RoddyVR
04-19-2008, 11:00 PM
Every time i do well in a tournament of respectable size i feel compelled to write a report about it. I just wish i kept better notes during the tourny. Now that i'm writing the report i realize just how little of my games i remember... there's flashes here and there, but most of it i'm drawing a complete blank on. Gotta get me some ginseng before the next tourny (iirc that's the stuff that's supposed to improve memory)
I was expecting to give a ride to the tourny (and thereby share the gas costs) with atleast one person. One who had showed interest in going last sunday, the other PMed me yesterday about possibly going with... No contact from either... ah well, guess i'm going solo.
Tourny was 31 people. Frankly i think most people expected more, even if it was prerelease weekend. I'm glad that it was only 31 though, cause at 32 it would have been 6 rounds of swiss, and i would have ended up with a 3-2 record going into round 6, and probably would not have top 8ed.
Here's the list i ran:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stifle
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Gemhide Sliver
1 Quick Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Heart Sliver
1 Darkherat Sliver
1 Hibernation Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Root Sliver
1 Sliver Legion
SB:
1 Winged Sliver
2 Harmoic Sliver
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Essence Sliver
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Aether Vial
3 Krosan Grip
4 Worldly Tutor
Round 1: Scott with what i think is called R/G sligh (burn with goyfs and such).
Game one notes say "crystalline+ muscles stall, then Darkheart (when i was at 11 or 10 life)+ gemhide into overwhelming numbers with Heart sliver. His life goes down to 16, then up to 22 (I must have sworded a goyf here) then he gives up.
Game two notes say "mucles on vials hold off goyf. into legion (win more)" i remember casting the legion even though i didnt realy need it. his life totals go 20 to 19 to 9 to lose.
record: 1-0-0 (2-0)
Round 2: Neil with a deck i cant remember... i know he had the gain 4 life elephants and also deeds, but other then that my memory gives me nothing to cling to.
Game one his life jumps up and down above 20 (upto 28 at one point) with him gaining life off the hierarchs and me swording them to give him even more life. my own life goes up to 25 but i cant remember how... must have been either darkheart's ability or more likely him swording my sinew slivers. at the end his life totals go 28-24-15-12-3-x with a note at the end that sais "winged sliver".
Game two he gets stuck on 3 lands, and plays a deed, which gets killed by the harmonic i have in hand.
Record: 2-0-0 (4-0)
Round 3: Matt with R/b goblins
Game one i never do any damage to matt, and prety much just get overwhelmed by goblins.
Game 2 Matt's life total goes 20-19-18-16-x. with a note of "fly+haste+legion".
Game 3 Matt plays 3 wasteland and a rishdan port by what i think was turn 6. My opening hand of 4 lands (two duals a fetch that i got a dual with after he spent his first wasteland and the single basic island) ofcourse completely folds to this. espeicialy after he wierdlings my one played crystalline sliver.
Record: 2-1-0 (5-2)
Round 4:Steve with more R/b goblins.
Game one note sais "3x Sinew" though i suspect one of them was a muscle. Life totals are me=19, him=18-x (i dont remember if he gave up after i hit him for a bunch, but i never wrote down the new total since he scooped, or if he just scooped at 18 life).
Game two i won mostly due to topdecking a swords before his dam Auntie with the recuring Wierdling took out my whole hive. Man i hate that combo. basicaly i had 3 slivers on the board and kept playing/vialing in another one to sac to his wierdling. fortunately for me the 3 were Crystaline, Essence and gemhide. Once the swords sent his auntie farming, my hive grew and my life total, having dipped all the way to 13 at one point started going up, all the way to 52 after i played legion and was attacking with an 6/6 crystalline, a 7/7 essense and a 11/11 legion for a few turns. The completely random Pro Blue on the piledriver allowed steve to neutralize the legion's attacks, if not his ability to make other slivers huge.
IIRC the final turn, Steve played a Siege gang to give himself a good amount of blockers, but i finaly drew the green sourse i needed to cast eladamri's call and got myself a winged sliver to go over his blockers.
Record 3-1-0 (7-2)
Round 5: Mike (a legend) with "Dark Belcher" i guess its called.
At this point there are 4 people with 10 points and 6 of us with 9 each. I'm at the top of the 9 pointers by tiebreakers and Mike is i belive 7th overall. There's too many people who can end up with 10 points so most of the 9 point talbes have to play it out, but me and Mike can actualy ID into spots 7 and 8 (tables 1 and 2 take up spots 1-4, and the winners of the other two 9 point tables take spots 5 and 6). So we ID. We play out our games anyway, and mike even though he's clearly not taking it seriously, beats me soundly. Dam i hate turn 1 72 point belcher activations.
Record 3-1-1 (7-4)
Top 8: Brandon with what i think is Threshold with red and with countertop in it.
I'd stopped keeping real notes by now, just life totals...
Game one, I only ever take a point of damage off my own fetch, and take brandon to 18-12-11-x. I dont remember how or why this worked that way.
Game two, I sword a 5/6 goyf to get brandon up to 24 life, but he's still beating me down (for 8 from 16 to 8) and i dont remember much how... i only got him down to 18 at the end.
Game three, In this game, i have both a plated sliver and a stifle in my opening hand. When this happens i usualy randomly determin if i keep the stifle open to stifle a fetch or just go all agro with plated and other slivers tapping me out each turn. This time i chose to keep stifle open. which worked out prety well cause Brandon had a spell snare and was keeping it open but i kept playing 1 cost spells.
I stiffled his third land, killed his counterbalance with harmonic sliver the turn after it came down and just generaly beat him down with a few slivers while he kept cantripping and not getting much out of it. I suspect that in this game also winged sliver worked as a finisher over his two threshed mongeese (or maybe that was a different game).
Top 4: Mike again, with his blecher cheating deck.
game one, mike wins the die roll (and with it the match, lol) He plays a land, a chrome mox and a land grand, and plays belcher out first turn. Activates it second turn for lethal. even if i 'd had the stifle that game it would only have slowed him down by one turn cause his activation mana was permanent based... what a cheat. a 2 land deck having 3 permanent mana sourses on turn 2. lol.
Game two, I win. i think i stifle his belcher activation, then Call for a harmonic sliver to kill belcher, then kill the chrome mox with the next sliver i play.
Game 3 this is my opening hand:
1 windswept heath
3 Stifle (count them THREE)
2 Worldly Tutor
1 Eladamri's Call.
Yes, having a second land instead of any of those instants would have been better, but screw that, THREE STIFLES against belcher combo... and he goes off turn 1 for 12 goblin tokens. See what i mean about the die roll winning him the match.
Split 3/4 to get my $50 store credit and get a Savannah, a Force of will, 3x ISochron specters and a propaganda for it. All in all a good day.
Now i just need someone to trade me a Bayou, a Sqee and a playset of Foothills and i'll make my deck into a survival deck.
If anyone knows where my memmory lied to me about my own matches, please post corrections/additions. Thanks.
I was expecting to give a ride to the tourny (and thereby share the gas costs) with atleast one person. One who had showed interest in going last sunday, the other PMed me yesterday about possibly going with... No contact from either... ah well, guess i'm going solo.
Tourny was 31 people. Frankly i think most people expected more, even if it was prerelease weekend. I'm glad that it was only 31 though, cause at 32 it would have been 6 rounds of swiss, and i would have ended up with a 3-2 record going into round 6, and probably would not have top 8ed.
Here's the list i ran:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stifle
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Gemhide Sliver
1 Quick Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Heart Sliver
1 Darkherat Sliver
1 Hibernation Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Root Sliver
1 Sliver Legion
SB:
1 Winged Sliver
2 Harmoic Sliver
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Essence Sliver
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Aether Vial
3 Krosan Grip
4 Worldly Tutor
Round 1: Scott with what i think is called R/G sligh (burn with goyfs and such).
Game one notes say "crystalline+ muscles stall, then Darkheart (when i was at 11 or 10 life)+ gemhide into overwhelming numbers with Heart sliver. His life goes down to 16, then up to 22 (I must have sworded a goyf here) then he gives up.
Game two notes say "mucles on vials hold off goyf. into legion (win more)" i remember casting the legion even though i didnt realy need it. his life totals go 20 to 19 to 9 to lose.
record: 1-0-0 (2-0)
Round 2: Neil with a deck i cant remember... i know he had the gain 4 life elephants and also deeds, but other then that my memory gives me nothing to cling to.
Game one his life jumps up and down above 20 (upto 28 at one point) with him gaining life off the hierarchs and me swording them to give him even more life. my own life goes up to 25 but i cant remember how... must have been either darkheart's ability or more likely him swording my sinew slivers. at the end his life totals go 28-24-15-12-3-x with a note at the end that sais "winged sliver".
Game two he gets stuck on 3 lands, and plays a deed, which gets killed by the harmonic i have in hand.
Record: 2-0-0 (4-0)
Round 3: Matt with R/b goblins
Game one i never do any damage to matt, and prety much just get overwhelmed by goblins.
Game 2 Matt's life total goes 20-19-18-16-x. with a note of "fly+haste+legion".
Game 3 Matt plays 3 wasteland and a rishdan port by what i think was turn 6. My opening hand of 4 lands (two duals a fetch that i got a dual with after he spent his first wasteland and the single basic island) ofcourse completely folds to this. espeicialy after he wierdlings my one played crystalline sliver.
Record: 2-1-0 (5-2)
Round 4:Steve with more R/b goblins.
Game one note sais "3x Sinew" though i suspect one of them was a muscle. Life totals are me=19, him=18-x (i dont remember if he gave up after i hit him for a bunch, but i never wrote down the new total since he scooped, or if he just scooped at 18 life).
Game two i won mostly due to topdecking a swords before his dam Auntie with the recuring Wierdling took out my whole hive. Man i hate that combo. basicaly i had 3 slivers on the board and kept playing/vialing in another one to sac to his wierdling. fortunately for me the 3 were Crystaline, Essence and gemhide. Once the swords sent his auntie farming, my hive grew and my life total, having dipped all the way to 13 at one point started going up, all the way to 52 after i played legion and was attacking with an 6/6 crystalline, a 7/7 essense and a 11/11 legion for a few turns. The completely random Pro Blue on the piledriver allowed steve to neutralize the legion's attacks, if not his ability to make other slivers huge.
IIRC the final turn, Steve played a Siege gang to give himself a good amount of blockers, but i finaly drew the green sourse i needed to cast eladamri's call and got myself a winged sliver to go over his blockers.
Record 3-1-0 (7-2)
Round 5: Mike (a legend) with "Dark Belcher" i guess its called.
At this point there are 4 people with 10 points and 6 of us with 9 each. I'm at the top of the 9 pointers by tiebreakers and Mike is i belive 7th overall. There's too many people who can end up with 10 points so most of the 9 point talbes have to play it out, but me and Mike can actualy ID into spots 7 and 8 (tables 1 and 2 take up spots 1-4, and the winners of the other two 9 point tables take spots 5 and 6). So we ID. We play out our games anyway, and mike even though he's clearly not taking it seriously, beats me soundly. Dam i hate turn 1 72 point belcher activations.
Record 3-1-1 (7-4)
Top 8: Brandon with what i think is Threshold with red and with countertop in it.
I'd stopped keeping real notes by now, just life totals...
Game one, I only ever take a point of damage off my own fetch, and take brandon to 18-12-11-x. I dont remember how or why this worked that way.
Game two, I sword a 5/6 goyf to get brandon up to 24 life, but he's still beating me down (for 8 from 16 to 8) and i dont remember much how... i only got him down to 18 at the end.
Game three, In this game, i have both a plated sliver and a stifle in my opening hand. When this happens i usualy randomly determin if i keep the stifle open to stifle a fetch or just go all agro with plated and other slivers tapping me out each turn. This time i chose to keep stifle open. which worked out prety well cause Brandon had a spell snare and was keeping it open but i kept playing 1 cost spells.
I stiffled his third land, killed his counterbalance with harmonic sliver the turn after it came down and just generaly beat him down with a few slivers while he kept cantripping and not getting much out of it. I suspect that in this game also winged sliver worked as a finisher over his two threshed mongeese (or maybe that was a different game).
Top 4: Mike again, with his blecher cheating deck.
game one, mike wins the die roll (and with it the match, lol) He plays a land, a chrome mox and a land grand, and plays belcher out first turn. Activates it second turn for lethal. even if i 'd had the stifle that game it would only have slowed him down by one turn cause his activation mana was permanent based... what a cheat. a 2 land deck having 3 permanent mana sourses on turn 2. lol.
Game two, I win. i think i stifle his belcher activation, then Call for a harmonic sliver to kill belcher, then kill the chrome mox with the next sliver i play.
Game 3 this is my opening hand:
1 windswept heath
3 Stifle (count them THREE)
2 Worldly Tutor
1 Eladamri's Call.
Yes, having a second land instead of any of those instants would have been better, but screw that, THREE STIFLES against belcher combo... and he goes off turn 1 for 12 goblin tokens. See what i mean about the die roll winning him the match.
Split 3/4 to get my $50 store credit and get a Savannah, a Force of will, 3x ISochron specters and a propaganda for it. All in all a good day.
Now i just need someone to trade me a Bayou, a Sqee and a playset of Foothills and i'll make my deck into a survival deck.
If anyone knows where my memmory lied to me about my own matches, please post corrections/additions. Thanks.