[TMD Open Report] Kowal's Report

[Kowal]

Ray always insists everyone write reports no matter how well or poorly they did in the tournament, and though my meager performance is a horrible way to start such a thread I think it's probably a good way to get others to post.

I played U/G Oath, with maindeck Back to Basics and the AK engine.  It was considered adding Hulk elements to Oath, but I was working more with cutting Psychatogs for green cards and recursion.  My thinking line was that if I could not only outdraw my opponents, but re-use powerful spells via Blessing, I would wreck the control mirror.  Likewise, Oath of Druids fits perfectly with blessing AND it lets me just win against most aggro.  Unfortunately, my day went poopy as you'll see.



The experience begins with a car trip up to Ray's apartment for the pre-tournament party.  At Ray's place, we play a bunch of magic, as well as Flux, Chess, and other games.  At the same time, most of us were getting wicked drunk, which was Grand Inquisitor's tech.  By 5 am, everyone was passed out drunk except Ray, who doesn't drink, and myself, who doesn't sleep.  Eventually Adam, Jarad, Steve, and I were downstairs waiting for shower usage and discussing the metagame and other things much too intellectual after a night of beer and whiskey.  I help Ray move some stuff to his car after I get my turn in the shower, and we're off to the site to have breakfast.

Breakfast was sweet.  Derek from Binghamton loaned me the dough to eat at the buffet, so I filled my pallette with bacon and sausage:  You can never have enough meat products, damn it.  Long live cholesterol.

Deck reg happens, and I start filling out a decklist while I help Samite Healer set up shop.  I wasn't very helpful though, since I had to fill out deckreg as well as loan Ninja Mask to a friend of a friend, and say hello to all sorts of people showing up.  I end up struggling to get everything done before time, despite being among the first ones there.

Soon, pairings are up, and it's off I go to

Table 8, some kid with Keeper

In game one, we are both mana stalled.  My opening is Island, Sapphire, go.  He begins with Strip for my Island, Jet, Sapphire, Isochron Scepter imprinting Ancestral Recall.  I respond to scepter with Brainstorm, but I can't find Force of Will.  For two or three turns, we're both horribly mana stalled, though he sees a lot more than I do because of his ancestral.  I am tied in cards in hand with him for SIX TURNS while I struggle to find some way to get rid of his damn scepter.  I end up resolving Back to Basics, forcing him to do nothing else if he wants to Ancestral, and I figure he'll leave himself wide open to lose after he cycles decree.  Unfortunately, my counter wars suck because I keep Draining huge spells and having nowhere to put the mana.  When he resolves Fire/Ice on a scepter, I pick up my cards.

Game two, I'm a little mana light again, but able to function.  I drop a Quirion Dryad early, and he finds Swords without a problem.  I draw brainstorm, cast it end of turn, and get TWO dryads.  I cast both, and somehow he has the force for BOTH of them, despite four cards in hand.  I figure it's a non issue, and resolve ancestral for Brainstorm, Sylvan Library, and a land.  I drop the land, cast the Sylvan (tapping out, a weak play in hindsight but it should have been awesome) and I pass the turn.  He topdecks none other than Yawgmoth's Will, casts a Scepter from the yard with Fire/Ice, and I can't draw a damn blue spell to save my life.  I scoop when The Abyss hits the table.  Yes, that's right.  The Abyss was in there, DESPITE the fact he saw both Oath of Druids and Morphling in game one.  I asked him afterwards, and rather than something intelligent like "I noticed your deck played like Emerald Alice, so I figured the conversion worked the other way around" I got a murmured "huh.  oops"

I felt ashamed after losing to this player, so my day started off a little lousy.

Round Two:  Franco with Ninja Mask

Franco is playing almost exactly my build, which I'm thrilled to see.  I love when people play Ninja.  Anyway, I also love playing Oath against Ninja, because it's really hard to beat without getting a Survival to stick.  Both games are basically him dropping a threat and trying to win, when I just drop double Oath and watch him scoop deep down in his soul.

Round Three:  Dave Lawrence (Eastman) with Hulk

Game one is very brutal, as he has the counters for my card advantage and the Yawgmoth's Will to refill his hand and end the game.

Game two is AMAZING.  He opens with Library of Alexandria, but I open with Ancestral Recall and moxen to back it up.  He starts working up card advantage, but he isn't finding basic lands.  I contemplate whether or not to try to be the beatdown player or not, but I instead opt to play the control game.  Just as I decided that, my deck gave me the Strip Mine for Dave's Library, and I Time Walk in to a library of my own at six cards in hand.  Dave resolves a brainstorm, and hits my library before it can become active with a wasteland.  We play some draw go, but I can't find a dryad so I hold a couple spare cantrips in my hand thinking I'll find it off the resolved Sylvan draws.  Meanwhile, Dave tears in to my counter base with must counter after must counter, and forces me to try to replenish my hand with AK.  AK shows me the same poop off a Sylvan, and he gets a Tog on the table.  When he shows me the wish, I scoop, with four cards in hand at 16 life.  This was an amazing game, and I wish I had taken the play by play as it would have made for a great control mirror article.

After this game, I knew I was out of contention, so I stopped showing up at my tables.  Instead of completely stopping however, I played a casual game against my would be round four opponent, with white weenie.

Game one, I realize I didn't de-sideboard, but I don't really care.  I make dryads bigger than his guys can handle, and rush over them.  Game two, I oath up Sol'Kanar the Swamp King, and smash face with him.

After that, I did a bunch of trading for Samite Healer to obtain sellable Timmy cards, and played some casual games of Artist Format.  

Then came the meal at Denny's afterwards.  We had a party of myself, Ray, Ray's girlfriend Theresa, Smmenen, Crazy Carl, Jacob Orlove, Samite Healer, ill_Dawg, Moobius, Jeff Green, Wicketsnitcher, Frank and someone whose name I forget from New York, Josh Orsche, Leviat, Eli, and others I can't remember.  We played T4 a little bit in there, and had delicious food/milkshake technology, which was followed with a baffling conversation of how to get everyone home the most efficient way.  I sleep in the New Yorkers' car on the way back to my house in western MA, and let them crash there for the night.  I wake up just in time to see Samite Healer and Jacob Orlove leave my house, and that concludes the report, sans obligatory props and slops.

But first, my list!  hah!

Guay cards in the maindeck.dec

4x Oath of Druids
2x Gaea's Blessing
1x Morphling
1x Spike Weaver

4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
2x Mana Leak
1x Daze
1x Misdirection

4x Accumulated Knowledge
4x Brainstorm
2x Deep Analysis
1x Sylvan Library
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Library of Alexandria

2x Back to Basics
1x Regrowth
1x Intuition
1x Time Walk

7x Island
1x Forest
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Windswept Heath
2x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island
1x Strip Mine

SB:
4x Quirion Dryad
3x Null Rod
1x Woodripper
1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Sol'Kanar, The Swamp King
1x Back to Basics
3x Tormod's Crypt
1x Naturalize

The Sol'Kanar was solely for style points.

Props:
Scott Lamoges, for being the underdog and taking the largest T1 tournament ever in the United States, and possibly the world.
Smmenen, for actually being a pretty cool guy in real life as well as actually playing his Death Wish long idea that got scoffed at before.
Bryce Reynolds, for leaving his power cards and other expensive stuff in the box while he played the most horribly unpimp straight burn deck ever.
and of course Ray, for organizing this monster of a tournament with the help of Jarad, Theresa, and many others

Slops:
My first round opponent.  The Abyss staying in the deck?  C'mon man!
Jeff Green, for taking the eleven year old Hulk player out of T8.
The manager at Denny's, for not letting us play Type Four very long.

[wicketsnatcher]

Check out Sam Antill's tournament report!!!  Included is amazing feature match coverage of him vs Jeff Greene in the top eight.

-J:tD

[iamfishman]

Ray always insists everyone write reports no matter how well or poorly they did in the tournament, and though my meager performance is a horrible way to start such a thread I think it's probably a good way to get others to post.

couldn't have said it better myself ben.

C'mon guys...I want to hear about all your experience...Magic is less about flipping cards and more about telling interesting stories. (Pikula and Wakefield were always my favorite magic players for this reason)

[Grand Inquisitor]

So yeah, Friday and Saturday were a blast...

My man T-Funk hooks me up with a ride, and we caravan down with Bowers' AK which is carrying Kowal and Orlove.

The rest of Friday and early Saturday was spent playing hot dice, guillotine, playtesting T's Bazaar/Zombie deck, and drinking lots of hefe weizen & wiskey.  The diehards (Wicketsnatcher, Moobius, Summen, and a few others) didn't get to sleep until 6 or 7 in the morning if at all.

The morning was a complete blur that included a bad breakast buffet, throwing together my new jankness, and me loaning out tons of cards to needy team hadley-ites.  That and watching the ball-room Ray rented out fill up like a frat party.

I ended up playing a GAT redux that was basically emerald alice splashing for demonic tutor and yawgwill.  I actually even ran the old oath sideboard, which proved useful against what was a rather aggro heavy field.

Rnd 1, Bill playing WMUD (w/ blue for broken)

WTF!  At the last waterbury I got to play Ray's brother with Slivers round 1.  This time I get paired against my worst matchup...and I'm still drunk.

Game 1 he drops an early smokestack and I can't deal.  Game 2 I play like fish dazing his fetch, stripping his mountain, and then dropping null rod.  I still was only able to barely race his smokestack, and won because he made the mistake of trying to cast lotus into my counter (which pumped my dryad for the win).  Game 3 he has me completely locked out with a smokestack, but he can't find a win condition before 5 turns expire.

Rnd 2, some guy playing Dryad Zoo

Game 1 he smashes my face with three kird apes and burn.  I feel like a chump for losing to a deck thats been extinct for over a year.  Game 2 Oath comes in and ownes crap aggro like it does.  Game 3 I have double Oath and Future Sight on the table and he still refuses to concede.  I make him pay, and go into time walk recursion in order to beat him down with spike weaver.  

Rnd 3, Kerzner playing Hulk

I was starting to come down from my buzz, and although it had nothing to do with Kerzner, he took the brunt of it.  I unleash the most annoying and immature collage of trash talking combined with rules mongering magic.  He takes it like a man, and we split the first two games.  By the third game we're low on time, and I'm really feeling like crap, but at least I've stopped directing my misery at Kerz.  I look at my opening hand: 2x Brainstorm, Timewalk, Ancestral Recall, Gush, Mystical Tutor.  Its all gas except for the minor detail about not having any mana.  I figure I can't afford another draw, and I'd rather lose than draw, so I keep.  I find a land four turns later, and I still almost manage to pull out the draw, as he kills me on his last turn before time with me having a powder keg set to two.

Rnd 4, some guy from NJ playing GAT

I've tested pretty much every derivation of dryad.dec, so I know the matchup inside and out.  He picks the wrong counter wars and I draw ancestral like a good miser.  I even put in oath game 2 just to make it interesting.

Rnd 5, MolotDET, playing 3-color control trix

I had no idea who it was when we shuffled up, but he started asking about TMD and stuff, and even recognized my 'Grand Inquisitor'-ness.  Game 1 I try to stifle his fetch.  When he attempts a second pitch counter I know its his only source and go for the throat.  He sits land screwed while I draw lots of cards.  Game 2 I get a nuts draw with a first turn ancestral followed by second turn Lotus -> Yawgwill.  It was kind of a gamble casting Will so early for only a few spells, but given the matchup and my threat density I figured he wouldn't recover.  He didn't.

On the next table some academy player is trying to rationalize how they could have beat Orlove's mono green hate lock if they'd only played differently.  I hear "...and then cast memory jar and draw into..." and look at Orlove's root maze.  I usually have a low tolerance for combo players, but being hung over accentuates this.  As long as Mono-G can compete I'll keep up hope.

Rnd 6, Leviat playing 3-color landstill

Jason and I seem to play every single tournament.  This is good in that we've become pretty good friends and he's one hell of a guy.  This is bad in that he's a ninja, and I usually need to do my topdecking thing in order to beat him.  Game 1 I do said topdecking thing casting AK for 1 into AK for 2 into AK for 3 into AK for 4 (in the span of two turns).  Game 2 he slaps me around with an early decree and three factories.  Unfortunately for Jason the first game took a pretty long time for me to win (he probably should have conceded), and time is called before he can beat me down.

Rnd 7, some guy from MA playing Belcher Parfait

From hearing other conversations I sort of new what this guy was playing, and I was very curious about how effective it would be.  Game 1 he shows me up by dropping two early land taxes, and then after countering his scroll rack, he finds it back into play.  I know the drill, so I scoop almost immediately after.  Game 2 I'm in complete control with Future Sight, but he won't scoop since he figures he can't win game 3 in the alotted time.  I swing with a big dryad with three extra turns to spare.  He seemed from the old-school of magic players, and was a very sound technical player.  I would have liked to watch some of his other matches if I'd been given the chance.  Although I can't really see parfait winning against the new breeds of aggro, it performed much more smoothely than I expected.

Rnd 8, Peter playing old-stompy

Peter mentioned that he was just getting into competitive type 1, and didn't have his Oath build ready, so was playing Stompy instead.  I draw complete god hands both games for the win (stuff like mox sapphire, ancestral, lotus, time walk, dryad, brainstorm).  Peter was a great guy; the type of noob you hope to meet every tournament.  He was not bitter about my power draws, accepted my recommendations on his oath build, and had some interesting innovations of his own.  It was a great end to a tournament of ups and downs.

I watched a little bit of the top 8, but I was fading fast, and my ride was leaving, so I didn't get to see what happened.  I sleep most of the way home and crash into my bed...and live happily ever after.


Props:
Ray, obviously
T-funk, driving my sorry car-less ass around and being a complete dude
Team Hadley, for kicking ass even if we didn't win the whole enchilada
Opponents, being competitive & enjoyable all day
Kerz, for putting up with my shit

Slops:
Jim Beam, kicking my ass thanks to hot dice
Hometown Buffet, for being only slightly better than starving

[Kerz]

Kerz, for putting up with my shit

"Dude, did you just turn your lands sideways, then undo them?! what the fuck are you thinking? i've played magic before, you know."

- ancient grand inquisithian proverb