GoboLord
07-22-2012, 10:41 AM
Hey fellow Warchiefs,
yesterday I attended a tournament – well, not just a tournament… I played on the Legacy Grand Prix in Gent, Belgium. As always, I had fun and learned something and I want to share my experiences with you – but first I’ll write some words about the road-trip:
Let’s start on Thursday when we (me and Ruffy, aka. I am the brainwasher) had some tournament preparations. I wanted to find out two things: (1) What is the right number of Krenko, in my deck and (2) how do I beat RUG Thresh more consistently. The playtesting revealed that 2 Krenkos might be cool, but that I’m fine with only one copy and that it is not a good idea to cut my 2nd SGC from my deck to include the Mob Boss. As for my second question, we figured out that winning or losing the RUG Thresh MU pretty much depends on resolving a Vial in early game: when you resolve one you are likely to win, when you don’t resolve it you will most likely lose the game.
The day started at 4:30 a.m. with a decent breakfast featuring grilled bacon & eggs, a huge amount of pure energy in form of a smoothy and a good pot of muesli. We packed our things and there we were on the streets…well for 1 hour at least….that’s when we took a rest to have a coffee and a good poop in the most luxurious toilet I’ve ever seen on an autobahn-restaurant. Start your day right. After 1,5 hours of chit-chatting about the meta we arrived at the event site. Before the tourney started we got rid of the coffee and the smoothy in this nice facility
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/lb/thumb/1/18/Mobile_Pissoir_w.jpg/280px-Mobile_Pissoir_w.jpg.
Okay, guys, enough of the boring talk – here are some facts:
Event: Legacy Grand Prix Gent, Belgium
Players: 1445
Date: Saturday, July 21st 2012
Result: 6-3-0 after 9 rounds
Decklist:
Mana [21]
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
10 Mountains
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
Core [22]
...
Others [17]
4 Piledriver
3 MWM
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Krenko
3 Gempalm
2 Stinger
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
Sideboard [15]
4 Leyline otV
4 Chalice otV
3 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Anarchy
1 Tuktuk
1 Sharpshooter
Round 1: Bjorn from Belgium with Maverick
G1: Ends after a short struggle which is resolved by a Dismember targeting a KotR.
IN: 1 Shooter, 1 Tuktuk, 3 Vortici, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 4 Lackeys, 3 Pileys
G2: I had mulligan to 5 which still featured AEther Vial. Dismember took down a KotR again, Bjorn resolved an impressive army of 3 Noble Hierarchs. The long game ended very closely when Bjorn (on 6 life) swung for the win with Sword of Fire and Ice.
G3: I won with 20 lifepoints and Bjorn just got combo’ed to death by Krenko.
1-0-0
Round 2: Mark from Norway(?) with Belcher
G1 & 2: Poor Mark came the long way from Norway to Belgium just to make some horrible misplays which cost him the game.
2-0-0
Round 3: Jasper from The Netherlands with Zombardement
G1: I lost a close game because I didn’t know what his deck did. I underestimated the value of Blood Artist which turned out to be a bad.
IN: 1 Shooter
OUT: 1 MWM
G2: Jasper got combo’ed to death by an early Lackey connecting into Krenko and Piledriver
G3: It turned out that Zombies can’t block, which is quite nice when you have double Piledriver.
3-0-0
Round 4: Stephane from France with Rock (aka. GBW creatures)
G1: I got overwhelmed by Nimble Mongoose, Goyf and KotR
IN: 4 Leylines
OUT: 2 Bolts, 2 Gempalms
G2: I did not start with Leyline, but with Wasteland, Vial, Skirk Prospector, Matron, 2 Ringleader, 2 SGC. This hand was risky but then again his deck was quite slow and I had many things to draw from my deck that would bring me into a favored position (lands, Lackey, more Vials, MWMs, Stinger). That was about the way it worked: KoTr and Kitchen Finks did not apply enough pressure to beat through tons of Goblins. That were freatured by Ringleader, Krenko and SGC.
IN: 1 Tuktuk
OUT: 1 Gempalm
G3: My intuition told me that it would be a good idea to have Tuktuk in the deck. Well, Stephane was pretty much screwed on Lands with only Dark double-Mongoose and Scavenging Ooze in play, while also having Needle (@ Vial) and Phyrexian Revoker (@ Krenko). I never drew Vial in the course of the game and had Tuktuk on my opening hand that destroyed Revoker just 1 turn before I drew Krenko from top. Krenko won me the game.
4-0-0
Round 5: Christoph from Germany with Esperblade
G1: I took mulligan to 5 only to keep a hand that could not do anything before turn 3. Christoph had SFM for Jitte on turn 2 and a Batterskull soon after. What a devastating start. Still I managed to recover a little just before he blew me out with clique after ~20 minutes.
IN: 3 Vortici, 1 Tuktuk, 1 Shooter, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 3 MWM, 1 Krenko, 1 Stinger, 2 Gempalms
G2: Both of us had pretty strong draws. 2 Lackeys and 1 Sharpshooter got StoP’ed I had 1 dissatisfying Ringleader (got me only one Goblin and put 1 Anarchy and 2 Vortici on bottom). 2 Spirit tokens were Bolt’ed and Incinerated. Overall I was too slow and did not build up a threatening board position.
4-1-0
Round 6:Alexander from Russia with UWb Miracle Control
G1: 1 Lackey and 1 MWM beat him to 1 life, while double Port and double Wasteland screwed him out of the game. However on 1 Life he had Snapcaster @ StoP (which previously removed my Lackey) to take care of my tokens. After that I had nothing buut lands while Alex resolved Counterbalance, Top and Jace into Entreat the Angels. I might have won but I’m not sure about it. You be the judges. The situation was as follows:
My Lackey got sworded, so I cast MWM to continue building up pressure. On his turn Alex resolved Counterbalance. The following turns he was unable to play anything because double Port and Wasteland did their job. So, my choice was: (1) taking the risk of playing a Piledriver to speed things up. Then I would have taken the risk that Alex would be able to actually resolve something because I couldn’t double-Port him. I would also take the risk that Pile gets countered anyways. (2) Keep attacking with MWM and screw him out of the game. Screwing seemed like a solid move because it worked for the last five turns in row (and in the end this strategy beat him down to 1 life).
http://chrela.com/store/images//Philosoraptor.jpg
What would you have done here?
IN: 3 Vortici, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 1 Krenko, 2 Bolts, 2 MWM
G2: I opened with Mountain and Lackey, which later connected into Krenko and Ringleader. However, I didn’t draw any lands for time while Alex resolved a Terminus being at 6 life. From there I lost the game to Crucible of Worlds + Wasteland because the next 5 lands I drew were Wastelands and Ports. I never exceeded 2 lands and lost the game with 1 Anarchy, 2 Vortici, 1 Matron, and 2 Ringleaders on my hand.
4-2-0
Round 7: Elkin from the Netherlands with RUG (not thresh!)
G1: Elking mulled to 5 while I kept my 6 being 1 Cavern, 2 Lackey and 3 Piledriver.
http://www10.pic-upload.de/22.07.12/v5b1rkd1v49y.jpg (http://www.pic-upload.de/view-15238411/Joker--seriously.jpg.html)
IN: 4 Chalice
OUT: 4 Lackey
G2: I had only 2 MWM and 1 Stinger the whole game. Chalice came too late. The game ended when I had 6 lands in play (and 3 in my hand) when Elking blew me out with Echoing truth for my tokens.
IN: Lackeys
OUT Chalices
G3: The last game was pretty much decided by Krenko vs Delver. I resolved a Vial at turn 1, while Elkin had a delver that flipped on the next turn. However, Krenko won the race.
5-2-0
Round 8: Arnaud from France with Belcher (aka. “Wow, not again…”)
G1: 16 Tokens on T1.
G2: Anaud fought through Chalice 0 and 1 (Taiga, Lotus Petal, LED, Chrome Mox, Spirit Guide, 2 Pyrite Ritual and Empty).
5-3-0
Round 9: Dalibor from Slovakia with Maverick.
G1: I take mulligan to 6. Then there was an announcement that the pairings were wrong and we would get new pairings.
Round 9: Mikhail from Russia with BWG Rock
G1: Mike scoops to double Lackey out of a Vial that have their way cleared by Stingscourger @ Scavenging Ooze.
IN: 1 Tuktuk
OUT: 1 MWM
G2: Mike is flooded as hell. His Scavenging Ooze eats my dudes but never touches my lifepoints due to an impressive chain of MWMs and Matrons. The game lasts very long since 2 Hymn to Tourarch catch 2 Ringleaders, 2 SGC.
6-3-0
Conclusions:
* Zombies can’t block
* Belcher is a 50%-50% matchup….not.
* a good breakfast is more worth than 3 BYEs
* Anarchy is underperforming against Maverick, Stoneblade and UW Miracle I will replace them with 1 Krenko and 4th Sulfuric Vortex
* 2 Ports will be replaced by either 2 Mountains or 1 Mountain and 1 Mutavault.
* 1-of Dismember is awsome
I hope you enjoyed reading my tournament report. Questions are very much appreciated.
yesterday I attended a tournament – well, not just a tournament… I played on the Legacy Grand Prix in Gent, Belgium. As always, I had fun and learned something and I want to share my experiences with you – but first I’ll write some words about the road-trip:
Let’s start on Thursday when we (me and Ruffy, aka. I am the brainwasher) had some tournament preparations. I wanted to find out two things: (1) What is the right number of Krenko, in my deck and (2) how do I beat RUG Thresh more consistently. The playtesting revealed that 2 Krenkos might be cool, but that I’m fine with only one copy and that it is not a good idea to cut my 2nd SGC from my deck to include the Mob Boss. As for my second question, we figured out that winning or losing the RUG Thresh MU pretty much depends on resolving a Vial in early game: when you resolve one you are likely to win, when you don’t resolve it you will most likely lose the game.
The day started at 4:30 a.m. with a decent breakfast featuring grilled bacon & eggs, a huge amount of pure energy in form of a smoothy and a good pot of muesli. We packed our things and there we were on the streets…well for 1 hour at least….that’s when we took a rest to have a coffee and a good poop in the most luxurious toilet I’ve ever seen on an autobahn-restaurant. Start your day right. After 1,5 hours of chit-chatting about the meta we arrived at the event site. Before the tourney started we got rid of the coffee and the smoothy in this nice facility
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/lb/thumb/1/18/Mobile_Pissoir_w.jpg/280px-Mobile_Pissoir_w.jpg.
Okay, guys, enough of the boring talk – here are some facts:
Event: Legacy Grand Prix Gent, Belgium
Players: 1445
Date: Saturday, July 21st 2012
Result: 6-3-0 after 9 rounds
Decklist:
Mana [21]
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
10 Mountains
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
Core [22]
...
Others [17]
4 Piledriver
3 MWM
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Krenko
3 Gempalm
2 Stinger
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
Sideboard [15]
4 Leyline otV
4 Chalice otV
3 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Anarchy
1 Tuktuk
1 Sharpshooter
Round 1: Bjorn from Belgium with Maverick
G1: Ends after a short struggle which is resolved by a Dismember targeting a KotR.
IN: 1 Shooter, 1 Tuktuk, 3 Vortici, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 4 Lackeys, 3 Pileys
G2: I had mulligan to 5 which still featured AEther Vial. Dismember took down a KotR again, Bjorn resolved an impressive army of 3 Noble Hierarchs. The long game ended very closely when Bjorn (on 6 life) swung for the win with Sword of Fire and Ice.
G3: I won with 20 lifepoints and Bjorn just got combo’ed to death by Krenko.
1-0-0
Round 2: Mark from Norway(?) with Belcher
G1 & 2: Poor Mark came the long way from Norway to Belgium just to make some horrible misplays which cost him the game.
2-0-0
Round 3: Jasper from The Netherlands with Zombardement
G1: I lost a close game because I didn’t know what his deck did. I underestimated the value of Blood Artist which turned out to be a bad.
IN: 1 Shooter
OUT: 1 MWM
G2: Jasper got combo’ed to death by an early Lackey connecting into Krenko and Piledriver
G3: It turned out that Zombies can’t block, which is quite nice when you have double Piledriver.
3-0-0
Round 4: Stephane from France with Rock (aka. GBW creatures)
G1: I got overwhelmed by Nimble Mongoose, Goyf and KotR
IN: 4 Leylines
OUT: 2 Bolts, 2 Gempalms
G2: I did not start with Leyline, but with Wasteland, Vial, Skirk Prospector, Matron, 2 Ringleader, 2 SGC. This hand was risky but then again his deck was quite slow and I had many things to draw from my deck that would bring me into a favored position (lands, Lackey, more Vials, MWMs, Stinger). That was about the way it worked: KoTr and Kitchen Finks did not apply enough pressure to beat through tons of Goblins. That were freatured by Ringleader, Krenko and SGC.
IN: 1 Tuktuk
OUT: 1 Gempalm
G3: My intuition told me that it would be a good idea to have Tuktuk in the deck. Well, Stephane was pretty much screwed on Lands with only Dark double-Mongoose and Scavenging Ooze in play, while also having Needle (@ Vial) and Phyrexian Revoker (@ Krenko). I never drew Vial in the course of the game and had Tuktuk on my opening hand that destroyed Revoker just 1 turn before I drew Krenko from top. Krenko won me the game.
4-0-0
Round 5: Christoph from Germany with Esperblade
G1: I took mulligan to 5 only to keep a hand that could not do anything before turn 3. Christoph had SFM for Jitte on turn 2 and a Batterskull soon after. What a devastating start. Still I managed to recover a little just before he blew me out with clique after ~20 minutes.
IN: 3 Vortici, 1 Tuktuk, 1 Shooter, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 3 MWM, 1 Krenko, 1 Stinger, 2 Gempalms
G2: Both of us had pretty strong draws. 2 Lackeys and 1 Sharpshooter got StoP’ed I had 1 dissatisfying Ringleader (got me only one Goblin and put 1 Anarchy and 2 Vortici on bottom). 2 Spirit tokens were Bolt’ed and Incinerated. Overall I was too slow and did not build up a threatening board position.
4-1-0
Round 6:Alexander from Russia with UWb Miracle Control
G1: 1 Lackey and 1 MWM beat him to 1 life, while double Port and double Wasteland screwed him out of the game. However on 1 Life he had Snapcaster @ StoP (which previously removed my Lackey) to take care of my tokens. After that I had nothing buut lands while Alex resolved Counterbalance, Top and Jace into Entreat the Angels. I might have won but I’m not sure about it. You be the judges. The situation was as follows:
My Lackey got sworded, so I cast MWM to continue building up pressure. On his turn Alex resolved Counterbalance. The following turns he was unable to play anything because double Port and Wasteland did their job. So, my choice was: (1) taking the risk of playing a Piledriver to speed things up. Then I would have taken the risk that Alex would be able to actually resolve something because I couldn’t double-Port him. I would also take the risk that Pile gets countered anyways. (2) Keep attacking with MWM and screw him out of the game. Screwing seemed like a solid move because it worked for the last five turns in row (and in the end this strategy beat him down to 1 life).
http://chrela.com/store/images//Philosoraptor.jpg
What would you have done here?
IN: 3 Vortici, 2 Anarchy
OUT: 1 Krenko, 2 Bolts, 2 MWM
G2: I opened with Mountain and Lackey, which later connected into Krenko and Ringleader. However, I didn’t draw any lands for time while Alex resolved a Terminus being at 6 life. From there I lost the game to Crucible of Worlds + Wasteland because the next 5 lands I drew were Wastelands and Ports. I never exceeded 2 lands and lost the game with 1 Anarchy, 2 Vortici, 1 Matron, and 2 Ringleaders on my hand.
4-2-0
Round 7: Elkin from the Netherlands with RUG (not thresh!)
G1: Elking mulled to 5 while I kept my 6 being 1 Cavern, 2 Lackey and 3 Piledriver.
http://www10.pic-upload.de/22.07.12/v5b1rkd1v49y.jpg (http://www.pic-upload.de/view-15238411/Joker--seriously.jpg.html)
IN: 4 Chalice
OUT: 4 Lackey
G2: I had only 2 MWM and 1 Stinger the whole game. Chalice came too late. The game ended when I had 6 lands in play (and 3 in my hand) when Elking blew me out with Echoing truth for my tokens.
IN: Lackeys
OUT Chalices
G3: The last game was pretty much decided by Krenko vs Delver. I resolved a Vial at turn 1, while Elkin had a delver that flipped on the next turn. However, Krenko won the race.
5-2-0
Round 8: Arnaud from France with Belcher (aka. “Wow, not again…”)
G1: 16 Tokens on T1.
G2: Anaud fought through Chalice 0 and 1 (Taiga, Lotus Petal, LED, Chrome Mox, Spirit Guide, 2 Pyrite Ritual and Empty).
5-3-0
Round 9: Dalibor from Slovakia with Maverick.
G1: I take mulligan to 6. Then there was an announcement that the pairings were wrong and we would get new pairings.
Round 9: Mikhail from Russia with BWG Rock
G1: Mike scoops to double Lackey out of a Vial that have their way cleared by Stingscourger @ Scavenging Ooze.
IN: 1 Tuktuk
OUT: 1 MWM
G2: Mike is flooded as hell. His Scavenging Ooze eats my dudes but never touches my lifepoints due to an impressive chain of MWMs and Matrons. The game lasts very long since 2 Hymn to Tourarch catch 2 Ringleaders, 2 SGC.
6-3-0
Conclusions:
* Zombies can’t block
* Belcher is a 50%-50% matchup….not.
* a good breakfast is more worth than 3 BYEs
* Anarchy is underperforming against Maverick, Stoneblade and UW Miracle I will replace them with 1 Krenko and 4th Sulfuric Vortex
* 2 Ports will be replaced by either 2 Mountains or 1 Mountain and 1 Mutavault.
* 1-of Dismember is awsome
I hope you enjoyed reading my tournament report. Questions are very much appreciated.