[Report] Lotus tournament finals @ CYOA in ME

[Meddling Mike]

The following is, as the title states, a play by play recounting of the Finals of the Maine lotus tourney with Rich Shay (The Atog Lord) playing control slaver v. Nataz playing U/R Fish. I began taking better notes as the match progressed, so the coverage of games 2 and 3 are better than that of game 1. I also sat on TAL's side of the table, so I only wrote down his opening hand. I hope you find this informative.

Game 1
Rich Draws into a hand of:

Welder
Lotus
2xUnderground Sea
Duress
Time Walk
Brainstorm

and decides to keep. Nataz won the roll and kept his hand and played first.

Nataz drops strand and immediately pops it for a volcanic island then passes the turn.

Rich draws, plays Underground Sea, Lotus, then plays duress which is met by FoW ditching spiketail hatchling.

Nataz drops strand and immediately pops it for volcanic island then plays null rod, Rich pops lotus which he uses to drain Nataz's Null Rod. He uses the last blue mana floating to play brainstorm which brings him into FoW FoW Island.

Rich goes to his turn, plays Underground Sea then burns for two. Passes the turn.

Nataz does not play a land on his turn, just a grim lavamancer that meets FoW ditching a timewalk.

Rich plays a basic island and passes the turn.

Nataz plays Kai and passes the turn.

At this point my notes become a bit fuzzy. What occurs is nataz dropping a standstill, Rich working him up to seven cards and popping it with an EOT FoF which gets dazed by nataz. Shortly afterwards another large stack occurs which involves both players playing their ancestral recalls. When the dust settles Rich has played out a ruby and a goblin welder.

My notes got a bit cleaner at this point.

Rich plays out a mindslaver which resolves, then rich plays out a crypt, taps his last island and the crypt to tinker sacking the crypt in order to get a pentavus. Suddenly things are looking up for the atog.

Nataz during his turn plays a sapphire, land, then drops null rod to spoil the fun. Rich forces the rod, but Kai punches it through to make the atog frown.

Rich swings with a pentavus to the dome, made into a mere 5/5 by null rod.

Nataz resolves grim lavamancer on his turn with TAL running low on life from cloud of faeries and kai hitting in for damage, two lavamancer hits will end game 1 with a curiosity for good measure.

Game 2

Rich plays first but mulligans the initial opening hand and keeps this:
Mana Crypt
Volcanic
Brainstorm
2xFoW
Mox Ruby

Nataz mulligans once as well and we're off to the races.

Turn 1 Rich drops ruby, volcanic and passes the turn.

Nataz drops volcanic followed by a gorilla shaman. Rich forces ditching drain, nataz forces back ditching curiosity. It's in there.

Rich drops crypt on his turn in order to cast FoF which resolves and ends up with these piles.
Pile 1
Tinker

Pile 2
2xVolcanic
Mindslaver
FTK

Rich chooses pile number 2 and passes the turn after dropping a volcanic.

Nataz drops factory and decides to deal with crypt and ruby immediately. He swings in with the shaman then passes the turn.

Rich plays volcanic and passes the turn.

Nataz plays fetch land for volcanic and then proceeds to drop Null Rod and Grim Lavamancer.

Rich plays a fetch land then drops FTK which hits the lavamancer.

Nataz plays a spiketail hatchling on his turn  then sends in the factory to trade with FTK, then passes the turn.

Rich casts a main phase brainstorm, plays library, then casts Fire/Ice to kill the monkey and the hatchling.

Nataz drops a spiketail hatchling and passes the turn.

This is proceeded by 4 turns of draw go on both sides with Nataz chipping into Rich's life total each time. A wasteland takes care of the library problem, that's pretty much the highlight here. Rich is at 12 when Nataz attempts to drop a lavamancer which gets drained.

During Rich's turn, he plays TFK using the drain mana and ditching a slaver to the yard, then plays a land and passes.

Nataz attempts a second grim lavamancer which gets drained as well. Then swings through, Rich is at 10.

Rich casts brainstorm followed by demonic tutor in order to get yawgmoth's will. Rich then passes the turn.

Nataz drops wasteland which hits volcanic, rich taps for a blue in response and brainstorms. Nataz swings bringing Rich to 9 then passes the turn. EOT Rich casts TFK which resolves and ditches mox emerald.

Rich casts a main phase TFK ditching darksteel citadel, followed by goblin welder and an island. EOT Nataz fires hitting the goblin and Rich bringing him to 7 life.

Nataz plays a main phase ancestral recall, a fetch land, fetches, plays gorilla shaman and a spiketail hatchling. Then swings in to bring Rich to 6.

Rich casts FTK targeting the mox monkey followed by a Fire/Ice targeting both spiketails leaving one mana untapped. Nataz sacrifices both spiketails in order to tap rich's untapped land and exclaims "the day is mine"

Nataz has an uneventful turn and passes.

Rich decides to go aggro and FTK comes in for the beats, bringing Nataz to a somewhat less robust 13. Rich follows up with the Yawgmoth's will he's been setting up for some time. This is followed by a ruby and crypt being played, then brainstorm, then tinker for pentavus, land, welder. Rich then passes the turn.

Nataz plays a somewhat less impressive faerie conclave then frowns big as he passes the turn.

Rich plays land and makes the big swing to bring nataz to 3...ouch.

Nataz plays a library of alexandria, a curiosity goes on an activated conclave and swings in to bring Rich to 4.

Apparently what he drew wasn't good enough and Rich swings in for the win the next turn.

Game 3

Nataz chooses to play first, both players tinker with their sideboards just a bit more and we're ready for game 3 to decide who gets a lotus.

Rich mulligans and decides to keep a hand with:
3xBrainstorm
TFK
Crypt
Fetch Land

Nataz gets off with a really strong start dropping fetch land for volcanic then playing gorilla shaman.

Rich plays underground sea and passes.

Nataz plays wasteland to hit the underground, which is tapped for U in response to brainstorm. Nataz makes the gorilla curious and swings in for 1.

Rich plays a fetch land then passes the turn.

Nataz plays a wasteland, then comes in with the curious george. TAL pops fetch and REB's the curiosity and he reverts back to being a mere gorilla shaman bringing TAL to 17 life. He follows that up with a null rod and the world becomes a very unhappy place for artifacts.

Rich drops a fetch land and passes the turn.

Nataz drops factory, attempt to recurious his shaman which provokes TAL to fetch a land and Fire/Ice to his the monkey and nataz. Nataz wastes a volcanic and passes the turn.

Rich plays island and passes the turn.

Nataz drops Spiketail Hatchling and Rich Brainstorm's at EOT.

Rich casts a main phase brainstorm followed by a welder that gets FoW'd ditching curiosity. Rich plays a land and passes the turn.

Nataz drops the factory and swings in to bring Rich to 13 life.

Rich casts an TFK ditching darksteel citadel. then passes the turn.

Nataz plays another factory and swings in to bring rich to 9 using the factory to pump up the other factory then passes the turn.

Rich taps out to play an FTK, Nataz makes the mistake of asking for targets indicating that it has resolved and the coming in to play ability is on the stack rather than simply sacking the hatchling to counter the spell.

Nataz plays cloud then swings in with his factory which trades with the FTK despite being pumped to a 3/3.

Rich has an uneventful turn.

Nataz attempts to drop standstill which gets forced.

Rich casts a main phase TFK ditching mox emerald.

Nataz drops a land and swings, Rich is at 5

Rich has an uneventful turn.

Nataz swings in to bring Rich down to 2 life. EOT Rich casts a FoF which resolves making these piles.
Taken Pile
FTK
Land

Ditched Pile
Fire/Ice
Brainstorm
TFK

Rich plays land, then drops FTK hitting the cloud of faeries.

Nataz fetches then drops Voidmage Prodigy. EOT Rich casts echoing truth hitting the null rod making the world safe for artifacts again.

Rich drops land, mox ruby, sol ring, Mindslaver, then activates the mindslaver, after this he passes the turn.

Rich inherits the hand of 2x Null Rod, Kai, spiketail and a mox sapphire. Rich plays out the spiketail and then sacrifices the kai on the table to counter and passes the turn back to himself.

Rich says draw go

Nataz drops voidmage which gets drained, followed by null rod.

Rich has no spells on which to spend the colorless mana and dies to the mana burn.

Rich walked away with a berzerk and took pride in knowing that all four of the control slaver decks present made it into t8. It appears that control slaver really shines in highly powered metagames, only very few budget decks were actually present due to the unlimited proxies allowed.

[Smmenen]

Good job to both players.  Fish is such an amazing deck I'm not surprised it did so well in unlim. proxy event.  How many players showed?

[The Atog Lord]

31 players showed up.

Props to the TO for giving out a Lotus, even though the required 40 people didn't show. I won a Berserk for second, and a Drop of Honey for being the highest-finishing player without using those dirty proxies.

Props to Mike for taking the above notes, and doing the driving.

[nataz]

I think I'm in love with my new lotus

Honestly there is so much to say, I'm just gonna cover it in my own report.

However I would like to say that Mr. Shay, and all of my top 8 opponents were great sports. After 12 hours of magic, and some very tough games, the atmosphere was a little tense at times, and I am really surprised that I had so much fun in the final games. Its hard to remember a time I have laughed and joked so much with this much money on the line, and I think that is a testament to the personalities of everyone there. All of the final games could have been really crummy times, but not with these guys sitting across from me.

Thanks for the great time, and thanks for showing up.

-carter

[wuaffiliate]

nice coverage .

god i love fish.

[Mixing Mike]

It appears that control slaver really shines in highly powered metagames, only very few budget decks were actually present due to the unlimited proxies allowed.

Yes, Control Slavers hardest matchups are aggro decks.  Too bad Rich took out Plat Angel.  THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!!

But otherwise, great coverage, and congrats to both Rich and Nataz, espically the latter.

[Meddling Mike]

Too bad Rich took out Plat Angel. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!!

This is an interesting point that made itself apparent to myself later in the match. Typically in the control matchups cutting platinum angel is the norm, but maybe fish should be the exception, platinum angel gets around the hate of null rod quite nicely and even gay/r has a difficult time in dealing with it if you can keep him from getting two lavamancers online. It's really a difficult choice because fish bears some aggro elements (platinum angel's expertise) and also some control elements (pentavus' time to shine). I know that had I/Rich kept plat in the main deck things could have ended very differently.

[Mixing Mike]

Platinum Angel is what let's you beat Fish most of the time.  As you said, the only way they can deal with it is 2 active Lavamancers, outside of sideboarded artifact hate.

If I can Tinker for an artifact, I always choose Platinum Angel over Pentavus/Slavers/Jar/whatever when I'm playing vs. Fish.

[Covetous]

It was very interesting...game 1 of the finals, when Kai was in play and UU was available to carter (nataz), both players took it to be a play mistake when the tinker resolved (i.e. carter forgot to use Kai).  Ironically, it was Kai who allowed the null rod to be forced through the next turn, preventing a game-winning slaver activation.  However, if there had been a main-deck colossus or platinum angel, game 1 would have ended differently due to the tinker.  

Congrats to carter--enjoy the lotus.  I was disappointed that more people didn't show up, but I'm glad I was able to give away a lotus without losing money on the deal.