[Report] 13th at Dual Lotus Tourney with Control Slaver W

[Zhindel]

My report or How to lose 16 hours of your life.

I had decided to try control slaver after seeing Atoglords first post on it.  Then Smemnarch posted his article on SSG.  I then knew the hate would be higher than normal.  I decided to try a splash for white.  This would give me a game one answer to hate through disenchant, and a surprise factor after boarding.  Then Atoglord posted his primer, I knew then Saturday would be a long day.

//My list:
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Volcanic Island
    5 Island
    1 Tundra
    1 Plains (yes a basic plains)
    2 Underground Sea

    1 Platinum Angel
    1 Pentavus
    4 Goblin Welder

    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    3 Brainstorm
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Memory Jar
    3 Fire/Ice
    2 Mindslaver
    1 Tinker
    1 Time Walk
    2 Cunning Wish

    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Black Lotus

    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Demonic Tutor
   

// Sideboard:
SB: 1 Fire/Ice
SB: 2 Blood Moon
SB: 3 Rack and Ruin
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 2 Decree of Justice
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares

Round 1 - Ben Kowal - Zherbus TNT (borrowed) - 2-0

Game 1 - We go back and forth, as Ben tells me of his tech: playing with a borrowed deck and hangover.  He gets me down to 8 with welder beats and a hard cast anger.  I get him down to 10 with welder beats and halves of fire's.  A Platinum Angel seals the deal.

Game 2 - He brings in his awesome SB tech of Ground Seal out of his 6 card SB.  He explains he regged a full list, but was too lazy to actually find the cards.  He has me down to 12 from welder beats, until a slaver takes over.  I get an Angel out to beat him down and make him survival away his artifact control creatures.

Round 2a - Joe - Ankh Sligh 2-1

Game 1 - I start beating myself on his 1st turn Ankh, and with my own mana crypt.  I dig for the Angel and have counter to protect it.  We shuffle up for game 2.

Game 2 - I make the wrong play and I tinker for an early Pentivus, instead of Angel.  I had figured he would be more ready this game for the Angel, and I had no counter back-up to cover.  It turns out he didn’t have direct burn, but some early hits from little red men, and Price of Progress takes me out.

Game 3 - I start beating myself with crypt again.  I get an quick slaver, and he fireblasts be with his only two tapped mountains in response.  On his turn I have him play the wasteland and target my fetch.  I see a couple PoP and Ball Lightning.  He only sees one more mountain, while soldier tokens take him out.

Match Record 2-0

Round 2b - Anthony - bad 3c ‘phid (that he likes to call 'Keeper') - 0-2

Ant is a good friend who likes to play bad decks.  I’ve tried to help him, but there are no support groups for this problem.  

Game 1 - He sees a first turn Strip Mine vs my island.  A second turn mox monkey, and third turn waste.  His phid keeps his hand full of counter.  I can't stop the 2 Angels off his Decree that resolves after a quick counter war.

Game 2 - I sneak through an early decree and start beating him with soldier tokens, he gets a decree to stabilize.  At this point I'm fuzzy on what happens, other than losing.

Match Record 1-1

Side rant:  I'm pretty pissed at this point.  Not at Ant, but at the fact that I went from being 2-0 to 1-1, and Ant went from being 1-1 to 2-0.  Ant will continue to lose, including losing again to the sui deck that beat him in his round 2a.

Round 3 - Mat - Mirror - 2-0

Game 1 - We go back and forth for control.  I jar, but can't get the edge.  However, my graveyard is getting nice and fat.  He starts to get control, but makes what will turn out to be a fatal mistake.  He jar's on his turn, I and get: land, blue spell, force, thirst, pent, mox, demonic.  He tries something, I thirst and get brainstorm, welder, and another card.  I brainstorm back the DT and welder, for some other stuff I drew.  I force whatever he was trying to play.  He now has board advantage, however my graveyard has the following: ancestral, walk, lotus, some moxes, 2 welders, slaver, and the pentivus.  I DT for Will, and cast it.  He has no answer, I ask if he wants to scoop, but he claims he never concedes.  I do broken things and after I take my time walk turn he realizes I have lethal damage on the board, and he scoops.

Game 2 - I have control the whole game, but have to beat down with welders.  I eventually cycle a decree off a drain and he's done.

Match Record 2-1

Round 4 - Scott - GAT - 1-1-1

Game 1 - Scott keeps a slow hand and I quickly do 9 dmg to myself with mana crypt.  We go back and forth and I get an early Will through.  I have a good board position with lethal damage on the board and 2 pentavite tokens as blockers.  He has 2 or 3 mana.  I make the fatal mistake of tinkering into a slaver over angel, but can't activate it.  On his turn, he does broken things.  He had a tog on the board, he draws into a walk and wish>berserks over the tokens with plenty of damage in his yard.

Game 2 - At this point I still think he's playing 4c tog.  I side down to t fire/ice main.  I regret this after the 1st dryad hits.  The second one hits and after some welders valiantly buy me time, I try a will.  He responds with cunning wish, for coffin purge with one black open.  His best targets are tinker or walk.  Tinker leads to an immediate platinum angel, but the walk could be riskier.  He picks the tinker.  I walk and play some stuff and draw into and discard the angel, which I welder into play while he's tapped out.  I walk and start attacking, hoping to be able to protect the angel.  He destroys the angel then attacks, I chump one large dryad with the welder and put damage on the stack.  I announce the welder and sweat hoping he has forgotten about the coffin purge, he does and I get the angel back.  Angel takes it home again.

Game 3 - We start game three with time being called, but broken things can happen.  Scott takes turn one, and I think I have to force something bad.  I take turn two and try and steal the next turn away with time walk, but he counters.  Turn three the tog hits.  Turn four I see nothing exciting.  Turn five, Scott digs and digs, but can't get lethal damage.  Draw.

Match Record 2-1-1

Round 5 - Tyler Devens - No show - 2-0

I spend my 'bye' watching a GAT player do very bad things to a Stompy (not O) player.  His green men are way bigger than stompy's are.

I'm not sure, but between the 'redo' round and them dropping a round of swiss, I think the no show really hurt my tie breakers.

Match Record 3-1-1

Round 6 - Frank - Keeper - 2-0

Game 1 - He's playing keeper with main deck damping matrix.  I think I play first and he drops first turn library.  He then drops the matrix, and I forget how to read cards.  I forget I can still use the mana crypt eating away my life, but not the welder I have in play.  After a couple of shuffles for board control, he hard casts decree for two angels.  I am able to resolve a slaver while he's tapped out.  He scoops.

Game 2 - Again first turn library and my heart sinks.  We go back and forth for a long time.  I eventually have two welders out, but only two moxes.  I pitch a slaver to the yard and weld it into play with only one mox left and three mana open.  He thinks, and then scoops.  Granted I could have swapped the moxes with welder to get the forth mana, but still would have only had one artifact left.  I think the slaver has jedi mind powers.

Match Record 4-1-1

Round 7 - Ethan - Mono-fricking-blue - 2-1

I had the advantage of doing my report after Zherbus, and I think this is the same guy he played round 4.  Zherbus's report is in the original tournament announcement thread.  This kid had a wild head of permed hair.

Game 1 - Crushing moral defeat.  He sees and early phid hit and it goes down hill from there.  Counter, rinse and repeat.  I get eaten away by little snakes.  Then morphling hits with me at two life, scoop.

Game 2 - mmm, REB.  I manage to out control him and ride a four soldier decree to victory.

Game 3 - He again has a slow start and I am able to drain a disk into an eight man decree.  Game over man.

Match Record 5-1-1

Cut to top 8 and I'm finish 13th, just one place behind Smemnarch.  I get a deck box with seven assorted asian booster packs, and a pack of 'Tokens'.

Two quick thanks to Atoglord for deck inspiration, and Steve for signing my Smemnarch.

Disclaimer: It was a long day and my notes weren’t great.  So if anyone I played finds an error let me know and I’ll fix it.

[Kowal]

Heh, Ground Seal is funny.

That card is to me like Drop of Honey is to Orlove.

Synergy?  Huh?  the original concept of actually putting it in to TNT was METHOD's, because it takes away Slaver's recursive capability as well as denies them the opportunity to fuck you with welders.  Unfortunately, all I saw that game were Ground Seals and Welders, so welder beatz didn't carry me very far.

The white was pretty sweet tech.  Decree would have caught me with my pants down in either game.

Congrats on the high finish man, hope to see you at Waterbury.

[johnstown713]

Good Report.  Maybe I am wrong but you said in round six and game one the guy played a damping matrix.  Then after a little bit you cast a mindslaver and he scoops.  Did you get rid of the matrix???

[Zhindel]

I did indeed get rid of it.  Thinking on it, I either Rack and Ruined it and my mox (he only had the matrix), or cunning wish>disenchant.  Either way it was gone.

Good notes are tech.

[The Atog Lord]

Nice job, and thanks for the props

The splash is interesting. I've been using Echoing Truth as my bad Disenchant so far. I was wondering about the Decrees; how were they?

[Zhindel]

They were good.  I can't say how much of that was surprise factor though.  The basic plains did get a lot of second looks.  Flooded Strand>Polluted Delta.  I haven't had enough time to test and see if they help in an matchups with Null Rods.

[The Hamburgler]

Hey I am Mat Chamberlain from round 3. Yeah I definently botched in game one. I normally play Workshop slaver but sold my set of shops so I played drain-control and made it the night before. I sacrificed the Memory Jar emidiately because Workshop slaver does alot of broken things and control slaver just eventually plays long and distraught games that give headaches and hangovers. I prefer to win from a first turn Slaver and Pentavus then a fiftieth turn Mana Drain into Yawgmoth's Will, then Ancestral Recalling your opponent  :shock: .  Just a personal opinion. I think Decree of Justice would have served you much better in a Welder MUD/ Stax/ Landstill populous environment. The biggest problem I had with the deck is sideboarding, and obviously The Atog Lord did as well with the taking out of Tinker in the finals against Orlove, a questionable decision against his "I wannabe a Fish"   . Props to high finish, The Atog Lord for being a champ, and lastly me for being a top noth control player   .
                                                                     -The Hamburgler

[jazzykat]

I noticed you have added another color but did not remove blood moon from the SB. I also noticed that you don't have LOA in your deck.

The absence of LOA boggles me, perhaps you could explain why you left it out of a control deck.

[nev]

My report or How to lose 16 hours of your life.

< snip >

Game 2 - At this point I still think he's playing 4c tog.  I side down to t fire/ice main.  I regret this after the 1st dryad hits.  The second one hits and after some welders valiantly buy me time, I try a will.  He responds with cunning wish, for coffin purge with one black open.  His best targets are tinker or walk.  Tinker leads to an immediate platinum angel, but the walk could be riskier.  He picks the tinker.  I walk and play some stuff and draw into and discard the angel, which I welder into play while he's tapped out.  I walk and start attacking, hoping to be able to protect the angel.  He destroys the angel then attacks, I chump one large dryad with the welder and put damage on the stack.  I announce the welder and sweat hoping he has forgotten about the coffin purge, he does and I get the angel back.  Angel takes it home again.

< snip >

What really happened when you got the platinum angel into play? I read it like you had an active yawgmoth's win (which removes discarded cards), discarded a platinum angel and then welded it right back in. then you take your time walk turn etc... or did you just play time walk and some random stuff, then during your next turn you discarded and weldered your angel?

[Zhindel]

@jazzkat

The library was an oversight that has been corrected.  I was busy helping others with fleshing out decks with missing cards.

The blood moon would still have hurt the decks I would have liked it against more then me.  Landstill, Dragon, Keeper.  Between the basic islands and plain, I could have still cycled a decree under a standstill with a bloodmoon out, while the man lands sat dormant.

@nev

Hurm, those were tough matches so my memory might be a bit hazy on exactly what happened.  I'll check and see if Scott remembers.  Will was always set off to the side when it was resolved and things played were added to that pile.

[jazzykat]

wrt: blood moon. I agree with zhindel's last point, but I am playing the 3 color version. I added another underground sea, as I face dragon and will be rocking coffin purges. I also cut an island for a brainstorm(I tend to play the deck a little more agressively than perhaps I am supposed to, and do a fare share of beating down with platinum angel).

I know that blood moon will not be a problem for me, as the 4 islands are plenty, and I still have at least a jet for the black. When you add a library you will be down to 4 basic islands which should be fine.

[Zhindel]

I have just received clarification from Krizzyn who was watching that game.  After the coffin purge of the tinker I drew into the Angel and had enough to hard cast it and time walk.  I do get my attack in, then he rips an oxidize on his turn to destroy it.  The oxidize then covers the purge in his GY.

Other details that came back about the game.

When he attacked with the 2 dryads (7/7 each), I was at 10 or 12?  I chumped with the welder just in case he remembered the coffin purge, then welded with damage on the stack.  Had he remembered the purge I would have bought myself another turn.