So, I guess I should write up a crappy tournament report. I don’t take much in the way of notes though I do know what was in my opponents hand just about every game.
Friday: I have the entire VA crew staying at my place for the night to save on hotel costs. They begin arriving around 5. From that point there is a lot of ordering of pizza and drinking. Eventually everyone gets to sleep, thankfully my room has a fan that was able to drown out the snoring and whatnot from the other room.
Saturday: We start off early and hit a butt ton of traffic getting out of Brooklyn. I hate driving in the city. After about 2 hours of “interesting” conversations concerning foot fetishes, scat play, and golden showers we arrived at the tournament site.
This is the list I decided to run.
4 Birds or Paradise
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Burning Wish
4 Eternal Witness
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Squee
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 FTK
1 Shriekmaw
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Rofellos
1 Tin Street
1 Stomphowler
1 Spike Feeder
5 Forest
4 Bayou
4 Taiga
4 Foothill
4 Heath

SB
4 Plague
1 Sharpshooter
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Therapy
1 Hull Breach
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Primal Command
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Tsunami
1 Boom/Bust
1 Rough/Tumble
1 Regrowth

Rd 1 Aneil – Loam Tog

Game 1
He leads off with a delta, I therapy and name Brainstorm revealing Counterspell x 2, Intuition, Sea, Factory, Strand. I can’t get through the double counterspells before he intuitions for Loam, gets his engine going and beats me with a crazy tog.
Game 2
I thoughtseize out a Force leaving him with a hand of Deed, Loam, C-Spell, AK, Mana Leak, Barren Moor. He starts drawing some land but, I take out his mana leak with either therapy, another thoughtseize, or by running either survival or goyf out into it. That allows me to resolve Magus without a problem.
Game 3
He mulligans to 4 and leads off with a Leyline. I thoughtseize out a Wish leaving Deed, loam, and AK in his hand. I attack a lot and kill him pretty much without a problem

Rd 2 Dennis – Slivers!
Game 1
I mess up on my first turn thoughtseize which revealed vial x 2, Land x 2, Cystalline Sliver, Ponder. I take the sliver instead of a vial even though my hand has Tin street and Magus. So I don’t lock him out of the game turn 3 and instead have to use survival to slowly crush him. Fun play of this game: swinging in to a sinew sliver with a witness to have him vial out a muscle sliver and kill my witness with a 3/3 sinew. I survival a squee for a shriekmaw and evoke it out to kill the muscle sliver leaving him with a empty board except for a vial and an empty hand to my survival – squee.
Game 2
I thoughtseize revealing winged slivers x2, STP, muscle sliver, strand, tundra. I take muscle sliver since I have a slow hand that he could ran in the air plus I have sharpshooter in hand. Turn 2 I drop goyf to eat a STP so that the sharpshooter can own the board until he draws a pump sliver. Instead I top deck Magus and lock him out of mana.

Rd 3 ??? Garruk Still
Game 1
I apparently didn’t cast a discard spell since I have no idea what was in his hand. As such I can’t remember the game. He did mulligan and I only took a point of damage. I imagine that at some point Magus resolved possibly after a survival resolved.
Game 2
Again no disruption and this time my life total went down a lot. I recall being beaten about the face with factories, and monasteries. I had a slow hand and he was able to take advantage of that with Standstills into more standstills.

Game 3
I honestly have no idea what happened hear. I thoughtseize out a Garruk I think at one point to make goyf big. His had at the time was trop and possible crucible (my notes aren’t legiable at this point so he could have anything but there appears to be a distinct Cru) He scoops at 15 life so I imagine a bunch of goyfs and probably a Magus made him give it up.

Rd 4 Rich – Zoo
Game 1
I mulligan to 5 and I can’t pull it out before he domes me for the last few points. I was very close in this game despite the mulligans.
Game 2
I mess up twice this game. He was mana screwed for a while with only a plateau. Unfortunately my manabase this game is entirely fetchland so I manage to do about 4 damage to myself to help him along. I burning wish for boom/bust and do the trick with the fetch land. He of course draws taiga making his only creature (kird ape) the biggest thing on the board plus allowed him to cast rancor. I had two wishes in hand at this point and I should have just gone for edict with the first one to stop the potential damage from ape so I could stall the game till I could wish for primal command and start gaining 7 a turn. Later I get survival out and shriekmaw the angry ape. I am at 7 and he has 3 cards in hand (1 of them rancor) instead of using survival to get feeder to block his isamuru and gain like I genesis back shriekmaw and kill the hound. He draws chain lightning and casts one of the two fireblasts in his hand. I should have figured he hand at least one blast in hand and played according I still would have lost the turn after I think but that is still at least a turn if not more.

Rd 5 John – Landstill
Game 1
I thoughtseize turn 1 revealing island, strand, c-spell, disk, stifle, decree, and another card that can’t be determined. I take stifle since my next landdrop is a fetch and survival loves mana, plus I have the therapy in hand to take the c-spell next turn.
At some point he drops disk but I tin street it away. A large tarmogoyf takes it home.
Game 2
I thoughtseize turn 1 revealing crypt, ruins, plains, stp , still, force, wrath. I get rid of standstill, then I seize again the next turn and grab STP, I actually thoughtseize quite a bit this game as I drop a magus early locking up most of his deck. He does have a plains so I am worried about both swords and decree. Magus hurts me quite a bit as well in this game since I had no green for Survival and creatures. Eventually I get enough birds in play to start casting creatures and the Sharpshooter I drop makes it so his decree can’t chumpblock.

Rd 6 Damon- Get Bent!
I D

Top 8
Jeff Aluren
Game 1
I make him discard his relevant spells and I believe a Magus makes it so he can’t cast Aluren pretty much ever.
Game 2
I keep a hand that is slow because I am stupid. I lose before I get to really do anything, but I make him go through it so he can play with his 100 dollar cards or however much recruiters are. His set were Japanese I believe. I get killed with a Japanese Ghitu Slinger as well. I bet the German version of Slinger is cooler.
Game 3
I thoughtseize turn 1 showing taiga, volc, bayou, etched oracle, raven familiar. I take familiar. I seize again and he Brainstorms, I remove something that is scribbled out. I later hit a force with a therapy. I drop witness getting back thoughtseize, which is a mistake since I am mana screwed and have another witness in hand. I can’t cast the seize this turn so I can just grab it next turn. Further I am stupid and don’t flashback the therapy before he can cast the oracle. I figure I will lose at this point and I deserve to because that was pretty stupid. But he drops aluren, I have a crappy hand. But being able to cast them all for free is great. I drop witness getting the land back, sharpshooter, and I think something else. I then topdeck the burning wish and now with my 4 mana I burning wish for hull breach and destroy both the aluren and the oracle with him tapped out. I think I am in love with Hull breach. He can’t recover from that so I eventually win.

Top 4
Survival
Game 1
I thoughtseize a hand of goyf, savannah, hierach x 2, ESG, heath, forest. I grab goyf, turn 2 he double ESGs out a hierach, I am able to therapy out the other one and he doesn’t really do much of anything besides that. He doesn’t even get to connect with the hiearch.

Game 2
He leads off with Leyline of the Void. I seize him showing forest x 2, genesis, STP, ESG, I take STP, I draw really badly for a really long time and he has genesis in the yard, witness out, and STP to get back. Things are looking grim. I have a goyf out I don’t want swing into witness and kill it because then he just Genesis it back and gets a STP for the goyf. He drops survival, well crap! I draw burning wish. WOOT! I wish for Primal Command, I don’t attack with goyf because I am stupid. So I command the survival back on top of his deck and then shuffle his graveyard into his library. Ok, time to attack with my goyf, my 0/1 goyf, hmm… That is what second main phases are for.
At least we are in top decking mode. Too bad he still draws better than I do.
Game 3
I don’t really know how I win this. I therapy survival out revealing forest, waste, vial, STPx2, witness, plains. STPs get hit on the rebound I believe. He wastes a land which was crappy, but also hurt him. I have the FTK for a morphed angel but he eventually draws survival. I draw wish and grab hull breach hitting the vial and the survival. In response he vials out a witness grabbing the first survival. He replays it, crap. I draw wish and wish for regrowth on the hull breach, hitting the survival and another vial. He survivals up a witness. He drops witness getting back survival but he doesn’t have the mana to cast it. I draw thoughtseize and make him discard it. In a turn or two I draw Survival and win. My deck loves me and I love my deck. Especially Hull Breach.

Top 2
Damon – Get Bent!
We split and go check into the hotel room and grab food.


More later...