GP Tacoma Top 16 with "Aggro" Loam

Looks like I got a bit carried away with storytelling here. If you don’t care for that kind of stuff in your reports, feel free to scroll down to the Decklist, as that’s where my actual report from Saturday begins.

How do people start writing tournament reports? I’ve written and rewritten this opening at least 3 times now. Something something there was a Legacy GP announced in Seattle. Turns out it was really in Tacoma, much to many players dismay, though I’ve started to accept that fact and embrace it, as after this event I’ve now won more money playing Magic in that room than any other venue combined (outside of possibly CK credit @ CK, but let’s just go with actual $$ which I can use on things like Rent, or Hot Dogs).

Aggro Loam (or Bob Loam, as I’ve come to call it) first came on my radar following GP Lille, the same time it likely did for many people here who follow premier event results. As a more interesting version of Lands, albeit with a better Miracles matchup, jumped out to me as a forerunner. While many said non-blue decks couldn’t handle a combo heavy meta with Omni as Tier 1, I felt like my Omni matchup was balanced and even slightly favored, due to the sideboard hate cards, as well as Chalice actually being quite punishing to their reliance on single mana cantrips.

As I started playing the deck at weekly events in the Seattle area, I confirmed that I felt good about Omni matchups, as well as decimating Miracles and Delver based decks. However, I consistently struggled with people’s pet decks that they’d jam at these events, and a series of losses to decks such as Stompy, Nic Fit, and non blue based big creature decks, I set this aside because as fun as this deck is, it’s very meta dependent, and the weeklies were not much more than me getting stomped by random decks.

I kept this deck in the back of my mind as a 2nd/3rd choice for Eternal Weekend and the SCG Invitational the week after, but the miserable Burn matchup as well as multiple friends from the East Coast telling me they were just planning to jam Burn and get the freebies and maybe some wins scared me, as I wanted something safer to justify flying cross country and not going 0-2 drop to Burn. As such, I spent the month leading up to that event on 4c Delver, the other deck that was doing quite well in Europe but not making that big of a splash in the states. Interesting how the meta differences exist between the two still. Anyways, Bob Loam fell aside until the Dig Through Time ban in September.

Following the ban announcement, I was trying out Shardless and Lands, the former which was just apparently good again without Delve spells ruining everywhere, and the latter something I had slowly picked up over the summer, and wanted to punish everyone who was on well, Delver and Shardless. The Miracles matchup with lands wasn’t something I could handle well enough, so that was very quickly scrapped, while the Shardless deck felt fine, but the grindy matchups constantly going to time and the very flat gameplay turned me off of the deck, the pinnacle of that being a match where my Miracles opponent mulled to 5, I turn 2 Hymmed away their only other land, and even with them stuck at 1 land for 2-3 turns, I couldn’t get enough to actually close out that game. Dejected, I went back to the drawing board.

Luckily, that failure with Shardless happened to be the same weekend as the MKM Series in Prague, where two “Aggro Loam” decks made top 8, and one even ran the Dark Depths and Thespian Stage combo. Needing a new list to warm up to for the GP, I quickly went back to this deck, trying out the combo, and quickly enjoyed it to the extent where I was comfortable running it in the GP. It helped that with the GP approaching, many players in the weeklies were moving away from less polarizing strategies to bluer based lists, for consistency. As I played the deck, I decided that the combo was worth keeping, and with two byes off of PWP from failing at multiple GPs last year, I could go ahead and hopefully avoid these decks.

I drove this deck to a couple GPTs and weeklies locally, with my weak spots with the deck coming as losses from non-blue decks such as Jund, Lands, and Burn. Feeling very comfortable with the expected meta, I sleeved up the following for the GP weekend (and by that I mean I settled on my exact list two weeks prior, went on vacation for a week, and was hungover/physically exhausted until Friday. On Friday, I made the decision to head down to the venue while in the shower (yay local GPs), and get some practice in, as coming off two weeks of not really touching magic at all gave me a huge fear that I was very rusty with the deck and the format.

I make the drive down to Tacoma, planning to check out dealers for pimp and then play in the afternoon Legacy swiss event, drive home, and be in bed by 10. I get there, am somewhat disappointed by the lack of German pimp sitting around the booths (though I do get a pair of foil Groves, as well as a foil KotR), and out of boredom, I sign up for a grinder around 12:30. By 1pm, I’m knocked out of the grinder due to a R1 matchup against Burn. I vow to not lose to Burn to the rest of the weekend, and after seeing some more dealer stuff to throw money at, I take a walk over to the bank to withdraw some cash from savings to buy more cardboard.

At 2:30 the Legacy swiss event begins, and I’m stoked to get some non single-elimination practice in. Unfortunately, I wrote my notes and life changes on a throwaway pad for this, and that means all written notes are somewhere in my apartment covered in used cat litter, or tumbling through Tacoma. Probably the former. Regardless, I started off with wins against Grixis Delver and Elves, and then turned that around with two straight losses to Elves and Angel Stompy, ending with a Draw against Lands where we started G3 with 1 minute left, after a grindy G1 that I grabbed after 35 minutes.

At some time during the last two rounds of this event, I make plans to grab dinner with some friends, one of which has moved out of Seattle, and that I only see now at the ever shortening list of West Coast Legacy events. He entices me with the promise of “Literal Buckets of Rum”, and that’s all I need to be sold on it. By the time the event finishes and we walk over to the restaurant, it’s roughly 8pm, and there’s still a 40 minute wait. Being as some of us have no byes and a very early morning the next day, we pass and start plotting where to go next. We have to settle for the Old Spaghetti Factory, where I break my low carb diet with a Peach-Strawberry margarita (because I love fruity drinks) and sausage ravioli (because getting anything but pasta here is likely a mistake). I wash down my ravioli with some sausage links that my friends don’t like, and after driving someone back to the house he’s staying at, I finally get home at 10:52 pm, a time when I was anticipating already being sound asleep. I quickly pass out, with a 6:30 wakeup time the next morning looming.

Maybe I should have gotten SIS, as I value sleeping quite a bit. It’s one of my favorite ways to pass time, even above MTG. It’s not like I didn’t know I’d have byes, I ended last season well over the 2 bye threshold. In the weeks leading up, however, I had agreed to drive a friend who was planning on doing a 10am side event, so I saved myself $10, as SIS for a constructed GP feels like a goddamn ripoff. Regardless, a stop at Starbucks gets me an Iced Vanilla Latte for some caffeine, and we arrive at Tacoma well in time around 8:15, allowing us to wait in line for 10 minutes to pay for parking, and meet up with more friends before we have to take our seats for the player meeting.

I ended up on this list:

Creatures: 10
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg

Spells: 23
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Sylvan Library

Lands: 27
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Barren Moor
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Thoughtseize
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Golgari Charm
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Engineered Plague
1 Slaughter Games
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Choke
1 Containment Priest

Notes on this list:
DD/Stage combo is great. I posted a bit about it in the Aggro Loam thread, but the gist of it is that it’s typically not something players will ever board in against, and if they do, they’re likely trimming cards that are worse against your plan A strategy (Knight and Bob beats). Additionally, sometimes they have things that just gum up your ability to kill with a Knight, and when there’s a threat racing you (like TNN), having a way to end the game in 2 turns is great. Typically, I never played the deck to fetch for both parts of the combo, I would use the knight as utility grabbing Grove/Maze/Waste/Etc, and then if I drew one part of the Combo, I would sometimes go for that kill.

Changes to MD after this event: None
Changes to the SB after this event: -1 Engineered Plague, -1 Golgari Charm, +1 Maelstrom Pulse, +1 Toxic Deluge.

Reasoning (copied directly from Aggro Loam thread):
I want to add the Second Deluge and Pulse, even though amusingly I never cast Deluge or E. Plague all tournament. But really what it comes down to is that I want a -2/-2 against DnT or Elves, and E. Plague against DnT is actually pretty crappy when you take into account that every creature MD is a Human. The other uses for Plague are to shut off Delver, Young Pyromancer, and Mentor, but the first two I feel the matchups are already really good against and Pulse is brought in against Miracles anyways to remove Jace, so it can also just do a E. Plague impression and kill all the Monks (though only once, but typically I find that's all you need to get ahead)

Finally, now that I’m on the top of the 5th page of the google doc where I’m writing this, we get to the actual tournament. I didn’t actually expect to do this well, so my notes are a bit sketchy, and most of this is me going off what hopefully is a good fresh memory of this weekend. I didn’t write down opening hands or SB strategies, so those probably have some small mistakes too.

R1: Bye
I spend the player meeting messaging friends who have byes and are onsite like I am, trying to find a place to grab some breakfast. I’m able to round up two of them, and we make our way down the street to Savor Creperie, 3-4 blocks from the convention center. About one block into our walk we are shocked to find that someone has already ditched their 800 count white box which was given to each player to hold their swag, sitting next to a dumpster. We take a look in it to see if there is swag still in it, and we find two Dragon Shield sleeve boxes full of cards...unfortunately they are Scars block draft (un)commons. We put the box back where we found it, hoping the box is able to protect the poor cards from the elements.

We arrive at the Creperie a few minutes later, and glance at the menu. I decide on a savory crepe filled with Chicken Sausage, Egg White, Roasted Pepper, Tomato, and Ricotta. It was decent, but in order to fit in with magic players, it needed some salt on it. It came with a side of Oranges and Pineapple, and I pass on those as Pineapples are an awful fruit at the bottom of the fruit hierarchy and have no business being compared to the good fruits.

We are lucky that we arrived when we do, as other players and judges file in behind us, but they have to wait for one of the small number of tables in the restaurant. One of the others in my group can’t finish their Butter and Cinnamon Sugar stack of 3 crepes, so I volunteer to take care of them, making myself 2-0 in regards to getting additional food that I didn’t pay for on the weekend (and probably breaking my diet yet again).

Following our meal, we make our way back to the convention center, finding that cardboard box has been saved from a sad wet fate, and there are still 7 minutes left in the round. I wait in line for some buyers, as I had scoured over buylists/whiteboards on Friday and figured out where to dump my extra sets of Legacy staples.

Win, 1-0

R2: Bye
I lose G1 to the line opponent, taking roughly twenty minutes to sit down with my intended buyer, due to the fact that all the dealers were handling major collections being sold off. I pull out the extras I intend on dumping, and I trade them in for a nice sum, turning that credit into a Mishra’s Workshop, a FBB Taiga, and other various Vintage staples that I haven’t filled out my collection with yet.

Win, 2-0

R3: John Phelps, playing Mana Dredge
G1: I lose the die roll, and my opponent takes advantage of that by going T1 City of Brass, LED, Breakthrough for 1, hitting 2 Narcomoebas and 3 Ichorids, as well as 2 Bridges and a Flame Kin Zealot. Not enough to kill me that turn, but he passes without going for a Therapy. I look at my top card, and scoop them up without doing anything, as there’s no need to give him information when I’m getting hit with at least 6 zombie tokens and 2 Ichorids next turn, all of which have a nice +1/+1 and Haste bonus

In: 3 Leyline of the Void, 2 Thalia, 1 Containment Priest
Out: 1 Maze of Ith, 4 Abrupt Decay, 1 Liliana

G2: I mull to 4, knowing that my 7 was keepable, but not good enough against known dredge, as it was a T2 Chalice on 1. 6 and 5 are complete garbage, but 4 has a Leyline. I start with that, and the game drags on for a bit, with him ending up hardcasting a pair of stinkweeds. I’m able to end the pressure with a timely Grove/Fire lock on the Imps, and when a Knight comes down he scoops them up, admitting he has no outs to the Leyline in his current configuration.

In/Out: None

G3: I hit a leyline on 6 this time, and get to start off with that in play, while John goes down to 5 here.I have myself taking damage in hits of 2/3/2, but I can’t recall from what, as I don’t remember him getting anything on the board here. His life total goes down from his lands for a bit, followed up with a quick two power beater (either Thalia or Bob) whittling away, until a Knight comes down 3 turns later and cleans up with a swing for 7 putting him to 1. He looks at the next card and scoops it up.

Win, 3-0

Round 4: Forrest Ashmore, playing Storm

G1: He wins the die roll, starts his turn with a Fetch->Island into Ponder. Unsure exactly, I start off with a fetch of my own, playing around Stifle. Over his next turn I see that he’s on storm with his Cabal Therapy coming at me, but it isn’t enough to do much of anything as I follow back with a Chalice on 1. Once I get the P Fire lock, I believe all I need to do is show the Knight coming down and I’m able to take this game, which feels good.
In: 2 Thalia, 1 Slaughter Games, 2 Thoughtseize
Out: 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Maze, 1 Karakas, 1 Punishing Fire

Because of the discard I saw, I make it a less chance of him being on the Empty plan, so I don’t go with any of my hate there, opting instead to just not let him combo off. Because he knows I’m on chalice, I keep 2 decays in here because I want him to be able to play the LEDs way too early, allowing me to target them, but at the same time, there’s no where near enough threats and it’s too conditional to keep the full set in.

G2: With him on the play again, he doesn’t too that much on his starting turn, with a Ponder. My opener here is Thalia, Thoughtseize, Chalice, and Lands, which leads to the first interesting sequencing that ends up hurting me quite a bit. I opt to go T1 Thoughtseize, seeing Dark Rit x 2, Decay, Petal, and 2 lands. I take the Decay, and I decide to then drop a Chalice on 0, which I don’t think is right, because I don’t believe there’s any sequence of cards in which I die that next turn, so it would likely be miles better to go for the Chalice on 1 next turn. If I go Chalice on 1 and follow up with Thalia, it requires him to Petal/LED into Cabal Rit, and then still go over, while being pretty heavily taxed. The Chalice into Thalia slows him down for 2-3 turns, while he sculpts, and I follow up with a Knight. The Thalia gets Decayed, and this is where I regret the Chalice play, as now he is able to Ad Nauseum off the two Dark Rituals down to 4 life. Among the cards he gets includes an LED and a Chain of Vapor, which gives him all he needs to continue the combo. However, sequencing gets the best of him and he plays the LED first, into my Chalice, forgetting about it, and can’t dump his hand to combo off that turn. He is able to trim the extras to set up a next turn win, but he’s at 4 and I have a knight in hand with a single land in the yard. I topdeck for the turn and see a Mox Diamond, perfect, as that’s all I need to get the last point in to kill him here. I play the mox and he points out that yes, I still have a Chalice. Well crap. I legitimately missed it there, and by no means attempted to force it through. I was narrow minded on getting a land into the GY to make the Knight a 4/4. I swing to 1. He goes off next turn and we go into G3.

In: 1 Punishing Fire
Out: 1 Abrupt Decay

Really did not want to see a Decay here, especially when I’m on the play.

G3: On the play for once, I have to send my 7 back as I can’t see a hate bear or anything there. Luckily the 6 has a chalice, and this time I opt to play it on Turn 2 for 1, while he spends his first turn Probing me and passing. However, his early turns allows him to sculpt his way to an Ad Nauseum from 14 life. Well, I didn’t think I was favored here anyways. Luckily, his Ad Naus isn’t the greatest yet again, and reveals a Chain, a Disfigure, and a Decay and no way to get rid of them. He ends the turn keeping a bunch of 1 drops, having them locked out from a decay. I regret even letting him get this far, as the Ad Naus plan started with him hard casting two LEDs, and me letting them both resolve, instead of Decaying the first one in response to the second one, as I had drawn the single copy left in my 60. Regardless, because he has a bunch of chains and decays, without the LED to get rid of them he can’t continue going off. He Decays the Chalice on 1 and passes back to me, where we both do nothing. His next two turns consist of him Cabal Therapying himself, getting rid of Disfigure and the Chain, but then draws another Abrupt Decay, which stays in his hand as there are no targets on either side. Knowing he has it if he can dump the Decay, I draw a Gaddock Teeg and just let it sit there. He probes, going to 2 life, sees the Teeg, but gets another discard, allowing him to finally clear his hand of hate, but is low on mana to go off right there. “Well, you cut your P Fires, so I should be good next turn, right?”. Nope. I blind flip the P Fire off the top to steal the win.

One of the friends , who had been watching G3 since the Ad Naus, then goes “What the f did I just watch?”. I’ll take it. It’s a win.

Win, 4-0

Round 5: Andrea Biaggi, playing UR Delver

G1: I finally win a die roll here, allowing me to start the game on the play. He goes T1 Ponder, and the next turn there’s a Delver from him, while I’m just sitting around with a Library. Luckily, it only takes two hits from a flipped Delver to get my Grove/Fire online, and I start blasting through his threats. Soon thereafter, a Knight comes down, and so does my opponent’s life total.

In: 2 Thalia, 1 Choke
Out: 1 Karakas, 1 Gaddock Teeg, 1 Green Sun’s Zenith

After a bunch of matches and discussion on SBing in the Aggro Loam thread here, I prefer the minimalist approach against Delver, and this is my standard. Thalia is oppressive, and so is Choke, while Karakas is useless, and Teeg, while it shuts off Force, does nothing else and is a miserable 2 drop to see.

G2: I send back my 7. Notes are minimal here, all I see is that my opponent got a Delver early when I was at 18 life, quickly flipped it, and between that it whittled me down in chunks of 3 while my opponent only took damage from some fetches onto basics.

In/Out: None

G3: On the play, I once again send back my 6, but my 6 is great, consisting of a T2 chalice and a Grove/Fire. My opponent dumps a pair of Goblin Guides, which draw me a Wasteland and a Maze of Ith. Luckily it only takes the minimal number of hits to shut them down with a Punishing Fire, and around turn 5 I’m able to cast a Scavenging Ooze with 2 extra green available to keep him out of Bolt range. Our life totals bounce around quite a bit, and I durdle with the Fire and Groves to clear his board until a 7/7 Ooze comes bouncing through the unopposed board.

Win, 5-0

With some extra time on the clock compared to the previous round, I pull out the Jimmy Johns sandwich that had been sitting in my bag, grabbed on the way back from breakfast earlier. I’m lucky I got it when I did, because rumors were that JJs completely ran out of bread sometime around 12-2pm that day. I guess they didn’t expect 2000 hungry nerds when the only quick meals in walking distance was them, Subway, and the convention center concessions, which weren’t terrible or horribly overpriced, but still somewhat mediocre.

Round 6: Daniel Longoria, playing Shardless

I recognize my opponent’s name as a local standard/limited grinder, meaning that I didn’t expect him to have that much Legacy knowledge. Because of that, I put him on Delver or Burn, really hoping that it isn’t the latter. A friend comments and thinks he’s on Miracles, which seems a bit weird for a newer Legacy player. As he’s shuffling up, he at one point shows me the FoW on the bottom of his deck, so I think that it very well could be Miracles.

G1: On the play, I mull down to 5 here. My opponent has an early goyf, which quickly becomes a 3/4 before dying to a timely Abrupt Decay. Well then, I guess he’s on BUG Delver, not Miracles However, I’m not able to really do much on my 5 when my opponent reveals a Shardless Agent, showing that he is truly not on Delver, with a cascade into a second Goyf, and I quickly go down.

In: 1 Toxic Deluge, 2 Thalia, 1 Choke, 1 Reclamation Sage, 1 Garruk Relentless
Out: 1 Karakas, 2 Mox Diamond, 3 Chalice

With their 1 drops only being DRS and Brainstorm, I feel fine about boarding out most Chalices, as I rarely want them that much. Same goes for the Moxen, we can usually be that half turn slower to board in better hate. Deluge comes in since there are so many x/2s, same goes for Garruk. The best Garruk here is killing a Strix/Agent, and then making a stream of 1/1 wolfs that trade for Goyfs. I keep Teeg in here as we need more answers against Jace, as well as more dudes to sac to Liliana over a Knight.

G2: My opponent goes to 6, while neither of us really have too much in the way of board or aggression. A classic grindy attrition mirror. Both of us land a Liliana, and I have to tick down to take out a Goyf from him, while his is able to tick up and ultimate first. When he does ultimate after ticking up once more to get his Liliana to 7, my board is Bob, Liliana on 5, and 4 lands. His split is Bob and all the non-black lands versus Liliana and my two black sources. I keep the Bob, knowing that we have to grind this out. And with that Bob, I draw a bunch of zeroes, and win the grind fest once the second liliana comes around.

His logic for that split after the match was that he didn’t want to -2 liliana to kill my bob, as he could take out more permanents, and then I’d be able to ultimate on my own to take out most of his lands. I still disagree with that, as Bob is by far the best card I can have in that game, as the raw card advantage just overwhelms him.

In/Out: None

G3: Once again, my opponent ships his opener, and I keep a hand with a Thalia and a Fire/Grove combo. The fire takes care of his x/2s, but can’t do much against a tarmogoyf which becomes a 6/7 due to a Liliana and an Artifact in the yard. Facing a fast clock, I’m luckily able to get a Loam+Cycle engine going, which soon yields a dryad arbor to block the goyf, and a second cycler to give me more draws into Abrupt Decay. Eventually, after a few turns of this, opponent draws a surgical, which because of my double cyclers, can’t use this on my loam, and instead does it on my arbor in response to me loaming it back during my turn. Since I’m forced to use my land drop on the Arbor every turn, I’m not really advancing my mana base, so on 5 lands, I have 3 untapped following the loam cast, and I’m already at 4 life. With the goyf still on the board, I have one shot to hit the Decay. Opponent swings, I cycle, look at the top, and staring right back at me is the Decay. Second time today. I kill the goyf, and I have the DD combo already in my yard from the frantic loaming I’d been doing. I draw a Garruk that turn, grab the combo, and drop a Stage and Garruk, making a couple wolfs followed by a 20/20. When my opponent plays a Strix as a blocker, Garruk clears the way and I take the match.

Win, 6-0

I’m feeling pretty good now, as long as I can avoid the dreaded 6-0 to 6-3 turnaround which has plagued many players at these events. One more and I get to play tomorrow, that’s all I’m saying to myself right now. One match at a time.

Round 7: Kyle Chandler, playing Oops, All Spells

Sit down across from my opponent, we start the friendly pre-match chit-chat, we have a discussion about having fun. And to be honest, I really wasn’t feeling that much. Somewhere around sitting down for round 5, while shuffling up, I was feeling out of it, dreading playing out the rest of the weekend. Maybe I shouldn’t be playing so much Magic, maybe it was the house chores and work piling up that I had avoided since I was on vacation and then hungover for the past two weeks, but I was feeling burnt out and out of it.

G1: I have absolutely no notes on this game due to the fact that I don’t get a turn. On the play, my opponent goes Chrome Mox -> Rituals -> Balustrade Spy, and flips over his library. I rifle through it, dejectedly as per the comments above, and don’t really note down what else is in there.

In: 3 Leyline of the Void, 2 Thalia, 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Containment Priest
Out: 1 Maze of Ith, 3 Punishing Fire, 2 Knight, 1 Dryad Arbor, 1 Abrupt Decay

G2: While my opening 7 doesn’t contain a leyline, I don’t send it back as I’m able to start with a pair of Chalices on 0 and 1. My opponent durdles for a bit, and constantly thinks about how to get around this. He pitches a pair of Spirit Guides into a pair of Manamorphose, which gets around my Prison. From there, a Cabal Ritual drops a Belcher. Well crap. Luckily, he stops there, and starts setting up a way to get the last 3 mana during his next turn. This entire time, I have a Containment Priest slowly hitting him down to 10 life, and a Bob and a Thalia come down following the Belcher as I need a means to close the game ASAP. Luckily, he doesn’t get more Spirit Guides and the Belcher stays inactive.

In/Out: None.

It’s possible that I can bring in the Reclamation Sage here, but my goal is to have quick hate, not ones that are that slow.

G3: Opening 7: Leyline, Mox, Mox, Liliana, 2 Lands, Abrupt Decay. Sweet. I start with the leyline in play, and my opponent struggles with that as his line was back on the graveyard play instead of Belching on me. Turn 1 I draw a third land, and I pitch my entire hand to fuel a T1 Liliana and dismantle his hand back. The next few draws lead me into a Knight of the Reliquary, and it only takes 3 hits off the 6/6 to kill him after he had Probed at some point on T2/3.

Win, 7-0

Okay, This is fun now. I’m coming back tomorrow. Let’s finish out strong so I’m not scrounging through the bottom for the rest of the weekend trying to min-cash.

Round 8: Tomoharu Saito, playing BUG Delver

Ooh, a name I recognize. I guess this is where the tournament gets real. Luckily, I’m quite relaxed right now knowing I basically need to just play these two matches and see how it goes. I message and ask some friends what he’s on as I know he was on camera earlier in the day, but don’t get a response in time. I guess I’ll have to find out myself.

G1: He leads off with a fetch into Underground into Delver. That’s good enough for me, I love preying on Delver opponents. It flips, and the followup is a Deathrite. Meanwhile, I force his force on my T1 Chalice, and my board response is a pair of back to back Bobs, with one getting decayed, but the other netting me a few extra cards. Eventually I destroy his threats and land a second Chalice on 1, which prompts a concession.

In: 2 Thalia, 1 Choke
Out: 1 Karakas, 1 Teeg, 1 Green Sun’s Zenith

Same as UR Delver. The only Delver deck I board differently is when I expect Pyromancers, where the -1/-1 effects come around.

G2: He goes with a T1 Ponder this time around, while I once again have a Mox into Chalice on 1, but just like before, there’s a Force stopping it. My notes don’t make much sense in the early game here, I have both our life totals slowly being whittled away - mine from an eventual late True-Name Nemesis, and his in increments of 1. I do know that before he dropped a TNN, we both had active Bobs in play, so the first few hits may have been the Liliana, which got countered, and the Knight, which came down right around the time True-Name did. This is where I start to greatly appreciate the combo in my land base, as my next draw following the Knight is a Stage, and Knight finds it’s BFF which I gladly sacrifice for a baby Marit Lage. Before I can swing with the 20/20, Saito has one shot to flip a Delver. He decides to stack his Bob trigger resolving prior to the Delver trigger, and the Bob reveals a Daze while Delver’s trigger doesn’t hit anything of note. Without it flipped, there’s nothing stopping the Lage from outracing his 4 creatures on the ground.

Win, 8-0

Damnit, pressure is back now. It would be nice to be in first place going into the Day, wouldn’t it. At the tables next to me in Round 8, I saw that there was both a Painter and a Goblin Stompy deck going around, so hopefully I could avoid them and either play Miracles or Death and Taxes.

Round 9: Martin Goldman-Kirst, playing Aluren

Or I can play MGK, but I’m luckily in the minority of his opponents on the day that knows he’s on Aluren, because that’s been his pet deck for years, and I’ve never seen him play anything else at Legacy weeklies.

G1: He takes the die roll, and I go down to 6 in my opener. He quickly hits all of his Baleful Strix, and some I’m able to take care of, but not when there’s a Cavern Harpy recurring them and letting him Draw for 4 mana and 1 life. I aggressively Loam for a P Fire, and finally in one hit I grab two of them, but at that point it’s not enough, as he’s roughly 35 cards into his library with a full grip, and the Aluren comes down following a Therapy on my P Fires, meaning I don’t have enough Red to have both re-cast to interrupt the combo.

In: 1 Choke, 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Slaughter Games
Out: 1 Karakas, 1 Maze, 1 Teeg, 1 GSZ

G2: I mull to a 6 where my only colored source is a Taiga. I have a Loam Knight and a Slaughter Games, but without the second colored source, I have no means of interaction with his T4 Aluren. I probably should have mulled more, but Slaughter Games is so good I can’t pass it up.

Loss, 8-1

Bummer, time to dwell on that loss all night. I make the drive home to Seattle, arriving around 10pm, and some fast food quells my appetite since I haven’t eaten in 6 hours. I’m quickly in bed for what is another 630am wakeup.

Just like that, morning comes around, waking up to two hungry cats meowing through my door (seriously, I just fed you 8 hours ago, later than usual dinner, but you want to eat again already? Let me be). I grab some awful awful coffee from my apartment lobby, that I think I don’t make through more than 5 or 6 sips before letting it sit in my car cup holder. One of the Day 2 players I’m driving walks over, and we head to North Seattle to grab the other. Once the car is ready, I drive to Tacoma for the third time in three days, already despising the drive. We have a lively discussion about previous standard formats (sorry). One of the people I’m driving points out 90 minute parking which isn’t enforced on Sundays, so we park a block uphill from the convention center and make our way to the room, where we kill time or whatever until pairings go up a little before 9am.

Round 10: Lance Conrad, playing BUG Delver

Looking at the name, it seems familiar, I’m pretty sure I’ve played him or been to multiple events where he’s played at. A discussion reveals that he’s from Everett, and he may be a bit hungover.

G1: He takes the die roll, and gets a fast clock with a Delver and a Goyf, flipping the first to reveal a Stifle in his. My life total never recovers, and when I go to get a Knight to chump the Goyf he has the Force pitching Stifle to prompt me to shuffle up.

In/Out: Same as Other Delver Matches

G2: Opponent mulls to 5, and I have the turn 1 Chalice. Before I even can start whittling at his life total, he decides he’d rather move to the next game.

In/Out: None

G3: On the draw while my opponent mulligans a hand that seems to be light on colored sources. This is taxed even harder when I’m able to Wasteland him off of green, and get a Thalia for my own clock. I believe I may have even had a Choke here, but he scoops it up when he’s still at 13 life after I drop another prison piece.

Win, 9-1

Round 11: Philip Yam, playing RUG Delver

G1: I lose yet another die roll. My opponent dislikes his opening hand, but is fine with his 6. And that was a very fine 6 indeed. T1 Delver, T2 Delver, missing the first flip, but showing a Daze to flip both on T3. A pair of Decays takes care of the two delvers. Following that, I get an interesting board of Bob followed by Library followed by Knight. However, Bob had given me a couple hits of 3, and that brings me down to 4 life. When my opponent hits a third Delver, I have a slight misplay that costs me here.

What happened is as such: Since I have both Library and Bob, I am able to prevent any life loss by stacking 0s over and over. However, the Knight comes down right when the Delver flips, and I go to 1 since I don’t have any way of handling the flyer. The correct line is that after the bob flips with the known 0 for me, I need to Knight to grab Maze right then, which allows me to stack yet another 0 for my next turn Bob, but opens me up to dying to a Wasteland on Maze. However, I think the odds of that are still much better than my odds of hitting a zero on the blind flip. I don’t realize this line and quickly go from Bob to Library triggers, and when my next turn comes around after I’m able to Maze his Delver, a Scooze is on top to drain me to -1.

In/Out: Same as above

G2: It’s my turn to mulligan on the play, and I keep a 6 which includes 2 Wastelands, a Decay, a Chalice, and a Tranquil Thicket. I scry a third Waste to the bottom, play the Thicket, and luckily he doesn’t T1 Waste me - instead has a series of quick threats, including a Force for my T2 Chalice. I grab a P Fire, but never see a black or red mana and die to the threats coming at me quickly.

Loss, 9-2

Round 12: Vidianto Wijaya, playing Esper Stoneblade

Again, after seeing the name, I ask around if anyone knows what he’s on. Somehow I didn’t realize that he won Denver roughly three years ago with Blade, but I’m told that is a likely strategy for him.

G1: On the play, he mulls to 6. I don’t remember what my early turns consisted of, but his involved two Stoneforges, fetching first a Batterskull and then a Jitte. I misplay with a Wasteland here which allows him to get the Batterskull down, but luckily I have a Maze to reduce any pain from the germ. A couple timely removal spells shut down the Mystics, and they are eaten up by a hungry ooze of my own. Finally I get another Wasteland, may have been through a Loam recurring it, but I prevent him from getting to 5 mana and being able to replay the Skull once I’ve Decayed the token. The ooze is joined by a Knight and we go to Game 2.

In: 1 Golgari Charm, 1 Garruk, 1 Reclamation Sage, 1 Choke
Out: 1 Karakas, 2 Liliana, 1 Mox

On the draw, Blade is typically slow enough the moxen doesn’t matter. I assume there’s souls in his deck, so Lilis are pretty mediocre, but I keep one in.

G2: He plays fetch and passes. I grab a Dryad Arbor off a GSZ for 0 on T1. Once again he has an early SFM, which gets set aflame, and followed up by a pair of lingering spirits, which are also set aflame with my now second fire and a Grove to grab them back. I just start going off with that combo, and advancing my board state through an eventual Chalice on 1, Gaddock Teeg, and Knight. However, he has some nice tech in the form of Perish, which kills my Knight before I can get the Depths, as well as Teeg and the Dryad. However, I’m still preventing him from getting any board position due to the recurring fires, and at some point I get the Dark Depths and Marit Lage seals the match in my favor, saving us both the agony of me pinging him for 8 turns.

Win, 10-2

Looks like I have a PTQ top 8 ahead of me now. Unlike most PTQs of years past, this has a slightly (much) better payout in the chance that I don’t make it.

Round 13: Ryan Bogner, playing Shardless

G1: Opponent takes the play after winning the die roll, and starts with a first turn Deathrite. That turns into a second turn Deathrite, but luckily it’s not doing much as there aren’t any instants or sorceries in the yard for it to eat. Once I decay one shaman, that’s no longer the case, and I’m starting to get shocked every turn. On turn 4 or 5 an Agent comes down, and that cascades into...yet another DRS. On my side, I’m able to get a Bob going, and when I’m down to 6 life I cycle a land in response to an attack with him having an empty hand, after Decaying my Knight I played to slow the attack. That cycle reveals Liliana, when his board is only an Agent and a Deathrite. I make the choice to trade Bob for the Agent, and Liliana comes down on my turn to finally stop the third deathrite. My opponent floods out and a second Knight comes around, swinging for 8 twice to kill.

In/Out: See Round 6

G2: My opponent sends back his 7, and I keep a hand of Forest, Double Grove, Double P Fire, Bob, Chalice. The early threats from my opponent include yet another pair of Deathrites, which are negligible in response to the flames in hand, followed by a 3/4 Goyf. My play consists of a Chalice which gets Decayed, and then a Thalia. The entire time here he doesn’t have any blue mana, and since Goyf is only a 3/4 I’m able to spend a turn casting both of the Punishing Shocks to kill it, and he follows up with some removal on my Thalia. Eventually I get the Loam engine going, both Wasting him when he does his his land drops, and Marit Lage eventually comes out to little opposition.

Win, 11-2

I spend the time between rounds walking around trying to relax, and at the same time doing everything to relieve pressure on myself for doing this well. At some point I end up talking to MGK, and we discuss his “Deck Tech” which isn’t so much a Deck Tech as an article explaining the Aluren combo. After we read that, I pack up my iPad to get ready to glance at standings, and it’s at this moment that I realize that my bag is a bit light. Because I’m missing a Deck Box from it. With my Legacy deck. I start freaking out with a constant stream of expletives and wondering how I can be so stupid to leave it on the table (as I’m 99.999% sure there was no point where it could have gotten stolen from my backpack). Hopefully because this was watched by so many Judges, one of them would have picked it up. This would have made me feel better if I wasn’t at the end of the row, so it could have gone either way. Luckily, when I walk up to the main stage (as that would have been right near where I last saw the box), I get a glance of it behind one of the printers. As I talk to the Judge standing there, I’m able to describe the box adequately through hyperventilating and a bunch of “holy ****” every 3 words from me, and thankfully it is my deck, all 75 cards intact. I still don’t know how I left it there, as every time I know that deck box needs to be in my sight. Thank you to whatever Judge or Player saw it there and did the right thing by turning it in.

During this time, I don’t get to see much of the standings, but it really doesn’t matter since I just need to win this PTQ top 4, right? There’s no point in thinking what ifs. Just win the last two rounds. As I look at the pairings board, one of the familiar names who I know is X-2 shows up next to mine.

Round 14: Michael Swailes, playing Miracles

I know he’s on Miracles, I’m pretty sure he knows I’m on Loam. He thinks he’s quite favored in the matchup, but I’m pretty sure I am, as the whole point of this deck is to punish Miracles players. I’m happy to finally be facing off against Miracles for the first time in three days.

G1: Swailes has to mull to 5 here, after I win the roll. I play a turn 2 Bob which gets Swords, but the replacement Bob reveals a Knight. I’m able to Decay his Counterbalance and Waste his nonbasics that he has drawn, and a second Bob and a Library eventually come down. This Bob reveals a Knight and then a Chalice, and once the Chalice on 1 is down the Knight is able to Combo off and Marit Lage comes flying through.

In: 1 Golgari Charm, 2 Thalia, 1 Choke, 1 Garruk, 1 Slaughter Games, 1 Reclamation Sage
Out: 1 Karakas, 1 Maze, 2 Mox, 1 P Fire, 1 Knight, 1 ??? (I think Scooze)

I don’t bring in Plague as much as I like it against Mentor, even know I know he has some Mentors in his list, but when I’m up a game I don’t think that’s a good enough card here against him. Charm does a nice enough Monk sweep impression at times, and sometimes kills a Counterbalance.

G2: He is a bit dismayed to find that I answer his T1 Top with a Chalice on 1, which he doesn’t have the counter for. His next few draw steps all apparently yield one drops, but I’m able to get the Grove engine online yet again and answer his Mentor. When he plays a Jace and ticks up, I’m able to EOT P Fire it, swing with my Arbor, and then P Fire it back to death. My next plays consist of Thalia and Bob, but a hard cast Terminus takes care of them. Similar to what happened earlier against Blade, the P Fire is joined by a Thicket and Loam, which draws me tons of cards until finally I can get a Marit Lage to seal the deal. He attempts to Swords it, I remember my Chalice, and I’ve got it.

Win, 12-2

One more match. Win and In time. I spend a lot of the round trying to give misinformation regarding my deck to the player who was X-2 and was basically within 1 or 2 players of me all day, which meant that I had something like a 30-40% chance of playing him. The other players in the X-2 bracket included a bunch of Miracles and Delver decks, which was looking good. The one I didn’t want to play was Chase, who I know was on Reanimator (like he always is), as that was probably my worst matchup in the bracket. He didn’t want to play it either, not because of the matchup (we both agreed it was close, but slightly in his favor), but so we’re not knocking each other out of the T8.

When standing come out, I’m in 5th place on top of the 36 pointers, and right behind me in 6th is Chase. Damn. Hopefully there will be some issues with the Top 4 and we will have some weird pairings to avoid each other?

Nope.

Round 15: Chase Hansen, playing Reanimator

Coverage exists here: http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball...578?t=3h31m00s

G1: I get Turn 2’d. I have to keep the hand, as nothing really is better outside of aggressive mulls to Karakas/Maze. They don’t even do much at all against Griseldaddy, as he still draws 14 cards and just reanimates something else. My only hope is to Chalice T1 and hope he doesn’t have a Force, and that he’s on the Reanimate plan over Exhume, but nope, he has it before I can try my second Chalice.

G2: I wasn’t going to say much but I feel like I need to justify playing embarassingly terrible here. I mulled to 3. My 7 was Thalia but no white mana (maybe there was white, I don’t want to watch the replay), and no Chalice. I didn’t know at the time that he didn’t have any possible T1 wins, I have to assume worst case Petal Land kill, so I send it back. My 6, 5, and 4 are all completely unplayable, and I have to settle for a 3 of Forest, Scrubland, Thoughtseize.

At this point I’m just devastated and dismayed, and just internally go on severe tilt. The thoughtseize shows that he really doesn’t have any gas, which helps, but that completely is replaced once he discards a Griselbrand to hand size. At that point the game is just going through the motions for me. Which leads to my first of 4 major misplays - sitting on the Wastelands. My entire goal was to stop him when he played his sixth land, letting him sit on the 5. The FoW doesn’t come into mind, and after the first hardcast one I’m just so depressed that I’m about to lose I don’t even care about that second one.

The next issue comes during the GSZ. I don’t think this is too much of a misplay, as I don’t play around Pierce (or Izzet Charm, in this case) as much as I play around Daze, because I just don’t expect Pierce to be in Reanimator. But at the same time, I’m just sitting on Mox Land, so what do I get by keeping cards in hand? Nothing. It’s dumb, but the least minor of my misplays.

The final issue comes up right before he Exhumes. During his EOT before then, I contemplate Staging my Scrubland to get a second white source. I don’t, and get punished for that because I can’t replay the Priest after he shows the Exhume and then bounces it.

Any of those plays could have gotten me back in the game, and potentially to G3. It’s unacceptable on my part for playing so poorly, and it’s just going to be that way until I’m able to prove myself again.

Loss, 12-3

When results go up, I find myself in 13th place, good for $550 and 3 pro points. Not awful, but I know it could have been so so much more.

I wash down my sorrows with Korean BBQ all you can eat, and copious amounts of meat is enough to satisfy me and realize that T16 of a GP is still very very damn good.

There’s always next time. Thanks to anyone who bothered to read through this whole thing (I’ve crossed 9000 words now), the more I think about it the more I feel like the game descriptions are somewhat worthless, but I was too deep by the time I realized that. Unfortunately, doesn’t look like there’s any major Legacy events for me in the next few months, so it may be a while before I can drive Bob Loam to the big stage again.

Never played any SFM game 1, but more importantly you forgot the part where you broke my sleeves 18 times (well actually twice.) Thanks for offering to buy new sleeves though. 😛

Gratz on the finish! Glad you showed the world that this deck is real, and not just in europe. Keep it loaming buddy :wink:

You put the freaking deck on the States. Be proud :)

On the other hand, I don't really like cutting lands against delver decks, and Karakas help you protect Thalia and cast her.
I would also bring Leylines vs ANT.

Other than that, great job. It is a shame they only showed the Reanimate match instead of all the others

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vidi

Never played any SFM game 1, but more importantly you forgot the part where you broke my sleeves 18 times (well actually twice.) Thanks for offering to buy new sleeves though. 😛

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Was it? I had the Batterskull/Jitte fetchs under my G1 notes. In that case, I have no idea what happened our G1. I still feel bad about the sleeves, I know my shuffle style is very bad with the Hyper Mattes - it's why I've had to move off them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pilhas

You put the freaking deck on the States. Be proud :)

On the other hand, I don't really like cutting lands against delver decks, and Karakas help you protect Thalia and cast her.
I would also bring Leylines vs ANT.

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Yeah, It turns out in analysis later on my ANT and Delver board strategies may be a bit off - especially with cutting GSZ, as really that should be fetching the Dryad Arbor since having extra lands is so important against Delver. I'm still not fully sold on Karakas, it's alright against Thalia, but if I'm ever to a point where I'm able to fetch for it with a Knight I feel like I've already won the game. I don't know what else I would cut, everything else feels so vital.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5NweFWjAw

I still hate you though

Congrats, on your great finish!
After the success in Europe I'm really happy you showed that this deck is a contender in the US, too.
Bummer on that Reanimator match. Don't grieve yourself too much, you did an excellent Job nonetheless!
And nicely pimpd deck too, I appreciate :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nocley

Round 12: Vidianto Wijaya, playing Esper Stoneblade

Again, after seeing the name, I ask around if anyone knows what he’s on. Somehow I didn’t realize that he won Denver roughly three years ago with Blade, but I’m told that is a likely strategy for him.

G1: On the play, he mulls to 6. I don’t remember what my early turns consisted of, but his involved two Stoneforges, fetching first a Batterskull and then a Jitte. I misplay with a Wasteland here which allows him to get the Batterskull down, but luckily I have a Maze to reduce any pain from the germ. A couple timely removal spells shut down the Mystics, and they are eaten up by a hungry ooze of my own. Finally I get another Wasteland, may have been through a Loam recurring it, but I prevent him from getting to 5 mana and being able to replay the Skull once I’ve Decayed the token. The ooze is joined by a Knight and we go to Game 2.

In: 1 Golgari Charm, 1 Garruk, 1 Reclamation Sage, 1 Choke
Out: 1 Karakas, 2 Liliana, 1 Mox

On the draw, Blade is typically slow enough the moxen doesn’t matter. I assume there’s souls in his deck, so Lilis are pretty mediocre, but I keep one in.

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TNN is not a problem for us? Why don't you siding Toxic Deluge? And why do you cut Liliana?:eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnBell

TNN is not a problem for us? Why don't you siding Toxic Deluge? And why do you cut Liliana?:eek:

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Overall Liliana is very poor in the face of lingering souls. I expect to see more of that post-board over TNNs. I do agree that my board plan makes me a bit soft to TNN, but typically the deck's removal matches up quite nicely against every other threat they have, including equipment, meaning I'm not too worried about racing a single sword/skull-less TNN. I really dislike overboarding against Blue based decks, and because of the swords things like Deluge aren't that great. I do keep the Golgari Charm in there as I'm okay with one effect at instant speed for TNN. If there was the TNN heavy list (as I do recall seeing a deathblade list running 4x TNN recently), then the Deluge would be an auto include. I also do see a reason where you could keep a 2nd lili and bring out a 2nd mox, but I'm not sold on that. Regardless, I feel the blade matchup is already very good for us because as mentioned, our removal matches their threats nicely, and their removal doesn't do too much against our threats.

Nice report! I even read all of it. Props for the top 16.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nocley

Yeah, It turns out in analysis later on my ANT and Delver board strategies may be a bit off - especially with cutting GSZ, as really that should be fetching the Dryad Arbor since having extra lands is so important against Delver. I'm still not fully sold on Karakas, it's alright against Thalia, but if I'm ever to a point where I'm able to fetch for it with a Knight I feel like I've already won the game. I don't know what else I would cut, everything else feels so vital.

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So how would you sideboard in those matchups?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phazonmutant

Nice report! I even read all of it. Props for the top 16.

So how would you sideboard in those matchups?

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ANT:
+ 3 Leyline
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 2 Thalia
+ 1 Slaughter Games
- 3 Punishing Fire
- 1 Maze of Ith
- 1 Knight
- 2 Abrupt Decay

If I see TES or a faster combo into Empty the Warrens, I bring in the two sweepers for another Decay, and a Karakas

Delver:
+ 2 Thalia
+ 1 Choke
- 1 Teeg
- 2 ??? (Possibly Knight, possibly Karakas, I like every card so much in this matchup its hard to find room).

If its Grixis, then the open should be 2 Lilianas, that card is very poor against YP and Delve strategies in general because of how easy it is to get countered. I'd possibly cut the third as well for a Sweeper in Charm or Maelstrom Pulse (assuming the updated board), as Pulse is also the decks only real answer to Gurmag Angler outside of Liliana which again means nothing when they can just dump an Elemental