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Grand Inquisitor
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« on: November 10, 2002, 12:11:34 pm » |
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I am playing in my second major tourney since returning to magic. This month's Hadley power tournament at TnT was offering a beta emerald for first and a foil BoP for 2nd; not bad. Although, after going 3-2 last time, i wasn't hoping for much more than to have a winning record again.
I've recently been scrounging together the pieces of emerald alice, the deck list is at the end of the report. I also played this in the (much smaller) friday night at TnT. There I played a few games with Nick (billtheduck) and his keeper. We confirmed that Gro loses any match where keeper gets an early library of alexandria. Actually, after getting smacked around by Nick I was almost considering running my sui deck instead, but went with Alice just because its more fun to misdirect hymns than to cast them. Now on to the report.
I end up bringing my friend Tony along so he could spectate. Me and him used to have epic battles with our (revised) Serra Angels and Sengir Vampires. They were simpler days, but no less fun. Anyway, he's considering getting back into it, and going to a tourney is the best way to see if you still like to turn cardboard sideways. Me and him play some games with my sui and alice decks (all i have) waiting for the pairings. He beats me pitiless with sui, and i'm starting to second guess myself.
Rnd 1, Isaac playing Sligh
Game 1: He drops an early Pup, followed by a flunky, and starts to beat. I divert incinerate to his pup, and keg away any other critters, leaving his flunkies sitting there with a not-to-bright expression on there face. I eventually drop a bear and apply pressure. I keg his scroll, drop another bear, and ride the berenstain twins to victory.
Sideboarding for this matchup is tough. Yes, I have the feeder, but its just not good to sit around against sligh while it builds up burn, and it also has the highest number of removable creatures (ball lightning, fanatic, sandstalker). Very risky for the oath engine.
Game 2: Since the first game went well, i decide against the oath conversion and mulli into a sub-optimal hand. Not surprisingly he drops pup after pup and scroll after scroll until i'm dead.
Game 3: With oath engine I keep him from playing creatures (except for fanatic), divert a fireblast (hells yeah) and eventually oath up a morph for the win.
1-0, 2-1
Rnd 2, Chris playing Dragon
Game 1: By far my most frustrating game of the day. I find out what he's playing first turn when he casts entomb. I feel confident with two pitch counters in hand. Third turn he tries to go off. For some reason unknown to myself, scientists, priests, and magic players above the age of 5, i gush in response, leaving me with only 3 blue cards in my hand. He strokes, and has the misdirect to counter my FoW. Had I not gush'd, I win the game.
Game 2: Also sort of strange, and no better outcome than game 1. I keep another decent hand, and he starts getting his pieces. I let him start generating infinite mana, he says "draw". I'm about to start reshuffling my library when a bystander points out that he must target my dryad with the animate dead, ending the loop. He gets my dryad out, which serves as a great blocker since he's playing u/b, and eventually finds his combo. I lose 0-2 to one of my better matchups because I am a scrub.
1-1, 2-3
I get some subway with tony (who really couldn't follow the hole infinite loop thing, but sympathized anyway). At this point I'm thinking I'm almost done for the day, and that Alice is simply beyond my playskill for now.
Rnd 3, Ben? playing Sui,
Game 1: After tony whooping me pre-tourney, i see him drop swamp, and feel certain i'm about to be 1-2. I FoW his early Hypno. I take 1 swing from Negator and then keg it away along with scroll, and ride my bear to victory.
Fortunately, I can bring 11 cards from my sb in against him (everything but B2B and Disk). He sees me do this and shudders (well, not really, but he should have).
Game 2: I force early disruption, drop 2nd turn compost and 3rd turn Oath, and get morph for the win.
2-1, 4-3
Round 4, (sorry, forget name) playing Sui
Game 1: I have no pitch counters opening hand; I cringe when he drops a swamp, then I smile when he says go. When Sui doesn't go nuts turn 1, its like Christmas. Sinkhole/Wasteland is annoying, but force his threat, drop a sylvan, find some beats and finish him off with a bear and 2 sizeable dryads.
Game 2: By far the wierdest game of the tournament. I drop 2nd turn compost, 3rd turn oath. I feel very comfortable. He's having trouble casting black spells. I realize its because he has two mishra's factory's in play. I start to fret, and scramble to find kegs. I can't in time, and he rides his 2 lands to victory. I was dumbfounded, but we both had a chuckle.
Game 3: I find an early oath again, but he has a factory. I drop a keg which stalls him. He kegs away my keg and gets ready to apply beats. He drops nantuko shade. I repeat, he drops nantuko shade. I'm not sure how big of a play error this is (could he have held out another 8-9 turns?), but I oath for morphling and he does his 15, 10, 5, 0 trick.
After going 2-0, 4-1 against sui, i'm starting to believe this is a decent matchup for alice.
3-1, 6-4
There were less than 25 players (only 4 rounds), so I wait to see if I make top 8.
Top 8, Chris playing mono-G AoS
Chris's deck looks like Enchantress until he drops the nest/earthlore and either attacks, or finds his altar of dementia (definitely a stylish win). I've seen him play it before, so I'm pretty familiar, and with my misd's, diverts and FoW's, i know its a tough match for him.
Game 1: Usually once a tournament you get one of those plays that is complete luck. His first turn goes, forest, spirit guide, wild growth, spirit guide, tap forest, squirrel nest (playing 5 of his 7 cards). I groan. I draw, and see my lone strip mine staring back at me. I can't help it, and say "topdeck-o-saurus" and blow up his only land source and 2 enchantments. He can't recover as I drop dryad, Force his vineyard, and coast to victory. Yes, I was extremely lucky.
Game 2: I misdirect an early nest. He's short on mana, so he drops his eladimri's vineyard. this gives me the mana i need to drop bears, dryads, kegs, and hard cast gush. he stalls, and dies of beats and his own mana burn.
Chris is one of the cooler guys at TnT, and takes the loss in stride. We play one more match for fun, and he rolls me. I also found out he was 6th, meaning I was 3rd with a 6-4 game record?
4-1, 8-4
Top 4, Kieth playing TnT
Kieth had been playing next to me earlier, so I knew I was about to play Alice's worst matchup.
Game 1: He gets out an early survival and then welder, but I have 2 dryads in play. I keg away his welder and we stall. He has a masticore and colossus in play, and I have my burgeoning dryads. He eventually lands another welder, and I concede with 8/8 and 9/9 dryads. Incidentally, he has winter orb out for most of the game and realizes only after 10 or so turns that Alice plays better under it than TnT.
Game 2: I side in the oath engine and keep a good hand (oath, pitch counter). I make my second huge player error of the tourney and don't force his first turn defense grid. My logic was that I would cast the nevinryal's disk in my hand, and wipe the board, then drop oath. On his second turn, he strips me, setting me back the 1 turn i needed to cast the disk. He does 16 damage the turn before I would have blown the disk...
4-2, 8-6
I miss the finals (and a decent prize) by 1 match, however, alice performed better than I ever hoped. The other T4 was a rogue RWB aggro deck (mezzir has skills) vs. Super Gro (w/ white). Unfortunately, I didn't stick around to see what happened.
Props:
TnT, as always, a smoothely run tourney
Strip Mine, for topdecking when I needed it
Tony, for hanging out in a hot cardshop all day
Kieth, for soundly smashing my face in
Slops:
Chris (w/dragon), is a great player for his age, but should shut his mouth when watching other people's games
Me, i need to work on my game play in general, and especially with alice
Yu-Gi-Go (or whatever) players, they always make a ruckus while we're tryin to have a tourney
Let me know what you guys think of the report and the deck.
Alice V1.0
Mana Sources (20):
1 Forest
1 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Wooded Foothills (the only fetch i've got)
4 Tropical Islands
4 Land Grants
8 Island
Critters (9):
4 Quirion Dryads
2 Wear Bear
2 Ophidian
1 Morphling
Counters (16):
4 Counterspell (no drains yet, not sure if i want em)
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
2 Divert (missing 4th misd, and heavy sui metagame)
2 Mana Leak
1 Daze (still leaving one in, as it continues to save my ass)
Draw/Search (12):
4 Gush
3 Impulse
2 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Merchant Scroll (will become significantly better when i get my a.recall)
1 Sylvan Library
Removal (3):
3 Powder Keg
SB:
4 Oath of Druid
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Spike Feeder (probably going to replace with weaver)
1 Woodripper (a veritable bomb)
3 Back to Basics
2 Compost (repeat, heavy sui metagame)
1 Nevinryal's Disk (all i had to fill art/ench removal)
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