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Dark Ritual
07-28-2013, 12:31 AM
I finished 2nd at a local 30 man tournament today for dual lands. I was rocking flaming vaults tendrils. This report is pretty sloppy since I took no notes and am doing this from just memory so some things may be inaccurate.
Unfamiliar with the name? I just invented the name half an hour ago since the maindeck doesn't run ad nauseam and instead wins with just past in flames loops, tutor chains, or empty the warrens.
Below is the list:

Flaming Vault Tendrils

Fast Mana 16
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Cantrips 14
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Protection 6
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

Business 8
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

Kill 1
1 Tendrils of Agony

Lands 15
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Cabal Therapy

Round 1 versus Andrew with sneak and show
Game 1: I'm not sure what he's on and keep a hand with some cantrips and fast mana as well as lands. We both play draw go for a while with myself cantripping to set up a PiF kill. I end up stripping his countermagic and winning before he combo's but not before I don't know what deck he's on.

-1 Duress, -2 Probe, -1 Empty the Warrens -1 Lim-Dul's vault +3 Xantid Swarm +1 Cabal Therapy, +1 Ad Nauseam.

Game 2: I keep an okay hand. I manage to resolve ad nauseam, but flip over complete shit after I'm sure he has the kill next turn having pondered on his turn to set up. He affirms my belief and I lose.

Game 3: I cantrip some, my opponent manages to through the breach griselbrand and connects as well as drawing 7 cards. My hand is LED, LED, infernal tutor with 3 lands onboard. I hope to draw a discard spell. I hit dark ritual instead. I immediately cast it as it's do or die since my opponent almost assuredly has another fatty incoming after drawing seven. My opponent force of will's it immediately. I go LED, LED, infernal tutor for past in flames loop to kill him since he lacks another force.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2 versus young pyromancer burn (can't remember name.)

Game 1: I keep a solid hand with cantrips and fast mana. I set up for a few turns and can't get hellbent with the tendrils itself stuck in my hand. I brainstorm into a lot of fast mana + infernal tutor and past in flames loop for the win after ditching some clunkers with the brainstorm namely tendrils itself. There were a few discard spells in there as well.

-3 Duress, -1 Empty the Warrens, +2 Chain of vapor, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Abrupt Decay

This game involves my opponent getting stuck on one land for a few turns while I sculpt with a top and other cantrips to try and find infernal tutor. I draw two LDV's this game, when I mainphased one to avoid discarding my opponent surgically extracted ponders from my deck afterwards when my top 5 were actually the nuts. At this point I'm getting low on life. My opponent skullcracks me down to 6 life or something low enough to get burned out next turn. I upkeep LDV, going down to 3 life with a fetchland in play and a probe in hand. I probe paying 2 life into a past in flames kill to just barely get there and my opponents next card was fireblast with 2 mountains in play.

2-0 (4-1)

Round 3 against Tom with esperblade

Game 1 when I probe him I see vindicate, 2 lands, counterspell, stoneforge mystic, swords to plowshares. He plays out everything he draws so that when I'm ready to go off and start with dark ritual into therapy he counterspells it with myself knowing all but 1 card in is hand and it can't be FoW due to a lack of blue cards in his hand and his open mana couldn't do anything to stop me since it was an untapped mishra's factory. I past in flames loop for the win.

-3 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Lim-Dul's Vault, -3 Duress, +4 Dark Confidant, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Echoing Truth

Game 2 I get turn 1 dark confidant after cabal therapy strips his FoW as well as dark rit resolving. I play out my LED to play around discard. I get a second confidant and a xantid swarm into play. We both play draw go for a time, he lands a geist of saint traft. He then disenchants my lone LED. Suddenly I'm drawing very poorly and can't get hellbent with double confidant and have to block. I can't find anything before I die.

-4 Confidant, -3 Swarm, +3 Duress, +2 LDV, +2 Gitaxian Probe

Game 3 I mull to 4 in my search for lands, not finding a single land in any of my 7, 6, or 5 card hands. I keep infernal tutor, dark ritual, sensei's divining top, badlands. Top resolves, I fail to find a land my first activation. Find a volc the second time. Play it and pass, with some durdly cards in hand. My opponent cast turn 2 meddling mage on lion's eye diamond but I never saw a lion's eye diamond the entire game. It was a clock unfortunately. Eventually I'm forced to go for it with 3 lands to try to raw tendrils him from hand with the help of his countermagic but he counters both of my dark ritual's and I lose since I can't cast tendrils. Almost won on a mull to 4, but you can't win them all.

2-1 (5-3)

Round 4 against Merfolk

I know my opponent is on merfolk from seeing part of a game in a previous round and smile. I keep a hand with multiple fetchlands to find basics and some protection to get around countermagic in hand. Opponent starts on cursecatcher go. I cantrip a few turns looking for fast mana and infernal tutor picking up lots of lands along the way. End of turn 4 with 4 lands in play and knowing my opponent has spell pierce up as well as cursecatcher I end step LDV, which my opponent lets happen with 2 mana open and a dark rit in hand to play around all the soft countermagic he had. I find infernal and after I draw my hand is infernal, CRit, DRit, LED with 4 lands. I lead off with dark rit, knowing there is no possible way for me to lose to his soft countermagic. He cursecatchers my dark rit and I pay and I pay for the pierce on my dark rit as well. Win with past in flames loop afterwards.

-2 Duress, -2 Gitaxian Probe +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Cabal Therapy

Game 2 I keep a 2 land hand and my opponent mulls down to 5 or something. I keep the hand of probe x2, ponder x2, x1 Brainstorm, 2 lands. He goes island go. I draw infernal tutor for turn. I ponder seeing LED, Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual. Let's not shuffle the nuts. My opponent taps out turn 2 for coralhelm commander. I probe seeing just spell pierce for interaction. Probe again because why not. I go Cabal rit x2, LED, infernal tutor, past in flames, win.

3-1 (7-3)

Round 5 I.D.

Top 8 against Dana with merfolk

Game 1 I can't find a tutor but can find empty the warrens and past in flames. I cast dark ritual the turn before I go off to bait him sacking cursecatchers and dazing it in order to not immediately die to his merfolk army swinging for lethal. He taps out and attacks for a few points of damage with coralhelm commander. I know it's do or die. I cast cabal ritual and LED into past in flames from hand with 2 cantrips in the yard and a sensei's top in play. I flashback all my rituals, crack my LED for blue, flashback brainstorm drawing into my second top. I play it and spin, finding a brainstorm. Draw brainstorm with top, cast it. Spin other top, find a petal. Draw it. Cast ponder. See top, top, EtW. I shuffle. I rip the next card off the top after shuffle and it's infernal tutor. Tutor for tendrils for the win with enough to play through any daze shenanigans.

-2 Duress, -2 Gitaxian Probe, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Cabal Therapy

Game 2 my opponent mulls to 5. I keep a hand with some fast mana and some cantrips. My opponent opens on vial go. I cantrip and pass, electing to not petal into xantid swarm. My opponent drops standstill turn 2. I probe him seeing just one FoW and some merfolk. I cast xantid swarm and he FoW's. I win with past in flames on turn 4 or so after drawing infernal tutor and past in flames I tutor for a third dark ritual and go dark rit, dark rit, past in flames keeping the 3rd in my hand in case he drew another piece of countermagic so I could potentially win next turn by going dark rit from hand into PiF. He doesn't have countermagic and I cast a flurry of rituals into tutor into tendrils.

Top 4 against UWR Delver

Game 1 I sculpt and when I therapy him after casting dark rit it resolves and I name FoW. He has 1 and a spell pierce with a blue open as well as ponder and snapcaster. I pass the turn as I can't win through the pierce. He ponders to look for interaction beyond pierce and swings with delver or some creature. I topdeck another discard spell and pitch his pierce to the yard and see that he has nothing else to stop me with so I past in flames loop him.

+1 Cabal Therapy, +2 Abrupt Decay, -2 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Lim-Dul's vault.

My opponent mulls to 5, finding no lands in his 5, 6, and 7 card hands. He keeps his 5, which have zero lands. He doesn't see a land the entire game. That being said, I cantrip some and find approximately infinite mana (drew 3 CRit's, 3 DRit's, double petal, and double LED this game but no business. I brainstorm lock myself for a few turns and play out artifact mana to avoid discarding it. On turn 10 or something ridiculous I topdeck empty the warrens and my opponent still has zero lands. I start my turn with dark rit, which he lets resolve. I then therapy him naming FoW hitting 1. I cast all the rituals into empty the warrens for 16 dudes. They get there.

Top 2 vs. Jake with 16 Cantrip ANT

We're both friends. I win the die roll and fan open the hand of U Sea x2, dark rit, lotus petal, cabal therapy, lion's eye diamond, infernal tutor. I snap keep. I go dark rit into cabal therapy naming lion's eye diamond. My opponent pitches 2 copies of the card and has brainstorm, land, dark rit, lotus petal, along with something else I can't remember although he might have mulliganed (this is all from memory so it's a little sketchy.) I go petal, LED, tutor for EtW, EtW for 12, flashback therapy on his brainstorm/the card that might allow him to win. He draws infernal tutor for his turn and goes land, therapy me naming mise seeing swamp. I attack for 11 and pass. He shows his hand of mana + tutor. We both know he needs to hit LED or bust and he hits LED. That's fine, he can't past in flames loop for the sure kill. He grabs ad nauseam with just a land drop remaining and nothing else floating from 9 life. He flips over the FOURTH LED, cabal rit, petal, land, infernal tutor with very few bricks and plays it all out into tendrils.

-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 EtW, -1 CRit, +4 Dark Confidant, +1 Ad Nauseam, +1 Cabal Therapy

I start out with turn 1 bob + duress, taking brainstorm seeing double infernal tutor among cantrips. I manage to grab his lone tutor after he uses his other tutor to find another cabal ritual, planning to untap and kill me. I rip duress for his tutor, then I shuffle with top in play. I spin top into therapy, LED, CRit and draw the therapy. He doesn't kill me and when I untap I therapy all his CRit's away leaving him with a preordain and some other card. I win a few turns later with past in flames.

Game 3 he therapies me turn 1 naming LED and misses. I blind therapy turn 1 and miss, seeing his hand of DRit, tendrils, land, and some other card likely a cantrip. He rips a discard spell for my infernal tutor at some point the turn before I kill him. He preordains keeping both cards on top. I ponder, seeing all the mana that I don't need and shuffle. Hit a brick. He untaps and preordains. He doesn't win. I untap and hope to hit tutor but fail. He untaps into infernal tutor sacking 2 LED's in response while having 2 rituals in the yard (CRit and DRit.) I lose.

So I lost game 1 of the finals to some of the most insane luck ever where my opponent had to draw every LED in his deck to win. Lost in game 3 to lots of bricking in terms of finding what I needed with cantrips.

I win a NM taiga, which I can't be too unhappy about but my opponent wins a tropical island. I'm just glad I didn't get a beat badlands or a beat plateau that went to the 3rd and 4th place finishers.

Props:
Lim-Dul's vault was a champion every time I drew it.
Dark ritual for existing.
Good opponents
Turn 2 kills due to gitaxian probe shipping the nuts with hands I thought would never kill on turn 2.
Empty the warrens for randomly mising games and flashbacking therapy like a champ.
Picking up a sweet heavily miscut high tide with Anson Maddocks art. Card is beautiful.
2 Cheeri0s decks in the room, both not running beck//call for some reason.
The tournament organizer for running the event.

Slops:
Road construction. Seriously, got lost on the way to the tournament due to the highway being closed off and having to go through a number of ridiculous detours.
Losing after stripping my finals opponent of double LED and brainstorm in an otherwise mediocre hand and not getting to win with my sweet goblin tokens (2 foil copies of mise, which ironically fits what my opponent did.)
Ad nauseam never winning a game for me the entire day.

davelin
07-28-2013, 01:47 AM
Thanks for the report, look forward to reading in more details. As with almost all storm decks not maindecking Burning Wish, do you worry about running into hatebears game one (thalia, teeg, etc.)?

Dark Ritual
07-28-2013, 02:15 AM
Thanks for the report, look forward to reading in more details. As with almost all storm decks not maindecking Burning Wish, do you worry about running into hatebears game one (thalia, teeg, etc.)?

I don't see many hatebears nowadays. And if they have it and I lack duress for GSZ or therapy for thalia and company oh well just try to win through it or before it. Burning wish rarely helped me against thalia and teeg anyways as decks packing those creatures run mana denial and that goes a long way to keeping thalia around when I skip two turns to answer their hate card typically or they wasteland me out or I expend too many resources. Either way, I'm fine losing game 1 potentially and winning games 2 and 3 despite my breakers being worse.

Bed Decks Palyer
07-28-2013, 08:39 AM
Gratz. Gotta build this once again...

death
07-29-2013, 01:28 AM
Good for the deck if Spell Snare is less played. EtW is kill card, serves no business by itself without storm like ToA.

Dark Ritual
07-29-2013, 03:25 AM
Good for the deck if Spell Snare is less played. EtW is kill card, serves no business by itself without storm like ToA.

Spell snare has fallen out of favor quite a bit in legacy in the past year and a half. Spell pierce is why. On top of that they need mana open for it as well as for you to not have multiple two drops that matter.

Empty the warrens is definitely business. Would you keep a hand of land, land, petal, dark rit, CRit, EtW, ToA? I know I would in a heartbeat despite the hand having no 'business' according to you. The whole point of EtW is to have something to do with storm counts that aren't lethal with ToA as well as being castable on turn 1 for a psuedo win as most decks cannot beat 10 goblins on turn 1 it turns out. It's also a kind of business spell in terms of being able to flashback therapy with the tokens, which is a super nice perk in a format with stoneforge mystic or other such sweepers like maelstrom pulse, pernicious deed, etc. etc.

Bed Decks Palyer
07-29-2013, 03:39 AM
Btw, does anybody know of a useful instantenous way to sacrifice the token? And I'm not thinking about Greater Gargadon...
I found that amongst the Batterskulls, Pulses adn Jittes, I'd love to sac the Goblin from time to time.

Dark Ritual
07-29-2013, 05:10 PM
Btw, does anybody know of a useful instantenous way to sacrifice the token? And I'm not thinking about Greater Gargadon...
I found that amongst the Batterskulls, Pulses adn Jittes, I'd love to sac the Goblin from time to time.

You could just use the current board cards like chain of vapor or abrupt decay for such a use, although after making goblins you're generally hellbent. Could just chain of vapor the germ token itself or abrupt decay it, as that should generally get there on its own in terms of racing the lifegain.

Bed Decks Palyer
07-29-2013, 05:37 PM
You could just use the current board cards like chain of vapor or abrupt decay for such a use, although after making goblins you're generally hellbent. Could just chain of vapor the germ token itself or abrupt decay it, as that should generally get there on its own in terms of racing the lifegain.

Yes, I knew about these things and I already made something similar (germ token having a potential pro:U from Mor, thus I returned the blocker), but I was thinking of some reusable effect... :scratcheshead:

kwis
07-29-2013, 06:26 PM
This name reminded me of the Flame Fusillade combo with time vault from some years ago and I was most confused.

Smmenen
07-29-2013, 07:02 PM
This name reminded me of the Flame Fusillade combo with time vault from some years ago and I was most confused.

Me too.

Koby
07-29-2013, 07:06 PM
Me too.

That makes three of us. I was expecting Gifts Ungiven somewhere in here. :laugh:

OK more to the point.
Dylan, did you feel as though Top was too slow for you? Could you realistically see it being replaced with Preordain?

Fuzzy
07-29-2013, 07:25 PM
That makes three of us. I was expecting Gifts Ungiven somewhere in here. :laugh:

Four and counting.

I miss UR Vault with Stasis... :(

phazonmutant
07-30-2013, 02:32 PM
I don't see many hatebears nowadays. And if they have it and I lack duress for GSZ or therapy for thalia and company oh well just try to win through it or before it. Burning wish rarely helped me against thalia and teeg anyways as decks packing those creatures run mana denial and that goes a long way to keeping thalia around when I skip two turns to answer their hate card typically or they wasteland me out or I expend too many resources. Either way, I'm fine losing game 1 potentially and winning games 2 and 3 despite my breakers being worse.

How would you feel about a 1-of Chain of Vapor in the main now that there's a way to tutor it? I've played it in ANT before and it was pretty marginal, but I could actually see it doing work in this deck as a storm engine.

Dark Ritual
07-30-2013, 05:51 PM
That makes three of us. I was expecting Gifts Ungiven somewhere in here. :laugh:

OK more to the point.
Dylan, did you feel as though Top was too slow for you? Could you realistically see it being replaced with Preordain?

I didn't draw top all that much, but the times I did I liked it more than preordain for the grindy games and for seeing a lot of cards with fetchlands. It at least gave me a shot on the mull to 4, whereas preordain would have done actual nothing that game but that's pretty results oriented. I like it in theory because with LDV you can set up 2 card piles or 3 cards piles with it whereas preordain costs a mana and is unlikely to be in hand after LDV has resolved short of a cantrip heavy draw. I would have to test preordain over top quite a bit. I'll see how the list runs at SCG Minneapolis this Sunday and I'm going to a small local tournament tomorrow as well to test out top more.

Chain of vapor is definitely worth inclusion in the maindeck with the 2 LDV's being able to find it. Could cut a petal for it potentially despite that weakening it a little bit as a storm engine. I've thought about thoughtseize as well, but that becomes worse if you board in ad nauseam and is a little worse with dark confidant or fast decks.

Definitely forgot about the time vault flame fusillade deck that was called flame vault...awkward.

RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
08-08-2013, 12:59 AM
Four and counting.

I miss UR Vault with Stasis... :(

Make that five.