Top 8 at Black Gold in Colorado
The night before:
I was at Lou's house for some serious testing with teammates Jim, Bob, Lou, Josh, and a couple of friends Eric Weeden, Jon Dorsey, and my girlfriend Misty. I had been testing a GAT build that Bob built for me for weeks, but I was getting rolled by Counterbalance Slaver, and MUD. I was getting discouraged with GAT so I changed my deck choice to MUD. After playing tons of games with Jim of Oath Vs. MUD, and playing Josh in the MUD Vs. MUD mirror, and of course Eric Weeden with CBS. Oath Vs. MUD: It seemed to be pretty even before board because I had Spheres, Chalices and Wastelands. He would get some pretty sick wins too. MUD Vs. MUD Josh and I were playing similar builds, but he was playing Ravager which came to be a deciding factor in the match because it comes down so cheap and eat Spheres and useless artifacts, and if paired with Trisk it is ridiculous. CBS Vs. MUD: Eric was rolling me with CBS he had so many basics and Goblin Welder is such a pain in the ass, not to mention Mindslaver. After all of the testing I decided to play MUD the next day. The rest of the night I picked Jim's brain for ideas on the deck, and how to play certain match ups because he had been testing the deck for awhile and I had picked up the deck hours ago. Here is the list he and I came up with:
Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
0 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere Of Resistance
4 Sword Of Fire And Ice
4 Tangle Wire
3 Thorn Of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
Artifact Creatures
4 Juggernaut
4 Metalworker
4 Triskelion
Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City Of Traitors
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy
Sideboard:
2 Crucible Of Worlds
2 Serum Powder
4 Duplicant
4 Leyline Of The Void
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Memory Jar
The list is essentially Stephen Menendian's list with a few mana changes. Jim said that he wanted more mana sources in the deck, and in the end I think it was right, but Memory Jar shouldn't have been cut it was so ridiculous. I ended up siding it in against a lot of my match ups because it is just broken.
The tournament:
I wake up make the drive all the way down to Black Gold with my girlfriend Misty, and when I get there I am frantically writing Bob's deck list down, and loaning cards out like crazy. I am a bit nervous because I only had a night of testing with this deck, and felt like I would make the wrong plays, but I was confident enough to play the deck because of what I tested against last night.
The rest of the field:
Tons of Ichorid was being played between my friends Travis and Brett there were definitely a few others as well. Tons of MUD as well, I was playing it, Josh, Marcus, Alex, Jeff, and there might have been one or two more. Lou played Tropical Storm. Weeden played CBS, Nicholas played Flash, and there were a slew of other decks as well: Mono Black, Green Black, Oath, and others I am sure.
The report:
Round 1 Albert with Ichorid:
Game 1: I lose the die roll and he opens with Bazaar. I am thinking to myself oh shit just what I didn't want to play, but luckily for me he is pretty much the worst player ever! The worst part of the thing was his proxies, his proxies were on cards that were in the deck he had four Narcomoeba in the deck and then some amount of Narcomoebas that were proxies for Bazaars, or something else it was really awful. He dredges a whole bunch of stuff, and starts swinging under my spheres and thorns, and eventually just beats me down with me unable to get a point of damage on him.
Game 2: I opt to play and he mulls to three which is amazing for me. I open with Juggs go. He plays a Dryad Arbor and unmasks me. He sees City of Traitors, Trisk, and SoFi. He takes Trisk I wasn't too happy about this because I knew Trisk was my best way to fight against Ichorid, but sword would just have to do. Sword on Juggernaut did end up getting me there the only thing that stood in the way was a puny Dryad Arbor.
Game 3: See game 1. Exact same scenario I don't see Leyline this game or game 2. I mulled to five this game and didn't want to go to four with chances of drawing a Leyline and nothing, but crap.
Record: 0-1
Round 2 Eric with CBS:
This was definitely a match I wasn't looking forward to at all...
Game 1: My notes are really terrible for this match, but in the first game I just got mowed over by double Welder keeping my permanents in check and slowly hitting me down to 0.
Game 2: I open up with Leyline and turn one Shop Chalice 1 go. He looked flustered because I had shut down his Welder that he had. He passes and I play something and pass. He draws and rolls his eyes (later on he told me he had drawn Ancestral!) I end up dropping two factories and swinging for four turns and he was locked out of the game with Spheres and just couldn't handle my guys swinging in.
Game 3: This one was intense because we were almost at time because the first game went on so long. I keep a hand with a bunch of gas. I drop turn on Juggernaut. I pass to him he plays fetch land go, and I turn to play and equip sword putting him down to 11. He Merchant Scrolls for Echoing Truth instead of Hurkyl's which ends up winning me the game because he needed to bounce all of my artifacts to put the game to a draw because by now we were in turns.
Record: 1-1
Round 3 Dominic with MUD:
I was definitely a dirty cheater and asked Bob Yu what he was playing, and Bob informed that he was playing MUD with NO power and NO workshops. I felt confident to say the least.
Game 1: I mulligan down to 5 here which is awful for me. This game was horrible for me, he gets turn one Worker off Wasteland Mana Vault. He passes to me I play something less exciting like a Sphere. Next turn he proceeds to play Masticore and passes. I play Juggernaut hoping he would forget the upkeep on Masti, but he doesn't and he kills me Juggernaut with Masti and swings in. I draw nothing and pass back to him. He proceeds to combo off with Staff of Domination, Thousand Year Elixer, Planar Portal, and a bunch of shenanigans that I couldn't win through. It was nice that he drew a bunch with Staff and showed me his entire deck basically.
Game 2: He says he keeps a sketchy hand, and I am the one with turn one Metalworker pass. He plays Sphere and burns for one. I go completely nuts and play a ton of Spheres and Tangle Wires, and make my land drop a Factory. I pass and he does nothing, he kept a one land hand which was so savage for me and if I am not mistaken the land was a City of Traitors. I draw Memory Jar play it and pass, he looks flustered at this point knowing I will Jar and just go crazy. I jar on my upkeep and draw nothing, but Spheres, no creatures. I drop all of the Spheres swing with Factory and pass. His Jar hand was savage I am glad I made him discard so many of his good combo cards and a Jar of his own plus some mana that he needed badly. I just eat away at him with a Factory until he loses.
Game 3: He plays turn one Wasteland pass and I play turn one Workshop Mox Juggs. Dominic wastes my Shop and goes to his turn. On his turn He plays nothing, I think he was banking on keeping me off mana with wasteland and drawing some himself. Juggernaut just gets in there and when I finally put Sword on Juggernaut he just scoops.
Record: 2-1
Round 4 Adam with Control Slaver:
Great I thought I am playing this match again...
Game 1: I play shop Sphere burn go. He fetches and brainstorms I believe, but I could be wrong. I play shop Sphere burn go. He plays a land, passes to me and I play Triskelion, he doesn't Force it which I couldn't be happier about. From this point the game went down hill for Adam I just swung in there with Triskelion and he went all the way for me.
Game 2: His opening couldn't have been more savage he opens up with Mox, Mox, Land, Magus of the Moon. I look horrified at my hand with Academy and Ancient Tombs. I play mountain go. He swings, and doesn't play a land which was awesome I thought. I play mountain go. He swings again no land. I turn three drop Metalworker and I wince hoping there was no Force of Will....... AND THERE WASN'T. This point in the game I was so far ahead in mana, and I just dropped Juggs and rode that all the way to victory.
Record: 3-1
Round 5 Matt with Tendrils
Matt and I ID because we are pretty sure that we will both make it, but Carl stopped doing standings so it was up to my friends who were good at math: Bob, and Brett I appreciate both of you guys helping me with the math here, and even if I didn't make it at least both of us had a shot at making it where as if we played one of our dreams would be crushed I decide to take the risk because Matt is a good friend of mine we test every week at FNM so I didn't see a problem if I didn't make it.
Round 1 Top 8 Brett with Ichorid
The terrible thing about this ordeal was that I loaned Brett like 20 or so cards for this deck, but Brett has always been a really good friend of mine.
Game 1: I knew there wasn't going to be an easy way to win this at all especially game one. Brett wins the roll and opens up with the usual Bazaar draw discard dredger bridge Ichorid go. I open with a Sphere or something terrible like that that. I pass he dredges Ichorid comes back and swings. I play something else useless and next turn he makes enough Ichorids and Zombies to destroy me.
Game 2: I mulligan down to five trying to find a Leyline, and don't find one, I contemplate mulling to four, but I decide against it because if I do get Leyline and three terrible cards my chances are worse because he runs Emerald Charm and Rev. silence. I keep play Sphere go. He goes Bazaar discard. I do something irrelevant and pass. He swings with an Ichorid he discarded makes Zombies and with the next couple turns I just die to dudes.
Final Record: 3-2-1
I apologize for not taking better notes and having to reconstruct a great deal of this report from memory and not writing down what I sided in or out. Thank you for reading.
Props:
First and foremost Jim Gaffney for convincing me to play this deck and loaning me cards.
Bob Yu for contributing to my decision.
Carl for hosting the event.
Scotty for not coming to the event to spend time with his lady friend.
Everyone who helped me test the night before.
Lou for always letting us kick it at his place.
Pierce for being a savage bogard (See Bo I used the word!)
Misty for obvious reasons and not so obvious reasons too.
The Colorado Crew we are amazing.
Nicholas Goodman for coming out for his first type one.
Brett for winning the whole thing.
Stephen Menendian for building this savage deck.
Trevor for being the cutest and only baby in the room.
Slops:
Carl for not posting standings.
Brett for beating me in Top 8 with my own cards.
Lou for making Trav think that I was the one fucking with him at the Draft.
Pierce for making it so I am unable to untap.
This is the only picture I want to steal for my report. It's a group of good friends with good times, and 7 of the top 8 people.
Thank you to the TMD community for making this format worth playing.
Brennen
