Not a Trinity report (FNM, Vienna)

Since I have been playing Trinity since September I decided to try a more mainstream Keeper, just for fun (and because I was expecting some SB hate against the KrOathan engine and B2B or other non-basic hate). I almost changed my mind on Thursday, but finally settled on the following deck:

Keeper (non-Trinity, non-Paragon), 60 cards

Mana: 28
4 fetchland
3 Underground
3 Vulcanic
3 Tundra
1 Island
1 COB
1 UP
1 LoA
1 Strip
1 Dust
2 Waste
6 SoLoMoxen (no Emerald)
1 Grim Monolith

Blue: 22
4 FoW
4 Mana Drain
2 Cunning Wish
1 Mis-D
1 Morphling
1 Power Artifact
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Mystical
1 Merchant Scroll
1 FoF
1 Stroke
1 Geysir
1 Impulse

Black: 5
1 Abyss
1 Demonic
1 Vampirirc
1 YawgWin
1 Mindtwist

White: 3
1 Balance
2 StoP

Red: 1
1 Mox Monkey

Split: 1
1 Fire&Ice

SB: 15
Wishable: 12
4 REB
1 BEB
2 Disenchant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ebony Charm
1 StoP
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Skeletal Scrying
Rest: 3
2 Powder Keg
1 free slot (Dwarven Miner)

After arriving at the Comic shop and scouting a bit I decided against COP: Red (which would have been in the free slot) in favour of Dwarven Miner. Retrospectively, it could not have mattered less, as I neither played against Sligh nor against Keeper - but I was surprised to note that just five minutes before begin there were suddenly 3 Sligh decks. Fortunately, they all lost in the first round, so I never met them, but so much for my scouting...

The whole tourney was full of interesting games - real T1 stuff. I'll try to focuse on these scenes in my report.

Round 1 - Sui
Game 1:
I know that I am winning game 1 when I draw my 4th card of a first turn LoA - no real T1 stuff here, so I'll skip it. I win with Morphling.
Game 2:
He has some creatures and discards some of my cards, but I have a Monolith and Mystical for Twister into the combo (well, Timewalk and Cunning Wish for Enlightened for Power Artifact surely helped). Twister kills Sui so much!

Matches: 1-0, Games: 2-0

Round 2 - TnT
Game 1:
This is a close game (actually, all 3 games were very close). Unfortunately, my opponent starts - not broken, but I don't have brokenness either. I can't FoW his second turn Survival and I am struggling to survive long enough. I manage to StoP him a bit and to slow him a bit with Abyss (which, of course, meets Lyrist). I am a bit mana-flooded and he is a bit mana-screwed (only 3 mana), but then he finally gets his Workshop and beats me with Juggernaut. At 10 life I draw Mystical and suddenly I know that I will win (unless I die next turn), because Mystical for YawgWin with all the mana on table and in my grave, the Monolith on table and Tutor+Merchant Scroll in the grave=instant death. Unfortunately, I die next turn due to the "Survival for Anger (discard Juggernaut), Survival for Welder, weld Mox into Juggernaut"-routine.
Game 2:
This time I manage to combo him with a YawgWin+enough Tutors+draw for the kill, just 1 turn before he kills me. I had Demonic in my hand and Tutored for Black Lotus (rather than for Power Artifact), since I feared REB (and indeeed, he had 1 REB - so Tutor for PA would have lost me this game), and with Lotus, sac, YawgWin, Lotus, Tutor, PA, Mana Drain from the grave for his REB, Stroke from the grave I had JUST enough coloured mana to kill him. Phew!
Game 3:
A very interesting gaame with a rather difficult decision. After the initial exchange of artifact creatures for StoP he manages to drop a Welder, with some Moxen and 3 land (no Workshop). I play my third Land and a Mox Monkey, he stalls, I destroy his artifact mana. I play my fourth mana and pass, he casts Anger. At this point I have Fire&Ice, Twister and Mana Drain in my hand. I have 4 lands. He still has 3 lands (no Workshop, 1 Sol Ring), 3 cards in his hand and nothing remarkable in the graveyard. There are two options: either I am NOT going to Twister. Then I should not counter Anger, Fire the Welder and wait for a solution against this slow clock, with Mana Drain in my hand and Twister as an (essentially) dead card. Or I Mana Drain Anger, and play Twister plus Fire on Welder on my turn (with Mana Drain Mana available). Clearly, the second option seems superior, since I have then board advantage by 1 creature (Mox Monkey) and 1 land, and as a bonus I am getting rid of Anger and Welder (and he has to discard his 3 cards, which probably contain REB anyway - so if I am going to Twister in this game it is now or never). I topdeck a land and proceed as planned. He discards Land, REB, Black Lotus. I draw Demonic, Stroke, Grim Monolith and 4 lands. I cannot kill him this turn, unfortunately, since I would need 1 more coloured mana. But I will definitely kill him next turn. Or would have done so, if he had not drawn the most broken combination of cards. At ths point I should mention that I had 12 lifes (and he 21, but that is not relevant). And to remind you, he had 3 duals on board and nothing else. But observe now his play: draw, Ancestral, draw, draw, draw, Mox Emerald , Mox Sapphire, Workshop, Sol Ring, Juggernaut, Time Walk, Survival of the Fittest (tapped out - take extra turn). I destroy at the end of his first turn 1 Mox, but all is in vain, for he Survivals Anger into the graveyard (with a Juggernaut) for Welder, plays Welder, exchanges a Mox for a second Juggernaut, Survivals a third Juggernaut (with Squee, but this is irrelevant) and plays it. Then he attacks for 15.

These close games showed me, that the combo can be really crucial against TnT (well, this is not a very spectacular observation, since the combo developed in the same metagame where TnT was born...)

Matches: 1-1, Games: 4-2

Round 3 - Sui
I can relax - it is only Sui (1 year ago I would have slapped myself for making such a statement - but now: who is Sui?)
Game 1 is kind of funny, as he manages to play Cabal Therapy thrice (plus once with Flashback, sacrificing a creature that would have died to Abyss anyway). Right. Died to Abyss. Despite of his assault on my hand I manage to play my 4 mana sources, topdeck The Abyss and win the game from there on. Twister helepd a bit, but Abyss alone is still game against most Sui decks without NetherVoid. While I am winning I almost choke of laughter when he plays some spot removal on my Morphling (and I am tapped out) - why not play Edict? But this funny incident just delays the inevitable by 2 turns, as I YawgWin into the combo.
Game 2 is uneventful - I manage to mana-screw him completely with my first turn Strip Mine - he proceeds to discard for 3 turns; I just note that he sided in some graveyard hate against my virtual KrOathan engine... I kill with the combo (you know that you are winning against Sui when you can safely Wish for Skeletal Scrying and use it for 5).

Matches: 2-1, Games: 6-2

Round 4 - er, Rock? whatever, BG with Duress/Hypie/Negator/River Boa/manlands/Deed and usual broken stuff available in B and G
This deck just won against gro-a-tog, so it cannot be too bad. I mean, he was 3-0 in matches at this point.
Game 1:
I get rid of his threats with spot removal and get Monolith. With Cunning Wish for Enlightened for Power Artifact I get infinite mana and I apply it to a FoF into a Braingeysir which means game.
Game 2:
He has a triple Waste begin, but this matches nicely with my 5 land starting hand. All I have to do is to Disenchant a Choke and to StoP a River Boa (and counter 2 spells). When I Stroke myself for 7 he scoops.

Matches: 3-1, Games: 8-2

Last Round: URphidian
Game 1 ends in the first turn, when my Ancestral gets misdirected. Ophidians do their job.
Game 2 ends in the fourth turn, when his Ancestral gets misdirected. Mox Monkey does its job, later joined by Morphling.
Game 3 ends with timeout. He had a decent start (I had to StoP a Rootwater Thief and to double FoW his Ancestral+FoW). He manages to play Ophidian, unfortunately. However, after some preparations (cast Demonic Tutor whch is countered, cast Balance, which is countered - meanwhile another Ophidian joins) I manage to play YawgWin+Balance. Time is called when he has 3 Moxen and 2 Island on board and 2 Blood Moon and 1 REB in hand. I have 1 Mox Monkey in hand plus 2 lands in hand and 2 lands on board - would have been an interesting game, but time is over and we have to draw.

Matches: 3-1-1, Games: 9-3

Some notes on my deck/SB:

The combo proved again its worth - against TnT I surely would have lost the second game without it, and if he would not have drawn THAT broken (e.g. no ANcestral or no Time Walk or not 2 Moxen+1 Sol Ring or not the Workshop or not the Survival or not enough creatures or... you get the idea, right?), I would have won instantly the third game, rather then having to try to race with Morphling.

I really like Cunning Wish in general and especially with the SB Enlightened Tutor - not only does it produce The Abyss, if needed, but also one of the two combo pieces, if you wish (and the COP: Red, if you are not as arrogant as I have been).

The Impulse was ok - I mean, I drew it only twice (Sui and URphidian), and against Sui it was irrelevant since I was already winning, while against URphidian it was a nice counter-fetcher, after all these depleting counter wars.

In general, I think that I need one more threat against control or aggro-control, but against the 3 aggro decks (Sui^2, TnT) and The Rock 1 Morphling+1 Shaman+1 combo seemed more than sufficient. Or at least sufficient. Maybe I really should give Morphling#2 a second chance...

I did not have the feeling that Shattering Pulse+Allay would have been better in my SB. I was happy e.g. against "The Rock" to have maindeck Disenchants (it is stupid to have Shattering Pulse against Choke or Allay against Mishra's or Kegs), and against TnT I never would have had time to activate the buyback ability - games were simply too fast.

Oh - I almost forgot some more broken stuff that I promised above: after finishing with The Rock I watched TnT against the other Keeper deck. It was the second game with Keeper winning the first. Now it looked still undecided, but the Keeper player was a bit under pressure - he managed to StoP, Seal and counter the early threats, though. But suddenly the tempo changed. A Memory Jar slipped through. I should mention, that the Keeper player had used his only Morphling for an early FoW, so he was bound to kill with the combo. Fortunately, he does not draw any combo piece with the Jar and the TnT player "just" gets Survival+lands+Ancestral into more lands. He plays a second Workshop (which, I believe, is a slight msitake, since he had no red source on the table and 3 or for Taigas in his hand), but the Keeper player does not topdeck too well for the next couple of rounds. Thus, the Survival engine starts and soon Juggernaut is attacking and Anger+Genesis+Squee join the party. However, the Keeper player has ZOrb and Monolith. He draws Power Artifact and plays it, but there is nothing to do with infinte mana yet. With Abeyance and FoW and Mana Drain and StoP on the ensuing Lyrist (to destroy Power Artifact, of course) and eating all lands but one (Underground Sea) the Keeper player manages to survive. And now I predict what is going to happen, for it happens to all Keeper players in such situations: when you managed to survive for such a long time and you are about to die, then your deck suddenly recognizes its master and produces THE topdeck. In this case, of course, YawgWin. And indeed, so it happened (or else there would be no story).

What a game!