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Demonic Attorney
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« on: August 26, 2008, 05:04:52 pm » |
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Hi, everyone. It's time once again for an extra-long tournament report brought to you by Team Reflection. This week, Chris took an oldie but a goodie, Night's Whisper Control Slaver, to a Top 4 split finish at Batter's Up Comics in Tewksbury, MA. The next day, Rich came in third at the TMD Open 12.5, using Painter.dec.
The most notable change since our last outing is the shift back to blue-based control, away from ritual-based combo like Pitch Long. While I can only speak for myself, the combination of the metagame starting to adapt to the increasing presence of dedicated combo decks, the vulnerability of the Storm engine to hate cards that were becoming increasingly commonplace, and the inherent instability of decks based on 20 or so restricted cards led me to go with something a bit less risky.
So, without further ado, I give you Part One of today's report: Night's Whisper Strikes Back-- The Return of 2006.
In the wake of Vintage Worlds, the post-restriction metagame seemed closer than ever to finally taking shape. Combo continued to do well in the hands of proven pilots, Ichorid was still putting up consistent results, Drain Tendrils emerged as a new contender, and Strategic Planning was incorporated into Slaver, putting up a second place finish. Given the strength of Slaver's performance at Worlds, I gave it a closer look. However, I found that Strategic Planning fell short of the hype. At a time when graveyard hate is good against almost the entire field, relying on Strategic Planning increases your vulnerability to splash hate. Aside from that, losing 2 of your next 3 cards can sometimes force you to choose between expanding your mana base or losing valuable spells when you need both. On top of that, a low robot count, along with a low Welder count, meant that you couldn't consistently rely on Strategic Planning to bring the classic Slaver engine online.
So, I returned to an old favorite that served me well in the past: Night's Whisper. Night's Whisper solved the two biggest problems CS had encountered in the past: 1) Lack of strong early plays, and 2) Running out of gas. In the post-Brainstorm world, Night's Whisper had the added advantage of supplying a low-cost supplemental draw engine which, while not as good as Brainstorm, can help fix your opening draws that lack an important component.
Rich told me that adding black can strain the manabase; while that's a valid point, I thought that going up to 25 sources, which Slaver needed to do after the loss of Brainstorm, gave me a large enough foundation that I could afford to stretch my colors a bit. In addition, Welder is generally at its best in the blue-based control mirror in the mid-late game, so there's less of a need to find both Red and Black ASAP. I complemented NW with double Tormod's Crypt, to exploit the weaknesses in SP discussed above.
With that in mind, I put together my list and headed off to Tewksbury to enjoy one of my last opportunities to play Vintage for a while, before my free time is swallowed in the white, flowery, frilly abyss of back-to-back weddings for 2 weeks. I arrived a bit early and saw very few players. However, true to form, there were a number of late arrivals, leaving us with 30 players and 5 rounds.
Round 1 versus Sara Yarrington, Belcher
Game 1. She mulls to 6 and I keep a hand with Mana Drain, Mana Drain, off-color Mox, 2 land, and Night's Whisper. She plays a Goblin Welder but is very low on mana, so I plan on going after her mana base after the Welder hits. Night's Whisper finds Thirst for Knowledge for me, and that propels me into having double counter online long enough to tutor for Tinker for Triskelavus and kill her Welder. She never really has a chance to come online and my Lotus/Will ends things.
Game 2. I board in Duresses for my large-costed draw spells. She again mulls to 6, and I again counter her mana spells. She Pithing Needles Triskelavus, which doesn't slow me down. I use an early Yawgmoth's Will to draw 5 or so cards, which solidifies my advantage in this game.
She later gets up to 3 mana and tries to chain more Red mana accleration, but I counter her Rite of Flame to keep her off Empty the Warrens. She drops a land and a Mox to reach 3 mana on board, and I Duress to find 2 Belcher and ETW. I take one Belcher, holding a Drain for the other. My Mana Crypt takes me to 2, so I hardcast a Platinum Angel to say alive. I then Thirst a Slaver into the yard and draw into Goblin Welder, which seals the game in light of my many artifacts.
Round 2 versus Craig Dupre, Xerox
It dawns on me that people might not realize I'm not playing combo after my Round 1 match, and Craig makes similar statements about expecting a combo mirror. I write it off as probably some kind of ploy, but keep it in the back of my mind.
Game 1. He opens with Crypt, Island, Tinker. I Force. He drops Pearl. I lead off with Underground Sea instead of Flooded Strand, on the off chance he's still expecting combo. I think I Drained some kind of threat on his side, and Thirsted Titan into the graveyard. I later used Welder/Time Walk -> Weld Titan to destroy his mana base. He scoops.
Game 2. I'm not sure if I boarded or not, since I wasn't sure what he was playing. In any event, I led off with Library of Alexandria on the draw. It prevented me from getting Drain online in time to stop Intuition -> AK, but I quickly made up the card advantage from Library and dropped Tormod's Crypt to prevent things from getting out of hand. I countered an Izzet Guildmage after another Intuition, then I Night's Whispered into more cards to expand my mana base. I spent most of the rest of the game with double or triple counter up, plus Tormod's Crypt. Everything fell into place shortly thereafter.
Round 3 versus Arik Pogrebinsky, Fish
My hopes are not astronomically high going into this match. I designed my list to shine in the blue-based control mirror, gunning for "Strategic Slaver" in particular. I had almost nothing for Fish or aggro decks.
Game 1. I have a land-heavy hand but I'm curious to see if he's running Stifle, so I run a fetchland out there when he has a Tundra open. Sure enough, he does. I keep in mind that while Sundering Titan would kick the crap out of his 4 color mana base, it might need some help to make sure the CIP effect isn't Stifled. However, Aven Mindcensor made an appearance quickly after that thought, which made my Tinker worth far less. Tarmogoyf got in quite a bit of damage before I Mystical Tutored for bounce to make Tinker more effective, but he has Swords for the Tinker creature anyway.
Game 2. I boarded in my lone EE and hoped for the best. He kept a one land hand, and I could almost see the single tear on turn 2 when no second source appeared for him. By the time he got online, I had 6 mana on the table and active Library.
Game 3. He drops turn 2 Null Rod when I have Emerald, Sol Ring in play. My land base is decent, but I have two 7-drops in my hand. Once Bob shows up to give him a 2:1 drawing advantage, there's no way I can recover.
Round 4 versus Rich Meyst, Painter
Game 1. My openings in both games are very solid. In game 1, I opened with land, Sapphire to put Drain online, followed by land, Mox, Night's Whisper, followed by a Thirst, which gets Drained. I allow it to be countered, looking at active Drain + Force, along with Gifts Ungiven. I take my turn and pass, preparing to counter whatever he ramps out with Drain mana. He plays Gifts Ungiven with four cards in hand. I play my Drain, and he forces back. I confidently play my backup Force, only to find that his last two cards are Force and another blue card.
He gets Ancestral, DT, Lotus, Mystical from Gifts. I give him the Lotus and the Mystical. I take my next turn, anticipating MT -> Will. That's what happens, and I Drain the Will. I use my Drain mana to drop Triskelavus, which goes the distance.
Game 2. He mulls to 5 and is stuck on one fetchland for a long time. My hand is again quite strong, allowing me to go through several draw spells, play a Welder, and get Library active early on. He plays a Tormod's Crypt but stalls from there. The problem is, I can't find threats beyond a Platinum Angel which gets stuck in my hand, and a Tinker that I want to wait on using until he has a mana base that can fuel a good Slave turn or that can fall apart in the face of Sundering Titan. I wait until I get Welder #2 before discarding Plats at the end of my turn. When I try to weld her in, I get hit with Extirpate. Didn't see that one coming.
At that point I have triple counter online and he's still stuck on one land. Another turn or two goes by and he drops Lotus. I think about countering but allow it to resolve, confident that I can handle whatever threats he can generate off four mana with my control package. He plays Demonic Tutor and I wait some more. If he went for anything right then, his mana base would still be too narrow to crank out enough threats/backup to get past my counters and my offensive plays the following turn. If he passed the turn, I could blow up both his lands with Tinker -> Titan, leaving him with a Mox. He Extirpated my Drains, getting 1 out of my hand and 2 out of my library. I Titan his lands on my turn and he's never able to recover from there.
Round 5 versus Justin Bransfield
There's the usual confused speculation about standings going into the last round. Justin and I are near the top of the 3-1 bracket and we decide to draw. As it would turn out, his breakers give him 9th, and mine get me in past the cut.
Top 8 versus Steve Houdlette, Long
Game 1. His opener is relatively slow, and mine includes a Force and a Drain, plus a lot of artifact mana. He Duresses a couple of times to probe my defenses, and plays a Brainstorm. On my critical turn, I play Lotus/Will and use my Academy + 5 artifacts in play to Ancestral, hardcast and use Slaver, and have enough left over to Fact or Fiction on his Slave turn, holding double counter backup. He plays Ancestral on the end of my turn and then concedes.
Game 2. This, unlike Fish, was a match I was prepared for. I board in Duresses and Spheres, and hope I can get off the ground before he does. My memory of the early stages of this game is hazy, but I have double Drain available long enough to find and play Trinisphere, while he has only 2 lands in play. I draw into another 2 Drains and from here it's never really a game. It takes a while for me to find a threat to finish him off, but eventually Sundering Titan shows up to make that happen.
The top 4 split is $130.50. The 3rd and 4th place prizes are worth less than $40 each. The venue is insanely hot and uncomfortable at this point. We all agree to a split. I give Justin Bransfield his entry fee back, because missing out on breakers sucks, and missing off a last round draw sucks worse.
My list for this event was:
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
4x Thirst for Knowledge
3x Night's Whisper
3x Goblin Welder
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Platinum Angel
1x Triskelavus
1x Sundering Titan
1x Mindslaver
1x Echoing Truth
Merchant Scroll
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven
Brainstorm
Ancestral Recall
Tinker
Demonic Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Yawgmoth's Will
Time Walk
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
4x Underground Sea
3x Volcanic Island
2x Island
Library of Alexandria
Tolarian Academy
5x Moxes
Black Lotus
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Sideboard
3x Duress
2x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Sphere of Resistance
Trinisphere
2x Energy Flux
1x Extirpate
1x Gaea's Blessing
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Tormod's Crypt
So thus ends my last foray into the Vintage arena for a while. I was very happy with my maindeck, with the exception of Platinum Angel which didn't do as much as I'd hoped. My sideboard, on the other hand, was awful. I was prepared for a metagame that had already changed, and didn't bring enough tools to deal with popular anti-Slaver strategies, like Mindcensor/Bob/Goyf/Null Rod. What a tragedy that match was.
On the plus side, NW was outstanding all day. It gave me a huge advantage in the blue-based control matchups I designed the deck to do well in. And do well it certainly did, winning both both blue control matchups 2-0 with remarkable ease against talented players. If you've been disappointed with Strategic Planning in Slaver, I'd encourage you to give Night's Whisper a try.
Now we're on to Part Two of this afternoon's tale: Strategic Slaver's Day Off: Painter's Servant Does Stratford
While I am seldom one to switch decks, the last half dozen events have seen me playing three distinct archetypes in search of one that I liked. Long, which had won me an event the prior week, gave me a 1-2 finish at Vintage Worlds with inconsistent hands. Control Slaver with Strategic PLanning, which did well at Worlds, gave me a dismal 2-3 finish at Batter Up, and felt weak and underpowered all day. Finally, I tried another deck, and I took third place with Control Painter this past Saturday at Ray's event in Stratford.
Here's the list I played. It is heavily based on Owen's list from Worlds, with a few changs. Thanks to Owen for the basic list. Also, thanks to Outlaw, who suggested the maindeck Tinker/DSC plan. It was very good.
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Painter's Servant
1 Trinket Mage
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
2 Grindstone
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ponder
2 Pyroblast
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sol Ring
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Yixlid Jailer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Tropical Island
2 Extirpate
Round 1: Kevin with Workshop
game 1: He starts dropping Chalice at zero and then has a Thorn. I ignore him and play Painter then Grindstone.
game 2: Kevin mulligans and plays a Sphere and a Mishra's Factory. I Tinker up a Colossus and win.
Round 2: Brandon with Control Slaver
game 1: I mulligan. He first turn Plannings and plays Tormod's Crypt. I drop a Grindstone and my land is stripped. I have no land for 3 or 4 turns, but eventually find a land and play a Sol Ring. Eventually he has Triskelavus, Welder, and Crypt out. After he taps out for TVus, I play Painter which lets me tap Grinstone to mill him. If I do, though, he can Weld out my Painter in response. So, I pass to his turn, and then Grind when he passes priority. He responds by Welding out my Painter, so I just mill him for two. He then hits me with Triskelavus and passes. I untap and play EE at 0, and pop it. He responds to this by Crypting me. I let Crypt resolve and play Gifts. I then get back all of my Moxen with YawgWill plus what I Gifted for, winning the game that turn. I knew that I liked Painter when it won with Yawgmoth's Will through active Welder, Crypt, and Triskelavus.
game 2: He has an early Shaman and plays EE. I Tinker up a Colossus and win.
Round 3: Matt with Slaver
game 1: He has an early FoF which he forces out. However, I'm able to force out my combo and win before he can leverage his card advantage into a win.
game 2: He mulligans to 5.
Round 4: Sean with Fish
game 1: He drops an early Standstill with no pressure and I wait until my hand is good before breaking it on his endstep. He discards down to seven and never gets another turn.
game 2: I have Thirst but am unable to find anything worthwhile before Jotun Grunt and two Cursecatchers kill me. My first game loss of the event.
game 3: He mulligans. He has curse catcher, which is easy to play around. I scroll for Ancestral and play draw spells until I go off and win.
Round 5: ID with Oli
Round 6: Rob with Painter
I can lose in, so I decide to play it out despite being x-0-1.
game 1: I REB his Thirst and Ponder. We draw/go for a while until I force through Yawgmoth's Will.
game 2: He Duresses and Extirpates my Thirst, hitting one in my hand. He has Trinket Mage who beats me to 3 life before I manage to pull off the combo and win. REB is huge here.
I give him the draw anyways so he makes top eight. I had just wanted to get some more practice in.
Top Eight: James Hangley with Stax
game 1: He builds up a good board which I REB away with Painter. He then Balances, obliterating my board. However, I able to find Tinker off the top before he finds a way to answer it and I win.
game 2: Second turn win for me.
Top Four: Rob again
Rob, whom I let into Top Eight, beat me.
game 1: I start with Mana Crypt, land, Thirst. I find no other draw spells or Painter or Tinker or Tutor or Yawgmoth's Will for the rest of the game and die with a handfull of useless counters to my own crypt, having done 21 to myself.
game 2: I bring in Goyfs and Rob Ancestrals and resolves the combo when I am tapped out. I get milled, shuffle in Colossus, and go to my turn drawing Colossus. I mill him, but he also has Colossus. He draws it, passes, and I lose.
I was happy with the deck overall. The fact that I lost two games to drawing cards and doing nothing is unfortunate and may need to be addressed. Overall, however, it was a fun day. Thanks to Ray for running another of his always-excellent events. Thanks to Outlaw and Charles for driving and picking me up.
Rich Shay
Team Reflection
So ends another weekend for Reflection. I continue to be impressed and thankful at the positive turnaround in the New England Vintage scene; hardly a year removed from a time when there were barely 1 or 2 events per month, we're back to the point where we have as many events per week. I also want to express my appreciation to Batter's Up Comics for providing some seriously impressive guaranteed prize support, and to Ray for continuing to be one of the format's premier TO's. Lastly I want to thank my fellow players, and my opponents this past weekend in particular. The challenge you provide keeps the game dynamic and interesting, and leads me to continue to strive to improve.
Until next time,
Demonic Attorney
Team Reflection
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