Hmm, well, before I start, I'm not sure I like this separate section for Tournament Reports. It seems like stuff gets less attention (for now? forever?) over here than it did in the main Mill. Obviously, if no one is reading reports (because no one can find them) then soon no one will be writing them either. That would be bad.
Anyway, I took the same old German Tubbies down to Newark to play this Thursday. The decklist is in my previous report ("T1 in Newark with Spevack & Co.") I finished a quite mediocre 3-2, but faced dangerous decks in every round, so it might be a more interesting report than going 5-0 against crap.
Round 1: Stompy with special hate for me. I'm paired against Dave from Berkeley, he apparently has heard rumors and legends of my deck and has prepared some hate for me. I start by playing Workshop, Mox Emerald, Juggernaut and follow it up next turn with a Survival. I am ready to go to town when he drops Null Rod, which puts a crimp in my plans. Still, with Survival resolved I just play cautiously until he runs out of juice.
In the second game, he gets me down to 6, but I never really feel in any danger. Funny moment: I dont draw Survival this game, at one point he has multiple Elvish Lyrists on the table with nothing much to do. "You sided out the Survivals against me didnt you?", he asks in frustration. (I did no such thing!)
Round 2: Forbiddian. A pretty standard build with Powder Kegs in and BtB out. The unique touch is 3 Brainstorms + 3 Impulses. 2 Mishras instead of Wastelands.
Both games go wrong for me when I keep slow hands and he plays Island+Sapphire first turn. I dont resolve a spell in either game through the wall of counters.
One thing to note is that I should be more aggressive mulliganing here. There are plenty of configurations which cause him problems; early threats like Welder or Survival or especially Juggernaut cause him big problems. I demonstrate this in the two "fun" games afterwards, but, of course thats not worth any points.
Round 3: Oath of Trix. The least powered deck I played all day, he has no jewelry nor even many multis. Its still an interesting matchup because both Oath and Trix are things that Tubbies does not like.
In the first game, I get a Welder into play and then get 3 consecutive land stripped away. Fortunately, this means that even though I am not doing anything except swinging for 1, at least he isnt doing anything either. I get land first, get a Shaman and a Su-Chi on the board when he gets Oath. I'm very nervous about that; a Weaver could hold me off forever and I'd have to start looking for ways to kill my junk creatures like Shaman. But he Oaths up Morphling and with the help of Anger and Triskellion/Welder I am able to run him down before he can Oath again. Phew.
In the second, we go into a similar game where I am beating slowly with the Welder. I finally draw a threat and he FoFs in response. He's at 4 mana, so I divide the piles {donate,donate}{FoW, Hydro, Land}. I have an Emerald Charm and a ReB in my hand, so I am not as scared of the Illusions as I might be. Anyway, the Juggy resolves and then Survival resolves and I go into turbo mode and suddenly deal about 15 Anger powered points next turn.
Round 4: ABM. Ah, the much criticized ABM. I feel this is a reasonable matchup for me, but after this match and the fun games afterwards I am 2-5. One weakness is that I cant interfere with his combo, if I dont kill him quickly he will be able to set up his defenses and solve his problems with a Devout Witness or 6/6 Mystic Enforcer.
Anyway, I unspectacularly mull to 6 in the first game. His hand is questionable, but my second hand is also sucky. At least I have land and a Survival. Like the good player he is he has the FoW for my Survival and I am reduced to playing threats starting around turn 4. He gets his Scroll Rack around then and starts digging for answers; the combo is in force and Ancestralling every turn seems to work out for him. I think about leaping across the table and eating the Back to Basics when it hits so there will be one less of that benighted card in the world, but I am able to restrain myself. Barely.
In the second I gracefully mulligan again, but this time into a decent hand. Unfortunately, he has the perfect hand; after I lose (in a fit of Kaplan-esque sportsmanship
I say that he couldnt have had a better opening hand if he picked the 7 cards instead of drawing them. I consider eating his entire deck.
Round 5: Keeper. Ah, Keeper. At least I shall have my revenge. This is not a good matchup for Keeper, though this particular player had an almost even record against me going into the match.
I launch strong with a Shaman that keeps him mana tight, apparently he kept the hand on the strength of being able to play two quick Morphlings, but that plan goes out the window when I eat the Mox he used to Time Walk on the first turn. The Morphlings are reduced to chump blockers around turn 5 and I overwhelm him.
In the second game he plays Mox, Sol Ring, Tolarian, Merchant Scroll for Ancestral, but I come back with a Survival that fetches a Monkey and eats all of his stuff. I win one or two more fun games. I think my record against Keeper is 18-6 right now.
Fun Games Afterwards: I play against someone with a version of Helm-Academy that runs 3 Candelabras (!) and a MoMa (!!!). I'm curious how Tubbies does against Combo, especially against versions like this which may be a turn slower than a really tightly tuned deck.
In the first game, I get an early Monkey and destroy all of his stuff. One thing about Academy is that its pretty hard to knock it completely out; it can always jump up and suddenly win. But a Monkey and an untapped Strip Mine are big problems.
In the second he drops the Academy and a ton of artifacts, then the MoMa. His hand is almost empty so he doesnt go for it; he just wins on the next turn. "Ah, I could have won this on the first turn", he says as he draws his next card. Well, since its unlikely that Tubbies will first turn kill *him* its probably better to play a little conservatively.
In the third, Survival = Monkey = bad times for him. I get a Welder on the table and am able to Weld his Helm into a Mox and then eat it. Good times.
Anyway, thats a lot of interesting matchups, hopefully its an interesting report and it will encourage people to give this very fun deck a try.
