Finnish Legacy Champs - Necrotic Ooze

Opening disclaimer: I have written this report during the early hours of the morning. Some match report data (or math) may be off, and might be edited later on.
Also, this is my 1st ever post to The Source, so yay for account activation.

Last Sunday, I participated in the Finnish Legacy Champs, which is the largest annual Legacy tournament in my country. 84 people showed up. Entrance was open to everyone who paid the participation fee, but next year, we might have qualifiers.


Lead-up to the tournament

In the past, I had been piloting
- Affinity, but I was missing 2x Mox Opal for any decent list, and I was unsure of the deck's (any build) capability to mulligan reliably in a long swiss.
- Iona reanimator, but as I found out the hard way in GP Gothenburg's Legacy event, the Legacy metagame has gained enough speed so that animating 1 fatty is no longer enough to win the game.
- UW Tempo, but I own less than half of the decklist and would not be able to borrow the missing half this time around.
- The Gate, but the current Finnish metagame does not favor the deck at all.

2 weeks before the tournament, I was happily goldfishing away with a 4c TES list (which seemed too vulnerable to Wasteland for my liking), when I found out a gem in the developmental decks section of The Source: Non-survival ooze combo. The deck had a lot of potential due to the possibilities of
- slow-rolling the combo over two turns (like Reanimator)
- not requiring any permanents to stick on the table to win G1 (like TES)
- having semi-reliable counter backup (like UW Tempo)
- having a transitional sideboard plan to dodge hate cards (like some Reanimator lists)
- having a ridiculously fast clock with proper/lucky opening hands (like Affinity)

Needless to say, I fell in love with the deck.


Deck list

Ooze combo, as piloted by Karhumies (almost identical with ivanpei's current list):

Main deck (60)
// Lands (16)
2 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
*
// Creatures (4)
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Aquamoeba
1 Triskelion
1 Necrotic Ooze
*
// Win Combo (10)
4 Buried Alive
4 Reanimate
2 Exhume (Reanimate #5-6)
*
// Disruption (9)
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress (should be Thoughtseize #4)
1 Spell Pierce*(originally in SB, but I wanted to add 1 bounce there just in case)

// Acceleration (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
*
// Tutor & cantrip (13)
4 Brainstorm
4 Lim-Dul's Vault (MVP of the deck!)
2 Personal Tutor (slow as hell, but reliable)
3 Ponder (dropped 4th to add 1 SP in main to get +1 space in SB for bounce.)
*
I had originally planned the deck with MD Chrome Moxes (instead of UG Seas #2-4) and SB 4 Leyline of the Voids + 1 Helm of Obedience (instead of 3 Daze, 1 Duress, 1 Spell Pierce). However, I realized before the tournament that a) Chrome Moxes are unstable against blue (thanks to ivanpei for his insights on this) b) Helm is too slow without Chrome Moxes (found out in goldfishing) and most importantly c) there is not going to be THAT much dredge or survival in the meta, making the leylines dead topdecks more often than not (based on inside information). Well, the Dazes were almost as futile but at least they pitched to FoW nicely…

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Thorn
SB: 1 Progenitus (vs Jace tms; I never had to choose him over Emrakul)
SB: 3 Daze (were nearly always lacking that extra oomph: also, generally bad on the draw; should think of better alternatives for the future)
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 1 Echoing Truth

Standard SB procedure: -Ooze combo (14) +SNT combo (14)
Optional sideboarding: -1 UG Sea +1 Echoing Truth, applicable where considered relevant (Stax for Humility, TES&Belcher for Goblin tokens, Dredge for Zombie tokens, anything with Sower of Temptation/Oblivion Ring to regain control of Emrakul at opponent's EOT, anything with Tidehollow Sculler or Peacekeeper shenanigans)


Metagame predictions and tournament deck selection

I was expecting "the masses" to play Merfolk, TES, Zoo and Gx non-Vengevine Survival (in that order of popularity). In the top tables, however, I was expecting to see (and hopefully face) Merfolk, GW Survival w/Iona, and Solidarity. Therefore, I wanted to play a deck which had good chances against most of these deck types, and felt that Ooze combo w/transitional SB would be suitable.

On a side note: I was not very optimistic about the Solidarity MU, but I was planning to dodge that particular MU if I made it to the top 8 (personally expected 1 Solidarity player to make it, so 6:7 chance to dodge). The other MUs I considered unfavorable were all-out Belcher and LED Dredge, but thought that these would be underpresented at the tournament.

Based on the official data received from HJ after the event, it seems that I was quite correct in my metagame assumptions:

Meta Analysis - Deck Breakdown:
Ad Nauseam 12 (includes both TES and ANT. I personally saw 7 TES and 0 ANT, leaving 5 unknown.)
Merfolk 9
Gx Survival 7
Zoo 4
Goblins 4
Mono W Stax 3
Solidarity 2
Aluren 2
Burn 2
3-4c counterbalance 2
Show and Tell 2
Aggro-loam 2
Welder-animator 2
mono-W Death and taxes 2
Enchantress 2
BG(W) suicide 2
New horizons 2
Imperial painter 1
UWR control 1
UGW peacekeeper control 1
GW D&T 1
Affinity 1
Landstill 1
BR vampires 1
Dragon stompy 1
BW Vampires 1
UBG tog 1
Dreadstill 1
Jund 1
Faeries 1
Metalworker aggro 1
4 mana artifacts(™) 1
UW control 1
Spanish Inquisition 1
Belcher 1
Dredge 1
Last-ditch effort! 1
Loam control 1
Necrotic ooze 1 - that's me!
4c standstill-reanimate-avatar of will-aggro 1


Top 8 breakdown: (minimum 5 wins and a draw for place #8, top 6 ID'd R7)
1. GW Survival (final match 2-1)
2. GW D&T
3. W D&T (bronze match 2-1)
4. UGB Tog -lost against him on R3
5.-8. UG Vengevival (split-dropped against GW D&T in top 8), Merfolk, TES and 4c landstill
9.-16. all 5-2 records, including me & both of the Solidarity players -the better one of which I lost against on R5 (the other had just picked up the deck before the tournament)


Match-up report:

Round 1: vs 4c Discard->Reanimate->Standstill.dec

In the first game, I did not initially really get a hold of what my opponent was playing. He Stifled my first land and casted T2 Hymn to Tourach with the help of a Mox Diamond to fix the mana, hitting my Personal Tutor and something else, leaving me with one relevant card (Exhume). I topdecked Brainstorm but next turn, he casted Gerrard's Verdict. I decided to respond with Brainstorm and put Exhume on top and LDV 2nd to dodge possible further discard effects, chumping two not-as-necessary cards. Next, he played Rhox War Monk and started slowly beating me. I eventually drew the LDV, but my opponent had Duressed my Exhume and set up a Standstill (is this deck Dreadstill? But he doesn't seem to play any manlands or Wastes!). I had to go for it at his EOT to find Buried Alive + animation in the same pile. Unfortunately, I lost a whopping 7 life to LDV to find a suitable pile. I was stuck with 4 mana and 6 life (reduced to 3 after the next turn) meaning 2 turns left to go, with top 5 cards being my choice of Buried Alive, Reanimate, Exhume, Dark Ritual, something. Looking at it in any way, I was either 1 turn, 1 mana or 2 life away from the win so I scooped to save time. Overall, I got the feeling he was not a Legacy veteran because he had made several small play mistakes. He even asked me about how his own Standstill was going to resolve. Based on the further games, I would estimate that he was missing a lot of money cards from his deck.

In SB, I saw my opponent sideboard only 1-2 cards, so I decided to keep the Ooze combo in although my opponent had seen 1 Exhume. I boarded in the bounce just in case something bad happens.

In G2, I opened up with Thoughtseize to reveal Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Vindicate, Tropical Island, UG Sea, Standstill, Qasali Pridemage. I took out the Standstill and finished him on T2. This time, my opponent sided more heavily, so I went with the standard SB procedure.

In G3, I kept an OK but slow hand, which seemed perfectly fine against this opponent. I had an Emrakul, Ponder, 2 Brainstorm, Lotus Petal and 2 lands (one fetch). My opponent played a 2nd turn standstill, which was fine by me, although I brainstormed in response to get rid of topdecked D.Rit. We spent ages topdecking (I remember discarding two cards EOT: Lotus Petal and D.Rit, since I had enough mana with lands). Once I had topdecked LDV, I decided to break the Standstill with Thoughtseize to test the ground (my opponent did not seem to have counters in his deck). My Thoughtseize revealed Tormod's Crypt, StoP, Stifle, 2x Tidehollow Sculler, 2x Reanimate, BoP, Tundra, Savannah. Normally, I would have laughed at the (sideboarded?) Reanimates and Tormod (because it seems like he thought I was playing a more standard Reanimator and these may be useful TecH against me), but combined with 2x Sculler the reanimation was bad news. I took out the Sculler in order to make him lose a couple of life for animate, and Duressed to take out one of the Reanimates. Next turn, I FOW'd his first Sculler, since Daze was useless by this point and could be pitched anyway, and resolved LDV and Brainstorm in response to the 2nd to have two Emrakuls in hand (he took one) and SnT on top with a 3rd Emrakul second and LDV 3rd (nice pile there). My opponent was out of mana by now because he had not really hit lands while under standstill, so next turn, SnT ftw.

EDIT: I just recently figured out that my opponent's deck was probably trying to discard some opposing creatures, reanimate them to his side, and then play a standstill. It's not a very wide plan, but it's somewhat cheaply buildable and may even be decent vs Zoo, Merfolk and Vengevine (he was also running Qasali Pridemages MD) decks. The opening hands may sometimes be horrible, though (as this match illustrated), so I think the plan severely lacks consistency. Someone may be able to build an anti-Merfolk/anti-Survival tuned metagame deck from this base formula, though. Just limit the amount of colors (choice between WBg, Esper and Bant) and add a bucketload of Canonists to SB vs Storm decks.

2-1

1-0 (2-1)


Round 2: vs Dragon Stompy

G1: I play fetch, island, Mox Petal, Ponder, go. He plays Simian Grunt, Ancient Tomb, Magus of the Moon. I play swamp, go, with LDV on his turn. He attacks for 2. I play fetch = mountain and kill him.

G2: he starts City of Traitors, Chrome Mox, Magus of the moon, Chalice @ 0. I have the SnT and Emrakul with an island, polluted delta (=mountain) and D.Rit, but it takes a couple of turns to topdeck a third land. In the meanwhile, I harcast daze to counter his Trinisphere just for the fun of it (and to be able to use Daze in the game at all), even though it's not a very relevant action as I don't need my D.Rit anyway even if I get a Swamp to cast it since I already have SnT.

My opponent commented post-match that I was not supposed to play basic lands in Legacy. ;-)

2-0

2-0 (4-1)

Round 3: vs "UGB Tog", which made it into top 4. I would rather call the deck "Quirion Dryad permission". I did not even know about the Psychatogs in his list before the last turn of game #3 against him.

G1: He starts Islang-go. I start land-Ponder, which gets countered with Disrupt. I am genuinely surprised. When he plays Quirion Dryad on T2, I did not FoW it because I did not know what he was trying to accomplish (resolve a Dryad and then cast a bucketload of cantrips to cantrip into counters) and decided to save it for protection when going off (Disrupt can not be his only counter, is what I figure). T3 he Duresses me (I had T3 combo in hand), I think about FoWing by pitching a Brainstorm but decide to cast the Brainstorm instead in order to save the FoW for going off. I end up with a hand of triple FoW(!) and a land, with BA and Reanimate as the top 2 cards. He takes out the redundant FoW, but this sequence has slowed me down by 1 turn and the Dryad is a faster clock than I had expected. He Duresses me again the next turn, and I realize that if I FoW, I will be down to 4 life post-combat, which will not be enough for the T4 Reanimate. So, to my opponent's great surprise and amusement, I scoop in response to Duress at 12 life with known 2 FoW in hand - to preserve the info of what I am playing, as well as to save time.

G2: I start T1 with island->Ponder to get a 2nd land (a fetch) into hand and get the missing combo piece on top. He starts with T1 Chalice @ 0. I feel really stupid holding on to a lotus petal right now (why on earth didn't I play it T1?!), since otherwise I could just combo off T2 with one land + D.Rit + lotus petal.Toa dd insult to injury, I topdeck a 2nd Petal, lay down the fetch and pass (luckily I had a brainstorm in opening 7). Opponent plays T2 Quirion Dryad, it resolves. At opponent's EOT I shuffle petals away with Brainstorm + fetch, netting me a FoW, a Duress and a third land (perfect!). T3 I topdeck something and lay down the 3rd land, giving me 5 mana to work with. He is tapped out, so I Duress->he FoWs, then I combo off (complete with FoW protection, no less!).

G3: I have a dream hand: lotus petal, land, D.Rit, SnT, Emrakul, LDV, 2nd land. Opponent plays island-go. I topdeck 2nd D. Rit and decide to try combo T1 with land, lotus petal, D.Rit, SnT (goes around Disrupt). Opponent Brainstorms in response. I think long about whether to Daze or not but decide against it just in case he's just looking for a better card to pitch to FoW, and because I can Daze the FoW anyway if he doesn't have it now and gets it from topdeck. Opponent has Fow, I Daze. Opponent plays second FoW (with only two cards left in hand and 2 known on top of his deck), and I'm like wtf. T2 opponent plays fetch - go. I topdeck something irrelevant and play land->go. T3 opponent plays an island, fetches for Tropical and plays Quirion Dryad (around Daze) with 2 cards left in hand. I decide to D.Rit-> LDV to make sure it gets past Disrupt. I get non-fetch land on top (for 3rd mana), SnT 2nd, SnT 3rd, P.Tutor 4th. T3 I play land-go. T4 I try SnT, it gets Disrupted. T4 I try SnT, opponent has Counterspell. T5 I play P.Tutor for the 4th SnT, but it's not fast enough because my opponent topdecks a Psychatog (any non-green spell does it) for the last required power for the Dryad. Dang, so close! :(

After the match, he said to have converted this deck from Vintage to Legacy. Nice deck! He even made it into top 4, losing to GW Death and Taxes 1-2 in the semis (I was speccing: AEther Vial + Stoneforge Mystic raped him, and Serra Avenger flew over his defenses). I think this deck would also be cheap to build, if you can work around the manabase a bit.

1-2

2-1 (5-3)

Round 4: vs Aluren combo

G1: He starts with Cabal Therapy-> Coralhelm Commander (random wild guess based on my nickname "Bearman" in Finnish, as according to my opponent's deductive logic "bears eat fish". I LoL'd a little bit.). I let it resolve. T2 he plays Tarmogoyf and therapies it away for something he saw, but I have topdecked a Brainstorm in the meanwhile to hide it. I draw into a FoW, but keep it as protection for going off (no harm in revealing it, as it was not named). I kill him on T2. I have no idea what he plays based on this information.

G2: Takes a long time to play out with FoWs going back and forth. The decisive moment is when I eventually Thoughtseize him to find FoW, Intuition, Aluren and Cavern Harpy. I take out the Intuition, leaving only Cavern Harpy for his FoW. I FoW his Aluren and LDV for SnT (with P.Tutor still in hand), finding two of them in top 5. The first gets countered with the harpy, but he topdecks Aluren after that. I swing him from 16 to 1 with Aluren and 2 lands on the table, he topdecks…Wall of Blossoms….into….land, not Man o' War. Phew. After the match, my opponent said he had sided incorrectly for my plan (he had played Tormod during G2).

2-0

3-1 (7-3)

Round 5: vs Solidarity, who ended up #9 (5-2 with the best tiebreaker)

I had said to him after spectating his R4 match, that I definitely do not want to play against his deck. Karma happens.

G1: Best. Hand. Ever. Swamp, Island, Fetch, D.Rit, Thoughtseize, Buried Alive, Reanimate. Opponent goes Island-go. I topdeck D.Rit #2. Swamp, D.Rit-> Resolves, Thoughtseize, take out the single FoW, D. Rit, BA, Reanimate. I apologized to my opponent, as I seriously believed this to be one of the hardest MUs in the tournament.

G2: I had went the normal SB route, hoping to be fast. I wasn't. I could have mulliganed more aggressively, but I had T3 SnT in opening seven (no accel.) if I chose to P.Tutor on T2 to reveal my plan (should not make a huge difference, as he will always have his lands untapped on my turn regardless). Since he was suspecting Emrakul based on seeing the SnT (he saw it on T2 and Remanded it on T3 and T4, letting it resolve on T5 to give him an extra land drop to help him go off), he T5 stroke for Geniused me for 50+ cards (instead of Brain Freeze route, although he could have just made a whole lot of 4/4 Beast tokens if he chose to). After the match, he said that he had been urging to take that extra land drop T3-4 and go off prematurely. Too bad that he controlled his urges. In hindsight, I should have just tried to repeat game 1 with the Ooze combo (no SB), as it does not need a combat step to be effective. Or even better: I should have sided in the Emrakuls with a single SnT (or without any) so his Brain Freeze would have been foiled.

G3: I SB'd back into Ooze version. I thought about keeping the Emrakuls, but decided that as my opponent already knew of their existence (stupid me!), I should just keep them out and try to be as fast as possible. The law of karma strikes back: I mulled to 4 and kept a no-lander. (opening 7 had 2 of the 4 creatures, opening 6 had 1, opening 5 had 1 and no land). Nevertheless, I topdecked land T2 and found sick cards with brainstorm (2nd land, d.rit, missing combo piece) and attempted to go off T3. Buried Alive resolved but Reanimate was countered. I tried again on T5 after topdecking a second Reanimate (with Aquamoeba in hand), but my opponent went off in response. While playing solitaire, time gets called. We both laugh at the "active player finishes his turn"-sentence, as he is the one making all the actions. :P Eventually, he actually generated 15+ storm and drew 30+ cards with stroke of genius just in order to find his 1 Peek to look at my last card (he could have just outright stolen the Ooze with his 5 mana open and current hand without any shenanigans). In the end, my Ooze ended up on his side of the table and my deck in my graveyard (I did not keep any Emrakuls in, as I tried to be as fast with the combo as possible). Well, at least the Ooze picked the winning side. :P

1-2

3-2 (8-5)

At this point, I knew I was out from top 8 because my tiebreakers would be suboptimal, but decided to play anyway because the deck was fun.

Round 6: vs The Gate-variant

G1: He starts with Swamp->Thoughtseize, I FoW. I play T1 land, Lotus Petal, Thoughtseize: Gatekeeper, Jitte, Confidant, Smash to smithereens, swamp. I take out Confidant and kill him on T3 (he tried to hit my petal with StS, so it took 1 turn extra).

G2: I keep an OK hand: 2x Lotus Petal, 2x Brainstorm, Thoughtseize (for Gatekeeper), Land, Emrakul. Opponent starts T1 Swamp->Thoughtseize, says "You have nothing there!" and takes my Thoughtseize (to protect his Gatekeeper, I guess). I topdeck SnT, so land, petal, petal, SnT, Emrakul. As he has no mana accel., we shake hands. He seemed genuinely disappointed about not really being able to play magic during our whole match, as he had not dropped previously out of a desire to play more games. Indeed, we were finished in a bit less than 10 minutes, about half of which went to sideboarding and in-game and off-game shuffling.

2-0

4-2 (10-5)

Round 7: vs WU countertop thoptersword

My opponent was really tired after a whole day of tough, long matches, and does not feel much like playing any more. I don't feel tired, as 3 out of 6 of my previous matches have taken less than 20 minutes to complete, and only against Solidarity had I went on to the extra turns.
G1: I start. T1 Ponder->take a land, leave Thoughtseize on top. T2 Thoughtseize reveals E.Tutor, Flooded Strand, Top, Moat, Sword of the Meek, Tolaria West, A. Ruins (I guess he wanted to play top T2 around potential Daze, and did not want to respond with tutor to have cb on top of deck with me taking sensei). I take out Tutor so that he can not topdeck one lock piece and tutor for the other but has to find CB specifically with Top (a very questionable choice, as I could - and probably should - have just taken the top, but I thought 1 top effect is not enough to find CB and I could even combo before his next turn if I brainstorm into non-land mana. Also, thopter combo for infinite life was too mana intensive to be completed in time anyway). He plays top, I Brainstorm but do not find nonland mana source to combo T3. T3 I play a fetch and shuffle away the creature I had put there with brainstorm, and decide to play Buried Alive anyway, with Reanimate and LDV in hand, since he currently has no mana open for counters. He actually manages to get CounterTop going on his T3, with 1 mana open. I play land-go. He untaps and casts Sword of the Meek. I test the grounds with LDV, he tops but my spell resolves. I find Exhume as the top card of my deck and leave it there, putting something relevant 2nd. I draw the Exhume and cast it for the win. After the match, my opponent said that he could have E.Tutored a cc2 spell on top in response to LDV, but thought he could find one by topping. In that case, I would have just played Reanimate first so he would have had to put top on top of his deck (no mana open), then played Exhume ftw (since it had been the topdecked card regardless of LDV).

G2: He said to have kept a questionable hand. The game was quickly finished by Emrakul. I sided in bounce for Humility, which he did not have in his list (and had been really sorry for it the whole day, I heard).

2-0

5-2 (12-5)

Statistics:
G1 Ooze wins-losses 5-2
G2 Ooze wins-losses (opponent had not seen the plan G1) 2-0
---------------------------------
G2 Transitional wins-losses (after Ooze win G1) 4-1
G3 Transitional wins-losses (after Ooze win G2, opponent unfamiliar with transition) 1-1
---------------------------------
G3 Ooze wins-losses (opponent had seen both strategies already in G1-G2) 0-1


G1 win% 71,4% -can be improved by making less play mistakes
Ooze plan win% (combo unknown by opponent) 77,8% -can be improved by winning the die roll more often :P
---------------------------------
Transitional plan win% (transition unknown by opponent) 71,4% -can be improved by improving sideboard card quality (Daze out!)
---------------------------------
Ooze plan win% (combo known by opponent) 0% -figure expected to have huge variation based on MU, opponent's SB, opposing mulligans and opening hands for both players. improved by making individual SB choices (non-transitional hate cards).

Conclusions:
The deck was great and stabile!

About the losses:
R1G1 loss was due to unsuspected heavy discard, and LDV taking out whopping 7 life.

Against Quarion Dryad deck R3G1, I could have FoWed him earlier but he might have had additional protection in the form of counters, which would have revealed my strategy before G2. Also, in G3 I could have Dazed his Brainstorm on T1, but again, I thought he might have had FoW + key card in hand and was not expecting double FoW on T1.

I feel that I should have sideboarded better vs. Solidarity. Maybe put the Emrakuls in for G2 while trying to win with the Ooze strategy. In G3, my opening hands just sucked but considering that, T3 go-off attempt was stellar, and not many other decks can actually even try that. I was missing Iona from the list, though, and feel like she should be included in the 75 for long swiss tournaments to crush mono-color decks and provide an out for an opposing Pithing Needle (although this may be a relevant strategy only against Welder animator).

About the decklist:
The Dazes did not pull their weight. I would rather have extra Duresses and/or Spell Pierces there. I feel that there needs to be 1 bounce in the 75 for Humility, although others may disagree with me. Whether that is Eye of Nowhere, Wipe Away or Echoing Truth is a debatable meta choice. The 1 Duress in MD should be 4th Thoughtseize, I just had only 3 available. The potential inclusion of Iona is questionable, unless you have a pet peeve monocolor deck in your meta (or it's full of Merfolk + Solidarity).


About the players and judges:
Great sportmanship all around! Very high skill level of attendees and judges. Team Dredge should have sticked to their name and played dredge instead of making a last-minute change. Now they didn't make it into top 16 even. :P


Assorted tournament highlights:
One player managed to shuffle his deck into his opponent's deck! They had identical sleeves. He had taken half of his own deck into hand when fetching and when putting it back, he shuffled into opponent's deck. The players used some of the same cards in both decks (japanese vs english), so the judges took a while sorting it all out.

A burn player vs merfolk: Merfolk has 6 life, opponent plays Fireblast -> 2 life. Burn player now has 4 mountains, one of which is tapped. Taps one, announces "R in pool"-> 2nd Fireblast, sacs tapped mountains (3 mountains in play and untapped). Merfolk responds with Spell Pierce->pays with 2 mountains. Daze-> pays with 1 mountain. Daze-> burn player scoops. After the match, the Merfolk player then reminds him "you still had that R in your pool, you know".

Newbie solidarity player vs New Horizons(?): NH player's draw has just passed, he has 1/1 Terravore in play. Solidarity starts playing solitaire. NH player has 2 cards in had. Brain Freeze with enough storm-> Stifle. 2nd Brain Freeze -> 2nd Stifle. Remand to his own Brain Freeze-> Brain Freeze. Bant player scoops. Solidarity player had empty mana pool, so no "draw a card" effect is forthcoming. Terravore would have been at least 18/18 and Solidarity player on 16 life. Attacking would have been preferable to scoop. :P

Future plans:
I managed to trade for a set of Goblin Welders during the tournament, so I am just 2 Intuition away from completing a preliminary main deck for Welder Reanimator (SB still needs a lot of work, though). In the meanwhile, I will be using Thirst for Knowledge as a budget replacement card (same mana cost, pitchable to FoW, instant, puts an artifact into the yard). Hopefully, Affinity and Dredge will not become very popular deck choices, as Welder Animator is hit with the same artifact hate and graveyard hate cards.

Nice report. A lot more effort went into that than your average forum post.

I also often play guys with the same sleeves, gives me the bad thought to also shuffle my deck into theirs just to see the face of our usual judge if I explain the situation ^^

Nice report!!

How where the Ponders? Seemed you didn't mention them alot in the report..

Opening post has been edited thoroughly and should be factually accurate now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pippo84

How where the Ponders? Seemed you didn't mention them alot in the report..

---

Whenever I had the combo in hand, I mentally ignored the existence/presence of Ponders. That's why I didn't mention them much in the report, either. They were an OK filler card, but being a Sorcery was sometimes an issue, especially when I wished to leave a mana open for Spell Pierce or Brainstorm (discard protection). Spell Pierce or Opt may fulfill a similar role as Ponder in the deck, although Ponder's advantage is digging 3 cards deep. Ponder becomes quite redundant after successfully resolving a LDV, though. LDV and Brainstorm are definitely the MVPs of filter cards for this deck, with both as an automatic 4-of. The rest are debatable choices, although I would preferably leave at least 2 P.Tutors in. Just make sure the blue count does not get too low before SB for FoW.

Congrats! I'm glad you found my list useful. I am now convinced from your report that daze is not pulling its weight. I'd swap the 3 dazes for 2 spell pierce and 1 duress. I generally dislike more than 6 discard in any deck as they're terrible when your opponent is in topdeck mode. I think most of your plays are correct. Cheers!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

Congrats! I'm glad you found my list useful. I am now convinced from your report that daze is not pulling its weight.

---

They would be good as MD protection cards to be swapped out when SBing to slow down the opponent who plays around them although we no longer have them. They could be brought back in when on the play in G3. However, due to the transformational sideboard strategy, we do not have the SB space for this.

They were LAST weekend already? Oops. Well, good job.

Thanks for the very detailed report! This part is confusing me though:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karhumies

I test the grounds with LDV, he tops but my spell resolves. I find Entomb as the top card of my deck and leave it there, putting something relevant 2nd. I draw the Entomb and cast it for the win. After the match, my opponent said that he could have E.Tutored a cc2 spell on top in response to LDV, but thought he could find one by topping. In that case, I would have just played Reanimate first so he would have had to put top on top of his deck (no mana open), then played Entomb ftw (since it had been the topdecked card regardless of LDV).

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So he had CB-Top online, and let a 1cc spell that won you the game resolve? Or did I interpret this wrong?

I think he meant Exhume.

Anyway, congrats again!

I am actually interested in seeing this Ubg Tog decklist that made top 8. Any chance we could see the top 8 lists?

You mention using Entomb a couple of times in your report but I'm not seeing it in the decklist. Please let me know if I'm just missing it or if it's supposed to be replacing something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Khurtz

You mention using Entomb a couple of times in your report but I'm not seeing it in the decklist. Please let me know if I'm just missing it or if it's supposed to be replacing something.

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I meant Exhume. I never had Entomb in the deck list; I messed the two up when typing the report.

I have now edited the report for correct card names.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mister Agent

I am actually interested in seeing this Ubg Tog decklist that made top 8. Any chance we could see the top 8 lists?

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Quote from the D&T thread on The Source:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Penguinizer

4 Dryads, 4 Togs, 4 Accumulated KNowledges, Serum Visions, 2 Pernicious Deeds, Smother, Duress, Brainstorm, Counterspell, FoW.

I'll get the decklist for it when it's posted.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mister Agent

I am actually interested in seeing this Ubg Tog decklist that made top 8. Any chance we could see the top 8 lists?

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Since the deck lists aren't up yet I'll just post my list here for you.

4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
2 Swamp
5 Island

3 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Duress
2 Disrupt
2 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish
2 Pernicious Deed


SB:
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Berserk
1 Smother
1 Kira, great Glass-Spinner
3 Krosan Grip
2 Planar Void
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Chalice of the Void

Preordain would probably be better than Serum Visions but didn't have them available when making the deck. Didn't have any Thoughtseizes either, so Duress it was.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Onimod

Since the deck lists aren't up yet I'll just post my list here for you.

4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
2 Swamp
5 Island

3 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Duress
2 Disrupt
2 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish
2 Pernicious Deed


SB:
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Berserk
1 Smother
1 Kira, great Glass-Spinner
3 Krosan Grip
2 Planar Void
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Chalice of the Void

Preordain would probably be better than Serum Visions but didn't have them available when making the deck. Didn't have any Thoughtseizes either, so Duress it was.

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That is an awesome old skool list. Your games were quite entertaining to watch. Preordain and Ponder are good cantrips instead of Serum Visions and Doom Blade looks like a better replacement for Smother. Were the 2 Deeds enough in maindeck?