Tournament Report: Columbus: Winner

Tournament Report:

Round One:

I am paired up against Doug Linn. In the last two tournaments Doug has played Fish and in each tournament, he has made top 8. The first time we played, I annhilated him 2-0 with Long. In the second tournmanet (February), we narrowly missed each other becuase we drew into top 8.

I roll and 18 and Doug rolls a 20. How Laucky! Doug plays first.

He drops a Fetchland and passes the turn. I think Doug is playing Fish.

I go:
Mox Jet, Mox Sapphire. Tap Jet for Sol Ring. At this point I was hoping he might think I had no land and counter the Sol Ring. I know it was remote, but he didn't. Oh well. I play Mishra's Workshop and tap the Workshop and the Sol Ring for Gilded Lotus. It resolves. I tap the Gilded Lotus and the Mox Jet for Chalice for 2 with a Thirst of Knowledge and a Goblin Welder in hand.

Doug breaks the fetchland for a Volcanic Island and SNAP, plays ANNUL! In the maindeck. Amazing. I play Thirst and Welder in the subsequent turns but I was heavily intimitated becuase I thought he was playing Fish. It was only when he already had the game (via Disk) that I realized he was playing Landstill. I was totally psyched out.

Game two, I figure he actually is going to SB in Null Rods. This would make his Disks pretty bad so I go with the Null Rod plan, which is to rely on the Beatdown - and I SB in Blood Moons and Trike.

This game is exactly as I plan. Null Rod hits, but I have huge fatties destroy him.

Game three: I stick with the same plan, but Doug wizens up and SBs out the Null Rods. I play Blood Moon after Blood Moon which he continually disks away and my mana with it. He finishes me off with a Lightning Bolt. How humiliating.

Round Two:
I sit down accross from Michael Simister - the infamous Belchler player who got 3rd last tournament and whose deck won the dulmen.

Kevin informed me that he was playing Control Madness with Foil and Living Wish.

These games are not very close. Game One involves me going down to 4 life only becuase I do about 8 damage with Ancient Tombs and I suck up some Rootwalla damage before I compeltely lock him down with Slaver and then find win condition. He played a turn two Suvival that game, but I followed it up with Chalice for 2 which negated a large chunk of his deck. I see Gush, Foil (a way to get Rootwalla into play), Bazaars, Wishes, and other stuff. One of the key plays in game one was him playing Gush and tapping out and me slaving him. He had Drawn Ancestral - which I cast on myself and it puts me over the top.

Game Two:
He plays a turn two Energy Flux negating my Chalice for 2. By turn three i have Workshop, Workshop, Volc in play and Penatvus and Trike in hand and a Welder in play. I can't play my men becuase he has Flux in play. He soon plays Null Rod and starts paying for it. He plays a Grim Lavamancer and so I weld out his Null Rod, drop Trike and kill it. It dawns on me several turns later (after failing to draw a 2nd non workshop land) that I can do Welder tricks with Energy Flux on the stack to use Trike to kill him. I figure that out but it becomes moot because I get a seconed land and Penatvus kills him in one turn (after doing quite a bit with Trike pinging).

ROUND THREE:
I play against Big Oh Oh OH OOOOHHH.

He wins the Roll and plays turn one Root Maze. I drop Workshop, Lotus, Mox Mox. I have Jar and other goodies in hand. I draw Chalice and play it for 2 negating his answers and preventing him from doing much. Nonetheless he does get some Rootwallas in play as well as two Arrogant Wurms which I let resolve, but all for naught when Trike shows up.

Game Two:
I save my Force of Wills for his Null Rod. Which is how that goes down. He has turn one Root Maze (which I let resolve again), and the rest of the game is much like game one. Savage.

ROUND FOUR:
I don't know how this happened, but this guy was playing Slivers and he managed to have be either 3-1 or something. I had Chalice for 2 on turn one or two both games and Memnarch stole all his permaments. He never played a permanent other than a land in both games.

I watch Kevin Cron and Mike Lenzo play out the Slavery mirror for essentially what will be top 8. It sucks because they are both meandeckers. Their game three goes into the final turns and it is a real suspenseful moment. Mike has Academy, Gilded Lotus (or two) and more land than Kevin - Kevin has less land, but more moxen. That's becuase Kevin had played a Shaman. Both players have no cards in hand becuase they have Rack and Ruined, Force of Willed and Slavered each other until they have nothing. It is brutal.

Kevin taps out (he played something else) and plays Timetwister. He has two colorless floating and plays Mana Vault and Black Lotus. The rest of his hand is pretty good, but Mike has double Force of Will and Tirke and it looks like Mike is going to win. Kevin only has 6 mana and the key spells gets forced. it's mikes turn.

Mike has 16 mana. He plays all three welders, Trike, (killing Shaman), and memnarch. He has thirst in hand as well. But he calculates that as long as Kevin topdecks nothing relevant, he wins. And he is right. Unfortuatntely, Kevin topdecked Thirst and sees Slaver. He plays Slaver and activated. In response Mike used the remaining two Trike counters to kill two of his welders. But the fact that he played three welders meant death becuase Kevin could use mike's welder to keep the slaver going!!!

It later turn out that if Mike had just played the thirst, he would have drawn another thirst and then into Slaver and just enough mana to play it and use it! So CLOSE. It also turns out that Kevin has SBed out three welders!!!

Wow.

Anyway...
ROUND FIVE:
Bob (Clown of Tresselhorn) - we ID into top 8.

TOP EIGHT:
The Top 8 was a sad day for the Meandeck Slavery players. Mike was already knocked out of top 8 contention by Kevin. However, Kevin was now playing against Doug Linn (with landstill, whom I already lost to). And Paul was playing an even worse matchup (fish). They both lost.

Anyway, i was paired up against Jonathan (soupboy on TMD) and he was playing a very metagamed U/W control deck. I was actually pretty scared. He won the coin flip. I was more than a little worried.

I don't remember all the details of hte first game, but he led with an early ancestral and I simply could not find answers fast enough. I tried to play around his drains, but to no avail. The Angel gets out of control and there is nothing I can do.

Game Two:
Game two is a nail biter. He plays meddling mage naming Goblin Welder. I drop Chalice for 1 and then 2. I have Gilded Lotus in play and much Workshops and mana. However, I slave him just once when he has Angel and Mage in play and I draw Ancestral when he has no cards in hand. I ancestral myself (this happened one more time this tournament). I attack his Mage into my Trike and then I start blowing up his world with recurring Slavers using Welder.

Game three
He mulligans to six and spends most of his cards playing an early Angel and sits.

Game three is much more brutal. I have turn one Ancestral and turn two Fact or Fiction while he casts no draw spells. Over the next two turns I play two more thirsts. I go down to 8 but then I finally cast Pentavus and do stack tricks to hold it at bay in the air and beat him down at the same time.

Semi-Finals
Bob is playing Tog. Game one is insane. I have the total nut. I have turn one Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Brainstorm and I see Workshop and Mana Crypt with Chalice in hand). I play Crypt, Gilded, and Chalice 2 and it is Force of Willed. On turn two I drop Penatvus (which gets forced) and Welder and I have Jar in hand for next turn. It was the last turn I get. He walks drops tog, topdecks Lotus and sacs it for GGG casts Wish for Berserk for 20 points while I am 17 (3 dmg from Mana Crypt) and Welder can't but suck up one point. How unlaucky.

Game Two I have a very early Chalice 2 and play Chalice 3 which gets FOWed. I play another Chalice 3 which is drained, but he burns. I play Slaver and wait a turn. He topdecks Demonic becuase he casts it - If i had slaved him I would have draw it and played Ancestral on my self (third time this tournament) and it would have won me right there. It didnt matter becuase I ended up winning becuase I had his next turn and there was nothing he could do.

Game Three:
I have Turn two slaver and activation. He has two lands in play and a hand with 3 drains, 2 aks and other 3cc spells. I drop memnarch on my 3rd turn and steal his land. Bob scoops. Bob is a great sport.

Finals:

Doug Linn managed to sneak into the top 8 as an 8th seed. But he worked his way up. In the semi's he beat Justin playing fish (thank god I didn't have to play that). We played in the first round and I know what didn't work - but so did he. He wasn't about to play Null Rod becuase Disk was so much better.

All my draw spells were countered in the first few turns and Disk blew up my world.

Game Two:
I decided for a complete alternation of my SB approach. I boarded out the Trike, the Time Walk, and the Wheel for 3 Rack and Ruins.

And it was brilliant.

I don't remember much of the details except on my first Slaver, I cast his Standstill and blew it up with Fire on Doug drawing three cards for myself. Shortly thereafter Memnarch hit stealing a Disk ai Played out of dougs hand. Doug Scooped.

Game Three:
I played a very early Chalice for 2 and then Slavers thereafter. His disk was blown up with my Rack and Ruin and I had the most digusting Thirst for Knowledge ever with Pentavus and Memory Jar and infinite Slaver lock. That's game boys.

That's Game.

Steve Menendian