Gamblers Expo - Valencia (25th Place)

[Tetre]

Tournament Valencia - Glenn Miller (Ottawa, ON, Canada)

Obligatory Overview
The day started out well, I had been gold fishing forever, reviewing my sideboarding notes, and just starting to get bored.  I wanted some real life players to be sitting across from me, to see how well the deck was actually going to perform.

I remembered most of the issues brought up in testing, to look for outs, to take my time to maximize any plays, to always think about what the opponent might have to stop me.

Breakfast was good, the camera was charged, and I set my sights on playing against some of the top talent in southern Europe and area.
As I sat waiting for the event to begin, a cool guy walked up and started speaking in Spanish. As it turns out, he was also pretty good in English, so we struck up a conversation, and he asked to play some games.
I agreed, and we shuffled up. He told me that he was playing combo today, a match up that I didn't have a lot of practice against, so I looked forward to a few casual games to see how game 1's might go.
He was shaking his head after I went 4-1, and mentioned that my aggro deck wasn't like the others, and that he only hoped to see me again...if it was in the finals.
I was made an honorary member of team Mathula (sp?) for the day... Go Me!

Tournament Begins

Round 1
Opponent : Saul
From: Madrid. Spain
Deck: Red/White/Green fish
I lose the Rock, Paper, Scissors, and he chooses to go first. (I have 2 sets of Rock Paper Scissors from Unglued, and it makes for a lot of laughs)

Game 1:
We both Mulligan to 6, and he begins play.
He opens with a goblin vandal, and I'm sitting there thinking, that it's going to be a very long day.
I opened with Pearl, Ruby, Welder and wasteland, and pass the turn
He attacks with the vandal, and I decide that losing a welder is ok, as my second turn play will be a Jens. I block, he looks at me strangely, and passes the turn.
I play a mountain, drop Jens and pass the turn
He plays another vandal and passes
I draw for the turn, and play trinisphere.
we both proceed to ramp up a bit, but my creatures are just larger. he plows a juggernaut, but the Jens are just doing too much damage.
He dies game 1 and I'm at 23 life.
Game 2:
He mulligans to 6, and I keep my opening hand.
He starts the game with a Leyline of the void, and an Aether Vial. I drop a mountain, a Mana Crypt and an Archbound Ravager.
we go back and forth on the red zone a few times, but again my creatures are just too big to handle and his life total goes 18, 17, 12, 6, 0

Record 1-0
Games 2-0
Off to a good start for the day

Round 2
Round 2 is interesting as I sit, win the Rock, Paper, Scissors, then proceed to hear that there is a round 2 re-   pairing...ick.

Round 2 - Again
Opponent : Pietro
From: Madrid. Italy
Deck: Tyrant Oath
I win a die roll, as he refused the almighty unglued Rock. Paper, Scissors.

Game 1:
Game one is close until the end, as he had a hard time finding an Oath. I beat him down to 2, then with a Tyrant, he went off, bouncing my stuff, and locking up the game.

Game 2:
See game 1, again, I got him down to 3 life, and he stabilized, bounced my side, and swung in for the win.

Record: 1-1
Games: 2-2

Round 3

Opponent : Eduardo
From: Spain
Deck: Staff - Metal Worker Combo
I win Rock, Paper, Scissors, and choose to go first.

Game 1:
I drop turn 1 Thorn of Amethyst, and pass
He plays a land and passes.
I play wasteland on his land turn 2, and follow it up with a turn 2 Thorn.
He play a land turn 3 and passes
I play a strip mine on his land turn 3, drop a ravager and pass the turn.
he is stalled for lands, I drop a Duplicate *it DOES hit for 2 a turn, and swing with the ravager.
He stays stalled out, goes into EOT discard mode, and Ravager and duplicant and a factory go the distance
Game 2:
He opens with a Pithing needle naming Goblin Welder, and I happen to have one in my opening hand.
I play a turn 1 welder, a turn 2 Sword of Fire Ice.
I follow it up with 2 Sphere of Resistance along the way.
I waste his next 2 land drops, and swing with a Welder equipped with the Sword, and on turn 5, the game is over

Record: 2-1
Games: 4-2

Round 4
Opponent : Gavin
From: Belfast
Deck: Mono Red Workshop Aggro
I win Rock, Paper, Scissors, and choose to go first.

Game 1:
We are chatting a bit about how it's a pain to have to play each other, because we had been discussing a bit of our decks with each other in detail. I was fairly sure that I had the faster deck, but then again, anything can happen.
I open with lotus, strip mine, juggy and pass the turn
Gavin opens with Sapphire, Jet, Pearl, and passes the turn.
I don't remember all of the game plays, but my notes show me that the life total for my opponent went 18,11,0
We laugh a bit and head to the board
Game 2:
I mull to 6, he keeps.
He opens with Jet, Pearl, mountain, and Magus of the moon.
This was REALLY good for me, as I was off red mana, but was holding 2 Rack and Ruins.
I drop a turn one ravager, ramp up my mana, play one of the rack and ruin's, and ride the ravager and trike for the win.
We talk after the match, and agree that my deck is faster, and has a few more "tricks" because of the ravager.  I get asked for my decklist after the event, and happily write the list out.
Record: 3-1
Games: 6-2

Round 5
Opponent : Oscar
From: Spain
Deck: Belcher
I win Rock, Paper, Scissors, and choose to go first.

Game 1:
I mulligan to 6. Welder and mostly land.
Notes are sketchy, but I opened with a welder, but no stall.
Oscar plays a turn or 2, then combo's into Charbelcher and activates for the win.
Game 2:
Oscar Mulls to 6.
I open with lock pieces and drop a Jens,  then another Jens, and ride them to victory with a factory for support.  Thorns and Spheres really helped slow his side of the match and prevent the win.
Game 3:
First game 3 of the event. I look at my opening hand, and have welder and Thorn first turn.
Oscar plays first, and had exactly the cards to tendrils me out on turn 1.
Although a bit disappointed, it's ok, because that's why we play the game. I drop my cards on the table, and he looks at them and says "if I didn't win turn 1, you would have won the match". I smile, shake his hand, and realize that top 16 is now gone. I have to laugh though, because anything can happen in Magic.
Record: 3-2
Games: 7-4

Round 6
Opponent : David
From: Valencia, Spain
Deck: Gat
I win Rock, Paper, Scissors, and choose to go first.

Game 1:
He opens with Island, Jet, Sapphire, Ruby and passes the turn.
I open with Ravager and pass the turn.
A few wastelands, some thorns, and I ride a Jens, Ravager, and Trike to the win.
Game 2:
He mulligans to 6 I believe, plays a land and passes the turn.
I open with Thorn, and a forced Juggernaut.
He draws and passes the turn.
I drop another thorn, and proceed to start unloading my hand.
At the end of this game, the following play took place:
I swing with Juggy, Jens, and a Factory with a +1/+1 Counter on it. He takes 10, and taps 3 mana for Brainstorm.  After it resolves, I realize that he only has 2 mana open.
I sac the Jens to the Ravager (just summoned), and draw a card. It's a Trike!.
With him only having 2 mana open, and 2 thorns in play... I decide to end the game on the spot.
I play the Trike, sac all the artifacts to the ravager, then sac the ravager to itself. I put all of the counters onto the trike, and ping him for the win.
Record: 4-2
Games: 9-4

Round 7
Opponent : Walter
From: Italy
Deck: 5 color Stax
I win the die roll, as he refused to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and I chose to go first.
Game 1:
I open with Welder, but not much gas. A long game ensues, and he eventually has double welder, double Chalice, and double tanglewire.
I get trapped under the wires, and conceed the game at 16 life to speed things up.
Game 2:
I open with trinisphere and he comments that he sided his out, and thought that I would do same.
I follow up with a few wastes, drop moxex with the Shop, and quickly end game 2
Game 3:
He opens with land go, I open with waste, vault, ravager, sac the vault, pass the turn.
My second draw is a Thorn, and I follow it up with wastes and Spheres. His life total goes quickly 19, 18, 17, 12, 5, 0

Record: 5-2
Games: 11-5

Final Thoughts
The deck is quick... in my opinion quicker than both 5 color and other mono red versions.
There are so many different ways to win, but as with all decks lacking blue, there are few ways to deal with combo, besides winning the die roll, and getting the stall pieces in place before they can combo out.
The deck treated me well all day long, and was easy to pilot on the brain. It did put up good numbers, and except for the 1st turn loss in game 3, there isn't much that the deck did to let me down.
If I had an event to play again, today, I would still choose this deck to play for a few reasons:
1) It has great synergy with all of the pieces
2) It doesn't require a huge amount of brain power to pilot
3) It all moves forward to take 20 life from the opponent before they can get their game online to kill you
Props:
All of the people at the event, each and every opponent all day long was very reasonable and accommodating my lack of Spanish.
Gavin and His crew, as well as Team Muthia for being such good players, and good sportsmen.
Valencia is a beautiful city, and there are many good magic players who attended the event. if I have the chance, I would return for future events here.
Slops:
The 2 bad calls in the top 16 round...ELD almost got hosed.
My round 5 opponent for not giving me the chance to win...just kidding


Decklist
// Mana - 28
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
6 Mountain
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

// Stall Pieces - 9
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere

// Creatures - 20
4 Goblin Welder
4 Juggernaut
3 Triskelion
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Arcbound Ravager
2 Duplicant

//Other - 3
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

//Sideboard - 15
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Rack and Ruin
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

[Fubar]

Interesting take.  Have you ever considered Jitte in one of the SoFI slots?

[Tetre]

Actually, I didn't consider it, I might give it a try, but to be honest, I like the consistancy of the 3 SOFI.

But having said that, yes it's worth some testing, if only to buy time in the combo matches.

Perhaps I'll try it out and post results if anyone is interested?

Cheers,
Glenn

[SyntheticAngel]

Hey Glenn great report, it's Brennen from Gen Con AKA the drunk guy. Ravager definately seems interesting in a deck like this I never would have seen that coming. It's a bummer you didn't take the whole thing. Anyway congratz, hope you had fun.

Brennen

[Lou]

Nice report Glenn and nice finish. How many people ended up attending the event?

[Tetre]

Yo Brennen, Lou,

@Lou - There were 148 at this event, and from what I saw, most of the decks had few to no proxies.  From my records, none of my opponents had any.

@Brennen - Yes indeed, the ravager first made people scratch their heads a bit, and it totally can mess up combat against fish decks. There was a lot of laughter when I sacked a 7/7 Ravager to put tokens on the trike...my opponent just smiled and shrugged... Magic can be SO much fun sometimes... to quote a famous Steve...

"SO many insane plays"...

Cheers,
Glenn

[SyntheticAngel]

Interesting take.  Have you ever considered Jitte in one of the SoFI slots?

I don't like Jitte, I like Sword much better in this deck. Sword is great especially in this deck it ends up doing a ton of damage and drawing cards. Jitte is ok I guess, but it seems a little worse. Maybe the life gain is good. I don't see it killing many creatures that Sword doesn't unless it has a billion counters on it.

[Red Irish]

Hi Glenn,

Sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, I was dragged away by my friends. I owe you a drink (and a good beating).

The deck is amazing. I was looking at red workshop decks in germagic and other sites before the event and, although I saw some decks with ravager, I decided to go with a modified version of the deck that runs ancient tomb. Given that I was running chalice of the void maindeck I felt that closing the two-drop permanently was a better option, and I chose to ignore ravager; however, in hindsight, I should have tested ravager, for a number of reasons:

1) It lets you get rid of Mana Crypt/Vault late game to avoid killing yourself.
2) Combat options are multiplied.
3) After attacking with a triskelion, juggernaut, factory and solemn simalcrum, Glenn dropped a ravager, sacked all moxes/spheres, sacked all creatures except triskelion (including the ravager) and then moved the counters onto triskelion to send 7 or 8 to the dome - incredible.
4) You can sacrifice a creature in response to dread return.

Our decks only varied in 7 or 8 cards, but the addition of ravager meant that in the mirror, the advantage was on Glenn's side and that was borne out by the thrashing I took. Interestingly the winner of the event ran an aggro MUD with 4 ravagers.

I think Jitte, whilst great for killing welders in the mirror or kataki, is to be avoided as it doesn't give the card advantage (or protection) offered by the sword, although, as Glenn says, it needs to be tested.

I will be trying out the decklist that Glenn ran in the near future, but I have already witnessed the results: devastating.

Glenn, thanks a million for the help, it was a pleasure meeting you and I hope to see you again some time in the future, hopefully not on the other side of the gaming table.

Take Care

Gavin