5 Color Zombie Aggro to an SCG top 8

So I don’t really have any notes for this report, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

My name is Steven Brill. I live in Cincinnati and am just a high schooler. Since the beginning of the school year last year, I haven’t really played much magic, just a few drafts in the nine month span. My brother and I decided that we might as well playing in this event since it is closer to my house than the local store, so that is how it began.

I came into the tournament expecting to scrub out because I have played one tournament (This tournament was a long time ago) with the deck and have done little else with it other than goldfishing, but I guess that didn’t happen…

List:
Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Legendary Creatures
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Sorceries
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel

Sideboard:
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Angel of Despair
1 Ichorid
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Firestorm
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Winds of Change

The list is the same as Feldman’s except I replaced a thug with an Iona, because I like having a target to “dig” for.

Round 1: Josh Baker-Wb Aggro thing (white weenie with vindicates and Bobs)

G1: I resolve a discard outlet. He has a turn 1 vial. On turn 3 he accidentally tries to cast a Serra Avenger and then passes with his vial on 2. I therapy him the following turn and I ask him if it resolves. He says yes, so I name Serra Avenger. Then he tries to activate his vial, but the judge standing by quickly corrects him and I take 2 avengers out of his hand. He gets 2 swords out, but tireless tribe keeps blocking and I eventually therapy out his hand and he concedes.

G2: He plays turn 1 volrath’s stronghold into vial. I DDD. He plays a wasteland and passes. Eventually, I start play a land, he wastes it. Then I play another land and a coliseum and end up with an iona while all he does is vial in tidehollow scullers. He didn’t draw a colored land until I had him dead on board.

Round 2: Dillon Steinbach-Burn

G1: He plays a goblin guide and suspends a rift bolt. I get a turn 2 or 3 Iona.

G2: He has a good hand, but a turn 3 or 4 iona stops him 1 turn before he kills me.

Round 3: Steven Harper-Affinity

G1: I play a tribe turn 1. He plays land. He plays turn 2 frogmite. On turn 3, I therapy a Master of Etherium out of his hand to see a Tezerett and a plating while he only has 2 non blue lands, so I sac my tribe to get the plating. Then he doesn’t do anything.

G2: I don’t remember what happened, but he played some creatures and I lost. There wasn’t any hate.

G3: He plays a vault skirge and gets a plating out. I make a bunch of zombies. He plays a master of etherium and lifelinks for 8, putting me in lethal range and I can’t kill him with zombies. I dredge a narco and bring back some ichorids and win the game with 23 zombies and an Elesh Norn.

Round 4: Mark Larson-Zoo I have to battle a friend this round.

G1: He plays turn 1 Steppe lynx. I play tribe. I block his attack. He plays 2 Nacatyls. Turn 2, I therapy and get an Iona. He concedes.

G2: He mulls to 5 and I beat him up with ichorids or something like that.

Round 5: Brian Braun-Duin-Merfolk

Game 1: I mull to 6. I resolve my discard outlet and slow dredge. I dredge into dredgers and lands and quickly die a fishy death.

Game 2: I mull to 4. My 5 carder was pretty bad. The 4 carder was: Bridge, Thug, pimp, land. The sickest! He missteps my turn 1 outlet and wastelands me, but I draw into another outlet and a land and the outlet resolves. He doesn’t draw into much and I grind out a win!

Game 3: He has 2 misteps. I have 3 outlets. He gets stuck on 1 colorless land with vials on 2 and 3 and draws into a bunch of cursecatchers. I get an Iona and win from there.

Round 6: Nicholas Gilbert-U/W Stoneforge

Game 1: I play some cards. Eventually he bounces a batterskull to nuke bridges so I therapy the batterskull and he is out of cards so I kill him.

Game 2: Stuff happens. He looks like he is in a decent position. I therapy him out of cards and get him in a bad enough position that his ancestral visions resolving doesn’t matter.

Note: I don’t know if it just me, but this deck seemed to run out of cards very quickly.

Round 7: Brian Boss-Depths Rock

Coverage: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ven_Brill.html

Game 1: I mulligan to 5 and my hand seems solid. I didn’t expect misstep (but I did know what he was playing). His bog seals the deal before he gets a Marit Lage.

Game 2: He counters my early discard outlets. Eventually I start dredging. I topdeck the therapy when I need it and I don’t die to a Marit Lage, but I misplay and don’t discard the 2 ichorids in my hand before that. Then I have to do a lot more grinding that if I had pitched the ichorids. I eventually get lucky and hit 2 Narcos when I need them and bring back the iona to buy me enough time to win.

Game 3: Inquition slows me down and bojuka bog puts the nail in the coffin while I die to beaters.

Round 8: Joshua Lewis-Esper good stuff? (Vendilion clique, bob, stoneforge, stuff like that)

Game 1: I resolve a discard outlet. He plays a Bob and a spellstutter and some other stuff. I don’t remember what happens but I win pretty quickly.

Game 2: He extirpates troll, but I can keep dredging. He gets a Meddling mage on DR and manages to nuke a bunch of bridges and he gets a batterskull out and I don’t have enough gas to win from there.

Game 3: I don’t remember what happens but he chumps an ichorid early with a vendilion clique and I beat him up with ichorids and maybe an Iona.

Round 9: ID with my friend Ben Weinberg

While I’m sorting out my deck with Ben and Alex Bertoncini, Drew Levin walked up to look at my list. I explained it and he pointed out that Blightsteel doesn’t need to be in my SB, which seems legitimate. He also mentioned the idea that I replace my Leylines with more dread returns, because in the mirror, an Elesh Norn is a win, which sounds reasonable to me.

There is a preconceived notion that all of these “pros” are douches, but they were all really nice and happy to talk to me.

Top 8: Alex Bertoncini-NO RUG

Game 1: I choose to play, which was a mistake. He plays way too much countermagic for playing to be correct. I keep a 7 carder with one discard outlet. He counters it and I die.

Game 2: I choose to draw. I keep a hand with 3 discard outlets and a dredger among other cards. I decide to play my outlets, but he has 2 missteps and a daze. I quickly die to a goyf.

Overall I liked the deck. It is very powerful and even the best players don’t know how to play against it. The only graveyard sweepers I saw were from Brian Boss, and I even won a game through it, so they aren’t much of a concern at all. The biggest thing I noticed is that not once in the tournament did I cast a breakthrough or careful study and dredge. Fast dredging is not necessary to win most matchups. This makes me think that a landless build may be a lot better. I will have to test how landless lists do against fast decks like zoo, but they might be the future of dredge. If anyone tries to argue that they scoop to Leyline, well so do I, so that really isn’t a factor.

Props:
SCG-you guys are awesome
Ichorid-You beat face like no other
My opponents- you were all fun
My deck-you were so lucky
Mihn Vu- He is an awesome judge and he lent me a sweater because it was freezing

Slops
The venue-it was freezing
SCG-You didn’t put “5 color zombie aggro” as the deck name on the list

Congrats on the finish and it was a nice read.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ssbm Rocks1

Round 6: Nicholas Gilbert-U/W Stoneforge

Game 1: I play some cards. Eventually he bounces a batterskull to nuke bridges so I therapy the batterskull and he is out of cards so I kill him.

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Just to point out that it does not work. Tokens do not exist outside of the battlefield.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tsabo_tavoc

Congrats on the finish and it was a nice read.



Just to point out that it does not work. Tokens do not exist outside of the battlefield.

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I'm pretty sure that it goes to the graveyard then disappears, so it would trigger the bridges.

A side note: I agree that the venue was waaaaaaaaaay too cold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arew

I'm pretty sure that it goes to the graveyard then disappears, so it would trigger the bridges.

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This is correct. Tokens do go to the graveyard, they just don't remain in there. The bouncing of the Batterskull is a cute trick that will exile the Bridges, because the now 0/0 germie token will go to the graveyard.

Due to State-based effects, when a token goes to the graveyard, since it is not in play, it is exiled. But it is there long enough to trigger abilities like Bridge from Below, etc.

I was altering there and quite loved the cold venue, haha.
Paint tends to function better at lower temps.

But I got up from time to time and man your deck is one of the coolest things I've seen at a Legacy event in some time! :)
It flew just low enough to confuse people, and just high enough to defeat them. Awesome finish, congrats!