Eternal Prague 2014 Victory : Free Headshots for everyone

[sawatarix]

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„Ok guys, this time I've got a really good feeling somehow,“ I mentioned this as our berlin group was making a short break before we arrived in Prague. Well that's what I always say before a tournament but this time it was kind of different.
It took us 4 hours to get to Prague with the best Driver one can have: Daniel H. SCG writer Carsten Kötter, Robert who did an incredible job this weekend and our Italian Dredge master Matteo
joined the roadtrip and we registered for the legacy trial event on friday where Carsten, Robert and Matteo went 6-2-0,that's what we call a nice warm up.
I went 3-3-0 and dropped after I had won against Infect, Welder control and Dredge while losing to Bug Landstill, Miracles and Burn. Not the best run! Have to do a better job the next day.

After discussing some maindeck slots and sideboard cards with Carsten and Robert I eventually changed my deck for the main event.

„The Machine Gun“ by Kai Thiele (1st Place @ Prague Eternal 2014)

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Badlands
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:15
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Young Pyromancer

I decided to cut the 2nd Ad Nauseam and my Chrome Mox in order to make room for the 7th discard spell and 1 Sensei's Divining Top. (which was one of the best cards during the weekend)
I didn't see Death&Taxes, so Dread of Night was dropped in favour of Flusterstorms alongside the 3rd Xantid Swarm so as to combat fast combo and control decks.



Saturday: Prague Eternal Legacy Main Event, 8 Rounds of Swiss + Top8.

Round 1: RUG Delver 2:0

G1: I am always pretty nervous during round 1 to be honest because there is no real warm up before.
I sit down at table 70 and face a Czech guy whom I actually know from Berlin. He knows what he is up against. I don't.
He wins the dice roll and starts with Tropical Island into Delver of Secrets.
After two turns I know that he is on RUG Delver so I assemble a hand which is powerful enough to execute a Past in Flames kill with a ton of discard backup.
Job done on my last turn before he kills me.

Sideboard: +4 Young Pyromancer - 1 Ad Nauseam -1 Lotus Petal -1 Senseis Devining Top -1 Preordain

G2: I keep a slow hand with 4 cantrips and 2 LEDs but only 1 fetchland. My opponent probes me and sees the land light hand I have, plays a scalding tarn, and passes back .I probe him and see a ton of disruption: 2 Fow,2 Stifle, 1 Vendilion Clique and lands.
Looks like the real deal.
Fetchland go.
Fortunately he has no pressure until turn 6 but I don't draw any lands so I discard a lot of cards in my endstep. (Past in Flames and some cantrips)
Finally, Delver of Secret enters the field and my life drops down pretty quickly.
I draw basic swamp and another land and get another Past in Flames Kill on my very last turn through all his countermagic with 3 discard spells and some mindgames/tricks

1-0-0


Round 2 Feature Table 4: 4-Colour Delver with Pyromancer

G1: He doesn't have any pressure or countermagic, so I kill him pretty quickly with the tutor chain on turn 4 after seeing 2 Lightning Bolts ,Pyromancer and a bunch of lands including Wastelands.

Sidboard: -1 Ad Nauseam +1 Flusterstorm (Young Pyromancer is not good enough because he has one on his own)

G2: On turn 3 I probe him seeing 1 Flusterstorm, 1 Pyroblast and 1 Surgical Extraction. At this point, I just have some cantrips in my graveyard while he is tapped out.
I duress him, take the Extraction because Past in Flames was already in my hand.
On my next turn I cast 3 Dark Ritual with 5 lands in play, he flusterstorms it. Fine.
Fortunately Yawgmoth’s Will has flashback in Legacy so the job was done.

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2-0-0


Round 3: 4-colour Delver

G1: He mulligans to 6 and I probe him seeing: Underground Sea, 2 Delver, 2 Deathrite Shaman, 1 Grim Lavamancer.
So another 4 colour Delver with at least no disruption. Therapy both Shamans, go.
He floods his board with dudes and I don't manage to get the combo before I die.
Sometimes you just get raced by angry Insects and Wizards.

Sideboard: -1 Ad Nauseam -1 Preordain +2 Xantid Swarm (somehow I had the gut feeling that my opponent boards out all his removal spells)

G2: I start with Xantid Swarm and my opponent with Grim Lavamancer. Damn it.
I attack and cantrip. He plays ponder instead of using Grim Lavamancer on my Swarm so I was able to attack for lethal

G3: I cast Dark Ritual.

3-0-0


Round 4: Affinity with Ethersworn Canonist mainboard.


G1: I face a nice Italian dude who leads with Memnite and Cranial Plating.
After turn 3, my lifetotal is 9 but Ad Nauseam on his endstep gets me there.

Sidebard: +3 Chain of Vapor + 2 Abrupt Decay -3 Duress -1 Preordain -2 Cabal Therapy

G2: I keep a slow hand and loose to his beatdown. That was a quick one.

G3: I start with land, go.
He plays turn 1 Memnite, Tormod’s Crypt, Mox Opal and floats mana, another Mox Opal and taps it to cast Ethersworn Canonist !
Well, I have a little respond to that one: Dark Ritual,Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseam.
I draw a bunch of cards including Chain of Vapour, drop to 2 life.
On my second turn, I manage to deal with his Canonist and kill my opponent with a very extensive tutor chain.

4-0-0


Round 5 feature table 3: Goblins.

G1: Guess who won.

Sideboard: +3 Chain of Vapor, -3 Duress

G2: Goblin Lackey is a douche.

G3: He mulligans to 4.

5-0-0


Round 6 feature table 2: 4-Colour Delver

G1,G2: I got crushed in both games by some aggressive Insects and Deathrite Shaman backed up with double Force of Will and other Stuff, jeez.


5-1-0


Round 7 feature table 4: 4-colour Delver

Today is my Delver Day, I guess.
Haven't seen any on the trial the day before (!)
This round is very important now because the winner gets into the top8, most likely.
G1: my opponent Martin starts with Delver – I start with a headshot.

Sideboard: +2 Xantid Swarm -1 Ad Nauseam -1 Lotus Petal

G2: On the crucial turn he cliques my Infernal Tutor away and I am left with a bunch of rituals but without any action.

G3… goes long! My opponent gets some dudes on the battlefield and sculps a hand with countermagic in the course of the match. One of my Brainstorms gives me actually the Tendrils of Agony itself – sweet, let's play some real Storm with 8 vs 7.
I play lands until I have a hand full of mana and business.
It’s time-out already, so there is a huge crowd in front of the feature match area full of spectators and I feel that my opponent gets a bit nervous.
On the very last turn I start with Dark Ritual (1), Duress (2) which meets Brainstorm (3) and Force of Will (4) , Dark Ritual (5), Lions Eye Diamond (6), Lions Eye Diamond (7), Lions Eye Diamond (8), Cabal Ritual (9), Tendrils of Agony (10) .
My opponent thinks...and brainstorms really slowly. My heartbeat gets really fast and there is silence around the table.
After 2 minutes he extends his hand and reveals Force of Will and some other blue cards but no stifle to deal with the natural tendrils.


6-1-0

Round 8 feature table 4: Bug Delver

I win G1 with an easy Past in Flames loop after getting attacked by a Delver.
In G2 he starts with Delver again and I drop Young Pyromancer on turn 2.
He gets another Delver and my Pyromancer+friends got raced by these 2 insects...not really impressive Red Boy, you can do better.
Then my opponent offers me a Draw (maybe he is afraid of a sick G3?) and after I looked at the standings before this round I agree although top 8 is not sealed yet.

6-1-1


The Tournament Organizer ZUZY announces the Top 8:

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1. Tomáš Már
2. Tomáš Vlček
3.Pavel Bílek
4.Ivan Šiška
5. Robert Swiecki
6. Vladimír Melzer
7. Jonáš Kozák
8. Kai Thiele

The Top 8 Decks are:
- UWR Miracle Control
- 4-Colour Delver
- UR Delver with Standstill
- Bug Delver
- Bug Delver
- Merfolk
- Ant
- Ant

Well, if Robert and I want to take this tournament down, we have to face a lot of blue deck with heavy disruption. Seems like a real fight in the top 8.
We both reload our Machine Guns with another set of munitions; time to make some more of these nice headshots.


Quarterfinal : 4-Colour Delver (Tomáš Már) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKzIYS4tZI0

Tomáš is a really young Czech Player (17!) and he defeated me in the swiss, so I feel a bit nervous but on the contrary I am glad to face him again to take revenge. I saw him playing several Delver Decks on BoM8 and Grand Prix Paris, thus he knows how to kill with angry insects, I assume.
This time he bought a 4-colour Delver deck which reminds me of my deck during Grand Prix Paris.
In both games, I strip all his hardcounter spells from his hand, play around soft counters and this time I put my gun against his head 2 times and pull the trigger, GG.
That feels nice to be honest.


4 Players Left, Robert is out...he had an awesome run this weekend, high 5 again pal for making 2 top8s during one weekened. Really impressive, must be somehow related to this energy drink we always drink.
These Decks are left in the Top4:
UWR Miracle
Bug Delver
UR Delver with Standstill
Ant


Semifinal: UR Delver with Standstill (Ivan Šiška) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMcdDNmEuUs

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I've never faced so many Delver Decks in a row during a tournament, but I love it because these games are always pretty entertaining.
Ivan starts with Delver on Turn 1 and has no countermagic for my turn 2 Ad Nauseam, he rolls his eyes.

Sideboard: I'm not sure what to bring in against this deck because I saw a lot of burnspells, aggressive Delvers and Standstill. Does he also have Planeswalkers? What about Spell Pierce, Snare, Stifle and Daze? Man, I don't have any clue what I'm up against, so I just board out my Ad Nauseam and bring in 1 Flusterstorm. My gut tells me that he might have some removal spells left for the Pyromancer plan or even the Xantid Swarms.

G2: In the crucial turn Ivan Spell Snares a random Infernal Tutor to leave him with no other countermagic in hand.
Time to shoot again, Pam Pam (10 Times).
On the other table Miracles is up against Bug Delver, this will be a really hard Final against any of these decks.
While they play Robert and our crew support me with enough Food.
Later the judge announces the finalists:
Tomáš Vlček vs. Kai Thiele, Czech vs Germany, Prague vs Berlin, Miracle Control vs Storm.

...I look at my deck, take a last deep breath and walk towards the Feature Table...


SHOWDOWN FINALS: UWR Miracle Control (Tomáš Vlček) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a5lH0v-NW4

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„Gentlemen, let it be a fair game“ - Handshake, pileshuffle, another pileshuffle, present.
My opponent keeps,I start the finals with a mulligan and keep a hand with LED, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Ponder, Cabal Therapy and Polluted Delta, sweet.
Tomáš starts with Sensei’s Divining Top while I ponder and draw Lotus Petal.
He look at his top 3 cards during his upkeep and plays an Arid Mesa, go.
I draw a land, put it on the battlefield and cast Lotus Petal (1).
Tap Land and cast Cabal Therapy (2), naming Force of Will – no defense.
Cast Dark Ritual (3), Led (4), Infernal Tutor (5) and grab Ad Nauseam (6) with 19 Life.
Potus Petal (7) Dark Ritual (8) Cabal Ritual (9) Cabal Ritual (10) Led (11) Infernal Tutor (12) Tendrils of Agony for 26.


Sideboard: +4 Young Pyromancer + 3 Xantid Swarm + 3 Abrupt Decay -2 Cabal Ritual -2 Lotus Petal -1 Preordain -3 Duress -2 Cabal Therapy

G2 was probably the best game during the entire day.
My hand shows me Infernal Tutor, 2 Lands, Petal, 2 Abrupt Decays and Young Pyromancer, I think.
Tomáš starts with Island, Ponder and I start with land, Petal, Young Pyromancer – resolves.
I cantrip 2 times and attack with Pyrodude +2 kids, Vendilion Clique comes down and deals with the Redhead. The 2 kids knock him down to 10 and then get killed by Engineered Explosives.
After he counters my Sensei’s Divining Top, Xantid Swarm and Young Pyromancer he has nothing left in his hand and I take out the Machine Gun and hold it against him – Final Pif-Shot!


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My Crew and all the other spectators came into the Feature-Area and after one million hugs and high5's we got out of the building and went to a pub for, drinks for all!
After watching the football match between The Netherlands and Costa Rica we had a chatter about Storm in the present and future and here are some impressions:

-Sensei's Divining Top was incredible all day long; I'll add another copy and 1 Sylvan Library to my sideboard to combat slow/midrange decks and decks with discard.

-Young Pyromancer was great but everyone recognized me and my pyrodude strategy. so the tech was not as good as in Annecy @ BoM9 two months ago.

- Í will also test Bitterblossom against Miracles because if it resolves they can't get rid of it in contrast to the Pyromancer.

- Vendilion Clique is also a sideboard card I want to test in the future: instant-thoughtseize + potential hatebear killer + another 3 points of damage + therapy fodder sounds pretty cool.

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What's left to say?
Check out Roberts Report,he is the best: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...es-Top8-report

Feel the RUGStar inside you and don't forget your gun, Cheers !

Kai Thiele

[Lemnear]

Nice report. Congratz once more

[P-E]

Good job man
Nice report

[Dragonslayer_90]

Congrats again Kai and nice report! So glad you and Robert did so well over the weekend. Some of my friends were trashing storm recently since I've been playing it more and more, saying it's a bad deck that's only good against bad players or if you get lucky all the time. Pffft...your success feels like karmic justice to me ;)

A few questions regarding storm: Do you side out ad nauseam against any delver deck? If not which ones do you not side it out against? I ask because there are certain matchups where I think I might want it, like against UWR Delver where I can expect at least rest in peace in terms of graveyard hate (sometime also grafdigger's cage) so PiF gets shut down easily. It seems like ad nauseam would be fine against Patriot because their clock is really slow if the don't get a turn one delver down.

[Flojo82]

Thx for nice Report and congrats to the Perfect Weekend.

What did u Cut for Blossom?

[cheerios]

Cliques sound interesting

Cheers

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Nice report, thanks!
I hoped that we'll meet and that we'll both play RUG, but it wasn't meant to happen... even though I found my lucky Type O Negative t-shirt that alone would bring me to top8.

Congratulations

[CabalTherapy]

Congrats again Kai and nice report! So glad you and Robert did so well over the weekend. Some of my friends were trashing storm recently since I've been playing it more and more, saying it's a bad deck that's only good against bad players or if you get lucky all the time. Pffft...your success feels like karmic justice to me ;)

If some random guy calls this deck weak it just shows his experience and his understanding of the format.
Most of them haven't played a single game of storm.


Nonetheless, Kai was a monster (rugstar) at the tournament beating everything he could.

[Togores]

Glückwunsch!

Why u board vs miracles out the decays and side in the xantids? Dont think the creature removal is still there and he will also may be have some kind of cards u wanna discard?

As I told u all sensei is mvp and playing 2 is not a bad plan at all.

[BrettF]

Excellent work Kai! I think you are Berlin's #1 killer of insects now!
You might be able to get that 4th polluted delta now with your prize loot :)


Questions:
How much testing have you done bringing in all 10 of those cards VS miracles?
Would you consider playing a Grim tutor like Robert did?

[nevilshute]

So awesome Kai, you deserve it!

[CabalTherapy]

Excellent work Kai! I think you are Berlin's #1 killer of insects now!
You might be able to get that 4th polluted delta now with your prize loot :)

His big advantage is that he is also a very experienced Delver player (Rug and Burg), thus he knows how to cut off Delver's wings.

[wwwwins]

Good Job Kai! It was an excellent report, and keep it going!!! Pyromancer tech is sick :)

[flrn]

-Young Pyromancer was great but everyone recognized me and my pyrodude strategy. so the tech was not as good as in Annecy @ BoM9 two months ago.

Why would you complain about your list, considering it took you to winning that tournament?

[Dragonslayer_90]

Why would you complain about your list, considering it took you to winning that tournament?

Pretty sure he's just saying Young Pyromancer wasn't as good because people expected it, making it not so "tech" anymore.

[sawatarix]

@ lemnear, P-E, cheerios, Bed Decks Palyer ,CabalTherapy , nevilshute ,wwwwins ,flrn : Thanks guys high 5 !!

@Dragonslayer: I normally leave in my ad nauseam against slower delver decks (patriot) or delver decks with discard (like team america). against canadian ******** i don't even need ad nauseam because past in flames is the way to go.

@Flojo82 : bitterblossom would be a replacement for pyromancer i guess. but i'm not 100% convinced yet. I'll let you know when i have more testing results.

@brettf: in my opinion grim tutor is a really clunky card which is so much worse than infernal tutor.i prefer the 2nd ad nauseam, 2nd past in flames or a senseis devining top in that slot.

@

[sawatarix]

Top 8 Videos are up, check them out ! :)

[Holden1669]

Top 8 Videos are up, check them out ! :)

Great tournament, congrats.

I am trying to get better at playing ANT and your report, the discussion, and these videos are very helpful, thanks. I am wondering about something and maybe you could tell me what your thought process was. In game 1, turn 1 of each of your top 8 matches you started with a Gitaxian Probe but in the first two you paid mana for it and in the finals you paid life. I assume that you knew your matchups before the match in each case so I could imagine that preserving your life total is less important against Miracles than the more aggressive decks. But by paying the mana you also limit your ability to react to what you see in their hand or what you draw (unless you play Petal, of course). For example being able to Duress or Therapy away a discard spell or triple Goyfs or draw the nuts and just win are all less likely after paying mana. I'm sure that this was a conscious decision on your part and I'm wondering why you made it. Also what would your play be with a T1 probe against an unknown opponent and does play/draw matter.

Thanks very much and congratulations again.

[sawatarix]

thank you and again - high5 :)

i knew te decks in the top8,not the decklists in particular but the archetypes which is really helpful for sequencing spells.


i start withprobe for mana if i don't have any ponder/preordain/senseis devining top in my hand.
i see a lot of players who always cast probe for life and then play a land to just pass the turn - then you simply shocked yourself for no reason which can be crucial sometimes (ad nauseam,shorten the clock,...?)