3rd at German Nationals with NLS

What's up folks.
Here in Germany we had our National Championships last weekend with a Legacy Sideevent that had over 150 attendants.
The only problem was that instead of having 7/8 rounds of Swiss and then playing out Top 8, the two slots for PTGSTW in Rome were filled by oppscore after nine rounds of Swiss.
The following report is actually written by Christopher Alsheimer (Nemavera on Stormboards) who is busy at the moment and therefore I translated it to spread the word.
First of, the list:

// NLS
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Burning Wish
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Doomsday
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Meditate
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Duress
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Island

// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Contract
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Doomsday
1 Thoughtseize
1 Reverent Silence
1 Pyroblast
1 Pulverize
2 Vexing Shusher
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Deathmark

Round 1 against Christian Tiedemann with Ur Dreadstill

G1: I Duress him in the second turn seeing double Dreadnought, Stifle, Spellsnare and lands. I pick the Snare, since I'm holding a Cabal Ritual.
During my next turn I cast Rituals into Ad Nausam for approximately 15 cards and win via Tendrils after another Duress.

G2: I mulligan to six and keep a hand of Pyroblast, SdT, Dark Ritual, Bloodstained Mire, U-Sea, Ponder.
He drops a land and passes the turn. I play the Mire, go. He drops a second Land, Counterbalance, I fetch in response, try to resolve my Pyroblast - he dazes. In my next turn I drop a Land, Top, he reveals a Brainstorm -.-
I don't do much for the next turns except for drawing and playing lands while he has trouble finding another Landdrop.
When he eventually does find more Lands, I already have 5 in play and 7 handcards again.
I play a Duress, he reveals a Land for the CB, then deciding to FoW my Duress. I cast a Thoughtseize, he fetches in response to it then reveals a Force due to CB. He shows me his hand:
Standstill, Force, 2x Spell Snare and a Nought. I pick the FoW, cast a Ritual, drop a Lotus Petal and a LED then play a Meditate, saccing the LED in response and draw Ad Nauseam, Top, Duress, Tendrils => Win via Tendrils.
I'm a lucksack :>

1-0-0 - 2:0

Round 2 against Sebastian Mattes with Merfolk (including Spellstutter Sprite)

G1: I Duress him seeing Sprite, Standstill, Daze, Force, 2 Lands; pick Force.
But I never get a chance to play around Sprite and when a Riptide Laboratory joins his other lands in turn 3, the lone Sprite laughs at me since I have double Dark Ritual but I can only cast one of them at a time, because I only have one Bayou as my only black Manasource.

G2: Xantid Swarm < Vial with 2 counters + Spellstutter Sprite
I fail again to cast anything relevant due to the same lock as g1.

1-1-0 - 2:2

Runde 3 against Simon Thanheiser with RGw Zoo

G1: I know he plays Zoo and keep a pretty broken Hand with double LED, 2 Lands, Dark Ritual and Mystical after my mulligan to 6.
EOT I search for my Infernal Tutor and win on Turn 2 via IGG-Loop.

G2: He drops a Pyrostatic Pillar on Turn 2, but he only has one Kird Ape for a threat, that's why I can win two turns later with Tendrils for 8 + Burning Wish => Tendrils for 12 after producing 10 Mana.

2-1-0 - 4:2

Runde 4 against Michael Steinecker with Dredge

G1: He steals my Dark Ritual due to Cabal Therapy which saves him from a Turn 2 Kill via Doomsday. But he has to sacrifice his Putrid Imp for that, dredges bad and doesn't create any pressure. I resolve an AN and put together my Doomsday Pile including a Tendrils of Agony for 28 "dmg".

G2: I mulligan to 5, but he keeps a weird hand with double Leyline of the Void and no dredger which allows me to kill him with a third turn Doomsday.

3-1-0 - 6:2

Runde 5 against Peter Gering with Merfolk

G1: I'm on the draw and due to my 8th handcard I can assemble a turn one protected AN which costs him the game.

G2: I Duress away his Daze and win via Doomsday and Tendrils for "a lot" (at least that's what my notes say). :>

4-1-0 - 8:2

Runde 6 against Bernd Fritsch with Mono-White Standard Kithkins

He's one of the guys that I went on the train with. I borrowed him the Deck and he is also 4-1 at that point. But Kithkins don't harm Combo much so there is not much to say about this Matchup.

G1: I mulligan to 5 and cast a Turn 3 Ad Nauseam => Win with Doomsday.

G2: I play an EOT Mystical for Doomsday and win on Turn 2 with that card.

5-1-0 - 10:2

Runde 7 against Sebastian Born with Ugw Progenitus Threshold

G1: He starts the game with a Top. I also drop a land and resolve a Top.
The next turn a CB joins his Top, but he doesn't find the third Land drops a Noble Hierarch on turn 3, which allows me to walk all over CB:
Duress, he responds by using the Top's first ability, I respond with a Dark Ritual, he uses the second ability. Both spells get countered but that gives my Cabal Ritual now Threshhold and I can drop a LED, crack it for RRR and then draw an Infernal with my Top. I search for a Burning Wish which searches an EtW for 14 Goblins.

G2: He drops a Turn 2 Counterbalance, I play a Thoughtseize and he reveals a Top with the CB -.-
CB+Top lock me completely after my Vexing Shusher gets blasted.

G3: I have 2 Xantid Swarm, and only has one Swords to Plowshares and no CB, which makes him force the second Swarm.
I resolve an Ad Nauseam draw a bunch of cards play my combo and win.

6-1-0 - 12:3

Runde 8 against Philipp Jelle with Rgw Zoo

G1: I mulligan to 5 and in turn 3 I'm lacking exactly one mana for my Doomsday Pile so Nacatl and Goyf plus red Bolts beat the shit out of me.

G2: I open with Land, Top, go. He drops a Land, Kird Ape, go.
Turn 2 he beats me and plays Pyrostatic Pillar. I fetch once, going down to 17 which lets me win through Pillar (IGG-Loop) with a Tendrils for 20.

G3: Same situation as in Game 2. I mulligan to 6, he drops an Ape, beats me once and drops a Pillar. I fetch once going down to 17 and win via Iggy-Loop since he was lacking the Fireblast again.

7-1-0 - 14:4

Runde 9 against Nicolas Maßtat with Deadguy Ale

G1: I keep my hand although I should have mulliganed and get punished instantly (well more sorcery-speed like). He opens with a Thoughtseize that steals my Top. He Sinkholes and Vindicates my Lands and I don't resist getting beat up.

G2: I mulligan to 6 and win on Turn 2 via Ad Nauseam => ~20 cards => Tendrils => Humiliation/Death

G3: He stars with a Leyline, then Dark Ritual for Duress and Confidant.
Although his Bob beats me, he gets quite a bit of damage as well and more importantly he doesn't find another black Manasource or more Disruption.
On 11 LP I resolve an Ad Nauseam and win via Burning Wish => Tendrils for 14.

8-1-0 - 16:5

Overall I'm very satisfied with the Deck, only the Vexing Shusher haven't convinced me. The deck runs solid as it is and the Mulligans are no problem.
I do have to say that it can be quite challenging to play, especially the Doosmday Piles can be very tough.

At the end of the day I have the worst Opp Score of the three 8-1 guys and become third. The tournament was fun though, so that doesn't bother me too much.

+++++++
- meeting many nice people and some old friends
- doing good in the tournament
- relaxed atmosphere

- - - - - - - -
- the hall was very hot
- no sleep due to a long journey
- general holiday => almost no Shops were open (FOOD)

Sincerely Yours
Christoph

and Fred :P

Congrats on the finish! It's nice to see people taking NLS to events and doing well.

Lovely deck, but I'm disappointed about the lack of Chant effects.
Didn't you miss more protection other than the MD Duresses and Wish->Thoughtseize? Seems like 4 protection spells is a bit on the low side, even with the number of bombs the deck runs.

Congrats on making t8 with a deck like that. I mean, its one of the best decks i legacy but so hard to play, props on that.

Can you tell me what the rest of the t8 was(maybe lists too)?

man, your opponents playing cb/top were either very unlucky or you just were good/lucky, you are not supposed to beat cb/top :)

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Originally Posted by sauce

man, your opponents playing cb/top were either very unlucky or you just were good/lucky, you are not supposed to beat cb/top :)

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NLS pushes the speed of the game up quite a bit. CB players often find themselves without time to assemble both halves of the combo or running into situations where they have to tap down to 1-2 (or even 0) free lands to put a threat into play hoping that the guaranteed one is good enough. This tends to let NLS bait and abuse SDT/LED to get an extra bomb through for a Burning Wish into ETW or Rev Silence. There are games NLS just gets shut down by early CB/Top and the CB flips all the right CMCs, but those games honestly don't tend to happen as often as the CB players would like to.

There are also those games where NLS wins turn 1 or 2 before CB is even castable. Xantid Swarm helps to do that a lot. It helps even more to turn off Force of Will and Daze drawn after the Xantid Swarm hits play so as to make the CB player flip a CMC=2 to stop Burning Wish->Rev Silence.

To be fair, something like the UBG CB deck that top8'd Gencon or Dreadstill, both of which utilizing Stifle/Waste as additional pressure, are much harder matchups than a benign UGW CB deck or UGx NLU.

Playskill and experience with NLS also greatly increases the combo player's chance at beating hard matchups. It's these hard matchups with variable amounts of hate that really force you to think outside of the box. Nemavera has shown himself to be pretty crafty in his responses on the storm boards to play scenarios and during deck discussion threads. I'm betting his skill let him win some games that a more average player might punt.

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Originally Posted by electrolyze

Can you tell me what the rest of the t8 was(maybe lists too)?

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The top8 wasn't played out (this happens a lot in Germany, pretty much all the time actually) - prices were given out according to standings after swiss+1 rounds. Here're the lists of the decks which achieved a score of 7-2 (or better) though.

Props for Stefan Benish for representing the Hassloch Crew - SPOD could sadly not attend in numbers due to the event overlapping with Summer-Breeze Open Air.

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Originally Posted by sauce

man, your opponents playing cb/top were either very unlucky or you just were good/lucky, you are not supposed to beat cb/top :)

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I´ve seen Christoph A. play NLS at a smaller tournament, named LUBULEgacy, almost a month ago and I can tell you - not meeting him before, nor beeing a friend of him - that it was rather playskill then luck.

He definately should show his deck in the Pimp-Thread too!


Greetz, K1LO

Hi,

at first I want to thank Fred for translating my article. As he has already said, I'm pretty busy at the moment, so had had nearly no time to do this.

@ Greenone
I never missed the Chant effects, preboard you can usually resolve a bomb or bait the counterspells and win via another bomb that you draw with your top, or you just play around spellsnares via Ad Nauseam or Doomsday. Postboard you have Xantid Swarm, which is a recurring Chant. I just hate duress, if my oppenent has a SdT and can hide his Counterspell on top of his library.

@sauce
Especially against Dreadstill G2 I was really lucky, but as emidln pointed out, it's often possible to win before both, SdT and CB hit.

@K1LO
If i find some time, I'll scan my deck and post it here :>, yet i still need some foil jap fetchlands :<

Greets
Christoph

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I'm pretty at the moment

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insert busy i suppose ;)

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Originally Posted by miko

insert busy i suppose ;)

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thx, done :>