Rock Lee
10-22-2012, 01:52 PM
After throwing away my Top 8 at Jupiter Games the day before, I was determined to not punt this event and not get distracted. I am convinced to tweak the deck to mime my teammate Scott Hughes's. After Oct 20 and 21 events Scott only lost 2 matches, both to Burn, which I feel confident beating. So I make the swaps, and they were incredible all day long, several matches being won entirely on their choices.
Unknown Location venue. They oddly were holding unsanctioned Legacy, offering proxies to be bought for 5$ per. The venue required 44 persons for the admittedly very generous prize structure. The location only had tables for 48 persons so this seemed either highly optimistic or an intriguingly flawed business model. Regardless, they opted to go ahead with the posted prize support with 38 persons, which I am pleased about and we're off to the races!
// Lands
4 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [B] Tropical Island
1 [ZEN] Island (2)
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
1 [LG] Karakas
4 [FNM] Cloudpost
// Creatures
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 [ROE] Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 [M12] Primeval Titan
// Spells
4 [UL] Crop Rotation
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
2 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
3 [US] Show and Tell
3 [GP] Repeal
1 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 [FUT] Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 3 [VI] Elephant Grass
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Round 1 vs. Belcher
Game 1. He wins the die roll and makes 16 goblins so I have 2 turns to assemble an answer. If I had had 3, ie gone first I would've, but not 2.
Game 2. I side in a bajillion cards and keep a hand of Chalice, Crop rotate, good lands, map, and top. Great hand. Chalice buys me one turn, then I can crop rotate for chasm in resp to belcher or tabernacle if he goes warrens. He reveals his hand the next turn of a turn 1 belch with no cmc zero mana sources. Must. Be. Nice.
So starting with a loss, that isn't good! My breakers will be a nightmare, meaning I'll have to win out the rest of the event to make Top 8. But where's the fun in me Winning my first (X-2) rounds then drawing my last two? no Drama. no Panache. Onward!
Round 2 vs. High Tide
Game 1. His deck poops all over him. I Show & Tell a Titan and he doesn't have an island nor combo pieces to go offf that next turn. He debates Turnabouting me on my next turn. But declines. I tutor and cast emrakul, and he turnabouts my creatures next turn, but I have Karakas for infinite turns. He shows me a hand of Pacts, Turnabouts and Time Spirals.
Game 2. He forces my turn 3 Chalice @ 1, but I have flusterstorm to back it up. my turn 1 Top feeds me a 2nd Chalice @ 1 and flusterstorm, and I have a hardcast titan on turn 5 with flusterstorm as backer to clinch it.
Round 3 vs. Zoo
I have a super friendly opponent who somewhat loses his mind when I play Cloudpost. Amusing guy though.
Game 1. I go down to 13 when I cast kozilek and his body goes limp with him only having 2 dudes in play and no swords/paths in hand.
Game 2. He gets a super early Meddling Mage naming Show & Tell and my hand was based off show & Tell emrakul. He squeezes it out the turn before I can hardcast a titan.
Game 3. He holds back for Reb on Show & tell for a long time, but I just cast green and colorless spells to victory. Kozilek again on turn 4 against only a kird ape for pressure so I take the match.
Round 4 vs. Nic Fit Hulk combo
Two slow yet potentially extremely explosive combo decks against each other. Fun.
Game 1. He gives me one blind draw before he goes all-in for Academy Rector and combo me out with pattern of rebirth, but my one mystery draw was Crop Rotation, my only out. Like a crazy miser and he can't recouprate from the hit in time.
Game 2. I'm starving for double colored the whole game, and would have been able to hide a Crop rotation on top of my library to win it, but on the turn where I have to Vesuva my trop and wait 1 turn he combos off. tragedy.
Game 3. Long and grueling, a Vesuva'd Gaea's Cradle buys me turns and repeal and tabernacle forces him to make hard decisions in sacrificing his xantid swarm and go all in on Progenitus as he has combo pieces in hand. Admittedly I did have a crop rotation at the time so I could interrupt the combo, so Progenitus was the wise choice. I plant a Glacial Chasm and ride it out until an absurd board state where he can't win, but I can't risk him combo'ing out after I lose glacial chasm. So I have to abuse the bejesus out of multiple candelabras, Karakas and Ulamog while in Turns to force him to combo out and sacrifice. Once I Ulamog the 7th time killing his final reactive board piece, I can swing in with annihilator 14 when he is at 2 life for the win.
Round 5 vs U/W Delver
Poor Rob's only loss of the day is against Scott Hughes, also playing Turbo Eldrazi, in round 1 and his shoulders do a visible slump when I play Cloudpost-go. Later in the round he somewhat lost his mind, showing me his hand and playing open-faced for the last half of game two since he was certain he had zero chance of winning. Oddly this was not the case, but I'll take any advantage.
Game 1. He is forced to play down Snapcasters and cliques as beats while I simply ramp to a bajilion mana and cast Emrakul.
Game 2. Aven Mindcensor early makes my life relative hell, but he has no real pressure despite Aven Mindcensor having a Sword of Feast and Famine and Umezawa's Jitte due to repeals. I look at 14 cards on one turn and finally gain 5 life to survive a last bird beat before kozilek starts being the friendly hugging Tentacle beastie that they are before I then gain another 6 life to un-reachable life totals for him.
Round 6 vs Alex bertoncini playing Bant.
There was only one person in the entire room that I wanted to play and wanted to beat badly, and it was Alex Bertoncini. In addition to Alex being banned for cheating by the DCI, has several articles written detailing his history of cheating in many (http://mixedknuts.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/unlocking-the-cheats-of-scg-player-of-the-year-alex-bertoncini/) many (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22772-Alex-Bertoncini-s-serial-cheating) top finishes, his personality is as welcoming and cordial as a porcupine with a genital rash. He single-handedly held up the tournament to finish cubing instead of submitting his decklist and during the time that I normally have my pre-game jargon and banter he ignores me and tells someone else at the event also playing that round for Top 8 how to propose illegal collusion offers without being caught red handed. He is only able to play at this venue because it is oddly allowing proxies and thus not sanctioned and his Ban that covers all of 2012 does not apply here. There are only 4-5 players in all of Magic that I want to obliterate mentally and have zero feelings of sympathy or camaraderie with, but Alex Bertoncini is one of them. Thankfully, I do exactly that. Karma loves those who love others, not themselves.
As we are shuffling up to game one I notice that his sleeves are INCREDIBLY marked. Beyond any degree of marking I have ever seen. Entire areas of them lifted into conch-shell curls of lifted plastic 1 inch high, or lifted/bent edges. I ask him to re-sleeve the especially beat sleeves, to which he begrudgingly agrees.
Game 1. We have a long game 1 that involves me Show & Tell'ing a Titan against his Double Knight of the Reliquary. To make the game even longer, I call a judge when he tries to adjust his shortcutted double-Knight of the Reliquary choices after tapping them as part of his "5 mana shortcut" from 3 lands but was still shuffling his library. (This is exactly the type of action that Alex Bertoncini was banned until 2013 for) The judge was not confident making a ruling so they spent just under 10 minutes to call up a judge to answer. The judge over the phone ultimately tells the judge on site to use their discretion, and the judge lets Alex choose both of his lands again, and his wastelands end up allowing him to actually have a chance at game 1. Feast and Famine pro-green backed Stoneforge Mystic takes me down in 3/4 dmg chunks exalted-dependent, but Titan constantly bogging Alex means his Knights are Grey Ogres. Once all 4 wastelands are gone I go for Glacial Chasm and keep windmilling Primeval Titans until I have 2 with a 3rd one in hand. He lands a Batterskull and equips Sword of Feast or Famine on it, and I have double repeal for his germ to swing in lethal.
He asks me after the match why I didn't tutor up Vesuva/Cloudpost instead of Cloudpost/Cloudpost, to which I told him I shouldn't have and I'm a bad player. I found it highly amusing that he didn't realize that you can't copy the 2nd land you're tutoring with Primeval Titan with a tutored Vesuva. I didn't punt, he was just worse than I thought.
As soon as the game ends Alex calls a judge and says to watch me for Slow Play. I balk at this since I was playing at a fine pace considering I'm making 4-5x the number of decisions a turn than Alex. Alex says that since I won game 1 it is in my favor to slow play and stall. I tell him that would be obviously cheating, to which he has no karmic or historic retort. The judge still shows up, which is fine of course. Alex asks another judge if they can have an additional time extension despite us being given an equal amount of time of our ruling, and the judge gives us 5 more minutes. Again, this time extension favors him, as he even admitted obviously looking to gain every illegal advantage he can in this game.
Game 2. He as a slow hand of turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic for Feast or Famine. I have a not-slow hand of Show & Tell Primeval titan, he loses to me getting 4 Cloudposts and casting Emrakul from hand on turn 4.
Karma is a wonderful goddess.
Top 8 vs. Bug
I played against this fine gentlemen during the 40 free minutes I had after my Round 1 belcher loss as he was genuinely interested in what his matchup was against Turbo Eldrazi. I told him it was pretty heinous, but sure. After 6 games in those 40 minutes he had only won one of them, affirming my declaration.
Game 1. He has early inquisitions on my Show & Tell and then Candelabra of Tawnos backed with a deathrite shaman and sylvan library. I repeal-cantrip off his sylvan library before he looks at it twice and he forces a Show & Tell. His first look with sylvan library nets him 3 cards, the second 2 with him at 4 life, but with so many dead removal cards he is more gleening than improving and my Ulamog resolves, swatting down a delver and able to block one of the two Goyfs. Deathrite shaman is still plugging away at me, but the lowest I go is to 12 with Glimmerposts gaining me 7 life this game and Ulamog clinches it.
Game 2. I have a stable hand of Cloudposts, Emrakul, Crop rotation, Show & Tell, which has Show & tell get inquisition'd away. I draw a map, then top, and I get two free draws while he is attempting to rush me with double tarmogoyf 2/3's and a deathrite shaman. On my 3rd draw he taps out to Vendillion Clique me in draw step, and I reveal GSZ and Primeval TItan as my bonus cards, with the mana to cast both. He takes Titan as it is 1 mana left, so I tap out for GSZ, he jokes that he has the Daze, but doesn't, and the lifegain ends the game for him with the threat of Emrakul in hand even amidst removal for the titan, which he didn't have.
Scott Hughes and I both make it to the Top 4, get paired, and agree to Split the prizes for a glorious victory of 50% of the prize going to Turbo Eldrazi in the event!
Unknown Location venue. They oddly were holding unsanctioned Legacy, offering proxies to be bought for 5$ per. The venue required 44 persons for the admittedly very generous prize structure. The location only had tables for 48 persons so this seemed either highly optimistic or an intriguingly flawed business model. Regardless, they opted to go ahead with the posted prize support with 38 persons, which I am pleased about and we're off to the races!
// Lands
4 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [B] Tropical Island
1 [ZEN] Island (2)
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
1 [LG] Karakas
4 [FNM] Cloudpost
// Creatures
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 [ROE] Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 [M12] Primeval Titan
// Spells
4 [UL] Crop Rotation
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
2 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
3 [US] Show and Tell
3 [GP] Repeal
1 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 [FUT] Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 3 [VI] Elephant Grass
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Round 1 vs. Belcher
Game 1. He wins the die roll and makes 16 goblins so I have 2 turns to assemble an answer. If I had had 3, ie gone first I would've, but not 2.
Game 2. I side in a bajillion cards and keep a hand of Chalice, Crop rotate, good lands, map, and top. Great hand. Chalice buys me one turn, then I can crop rotate for chasm in resp to belcher or tabernacle if he goes warrens. He reveals his hand the next turn of a turn 1 belch with no cmc zero mana sources. Must. Be. Nice.
So starting with a loss, that isn't good! My breakers will be a nightmare, meaning I'll have to win out the rest of the event to make Top 8. But where's the fun in me Winning my first (X-2) rounds then drawing my last two? no Drama. no Panache. Onward!
Round 2 vs. High Tide
Game 1. His deck poops all over him. I Show & Tell a Titan and he doesn't have an island nor combo pieces to go offf that next turn. He debates Turnabouting me on my next turn. But declines. I tutor and cast emrakul, and he turnabouts my creatures next turn, but I have Karakas for infinite turns. He shows me a hand of Pacts, Turnabouts and Time Spirals.
Game 2. He forces my turn 3 Chalice @ 1, but I have flusterstorm to back it up. my turn 1 Top feeds me a 2nd Chalice @ 1 and flusterstorm, and I have a hardcast titan on turn 5 with flusterstorm as backer to clinch it.
Round 3 vs. Zoo
I have a super friendly opponent who somewhat loses his mind when I play Cloudpost. Amusing guy though.
Game 1. I go down to 13 when I cast kozilek and his body goes limp with him only having 2 dudes in play and no swords/paths in hand.
Game 2. He gets a super early Meddling Mage naming Show & Tell and my hand was based off show & Tell emrakul. He squeezes it out the turn before I can hardcast a titan.
Game 3. He holds back for Reb on Show & tell for a long time, but I just cast green and colorless spells to victory. Kozilek again on turn 4 against only a kird ape for pressure so I take the match.
Round 4 vs. Nic Fit Hulk combo
Two slow yet potentially extremely explosive combo decks against each other. Fun.
Game 1. He gives me one blind draw before he goes all-in for Academy Rector and combo me out with pattern of rebirth, but my one mystery draw was Crop Rotation, my only out. Like a crazy miser and he can't recouprate from the hit in time.
Game 2. I'm starving for double colored the whole game, and would have been able to hide a Crop rotation on top of my library to win it, but on the turn where I have to Vesuva my trop and wait 1 turn he combos off. tragedy.
Game 3. Long and grueling, a Vesuva'd Gaea's Cradle buys me turns and repeal and tabernacle forces him to make hard decisions in sacrificing his xantid swarm and go all in on Progenitus as he has combo pieces in hand. Admittedly I did have a crop rotation at the time so I could interrupt the combo, so Progenitus was the wise choice. I plant a Glacial Chasm and ride it out until an absurd board state where he can't win, but I can't risk him combo'ing out after I lose glacial chasm. So I have to abuse the bejesus out of multiple candelabras, Karakas and Ulamog while in Turns to force him to combo out and sacrifice. Once I Ulamog the 7th time killing his final reactive board piece, I can swing in with annihilator 14 when he is at 2 life for the win.
Round 5 vs U/W Delver
Poor Rob's only loss of the day is against Scott Hughes, also playing Turbo Eldrazi, in round 1 and his shoulders do a visible slump when I play Cloudpost-go. Later in the round he somewhat lost his mind, showing me his hand and playing open-faced for the last half of game two since he was certain he had zero chance of winning. Oddly this was not the case, but I'll take any advantage.
Game 1. He is forced to play down Snapcasters and cliques as beats while I simply ramp to a bajilion mana and cast Emrakul.
Game 2. Aven Mindcensor early makes my life relative hell, but he has no real pressure despite Aven Mindcensor having a Sword of Feast and Famine and Umezawa's Jitte due to repeals. I look at 14 cards on one turn and finally gain 5 life to survive a last bird beat before kozilek starts being the friendly hugging Tentacle beastie that they are before I then gain another 6 life to un-reachable life totals for him.
Round 6 vs Alex bertoncini playing Bant.
There was only one person in the entire room that I wanted to play and wanted to beat badly, and it was Alex Bertoncini. In addition to Alex being banned for cheating by the DCI, has several articles written detailing his history of cheating in many (http://mixedknuts.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/unlocking-the-cheats-of-scg-player-of-the-year-alex-bertoncini/) many (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22772-Alex-Bertoncini-s-serial-cheating) top finishes, his personality is as welcoming and cordial as a porcupine with a genital rash. He single-handedly held up the tournament to finish cubing instead of submitting his decklist and during the time that I normally have my pre-game jargon and banter he ignores me and tells someone else at the event also playing that round for Top 8 how to propose illegal collusion offers without being caught red handed. He is only able to play at this venue because it is oddly allowing proxies and thus not sanctioned and his Ban that covers all of 2012 does not apply here. There are only 4-5 players in all of Magic that I want to obliterate mentally and have zero feelings of sympathy or camaraderie with, but Alex Bertoncini is one of them. Thankfully, I do exactly that. Karma loves those who love others, not themselves.
As we are shuffling up to game one I notice that his sleeves are INCREDIBLY marked. Beyond any degree of marking I have ever seen. Entire areas of them lifted into conch-shell curls of lifted plastic 1 inch high, or lifted/bent edges. I ask him to re-sleeve the especially beat sleeves, to which he begrudgingly agrees.
Game 1. We have a long game 1 that involves me Show & Tell'ing a Titan against his Double Knight of the Reliquary. To make the game even longer, I call a judge when he tries to adjust his shortcutted double-Knight of the Reliquary choices after tapping them as part of his "5 mana shortcut" from 3 lands but was still shuffling his library. (This is exactly the type of action that Alex Bertoncini was banned until 2013 for) The judge was not confident making a ruling so they spent just under 10 minutes to call up a judge to answer. The judge over the phone ultimately tells the judge on site to use their discretion, and the judge lets Alex choose both of his lands again, and his wastelands end up allowing him to actually have a chance at game 1. Feast and Famine pro-green backed Stoneforge Mystic takes me down in 3/4 dmg chunks exalted-dependent, but Titan constantly bogging Alex means his Knights are Grey Ogres. Once all 4 wastelands are gone I go for Glacial Chasm and keep windmilling Primeval Titans until I have 2 with a 3rd one in hand. He lands a Batterskull and equips Sword of Feast or Famine on it, and I have double repeal for his germ to swing in lethal.
He asks me after the match why I didn't tutor up Vesuva/Cloudpost instead of Cloudpost/Cloudpost, to which I told him I shouldn't have and I'm a bad player. I found it highly amusing that he didn't realize that you can't copy the 2nd land you're tutoring with Primeval Titan with a tutored Vesuva. I didn't punt, he was just worse than I thought.
As soon as the game ends Alex calls a judge and says to watch me for Slow Play. I balk at this since I was playing at a fine pace considering I'm making 4-5x the number of decisions a turn than Alex. Alex says that since I won game 1 it is in my favor to slow play and stall. I tell him that would be obviously cheating, to which he has no karmic or historic retort. The judge still shows up, which is fine of course. Alex asks another judge if they can have an additional time extension despite us being given an equal amount of time of our ruling, and the judge gives us 5 more minutes. Again, this time extension favors him, as he even admitted obviously looking to gain every illegal advantage he can in this game.
Game 2. He as a slow hand of turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic for Feast or Famine. I have a not-slow hand of Show & Tell Primeval titan, he loses to me getting 4 Cloudposts and casting Emrakul from hand on turn 4.
Karma is a wonderful goddess.
Top 8 vs. Bug
I played against this fine gentlemen during the 40 free minutes I had after my Round 1 belcher loss as he was genuinely interested in what his matchup was against Turbo Eldrazi. I told him it was pretty heinous, but sure. After 6 games in those 40 minutes he had only won one of them, affirming my declaration.
Game 1. He has early inquisitions on my Show & Tell and then Candelabra of Tawnos backed with a deathrite shaman and sylvan library. I repeal-cantrip off his sylvan library before he looks at it twice and he forces a Show & Tell. His first look with sylvan library nets him 3 cards, the second 2 with him at 4 life, but with so many dead removal cards he is more gleening than improving and my Ulamog resolves, swatting down a delver and able to block one of the two Goyfs. Deathrite shaman is still plugging away at me, but the lowest I go is to 12 with Glimmerposts gaining me 7 life this game and Ulamog clinches it.
Game 2. I have a stable hand of Cloudposts, Emrakul, Crop rotation, Show & Tell, which has Show & tell get inquisition'd away. I draw a map, then top, and I get two free draws while he is attempting to rush me with double tarmogoyf 2/3's and a deathrite shaman. On my 3rd draw he taps out to Vendillion Clique me in draw step, and I reveal GSZ and Primeval TItan as my bonus cards, with the mana to cast both. He takes Titan as it is 1 mana left, so I tap out for GSZ, he jokes that he has the Daze, but doesn't, and the lifegain ends the game for him with the threat of Emrakul in hand even amidst removal for the titan, which he didn't have.
Scott Hughes and I both make it to the Top 4, get paired, and agree to Split the prizes for a glorious victory of 50% of the prize going to Turbo Eldrazi in the event!