Hi all, I'm the one that piloted Samite Healer's deck in Waterbury, and while it has been a couple weeks since, I will try to relate the occurances of the day as best as I can.
One thing of note is that I made 2 last minute alterations to the deck before the tourney began. I swapped out the Jet for a Mana Crypt and I replaced one of the Triskelions with a Mindslaver.
Anyway, onto my fading memeries
Rd 1: Keeper wannabe
Game 1 I try to start out fast with a turn 1 Metalworker. He resolves, however the next turn when I attempt to play Juggernaut and his friend Myr Enforcer, I run into a Drain and a Force of Will. I think that I'm playing against keeper because everything that he plays for the first few turns is in most Keeper builds. Then he plays Counterspell. Then Impulse. Then Rainbow Efreet(!). I lose game 1 because of the well placed counters and a phasing guy that eats Juggernauts for breakfast.
Game 2 I 'Slave him for multiple turns in a row completely destroying any chance he had at the game.
Game 3 I rush out of the gates like a madman ignoring the FoW that he throws at my Juggernaut because I'm too busy playing other threats. He loses before he even comes close to having a chance of stabilizing.
1-0
Rd 2. Something Mono Black
I felt kinda bad for this guy, he played a total of 3 lands and 1 spell in the match against me. Yeah, he kinda lost to mana screw. Whatever, take what you can get, I guess
2-0
Rd 3 Gay/r
Game 1 I play out my entire hand on turn 2, he never has a chance to do anything and he Standstills aren't exactly going to be any good for him.
Game 2. Ah, the joys of mana screw. By the time I have mana to start playing threats he has enough countermagic and threats of his own to win by attrition.
Game 3. W00t, manascrew AGAIN! This game I actually had a shot though. At least, I think I did, lol. It's turn 6, I finally got my second land, strangely it's a second workshop. Gotta love the colored spells with only workshop mana available to you
. The turn before I drew the second workshop he taps out to play a Voidmage Prodigy and some other 1 toughness guy, I think it was a Grim Lavamancer. His board consisted of the aforementioned Voimage, Lavamancer, and some other 1 toughness guy (Manta Riders maybe?). My turn comes around and I think to myself "If I draw a Workshop, I might be able to pull out of this with the Triskelion in my hand..." Draw WORKSHOP! Nice, Play the Trike. My opp looks so very heartbroken like I just killed his puppy or something. Then he looks at his hand. "Oh, I have a Force of Will, I guess I win." Bah, after the force, the only cards still in his hand were a Stifle and some lands.
2-1, bah landscrew
Round 4, Keeper, not it's retarded cousin, but the real thing.
Game 1, Same as so many times before, I present him with more threats than he can deal with faster than he can deal with them.
Game 2. In come the perfect sideboard cards against me...Moat and Damping Matrix. I play out a turn 1 Welder followed by a Juggernaut that's swinging on turn 2. He drops the Matrix and I'm thinking great, just what I need. Well, at least I still have a 5/3 that he can't Swords...He takes the beats for another turn, bringing him to 9 (Welder sends with a Matrix out). Then he drops Moat. Frown. If it were one or the other I could deal, but not both of them. If the Matrix wasn't there, I could Slave him indefinately and find a way in HIS deck to kill the Moat. If the Moat wasn't there, I could just swing through with my big guy and smash face. Moat + Matrix > me.
Game 3. See game 2.
2-2 sigh...
Round 5, Sui
Game 1, I muligan to 6 and I'm drawing, so I think that I'll be fine...mind you this was before I knew what I was playing against. He plays first and drops Swamp, Lotus, HymnX2. Yeah, I had 2 cards left when I went to my first turn. Guess who won? Not me
Game 2, I manage to NOT get hymned, however he does Duress Welding Jar out of my hand. Thanks! I play a Welder and proceed to do stupid things with him and the Jar my opponent gave me easier access to. Also, at one point he attacked with a Nantuko Shade with BB untapped. He failed to notice the active Welder on my board as well as the Myr in my grave. After that, I manage to smash face.
Game 3. This is the game that I was the most excited about afterwards for the day. He's smashing my face in and I'm at 3. I have a Greaves and a Welder in play as well as Mindslaver in my hand and a Thirst. EoT I thist drawing 2 more welders and the Lotus. And the Slaver goes into the trash. Untap, draw Mana Vault. Drop the Lotus and the Vault. Do all sorts of stupd mana producing tricks with the Welders, the Lotus, Mana Vault and Grim Monolith. I slave him thinking that if I can hold him off long enough by taking his turns I might be able to turn this game around. He looks at his hand, then at his 3 swamps and says "You just won." He shows me the Necro in his hand and I'm as giddy as a little schoolgirl. Mindslaver won me a game I had no business winning.
3-2
Round 6
I honestly cannot remember what this round was, all I know is that I won it.
4-2
Round 7, GAT
Game 1, I play out a bunch of threats some of which he counters and the rest he ignores while taking a few beats because the turn before he has to start paying attention his Tog got really really big...I think it had a 38 power.
Game 2. Chalk this game up to Mindslaver. After his turn he had 1 card in his grave, none in hand, a few lands out, a Tog and a Dryad with 1 counter on it. To make matters worse, when I took my turn I TDed a REB and killed the Tog.
Game 3, Similar to game 1, only he didn't have a Tog to make angry. He couldn't deal with all the pressure that was on him fast enough.
5-2
Round 8, Keeper, again
Game 1, I'm playing and I have to muligan and abysmal hand. The replacement was, shall we say, above par. I swung for 5 with a hastey Juggernaut and managed to have one sitting back wishing he was hasted. Opponent's reply: "That was a nice muligan hand"
Game 2, I continue to apply the fast pressure that he can't deal with. During what would be his final turn he attempts to Recall his Ancesters but that runs into a REB. The guys on the ground smash him into a bloody mess.
6-2
All in all, it was a very good showing for me (18th out of 191) especially when you take into account the fact that I've never played in a T1 event before and (obv) have no playtesting experience for the format.
The MVP fr the deck over the course of the day would have to be Tangle Wire. I realize now that this is the first that I've mentioned it, and while I should go back and edit the post to include it, it's 5am and I have to be up in 6 hours, so screw that. One of the things that I loved about the Wire was being a very mean man to the guy in the second round. He never had lands untapped during his main phase. Also, it was key in the second match against Keeper and in the 1st games against Gay/r and the first Keeper matchup. The Mindslaver would have actually been better if I had actually drawn it more than the 3 times that I used it. Also, the Mana Crypt allowed me to do more stupid stuff faster than the Jet would have, so I felt like it was a perfect replacement.
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