well I had a full tourney report written up in here, but them my boss closed the screen and I lost 100% of it...I had already written for like an hour on my day for this thread too....crap...
heres the run down...
I played my brain rapist version of Cerebral Assasin...it is very good...(thats the long and the short of it) I ended the day 6-2 after losing in the top 8 to luis scott-vargas (an amazing player) who was playing gifts...
Round 1 I had a bye from previous top 8s
Round 2 is John Hodges playing Dragon...
Game 1 he combos me out turn 2...his build of dragon feels fast to me and its a little scarier than some builds who dont generally try to combo out till turns 3 or 4...john always seems to be trying to combo out turn 1 or 2...
Game 2 I am able to bring the hate and he walks right into ray of revelation in the SB...he tried to take the play back and animate a second target but the judge was right there watching and he had to play it out...he scooped when I ate his permanents...
Game 3 He combos off and makes infinite sliver tokens...he doesnt have witness to recurr time walk though and I get a turn...I animate his dragon to cause a draw...but I screwed up by not casting reanimate on my triskelion first...duh!!!! I draw the game since I already named the dragon with animate dead and there are no other creatures to animate....
Game 4 I bring much hate and end up with ray in the yard, ray in my hand, tormods crypt and seal of cleansing in play...sundering titan takes it home a few turns later...
Round 3 im playing against Chris Poff playing ChronStax (but still with welders?)
Game 1 he thought I was playing stax (since its what ive been playing for the last 2 months..) and I didnt do too much to change his mind, I end up welding in titan and beat for 2 turns...he then resolves platinum angel but I have answers...I tinker up triskelion and ping the angel 3 times, then death spark it to death (thats right...death spark) and swing with the titan for the win...
Game 2 was over quick as he cant get into any prisoney stuff quickly and I do stupid broken things and win via dragon into triskelion infinite damage stuff...he thought he would have answers to my dragon/witness loop since I dont run force of will, but he didnt know about the triskelion win in CA (vs the ancestral win in UGB dragon)
Round 4 is Manny Alfaro playing Gifts...
Smashed him....heh, thats all you get manny...oh yeah, game 2 I beat him with hardcasted squee beats...lol
you know I love ya manny...
Round 5 is Adam Barth playing Chalice Oath (this probably would have been my deck choice too if I was playing control for the day)
Game 1 he wins with like a turn 2 oath (I had played out a dead welder since I thought he was playing gifts...oh well, he followed it up with an orchard turn 2 or 3 anyways)
Game 2 I deplete his great control hand (he simply couldnt get into an oath) and win after a duress shows no answer to dragon...(I think, I might have just gone titan beats this game, but I have no notes from this match...memory thinks its dragon though)
Game 3 I have a good turn 2 titan hand, but he plays turn 1 orchard mox oath and my match is shot.
Round 6 is my teammate Kevin Schambers running a Keeper style UW deck...unfortunatly we are both at 4-1 at this point so one of us has to go home...(well figuratively...he was my ride so he couldnt leave yet.) We have tested this match a lot (since they are our main decks really) and fortunatly for me I win most of the time...
Game 1 I do broken things and win via Dragon combo (his hand was gone so no more answers for him
Game 2 I get the big titan guy out pretty quick via reanimate turn 2, and eat 2 lands, I then am able to animate another one next turn to seal the deal...if he had white mana still he could have swords one but two was too much too quick...but hey thats what the deck does...
Round 7 I should be able to draw in, but David Ochoa makes me play it out (he is 5-0-1 at this point and is for sure in) he wants to get his buddy luis scott-vargas into the top 8 and he thinks the only way to do it is to beat me...I am not too happy about this situation so I beat the snot out of him 2-0...His response was that I drew well and he didnt (pretty accurate) a little credit is always nice though, I was 4-0 against that deck at that point on the day...David is a good guy though, and an amazing player so I would never hold any grudge against him taking away my break time before the cut to top 8.
Top 8 is against Luis Scott-Vargas who got into the top 8 through some amazing circumstances (basically he shouldnt have made it, but at least 3 people were complete idiots and he got in somehow) I shouldnt really say he shouldnt have made it though, Luis is an amazing player and pretty much always deserves a spot in our local top 8...his real record should have been 4-3 though but Nate scooped to him (stupid as nate would have made top 8...he didnt even get anything out of it as far as I know) but Luis ended up 5-2 and in on tie breaks and I had to play him....yuck, Luis is amazing...
At this point im happy I reached my goal of top 8 at this tourney with my brain rapist deck, I was 13-3-1 and in 1st place going into this top 8 so I feel my deck was amazingly succesful for me...
Long story short Luis beat the crap out of me....I kept a very questionable hand that would have been great had I draw either a blue mana source OR a bazaar in the first like 2 or 3 turns...that didnt happen though and DSC came a knocking...
Game 2 I have a good hand that is very defensive in nature (2 welders, REB, Tormods Crypt at least, and I ended up seeing Welder and REB in my next two draws...) I only have 1 UR mana source though and that is what bites me in the butt...I just cant keep welder down and even though tormods crypt was holding down the yawg will win, welder couldnt stop the DSC again...It was a good game really, even though it was a solid win by him...it just shows how impressive Gifts really is...(even though I beat 2 other guys from his team playing the same deck 2-0 both times
)
all in all a great day...brent won the lotus and he deserved it, he is a nice guy and a great player (mr T2 champ
) although I wish you would have actually had to play a top 8 match to get it...having stan and luis scoop to you since you were going to split it was the easy way out, you probably could have beaten them anyways. But good job anyways...now you can be mr t1 and t2 champ...
Props:
Eudemonia - for holding an entire P9 series for us, we really appreciate it...cant wait until next year..This last tourney (lotus) was exactly what I had been looking for from you guys all along (although the deck check for top 8 after all of us had already been deck checked, then making all but like 1 of us re-sleeve sucked it was a real down time that I hadnt expected and kinda got me out of magic mode...it was just too long)
Kevin - for the ride down and being a great testing partner...
Tony - For letting me borrow the ravager deck so I could loan it to Jesse...sorry you couldnt make it to play...
The Hadley Rockstars - for introducing Cerebral Assasin to T1
Doug Linn (HiVal) - For helping out with deck ideas early on, Brain Rapist might not work right without your help. I still like CA better than TurboTitan, but your views on titan were appreciated.
Nataz - for being another CA pimp, your decklist brought me back down to earth a little more and helped me with my Rapist build for this Eudemonia tourney...(I still think your missing out by not running reanimate though, its really good)
Manny - for keeping things light hearted...I would never be able to get David to laugh without your help...
Everybody else - for coming out and making T1 go in the bay area...also to the LA guys who made the trip up north to play.
Slops:
Nate - for scooping to Luis in round 7....you should have been there (top 8) instead (heh, im biased since id rather play nate and his fish deck than Luis and his gifts deck...
)
Jesse - for losing to your good matchup and winning your impossible matchup...just giving you a hard time, good job with the ravager deck, and I hope you get it put together for yourself, its a step or two in the right direction from 9 land stompy...
Nick Weed - for asking his stuffed wizard what plays to make, and saying weird demon quotes when he played cards...its hard to concentrate on a match when the guy next to you is saying things like "ill tap the skull to worship the devil.,(dark ritual I guess) then ill consult the wizard and choose to play the ball of many magical colors (chromatic sphere I assumed) which turns my demon mana into blood"....blah blah blah blah...sheesh, enough already..although Ryans face was hilarious when he heard it....I couldnt keep from laughing (I felt bad cause I think my opponent thought I was laughing at him.) But hey, your still a cool guy for running 2-land belcher and doing well with it on several occasions...
Anybody who doesnt think CA is a good deck - You know who you are...in fact (here is a quick story for you) Ill tell you about the first time I ever spoke to Luis Scott-Vargas (hes a good guy and this story makes him out to be a jerk, but hes not after you talk to him for reals...) The first thing Luis ever said to me was...(this after I just lost a top 8 match to a salvager oath deck) "I kinda wish you would have won.." I say "whys that?" he says, "cause your deck looks a lot easier to beat." I said back to him.."actually I find the control slaver match up to be one of its easiest matches..." he kind of ignored me and went on to win the tourney...I suppose arrogance is okay if you can back it up like that...and since ive gotten to talking to him (I didnt for a while since I thought he was rude) hes turned out to be a great guy and an amazing magic player though so I forgive him completely (he didnt know who I was at the time, and I didnt know who he was at the time, and in all fairness I had made a major mistake that game and lost a match I should have won, so he probably thought I was a complete scrub.) Heh, sorry for using you as an example Luis...I still love ya..
Thats all I can think of, a week in Maui makes me forget all the bad things that might have happened...see you all at future T1 events in Northern CA.
