Scrubbing out in Hadley, a report

Hadley mini report

I scrubbed out this weekend, so this is more of an excuse to give props than a how to succeed post, but people may find some parts of it of interest. I am posting it in the newbie forum since not much in here is particularly serious other then (potentially) a discussion of the slaver mirror and SBing around it in round 5.

Having not played in an actual tournament for over 6 months I realize that my schedule allows me to attend Hadley so I decide to swing by. JOrlove offers to lend me a deck (key since all my cards are at home) and so all I have to do is pick one. Using MSW I try a few game ones with doomsday, oath, stax, and crucible slaver and decide I like slaver the best. I ask Toad for some help with SB plans and try them out and am sort of ready to go.
Needless to say, my preparedness left something to be desired. The only match ups I felt I really knew were the mirror and oath.

Round 1
4CC
Game 1
He goes land go and I drop a first turn welder with intuition, thirst, ak, force etc in hand. Eot he plows my welder. I make a mistake here. Since my hand was good I should have just let the welder die and relied on my draw power to gain strategic superiority later. What I actually do is force to save the welder. Then he untaps drops some moxes and a lotus and twists away my whole hand. I don’t recover from that.
Game 2
I have a crucible, art land, and a slaver in my hand so I intuition for welder and set up the infinite lock fairly quickly.
Game 3
He goes land go. I can first turn tinker, but I think he has a plow so instead up getting pentevus I get crucible (I have a fetch in the grave). Next turn I play welder and it gets plowed so I feel good that I didn’t walk pentevus into it. Over the next 4 turns I thaw out a land each turn but despite that I draw 4 lands. I have a nearly full (5 cards) hand but its all worthless. He goes aggro with 5 decree tokens and there is nothing I can do to stop it. My last few draws were counters, but by then it was too late

Round 2
J Orlove with WTF
Game 1
I drain a river boa to power intuition AK3 AK4. After drawing 8 cards in a turn I untap and am able to get a win down.
Game 2
I drain the mana to drop a turn 3 crucible and use my own mana to turn 3 intuition for strip. That shuts down his mana. Eventually I get a fire walker and it kills the dudes that had made it onto the board before he was landlocked.

Round 3
Dragon
Game 1
I have a nuts draw. Turn 1 island sol ring. Turn 2 use island to mystical for tinker. Then draw it, play volcanic, and tinker away the sol ring for platinum angel.
Game 2
I am able to use force and drain to delay things and manage to get 2 welders on the board with mana crypt, crucible, and darksteel land as my artifacts and nothing worthwhile in the grave. He then combos me out with laquatus. On my turn I weld the angel into play for the crypt but he coffin purges in response. However, I have 2 welders so I weld the angel in for the crucible in response and live. Next turn I weld in slaver and have him combo himself out.

Round 4
FCG
Game 1
I keep a 1 land 1 mox hand that will be great if I find a third source of any color or a 2nd blue source. I don’t I lose. In retrospect I probably should have mulliganed this.
Game 2.
I force his turn 1 dude. FTK his next guy. Then tinker up pentevus and beat down with it and FTK.
Game 3
I keep a 1 land 1 mox hand that will be great if I find a third source of any color or a 2nd blue source. I don’t I lose. In retrospect I probably should have mulliganed this.
Yes, that’s the same description as game one. Yes, I should have learned my lesson after game one.

Round 5
Zherbus with AK slaver //he has black so its not a total mirror.
Game 1
He mulligans and looks less then thrilled with his hand so I try for a quick mana lock. I intuition for strip crucible, welder hoping to get strip to buy time and then thirst or intuition into welder number 2 to finish the lock. He gives me strip and I strip his volcanic island. I don’t get the 2nd welder but I don’t need to. He winds up being mana screwed long enough for me to hard cast a slaver. When he does play a blue source I slave him and use his hand to wreck him. Since I’m controlling both players I can use intuition as a true tutor to get what I need to do maximum damage.
Game 2
I boarded out the AKs for rack and ruins and rebs, and some other stuff for darts. He boards in darts, but keeps the AK engine and doesn’t have rebs or R&Rs. Early on I drain one of his thirsts into an Angel and start to beat with it. When he is down to 4 life he manages to get an angel of his own. I rack and ruin it and win the counter war with red blast. Welders were a non issue since both of us had gotten darts with intuition early on. At one point he even pitched a welder to thirst since it would have been to resource intensive to protect it from the darts.

Round 6
I don’t really recall to well. I played TnT it was 2-1. Game one was decided by 3 sphere. Game 2 I get a turn 1 tinker for pentevus and he gets turn 1 uktabi and turn 1 survival plus an activation. He wins.

Props
Jacob Orlove for lending me a deck so I could play
Kowal for running a great event
All my opponents for being cool people
Toad for developing crucible slaver and helping me with side boarding
Team 187 for not kicking me off even though I’ve been incommunicado for almost 6 months.

Slops
Me for poor mulliganing decisions, the terrible error first game, and generally sloppy play in round 6.
No other real slops, things were good.

Having been to an event for the first time in a while I’ve found myself swung fairly heavily towards the side of people who think 3 sphere may be too powerful. In the games it was played against me weather or not it resolved was of huge import. Walking around watching others games it seem that the sphere was making a huge impact anywhere it showed up. Of course anecdotal evidence is no substitute for real numbers.