Its late and I still have the tournament results to type up, so I'm just going to jump right into it:
My deck: Oath
Black Lotus (p)
Mox Pearl
Mox Emerald
Mox Sapphire (p)
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Tropical Island
1 strip mine
2 wasteland
4 island
1 forest
2 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
1 mana drain
4 counterspell
1 misdirection
2 stifle
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
2 serum visions
1 ancestral recall
2 intuition
2 sensei's divining top
2 gaea's blessing
4 oath of druids
1 timewalk
1 rushing river
4 pithing needle
1 akroma
1 ancient hydra
1 platinum angel
SB:
2 chalice of the void
2 spawning pit
3 tormod's crypt
2 arcane lab
3 energy flux
2 ground seal
1 pristine angel
Round 1 vs Brian running a U/R welder
He goes first and I keep a shaky hand with an Oath in it. He gets a turn 2 duress and removes the Oath. He gets an early welder, I pithing needle naming welder. It goes downhill from there for him.
Game 2, he just gets going with his welder and counter magic and beats me down with trikes. I get a hydra in play and kill his welder, but he kills the hydra w/ a trike
Game 3: Its a long match, but I get an early pithing needle naming welder. I then get platinum angel in play. He gets his plat in play. We beat each other down. I get my hydra in play and ping his angel out. Oath up akroma, win.
Round 2 (1-0, 2-1) vs Ron
This is another long game as I stall out getting Oath into play. But again, an early pithing needle comes down naming welder. He then drops a seal of cleansing. I draw into my oath the next turn. We play draw go for a while, jockeying for position when I finally get it...and we both make a play mistake.
I didn't realize cleansing could also take out artifacts when I drew my second pithing needle. I play it and pass priority. He looks at me and says, naming what? I say seal of cleansing. In response he activates his seal and takes out PN 1 naming Goblin Welder. I drop the oath and he goes. Midway through his turn I realize both of our mistakes (if I am naming the pithing needle, its coming into play meaning he can't respond at that point). We call a judge over, both agree on what happened and how. We haven't even completed 1 whole turn since the incident and the game state has not changed. We end up putting both the seal and needle back into play.
He then plays jesters cap and searches my library, pulling 2 of my 3 creatures. Thank goodness 1 of them was in my hand. I hard cast it the next turn (platty I believe) and attack, attack attack for the win.
SB: I had seen duplicant so I sided out plat and brought in pristine. Also brought in some GY hate.
I keep a so-so hand w/ no oath, but a foridden orchard. Turn 3 I draw into pristine angel. Turn 4, I hardcast it with a black lotus. I just keep a handful of instants and attack away. Whenever he tries to do something to the angel, I cast an instant to untap her. I had kept a counter, stifle, intuition.
Round 3 (2-0, 4-1) vs Fred Chang playing U/W fish
I hate u/w fish. I hate it with a passion. I despise it.
Game 1, I keep an opening hand with a mox emerald in it (my first and only 1 of the day). He goes first and drops chalice for 0. So much for mana acceleration. Turn 3, he gets his ninja going and it doesn't take long after that. I never see oath, but he still drops a meddling mage naming oath anyway.
Game 2, I keep a decent hand with a turn 2 oath available...and get it. Oath on the board early. Over the course of the next few turns I proceed to drop 2 pithing needles naming, Ninja of the deep hours and mishra's factory. We go back and forth for literally about 15-17 turns, me with an active divining top, brainstorms, fetches, the whole 9 yards. Somewhere around turn 18 I STILL do not have the forbidden orchard and he finally plays his first creature...meddling mage (naming sensei's divining top). And what do I do? Miss my oath trigger!!!! stupid stupid stupid. Its ok, its only 1 mage. He attacks for 2 and I oath up my next turn. He swords and I don't have a force (the other 4 of in my deck that I didn't see).
He drops a sword of fire and ice and equips it. I drop a pithing needle naming sword (figuring I can kill the mage and be done with it.
I then oath up platinum angel...which he swords (and that was my other big mistake, I forgot to side in the pristine). He has both meddling mages and since my ancient hydra is in my hand (again...it was actually there most of the day) I have no oath trigger. And since I never drew a single orchard (now on something like turn 21) I can't hard cast it. His mages remind me that Oath is fishes b!tch.
Round 4 (2-1 4-3)
vs charles scounbys playing WTF modified
I grumble about fish light heartedly, but Charles was a nice guy and fun to play against. Game 1 was pretty intense. He got his mongrel out early and brought some beats. I had the orchards and believe I hard cast a creature and was in this one right up until the end.
Game 2 is looking GOOD. Turn 1 pithing needle naming mongrel. I believe turn 2 pithing needle naming aether vial. He frowned hard each and every time cause it kept ruining his game plan. I draw into the oath and am ready to drop it the next turn. He top decks his f'n meddling mage. Its ok, cause I'm 2 land drops away from hard casting my ancient hydra which is in my hand AGAIN!!
He top decks a wasteland. Takes out a land. I drop a land. He top decks a wasteland, takes out a land. We play it out as he just has 2 damage per turn coming at me. I dig like crazy for an answer and just can't find it.
A force of will would have been nice, but I think I saw 3 of them all day long on my side of table. A number of people watching some of my games suggested I switch sleeves for ancient hydra and ancestral recall. I should have listened to them.
I wish Charles good luck in round 5 as that will make or break him. He does pretty good I hear.
Round 5 2-2 4-5
Before round 5 we announce the potential for a draft. I'm in as are a handful of others. We are at 7 and Wayne decides he's had enough and opts out. Linc goes with him and suddenly we are 5. John Janick says if he loses round 5 he'll draft so we decide to wait. I go into round 5 and get paired vs Brian L. playing Tog (by his own admission, sub-optimal). At some point between deciding to postpone the draft and getting settled in for round 5, he decides its time to go home and eat. I get the round 5 win on a concession. Brian is a really good player, but against a sub-optimal tog deck, I should probably win anyway.
So round 1 opponent Brian and I play for gits and shiggles. He wins 2-1 in some pretty intense non-sideboarding matches.
I then realize if I draft, I'll have left my wife at home all day with the 2 kids and all evening. I figure if I draft, I'm a dead man the moment I walk through the door. So I pick up some pizza from Domino's (conveniently located 50 feet away) and go home for dinner.
I was disappointed with myself. I rarely saw an early Oath and I mulliganed to 5 cards at least 1 time in every round. Despite all my digging, I consistently failed to get counter back up and/or combo pieces.
It would be easy to chalk a so-so showing up to that. And honestly at least 1 or 2 individual games were just pure bad luck. But overall, I simply did not prepare for fish. Nothing at all. I know its Oath's worst match up and I didn't even put 1 card in my SB specifically for it. My own stupid fault.
The 1 card in SB that might help vs fish (pristine angel due to pro-white), I forgot to side in. My own stupid fault.
Couple that with solid playing from both fish players and I should be happy I finished 3-2.
