LOL It's funny to hear magic players talk about smash. According to the 2006 tier list, Falcon is the 6th best character in Melee.

For some more accurate smash discussion, try: www.smashboards.com

If you're thinking about cutting the 2 blue cards, would it make sense to take it 1 step further and cut the 2 green cards as well in favor of a more stable manabase? I don't have any experience with the deck but it seems like it would be difficult to support 5 colors when 7 of your lands only produce colorless mana and 5 other lands don't produce mana at all.

Not to get off topic, but I believe your math here is incorrect. Scroll -> Ancestral isn't spending 2 cards for 3. It's still 1 card for 3 because the scroll you had gets replaced by the ancestral. Mystical -> Ancestral would be an example of spending 2 cards for 3.

I agree with this 100%. If Gush and Flash (the real problem cards) are restricted, what is there to fetch with Merchant Scroll that makes it restriction worthy? Ancestral? Force? Those seem like pretty fair plays to me.

What's the call on Ghostfire? Can I run 6U, 6B, 6R, 6G, 6W, 6 artifact, 23 land, and one Ghostfire?

Haha wow! Congrats to Simon for t8ing with the same affinity deck he's been using for over a year! lol

Congratulations, Grand Inquisitor! Quick question: with white in the deck, would it be worth it to run enlightened tutor to grab fastbond?

The list looks cool, but it seems to be 61 cards unless I miscounted it... and are you really not running Time Walk!?

I love the list, kobefan! Have you ever thought about adding a more concrete win condition? I know I would be nervous relying on 2/2's to finish my opponent off. Would it be worth it to try and squeeze in at least one Morphling/Teferi/Meloku?

I believe either Simon's foil Lightning Bolt or foil StP will shoot your "pimp" clear out of the sky for one mana apiece :lol:

No, I don't usually make it on Sundays. I just got to go to this one because it landed on Thanksgiving weekend.  The next time I'll be up is probably over Winter break, in late December. Definitely bring you Skittles if you go on any around that time. Hope to see you there!

The bounelands are very good.  Sometimes I feel like theyre not that great and then I imagine what it would be like if I didn't have them, and i regret ever doubting them.  They're good because with them you have the potential to produce more mana than you have lands, which is extremely important a lot of the time.  Another important function of the bouncelands is to ensure you have the colors you need.  With bounces it's easy to get 3+ colors then get the missing colors using your green mana fixers.  The downside is sometimes I want 3 mana turn 3, 4 turn 4, 5 turn 5, and so on but eventually you'll be gripping bounces as your only lands and you might be forced to slow your development.  Finding a good number of bounces is the right question, and because sometimes I want more and sometimes I want less, I feel like 6 is a good number for the Orlove archetype.


I usually just play bounces out on turn 2 if I have one and just pray they dont have the wasteland As for the Anusien style LD deck, it has a tough time vs. aggro and if you can run a few guys out there and manage to keep at least a few lands out for creature removal, you should be ok, unless they grab tempo and don't let go until you are dead. They can do this by playing an early LD spell and playing at least one every single turn there on.  I can't even count how many games I've lost to IceMaster that I might've won if I had ONE turn where he didn't play an LD spell

Hi guys, my name’s Eddie. This is my first time writing any kind of tournament report so bear with me.  I’d like to start off by thanking Simon for hosting this Skittles tourney, because I’ve been waiting to play in one for a while. For anyone who doesn’t know much about Skittles, it’s an amazing format and there’s a sticky for it right here in the casual forum of TMD. Check it out, you definitely won’t regret it. I came to the tournament prepared with my format appropriate Etched Oracle deck box and life counter and the entry fee was a whopping $0. Ok so on to the report. For reference here’s the list I ran, it’s very similar to a (now probably outdated) list of Jacob Orlove’s with a few alterations.

Green: 5

Sakura-tribe Elder
Eternal Witness
Thornscape Battlemage
Kodama’s Reach
Civic Wayfinder

Blue: 3

Drift of Phantasms
Silkwing Scout
Trinket Mage

Black: 4

Phyrexian Reclamation
Haunted Crossroads
Ribbons of Night
Boneshredder

White: 5

Orim’s Thunder
Faith’s Fetters
Swords to Plowshares
Seed Spark
Azorius Herald

Red: 6

Avalanche Riders
Flametongue Kavu
Fire Imp
Lightning Bolt
Tin Street Hooligan
Thunderscape Battlemage

Multi-Color: 7

Moroii
Perplex
Clutch of the Undercity
Dimir Guildmage
Selesnya Guildmage
Azorius Guildmage
Trygon Predator

Artifact: 6

AEther Vial
Skullclamp
Crystal Shard
Wayfarer’s Bauble
Darksteel Ingot
Etched Oracle

Land: 24

3 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Mountain

Simic Growth Chamber
Selesnya Sanctuary
Gruul Turf
Golgari Rot Farm
Dimir Aqueduct
Azorius Chancery
Terramorphic Expanse
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin’s Core
Treetop Village
Mishra’s Factory
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
Wasteland

Sideboard: 15

Okiba-Gang Shinobi
Dwarven Miner
Gilded Light
Equinox
Skyshroud’s Blessing
Aven Cloudchaser
Maze of Ith
Steamcore Weird
Perilous Research
Nightmare Void
Condemn
Exclude
Carven Caryatid
Minister of Impediments
Shred Memory

My board was pretty bad but contained the techy Gilded Light in case I had to face Tendrils combo at any point in the day. I also had a couple anti-LD cards in there and plenty of aggro hate. Onto round 1…


Round 1: Phil (Philatio) with Tendrils Combo

Game 1: I win the die roll, elect to play, and mull to six and keep a hand with 3 lands, civic wayfinder, and moroii. I get turn 3 wayfinder, turn 4 moroii while Phil plays a turn 3 imperial recruiter and tutors up his trinket mage which he plays turn 4. He grabs skullclamp w/ the mage. I lay the beatz and seedspark (paying the green) his clamp.  I transmute perplex for eternal witness on my next turn thinking I’m safe for AT LEAST one more turn.  But sure enough Phil takes about 5 minutes to plan out what I thought would be a game ending turn. He plays a fecundity, veteran explorer, and cloud of faeries.  His ensuing songs of the damned turns out to be the equivalent of a dark ritual.  He gets storm to 6 then grapheshots my moroii, his cloud of faeries, and his veteran explorer, hoping to hit good stuff off his fecundity draws and play it with lands from veteran explorer. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out and he ships the turn over to me.  I get a dimir guildmage down and send his 2 cards in hand to the bin.  Shortly after, still in game 1, time is called but I manage to beatdown for the win in extra turns. I never even got to try out my gilded light tech : (

Match Points: 6   Total Points: 6

Round 2: Steven Rosario (IceMaster) with Anusien style Land Destruction

Steve and I are good friends and we playtest Skittles when we get the chance.  I think I have a horrible matchup vs. his deck but he begs to differ.  He wins the die roll and elects to play.

Game 1: I keep my opener and get an early selesnya guildmage down.  I thwart his early attempts to destroy my land by playing faith’s fetters on his turn 4 trench wurm.  He gets a ravaging horde (3/3 + stone rain for 3RR) down on the following turn, however, and nukes my bounceland. Luckily, I keep making land drops and moroii comes down in the clutch.  Soon he runs out of gas and I can take him down with my 4/4 flyer and some guildmage 1/1 tokens.

I board in my Equinox and not much else.

Game 2:

We keep our initial 7 and I have a turn 2 bounceland. Steve ghost quarters it and I play my sakura-tribe elder the next turn.  I’m able to sit on 3-4 lands long enough to play my silkwing scout, phyrexian reclamation, and then recur and play my sakura-tribe elder.  Steve then orim’s thunders my reclamation and pays the kicker to burn my silkwing scout.  Having tapped out the turn before to get my elder back onto the field, I was unable to activate silkwing’s ability and I felt like I was poised for a loss in this game.  Luckily I topdeck aether vial and play it. Steve lets it be and goes to town destroying my land. I ramp vial up to 3 counters while gripping my last hope: trygon predator.  Steve then attempts to faith’s fetters the vial. I respond by vialing in trygon predator.  I swing with it the next turn, removing the fetters from my beloved artifact.  Steve sits in despair as my predator beats for 2 per turn while my only land remaining is vitu-ghazi! He cannot find an answer in time and predator flies in for the win.

Match Points: 9   Total Points: 15

Round 3: I don’t remember my opponent’s name this round but he was a nice kid that said he used to play Skittles “back in the day.”  He was playing a Honden Control variant.

Game 1:  I’m pretty sure I mulled at least once this game. My draws were pretty poor, and I stalled on 2 lands. I got an early dimir guildmage but my opponent’s thornscape battlemage took him down and starting smashing me.  He dealt 2 damage per turn while I stared at my hand full of stuff I couldn’t play.  He eventually played allied strategies and then a blastoderm to finish me off. sadfaceXcore….

I hadn’t seen much of his stuff game one, so I sided in a steamcore weird thinking his deck was mostly aggro.

Game 2:  I get better draws this game and supply a steady stream of creatures to turn sideways.  At one point I got my avalanche riders out with crystal shard. I played other ‘comes into play’ favorites such as thornscape battlemage, steamcore weird, and azorius herald.  He gets the blue and green hondens out but at this point he’s just using his 1/1 tokens as chump blockers.  I drew azorius guildmage an assigned him to token tapping duty.  Despite my opponent drawing 3 cards per turn, he couldn’t escape the beatdown and eventually fell to 0.

After the 2nd game was over, we asked Simon how much time was left in the round and he said it had ended about 10 minutes ago.  Way to call time Simon! Haha. My opponent and I decided it was fairest to just draw and move on to the next round.

Match Points: 5    Total Points: 20

I was paired with Lawrence in the last round and if he won just 1 game he would have the most points and win the tourney. I needed the 2-0 sweep to win the 1st place prize: 3 packs courtesy of Simon.  Seeing as Lawrence is an extremely skilled player who won $350 at the latest Nationals event, this wasn’t going to be an easy task.

Round 4: Lawrence with Random Good Stuff (tossed together 10 minutes before the tournament)

He wins the die roll and chooses to DRAW. An interesting choice, but not entirely uncommon in this slow format.

Game 1: I kept a sketchy hand with 2 forests and a wasteland as my only mana.  I get a turn 1 skullclamp followed by a turn 2 aether vial off the top.  I played a turn 3 cyrstal shard (which Lawrence claims was his bane for this game). I use vial every turn to churn out a guildmage, a boneshredder (killing one of his threats), my avalanche riders, and then a moroii! I start to bounce my riders with the shard and replay him for free each turn.  Lawrence gets a psychatog out but it’s not enough and he scoops shortly after.

I board out my fire imp and boneshredder for dwarven miner and okiba-gang shinobi. 

Game 2:

I mull down to 5 and keep the virtual god hand of:

Forest
Wasteland
AEther Vial
Azorius Guildmage
Dimir Guildmage

I play out my vial and hear “Whaaaaat!?” from the other side of the table. I start dropping my guys with vial and I waste his turn 2 bounceland. Things are looking good as I draw silkwing scout to add to the beats.  Lawrence rend flesh’s my azorius guildmgage and plays a mother of runes but I have the faith’s fetters to stop it for now.  I keep attacking but he has orim’s thunder (without the kicker) to stop my faith’s fetters.  He attempts to stabilize at around 6-8 life by playing his own azorius guildmage but I transmute perplex for eternal witness, vial it in, and get wasteland back to take out another one of his lands.  Next turn I lay down the crystal shard I had been gripping for a while.  With the crystal witness combo out I know I can witness back my perplex and transmute again for my thornscape battlemage to eventually take out Lawrences remaining 2 life but I decided to play it safe and wasteland almost all of his mana sources so he couldn’t play any answers, life gain, or other tricks he might have had.  Seeing that the game was over and it was just a matter of a few more turns, Lawrence concedes and GG’s are heard all around. 

Match Points: 9    Total Points: 29

For winning I received a pack of Ravnica, Dissension, and Japanese Betrayers of Kamigawa. The tournament was a fun experience overall.  Let’s hope Simon hosts another one soon.

Props:

Whoever invented Skittles for making such an awesome format
Simon for giving prizes out at a free tournament
Crystal Shard, Avalanche Riders, and Moroii for being the nutz

Slops:

Well... none really...

Thanks for reading my report, I hope you enjoyed it.

Leave it to Jeff to Desire for 4, have 1 mana leaked, and then hit Bargain off it...

Congrats though

http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=108918#

Drifter seems powerful, but the one U per turn may be too much for fish to handle. any thoughts?

It all depends on how much combo is in your meta. Both trickbind and children seem great against tendrils decks. Regardless, I think that trickbind might deserve the current shadow of doubt slot.

Also, do you have any thoughts on Drifter il-Dal here?

How have Explosive Veggies and Far Wanderings been for you as opposed to other acceleration such as Kodama's Reach and Civic Wayfinder?

Hey guys, this is Eddie. I should be able to make it to Waterbury, and if I do, I'll definitely bring Skittles.  But I'd be playing a different list as people seem to be prepared for the Hondens now...