1.5 Tournament #4

Tonight I won another tournament, this time for $20!

I arrived early and played around a bit. I was dithering between running the High Tide deck from last time out, and my G/B Survival deck. Upon seeing the one kid with a U/W control deck, I went with the Survival deck:

4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Zombie Infestation
2 Tortured Existence
1 Oath of Ghouls
2 Buried Alive
2 Cabal Therapy

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Krovikan Horror
1 Genesis

3 Spike Feeder (metagame call vs. a sea of red)
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spore Frog

1 Bone Shredder
1 Death's Head Buzzard (Survival-able sweeper)
1 Masticore
1 Flametongue Kavu

3 Wall of Roots
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Bird of Paradise
1 Quirion Ranger

18 Forests and Swamps (I forget the exact ratio)
1 Mountain
1 City of Brass
1 Llanowar Wastes

SB: 4 Gloom
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 4 Ashen Ghoul
SB: 1 Zombie Infestation
SB: 1 Elvish Lyrist
SB: Uktabi Orangutan

Metagame:
1 G/B Survival (me)
1 R/G Survival/Madness/Burn (Ricky)
1 R/G Madness/Burn (Dillon)
1 WW (Cody)
1 horrible green equipment deck (Adam)
1 U/W Control (Brian)
1 Burn deck (Wesley)
2 Elf/Biorhythm (Kendrick)
1 Suicide (Josh)

Round One vs. Wesley (Burn)

Game 1 he starts off hitting me with random burn spells, but I Survival for multiple Feeders and it gains me enough to kill him
Game 2 I keep a slow hand with no tutors and he runs me down.
Game 3 I again Survival for Feeders and do him in. I think I had Tortured Existence working this game too.

Round Two vs Josh ("Suicide")

Game 1 he plays some guys but I get ZI and Survival going I think and eventually murder him.
Game 2 I keep a one-land hand and am promptly run over by a pump knight with Unholy Strength on it.
Game 3 I have to mulligan to five, and things are looking grim. But I keep Swamp, Forest, ZI, Buried Alive, Elf. I play Forest, Elf and pass. He Duresses me and takes the ZI. Big mistake. I BA for Genesis/Spore Frog/Eternal Witness and soon have the Frog lock in place, which he can't break. Eventually I draw my way out and beat him.

Round Three vs Brain (U/W Control)

Game 1 I resolve Tortured Existence on turn one, and that wins me the game. A Death's Head Buzzard and some Elves go the distance, despite his Kegs (Squee brought the Elves back).
Game 2 I sided in 3 Duress and 4 Ashen Ghoul, siding out Masticore, Buzzard, FTK, Quirion Ranger, and the Feeders. I vaguely remember getting some random beaters down and resolving some enchantments. I basically took him apart the whole game, despite him getting two Tormod's Crypts. He mustered a face-down Exalted Angel the turn before he died but I had a Bone Shredder waiting. Cabal Therapy was very good both games.

Round Four vs. Ricky (R/G Survival/Madness)

I had to sit and watch him dismantle one of the elf decks with Crater Hellion, so I had a pretty good idea what I was in for.

Game 1 I got a fast ZI/BA combo and just ran him down. I had Survival too but I don't remember abusing it.
Game 2 I sided Buzzard and Ranger out for Uktabi (fearing Disk) and Lyrist (to kill Survivals). Neither card showed up, but I ran him down all the same. Possibly he was mana screwed, I don't remember. After the tournament I reworked his deck, he'd been playing with 4 BoP and 17 land for a manabase.

So now I was in the finals, and Ricky and Dillon had to play off to see who would face me. Ricky lost game one, won game two with an extremely lucky topdecked Survival the turn before death, and won game three handily on the back of four Ravenous Baloth.

Finals vs Ricky (R/G Survival/Madness)
Game 1 I ran him over again. I don't remember how. I know he conceded to Tortured Existence + Survival.
Game 2 I kept an iffy hand: Forest, Survival, Survival, 4 black cards. I drew my Mountain but not enough other land and got run over.
Game 3 was anticlimactic. He mulled to five and wasn't ever really in it. I kept Forest, Elf, Wall, Elder, Survival, Horror, some other black card. I opened with Forest, Elf, speaking very confidently - I didn't want to betray the weakness of my hand. He didn't burn the elf, instead playing a Kird Ape, and that lapse probably lost him the game.

So I won $20, which I spent on an Enchantress' Presence, 3x Standstill (I owned one already), an asian BEB, a Yavimaya Coast, and with $2.20 left over to apply towards the next tournament's entry fee. I also convinced the store owner to extend the prizes for large tournaments (the current prize structure is 2/3 of the take for 1st, 1/3 for 2nd) such that third place gets their entry fee back and the remainder is split between 1st and 2nd.

The random ZI in the board was completely useless and I oversided against blue. The Feeders were solid gold all day though. I could use some more Therapies. I never used Gloom but had I played the white weenie guy I would have. That kid - Cody - who couldn't have been more than 12 - asked me what packs he should buy to get "awesome white cards." I reccommended Scourge (Decree of Justice and Eternal Dragon for rares, Silver Knight for uncommon). He bought two packs and opened Stifle and Siege-Gang Commander, lucky brat! He then went on to be a complete dick playing the guy next to me one round, calling every card 'gay' and talking about raping his opponent.

The Quirion Ranger was utter trash, I'm taking it out for something - possibly Lyrist. The ZI in the board was me badly over-sideboarding against blue - I didn't even use all the Duresses I had! This and one of the Duresses should have been Naturalize (not that I'd've used them but I didn't know that). I wish there was some good defense against Tormod's Crypt, which I'm sure to see next time. The Ashen Ghouls also were no great shakes, since they're purely post-SB and they'll be bringing in anti-graveyard stuff - I need to SB stuff that their hate won't splash-damage all over. Possibly Mishra's Factory.