ToC6 Round 4 report

[Drogo]

The ToC is still plugging along, although there seems to be a drop in interest over time.  

My suicide black (fairly typical although I have 2 main deck Edicts rather than null rods and round out my creatures with 3 Phyrexian Fat Beast rather than Reavers or Masticores or something) was up against Radagast and his U/B control.  This is the kind of match up Sui should do pretty well against in game 1 at least, although he does have a little more creature control than many control decks (1 of Abyss, Disk, Keg, Edict, Psi Blast, Capsize) and a more stable mana base.  
An early Abyss is pretty much game over for me, as would be the Ensnaring Bridge from his sideboard.  That's what discard and sinkholes are for, but it always bothers me playing a deck that will simply scoop to one or two cards.  I always play control or aggro control at least and playing this deck has been a refreshing reminder why it doesn't matter if your aggro deck has some severe weakness.  They still have to find that answer and you do not have to find your threats, your deck does the same thing pretty much every game.  It's been a long time since I just smashed away, I'd forgotten how much fun it can be.

It is 3am his time when we hook up (I'm in Ontario, Canada and he is in Hungary) so I offer to play later when he won't be so tired but he is still game.

Game 1:  He wins the die roll and will play and keeps.  I look at a rather unimpressive hand of something like Swamp x3, Warbeastx2, Hymn, Hypnotic.  Going second and my first play of the game is a Hymn?  That doesn't seem good but the hand doesn't seem quite bad enough to mulligan.  I keep.  He drops Land (and maybe an off colour mox?).  I peel Duress off the top.  Not bad.  I Duress and pull a FoW I think, leaving a Concentrate, Mana Drain and other stuff I can't recall because he only has 1 blue source on the table and none in hand.  He draws and lays an Island to go with his Underground Sea.  Dang.  

I hymn and nail a Disk and something else but miss the Concentrate so he refills next turn and Demonic Tutors.  He is obviously going to go get Abyss.  I draw a Demonic Tutor of my own and use it go fetch my 3rd Warbeast so that my remaining 3 win conditions will at least all be in my hand.   He drops Abyss via Lotus and still has UU open but since he only has 1 or 2 cards in hand I'm not that worried about a Counter.  It doesn't matter anyway, my options are so limited once Abyss hits there would be no point in holding back at all.   I drop a Warbeast, no counter.  He draws-go.  I swing and drop another Warbeast, he Forces (hardcast).  He draws-go.  I attack and drop the last Warbeast.  He is a little taken aback that I managed to find all 3 already.  What can I say, better lucky than good.  

I get him to 11 with the 2 beasts when he finds a Will.  Unfortunately all he can do is get his Disk back to stop the Beasts and that of course nails the Abyss as well after I hit him to 5.  I lose 2 land to the beasts and he strips one, hoping to mana screw me at 1 swamp.  However I have 1 more in hand and then peel another next turn so I just drop 2 Hyppies in a row after the Abyss is gone and he has pulled nothing but mox and land.  I feel very fortunate to have won that game.  

I sb in 4 Masticores and a 4th Beast for 4 Phyrexian Negators and something else.

Game 2:  This game was just stupid.  He keeps a no land hand but drops a Lotus turn 1, sacs for UUU, Merchant Scroll for Ancestrall, cast it....and drops Wasteland, Mox Pearl.  That's rather amazing bad luck to go through 10 cards and not find a U producing land.  I have quite a decent hand and start with Ritual, Duress (taking Will and leaving him with 2 Mana Drains, Skeletal Scrying, and Psi Blast), Hymn (nailing Blast and Scrying).   He draws an Island and I promptly pull a Sinkhole off the top of my deck to destroy it.  I then lay a couple critters and beat him while he sits with only a Wasteland and Mox Pearl.    I have the log for this game but there is no point in posting it, there was nothing to this game.  

He was a very cordial opponent as all mine have been this tournament.  He didn't say a word about losing game 1 despite the early Abyss and took the mana screw game 2 with virtually no complaint.  Thanks for the games Radagast.

Tony

[Matt The Great]

Quote He draws and lays an Island to go with his Underground Sea.  Dang.  

I hymn and nail a Disk and something else but

Why didn't he Mana Drain the Hymn into the Concentrate? Was this a misplay or were there some turns in between here, or what?

Why did you side out the Negators? Fearing PsiBlast that much, or did you expect additional Abyss (for which you'd side in Cores)?

[Drogo]

I think he did Mana Drain into the Concentrate and then I hymned again.  Or maybe there was a turn in there.  I just don't remember.  

Siding out Negators was mostly paranoia.  I just kept having visions of a Psi Blast blowing my side of the board into nothing.  Considering he had only 1 Blast (maybe 1 more in the sb?) it was probably excessive wussiness on my part.  He was also boarding in a bridge and the Negators would be the worst critter in my deck if that ever showed up.  I also did want to fit in the 4 Cores from the sideboard and couldn't really decide on what to drop so I basically just swapped the Cores for the Gators.  

And everyone said Sui would do so badly at this tourney.  You just have to master the ability of not getting paired up against decks that drop first turn juggarnauts and getting paired up against opponents who get mana screwed.

Tony

[psyduck]

Quote (Drogo @ Sep. 09 2002,06:21)I think he did Mana Drain into the Concentrate and then I hymned again.  Or maybe there was a turn in there.  I just don't remember.  

Siding out Negators was mostly paranoia.  I just kept having visions of a Psi Blast blowing my side of the board into nothing.  Considering he had only 1 Blast (maybe 1 more in the sb?) it was probably excessive wussiness on my part.  He was also boarding in a bridge and the Negators would be the worst critter in my deck if that ever showed up.  I also did want to fit in the 4 Cores from the sideboard and couldn't really decide on what to drop so I basically just swapped the Cores for the Gators.  

And everyone said Sui would do so badly at this tourney.  You just have to master the ability of not getting paired up against decks that drop first turn juggarnauts and getting paired up against opponents who get mana screwed.

Tony

I think your Warbeasts really make your sui great. They basically make your deck so creature rich that it clocks your opponent like Stompy, but has most of all the disruption elemnts of suiB. I think -powder kegs + warbeasts are a great change of pace for SuiB, making the clock that much better.

The fact that you are putting so much effort into the clock  means the slightest disruption into the mana base really hoses your opponent, giving him that "mana-screw" feel. Hmm that sounds homosexual. Anyways, your suiB almost needs very little assistance from your board as well, since the point is to just bash their skull in in the least amount of time. If i were to run SuiB i'd run your version. And yes, I fear the warbeast.

[joeeeee54]

Three war beasts in a row is really wicked.  Your article was a nice little read....I love hearing about sui kicking ass (my fav deck).

[Radagast]

I believe it went Hymn - Drain - Concentrate - Hymn.
Also, you forgot to mention second game I did a turn 1 Keg off the waste+mox, but forgot to put a counter on it next turn, which resulted in the Hyppie hitting me once before I got it to 3 counters, forcing me to discard something rather irrevelant (I believe it was the Teferi's Response I topdecked the turn after you Sinkholed my Island. Note to self: experiment with drawing first in the future, since I seem to have the draw-the-counter-the-turn-after-you-cast-something-that-kills-me syndrome pretty badly). You then dropped a Shade, and a decided to Keg the Hyppie instead (I was hoping to draw a blue source in the next 1-3 turns, and didn't want the Hyppie wrecking the remains of my hand in the meantime.) In retrospect, I would've been better off killing the Shade, just so I could possibly live long enough to draw something. Also, had that pesky Hymn not gotten my Psiblast, I would've been able to nab your Hyppie in response to your Sinkhole, and then kill your Shade, which might've given me half a chance.

[Drogo]

Psydcuck, thanks for the kind words.  I read your ToC report and...wow.  It looks like your deck did much more explosive things in your other matches than in ours.  I can't help but think your draws just weren't great against me.  Maybe I just had good draws.  Either way, I like that deck a lot, it is quite cool.  Looks really tough to play, it looked like you had quite a few tough decisions to make in our match and it seemed to me (the uninitiated with the deck) that you made the right one every time.  I assume you've played that deck quite a bit?

Radagast, I did remember your start in game 2, I just didn't bother going into any detail about that game since it was such a non event.  I doubt it would have made any difference to keg the shade rather than hyppie (although that would have been the right decision probably) because I had a couple other critters to cast that could have replaced but I just didn't bother since I could pump the shade instead.   I would have kept your opening hand too BTW.  It doesn't seem like an unreasonable risk to assume there will be one U producing land in your top 10 cards.


Tony