honestabe
05-02-2011, 01:07 PM
Hi everyone,
So, this weekend was a GPT at Die Hard Games. School has kept me away from magic for quite a while, but I just couldn't say no to this tournament. On Sunday morning, my friend Matt and I hopped in the car and headed off to Pawtucket to play some Legacy.
Here's what I registered:
BUGw Landsteeze
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Life From the Loam
3 Pimp Daddy Jace
Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Krosan Grip
2 Thoughtsieze
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Perish
1 Tormods Crypt ---> These 2 SHOULD be extirpates, but a certain SCG Champ borrowed mine last ptq season and never gave them back. FORSHADOWING MUCH???
1 Nihil Spellbomb---->"
Anyway, I played this pretty much exact list once before, leading to a win at DHG's Thursday night tournaments. However, that was months ago, and I knew I'd be a little rusty going into the tournament. I really like this deck in the current meta, as it shits all over Junk, Team America, Affinity, and most other control decks. The tournament ended up getting 90 fucking players, which is an insane amount, and the store, and the extra room next door were bursting at the seams. Anyway, onto round 1:
Round 1, vs Team America.
G1: I lose the roll and keep a strong 7. He plays Island-->Ponder, so I figure he's on tempo or combo. I play a fetch and ship it, and I get thoughtseized on my turn. Not much happens, for a while. Eventually, he goes to hymn me, and I Spell Pierce it. I kill his guys as they land and eventually stick a Jace. He then drops his own. My hand at the time is Jace, Jace, counterspell, counterspel, Fow, so I let it hit, and just play another. He tries to stifle Jace's ultimate, but the 6 cards in my hand think otherwise, and we're off to game 2.
+1 STP, +1 Thoughtseize, -2 Deed. (I figure he'l rarely have enough guys in play to make deed a worthwhile investment)
G2: Pretty much most of the same, except I play an early Jace, and he responds with Thrun, the Last Troll. Luckily, he doesn't have regen. mana up, but it ulitmately doesn't matter. As he passes the turn, he mentions "luckily, you've already used 2 of your innocent bloods" I untap, draw, brainstorm w/ Jace into land, deed, innocent blood. (0bv) I kill Thrun, and Jace takes it home.
Round 2, vs Junk.
G1: My opponent has a deck reg error. FREE WIN!
G2: He puts me on the draw, and opens with swamp-->Pass. I lay down a fetch and ship back. Plays a Mox Diamond and hymns me, which I Spell Pierce. On his turn, he plays a guy, on my 3rd turn, i kill it and play a Standstill. He breaks standtill for a knight of the reliquary, which I counter, and then slam a turn 4 Jace, who takes it home.
The reason I love my deck against Junk, Team America, and other midrange decks, is that since they rely on 1-2 creatures, it allows you to play Jace VERY early, and protect him pretty easily.
Round 3, vs High Tide
G1: My opponent is Ray Robillard, who I know is no slouch. I ask around and find out he's on high tide. I lose the roll and keep a semi-weak 7, but it has 4 lands and a Jace, so it can't be that bad. After a bit of draw-->go from me, and a few cantrips from him, I stick a jace and start brainstorming. A few turns go by until jace has made by hand insane, and I start ramping him. Once Pimp Daddy J gets to 13, Ray tries to go off. He successfully lands a time spiral, but the 7 he gets from it isn't that great and I'm able to kill him.
-4 Innocent Blood, -2 swords +1 Mindbreak Trap, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Nihil sPellbomb, +2 Krosan Grip
G2: This one was a real heartbreaker. he mulls to 6, plays an island and ships. I thoughtseize him and see High tide, High Tide, High Tide, Turnabout and cunning wish. I take the wish (at this point, I look at the Nihil Spell bomb in my hand, and realize if it was extirpate, i could just take high tide and then extirpate it, for what i assume would be the win. This agrivates me and puts me on tilt), I then stick an early stanstill, which he eventually breaks. We end up having another huge counter war over a time spiral, which i win. He's left with 4 lands, no cards, and 2 candelabras in play. I have 5 lands, and 3 cards (which unfortunatly are all fetchlands). I untap and draw a deed, which gets his candelabras, leaving him with essentially nothing. He draws his one card, and immediatly casts it: Merchant scroll for meditate. He passes back, and i draw another fetchland. He untaps. and ships. I draw ANOTHER fetchland and pass back. He EOTs a meditate, which resolves. I take my extra turn, which nets me yet another fetchland (yes, I drew all 8 out of the deck). He kills me pretty easily from there.
G3: I keep an alright 7. Nothing really happens for a while. I eventually thoughtseize him, and then time I called. He starts to go off, and casts a high tide. My hand is force, force, counterspell, when he then turnabouts me, which i respond to, for tapping my 2 open islands for a blue each. I figure he'll just go to mainphase 2 and kill me, but he decides not to. We have a counterwar over a time spiral, which resolves. My 7 has force, spell snare, mindbreak trap and counterspell. He eventually goes for the lethal Blue Sun's Zenith, which I trap. he forces, I force back, he Pact of negations, and the games over, in turn 5 of time. However, since I was on tilt and not really paying attention, I failed to realize (as did the judge sitting next to me, when I declaired i only had 2 mana in my pool after tapping my lands) that High Tide effetcs all islands, so had i floated UUUU, instead of UU a long time ago, I could have counterspelled his pact of negation and drawn the match, instead of loosing. It definitely sucked that my deck crapped out on me after i thought I had game 2 in the bag, but if I had played tighter, I could have at least cut my losses and ended up with a draw
Round 4, vs Goblins
G1: I lose the roll again, and keep a hand of 3 lands, I. Blood, swords, brainstorm and standstill. My opponent has turn 1 vial, which makes me shudder. However, he starts slow, and I'm able to cast brainstorm with a fetch in play, and 2 dead lands in my hand for ultimate value. The brainstorm nets me Loam, Loam, land. I put back 2 lands, and shuffle. I just draw standstills, and FoWs until I die a red, goblin-induced death.
-2 Fow, -3 Spell Pierce, -2 Standstill, +4 E. plague, +1 swords, +2 Kitchen finks
G2: My opener is Jace, Plague, plague, I. blood, brainstorm, kitchen finks, wastland. I snap mull it. my 6 is the EXACT same as the 7, except without the wasteland. I go down to 5 and keep Factory, brainstorm, swords, I blood, loam. He has turn 1 vial, then wastes my factory and I'm dead
I drop, and hop into the side event, which fires with a respectable 30 People
Round 1: Green Sun's Zenith, Bant
G1: I loose the roll and keep an alright hand. He starts doing bant things, like heirarchs and pridemages. I fend them off with removal, but eventually he slips a few creatures into play that i can't deal with. On one of my later turns, I draw deed, but before I can cast it, I get interupted with a v-clique. He takes deed, but i draw into something to kill the clique. I chump some goyfs with factories for a while, before drawing another deed, but like a magician, he casts v-clique the very turn i raw dog a deed. I die to goyfs and a 3/1 in the air.
-1 Loam, -1 spell pierce +1 Swords, +1 Thoughtseize
G2: Things go much smoother for our protagonist as I control the board pretty easily and plop a jace into play after wasting him out of white mana. I bash with factories for a little, but them time is called. He's at 10, with no relevant board, so I need to find a 3rd factory so I can swing for 5 and kill him. I brainstorm with jace, find nothing, use a fetch i had in play, then cast brainstorm, which finds it, and allows me to kill him on turn 5, resulting in a draw.
Round 2: UB Ad Naus
I really hate my deck's combo matchup, as although I have enough counters, there's just no way to apply pressure. This means my opponent can just sit back, and sculpt a perfect hand at their leisure, until they decide to kill me. Thats' pretty much what happens here, except I'm able to force a game 3, and die in turn 2 of time.
I sided like this: -4 innocent blood, -1 deed, +1 swords, +2 thoughtseize, +1 mindbreak trap, +1 nihil spellbomb.
Round 3: Goblins
G1, my opponent overextends into a deed. Jace takes it home from there.
I side the same as before
G2, I stick and early plague, which results in an early jace, which results in another plague
Round 4: UW Countertop.
G1: My opponent is Luis Gentile...yay Luckily, this is an awesome matchup, as i outcounter and outjace him into a fairly easy game 1 win.
-4 innocent blood, -1 Swords, +2 Thoughtseize, +1Nihil Spellbomb, +2 K-grip
G2: This is pretty simaler to G1, except he mulls to 5. Time is called and deed and jace prevent him from winning in time.
Breakers put me in 9th place, but one of the top8 dropped, so I mised my way into 8th, like a champion
Quarterfinals, vs UB Ad Naus. another ugly matchup
G1: My standtills and brainstorms get me nowhere, and he triple duresses me right before I die.
G2: He somehow gets stuck on all mana sources and I get to capitalize by beating him with factories until he dies
G3: Right after he thoughtseizes me on turn 1, Dave the store owner announces that our match has gone wayyy over an hour. In 5 minutes, we go to time, and after 5 turns, whoever has the highest life total wins. My opponent is pretty pissed that he discovers this after casting a thoughtseize, but it ends up not mattering, because I have 2 factories in my hand, so he wasn't going to have more life than me. My deck FINALLY decided to coopoperate and feeds me counters and a thoughtseize as I beat with factories.
Top 4 splits, because we're all tired as hell. We all end up with a Japanese Delta, a Bloodstained Mire, and $10 in credit.
Overall, the tournament was great. Huge attendence, great prize support. I kind of wish my deck was a little kinder to me on the day, as I really had some akward draws, but at the end of the day, I still think it's a really good choice, though once mental misstep comes out, I'm most likely going to Go for the through as my main removal, and cutting Spell Snare for the cunning wishes.
Anyway, I did this report for 3 Reasons.
1) I'm in love with my deck
2) Though I only did well in the side event, it was 30 people, which is reasonable
3) To promote Die Hard Games. Dave's been running Legacy tournaments for a while now, and has really helped sculpt the Legacy scene around him. His tournaments are well-run fairly priced, and you won't find better prize support anywhere. If just one new person reads this, and decides to play at the next legacy tournament there, then this will all be worth it, as it's more business for dave as a store owner, and more prizes for me, as a player.
Props: -Dave, for having a sweet tournament, and an awesome free side event
-My deck, for being insane in this meta
Slops: -My deck for being a bitch and giving me mulligans and bad draws all day
-Playing against combo a lot
also, TO DAVE FEINSTEIN
Peace,
-Honestabe
So, this weekend was a GPT at Die Hard Games. School has kept me away from magic for quite a while, but I just couldn't say no to this tournament. On Sunday morning, my friend Matt and I hopped in the car and headed off to Pawtucket to play some Legacy.
Here's what I registered:
BUGw Landsteeze
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Life From the Loam
3 Pimp Daddy Jace
Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Krosan Grip
2 Thoughtsieze
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Perish
1 Tormods Crypt ---> These 2 SHOULD be extirpates, but a certain SCG Champ borrowed mine last ptq season and never gave them back. FORSHADOWING MUCH???
1 Nihil Spellbomb---->"
Anyway, I played this pretty much exact list once before, leading to a win at DHG's Thursday night tournaments. However, that was months ago, and I knew I'd be a little rusty going into the tournament. I really like this deck in the current meta, as it shits all over Junk, Team America, Affinity, and most other control decks. The tournament ended up getting 90 fucking players, which is an insane amount, and the store, and the extra room next door were bursting at the seams. Anyway, onto round 1:
Round 1, vs Team America.
G1: I lose the roll and keep a strong 7. He plays Island-->Ponder, so I figure he's on tempo or combo. I play a fetch and ship it, and I get thoughtseized on my turn. Not much happens, for a while. Eventually, he goes to hymn me, and I Spell Pierce it. I kill his guys as they land and eventually stick a Jace. He then drops his own. My hand at the time is Jace, Jace, counterspell, counterspel, Fow, so I let it hit, and just play another. He tries to stifle Jace's ultimate, but the 6 cards in my hand think otherwise, and we're off to game 2.
+1 STP, +1 Thoughtseize, -2 Deed. (I figure he'l rarely have enough guys in play to make deed a worthwhile investment)
G2: Pretty much most of the same, except I play an early Jace, and he responds with Thrun, the Last Troll. Luckily, he doesn't have regen. mana up, but it ulitmately doesn't matter. As he passes the turn, he mentions "luckily, you've already used 2 of your innocent bloods" I untap, draw, brainstorm w/ Jace into land, deed, innocent blood. (0bv) I kill Thrun, and Jace takes it home.
Round 2, vs Junk.
G1: My opponent has a deck reg error. FREE WIN!
G2: He puts me on the draw, and opens with swamp-->Pass. I lay down a fetch and ship back. Plays a Mox Diamond and hymns me, which I Spell Pierce. On his turn, he plays a guy, on my 3rd turn, i kill it and play a Standstill. He breaks standtill for a knight of the reliquary, which I counter, and then slam a turn 4 Jace, who takes it home.
The reason I love my deck against Junk, Team America, and other midrange decks, is that since they rely on 1-2 creatures, it allows you to play Jace VERY early, and protect him pretty easily.
Round 3, vs High Tide
G1: My opponent is Ray Robillard, who I know is no slouch. I ask around and find out he's on high tide. I lose the roll and keep a semi-weak 7, but it has 4 lands and a Jace, so it can't be that bad. After a bit of draw-->go from me, and a few cantrips from him, I stick a jace and start brainstorming. A few turns go by until jace has made by hand insane, and I start ramping him. Once Pimp Daddy J gets to 13, Ray tries to go off. He successfully lands a time spiral, but the 7 he gets from it isn't that great and I'm able to kill him.
-4 Innocent Blood, -2 swords +1 Mindbreak Trap, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Nihil sPellbomb, +2 Krosan Grip
G2: This one was a real heartbreaker. he mulls to 6, plays an island and ships. I thoughtseize him and see High tide, High Tide, High Tide, Turnabout and cunning wish. I take the wish (at this point, I look at the Nihil Spell bomb in my hand, and realize if it was extirpate, i could just take high tide and then extirpate it, for what i assume would be the win. This agrivates me and puts me on tilt), I then stick an early stanstill, which he eventually breaks. We end up having another huge counter war over a time spiral, which i win. He's left with 4 lands, no cards, and 2 candelabras in play. I have 5 lands, and 3 cards (which unfortunatly are all fetchlands). I untap and draw a deed, which gets his candelabras, leaving him with essentially nothing. He draws his one card, and immediatly casts it: Merchant scroll for meditate. He passes back, and i draw another fetchland. He untaps. and ships. I draw ANOTHER fetchland and pass back. He EOTs a meditate, which resolves. I take my extra turn, which nets me yet another fetchland (yes, I drew all 8 out of the deck). He kills me pretty easily from there.
G3: I keep an alright 7. Nothing really happens for a while. I eventually thoughtseize him, and then time I called. He starts to go off, and casts a high tide. My hand is force, force, counterspell, when he then turnabouts me, which i respond to, for tapping my 2 open islands for a blue each. I figure he'll just go to mainphase 2 and kill me, but he decides not to. We have a counterwar over a time spiral, which resolves. My 7 has force, spell snare, mindbreak trap and counterspell. He eventually goes for the lethal Blue Sun's Zenith, which I trap. he forces, I force back, he Pact of negations, and the games over, in turn 5 of time. However, since I was on tilt and not really paying attention, I failed to realize (as did the judge sitting next to me, when I declaired i only had 2 mana in my pool after tapping my lands) that High Tide effetcs all islands, so had i floated UUUU, instead of UU a long time ago, I could have counterspelled his pact of negation and drawn the match, instead of loosing. It definitely sucked that my deck crapped out on me after i thought I had game 2 in the bag, but if I had played tighter, I could have at least cut my losses and ended up with a draw
Round 4, vs Goblins
G1: I lose the roll again, and keep a hand of 3 lands, I. Blood, swords, brainstorm and standstill. My opponent has turn 1 vial, which makes me shudder. However, he starts slow, and I'm able to cast brainstorm with a fetch in play, and 2 dead lands in my hand for ultimate value. The brainstorm nets me Loam, Loam, land. I put back 2 lands, and shuffle. I just draw standstills, and FoWs until I die a red, goblin-induced death.
-2 Fow, -3 Spell Pierce, -2 Standstill, +4 E. plague, +1 swords, +2 Kitchen finks
G2: My opener is Jace, Plague, plague, I. blood, brainstorm, kitchen finks, wastland. I snap mull it. my 6 is the EXACT same as the 7, except without the wasteland. I go down to 5 and keep Factory, brainstorm, swords, I blood, loam. He has turn 1 vial, then wastes my factory and I'm dead
I drop, and hop into the side event, which fires with a respectable 30 People
Round 1: Green Sun's Zenith, Bant
G1: I loose the roll and keep an alright hand. He starts doing bant things, like heirarchs and pridemages. I fend them off with removal, but eventually he slips a few creatures into play that i can't deal with. On one of my later turns, I draw deed, but before I can cast it, I get interupted with a v-clique. He takes deed, but i draw into something to kill the clique. I chump some goyfs with factories for a while, before drawing another deed, but like a magician, he casts v-clique the very turn i raw dog a deed. I die to goyfs and a 3/1 in the air.
-1 Loam, -1 spell pierce +1 Swords, +1 Thoughtseize
G2: Things go much smoother for our protagonist as I control the board pretty easily and plop a jace into play after wasting him out of white mana. I bash with factories for a little, but them time is called. He's at 10, with no relevant board, so I need to find a 3rd factory so I can swing for 5 and kill him. I brainstorm with jace, find nothing, use a fetch i had in play, then cast brainstorm, which finds it, and allows me to kill him on turn 5, resulting in a draw.
Round 2: UB Ad Naus
I really hate my deck's combo matchup, as although I have enough counters, there's just no way to apply pressure. This means my opponent can just sit back, and sculpt a perfect hand at their leisure, until they decide to kill me. Thats' pretty much what happens here, except I'm able to force a game 3, and die in turn 2 of time.
I sided like this: -4 innocent blood, -1 deed, +1 swords, +2 thoughtseize, +1 mindbreak trap, +1 nihil spellbomb.
Round 3: Goblins
G1, my opponent overextends into a deed. Jace takes it home from there.
I side the same as before
G2, I stick and early plague, which results in an early jace, which results in another plague
Round 4: UW Countertop.
G1: My opponent is Luis Gentile...yay Luckily, this is an awesome matchup, as i outcounter and outjace him into a fairly easy game 1 win.
-4 innocent blood, -1 Swords, +2 Thoughtseize, +1Nihil Spellbomb, +2 K-grip
G2: This is pretty simaler to G1, except he mulls to 5. Time is called and deed and jace prevent him from winning in time.
Breakers put me in 9th place, but one of the top8 dropped, so I mised my way into 8th, like a champion
Quarterfinals, vs UB Ad Naus. another ugly matchup
G1: My standtills and brainstorms get me nowhere, and he triple duresses me right before I die.
G2: He somehow gets stuck on all mana sources and I get to capitalize by beating him with factories until he dies
G3: Right after he thoughtseizes me on turn 1, Dave the store owner announces that our match has gone wayyy over an hour. In 5 minutes, we go to time, and after 5 turns, whoever has the highest life total wins. My opponent is pretty pissed that he discovers this after casting a thoughtseize, but it ends up not mattering, because I have 2 factories in my hand, so he wasn't going to have more life than me. My deck FINALLY decided to coopoperate and feeds me counters and a thoughtseize as I beat with factories.
Top 4 splits, because we're all tired as hell. We all end up with a Japanese Delta, a Bloodstained Mire, and $10 in credit.
Overall, the tournament was great. Huge attendence, great prize support. I kind of wish my deck was a little kinder to me on the day, as I really had some akward draws, but at the end of the day, I still think it's a really good choice, though once mental misstep comes out, I'm most likely going to Go for the through as my main removal, and cutting Spell Snare for the cunning wishes.
Anyway, I did this report for 3 Reasons.
1) I'm in love with my deck
2) Though I only did well in the side event, it was 30 people, which is reasonable
3) To promote Die Hard Games. Dave's been running Legacy tournaments for a while now, and has really helped sculpt the Legacy scene around him. His tournaments are well-run fairly priced, and you won't find better prize support anywhere. If just one new person reads this, and decides to play at the next legacy tournament there, then this will all be worth it, as it's more business for dave as a store owner, and more prizes for me, as a player.
Props: -Dave, for having a sweet tournament, and an awesome free side event
-My deck, for being insane in this meta
Slops: -My deck for being a bitch and giving me mulligans and bad draws all day
-Playing against combo a lot
also, TO DAVE FEINSTEIN
Peace,
-Honestabe