5th place at Blue Bell 5-14-11

Another great day at Alternate Universe in Blue Bell, PA. Thanks to Nick Coss for running these things, Abe Corson for coming the long way to Judge, and the guys from AU (Chas) for making these things such a big hit.

Anyway, here’s my decklist. Short explanation of some choices and decisions to follow

Vito Picozzo- Gush Tezzdrils

4 Force of Will
2 mana drain
2 spell pierce
1 misdirection
1 timetwister
1 tendrils of agony
1 empty the warrens
1 mana vault
1 grim monolith
1 lotus petal
1 mox jet
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 mox emerald
1 mox ruby
1 black lotus
1 mana crypt
4 gush
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 voltaic key
1 time vault
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 fast bond
1 Yawgmoth’s will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 brainstorm
1 demonic tutor
1 ancestral recall
1 thirst for knowledge
1 sol ring
1 merchant scroll
1 time walk
1 hurkyl’s recall
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 tropical island
2 island
1 snow-covered island
1 tolarian academy
1 misty rainforest
4 scalding tarn

Sideboard:

2 red elemental blast
1 pyroblast
1 nihil spell bomb
2 yixlid jailer
1 engineered explosives
2 pyroclasm
2 ingot chewer
2 ancient grudge
1 nature’s claim
1 volcanic island

This deck is about playing a ton of mana, and resolving big bombs

Plan A is the Tezzeret plan, which is just stronger under a workshop heavy meta than the gush combo. 2 tezzerets and 2 Jaces seems to be a good mix of planes walkers, and gifts ungiven is amazing in this deck since it can grab combo pieces, tutors, or just fill up the graveyard with brokenness for a Yawgmoth’s will into a big tendrils.

Plan B, the tendrils plan, is much weaker than in the traditional gush combo decks. Removing small cantrips like rituals and preordains and replacing them with bombs like tezzeret slow down the plan considerably.

The night before, the deck had 2 more cards in it

1 tinker
1 blighsteel colossus

-1 gush
-1 empty the warrens

However, ever since Phyrexian Metamorph was spoiled, I knew every workshop player was going to be trying this thing out. This brought me to the conclusion that I should get rid of tinker for the time being.
It turned out to be a good call, format wise, since that card was EVERYWHERE. Removing tinker allowed me to put my 4th gush into the deck, which I’m a fan of, and left me an open slot, which I was waffling over for a long time, and decided on empty.

Empty the warrens was a card that I added in the night before after I cut tinker/blight steel. I think this card is still good, but it’s certainly worse in the blue matchup, and I played much more of it than expected all day.

Timetwister is absolutely amazing when you land fast bond, but this deck has gush bond as plan B, so I’m not exactly sure how good it is in this deck. I was talking to Josh Potucek about it at the end of the night, and he’s probably right when he said that it should probably be a mana drain.

Another card that was asked about was the inclusion of Misdirection. In a workshop heavy meta, exactly how good is misdirection? The answer is, GREAT!. In this deck

1. Nobody expects misdirection in this current meta, so the surprise in it is nice

2. Since the deck depends so heavily on resolving bombs like tezzeret, jace, and gifts, it’s important that those spells resolve. Therefore, more often than not, Misdirection serves as a 5th Force of will, simply another free counter spell to help my spells resolve. If I played more workshop matchups that day, I might be singing a different tune, but I really didn’t mind it all day.

If anyone has any other questions about deck inclusions, feel free to post on the mana drain in this thread, and I’ll do my best to provide some insight.

As far as sidebaording strategies go, normally I write a list the day before of what to board in and out, but it was kind of on the fly for this day, so I don’t really remember any particular board strategy concretely.

Here’s the report!

Round 1 vs. Darrell Hundertmark (Null Rod Workshops) 2-1

Game 1 I was fortunate enough to be on the play. My hand consisted of Tezz, Force, Gush, Underground Sea, Scalding tarn, Mox Jet, Mana Crypt. I play all of the fast mana and the scalding tarn and pass. My heart drops a little when he plays a mishra’s workshop, leading off with a sphere of resistance, which I let resolve. However, that’s all he does for the turn and passes it back. I lay my second land, draw some dead card, and pass it back. The plan is to stick Tezzeret through the sphere at this point, holding up force in case something goes wrong. On Darrell’s turn he attempts to resolve precursor golem, which I quickly Force of Will, pitching gush. However, it turns out that this is his only real threat in hand, and after a few rounds of draw go, I eventually get enough mana to power out tezzeret, grabbing time vault, and taking all of the turns from there, with my mana crypt bringing me down to 11 life.

Game 2 started similarly to game 1. I force his initial lodestone golem drop, and we proceed to hit some draw go for a while. At one poin the plays a platinum angel, which I hit with a nature’s claim. Then we get into a little more draw-go until he drops the bomb. NULL ROD. At this point I have grim monolith, mana vault, sol ring, 2-3 moxen, fast bond, and 2 basic islands in play, the rest being victims to wasteland. Darrell draws a big stupd dragon and ends the game

Game 3 I get a hand that’s something like lotus petal, mox ruby, 2 lands, DT, Jace, gush, and something else. I drop the 2 fast mana, use it to DT for lotus, and Drop a turn one Jace, and brainstorm. He plays a Phyrexian revoker naming Jace on his turn, and passes it back. At this point I’ve brainstormed into an ingot chewere and use it to blow up the revoker to keep Jace online, and fate seal him when I see his first land is anceint tomb and he has no fast mana. He manages to play another land and a lodestone golem, and I spend a few turns drawing cards and bouncing the golem until I finally mana drain it, and play tezzeret. 2 planes walkers, + infinite turns gets there. I do take a bunch of damage from mana crypt during this game, to the point where I have to hurky’ls myself to pull it off the board. Notes say I ended the game at 9 life.

Round 2 vs. Jake Gans - (Worldgorger) 1-2

I’m pretty sure I was on the play, and led with a land, and passed. Jake plays a land, and at some point attempts to cast ancestral recall. Like a BOSS I’ve got the misdirection, and his Force of Will meets my spell pierce, and I get 3 brand new cards, 1 being mystical tutor. Being a greedy blue player, that mystical tutor becomes my own ancestral recall, and he’s soon too far behind to catch up, I land the tezzeret, and he initiates the scoop phase

Game 2 he boards into the bob tezz version, which turns out to be a considerably better matchup for him. Backed with more control, and dark confidants, he manages to land a bob, get some swings in, and eventually draw into key/vault.

Game 3 I manage to get a turn 1 recall, and have a pretty counter heavy hand. Believing I have the game under a decent grip, I let his time vault resolve, and wait to counter relevant bombs. This is probably a mistake, because he does play quite a few relevant bombs, which I actually have to counter, and then he just sticks a voltaic key

Round 3 vs. Andrew - (Ad Nauseum) 2-1

I lose the die roll, and do not have a counter in my hand. He goes chrome mox imprinting tendrils, then casts a dark ritual. It’s at this point I know I’m in trouble. I built my deck in anticipation of a workshop heavy meta. I play tested the day before with Nate Thompson, who has a ritual gush deck put together, and it has a very good matchup against me, so my hopes were not high for this match. However, Andrew follows up his dark ritual with a cabal ritual. The only deck I know that has chrome mox, dark ritual, and cabal ritual, is Ad Nauseum. He’s going off, and there’s nothing I can do about it. However, he imprinted a tendrils onto his mox, and I’ve seen people die to the ad nauseum, so I intend to sit and see it through. He casts the ad nausea, and flips over yawg’s will, a bunch of ritual mana, but no tutor or tendrils, He brings himself down to 2, and after a while of deliberating, he passes the turn back. I lay a land, draw no counter, or a way to damage him, and pass. (riveting I know). We play a turn or two of draw go, but he eventually has a yard consisting of ancestral recall, mystical tutor, and casts yawg’s will for the tendrils

Game 2 I’m on the play, and have a decent hand with spell pierce so I keep. He plays a duress, which I spell pierce. Having no other counters in hand, I’d rather not give him the free green light by seeing that, and just counter with what he would’ve taken. I draw into mana drain, and he duresses again, which I drain. I draw force of will and hold onto it for a turn or two, and force something he does. I then drop Tezzeret, and without enough to do on his turn, that’s the game.

Game 3 my hand has 2 spell pierces and 1 drain. As long as he doesn’t go off on turn 1, I’m set. The usual game plan for Ad Nauseum is “duress turn 1, ad nauseum turn 2” so I sit and wait on the duress. He does duress, and takes a spell pierce. I draw a force of will, play a land, and sit on spell pierce. From here on I pretty much draw a counter spell every relevant turn, and at one point recall into force, misdirection force. In his desperation, he casts a ritual, which I counter. He then responds with a pact of negation, which I let resolve, since he only has 3 mana. I then bottleneck his mana in case he has the in-hand tendrils, which he does, by countering a cabal ritual, and the only thing he can do is die to his pact of negation on his turn, so I take it down. Very intense games.

Round 4 vs. John Jones - (Turbo Tezz ) 2-0

Game 1 I flush the first counter out of his hand, and manage to stick a turn 2 tezzeret off some big mana. Sometimes you just have to play a turn 2 tezzeret against John Jones, what more can I say?

Game 2 He’s on the play, but doesn’t have a counter, and this is the only game of the tournament where I drop a turn 1 fast bond, and play multiple gushes, all yielding new gushes, until I demonic tutor for will, play it all again, and DT for the ten drills of agony.

Round 5 vs. Joe Brown - key vault ID

Joe Brown and I drove down together, and along with Chris Materewicz, Joe Pace, Jeremy Beaver, Nate Thompson, Matt Rine, and Dominic Difebo are pretty much the people that playtest together in NEPA up at my store, Full of Win Games.

Because of this, we decide to draw in this round, and dream crush the next 2 people, so we can both make the top 8, instead of only one of us. So now it’s win and in.

Round 6 vs. Ben - (Noble Fish) 2-0

Ben leads off Game 1 with a pridemage and I manage to stick a jace. He eventually sticks pridemage and meddling mage, naming Jace. I decide to brainstorm instead of bouncing, with the plan to cast the empty the warrens in my hand for something like storm 2 or 3, but my brainstorm reveals the key AND the vault, and I stick them down with enough mana to activate, while he is tapped out and can’t activate the pridemage.

Game 2 Not a whole lot goes on in this match. He drops a meddling mage and once again names Jace, this time while it's not on the field. I eventually land fastbond and gush into the wind via tendrils, and that's that. Into the top 8

Top 8 - Jake Gans - (Worldgorger) 0-2

Jake wins up entering the top 8 in the number 1 spot, and I’m in the number 8, so we have to play again. I have very few notes about these games, but I’ll write down what I remember

Game 1 I have a pretty controlling grip on, but he has divining top and manages to flush me out of counters, until he can grab a reanimation spell and squeaks through his world gorger combo with Tezzeret and Time Vault on the field.

Game 2 I have to mull to 6, and have no black mana with DT in hand. He manages to stick a Jace and fate seals me into a Vampiric tutor, and a yawg’s will, and eventually there’s just nothing I can do, and that’s the end of the day.

All in all I like the way the deck ran. I don’t like to run a million counters, but the only games that I lost, the reason was because I didn’t have the counter I needed.