[TMD Open Report] T8 at waterbury

[Abhorsen105]

Sorry for posting this here, but I can't post in the tournament forum.

I’ve been using this list for only a week, but I’ve been playing hulk for a while now. The one tournament I used it at before I borrowed about 1/3 of the deck, but by this Friday I had all the cards (the power cards being my proxies) except the null rods and the Back to Basics, which were still in the mail. I scrounged the null rods from my brothers suicide deck and borrowed the back to basics from Steve.
   Judging a metagame has never been one of my strong points, which shows in some of card choices. For the meta I was expecting workshops, keeper, TPS, some Dragon, and Hulk. The list was metagamed to deal with these. I was pretty surprised when I saw that nearly half of the field was aggro.


Mana (24)
4 underground sea
2 tropical island
4 polluted delta
5 island
1 swamp
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
1 sol ring
1 black lotus
1 mox sapphire

Drawing/Search(18)
4 accumulated knowledge
4 brainstorm
2 intuition
2 cunning wish
1 demonic tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 ancestral recall
1 yawgmoth’s will
1 time walk
1 gaea’s blessing

 Disruption(15)
3 back to basics
2 null rod
4 force of will
4 mana drain
2 duress

Kill (3)
3 psychatog

SB:
3 deep analysis
2 pernicious deed
3 ground seal
1 stifle
1 berserk
1 gush
1 naturalize
1 diabolic edict
1 null rod
1 chalice of the void


Round 1
Troy with scepter control

Game 1: He opens up with a tolarian academy and says go. I play a land and say go. He draws a card and says go. This goes on for a turn or two, and then suddenly he explodes with mox, mox, scepter imprinting drain. I draw a card, and play a null rod and drain his imprinted drain. He plays some non-basics, I play a B2B, I win with tog a few turns later.
Game 2: Same thing as last game, just no null rod.
1-0 2-0

 Round 2
Seth with EBA
Game 1: I open with a land and say go. He plays a lotus, a land and an ophidian. I force the ophidian. I play a land and say go. He plays a land and a meddling mage naming psychatog (a good guess).  Next turn he plays a mage naming cunning wish. I scoop.
Game 2: I open with a land, he plays lotus land negator. I don’t find an answer and negator kills me.
1-1 2-2
I hear 6-2 doesn’t make it into top 8, so that doesn’t leave much room for error.

Round 3
Neil with Chronatog lockdown
Game 1: He beats me down with 2 chronatogs but can’t find a lockdown card. I eventually play a tog and berserk it.
Game 2: Over the first couple turns he gets 2 adarkar wastes and a tundra, and taps all three to play something. Seeing an opportunity, I play a B2B. He then plays lotus fetch, fetches an island and play a kismet. That leaves me with no enchantment removal and 1 swamp in the deck. I topdeck the swamp, and play a tog with my islands, which he counters. He plays a stasis. He finds a chronatog and I scoop.
Game 3: I don’t remember much, just that I played the one naturalize in my sideboard 3 times and at one point had 20 cards in my hand.
2-1 4-3

Round 4
Damian with a variant of Oshawa stompy
Game 1: He gets out a bunch of creatures, and he has lethal damage next turn. I have a tog on the table. I topdeck a cunning wish and berserk the tog for exactly 20 damage.
Game 2: Same thing as before
3-1 6-3

Round 5:
Greg with goblin sligh
Game 1: First turn cadets churns out a Siege-Gang Commander and I die from goblin grenade the turn before I could berserk for the win.
Not looking good...
Game 2: A berserked tog saves the day at the last second.
Game 3: This was probably the most nerve-racking game I’ve played in my life. Early on his deck works like it’s supposed to, getting me down to very low life. I think I deeded away his stuff, leaving him with a lot of mountains. I drain a siege-gang commander and play some stuff, including a tog. He plays another commander. After a few attacks I’m at 3 life, he has 2 1/1's and I have 2 togs, he’s at 15 life and we’re both in topdeck mode. When I have 4 cards in hand (all of them land) I swing with my togs, capable of dealing about 10 or so damage. My mind trick works, and he thinks I have a draw spell. He blocks with his two 1/1's and they both die. I topdeck chalice of the void and play it for 1. At this point I’m waiting for him to topdeck an incinerate or something and kill me, but he doesn’t. I swing for the win a few turns later, and he shows me 2 cadets and a lightning bolt in his hand.
4-1 8-4
Starting too look a little better... until I see my round 6 opponent.

Round 6
Brian with B2B tog
As a side note, I hadn’t tested the mirror at all
Game 1: A very, very slow game. At one point I tap out with all non-basic lands to play a tog, and he play a B2B. But I play the island in my hand and the top decked sapphire the next turn. He gets out a tog after I have him at about 14, and he blocks mine. We have equal graveyards and he has one more card in hand than I do. When he has 2 cards in hand and I have 1, I cunning wish for gush and return my tapped sea and trop. His dies, mine lives. I yawgmoth’s will a few turns later to play back the gush and tog swings for the win.
Game 2: I had no clue what to side in, but I think I ended up siding in 3 deep analysis and a CotV. We both draw a lot of cards for a while, and eventually I’m holding a drain, a Cotv, an intuition, and some other stuff. He plays a deep analysis which I drain. He flashes it back and passes. End of turn I intuition for 3 togs. I use one of the 4 drain mana to play the tog and then play a chalice for 3. After a couple turns he realizes that chalice counters cunning wish and he concedes.
5-1 10-4

Round 7
Hyperion with Madness
When he tells me what his TMD name is, I freak out. Madness is one of my worst matchups, and I’m not at all prepared for aggro.
Game 1: I get wrecked. I don’t remember much, just a feeling of helplessness (is that a word?)
Game 2: He has too mull down to 5, and then stays with a land light hand. I proceed to draw all 4 wastelands in my deck. I berserk my tog and swing for the win.
Game 3: I don’t remember much, at this point I’d been playing magic for about 10 hours and I was about finished. It was really close but I pulled off a win.
6-1 12-5

Round 8
Josh with some type of red-green
At this point I had a headache to go along with being exhausted (I’m not used to tournaments nearly this long) and knowing that this was a hard matchup, I offered a draw. Mike B came over and we looked at the standings. After 8-9 minutes of doing math I was pretty sure I could draw into top 8.
6-1-1
I was right, and I made it into the top 8 6th seed. Unfortunately, that meant I had to play against Jeff, another member of team Hadley. I knew that I didn’t stand a chance against Oshawa Stompy, but I didn’t really care as I had already gotten an abyss.
Jared decided to cover this as a feature match so his notes are much better than mine.
Top Eight
Jeff Green with Oshawa stompy
Game 1: He gets out a lot of creatures, I die with a wish in hand and enough cards to kill with tog next turn.
Sideboarding was tough here. 2 pernicious deeds were obvious, but I sided in the 3 deep analysis and the chalice because the null rods and back to basics were dead cards.

Game 2: I kept a hand of 2 strip effects, 2 lands, some other spell and a Deed. I play a land and say go. He gets a first turn root maze, which wins him the game in the end. I don’t remember much of what happened after, but I used the strip effects to kill a forest and a wasteland (it came into play tapped). Eventually I have 4 lands and a tog in play, and he has a survival, a mongrel, some rootwallas, a tapped tormods crypt, and the root maze. EOT I cast a bunch of draw spells hoping for the 5th land so I could deed for 2. I found the 5th land, but it was a fetch. I end up having to deed for 1 so I can live, and I draw a deep analysis, which I play. I draw a land and something else. I scoop and afterwards Brian came over and reminded me I could have flashed the deep analysis back. The top 2 cards were lotus and yawg will, but he had just crypted me so it wouldn’t have done anything.
I didn’t really need the drain, and I was exhausted, so rather than play for fifth I just took an abyss and left.    
Props:
Team Hadley for lending me stuff and helping with deciding to draw or not
Josh for accepting the draw even though he has a good matchup against tog
Ray and all the other people who helped him
Slops:
The USPS, for being slow.

[Kowal]

Congratulations, dude!

Everyone, from me, to Carl, to Smmenen and Steve H were cheering for you.  I have to say it was pretty incredible to see you smash face all the way to a new Abyss after taking the pain playing keeper so long in Hadley.

An interesting note for TMDers of old:  Abhorsen is the same kid that beat Zherbus at a Hadley several months ago.  I told you this kid was good.  

[Smmenen]

Congrats man.  Next time, next time.

Steve

[Jakedasnake]

Congratulations on the strong finish.

[Mykeatog]

Sam- you are an awesome player.

Great job man,
    I have always respected you despite your age, and this was an excellent showing by an excellent player.


Did you say you couldn't post in the tournament forum? Did you just top 8 a 191 guy tournament? Hmmm... you just keep up the good work, and you will be posting all over the place soon.

[wicketsnatcher]

Sam, congratulations on your finish!  Just goes to show that there must be something in the water up at Hadley that produces the highest concentration of amazing players I've seen out of the Northeast.  I can't wait til you take home some power.


Here's my feature match coverage of Hadley vs Hadley!!
Jeff Greene with The Big O against Sam Antill with Hulk:

Game 1
Jeff wins the die roll and keeps a hand with:
Back to Basics
Force of Will
Psychatog
Intuition
Yawgmoth's Will
Polluted Delta x2

The game begins with Jeff laying down a Forest met with Sam playing his Delta.  On Jeff's next turn he drops another Forest and has his Survival of the Fittest meet Sam's Force of Will (pitching Back to Basics).

Sam fetches an Underground Sea and Duresses Jeff to see a very disappointing choice (from Duress standards) and chooses the only available target, Gaea's Blessing.  Next turn Jeff lays on the heat by dropping a Bazaar, drawing some cards and pitching a Squee, Forest, and Bazaar, then lays down on Mongrel.

Sam lays down a Sol Ring and Fetches a Tropical Island, saying go.  Jeff swings then uses Bazaar again, this time yielding a 4/4 trampler in the form of Arrogant Wurm hitting the table.  Sam Intuitions for AK before the turn is over.

An Accumulated Knowledge for 3 (note: I almost typed "Accumulate" with a 'k' instead of 'c' because of typing AK all the time) followed by a Brainstorm is not enough to get Sam out of his 2 land slump.  After all is said and done, Sam is left with a second Psychatog and a Force of Will as he passes the turn over to Jeff.

Many Forests are untapped, and a second Survival meets it's close buddy Force of Will (pitching Psychatog).  Bazaar is turned sideways and a Basking Rootwalla hits the board.

With lethal damage staring him in the face, Sam's forced to Demonic Tutor for Lotus and cast Yawg Will.  The Lotus and a land are played from the yard.  He AKs for 3 and plays a Psychatog but that just isn't enough to save him.  Jeff takes the first game with his hoards of green creatures.

Sideboarding
-3 Back to Basics, -2 Null Rod, -1 Gaea's Blessing
+3 Deep Analysis, +2 Pernicious Deed, +1 Chalice of the Void

Game 2
Sam keeps his hand of:
Pernicious Deed
Strip Mine
Wasteland x2
Tropical Island
Underground Sea
Island

...while Jeff throws back a 3x Squee hand and keeps his next 6.  Island go is trumped by Jeff dropping a Forest followed up with a Mox Emerald and finally a Root Maze (which ended up having an insane effect on the game).

Sam draws into a Brainstorm and lays down his Strip Mine (tapped) and says go.  A tapped Wasteland is played by Jeff, followed by a Wild Mongrel.

Another tapped Wasteland is laid down by Sam (after drawing a Deep Analysis), who proceeds to strip Jeff's own tapped Wasteland.  Jeff attempts to cast a Survival of the Fittest to which Sam responds with Brainstorming into Chalice, AK, and Psychatog).  Survival resolves and Jeff swings with the Mongrel, pitching 2 Squees to make it 4 damage.

Sam plays his tapped Underground Sea and passes the turn.  The discarded Squees find their way back to Jeff's hand so he may abuse Survival by having a Squee get another Squee, and that Squee find his fourth partner in crime.  Wild Mongrel comes in and deals 4 more damage to the dome (pitching 2x Squee for the pump).

In need of defense (and Root Maze holding of the immediate casting of Pernicious Deed) Sam lays down a Psychatog and a tapped Sea then passes the turn.

Four Squees come back to play, and Jeff swings in with his Mongrel.  Sam blocks and pumps up his Tog matched by Jeff dropping his 4 Squees to the Mongrel.  Psychatog lives to see another day, albeit at the cost of many of Sam's resources, while the Mongrel dies but has his brother out on the board to avenge him.

In the hopes of drawing up some extra land in order to have his opening hand Deed do some damage, Sam taps 4 to cast Deep Analysis only to draw into a Polluted Delta, which cries at the sight of Root Maze.  He lays said Delta and passes the turn.

Jeff drops a tapped Crypt and swings in with the mongrel.  Psychatog blocks and dies, while Survival of the Fittest drops 3 Basking Rootwallas on the board.  Sam drops his Deed but lacks the mana to make it hurt and ends up taking some lethal damage shortly after.

[Hyperion]

Round 7
Hyperion with Madness
When he tells me what his TMD name is, I freak out. Madness is one of my worst matchups, and I’m not at all prepared for aggro.

I am not sure I agree with that. Without Wastelands, perhaps, but with them it is not at all a bad matchup for Hulk. In my experience it's about even overall but individual games are usually lopsided and it can vary alot depending on the play skill on both sides of the table.

Game 1: I get wrecked. I don’t remember much, just a feeling of helplessness (is that a word?)

I had first turn Lotus, Tropical Island, Careful Study discarding an Arrogant Wurm and Wonder. You Duressed me taking Deep Analysis because it was the only possible card to take. I resolved a Wild Mongrel and eventually won with these two...I think you hit me with a Wasteland or two but you obviously had a slow start this game so it wasn't enough. I'm pretty sure you mulliganed as well.

Game 2: He has too mull down to 5, and then stays with a land light hand. I proceed to draw all 4 wastelands in my deck. I berserk my tog and swing for the win.

Yes, this game was absolutely brutal. I think you also hit me with a Pernicious Deed at X = 1 to take out a Rootwalla and two Moxen, which were 2/3 of my mana base at this point.

Game 3: I don’t remember much, at this point I’d been playing magic for about 10 hours and I was about finished. It was really close but I pulled off a win.

I got an early Basking Rootwalla and dropped a land and LED. I was holding 2 REB, Anger, a land and an Arrogant Wurm and waited for the opportune time, with the intention of using REBs to counter your first draw spells and then hopefully resolve Arrogant Wurm uncontested.

You had an early AK for 1 and then an AK for 2. I countered the latter. I think during your next turn you tapped out to resolve a Tog. In my next turn I tried to REB it but it was Forced, pitching FoW. I then popped the LED and resolved Arrogant Wurm. After doing some calculations I swung into the Tog because I knew you'd have to remove all but the 2 AKs in your graveyard and discard one of the two cards left in your hand to save the Tog, and that that if I resolved another threat I'd be all set...I figured that if you were pitching FoW to FoW, that the other two cards in your hand must have been pretty good, so I predicted that you'd let it through. One of them was (Ancestral), and the other one wasn't (a Swamp ), and you pitched the Swamp. You Ancestral'd next turn into an AK for 3, I think hit me with a Wasteland, and at that point you were just too far ahead of me to apply any pressure.

It's been said many times already, but congratulations on a fantastic performance at Waterbury .

[Bram]

Moved to the correct forum.

And congrats, by the way.

[hulk3rules]

After a couple turns he realizes that chalice counters cunning wish and he concedes.

Actually Sam, I was just playing it out for a few turns to make you sweat it out     Hell- I managed to get a draw in an earlier round when I had 0 win conditions in my deck after turn 2.  

Congrats again on your awesome performance