phazonmutant
05-04-2015, 07:13 PM
Hello again! It's been a while since my last tournament report here, but I'm back with another Top 4 at an SCG event under my belt. This time I played Storm (or ANT, although I don't think the name is that accurate any more).
First a little flavor of the trip. The guys I drove down from Seattle with met up at my place, delicious Caribbean sandwiches from Paseo in hand. Chowing down to a sandwich so stuffed with pork and dripping with juices that you can't eat it without a fork and knife ain't a bad way to start a trip. Once we made it to Portland, I certainly didn't waste time testing Standard despite only having a dozen or so games under my belt. No way. Rob and I went out to a club in old Portland where I learned that gin & tonic glows blue in a blacklight (quinine, an ingredient in tonic, is highly florescent). Some dance floor action later, we headed back to rest up for Standard.
Woo. Standard.
Yeah that didn't go well. I lost on camera, and the field seemed prepared for Esper Dragons. But enough of boring formats; I wasn't that sad to lose. We obviously went out for drinks again, this time at a tasty cocktail place. Who needs sleep to play storm? Whiskey will do just fine.
8 AM rolled around, and I groggily rolled out of bed. Time to battle with this beauty:
http://i.imgur.com/HI0nmMBl.jpg (http://imgur.com/HI0nmMB)
http://i.imgur.com/hUaeJLml.jpg (http://imgur.com/hUaeJLm)
http://i.imgur.com/BpO4ARDl.jpg (http://imgur.com/BpO4ARD)
http://i.imgur.com/Z8Mu5HNl.jpg (http://imgur.com/Z8Mu5HN)
http://i.imgur.com/QNcqcmxl.jpg (http://imgur.com/QNcqcmx)
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Past in Flames
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
// Sideboard
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
1 Surgical Extraction
R1 - Infect 2-0
This guy seemed pretty soft. Game 1, he tanked and then Dazed my turn 1 Preordain with a Glistener Elf in play, and snap-Stifled every fetch. That last one cost him when I used it as bait to get the last blue card despite Force out of his hand and went off. Game 2 I just went off faster. Nice combo deck.
R2 - Burn 2-0
Holy hell she loved pink. Bright, violent pink on her playmat, deckbox, sleeves, dice, sweater, even fingernails. She was friendly and pleasant to play against though. Game 1 I got lulled into overconfidence by misogynistic biases, and didn't respect the turn 1 Grim Lavamancer on the play. I Preordained setting up for next turn instead of aggressively looking for a Therapy, and she punished me by cheerfully dropping that hateful enchantment bear into play. Not to worry! I had exactly enough life and mana to Tendrils for lethal, with me at 2. Past in Flames and Tendrils costing 4 has never been better! Game 2 I #yolod turn 1 into an unknown hand despite her posturing as if she had a Mindbreak Trap. Definitely calling that bluff every time. She had an Eidolon next turn, but instead she got to play 3 turns and 1 minute of magic.
R3 - UWR Delver (ESG) 2-0
This was a brutal match for ESG, which is too bad because he had an interesting list. I saw Delver, Pyromancer, Myth Realized, and maindeck Mogg Salvage. He mulliganned both games. In the first I Therapied Delver instead of his two Dazes, but those Dazes delayed me a fair bit. I should have just taken them. Won at a healthy life total though a Force. Next game he had Bolts and Canonist. I had the Decay and won from there.
R4 - Reanimator 2-1
Game 1 was a nail-biter. I thought he was on D&T because I thought I saw a white card while he was shuffling, and he looked like that kind of player. My Preordain set up for a kill next turn instead of looking for disruption. He played Hapless Research. Oops. I Brainstormed and Pondered to find disruption, but instead all I found was a lot of mana and the tutor. Eh. #yolo. Petal, Ritual, Ritual, LED, LED, Tutor? Ok. Past in Flames? Crack Researcher, Ok. Got there! Game 2 my Ponder whiffed and left me with a Therapy for disruption with no hand information and some mana, hoping to find a tutor or discard. He Pondered and kept, so I figured time was right to fire off the Therapy on Entomb. It was the top card :frown: Game 3 he t0'd Gemstone Cavern and Entombed in my upkeep. I Pondered into Duress and played it off Petal, taking his Reanimate in a hand with Ponder and Swamp. He played Swamp and passed, interesting. I drew and Brainstormed, bricking on land. Oh well. Lotus Petal, Xantid Swarm? Resolves. Hmm. Lotus Petal, Duress? Take Ponder, seeing Force of Will. That left him ripping off the top while I had Swarm in play, and I got there first off of Tutor for Ad Naus. This was the only game in the entire tournament where I resolved Ad Nauseam.
R5 - Elves 2-0
He mulliganed into an unexciting 6 and I killed him quickly. Game 2 he whiffed on a blind Therapy for Dark Ritual, and I set up for a kill on my turn 2. He played Visionary and flashbacked Therapy taking my Infernal Tutor, but I had another on top. Take that Danyul! Your Llanowar brother couldn't stand up to the mighty power of the swamp!
R6 - BURG Delver 2-0
Table 1 could double-draw in, but I got paired against a 13-pointer (he got an unintentional draw round 1). We knew each other and my lifetime against him is like 4-0, so I offered the draw regardless. He declined since he knew the matchup, not a wise choice :tongue: Game 1 he mulliganned to a mediocre 6 and I killed him through a Deathrite Shaman with a sweet line. I had 5 cards in graveyard, Lotus Petal x2 and LED in play, Cabal Ritual, Grim Tutor in hand, 3 black floating and 2 lands untapped. Obviously I could play Cabal Ritual and sac the Petals, but Deathrite would take me off threshold. I got to use the cool trick of play Grim Tutor, hold priority, play Cabal Ritual, hold priority, crack LED and Petals. I tutor chained from there. Game 2 I got down a Xantid Swarm against a Delver. His Delver flipped, and he swung in. "You're attacking?!" I asked. He played Deathrite and tried to block with it when I swung in on my turn. Nope. "Might want to leave that Delver on D," I commented. He did. So while I was doing nothing waiting to draw a tutor or a cantrip at least, he was holding back with Delver and draining me with Deathrite. Deal. It bought me enough time to get the kill.
R7 - ID
Going into the top 8, my game win percentage was 92%, not bad.
Quarters - ANT 2-1
I had the play, pretty crucial. I had the maindeck Top in play, but bricked on lands and tutors while he was merrily cantripping away. He won, not good. My board is good for the matchup though: +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Ad Naus, -1 Swamp, -1 Past in Flames, -2 Preordain. Grindfest. I had a quick kill game 2 while he cantripped, and then game 3 I was pretty far behind, but topdecked 2 Flusterstorms and a Surgical. He stripped one Fluster, didn't know about the second (or Surgical) when he tried to go off, and I wrecked him. Took a couple of turns to finish the job, but the game was over.
Semis - Miracles (Joe) 1-2
This is a frustrating match for me, especially as I think more about the plays I made. I think I could have 2-0'd, but made mistakes. I'd like to go into detail about the games, so any people who get bored by storm players wanking themselves with lines, mana, and storm count should skip this section.
Game 1 - I'm on the play and keep a good hand: Probe, Delta, Dark Rit, LED, Lotus Petal, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Therapy. Probe saw Snare, Pyroblast, StP, a couple lands, but no Counterbalance or Force. LED was the draw. I immediately realized it's a turn 1 kill, but I needed to figure out the line. I tanked for a minute counting if I could do a tutor chain, and Joe made impatient gestures and asked me to do something. I recounted my line (I've miscounted tutor chains twice before in high-pressure situations - something about it doesn't click for me), and the judge prompted me to make a play. It's a reasonable request, I had tanked for 2 or 3 minutes at this point, but I was a little rattled. Fine. Land, Petal, Dark Rit, Therapy you, LED, LED, Infernal Tutor, crack for 6 black. Oh crap, I'm 1 storm or 2 mana short of the tutor chain for lethal. Alright, Past in Flames? I played it and realized I would only have 5 mana after flashing back Dark Rit, shouldn't have played that Cabal Therapy. Alright, Tutor for Tendrils, hope a flashbacked Gitaxian Probe finds a +1. I flipped Cabal Ritual off the top and killed him! He was understandably a little upset. Poor play gets rewarded!
-1 LP, -1 CR, -1 CT, -1 Duress, -1 Swamp, -1 Grim, -2 Preordain, +1 Top, +2 Xantid Swarm, +3 Decay, +1 Krosan Grip, +1 Ad Naus
Games 2 and 3 are getting muddled in my memory and I threw away my notes (stupid me!). I need to take some time to recreate the game states in my mind. In summary, game 2 I shuffled away an Abrupt Decay and he ended up waiting to deploy Counterbalance until after he Cliqued away my Decay. I lost to Counterbalance and Clique beatdowns, although I had a shot to win when the top was a 3cmc except he had drawn a second Flusterstorm and Spell Snare in the 4 turns. Game 3 seemed like I had a good shot to win, but he topdecked a timely Counterspell for Ad Naus, and RiP sealed the deal.
Losing to Joe was a bittersweet end to the tournament. Let's just say he's a player that I would have felt especially happy about beating. Even more frustrating, Shawn (lordofthepit) conceded to Joe instead of avenging me. Joe said that he wanted the points, Shawn said all he cared about was the plaque. So Shawn offered a split and conceded instead of fighting. I had to walk away in disgust - what's the point of playing in a tournament if not to win it? Hopefully it's not for the money. For me, it's to see a #1 next to my name and a picture of me holding a trophy. Maybe he can explain his reasoning here. But in the meantime, the internet will see that the Legends build "beat" the Ponder build, and Joe notches another victory. Intriguingly, in the split discussions, Joe wanted to make very certain that was allowed because he had received an email from Jared Sylva that the points and the first place must go together - implying that Joe had similarly bought victory before.
My mood started improving once we got away from the venue, and by the time I got back to Seattle I was ready to celebrate with CML (congrats on the win!). He had played the entire 2-day tournament on mushrooms so he was a little out of it, but we still had ourselves a little party. Nothing is sweeter than hanging out with friends, winning, and celebrating success. It was a fine weekend.
Grim Tutor kill count: 4 or 5
Ad Nauseam kill count: 1
Past in Flames: infinite
Props:
* Kai for convincing me to try 2 Past in Flames with his success in Kyoto.
* CML for being the hero Magic deserves.
* Portland being cool
* Grim Tutor for being awful and ugly and exactly what the deck needs.
Slops:
* Miracles
* Sensei's Top making every round go 10 minutes past time.
* Shawn conceding the finals.
* Ad Nauseam. Because that card sucks (even if it won me a game).
First a little flavor of the trip. The guys I drove down from Seattle with met up at my place, delicious Caribbean sandwiches from Paseo in hand. Chowing down to a sandwich so stuffed with pork and dripping with juices that you can't eat it without a fork and knife ain't a bad way to start a trip. Once we made it to Portland, I certainly didn't waste time testing Standard despite only having a dozen or so games under my belt. No way. Rob and I went out to a club in old Portland where I learned that gin & tonic glows blue in a blacklight (quinine, an ingredient in tonic, is highly florescent). Some dance floor action later, we headed back to rest up for Standard.
Woo. Standard.
Yeah that didn't go well. I lost on camera, and the field seemed prepared for Esper Dragons. But enough of boring formats; I wasn't that sad to lose. We obviously went out for drinks again, this time at a tasty cocktail place. Who needs sleep to play storm? Whiskey will do just fine.
8 AM rolled around, and I groggily rolled out of bed. Time to battle with this beauty:
http://i.imgur.com/HI0nmMBl.jpg (http://imgur.com/HI0nmMB)
http://i.imgur.com/hUaeJLml.jpg (http://imgur.com/hUaeJLm)
http://i.imgur.com/BpO4ARDl.jpg (http://imgur.com/BpO4ARD)
http://i.imgur.com/Z8Mu5HNl.jpg (http://imgur.com/Z8Mu5HN)
http://i.imgur.com/QNcqcmxl.jpg (http://imgur.com/QNcqcmx)
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Past in Flames
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
// Sideboard
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
1 Surgical Extraction
R1 - Infect 2-0
This guy seemed pretty soft. Game 1, he tanked and then Dazed my turn 1 Preordain with a Glistener Elf in play, and snap-Stifled every fetch. That last one cost him when I used it as bait to get the last blue card despite Force out of his hand and went off. Game 2 I just went off faster. Nice combo deck.
R2 - Burn 2-0
Holy hell she loved pink. Bright, violent pink on her playmat, deckbox, sleeves, dice, sweater, even fingernails. She was friendly and pleasant to play against though. Game 1 I got lulled into overconfidence by misogynistic biases, and didn't respect the turn 1 Grim Lavamancer on the play. I Preordained setting up for next turn instead of aggressively looking for a Therapy, and she punished me by cheerfully dropping that hateful enchantment bear into play. Not to worry! I had exactly enough life and mana to Tendrils for lethal, with me at 2. Past in Flames and Tendrils costing 4 has never been better! Game 2 I #yolod turn 1 into an unknown hand despite her posturing as if she had a Mindbreak Trap. Definitely calling that bluff every time. She had an Eidolon next turn, but instead she got to play 3 turns and 1 minute of magic.
R3 - UWR Delver (ESG) 2-0
This was a brutal match for ESG, which is too bad because he had an interesting list. I saw Delver, Pyromancer, Myth Realized, and maindeck Mogg Salvage. He mulliganned both games. In the first I Therapied Delver instead of his two Dazes, but those Dazes delayed me a fair bit. I should have just taken them. Won at a healthy life total though a Force. Next game he had Bolts and Canonist. I had the Decay and won from there.
R4 - Reanimator 2-1
Game 1 was a nail-biter. I thought he was on D&T because I thought I saw a white card while he was shuffling, and he looked like that kind of player. My Preordain set up for a kill next turn instead of looking for disruption. He played Hapless Research. Oops. I Brainstormed and Pondered to find disruption, but instead all I found was a lot of mana and the tutor. Eh. #yolo. Petal, Ritual, Ritual, LED, LED, Tutor? Ok. Past in Flames? Crack Researcher, Ok. Got there! Game 2 my Ponder whiffed and left me with a Therapy for disruption with no hand information and some mana, hoping to find a tutor or discard. He Pondered and kept, so I figured time was right to fire off the Therapy on Entomb. It was the top card :frown: Game 3 he t0'd Gemstone Cavern and Entombed in my upkeep. I Pondered into Duress and played it off Petal, taking his Reanimate in a hand with Ponder and Swamp. He played Swamp and passed, interesting. I drew and Brainstormed, bricking on land. Oh well. Lotus Petal, Xantid Swarm? Resolves. Hmm. Lotus Petal, Duress? Take Ponder, seeing Force of Will. That left him ripping off the top while I had Swarm in play, and I got there first off of Tutor for Ad Naus. This was the only game in the entire tournament where I resolved Ad Nauseam.
R5 - Elves 2-0
He mulliganed into an unexciting 6 and I killed him quickly. Game 2 he whiffed on a blind Therapy for Dark Ritual, and I set up for a kill on my turn 2. He played Visionary and flashbacked Therapy taking my Infernal Tutor, but I had another on top. Take that Danyul! Your Llanowar brother couldn't stand up to the mighty power of the swamp!
R6 - BURG Delver 2-0
Table 1 could double-draw in, but I got paired against a 13-pointer (he got an unintentional draw round 1). We knew each other and my lifetime against him is like 4-0, so I offered the draw regardless. He declined since he knew the matchup, not a wise choice :tongue: Game 1 he mulliganned to a mediocre 6 and I killed him through a Deathrite Shaman with a sweet line. I had 5 cards in graveyard, Lotus Petal x2 and LED in play, Cabal Ritual, Grim Tutor in hand, 3 black floating and 2 lands untapped. Obviously I could play Cabal Ritual and sac the Petals, but Deathrite would take me off threshold. I got to use the cool trick of play Grim Tutor, hold priority, play Cabal Ritual, hold priority, crack LED and Petals. I tutor chained from there. Game 2 I got down a Xantid Swarm against a Delver. His Delver flipped, and he swung in. "You're attacking?!" I asked. He played Deathrite and tried to block with it when I swung in on my turn. Nope. "Might want to leave that Delver on D," I commented. He did. So while I was doing nothing waiting to draw a tutor or a cantrip at least, he was holding back with Delver and draining me with Deathrite. Deal. It bought me enough time to get the kill.
R7 - ID
Going into the top 8, my game win percentage was 92%, not bad.
Quarters - ANT 2-1
I had the play, pretty crucial. I had the maindeck Top in play, but bricked on lands and tutors while he was merrily cantripping away. He won, not good. My board is good for the matchup though: +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Ad Naus, -1 Swamp, -1 Past in Flames, -2 Preordain. Grindfest. I had a quick kill game 2 while he cantripped, and then game 3 I was pretty far behind, but topdecked 2 Flusterstorms and a Surgical. He stripped one Fluster, didn't know about the second (or Surgical) when he tried to go off, and I wrecked him. Took a couple of turns to finish the job, but the game was over.
Semis - Miracles (Joe) 1-2
This is a frustrating match for me, especially as I think more about the plays I made. I think I could have 2-0'd, but made mistakes. I'd like to go into detail about the games, so any people who get bored by storm players wanking themselves with lines, mana, and storm count should skip this section.
Game 1 - I'm on the play and keep a good hand: Probe, Delta, Dark Rit, LED, Lotus Petal, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Therapy. Probe saw Snare, Pyroblast, StP, a couple lands, but no Counterbalance or Force. LED was the draw. I immediately realized it's a turn 1 kill, but I needed to figure out the line. I tanked for a minute counting if I could do a tutor chain, and Joe made impatient gestures and asked me to do something. I recounted my line (I've miscounted tutor chains twice before in high-pressure situations - something about it doesn't click for me), and the judge prompted me to make a play. It's a reasonable request, I had tanked for 2 or 3 minutes at this point, but I was a little rattled. Fine. Land, Petal, Dark Rit, Therapy you, LED, LED, Infernal Tutor, crack for 6 black. Oh crap, I'm 1 storm or 2 mana short of the tutor chain for lethal. Alright, Past in Flames? I played it and realized I would only have 5 mana after flashing back Dark Rit, shouldn't have played that Cabal Therapy. Alright, Tutor for Tendrils, hope a flashbacked Gitaxian Probe finds a +1. I flipped Cabal Ritual off the top and killed him! He was understandably a little upset. Poor play gets rewarded!
-1 LP, -1 CR, -1 CT, -1 Duress, -1 Swamp, -1 Grim, -2 Preordain, +1 Top, +2 Xantid Swarm, +3 Decay, +1 Krosan Grip, +1 Ad Naus
Games 2 and 3 are getting muddled in my memory and I threw away my notes (stupid me!). I need to take some time to recreate the game states in my mind. In summary, game 2 I shuffled away an Abrupt Decay and he ended up waiting to deploy Counterbalance until after he Cliqued away my Decay. I lost to Counterbalance and Clique beatdowns, although I had a shot to win when the top was a 3cmc except he had drawn a second Flusterstorm and Spell Snare in the 4 turns. Game 3 seemed like I had a good shot to win, but he topdecked a timely Counterspell for Ad Naus, and RiP sealed the deal.
Losing to Joe was a bittersweet end to the tournament. Let's just say he's a player that I would have felt especially happy about beating. Even more frustrating, Shawn (lordofthepit) conceded to Joe instead of avenging me. Joe said that he wanted the points, Shawn said all he cared about was the plaque. So Shawn offered a split and conceded instead of fighting. I had to walk away in disgust - what's the point of playing in a tournament if not to win it? Hopefully it's not for the money. For me, it's to see a #1 next to my name and a picture of me holding a trophy. Maybe he can explain his reasoning here. But in the meantime, the internet will see that the Legends build "beat" the Ponder build, and Joe notches another victory. Intriguingly, in the split discussions, Joe wanted to make very certain that was allowed because he had received an email from Jared Sylva that the points and the first place must go together - implying that Joe had similarly bought victory before.
My mood started improving once we got away from the venue, and by the time I got back to Seattle I was ready to celebrate with CML (congrats on the win!). He had played the entire 2-day tournament on mushrooms so he was a little out of it, but we still had ourselves a little party. Nothing is sweeter than hanging out with friends, winning, and celebrating success. It was a fine weekend.
Grim Tutor kill count: 4 or 5
Ad Nauseam kill count: 1
Past in Flames: infinite
Props:
* Kai for convincing me to try 2 Past in Flames with his success in Kyoto.
* CML for being the hero Magic deserves.
* Portland being cool
* Grim Tutor for being awful and ugly and exactly what the deck needs.
Slops:
* Miracles
* Sensei's Top making every round go 10 minutes past time.
* Shawn conceding the finals.
* Ad Nauseam. Because that card sucks (even if it won me a game).