Decklist here:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=55300
I run a 3-2 split on Gaea’s Cradle/Crop Rotation because I’m greedy and want to be able to make Green Dark Rituals as often as possible. If you have any questions about my list, feel free to ask. I think it's pretty stock.
Also if you have ever seen me play, you know that my deck is entirely foiled. Yes. That card too.
Foils - you might not always win, but you will always look good losing.
Super serious Top 8 Profile info here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/..._profiles.html
I have a terrible memory so these reports won’t be full of detailed play-by-plays but I will try to give my best impression of the match. Also I don’t take sideboarding notes. Who honestly does that? I never see people writing that shit down...
Round 1 - Wes D. - Jund
I have seen this guy around most of the major events. Usually I see him trading but I’ve never played against him. It seems like he is always trading into a new deck so I have no way to know what deck he’s on.
I don’t honestly remember what happened in these games, but I take the match 2-0. My notes show I never went below 14 life. I feel the matchup heavily favors Elves.
2-0 / 1-0
Round 2 - John C. - EsperBlade
This player looked slightly familiar. I had traveled down to Portland maybe a month or so before this event for a smaller Legacy tourney, but also to visit a friend who is going to school in the area. Apparently he remembered me from that event because he seemed to know what deck I was on and how long I had been playing it. I’m bad with faces and names and all that. One of his buddies was hovering around the match and I had lost to him in the Portland tourney, so I knew this was a Portland vs Seattle battle.
G1
19/ 19.18.17. W - That’s what’s on my notepad. I must have comboed off quickly
G2
This match went on quite a bit longer. I don’t recall what exactly happened but my cursory notes show my lifetotal going down much faster than his.
G3
I believe he mulls to 5 in this game. I keep my 7 and it’s a bit of a goddraw. I think I cast Natural Order on Turn 2 and he forces. Then I cast it again on my Turn 3 and he isn’t able to counter. I get Progenitus and he doesn’t draw a Supreme Verdict or Perish. Rough beats. But he was super nice about the whole thing. We talk a bit about our mutual Portland buddy. Nice guy. With an even nicer beard.
2-1 / 2-0
Round 3 - Kyle H. - Reanimator
G1
He is on the play and makes an Elesh Norn on Turn 2.
I scooped to that.
G2
My notes are very messy here but I wrote “MISPLAY X3” on there. He takes the match 2-0 and goes on to make Top 8. So it could have been worse. But I’ll freely admit to being a bit salty after that game.
0-2 / 2-1
Round 4 - Brian B. - EsperBlade
This is :( because I get paired up against a member of my local crew. He was primarily a Standard player but recently moved into Legacy. I know he’s a very good player so I don’t assume he will be easy to get past. He made Top 8 of last year’s SCG Seattle Open.
My notes are very sparse here. I must have combo’d off quickly both games. There’s no way to feel good about a match when you get paired against a teammate. Both games on either side of us were also teammate vs teammate.
2-0 / 3-1
Round 5 - Cole U. - Belcher
He wins the die roll and starts. I know he has seen my deck as I sat near him last round, but I have no idea what he’s on.
G1
He leads by emptying his hand, and The Warrens, for 10 goblins. I play a Heritage Druid and pass. He swings for 10, I go to 10. I draw Gaea’s Cradle. Play DRS and Nettle Sentinel. Swing with Heritage Druid to put him at 19 and pass. He swings in, I block 2 goblins with DRS and Sentinel, take 8, go to 2, pass. I draw and play a fetchland. Fetch up Dryad Arbor, going to 1. Play a dude off my forest. Tap Cradle for 5. Natural Order saccing Dryad Arbor, fetch Craterhoof. Swing for alot.
G2
He keeps his opener and is on the play again. I rip an OK hand that I keep because it has Bayou + Cabal Therapy. He empties his hand with some mana stuff including a Land Grant and ends his turn with Stomping Ground, Chrome Mox, and Charbelcher in play. He couldn’t make enough mana to activate it, but he will untap with 2 mana sources and only needs to draw 1, in a deck full of mana, in order to pay 3 to activate Charbelcher for lethal.
I go Forest, Llanowar, go.
He draws and I cock my head sideways at him. He looks at it, frowns just a tiny bit, and passes.
I draw Gaea’s Cradle, my favorite of all the cradles, and play it. Tap the Forest for Wirewood Symbiote. Tap Cradle for GG. Tap Llanowar for G. Cast Crop Rotation on Cradle, get another Cradle. Tap it for GG. Cast Natural Order, saccing Symbiote. Fetch up Harmonic Sliver. Blast his Charbelcher. He couldn’t recover from that.
I felt pretty lucky to have beat those draws.
2-0 / 4-1
Round 6 - Ian R. - MUD
G1
He leads with a Cavern of Souls and mumbles “Go~~” something something. My initial reaction is to be scared because I thought he said “Goblin”. And that matchup really isn’t my favorite one. So I ask him to repeat himself. He clears his throat and clarifies, “Cavern, naming GOLEM.”
My brain explodes.
But he doesn’t have another land drop and I take the game.
G2
This one is much more interactive. His opening turns see him make a Grim Monolith into a Kuldotha Forgemaster while I fetch Savannah and Bayou to match my two Elves. He then plays a Mishra’s Factory, tanks, activates it, uses Forgemaster’s ability to sac all that stuff and gets a Sundering Titan to kill all my lands. I thought he was going to get a Blightsteel Colossus. I eat two swings from the Titan before I’m able to draw into enough gas to combo off.
2-0 / 5-1
Round 7 - Joey Z. - EsperBlade
This guy is a very powerful wizard. He beat me up really hard at the last PTQ I attended, but that was Modern so it doesn’t really count as Magic I guess. I see him at the top tables of most events and I know he hangs out with all the grinders. He is a real opponent. Also in the previous round he defeated one of my buddies on camera, so I need to get vengeance. But he is a scary guy.
G1
19/ 19. 1. W - Those are my notes. I must have combo’d quickly.
G2
My notes show my life bouncing all over the place. I must have had lots of elves sent to plow the fields. I think he established Jace control so I scooped.
G3
I’m on the play and look at my opener. I have to tank a bit since it’s iffy. He has laid out his 7, facedown, but has yet to look at them. I ask if he is going to look at his hand and he replies, “I’ll wait for you. I’m not going to give away any free information.”
What a baller. I have never had somebody do that to me. It was very pro. I didn’t realize how many times I have made mulliganing decisions based on my opponent’s expression as they draw their opening hand. So I try not to be too intimidated here and I keep my grip.
From what I can see I combo out fairly quickly, asking “Resolves?” before each spell. Every time he calmly says “Sure” without any hesitation. So I literally get no information from him throughout any of my plays. It was terrifying. But eventually I resolve a Natural Order and he has a fetchland open with 4 lands in play. I’m afraid of Supreme Verdict next turn or Swords to Plowshares on my turn, in response to the Craterhoof Trigger, making my attack a lot less than lethal. If I get Progenitus, I give him 2 turns. If I get Craterhoof, I run the risk of eating an STP. But either way I lose to Supreme Verdict. So I grab Craterhoof and swing in, putting him at 1. He draws, glances at his card, and very gentlemanly extends the hand. He was a powerful mage and I felt lucky to have made it past him. And to have won vengeance for my buddy, who fell in battle to the mighty Joey Z.
2-1 / 6-1
Round 8 - Dan M. - Lands
I’ve battled against Dan before. He is a super nice guy and never plays the same deck. I’ve seen him on Goblins and Aluren before so it’s hard to know what he is ever playing. But in one of the previous rounds he had an off-camera feature match against one of my buddies and I watched the tail end of it so I know what he’s on.
G1
In the opening turns I play a few dudes and am holding Crop Rotation with two Elves in play. He Tolaria West Transmutes into Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I untap and during my upkeep Crop Rotate into Gaea’s Cradle. I have the right kind of mana dudes to have them pay for their own Tabernacle effects but I instinctively tap the Cradle to pay the upkeep cost. I immediately recognized this as a misplay but keep going. Using the Cradle that early severely limited my play for that turn so I pass. Dan then plays Wasteland, kills my Cradle, and plays Engineered Explosives for 1 with an Academy Ruins in play. I scooped a turn or two later.
G2
I don’t remember exactly what happened here but he showed me an Ensnaring Bridge in this match. I believe I GSZ’d up a Harmonic Sliver to kill it. He also showed me an Ethersworn Canonist. But I managed to take this game.
G3
Dan was mostly on the defensive this game. He shows me Ethersworn Canonist and Sphere of Resistance. I’ll be honest here and say that I had to read Sphere of Resistance. I think those cards were slowing him down a bit more than me, as I just made some mana dudes and cast an early Natural Order for Progenitus. He Enlightened Tutors for a Zuran Orb to buy some time. I swing in and cast GSZ intending to grab Harmonic Sliver to kill his Canonist or something, but while searching I realize that if he draws or plays an Ensnaring Bridge, it will be much harder for me to close out the game. So I grab a Priest of Titania instead to set up the Craterhoof Behemoth in my hand. I still had a Natural Order to fetch Harmonic Sliver if he did indeed find the Bridge. I take the game and am able to strike vengeance once more for a fallen teammate. Dan was super friendly and good-natured as usual.
2-1 / 7-1
Round 9 - CML - Merfolk
Pairings and standings go up and I enlist one of my apprentice mages to do pairings math for me. I play Elves as my main deck but I’ll be honest, I super suck at math. Also I’m a glasses-wearing Asian. But really. I suck at math.
Standings have me in 6th place and my apprentice mage spouts off a bunch of numbers. He sounds very well-reasoned to me. He suggests that I have a very good chance of being able to draw into the Top 8 because my tie-breakers are very good compared to the other players with 23(?) matchpoints. This particular apprentice mage also moonlights as a judge so I just do what he says.
My kindly would-be opponent often plays at a shop I frequent, so we cordially agree to draw and strut around like gentleman for the remainder of the round. He was even wearing a scarf. I just had a T-shirt.
ID / 7-1-1
I rest my eyes a little and then go to watch the feature matches. The results of these matches will heavily influence how the Top 8 will end up.
The first match - Cedric Phillips vs I dunno
The second match - Joe Losset vs I dunno
If both Cedric and Joe win, they will each have 23(?) points. This will put the standings at 2 players locked for Top 8 and 7(!!) other players hovering at 23 points, trying to beat tiebreaker math to make it in.
Both Cedric and Joe win.
So after a brief intermission the judges go to announce the Top 8. My and my wizarding crew sit in a silent, anxious mass of nervous mages. I remember seeing my name in the 6th seed before the final round and as the 6th name is called, and it isn’t me, my heart sinks a little. But then the 7th name is called and Hey, that’s me! So my whole crew flips out and I jump up for joy and in my excitement I trip over our pile of backpacks and land flat on the floor right in front of my next opponent who was...
Top 8
Quarterfinals - Bryan E. - Hive Mind
You can read the write-up of this match here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...leyet_vs_.html
But lemme tell you what, I had no idea how to play that matchup. LoL dude I’m not good enough at this game to know that he needed Intuition to kill me, and that I should be naming that with my Cabal Therapies. Glenn Jones, I’m no Jedi! I’m just a simple Warrior!
Anyways I had the goddraw in G1 and easily won that, even through a Force. He had no choice but to counter the Glimpse.
In G2 I mulliganed a hand full of gas but no disruption into an inferior hand with even less gas. In hindsight, I should have boarded for speed rather than disruption. And I should have kept the hand full of gas rather than trying to mull into discard. My discard isn’t that great without a clock to back it up, since he can sculpt his hand back into the game. And I really can only hope to beat the hands where he casts cantrips instead of Show and Tells, so I should have played towards that. But I didn’t and I lost horribly here.
In G3 I shipped a hand with 4 lands for a hand with no lands into a hand with 1 land, Cabal Therapy, some other stuff, and Progenitus. LOL whatever I guess. It doesn’t mention it in the write up but when Bryan cast the Show and Tell that gave him the Hive Mind to kill me, I was able to drop in a Progenitus. I count that as half a win in my book.
Bryan was a super nice guy and we had a sizable crowd around us watching which may have led to me making some poor decisions based on nervousness. I drew poorly, or just played the match incorrectly, but I tried to be jovial and make the game fun. Bryan was very stone-faced throughout most of the match, but I was able to make him crack up a couple times. So I’ll take whatever victory I can get. In his run towards 2-0 crushing all of his other Top 8 matches, Bryan’s only game loss was to me! I’ll take that too!
On the way home my buddy who plays Hive Mind decides to do some Google research on Bryan and it turns out he is like the Patron Saint for Hive Mind players. I couldn’t have lost to a more accomplished Hive Mind pilot. GG.
Props:
- All my teammates who brought me food and stuff between rounds. I almost starved to death on three different occasions. Thanks guys. <3 XOXO
- All of my opponents for being super powerful and personable mages.
- My body, for not acting all wonky like it usually does in long tournaments. No midgame tummy aches for me! No sir!
- My deck, for always giving me a Natural Order or Gaea’s Cradle off the top right when I needed it.
Slops:
- Time. I usually scrub out of SCG Opens and am able to clear out my trade binders at the vendor booth. But I didn’t get a chance to do that this year. Next time!
- My backpack. For assaulting my feet mid-celebration and making me fall on my face disgracefully. A true warrior never lets his sword touch the ground!
- That’s it!
It was a super-fun day and I was thrilled to have run that hot. I don’t always place that highly, but I’ll always play that foily.
Alright! 1st Tournament report from someone for Seattle is in, Grats again on the run and the top 8 pin!
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Congrats on the finish!
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Pics or it didn't happen. I always enjoy me some all-foil Elves deck. However it's funny. EVERY Elves player I know has his deck all-foil. Everyone of them. Maybe because it looks so cool?
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Foily deck here.
I think if you're going to foil something out, Elves is on the cheaper end of the spectrum. Maybe that's why all your buddies foil theirs?
Green is the color of passion.
great report!
In regard to your all foil deck :
-Get a real foil from Future Sight. Look so much better than the FTV ones!
I've been putting off on building this deck for so long, but maybe it's time to get started. Sadly I sold my foil cradles :/
Congrats on the performance with such a lovely deck. It warms my heart when I see a combo deck top 8.
ps. If you know anyone with german foil elf pieces, send them my way :)
What it takes to be a pimp:
1. Knowing the right people.
2. Have the money
Not one or the other, but both.
The fastest way to become a millionare is to start with a billion dollars, then start collecting magic cards, eh? - dry cereal
@r3dd09
I know someone who has some russian NON-foil....
if you're interested.
@Mackan - Thanks man!
@r3dd09 - You should do it! The deck is fairly cheap aside from the Cradles.
@Kayradis - I actually had a Future Sight foil for the longest time but when FTV: Realms was spoiled I traded it away. I honestly much prefer the FTV art. And it looking alot like a Forest has gotten me maybe +1% to my block/bounce ratio due to opponent's not being aware.
I heard such things recently. More in a way that people were happy that I play with a FS Foil than a FTV one.
I still prefer the art but I might start playing with a FTV one just for that factor
Daniel, in your experience, does cabal therapy do anything against belcher on the draw? In my previous matchup against belcher, I found myself with therapies in hand after they've combo'ed off on turn 1. In most instances, belcher will be able to combo off on turn 1. Thus, do you think we should go for speed (board in only traps and pridemage/harmonic sliver/viridian shaman) in the belcher matchup if on the draw?
I haven't really tested against belcher at all so I don't have much experience to go off of. My only experiences against it have been in tournament play. But if it's true that they can reliably enact their game plan on the first turn then perhaps it would be better to board traps+artifact hate rather than discard on the draw, as you suggested. Usually I just go crazy when side boarding against combo because the matchup can be so bad. But I think you're right here so my SBing options against belcher, specifically on the draw, can change. Good catch.
I'll usually board in ~7 cards against combo too but I think facing belcher on the draw is the exception to the rule. Based on what happened to me last time, I'd probably just board in 2x trap and pridemage on the draw (-1 regal force, -1 priest of titania, -1 visionary). Without cabal therapies and gaddock teeg cluttering up our hands, the chances of us beating EtW increases significantly. Usually, I think we'll have 2 turns (storm for 5+) to outrace them. 3 at the most, though unlikely.
Old-frame, green foils are the best looking foils.
"If magic is your crutch, cast it aside and learn to walk without it." —Teferi
@nudon - that is an interesting approach. Somewhat counterintuitive though so I don't think it would have ever occured to me otherwise. But I'll give it a shot next time I face Belcher.
@GoblinSettler - Are you going to GP Portland?
Can't make it. Nice legacy side event on Saturday though. It is tempting.
"If magic is your crutch, cast it aside and learn to walk without it." —Teferi
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