The 24th of may marked the fourth Eindhoven Vintage tourney. So far, Eindhoven has proven to be an amazingly cool environment. Usually about 20 players attend, not a third of a regular Castricum tourney. The power level is much higher however, with almost everyone playing ‘tier one’ decks. This time, there were 22 contestants, among which former world champion Tom van de Logt. Roy Thijsen, no stranger to pro level magic, played as well. I honestly think it’s fantastic that more and more high-profile Magic players seem to take up Vintage recently. Most of the Insane Scrub Posse attended as well (7 of us).
This was to be my fourth tourney playing Groatog. Strangely, I have had only mediocre results so far. Looking at my record, I noticed how I had won almost every single match except for the mirror which I consistently lost. The fact that I won game 1 far more often than I lost it, suggested to me that:
a. I needed a new sideboard strategy, and
b. I needed to practice the mirror match more often.
I spent the last week playing against other Groatog decks at every chance I got. I became convinced that switching to a more control-based strategy (siding out Dryads for Smothers) as I had done up to now, was not the way to go. It seems I was right. Since I don't own an Emerald, I had previously run a MD Strip Mine. It had never ever been useful, though, so this time I opted for an extra (and as Tom van de Logt correctly remarked: extremely ugly) Island. This is what I showed up with:
//NAME: PsyGro
3 Quirion Dryad
4 Psychatog
1 Fastbond
4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Opt
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
2 Counterspell
2 Daze
1 Regrowth
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 3 Smother
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 1 Mana Short
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Berserk
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Round 1 – Roy Thijssen (Groatog)I had played (and lost) the mirror match against Roy before. He’s relatively new to Vintage but fully Powered up, and I didn’t have to count on him making any mistakes either. I had to stay sharp for this one. But oh man, did I fuck up in the first freakin’ turn.
Game 1. Roy (starts): Underground Sea. Go.
Me: Sea + Lotus. Go.
Roy (end of turn): Vampiric.
Me (response): Mystical for Ancestral.
The plan was obviously to draw into my Ancestral using an Opt or Brainstorm with my Lotus mana. After saccing the Lotus, however, I realised
I had no cantrips on hand....thank God I could use the mana for a Cunning Wish. If I had to take mana burn on top of that, I’d have had to shoot myself. Things turned out okay, though, and I managed to kill him while at 8.
Game 2. Nothing noteworthy happened. He drew a crappy hand, I drew a reasonable one. I went combo and won pretty easily. I gotta say, though, the way I was playing this match, Roy deserved to win. Oh well. Sometimes fortune favors the bold (or in this case: the stupid
1-0 (2-0)
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Round 2 – Tom van de Logt (RectorTrix) I had really been looking forward to this matchup. Not because I thought I had a shot at it, mind you, but simply because I never met Tom before, and it’s kind of cool playing against a former world champion. He turned out to be a nice guy as well as a good player. Roy had told me Tom was gonna play Carl Devos’ Twister.dec initially, which is a good matchup for Groatog. He decided to bring RectorTrix however, which is decidedly worse for me.
Game 1. I drew a decent hand, but Tom went insane on me quickly, putting himself on 1 life with Bargain, drawing half his deck in the process, and combo’ing me out with multiple Illusions early on in the game. It really is an amazing deck.
Game 2. Again, my opening had was decent, containing a Duress, which I played. Tom revealed Underground Sea – Academy – Duress – Ritual – Lotus - Ancestral – Bargain. Naturally I chose the Bargain but knew instantly that I was doomed either way. When he eventually played Will, he didn’t even need to replay the Bargain anymore. Well, like I said, I never expected to win. Since I felt I made no mistakes during this match, and I always wanted to play against Tom, I was pretty content with the outcome regardless. It’s not a big embarassment to lose to a horrible matchup piloted by one of the best Magic players in the world.
1-1 (2-2)
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Round 3 – Jochem Van den Hoven (Groatog) Jochem is a fellow ISP team member and I playtested many, many mirror matches against him the previous week. He had decided only yesterday he’d try the red splash (solely for Red Elemental Blast, though). It was time to see if the practicing had payed off.
Game 1. He tried to Ancestral early on, but I was able to Misdirect it to myself after a fierce counterwar, stripping both our respective hands, but leaving me with the invaluable three card draw. I think that sealed the game, really. I used my card advantage well, and combo’d him out quickly. No immensely interesting plays here, as usually in the mirror. Game 1 GAT mirrors are decided on your opening draw and your ingenuity in using Misdirections (I can't even tell you how much I like my opponent playing Gush, responding with Ancestral, seeing him Force of Will it, then adding a MisD to the stack making the FOW target his own Gush, watching him FOW my MisD, and Dazing it in response.)
By now, I’ll post my mirror SB strategy, since it got used throughout the day.
-1 Counterspell
-2 Cunning Wish
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-1 Mystical Tutor
-1 Merchant Scroll
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+4 Duress
+1 Berserk Dures
+1 MisdirectionGame 2. My new mirror SB strategy payed off. Weary of REB, which can really be a pain in the ass, I managed to get the upper hand quickly and went crazy on him again. Fair’s fair: my draws were decent (but not broken), but his were admittedly kind of crappy. Better luck next time, dude!
2-1 (4-2)
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Round 4 – Ton van der Linden (Groatog)Yay. Another ISP team member, another mirror match. Well, serves me right for playing such a hyped and boring deck. I had been paired against Ton in all my previous three Groatog tourneys, and had lost to him every time, in spite of his wacky card choices (I mean Grim Power in Groatog? Come on!). This time he was playing a more standad version however. He too had opted for the red splash.
Game 1 went to Ton, without much ado. He managed to beat me to death with a bigass Dryad pretty quickly, without actually combo’ing.
Game 2. I was pretty confident I was going to take this home, and so I did. I had a Tog on the table, but so did he. I had 4 lands and a Mox on the board and a handfull of counter, while he had 2 lands on table and a single Gush on hand. I decided to attack, since I had no possibility of drawing into or tutoring for a Wish (--> Berserk) and my ‘yard was fuller than his anyway. I calculated he had to block in order to stay alive. His Tog grew to mythic proportions but mine was just a little bigger. I had nothing left in my yard, but his board was clear of all permanents. Not a problem: I still had my Tog and lots of permission spells. The 11-turn clock he was on got decimated when I topdecked another Tog the following turn. Some more topdecked filter and draw sealed his fate.
Game 3. After completing game 2, we had 7 minutes left. I had my mind set on a win, so I offered no draw. I needed to combo him out and felt like I could pull it off. The judge caled for time during one of my turns. Ton was sure we were going to draw, but then I went Lotus – Will – Lotus – Fastbond – Dryad – Gush – Gush – Time Walk on him, stealing away one of his precious last turns. On turn 5, the Dryad was still a little too small to finish him off, but a well-placed Berserk helped the situation a bit
3-1 (6-3)
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Round 5 - Hero ‘t Mannetje (UB Control)Hero, also a fellow team member, had been playtesting Mon’s and Womprax’s The Shining the previous week, but after he went 0-5 against my Groatog (admitteldly mainly due to bad draws), he decided against playing it. The evening before the tourny he put together a blue-black ophidian permission deck. He had been doing fairly well today with this deck he had just put together and never played a game with in his life.
Game 1 was over pretty quick. I decided to go the combo route and had enough counterbackup to force it though. It put myself on 8 with Fastbond generating insane card advantage with three Gushes. The bigass Dryad on my side of the board didn’t hurt either. Hero conceded.
Game 2. I used the same sideboard strategy I used for all three mirror matches (and basically the RectorTrix match, too). Hero drew a mediocre hand, as I did too. Mine did contain a Duress however, revealing Lotus – Sword to Plowshares – Force of Will – Mana Drain – Red Elemental Blast. I decided against choosing the Lotus since he had nothing decent to do with it yet. The permission spells were kind of a decent choice, but on the other hand I had all the counterbackup I needed on hand. Since I have to win with a creature, I choose one of the spot removal spells. The REB only finishes off the Tog, so I chose Swords. Perhaps a strange choice, but I hope you can follow my reasoning. Again, I topdecked like a maniac and combo’d him out. Hero is really hoping that Gush will be announced ‘restricted’ come June 1st
4-1 (8-3)
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Round 6 – Arthur Tindemans (MUD) Arthur, a fellow TMDmember, is the highest ranking Vintage player in the Netherlands by a long shot. His current winning streak can be attributed to the fact that he’s been playing MUD (artifact control) for a while now. For those of you who don’t know: it’s like Stax, only without the Meditates (or any of the other colored tech) but with Grafted Skullcaps and Ensnaring Bridges. The deck is very strong and if his opening hand is reasonably good, you’re locked beyong hope. I ran into Arthur before the tourney and commented that it was really a compliment to him and his deck that almost every player in the room had devoted at least 2 siboard slots to him. I myself played with 2 Hurkyl’s Recalls in the board and was really hoping for a chance to stack Skullcap and play Recall
Game 1. He had a decent hand, and I didn’t draw any permission. I had a Fastbond, though, and hoped for the best. He managed a first turn Smokestack, which spelled bad news. My second and third turn were obviously the game-deciders for me and I figured I had a chance if I played it right. Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about my stuff getting countered. I played Fastbond and Gushed my way to a turn 4 victory against one of my toughest matchups.
Game 2. This was the one that counted. In the previous tournament, I caused Arthur’s only game loss, also in the first game. He kicked my ass the two consecitive games, though. This time ‘round, I kept a hand with no permission, but with a Duress and an Hurkyl’s Recall. Unfortunately, he played a turn 1 Sphere of Resistance. He also drew 2 Wastelands, a Strip Mine, and 2 Petrified Fields: a horrible thing for Groatog. On the other hand, I kept drawing land after land and many of them were fetchers, which allowed me to ensure I had 2 islands in the game in order to Gush in response to his Strip Mine effects. What a lucky coincidence! During the whole of the tourney I get ‘mana flooded’ only during the game where I could actually use it. It was still an incredibly tough matchup however. A second Sphere resolved, as well as a Smokestack. When he annouced Karn, I knew I was in trouble and was forced to pitch a Hurkyl’s Recall to a Force of Will. The turn after, I drew a Merchant Scroll and fetched my 2nd Recall. At the end of his following turn, I sent everything back to his hand (no Skullcap, unfortunately
, which bought me some time. During my one sac-free turn in which my spells actually cost the amount printed on the card, I tutored for the stuff I needed in order to set up the win, playing among other things a Fastbond, a Dryad and a Time Walk. On his turn he replayed almost all of his badass artifacts (save the Spheres). The judge called for time on my following turn. I was feeling kinda bad since I had taken quite long for some decisions in the second game. If I had beaten him 1-0 by not being able to finish the second game, it could have looked like I won by stalling. I was never stalling, though: I felt I could really win this and wasn’t prepared to make any mistakes. Fortunately, I managed to play Yawgmoth’s Will and cantrip-pump my Dryad to 15/15 during the ‘active player finishes his..’-turn and kill him with it. I didn’t even need the Yawgmoth’s Willed Time Walk turn anymore. Even though I definitely took my time for some of my decisions, I did manage to beat him fair and square in what was by far my most interesting and difficult match of the day.
5-1 (10-3)
With 15 points, I took a shared first spot with Tom van der Logt. I ranked just below him in tiebreakers, though. Even though our Op-match-win% was equal (60,1852), his PL-game-win% was slightly higher (78,5714 to 76,9231). A pretty close finish. Arthur ended up taking the second spot with 13 points.
Check out Top 8 and deck breakdown in MoreFlings
Eindhoven Coverage 24-5: The Other Side Of The Table-thread!
PROPS:
- Rudy (MoreFling), for taking 141 pictures on my camera. I'll put (some of) them online a.s.a.p. Didn't you have any judgeing to do or what?
- Everyone else, for showing up and slowly buidling the legacy of Eindhoven. Watch out Dülmen, here we come!
SLOPS:
None, really. You’re always having fun when you’re winning. Oh yeah, maybe the local rumor mill for informing me that Gush might be up for restriction. Now I don’t know if I should fork out for 4 foil copies anymore
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