|
vroman
|
 |
« on: March 27, 2006, 11:26:29 pm » |
|
Madison WI, Lotus Tournament Report
Robert Vroman
I went to this tourney at nearly the last minute, when I discovered a large crew of st. louis T2 players were driving to Madison for the Grand Prix. I hooked a ride and took along my deck and three 1000-count boxes of excess inventory to unload on dealers at the venue. We got there friday night and I played against Team Tim frontman Tim Galbiati in our retarded 250-Highlander-Rares Only format, where the standard 250 format restricted list is all banned. given the card pool of a whole magic shop, my deck was strictly better with only about 20 basic lands, and full 17 old+new duals. I had all the hard to find money creatures: morphling, two headed giant, serendib djinn, old man, etc. Tim is better player at limited style magic, focusing on combat + removal. I got the hang of it fast and ended up going like 6-3 against him over the course of the weekend. I spent all my other time Fri/Sat/Sunday shopping my boxes of cards to dealers and working with Ogre. I only sold about 2/3s of one box, and still had infinite good stuff left, but grossed ~$1800. this made the trip well worth it, regardless how I perform in the tourney.
my list:
4 wshop
4 bzr
4 waste
4 bring
3 mtn
1 academy
1 strip
5 mox
4 lotus sol vault crypt
4 welder
4 crucible
4 smoky
4 chalice
4 uba
4 granite shard
3 jester
1 karn
1 trisphere
1 monkey
side
4 null rod
4 resistor
4 shattering spree
3 duplicant
Ive been on long losing steak since my last starcity win. I find two reasons for this:
1. due to Life, my playtesting time over the last 6 months dropped by 90%. though Ive been getting in more games lately, primarily online in Workstation.
2. metagame has shifted substantially to either hate on, or bypass, standard ubastax of summer05 era, and I wasnt picking up on this (see above)
Thus it was definitely time for a change. Colby Evenpence basicaly took over the grunt work of ubastax innovation while I was on magic card sabbatical. Evenpence took a bold step with the list and cut Null Rod for multiple jester's cap and Trike/Karn. This makes sense bc
a) dark confidant is major problem for this deck. he beats for 2/turn, he draws cards through uba mask, and is far easier engine to set up than ubazaar, thus I get swamped by card advantage. creature control has become a priority again, beyond just eliminating enemy welders.
b) nrod is very powerful, but the decks it should be good against are all running maindeck hurkyl/rebuild, and only need a handful of active mana to go off.
c) jesters cap murders a huge chunk of the field. gifts, slaver, oath, IT, lower tier combo decks: all must counter jester or lose. many other decks are seriously hurt by cap, if they dont lose outright to it.
When Evenpence double T8ed Richmond, I looked at his new list seriously. Ive never liked Trike in ubastax, null rod or not; its just too expensive for a deck missing tinker and/or drain. on the other hand, granite shard is cheap enough that it can be run in full, wo constantly tripping over dead 6ccs. shard also does things trike can't, like perpetually slaughter spirit tokens, to prevent Oath trigger.
I wasnt ready to abandon the best mana denial in the format entirely, so kept full set of nrods in side. overall my sideboard was blunt simple w only 4 different cards. I almost played pithing needle over duplicant, after losing about 10 games in a row to Jacob Riehm's Dawn of the Dead, the night before this trip. But w zero playtesting for needle sideboard; proven effectiveness of duplicant; unliklihood of facing zombie-dredge; I dropped this idea.
Round 1 vs Stasch w Control Slaver. win 2-0
Stasch is shark trader who is well known to Ogre and I on the business end of this wonderful game. he owns huge amount of power so its not surprising to see him put his collection to use in type 1.
Game 1. win roll
I get brokenest opening, resolving chalice@1 and trinisphere. I draw blanks for 2 turns while Stasch makes land drops. Turn 4 I draw smokestack. Stasch makes his 3rd land drop and time walks. He lays 4th land and has small window of opportunity to effect the game, but misplays sol ring into my chalice, after which he scoops.
since shard and jester are both solid against slaver, I opt not to bring in null rod. I also dont bring in duplicant, bc Im confident I can handle robots and welders, w shattering spree and granite shard, respectively. furthermore, Stasch is fairly new to T1 so I figured he would be using very standard slaver list, thus I was not afraid of seeing Viashino heretic tech.
instead I board:
-4 uba
-2 crucible
-2 chalice
+4 spree
+4 resistor
Game 2. on draw
Stasch unfortunately mulls to 5. he plays some mana and passes. I cant remember my opening hand, but I laid turn 1 shard, and by turn 5 I had resistor+smoky+3xShard in play. Stasch had found some draw spells and filled his board w islands and artifact mana. I get smokestack up to 1 soot, but he draws e-truth after sacking only 1 of his many permanents and bounces when I ramp to 2, forcing me to start over. somewhere along the line, we both got crucible, and Stasch has fetch-recurred all his islands into play and started on the duals; thoroughly undoing his initial muligan disadvantage. then he drains smoky on the rebound, and uses it to hardcast empty duplicant. Ive taken some mana crypt hits before I sacked it, and burned few times w workshop, and used b-ring lots. I think I was at 11 at this point. I think for a few minutes on the math, determining that against his crucible, I will not be able to wipe his board before I take lethal damage, even if I never use b-ring or mana burn again. I must deal w duplicant. turns go by w rising soot, except Im drawing dead and suddenly Im at 2 life. I have 4 cards in my yard. 2xb-ring + mtn in play. smoky is at 3. after some discussion w judge about priority timing, Stasch elects to use up one of his permanents, tormoding away my yard before stack resolves. Stasch has spent out his hand to keep up permanent race, so I dont have to worry about counters. I am dead next turn if I dont draw an out, and I think very carefully. I realize I actually have tons of solutions. I have 1xwaste and extra shops in play, so can force 2 more cards into my yard, giving me 5 if need be, after smoky resolves. if I draw any of the following I can deal 4+ damage to duplicant between my shards and b-ring:
3 waste (to kill another shop and get up to threshold, though this would cut down my permanents dangerously)
1 strip
4 shattering spree (Id been hoping to draw one of these a long time ago)
4 bazaar (mill up to threshold)
1 granite shard (deal 4th damage w shards alone)
1 karn (this would be ideal: block duplicant forever, and wipe out many enemy permanents)
4 welder (even chump blocking is good enough, to buy a turn to wipe his board w smoky)
1 monkey
thats 19 cards. This game has gone on pretty long, if I lose we probably wont have time to finish game 3 and will draw, something that has only happened to me once in all my tournament play. Ive seen close to half my library so I have ~66% chance of drawing an out and not losing in Stasch's next combat step. Confidence is high. I sack 2 nonessential lock components and mtn; ramp to 4 soot; floating a red into draw step. I rip! Its bazaar! I spend the red dealing damage#1 to his dup, then go to mainphase, wasting my own shop, and milling 2 via bazaar; putting me back up to 7 in yard. I go down to 1 life to b-ring his duplicant and shard it once more for 4 damage. having lost 2 extra permanents that turn (tormod and dup), Stasch then loses everything except his crucible to soot. He replays land and passes. on my turn I have to decide whether to clear both our boards completely, or lose my smoky now, leaving him w crucible in play and settle for mutual land lock. after studying Stasch's yard, I opt for the latter plan:
-I have granite shard win condition on board, whereas he has only crucible+land, and no cards in hand.
-stripmine is in my yard, so he can't build up islands
-Im fairly sure he has already pulled all the lands out of his deck w fetches, so he cant use crucible+fetch to make me spend 2 turns stripping, and build up lands that way.
-Stasch has already seen all but one of his artifact mana, so he will most likely never have more than 1 mana at a time.
-I can kill welder/shamans (his only 1 drop damage dealer) w shard.
I sack down to just [crucible,mtn,shard] then strip his land, and pass. given the status of his remaining library, this is a hard lock, even though hes at like 14 life and Im just pinging 1/turn. my only fear at this point is a potential lava dart, but I find later Stasch wasnt boarding those. he plays out his welders and shamans to delay the inevitable, but I win with about 5 min left in round.
Round 2 vs Control Slaver. win 2-0
Game 1. Lose roll
I recognized this opponent from some of the Bloomington events, and remembered him as an Oath player. thus I was slightly surprised when he dropped turn 1 v-island -> welder. I had [waste, mtn, sol ring, crucible, shard, uba, smoky]. I was happy w the shard originaly for tokens, but now its just as good for his welder. However I want to make sure it resolves so I just waste his land. enemy plays island+saphire, bash w welder. I draw mox so have 3 mana to bait the crucible, which is drained. enemy plays academy, tapping out for main phase thirst, which thankfully puts no robots in yard. he plays more artifact mana and has 1 card in hand, w island+saphire untapped. I rip stripmine, take out his island, to shut off any potential counter; then drop shard and shotgun his welder. enemy is nearly out of gas, but just to be sure, punts bad on his next turn. enemy rips lotus, cracks it for black, then d-tutors for... yawgwill, which he promptly casts so he can... d-tutor. enemy spends about 5 solid minutes staring at his paltry graveyard while I glare at him and drum my fingers. he replays volcanic, realizes he cant replay welder into my loaded granite shard, and then just tutors for tinker. he tinkers up... slaver, and activates it. he takes my turn and spends another 5 minutes staring blankly at my impervious board, and suffers more glaring from me. I draw crucible for him, and his best play is just to hit me w shard and pass. instead he casts crucible for me and strips my mtn also, buying me the tempo of not having to cast crucible on my next self-controlled turn, and ensures crucible resolves. thanks. few turns later, enemy has no lands, facing striplock and uba disadvantage, w the bulk of his brokenness sitting in RFG pile. he scoops.
Game 2. on draw
I use the same boarding strategy. I have another good hand of [workshop, waste, crucible, 2xsmoky, uba, blank]. enemy leads w island+saphire. he drains my crucible. ancestrals, but burns for 3. drains my smoky. thirsts and burns for 2. drains my uba, hardcasts trike. finally smoky#2 resolves. I produce 2 permanents/turn and ramp smoky until he loses his board. Im bashed to 4 life during this process. I still have some mana after sacking smoky, and eventually draw either crucible or welder to seal the lock. fighting through three drains on the first three turns, and still winning easily is fun. after the match, he questions if granite shard is really maindeck. I assure you sir, I can beat you wo the need for pre-board cheating.
Round 3 vs Ubastax. win 2-0
Game 1. lose roll
for some reason I thought I had scouted this guy as playing fish earlier, but was mistaken. he played turn 1 crucible, and I played the same. there was some smokestack action, I dont really remember, but I won the permanent war.
side
-4 uba
-3 jester
+4 spree
+3 dup
Game 2. on draw
he leads w shop+crucible. I play mtn+welder and am holding, [chalice, bazaar, mox, waste, smoky, academy]. enemy throws down stripmine, but I dont care. I play the mox and use my wasteland like lotus petal to cast chalice@1; staving off enemy welders/darts. he predictably strips my waste, and makes no other play. I lay bazaar and draw gold: crucible, duplicant. I dump crucible and mana. enemy then takes his turn and misplays terribly. he drops mtn + mana crypt, and despite my active welder, casts rack and ruin targeting my chalice@1 and... his own m-crypt?! I weld out my chalice in response, for crucible. not only should he have waited to hit my artifacts in response to my welding, (which could have been crippling, if I didnt draw any other cheap weld targets soon) but voluntarily putting an artifact in his yard, when facing welder disadvantage, was just punt-tastic.
I take my turn and play good, wasting his shop, then weld out his crucible for crypt. the game goes majorly downhill for him from there, he cant keep a threat on the table, and I bazaar into Karn for much face bashing.
Round 4 vs Ben Carp w Oath. win 2-1
Game 1. win roll
I know Ben is very sharp Oath player and Im not going to take any chances, thus when my first hand has no relevent turn 1 plays, I throw it back.
I keep my six, and open w shop+crucible, and am still holding [mtn, welder, shard, uba]. Ben cracks a fetch for u-sea and hits me w Duress. his choices are only uba or shard, and Im certain he missed the significance of Shard vs Spirit Token. He thankfully dumps my uba and passes. I savagely rip stripmine, but really wasteland would be just as good. if I can continualy pop my gift tokens, and kill his orchards, its just as much a lock against his deck; islands dont matter so much. I strip his u-sea and resolve shard. Ben brainstorms or something. I get my red mana in play and pass. Ben goes for orchard+oath play regardless. I strip his orchard, snipe his spirit token and Ben scoops.
Game 2. on draw
I keep [mtn, welder, bazaar, mox, 3xnon-duplicant]. this about as good as I can hope for on the draw, and just am banking on milling into duplicant before he drops oath. Too late! Ben gets the infamous turn 1 mox+orchard+oath play. I have no chance after he wastes my bazaar. only game I lost this tournament.
Game 3. on play
I keep solid hand [workshop, mox, mtn, welder, jester, smoky, bazaar]. I lead w jester. Ben lets it resolve wo hesitation. Ben usually will think for a second before passing priority, even if he doesnt have a counter. Thus I read him as having an answer, probably oxidize or pithing needle. Im really hoping he has needle for a lot of reasons:
-needle leaves jester in play, to be welded or smoked (both of which Im holding)
-if I can remove needle (welder or smoky, which again, will both be hitting table) then cap comes back in action
-if Ben needles cap, he cant needle welder or bazaar
so, Ben indeed has needle and is forced to name it in on jester. I draw another smoky and cast it, which is forced.
Ben tinkers up colossus, but I resolve welder on my turn and only take 11, before turning dsteel back into a necklace. I add smokestack to my board.
on Bens 4th turn, he thinks for a long time and then possibly misplays d-tutoring for either oath or orchard. He tries to play orchard, but already played u-sea that turn, for black mana to dtutor. he has 3 cards in hand, 2 of which have to be oath+orchard, and only off-color mana open, so I know theres no counter opportunity. Ben passes, but is clearly threatening oath next turn. I can probably race his board w smoky + welder, but don't have to. I rip chalice@2! Ben flounders for an answer, while I ramp smoky. Ben holds onto needle as long as possible, but its sacked eventually and I cap out his creatures for gg.
Round 5 vs Jeff Anand. intentional draw
Round 6 vs Dan Carp. intentional draw
Top 8
Round 1 vs Rhino w Intuition Tendrils. win 2-0
Game 1. win roll.
my first hand is trash w only mtn for mana and no welder.
my second hand is really risky but worth considering [2xwaste, strip, crucible, 2x 4+coster]. IF Rhino keeps a hand w no fetches nor significant artifact mana, AND I draw any one of [workshop, sol, crypt, lotus] in the top 3 cards, this hand is great. I am guaranteed to kill his first land drop, and possibly 2nd/3rd if lucky, and if I draw big mana, will have crucible soft lock. I am really tempted to keep my 6, bc a stupid spectator looking at Rhino's hand has a disgusted look on his face. Rhino is probably going to mulligan, increasing the odds my conditions will be met. however, even being able to hypotheticaly play a good reactive game of mana denial, is not great against IT which can do broken things w few cards very fast. I dont want to open w just wasteland->go.
I mulligan to 5 [academy, mtn, bring, sol, chalice]. This I have to keep. sure enough Rhino muls to 6, and fortunately for him, bad poker face guy wanders away. He keeps the 6 and I lead w mtn->sol, then debate chalice@0 vs 1. w no other business spell in hand, this chalice has to be damn good. playing it for zero is pointless here, bc I could end up drawing dead, while he makes land drops and has no interference for his threats. I dont have mana denial game plan available, I have to hope he's sitting on mostly 1 drops. This turns out to be completely the case. Rhino plays island and 2x mox. I draw bazaar and lay academy, which is narrow form of mana denial, for slim chance he draws his own academy.
next turn, Rhino draws merchant scroll, drops fetchland, and tutors for rebuild. clearly chalice@1 is hurting bad. on my turn I rip another chalice, drop b-ring, and have 6 mana to play chalice@3. when this resolves, it seems my mediocre 5 card hand has drawn out into decent lock. Rhino's list is only running 1 merchant scroll, thus his outs at this point are down to just demonic tutor and hurkyls.
Rhino then plays another fetch and cracks both for swamps. he moves to tap his 5 mana and then takes it back. I read this clearly as Yawg bargain. he instead does nothing and passes. knowing bargain is on the way, his life total is suddenly vital. I draw Karn and threaten to kill his moxen, but he forces. I play bazaar and mill, to try for threshold. b-ring will deny him 2 cards at this point. Rhino gets u-sea for his 6th mana and plays bargain and draws up to 7 cards and passes. I mill in upkeep w empty hand, and draw wasteland. I attack his u-sea, which puts my 7th card in the yard, and I throw b-ring at him. Rhino untaps at 7 life and doesnt find one of his 2 outs in the next 6 cards. one of the few times Ive ever won against enemy yawg bargain.
side boarding was fairly dificult. I was hesitant to board out shards, due to d-confidant, but nrod is just too vital in this match up, and I needed to guarantee turn 1 plays wo too much muliganing, thus desiring lower mana curve. I took out the shards and handful of big drops for 8x 2cc locks.
sided:
-2 crucible
-4 shard
-1 uba
-1 smoky
+4 nrod
+4 resistor
Game 2. on draw
I have 7 cards Im very happy w [2xMox, 2xwaste, academy, nrod, smoky). if he plays any moxen, I plan to lay nrod; else, smoky. Ryan muls to 6 again, and drops lotus to merchant scroll for ancestral. Rhino so much as tells me he kept a no-lander, so this ancestral needs to be good for him. but when is ancestral ever bad? Rhino finds land + jet in the top 3 I cut for him. he casts dark ritual, which is always scary, but ends up just hitting me w tendrils for 12, and left w minimal grip.
nonetheless, I rip my own Lotus and now have oodles of mana to cast both nrod AND smoky turn 1. I use academy, just to keep him from dropping his own legendary land. He cant get anything going against n-rod and soot. I proceed to draw more and more locks. I soon have welder, uba, smoky, nrod, 2xresistor, against his empty board. This lock is 100% impenetrable, but Rhino shows no sign of conceding, as is his right. hes at 32 life, and aproximately 32 uneventful turns go by as I kill him by inches.
After this match, the top 4 consisted of Me, Jeff Anand, Ben Carp and Ian R. for the semi-finals, I was paired against Ian w (I think) burning slaver. I felt confident in this match up, having dominated slaver twice already today. My granite shards were ready, but instead an offer was made of a 4 way split, since it was already getting on to 1AM. I said I just wanted cash. both Ian and Anand assured me I'd get at least $250 and probably more like $270. I did the math on the combined 1-4 prize pool, and readily agreed. Unfortunately after we confirmed to the judge this was our intention, and then actually spoke to the dealer backing the prize cards, there was only going to be $230. I was less satisfied with this number, and felt I'd be better off risking playing the semis and renegotiating simpler split in the finals, or taking the lesser 3/4th prize. We decide to sleep on it and return the next morning, and possibly play out the top 4 if necessary.
I spent the next morning selling more inventory, and standing in line for Glen Angus. Finally the 4 of us convene, and Ben Carp makes great gesture of giving me playset of asian sphere of resistance out of his personal collection to make up the difference. I happily agree to the final split price of $237 cash after that.
I only played 11 games, but the results were interesting. Jester only hit play in one game, and it was just a finisher when I already had wrecked enemy w smokestack. however, I can tell its powerful, and definitely keeping it.
Granite Shard was MVP today. I won game 1 against Carp via shard, when few other cards I could have been playing in its place would have mattered. Shard blasted welders and bigger threats, including opponents, all day. Im sold on this list. It was a great weekend. I had a lot of fun, and can now pay all kinds of bills.
Props
-Ben Carp thanks a lot for the asian resistors!
-Glen Angus for modding my foil Mindslaver w Russian Roulette revolver. looks awesome!
-Mike French for trading me asian foil granite shards and uba masks for basically nothing.
-Ogre for being instrumental in selling a big chunk of the cards I brought.
Slops
-Judge at my table in top 8 was really indecisive on simple ruling that barely effected the game state. Id hate to have had serious dispute under his watch.
-Ogre and Mike Donovan both snoring friday night. not symphonic, fellas.
|
