4th place at Depot in Chicago

Well, I took six weeks off from Magic to travel halfway around the world to get married. I'm back, but my rust is still showing. Only eight people showed up at The Gaming Depot in Chicago. The decks that were represented were GroATog, dragon.dec, 2 FEB/Mask, Parfait, multi-color control (eon-blue?), a grow variant with Mystic Enforcers, and my monoblack.

I chose to play this deck over my control deck because even before I left for my vacation, it was still difficult against Tog and TnT. Factoring the rustiness that I was expecting after the long layover, I figured I would play an easier deck, and thus I came up with this. I wanted a 1cc spell to compliment Duress and lower my mana curve and best I could come up with was Cabal Therapy. Then, I thought, what if I added extra utility creatures and added Oversold Cemetery as a recurssion. I thought the cards would have synergy together. The plan was to attack the hand with disruption, lay down early creatures, and attack.

1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
16 Swamp
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Withering Wretch
2 Plaguebearer
4 Hypnotic Specter
2 Masticore
4 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Powder Keg
2 Oversold Cemetery
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Dark Ritual

3 Diabolic Edict
2 Innocent Blood
2 Dystopia
2 Planar Void
2 Bottle Gnomes
4 Phyrexian Negator

Oversold Cemetery did not help me out at once. I would have rather had Unearth. I would have put 4 Cabal Therapy, but after all my searching, I could only find two in time. It also seemed like I was getting mana flooded too often. If I were to change anything, I would probably take out one Wretch and one Plaguebearer and move them to the sideboard, but I would rather replace them with creatures, maybe Negators. I also missed Sinkholes, but adding it to this deck would change it back to a more traditional suicide build.

Round 1 - GroATog

I traded an early shade for an early dryad. I had control for a while the first game, but the turning point was when I duressed when he had two cards and chose a Force of Will over a Vampiric Tutor. A few turns later and he got a Berserked Tog to steal a victory. In the second game, he got two early dryads and the best I could do was to chump block. I would have liked to test this matchup further, but unfortunately didn't have the chance.

Me - 20-19-18-17-0
Him - 20-19-18-14-13-11-10-9-8-6-4-3-2-1

Me - 20-17-11-4-0
Him - 20-18-17-15-14

Round 2 - Parfait

I was playing against my friend. He set up a land tax, scroll rack in the first couple turns while I used a ritual to get out a Masticore. He had two wastelands and some artifact mana while I had a swamp and a wasteland. I wasted one of his wastelands and foolishly mentioned afterwards that he could have wasted his own wasteland to activate his land tax. Next turn, he plays another wasteland and does the trick. He soon finds a swords and Humility. Later, after he sworded my second Masticore, he plays a Story Circle. I concede as I have no way to kill him anymore. The next two games, I lay down tons of creatures early against him. He cannot withstand the rush.

Me - 20-19-23-24-concede
Him - 20-16-12-11-10

Me - 20-24
Him - 20-18-13-15-2-0

Me - 20-22
Him - 20-15-25(zuran orb)-13-0

Round 3 - Grow

My rustiness shows up once again. I have a god hand and manage to screw it up. I have a swamp, lotus, ritual, duress, cabal therapy, powder keg, and shade. I go second and he lays a first turn dryad. I play swamp, duress and take away a Brainstorm or something and see a Werebear and a Seal of Cleansing. I play the lotus, therapy naming werebear, then the keg. He plays the seal next turn, and I see how royally I messed up. I was able to stick around for a little bit, but he eventually came through for the victory. In the second game, I tried to outnumber his creatures and was successful for a while, but he soon caught up creature for creature. A Mystic Enforcer, some Dryads and Werebears, and a Time Walk meant doom for me. I foolishly attacked with a Masticore into an Enforcer and regenerated it, but the outcome was already decided.

Me - 20-17-14-16-10-6-2-0
Him - 20-19-17-13-11-10

Me - 20-0
Him - 20-19-18-17-15-9-3-1

Round 4 - FEB/Mask

This is a deck that runs breakfast, but has the mask combo in there as an alternate answer for someone with too much graveyard hate.

I maindeck answers for this deck. Wretch and Plaguebearers make sure that he can't get anything going.

Me - 20
Him - 20-18-16-14-12-10-6-0

Me - 20
Him - 20-19-14-7-0

Playoff round 1 - Eon Blue?

With only 8 players, I somehow get tiebreakers to make it to fourth place and into the playoffs. After the fourth round, I was playtesting this deck against this opponent, so I didn't like the matchup already. I don't remember the name of the deck that is being called ABM without the combo. It is a control deck that has Ophidian, Negators, Meddling Mage, Swords, Vindicate, Chainers, Drains, and Forces. It has too many answers and too many threats for this deck unless I get some serious disruption working early on.

In the first game, he kept having an answer to my creatures and then, with the Phid got card advantage as well.

In the second game, he managed to get a Negator out, but I shut down his mana before I Edicted his Negator. Then, mana denial kept him in check the rest of the game as my creatures slowly cleaned up. The wretch made sure that his Yawgmoth's Will wouldn't be a factor.

In the third game, too many threats, not enough answers. I thought I had 4 Innocent Bloods in my sideboard, but somehow only had 2. The kegs are just too slow.

Me - 20-28-30-25-20-10-0
Him - 20-19-18-17-16-15-14

Me - 20-15
Him - 20-19-18-13-7-1-0

Me - 20-18-16-12-8-0
Him - 20-17

In the other playoff game, GroATog was taking on the other grow deck. I couldn't stick around for the end.

Anyways, overall I did decent despite my rustiness. I'm glad to be back in Magic, but now I have a lot of work trying to get my control deck ready in a couple weeks. I hope more people show up next time.