Saturday Afternoon Magis 2

[MolotDET]

Saturday Afternoon Magic 2: The Return of Sligh? or D.E.Trix0rz 0wnz y0u!!!!!

     So I get home from work at 4:am.  I live with my girlfriend so the hope of getting 7 hours sleep is just a pipedream.  I finally nod off at 6 and my friend Matt calls at 10:30 to tell me what cards he needs to borrow and that he is leaving for Gamemaster.  Since Veronica is awake there is now no hope of getting back to sleep.  I begrudgingly set about getting my shit together and getting ready to go.  I set out towards the store at 11:55knowing I will get there just before registration is over.
     When I arrive it’s 12:20 and not only am I not late for registration but it hasn’t started yet.  Also I somehow managed to get there before Matt who lives 5 blocks away and left an hour and a half before me. Will wonders never seace?  Steve (the shop owner) tells me that there are only four people there besides me.
      I was kind of upset because I knew this meant there were only going to be store regulars there and I was fairly certain none of them could beat me.  So there would be no other competition and I wouldn’t get to test against any new decks.

     We end up with 8 people and the field looks like this:

Stompy – Disrupting_Spector
Sligh – Dragonfire425
Diavonzo Purple – Ufactor
Forbiddian (jankass) – Nick
Sligh – Rob G.
Control Black – Joe S.
Sui (jankass powered T2) – Steve
D.E.Trix – MolotDET(me)

     For the highlights of the tourney keep reading…

Round 1 vs. Joe S. (control black)
     Game 1:  I go first and drop Island/Jet/go.  He first turn Rituals (I am testing my theory*; which works out good for me because he was going to first turn Duress/Hymn) and so I pitch Force(Merchant Scroll0.  I second turn Island/go and he casts Hymn.  I Ancestral in resp and pitch MisD(Intuition) and get Duress/Shade.  I turn3 land/go again and he goes Lotus Mtwist for 3 right to my Mana Leak.  Turn4 I Merchant Scroll for FoF, he play Hymn and I am without a counter I FoF and still without a counter he grabs Illusions and an Island.  Turn5 I cast Deep Analysis from the grave and cast Mystical Tutor to put AK#3 on top of my deck and cast AK1.  He is in top deck and draws a land, I cast AK 2&3 on my turn, I’m left with 2 untapped, a hand full of counters and Ill/don’t.  He draw/goes Turn7 I combo and pass the turn.  He can only pay one turns up keep.
     Game 2: (I side in two Cursed Totem for the 2 Kegs)  He goes first and starts with Ritual (keeping up my testing) I pitch Force(Donate).  I go island/Sapphire/go.  He second turns Duress to my Drain.  I lay Totem and say go.  He third turn Duress’s to find me with lots of land in hand.  I cycle AK on my turn.  We both land/go turn4.  Turn5 me plays Mesmeric Fiend? (which, I later learned he sided)  and calls Donate and gets it from my hand (damn of all the luck).  We mana/go for the next few turns with him swinging for one every time.  On his turn9 eot I wish for Stroke of Genius.  I Stroke for 7 (leaving one island untapped) on my turn and come into Gush.  I cast and replay an island.  Turn 10 is him attacking and me passing while I am sitting on a hand full of counters and FoF.  He goes turn 11 Ritual and get himself up to 8 mana (I’m thinking “what the fuck could he be casting for 8?”) he play Hymn and I pitch MisD(mana leak) and get Swamp/Haunting Echo’s (at this point I almost jump across the table and ring his neck screaming how dare you try to echo’s me bitch) I eot FoF. Turn 12 I finally draw into Donate and heave a sigh of relief, as I had been hanging on to Illusions since turn6.  I combo and he upkeeps for 5 turns when he runs out of mana thanks to my trusty Stripmine.
 (2-0)(1-0)

Round 2 vs. Steve (jankass powered T2 Sui)
     Game 1:  we both Mull and he says “can we both keep 7?” and I’m like, “absofuckinglutely cause I’m going first.”  So I first turn island/emerald/go.  He goes to Ritual and I Pitch Force(merchant scroll) and am completely pissed by the fact the I must play every Black deck that is in the field every tourney..  We both turn2 land/go.  I Intuition for 3 AK on his eot.  I cast AK 3&4 on my turn3 and drop lots of moxen and land, I also drop 2 DA to the grave.  He goes Lotus, Diabolic tutor and I chuckle a little.  Turn4 I flashback both DAs and pass, he goes to cast some huge 1BBBBcc monster right to my drain and I wish for Capsize on his eot.  I have the combo in hand on turn five so I Ill/don’t and show him three untapped Blue and the Capsize. He scoops.
     Game 2: (I don’t think it is truly fair that I should get to sideboard against him so I only get capsize for 1 Keg) He plays a swamp and passes, I drop sapphire, jet, Island, Lotus/go.  He drops a second swamp and passes?  I eot Intuit for 3 AK.  Drop Island and pass.  He try’s to cast Icorid on turn3, but I AK3&4 and Drain and eot Wish for Stroke.  I Stroke for 5 into Gush, cast it, play Academy and drop DA and some islands to the grave. He brings Icorid back and swings on turn4.  I draw into Capsize and combo/capsize for the win.
 (4-0)(2-0)

Round 3 vs. Rob G. (Sligh)
      Game 1:  I go first and play jet/sapphire/island/Lotus/sol/DA.  He scowls and goes land/Pup to my drain and I eot Mystical for Ancestral with the extra Lotus mana.  Turn2 I drop land and flashback DA.  He lays Pup 2&3 and I have no counters even after the Ancestral.  I land/go and he swings4 and casts chain, I MisD to the pup and he casts goblin scout.  Turn4 I cast Illusions and pass, he swings away and bolts.  I drop Illusions and cast a second one as he swings away.  I eot Intuition for Donate and combo on turn 6.
     Game 2:  (I side in 3 BeB and Divert for 1 Scroll, 1 Intuition, 1 Deep Anal and 1 mana drain) He plays a land and a Pup, I drop land, he casts bolt, I MisD, he gets out Fanatic on turn three but never gets another land, which is accentuated by the fact that I get turn4 strip.  He Draw/discard/goes for a while, the whole time I am building up a monster hand.  When I am down to 2 I play Intuition on his eot to get the three Illusions that have been avoiding me and combo on turn 13.
 (6-0)(3-0)

Round 4 vs. Dragonfire425 (Sligh)
     Game 1:  He bolts on turn 1 and 2 and casts a pup.  Meanwhile I am Ancestraling and Intuitioning for 3 AK’s and drawing an ass load of cards.  He starts beating me down with the pup on turn 3 and casts Cursed Scroll.  I flashback the DA I discarded and pass.  He continues to beatdown and drops a Scout on turn4, I combo on turn four and he can pay the upkeep for only one turn.
     Game 2: (I side as I did last round and he brings in his savage tech)  He goes for a first turn Pup but I force because I have Lots of drawing in hand.  I force another Pup on turn three and somehow run out of counters.  He casts Bottle Gnomes? WTF?? I combo a few turns later and he sacks the gnomes and looses 20 life.  He starts dropping all sorts of creatures with out casting burn spells (he had sided them out for extra creatures and Blasts).  It takes 9 turns for me to combo again (I’m at 3 life) 1and I only get it off by virtue of the 2 pitchable forces and Divert in hand.
 (8-0)(4-0)


                                                      The Finals

     Steve was going to cut to the top 4 but I was so far in the lead with only one person close behind, that the dropped #3 and 4 because they had both lost to each of us.  So we go to the finals.

Round 5 vs. Rob G. (Sligh)
     Game 1: I go first and I mull down to 6.  With my new hand I drop land/sapphire/go.  He plays land/Vice and I eot Mystical for Ancestral.  I land/go and he draw/goes missing a land drop, I intuit for 3 AK on his eot.  I land/go and he drops his second land and throws two bolts.  I Ancestral and Ak on his eot.  On turn4 I combo, Timewalk and Strip a land and he scoops.
     Game 2:  (I side as I did against him in the round3) He plays land/Cadet and I drop Island/sapphire.  He turn2 land/Pup/swings and I land/go.  He casts a turn3 Cursed Scroll to my Drain, he Rebs and I answer with a Beb.  I drop Lotus and cast Deep Anal and than Flashback the Anal and he eots a bolt and I MisD to the Pup.  He swings with the Cadet and passes.  At this point I make the only play mistake of the day, on his eot I Intuition, for some reason even though I have enough mana to combo and all the donates are in the deck and I have Illusions in hand and he has no cards in hand, I Intuit for 3 AK rather than the 3 Donate.  He continues to beat me down and I draw shit tons of cards but never come into a Donate (which serves me right for being such an asshole).  On my turn9 I am down to 2 life, so I am forced to cast Illusions to keep myself alive.  On turn14 I tap my last mana to pay upkeep and finally draw into Donate. Heh…
     Game 3:  (I side as before)  I pick up my starting hand and see: jet, Donate, Island, Lotus, Drain, Ancestral and Illusions.  I am quite happy with this and I say keep.  I drop Island/jet and say go. He plays land/fanatic and I eot Ancestral.  I drop an Island and say go.  He drops a mountain and casts pup and bolt, tapping out.  I drain the bolt because I only need 1 mana to combo.  I draw into Academy and drop it, combo and Rob is pissed.  He shows me the 2 Reb in his hand and I show the 2 untapped Blue and the Drain in mine.  He is a little pissed that he tapped out but I explain that you should never expect me to combo on turn 3 and everyone else reassures him.

     So congratulations to me.

     Decks missing from the metagame, are too numerous to list. Interestingly two of the three Sligh decks that were missing as of late returned this week.  Their pilots said that they were upset by the fact that they had changed from aggro the same week that the meta switched from combo to control.  This week only one control deck and one combo were present.  The third Sligh pilot played Stompy this week, for the same reasons.
     Project5 (of themanadrain) was the only out of store person to show up.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it in time for round one and as we were an even amount of people.  He did stay around and pick up quite a few games between rounds and after the tourney.  He got some practice against D.E.Trix, and D.E.Sligh.
     Highlights of these games were D.E.Trix wining all it’s games and Sligh dealing out 20+ damage by third turn in 3+ games.  And Project picking up some new tech for his Deck Parfait.

     Well once again hooray for me, and I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.
     For the record this is the current list for D.E.Trix.

                             DETrix
Combo
 3 Illusions of Grandeur
 3 Donate
Draw/Search
 1 Fact or Fiction (soon to be replaced by Read the Ruins)
 2 Intuition
 1 Ancestral Recall
 1 Timewalk
 2 Deep Analysis
 1 Timetwister
 1 Cunning Wish
 1 Mystical Tutor
 2 Merchant Scroll
 4 Accumulated Knowledge
 1 Gush
Utility
 2 Powder Keg
Counters
 2 Mana Leak
 4 Force of Will
 4 Mana Drain
 2 Misdirection
Mana
 1 Sol Ring
 1 Black Lotus
 5 solo moxen
 1 Library of Alexandria
 1 Tolarian Academy
 1 Stripmine
 13 Island

 SB:
1 Hurkyl’s Recall (for TnT, soon to be replaced by FoF)
1 Stroke of Genius
2 Cursed Totem
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Back to Basics
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Divert
1 Psionic Blast
1 Capsize


Later guys,

[LambChopNYC]

only 8 people, sorry to hear that

I hope this does not stop the store from having that P9 tourney for top 8 on Thanks Giveing.

A Mox is a great Priza but most of the people at NG already had a Ruby one so we choose to take care of other important matters this weekend.

We hope the store still goes ahead with that special Thanks Giving Tourney. We would love to show up for that.

Thanks MolotDET for the report

LambChopNYC

[CrazyCarl]

Nice report.  IMO, Read the Runes is complete garbage.  It's like casting a Frantic Search for alot of cards.  I think FoF is just much, much better.  But have you tried it out? And if so, how good was it?

Congrats on the W.

Carl

[MolotDET]

Thanks Ray and Carl.

Quote Read the Runes is complete garbage.  It's like casting a Frantic Search for alot of cards.  I think FoF is just much, much better.  But have you tried it out? And if so, how good was it?

     Yes read the ruins is just that good.  Well in this deck anyway.  it is important as an end of turn cycler.  I have used it a few times to draw lots of cards and just keep what I need to combo and a hand full of counters.  It is also great at getting AKs and Deep Anals in the grave.
     I know this is going to sound funny given the events of the last few days, but this next sentance is not a jab.
     I look to see this card croping up in many decks, esspecially Grow.  And you just might see a new deck or two crop up built around just abusing this card, just wait till Madness come to type one.  I predict it will be restricted by December 2003.

Quote A Mox is a great Priza but most of the people at NG already had a Ruby one so we choose to take care of other important matters this weekend.

    Well for further knowledge what color mox would be the best for enticing people to come and play in the future?

[beastmouth]

What ruling is it that allows you to play stack part of a spells effect as you say you can with Read the Runes?

[Fishhead]

Quote He first turn Rituals (I am testing my theory*...

Hey, you never spelled out your theory.  But I have a guess at what it is.  

Heres my counter-theory: there are several hands that might start with a Ritual, things like (Rit->Hyppie, Rit->Negator, Rit->Duress+Sinkhole etc.)  Of those, its clearly better to counter the Hyppie, Negator, Necro or whatever rather than the Ritual.  Even if your opponent is planning Rit->Hymn+Mana Burn, its better just to counter the Hymn.  

So, Ritual is only dangerous if it allows the opponent to cast multiple spells.  Thats only going to happen if he has a Duress or a second Ritual.  (I'm looking at first turn Rituals only, the math will work out different on turn 2.)

So, does "Duress+2CC Spell" come up often enough to justify countering Rituals as a strategy?   And, even then, if the opponent plays Ritual <FoW>, and still keeps his Sinkhole, Shade or Hymn to play on turn 2 what exactly have your bought yourself?  Also, if you counter Rituals, are you forced to also counter the Lotus?  Or even the Jet?  

Quote Diavonzo Purple &#8211; Ufactor

How did he do?

[LordLamneth]

Congrats MolotDET.

I would have been there, but I had to work from 9 AM to 10 PM  

Sligh! Sui! Stompy! Sligh again!! Oh, my White Weenie would have kicked so much ass  

LordLamneth

[MolotDET]

Quote   
He first turn Rituals (I am testing my theory*...  


Hey, you never spelled out your theory.  But I have a guess at what it is.  

     My theory was well outlined in my topic "Beating Mono Black: a Combo/Control Players radical Ideas," (which is posted in the Extreme Vintage Mill) though I did fail to make my footnote.  Thanks for calling that one out.

Quote Sligh! Sui! Stompy! Sligh again!! Oh, my White Weenie would have kicked so much ass  

LordLamneth

   Which was what I was thinking "where the hell is Lord?"  Though I am kind of glad it didn't come down to you and me in the finals again.

Quote Quote  
Diavonzo Purple - Ufactor
 


How did he do?

well oddly enough D-Purple doesn't do very well in an aggro dominated field.  It is basically U/rphiddian with some unsavory card choices (ie. Prophetic Bolt).  It has Phid's fraility against monoB and appearantlly doesn't do very well against stompy.

Quote Heres my counter-theory: there are several hands that might start with a Ritual, things like (Rit->Hyppie, Rit->Negator, Rit->Duress+Sinkhole etc.)  Of those, its clearly better to counter the Hyppie, Negator, Necro or whatever rather than the Ritual.  Even if your opponent is planning Rit->Hymn+Mana Burn, its better just to counter the Hymn.  

So, Ritual is only dangerous if it allows the opponent to cast multiple spells.  Thats only going to happen if he has a Duress or a second Ritual.  (I'm looking at first turn Rituals only, the math will work out different on turn 2.)

So, does "Duress+2CC Spell" come up often enough to justify countering Rituals as a strategy?   And, even then, if the opponent plays Ritual <FoW>, and still keeps his Sinkhole, Shade or Hymn to play on turn 2 what exactly have your bought yourself?  Also, if you counter Rituals, are you forced to also counter the Lotus?  Or even the Jet?  

the answers to these questions would be better found in that topic I pointed out above but I will give them here.

the answer to the question you imply with the first paragraph is - No.

the answer to the implyed question in the second paragraph is - yes, this is only in the case of first turn casting.

the answer to the questions in the third paragraph are - Yes, tempo - which is all important against Black, and yes to Lotus but no to jet - because it doesn't produce 3 mana.

[Dragonfire425]

If the story you were told is correct, then maybe that judge should have his judgeing certification revoked. You can't play instants in between the drawing and discard/sacrificing parts of Read the Runes. Once Read the Runes starts to resolve it must finish before anything else can go on the stack.

[Fishhead]

Quote My theory was well outlined in my topic "Beating Mono Black: a Combo/Control Players radical Ideas,"...

Ah, OK.  I read that now and generally agree with it.  I thought your theory was going to be "Always Force the Ritual" as opposed to the more logical "Force the Ritual when you have something to protect (Ancestral, Land+Drain etc)".  

Quote You can't play instants in between the drawing/discard-sacrificing parts of Read the Runes.

I think he is saying that Read the Runes resolves and the last part of its resolution puts a destroy X permanents or discard X cards effect on the stack.  Therefore the card has resolved and you can respond with instants before the stack empties.  I have no idea whether this is correct or not.

[Dragonfire425]

All parts of the card need to resolve before anything else is added to the stack. There is no way to interrupt a spell, while it's resolving.

[CrazyCarl]

I don't know what exactly you plan on saccing to Read the Runes to make this so important, but Read the Runes is a spell, when it resolves, you must preform every action on the card(unless it says may or you can't), which means you draw your cards then sacrifice or discard.  There is no ability "Sacrifice permanents or discard a card for each card drawn this way" that would go on the stack.  That's just an effect the spell is producing when it resolves.  And since you can't play effects while a spell is resolving, you can't randomly sac things in the middle of Read the Rune's resolution.  You can however, respond to targetted(Or untargetted) removal such as Wasteland or Swords to Plowshares with Read the Runes, just sacrificing whatever would be killed by the aformentioned Wasteland or Swords to Plowshares.

Hope that clears it up.

Carl

[Dragonfire425]

btw, the WGDragon and Illusions are permanents with triggered abilities, the say "When ~this~ comes into play..." or " When ~this~ leaves play...". Read the Runes does not have triggered abilities. When the card itself resolves, all the text on it resolves, it doesn't have triggered abilities like Illusions and WGDragon. The text:  ~ Draw X cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card from your hand unless you sacrifice a permanent. ~ is just the order in which you do things on the card. The two sentences are NOT two seperate effects.