diffy
09-03-2007, 03:06 PM
How to nearly top8 a Legacy Champs… a tournament report by Clemens Wolff
As you might have noticed, Germany has just held its Legacy Champs for 2007 as a follow up to the German Nationals.
As a friend of mine had qualified for Nats, we decided to drive the approximately 140 kilometers up to Aschaffenburg, up to the location of a crazy 4 days of Magic… In the car: Tobias Schein who had qualified, Florian Scholz, Peter Hauck and me, Clemens Wolff.
There’s not much to say for the period from Thursday to Saturday as beside of my horrible scrub out with Idiot Life in the Type 2 grinders (0-1 drop), Tobias’s even more horrible performance at Nats (3-1 and 2-2 in draft; 1-3 and 0-2 in constructed before drop) and the general scrub out of my people in the PTQ for Valencia, not a lot happened… some trading here, some trading there and some fun time were really only the preliminaries to the event I really looked forward to: the German Legacy Champs 2007 which were to be held on Sunday.
Come the day, I hadn’t really yet figured what to play and as I borrowed my Gbw Survival build to another Friend, the choice was to be made between Ugw Threshold with mainboard Counterbalance and UWb Landstill with Cunning Wish Tech… both very potent decks with which I am quite familiar with.
Driving down to the location, I had a bad feeling as I still hadn’t mentally prepared myself for what to play and consulted Marius Hausmann (regged as Wasteland), a well known Landstill pro, in a last minute action… he told me obviously to play Landstill.
Two minutes later, I was seated and handed in my decklist for UWb Landstill and all of the bad feeling was gone as I expected a huge amount of Threshold and Belcher, both Matchups which from my extensive testing are nearly unlosable for my list.
Here is what I handed in:
UW Cunning Landstill by Clemens Wolff, influenced by Geoff Smelski
Mainboard (60 cards)
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland
2 Eternal Dragon
3 Decree of Justice
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction
Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Disenchant
3 Extirpate
2 Humility
3 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
Decklist collected, I awaited the upcoming 8 rounds of Legacy with possible top8 play out just like the other 175 players who had signed up… as an aside, more people had signed up for the Legacy Champs as for any other event of the past 4 days, the last PTQ for Valencia and the German Nationals included.
I’ll just keep the following report of the single rounds as detailed as possible and in a round per round schemata.
Round 1 vs. Mario Pagliosa with GRb Loam Control
Looking onto the pairings for round 1, I couldn’t believe that I was paired against a local directly in the first round… and not against any one local but against the one known to always play Loam Control… which always is a nightmare Matchup for Landstill even if with my recent addition of Extirpate and a way to access it in game 1.
We both sit down and talk a bit about how unlucky we are to both face another local in the first round meaning that the looser will have his back to the wall from Round 1 on because you’d have to have a 6-1-1 record or better to make it into the top8.
He wins the die roll and leads with Land, Mox Diamond, Exploration which I force and go. I only play a land and say go. In the next couple of turns, nothing really happens besides me condemning an Undead Gladiator to do some agricultural duty and countering a second turn Burning Wish. He gets his Life from the Loam engine going and pings me with Barbarian Ring down to 15 until I find a Cunning Wish with 3 Lands in play. As I only have one black Mana source in play, I Force of Will his Loam because he has some Wasteland action going and pray that he doesn’t have another one in hand… he doesn’t and I Wish for an Extirpate at the End of his Turn and Extirpate his Loam in my following Main phase… I’m happy as I think that I have already won this game but he top decks an Eternal Witness and gets his Burning Wish back and the entire craze starts again… He tries to win through Barbarian Ring recursion and gets me down to 3 lives at which point I find another Cunning Wish which removes his Barbarian Ring leaving him with 3 cards in his library and about 8 in mine at the time. He has a land, a Seismic assault and a Cabal Therapy left in his Library and I hold onto an Eternal Dragon, a Decree of Justice, a Counterspell and some irrelevant cards. I have a Force of Will, a Cunning Wish and 3 draw spells left in my library. He draws a card passes. I draw a card and pass. He draws a card and plays a Cabal Therapy naming Counterspell which he hits. At his end of turn I cycle a Decree of Justice for 0 token and Strip the last Land out of my Library with my Dragon. I smash my hand down onto my Library and announce a Force of Will… I reveal the top card of my Library. Blue. Instant. 3UU. Game.
To be fair, my outs were like more than 50 percent to draw a Counter or the remaining Cunning Wish for Extirpate in my last possible draw.
1:0
As we look onto the time, we see that time is just to be announced and so we decided to take a break for the remaining 3 minutes or so before the beginning of the next round… judges were really tight on their schedule this tournament.
1:0 in Games
1-0-0 in Matches
Round 2 vs. Sven Langensieder with Mono Red Burn
As we shuffle up he counts his library and tells me that he has 61 cards in his deck and only 14 in his sideboard. I suggest calling a judge which I immediately do. He gets a game loss for presenting an illegal deck and we’re on to game 2. I saw the card missing in his sideboard: a Grim Lavamancer and mentally prepare to either face a Sleigh or a Burn build.
1:0
In the first rounds of our first game I’m on the play and he doesn’t really do much except for playing lands after lands till I land a hardcast Eternal Dragon and proceed to bash him down to 12 lives (he played fetchlands in his version) when he starts to burn me down to 11. I then Force of Will a lethal Price of Progress and Wish for a Pulse of the Fields at his End of Turn. In response to some of his Burn spell, I decide to play it safe and cast my Pulse despite the possibility of him burning himself in response but he taps 3 and casts a Flames of the Blood hand in response to my Pulse and so we’re on to game 3.
1:1
-4 Wrath of God
-3 Engineered Explosives
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Extirpate
In this deciding game he gets a slow start and I extirpate two of his burn spells and lay down a Decree of Justice for 4 tokens and proceed to put him down to 3 when he casts a Price of Progress which I Force. He Forks his Price, I Force, He Forks his Price, I Force and that’s game.
2:1
3:1 in Games
2-0-0 in Matches
Round 3 vs. Christian Geißzler with EPIC Storm
I’m on the play again against my next opponent and play several land and watch him do nothing except playing 2 Lotus Petals and Brainstorms until he finds his third petal which he cracks to cast a Dark Ritual into Duress which I counter… he passes and scoops shortly after to Mana burn and double Factory beat down.
1:0
-4 Wrath of God
-3 Cunning Wish
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Fact or Fiction
-1 Eternal Dragon
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Engineered Plague
+3 Extirpate
I didn’t really have any clue of what he was playing except for some general direction of Tendrils of Agony based Storm Combo until he leads in his second game with City of Brass into Brainstorm into Chrome Mox when it became clear that he played EPIC Storm. He casts a massive Empty the Warrens for 12 tokens on his second turn but I have the Plague. He attempts to combo again via Diminishing Return but fizzles as he hasn’t got any Mana left. Jokingly I ask him if I can mulligan after drawing a Hand of no Force from his Returns but he doesn’t seem to get it and is pretty stressed at that point of the game.
On my next turn I cast the 2 Meddling Mages I drew of Returns, one naming Tendrils of Agony, the other Chanting Burning Wish… he concedes shortly after.
2:0
5:1 in Games
3-0-0 in Matches
Round 4 vs. Daniel Reiprich with Ugw Threshold weirdly built
After shuffling, I’m on the play and get a one Lander and ship it back trash talking about how that hand is too weak, can’t produce 12 Goblins tokens on turn 1 and stuff. My second hand is another one Lander which gets sent back. My third hand has no lands but a Brainstorm and a Force. I decide to keep as my odds to draw a land in the upcoming turns are like 40 percent.
He didn’t catch on my trash talking saying that he saw a Tundra while shuffling but pales after me not playing a land and saying go.
He leads with Tropical, Mongoose go. I get the land and see another one and a Standstill off my Brainstorm but his creature heavy draw and 7 hand cards are clearly better than my 5 and I get beaten after removing 6 of his creatures… beaten by a Berserked Mystic Enforcer… what the Hell was that kid smoking while including Berserk into his Threshold list?
0:1
-2 Cunning Wish
+2 Humility
In game 2 I show him how much of an Auto Win Threshold is for Landstill by killing off all of his creatures and totally dominating the board, drawing a shit ton of cards and slowly killing him with double Mishra’s Factory.
1:1
I am furious to have had so bad draws in the first game because time is called as we shuffle up for the 3rd game… drawing an excellent Matchup is like nothing good especially if that puts one into a fragile situation regarding the top8.
6:2 in Games
3-0-1 in Matches
Round 5 vs. Patrick Richter with Ubgw Landstill with Enlightened Tutor and Crucible of Worlds
I played this round against the person with the highest Eternal rating in Germany (https://webapp.wizards.com/ratings.aspx?Demographic=%C2%A0&Demographic=3%7C82&Demographic=%C2%A0&Demographic=%C2%A0&Page=1&action=Search&BrandRatedSeasons=4&ratingseasonid=4) as I was told after the round… I really doubt he still is the number one because he should have lost about 42 points (the entire K-Value) from his 1959 by the time the tournament is recorded because I have just 11 events in my Eternal career and therefore at the time of the event only 1755 points of rating which should have increased dramatically just now.
Anyways, back to the report.
As we shuffle up I talk a little about how the MetaGame is retardedly saturated in Threshold and Belcher decks which compose like 60 percent of the field and he tells me that he doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking off as he’s a Vintage player and nothing else. As he leads with Underground Sea into End of Turn Brainstorm I put him onto Hanni Fish because that deck can somehow be ported into Legacy from Vintage but I am terribly proven wrong after he landed down a Mishra’s Factory, Nantuko Monastery and 2 Fact or Fictions… a Landstill mirror… how boring… nothing to raise my mood and to blow away my sleepiness caused by a severe lack of sleep in the last days (like 4-6 hours a day aren’t even close to enough if you’re used to sleeping 10-11 hours a day).
He have a fight over some Fact or Fictions and he eventually resolves a Crucible of Worlds which puts him into a very good position until I get to waste his Factory and Extirpate it. We then play draw go for a very long time and he eventually puts me down to 5 lives via Monastery beat down until we realize that he only has 6 cards left in his library and I have about the double. He then proceeds to brain about how he can deck me best with his 3 remaining Standstills and Marius Hausmann who came over to watch the match because he was out of content advised me to call a judge to look over the match for stalling / slow play which I then immediately proceed to do. When time is called, my opponent drops down a Standstill and we have a fight over who has to draw the cards which I win. Patrick decks in the last of the extra turns.
1:0
7:2 in Games
4-0-1 in Matches
Round 6 vs. Christian Hoettgen with Gbw RecSur
With the last round being a Landstill mirror and myself getting more and more sleepy, I’ll blame my horrible performance in these matches on my lack of concentration and sleep.
You can see this guy’s decklist here (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10646) as he made top8.
Anyways, there’s nothing much to say about this round except for that I Cunning Wished 3 times (Pulse of the Fields, Extirpate, Extirpate) and made one misplay by not Extirpating his Kokusho which slowly drained away my life due to Recurring Nightmare action… but it’s only fair to say that I didn’t draw a counter all day long and that he was extremely lucky by always ripping a creature off the top after I cleared his board after him horribly playing his recursion (like not playing safe and getting another Creature off Eternal Witness and such)… as an aside, I didn’t draw a single counter/card draw to handle his one off Recurring Nightmare. What a suck out.
0:1
-3 Cunning Wish
-2 Wrath of God
+2 Humility
+3 Extirpate
Time gets called after our second turn.
7:3 in Games
4-1-1 in Matches
Round 7 vs. Thorsten Gerstmayer with Ugwr Threshold
I had playtested with this guy the day before the tournament and really slaughtered his rather unorthodox built of 4 color Grow with 2 Mainboard Isochron Scepters and Accumulated Knowledge… I go very confidently into this Matchup.
In the first game, I eventually remove two of his Nimble Mongooses which put me down to 5 lives and he proceeds to lay down a Scepter which I Force. He plays another one which I Force again but he has the Daze, imprints a Lightning Bolt and passes. At his End of Turn he Bolts me, untaps and Bolts me for the Win.
0:1
-2 Cunning Wish
+2 Humility
Game 2 went just like every Game against Grow should… He plays some Dorks, I draw cards. He plays some more Dorks and I draw more cards. He plays even more Dorks because I stall him with Decree of Justice Tokens and I Wrath away his board.
At one point he played an Armageddon which we have a counter war over which I win. The next turn exactly the same situation occurs again… odd seeing as how he only had 2 Geddons in his Board.
After one of Thorstens comrades coming along telling him that he should hurry a little because they wanted to start the drive home, he concedes to me without remorse because he had the same view of the Matchup as I had: that it was an auto win for the Landstill player. He wishes me all the best for the last round.
2:1
9:4 in Games
5-1-1 in Matches
Round 8 vs. Christian Schaefer with Agro Lands! Splashed black
This last round of the Swiss was an official feature Match… I’ll post a link to the coverage as soon as it goes online.
Walking down to the feature Match area, I have a bad feeling because I have to win this round in order to top8… I sit down as does Christian, who is another local but I don’t have any remorse playing him out of the top8 as he is a rather odd guy with very bad habits and a lot of nerdy views like judging people on their deck choice… really, this guy hasn’t yet forgiven me that I slaughtered his crappy Ub Landstill deck with Darksteel Colossus tech (‘He wins every control mirror because you don’t deck yourself and if you get to hardcast it he’s an auto win’ end of quotation) in the last local tournament playing Ugw Balanced Grow… he’s still like insulting me all the time and such that I was only a lame Threshold player and should rot in hell and such Bla. In short, he really deserves his nickname of ‘HuSo’ which is the German abbreviation of something you could pretty neatly translate as ‘Son of a Bitch’.
Anyways, after sitting down, I win the die roll and lead with a fairly nice hand of Standstill, Force and Mishra’s Factory amongst others. I Force of Will his 1st Turn Exploration and pluck down a Standstill which he comments with that he can’t be bothered by such suck because he has more ManLands than I… he was right and I eventually had to break my own Standstill in order to remove an attacking Nantuko Monastery… I really didn’t see that coming as the first turn Exploration of a Bayou really pointed towards the Loam Control part of the deck spectrum. I get overrun shortly after.
0:1
-4 Wrath of God
-1 Standstill
-1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Extirpate
+4 Meddling Mage
In game two he leads with a turn 0 Leyline of the Void… oh noes! That shuts down my imba Eternal Dragon recursion!
There’s not really much to say about this game except for that I played way more aggressively than in the first match because I though of this Matchup as a sure auto loss even more so than any other Life from the Loam deck because he can actually go agro.
The Match boiled down to me casting Extirpate 6 times and going all in with Eternal Dragon and several Mages (chanting Life from the Loam and Eternal Witness respectively) to race his Maze of Iths.
1:1
In game 3 my only relevant plays are a Meddling Mage on Life from the Loam and me cycling Decree of Justice for 4 tokens before I get overrun by ManLand beat down… I didn’t see a single removal spell all Round long.
1:2
10:6 in Games
5-2-1 in Matches
I’m pretty furious about how HuSo could luck himself all the way through a field of Belcher and IggyPop to put me out of content for the top8 in the final round.
What a major suck out.
The other local playing NarcoBridge who was in content up until now had another suck out too. We go and kill off a bottle of Coke together still grim but joking to forget the bitter taste of the last round drop out… if only Stefan would have played against my opponent he would have been top8 and I would have been paired up to one of the 19+ pointers which could have just conceded to put me into top8…
I ended up coming in 20th just ahead of the Ichorid player and got a grand total of 4 boosters for my near top8 finish… the final standings after the 8th round of Swiss can be found here (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3118&typ=2&action=comments).
Notice how places 2, 9, 11, 17, 20 and 21 are all locals and how places 20 and 21 were in content up till the last possible round.
Tim was playing a 2 Land Belcher list I created and lucked himself all the way into the top8 despite being the worst player of all locals who went to the event… that’s how you do it I believe and like not play a single time against a bad Matchup (Landstill and Threshold were like 50 to 60 percent of the field) until the very top8 where Tim scrubbed out in the first round.
Harrald Herrlich was playing an Ugwb Countersliver build but was out of content from 6th round on.
Marius S. Laber was playing an Rgb Vial Goblins list with Mainboard Cabal Therapies and Stingscourgers.
Stefan Czolk was playing your standard Ichorid Combo list.
After all I got the grand total of 4 boosters (Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Tenth Edition) as prize and opened up a Deep Sea Kraken, a Porphyry Nodes and a Benalish Commander, a Tombstalker and an Abundance… crap deluxe.
Retrospectively, I’d want to share a few impressions concerning UWb Cunning Landstill I gathered from this Tournament (Tournament play is like a bazillion times better evidence than testing from my opinion):
- You desperately want a removal spell in your Wishboard… probably Ghastly Demise or Condemn
- Fact or Fiction is way to slow to warrant a slot in the Wishboard
- Extirpate is ridiculously good
- I didn’t need a Crucible of Worlds all day long except against Life from the Loam based decks… A single CoW or two would have probably won me that last round
- The deck’s amazing as it is but is really unforgiving and exhausting to play
- You’d probably want to look into Vedalken Shackles as an alternative removal spell… it apparently worked for the top8er (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10647) and is a frightening source of renewable pin point removal for Tarmogoyf et all
Without further testing I’ll make this change to the Sideboard:
-1 Fact or Fiction
+1 Ghastly Demise
Someone will have to do some further investigation and testing into how to include Vedalken Shackles into this Landstill version as I’ve just had my last day of summer holidays and am off for a full next year pf 38 hours of class a week.
As an ending, here’re some useful links concerning the event:
Top8 lists in no particular order (http://www.germagic.de/dc/print.php?event=German+Legacy+Open+2007)
Bracket of top8 play out (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3117&typ=2&action=comments)
Live coverage of the German Nationals (unfortunately in German) // Legacy seccion still has to be added (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3018&typ=2&action=comments)
And I guess these can’t be missing on the end of any report…
Props:
-for UWb Cunning Landstill (and Geoff Smelski)
-for me having the best result in our car
-Tim Rogait for making top8... gogogo Tim! After all that playtesting and coaching I did with him served some purpose
Flops:
-for me making a single play mistake against the RecSur opponent costing me top8... how comes I'm punished for play mistakes and some other people arn't?
-for Tim Rogait lucking himself all the way into top8… Fuck that... he really is the worst player and makes the biggest mistakes but still goes undefeated in the Swiss with something that felt like 85 percent of first turn kill rates and a grant total of 2 (!) mulligans... the divinities must have apreciated him giving that Type1 player's folder (1000+ € in cards) he found back before the tourney...
-for Christian Schaefer for being paired against a good Matchup rather than against the Ichorid player
-for whoever invented 'lack of sleep' and 'mental and physical exhaustion'
-for me having a lack of luck
So far... thanks for having read my report... I hope it was legible
Just tell me if you'd want some more detail one some specific play/round/choice/whatsoever.
As an aside, the entire thingy about luck and such might sound incredibly grief, but I just can't cope with horrible players making better show offs than rather decent players... I just can't stand good plays being punshed into the face each friggin' time... I just can't stand decent players being draconianly punished for flaws in their play and bad players being rewarded with topdecks... understandable isn't it?
As you might have noticed, Germany has just held its Legacy Champs for 2007 as a follow up to the German Nationals.
As a friend of mine had qualified for Nats, we decided to drive the approximately 140 kilometers up to Aschaffenburg, up to the location of a crazy 4 days of Magic… In the car: Tobias Schein who had qualified, Florian Scholz, Peter Hauck and me, Clemens Wolff.
There’s not much to say for the period from Thursday to Saturday as beside of my horrible scrub out with Idiot Life in the Type 2 grinders (0-1 drop), Tobias’s even more horrible performance at Nats (3-1 and 2-2 in draft; 1-3 and 0-2 in constructed before drop) and the general scrub out of my people in the PTQ for Valencia, not a lot happened… some trading here, some trading there and some fun time were really only the preliminaries to the event I really looked forward to: the German Legacy Champs 2007 which were to be held on Sunday.
Come the day, I hadn’t really yet figured what to play and as I borrowed my Gbw Survival build to another Friend, the choice was to be made between Ugw Threshold with mainboard Counterbalance and UWb Landstill with Cunning Wish Tech… both very potent decks with which I am quite familiar with.
Driving down to the location, I had a bad feeling as I still hadn’t mentally prepared myself for what to play and consulted Marius Hausmann (regged as Wasteland), a well known Landstill pro, in a last minute action… he told me obviously to play Landstill.
Two minutes later, I was seated and handed in my decklist for UWb Landstill and all of the bad feeling was gone as I expected a huge amount of Threshold and Belcher, both Matchups which from my extensive testing are nearly unlosable for my list.
Here is what I handed in:
UW Cunning Landstill by Clemens Wolff, influenced by Geoff Smelski
Mainboard (60 cards)
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland
2 Eternal Dragon
3 Decree of Justice
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction
Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Disenchant
3 Extirpate
2 Humility
3 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
Decklist collected, I awaited the upcoming 8 rounds of Legacy with possible top8 play out just like the other 175 players who had signed up… as an aside, more people had signed up for the Legacy Champs as for any other event of the past 4 days, the last PTQ for Valencia and the German Nationals included.
I’ll just keep the following report of the single rounds as detailed as possible and in a round per round schemata.
Round 1 vs. Mario Pagliosa with GRb Loam Control
Looking onto the pairings for round 1, I couldn’t believe that I was paired against a local directly in the first round… and not against any one local but against the one known to always play Loam Control… which always is a nightmare Matchup for Landstill even if with my recent addition of Extirpate and a way to access it in game 1.
We both sit down and talk a bit about how unlucky we are to both face another local in the first round meaning that the looser will have his back to the wall from Round 1 on because you’d have to have a 6-1-1 record or better to make it into the top8.
He wins the die roll and leads with Land, Mox Diamond, Exploration which I force and go. I only play a land and say go. In the next couple of turns, nothing really happens besides me condemning an Undead Gladiator to do some agricultural duty and countering a second turn Burning Wish. He gets his Life from the Loam engine going and pings me with Barbarian Ring down to 15 until I find a Cunning Wish with 3 Lands in play. As I only have one black Mana source in play, I Force of Will his Loam because he has some Wasteland action going and pray that he doesn’t have another one in hand… he doesn’t and I Wish for an Extirpate at the End of his Turn and Extirpate his Loam in my following Main phase… I’m happy as I think that I have already won this game but he top decks an Eternal Witness and gets his Burning Wish back and the entire craze starts again… He tries to win through Barbarian Ring recursion and gets me down to 3 lives at which point I find another Cunning Wish which removes his Barbarian Ring leaving him with 3 cards in his library and about 8 in mine at the time. He has a land, a Seismic assault and a Cabal Therapy left in his Library and I hold onto an Eternal Dragon, a Decree of Justice, a Counterspell and some irrelevant cards. I have a Force of Will, a Cunning Wish and 3 draw spells left in my library. He draws a card passes. I draw a card and pass. He draws a card and plays a Cabal Therapy naming Counterspell which he hits. At his end of turn I cycle a Decree of Justice for 0 token and Strip the last Land out of my Library with my Dragon. I smash my hand down onto my Library and announce a Force of Will… I reveal the top card of my Library. Blue. Instant. 3UU. Game.
To be fair, my outs were like more than 50 percent to draw a Counter or the remaining Cunning Wish for Extirpate in my last possible draw.
1:0
As we look onto the time, we see that time is just to be announced and so we decided to take a break for the remaining 3 minutes or so before the beginning of the next round… judges were really tight on their schedule this tournament.
1:0 in Games
1-0-0 in Matches
Round 2 vs. Sven Langensieder with Mono Red Burn
As we shuffle up he counts his library and tells me that he has 61 cards in his deck and only 14 in his sideboard. I suggest calling a judge which I immediately do. He gets a game loss for presenting an illegal deck and we’re on to game 2. I saw the card missing in his sideboard: a Grim Lavamancer and mentally prepare to either face a Sleigh or a Burn build.
1:0
In the first rounds of our first game I’m on the play and he doesn’t really do much except for playing lands after lands till I land a hardcast Eternal Dragon and proceed to bash him down to 12 lives (he played fetchlands in his version) when he starts to burn me down to 11. I then Force of Will a lethal Price of Progress and Wish for a Pulse of the Fields at his End of Turn. In response to some of his Burn spell, I decide to play it safe and cast my Pulse despite the possibility of him burning himself in response but he taps 3 and casts a Flames of the Blood hand in response to my Pulse and so we’re on to game 3.
1:1
-4 Wrath of God
-3 Engineered Explosives
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Extirpate
In this deciding game he gets a slow start and I extirpate two of his burn spells and lay down a Decree of Justice for 4 tokens and proceed to put him down to 3 when he casts a Price of Progress which I Force. He Forks his Price, I Force, He Forks his Price, I Force and that’s game.
2:1
3:1 in Games
2-0-0 in Matches
Round 3 vs. Christian Geißzler with EPIC Storm
I’m on the play again against my next opponent and play several land and watch him do nothing except playing 2 Lotus Petals and Brainstorms until he finds his third petal which he cracks to cast a Dark Ritual into Duress which I counter… he passes and scoops shortly after to Mana burn and double Factory beat down.
1:0
-4 Wrath of God
-3 Cunning Wish
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Fact or Fiction
-1 Eternal Dragon
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Engineered Plague
+3 Extirpate
I didn’t really have any clue of what he was playing except for some general direction of Tendrils of Agony based Storm Combo until he leads in his second game with City of Brass into Brainstorm into Chrome Mox when it became clear that he played EPIC Storm. He casts a massive Empty the Warrens for 12 tokens on his second turn but I have the Plague. He attempts to combo again via Diminishing Return but fizzles as he hasn’t got any Mana left. Jokingly I ask him if I can mulligan after drawing a Hand of no Force from his Returns but he doesn’t seem to get it and is pretty stressed at that point of the game.
On my next turn I cast the 2 Meddling Mages I drew of Returns, one naming Tendrils of Agony, the other Chanting Burning Wish… he concedes shortly after.
2:0
5:1 in Games
3-0-0 in Matches
Round 4 vs. Daniel Reiprich with Ugw Threshold weirdly built
After shuffling, I’m on the play and get a one Lander and ship it back trash talking about how that hand is too weak, can’t produce 12 Goblins tokens on turn 1 and stuff. My second hand is another one Lander which gets sent back. My third hand has no lands but a Brainstorm and a Force. I decide to keep as my odds to draw a land in the upcoming turns are like 40 percent.
He didn’t catch on my trash talking saying that he saw a Tundra while shuffling but pales after me not playing a land and saying go.
He leads with Tropical, Mongoose go. I get the land and see another one and a Standstill off my Brainstorm but his creature heavy draw and 7 hand cards are clearly better than my 5 and I get beaten after removing 6 of his creatures… beaten by a Berserked Mystic Enforcer… what the Hell was that kid smoking while including Berserk into his Threshold list?
0:1
-2 Cunning Wish
+2 Humility
In game 2 I show him how much of an Auto Win Threshold is for Landstill by killing off all of his creatures and totally dominating the board, drawing a shit ton of cards and slowly killing him with double Mishra’s Factory.
1:1
I am furious to have had so bad draws in the first game because time is called as we shuffle up for the 3rd game… drawing an excellent Matchup is like nothing good especially if that puts one into a fragile situation regarding the top8.
6:2 in Games
3-0-1 in Matches
Round 5 vs. Patrick Richter with Ubgw Landstill with Enlightened Tutor and Crucible of Worlds
I played this round against the person with the highest Eternal rating in Germany (https://webapp.wizards.com/ratings.aspx?Demographic=%C2%A0&Demographic=3%7C82&Demographic=%C2%A0&Demographic=%C2%A0&Page=1&action=Search&BrandRatedSeasons=4&ratingseasonid=4) as I was told after the round… I really doubt he still is the number one because he should have lost about 42 points (the entire K-Value) from his 1959 by the time the tournament is recorded because I have just 11 events in my Eternal career and therefore at the time of the event only 1755 points of rating which should have increased dramatically just now.
Anyways, back to the report.
As we shuffle up I talk a little about how the MetaGame is retardedly saturated in Threshold and Belcher decks which compose like 60 percent of the field and he tells me that he doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking off as he’s a Vintage player and nothing else. As he leads with Underground Sea into End of Turn Brainstorm I put him onto Hanni Fish because that deck can somehow be ported into Legacy from Vintage but I am terribly proven wrong after he landed down a Mishra’s Factory, Nantuko Monastery and 2 Fact or Fictions… a Landstill mirror… how boring… nothing to raise my mood and to blow away my sleepiness caused by a severe lack of sleep in the last days (like 4-6 hours a day aren’t even close to enough if you’re used to sleeping 10-11 hours a day).
He have a fight over some Fact or Fictions and he eventually resolves a Crucible of Worlds which puts him into a very good position until I get to waste his Factory and Extirpate it. We then play draw go for a very long time and he eventually puts me down to 5 lives via Monastery beat down until we realize that he only has 6 cards left in his library and I have about the double. He then proceeds to brain about how he can deck me best with his 3 remaining Standstills and Marius Hausmann who came over to watch the match because he was out of content advised me to call a judge to look over the match for stalling / slow play which I then immediately proceed to do. When time is called, my opponent drops down a Standstill and we have a fight over who has to draw the cards which I win. Patrick decks in the last of the extra turns.
1:0
7:2 in Games
4-0-1 in Matches
Round 6 vs. Christian Hoettgen with Gbw RecSur
With the last round being a Landstill mirror and myself getting more and more sleepy, I’ll blame my horrible performance in these matches on my lack of concentration and sleep.
You can see this guy’s decklist here (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10646) as he made top8.
Anyways, there’s nothing much to say about this round except for that I Cunning Wished 3 times (Pulse of the Fields, Extirpate, Extirpate) and made one misplay by not Extirpating his Kokusho which slowly drained away my life due to Recurring Nightmare action… but it’s only fair to say that I didn’t draw a counter all day long and that he was extremely lucky by always ripping a creature off the top after I cleared his board after him horribly playing his recursion (like not playing safe and getting another Creature off Eternal Witness and such)… as an aside, I didn’t draw a single counter/card draw to handle his one off Recurring Nightmare. What a suck out.
0:1
-3 Cunning Wish
-2 Wrath of God
+2 Humility
+3 Extirpate
Time gets called after our second turn.
7:3 in Games
4-1-1 in Matches
Round 7 vs. Thorsten Gerstmayer with Ugwr Threshold
I had playtested with this guy the day before the tournament and really slaughtered his rather unorthodox built of 4 color Grow with 2 Mainboard Isochron Scepters and Accumulated Knowledge… I go very confidently into this Matchup.
In the first game, I eventually remove two of his Nimble Mongooses which put me down to 5 lives and he proceeds to lay down a Scepter which I Force. He plays another one which I Force again but he has the Daze, imprints a Lightning Bolt and passes. At his End of Turn he Bolts me, untaps and Bolts me for the Win.
0:1
-2 Cunning Wish
+2 Humility
Game 2 went just like every Game against Grow should… He plays some Dorks, I draw cards. He plays some more Dorks and I draw more cards. He plays even more Dorks because I stall him with Decree of Justice Tokens and I Wrath away his board.
At one point he played an Armageddon which we have a counter war over which I win. The next turn exactly the same situation occurs again… odd seeing as how he only had 2 Geddons in his Board.
After one of Thorstens comrades coming along telling him that he should hurry a little because they wanted to start the drive home, he concedes to me without remorse because he had the same view of the Matchup as I had: that it was an auto win for the Landstill player. He wishes me all the best for the last round.
2:1
9:4 in Games
5-1-1 in Matches
Round 8 vs. Christian Schaefer with Agro Lands! Splashed black
This last round of the Swiss was an official feature Match… I’ll post a link to the coverage as soon as it goes online.
Walking down to the feature Match area, I have a bad feeling because I have to win this round in order to top8… I sit down as does Christian, who is another local but I don’t have any remorse playing him out of the top8 as he is a rather odd guy with very bad habits and a lot of nerdy views like judging people on their deck choice… really, this guy hasn’t yet forgiven me that I slaughtered his crappy Ub Landstill deck with Darksteel Colossus tech (‘He wins every control mirror because you don’t deck yourself and if you get to hardcast it he’s an auto win’ end of quotation) in the last local tournament playing Ugw Balanced Grow… he’s still like insulting me all the time and such that I was only a lame Threshold player and should rot in hell and such Bla. In short, he really deserves his nickname of ‘HuSo’ which is the German abbreviation of something you could pretty neatly translate as ‘Son of a Bitch’.
Anyways, after sitting down, I win the die roll and lead with a fairly nice hand of Standstill, Force and Mishra’s Factory amongst others. I Force of Will his 1st Turn Exploration and pluck down a Standstill which he comments with that he can’t be bothered by such suck because he has more ManLands than I… he was right and I eventually had to break my own Standstill in order to remove an attacking Nantuko Monastery… I really didn’t see that coming as the first turn Exploration of a Bayou really pointed towards the Loam Control part of the deck spectrum. I get overrun shortly after.
0:1
-4 Wrath of God
-1 Standstill
-1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Extirpate
+4 Meddling Mage
In game two he leads with a turn 0 Leyline of the Void… oh noes! That shuts down my imba Eternal Dragon recursion!
There’s not really much to say about this game except for that I played way more aggressively than in the first match because I though of this Matchup as a sure auto loss even more so than any other Life from the Loam deck because he can actually go agro.
The Match boiled down to me casting Extirpate 6 times and going all in with Eternal Dragon and several Mages (chanting Life from the Loam and Eternal Witness respectively) to race his Maze of Iths.
1:1
In game 3 my only relevant plays are a Meddling Mage on Life from the Loam and me cycling Decree of Justice for 4 tokens before I get overrun by ManLand beat down… I didn’t see a single removal spell all Round long.
1:2
10:6 in Games
5-2-1 in Matches
I’m pretty furious about how HuSo could luck himself all the way through a field of Belcher and IggyPop to put me out of content for the top8 in the final round.
What a major suck out.
The other local playing NarcoBridge who was in content up until now had another suck out too. We go and kill off a bottle of Coke together still grim but joking to forget the bitter taste of the last round drop out… if only Stefan would have played against my opponent he would have been top8 and I would have been paired up to one of the 19+ pointers which could have just conceded to put me into top8…
I ended up coming in 20th just ahead of the Ichorid player and got a grand total of 4 boosters for my near top8 finish… the final standings after the 8th round of Swiss can be found here (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3118&typ=2&action=comments).
Notice how places 2, 9, 11, 17, 20 and 21 are all locals and how places 20 and 21 were in content up till the last possible round.
Tim was playing a 2 Land Belcher list I created and lucked himself all the way into the top8 despite being the worst player of all locals who went to the event… that’s how you do it I believe and like not play a single time against a bad Matchup (Landstill and Threshold were like 50 to 60 percent of the field) until the very top8 where Tim scrubbed out in the first round.
Harrald Herrlich was playing an Ugwb Countersliver build but was out of content from 6th round on.
Marius S. Laber was playing an Rgb Vial Goblins list with Mainboard Cabal Therapies and Stingscourgers.
Stefan Czolk was playing your standard Ichorid Combo list.
After all I got the grand total of 4 boosters (Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Tenth Edition) as prize and opened up a Deep Sea Kraken, a Porphyry Nodes and a Benalish Commander, a Tombstalker and an Abundance… crap deluxe.
Retrospectively, I’d want to share a few impressions concerning UWb Cunning Landstill I gathered from this Tournament (Tournament play is like a bazillion times better evidence than testing from my opinion):
- You desperately want a removal spell in your Wishboard… probably Ghastly Demise or Condemn
- Fact or Fiction is way to slow to warrant a slot in the Wishboard
- Extirpate is ridiculously good
- I didn’t need a Crucible of Worlds all day long except against Life from the Loam based decks… A single CoW or two would have probably won me that last round
- The deck’s amazing as it is but is really unforgiving and exhausting to play
- You’d probably want to look into Vedalken Shackles as an alternative removal spell… it apparently worked for the top8er (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10647) and is a frightening source of renewable pin point removal for Tarmogoyf et all
Without further testing I’ll make this change to the Sideboard:
-1 Fact or Fiction
+1 Ghastly Demise
Someone will have to do some further investigation and testing into how to include Vedalken Shackles into this Landstill version as I’ve just had my last day of summer holidays and am off for a full next year pf 38 hours of class a week.
As an ending, here’re some useful links concerning the event:
Top8 lists in no particular order (http://www.germagic.de/dc/print.php?event=German+Legacy+Open+2007)
Bracket of top8 play out (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3117&typ=2&action=comments)
Live coverage of the German Nationals (unfortunately in German) // Legacy seccion still has to be added (http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3018&typ=2&action=comments)
And I guess these can’t be missing on the end of any report…
Props:
-for UWb Cunning Landstill (and Geoff Smelski)
-for me having the best result in our car
-Tim Rogait for making top8... gogogo Tim! After all that playtesting and coaching I did with him served some purpose
Flops:
-for me making a single play mistake against the RecSur opponent costing me top8... how comes I'm punished for play mistakes and some other people arn't?
-for Tim Rogait lucking himself all the way into top8… Fuck that... he really is the worst player and makes the biggest mistakes but still goes undefeated in the Swiss with something that felt like 85 percent of first turn kill rates and a grant total of 2 (!) mulligans... the divinities must have apreciated him giving that Type1 player's folder (1000+ € in cards) he found back before the tourney...
-for Christian Schaefer for being paired against a good Matchup rather than against the Ichorid player
-for whoever invented 'lack of sleep' and 'mental and physical exhaustion'
-for me having a lack of luck
So far... thanks for having read my report... I hope it was legible
Just tell me if you'd want some more detail one some specific play/round/choice/whatsoever.
As an aside, the entire thingy about luck and such might sound incredibly grief, but I just can't cope with horrible players making better show offs than rather decent players... I just can't stand good plays being punshed into the face each friggin' time... I just can't stand decent players being draconianly punished for flaws in their play and bad players being rewarded with topdecks... understandable isn't it?