[Report] Dragon Stompy at a local Legacy-tournament.

[deviant]

I didn't mean to write a tournament-report but since I enjoyed myself so much and I kinda won I just thought that I'd write a report just for the kicks. (No, I do not have anything better to do..) My memory sucks, so the matches might not be accurately described, but who cares?

When I arrived at the tournament-place I tried to beg everyone for a playset of one "interesting tech" but they just laughed at me because they thought I was joking. Fuck them, I was quite serious.
(I get the missing sulfur elemental from the judge's highlander-deck though ^^)

This is the decklist I registered:
10 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seething Song

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Blood Moon
2 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Sulfur Elemental
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 Arc-Slogger

Sideboard:
4 Pithing Needle
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Trinisphere

The tournament was five rounds without a cut to top8. I don't know how many people there were but quite a lot anyway. We should have played at least 6 rounds really..

First round: Mono-green Chalice-Trini-Aggro-Thing?
I win the die roll.
1st game:
I start with 1st turn Magus. He starts with first turn forest, elf.
I don't play anything of real relevance and he gets an active SoF&I on an elephant.
I lose. Damn these tier-6 decks..

I side in Pithing Needles and Pyrokinesises(?) and a Jitte. I take out Chalices and Blood Moons,
even though hes deck was very 1-drop heavy.

2nd game.
This was tougher. I seem to have beaten myself down to 14, so I must have had a tomb-fueled start.
I remember having creatures down and then I Pyrokinesised (how do you conjugate that word?) his blockers and swung for the win. A Jitte might have been involved?

3rd game.
This game involved Rakdos Pit Dragon apparently. His life total goes down to 1 from 18. Anyway, he had 2 SoF&I's in his hand after the game and I had started with a game-braking Needle on SoF&I.

1-0 (games 2-1)


2nd Round: Cephalid Breakfast
I win the die roll.
1st game:
I start with a Magus, he has the Force. He plays a Vial down. (damn!) Next turn I drop a Blood Moon. After that I drop a Chalice-1, and after that I drop a Chalice-2. I do not, however find a creature early enough and he just eventually draws the combo and craps all over me.

I side in Needles and Crypts. I sided out Arc-Sloggers and a Song, and a Pit Dragon and Jittes. Terribly random I know, but in my defense - I haven't eaten anything not coffee and might have had fewer. Don't really know. I guess I was just as confused as always :)

2nd game:
I beat myself down to 12 so something tomb-fueled must have happened. Anyway, I played 3 Sulfur Elementals this game and had a Magus there somewhere also. He couldn't combo because of Sulfurs and only drew one Goyf, which I "trickied him" to trade with my 2nd sulfur, then I played the third and he became a sad panda. This game involved the tournaments only (?) play mistake from my part, but it was so terrible I would have deserved to lose this one. This is the situation:
I have a MotM and a Sulfur out. He has Vials at one and two. I have a Blood Moon in my hand. I attack with both creatures ?!?! Lucky for me he didn't have a goyf in his hand, that would have meant bye bye MotM and hello fetching two basic lands and brainstorming and whatnot. Seriosly, I shouldn't suck at magic like this. I should have played the moon pre-combat and only attack with the MotM. Anyway, I proceeded to apply more pressure and beated him to death.

I have an urge to side the Pyrokinesiseseseieseis in to trade with goyfs or something? I take out a pithing needle (why?) and a pit dragon (seriously, why?). Does sucking at sideboarding count as play-mistake?

3rd game.
No idea how this actually played out. He fetched a basic or forced my moon-effect apparently. I played a second magus probably and gathan raiders, judging from the drops of his life-total. I remember faintly having a combo-preventing Sulfur this game also, along with tormod's crypt, Pithing Needle and Pyrokinesis back-up. Whoops I win.

2-0 (games 4-2)

3rd round: Ugb-landstill with counter/top.
I win the die roll.

1st game.
I have no idea how I get my lifetotal to drop from 20 to 16 in one swoop. Must have burned for 2 from tomb or something.. Anyway, I remember him having two forces for two moons, and then having a Deed down to clear my board. Some tarmogoyf's soon followed. I had Chalices at 1 and 2 before the deed hit, but what can you do?..

I sideboard in Pithing Needles for Chalices.

2nd game.
I have first turn moon with a second turn moon-backup. I also have some needles and whatnot here. Something hellbent happened too judging from his lifetotal dropping from 14 to 1. This was all pretty irrelevant though since he had mulled to 4 and never really had a chance. I guess he tried mulliganing for FoW in order to not get ass-fucked by Magus.

3rd game.
Toughest one of the day. This was really an epic battle. He had force for my moon. The second one came down though. He blasted it. I played 2 blood moons to compensate the loss. A few turns later he blasted them too. I naturally topdecked a blood moon - well he floated a green mana and krosan gripped it!
I had played a Needle on top here somewhere, and he had mistakenly used his top like brainstorm (he had one in his hand and he tapped an island, an easy mistake) and he then reported this to the judge himself (what a gentleman). I had been looking at someones pretty shining sleeves with pictures of half-naked anime-girls this whole time and when the judge came over I was pretty intimidated for some reason. (I'm not a pervert!)
Well, the opponent would have gotten a game loss by the rules but really, he reported the mistake himself and was such a gentleman in every other aspect too that we we're all very pleased when the judge just gave him a warning. I still had like ~6 turns to draw a threath and just beat him the old-fashioned way but I didn't really get lucky this time. Lone monkey never got there.

After the game he told me that he had 12 ways to remove a blood moon after sb !! Seriously now, I'm the only one playing them so isn't that a little too much? I've never done anything to him, he shouldn't hate me like that :'(

2-1 (games 5-4)


4th round: Grow-a-Tog.
I win the die roll.
1st game:
I played a first turn sulfur, second turn magus (he had the force), then I played G-Unit and a Pit Dragon a little later. He had however, drawed his only Maze of Ith, which kept my Raiders from killing him. When I got the Dragon, he had just played his Shackles so it didn't really look good. He had countered ~3+ moons during our Ith-Raiders standstill, so I lose the G1 again..

I side in Pithing Needles and some Crypts, but not all of them. I sided out the Jittes and Chalices.

2nd game:
I had the Moon, he didn't have the force. I then played some Sulfurs and probably something hellbent judging from how fast this game was. Good times.

3rd game:
I'm at 12 again, lovely tombs aren't they? This was a tight game. We traded moons and counters again - I had started with a Crypt and Needle to fish the FoW but he endured them like a man. After a few countered moons and some off-curve topdecks I then proceed to play moon, pit-dragon, slogger to try and get him counter a non-slogger spell. (well, I curved like this naturally (this deck has some really weird draws sometimes) but still, I wanted the game-winning slogger.) He again took the baits to the face and forced the slogger. Sometimes competent opponents can be frustrating :(
(People were actually rooting for my slogger to resolve, how cool (/sad) is that?)
Well, he gets some basics and shackles down again but I'm one turn too fast for him to take over the game. Phew. Pit Dragon is so good at hitting people.

3-1 (games: 7-5)

Fifth round: Err.. Some tier-8 metagame beatz?
I LOSE the die roll. How can this happen?

1st game: He leads with a Taiga and a Jungle Lion.
I'm so confused by this I almost forget to play my first turn magus. He doesn't play anything after this and I just beat face. He can't help laughing at how bad this matchup is for him, since he doesn't have a single basic in his deck.

I side in 3 pyrokinesis and a jitte for the chalices. All his spells cost 1 but I just don't care.

2nd game: First turn magus with a pyrokinesis-backup. (all his creatures have toughness of 1)

4-1 (games: 9-5)

He desperately wants to play some fun-games and since other people are almost still pile-shuffling I can't really refuse the request. He kinda wants to prove to himself that his metagame-deck can't have an unwinnable match-up. We play like ~15 games and he loses them all by turn 2. I then suggest that he picks his opening 7 and he does that but still loses horribly. It's unfair that I have 17 cards that just outright win him (21 if I hadn't sided out the chalices).

So after the rounds, I'm tied as first with my round five and round three opponents and we just have to split the price :(
So I only kinda won, but didn't really.

Hindsight and thoughts:
- Sulfur Elementals are REALLY good. Akroma sucks, don't play her. if you have counter-heavy meta, sulfur is just better. Seriously. I don't know about Mauler still though..
- Trinisphere sucks ass. It's awful. Never needed it, never wanted it. Against Recruiter-Aluren it would have been good but seriously now..
- Chalice is really not as good as it once was because everyone tries to have an actual mana curve to not get prison-sex from counter-top.
- I still don't like Jitte :(

Pros:
- Me for winning the die-rolls. (except one)
- Blood Moons for being awesome.
- Me for getting 1st turn moons almost every game.
- Dragon Stompy for being the most amusing deck ever.

Slops:
- Me for losing G1's. (except one)
- Opponents for having the Force for my Moons almost every time.
- Arc-Slogger for not showing up.
- Seething Song for not showing up.
- Chalice for losing the touch.
- Round 6 for not happening.
- Trinisphere for being useless waste of sideboard space. (I apologise for the rhyming)


I hope someone was able to waste some working-time reading this, and if you have any suggestions or whatever, or just feel like calling me an ass for playing like shit against Breakfast, please - go ahead, I like attention :)

[ebbitten]

did you ever not side chalice out?

[deviant]

I guess this wasn't really their day :)
There was that fifth-round mu where they were good but seriously, that was as close to a bye even without them that I just didn't feel like pondering over the sb'ing..

I left them in like a champ against cephalid breakfast though :) But that mu was really just sulfurs gang-banging his face anyway.

[Silverdragon]

Very very entertaining report! Grats on the finish and keep up with the winning and writing.

[Tacosnape]

did you ever not side chalice out?

In defense of this, he didn't play against Threshold or Storm Combo the entire day, which are Chalice's finest moments. He also played against another Chalice deck (Oops) and I don't think he boarded them out against Cephalid Breakfast.

Also, his boarding could have been better in some matches. Pyrokinesis is good against Cephalid Breakfast, and Chalice should have been kept in for Round 5. Also, and this depends heavily on their lists and may not be a mistake at all, Chalice for 2's a solid strategy against a lot of Landstill/Tog lists when Needle's keeping Deed off of you.

[deviant]

Also, his boarding could have been better in some matches. Pyrokinesis is good against Cephalid Breakfast, and Chalice should have been kept in for Round 5. Also, and this depends heavily on their lists and may not be a mistake at all, Chalice for 2's a solid strategy against a lot of Landstill/Tog lists when Needle's keeping Deed off of you.

That's a polite way to put it :)
Seriously, some matchups I sided like shit. No questions asked. Cephalid Breakfast for example, dear god.. I should have boarded out something like song, sloggers and dragons and just beated him with HEAVY disruption. Or I'm off the mark again, who knows.
And about those tog/landstills - chalice at 2 only stopped Bob and 'Goyf against landstill, did nothing against Tog. That said, should have kept them in against that landstill so that he wouldn't be able to win before blowing a deed from somewhere. More time for slogger to finish him off. A merit for the Dragon Stompy that the matchup was so close even with me sideboarding wrong.

[Tacosnape]

That's a polite way to put it :)
Seriously, some matchups I sided like shit. No questions asked. Cephalid Breakfast for example, dear god.. I should have boarded out something like song, sloggers and dragons and just beated him with HEAVY disruption. Or I'm off the mark again, who knows.

Actually, I like to go something along the lines of:

+4 Pithing Needle
+4 Pyrokinesis

-4 Rakdos Pit-Dragon
-2 Umezawa's Jitte
-2 Gathan Raiders

And skip the Crypts altogether. This is probably a bad idea, though. And I find it much easier in general to just put complete focus on not letting them get the two creatures on the board at the same time, and by getting random wins against some builds through Moon + Needle Vial. Crypts could be boarded in for Raiders, though.

I keep Slogger in because he kills creatures. Ditto Pyrokinesis. Ditto Sulfur Elemental. And Magus wrecks manabases. It might even be correct to keep Jitte in. I need to practice it more.

Cephalid Breakfast is bizarre because everything you have hurts them but nothing you have completely cripples them.

[deviant]

That makes more sense. Keeping in the stuff that does things besides hitting people. And siding in 'kinesis means that you're not getting hellbent that desperately anyway - you might want to hold some cards now. So If you'd take out the hellbent crew, and side in 4-5 'kinesis/jitte and the needles, and then maybe take out a song and a slogger for a few crypts (and maybe leave the jitte in the sb in favor of backup crypt) I'd think you would have like a million cards that make their life difficult or just plain wreck their day.
(actually the number would be close to ~30)

The matchup is very, very favorable though. I guess it's like 65-35 no matter how you sideboard :)

[Suguru]

Congrats!!

I am happy to see I am not the only one with bad memory when writing reports .

I am suprised because of the times you sided Chalice out. I found them to be the most annoying card for my opponents.

Despite the mana curve, there are still lots of decks which depend on or to cast powerful spells, and you faced two weird opponents in your first and fifth match. For a more usual metagame they should have been more useful.

Didn't people play Swords to Plowshares? (I hated this card in the tournament I played, but I must say I was not playing the version with 24 threats and without trinispheres).

By the way, here is a question I have: does Chalice 2 counter evoked Shriekmaw? (I guess the answer will be "no", but I want to be sure)

[Nihil Credo]

By the way, here is a question I have: does Chalice 2 counter evoked Shriekmaw? (I guess the answer will be "no", but I want to be sure)

No, the CC is still 5.

Same reason a Chalice@0 doesn't counter Force of Will - the CMC is always calculated on the basis of the printed mana symbols even when paying alternate costs.