[Report] Ninth in Flint with Ill Gotten Gains Tendrils Combo

[forests failed you]

So I attended the Flint Black Lotus / Time Walk tournament in Flint with my teamates from RIW Hobbies, and it was a howling good time.
I don't have a lot of experience with Legacy and this was actually my first event playing the format.   Phil, Paul and myself tested the format for about a week beforehand, and most of our data came from Paul, because he is the only one among us who has actually played the format before.

Our testing showed that Affinity was a very good deck and most of the RIW guys showed up playing it.  I threw together Iggy Pop the night before the tournament and showed up having only played about five games with the deck before the event started.  I was winging it for sure.

I took the top eight lists from GenCon and goldfished it a few times and quickly discovered that I thought Mystical Tutor was the nut low, and made most of my hands very susceptable to losing to Force of Will.  So I ended up cutting the Mysticals and a few of the other cards from the main deck to give myself a better draw and card quality engine with Deep Analysis and Careful Study.  Both of which in my opinion are the all time nut high in the deck.  I also found that having those two cards allowed me to play around Tormod's Crypt much better, via winning with an out of hand Tendrils of Agony.

The other major change I made was the inclusion of four Chrome Mox.  THIS CARD IS CLEARLY INSANE in this deck.  I couldn't understand why the other lists were not playing it.  However, I really haven't played the format much so there is probably a reason for why.  It just seems speeding mana up by a full turn is very strong indeed.

The other card that I didn't like was Leyline of the Void.  I definately wouldn't have played it maindeck if I had it to do over.  Most of the time when it was in my opening hand game one I wouldn't even put it into play because I'd rather have it to pitch to Study or imprint of a Mox or Brainstorm it back into my deck and shuffle.  The main Change I would have made to my maindeck if I could have built it over again would be to play 3 Force of Will and 2 Chain of Vapor maindeck, over the 4 leyline of the ovid an one of the ill gotten gains.

so here is my list.

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Deep Analysis
2 Mental Note

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chrome Mox

3 Defense Grid
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 BLoodstained Mire
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island

Sideboard

4 Hurkyls Recall
3 Force of Will
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
3 Massacure
1 Tendrils of Agony


ROUND ONE

Against Life.Dec

Game one:

The funny thing is that I played with exactly zero ways to remove a problematic permenent from play in my maindeck.  My thought was that I would just try to win as fast as possible in game one and that most decks wouldn't have a lot of hate in the main.  I set up a turn two kill on the draw, but on his turn two he plays a True Believer and I have to scoop.  Yikes!

Game Two:

He tries to life combo and to his surprise I Force of Will his Worthy Cause untap and cast a lethal Tendrils of Agony.

Game Three:  I once again stop him from comboing with Force of Will early, but am unable to set up my combo.  He ends up with lethal damage on the board, A meddling mage naming Tendrils, a Mage naming Massacure and a Tormod's Crypt on board.  I have a hand with like four Rituals, A Chain of Vapor,  a Chrome Mox, and two LEDs.  I Finally draw an Infernal Tutor on my last turn to live.  Play all of my rituals, cast all of my artifact, Chain all of my artifacts back to my hand, and then chain his mage on Tendrils back to his hand replay all of my arifacts, and play the infernal Tutor and kill him.

1-0

ROUND TWO  Josh Ludka playing Red Deck WIns

Game one:  I have a saucy hand that draws a bunch of cards and kills him the turn before he can Kill me.

Game two:  He has the sauce of dubs Pup, and Tangle Wire.  He ReBs a Deep from the bin...  Lightning Bolt Counterspell?  and Fireblasts me to death.

Game Three is a complete blowout.  I kill him on the first turn with the stone cold nuts.

2-0

Round three:

Goblins STeve Boggemes.

Game one:

I mull to five and lose to turn one lackey turn two gang bang commander.

Game two:

I again mull to five and lose to lackey and big doods.

2-1

Round four, Survival of the Fittest.

Game one:  He gets me good with turn two Pyrostatic Pillar.  I have a hand that looks at a bunch of cards but doesn't do anything and am unable to put anything together.

Game two:

He has turn one Tormod's Crypt, Turn two Pyrostatic Pillar and but no gas.  I manage to Short Tendrils him for 12 on turn three.  and then Tendrils him again for the one a turn later.

Game three:

I am amazed I pulled this game out.  ONce again turn one Crypt.  I sink in chair.  Turn two Chalice for one.  I sink in Chair and Force it with my only Brainstorm.  Turn three Pyrostatic Pillar.  I sink in chair.  He plays two Elves the next turn and drops to 16.  He attacks me for three turns and I draw the best possible cards available.  I careful Study and draw Dark Ritual Dark Ritual.  And then Brainstorm into an additional Cabal Ritual, Tendrils, Infernal Tutor.  So I Ritual, Ritual, Cabal Ritual, LED, Tendrils.  Then Cast Infernal Tutor, Sac LED and get a second Tendrils for Win.

3-1

Round 5  Kyle Cannon with Threshold.

This game is complicated but he makes muliple epic blunders.  Stifles a fetch land the turn I Tendrils him for lethal (using the stifle to generate lethal Storm.  Fails to respond to lethal Tendrils with Force of Will or Counterspell and dies for no good reason.  I can't even explain how I won because I was so fing dead.

Game two.  I IGG early, and get back a bunch of gas but draw pretty dead.  He assembles a board with a Meddling Mage on Tendrils.  On the last turn of the game he has Mage naming Tendrils, Threshed Nimble Mongoose, Tormod's Crypt, and three lands with no cards.  I have five land and seven card hand:  Chain of Vapor, 3 Dark Ritual, 3 Cabal Ritual.  He Draws and Casts Meddling Mage.  I let it in and pray he doesn't name either Tendrils or Chain of Vapor.  He names Echoing Truth.  Phil Cape is watching over my should as I draw my card for the turn.  I am at two life and facing lethal next turn.  It is Tendrils of Agony.  Phil and I laugh outloud.  "How Lucky?" he says.  "More like, about time." I reply.

4-1

I am third in the standings after round five but end up being paired down against a player who can't actually make top eight even if he wins.  I am expecting him to scoop me in, but he refuses.  Apparently, he needs to beat me so that one of his friends can draw in.  However, he doesn't tell me this and I just figure he is either a jerk or stupid.

Both games are ridiculous.  My opponent makes at least one misplay a turn, sideboards incorrectly against me, playing a Goblin Deck One game he went:  Turn three:  Pyrostatic Pillar, and then Goblin Lackey.  Nice Jorb.  I was annoyed to lose.

However, my deck is extremely unkind and served me up a grand total of:

0 Cabal Ritual
1 Lions Eye Diamond
1 Dark Ritual

In exactly two games and can't do much of anything.  The strange part is that both games the Goblin player has literally no offense at all, and I draw DI cards.  Going at least twenty five deep both games before he can attack me to dead with a pair of 2/2s in game one, and a turn three Goblin Lackey in game 2.  Oh well, strange draws happen.  I end up in ninth place after my opponent tells his friend that he beat me, and the stop playing out there match and ID mid round.  What a disaster!!

Anyways, it was a really fun event and my buddies took down the top eight with the Ravager lists that RIW tested during the week.  I was happy with my deck, for the most part... and only really lost games where I had very bad, or very srange draws.  Thanks to everybody for making the event  a lot  of fun and for being cool, et cetera.

Props

Phil and Jono for establishing RIW Rule over Michigan Legacy.
Paul Fishalo for loaning me Chain of Vapors.
Meeting Spencerforhire - who is definately one of my new favorite TMDrs
Cancerstix - nicest dood in Legacy
Force of Will - for being the best card in Legacy.
The dealer on hand for selling me Massacures for $.75 each.

Slops

Pair downs
Leyline of the Void
$125.oo bar tabs
True Believer
9th place finishes in back to back 50+ player events as a result of a last round pair down when I am x-1.

[Anusien]

It seems like you're really unhappy with the fundamental core of IGG; being able to go off with IGG and Intuition->Tendrils, Leylines, and the like.  Perhaps you'd like Veggies Tendrils better.
Congrats on the win.  Spencer Hayes (SpencerForHire) said you were ridiculously awesome in person, and that your team had all the insane techzors.  I hope you decide to stick around in Legacy.

[forests failed you]

Hey thanks!  I have nothing but great things to say about Spencer as well.

I do plan on playing more Legacy in the future.  In fact, I am trying to organize a monthly Legacy event (most likely for Power or Duals) with the owner of RIW Hobbies as we speak!

Cheers

[nietzsche]

So another vintage player turns to legacy...

STEVE'S WORST NIGHTMARE IS COMING TRUE!!!!  AND NOW WE HAVE POWER TOURNIES!!!

Anyway...nice job going 9th, and very sorry for what happened to you in your last round - these things do happen; although that really doesn't make it much better to lose to someone like that.

[CapitanJon]

Thanks for the props Brian.  you did a great job,, and showed all of the legacy players that iggy pop is a viable deck choice.   We had fun at the resturant with the team aferward. It was an all around good time.

your innovative deck design and card choice will no doubtedly alter the entire format. It's only a matter of time before people relalize the  absoulute brokenness of:

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Deep Analysis
2 Mental Note

We did it my friend...

[Anusien]

Thanks for the props Brian.  you did a great job,, and showed all of the legacy players that iggy pop is a viable deck choice.

Not to diminsih FFY's deckbuilding skills, but didn't two T8 slots at GenCon do that?

[CapitanJon]

Thanks for the props Brian.  you did a great job,, and showed all of the legacy players that iggy pop is a viable deck choice.

Not to diminsih FFY's deckbuilding skills, but didn't two T8 slots at GenCon do that?

Not to take anything away from Legacy Worlds but wasn't the prize for this event a little better?

[forests failed you]

I added the Careful Studies, Chrome Moxes and Deep Analysis.  I really think that it makes the deck a lot more consistent and explosive.  I was impressed with how powerful Mental Note was in the deck, and Careful Study is just better than note is.  It helps fix draws and filter out dead cards from your hand.  It also helps you gain threshold and find the missing pieces to the combo you need to go off.  Also, if they manage to get a Tormod's Crypt into play it really increases your ability to have the right cards available for you to combo out of hand.  ie find additional Rituals and Chain of Vapors to generate enough storm to go lethal.

[Anusien]

Thanks for the props Brian.  you did a great job,, and showed all of the legacy players that iggy pop is a viable deck choice.

Not to diminsih FFY's deckbuilding skills, but didn't two T8 slots at GenCon do that?

Not to take anything away from Legacy Worlds but wasn't the prize for this event a little better?

And?

Yeah, FFY I agree with everything you say, but you didn't seem to respond.  Take a look at Veggie's Tendrils.  I feel like with cutting the other two Tendrils and some other changes you maximize your ability to go off with draw spells, but it hurts your ability to actually win with Intuition->IGG->IGG->IGG->Intuition->Tendrils

[bomholmm]

You didn't like leyline because you cut mystical tutor.  Mystical tutor is the card that truly enables an early Ill-gotten gains with a leyline out.

Also about chrome mox.  I played it in very early builds and cut it for two reasons, one it is effectively -2 to threshold and two I play 4 mysticals so the card disadvantage generated by having both of those in the deck sucks pretty hard. 

The inclusion of careful study and deep analysis seem like your are geared towards a much slower combo, in that case I think Anusiens suggestion of veggie tendrils is pretty good.  Of course high tide is also a very good option.

Way to go on placing decently with the deck, I like seeing people succeed with IGGy.

[SpencerForHire]

Meeting Spencerforhire - who is definately one of my new favorite TMDrs

What can I say; I'm a people person..

Anywho, I liked Demar's version of the deck because it actually was in a way a different deck.  The deck truly focused on greater abuse of simple cards such as Careful Study and Mental Note.  On top of that successfully fitting FoW into the deck gives it a more controllesk feel that I rather approve of.  It is indeed slower than traditional IGGy but in the end you don't need the deck to move that much faster because the format isn't anywhere near the speed of traditional IGGy already.. Giving IGGy this slower but slightly more min-max feel seels somewhat appropriate for the deck (although I like both traditional and modded versions equally.)