Noob Dual Lotus Report

[Krizzyn]

Inspired by reading a few other reports, I'll post mine.  I didnt take any notes, but am fairly retentive, so I apologize for lack of names.

Spent the previous night drinking quite a few beers and watching quite a bit of college basketball with some friends.  Woke up around 9 when Zhindel (13th place finisher guy) calls to tell me he'll be at my place around 10 to head over to tourney.  He shows up around 10:45, we grab some local food (Steve's Place in Newington 4 the win) and get to the KoC around 11ish.  I feel for all you MA/NYC people who drove so far, I was definately happy to live about 5 mins away from the tourney.  I was close to offering a few of you a place to crash for the night at the end of the tourney, but not really knowing anyone, I didnt wanna get shanked in my sleep, or have people worried I would shank them in their sleep  

I've been a strictly T2 player for a couple years now, but I'm getting into T1.  All I can say is I have awesome friends who loaned me a shit ton of cards for my deck.  I'm working on getting my own cards, but that'll take a little time.

I help out Stok a bit being a local, helping him track down a local pizza joint and trying to help some people on the phone find the tournament in time to play.

Decklist:   Dragon

4 Bazaar
4 Dragon
4 Squee
1 Laquatus
3 Cunning Wish

3 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Xantid Swarm
2 Stifle
2 Pernicious Deed

4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Forest
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt

4 Intuition
2 Lim-Dul's Vautl
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutot

SB
2 Stifle
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Coffin Purge
2 Null Rod
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Verdant Force
1 Blue Elem Blast
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Rushing River
1 Oxidize
1 Stroke of Genius

Round 1 vs Kenton playing Standstill

Game 1: I know Kenton from some local tournies, we BS a bit about playing someone we know first round in 168 player field.  He counters a bunch of stuff, but eventually I animate the dragon and stroke him out.

Game 2: Funny game.  The turn I'm gonna go off he has standsill out.  I drop my lotus breaking the standstill, and like the noob to T1 I am, I attempt to Stifle the Standstill (at the time, not understanding this would trigger the Standstill again).  He responds by Mana Draining my Stifle (apparently he was as confused to the Standstill rules as I was).  That resolves, and he draws his cards.  Undaunted, I animate the dragon with a sole Cunning Wish in my hand.  He's fingering his mana, and reading the Dragon, so I can only assume he's holding Stifle.  I go through the montions a few times, he doesnt insert anything onto the stack, so I tell him I'm gonna do that till I have 100 mana and ask him if he'd like to stop me at any time.  He doesnt, so I play out the Wish, grab my Stroke, and he misdirects it back at me.

Turns out he did have the Stifle, but didnt understand the Dragons abils correctly and was worried about not having any way to deal with the 7/7 flier.  If I had just bazaared till I had Laquatus I would have been able to sneak that by.  I happily explained how the Dragon's abils work after the game so he knows how to deal with it next time.

Game 3: He counters all my important things and then smacks me with some angels he made off a couple drains.

Record : 0-1

Round 2a vs Some Guy playing a Metalworkers and big artifacts

Game 1: He gets out turn 1 Metalworker and drops a Jugg next turn which starts smashing face. I cast my deed, and take some more beats.  He enters his next attack phase and I pop deed for 4 wiping his board except a couple lands, he taps metalworker in response, but burns as he's in his combat phase.  He lays a trike and smacks me once before I find my animation and stroke him out.

Game 2: He again gets turn 1 Metalworker, but I drop turn 1 Null rod.  This pretty much seals the game.  A few turns later I animate the dragon and he tries to use his Tormod's Crypt.  I point to the Rod and we shake up.

Record : 1-1

Round 2B vs Kid playing WB Control

Game 1: My noobness shines again as I forgot to bring Squee back to my hand, and then...forgot to attack with my Swarm before going for the dragon, which he promptly STP's RFG'ing my board.  Factory beats 4 the win do me in.

Game 2: I animate the dragon real quick.

Game 3: I play swarm, he STP's.  He kills a bunch of my lands with Sinkholes.  I build back up while he's failing to draw much mana, and I drop another swarm and bazaar.  He taps out to Vindicate my swarm.  I LD Vault end step and set myself up with vamp on top with a intuition under it.  At this point I have no animation in hand, no dragon in the yard, and no hand.  I bring 2 Squees to hand, draw my vamp, and decide to go for it while he's tapped out rather than waiting to draw my Intuition.  I vamp up a dragon, put it on top, turn my bazaar sideways and peek below the dragon....Necromancy, boyaa.  Go go gadget lucksaq.

Record : 1-1

Round 3 vs Steven Johnson playing Budget Dragon

Steve's another guy I know from local stores, good kid.  I feel kinda bad cuz I'm running power that isnt mine to play, and he's running pretty unpowered and playing the same thing.

Game 1: Bazaar > Putrid imp, Black Lotus > Lotus Petal, I animate faster than he does.

Game 2:  I SB out 2 dragons, bring in a couple more stifles.  He drops first turn Putrid Imp off his Jet, drops the dragon and Laquatus in his yard, and drops a wasteland.  I draw, see my lotus, and necromancy and then pray that somewhere in the rest of my cards is a fetch, or one of my basic lands...but all I see are underground seas, and trops.  I drop my sea, my lotus, sac for necromancy.  Steve at this point seems a bit dejected, shows me the naturalize in his hand, and as he's about to drop his hand and to shake mine, he sees his wasteland.  He wastes my Sea, so I just animate the good ambassador.  He doesnt see much else, and a couple turns later I see an animate dead and really kill him.

Record : 2-1

At this point, I help out Stok some more by going to pick up the Pizzas for him.  This took quite a bit of doing as I have a decently sized car, but it's no truck or anything, and he's ordered 25 sheet pizzas.  I do some shuffling of crap in my car and amazingly get em all in there.  I only have to stop twice to re-adjust so I'm not wearing pizza when I return.  I get back, the lines form for hot pie, and Andy asks me where the napkins/plates are.  I kind of shrug, and grab Zhindel and we go back to the pizza joint where they hand us 2 stacks of 500 napkins.  There was much rejoicing and pizza eaten.

Round 4 vs Rob ZZZZZ playing FCG

Game 1: He beats face while I dig for combo pieces that just dont want to show up.

Game 2:  I keep a bad hand, and he does broken things attacking for 24 on turn 3.  Goblin Lackey = good.

Record : 2-2

Round 5 vs Mike (Welder Kid from local store) playing TnT

I somewhat curse my luck at having now played the 3rd person I know in the tourney.

Game 1: He drops some welders, an elf replica, and a Blood Moon that ruins my day, and continues to swing with them while I keep digging for a mox or my basic island, my deck hates me.

Game 2: I SB as if he's playing one of the slaver builds having seen welders and not a whole lot else.  This time he doesnt see much land, and after a few turns I animate the dragon, then find his friend the caller and make a crapload of bears.  He tries to use the force on his deck to make it give him the 1 card that will help him, but it doesnt and I win.

Game 3: At this point, I still havent seen anything that makes me thing he's not playing a Slaver build, but that changes quickly.  He drops a workshop starts firing out threats and hate.  Jugg is joined by his friend Jens and they swing a few turns.  Double ground seal and tormod's crypt hit his side.  My noobness bites me in the ass again as I neglect to bring back 2 Squees, so I dont end up digging to find the land that would have let me drop the deed while I still had some life to give.

Record : 2-3

Round 6 vs guy playing semi-Sui Black

Game 1: Hymn grabs my gas, and Pox eats my third land.  I dont see another land and die to beats holding Wish, and a few Intuitions.

Game 2: I set myself up nicely early, and he is kind enough to Hymn my Laquatus and Dragon away.  We play a bit of draw-go for a while, and I start digging with bazaar + squees.  He puts out a Jugg, I deed it, he puts out a Hypnotic, I deed it, he puts out another hypnotic....damn.  I see everything in my deck that doesnt involve drawing more cards, or animating dead things, and eventually die to specter + some other beater beats.

Record : 2-4

Round 7 vs No show guy playing crappy 0 card deck

Game 1: I win, yay!

Game 2: I win, yay!

Record : 3-4

I stuck around to watch the T8, and that was very interesting to see, and was quite informative.  I also got to watch Smemnarch smack our friend Anthony around with his Slaver deck for fun.  Good times.

I didnt do very well, but I had a lot of fun, met some very cool people, and learned a whole lot.  I think the most important thing I learned was what Anthony had told me earlier...."Take your time".  It's so easy to overlook things, and make little mistakes that are much bigger than they would be in a T2 environment.  

I'm looking forward to playing at more events in the future, hopefully with my own power and other cards then.

Props :
- 5 minute drive, you are so zesty at 2:30 AM when the tournament is over
- Everyone who showed up
- Worldgorger Dragon for being you
- Stok for giving refunds when the rounds got messed up

Slops :
- The round that wasnt, I felt bad for ppl who turned wins into losses
- The pizza place for not giving me napkins when I first showed up and not having any plates when I went back.

[Smash]

Funny game. The turn I'm gonna go off he has standsill out. I drop my lotus breaking the standstill, and like the noob to T1 I am, I attempt to Stifle the Standstill (at the time, not understanding this would trigger the Standstill again). He responds by Mana Draining my Stifle (apparently he was as confused to the Standstill rules as I was). That resolves, and he draws his cards.

In case you didn't realize, he cast the last spell (mana drain). So standstill triggered again, and YOU should have drawn 3 cards.

[Zhindel]

Yeah I cleared that up for Kriz and his opponent after they told me what had happened.  To bad they told me after the mtach.

[Krizzyn]

Ya, at the time we both were being morons, but later it was all made clear, thought I had conveyed that with my little parenthetical insertions.  Ah well, live and learn.

[Nantuko Rice]

You forgot to mention that you had to rip up pieces of cardboard from the pizza boxes to use as plates

[TheAdvantage]

He doesnt, so I play out the Wish, grab my Stroke, and he misdirects it back at me.

This is why Ambassador is the primary kill.  If you are able to find him via Bazaar, you should, if for no other reason than to win a game like this.  This is, of course, assuming your opponent wants you to play it out.  This probably seems like nitpicking, but if your opponent doenst understand the combo and doesnt care to ask you to explain it until he does understand, this is a game you should win.  Ambassador's ability cannot be MisD'd.

Anyway, its always good to hear someone taking the plunge into T1; glad you got your feet wet!

I'm stuck in the Midwest and have long drives to any decent(and by decent, I meant 25+ attendees) tournaments, so count your blessings!!

[DEA]

if you have any chance to survive, make them play it out
once, i had an active welder (p. angel in deck) and he animated dargon with bazaar, lands, and 3 cards in hand
he asked me if i wanted to scoop
sneaky little bugger assumed he would get ancestral AND laquatus within the next 6 cards  :lol:

[Krizzyn]

TheAdv: Ya, looking back, that would have definately been the play to make.  I was worried about something happening, and figured if the Stroke got countered, I could then still keep animating and use the bazaar to go get Laquatus.  Honestly, it was just my lack of experience with T1, and totally forgetting about Misdirection as a card   .  He was representing the Stifle, but then when he didnt use it, I figured he had some kind of counter that he was figuring out how to use properly.  I also knew he had an Interdict in hand, but knew that wasnt going to really help him.

As I mentioned, I know I made play mistakes, but they needed to be made to be learned from.  Can only get so good goldfishing and playing vs momos on mws, at some point you gotta bite the bullet and take your lumps.

[Kowal]

This seems as cute a place as any to point out this interaction.

Assuming Laquatus is your primary kill, and your opponent has goblin welder and an artifact, they will try to weld in Platinum Angel end of turn or on their upkeep.

If you've got a second animate effect, you can cast it when you have an animated laquatus on your dragon to begin the loop, this time with two animate triggers.

This means that as you animate things, you can in effect stack the triggers to make creatures "forget" they were animated, because your enchantments leave play before the creature ever enters.  In this way you can animate every creature in every graveyard, stealing possibly the angel itself but more likely all their welders to get rid of the damn thing.

[BlkXplsn]

Don't creatures forget if they weren't controlled by their owners when they change zones?

Translation: I thought that you couldn't steal something and then loop again and have it come into play on your side of the board. As they forget their dying\not dead, they forget controlled by non-owner. Is this wrong?

[Kowal]

It's a little complicated, but here's what it looks like.

Two animates enter play simultaneously.  As the active player, you determine which stacks higher.

The first trigger on the stack is the animate effect targeting random creature A.  The second on the stack is the other animate trigger, targeting worldgorger dragon.

Worldgorger Dragon enters play, and all permanents leave play, with an unresolved trigger of "creature A enters play under your control."

You'll notice by this point your animate effect has already left play, and were the creature in play, at this point would a trigger go on the stack that says "creature A goes to graveyard."

You repeat this with random creature B, C, etc, until you're sufficiently happy with controlling X number of creatures, then you stop the loop by disallowing either of the animate triggers to target a dragon.  You can do this by having both triggers target the same dork, like a Platinum Angel.

[mouth]

The current wording on Animate Dead makes it seem like that wouldn't work.

When Animate Dead comes into play, if it's in play, it becomes an enchant creature. Put target creature card from a graveyard into play under your control enchanted by Animate Dead.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
When Animate Dead leaves play, destroy enchanted creature. It can't be regenerated.

The important part being "if it's in play". I'd message Jaapmans or Jebus, but meh...

Do you already have confirmation that this works?

[Serin]

Funny game. The turn I'm gonna go off he has standsill out. I drop my lotus breaking the standstill, and like the noob to T1 I am, I attempt to Stifle the Standstill (at the time, not understanding this would trigger the Standstill again). He responds by Mana Draining my Stifle (apparently he was as confused to the Standstill rules as I was). That resolves, and he draws his cards.

In case you didn't realize, he cast the last spell (mana drain). So standstill triggered again, and YOU should have drawn 3 cards.

Don't you have to sacrifice Standstill in order to draw the cards? So you played the lotus, your opponent triggered the standstill and sacrificed it, then you tried to stifle the triggered ability and he mana drained your stifle, but as he cant sacrifice the standstill again, (anyways, it is no longer in play, so wouldnt trigger with mana drain) you wouldnt draw the 3 cards.... am I right ?

[riggy]

Don't you have to sacrifice Standstill in order to draw the cards? So you played the lotus, your opponent triggered the standstill and sacrificed it, then you tried to stifle the triggered ability and he mana drained your stifle, but as he cant sacrifice the standstill again, (anyways, it is no longer in play, so wouldnt trigger with mana drain) you wouldnt draw the 3 cards.... am I right ?

It doesn't get sacrificed until the trigger resolves. So the opponent of whomever played the last spell would draw the cards. So the earlier standstill triggers would fail since the standstill could no longer be sacrificed.

[BlkXplsn]

I understand how double animates work, Ben.

I believe this scenerio was discussed when Diceman said what you are saying as a win condition, and someone else gave us a rule snippet on why they wouldn't get to keep the stolen creatures. I'll try an find it.

EDIT: Objects in zones other than in play or the stack have no controller. If anything asks for the controller of an object that doesn't have a controller, use its owner instead. [CompRules 2003/12/01]

[Smash]

I understand how double animates work, Ben.

I believe this scenerio was discussed when Diceman said what you are saying as a win condition, and someone else gave us a rule snippet on why they wouldn't get to keep the stolen creatures. I'll try an find it.

EDIT: Objects in zones other than in play or the stack have no controller. If anything asks for the controller of an object that doesn't have a controller, use its owner instead. [CompRules 2003/12/01]

That is correct. Think of astral slide. If you control magic my creature, and I slide it out, when it comes back into play as my creature again.

If you want proof, just look at the text on dragon. You did read the card, right Kowal?

Text (JU): 7/7, Flying, Trample. ; When ~this~ comes into play, remove all other permanents you control from the game. ; When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed cards to play under their owners' control.

- the Champaign Judges Consortium

[Kowal]

I understand how double animates work, Ben.

I believe this scenerio was discussed when Diceman said what you are saying as a win condition, and someone else gave us a rule snippet on why they wouldn't get to keep the stolen creatures. I'll try an find it.

EDIT: Objects in zones other than in play or the stack have no controller. If anything asks for the controller of an object that doesn't have a controller, use its owner instead. [CompRules 2003/12/01]

Ah, but the dragon actually has nothing to do with it.  There's no reason for the dragon to leave play with the animated dorks in play if you stack it right.  The triggers on the stack expressly state the creature will come in to play under your control.  The creature itself is not on the stack either, nor does it yet have a controller.  The trigger is the thing to be concerned with.

In other words, my way works.

[DEA]

what trigger? the animate trigger? how do you intend to stack it?

wd cip trigger resolves
ad and creatures leave play
wd goes to graveyard
wd leaves play trigger resolves
ad and creatures that are NOT in the graveyard anymore come back
when they come back, are they coming back through wd's leave play trigger?

the moment you end the loop you have ONE creature under your control and the rest under your opponent's

i don't get how you can stack it so you control everything
please explain in detail for us stack idiots here  

[Jaapmans]

Hi,

I was asked to try and shed some light on who controls what with dragon and animate flying around.

First some quotes:

103.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that the rules in section 100, “General,” and section 101, “Starting the Game,” can’t be overridden by the cards. Those rules apply at all times, regardless of what the cards say.

200.6a A nontoken permanent’s owner is the same as the owner of the card that represents it. A permanent’s controller is the player who put it into play.

Animate Dead

Enchantment
When Animate Dead comes into play, if it's in play, it becomes an enchant creature. Put target creature card from a graveyard into play under your control enchanted by Animate Dead.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
When Animate Dead leaves play, destroy enchanted creature. It can't be regenerated.

Worldgorger Dragon
{R}{R}
Creature -- Nightmare Dragon
7/7
Flying, trample
When Worldgorger Dragon comes into play, remove all other permanents you control from the game.
When Worldgorger Dragon leaves play, return the removed cards to play under their owners' control.

Normally, without the "return the removed cards to play under their owners' control", you could animate with the help of your Worldgorger Dragon (WD) and your Animate Dead (AD) your opponents graveyard empty, resulting in all of his creatures under your control. This would be because of 200.6a, BUT...

...BUT since the WD states "return the removed cards to play under their owners' control" and as such, you can animate your opp creatures as much as you want, but every single creatures that comes into play because of the WD leaves play triggered ability will come into play under its owners' control. This is because of the Golden Rule that cards preceed over rules.

I assume this is the question. If I missed something or the question was differently, let me know.

Jaap

[Jaapmans]

In addition to my previous 'explanation':

Another quote:

404.3: A triggered ability may read "When/Whenever/At ... , if [condition], [effect]." The ability checks for the stated condition to be true when the trigger event occurs. If it is, the ability triggers. On resolution, the ability rechecks the condition. If the condition isn't true at either of those times, the ability does nothing. This rule is referred to as the "intervening "if' clause" rule. Note that the word "if" has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an "if" that immediately follows a trigger condition. (Rules Version Date: February 1, 2004.)

See the oracle text of Animate Dead in my previous post.

This implies that if you have an animated creature on the board, and you start the loop with animating your dragon, then there is no way that you can have the AD triggers stack in such a way that when the loop stops, you can resolve the remaining AD triggers and steal whatever creature card in whatever graveyard. Reason for this is that the AD has to be in play (the if condition needs to be true) for it to resolve properly, else the ability does nothing.

Example:

I control an animated Ambassador Laquatus (AL) and I play another Animate Dead (AD). It resolves:, AD CIP goes on the stack and I target my Worldgorger Dragon (WGD).

It resolves and the WGD comes into play. It's CIP "everything else leaves" triggers (CIP) and as soon as you get priority it will go on the stack.

It resolves and everything except the WGD leaves play. Two AD Leave Play triggers trigger (LP1 with WGD and LP2 with AL). As soon as you get priority you choose the order of LP1 and LP2.

No I'll describe two scenario's. The first scenario is when you stack LP1 on top of LP2, effectively destroying the WGD before the AL would be destroyed if it would still be in play. The second scenario is when you stack LP2 on top of LP1, effectively destroying the AL (if it would still be in play which is not the case) and then destroying the WGD.

As the AL is not in play anymore and the LP2 will fail to do anything, it doesn't matter what scenario you choose.

The result will always be that the dragon will die and its leave play ability will trigger (WGD LP).

Everything above is just foreplay. No business starts:

Everything you removed with the WGD CIP ability comes back, including 2 AD's and a AL. When they come into play, the AD CIP will trigger (AD CIP1 and AD CIP2) and the AL will just enter play, unaware that he has been animated before and perfectly happy with himself.

It doesn't realy matter how the AD CIPx abilities are stacked. What does matter is what targets are choosen. If for the top AD CIP ability the WGD is choosen, the whole circus starts again and you will not be able to use the still waiting AD CIP ability as the 'IF' clause of the AD will prevent it from doing anything.

Assuming that you use the second AD CIP ability to target the WGD and continue the loop at least once again.
 If the first AD CIP ability targets a creature card in your own graveyard, you'll end up having that creature in play when the loop stops. If you target a creature card in your opponents graveyard he will end up having that creature card in play.

Reason for this is that when the WGD comes into play it explicitly returns the removed card to play under it's owners control (because the card says so) and not to the controller of the effect that made them come into play (as the rules describe).

--

This has gotten much longer then I though was necessary, but I hope this is clear enough. Don't hesitate to PM me if you think I'm missing something (I'm human too )

Jaap