I have a friend that was in the final round of States with a Top 8 birth on the line.  While riffle shuffling his deck before the match, he had the cards facing toward him so that his opponent wouldn't be able to see what he was playing.  He shuffled this way a few  times and presented his deck to his opponent to cut.  His opponent promptly called the judge over, and the judge issued him a game loss for attempting to stack his deck (since he shuffled with the cards facing him).  No offical warnings were ever given.  

They were forced to go to game two and he promptly lost after being on tilt from the judge's decision.  He was told later that if had shuffled with the cards facing away from him once or twice just before presenting, no loss would have been issued.

If it's a major tourney (states, SCG p9, etc.) make sure you know what REL 3 (or whatever the level) actually is, and how it relates to your play style.

/me dusts off his moxes (after taking them back from tainted_wood)

/me starts a new decklist with:

7 SoLoMoxen
.
.
.
shit.


lil' help here?  I've been in Japan for the past two weeks and I can't remember how to play ... upkeep phase?

(I've also been awake for 28 hours trying to beat the jet lag)

Mods:  Please feel free to move this thread if needed

What:  Type 1 Tourney

Where:  Raven's Roost - Denver, CO

When:  Sunday, August 1st - 12:00 pm.  Doors open at 11:00 for registration.

How:  100% Proxy!

Cost:  $10

Prizes:

1st prize:
10-20 people - Bazaar of Bahgdad
20-30 people - Library of Alexandria
30+ - TBD

2nd prize:
TBD

There will be door prizes and other assorted prizes, so come down and join the fun!

I know this absolutely the last minute, but I just got the information myself

Where:  Raven's Roost - Denver, CO
When:  11 AM Prereg, 12 PM tourney starts
What:  Type 1 Tourney - 100% Proxy

Prizes:   1st Prize is a Bazaar of Bahgdad.  Additional prizes will be determined based on attendance

Cost:  $10  (A minimum of 10 people must show in order to award the Bazaar)

MODS:  Could you please move this into the tourney forumn (if needed)?

Thanks!

Spankweasel

WW has always been my favorite Type 1 deck.  I eventually got my hands on some power and abandoned it for more consitant decks.

One of the things that I noticed about this thread is that the orignal poster is downright terrified of Goblin Welder.  One suggestion I have for you is to use Damping Matrix.  This would allow you to get rid of (in my opinion) substandard choices like Deftblade Elite.  I understand that equipment like Empyrial Plate no longer work, but you could always use the orignal instead.  Cursed Totem works well too, and may be an idea if you want to use the Plates.

Since you are running 4 MD Orim's Chants, I would also give serious consideration to using Armageddon.  It simply wins games.  A late game Chant-Armageddon will horribly maim any control deck, and will cripple most combo decks.  (much of their multi-color mana comes from cards like City of Brass, and Glimmervoid).  I understand that Armageddon is a huge Drain target, but if it's not countered, there's not much a control player can do.

Since Stifle is so abundant in your meta, I would not run any Strip effects, but losing to a first turn Library is not a lot of fun.

If Stompy is big in your area, you may want to try using Exalted Angels.  An Angel with a plate on her is all kinds of fun.

Based on the prior posts, I would recommend something like this:

4 Savannah Lions - 2/1 for W is good
4 Soltari Priest - Shadow
4 Soltari Monk - Shadow
4 Silver Knight - Helps with Fish / Gay/r / FCG
4 Leonine Skyhunter - Evasion
2 Exalted Angel - Aggro hoser

2 Abolish
4 Emp. Plate
1 Enlightened Tutor - good in this deck
3 Land Tax - engine
3 Orim's Chant - Time walk?
3 StP - Removal
2 Armageddon - Alternate win condition
2 Cursed Totem - Helps with welders, togs, Memnarch, etc.

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
16 Plains

SB:
Dust to Dust - Fun against Slaver
Gilded LIght - Tendrils doesn't work anymore - neither does Ambassador Laq.
More StP
More Angels
Maze of Ith?
Empryial Armor?


Spank

My creature base is slightly different than everybody else's.  I play Type 1 in Denver where there is very little power.  The store that holds Type 1 tourneys usually has about 6-10 people with powered decks, and the rest are usually scrub aggro (usually red and/or black)

For the scrub aggro, I added a pair of Masticores.  There's not much Sui or Sligh can really do about him, and he's good about surviving a Disk from a Landstill deck.

I also took out a pair of Mages as they tend to suck in a field of scrubby aggro.

Here's what I ended up running

2 Exalted Angel
2 Meddling Mage
3 Shadowmage Infiltrator
3 Phyrexian Negator (had to be really careful with this guy.  He was MD because I knew I could get past the scrubs and into the quality matches against other quality decks)
2 Masticore

SB:
2 Exalted Angel
2 Meddling Mage

The rest of the deck is pretty standard.  

I am a -firm- believer in Damping Matrix.  It's ability to shut off most decks is fantastic.  

I think that if you're going to run the Decree's, I would possibly look at Humility or Moat as additional hosers.  Humility will nuke the Mages, but the Mages can hold your opponent down in time for you get set up for a big decree.

One of the decks that you didn't mention that I think is a blast to play is EBA.  It's a really fun aggro-control deck that can stand up to Aggro (Angels), Control (Negators) and Combo (counters, Plow, Stifle)

Here's a link to a version I used in a tourney 2 months ago:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1507

Here's another link to the discussion in the Type 1 room

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15764

Good luck finding a deck that you love!  It makes Magic that much more exciting

I recently just ran an EBA deck in a 64-player tourney.  I took 7th place.

My meta consisted of
-a lot of aggro (both good (sui black, sligh) and very bad (slivers))
-a little bit of combo (dragon, Trix)
-a little bit of control (Keeper, Tog)

Here's the decklist that I used.

// Mana
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 City of Brass
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria

// Critters
2 Exalted Angel
3 Phyrexian Negator
2 Meddling Mage
3 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Masticore

// Control
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
4 Mana Drain
1 Balance

// Draw / Tutor
3 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall

// Utility
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk

// SB
2 Stifle
2 Exalted Angel
2 Meddling Mage
2 Disenchant
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Vindicate
1 CoP: Red
1 CoP: Black
2 Tormod's Crypt

Here's what I got out of the deck:

Masticore is fantastic against the aggro.  Against the control and the combo decks, he's pretty much a pile.
The Vindicate was mostly crummy and I wouldn't use it again.  
I really liked using Shadowmage Infiltrator, because against all of the aggro, he would usually be able to hit and draw me a card.  Sometimes the 'Phid just can't do it.
The Mages were pretty weak in my meta.  Sometimes they worked, but most of the time, they were fodder for FoW
Since this was sanctioned, we couldn't use proxies.  This is why a Lotus and the YawgWill are not included in this deck.  If I had the Lotus, I would have run the Will with no problem.

The deck has a VERY serious problem with opposing wastelands.  In Top8, I got crushed both games by multiple (3+) strip effects.  I don't think my build ran enough mana sources.

For the most part, this is a pretty good deck.  I have since moved on to full-blown Keeper but I really liked playing this deck.

I proxied this deck up last night to play and I'm having a TON of fun.  I really think this deck needs a couple of things to really make it flow:

4 green Fetchlands - This is to shuffle away the crap that Sylvan Library is throwing at you.  If you can punt land away with a shuffle effect, you may be able to cut to a higher casting cost critter with Timesifter on the table

Worldly Tutor.  I want to add this card, because if I have the win locked in, and I just need to swing once or more, I can tutor up a Slagwurm and place him on top so Timesifter owns again.  Maybe in the board

Also, Concordant Crossroads could be a total house.  Giving my fat haste is good.

I also think the creature base is a little skewed.

Here's what I'm running (it's almost exactly the same as the original build)

3 Eureka
4 Natural Order

4 Sylvan Library
3 Timesifter

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Verdent Force
4 Plated Slagwurm
2 Ravenous Baloth <-- These should be more fat.  Maybe 2 more Nishoba
1 Gigapede
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Silvos

2 Concordant Crossroads
1 Memory Jar <--- not sold on this yet.  I like it, but it's really slow in this deck.

9 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
4 ESG
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
3 Ancient Tomb

I'm not working on a board right now as I want to make this deck function in general.  Good luck in the tourney, btw!

So, in taking Dr. Sylvan's advice from my prior thread, I decided to run a copy of EBA at this month's MHC type 1 tourney.

Here is my modified decklist:

// Mana
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 City of Brass
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria

// Critters
2 Exalted Angel
3 Phyrexian Negator
2 Meddling Mage
3 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Masticore

// Control
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
4 Mana Drain
1 Balance

// Draw / Tutor
3 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall

// Utility
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk

// SB
2 Stifle
2 Exalted Angel
2 Meddling Mage
2 Disenchant
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Vindicate
1 CoP: Red
1 CoP: Black
2 Tormod's Crypt

Explanations:
I decided to main deck a pair of Masticores because of sheer number of bad aggro decks that I was going to see.  They ended up being very useful in most of my early matches, but were sided out almost constantly in the later rounds.  I did decide to remove the YawgWill for a Mind Twist because in testing, I never once had enough mana to do much with a YawgWill.  Without a Louts or Dark Rituals, I didn't feel it was going to be worth running.

My sideboard had both a CoP: Red and CoP: Black in it because they are by far the most popular color for bad aggro to use.  I also added a pair of Chalice because I was afraid of the Stupid Red Burn decks.  The rest of the deck looks mostly normal.  

The tourney was going to be 6 rounds of swiss with a cut to the top 8.

Round 1 - Ben - Type 2 [card]Myr Incubator[/card] dec

Ben was a nice guy who just started getting into Magic.  He had a creative deck idea, but it was far too slow for Type 1.

Game 1:
Since I'm nervous about playing correctly with this new deck, I decide to play very slowly.  I make it a point to announce what color of mana I'm getting out of each dual land, when I tap them.  

Ben starts off the game with a Seat of the Synod, and I know that I'll have an easy game.  He starts dropping Myr creatures in the hopes of powering out a Myr Incubator for 20+ tokens to win.  After a Duress takes his Incubator, I Mana Drain a Myr Enforcer, plop down a Masticore and blast his tiny army out of the way.  A pair of Finkels keep the cards coming, and eventually the three of them take him down

Game 2:
He drops 7 Myrs (!!!) before I find a Masticore.  A Masticore and a Meddling Mage go all the way.

1-0, 2-0

Round 2 - Tony - Millstone Blue

Tony was a nice guy.  He had a mono blue deck with [card]Raven Guild Master[/card] in it to try to Mill people out.  

Game 1:
I get going with a Duress to see that he kept a hand with 3 Juggernauts in it.  Juggernauts?  Um.  Ok.  I get a pair of Negators out and run him over.  He did play one morph (the Guild Master) who happened to get Plowed.  He never saw a fourth source of blue mana.

Game 2:
Once again, Tony's deck craps out on him.  An early Angel goes all the way fairly quickly.

2-0, 4-0

Round 3 - Roberto - Suicide Black
Roberto was playing an interesting build of Sui Black.  He ran the Carnophage / Sarcomancy version with Skittering Horror as his major kill card.  He also used Claws of Gix to sacrifice Sarcomany after the token was created.

Game 1:
He beats me around a little until I find an Angel.  Pretty standard run for the EBA deck

I board in my one CoP: Black

Game 2:
He gets going really quickly with a pair of Duress, 2 Carnophage, and a Sarcomancy.  I get a Negator down and without hesitation, I start swinging.  He decides to only block the Negator with one creature at a time, so I manage to keep my permanents and clean his side of the board.  Finkel joins the fun to finish him off.  I never did see my CoP.

3-0, 6-0

Round 4 - Shane - Keeper

Shane was in this slot because his prior opponent filled out the results slip incorrectly and basically gave Shane a free win.

Game 1:
All I manage to draw is a Meddling Mage (naming Mana Drain).  He takes Shane to 5 before a Morphling comes down (!!!) ... crap.  I thought people ran Decree!  My life begins slipping away in chunks of 5 every turn.  The highlight of this game happens when, at 3 life, I Vindicate my own Mage.  Shane thinks about it for a good 5 minutes, and allows it to resolve.  After the Vindicate, I gamble my only way out of the hole.  I Balance.  Shane's eyes get real big.  With no cards in hand, and no critters on the board, he realizes that he's in trouble.  He ends up Cunning Wishing for Vampirc Tutor and Tutoring in response.  Due to the fact that I was at 2 life after the Balance (City of Brass pain), he ends up tutoring up a Fire/Ice for the win.  Rats.  My next card was a Negator

Game 2:
This was a joke.  In 15 cards I drew 1 Island and a Sol Ring.  My opening hand had both a Stifle and an Ancestral, so I decided to keep it.  Whoops.

3-1, 6-2

Round 5 - Karen - Keeper with Future Sight

Karen has a fully powered Keeper deck that is finely tuned for MHC's very aggro field.

Game 1:
I play around the control and manage to get an Angel on the table.  She goes the entire way.  

Game 2:
We end up playing a great game that has a lot of back and forth action.  I get some beats on the table and she Balances.  She gets some Angels on the table, and I Balance.  She manages to resolve a Future Sight and starts plowing through her deck.  I morph in another Angel to try to win and she turns over The Abyss.  Crap.  The Exalted one dies and all I draw is creatures while she turns over card after card.  Finally after a Brainstorm, she turns over a YawgWill, a Decree, and some random third card.  I never saw the third card, because I scooped.

Game 3:
Yet another Angel hits early and starts the rampage.  Time is called.  Extra Turn 1, I get a Negator, and swing on turn 3 with it putting Karen at 5.  She has no creatures in play.  I have a Mana Drain and a Force in hand, with enough mana on the table to hard cast both of them.  On turn 3, I top deck an Angel and foolishly play her.  I played her to give me another threat for the last turn of the match.  Of course, what does Karen do?  Balance.  I try to Force it, but she has her own Force and we end up with a draw.  Damnit.  Greedy magic is for Type 2.

3-1-1, 7-3-1

After round 5, I was in 8th place with 10 points.  I needed a win in Round 6 to get to top 8.

Round 6 - Keith - Type 1 Rock
Keith is a very good friend of mine and I helped him build this version of Rock.  It runs River Boa, Troll Ascetic, and Ravenous Baloths with Deed and hand disrupiton.

I also have a pretty good win streak against him in sanctioned tournaments.  I made sure to remind him of that during the match as often as I could.  

Game 1 and Game 2:
My deck works like I stacked my deck.  I could not have killed him any faster or more efficiently.  Duress at the right times, Wastelands at other times.  A Force to counter his Diabolic Tutor aimed at my Angel.  Everything just worked.  

4-1-1, 9-3-1

After the 6 rounds, I was in 7th place with 13 points.

Top 8 - First round - Jeff Ulrich (R3ason on TMD) - Keeper with Future Sight

I really like playing Magic against Jeff.  Mostly because he totally rolls me.  He was playing an exact copy of Karen's deck.

Game 1 and Game 2:

I have come to realize that my deck doesn't run enough land.  Not even close.  Game 1, Jeff wasted 4 of my lands and in Game 2 he got 3 of them (after I mulliganed to 4).

I couldn't have been beaten by a nicer guy.

So, I took 7th place with my EBA deck.  All in all, I think it worked very well.  The Masticores were a great addition to the deck, but they ended up getting taken out against all the Keeper players.  

Props:
Dr. Sylvan and Godot for the recommendataion on this deck.  I met Godot a couple of days later and he helped to tweak my deck and my sideboard for me.
Bob Yu - Clown of Tresserhorn on TMD - part of my support crew
Matt Wood - for the endless hours of playtesting we did this week to get my deck ready to go
The rest of Team Shenanigans - Thanks for the moral support!

Slops:
Wasteland - Damnit!

Thank for reading, and if anybody has any deck ideas, let me know!
Spank

Yeah it is.  Mile High Comics at 10 am.  

Thanks again to everybody for their help.  If anybody else has any good ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I looked at this version of EBA and it concerns me in a field of aggro.  Meddling Mage Is notoriously mediocre against aggro.   I'm also afraid that there's going to be a lot of old Sligh, new Sligh, and SRB (Stupid Red Burn)  so the Negator is a scary prospect as well.  If I was playing in a powered environment, I wouldn't hesitate at all to run this, but in a field of aggro, I'm concerned that I won't make it past the 2nd round to play the better decks / players this version of EBA is designed to beat.

I remember seeing some kind of RWU - LIghtning Angel / Phid deck that might hold some promise.  Anybody know of a deck like this that could work?

Oh, I forgot to mention.  I also have a Library.

As far as Hulk goes, I really don't have the practice under me to just go in and drop it down.  I'm concerned about play errors that I know I'll make, and I don't really like Mr. Tog all that much anyway....

As far as playing Fish goes, my buddy is going to run it and he has all of my Fish cards!  

Would some kind of Keeper variant  be viable without the remaining power?  Would Scepter Control be possible?  Or do you think that both of these decks require all of the power?

Thanks again for all your help!

Hey guys,

I know I have another thread open right now about running Rector Trix in a tourney, but after goldfishing and playtesting it, I have found it to be inconsistant and not worth running.  

So....

I have a tourney coming up and I'm having a hard time picking a deck to play.  The meta will consist of a dozen decks that are fully powered and optimized (Keeper, Madness, Dragon, Stax, etc.), a few people with quality aggro (Sligh, Suicide),  and about 40 people who run very bad aggro (Slivers, Angels) or bad combo (High Tide / Palinchron, Statis)

Here's my issue.  I don't know what to play.  This tourney is sanctioned, so I can't use proxies.  Here's what I have to work with as far as power:

Mox Jet
Mox Sapphire
Time Walk
Ancestral
Twister
4 Mana Drains
Duals ....

Is a Keeper deck playable without all the power?  I'm pretty sure I can get everything else for a Keeper deck aside from the last 2-3 moxes and the Lotus.

What I am looking for is a decklist that will be able to hold it's own against aggro, and yet is still competitive enough to be able to play against the big, fully-powered decks.

If you post a deck idea, and it has power in it that I don't have, could you please post alternatives for the power?  Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Lotus Petal, etc ....

Thank you for help on this!

So, over the weekend, I playtested this version of Trix about 2 dozen times against Supergro, Ninja Mask, and Dragon.  I have come to realize that Humility is fantastic in these matchups, but -ONLY- if I get a Form down first.

What I realized about this version is that the deck is horribly inconsistant.  There were times that I would draw 10 cards and get 1 land, and other times, I would draw 10 cards and get no Rectors,  or Therapies, or anything else.  

Does anybody have any ideas to make this deck more consistant?  I think that Trix is a good deck for very aggro heavy meta, but if it's going to be this inconsistant, I'd rather run Supergro.

Also, I haven't once cast YawgWill and I'm thinking about dumping it to the SB.  

Thanks for your help!

Just some replies and some tuning:

@Wollblad:  I don't think my manabase is all that terrible.  I plan on coming down 1 fetchland (to 4) and increasing the number of Scrublandsby one.  I'm going to replace the Pearl and Ruby with Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox, and I'll replace the Lotus with a Lotus Petal.

@Bram:  There is a TON of bad aggro in my meta.  FotD is fantastic at holding them off.  It's also good with Madness (until they start flying ... it might buy me a turn or two).  FotD is also really good at allowing me to draw 4 cards / turn if I have Bargain or a Necro out.  At least it finds my Illusions quickly.

Humility:  I know you guys are down on Humility because the deck shouldn't fear aggo.  But as was pointed out in the Rector Trix thread from the old site, this deck seems to run hot and cold.  Either I get a Rector or I get a Therapy, but not both.  Humility is there to slow everything down so that I might be able to hard cast Illusions and Donate on the same turn.

Here's the sideboard that I'm currently working on:

1 Timetwister
1 Necropotence
3 Abeyance
3 Seal of Cleansing
1 Duress
3 Innocent Blood
2 BEB
1 Mind Twist

For a field of aggro and bad combo (at least in the first 2 rounds) and then a couple of control cards (Necro, Abeyance, and Mind Twist) what do you guys think of this board?  Innocent Blood is never a bad card for me and against aggro it helps out.

How does this look to everybody?

Hello,

I wanted to fire off what I'm thinking of running at an upcoming tourney.

First, the decklist:

Rector Trix:  (stolen from people who are far smarter than I am)

Disruption (11)
3 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will

Engine (13)
4 Academy Rector
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
3 Illusions of Grandeur
2 Donate
1 Rushing River
1 Form of the Dragon
1 Humility

Utility (9)
4 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Mana (27)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

2 things that will stand out.
 1) it's 61 cards

I don't know what I would cut to make it 60.

 2) there's no Necropotence main

With my meta (see below) I don't think running it main is a good idea.  Against control I will board it in, but with all the aggro, I don't think I want it taking up the spot of Humility.

The tourney that I'm going to attend will have 64 people in it.  Of these 64 people, perhaps a dozen of them will have powered decks.  I know for a fact, that there will be some of these decks there:  Keeper, Hulk, Dragon, Madness, and Landstill.  The other 50+ people all run some kind of scrubby aggro (Slivers, Angels, etc.) or scrubby combo (Palincron / High Tide, Statis - built incorrectly)

What I need help with is 2 things.

1)  I need sideboard help.  I know that I should add another Illusions to the board, and I know that Abeyance / Orim's Chant might help me to have a fighting chance against control, but other than that, I haven't got a clue as to what to add.

2)  I do NOT have access to a Pearl, a Ruby or the Lotus.  The rest of the power, I have.  I need suggestions for replacing them.  I was thinking of trying a Lotus Petal for one of them, but I need some ideas.

Thanks for helping!