Top 8 with belcher in Toronto

[median]

Last Saturday I played belcher at hairy tarantula north, I don't take notes and my memory is a little hazy as I had 5 hours sleep the night before and I went to a pub with my brother after, but anyways here goes.

For reference this was the list

//Belcher
//business
4 goblin charbelcher
4 empty the warrens
4 serum powder
3 street wraith
//mana
4 tinder wall
4 simian spirit guide
4 elvish spirit guide
4 chrome mox
4 desperate ritual
4 pyretic ritual
4 rite of flame
4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal
4 manamorphose
4 land grant
1 taiga
//sideboard
2 tormod's crypt
1 forest
4 autumns viel
4 guttural response
4 ingot chewer

Round one
So I'm ready to play this atrocity the first time here, I have no idea what my opponent is playing but I have a sense that it's a force of will light field.
Round one enchantress,
2-0
Seriously, this was virtually a bye.

Round two
I'm in the x-0 bracket and know that I'm likely to come up against some of the better players and decks
My second opponent is playing jund. yep.

As it turns out this is a weird a match, he somehow manages to make it to turn four by chump blocking and burning my guys, he lightning helix'ed one of goblins and might have had a chance if I didn't empty the warrens a second time
Game two I win first turn.


Round three the rock

I go second and put 14 goblins out first turn, he draws an engineered explosives and plays it, then over the next few turns thought seizes me, hymn's me, I think he might have even wasted the only land in my deck.
My first loss of the day was to the rock

Game two is kind of funny,
I serum powder mulligan, but my card is Chinese, so he calls the judge. This is before the game has even started.
In any case, I powder into a first turn win, but he spends a long time pile shuffling. I'm on the play, and when I go to win I play my only land. He doesn't understand that because I've revealed my entire deck he's taking that much damage, so we call the judge again. Finally by the time we move to game three, we've spent more time with the judge than actually playing.
Game three I have a first turn win, if I can make it to turn one, he thought seizes my belcher, and it goes downhill from there.
2-1-0

My next match is against this really nice guy named Pierre that offered to draw, it turns out I need to play, so we do that. he's playing goblins.
Game one I win on the second turn with belcher.
Game two for some reason I think he's ready to go so I keep a shaky hand with two powders, he hasn't even boarded yet. He boards in seven cards. Fortunately he mulls to four and doesn't find one. I still play cautiously and slow roll, playing a first turn LED, he rips a chalice and plays it at 0. I still end up winning a few turns later.
3-1-0

I do some math with my Justin, my last Swiss opponent and it turns out I can draw this match
3-1-1

Top 8

I'm paired against Pierre the goblin player, game one I play 8 goblins and pass. This is a mistake because after some trading he wins.
Game two
He brings in 7 cards and mulls to 5 I win early
Game three
He has the same 60 as before and mulls to 4 this time, for some reason I think he has a mindbreak trap. So I slow roll, playing my land grant on the second turn when I could have won. He wastes my land, and wins a few turns later with piledrivers.
That's my day.

I think at the end of it all I'm 6th which isn't bad considering the mistakes I made, I didn't sideboard at all, as all of it was anti blue or artifact tech, and I saw none of that. I think I would play this again.
The main MVP of the day was serum powder, I think if I had naturally mulligan every time I used it it wouldn't have gone well.
The biggest let down of the day was that every round several people went to time. Which meant I had a lot of time to kill each match and spent a lot of cash at the pizza place.

[Wilkin]

Hey,

I was there too playing Eva Green. I also top 8'ed. It's funny there were like 4 Rock decks there and No Vengevine.


Game 1. vs Epic Storm won 2-1
Game 1 he ad nauseum and wins easily.
game 2, I hymn to tourached a few cards and Goyf beats soon followed.
Game 3. A key Hymn to Tourach gets 2 LED's.

Game 2 Vs Reanimator. Lost 2-1
Iona is a problem. lol. Not much I can do when she resolves.

Game 3 vs. Black/green Zombies won 2-0 or 2-1
His deck was anti Graveyard as he was expecting Vengevine Survival. LOL, tough luck there. So he had a playset of Withered Wretch AND Yixlid Jailer.

Game 4 vs Mono red Goblins won 2-0
Game 1 was so close I had board position but I was knocked down to 2 life with Dark Confidant on the board. I reveal....a wasteland.
Game 2 Triple Engineereed Plague. Nuff said.

game 5 intentional draw vs on of the Rock decks.


game 6 first round of playoffs. Lost 2-1 to that Same rock guy.
Mana screw game 3. Game 2 was close although had he played Engineered Explosives at 2 instead of 3 he would have won.



Did much better at Hairy T West Tournament where I split top prize and got Grim Tutor and some $$$.

[jazzykat]

Cool use of Serum Powder. I assume that this deck is more OK with either a decent 7 or a very good 6 (e.g. not mulliganing the serum powder but having ETW for 12 on the first turn or something) than say TES which would really like to usually cast AdN and up to 10 spells (for Tendrils) on turn 2.

[Julian23]

Game two for some reason I think he's ready to go so I keep a shaky hand with two powders, he hasn't even boarded yet. He boards in seven cards. Fortunately he mulls to four and doesn't find one. I still play cautiously and slow roll, playing a first turn LED, he rips a chalice and plays it at 0. I still end up winning a few turns later.

I'm interested in he managed to do so. First turn Vial? Lackey? Didn't you leave behind a blocker then? Or did he Incinerator it and put SGC into play?

[(nameless one)]

When is the next tourney at Hairy T? Is it still the one at North York?

[P-AiR]

Hey John,

It was great playing with you, twice. Out of the five matches and top 8, you were the only one I lost games to.

I believe in our last match, when i mulled to 4, my opening hand was mountain, mountain, wasteland, and goblin ringleader.

Everyone including me at our table was wondering why you didn't go off on turn one with your shock land, but now I understand why you didn't.

Despite having 3.5 Rock players in the tourney and also in the top 8, I did not get to face one. I wanted to see how i'd do against engineered plagues LOL.

Hope to see you at the next one! This time however, with mindbreak traps and pithing needles, maybe!

[P-AiR]

I'm interested in he managed to do so. First turn Vial? Lackey? Didn't you leave behind a blocker then? Or did he Incinerator it and put SGC into play?

I assume, you're wondering how I fended off his goblins? First turn lackey, second turn Mogg war marshal, third turn warchief. After that, I kept drawing piledrivers, ringleaders, and warchiefs.


When is the next tourney at Hairy T? Is it still the one at North York?

There is a legacy tourney every 3rd saturday of every month at 1 pm. So it'd be dec. 18 for the next one.

Uhh it's at steeles and yonge, is that considered to be north York?

[median]

@ wilikin, great to hear you did well on Sunday.
@ pi-air, we joked that you would get your only loses from me, I guess it turned out that way.
Can't wait till next month

[pocari79]

Hey, I was the burn guy. Made top 4 and man, there weren't that many blue decks that day for some reason. Hairy T always gets the most random metagame.

Here's my decklist:

12 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Barbarian Ring

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Magma Jet
3 Price of Progress
3 Incinerate
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Flamebreak
3 Fireblast
4 Goblin Guide
2 Grim Lavamancer

Sideboard:
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Searing Blaze
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Round 1 - B/G zombie

Game 1: I kept a kind of sketchy hand with a bunch of sweepers and only 2 land. Wouldn't draw into another land and for some reason I lost to a rancored llanowar elves. Sigh. Not the greatest start to the day.

Sideboard: -3 Price of Progress, +3 Searing Blaze

Game 2: I got a turn 1 goblin guide against him and on my first swing it revealed the green healing salve...... Then he played the green soul warden... This really isn't going to be my day. Anyways, finally wasn't mana screwed and I just started to kill all of the creatures he played and when he was tapped out, started flinging bolts at his head.

Game 3: more of the same thing like game 2, except he was a bit mana screwed. too much green and not enough black so he coudln't cast any of his zombies before he died.

this was a lot closer than I wanted it to be.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2 - Mono U Merfolk

Nice guy playing in his first legacy tournament and had never touched the deck before so we were teaching him before the tournament started which hands to mull and keep. Hopefully he'll be back for more legacy.

Game 1: Don't quite remember what happened. I think i had a couple of guides out by turn 2 and I just kept throwing burn at him as soon as he was around 10 life and he ran out of counters.

Sideboard: -3 Price of Progress, -2 Grim Lavamancer, -1 Fireblast, + 3 Searing Blaze, +3 Smash to Smithereens

Game 2: I got rocked pretty hard this game, he had a hand full of counters and a couple of threats and resolved a couple of standstills and got more counterspells.

Game 3: I got off to a pretty fast start but he got standstill by turn 2. I was forced to crack it with a bolt. He forced it and then played another standstill the next turn. I was low on cards after I cracked the 2nd standstill but he was at 8 life so I figured i still had a good chance. He only had an adept, cursecatcher and mutavault on the board and was only attacking me for 3 each turn so I figured i could still draw into something good. After 3 turns, I drew a bolt, chain and barbarian ring and decided to go for it. By this time, i had around 5 land in play so i felt like i had enough protection from daze and spell pierces. Managed to resolve both my bolts and got threshold and then played the barbarian ring to deal the last 2 damage. Afterwards, he showed me the FoW in his hand and he was saying that he was saving it for the last burn spell and didn't expect that I would use the barbarian ring to deal the final damage. He also didn't attack with the mutavaults because he didn't want to lose to a topdecked goblin guide.

2-0 (4-2)

Round 3 - R/g Goblins

Game 1: He stalled my goblin guide with a war marshal and then matroned into a ringleader. I had to fallout the first batch of goblins but then he just played some more goblins with all haste and another ringleader that revealed more goblins. I had no more sweepers in my hand so that's that.

Sideboard: -3 Price of Progress, -2 Grim Lavamancer, -1 Fireblast, +3 Smash to Smithereens, +3 Searing Blaze

game 2: I had a pretty good hand full of removal and then I saw him play a turn 1 skirk prospector and all of a sudden the searing blazes in my hand just became worthless. I ended up having to bolt the prospector the next turn and he just sacced the prospector and bolted me in response. *sigh*. He then played a whole bunch of goblins and I was fine with that since i had a fallout but then he ended it with a goblin sharpshooter and that's pretty much the end of this game as I didn't have enough land to bolt the sharpshooter first and then fallout on the same turn and he could have killed me with one massive attack and fallouting the entire team would have meant he had about 8 sharpshooter triggers to resolve which would have killed me anyways.

2-1 (4-4)

Round 4 - Enchantress

This is a horrendous matchup for burn and basically if he can get a fast confinement going, i'm toast.

Game 1: I had the crazy fast start. turn 1 and turn 2 guide and bolt. He cracked a fetch to go to 10 and then on my turn 3, I bolt, bolt, fireblasted him.

Sideboard: Nothing. I don't think he sideboarded anything against me either.

Game 2: I had a turn 1 guide again and he didn't make his turn 2 land drop. On his turn 3, he managed to oblivion ring my goblin guide and was tapped out. He was at 9 though so I just bolt, bolt, fireblasted him on my next turn.

he wasn't very pleased with the result but we were both pretty much just goldfishing that entire round and if i had drawn a price or a boardsweeper, he probably would have won since those were pretty dead against him.

3-1 (6-4)

Round 5 - Mono R Goblins

I thought I could draw in as there were no 4-0s but apparently I got paired down. Wasn't too happy to see goblins again but we'll see.

Game 1: It was quite unfortunate but he had to mull down to 5 and kept a 1 land hand and did nothing for the entire game. I cast a turn 1 goblin guide but it didn't flip a land until the 4th turn and he was pretty much dead by then.

Sideboard: -3 Price of Progress, -2 Grim Lavamancer, -1 Fireblast, +3 Smash to Smithereens, +3 Searing Blaze

Game 2: I don't quite remember what happened. I just recalled it was a really fast game and I got him down to 10 life and on my turn i was able to bolt, bolt, fireblast to win.

4-1 (8-4)

Top 8 - W/B/G Rock

Game 1: I just remembered that he extirpated my goblin guides, incinerates and fallouts but he didn't have much threats either so i just kept on bolting him until he died.

Sideboard: -4 Goblin Guide, -2 Grim Lavamancer, +3 Searing Blaze, +3 Smash to Smithereens

Game 2: He extirpated my price of progress which was nice cause he ran all non-basics. it seemed like he was a bit color screwed for some reason as he didn't have a lot of threats again. He finally tapped out to play a knight and I managed to burn him to death before he was able to plow his own creatures.

5-1 (10-4)

Top 4 was goblins, burn, rock and U/r/g control running all basics and we decided to split as it was getting real late. Hope to see you guys at the next tournament!

[yankeedave]

Why did you take out Grim Lavamancer against the weenie decks? He is one of the very very best cards you can have against tribal decks imo!

Dave

[ScatmanX]

I didn't have enough land to bolt the sharpshooter first and then fallout on the same turn and he could have killed me with one massive attack and fallouting the entire team would have meant he had about 8 sharpshooter triggers to resolve which would have killed me anyways.
All goblins would go to his graveyard the same time. Including Sharpshooter. That means he would not be able to do that if you had Fallout'ed...

[(nameless one)]

There is a legacy tourney every 3rd saturday of every month at 1 pm. So it'd be dec. 18 for the next one.

Uhh it's at steeles and yonge, is that considered to be north York?

Well, its York Region. Its just unfortunate that the 77York Transit/Brampton Transit bus doesnt go to Brampton anymore :(

I'm guessing its still $20 right?

[pocari79]

All goblins would go to his graveyard the same time. Including Sharpshooter. That means he would not be able to do that if you had Fallout'ed...

Last time i heard from a judge about this, even though all the creatures hit the graveyard at the same time, he can still choose the order which creatures hit the graveyard and as soon as a creature hits the graveyard, he can trigger the sharpshooter until the sharpshooter goes to the graveyard.

@yankeedave

I take out the lavamancer against goblins because it always gets shot with the sharpshooter or the gempalm and it hardly gets activated. Against merfolk, usually i leave the lavamancers in but recently with the amount of board sweepers that I play, it seems like i'm killing my own lavamancer more and more often so I want to avoid that

[ScatmanX]

Last time i heard from a judge about this, even though all the creatures hit the graveyard at the same time, he can still choose the order which creatures hit the graveyard and as soon as a creature hits the graveyard, he can trigger the sharpshooter until the sharpshooter goes to the graveyard.
He would be a hell of a good card against Wrath of God if this was true...

[pocari79]

He would be a hell of a good card against Wrath of God if this was true...

That's exactly what happened in a tournament game. A goblin deck had like 8 goblins and a sharpshooter and a control deck decided to wrath and the goblin player just scooped. After the game, the judge actually said that the goblin player could have stacked the triggers to deal 8 damage to the control player after the wrath resolves because you can determine the order of the creatures hitting the graveyard. Maybe I need to get another judge ruling on this to see if this is true or not.

[Wilkin]

Hey John,

It was great playing with you, twice. Out of the five matches and top 8, you were the only one I lost games to.

I believe in our last match, when i mulled to 4, my opening hand was mountain, mountain, wasteland, and goblin ringleader.

Everyone including me at our table was wondering why you didn't go off on turn one with your shock land, but now I understand why you didn't.

Despite having 3.5 Rock players in the tourney and also in the top 8, I did not get to face one. I wanted to see how i'd do against engineered plagues LOL.

Hope to see you at the next one! This time however, with mindbreak traps and pithing needles, maybe!


LOL, I'm assuming you are lumping my deck as Pseudo-rock. You didn't face a rock deck in the playoffs? I thought there were 4 of them there. The one goblin player (joe) I did face had to face 3 plagues at the same time.

Yeah Hairy T NOrth is NOT a metagame you can really prepare for.

Lots of random decks. One time there was like 3 dredge. Next time it's goblin time. So strange. Like I said I thought (like other people) that there would be some Vengevine survival decks there. NONE. So making a deck that is a foil specifically for another deck (ie. Standard sprea-em vs Jund) is not a good idea for Hairy T NOrth.

You will wind up like the Zombie guy who maindecks 4 wretch and 4 jailer. I don't think he faced anyone where that would have mattered, kinda wish he would face the reanimator guy. :D


The meta at Hairy T west tournament was a little more what I thought it would be...
a couple of Vengevine
a couiple of rock
a couple of merfolk

[median]

I probably did lump you into the rock group, sorry about that. My reasoning with belcher was that it was fast enough to race Vengevine, and it would do well against anything not blue. I made my decision based on the format rather than the meta, I just didn't expect the goblin players to have 7 (!!) hate cards in their sideboards.
I'm glad I didn't go to the West event as that meta looks worse for me than what I saw on saturday. I'll probably play DDFT next month or TES.

[Wilkin]

I probably did lump you into the rock group, sorry about that. My reasoning with belcher was that it was fast enough to race Vengevine, and it would do well against anything not blue. I made my decision based on the format rather than the meta, I just didn't expect the goblin players to have 7 (!!) hate cards in their sideboards.
I'm glad I didn't go to the West event as that meta looks worse for me than what I saw on saturday. I'll probably play DDFT next month or TES.

No offence taken. Eva Green/Deadguy Ale/Rock/Dark horizons are all very similar to me.

DDFT? What's that? Will be interesting to see how things change if Survival does indeed get banned December 1st.

[median]

Doomsday Fetch land tendrils, a very versatile storm list that is very brain intensive and slow.
I'm hoping survival sticks around but the deck dies, whether from basking rootwalla or vengevine taking a hit. I really want to play survival necrotic ooze at some point, and it would be awesome if survivals dropped in price.

[Wilkin]

Doomsday Fetch land tendrils, a very versatile storm list that is very brain intensive and slow.
I'm hoping survival sticks around but the deck dies, whether from basking rootwalla or vengevine taking a hit. I really want to play survival necrotic ooze at some point, and it would be awesome if survivals dropped in price.

Ah....Doomsday into Emrakul Shelldock Isle Shenanigans?

I think Survival might get banned. If not, going for that kind of a deck would probably be a good idea.

You could still try Necrotic Ooze combo but in a different way such as Buried Alive and Reanimate. NOt as good as Survival though.

[flrn]

Ah....Doomsday into Emrakul Shelldock Isle Shenanigans?

DDFT (Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils) mostly wins with Tendrils of Agony. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn along with Shelldock Isle is just the backup plan against Counterbalance decks, not packing any Wasteland's.

[kombatkiwi]

That's exactly what happened in a tournament game. A goblin deck had like 8 goblins and a sharpshooter and a control deck decided to wrath and the goblin player just scooped. After the game, the judge actually said that the goblin player could have stacked the triggers to deal 8 damage to the control player after the wrath resolves because you can determine the order of the creatures hitting the graveyard. Maybe I need to get another judge ruling on this to see if this is true or not.


Hi im a Level1 Judge
This doesnt work
You can choose the order that the creatures go to the graveyard
But it doesnt matter because you don't recieve priority during the resolution of a wrath spell
So they play a wrath spell
You have a chance to respond
If you don't respond
board wipe resolves
All your guys die at the same time (you can put them in the graveyard in the order that you choose, ie. in your graveyard pile of cards, you can choose which one goes on the top, etc)
Now all your sharpshooter triggers go on the stack
But it doesn't matter because your sharpshooter isn't even in play anymore

[pocari79]

Hi im a Level1 Judge
This doesnt work
You can choose the order that the creatures go to the graveyard
But it doesnt matter because you don't recieve priority during the resolution of a wrath spell
So they play a wrath spell
You have a chance to respond
If you don't respond
board wipe resolves
All your guys die at the same time (you can put them in the graveyard in the order that you choose, ie. in your graveyard pile of cards, you can choose which one goes on the top, etc)
Now all your sharpshooter triggers go on the stack
But it doesn't matter because your sharpshooter isn't even in play anymore

ok cool!! that's great to know!! thanks!