Well, I'll start off with saying that the tournout for this really sucked. It was just a FNM not a mox tourney or something but I expected more than 11 people considering it is the only card store in a town of about 50,000 people.
Also, the way the matches were organised was kind of weird. I didn't bother to research it, but forming two pools of 5 and 6, respectively, then the top 4 of each pool advancing to a t8, seems wrong.
Well, without further delay I will show you what I played:
WTF(budget):
17 creatures:
1 flying men
3 scryb srpites (in place of men)
4 spiketail hatchling
4 river boa
3 suq'ata firewalker
2 call of the heard
20 spells:
4 curiosity
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
2 stifle
2 caze
2 oxidise
1 null rod
1 crucible of worlds
24 lands:
1 strip mine
4 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
4 polluted delta
4 tropical island
2 forest
1 peldlehaven
sb:
2 BEB
2 sigil of sleep
2 rootwater theif
2 oxidise
2 naturalise
2 hiddon gibbons
1 null rod
1 gaea's blessing
1 slot (the crucible was here but it became a wasted filler slot to make it 15 cards)
The list in 61 cards by accident. The crucible was in my sideboard but somehow found it's way into the maindeck without my knowledge. I was surprised to draw it in my first game. All in all, It wasn't terrble, because the quantity of combo was quite low because only 2-3 people have power around here, and of course no proxies were allowed as this was a santioned event.
Due to the expected lack of power and increase in aggro, I cut 2 null rods for 2 call of the heard, whcih turned out to be a good decision. The 1 null rod and 2 oxidise were useless in almost every game.
So, on to the report. I didn't take any notes, but I wrote up a rough draft of this right after I got back from the tourney, at about 1-2am range, while it was still fresh. Since I havn't mentioned the date, It was a week ago today, or Friday the 23rd of July.
round 1: Chris, with budget U/R fish. (weird build. 22 mana sources. Wtf is that?)
game1: He goes first. I fow his first turn lavamancer, but he fows back. Not cool. That little red dude is insane and goes postal on my deck. I have no turn 1 play, and on his turn he swings and drops ANOTHER GRIM. I drop a scryb srpites and pass. He burns it, drops something else, and I eat more beats. I try a 3rd turn COW (which I was surppirsed to see) but it gets dazed. My deck can't do it's thing beacause of the grims, and I am beaten and burned to death.
game2: sb: +2 hidden gibbons, +1 BEB, -2 oxidise, -1 null rod
I get a solid start, leading with a first turn srpites and then wasting his dual. He doesn't see a grim for a while, and I get a boa into play as well as resolving COTH, and I lay down the beats with the help of a mishra's factory. He doesn't last long.
game3: same sb
This game is much like the first. His early grim stunts by board development and I die to the beatings of his superior horde.
matches: 0-1-1 games: 1-2-0
match2: Tim, with a mostly t2 affinty deck that doesn't have ravagers. His only t1 cards were sol ring and a md black vise. I can't w8 4 my oxidises and rod to pwn him.
game1: I go first, and drop a delta. he plays land, sol ring, and I oxidise the ring at his end step. I play a boa. He magma jets it. I am stuck at 2 land now. I play a boa. He magma jets it. I kinda stall out and eventually he drops an enforcer and beats me to death with it. The horrible shame and humiliation
.
game2: sb: +2 oxidise, +2 naturalise, +1 null rod. -3 firewalker, -2 stifle
I start of course. Again he magma jets my early stuff, which is very annoying. His ornithopters also piss me off, as he is able to block my little flyers and stop my curious draw engine. Eventually he starts swinging with a plated thopter. I waste 1 of his 2 glimmervoids and next turn I topdeck a null rod, which shuts down all his mana except for the remaing void. Unfourtunately, he has exactly 6 artifacts and proceeds to topdeck 2 myr enforcers in a row. I have nothing to deal with the thopter or the enforcers and I die with my null rod staring up at me.
matches: 0-2-0 games: 1-4-0
I am starting to lose faith in my deck now, but I deside to keep on playing because I know t8 will be pathetically ez to reach and I still have 3 games left in round robin
match3: John L. with semi-powered dragon. He borrowed emerald and ancestral, but that is all he has and he has no bazaars.
game1: I go first, I think. I lay on the disruption to his 4 colour mana base with 1-2 wastes and drop a spiketail. The beatdown commences. I daze his compulsion and he doesn't get another outlet. I beat with flyers and factories untill he is dead.
game2: sb: -2 oxidse, -1 null rod, -2 firewalker. +1 gaea's blessing, +2 BEB, +2 rootwater theif.
I disrupt and drop stuff, as in game 1, but he boarded in fire/ice and fires my dudes. WTF. He REBs a rootwater theif and then reanimates it as a blocker. (2/3 because he used the pump up one). Then he even reanimates a spiketail. This is insane. I have no river boa and can't attack into his blockers. He uses his compulsion outlet like crazy, of course, and is a couple of turns goes off with double fow backup, 3 fows being in his hand.
game 3: sb: well, asme as b4, except I get the bright idea to sb the naturalises for his compulsions (duh). -1 firewalker, -1 call of the heard, +2 naturalise
Early game I drop a spiketail but then get stuck at 2 land. I have more creatures in my hand but he gets a compulsion in play and drops a dragon in the yard. I have ph3412 of tapping out so I keep UU open (my only 2 lands) for the stifle and BEB in my hand that just luv to eat permentants. I know he will be cautious of those possibilities. Eventually he duresses away my stifle and I draw into some land. I saced the spiketail to something and am now beating with only a boa. He had sbed deed also and has one is play by now. I draw into a naturalise and nuke his compulsion. I draw into another naturalize which makes me feel warm, fuzzy, and safe
while he is put into topdeck mode. I curious the boa to dry to get some draw, but of course he deeds it away. Yay I can now play creatures again. I drop a spiketail. w00t. On his turn he makes a desperate play, hardcasting a WGD. He has 1 mana left for the spiketail. I have ph3412 of the big ass beatstick and use daze+spiketail to counter it, then swing with the boa on my turn. On his turn, he untapes, draws, the harcastcasts ANOTHER WGD. Shit. I have no answer and say ok. He removes all his land and passes. I am at 19 life with my boa staring down at a 7/7 flying trampling beatstick of doom. John is at 8. I islandwalk in (he played a land after casting the dragon), dropping him to 6. I have a land and a stifle in hand, and am hoping to draw a BEB to nuke the dragon and remove all his stuff. Oh his turn he swings and I go to 12. On my turn I topdeck the 1 thing that could save me besides the BEB I am thinking of. A river boa. I smile at him and beat him to 4, dropping the 2nd boa that will spell his doom. He draws and has nothing to stop me, and so scoops. Who says fish is afraid of 7/7 flying tramplers? River boa kicks the shit out of them
.
matches: 1-2-0 games: 3-5-0
match4: Nathan with weird U/G sceptered control. I'm not sure what was goin on here. His deck had no mana-fixing that I saw. The cards I saw were islands, forests, counterspell, fow, mis-d, sitle, scepter, mishra's factory, brainstorm.
game1:I don't have any idea what he playing when he plays first and says island, go. I also drop a land a pass. He is mana screwed as he misses his second land drop despite brainstorming. Ouch. He even brainstorms again next turn but to no avail. He stares at his lone island for 4-6 turns while I kill him. After the game he is pissed off and complains about screw, understandably. I didn't even touch his mana.
game2: I don't sb because I saw very little of his deck. I knew it was controling, so I might have thrown in gibbons, but I didn't bother with it.
I resolve a turn 2 boa and it starts beating down. He misses his turn 3 land drop, being stuck at mishra's factory and an island. Next turn he plays a scepter. I am filled with ph3412 of like fire/ice or draw card or something, so I brainstorm in response. I don't see a single daze, stifle, fow, oxidise, null rod, or even another brainstorm. So much for that. But his imprint brings a smile to my face: counterspell. lol. I can't think of a more useless thing he could have done. I curious my boa on my turn (he is tapped out) and draw many cards off it, eventaully getting a curious sprite also. He never gets more than those 2 land this game (I never see a stip or waste, lucky for him), and my massive card advantage combines with savage beats that he can do nothing about (COTH and mishra's factory joined the party, and I oxidised his counter-stick at one point). One word for him: PWNZ0RED. He complains of mana screw again at the end of it. 2 games in a row of severe screw seems unlikely. I am not familiar with his deck, but I would guess that he had a low land count as well as having no colour fixing.
matches: 2-2-0 games: 5-5-0
match5: Russ with G/U/r POWERED(borrowed, he had ancestral, lotus, 3 mox, timewalk) bazaar survival madness
Wurms and mongrels are incredibly fat and power incredibly broken. It doesn't seem hopeful.
game1: I play first, and go fetch, go. He fetches (I have no stifle for it) and grabs a forest so I can't wasteland it. On my turn I stip mine the forest
, and pass. I waste the next dual he plays, and the turn I hit 2 mana due to not being able to stripland something, I drop a spiketail. Ouch. With his mana development destroyed, I end up beating him down with a bunch of stuff including the spiketail, a river boa, COTH tokens, and mishra's factorie(s).
game2: sb: -1 rod, -1 oxidisise, +2 sigil of sleep
He goes first a plays a rootwalla off a taiga. I waste the dual, hoping to mana screw him. On his turn 2 he drops dual+sol ring+black lotus, hardast arrogant wurm. I have no fow for it and thus die horribly to 4/4 egotistical trampling wurm and 3/3 frog beats.
game3: Once again I go nuts with the mana denial with a strip and then a waste in my first 3 turns. I even play a crucible and totally wreck his mana so my little dudes can go postal on him.
matches: 3-2-0 games: 7-5-0
That is easily good enough so I advance to top 8.
quarter finals: John C. with U/R fish good build. Well, I am definately not looking foreward to playing this matchup again. Why couln't it be something easy like 4cc?
game 1: He goes first, and has an awsome start and plays turn 3 standstill with massive board advantage. Things arn't looking good. On my turn 3 I break it with a COW. He draws 3 and has no daze or fow for it. w00t. I waste every turn and manage to catch up with his board position. I destroy his mana base and when he dies it is with a lone basic island on the table. Awsome.
games 2&3: sb: +2BEB, +2hidden gibbons, -2 oxidise, -1 null rod, -1 curiosity.
These were both very close games that came down to damage races. Each time he just got board position too quickly for me to recover. I got a firewalker online in both of them, but it was simply too late stop the onslaught. (also in one of the games he stifled it's ability twice, which made the key difference between wining and losing)
obigatory slops and props:
props:
-pendlehaven: I know I never mentioned it but tap to make 1/1 2/3s is sweet
-brainstorm: soooo good; way much better than standstill
-river boa: for obvious reasons
-Donald: for giving me 2 free black bordered brainstorms to replace the white-boardered crap I was using
-Tom, for giving me a ride and beating John C. in the finals with 4cc and avenging my loss, as well as drving 1.5 hours to come.
-Douglas Shuler: The art on my mirage islands is so awsome I played them over foil ones from newer sets.
-BEB for "H20wning" things, particularily lavamacers.
slops:
-null rod and oxidise, for being practially useless in this meta
-grim lavamancer, for being INSANE
-hidden gibbons, for never shpwing up when I sbed you in
-Tim, for beating me 2 str8 with a t2 budget afinnity deck +sol ring and black vise
-my 2 white-boardered curiosities for not being black-boadered.
Well, all in all I had fun and will be better prepared for the meta next time. I hope that The Card Den will have 5-proxie tournies in the future as the addition of power could have greatly improved many of the budget decks that were present and given them a chance to compete with the powered players.
Any feedback is welcome, and I hope you enjoyed the report.
I would also appreciate if this stayed in Open so I can reply to any posts.
