This is my first tournament report, I've played T1 semi-seriously until I got banned from sanctioned play. I've been playing T1 more actively recently and have been posting here for a short while. I play at C&J's mainly, going to places for Proxy tournaments because none are held at C&J's. I played at the Mox Jet tournament at Gems.
Here is the tournament thread:
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18585Here is me banned from the DCI:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/suspended (Derek Flores)
So a about Thursday, I hear about a tournament down south that a few of the C&J’s crew are heading down to. I ask if I can go and it’s cool with them, so the day of, I am in a dilemma of what to play. All I had was Gay/r, so I asked one of my friends if I could borrow his FCG. He also had Animal Farm that he decided he wasn’t going to play. I asked him if I could play it and he said sure. So we drove down to LA, with my hopes that I would run into a lot of Workshops and crush them game 1 and hope to win one of the 2 later games and dodge Blood Moon and a damaging Rack and Ruin. After the long drive we got there about two in the morning, the day of the tournament. The five of us build and decide decks for the next four hours and then finally manage to get to sleep about six. We wake up sometime between ten and eleven, have breakfast, then take another sort of long drive to the tournament which is supposed to start at 1:00.
Here was the list that I ran, I copied this straight from Christiaan’s (Zhalfirin) deck, along with his Eternal Witness as a Living Wish target that seemed to be golden:
Maindeck4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Horn of Greed
4 Exploration
4 Brainstorm
2 Living Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crop Rotation
1 Trade Routes
1 Fastbond
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Zuran Orb
1 Memory Jar
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Regrowth
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
Sideboard4 Null Rod
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Wasteland
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Woodripper
1 Viridian Zealot
Round 1Christiaan Royer (aka Zhalfirin) calls it, I have the bye. I wander around and watch my friends play, it sucks that my friends Dan Messineo and Ken Johnson (aka Kil0) are paired round one. Brent Peterson (aka unstablecornbread) gets to play the eventful Tog mirror match which he ends up drawing.
Matches: 1-0
Round 2 Gay/r – Casey McQuillinGame 1: I keep a triple Brainstorm with Crucible hand. My first Brainstorm reveals two more Crucibles, but without any fetches I can’t get rid of the excess. I pass the turn and he lays a Library of Alexandria and draws a card during my turn. He plays a Cloud of Faeries which I don’t even notice while I finally ramp up to three mana, without any acceleration and play Crucible, which gets Forced. The second one gets through with a Wasteland in play. I keep stripping away his lands while proceeding to draw absolutely nothing. Horn of Greed comes down and he has no answer and I still can’t find anything. After thirteen turns of attacking with a single Cloud, he plays two more and a Spiketail Hatchling with me at 7 life. I opt to cast Crop Rotation or Living Wish, I can’t recall which, for Glacial Chasm at this point and pay the upkeep once. Two turns later I finally get Fastbond with Chasm in play and show him the combo pieces.
Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish
Game 2: He mulls to five and I get second turn Crucible with active Strip Mine, he concedes.
Matches: 2-0
Round 3 4cc – Patrick Pearcy aka Tracer BulletGame 1: Pat had commented earlier while I played next to him in round two on my interesting deck choice. I get a first turn Fastbond that stays and lay Horn of Greed. I expend as much as I can but get nothing. His start with Library actually makes me thankful that he probably won’t have two blue on turn 2 to play Mana Drain. Eventually after a few turns of drawing nothing, he disenchants my Fastbond. I have no cards in hand and no Crucible while I topdeck Explorations for the next three turns while being hit by two Angels.
Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish
Game 2: I lay the turn one Fastbond again and get a Horn into play. Pat plays Library first turn again and draws a card. On my turn I get Crucible and Zuran Orb to which he has no Force of Will and I win on turn two.
Game 3: Pat leads off with, you guessed it, Library of Alexandria. I get a Trade Routes in play and an Exploration. With three lands in play, one of them being a Workshop I cast Living Wish he lets it resolve. I look at the two Crucibles in my hand and think for a bit should I get Gorilla Shaman or Eternal Witness incase he has two-three counterspells. I opt for the Mox Monkey because of his five mana sources, two are moxen. On my next turn, I lead off with Mox Monkey, which he lets resolve. I play another Workshop and then attempt to cast Xantid Swarm. This eats a Mana Drain. Then, I use one Workshop to play Crucible, biting into a Force of Will. I cast the final Crucible with him at two cards and it resolves with Strip Mine in play. I Strip him once and then again with Exploration and then eat his two moxen with the Monkey, lowering him from five mana sources to one in a single turn. He has no way to recover from this.
Matches: 3-0
Round 4 4cc – Dan DrexlerBefore the round started there were three 3-0’s, Dan, myself, and Ken Johnson (aka Kil0). The pairings get posted and I think I am playing Ken and we agree to draw to guarantee top 8 for us. However, the pairings were screwed up and I end up playing Dan.
Game 1: I keep a pretty good hand with Crucible and Strip Mine. Dan is able to get an early morphed Exalted Angel, but could not find the second white to flip it over. I cast Crucible of Worlds, expecting a counterspell, but miraculously it resolves. I begin to whittle away his lands and he ends up with just a Mox Pearl and Sol Ring in play. He is able to get a Tundra to flip over the Angel after a few hits. I’m down to 11 life and feel threatened. I cast Living Wish and proceed to get Glacial Chasm, hoping he doesn’t have a Wasteland. I let it hit me once with the upkeep then I kept replaying it from the grave with CoW. Finally I am able to combo out at a precarious 5 life.
Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish
Game 2: I draw the nuts. He plays land and says go. First turn I just win. Fastbond, Ancestral, Workshop, Crucible of Worlds, Brainstorm into Zuran Orb and Horn of Greed, GG. My opponent comments, “I’ve gotten turn one combos before, but I’ve never had it done to me.�
Matches 4-0
Round 5 Stax – Christiaan Royer (aka Zhalfirin)I am using Christiaan’s deck so I think knocking him out of the tournament at this point might just leave me in a bind when I find I have no deck to play top 8. I am the only 4-0 at this point and there are about four 3-1’s. After checking what would happen if I conceded or drew to him, both would make him into top 8, we decided that to make sure none of the C&J players would play against each other in round 1 of top 8, we decided it would be best if I conceded.
Matches 4-1
Our plan worked, we put C&J players in spots 1, 2, 4, and 6, ensuring that we would not play in round 1 of top 8.
Top 81. Animal Farm – Me
2. Stax – Christiaan Royer (Zhalfirin)
3. Sligh – Sugrim
4. Stax – Ken Johnson (Kil0)
5. 4cc – Pat Pearson (Tracer Bullet)
6. Tog – Brent Peterson (unstablecornbread)
7. TnT - Joe
8. Stax – David Hernandez (Lemme think about this…)
Quarterfinals Stax – David Hernandez (aka Well I guess you know who)We had talked before top 8 and I knew he had no Blood Moons, to my great relief. This matchup is quite in my favor as long as there is no Blood Moon. My only way to deal is to play explosives for 3 ASAP, or Living Wish for Zealot using a Mox and a Lotus.
Game 1: On his first turn he leads off with two moxen, a Mana Crypt, a land and a Tangle Wire. I found this first turn very confusing. I take my turn going Land, Exploration, Land, Ancestral Recall. I see what he planned to do and on turn two he casts Ancestral Recall and Meditate during his upkeep. I have to play two turns of Tangle Wire at three, but with Exploration it isn’t that bad. On my second turn I develop my mana base, playing two turns. On my Meditate turn I get a HoG or two in play with Mishra’s Workshop and then play Fastbond with Zuran Orb. I am out of lands but my last card is Vampiric Tutor. Another Tangle Wire I believe comes and during my upkeep I Vamp for CoW and win.
Game 2: I was never really in this game. He gets an early Trinisphere after moxen and proceeds to lock me with Tangle Wire. He eventually Tinkers out Sundering Titan and I am dead a few turns later.
Game 3: My hand has Workshop, Lotus, and Timetwister, the rest is all junk. I keep and hope that he ends up keeping seven cards so that Twister doesn’t give him more. He keeps his opening hand and I play those three cards. My draw is pretty good with Exploration, Mox Emerald, and Horn of Greed, with my second land being Academy. On Dave’s first turn he plays land, mox, Chalice for one. This is annoying, but I have Engineered Explosives in hand. I play it for zero and pop it taking away the moxen and Chalice. I Brainstorm to get a few better cards and say go. He plays another CotV at one and I look at my hand, I have Fastbond, but I also have my final Explosives. I Explosives away the Chalice and win next turn with CoW and ZOrb.
We talk a bit afterwards, his first hand was nuts with many lock pieces, but the Twister robbed him of everything in game 3. He said good look and then I went to watch the other matches, my quarterfinals match was fun to play and I thank DaveHernandez for being a great opponent. Christiaan Royer (Zhalfirin) was smashing the TnT player, but alas it was just a fun game. Brent Peterson (unstablecornbread) is able to get out of a Maze of Ith by Flinging a Psychatog for exactly enough damage. Finally Ken (Kil0) and Pat (Tracer Bullet) are in a game, with Pat locked down but he had a morphed Angel. Ken had a 18 card window to draw anything to win, of course he does draw 17 lands and proceeds to lose the match because of this.
Semifinals 4cc – Patrick Pearcy (Tracer Bullet)I know that this matchup is not in my favor, but I had been testing 4cc versus Turboland up till 6 am the morning before the tournament, so I think I could attempt to put up a fight if I played it properly. Although, looking back, 6 am didn’t seem like it was the right call.
Game 1: I keep a fairly unspectacular hand that allows me to play Horn of Greed from my moxen. That’s about all I do until I try to cast CoW which gets forced. I have another in hand and hope to start blowing up lands every turn once I get my next turn. My hand is Twisted away and I lose my second Crucible. I am in topdeck mode and he has a full grip. Pat gets Yawg Will while only a quick glance at his graveyard makes me concede with many draw spells and a Twist to get rid of the cards I had been trying to play against him all in one turn.
Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish
Game 2: I mulligan down to 6 for the first time in the tournament and keep a double Crucible hand, but no acceleration. My lands are Fetch, Strip, Wasteland, not breaking any until turn 3 when I play the first CoW. It gets forced while I keep taking beats from a Mox Monkey. Next turn I play the second CoW which lives, but he has six mana and the Monkey, I hoped he didn’t have the final mana. I make what I believe to be my only serious misplay of the tournament, so happy that I got CoW to resolve I forget to replay my land after the second CoW had resolved. Alas, he does have the seventh mana and he eats my Crucible. I then get a Xantid Swarm to resolve, but my hand is devoid of threats. He does make the mistake however of not casting Skeletal Scrying in response to a Swarm attack. Alas, Scrying goes off next turn and then he cycles Decree for two. I am at 9 at this point and really have no outs but to get some godly draws of Glacial Chasm and hope his full hand doesn’t have any counters. I draw nothing and die three turns later to three 1/1’s.
I end up splitting for third and fourth place with Joe because the prize difference was minimal and it wasn’t worth an extra match of Magic. He was playing TNT with Blood Moon, and Blood Moon is quite a scary thing.
Well the day before I was deciding to play either FCG or Fish, but when I learned that Christiaan (Zhalfirin) wasn’t going to be playing his Animal Farm deck I asked him if I could use it. I played the deck for about six hours straight and then got a minimal amount of sleep. I felt I did pretty well, with my only real loss being to 4cc in the top 8. I really can’t seem to think of anything to cut. I had really low impressions of Memory Jar as it really was only good when I had Exploration(s) or Fastbond, and if that is true, then I am probably in a pretty good situation that I don’t need it.
I was thinking maybe Wheel of Fortune, but this is my first time playing this deck since Gush was restricted, and Crucible has changed it quite a bit. I hope to keep playing this deck and see if there is any more room for improvement to an already tight decklist., but sadly, the Type 1 tournament at Worlds is sanctioned. I will be there to root on the C&J favorites.
EDIT: I found the 60th card!!! Stupid LoA!
