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Furious George
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« on: February 16, 2007, 02:47:46 pm » |
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I was quite tormented the night before. I really wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to stick with my usual deck TMWA, which has performed admirably over the past couple years, or take a vacation from it and maintain my sanity.
I'm guessing that most players at least fret over a few side board choices till the last minute. Whenever I don't play mountains, which is rare, I like any deck with Meddling Mage. I love Meddling Mages so much that I actually attepted to build a monstrosity that looked something like mountains but it had MMs, Ancestral, Time Walk, and Mystical. I would board in all red cards in games two and three -- Lavamancers, Shattering Sprees, Rebs, and Pyroblasts. Only the deck wasn't any good, which should surprise no one.
I was still deciding when I left Sat morning from my girlfriend's place...still thinking about it while the attended filled my car with gas, still while I got my free coffee with every fill up at Heavenly Donuts next door...I think I was more or less decided as I signed the CC reciept at Myriad.
Dan announced 15 minutes to turn in deck reg at half past the hour, so I started unsleaving the three decks where I would need to pull cards from (ending a sentence with a preposition is sometimes the best way). I already had a good idea of what needed to be in there with a couple exceptions form previous lists I'd seen -- I really don't like Chalice of the Void (ever) or Mana Drains (in a fish style deck). I don't like Chalice because it's too important to have on turn one, and it loses its effectiveness any later, especially in a deck that can't afford to drop them on 1 or 2. As for Drains, they don't make sense to me in a deck that doesn't run anything costlier than Thirst -- not only that but it's too much of a pain to try to keep two blue mana open in a tempo deck-- I want to be dropping things on turn two, not keeping islands open. So I decided to toss in some tutorable artifacts and an Enlightened Tutor (also note sacred ground and arcane lab in the SB), which I took from my TMWA build. Because I was in a big rush, I didn't manage to include a Tormod's Crypt which would have been remarkably useful several times -- against Salvagers, and even more so against Ichorid. I sort of wanted to keep these slots as artifacts so that I could discard them to Thrist if I wanted. I'd run a slightly different set if I did it again -- including Needle and TC.
So as I was frantically pulling cards from three decks, and resleaving -- Sara came to my rescue by counting cards and filling out my deck registration as I built the deck -- Thanks again Sara!
4x Force of Will
4x Meddling Mage
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Confidant
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Strip Mine
1x Island
3x Tundra
4x Underground Sea
3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
4x Duress
4x Jotun Grunt
2x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Null Rod
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Echoing Truth
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Enlightened Tutor
2x Stifle
Sideboard:
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Darkblast
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Disenchant
2x Orim's Chant
1x Sacred Ground
1x Arcane Laboratory
2x Pithing Needle
3x Blue Elemental Blast
I apologize for the brevity of some of the rounds. I wrote this two days later with out any notes. I try to leave you with a good impression of the significant information regarding the match.
Round one...Hybrid Oath/Gifts
Game 1 - He oaths out a Tidespout Tyrant (allows you to bounce when you play spells, so a mox gives you infinite storm count) in the midgame but he can't go off or bounce enough guys to survive the rush of beaters. My Jitte set a fast clock.
in: Stps, Seal, Disenchant
out: Explosives, Jitte, Enlightened Tutor, Stifles
Game 2 - He gets Oath operational early and gives me some tokens...gets two simics in play and a very full graveyard complete with Yawg Will and Recoup. I Chant for a couple turns wth kicker to slow him down. My last turn he has zero cards left in his library but he has Krosan Reclamation for decking prevention.
out: all four Stps, Echoing Truths (not good against Simic)
in: stifles, Orim's Chants, Enlightened Tutor, Jitte
Game 3 - Orim's chants slow him down enough to give me time to drop threats and win the race. It works remarkably well against Oath which always seems to lose the race by a turn or two. Perhaps because of all the free tokens it gives you.
Round 2... Daniel Cunnigham with Salvagers
We've played a few times before, and I'm familiar with his deck and style of play. He's a great opponent, a good salvagers player, and I always enjoy these matches.
Game 1- This game was really ugly. He Ancestralled himself early, and he forced my Brainstorm. Foolishy I MTed for my own Ancestral, and walked into a Misdirection. By turn three I was so far behind in cards all hope was lost. He dropped Chalices left (on one) and right(on two) and I was quickly locked out. That game didn't last too long.
out: Echoing Truths, Stifles, Jitte
in: Swords, Needles
Game 2- I can't recall much about the second game: I got solid early lockdown with Mages on Repeal, and Salvagers, then rode confidant card advantage to victory. This was the path to nearly all my victories. Much in the same way if a control deck like slaver drops turn 1 Library of Alexandria -- you have to either deal with it in the next couple turns (or you can try to win very fast if you have that kind of explosiveness) or you lose.
Game 3- He drops early Salvagers, and Lotus, I swords salvagers when he activates to return the lotus -- he drops Chalice on one which stunts my hand severely -- Duresses, Stps, Brainstorms. We take turns drawing off the top for a bit. Then over a few more turns, I manage to play a Null Rod, MMs and a Pithing Needle to make SURE he couldn't go off by surprise...I came close to dying to my own Dark Confidants, but survived at 6 through a couple draws then overan him.
Round 3 -- Derek blue white fish
These games whizzed by. I can only recall the most tramatic parts.
1) Whiffed on Duress twice, but saw 2 MMs and 3 NiNja
2) First I pllayed a Meddling Mage naming Mage -- and then proceeded to play a Mage on the following turn (with out white mana) thus breking several rules at once and resulting and stern warnings for everyone within 15 feet of me when it happened.
3) I had a Grunt live for a very long time, utilizing surprise upkeep Brainstorms and Thirsts, culminating in a turn where i Stifled his upkeep, and managing to find 8 cards on the following turn -- he swung 5 turns in all -- not too shabby. I'll note here how great Thirst of Knowledge is with Grunt..Thanks to the innovator of that.
Round 4 -- Jared with Ichorid
We contemplated a draw, because we are teammates, but decided that it was a dumb idea. We ending up making a deal that if one of us placed first or second then we'd cover the other's entree fee.
Game 1 - His first hand reveals a Serum Powder, a Shadow, and other stuff, so he free mulls it into...another hand with Serum Powder (still no Bazaar) so that free mulls into...two Serum Powders and still no Bazaar so he free mulls into...what turns out to be a pretty fast hand. He has the Bazaar, and his graveyard is filling very quickly...he gives me one turn to play a land, and the graveyard gets even bigger...he starts swinging in with Ichorid. My turn two I play Mage naming Dread Returns...seeing it and a bunch of large creatures in his yard. At this point Jared's library is thinning quickly, after his draw he's left with 3 cards. At this point I have demonic and Vampitic Tutor in my hand -- so, I go ahead and chump block with my Mage and Grunt which leaves me with 4 life. Jared now Dread Returns a massive Ghoul, but it doesn't matter because I Vamp for Ancestral targeting him -- so he decks on his turn.
in: 3xStps, Darkblast, 2xChants, 2xNeedles (needles are very good against any deck that relies on Bazaar)
out: 4xDuress, Explosives, Jitte, Enlightened Tutor, Null Rod (I can't remember if I took out rod, I think i did)
Game 2 - Jared is sneaky and boards in some Chain of Vapors. He's able to board out all of his Chalices -- because he knows I didn't have any Tormod's Crypts (or any GY hate for that matter -- mental note, don't share too much information with teamates). So even though I manage to get a MM on Dread Returns again, he manages to Chain it at my eot, and he returns a Sundering Titan from his yard -- which is pretty much spells defeat even if i could find a way to deal with it -- that's what happens when you have a bunch of dual lands in play of different types.
Game 3 - This game I dropped an early Needle on Bazaar and then Grunt. Jared attempted to starve it out for several turns...but I kept feeding my graveyard using Brainstorms, and eventually a Thirst on my upkeep to get three extra cards. I had my early Mage on Chain of Vapor this time. Once he started to get low on life he had no choice but to start chump blocking with his tiny creatures. He manages to survive by a single turn, by virtue of time being called -- resulting in a draw.
Round 5 -- Outlaw running TPS
Well, he managed to knock me out in a couple of close games at waterbury on day two after I was paired down to him. Here I was, paired down again with an opportunity for revenge. At Waterbury I was running mountains which has a fairly good matchup against combo now. At myriad, running UWbfish, I felt that I had a much better matchup. Duresses, Forces, Stifles, Meddling Mages, and even Echoing truth, offer great disruption.
I'll admit right now, my biggest mistake was repeatedly naming Repeal on my MMs. I didn't really know what kind of bounce was in TPS, now I do. I guess if I spent more time reading lists on the TMD, I'd have known. The first game I won utilizing disruption.
in: Orim's Chants, Arcane Lab
out: Jitte, Stp, Thirst for Knowledge (I figured this was a bit slow in this match)
One game I lost after a Timetwister. One game I won after resolving an Arcane Lab, along with other hate. Arcane lab, is quite amazing, inspite of what people might have told you. If you have a creature on the table, and an arcane lab, you can just sit back and draw cards, cast instants at the end of their turn. It's a one card lock slowing down any deck that relies on casting losts of spells, and effectively requiring the TPS player to come up with an answer before they can go off.
Round 6 -- drew against Brassman, who was running gifts
Quarter Finals -- Outlaw rematch
Game 1 - After he mulled -- I Duress away a Yawg Bargain (the most threatening card in his hand) -- I dropped some beaters, and he never really drew any gas. These games weren't much fun. I guess when one player is playing a deck like TPS, the issue of winning and losing is usually decided in a few turns, by either going off or effectively disabling a hand.
Game 2 - He gambles on a turn one Empty the Warrens for 8 goblins. On my turn, I drop 3 moxen and a land to Echoing Truth the tokens, and follow up with a Confidant. On my next turn I reveal Confidant, and draw another DC and quickly decide to play two more for a total of three. Over the next few turns I frantically try to Brainstorm to minimize DC damage. Massive card advantage quickly prevails.
By then everyone was pretty tired of playing -- and either wanted to do things like eat or sleep. We had an amicable four way split, which I took partially in store credit for future soda purchases, and partly in cash for gas and rent.
Thanks to Dan for a spectacular event.
-Chad
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