Congrats to barcode and Croprot for their good finishes at Eternal Weekend. While that was going on, I was piloting Lands at my local store. Here's the list and the report:

Main

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Rishadan Port
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Wasteland
3 Fetch
3 Maze of Ith
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Tabernacle
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog

4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Crop Rotation
3 Punishing Fire
2 Manabond

Board

4 Krosan Grip
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Trinisphere
2 Choke
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Karakas

I've adopted the now-widespread choice of using a playset of Depths main, moved the Karakas to the board (since in these months and months I've played Rg Lands I've only faced Sneak and Show once), and switched the three Thorns previously in the board to three Trinisphere. I'd probably play four, but at my local there are a number of Storm players and I decided to hedge that I was still more likely to see it than Omni-Tell. The one Courser should have been a third Choke, but I couldn't find a third one and decided I'd go with the closest thing Rg has to a Dark Confidant. I debated making room for the fourth Punishing Fire main, which I used to run and which now the big names are running, but if Miracles and Omni-Tell are the two decks to beat right now, then the fourth Punishing Fire doesn’t do that much, and I figured that the matchups where I want Fire (Death and Taxes, Delver, to a lesser extent Elves) have always seemed very winnable to me without a fourth copy.

Round One: Pyromancer Delver (I didn't see any black during this match, so I'm not calling it Grixis.)

Game One: Delver starts off strong with a flipped Delver, but I've got good acceleration and a Loam into a Maze of Ith. He starts bolting and otherwise burning me, but I'm stabilizing with the Maze and the Punishing Fire I dredge. Both Pyromancers he plays die, and though I'm at four life when I win, I feel like I've crushed him.

I board in: 1 Courser of Kruphix
I board out: 1 Crop Rotation

I reckon that against Delver, our strongest matchup, we should be boarding very little, and the two Manabonds, which I normally board out, struck me as quite strong, allowing for a kind of Force-this-or-you-probably-lose type of play, considering that resolving one would swing the tempo of the game heavily in my favor. I wanted at least one more out to a Surgical or other piece of graveyard hate, so I dropped one Crop for the Courser. Crop is very, very good, but in some situations, if it gets countered, you can be left way behind.

Game Two: I start off strong again with Mox and Loam, but Delver has to fumble around with cantrips before he can put any action into play. He gets me down to ten life before I Crop Rote into Tabernacle and Waste his only land, killing one flipped Delver and an unflipped Delver. At this point, I have Loam in the yard, the ability to replay it, and he has no permanents on board. He should concede, but he doesn’t. About three turns later, when he has a single basic and I Fire the third Delver he plays, he concedes.

1-0

Round Two: The Mirror

Game One: While I’ve seen my opponent before the tournament testing his Lands deck (so I know what type of hand I should keep against him), my opening grip is good against pretty any non-combo deck: Exploration, Gamble, Fire, a bunch of good utility lands. My opponent starts with a Mox Diamond Loam, but my Exploration is just too fast for him. He dredges a turn earlier than me, but I dredge into Waste and Port and he doesn’t. I play a bunch of Lands per turn, Waste him, Port him, and make the token on my turn so he can’t find a Wasteland to break it up. This play was, of course, weak to Crop Rotation into Karakas, but going for it as soon as possible and making him have it seemed like the best plan. He didn’t have it.

I board out: 1 Punishing Fire, 1 Glacial Chasm
I board in: 1 Courser of Kruphix, 1 Karakas

Again, I kept in Manabond since comboing off as quickly as possible should, I think, be the plan in the mirror. In retrospect, and at the end of the match seeing how my opponent boarded, I think I should have taken out Tabernacle instead of Chasm.

Game Two: Again, I have a near perfect hand, including Mox, Loam, Exploration, and good lands. I worry about Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog, but I can’t really mull the really good hand out of fear. If he has it, then he has it. My opponent has Mox into Loam, but I have Mox into Loam into Exploration, and again he simply can’t keep up. He slows things down for me with two Mazes of Ith, but after making the token, I port one Maze at the end of his turn and Waste the other before attacking.

2-0

Round Three: Grixis Delver

Game One: Fairly textbook game against a Delver variant. Maze of Ith slows his aggro plan down until Waste and Fire clean up his board. He’s burnt toast.

I board out: 1 Crop Rotation
I board in: 1 Krosan Grip

I have to admit: before the tournament, my Grixis Delver opponent was talking about bringing in Pithing Needle against Lands to name either Stage or Maze of Ith. Lo and behold, I find myself sitting across from him so I decided I should board in a Grip as an out to Needle.

Game Two: Delver leads with a Deathrite Shaman, and I lead with land, Mox Diamond. I have a Punishing Fire in my hand, and I’m uncertain if I should just Fire the Shaman and risk Daze or Force, or if I should try to wait and see if I can Fire at a safer time. Not having Grove in my hand but having Loam, I decide to just go for it. The Shaman dies. After this, Delver has to cantrip a lot either to find a threat or to set up a delve threat. My dredges aren’t doing too much, and Delver lands a Gurmag Angler. At this point, I have three lines: I can try to Waste him out with Tabernacle as cleanup; I can drop Maze and stall until I can combo; or I can simply go for the combo. My opponent has four lands in play and I have no Exploration, so I decide that I can’t try to Waste him out and reasonably expect to win. I can go for the combo, but not knowing if has Submerge or something like it, I feel that this is unsafe and it could end up with me losing two lands and being at a perilously low life total. So I decide that using Maze is the safest route. Of course it gets Wasted and I get beat down to fifteen life. Next turn, with two Moxen in play and a Forest, I attempt to Loam back the Maze. Loam gets countered. I have a Stage and another Loam in hand, so I drop Stage and Loam back Maze. Of course, with Stage in play and Depths in hand, I know that next turn I’ll be playing Depths and making a witch rather than playing a Maze. Delver hits me down to ten with Gurmag, and I make a witch on my turn. Delver cantrips for an answer, finds and plays his Pithing Needle too late. He doesn’t have Submerge or any to return the witch, so I send her flying at him.

3-0

Round Four: TES

My final round opponent is undefeated like me, so we split for thirty bucks store credit each. We play for fun.

3-0-1

Game One: With all the cantripping that’s going on, I know my opponent is on some storm variant. On my fourth turn (just before his fourth), I have two lines: I can Waste his only land in play, or I can play Depths and threaten to kill him. I decided on Depths. Wrong move. With his one Volcanic Island, TES untaps and kills me.

I board out: 2 Manabond, 3 Punishing Fire, 2 Maze of Ith
I board in: 3 Trinisphere, 4 Sphere of Resistance

Here I board out the Manabonds because I’m boarding in a lot of unrecurrable spells that I’d prefer not to discard.

Game Two: I have a good hand with two mana-producing hands, one Trinisphere, an Exploration, and a couple non-mana-producing lands. I have to draw the third mana land off the top, but I can’t mull this hand. I just have to gamble that I’ll draw the third mana producer, which I do. I play Trinisphere turn two, slowing my opponent down greatly. I eventually draw a Wasteland, and when I go to Waste one of my opponent’s three lands on my main phase, he Decays my Trinisphere. Now that I can pay one for Gamble, and having six cards in hand, I Gamble for another Trinisphere and play it. My opponent topdecks another land, putting him at three again, and right as I go to Waste him for a second time, he Chain of Vapors the Trinisphere. Since I’ve Loamed this turn, I don’t have the mana to play it again. For my second land, I can either play another Wasteland, which would take out his Volcanic Island, or I can drop a Port to tap his basic Swamp during his upkeep. I opt for the Port and tap the Swamp. He only has one turn to go off before I play the Trinisphere again and, thinking about his lines, says he’s two mana short one way and one mana short the other way. He concedes.

Game Three: I keep a good hand with Mox, Sphere, Loam, two Crop Rotes, and lands. TES Duresses my Sphere away, and so I’m stuck on Loam. Eventually I draw a Gamble. So again I have two lines. With five cards in hand, I can Gamble for a Sphere effect and hope I keep it, or I can threaten the witch and leave up Crop Rote into Bog if necessary. Of course, TES knows about my Crop Rote so he storms out without using the graveyard. Twice I threaten the witch and twice I lost. Should have gone for the Sphere.

Peace out.