Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

  1. #1

    High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    My plan was to write this report yesterday when everything was fresh in memory. Unfortunatly nothing was fresh at all as I caught Influenza that day.
    I feel better today but the whole tournament is still a good fever-fantasy. The results are correct (as I was clever enough to take notes) but the matches could be full of errors and fantasies...

    I submitted the following:

    SORCERIES (16)
    4 Preordain
    4 Ponder
    4 Merchant Scroll
    4 Time Spiral
    INSTANTS (22)
    1 Pact of Negation
    1 Meditate
    3 Flusterstorm
    1 Intuition
    4 High Tide
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Cunning Wish
    1 Turnabout
    4 Force of Will
    ARTIFACTS (4)
    4 Candelabra of Tawnos
    LANDS (18)
    12 Island
    3 Polluted Delta
    3 Flooded Strand
    SIDEBOARD
    1 Surgical Extraction
    1 Pact of Negation
    1 Snap
    3 Wipe Away
    1 Rebuild
    1 Brain Freeze
    1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
    1 Meditate
    1 Turnabout
    3 Defense Grid
    1 Ravenous Trap

    I really like Intuition and even though I side it out more often than not it has to stay maindeck. Something like goblins or burn could be faster so Scroll->intuition->time spiral is an easy way to do it.
    I run 1 less untap-effect than standard and I've been happy about it. I expected a lot of counterbalance and RUG som i put 3 Wipe away and 3 Defense Grid in my sideboard.

    R1 Dredge
    We both knew each others decklists and we both knew that the matchup is pretty bad for high tide... Fortunatly for me he was forced to mulligan to 5. I stole that game even though his plan of hardcasting flame-kin zealot and kill me with various embarassing creatures almost worked.

    Sideboarding: -1 pact of negatioin for 1 surgical extraction.

    He dredged of a Thug, I flusterstormed something and I survived until I could cast wish->trap. Even though he knew I could have it he had no better options I think.

    1-0 (2-0)

    R2 RUG

    Again we both know what the other one is playing. To me it doesn't matter that much, I keep my seven unless it's totally awful. My opponent had lands, bolts and dazes and had to ship that for a keepable 6. The matchup is not that good for high tide though so I had to put my faith on my sideboard.
    Turn1-delver, blind-flip-revealing-FoW. I had candelabra but I put him on stifle so I didn't use it to get an extra cantrip. he had the double-force so it didn't matter though.

    Sideboarding: -1 Intuition -1 High Tide -1 Meditate +3 Defense Grid

    He played a few creatures and I played a candelabra. He passed his turn with 3 untapped lands and a semi-lethal board. He had only one red source but if bolted me my eot and had another one I would be dead. So I played high tide. He responded with Krosan Grip on my candelabra. Fortunatly I had my turnabout and with enough counters I resolved Time Spiral.

    I had the luxury to tap him out eot with turnabout. I had pact+flusterstorm and a lot of islands so I felt safe comboing against his 3 cards.

    2-0 (4-1)

    R3 Foodchain BUG

    Again we both knew... But to me the matchup was untested. His combo is slower but discard and counterspells could be a problem.
    We both keep and he plays a bunch of strix and witness. I combo off without much resistance.

    Sideboard:
    -1 High tide -1 Intuition (for fear of extirpate and discard) +1 turnabout +1 meditate

    I see 7 spells and mulligan to 6 spells. My 5 is decent and I keep. He combo turn4 and I die to emrakul.

    He terapies me on turn 1 naming brainstorm, and misses (seeing, if i remember correctly, 2 time spirals, force of will, high tide, 2 lands and Ponder. I force something pitching Time Spiral (I have another). I know that he will try to get rid of that with the terapies when he can... I shuffle with Ponder and my next 2 draws are both Time Spirals! Not only am I stuck on 2 lands but if he therapies me it will be pretty hard to win... He shred my hand and combo off.

    2-1 (5-2)

    R4 RUG
    Again Im up against one of the local PLS-heroes (Our weekly matches can be seen on www.youtube.com/mtgvideo).
    It's great to be a part of the the worlds nicest legacy-community and play with the best. I just rather face some random homebrew and grab lunch...

    We were in for 3 (I think) tight games but it's all a blur to me now. I remember defense grid was both great and useless (I put it on the bottom with preordain once). I like it in theory though, it's one of the few cards that force interaction on a non-combo turn. If I only get a Spell Pierce out of it Im happy! The problem is that I waste a card on nothing from time to time. It's all about resolving Time Spiral and a smart opponent let high tide resolve and net the extra mana for it to pay for his double FoW. Might be a corner-case but it came up a few times. It's great post-spiral though and makes winning easier/faster.
    I remember game3 beeing a nailbiter and I was forced to go for it with only one counter and I did it.

    3-1 (7-3, or 8-2. Most likely 7-3)

    R5 ID with UWr Counterbalance
    3-1-1 (7-3-1)

    Lunch!

    T8 R1 Team America with Jace

    A danish player I've never played before. I heard the rumors about him and his friend playing the same 75 and crushing their way to t8. Uhoh...
    He played a few goyfs and beat me down to 10. He played jace and I could not counter it since goyf would be lethal. He brainstormed and I was forced to combo but succeeded.

    Sideboard:
    -1 intuition -1 high tide +1 meditate +1 brain freeze (if im bottlenecked on mana or cunning wish gets removed I can still win with enough lands, cantrips and brain freeze). the extra meditate is a nod to hymn to tourach.

    He lands a turn 2 Sylvan Library and draws 2+1+1 extra cards. He lands Jace and brainstorm for a couple of turns but somehow all he can do is Abrupt Decay a candelabra. I go off with double flusterstorm and he got nothing to fight back. Weird game.

    4-1-1 (9-3)

    T8 R2 RUG
    I don't remember the whole match (I might have to edit this post later...)
    He had no turn1 creature so when he Pondered turn2 I flusterstormed. He had no second land. This bought me enough time to go off without fear of daze/pierce and I had enough counterspells to fight his force of will/s.
    Game2 I think I had a pretty good hand while he was light on pressure. We discussed sideboarding a bit and I realized that all of my three RUG-opponents had used different approaches with nearly identical lists. I haven't played much RUG myself but I think I liked this the most. He sided out goyfs and wastelands for more counters. One creature is often enough and goyf is the worst since he costs 2 mana. It backfired a bit in this match though so maybe Im wrong.

    T8 R3 RUG (Same as in round4)
    I don't remember most of this match. I think I never saw my third land or I had to mulligan, or maybe something unreal happened. I don't think I played any worse than the rest of the day either. I even got to relax and look at the semifinals (RUG-vs UWr Cb-top) where Rug won by naturally decking his opponent. It could have been 1-2.

    So I ended up second and we split the prize, a Mox Sapphire. I had a great day of magic!

  2. #2
    The specimen seems to be broken.
    elof's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2008
    Location

    Sweden
    Posts

    396

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    Congratulations! And, from the sound of it, well played! Must have been quite hard to play against all those RUGs. Also, how many players where they? Only 5 rounds suggest a quite small number?
    "Think of all we could learn from it! It's the chance of a lifetime! You must let me have it! It's a magnificent specimen!"

    Scandinavian Master Legacy 2010

    World champion 93/94 2013

  3. #3
    Member
    feline's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2011
    Location

    USA
    Posts

    586

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    Thank you for running all 4 candelabra's, a permanent in play is 1 less card in the deck after a resolved Time Spiral, meaning that your % of cards left that, draw cards, is higher vs doing the 3 candel 3 turnabout setup, as well you also are only running 1 turnabout maindeck, which I also advocate/agree with, since it's tutorable via the cunning wish & merchant scroll, and if you need to turnabout your opponent at the end of their turn, or just get 1 untap effect for yourself, you can do just that and tutor for it. >^,^<

    Also thank you for running 4 / 4 / 4 of Brainstorm / Ponder / Preordain, as well as the multiple Flusterstorm's maindeck, I myself also agree with as such, and run the same setup myself, flusterstorm is just too good both as defense, and against opposing decks that want to resolve instants and sorceries like reanimate, show and tell, even green sun's zenith'ing for a Gaddock teeg.
    Primary legacy deck High Tide primer

  4. #4

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    Thanks!

    @elof. Yes, there were only ~30 people in the tournament. I would prefer a 10-round GP though...
    From my testing RUG is favorable against High Tide, winning the die-roll can make the difference and I was lucky with that during the tournament.

    @feline. Your input was very welcome during my testing! Also I would like to mention your suggestion that with candelabra in play you can go high tide->spiral with flusterstorm backup/daze proof. It came up a few times.
    Can't do that with Turnabout.

  5. #5

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    Congratulations!

  6. #6

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    I lost the last game to turn2 Sylvan Library.

  7. #7
    No hay trabajo malo. Lo malo es tener que trabajar.
    lebarion's Avatar
    Join Date

    Apr 2007
    Location

    São Paulo, Brasil
    Posts

    123

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    Congratulations!
    I'm trying a list with multiple Flusterstorm maindeck, and I'm really linking them. It's a very good counter in the current meta.
    I don't think 4 Candles are needed, but I see your reason on running them.
    The main differences between your list and mine now are the 4th Candle and 2 Ponders for 2 Turnabouts and 1 BSZ. I'm on the fence regarding the Ponders versus Turnabout... theoretically with the ponders you could reach a untap effect or a tutor for an untapper. The kill condition in the main is a matter of taste, I guess.
    Again, nice job on the tournament.
    # The Bizarro Super Powers Team

  8. #8

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    I really like 1-2 Mind Over Matter in the sideboard. You can easily sub out 1 turnabout for 1 in some match-ups, where you want a turnabout in the board, and its a great card vs. show and tell decks.

    out of your board, where any of these cards not used? Snap, rebuild, ravenous trap all seem like nice effects but unnecessary.

    1 Surgical Extraction
    1 Pact of Negation
    1 Snap
    3 Wipe Away
    1 Rebuild
    1 Brain Freeze
    1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
    1 Meditate
    1 Turnabout
    3 Defense Grid
    1 Ravenous Trap


    My board is:
    2 defense grids
    2 mind over matter
    1 surgical extraction
    4 divert <---1 for 1 for force of will vs. black decks with thoughtseize and inquisition. Also acts like a spell pierce vs counters
    1 flusterstorm (its the only 1 in the 75 cards, and its only there to deal with opponents flusterstorms (could put more in to replace diverts in board))
    2 echoing truth (is wipe away better?)
    1 brain freeze
    1 blue sun's zenith
    1 intuition

    with my board, I am conceding the mirror match but improving my match-ups against every other deck in the field.

  9. #9

    Re: High Tide at SydCon (28/10-2012) 2nd

    @lebarion
    About the candelabras. I don't think a card like abrupt Decay is good against us anyway... If I suspect something like that I can just wait to play it until after High Tide resolve.
    I don't really like BSZ at all in the maindeck. It costs much mana and I rather play Meditate (which I also don't like) in this slot. I will give it a try though as I can see it beeing ok against slower blue decks. To me it's all about resolving Time Spiral and cards like Cunning Wish, BSZ and Meditate doesn't help in hand the turn I go off. I want to keep this "fluff" to a minimum and instead fit as many counterspells as possible (Currently 8). I loose more games beeing unable to combo off than I fizzle post-spiral.

    @gkraigher
    Could you please give me some examples on when MoM is good? Against SnT-decks I die to omniscience->grapeshot, not emrakul. I don't think I need the extra mana post-spiral, but Im probably missing something here:)

    About the sideboard.

    Rebuild. it's either this or Hurkyll's Recall. One of them is a must against Stax/MUD where it's common to face more than one hate-permanent (Chalice, trinisphere i.e).

    Surgical Extraction. It's nice to be able to wish for this when you face combo with few win-conditions (show and tell, aluren, painter/grindstone, reanimate). I also remove cabal therapies against Dredge or the occasional Snapcaster Mage target. I will test more against Dredge (which is both a great deck and popular in my area) and probably complement this (and Ravenous trap) with Grafdigger's cage.

    Ravenous Trap. It's awesome against Dredge. It buys that extra turn you need to combo off. Not only for staying alive against Ichorid and friends, but to nail those therapies that would otherwise shred your hand.

    Pact of Negation. The most Wished card.

    Snap. The best answer to Ethersworn Canonist/Thalia. I scroll for it when I allready have High Tide against bant/maverick/Gw-elves. Im thinking of having another to be able to both scroll and wish for it.

    Wipe Away. One is a must against Counterbalance... more just to be safe. It's far from enough though as a good CB-player will float a 3 and play a second counterbalance+top whenever he can. I really need some tech in this matchup... maybe pithing needle on Sensei's Divining top (or even jace).

    Defense Grid. I think this is the best way to fight Blue tempo. As I wrote earlier you really want to fight over spells on other turns than when you go off. This is something that force your opponent to interact.

    Turnabout. You want an untap-effect in the board.

    Meditate. Post-spiral this is a mana-effective way to drag out counterspells from your opponent. I often scroll->meditate and fight over it with enough resources so that I can Time Spiral too.

    BSZ. The most safe way to win.

    Brain Freeze. Good to have against black decks with extirpate and discard. Sometimes you are bottlenecked on mana, sometimes you have no Cunning Wish. Siding in brain freeze allow you to cantrip+spiral into high enough storm.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)