So I played Thoughtcast Painter in a 42-person tournament today. I was going to play either Rich's Meditate Remora deck or Painter (having tested neither one of them ever
). When I arrived at the tournament scene I heard there was quite some aggro, so I decided to play the Painter deck. I thought Trinket Mage deserved a spot in the deck, perhaps 2. Therefore I cut a Thoughtcast. Not knowing what to cut for the second mage, or an Engineered Explosives (I thought 2 Relics could come in handy) I decided to just add 1 Mage.
In the sideboard I opted for Pyroclasm instead of Old Man because of the proxy limit, and its ability to wipe out an entiry army of x/2's (I love board sweepers since I played Firespout in Dreadstill last week). I also played 1 Rack and Ruin over 1 Shattering Spree, and 2 Arcane Laboratory over Chalice. So here is the list I ran:
Thoughtcast Painter, by Demonic Attorney, with modifications by Duncan1 Trinket Mage
1 Darksteel Colossus
3 Painter's Servant
2 Grindstone
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Thoughtcast
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Tinker
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxen
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Library of Alexandria
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Pyroclasm
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Red Elemental Blast
Round 1: Arjan Kuiper with Slaver 2-0G1: He mulls once and can't find his second land. I play painter, he forces. I decide not to force and resolve Tinker with backup (not needed) next turn.
-1 Thoughtcast, -1 Vampiric, +1 Needle, +1 REBG2: He plays Turn 1 Welder which resolves. Later he Scrolls, I Drain, He misdirects, I force. Of my drain mana I resolve Painter + Grindstone and activate the same turn. He wants to weld, but I respond with Relic targetting myself.
These were fast games, so I was able to scout 75% of the room before round 2 (nice!).
Round 2: Florian Roman with Oath 2-0G1: I force and REB everything he tries to play and then resolve the combo. He has Blessing, but I Relic his grave in response.
-1 Trinket Mage, +1 REBG2: Again I counter it all and ride 4 tokens to the win.
Round 3: Thomas Hendriks with BUG Fish (no counters, discard route with hymn) 2-0G1: I force Confidant and lay down painter. He Diabolic Edicts. I assume he doesn't have the second Edict in hand so resolve Tinker and swing with the Iron Man two times.
-2 Relic, -1 Thoughtcast, +1 Chewer, +2 PyroclasmG2: He duresses me and hymns me next turn (missing the drain he knows I have now). I keep drain mana up and he refuses to play spells. I lay down Painter, He edicts, I drain and cast Grindstone and activate it in my second mainphase. (I still had tinker and time walk in hand
)
Round 4: Zagar Zeeman with Platinum Angel Oath 1-1G1: I outdraw him with Recall and double Thoughtcast. Some nice stacks were made of me playing sensei -> drain -> force -> force -> reb and two turns later he plays oath -> drain -> force -> pyroblast, drain, force. Sensei gives me great card-selection and I win with Painter Stone (I think, could also been Colossus).
-1 Trinket, -1 Thoughtcast, +1 REB, +1 Rack and RuinG2: He resolves turn 1 oath which gets him Tyrant, he then creates infi mana, hardcasts Platinum and stacks his deck with flash of insight.
G3: I don't remember this game clearly. I counter his first oath, play tinker into colossus. He then resolves his second oath, I play painter and blast oath. Swing with colossus bringing him to 8. He then hardcasts Platinum Angel and I can't get rid of it. However, we enter extra turns and he can't kill me either. In extra turns I topdeck vamp and want to go for Will, but then I see I don't have black mana. It turns out to be lucky, because he had the force and I ended the game at 2 life.
Round 5: Tamar Huigen with Ichorid 1-1G1: She mulls to 1, having only Leyline, I win easily of colossus.
-3 Drain, -4 FoW, -1 Thoughtcast, +4 Leyline, +2 Needle, +2 Pyroclasm, +1 REBG2: I open with Relic, she bazaars some and I remove half her deck with relic when she puts 3 ichorid triggers on the stack and bazaars some. I can't find any red mana, so I get slowly beaten down by some Narcomoeba's and Dryad Arbor while I have Pyroclasm in hand.. frustrating..
G3: she hasn't played a lot of magic and plays quite slow, also her excessive mulliganing from game 1 takes its toll. We both open with Leyline and I have the needle for bazaar too. Time is called during her second turn or so. I lay down painter, REBbing the needle she played on grindstone during turn 1. I have vamp in hand so I can play grindstone and activate it in extra turn 3, killing her on her draw in extra turn 4 (I already played ancestral so can't kill her that way). She messes with my plans and plays another Needle, I can't get rid of it and play grindstone before her last turn so it becomes a draw. I am really frustrated because I was totally winning and only drew because of her inexperienced slow play and long mulligan time. Now I need to win round 6 to get in top 8. With one extra turn I could've killed her with either Painter combo, or just vamp for colossus and swing twice. No way I was gonna lose that last game.
Round 6: Krik Verschoor with MaskNought 2-0G1: Epic game, I tinker for colossus, but he resolves trinket mage into dreadnought casting it with stifle. We're in a bit of a standoff while I resolve Painter. He finds his second Dreadnought and plays it. Now pressure is on me. I see demonic and mana during his eot with top. I play the mana, tap top to draw. Play demonic into will, play will, blast his needle on grindstone, play grindstone from the grave and then time walk. During my walk turn I dump his library in his grave and luckiliy he doesn't play colossus, so he dies during his drawphase.
-2 Relic, -1 Thoughtcast, -1 Painter?, -1 Vamp(not sure what I boarded out, forgot to write down) , +1 REB, +2 Ingot Chewer, +1 Heretic, 1 Rack and RuinG2: he resolves turn 1 confidant and i cant counter. He follows up with a second one and things are looking bad. He plays nought stifle, but i manage to counter the stifle. I resolve painter to keep his confidants from attacking. He gets massive cardadvantage but somehow I resolve an Ingot Chewer and bring him down to 5 life. He doesn't block my chewer, reveals a 2 cc bounce spell with his first confidant and doesn't do anything before he flips trinket mage with the second. Got a bit lucky here.
Top 8: Marius van Zundert TPS 2-0G1: This is sucky, we are having a deck check and Marius has accidentally changed a somewhat older version of his list this morning. He plays Desire and Tendrils instead of 2 tendrils now. He gets a game loss. I want to start at 0-0 because it sucks if your teammate gets a gameloss against you, but the judge won't allow it.
G2: He mulls to 4 and I have the turn 2 kill with backup.
We play another game where I kill him in 2 turns again. Another game I beat him and then we stop.
Top 4: Jean Paul Pover Tez with Stifle Nought and Magus of the Moon + Remora (UR list homebrew) 2-1From here I haven't taken any notes, so this is from memory.
G1: I take control and kill him with Painter Grindstone.
-2 Relic, -1 Top, -1 Vamp, -1 Trinket, -1 Painter, -1 Thougtcast, +2 pyroclasm, +1 REB, +2 Chewer, +1 R&R, +1 HereticG2: He opens with Remora, I play Island. He pays upkeep, plays a mox and passes. I play fetch. Next turn he plays ancestral, I want to fetch, he stifles, I force and then I REB the Ancestral. He wastes my volcanic next turn. I play fetch (which I forgot to crack when he was tapped out for top eot). He plays magus, I want to fetch, which he stifles. When he Trinket mages for Explosives and destroys my mox I am stuck with one land and slowly get beaten down. If I cracked my fetch right I couldve vamped for ancestral and have drain mana up, winning the game, too bad i didn't.
G3: He mulls and plays a waste, lotus into thirst. I lead with land, mox top. He plays another waste, so he hasn't found his blue source
. He resolves magus and I hardcast Chewer. He takes some crypt damage and eventually plays a trinket mage for explosives for 0 to destroy his crypt. I hold my Mox Sapph to get drain mana (only have 1 island) after he uses his explosives. I attack with chewer, he blocks with mage and I hardcast my second Chewer and Time walk for victory.
Top 2: Hermann Fehlauer with Storm Combo (sort of TPS without FoW, MisD). 1-2G1: He opens with duress, taking my force. I play land mox, relic, keeping him off will. He plays some spells and then Timetwister which resolves. We both draw 7 new and he again duresses my force away. He has a lot of acceleration, but cI keep him off will and doesn't find a business spell. I get an active LoA and resolve Painter Grindstone for the win (waiting an extra turn to have FoW backup when going off. He has the Chain of Vapor which I counter).
-1 Thoughtcast, -1 Trinket Mage, -1 Sensei, +2 Arcane Lab, +1 REBG2: I keep a hand I should've mulled. Island, Sea, 3x REB and 2 other cards, don't know why I kept this. He resolves an early tinker for Titan nuking both my lands and kills me.
G3: I keep this hand: Pyro, REB, M. Scroll, Arcane lab, Vamp, Strand, Colossus. I drop fetch and pass. My thinking is as follows:
a. he doesn't combo out turn 1 -> I either vamp for lotus into Lab or vamp for Ancestral.
b. he does combo out, but with blue cards, I can fetch a volcanic and REB/Pyro his blue bomb, winning time while he has used valuable resources.
c. he comboes out turn 1 with double duress and blue cards or just black cards.
Of course it's scenario c. comboing out with just black cards and I lose.
I get an English Mana Drain and a Foil Vampiric Tutor for my efforts. I am a bit disappointed in myself for scrubbing out in the finals after playing so good all day. Goswin, thanks for organising this event! I hope you will do it again some time in the future.
A nice thing to say, these two weeks I played 20 tournament matches in Legacy/Vintage (last week I win a trip to Chicago in a Legacy GPT
). I won 14, drew 4 and lost 2 (both against Germans). Quite a record
Again I go to a tournament unprepared and finish good. I am clearly a better player than deckbuilder (or just lazy
). Thanks for the deck Chris, it is a blast to play and felt solid. Only thing I think needs to be adressed a bit more is Combo post-board. Perhaps duress or something like that could be fit into the board.
Thank you for reading.
- Duncan
EDIT: added LoA and some italics/underlining
