can be auto-broken by his Visions, which seems like a good deal to me.
Game 2: I'm not sure how this happened, because I drew 6 cards off his ancestral visions (Thanks standstill) but I end up losing to Spellsutter Sprite and Scion of Oona over a painfully long number of turns where he clearly had nothing and I needed to hit any removal spell. We were both at 1 at the end (thanks Elspeth) but I needed to deal with the Scion (I played a Halo on the 2/2 Spellsutter and kept a mutavault at bay with Soldier tokens.)
Game 3: I keep a decent hand, but it has Elspeth and I hate seeing Elspeth in opening hands. I go for a Humilty with Force backup but he has counterspell + Force + Blue card. He plays a Vendillion Clique and doesn't let me get rid of Elspeth, instead he puts a Needle on it. I'm stuck with a dead card in hand, and I don't draw anything. After his first swing with the Vendillion there was a tense moment where he nearly played a second, but realized just before the zero hour that it was legendary. I felt myself raising out of my seat as I knew that if he killed his own Clique for me, I'd certainly win the game (all he had was a spellstutter) Instead, I lose the game.
The end.
Everyone likes Spell Snare, it was all right, but I wish I would have run 4 Counterspell 2 Spell Snare.
Smmenen
01-27-2009, 04:00 PM
Chris:
I enjoyed playing against you, and I'm glad you wrote a tournament report (even though you paint me in a bad light). I don't think it was fair to characterize my refusal to draw as simply acting in the letter of the law. I had two Goyfs in hand, and could potentially win in three swings.
I am also surprised you don't remember more of our match, but don't fear, I was able to reconstruct more of it for my tournament report on SCG next Monday.
Elspeth was very good against me. Good choice on that card.
I hope you can make it to the meandeck open.
Also: I lost every single die roll on the day. All 6. It's pretty annoying when you play a deck with 4 Daze ;)
Patrick
01-27-2009, 08:39 PM
Good. Mulliganing the time away is Cheating - Stalling.
This is an ignorant post. Reading the report will tell you there were about 3 minutes left in the round, and assuming he took a reasonable amount of time to shuffle and analyze his 6 card hand, he could easily burn 2 minutes off the clock. Poor sport, yes. Cheating, no.
Cheating (capital C, as defined by the Penalty Guidelines) goes to intent. If you deliberately take more time in order to take advantage of the clock, you are guilty of Cheating - Stalling.
People have been DQed for exactly that. If you want to play by the rules - and I hope you do - don't try to "burn minutes off the clock".
151. Cheating — Stalling
Definition
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit. If the slow play is not intentional, please refer to Tournament Error — Slow Play instead.
Example
A. A player in a Magic tournament has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the
game, and spends excessive time "thinking" about what to do to eat up time on the clock.
B. A player in a Dreamblade tournament is ahead in turns and significantly slows down his pace of play so
the opponent has little chance to catch up.
C. A player playing slowly appeals a warning in an attempt to gain advantage by having more time to make a
decision.
D. A player intentionally exceeds the pregame time limit before the third game in an attempt to make it harder
for his opponent to win in time.
St. Brian the Venerable
01-28-2009, 02:32 AM
Cheating (capital C, as defined by the Penalty Guidelines) goes to intent. If you deliberately take more time in order to take advantage of the clock, you are guilty of Cheating - Stalling.
People have been DQed for exactly that. If you want to play by the rules - and I hope you do - don't try to "burn minutes off the clock".
I agree. However, it is the type of thing that is awfully difficult to prove. You've just got to call a judge and hope he sees it your way.
Master Shake
01-28-2009, 03:40 PM
In Stephen's defense, he didn't play as slow as I've heard rumored. I was worried because he was using both Top and Brainstorm, but there was only one or two resolutions that caused me to notice that it was taking a while and I honestly get impatient very easily and play rather quickly.
I was concerned as we were shuffling up for the third game that it was going to look like I was stalling, which is perhaps why I thought of it, but I think I took a reasonable amount of time shuffling. I had quickly decied that I should just look for a hand that allowed me to keep him off creatures for a few turns.
Patrick
01-29-2009, 11:20 AM
Cheating (capital C, as defined by the Penalty Guidelines) goes to intent. If you deliberately take more time in order to take advantage of the clock, you are guilty of Cheating - Stalling.
People have been DQed for exactly that. If you want to play by the rules - and I hope you do - don't try to "burn minutes off the clock".
Well Judge CDR, I wasn't Cheating, I was spending time thinking about a relevant game decision, namely if my first 7 cards were keepable or if I needed to mulligan to 6. Like St. Whatever the Whatever said, it's almost impossible to prove someone is cheating in this instance, especially if they're taking a reasonable amount of time to analyze each hand (20 to 30 seconds seems reasonable). Add that to another 30-40 seconds of shuffling each new hand and you have 60 seconds off the clock for the price of 1 card. As has already been agreed upon this is extremely poor sportsmanship and I don't condone this behavior, but this is what the discussion was about. Keep up.
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