MTGO: Wins & Losses at the last second!

[tribet]

I lost in a queue today because I wasted 5sec at some stage during my match (and because my Delver didn't flip for 7 turns):


Do you have any cut throat losses or wins like that to share?

[rickster]

Yeah I have a match win with zero seconds on my clock. Sadly replays are garbage so I couldn't screen shot it.

[evouga]

I was your opponent that match.

I did feel bad about winning on a technicality, but on the other hand time management is a key part of the online game, and in a way is even more fair online than it is in paper Magic (where nobody would bat an eye at playing for a draw during extra turns). I apologize for cut-throat tactics.

In case it helps in the future, once you had played Energy Flux and Extracted both my Workshops and Factories, I had extremely few outs (basically nothing beyond Ancient Tomb + 3x Mox + Forgemaster, after somehow also dealing with Jace). You spent 30-45 seconds Jacestorming unnecessarily in this situation, which should have been enough to get that last attack in.

[tribet]

With about 2-3min to go and you on 9 life or so, I thought that I'ld be looking good for time.

The reality is that any click on MODO costs 1sec. 2 Delver triggers is like 6 secs minimum at each upkeep, etc... One thing I should have done is unclick most of the arrows in the "steps" bars. Looking at the above pic, it seems that I still had a dozen steps selected, etc... which was a real waste of a few precious seconds!

Jacestorm was initially to flip Delver and reduce the clock significantly (so it was worth the investment). But, I ended up drawing a 2nd Delver of my Jace and decided to crack my fetch in order to play it and this was probably the main mistake. I should have just keep going with the one Delver and make sure it flips on my next turn thanks to the JaceStorm. What was going through my mind was that a simple Revoker or 3cc Metamorph could ruin the game (or save you 2 turns) so I went for the 2 Delver instead and of course, they didn't flip for a couple of turns.

Key thing too is that I was laying in my counch, in my pyjamas and using the laptop with touch pad. Toward the end, I was like "Fuck! Fuck! I need to find a proper mouse, I need to be seating straight on chair with the laptop on a proper desk, ..." My girlfriend was reading a book next to me so, I opted not to make a fool of myself and decided to keep a straight face & look calm! With 30sec to go on the clock, she asked me my opinion about "what should we do this arvo?" or something along these lines...... FML....  

It was a good game overall, there were a couple of decisions that I was happy with:
- such as Sabotaging away your Golem at the right time
- Deciding to block your Revoker with my Mishra rather than trading with your Golem, etc... I was then on 1 life and won game2!
- There was a timely Echoing Truth too on your Crucible (I think) in response to your sphere... and then it locked you out...

[evouga]

I agreed, it was a well-played match on your part. I also haven't seen that deck before -- Wasteland and Surgical Extraction are nasty surprises from what I thought was the typical Mentor deck!

[tribet]

I have 2 lazy slots and Extirpate is a very recent addition (it used to be 2 Null Rod, then 2 propaganda, ...).

After being annoyed by a few opposing Gitaxian Probe lately, I figured that Extirpate was filling a similar spot but at Instant speed (which is key in my deck as I use the stack a lot). It is working as a "pseudo card dis-advantage" on my opp. Once you realise that I'm already running 5 waste effect it is a no brainer. It also very good against threat-light decks and I really don't see the point in trying to jam in more Fluster, Misstep, Misdi or Mindbreak Trap than the opp's. Last, with Delve being a big thing, delaying a DTT by even half a turn can be key. Gotta try something different, right?!