I'm goin'. Hands down. I'll most likely be laid off by then anyway, so cool.

I just PMed you about the Sunday thing Dan, before I read the thread. Oops, but I'm so glad it's sunday, because a new job I may be getting requires Saturday. Nice!

His name is in my report.

I wanted to see what other matchups would be like, I didn't have enough money to play side events, and I wanted to play with all the casual guys.

Here's some fluff before we get started.

This was hands down the best Magic event I've been to in my life. I want to give some huge props to everyone who set it up, Lou for judging the event and all 41 players that showed up. The baby-mama-drama was kept to a minimum, and I'm glad we had a decent turnout. Lots of players from out of state showed up, and I really liked the guys from Cleveland. C.H.U.M. represented with 5 players, I believe 3 or 4 from predict and 5 from RI.W.

I decided that I would leave goblins alone this time and try with a new deck, WUG threshold. I was told to expect lots of goblins and affinity, enter the sideboard.

2 Tividar's Crusade
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Stifle
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Compost
1 Chill
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Card's that escaped my memory. I got up at 3 p.m. today.

Some teammates of mine came up with the idea of having an Enlightened Tutor sideboard. Instead of having lost of hoser enchantments taking up the board, just use the tutor. Sounds like a good idea to me. Tividar's Crusade and Kataki are to hose goblins and affinity, respectivly. Stifle is for Iggy Pop, Shackles is for decks with low threat density and is marvelous in the mirror, Engineered Explosives is nice for aggro decks. Compost and Chill are for the Black and Red decks, and Crypt is becomming pretty standard now.

The deck
Land 18
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp

Creatures 13
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Meddling Mage
1 Mystic Enforcer

Spells 26
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Daze
2 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Mental Note
1 Worship

I believe in maindecked Stifle. It hits a ton of cards in the format, even fetchlands are a decent choice. The Mages are beautiful in non-aggro matchups. 3 and 3 on Stifle and Counterspell is what we feel is the best number. Counterspell is too bad turn 1 and 2, and Daze is bad late game. The maindecked Worship is golden against aggro, with Nimble Mongoose. Everything else is pretty average.

THE TOURNY

Round 1 - Andrew with R/w goblins

Andrew was a fairly competent player, and a nice guy.

Game 1 - He wins the die roll and plays. Turns 1 and 2 he drops Lackey, to which I respond with Nimble Mongoose and Werebear, respectively. I didn't have threshold, so we were both without a creature going into turn 3. He's been stuck on 1 mountain and gets a plateau turn 3. By then I've cantriped enough to fuel Mystic Enforcer for the win, he couldn't recover fast enough. The only other creature he got to play was goblin Sharpshooter. I win at 16 life.

Out: 4 Meddling Mage
In: 2 Enlightened Tutor, 1 Chill, 1 Engineered Explosives

Game 2 - I get stuck on 1 Tundra. Another land comes down turn 4 so I can drop Chill, which has been in my hand since the game started. Even with the Chill, red men run me over. I didn't manage to deal a point of damage to him.

Game 3 - I mulligan to 6 cards and drop Chill turn 2. He can't get enough men down before mongeese and bears eat him alive. I take it away at 17.

2-1-0

Round 2 - Carl with B/W Confidant

Carl is a guy I've seen around. A great guy to play magic with.

Game 1 - Carl win's the die roll and plays. Three wastelands take out some of my duals, thus I'm left with no lands and very little cards in hand, thanks to Duress, Hymn to Tourach and Hyppie. I had him at 4 life before he finished me off.

Out: 3 Meddling Mage
In: 1 Compost, 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Vedalken Shackles

Game 2 - Various creatures ate away 7 of his life before flyers and no hand did me in. I remember some Sinkholes and Vindicates and Wasteland. Ouch.

2-3-0

Round 3 - Angel with R/w goblins.

Angel is a cool guy, who is quiet for the first game, afterwards he explained to me that he was up until 3 a.m. playing Yoshi's Island with his team. Along with the table next to us, we discuss how Mario and Luigi beat the hell out of Yoshi to get him to spit out his tounge.

Game 1 - I win the die roll and play first. I lost this game because I forgot to attack with a Mongoose 1 turn. He lays down Lackey and 1 gets through for a Seige-Gang. His ALPHA strike takes me from 10 to well below 0. His remaining life? 3. Oops.

Out: 4 Meddling Mage
In: 2 Enlightened Tutor, 1 Chill, 1 Engineered Explosives

Game 2 - I play. Tividar's Crusade is in my opening hand, and if I can draw into a second white mana source, I'll probably have this game. I never hit one, fetch or otherwise. I managed to swing in for 3 this game. My life total goes 20, 19, 18, 14, 9. I should have mulliganed, but I relied too much on my topdecking skills, which lost me the game. Said skillz, however, would win me a game later that I should have lost. Phyrexian Furnace kept my graveyard from getting out of hand (for him) and my creatures would have saved me from his mob had they been bigger.

2-5-0

Round 4 - Al with Salvagers game.

Al was a cool guy that took some advice from the internets and used Simic Sky Swallower.

Game 1 - He wins the roll and fetches a swamp. "Iggy Pop?" I ask. "Yes" he replies. He proceeedes to Thearapy for Force of Will and hits 1. "Sal Game?" I ask. "Maybe" he replies. He proceedes to combo out with 7 life remaining. I managed to eat away with Mongeese and Bears, while doing my best do dodge Vindicate and Innocent Blood.

Out: 1 Daze, 1 Mystic Enforcer, 1 Mental Note, 1 Engineered Explosives.
In: 1 Stifle, 1 Compost, 2 Tormod's Crypt.

Game 2 - I hit him for 10, using Crypt and Swords to dodge Gamekeeper. Living WIsh brought in Viridian Shaman to nuke 1 crypt. I thought I had the game in the bag, with Stifle in hand and Crypt on the board, and gamekeeper trigger resolves. Then I see something I only expect from Chris Walton. Simic Sky Swallower hits the table. Uh-oh. I can't deal with this. And with not enough creatures to race it, I lose. Nicely done.

2-7-0

Round 5 - Mike with Suicide Black.

Mike was one of 21 players left in the event. By now all the people not making top 8 are casual and fun, including last round. Mike was a cool guy and got a little upset when out decks both got the nutz draw.

Game 1 - I win the roll, and he mulligans to 5. I'm taken to 14. Three Wastelands hit the table and I'm almost sure he can win. Dark Confidant is eating away his life and I'm using up counterspells to buy some time. He hit's Phyrexian Negator with Confidant and I'm like "Oh fuck." That thing is scary. My topdecking skillz hand me a Counterspell (I've already used up 2 Force of Will, 1 Counterspell and 2 Daze this game, buying 1 more turn, 1 more turn, 1 more turn) and I'm glad to hardcast CS for the Negator. I beat him down when his deck stops delivering threats.

Out: 4 Chris Pikula
In: 1 Compost, 2 Enlightened tutor, 1 Vedalken Shackles

Game 2 - I have Worship in my opening hand, which is why I boarded in those Tutors. I manage to get him to 15, and at 12 I should be sweating bullets, it's turn 4. He Unmask's me turn 1, some Swords to Farms get played, Duress, I topdecked into Daze for some good reason (my notes are shaky at this point). I have Nimble Mongoose on the table. Worship resolves. He thinks for a minute, and scoops.

4-7-0

Round 6 - Anthony with more Suicide Black.

Anthony is here with Angel and some guy from Cleveland. We're laughing, and talking about random shit, real casual. This is what Legacy should be.

Game 1 - I win the roll. He accelerates into Braids, Cabal Minion. This wrecks my day, but he has Bob on the table. I've got nothing in play. I'm at 1, he's at 2. Lots of beats this game, lot's of pain for him from Confidant. I kindly ask him to reveal the top card of his library. He explains he'd like to untap first, he does, and Smother deal lethal. An audiable "Whoooo!" erupted from me.

Out: 4 Meddling Mage
In: 2 Enlightened Tutor, 1 Compost, 1 Vedalken Shackles

Game 2 - He's on the play, and I've got 2 big Mongeese in play. Secret Tech Grinning Demon get's played. The combat math has me at 9 and him at 5. He loses either way. We laugh, and agree that Suicide Black is a good name for the deck.

6-7-0

Rounds 3-3

Not nearly enought to top 8, but comming in 20th isn't as bad as I could have done. This was the funnest event I've ever played in, and I cannot wait for the next one. Not once did I accually worry about winning the Lotus or Walk, but everyone there was pretty laid back (save DeMars and Bogangles). After my games a little drama occured when Angel beat DeMars 2-0. If he had given him the match 2-1 DeMars would have been in the T8, but Angel explained "I didn't drive all the way up here, I did it for my team." One of his teammates was in the T8 and DeMars would have been a pain, or whatever. Angel walked away and DeMars said something like "What a fag." Angel proceded to scare the white out of Brian, saying motherfucker about 3 times in one sentance. He was pretty pissed off. Serves him right. Quite you, Meandeck!

The T8 consisted of Rich and Dan from Pande, and some guys from R.I.W. After Dan lost to affinity, C.H.U.M. was really confidant (no pun intended) that Richard had a Lotus. I'll let him explain how that went down.

I felt this deck could have performed way better, but with me making some bad decisions at keeping opening hands, and some bad luck was less than pleasing. As I've stated, I really enjoyed this event, despite my teams poor performance and my personal slops.

Props and Slops

Props: For the two lowest skilled players on C.H.U.M. stepping up, Kyle for playing a difficult deck and placing well and Bob for being handed a stack of cards this morning and almost making T8. I'm very proud of how the team as a whole did. More props to the organizers for setting up a wonderful event and to everyone for showing up.

Slops: The whole round 6 incident. Boxes piled up on tables that we weren't supposed to look through (oops). Richard's play error, some of my play errors. Chris' bad luck, Kacey's bad guess on Pyrostatic Pillar.

Thanks for your time, please rate and all.

- Becenz

Yeah, I'm pumped! It's good news to know that I'm working until 4 tonight. I guess that's my problem. I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Chum is showing up in full force for this one. We've been putting lots of time and effort into testing and metagaming for the event. I hope everyone has been doing the same, because I really want to see the Pande folks do well (Chum and Predict, plus Dan and whoever else shows up.) We've been told that if 1/3 of the people who say they're showing show up, there will be a fairly large player pool (50+ players). This should put prizes in the Top 8's hands, which is nice. Good luck to everyone who decides to attend, and if any southeast Michigan players are having problems showing up, PM me and I'll see if we can work something out to get you up there.

- Becenz

Great job to everyone, and I hope to see you next month!

Count one more from C.H.U.M. in there.

And watch out for Raigeki.

Rich, would you miss this because you're too lazy/scared to hitchike?

Oh, and Chum will most certainly be there, at least 3 of us. It's nice that Pande is the week before, so all us Pande people can see what we really want to take to this place, and I really hope someone from Pande wins. Good luck to you all!

Nothing like changing all your money into useless currency, loosing most of it in the casino, getting too drunk to remember to exchange your Canadian Dollars for Real Dollars and starving to death because you can't figure out the exchange rate for shit. Welcome aboard.

I'm not playing Goblins next time. And I'm pretty Pissed that the event is going to be at R.I.W. Yeah, that's a capital P.

Goblins - I have an amazingly good matchup against Thresh.

Round 1 - Paul with WW. I died fast. 1-2
Round 2 - Unregged with UGw Threshold. I won. Like ususal. He uses orange sleeves. 2-1
Round 3 - Dan (cancerstix) with UGb Threshold. I won. Blood Moon pwns. He almost got the double plague. 2-1
Round 4 - Urza not-quite-right-in-the-mind with UGw Threshold. I won. Blood Moon is good. So is Goblin Goon.

T4 - Kacey (Kilz88) with LED Madness. I lost game 1. Dave started being a huge dick so I conceded the match so I wouldn't get pissed at KC. I got my money back at least.

T2 - Kacey and Paul. In a futile attempt to stick it to the man, they split the prize.

With my $10 store credit I walked out with at Ninjas of Davy Jones' Curse Special Edition Box. Retails at $9.99.

If we keep getting fewer and fewer people I'm going to be sad. 

(For some reason, TMD changes the word P i r a t e s to Ninjas.)

TMD has a filter in place - you've found one of the many filtered phrases.
-Godder

Woot woot woot! See you all there! And "Welcome" to Liek!


I'd really like this to be more often than monthly...

Yes, Life is an aggro deck.

But if you take the time to think instead of just making stupid comments you might come to the conclusion that most people have been playing aggro decks in my area since I said "more people will be trying control and combo instead of aggro.". Or not...


Yeah, and I really think the person who sets up a deck for the metagame the best will take home some duals. I can't even begin to predict what people are going to play, except that in Garden City, red is getting hated out.

This is true. However, I'm fairly confident that Life and Stompy won't be played around here any more, I have a feeling that people are going to be trying out control and combo more than aggro. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Flashfires and Anarchy won't be as good now as they would have been in the past 3 events. As for Rishadan Port, it's good but I'm not willing to spend 10 bucks on them. My guess is that the next person who wins will have guessed what everyone is going to play correctly, not nessecarly the best deck or the best player.

Congrats D00d, and good luck next month.

So I decided to play goblins for the third time in a row. It landed me good finishes the past two events so I figure I can do well enough again this time. Wrong. I got some bad matchups, some bad luck and hate. This was especially painful because of a "discussion" I had with a teammate regarding how goblins compares to angel stompy.

R/W Goblins a.k.a. L. Ron Hubbard.dec (don't ask)

19 Land:
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Plateau (you happy KC?)
5 Mountain

10 Not Creatures:
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 AEther Vial
3 Gempalm Incinerator

29 Creatures:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Goon
1 Seige-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Sideboard:
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Pyroblast
3 Leave No Trace
1 Seige-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Blood Moon
1 Goblin Goon

The choices:

Pyrostatic Pillar - I utilize this card a lot against Threshold, Burn and Goblins. I was really happy with this choice when I found out about the 3 High Tide. Not as much as an MVP as expected though.

Pyroblast - Chill, Meddling Mage and Force of Will all bow before the awsome power of Pyroblast. Oh, and Red Elemental Blast. But who cares?

Leave No Trace - This card can wreck some days, like Engineered Plague, Worship, Chill, Lightning Rift etc. Basically there because of the white splash and I figure "why not?".

Blood Moon - Because I figure if I can acually draw into it against Threshold, I win.

Goblin Tinkerer - Enemy AEther vials are always a good target. Sometimes you just need to blow up artifacts (like Ensnaring Bridge).

Goblin Sharpshooter - Mirror match and anything else that might make 1/1 creatures for fun.

Seige-Gange Commander - Again, in the mirror match I like to access multiple guys.

Goblin Goon - He can be a dead card sometimes, but using 1 is a safe bet. But if you're not running creatures, he'll see play.

So enough with the intro and on to the matchups.

Round 1 - Enchantress

This was without a doubt the hardest matchup of the day for me. Game 1 goes really fast, a first turn Lackey brings in Goblin Goon and we shortly move into game two. If you've never played enchantress, let me explain. In the Urza block exist enchatments that cost 1 green mana that turn into 3/3 and 4/4 creatures when you play things like nonbasic land, artifacts and instants. Good news. Despite my best efforts, these guys eventually ran me over with enchantments giving them pro red and 2-3 Argothian Enchantress backing them up with huge card advantage. Oh, and that fatty Yavimaya Enchantress. She sassed me too.

Match Record 0-1

Round Two - Burn

This was another hard matchup. These races were pretty close, but I constantly flipped crap with the Ringleaders and couldn't win fast enough. Game two saw some hate like Flamebreak and Ensnaring Bridge, the latter acually prevented me from winning one game. I couldn't get enough damage through on either though, and I kept my bad record.

Match Record 0-2

Round Three - High Tide

I'm sure anyone who was at the event was sick of High Tide. For those of you who couldn't show up, three people played the deck in a feild of less than 20 people. Game 1 involved him going off just as I was about to win (not supprising) and game two he had the chance to go off before I could get enough guys through. No game won here either.

Match Record 0-3

Round 4 - Burn (Again...)

This time I'm playing a teammate. Oh boy. Game 1 I win the race. Games 2 and 3 cards like Flamebreak and Pyroclasm seal the deal for him. I didn't care at all at this point, because I just had my sights set on a foil Rod of Spanking. But as for my teammate, if he had won 2-0 he would have made top 8. Unfortuneatly, this was brought to my attention after we had signed the papers, so he was a little upset with me. But I didn't care.

Match Record 0-4
This landed me a foil Rod of Spanking which several of the players signed, but someone put the card in a penny sleeve before the ink on their sig dried so it smeared. I think it was Kyle and the other guy who played burn.

In conclusion: I think goblins had an overall bad list of matchups this time (High Tide, Burn, Stompy, Life) and I'm convinced I really had little chance of doing well, especially when you look at my sideboard. I'm comming to the conclusion that goblins, or red in general, is really getting hated out of our area. I'm still convinced that goblins is consistent enough (I mean look, I lost nearly every game. If that's not consistency I don't know what is!) to win. I'll just need to find some way to speed up the process. Perhaps R/w isn't the way to go? Maybe I need more removal? I'll most certainly play goblins again next month but it will be different. Well, here's to another month of testing! Bottoms up!

P Bee a.k.a. Pat Becens(Becenz) or Becerra, you choose.

Awsome!

So, tomorrow's the big day. See you there!

I'm sure as long as turnout is expected to be high and the prizes are good that my team would try and show up.

So for all of that aggro I'm using a super secret tech Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker and Omnibian.

The dates: The events will most likely start after school gets out (June 8th or so). The day of the week will be dependent on user feedback, if you want it on Friday or Saturday or what. The event won't be sanction at first (unless I'm really lucky), but it won't be much longer after this starts that you'll get points and stuff.

I am currently in a position to start weekly/monthly play in Milford, which is about 15 minutes west of Novi on I-96. Please post if you are interested in attending this event. The prize structure and entry fee will most likely be decided by the players. I need people to post only if you are seriously interested in attending the event, this thread will be used as data to provide to the store so they'll let me set something up. Also, if enough people are interested in Standard events as well as Limited play, events like that can also be set up.

Hopefully we'll be able to be there. We're really looking forward to it as well as Origins.

Natrulize? Why would I waste such a good oppurtunity to use Reverse Polarity?

"Wurm Bidding"??? What a shitty deck, watch out for "Daze Goblins". And the super deadly "Island deck".

I was just about to suggest something small for 5-8th place people, because last time I got 5-8th and I was pissed.

I went to the first event with Kacey, Chris and Kyle. One other kid showed up, but somehow the event was still sanctioned. That was about a month ago, and I haven't heard any plans for the team to attend again, but this may change starting with summer.

Another concern of mine is that the 20th is the same day as Regionals. I hope the turnout is just as high.

I play at teammates houses, including mine. Said team is comprised of the following members: Me, Kacey (Kilz88 or something like that), Chris (XMaster_ShakeX or something like that) Kyle (the affinity kid), Bob (that guy who gets upset over losing) and Josh (who hasn't played magic with us in like a year).

We play legacy (obviously), and we also play Type 4. There's a post about it in Casual if you're interested.