[Report] 2nd - Kalamazoo 2-28-03

I normally write about events leading up to the tournaments, and even though I don’t go out that much anymore, I still manage to have a hangover. Not a big one – on ill dawg’s scale it would rate about a 2. Oh well.

I set the cruise control to 80 and get there at 10:30. Registration is at 11 and tournament starts at noon. I notice there is ZERO combo and only a couple of hulk decks. I briefly entertain the thought of running Dragon, but there is 15 minutes left and it would take me at least that long to sleeve it up. I’m running TnT so Pyrostatic Pillar goes into the board and lightning bolt comes in maindeck. I saw a bunch of other workshop decks, Fish, Elfball, 3 Hulk, a couple mono green (O stompy or landkill). I ended up running:

4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Duplicant
2 Triskelion
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Anger
1 Squee
4 Goblin Welder
4 Survival
4 Blood Moon
1 Naturalize
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Memory Jar
3 Lightning Bolt

4 Mishra’s Workshop
7 Solomo
1 Mana crypt
5 Fetchlands (4 Wooded Foothills and 1 Windswept Heath)
4 Taiga
4 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Red blasts
2 Naturalize
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Flametongue Kavu
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Duplicant
3 Pyrostatic Pillar

Turnout was 26 people, 5 of us coming down from Chicago (me, Mattdog, Hspecter, Raye, and Bob [not sure if he is on TMD]). We are playing TnT, Hulk, Hulk, TnT, and TnT respectively. 4 rounds of Swiss and top 8.

Round 1 – Chris Mealer. Chris drops a few basic swamps while shuffling. My opening hand has only mana crypt, so I go to 6, as does he. My deck makes up for the mulligan with a first turn Juggernaut. 2 Lightning bolts later (which clears his board), the juggernaut does him in. this would have been much tougher without the lightning bolts. I side out the Blood moons and in the anti-creature cards. I have to mulligan to 5, but again my deck makes up for it with a first turn Juggy. Two bolts later, the juggernaut has hit for 20. These games didn’t take very long, Juggy with bolt backup is deadly for monoblack.

Manuel (Hspecter) and Frankson (raye) got paired together in round 1.

Round 2 – Brandon Silverlight. His first turn involves 2 Jewled amulets and a fountain of youth? Turns out he’s playing an affinity deck. My second turn Survival fetches Mox Monkey which help wipe his board. He then drops Myr Enforcer and a Broodstar! (7/7 at the time). I fetch a Duplicant to get rid of the broodstar and the Heretic to wipe his other artifacts. Game Two involves me keeping his board almost empty with a first turn mountain, lotus, survival, fetch shaman. Two wastelands and the shaman leave him with just about nothing (he had the artifact lands too).

The other Chicago guys complain about having to play each other.

Round 3 – Kevin Douglass. This was Kevin’s first tournament of any kind. He was playing a mono-red goblin deck and didn’t have a sideboard. He said he heard there was a tournament and just came down to get some experience with anything. There wasn’t much of a chance for him to win this one….just too much gas. I showed him my sideboard and pointed out that most of the cards were common and uncommon and that often you didn’t need a large collection to build a good sideboard. Also, he was one win away from the top 8. One of the games I mulligan’d to 5, but still won thanks to a turn 1 Juggy.

The other Chicago guys are now complaining about how hard there matchups were. Boo hoo. 

Round 4 – Nick Antes. We ID, play a game for fun, and then get some food. He has RG beats. Our fun game lasted 20 minutes and we went halfway through our decks and he hadn’t cast any naturalize or maindeck artifact hate……guess they were stuck at the bottom.

The standings after the Swiss were:

1 Bob Gomez, 10 pts, TnT
2 Josh Hall, 10 pts, workshop deck of some sort I believe, didn’t really see
3 Nick Antes, 10 pts, RG Beats, wasp build
4 Me, 10 pts, TnT
5 Matt Dawson, 9 pts, Hulk (no wastelands)
6 Ed Leung, 9 pts, Hulk (3-5 strips, not sure how many)
7 Will Lange, 9 pts, workshop deck of some sort, didn’t really see
8 Manuel Fernandez, 9 pts, Hulk (no wastelands I believe)

Top 8 – Mattdog, Hulk.

I win the roll and have a good hand with a lot of threats. Turn 1 welder. He duresses me and takes my Blood Moon. Turn 2 Juggy and turn 3 Trike take it home. He drew a bunch of cards, but wasn’t able to remove my creatures. I side out the bolts and artifact destruction and bring in the blasts and the pillars.

Game 2, I mulligan to 5. He should have had me dead to rights this game, outdrawing me and an early Tog. On my fifth turn or so, I only have a mountain and a Welder on the board, with bloodmoon in hand and Matt having only nonbasics. My previous turn he had drained a su-chi and goblin welder and had done a bunch of stuff during his mainphase. So like a pro I topdeck a mox, weld it into my Lotus and cast Blood Moon. It resolves. I take a few 1 point Tog hits before I cast Squee for a recurring blocker. I draw another welder, but fear fire, so I don’t play him. I draw into trisk, duplicant, and eventually the mana to cast them while he sits around waiting for his Moxes to show up. He forces my Duplicant and then Fire’s the welder and squee. I play the other welder, cast the trike, remove his Tog, and beat down from there (I resolve another B. Moon just to be sure and a Survival as well). This is the third game today I’ve mulligan’d to 5 and won (all with the opponent playing first).

Bob beat Manuel, not sure who won between Josh and Will, and Nick beat Ed. So all the Hulk decks lost the first match leaving 2 TnT, 1 workshop, and RG beats.

Top 4 – Bob Gomez.

My deck has the advantage here with maindeck bolts, Naturalize, and Viashino Heretic. The key here is who can Survival quicker and more often so that Welders can have juicy targets in your graveyard and to avoid the opponent’s Artifact Mutation.

Game 1 - I win the roll, drop a turn 1 Juggy, then keep his board clean with 2-3 bolts. 4 turns later it’s over. If those were pillars, I probably lose this game as he had gotten a turn 2 survival out (so did I but he wasted my Taiga afterwards leaving me with no green mana) and would have abused it faster.

Game 2 - I walk into Artifact Mutation like a moron. Don’t do this. I deserved to lose this game.

Game 3 – I play turn 1 welder, he plays turn 1 welder. I play turn 2 survival. He does not. That’s pretty much it right there. I draw lotus next turn allowing a huge survival. I get 3 welders to his 2, but he has no artifacts in his graveyard, while I have a Duplicant and a Trike. He also had a solemn simulacrum that was kind of useless until my Duplicant put it out of its misery. I clear his board of Welders with my Trike. He gets Sundering Titan, which wreaks havoc on my lands, but so what... I clear it away with Duplicant, get a 2nd Trike and next turn he goes from 14 to zero from attacking and machine-gunning Welders and Trikes.

Top 2 – Nick.

Game 1 – it turns out he does have maindeck artifact hate as I find out when he Artifact Mutations!! my second turn Karn. I try and recover and get a couple of Trikes, but no Welder and die. If that AM was a Naturalize instead, I win this game. At this point, it will be very tough for me to win this match facing 4 Naturalize, 3-4 Artifact Mutation, and Rack and Ruins, in addition to the bolts.

Game 2 – I manage not to walk into Artifact Mutation, but I can’t keep anything on the board.

So I get an Italian Abyss and a Tropical Island. Nick seemed very excited about the LoA, much more so than I would have been, so at least if I didn’t win it then it’s going to a good home.

Everyone was friendly and I would definitely drive out again in the future.

After the Swiss, Mattdog went to get some food. He comes back with a disgusting chicken sandwich from a place called “Lee’s Famous Chicken Place” or something like that after telling people he wasn’t in the mood for chicken. Good thing, cuz Matt, that sure wasn’t chicken!

this deck is turning into a red mana whore just like a green mana whore with all the Blood Moons, pillars/bolts, etc......I don't like it, but not sure how it can be avoided...