SlapJack does 3-2 at Library Tourney at Who's on 1st

[LotusHead]

Greetings.  I am now brave enough to post my tourney report in the Open T1 Forums.  SlapJack wins 3-2 at Who's on 1st in a 3/5th powered environment (estimate by Dennis, a local).  SlapJack loses to Fish again and Landstill.  SlapJack, however, takes on 7/10 and wins 2-0. (Oh, I beat a Curious Zoo Clamp deck and a "Black" Dragon deck with no Force of Wills.

This weeks incarnation of SlapJack: The Auriok Salvagers Combo/Control deck by LotusHead has undergone the first actual overhaul of the maindeck since bursting onto the scene 2 weeks agon.  Due to 5 Proxies and a prize worth winning, I had to find room for Ancestral Recall and Time Walk.  I stayed with 2 Drains (Ie, not proxying the other two) for reasons I may or may not discuss later.

The DeckList: SlapJack by LotusHead 7/24/05
(No changes in Mana base)
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strain
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
(Control: -2 Ertai's, +1 Misdirection maindeck)
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Mana Drain
(Draw/Search: Same as before, but with proxy power!)
1 Ancestral Recall PROXY
1 Time Walk PROXY
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Cunning Wish
2 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor (Now changed to Enlightened Tutor post tourney)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Twister
(Combo Critters: No change...ever.)
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mages
(Utility Stuff: -2 Spheres, +1 Seal, +1 Stern Proctor from before)
2 AEther Spellbombs (still the bomb!)
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Stern Proctor (Now replaced with a second Seal due to it's being better)
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gorilla Shaman.

Sideboard Tech
1 Stern Proctor (now 2 sideboard, post tourney)
2 Seal of Cleansing (Now 2 maindeck, post tourney)
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Sacred Ground
1 Echoing Truth
1 Entomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Reanimate (Will go Shallow Grave route when I get one...)
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Brain Freeze
1 Capsize (SERIOUSLY considered Culling Scales here: See Null Rod)
1 Orim's Thunder

(EDIT: I have now decided to comment on not including 2 Proxy Drains when I still had 3 more proxies I could have used.  With 2 maindeck Misdirections and 4 Force of Wills, that equals 6 counterspells that are free.  I was using 2 Ertai's Meddling, 2 Drains, 1 Misdirection and 4 Force of Wills (9 counters), but decided that 6 free ones will do enough now that Ancestral and TimeWalk are in the mix.  6 free counters +2 Drains instead of 5 free counters, +2 Drains, +2 Ertai's Meddling was a Maindeck Change-up I was willing to make.  Goldfishing with 4 Drains was exhausting, and my experience with Keeper on Thursday showed me that a fist full of blue is not neccessarily a win. END EDIT)

On to the report!

Round 1: German playing Curious Clampy Zoo
Game 1:
He goes first, playing Island. I go and play land, Aether Spellbomb, he EOT Ancestrals. I let him. He discards Naturalize and River Boa at his end of turn.

Hmmm. I go and play Explosives for 2. I later have 2 Salvagers, and Demonic Tutor and some blue stuff, so I play Salvagers to get Forced by German.

The next turn after that, I topdeck Salvager #3.  My deck still has Mojo. I cast Salvager #2 and it resolves.
The turn after that, I Tutor for Lotus and win. On to game 2!
Game 2:
He goes first, and lets me Misdirect his Ancestral to me. Thanks!

For the next few turns, he plays threats, and I play Explosives, or just take it for a while.  I resolve a Salvager on my 3rd or 4th turn and I blow Explosives again.  I lay an AEther on the table and say go.

German Clamps and he Clamps and he Clamps but just can't find an answer to the inevitable.

I resolve Trinket Mage for Lotus and win with Misdirection, Wish and Twister in hand...  On to round 2.

Round 2:
Grrrr.  Joe with Fish. The same Joe with the same Fish that beat me with the same Null Rods and Force of Will backups. Today was not much different.

Game 1: I go first and play land, Spellbomb.
He plays land.
I play land, Spellbomb again.
He plays land, NULL ROD!!!! I Force! It goes to his graveyard.
I play Tolarian.
He plays NULL ROD!!!!!!!!! AGHGHGH!
I Misdirect his Curiosity to my Trinket Mage, so he kills it.  Then he kills me bit by bit as I stare at his Null Rod. I die.

Game 2: I go first and play land, Mox, Mox, Sol Ring.
He plays land, go.
I play land, go. Or don't play land. I forget.
He TOP DECKS NULL ROD!!! I Force it, pitching Ancestral (which upon reflection, I could have CAST Ancestral and hoped for blue plust 2 more cards instead. Such is life) and he FORCES BACK!!!! AUGHGHGH!
Well, that IS how Fish is supposed to work, but why Null Rod all the time? Every time? I am not whining. This is just internal monologue here. He kills me a few turn/standstills later and I see none of my six Null Rod Answer Cards (not including Wish). I lose 2-0. I am now 1-1.

Joe kindly agrees to play some more games post board for fun, and I trash him!  Obviously his Null Rods do not appear, because the match is not at stake anymore.  Joe is a quality Fish player, or at least a very very lucky one. He schooled SlapJack at the tourney textbook style. Resolve Null Rod vs Combo, and WIN!  On to round 3!

Round 3: Raiyaan playing Black Dragon with Sui Sideboard.
Game 1:
Raiyaan is not playing Force of Will, so I win game one. My combo's come up, but he cannot Duress my combo pieces (Mage, Salvager). I combo casually on turn 4.
Game 2: I set up my board position with Land, LED, Mox, Mox Monkey and eat his Jet. (He played Alchor's Tomb as well).
We draw-go for a while, then I play my AEther Spellbomb. Nice.
He casts Necromancy in responce and I Drain it.

On his turn, he top decks Tainted Pact, and soon has an Animate Dead in hand, with Dragon and Laquatus waiting eagerly in his graveyard.  He plays Animate Dead, and I start to tap (tip tap tip tap kind of tap) my LED and AEther Spellbomb. Realizing the predicament he was in, he animates Laquatus. I combo off next turn, hardcasting Salvagers off Drain Mana, as he has no cards in hand. I win 2-0. On to round 4!

Round 4: Luis with 7/10.
I lost to this deck last week piloted by TheLegendOfMagic and seriously had to work on my "Survive 7/10 technique" as that deck is a monster!
Game 1: He plays Glimmervoid, Ancestral, then Ruby. I don't know if this is Draw7 or some 7/10 thing at this point. I play Volcanic Island, Mana Crypt, Trinket Mage (it resolves? Cool!) Black Lotus.
He resolves a Guilded Lotus with (probably) Workshop Mana.
I play Salvager, he Forces, I Wish for a Red Blast and Blast his Force. (yay for me!)
He resolves 2 Welders.
I recure Lotus, play Spellbomb for the win. On to game 2! (yes yes yes!)
Game 2:
He plays Pearl, Chalice for 0 and Workshop.
I play land, go.
He draws and says go. (no new land? hmm.)
I play land and Seal of Cleansing (In from board, 3 in the deck now. Love that card.)
He draws and says go. (no new land? Hmmmmmm....)
I play land, Trinket Mage for Lotus. All resolves and I have Lotus in hand.
He drops Trinisphere. Hm. Trinisphere AND Chalice for zero. How nice.  
Later in the game, he resolves a Welder and then welds out Trinisphere for a Titan in his yard. Out go 1 Plains and 1 Tundra. I take a hit for 7 after playing another land, but after THAT, I realise that there is no Trinisphere in play anymore! WOW! I play Sol Ring, Mox Monkey, chomp Chalice, play Mox, Lotus, Wish for Echoing Truth.

He Time Twisters my Lotus back into the deck and the final card in my hand (I asked him if he remembered what was left in hand. He did. Echoing Truth. Luis is no dummy.). I had laid the beats on him with double Trinket Mage action and he was down to about 4 or so pre-Twist. I was at 11.  He had 3 Sundering Titans in play, no land on my side and a brand spanking new Chalice for zero on the board.
My new hand had Misdirection, Demonic Tutor, Brainstorm, more Moxen and a Time Walk. I played the moxes(EDIT: I belive that I simply used the moxes I already had to do the Tutoring/Echoing Truth thing. I don't think I did further Chomping, but I think I brainstormed into Demonic, played Time Walk and the rest the new moxes were probably in hand at the end. END EDIT) and the Time Walk. Then, I Demonic Tutored for any card that might give me the win.  That card turned out to be Echoing Truth and his Titans soon flew back into his hand, letting my Trinkets do the final beats. I win 2-0 against 7/10 this time. Yay me.

Now Luis doesn't use Old School SlapJack Sideboard vs Control Tech like Glasses of Urza, so he couldn't have known what was in my hand, but I belive letting Trinisphere leave the table was a mistake.  He had Chalice for 0 and Trinisphere on the table versus a Combo Deck that he was at least marginally familiar with from TMD threads and the local tourneys. Had he left me to deal with Chalice for zero AND Trinisphere, I may not have won game 2. Such is life. On to round five. SlapJack is currently 3-1! Still has a shot at a Library of Alexandria! SlapJack is still in the running.

Round 5: Gim/DUCK with LandStill.

Game 1: I play island, Spellbomb.
He plays Library, go.
I play plains, Time Walk (Can't help myself. It's a proxy, and I'm playing Combo against someone who dropped a turn one Library.!)
 I play land go, and it's Duck's turn again. (He draws EOT, duh!)
He draws and discards WASTELAND! Huh?
I draw, land go.
He draws and discards Fairy Conclave. Huh?
I draw go.
He Mishra's Factory goes.
I Brainstorm, he forces.

He plays a Tundra. I write this down dutifully in my notes, but do not realize that he is not neccessarily playing Fish.  He played Fish last time I saw him.  His other cards were Fishy. Tundra is not. It does not click that I may not be facing Fish. I am a noob! So sue me!
He plays Polluted Delta which made me suspect that maybe he was not Fishy after all, or maybe just Rogue Fishy. I don't know. But I do know that I Misdirect his Ancestral Recall to ME! Yay me!.
 
I try to resolve Salvagers. It resolves. This is the moment where I had 2 Forces and a blue card in hand, LED/Spellbomb and Salvager on the table. I went for the win, ditching my sweet double Force hand. Then he SWORDS TO PLOWSHARED my Salvager during the "Bring LED back to my hand" phase. What??! It was only then did it dawn on me that this most definately was not Fish. By now he had 2 Tundras. My Salvagers go sadly to the removed from game pile, and I may have even been in too much shock to even gain my 2 stupid life.

Duck then Wastes a land, and plays a Nevynryal's Disk. Landstill. Now it clicks.  I have heard of this, and the lists I saw looked very Fishy, but here it is in the flesh. It doesn't FEEL fishy.  It feels...strange.
SlapJack topdecks a Seal of Cleansing for that Disk and his next disk.  His (presumably) sideboarded Tormod's Crypt keeps me on edge, but SlapJack can deal with Crypts. It just takes planning and backup.
Later, I administer some beats with Trinket Mages and possibly a Salvager, and he Balances the board away, cutting his land down to three (2 Factories and a Volcanic Island).  He rypted away 1/2 my win conditions in response to my Timetwister. (note, I still had a chance.). When the game was down to the wire, I resolved a Salvager.  When I was ready to go off, he Stifled my (put LED in hand ability), so I spent another 1W, which he STIFLED AGAIN!. FOUR STIFLES MAINDECK! AUGHGHGH!.  Anyway, one of the above meantioned Balance/DisK actions happened somewhere around here, and he Time Walked, attacked and attacked again.  SlapJack was down to the TopDeck or Bust action, and I did not topdeck a win. I shook hands with the Duck an SlapJack was free to make the deck overhauls listed above.

Props to all at Who's on First?, especially Jeff the owner for actually recognizing me from the ONE TIME that I came to his store TEN YEARS EARLIER! I beat him then 2-0 with my red/green Kirk Ape/Grizzly Bear common card deck versus his ForceField Icy Manipulator Royal Assassin deck.  Those were the days.
Props to Christian for winning a Library and TheLegendofMagic for winning the Chains of Mephistopholes.  The final game was intense! See TheLegendOfMagic's report for the full skinny.
Props to all the TMD'rs who gave me tips on my deck and to never give up.  Some TMD'rs at the tourney still don't like my deck, but hey. Thanks for advise from people who like new ideas!
Props to Misdirection for letting me draw 6 cards today.  It's like a Stroke for 6 for me, and a Memory Lapse X6 for my opponents!

Slops to Fish's Magical TopDecking Null Rods, and Fish's Null Rod backing Force of Wills.
Slops to the Toll Bridges who think that they need $3 per zillions of motorists per day instead of $2 per zillions of motorists per day.

[wuaffiliate]

Bad deck, bad metagame, good job.

What was the prize structure?

[DEA]

I was at 11.  He had 3 Sundering Titans in play, no land on my side and a brand spanking new Chalice for zero on the board. I played the moxes and the Time Walk.

judge!

[wuaffiliate]

ahahahha owned

[DEA]

i think he missed the part where he ate the chalice using the shaman
at least, i hope he did

[LotusHead]

I edited the original post as to what happend.  Basically, Luis Twistered to get my Lotus out of the yard, and get Echoing Truth back into my Libary.

I wrote down what I had in my hand during this brief time, and due to the options I had, I picked Time Walk first, then Brainstorm, and Tutor next turn. He was at 4. I had 3 Mages and he had 3 Titans.  With the mana I had availiable, I said outloud, "is there something in my deck that will make me win now?". I was not sure.  The Echoing truth was in the sideboard at the beginning of game 2, and I wished for it earlier during a lull. Just in case, you know?

Thank you for reading these reports line by line.  There were spectators to this particular match (Important in my deck's developement).  If anything I reported was incorrect, feel free to point things out.

For the record, DUCK did let me fetch a Tolarian Academy initially.  I put it back, since not all lands that produce blue are Islands, being such a noob for getting it.  I noticed the mistake.  But it would have been SWEET having that Academy at that point, you know?  Silly me.

EDIT:
WuAffiliate asked about the Prize Structure.
1st Place Library of Alexandria
2nd Place Chains of Mephistopheles
3rd Place ummm. I forget. Check the Tournament Forum or TheLegendOfMagic's upcoming report)
4th Place 4 Foil DCI Serum Visions

The first 5 rounds of matches determined the top 4.  I placed 10th out of 23.  2-0, 0-2, 2-0, 2-0, 0-2. Fish schooled me Fish style, and Landstill caught me completely off guard.  

Also, I edited original post to reflect more maindeck choices.

WuAffiliate also commented on Bad Deck, Bad Metagame.

I am playing SlapJack to test it in combat. My deck is getting better. I'll keep posting tourney reports in the open, for all to see, for better or worse.  

As for a bad metagame, I am not sure what you mean.  If you meant that the Who's on First? crowd was a bunch of noobs, then I belive you are incorrect.  TheLegendOfMagic's upcoming tourney report will hopefully shed more light on the Meta that day.  I personally saw 3 Workshop Prison decks (Stacks?), Dragon, Hulk Smash, Fish, LandStill and 6/10.

If you meant that my matchups was the bad metagame, then you are sort of correct.  Curious Clamp Zoo and ForceLess Dragons were a piece of cake and say little about my deck.  LandStill, Fish and 7/10 say more about my deck.  I only won against 7/10 in my 3 "Real Deck Matchups", but hey.

I'm still working on being a contender against Fish. Luckily, that same work should help me against 7/10 as well.  LandStill stomped on me because DUCK is a good player and I was unfamiliar with it's maindecked capabilities. When I ditched my hand to activate LED for the win, I made a noob mistake for not being fully aware of all the T1 decks.  I hadn't read about LandStill in a long time. END EDIT

[jtchinoy]

interesting turn out, i got 3-2 w/ my rogue reanimator...
yeah, that deck was an idea jef from whos on first was thinking, then we were like o he has it. XD

This is your first post? Please familiarize yourself with the rules. -Dr. Sylvan

[TheLegendOfMagic]

Nice report , hope to see you in futre type 1 events.

This is not your first post. Please familiarize yourself with the rules. -Dr. Sylvan

[Dozer]

I remember that when Ben Bleiweiss wrote his apology to Type-1-players, the thing we all agreed MOST on was the naming of decks. He said "make it legible", and almost everybody said "yeah, you're right there, and we have made a start". So why in God's name is this deck called "SlapJack" instead of "Salvager.dec"?

You can be creative about the names you give your personal incarnation. But for the sake of lowering the access barrier to our format, use an intuitive name! Or at least write it in your report/thread title and on top of your decklist.

Oh, and names are *not* the key thing to get remembered as a Deck's creator when your deck does not get highlighted on the Sideboard because it has won 3 GP's.

Keep it simple.

Dozer

[LotusHead]

SlapJack is a kid's card game played in the States.  See a Jack, Slap it.  Simple.

The motions of Comboing off with SlapJack (My Auriok Salvagers Combo/Control deck) is by taking the Lotus from your hand, into play, to the graveyard, back to you hand etc. SlapJack.

Sorry for the double post. My computer is having glitches (6th attempt to fully reply here.)

EDIT: The Origins of SlapJack can be found in the Newbie section.

NEW EDIT: (My computer has beed doing weird stuff. This is the 8th time or so I've been trying to post this bit)

At Eudemonia, SlapJack goes 2-1, Cursed by Fish Again.

Round 1: Will playing a 80 card deck.

Game 1: He Paralyzes my Trinket Mage, then kills it with his Royal Assassin.  I combo off Game 1 and 2 quickly and it's on to Casual Games with our 30+ minutes left in the round. Will is a casual player who has been out of the loop for some time.  He is here to play some Magic and does not know about sideboards yet.

Casual Game 1:  He casts Control Magic on my Hermetically Studied Horseshoe Crab and seals the deal. Ah, the memories.

Casual Game 2:  I stablize at 1 life with Superman donning a Viridian Longbow and Spidersilk Cloak.  My Marsh Vipers get Pemmimed up with the longbow/Cloak and I go on to win with the Poison Kill (My deck: Thulsa Doom. Longbows and Vipers...). I explain the changes in "Magic," especially Type 1.  Like Serra Angels actually suck now, and SuperMan, though quite impressive in my deck, is not even good enough for the best T1 deck to play (4CC).

Round 2: Edgar Playing ???

Game 1: I win the toss and mull a crap hand into a crappier hand, and infact, mull to an even crappier hand of Force, Force, Force, Ertai's, and Brainstorm.  Well, if he's playing combo, he won't beat me turn one.

Edgar plays FISH!!! Game 1 I die. My deck kills me.  Edgar doesn't even have to try.

Game 2: A Forced Null Rod followed by and unForced Null Rod turn 3 or 4 keeps SlapJack on the defensive.  In these situtations, SlapJack goes on the offensive.  I cast bombs so he will sacrifice his Spiketail hatchling to them. Gosh I feel like I am falling into Fish's Tempo Trap.  My Trinket beats bring him down to 1 life before I die. (Hey, at least it's closer!)

Round 3: Andrea playing something with Trinsipheres.

Game 1: I combo out after Draining his early Trinsphere. Yay me.

Game 2: It is a close battle.  His Chalice for 0 keeps me at bay for a while, but we trade beats until he is at 4 and I am less than 10.  He chumps my Trinket beats with his Welder so as not to die from a die roll from his Crypt.  I top deck a Pyrite Spellbomb and he loses his last life. He had a Mox Emerald and a Taiga as his only "Survival/Red 1 Mana Mean Creature" mana base.  It was tough for him.  I killed his Platinum Angel with Orim's Thunder, taking out a Juggernaut, but leaving Survival intact.

Apperently, he could have Welded in his Platinum Angel in response to the Crypt roll trigger, not dying, and attacking with an Anger in the yard (He was playing TnT and had an active Survival).

Oh well, he will never forget that trick. SlapJack wins to human error. (it was REALLY REALLY close.)

That was the follow up report. Later! (My computer finally lets me reply to posts! Yay!)