[Report] Eindhoven: fun with welderMUD

[Eddie]

T1 Tournament time. After a 2-month tournament drought in Belgium, my friend Bob the builder and I decided to drive to Eindhoven and play some games. I was not certain what to play, but in the end I decided to have some fun and play welderMUD sans workshops. Yeah, I know. But it was just to have fun. I didn't feel like playing old school keeper (no exalted), Control Slaver (bad experience last time) or Tog (not enough practice).

This is the build I played:

[Lock]
4 Tangle Wire
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere

[Creatures]
2 Karn, Silver Golem
4 Metalworker
3 Goblin Welder
1 Triskelion

[Draw]
3 Grafted Skullcap
1 Memory Jar

[Mana]
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Sol Ring
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault

[Side]
1 Triskelion
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Jester’s Cap
2 Damping Matrix
3 Blood Moon
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Pyrite Spellbomb

My friend Bob the builder decided to play suicide with main deck hate (null rod, planar void) over his U/G/r madness build. He will probably write a report of his own. Our testing showed a 50/50 for our decks, depending A LOT on whom went first and had to mulligan (shocking conclusion isn't it).

We left home early cause we had to drive through Antwerp (with a lot of construction works going on). I thought we would run into a lot of traffic, but we didn't. So we arrive an hour early. Bob had enough time to tell me the entire plot of Shrek 2 though. So there is no point in seeing it. Thanks.

Nice place, which makes me think of the location in Antwerp. 28 players attended I think (well, we had 14 tables...). We start a little late. (note that your name might be spelled wrong. My handwriting is terrible).

Round 1: Hero 't Mannetje with the_french_connection.dec (aka Jacob_Orlove.dec)

Game 1: I win the roll and start playing my broken hand. First turn Ancient Tomb, Crypt, Sol Ring and Smokestack. Second turn Tolarian with Skullcap and Trinisphere. He scoops at 1 land. So I still don't know what he is playing at this point and don't sideboard.

Game 2: I keep a rather slow hand after mulling. He starts with Duress and takes something I can't remember. Probably a Sphere. Then draws an enormous amount of cards (Ancestral, AK). I'm thinking he is playing some strange tog build (seeing his mana base and AKs but no Tog after a lot of turns). He counters everything I throw at him and I'm unable to get a lock. I scoop when he casts his last AK for four cards. I was thinking to continue playing to make sure I know what deck he was playing. But I wouldn’t win game 2 anyway, and there is a time issue when playing prison against control.

Game 3: I have challice at 2 early because I fear Mana Drain. He uses all 4 Brainstorms in the first few turns. He Intuitions and I suggest AK  :lol: (didn’t work). We have a big laugh with the game situation as my Mana Crypt eats away my life. I am unable to draw / cast anything spectacular (unless you count the things he counters). Mana Crypt kills me.

I'm still unsure what he actually played, so I ask him... All in all, it was great fun to play him. We both decided to play something that isn't tier 1 (yet in the case of his deck), so we played rather relaxed.

0-1 (1-2)

Round 2: Maarten Bukkems with 2 land belcher

Game 1: I lose the roll. He mulls, and keeps on doing that until he is at 4 cards. He goes first and says go without doing anything. That sucks. I had the same situation when playing against Carl Devos in Mol and it's no fun at all. To make things worse for him, I cast a first turn sphere. He draws a card and does nothing. I play a second sphere in my second turn. He scoops.

Game 2: Again, he has to mull to 4 cards. I mull to 5 to make sure I can cast a sphere. He goes Mox, Mox, Land Grant for Tropical, plays the Tropical and casts another Land Grant for Bayou. I play a first turn Sphere (he sighs). In his turn, he plays Bayou and the Chromatic Sphere he topdecked. I play an assload of permanents including a Trinisphere and a Smokestack. He does nothing next turn and scoops the turn after when he has to start sacking permanents.

All in all, a very unfortunate round for him. Either way, I think belcher is a good matchup for me.

1-1 (3-2)

After this round, I check out Carl Devos. Don't know what he was playing either. TurboAcademy? I didn't watch long enough to figure out what he was doing, but it seems he was having fun with fastbond / horn of greed / future sight. I also checked the rest of the field and saw a lot of Tog,  4c Control and Tendrils combo (belcher and Draw7).

Round 3: Daniel Paardekoper playing 4c Control

Daniel played a long game against Tom vd Logt and had to play almost immediately against me afterwards.

Game 1: Daniel winds the roll but only plays an Island first turn. I mull to 5 and take a rather slow hand, but with first turn sphere. So I play Ancient Tomb and the Sphere and hope to stall him whilst I gain control. Unfortunately, he decides to waste my land and I don't draw another mana source the rest of the game. He keeps attacking me with Shaman (I hate to play against that thing!).

I give him a break so he can go to the toilet.

Game 2: I have a rather good hand and start with a Trinisphere and 2nd turn sphere. He asks me if I know how Trinisphere and sphere work together. Uhm, well would I be playing this deck at a tournament if I didn't? And I can read the text on the cards you know... I find him rather arrogant with this remark. Maybe he thought I didn't knew this because game 1 went so bad for me? Again, he is able to disrupt my mana base and cycle a Decree for 3 soldier tokens. I draw Karn, Karn, Trisk and Skullcap, all of which I'm unable to cast before I die.

1-2 (3-4)

He comments that I'm probably low on mana sources. But agrees that I have enough after checking my deck. I think the missing workshops are at work here (although if the City of Traitors or Ancient Tombs where workshops he would have wasted them too, and I wouldn't have drawn anything else either). I don't mind though. I'm just here having fun anyway.

Round 4: Rick Maes with unpowered keeper / control?

Before playing, we had some fun around the tables. A guy playing Draw7 died in Round 3 at table 12 because he didn't calculate the mana burn for 1 floating when using Necropotence. He thought he was still at 1 life... The table was nicknamed as the manaburn table.

Game 1: I go broken and he soon has to sack all his lands. He sees no way out and scoops while I'm beating down with Metalworker.

Game 2: I have a slow start. He is able to force / counter (no drains I guess) my first 3 threats. I recover a little with casting a Metalworker, a Skullcap and a CotV with 1 counter. He wishes EOT for Hurkyl’s whilst I have a Skullcap out so I fear the worst (whom is playing Hurkyl's nowedays?). He plays Hurkyl's in his turn instead of waiting for the Skullcap trigger in my end turn! So I just replay everything in my turn. (I tell him after we finished our round). He resolves a Morphling. He had to many permantents at that time, and my Tangle Wire doesn't hold him back while I'm looking for my Smokestack.

Game 3: I go rather broken and I'm able to play some good permanents between all his counters. I guess I'm lucky he didn't play drain. The tempo shift might have been too much for me (although he didn't have anything worthwhile in his hand at that time). I drop Trisk and start attacking. He wishes for Rack and Ruin, but I'm able to drop a Chalice with 3 counters before he can untap and cast it. I drop Jester's Cap and activate it. I decide to take out his win conditions, which are 2 Morphling. I don't know if he has a third one in hand, so I'm not sure what to take as third card. In the end, I remove Oblivion Stone (although I had the Chalice at 3, there was nothing else I should have taken). There is no way out for him and Trike beats him to death.

2-2 (5-5)

Round 5: Romain Dheilly with 4c Tog

A French guy that came all the way from Paris to play here. I ask him if he knows Toad and why Toad didn't come with him. With this, we tried to settle which language to speak. We started in English, and I switched to French when I knew he was from France. So we chatted a while whilst shuffling. When we started game 1, he started talking English again. My French must be bad I guess.

Game 1: I lose the roll and keep a good hand with 3 Moxen, Trinisphere and Ancient Tomb. Unfortunately, he plays Volcanic, Mox, Mox, Shaman which makes my hand subpar. I simply don't recover and Shaman keeps beating.

Game 2: Somewhat better, although I mull to 5. It's way to hot for me, and my concentration drops somewhere below 0 at this point. I can't keep up with his tempo, and he has 2 monkeys in the game. He is able to drop the Tog. He attacks a few turns with Tog for 1 whilst I'm able to keep his other stuff tapped. I weld in Trisk (which he drained previously) just in time to block a what would be otherwise lethal tog. I shoot his monkeys and him in response. I have no artifacts in play and hope to topdeck a mox so I can at least weld Trisk back in. I do, but he counters jet so I can't weld. Tog swings for the win.

2-3 (5-7)

Afterwards, Bob who was watching asked my why we didn't speak French. Ah well.

Round 6: Bob the Builder playing BlackSui with MD hate

I didn’t keep notes for this game, but you might read Bobs report about this…

Game 1: I win the roll. Play a 1st turn Metalworker and then a sphere. I start the beating with the worker. He scoops when I cast Karn.

Game 2: I need to mulligan to 5 to get a pseudo decent hand. Testing showed I would get trouble with this game. Again, I get manascrewed and don’t do anything in this game.

Game 3: Again mull to 5. I play a first turn Trinisphere, but he's able to disrupt my mana base and I'm screwed.

2-4 (6-9)

Rudy asked me how I lost to BlackSui. Bob told Rudy it was a good build. Morefling told him there is no such thing as a good Suicide build.  :lol:. We'll I knew it was 50/50 with him anyway.

A good day. I had a lot of fun, and Bob was delighted with his position (he finished 11th). Too bad he didn't win anything though (booster till 10th place).

Props:
- Morefling for a very good and speedy tournament. not much time between rounds which is great.
- The shop for having the Munchkin expansions, and the stupid "Frank's Zoo" game. (My mouse eats your Elephant!)
- Bob for deciding to play 2 extra planar void main and having the guts to play BlackSui and finish 11th!

Slops:
- None, except for Bob telling the complete plot of Shrek2 on the way to Eindhoven, and playing Frank's Zoo on the way back. He did read every Munchkin card out loud though...