Durham, NC - Weekly T1 Tourney

Here's a quick report from this week's tournament:

Players: 5 (lots of people out of town for the new year)
Round-robin matches for first and second-place prizes.

I played Keeper, meta-gamed against the heavy local aggro (MD Abyss, Moat, 2x Swords, Fireball). I'm also running 2x Cunning wish, and dropped green for the fetch-lands, but kept the Emerald.

I didn't take notes, so these are from memory..

Round 1: Sam (?) with Blue/Black Megrim

He dropped a first-turn island which got me worried, since I kept a broken hand, but not good against disruption. I played cautiously until he dropped a swamp the next turn. Then I let him have it: Ancestrall, Mox, Mox, fetch land, brainstorm, time walk, and morphling a turn later. I only saw two creatures and a Megrim from his side.

Game two was more interesting; I played agressively, dropping morphling on turn 4. He tries a couple creature kill tricks which I respond by making superman untargetable. He clearly didn't understand morphling, since he did it again the next turn. I took some damage from megrim, but not enough to get me worried.

Match: 1-0-0
Games: 2-0-0

Round 2: ? with White/Black aggro/life gain

He played first and dropped a plains. No clue what to read from that, so I played out another broken first turn: land, lotus, mox, ancestral - go, followed by: library, time walk, fact. It was over from there with an active library. Moat dropped by later to say Hi, and morphling mopped up.

Seeing general aggro from last game, I sided out wishes for more creature control. Second game started off slow, he got out a few creatures but didn't attack with them.. (scared of my factory maybe?) I dropped Abyss and later morphling, having to explain why morphling doesn't get targeted by it. He played some clerics with abilities like prevent damage and sac to drain life. But they all fell into a deep hole.

Match: 2-0-0
Games: 4-0-0

Game 3: ? with Stompy

This was the toughest match up, since I've never tested against Stompy and wasn't sure what my winning cards should be.

He let me play first and I kept a hand with some creature control and a drain. He got to work on me with rancored elves and I see 8 life before I stop the bleeding. Then my engine revs up while he's mana flooded. Moat is naturalized, but morphling shows up to save the day.

Second game was pretty short, I see little to stem the tide, and go from 20 to 0 in 4 turns.

Third game he starts slow, forest, lanowar, then forest, rancor, attack to my library, go, land, draw, ancestral, mox, lotus, swords. He stalls after a few turns, and I take control, keeping anything large off the table long enough for morphling to show up. I recall this game requiring a lot of thought, but the plays don't come to mind.. I finished him off with a 10 point fireball (he was at 1), for some extra style.

Match: 3-0-0
Games: 6-1-0

Game 4: Brandon with Blue Mask

Brandon and I were nearly tied for first (he had one more game-loss). So this game was for winner, with a potential run-off for second with the Stompy player.

I knew he was playing Mask in mono-U with lots of counters. So I wanted to play enough threatening spells to draw out the counters.

First game he played island-go, I played land, mox, lotus, Mind Twist. Apparently he didn't have much left after that, since he missed the next land drop and gave me no resistance for a good four turns. I got out the moat and he conceded the next turn when I cast Yawgmoth's Will.

Second game we both sided in a LOT (I think I put in 9 cards, including Diabolic Edict, since he mentioned he played with morphling). This game is more of a blur, the plays became really complex leaving him with an early diverted Ancestral from me, and me with an active library. We traded counters over a mask and he always had enough land to keep me guessing. Finally my draw engine was pulling ahead, and I realized Keeper could sometimes "get ahead" of you. My hand consisted of: Morphling, Yawgmoth's Will, Swords, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Cunning Wish. I had 7 mana open, lots of goodies in the graveyard (including a mox, lotus, time walk, etc.).. it took me a good two minutes to decide what to do with it all. I ended up drawing out counters with the tutors and wish leaving me a few turns later with a morphling and will - and enough land to cast both. He didn't have any counters left and I got off a nice broken turn leaving me with adequate board position to win.

Match: 4-0-0
Games: 8-1-0

An excellent tournament all-around, even with the light turnout. I took home $25 in store credit, enough to finish out my TnT deck for a future tourney.

--Bryan