XTreme Games Pearl Tourney Results

[LordHomerCat]

Sunday October 26 X-treme Games in Round Lake Beach, IL held a tourney for a Pearl.  Sadly, attendance was not terrific with only 12, but we played 4 rounds of swiss with a cut to top 4.  After Swiss, the standings were:

1: John Donovan with BUG Fish
2: John Beste with Dredge
3: Jimmy McCarthy with Tezzeret
4: Ben Carp with Deez Noughts

Anyway, the top 4 played out like this:

Ben def. John Donovan
Jimmy def. John Beste

Jimmy def. Ben

Ben and I split the mox / 2 FoW prize and both John's recieved a Force for their troubles as well.  Top 4 lists were:

Jimmy McCarthy - Dudesweats are for chumps

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Intuition
3 Deep Analysis
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Brainstorm
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Time Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Pyroclasm
1 Trygon Predator
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Sundering Titan
1 Oxidize
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle


Ben Carp - Deez Noughts

4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
1 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
2 Illusionary Mask
2 Spell Snare
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Echoing Truth
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Dark Confidant
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Divert
3 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
2 Smother
1 Slaughter Pact


John Donovan - A Bug's Life

2 Negate
3 Stifle
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
3 Null Rod
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Dimir Cutpurse
4 Cursecatcher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand

Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Oxidize


John Beste - This deck is for nubes!

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Unmask
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Dread Return
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Street Wraith
4 Serum Powder
1 Sundering Titan
1 Flamekin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Shambling Shell

Sideboard
4 City of Brass
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Emerald Charm
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Duplicant






Anyway, here's a quick report on my day.

Round 1: Ben Carp

So I get matched with Ben round 1.  In game one, both of our hands are pretty slow and mana heavy, which definitely seems good for me.  I duress him turn one and leave with with basically mana and time walk, and after a few turns I have played a variety of draw spells and he has not gotten dudes to kill me with.  Game 2, he gets an early Bob and kills my lands, and when he flips Strip Mine I know it's over.  For game 3, I again get a whole ton of mana out.  I sower his early Dark Confidant before he can draw any cards and start pinging away for 4 a turn.  He gets a Nought down, but doesn't counter my Vamp and Ancient Grudge is too much.  At one point, I cast Ancestral with a colorless floating and another mox in hand only to get it Diverted.  Bad times, but luckily he was too far behind by then to get back in it.

1-0, 2-1 games

Round 2: John D. with BUG Fish

Ugh.  What a pain in the ass matchup.  I hate playing against this stupid deck, it's such a nightmare and even more so because he was super metagamed to be anti-Tez with Cutpurse main.  In game 1, he gets out a cutpurse on like turn 2 and it just eats me when I don't draw anything good or any artifact mana either.  Game 2 was actually really interesting.  My hand is very strong, but a little tight on mana. He gets to waste like two of my lands, but I ripped lotus right when I needed it which let me resolve a Trygon Predator to keep Cutpurse at bay.  I regrowth the Lotus a turn or two later, and then on the next turn cast Sower to take his Goyf.  Goyf and Sower go all the way, including when I got to E-truth a pair of confidants and get a big swing in.  I don't know how I stole this one, but I'm not complaining.  Game 3 was anticlimactic.  I mulligan to 4, and he plays Cutpurse on the first turn, followed by Strip Mine on his second.  Bleh.

1-1, 1-2 games

Round 3: Mike Solymossy with Tez

Soly is playing with Thirst for Knowledge as his draw engine for reference, and is built specifically for this match.  However, this is also why I ran Deep Analysis, so that my Intuitions are actually useful even when we're even or I'm behind, and they were good here.  Game 1, I get academy going and just generate too much mana and play too many spells.  At one point, we fight a big counter war and I'm left with 3 lands and Mystical in hand with a Deep in the yard, against his like 2 card hand and 6 mana out.  He duresses me, I mystical for a Drain (hoping to drag the game out to take advantage of my Deep Analysis engine).  Sadly, he then plays Tez and fetches Vault.  I draw my Drain, flash back DA, and lo and behold the top card is Tez!  I slam it down to legend rule him, and my draw engine takes over from there and I just overwhelm him in another couple turns.  Game 2, I don't really remember but I'm 75% he got academy active and probably tinkered out Titan to blow up all my stuff.  For game 3, I get a really strong hand, and on my turn three, with just two land out, I have Mana Crypt into Mana Vault followed by academy.  I then cast Time Walk floating a blue, which resovles.  I play Fact or Fiction, and force it through his Red Blast.  Fact gets me Tinker, which I cast with a spare Red Blast in hand to blow up both his lands and leave his board empty.  Titan gets there without much trouble.

2-1, 2-1 games

Round 4: Chris with TPS

Chris starts out by duressing me, taking my Duress and leaving me with an active Force and some other action.  I have to use the force on his necro on the next turn, but draw intuition and put him on a clock.  I draw 2 that turn, and over the next couple turns draw 6 more and just put him out of the game.  I eventually resolve Gifts when I have more counters in hand than he has cards (and he had to pitch Desire to a force) and he scoops them up.  For game 2, he starts with a turn 1 Vamp and passes.  I draw, cast a Brainstorm or Ponder, play a mox, play a Key, play a Tormod's crypt and pass.  He tinkers out DSC with one card left (he mulled to 6), and I cast Mystical on my upkeep which he just scoops to.  Hooray, top 4 for me!

3-1, 2-0 games

Top 4: John Beste with Dredge

I win the die roll and mull to a strong 6 with island, mana vault, FoF, Intuition, DT, Time Vault.  Any black source makes this fast enough to race, which is about all I am hoping for here.  John mulligans to 2 and finally keeps.  I play land Mana Vault and pass.  He plays bazaar and passes.  I draw a blank, so I cast FoF digging for land.  Lucky for me, I hit Tinker, Delta, Lotus, and two other irrelevant cards.  John puts the Lotus and Delta in the same pile, so I take those, cast DT for Key, play Key, untap Mana Vault, play Time Vault, and pass it to him and hope he doesn't win.  John dredges, gets 2 Narcos and only 1 bridge in the yard, and I think I'm good.  Then he plays a second bazaar.  Nice two card hand.  Anyway, he dredges a bunch, but can't find either a 3rd Narcomoeba or a 2nd Bridge so he can't get Dread Return active and I take game 1.  For game 2, John Serum Powders away 21 cards, including 3 of his Moebas.  This makes me very happy, as that pretty much slows his deck 1-2 full turns which should be what I need.  He start with an Unmask to take my Tormod's Crypt, leaving me with Tez, M. Vault, Time Vault, a couple lands, and some other stuff I don't remember.  John then goes to turn 2 and Dredges a bunch.  He dredges on his draw step, and then again plays a second stupid Bazaar.  However, with just 1 Narcomoeba left, I still have a chance, since if I untap I win (Tez for Tormod's will get basically all his stuff and make it pretty easy to win from there).  He dredges and dredges and dredges, and I get lucky and the 4th 'moeba is in the last 8 or so cards.  All in all, this took about 15 minutes, with most of that spent shuffling and sideboarding.

4-1, 2-0 games

Finals: Ben Carp again

Ben and I agree to split the prizes, so I am able to get a playset of Trops which I need and finish off my FoW playset as well.  Awesome!  We play for the glory, and Ben wants to put something on it so we each put up a dollar as well.  Neither of these games was even close.  In game 1, I have mana crypt out and get bolted a bunch of times, but I resolve Intuition for Ancestral, Will, Tinker with a bunch of mana out and Regrowth in hand.  He gives me Ancestral, which draws Time Walk.  I play walk, regrow Will, and he scoops to that.  For game 2, I tinker on turn 2 and just attack with DSC.

5-1, 2-0 games


All in all, the deck was insane.  I was happy with the manabase, even though I'd still like the second island (maybe over a fetch).  However, that was the main reason to run all the needles (naming wasteland).  The BUG fish matchup is really ugly but I don't know how to fix that, everything in that deck is just really annoying.  Deep Analysis was really good for me, but I also drew Mana Crypt a lot which is so broken it isn't even fair.  I would never play with AK and had no interest in it.  Any time I had Intuition and my opponent had no action, I would rather just get Tutors to cast Will or something.  Deep let me catch up when I was behind and let me pull ahead if we were even because there's no way to stop me from getting my cards.  Ancient Grudge is insane, and Sower was very strong where I needed it.  I don't think I ran enough Ichorid hate, but I didn't even realize anyone was playing it until the 4th round and almost cut the crypts altogether so that was better than nothing.  I don't think I would change anything in the main if I had to play again.  Not that I'm sure it's 100% correct, but it played really well on the day and I never found myself wanting for a Top or something.

Props:
-Soly for driving.
-Fisher for playing that suicidal manabase last month and that insane sideboard, which I savagely copied from as much as possible (Sower > FTK).
-Ben for continually talking about how he was going to crush everyone, and then getting blown out twice by me AND losing his 5 game set against Danny, which cost him a pair of Deltas.
-X-Treme Games for still giving out the Pearl and more despite the crappy turnout.
-That Italian place next door for being quite tasty.

Slops:
-Eric Becker, for that stupid BUG Fish deck.  You were supposed to have quit damnit.
-Dimir Cutpurse, for being a crappy Gray Ogre against everyone but me.  Who plays that card?
-Danny's car for breaking.  Although it did make for more interesting rides there and back (do you know the best place to get stabbed?  I now do).
-Did I mention I hate BUG fish?  Because I do.


Let me know if there are decklist errors or questions or anything
-Jimmy McCarthy

[Tha Gunslinga]

Jimmy's a pimp, what can I say?

[LordHomerCat]

Real report up with lists and that stuff.  I have a newfound appreciation of Dredge players; that list is so much faster to type up.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I have a newfound appreciation of Dredge players; that list is so much faster to type up.

its funny, but cause I don't.


jimmy, congrats on FINISHING FIRST!

[M.Solymossy]

LOL @ the best place to get stabbed.

Other classics in the Solymossy Car,courtesy of one Mr. John Beste, were "Finish first, and leave her upset"...

Such as, having sex with a stop watch, and making it a race...

...Classic.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

LOL @ the best place to get stabbed.

Other classics in the Solymossy Car,courtesy of one Mr. John Beste, were "Finish first, and leave her upset"...

Such as, having sex with a stop watch, and making it a race...

...Classic.

i'd like to take credit for the stop watch, but that was all danny, the strip miner.
 lets not forget the following:
"BLOOD MILLS"-soly
and "your wife wants to tinkle here"- gas station sign


but yeah, there is never a dull car ride with danny and I. EVER!

[M.Solymossy]

Oh man.

There is a Truck Station on Exit 333 (Where Danny's car broke down) on WI 94 near Racine... they had an electronic sign that said "Your wife wants to tinkle here".  It was AWESOME.

[strip miner]

After an "XTreme" hurns of a day for me (minus pwn'ing Ben out of 2 Polluted Deltas) Ben drove me back to exit 333 and I swapped lift pumps and got the car home. Props to Ben, he's a baller. Props to Soly as well for being awesome and driving us after my car died. And for that matter, props to Jimmy for putting up with "finishing first" and not being too salty about playing less "Tinkers" than me  .

[strip miner]

To clarify, part of the "XTreme" hurns-of-a-day was due to me being sick, getting 4 hrs of sleep b/c I was sick, worrying about fixing my car, in turn resulting in me playing extra awfully. Although I am pretty sure none of my play mistakes cost me games, but probably could have.

[MagusResolvesFTW9889]

not sure who u r, but i felt like commenting that strip miner sounds like it'd make a good rap name, lol

[personalbackfire]

LordHomerCat,

I have seen Regworth in acouple lists now. How was it overall? Would you keep it in the maindeck?
I haven't tested it in the tezzeret deck but I have played it in painter decks, and felt it to be underwhelming.

Also, do you think that 3 duress is enough to beat the new ad naus. combo deck?

Thanks,
Steve

[Twaun007]

Peep this Gifts pile of Voltaic Key, Regrowth, Time Vault , and Yawgmoth's Willennium. To the uneducated it translates to GG.

[Smmenen]

Why not just play Reconstruction over Regrowth

[LordHomerCat]

Because regrowth wasn't just for Gifts.  Other than in the opener, it was always a nice topdeck, and holding regrowth when you cast Intuition is absurd.  It was pretty strong for me (except when I opened with it, in which case it was slow and awkward but hardly moreso than a lot of the other cards in the deck anwyay) and I would glady run it again.  I did make that Gifts pile once against TPS, it was pretty awesome as he scooped on the spot.

As far as Ad Naus, I was pretty sure no one was playing the deck (and if they were, I was completely sure no one good was running the deck) so I wasn't that worried about it.  If I expected more, I would try and fit the 4th duress and maybe squeeze some spheres back into the board, but I cut the 3 spheres I was running because I didn't see much if any combo in the room and thought those slots would be better spent on other cards.

Honestly, green is probably more for Ancient Grudge than regrowth.  That card is sooooo good.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Why not just play Reconstruction over Regrowth

So, Jimmy casts Intuition for Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will, and Ancestral.  I give him Recall.  He Recalls, then Regrowths the Will and goes nuts.

Basically, Reconstruction doesn't get Yawgmoth's Will.

[FadeToBlack]

Nice report. Care to share how your sideboarding plans?

[LordHomerCat]

Nice report. Care to share how your sideboarding plans?

Uhhh... lets see.  I definitely didn't have any plans, I just kinda winged it.  Against Tez, I wanted the REB's and the Ancient grudges, and sided out one of my own Tez's and some other underwhelming stuff (no idea what at this point), against any non-fish deck running duals, Titan obviously came in for DSC, the random Aggro cards all came in vs. BUG fish or other decks with creatures, the sowers seem to come in against almost everyone since almost everyone has either Goyf or DSC that I want to steal.  Needles came in against anyone with Wasteland, particularly null rod decks since Waste is so devastating against the manabase.  I brought in the tormod's for TPS, and maybe one sower or something or a REB but the deck is pretty tweaked for that matchup already.  Titan > DSC there as well.

Sorry it isn't more exact, I don't really come up with plans, I just look through the board for which cards I like, put them in, and then leaf through and take out random stuff.  Gifts came out a lot against mana denial decks, as did Fact much of the time.  Intuition-DA is pretty slow against aggro as well but Intuition is fine so I tended to leave that in most of the time.  Oh, Trygon Predator came in against anyone with Rods as well, and is a gigantic beating against BUG fish since Goyf is the only guy who doesn't suck against him.