Cascading to 51st at SCG Seattle

After seeing Kaitlin & Todd play Hypergenesis at the SCG Open a few weeks back I decided I wanted to play it since it looked fun. The first time I played the mostly stock list (-1 Progenitus then 2 Maelstrom Wanderer and 1 Akroma's Memorial) at my local weekly I went 4-0. The following week I went 2-2 due to bad draws.

Each week I had hoped Hypergenesis would stay off the radar so it wouldn't be expected as much and thankfully that was the case. Now I just had to adjust for the expected metagame. I knew Peacekeeper, Blazing Archon and Humility were all huge problems for the the deck so I had to find answers for those cards. The answer came in the form of Warstorm Surge. With Surge I get to damage my opponent without using the attack step and if they use Gilded Drake effects I can either kill off the creature that could be stole or straight up kill my opponent from 20+ power. Due to this I wanted to include Blightsteel for the one-shot kill. I decided to cut 2 Emrakul and 1 Progenitus since all 3 of them with through the attack phase but Emrakul is weak to Karakas which is seeing a high amount of play.

I wasn't happy with Terastodon in the side since it does nothing against Humility. When browsing Gatherer for cards with 6+cc I came across my answer: Spine of Ish Sah. This would give me an answer to Humility as well as Karakas and almost anything else my opponent puts into play. That led me to register the following list:

Maindeck:
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Shardless Agent
4 Griselbrand
3 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Progenitus
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

2 Hypergenesis
4 Violent Outburst
4 Show and Tell
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection

3 Warstorm Surge

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Spine of Ish Sah
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Regarding my other changes:

Krosan Grip: I added this for the Mircale decks since they run Counterbalance either main or side.

Elesh Norn: I added this for the tribal decks mainly.


Round 1 vs. Jeremy with Elves
Game 1: Not sure why, but I kept a hand with lands and either big stuff or a cascade spell. Apparently I was playing 43 Lands since that's all I drew in the 5-6 turns before I died to 1/1s and 2/2s.

Game 2: I keep a risky hand that doesn't pay off as I don't see any of the 18 cards that could allow me to combo off. He Fierce Empaths for Emrakul and that was it.

0-1; 0-2

I asked him afterwards if he was playing Glimpse and he said yes, but he just never drew it.

Round 2 vs. Nicholas with RUG Delver
Game 1: I had the turn 2 Cascade spell but his lands had me put him on RUG Delver so I waited a turn to play around Stifle and Daze. I ended up being right about the Stifle since he used it on one of my fetches. I end up dying to a flipped Delver.

Game 2: He gets an early Delver and a Goyf, however Delver doesn't flip and Goyf is only a Squire since both graveyards are only fetches. After going down to 11 I Violent Outburst at his eot which resolves. Warstorm Surge + Emrakul smacks him for 15 with me taking my turn after that.

Game 3: He gets an early Delver again and cantrips for the first time in the round. The key moment here is when he Ponders then taps his fetchland and puts it in his graveyard but forgets to get a land or take the damage. I end up Cascading and he Dazes but I have the Spirit Guide to pay for it. Griselbrand comes down and fills my hand up with more than enough counters to deal with anything.

1-1; 2-3

Round 3 vs. Tenner with Esperblade
Game 1: I mull to 5 but ended up resolving Hypergenesis which put 2x Warstorm Surge and Progenitus into play.

Game 2: He verifies with a Judge that he can Stifle the Cascade trigger. I proceed to die to a Batterskull.

Game 3: I snap keep the following hand: Fetch, Fetch, Dual, 3x Show and Tell, Blightsteel. I play Fetches for basics my first 2 turns, he Thoughtseizes me on his 2nd seeing 3x Show, Blightsteel and Emrakul. He takes Emrakul. I play Show #1 on turn 3 which is countered as expected. He then has the perfect topdeck of Surgical Extraction which takes the rest of my Show and Tells. I die to Batterskull and Lingering Souls tokens.

Better lucky than good indeed.

1-2; 3-5

Round 4 vs. Tyler with No Show
Game 1: The head judge casts Show and Tell for the round to start and my opponent declined to put themselves in their seat.

Game 2: I sit and talk to a couple judges and let one of them goldfish my deck while I wait for the 10 minutes to pass for the match win.

2-2; 5-5


Round 5 vs. Cedric with Maverick
I knew going into this he was on Maverick since he had a feature match the round before.

Game 1: We both mull to 6. I go off at my first opportunity and get Griselbrand into play. Hypergenesis is shortly after which put Surge, Progenitus and Blightsteel into play.

Game 2: He gets a decent start while I wait to be able to do something relevant. I end up casting Shardless Agent into Hypergenesis putting Blightsteel into play, he puts Karakas into play. The board is my Agent and Blightsteel vs Thalia, Dryad Arbor, Mother & 2x Pridemage with me at 7 life. He kills my Agent with a Pridemage then swings with all but the last Pridemage. After some thinking I block the Mother and take 3 putting me down to 4. He wastes me down to 1 land (I have Misdirection in hand in case of a StP). I swing back putting him at 9 Poison counters after he blocks with Pridemage. He only has 3 damage on the board so I barely pull off the win.

Note: I didn't block Thalia because he had the Karakas to bounce her and the mana to replay her which would have left him with the 4 damage on board to kill me. Also, had I put any creature other than Blightsteel into play I would have likely lost. Progenitus wasn't going to outrace him and the Legends would have been bounced.

3-2; 7-5

Round 6 vs. James with Spiral Tide (Candels)
Game 1: I Hypergenesis on my turn into Griselbrand and Progenitus, he puts lands into play. He makes it through my counters then when he starts getting to 20+ mana when I'm out of counters I just ask him to show me the Zenith and he does so we go on to the next game.

Game 2: My opening hand: Fetchland, 3x Elvish Spirit Guide, Leyline of the Void, Leyline of Sanctity, 7th card. He mulls to 5. I start with Leylines in play then on turn 1 I fetch, pitch 2 Spirit Guides and cast the 3rd. I'm sure some are questioning my line of play but I'm familiar enough with Spiral Tide to know that the longer the game goes with Void, the worse his Spirals become and he can't kill me until he removes Sanctity. So the plan was to put him on a clock while he digs for answers. I get Griselbrand into the play the turn before ESG would have killed him just to be safe.

Game 3: I start with Leyline of the Void again. He Wishes for Echoing Truth on my end step. On my next end step he attempts to bounce my Leyline. I respond with Violent Outburst cascading into Hypergenesis. He Flusterstorms and I let the Storm trigger resolve. He has all the copies target Hypergenesis so I cast Misdirection to change the target of one of the copies to his Echoing Truth. Neither of us has anything else so my Hypergenesis and, more importantly, his Echoing Truth are countered. From there it was a bit of draw-go with him trying to do things a couple times only to come up short of anything relevant. I ended up resolving a Hypergenesis putting 2x Leyline of the Void, 1-2x Leyline of Sanctity and a Griselbrand into play.

4-2; 9-6

Round 7 vs. Neil with Hypergenesis
Game 1: I start off with a fetch for a basic Forest to throw him off. He says he kept a risky hand and ends up discarding Progenitus which makes me put him on the mirror. Turn 2 I get a Volcanic and he puts me on RUG Delver. He discards another Progenitus. He eventually cascades into Hypergenesis but I counter it as I wasn't happy with the creatures I had in hand yet. He Show and Tells a turn or 2 later which I let resolve and I put Griselbrand into play to his not-Griselbrand (Emrakul). I draw 14 then swing into his Emrakul for the 7 life. I then Hypergenesis putting a bunch of stuff into play including Emrakul to kill his and another Griselbrand to replace mine.

Game 2: He mulls to 5 and misses his land drop. Once again I go on the ESG route (turn 2 or 3 this time though). I get him down to 12 before he's finally able to do something. He casts a Shardless Agent for Hypergenesis but the person in the game next to us pointed out that he actually hit False Cure first. Yes, my opponent boarded into Dream Halls combo which was apparently during the cascading when Conflux was revealed. He casts Show and Tell putting Griselbrand into play and me with Progenitus. He takes the risk and draws 7 putting himself to 4 and fails to find anything relevant.

5-2; 11-6

Round 8 vs. Charles with Reanimator
Game 1: He gets out Tidespout and bounces my lands when he gets the chance. I eventually land a Show and Tell putting Griselbrand into play (to his land) while at 3 life. He draws lands for the next 3 turns and Griselbrand gets there. Better lucky than good strikes again.

One thing worth noting is we both missed the life loss from Reanimate on Tyrant due to me responding to his spells. We called a judge because I wasn't sure if it was too late (a couple turns had passed) and the judge said something about it being an easy fix and we adjusted accordingly.

Game 2: I mull to a mediocre 5 cards hand and he goes to 6. I make the mistake of cascading into Hypergenesis in response to his Entomb putting Progenitus and Blightsteel or something into play. He bins Blazing Archon for the Entomb then reanimates it. Derp.

Game 3: I mull to 6 (I think) and get nothing relevant. He gets Griselbrand. I cascade into Hypergenesis at the end just to see what kind of stuff he could put into play off the 14 cards he could draw from Griselbrand.

Didn't see a single Leyline in either post-sideboard game.

5-3; 12-8

I ended up finishing 51st out of 186 people, so I was happy I finished in the money. Had I won my last round I would have been top 32 easy as I was 38th going into the round and my opponent finished in 20th.

Props:
-My opponents for all being great people.
-SCG for adding more west coast stops and paying out to top 64 and getting us a non-local artist.
-Jason Felix for being a great guy to talk to.
-Matt for having beautiful duals.

Slops:
-My deck for crapping out on me against Elves in both games.


Edit: For those interested, there was a LOT of tribal there: Elves, Goblins and Fish.

Nice job! :)

-Matt

The "better lucky than good" comment is extremely ironic, as you are A) Playing an incredibly linear deck that revolves around cheating "I Win" buttons into play with counter backup, and B) are playing a combo deck with no manipulation and just hoping that redundancy gets you there.

Aside from that, nice report.

Congrats; played at the event as well, though I went 2 points lower than you. Meta was a little weird... lots and lots of creature decks in general, far fewer combo decks than I expected.

Quantum, were you there? What were you playing/wearing?

-Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Whippoorwill

I wasn't happy with Terastodon in the side since it does nothing against Humility.

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This is false. Hypergensis puts things into play one at a time, so if you put Terastodon into play before they put a humility the ability still triggers. And for activated abilities, triggers are put on the stack only when a player would receive priority, which is after hypergensis is done resolving. That means you'll be able to target humility when all is said and done, as well as any other permanents they put into play.

This works because Terastodon has the ability when it comes into play, so the trigger condition has been met. Humility can't take away the fact that the ability has already been triggered, and since the ability has already been triggered it will go on the stack, regardless of what happens to terastodon. It's kind of like how if a creature uses an ability, but then is killed by removal their ability still resolves.

Besides, Exclusion Ritual is probably stronger anyway so that they couldn't turn around and play another humility next turn with the mana they just gained anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Quantum, were you there? What were you playing/wearing?

-Matt

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Played Death and Taxes, wearing a grey hoodie, green "Ceci n'est une pipe" Nintendo shirt. Really fun experience, first big legacy tournament I've done... can't say I ever want to play standard again.

I think I saw you. I was wearing the Black dress shirt with purple tie and large black duffle.

-Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I think I saw you. I was wearing the Black dress shirt with purple tie and large black duffle.

-Matt

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Hard to miss... I'm about 8 million feet tall.

I think I saw you as well... you seemed to be very busy doing this that and the other.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cuthbertthecat

The "better lucky than good" comment is extremely ironic, as you are A) Playing an incredibly linear deck that revolves around cheating "I Win" buttons into play with counter backup, and B) are playing a combo deck with no manipulation and just hoping that redundancy gets you there.

Aside from that, nice report.

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I can definitely see that. The lack of manipulation is one of the things I dislike about the deck, but generally I get a few turns to hopefully build up my hand before I go off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quantum

Congrats; played at the event as well, though I went 2 points lower than you. Meta was a little weird... lots and lots of creature decks in general, far fewer combo decks than I expected.

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I don't remember seeing very much combo either. I wasn't too surprised about Fish though since Josh (Serad) won the Mirkwood Cup with it and there's quite a few good Fish players in the area.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valtrix

This is false. Hypergensis puts things into play one at a time, so if you put Terastodon into play before they put a humility the ability still triggers. And for activated abilities, triggers are put on the stack only when a player would receive priority, which is after hypergensis is done resolving. That means you'll be able to target humility when all is said and done, as well as any other permanents they put into play.

This works because Terastodon has the ability when it comes into play, so the trigger condition has been met. Humility can't take away the fact that the ability has already been triggered, and since the ability has already been triggered it will go on the stack, regardless of what happens to terastodon. It's kind of like how if a creature uses an ability, but then is killed by removal their ability still resolves.

Besides, Exclusion Ritual is probably stronger anyway so that they couldn't turn around and play another humility next turn with the mana they just gained anyway.

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Thanks for the clarification, I was under the assumption that they all came in at the same time.

Does this also mean that if I have Warstorm Surge out and put a creature in play and my opponent follows with Humility that the creature will hit for the full amount instead of just the 1 damage?

Thanks to everyone for the comments and clarifications!

So next time around, 50th, then 49th, then 48th, then 47th, then 46th, & so on

That way, you can say this 50 times, & for the next 50 tournaments of this magnitude, you can always come back saying "I did better than last time WOOHOO!"

I still won't forget Hardcasting a spirit guide so fast and basically killing someone with it! , or watching when the tide player whiff against you which sometimes, just happens.

You should Go to portland in Sept >^,^< I'm already looking at everything coming up now on our side of the rocky mountains. But the first vegas one is too soon and I just now started collecting income, but I'm considering the vegas one in december already, a few from my "old group" still play and I have family in vegas and outside of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Whippoorwill

Does this also mean that if I have Warstorm Surge out and put a creature in play and my opponent follows with Humility that the creature will hit for the full amount instead of just the 1 damage?

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Surge will only hit for one, because this is a bit different. If surge is in play and you put a creature into play with hypergenesis, then surge will always trigger. However, the amount of damage it does is calculated only on resolution of that trigger. So, if they put a humility into play through hypergenesis, all the surge triggers have to resolve after it, and when those triggers resolve your guys will only be 1/1s.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by feline

So next time around, 50th, then 49th, then 48th, then 47th, then 46th, & so on

That way, you can say this 50 times, & for the next 50 tournaments of this magnitude, you can always come back saying "I did better than last time WOOHOO!"

I still won't forget Hardcasting a spirit guide so fast and basically killing someone with it! , or watching when the tide player whiff against you which sometimes, just happens.

You should Go to portland in Sept >^,^< I'm already looking at everything coming up now on our side of the rocky mountains. But the first vegas one is too soon and I just now started collecting income, but I'm considering the vegas one in december already, a few from my "old group" still play and I have family in vegas and outside of it.

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Yeah, I'll be doing Portland and Seattle for sure... these events are just awesome.

Also, you should consider competing at Card Kingdom next Sunday... $25 entry, but 100% payout in gift cards (ie more fuel for the fire) to top 8.

Yea I've considered the weekly card kingdom ones but for a weekly local event, my ride wouldn't take me that far out, going to bonney lake / tacoma twice a week is more than i can ask for sometimes.

I was gonna write a report on my event, but I sucked way too bad for anyone to care enough to read it. :tongue:

Long story short, I also played Hypergenesis. I was going to play Hive Mind but switched at the last minute because I was concerned about my Delver matchups (I just couldn't figure out how to get around that matchup) and expected to see a lot of them. You could say I outsmarted myself. In the end, I went 1-4 before dropping and going home to see my wife. My only win was against a close friend of mine, which wasn't really that cool to me because I don't like playing against my close friends at big events, much less beating them for my only win of the day. :frown:

I could probably write a pretty good article on my experience, but that wouldn't be a "tournament report". :tongue:

Should do a report anyway, any perspective is still a perspective and people that can't get enough information, just can't get enough information >^,^<

I might later tonight. I took a lot more notes than I typically do. May have a little trouble remembering turn by turn stuff, but the big stuff was in the notes I think. We'll see how I feel about it. :tongue: