Top 16 at SCG Kansas City with UBr ANT

All of this was from memory so some of the details might be incorrect, but I went 6-2 with UBr ANT at Kansas City losing my win and in match to get into top 8. The vast majority of it is right however despite it being from memory and myself being on the 4 hour sleep plan having arrived in kansas city at 3 in the morning after leaving the PTQ in Minnesota at 7:30 or something due to people having to stay around for some reasons. Anyways I drive the entire length, and the car ride consists of a lot of odd things happening in terms of conversations. Anyways we finally arrive, I crash on the bed, and go to sleep. When I wake up at 7:45 I feel a little tired but walk it off on the way to the tournament, although not before I see the start of a show called Good Burger that is probably the weirdest show I have ever seen despite watching about 2 minutes of it. Anyways I sleeve my deck in brand new sleeves I had gotten the day before before we leave the hotel as I don't want people who are scouting to see what deck I'm on when I'm unsleeving and resleeving my deck. I register the following 75:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Instants
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

Sorceries
3 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

Basic Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp

Lands
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
4 Dread of Night
3 Extirpate
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony

Anyways the tournament begins and I'm off to the races to try to take it down.

Round 1 I beat RUG 2-0, game 1 he drops goose. I probe him seeing a daze or something and 3 lands. I EtW for 12 FTW. Game 2 I win fairly easily a few turns in, he didn't draw force of will the entire match making the games a cakewalk for me. Also didn't help that he didn't spell pierce my cabal ritual when I had 1 mana open, perhaps he thought I would dark rit in response however he did not and I resolved 2 threshed cabal rit's into a past in flames. My original plan was to cast cantrips from the yard to win since he flipped delver revealing surgical. However he punts and surgical's my ponders (!) while I have double cabal rit and burning wish in the graveyard with plenty of storm. There may have been an LED somewhere in there as well as some petals, but my memory is foggy on this detail. I win with ease after that major punt on his end since I have approximately infinite mana into wish into tendrils with a ridiculously high storm count, especially since surgical is +2 storm when you pay life for it.

1-0

Round 2 was against aggro loam. Game 1 I kill him easily with IGG loop on turn 3 or something, he had no action against my combo. Game 2, I grim tutor for wish for IGG, however I was at 3 life after I resolved IGG getting back grim tutor. I lose. Game 3 I open with tendrils, LED x2, infernal, duress, land, and some other card I can't remember. I'm on the play, and all I have to do is draw a land. I fetch for basic swamp turn 1 and duress him, seeing forgotten cave as his only mana source along with chalice, faerie macabre x2, and some dumb beaters. I take the chalice leaving only faerie macabre x2 for real cards. He goes land go. I draw a petal or something and kill him with ad nauseam from 19 life, he macabre's my tendrils but it doesn't matter when I ad nauseam with a black floating.

2-0

Round 3 against Andrew with RUG Delver splashing white for wild nacatl and maybe some other cards I didn't see.

Game 1 he goes first turn delver. Second turn nacatl. I probe him and see a whole lot of nothing in his hand and go off with ease.

SBing: No changes I think.

Game 2 he brainstorms on turn 3 after missing a land that I assume he was holding up pierce or something with. He hits scalding tarn and shuffles. When I duress him next turn I see FoW x2 and a lot of creatures i.e. I take force leaving him with no blue card to pitch to the other one. I combo off and kill him the same turn before he has a chance to draw a blue card for the other force. I go off with ad nauseam or something and win.

3-0

Round 4 against top 8 dredge player.

Game 1, I keep a good hand against an unknown opponent. He goes city of brass, careful study. I sigh when he bins 2 dredgers. He dredges hitting THREE cabal therapies, all right next to each other. He hardcasts narco and therapies me. I untap and can't kill him so he tears my hand to shreds next turn when he activates coliseum. I lose.

I bring in 3 extirpates for 3 therapies.

Again, he flips triple therapy with his dredgers. Must be rough, I never dredged that well with that deck. He also kept the loosest hand possible of LED, looting, dredgers and no lands. Also of note he didn't mulligan either game. I lack the discard spell to punish him for it and pass. He LED's flipping over triple therapy again. I untap, cast brainstorm. I am stupid and shuffle away a brainstorm instead of ponder. After the shuffle my top 3 are extirpate, chrome, and something else. I take the chrome or something and he rips my hand apart on his turn. I lose.

3-1

Round 5 against Mike with maverick (yay!)
Game 1, he GSZ's on the first turn for arbor. I ponder on my turn after fetching basic island. He lands a turn 2 ooze + mother of runes. I cabal therapy off of basic swamp on my turn, naming thalia, guardian of thraben. He has 2x GSZ in his hand and a land. I pray to god that he doesn't run teeg maindeck. He doesn't, instead he gets a fauna shaman. I untap and kill him with past in flames since he lacks green mana to exile stuff to prevent me from winning.

-3 Duress, -1 chrome mox, -2 Therapy +2 inquisition, +4 dread of night.

He against GSZ's for arbor turn 1. I sculpt on my turn lacking discard. He untaps and plays knight over thalia. I untap and probe him. See thalia, iona, and some random card. I therapy away the thalia and sculpt some more. On his turn he drops fauna shaman off the top. I untap and kill him with ad nauseam, as he bojuka bogged in response to the first cabal ritual to remove threshold. Quite an easy match.

4-1

Round 6 against BW lingering souls and company.

Game 1 - Game loss for showing up 2 minutes late, the lesson is that I shouldn't be looking at altered cards across the hall when pairings are announced so I'm oblivious to everything. When I look over and see 48 minutes on the clock I scramble to find my seat and had already received a game loss when I got there.

Game 2 I accidentally cut his deck in a moronic way and see a vindicate by accident. I call the judge on it and get a warning. I'm rather shaken at this point and carefully cut his deck the next time he presents. Anyways he goes swamp, top on turn 1. I sculpt, probe him at some point seeing all these meaningless black and white cards. I kill him with ease with IGG or PiF.

Game 3 I board in 4 DoN's and 2 inquisition for all the duress and some therapies along with the chrome mox.

I'm a donkey that apparently miscuts peoples decks for a living, this time showing me a lingering souls. I call a judge again, and get a second warning. They tell me that one more warning will be escalated to a game loss. I'm quite shaken at this point and try not to miscut anyones deck the rest of the day as getting a game loss for being clumsy with the top 8 on the line would be rather tragic. Anyways I probe him turn 1 after he goes plains, go. He has e. tutor (for canonist), thalia, top, lands. I have one dread of night in hand as well as lots of mana and burning wish after he resolves canonist the following turn. I discard his sensei's top, not caring one bit about thalia when I have DoN. He topdecks hymn to tourach, discarding 2 of my 4 ritual effects those 2 being dark rit, cabal rit. Leaving me with dark rit and cabal rit in hand along with wish and DoN. I untap afterwards, thanking the dice for not discarding wish and/or DoN. I topdeck another inquisition and nab his thalia leaving him with only marsh flats. He topdecks arid mesa and plays it for some reason and swings. I burning wish for pyroclasm, just hoping to draw another business spell after that. He topdecks something irrelevant again and swings. I pyroclasm his canonist away after drawing infernal tutor for turn. I pass back to him, again praying that he misses thoughtseize or something relevant. He drops a tombstalker, I shrug and deal him more than lethal with tendrils via past in flames and he's asking about surgical targeting sorceries or some other nonsense like that, leading me to believe he has surgical. He doesn't have surgical in his hand just his lonely marsh flats, although I play around surgical and after PiF resolves immediately tutor for tendrils with 2 black floating and then flashback both cabal's followed by probe to see that he still has just a marsh flats in hand. I guess my fear got the better of me for a second, although my opponent clearly didn't understand the stack and how it worked because everyone I know knows how to resolve a surgical extraction.

Round 7 against Erik with grinding station.

I know what he's on, having played next to him quite a number of times today. I keep a hand with no turn 1 discard, however I ponder into therapy, leaving it on top. He draws a card and blind therapies me naming infernal tutor. He misses seeing the burning wish in my hand along with lots of mana and brainstorm. On my turn I tank when I cast therapy, and I name infernal tutor after lots of deliberation and making the mistake that my opponent is well versed in the storm mirror so I don't name the LED he has in his hand. I hit his infernal tutor though leaving him with LED, cabal rit, tendrils, land. He draws and duresses with myself brainstorming in response to hide wish although I hit the 1 of past in flames. He takes my LED or something, I brainstorm again hit the one of tendrils. I make a series of plays resulting in me flashbacking brainstorm via PiF hitting probe, chrome, dark ritual. I put chrome mox and tendrils on top. I flashback everything, cast probe into tendrils, then dark rit into tendrils for more than lethal.

I sideboard in inquisitions for some therapies as well as extirpates for chrome mox and some other cards I trimmed off the top. I win the game in short order after I find infernal tutor on top with ponder and he can't combo himself so I win.

6-1

Round 8 against the winner of the event with miracles, counterbalance in the SB though.

Game 1 I win the roll and probe him to lead off. I see clique?, force of will, ponder x2, snapcaster, lands. I ponder and pass back. He goes land, ponder. Draws another force of will. I duress him after brainstorming my next turn, seeing double FoW. I take one in disgust and pass back. He ponders again, I think he drew a spell pierce maybe? I duress away the other force at some point. And when I know he has clique and my hand contains chrome, petal, dark rit x2, and infernal with 2 lands on board I go for it with him having up clique mana but declining to clique me in my draw step. I resolve my artifact mana imprinting nothing. I then misplay by going tutor and dark rit in response floating zero black to cast the other dark rit. He cliques me in response with the dark rit and infernal on the stack, takes forever to take my dark rit after much deliberation and I draw LED. I draw lots of blanks after tutoring another copy of LED and lose. I have no idea why I settled on that line of play after much deliberation. I could have tried to resolve a dark rit before I went to infernal and dark rit in response, or hope he inadvertantly misplays by clique'ing me in response to infernal with nothing else on the stack at which point I respond with 2 dark rit's. Either way I blame myself for losing this game by making myself lose to clique.

I board in the 2 inquisitions for chrome and some other card, maybe infernal to have as a wish target however I'm not quite sure. I duress him turn 1 seeing brainstorm, top, counterspell, SFM, batterskull, and counterbalance. I rip that counterbalance out of there. When I naturally draw ad nauseam to go with the dark rit, LED, probe, and brainstorm in hand I get quite excited. I take his counterspell with an inquisition or something leaving him with nothing because he doesn't have 3 mana for clique yet. I untap, brainstorm ad nauseam and delta on top, then go dark rit, LED, probe and crack LED for black. I draw ad nauseam and cast it with a black floating from a lot of life and proceed to win since his sensei's top that he blind drew with in response didn't hit any interaction.

Game 3 I keep a hand with inquisition and some good spells like ponder and rituals. He goes land go. I pray that he lacks brainstorm and inquisition him seeing strand, extraction, counterspell, clique, and TWO counterbalances. I sigh when I see both CB's and wish that inquisition was therapy and take counterspell. Guess what I draw next turn after he lands counterbalance? Therapy. I cast ponder to bait him into revealing with counterbalance to see it therapy is safe. He doesn't flip his top card. I draw brainstorm. I cast therapy praying that he has anything but a 1 drop on top. Naturally he has a ponder on top, so I fail to therapy away his clique/the only card I care about. He untaps and plays and land and passes. He cliques me in my draw step, and I brainstorm in response. He flips an island to CB and it resolves. It draws me into dark rit x2 and ad nauseam. I cast double dark rit and ad nauseam in response to clique, and I punt big time by going below 4 life when I know he has a 0 drop on top/I can have one mana of any color floating post nauseam however it is actually impossible to win that turn because he has a clique on the stack and if I flip tendrils naturally he'll just clique it away. So I go to 1 life and die when he swings with clique.

Props:
Winning 60 dollars total to pay for all of the trip with some extra money on the side
Probing and cracking LED in response to cast ad nauseam FTW
LED for being awesome
My thresh opponent for extracting ponders.
The judges
Opponents misplaying out of control
Kirby Kaufman being awesome

Slops:
Losing to counterbalance
Counterbalance
Vendilion Clique (seriously WotC, instant speed targeted discard essentially? In blue?)
Blind flips with counterbalance countering actual spells
Extirpate
Kirby Kaufman being on the RUG plan and not the black lotus and demonic tutor plan.

This report needs more bromance.

Would you recommend this deck for a future SCG Open? What changes would you make?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Koby

Would you recommend this deck for a future SCG Open? What changes would you make?

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I'd play Pyroblasts. Clique was everywhere in KC. This deck can't handle Clique.

Pyroblast seems incredible actually, I mean when I played against clique I was almost always annoyed by the card and lost to it. I forgot to mention in the report that I tried to play through clique and was destroyed by it in game 1 of the final round. So Kobie didn't clique me in my draw step when my hand was chrome, petal, dark rit x2, infernal. So I played out chrome and petal, both resolved. I imprinted nothing of course otherwise I lack ad nauseam mana. I cast tutor and cast dark rit in response, then he cliqued me and took something like 2 minutes to decide to clique away the dark rit in my hand. I drew LED after that and proceeded to tutor for another LED and draw a million blanks.

If I played this deck tomorrow I could definitely see swapping the 3 extirpates for pyroblasts to answer COUNTERBALANCE and that fucking clique card. In the maindeck I would greatly consider taking out the chrome mox for the 4th duress and in the SB in place of the duress I would probably run pulverize for artifact hate if I expected artifact based hate or a silent departure/deathmark for hatebears because thalia has the potential to be a pain if my only answer is using a 3 cmc card to fetch a 3 cmc card (wish into pyroclasm.)

That said, I would recommend this deck for a future open. If you run well with it or even not so well, the latest I ever combo is turn 4. Usually I go off on turn's 2-3 with protection though. If you play this deck competently you can win against anything really including RUG, although I faced RUG just once and he drew zero force of will and misplayed hard in game 2 with surgical.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Pyroblast seems incredible actually, I mean when I played against clique I was almost always annoyed by the card and lost to it. I forgot to mention in the report that I tried to play through clique and was destroyed by it in game 1 of the final round. So Kobie didn't clique me in my draw step when my hand was chrome, petal, dark rit x2, infernal. So I played out chrome and petal, both resolved. I imprinted nothing of course otherwise I lack ad nauseam mana. I cast tutor and cast dark rit in response, then he cliqued me and took something like 2 minutes to decide to clique away the dark rit in my hand. I drew LED after that and proceeded to tutor for another LED and draw a million blanks.

If I played this deck tomorrow I could definitely see swapping the 3 extirpates for pyroblasts to answer COUNTERBALANCE and that fucking clique card. In the maindeck I would greatly consider taking out the chrome mox for the 4th duress and in the SB in place of the duress I would probably run pulverize for artifact hate if I expected artifact based hate or a silent departure/deathmark for hatebears because thalia has the potential to be a pain if my only answer is using a 3 cmc card to fetch a 3 cmc card (wish into pyroclasm.)

That said, I would recommend this deck for a future open. If you run well with it or even not so well, the latest I ever combo is turn 4. Usually I go off on turn's 2-3 with protection though. If you play this deck competently you can win against anything really including RUG, although I faced RUG just once and he drew zero force of will and misplayed hard in game 2 with surgical.

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Congrats on your finish! I had a few questions about your list:

- You mentioned either here or in the ANT thread that the Chrome Mox was terrible and you would run a 2nd Volcanic in it's place. Is there any reason you would run a 2nd Volcanic over another fetch?

- When you were playing against Maverick you boarded out most of your Duresses and 2 Therapies to bring in Dread of Night and Inquisition. Why did you cut Therapies? They seem pretty good to blind call because you really only want to hit 3-4 different cards. Probe seems pretty weak in this MU, did you feel that they were stronger than Therapy?

- I like the idea of running Blasts in the board, but I have had trouble finding maindeck space for bringing them in. What would you be boarding out to make space for the Blasts?

I could see cutting the training wheels (i.e. probes) for pyroblasts postboard. I could also shave on the cantrip count. Probe in the counterbalance matchup usually names two things: counterbalance and clique. Force is still a concern, although when you have all day to prepare against them after stripping them of their counterbalance's/clique's the matchup becomes significantly easier. Spell pierce isn't a real card in long games either except in some corner cases. If I boarded in pyroblasts I wouldn't be bringing in inquisition's though, as going up to 13 protection spells is probably a bit much. I could see a case for shaving a duress for an inquisition though so you have two options for wishable discard postboard in the form of duress and inquisition. Could also board out a singleton infernal tutor to wish for in games 2 and 3 for pyroblast.

I said I would be cutting the miser chrome for an additional duress. And in the wishboard I would be adding artifact hate namely pulverize or meltdown as shattering spree is terrible in a deck that is simply splashing for red and has very little ways to produce extra red mana.

I decided to keep in probes postboard against maverick because they function as a cantrip as well as knowing what your opponent has. While therapy can do literally one thing and that is discard cards. There's also the problem against maverick of therapy becoming worse when you cut probe as you are then blind naming against them more often if you cut probes postboard and this requires more luck than I am comfortable with as naming the wrong card can cost you the game very easily if you don't have DoN x1 for thalia in hand or double DoN for teeg/canonist in hand. Probe isn't spectacular against maverick, but at least it cycles for 2 life. Against maverick I rarely go for the ad nauseam plan unless I have to so the lifeloss doesn't matter and probe can dig for key spells sure it isn't brainstorm/ponder but there is something to be said for having a virtual 56 card deck if you count all the probes as 0 mana, draw a card, which they very often are 0 mana.

I like probe.

Free information!

Edit #3: pay two life: duress!