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Khahan
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« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2015, 12:14:04 am » |
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Thanks for the tournament - even though I got crushed I had a blast and it was nice to put some faces to the names on the board.
Even though I didn't top 8 (I dont think I top 15'd!) I have a report to write up. I played an attempt at resurrecting my old pet deck that used to do well about 7 years ago. This is only my second tournament in the past 7 years and the first I played welder storm in. I still love the deck but came in suspecting it had issues that would be too much to overcome. This tournament just solidified those suspicions. I'll start with the decklist:
Artifacts: Mox x5 black lotus, sol ring, mana vault, mana crypt, time vault, voltaic key, Memory Jar, Mind Slaver, Inkwell Leviathan, crucible of worlds
Creatures/Planeswalkers: Goblin Welder x3 Dack Fayden x2
Counter magic: FoWx4 Mana Drain x2, Mental Misstep x3, Flusterstorm x1, Pyroblast x2
Card Draw/search: Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, 4x preordain, thirst for knowledge x4, Demonic Tutor
Other wins: Tendrils of agony, Yawgmoth's will, tinker
Lands: tolarian academy, volcanic island x4, underground sea x3, polluted deltax2, flooded strand x2, snow-covered island, strip mine
Round 1: Justin Kohler on bomberman
game 1: I got an early welder but failed to get much into my yard to use with it. He was stalled out on mana early. Welder beats and fetches took him to down to 13 before he got a trinket mage to stabilize. We fought an early counter war over a preordain (he was in bad shape for mana and I was trying to keep his card quality down). He got a top and a some card draw going and recovered his hand faster.
Game 2 was much the same: I felt like I had the advantage on turns 1-2 or 1-3 but sputtered out.
In fact turn 1 I had mox, lotus demonic tutor and tendrils in hand. I could have done a mini-tendrils for 12. I also had voltaic key and went for vault and greedily went for the vault/key lock on turn 1. Last thing I tried was key which got mis-stepped. No draw to really recover after that. I knew it was a risk and did that one to myself. I wonder how it would have turned out if I had gone for a mini-tendrils instead because after fetches and missteps etc, Justin was at 8 life?
He out drew me to recover quicker and I just couldn't keep up.
Round 2 vs Tim Kenney playing dredge
I won the die roll, did land, mox go. He played bazaar. Turn 2 I dropped a strip mine and pretty much shut him down after that getting a vault/key lock quickly to which he scooped. Compilation came down to my playing vault and passing. He flashbacked cabal therapy which I let resolve. He named voltaic key. I revealed my hand to show none. He passed. Hit my draw step and staring me in the face was key. Game over
Game 2 I sided in 3 leylines of the void and an echoing truth. I keep my opening hand and have LLotV in it. We both announce keep I drop leyline and he goes. He gets an early bazaar and barbarian ring. I let him do what he wants as long as it doesn't touch anything on my board so I was pretty much in complete control. Somewhere around turn 3 or 4 he tried to evoke an ingot chewer which got mana drained. That mana drain mana went on to hard cast a jar which I left. I demonic tutored for another mana drain and had UU open. He tried to ingot chewer again which got mana drained. I popped jar the end of his turn. Had 5 floating mana on my 1st main with a bunch of other mana and got the key/vault combo out. He never actually saw a win condition.
Round 3 vs Dave Reitnour with delver
Dave and I have played in the same tournaments years ago for probably a 3 or 4 year span but we figured this is the first time we actually played against each other. Before we started he made a comment about me playing slaver in the past and wondering what I was playing now.
Early turns involved life loss to a few fetches and some mental missteps. At one point he tried to LB a welder, I misstepped it, he misstepped that. I had FoW'd a delver as well. My hand quickly depleted in 2 mini counter wars and I got no real card draw to refill it. He recovered quicker and beat me down without seeing what I was actually playing.
Game 2 was much the same. He did get 2 delvers and a mentor out which succumbed to a pyroclasm. With my side I was holding my own pretty well. But once again I failed to get card draw to refill my hand where Dave recovered from the draw-go turns first and won.
Round 4 John Geras with delver
Game 1 Pretty much see games 1 and 2 from last round. Delver wins.
Game 2 was quite the epic battle and represents my only 3 game set of the day. I got some early thirsts for knowledges going and kept my hand full. We both eventually ran our hands down and emptied them but I had a significant graveyard which makes this deck rather deadly. I drew into a welder that stuck and welded in my triskelavus from the side and he had a dack on the board with 1 health. I removed 1 counter, popped his dack at the end of his turn and started swinging. Popped him for 3 on my attack. Passed the turn. At the end of his turn I pulled off the remaining 2 counters, used 1 to kill the triskelavus and the other to weld him in fresh. Swung again on my turn and pulled 2 counters off for more artifacts. He resolved a card draw spell and passed. On my next attack I swung. He pulled hurkyl's recall. I used 2 tokens to ping him twice and tapped my mox to remove the last counter and used it to ping the trisk. Recall resolves and some mox go into my hand and right back on my main phase. I resolve a number of spells including a timewalk and get the trisk back into play. Pass - and he goes. Completes his turn and I realize I missed my TW turn. Nothing that can be done about it now. I swing again and think I get the key/vault to get my last turn anyway.
Game 3 starts and I mulligan to 5. First hand had nothing but mana and 1 flusterstorm in it. Second hand had no mana. Third hand had a so-so mix of mana and spells but no real business. He goes. I go and time ends. He gets a mentor down I think on turn 1. Turn 2 I get nothing. Turn 3 he swings. Turn 4 I get nothing. Turn 5 he swings but doesn't have lethal. So a tie. We look at the standings and realize 3-2 has a chance at top 8. I didn't really think my deck had a legit chance at winning and to be honest the only reason he didn't win game 3 was because of turns. He probably would have finished me with 2 or maybe even 1 more attack phases. I concede the victory to give him a shot
Round 5 vs Shops
Game 1 goes quite well for a bit and I *should* have won. He gets an early revoker and names black lotus. The next turn I have enough mana to demonic tutor for time vault and play vault and the key in my hand. But and tapped out. He drops another revoker naming key. Then does the mimic artifact on revoker naming time vault. If I had just waited 1 turn I could have played both and started my infinite turns. If I had just passed the turn he couldn't have known except by sheer random chance to name either one with a revoker. Still I resolve a tinker and get inkwell leviathan. He also has a lodestone at this point and swings with the team. I block the lodestone. Next I block the revoker naming key. He then strips a land with my holding a dack in hand. I was going to drop dack and steal one of his remaining creatures. I play welder on my turn figuring I can chump block (I'm at 1 life at this point and he has 2 creatures on the board, oh and I drew into lotus and could have used it). He kills my welder (pay 5 life, give target creature -5/-5 I think it is) and swings with both and I only have 1 blocker.
Game 2 I get a nice start with a turn 1 crucible off black lotus and a land on turn 1. Unfortunately I draw no fetches and few other lands. He gets a crucible and wasteland along with 4 sphere effects. I can't recover from that.
So the problems with welder are a lack of focus. In the past the deck did well because it did a little bit of everything. It had the ability to beat with creatures as a last resort. It had good card draw, steady mana, nice counters. And it still does. What it suffers from is a lack of deck slots. It seems to be spread too thin. If I get card draw I dont get the counters needed to protect it. If I get counters I don't get card draw to refill my hand. Using slots on cards like slaver and crucible take away a lot from what the deck needs to do. But without those artifacts there isn't really enough reason to run welder. The meta these days is just too much pressure. There are too many threats in decks like delver and those decks have better recovery methods. The death knell rang on my favorite deck quite a while ago. I just wasn't around to hear it. But I hear it now loud and clear. Time to move on. I came into the tournament kind of expecting that but wanting 1 more go at it. At least now I know I can let goblin welder rest in peace.
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