First, the list. I decided to eschew the chalices after all, and went with discard. I think discard performs close to the same function as a chalice - discard stops one spell preemptively, and chalice stops potentially one spell, potentially more, and since I wasn't playing darksteel citadel to enable chalice on turn 1, it wasn't worth it. I also decided, on the drive to the tourney, that I was going to go with a "turtle up and exile" strategy out of the board, (to maximize the effect of the discard), instead of a board with more specific hate-artifacts.
Round 1 - Grixis Death's Shadow, 2-0
Record - 1-0
Game 1: Early Bridge into combo.
Game 2: Topdecked a sword on turn 4 to compliment my 2 resolved foundries. He played discard on turn 1 to see 2 foundries and a whir, and chose to take the whir. He had a few turns to draw a Temur Battle Rage, but couldn't get there.
Round 2 - Tron, 0-2
Record - 1-1
Game 1: He's on the play and goes turn 3 wurmcoil, turn 4 Ulamog.
Game 2: He only saw Bauble and Tasigur, so he thinks I'm on GDS (so no artifact destruction). I mull to a sketchy 4 land, altar, whir hand. I whir for damping sphere, but topdeck nothing but lands while he slowly makes land drops and does nothing. Eventually, he O-Stones and emrakuls, forcing me to sac foundry to itself the turn after finally getting the combo.
Round 3 - Tron, yay!, 1-2
Record 1-2
Game 1: He keeps a sketchy 1 lander and I take advantage with discard.
Game 2: I'm close to infinite combo, but he gets there first. Game 3: This is the biggest and really only "regret game" of the entire tournament. With a little careful thinking I could have gotten a tie, no question. With some even more careful thinking, which I did later, I could have gotten the W. So I've been jamming MTGO a lot, as people here may know. It's made me a fast, efficient, and relatively cool-headed magic player. What it hasn't prepared me for, at all, is going to time in a paper tournament, which is what happened in this match.
When we go to "turn 0," I have a board of Thopter Foundry, Sword, Altar, Needle on Ugin (which he has in hand), Damping Sphere, and 3 power worth of thopters, but only 4 land. He also has a relic with mana open, and I have an empty graveyard. In hand I have a whir, another altar, and I think an IoK. I'm at 4 life. He has a wurmcoil and a Karn at 3 which just blew up my spellskite. I swing and kill karn.
The winning play: Pass the turn holding up whir mana. This allows me to whir for phyrexian revoker or something else, or if not, to make a few thopters and chump-block the wurmcoil to prevent lethal. Then, on my next turn, I can cast cast Altar and make more thopters, and do it all over again. After 1-2 turns of milling 4/open mana thanks to the 2 altars, he would have lost due to being decked.
The sort-of obvious tie-play: Whir for Time Sieve, and hope to draw another mana source. If not, then pass and chump block and get a tie.
The losing play: Whir for time sieve, not draw another mana, then use time sieve to try to get ANOTHER mana by saccing valuable artifacts like damping sphere and altar, and fail. Why this play was SO STUPID was that I didn't realize how "going to turns" worked with extra turns. I could have never won with this line, because I would just take all 5 "final turns" doing my loop and then gotten a tie with his life total still in the twenties. A real missed opportunity, and I knew I wasn't thinking things through, but the judge was waiting over my shoulder and the situation was unfamiliar. Oh well, learn for next time I guess.
Round 4: UR Kiln Fiend, 2-0
Record - 2-2
Game 1: Somehow able to stay alive until whir for bridge.
Game 2: IoK on turn one takes his Kiln Fiend, his lone threat. I bridge up soon after.
Round 5: Titan Breach, 2-0
Record - 3-2
Game 1: I go infinite the turn before he has lethal, and I meet my only salty player of the day.
Game 2: An interesting game. I keep a hand with 2 surgicals, visions, and 2 ideas. (I think he's playing scapeshift, so I boarded in 4 brutalities). I dig and find foundry. He struggles slightly hitting search for tomorrows and tribe-elders instead of his natural land drops. He casts chalice on 1, and lands Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I'm at 7 life so I can cast exactly one more spell. I and have an ideas in hand, so I need to draw a sword. Fortunately, I dig up a sword, discard it to the ideas trigger, and then reanimate it on my end step saccing an altar. After that, my thopters out-race his Ruric Thar and 9/9 trample Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar.
Round 6: Humans, 2-0
Record - 4-2
Game 1: Finally, a humans deck! Turn one I cast Opal, Jar, Bauble, Bauble, Foundry. Cracking both baubles gives me a sword next turn, GG.
Game 2: I keep IoK, explosives, and bridge. I take a mage and see 3 more 2-drops, so I cast explosives for 2 turn 2 causing him to groan. The next turn I cast bridge and he groans some more. I turtle up behind a second bridge and eventually get the combo, all the while holding the explosives ready.
Round 7: Bogles, 2-0
Record - 5-2
Game 1: He has a relatively slow start, casting stuff like keen sense and lifelink on his 4-power bogle. Unfortunatley for me, this is bad, because I play a bridge and get stuck on 3 lands, drawing stuff like whir and brutality (which I can't cast thanks to his leyline). I can't ever get below my bridge, but I can cast explosives on 1, which I do. I think he could cracked a fetch for dryad arbor and suited it up for lethal next turn, but he may have missed that line or the arbor was in his hand. After that, I finally get a mana source and get a foundry.
Game 2: He doesn't find his hate, and I do my thing.
Round 8: Slivers, 1-2
Record 5-3
Game 1: Bridge, followed by combo.
Game 2: I know this matchup is really hard post-game, because harmonic sliver just takes over. If I had thought about it closely, I would have brought in all 4 surgicals to deal with Harmonic sliver on a permanent basis, but I didn't. I have a hand full of action, just a sweet hand, but a bauble tells me he has a harmonic sliver arriving the turn he can tick vial up to 3. I don't have removal in hand, so I don't want to bait it out, and I lose to a swing that I didn't realize was lethal.
Game 3: I still didn't think to bring in surgical, which is a shame, because I open up with IoK and see two harmonic slivers! Shoot. He smartly plays the control game, saving all his goodies in hand, and eventually I try to whir for combo on his end step, starting with a sword which I don't care if it gets blown up. He saves the harmonic in hand, and calmly plays Necrotic sliver, which I remove after he blows up 2 artifacts. I'm waiting for discard to force him to vial in harmonic, and for a minute I think I'm safe when I topdeck a Padeem. But he just plays Necrotic sliver number two, and it's GG. I guess this is the matchup where damnation is a necessity.
Round 9: Ad Nauseum, 2-1
Record 6-3
Game 1: He wins quickly with the combo.
Game 2: I bring in practically my entire SB. This was a wild, memorable game wherein we each thought we won or lost multiple times. His leyline of sanctity really messed up my gameplan. Eventually, I was able to D-Sphere it, but I had discarded most of my hand disruption to Ideas at that point. I was able to discard Lightning Storm, though. When I went to surgical his serum visions, (to stop him from winning the turn he casts lab man off ad nauseum), he decided to pact of negation it, which meant he had to spoils for an angels grace on his upkeep in order to hold up mana for echoing truth fpr my thopter army. I thought spoils of the vault would win me the game, because if he exiles lab-man it's over. But he doesn't seem to exile anything relevant. Then, after he puts down phyrexian unlife, I forget to make 1 thopter on my last open mana on his end step, and so can only put him to 9 poison the next turn. (Though he still had an echoing truth anyway). The next turn he resolves ad nauseum and I think it's over, but he needed a prism to filter to blue mana, and he put 3 in his sideboard, and exiled 1 with spoils, so it was luckily, and improbably gg.
Game 3: He didn't have leyline, and I quickly discarded/surgicalled ad nauseum, and that was gg.
Overall, record was 6-3 for 50th place out of 300 something, and had a great time. I lost to Tron twice, which wasn't really that surprising. All my games went pretty quickly, only went to time once. The whole day, the deck flowed pretty well. I was pleased with Ideas all day, thought that discard was the way to go, and Time Sieve was a useful role-player. I think, next time I go with a heavy discard/surgical plan, I'll put some number of field of ruin in the main/board to hate more on tron.
@thenobodys: I am glad to see you had some success! I never found you but I didn't get your PM until I got home. I was the guy in the bright red shirt and blue backpack. There was another tezzerator player there though! Watched him gain infinite life against titanshift lol.
My tournament report is TERRIBLE. I don't think I have ever had a worse day playing magic. On the drive down our car blew a tire on the highway and I had to change the tire with a broken arm (it has been broken since the start of may due to a racing car crash so it has healed some but not nearly enough). Got there with just enough time to wash up and get to my seat.
Round 1: Skred Red 0-2
Game 1: I ask him if he brought his fun deck and says that he brought the fun deck over his competetive deck. I joke that this will be enjoyable unless his idea of fun is turn 1 Blood Moons. Promises me no turn 1 Blood Moon. He is on the play and goes "Snow-Covered Mountain, pass" so no turn 1 blood moon but a turn 3 blood moon indeed. I had a needle in my opener so I proactively needled Koth of the Hammer. He had Chandra, Torch of Defiance in hand instead. I get an Ensnaring Bridge into play but fail to find any action flooding on lands and die to a chandra ultimate combined with his main deck abrade.
Game 2: I have a fast combo and am working through a Relic of Progenitus which I eventually hit with Pithing Needle. I take a turn off comboing to jam a tezzeret and he answers back with Koth killing my Tezzeret. The turn after that he abrades my combo, then Goblin Dark-Dwellers the abrade. The next turn he replicates a shattering spree to destroy all of my non thopter artifacts and Anger of the Gods all my tokens. I lose. I was a little salty I was beaten by an Anger of the Gods that shouldn't have been in his deck after sideboard but I shrugged it off and moved on to the next round.
Round 2: Naya Eldrazi 1-2
Game 1: Looks like I am playing against RG eldrazi so I prioritize getting a bridge down asap and do so on turn 2 on the play. He almost conceded but after drawing for his turn decided to play it out because he assembled the Eldrazi Displacer/Thought-Knot Seer lock. If you don't know how this works you essentially draw two cards during your draw step and he decides which one you get to keep. While the triggers were on the stack I Whired into the combo and he eventually died to thopters.
Game 2: I keep a turn 2 Ensnaring Bridge hand but he is on the play with turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer which strips my bridge. I have nothing and he follows up with Reality Smasher making quick work of me.
Game 3: I keep a hand with an Abrupt Decay, Damnation, and Ensnaring Bridge. I use my decay to kill a Stony Silence but lose both my Ensnaring Bridge and Damnation to Thought-Knot Seers. I proceed to draw back to back Tezzerets that are unable to find another Ensnaring Bridge and I die.
Round 3: RG Ponza 2-1
Game 1: I have the combo online before Blood moon hits the table and I use my mountains to make a thopter army which kills him reasonably fast.
Game 2: I have the combo pretty quickly again but he keeps me at zero to one land for over 10 turns until he finds Inferno Titan.
Game 3: I go to one at least 4 times in this game while trying to race an Inferno Titan with thopter tokens. Eventually I find an Ensnaring Bridge to stabilize and take over the game.
Round 4: Vialess Merfolk 1-2
Game 1: He concedes to a turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge.
Game 2: I got the combo into play through a spell pierce and a Deprive but by the time I did that he was attacking for way too much unblockable damage.
Game 3: I have the combo, 2 Ensnaring Bridges, a bunch of removal and he has answers for ALL of it. I felt terribly unlucky. After the games we are talking about sideboard decisions and he brought 13 cards in against me. Hurkyl's Recall, Echoing Truth, Negate, Deprive, Spell Pierce, Ceremonious Rejection etc. So maybe not unlucky, but found the guy with all the sideboard for me.
Round 5: Mono Blue Turns 0-2
I have a friend who plays this deck and this matchup is not winnable. I find Tron to be a more winnable match up. We have to kill them before turn 5 because none of cards interact with their game plan meaningfully and killing before Turn 5 is super hard.
Game 1: I get the combo going and attack him to 9 before he combos off and kills me with an Emrakul the Aeons Torn.
Game 2: I have T2 Dampening Sphere into T3 Dampening Sphere into T4 Tezzeret make a 5/5, T5 Make a 5/5. I know sphere wouldn't do much but it was better than other cards I had. I couldn't race fast enough and he combos off killing me with an awakened Island.
Round 6: Mardu Pyromancer 2-1
Finally a match up I was looking forward to.
Game 1: I get the combo together and he can't beat it.
Game 2: I am hellbent with 2 Ensnaring Bridge on the table plus 2 Welding Jars and I feel like I am in command of this game. He has 8 tokens in play but none of them can attack. I cycle a bauble on his turn which draws me into 2 lands on my turn. I play one land and then have to take a hit form his tokens. Draw another land the next turn and am forced to take a second hit from the tokens. Draw a fourth consecutive land and die to his token army. This lost felt terrible. Maybe I shouldn't have cycled the bauble at this point knowing that this is the ONLY way I lose from here but the odds of me drawing 4 lands in a row was less than 1.5%
Game 3: Game develops in such a way that I have lethal with a Tezzeret on the table and he misplays by attacking me instead of Tezzeret. He asked me what the ultimate did when I killed him with it. :/
Despite winning I didn't even feel good about this match knowing that I could have prevented a loss in game 2 and likely would have lost game 3 had the opponent read my cards.
Round 7: Tron 1-2
Game 1: I feel pretty good about my position having Pithing Needled Karn, combo online, Ensnaring Bridge in play and Tezzeret in play. He rips Oblvion Stone and wipes my board away. I play a second Foundry from my hand and use my Darksteel Citadel to begin the combo once again. He draws Ugin and exiles my Thopters and Thopter Foundry. I am able to end step a whir for a third foundry, combo, and have enough thopters to kill Ugin. He then has a World Breaker to destroy my Thopter Foundry. I draw Ensnaring Bridge for turn, He plays Ulamog to exile my bridge and I concede. EVERY time I get some hope against Tron they are able to cantrip through their deck to chain together ridiculous plays like these.
Game 2: I have the turn 2 Dampening Sphere while he does everything he can to stop Thopter combo. Eventually I am able to kill with a Tezzeret ultimate after he drew many lands in a row.
Game 3: He had the T3 Karn into T4 Ulamog on the play hand. I lost very quickly.
Round 8: Burn 1-2
My oppoenet was a few minutes late to the table but we weren't playing for anything of value so I decided not to call a judge and just play.
Game 1: I get the combo online T3 and make one thopter. He was on the play and was able to kill me on turn 4 with his Searing Blaze removing the blocker and burning me for 3 more.
Game 2: I have some removal plus the combo and he concedes while I was at 9 health starting to make thopters.
Game 3: I was at 3 life with one open mana after assembling the combo. He had an unknown card in hand plus a Swiftspear in play. I combo on my turn to play around a 3 damage burn spell on his turn but his last card in hand was a Searing Blaze which killed my thopter and let the Swiftspear get in for lethal. I don't know why he had Searing Blaze in after sideboard. We talked about board decisions after the match and he boarded out his Boros Charms for cards like Rest in Peace and Relic of Progentius. Which in my opinion is clearly wrong, Boros Charm is much better than Searing Blaze in the matchup and his Lava Spikes are better then RIP or Relic.
Round 9: My teamates were dead for top 8 so we headed for Subway and then back to Maine.
Overall I am super disappointed with the way my day went. I felt like I brought a configuration ill-equipped to handle the metagame I ended up facing. I was hunting Humans, Jeskai, Jund or any other non-linear deck but only found blood moons and linear decks. I felt like I played sub-optimally at times although I found myself to be a much better player than my opponent on average. Which is incredibly frustrating when you keep losing to them. (Players not reading my cards, didn't know how Thopter/Sword worked, Ponza player didn't know about new Blood Moon rulings, Tron opponent tried to Ugin away my Sword of the Meek, bad sideboard choices, destroying the wrong artifacts with hate, etc.) I don't know how much of it was me, my deck choices, or just bad luck. I lost more games on Saturday after assembling the combo than I have since Sword of the Meek was unbanned up to Saturday. It seemed like my opponent always had it and rarely could I stop them.
Maybe I will iterate on this list but I am going to think on it for a while before trying something different.
@racing089 - Sorry to hear you had such a rough outing. Having to change your tire on the way there is such a bad omen. I went up and down every row of tables in both rooms after my first 3 matches, but didn't see any Tezz anywhere.
In my experience with tourneys, winning the first match is huge because it sets you on a track of playing expected decks, as well as playig against more experienced pilots and faster players. Not that getting free wins when your opponent tries to blow up your sword with their valuavle removal isn't OK, but the overall experience of playing highly skilled pilots is much more rewarding.
The hihlight of my day was when, against Ad Nauseum, his crew who was done for the day started actively rooting for me when they saw Altar of the Brood. I also made my best play of the day there when I chose to attempt to exile serum visions - my opponent, who was a skilled combo pilot, basically told me so. If I had made that play against a lesser opponent, I might never have known if it was the correct decision or not.
I hope your next tourney goes better, and I expect it will.
I wasn't going to do a report but then I decided whats the point if we only read positive reports? Clearly some decisions in my list had to be incorrect in order to perform so poorly. Now everyone else knows not to do what I did. lol. I think I just fell for the trap of attempting to metagame Modern. Whatever you do just make sure your deck does something very powerful. You need to have draws that are near unbeatable when you draw well I don't think my list had that.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
This deck is very powerful game one. You have bridge and thoptersword which can just freewin vs any fair or creature deck. With whir you get five copies of cage, witchbane needle and damping Sphere which slams a lot of unfair combo decks. Those are top notch modern plays.
Game two and three we just lose all of that edge. Any deck vulnerable to our bullets will have answers, and i can't imagine a deck that loses to bridge not having an answer post board.
There's still a good deck here, it just feels demoralizing losing to ancient grudge, stony silence, and grave hate post board.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
@thenobodys great report and tough luck against Slivers and the double draw vs Tron for sure. We have a local player in our meta who runs a Sliver deck along with a very strong Human player and I find Torpor Orb is huge in both match ups. I run 1 main due to them and 1 sideboard, yes I know it kills our combo but we can always sac it to Foundry once we're confident we have a lock. @BadMcFadden agree on the game 1, I rarely ever loose a game one now even in the big events I attend.
I don't agree in feeling crippled at all in games two or three though. Depending on the build we can have just as many bullets from more discard, jars, damnation, Ashiok, Chalice, ensoul on a citadel for major beat down once their removal is out...tons of options available to us.
@jmelanson - Thanks! Torpor Orb is an interesting idea. It could help vs humans, D+T decks, the oddball slivers deck (that I don't expect to see in any meaningful event again), and maybe vs decks that play Primeval Titan (which also usually run rec sage). It's really close whether or not I would want to devote a SB slot to help in those specific matchups, or if I wouldn't prefer something like damnation.
@BadMcFadden - You're right that our deck becomes much more vulnerable post-board. That's why I like, and went with for the tournament, a lot of exile effects. Exiling ancient grudge or K command, while not a totally clean answer, can make the game closer to that game-1 state where our gameplan thrives.
I have also been thinking more about Torpor Orb. Other relevant matchups include Elves, Jekai Geist, (Snapcaster Mage $ SpellQueller/Restoration Angel) Mardu Pyromancer, (Shuts off Bedlam Reveler) Dredge, (Shuts off Prized Amalgam) CoCo Vizer, Amulet Titan and random Thought-Knot Seers. I am probably going to try one soon.
What are everyone's thoughts on trying to bring back some of the bigger stuff we use to play with more "fair" decks in the metagame? Cards like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine can be brutal at the right time.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Someday I really want to try a polymorph emrakul sideboard. That probably needs lingering souls too but all of these cards work well around grudge stony etc. That's nine board slots tho.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
I like the look of that list. 4 tezz seems like a lot but it looks like the right approach anyways.
What sticks out to me is that your routinely going to want decay pulse tez (6 slots) post board, plus anything specific to the match like chalice or legacy - assuming thats correct what are you generaly cutting after game one to make room for everything? You can generally shave one thopter one sword and one or two hate cards that dont work but whats next - talismans?
Not having damnation somewhere looks a little greasy too. Esp with your mana rock count making it a pretty reliable turn three play. Fast decks may get through before you find a bridge or before you can get it low enough.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Hey guys, wanted to hear any oppinions on this SB thought experiment:
I've decided to roll with the 4 surgicals in the board, with 6 discard spells main (including 2 brutality), and a couple of altars in the board. I just like the angle this attacks at. That's all groovy for combo matchups, but against tron, the altars will rarely mill a tron land in time.
To solve this issue, I thoght about going to BUG and playing 3 beast within in the slot that "answers" stony silence and similar permanents. Beast within hits lands on turn 3. These would be complimented by a single field of ruin in the main, which is all I'm comfortable running in order to hit 3 blue reliably. Beast Within would be a worse card than decay/pulse/detention sphere in all non-tron, non valakut matchups. Does this trade off seem worthwhile or too dangerous?
For reference, the complete board would look like:
@Magpie - The Revoker covers KCI combo, (needle in the main), as well as being a creature, so can be whirred for mid-combat to kill stuff like Katatki, etc. I would actually argue that discard/surgical covers a wider range of the meta than most silver bullets, while being less situationally useful.
I've played both Etron and UTron in the past and Chalice is an absolute all star there because those decks can easily play them on both 1 and 2. Only utilizing chalice on 1 feels weird. It's irrelevant about half the time, meh if only played on T2(especially on the draw) and doesn't defend itself against the most common hate such as Destructive Revelry and Ancient Grudge. Would something like 2x Trinisphere MB accomplish a similar thing? This is practically as powerful as Damping Sphere against Storm/KCI and works well with our gaemplan of just jamming all our mana into the combo while the opponent flounders with 3 cost spells. It's also much more Whirable than Chalice.
Regarding damnation - any creature deck that can blow your bridge? Humans, hollow one, elves, affinity, etc etc. Games two and three opponents will generally be able to blow up a bridge so having a sweeper as an alternate way to not die seems reasonable. I honestly havent played it enough to be sure its necessary but I have almost always played two between main and side to shore up any creature decks and let me deal with utility dudes more cleanly) queller, bob, scooze, meddling mage, thought knot seer, pyromancer, souls, lavamancer, etc). Maybe its better overall to just be all in on bridge or thopter to stop creatures and preserve your slots for other stuff - but its a pretty potent card considering its almost always one sided and can pretty reliably go off turn three if needed
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Damnation absolutely hoses Humans though, and for that I'll keep 3x in my board until Humans is no longer something to worry about.
Current Board ( for reference I maindeck 2 brutality and 3 thoughtseize )
3x Damnation
1x Padeem ( insane how much work this guy does protecting bridges )
3x Battle at the Bridge ( thinking of cutting at least 1, maybe all of them -- it does hose burn if you can hit a t2/3 battle for 4 and kill their guide / swiftspear -- being sorcery speed sucks though. )
3x Abrupt Decay ( too versatile to not play -- thinking of going up to 4 )
2x Herald of Anguish ( I like bringing this in for control matchups ... slowly gets you card advantage, can cast t3 / t4 )
1x Spellskite
1x Damping Sphere
1x Witchbane Orb ( This hasn't impressed me much because of the cost -- thinking of taking a second Sphere or something more versatile like a Needle )
I don't really feel that any deck is completely unanswered here, Surgical seems way too specific to me.
@coredumped Regardless of the brew I run 3-4 Glimmervoids and 2-3 Citadel are always in my manabase. It's just so useful for abrupt, double black or even the blue needed for an early whir imo.
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First, the list. I decided to eschew the chalices after all, and went with discard. I think discard performs close to the same function as a chalice - discard stops one spell preemptively, and chalice stops potentially one spell, potentially more, and since I wasn't playing darksteel citadel to enable chalice on turn 1, it wasn't worth it. I also decided, on the drive to the tourney, that I was going to go with a "turtle up and exile" strategy out of the board, (to maximize the effect of the discard), instead of a board with more specific hate-artifacts.
2 Mox Opal
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Welding Jar
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Sword of the Meek
1 Time Sieve
1 Damping Sphere
2 Ensnaring Bridge
Sorceries: 14
3 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
3 Ideas Unbound
2 Collective Brutality
2 Lingering Souls
4 Whir of Invention
Creatures: 1
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Land: 20
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Watery Grave
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 island
1 Swamp
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Altar of the Brood
2 Collective Brutality
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Detention Sphere
1 Ensnaring Bridge
The tournament was 9 rounds.
Round 1 - Grixis Death's Shadow, 2-0
Record - 1-0
Game 1: Early Bridge into combo.
Game 2: Topdecked a sword on turn 4 to compliment my 2 resolved foundries. He played discard on turn 1 to see 2 foundries and a whir, and chose to take the whir. He had a few turns to draw a Temur Battle Rage, but couldn't get there.
Round 2 - Tron, 0-2
Record - 1-1
Game 1: He's on the play and goes turn 3 wurmcoil, turn 4 Ulamog.
Game 2: He only saw Bauble and Tasigur, so he thinks I'm on GDS (so no artifact destruction). I mull to a sketchy 4 land, altar, whir hand. I whir for damping sphere, but topdeck nothing but lands while he slowly makes land drops and does nothing. Eventually, he O-Stones and emrakuls, forcing me to sac foundry to itself the turn after finally getting the combo.
Round 3 - Tron, yay!, 1-2
Record 1-2
Game 1: He keeps a sketchy 1 lander and I take advantage with discard.
Game 2: I'm close to infinite combo, but he gets there first.
Game 3: This is the biggest and really only "regret game" of the entire tournament. With a little careful thinking I could have gotten a tie, no question. With some even more careful thinking, which I did later, I could have gotten the W. So I've been jamming MTGO a lot, as people here may know. It's made me a fast, efficient, and relatively cool-headed magic player. What it hasn't prepared me for, at all, is going to time in a paper tournament, which is what happened in this match.
When we go to "turn 0," I have a board of Thopter Foundry, Sword, Altar, Needle on Ugin (which he has in hand), Damping Sphere, and 3 power worth of thopters, but only 4 land. He also has a relic with mana open, and I have an empty graveyard. In hand I have a whir, another altar, and I think an IoK. I'm at 4 life. He has a wurmcoil and a Karn at 3 which just blew up my spellskite. I swing and kill karn.
The winning play: Pass the turn holding up whir mana. This allows me to whir for phyrexian revoker or something else, or if not, to make a few thopters and chump-block the wurmcoil to prevent lethal. Then, on my next turn, I can cast cast Altar and make more thopters, and do it all over again. After 1-2 turns of milling 4/open mana thanks to the 2 altars, he would have lost due to being decked.
The sort-of obvious tie-play: Whir for Time Sieve, and hope to draw another mana source. If not, then pass and chump block and get a tie.
The losing play: Whir for time sieve, not draw another mana, then use time sieve to try to get ANOTHER mana by saccing valuable artifacts like damping sphere and altar, and fail. Why this play was SO STUPID was that I didn't realize how "going to turns" worked with extra turns. I could have never won with this line, because I would just take all 5 "final turns" doing my loop and then gotten a tie with his life total still in the twenties. A real missed opportunity, and I knew I wasn't thinking things through, but the judge was waiting over my shoulder and the situation was unfamiliar. Oh well, learn for next time I guess.
Round 4: UR Kiln Fiend, 2-0
Record - 2-2
Game 1: Somehow able to stay alive until whir for bridge.
Game 2: IoK on turn one takes his Kiln Fiend, his lone threat. I bridge up soon after.
Round 5: Titan Breach, 2-0
Record - 3-2
Game 1: I go infinite the turn before he has lethal, and I meet my only salty player of the day.
Game 2: An interesting game. I keep a hand with 2 surgicals, visions, and 2 ideas. (I think he's playing scapeshift, so I boarded in 4 brutalities). I dig and find foundry. He struggles slightly hitting search for tomorrows and tribe-elders instead of his natural land drops. He casts chalice on 1, and lands Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I'm at 7 life so I can cast exactly one more spell. I and have an ideas in hand, so I need to draw a sword. Fortunately, I dig up a sword, discard it to the ideas trigger, and then reanimate it on my end step saccing an altar. After that, my thopters out-race his Ruric Thar and 9/9 trample Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar.
Round 6: Humans, 2-0
Record - 4-2
Game 1: Finally, a humans deck! Turn one I cast Opal, Jar, Bauble, Bauble, Foundry. Cracking both baubles gives me a sword next turn, GG.
Game 2: I keep IoK, explosives, and bridge. I take a mage and see 3 more 2-drops, so I cast explosives for 2 turn 2 causing him to groan. The next turn I cast bridge and he groans some more. I turtle up behind a second bridge and eventually get the combo, all the while holding the explosives ready.
Round 7: Bogles, 2-0
Record - 5-2
Game 1: He has a relatively slow start, casting stuff like keen sense and lifelink on his 4-power bogle. Unfortunatley for me, this is bad, because I play a bridge and get stuck on 3 lands, drawing stuff like whir and brutality (which I can't cast thanks to his leyline). I can't ever get below my bridge, but I can cast explosives on 1, which I do. I think he could cracked a fetch for dryad arbor and suited it up for lethal next turn, but he may have missed that line or the arbor was in his hand. After that, I finally get a mana source and get a foundry.
Game 2: He doesn't find his hate, and I do my thing.
Round 8: Slivers, 1-2
Record 5-3
Game 1: Bridge, followed by combo.
Game 2: I know this matchup is really hard post-game, because harmonic sliver just takes over. If I had thought about it closely, I would have brought in all 4 surgicals to deal with Harmonic sliver on a permanent basis, but I didn't. I have a hand full of action, just a sweet hand, but a bauble tells me he has a harmonic sliver arriving the turn he can tick vial up to 3. I don't have removal in hand, so I don't want to bait it out, and I lose to a swing that I didn't realize was lethal.
Game 3: I still didn't think to bring in surgical, which is a shame, because I open up with IoK and see two harmonic slivers! Shoot. He smartly plays the control game, saving all his goodies in hand, and eventually I try to whir for combo on his end step, starting with a sword which I don't care if it gets blown up. He saves the harmonic in hand, and calmly plays Necrotic sliver, which I remove after he blows up 2 artifacts. I'm waiting for discard to force him to vial in harmonic, and for a minute I think I'm safe when I topdeck a Padeem. But he just plays Necrotic sliver number two, and it's GG. I guess this is the matchup where damnation is a necessity.
Round 9: Ad Nauseum, 2-1
Record 6-3
Game 1: He wins quickly with the combo.
Game 2: I bring in practically my entire SB. This was a wild, memorable game wherein we each thought we won or lost multiple times. His leyline of sanctity really messed up my gameplan. Eventually, I was able to D-Sphere it, but I had discarded most of my hand disruption to Ideas at that point. I was able to discard Lightning Storm, though. When I went to surgical his serum visions, (to stop him from winning the turn he casts lab man off ad nauseum), he decided to pact of negation it, which meant he had to spoils for an angels grace on his upkeep in order to hold up mana for echoing truth fpr my thopter army. I thought spoils of the vault would win me the game, because if he exiles lab-man it's over. But he doesn't seem to exile anything relevant. Then, after he puts down phyrexian unlife, I forget to make 1 thopter on my last open mana on his end step, and so can only put him to 9 poison the next turn. (Though he still had an echoing truth anyway). The next turn he resolves ad nauseum and I think it's over, but he needed a prism to filter to blue mana, and he put 3 in his sideboard, and exiled 1 with spoils, so it was luckily, and improbably gg.
Game 3: He didn't have leyline, and I quickly discarded/surgicalled ad nauseum, and that was gg.
Overall, record was 6-3 for 50th place out of 300 something, and had a great time. I lost to Tron twice, which wasn't really that surprising. All my games went pretty quickly, only went to time once. The whole day, the deck flowed pretty well. I was pleased with Ideas all day, thought that discard was the way to go, and Time Sieve was a useful role-player. I think, next time I go with a heavy discard/surgical plan, I'll put some number of field of ruin in the main/board to hate more on tron.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Darksteel Citadel
2 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Spells:
2 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Thoughtseize
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
1 Welding Jar
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Battle at the Bridge
1 Damnation
2 Damping Sphere
1 Duress
2 Fatal Push
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Welding Jar
1 Witchbane Orb
Game 1: I ask him if he brought his fun deck and says that he brought the fun deck over his competetive deck. I joke that this will be enjoyable unless his idea of fun is turn 1 Blood Moons. Promises me no turn 1 Blood Moon. He is on the play and goes "Snow-Covered Mountain, pass" so no turn 1 blood moon but a turn 3 blood moon indeed.
Game 2: I have a fast combo and am working through a Relic of Progenitus which I eventually hit with Pithing Needle. I take a turn off comboing to jam a tezzeret and he answers back with Koth killing my Tezzeret. The turn after that he abrades my combo, then Goblin Dark-Dwellers the abrade. The next turn he replicates a shattering spree to destroy all of my non thopter artifacts and Anger of the Gods all my tokens. I lose. I was a little salty I was beaten by an Anger of the Gods that shouldn't have been in his deck after sideboard but I shrugged it off and moved on to the next round.
Round 2: Naya Eldrazi 1-2
Game 1: Looks like I am playing against RG eldrazi so I prioritize getting a bridge down asap and do so on turn 2 on the play. He almost conceded but after drawing for his turn decided to play it out because he assembled the Eldrazi Displacer/Thought-Knot Seer lock. If you don't know how this works you essentially draw two cards during your draw step and he decides which one you get to keep. While the triggers were on the stack I Whired into the combo and he eventually died to thopters.
Game 2: I keep a turn 2 Ensnaring Bridge hand but he is on the play with turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer which strips my bridge. I have nothing and he follows up with Reality Smasher making quick work of me.
Game 3: I keep a hand with an Abrupt Decay, Damnation, and Ensnaring Bridge. I use my decay to kill a Stony Silence but lose both my Ensnaring Bridge and Damnation to Thought-Knot Seers. I proceed to draw back to back Tezzerets that are unable to find another Ensnaring Bridge and I die.
Round 3: RG Ponza 2-1
Game 1: I have the combo online before Blood moon hits the table and I use my mountains to make a thopter army which kills him reasonably fast.
Game 2: I have the combo pretty quickly again but he keeps me at zero to one land for over 10 turns until he finds Inferno Titan.
Game 3: I go to one at least 4 times in this game while trying to race an Inferno Titan with thopter tokens. Eventually I find an Ensnaring Bridge to stabilize and take over the game.
Round 4: Vialess Merfolk 1-2
Game 1: He concedes to a turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge.
Game 2: I got the combo into play through a spell pierce and a Deprive but by the time I did that he was attacking for way too much unblockable damage.
Game 3: I have the combo, 2 Ensnaring Bridges, a bunch of removal and he has answers for ALL of it. I felt terribly unlucky. After the games we are talking about sideboard decisions and he brought 13 cards in against me. Hurkyl's Recall, Echoing Truth, Negate, Deprive, Spell Pierce, Ceremonious Rejection etc. So maybe not unlucky, but found the guy with all the sideboard for me.
Round 5: Mono Blue Turns 0-2
I have a friend who plays this deck and this matchup is not winnable. I find Tron to be a more winnable match up. We have to kill them before turn 5 because none of cards interact with their game plan meaningfully and killing before Turn 5 is super hard.
Game 1: I get the combo going and attack him to 9 before he combos off and kills me with an Emrakul the Aeons Torn.
Game 2: I have T2 Dampening Sphere into T3 Dampening Sphere into T4 Tezzeret make a 5/5, T5 Make a 5/5. I know sphere wouldn't do much but it was better than other cards I had. I couldn't race fast enough and he combos off killing me with an awakened Island.
Round 6: Mardu Pyromancer 2-1
Finally a match up I was looking forward to.
Game 1: I get the combo together and he can't beat it.
Game 2: I am hellbent with 2 Ensnaring Bridge on the table plus 2 Welding Jars and I feel like I am in command of this game. He has 8 tokens in play but none of them can attack. I cycle a bauble on his turn which draws me into 2 lands on my turn. I play one land and then have to take a hit form his tokens. Draw another land the next turn and am forced to take a second hit from the tokens. Draw a fourth consecutive land and die to his token army. This lost felt terrible. Maybe I shouldn't have cycled the bauble at this point knowing that this is the ONLY way I lose from here but the odds of me drawing 4 lands in a row was less than 1.5%
Game 3: Game develops in such a way that I have lethal with a Tezzeret on the table and he misplays by attacking me instead of Tezzeret. He asked me what the ultimate did when I killed him with it. :/
Despite winning I didn't even feel good about this match knowing that I could have prevented a loss in game 2 and likely would have lost game 3 had the opponent read my cards.
Round 7: Tron 1-2
Game 1: I feel pretty good about my position having Pithing Needled Karn, combo online, Ensnaring Bridge in play and Tezzeret in play. He rips Oblvion Stone and wipes my board away. I play a second Foundry from my hand and use my Darksteel Citadel to begin the combo once again. He draws Ugin and exiles my Thopters and Thopter Foundry. I am able to end step a whir for a third foundry, combo, and have enough thopters to kill Ugin. He then has a World Breaker to destroy my Thopter Foundry. I draw Ensnaring Bridge for turn, He plays Ulamog to exile my bridge and I concede. EVERY time I get some hope against Tron they are able to cantrip through their deck to chain together ridiculous plays like these.
Game 2: I have the turn 2 Dampening Sphere while he does everything he can to stop Thopter combo. Eventually I am able to kill with a Tezzeret ultimate after he drew many lands in a row.
Game 3: He had the T3 Karn into T4 Ulamog on the play hand. I lost very quickly.
Round 8: Burn 1-2
My oppoenet was a few minutes late to the table but we weren't playing for anything of value so I decided not to call a judge and just play.
Game 1: I get the combo online T3 and make one thopter. He was on the play and was able to kill me on turn 4 with his Searing Blaze removing the blocker and burning me for 3 more.
Game 2: I have some removal plus the combo and he concedes while I was at 9 health starting to make thopters.
Game 3: I was at 3 life with one open mana after assembling the combo. He had an unknown card in hand plus a Swiftspear in play. I combo on my turn to play around a 3 damage burn spell on his turn but his last card in hand was a Searing Blaze which killed my thopter and let the Swiftspear get in for lethal. I don't know why he had Searing Blaze in after sideboard. We talked about board decisions after the match and he boarded out his Boros Charms for cards like Rest in Peace and Relic of Progentius. Which in my opinion is clearly wrong, Boros Charm is much better than Searing Blaze in the matchup and his Lava Spikes are better then RIP or Relic.
Round 9: My teamates were dead for top 8 so we headed for Subway and then back to Maine.
Maybe I will iterate on this list but I am going to think on it for a while before trying something different.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
In my experience with tourneys, winning the first match is huge because it sets you on a track of playing expected decks, as well as playig against more experienced pilots and faster players. Not that getting free wins when your opponent tries to blow up your sword with their valuavle removal isn't OK, but the overall experience of playing highly skilled pilots is much more rewarding.
The hihlight of my day was when, against Ad Nauseum, his crew who was done for the day started actively rooting for me when they saw Altar of the Brood. I also made my best play of the day there when I chose to attempt to exile serum visions - my opponent, who was a skilled combo pilot, basically told me so. If I had made that play against a lesser opponent, I might never have known if it was the correct decision or not.
I hope your next tourney goes better, and I expect it will.
U/B Faeries
U/B Tezzerator
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Game two and three we just lose all of that edge. Any deck vulnerable to our bullets will have answers, and i can't imagine a deck that loses to bridge not having an answer post board.
There's still a good deck here, it just feels demoralizing losing to ancient grudge, stony silence, and grave hate post board.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
I don't agree in feeling crippled at all in games two or three though. Depending on the build we can have just as many bullets from more discard, jars, damnation, Ashiok, Chalice, ensoul on a citadel for major beat down once their removal is out...tons of options available to us.
@BadMcFadden - You're right that our deck becomes much more vulnerable post-board. That's why I like, and went with for the tournament, a lot of exile effects. Exiling ancient grudge or K command, while not a totally clean answer, can make the game closer to that game-1 state where our gameplan thrives.
What are everyone's thoughts on trying to bring back some of the bigger stuff we use to play with more "fair" decks in the metagame? Cards like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine can be brutal at the right time.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
What sticks out to me is that your routinely going to want decay pulse tez (6 slots) post board, plus anything specific to the match like chalice or legacy - assuming thats correct what are you generaly cutting after game one to make room for everything? You can generally shave one thopter one sword and one or two hate cards that dont work but whats next - talismans?
Not having damnation somewhere looks a little greasy too. Esp with your mana rock count making it a pretty reliable turn three play. Fast decks may get through before you find a bridge or before you can get it low enough.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
I've decided to roll with the 4 surgicals in the board, with 6 discard spells main (including 2 brutality), and a couple of altars in the board. I just like the angle this attacks at. That's all groovy for combo matchups, but against tron, the altars will rarely mill a tron land in time.
To solve this issue, I thoght about going to BUG and playing 3 beast within in the slot that "answers" stony silence and similar permanents. Beast within hits lands on turn 3. These would be complimented by a single field of ruin in the main, which is all I'm comfortable running in order to hit 3 blue reliably. Beast Within would be a worse card than decay/pulse/detention sphere in all non-tron, non valakut matchups. Does this trade off seem worthwhile or too dangerous?
For reference, the complete board would look like:
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
U/B Faeries
U/B Tezzerator
Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/265094671
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
U/B Faeries
U/B Tezzerator
Current Board ( for reference I maindeck 2 brutality and 3 thoughtseize )
3x Damnation
1x Padeem ( insane how much work this guy does protecting bridges )
3x Battle at the Bridge ( thinking of cutting at least 1, maybe all of them -- it does hose burn if you can hit a t2/3 battle for 4 and kill their guide / swiftspear -- being sorcery speed sucks though. )
3x Abrupt Decay ( too versatile to not play -- thinking of going up to 4 )
2x Herald of Anguish ( I like bringing this in for control matchups ... slowly gets you card advantage, can cast t3 / t4 )
1x Spellskite
1x Damping Sphere
1x Witchbane Orb ( This hasn't impressed me much because of the cost -- thinking of taking a second Sphere or something more versatile like a Needle )
I don't really feel that any deck is completely unanswered here, Surgical seems way too specific to me.