Got beat at Dreamer's again

[defector]

I was off to Dreamer's for another ten dollar humiliation.  I was running my project as I'll list below, I was about to scrub hard, but more optimistically than previous trips tp dreamers.  My girlfriend gave me a good luck charm before I went, and while I recieved no luck from it, it made losing easier.  I'm calling it a patience charm.

So, the list:


Still Working V 1.1

Mana Base-30-
Mishra's workshop X4
Tolarian Academy
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Tundr X4
Adarkar Waste X2
Flooded Strand X2
Island X1
Wasteland X3
Stripmine
Mana Vault
Sol Ring
Ancient Tomb X1
Gilded Lotus X3
Mishra's Factory X4

The Draw-5-
Standstill X4
Ancestral Recall

The Beatdown-10-
Juggernaut X4
Exalted Angel X1
Sundering Titan X1
Bosh, Iron Golem X1
Memnarch X1
Triskellion X1
Decree of Justice X1

Control-11-
Trinisphere X4
Sphere of Resistance X4
Swords to Plowshares X3  

Round 1
I play a u/g madness deck piloted by Luke Ojala, on his way to the top 8 he cut me down first by wasting me into submission game 1 and B2B game 2.  I sided out the standstills, as I was going to learn all through today, standstill without adequte baord sweeper means dead card in hand or your opponent draws three.
0-2
0-1

Round 2
Playing against Steven Peterson(aka waSP).  He's running mad dragon today, this kid is one of a few at Dreamers that are top notch.  I'v pulled him a couple of times out here, today was not my day, but I made it a full series, having never even gotten a game off him before I was happy.
Game 1-He goes off with the dragon.
Game 2-I go off with the Sundering Titan
Game 3-Many momentum shifts, smemnarch hits the board but is caught staring at the pretty trees when he should be looting everythng in sight and then watches many formerly land boudn creatures Wonderfully fly over his big head on spindly legs.  Gret game, we both made mistakes, i think the better player won.  Regatrdless, good quality.

Round 3
My friend Don from my work, his son, with Hulk Smash.  Jesse is his name and he's a good kid and a good player.  Unfortunately for him, I am tuned for control and catch him turn 1 3sphere and turn 2 Juggernaut.
Game 2 was even worse, he was mana screwed and not able to Brainstrom into a force of will to stop Tinker from turning an excess 3sphere into a Sundering Titan, even more mana screwed, the game was over.  He was having a bad day, of course so was I.

Round 4
I can't remember thsi guys name, a really cool guy that came out therewith easter tendrils the last timewe played and he beat me.  This time he would beat me with TNT.
Game 1 I waste away his mana and drop 3 sphere, followed by me playing land and not him, juggernaut, Exalted, DoJ for 8.  Good Game.
Game 2 Turn 1 Jug, Turn 2 Jug, Turn 3 Jug, I conceded.  All I had to asnwer with was a trinispher and a wasteland.
Game 3 More back and forth neither of us really showing much, I tinker for daping matrix to stop welder, maybe the dumbest move I would make today.  His suvival gets more threats than my draw, I lose.

Round 5
My opponent drops as he can't make top 8.  So, I guess I win.

All in all I go 2-3 on the day.  I lose on series 2-0, win one 2-0, have one concession and 2 game 3's.  Not bad, I was in contention almost every match which helps better than a good luck charm when it comes to gracious defeat.

My friend Paul made his 1st top8 with dragon and my friend curt made t8, his first t1 tourney.  Unfortunately neither advanced, but it was exciting nonetheless.
Thanks-To my opponents for good match play and manners, except for the frustated kid.  Also, another well run Dreamer's event.
Disapointments: Standstill for not having "board control not included" on the wrapper.
out
defector
P.S. Next month, its Slaver, BABY

[Laertes]

Well you have 3 choices:

1 Continue losing with your current build.  Tweaking just won't work - your too far gone.
2 Play landstill
3 Play a workshop prison deck

If you play a traditional landstill, you might get a better appreciation for what it takes to make it work.  After that, go back to the drawingboard with "workstill", if you want.

You might also be in a deckbuilding rutt.  try something you wouldn't ordinarily play.

[defector]

I agree, I'm working on slaver now.  I'm startingf with something between Toad and Smemmy's build, and maybe if i can't tweak sopem oriniagility into it, I'll win some games to salve my conscience.
defector

[Rico Suave]

I agree, I'm working on slaver now.  I'm startingf with something between Toad and Smemmy's build, and maybe if i can't tweak sopem oriniagility into it, I'll win some games to salve my conscience.
defector

Wait a minute, you're building the deck with different cards just to be different?

What makes you think they didn't put in endless hours of work to come up with the optimal build?

[defector]

I've no doubt that they did, but I am not fully powered, so I have a task in front of me that they do not.  Land does not equal mox, so I'm dicking around wastealnd and some disruption to hedge my lack of acceleration.  I'm not puptting cards in just to be different, I'm working on the best fill I can find for the 2 grand or so that i'm missing from their list.
defector

[xzero]

I've no doubt that they did, but I am not fully powered, so I have a task in front of me that they do not.

With the power I saw in your list, coughANCESTRALcough, I thought that perhaps you should run a different deck.  Perhaps Landstill.  Playing different cards or refusing to netdeck does not necessarily make you a better player.

[defector]

I'm not saying it makes me a better player, I'm choosing thsi direction based on what I like to play as well as the library owning one ancestral doesn't make you fully powered, believe me 4/9 is <<<< than 1/2 powered.  Nonetheless, I need to optimize what power I have, you can't run timetwister in landstill(besides landstill sux as far as i'm concerned, no fun to play, etc, slaver is more "me" whatever the fuck that means), I understand what your saying, but I'd rather go slaver than landstill, even if my slaver is slow and has wastelands.
defector

[Tristal]

Some of us like to play Type 1.  Some of us like to play semi-original decks instead of netdecking all 75 cards.

These two are not mutually exclusive.

I've found that playing your original decks through and through makes you a much, much better Magic player than simply netdecking and learning how to play that deck.  Take your favorite deck, and analyze it.  Try to understand its weaknesses, and its strengths, and improve on them.

Take your deck to a tournament or three.  Analyze your matchups and why you lost some matches - did you keep bad hands?  Did you deck not have an answer to a specific threat?  Was your deck too slow?  Tweak your deck RIGHT AFTER the tournament finishes - take a good, hard look at your maindeck and sideboard and decide what helped you the most that day.

Tweak it, play in another tournament.  Repeat.

Obviously in Type 1 there are certain improvements that aren't going to be totally original - Adding fetchlands to a deck with dual lands isn't a new concept, but it is just GOOD.  Brainstorm is usually straight-up better than Portent, etc.  Making improvements like these isn't a lack of originality, it's simply understanding your deck better and better.

In the midst of these improvements, you might notice your deck is becoming closer and closer to a known netdeck's decklist.  This is okay - it just means that your own playtesting has led you to the same optimization results as another person who's tested the deck.  

On the other hand, you might notice your deck has a few marked changes from a known list, and you disagree with the netdeck's choices.  This is great.  It doesn't always mean the netdeck list is not optimal - there are definitely metagame considerations to be made for each decklist.  However, if you find yourself disagreeing with some card choices and can back it up with solid reasoning, it shows that you really understand your deck through and through.

So, if your deck is:

A) Based off an original concept
B) Personally tweaked to semi-perfection
C) Suddenly winning tournaments

Aren't you happy? :)


In conclusion, keep at it, defector - try not to get discouraged and say to yourself, "Well, this decktype isn't working, I guess I should move to a better known one" - keep improving your decklist.  This is a big advantage over netdeckers - most are too afraid to change their decks to adapt to their local metagame.

Besides, don't you want to have your cake and eat it too?

[defector]

Thank you Trystal, I think that is what I needed to hear.  Back to making a better mousetrap.
defector

[yodoblec]

You ever think about playing with Damping Matrix in the sb? If you can resolve it against GAT, you only have to worry about Quirion Dryad.

[Rico Suave]

I do not have problems with original decks, or adjusting a deck to win.

I do have problems with people who take a netdeck and change it simply because they want to look cool for doing it.  I wasn't aware that he had no power, so I was wondering why he would change it so automatically.

Since you brought i up, my opinion is that somebody should start with a netdecked list, and play it a lot.  Changing even one or two cards before you know how it works will drastically change how the deck plays out in many cases, so why not start with a netdeck and then change it to suit your needs?  That will save a lot more time than "oh wait, I should be using the netdecked cards in the first place, duh."  

At anyrate, continue on.

[defector]

To yudoblec: I had 4 damping matrix in the sb at that last tourney, i used it against tnt(welder is my enemy), and tog.  It never showed against tog and had little impact on the tnt deck.  Oh, we,l its still a great card.

To Ricosauve:  Here are my changes vs smemmy's mindslaver. -1 black Lotus, -1 Mox emerald, -1 Mox Saphire, -1 Mox Ruby +4 Wasteland, -1 Timewalk +1 Cunning Wish. -1 Library of Alexandri +1 Basic Island.  Is that reasonable? I would love to try out Smemmy's list in total and practice and learn, but my tourneys are generally non-proxy.  I thought modifying towards disruption was the best method to combat my lack of jewely. Any insight you have on thsi would be helpful, belive me i'm not cutting moxen to be cool   and how this discussion took on that tone isn't clear to me.
defector

[yodoblec]

It's very hard to substitute lands for moxen or  a lotus.

[defector]

I don't think substitute is even such an appropriate word as relegate, or beg or ###@$##$%^$#@%^$% or something like that.
defector

land is <<<<<<<<< Mox, that goes for everything but the Academy

[Toad]

To Ricosauve:  Here are my changes vs smemmy's mindslaver. -1 black Lotus, -1 Mox emerald, -1 Mox Saphire, -1 Mox Ruby +4 Wasteland, -1 Timewalk +1 Cunning Wish. -1 Library of Alexandri +1 Basic Island.  Is that reasonable?

Slavery cannot function half-powered. It needs all the moxens. You should really play the deck more before considering some cards in it because suggesting Wastelands shows you don't understand how the deck runs. This deck cannot afford Wastelands.

[defector]

Well, it certainly hasn't been running well, that's fro sure.  Wasteland was just the first direction I took.  What do you think for the 1/2 powered player.  My next effort was going to be Chrome Mox(probably getting imprinted with a brainstrom), Mox Diamond(tough to draw), and fetches.  Toad:  Do you think the deck that dependant on the 7 sololmox that it can't be run without them?
defector

[Toad]

This is a Workshop deck. Workshop decks cannot be run without the full acceleration.

[defector]

More's the pity for the un-powered player.  Still, you have to make do with what you have.
defector

[kirdape3]

No.  You can't.  You know what happens if you try to go off half-cocked with a Workshop deck?  Now everything in your deck costs ten billion.  A four year old with a popsicle stick can goldfish you from that position.

If you don't have full power, you're not only not playing Workshop, but you're going to have a hard time playing Tog, Keeper, or any combo deck.  Oh look that's all the good decks in the field save the answer decks.

[defector]

I don't want to play an answer deck and I don't have the resources to aquire all the power, this is the grand conflict at the heart of this format.  I wish there was a way off the 7 sololmox, but there doesn't appear to be any.  I wish there was a 1.5 list that I could play as well, again to no avail.  Type 1 players will continue to run into this wall until something really changes, in the mean time I guess I will continue to follow the philosophy that I will lose my games to the fully powered while playing imperfect versions of whatever I like whether they be my own or inside an established archetype.
defector

[Klep]

If you want to do this kind of Workshop deck without any actual workshops or moxen, you simply cannot get around the fact that you need to accelerate your mana.  I strongly suggest you look toward Extended Tinker decks instead of Type 1 Workshop decks if you want to construct a 'budget' brown deck.  As kirdape3 said, if you don't have Workshops, your curve is prohibitively high.    You need to look to cards like Metalworker if you want to have any hope of competing with this style of deck against powered decks.  You cannot grab a powered Workshop list, cut out the moxen and workshops, and start replacing them with other things.  Those decks are designed with those 10 cards in mind, and they are simply irreplaceable.  You have to start somewhere new, and Extended is where you want to look.

[defector]

I hear you, but I have:
Mishra's Workshop X4
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Ancestral Recall
Timetwister
If 5 proxy were sanctioned, there would be zero complaints.
So, if I want to run these I'm either out a grand with a 1.5 slaver or in the game with a shitty type 1 slaver.  I also own 4 mana drains and all the rest of the clutter in Hulk and Keeper, except the notables fromtaking 9-what I have above, so rinse and then repeat.
Joy to the world, we can re-tell this story for eba as well, landstill to.  I don't own bazaars, so I can't complain about the so close doesn't count for O stompy and Dragon.  The only unfairness worth complaining about as far as I'm concerned is that it doesn't matter that you own the cards that define that deck, it matters that you don't own the cards that define type 1, which i guess is the only bitter pill you have to swallow in type 1.  On the upside, I'll be missing the same cards until magic goes away, unlike going through a cycle of aquiring/missing cards like t2 players.  I guess I'd rather pine for a black lotus than another reprinted  foil wrath of god.
defector

[Smash]

Play UG madness, the deck cost like $30. Or food chain goblin cost $60. (okay sans a little power, but its not that bad). No need for another budget thread in the t1 forum...

[Toad]

Closed as requested by defector.
-- Toad.