PucktheCat
My interests include blue decks, arguing, and beer.
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« on: February 19, 2006, 04:04:00 pm » |
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The theme of my last tournament report was my losing games due to play errors. The theme of this report, if it has one, will be my opponents playing terrible cards and losing because I chose to play somewhat less terrible cards. There are only like 2.5-3 actual matches worth talking about in this report, because my pairings were insane. No one should read this report because they want to find out how Gifts can do in a competitive field. In fact, I can’t think of many good reasons to read this report, but I have been asked by a couple of people to write one, so here it is.
Here’s what I played:
Another Gifts Deck
Blue (26):
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Mana Drain
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
Off-color (6):
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Burning Wish
1 Recoup
1 Gorilla Shaman
Artifacts (3):
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darksteel Colossus
Mana (25):
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Swamp
2 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
Sideboard:
Sorceries (4):
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind Twist
1 Pyroclasm
1 Rolling Earthquake
Other (11):
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rushing River
1 Blood Moon
1 Tormod’s Crypt
I decided to try Thirst in a tournament. What I realized that made me more favorably inclined towards it was that if my opponent isn’t hating out my artifact mana I should very rarely lose. Thirst is really good when you are discarding dead cards (Mox under Null Rod or Chalice=0) for good ones. Thirst ended up being fine, but the Scrying, Merchant Scroll, and Gifts I cut for them would probably have done fine too. This tournament didn’t really strain this deck’s resources.
I came very close to not going to this tournament, but the morning of I woke up early and decided it was worth a shot. I packed up my shit and made my way down to Ogre’s Cards (in the fucking freezing cold) to catch the rest of the St. Louis crew who were going. We drove a few hours uneventfully, and arrived at the shop early enough to grab some lunch. I know tournament reports are supposed to include a lot of hilarious anecdotes about people farting in the car and so on, but I don’t think much happened on the drive there.
When we got there is quickly became clear that the metagame would consist of completely random decks and very good tournament decks with very little in between. This is good for me, because something like Stax can lose to crap aggro, but Gifts is insane against decks that don’t disrupt it. Looking around, I decide to swap my Old Man in the sideboard for a second Rack and Ruin. It didn’t end up being relevant, but it was the right choice. The turnout ended up at twenty-seven players, which isn’t bad for a Pearl on two days notice. The owner did all right.
Round 1, Shawn (Sean?) with Elves
Game 1: Did you see what he is playing? What the fuck do you think happened? He read my Yawgmoth’s Will just to have something to do while I cast Time Walks and Tinkers.
+1 Pyroclasm
+1 Rolling Earthquake
+1 Darkblast
-3 Something (perhaps a Needle, Rebuild and something else)
Game 2: This time I just went with Tinker kill, no Yawg. Will. Come on, you didn’t really want to read about how to beat Elves, did you?
1-0 in matches, 2-0 in games, about 8 turns played.
My first awesome pairing of the day. Not my last. Because I won it something like 15 minutes, I can scout the whole field. There was 1 Oath deck, several CS, several Stax, and a whole lot of random. Just after this round ended, the judge clarified for everyone present that his earlier ruling on Null Rod had been incorrect, and that it does, in fact, stop moxen. Awesome.
Round 2, Alex with r/w/u Aggro
I get paired with one of the coveted 1-0 players who only won their first match because their deck was less terrible than their opponents.
Game 1: I think I Tinkered or something. He had Boros Recruits.
Sideboard same as Round 1.
Game 2: I kept a mediocre hand and before I know it I am down to four. Goblin Grenade is a big chunk of life. I have Gifts, Yawg. Will, and five mana though, so I win. Tendrils kill. I threw away a Mox Sapphire by playing it early when I knew he had Gorilla Shamans, which made this game closer than it should have been.
2-0 in matches, 4-0 in games.
Round 3, Tim with Control Slaver
Tim was the shop owner. He had put together a decent CS … without the Drains. He had Counterspells in their place. Still, his deck is at least dangerous, which the previous decks … … were not.
Game 1: Time keeps an one mana hand with Ancestral, but after I fight over his Ancestral and resolve my own he still doesn’t have another land. Once it becomes clear he is out of Forces I win as quickly as I can to put him out of his misery. He actually got out a Welder the turn before I killed him, but he never got another turn to get it active.
+2 Pyroblast
+1 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Darkblast
-1 Echoing Truth
-1 Swamp
-1 Lotus Petal
I don’t know if cutting Petal is correct, but since color is never a problem in Drain matchups it seems acceptable.
Game 2: This was a decent game. Tim was a little mana shy again, missing a land drop, but he had artifact mana so he was definitely in it. I had Thirst but no artifact and Brainstorm but no fetch. I get a fetch fairly quickly though, and Brainstorm up an artifact to power my Thirst. The Thirst sets me up to Merch. Scroll for Ancestral and I stay ahead all game. Once again he has Welder the turn before I go off, but never gets a turn to get it active.
3-0 in matches, 6-0 in games.
Round 3, Greg with U/R Stax
At this point I can draw in, but I get paired down with a 2-0-1, so I have to play. This works out well for me in the end because of how the top 8 pairings came out.
Game 1: I build a solid mana base with basic lands and a mox or two. He gets out a Welder that is annoying but not too dangerous (yet). I have a Shaman that keeps away Chalices and makes his Welder work harder to do his job. He drops a Smokestack, though and things get a bit dicier. I drain his Fact or Fiction into my own Fact or Fiction. He Welds a second Stack into play and ramps them both so I am set to sac 3. I decide I have to slow down the Stacks and either answer the Welder or win. EOT I Echoing Truth the Stack with 2 counters and he Welds it for something. My turn I Gifts for Pithing Needle, Black Lotus, Yawgmoth’s Will, Recoup. He gives me Lotus and Recoup. Next turn he ramps Smokestack and passes the turn. On my upkeep he Welds out Lotus for Pearl, but he can’t get me below the 5 mana I need to Recoup and Yawg. Will, so I Tendrils him out.
I have no idea what to sideboard against this deck.. This is a Stax deck with a full set of Welders and a lot of blue spells. I could make a case for every card in the damn sideboard except Tendrils, Pyroclasm, and Rolling Earthquake. I think I ended up with just the Rack and Ruins, the Hurkyl’s Recall and the Darkblast.
Game 2: I don’t recall the sequence of the early game, but I ended up Tutoring for Lotus to make enough black mana to Darkblast his Welder and resolve a small Yawgmoth’s Will that got me an Ancestral and a Tinker. He REBed the Tinker but I had seen enough cards off the Will to find Force. I made a mistake by not Vamping for Walk before I Ancestraled, but it shouldn’t have mattered because I didn’t have the mana to play it anyway. He played another Welder next turn and had a red mana open with one card in hand. At this point I have a choice. If the Welder becomes active I lose my DSC, leaving me in a fairly weak position. He is playing red blasts, so Time Walk is vulnerable and I can’t protect it. Dredging Darkblast is probably safer, but it gives him one more turn to topdeck. I would probably have dredged the Darkblast, milling away my Time Walk, but Greg said something that made it clear that if I had the Walk he lost, so I just flipped the top card of my library. If that had been a bluff it would have been the best bluff ever, but it wasn’t.
4-0 in matches, 8-0 in games.
Round 4, Jim Erlinger (sp?) (Flux) Control Slaver
Jim is one of the Ogre crew and drove up with me, so we are happy to be able to draw into the top 8 as the first and second seed. Jim has managed to trick a very nice looking young woman (any other way I put it would border on pornographic) he knows who lives nearby to spend the afternoon watching him play Magic. Several of us who drew spend the round teaching her to play with foreign T1 cards. Not an easy task.
4-0-1 in matches, 8-0 in games.
Of the five of us that drove up from St. Louis four make top 8; Flux, Vroman, Kevin Brewer (unknownroot), and myself. The other four were JDizzle, Eric Bekker (sp?) (kobefan), Jesus Roxas (sp?) (Reb) and a local. The pairings were as follows.
Leo Human (me) with Gifts v. Jesus Roxas with CS
Kevin Brewer with 5cStax v. JDizzle with UbaStax
Eric with TPS v. local with lose to TPS.dec
Jim with CS v. Vroman with UbaStax
Top 8, Jesus with CS
Control Slaver should be a fairly good matchup for me. A fast Mindslaver is very bad but I have a number of ways to prevent that from happening.
Game 1: Jesus leads with Mox, Mox, Island and Thirsts on my first EOT. I could have Forced but it didn’t seem worth it. Jesus is forced to discard a land and a Vamp. Tutor, so I’m glad I didn’t Force. Second turn I decide to go for Gifts on his upkeep but before I can do so he decides to Ancestral In response to a Fetch. I Drain the Ancestral and Force his Force. Jesus has a Tinker next turn that I have no answer for, but he only had 3 mana available (a Vault) so he has to pass the turn with Slaver on the table I have Gifts Ungiven and Yawg. Will in hand, so I have options, but my graveyard is pretty weak. I go with Gifts for Pithing Needle, Black Lotus, Time Walk, Ancestral. Jesus give me Time Walk and Lotus. I Time Walk, Yawg. Will, Ancestral, Time Walk, Pithing Needle the Mindslaver. Next turn I tutor for Fact or Fiction and play it (I have DSC in hand, so I can’t just get Tinker and win). The Fact gets me a Thirst which I cast on my final Walk turn to get rid of the DSC and build my hand. I pass the turn in a good position but not a lock. My card draw has been pretty poor, so my only gas is a Merchant Scroll, with very few targets. I have a full hand though, and Jesus is feeling time pressured, so he scoops and we head to game 2.
+2 Pyroblast
+1 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Darkblast
+1 Tormod’s Crypt?
-1 Echoing Truth
-1 Swamp
-1 Lotus Petal
-1 Mystical Tutor
-1 Vampiric Tutor
Game 2: Jesus leads with Library. I Ancestral during his upkeep and he has to let it through or lose the Library advantage. Next upkeep I think I Thirst. He Forces and I Drain the Force. At this point my board is very developed and Jesus realizes he has to start playing cards or he will just be overwhelmed. He tries for a Shaman which, after some thought, I decide I have to Drain. He then Drops Lotus and Demonic Tutors. Unfortunately for him his yard is very weak and he only has exactly 4 mana available. Yawg. Will would have gotten him back Shaman, Lotus, and Demoic Tutor, but left him with no mana untapped and nothing in hand except what he Tutored for. That still might have been better than what he did though. He Tinkered with one mana in his pool. I think for a long time, but I can’t think of any artifacts that I care about with an activation cost of one so I let it through rather than force away my only business spell (a Merchant Scroll, with six Drain mana due next turn remember). He get Platinum Angel, which I don’t fear at all. Next turn I have a ton of mana coming, and my plan is simply to Merch. Scroll to Gifts to Yawg. Will for the win. Instead I just draw Yawg. Will off the top and Gifts for Rebuild and some other stuff to win. Jesus is a friend of Eric, who was victimized by an equally savage topdeck in the T4 of the Ogre’s Cards Pearl tourney a couple weeks ago, so I can only imagine that they have a lot of nice thoughts about me.
10-0 in games.
Flux has beaten Vroman and Eric quickly disposed of the local, so they are already playing by the time my match finishes. I go to watch Justin beat Kevin.
Top 4, Justin with UbaStax
Anyone who knows me knows that I am probably the more obsessed with this matchup than anyone. It probably qualifies as idiosyncratic at best to choose a deck that has a weak matchup against the top deck in my meta and then try to make a build that beats it, but it isn’t the worst choice in the world. If you can beat UbaStax 50/50 and your matchups against the rest of the field are decent you aren’t really any worse off than if you just gave in and played Uba. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
Game 1: This game I kept a hand with Sol Ring, Volcanic Island, Tinker, Brainstorm, Force of Will, Mana Drain, Echoing Truth. I am not sure that is correct, but as discussed in the announcement thread, I thought that Justin was unlikely to strip my first land when he was on the draw. I made an error by not Brainstorming on my first main phase, but I do so in response to his Chalice for one. That Chalice almost screwed me because I had a Sol Ring as my second mana source and I ‘stormed into no more lands, but I find a Mana Crypt instead, which is good enough to power out Tinker and get me an easy win.
+2 Rack and Ruin
+1 Hurkyl’s Recall
+1 Darkblast
+1 Pithing Needle
-1 Mox Pearl
-1 Mox Emerald
-1 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Echoing Truth
Mind Twist doesn’t fit in the plan with the extra Rack and Ruin, especially since Uba has dropped the annoying Pyroblasts.
Game 2: This game Justin lead with a Sphere of Resistance. I let it resolve because I had Mana Crypt in hand. Next turn I play the Crypt and pass. Justin plays another Sphere, which I let through also. Now I am sitting at three mana with a hand full of cheap spells and land and Justin is sitting at three mana with a deck full of huge artifacts. While he goes digging for mana with Bazaar I Brainstorm on his EOTs, etc to sculpt myself a winning hand. One of my Brainstorms finds me both my Rack and Ruins, and somewhere I also dig up Lotus. I pay two for the lotus (leaving two lands untapped to Force if necessary), but I hold off on Rack and Ruining because the Spheres seem to be screwing Justin up. When Justin finally plays the last card in his hand and it is a Crucible with no Strip Mine in sight I know I have won. EOT I blow up the Spheres. On my turn I tutor for Yawg. Will and play Mana Vault with Gifts ready to go. I have Rack and Ruin and double Force in hand and Justin has one draw step to find an answer. He does manage to dig up the Strip Mine, but it isn’t enough, as I have Gifts for everything I need and Will next turn.
12-0 in games.
Eric beat Jim in the other T4 match, so we are the final two. Eric really want to get some revenge on me for the savage 4-0 drubbing I gave him in St. Louis, but economic interests and a desire to get home prevail. The store owner buys the Pearl from us for $275 and we split it down the middle. We each get 9 packs as well, which I trade away on the ride home for the Thirsts that I had borrowed, Gas money, and some other stuff, including a Smokestack. I am now 3 Smokestack, 4 Mishra’s Workshop, 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, a full set of moxen/Lotus, and around 20 other rares away from building UbaStax.
I really enjoyed this tournament, in spite of the issues with judging and the weak prize support I really just enjoyed my day. Since I can’t justify traveling overnight for tournaments (to myself) I really liked just getting together with a group of 8-10 good players and watching some good Magic. I am looking forward to the Ogre’s Cards power series for the same reason. I can't really say that my results tell you anything other than that I can beat UbaStax against a good player who isn't very experienced with the deck, at least when I draw well. I probably won my 12 games in under 70 total turns, so there wasn't much of a test of any part of the deck other than Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker and a few counterspells.
Props:
-The pairing system, whatever it was, that resulted in my not getting paired with any list that had a chance of beating me until top 8.
-Kevin Brewer, for loaning me three Drains.
-Jim for driving 2.5 hours, playing a shitload of Magic, and driving 2.5 hours back, all without driving us off the road.
-Everyone there who knew that Null Rod stops artifact mana.
Slops:
-Pairing by hand. No big blunders, but I did get accidentally paired with an 0-1 first round. Luckily, we caught the mistake quickly. Yes, I can give both props and slops to the pairing system.
-Terrible rules lawyers. I overheard someone trying to get his opponent a game loss for saying that he tapped Tolarian Academy for “a lot of mana” to activate Karn. Sloppy play is bad, but you are worse.
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