Godot
Texas Ranger
Adepts
Basic User
Posts: 242
LIttle Lebowski Urban Achiever
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« on: August 02, 2005, 02:38:42 am » |
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Between going a stellar 2-1-2 at the last Chicago tournament and just generally scrubbing like a bitch on my trip to Rochester/Syracuse its been quite a while since I’ve done anything worth writing a tournament report about but I finally managed to sack my way to another decent showing. After Rochester we went back to our testing with renewed vigor. With a local mox tournament scheduled two weeks before Chicago, the conditions were set up for us to get in some quality tournament testing.
Immediately after Rochester, the very next day in fact, I dropped Stax and went back to my roots, Tog. It felt good having Drains back in my hand, and Tog w/ Colossus became the deck I was gonna focus on for Chicago. The initial results were ok, but it wasn’t dominating or overly powerful. My attempts to improve always resulted in the same conclusion though. I could go in one direction which inevitably lead to the conclusion that everything I was trying to accomplish was done better by Gifts (note: this was pre gifts.meandeck.smennen). In the other direction CS was better at doing everything I wanted to do. I decided to play CS as the Gifts decks just felt weak and I couldn’t pinpoint why. I worked on CS for a few weeks, but I put Meandeck Gifts together the day it came out and absolutely loved it. Clown of Tresserhorn aka Bob aka that Chinaman was all about it too, and planned to play it Chicago so we focused our testing on him perfecting the deck with me playing a wide variety of decks, but pretty much only playing against gifts.sm. At the mox tourney I ran CS and ended up playing a teammate in top 8 and losing to shop aggro in top 4. I was pretty comfortable with playing CS at Chicago as I’d beat fish and shop aggro and I felt I’d be able to outplay the majority of the gifts players there since I had so much experience against a good gifts player. Things were looking good that for the first time I might actually have picked a deck more than 6 hours before the tournament. Cue the indecision and doubt. First Bob dropped gifts because of consistency issues and went back to stax. This just got me thinking about gifts more and I started to vascillate between playing CS and gifts.sm. Hello, my name is Jim and I have a problem. I am a compulsive deck switcher, a jack of all trades, but master of none. This is not the way to win tournaments. Bob says to play gifts. JD says to play gifts. I believe gifts is the best deck in the format. Despite all this Im still leaning toward playing CS. I was not particularly pleased with 3 maindeck cards from the list I ran at the Mox tourney so I switched them up and had what I felt was a pretty strong list.
So the tournament finally rolls around. We leave at the usual time of 1AM Friday morning and drive through the night. We’ve got a full car this time as 2 of the Colorado Springs crew are joining us. The roster includes myself, Bob the Clown of Tresserhorn, THE scott limoges, fuckin lou, and Travis. We make it through the night with a steady diet of magic conversation, chicks and dick jokes. Our first stop is the techy gas station PLUS Dairy Queen. China Bob was a little anxious at how the two elderly local gentlemen reading skin rags in a gas station/DQ at 6AM who were discussing how they “didn’t understand what happened to this country� would react to his communist citizen ass. In the end he decided not to begin espousing Mao-ist doctrine and possible conflict was averted. Most of the trip was pretty uneventful and I snag some much needed zzz’s through Iowa while fuckin lou drives. Somewhere in eastern Iowa we pull off to get gas in some 3 light town tucked in between a bunch of corn fields. Someone buys Bobs underage ass a 40 of King Cobra while he steals some corn out of the nearby field. Then it begins to sink in how close we are to Chicago and the White Castle gauntlet gets thrown down. Bob claims hes gonna hoover on 20, which most of the car calls bullshit on. The challenge is put up and fuckin lou accepts his challenge. Mindful of our gastrointestinal systems the rest of us stay out of it. We finally roll up into Pasttimes around 6 or 7 and see some mana drainers and people from previous Chicagos. We don’t hang around and just grab some deck reg sheets, snag some Boones Farm and some warm up White Castle before the showdown tomorrow and go to the hotel. We ate and then played a game of poker. It was my first game of Hold’em and I can see why people get hooked on this shit. I ended up winning that game and the $35 paid for my share of the hotel and dinner so I took that as a good omen. I finally get convinced to run gifts, which I think I should have been running from the beginning, but better late than never. I sleeved up my list for gifts and threw a sideboard ogether.
Deep Dish Gifts
4 Force or Will
2 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Merchant Scroll
2 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoths Will
1 Recoup
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Burning Wish
3 Island
2 Snow-covered Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
Sideboard
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
2 Old Man of the Sea
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pyroclasm
The board is a mess. Duress was mostly a space filler, and, despite what Bob said, I should have run Eye of Nowhere. A second pyroclasm could have been useful, but the Duresses need to be replaced. The only change in the maindeck is that we dropped a Misdirection for a second Rebuild in anticipation of a lot more shop aggro than actually showed up. I jacked Kowals get lots of sleep tech from the last Chicago and was in bed by 1 AM!!!! I was asleep hours before I typically even choose a deck. w00t
We roll up into Pasttimes at 9 after a rousing rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart to get us super pumped and soon I find Jesus. I lend him some stuff for CS which he puts to good use. Going into Pasttimes I was pretty confident in my ability to do well, but when I entered the play area my hopes were quickly dashed when I saw who showed up….
FAMINE: Thirsting for knowledge.
WAR: The stories with unhappy endings
PESTILENCE: Spreading the disease
DEATH: It’s only the beginning.
So yeah, TEAM APOCALYPSE RIDERS was in attendance. Big frowns. The tournament hasn’t even started and its already over for my man. Any ideas I had of actually winning were immediately quashed. But seriously, whats up with these teams with personalized shirts? GWS, Team Nonesense (the blue shirted Canadians from Rochester), Apocalypse Riders. Is this a recent phenomenon or have I just never noticed it before? Anyway, I pay up and get psyched hoping I can learn how to pilot the deck by round 3. I’ve played against it a ton and understand how the deck operates but I probably only have around 30 or 40 games behind the wheel. Anyways, on to what actually happened..
Round 1: Steve - Fish a variant that had Mages, Spiketails, Skyfolk and Ninjas w/ Vial Chalice and Jitte
His deck was kinda an amalgm of several different fish decks, and seemed to be a bit light on disruption. He gets major props for asking me if I mind if he riffle shuffles my deck, which I do. So he pile and sideshuffles instead.
Game 1 - Things don’t start off particularly hot. Im struggling to keep up as I cant find any real business, while he beats me down. I finally get some business and have to cast it with no backup, but he has the force.
Game 2 - He gets some beats on early but I get some card advantage off a gifts and get an Old Man of the Sea into play to stop his Skyfolk and Spiketail, but he plays and equips Jitte before he swings which makes my job a lot harder. On my turn I try and take his Skyfolk to bleed off a counter. Then I Time Walk and get a Rebuild. When gets another turn I bleed off the other counter and Rebuild after he attacks to stop more counters and avoid the life gain as time was becoming a factor and I didn’t want to give him any extra turns. He concedes once I get a 2nd Old Man down.
Game 3 - We go back and I stay just a little bit ahead the entire game. Time is called during his turn when Im ready to resolve gifts. I do so and spend a while thinking about exactly what to do. I get the Tinker stuff and kill him in two turns.
Round 2: Mike - Ub ninjas + hate
He has some interesting creatures that could be annoying like the bounce ninja and the one that eats your graveyard and counters/therapies/stifles/wastes.
Game 1 - He puts some early pressure on my manabase with a strip on my Island during his second main phase so I float and crack my fetch to shuffle away stuff before I Brainstorm, but he Stifles. I Drain using the floating blue and my Lotus Petal, get my land, Brainstorm and resolve Gifts on my next turn. I take beats down to 3 and then win with a Tendrils for a bunch.
Game 2 - I get the turn 2 Tinker and he just cant deal.
Round 3: Damien - monoR Goblins
Game 1 - He drops a turn 1 Prospector while I Scroll up Ancestral Recall. He beats on me for a turn or two but my life doesn’t fall below 15 before DSC hits play and takes care of business.
Game 2 - He gets an explosive turn 1 with a Lackey and Warchief and then dropped Recruiter to set up Kiki-Jiki next turn. I don’t have any counters in my opening hand, but I did have Tinker and Recall. My turn 1 Recall gives me Pyroclasm and on my next turn I play it to kill 5 goblins. He copies his recruiter in response to restack his deck since he only has 2 land, but I Tinker the next turn and just win.
Round 4: Mat aka Lost in Admiration with Oath
Game 1: I just have absolutely no gas, but am able to bounce his Akroma and then his DSC. He manages to Blessing his Akroma back into his deck and oath finding Akroma with only 6 cards left in his deck. Had I had Eye of Nowhere in the board I likely could have bounced Akroma and decked him, but I didn’t and paid the price for it.
Game 2: This game straight up sucked. I keep a so-so hand and find an absurd number of my nonbasics(well, just 2 but w/e) while he kept a hand with a bunch of wastes. He gets an Oath down and we spend many turns doing nothing since hes just looking for an Orchard but cant cast spells as Drain mana is about the only way I can get back into this game. I almost pull it out by mising Rebuild and Mox Jet on my last two draws with the WIsh in hand, but he had the answer anyway.
Round 5: Jamison – TPS
Game 1 - I Misd his turn 1 Ancestral and kill him with Tendrils after a Gifts or two.
Game 2 - I get the turn 1/2 Tinker + Walk with counter backup and he cant deal.
Round 6: Josh aka onelovemachine with Tog
Josh is always working on Tog and his latest version is also running Merchant Scrolls. He says its incredibly fast and beats the shit outta fish, but I get the nut sauce in both of these games and didnt really see it do its thing.
Game 1 - I get the turn 1 Scroll -> Recall while he Intuitions up AKs. We sculpt our hands for a bit and have a big card draw war at the end of one of his turns. In the end I resolved Gifts and Recall and hes more or less depleted. Soon after I top deck Echoing Truth with Will and a bunch a non-counters in my hand. I bounce his Lotus to deny him blue mana cast Will and Recall, Brainstorm, play a land, lotus and Merchant Scroll to build my hand back up. He scoops a turn or two later when I show him Rebuild and Wish.
Game 2 – He played a turn 1 or 2 Tog and beats on me for a few turns. I kill him on turn 5 or 6 with Tendrils.
Round 7: Matt with Meandeck Gifts
My first mirror of the day, or ever for that matter. He tells me hes beaten the mirror twice already today, but Im still confident I can beat him since I’ve put in so much time playing against this deck.
Game 1 – I mull to 5 on the draw, while he starts off with turn 1 FoF or something like that. My 5 cards are strong though with Island, Fetch, 2x Drain and Gifts. He doesn’t win before I get Drain mana up. I sculpt my hand for a few turns, drain something cast a gifts or two and he concedes to my overwhelming advantage.
Game 2 – He keeps a sketch hand, but I don’t have anything particularly strong either. He starts off with Jet, Sapphire, Island, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Black Lotus and Demonic Tutor for a Gifts which he casts using his Lotus. He grabs Tinker/Will/Recoup/Time Walk. I happily give him Walk and Recoup comfortable that I can stabilize before he gets red mana. I do while he rips more red cards. I take complete control of the game and eventually kill him with Tendrils.
Round 8: ID with Jim Erlinger
Top 8: Vroman w/ Uba Stax
I’ll refer you to the SCG coverage cause Im lazy, but I’ll highlight several of my mistakes cause I made quite a few. I went into this match with The Fear. I wasn’t familiar with Uba Stax and thought it ran a lot more lock pieces than it does. I didn’t analyze the threats well at all.
Game 1 – I come out of the gates strong but his Shaman keeps me in check. My first error was my gifts stack. Everytime I’ve put Mystical in gifts stack I’ve regretted it, but for some reason my dumb ass does it again. Secondly, on the turn after I resolved gifts I had 2 Seas and 2 Islands in play. I should have just Scrolled for Drain and passed with 2 Islands open in order to accelerate into the game winning gifts. Brainstorming before the Scroll and not finding land slowed me down enough for him to take control.
Game 2 – I mull to five, but still have a chance in the game. I get a really strong manabase of several Islands and Mana Vault and draw into my Pithing Needles just as he gets Bazaar online. I drop the first Pithing Needle and name Bazaar. I make the mistake of naming Welder with the second. For some reason I was putting him on Welder and he had stuff in the yard I didn’t want recurred, but the correct choice would have been Wasteland. In talking with Kevin Cron right after the match he brought up the exactly pitfall I fell victim to--an overconfidence in the manabase. I needed the colored mana, but just took my manabase for granted and suffered b/c of it. My final mistake came when I drew Mystical Tutor while Uba Mask was in play. Not until after I Mysticaled did I notice his Wasteland in play and my fetchland, but I doubt it would have made much difference either way. My first thought was to get Will and cast the 3 Recal…er…Brainstorms in my yard, but with the Uba Mask in play and my lack of non-blue mana I discarded that option. I settled on getting a Rack and Ruin and just hoped he didn’t see the Waste play, but hes a good player and makes me pay for not noticing it until it was too late.
I was really pleased with the way the deck performed. I think I’ve finally found a deck Im going to stick with for a while and actually attempt to master. One thing that I’ve noticed with the deck is that there is a vast difference in how people mulligan. Steve and Hi-Val report not mulling very often at all whereas I’ve found that I mulligan in somewhere around 60% of my games. The deck does mull extremely well though. I went to 5 four times over the course of the tournament going 3-1 in those games.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Some post Top8 Type 4 with Reb, Rico Suave, Travis, scott limoges, Methusalahn, Bob and wasp happened. After I snagged the Jet for my troubles we hit up White Castle, but due to fuckin lous absence the contest didn’t happen, but there was some awesome shit on cinemax. If you ever get the opportunity I highly recommend Spiderbabe. Any movie about a chick who can shoot webs out of her cooter is ok by me. We get going the next day around 11 and roughly 16 hours of dick jokes and flatulence ensue along with the following exchange:
Bob: Dude, I don’t like drinking at parties cause the last time I did I blacked out.
Me: Its not blacking out, its time travelling. (bonus points if you know who I stole this from)
fuckin lou: Well if blacking out is time travelling then just call me Jacques Cousteau
We got pulled over by a cop only 10 mins away from my house for going 59 in a 45 zone, but the cop was cool and just let me go with a warning. Theres probably some props and slops, but Im too lazy to write them now so deal with it.
EDIT: Grammar and details
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