TA Top 4 at Millenium Games and Hobbies in Rochester,NY

Yesterday at Millennium Games and Hobbies my friends and I played after a 5-6 month hiatus to see what the meta looked like post Mental Misstep banning. I played an updated Team America list (my go to deck) using Snapcaster Mages and Lilliana of the Veil. There were about 14-18 people there. Here was my list:

1cc// (12)
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle

2cc// (15)
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library

3cc// (6)
3 Dismember
2 Maelstrom pulse
1 Lilliana Vess

5cc// (4)
4 Force of Will

8cc// (3)
3 Tombstalker

Landcc// (20)
4 Wasteland
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacomb
3 Misty Rainforest

SB:

2 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Jace the Mind Sculptor
4 Spell Pierce


Here are the games as I remember them. Most of the plays are accurate but the cards I had in my hand at any given time may be a little off.


Match 1 vs W/G NO-Maverick piloted by Jacob Barber

Game 1: My opponent and I both draw 7 and keep. My hand is little risky with only 1 land but I have Brainstorm, Stifle, Hymn, Dismember, Daze and I think a Tombstalker or Snapcaster. I'm on the play so I drop a fetch and pass turn. My opponent drops a land, I think Savannah, and plays Noble Hierarch. I cracked my fetch for a Sea and Brainstorm'd, debating about trying a mana denial strategy and dazing the Hierarch, and I hit Daze, Land and I think either a Stifle or a Bstorm/Ponder. I made the decision that I would rather hit two lands next turn and just Hymn and then start playing reactively the turn afterwards. Big mistake. I peg him with a Hymn after fetching up Bayou and hit two lands but on his next turn he busts my Sea with a Wasteland and I spend the next few turns drawing junk after Dismembering his Hierarch. I play the game out though and end up losing to Progen which helps greatly in strategizing for the next game.

Out: 1 Sylvan Library, 1 Snapcaster Mage, 1 Daze (I think..)
In: 3 Ghastly Demise

Game 2: What I'm remembering here is that Wasteland is amazing. I busted up a Dryad Arbor on turn 2 and I believe I Stifle'd a Wasteland as well on turn 3 or 4. I proceeded to dump out threat after threat while controlling the flow of dude's and preventing him from getting anywhere near NO. Eventually I dumped out something like a Stalker and 2 Goyf's and just overran him.

Game 3: Mainly what I remember about this was that I nuked every guy he played. Ghastly Demise definitely ate a turn 1 Hierarch and I remember Maelstrom Pulsing a MoM and a Knight somewhere after turn 4 but the real hero was Lilliana of the Veil who busted up a creature I can't remember and then saved my ass from Thrun. Tombstalker eventually hit play and got in there.

Record: 1-0 (2-1 Games)

Match 2 vs Reanimator piloted by Bobby Leroy

Game 1: As Bob is a good friend of mine and part of my playtesting team we know each others decks thoroughly. From what I remember of game 1 we got into a few counter wars but once again Lilliana of the Veil was MVP by taking out an early Empirical Angel. I dropped a threat fairly early and stopped any additional reanimation shenanigans. I'm pretty sure Wasteland kept his land count low too to prevent plays off of Ponder/Brainstorm.

Out: 4 Hymn to Tourach, 4 Stifle
In: 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Spell Pierce

Game 2: My opening hand consisted of Wasteland and a bunch of spicy cards including FoW and Dismember but I mull to six since I almost never trust those kinds of hands. Bob plays a first turn Pithing Needle on Lilliana of the Veil (not aware that I only run 1 copy). I laugh as I don't have one in hand and decide it probably was a bad play on his part. Two turns later I draw Lilliana : - ( We spend the next few turns hand sculpting although I think I get an early Goyf that was a 3/4 and one of my Snapcasters gets countered. After maybe 1-2 turns of Goyf beats Bob pulls the trigger on Show and Tell and gets off an Iona naming Black. I just sit there with Dismember, Pulse and Lilliana in hand and cry a little bit. As I'm not a fan of scooping I continue to play it out and Bob gets to have fun by Reanimating my Snapcaster to target one of his reanimation spells to get back a Gin-Gitaxias. I lose shortly thereafter.

Game 3: Leyline is still nowhere to be seen in my opening hand, which I think consisted of Spell Pierce, Maelstrom Pulse, Wasteland, 3 Fetches and I think a Brainstorm. I decide to try it and drop a land and pass. Bob plays a land and passes. My next card was a Leyline which was pretty depressing so I just dropped another land and passed. Bob Duresses me and decides to take Maelstrom Pulse, which I figure was a decent call since he could play around Spell Pierce and probably not worry about Leyline. A turn or two afterwards I draw and play a Goyf which gets countered, however Bob pitches a Show and Tell to do so and apparently was relying on reanimation at that point. I could actually have countered his reanimation but I'm more worried about Show and Tell and I have a Dismember in hand which takes out my Goyf. Bob drops an Underground Sea and tries to Show and Tell but my Spell Pierce takes him out as he doesn't have any counter back up. At this point I hardcast my Leyline since Bob has no creatures in his yard to reanimate and Waste his Sea, keeping him at 2 land. This proves to be lethal as I eat my Goyf with a Tombstalker and Bob draws reanimation spells with no targets. Tstalker gets in there.

Record: 2-0 (4-2 Games)

Match 3 vs R/U/G Bloodbraid Elf-Control piloted by Will Fisher

Game 1: From what I remember of this game it involved a lot of me Stifling fetches , Wastelanding some FBB duals here and there and eventually getting overrun by triple Bloodbraid Elves (of which I was able to Stifle one of the triggers : - /)

Out: 4 Force of Will
In: 3 Ghastly Demise, 1 Maelstrom Pulse

Game 2: This game I tried to control his board with removal, which worked out well early game. I also resolved a Sylvan Library that helped out a ton and prevented Will from getting too far ahead on cards with his Ancestral Visions. I also hit him with a Hymn that picked up a critical Bloodbraid Elf and I think a Clique. Will later told me that he had FoW in hand but didn't want to risk getting into a counter battle and losing 4 cards instead of 2. I eventually got a Tombstalker out that took Will down to around 9 life. Will had a Clique, a Hierarch and a Bloodbraid elf out and I was at 5 with just my Tombstalker out. I had a Maelstrom Pulse in hand and ended up paying 4 life with Library, putting me at 5 life, to get my land up to 4 and get a Dismember. I decided that playing it safe was a bad strategy as Will only had 1 card in hand and topdecks like a boss so I pulse'd the Clique and took him down to 4. I passed turn to Will who dropped another Hierarch and beat in with Bloodbraif Elf for 5. In what was probably the play of the day for me I Dismember'd the elf and prayed that Will didn't have burn. He Brainstorm'd in response and hit no counters and no burn and we went to game 3.

Game 3: I don't remember a ton about this game but Will got off an early Ancestral and resolved Jace mid game along with a Sylvan and then proceeded to out draw and out maneuver me with Flusterstorm and an assortment of other counters that I hadn't seen in the previous games.

Record 2-1 (5-4 Games)

Match 4 vs U/W Stax piloted by Terry Vanderwal


Game 1: When I found out I was paired up with Terry I just laughed as he was borrowing my deck and we had playtested this match until 3AM the prior night. I'm glad we did as I had Delvers in over Snapcaster, Lilliana and Library and after testing I found them to be inconsistent and generally underwhelming. My opening hand was the stone cold nuts against Stax consisting of 2 Wastelands and I believe Fow and some blue cards. He went first and I stopped a turn 1 Chalice with FoW. Wasteland ate a Tomb. He dropped another non-basic and passed. Wasteland ate that as well. The rest of the game involved Terry not having enough land and me dropping threats.

Out: 4 Stifle, 3 Dismemeber
In: 1 Maelstrom Pulse, 4 Spell pierce, 2 Krosan Grip

Game 2: As I was reveling in my Wasteland-flavored win I draw a hand with Spell Pierce, Stifle, Brainstorm, a couple of lands and I think a Maelstrom Pulse. It didn't really matter since Terry went Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond pitching Wasteland and then dropped Crucible. I sighed as I knew my chances of winning were virtually nothing, but once again I decided to play it out. The next few turns consisted of me playing lands and Terry blowing them up. I eventually got out a fetch and a Wasteland that Terry didn't blow up, as he was too busy dropping Chalices, Tezzeret and other goodies, and I thought I might get my Maelstrom Pulse off if I could just draw one more land. I didn't and Terry blew up the rest of my lands with double wastes. Something like 8 turns later I died to either Jace or Tezzy, I forget which as it blends together with the games from the previous night.

Out: 4 Hymn to Tourach
In: 4 Stifle

Game 3: I realized that Stifle was instrumental in not getting pwned by Wasteland and Hymn is questionably good in this matchup so I popped them back in and hoped for the best. As I recall Terry and I traded Wastelands in the first few turns and he dropped a Propaganda. I had a Tarmogoyf in hand along with a Snapcaster Mage, a Daze and some cantrips. I passed turn trying to play reactive and Terry dropped Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I immediately sadfaced as I knew aggro beats would be almost impossible unless I topdecked just right. Terry then proceeded to drop Jace and fateseal. I was able to avoid it by cantripping and fetching and I wound up with my own Jace in hand along with a Maelstrom Pulse. I brainstorm/shuffle-fetched away a Tombstalker and a Goyf and blasted his Jace with a Pulse. Terry dropped a Smokestack shortly afterwards and it ended up eating a Sylvan Library I had picked up. I countered Terry's second Jace (the only other one in the deck) and prepared for Smokestack. I was able to Flash in a Snapcaster EOT to give myself a chance to draw the crucial land and low and behold I topdecked it! I played it and then tapped out to slam down my Jace. Terry had no cards in hand so I knew this might be game. I knocked off his Smokestack the next turn with a Pulse and then continued to Fateseal away all of his relevant cards. The turn before Jace's ultimate I fatesealed Terry who had managed to draw a Flooded Strand. He cracked it at the end of my turn and prayed for something to counteract Jace with. Unfortunately he got nothing and Jace went off ending the game : - )

Record: 3-1 (7-5 Games)



After this I decided to split top 4 with Terry, Jacob and Will who were all 3-1 as well. Bob was also 3-1 but was barely edged out by tiebreakers. Overall a great day and a nice return to the tournament scene!



Props:

-Terry, Bobby, Dr. Nik and Brian for coming to play and Hunter, Nik and Max for chilling with us.
-Lilliana and Wasteland for stealing games.
-My wife for not killing me for staying up until 3AM playtesting with Terry and eating buffalo bleu cheese fries while she tried to sleep.


Slops:
-The kids playing in the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament for being obnoxious, smelly, loud and under the legal age of employment in the US.
-The time the tournament was started being 40 minutes after the advertised time.

Round 2 - thoughts on keeping Stifle in - he is pretty tight on mana and Stifling a fetch messes up his cantrips plus stops Animate Dead.

Round 4 - What did you take out for Jace?

I'm not keen on keeping Stifle in just to attempt mana screw on Reanimator as their mana curve is low enough to be able to get by on 1-2 basics. Although you can Stifle Animate Dead, Spell Pierce seems like the better choice even when taking that into consideration.

Yeah, I realized as well after writing the report that I neglected to mention boarding Jace on game 3 of match 4. I'm pretty sure I boarded out Lilliana for him. My boarding strategy was a little choppy this tournament as it was a brand new board for me with several new MD changes as well.

Thanks for the post!

I don't like Leyline of the Void for this deck. Either 4 Tormod's Crypt or a 2/2 split with Nihil Spellbomb seems better. Because you run 8 cantrips (9 if you count the Sylvan), you can keep otherwise acceptable hands against Dredge and/or Reanimator in the postboard games.

I like the Maelstrom Pulses, but I still think Pernicious Deed is a nice SB card to have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wcm8

I don't like Leyline of the Void for this deck. Either 4 Tormod's Crypt or a 2/2 split with Nihil Spellbomb seems better. Because you run 8 cantrips (9 if you count the Sylvan), you can keep otherwise acceptable hands against Dredge and/or Reanimator in the postboard games.

I like the Maelstrom Pulses, but I still think Pernicious Deed is a nice SB card to have.

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I tried Leyline as I had seen them used awhile back in some lists and since I knew my friend Bob was running re-animator I figured it wasn't a bad choice. I have since decided otherwise as drawing into Leyline's is thoroughly depressing. I would rather run Extirpate as a meta choice as I don't see a ton of Ichorid to give me a reason to nuke their whole yard.

I've been tossing and turning about Deed but I prefer the ability to knock off Planeswalkers with Pulse which has been a frequent problem for me.

I'm debating about cutting the Krosan Grips in favor of a split of 1 Deed and 1 Consuming Vapor as Aggro appears to be a bigger threat than artifact or enchantment based decks. I mainly had Grip in because I was getting smoked by Countertop and MUC (Shackles) but that was quite awhile ago.

Thanks for the post!