TPoath wins Abyss

[BigMac]

I went to another Eindhoven tournament. As there were only 21 players we were playing 5 rounds of swiss into top 8 for an abyss instead of the library we would have played for with enough people. I played my usual TPoath with some last minute changes.

1 Black Lotus                
1 Lotus Petal               
1 Mana Crypt               
1 Mana Vault               
1 Mox Emerald            
1 Mox Jet               
1 Mox Pearl               
1 Mox Ruby               
1 Mox Sapphire            
1 Sol Ring               
4 Dark Ritual               
1 Demonic Tutor            
4 Duress               
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Frantic Search
4 Force of Will
1 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
3 Dark Confidant
2 Sensei’s divining top
2 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Wheel of Fortune
2 Tendo Ice Bridge

Sideboard:
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Blazing Archon
2 Forbidden Orchard
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Woodripper
4 Oath of Druids
1 Sundering Titan
1 Rushing River
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Tinker
1 Gaea's Blessing

After reading about the deck Koen (Thug) had played i decided to give Dark Confidant a try together with sensei's divining top. I also replaced my underground river and llanowar wastes with Tendo Ice bridge. The five slots i got with putting colossus and tinker into the side as well as gaea's blessing. From the side i removed my sacred ground.

Round 1 Joram (oath)
Nice guy i have played against more. He opens with a fetch and a brainstorm while get gets a tropical island. I suspect him to play oath and have 1 of my 2 orchards in hand and draw the second turn 2 or 3. He has to crop out his orchard while he strips my first orchard. Still he has more tokens than me and i get out second orchard. I got out necro and that was gg.
Game two i get out my necro again after having looked for it with my vampiric. I kept a manaheavy hand (lotus, ritual and lands together with vampiric) my first draw was will and after my necro he never recouvered.
2-0 1 0 0

Round 2 Steven (do not remember what he played, i think oath or control)
Looking at the damagepoints i start out with an early city of brass and some jewelry. I get to kill him soon after with a huge tendrils.
The second game i either got to orchards first (when  he was playing oath or i got to my oathplan fast after an early necro) I win as i get Blazing Archon to go the distance.
2-0 1 0 0

Round 3 Pim (oath)
I win the roll and have a strong start. Ritual confidant sensei. He has no real gas and i get to beat on him some but never find anything usefull after getting a lot of cards. I remember at one point thinking to build one more turn and having a lot of jewelry as well as 2 sensei on the table. He then playes nul rod and that seals it. As i never see a second land i was dead from then on as he found an oath and my confidant made sure he could get his akroma.
Game two i win easy as he has no gas and i get to a fast tendrils of deadly proportion.
Game 3 i have a subpar hand but decide to keep. He starts of with mox orchard oath. I never recouvered although i tried to get in a deadly tendrils but forgot to FoW his brainstorm for some extra storm. Akroma went all the way.
1-2  2 0 1

Round 4 Gwen (drainslaver)
Gwen is a nice guy. He made a big deal out of some bad play/judgement of an opponent the round before this one. He was right in my oppinion but as this is a small tournament i wondered why he made such a big deal out of it. But we always have nice games.
I win the roll. I never really get on a roll while he gets an active welder. I try stalling a bit and i try to get cardadvantage of a confidant. He then resolves a second welder and a intuition. That pretty much seals the deal as he gets a trike, stripmine (crucible in yard with moxen on table) and pentavus. I do something i normally never do, i scoop. When i look at my next card it was my hurkyl's recall and that could have given me that game, but i scooped so i lost that one.
Game two i get in an early oath and win with Akroma.
Game three i get a turn 1 necro. After that i get to play a huge tendrils but he has a stifle. As i have will in hand and played a time walk during the tendrils turn i get another turn and will seals the deal.
2-1 3 0 1

Round 5 Michel (unpowered workshop beatdown)
We ID as we are both top 8 that way. As this is a good friend of mine and he has no power or anything he borrowed a deck from me. As this is his first tournament ever he did well to reach top 8. We go into the last round as numbers 4 and 5 and we hope not to play eachother in the quarterfinal.

Quarterfinal Michel (unpowered workshop beatdown)
Well, off course we had to play eachother. We up front agreed as he is playing my deck he would withdraw when we had to play eachother for a result but decided to play anyways. He could do with the experience and we played the week before several games. As iknow his deck is difficult when he gets going, i know how win against it. He has no real gas and i can get a necro down which seals the deal early game one.
Game two he has some gas as he starts with chalice 1 and after that sphere of resistance. I have oath in hand but no orchard. I decide to still go land mox petal. I play oath turn 2 of my second land and wait for orchard to arrive. He keeps stalling as he keeps dropping spheres and other stuff. I finally get orchard and get akroma and woodripper out. He manages to duplicant my akroma but woodripper ends it all. That killed his platinum and his only out from there.
2-0

Semifinal Rudy (gifts)
As Rudy is my teammate we know eachother and eachothers decks well. I think he keeps a subpar hand but he has early tinker, i manage to FoW though and from then on i seem in a better position. I manage to get bargain out but then make the mistake of not countering (digging for counter with bargain) burning wish. He wishes for cranial extraction and rips my deck of my 2 tendrils. I now only can win through my confidants. So i dig for 1 and play it. Having brainstorm in hand i am n no danger yet. he then plays recoup for cranial. I dig for a FoW and get it when i go to 2. So i FoW the recoup and go to 1. After that i hae will in hand, get FoW with mystical, keep drawing two cards of of 2 confidants, have 3 brainstorms in hand and with will can play lots more and the 2 confidants go the distance with me on 1. The fire/ice he looks for i get to duress and i can play a FoW for whatever he may find.
game two is short. My hand is not very good but manageble untill he goes turn 2 tinker colossus with FoW backup.
game three i start with orchard oath with FoW backup. He brainstorms and my first critter is sundering titan destroying his manabase. he knows the next two cards are not mana and scoops as he could never win from then on.
2-0

Final Pim (oath)
As i lost during swiss to him i am unsure if i can win or not. But i think i made a mistake game 1 against him so i have good hopes. I can start and i play orchard duress. As i have bargain and ritual in hand together with vampiric i have a pretty good hand. I managed to make his oath pretty useless with my orchard and he only has orchard plus something else not really good. I must say he needed to mull to 5 in this game. After upkeep finding lotus with vampiric i played bargain and won from there on.
Getting rid of confidant and sensei i boarded in 2 critters, 2 orchards and my blessing. I manage to get necro on the board. with an orchard rendering his oathplan pretty useles. I manage to give him one more token before he strips my orchard and plays his own. I cannot use the oath if he plays it as i got both critters in hand. Not wanting to discard (remove due to necro) them both i decide to brainstorm akroma and blessing (which was also in my hand) back on top. (first blessing then akroma) He plays his oath and tries to bounce his tokens giving me a token in the process. As i have a FoW in hand i counter the bounce. I get to oath akroma in and graveyard gets shuffled. Then akroma goes the distance and i have won.
2-0

Props
my deck again for working so well with me.
tendo ice bridge turned out to be very good replacements. You mostly need to use them only once for their colour and the colourless mana is still good to cast all sorts of things.
slops
the confidants didn't work well for me except when going beatdown against Rudy. Perhaps i need some more testing with them but i am unsure if it made my deck better. they are still huge bombs and could virtually give you games. it didn't happen for me though, not in the way of drawing engine.
the low turnout

[Gabethebabe]

I´m currently also looking into building a deck with Confidants and I´m happy to see a deck like that do well.

It is kinda logical that Confidants are BAD vs Oath, but against shops and drains they *should* be awesome.

I would not quickly cut Tinker/Jar, because they´re just too good, even without Colossus. Couldn´t you drop Frantic Search and a Duress for them? (since you now have 3 new card draw engines i.e. more bombs, you can cut a Duress I think).

[cophos]

Congratz! Combo doing well's always a pleasure to see.

[BigMac]

As i recall i answered that the tokens can hurt you considerably more than the painlands. It also throws of your opponent about your sideboardplan. The tendo ice bridge are good as you generally only need to use the coloured mana once. It does no damage and will generate just the mana you need without having to worry about points of damage. This means 1 or perhaps 2 cards more of your necro or bargain. That card can mean all the difference with this deck.

The reason i cut tinker memory jar is because when i play tinker, i play it together with either colossus or sundering titan. Sure it is good, but as the deck is right now i rarely see a dead card. When you would draw colossus or jar, it mostly sits dead in your hand. I do not have to many shuffle effects, so brainstorm is not as strong as in a build with fetchlands for example. So pretty much all you draw must do something. And as i see it, with the draw spells i have right now i do not really need anything else anymore. So jar was the first draw i cut.

Duress may seem week but it has proven time and again it is a good starting card for a bomb or it can easily be cast to up stormcount. It is not as much for the protection of bombs as it is to being able to tell what your opponent is playing and adapting your tactics on that.

As for frantic search, it just is good because you get to untap land, you can pitch it to FoW, and you can dig deeper without helping your opponent to cards. Digging in this deck is very good as again you do not have that many shuffle effects. Playing this one and after this one a brainstorm and ou will have seen 5 cards of which at least one will have been a bomb to go off. Do it at end of turn of your opponent and you are in business. With academy this card really is the nuts. Last but not lease, you could generate two black mana with it when you need them at the end for your tendrils. It seems weak, but it is a very good card when playing it in this deck.

[sa17dk]

What were your reasons for using Blazing Archon?

[BigMac]

He is very usefull when playing against aggro. You would only need put in 2 creatures. Akroma and Archon. If you get Akroma first oath you dmg. If you get Archon first time you need not worry anymore about your orchard tokens. And he is still a good beatstick at 5/6. No haste but you do not need haste. It also prevents platinum beatdowns and colossus beatdowns. This will pretty much give you the time you need to get your tendrils plan working again as i always leave in one tendrils, just in case i get a very good combo hand. Your opponet, mostly counting on colossus going for the kill will need all his resources to get rid of the archon within 4 turns while i can beat on him and finish him with a relative small tendrils or let archon go all the way.

It has proven to be very usefull.

So two reasons. Good enough beatstick. Giving you time against aggro to get tendrils kill online or find something to get rid of Platinum angel.