nudon
09-01-2013, 07:54 PM
Hi everyone! This was my third legacy event but I felt good going in because I actually got a few games in a week earlier to shake off any possible rust. I usually don't have much time to play due to work and other things in my life but made an effort to come out yesterday. :)
Entry Fee: $25
Total Prize Payout: $1000 for 6 rounds
My Trusted Team:
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Birchlore Rangers
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
2 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Harmonic Sliver
3 Abrupt Decay
Round 1: Braden with Deathblade
Game 1: He goes first, leading with Thoughtseize, and sees that I am on elves. I think he rips out a wirewood symbiote but I'm unsure since I didn't take too many notes during these matches. I lead with a nettle sentinel (to set up a t2 birchlore or top-deck heritage druid) and pass the turn. He drops goyf and passes back. I play my birchlore and another elf (probably quirion) before taking 4 from goyf. Right after his swing, I cast NO for the win.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: He plays a fetch and passes. I counter with fetch->forest->gsz->arbor and pass the turn. He plays brainstorm on turn 2, fetch to shuffle his deck, and disfigures my arbor. I play quirion ranger to bounce my forest, replay the forest for my land drop, and a nettle sentinel. He plays jitte on turn 3 and passes back. I'm kind of curious about this play since he didn't have any creatures on board yet. I play a cmc-1 elf and gsz a second time for wirewood symbiote to fight jitte eventually. He drops goyf but isn't able to equip since he only has 3 mana. Eventually I draw a cradle to power out NO for the win.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 1-0 (2-0)
Round 2: Gerald with TES
Game 1: While shuffling my deck, he accidentally flips over my bayou so I call a judge. It was an honest mistake but the judge still issues him a warning. I keep fetch, cradle, birchlore, nettle, quirion, gsz, and NO. He decides to mull down to 6 before keeping. I lead with fetch->forest->nettle sentinel and pass the turn. He plays scalding tarn->volcanic island->ponder. I'm thinking to myself maybe he's on sneak and show or maybe RUG. I draw a land and go forest->birchlore, tap birchlore+nettle->quirion ranger, untap nettle, tap quirion+nettle for 1 and cradle for 3 for NO, pitching quirion ranger, and untapping nettle and swing in for 13, dropping him to 6. He plays out his hand for Ad Nauseam and needs help. He draws a bunch of 0 cmc cards along the way before going to 1. He looks at his hand again and states he still needs 1 more thing. The card he flips over is a lotus petal and I'm pretty bummed. He storms for 10, gets the win, and breathes a sigh of relief.
SB: -1 hoof, -4 visionary, -3 symbiote, +4 therapy, +2 thorn, +1 teeg, +1 ruric thar
Game 2: I keep a hand primarily for cabal therapy and name LED. He discards one and shows me his hand, which includes brainstorm, dark ritual, EtW, burning wish, scalding tarn, and rite of flame. On his turn, he plays the fetch and passes back. I debate whether to flashback therapy or not but pull the trigger regardless. He obviously brainstorms in response. However, he has a mental lapse and reveals his hand for a split second thinking I had duress'ed him. I name dark ritual and rip 2 from his hand. He's unable to recover from this and is disappointed for punting. Feeling bad for him, I tell him I was going to name DR regardless because I saw EtW and wish so I wanted to get rid of his fast mana. He feels a little better after hearing this and we proceed to game 3.
Game 3: We both mulligan to 6. The hand I shipped back was good enough against fair decks but I wanted find some hate cards in my opener. He goes down to 5 while I keep a loose hand with therapy. He goes first and plays out both LEDs. I play therapy, naming infernal tutor. He instead has dark ritual, chrome mox, and petal. I draw like 4 lands in a row and he finally finds a burning wish for IGG recursion.
Match: 1-2; Overall: 1-1 (3-2)
At this point, I'm pretty disappointed because I know I would need to run the table the rest of the way to top 8.
Round 3: Cory with Deathblade
Game 1: I accidentally flip over a gsz while shuffling, which makes me nervous if he's on combo. He's on the play and t1 thoughtseizes me. He's actually surprised that I'm on elves instead of maverick. I play fetch->forest->gsz->arbor and pass the turn. He plays DRS and wastes my arbor. I play quirion ranger to bounce my forest and replay it again for nettle sentinel. On his turn, he plays stoneforge to find jitte and passes back. I play the symbiote I've been holding in my hand to combat jitte before finally finding NO to hoof him.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: He goes first and thoughtseizes me again, taking glimpse. I play a quirion ranger to protect my bayou. He decays my ranger and passes the turn. With a hand filled with no cmc 1 creatures, I breathe a sigh of relief as I top-deck a birchlore ranger because my only land drops were a pair of gaea's cradle. I play the birchlore and gaea's cradle before passing the turn. He plays canonist and wastes my bait cradle as expected. I play the fetch I just top-decked and visionary (drawing gsz), saving my cradle for later. He lands teeg and I suddenly can't cast my gszs and NOs anymore. Meanwhile, he begins to apply the beats with canonist. I draw another gsz and can't believe my luck. He makes a mistake and attacks with both canonist and teeg. I trade my visionary and birchlore for the teeg to open up my gsz's again. He then plays a second canonist and I quickly realize he thought I would double block canonist. People are still afraid of glimpse! I finally gsz for scavenging ooze while at 3 life to stabilize and abrupt decay 1 canonist on his turn. He plays bob but I'm not too scared at this point. I gsz for viridian shaman to take out his other canonist and play cradle to gain a ton of life. I watched my life go from 3, 5 (I landed a DRS somewhere earlier but don't remember when), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 to 13. He flips a land from bob and top-decks a decay to wipe out my 7/7 ooze. It doesn't matter though because I finally draw hoof to end the game.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 2-1 (5-2)
Round 4: Matthew with Maverick
Game 1: He goes first and leads with mother of runes. I play quirion ranger to protect my bayou (only land). He StPs quirion ranger but luckily doesn't have wasteland to follow it up. I cast nettle sentinel to set up glimpse next turn with birchlore in hand. I don't remember what he does next but I draw a bunch of cards off glimpse and win right after.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: I don't remember much about the second game other than drawing a bunch off of symbiote/visionary recursion and him slowly draining himself with horizon canopy. Both games this round weren't close.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 3-1 (7-2)
Round 5: Jorge with Young Pyromancer
Game 1: I mulligan to 6 due to seeing 5 lands in the opener. However, the 6 I keep is very strong: fetch, cradle, gsz, NO, birchlore ranger, and nettle sentinel. He leads with scalding tarn->volcanic island->ponder. I assume he's on RUG or some UR tempo variant. I top-deck a visionary and fetch->forest->gsz->arbor to develop/protect my mana. He plays probe, brainstorm, and plays DRS off a grove of the burnwillows. This confuses me and I'm not sure what his strategy is. I top-deck a 2nd nettle and go crazy with forest->birchlore, arbor->nettle, birchlore+nettle->nettle, untap nettle, nettle+nettle for 1, cradle for 4 (5 in pool), play visionary (3), untap nettles, draw another visionary, tap nettles again (4), play visionary again (2), tap nettles and visionaries (4) for NO->hoof. He scoops.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 harmonic sliver, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: Because I wasn't exactly sure what his deck did, I brought in sliver instead of viridian shaman for this game. He cantrips a couple of times with ponders and probes. I don't remember how it went down but I resolve NO with 2 creatures remaining on board and that can't attack and hoof in hand so I look for progenitus... I look for awhile and can't find it so I'm a little concern... After thinking about it, I noticed that my sb cards were missing and that I had inadvertently switched the in/out piles and thus playing with my main deck still. I grab hoof and attack for 8 instead. He generates a few tokens off the young pyromancer he has in play and passes back. I use cradle to hardcast hoof in my hand for trample to seal the game.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 4-1 (9-2)
With one round to go, I'm pretty stoked about the possibility of drawing into top 8. All I had to do was avoid being paired down for the last round. However, this doesn't happen but turns out to be a blessing in disguise (more on this later).
Round 6: Martin with Maverick
Game 1: I keep a strong hand that includes the symbiote/visionary combo and gsz. I fetch->forest->gsz->arbor as I've been doing all day. He follows up with a Karakas and strangely passes the turn without a 1 drop. I go forest+arbor->visionary, forest->symbiote, bounce visionary->untap arbor, arbor->nettle. He scoops on his draw step to avoid revealing what he's on and possibly save time (he was 3-1-1 and couldn't afford anymore draws).
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 harmonic sliver, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: I thought he was on death and taxes but wasn't sure. I keep a decent hand including glimpse, birchlore, and visionaries. He tries to keep me at bay with removal and gaddock teeg. However, I have abrupt decay in my opener so I kill it first chance I get. I draw a bunch of cards off glimpse and probably play a bit too conservatively. He plays EE for 2 and blows up all 3 visionaries on the field and leaves a heritage druid and quirion ranger. I believe this to be a mistake since he PtE a couple of symbiotes earlier. With a full hand still and seeing his maze of ith in play, I cast NO for prog despite having hoof already in hand. I instead wait until next turn to kill with a huge prog.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 5-1 (11-2)
As the only 4-win player not being able to draw into top 8, I knew I would have the #1 seed going into the top 8 and thus the ability to go first in every match. This was the benefit I alluded to earlier for having to play in round 6.
Top 8: Adam with Punishing Jund
Game 1: He was playing against Koby in the previous round and sat right next to me so we both knew what the other person was playing. I keep a 1 lander with gsz so I figured I was fine. I lead with my trusty fetch->forest->gsz->arbor play. He counters with t1 DRS. I don't top-deck a land so I play visionary hoping to draw a land but whiff and pass the turn. Sensing weakness, he wastes my arbor. Fearing he might get punishing fire online soon, I play a birchlore instead of heritage druid (needs 3 elves) to potentially set up a NO the following turn but he is able to stop that with abrupt decay. Eventually, I have enough mana for a non-lethal NO->hoof to drop him to 11. He responds by gaining 4 life with 2 DRS in play to put him at 15. With the help of cradle, I hardcast the 2nd hoof in my hand (which draws some excitement from the people watching) and close out the game with 2 attacking hoofs.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: This game was another grind fest. Progenitus is in my sb for this type of matchup. Though I ended up not needing him, it allowed me to extend a little further than normal post-board games because I know NO->prog can get me back in the game at any time.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 6-1 (13-2)
The other 3 remaining players agreed to split the top 4 for $200 each. Despite being on the play, I think this was good for me since I was set to play dredge next. I was pretty happy with my performance considering it was only my 3rd event ever. My only 2 losses on the day both came to the TES player (2-0 everywhere else) in a tightly contested matchup. I personally felt there wasn't a single fair matchup the deck couldn't win (even miracles is beatable). Thanks for reading this post.
Props:
- 4x NO
- MTGDeals for hosting
Slops:
- SHUFFLING issues
Entry Fee: $25
Total Prize Payout: $1000 for 6 rounds
My Trusted Team:
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Birchlore Rangers
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
2 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Harmonic Sliver
3 Abrupt Decay
Round 1: Braden with Deathblade
Game 1: He goes first, leading with Thoughtseize, and sees that I am on elves. I think he rips out a wirewood symbiote but I'm unsure since I didn't take too many notes during these matches. I lead with a nettle sentinel (to set up a t2 birchlore or top-deck heritage druid) and pass the turn. He drops goyf and passes back. I play my birchlore and another elf (probably quirion) before taking 4 from goyf. Right after his swing, I cast NO for the win.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: He plays a fetch and passes. I counter with fetch->forest->gsz->arbor and pass the turn. He plays brainstorm on turn 2, fetch to shuffle his deck, and disfigures my arbor. I play quirion ranger to bounce my forest, replay the forest for my land drop, and a nettle sentinel. He plays jitte on turn 3 and passes back. I'm kind of curious about this play since he didn't have any creatures on board yet. I play a cmc-1 elf and gsz a second time for wirewood symbiote to fight jitte eventually. He drops goyf but isn't able to equip since he only has 3 mana. Eventually I draw a cradle to power out NO for the win.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 1-0 (2-0)
Round 2: Gerald with TES
Game 1: While shuffling my deck, he accidentally flips over my bayou so I call a judge. It was an honest mistake but the judge still issues him a warning. I keep fetch, cradle, birchlore, nettle, quirion, gsz, and NO. He decides to mull down to 6 before keeping. I lead with fetch->forest->nettle sentinel and pass the turn. He plays scalding tarn->volcanic island->ponder. I'm thinking to myself maybe he's on sneak and show or maybe RUG. I draw a land and go forest->birchlore, tap birchlore+nettle->quirion ranger, untap nettle, tap quirion+nettle for 1 and cradle for 3 for NO, pitching quirion ranger, and untapping nettle and swing in for 13, dropping him to 6. He plays out his hand for Ad Nauseam and needs help. He draws a bunch of 0 cmc cards along the way before going to 1. He looks at his hand again and states he still needs 1 more thing. The card he flips over is a lotus petal and I'm pretty bummed. He storms for 10, gets the win, and breathes a sigh of relief.
SB: -1 hoof, -4 visionary, -3 symbiote, +4 therapy, +2 thorn, +1 teeg, +1 ruric thar
Game 2: I keep a hand primarily for cabal therapy and name LED. He discards one and shows me his hand, which includes brainstorm, dark ritual, EtW, burning wish, scalding tarn, and rite of flame. On his turn, he plays the fetch and passes back. I debate whether to flashback therapy or not but pull the trigger regardless. He obviously brainstorms in response. However, he has a mental lapse and reveals his hand for a split second thinking I had duress'ed him. I name dark ritual and rip 2 from his hand. He's unable to recover from this and is disappointed for punting. Feeling bad for him, I tell him I was going to name DR regardless because I saw EtW and wish so I wanted to get rid of his fast mana. He feels a little better after hearing this and we proceed to game 3.
Game 3: We both mulligan to 6. The hand I shipped back was good enough against fair decks but I wanted find some hate cards in my opener. He goes down to 5 while I keep a loose hand with therapy. He goes first and plays out both LEDs. I play therapy, naming infernal tutor. He instead has dark ritual, chrome mox, and petal. I draw like 4 lands in a row and he finally finds a burning wish for IGG recursion.
Match: 1-2; Overall: 1-1 (3-2)
At this point, I'm pretty disappointed because I know I would need to run the table the rest of the way to top 8.
Round 3: Cory with Deathblade
Game 1: I accidentally flip over a gsz while shuffling, which makes me nervous if he's on combo. He's on the play and t1 thoughtseizes me. He's actually surprised that I'm on elves instead of maverick. I play fetch->forest->gsz->arbor and pass the turn. He plays DRS and wastes my arbor. I play quirion ranger to bounce my forest and replay it again for nettle sentinel. On his turn, he plays stoneforge to find jitte and passes back. I play the symbiote I've been holding in my hand to combat jitte before finally finding NO to hoof him.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: He goes first and thoughtseizes me again, taking glimpse. I play a quirion ranger to protect my bayou. He decays my ranger and passes the turn. With a hand filled with no cmc 1 creatures, I breathe a sigh of relief as I top-deck a birchlore ranger because my only land drops were a pair of gaea's cradle. I play the birchlore and gaea's cradle before passing the turn. He plays canonist and wastes my bait cradle as expected. I play the fetch I just top-decked and visionary (drawing gsz), saving my cradle for later. He lands teeg and I suddenly can't cast my gszs and NOs anymore. Meanwhile, he begins to apply the beats with canonist. I draw another gsz and can't believe my luck. He makes a mistake and attacks with both canonist and teeg. I trade my visionary and birchlore for the teeg to open up my gsz's again. He then plays a second canonist and I quickly realize he thought I would double block canonist. People are still afraid of glimpse! I finally gsz for scavenging ooze while at 3 life to stabilize and abrupt decay 1 canonist on his turn. He plays bob but I'm not too scared at this point. I gsz for viridian shaman to take out his other canonist and play cradle to gain a ton of life. I watched my life go from 3, 5 (I landed a DRS somewhere earlier but don't remember when), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 to 13. He flips a land from bob and top-decks a decay to wipe out my 7/7 ooze. It doesn't matter though because I finally draw hoof to end the game.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 2-1 (5-2)
Round 4: Matthew with Maverick
Game 1: He goes first and leads with mother of runes. I play quirion ranger to protect my bayou (only land). He StPs quirion ranger but luckily doesn't have wasteland to follow it up. I cast nettle sentinel to set up glimpse next turn with birchlore in hand. I don't remember what he does next but I draw a bunch of cards off glimpse and win right after.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: I don't remember much about the second game other than drawing a bunch off of symbiote/visionary recursion and him slowly draining himself with horizon canopy. Both games this round weren't close.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 3-1 (7-2)
Round 5: Jorge with Young Pyromancer
Game 1: I mulligan to 6 due to seeing 5 lands in the opener. However, the 6 I keep is very strong: fetch, cradle, gsz, NO, birchlore ranger, and nettle sentinel. He leads with scalding tarn->volcanic island->ponder. I assume he's on RUG or some UR tempo variant. I top-deck a visionary and fetch->forest->gsz->arbor to develop/protect my mana. He plays probe, brainstorm, and plays DRS off a grove of the burnwillows. This confuses me and I'm not sure what his strategy is. I top-deck a 2nd nettle and go crazy with forest->birchlore, arbor->nettle, birchlore+nettle->nettle, untap nettle, nettle+nettle for 1, cradle for 4 (5 in pool), play visionary (3), untap nettles, draw another visionary, tap nettles again (4), play visionary again (2), tap nettles and visionaries (4) for NO->hoof. He scoops.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 harmonic sliver, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: Because I wasn't exactly sure what his deck did, I brought in sliver instead of viridian shaman for this game. He cantrips a couple of times with ponders and probes. I don't remember how it went down but I resolve NO with 2 creatures remaining on board and that can't attack and hoof in hand so I look for progenitus... I look for awhile and can't find it so I'm a little concern... After thinking about it, I noticed that my sb cards were missing and that I had inadvertently switched the in/out piles and thus playing with my main deck still. I grab hoof and attack for 8 instead. He generates a few tokens off the young pyromancer he has in play and passes back. I use cradle to hardcast hoof in my hand for trample to seal the game.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 4-1 (9-2)
With one round to go, I'm pretty stoked about the possibility of drawing into top 8. All I had to do was avoid being paired down for the last round. However, this doesn't happen but turns out to be a blessing in disguise (more on this later).
Round 6: Martin with Maverick
Game 1: I keep a strong hand that includes the symbiote/visionary combo and gsz. I fetch->forest->gsz->arbor as I've been doing all day. He follows up with a Karakas and strangely passes the turn without a 1 drop. I go forest+arbor->visionary, forest->symbiote, bounce visionary->untap arbor, arbor->nettle. He scoops on his draw step to avoid revealing what he's on and possibly save time (he was 3-1-1 and couldn't afford anymore draws).
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 harmonic sliver, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: I thought he was on death and taxes but wasn't sure. I keep a decent hand including glimpse, birchlore, and visionaries. He tries to keep me at bay with removal and gaddock teeg. However, I have abrupt decay in my opener so I kill it first chance I get. I draw a bunch of cards off glimpse and probably play a bit too conservatively. He plays EE for 2 and blows up all 3 visionaries on the field and leaves a heritage druid and quirion ranger. I believe this to be a mistake since he PtE a couple of symbiotes earlier. With a full hand still and seeing his maze of ith in play, I cast NO for prog despite having hoof already in hand. I instead wait until next turn to kill with a huge prog.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 5-1 (11-2)
As the only 4-win player not being able to draw into top 8, I knew I would have the #1 seed going into the top 8 and thus the ability to go first in every match. This was the benefit I alluded to earlier for having to play in round 6.
Top 8: Adam with Punishing Jund
Game 1: He was playing against Koby in the previous round and sat right next to me so we both knew what the other person was playing. I keep a 1 lander with gsz so I figured I was fine. I lead with my trusty fetch->forest->gsz->arbor play. He counters with t1 DRS. I don't top-deck a land so I play visionary hoping to draw a land but whiff and pass the turn. Sensing weakness, he wastes my arbor. Fearing he might get punishing fire online soon, I play a birchlore instead of heritage druid (needs 3 elves) to potentially set up a NO the following turn but he is able to stop that with abrupt decay. Eventually, I have enough mana for a non-lethal NO->hoof to drop him to 11. He responds by gaining 4 life with 2 DRS in play to put him at 15. With the help of cradle, I hardcast the 2nd hoof in my hand (which draws some excitement from the people watching) and close out the game with 2 attacking hoofs.
SB: -1 hoof, -2 heritage druid, -2 quirion ranger, +1 prog, +1 scavenging ooze, +1 viridian shaman, +2 abrupt decay
Game 2: This game was another grind fest. Progenitus is in my sb for this type of matchup. Though I ended up not needing him, it allowed me to extend a little further than normal post-board games because I know NO->prog can get me back in the game at any time.
Match: 2-0; Overall: 6-1 (13-2)
The other 3 remaining players agreed to split the top 4 for $200 each. Despite being on the play, I think this was good for me since I was set to play dredge next. I was pretty happy with my performance considering it was only my 3rd event ever. My only 2 losses on the day both came to the TES player (2-0 everywhere else) in a tightly contested matchup. I personally felt there wasn't a single fair matchup the deck couldn't win (even miracles is beatable). Thanks for reading this post.
Props:
- 4x NO
- MTGDeals for hosting
Slops:
- SHUFFLING issues