feline
01-21-2014, 12:43 AM
So, I'm going to Ohio now? & Next week it's all the way to Baltimore? That's a long trip from the Seattle region of the Pacific Northwest.
If you're wondering about that Open in Seattle in March, I will still see you there! Now for that tournament report!
So I arrive, this time by Bus (Though I usually fly, the trip was only 2 hours and 20 bucks!) & as per the usual, I don't know any local players. So I'm pretty much on my own as far as all the players go. Found 2 other High Tide decks in the room through the rounds, talked to one of them. Go High Tide! If you're wondering, the average at an open for High Tide decks in the room seems to be about 1 for every 100 people or so.
No changes to the deck list
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
4 Time Spiral
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
4 High Tide
sideboard:
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pact of Negation
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Grafdigger's Cage
Round 1, table 61 -vs- Devin Badaczewski, playing Death & Taxes
Game 1: Won the die roll. He plays a plains on his turn 1, & I immediately suspect the most likely deck to be Death & Taxes, & I believe I expressed that suspicion verbally which I usually do, pretty much confirming Death & Taxes by a turn 1 Mother of Runes. I always have fun trying to figure out what my opponent is playing as soon as they play their first land (or no land). After a few turns & a Stoneforge Mystic, I finally combo off for the win with the usual High Tide, tap, untap, Time Spiral, repeat tapping & High Tiding for lots of mana, draw lots of cards, then force my opponent to draw all of their cards & more.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Flusterstorm / +1 Snap +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: They mulligan 1 time going to 6 then keep. They play a turn 1 Aether Vial, get it ticked up to 2 & keep it there. (I'm thinking Thalia / Ethersworn Canonist potential) They do play a Rishadan Port & for humor, when my Island is tapped for the first time, I use my Candle to untap it, knowing I'm not comboing that turn. They eventually get a Stoneforge Mystic & a Mother of Runes out, but I combo off again before lethal. I don't remember if the Aether Vial was tapped when I went off (which would be one of the reasons I would go off because of hatebear potential) or I bounced the Aether Vial to prevent that from happening.
-end result, 1 win, 0 losses-
Round 2, table 72 -vs- Justin Monnin playing Stiflenaught
Game 1: He plays a fetchland turn 1, then sets himself up for a turn 2 play. Based on his lands, I'm thinking BUG. Well it is those colors but not one of those decks. He plays turn 1 Phyrexian Dreadnaught & Stifle. I'm able to prevent it with counterspells, thank you blue magic! No other notes, eventually combo for the win.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Candelabra of Tawnos +1 Flusterstorm, & in case discard hits a Wish backed up by Extirpate, +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: They mulligan 1 time. After some back & forth preventing another Phyrexian Dreadnaught from hitting the table, I combo off again. At one point I Turnabout to tap my opponent out, he taps for mana in response, so I declare the attack step to empty the pool, & continue on with that little trick.
-end result, 2 wins, 0 losses-
Round 3, table 29 -vs- Brad M Campbell playing RUG
Game 1: He plays blue & green, as well as casting Tarmogoyfs, so I suspect RUG, but it's not actually confirmed until game 2 since he never shows red land stuff that first game, very smart by my opponent if it was intentional to keep me guessing whether that 3rd color was red or black! Eventually combo off for the win with 7 life remaining. Very important to get that game 1 win in against those Delver tempo decks!
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Wipe Away +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: It's RUG I tell you! Eventually my suspicion's are confirmed when he gets that first Volcanic Island, incoming red blasts it is. I try to combo but it's not red blasts that get me, it's Flusterstorm from the opponent. I love the card, but I don't love going against it, especially when they know how to use it against me. Game 2 is a loss.
Game 3: No sideboard changes. They don't play an early threat though which tells me 2 things. 1: I have time. 2: Their hand is likely a lot of counterspells. I abuse the lack of threat's early & just keep building my hand up to be as optimal as possible. When I'm down to about 4 or 5 life, I finally go for the win on the last possible turn. The actual note on the MTGdeals scorepad reads: "Long game nothing for a while, then good 2 1/2" (good second half I believe is what it means)
-end result, 3 wins, 0 losses-
Round 4, table 9 -vs- Andrew T Morrow playing Counterbalance
Game 1: 20, 19, 17, 15, 13, loss (the damage was from a Trinket Mage, then the last big hit from that Entreat the Angels) I try to set myself up to combo, but he gets out a Counterbalance & Sensei's Divining Top. So here's what I have to do. Use a tutor to get a Wipe Away & then I'll have to wait another turn to be able to use it, so it'll give him 1 turn in between. In that turn he plays a second Counterbalance. Now, I think he would play a second one regardless once it's in hand, unless he needs Force of Will fuel or Brainstorm cards to ditch, but I want to play as safe/smart as possible about the worst case scenario. Since Counterbalance isn't a fast deck against me, I should in theory be able to wait long enough, to use the tutor for Wipe Away, & also use Wipe Away in the same turn (Though it's still trickier if I have to use Merchant Scroll to get it being a sorcery.) Anyhow, I lost this game, & have taken the notes in accordingly.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: The notes read: My life, 20, 18, 16. Opponents life, 20, 19, 18, Flusterstorm, PACT with a circle around it, Trinket Mages, & LOSS with a circle around it. I actually get to combo off this game, but he eventually stops it with a timely Flusterstorm, though even if it was a regular counterspell, I was out of cards in hand anyhow. Next turn I untap, upkeep, & I only have 4 Islands in play with a Pact trigger to pay for (which I actually forgot anyhow until my opponent pointed it out. The dice trick on the deck to remember pact is not one I can use so easily, as I am constantly drawing cards & shuffling, but I still need to come up with some sort of reminder.). The only thing I could think of at the time was that I could have spent Force of Will on my own Pact of Negation, but that's just ridiculous at that point as I needed counters for opposing counters. Writing this out, I now likely suspect that when I casted Pact of Negation, he saw my 4 Islands in play, & knew he'd win next turn if he prevented my comboing, which he did, very nicely done Andrew. To counter that, again, Counterbalance isn't the fastest match up, so I could probably easily have waited until I had 5 Islands in play to prevent that from ever being an option. The arguments against "waiting" against Counterbalance though, are that I don't like giving the deck more time. More time means more possible opposing Islands/Card draw/Counter/Top/Jace.
-end result, 3 wins, 1 loss-
Round 5, table 9 -vs- Stephen J Seliskar playing MUD
Game 1: Force of Will a turn 1 Chalice of the Void, Lightning Greaves Cavern of Souls Metalworker lots of mana Blightsteel Colossus Dead on turn 3. Can't Flusterstorm artifact/creature spells as I had 1 in hand.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Flusterstorm +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: Turn 1 Lightning Greaves, I'm saving my counters for those potential Chalices/Trinispheres. Turn 2 Cavern of Souls turn 3 another Cavern of Souls & it's Kuldotha Forgemaster with haste, followed by Blightsteel Colossus with haste & I'm dead on turn 3 again.
That's right, my match this round was as fast as the report for it was. This was the match of the night that just blew me out with just "the nuts" hands & likely the one I'll remember most. I could have countered the Lightning Greaves but I still feel that would in most cases be the wrong move when he also has Chalice/Trinisphere in the deck & Cavern of Souls isn't guaranteed, I'll be looking more over this stuff later. But now I've got time for a lunch break, a lot of time.
-end result, 3 wins, 2 losses-
Mid report Hey Reuben, how long would it take to walk to the Subway around here (there's always a Subway around). Could I walk to it in a few minutes, he says no. How about in like 8 minutes, he still says probably not. I say "Ok I'm waiting then." But after about 2 minutes, I look at the clock & see 20 minutes remaining. I might as well go & try while I have time, I'll just eat while walking back to save time. That's exactly what I do, & when I get back the round is just about over, or like 1 minute past so I'm safe, & I prevented hunger for the rest of the day.
Going into the rest of the rounds, I'm now out of contention for top 8, so I'm playing for 100 bucks, or 50, maybe a top 16 slot, top 32 / 64. But as far as top 8 goes, that stress has now been relieved, I'll have to try again next week in Baltimore.
Round 6, table 53 -vs- Heath Hensel playing Loam Pox
Game 1: It doesn't take long before I'm assuming Pox, though at first I was assuming BUG until more relevant stuff like Life from the Loam showed otherwise. I finally get to the point of combo'ing off, but I fizzle after lots of card drawing. Luckily Pox has a slower clock Nether Spirit with me taking 2 a turn, I still have a nice grip of turns left & there's no Liliana thank goodness. I eventually combo off again at 3 life & this time, I combo off for the win. He does keep Dredging the Life from the Loam, trying to dig for something, but I can't figure out what exactly he's going for even though it's on the tip of my tongue.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Flusterstorm I contemplated bringing in Grafdigger's Cage's, even saying so verbally to my opponent that I could do it, (though I shouldn't say things like that out loud, I think I did so because at the point of saying them, I felt no necessity to bring them in.)
Game 2: He finally gets that card he was dredging for in the first game, Raven's Crime Oh THAT card! Luckily however, I'm able to get to a point of combo'ing off through all the opposing disruption, mainly the opposing discard. Sensei's Divining Top really helps in this match up. No other notes.
-end result, 4 wins, 2 losses-
Round 7, table 23 -vs- Erik Smith playing Jund
Game 1: He plays the colors of Jund & I am relieved there's no opposing blue. I eventually get to the point of combo'ing off at 13 life for the win, & I believe there was some back & forth disruption, counterspells vs discard. No other notes.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, Loss.
Game 3: Meditate x2, eventually get the win. I don't remember a lot about the match specifics for some reason, & the notes are less because I believe when the match ended, the round was close to over, so I was concentrating more on just playing. (Grats again on the Invitaitonal win Erik, I some of those 1/1 Goblin tokens myself!)
-end result, 5 wins, 2 loses-
Round 8, table 17, Dan Musser playing Jund
Game 1, or game 2: I don't remember which game it was, & I don't remember anything about the other game. I only remember that I got hit with Thoughtseize x 2, Hymn to Tourach & had only Merchant Scroll & Cunning Wish, I eventually got [/cards]Intuition[/cards] & High Tide & had Islands & 1 Candel in play, so I when I scrolled for the High Tide, I was going to next turn go off, cast High Tide, tap, untap, Intuition, then cast one of the Spirals. But a second Hymn to Tourach nailed the last 2 cards in my hand & it was over.
-sideboarding- was the same as the previous match, -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm, & in case of opposing discard followed by an uncounterable Extirpate, +1 Blue Sun's Zenith.
After the match he pointed out Leyline of Sanctity, we talked a bit & I pointed out that Jonathan Hatch actually did that in his sideboard about a year previous, but I never adopted the idea. However, something else happened earlier from one of the High Tide players I was watching, playing against 12post in the first rounds. The High Tide player had a Back to Basics in play. Immediately I thought of how many times I could potentially bring that in against a deck & they'd never see it coming, & since my Grafdigger's cages get used more against Elves than Reanimator/Dredge, since I so rarely go against graveyard strategies, I was already starting to think about replacing the cages for something more useful against the metagame. Thank you Dan for pointing out Leyline afterward, I'm already likely going to sideboard a playset at the next Open (replacing Cages & the sideboard Snap) as I write this.
-end result, 5 wins, 3 losses-
Round 9, table 32, Stephen Mikoleski playing Sneak & Show
Game 1: Last round, it's do or die, 50.00 bucks, or nada. Let's do it! The notes read: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, win, fluster = awesome. When he did an early Show and Tell I debated whether I should Flusterstorm it now, while it would be a hard counter (vs later when he has a billion lands in play) -or- should I try to bait out a Force of will using my own, & THEN Flusterstorm, getting a Force of Will out of my opponents hand, at the cost of my own in the process. I decided to bait & attempt, and Force of Will met Force of Will, then Flusterstorm for a lot more than my opponent could pay. It also helped incase he could pay 1, then Daze the other copy, when Flusterstorm would have only had 1 copy.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: 20, 19, 18, 16, 15, 14, 13. Yes, I did all that damage to myself. Fetchlands, while using, & re-using Force of Wills can do that. Think about that Burn players, Legacy decks can do that much damage to themselves, all on their own! I eventually combo off for the win, playing the control route as I usually do against the Show and Tell strategies. I just love how Flusterstorm can shine against opposing disruption, but also opposing combo decks! At one point, my opponent has 5 untapped lands in play, so he uses a fetchland to get the 4th Volcanic Island & then taps his 4 mana producing lands to play. I immediately realize his 1 untapped fetch, will likely not be able to fetch red mana, & he's going to likely be casting Sneak Attack. I don't say anything & my opponent does realize the same thing, but not until after he casts Sneak Attack & is just using the Fetchland ability. So I take what I can get & use that last turn to combo accordingly.
-end result, 6 wins, 3 losses, 41st place-
After the tournament, I stick around, talking to different people, & since I won't be leaving until about 4 am, myself, along with one other person, go looking for food. We end up getting a small pizza at some place & it's a bar/lounge type setting. Though I'm not big on Football, I've been living in the Seattle area for the past 6 years, and we just happen to be sitting & waiting for the pizza to be made, right at the end of that game that was being played, so I couldn't help but watch it some & found myself actually hoping to see the Seahawks win, which is what happened. Though I don't understand why the opposing team didn't do anything for the last few plays & just let them hold up the ball in the air without jumping at him, either way I know it likely made a lot of people I know in the northwest pretty happy.
As far as High Tide goes, I'm making a change to the deck for the next open or 2, which will be this:
-3 Grafdigger's Cage -1 Snap / +4 Leyline of Sanctity
What concluded me to this is the following:
Against decks where I'd want the bounce (Meddling Mage, Counterbalance, Ethersworn Canonist, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, etc) I won't need the Leylines, as most of decks that use those cards don't run Discard & focus on blue for disruption. While against decks where I would want the Leyline's, I will likely not need the maindeck bounce. So in many scenarios, I can simply switch out that -1 High Tide, as well as the maindeck Snap/Wipe Away for Leyline of Sanctity, & to squeeze in the 4th Leyline of Sanctity, I can sideboard out 1 Candelabra, as many of the decks that are heavy opposing discard, Bug/Jund/etc, also run Abrupt Decay. I could elaborate more & more on the subject, but I think that says most of what it needs to.
As far as taking Cages out, or why I haven't done this earlier. They were sorta in there by default and I guess I forgot about the option to just run something else for the last while. I guess I "went stale" and needed a refresher, well here it is. I found myself earlier thinking about that Back to Basics a high tide player was using, & realized "Wow I'd potentially bring that in so many times, while my cages just sit there for the one match that uses the graveyard, or sometimes against elf decks" (Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith, Flashback Cabal Therapy). Sometimes my cages never come in, as per this tournament itself as an example. So I'm cutting the dead weight as I probably should have a while ago, & am just switching it for the Leyline's. I don't like having them in the deck when I'm spiraling, but I can't spiral if my hand is gone in the first place, so I think it's a good move. As well, against those graveyard based strategies, they usually run discard themselves, so they'd be useful in those match up's anyhow!
As far as everything else goes, maybe I'll see you in Baltimore, so expect another tournament report about the same time next week. What's after Baltimore, I'm not 100 % on what yet, but there's "potential" for New Jersey, Nashville, & Atlanta. Whether it's one of those 3, or all 3 (which I would really like to say I could do) or the other extreme of none at all, I don't know yet, some of my decisions will be based on Baltimore, as well as other non magic related stuff, aka $$$.
Congrats to all of my opponents including:
Brad M Campbell placing 21st
Andrew T Morrow placing 12th
Erik Smith with that previous Invitational win
Dan Musser placing 18th & a name I've associated with Zoo since 2011
As well as the SCG Columbus champion, congrats to Tommy Graves, wining the whole thing with Reanimator!
~Until next time, see you at the next one in Baltimore, Feline Longmore
If you're wondering about that Open in Seattle in March, I will still see you there! Now for that tournament report!
So I arrive, this time by Bus (Though I usually fly, the trip was only 2 hours and 20 bucks!) & as per the usual, I don't know any local players. So I'm pretty much on my own as far as all the players go. Found 2 other High Tide decks in the room through the rounds, talked to one of them. Go High Tide! If you're wondering, the average at an open for High Tide decks in the room seems to be about 1 for every 100 people or so.
No changes to the deck list
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
4 Time Spiral
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
4 High Tide
sideboard:
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pact of Negation
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Grafdigger's Cage
Round 1, table 61 -vs- Devin Badaczewski, playing Death & Taxes
Game 1: Won the die roll. He plays a plains on his turn 1, & I immediately suspect the most likely deck to be Death & Taxes, & I believe I expressed that suspicion verbally which I usually do, pretty much confirming Death & Taxes by a turn 1 Mother of Runes. I always have fun trying to figure out what my opponent is playing as soon as they play their first land (or no land). After a few turns & a Stoneforge Mystic, I finally combo off for the win with the usual High Tide, tap, untap, Time Spiral, repeat tapping & High Tiding for lots of mana, draw lots of cards, then force my opponent to draw all of their cards & more.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Flusterstorm / +1 Snap +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: They mulligan 1 time going to 6 then keep. They play a turn 1 Aether Vial, get it ticked up to 2 & keep it there. (I'm thinking Thalia / Ethersworn Canonist potential) They do play a Rishadan Port & for humor, when my Island is tapped for the first time, I use my Candle to untap it, knowing I'm not comboing that turn. They eventually get a Stoneforge Mystic & a Mother of Runes out, but I combo off again before lethal. I don't remember if the Aether Vial was tapped when I went off (which would be one of the reasons I would go off because of hatebear potential) or I bounced the Aether Vial to prevent that from happening.
-end result, 1 win, 0 losses-
Round 2, table 72 -vs- Justin Monnin playing Stiflenaught
Game 1: He plays a fetchland turn 1, then sets himself up for a turn 2 play. Based on his lands, I'm thinking BUG. Well it is those colors but not one of those decks. He plays turn 1 Phyrexian Dreadnaught & Stifle. I'm able to prevent it with counterspells, thank you blue magic! No other notes, eventually combo for the win.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Candelabra of Tawnos +1 Flusterstorm, & in case discard hits a Wish backed up by Extirpate, +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: They mulligan 1 time. After some back & forth preventing another Phyrexian Dreadnaught from hitting the table, I combo off again. At one point I Turnabout to tap my opponent out, he taps for mana in response, so I declare the attack step to empty the pool, & continue on with that little trick.
-end result, 2 wins, 0 losses-
Round 3, table 29 -vs- Brad M Campbell playing RUG
Game 1: He plays blue & green, as well as casting Tarmogoyfs, so I suspect RUG, but it's not actually confirmed until game 2 since he never shows red land stuff that first game, very smart by my opponent if it was intentional to keep me guessing whether that 3rd color was red or black! Eventually combo off for the win with 7 life remaining. Very important to get that game 1 win in against those Delver tempo decks!
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Wipe Away +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: It's RUG I tell you! Eventually my suspicion's are confirmed when he gets that first Volcanic Island, incoming red blasts it is. I try to combo but it's not red blasts that get me, it's Flusterstorm from the opponent. I love the card, but I don't love going against it, especially when they know how to use it against me. Game 2 is a loss.
Game 3: No sideboard changes. They don't play an early threat though which tells me 2 things. 1: I have time. 2: Their hand is likely a lot of counterspells. I abuse the lack of threat's early & just keep building my hand up to be as optimal as possible. When I'm down to about 4 or 5 life, I finally go for the win on the last possible turn. The actual note on the MTGdeals scorepad reads: "Long game nothing for a while, then good 2 1/2" (good second half I believe is what it means)
-end result, 3 wins, 0 losses-
Round 4, table 9 -vs- Andrew T Morrow playing Counterbalance
Game 1: 20, 19, 17, 15, 13, loss (the damage was from a Trinket Mage, then the last big hit from that Entreat the Angels) I try to set myself up to combo, but he gets out a Counterbalance & Sensei's Divining Top. So here's what I have to do. Use a tutor to get a Wipe Away & then I'll have to wait another turn to be able to use it, so it'll give him 1 turn in between. In that turn he plays a second Counterbalance. Now, I think he would play a second one regardless once it's in hand, unless he needs Force of Will fuel or Brainstorm cards to ditch, but I want to play as safe/smart as possible about the worst case scenario. Since Counterbalance isn't a fast deck against me, I should in theory be able to wait long enough, to use the tutor for Wipe Away, & also use Wipe Away in the same turn (Though it's still trickier if I have to use Merchant Scroll to get it being a sorcery.) Anyhow, I lost this game, & have taken the notes in accordingly.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: The notes read: My life, 20, 18, 16. Opponents life, 20, 19, 18, Flusterstorm, PACT with a circle around it, Trinket Mages, & LOSS with a circle around it. I actually get to combo off this game, but he eventually stops it with a timely Flusterstorm, though even if it was a regular counterspell, I was out of cards in hand anyhow. Next turn I untap, upkeep, & I only have 4 Islands in play with a Pact trigger to pay for (which I actually forgot anyhow until my opponent pointed it out. The dice trick on the deck to remember pact is not one I can use so easily, as I am constantly drawing cards & shuffling, but I still need to come up with some sort of reminder.). The only thing I could think of at the time was that I could have spent Force of Will on my own Pact of Negation, but that's just ridiculous at that point as I needed counters for opposing counters. Writing this out, I now likely suspect that when I casted Pact of Negation, he saw my 4 Islands in play, & knew he'd win next turn if he prevented my comboing, which he did, very nicely done Andrew. To counter that, again, Counterbalance isn't the fastest match up, so I could probably easily have waited until I had 5 Islands in play to prevent that from ever being an option. The arguments against "waiting" against Counterbalance though, are that I don't like giving the deck more time. More time means more possible opposing Islands/Card draw/Counter/Top/Jace.
-end result, 3 wins, 1 loss-
Round 5, table 9 -vs- Stephen J Seliskar playing MUD
Game 1: Force of Will a turn 1 Chalice of the Void, Lightning Greaves Cavern of Souls Metalworker lots of mana Blightsteel Colossus Dead on turn 3. Can't Flusterstorm artifact/creature spells as I had 1 in hand.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Flusterstorm +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: Turn 1 Lightning Greaves, I'm saving my counters for those potential Chalices/Trinispheres. Turn 2 Cavern of Souls turn 3 another Cavern of Souls & it's Kuldotha Forgemaster with haste, followed by Blightsteel Colossus with haste & I'm dead on turn 3 again.
That's right, my match this round was as fast as the report for it was. This was the match of the night that just blew me out with just "the nuts" hands & likely the one I'll remember most. I could have countered the Lightning Greaves but I still feel that would in most cases be the wrong move when he also has Chalice/Trinisphere in the deck & Cavern of Souls isn't guaranteed, I'll be looking more over this stuff later. But now I've got time for a lunch break, a lot of time.
-end result, 3 wins, 2 losses-
Mid report Hey Reuben, how long would it take to walk to the Subway around here (there's always a Subway around). Could I walk to it in a few minutes, he says no. How about in like 8 minutes, he still says probably not. I say "Ok I'm waiting then." But after about 2 minutes, I look at the clock & see 20 minutes remaining. I might as well go & try while I have time, I'll just eat while walking back to save time. That's exactly what I do, & when I get back the round is just about over, or like 1 minute past so I'm safe, & I prevented hunger for the rest of the day.
Going into the rest of the rounds, I'm now out of contention for top 8, so I'm playing for 100 bucks, or 50, maybe a top 16 slot, top 32 / 64. But as far as top 8 goes, that stress has now been relieved, I'll have to try again next week in Baltimore.
Round 6, table 53 -vs- Heath Hensel playing Loam Pox
Game 1: It doesn't take long before I'm assuming Pox, though at first I was assuming BUG until more relevant stuff like Life from the Loam showed otherwise. I finally get to the point of combo'ing off, but I fizzle after lots of card drawing. Luckily Pox has a slower clock Nether Spirit with me taking 2 a turn, I still have a nice grip of turns left & there's no Liliana thank goodness. I eventually combo off again at 3 life & this time, I combo off for the win. He does keep Dredging the Life from the Loam, trying to dig for something, but I can't figure out what exactly he's going for even though it's on the tip of my tongue.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Blue Sun's Zenith +1 Flusterstorm I contemplated bringing in Grafdigger's Cage's, even saying so verbally to my opponent that I could do it, (though I shouldn't say things like that out loud, I think I did so because at the point of saying them, I felt no necessity to bring them in.)
Game 2: He finally gets that card he was dredging for in the first game, Raven's Crime Oh THAT card! Luckily however, I'm able to get to a point of combo'ing off through all the opposing disruption, mainly the opposing discard. Sensei's Divining Top really helps in this match up. No other notes.
-end result, 4 wins, 2 losses-
Round 7, table 23 -vs- Erik Smith playing Jund
Game 1: He plays the colors of Jund & I am relieved there's no opposing blue. I eventually get to the point of combo'ing off at 13 life for the win, & I believe there was some back & forth disruption, counterspells vs discard. No other notes.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm +1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Game 2: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, Loss.
Game 3: Meditate x2, eventually get the win. I don't remember a lot about the match specifics for some reason, & the notes are less because I believe when the match ended, the round was close to over, so I was concentrating more on just playing. (Grats again on the Invitaitonal win Erik, I some of those 1/1 Goblin tokens myself!)
-end result, 5 wins, 2 loses-
Round 8, table 17, Dan Musser playing Jund
Game 1, or game 2: I don't remember which game it was, & I don't remember anything about the other game. I only remember that I got hit with Thoughtseize x 2, Hymn to Tourach & had only Merchant Scroll & Cunning Wish, I eventually got [/cards]Intuition[/cards] & High Tide & had Islands & 1 Candel in play, so I when I scrolled for the High Tide, I was going to next turn go off, cast High Tide, tap, untap, Intuition, then cast one of the Spirals. But a second Hymn to Tourach nailed the last 2 cards in my hand & it was over.
-sideboarding- was the same as the previous match, -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm, & in case of opposing discard followed by an uncounterable Extirpate, +1 Blue Sun's Zenith.
After the match he pointed out Leyline of Sanctity, we talked a bit & I pointed out that Jonathan Hatch actually did that in his sideboard about a year previous, but I never adopted the idea. However, something else happened earlier from one of the High Tide players I was watching, playing against 12post in the first rounds. The High Tide player had a Back to Basics in play. Immediately I thought of how many times I could potentially bring that in against a deck & they'd never see it coming, & since my Grafdigger's cages get used more against Elves than Reanimator/Dredge, since I so rarely go against graveyard strategies, I was already starting to think about replacing the cages for something more useful against the metagame. Thank you Dan for pointing out Leyline afterward, I'm already likely going to sideboard a playset at the next Open (replacing Cages & the sideboard Snap) as I write this.
-end result, 5 wins, 3 losses-
Round 9, table 32, Stephen Mikoleski playing Sneak & Show
Game 1: Last round, it's do or die, 50.00 bucks, or nada. Let's do it! The notes read: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, win, fluster = awesome. When he did an early Show and Tell I debated whether I should Flusterstorm it now, while it would be a hard counter (vs later when he has a billion lands in play) -or- should I try to bait out a Force of will using my own, & THEN Flusterstorm, getting a Force of Will out of my opponents hand, at the cost of my own in the process. I decided to bait & attempt, and Force of Will met Force of Will, then Flusterstorm for a lot more than my opponent could pay. It also helped incase he could pay 1, then Daze the other copy, when Flusterstorm would have only had 1 copy.
-sideboarding- -1 High Tide -1 Snap +1 Flusterstorm +1 Pact of Negation
Game 2: 20, 19, 18, 16, 15, 14, 13. Yes, I did all that damage to myself. Fetchlands, while using, & re-using Force of Wills can do that. Think about that Burn players, Legacy decks can do that much damage to themselves, all on their own! I eventually combo off for the win, playing the control route as I usually do against the Show and Tell strategies. I just love how Flusterstorm can shine against opposing disruption, but also opposing combo decks! At one point, my opponent has 5 untapped lands in play, so he uses a fetchland to get the 4th Volcanic Island & then taps his 4 mana producing lands to play. I immediately realize his 1 untapped fetch, will likely not be able to fetch red mana, & he's going to likely be casting Sneak Attack. I don't say anything & my opponent does realize the same thing, but not until after he casts Sneak Attack & is just using the Fetchland ability. So I take what I can get & use that last turn to combo accordingly.
-end result, 6 wins, 3 losses, 41st place-
After the tournament, I stick around, talking to different people, & since I won't be leaving until about 4 am, myself, along with one other person, go looking for food. We end up getting a small pizza at some place & it's a bar/lounge type setting. Though I'm not big on Football, I've been living in the Seattle area for the past 6 years, and we just happen to be sitting & waiting for the pizza to be made, right at the end of that game that was being played, so I couldn't help but watch it some & found myself actually hoping to see the Seahawks win, which is what happened. Though I don't understand why the opposing team didn't do anything for the last few plays & just let them hold up the ball in the air without jumping at him, either way I know it likely made a lot of people I know in the northwest pretty happy.
As far as High Tide goes, I'm making a change to the deck for the next open or 2, which will be this:
-3 Grafdigger's Cage -1 Snap / +4 Leyline of Sanctity
What concluded me to this is the following:
Against decks where I'd want the bounce (Meddling Mage, Counterbalance, Ethersworn Canonist, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, etc) I won't need the Leylines, as most of decks that use those cards don't run Discard & focus on blue for disruption. While against decks where I would want the Leyline's, I will likely not need the maindeck bounce. So in many scenarios, I can simply switch out that -1 High Tide, as well as the maindeck Snap/Wipe Away for Leyline of Sanctity, & to squeeze in the 4th Leyline of Sanctity, I can sideboard out 1 Candelabra, as many of the decks that are heavy opposing discard, Bug/Jund/etc, also run Abrupt Decay. I could elaborate more & more on the subject, but I think that says most of what it needs to.
As far as taking Cages out, or why I haven't done this earlier. They were sorta in there by default and I guess I forgot about the option to just run something else for the last while. I guess I "went stale" and needed a refresher, well here it is. I found myself earlier thinking about that Back to Basics a high tide player was using, & realized "Wow I'd potentially bring that in so many times, while my cages just sit there for the one match that uses the graveyard, or sometimes against elf decks" (Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith, Flashback Cabal Therapy). Sometimes my cages never come in, as per this tournament itself as an example. So I'm cutting the dead weight as I probably should have a while ago, & am just switching it for the Leyline's. I don't like having them in the deck when I'm spiraling, but I can't spiral if my hand is gone in the first place, so I think it's a good move. As well, against those graveyard based strategies, they usually run discard themselves, so they'd be useful in those match up's anyhow!
As far as everything else goes, maybe I'll see you in Baltimore, so expect another tournament report about the same time next week. What's after Baltimore, I'm not 100 % on what yet, but there's "potential" for New Jersey, Nashville, & Atlanta. Whether it's one of those 3, or all 3 (which I would really like to say I could do) or the other extreme of none at all, I don't know yet, some of my decisions will be based on Baltimore, as well as other non magic related stuff, aka $$$.
Congrats to all of my opponents including:
Brad M Campbell placing 21st
Andrew T Morrow placing 12th
Erik Smith with that previous Invitational win
Dan Musser placing 18th & a name I've associated with Zoo since 2011
As well as the SCG Columbus champion, congrats to Tommy Graves, wining the whole thing with Reanimator!
~Until next time, see you at the next one in Baltimore, Feline Longmore