pierce
Basic User
Posts: 325
Part Time Vintage Guru for Hire
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« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2010, 12:08:11 pm » |
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I have pictures of this event at home . . . and will post those sometime tomorrow.
Since discovering the competitive aspect of the game in 2005, I've been playing in various stores across CO since 06. In that time, I've won events at nearly every store I've ever played.
With one notable exception: Black Gold. While my playoff percentage is roughly 75% at Carl's store, I have yet to close out one with a victory. I played the right deck, but my 4 hours of sleep and 2 hours of driving to the event left me lacking in appropriate stamina to compete to the best of my abilities, as will be shown in this mini report:
rd 1 goblins
payton is a lovely young lady who plays these events with her father. liike most days, she was on goblins.
G1: On turn three she has nearly set up the kill, but is still shy of it. I could wait for another turn, but with my board of Underground sea, mox x2, mana crypt, memory jar I begin to fear both wasteland and null rod. I break the jar and go for it, but forget that I need B heading out of my will . . . I notice this just after casting will, and decide I can either 1) bluff her into thinking I have lethal 2) play a second land this turn or 3) scoop and get my head out of my ass. I opt for option 3--It's too early to have to bluff wins, I can't cheat a little girl (or anyone else these days to be honest)
G2: my engineered plagues were for oath, but they were good here.
G3: and also here
1-0
rd 2 drain tendrils
adam is a vetern who won the event at Enchanted Grounds earlier this year. Some may consider my first round a bye, but this would not be the case here.
G1: I lead with a thoughtseize, taking a drain. I drop a second land, mox ruby and lotus petal and cast turn two gifts on my mainphase to dodge both pierce and drain. With just a Force of Will left in hand, I gifts for: timetwister, necro, vamp, and tinker. I expect to get twister, and want it to pitch to FOW. The Necro is a bluff--I have two lands in play and no third in hand. But the risk is so high that I figure he can't give it to me. Either tinker or vamp is fine, and he gives me the vamp. I vamp for a call, protect it and draw into a yawgmoths will and black lotus. I draw a brainstorm on my turn 4, and brainstorm into protection and go large.
G2: I thoughtseize t1 again and see a hand of 2x FOW, drain, REB and blue cards, and he has a strand and mox sapphire in hand. I take a FOW. He misses a land drop and passes. I miss a land drop and pass. He breaks his fetch and I ancestral in response. Over the next four turns I craft a win that gets through his defenses, that involves a yawgmoths will.
This round goes to time, I win on turn one of turns.
2-0
In between rounds we get a quick bite, and I start eating deprives . . . I publically said that the card was so unplayable that I would eat a playset if proven otherwise. Way to not play standard, like, ever! Apparantly it's good there. I still have a few to eat, but magic cards taste bad.
rd 3 oath
G1: I lead with ancestral on his end step and he drains. I untap and dark rit into a necro smugly and he forces it. I draw a land on my turn three and am able to dark rit into a gifts with a B floating. I give him a pile of: black lotus, vampiric tutor, tinker, and demonic tutor. He gives me vamp and lotus, and I vamp for a bargain and win in short fashion.
G2: He opens with lotus, land, mox, tezz. As I shuffle for g3, I remember that other decks can do stupid shit.
G3: I thoughtseize and see a drain, oath, orchid, sphinx and blanks. I take the drain, and he drops the oath and orchid. I play a sol ring and engineered plague on spirit. He slumps. He rips a show and tell and brings the sphinx in. I do what I ususally do when seeing a sphinx in play vs me, laugh. "All day, we can race. All day" I say. I timetwist, rebuild, I then gifts for a thoughtseize, cabal rit, dark rit, and vamp with BC floating. He miscounts my yard, and gives cabal rit and thoughtseize. Thoughtseize him. He shows me a hand of: sphinx, drain, REB, demonic, time walk, merchant scroll, oath, and a card that wasn't worth remembering. Time is called in the round. I ask if time walk turns count towards the 5 max, and they do. I take the walk due to this, and because he could demonic for a lotus, then cast scroll for a FOW and time walk, and untap with 3 counters and force a draw. I use my BBBB floating to drop a necro and draw 8. I craft a hand that lets me cast time walk and ancestral as bait, then dark rit and tendrils him for 12, which isn't lethal but will allow me to draw more cards with necro. He lets both time walk and ancestral resolve and I'm in a tight spot. If he counters dark rit I'm pretty much fucked--with like only 6 life left it'll be hard to win with necro. But dark rit resolves and I gain 8, and draw 8 more, and take my time walk turn. On that turn he does choose to counter things, and I ramp my storm up to 9 before casting desire on turn five of turns.
3-0
rd 4 dredge
This guy beat me last time, and did it in poor fashion--stumbling over steps and missing multiple triggers. Today would be the opposite. I would be in the prescense of the master.
G1: I think hard over my 6 . . . it has two lands, a brainstorm and a bargain as action. I do the math for hitting enough mana to cast bargain and it's a mere 17%. I should have taken it, because I now doubt that my chances g1 ever get higher. I mull to 4 and lose.
G2: I win on the back of hate and bargain.
G3: We go back and forth. Time is called in the round, and on turn 2 of turns he passes with what will be a lethal yard next turn. I windmill slam my top card into play, as I have 5 mana available and a bargain in hand. I hit a brainstorm and draw into a jailer, which should buy me enough time to get to turn 5 of turns, and a land to play on that turn. He takes his turn four and thinks, then casts nature's claim on my mox jet. I shake his hand as we draw.
At every critical point, he failed to give me any useful tells. What's more, he picked up on mine at every possible point. In the t4, I knew I would have to go next level on him to have a chance.
3-0-1 and into t4 no matter what.
rd 5 MUD
Carl and I have history. I beat him in our first encounter in a bubble round, playing pitch long vs some red stax. It was a noobish win. The last time we played was in a finals of one of his events, and he was on black stax and I was on TPS. Here we go again--another important round, again stax vs tendrils storm.
G1: I am so exhausted at this point in the day . . . 3 rounds have gone to time in a row and I am fatigued from lack of sleep. I could bargain and win with the combo on my turn two, as he plays some card that doesn't matter, but opt to tinker for inkwell instead--as inkwell requires no real thought. He stares at my inkwell, looks at his hand, and I realize he has a karn. He plays it and the manner in which he plays it shows me that he plays multiples in his MUD list. Well Fuck. I screwed this one up. Luckily for me, Carl is a combat NOOB! He punts at least twice with his combat steps, and I steal a win. I point out that inkwell tramples as he makes his final terrible attack, because I deserve to lose for not being a man and playing bargain on 20 life. He realizes what he has done and scoops anyway. K.
G2: I keep a hand of sol ring, 3 mox, 2 basics, and a fetch. My logic is that this hand plays well vs tangle wires, smokestax, and spheres. Only lodestone really is a problem. He drops a turn one lodestone and I laugh. Now my hand sucks. It probably sucked before to be honest. Again, exhaustion factored in this keep, I didn't especially feel like shuffling.
G3: He drops an early lodestone and a trike. I am surprised by the triike--that card is one of the least effective vs me, and I had expected him to side it out. I chain his lodestone, and drop a mana crypt and brainstorm away my inkwell, and cast tinker. He says "inkwell" in a manner which implies to me that he has Karn. I get razormane instead, since that guy outclasses lodestone, karn, and trike. He has a second trike and I die in short fashion. Really Carl? You left in all your trikes???
3-1-1
The T4 wants to know if we can split, and I ask: "What's the t4, 3 bad matchups for me? Let's play." They look at me funny. I came to game boys.
t4 dredge
G1: I lose. Big shocker, right?
G2: I open on tormods, and spell pierce his nature's claim. My hand is demonic, extirpate, spell pierce and bojuka bog. he flashes back a cabal therapy with no bridges in his library. I spell pierce it. He hardcasts a second one, I let it go and he blanks. He then casts unmask and takes my tutor. I bog him. He drops a pithing needle on bargain and I am surprised he fears that card so much. This was one of only two plays the entire match that were suspicious. Turns pass and I am about to timetwist. I extirpate his unmask over a bloodghast, which would prove to be my undoing in three ways: 1) I miscount the bloodghasts in his deck when I look through his deck, 2) he killed me with bloodghasts and 3) there were more bloodghasts than unmasks in his library.
Anyway, the game goes longer and eventually I cast memory jar and pass. He plays a chalice at one!!! Wow. That was a masterful play, truly. I count his RFG, cards in hand, and permenants to double check that he has only ten cards left in his library. I decide to deck him with jar, and he is oblivious to this plan (this was his second mistake, not realizing my plan). I draw tendrils on my turn and slump. With only one tendrils in my deck, it will be removed with my jar hand. This has NEVER prevented me before from bluffing the kill with a large storm count and a will. Everyone just scoops. But this guy has read through me every time. I suddenly suspect that he will make me show the tendrils. Fuck! And chalice at one means that I can't use the grim tutor in my hand to find a call and deck him. I tank, then grim for lotus, cast it and tendrils to stay at a high enough life total to give me 3 turns vs his singular ghast and narc. I will then jar him. Two turns pass. With 8 cards left in his deck I am convinced that he doesn't have any more ghasts available. I decide to go for a combo kill for fun, because he shouldn't be able to win anyway--He'll be just a few shy and will deck on the next turn. I draw into a hand of all lands or things that cost one, and pass. He discards ghast #4 and drops a land and races me. I shake his hand.
Even if I had won that by sticking to my plan instead of getting antsy, I'm obviously playing so badly at this point that I can't even remember how many bloodghasts he plays after seeing his entire library. There would be no hope for me to win the event in this fashion.
He caused me to play badly at every point, as twice I had used my hate in the wrong fashion or at the wrong time. He picked up on every tell and gave none. This NEVER happens to me, at least, not in CO. This was more like my GP Columbus match vs Demars, or my ICBM final vs Yang than your normal t4 match at a 17 player event. I use a Prescense of the Master to seperate my SB for my MD, and I signed it and gave it to him. Well done sir. I cannot wait for a rematch!
3rd/4th berth vs Carl again.
I play bad and get smashed. G2 he had double trike again and it fucked up my plan there too. WHY CARL WHY???? Always with the double trike! The first one is marginal at best vs me, but in multiples they fuck up my math pretty hard.
Tons of fun was had! I will be at the next one and vow to get enough sleep to not donk off my great start. Also, I'll metagame my list more because MisD was poop stains.
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