As I posted, rather late
here, on Jan 30th there was the Collector's Corner Bi-weekly Power Card Tournament.
I had not been to a power card tourney in a while, so I decided to take a shot at it, using old faithful.
My deck list (shown at the bottom) was altered by only 2 cards, I decided to go the more color mana stable route, and yanked the wasteland, for a 3rd city of brass, and yanked the 3rd misdirection from the SB, for a 2nd BEB.
The 2nd BEB is primarily a move VS blood moon, as I hate going out like that, and I had reason to believe, that it may make an appearance... it didn't, but I still used them.
I rushed home from work got some craparific crappy "fast food" from Sonic... fast meaning over 10 minutes for our friggen food to show up.
I popped on over to Collector's corner, were I saw the store was packed with some of the regulars and some newer faces as well... but only 11 folks (including me) signed up.
Pairings were announced and I received one of 3 byes in the 1st round.
I used to love byes when I first started magic, but now they just make me antsy and nervous.
I would rather just get to the beatings.
After my 2nd round opponent finished his match (beating a survival deck... full English breakfast? don't know, just saw survivals) I mossied on up and had a seat.
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Round - 2
Ward Allen, playing a B/Green aggro control with lotus emerald, and jet for power. I classify it as aggro control, because it has hymn duress, deed, and edicts... with boas, hippies.
It also runs
TEMPTING WURM. I don't think Tempting Wurm is that good... but he is a 5/5... so um, whatever.
Game: 1 Ward wins the die roll, and plays first, I keep a hand with 2 drains, 1 plow, an impulse, and a monolith, with the rest lands... pretty good, but I am used to Ward getting dark ritual+ duress+ Hymn to destabilize me.
He doesn't, and I easily shrug off his shite, drain here, plow there, eventually geysering myself for like 12 or something... I counter a deed... but he top decks one with no cards in hand, after I had played a Morphling... and takes out a bunch of perms on my side of the board...
I tutor for Yawgwin and combo... he says "WTF does this thing do?" looking puzzled at the power artifact... I smile, and I say I will generate 2 thousand mana and, then I threw the stroke onto the table and said "Blam".
SB: -1 Mind Twist, -1 Morphling, -1 Counter spell, -1 Mana Drain, +1 Time twister, +1 Wheel of Fortune, +1 Enlightened Tutor, +1 Misdirection
Game 2: Ward agonizes over his 7 card hand and decides to mulligan, then groans over his 6 card hand, and does it again, then with 5 cards in hand, get Swamp + Ritual, = Negator. I kept a hand with all mana besides an impulse, because it has LOA, Academy, and solring
The Negator resolves, and I draw from LOA, he smacks me for 5, and I draw again, top decking a walk... but still no answer, so I walk, and draw from LOA for the 3rd time, and see counter spells... I impulse and my 4 choices are a. Fireball (but I have no red sources), b. Volcanic (oh the irony), c. Impulse, d. Ancestral (WE HAVE A WINNER)... I snag the ancestral, into a red source (fetch) and into a vamp, which I use to get the fireball.
I fall to 10 from the negator, 8 from the vamp, then 7 from the fetch, fireball his board away, and the game is basically over, he tries to land grant, and I counter it, hard casting a FOW... I combo like 6 turns later. “Blam”
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Ward is an ok sport about it, so nothing to gripe about, we shake hands, and it is off to round 3.
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Round - 3
Austin (don't know last name) Playing a really strange Keeper variant fully powered. At first I thought that he was playing Smmemen's keeper, because it seemed like he had a lot of fetch lands, but he was playing an overall worse deck, one with shadowmage infiltrators (and just UBw)... it did have full power, and used Morphling as the primary kill though.
Austin is a relatively new player, and works at the premier store in our area, Collector's Cache.
Game: 1 We both keep our hands, and build till he is able to force threw a mind twist for 4. He leaves me with a geyser in my hand though, and he is tapped out, with 2 cards in hand, and had already used 2 FOWs and a mis-d, so I decided to go balls out and geyser for 10... well his last 2 cards are a mis-d and another counter.
He draws 10, and I can’t do shit, Morphling comes down on his end and I curl up and ask for the lovin'.
SB: -2 Plow, -1 Grim Monolith, -1 Power artifact, -1 Mystical, -1 Vamp, -1 Fireball, -1 Zorb, +4 REB, +2 Mis-d, +1 Chainer's Edict, +1 Time twister.
Game: 2 I play first, and we build up til he discards 2 counter spells, and I discard a chainers's Edict, and a Morphling, holding: 2 REB, 1 counter, 1 Misdirect, 2 FOW, 1 Time twister.
He tries to push through a mind twist for 4, and I misdirect, he Drains, I REB, he counters, I REB, he FOWs, I FOW (pitching FOW)... so he has no cards in hand and I have a time twist, I draw an impulse that gives me ancestral (which is why Impulse is so good, giving me an upper hand in the top decking war)... I eventually get a Morphling, and yawgwin a bunch of stuff.
Austin is a really good sport about the total card dominance that I expressed in this game, but I did geyser him for 10, so maybe he thought that we were even
Game: 3 He plays first, and get a fast start with land + mox= Time walk, + solring = masticore...
MASTICORE???. I have a FOW, but I am cool with it, because I also have a Demonic, aimed at Mind twist, and he only has 3 cards in hand.
After taking the beats for 3 turns, I mind twist his hand away, and thus equals the end of the Masticore.
I have 5-6 cards in hand, and he has none, and I even have more mana.
I stripmine an Island, and start dust bowling his non-basics, while resolving important spells like ForF, and Ancestral.
I D.blow with the kicker his solring, and then Yawgwin, strip his last land, mind twist his hand, and lay Morphling. I even d.blow (w/no kick) his mox jet, leaving him with no perms in play, and no cards in hand.
I kill with Morphling with him having 1 land and 1 card in hand.
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Austin and I laugh about him making a comeback, and shake hands, I really enjoy the good nature of Austin, and hope that he continues to play T1 consistently.
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Round - 4, Finals
Pat Mckavenagh, playing WG Dragon, fully powered. Pat is a good player having played for many years, and owning just about anything that he has wanted (Magic wise) but he only plays combo decks, old school reanimator, WG Dragon, Stasis (with Cronatog, and Root Maze). I think that his ultimate dream, is to have a deck that can consistently get a turn 1 kill.
Game: 1 I get a lot of counters but no draw magic, I stop him from entombing 3 times, as he has more reanimation spells then graveyard stackers. He eventually is able to chant me, and combo, but has no kill condition, so it is a draw.
SB: -1 Balance, -1 Fireball, -1 Zorb, -1 Morphling, -1 , +2 BEB, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +1 Aura Fracture, +1 Enlightened Tutor.
Game: 2 I am able to get the grim/ power combo rather early, but cannot find a kill, so I twist his hand, to buy time, then a few turns later, I draw a stroke, and win. “Blam”
Game: 3 He get as really good start, Ancestralling himself on turn 1, and eventually misdirects a stroke to himself, how annoying. He combos, but there is again, no kill, so we draw.
Game: 4 He gets a turn 1 defense grid, which I cannot stop, but I am able to use LOA, to draw my 1 D.blow and kill it, then I stock pile my hand with counters.
He eventually has a crazy few turns were, he is able to abeyance me 3 times, me countering them all, then he is able to force through the combo, this time with a cunning wish for a searing touch, and kills me.
Game: 5 This game is so intense, it is indescribable. we both get 1st turn LOAs, and draw off them for a while. I am unable to find a way to kill the LOA (either a tutor, or mind twist, or strip, or dust bowl).
After like 10 turns of this, he goes balls out, tapping multiple Undiscovered Paradises to have a big counter war, that eventually win, but had to pitch my power artifact, and deplete my hand considerably. His hand is depleted, as well, but he will be able to start LOAing sooner, because of the Undiscovereds.
About 3 turns later, with only 1 counter to back it up, I try to mind twist his hand for all but 1.
He has no friggen counter (and luckily no misdirection ) and I get all but a necro mancey.
After a few turns of me draw going, I get antsy again, apparently having smoked crack... I try to yawgwin a stroke upon his head, a few turns to early. He had 15 cards left in his deck, and I counted 25 mana, but I guess I wasn’t thinking about the 3 mana to activate the stroke.
So I stroke him for 22... when I realize that I had just screwed up royal, I had this sinking feeling, that there is no way I was going to win.
I had a time walk turn coming, and so I was able to untap, and at least have a few ways to try and counter his insanity.
Amazingly enough, from all of the counter wars that w had early on, were he had to pitch counter, he had only like 2 more counters in his deck, and so, to set up a perfect situation, I guess, he drops a bunch of artifact mana, and a land, and then discard a bunch of cards, and passes the turn.
By now there had been a crowd developing around us, and most of them were murmuring amongst themselves, mainly about how I screwed up.
I hate making mistakes.
So the next turn, he tries to abeyance me, I counter, he FOWs (his last one), so I add to the stack and crypt his graveyard, he adds to the stack and tries to necromancy, I allow it, but try to BEB the dragon on the stack of his coming into play effect.
He adds to the stack, and cunning wishes for (what I thought would be a REB) an Ancestral??? WTF he SBed it out?
Then he ancestrals me on the stack, putting me with 1 card left in my deck.
He has no more cards in hand, so I untap, and geyser him for 3... how
anti climactic!!!!… Kind of a “Blam”… but um…
“BLAM”-------------------------
So, we shake hands, and I collect my Minty UNL Time Walk.
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Me and a few of the guys from the crown discuss how I screwed up the game, and that I was lucky that I still won... then we went up the road to another card shop that stays open late for the owners to play EQ till the wee hours. I play a few casual game.
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Here is the deck list I ran last night, my current Combo Keeper deck list:
Blue: (22)Morphling: 1
Power Artifact: 1
Mana Drain: 4
Force Of Will: 4
Counter Spell: 1
Misdirection: 1
Impulse: 4
Ancestral Recall: R
Time Walk: R
Mystical Tutor: R
Fact Or Fiction: R
Stroke Of Genius: R
Brain Geyser: R
Black: (4)Demonic Tutor: R
Vampiric Tutor: R
Mind Twist: R
Yawgmoth's Will: R
White: (4)Balance: R
Swords To Plowshares: 2
Dismanteling Blow: 1
Red: (1)Fireball: 1
Artifact: (1)Zuran Orb: 1
Mana: (28)Black Lotus: R
Sol Ring: R
Mox Sapphire: R
Mox Jet: R
Mox Pearl: R
Mox Ruby: R
Mox Emerald: R
Grim Monolith: R
Library Of Alexandria: R
Tolarian Academy: R
Stripmine: R
Dust Bowl: 1
Polluted Delta: 4
City Of Brass: 3
Underground Sea: 3
Tundra: 3
Volcanic Island: 3
Sideboard: (15)Red Elemental Blast: 4
Blue Elemental Blast: 2
Misdirection: 2
Chainer's Edict: 1
Time twister: R
Wheel of Fortune: R
Enlightened Tutor: R
Circle or Protection Red: 1
Aura Fracture: 1
Tormod's Crypt: 1
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In retrospect, The 3rd City may have been a bad Idea, but (for me) the jury is still out.
I have recently been having reservations about what fetches do to your 2nd and 3rd layered spells vs. color mana.
I may fetch a tundra so that I can plow, but what about the demonic in my hand, were will I get the black mana for it?
If the fetch had been a city, I would not have any color issues, as long as I had a reasonable life total, and barring any waste/strip action.
It is usually easy enough to find that other mana color source, and I do like the thinning and shuffle effect that the fetches provide, but sometimes it is still difficult to find thecorrect colors needes at the same time, as a fetch cannot get a tundra and an underground at the same time. Right now I would rather sacrifice some life for total color consistency.
Thanks for reading my long arse report.
I don’t have any props or slops, sorry.
-Freddie
