BlackBorderBrawl 17th april 2011 Maaseik Belgium

After playing in Breda with a Mindslaver/Tezzeret AoB-deck I decided to change decks the night before this tournament. This time I opted for a Gush Control build. My pretournament testing was absolute zero. These were my 75 for the day:

Maindeck

1* Ancestral Recall
1* Ancient Grudge
1* Blightsteel Colossus
1* Brainstorm
1* Demonic Tutor
1* Fastbond
4* Force of Will
1* Gifts Ungiven
4* Gush
2* Jace, The Mind Sculptor
3* Mana Drain
1* Merchant Scroll
4* Preordain
3* Spell Pierce
1* Tendrils of Agony
1* Timetwister
1* Time Vault
1* Time Walk
1* Tinker
1* Vampiric Tutor
1* Voltaic Key
1* Yawgmoth’s Will
1* Black Lotus
1* Island
1* Mana Crypt
4* Misty Rainforest
6* Moxen (Emerald,Jet,Pearl,Ruby,Sapphire,Opal)
2* Scalding Tarn
1* Snow-covered Island
1* Sol Ring
1* Tolarian Academy
2* Tropical Island
3* Underground Sea
1* Volcanic Island

Sideboard

1* Ancient Grudge
2* Nature’s Claim
4* Leyline of the Void
4* Oath of Druids
1* Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1* Terastodon
1* Mindbreak Trap

I arrive early at the venue : a very nice playroom. The tournament is organized by the people I playtest with , so there are a lot of familiar faces to socialize with. In the end there are 42 people , so we prepare ourselves for the 6 rounds of swiss. I didn’t take notes and some games are fuzzy, but this is how things went more or less for me sunday.

Round 1 Nino Mas (RB Goblins)

Nino is a familiar face , who came out of retirement to compete again. I know he plays mostly budget decks but this is a proxy-tournament so anything goes.

Game 1 : He makes the first play woth Null Rod , cutting me off my artifact mana. I play a few lands and a Mox Opal. I manage to force a Warchief and a Ringleader. Demonic Tutor gets Ancient Grudge , which wipes away the Rod. I drop some artifact mana and Jace. I find enough gas to fire Yawgmoth’s Will and end the game with Tendrils of Agony.

SB: +4 Oath, Emrakul , Terastodon, Forest ; - Grudge , Volcanic , 3 Spell Pierce , 1 Preordain , 1 Jace

Game 2: He starts with a Piledriver , while I make some artifact mana. He swings and prowls in an Earwig Squad. He takes away my three creatures. He follows up with a Null Rod and I die to Gobbo Beats.

Game 3 : I start with a first turn Oath. He doesn’t play creatures for a few turns while I build my board. After a few turns he plays some hasty creatures which beat for 6 and then sacrifices them all to a Skirk Prospector. I keep digging with Preordains and assemble a hand with a lot of countermagic. He decides to go for it and plays Warchief and attacks. He tries to prowl again with the Squad but I have Mana Drain ready. I Oath up Blightsteel and a counter for his Stingscourger and Ringleader.

Win 2-1
Matches 1-0

Round 2 Thomas Imler (MUD)

Game 1: He wins the roll and gets down a Thorn and a Metalworker. I get a basic Island. On his turn het gets down a Lodestone Golem. I get a Volcanic Island. He uses Metalworker and plays Sundering Titan to wreck my manabase and I scoop.

SB: +4 Oath, Emrakul,Terastodon,Forest, Ancient Grudge,2 Nature’s Claim ; -4 Gush – 1 Gifts – 1 Jace -1 Tendrils -1 Fastbond -2 Preordain

Game 2: I Preordain into Tinker. He drops Metalworker. I slowly build my mana base with my basics and a mox. He drops with his Metalworker 3 Thorns and a Lodestone. I Can’t really play anything and he drops a Plated Empyrion to smash my face in.

Loss 0-2
Matches 1-1

Round 3 Tom Van Rooy (Oath)

Game 1: He tries to land 1st turn Oath but I have the Force. I play land , mox , sol ring. He Claims my Sol Ring. I get a few Spirit Tokens and a Jace into play. The spirits beat him down from 20 to 3 and Jace finds the Tendrils to finish him off.

SB: -1 Ancient Grudge , -1 Volcanic Island -1 Preordain ; +2 Nature’s Claim, +1 Forest

Game 2: He gets a 1st turn Oath but no orchard. I slowly build my hand to force through my Tinker.
He gets his Orchard and tries to cast a 2nd Oath which I drain. I Claim his Oath. He tutors and passes the turn. I Tinker for Colossus and play Timetwister. He Hurkyl Recalls my board and plays Oath.
He Oaths into his own Colossus. I play Gifts for Ancestral , Claim , Tinker and Time Walk. He gives me Recall and Claim. I play Ancestral Recall into Jace to bounce his Colossus. My spirit token beats down for four turns while jace finds enough mana to hardcast my Colossus. The robot poisons him to death in the extra turns. He shows his hand which contained his other creature: Emrakul, but Jace could have bounced that anyway.

Win 2-0
Matches 2-1

Round 4 Robin Michalik (Dark Times)

One of the players I occasionally playtest with. Last Breda tournament I won twice by slavering him and playing Demonic Consultation for Mountain Goat. He hasn’t forgotten that and wants revenge.

Game 1: He wins the roll and plays Dark Ritual into Duress taking a Force and Vampire Hexmage. It beats down for a few turns until I resolve Tinker for Blightsteel Colossus. I win with the Robot.

SB: + The Oath Package. – Ancient Grudge, - Volcanic Island , - 1 Gifts , -1 Preordain – 3Spell Pierce

Game 2: He opens the game with T0 Leyline of the Void. On T1 he goes Dark Ritual , Duress taking Tinker and Hexmage. I go land, mox , mox , mana crypt. He plays Demonic Tutor and passes. I play timetwister. I get a few lands, a key , a tutor and a force but no other blue card. If I survive till next turn I can Vault-Key him. He drew his Helm off the Timetwister and Rituals it into play and Obeylines me to death.

Game 3: He again opens with T0 Leyline. I play a fetch and pass. He plays 1st turn Confidant. I get down Oath and get a Terastodon and 3 Elephants. His Confidant finds him a lot of gas and he Tendrils me for 12. The life buffer gains him enough time for his Confidant to find him another confidant and Diabolic Edict. I get him down to 5 with the Elephants and Confidant flips but he has me death on the board with 2 Confidants and a Hexmage but strangely gives me another turn. I desperately Twister but find nothing while het gets a lot of gifts from the twister. He can choose from 3 different ways to kill me and gets his revenge.

Loss 1-2
Matches 2-2 and out of contention.

Round 5 Benjamin Herz (Dredge)

Game 1: He does the Dredge game 1 thing and wins on turn 3 with hasty brain-eating zombies.

SB: -2 Jace, -1 Preordain , -1 Gifts ; +4 Leyline of the Void

Game 2: He mulls to six and drops T0 Leyline of Sanctity. I open with 1st turn Ancestral Recall into Tinker. He doesn’t drop a land and then dies to a poisonous robot a few turns later.

SB: -1 Tendrils +1 Preordain

Game 3: He mulls to five and drops two T0 Leyline of Sanctity. He doesn’t have a land T1. I get a lot of turns to sculpt my hand and can get a tinkered Colossus for the win.

Win 2-1
Matches 3-2

Round 6 Amadeus Kurz ( Bant Fish)
The top four tables all ID and the top 8 can start a few minutes after R6 started and is still being played out.

Game 1: I keep a hand that has 2nd turn Tinker with Force backup. He can chump the Blightsteel Colossus for one turn with a Qasali Pridemage but doesn’t find a StP.

SB: + The Oath Package ; - Ancient Grudge , - Volcanic Island , - 3 Spell Pierce , - 1 Gifts , -1 Preordain

Game 2: He has no turn 1 play , I make some mana. I play a turn 2 Oath which gets pierced. He plays a bear and I Tinker for Colossus and have the counter for StP.

Win 2-0
Matches 4-2

So I went 4-2 getting 12th place. I had a blast playing this deck, despite the early exit. I really liked how the deck played out. Some things I consider to change are adding a Thirst for Knowledge and a bounce-spell instead of Gifts and a Preordain. The last year or so I have put Gifts in about every deck I make only to take it out because of lack of performance. Either it sits uncastable in my hand, gets pitched to Force or it wins me a game I was already winning. Probably because I play very few Drain-matchups. The meta always has a lot of shops over here : typically I play 2 or 3 times against MUD in a six-rounder.
I liked the Oath sideboard plan but shouldn't have boarded it in against the Dark Times deck. Next time I need to prepare better and look up lists of some archetypes. I thought it played more creatures than 8 of which 4 sacrifice themselves.

The tournament venue was really nice. Good organization, a lot of familiar faces and a load of new ones. What is there more to ask? Too bad a lot of preregistered players didn’t show up and the alpha ancestral couldn’t be handed out. Hope to see a new one of these soon.