[Deck] Solidarity

[ScatmanX]

Yeeeyy!
I played Solidarity again!
It was an 8-man, but I got really happy.

Beat Goblins 2-0, where Repeals and Remand really shined (tough I boarded the later out g2 for Snap).

Beat Eva-Green 2-1. G1 I simply don't draw any Meditate/FoI/Wish/B.Freeze, and lose with 3 High Tide and 2 Resets in my hand. G2 he Extirpate my FoI, but I found enough gas with my lonely Meditate in my hand, Stroking him, and G3 He leads with Ritual+Top+Hymn, followed by Seize, but gave me enough time to set up later. He Extirpated Wish, but I got a few storm, and Remanded my B.Freeze twice ftw.

Lost to UBG Landstill 0-2. He leads with Factory, and Factory, and start bashing. I cannot find enough gas to combo until when I'm at 2 life, and we begin the Stack. Eventually, he ends up Spell Snaring a Reset, that would leave me with just 2 mana, while I just had Meditate and 2 FoW on my hand. Unfortunately, I had already used 1 FoW while trying to combo, and could not use the 2nd. Maybe I should have tried 1 turn earlier. I had a Remand here, but couldn't really figure out the best way to use it. Haven't really done any "fake try to combo thing", so am not sure how it works, so any hints will be appreciated.
Game 2 He beggins the same way, but with a Standstill in play also. I eventually break it, with Brainstorm + Impulse + PtD, and try to set up. He cast a Standstill, and will Attack me and leave me at 2. I respond with High Tide, that resolves, and Reset, that resolves also. My Meditate gets countered, Impulse resolves, and flashbacked FoI resolves, but he had counters for my Wish and second Meditate, leaving me with no real Draw card spell... My last card was Brainfreeze, which wasn't enough to get there, specially after he countered 2 (o.O) copies.

After all, even tough I did not like my list very much (could not find OPTS!!!), It was pretty cool to play the deck again. MB Trap would give me a better chance against Landstill, but I had not the chance to use it (no Cunning Wish g1, and no SBing G2, since we're friends, and were going to split anyway).

Well, hope to get a chance to play with it again soon.

[Shimi]

Well, hope to get a chance to play with it again soon.

Anytime you wish Scatman.
I just keep some really good hands against you(mishra + blue lands + counters/draw), and drew lots of counters.I think you should go off earlier before I get some lands to abuse of yours hightide or wait(as you did) to the last moment so you just brainfreeze with crazy stacks.
G2 I would have SBing Extirpate + Seize.

PS:Opened a Elspeth Tiriel + Venser Foil at same pack!!Nice prize for 10R$(5U$).

[Vacrix]

@ScatmanX
I hate losing to Spell Pierce. You can play around it by floating more than enough mana when you play Reset. With Remand, you can Remand your own spells to recast them, using it much like a hardcounter except you also get to draw (drawback is you have to pay more mana). I don't know if you could have made that play with what you had though, especially since you were short on resources to begin with. What did you pitch for your first FoW?

Further, post-board Mindbreak Trap lets you just play out as many land as you want and actually bide your time against Landstill, especially if you can pick up more than one Mindbreak Trap on the way. Thats another reason that I like to play Three Wishes. More business spells means you don't need to just fight over one spell. Its harder to bait the opponent out to counter something if you aren't prepared to go off with multiple business threats. Protecting one is tough because you have to draw out far more countermagic.

Also, would you mind posting your list? What did you have to board in for the control matchup (if not Mindbreak Traps)?

[ScatmanX]

@Valcrix: I don't now what I pitched to the 1st FoW. Maybe Impulse. Certainly not something like Meditate or Reset.
We both did not SB at all, since we were playing more forfun than anything, but I'd have brought 3 MB.Trap in place of 2 Repeal and 1 PtD I guess.
I guess that baiting 1 turn earlier would've been the right move... Remanding whatever I needed to do it again next turn.
I'll certainly try to squeeze 1-2 Three Wishes on the deck. Have already played with them and liked them, but didn't had at the time.
My list was the following, but I I would do some changes if I could (I'll put them between "()"):

15 Islands (-3)
5 Fetch (+1)

4 High Tide
4 Reset
2 Turnabout
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
3 Peer Trough Depths (-1)
3 Remand (-1)
2 Repeal
2 Brain Freeze
2 FoI
4 FoW
(+3 Opt)
(+1 Three Wishes)

Sb:
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Twincast
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Snap
3 MB. Trap

[Vacrix]

This is a very good read (even though its from 3 years ago). Finn interviewing David Gearhart about Solidarity:
http://mtgsalvation.com/584-what-next-gearhart.html

[Seraphus]

just a head's up: try to fit 4 accumulated knowledge in your list ;)

[Vacrix]

Are you playing them as a business spell? That looks stronger if you could run Twincast and get more out of the card advantage, but either way, its not a good investment until you are getting to 1U for 3. Three Wishes does that for just one more U. Sure AK's can help you to set up but if you are using them to set up then you aren't playing Impulses and Peer Through the Depths. When you play more maindeck business like Three Wishes you don't need to save as many PtD's and Impulses for the combo turn. Realistically, one Meditate doesn't always get there, but if you need to use PtD's and Impulses just to find another Meditate then you aren't really gaining card advantage soon enough to continue gaining card advantage during the combo turn.

[Seraphus]

i believe that the extra drop is significant enough to not play it since three wishes isn't playable at turn 3 (3 lands drops = 3 mana the exact cmc of the card) and you'll just loss the 3 cards you draw... the quimical between twincast and ak isn't something that i tested yet, but 4 cmc looks like something only playable during the combo...

[Vacrix]

My point was, you won't be playing Three Wishes on turn 3, nor will you be playing AK's on turn 3, and if you are, then the mana used to play AK would be better used to play something else on that turn, namely turn 3 Cunning Wish, or PtD + BS, etc. You might use it to set up but its cycling for 1U. Thats terrible when we could be playing something else, even if AK's in your combo turn are 1U for 2 and then 1U for 3, thats still not as good as having 3 Three Wishes during the combo turn, especially if you expect countermagic. The opponent can just counter the more lucrative AK's while Three Wishes will always draw you 3 cards.

[Seraphus]

It's seams that i can't understand your argument, sorry, but a 2 cmc card countered is more important than an 3 cmc card since it absorves one counter and leaves us an additional mana...

The cycling ak is worthed because it's a draw and future second draw..

lower cmc is always best, lower cmc and double effect is great...

[kicks_422]

What he meant to say was AK doesn't do much pre-combo and there are better things to cast during the combo turn.

[Silent Requiem]

Well, I have a tournament report, and a bit of a story from this weekend.

Apparently, my local meta is quite highly regarded (not just in Legacy) for the standard of technical play. I did not know this - it's something I was told this weekend. I've always known that we tend to have a constant stream of people from far afield (in UK terms) showing up for our tournaments, but apparently this is because we are seen as a good gauntlet to prepare people for larger tournaments. It's put some of their comments ("This is nothing like legacy back home", "I just wasn't ready for the range of tier one decks here", "It's just so different playing here" - all comments made this weekend, and similar to comments made at previous tournaments) in a new context; for me, it was just my local store.

Apparently, we have a number of players locally who have been invited to play nationally on more than one occassion, but who refuse on the basis that it is not compatable with their careers. My guess is that their game (and they really are excellent players) has helped the rest of us reach a standard of play that we would not have reached otherwise.

Any way, this is not meant to be about bigging up my local, but to explain why the UK team decided to use our tournament on the weekend to brush up on their legacy skills before heading off to a big tournament (one of them mentioned Japan) where one of them would be playing in the legacy team event. Of course, we were all quite excited to be visited by such celebrities (god, we are such nerds!), and although I don't follow the pro tour at all, I got to hear all about them from other players.

Apparently, one of them made top 8 in Madrid (or some similar tournament - my day is always such a blur when playing Solidarity), and another of them was apparently the number one ranked Legacy player in the UK. The others were equally impressive.They all brought tier one decks, and we had a fair number of other visitors coming down for the tournament - I forget exactly how many we had, but it was between 24-30 players, total.

I played Solidarity, of course, and my list was very similar to my Nationals list, but I changed up the sideboard and switched the Forest for another Island.

Land

13 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tropical Island

Mana/Untap

3 High Tide
3 Turnabout
4 Reset

Draw

3 Meditate
2 Flash of Insight
4 Impulse
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Brainstorm

Protection

4 Force of Will
1 Cryptic Command
2 Remand

Other

2 Brain Freeze
4 Cunning Wish

Sideboard

1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 High Tide
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Hibernate
1 Hunting Pack
1 Echoing Truth
1 Dispell
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
3 Faerie Macabre

Tournament structure was 5 rounds of swiss, with a cut to the top 8.

Round 1 - Andrew Smith with Dark Depths type deck.

Historically, Andrew has always wrecked me with his maindecked Meddling Mages and Armageddons. I have spent hours trying to find a build that beats his deck, but I eventually gave up, as his deck is so niche that I prefer to just dodge. In any case, he has switched decks, having finally gotten bored of Meddling Mage. He has now build something between Dark Depths and Rock, but Andrew is a genuine deck builder, so it would be unfair of me to simply say that he was playing "X deck".

Game 1: I'm on the draw, and although he manages to resolve an early Dark Confidant, he fails to draw into much gas, and has very little pressure on the board. He forces me to discard several cards, but I am eventually able to go off with a fair amount of land in play.

Game 2: He keeps a killer hand with two Hymn to Torach and two lands - a Swamp and a Wasteland. He hopes to topdeck another swamp fast enough to shut me down, but the next land he finds is Maze of Ith. I go off easily.

Results: 1-0

Round 2 - Andrew Rouse with Dredge

I go into game two feeling pretty good. Andrew is an excellent player, switching between Belcher and Dredge, but I feel that I am usually favoured against Dredge.

Game 1: Game one is really tough, as it always is against Dredge, but I still manage to get there, simply by having Remand at the right time and racing him. Needed to Freeze myself, though. FoI is so broken.

Game 2: This game goes horribly, horribly wrong. I keep an excellent hand, with FoW and Fae Macabre, but I just can't find a fourth land. Around turn 7 he Cabal Therapies me with only one land in play. Now, I could probably have gone off with three lands at this point - I had two High Tides and two Resets - but because he had been stuck on one land for the whole game I decided to Remand the Therapy and try and find that fourth land. Needless to say, he then drops another land and Therapies again. The game was pretty much over from there. Misplay on my part, and a well deserved game loss.

Game 3: Game three was another race, which I nearly won, but a Meditate (in the face of lethal damage) into two lands, FoW and Fae Macabre ended with a match loss for me.

Results: 1-1

Round 3 - Joe Jackson (apparently number one in the country) with TES

Joe played a really tight game, but apparently our local Merfolk player (Tom) had 2-1'd him in Round 2.

Game 1: I've never faced TES, but he's never faced Solidarity. He plays conservatively, which should have been a mistake, but when I go off in response to a turn 4 Duress, I Meditate into 4 Islands. He then jacks my storm and Tendrils me.

Game 2: I keep a hand with Remand and Cunning Wish, which should shut him down if I can make it to turn two. I don't.

Results: 1-2

Round 4 - Affinity

Pretty sure I'm out of the running for the top 8, I relax a bit and just play some Magic.

Game 1: I Force the Ravager and go off later in the game. I Hunting Pack kill for the first time that day.

Game 2: He has a blisteringly fast start, but I have Cunning Wish for Rebuild. I get the time I need to pull a win.

Result: 2-2

Round 5 - Goblins

At the start of this game it is announced that the way the matchups have fallen will alow a single 3-2 player into the top 8. That means the pressure is back on, and my opponent and I are playing for a top 8 shot!

Game 1: He plays Lackey, which I Force. He then play's Aether Vial. I try to go off in response to lethal, but his Rishdan Port wins him the game because I only have Turnabout as my untap - he tapped one land on my turn, and one land on his turn, leaving me with only two lands open. In hindsight, I should have tried to go off in my turn, because I could easily see what would happen on his turn, and I had the Turnabout. Ultimately, though, I am so used to going off on my opponent's turn that I did not think about it until I had passed the turn. Another well deserved game loss.

Game 2: He plays a Lackey, which I have no answer to, but I am hoping to race. It turns out to be unnecessary, though, as he has no other goblins in hand! He was hoping to topdeck, but gets nothing meaningful for several turns. I go off at my leasure.

Game 3: A tense game - everything is on the line. He gets a Lackey and a Vial and starts pumping out the Goblins. I make it to turn four largely because he does not get a Piledriver until then. I casts a bunch of Goblins (who all have haste due to lord) and attacks. I ride his storm into a Hunting Pack, blocking all his Goblins, and swinging for the win on my turn.

Results: 3-2

It turns out that my tie-breakers are fantastic because my two losses (Andrew Rouse and Joe Jackson) came in 2nd and 1st respectively. I sneak into the top 8!

Round 6 - Joe Jackson with TES

Of course, being the lowest ranked, I face up against Joe again.

Game 1: I keep a decent hand, but Joe has no less than 3 Duresses before going off. He doesn't fizzle.

Game 2: I decide to side in my Mindbreak Trap and Echoing Truth - I have yet to be able to actually Wish for them because of lack of mana or discard. Being able to dig for them will therefore be a better option. I keep a rubbish hand with loads of disruption - 2 FoW, Echoing Truth and only one land.

Joe Duresses on turn two, and thinks hard about what to take. Given that he has fetched for a Volcanic Island, I know he has the Warrens win in hand. He goes for Force, however, hoping to tutor for an alternate win. I then topdeck a load of lands, while Joe topdecks into gas and no way to deal with my disruption. We end up playing for about 15 turns before I go off - I had to play around Orim's Chant, but by that time I had loads of mana open to do so.

Game 3: I keep a hand very similar to last game, but it also has Mindbreak Trap. All disruption, one land, no gas. I keep. Again, Joe has Duress, and can't figure out how to play around. I topdeck lands more slowly this game, so I have to strike a balance between discarding gas and discarding disruption. When I pitch Echoing Truth, Joe goes for a mini Warrens - only 6 tokens so he does not give me free storm for the Brain Freeze in my hand. It's enough to put the pressure on, and I Meditate at the end of his turn to swell my hand. I decide to try going off, and cast Reset, but he Orim's Chants. Figuring I can survive a few turns, I let it resolve.

Joe hits me for six, and I then untap, passing the turn back. He has apparently drawn what he wants, and tries to Chant, but I Force. He hits me for another six and then passes the turn. At the end of his turn, though, I go off through two Pyroblasts. As the match ends I can't believe that I've actually won.

Results: 4-2 This was easily one of the most difficult matches I have ever played. Absolutely awesome.

Round 7 - Survival

Game 1: He gets a nuts hand, but mine is better; I go off on turn three with a Hunting Pack in response to lethal. I wipe his board and kill him on my turn. He had a Stifle, but I had FoW.

Game 2: He is not as fast this game, and I am able to combo off conventially.

Results: 5-2

Round 8 - Andrew Rouse with Dredge.

I am keen to play this match, because I believe (despite my earlier loss to Andrew) that the matchup is in my favour. However, it is getting late, and he has a birthday party to get to. I don't want to be a dick, so I split the prize pool with him.

Results: 5-1-2

Exhausted, I use the prize money to get myself a "victory dual", a new Tropical Island for my deck, to replace the current one. A sort of trophy, if you will.

Thoughts and Observations

This tournament was an object lesson in why you should just keep playing for the sake of playing. I thought I had no shot at top 8, but I did not drop (as some others did) because I came here to play Magic, a game I enjoy, with a deck I enjoy. That was enough to get me into the top 8.

As for the deck, I am really, really, happy with this build. I was really, really happy with it at Nationals too, but my midrange placing thanks to my double Reanimator matchup pushed me towards other builds. Short of new cards or Frantic Search being unbanned, though, I don't think I'm going to mess with the maindeck any further. The balance is perfect for my playstyle. It only took me, what, 18 months to get here?

I lost two matches by Meditating into 3 or 4 lands. I lost one match due to mana screw. I also managed to win from some one land hands that I kept for their disruption, all because I could reasonably expect to topdeck into more lands. Taken together, I am very happy with the 20 land build.

Hunting Pack was MVP, though. I won several key games that don't think could have been won conventionally. When you need to go off turn three, you only need High Tide, two untaps and a Cunning Wish to get there.

The 2 Remand/1 Cryptc split was just perfect.

TL; DR Version

There was a tournament. I won.

-Silent Requiem

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Excellent report! It makes me want to put Dreadstill aside for a while and get back into Solidarity mode again... Unfortunately, i won't be able to make our next Legacy local next week as i'll be away for work so i'll have to wait until next month which is shite :(

Your list looks really quite solid - i'll be goldfishing with it at least to get some practice again.

Well done!

[Olesch]

How often did you wish for High Tide and when did you do it?

Well, I have a tournament report, and a bit of a story from this weekend.

Apparently, my local meta is quite highly regarded (not just in Legacy) for the standard of technical play. I did not know this - it's something I was told this weekend. I've always known that we tend to have a constant stream of people from far afield (in UK terms) showing up for our tournaments, but apparently this is because we are seen as a good gauntlet to prepare people for larger tournaments. It's put some of their comments ("This is nothing like legacy back home", "I just wasn't ready for the range of tier one decks here", "It's just so different playing here" - all comments made this weekend, and similar to comments made at previous tournaments) in a new context; for me, it was just my local store.

Apparently, we have a number of players locally who have been invited to play nationally on more than one occassion, but who refuse on the basis that it is not compatable with their careers. My guess is that their game (and they really are excellent players) has helped the rest of us reach a standard of play that we would not have reached otherwise.

Any way, this is not meant to be about bigging up my local, but to explain why the UK team decided to use our tournament on the weekend to brush up on their legacy skills before heading off to a big tournament (one of them mentioned Japan) where one of them would be playing in the legacy team event. Of course, we were all quite excited to be visited by such celebrities (god, we are such nerds!), and although I don't follow the pro tour at all, I got to hear all about them from other players.

Apparently, one of them made top 8 in Madrid (or some similar tournament - my day is always such a blur when playing Solidarity), and another of them was apparently the number one ranked Legacy player in the UK. The others were equally impressive.They all brought tier one decks, and we had a fair number of other visitors coming down for the tournament - I forget exactly how many we had, but it was between 24-30 players, total.

I played Solidarity, of course, and my list was very similar to my Nationals list, but I changed up the sideboard and switched the Forest for another Island.



Tournament structure was 5 rounds of swiss, with a cut to the top 8.

Round 1 - Andrew Smith with Dark Depths type deck.

Historically, Andrew has always wrecked me with his maindecked Meddling Mages and Armageddons. I have spent hours trying to find a build that beats his deck, but I eventually gave up, as his deck is so niche that I prefer to just dodge. In any case, he has switched decks, having finally gotten bored of Meddling Mage. He has now build something between Dark Depths and Rock, but Andrew is a genuine deck builder, so it would be unfair of me to simply say that he was playing "X deck".

Game 1: I'm on the draw, and although he manages to resolve an early Dark Confidant, he fails to draw into much gas, and has very little pressure on the board. He forces me to discard several cards, but I am eventually able to go off with a fair amount of land in play.

Game 2: He keeps a killer hand with two Hymn to Torach and two lands - a Swamp and a Wasteland. He hopes to topdeck another swamp fast enough to shut me down, but the next land he finds is Maze of Ith. I go off easily.

Results: 1-0

Round 2 - Andrew Rouse with Dredge

I go into game two feeling pretty good. Andrew is an excellent player, switching between Belcher and Dredge, but I feel that I am usually favoured against Dredge.

Game 1: Game one is really tough, as it always is against Dredge, but I still manage to get there, simply by having Remand at the right time and racing him. Needed to Freeze myself, though. FoI is so broken.

Game 2: This game goes horribly, horribly wrong. I keep an excellent hand, with FoW and Fae Macabre, but I just can't find a fourth land. Around turn 7 he Cabal Therapies me with only one land in play. Now, I could probably have gone off with three lands at this point - I had two High Tides and two Resets - but because he had been stuck on one land for the whole game I decided to Remand the Therapy and try and find that fourth land. Needless to say, he then drops another land and Therapies again. The game was pretty much over from there. Misplay on my part, and a well deserved game loss.

Game 3: Game three was another race, which I nearly won, but a Meditate (in the face of lethal damage) into two lands, FoW and Fae Macabre ended with a match loss for me.

Results: 1-1

Round 3 - Joe Jackson (apparently number one in the country) with TES

Joe played a really tight game, but apparently our local Merfolk player (Tom) had 2-1'd him in Round 2.

Game 1: I've never faced TES, but he's never faced Solidarity. He plays conservatively, which should have been a mistake, but when I go off in response to a turn 4 Duress, I Meditate into 4 Islands. He then jacks my storm and Tendrils me.

Game 2: I keep a hand with Remand and Cunning Wish, which should shut him down if I can make it to turn two. I don't.

Results: 1-2

Round 4 - Affinity

Pretty sure I'm out of the running for the top 8, I relax a bit and just play some Magic.

Game 1: I Force the Ravager and go off later in the game. I Hunting Pack kill for the first time that day.

Game 2: He has a blisteringly fast start, but I have Cunning Wish for Rebuild. I get the time I need to pull a win.

Result: 2-2

Round 5 - Goblins

At the start of this game it is announced that the way the matchups have fallen will alow a single 3-2 player into the top 8. That means the pressure is back on, and my opponent and I are playing for a top 8 shot!

Game 1: He plays Lackey, which I Force. He then play's Aether Vial. I try to go off in response to lethal, but his Rishdan Port wins him the game because I only have Turnabout as my untap - he tapped one land on my turn, and one land on his turn, leaving me with only two lands open. In hindsight, I should have tried to go off in my turn, because I could easily see what would happen on his turn, and I had the Turnabout. Ultimately, though, I am so used to going off on my opponent's turn that I did not think about it until I had passed the turn. Another well deserved game loss.

Game 2: He plays a Lackey, which I have no answer to, but I am hoping to race. It turns out to be unnecessary, though, as he has no other goblins in hand! He was hoping to topdeck, but gets nothing meaningful for several turns. I go off at my leasure.

Game 3: A tense game - everything is on the line. He gets a Lackey and a Vial and starts pumping out the Goblins. I make it to turn four largely because he does not get a Piledriver until then. I casts a bunch of Goblins (who all have haste due to lord) and attacks. I ride his storm into a Hunting Pack, blocking all his Goblins, and swinging for the win on my turn.

Results: 3-2

It turns out that my tie-breakers are fantastic because my two losses (Andrew Rouse and Joe Jackson) came in 2nd and 1st respectively. I sneak into the top 8!

Round 6 - Joe Jackson with TES

Of course, being the lowest ranked, I face up against Joe again.

Game 1: I keep a decent hand, but Joe has no less than 3 Duresses before going off. He doesn't fizzle.

Game 2: I decide to side in my Mindbreak Trap and Echoing Truth - I have yet to be able to actually Wish for them because of lack of mana or discard. Being able to dig for them will therefore be a better option. I keep a rubbish hand with loads of disruption - 2 FoW, Echoing Truth and only one land.

Joe Duresses on turn two, and thinks hard about what to take. Given that he has fetched for a Volcanic Island, I know he has the Warrens win in hand. He goes for Force, however, hoping to tutor for an alternate win. I then topdeck a load of lands, while Joe topdecks into gas and no way to deal with my disruption. We end up playing for about 15 turns before I go off - I had to play around Orim's Chant, but by that time I had loads of mana open to do so.

Game 3: I keep a hand very similar to last game, but it also has Mindbreak Trap. All disruption, one land, no gas. I keep. Again, Joe has Duress, and can't figure out how to play around. I topdeck lands more slowly this game, so I have to strike a balance between discarding gas and discarding disruption. When I pitch Echoing Truth, Joe goes for a mini Warrens - only 6 tokens so he does not give me free storm for the Brain Freeze in my hand. It's enough to put the pressure on, and I Meditate at the end of his turn to swell my hand. I decide to try going off, and cast Reset, but he Orim's Chants. Figuring I can survive a few turns, I let it resolve.

Joe hits me for six, and I then untap, passing the turn back. He has apparently drawn what he wants, and tries to Chant, but I Force. He hits me for another six and then passes the turn. At the end of his turn, though, I go off through two Pyroblasts. As the match ends I can't believe that I've actually won.

Results: 4-2 This was easily one of the most difficult matches I have ever played. Absolutely awesome.

Round 7 - Survival

Game 1: He gets a nuts hand, but mine is better; I go off on turn three with a Hunting Pack in response to lethal. I wipe his board and kill him on my turn. He had a Stifle, but I had FoW.

Game 2: He is not as fast this game, and I am able to combo off conventially.

Results: 5-2

Round 8 - Andrew Rouse with Dredge.

I am keen to play this match, because I believe (despite my earlier loss to Andrew) that the matchup is in my favour. However, it is getting late, and he has a birthday party to get to. I don't want to be a dick, so I split the prize pool with him.

Results: 5-1-2

Exhausted, I use the prize money to get myself a "victory dual", a new Tropical Island for my deck, to replace the current one. A sort of trophy, if you will.

Thoughts and Observations

This tournament was an object lesson in why you should just keep playing for the sake of playing. I thought I had no shot at top 8, but I did not drop (as some others did) because I came here to play Magic, a game I enjoy, with a deck I enjoy. That was enough to get me into the top 8.

As for the deck, I am really, really, happy with this build. I was really, really happy with it at Nationals too, but my midrange placing thanks to my double Reanimator matchup pushed me towards other builds. Short of new cards or Frantic Search being unbanned, though, I don't think I'm going to mess with the maindeck any further. The balance is perfect for my playstyle. It only took me, what, 18 months to get here?

I lost two matches by Meditating into 3 or 4 lands. I lost one match due to mana screw. I also managed to win from some one land hands that I kept for their disruption, all because I could reasonably expect to topdeck into more lands. Taken together, I am very happy with the 20 land build.

Hunting Pack was MVP, though. I won several key games that don't think could have been won conventionally. When you need to go off turn three, you only need High Tide, two untaps and a Cunning Wish to get there.

The 2 Remand/1 Cryptc split was just perfect.

TL; DR Version

There was a tournament. I won.

-Silent Requiem

[GoldenCid]

@Silent requiem: How did you feel with 20 lands?? Isn't it too much??

[Silent Requiem]

How often did you wish for High Tide and when did you do it?

I Wished for Tide fairly often. Not only when I needed it ASAP, but also when Tide had been Cabal Therapy/Duressed out of my hand earlier in the game. In effect, I have doubled the number of (effectively) top-decked High Tides for those drawn out, high disruption games.

Game 3 against Dredge (where I lost to a bad Meditate), I actually went off on turn 4 with no High Tide, but by burning 2 Reset (and having a Turnabout and Meditate in hand) I was able to Wish for Tide and go off. If my Meditate had not drawn into disruption and land, it would have been absolutely epic.

It's also worth noting that with only one more turn (and land drop) I could have just gone for the Hunting Pack kill, even without High Tide.

@Silent requiem: How did you feel with 20 lands?? Isn't it too much??

I'll start by quoting myself.

I lost two matches by Meditating into 3 or 4 lands. I lost one match due to mana screw. I also managed to win from some one land hands that I kept for their disruption, all because I could reasonably expect to topdeck into more lands. Taken together, I am very happy with the 20 land build.

What I could have added is that I still had to mulligan over a half dozen times in the tournament to find hands with at least to land - I am a fairly disciplined mulliganer, and I will go down to 4 cards to find a 2+ land hand. With my build I have 12 cards (Impulse, PtD, Wish) that all help me find combo pieces, plus the combo pieces themselves. I only have 4 cards (Impulse) that help me find lands (I'm not counting Brainstorm in these calculations because it's really a two card combo; it needs a fetch to be optimal). Making my land drops is my priority, as the deck does nothing without those lands.

Of course, Brainstorm is much more useful during the combo iin my build that the classic build, as I have more ways to bypass the dead cards put on top of my library, so I rarely fizzle due to drawing too much land, and when I do (such as the two occassions in this tournament) it tends to be because I have only had one draw spell in hand when forced to go off. And in fairness, poor Meditates were a risk even in the classic build.

-Silent Requiem

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Hey Silent Requiem. Thought i'd take some time out my busy 'fizzling Spanish Inquisition' schedule to congratulate you on such a splendid win against such a tough field :). I was loitering around during the TES games against Jo, and it was pretty epic to pull through that level of disruption.

Of course, if you'd have met my Enchantress deck, it all could have been different. Because of how hideous the match-up is for you ;)

LOL

The Spanish Tunnel King

[Davetradint]

I have seen cards like Vision Skeins or Words of Wisdom in some sideboards.
Which is the purpose for these cards??

[Vacrix]

To make your opponent draw a card to lose after the Brainfreeze. Sometimes you have to win in response and you can't just Turnabout your opponent's creatures or wait for their draw phase because they have Academy Ruins (against Lands) or there is a lethal Tendrils on the stack.

[Dark Ritual]

The point of vision skeins/words of wisdom is so you don't have to stroke your opponent in those cases where you have boatloads of mana, no wishable meditate, and no way to draw into the combo in hand so you stroke yourself for like 10 cards then go off easily and then when they have no library to play skeins/words to deck them. Skeins is usually better because it fights through progenitus putting itself back into the library because progenitus is not a triggered ability.

I'm greatly considering splashing green for hunting pack and fog effects due to your results requiem. Hunting pack killing people seems awesome and fun and its like empty the warrens for solidarity; you don't need a ton of storm to deck them with brainfreeze so you just go wish -> pack and kill their team. Only problem I can see is having to potentially skip some turns because of meditate but like you said one time you can have a hand with 2x untap, 2x high tide, 1x c. wish and get there with the hunting pack.