Scrubing, Rebuttaling, and Replacing FTW

[Glix]

I went to Endfield on June 17th only to end up going 2-2-2, iding the last matchup in favor of some fun after me and my opponant had gone 2-2-1, due to me getting out mucled with a version of gifts.  However, after getting beaten by Travis in the first round, his deck intrigued me.  After I essentially droped, I asked him for his deck to take a look at, and he mine.  After using his deck as a base, I built the following list in about 15 minutes for the side tourament for a drain.

3 Hidden Gibbons (They don't stay hidden for long!)
4 Pyrostatic Pillar (They usually take more damage!!!)
4 Grim Lavamancer (More Damage!  And it can be aimed at creatures too!)
4 Lightning Bolt (OMG the damage!)
4 Null Rod (It can be damaging to heavy artifact decks!)
3 Artifact Mutation (It mutates their artifacts into powerful allies!)
4 River Boa (Pow!)
4 Tin Street Hooligan (Wam!)
3 Gorilla Shaman (Can't stop a Mishra's, but that's ok!)
4 Kird Ape (OMG!)

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Tagia
4 Stomping Ground (if you're playing this deck, u gotta go all out!)
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Mountain

SIDEBOARD!
3 Root Maze (It's a green Time Walk!)
3 Red Elemental Blast (Red isn't supposed to have countermagic!)
4 Mogg Fanatic (Here Fishy Fishy Fishy!)
3 Blood Moon (Now your mana sux!)
1 Artifact Mutation (More Allies!)

So, enter the side tourament, with me playing a deck that I have never played before and have only just built.

Round 1 (SS)
The deck just works both games, with me getting fast locks out and monkey beats for the win.  It really has no game, as I keep him off mana.  He won game 2, with me winning games 1 and 3, as I didn't get locks out fast enough game 2 to stop a lone cutpurse.  I board in rootmaze, and this is a very favorable matchup, imo.

Round 2 (Dragono [classic]):
Game 1 I lock him out with wastes and go all the way.  Game 2 was hillarious, as I forgot to bring in more beats, and although I have a ton of hate, he gets a squee and laquatus out and beats down for the win, and I never draw an answer.  Game 3 I lock him out with a bunch of wastes and monkey beatz.

Round 3 (bye)
This got kinda screwy, as I was told by Nate that I was to play him for the finals, which I was not supposed to do.  We play out some games, and he wins the match, but then I learn it was a bye for me.  However, he then goes to Hatch or something and ends up making it so I have "lost" and so I'm not in the finals.  Scoop remedies this by getting me in.  I did feal gyped, as I felt that at the very least I was screwed out of a fow, so I didn't feel that bad about his complaining, but w/e.  I end up playing him again for the finals.

Finals (Gifts):
Nate wins game 1 w/ tendrils.  I win game 2 with monkey beats and game 3 with hate.

I do feel bad to a degree for him loosing, but officially I did everything correctly, and if he wasn't so annoying about winning and loosing I would feel worse.

Regardless, I walk home with a drain, completing my set.

In regards to the deck, my hats off to JuggernautGO! for the list, which mine is sort of close to.  He ran 3 tendo and no cobs, but I'm not sold on that.  Also, I felt a severe lack of maindeck beats.  I think I will incorporoate at least 2 juggs main.  The sb is derived from his, with some alterations.  I figured a lot of control would be there, so I used 2 defense girds, and the board really owns daggron.

Overall, I believe that this deck has a lot of pottential, that is even evident in this raw unpolished form.  Confidants are huge, and running cheep locks allow for a much more fish-like approach.  As stated before, I believe more maindeck beats are necessary, to win quickly with disruption.  I think juggs could be main, as at least 2 came in in every match.  I will be testing this deck a lot more.  Perhaps Travis has a name for it, but for now I have dubbed it Sui Stax X (x=winning factor ), as it plays like a hyper aggressive stax list with sui-like strategy but stax cards.

Props:  Hatchman, for an awesome, although disapointingly small tourament (only 53).
          Travis, for a great deck idea.
Slops:  Nate, to whom I feel a degree of compassion, but who really needs to be more amiable and less of a jerk overall.

EDIT: LIST REMOVED BY REQUEST

[Kowal]

I believe it was 54 people.

One of the few cards in Travis' deck that concerned me were Choke.  I don't see it in your list.  I think this is a huge mistake on your part.

[Glix]

I decided to replace choke with ItEoC, which was likely a mistake.  First of all, all my opponants played islands, which gives it advantage.  Regardless, I never was able to obtain ItEoC, even if it had been choke.  I have since cut that from the main and added it to the side as a 2-3 of.  Maindeck, I have added 4 Juggernauts, cut the shaman, and the pithing needle.  Needle was almost always underwhelming, only being slightly relavent against daggron, in which you have plenty of sideboard hate.  Also, I found maindeck beats lacking and necessary.  Juggernauts end the game in short order, and are quite potent.  I was never unhappy to see one.  Damage off confidants is also neglagent, as it beats for 5.

My current sb looks somethning like this:
4 Rootmaze
3 Ray of Revalation
3 Choke
3 Groundseal
2 Defense Grid

I will likely be working on this deck for a while, and testing a few new ideas I have about it.

[oneofchaos]

Bad things happen to bad people.  Served nate Right.

[TopSecret]

     Thanks for writing the report, and congratulations on your win!
I really like the deck. Root Maze + Artifact Mutation = Powerful Allies!
Have you considered running Mind's Desire?

     Don't worry about your match against Nate.
I remember an eerily similar situation occuring last time I played him.

[oneofchaos]

Brendan does confidant ever kill you?  If so how frequently?

Why aren't the juggies main? 

Are you enjoying your playset of drains ?

[Juggernaut GO]

I'm glad to hear the deck performed well for you.  If my deck had shown me a minute amount of love in the top 8, I would have gone home with 4 workshops. 

I'll be ready with it at waterbury, It it definitely the strongest deck I have ever created.

The best thing to do to nate is just bitchslap his face when he gets mouthy, it works.

Also, the average mana cost of the deck per card is 1.18

I haven't died to confidant damage yet.  Online I was at 1 life for 6 straight turns until I finally found a smokestack to kill the confidant since my opponent was already strip/crucible/trinisphere locked.

[insertnamehere]

The best thing to do to nate is just bitchslap his face when he gets mouthy, it works.

I agree with JuggernautGO. I was in charge of that tournament and that was not what I told Nate. Nate needs to be more than bitchslapped.

Congrats on the win.

[oneofchaos]

Does Nate have an account btw?

[The Chosen One]

will have to play me with this brendan, I juiced up my gifts list. I think i played well for the day, no mistakes on my part just the deck was kind of thrown together the night before and was far from optimal. Props to hatch and everyone for being cool. I thought for awhile there we were going to have several people injured from all that horsing around!

[oneofchaos]

root maze > choke?