[Tournament Report] 3rd at Kansas City with Psychatog

[Frost]

Chris Byrnes (Monotone) and I head out Saturday morning for the long trip to Kansas City via Des Moines for a little Magic.  We rolled into Des Moines at about six to meet up with some of my college friends and enjoy some drinks while watching to see if Drake could win out the MVC tournament and make it to the Big Dance.  A couple hours pass by and Drake managed to loose, I had Maker’s Mark spilled on my lap by my ex-girlfriend and was proposed to by two different women.  All in all a good time.  

The next morning Chris and I head out to KC ready to take home a Lotus for Minneapolis.  We cruise on down the highway at eight on a Sunday morning and learn that the only thing on the radio is music for old people.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  We eventually come across a sampling of songs from Forbidden Broadway.  We found ourselves laughing at the satirical singing about Dustin Hoffman, the English and Les Miserables.  Maybe we were still a little drunk.

Anyway, we made it into KC grabbed some McDonald’s and were ready to go.  I chose to play Psychatog as I had no idea what their metagame would be.  The deck I played was:

Psychatog
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Island
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt

3 Psychatog

4 Brainstrom
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Cunning Wish
2 Duress
2 Intuition
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fire / Ice
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Demonic Tutor

Sideboard
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Coffin Purge
1 Berserk
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Stifle
1 Naturalize
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Deep Analysis
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Rack and Ruin

Round 1 – Jeff with Tog
Game 1 – Ah yes, the mirror to start the day!  Game 1 came down to the fact that he could wish for answers to my Psychatogs yet I never could draw a wish to answer his.
Game 2 – I opt to play first this game and we each start by dropping early Psychatogs and Pernicious Deeds.  Grrr!  We spend the next twenty minutes drawing cards, filling our graveyards and staring at each other.  I finally find myself with the right cards in hand to blow the deed.  Eventually I find another Psychatog and I am able to steal this game when he taps out to play a Pernicious Deed.  I follow on my turn with a Yawgmoth’s Will.  Nuff said.

1-1   / 0-0-1

Round 2 – Nick with Goblins
Game 1 – He plays early Goblins and drops my life to eleven before I am able to Deed away his little army and Mind Twist his hand away.  He is forced to topdeck answers to my Psychatog but cannot before I go lethal.
Game 2 – I Force his first turn Lackey and he has no other threats for three straight turns.  The only damage I take this game is from my force and fetches.  Eventually I Mind Twist his hand away and after that it was pretty academic.

3-1 / 1-0-1

Round 3 – Jesse with Sligh
Game 1 – Unfortunately, for him, he is forced to Paris to five while playing first.  He creates a Slith Firewalker but I have a Psychatog to hold it off.  He tries for an Incinerate and Fireblast on the Tog but it didn’t matter as I had the second tog in hand and I swing in for the win.
Game 2 – This game I win the game by Fetching for a Guru Island to trump his Guru Mountain, wait, no that was for who's basic land was more pimpin’.  Actually he tosses an Incinerate and Lightning Bolt at my head.  I joke with him about him trying to burn me out.  I Twist away his hand and see that he was in fact trying to burn me out!  I drop the Tog and swing in for the win.  

5-1 / 2-0-1

Round 4 – Justin with Affinity
Game 1 – Justin does some quick math to see if we actually need to play this game.  Given my first round draw it would be too risky for me to try to draw my way into the top eight.  We start the game with him playing two Arcbound Ravagers, a Disciple of the Vault and a Myr Enforcer.  I manage to tutor for and play a Pernicious Deed while holding a Lotus and a land in hand to get to seven mana.  He brings me down to four life before I can Deed for seven sending three artifacts to the graveyards and loosing three life.  I stabilize and eventually kill him with my Tog.
Game 2 – I take a couple of hits from Frogmites but Tog did what Tog does best, I drew a lot of cards, cast Yawgmoth’s Will and smacked him for twenty!

7-1 / 3-0-1

Round 5 – Andy with Slavery
We opt for the intentional draw as we are both in the top eight.

7-1 / 3-0-2

Quarterfinals – Chris with Vengeur
Game 1 – Ah, the power of cheese!  No, I mean Pernicious Deed.  I am able to wipe his board clean and swing for victory with a Berserked Tog.
Game 2 – I get smacked in the head with a Dreadnought but am able to Cunning Wish for my Rack and Ruin to gain some time.  He eventually taps out on a Survival and gives me an opening to swing in with my Psychatog.  I know that of the four cards in his hand he has a Shapeshiter, Birds, Akroma and one unknown card.  He had not cast a Force yet this game so I decided to Mind Twist him first rather than go for the kill thinking that the Mind Twist gave him a 25% chance of winning that game versus an auto loss for me if he has the Force.  I Twist him leaving the Shapeshifter in hand and Akroma as the top card in his graveyard.  Damn statistics!  On to game three.
Game 3 – Game three was a virtual repeat of game one.  I win by casting a Deed and forcing him to play around me.

9-2 / 4-0-2

Semifinals – Andy with Slavery
Game 1 – We fight an early counterwar leaving us both depleated.  He ends up topdecking better and takes the game quickly with Welders and Trikes.
Game 2 – He plays a second turn Platinum Angel which I Force followed by a third turn Slaver.  Sigh!  My hand at the time consisted of a Brainstorm, Shaman, Will, BEB, Cunning Wish and a Duress.  I try my best to Brainstorm the hand into something but I still left him with too much to do damage with.

9-4 / 4-1-2

All in all it was a fun trip.  I receive a Library of Alexandria for my troubles and Chris and I head back to Des Moines for the night.

Props
Jeff, Nick, Jesse, Justin, Andy and Chris for being enjoyable people to play Magic with.  It made the six hour trip from Minneapolis worth it.

Chris Byrnes for helping me tune my deck.

Rando for giving me directions

The people at A to Z Comics for running a nice tournament

Slops
I.H.O.P. for running out of Coke.  What are we suppose to enjoy Dr. Pepper instead?

[Rando]

It was a pretty good tournament once again, though the turn out was lower then I would have liked.  There were at least 5 KC area players that were no-shows.  Where the hell were you guys?

Congratulations on getting 3rd.   I placed 4th with 4-Maindeck-Stifle GAT.  There could have been a play-off between us for the Library, but when I got done with my top 4 and saw that the other half of the bracket's top 8 was still on game 2, I decided I would rather spend the rest of the evening with my wife.

I would like to thank Mike Miner for TO'ing the event so I could play.

There should be another tournament in a couple of months.  We would like to see this become a regular quarterly event.

Now I'm off to get the list for Justin's crazy 1:30am Affinity deck.

jp

[TheAdvantage]

Frost, good report!  Glad to see you guys were rewarded for making the long drive.


Unfortunately, my only claim to fame is being utterly smashed by said Affinity deck.  I was in 7th after round 4, but with Frost's first round draw, his opponent and my buddy Jeff had to play it out against Monotone to see who makes it in.  Bad ties make Chris(Frost's semi's opponent) have to play it out as well and my ties are only slightly better, so I decide to put fate in my own hands rather than drawing to a coinflip.

Long story short, I open with first turn Welder, then Justin goes something to the effect of "Pearl, Sol Ring, Frogmite, Lotus, Academy, Desire for 5 into 2 Moxen, 2 Frogmite and 'twister.  He pulls the Lotus again on his 7 and ends up Tendril'sing for 16.  My tapped(for whatever largely inconsequential reason) Mana Vault and 3 Frogmite's convince me to scoop on my second turn.  Game 2 is similar brokeness, but this time involves a Disciple of the Vault, 3 Ravagers and Burning Wish-->Echoning Ruin targetting my second turn Tinkered Plat. Angel after which I act like I'm thinking about any possible outs, but really I'm just stunned and upset I faced two god draws when it mattered most.  I had watched some of Justin's earlier matches curiously as I had also considered the merits of Ravager the previous night.  Justin, I'd really like to see that list.  He did manage to go 4-1 with it, although the Stormbinds, like Mr. Menendian, were nowhere to be found this time.

Jess:  Will anyone be posting T8 decklists??  Let me know when the next one is, I look forward to it!

[Rando]

I forgot to grab the Top 8 lists when I left, but i will get ahold of them and post them as soon as I can.

[JuJu]

Great Report, Tog shines again but loses out in the end. I'd like to ask a few things though. First, would your deck had performed better without red? You seemed to win with P.Deed most of the day, could the 2nd P.Deed be a good idea? Perhaps taking out the Fire/Ice. Another question, was the Fire/Ice all that good? Anyways, great job with the report and the LoA win. KC is turning out to be recognized.

[jpmeyer]

And more importantly, would it have performed better with FIRESTORM?

[BreathWeapon]

2nd Deed is soo good in Hulk, in random metagames it always shines thru'. 2 should be the standard, IMO.

[Frost]

@ JuJu - It may have performed better without red but I still like having wishable red removal (REB, Artifact Mutation and Rack and Ruin) in the sideboard.  As for Fire/Ice maindeck, I hated it.  I never wanted to see it and when I did it was mainly used for its Ice ability.  For the near future it will be a second deed.

@ jpmeyer - I have yet to actually test Firestorm.  Going into a place that I didn't know, I felt that sticking with something I knew was better than experimenting.

[BlkXplsn]

I, for one, decided it would be much more fun to stay home and start throwing up around 2:00 pm.

[JuJu]

Would Deed be better then the Shaman Maindeck? That's probably the most important question for me at the moment, while both have there merits, Deed just seems stronger, and your report kind of makes me right.

[Rando]

I e-mailed the TO to have him send me the top 8 lists, but I still have not heard from him.

Here is the aforementioned Affinity list...
4 seat of the synod
4 vault of whispers
4 city of brass
1 tolarian academy
5 moxes
1 black lotus
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 lion's eye diamond
1 lotus petal
1 mana crypt
1 grim monolith
1 memory jar
1 time walk
1 ancestral
1 timetwister
1 tendrils of agony
3 brainstorm
1 yawgmoth's will
1 burning wish
1 demonic tutor
1 wheel of fortune
1 mystical tutor
2 future sight
1 vampiric tutor
1 minds desire
1 tinker
1 windfall
4 arcbound ravager
4 disciple of the vault
4 frogmite
4 myr enforcer


And here's the GAT list I played...
2 Psychotog
4 Quirion Dryad

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Pernicious Deed

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Cunning Wish

1 Stripmine
2 Wasteland
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Poluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Undergraound Sea
1 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petel
1 Sol Ring
1 each Mox Jet, Sapphire and Emerald

SB
1 Berserk
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Natuaralize
2 Oxidize
2 Misdirection
2 Smother
2 Ebony Charm
2 Blue Elemental Blast