Hello, my name is David Feinstein.. Some may know me as Memnarch, others as head, and if you played magic back in the early 80's, perhaps you'd even know me as 'potato'.. For the majority of you who have seen me in a type 1 tourney, I'm the guy you laugh at when he swings with hidden gibbons and kird ape.. This is my report on the 48 person tourney held at Teh Beanie Exchange.. This is my story.
The desire for me to play type 1 happens only when I attend events with friends.. Type 1 is escapism for me.. I own absolutely no tournament level cards and always have to borrow them.. Although I am able to borrow pretty much any card in the format, I choose the go the road less traveled.. Technically speaking, I take the road that got shut down as a safety violation.. That road is of the budget green deck.
I've played variations on the budget green deck since first entering type 1, and it's been very good to me.. My first type 1 tournament was a waterbury (a.k.a. Jason Zheng Part I: Attack Of The Siege Gang Without Leaving Mana Open.. Now on video!), where I played a version of ostompy that I called draft deck stompy, since I took any remaining good cards that were in the deck and replaced them with viridian zealots, oxidizes and troll ascetics.. The top 8 I got off that made me realize I didn't have to play tier 1 decks in order to be successful in type 1.. More importantly, playing non-tier 1 decks is a hell of alot more fun.. Since that Waterbury I've always run green decks, the majority of which have been green/red beats.. This past waterbury was the exception to the rule, where I ran control slaver since everyone else I play with does.. Coincidentally, all of the slaver players I test with also like atogs.. I have a sneaking suspicion that one may actually be an atog.. This worries me and I may have to contact the proper authorities.. Anyway, after I got pwned running control slaver (No one told me goblin welder was a defensive card), it's safe to say I'll be swinging with kird apes for quite some time.
Now onto the deck.. I've been toying with versions of g/r beats for months but the versions all relatively stay the same, since the metagame around here (new england) has almost always been control slaver.. For this tournament I knew the meta would be a little more open, so I tried to ease a little bit off the usual amount of slaver hate.. Here's the decklist:
G/R beats4 KIRD APE.. "RIDE YOU LIKE A DONKEY." <1>. .
4 Hidden Gibbons
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 River boa
4 Hearth Kami
4 Incinerate
4 Null Rod
2 Artifact Mutation
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
5 Mountain
4 Forest
4 Tagia
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
sideboard:
3 blood moon
3 pyrostatic pillar
4 red elemental blast
4 naturalize
1 gorilla shaman
I had tried discussing this deck in the forums, but the threads were... discouraging.. Green/Red beats does not involve quirion dryad or ball lightning.. Even if it did, they would NEVER be in the same deck..
My version, believe it or not, is actually not as anti-control slaver as I usually make it.. I tweaked this version to be a little more resilient to chalice of the void and darksteel colossus since those two cards have been appearing en masse around the globe.. The artifact mutations were last minute additions that will probably not be leaving the main deck for quite some time.. The third gorilla shaman in the board will be making its way maindeck next time since I always boarded it in.. The hearth kamis were replacements for viridian zealots.. Zealots were in previous elvish spirit guide/root maze builds which were decent, but even then they were tough on my mana base.. Once I cut the maze/guides, zealots had to go.
The additions to the deck were encouraged by the merry band of mana drainers who I went up with.. Having gotten rear ended by a mini van just a day earlier (and i still don't know who hit me, although I was able to make out a toothy grin and pruple skin tone...), I was in no mood to go driving up to this tournament.. Thankfully, Ian Mulligan (J0blin Velder) offered me the ride down with a jam packed car featuring Demonic Attorney (DemonicAttorney), Master Tap (The dead man) and the man, the myth, the mexican: Angelo Santiago (Mastaq).. A little known fact about angelo is that he's the only person in the car who was actually featured on a television show <2>.. I'll let you think about it, and the answer is at the bottom of the report.. Hint:. It's One of America's first reality television shows and it predated survivor by 10 years.. The show is still ongoing.
I wake up in a daze and throw myself into Ian's car after spending the night at Angelo's.. The car ride started with Angelo telling the legendary story of the open bar ptq.. An hour later and he's still talking about shitting himself at the ptq and literally stinking up the top 8.. The entire car is laughing up a storm except for me.. I don't remember why I wasn't laughing, it might have had to do with the fact that I was Angelo's ride that day.
We show up to the beanie exchange and the place is packed.. Mike Lydon (Meddling Mage) and his trusty Atog (take a wild guess) are notably absent, which leads me to believe that either Mike picked a fight with another guard rail or he let Rich drive.. Surprisginly, they actually show up intact about 10 minutes before the tournament starts.. In another shocking development, Rich reveals to me that he's playing control slaver..
Round 1: Mike Trujillo (sp?) /w Gifts Belcher
Mike is a friendly local who everyone seemed to know.. Game 1: He tries to combo off but I'm doing my best to disrupt his mana base with strip effects and the almighty play of artifact mutating his moxen.. He starts to do some broken things, but forgets to flashback his recoup to timewalk again.. This causes him to fizzle off a yawg will and I'm able to burn him out after that.. Game 2: I play turn 1 kird ape.. He laughs.. It's on like donkey kong!
He untaps, combos off and I lose on turn 2. Game 3: Turn one forest gibbons, he forces it. I then play mox and try for another gibbons...forces again.. He effectively mulliganed to 3 which opens the door for my turn 2.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K I R D. . . . . . . A P E.
1-0
Round 2: MASTER TAP!. /w BuRNinAt0r
"I'm going to light you up in 5 minutes.. Bitch.".
Game 1: I'm on the play with what I believe is a fantastic start.. Taiga, black lotus, kird ape, hearth kami and River boa all come on down but the price is wrong and MT lava darts my team on turn 1.. Lava Dart out of the frickin blue would be a recurring theme for master tap.. More on that later.. After the dart + flashback I thought I was a goner, but MT drew around 5 lands in a row and I still barely pull this game out.. Game 2: he leads with vandals and passes.. I lead with gibbons.. He doesn't have another play for something like 5 turns and I'm able to amass a horde of boas, lavamancers and... K.A.. This matchup isn't really a stellar one for me but he didn't draw very well so I lucked out.. This would also be a recurring theme for me.
2-0
Round 3: Travis LaPlante (JuggernautGo)
After reading Travis's SCG report I was worried I'd have to call in a firefighter to put out the flames after this match, but he was actually a really cool guy.. He's intense and very competitive, but still only plays the deck he's played for months because he has fun with it.. Those are all traits I respect and characterize myself with.
Game 1: He stumbles on mana early and his only hope is sundering titan.. It resolves, but I respond to the coming into play ability with an artifact mutation and he scoops.. Game 2: he comes out guns blazing with turn 1 tinker + a juggernaut.. My turn 1 is play is arguably even stronger with the taiga/kird ape.. Turn 2 he plays smokestack and although my kird ape has to think about it for a minue or two, we scoop.. Game 3: he again comes out lightning fast with a very quick titan and im trying to race with double gibbons and hearth kami.. The kami unfortunately came out before the gibbons were active so by the time the gibbons are active I'm forced on defense.. He has no lands out but crucible in play and gemstone in the yard.. He has 6 cards and I'm at 6.. My math tells me the only way I win this race is by sending in with 2 gibbons and leaving hearthy on chump duty.. My worst fears are realized as he untaps, replays the gemstone and says "Guess I'll try for the win.". He BEB's my kami and that's all she wrote.. Kird ape wouldn't have gone down like that.
2-1. . .
In between these rounds Kowal shows up looking roasted, toasted and burnt to a crisp.. I say hello to him but I don't think he knows I'm there.. I figure i'll try talking to him 20 minutes later, but he's already gone.
Round 4: Some Random Mexican /w Food chain goblins
As soon as I hear this pairing I'm ready to just sign the match slip and sleep in the car.. We both bitch about being paired against each other and I prepare to get my ass handed to me.
Game 1: I lead with a lavamancer and it just goes to town.. He drops foodchain and is preparing to go-off but can't find a recruiter or ringleader to seal the deal.. He draws 4 lands in a row and I win.. Game 2: He comes out of the gate with lackey, drive and warchief.. I'm able to suppress it and actually get him down to 1 land.. He swings with driver/warchief and then plays another driver after the attack.. I give him a look of puzzlement to which he responds, "Dude, I just want to get trashed.. If I win this match I'm dropping and getting drunk."
Ok, pressure's on.. I manage to clear his board but I can tell he's setting up.. He drops a recruiter with a chain out and is set to go off next turn.. I flash him the 2 bolts in my hand and hope I can draw a second red source to finish him.. I instead draw my last wasteland which allows me to take down his only land and prevent him from going off.. Angelo took the loss well, considering this is my second worst matchup in the room.. He shook my hand and then left quietly, with a determined look on his face to find the nearest bar.
3-1
Round 5: John /w Stax
John was a nice guy, but he didn't seem to know the deck he was playing.. Two rounds earlier I watched him miss the kill on board twice against Rich, but still win anyway.. Rich took the loss well and complimented John on his stax build.. John asked what stax was.
Game 1: he drops shop + trinisphere and passes.. I waste his shop.. We both pass for a few turns doing next to nothing.. I manage to get out a kird ape and he responds with playing sphere of resistance.. His board is now a gemstone with 1 counter on it, some moxes and a trinisphere.. I topdeck a land to play a four cost river boa and he plays smoke stack.. He locks himself under it while I sacrifice some lands and swing for the win.
Game 2 we both start off rather slow.. .He pays 3 mana to drop a mox pearl and passes the turn.. I inform him that trinisphere is not out.. He becomes angry and burns for 3 but I actually call Hatch over because I prefer he just untaps the lands.. John doesn't want the takeback and says he's fine with taking the burn, which I understand and respect.. I dropped null rod on the following turn and that was pretty much game.. John was a good guy and I can seem him doing well in the future if he plays the deck more.
4-1
Round 6: Matt McNally ID
I've seen Matt around and although I knew I was a lock for top 8, he wasn't necessarily.. He asked me if he should draw and I said he was taking a risk, but we were both tired and he decided to take a chance with the draw.. He ended up making it in.
4-1-1
Top 8 is announced and my money is on Travis or Rich.. I'm paired up against Steve Bakes and I have absolutely no clue what he's playing.. We sit down and he appears confident, which definitely has me worried.
top 8: Steve /w TPS
Steve didn't really say much and neither did I, but he seemed like a good kid.. We just shuffled up and played..
Game 1: he's stumbling with his mana issues as my gorilla shaman holds his restricted artifacts at bay and my wastes again come in multiples.. By the time he's able to rector out a bargain I'm able to burn him out in response to him going off.. Game 2: This was the only match where blood moons actually came into play, but i would have surely lost without them.. I lead with the first moon on turn 2 which causes him to tap mana vault and 2 lands to hardcast force it.. I lucked out there because if he had access to a blue card and pitched it to force, he probably would have been able to go off when he untapped.. As the situation stood, he played another non basic and passed which let me drop another blood moon.. It resolved and that was match.
5-1-1
Top 4: Jay Buda /w Fish.
Jay was being hyped up as this undefeated juggernaut going into the top 8.. Apparently he had not lost a game and after he beat Matt McNally there were rumblings of fish taking home another tournament.. I didn't know what he was running when I was paired against him and offered a top 4 split.. I asked him before appraoching the other 2 players and honestly didn't expect any three of them to accept my offer.. We all would have walked out with probably over $125 each but let's be real, if you knew GR beats made the top 4 would you split with it?
Jay politely declines the split but says he expects to lose.. I'm puzzled at the comment.
Game 1: he starts with a turn 1 flying men and I'm no longer puzzled.. About 6-8 minutes later he extends the hand... for the match.. The games were that quick.. Fish is probably the only t1 deck that GR beats has a near guaranteed match win against.. Had Jay been in the other bracket he probably would have mopped up.. He was a good sport and I'd expect him to do very well in the near future.
6-1-1
Top 2: Dan Eammons /w Oath
This is my worst matchup in the room, and they knew it.. Before I could even mention the word split, one of dan's little buddies, who looked like an identical miniature version of Smenenen, motioned for me to sit down and play.. I tried to talk Dan into a split, but lil' Smenenen (as I will refer to him for the rest of the report since I never actually got his real name) ran his mouth off saying the mox is in the bag for Dan.. This got me in evil memnarch mode.
Game 1: I lead with gibbons and dan activates it immediately, which is the right play.. You have to play against gibbons the same way you would against standstill.. If you sit and pass for 1,000 turns you're going to lose unless you're TPS.. So my gibbons starts to swing-a-ding-ding and he then taps an island + tundra and says "white".. He then drops engineered explosives and puts one counter on it.. He passes the turn.. I inform him that the explosives are for 2.. He becomes dumbstruck and I look over to lil' Smenenen, who has an expression of sheer horror on his face.. That play effectively cost Dan the game, as he is able to drop oath but by the time he does gibbons get him down much lower than they should have.. He oaths out a darksteel colossus and my hand is 1 bolt, 1 incinerate, and an artifact mutation. I have 2 taigas open.. The correct play at end of turn would be to incinerate him, untap and bolt him.. That way I don't give away the mutation information, which could be vital.. Because I'm in evil Memnarch mode and I really want to see lil' Smenenen squirm, I decide to cast the artifact mutation.. Little Smem shakes his head and Dan scoops.
Game 2: He turn 1 tinkers into a colossous.
Game 3: You could hear a pin drop before we even drew our hands.. I thought about offering a split just to break the tension, but it would be anti-climactic plus I really wanted to see lil smem's reaction if I was able to pull off this match win.. I also didn't expect Dan to accept the split, which is perfectly understandable in his position.
My opening hand on the play is taiga, lotus, kird ape, mancer, null rod, boa and naturalize.. It can't get much better than this.. The tricky part is the leadoff.. Part of me wants to go into full beat mode with all the critters coming out to party, but I know that play is just incorrect.. I don't want another turn 1 colossus dropping on my head.. So I lead with the ape, mancer and rod feeling fairly comfortable.. I pass and he drops a land.. I draw artifact mutation and swing.. He ancestrals and drops turn 2 oath which is expected.. Basically if I draw a land here that's going to be all she wrote.. I'll be able to lead with a naturalize which should get forced and then his darksteel will come out to play.. Once darky comes out I should be able to resolve the mutation for the match.. So I untap and draw... another naturalize.. This could get sticky fast.. I swing but he still isn't in double digits before the first colossus comes out.. I'm fine with that because if I draw a land here I still might manage to eek it out.. I untap and draw... a mox emerald.. Once I drew the emerald I knew it was over.. I went through the motions and he got a second colossus.. He didn't even bother with oathing the third time... which would have revealed to the world his ascendant evincar technology.. I guess his secret is safe.
6-2-1 final record
Dan wasn't a bad guy at all, but I'd be lying if I said I took this match loss well.. I was very upset, but still managed to shake his hand and congratulate him.. I know, the guy with the 20% at best chance to win the match swinging with kird apes is angry he lost, but I honestly thought I had him.. He gave me windows of oppotunity and I took them every chance I could.. For a matchup that awful for me, I suppose I should be happy it was that close.. It just would have been nice to win a mox saphire for my birthday.. My kird apes would have had some jewlery to play with.. .I still walked away with a drain (PLAYED IN "DRAIN SLAVER"!1!!1) and free admission to the 40 dual tourney, which is just fine.. Rich got 6th place and won a pack of gum or something like that.. Maybe it was a box of tic-tacs.
At this point I became very eager to leave, but the rest of the crew were embroiled in a very intense side tourney for a library.. It was double elimination and Mike Lydon was guaranteed for the finals but he had to wait for the winner of outlaw vs. MASTER TAP.. Outlaw wanted to split with mike if he won but Mike informed him he would have to play it out because he already had a pre-arranged split with MT.. What neither of them realized was that MT wasn't eliminated yet.. The dead shall rise.. So game 1 outlaw sensei-sensei's the holed gloves right off MT's hands.. I tried to focus on game two but Mike completely broke my concentration.. Instead of sticking to playing bubble bauble or whatever the hell 80's game he was dishing out $5 worth of quarters on, he instead randomly said the following quote outloud verbatim:
"Jacob Orlove let me do it to him for an hour and a half.. We have it on video."
It wasn't until about 3 minutes later that Mike decided to mention that this was in reference to poking Jacob with his finger.. I'll say no more about that.
So back to game 2 of MT and OL.. Tap got early beats going and actually got outlaw all the way down to 1.. He then ran out of gas with an empty hand and passed to outlaw.. The inevitable happened, as outlaw comboed off very handily and then flashed the cunning wish.. Master Tap with a frown says, "Go ahead, get your brain freeze."
Outlaw does and casts the freeze.. Outlaw pauses expecting Tap to scoop, but tap simply shrugs and says "resolves... but after it does I'll flash back lava dart THREE TIMES.". The place went nuts.. I had to try and hold in the laughter because outlaw is such a nice guy.. It's just the way that Tap got him that earned him what Hatchman already referred to as "the play of the day.". .Game three Tap again had a nice curve but outlaw got out a very fast future sight.. The end seemed near for Master Tap as Outlaw started to abuse the sight the same turn in which he tapped out to cast it.. After going a few cards deep into the library outlaw couldn't continue his chain and had to wait a turn to kill MT.. Like a champion, Master Tap rips the pyroblast (who needs reb?) and outlaw just shakes his head.. Tap takes the match and he gets to share the library with Mike Lydon.
While that was all well and good, I could see the look of disappointment on Outlaw's face because he needed the money and there just isn't a nicer guy in the room.. Outlaw then is forced to sell his i-pod dirt cheap just to have money to eat..
Besides meeting outlaw, I also met Grand Inquisitor, who was cool beans.. I knew he was good friends with Eastman, and that association alone makes GI cool in my book because I think Eastman is cooler than the Fonz.. Where the hell did eastman go anyway?
I have to write a separate paragraph for Hatchman.. He was a damn good TO who worked his ass off to make people happy.. Although initially he was going to charge everyone extra to replace the mox jet with a saphire, he listened to the crowd and had no problem with just upping the prize to a saphire, which was very cool.. I met the store owner Dave as well and he seemed pleasant.. Basically the entire tournament was run well and they gave away an ass-ton of door prizes that topped Waterbury's..
So the day was done and Demonic Attorney, Master Tap, Ian Mulligan, Dirty Mexican, Mike Lydon, Shaytog and myself all left at the same time and I suspect we'll all be back for the 40 dual tournament in a few weeks, with some additional friends.. I'm going to skip work to attend this simply because this was the best T1 tourney I've played in.. Again, major kudos to Hatchman.
Just before we enter Ian's car to drive back to Providence Angelo pours his feelings out, as well as some alcohol onto the pavement.. Apparently he can vomit on command.. Angelo- "I have issues.". Demonic Attorney- "You have entire subscriptions.". As if that wasn't enough, once we actually start to leave west Springfield I almost get into my second car crash in three days as Ian decides to cruise down the wrong way of a one-way for a good 2 minutes.. Good times.
So R/G beats did ok for me.. I honestly don;t consider the deck to be a joke even though I constantly knock it and consider it my fun deck.. In the right metagame and with the right pairings (as with any deck), it can be an absolute wrecking ball.. If you don't own alot or any power such as myself, I encourage you to pick up the deck and try it.. At worst it serves as a good introduction to the format.. At best it makes you never want to leave home without kird apes ever again.
Thanks for reading my report.. It took me far too long to write so I hope you enjoyed it :-p
- Dave Feinstein
*1 quote from the immortal Master Tap..
*2 America's Most Wanted.. If you guessed COPS, you may also be correct.. Angelo may have actually been on both shows.
. . . .
