After playing in my first type 1 tournament in a long time Thurs evening I figured I'd throw together a short report, decklist and highlights of some interesting plays.First of all the setup. Gamemaster's in Fair Lawn, NJ was holding a type 1 tournament with an unlimited timewalk as the prize on 7/25. Its about an hour and a half from me but for good type 1 fun its worth the drive
Arrived late, but so did everyone else so it was ok. Now for the actual interesting magical stuff. Lets start with the decklist.
I decided to have some fun and play none other then the much maligned Power Artifact deck with a few modifications made after lots of playtesting. My decklist is below
White
1 Balance
Red
1 Wheel of Fortune
Green
1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond
Black
4 Dark Ritual
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mind Twist
Blue
4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Braingeyser
1 Power Artifact
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Timewalk
1 Timetwister
1 Time Spiral
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Capsize
1 Ancestral Recall
Artifact
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Memory Jar
1 Defense Grid
1 Lotus Petal
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
Land
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
4 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
4 Underground Sea
1 Underground River
I did not have a sideboard prepared since I use this deck for casual play mostly, so I threw something together very quickly in about 2 minutes with what cards I had on me. It looked something like this
Sideboard
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Ivory Tower
1 Abyss
1 Defense Grid
3 Compost
6 Random cards that were never going see play
Ok, so the sideboard left much to be desired, but I had no delusions of winning, just wanted to have fun with a degenerate combo deck. The tournament format was going to be 3 rounds of swiss then a cut to a top 8 single elimination.
Round 1
Drove an hour and a half to play a guy that lives 5 minutes away. We happen to be the only type 1 players in our area so we've faced each other countless times and know each other's decks card for card. He plays a variant of keeper which has a slightly different mana base featuring more duals and a main deck masticore as well as cunning wish. In our experience with these two decks we've found the keeper variant to win more often then it loses, no hard numbers but I would guess around 65% win percentage.
Game 1, I draw no artifact mana and only two land, one of which gets strip mined away. This sort of draw is disturbingly common in this deck and I certainly should have parised. Morphling beats me senseless as he often does, on to game two.
Sideboard, -1 Balance +1 Defense Grid
Game 2, I drop an early defense grid which resolves and then combo out the next turn.
Game 3, Keeper gets an early mind twist off mana drain mana and that's all she wrote for me, not a good start.
Highlights of this match: Game 1, keeper strip mines Library and regrows strip only to have me regrow LoA, an amusing chain of events at the time
Round 2
Well, I started poorly and now I run into probably the most anal retentive player I've ever met. He gave a brief speech that he seemingly read off invisible cue cards about how he plays a tight game and won't allow any nonsense.
Game 1, Not much detail here, I discover he's playing keeper, he doesn't remember what defense grid does and burns for about 5 throughout the game as he tries to cast spells he can't afford. I eventually combo out though its fairly late game, of course keeper is not known for its quick wins.
Sideboard, same as round 1
Game 2, Opening hand of 2 land, Grim Monolith, Vamp Tutor and Mystical Tutor and no other mana. I decide to go for, no guts no glory, eh? Despite me missing a third land drop and him not, he does not wasteland any of my lands and I combo out on turn 3 or 4, still baffled as to why, when he has 4 lands in play and I have 2 he does not use his wasteland.
Highlights of this match: Game 1, the approximately 15 minute turn on which I comboed out with defense grid in play. Also a 10 minute argument trying to convince this guy that if I misdirect his mana drain to my misdirection he does not get any mana.
Round 3
Ok, kind of back on track, but all this control is really bad for me.
Game 1, I play first, he drops a powder keg turn 2, I combo out turn 3, never saw any other spells from him except the keg. Just a bunch of islands.
Sideboard, same thing again, I have to assume some control variant.
Game 2, Play second, he drops a powder keg turn 2, I combo out turn 3.5(Timewalk after turn 3) after a turn 3 counter war over a defense grid which I won.
Highlights of this match: Having to ask what he was playing because I saw nothing but blue and red land, and powder kegs. Turns out it was a variant of Forbidian with red for the blasts.
Round 4
Looking good, made the top 8, did better then I expected against all the control in the field, no matter what happens at this point I'm pleased the showing this deck gave.
Game 1, He plays first and drops Jackal pup, obviously Sligh, this is an ok matchup pre-board but not great because he can kill as quick as I do and I damage myself alot with fastbond, city, necro and bargain. He gets me to 1 life and I then take another 15 minute turn which I end up winning.
Sideboard, -1 Bargain, -1 Necro, -1 Fastbond, -1 Mana Crypt, -1
Defense Grid, +2 COP: Red, +2 Ivory Tower, +1 Abyss
Game 2, Drop an ivory tower and a COP: Red in the first three turns. Nothing he could do.
Highlights of this match: Pulling it out of my ass game 1 when I was at 1 life after a broken memory jar hand that drew me Lotus Petal, Black Lotus, Yawgmoth's Will and actually caused multiple people watching the game and what I was drawing to make some amusing sounds.
Round 5
Nice, I'm in the top 4. I saw this guy play last round as he sat next to me, its another sligh matchup, I feel good about it though game 1 is a toss up.
Game 1, My opening hand contains a Ritual and a Necro, I know he's playing sligh but again, no guts no glory. I ritual out a first turn necro and go on a card drawing frenzy. It eventually reachs a point where I am at four life, he has 2 tapped mountains and 2 Jackal pups in play. Its a must win turn for me, after multiple draw 7's he finds a fireblast and casts it for the win only to find it misdirected into a jackal pup, a huge momentum swing for me as he now has 1 pup and no lands in play. It makes no difference as he doesn't get another turn and I combo out at 2 life after a vamp tutor.
Sideboard, same as before
Game 2, First turn LoA and Ivory Tower, 2nd turn abyss, 3rd turn cop:red, fourth turn some draw 7 to fill my hand again. Ended this game at over 40 life.
Highlights of this match: Misdirecting a fireblast into a Jackal Pup, and breaking 40 life against sligh.
Round 6
Final round, I'm pretty impressed with this preformance so far, no matter what I'm walking out with a $40 store credit and perhaps a timewalk. The guy I'm playing for the finals is running turboland, actually turbonevyn it seems now that I've read these boards a bit.
Game 1, He drops a second or third turn horn of greed, I drop a fastbond the next turn and go off the turn after that, my counter magic keeps him in check.
Sideboard, same as against keeper, I mistakenly assume he's running a pile of counters.
Game 2, He drops another second or third turn horn, but despite that neither of us are able to go off till about the 8th turn, I'm the first to get it going and with a final counter war over the infinite stroke of genius, my graveyard with a force of will (yawgmoth's will was active) and hand of force of will, misdirection, misdirection was enough to beat two red elemental blasts.
Highlights of this match: Winning a timewalk, and having fun with horn of greed.
Highlights of other people's games:
Keeper vs. Sligh
Keeper has 1 card in hand, masticore on the table, 4 life
Sligh has 3 cards in hand, 2 scrolls on the table, 6 mana, 8
life
Sligh's hand is Pyroblast, Pyroblast, REB
End of sligh's turn' Keeper stroke of genius' for 2 and sligh does not counter, Keeper draws strip mine and another card, gets sligh below 6 mana and is able to win the next turn.
Keeper vs. Squirrelcraft
2 plays here that were sort of interesting
1. Keeper has a ton of mana and orcish settlers in play, squirrelcraft drops a squirrel's nest, keeper blows up all but one of squirrelcraft's lands. I felt that one 3 seats away.
2. Squirrelcraft is at 5, after a long drawn out game keeper has morphling on the table and squirrelcraft has a bunch of land and altar of dementia. Squirrelcraft plays replenish, keeper responds by dblow'ing the altar, and despite having infinite squirrels, squirrelcraft loses the next turn to a flying morphling.
Not too shabby, walked out with a timewalk and the comfort of knowing my deck performed well. On a final note, it was a 12 player tournament, the decks I saw were 2 keeper, 1 forbiddian, 1 squirrelcraft, 1 fires, 1 suicide black, 3 sligh, 1 turbonevyn, 1 power artifact, and 1 I can't remember.
I hope I remember all the tourney details accurately (if anyone reading this was there and sees mistake in the report please point it out) and I'd love to hear some advice or discussion of my decklist, sideboard, sideboarding decisions, etc. Currently one of my big debates with this deck is whether it can support Mind Over Matter in the fastbond slot and whether that's even worth it.
