|
The Atog Lord
|
 |
« on: December 24, 2007, 07:39:39 am » |
|
Rich Shay
The Feinstein Report
First Place, Feinstein's Mox, December 23
Just so you don't need to scroll down to find it, here's the list I ran at Dave's event.
// Mana
6 Fetchland
3 underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Basic Island
1 Volcanic Island
4 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
// Draw
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Scroll
4 Gush
// Control
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Mana Drain
0 Misdirection
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fire/Ice
// Tutors
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
// Broken
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond
// Winning
2 Psychatog
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Berserk
0 Quirion Dryads
// Sideboard
1 Volcanic Island
3 Pyroclasm
4 Energy Flux
2 Pithing Needle
2 Jailer
3 Red Elemental Blast
Expected Metagame:
1. GAT Mirror Matches
2. Workshop-Based Decks
3. Goblins / Aggro decks
This list deserves some explanation. The first thing you might notice is that I ran red. This is because of Goblins. Do I need Red Blasts? I'm not sure they're any better than Thoughtseize. Do I need Red artifact removal? I didn't run any. What red gave me were burn spells. The last tournament I went to was Star City in Chicago. There, my one match loss was against Goblins. My teammate, Jesus, also lost a round to them. And none of the answers in-color seemed great. Hail Storm, Plague, and Infest; these aren't on par with a two mana sorcery. The fact that Pyrcoclasm also hits Magus of the Moon made it seem even better.
4 Ponder, 19 Mana:
In testing with either 3 Ponder or 18 Mana, I found myself losing too many games to a well-placed Wasteland. Finally, frustrated at losing to my own manabase imploding, I decided to try running the full set of Ponder plus 19 mana. The deck became more smooth after that and the number of games I lost to my own manabase imploding shrank.
2 Island maindeck, 1 Volcanic Island sideboard:
This worked out well. Against decks that can attack your manabase, having a second Basic Island is strong. It gets you Drain against Stax and it lets you ensure that unless your opponent gets a Crucible online, you will have at least one land survive their lone Strip Mine. Having the Volcanic Island in the sideboard enabled two different strong board options. Against the mirror and similar decks, I could swap out a Basic Island for the Volcanic sort. Against Stax, I could just bring in the 20the mana source for added resiliency against their mana denial plan.
Fire/Ice:
I expected to see a Confidant across the table. That didn't't happen, but I burnt a fair number of Welders and a Magus too. If I played without Red, then I would have had a Misdirection in that spot.
1 Berserk:
Mon, Goblin Chief is right -- thanks to him for the idea of maindecking this card. It proved itself great all day, taking down opponents when Cunning Wish would not have worked. One game against Stax, for example, I was able to Berserk for the win when the added cost of Cunning Wish would have given my opponent another turn. Not once all day did I miss having the versatility of the Wish maindeck; Echoing Truth serves that purpose sufficiently. In addition, Red presents added sideboard options, meaning that not having Wish cards in the sideboard is good.
2 Psychatog / 3 Goyf / 0 Dryad
This was a metagame call. I was preparing to have a standard list with three Goyfs in the sideboard. However, I found myself unable to cram all the cards I wanted into my sideboard. Something needed to give way. So, I started thinking as follows. In the mirror match, I'd generally rather have my evil cousin than a Dryad -- after all, Psychatog trumps an opposing Dryad under most circumstances, but a Dryad seldom trumps one the opponent has already played. Against Stax and Aggro, I'd rather have Tarmogoyf than Dryad under normal circumstances. With so many spheres seeing play, getting the Dryad large is becoming more difficult; factor that with the burn that various red aggro decks are including and Tarmogoyf seems even better. So, there's no matchup in the metagame I expected where Dryad is the optimal creature. I cut her and made three new sideboard slots.
4 Energy Flux
Brassman gets all the credit for this one. He told me they were good in his testing. I'm at home without access to MWS, so I couldn't test them myself. (As an aside, I wish that MWS had a version that worked on this Ubuntu machine). Brassman was right -- they proved themselves excellent today. They were more effective than the alternate options would have been.
Round 1: John Longo with Blue Draw/Go
Game 1: I open with Sea and Ponder. John gets out an Island and casts Ancestral Recall. I Force it. I Timewalk, Gush, and Duress him. I Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall and John is stuck at one land for too long.
Game 2: John passes with a land. I Duress him, to which he responds with Brainstorm. He continues to dig with cantrips while I shut down the Drain I know he has for a turn with Ice. After a couple of turns of passing the turn back and forth, John uses Misdirection to push his Ancestral through past my Red Blast. He drops a Chalice at 0 and a Chalice at 1. The Chalice at 0 traps a pair of Moxen and a Black Lotus in my hand as John casts more draw. I resolve Psychatog and John resolves Tinker. My Psychatog was one point away from being lethal before Colossus ended things.
Game 3: This game is slow in the start -- we're both drawing and passing the turn. I eventually pass the turn with triple Counter backup and an Ancestral Recall in my hand. Then I lose. Here's what happens on John's turn. He casts Tinker. I REB it. He casts Ancestral. I cast Ancestral. He casts Misdirection. I Drain. He Forces. I Force. My Ancestral resolves and I draw 3. It includes a Red Blast but I don't have the Red to cast it -- and if it were Misdirection, I didn't have the Blue card to pitch to that either. John then draws three off his Ancestral, including a Mana Drain. He Drains my Red Blast and his Tinker gets the game-winning Colossus.
This match involved a massive counter war and despite my losing it was a lot of fun. The second and third games were both very close and the fact that John was playing a non-standard deck worked to his advantage because I couldn't predict what he would do as easily.
Round 2: Sean with Stax
Game 1: I open with Lotus and Ponder. I shuffle, draw, and play an Emerald and a Tropical Island. Goyf resolves and I cycle Ice. He Wastes my Tropical Island while I Scroll for Ancestral. Goyf is a 4/5 while he's Wasting my second land. Sean gets a Shaman and Welder but they need to jump in front of the Goyf to keep Sean alive. Goyf ends this quickly.
Game 2: Sean mulligans to 5 and I have another first turn Goyf. Sean plays a second Welder and I Fire them both to death. After that, Goyf is able to win before Sean can break through with his threats.
Tarmogoyf was great in this match. He came into play quickly and was an immediate threat, putting Stax on the defensive right away. Being able to use Fire to kill the two Welders was strong; Pithing Needle could have worked, but Sean was running Gorilla Shaman so Needle might not have worked as well. Moreover, the Tarmogoyf would have been smaller in that case, and the size of the creature allowed me to end the game fairly quickly.
Round 3: Austin with RG Beats
Game 1: Austin mulligans and passes with an untapped Taiga. I fetch out a Basic Island. Austin has no second turn play, and I have a Tarmogoyf. I Scroll for Ancestral while Austin starts getting some creatures into play. Force keeps Magus off the table while I continue casting draw spells. I resolve a Psychatog which Austin burns to prevent from being lethal, Austin's creatures having already jumped in from of mine and traded with my Goyf. However, I soon Vampiric Tutor for Berserk and win.
Game 2: Austin has two Moxes and a Mana Crypt. Root Maze comes down and I search up Ancestral. I play a Tarmogoyf and over the course of the game cast three Force of Wills to protect him. He ends up going the distance. One of the key plays here was countering a Lighting Bolt against my lethal 4/5 Tarmogoyf. I played around Sudden Shock, which Austin had.
Games against Red Green 'Beatz' are scary. In the second game, I was in a position where I would have lost if Austin's three-card hand was a pair of Lightning Bolts and a Red Blast. It wasn't, but playing against Burn is certainly where having Misdirection would have been nice. The MVP here was Tarmogoyf. At one point, T00L walked over and mentioned how my deck was being a better Green aggro deck than my opponent's deck was; Goyf is huge and more resilient to quick burn than Dryad is.
Round 4: Jeff with Long
These games were uneventful. Hand disruption and counters were able to prevent Jeff from being in either of these games. Psychatog finishes them both. Long is fairly weak against GAT. The fact that it has been doing well lately indicates that GAT is not as dominant as many people are fearing that it would be.
Round 5: Ross Merriam with Stax
Game 1: Ross opens with Wasteland, Mana Crypt, and Thorn. I use Island to play two Moxes. Ross has Coalition Relic. I Duress, seeing Uba Mask, Top, and Vamp; I take the Top and pass with Force online. I Force his Mask and his Vamp resolves. I Mana Drain his Tinker and win with a Berserk Psychatog.
Game 2: Ross has another Mana Crypt/Sphere start, this time with Strip Mine. I play a land and Mox. He Timewalks and Ancestrals himself. I Ancestral and discard, my land getting hit. He then gets out Goblin Welder. I Mana Drain into Energy Flux. And then his board starts to crumble. He fights to keep cards in play, but is unable to advance his position and slowly starts losing ground, despite the best efforts of his Goblin Welder. The second Energy Flux further hinders his board, and Goyf finishes it off.
Being able to board in a 20th mana source really helped me survive Ross' mana denial in the second game. The Energy Fluxes were great too. Targeted removal or a Predator would have been counteracted by the Goblin Welder; Energy Flux was able to destroy Ross' board by preventing him from having a pile of permanents in play as Stax usually does. That said, Ross played very well and the second game was very close.
Draw into Top Eight
Top Eight: Brassman with GAT
Game 1: Brassman passes with Trop. I Duress, seeing: Gush, Gush, Dryad, Drain, Durres, Will. I take Mana Drain. Brassman doesn't find land and Psychatog ends things in a hurry.
Game 2: Brassman Ancestrals. I open with a Tarmogoyf. Brassman has a second land. I Ponder. He then Drains my Timewalk and takes manaburn. He soon casts Vampiric Tutor and resolves a Dryad. His Duress, however, gets Mana Drained. He Brainstorms, then Gushes the next turn; I Ancestral in response to his Gush. Brassman counters my Fastbond, but a Vampirically-given Yawgmoth's Will wins me the game on the next turn.
Top Four: T00L with GAT
Game 1: Tool opens with Delta and Lotus. He Scrolls and resolves Ancestral Recall. Then he plays a Jet and a Sapphire. He Forces my Lotus, and repeals my fastbond. I didn't have any way to abuse Fastbond that game anyway. I get a Tarmogoyf onto the table but his Psychatog is much larger. He Mana Drains my Yawgmoth's Will and buries me in card advantage.
Game 2: We both mulligan. This time I Scroll for Ancestral and Force his Misdirection. Psychatog resolves on my side and is soon lethal with some help from Gush.
Game 3: Tool opens with an Island for Ponder. He plays a Jet and Vampiric Tutor. I have a Force for the Ancestral he casts next turn, which he Misdirects. I have my own Ancestral soon which also resolves. I cast a few cantrips and Duress him. I REB his Psychatog and resolve my own. Mystical Tutor finds my Yawgmoth's Will in response to his Duress and that's the match.
Finals: Rich Meyst with Aggro Stax
Rich has already beaten ELD and Brassman, so I know that this match is going to be rough.
Game 1: Rich has a first turn Juggernaut with Wasteland and a second Juggernaut on his second turn. However, I go off with Fastbond before his third turn.
Game 2: Rich has a Welder and some restricted mana sources. I get out a second turn Tarmogoyf but he destroys my mana sources and it is Goyf staring down about 12 permanents. I am forced to stop attacking and then I get run over.
Game 3: I resolve Energy Flux while Rich resolves a Magus and a Sword of Fire and Ice. I Fire his Magus in response to equipping. Flux hinders Rich's board position while I find a Tarmogoyf to win the game.
In conclusion, I was very happy with my list for the metagame. If there were any Flash or more Ichorid, it would need some changes. Likewise, if there were fewer aggro decks, then the Red splash wouldn't be justified. I only played against two red aggro decks, but they made up a decent part of the field and half of the top eight.
Thanks to everyone I talked with or tested against yesterday and the day before: Brass Man, Jesus, Matt, Josh, Master Tap, ELD, T00L, Soly, and anyone I can't remember.
Thanks to Feinstein and his staff. This was a fun event. Dave was generous with his prizes and worked hard to make sure everyone had a good time. If you ever see Dave, make sure to ask him to do a jig. You won't regret it.
Finally, thanks to all of my opponents and everyone I hung out with. I am very happy that I got to go to this while I'm back in the area for Christmas break.
|
