Team America does it again in Poznan 12/02/2011

So here's me second report, from yet another tournamet in 3rd Legacy League in Poznan. Its been a while since my first report, but I couldn't make it to last month's tournament, so there was nothing to write about. Off to buisness:

My decklist: (some explenations at the end of my post)

4x Tarmogoyf
3x Tombstalker
2x Trygon Predator
2x Bitterblossom

2x Jace 2.0
2x Pernicious Deed
3x Snuff Out

4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Stifle
4x Hymn to Tourach

4x Underground Sea
3x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Polluted Delta
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland

side:
2x Perish
3x Extirpate
2x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Krosan Grip
3x Thoughtseize
2x Pithing Needle
2x Threads of Disloyalty

Round 1: URgw Countertop

Game 1: I lose the roll, but keep a pretty good hand of FoW, 2x Daze, Brainstorm, Ponder, Stifle and Underground Sea. Turn 1 I Force Sensei's Divining Top (pitching Stifle as it is the least useful card against countertop), turn 2 I Daze Counterbalance. turn 3 I Daze trinket Mage. We trade some removal for creatures as I Snuff Out his Grim Lavamancer, and he sends my Tarmogoyf farming, evenutually we both enter topdeck mode. My opponnent topdecked SDT, but my deck turned out to be more generous, spitting out a bitterblossom - the best card I could get in this matchup. At that point I was low on life already beacouse of numerous fetchlands, his lavamancer activations and my Snuff Out, but my oponent fails to find Firespout and faeries just get there.

Side in: 3x Thoughtseize, 2x Maelstrom Pulse, 1x Krosan Grip 2x Pithing Needle, Side out: 3x Stifle, 2x Pernicious Deed, 1x Ponder, 1x Daze,

Game 2: My opponent started with basic Island into SDT, wich resolved. My oppening hand was Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, Hymn, some lands (1x waste) and Ponder. I opened with a thoughtseize, revealing: Jace 2.0, Firespout, Brainstorm, Island and Counterspell - altough resolved Jace could be devastating I decided to take Counterspell, as he had no other way to deal with my turn 2 tarmogoyf, and would need to find both Swords to Plowshares and a source of white mana. On his upkeep he activated top, than played a land and shipped the turn back, and on my turn t2 I tried to play Tarmogoyf wich he Spell Snared - ouch! His turn 3 was again spin the top, land(fetch), go(So I knew his hand is still Jace, Brainstorm and Firespout). On my turn 3 I play wasteland and Hymn, he activates the top in response, and than - to my surprise - lets it resolve while still having fecth, untapped Island and brainstorm. Like a champ I hit Jace and Brainstorm, leaving him with just Firespout. Not responding with Brainstorm was just a misplay on his part as whatever cards he saw with the Top, they just could'nt be better than Jace, but at that point I believed the top of his library must've been something like land and 2nd Jace, as I could'nt imagine anythging else justifying not hiding the Jace with Brainstorm. Next turn I trade Trygon predator for his Firespout. When he plays his fourth land with one card in hand, I am really surprised he doesen't play Jace, but think something like 'he's probbably playing around daze'. On my turn I try tu pull the trigger with my Jace 2.0, only to find out that his last card was...Spell Pierce. From that point the game just slips away from him as I topdecked Pithing Needle for his Top (He misplayed here for the second time, as he activated the Top in response, shuffled with fetch, activated the top again, and than let my needle resolve with the Top still in play. As one of the spectatores pointed out after the match, the correct play was to activate the top, draw a card with it in response and than crack fetch to shuffle it away). I played Tombstalker, wasteed away his only source of green mana, so he could'nt race me with a topdecked Goyf(he had two sources of white mana, so cutting off removal color was not an option) and proceeded to win in four swings.

1-0

Round 2: Wg Stax

Two rather unexciting games, I have all the answers I need, I counter all of his relevant spells, kill all his Mishra's and Baneslayers with Snuff Outs etc..

Game 1: I Daze his Trinisphere, Force his Crucible, while letting resolve Ghostly Prison as I can easily ignore it as I rarely attack with more than one creature anyway. He managed to resolve Armaggedon, but as my deck can operate on two lands for most of the time, there was no need to overextend so I rebuilt easily with the lands I was sanbagging for a few turns. A resolved Trygon Predator forced immediate concession.

Side in: 2x Maelstrom Pulse, 1x Krosan Grip, Side Out: 2x Bitterblossom, 1x Stifle

Game 2: He opened with chalice of the void @1, while my hand was: 2x Force of Will, Brainstorm, Ponder, Underground Sea, Bayou, Daze. I decided to let it resolve, keeping my FoWs for his real threats and with such backup I would have enough time to find some action even without my cantrips. His turn two wasteland slows me down significantly, and for several turns I just play draw-discard at at of turn-go. Just like game 1 I Force real threats like Crucible and Smokestack, and for most of the time he just keeps playing some irrelevant stuff like leyline of sanctity and Ghostly Prison, putting no pressure on me at all. I finally find second land, play a huge Goyf, gg.

I do realize I had very good draws both games, but unless something bizzare happens like turn 1 Trinisphere, turn 2 Crucible/Armageddon, Its rather difficult to lose to deck wich has so many dead cards against you, and relies only on its topdecks in the late game.

2-0

Round 3: Zoo

Game 1: I lost the roll and kept a mediocore hand with 2x Pernicious Deed, Fow, Snuff Out and lands. He opened with a turn 1 Wild Nacatl(I Snuffed it out), turn two Grim Lavamancer and second Nacatl. I Forced his Pridemage and played Deed than blew up his board the following turn but the damage was already done. He played Knight of The reliquary and I failed to draw a fourth land so I had to pay 4 life for my second snuff out, dropping me to 2, than made him discard his last two cards with Hymn to Tourach. He drew land, played it and passed the turn, while I dug up a Tombstalker with a ponder, played it and crossed my fingers hoping he won't draw any byrn for the next four turns. He did.

Side in: 2x Maelstrom Pulse 2x Threads of Disloyalty, 2x Perish, Side out: 2x Bitterblossom, 2x Trygon Predator, 2x Pernicious Deed.

Game 2: I Stifled his turn 1 fetchland, Wasted his turn 2 Taiga and followed that with Jace. He was never able to recove and still had only one land in play when i launhced Jaces ultimate.

Game 3: I'm not sure whether he kept a very loose hand, or tried to play around stifle, daze, wasteland and every other possible card he could think of, at the same time - The point is, if the Zoo plays land-go for the first two turns against control it is not going to win. (On a side note - playing around Daze with the Zoo is usally pretty bad. I kept Dazes only becouse I had no better cards in the sideboard and if I have to daze turn one or turn two play it's usually a win-win scenario for the Zoo player, as the tempo loss is very damaging in this mathcup.) We traded some creatures for removal, I had Maelstrom Pulse for his Elspeth etc.. At some point I had hand full of removal (but no counters) 5 lands in play and 10 life, and his only out was to draw multiple burns spells fast or one of three Price of Progres. He played Sylvan Library and i thought to myself that this means serious trouble.. until he played quasali pridemage on the same turn (last card in his hand). Threads of Disloyalty ftw!

3-0

Round 4: Rb Goblins

Game 1: I Force his turn 1 Vial, and than play turn 2 Goyf, turn 3 Goyf, turn 4 Tombstalker. Who's the beatdown?

Game 2: He kept a land-light hand with 2x Aetger Vial, I had Pithing Needle. And Wasteland. And Stifle. Tombstalker made a quick work of it, and I can't recall if I saw any goblins hitting play.

4-0

Round 5 : Rb Goblins - ID

Top 4 split.

A few comments on my deklist and card choices:

- Bitterblossom in this deck is an idea i've been pondering about for a while. If you manage to resolve it against countertop all landstill it's usually game over for them. It is also great against Bant decks and Eva green, as they run a lot of spot removal post sideboard. Than again neither of those is a really bad matchup, and there are also few matchups where you don't want to play blossom even when you draw it, so maybye it belengs to the sideboard or maybye it doesn'e belong to the deck at all? Another idea is to try running it with jitte.

- Trygon Predator main, over Vendilion Clique was a metagema choice, as I expected to see some Stax, Stiflenought and the new Meandeck MUD wich I din't hava time to playtest against.

- I really liked Maelstrom Pulses, and I'm seriously considering swapping them with the Perncious Deeds in the maindeck. Deed is better against vial decks and Enchantress/Stax, but pulse shines against everything else, being able to deal with planeswalkers and removing threats instantly - very important with things like turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary or Terravore.

- My sideboard was a bit wierd as I forgot to bring a *few* cards for the tournament (great thanks to Kacper, who was my first round opponent and also happens to be tournament organizer for lending me literaly half of the deck :) ) I would have definetely run some one- or two-mana spot removal like ghastly demise/go for the throat and either spell pierce or divert, but borrowing them turned out to be much more difficoult than borrowing bayous and tombstalkers.

- Pithing Needle was great I would even consider running 3rd. The fact that Needle doeasn't interact well with Pernicious Deed is another argument for running Maelstrom Pulse instead.


Thanks for reading, and as usual - if you have any questions feel free to post them here or send me a PM.

Woah... So this is what to play... in the future??

There's two date conventions: Day/Month/Year, and Month/Day/Year. The RIGHT way to do it is like he did, day/month/year, whereas the American way is Month/Day/Year (iirc).

-Matt

There is no "right" way; it's just a convention, which by definition is a matter of tradition. The American way is just a transliteration of "February 12th, 2011" -> 2/12/2011. I suppose that's 'wrong', too... should be 12th February, 2011, right?

Yeah I realized what he meant about 30 seconds after I posted, but thought it was funny so I left it. I am really curious what makes one way right and the other American?

Regarding the report, nice job. Seems like you definitely outplayed your opponent for several of those wins, which is what I like to read about.

Nice report! I enjoyed reading about it. I'm not really sold on Bitterblossom in this deck though. It's not synergic with Deed and the deck already loses plenty of life..

12/02/2011 is the "correct" way! :tongue: