hyc8028
03-21-2012, 12:25 PM
I had been planning for this trip for a while ever since I found out SCG is coming back to Northern California. Due to my work schedule and other responsibilities in life, Legacy is the only thing I can play. It is not very often that we get a huge legacy tourney here, so I was very excited that I get to play my favorite constructed format. I took 2 days off from work, called some friends, booked the hotel closest to the convention center, and started putting some decklists together.
I was pretty much locked into playing UW blade. It is a deck that I have a lot of experiences and confidences with. However, as soon as I saw Martell’s Esper Blade list, UW Blade is no longer a good choice. UW has no chance against Lingering Souls. The tokens keep Geist under control, protect planeswalker and very good in the mirror. They also carry Jitte like a champ. Not to mentions Ricky “The Great One” Wen destroyed my Blade deck Pre and Post SB during our testing session. I realized I need a new deck. Knowing the meta is going to contain the big 3 (RUG Delver, Maverick, Esper Blade), I wanted a deck that favorable against 2 of the big 3 and I wanted a deck that packed 4x Wasteland. These reasons led to me believed Maverick would be the best choice for me despite random combo decks do exist in our meta and Maverick seem to be soft to burn also.
Here is my 75 for the Legacy Challenge and SCG Open:
Creature: 25
4x Mother of Runes
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Noble Hierarch
3x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Scryb Ranger
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Eternal Witness
1x Gaddock Teeg
Spell: 13
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Sylvan Library
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land: 22
4x Windswept Heath
4x Savannah
4x Wasteland
3x Forest
2x Verdant Catacomb
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
SB: 15
2x Choke
2x Path to Exile
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Maze of Ith
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Serenity
I had 3x Thalia in the main in place of 1 Pridemage, 1 Thrun and 1 Scryb Ranger Saturday morning, but I wanted more beef during the last minute testing before the challenge and Thalia wasn’t doing much against fair decks, so I switched back to my original list.
This part is going to be brief. I lost my life pads on my way home, so I am trying to recall everything from my memory. I am so sorry that I forgot all my opponent’s names.
Legacy Challenge, 50 ish people
Round 1: RUG Delver 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the draw. Scavenging Ooze kept my life total high and kept his Goyf and Goose under control.
Game 2: I mulled to 6 on the draw. He got me down to 2 life, but he can’t find a red source and a burn to finish me off. I ripped a cradle and proceeded to eat his whole yard and eat bunch of dudes in my own yard to gain a bunch of life, then he got smashed by my 14/14 Ooze.
1-0
Round 2: Burn 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the play. He didn’t put much pressure up. I play SFM on turn 2 getting Jitte, got Ooze out turn 3, eat his Hellspark Elemental in his yard, and equip Jitte on the Ooze.
Game 2: Same as Game 1, but I had to wasteland my own Savannah to grow my Knight and STP my Knight to keep my life total high.
2-0
Round 3: RUG Delver (10th Place in the Open) 2-1
Game 1: Both kept our opening 7. He got a very aggressive hand. Turn 1 Delver plus couple Goose put my life very low. A Lightning Bolt plus Forked Bolt finished me off quickly.
Game 2: He mulled to 6 on the draw. I got 2x Mom opening plus Ooze. I played around Stifle the whole time. Mom + Ooze = Win.
Game 3: Both keep opening 7. I don’t remember much from this. I think it was Thrun + Jitte with 2 Knight.
3-0
Round 4: ANT (2nd Place in the Open) ID
It was 9:15pm and he wanted to ID so he can go drink and celebrated St. Patrick day. I accepted and ran away with my 3 boosters and $25 dealer credit.
3-0-1
I ripped open my 3 DA packs and got a Mikaeus and a pile of Junk. I wished they give out Innstrad pack instead. I used my $25 dealer credit to buy my 6th Snappy. I wanted to get other things, but everything was so overpriced. Seem like Snappy is the only card in the display that will hold value in the future plus reasonable priced, and I didn’t have to spend a dime to get it.
Legacy Open, 117 people, 7 Rounds of swiss
Round 1: Burn 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the play. He didn’t put much pressure up. I turned 2 SFM for Jitte, got Ooze out, eat his Hellspark Elemental in his yard, and equip Jitte on the Ooze with Mom backing up the Ooze.
Game 2: Same as Game 1, but I had to wasteland my own Savannah to grow my Knight and STP my Knight to keep my life total high. Cradle plus Ooze is insane.
1-0
Round 2: LED Dredge 2-0
Game 1: I mulled to 5 on the play. I drew into my cradle and Ooze when I have a mana dork and mom in play. Also, his dredge wasn’t that good. I ripped apart his yard shortly after and he conceded.
Game 2: He had a very explosive turn 2 kill. Nothing I could have done. I kept a hand with no yard hate or Tutor.
Game 3: He kept a bad 7 I think. I had opening hand with Crypt, which I used it to get his yard on his turn 2 main in response to him playing LED so he couldn’t flashback Faithless Looting. I casted a turn 2 Ooze, exiled some stuff, then turn 4 Knight with a green mana backed up. He conceded a turn later.
2-0
Round 3: Martell Blade 2-0 (25th Place in the Open)
Game 1: Both kept opening 7. I powered out turn 3 Elspeth with Mom active, and then I went beat down mode with Scryb Ranger and Elspeth.
Game 2: Both kept opening 7. He tapped out turn 3 Lingering Soul. I proceeded to turn 3 Choke to lock him down. I got a SoLS on my Scryb Ranger and there was nothing he could do even he had 4 Spirit tokens.
3-0
Round 4: Goblin 0-2 (4th Place in the Open, Video Feature Match)
Game 1: I got destroyed by turn 1 Lackey and main deck Pyrokinesis.
Game 2: I punted with my Pridemage and fetches. I also fetched the wrong equipment with SFM. You can watch this in the video archive.
3-1
I was very hungry and can’t find any place to eat around the convention center, so I had to buy a crappy hot dog for $5.75 in the food stand. Worse $5.75 I have ever spent in my life. Bread was soggy and the sausage was overcooked. The hot dog in Costco is 100x better than that crap.
Round 5: RUG Delver 2-0 (16th Place in the Open)
Game 1: Elspeth is too much for him to handle with an active Mom.
Game 2: Thrun plus Ooze plus Jitte.
4-1
Round 6: Aggro Loam 1-2 (3rd Place in the Open)
This was my win and in match. I could win this and drew into top 8, but of course things just didn’t go the way I planned. I already knew what I was up against as soon as I sat down in the feature match area. It was an unfavorable matchup for me and he got to play test against the best Maverick player in the world. He knew all my tricks up my sleeves from the get go.
Game 1: I mulled down to 6 on the draw. He got an early Lavamancer and Bob out that I couldn’t kill. My draws were good this game, but Bob was too much to overcome.
Game 2: Fastest game of the day. He mulled to 5 on the draw. Turn 1 mana dork which he bolted quickly, turn 2 Mom, turn 3 Knight, turn 4 Elspeth, by turn 7 it was over.
Game 3: I mulled to 6 on the draw. I kept a questionable hand with 2x Elspeth and E-Wit. He had a good hand and his dredge was good after he casted Loam. I was mana flooded. He was doing 10 damages a turn with Seismic Assault. He killed my Elspeth 3 times (I E-Wit one back) when he could’ve just destroyed me on the spot, then he killed me with a huge Countryside Crusher.
4-2
Knowing my top 8 chance was done, I had to win the next round to get into top 16.
Round 7: Grinding Station w/Ad Nauseam in the SB 1-2 (12th Place in the Open)
He played against my other friend in Round 3, plus he played in the same stores with our play group, so I was prepared to buckle down and faced against another bad matchup.
Game 1: I mulled to 6 on the play. I got a turn 1 Mom, and then turn 3 Ooze. I started removing his yard and he scooped few turns later.
Game 2: We both kept our 7. I lead with turn 1 mana dork, turn 2 GSZ for Teeg. He was digging for answer. He had to crack a fetch to get Badland to cast Burning Wish for an Infest. I then wasteland his dual and played a Mom hoping he couldn’t answer the teeg. He then ripped a Chain of Vapor off the top of his deck, bounced my Teeg and went off with Ad Nauseam with one land in play.
Game 3: I kept my 7 with an Enlightened Tutor on the play. However, he had a god hand and did this to me on turn 1.
Underground Sea, Ritual, Ritual, LED, LED, Infernal Tutor, Crack both LED while tutor on stack, Ad Nauseam, flipped bunch of stuff including Tendrils, couple petals, LED, Cabal Ritual.
4-3, 28th Place.
Props:
SCG for coming back to Northern Cali again
Scavenging Ooze for being awesome
Gaea’s Cradle for explosive plays and insane with Ooze
Thrun was a lot better than I thought
Sushi buffet twice in two days
My friends for being supportive and rooting for me the whole day
Me, for playing a non-blue, non-Brainstorm deck for the first time in a legacy tourney
Whoever invented Maverick, it is a fun deck to play and I enjoyed it a lot
Hanging out with a lot of old and new friends
Philip Contreras, winning with Unstable Mutation, Spectral Flight, Psionic Blast
Everyone was a winner when no one got their stuff lost/stolen on Sunday
Slops:
Sacramento is the WORST city I have ever been to. Nothing opens around the convention center on Sunday. Parking meters enforce on Sunday. The whole downtown seem to only serve those people who work in the Capital building. The downtown area seem dead once it pasts 5 pm. I have no clue why our state government chooses Sacramento as Cali’s capital. It is so miserable up there.
Rain and wind throughout the whole Saturday and early Sunday
Only got 3 hours of sleep before the open
Me suck at playing Maverick, need to get better at it
I was pretty much locked into playing UW blade. It is a deck that I have a lot of experiences and confidences with. However, as soon as I saw Martell’s Esper Blade list, UW Blade is no longer a good choice. UW has no chance against Lingering Souls. The tokens keep Geist under control, protect planeswalker and very good in the mirror. They also carry Jitte like a champ. Not to mentions Ricky “The Great One” Wen destroyed my Blade deck Pre and Post SB during our testing session. I realized I need a new deck. Knowing the meta is going to contain the big 3 (RUG Delver, Maverick, Esper Blade), I wanted a deck that favorable against 2 of the big 3 and I wanted a deck that packed 4x Wasteland. These reasons led to me believed Maverick would be the best choice for me despite random combo decks do exist in our meta and Maverick seem to be soft to burn also.
Here is my 75 for the Legacy Challenge and SCG Open:
Creature: 25
4x Mother of Runes
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Noble Hierarch
3x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Scryb Ranger
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Eternal Witness
1x Gaddock Teeg
Spell: 13
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Sylvan Library
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land: 22
4x Windswept Heath
4x Savannah
4x Wasteland
3x Forest
2x Verdant Catacomb
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
SB: 15
2x Choke
2x Path to Exile
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Maze of Ith
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Serenity
I had 3x Thalia in the main in place of 1 Pridemage, 1 Thrun and 1 Scryb Ranger Saturday morning, but I wanted more beef during the last minute testing before the challenge and Thalia wasn’t doing much against fair decks, so I switched back to my original list.
This part is going to be brief. I lost my life pads on my way home, so I am trying to recall everything from my memory. I am so sorry that I forgot all my opponent’s names.
Legacy Challenge, 50 ish people
Round 1: RUG Delver 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the draw. Scavenging Ooze kept my life total high and kept his Goyf and Goose under control.
Game 2: I mulled to 6 on the draw. He got me down to 2 life, but he can’t find a red source and a burn to finish me off. I ripped a cradle and proceeded to eat his whole yard and eat bunch of dudes in my own yard to gain a bunch of life, then he got smashed by my 14/14 Ooze.
1-0
Round 2: Burn 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the play. He didn’t put much pressure up. I play SFM on turn 2 getting Jitte, got Ooze out turn 3, eat his Hellspark Elemental in his yard, and equip Jitte on the Ooze.
Game 2: Same as Game 1, but I had to wasteland my own Savannah to grow my Knight and STP my Knight to keep my life total high.
2-0
Round 3: RUG Delver (10th Place in the Open) 2-1
Game 1: Both kept our opening 7. He got a very aggressive hand. Turn 1 Delver plus couple Goose put my life very low. A Lightning Bolt plus Forked Bolt finished me off quickly.
Game 2: He mulled to 6 on the draw. I got 2x Mom opening plus Ooze. I played around Stifle the whole time. Mom + Ooze = Win.
Game 3: Both keep opening 7. I don’t remember much from this. I think it was Thrun + Jitte with 2 Knight.
3-0
Round 4: ANT (2nd Place in the Open) ID
It was 9:15pm and he wanted to ID so he can go drink and celebrated St. Patrick day. I accepted and ran away with my 3 boosters and $25 dealer credit.
3-0-1
I ripped open my 3 DA packs and got a Mikaeus and a pile of Junk. I wished they give out Innstrad pack instead. I used my $25 dealer credit to buy my 6th Snappy. I wanted to get other things, but everything was so overpriced. Seem like Snappy is the only card in the display that will hold value in the future plus reasonable priced, and I didn’t have to spend a dime to get it.
Legacy Open, 117 people, 7 Rounds of swiss
Round 1: Burn 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 6 on the play. He didn’t put much pressure up. I turned 2 SFM for Jitte, got Ooze out, eat his Hellspark Elemental in his yard, and equip Jitte on the Ooze with Mom backing up the Ooze.
Game 2: Same as Game 1, but I had to wasteland my own Savannah to grow my Knight and STP my Knight to keep my life total high. Cradle plus Ooze is insane.
1-0
Round 2: LED Dredge 2-0
Game 1: I mulled to 5 on the play. I drew into my cradle and Ooze when I have a mana dork and mom in play. Also, his dredge wasn’t that good. I ripped apart his yard shortly after and he conceded.
Game 2: He had a very explosive turn 2 kill. Nothing I could have done. I kept a hand with no yard hate or Tutor.
Game 3: He kept a bad 7 I think. I had opening hand with Crypt, which I used it to get his yard on his turn 2 main in response to him playing LED so he couldn’t flashback Faithless Looting. I casted a turn 2 Ooze, exiled some stuff, then turn 4 Knight with a green mana backed up. He conceded a turn later.
2-0
Round 3: Martell Blade 2-0 (25th Place in the Open)
Game 1: Both kept opening 7. I powered out turn 3 Elspeth with Mom active, and then I went beat down mode with Scryb Ranger and Elspeth.
Game 2: Both kept opening 7. He tapped out turn 3 Lingering Soul. I proceeded to turn 3 Choke to lock him down. I got a SoLS on my Scryb Ranger and there was nothing he could do even he had 4 Spirit tokens.
3-0
Round 4: Goblin 0-2 (4th Place in the Open, Video Feature Match)
Game 1: I got destroyed by turn 1 Lackey and main deck Pyrokinesis.
Game 2: I punted with my Pridemage and fetches. I also fetched the wrong equipment with SFM. You can watch this in the video archive.
3-1
I was very hungry and can’t find any place to eat around the convention center, so I had to buy a crappy hot dog for $5.75 in the food stand. Worse $5.75 I have ever spent in my life. Bread was soggy and the sausage was overcooked. The hot dog in Costco is 100x better than that crap.
Round 5: RUG Delver 2-0 (16th Place in the Open)
Game 1: Elspeth is too much for him to handle with an active Mom.
Game 2: Thrun plus Ooze plus Jitte.
4-1
Round 6: Aggro Loam 1-2 (3rd Place in the Open)
This was my win and in match. I could win this and drew into top 8, but of course things just didn’t go the way I planned. I already knew what I was up against as soon as I sat down in the feature match area. It was an unfavorable matchup for me and he got to play test against the best Maverick player in the world. He knew all my tricks up my sleeves from the get go.
Game 1: I mulled down to 6 on the draw. He got an early Lavamancer and Bob out that I couldn’t kill. My draws were good this game, but Bob was too much to overcome.
Game 2: Fastest game of the day. He mulled to 5 on the draw. Turn 1 mana dork which he bolted quickly, turn 2 Mom, turn 3 Knight, turn 4 Elspeth, by turn 7 it was over.
Game 3: I mulled to 6 on the draw. I kept a questionable hand with 2x Elspeth and E-Wit. He had a good hand and his dredge was good after he casted Loam. I was mana flooded. He was doing 10 damages a turn with Seismic Assault. He killed my Elspeth 3 times (I E-Wit one back) when he could’ve just destroyed me on the spot, then he killed me with a huge Countryside Crusher.
4-2
Knowing my top 8 chance was done, I had to win the next round to get into top 16.
Round 7: Grinding Station w/Ad Nauseam in the SB 1-2 (12th Place in the Open)
He played against my other friend in Round 3, plus he played in the same stores with our play group, so I was prepared to buckle down and faced against another bad matchup.
Game 1: I mulled to 6 on the play. I got a turn 1 Mom, and then turn 3 Ooze. I started removing his yard and he scooped few turns later.
Game 2: We both kept our 7. I lead with turn 1 mana dork, turn 2 GSZ for Teeg. He was digging for answer. He had to crack a fetch to get Badland to cast Burning Wish for an Infest. I then wasteland his dual and played a Mom hoping he couldn’t answer the teeg. He then ripped a Chain of Vapor off the top of his deck, bounced my Teeg and went off with Ad Nauseam with one land in play.
Game 3: I kept my 7 with an Enlightened Tutor on the play. However, he had a god hand and did this to me on turn 1.
Underground Sea, Ritual, Ritual, LED, LED, Infernal Tutor, Crack both LED while tutor on stack, Ad Nauseam, flipped bunch of stuff including Tendrils, couple petals, LED, Cabal Ritual.
4-3, 28th Place.
Props:
SCG for coming back to Northern Cali again
Scavenging Ooze for being awesome
Gaea’s Cradle for explosive plays and insane with Ooze
Thrun was a lot better than I thought
Sushi buffet twice in two days
My friends for being supportive and rooting for me the whole day
Me, for playing a non-blue, non-Brainstorm deck for the first time in a legacy tourney
Whoever invented Maverick, it is a fun deck to play and I enjoyed it a lot
Hanging out with a lot of old and new friends
Philip Contreras, winning with Unstable Mutation, Spectral Flight, Psionic Blast
Everyone was a winner when no one got their stuff lost/stolen on Sunday
Slops:
Sacramento is the WORST city I have ever been to. Nothing opens around the convention center on Sunday. Parking meters enforce on Sunday. The whole downtown seem to only serve those people who work in the Capital building. The downtown area seem dead once it pasts 5 pm. I have no clue why our state government chooses Sacramento as Cali’s capital. It is so miserable up there.
Rain and wind throughout the whole Saturday and early Sunday
Only got 3 hours of sleep before the open
Me suck at playing Maverick, need to get better at it