1st place with BUG Fish at The Dutch Vintage 5th Edition

Preamble

Last Sunday (the 12th of October) I played BUG-Fish at a large Dutch tournament, or better yet, the Dutch vintage tournament (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36452.0 or http://www.themanacrypt.nl/showthread.php?t=137) . It was my first time in Breda at the Dutch Vintage, but most certainly won’t be my last. Winning a Mox Emerald appears to be quite motivating J

I wasn't really planning on writing a report, so unfortunately I took very little notes. Nevertheless, I tried to make the best I could of what little notes I jotted down and by looking at the life-totals, I managed to assemble the following. An apology in advance to my opponents, since I've probably taken some shortcuts in describing their plays. I did my best though! Any comments or supplements are most welcome!

The list

The list I played is pretty much the BUG-list that ErkBek came up with a few weeks ago (thread on TMD http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36497.0):

18 lands

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island

9 Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
4 Null Rod

13 Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Cursecatcher
1 Trygon Predator

20 Spells
4 Force of Will
3 Negate
3 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Stifle
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk

15 Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Jixlid Jailer
2 Extirpate
2 Pernicous Deed
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Krosan Grip

Main deck, I swapped the following cards from ErkBek's list:

1 Underground Sea > 1 Island
1 Vampiric Tutor > 1 Trygon Predator

Following the experiences from Sean Ryan and FadetoBlack, I knew the aggro match up would be hard. Furthermore, my own testing against Workshop-decks (and the fact that I’ve played against the card) brought me toTrygon Predator as the thirteenth creature. Although Vamp is a great tutor in a deck that already has very limited ways to find answers, I didn’t miss it during the tournament. Scroll andDT are fine (sorcery-speed) and don’t eat lives. I added 1 basic (Is)land because I hate Magus of the Moon and getting mana-denied myself. It worked great for me, I never missed the USea as a black manasource.

As far as sideboard construction is concerned: I learned a lot from lurking in the BUGFish-topic. Asking for advice, I learned that Dredge requires the better half of the sideboard. Diversifying dredge-hate is the key to success here. To improve the feared aggro-match ups, I thought Deeds might come in handy. Although the are potentially dangerous to my own board, Deeds are powerful on paper. I added Slaughter Pacts because I don’t want to lose to a Magus of the Moon / Platinum Angel.SPacts are just good creature removal.

The matches

The tournament consisted of 6 rounds of Swiss followed by a top 8. Pretty standard deal.

Round 1: Pim Wilgenburg playing Goblins

G1: Pim wins the die-roll. I mulligan to 5 cards, keeping a very light hand. Moggs and Goons quickly enter the arena, my Goyf dies to and Confidant get overrun.

SB: I side Null Rods out, Deeds and Slaughter Pacts come in.

G2: Again, goblins do their trick. In the end, a Kikki-Jikki seals the deal: I stifle the CIP-trigger from a Ringleader. I was afraid that Pim would play one or two Piledrivers, using Kikki-Jikki to copy one of them. Instead, he uses Kikki-Jikki to make a copy of Ringleader, whose CIP-trigger goes to the stack and gives him some more dudes to kill me with. My board of CCatcher, Confidant and Goyf are no match for hasted goblins.

Too many ‘dead’ cards (Negate, Null Rod, CCatcher, to name some) for the goblin match up to be any good I guess.

Wins: 0

Loses: 1

Round 2: Walter Olde Reijmer playing TPS

G1: I get early disruption out, including Null Rod. Wastelands deny Walter access to mana to play more spells than I can counter.

SB: -1 Trygon Predator, -1 Thoughtseize, +2 Extirpate

G2: Walter has some trouble getting his kill out, due to my disruption and counters. However, he manages to bounce Null Rod and plays moxen to power out a mini-Minds Desire with a storm count of 4. He reveals three minor threats (2 lands if I remember correctly) and a Yawgmoth's Will. Luckily, I'm able to counter it. My dudes quickly seal the deal, Confidant taking him from 18 to 16, confidant accompanied with goyf takes him to 12 the next turn. I drop a second goyf and Walter concedes, with Null Rod in play, bounce-spells played and Will in the graveyard.

Extirpate did not improve this matchup, against TPS no sideboarding would have been smarter, in hindsight.

Wins: 1

Loses: 1

Round 3: Sybrant Everts playing a blue-based storm deck

G1: I play some early disruption followed by CCatcher. CCatcher seems to slow Sybrant down, we play some spells, I drop some more dudes. Sybrant taps out and plays Mindslaver. On my turn I play Rod. While I'm dropping Rod, Sybrant sighs heavily and looks a bit sad. Gofys and confidants take me to game 2.

SB: I didn't see a lot from his deck, though I saw a Mindslaver, so I guess I'm up against Control Slaver. I SB accordingly, bringing in 1 KGrips and 2 Extirpates: -2 CCatcher, -1 Thoughtseize. Taking out these cards is a matter for debate of course. I decide to keep Trygon Predator, as it worked nicely against CSlaver in testing.

G2: This game takes a bit longer judging from my life-totals. Confidant lifeloss takes me down to 7 lives. In fact, Sybrant and I drop side by side in life-totals: we both drop from 13 to 11, from 11 to 9 and from 9 to 7. The difference being that my lifeloss is madeup by cardadvantage, whereas Sybrant his lifeloss is caused by Confidants, Goyfs and CCatchers during my attack-phase Smile

While at 7 lives, Sybrant concedes.

During this round I take a moment to realize I'm winning counterwars pretty easily. I was quite content with Negates, CCatchers and Fows during the past few games.

Wins: 2

Loses: 1

Round 4: Goswin Zeeman playing MUD

G1: I'm not sure who gets to play first, I believe Goswin plays first. MUD does his thing, making my dudes more expensive than I can afford, while Juggernaut slowly eats away at my life-total. On turn 5 or 6, Triskelion removes my confidant and my chances drawing more threats than Goswin has. The next turn, Jugg takes me to 4, and a second Trike pings me three times, the first pings me to 0 life.

SB: I take out 3 CCatchers (I somehow feared that taking out 4 would hurt my creature-base too much) and 1 Thoughtseize and replace them by 2 KGrips and 2 Extirpates.

G2: I open with Thoughtseize, and see a hand with 2 Spheres of Resistance, 1 Sol Ring, 1 Chalice of the Void, Duplicant and lands. I pick Sol Ring, so Goswin has access to only one mana on his first turn. Somewhere in turns 2 or 3, I play another Thoughtseize and pick Triskelion. Fish do not like men or machines with sticks or pikes. So at the end of Goswin's draw step, I extirpate Trikes. Goswins smiles and reveals his hand: he just drew a trike. (I'm a big fan of playing extirpate @end of drawstep. The chance of nullifying one's draw is small, but can have a significant impact on the game.) Meanwhile, Rod had entered the game and confidants win the game for me.

G3: Unfortunately, I can only remember this was a very tight and intensive match. Looking at mine and Goswin's life-totals, we go neck-to-neck for several turns. I win while at three lives...

Wins: 3

Loses: 1

Round 5: Richard Drijvers playing TPS

G1: Richard response to my disruption with a mini tendrills (storm = 9) that take me down to 1 life. During this turn he cracked a Jar and dropped a Necropotence. We both wonder for a minute what happens to the cards he would draw from Necro, with the Jar-trigger and all. We call in the judge for the Oracle wording of Necro, since there isn't a 'Discard Phase' anymore. The judge agrees with us that this is an interesting situation. Richard and me decide that the Jar end of turn trigger went on the stack before he would draw cards from Necro, since the Discard Step is at the end of the 'End of turn Phase' and 'End of turn'-triggers trigger at the beginning of this phase. All very very interesting...

Anyway, back to the game, I untap my lands, draw a card and cast Thoughtseize. Richard reveals his hand, lets me chose a card and informs me that I've just died. Stupid mistake, but I know I can still win this match.

SB: -1 Thoughtseize (the one that killed me), -1 Trygon Predator

G2: I can't remember much of this game. Since I only drop to 15 lives, this game did not take too long. I do know Richard boarded in 4 Goyfs, but I had more dudes G2.

G3: I think this game opened pretty much like all my matches this day. Play disruption, drop Rod and (or) bring in the beat-sticks (and drop Rod). Then the game quickly turns sour for me. I've dropped a second Dark Confidant somewhere in this game and one of them flipped a FoW. At a certain moment, my board consists of 3 lands and 2 fetches, 2 Confidants, 1 CCatcher and 1 Goyf while I'm at 5 lives. Richard has 1 Goyf and is at 11 lives. I decide to MScrol for Echoing Truth, so I can bounce my confidants, fearing they will kill me. While searching I realize that if I bounce my Confidants, I will probably lose since we both have Goyfs online. So I take my chances and attack Richard with all my dudes. He blocks my Goyf with his one and loses 5 lives. His turn, he attacks me, I play Echoing Truth on Goyf, bouncing both our dudes. I untap, and flip two cards for Confidants: Mox Ruby and Wasteland.

Wins: 4

Loses: 1

Round 6: Ilja Breukhof playing Control Slaver

Ilja offers me to ID, since he is at 13 points and I'm at 12. I say I would like to play anyway.

G1: I can't remember much of this entire round. Looking at the life-totals, Ilja quickly drops to 14, 11, 8 and 3, while I'm staying at 18 lives.

SB:From the cards I've seen Ilja play, I conclude I'm up against Control Slaver. So I board accordingly: +2 Krosan Grip, +2 Slaughter Pact (expecting Platinum Angel), -2 CCatcher, -1 Negate, -1 Thoughtseize

G2: Ilja appears to have opened strong, as I suddenly drop from 17 to 6, suggesting a Tinkered DSC. Tinker -> DSC is a very strong play against BUG Fish...I lost this game quickly.

G3: This game is much tighter. I remember casting Thoughtseize, and seeing a hand with 4 counters, including Pyroblasts and Fows. I also remember casting Slaughter Pact on Welder in this game, it could have been the only time I've cast that spell the entire tournament. I win this game while at 8 lives.

Wins: 5

Loses: 1

Quarterfinals: Bart ? playing Mana'ed-Ichorid

G1: Bart wins the die roll and I soon learn he is playing Ichorid, when he shuffles away his initial 7, draws 6, then goes to 5, then to 4, only to keep an opening hand of just 1 card. That's Ichorid for y'all.. Bart begins his turn, putting Leyline of the Void into play first. Leyline is an annoyance, making my goyfs less strong as they should be as wel as preventing me to remove Bridge from Below from Bart his graveyard (by saccing a CCatcher for instance). Even so, Bart is unable to get back into the game fast enough as my dudes eat away his lives.

SB: I'm somewhat relieved to finally face Ichorid, as this match up takes up almost half my sideboard! Ichorid should be winnable games 2 and 3 for BUG Fish, that much I've learnt here on TMD. Out with the dead cards! -4 Null Rod, -4 FoW, In with the Ichorid hate! +4 Leyline of the Void, +3 Jixlid Jailer, +1 Extirpate.

Looking back on this match up, I should have also taken out at least one or two Thoughtseizes and added the second Thoughtseize and perhaps the Deeds. My goal for a next tournament playing BUG against Ichorid would be to Deed away the horde of zombie-tokens...

G2: Bart gets to play first again, so I can wait for him to decide to keep his hand or not. I just draw 7 and place them face down. Bart keeps a hand of 6 or 7 cards, so this game should be more intense. I pick up my initial 7 and realize that I should have at least 2Ichorid-hate cards and mana to play them early on. I keep a hand with Leyline + Jailer. On Bart his opening turn, he casts City of Bras > Emerald Charm on Leyline. On my turn, I play land - go. Bart his second turn, he drops Bazaar, goes semi-nuts Ichorid style and ends up with three Bridges in his grave and gets an Ichorid in play that beats for 3 damage, dies and bring three Zombie-tokens (with some crazy Japanese Anime-art) into play. On my turn, I get to two mana, cast Jailer and slow Bart down. I get beaten up by Anime-zombies for a bit, but it doesn't take too long before I get Goyf and Confidant to join the party.

Wins: 6

Loses: 1

Semi-finals: Frank van Rijn playing DrainTPS

G1: (or G2, can't remember) At a certain point, a huge counterwar breaks out over someones ancestral, which I win. I was happily surprised by this. Meanwhile, I lay down my dudes, Rod and disrupt Frank'sgameplan.

SB: - 1 Trygon Predator, -1 Thoughtseize, +2 Extirpate.

G2: I get a Goyf + Rod online early and start eating aways Frank's lives. Frank is looking for answers and plays Gifts. He reveals: Recoup, Tinker, Lotus, and something else. I place Tinker and Recoup in his graveyard. Tinker >DSC would disturb my gameplan . So during Frank's upkeep, as he passes priority to me, I Extirpate Tinker. Frank Recoups Time Walk but is unable to find a suitable kill in time.

Wins: 7

Loses: 1

Final: Ilja Breukhof playing Control Slaver

This round was pretty much the same compared to Round 6. G1 is won due to Wastelands, Duresses and Rod, accompanied with Goyf, Confidant an CCatcher.

G2 I remember I won of a Time Walk. I believe Ilja managed to bounce Null Rod and was starting to became quite dangerous. I couldn't kill him in one strike, but I was holding demonic tutor. On my turn, I attack, castDTutor for Time Walk and power out (since Null Rod was bounced) Time Walk.

So that is how I won a Mox Emerald.

Some final thoughts on the list:

I found that I was very happy the times I drew Trygon Predator during all my games. I don't see myself tutoring up a predator, but even that could be a smart plan at times. I'm quite content with the random Predator, although forconsitency reasons playing 2 should be better.

Im also content with cutting Vampiric Tutor. Playing Confidant with FoW’s, Fetches, and Thoughtseizes means your life-totals are low most of the times. Vamp, even though it will find answers or a kill, means you are going even lower on lives, making it easier forTPS / aggro to win.

The inclusion of a basic land didn't make much difference in the end. I found myself fetching the Island once, in round 4 against MUD becauseGoswin had a Wasteland active and I needed to build up some more mana. But one Island probably won't make the difference. BUG Fish is susceptible to it's own mana-denial gameplan, I wouldn't like to play the mirror!

As far as the SB is concerned: I think I made the right choices constructing the SB (a special thanks to my brother for the help). The difficult match ups (aggro) are still hard, but should be winnable. I think.

This was a great tournament, a big thanks to the TO's!
Of course, a big thank you to ErkBek for posting the list online and inspiring many to play it. Having played BUG, it felt like I just breezed through the rounds. It is real fun to play and I would recommend anyone to try it out.

Last but not least, thanks to Moartn and Jasper for testing and all help.

Thank you for reading!

Maarten Wevers