I don't MD anything outside of the combo and gas to get there. No singleton MD Silence, etc.
Silence, Mindbreak Trap and Flusterstorm come in against combo and the mirror. Silence and Flusterstorms come in whenever they're playing Islands, really.
Massacre is for Death & Taxes, some goblins builds (with Thalia), and Junk (also with Thalia...).
Explosives, Ratchets, and Serenity all serve the same purpose in killing Cages, Crypts, Nihil Spellbomb, Canonist/Thalia/Revoker, Needle, Chalice, and Relic of Progenitus. They're all a little different, but essentially "Permanent is problem, smash!" is the reasoning.
Echoing Truth is there because it answers more things than Chain of Vapor, and gets through a Chalice on 1 (which stops Chain, and basically the whole deck).
My slots for sideboard are almost always some combination of Ponder and Probe. It really doesn't slow things down much. Thoughtseize generally comes out against burn or goblins, too.
A big part of learning the deck is recognizing when a hand can make a T2 combo with an unorthodox circumstance (no land hands are often fine, for instance). Mull aggressively. Really aggressively. Three cards is fine if it means you're winning on T1 or T2.
Remember that Therapy is used probably 1/3 of the time to hit your own Griselbrand or Emrakul mid-combo, so you can swing for 22 instead of worrying about storming out.
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Howdy. Me again. I played in CFB's monthly Legacy 1K yesterday. Top 8 again, like last month. This time was 7th going into T8 (4-1-1), but no one really wanted to play anything out beyond the quarterfinals (and I won mine, so my final record was 5-1-1).
R1 I lost to Mike running Elves. Just a rusty start, didn't mull aggressively enough to the combo. Kept a disruption-heavy hand (Ritual-Thoughtseize-Therapy-Therapy) G2 and stripped 5 cards with it T1, but still lost. Really just need to focus on the combo and let the disruption be incidental.
R2 I beat Josh Silvestri running RUG delver. He was "just running what Jacob Wilson told me to run". It was a decent match, but I had Flusterstorm to stop a Stifle at the right moment.
R3 I beat Marina on Manaless Dredge, I won the roll and played (despite knowing she had to be on the draw to do stuff T1). I went off G1 on T2, lost hard G2, and won G3 after trying to go off T1 and getting my Griselbrand hit with Noxious Revival (awkward, but not as bad as if it had been the *other* free phyrexian mana spell).
R4 I beat Gabriel in the mirror match. G1 was just a matter of going off first. G2 he kept a hand with lots of fast mana hoping to hardcast Griselbrand (and I hit it with Mindbreak Trap).
R5 I beat Colin on Junk Loam. G1 I went off on T1, but only had his Marsh Flats to go on, so sided in Massacres...which were worthless. G2 his Nihil Spellbomb made things pretty impossible. G3 Serenity (now that I could board properly) came to the rescue and forced him to crack his Spellbomb, and a Therapy stripped two Loams just in time to keep him off mana for Humility.
R6 I drew into 7th, my opponent took 8th. No idea what he was playing.
The top 8 all agreed to split the 1K, but 6 of us played out our QF matches for the PWPs.
QF I beat Justin on Goblins. G1 I mulled to 3 (fetch and 2x Brainstorm), and actually started to go off. I got three activations and all 4 Brainstorms deep but didn't hit a second Dark Ritual (for Tendrils) or first Lotus Petal (for Children) and fizzled. G2 I kept a no-land hand with Petal and Chrome Mox, going Entomb T1, Vengeance T2. He had a Mindbreak Trap for the pre-combat Tendrils, so I finished it by discarding and animating Emrakul to swing for 22.
So, including GP Oakland's Legacy Challenge, a GPT, and two of these 1Ks (and excluding byes, IDs, and friendly scoops), my record with this in the last two months of sanctioned play is 19-6.
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Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
I played in a GPT for DC this past weekend at Eudemonia in Berkeley with the same list as I posted previously (5 posts above this or so) with minor changes.
20 people showed up, so 5 rounds plus a cut to top 8. My final record was 4-2 (before scooping a friend into the finals where the other guy scooped to him as he was the only guy going to the GP). I won't go round-by-round with a full report like last time, but here are the basics:
R1 loss to Merfolk (he had 3 counters - 2 soft and 1 FOW - and I couldn't get through the third)
R2 loss to RUG Delver (Phillip Yam, with a GP Top 16 in his past, also the guy I scooped to in the semis)
R3 win vs Miracles (hand disruption was key)
R4 win vs. ANT (the friendliest match I played all day, we both left our hands up after probes etc, just a genuinely nice guy. Mindbreak Trap was absolutely clutch here.)
R5 win vs Death & Taxes (through a T1 Karakas in G2)
QF win vs the R1 Merfolk player (sweet revenge!)
Good for $100 in store credit. Next event is at CFB in a couple weeks!
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The sideboard wasn't what I'd hoped to use. The evening before the event I put in an order for 3 Massacre and 2 Serenity for pickup at the store. I got the e-mail from their inventory system confirming, but when I arrived on site, they weren't going to arrive until 6pm. I probably overlooked some disclaimer language to that effect, but it was disappointing nonetheless. I had brought some other spare sideboard cards to adapt to some of the better known players based on who showed up, so some went from "maybe" to "I guess I'm running these". Those were the Teferi's Realm, Mindbreak Trap, and Ratchet Bomb. In retrospect, the Ratchet Bombs were fine, even good. The other three cards did nothing, though the Traps may have if I'd drawn them.
My final record was 4-1, finishing 1st after the Swiss rounds. Everyone in the top 8 wanted to split, so $125 each and we were on our way (no one cared to play it out for the points either, but the 8 seed conceded to me before leaving).
Round 1 vs. Esper Stoneblade piloted by Jeff
This one was quick. I won the roll and combo'd off on turn two to end the first game and turn three to end the second. Probes stayed in, but I took out Ponders for Silences and Needles expecting counters and having seen Deathrite Shaman as his only play in game one. In the second game I had a first turn Needle to his (again) first turn Deathrite and he had a really rough turn two Thoughtseize, seeing two Entomb, a Shallow Grave, and a Vengeance (redundancy for both combo pieces).
Round 2 vs. 4-Color Loam piloted by Josh
This was a tough match. He won the roll and game one started off with him landing an early Chalice of the Void with X=1. I had kept my 7 with a Griselbrand, a Ritual, and a Vengeance, and had discarded him on turn 1 to set up a second turn combo, but the Chalice stuck me on mana when he followed up with Devastating Dreams and my Rituals were dead. I considered scooping, but found an out by casting Therapy into the Chalice to get it in the graveyard. Shallow Grave, draw 14, and then get Griselbrand back into the yard by paying Therapy's flashback cost (again, getting countered by the Chalice). Rinse and repeat over the next two turns and that's game 1.
In one of my draw steps this game, two cards stuck together. I stopped short of putting them into my hand, but did see the bottom one. I called the judge, he issued a warning for looking at extra cards (LAEC), shuffle the extra seen card in, and move on.
Game 2 he landed another second-turn Chalice on 1, but I had mulled aggressively. I was looking for either a turn-1 winning hand, a Therapy to strip any Chalices, or a sideboard piece. I found a Ratchet Bomb and mana on the mull to five. Waited until I could cast the Bomb, kill the Chalice, and combo off in the same turn, and it came together around turn 5.
R3 vs. Doomsday piloted by Johnathan
I'd faced Johnathan at the Legacy Challenge at GP Oakland (where I went 6-2 with this deck, finishing 9th of 96), and I remembered he was a combo player, but forgot which combo. I also remembered that he'd talked about Mindbreak Trap being a problem for him.
I won the roll and combo'd on turn one of the first game with land, Ritual, Therapy discarding Griselbrand, Shallow Grave. Griselbrand's first activation found me a Probe, and Johnathan conceded as soon as I cast it, concealing his deck choice almost completely.
SB: -4 Ponder, +2 Silence, +2 Mindbreak Trap (because Probe felt like it would be relevant for game three and I expected we'd be playing a third game).
Game two was bad. I kept a decent hand but it was one Duress away from being terrible and his first turn play was, well, Duress. I durdled through a few turns naming terrible cards with Therapy in succession. I took out one Doomsday with a Thoughtseize, but it still left him with a LED and Burning Wish, so it was more or less pointless. A turn or two later his Tendrils ended the game.
SB: -4 Probe, +2 Pact of Negation, +2 Ratchet Bomb... not sure if anything would have helped here. Maybe this was a mistake as I just needed to race and should have kept the card that says "play with fewer cards in your deck" rather than "maybe you kill a LED if you're lucky and he misplays".
Game three was also rough. His Duresses were still good and my Therapies were still bad (he answered each one with a Brainstorm and three iterations got a total of 1 cards). Children of Korlis made their only appearance on the day by flashing back one Therapy to no effect and buying me a permanentless turn. I was at 16, he untapped his Shelldock Isle and cast Emrakul. He attacked in the extra turn and I floated mana to cast Shallow Grave after the Annihilate trigger resolved. I went from 16 to 1 to 16, but it mostly did nothing. Cabal Therapy is just a tough card to play correctly, and it's an area for me to improve on. I'll still keep at least one Children in the deck, but the second seems like a wasted slot.
Round 4 vs. RUG Delver piloted by Matt
We'd sat next to each other in one of the previous rounds, and I'd watched Matt wipe the floor with one of CFB's resident Judges, Mark Bush, by blind-flipping Delvers on turns 2, 3, and 4 of one game. It's common for Tin Fins to fall below 4 life after a couple Griselbrand activations, so I was extra-aware of staying out of Lightning Bolt range.
Game 1 went quickly as I mulled to 5 to get one combo piece, a land, and two spells to dig for the other half. The Brainstorm + Ponder got there and a Probe on turn 4 verified that his shields were down.
SB: +2 Silence, +1 Pull from Eternity, -1 Children of Korlis, -2 Ponder
I kept my 7, which included two Entombs, a dual, a fetch, a Chrome Mox, a Probe, and a Thoughtseize. He led with a Wasteland, but I fetched my Swamp and he seemed pretty unhappy about it. My first turn, though, I forgot to draw for the turn. I was just running on autopilot, getting the Probe out to see why he'd led with the Wasteland, and thinking getting the Swamp rather than a dual. My opponent from the previous round, Johnathan, noticed it and called the judge. Count up all the cards, notice I am indeed one short, and it's fairly obvious. It's a warning, but a game rule violation (GRV), not a missed trigger. Your opponent doesn't get to choose whether you draw for the turn, you just draw. Still, it was a warning for me. The additional draw was a fetch, so it didn't do a whole lot.
My Thoughtseize revealed he was holding two Spell Pierces, but I took a Stifle over either, because activating Griselbrand felt more important and Spell Pierce is something you can play around without too much trouble. He also helped me out by using his only blue source to Pierce my Chrome Mox when both of my lands were up. One Entomb got imprinted and the other resolved. A few turns later Griselbrand put him to 8 life and Tendrils finished the job, one of just three Tendrils-based game wins of the 9 games won on the day.
Round 5 vs. Robots piloted by Chris
Tables 1, 2, and 3 all drew into T8, and I maybe could have, but Chris definitely couldn't (whichever of the 7-pointers who won would have kicked him to ninth).
Chris and I knew what each other were playing, having been side-by-side at least two of the earlier rounds. He won the roll.
I started out by shuffling my whole sideboard into my deck. I noticed it in my opening hand, called the judge, and he gave me the appropriate deck/decklist problem infraction and downgrade to a warning (because I'd called it on myself and I hadn't made any plays), forced mull to 6. Chris also mulled to 6 and kept.
My 6 was a nut draw, with Therapy, Shallow Grave, Ritual, Ponder, Petal, and Griselbrand. I swung with Griselbrand and Emrakul on turn one.
SB: +2 Ratchet Bomb, +2 Echoing Truth, -1 Children, -2 Ponder, -1 Probe. From the earlier matches I'd seen, I knew one of his SB answers was Canonist, but didn't remember the other details.
Game two I keep my seven with Probe, Ratchet Bomb, Ritual, a dual, a fetch, and Vengeance.
His first turn is Ancient Den, Ornithopter, Mox Opal, Ethersworn Canonist. Ouch.
Mine is fetch, ritual, Ratchet Bomb.
Turn two he plays an Ornithopter and taps the Opal for a Thoughtcast. Then he plays another Opal, bins the tapped one, and taps the new one to Thoughtcast again. I immediately stop him and call the judge. Simple rewind and warning, and we're back in business. Charge the Bomb at his EOT. It took discipline to not just get 3-for-1 and hit both Ornithopters and the Opal, but killing the Canonist felt more important.
The next couple turns were just him swinging with the Canonist and me charging the Bomb to 2 and then killing it on his third attack. I hit an Entomb in those couple draws. The turn after the Bomb kills the Canonist, Emrakul clears his board and puts him to 5.
He extended a hand when Emrakul swung, but I didn't think he realized he was just at 5, not dead. I had 2 lands and my hand and graveyard were empty, and he still had 3-4 cards. I needed 3 perfect draws to finish him and he may very well have pulled it out. He pulled back the offer and we tried a couple more turns but he still wasn't hitting any land, so conceded. If we'd played it out, I'm not sure I would have finished him off before he recovered, but I suppose things were still pretty tilted in my favor.
Final record 4-1, first place in a field of 29. Top 8 split, good for $125 store credit apiece. Final warning count: 3, all in different areas of the IPG, so no upgrades (1 GRV, 1 D/DLP, 1 LAEC).
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Registration for GP Vegas will close Friday. Saturday morning registration will not be available. This is so we can fire the biggest Magic event of all time on time.
If you want to get in, please pre-register. I already know I'm going to have a bunch of disappointed players who come Saturday trying to sign up, but we're doing our best to mitigate this by getting the word out in places like this.
UltraPro created a second mat for this event, as a special thank you to our judges (and a very very small number as prizes in public events, like the top 4 of the Sunday charity tournament).
From Timothy Shields (the event's organizer) on the GP Vegas event page on Facebook: First side event for GP Vegas on Friday the 21st will be Free. Free Mini Master tournament players build with Modern Masters.
(In the interest of transparency, I'm also the staff manager for the show...but I might need more staff for this now...)
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Another big MTG event in SF this year. Count me in!
Please note, the GP announced for San Francisco is actually in San Jose, not San Francisco. Yes, all of the announcements have said SF, but they are incorrect. The organizer is working on fixing these issues with the announcements. They should eventually be modified to say San Jose instead.
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
My hopes goes to: Exhume (seems 99% guaranteed) Reanimate (seems possible)
sadly, after those things, I expect something thrash like...
like this guy... I bet it will be put in, as well like Putrid Imp, otherwise, how do we get fatty in our graveyard?
Single Entomb and single Buried alive? do not think so...
Other cards am I forgetting about?
Have you considered Chimeric mass? Its relevant no matter when you throw it down, and if it gets a +1/+1 counter on it, proliferating it, allows it to gain +2/+2 since you'd proliferate both charge and +1/+1 counters.
Not quite. Rules entry for proliferate:
701.23a To proliferate means to choose any number of permanents and/or players that have a counter, then give each exactly one additional counter of a kind that permanent or player already has.
You can add a charge counter or a +1/+1, not both.
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Grand Architect/Straight Aggro-Control/U/w doesn't work that well. I would either cut the GA stuff in favor of a better "control" package (including the Game-winning Sun Titan), or cut the W in favor of stuff like Treasure Mage.
Last night FNM, I won a game by Metamorph-ing my opp's Sun Titan, then using the trigger to get back two Phantasmal Images (each copying Sun Titan) and a Lord. Granted this is "living the dream", but the synergy betweeen the Images and Titan is now hard for me to ignore...
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International Magic Judge (Level 4)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
I don't MD anything outside of the combo and gas to get there. No singleton MD Silence, etc.
Silence, Mindbreak Trap and Flusterstorm come in against combo and the mirror. Silence and Flusterstorms come in whenever they're playing Islands, really.
Massacre is for Death & Taxes, some goblins builds (with Thalia), and Junk (also with Thalia...).
Explosives, Ratchets, and Serenity all serve the same purpose in killing Cages, Crypts, Nihil Spellbomb, Canonist/Thalia/Revoker, Needle, Chalice, and Relic of Progenitus. They're all a little different, but essentially "Permanent is problem, smash!" is the reasoning.
Echoing Truth is there because it answers more things than Chain of Vapor, and gets through a Chalice on 1 (which stops Chain, and basically the whole deck).
My slots for sideboard are almost always some combination of Ponder and Probe. It really doesn't slow things down much. Thoughtseize generally comes out against burn or goblins, too.
A big part of learning the deck is recognizing when a hand can make a T2 combo with an unorthodox circumstance (no land hands are often fine, for instance). Mull aggressively. Really aggressively. Three cards is fine if it means you're winning on T1 or T2.
Remember that Therapy is used probably 1/3 of the time to hit your own Griselbrand or Emrakul mid-combo, so you can swing for 22 instead of worrying about storming out.
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
R1 I lost to Mike running Elves. Just a rusty start, didn't mull aggressively enough to the combo. Kept a disruption-heavy hand (Ritual-Thoughtseize-Therapy-Therapy) G2 and stripped 5 cards with it T1, but still lost. Really just need to focus on the combo and let the disruption be incidental.
R2 I beat Josh Silvestri running RUG delver. He was "just running what Jacob Wilson told me to run". It was a decent match, but I had Flusterstorm to stop a Stifle at the right moment.
R3 I beat Marina on Manaless Dredge, I won the roll and played (despite knowing she had to be on the draw to do stuff T1). I went off G1 on T2, lost hard G2, and won G3 after trying to go off T1 and getting my Griselbrand hit with Noxious Revival (awkward, but not as bad as if it had been the *other* free phyrexian mana spell).
R4 I beat Gabriel in the mirror match. G1 was just a matter of going off first. G2 he kept a hand with lots of fast mana hoping to hardcast Griselbrand (and I hit it with Mindbreak Trap).
R5 I beat Colin on Junk Loam. G1 I went off on T1, but only had his Marsh Flats to go on, so sided in Massacres...which were worthless. G2 his Nihil Spellbomb made things pretty impossible. G3 Serenity (now that I could board properly) came to the rescue and forced him to crack his Spellbomb, and a Therapy stripped two Loams just in time to keep him off mana for Humility.
R6 I drew into 7th, my opponent took 8th. No idea what he was playing.
The top 8 all agreed to split the 1K, but 6 of us played out our QF matches for the PWPs.
QF I beat Justin on Goblins. G1 I mulled to 3 (fetch and 2x Brainstorm), and actually started to go off. I got three activations and all 4 Brainstorms deep but didn't hit a second Dark Ritual (for Tendrils) or first Lotus Petal (for Children) and fizzled. G2 I kept a no-land hand with Petal and Chrome Mox, going Entomb T1, Vengeance T2. He had a Mindbreak Trap for the pre-combat Tendrils, so I finished it by discarding and animating Emrakul to swing for 22.
So, including GP Oakland's Legacy Challenge, a GPT, and two of these 1Ks (and excluding byes, IDs, and friendly scoops), my record with this in the last two months of sanctioned play is 19-6.
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Main deck changes:
-1 Children of Korlis
+1 Lim-Dul's Vault
Sideboard changes:
-1 Teferi's Realm
-2 Pact of Negation
+3 Massacre
20 people showed up, so 5 rounds plus a cut to top 8. My final record was 4-2 (before scooping a friend into the finals where the other guy scooped to him as he was the only guy going to the GP). I won't go round-by-round with a full report like last time, but here are the basics:
R1 loss to Merfolk (he had 3 counters - 2 soft and 1 FOW - and I couldn't get through the third)
R2 loss to RUG Delver (Phillip Yam, with a GP Top 16 in his past, also the guy I scooped to in the semis)
R3 win vs Miracles (hand disruption was key)
R4 win vs. ANT (the friendliest match I played all day, we both left our hands up after probes etc, just a genuinely nice guy. Mindbreak Trap was absolutely clutch here.)
R5 win vs Death & Taxes (through a T1 Karakas in G2)
QF win vs the R1 Merfolk player (sweet revenge!)
Good for $100 in store credit. Next event is at CFB in a couple weeks!
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Creatures
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Reanimate
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
2 Silence
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pact of Negation
2 Echoing Truth
1 Teferi's Realm
2 Mindbreak Trap
The sideboard wasn't what I'd hoped to use. The evening before the event I put in an order for 3 Massacre and 2 Serenity for pickup at the store. I got the e-mail from their inventory system confirming, but when I arrived on site, they weren't going to arrive until 6pm. I probably overlooked some disclaimer language to that effect, but it was disappointing nonetheless. I had brought some other spare sideboard cards to adapt to some of the better known players based on who showed up, so some went from "maybe" to "I guess I'm running these". Those were the Teferi's Realm, Mindbreak Trap, and Ratchet Bomb. In retrospect, the Ratchet Bombs were fine, even good. The other three cards did nothing, though the Traps may have if I'd drawn them.
My final record was 4-1, finishing 1st after the Swiss rounds. Everyone in the top 8 wanted to split, so $125 each and we were on our way (no one cared to play it out for the points either, but the 8 seed conceded to me before leaving).
Round 1 vs. Esper Stoneblade piloted by Jeff
This one was quick. I won the roll and combo'd off on turn two to end the first game and turn three to end the second. Probes stayed in, but I took out Ponders for Silences and Needles expecting counters and having seen Deathrite Shaman as his only play in game one. In the second game I had a first turn Needle to his (again) first turn Deathrite and he had a really rough turn two Thoughtseize, seeing two Entomb, a Shallow Grave, and a Vengeance (redundancy for both combo pieces).
Round 2 vs. 4-Color Loam piloted by Josh
This was a tough match. He won the roll and game one started off with him landing an early Chalice of the Void with X=1. I had kept my 7 with a Griselbrand, a Ritual, and a Vengeance, and had discarded him on turn 1 to set up a second turn combo, but the Chalice stuck me on mana when he followed up with Devastating Dreams and my Rituals were dead. I considered scooping, but found an out by casting Therapy into the Chalice to get it in the graveyard. Shallow Grave, draw 14, and then get Griselbrand back into the yard by paying Therapy's flashback cost (again, getting countered by the Chalice). Rinse and repeat over the next two turns and that's game 1.
In one of my draw steps this game, two cards stuck together. I stopped short of putting them into my hand, but did see the bottom one. I called the judge, he issued a warning for looking at extra cards (LAEC), shuffle the extra seen card in, and move on.
SB: +2 Ratchet Bomb, +2 Echoing Truth, -1 Children, -3 Probe.
Game 2 he landed another second-turn Chalice on 1, but I had mulled aggressively. I was looking for either a turn-1 winning hand, a Therapy to strip any Chalices, or a sideboard piece. I found a Ratchet Bomb and mana on the mull to five. Waited until I could cast the Bomb, kill the Chalice, and combo off in the same turn, and it came together around turn 5.
R3 vs. Doomsday piloted by Johnathan
I'd faced Johnathan at the Legacy Challenge at GP Oakland (where I went 6-2 with this deck, finishing 9th of 96), and I remembered he was a combo player, but forgot which combo. I also remembered that he'd talked about Mindbreak Trap being a problem for him.
I won the roll and combo'd on turn one of the first game with land, Ritual, Therapy discarding Griselbrand, Shallow Grave. Griselbrand's first activation found me a Probe, and Johnathan conceded as soon as I cast it, concealing his deck choice almost completely.
SB: -4 Ponder, +2 Silence, +2 Mindbreak Trap (because Probe felt like it would be relevant for game three and I expected we'd be playing a third game).
Game two was bad. I kept a decent hand but it was one Duress away from being terrible and his first turn play was, well, Duress. I durdled through a few turns naming terrible cards with Therapy in succession. I took out one Doomsday with a Thoughtseize, but it still left him with a LED and Burning Wish, so it was more or less pointless. A turn or two later his Tendrils ended the game.
SB: -4 Probe, +2 Pact of Negation, +2 Ratchet Bomb... not sure if anything would have helped here. Maybe this was a mistake as I just needed to race and should have kept the card that says "play with fewer cards in your deck" rather than "maybe you kill a LED if you're lucky and he misplays".
Game three was also rough. His Duresses were still good and my Therapies were still bad (he answered each one with a Brainstorm and three iterations got a total of 1 cards). Children of Korlis made their only appearance on the day by flashing back one Therapy to no effect and buying me a permanentless turn. I was at 16, he untapped his Shelldock Isle and cast Emrakul. He attacked in the extra turn and I floated mana to cast Shallow Grave after the Annihilate trigger resolved. I went from 16 to 1 to 16, but it mostly did nothing. Cabal Therapy is just a tough card to play correctly, and it's an area for me to improve on. I'll still keep at least one Children in the deck, but the second seems like a wasted slot.
Round 4 vs. RUG Delver piloted by Matt
We'd sat next to each other in one of the previous rounds, and I'd watched Matt wipe the floor with one of CFB's resident Judges, Mark Bush, by blind-flipping Delvers on turns 2, 3, and 4 of one game. It's common for Tin Fins to fall below 4 life after a couple Griselbrand activations, so I was extra-aware of staying out of Lightning Bolt range.
Game 1 went quickly as I mulled to 5 to get one combo piece, a land, and two spells to dig for the other half. The Brainstorm + Ponder got there and a Probe on turn 4 verified that his shields were down.
SB: +2 Silence, +1 Pull from Eternity, -1 Children of Korlis, -2 Ponder
I kept my 7, which included two Entombs, a dual, a fetch, a Chrome Mox, a Probe, and a Thoughtseize. He led with a Wasteland, but I fetched my Swamp and he seemed pretty unhappy about it. My first turn, though, I forgot to draw for the turn. I was just running on autopilot, getting the Probe out to see why he'd led with the Wasteland, and thinking getting the Swamp rather than a dual. My opponent from the previous round, Johnathan, noticed it and called the judge. Count up all the cards, notice I am indeed one short, and it's fairly obvious. It's a warning, but a game rule violation (GRV), not a missed trigger. Your opponent doesn't get to choose whether you draw for the turn, you just draw. Still, it was a warning for me. The additional draw was a fetch, so it didn't do a whole lot.
My Thoughtseize revealed he was holding two Spell Pierces, but I took a Stifle over either, because activating Griselbrand felt more important and Spell Pierce is something you can play around without too much trouble. He also helped me out by using his only blue source to Pierce my Chrome Mox when both of my lands were up. One Entomb got imprinted and the other resolved. A few turns later Griselbrand put him to 8 life and Tendrils finished the job, one of just three Tendrils-based game wins of the 9 games won on the day.
Round 5 vs. Robots piloted by Chris
Tables 1, 2, and 3 all drew into T8, and I maybe could have, but Chris definitely couldn't (whichever of the 7-pointers who won would have kicked him to ninth).
Chris and I knew what each other were playing, having been side-by-side at least two of the earlier rounds. He won the roll.
I started out by shuffling my whole sideboard into my deck. I noticed it in my opening hand, called the judge, and he gave me the appropriate deck/decklist problem infraction and downgrade to a warning (because I'd called it on myself and I hadn't made any plays), forced mull to 6. Chris also mulled to 6 and kept.
My 6 was a nut draw, with Therapy, Shallow Grave, Ritual, Ponder, Petal, and Griselbrand. I swung with Griselbrand and Emrakul on turn one.
SB: +2 Ratchet Bomb, +2 Echoing Truth, -1 Children, -2 Ponder, -1 Probe. From the earlier matches I'd seen, I knew one of his SB answers was Canonist, but didn't remember the other details.
Game two I keep my seven with Probe, Ratchet Bomb, Ritual, a dual, a fetch, and Vengeance.
His first turn is Ancient Den, Ornithopter, Mox Opal, Ethersworn Canonist. Ouch.
Mine is fetch, ritual, Ratchet Bomb.
Turn two he plays an Ornithopter and taps the Opal for a Thoughtcast. Then he plays another Opal, bins the tapped one, and taps the new one to Thoughtcast again. I immediately stop him and call the judge. Simple rewind and warning, and we're back in business. Charge the Bomb at his EOT. It took discipline to not just get 3-for-1 and hit both Ornithopters and the Opal, but killing the Canonist felt more important.
The next couple turns were just him swinging with the Canonist and me charging the Bomb to 2 and then killing it on his third attack. I hit an Entomb in those couple draws. The turn after the Bomb kills the Canonist, Emrakul clears his board and puts him to 5.
He extended a hand when Emrakul swung, but I didn't think he realized he was just at 5, not dead. I had 2 lands and my hand and graveyard were empty, and he still had 3-4 cards. I needed 3 perfect draws to finish him and he may very well have pulled it out. He pulled back the offer and we tried a couple more turns but he still wasn't hitting any land, so conceded. If we'd played it out, I'm not sure I would have finished him off before he recovered, but I suppose things were still pretty tilted in my favor.
Final record 4-1, first place in a field of 29. Top 8 split, good for $125 store credit apiece. Final warning count: 3, all in different areas of the IPG, so no upgrades (1 GRV, 1 D/DLP, 1 LAEC).
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
If you want to get in, please pre-register. I already know I'm going to have a bunch of disappointed players who come Saturday trying to sign up, but we're doing our best to mitigate this by getting the word out in places like this.
If you want to read more about it, see here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/06182013
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
http://cascadegames.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/gplasvegas-le.jpg
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Removed image leech. -TK
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
First side event for GP Vegas on Friday the 21st will be Free. Free Mini Master tournament players build with Modern Masters.
(In the interest of transparency, I'm also the staff manager for the show...but I might need more staff for this now...)
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Please note, the GP announced for San Francisco is actually in San Jose, not San Francisco. Yes, all of the announcements have said SF, but they are incorrect. The organizer is working on fixing these issues with the announcements. They should eventually be modified to say San Jose instead.
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Corpse Connoisseur is also a card, call it the "fair" Entomb, I guess?
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Not quite. Rules entry for proliferate:
701.23a To proliferate means to choose any number of permanents and/or players that have a counter, then give each exactly one additional counter of a kind that permanent or player already has.
You can add a charge counter or a +1/+1, not both.
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Last night FNM, I won a game by Metamorph-ing my opp's Sun Titan, then using the trigger to get back two Phantasmal Images (each copying Sun Titan) and a Lord. Granted this is "living the dream", but the synergy betweeen the Images and Titan is now hard for me to ignore...
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Yes. Same art as MODO thread, but shinier and more tangible.
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon
Former US Southwest Regional Coordinator
Favorite cards of all time:
Overall - Peacekeeper
Flavor text - Blazing Archon