Dreamers T1 3/22/03

Heya all. Dreamers in St. Louis Park, MN hosts type 1 tournaments weekly. This is my 4-0-2 mini report from the latest one. I got there late so my list was a little suboptimal. There were 15 players and the owner, Jason Webster, decided to give us 4 rounds, top 8 because of a type 2 tourney being held at the same time.

I played R/G Beatz like usual. Here's a list of what I played.

Mana 27
4 Taiga
4 Treetop Village
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Forest
4 Mountain

Creatures 14
4 Kird Ape
4 River Boa
2 Call of the Herd
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Skyshroud Elite
1 Ravenous Baloth

Burn 14
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Cursed Scroll
2 Chain Lightning

Other 8
4 Naturalize
2 Rancor
2 Maze of Ith

Sideboard 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Scald
4 Artifact Mutation
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Hull Breach

My anti blue sideboard was inspired by my friend Ben Balling who'd done some scouting early on. He informed me of the fact there were several Tog decks (2 GAT's and a Hulk Smash) and I'd want extra blue hate. He played TnT, so he wanted me to take care of any Tog decks that he might have had to face. It was a good call though as scald won me at least 4 games on the day.

Round 1 pairings were up and i was playing another great type 1 player, Brian Cox aka Browser. He was playing a kind of cross between keeper and parfait. It was UBW and ran Sacred Mesa as its kill. Well he wins the die roll and we draw our 7. I see 5 creatures, a sol ring, and a maze of ith, so i'm back to shuffling. My second hand is a bit better. But Brian flexes his deck's muscles and he gets the 4cc monstrosities that are meant to crush aggro. I try to deal with his stuff, but the sacred mesa comes down before i can right myself and I concede when i see no possible way out. Game 2 goes much more smoothly for him, with me countering his 2nd turn ancestral. I eventually beat him down. We go to game 3. We have about 7 minutes left so we know we'll have to play fast to finish. I get a good start early and beat him down under 10. He wraths away my lone river boa and he drops Zuran Orb. I naturalize and he ditches 2 lands. Neither of us have any gas going into extra turns. He ensures he won't die to any burn I find so we end in a draw.

Games 1-1-1
Matches 0-0-1

Round 2 Luis playing unpowered BBS

Well he's playing bbs so i know i have a fair shot at taking this one in 2. Fatigue was hitting me at this point and my lack of a lunch or dinner became a little present in this match. I won the roll and we drew our hands. The one time a drew Mox Emerald today i used it to great effect. I drop a first turn River Boa and he might as well have scooped right there. He had no answer i applied a bit more pressure and we sideboarded for game 2. In went my 8 cards and we drew each took 7. I kept, he kept, i drew a 3 burn hand with some land. I play Scroll on turn 2 to guard myself against Ancestral with an untapped mountain and a REB in hand. He drops a keg and says go. I play kird ape, he blue blasts!! I had decided to wait until after he blew the keg to play the ape, but auto pilot went on and kird ape hit the stack. Thank you Luis for balancing the misplays. That wasn't all I did wrong. On turn 8 he decides he's ready to win and drops morphling. I have 4 burn spells in hand. So i triple burn the morphling eot. He counters each upon resolution. I untap target it with Chain Lightning and he misdirects. It's then i realize i had 12 points of damage for him, he's at 14. Silly me. Morphling beats down 2 times and I'm left at 6. I could have killed him with a treetop village because he hadn't been blocking it with morphling. I attempt a boa to see if i can block the flying monstrosity and he counters. I'm not able play rancor on my treetop village and swing for 3 with it, putting him to 6. He untaps, attacks with morphling and says go. I scoop as i don't topdeck burn. Game 3 was just really quick. He attempted a couple of 'phids that met fates in the fires of my burn spells. I eventually overrun him with 4 or 5 creatures.

Games 3-2-1
Matches 1-0-1

Round 3 against Pat Stein playing Groatog

This is my worst matchup in the tourney, the reason i ran 2 mazes main. I get a really good hand and got to burn out 2 dryads. A pair of Kird Apes ended up going all the way. He wasn't really in this match, we went to game 2. This game was fun. He mystical tutor'd for a submerge the turn before i dealt lethal damage. He gushed both his island back to his hand and realized his lotus and jet wouldn't save him from the snake. River Boa swung over for 2 and I was tied for 2nd in the standings with Brian.

Games 5-2-1
Matches 2-0-1

Round 4 against Ben Balling with TnT

I had practiced against TnT a little last week and had gone 5-3. These numbers aren't wonderful and we don't want to hurt each others ratings too much so we ID. I'll probably get a few points off him because he's been so successful recently.

Games 5-2-1
Matches 2-0-2

There had been 8 players with 6 points. 4 of us had drawn and the other 4 played.

The standings after 4 rounds of swiss were as follows
1 Ben Balling, TnT
2 Justin playing WW
3 Brian Thompson Parfait
4 Me playing R/G Beatz
5 Brian Cox playing UWB keeper variant
6 Not sure
7 Steve Simon playing Gro-a-Tog
8 Pat Stein playing Gro-a-Tog

Quarterfinals Brian Cox

I got to go second this game which wasn't too bad. He starts by going demonic and tutoring for either lotus or the abyss, not sure which. I start with a taiga and say go. He drops the abyss. I play a treetop. He counters with wasteland. We go back and forth, neither of us really doing anything for a LONG time. He has me pretty much locked with moat out a replenish or 2 in hand I can only assume. There is one problem, though. His deck runs only 3 Tundras, an oversight. I know i just have to waste his Tundras and i'll be able to deck him. His only way out once i've killed all 3 of his tundras and all he has is a pearl is too replenish a sacred mesa (both found their way to the grave) and beat me for 19 with a single 1/1. He gets to the point where he can do this doesn't have enough cards in his library to kill me so he scoops. Game 2 goes pretty well for me. His turn 2 Humility is uber effective if he draws a wrath, moat, or abyss. He sees none of these until far too late. He's at 4 when my board is cleared. My topdecks kill him a bit later.

Games 7-2-1
Matches 3-0-2

Quarterfinals Pat Stein again

I get a mediocre draw and he gets a good one. I make the mistake of attacking before finding out if my COTH gets countered as he has a tog out. He beats me for 1. He counters my next attempt at a creature. He swings in with is tog for 1. He casts time walk. Gets barely lethal damage with a gush. Game 2 is a whole lot better. A tog gets played early on. I make it less effective chumping with a Kird Ape and subsequently an elephant. Scald limited the brokenness of his plays. I nearly misplayed myself to death in not responding to my river boa getting countered by activating my tormod's crypt. He took his turn and removed the grave from the game with his tog. That brought me to 6. I played another call. He picked it off with his tog going to no cards in hand or grave, he was at 4. I eventually am able to kill him with scald and a boa. Submerge was amazing this game but scald was the far more effective card. Game 3 goes a whole lot better for me. Scald goes nearly all the way on its own. Creatures add to it and a chain lightning resolves. He got a really terrible hand and ancestralling twice didn't help him. He was forced to counter Tormod's Crypt (not a good sign for him). He scoops at 4 life with a couple of lands and no moxen on the board. I was holding Lightning Bolt and planning on winning with the Boa that resolved.

The other Gro-a-Tog, piloted by Steve Simon, had gotten to finals. It's late and I don't want to risk 1/6 of the purse so we split. A good day on the whole for me and my trusty Beatz deck.

Props
Extra round added by Jason
My deck for playing well despite the problems with the build
Brian for playing a non archetypical style of deck
My sideboard for being nearly perfect for the environment.

Slops
Me for not playing Sui Reanimator
Mazes of Ith, for not stopping anything but a pegasus token.
My friend, Tony, for losing to Aether Charge with Astroglide.
Me, again, for not opening my mail and finding the 3rd and 4th COTH's my deck needed to run properly.