Hey everyone, no real amazing stories here about my trek to ELD's tournament, I was tired and ready to go 0-2 drop. On a side note, I hate rotaries, they just suck. Here's a link to the tournament that includes all decklists and some pictures ELD's wife kindly took for us
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=31299.0. I'll get right into the basics of it with my list. This list is something my friend Cross has been working on and I've been helping, with card choices, and testing as much as I could.
Pitch Long3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Grim Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mind's Desire
1 Infernal Contract
Sideboard
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
2 Badlands
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Massacre
1 Trickbind
1 Duress
1 Rebuild
4 Leyline of the Void
Rather than going through every card choice in the deck that I played I will skim through a few cards and give you reasons why I did or did not play them. Feel free to post questions here or to pm them to me.
First thing if you look closely enough at the list you will realize a card that is oft refered to as a staple of combo missing. I
did not play Necropotence. I have been joking for a very long time that I would like to cut the card, as it has never been amazing to me. However I also understood it to be a neccisary evil, thus I was a good little boy and played it until now. The reasons I opted to not play the card are pretty much based around the fact that I expected an amazingly high number of duress at this tournament. I think duress really cuts the overall power of Necropotence, so I had no problem trying the deck without it. I also hate Necro in combo mirrors, as I have to wait a turn for my cards and if you can combo me out for some amount roughly equal to ten life, I lose the game. I do not however know if I will continue to play without Necropotence in the future, I will continue to test this idea however.
There is also a complete lack of Tinker and Memory Jar. This is based essentially on the fact that me and Crossman have really never had any overly positive use of Memory Jar. Usually I would find myself Tinkering for a Memory Jar and unless my board consisted of u/b mana sources that could help me go off I would generally pass turn. This makes me risk my Jar getting bounced, or my opponents brainstorming a Force of Will into his Jar hand. Although they could do the latter at any point they had open mana and the two cards. Again with Tinker and Memory Jar I wanted to test something that was not considered the normal standard for a combo deck, and again I am not sure how long I will keep them out, but I will continue to test this idea as well.
I think the deck is a little heavy on ritual effects with the full eight, and am contemplating what I could turn the fourth Cabal Ritual into. At this time we have many ideas, but are not sure which direction to go with them. I also think the Leyline of the Void is absolutely atrocious. If Ichorid ever shows up somewhere again, I will just have to focus on comboing them out, I really don't want to devote sideboard hate to a deck that I don't see much of. The all-star sideboard slots were the Badlands/Red Elemental Blasts. They helped me in many matchups, sometimes to just have another counter, other times to psyche out my opponents with random Intuition piles. However I have come to believe that two Red blasts are all that is needed. Pyroblast never got boarded in at all in any matchup, it just seemed like overkill.
Now onto the matches.
Round 1
Stefan Ellsworth w/ Brassman Gifts
Im pretty sure Stefan knows what i'm playing, I have no clue what he is playing, but I assume it could be Brassy Gifts.
Game one went something along the lines of me saying i'll keep, and Stefan saying twice he would pitch his opening hand back. I lead out with a Delta, fetch out an Underground Sea and duress him. He is holding four lands and an Empty the Warrens. Now I know for sure what he is playing and I also know my turn two kill will have no hinderance from him.
I actually make an error in sideboarding in that I forgot to board in my two badlands, but did board in the Red blasts...go Gooch, mis-sideboard for the loss. I took out Merchant Scroll and Cabal Ritual.
Game two was a much better game than game one simply based on the fact nobody mulled to five. We both mess around for a little while, I at some point cast Recall targeting myself. Later in the game Stefan attempts Timetwister, I mention he is going to give me Recall back in my hand and he says yea probably. It resolves, and the hand I get twistered into is nutty. It is something like Duress, Recall, Lotus, Mystical, Land, Mana Crypt, Mox. I win the game within the next two turns.
1-0 (2-0)
Round 2
Dan Moeckly w/ Bomberman
I have no clue what my opponent is playing, but once I find out I cringe, as this is apparently the matchup i'm not supposed to win.
Game one went on for quite sometime. I cast a duress here and there to poke around his hand and see what he had. Apparently he did not have any counter magic because I cast Mind's Desire for an arbitrarily large number and revealed Tendrils of Agony as the first card.
Sideboarding went much better this time, I remembered to board in my Red Elemental Blasts and my Badlands all at the same time. I took out Merchant Scroll, and Intuition, and my two basic lands.
Game two was pretty much won by me because my opponent made a few pretty severe play mistakes. He cast a CoTV at 1 which resolved, on his next turn he cast Yawgmoth's Will so he could Brainstorm, upon casting Brainstorm I told him it was countered and he looked sad at me and realized why. I did nothing of relevance for a very long time and was at eleven life. End of his turn I cast Hurkly's Recall and he responded by Crypting me. On my turn I played out my hand that was full of non-ritual mana production and Yawgmoth's Bargain, and Time Walk. I go into my Walk turn at eleven, knowing I will get to see a good amount of cards that are left in my deck. I get down to five life and cast my Grim Tutor floating three blue, and one black. I have very few true outs in this situation and my best bet is to go for Desire and hope to draw one of the seven rituals or Mana Crypt, or Black Lotus, or Mana Vault. So I calculated that I had ten outs left in a deck roughly twenty-five cards in size. Well I got lucky on this one as I have determined you must do occasionaly to play combo. I drew a Dark Ritual, then cast Desire for some medium sized number roughly equal to seven. I reveal a Tendrills again and the match is over.
2-0 (4-0)
Round 3
Matt Mcnally w/Storm Combo
He is my friend and we came in the same car, we draw.
2-0-1 (4-0)
Round 4
Jeff Greene w/ Ritual Gifts
This without a doubt was my favorite match of the day and was very close on both sides.
Game one I duress his opening hand on the draw, take a Force of Will I believe and pass. On my next turn I cast Bargain with mana floating, he has drain mana up, at this point I think he is playing drain so I am worried. It in fact resolves and I see everything I need to to win the game right there.
At this point i'm not entirely sure of what he is playing so I board in the Reb plan again, and take out the basic lands, merchant scroll, and a cabal ritual.
Game two involved me duressing him again early, and then not doing anything for a very long time. He did nothing of relevance for a long time either, but when one of us did do something it was him casting his own Bargain. Bad times for me as it resolves. He pays an arbitrarily large amount of life in exchange for a bunch of cards, and then sees just enough to win the game. It's ok my first game three of the day, I can pull this out, plus im on the play.
Game three starts with me Duressing his opening hand of six, his hand is Ancestral Recall, Force of Will, Brainstorm, Volcanic Island, Vampiric Tutor, and Yawgmoth's Bargain. Knowing at this point full well he is not playing Mana Drain, I choose his Force of Will as I have a turn two win set up, and this way he will have to rip a force in his next four cards. He has three left in his deck which at that point consisted of fifty cards. So needless to say he had a relatively small chance of ripping a force. He however did rip a force and countered my Yawmoth's Will. Eventually he casts his Bargain, at the time i'm holding mana crypt so it resolves. He draws some cards, realizes he can't win this turn due to lack of mana and passes. I draw a Force of Will for turn play my Crypt, and pass back to him. He begins to go off, draws down to seven life, then casts Gifts Ungiven for Lions Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, Yawgmoth's Will, Recoup. I give him the Lions Eye Diamond, and Lotus Petal. He pops his led discarding a hand that included mostly mana sources, Recoups targeting Will, then casts Will. I reveal my Force with enough mana to pay for it, and he is now without a hand and at five life after minor mana burn. I win Crypt rolls in two of my next three turns which proves to leave me at just enough life to Infernal Contract, that I reveal off my Desire for three. I am at four life and I have enough mana floating and mana sources to Grim Tutor for Tendrills and win the game at one life. It was a ridiculous matchup and I wished him the best of luck in top 8, as we were almost 100% sure he would still be able to i.d. in the next round as he got paired down with me at 3-0 when I was 2-0-1. The only reason I was able to win this match is because my opponent saw zero of his four maindeck duress in three games.
3-0-1 (6-1)
Round 5
Ryan Marek w/ Gifts
We Draw and are both in because of this.
On another note Jeff almost had to play out his match due to the way things worked out, they however did get to draw with both Jeff and Pat making it in.
3-0-2 (6-1)
After the swiss we find out all four members of Team Pefect Scrubs are not only in the top 8, but they are the top four seeds.
Top 8
Ryan Marek w/Gifts
I actually do not remember very much from this match as I was at this point very tired, and wanted this to end.
At some point in game one I cast a mini tendrills and put him at four life. A few turns later I cast a lethal tendrils.
I used my red blast plan and boarded out the basic lands, merchant scroll and a cabal ritual.
Game two he was on the play and mulliganed into a six card hand, he played a land and passed, I did the same. He casts Tinker and I attempt to Force removing my Hurkly's Recall, he has a Force for mine and the Iron Giant hits the table hard. End of his turn I Vampiric Tutor for Chain of Vapor and Bounce the Iron Man. In this game again He begins to go off and I counter his one must counter spell, being Yawgmoth's Will. He burns for eight going to six life, he has a crypt on the table, but I have a tendrils for ten in my hand, and win on my next turn.
Top 4
Rich Meyst w/ Brassman Gifts
I actually rode to this tournament in Richs car so me and him set up a prize split before the match and decide to have fun, however I take this a little too much like time to relax and almost cost myself the match.
Game one I have a decent grip, i'm not sure that it wins on turn two, but i am sure it gets me a lot of new cards on turn two, so end of his turn I brainstorm, and not thinking put back the Grim Tutor instead of the ToA. On my turn I go up to thirty-three and put him at five. I draw nothing for some span of time and he wins the game on the back of my play mistake. I am very upset
I board the same for this match as I did for the last match.
Game two im on the play, I play Delta pass. Holding
Ancestral Recall. He Duresses me, I let it resolve and am now two play errors deep in a bad posistion. He had a Force for my Ancestral anyways, but drawing that counter out is big. However. I do pull this game out as neither of us does anything for a while, then I draw gas and he still does not. I at some point cast Infernal Contract, and that gave me everything I needed in combination with Grim Tutor. Even as this game ends and I have won i am still complaining about my play mistake in game one, nevermind game two. This is usually bad news.
Game three has him on the play and he keeps a hand with ruby, lotus, brainstorm and some other cards that are not land. On his turn one he casts brainstorm and sees no land or other spells to play and burns for two. Eventually after I do nothing relevant with my artifact, hurklys recall, and tendrils of agony hand he starts trying to combo. He demonic tutors and essentially has to settle for Empty for ten as he does not have enough mana to will and win that turn. I draw and play a mox and pass. He draws and swings into my dome for ten. On my next turn I make yet another play mistake rather than casting the Mystical Tutor in my hand for the lethal copy of storm I dont, and I know he is holding a force, and will have the mana to cast it next turn. I Tendrils him down to two with a Mana Crypt on his side of the table. On his next turn he wins the roll and attacks me back to fifteen. On my upkeep I cast mystical, and he makes his only glaring mistake of the match and lets it resolve, I find my second copy of tendrils and thats the game.
He still gets half of what I win, and me and Jeff are in no mood to play again and decide to split the cash. Then we all go to 99 for some good eats.
Props:
Eld for hosting a kick ass tournament
Team Perfect Scrubs for dominating the swiss
Jeff Greene for Spliting so we could go get food
Junk rares for becomming something better than they are
Steak for being so delicious
The term shit in your cereal
Slops:
99 for taking forever to seat us, yes me and Travis Laplante are big men, but come on
Papa Gino's there pizza kinda sucks
Rotaries, nough said
Rich for getting lost on the way home
My brain for letting me play so bad at the end
The venue for being so cold most of the time unless you were next to the vent, then it was too hot
The bathroom door for not having a lock, nothing bad happened, but I realized the chance that it could
The giant mirror on the back wall, thank god I never had to sit there
The cross in the center of the room on the stage wall...yup i played a game of magic and sorcery in front of it, im going to hell...
Feel free to post any question or comments...
GaaGooch
