Finn
05-18-2011, 12:13 AM
For the second straight year I managed to get the old crew together to pretend that we were young guys again (ages~34, 36, 37, 40, 51, 68). Here is my report from this event last year.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17050-REPORT-5K-Orlando&highlight=
We arrived in Orlando very late Saturday night for the tournament the next day. This is the deck I brought.
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Serra Avenger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Flickerwisp
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Oust
4 Swords to Plowshares
11 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Karakas
Sideboard:
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Serenity
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Oust
All D+T all the time until I find something more fun and competitive. Like last year, I made a few changes from what was posted on any of my threads to reflect the specifics of the environment. This year I expected hoards of men with gills and tails. I expected blue in general to be good. I also expected Zoo to be there in numbers to fight these little blue men. And I expected combo to be relegated to non-storm types like Eldrazi decks or maybe Dredge. I also had an inkling that Affinity would show up. Monowhite D+T is actually good against all that stuff. Finally, and most importantly, I had to find a way around Mental Misstep from all the decks that were likely to have it.
So I took all my storm hate out except for a single Canonist. I replaced an Oust with the fourth Mystic (for Misstep-proofing) and dropped in three Ensnaring Bridges for backup against Merfolk and of course big Legendary fatties. I swapped out something crappy for Serenity and at the last moment, I took out my trusty fourth Jotun Grunt for a fourth Revoker reasoning that Grunts are best against blue decks with Tarmo and I did not expect to see much of that.
Rd 1 Justin Chambers w/TES
That figures. I guess this guy did not get the memo that Merfolk was going to be ridiculous. He said that he matched up well against them, but that does not sound right to me.
g1: I go first with Mother of Runes. He plays City of Brass and Ponders or something. Whatever. My turn, I play Aether Vial and pass. Whatever. His turn two he taps out and Ad Nauseams. He turns over lots of stuff but only one Lotus Petal and no Mox before killing himself from 18 life. Huh. I'll take it!
g2: I side in the Tutors, the last Revoker, Canonist, and Relic because it is better than anything else. It was sad. Turns out, Revokers are a real pain for that deck. I kinda knew from testing that naming Lion's Eye Diamond is surprisingly effective. On the back of my little buddy I somehow get him into a ground war with me because of this. He gets his 10 little Goblins and I have a Sword of Light and Shadow on something. But Justin is kinda good and stuff. At 7 life, he gets Tendrils for 20 without Ad Nauseam. I had a lot of life, but that plus the twerps are enough to finish me.
g3: My opening hand is two Tutors and the Canonist with the mana to cast it. I play Plains and pass. He casts Duress (not Thoughtseize, phew!) and takes a Tutor. His EOT I fetch a Revoker. My turn I get Canonist. Now he is in slow-mo. My next turn I play the Revoker naming LED again. Now I have him taking four per turn. He Burning Wishes for Grapeshot as he is getting low on life. The next turn he plays LED, Chrome Mox, and Grapeshot to kill my dudes, but he is at one card in hand to do it. And by now I have two Aether Vials at three. He collects a few cards over the next few turns while I rebuild. It ended when I vialed in two Flickerwisps at my EOT to remove the Chrome Mox and the LED for his turn. Lady luck hath smiled upon me.
1-0
rd 2 Shawn Glancey w/Land Destruction-Goblins
g1: He is late and gets a game loss. Poor guy.
g2: I see mountains and wonder what he is doing just playing land and passing as I myself have a slow start. On turn three, the Stone Rain explained it all.
2-0
rd 3 Chris Lewis w/Merfolk
g1: I got Vial and Port. He never got past two lands and I was Porting one of them.
g2: I side in the extra Revoker and the Oust for some expensive stuff. The plan is to stay alive long enough to take control. But this time he had Vial and I did not. Oh Lordy is this familiar. Merfolk games often come down to who can abuse Aether Vial the best and he did it this time.
g3: He had Vial and I did not. But I landed a Revoker naming Vial on turn three to act as a clotting agent for my blood. Soon after I that landed a Mystic-> Sword of Fire//Ice and the race was on. He was building his force far faster, but I also got a Jitte. I swung into him four times in a row while he battered me down to one life. I made some pretty sharp plays to manage this, but on Chris' last turn, he attacks me with his last resource, a Mishra, in a desperate attempt. I have Mangara as a potential blocker and four Jitte counters, but I say "I'll take the two. Gain two life." At that I grabbed my pen...
I greet and shake the hand of every opponent I face. This time was no different. But Chris scowled the entire match and did not speak to me until this moment. "Excuse me?" he said, looking up. I knew exactly what he meant, too. I used lazy language and he meant to get a free one from this. I told him that I clearly meant that I was not blocking with the phrase. The judges agreed with me after speaking to us both for several minutes independently and I went about killing him.
3-0
rd4 Ron Faris w/UW Thopter
As gruff as Chris was, Ron was that friendly.
g1: He plays a turn one Top, but I get a turn two Revoker naming Divining Top. That plus a Mangara lock kept him down while an avenger punched him in the gut. He did a lot of maneuvering, but I had control of the permanents. This is a matchup I am heavily favored in.
g2: I side in the extra Revoker again, plus Serenity and maybe something else. Anyway, he plays a turn one Top again. I play Aether Vial. FoW. He plays Counterbalance. I play another Vial. He puts the Top on top to counter it. I know better than that. WTF. But on turn three I hardcast Mangara for which he had no answer. Counterbalance revealed Predict. Mangara took out Counterbalance and himself. But I had another and cast it the next turn. We had a good back and forth, but I was in charge the whole time. He had a Needle on Wasteland and he had Enlightened Tutored another that he was holding. I did not have Karakas and he was gambling that I would not draw it. Best play of the day: Mangara on Top at his eot with no Karakas or Flicker tricks. He exchanges it for the top card and Mangara is...tapped. I get a Timewalk of sorts. I killed him shortly after that.
Amazingly, Ron was still excited to talk about his deck and his sideboarding plan. I enjoyed listening.
4-0
rd5 Nicholas Spagnolo w/Merfolk
Nick was very pleasant too. I could not help notice the abundance of pink in his attire. The photo from his top 8 profile has him in a black shirt. But he had pink and a goofy hat in round 5. Everything about him screamed confidence.
g1: He goes first with Island, pass. I note it and decide to cast Mother of Runes instead of Aether Vial. Hardcast Misstep on Mother of Runes. He plays Silvergill revealing another Silvergill. I cast, and resolve Vial. He lands a Reejerey and Missteps my eot STP with two life. Take a moment to envision what has just happened and what is about to happen. Over the next two turns, he casts four lords and the other Silvergill. If I had sent that Reejerey farming this would have been a far different game. I lost quickly despite having a Vial where he had none.
g2: Again comes in the extra Revoker and Oust for slow stuff. He counters my first four spells. I STP'd his only creature to this point and after four turns we both have only lands. This is good for me. I eventually get Mother of Runes and a Revoker on Coralhelm Commander (though his field is empty). Afterward, Nick told me that tried several times to bait me into tapping Mother of Runes so that he could use Threads of Disloyalty on her, but I held out and eventually ran him down.
g3: Nick gets a Vial. I have Revoker on it again. I get a Sword of Fire and Ice, but he is a bit faster than Chris was thanks to Misstepping Mother of Runes and my STP this game. I lose to his bigger guys.
I want to say that I had planned to side in the Ensnaring Bridges for Merfolk, but actually decided against it every game. I was silly to think I would be willing to take out what works for that card. Maybe I was wrong.
4-1
rd6 Franco (last name?) w/Goblins
Franco has a thick accent and a nonstandard build of Goblins.
g1: We both start slow, but I eventually got a Mystic. After he used Stingscourger on it, and I drew a Jitte manually, I had all three weapons at my disposal. With my deck giving me no other creatures anyway, I put all three on her and cut Franco up despite him having quite a few goblins by this time.
g2: Bring in Revoker and Oust again. His turn 1 Lackey met STP. He has no turn two play. I do though - Mystic for Fire and Ice. On turn three he Matrons for Gempalm Incinerator. On my third, I cast Revoker naming Gemplam Incinerator. So Franco casts Ringleader revealing another of those vanilla 2/1's for 3 and a Goblin Goon. He has only Matron and Ringleader on the board though. Once I equip the Mystic the game is over.
5-1
rd 7 Steven Goanos w/Merfolk
Steven looks like he is pretty nervous.
g1: Turn 1 he plays Cursecatcher. My Mother of Runes gets Dazed. He is slowed a bit from this, and my turn 3 Stoneforge Mystic gets through while I still have a decent life total. Equipped with Fire//Ice, I sail.
g2: In comes Oust and Revoker...again. I had to Mull. He Missteps my Vial and gets Lords out fast. I can't keep up and die.
g3: I have two Mystics in my opening hand. Want to guess the outcome? Steven did not take to getting knocked out of top 8 well.
6-1
I actually made three errors this game. I had not realized how mentally tired I had become. Anyway, that is it! I am 6-1, ranked 5th. All I have to do is ID and I am in. Except that I was the only 6-1 to get paired down. So I have to play it out after all. Whatever. Who do I have to kill next?
rd8 Gerry Thompson w/Uw-Landstill
I don't know this guy from Adam, and frankly I don't care. But the fact that this is a feature match indicates to me he must be someone. It's not me they are interested in. Here's the coverage.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21880_Round_8_Gerry_Thompson_vs_Daniel_Payne.html
What is not in there is that in game one, I played Mangara just after Shackles came from him. It was supposed to be Flickerwisp! He was down to one card in hand and I wanted to swap the Revoker onto his Shackles. I cast the spell and indicated that I was targeting the Revoker after he said that it resolved. He looked at me crooked and I glanced down to see, to my horror, that I had slapped down Mangara instead. That absolutely cost me the game. He was dead in a few turns and could not have protected Jace - the last card in his hand.
I played like a noob in both games all around. I could not think straight. When he busted his own Standstill, I had forgotten it was even there! He had to remind me to draw the cards. I made other silly plays too. Gerry played well though. I give him that.
I got my hundred bucks and had to wait hours before I could leave because one of the guys had made top 8 in the Draft Challenge. That crap takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
All in all, another fun time. I have been in two major Legacy tournaments now and I am again happy with the result. Both times, I think I was the only guy in the top 16 who was not some young tournament groupie. I only wish there was something closer to home.
thoughts:
-More people seemed to have some understanding of my deck this time around. I got a lot of compliments for it though, so plenty of others were seeing it for the first time.
-Mental Misstep hurts so much. Considering how important Aether Vial is, I don't know how to continue to work around it without joining the ranks.
-Mystic was the number one bomb of the day.
-Revoker was a close second. And Misstep hits neither of these cards.
-The sb was fine...well except the Bridges. That was a bad call. I saw no Emrakul of Progenitus anywhere.
Two last things. Thanks to Jeff (Amoebasinger) for giving me the "calm down" gesture when I needed to see it to wrap up round 7. And my condolences to Phill who accidentally signed his slip from round 4 with his opponent winning 2 instead of himself. There is a big difference between 5-1 and 4-2.
I hope you enjoyed the report.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17050-REPORT-5K-Orlando&highlight=
We arrived in Orlando very late Saturday night for the tournament the next day. This is the deck I brought.
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Serra Avenger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Flickerwisp
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Oust
4 Swords to Plowshares
11 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Karakas
Sideboard:
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Serenity
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Oust
All D+T all the time until I find something more fun and competitive. Like last year, I made a few changes from what was posted on any of my threads to reflect the specifics of the environment. This year I expected hoards of men with gills and tails. I expected blue in general to be good. I also expected Zoo to be there in numbers to fight these little blue men. And I expected combo to be relegated to non-storm types like Eldrazi decks or maybe Dredge. I also had an inkling that Affinity would show up. Monowhite D+T is actually good against all that stuff. Finally, and most importantly, I had to find a way around Mental Misstep from all the decks that were likely to have it.
So I took all my storm hate out except for a single Canonist. I replaced an Oust with the fourth Mystic (for Misstep-proofing) and dropped in three Ensnaring Bridges for backup against Merfolk and of course big Legendary fatties. I swapped out something crappy for Serenity and at the last moment, I took out my trusty fourth Jotun Grunt for a fourth Revoker reasoning that Grunts are best against blue decks with Tarmo and I did not expect to see much of that.
Rd 1 Justin Chambers w/TES
That figures. I guess this guy did not get the memo that Merfolk was going to be ridiculous. He said that he matched up well against them, but that does not sound right to me.
g1: I go first with Mother of Runes. He plays City of Brass and Ponders or something. Whatever. My turn, I play Aether Vial and pass. Whatever. His turn two he taps out and Ad Nauseams. He turns over lots of stuff but only one Lotus Petal and no Mox before killing himself from 18 life. Huh. I'll take it!
g2: I side in the Tutors, the last Revoker, Canonist, and Relic because it is better than anything else. It was sad. Turns out, Revokers are a real pain for that deck. I kinda knew from testing that naming Lion's Eye Diamond is surprisingly effective. On the back of my little buddy I somehow get him into a ground war with me because of this. He gets his 10 little Goblins and I have a Sword of Light and Shadow on something. But Justin is kinda good and stuff. At 7 life, he gets Tendrils for 20 without Ad Nauseam. I had a lot of life, but that plus the twerps are enough to finish me.
g3: My opening hand is two Tutors and the Canonist with the mana to cast it. I play Plains and pass. He casts Duress (not Thoughtseize, phew!) and takes a Tutor. His EOT I fetch a Revoker. My turn I get Canonist. Now he is in slow-mo. My next turn I play the Revoker naming LED again. Now I have him taking four per turn. He Burning Wishes for Grapeshot as he is getting low on life. The next turn he plays LED, Chrome Mox, and Grapeshot to kill my dudes, but he is at one card in hand to do it. And by now I have two Aether Vials at three. He collects a few cards over the next few turns while I rebuild. It ended when I vialed in two Flickerwisps at my EOT to remove the Chrome Mox and the LED for his turn. Lady luck hath smiled upon me.
1-0
rd 2 Shawn Glancey w/Land Destruction-Goblins
g1: He is late and gets a game loss. Poor guy.
g2: I see mountains and wonder what he is doing just playing land and passing as I myself have a slow start. On turn three, the Stone Rain explained it all.
2-0
rd 3 Chris Lewis w/Merfolk
g1: I got Vial and Port. He never got past two lands and I was Porting one of them.
g2: I side in the extra Revoker and the Oust for some expensive stuff. The plan is to stay alive long enough to take control. But this time he had Vial and I did not. Oh Lordy is this familiar. Merfolk games often come down to who can abuse Aether Vial the best and he did it this time.
g3: He had Vial and I did not. But I landed a Revoker naming Vial on turn three to act as a clotting agent for my blood. Soon after I that landed a Mystic-> Sword of Fire//Ice and the race was on. He was building his force far faster, but I also got a Jitte. I swung into him four times in a row while he battered me down to one life. I made some pretty sharp plays to manage this, but on Chris' last turn, he attacks me with his last resource, a Mishra, in a desperate attempt. I have Mangara as a potential blocker and four Jitte counters, but I say "I'll take the two. Gain two life." At that I grabbed my pen...
I greet and shake the hand of every opponent I face. This time was no different. But Chris scowled the entire match and did not speak to me until this moment. "Excuse me?" he said, looking up. I knew exactly what he meant, too. I used lazy language and he meant to get a free one from this. I told him that I clearly meant that I was not blocking with the phrase. The judges agreed with me after speaking to us both for several minutes independently and I went about killing him.
3-0
rd4 Ron Faris w/UW Thopter
As gruff as Chris was, Ron was that friendly.
g1: He plays a turn one Top, but I get a turn two Revoker naming Divining Top. That plus a Mangara lock kept him down while an avenger punched him in the gut. He did a lot of maneuvering, but I had control of the permanents. This is a matchup I am heavily favored in.
g2: I side in the extra Revoker again, plus Serenity and maybe something else. Anyway, he plays a turn one Top again. I play Aether Vial. FoW. He plays Counterbalance. I play another Vial. He puts the Top on top to counter it. I know better than that. WTF. But on turn three I hardcast Mangara for which he had no answer. Counterbalance revealed Predict. Mangara took out Counterbalance and himself. But I had another and cast it the next turn. We had a good back and forth, but I was in charge the whole time. He had a Needle on Wasteland and he had Enlightened Tutored another that he was holding. I did not have Karakas and he was gambling that I would not draw it. Best play of the day: Mangara on Top at his eot with no Karakas or Flicker tricks. He exchanges it for the top card and Mangara is...tapped. I get a Timewalk of sorts. I killed him shortly after that.
Amazingly, Ron was still excited to talk about his deck and his sideboarding plan. I enjoyed listening.
4-0
rd5 Nicholas Spagnolo w/Merfolk
Nick was very pleasant too. I could not help notice the abundance of pink in his attire. The photo from his top 8 profile has him in a black shirt. But he had pink and a goofy hat in round 5. Everything about him screamed confidence.
g1: He goes first with Island, pass. I note it and decide to cast Mother of Runes instead of Aether Vial. Hardcast Misstep on Mother of Runes. He plays Silvergill revealing another Silvergill. I cast, and resolve Vial. He lands a Reejerey and Missteps my eot STP with two life. Take a moment to envision what has just happened and what is about to happen. Over the next two turns, he casts four lords and the other Silvergill. If I had sent that Reejerey farming this would have been a far different game. I lost quickly despite having a Vial where he had none.
g2: Again comes in the extra Revoker and Oust for slow stuff. He counters my first four spells. I STP'd his only creature to this point and after four turns we both have only lands. This is good for me. I eventually get Mother of Runes and a Revoker on Coralhelm Commander (though his field is empty). Afterward, Nick told me that tried several times to bait me into tapping Mother of Runes so that he could use Threads of Disloyalty on her, but I held out and eventually ran him down.
g3: Nick gets a Vial. I have Revoker on it again. I get a Sword of Fire and Ice, but he is a bit faster than Chris was thanks to Misstepping Mother of Runes and my STP this game. I lose to his bigger guys.
I want to say that I had planned to side in the Ensnaring Bridges for Merfolk, but actually decided against it every game. I was silly to think I would be willing to take out what works for that card. Maybe I was wrong.
4-1
rd6 Franco (last name?) w/Goblins
Franco has a thick accent and a nonstandard build of Goblins.
g1: We both start slow, but I eventually got a Mystic. After he used Stingscourger on it, and I drew a Jitte manually, I had all three weapons at my disposal. With my deck giving me no other creatures anyway, I put all three on her and cut Franco up despite him having quite a few goblins by this time.
g2: Bring in Revoker and Oust again. His turn 1 Lackey met STP. He has no turn two play. I do though - Mystic for Fire and Ice. On turn three he Matrons for Gempalm Incinerator. On my third, I cast Revoker naming Gemplam Incinerator. So Franco casts Ringleader revealing another of those vanilla 2/1's for 3 and a Goblin Goon. He has only Matron and Ringleader on the board though. Once I equip the Mystic the game is over.
5-1
rd 7 Steven Goanos w/Merfolk
Steven looks like he is pretty nervous.
g1: Turn 1 he plays Cursecatcher. My Mother of Runes gets Dazed. He is slowed a bit from this, and my turn 3 Stoneforge Mystic gets through while I still have a decent life total. Equipped with Fire//Ice, I sail.
g2: In comes Oust and Revoker...again. I had to Mull. He Missteps my Vial and gets Lords out fast. I can't keep up and die.
g3: I have two Mystics in my opening hand. Want to guess the outcome? Steven did not take to getting knocked out of top 8 well.
6-1
I actually made three errors this game. I had not realized how mentally tired I had become. Anyway, that is it! I am 6-1, ranked 5th. All I have to do is ID and I am in. Except that I was the only 6-1 to get paired down. So I have to play it out after all. Whatever. Who do I have to kill next?
rd8 Gerry Thompson w/Uw-Landstill
I don't know this guy from Adam, and frankly I don't care. But the fact that this is a feature match indicates to me he must be someone. It's not me they are interested in. Here's the coverage.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21880_Round_8_Gerry_Thompson_vs_Daniel_Payne.html
What is not in there is that in game one, I played Mangara just after Shackles came from him. It was supposed to be Flickerwisp! He was down to one card in hand and I wanted to swap the Revoker onto his Shackles. I cast the spell and indicated that I was targeting the Revoker after he said that it resolved. He looked at me crooked and I glanced down to see, to my horror, that I had slapped down Mangara instead. That absolutely cost me the game. He was dead in a few turns and could not have protected Jace - the last card in his hand.
I played like a noob in both games all around. I could not think straight. When he busted his own Standstill, I had forgotten it was even there! He had to remind me to draw the cards. I made other silly plays too. Gerry played well though. I give him that.
I got my hundred bucks and had to wait hours before I could leave because one of the guys had made top 8 in the Draft Challenge. That crap takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
All in all, another fun time. I have been in two major Legacy tournaments now and I am again happy with the result. Both times, I think I was the only guy in the top 16 who was not some young tournament groupie. I only wish there was something closer to home.
thoughts:
-More people seemed to have some understanding of my deck this time around. I got a lot of compliments for it though, so plenty of others were seeing it for the first time.
-Mental Misstep hurts so much. Considering how important Aether Vial is, I don't know how to continue to work around it without joining the ranks.
-Mystic was the number one bomb of the day.
-Revoker was a close second. And Misstep hits neither of these cards.
-The sb was fine...well except the Bridges. That was a bad call. I saw no Emrakul of Progenitus anywhere.
Two last things. Thanks to Jeff (Amoebasinger) for giving me the "calm down" gesture when I needed to see it to wrap up round 7. And my condolences to Phill who accidentally signed his slip from round 4 with his opponent winning 2 instead of himself. There is a big difference between 5-1 and 4-2.
I hope you enjoyed the report.