|
JR
|
 |
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2007, 03:30:23 pm » |
|
Hey guys! Once again thanks for coming out and playing in one of the first Cleveland area mox tournaments in quite some time. I think everyone involved had lots of fun.
I have been relatively quiet as of late, mostly due to work. I think my last type one tournament for anything significant was the last vintage Meandeck open. Steve wrote about it. I played long with Night’s Whisper main. I finished 9th, I believe.
After this, I was forced to take a short hiatus from the game, or at least from tournaments. You see, I was forced to get a real job after I graduated from school. That real job gives me my day off on Monday. LAME. Well, it’s done for the year so I have a whole summer of gaming awaiting me.
You know, despite the fact that no flash showed up, and the fact that due to gush the format that we just played might be irrelevant come June 20th, I think that the format is extremely balanced, fair and fun right now. Well, I think I have gone on long enough, but here is a quick report on my day for anyone interested. I did not take notes, as I find it distracting, and I didn’t eat so my memory for the day isn’t as good as it usually is. I won’t talk about my list or specific card choices unless someone asks me. You can find the list in the first post of the thread.
ROUND ONE- Bob Davis playing RWB aggro control
Bob Davis is a really great player that doesn’t get the chance to play that often anymore. I give him full credit for being one of the main reasons I turned from pure casual mage to a tournament player.
Game One: I’m on the play and keep a slow but solid hand, that included some combination of Mindcensors and Force of Will. Bob mulls his seven and decides to keep his six. Bob has a lot of fast mana, and plays a null rod, which gets forced. He then vamps for a land and passes. Having no idea what he is playing, I go into full control mode, getting ready for a slugfest. Eventually, he remains short on lands, and I take home game one with some combination of trinket mage and Bird beats.
Sideboarding: -1 Drain, -1 tormod’s crypt, -1 MisD, +1 Meloku, +2 Veldelkan Shackles
(I might have boarded in the other shackles, but I think I saw rod and decided on two.)
Game Two: I think I recall that my hand was pretty mediocre, but got exponentially better when Bob mulled to six and kept a one lander. Bob did not see another land until well after I was in control of the game. I think I was a bit land light too, and thus it took a few turns longer to win because I kept wasting turns playing draw spells hoping to hit a land drop. I swear to God, this deck has seventeen lands in it, more than any other deck in the format, and I miss more land drops than most players in this tournament combined. Anyway, I win.
1-0, 2-0.
ROUND TWO- Brian Grinnel, playing Rich Shay’s Ichorid list
Unlike last round, in which I had no clue what Bob was playing, I knew exactly what Brian was playing, card for card. He is not too happy about having to play me, because I’m pretty vocal about what a blowout it is, although that dirty liar Ben Kowal will claim to have a better win percentage than he does against me.
Game One: Brian leads with Bazaar of Baghdad. Big Surprise.
*Side Note: the funniest thing in type one know is playing against Ichorid, when both players know that you know, and the Ichorid player still hums and haws over mulligan decisions like we are about to play a keeper mirror for a date with the other kids mom*
Brian is doing his dredging thing, but I do my trinket mage thing a bunch. Then I do the salvagers thing a bunch too. Brian scoops to infi cryptage.
Sideboarding: -4 drain, -2 MisD, +2 Tormods, +4 honor the fallen
Game Two: I’m pretty sure I cast pithing needle and crypt pretty early on, and then I spend a bunch of turns trading guys. Honor the Fallen is like casting 5 time walks when you have other hate and they have to play more conservatively. I think I end the game with one crypt in the yard and two more on board.
2-0, 4-0
ROUND THREE- Josh Perez playing Food Chain Goblins with rod and crypt.
Josh is a local player and a totally awesome guy. He always plays goblins. Always. Even when he came to regionals the year that it was CoK block and Rav, he managed to play goblins.
Game One: I am pretty worried about this match with only one spellbomb, but Josh mulligans to six, which I am not gonna complain about. He leads with mountain and skirk prospector, which resolves. Eventually he gets a matron chain together, and then top decks Kiki Jiki. He doesn’t have a warchief, and so he can only swing me down to 5 with a driver clone and some 1/1s. Oh, I drained a ringleader in there somewhere too. I have enough mana to combo off with me at five life. The reason I needed to extra mana was because Josh had two tormod’s crypts, so I needed colorless to return lotus to my hand in response to his crypts.
Sideboarding: -2 Misdirection, -1 tormod’s crypt, +1 bomb, +1 Meloku, +1 Shackles
Game Two: Josh Mulls again. I keep my seven carder of recall, island, double force, trinket, drain brainstorm. Josh’s hand is like all mana and warchief, who meets fow number one. Josh topdecks a land the next turn, plays it, and plays food chain which meets fow number two. My recall gets me fows number three and four. I play a mindcensor, which stops him from recruiting (Which I totally didn’t realize, I thought he just blocked driver) an eventually I play Meloku which seals it up.
3-0, 6-0
ROUND FOUR: Dave Daugherty playing Ichorid with Sutured Ghoul
Dave is a good player and super nice guy that comes to pretty much every Ohio tourny ever. I knew he was playing ichorid, so I was pretty confident about my chances.
Game One: He is on the play and he keeps. I look at my opener of land, sol ring, spellbomb, needle, crypt, land, land. I decide to keep, and he doesn’t drop chalice. That about sums up that game.
Sideboarding: Same as last Ichorid, but I pulled a mindcensor out for the extra bomb, because he was trying to win with one big guy.
Game Two: It looks like I might be in the game for a little bit, but my hand is slow and my chances are over when Dave drops bazaar number two on turn two. First game loss of the day.
Game Three: I keep an extremely hateful hand with brainstorm, crypt and not much else. Certainly it didn’t have a second land. Turn one crypt slows Dave down enough that I can afford to take some minor damages, and draw cards naturally before I Brainstorm. He plays carefully, and forces me to blow the crypt. My brainstorm after this is like mage, honor, honor. I saw three honors this game, and they were all awesome.
4-0, 8-1
ROUND FIVE: Mike Smar with Bazaar Stax.
Top Four is locked, and we decide to ID. I was told later that if I had forced him to play this round, and won, then there was a chance that Nam would have snuck in at four because of breakers. Whatever, instead of doing that and, you know, having to play magic, I chose to smoke like 5 cigarettes and do color commentary for the feature match of “Yang Time” Jerry Yang and “Snoop Troggy Trog” Mark Trogdon.
4-0-1, 8-1
Oh, top 4 is stax, me, ichorid and ichorid. I’m pretty happy.
TOP FOUR: Brian Grinnel with Ichorid.
Brian was pretty unhappy about this pairing.
Game One: Brian is on the play, and I keep a pretty slow hand that has crypt to stop the bleeding. Just when I think the game is under control, a bunch of dredging occurs and nacrromaebas get all big and hasty and fly-y. Lame.
Sideboarding: See above match with Grinnel.
Game Two: I’m on the play and have needles and crypts and honor the fallens. Unfortunately, I do not have guys that live through contagion. I don’t think I do more than two points of damage the whole game, but When my third honor brings me back up to 26, and Brian has only 6 cards left in his library, I can afford to wait it out.
Game Three: For once, Brian doesn’t have leyline against me. I get an early crypt and a turn two needle to stop the bleeding, and don’t see guys for like a million years while two dryad arbors completely fucking wreck me. Strip mine blocks one, and a flashed in bird trades with another, which makes me laugh that a bird wizard fights a tree and manages to not win. Finally, I see a salvagers and start recurring crypt and eventually win.
5-0-1, 10-2
FINALS: Mike Smar playing Bazaar Stax.
Wow. I certainly wasn’t expecting this. First, I didn’t think that his deck had much game in the metagame (wrong), and second, I didn’t think he had a shot of beating Dave, especially because he lost to him in the swiss (wrong again). Honestly, this last part of my report will suck because all the games are blowouts.
Game One: Thinking back on this game, I am reminded of that article Steve wrote about when he lost to Spookykid in top 4. Steve was playing against stax, and he kept a hand of fetchlands and not much business, because basics are stax’s kryptonite.
*Side note: My word perfect does not recognize kryptonite as a word.*
Well, Steve kept the hand thinking that basics are hot, and because his deck is so landlight, he would see business before he would get locked down. This plan failed.
My opening seven was: fetch, fetch, plains, island, ruby, force, echoing truth.
This is a terrible hand. I have no idea why I kept it, but my brain was like “Dude, I mean yeah! You’re in!” so my mouth was like “I mean I’m in”.
Needless to say, I did not live to dream of Forcing his only threat while he kept a hand with crucible/waste. I came back a little bit, and made it even for a time, but he is able to out permanent me and I scoop to save time.
Game Two: I’m getting bored with narrative, so I think it’s time we switched up to dialogue for a game:
JR: Land, go.
Mike: Land, defense grid.
JR: Draw. Land, go.
Mike: draw, land, stack, null rod.
JR: draw. Land, energy flux.
ONE TURN LATER:
Energy Flux number two.
Game Three: This game was pretty anticlimactic I guess. I keep a hand with energy flux and enough lands to cast said flux. He has stack and wire on his first two turns, and a crucible, and I never get a chance. I don’t see land for like 8 more turns, and he eventually finds the null rod that seals the game for him. Cest la vie.
Mike was obviously very excited to win his first piece of power. All I really wanted was a cigarette, but I got some store credit for my trouble as well.
If anyone has any questions about my thoughts on the deck, PM me or post here.
Props:
-Ben Kowal for forcing me to test against ichorid for like hours a night.
-Bomberman for being viable again.
-Dan Cunningham for taking the proverbial ball and running with it.
-Everyone who drove for hours and came to play. We will look forward to seeing you again!
-Chris Wilson, the store owner for putting up with my bitching for the weeks leading up to this event.
Slops:
hose of you who missed a great time and a chance to sling some cards on a Saturday! We even have A/C!
Thanks,
JR.
|
