MatchPlay (Neutral Ground SF) results

[spevack]

This saturday was the first T1 tournament at NG San Francisco (now matchplay) in a long time.  However, due to good turnout, it will become a monthly event.

I love combo decks.  I like solving the puzzles that they present.

As such, I played Academy.

I'm not going to post an actual tournament report, since no one actually cares about the gory details of how this deck works.  Suffice to say, however, that it is truly broken, and it's very fun to watch people gather around and see me play because they want to watch the brokenness.  As one opponent put it "I feel like I'm watching a movie."

I will, however, make some general statements about the tournament.

MDers in attendence:

Max (spevack) with Academy
Brian (Fishhead) with TnT
Robert (AxeMurder -- such a great guy) with GAT
Christiaan (Zhalfirin) with GAT
Tom (Raziel) with Sui or Void
David (naChiv) with ABM
others whose handles I can't remember.

The tournament was well-represented and highly powered.

Here are the T8 decks -- though the T8 was kinda jacked up -- I will comment afterward.

In no particular order:

Brian -- TnT
Gim -- Sligh
Robert -- GAT
Max -- Academy
Some other Sligh
Slivers
David -- A Beautiful Mind
Some other deck -- not GAT or control, though

T4:

Gim (Sligh) beats Max (Academy) -- Gim played flawlessly, and I kept a hand that I definitely should have mulligined.  It's supposed to be a great matchup for me, but I made some poor decisions and blew it.  No excuses.  I'm shit.

Brian (TnT) beats Other Sligh Deck

Finals:

I left with Brian up 1-0 on Gim.  I imagine Brian won.

What's unfortunate is that I was testing against Brian a lot, and Academy is basically an autowin against TnT.  So if I'd played a bit better in the semis, I probably would have won the whole thing.  Then I could have Q'd for worlds on the strength of my rating.  Oh well....

The T8 should have been very different.  Christiaan played Gim in round 5 -- winner gets in to T8.  Christiaan's GAT won a very close game 3, but Christiaan filled out the results slip backward and Gim made T8.  They couldn't go back and change it.  And then Robert got a game loss for having 59 cards in game 3.  So GAT could have easily dominated the whole tournament.

The GAT decks were definitely very strong today.  I played against AxeMurder in the swiss, and it was just awful for me (though our match was VERY fun).

Random thought about Academy -- the Negator transformational sideboard is supposed to help against Keeper.  However, in recent testing against good keeper players with updated lists, I have found that academy does quite well in game 1.  I beat Keeper game 1 in the swiss at the tournament, and have been seeing success in playtesting as well.

I feel like the Negators may not be necessary.  Just bring in more Abeyances and go combo-style.

I will playtest this more.  Developing....

[psyduck]

yeah, the top 8 was really messed up because of those two mistakes...

first christiann (playing GAT) filled in the result slip backwards, preventing him from T8'ing, allowing Gin (playing Sligh) to get in the top8. Then in the T8 matches, just when Robert (playing GAT) had lethal damage on the table against Gin, someone noticed the deck only had 59 cards (a gush was lying around not on the play area).. So now the Sligh player faced academy in the T4 match, which is a good matchup for sligh... then it faced TNT in the finals, which is obviously a  bad matchup for sligh... had the two gat players not made those simple and stupid mistakes, GAT would have faced academy, and then TNT, which are both good matchups for GAT.. It was very reasonable to assume both GATs would have been in the Top4 at the least.

[Saucemaster]

Quote The T8 should have been very different.  Christiaan played Gim in round 5 -- winner gets in to T8.  Christiaan's GAT won a very close game 3, but Christiaan filled out the results slip backward and Gim made T8.  They couldn't go back and change it.  And then Robert got a game loss for having 59 cards in game 3.  So GAT could have easily dominated the whole tournament.

Forget Chains of Mephistopheles, forget Waterfront Bouncer, forget REBs.  Now we have the REAL tech for ensuring that GAT doesn't completely dominate competitive Type 1!

Congrats to all who were there and did well.  It's really too bad about both Christiaan (Zhalfirin) and Robert (AxeMurder)--they're two of the best players in the area, and they deserved the chance to win it all.

And, of course, congratulations to Brian (Fishhead) for winning the whole thing.  Hopefully next time I'll be able to attend!

[Raziel]

@Max -  Great job on top 8!  Unfortunate for Zhalfirin.

@ Psyduck - You have to play next time.

@ Saucemaster - Hope you can make it next month. 5/4 12:00pm

I won't even mention how bad I did. Next month...

Congrats to Fishhead for first!

[NaClhv]

Wait, wait, let me get this straight.

So the sligh player who got into top 8 due to a match reporting error, is the same player who beat GAT because of the 59 card deck, is the same player who beat the academy deck?

Well, now I know where my share of the luck for the tounament went.

[Saucemaster]

Quote So the sligh player who got into top 8 due to a match reporting error, is the same player who beat GAT because of the 59 card deck, is the same player who beat the academy deck?

Exactly.  As Fishhead joked on AIM last night when I asked him about the tournament, "I could feel Gim's good karma bearing down on me in the finals, trying to make me lose, but his luck ran out."

Seriously, who gets that lucky?  Amazing.

[AxeMurder]

My match with spevack was tons of fun and my deck was all sorts of borken all day, I frequently had a first or second turn Fastbond which was just rediclous. In the T8 vs the sligh player who should have been there I go off game 1 with fastbond on turn 2 or 3 I draw about 20 cards take myself down below 10 with fastbond and finally draw a dryad after everything. I misdirect both his bolts, demonic tutor and cunning wish or something to get dryad up to a 5/5 and double berserk it. game 2 he mulls to 5 but I mull to 4 keeping 3 Tropical Islands and an Underground Sea. He gets early Ankh and I have to pick up my lands with gush to dodge pop I get him below 10 but cursed scroll finishes me off before I can kill him. Game 3 I have a 7/7 dryad or so and have just cast tog and somebody notices the gush sitting off to the side, I look realize that I must have not shuffled it in for this game, already knowing the result I call the judge over anyway who checks my deck to make sure it's not just a random gush sitting around which of course it's not. So I accecpt my loss feeling kinda stupid but it's totally my fault for not pile shuffling my deck to check for stupid things like that. I wish I could play more with you guys but those thursdays at C&Js are just impossible for me and I don't actaully own enough power to normally play myself, I have to scrounge up the cards every time I play.

-AxeMurder |-}

[Lord of the Goats]

Quote (psyduck @ April 06 2003,17:37)had the two gat players not made those simple and stupid mistakes, GAT would have faced academy, and then TNT, which are both good matchups for GAT.. It was very reasonable to assume both GATs would have been in the Top4 at the least.

tnt with wires is not a good matchup for gro-tog

[NaClhv]

Quote Seriously, who gets that lucky?  Amazing.

Incredible.  I knew that those three things happened independently (Sligh beat academy, Zalfirin didn't get into top 8 because he filled out the match record slip backwards, and that Axemurder lost because of the 59-card deck), but I didn't know that it all happened to the same person.  Simply incredible.

On the top 8- there were 5 people from Games of Berkeley - Emmanuel (with dragon), Jun (with ankh sligh), Robert (Axemurder, with GAT), Brian (Fishhead, with tangle TnT), and myself (with ABM).

The representatives from C&J's in the top 8 also number 5.  Myself, emmanuel, and Brian, whom I also count as Games of Berkeley regulars, and Max (spevack, with academy), and Gim (with sligh).  

Overall, I was pleased with the strong performance from the two groups which I play regularly with.

[spevack]

Regarding my matchup with Gim -- he didn't win because he got lucky.  He won because he put me on a very fast clock, and under the pressure of trying to make the finals, to put it bluntly, I choked.

I just don't want to take anything away from his win against me by calling it luck.

The fact that he was in T8 at all?  HOW LUCKY!  

One thing is for sure -- this tournament was a testament to the strength of "Wutang Clan," or whatever the hell   calls "That Deck."

Keeper is hurting these days....

[Fishhead]

Quote tnt with wires is not a good matchup for gro-tog

Last time I played AxeMurder (with his 12 creature Invitational Gro) he sided out a bunch of his creatures for like 4 Submerges and 4 Naturalizes.  "I am playing control now," he said.  It was pretty bad for me.  His GroTog sideboard wasnt that brutal, but I wondered how it might even the match.  There were at least 2 Submerges in there; damn I hate that card when I am playing TnT.  

Quote MDers in attendence:

Also Lurking_Evil was there with Void, -webster- was there also with Void.  (If he breaks 1800 can he have an account Zherbus?  He's like 1799 last time I checked.)  UnstableCornBread is Brent playing TurboLand.  There may be more I am missing; I apologize if I forgot anyone in the shuffle!

[Zherbus]

Ratings are pretty useless to me. Hell, I don't HAVE a rating since every T1 in the North East for the most part is unsanctioned. NG and random crap stores are about all the hold them around here.

...but dude, you CAN recommend people to me (PM me) and I can hook them up. That's mainly how we get new members, via the vouche system.

[Lord of the Goats]

Quote (Fishhead @ April 06 2003,23:53)

Quote tnt with wires is not a good matchup for gro-tog

Last time I played AxeMurder (with his 12 creature Invitational Gro) he sided out a bunch of his creatures for like 4 Submerges and 4 Naturalizes.  "I am playing control now," he said.  It was pretty bad for me.  His GroTog sideboard wasnt that brutal, but I wondered how it might even the match.  There were at least 2 Submerges in there; damn I hate that card when I am playing TnT.  

Quote MDers in attendence:

Also Lurking_Evil was there with Void, -webster- was there also with Void.  (If he breaks 1800 can he have an account Zherbus?  He's like 1799 last time I checked.)  UnstableCornBread is Brent playing TurboLand.  There may be more I am missing; I apologize if I forgot anyone in the shuffle!

yeah, well that's no where near typical gro-tog... i can see how that would be tough.

anyway, congrats on the win, fishhead (that's why i posted in the fisrt place, but it slipped my mind  )

[AxeMurder]

As a note I didn't actaully board out creatures, I just didn't draw any of them early. Out came the 3 misdirection, 2 curiosity, 1 cunning wish, 2 daze, 1 opt, for the shadow rift and the 4 naturalize and 4 misdirection. The playing control statement was jsut a joke cuz I drew all the removal and none of the creatures, the matchup with that deck after boarding is pretty rediclous when submerge pumps dryad.
-AxeMurder |-}