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FishyFellow
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« on: March 20, 2006, 08:32:03 pm » |
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The tournament for a Time Walk was Sunday the 12th at Dreamers in Minnesota. The attendance was poor, with only 20 people showing up. Come on everybody, lets keep type one alive in Minnesota. Hopefully things pick up this summer. It seems like there are very few scrub decks anymore, with only the hardcore players coming to the tournaments (this is actually a good thing for fish). The deck types included a regular mix of Confidant, Oath, and Gifts builds, with at least 5 Stax builds (mostly Uba).Â
Until last month, I had been out of the tournament scene for nearly a year, with the birth of my first son, and my wife’s only breaks on the weekend. It’s hard to get away for a full day of magic, when you already have full days of work during the week. I had played several goblin builds in the past (when 0-3 proxy tournaments were common), but was always only able to go about even to 3-2 and miss the top eight. I always liked playing Blue/White in the late 90’s, but hadn’t come up with a competitive build (with few proxies) until about a year ago when I started playing UW Fish. Last month, was my first tournament with the deck, which I felt gave me a good shot to top 8, but I scrubbed out with a disappointing 10th place finish.
I wasn’t planning on going this month, until my wife was kind enough to suggest it the Friday before the tournament. Due to the short time frame, I went with the same decklist that didn’t cut it last time. Here’s the list:
Mana base (23):
Mishra's Factory x4
Wasteland x4
Strip Mine x1
Island x2
Plains x1
Tundra x3
Library of Alexandria x1
Flooded Strand x4
Polluted Delta x1
Mox Sapphire x1
Mox Pearl x1
Creatures (8):
Meddling Mage x4
Rootwater Theif x2
Kataki, War's Wage x2
Draw (8):
Ancestral Recall x1
Standstill x4
Curiosity x3
Counter (10):
Force of Will x4
Daze x2
Disrupting Shoal x2
Misdirection x1
Stifle x1
Disruption/Removal (9):
Swords to Plowshares x4
Disenchant x1
Crucible of Worlds x1
Null Rod x3
Other (2):
Time Walk x1
Mystical Tutor x1
Sideboard:
Tinker x1
Darksteel Colossus x1
Maze of Ith x2
Blue Elemental Blast x1
Disenchant x1
Old Man of the Sea x2
Chain of Vapor x1
Kira, The Great Glass Spinner x1
Null Rod x1
Serenity x2
Enlightened Tutor x1
As you can see, it’s more of a control build than an aggro build. Some thoughts about the build:
• I prefer null rod to chalice, because it allows me to run fewer creatures (along with not running 4 vials) and chalice is not very effective on the draw. Also, chalice for 1 is not a very good second option in this deck, given my reliance on swords.
• I prefer curiosity to ninja, because, again, I can get by with fewer creatures, and the creatures that I do run are too important to bring back into my hand. Additionally, I find ninja off a factory to be too mana intensive to come out early enough to matter in most games.
• These two points are what allows me to run a control build, with a lot of disruption, removal, and counter magic, to go with great utility creatures, but it does slow my clock, so I have to maintain control with card advantage.
• Crucible is too good against stax and the mana intensive gifts builds to not have in the maindeck.
• Disrupting Shoal is underutilized. I find it to be necessary to stop first turn oaths and to win counter wars against drains. And it is a decent hard counter late in the game.
• I have tinker/colossus in the sideboard, because of the decks difficulty against aggro and other fish builds. It is also great against stax, as you can tinker out a factory, making your colossus welder proof. I know there are no brainstorms, but you would be surprised how often you can discard colossus with all of the card draw.
• Kira, Old Man, and the mazes, actually give you a reasonable chance against aggro decks that you may face in the early rounds.
• Serenity is too good against stax to ignore in the current environment.
Final 8:
I expected that Methuselahn would post his customary report of the top 8 with decklists, which may still happen, so I wasn’t concerned with getting decklists or writing down the players at the time. That said, I can remember 7 of the 8, in no particular order:
Brad (UW Fish)
Pat (I believe it was a dark confidant build)
Jeff (4 time vaults)
Craig (Oath, with Akroma and Colossus)
Shane (UbaStax with wires)
Derek (5-color Stax)
Chris (Gifts)
I don’t know the matchups, other than that I played Jeff.
Top 4:
Brad beats Shane
Derek beats Craig
Finals:
Brad beats Derek
Here’s the details I remember from my matches:
Round 1-Â Joe playing Grow-a-Tog.
The tournament got off to a “great” start. After losing the die roll, and proceeding to a board with meddling mage naming “mana drain” with him having a 1/1 dryad on the in play and 6-mana available, I decide to cast standstill. NO! What was I thinking? In response he casts 4 nongreen spells and goes on to stomp me.
I easily won games two and three because I started to focus and it is actually an easy matchup for me, with 4 swords, 2 mazes and a counter advantage. My wins consisted of beatdowns with Mage and Factories.
Round 2 – Shane playing Uba Stax
I haven’t had a lot of luck against Uba Stax in my testing, so I’m not excited to see this matchup. I end up winning 2-0, and I actually won a die roll for once. Going back to the last tournament, I think I had only gone first once. I can’t remember details, but I think I was just able to out-draw and out-permanent him, with meddling mages naming “Chalice of Void”, and swords protecting against welders. I have a 10 card sideboard switch against Uba Stax, but I am often able to hold my own game one with card advantage. Null rod was key one game when he was relying on an all artifact mana base.
Round 3 – Justin playing Uba Stax
Surely my luck can’t hold out. I win game one, but lose game 2 to a workshop, lotus, trinosphere, welder, chalice for 1, first turn. That’s more like my standard luck, I was able to counter Trinosphere, but that was it. He proceeded to easily lock down the game. Somehow, I remember details from my losses but not my wins. That said, I won game 3.
Round 4 – Pat playing a Dark Confidant build
We choose to draw, since we are the only unbeaten players at this point.
Round 5 – Chris playing Gifts
We draw into the top 8, where I have the number 3 seed.
Quarter-finals – Jeff playing 4 Time Vaults
This is an intimidating matchup for me, because Jeff is one of the elite players in the area, but I know the deck he’s playing gives me a decent shot to win. I really took my time to think things through in the top eight. I win game 1 with card advantage and a Rootwater Thief pulling out one win condition (Colossus), followed the next turn by mage chanting “Flame Fussalade”. He concedes.
Game two – I think he plays first turn oath, but doesn’t have orchard yet. He soon gets it and I am in trouble as Akroma hits the table. I had been holding maze of ith and draw disenchant (my deck has been good to me all day). I drop maze and disenchant his oath. He tutors, for what I hope isn’t strip mine, which I find out later he doesn’t carry. I eventually get a swords and win with 3 tokens and a factory.
Semi-finals – Shane playing Uba Stax (again)
Game 1 – By far the longest game of the tournament (for me anyway). My finals opponent is set before I get to game 2. I have a mage naming chalice with a curiosity in play and he has welder with multiple artifact goodies, including 2 smokestacks available, but he can’t get to his bazaar/uba engine and I can’t find a swords. I go through about 1/2 to 2/3 of my deck, able to not get locked down because of curiosity on my mage, and with him having to manage his smokestack counters. I finally get swords (a little late) and after a couple of turns the board is completely empty, and I feel like I might have the advantage, but I proceed to not draw blue mana until it is far too late.
Game 2 – Has my luck finally run out? No, thanks to serenity.
Game 3 – I was playing on the draw, and my hand consisted of a mox sapphire, a factory, library, tinker, colossus, a force, and a BEB. Let’s hope he doesn’t cast something I need to force turn 1. He drops a land and passes. I drop library, draw a dual and discard colossus. Turn 2, Tinker Colossus, with force and BEB to protect it. Why can’t fish be broken to? Can you say turn 4 fish win? Not very often. It turns out that he had even sided out his duplicants, which was a concern when I kept the hand.
Finals - Derek playing 5-Color stax.
I had always told my friends at work that if I made it to the finals I would play, but Derek really wanted to split. I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable with the difference between a time walk and $30 store credit, so we discuss it for a while. Then, I decide to play, because I’m not happy with the split options. He still looked stressed so we talked some more and decided on $70 and the store credit going to the loser. This actually made the last game a lot more comfortable, and made me feel better, since it was a compromise.
I win the die roll as a 1 teeters to a 3 beating his 2. This is just my day. Game 1 was never really close with me having answers from the start.
Game 2 was also going my way, with him doing a lot of damage to himself with mana crypt, mana vault, and city of brass, and me knocking him down with a Kataki and Mage (naming Chalice). Twice he forgot to pay for Kataki upkeeps, but I let him go back, because he was a nice guy, and it was fairly obvious that he would have paid. It’s tricky when he had already seen his draw, but I didn’t want to feel bad about my win. I am able to survive an early smokestack, thanks to disenchant, and tangle wire and sphere of resistance affect him as much as me, due to the mana pressures of Kataki. We end up both getting Crucible in play and he is down to 6 with wasteland in play and I have a factory in play and one in the grave to go with my kataki and mage. It’s after my attack phase, and it’s looking bad for him, though he did demonic a turn back. I cast Meddling Mage, and think for awhile what could save him (obviously balance). However, I make my second major mistake of the tournament and name pyroclasm. It goes to his turn and he resolves balance taking a point of damage from the city then kills a factory. I can’t believe that I may have to go to game three because of a play error. The next turn I put a factory back in play, then he resolves a tinker taking another point of damage (along with a point from a mana vault, he is at 3). I don’t know if he runs colossus, if he does and I don’t draw swords I’m dead. Curiously, he had tapped a wasteland and left red open. I cast ancestral in response and he blasts it with great enthusiasm. If he doesn’t have colossus, or it is the card in his hand, I am in good shape, because I still have disenchant. It’s Karn! I disenchant and bring a factory back from the grave to pump the other factory for the win.
I won a time walk! I still needed a mox sapphire, but I can’t complain. Hopefully, this win can help complete my deck.
Overall record 6-0-2 (12-3), with a shocking 4-0 (8-2) against Stax builds.
My MVP other than the keys to the deck (force, swords, power) would have to be curiosity, which often allowed to keep control of the board, while slowly beating down. It was particularly powerful against stax, allowing me to win many permanent wars.
Special thanks to the people at work. Ping for starting us down the path of serious type 1, and for building multiple decks to test against, Tom for raising my game to another level with his knowledge and tournament winning decks to play against, and Adam for playing me at lunch several times a week with Uba Stax, recently helping me realize the necessity of curiosity in the matchup. Also, thanks to the dice for letting me go first in most games for once, and my deck for being consistent. Props to Jason for running a great vintage power tournament every month. And lastly, thanks to my wife for watching our son all day so I could play. You are the best!
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