[Report] Tarpan Strikes Back…Sorta 12th at Myriad

[Jank Golem]

So apparently there is an unwritten rule that you should not bother to write a tournament report unless you at least T8’ed. I am breaking that rule because although I did not T8, I did put up a respectable finish with Tarpan.

The story begins a few weeks before Myriad. I have been playing Mono Blue Fish for a while and managed to put up some pretty good results with it. I was getting a little bit bored of blue cards however. I have begun to feel that the over reliance on blue cards might be hurting Vintage. People always talk about how Force of Will and draw spells are what keep Vintage from being “the broken nutz”. What if blue cards are really the problem here? When people discussed restricting Gifts they looked at T8 apperances to see if it was dominating. As it turns out it wasn’t, but blue cards were and still are dominating in T1. Letting blue cards dominate is just the same as letting a particular deck type dominate and in the end it just hurts Vintage. Something should be done about blue cards, preferably innovation or a new card being printed rather then more restrictions.
/rant about blue cards

I really wanted to try to innovate something green not involving Oath of Druids. I ended up testing Elf combo, Elf fish with Rod, an Elf Fish with Chalice, Stompy, various Survival decks and finally a more stable Mono Green Fish. I can rarely stay on one idea for a long period of time, so the “testing” was playing a couple games on MWS losing to Sui and moving on to another concept. Btw, I have tested the crazy Brazilian playing Sui matchup into the ground.

The day of the tournament finally arrives and myself (Dan), Emery, Tim and Justin meet up at 10 to drive down to Myriad. Unforuntatly all of us either lack a license, a car, car insurance or their parent's agreement to have one of us youngster’s drive. Thankfully my mother was nice enough to drive us down and put up with a bunch of teenagers talking about a game she doesn’t understand. In the car Tim decides to switch over to Bomberman with FOW from U/B Landstill, which he originally planned to be playing. Justin is playing combo Goblins, Emery is playing Uba Stax and I am playing Mono Green Fish. We arrive at the store and after we buy some random singles and this the decklist I register,

Tarpan Strikes Back (Mono Green Fish)

Tarpan Strikes Back (TSB)

Maindeck: 60

1 Tarpan
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
12 Forest
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 River Boa
3 Troll Ascetic
3 Ohran Viper
1 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Choke
4 Root Maze
4 Null Rod
4 Keen Sense
1 Trinisphere
3 Tangle Wire
1 Regrowth

Sideboard: 15
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Mire Boa
4 Oxidize

The obvious changes I would make after the tournament are,

-1 Regrowth
-1 Ohran Viper
-1 Fyndhorn Elves

+1 Forest
+1 Troll Asectic
+1 Crop Rotation

There is one card choice I wanted to address alone. That card is Tarpan. Tarpan has been ridiculed ever since WOTC first got drunk and decided to print him. He has been compared to every single crap spoilered card, every bad x/1 creature and every dead card in every archetype. Every time someone innovates control by changing 2 slots, Tarpan is compared to those 2 new cards. Tarpan has had enough of this abuse. Tarpan is in this deck to prove that he is playable, along with all his friends Pouncing Jaguar, Berserk Murdolant, Mountain Goat and every other undervalued creature in magic. Tarpan asks you, now that he has proven himself never to use his name in vain again.

Now on to the explanation of the rest of the deck. First of all the hate cards, Choke, Root Maze, Null Rod, Trinisphere and Tangle Wire. Maindeck Choke is really strong in probably any metagame just because blue sees so much play in T1. At myriad it gets even better because there is usually little stax and combo, which Choke isn’t as strong against. I had been thinking about cutting Tangle Wire, but it saved my ass multiple times throughout the tournament. The mana base is pretty obvious, Waste/Strip because its amazing, no fetchlands because it’s a mono colored deck and I run Root Maze. Elvish Spirit Guide is good even though this is a fish deck. It helps you power out your lock pieces faster and hits the board as a creature when you don’t need the mana. Llanowar Elves has been really great, once again it helps you get your stuff out faster, but it also attacks so you can get an early Keen Sense on it. As for creatures Troll is my clock and is also beating vs. Fish. River Boa again beats blue based Fish; a regenerating unblockable cheap creature is good I hear. Ohran Viper was a little underwhelming in the tournament, sure the card draw is cool but it needs to be able to attack for more. Keen Sense is the best card draw in green and an obvious choice. I also tested out Harmonize briefly as draw. The problem was it required me to run mana producing elves beyond the 4 Llanowar Elves, which were terrible outside of casting Harmonize.

In the board the 3 Tabernacle are in there vs. ETW. Tabernacle may not prevent a late game Empty, but it prevents stupid early wins that you shouldn’t happen. Tormod’s Crypt is in their for Ichorid, Dragon and sometimes Welder based decks. Oxidize is for Stax, but I considered Seeds of Innocence instead. Unfortunately the life gain can screw you and the mana cost is too prohibitive. Mire Boa is part of the 8 boa plan vs. Fish, the idea being they can’t beat regenerating creatures.

This report is entirely from memory so I apologize if any or all of the game details are wrong.

Round 1 vs. Jared with Ichorid

Game 1: I know Jared usually plays Ichorid and was prepared to get the stuffing beat out of me game 1. I keep my first hand and drop a Root Maze. Jared puts a Bazaar into play tapped and passes. He begins dredging and drops a second Bazaar, Ugh, not a good sign for me. I manage to get some creatures on the board one of which is Tarpan. The player next to me captures the moment on his cell phone camera and apparently sends the picture to Rich Shay. Tarpan however is no match for a gargantuan Sutured Ghoul and we move to game 2.

Board IN: 4 Tormod’s Crypt 4 Mire Boa OUT: 4 Choke, 4 Null Rod
Game 2: I mulligan my first hand and keep a hand that involves 2 Tormod’s Crypt. I play the Crypt’s and get some guys on the board. Jared continues dredging and I Tormod’s Crypt him. I might have mistimed the Crypt here. I don’t get a chance to play against Ichorid much but I figured I might as well crypt early because I have 2 Crypts on the board. I draw Wasteland and hit Bazaar, which seals the deal

Board IN: 4 Tormod’s Crypt 4 Mire Boa OUT: 4 Choke, 4 Null Rod
Game 3: Jared mulligan to 5 and leads with Bazaar. I waste his Bazaar and pass. Jared has some dredge guys in the grave, but can’t do much without a Bazaar or a discard outlet. I get some guys on the board, draw a Crypt and win.

Matches 1-0 Me and Justin go over to Dunkin Donuts. Justin gets some drink that has him on a sugar high for the rest of the day and we get Tim a Berry Berry Donut. The Berry Berry donut turns out to be be the most disgusting thing ever and meets its demise in the parking lot.

Round 2 vs. Tim (the same Tim I drove down with) with U/B/W Bomberman

Game 1: Tim counters my Null Rod and but I get a River Boa to stick. Normally this would be a great play because Tim goes aggro a lot. Tim has other plans in mind however. With Salvagers on the board he casts Trinket Mage finding AEther Spellbomb, bounces his own Trinket Mage with Spellbomb then recasts Trinket Mage into Lotus winning the game.

Board IN: 4 Mire Boa OUT: 1 Regrowth, Ohran Viper, Fyndhorn Elves
Game 2: I drop a first turn Mire Boa off ESG and a land. Tim drops an Underground Sea making Boa unblockable and passes. I sit on my single forest and attack with Boa for a while until Tim STP’s Boa. I continue sitting on my single land for many more turns while Tim drops a Grunt, Trinket Mage and Confidant. Perhaps I should have mulligained that hand…

Matches: 1-1 At this point both Justin and Tim are 2-0 while Emery is rocking the 0-2 bracket.

Round 3 vs. Jeff with Gifts

Game 1: I attempt to drop some lock pieces, which get forced. After awhile I manage to get some creatures on the board and bring him down to 11 life. He then Empty the Warrens for 8 goblins. I can deal with 8 goblins, although it will certainly slow down my win. I attack getting rid of 2 goblins and pass the turn. He untaps, casts Yawgmoth’s Will and Empty’s for another 12 goblins and I scoop up my cards.

Board IN: 3 Tabernacle OUT: 1 Regrowth, 1 Ohran Viper, 1 Fyndhorn Elves
Game 2: We do the usual thing of me dropping lock pieces and them getting countered or bounced. I was able to get a couple creatures on the board, which are bringing some slow beats. At this point it is fairly late in the game and he has 5 Islands/Duals in play, a Tolarian Academy and 2 moxen. He builds some storm with Repeal, Brainstorm and some junk taps out to cast ETW for 10 guys. At this point I am holding 2 Tabernacle, which are totally useless given the amount of mana he has lying around. I untap and rip Choke off the top. I cast Choke, play Tabernacle and 6 goblins die during his upkeep. He draws and plays something off his Academy, which can still untap and passes. I then draw a Tarpan among other things cast it and he scoops.

Board IN: 3 Tabernacle OUT: 1 Regrowth, 1 Ohran Viper, 1 Fyndhorn Elves
Game 3: Jeff begins with a Library of Alexiandra and passes. I play Wasteland and elect not to waste library because I am low on mana and pass. I then play some lock pieces which per usual get Forced. The up side is forcing prevents him from keeping having an active library. In the mean time Jeff is not drawing much in the way of mana so I ride some creatures and a Root Maze to victory.

Matches: 2-1

Round 4 vs. Bill with B/W Stax

Before the match there is some discussion among my former opponents about someone who was playing Tarpan and a green fish deck. I was a little worried about this at first because I didn’t want my opponent to get a free scouting report, but no names where revealed so it was all right.

Game 1: I get first turn Forest Lotus, Ohran Viper enchanted with Keen Sense. If Viper stays active this kind of play should win me the game. Viper did stay active but Bill managed to get Flagstones, Crucible and Smokestack on the board. He ramped Smokestack to 3, which didn’t matter to him because he could replay Flagstones off Crucible and all of my permanents withered away. Had I been playing a blue based Fish deck I would have easily drawn enough cards to have a counter for Smokestack.

Board IN: 4 Tormod’s Crypt, 4 Mire Boa OUT: 4 Choke, 4 River Boa
Game 2: He gets a similar configuration to game 1 with Crucible Smokestack in play. I get him down to 7 life before Smokestack completely locks me down and I lose to creature beats.

Matches 2-2 Justin and Tim are now 2-2 after their great 2-0 start, frown townz.

Round 5 vs. Craig with U/B Dragon

Game 1: I get a Root Maze on the board making it difficult for Dragon too win. He Intuition’s for 3 Deep Analysis, then Justin, who is watching the game makes every joke known to man about “Deep Anal”. Craig finds an animate spell throws Dragon in the yard and animates it. Root Maze is still in play and so draw the game, but I am a little pissed because I had a winning position.

Board IN: 4 Tormod’s Crypt OUT: 1 Regrowth, 2 Null Rod, 1 Ohran Viper
Game 2: My early lock pieces get countered but I get a Tormod’s Crypt to stick. He animates Dragon and I crypt in response, anticipating some crazy Trickbind tech. Crypt resolves and I live to fight another day. I get a Root Maze and another Crypt on the board and win.

Board IN: 4 Tormod’s Crypt OUT: 1 Regrowth, 2 Null Rod, 1 Ohran Viper
Game 3: The beginning of the game involves me dropping Root Maze and Tormod’s Crypt, keeping him from comboing quickly. As the game heads towards a close he is at 3 life facing lethal damage next turn and I have Tangle Wire with 4 counters, Root Maze and Tormod’s Crypt. Craig has a Sol Ring, Mana Vault and 4 or so lands. He EOT bounces my Root Maze with Chain of Vapor, I think for a moment and have the brilliant idea of bouncing the Chain of Vapor back at his Sol Ring so he can’t use it next turn. Craig then bounces the Chain of Vapor back at my Tangle Wire and I realize I might have just punted the game. The Tangle Wire would have prevented him from getting the mana to cast his animate spell and still have a way to counter my Tormod’s Crypt with Stifle. With his remaining mana Craig casts Read the Runes for 6 and then moves to his turn, still unable to draw an animate spell. I guess I am lucky when it counts.

Matches: 3-2 I get my picture taken by Jared; I am holding Tarpan, Choke and Root Maze and have a stupid grin on my face. Tim Justin and Emery are all now 2-3 and want to go home, but I convince them to let me play out my last round.

Round 6 vs. Matt with 5/c Stax

Game 1: Matt gets 2 active welders and a Smokestack on the board that totally locks me out of the game.

Board IN: 4 Oxidize, 2 Tormod’s Crypt OUT: 4 Choke, 1 Regrowth, 1 Ohran Viper
Game 2: Matt mulligan to 5 and I mulligan to 6(I think). I play a first turn Null Rod off a Forest and an ESG hoping to mana screw him. Turns out he kept a hand with lots of artifact mana so he does nothing for several turns while I build up an army of guys.

Board IN: 4 Oxidize, 2 Tormod’s Crypt OUT: 4 Choke, 1 Regrowth, 1 Ohran Viper
Game 3: He plays a Shop, Chalice at 1, totally screwing my hand full of one drops. I play some lands over the next couple of turns and he drops a Trinisphere and a Smokestack. He ramps Smokestack to 1, and sacs chalice. My hand full of formally dead one drops just got a lot better. In response to the Smokestack trigger during my upkeep I cast an Oxidize on Smokestack and then sac a land. During my next turn I get enough mana to cast Tangle Wire. Tangle Wire taps down his Trinisphere along with the rest of his board allowing me to play my spells at a reasonable cost. I drop a River Boa with 2 Keen Sense on it and get to attack with it during my next turn. He Vampiric Tutors at the end of his turn for Tinker. He then casts it finding Duplicant, which kills my River Boa. I Oxidize Duplicant and manage to stabilize and win.

Final Match Record: 4-2

The T8 is announced and although I didn’t have the tiebreakers to get in I was hoping someone with 12 points would. I end up in 12th place, which is decent finish. After the T8 announcement we proceed to the best deck name prize; I get the runner up prize deservingly losing to Demonic Attorney’s amazing poem. The 2nd best deck name prize gets me a Foil Daze and a Russian Llanowar Elves. Tim cashes in his credit from his last finish and we head out.

We stop at the mall and I get bad Chinese food as usual. Emery decides to use his fake French accent at Burger King, which they did not appreciate, and no Emery didn’t surrender. We talk on the way back about bad similes like “John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met” and also converse about magical cards.

Here are of course the obligatory props, slops list.

Props:
My mom for driving us
Justin, Tim and Emery for attending with me
Dan for hosting the tournament
Tarpan for winning games
Tormod’s Crypt for winning me matches I should lose
My opponents for being cool

Slops:
Blue cards for being overpowered in T1
Counters and draw spells, the concepts that make blue overpowered
Richard Garfield for making blue overpowered in the first place
Richard Garfield’s parents for raising a child that would make blue overpowered

EDIT: I am going to be gone on vacation, so probably won't be able to reply to this

[nataz]

I might have mistimed the Crypt here. I don’t get a chance to play against Ichorid much but I figured I might as well crypt early because I have 2 Crypts on the board. I draw Wasteland and hit Bazaar, which seals the deal

Heh, and so goes our match. Something like 5 crypts played in our last two games (none of them mine ). That being said, I'm pretty sure that I could have beaten the crypts since your clocks were slow. What killed me were the green-curiosity equiped creatures that drew you into wasteland, rootmaze (which cut off my hasted outs), and more crypts that nailed the coffin shut.

Nice tec w/ Keen Sense in a green fishy deck. Forget about what people say about fish and standstill. Curiosity was the draw engine, and it was a beast when you weren't prepared. Props on doing the same.

Good Games. Pics of the Tarepan up later this week.

Peace

[Glix]

Congrats on the finish with an actually innovative list.  I have to say, this deck was suprisingly effective.

I want to note a realization I came to durring the tourament, that no deck in vintage has a way to kill Troll Ascetic.  I just think that's funny.

Mire Boa seems kind of weak, isn't there something better?

Really nice deck design, and good job at the tourament, especially with something this off the wall.  Very Nice.

[Grand Inquisitor]

One of the most enjoyable reports I've read in a while.

I have tested the crazy Brazilian playing Sui matchup into the ground

Good stuff.

Also, root maze is definitely a card that I look at in my binder and wonder about all the time.  Was it as good against the field as you hoped?

PMITA uses bazaar effectively as a non-blue brainstorm.  Have you ever considered this in your build?

[Jank Golem]

Thanks for all the comments. Mire Boa wasn't as good as I had hoped, I might be looking around for other stuff to board in the Fish matchup. Troll Ascetic is really difficult to remove, the only way I can think of is hardcasting Massacre. Before the tournament I was torn between Troll and Viper, but now I really like Troll better. Root Maze was very good in every single matchup, its the card that holds the deck together. Choke wasn't as good as I had hoped. It was totally dead in 3 out of 6 of the decks I played against, but thats unusual for Myriad. Bazaar is something I thought about right before the tournament, along with Life from the Loam. I was worried they would slow the deck down even more, so I didn't want to play them without testing it out first. Bazaar and/or Life from the Loam might be in my next build.

[TopSecret]

     Sweet list, and thanks for the report!

By the way, if you want sideboard tech. against fish,
Call of the Herd is very good tech.

     Did you consider playing Seedtime in the sideboard?
It's probably not very good because you're casting so many mainphase guys,
but then again you do use ESG.

   Have you considered a blue splash for Stasis, Quirion/Scryb Ranger, and Tropical Island?
You could add in Thallids, too!

[Myriad Games]

Thanks for the report, Dan. Congrats on a good finish with a fun deck!

[49 Cents]

Thanks for the entertaining report!

There is a new card coming out which looks perfect for your deck. Better than Viper, to say at least:

[Grand Inquisitor]

There is a new card coming out which looks perfect for your deck. Better than Viper, to say at least:

I don't think this is better.  It's not like you're landstill and you can use the cards to stop them from going off.  Opponents will just wait until they're ready to win and then throw everything at you, while you sit there with 10 green and artifact cards in your hand waiting to untap.

Viper lets you gain advantage continuously, albeit more slowly.  Also, it adds some board control against anyone with creatures.

[49 Cents]

There is a new card coming out which looks perfect for your deck. Better than Viper, to say at least:

I don't think this is better.  It's not like you're landstill and you can use the cards to stop them from going off.  Opponents will just wait until they're ready to win and then throw everything at you, while you sit there with 10 green and artifact cards in your hand waiting to untap.

Viper lets you gain advantage continuously, albeit more slowly.  Also, it adds some board control against anyone with creatures.

Viper is insanely slow. It beats for 1 and only draws a single card each turn. Storyteller will always draw more, because even combodecks have to play their Brainstorms and Gifts will have a lot of stuff to do at EoT. Even Repeal becomes a lot weaker since you will gain some more tempo. Since you play so many cards they just have to deal with before they try to win, they'll need to find answers. They can't really do this by just sitting there playing of the top (unless they'll have everything already). They need to improve their hands, by casting Brainstorms, other draw and tutors. They won't always win on turn 2/3 and they won't always have the 1 or 2 answers they got in their hands already.. And with stuff like Pyroclasm at the very least you'll draw an extra card. Sure, it's dead when they are combo'ing but if they fail (which happens) they will never win, because your hand will be so filled with hate..

I'm not completely sure how many cards you'll draw with the Storyteller, but if it's a lot you might want to try Gaea's Cradle. This way you'll ramp many much sooner and you'll be casting more threats a turn.

Also, I think, especially with the Storyteller, a small white splash would be extremely effective because of Orim's Chant. Because you'll be drawing all those cards when they try to combo out you'll have a much bigger chance of drawing (multiple) Orim's Chants, which (especially in multiples) are extremely effective. Also, I think Jotun Grunt could be really really strong. It could very well be better than Troll.

[Jank Golem]

Storyteller obviously has potential. Without having tested it, I think I like it better then Viper. Storyteller is conditional, but decks can't really hold back for the entire game waiting for a single huge turn. Decks need to play spells to set up that huge turn, which is when Storyteller will be drawing cards. I will see how it is in testing, but I expect I will cut Viper for it.

An alternative draw engine I will also try out it is Loam+Bazaar. Overall it only nets you one card a turn but both Bazaar and Loam have benefits outside of just drawing cards. Running Loam+Bazaar also lets you play Werebear, greens Jotun Grunt.

After testing Mono Blue, White and Green fish decks I think they have an inherent advantage over multicolored builds. Splashing colors in fish because I feel it hurts the decks focus and makes deck design much more difficult. A splash of any color would certainly be possible, I just don't think its best for the deck.