Phelix
08-11-2012, 04:55 PM
Round 10: Andrea Mililo, Italy (5th-8th) Miracle Control.
Andreas Decklist can be found loads of places http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2802&d=218091 is one.
Game 1:
Milio wins the die roll, I mulligan. Yet my notes are quite clear, he resolves jace, I resolve wurm harvest and smokestack. I win in 20 minutes, as he scooped to no permanents at 19 life.
I bring in Ravens Crime, 3 Chalice and 4 Dark confidants.
Game 2:
I keep a starting hand of wasteland, mox, loam, 2x rishadan port, exploration and tolaria west.
This is a super long game, mostly because he extracts my wastelands early, and im struggling to find colored mana at all. He resolves jace turn 8, and I still have not found the mana I need for wurm harvest, sitting in my hand. I strongly consider scooping for a while, but then find another green source. Alas its too late, he kills wurm tokens twice and I lose to jace ulti. → Neat trick: you can recur artifacts from graveyard w. Academy ruins to ignore jace ulti, but I only had 1 blue and could not transmute for it. Time is running out.
Game 3:
Turn 1: Exploration meet Force of will.
Turn 2: Chalice 1
Turn 3: Dark Confidant meet Force of will.
Due to timeconstraints, my notes end here and I beat him for 5, then 9. then win in nick of time. Im guessing its another confidant paired with tar pit.
9-0-1
Round 11: Peter Vieren, Belgium 52th.
Game 1:
I win die roll, and mullligan.
For a brief moment, Im thinking Peter plays High-tide. Since his first 2 turns show me 2 islands and 3 blue deck manipulation spells. On turn 3 he plays Show and Tell, and im quite concerned. I respond with intuition for: Ensnaring Bridge, Oblivion Stone and Karakas (Academy ruins in play) Thinking these 3 give a reasonable position against Emrakul, Progenitus or even Griselbrand.
Show and Tell resolves, I put oblivion stone into play. Peter Puts dream halls into play and wins. LoLwut?
Thinking im pretty screwed in this matchup, since chalice isnt very good here I need some luck.
Game 2:
I Bring in my second ensnaring bridge, confidants, chalice, ravens crime and gilded drakes. I keep 1 maze of ith for some reason. Peter is nice enough to mulligan once. I have mox/Port turn one. Turn two i play Ghost Quarter, and during at some point, Peter has Island, Ancient tomb and im concerned he will pop Show and tell, so I Ghost quarter his tomb. This resolves and Peter brainstorms afterward, not getting a free shuffle effect. Im pleased. I find another port, and a pair of confidants. Leaving peter with just one blue mana source every turn. He searches for a sol land but finds nothing in time. 18 Damage from confidant beats wins it.
Game 3:
For the first 3 turns, peter just fetches islands while I durdle. (no ports) He then casts show and tell, and again im expecting doom. He puts Progenitus into play, while i get a land, and im elated. I untap and rip Ensnaring bridge like a pro. He has no force and it sticks. I feel like I can win this now. He then drops ancient tomb and hardcasts Dream Halls. Im gutted. But all he does for like 4 turns is durdle and ponders. I finally get Creeping tar pit and hit him 5 times with it. OMG the luck :)
10-0-1
Round 12: Christoph Ohlrogge, Germany, 22th.
This guy was super friendly, and probably one of the nicest guys I played against all tournament. Me winning didnt make me enjoy our games any less.
This beardy guy is him: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/715/p1000579g.jpg/
Christop plays UWB control, decklist available everywhere, including the mothership.
Game 1:
He leads with basic island, and has me worried, however he follows it up with a turn two stoneforge mystic and im at ease again. He even opts to find batterskull and im totally elated. The game gets drawn out as he has wastelands, that I didnt anticipate due to him being 3 colors already. He does however start the annoying habit of continuesly bounce his newfound Vendillion Clique with Karakas, and at one point removes my newly dredged Life from the Loam. I loudly proclaim YOINK! And reveal the top card of my library. Its of course another life from the loam that fetches me wastelands to deal with karakas, and his board. I win on 5 life.
Game 2:
Since game one took more than 30 minutes, we are in a bit of a hurry, and I think he even asks me if I thought he should have conceded earlier (or perhaps this was another opponent, similar setup). I side in all the obvious stuff, including ensnaring bridge, thinking I might be able to defend for 18 minutes and win. My notes for the game are short and sweet: ”Turn 1 Sylvan Library”. I know Christoph build an army that included both batterskull and a bunch of flying tokens, but Tabernacle and infinite card draws and card sorting via Sylvan library forces a concession. He scoops while at 21 life.
11-0-1.
Round 13: Timo Schünemann, Germany. 1st.
Timo plays storm combo.
This game is covered @Mothership. I was the last undefeated player in the tournament, and quite happy to now finally get a featurematch to show off my deck. I quickly realize im playing against storm combo and know I cannot win. Like. Ever.
My entire notes from our two games, banter and all are this: ”LOLs”.
He even misplays a little in the second game, but in the end its irrelevant. He was a super nice guy, and im happy he won the whole thing.
11-1-1
Round 14: Alexander Holtzmann, Germany 70th
Apparently Alexander lost almost all his games after playing me this game. I wonder why?
Alexander plays Maverick.
Game 1:
He wins the die roll and leads Green sun for 0, and Ranger on turn two. I have a hand with maze, but opt for mana producing lands and a turn two mox, oblivion stone. Since he used a Zenith on turn one, i figure he is less likely to have removal on turn two, and im right the stone sticks. I refuse to pop the oblivion stone, happily taking two damage a turn while he cant overcommit to the board. I even have time to play 2 moxens and put counters on them. I then drop a maze of ith, then another. For the longest time we have a stalemate, where he cant really play more threats since they will die, but also cant really attack for more than 1 damage a turn. I also start thinking that time is my friend here. He eventually digs out a pridemage and tries to kill my stone. I respond my nuking his board. He tries to recover, but Tabernacle, and the two mazes says no.
Game 2:
I bring in the Cursed Totem, Confidants and Ensnaring bridge. Time is running out, and I choose to trade my Confidant with one of his guys, just to slow him down. Time is called and he scoops. Right after scooping the becomes unsure if he should concede, and I remind him that picking up all his permanents is a pretty good sign of having conceeded, should I call a judge over.
12-1-1
I now need just 2 Points to lock top8. Seems doable.
Round 14: Elias Klocker, Austria 6th.
Elias Plays Maverick.
Game 1:
He was either very nervous, or really into having a pokerface. With the the facial expressions of someone who has had a lobotomy, nothing was funny to him. I felt like Rocky versus Drago.
I win the die roll, then mulligan. My second hand features an amazing 0 lands. Fak. I send them back and lead with nothing. I mise a tabernacle to slow the punishment, but quickly find myself uself zuran orb to barely survive. Unable to mise glacial chasm, I lose.
Game 2:
This game becomes a longer affair, where he finds an Ooze early, and Im reluctant to use my graveyard. In the end I must, and I lose a bunch of useful things to Ooze, including 2 wastelands and a Zuran Orb. I get engineered explosives and kill his ooze, and he decides not to remove it from the yard before resolving the trigger. He later tells me of this, and another mistake he believes could have won the the game. He finds a second Ooze but I kill it too. (he now correctly removes explosives). We enter topdeck mode, where he has to rip, and I get to dredge too. A favorable race, that leads to me attacking with both Colonnade and Creepting Tar pit twice to win. He tries to race, but I win at 4 life. Unblockable is a nice ability.
As we shuffle for game 3, time is called. And its a draw. Drago smiles. While unhappy with his mistake, I think he realizes that this is not a favorable matchup.
This annoying link shows drago, attitude and all: http://www.google.dk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/gpgnt12/GHENT_t8_klocker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x%3Dmtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpgnt12/welcome&h=440&w=400&sz=211&tbnid=QNqYMhKt3X8WOM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=82&zoom=1&usg=__X1MQ8SgngvQ3pVBuIElBS_J-laI=&docid=II9Z6PnR7wJutM&hl=da&sa=X&ei=ccImULyAOKT24QSkkYDYBA&ved=0CFIQ9QEwAjgK&dur=1640
12-1-2
I now need just 1 point to get top 8, Due to very good tiebreakers.
Round 16: Max Sjoblom, Finland 5th.
Max is playing Miracle control, with 2 Snapcasters and vedalken shackles. List available everywhere.
This ends up being an extremely long game, where max continuesly tells me to play faster. The game is quite long, since im in no hurry to win, and he plays hardly any threats. I start playing wurm harvest a bunch of times, killing his jace. I then start to make a handful of mistakes. I think the first one, combined with his constant harassment got me a little tilted. First mistake: I untap, dredge, cast loam, cast wurm harvest, and attack with the wurm tokens from the previous turn. He casts terminus and gets a timewalk. Duh. He plays counterbalance, I play engineered explosives, which he counters. I get it back via Academy ruins, and play it again for two. With no manipulation of the deck, he flips another counterbalance on top. Next turn I play explosives for 2, using Blue, Blue, Green, Green, colorless mana. Since he doesnt have force of will on top of his deck, counterbalance is killed. The second counterbalance suffers a similar fate. By now I have a virtual lock, where he cant resolve any mainphase permanen and have it stick. I have wurmharvest going, and feel very comfortable. I have tabernacle in play too, and as you now, Tabernacle is a card im willing to marry. This leads me to NOT sacrifice it to my zuran orb, but instead paying for my tokens every turn. (and forgetting TWICE) – yes it horrible. These mistakes lead to Max getting several timewalks, but managing nothing on the board. The turn before I see him being dead, I tap out for more tokens, and having 6 life and 14 lands in play, with Zuran Orb, I feel Safe.
End of turn Max flips his senseis top, draws a card and plays Entreat the Angels for 9. Untaps, pays for Tabernacle and Swing for 36. Im dead. I could easily have avoided this by having Explosives for 0 just sit on the battlefield, for playing Glacial chasm after attacking, or just by playing more lands, or, or, or. 15 Minutes remain on the clock.
Game 2:
I Bring in everything aggressive. I dont bring in Chalice, since I need to win fast, and its not like he will concede to not being able to play spells. He uses 7 minutes to sideboard, and two 2 judges in our featurematch area have no comments to this.
I quickly get a wastelock, and stop him on 2 permanents. As time runs out, he is at 10 life, with 2 permanents taking damage from my manlands every turn. But its too little too late. I punted top 8 at a 1430+ event.
12-2-2 16th place. I win 500 dollars, lose some morale, gain more love for lands.dec and probably have the best magic result so far. After getting home I realise that making top 16 no longer equals a pro tour invite, all I win is 500 bucks and a chance flash my punting skills on the source.
Morale: When you metagame perfectly, play well, and prepare, you can still lose to your Idiot self.
If you readers have any comments, taunts, or objections to me remembering games wrong, please post, If I cant win for top 8, perhaps I can win some argument or another :)
Andreas Decklist can be found loads of places http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2802&d=218091 is one.
Game 1:
Milio wins the die roll, I mulligan. Yet my notes are quite clear, he resolves jace, I resolve wurm harvest and smokestack. I win in 20 minutes, as he scooped to no permanents at 19 life.
I bring in Ravens Crime, 3 Chalice and 4 Dark confidants.
Game 2:
I keep a starting hand of wasteland, mox, loam, 2x rishadan port, exploration and tolaria west.
This is a super long game, mostly because he extracts my wastelands early, and im struggling to find colored mana at all. He resolves jace turn 8, and I still have not found the mana I need for wurm harvest, sitting in my hand. I strongly consider scooping for a while, but then find another green source. Alas its too late, he kills wurm tokens twice and I lose to jace ulti. → Neat trick: you can recur artifacts from graveyard w. Academy ruins to ignore jace ulti, but I only had 1 blue and could not transmute for it. Time is running out.
Game 3:
Turn 1: Exploration meet Force of will.
Turn 2: Chalice 1
Turn 3: Dark Confidant meet Force of will.
Due to timeconstraints, my notes end here and I beat him for 5, then 9. then win in nick of time. Im guessing its another confidant paired with tar pit.
9-0-1
Round 11: Peter Vieren, Belgium 52th.
Game 1:
I win die roll, and mullligan.
For a brief moment, Im thinking Peter plays High-tide. Since his first 2 turns show me 2 islands and 3 blue deck manipulation spells. On turn 3 he plays Show and Tell, and im quite concerned. I respond with intuition for: Ensnaring Bridge, Oblivion Stone and Karakas (Academy ruins in play) Thinking these 3 give a reasonable position against Emrakul, Progenitus or even Griselbrand.
Show and Tell resolves, I put oblivion stone into play. Peter Puts dream halls into play and wins. LoLwut?
Thinking im pretty screwed in this matchup, since chalice isnt very good here I need some luck.
Game 2:
I Bring in my second ensnaring bridge, confidants, chalice, ravens crime and gilded drakes. I keep 1 maze of ith for some reason. Peter is nice enough to mulligan once. I have mox/Port turn one. Turn two i play Ghost Quarter, and during at some point, Peter has Island, Ancient tomb and im concerned he will pop Show and tell, so I Ghost quarter his tomb. This resolves and Peter brainstorms afterward, not getting a free shuffle effect. Im pleased. I find another port, and a pair of confidants. Leaving peter with just one blue mana source every turn. He searches for a sol land but finds nothing in time. 18 Damage from confidant beats wins it.
Game 3:
For the first 3 turns, peter just fetches islands while I durdle. (no ports) He then casts show and tell, and again im expecting doom. He puts Progenitus into play, while i get a land, and im elated. I untap and rip Ensnaring bridge like a pro. He has no force and it sticks. I feel like I can win this now. He then drops ancient tomb and hardcasts Dream Halls. Im gutted. But all he does for like 4 turns is durdle and ponders. I finally get Creeping tar pit and hit him 5 times with it. OMG the luck :)
10-0-1
Round 12: Christoph Ohlrogge, Germany, 22th.
This guy was super friendly, and probably one of the nicest guys I played against all tournament. Me winning didnt make me enjoy our games any less.
This beardy guy is him: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/715/p1000579g.jpg/
Christop plays UWB control, decklist available everywhere, including the mothership.
Game 1:
He leads with basic island, and has me worried, however he follows it up with a turn two stoneforge mystic and im at ease again. He even opts to find batterskull and im totally elated. The game gets drawn out as he has wastelands, that I didnt anticipate due to him being 3 colors already. He does however start the annoying habit of continuesly bounce his newfound Vendillion Clique with Karakas, and at one point removes my newly dredged Life from the Loam. I loudly proclaim YOINK! And reveal the top card of my library. Its of course another life from the loam that fetches me wastelands to deal with karakas, and his board. I win on 5 life.
Game 2:
Since game one took more than 30 minutes, we are in a bit of a hurry, and I think he even asks me if I thought he should have conceded earlier (or perhaps this was another opponent, similar setup). I side in all the obvious stuff, including ensnaring bridge, thinking I might be able to defend for 18 minutes and win. My notes for the game are short and sweet: ”Turn 1 Sylvan Library”. I know Christoph build an army that included both batterskull and a bunch of flying tokens, but Tabernacle and infinite card draws and card sorting via Sylvan library forces a concession. He scoops while at 21 life.
11-0-1.
Round 13: Timo Schünemann, Germany. 1st.
Timo plays storm combo.
This game is covered @Mothership. I was the last undefeated player in the tournament, and quite happy to now finally get a featurematch to show off my deck. I quickly realize im playing against storm combo and know I cannot win. Like. Ever.
My entire notes from our two games, banter and all are this: ”LOLs”.
He even misplays a little in the second game, but in the end its irrelevant. He was a super nice guy, and im happy he won the whole thing.
11-1-1
Round 14: Alexander Holtzmann, Germany 70th
Apparently Alexander lost almost all his games after playing me this game. I wonder why?
Alexander plays Maverick.
Game 1:
He wins the die roll and leads Green sun for 0, and Ranger on turn two. I have a hand with maze, but opt for mana producing lands and a turn two mox, oblivion stone. Since he used a Zenith on turn one, i figure he is less likely to have removal on turn two, and im right the stone sticks. I refuse to pop the oblivion stone, happily taking two damage a turn while he cant overcommit to the board. I even have time to play 2 moxens and put counters on them. I then drop a maze of ith, then another. For the longest time we have a stalemate, where he cant really play more threats since they will die, but also cant really attack for more than 1 damage a turn. I also start thinking that time is my friend here. He eventually digs out a pridemage and tries to kill my stone. I respond my nuking his board. He tries to recover, but Tabernacle, and the two mazes says no.
Game 2:
I bring in the Cursed Totem, Confidants and Ensnaring bridge. Time is running out, and I choose to trade my Confidant with one of his guys, just to slow him down. Time is called and he scoops. Right after scooping the becomes unsure if he should concede, and I remind him that picking up all his permanents is a pretty good sign of having conceeded, should I call a judge over.
12-1-1
I now need just 2 Points to lock top8. Seems doable.
Round 14: Elias Klocker, Austria 6th.
Elias Plays Maverick.
Game 1:
He was either very nervous, or really into having a pokerface. With the the facial expressions of someone who has had a lobotomy, nothing was funny to him. I felt like Rocky versus Drago.
I win the die roll, then mulligan. My second hand features an amazing 0 lands. Fak. I send them back and lead with nothing. I mise a tabernacle to slow the punishment, but quickly find myself uself zuran orb to barely survive. Unable to mise glacial chasm, I lose.
Game 2:
This game becomes a longer affair, where he finds an Ooze early, and Im reluctant to use my graveyard. In the end I must, and I lose a bunch of useful things to Ooze, including 2 wastelands and a Zuran Orb. I get engineered explosives and kill his ooze, and he decides not to remove it from the yard before resolving the trigger. He later tells me of this, and another mistake he believes could have won the the game. He finds a second Ooze but I kill it too. (he now correctly removes explosives). We enter topdeck mode, where he has to rip, and I get to dredge too. A favorable race, that leads to me attacking with both Colonnade and Creepting Tar pit twice to win. He tries to race, but I win at 4 life. Unblockable is a nice ability.
As we shuffle for game 3, time is called. And its a draw. Drago smiles. While unhappy with his mistake, I think he realizes that this is not a favorable matchup.
This annoying link shows drago, attitude and all: http://www.google.dk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/gpgnt12/GHENT_t8_klocker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x%3Dmtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpgnt12/welcome&h=440&w=400&sz=211&tbnid=QNqYMhKt3X8WOM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=82&zoom=1&usg=__X1MQ8SgngvQ3pVBuIElBS_J-laI=&docid=II9Z6PnR7wJutM&hl=da&sa=X&ei=ccImULyAOKT24QSkkYDYBA&ved=0CFIQ9QEwAjgK&dur=1640
12-1-2
I now need just 1 point to get top 8, Due to very good tiebreakers.
Round 16: Max Sjoblom, Finland 5th.
Max is playing Miracle control, with 2 Snapcasters and vedalken shackles. List available everywhere.
This ends up being an extremely long game, where max continuesly tells me to play faster. The game is quite long, since im in no hurry to win, and he plays hardly any threats. I start playing wurm harvest a bunch of times, killing his jace. I then start to make a handful of mistakes. I think the first one, combined with his constant harassment got me a little tilted. First mistake: I untap, dredge, cast loam, cast wurm harvest, and attack with the wurm tokens from the previous turn. He casts terminus and gets a timewalk. Duh. He plays counterbalance, I play engineered explosives, which he counters. I get it back via Academy ruins, and play it again for two. With no manipulation of the deck, he flips another counterbalance on top. Next turn I play explosives for 2, using Blue, Blue, Green, Green, colorless mana. Since he doesnt have force of will on top of his deck, counterbalance is killed. The second counterbalance suffers a similar fate. By now I have a virtual lock, where he cant resolve any mainphase permanen and have it stick. I have wurmharvest going, and feel very comfortable. I have tabernacle in play too, and as you now, Tabernacle is a card im willing to marry. This leads me to NOT sacrifice it to my zuran orb, but instead paying for my tokens every turn. (and forgetting TWICE) – yes it horrible. These mistakes lead to Max getting several timewalks, but managing nothing on the board. The turn before I see him being dead, I tap out for more tokens, and having 6 life and 14 lands in play, with Zuran Orb, I feel Safe.
End of turn Max flips his senseis top, draws a card and plays Entreat the Angels for 9. Untaps, pays for Tabernacle and Swing for 36. Im dead. I could easily have avoided this by having Explosives for 0 just sit on the battlefield, for playing Glacial chasm after attacking, or just by playing more lands, or, or, or. 15 Minutes remain on the clock.
Game 2:
I Bring in everything aggressive. I dont bring in Chalice, since I need to win fast, and its not like he will concede to not being able to play spells. He uses 7 minutes to sideboard, and two 2 judges in our featurematch area have no comments to this.
I quickly get a wastelock, and stop him on 2 permanents. As time runs out, he is at 10 life, with 2 permanents taking damage from my manlands every turn. But its too little too late. I punted top 8 at a 1430+ event.
12-2-2 16th place. I win 500 dollars, lose some morale, gain more love for lands.dec and probably have the best magic result so far. After getting home I realise that making top 16 no longer equals a pro tour invite, all I win is 500 bucks and a chance flash my punting skills on the source.
Morale: When you metagame perfectly, play well, and prepare, you can still lose to your Idiot self.
If you readers have any comments, taunts, or objections to me remembering games wrong, please post, If I cant win for top 8, perhaps I can win some argument or another :)