Team Ogre Past Times Top8 Report 12-10-06
Myself [ubastax], Jim Erlinger [ichorid], Blaine Christiansen [tyrant oath] and our secret double-agent inside GWS, Kevin Brewer [5c stax], rode together. leaving st. louis at 5AM, and breezing through empty highways we made the trip in record time w 1 hour 45 minutes to spare, arriving before the store even opened. we spent the morning doing last minute testing at the Walmart food court across the street, and were disapointed to discover this particular branch of the Sam Walton empire does NOT sell firearms.
we've been testing the manaless ichorid deck intensly and found it nigh-unstoppable. leyline wrecks it so badly of course, and is so dificult to remove, we just decided to concede that weakness and play the deck anyway in the hopes the meta would be forgiving. so convinced am I of this deck's potency I almost played it myself at this tournament, but I have a terrible track record of scrubbing out w anything but stax, no matter how thoroughly tested and succesful the non-shop deck is.
Jim and I both made top8, and so did our traveling companion Brewer. Blaine made up for his weak showing today by winning a Ruby last week in nebraska. His report of that event is here:
"Finally Got Me A Piece"
http://www.ogrescards.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=528Jim's list
4 bazaar
4 petrified field
4 ichorid
4 nether shadow
4 dread return
4 grave troll
4 stinkweed
4 golgari thug
4 shambling shell
4 serum powder
4 chalice
4 leyline
4 cabal therapy
4 unmask
1 sundering titan
1 symbiotic wurm
1 angel of despair
1 riftsone portal
side
3 riftstone
4 ancient grudge
4 ray of revelation
4 pithing needle
the lone maindeck riftstone is thrown in to enable dread return against sphere of resistance, and was dubbed superior to random mishra factory or dragon breath. Angel of Despair was last minute addition over Karvek the Merciless, I supose to deal w opponent's maindeck platinum angel or something? you'd have to ask Jim. probably should be factory. anyway Jim stomped everybody, and finished the Swiss in 1st place.
vroman's list
4 bazaar
8 mishras
4 b-ring
3 waste
2 mtn
1 strip
1 academy
5 mox
4 lotus/sol/crypt/vault
4 welder
4 chalice
4 tangle
4 crucible
3 smoke
3 uba
3 nullrod
2 duplicant
1 trisphere
side
4 granite shard
3 heretic
3 tormod crypt
3 thought prison
2 duplicant
not any dramatic changes. I like factory supremely, and want 4, but felt the weaknesses of the overloaded mana version, so cut ports. It sort of weakens the drain matchup, but adds uncounterable win conditions, while maintaing threat density. outplaying drain players w ports is fun. power wise, ports are mostly missed vs combo. in the board Ive decided Jesters cap has past its prime w the severe decline in Oath. Ive shied away from tormod before bc of nrod dissenrgy, but after going about 1-20 against manaless ichorid w/o them, I changed my mind. back up to 4 duplicants overall, which just shreds fish. plus quad factories, I feel very secure in that match up once again. the only new/old tech is thought prison, which Ive dabbled w in the past mainly to nail hurkyl/rebuild vs combo, and as duress/pyropillar vs them in general. Im convinced its not that bad, and better than other high priced answers like null brooch. the brooch is fantastic at sealing an existing lock, but is very easy for enemy to play around on its own. brooch is ineffective w/o major back up, which is not a strong quality. especially when you need to be building up your hand to dig w bazaar, not casting everything immediately to avoid losing it when you need emergency brooch activation.
Vroman's report
Rd 1 control slaver. lose roll. lose 1-2
game 1
hand 1 mana consists only of wasteland
hand 2 mana consists only of b-ring.
hand 3 is [b-ring, welder, factory, sol ring, null rod]
I keep. enemy opens w island plus 3x moxen. I resolve n-rod.
turn 2, another land, and resolve welder.
enemy brainstorms over and over this game, I think casting all 4 bstorms. he Fows my bait threat, and I get smokestack. I ramp to 3, but enemy gets welder. I am actually down on permanents, bc hes sitting on so many dead moxen. I make questionable decision and stop fighting welder battle over smoky, to get mana to try for second welder. so of course my welder is drained, and I have no locks on board. next turn he gifts for trike-bus + slaver.
board
-3 uba
-1 lotus
-2 bazaar
-2 factory
-1 smoke
-2 crucible
+shards
+heretics
+tormods
+1 duplicant
game 2
ridonkulous opening of ruby, sol ring, chalice@1, tormod, workshop, trisphere. everybody stays for the party. Im still holding Heretic. factory beats ftw. at one point he discards Heretic I think, so I bring in last duplicant for game 3
board
-1 chalice
+1 duplicant
game 3
mul to 6. I had turn 1 shop+granite shard, then turn 2 welder. fire/ice kills him. some turns go by of me drawing moxes and workshops, and pinging him irrelevently. finaly he rack+ruins my shard+mox, then drops blood moon. my abundant mana suply is cut to 4, and Im holding just 2xduplicant. he hardcasts trike-bus again, but I am now missing the land drops I already cycled to bazaar, and my factories are mtns. by the time I have 6 mana, he has drain(s) and I lose to fatty beats.
Rd 2 UBW fish. lose roll. win 2-0.
game 1
enemy keeps awful hand that consists of [swamp, duress, 5 non-land]. his duress sees my: [workshop, stripmine, crucible, other good stuff]. crucible of course is lost, but becomes unecesary after I strip his land and get 3-4 uninterupted turns of development while he's stuck in discard phase. I see fish type things going into the yard so board accordingly:
+4 shard
+3 heretic
+2 dup
-3 nrod
-4 chalice
-2 uba
game 2
enemy makes awful turn 1 play of scrubland + jet -> sol ring + Kataki(?!). Im holding [workshop, welder, mtn, waste, granite shard, 2xblank]
I actually dont Want to kill kataki here. I just waste his scrub. enemy taps down to keep his permanents, then plays Karakas and divining top. more artifacts to pay for, and yet another mana sink; I am fine with this. impact for 2. I play welder. I think he gets plowshared. enemy taps down again for kataki, and misses land drop. sweet. hit me for 2. I am really tempted to just let the kataki ride as long as possible, to tie down his mana, but the rest of my hand is non-gas, so I need to get some winning done. I relent and snipe Kataki in his next attack step. I then get bazaar and another welder or something similar, and start flooding the board w permanents; including multiple shards and duplicant recursion. his side doesnt accomplish much.
Rd 3 Jeremy Seroogy 5C stax. win roll. win 2-0.
game 1 I drop turn 1 crucible, w waste and bazaar in hand. Jeremy puts his own shop into play, casting vault and wisely p-needles wasteland. I bazaar into tanglewire, pitching lands. thus tapping down his vault and tying up his mana for long time. I get ubazaar and keep drawing tanglewires. Jeremy gets welder, but plays it badly, welding out my tangles twice instead of crucible or uba. by the time he gets rid of my uba, I have 20 permanents and finally hit b-ring to kill his welder, saving my crucible. I am bazaaring in upkeep every turn and find factories and strip, steadily eliminating his board and life total.
board
-1 trisphere
-1 lotus
-4 tangle
-3 uba
-2 chalice
-1 factory
+shards
+heretics
+tormod
+duplicant
game 2
another turn 1 crucible for me, which dies to ancient grudge. I burn a Tormod against his lone grudge in the yard, then drop g-shard. Jeremy drops his 3rd city of brass, but draws another grudge to slow the life total race. I get double factory smashing him, until he needles them. He hardcasts Trike-bus, but I have duplicant ready. Jeremy comes back over the top w his own duplicant on mine, but should have slowrolled, bc I was just waiting for trike-bus to get out of the way so my all-in Heretic could have free reign. In short series of dramatic moves I use a new welder and heretic to scrap his board and factory beats ftw.
Rd 4 Bomberman. win 2-0
game 1
My turn 1 welder is answered by his turn 1 needle. this sets a strange pattern of all 4 games I play against bomberman this tournament I have welder, and they have needle, and I weld zero times, and kill them via welder+factory beats, while they remain entirely stymied by chalice and null rod. seriously, I play nearly 4 identical games in a row w opening hands consisting of combinations of welder, chalice, null rod and factory, that all play out pretty much the same.
board
+2 dup
+3 tormod
+3 heretic
-3 smoke (I assume sacred ground, maybe thats not their current plan anymore)
-2 crucible
-1 uba
-1 waste
-1 mana crypt
Rd 5 Bomberman. win 2-0
While this guy is shuffling he flashes Seat of the Synod, making me fear slaver again. how happy was I to find instead I got paired against bomberman twice in a row when I needed to win out. yes!
more really strange aggro mirrors where I b-ring his trinket mages and bash w factory and needled welders. while chalice/nrod is all the disruption I need. this match up plays out like a Vintage player's surreal interpretation of Standard.
Rd 6 Dan Carp ID
Top 8
Tommy Kolowith. tendrils. lose 0-2
Game 1 was close. I kept not the fastest hand that centered around turn 1 crucible w bazaar for draw. I resolved welder next and got nrod and waste recursion going. TK grim tutored twice to get necro on the table and drew himself down to 4 life, then mandatory FoW on another lock piece left him at 3. On his last turn before becoming hardlocked he goes nuts via Rebuild and every single piece of artifact mana in his deck, then has the extremely difficult task of finding tendrils or Dtutor between memory jar and brainstorm. I lose.
board
+3 thought prison
+3 tormod
-2 duplicant
-2 factory
-2 crucible
I seriously debated dropping the duplicants. I was definitely afraid of sideboard creatures like Bobs or phyrexian negator or tinker->dsteel. I ended up just going for standard preemptive lock strategy, but was not rewarded for my gamble.
Game 2. I was ecstatic to keep this hand: [tormod, workshop, 2x Mox, Thought Prison, b-ring, welder].
I bait tormod, resolves, then show off the tech. TK's hand is [swamp, saphire, sol ring, hurkyls, 2xcabal rit, tendrils] I take tendrils. TK proceeds to rip Thrashing Wumpus and takes 6 damage through Thought Prison to cast his ugly beater, and I instantly know Ive lost. spring of false hope as I draw bazaar, which finds me smokestack, which I know will resolve. but w his hurkyls, he will be able to reset soot and easily race me. I play it out, though, w zero outs. even if I draw one of my remaining factories, the Wumpus can kill it before blockers. wumpus is even unchumpable, so welders are completely worthless. Thought Prison definitely did its job though.
meanwhile Jim also lost in quarterfinals to an absurdly lucky Gifts player who shall remain nameless. Kevin locked out Becker's new infernal tutor + bazaar storm deck, but lost to another Rebuild from TK in the semis. netting a foil sol ring for his efforts from running the most lock-lite stax build Ive ever seen.
even though 5-8 got no prize, I always consider making top8 sucessful outing, and had enjoyable time.
