3rd Place at 40 duals-

[Meddling Mike]

So, after an enjoyable evening at YMG Providence myself, Rich and Chris prepped to go down to the 40 duals tourney in Springfield, with prize support like that how could we not? So Chris gets in touch with me late at night to inform me his law school duties have caught up with him and he won't be able to join us. The next day I wake up and retrieve an atog down the street after working out an agreement that he not eat my car like two waterburies ago. The whole "guard rail" story is just to cover up his super secret atog ninja identity. So after a lengthy drive fueled by some Red Hot Chili Peppers Reflection was in the house and ready to kick ass.

The venue was very hot and humid, we found a rather amusing picture of CH41NS who apparently was a member of the West Springfield Elks Lodge way back in the 50's (see mixingmike for pictures). I guess being an eternal vampire I shouldn't be surprised......nobody ever suspects the elks. I was pleased to find out that tasty hot dogs were only a dollar away and would later bother Rich to lend me the appropriate sum. After doing a bit of scouting I noticed a disporportionate amount of Workshop based aggro decks and decided last minute to cut one duplicant in favor of a third triskelion, a decision I was EXTREMELY happy with throughout the day. I've taken to calling the deck Reflection Shop for lack of a better name and it seemed appropriate as my teammate Rico Suave was the first to pilot this particular permutation of the deck.

Reflection Shop

Mana sources
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strp Mine
8 SoLoMoxen Crypt

Draw
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall

Creatures
1 Karn, Silver Golem
3 Triskelion
4 Juggernaut
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Sundering Titan
4 Goblin Welder

Other fun artifacts
1 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds

Teh Broken
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
3 Aether Spellbomb (old and busted)
3 Sphere of Resistance (moderately hot)
3 Rack and Ruin (The new hotness)
3 Tormod's Crypt (old and busted)
3 Blue Elemental Blast (The new hotness)

So, I've made some slight tweaks to the list since Rico took this deck to the t4 at SCG Rochester, but the heart of the deck is essentially the same. So after some delay we get the matches underway.

Round 1: Rich playing WTF
So WTF isn't AS good a matchup as other fish decks, but when I see him drop a tropical Island I figure he's either running GAT or WTF, both which have tested well. I drop some early pressure, his mongrel(s) puts up a good fight, but I still manage to make favorable trades with the help of my good buddy Triskelion.

Game 2: This is alot like game 1 but Umezawa's Jitte keeps him in the game a bit too long for my liking. I got his land locked up with crucible/wasteland early but vial keeps him in the game long enough to get some basics to play his jitte. He misplays by not picking off a welder with his jitte and he gets active and switches a trike out for another trike to seal the deal.

Round 2: Ryan with meandeck tendrils
Ryan seems like a nice kid, I'm pretty sure I've seen him at some events prior to this but can't put my finger on where. When he opens with darkwater egg, I'm a bit surprised and he tries to go off early but stalls out hardcore thanks to my good friend chalice of the void for zero. Juggs and friends seal the deal.

Game 2 he boards in hurkyl's recall which managed to bail him out of the chalice for 0/sphere of resistance on the board that's keeping him from doing his thing. He tries to go off but stalls out, next turn I drop chalice for 1 and sphere of resistance again and he scoops it up shortly afterwards.

Round 3: Alex playing Food Chain Goblins
I met Alex at a PTQ last extended season and noticed he had a bent for various goblin decks, his turn 1 mountain and turn 2 recruiter give me a hint. Luckily I kept a hand with two trikes and the ability to cast it turn two. His gameplan never gets off the ground and trikes ruin him.

See game 1 except w/o the recruiter and some random dudes getting on the wrong end of a BEB.

Round 4: Travis LaPlante (JuggernautGO), do I really need to say what he's playing?
So myself and Travis actually sat down to play some games for fun prior to the tourney and I got owned hardcore, but luckily my deck came through when it counted. the details are a bit fuzzy, but we both drop lots of big guys, he has an amazing balance but I manage to pull out the game anyways. He plays a trinisphere one of the games and I manage to lock him down with crucible wasteland one game. I manage to pull it out in game 3 by drawing multiple trikes.

Round 5: Nick (Yokomoto) playing Fish variant
This is hands down my best matchup, game 1 he scoops to my turn 2 chalice of the void for 2.

Game 2 he actually gets to play some spells but I get chalice for two on the table and start drawing things like triskelion, which I hear is OK in this matchup. He gets absolutely ruined and then Corey Fraser asks me/him a bunch of obscure questions about stuff that happened during the match and lecturing Nick about how he could have played it differently. I pack up and excuse myself ecstatic that I can now draw into t8.

Round 6: Justin playing R/G beats with infinity billion MD hate cards for me
So apparently I'm the only 5-0 to get paired down and actually have to play my match, so much for my hopes of making a food run. Game 1 is fairly exciting as he hits something large with a MD artifact mutation. I manage to draw trike like a champ to stabilize at one life. My welder and mana disruption allows me to pull victory from the jaws of defeat and I give myself a big pat on the back.

Game 2 I don't draw as well and artifact mutation does it's job like a champ. 2xRiver boa go the distancer.

Game 3: I get off an early tinker and after some long thought decide to go with trinisphere as I've already established a crucible/wasteland lock. I hit his lands and keep him from casting any of his scary spells until it's too late. He goes for a naturalize on my trinisphere but my chalice for 2 didn't think that was such a good idea.

Round 7: Draw in with Outlaw.

So I finished the swiss first seed at 6-0-1, the top 8 is something like 1 Control Slaver, 1 R/U fish deck and approx 6 shop based decks.

Time for a food run, myself and Rich get lost on the way to Burger King but manage to mize when we stumble across a subway which is inf better than BK. After some food we decide to head back and get ready for t8.

Top Eight: Caleb playing odd variant of stacks
So, Caleb absolutely ruins me game 1, I don't recall exactly what happened, just that I was never really in that game.

Game 2: My deck starts to do it's thing, It's a tight game and it goes back and forth, he stabilizes at a low life after getting rid of my second trike, but I mize the third for the win.

Game 3: My deck just absolutely ruins Caleb under a crucible/strip/trinisphere lock that I get waaaay too early.

Top four: I think Rich was my only *bad* matchup in the t8, our testing shows that I've got decent game g1 but post board the matchup is the suxxorz to say the least. With R and R, counters and welders it's not difficult for him to keep me from getting threats on the board. These games went relatively quickly, he used his various tutors to find Tinker g1 and a DSC pwns my face, same deal game 2 but he has to weld out his DSC for a trike after the first swing to get rid of my welder. The trikes that had been showing up all day just stopped coming, and that's big frowns for the home team. Fortunately Rich pulls it out in the finals so I get a minty library instead of a bazaar. The library quickly goes to Mixing Mike in exchange for drains/money.

I'm very happy with this deck and would strongly reccomend it, it's made t8 in the three large tourneys it's been to (Rico took it to t8 at Rochester and I took it to t8 at Syracuse the next day and in Springfield)

[Mixing Mike]

Dude, that deck is hot, Outlaw took a similliar build to the finals.  Thanks for the LoA, oh and here's said picture....



Good jorb, and you took a good shot of Cron for me.

[Nantuko Rice]

the deck played like crap for me

my changes were mainly the addition of mindslaver, pentabus, and mystical tutor

round 1 i got paired against ankh sligh with maindeck artifact and blue hate. i got owned.

[49 Cents]

the deck played like crap for me

my changes were mainly the addition of mindslaver, pentabus, and mystical tutor

round 1 i got paired against ankh sligh with maindeck artifact and blue hate. i got owned.

Could you be a little more Specific? I can imagine that you'd lose to such a deck, but why is it crap?

Greetz,

Hugo

[Outlaw]

There was actually 5 workshop decks, 1 Rector Oath, 1 U/r Fish (no rods or chalices), and 1 Rich Shay (Ninja CS!).   Good work Mike, after slaying 2 ninjas in the form of Random Deathlong kid and giving Apprentice Rich Shay his first match loss in something like 14 matches, I loose to Master Rich Shay (he used an upgrade) in the finals.  frowns.

[49 Cents]

There was actually 5 workshop decks, 1 Rector Oath, 1 U/r Fish (no rods or chalices), and 1 Rich Shay (Ninja CS!).   Good work Mike, after slaying 2 ninjas in the form of Random Deathlong kid and giving Apprentice Rich Shay his first match loss in something like 14 matches, I loose to Master Rich Shay (he used an upgrade) in the finals.  frowns.

Ninja CS? Boy, I reaaally need to see his list ^^

[Outlaw]

Its a standard Rich Shay list but since hes a Ninja... Well add a Senseis top, and well... Ask him.

[Luiggi]

Will decklists be posted for this tournament? I'd really like to have a look at the different Workshop builds to see where they all differed... So will the next StarCity P9 be dominated by Workshops like Rochester was dominated by Fish variants?

Luiggi

[Methuselahn]

Congrats Guys!  It really sounds like you lucksacked that 3rd round Mike.  sweet.

I'm very happy with this deck and would strongly reccomend it, it's made t8 in the three large tourneys it's been to (Rico took it to t8 at Rochester and I took it to t8 at Syracuse the next day and in Springfield)

and I took it to T8 in Minneapolis the day after Rochester.     The deck totally crashed the yogurt truck that weekend.

Often, The Atog Lord will sit down and eat several dozen frisbees in preparation for a tournment.  hardcore 6cc frisbees.  He then just goes to said tournament and wins it without even thinking twice, or even once!  It just happens that way.

[Cross]

Congrats.

Outlaw saw the same potential in the deck and we jumped on the bandwagon both with excellent results.

How was brainstorm for you? We just dropped it and although I never played with it originally I never had problems or felt like I needed a brainstorm, that made chalicing for one so much less painful.

Will decklists be posted for this tournament? I'd really like to have a look at the different Workshop builds to see where they all differed... So will the next StarCity P9 be dominated by Workshops like Rochester was dominated by Fish variants?

Luiggi

Yes, Hatch said the would be up soon. I wouldn't be surprised if the next scg is inundated with workshop or workshop hate.

[Luiggi]

I guess that means that Feinstein and his legion of Kird Apes will be out in full effect, ! That should make for some interesting coverage on SCG.

Luiggi

[49 Cents]

Yeah, definitely, but with 9 rounds how the hell isn't G/R Beatz going to face an extremely bad matchup or 2? ^^

[rvs]

Yeah, definitely, but with 9 rounds how the hell isn't G/R Beatz going to face an extremely bad matchup or 2? ^^

Interesting coverage doesn't really mean that the covered person must be doing really well. They'll probably just cover him early anyway ^^

[Meddling Mike]

How was brainstorm for you? We just dropped it and although I never played with it originally I never had problems or felt like I needed a brainstorm, that made chalicing for one so much less painful.

The differences in our builds are as follows

I have:
4 Brainstorm
1 Triskelion
1 Trinisphere

Outlaw has:
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Gorilla shaman
2 Rack and ruin
1 Memory Jar

Well, I think brainstorm was very strong for me all day. This deck isn't like CS where you're going to come across a good amount of large cc artifacts that you're unlikely to ever be able to cast and want to brainstorm/fetch them away. So there's rarely a time where you're really sitting around like "OMG hope I topdeck a brainstorm". That said it adds consistency to a deck that is often lacking it and crucible of worlds gives the deck the ability to brainstorm/fetch like crazy to improve consistency. Also, I've been extremely let down by dupes in the time I was playing it, Trike is hands down better. Also, Trinisphere belongs in this deck. I've actually used a turn 3 tinker to search for trinisphere before to get a soft lock with crucible/wasteland. As far as Outlaw's choices, Jar doesn't seem quite as busted, usually TFK and brainstorm keep me well enough set for threats that a 5cc artifact that I often have to wait to pop the following turn isn't ideal. Jar can also help other decks with brainstorm/any form of graveyard recursion/psychatogs. Rack and Ruin was probably a solid metagame call given the large number of shop decks, but I often have a hard time getting the mana up for Thirst for Knowledge (so many hands are keepable simply because they have first turn juggernaut off workshop often times I'm left w/o the mana sources to cast thirst for knowledge) I'd imagine casting a 3cc red spell would be even harder given that this deck also does not have brainstorm to help look for an additional colored mana source. The shaman also seems janky Maindeck just because he'll often end up just a 1/1 beater for R after you drop your chalice for 0. But obviously this build worked out quite well for outlaw and I'd encourage people to find a build that suits their style of play and the metagame.

[Hatchman]

Mage as always it was great to see you and Rich at one of my events and I hope to have you two at future events for some more ninja beats!!


Thanks Again!
Hatch