ICBM workshop Aggro (AKA Gilded Claw) Splits a mox!
Dan Carp (Gilded Claw) splits with Tommy Kolowith (ICBM stax featuring Intuition for the nut-high)
Top 8 in no real order
ICBM Dan Carp: Gilded Claw
ICBM Tommy Kolowith: ICBM stax
GWS Ryan Spindler: A GWS deck
GWS Mat Endress: A GWS deck
ICBM Mike Solymossy (That's me): A GWS deck
ICBM I@n Degraff: Kowal-Gifts
GWS Brian Fisher: GWS flamevault
????? Josh Rayden: Gifts Oath
Overall a VERY good showing by ICBM, and GWS did well too. It sucked that in the quarters, the 4 ICBMer's played each other, and 2 of the GWS guys played each other.
I really can't post my Report, since the deck I played is still secretive by request of GWS [it will come after the list is released]. However, the first place report is as follows:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Goblin Welder
2 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Darksteel Ingot
2 Gilded Lotus
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mindslaver
3 Juggernaut
1 Triskelion
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Memnarch
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
3 Intuition
1 Jester's Cap
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Memory Jar
Sideboard:
1 Duplicant
2 Seal of Cleansing
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Triskelion
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Tormod's Crypt
Round 1: Tommy Kolowith w/ICBM stax
Game 1: Back and forth a bit, he gets pretty much every lock component possible but I manage to use every bit of what I can muster to resolve one measly Welder. It solves his board perfectly. Karn takes it soon.
Game 2: I vaguely remember it being a bit more one-sided and I crush him.
1-0, 2-0
Round 2: Endress w/TPS
Game 1: I keep Workshop + Trinisphere on the play with an otherwise worthless hand (you can't possibly mull that against combo on the play). It resolves. I then draw zero mana for I believe 5 turns while he makes 6 consecutive land drops and wins easily.
Game 2: I throw some stumbling blocks in his way and he scoops turn 3 or 4 to Jester's Cap plus active Welder.
Game 3: I keep a solid hand with 3 misc lock components and a Welder. In my next 15 cards or so, I draw zero creatures, zero tutors/Intuitions, and zero other relevant cards. He has the first Tendrils to stabilize on life and the second to exactly kill me. I had Slaver 2 cards down for the auto-win.
1-1, 3-2
Round 3: Some guy w/fucked up UW Fish slash Landstill
Game 1: I think he might have Forced something, but I have Tinker, tons of mana, and 2 Intuitions to find threats. He has no chance.
Game 2: I have to keep a mediocre hand and he rips me apart with Crucible/Waste as I draw garbage. I trade beats between my Trike and his 2 Factories, but his Crucible eventually forces me to hold it back to avoid getting raced by 1 and chumped by the other. On my final turn, at 2 life, I drop most of my hand including Tinker and Karn, and he counters it all. Apparently he runs Mana Drain. I also observe Nev's Disk randomly during the early game.
Game 3: I have a good drop on him with Welder + Juggernauts, but again he has Crucible/Waste (bearing in mind I run twice as many Crucibles as he does but see zero throughout the last 2 games to his 3). I draw plenty of gas, but he has over the course of the game 3 Forces of Will, 2 Mana Drains, 2 Seals of Cleansing, and a Nev's Disk as well as the Crucible/Strip lock. I still almost beat him but he keeps ripping answers like a champ and I keep walking into them thinking "there's no possible way he has another Drain/Seal/etc. With him at 7 I have no choice but to stabilize and play for the draw to stay in competition. On turn 4 of extra turns he beats me down to 2 as I have to chump with my Welder and am left with zero permanents facing down 2 manlands and a full board with him having the third Force in the grip. My hand is the absolute nuts minus about three Workshops. We draw but I'm quite pissed about it.
1-1-1, 4-3-1
Round 4: Some dude w/EBA or something?
Game 1: I crush him.
Game 2: I crush him. It wasn't much more complex than that. I fooled around a bit but never got close to any disadvantage. I took 2 damage the whole match and that was from my game 2 city.
2-1-1, 6-3-1
Round 5: Ben w/ICBM Oath
Game 1: It's close, damn close. He absolutely trumps me with Lotus, Demonic, Null Rod, but I make the insane play and use Welder to get rid of it and free up my 7 artifact mana. I drop Memnarch and he rips Orchard and drops Oath. He gets Akroma, putting me to 8 (Crypt damage), and I discover I am one colorless mana away from Memnarching Akroma and autowinning. I am short by 1 because I Stripped his green source the previous turn to try to cut off the Oath I knew he had. I am a bit out of it, and since I can only put him to 8 or 9 and drop a useless Karn I start scooping. I get the cards halfway into the pile before I realize he'd pitched Razia to Thirst earlier and in fact I had the game 100% guaranteed. Oops. I'm quite pissed, but he appeared equally surprised and I wasn't going to blame him for my own extreme fuck-up. Brothely love, after all.
Games 2&3: I played the rest of the match on autopilot since I was already feeling like shit even before the depressing throwing of game 1, but luckily my deck beats him for me with Jester's Cap, Chalice for 2, Mindslaver, Sundering Titan, and other madness. Highlight is when I Cap him and fail to notice not only that he has Rack and Ruins in (and at least 1 in hand if I do 5 seconds of math), but that he has boarded out all his Mana Drains.
3-1-1, 8-4-1
Round 6: Wes w/GWS-ish Oath
Game 1: He mulls to 5 on the play but I make the mistake of holding Chalice for 0 because he hadn't dropped anything. He rips Lotus and makes an Oath, which becomes phenomenally better in combination with his next draw: Orchard. He hits me to 14, but I use my active Welder alongside the awesome Intuition to give him the impossible choice: Gilded Lotus, Duplicant, or Mindslaver. A bit of game state analysis reveals to him that he is facing the choice of either a Duplicant lock or 5 turns of Mindslaving. He picks the Duplicant, and after a little combat fun we go to game 2.
Game 2: He is slow again and I bust the hot Chalice for 1 against the Oxidizes I know he boards in. His Ground Seal looks threatening but I've got a solution in the Seal of Cleansing fetched via the ever-brutal Intuition. The newly active Welder puts in Jester's Cap which is activated promptly. He reveals that his 2 card hand is none other than the 2 Legendary Angels themselves. I point out that between Chalice for 1 and the Cap I can simply remove his only non-1 mana removal spell and Blessing, meaning that he can never get the Angels back in his deck and has no way to win. He scoops.
4-1-1, 10-4-1
Quarterfinals: Ian w/Kowal Gifts
Game 1: I'm on the play, and I keep a hand with Workshop, Mox, Trinisphere followed by second turn Juggernaut. I figure even if he Forces the Sphere I can use any mana source in my entire deck to unload my savage hand of 2x Gilded Lotus, Triskelion, and other gas. Well I don't draw that mana source for 4 turns, but sadly he has no Force and Juggernaut kills him the turn before he can stabilize after I give him the correct pair from his last-ditch Gifts.
Game 2: He has the interesting start of Volcanic, go, while I mull to 6 into a somewhat risky hand that proves devastating. I draw, Waste his land (he Brainstorms in response), then drop Mox, Sol Ring, Chalice @0, Chalice@1 with Strip Mine still in hand. He draws several more mana sources but no non-blue sources and I find Crucible for the hard lock.
5-1-1, 12-4-1
Semifinals: Rhyno w/TPS
Game 1: I get a first turn Chalice for 1 but he has the Force for my Jester's Cap the next. I get 2 Shops and a Jar while he tutors for Rebuild. Knowing this, I pop the Memory Jar during upkeep looking for an answer. My first 7 are useless but the draw phase yields Demonic Tutor. I have plenty of mana to tutor for Chalice and drop it at 3. He has no Force, and scoops when I drop Juggernaut the following turn, agreeing that he does in fact have zero outs.
Game 2: He has a hilarious turn 1 double Dark Confidant, irrelevant but for the fact that he also dropped Academy. It turns my insane turn 1 brokenness into Academy (as Wasteland), Crypt, Chalice@1, pass. He takes some burn and hits me. I rip the Workshop and the waiting Triskelion appears off that and my handy Vault. Unwilling to try to race the two damaging artifacts with a 2/2 Trike, I leave his Confidants alive and he fills his hand with mediocrity while going down to a dangerous 7. I know he has Hurkyl's Recall because of the Confidants but he is tapped down, so I swing in and force him to chump. Somewhere in here I force him to blow his tutored-for Lotus by having the handy Trinisphere which makes him use it to Forces of Will. It was fun. He fetches to 6 and has no choice but to Hurkyl's me main phase (to which I respond by doming him down to 3 with Trike, knowing I have plenty to hard cast it on my next turn) and use his Ancestral Recall, his last gas, to try to find a perfect 3-card out. He gets the Jet, but the other 2 are not Ritual and Will so he can do little but pass the turn. I replay the Trike and he responds "Force it". I stare at him a second before he sighs and clarifies his complete kiddingness, showing me the useless couple mana in hand.
6-1-1, 14-4-1
Finals: Tommy w/5cStax
I'm tired, feel like shit, and even though I'm well aware of how insane my matchup is against him I'm perfectly willing to split the prize of a set of Forces of Will and an absolutely horrible Unlimited Ruby with my triumphant teammate. I walk away with the Forces and a promised $85 worth of goods and am quite satisfied considering my condition.
Props:
Gilded Claw
Ben "Credit line" Carp
Slops:
Being sick
Fucked-up Fish builds
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I myself ended up losing in a SAVAGE 3 games to Tommy Kolowith playing the the fun deck in the quarters.
MY props and slops still need to go in here because I rip on endress
Props:
Me, for doing well
I@n, for being the only supportive one of you f---ers [regarding my team]
Peter, for borrowing me power
Slops:
Jeremy Seroogy [aka Sp00ky_kid], for not comming
Trinisphere, for making me want to rip you up 3 out of 4 games tommy won versus me. I almost picked it up and ripped it, i honestly was SO CLOSE. It's not even a threat, but it makes me unable to do things while other threats are played.
Dan, for being dan, and wanting that damned gadiel Zlifer thing. THE THING ISNT COOL.
Matt Ladwig [hydra], for scrubbing.
Tommy [tk], for being tommy.
Whoever cut's Matt Fricking Endress' hair . My god, somebody better ship that guy some canned foods, since Matt obviously isn't supporting the poor guy's salary. I wonder if that guy eats?!
the field was about 36 players, some were your normal horrible players, but most were VERY good. GWS and ICBM each had 7 and GWS had 5/6. I can't remember really. Anyways, the field was pretty competitive. I didn't see any real bad decks besides the EBA garbage and Goblins, which i don't really think constitutes as bad.
I was asked to post this on behalf of my whole team, since nobody else really posts as heavily as I do. TK's Stax report and I@n's gifts report will be comming, and expect my top8 report with the GWS deck to be comming SOMETIME before gencon. LOL
Warned for posting something for a banned user. Again.
-Klep
