New Keeper Report

[Dante]

Type 1 Tournament Report – Crazy Cards, Suburb of Chicago, 11/24/02

The deck below was what I had been testing before the “Paragon Keeper” lists came out – I had gotten the idea from some of the posts about the NY players.  This was the first tournament with my new build.  It’s kind of late, so I’ll omit my usual non-Magic ramblings (i.e. previous night’s drinking, various sports commentary), although I’ll point out I was less hung-over than usual.

4 Mana Drain
4 FOW
1 Misdirection

2 Morphling

1 Balance
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Chainer’s Edict
1 Abyss
1 Moat
1 Shaman
1 Dismantling Blow

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Cunning Wish
3 Brainstorm

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Stroke
1 Ancestral

1 Time Walk
1 Mindtwist
1 Yag Will

4 Mox (no emerald)
1 Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip
3 Wasteland
2 City of Brass
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Library

Sideboard:
4 Red blast
2 Cop Red
1 Cop Black
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Pyroclasm
1 Keg
1 Tormond’s Crypt
1 Ebony Charm
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Allay
1 Swords to Plowshares

Round 1 – Mike H – Reanimator

Game 1 – My opening hand is 7 mana sources and my 6-card hand has 5 and a Yag Will.  My five card hand is ok – 1 dual, 2 FoW, and 2 blue cards.  I have to force early and almost comeback, but in the end the slow start was too much.

Game 2 – In comes the plow, cop black, and the 2 graveyard cards.  I drain a 2nd or 3rd turn Zombie Infestation into a Morphling.  He was totally shocked when I ebony charmed his post-Buried Alive exhume.  Morphling goes the distance.

Game 3 – Not really close, I have the Crypt in my opening hand and take only 2 pts of damage this game (from my own lands).

It was nice to come back after the double-mulligan Game 1.  My deck felt like it was humming along.  Turns out he maindecks his Null Rods and just didn’t see them all match.

Round 2 – Matt B – Mask/Tubbies

Matt has a tough deck – it’s black Mask with a splash of white rather than blue, but it also has Mishra’s Workshops and the eight 4-casting cost beatsticks (Juggernaut and Su-Chi).  He ran over me the last time we played (that was not this version of Keeper though).

Game 1 – Cunning Wish for Shattering Pulse was golden.  So was my maindeck Moat.  This was a tough game and had a lot going on, but the summary was that maindeck Moat held off the creatures long enough and shattering pulse with buyback ensured I didn’t have to worry about anything other than a rogue specter.

Game 2 – He keeps a Mox Emerald Mishra’s Workshop hand, so I assume he had the “combo” and was going all or nothing.  Luckily, I had a FoW.  I also have a wasteland leaving him with just the Mox.  I brainstorm into shattering pulse, shuffle with a fetchland, and top deck wasteland followed by strip mine – so he has no permanents in play, I’ve got a shattering pulse with buyback going and a strip and wasteland sitting in play.  He concedes.  If brainstorm had been impulse, I wouldn’t have been able to lock him down as quickly.

Round 3 – Umesh (Ump)

He’s playing the same B/g deck he posted a report from last week – like Void, except green for Deed, Spiritmonger, and River Boa.

Game 1 – I’m going first and my opening hand is Lotus, Mox, 4 land (2 fetchlands), and Abyss.  I know Abyss will wreck him until he can get a deed, so I keep it.  He wastes, wastes, sinkholes, but I’ve still got enough land to do my thing.

Game 2 – I mulligan into a land, mox, 2 FoW, and 2 blue cards.  Despite an ancestral and a brainstorm, there’s no land in sight.  I die with no permanents in play.

Game 3 – If I win this game, I can ID next round into the Top 4.  Otherwise, it’s 2-1 and I have to win and hope my tie breakers are good enough or someone else times out. (there would be six people at 2-1 after this round).  He gets an early Negator, which quickly turns into 5 life.  During one key turn, I Mana Drain 3 spells – Duress, Hymn, Hymn (or maybe that was game 1…hmmm).  I get a Morphling out with enough mana to block his second Negator and then pump.  A second Morphling soon joins the beating.

Round 4 – Manuel with OSE (old school OSE, U/b no red).  We ID.

Sitting around watching some of the other matches, the TnT deck was facing the rOSE deck and just trounced it.  You really need white to make that work, just play Keeper.

Top 4 are me (Keeper), Manuel (OSE), Dean (TnT), and ? (someone I didn’t play).  I’m facing TnT.

Semi-finals
Game 1 – I have to double mulligan again (again I got the 7 mana hand and the 5 mana/Morphling hand).  I’m a little slow developing and I just can’t keep up.  He also runs maindeck Caps and capped me, taking Morphling x2 and my Stroke, leaving me with zero kill cards (I wasn’t planning that Mox Monkey beatdown would work).  I was hoping he’d Survival away a lot of stuff and deck himself, but I started out too far behind.

Game 2 – Again, a 6 mana hand.  I mulligan into Brainstorm, Yag Will, Merchant scroll, and 3 mana sources.  Not too bad – until his first turn is Welder, Su-Chi.  Ugh.  He gets something else out.  I merchant for mystical for balance (note – brainstorm was key here and costing U was key, not U1).  We’re on par, but he’s got Sylvan and Survival out.  I Allay the survival, but don’t have enough for buyback and he gets another one, then gets 2 large creatures out.  I get a good Yag will where I can balance and almost regain control, but he Caps me again, taking shattering pulse and both Morphlings.  He gets out a creature and I don’t get anything but land now….
So TnT knocks me out, but I felt that I really could have taken this match with non-whack opening hands.  

Manuel beats the other player, but loses to TnT in the finals.  Again, a control deck really needs white to be able to beat TnT.  He didn’t really ever have control.

The other decks were OSE, rOSE, TnT, Mask/Tubbies, Reanimator, W/g Oath, Stasis, 2x Mono Blue, Sligh, 2 Type-2ish looking decks, and a couple I don't remember.

Some notes:

I was never sorry to see Cunning Wish
In every case but one that I drew Brainstorm, I was happy it wasn’t Impulse.
I’m going to try swapping out the 3rd Brainstorm for either Vampiric Tutor, Braingeyser, possibly a Counterspell.
The Misdirection was often dead weight.
I’m going to play around with the sideboard a little more.

[jntemp777]

I really like your cunning wish sideboard slots.

[ump]

I wasn't planning on doing a tournament report this week, but I wanted to expand a little more on our matchup.  I was Dante's third round opponent.  My deck was the same one as last week except for a few tweaks in the sideboard against Sligh, but nothing significant for this matchup to mention.

In the first game, I mulliganed down to 5 cards.  He went first and had the first turn abyss.  It definitely slowed me down enough, as I could have had early creature drops like a first turn specter.  My first attempt at a deed was countered.  My second attempt was Dismantling Blow'ed before I had a chance to use it (there was no reason to blow it up for 0).  I managed to draw a Masticore, but he had an answer.  By then I was looking at a Morphling.

In the second game, I did some early land destruction on his white mana source.  I got a early River Boa and he got an early COP-Black.  He probably got rid of the River Boa.  I got a Deed to blow up the COP-Black and a mox to keep him down to 1 land.  I got creatures and managed to keep him tied down.  If I remember correctly, he died with a hand of Swords and Balance, but no white sources.

In the third game, I got an early Negator that got Sworded.  I forget the details but he eventually gets a Morphling.  At one point, he used Merchant Scroll to get a Force of Will (the only card left in his hand) while I used a Demonic Tutor for an Edict.  I had four to five turns to draw a second threat so I could use the Edict(he was attacking with the Morphling and had enough to hard cast a Force if needed), but unfortunately, I couldn't get one.  I don't recall the triple Mana Drain that Dante is talking about so it could have been against the Mask deck instead.

I will take nothing away from Dante's victory as he beat me and I have no excuses.  Unfortunately for me, I did not get any broken opening hands that I have become so used to.  (I managed to get a hand of a land, 3 dark rituals, and 3 hymns in the second round against reanimator.  I was going second and drew a black lotus.  I have also gotten opening hands of lotus-land-ritual-negator-deed this weekend twice in recent memory.)  I was 2-0 going into the third round.  In the fourth round, I faced an Oath deck that I only managed to get a draw with and ended up 5th place.  It's too bad because I was hoping for a rematch in the playoffs.  Maybe next time.

[Dante]

Quote (jntemp777 @ Nov. 25 2002,11:33)I really like your cunning wish sideboard slots.

Thanks, but they're pretty much the "standard" slots for Cunning Wish Keeper.  The Ebony Charm was in my board before CW though (and would be if I took them out as well) as there are a lot of graveyard-based decks here (Full English Breakfast, Reanimator, Pandeburst) and those decks side (or maindeck) Null Rods against the Crypt.


I want to add a Skeletal Scrying or Scrying Glass, but don't know what to add as I'm generally happy with what I have now.  For some reason, I've missed being paired with most of the other control decks in the field - over 5 or 6 tournaments I've faced Gro twice and ID'd with OSE in the final round on Sunday.  I'll probably tinker with it anyway though..

Dante

[Dante]

Quote (ump @ Nov. 25 2002,11:38)In the first game, I mulliganed down to 5 cards.  He went first and had the first turn abyss.  It definitely slowed me down enough, as I could have had early creature drops like a first turn specter.  My first attempt at a deed was countered.  My second attempt was Dismantling Blow'ed before I had a chance to use it (there was no reason to blow it up for 0).  I managed to draw a Masticore, but he had an answer.  By then I was looking at a Morphling.

In the second game, I did some early land destruction on his white mana source.  I got a early River Boa and he got an early COP-Black.  He probably got rid of the River Boa.  I got a Deed to blow up the COP-Black and a mox to keep him down to 1 land.  I got creatures and managed to keep him tied down.  If I remember correctly, he died with a hand of Swords and Balance, but no white sources.

Yah, game one I just did what Keeper decks do - deal with a few threats and then win because they're more broken than the other deck.

In game two, the River Boa did go all the way.  I sat at one land, an Underground Sea, for 4-5 turns before you killed it.  I had a full hand of goodies when I died (including 2 STP and a Balance), but then when you've got no mana, chances are good you've got a sweet-looking hand.

Hmm..now that you mention it, I think the triple Mana Drain was my second round opponent..

Dante