Kowal's Waterbury Report - 3rd/4th

[Kowal]

The story that precedes this one isn't very interesting.  Matrix was supposed to show up right as I got out of my Psych class in Holyoke Community, but he never showed up, so I ended up taking a PVTA (pioneer valley transit authority) to Northampton, and thumbing my way to Waterbury.

Combined with traffic and having to switch vehicles, it came to about three and a half hours to make an hour trip.

I arrive and (thankfully) Ray hasn't left for the night yet.  I told Ray I'd be there about an hour earlier to help set up, but thankfully there were still some random errands for me to help him with by the time I arrived.  After a couple mix-ups involving how to get everyone to Ray's place for the pre-tourney party, we take off, and I make the super techy play of purchasing mints and deoderant at the local drug store.  Dodging gamer funk is a solid maneuver, and I think it was the call for Waterbury.

The partying at Ray's house group begins as me, Ray, Dave Mazza, Ray's girlfriend Theresa, and three hadley guys, hulk3rules, moobius, and Mykeatog.  Many were geeky and played chess or magical cards, while Phelon tried to convince people that bringing cans of beer in paper bags to the local diner was the best course of action.  Eventually those three wander off to Grand Inquisitor's place to resume drinking while I crash on Ray's couch.

Matrix wakes me up by arriving at like 3:30, and while he keeps me awake teching out his sideboard, I decide to prepare what I'm playing in the morning.  I had planned on an UrPhid list myself and Klep have been working on, but I decided to abandon it once I saw what was floating around the room that morning.  Here's what my list looked like.


Chalice Blue (aka, Menendian prodded me to run this and I'm a mindless drone)

4 Ophidian
2 Morphling

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Misdirection

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Back to Basics
2 Powder Keg

4 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
8 Island

SB:
4 Control Magic (if I wasn't retarded, I would have won the whole shebang thanks to these)
4 Energy Flux
3 Blue Elemental Blast (these kind of sucked, to be honest)
2 Decree of Justice (BANG baby)
1 Tundra (didn't see that coming, did you?  It's holland, too, signed by BR4M)
1 Back to Basics


So yeah.  I fuck up the computer, mise some free beverage and cheap smokes, and we begin round one.  Oh man oh man, I can't wait.  Can you?

...

...

I guess you can.


Round One:  Control Slaver

Game one I open with a retardedly broken hand that produces a first turn snake and a chalice at 1.  He keeps playing, until I know what he's playing so I can sideboard properly, and then I convince him to scoop in the interest of time.  How lucky!
Game two I fart on his mana and win at my leisure.  There's not much to tell, really.

1-0, 2-0


Round Two:  daboo911 with gay/white

Pags calls his deck Straight Fish, because it's less gay than gay/red.

Game one, I don't recall very well, but I do remember Back to Basics owns his face.  I'm pretty sure Chalice at 1 makes an appearance too.

Game two is stupid.  I go suicide morphling, but he answers with lotus, crucible, strip mine, time walk, null rod, strip your land, take time walk turn, strip your land again.  Somehow though, that's not enough, and my vanilla 3/3 eventually pounds hard enough to win the game.

2-0, 4-0


Round Three:  Crusher (with u/b for tinker, thoughtcast, and will if I remember correctly)

Game one he opens with workshop, sol ring, crusher.  I force pitching mana leak, and play a first turn phid with no non-mana in my hand.  He goes nuts off Skullclamp, some frogmites, an enforcer, and will.  I scoop it up.

Game two I open with island, mox jet, go.  He drops Vault of Whispers, Skullclamp.  I let it hit, because my turn two is island, Energy Flux.  He scoops.

Game three he opens with Seat of the Synod, Skullclamp.  I open with Island, Lotus, Energy Flux.  He scoops again.

Owned.

3-0, 6-1


Round Four:  Gay/Red

I recognize the kid's name from somewhere.  He looks to be about Kerz's age, but all I remember is that he plays fish.

Both games are uneventful.  I resolve Ancestral in both, as well as three impulses in both, and never see a Phid, a B2B, a Chalice, a Morphling, or a Powder Keg.  It was insane.  He nibbles me apart with ease.

3-1, 6-3

Yuck!


Round Five:  BrassMan with 3c Tog

Game one he digs up a sea with which to Duress me.  When he sees two Back to Basics, he realizes he should have fetched up a swamp despite the fact he was holding drain.  I drop a Back to Basics, and he sits around with black cards in hand and no black sources while I play a Phid and start beating him up with it.

Game two he's destroying me.  He resolves all four of his AKs and Ancestral, and he Wills to make it worse.  When he plays his tog (he boarded out his second) I've got nothing in play but a Chalice at 1, a Mox Ruby, and a Powder Keg

That Keg was at 2.

I was allowed to untap.

"How do you keep DOING these things to me, Ben Kowal?!"

4-1, 8-3


Round Six:  Food Chain Joblins

Game one we get in a bizarre situation in which my morphling gets toasted, and the board position is my ophidian, back to basics, chalice at 1, and like a hundred islands, versus his warchief, forest, mountain, chrome mox imprinting red, and asstons of tapped nonbasics.  I am forced to topdeck counters at the rate he topdecks threats just to survive.  Thankfully, my deck poops out my second morphling.  It was super lucky, and I shouldn't have won.  But how did I get in this position?  Ric Flair can answer that, as he watched me keep a hand of Ancestral Recall, Impulse, and five mana sources.  I proceeded to ancestral in to three more, topdeck b2b, and impulse in to two wastelands, a flooded strand, and an island.  Never scoop, bitches.

Game two, he walks in to my sideboard tech, and soldiers stomp all over him.

5-1, 10-3


Round Seven:  My Teammate BigDofCF with BURNiNATOR

Derek's deck was originally designed between him and kl0wn, and was further developed with Phil Stanton and myself.  It's no random joke, that thing puts the hurt on lots of shit.

Game one Derek forces me to go aggro with phids with an empty hand.  I try to bring his life total down low, and successfully lock him under his own pillar before he can stop my bitches.  

Game two Derek plays three consecutive ankhs before I have made many land drops.  On a hand of fetches, we both draw-go for a long time, before I manage to find powder keg and ramp it up to two.  I kill the ankhs, and he decides to play a bunch of shit and aim fire to my dome.  I drain a fireblast and turn it in to multiple phids and morphling.

Notes of interest?  In game two, I played a chalice at 1, that ended up almost making me lose.  JP was watching (literally, he was seated to my left) as Derek busted out Fractured Loyalty (the same card JP was eliminated from Richmond with, by the same player no less) and used my chalice to send fire at my snake without killing it, allowing him to not only stop my engine cold but to use it against me.

6-1, 12-3

I could draw in, but fuck that.  My opponent is Carl.  MEANDECK HEADS.


Round Eight:  Crazy Carl Winter, DeathLong

Game one I drop a Chalice at 0 and protect it while he flounders about, trying to break out of Back to Basics.

Game two I drop a Chalice at 1.  He cries on the inside as I destroy his manas and drop a second Chalice, this time at 0.

7-1, 14-3

I enter the top sixteen at second seed, behind Grand Inquisitor, who has successfully 8-0'd the swiss.


Top Sixteen:  Keeper

Game one I get owned by a library allowed to be active for far too long.  I made the mistake of chosing Back to Basics over a Wasteland with my Impulse.  JP should have better notes, since he was doing match coverage.

Game two I am forced to mull to five as I swear under my breath.  I keep a hand with an early chalice at 1.  Though my opponent gets lots of time to try to win, the chalice just annihilates his game plan and I win once I find lands to play with.

Game three he draws a mediocre hand, and my mediocre hand owns it.

8-1, 16-4


Top Eight:  TPS

Game one, I counter some of this threats, and drain Timetwister in to Ophidian, Time Walk.

Game two I drop Chalices like they were manseed, all over my opponent's face and in his mother's eyes.  Oh Chalice, thou art so sexy.

9-1, 18-4


Top Four:  The Atog Lord, Control Slaver

Game one his hand is WAAAAAY the fuck better than mine.  I can't keep up and he just works me over.

Game two I open with Island, Mox Jet, Chalice at 0.  It resolves, and I'm given the opportunity to drop Chalice at 1.  I do so, and he forces, pitching Brainstorm.  Then he takes his turn, dropping his land and passing.  On my upkeep, he Ancestrals, and I play Ophidian which resolves.  Then he drops his second land, walks in to his third, and plays Old Man of the Sea.  I can't find an answer because I boarded incorrectly and left Control Magic aside.  Crap!

9-2, 18-6


I debate hanging around to get the official 3rd place and my new Ruby, but I'm exhausted, and so is Matrix, who volunteered to drive me home.  I ask Carl and Aaron Lekarz what they'd rather have, and I just take the one they don't and leave.

Matrix + Empty highway = insane.  We got back to my place in under an hour, despite construction.


Obligatory Props and Slops

Props:
My opponents.  Rock on, my brothers.
Subway, for having bread when I counted on eating fresh
Ray, for organizing another awesome Waterbury, and not consuming my soul for screwing up the computer
Moobius, for helping Ray fix the computer
JP, for playing monogreen and beating the piss out of fish with it

Slops:
Me, for owning the computer savagely
Rich Shay, for stopping my conquest (I'll have your head yet, Richard Shay!)
BrassMan, for getting beaten in his t8 match and therefore not giving me the opportunity to play for a Brass Man and me finals.


Waterbury was mad sweet.  Thanks to all who showed up and played.

[Smmenen]

How can you not give me props for handing you the deck that won you power

[Kowal]

It's obv all about the pilot.

...and

Because I did that like two weeks before GenCon?  :p

[The Atog Lord]

I'll have your head yet, Richard Shay!

I'll be waiting  

[Smmenen]

It's obv all about the pilot.

...and

Because I did that like two weeks before GenCon?  :p

That's ridiculous.  You win a piece of power and you can't even give the sleightest credit.

[jpmeyer]

Ben Kowal vs. Scott Britschock

Ben is playing Mono-blue, Scott is with 4 Color Control

Ben played a Flooded Strand and Chalice=0.  Scott resolves Ancestral during Kowal's upkeep.  Kowal follows up with a Wasteland and breaks his Strand for an Island.  Kowal's attempt at Time Walk is Forced (pitching Brainstorm.)  Scott takes out Kowal's Wasteland withhis own Waste, but Kowal has a Strand to replace his land.  Scott Brainstorms on Kowal's EOT and is done.

Scott plays a Library on his turn with 7 in hand and Kowal breaks his fetch to Impulse, taking Back to Basics.  Kowal's Back to Basics is responded to with an LoA draw and a Brainstorm to find the Force, pitching Cunning Wish.  Scott draws another LoA card on his turn and plays a Flooded Strand and passes.  Kowal tries again with an Ophidian, which resolves, although Scott breaks his Flooded Strand for a Tundra in order to Skeletal Scrying for 1 (removing Force of Will.)  Scott has another Tundra and casts Demonic Tutor for a Swords to Plowshares, removing the Ophidian.  Kowal has another Ophidian which also resolves.

Scott has another Underground Sea and draws up again with LoA before casting Cunning Wish for another Swords for the other Phid.  Kowal just draws and passes.  Scott LoA's yet again and plays City of Brass and taps out for Mind Twist for 4.  Kowal Leaks, Scott Forces, taking Kowal's hand.  Scott goes for a Shaman on his turn to take out Kowal's Chalice.  Kowal has a Flooded Strand but nothing else.  The Shaman takes Kowal to 18 and does it again next turn when Scott Time Walks.  Kowal fetches out another Island but passes.  Scott draws yet again with Library, attacks, and plays Mox Sapphire in order to cast Brainstorm, netting  Lotus and Jet.  Kowal goes for Morphling, which actually resolves, except that Scott cycles Decree of Justice for 6 cards at the end of Kowal's turn.  Scott swings in and Kowal kills the Gorilla Shaman with Morphling, but takes 6 from the soldiers, knocking Kowal to 10.  Morphling goes in for 4, taking Scott down to 8.  Morphling takes down another Soldier, but Kowal goes down to 5.  Scott goes for a morphed Angel, but it gets Drained.  The second one hits, though.  Kowal Impulses EOT looking for B2B but has to settle for another Impulse.  He attacks Scott down to 5 before casting a second Impulse, seeing nothing, and concedes.

Kowal: -1 Impulse, -1 Mana Leak, -1 Misdirection, +2 Control Magic, +1 Back to Basics
Scott: -1 Balance, -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Crucible of Worlds, +3 Red Elemental Blast

Meanwhile, the top 16 play stopped so Aaron Kerzner could explain blue balls, which he couldn't do.

Kowal goes down to six cards, pitching a hand of Force, Ophidian, and 5 mana and ships back another mostly mana hand.  He gets to content himself with Strand (broke for Island,) Sapphire, and Chalice=1, leaving Control Magic and Impulse in hand.  Scott plays a Flooded Strand and nothing else.  Kowal doesn't have anything either on his turn, but he plays an Impulse at the end of Scott's turn after he plays a Volcanic Island.  He has to dump back Ancestral, Wasteland, and Mana Drain in order to keep Ophidian.  They play draw-go for a few turns until Kowal goes for an Ophidian.  Scott tries to Drain the Ophidian, but Kowal Forces back.  Scott does have a morph to follow up, but has no white mana to flip it.  Scott tries to Wish EOT but walks into Kowal's Mana Drain.  His mainphase Walk is also Drained and turned into Morphling.  Scott Scrys for 2, removing Brainstorm and Flooded Strand.  He draws and plays a Mox Ruby and Strip Mine off it.  Kowal goes in with Morphling for only 3, putting Scott at 14.  Scott plays a Tundra to give him a white and FoFs up 2x Swords, Tundra, Mox Pearl, and Force of Will.  Scott took the pile of Force and Pearl.

Kowal dropped his Lotus and tried to Control Magic the Angel, which is Forced so he merely went in again with the Morphling.  Scott passes on his turn with the 2WW up to flip the Angel if need be.  He lets Kowals Morphling in for 5 and flips it EOT.  Scott thinks for a long time on his turn.  He eventually tries to Twist Kowal, which gets Drained.  The Drain mana goes right back into Morphling.  Morphling is chumped by Angel and buys another turn with the lifegain but isn't enough, mostly because his Balance is sitting in his sideboard.

Scott swapped out a Skeletal Scrying for a Disenchant, while Kowal chose to leave his deck as is, and by as is I mean swap in 4 Energy Flux and swap them right back out to mess with Scott.

Scott keeps his hand but Kowal needs to think about his 2x B2B, Force, 4 Island hand but keeps.  Scott plays a Library on his turn and starts drawing.  They draw-go for a turn while Kowal casts an EOT Impulse, taking Strip over Force, Island, and Impulse.  Kowal drops a Sapphire and uses his Strip takes out the Volcanic in order to go for Back to Basics, which resolves.  Scott has a Wasteland and Black Lotus uses them to go for a big Mind Twist, which is Forced, tapping him out.  They draw-go for a while until Kowal goes for a Morphling, which Scott responds to with a Disenchant on B2B which is countered.  Morphling goes in 4 times with little difficulty.

Kowal: "After game 2, I boarded in 4 Energy FLux just to make you think I would bring in more cards.  All I really brought in were 2 Control Magic and a Back to Basics."
Scott: "I sided out Balance."
Kowal: "Really?  I thought that that was the best card in the matchup."
Scott: "I actually don't have much experience with this matchup."
Kowal: "Balance is also great because sometimes I'll have out double Ophidian but I'll just keep drawing crappy cards and it'll give you a good way to stabilize."

Kowal 2-1

[Dante]

Ben - what decks were you planning on siding the Decree's in against?  Obv not combo and you have better options vs workshop aggro.  You didn't side them in vs 4cc or Tog, so I can only guess they are for random scrub aggro decks??

[Smmenen]

He didn't listen to my advice to put OLD MEN in the sb and he put in Decrees and Tundra for the mono blue mirror.

IMO Old man is still better in the mono blue mirror.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Kowal told me it was because he had some kind of pimp Dutchie Tundra. Clearly this supersedes all rational decision-making.

[Dante]

He didn't listen to my advice to put OLD MEN in the sb and he put in Decrees and Tundra for the mono blue mirror.

IMO Old man is still better in the mono blue mirror.

Why not just use the existing 4 Control Magic? Then you have some free slots is the SB, unless you like beating for 2 with the old men.  Plus the control magics will be a surprise and can't get killed by kegs.

[Kowal]

The beating for two with old men is what killed me against Rich Shay.  I could have recovered if those dudes were control magics.  I know he was playing control slaver, but I would assume it works in similar ways.  Nonetheless, I don't like the idea of running Old Men of my own.  I'd much rather use methods to steal opposing old men that aren't yankable by other opposing old men.

God this sounds so wrong.

[The Atog Lord]

I'd much rather use methods to steal opposing old men that aren't yankable by other opposing old men.

Dominate?

[Dante]

The beating for two with old men is what killed me against Rich Shay.  I could have recovered if those dudes were control magics.  I know he was playing control slaver, but I would assume it works in similar ways.  Nonetheless, I don't like the idea of running Old Men of my own.  I'd much rather use methods to steal opposing old men that aren't yankable by other opposing old men.

God this sounds so wrong.

right, I was saying run your control magics not old men....otherwise old man vs old man is like lavamancer - first one out wins.

[Thug]

Game two I open with Island, Mox Jet, Chalice at 0. It resolves, and I'm given the opportunity to drop Chalice at 1. I do so, and he forces, pitching Brainstorm.

Why woudn't you try and resolve the chalice for 1 first, it's seems much more important in the matchup and had he forced it, you could have dropped your other chalice for 1.

Chalice for 0 can be cute versus slaver, but mainly to make sure they don't have targets to weld out, but if you can stop them from dropping welders at all (and REB's, Brainstorm, Mystical, Ancestral) it seems a much better choice

Congrats on the finish though, and the maindeck chalices seem a very good choice to me.

Koen

[Kowal]

Smmenen and I agree that if you can't get a chalice for one on turn one, dropping it for zero is acceptable (and often preferable) to keep the tempos matched.  Since I had two chalices, I looked at it as though I couldn't drop a chalice at 1 (since the one I could got KO'd) and decided to try to slow Rich down.  Unfortunately, his hand was well equipped to make that not happen.