Also known as, playing Phid is a losing proposition.
So I'm at the Mox Sapphie tourney typing this report up, having successfuly gone 1-2 against my best match (GAT) and losing to Grim Long due to LAWL BROKEN and a questionable non-mull.
The deck I played was the following:
4 Ophidian
2 Meloku, the Massive Boner
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Counterspell
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Fire/Ice
2 Blood Moon
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Echoing Truth
1 Dominate <- The best card EVER.
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
7 Island
SB
4 Threads of Disloyalty <- WHO PLAYS REB. Why do people do this to me? Also, who plays Duress to steal your counters and Blood Moon to not let you resolve this?
3 FTK
3 T. Crypt
2 EE
2 REB
1 BM
I expected Flash, GAT and Fish to be everywhere. I wanted 4 Chalice, but was at my proxy limit and Pat Lam (big props to him for loaning me the deck) didn't have more than one, frowns.
Things I liked about this deck: I felt totally confident the entire day and holy shit was this a fun day of MTG. This may have been the best I've had losing in years. usually it depresses me a bit, but the deck was so awesome and my opponents are good people so it's still a lot of fun.
Things I liked about this
deck: Maindeck REB is the bees knees believe it or not and since every GAT and combo player apparently receieved the memo about running basics Blood Moon was only truly stellar in one game. Dominate won me three games single-handedly and helped in another.
QnD
Rd 1 Jenkins, Storm Combo, maybe Grim minus Grim? Was too busy dying to notice.
G1: I see one counter, but the rest of the hand is gas, turn 2 Phid, EE, BM, it was good times. Turn 1 for Jenkins looked something like so: D. Rit, Lotus, DT, ETW for 8. I laid Sol Ring and passed it back. I take 8 and am happy I didn't just die and figure the rest of his hand is blanks to not go for anything else. I lay EE on turn 2 and sac it to kill off the swarm.
Side-note: Fetches suck balls in Phid. More Volcs please.
He plays Mystical for Will and I die to a short Tendirls chian.
G2: I probably should've mulled since again I only had one counter, except now I knew what he was playing. Basics prevent Blood Moon from winning the prize and I get run over post-Duress of my counters.
Rd2: Nate, GAT
G1: We go back and forth for a while and I'm getting whittled down by Tog while I have to make sure he doesn't draw every pitch counter under the sun. Finally I stabalize when he runs out of cards and he only has Tog left. I play the tech of Scrolling for Dominate, we crack up about how awesome this is and I steal his Psychatog. I lay Meloku after to help out and they go all the way (Shocking I know).
While boarding we begin discussing favorite Justin Timberlake songs. This tournament is awesome.
G2: Important fact I remember: Dominate wins games. I eventually get him to stop drawing cards, I REB Tog and scroll for ancestral figuring I'd hit one of like 7 cards to kill / steal his Dryad while recovering. I hit Dominate and a turn later the Dryad is mine. Shortly after Meloku drops and we beat him down while we randomly sing Don't stop believing. After that he asks me if I'll be happy if he writes me a symphony. I concur and tell him to get to work on it.
props for being one of the most entertaining players in ages.
Rd3: Web, GAT
G1: I lose. We trade counters and I play Ancestral into Mis-D like a donkey under the logic that hey, if it doesn't resolve I'll lose. What I fail to realize is the god of statistics hates Web for some reason and won't him draw a 3rd mana source and sticking him a UBR for 12 cards. I never resolve another spell and die.
G2: Stuff goes back and forth for the first three turns, but he starts hitting me with Duress and I run out of buisness. I manage to look like a scared puss while holding all of 2 mana sources and drawing another couple while I really would like a Threads or EE to take care of Dryad with. By the time something relevant shows up GAT reminds me that it has pitch counters. GEE GEE.
Rd4: David, GAT
G1: We trade for a while and I eventually drop Meloku, pwner of face and blocker of chumps. Dryad is held off for a turn while I then rip Dominate like a champ and kill him in 3 turns.
G2: He resolves a small Will which edges me out later in the game as I just can't get an Ophidian to stick in the face of REB until Dryad is already big enough to stop it and Tog hits me for a lot.
G3: He mulls to 6 and I mull to 5. HE TAKES MY BLOOD MOON. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I'm stuck with approximately one blue source while holding double Drain until I rip Lotus a few turns later, despite this he resolves Will using Pyroblast (I think) and a pitch, then resolves Ancestral, Mystical and a bunch of smaller less broken crap. I can't find a blue source to cast the two Threads in my hand on Dryad or anyway to stop Tog and I get run over.
So final record:
3-7. Woot. 1-3match
So why did I play the deck? Because:
A. it's amazingly fun
B. GAT really is a good match if you get decent draws and even better if the GAT players tries to play for incremental advantage, because odds are you'll resolve Threads or Dominate eventually regardless of what he does. Flash is also good, IF you board in 4 Chalice. Game 1 is a raping though unless they mull themselves to oblivion or you've got double fow.
C. Pat was playing the Flash deck, Shay hasn't sent me my set of Flashes yet and we lacked the proxy space to run another copy. Hence I play Phid over GAT, because you can't just sack your way through 7-8 rounds anymore, the other decks are too good for that now. Not to mention the last time I seriously played Gush GAT was back in what? 03? :/ GL relearning the deck in a day.
problems with phid: If the opponent realizes Phid is good; and shockingly this does happen, then you're fucked. With no other ways to replenish cards, the plan of going 1-1 with everything is rough, especially because of the limit on your blue mana versus all the one and free mana spells other decks play. Also the deck gets no free wins other than when Blood Moon wrecks the other guy. Perhaps that works in other metas, but here it's only good, not 'dirty pig ****er' amazing. If I got better with mulligans with the deck and tweaked a bit more I'd be happy to play it again though as I felt many games I was in there, I simply needed a way to see a few more cards to win.
In conclusion: Goddamn Flash is broken.
Also: Jeff and Pat are svg lucksacks of the dirtiest sort. Pat mulls to 4, goes 'rip lotus, kill you with counter back-up'. Pat had 4 turn 1 kills within 3 rounds of play and Jeff had a couple, but otherwise most of his kills were with double counter back-up.
I don't care how good hate is against the deck, as far as I'm concerned it's disgusting and gives you at least 5-7 free wins in the swiss and possibly a freebie in the T8. Also this is just turn 1 wins and turn 1 wins with back-up. I'm not even talking about the distubring amount of turn 2/3 kills with counter back-up. Side-note, showing the world Reverent Silence tech was probably not a good thing for the metagame in general. Free way to kill Leyline >>>> Chain of Vapor or E. Truth.
Anyway, props to all my opponents for being awesome and GL to Jeff who's still playing. *waves* oh and lsv and web too i guess. although web beat me so frowns.
also pat lam rules for loaning me a deck. slops to albert for not showing up despite being only thousands of miles away. that was weak.
