Before I begin... Waterbury PwNz0rZ.
I spend Friday night not playtesting, but drafting MD5. A smart person would spend hours playtesting against Drawgo, Neo-Oshawa Stompy, Fish, Control Slaver, and Workshop+Welder.Deck. Buuuut.... I had spent 5 hours of theory and calculations on paper and theory was good enough. My options were Burning Dryad, 4cc, and Draw-Go. I was not going to play any stupid fish deck and I refuse to accept the brokeness of workshops and welders.
I'll reveal my deck a bit later.
After getting like... 5 hours of sleep, teammates decide that we should wake up bright and early to go to a diner to get breakfast.... Ok fine... We meet up with some other friends at the diner and talk about what we're playing. All this while we order/eat our food... the Diner didn't have any Rice Congee (the mushy stuff), Rice Cakes, or any Dim Sum.... so I had to settle with Freedom Toast. My team was playing Dragon (Jay Buda), Workshop + Trinisphere + Fatties (Gary Buda and Pete Florkoski), and our friends were playing FCG (this guy whose name I forgot, Doh), Fish (Mike), and Ghetto Stompy (Bean). What the hell was I playing? Draw-Go splash Red... isn't that URphid? No it's worse than Urphid, I call it "Meek-Ah Phid" (named after teammate Micah who didn't show today, he likes playing that horrid deck, but I had reasoning to go with my choice). Teammates advise me to drop the read for mono-blue but I didn't. If I did, Maybe I would've had the chance to come in top 16.... like some other lucky people named Ben. However, I have the coolest kill condition, so I win!
Pile of Trash:
(20 Lands)
8 Islands
3 Volcanics
3 Fetches
4 Wastelands
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
(10 sets of 4)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drains
4 Mana Leak
4 Brainstorm
4 Ophidian
4 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 FoF
1 Tinker
1 Crucible
1 Colossus
2 Blood Moon
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Viashino Heretic
3 Fire/Ice
1 Covetous Dragon...Hell yeah SB:
4 REB
3 BEB
2 Energy Flux
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Hibernation
1 Blood Moon
Did I have fun playing today? Yes I loved it. Why the odd card choices?
3 Volc, 3 Fetch: At some point I thought there would be alot of Neo-Oshawa with Root Maze. During playtesting that deck raped me. Also, when I resolve Blood Moon, I don't want to be sitting on a ton of mountains and no islands in case I get into a counter war of sorts. Shut up, I need to fix this.
Blood Moon: I like it more than B2B.
Shaman/Heretic: They're good red cards.
Tinker, Cruc, Colossus: Control matchup, get crucible (assuming you're not already winning with a resolved Blood Moon). Aggro Matchup, get Colossus.
Covetous Dragon: What the hell. I have HUGE BALLS.
Why Urphid > Mono-Blue? Well, why 4CC > EBA? Let me rephrase that last queston. What's wrong with cutting red from 4cc? Or, wouldn't adding red to EBA make it better? Red offers such juicy sideboard and utility options. Of course, some blue cards make red unnecessary. For example, B2B and Energy Flux should've been a 4-of. Rack and Ruin blows. The only good red card is a counterspell, and that's REB (kills draw engines like TFK and wins counterwars). Heretic is good too, but flux solves the problem. And I'm playing Mono-U after this, no more silly Heretics.
I didn't really put alot of preparation into this although I should have. I'm just going to pull the "I have alot of schoolwork" excuse. Now the match results!
Oh, and the metagame isn't what I expected, not that my deck was going to be able to beat the metagame but whatever. I should've played FCG or listened to teammates and played Mono-U instead of URphid.
Round 1: Ian with Fish
During round 1, Ray comes around and wonders why I'm playing even when I automatically get the round 1 bye. I tell him I was paired up and I don't mind playing. He says my opponent and I both get the bye if I do it. I ask if my ooponent wants the bye or if he wants to play for the points. H ewants the bye so I say ok. Before Ray came around however, this is what happened:
Game 1: I play a library and he plays an island. I draw twice, play an island and he plays a wasteland. Then he plays a standstill. Ok... this guy is playing a little differently, maybe to throw me off. He's a tricky fellow. I draw twice as many cards as he does during the next 5 turns because he only has an island, strip mine, and wasteland on the table and my library is plain in sight. Finally I break SS when he plays a factory. I play FoF and BS end of his turn. I'm still a little worried about this guy but then he attempts the most unusual plays of the day. He tries to "daze" my library, countering no spell that was on the stack, but making me return library to my hand. I tell him that's not how daze works. He tries to play a Foreign Chinese Annul at the end of my turn when I haven't played anything. I ask him if he knows what the card does. He laters tries to Force of Will my Colossus. But, I wasn't casting it... I was in my attack phase. I offer him some advice and tips, but he insists that he's played magic for a while, but he's never played a Fish deck before. Interesting.
Round 2: Ryan with Trinismax
I tell him he gets 4 Xantid Swarms if he beats me. He has no clue why. We start our game.
Game 1: He has 3 moxes and academy in his opening hand. So that's 6 mana on turn 1... yeah that's game.
Game 2: He's getting more and more threats on the table while I struggle with 2 lands. I cast a brainstorm into a lotus and energy flux. Woohoo! I counter a pentavus but his tinker resolves to find him a Titan. I topdeck another energy flux and titan goes down. I get crucible lock on him shortly after. My heretic and phidians wrap up.
Game 3: I keep a risky hand but I haven't seen him play trinisphere so I might be ok. He goes land, mox, mox, sol ring. Go. I go Silver Mox, Island, Lotus -> Heretic. He has no idea what it does, it resolves anyway. He plays a memnarch, I drain it because I have no red mana. I drop Phid and heretic keeps any threat off the table.
Round 3: Dan with R/G Beatz
Game 1: He drops a dual and a taiga. I think it's a volcanic and say, yay! Fish! I play a Island, Lotus, Phid. Phid gets bolted, lavamancer get's rancored and I am getting beat up. I realize it was a taiga now. I lose to a very angry lavamancer and angry boa.
Game 2: I mull to 5 and go lotus phid with no lands. Phid draws me cards for a bit and I am down to 6 life from a Rancor'd Boa. He has in play 1 wasteland and 1 mox emerald. He's got 7 cards in hand and no red source thank god. He's not drawing lands. He plays another rancor on boa and swing. I play Hibernation. I untap and am ready to counter that boa that he doesn't play. The game slowly progresses and I am taking down to 3 from a gorilla shaman. After hibernating boa, I've been drawing about 20 cards off library and a phid. I've drawn 15 mana sources. I BEB a kird ape and block a shaman. I am down to 2 at this point. He has no mana to burn me while I'm tapped out. Here's the point of the game where my greed cost me the match. I draw a land. Phid draws me a tinker. I actually have a win condition but I draw a card with library.... guess who it is? Colossus. I cry and discard him to be shuffled. I tinker up colossus and then drain a boa. I have all lands in my hand and no where to sink that drain mana. I topdeck a hibernation. Woohoo! Colossus hits for 11. Then he bolts me. And I die. I inform Ray that I've been defeated. Dan was a great player and it was a very intensely fun game. He was simply playing R/G beatz, not dryad or anything. He would later make it to top 16. His first two matches were against Sui Black.
Round 4; Jon Ultima with Mono-U Belcher
I've seen this deck at Newington a few weeks ago. I laughed at it. And that's why I got my ass kicked today.
Game 1: He plays Island, brainstorm, Mox, mox, sol ring, black lotus. I play Island, Mox, Sol Ring, Black Lotus, Gorilla shaman. He brainstorms and drains my shaman. Resolved shaman = Win.m He resolves a belcher next turn and I never let him cast mana severence. i die to belcher.
game 2: Lotus into phid and we see what's a better engine. Intuition or Phid. Intuition wins because he gets 2 DA's and 1 AK. When intuition resolved after me drawing about 5 cards off phid and then like 5 moe after it resolved. I had no counters. He tinkers... probably for a belcher so I let it resolve. He grabs Colossus and I die. He would also make top 16 later.
Round 5: Matt with Extended Rock.
If fish were more present, he would've crushed them. There's not much to say here. He plays 90% nonbasics and my blood moon just wins both games.
Round 6: Matt with Control Slaver (the guy that wears nothing but that one hat and lostprophets shirt)
I might make top 16 cause of my good tiebreakers but first I need to win this match.
Game 1: Heretic gets into play.
Game 2: I counter a Memory Jar and some guy and then instead of playing Volcanic to fuel my REB, I play a wasteland. Next turn he tinkers for something big. Whoops. I'm gonna pull the "I was thinking about how sexy heretic and covetous dragon are" excuse.
Game 3: I've had enough Magic. I don't care. I play recklessly. I lose. Oh well.
I drop. The guy in a green shirt playing FCG is 6-1 and so is Gary Budah. The rest of us drop to draft. I draft a ridiculous deck that loses to teammate Jay Budah. The packs were juice. 1st pack was Leonin SKyhunter. Shatter or Arrest. I take arrest. Pack two was Barter in Blood, Ebolt, Arrest. I take arrest. Pack three was Barter in Blood, Slith Ascendent, or Arrest. I ttake arrest. Pack 4 was a Shatter. However, the guy on my left was taking all the white after me so I get shafted in Darksteel.
Also, Someone fix the pictures in "The Waterbury Update" tournament section. Had I known what the fuss was about, I wouldn't have been playing type 4. I missed all the real life action.
Now some type 4 action: We find a random person to join our game and we rochester. He gets all the broken 1st picks. He has... Memnarch, Legacy Weapon, More goods, AND he has Aladdin's Lamp and Planar Portal. Goddamnit. My deck was horrible. All I know is, the board was locked up so badly and I hit the panic button. Decree of Annihilation. Topdeck bribery to get memnarch. I win. Yay. Game 2 we get an early endless whisper. That card is insane! Board is once again locked up by all these crazy cards and I nuke everything. I win again.
If only I could topdeck like I did for type 4. Sigh.
I'll win the next one,
Jason Zheng.
EDIT: Fixed some typos and stuff.
