Report from 2.21.04 Toronto

[raye]

Another week, another trip for some good Type 1. This is one to Toronto, one of my favorite places to visit.  I plan on getting me a Tilly hat while I am there but did not manage to correctly print the directions.

Wednesday before my trip, I get sick as hell. A horrible digestion bug. So I drive up on Friday and stop every two hours to greet some unsuspecting bowl. In London, I found one of the best McDonalds in the world. Everyone who worked there was young and hot. I keep going, it’s a big rainstorm all over, of course, and hit a 2 hour detour. I get into TO and I'll be damned if I can find my hotel. I drive around a few hours through some shady neighborhoods until I find it in the next town... Go crappy web travel arrangements.

So day of, I actually don't feel horrible and register and get some Coffee Time to eat. By the way, I love Coffee Time. Everyone keeps telling me Tim Hortons but I am about Coffee Time.

I am playing TnT as I have been recently. I just got a shiny tree girl and pillar and Anger so the deck should like me. I also recently added Duplicant (taking out the 2nd Trike) and added Sundering Titan over Colossus to improve my control match up.

1 Black Lotus
1 Elf Replica
4 Juggernaut
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Masticore
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sundering Titan
1 Sol Ring
2 Su-Chi
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Anger
3 Blood Moon
4 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Forest
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
4 Taiga
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Naturalize
3 Pyroblast
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Tormod's Crypt



Round 1 - Franko playing Fish

I win the die roll. I beat him up first game and he takes half my life before I send in the Juggernauts game 2.

Round 2 - Trent Rogers playing RGu Zoo

I win the roll. Zoo is actually scary. I lost to a RGu Zoo deck Gencon (hmmm why does this matter, I was not playing TnT then but whatever.) and have been trashed repeatedly by a local Chicago RGu Zoo. Trent mulls to 5 first game and takes me to 9 before I win. I side in some Chalices and drop one for one game 2. That seals the game, as his build did not diversify the casting costs.

Round 3 - Paul Pieczouka playing Hulk

I win the roll again. I keep a 1 Workshop hand first game and lost. Game 2 I send the monkey and his goblin buddy in for 8 turns before adding Juggernaut for the win. I then hear my opponent tell me this is about his first time playing the deck. I have a great 3rd hand with 2 Workshops, welder and Duplicant. I think I snuffed a Psychatog and then hardcasted a Sundering Titan to win.

Round 4 - Phil with IsoKeeper

I win the roll. We both mulligan a few times. I keep a Wasteland and Lotus hand to drop a quick Jugg. He goes all the way as I waste 3 of his lands in a row. Game 2 I drop a Blood Moon to win. I don't remember why I was at 1 life but that’s fine.

Round 5 - Ian playing IsoKeeper

IsoKeeper is popular. Good. I don't think it is a good deck so I plan to smash! I win the roll. I drop lots of big bad stuff and he concedes. I win game 2 also.

Round 6 - Wayne playing rogue Mask/Naught/Workshop/Blue power thing

I expect to just draw with him into T8 but he wants to play. I win the roll. We drop some welders and have a welder standoff but I have Anger so mine work better. He Duplicanted my welder and has 2 plus my duped one at one point. Trisk kills them all. I weld in a Sundering Titan to blow up a bunch of his lands. He didn't like this. Game 2 I crap out a first turn Trisk with a Lotus. Wayne Duresses Survival. I draw a Rack and Ruin but have no red source. Wayne plays Mask. I drop a Karn. Wayne has 2 creatures for 1 each under the Mask. He taps one to weld out my Karn for the Lotus, I assume to stop Karn from soaking up the damage. He attacks with Naught and I R&R it and his Mask. He does not like this one bit. I go on to win easily.

Round 7 - ID with Mathew Kesrhaw

I am in first place after Swiss at 6-0-1.

T8 - Andrew Petkovics
I win the die roll. Game 1 he finds Force every time he needs it and I never get started. His dude that does 2 damage and eats 2 graveyard cards kills all my useful guys. Flying guys kill me. Game 2 I drop a quick Su-Chi and he goes all the way. Andrew never gets much on the board. I think I Pyroblasted a useful spell.

Game 3 was insane. He drops 3 quick fish. I drop a Blood Moon leaving me with only 1 tree. I drop a survival and a Tree Girl. I forget to attack a few times with her and it almost mattered. Fish beat on me through the game. I try playing around some Force Spike fish and it slows me down. I try to get a Trike out to eat the fish but he drops a freaking Null Rod and Rack and Ruins my 2 Moxen. I naturalize and he Forces. I now have some usefuls in the grave and can almost take out the Null Rod but no artifacts. He drops a second Rod for insurance. I tutor up a Monkey and eat one a rod a turn later. I am at 5 life now. I swing with my 1/1s as I now have a Tree Girl, 2 goblins and a Monkey now bringing him to 9. He swings with 3 fish and I am at 2. He drops a Tormod's Crypt. I lost hope for a second until I saw the Null Rod under the Crypt. The crowd watching busts out. I monkey it, untap, monkey the Null rod and Weld in a Trike. With him only at 9 I go for the kill. I attack with 2 1/1s and the Trike, worried if he deals with the Trike now, I will not be able to get in the attacking damage. He is at 3. I throw 3 damage to the dome. He stifles the last one! I weld out the Trike for a Jugg. I return a tree to untap a welder and win! Crazy exciting stuffs.

Top 4 - Wayne with rogue Mask/Naught/Workshop/Blue power thing

I feel confident since my welders work better than his. I LOST the die roll. Wayne drops a Mask. Wayne plays something for 1. Wayne smashes my head with a naught for 2 rounds. Game 2. I have a bad hand but I have a welder and a Monkey so I expect to be ok. I drop a monkey. Wayne drops a crapload of stuff then a Mask and creature for one. I drop a welder but get no more mana sources. Wayne smacks me for 12 and plays 2 more creatures for 1. Wayne shows me 2 more naughts and I congratulate him.

I had a blast and met lots of TO players. Course SpecialK hid from me so I missed him. I won me a Engrish Mana Drain at 3rd place. Shockwave signed my Standstill.

Observations about TnT. Pillar was never cast all day. Wheel never was cast. Still undecided about Wheel. I never saw a Jar all day. Tree girl, all shiny and pretty, stays in the deck. Duplicant is awesome. Sundering Titan is good. I lose whenever I did not win the roll.

Props

All the pretty girls working at the London McD.
Cute redhead vending food and drinks in the black hat and glasses who sang on my prompting over the microphone.
All the friendly TO players I met for being fun to shoot the shit with and play against.
Shockwave for signing my Standstill.
A crew from Michigan who made the trip up.
Coffee Time for being so good.

Sloppy diarrhea to

The punk ass bitches that stole that Goblin Food Chain deck.
The Michigan crew for arriving late.
Rain/being sick/detours on the 401 (if anyone knows what went down Friday night between London and TO on the 401, I'd love to know)

[Smmenen]

Good Job Raye!  I expect to see you back in Columbus March 13!

Steve

[mouth]

He Duplicanted my welder and has 2 plus my duped one at one point.

Just a reminder that Duplicant only copies the imprinted creatures power, toughness and creature types, not it's abilities.

Also, that whole Trisk-Stifle-weld play is dandy.

[Raven Fire]

Tree girl, all shiny and pretty, stays in the deck.

Glad to hear my little tree hugger was appreciated.  Your DCI Kai has been countering mad spells.  

[ReAnimator]

Cute redhead vending food and drinks in the black hat and glasses who sang on my prompting over the microphone.

Ummm that was the Wife of the Tournament Organizer just so you know, tho im sure he wouldnt mind you saying shes cute because he got to marry her!


glad you did so well and made the drive worthwile, your a nice guy and it was nice to meet you briefly ( i was the guy who T8'd with Food chain)

I didnt watch your entire T8 match vs Petko(frenchie) since i was playing as well, but i did finish in time to see that nutty wellder trisk play, that was crazy

Thanks Wayne for an excelently run turney and a super fun day.

The punk ass bitches that stole that Goblin Food Chain deck.

Some guys from Montreal stole Lam Pham's little brothers deck and it had Petko's mint beta emerald and ruby, if anyone in Motreal knows the Sketchy MoFo's that did this or see or get asked if they want to buy them please report these guys to some local ManaDrainers or Carta Magica or any one that can help. They apparently were picking up alot of decks "and just looking since they werent playing in the turney" and Lam was the unfortunate one to get ripped, they picked up the Oshawa stompy deck i lent to a friend but he watched them like a hawk and they just went away (thanks greg!) i was pretty close to loosing my Bazzars =(

[Jhaggs]

Great job Raye!  Do you have the entire list for the Top 8?

[DEA]

shiny tree girl, heheheh....
i like.....

[ReAnimator]

the top 8 lists will be up on deuling-grounds.com soon, ill post them in this thread when they go. the top 8 was:

1. Dragon
2. masks/workshops hybrid (Morridar on MTGontario)
3. TNT (Raye)
4. Keeper (anti creature meta,  4 swords no fire/ice one scepter Cop:Red in board)
5. sligh
6. food chain (me)
7. goblin sligh
8. UR fish (petko)

67 players

[greedo]

Congrats on the finish.  I was going to look for you but Wayne said no one from Chicago made the trip.  I figured weather held you back.  Not making it on time sure did kill my trip.  Honestly I was wishing I would have been killed in the accident when I found out the tourney had started five minutes before arrival.  Oh well.  Toronto was a beautiful city, so it wasn't so bad.

[raye]

Mouth, Yeah I know it is just P/T but he was so winning the welder war at that point.

Raven Fire, actually tree girl was awesome. She enabled the coolest play of the day for me. <heart> her shiney ass.

Reanimator, thanks for putting the T8 up in the post.

[urza_insane]

Michigan crew?! Where are they from? never knew there was a crew... hmmmm

[greedo]

Michigan crew?! Where are they from? never knew there was a crew... hmmmm

We're from North Eastern Michigan, Alpena.

Last I knew there was a decent group of type 1 players in Traverse City.  Kalamazoo also has an acceptable number of players.

[raye]

JayC took notes of games every round with a PocketPC and posted his write up of this tourney. It is crazy insane good and detailed and I am in 2 of them so go read!

http://www.mtgontario.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=447
http://www.mtgontario.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=448

Petko also has a report from the same tourney (just in case you wanted to know all about it even more and didn't happen to have read his yet).

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15810

[Petko]

The tournament was a blast and it was great playing against you. Hopefully next time I'll bring my A-game.

I'm just bummed about not being able to entertain the entire crowd on that piano in the judge's booth.

hehehe