[Report] WhiteStax finishes Third place in Hamilton

WhiteStax finishes Third place in Hamilton.


Good timing, I was working off site Friday, fixing some Cisco Routers in Hamilton the same day Top games was organizing a TimeWalk UN Legacy tournament.

Therefore I grabbed a whitestax Deck and headed to work.



My deck list:

// Lands

7 Plains (2)
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb

// Creatures

4 [PLC] Magus of the Tabernacle
3 [ON] Exalted Angel

// Spells

4 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [A] Armageddon
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [US] Smokestack
4 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
2 [P3] Ravages of War

// Sideboard

SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [RAV] Suppression Field
SB: 3 [UL] Defense Grid
SB: 3 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 3 [LE] Windborn Muse



Sideboard discussion:


I had no idea about the local metagame so it tried to make is polyvalent.


Defense grid : I was still expecting to see a fair amount of control decks.
Tornod's Crypt : For mirror games and Ichroid.
Suppresion field: Very versatile sideboard card, intended to hurt landstill and charbelcher, welder.
Aura of silence : Against Mirror and Affinity
Windborn Muse : My testing showed that it was good against Goblins.



16 people showed up.

Round 1: Adam, playing Affinity


I win the dice roll and elect to start (I always do anyway)

G1: He starts very fast with 2 ornithoptere and Cranial plating. I am able to get one Ghostly Prison out but it is not enough and he beats me down to 2.

Until I topdeck a second Ghostly Prison and Exalted Angel, the later will win the game in 5 turns, backedup by Armageddon.


- 2 Armageddon
+ 2 Aura of silence

G2: I start very fast with Exalted Angel turn 1, unmorph turn 2, Armageddon turn3 (Blowing up 3 lands on his side). It was a short game.


Adam was a super cool opponent and it was a pleasure to play my first MTG game in 4 years against him. I was glad to start well, just like in soccer tournament it is paramount to start with a good game.



Round 2: Daryl, playing keeper. (He won the dice roll)

As I finished the first round earlier, I knew he played a keeper with Force of Will, Counter spell, Sword to plowshares, at least 3 Wrath of Gods and killing with Morphlin and Exalted Angel. Almost 94 style.

G1:

I get an OK hand with : Ancient Tomb, Plain, Crucibles, Crublibles, Wasteland, Trinishpere, Angel.

I was expecting him to run out of cards fast, as anything in my deck is a pain for a keeper deck And I did not see any draw engine watching him playing.

turn2 Crucibles gets forced
turn3 Morphed Exalted Angel gets sworded
turn4 Trinisphere get forced as well
turn5 Crucibles hits the table and wasteland will never allow him to unmorph his Exalted Angel.
turn6 Trinisphere hits the table, followed by a smokestack and he scoops.


And when I say that he scoops, it's not for the game, but for the entire round !! Because he seems to despise "Stax decks".

I felt sorry for spoiling his fun (and I mean it).



Round 3: Ryan, Playing counterBalance (He won the dice roll)

G1: He starts strong with 2 Savannah Lion and Sword of Fire and Ice, 4 turns and I'm dead. He was undefeated at this point.

G2: Same as first but only one Lion and Sword of Fire and Ice again. This time I got to drop a Ghostly Prison, which grants me some respect from the lion.

Trinisphere keeps me protected from FoW and allow me to place a Magus of the Tabernacle + Armageddon combo, cleaning his board. I win shortly after this.

G3: I start very well, turn1 Ghost Prison get countered as expected and I can build the Crucibles + SmokeStack lock, neglecting his Grunt and CounterBalance. He scoops shortly after the Ravage of War.

Nice mistake during this game was to forget to play my wasteland from graveyard with Crucibles...His Grunt was pleased to send it back on the bottom of my library...breaking my lock.

Luckyly I did not lose to this.


Round 4:Rob, Playing 4C-Aggro (He won the dice roll)

Rob was undefeated too at this point. He played an aggresive deck, built around Lightning bolt, Mogg fanatic, Dark confident, Duress, Kird Ape, Rancor, Swords etc...

I was expecting my wastelands to be a silver bullet against the usually fragile 4C manabase, but he fetched 4 basic lands of each both games!

G1: He starts with 2 fast Kird Ape and one dark confidant, Duress away my Trinisphere. Rancor on Kird, put me down to 6.

Magus of the Tabernacle gets here, get sworded but I get a Ghostly Prison and he doesn't play much lands. I eventually drop an other Magus of Tabernacle so he cannot keep his creature alive AND attack

(and anyway I have a huge blocker !!), Armageddon clean his board and I kill him 2 by 2 with the magus.

G2: He starts very slowly this time and Crucibles + Stax lock him and he scoops.

I finish the Swiss round 4-0, pumped up and starting to think that I came for fun but a UN TimeWalk would not be bad on the painting.


Semi-final against Aaron-the-kid playing Affinity.

I somehow always have a bad feeling against these 14ich kids: They often have a f***ing karma. And I am just a normal guy.



And it started with him winning the dice roll....How surprising, I lost all of them except one !!



Anyway, with my 4-0 record in head, I started to believe that nothing would beat whitestax this night and I decided to keep a hand not two bad but

with no acceleration, 2 basic lands, 1 wasteland , 2 smokestack, 1 Trinshpere, Ghostly Prison, hoping for karma to give me a turbo land or crucibles and Ghostly Prison would buy me some turns....

Dumb as hell.

G1: He literally puked his hand on the table turn1:

Artifact Land, Ornithoptere, Ornithoptere, SpringLeaf Drum, Tap Land, Tap SpringLead and Ornithoptere for SpringLeaf Drum....

I do: Land, Go

Turn 2:

He plays an other Artifact Land, Cranial plating, equip and swing for 7.

I miraculously get 2 Ghostly Prison out, get a SomkeStack with Crucibles but he keeps playing permanent until I can't keep my stax at 2 anymore.

He finishes me and I deserved it big time. This game was soooooooooo long, the other semi-final was over before we finished this game.

Note: I will remember my "brilliant" Armageddon move, when I had 6 lands, he had 3...among them 2 Darksteel Citadel.....yea these are indestructible.

I think I drew a lot of lands too, it would have helped to get an other Prison effect.

G2:

My Opening hand is crap: 2 basics lands, Trini, Crucibles, Magus and maybe a SmokeStack. Mulligan to 6.
Second hand is frankly ugly : 1 basic lands, 3 wastelands and 2 smokestacks. Can't keep this considering the broken start he did. Mulligan to 5
Third hand is almost funny: 2 Mox diamond, Trini, Crucibles and SmokeStack. Mulligan to 4.
Hand: City of Traitors, WasteLand, Plain. Ghostly Prison. I keep Very Happy !

He didn't start even remotely close of broken game 1. (Something like Land, Sensei's Divining Top)...I learned later that "Aaron doesn't mulligan", just like "Joey doesn't share food".

I played the Ghostly Prison, and topdecked Crucibles, Exalted Angel and Armageddon in the following turns

Played the angel, unmorphed WasteLand + Crucibles followed by Armageddon did their job.

Amazing I was able to win this game, starting and with a 4 cards hand but I somehow managed to lose the rest with 7 cards....

Which remind me of a Parisian expression we have:

"He can show the best or the worse...but it's always in the worse that he is the best"

If well translated, it is not flattering Very Happy !

G3:

Short game: I managed an Exalted angel out and a Ghostly Prison.

But with 2 indestructibles Lands, SpringLeaf Drum + Ornithoptere...Cranial plating + Arcbound Ravager + Fling: He kicked my ass.

So I go home with a Foil Platinium Angel, after watching Rob (the guy I beated 2-0 doh!) win the TimeWalk over "Aaron-the-kid" keeping 2 DCI Foil "Meddling Mage".

I was a nice final to watch, Quick, Violent, Close call and over in 15 minutes. Double Rancored Kird Ape with an Incinerate finishing Aaron when they were both at 5 (Ron would have died the next turn).

Post-analyze:

WhiteStax is definitely a strong deck, especially in this aggro oriented environment. No matter how numerous the opposing army became, they could rarely cope with 2 Ghostly Prison/Windborn Muse paired with a Magus/Geddon/Stax. I lost against a very fast deck, using indestructible lands, and able to generate mana from each creature: Basically with an answer to all my threats.
I think this deck piloted by a better played would have win the first place, whitestax can be blazing fast with the moxes and the city/ancients lands.

It was really pleasant to play WhiteStax because of the amazing synergy of the cards. Whatever you draw, except maybe Trinisphere, all other cards interact with each other, it was amazing.
One thing I did not like was the Mox diamond. If not in the opening hand. it's a lost draw turn.

On the way back, I testified that Hamilton street is packed with sexy girls, too bad I knew noone here, would have been cool to party.

Pros:

- Enric you rule !! Nice shop, good ruling, good autotity. I'll definitly come back and highly recommend his shop: Top Games (1099 Fennel Ave East, Hamilton Ontario)
- Players were all really nice and friendly, It was a pleasure to be there.
- As amazing as it may sounds, view from Hamilton hills was really georgous at night, I keep discovering Canada and I love it.

Cons:

- Just wish my guts had made me exclaim "Well done" instead of "@#%!!" in semi-final, during the last game, when he topdecked the 3th land.[b]
- Other than this, I had a WICKED evening !