Hit top 4 in last weekend's Legacy tournament in Manila. Went really well, in my opinion, even if I was blown out by Omnitell in the semi-finals by sheer luck of the draw.
Here's the list I ran:
Land:
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
Creatures:
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
Spells:
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Repeal
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Gitaxian Probe
Sideboard: 15
2 Defense Grid
2 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Through the Breach
1 Echoing Truth
1 Swan Song
2 Flusterstorm
I decided to make a hybrid of the Sensei's Diving Top and Gitaxian Probe plans, and for the most part, it wasn't such a bad idea at all.
ROUND 1: vs. Food Chain Griffin (1-0)
Game 1: I win the die roll and open with a solid hand with Sneak Attack at the ready on the 4th turn. I had only Griselbrand, land, Sneak, and a bunch of cantrips. I open with Gitaxian Probe, and see that he has a Show and Tell and Food Chain. I had no idea what he was playing, but made a mental note that playing Show and Tell wasn’t a good idea against him. Turn 3, I hit Sneak Attack, Turn 4, I activate for Griselbrand, draw 14, swing, and pass the turn. He has nothing but a Griffin on his turn, and I have a vague idea what his deck is supposed to do by then. I draw, cast a Ponder, find Emrakul, then Sneak him in.
Boarding: -4 Show and Tell, -1 Repeal, -2 Gitaxian Probe, +2 REB, +2 Through The Breach, -1 Repeal, +1 Swan Song. +2 Flusterstorm.
Game 2: He opens with a Ponder, and I open with land, Petal. I Brainstorm at end of turn, and see that I’m holding Emrakul and Griselbrand, Sneak Attack, Swan Song, among other irrelevant cards. At this point, all I needed was mana, and by turn 5, I made my move, had a Swan Song ready for his Force of Will, then proceeded to win from there. All he had on his side was a Food Chain. I still had no idea what the deck was until I did a bit of research on it just now.
ROUND 2: vs. Dredge (2-0)
Game 1: Oh, man. I was woefully unprepared for Dredge, looking at my board. Thankfully, I had land, land, Lotus Petal, Show and Tell, and Griselbrand. The second turn Gris made him scoop. Off to game 2.
Boarding: -3 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Repeal, +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Pyroclasm, +1 Flusterstorm
Game 2: Wasn’t so sure if I boarded properly, but I mulled a no-land hand into one with Emrakul, Show and Tell, Ponder, and lands. Turn 3 Emrakul yielded a scoop from him.
ROUND 3: vs. Dragon Stompy (3-0)
Game 1: Gio, my opponent, opens up with a first-turn Blood Moon. I had basic islands in hand, and plopped down a third-turn Emrakul. Off to game 2!
Boarding: -1 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Repeal, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Swan Song
Game 2: Opened with a nuts hand: Emmy and Grissy, Sol Land, Land, Sneak Attack, FOW and blue card. He mulled to 5, so I felt I had a strong edge. I even drew a land on my first turn. Second turn Sneak, third turn Gris, draw into another land, bring in Emmy, win.
ROUND 4: vs. BUG (3-1)
Game 1: I was being brutalized with discard, but he had only Goyf as board presence. I stabilized by keeping Sensei’s Divining Top, floated Show and Tell and Emrakul to victory. Thankfully, he didn’t have Liliana to handle that.
Boarding: -3 Probe, -1 Repeal, -1 Ponder, +2 Red Elemental Blast, +3 Blood Moon
Game 2: I had 2 Show and Tell, Misdirection, Force of Will, Petal, and lands. He got off a second-turn Hymn to Tourach, which I tried to send back to him, which he Forced, which I Forced, which he Flusterstormed. After that attrition war, he established control with Tarmogoyf and Liliana.
Game 3: More of the same discard goodness, but this time, Redmond made it worse by having enchantment destruction everytime I managed to cast Sneak Attack. I was always forced to tap out to Sneak, and he always had a charm to deal with it afterwards.
ROUND 5: vs. BUG (4-1)
Game 1: Oh, gosh. Another BUG matchup. This time, though, I had Sensei’s Divining Top ready to protect me, and I was able to hold off Jay by getting Emrakul down on turn 2 for the win.
Boarding: -3 Probe, -1 Repeal, -1 Ponder, +2 Red Elemental Blast, +3 Blood Moon
Game 2: I got a turn 2 Show and Tell again, with FOW backup. This time, I plopped down Gris on turn 2, and he plopped down Baleful Strix, which almost threw my plans off-kilter. Thing is, he cast Maelstrom Pulse on Gris, and I drew into Misdirection, targeting Strix. I then swung with Gris, and set up for Sneak and Emrakul on the next turn, which did happen.
ROUND 6: vs. Elves (4-1-1)
We ID’d into the top 8.
QUARTERFINALS: vs. Elves
Game 1: Same guy from Round 6. I mulled to 6 and found this hand: Brainstorm, Lotus Petal x3, Sneak Attack, Sol Land, Gitaxian Probe. I opened with Sneak Attack, then durdled a few turns, hoping for land, which didn’t come, so after two turn, I played Probe, then I fired off Brainstorm, and lo and behold, found Gris in the third card. Unfortunately, this means no land, so I held off for two more turns with another Probe in hand. When I got to drawing my second card, I fired off Probe, and lo and behold, a Scalding Tarn! Plopped it down, activated to Sneak Gris in, swung, then drew 7, with FOW and Emrakul safely at the ready. He tried to go off, I countered the Craterhoof Behemoth, then won next turn.
Boarding: -2 Probe, -1 Island, +2 Pyroclasm, +1 Echoing Truth
Game 2: Did something stupid here. Instead of Show and Tell for Emrakul, I used Sneak on him. He recovered, and won this game. I was too afraid of letting him Show and Tell something backbreaking.
Game 3: My mulligan hand was awesome. Two creatures, Petal, fetchland, Ponder, Sneak Attack. I hit Ponder, drew into a Petal and set up a land on top, then played Sneak on my second turn. Third turn, I won.
SEMIFINALS: vs. Omnitell
Game 1: Attrition, here we come! We kept on playing back and forth, and a Probe revealed he would kill me if I tried to Show and Tell anything. I had a Top on my board, but the game went long enough for him to hardcast Omniscience, and I ran out of answers to it by then.
Boarding: -3 Probe, -1 Repeal, -4 Show and Tell, +2 REB, +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Swan Song, +2 Through The Breach
Game 2: We went on an epic counter war for my Through The Breach on turn 3, with him fighting off my Double Force hand via Pierce, Flusterstorm, FOW. I topdecked another Through The Breach, and he had another FOW for it. I was spent by then and he ended up playing Intuition for Dream Halls to hardcast it and Enter the Infinite from there. Just bad draws all around, and no amount of tight play could have saved me there.
After playing Omnitell like that, I definitely missed Intuition in my deck, and I’m looking into removing the Probes and replacing them with 2 Intuition, 1 Misdirection. Nobody seems to be trying to Surgical Extraction Sneak and Show anymore, after all.
