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Milton
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« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2006, 10:22:28 pm » |
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I played the Oath deck above. It's my second tournament with the deck and I'm planning on making some changes. Misdirection is a tremendous card right now. I'm thinking about going up to four. I'm still hedging on Divining Top. It was OK, but it could have been better. Why not Scroll Rack? The replacement effect of Scroll Rack could come in very handy if you happen to have that Akroma in hand and have burned through most of your Brainstorms. It seems clunky, though. Maybe I'll just go maindeck Null Rod. I boarded in those bastards all day anyway!
Here is my report. I made three big play errors, one cost me a game. I'll point those out as I go. Keep in mind, I don't ever test because I don't have friends and am a big looser. Oh, and I have a pretty demanding job and an equally demanding wife.
Round 1 v. Slaver (can't remember the guys name right now. I'm blanking)
Game 1, I do nothing as he builds up tremendous card advantage with Thrist. We have a counter war over a Thirst, but he wins and goes on the offensive. Eventually he MindTwists me. Who plays MindTwist anymore? His card advantage is overwhelming and I scoop as soon as he casts Welder with a full graveyard. I drew no Misdirections this game.
Sideboard: In: 3 Null Rod out: 2 Top, 1 Impulse
Game 2, I Misdirect his 2nd turn Ancestral. I play Orchard then Oath and win two turns later.
Game 3, a turn 1 Null Rod and a turn 2 Oath locked my opponent down. It twas a broken draw!
Games - 2-1 Matches 1-0
Round 2 v. Fish Varriant (Brad)
Game 1, I go first after Brad mulls down to 6. He proceeds to tell me he has never made a top eight ever! Bad karma for me. I open with Fetchland and Mox. His opening play is Library, but he has only 6 cards in hand. On my next turn I study my options. I draw Ancestral, with Walk, Stripmine, Brainstorm, Underground and Force in hand. What to do. I play Ancestral, draw Lotus and Oath. I play Lotus, Timewalk, kill his Library. Next turn I draw an Orchard, Brainstorm finds Yag Will and a Mox and it's pretty much game over from there.
Sideboard - None. I didn't know what he was playing!
Game 2 is different. It's one of those games where he gets good card drawing and finds answers. He manages to outdraw me with Ancestral early and he wins a counter war over Oath which gives him a token. He then beats me down slowly with Factory. I keep searching for answers but find none. He had answers, I didn't. I did not mount a serious threat all game.
Sideboard in Platinum Angel (just in case) for Top.
Game 3 was a nervous win. I Tinker for Darksteel early, but he starts drawing answers in the form of Maze of Ith. He gets two Mazes before I can Oath out Akroma. I attack, he Mazes both. He is attacking me with Tokens. I can't block his Tokens or else he gets to Oath, and he might just have Gilded Drake. I'm at 10 life when I end up attacking, he Mazes my guys. I cast Yag Will, replay Vamp for Time Walk, cast Brainstorm, get the Time Walk and cast it for the win. Time Walk > Maze of Ith.
Games 4-2 Matches 2-0
Round 3 v. GroATog (Joe)
Game 1 He led off with Duress, then I was able to lock up the game by stalling his mana with Wastelands while I built up a stable manabase. By turn four, or so, he casts Ancestral, I brainstorm, then I Ancestral, with Force to counter his Force, then I draw Misdirect off my Ancestral and Misdirect his Ancestral. It was game altering, to say the least. The game was so quick that I didn't even know he was playing Gro. I assumed it might be Oath.
Sideboard 1 Platinum Angel, 2 Echoing Truth (take that, Oath) for 2 Tops, 1 Impulse
Game 2 he just beats the crap out of me. He manages to build up an extremely impressive card advantage, then casts Tog. I scoop. I don't change the sideboard, though.
Game 3 BIG PLAY ERROR #1. I manage an early Oath, backed-up with counters. It's early in the game, so his mana base isn't well established. I Oath out Darksteel. On his turn he looks carefully at his hand. He's wondering if I can Misdirect a Gilded Drake. Damn. In hand I have a Echoing Truth, and not much else. He plays a Tog and says go. He has very few cards in hand and not much in the graveyard, so I wasn't too afraid of the early Tog. I Oath out Platinum Angel. I'm feeling pretty safe now. I attack with Darksteel, he blocks with his Tog. In his turn he casts Gilded Drake, naming Darksteel. This was a major mistake on his part. If he took the Platinum Angel I can't win. I Echoing Truth my Darksteel IN RESPONSE! I'm an idiot. I should have let the Drake resolve, then Echoing Truthed the Colossus. I would have gotten a 3/3 flyer. Instead the Drake fizzles. He made an error and I made an error right back at him. I have no excuse here, it was just nerves and stupidity on my part. The game state was somewhat iffy. Neither of us had many cards in had. We both were on game 3 and were perhaps overly nervous about the swingy game. We both made errors. In the end, though, my Akroma comes out quickly and Platinum Angel and Akroma finish the game. Joe and I discuss what fools we are after the game and I go to round 4.
Games 6-3 Matches 3-0
Round 4 v. Grim Long (Chris)
Game 1 was very quick. He casts turn 1 Dark Confident. I have a turn 2 Tinker for Colossus. Still, he almost combos out. He is a couple of mana short and the Colossus wins.
Board in: 3 Null Rod, 1 Platinum Angel Out: 2 Tops, 2 Misdirection
Game 2 was long and slow. He has an early Xantid Swarm. I was loving this. I didn't counter because I had Oath in hand, but no Orchard. I play Oath on turn 1. He plays Orchard on turn 2. Shit. He's running orchard? Why? I attack with my one token for years. I kill a lot of his land, including his Orcahrd. I play Null Rod and he cries. We both have one creature, though, and I can't draw an Orchard of my own! I slowly beat him down to 5 life with my token. He draws Hurkyls and casts it on his EOT. On his turn he casts Lotus - Will and goes off. I die.
Game 3 was simmilar. I vowed not to let that damn Swarm on the table, but he had it turn 1. I had no Oath this time, though. He gets out an Orchard, and I get a Token. I draw Wasteland after Wasteland and I kill a large chunk of his other land. I also get an early Null Rod. I attack with Token, which goes the distance for the win. He really had no mana.
Games 8-4 Matches 4-0
Round 5 ID
Top 8 v. UbaStax (Xue)
Xue was a great guy, but my mana denial got the most of him. Game 1, He led off with a turn 1 Workshop to NullRod and I wasted his Workshop on my turn. He didn't really recover until Tinker for Darksteel sealed the game.
Board in 1 Woodripper, 2 Oxodize for 1 Top, 2 Misdirection
Game 2 was me getting lucky with Oxodize. He leads off with Workshop-Crucuble. I play a Tropical for Oxodize on the Crucible. He plays Bazar and starts drawing, but I am able to combo out. He gets 2 Maze of Ith into play. Again, I use Time Walk for the win.
Top 4 v. Gifts (Tom)
Tom is the most patient player in the universe. After I defeated Xue, I waited patiently for Tom to finish his T8 match. I used my watch to start splitting turns. Tom took just over 1.5 minutes to decide which two cards to put back on the top of his library after a Brainstorm. It was funny because it didn't really matter. He had won the game at that point. I wait 15 minutes or so for Tom to finish off his opponent and I get ready to play. They inform me that they had just finished game 1. R U KITTEN ME? Xue and I finished two games, had a conversation about being Hmong in America today, discussed our occupations, traded recepies for Tater-Tot Hot Dish and read all of War and Peace together. In the meantime, Tom hadn't finished his first game. Apparently Tom's opponent was very patient also. It took them a while. So, I waited and watched. It was grueling. So I had to leave and talk to Jason for a while. Eventually (and I mean eventually more in the "a river will eventually carve out a canyon" sense of the word) Tom and I sat down to play.
Game 1, Tom beats me down with Tokens. Early game, he Merchant Scrolls for Ancestral and casts it on my EOT. I Ancestral in response. He Misdirects my Ancestral. He gets six cards. I get nothing. After that, I can't get an Oath around his counter wall and my Tokens beat me down. Little bastard Tokens!
Sideboard in 3 Null Rod, board out 2 Tops, 1 Impulse This was a very difficult decision. Do I get Null Rod, or Tormod's Crypt? Damn, it was tough. I must have though about this decision for, like, 10 minutes. Eventually I put the Null Rods in. I felt bad for making Tom wait so long for me to sideboard, but then I realized he was still sideboarding and I didn't feel so bad.
Game 2 BIG PLAY ERROR #2
I had a turn 1 Null Rod. Tom plays a turn 2 Claws of Gix. Null Rod > Claws of Gix. Tom's mana development stalls a bit and I'm pretty sure he's sitting on a handful of artifacts. I play Ancestral, he Ancestrals in response, I Misdirect his Ancestral and draw six cards. Ancestral with Force back-up isn't nearly as good as Ancestral with Misdirection back-up. I get my combo out, but Tom mounts a comeback. He manages to Echoing Truth Akroma. Shit. I drew Darksteel long ago and now I'm holding both in hand. I look in my graveyard and count 3 Brainstorms. He starts attacking me with Tokens. Both of my creatures are in hand and I'm stuck. I also had Yag Will in hand and could have cast it, but I didn't think it through. I was too focused on getting a Brainstorm. So, I activate Oath, triggering Blessing and my graveyard is gone, back into the deck. I'll draw a Brainstorm or a Tutor eventually? Right? I should have cast Yag Will. I'm an idiot. I realized it right after I triggered Oath too. Anyway, he beats me down to 10 or so before I can Brainstorm and Oath out Akroma.
Null Rod was just tremendous in this match-up. It really helped stall his mana development and shut him down for a large part of the game.
Game 3 BIG ERROR #3. I kept a two Wasteland hand. It did have an Emerald and Brainstorms and some nice pitch counters, but no blue mana. I got beat very quickly and I drew no mana. I should have mulliganed. I like my chances in that match-up with the Null Rod.
Tom and his buddy split the prize and I went home with some store credit. Next time I'll be a little more patient.
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