[TMD Open Report] 6th Place with GPR2

Part One: A history of GPR2, and a decklist
   This story began early last december, when I was in the middle of finals for last semester. I decided to have some fun that weekend, and play TnT at a power tournament in brockton. I made top 8, but lost to Chris K (Moobius) with Dragon. The blizzard that started that day continued, and the power tournament we had planned to go to on Sunday got cancelled (along with the PTQ that Jeff was going to be a dealer at). Not to be deterred, we organized our own tournament at Hadley, with Jeff putting up a moat and an abyss. I missed the cut to top 4, after being knocked out of contention by a mono-green deck the hadley locals were calling "Green Power Ranger" (or GPR for short). Designed and piloted by Dan Petrelli, it ran Elvish Spirit Guide, Root Maze, Null Rod, manlands (factories and villages), Hidden Gibbons and Guerrillas, and River Boas and Basking Rootwallas for beats. It savagely whomped on my TnT, but I did get to see his SB emerald charm tech.

   At one point, when he was beating me down with 3/3 rootwallas, he asked me if I had any suggestions for a better one drop to include. I replied that I couldn't think of one offhand, and that the rootwallas certainly seemed to be working well for him. The question stuck with me, though, as did the awesome power of Root Mize. I went home to California, and went to the local card shop to mise some good deals. Apparently Decree of Justice is a $5 card on the west coast. Score. Anyway, a couple of the locals were playing a post-banning extended match, and one guy was playing U/G madness. One player commented that Wild Mongrel was the best green creature ever, and the other agreed. This got my mind rolling. What if, instead of trying to replace the Rootwallas in GPR, I tried to make them stronger? Mongrels were obvious, and then the list quickly fell into place; I even got to include Bazaar of Baghdad/Squee to avoid running out of steam. I didn't want to include Survival, though, because it didn't have synergy with the Root Mazes or with the manlands.

   After a few playtest games against some casual decks one of my friends plays, I realized that I needed something to handle burn in the SB. I decided on Chalice of the Void. While going to get my foil Chalices back out of my binder, I saw my Drop of Honey. Into the SB it went, replacing my futile attempts to find a decent artifact answer to creatures. The rest of the SB was artifact/enchantment hate. The deck was now good to go, except that I was missing 4 bazaars, 2 drops of honey, 3 root mazes, and a Squee.

Green Power Ranger: Season Two (GPR2, for short)

The Hate:
4 Ground Seal
3 Hidden Gibbons
4 Root Maze
4 Null Rod

The Beats:
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Arrogant Wurm
3 Mishras Factory
3 Treetop Village

The Broken 4-of:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

They look like creatures, but aren't:
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Squee Goblin Nabob

The (rest of the) Mana:
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
8 Forest

SB:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Drop of Honey
2 Crumble
2 Naturalize
2 Emerald Charm
2 Hidden Guerrillas

The basic idea is to mess up your opponent's game with strips and "hate" cards, get what you need with Bazaar, and attack with undercosted, large threats. The deck has enough mana to get going, but 10 mana sources double as creatures, and 5 double as disruption. This helps prevent stalling later on, while ensuring consistent opening draws. It also means that my opponent's strips will have too many targets to disrupt me effectively. Between ESGs and the power, I can often drop hate like Null Rod or Chalice turn 1. The sideboard was a mix of stuff, both to help me cope with Chalice on either side of the board, and to keep my opponents guessing. With this configuration, I can bring in a significant number of cards vs many decks, improving my games 2 & 3 in most, if not all, of my matchups. With so many potentially dead cards maindeck, I wanted to be sure I could bring them all out when I went to sideboard. This strategy seemed to pay off, as I won a number of matches after losing the first game.

Part Two: The tournament
   Anyway, I head back to school on the 13th, just in time to make it to Waterbury that weekend. After some confusion about rides, I end up going with Ben Kowal (Kowal) and Adam Bowers (iLL_dawg) to Ray's place Friday night. I manage to borrow 2 (!) Drops of Honey from Jarad "the awesome" (Wicketsnatcher), so now all I need to do is pick up a Squee and 3x Root Maze at the main event. Anyway, people get drunk, there was a draft where people did stuff like take loxodon mender 4th pick, and play with groffskithur, among other horrible sights. I get some sleep, and then wake up. We head over to the hotel, and everyone else goes to eat at the buffet. I have my uber-broken fruit tech, so I get to trade with all the early peeps. Someone has a Squee, but no one has Root Maze. I keep asking people as they come in, but everyone just looks confused. Finally, someone tells me that they have some in the car. I point out that since I need them for my deck, I will trade for them as though they were worth money. I end up giving him a dreadnought, a foil Mind's Eye, and a sweet miscut IA COP: Black for 3x Root Maze and $5. It was so completely worth it.

   Smmenen shows up, much to my surprise, but Steve O (Zherbus) doesn't. At some point, I observe that Zherbus is "like a computer that generates Keeper decklists, but never shows up to any tournaments". Carl laughs. Ray announces that we have 191 people, and everyone applauds. Later, he announces the increased prize structure, to more applause.

   At some point, I help Jeff Anand (Samite Healer) set up his cards and stuff, and he lends me eight totally awesome anime forests. If you didn't see them, well, you missed out. He has nine of these lands for each color, and they're all totally sweet. Every deck I play from now on will include at least one basic land, just because these things are so cool. And totally wack. Not wiggedy-wack, though--just the regular kind.

   So round one begins, and I'm facing someone I don't know. Apparently, his name is David. He was playing some strange Tog deck with Shadowmage Infiltrators and Gorilla Shamans. Game one, I get some beatdown in, and ultimately get him down to 6, but a tog comes out, and hits me for 1 5 times before it goes lethal. Game two, a wasteland keeps him out of black mana, and I beat for 3 a number of turns in a row with a treetop village. Game three, he's low on mana again, and at one point he drains an arrogant wurm and then burns for 5. I smash with stuff for the win. Then, I hold out my hand, and say, "nice games" (or something to that effect). He picks up his cards and walks off, muttering, "yeah, especially game 2". He didn't shake my hand.

   Well, that left a sour taste in my mouth, but I get to walk around some more and talk to tons of people. Round two gets posted, and I'm paired against James with Gay Red. Game one is silly, as he plays four standstills. He accidentally breaks the second with his own Force, but I still can't beat the card advatage. Grim Lavamancers go to town on my dudes, and my life total decreases in small increments as a double-curiositied cloud of faeries nibbles me to death. Games two and three, my SB tech of Chalice of the Void and Drop of Honey come in, and the green dudes smash face. Game two, he hit me a few times with a 1/1 flyer, and game 3 he was swinging with a conclave, but it just wasn't enough. This round established two patterns for the day: me smashing "fish" decks, and me losing game one but winning the match. Both would happen again, and more than once.

   At this point, I'm paired against Carlo, with TnT. An early Null Rod shuts down his mana, and after trading a rootwalla for his cathodian, I administer savage land beats for the win. Game two, I open with Root Maze, then Hidden Guerrillas, then Null Rod, then Ground Seal and a Rootwalla (off 4 basic forests). He plays a bunch of fetchlands, and finally gets survival-squee going. He pulls out 4 (!) Elvish Lyrists, to kill the aforementioned enchantments, and the second Ground Seal I drew. A Naturalize takes out my Null Rod, and Phyrexian Colossus does me in just as time is called. I explain to him that we're both still in contention for top 8, and he goes on to win a number of matches with his unorthodox Cathodian and Tetravus tech.

   Round five was against Nate, also with Gay Red. Once again, he won the first game, with Lavamancers and fliers. I smashed him the next two games, though, just like in round two. His life totals went down by ones and threes, which suggests that the rootwallas were going to town. I was now 3-0-1 after four rounds. In one of these rounds (I think it was actually round 2), I was seated close to Smmenen. It was interesting to watch him carefully consider his options, and then play a bunch of crazy spells and just win the game. He, and a few other people I know, were still undefeated at this point, but some others were unfortunately out of contention.

   Soon enough, however, the pairings for round five went up, and I found myself facing none other than Stephen "Smmenen" Menendian, with Death Wish Long. As I later learned, because he anticipated more workshop matchups, he had cut his SB Naturalizes for more Hurkyl's Recalls and Meltdowns. This left him vulnerable to the card that he has since nicknamed "Root Mize". Game one, however, this weakness didn't show itself. My opening hand was mox, ESG, forest, Null Rod, Root Maze, and two other cards. An incredible first turn awaited me, but, unfortunately, I had lost the die roll. I went on to lose my hand to an early wheel (after Smmenen dropped some artifact mana), and soon found myself cutting his deck repeatedly as he resolved a seven-point Mind's Desire. The first card he flipped up was Timetwister, which made me wince. Next came a Demonic Tutor, and I seriously considered scooping up the cards right there. That wasn't a guaranteed win, though, so I decided to see what the next few cards were first. When Yawgmoth's Bargain came up as the third card, I conceeded on the spot. There was no point in making him play that out. Game two, I brought in Chalices, Naturalizes, and the Crumbles. I got a turn one Root Maze, and added a Null Rod and a second Root Maze to the board. He Burning Wished for a Hull Breach, but it wasn't enough. More hate came down, and his life total quickly dropped from 20, to 19, to 12, to 4, and then to zero. Game three, I got out a Root Maze, a Null Rod, a Chalice for 0, and a Chalice for 1. He forced a Chalice for 2, but not before he accidentally cast a Dark Ritual into the Chalice for 1. He drew what he needed after that, with his deck handing him a Hurkyl's Recall and a Dark Ritual to go with the Death Wish he had in hand. Unfortunately, the Dark Ritual misplay, combined with a Wasteland and a Crumble (on my EOT, right after Hurkyl's resolved), kept him just low enough on mana to stop him from going ritual, ritual, death wish, will, LED, ritual, ritual, ritual, ritual, and presumably winning. My Rootwalla and Treetop swung again for the win, and the match was mine. Steve was still in contention for top eight, but not as the number one seed; unfortunately, he lost another round to mindslaver (poor draws didn't help), which knocked him out of contention. Steve was a great opponent, though, and a lot of fun to play against. It's too bad I had to resort to piles of cheesy hate cards to win, but that's the only chance my deck has in this matchup.

   Round Six, I was playing John, with Sligh. His deck ran Ankh, PoP, Blood Moon, Shamans, Pups, Slith Firewalkers, Bolts, Incinerates, and Chains. I think there may have been factories too, but I'm not sure. Game one, an early Blood Moon shuts down my Bazaar, forcing me to ramp up to 5 lands to start dropping all the arrogant wurms in my hand. Despite a pair of basic forests, his double PoP drops me low enough for him to burn me out. Game two, I bring in everything except the Guerrillas. I play a turn 1 Gibbons, so he hits me with a Pup five times, by using Chain Lightnings to take out all my rootwallas, dropping me to ten, and adds in a shaman to put me at 7. I get out a mongrel and an arrogant wurm, and attempt to stabilize. I have forests and a Mishra's Factory for mana. I swing with the arrogant, dropping him to 16, and leaving me with a sleeping Gibbons, a Mongrel, and an untapped forest and factory, to hold off his Pup and Shaman. He Incinerates me EOT with his two mountains, dropping me to 4 and waking up the gibbons. On his turn, he plays a lotus for RRR, drops out an incinerate on me, and a Slith Firewalker. This completely depletes his hand. He then attacks with his two 1/1s and 2/1. I'm at 1, so I can't take any damage. He still has an untapped mountain, so his Shaman can eat my factory, which means only my Gibbons and Mongrel can block--or so he assumes. I surprise him completely by tapping my forest, not to animate the Factory, but to cast EMERALD CHARM, to untap my Arrogant Wurm. With three blockers, I survive his assault, and his pup drops him to 12. I have no trouble coming up with that much damage, and he drops to zero on my next turn. This experience makes him overcautious game three, but I can't capitalize on it. Have you ever had a game where your deck flat out refuses to give you anything useful? That was this game for me. I opened with a gibbons again, to protect the two rootwallas in my hand. Unfortunately, he has the chain lightnings again, and I draw into more forests, and Squees. He eventually summons the courage to burn me out, and when he does, all I have out is the Gibbons (awake at last), and six forests. My hand consists of three Squees, an Emerald Charm, and a Mox Emerald that his Shaman is holding off. I'm now 4-1-1, and my streak of losing game one and then winning the next two has been broken. All my remaining games will now be only two games long. When I tell Kerzner that I'm 4-1-1, he replies "Me too!". So, we get paired against each other for round 7.

   Aaron can't draw the black mana he needs for Tog/deed game one, and game two, Tog comes out too late, and he still has no green for Deed. A gibbons and two Arrogants eat up his graveyard and hand, until he's at 7, and I have out another Arrogant, two Rootwallas, and an ESG, with plenty of mana. He swings with his tog, and I don't block, fearing Time Walk tricks. He actually has nothing, though, and scoops after counting his cards again, to make sure the Tog isn't lethal.

   Round eight, I face James, with Gay Red. Yeah, same name and same deck as round two. This time, I don't lose a game. Game one, I get a mongrel out, and an Arrogant, and quickly smash him. Game two, he gets an early cloud and hatchling, but I play Drop of Honey, which eats them both. Bazaar lets me drop three (!) arrogants in quick succession, and he just can't handle the 4/4s. So I'm 6-1-1, with excellent tiebreakers, and I end up 5th in the swiss, which means I'm paired against Eli in the top eight. I lost my notes for this match, but in one game my early null rod was forced, and in the other he forced an early groud seal. I had nothing, and he quickly slaver-locked me with a pentavus out for the kill. It was brutal. Keith (ctthespian) was the only player who made top 4 in the swiss to lose, so I ended up 6th in the top 8, and got an English Abyss (Keith got the Italian Drain). Keith called up a friend of his, and, after confirming that he didn't want the drain, traded it to me for The Abyss and some small stuff. He tried to get my signed set of flooded strands, but I held on to them. Then, after finding out that I'd missed the Trivia AND the play of the day, I got Ray to read me all the trivia questions for that day. I got most of them. Then, we took all of Ray's old trivia questions, and had fun with those while some people played games. Smmenen was doing the play-by-play, so I figured it made more sense to wait for that then to watch just one person. I scared BeeArr with my awesome grasp of Magic trivia, and then a bunch of us went out to Dennys to get food. Jeff Anand, Adam Bowers, myself, and one of Jeff's friends from long island were practically off in the corner, away from everyone else. I got up to go wash my hands, and passed by both tables playing Smmenen's Type-4. By the time I got back, the manager had already told them to stop, because evidently you can't play cards at Dennys. Boo. Adam tells us that he had been discussing the increasing costs of power with Ray, who was concerned about having to reduce prize support. Adam suggested raising the entry fee by $5, and Ray observed that if attendance levels stayed this high, he could offer power to the top 4, and Libraries of Alexandria to 5-8th place, if the entry fee got raised to $20. How awesome would that be? After eating, there were many goodbyes, and Jeff and I headed over to Kowal's house to crash. Jeff had totally enjoyed buying, selling, and trading all day, but he was so exhausted that we had to pull over at a gas station so that he could take a nap before we drove the rest of the way back. The next morning (and by "morning" I mean roughly 4 pm), we drove into Easthampton and had breakfast, and then we drove back to Boston. Overall, it was a great time, and I had a ton of fun. It was great to meet new people, and to see people again after being away in California.

edit: yeah, so shaman can't eat a factory. Emerald Charm was still the cooler play.