A mini report from GameForce's sanctioned T1 tourney held on Sunday October 24th. Prize structure was cut to T8 for:
1st LoA
2nd Alpha Berserk (signed)
3nd Beta Sinkhole
4th Beta Sinkhole
5-8th Randon UL Dual.
I played Tinker 4CC again to the T8. The list was
almost a carbon copy of the one I T8'ed with last week, except I removed the Mystical from the MB, switched Emerald for Crypt, and added another FTK in favor of the 3nd REB in the board. For those interested:
'T8 Decks On Morphling.dec'
4 Flooded Strand
2 City of Brass
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Balance
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fire/Ice
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Exalted Angel
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Flametogue Kavu
SB: 2 Rack and Ruin
SB: 1 Fire/Ice
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Skeletal Scrying
SB: 1 Mind Twist
Round 1: Tinker 4CCGame 1: Yay. Mirror. He ran Monkey, I ran Karn. Whatever. Game one was long, interesting, swingy and full of decent plays on both sides that were somewhat unexpected on a Sunday morning. I feel control slipping out from under me at some point late in the game, but manage to resolve a Srcying for 7. He can't recover.
Game 2: Scryings and fetches take me down to 11. He Tinkers up a DC and Time Walks. Time is called during his Time Walked turn, and he beats me to death with the Fat Man. We can't try for game 3, so it's a draw.
0-0-1
Round 2: Tinker 4CCGame 1: Yay. Another mirror. He's missing one mox, a lotus and an ancestral however. He mulls to 5, draws 1 land which I Waste, and I win with an early DC.
Game 2: More of the same. No mana screw for him this time, but just a lack of means to get back into the game. He told me his Ancestral was in the mail, so he'll probably have a slightly better shot next time.
1-0-1
Round 3: DragonGame 1: He Bazaars a couple of times but is unable to produce a Dragon before I kill him. Specifics elude me.
Game 2: He manages a turn 1 Swarm and a Chalice for 1 off a crypt which damages him like ONCE over the course of the entire ten-turn-or-so-game. I ofcourse have a crypt, and ancestral and a brainstorm in my opening hand, and draw into a Purge. The turn after, he goes Chalice for 0, which took out the Crypt I had been afraid to play on turn 1. I build up my mana base for what seemed like ages while he fails to draw into a Bazaar. I Wish for R&R, kill his chalices and his Swarm. Good. I now have a hand full of counters and tinker for a DC.
2-0-1
Round 4: Oath - Koen vd HulstRound 4: Keeper
Game 1: He Tinkers and I'm mana screwed
Game 2: Drain Colossus into Colossus
Game 3: I got Colossi, he got the card advantage. I topdeck time walk in turn 4 of extra turns, but he hold yet another Swords (making it a draw)
Yeah. from my side it looked like this:
Game 1: I Tinker for DC but probably should've taken Karn to kill his moxen :-)(Won).
Game 2: Hardcast DC and he Drains. On his turn he activates Oath for DC and oh yeah, TOPDECKS A DC. Hmm...what to use that 11 drain mana for.... (Lost)
Game 3: Interesting game. It looks like he's winning. Unexpectedly, I get out a Angel. Time is called. The Angel buys me some time, but he can still kill me with DC before the extra turns are up. I need to bring in another Angel to win, and I do. He counters. Damn, on my way to losing. I manage to force thourgh a Karn next turn, which sees to it that the next DC 'hit' only gets in 3 damage, bringing be back on top of the game. My Angel and Spirit Tokens are going in for the kill: his colossus can't finish me off before I kill him. I have an STP on hand but obviously don't want to give him the life. I really thought I had the upper hand and would have won on the 5th turn, but he Time Walks on the 4th and I am forced to STP to prevent me from losing. How swingy :-)
2-0-2
Round 5: Hulk - Tom vd LogtGame 1: Darn. Bad matchup, really good player. There goes the T8. Anyway, I get lucky. He's mana screwed and scoops after I resolve Tinker.
Game 2: He keeps another so-so hand and mine is excellent if weird, hardcasting a turn 1 Karn. It beats for quite a bit before he drops Tog. Since I lost a bunch of life to Skeletal, I need to chump with Karn. He only has some 2 cards left on hand an a couple in his yard, insufficient to kill me immediately. He knows I have Scrying though, so he brings me down as much as possible. I still try an 'emergency' Scrying to find Tinker, but he Drains. OK, well at least I'll still have enough life to make it though EXACTLY one more turn. He uses my Drain mana for some AK's but is apparently unable to find permission. I topdeck a Demonic for Tinker when it counts, and he scoops to DC. Sorry man, bad luck I guess.
3-0-2
Round 6 - GATGame 1: A draw will likely see me in the T8, but he needs a win, and I wasn't all that sure either, so we played. A quick & easy win with DC (so quick, in fact that I tought he was playing Tog, not even having seen any consciously seen specific GAT parts).
Game 2: I lose during a very long game. Specifics elude me.
Game 3: I mull to 6. He keeps but notices he failed to shuffle 2 cards into his lib. I could call a judge and get him a game loss, but fuck that. I don't wanna T8 that way. I make suggest a forced mulligan instead and he accepts. I Mind Twist him for his hand on turn 3 or so. He Gushes, and FoWs. OK, so now he has no land. Fair enough. I get out a Angel which takes me up to 34 or something, but is unable to kill him. My STP and life total ensured he couldn't kill me either though, before time was up, so we drew and stragely, I was 6th in the final standings with:
3-0-3
---------------------------------
Quarter Finals: Control Titan - Menno RieffGame 1: Another bad matchup vs. a very good player. I keep a so-so hand with no FoW. Good choice, Bram! He goes turn 1 Welder and turn 2 Blood Moon. Game.
Game 2: This so-so hand did have 1 FoW but no accelleration other than the Walk I was forced to pitch to FoW when he played Welder. He resolved a Blood Moon the turn after. Another Welder saw life, and two TFK's gave him 2 Titans it the yard. He took his turn when I was at 14 life :-)
Some random stats:
- 36 attendants
- at least 4 TMD full members in the T8
- finals between 2 TMD full members (menno and arthur) playing ControlTitan and Stax, respectively. Menno won with 2-1.
