Report: Top 4 split at Untouchables double lotus tourney

[yespuhyren]

So I decided to take my shop aggro deck, and it worked out amazingly for me.  Here is the list:

Blitzkrieg:

Lands: 18

2x Ancient Tomb
4x Mishra's Workshop
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Tolarian Academy
6x Mountain

Moxies and such: 8

5x Moxes
1x Lotus
1x Vault
1x Sol Ring

Creatures: 21

4x Goblin Welder
4x Magus of the Moon
4x Juggernaut
4x Solemn Simulacrum
3x Razormane Masticore
2x Triskelion

Other: 13

4x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Trinisphere

SB:

4x Red Elemental Blast
3x Duplicant
3x Shattering Spree
4x Tormod's Crypt
1x Karn

I barely ever touched my SB, only using the REB's against mono blue control once and hitting Tormod's in G3 against Ichorid.  Here is how my matches went:

Match 1 - Oath - James Harris (1st in Swiss going into T8)

G1 - I lock him under spheres and win welder/spirit beatdown
G2 - Goes a lot longer, he gets out Oath, its not horribly a wrecking, but I lose
G3 - Lock him with several spheres + waste effects + magus of moon.  Win with Welders/Spirits/Magus beats.

Win 2-1

Match 2 - Mike Baxter - Counterbalance+mono blue control

G1 - He steals my creatures with Sower of Temptations and has 3 force of wills in the first 3 turns to counter 3 of my creatures.  I lose
G2 - He locks me under back to basics and flux.  I have no mountains or creatures and 2x welder and 1x REB in hand.  I hit a Solemn, tutor up a mountain, and keep it alive with Wasteland+Mountain.  I then cast a welder, than another, then REB the Back to basics, giving me tons of mana to cast SOFI on Razormane and pay for them both FTW
G3 - I just smashed uber fast

Win 2-1

Match 3 - Aaron Devost - Deck Unknown, aka Luck.dec

G1: He goes turn one island, JET, SOL RING,turn 2 island, Mystical for tinker then TIME WALK, Turn 3 TINKER for DSC with FOW backup
G2: Turn 1 he goes Island, JET, SOL RING, TIME WALK.  Turn 2 TINKER.  I have welder he has force.

G1/2 he had jet, sol ring, time walk, once mysticalling for Tinker the other time having it and both times having FOW backup.  Annoying.

lose 0-2

Match 4 - Wise - Ichorid

This is the bubble match.  If I lose now I'm out, and he's playing Ichorid, which sucks for me.

G1 - I lose.  He goes busted
G2 - Somehow I lock him a bit with a Magus of the Moon and possibly a Razormane after some decent Bazaaring
G3 - Turn 1 Juggs, Turn 2 equip SOFI and swing for 9, turn 3 swing for 9, and I had 2 tormod's crypts.  GG

Win 2-1

Match 5 - Forget name for now, he's good though - U/W Control

G1: Win extremely quickly via beatdown
G2: First turn trinisphere, he never gets to 3 mana

Match 6 - Richard Mattuizo - U/B confidant

There are about 12 people in contention for T8 who are either 4-1-0 or 3-0-1 so we can't draw sadly.  Play it out we must.

Rich is in my opinion the single best player in the country, with Peter, Lam, and Wolfman coming next.  I always get nervous.

G1:  He starts fast with Confidant + Top but Razormane and Solemn take care of Bob and win it for me.
G2:  I keep a hand of Lotus, Sol Ring, Academy as my only mana so if he counters lotus I lose.  It resolved, and I cracked it for Thorn then Welder.  This was an extremely long game where Rich fought to the bitter end to survive but I just beatdown with Razormane and friends, and eventually dealt the last damage after rebuild and several FOW"s with my two welders.  Tight game.

Win 2-0

Top Eight standings:
1. James Harris 15 pts
2. Jason Pilarski 15 pts
3. Eli Priest 15 pts
4. Sam Tharmaratnam 14 pts
5. Tim Turcotte 14 pts
6. Noah Long 14 pts
7. Marc Sims 14 pts
8. Ben Fanjoy 13 pts

So I'm second overall and thats always good.

T8:

I want to do a T8 split for 190 a person so I can go see my friend before he leaves to Amsterdam, but Noah doesn't want to split so we gotta play it out.  Thats fair.

Marc Sims - GAT

My deck is really meant to fight GAT.

G1/2 I get Magus of Moon and several Juggs/Razormanes out.  This match went by fast, and my deck did its job.

2-0

T4 - Noah decides to do some form of split, so I walk home with $380 and a fun day, which worked out better because a straight T4 split would have only given me 355 so I ended up 25 bucks ahead of the other 3 guys which rocked.

The tournament and venue were amazing, and I certainly can't wait for the next one.

PS: Razormane is ridiculous

[Razor]

Great report Jason!

This deck looks solid for the current metagame.  The 9 Balls shore up Aggro's usual weakness - Combo.  It is surprising to hear that your Aggro deck encountered serious trouble versus mono-U Control.

~Raymond

[yespuhyren]

Mono blue control unfortunately is a pain because I can't use Magus of the Moon or Wastelands to help manascrew them under spheres.  Secondly, it ran several ways of stealing creatures maindeck, as well as Back to Basics with Energy Flux in the sideboard.  I did however, still manage to pull off the win

[Red Irish]

Nice deck. I was wondering about the reasoning behind cutting mana crypt. Was this decision based on an aggro-dominated environment where crypt/tomb/vault just proved too suicidal? Do you miss the acceleration? Did the fact that the deck doesn't run ravager have anything to with your decision?

Cheers 

[God_Campbell]

As I play vs Mike locally I can say that his Monoblue deck is a home brew that he has been tweaking for the past several months and has done well for him.

I can vouch it is not a slouch deck and can and will win if you are not careful.

[yespuhyren]

Just to make sure you didn't think I was bashing the deck, I told him that as well.  His deck is REALLY friggin cool and is definitely a unique deck, and STRONG as hell.  I got out of it but barely, but I am extremely impressed with his deck and card selection. 

[God_Campbell]

Oh I know you were not bashing the deck, I just wanted to make sure people knew it was not a pile.

[Euphonic]

Congrats on your showing.

I really liked your deck list a lot and tried it this past weekend in a tourney for a timewalk.

I finished 2-3 which i feel is mostly due to me not knowing how to play this deck properly. I lost in the mirror, to manaless ichorid and to RB golbins.

Can you give me any insight on how to sideboard against the top decks out there and what to board in for the mirror match. Also, any suggestions on different SB cards to play in my meta. Lots of stax, 3 shop aggro (including myself), 1 Oath, 3 GAT, 1 Goblins, 2 bomberman, 1 UWB fish, 1 UG good stuff, 1 UB good stuff.