Hey there,
Before giving account of the tourney, I'd introduce myself in a few words: I'm Peter Csizmadia and living near Budapest, Hungary. I first came across with Magic after the release of Mirage Block and have been casually playing with some small interruptions since then. I've been attending tournaments of various kinds since around 2002, and have been considered as a fan of Eternal formats (especially Legacy) since 2004, which was the year when the first significant series of Eternal Tournaments started to emerge in Budapest.
Previous achievements:
1st place @ Legacy Series Budapest 2005
(Hungarian Nationals 2006 Top8)
2nd place @ Legacy Championship Budapest 2006 (
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=31408.0)
some GP attendance in Europe
Decks winning the most tourneys for me in Legacy:
Suicide Black
UGR Threshold
And now about the last event:
April 28th, Legacy Side Event to Future Sight Pre-release, Budapest
Number of players: 9 (due to main event)
Deck choice: R/G Aggro-Survival
Record: 4-0-0 (7-2-0)
Decklist:
4 Wooded Foothills
12 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
3 Troll Ascetic
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Rofellos
1 Goblin Pyromancer
SB:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Carven Caryatid
4 Price of Progress
4 Choke
When building the deck I really needed some hints because I never really played this archetype before. That was the reason I plunged into Hi-Val's great article on Survival here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13746.html which turned out to be of good help, although, when taking my metagame into consideration I had to modify the list badly.
That’s why I chose to cut Chalice from the main board for instance. In a field where the percentage of Goblins are high and so is of the other random aggros I decided to run more FTKs instead. Trolls were definitely playable and the mana dudes helped a lot when it came to lay out a quick troll or play baloths as soon as possible.
I’m still not sure about the SoFaI slot. Highly considering Sylvan Library over it, I have to confess. Yes, because without playtesting I really found it dumb.
Rounds:
1., Landstill
I have to say that without having a set of Vials in the deck I seriously lacked the courage. First game I went mono-G aggro: 1st turn Elf, 2nd turn Troll, 3rd turn Baloth. Needless to say, it wasn’t enough for success and the opponent stabilized in 2 life after an Intuition for 3 WoGs. (0-1) For the second game I kept the Survival engine in, hoping my opponent didn’t guess my true objective. I was right, and the unexpected Fittest-Genesis-Anger-Squee squad won me the late game. (1-1) Didn’t have much time for the 3rd one, though, but 2 PoPs finished this one in the 4th extra round. (2-1) 1-0
2., WRB Agro
Had it not been for a poor draw on my side without any baloths or trolls in the early game, it would’ve been a walk in the park. Still I won in a long 1st game, (1-0) and then in a less interesting 2nd one, where I went like 1st turn: BoP, 2nd: Carven Caryatid, 3rd: CC again, 4th: Chalice for 2, 5th: Chalice for 1. GG. (2-0) 2-0
3., UGR Threshold
Playing against a teammate is never rejoicing and it wasn’t like that this time, either. Yeah, especially he’s playing Threshold and you can’t count on your Chalice set for 1 in game 1. I played around Daze, laid a 3rd turn Troll, followed with a 4th turn Baloth, which saved me important turns. Surprisingly, I won in the mid game. (1-0) Regardless of how many cards I boarded in (+4 Chalice, +4 Choke, +3 CC, out went the whole Survival engine and the swords), I couldn’t fight tempo this time. (1-1) After a mediocre draw I took control over the match in around the 5th turn, till when my opponent hadn’t set up threshold. (2-1) 3-0
4., WWR Agro
Soltari Priest with a Jitte caused many troubles, but buying time with recurring Baloths saved my butt till I won with tutoring for Rofellos, playing my hand and attacking with haste for victory. (1-0) It needed so much time that we hardly had 5-10 minutes for the 2nd one. Still, my opponent (an experienced player with limited Legacy playtests) beat me down to 12 life, but scooped at the end of the 5th extra turn. 1-0
I ended up first with a 4-0 record, where a Goblin a build and the WRB Agro finished 2nd and 3rd with 3-1.
Thanks for reading, see you next time.
Netik Prime