Castricum, 5 January

My alarm woke me up at 7:30 AM, and after a quick breakfast my mother drove me to the trainstation. There I met with two friends, Arthur and Sebastiaan. From there we took the train to Castricum (about 1 hour). In the train we borrowed some cards from each other to complete our decks. This would be Seabastiaan’s first tourney so Arthur and I actually decided what to put in his deck, but there was one thing we weren’t allowed to do: remove his en-Kor creatures. So he ended up with some strange White Weenie deck with some random stuff like pariah. And off course his favourite: Wall of Essence.

When we almost arrived it started snowing outside, for the first time this winter, if I’m not mistaking. Anyway, we arrived at the station and made our way to the place were to tourney would be held. Arthur and I brought our foldable bikes with us, and Sebastiaan an autoped/scooter . He had a hard time keeping up with us

We arrived with about 40 minutes left before the start. So we checked in and took a look around. In the last tourney held here about 50% of the field was some kind of mono-black, either Suicide, Pox or Nether Void. And that’s what we prepared for, but the metagame made a big switch. I saw Parfait and Keeper everywhere and almost no black.

Here is my decklist:

7 Swamp
4 Bayou
4 * Llanowar Wastes
3 Mishra’s Factory
3 Treetop Village
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Emerald
4 Dark Ritual

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Diabolic Edict
4 Pernicious Deed

4 River Boa
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

Sideboard:

4 Choke
4 Compost
2 Wasteland
2 Powder Keg
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor

Round 1: Mike van Roijen, Keeper with Combo

Great first match against Keeper

Game 1:

I won the dice roll and started with Swamp, Duress. I made a joke about him Force of Will’ing it, but that’s what he actually did. On his turn he proved why: Land, Mox, Mox, Timetwister. Again I started attacking his hand and I got a Hypno into play. He didn’t draw well off the tiwster, but did manage to play both Grim Monolith and Power Artifact, so every tutor could have finished the game right there. Fortunatly me for me, the turn before he laid those two down, my Hypno nabbed a Vampiric Tutor away. I wasn’t able to find a Deed to stop his combo so I just kept attacking. He played a Renewed Faith at some point to buy him an extra turn. And just the turn before I would kill him me drew the mystical to grab Stroke. I attacked him, bringing him to 2 and he Mysticalled end of turn… game.

Game 2:

I believe he started with an Ancestral I my upkeep and that was followed by a lot of crazy card drawing from his side. In this game he played 2x Ancestral, 2x Fact or Fiction, 1x Braingeyser for 5 and a Timetwister. But meanwhile I kept nabbing his life points away and somehow he wasn’t able to find an answer. I was very surprised when I saw my creatures kill him.

At this point time had run out for this round so the match ended in a tie.

Matches 0-1-0 Games 1-1

Round 2: Thijs Cramer, Rogue G/W

Game 1:

First turn Hypno started screwing him. When he finally was able to get rid I played another one. I won the game soon after, and didn’t really see much of his deck.

Game 2:

About the same a s game one. Disruption kept him busy and some manlands finished him off.

Matches 1-1-0 Games 3-1

Round 3: Dave, Rogue B/W

Game 1:

We both were very heavy on disruption and ended up with an empty hand. My Factory kept hitting him till he drew a Vampiric which he used to grab a Necropotence (He still had 12 lives remaining at that point). He filled his whole hand paying 7 live, but soon after it was empty again and he was still facing a creature. He ended up vindicating his own Necropotence to be able to draw some more cards, but it didn’t help him.

Game 2:

I don’t remember much from this game, but he must have Stp’ed a Treetop early on, because my live went from 20 to 23. I believe a Negator killed him very fast.

Matches 2-1-0 Games 5-1

Round 4: Marco Kiewiet, U/G Tradewind Rider/Time Elemental

I would like to compliment him on his deck. I was very well balanced and clearly very thought out. I liked it a lot, and we played some really exciting games.

Game 1:

My disruption nullified his counter-magic and reversed. And he had a Wall of Blossoms in play to keep me from attacking him. At this point he played a Time Elemental, which I had to get rid off as soon as possible. After I played deed and he bounced it for about 3 turns I drew Dark Ritual and was able to blow the deed for 4. However I timed it bad and he bounced him own Time Elemental to his hand. But I died later on to an Edict. I played a River Boa, but he surprised me with a Living Wish for Gilded Drake. So now he was controlling my regenerating Boa, with green mana left!. Fortunatly I was able to Regrowth my Wasteland and use it on his untapped Tropical Island, forcing him to set up a regeneration shield. I responded to that by blowing the Deed I had on the table and the path was clear again. Suddenly I was in control and finished him 2 turns later.

Game 2:

He started very mana light and I tried to exploit this be Edicting a Birds and Wasting a land. However me managed to get up to 4 mana and played a Tradewind Rider. I even got active with a Feeder and a Wall of Blossoms in play, but at that point another Deed went off. He bounced his own Rider back and played it again. But without the support of other creatures his Tradewind couldn’t stop my army.

Matches 3-1-0 Games 7-1

Round 5: Gijsberth Moogendijk, Keeper without the combo

Game 1:

The most ridiculous game I played in this tournament. After turn 1 it looked Iike I would win, because he had to mulligan and my Duress showed 4 land, Lotus and FoW.I took the Force of Will. But on his second turn he topdecked Morphling and played it off his lotus. I played a Hypno to be me some time, and he played an Abyss. After 1 hit from morphling I drew Treetop to get the green mana for the deed in my hand. Next turn I played Duress, taking his topdecked Mana Drain and dropped my deed. And after another hit from superman I blowed the deed for 5, clearing the way for the army waiting in my hand

Game 2:

He Ancestralled first turn and somewhere used Skeletal Scrying for 5. I never found an answer to his card advantage and soom Morphling did the job like only Morphling can.

Game 3:

I went first, Swamp, Ritual, Specter -> FoW. Second turn I played: land, mox, specter. But it fell to a swords. Thirth turn I played a Gator, but an Edict took care of that. After countering another Gator I was able to resolve a Choke. And later on a thirth Negator fininshed him off.

Matches 4-1-0 Games 9-2

Round 6: Lennart Freitag, Keeper with combo

The winner of this match would also win the Tournament, and if we would draw he would win, since he was at 15 points. So I refused his offer to draw and we started playing.

Game 1:

He had a very huge load of lands this game, but exactly that, combined with Zuran Orb kept him alive long enough to gain control again and draw too much cards. And again a Morphling did his work in 4 turns.

At this points we only had about 20 minutes left and I had to win another 2 games. However I refused another offer to draw and hoped for some quick beats in game 2.

Game 2:

What I hoped for happened. I kept disrupting him while a Boa and a Factory finished him off quickly.

…10 minutes left…

Game 3:

I quickly took control of this game, be this stopped when he Demonic for Moat (maybe lotus?) and dropped it off a Lotus. But this wasn’t as bad as it looked as I was holding 2 Deeds in my hand. So I proceeded to play a deed and blow the Moat away. However before I had the time to finish him he drew into Yaghmoth’s Will and played it. Lucky for me he had to play the Moat again to stay alive and so he could really exploit the Will. He didn’t have the coutner for my other Deed and after blowing the Moat away again some critter killed him.

Matches 5-1-0 Games 11-3

Woohoooooooo!!! I won my first tourney!!!
The top 8 contained at least 5 Keeper, including the 3 I played against.

MVP = PERNICIOUS DEED, man this is an amazing card!

Props:

-   my manabase for never screwing me up
-   the organistaion for another great tourney
-   Arthur for lending me the some cards to play this deck
-   all player I played against for being very nice and fair

Slobs:

-   my sideboard, I almost didn’t use it and it needs a lot of adjustment
-   my head, I had a headache all day, maybe because I only slept 2 hours the night before