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Guus de Waard - Team R&D
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« on: February 07, 2010, 06:16:03 pm » |
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Played in a 15 man sanctioned tournament saturday and got 1st.
For this tournament I joined to the dark side of the force and played Ichorid, a deck feared by many and hated by most.
Before I start the report, I'd like to say that I can't remember every detail too well, sometimes Ichorid just goes crazy, I think you have all experienced what that looks like so no need to elaborate there in my opinion.
Preparing up to the event: I bugged Marius for borrowing about a million cards and ended up borrowing almost the entire deck from Duncan, sorry Marius! After some notes from meadbert over at TMD I decided on the following list (note that I didnt have a Black Lotus which probably should be there instead of the Seat of the Synod). Most of the time I devoted to the deck, was trying to tweak the SB (though testing was pretty much absent).
// Lands
2 [JGC] Gemstone Mine
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 City of Brass
// Creatures
4 [DDC] Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Fatestitcher
4 Narcomoeba
3 Sharuum the Hegemon
4 Darkblast
// Spells
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
4 Serum Powder
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Possessed Portal
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Unmask
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor
The Iona wasn't really all that useful mainly because of all the Shop decks present, where it's ability really isn't all that good. The theory of having 1 Dread Return and 1 Iona is pretty decent though, especially against Storm combo. I once again put Possessed Portal to great use in 1 game, so that card is definately a stayer. The Seat of the Synod was actually quite nice and I really like the Dakmor Salvage as well. I have mixed feelings about Darkblast over Golgari Thug. I did ping off my Narcomoeba once in order to get a Bridge token, which basically won me the game and it's also relevant sometimes that you can hardcast it in order to get it in the yard if Bazaar is Wasted. That it just dredges for 3 did hurt me several times as well, though I doubt the outcome of the game would have hinged on that, I was losing that game anyway. The reason I put the Darkblast in was that meadbert had it SB and his basic SB plan was to board out his Golgari Thugs for the Darkblasts, I figured I could spend those SB slots better spent for Unmasks and the Iona. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to see if Vamp was any good, in theory it's quite sound as it can get a Bazaar after the first one is Wasted and can act as a pseudo Entomb when you dredge, but it also fetches Natures Claim or Chain.
On to the report
Michael picks me up and later we pick up Duncan and his friend Alex who plays sporadically. Duncan and myself seat down in the back of the car to build Michaels deck on our way (Michael played Shops, Duncan Noble Fish and Alex GWB Beats). We get there and immediately see a familiar face: it's Marius who brought his friend Sebastien along, a player for who I have a huge deal of respect and when he speaks about Magic I am all ears. We borrow the cards Marius brought along and I get upstairs to collect the awesome Arabian Nights City of Brasses Onno brought along. Fun fact, Arabian Nights City of Brass is actually strictly inferior to any other version thanks to City in a Bottle pointed out by Bart Verschoor as it also conviently hits Bazaar.
Match 1 against Peter Reynders (punki) with Jellyfish (Esperzoa/Eslewhere Flask/Tangle Wire powered by Shops and with FoWs)
Game 1: Ichorid does what it does and I butcher him pretty badly. I believe there were 2 Bazaars involved, not too sure but it was pretty unfair.
Game 2: I believe I lost this one, to Ravenous Trap and Wasteland but I might have won it, I just don't know. I do know that I roll him in either game 2 or game 3 very easily as he has to mull down to 4 or 5 in one of those games.
Match 2: against Thomas Grotenhuis playing Elf Combo, he's a really talented young player and improves with huge leaps.
Game 1: I win the die roll and beat him on turn 2 or 3, yeah not much he can do about that.
Game 2: he doesn't have any hate, I don't know this so incorrectly board in a number of Chains and Claims, but no hate equals a very bad matchup against Ichorid. I roll him. He tells me afterwards that he doesn't have any hate for Ichorid, but tells me Frank does and he also plays Elves, this were just mindgames as it turns out in the end that Frank almost plays an identical list as Thomas.
Match 3: against Jos Scheurs playing Stax, a very well mannered and relaxed person, no trash talking, he just enjoys Magic. That doesn't take away that this was the most frustrating match for me personally.
Game 1: we have an epic game. I use Powder twice and remove 2 Bridges already. The deciding play is when he has two Spheres and 2 Triskelion. I play it slowly (macro up) to two Bazaar and 2 lands so I can Dread Return with the 2 Ghasts and the Moeba that I have in play. I think he should have shoot my guys with his Trisk but he fails to do so. Now I have a Bridge and discard it when I go for the double Sharuum combo, he pulls the trigger and shoots his own Trisk to remove it. No infi Zombies for me, but I do get out Possessed Portal which is enough to hold him down as I can keep returning my Ghasts with my Disco Paradise (that sounds like a really bad club in a Greece seaside resort). He proceeds to the scoop phase.
Game 2: Jos has all the hate, he Wastes my Bazaar then has Bojuka Bog, then gets down Crucible of Worlds and can now Waste his Bog and then get Bog out again. We are approaching time and I figure that I can win a lot quicker than he does so I either win or we draw, that's why I don't scoop. I tweak my boarding strategy accordingly and actually keep the Sharuum combo in.
Game 3: He has all the hate again and 2 Triskelions to the boot. He has both Wasteland and Crypt, then gets Shop and another Shop and he gets down Trisk and the turn after that ANOTHER Trisk. Must be nice.
Match 4: against Arjan Ruiterkamp with Oath. He is a very quiet guy, I couldn't figure out if he is a good player or not.
Game 1: He gets the nuts, Orchard, Mox, Oath. I am unfazed and open up with Bazaar, I opt to Bazaar in the hopes of drawing Cabal Therapy so I can sac my token. I get lucky and hit it, awesome. Turn 2 I lay another Bazaar or I Fatestitcher my Bazaar not really sure but I go nuts with the infinite combo. I felt really good about my play in this game, especially game 1 and I think it was a huge mental blow to him to lose after a turn 1 Oath + Orchard.
Game 2: I keep a sick hand with Bazaar, a land, Unmask, Dorkblast, Bridge, Nature's Claim and Chain of Vapor. He starts with Leyline AND Tormod's Crypt. Again I am unfazed, I start with Unmask then blow up his Leyline. He Strips my Bazaar, then he lands Oath so I am forced to burn my Chain of Vapor on his Oath instead of his Tormods Crypt. Then I Therapy his Oath out of his hand and he has no buisiness. I play around his Crypt to the best of my ability and eventually he is forced to pop it. His Orchard tokens are racking up damage and I manage to get 2 Zombie tokens into play by Darkblasting a Moeba I dredged up and a Moeba I used to flashback Therapy. The Darkblast was nice, since I could use it again and again without the Bazaar. Eventually he Scrolls up Mystical and EOT Mysticals for Y. Will. Unfortunately for him, he still has a Fetchland and has to use his Orchard to give me yet another token and doesn't find Time Walk or a bounce spell during his Will turn, so I can get in for exactly lethal. Wow, extremely tight game and I think I played extremely well.
Match 5 against Frank van Rijn with Elves Combo again.
He is at 10 points I am at 9, and there is one other guy at 10 and 2 others at 9. We discuss an ID, but I decide against it, as I am feeling quite confident about the MU and am scared I will drop out. I maul him game 1 and can not find a dredger game 2 so he steals that one. We hear that Michael (one of the guys at 9 points who is paired against a 6 pointer, we are in the middle of mulling and I am about to go down to 4 and he is at 6 cards we ask the judge if it's okay if we still ID, the judge tells us it's okay and we can ID in the middle of the match so we do. Frank helps me out here, as even if he loses he was in regardless. Although even had I lost I would probably still be in as my resistance was very high and the other 9 pointer lost as well. But whatever, I am in the top 4.
EDIT: After discussing the report with Michael who watched my T4 matches, I made some changes to the report as my memory didn't serve me all that well.
Top 4:
I get paired against Frank again. He offers to split our prizes, regardless of the outcome of our match. Seeing as I told him I owe him one, I agree, but quickly realize the only reason for him proposing the split is that he doesn't have any Ichorid hate. I start to laugh and confront him with my discovery, he burst out in laughter and declares in fact he doesn't. He always manages to jedi mind trick me during tournaments, yet I always beat him in the end. A nice anecdote is when I got false information of Duncan, who told me Frank was either playing Drain Tendrills or Black Sui, he opens up with Swamp --> Top during our game and I immediately put him on Sui as I didn't think a Drain deck would play a basic Swamp. Thus I avoid exposing my Shop to Wasteland and don't play my Thorn on my first turn as Thorn does little against Sui anyway. That screws up my entire timing and he storms me out, which Thorn could have prevented *facepalm* (I still managed to win that match). So back to the tournament.
Seeing as I owe him one, I decide to man up and just accept his proposal to split as I find the whole scenario quite amusing regardless. He probably has the better matchup against both of the Shop players who make up the rest of the Top 4, but regardless I just want to win the tournament and I am not sure it's actually legal to scoop so we just play it out.
Game 1: I start dredgingl and the Seat of the Synod really pulls it's weight here as I missed a trigger of my Ghasts, probably due to the casual atmosphere of our match seeing as there was little on the line, even if I lose I still split. However, a Dread Return on a Sharuum that targets the Seat brings back both my Ghasts and allows for Stitcher to untap Bazaar. I get the infinite Sharuum combo going after that dredge and use my Altar of Dementia to mill him out.
Game 2: I sideboard my Iona in over 1 Sharuum and take out a Portal and a Dakmor Salvage to fit in 2 Unmasks to try and halt his combo. Seeing as I know he lacks hate, I can get away with not including Claim and Chain. He gets down Clamp and a couple of Elves, however he fails to pull off the combo due to bad draws off the Clamps. On my turn I am able to Dread Return my Iona on green and with a good number of Zombies he is unable to muster enough defenses.
Finals: against Peter Reynders with Jellyfish again.
Game 1: I must have been losing focus as I fan my hand I notice that there's still a Chain of Vapor left. He tells me to change my deck and force a mulligan, seeing as I wanted to mulligan anyway this was no big deal. Long story short, dredge does what dredge does and I roll him with millions of tokens to his no library.
Game 2: I screw up again and during mulliganning I fail to present my deck and just draw my cards. He let's me get away with this, but repeatedly tells me it might have better for him to call a judge. I obviously was in no position to complain, but tell him this makes him a better man and thank him again. He has to mull down to 6 and opens with a Tormods Crypt, 2 moxen and Eslewhere Flask. Fortunately I can answer the Crypt due to Chain of Vapor, but he has Misdirection and targets his Flask. After that I have yet another answer in the form of Nature's Claim, I had an insane hand. His poor hand leaves him with just an Esperzoa. Fortunately for his sake, I'm unable to find a Dredger and that gives him a window to slip another Esperzoa down and put a clock on seeing as I lost a ton of life to City of Brass. Meanwhile, I manage to find a dredger and Dread Return a Grave Troll. I have about 6-8 Zombie tokens to boot. Now, if he topdecks a Time Walk he can beat me; as I am at 11 and he has two Esperzoas staring down my one Moeba. He doesn't and I beat him the turn after. During this match he has shows some strong mental play trying to get me overconfident by telling me he might as well scoop, while he wasn't planning on scooping at all. He hopes to make me play sloppy, but I don't really fall for his tricks and calmly count my library and just try to keep it cool in general.
I win a Mana Drain and Frank won a pack of FBB Revised and a pack of Future Sight, we didn't get the Goyf and sell the Revised pack and the Drain for 80 euro's giving us both 40 euro's. We probably could have gotten a bit more for this, but I have no idea what a Drain is worth so I just trusted on Franks judgement.
After the tournament we sit down with Sebastien, Marius, Duncan, Alex, Michael, Bart and Onno and I buy everyone drinks as I am in a good mood after winning the tourney. We head home at a very reasonable time seeing as rounds started when everyone finished their games and not when the round time ran out, so that was nice. We pick up some burgers at the restaurant with the gold arches as Duncan aptly called it and call it a day. That night I had e a crazy party with a DJ in our living room where I consume excessive amounts of alcoholic beverages because my sisters both celebrated their birthday. Right now I am trying to soften up my hangover by eating lots of cholesterol and other stuff that is very bad for your health, probably even worse than the drinking itself, but I digress.
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