[Report] 10.10. In Helsinki With Budget WTF/r

[Nastaboi]

17 people showed up in this sanctioned event. The field was as following:

Powered:
2x Stacks
2x Meandeath
1x Crusher Aggro
1x Dragon
1x 4cc
1x Mono-U
1x MeanTitan
1x WTF/r
1x Ug Stompy

Un/partially powered:
1x WTF/r
1x Control Slaver
1x FCG
1x Ug Survival
1x Mono-R Affinity
1x Reanimator

I was playing my standard wtf list:

4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
4x Tropical Island
4x Volcanic Island
1x Island
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory

4x Grim Lavamancer
4x River Boa
4x Spiketail Hatchling
2x Call of the Herd
1x Gorilla Shaman

4x Brainstorm
4x Curisity
4x Force of Will
3x Null Rod
2x Fire/Ice
2x Oxidize
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Echoing Truth

SB:
2x REB
2x BEB
2x Naturalize
3x Artifact Mutation
1x Crucible
1x Fire/Ice
2x Sigil of Sleep
2x Maze of Ith

R1: Oskari Viilo /w borrowed Reanimator

G1: He gets 1st turn Phantom Nishoba while I have nothing. I side in Mazes and Sigils and extra F/I.

G2: I get a Lavamancer with Sigil and he has no answer.

G3: He gets 1st turn Necropotence and draws first seven, then five cards and finds nothing. Then I ask about how he thinks of dropping creatures on grave with Necro on table and he conceedes.

1-0, 2-1

R2: Timo Virkkula /w Stacks

G1: He has many Smokestacks but I have two Oxidizes, Echoing Truth and some counters. He forgot once to put a counter on his Smokestack though it wouldn't matter while I drew Oxidize turn after. I side in my 'fact hate.

G2: He goes land, Sol Ring, Chalice for one. He had another in hand but fails to find another land while I play Null Rod and kill his Chalice couple turns after.

2-0, 4-1

R3: Timo Helenius /w Crusher Aggro

G1: He has a poor hand and goes Lotus, Twister. We draw another 7 and now I have a Force. He plays some artifact mana and Skullclamp, which I foolisly Force (I had Null Rod in hand!). Then he tinkers up a Colossus. I am SO bad.

G2: Having sided in all my artifact AND creature hate, I have no broblems winning next one. I manage some 2-to-1 trades with Mutation and Fire, and take it home with a FoW backup whole game long.

G3: He mulls once and plays MW, Crypt, Genesis Chamber, Clamp and Ravager, which I Force. Then he draws nothing while I do.

3-0, 6-2

R4: Axel Toivonen /w Meandeck Titan

G1: I lose a die but get a 1st turn Shaman which he does not counter. Next turn, I play Spiketail, he Drains and I Force the Drain. With Spiketails and Shamans eating his moxen, he is always one mana short doing anything. I just side REBs and another Crucible.

G2: He stucks at two mana and manages only Tsabo's Web and two AKs. He scoops when I get Crucible.

4-0, 8-2

R5: Andrew Patel (rozetta) /w MeanDeath

We both will make T8 but I make him play because I have never won him in a sanctioned event. I was very pleasantly surprised seeing him with competive T1; actually, I was very surprised when he even showed his face on public. Andy is probably the nicest person I have played, and our whole match went with me telling stupid jokes or guessing his emotions and he answering to everything with a heartful laughter.

G1: I win the 1st and the only die roll the day. I Force his Lotus and get a Null Rod. He Death Wishes, and I play another Rod in case of Oxidize. Andy was smart enough to wish for Hurkyl's, but cannot cast it 'cause my three Spiketails and I finish him off with Fire. I side two REBs because they do something as opposed to many of my maindeck cards.

G2: I get Null Rod once again, and Andy is forced to slow play it out. Unfortunately, I have no clock expect a lone Assembly Worker. Andy consults for Duress at my EOT and removes about forty cards before finding any. I have a FoW, Fire/Ice and REB in hand and make a huge mistake icing his City on his upkeep (I thought Duress would take my FoW nevertheless). Now he takes my REB instead, casts couple Dark Rituals and Twisters. He has a 14-card library with four Rituals, Wheel and Tendrils to Twister for. Of course he draws Wheel which allows him see his entire library and Tendrils me off.

G3: I have a double FoW hand, one of which gets Duressed. Another counters a Ritual (ph34r 'em now) but he plays out loads of artifact mana, an Academy and wishes for Spiral which gets him ever more a.mana. He plays a Windfall with a boarded Colossus in hand and we have to ask judge whether it suffles itself back before or after drawing. It goes there before drawing, and I wish him to draw it. Andy draws his 7 and tinkers out - Black Lotus. He had a Jar in the yard and of course he drew his freakin' Colossus. Sooo unlucky. I untap, lay Null Rod and waste his Academy. GG but those games were wery enjoyable and it's really pity that Andy shows himself up so rarely. Oh and he killed himself consulting for Scryb Sprites by the way.

5-0, 10-3

T8: Ilkka Räsänen (Blommando) /w WTF/r

So fair. The only matchup I could possible lose: a mirror. Our decks are almost identical expect he has power while I have more metagame slots and better SB (IMO). Those games were true pain and I don't remember much details, I was pretty tired then.

G1: He gets me at one life, I cannot do a shit because I have a 'Mancer, Boa and only three mana, one of which is Factory while he has beaters. His Strip Mine ends my pain.

G2: I bring in all my creature hate, Crucible and all the Blasts and take out artifact hate, E.Truth and some draw. I get a curious Boa and Lavamancer and it is pretty easy from then.

G3: I mulligan once and have a Volcanic, two Mishras, REB, FoW and something blue. FoW takes out Lavamancer and I play Volcanic, go. He wastes my Volcanic and Ancestrals. I cannot recover from that.

5-1, 11-5

The tournament ends with Axel and Max Sjöblom (/w Stacks) splitting the prize. I had good time nevertheless. Props to Andy and all other grown-up Vintage players, slops to that guy who had taken some narcotics and was pretty confused (he cleaned our shop, after all there was some good in him too).

[EDIT: match history corrected]

[rozetta]

Nice report and congratulations for the good finish! Nice to see things from the other side, since I was so tied up with trying to figure out how to play my deck and didn't really pay attention to much else that was going on (and having lots of smoke breaks in between rounds). Also, massive thanks for the complements! I shall try and get myself over there more often from now on (even if I do end up getting smacked around by Null Rods and Trinispheres all afternoon).

Playing DeathLong really enhanced my tournament-going experience. It's the first time since Turboland that I've been able to play something truly fun and non-serious, but at the same time requiring some difficult puzzle-solving and with a strong possibility of being competitive. That second game in our round is something that I will remember for a long time - it was so funny how I managed to pull out that win from the strangest set of circumstances ever.

[Chaos Blade]

How was Maze Of Ith for you? What did you board out for it? Did it ever dilute from your manabase? Would you rather have a boardsweeper (Firestorm) or Maze Of Ith in the Goblin,FCG, RG matches? Have you considered Daze to?

[Nastaboi]

ASDF Explorer lost my reply once.

How was Maze Of Ith for you? What did you board out for it? Did it ever dilute from your manabase? Would you rather have a boardsweeper (Firestorm) or Maze Of Ith in the Goblin,FCG, RG matches? Have you considered Daze to?

Maze helps me stall while digging for real answers (Mancer/Boa). It answers opposing boas as well. Firestorm is better vs. FCG/Goblins, but that matchup is kinda rare. I like Maze because it is free and uncounterable, and I have Crucibles to back it up. It is never great though, but it's always solid and I have room in my board. I usually side out some draw for them if I don't have any dead cards left. Never take out land.

Unlike Maze, Daze does dilute your mana base as you cannot afford losing land drop in 1st three turns (Daze), but from there on it matters less and you can lay down Maze. I have more focused counters in board (blasts) and I prefer general answers (Truth) and metagame-focused answers (Oxidize, F/I) to it.

[EDIT]To Rozzetta: Yeah, I know my deck and won my 1st four rounds pretty fast so I had time to look around while you spent all your extra time outside ruining your lungs.

[PemsAura]

how was call of the heard for you?  was it to overcosted or did it work out alright?

[luke_twigger]

He plays a Windfall with a boarded Colossus in hand and we have to ask judge whether it suffles itself back before or after drawing. It goes there before drawing

Are you sure this is correct? I appreciate your local judge gave a ruling.

But surely the Colossus' triggered ability goes on the stack and doesn't occur right in the middle of resolving the Windfall?

Luke

[Jacob Orlove]

The colossus has a replacement ability, not a triggered ability. The judge was correct.

[luke_twigger]

Jacob, thanks for the rules clarification.

Apparently it's the word "instead" which identifies it as a replacement effect. I'm now studying the comprehensive rulebook :-)

Luke

[Nastaboi]

how was call of the heard for you?  was it to overcosted or did it work out alright?

Well, CotH usually gets sided out vs artifacts and such, but it's been great vs hard control (4cc/monoU/MeanTitan) when they have to counter it twice. It is usually game breaker in mirror when two 3/3 is so much better than one 1/1. The mana cost is ok, it tops the curve very nicely. You play your disruption first and then lay out a beater, so it is middle to late game spell normally.