getting in second with TPoath in Leiden 22 of januari

Report, Leiden 22 januari 2006.

Last week I won in Eindhoven and I didn’t have time to look at magic all week. So I pretty much pushed the print button on my decklist of last week and scooped up my deck from last week. The day before the tournament I was visiting a friend of mine and my train didn’t go all the way back to my girlfriends who lives a lot closer to where the tournament was held. But my car was there so I needed to go to her anyways, and she was sitting next to me, so where could I go wrong. Well, the normally one hour train trip now took us over 2 hours which meant we had to take a cab home. We came home way to late to have a decent night of sleep and after five hours (I know, but I am getting to old for short nights) of sleep her alarmclock started ringing. I got up and after a quick shower and some fast bread I went to Leiden, half an hour drive, so not to bad.

When I arrived my friends Rudy and Hero already were there, flanked by my old collegefriend Arjan, who was going to be the headjudge. He is a good guy and a good judge. Perhaps a little to strict for level one enforcement, but he decides and runs a very smooth and fast tournament this way. So kudos to him for that. Asi enlisted upfront he had already seen my name on the list and was expecting me. We chatted some at the bar and then he had to get to work with elisting of people.

We started only 10 minutes late. Did I say Arjan runs a smooth tournament…

I played my own TPoath concoction. As I have been playing TPS in all kinds of forms for over two years now, I can rely on some knowledge of the deck. My transformational sideboard is something I have been working with the last couple of months and works well. Still, when I am facing new decks (like in this tournament) I make some judgement calls that can or cannot have been wrong. But more about that later. This was the list I was playing.

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Frantic Search
4 Force of Will
1 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
3 Dark Confidant
2 Sensei’s divining top
2 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Wheel of Fortune
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
(60 cards)

Sideboard:
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Blazing Archon
2 Forbidden Orchard
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Woodripper
4 Oath of Druids
1 Sundering Titan
1 Rushing River
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Tinker
1 Gaea’s Blessing

As said we started only 10 minutes late and I went to my table. In Leiden we have good sized tables to play on and all the room we need without having to look out for your neighbour.

Round one
Jasper with oath
I win the roll (would happen a lot today) and decide to play first. I play a duress of a city of brass and see he is playing oath. He has no oath and I decide to get rid of the brainstorm. I then get to play a brainstorm myself and later a dark confidant. After getting 5 dmg of a fow that I draw with my confidant I draw a sensei ensuring I never will getmore than 1 dmg with my confidant. As I draw faster cards than him and can hold of the oath plan my confidant goes all the way.
Game two he starts of with an orchard mox oath. As I have boarded in some critters, my 2 orchards and my gaea’s blessing this is a pretty good start for him. I have a manaheavy hand with an orchard of my own. I also have a vampiric tutor and a chain of vapor. He manages to get out akroma as he has a time walk and hits me once. I then play my second orchard and as soon ashe wants to attack again I bounce his akroma. We then have the same amount of tokens. He then concedes as he decides he is not going to recouver from the second orchard I played.
2-0   1 0 0 (2-0)

Round 2
Leon 1 mox oath (so virtually unpowered)
The first game is very weird. He has a slow handand so do i. He has an orchard, so do i. We exchange some duresses and counters. He then uses muddle the mixture to transmute into an oath. He still only has 1 orchard. I then decide to play my second orchard. As we both have tops and he has played a couple of impulses i can only assume he was looking for oath all the time as he never playes his second orchard. I look for my will with the vampiric I got in the meanwhile and draw it next turn. I also oath a confidant in. This repeats itself for confidants 2 and 3 with only 5 cards remaining in my deck after oathing in number 3. I then proceed to play my will with FoW backup and enough mana to pay for the manaleak he then casts. I have so much in the yard I can kill him easily. But this game actually took 40 minutes.
Game two is even weirder. I boarded in my oathplan without the oaths. As he is playing oath I reckon it is his only wincondition so he needs to play his oath to win. I get a manaheavy hand with a sundering titan. He played a lot of normal lands so it wasn’t to bad. When I play brainstorm and duress him he has no fow so I can hardcast my sundering titan leaving him with just a mox diamond. (could be he just had that diamond to begin with as I cast my titan on turn 2 of a lotus, manavault and a sol ring. I also must have had some mox. I get to beat him once before I need to hard cast my colossus as he has played an oath I could do nothing about. We already were in extra time. If he had not played the oath I would have killed him but with the oath he got enough blockage to not finish the game. So I win narrowly
1-0   2 0 0 (3-0)

Round 3
Joram playing Ubastaxx
Last week he was playing oath. Not this week. He starts by playing a welder and I decide not to FoW. Then it becomes clear to me he plays something completely different when I see the tanglewire and all kinds of other muck coming down on me. When his uba mask hits the game and he has all kinds of goodies in his graveyard to make his welder usefull I scoop.
Game two I get a godhand after taking a mulligan to 5. I can go tinker colossus with FoW backup to counter his welder he tries to cast turn one. After that he never recouvers and we make it one a piece.
Game three is intesting as he never really gets his staxx plan on the table (possibly he sided it out). I get out an early oath and the first critter I get is blazing archon. He plays a maze of ith. I get to hit him once before he gets out a second maze of ith with me having only akroma and blazing archon. My third critter wrecks his artefacts as I get my woodripper. He got out his duplicant to kill my akroma but still cant attack or make his welder usefull as I get rid of all of his artefacts. Then time is called and we never get to finish the game although I try to get in a tendrils win in overtime with the help of oath and hoping to draw will without hitting the blessing. That doesn´t work though.
1-1   2 1 0 (4-1)
Until then my deck has not really performed right. I get in some wins in very strange ways and take most games all the way to overtime. So it is time for something shorter now.

Round 4
Daniel with his black dredge concoction
Game one I lost because I didn’t read the cards well enough. I had my necro down and was drawing cards but I got 1 to many and he killed me to punish me for that. He made good use of some tokens I gave him of my orchard to therapy me and in doing so stalling me enough to get his combo to work.
Game two I got out colossus turn 1 and still he almost raced me.
Game three I had a slow hand I never should have kept and in three quick turns it was over. He dredged a lot of critters into his yard and attacked me twice with them and that was it.
1-2   2 1 1 (5-3)

Round 5
My deck is still not loving me like it has done so many months. I am making mistakes and it does not give me the cards I need or want when I need and want them. Very frustrating but I keep the faith in my deck as I still have a way to sneak into top 8. I need to win the last two rounds of swiss.
Duncan with leviat
This round is a little fuzzy. I know I lost the first game because he got his replenish to resolve after me realising him playing this deck when he starts to lay down bazaar and intuition for some keycards. He had form of the dragon, bargain and solitary confinement in the yard and that was it. Not a good start when you need to win both remaining rounds.
Game two is another weird round. He plays some normal lands and I get to tinker for sundering titan severely crippling his manabase. He still has his bazaar though and so he is still dangerous as he has already two squees in the yard. My titan swings two times to get him to three. He then resolves another replenish getting in 3 seal of cleansing and form of the dragon. So my titan is grounded and he is back to 5. He does not use his seals to remove my sol ring and moxes with his seals and this seals the deal as I get to hardcast my blazing archon (yes I had a lot of mana) when I am at 8 and he did not get his timewalk to form me to death in time to get killed by archon.
Sowe go to game three. I got out my necro pretty fast as I recall correctly. He got out his bargain with another replenish he played with FoW backup. As I had the kill in my hand I pretty much didn’t want him to have a bargain working. He didn’t draw to seven cards, which I think is a mistake because perhaps you can drop some jewelry and draw into something usefull. I chained his bargain and he draws cards till he is at 9. So I need only do him 10 damage with my tendrils. Somehow he didn’t draw FoW and I get to resolve my will for the win.
That was a close call and only because he choose not to draw till he had a FoW or something else usefull
2-1   3 1 1 (7-4)

Round 6
So I am still in with a chance for top 8. As I need to play anyways I never consider to draw and I need to play Pim, the guy I beat in last weeks finals. I lost to him in the swiss last week, so by no means a fast win.
Pim (oath)
Horay, for the first time today my deck really loves me as I getin a second turn kill with nothing he could do about it. Something with rituals, demonic, will lotus and some other spells.
The second game I get down a necro fast but then get nothing of use to combo him to death. He counters a crucial spell of mine and that was it. There was no way for me to win it when at 1 and no more carddraw or business left.
I need to take a mulligan to 6 and keep a 1 land hand. He wastes it and I draw another. An orchard this time, he wastes it again and I give him a token while manaburning for one. He starts beating me with the token while doing not to much of consequence. He gives me a token as well and i play land manavault. Here is where he makes a mistake in my opinion. He had a wasteland but decided to play a spell instead of wasing my land. I got another land next turn and could go tinker for lotus playing ritual and will of which he never could counter anything. I then could kill him with my tendrils in the overtime. Afterwards he concluded as his tie breakers were very bad he could not have made top 8. Turned out I was down paired and really needed the win for the top 8. I was the worst player getting into top eight tie breaker wise. But as I had 1 point more than the number 9 I got in. Lucky me.
2-1   4 1 1 (9-5)

Quarter final
Peter (dragon)
Peter is a good guy I meet in all kinds of tournaments. We always have a laugh or two and he always plays something most players do not. Today, as last week in Eindhoven, he is playingdragon. Last week he didn’t do so well but today he got into top 8 as the top man. So I was warned.
Game one I get to counter an animate effect. I then have nothing left and start building for a good hand. The good news is he has nothing either, but he has bazaar. No squees so nothing really bad. He then cast vampiric and I do nothing as I have nothing to do. He cast xantid swarm. It turns out he looked for a green manasource thinking I had another counter. I decided to combo the nect turn as he was emptyhanded and I had nothing to fear.
Game two. He had bazaar out early and and a dragon in the yard soon after. (read turn one but no animate effect) I early on looked for my chain of vapour and he walked right into my trap. As he had null rod out I needed to draw it with a brainstorm when the need would arise but I could draw it neatly as a draw. When he animated his dragon he looked at me and said please no bounce. I bounced his dragon while all his board including a null rod got destroyed. After thati got to play two Bobs and with sensei I never got much damage and them two went all the way.
2-0   5 1 1 (11-5)

Semi final
Barrie with oath
I had never before seen him on a vintage tournament but here he was, semi final. As I got to look at his decklist I knew I would be needing my bounce as he played platinum angel and akroma. He never really botheredlooking at how many tokens he gave me and I kept on hitting him with them reducing the amount of damage needed with my tendrils. At last I got in a tendrils of six when he was at nine. He cunning wished for misdirection and FoWed another leaving him at one. He wanted to draw oath and then walk having a 50 percent chance of hitting platz. But he didn’t draw oath while still having a walk in hand. So I got the first one.
I got in my oath critters but never needed them as I got in an early tendrils with the help of a will. Again I did some damage with his own tokens. I had an orchard as well but he had two by then.
2-0   6 1 1 (13-5)

Final
Steffen with his cerebral dragon concoction.
He had done well and we talked some about splitting but the organiser never made us a really acceptable offer so we decided to play.
Game one I got in an early tendrils, was turn two or three I am guessing. Fromhere on I think I made the mistake togo oath kill. If I had gone combo full out with a lot of bounce I may have had a chance but now he just went wild way to early for me twice. His deck was really fast and really consistent showing that on this day so all kudos to him as well.
1-2   6 2 1 (14-7)

I walked away with an alpha demonic tutor which is nice.

Pros
My deck for totally crapping out on me but still delivering wins. Shows that you never can tell when you can win or lose. Even with nothing o the board you still can win.
Arjan for running a very smooth tournament.
All the cool opponents I got to play
The two new decks making top 8 with an almost fully powered tournament. Shows we dutchies are developing new things for the metagame and vintage is still alive and throwing new decks at us.
Cons
To little sleep
My deck crapping out on me for the first time in months.
Not winning, but it would have been an undeserved win for me.