[Report] TAS: 1st/44 at Hadley for 4x Sea Drakes

[tivadar]

I was running Trinket Angel Stompy (lovingly referred to as Tas, also the name of my cat...). It's pretty much the deck I posted on N&D a while back, which was largely ignored :-P. I'm not arguing it's innovative, but it is rather good. Here's my list, sans sideboard, which is my own secret tech:

// Lands
1 Ancient Den
2 Island
3 Plains
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair

// Creatures
4 Exalted Angel
4 Meddling Mage
4 Silver Knight
3 Trinket Mage
3 Serendib Efreet

// Denial/Removal
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Cataclysm
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle

// Card Advantage/Selection
3 Brainstorm
1 Sensei's Divining Top

// Equipment
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Engineered Explosives is one of the best cards in the format right now. It removes chalices, tokens, and almost everything in Thresh. It does this efficiently to boot. I recommend Shane (Watcher) play these at the tournament, and he informed me afterwards that he boarded them in in every matchup. It really is just that good. Trinket Mage, especially in aggro strategies, fits really well, as he can be the reasonably well-costed creature you need, or tutor up the explosives or any number of other things. The deck worked well for me all day, and I think I only had to mulligan once or twice. Granted, I tend to be a little bold here (including keeping a hand against TES with Chalice, Chalice, Tomb and no other mana sources and no Top), but with 22 lands and BS/Top, the deck tends to be pretty consistent that way.

Matchups (more to come here, details of the matches)

Regular Rounds (4-1-1):
Random GB badness: W 2-0
UG Madness (FN Bryan): W 2-0
Solidarity: L 1-2
CRET Belcher (Peter Rotten): W 2-0
TES: W 2-0
Relic Orb (BossOfTheGame): Draw

Finals (5th going in, 3-0):
Sui Black (The Coming Curse): W 2-0
Relic Orb (BossOfTheGame): W 2-0
BRU Affinity: W 2-1

Basically, I almost beat solidarity, had it down to 2 with chalice @ 1 out but he got echoing and went off. I got somewhat lucky against Relic Orb, we had played a test game during the draw into T8, where he whooped me. Control matchups tend to be fairly bad for me, but I can do the aggro role, and I did, and I also knew what to name with mage at that point thanks to the test. I made ETW cry by explosiving its ass two games in a row first matchup, and then explosiving it the first game, and the second game hitting chalice for 1, 2, and 3. And finally, I beat affinity, partially because of a play mistake, though I had made a smaller one game 1 as well (not topping with a mana open at end of turn and thereby getting the mana I needed for equipment), he sacced all his artifacts to ravager G2 in response to a cataclysm. Sadly, he didn't do this one at a time, so I just removed a counter from jitte to kill it (called Kevin over just to make sure, but yeah). Game 3 I drew into 3 Pariahs, secret sideboard tech against them, goblins, and FS. It's basically a fog and a creature kill packed into one card against Affinity, which they don't tend to like.

EDIT: Sorry, was actually copying from another thread (the tourney thread) and didn't want to open two browsers. I suppose that's what I get for beating P_R in a round at the tourney :-P. I lost my edits because I tried to submit them to a locked thread. Adding them again.

[aTn]

Cool deck ! I was actually thinking of building such a deck (like many other people I guess). Did you test with Chrome Mox ? It might be good to fix your mana and to go turn one Trinket to fetch EE (against combo).

[tivadar]

Actually the list originally had -1 City of Traitors, -1 Ancient Den, +2 Chrome Mox. I basically found it far too situational. It's only good in your opening hand, and even then, only against about half the decks out there. You lose a bit of speed, but you still have FoW to prevent early wins...

[Bardo]

Oh man, this deck looks cool.

Did you ever once Trinket for the Den? Seems like it wouldn't come up often...

Also, where's the sideboard?

[KillemallCFH]

@Bardo
Here's my list, sans sideboard, which is my own secret tech:

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

This deck reminds me ALOT of Phil Stolze's (LegacyPlayer0) BruisedWeenie.dec list. For those of you who can't remember, it was the list he ran at GP Philly that piloted him to top 16. OBV. this list doesn't run black, but the general idea is similar. I like it!

[ForceofWill]

I find it funny that you didn't play against the most popular deck in the tourny even once. I also find it funny you play the same type of deck every tourny and either 0-2 drop or win.

[scrumdogg]

I find it funny that you didn't play against the most popular deck in the tourny even once. I also find it funny you play the same type of deck every tourny and either 0-2 drop or win.

To be fair, I think his Goblin matchup (from playing a similar deck before & observing tivadar at previous tournaments) is quite decent. As for the record, it's perfection (at opposite spectrums, admittedly) how can you want more than perfection?!? :tongue:

[tivadar]

Did you ever once Trinket for the Den? Seems like it wouldn't come up often...


Den is also good as an artifact to survive Cataclysm, just to note that, and this has come up often enough. I had one matchup against TES where I had an opening hand with Tomb, double Chalice, and no other land. I decided to keep it. I drew into an island and played Mage to fetch den to give me the mana for meddling mage and another chalice @ 2, so yes, I have used it for Den, though it does tend to be pretty rare.


I also find it funny you play the same type of deck every tourny and either 0-2 drop or win.

Well, in all fairness, I have NEVER gone 0-2 drop. However, for whatever reason, I either miss out on top 8 completely or take first place :-P. There have been MANY situations where the missing out on top 8 has been due to one (my last) matchup, however. I'm going to attribute this style of record partially to the fact that my good matchups are against popular decks, which you see more of in T8 anyways. I'll attribute the other part of it entirely to luck :-P.


To be fair, I think his Goblin matchup (from playing a similar deck before & observing tivadar at previous tournaments) is quite decent.

My goblins matchup is quite decent. I haven't tested since I took the 2x Chrome Mox out, but before that I know it was about 50/50 pre-board when they were on play, and went up to 60/40 or 70/30 pre-board when they weren't. I mean, come on, this is close enough to Angel Stompy where the Goblins matchup BETTER be good. Cataclysm is a house, as is the equipment. Post-board, you get things like stifle and whatever creature hate I decide to be playing that day (would have been pariah this one). Typically, this is enough for the win, especially if they don't board anarchy.


This deck reminds me ALOT of Phil Stolze's (LegacyPlayer0) BruisedWeenie.dec list. For those of you who can't remember, it was the list he ran at GP Philly that piloted him to top 16. OBV. this list doesn't run black, but the general idea is similar. I like it!

I actually played this deck at GP: Philly as well, though there were quite a few differences from its current form. Phil and I have gone back and forth about what should be in it (in the original Wu Angel Stompy build) as have Godzilla and I. Years of tuning really :-P. Running one less color gives you access to a bit less, but it has two advantages as well. First, it makes the manabase far less fragile. Second, it opens up things for FoW. Given the current meta, the second one of these can be quite big. Phil's list definitely didn't run the blue cards to support FoW. However, his build is really good as well. Phil's build is still up in the Open forum and can be found if you search for 3cas (3 color angel stompy).

[aTn]

Does your SB include Counterbalance (and a couple of Tops) ? I don't know in what match-ups this could be good (considering the range and frequency of different casting costs in your deck), but I'd test it.

I've tested a similar deck a while back and dropped it because it was inconsistent. Did you ever think this ?

Did you ever find yourself wanting to relegate the SoFIs to the SB to enlarge your trinket toolbox or whatnot ?

[tivadar]

The deck is built to support WW and U, it can't handle supporting UU on a regular basis (though it does reasonably often enough, I've hardcast force of will on numerous occassions). This makes counterbalance somewhat of a risk. I'd never add Top to the board, it just seems bad to have a card to support another board card in the board...

As for counterbalance in the board, I think that Chalice is a more obvious choice. It does nearly the same thing against a lot of decks, except it's faster, less color-intensive, and a bit more proactive. It's also fetchable with Trinket, which is a big plus. Counterbalance is too slow against TES/CRET Belcher in most cases, Chalice is not.

I rarely find 2 colors inconsistent, especially friend colors. This is assuming you're talking about the manabase. Trinket Mage has plenty of targets and is never short of something relevant, so I don't see an issue here. Plus, you want to be drawing your threats, so I try to keep a minimum of mage targets, especially when some of them may be useless in certain matchups. Explosives is a bit of an exception to this, but it's just so good against a lot of decks. As for the SOFI comment, I'll phrase my answer this way: "No, I've never wanted to make this more of a control deck".