Tournament Report: Green Bay Mox Sapphire top 8 1/7/07
Pre-report:
I haven't really written any real serious report before and I'm not a funny guy, so I appologize if this is bland and boring.
The event really sinks in the saturday before, as I am doing some testing with Urbana fish at around 7:30pm. After having very good results, I realize that I'm bored, and decide that I want to play rituals (which was basically an ego thing since my two friends tabasco from ICBM and MAtt Friewald from NUTZ both laughed at my claims that if I played a ritual deck I would guarentee at least a top8).
I piece through my binder to put pitchlong together, but literally talk myself out of it as I realize 2-for-1'ing myself with pitch-counters absolutely sucked all things unholy. I start throwing 2 color grimlong together Ala team GWS, and I remember how much I absolutely HATE Grim Tutor. I throw together Eric Becker's TPS2K7 deck and throw it through some quick guantlets. I start with oath, and in 10 games, my opponent had first turn orchard-mox-oath 5 games, and one game had a hand so ridiculous it angered me. his play went like this.
Lotus->Thirst For Knowledge (discard a chalice) Sapphire->Recall->pearl->Jet->emerald-> Orchard -> Oath->Chalice@1.I look at my hand of chain of vapor, duress, dark ritual, and other 1 cost stuff and get so frustrated at how much the deck gets crushed by chalice@1 that I start piecing together IT. And then I remember Nick Truduea's West Coast Tendrils from Bitches/Hoes. So I throw together the deck, get my manditory 3 games in, and decide to run it (this has been my rough routine for the last 6 tournaments).
So sunday morning my friend Scott Hanson calls me to tell me he is on his way. When he arives, much talk is had over his changes to my team's workshop aggro deck, IRM, which stands for "It's raining men". I also talk about my deck, and how I expect a ton of fish and control, and I should crush them. I also take shots at my friends
for playing combo and vowing to do better than me, since we all have very big egos. Not much else happens over the drive. I arive @ the venue and start writing down my decklist.
This is what I register:
4 delta
2 strand
2 island
1 swamp
1 Academy
2 Underground Sea
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
5 Mox
1 lotus
1 Petal
1 Crypt
1 Vault
1 Sol Ring
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Repeal
1 Chain of vapor
1 Hurkyls Recall
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoths Bargain
1 Yawgmoths Will
3 Blue Power
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 Imperial seal
1 windfall
sideboard:
1 bayou
3 xantid
3 cabal therapy
3 extract
1 rebuild
1 echoing truth
2 massacre
1 virtue's ruin
The pairings go up for round one, and I'm paired against Peter Van Heesh from ICBM playing Control Slaver. Peter is the guy I barned power from for Richmond and I've borrowed his cards numerous times back when I was a member of that team. I was glad he came to play and kind of upset to be playing against him.
game 1: I lose the role and he elects to play. He opens with Volcanic Island, Mox Ruby, Goblin Welder. He passes to me, and I fetch into a Underground sea on my turn and play a Brainstorm, which he Rebs. I wasn't expecting a Reb on my BS, and it took the wind out of my sail. A turn later, I imperial seal for lotus to set up the next turn win, and he end-step thirsts away a Mindslaver. I scoop so he can't really see what I'm playing, even though the seal gave away combo.
0-1
Game 2: I open with an extremely solid hand that gives me jet into duress, into emerald land confidant. He eventually plays a welder, after countering almost all of my business, and since he had a sundering itan in the yard, I am forced to swing into it. He blocks, but by that point it was too late, and I storm him out.
1-1
Game 3: I don't remember much of this except for him fire/icing a confidant and a xantid swarm, me nabbing a couple brainstorms and a force of will with therapies, and him tapping out his red source for his Elemental blast giving me an oppertunity to cast timetwister and use one of his counterspells to give me storm count.
2-1
1-0
I felt bad playing Peter because I don't like giving my friends losses, but you do what you gotta. Pairings go up for round two, and I'm playing Logan playing Gifts. This matchup should be insane for me.
Game 1: I play a bob and he counters it. I shred his hand of anything important with duresses before I storm him out with my hand and 2 of his spells.
3-1
GAme 2: I remember nothing about this match, except that I was able to yawgmoths will through his Tormods Crypt. I owe Eric Becker for this, since he showed this little trick to me @ Gencon and I would have been terrible and not seen this otherwise. Here's the situation:
Logan has tormods crypt out. I use my black lotus and cast a yawgmoths will with 6 cards in hand. My opponent gives me a funny look, and activates his tormods crypt. I let it resolve, but while still having priority, cast a dark ritual. In a panic, he uses his force of will, and then I cast another dark ritual and a brainstorm (not using recall since he was playing multiple misdirections). When the Yawgmoths Will resolved, I had 2 more rituals to give me black mana and storm count. I end up casting timetiwster with roughly 8 black mana in my pool, and 2 blue sources open. I cast a brainstorm and 2 duresses, a necropotence, and a dark confidant, among other spells, and end up burning for 2, while putting myself in an "i win" possition the following turn. This is exactly what happens, and it's on to round 3.
4-1
2-0 overall
I'm seated with Dan Carp. I act excited to play him, but he's playing Manaless Ichorid (in an attempt to show Steve that the deck requires no skill beyond luck) and that matchup is terrible for me, since my deck's first turn capabilities are much lower than any other combo deck currently in the format. I'm releaved, however, to see that there is an error and I am repaired against Jeremy Seroogy playing his list of stax.
I win the die roll and draw my 7 cards one at a time. This is EXACTLY how I see the cards.
Dark Ritual
Demonic Tutor
Cabal Ritual
Cabal Ritual
Yawgmoths Will
Dark Ritual
....
...
..
.
Mana crypt.
I was very angry. I couldnt draw a black source to save my life. Instead, I open with a puzzle of a 6 card hand that suddenly goes downhill when he draws first turn sphere of resistance into second turn smokestack into third turn tinker-trinisphere. I play a bunch of bounce spells but dont see them, even though my hand at the end of the game was still the bloody nuts.
4-2
Game 2
I open with mox jet, dark ritual, duress (taking In The Eye of chaos becuase he had it first turn), Dark Confidant, Island, Mana vault. I'm thinking I'm golden since he can only play Demonic tutor in his hand, but he rips Welder and plays it. Alright, that's fine. I bob into a land and then draw a mox, and play both because my plan is to minitendrils him or bounce-tendrils him after swinging. But this plan is turned upside down when he demonic tutors straight for bazaar of baghdad, and hits both karn AND duplicant, and dupe's my confidant then tinkers for trinisphere yet again. Congrats you're the nuts. I'm extremely frustrated because I don't feel like I was outplayed at all, but I still know that I'm a good enough player to get out of this mess. That turns downhill when he plays a stack and then welds in Karn and eats my mana base away. Frowntown.
4-3
2-1
Round 4: The do or die round for me. And I'm paired against my best friend, Tabasco... Tony Lyskawa from ICBM. I know exactly what he's playing and should have probobly been a little concerned except that I knew he was inexperienced with 2color Grimlong and I should have the upper hand.
game 1: I win the die roll and elect to play. I duress out his recall and then play a chain of tutors to get the pieces into place. He swings and misses with a duress because my hand is too solid and I storm him out before he recovers. His opening hand was basically all mana sources a brainstorm and a recall.
5-3
this is one of the only games where I remember my sideboarding proceedures:
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Extract
-2 dark confidant
-1 Necropotence
-1 Yawgmoths Bargain
-1 hurkyl's recall
-1 repeal
Game 2 Tony opens with swamp->go. I'm very happy with this play and open with Dark Ritual-> dark Confidant-> Cabal Therapy. He forces the therapy, which was a major misplay. I could have flashed it back, but I wasn't too worried. My assumption was correct when he tendrils' me for 6 storm on the following turn. A play that I described to him as fine before the event, since you want to be out of range of an easy tendrils kill from the other player, but only if you had more gas to back it up with. My bob flips me a land, and then my drawstep is brainstorm. I cast it, and it flips me into dark ritual, mana vault, yawgmoths will. I storm out on my turn.
6-3
3-1
Round 5: ID with Jamison Bryant from ICBM playing Wild Zombies Remix.
6-3
3-1-1
Top 8: Logan (again) with Gifts.
This match pissed me off. I win the die roll, and elect to play. I play land go, holding to go broken 2nd turn. This is stopped hwne my opponent draws, discards a card, and passes turn. I know he has at least 2, most likely 3 force of wills/misdirections in hand. This turns true when he forces my 2nd turn bob and yawgmoths bargain and my 3rd turn timetwister. He eventually rips Lotus, casts dark ritual sol ring, mana vault, yawgmoths will, recasts all thee spells he discarded on his endstep, and storms me out.
Game 2: I have a first turn broken play including duressing away his Force of will and playing a xantid swarm. 2 turns later he tinkers, and I kill him before he's able to get me.
Game 3: This is where things get interesting. I extract away both his darksteel and his yawgmoths will, but he plays burning wish and tendrils main (the tendrils was already in the graveyard). I was going to set up a yawgmoths will/tormods crypt trick AGAIN but he has TWO tormods in play. I make the error of thinking he'd activate one in response to my yawgmoths will, making an error by thinking the second tormods crypt was a comfort zone, allowing me to cast a dark ritual and a cabal ritual, having him activate the 2nd one, and allowing me to cast 2 more dark rituals (my hand was the absolute nuts). Instead, he allows my will to resolve, and activates one tormods crypt in response to my extract. I end up duressing his hand into nothing. But the turn after I try to sucker him, he rips gifts like a F-ing CHAMP and gets lotus, demonic, recoup, burning wish with the ability to hardcast God. I die to a lethal tendrils.
He made a bajillion errors this match but I couldn't seal the deal because Gifts is just THAT forgiving when it has 13 mana on board.
For all this I get 1 russian timespiral pack and 1 russian guildpact. I end up opening a Russian Leviathon and burn it.
Funny part: Dan Carp is playing versus Gifts. He's DEEP in thought and EVERYON E is watching his game, and he randomly jumps up and yells "RAR!" at the top of his lungs. I loved it. Nobody else did.
The event was decently ran:
Props:
Jeremy Seroogy. Way to rip magical cards like a champion
Bitches and Hoes for a slower but more stable combo deck.
Eric Becker for showing me the Tormods Trick and building IT which spawned this deck.
GWS: 100% of the members at this tournament top8ed (1 for 1)!
Dan Carp for playing Ichorid!
Slops:
No land hand. *shakes head*. I can't believe I lost that game, and the match.
2nd tormods crypt: Read above.
TK: Work? get your priorities straight!
Jeremy Seroogy: Way to rip magical cards like a champion
Bounce: I seriously only cast ONE bounce spell all day.
For those of you interested, here's how the top8 played out.
Jake Kempfer (ICBM no-stick) Beat Ben Carp (ICBM Oath as always)
Logan (Gifts) Beat Mike Solymossy ([GWS]BHWC Tendrils)
Dave Carhart ([ICBM] CS) Beat Jamison Bryant ([ICBM] Zombies Remix)
Ash Ketchup (ICBM Affiliate playing Urbana Fish) Beat Something I can't really remember (SORRY)
in top4:
Jake beat Ash Ketchup
Dave Carhart beat Logan
Jake and Dave split
Until next time!
Mike Solymossy
AKA The Salad
AKA 13NoVa
