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TD
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« on: August 01, 2006, 09:37:38 pm » |
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I would just like to apologize ahead of time because I had no intention of writing a tournament report and because of this the first five rounds of swiss are a blur.
A week before the tournament my team and I had plans to bring six members to the tournament.
Team 0-2 Drop
Seth Levy (whether you like it or not!)
Joe Davis
Jay Portizo
Bernie Parisi
Matt Parisi
ME! AJ Grasso
At the last minute Joe and Jay had to go judge a PTQ and could not make it. Now down to four members, we set off to the tournament Saturday morning. After driving for 30 minutes to get Seth, I realized I didn’t have my wallet (and thus my license) and had to go back. We are already off to a terrible start. Finally, after straightening out the directions and finding my wallet, we get there at exactly 2:00 PM. The tournament doesn’t start until almost 3:00 anyway and as we wait to enter I decide to register under the name of my buddy Jay so that if I do well he could get a round 1 bye at Waterbury. I already have a bye and can’t make it there, anyway.
The deck I played at Simon’s tournament is the deck I have been consistently playing for over a year now. At first glance it looks like a janky pile of cards that would likely not win a single round. Believe it or not I have had lots of success with this little pile and refuse to stop playing it due to the fact that I almost never miss a T8 with it.
Granted the deck has changed a lot since the original build according to the metagame and how the overall T1 environment has changed over time, but the overall concepts of the deck remain the same.
So without further ado, the deck I played on Saturday:
1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
MANA
4x Volcanic Island
2x Island
3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Mishra’s Factory
1x Faerie’s Conclave
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Mox Sapphire
CREATURES
3x Grim Lavamancer
2x Gorilla Shaman
3x Spiketail Hatchling
SPELLS
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Extract
3x Fire/Ice
3x Stifle
4x Standstill
3x Null Rod
2x Red Elemental Blast
1x Misdirection
1x Pyroblast
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
SIDEBOARD
3x Annul
3x Crucible of Worlds
3x Rack and Ruin
3x Pyrostatic Pillar
3x Goblin Bombardment
Round 1 vs. Steve R. with Control Slaver:
I was kind of annoyed here because there was dried-up maple syrup spilt on the table and I spent most of the match trying to play around it.
Game 1: I Extract him early and find Tinker. He plays a lot of draw spells (Ancestral and multiple Thirsts) never seeing any counter magic. He also plays a Goblin Welder. I drop a Null Rod shortly after and Fire takes care of the Welder. A few turns of Factory beats and that’s the game.
Game 2: I didn’t sideboard for this match because my maindeck is better against Control Slaver than my sideboard is. The only card I would have wanted to bring in was Annul and I couldn’t find a card that I’d rather have this than in my maindeck. Anyway, he plays an early Gorilla Shaman and eats my lone Mox. He followed it up with a Goblin Welder. I had a Factory to fend off the 1/1s. I managed to resolve a Null Rod, but it only got welded out for my Sapphire at my EOT. He then spent the rest of my end step tapping out for a Thirst pitching Slaver. On his turn, he dropped the fourth land he needed to activate the Slaver, welding it in for a Tormod’s Crypt. (I have no idea why this was still in against me. Lavamancer, maybe?) He taps out to activate the Slaver, only for me to Stifle the ability. I untap, rip Fire/Ice, killed his 2 1/1’s and swing in with Factory. On his turn, he does nothing of relevance. On my following turn, I rip a Null Rod and play it. I attack again. Shortly after, he concedes.
Record: 1-0
Round 2 vs. Harriet with R/W Goblins:
Game 1: I don’t really remember the details in game 1 other than getting my ass kicked very badly and very quickly.
Sideboarding: -3 REBs, +3 Crucibles
I needed the REBs out because they’re pretty terrible against her. The Crucibles came in because my manlands can trade with everything in her deck, plus she’s loaded with nonbasics.
Game 2: I’m on the play and I lead with a land and pass the turn. On her turn she plays her land and Mox Ruby. She taps the land to play a Lackey. I Recall in response. I get somewhat lucky and find Force. I Force the Lackey pitching something irrelevant. So, she obviously taps the Ruby to play another Lackey. On my turn, I draw my Sapphire. I play it along with a Wasteland. I use the Waste on her land. On her next turn, she attacks me with the Lackey. I can’t do anything about, and she makes a free Siege-Gang Commander. At this point, I promptly shit my pants. She misses her land drop and passes the turn. So, they don’t call me TD for nothing, as I topdeck a Fire/Ice. I play a Factory, and Fire the Lackey and a token. She takes her turn, swinging with the Commander and 2 tokens for 4 damage, and misses her land drop again. On my turn, I play a Gorilla Shaman and eat her only mana source. I now have Factory and Shaman up. She misses her land drop again, and can’t attack into my guys. A few turns pass by with her seeing no lands. I eventually play a Crucible to recur my Wasteland and Factory. On top of this, I’m holding multiple counters. After a few more turns, I win.
Game 3: I see her boarding a lot of cards and I have no idea what she’s bringing in or taking out. The game starts with her on the play. I don’t remember much of this game. She had some early beats which I defended off with Factory and Crucible. She Bolted me and played a Price of Progress. At this point I’m at 3 life. Fearing another Bolt, I attack very aggressively with my Factories. I guess she didn’t have the Bolt because the Factories took it home.
Record: 2-0
Round 3 vs. Bernie Parisi with Grim Long:
I got paired against a team member here and we just ID’ed. We played a few games for fun to kill some time before the next round.
Record 2-0-1
Round 4 vs. Kevin Folinus with IT:
Game 1: This game took most of the round to finish. All I really remember is him being at 1. He plays a Will and I have no answer in hand, but I do have 2 Stifles. He asks me to concede, but I refuse because of the Stifles. He plays a Duress and takes 1 of my Stifles. He makes a lot of matter with Ritual and Lotus. He uses his only available tutor (Demonic as he couldn’t play Vamp. or Grim) to fetch Tendrils. At this point, he’s still got 7 Black and 2 Blue mana floating. He Recalls himself trying to find an answer to my other Stifle. He finds a Brainstorm, and uses it. It yields him a Duress, which he plays and then kills me.
Sideboarding: -3 Grim Lavamancer, -1 Spiketail Hatchling, -1 Misdirection, -1 Gorilla Shaman, +3 Pyrostatic Pillar, +3 Annul
Game 2: All I really remember is a mini-Tendrils early on, along with a Bob from his end. Time is called before we finish and that gives him the match.
Record 2-1-1
Round 5 vs. Pete Magyar with Food Chain Goblins:
I sat down knowing my opponent was playing Goblins and that this was going to be a very tough match-up for me.
Game 1: He combos off fairly early with Food Chain and I can’t stop him.
Sideboarding: -3 REBs, -3 Extract, +3 Annul, +3 Crucible
Game 2: I open with a land and pass. He opens with a land and Lotus, which I annulled. I don’t remember much more of this game, except that he plays a Goblin Ringleader which yields him four lands. Eventually, he played a Root Maze. I get down a Crucible, with Wastes and Factories and he’s locked under his own Root Maze.
Game 3: He leads with a Ringleader off a Ruby and Crypt. Again he reveals 4 lands. How unlucky. I spend my turn Wasting his land. He plays another dual, and plays Recruiter. He attacks for 2 with Ringleader. I spend my turn wasting his land again, knowing he’s not drawing any for a while. He plays some more guys and puts a lot of pressure on me. I’m trying desperately to establish board position because of the 2 Wastes. Eventually, he has me on 9 and himself on 6 from his Crypt. He attacks and I block 2 Piledrivers with manlands. I drop to 5 life. I don’t do much on my turn. He loses his Crypt again and drops to 3. He taps Crypt and Ruby to play another Piledriver. He burns for 1 and drops to 2. I had the Fire to kill him before his guys could take me to 1.
Record: 3-1-1
Top 8:
I would just like to point out here that three out of the four members of 0-2 Drop that were there made the cut. For our local tournaments, these numbers are very common. Unfortunately, I had to play one of them in the quarters.
Quarterfinals vs. Bernie Parisi with Grim Long:
Game 1: He wins the die roll and opens with a land and Imperial Seal. I take my turn and play an Extract which is now twice as good since he had played Seal. I don’t remember what I took with Extract. (He plays B. Wish in addition to Tendrils, so taking Tendrils isn’t an auto-win here.) He draws for his turn and starts to combo off. I Force something in the middle and he can’t kill me. He concedes.
Sideboarding: -3 Grim Lavamancer, -3 Fire/Ice, +3 Annul, +3 Pyrostatic Pillar
Game 2: He’s on the play again and leads off with a Duress. I play a land on my turn and pass. On his turn he starts to combo out and shows me Will and asks for a concession. I don’t see the win, so I ask him to play it out. He fizzles. On my turn I play another land and pass again. He takes his turn and still has enough steam to get a Jar activation. He couldn’t kill me, but he resolved a Necro which drew him ten cards. On my third turn, I played my third land and played a Pyrostatic Pillar. On his next turn, he plays a mini-Tendrils under the Pyrostatic Pillar dealing me about 8 damage and he pretty much breaks even on life. On my next turn, I play another Pyrostatic Pillar which earns a concession from Bernie.
Semifinals vs. Michael H. with Gifts:
Game 1: He wins the die roll. He plays out some mana and passes. I take my first turn and play Extract. He lets it resolve. His deck has 4 Bobs, Titan over Colossus, and maindeck Tendrils in addition to Burning Wish. I take the Titan. A few turns pass, and he plays Will, killing me with Tendrils.
Sideboarding: -1 Daze, -1 Grim Lavamancer, -1 Standstill, +3 Pyrostatic Pillar
Game 2: I don’t remember a lot of this game. I remember playing a Standstill and us looking at each other under it for a while. Eventually, he breaks it and tries to go off. I have a handful of counters along with Stifle and he can’t kill me. He’s down to only a couple of cards, and after a few attack steps, I win.
Game 3: He opens with a Sapphire into Sol Ring and doesn’t play a land. I’m really afraid that he’s going to untap into Tinker, so I play my Extract. He Forces it, which further leads me to believe he has Tinker. I Force back. The Extract resolves. As I’m looking through his deck, and I see that the Tinker is in there, so I’m confused and wondering A) why’d he Force my Extract, and B) why didn’t he mulligan? After some more searching, I see that all of his counter magic is still in his library and further wonder why he kept. Eventually, I pull out his Rebuild so he can’t answer the Null Rod that I’m holding for my next turn. On his turn, he plays a land that he was holding out of fear of Wasteland and plays a main phase Gifts Ungiven. I don’t remember the four cards, but he ended up getting a Recall and a Fetch in his hand. On my turn, I play a Wasteland and tap my 2 lands to play my Null Rod. It resolves and I pass. He leads with the Recall on his turn, then plays the Fetch land. On my turn, I play a Factory, and Waste his land. After this point, he draws no lands and I draw a lot of counters. Eventually, Factory whittles his life total to zero.
Finals vs. Michael Schnier with Staxless Stax:
I offered Michael the split, but he declined it and said he wanted to play. At this point, my heart sank to my stomach because I knew it was a terrible match-up. Anyway, we rolled and started the match.
Game 1: Of course, he wins the dice roll, which gives him even more of an advantage against me than he already has. He starts the game off with Ruby to play Sensei’s Divining Top, then passes. I wasn’t entirely sure what made him keep a 7 with only that as his first turn play, but I knew I could take the game if I could draw into a Null Rod. On my first turn, I think I just played a land and passed. On his turn, he activated top on his upkeep, but still missed his land drop and passed. On my second turn, I believe I just played another land and passed. For his third turn, he upkeep tops again, and this time finds a land. He plays it, then uses it to Crop Rotation into a…. Bazaar of Baghdad?! I was incredibly confused as to why he’d turn one of his only two mana sources into a Bazaar. On my turn three I draw Null Rod and play it. He’s down to no mana sources and can’t use his top anymore. This looks good for me. He Bazaars, finds another land, and tries to play something, I think a Welder. I have Daze for it. The game goes on a little longer like this, with me Stifling some of his Bazaar draws to keep him from digging. Eventually, I beat in with dorks to kill him.
Sideboarding: Ridiculous! -3 Extract, -1 Misdirection, -3 REB, -2 Standstill, +3 Annul, +3 Crucible, +3 Rack and Ruin
He chooses to play. I ask him if he’s sure he wants to play and I explain that card advantage is very important in Vintage. He declines my advice and insists on playing. Oh well.
Game 2: He opens with Workshop, Jet, Vampiric (for a second Workshop, I find out later), and then Trinisphere. Uh-oh! Good thing I had the Force. I take my turn, play a land and pass. On his turn, he plays the Workshop he Vamped for. He taps both Shops for Trike. Uhm… Uh-oh, again! Good thing I had the Force… again. (God, I’m savage.) On my second turn, I miss my land drop. (I kept my opening of only one land due to the double Force.) For his next turn he plays Chalice on 2 and I don’t have anything I can do about it. I miss my land drop again and pass. For his fourth turn, he plays another Trike. It resolves. On my turn, I manage to draw into a fetch and play it. I pass because I can’t do anything with the Chalice out. He attacks with Trike, and I take 4. Second main, he hard casts Titan. I break my fetch in response (for an Island) and Annul the Titan. On my turn, I draw another land and pass back. He attacks for four again. Before damage on the stack, I Rack and Ruin the Trike and Chalice. He responds by shooting me for 3. During his second main phase, he plays Eon Hub. (Guess he thought I had E-Flux.) At this point, he’s in topdeck mode because I’ve answered all of his gas. I resolve a Crucible and drew into 3 Grim Lavamancers over the next few turns which go the distance while he draws nothing of relevance.
Overall, this was a great tournament. Simon always manages to make it a worthwhile prize structure. He has no overhead, and this really shows with what he always gives away. (In this case, a very nice unlimited Jet and a Bazaar.) I recommend that everyone who can make it come out to these tournaments. It’s always a great time, well run, and a lot of fun for everyone there.
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