Legacy Pox #5: Game Swap
Round One: Esper Stoneblade
Game One: I keep a good seven, with an Innocent Blood, three Swamps, a Liliana, an Inquisition, and a Sinkhole. Stoneblade goes first, fetching a pretty blackbordered, foreign Underground Sea and nabbing away my Liliana with his own Inquisition. I Inquistion on my turn, seeing a Wasteland, a Jace, two Stoneforge Mystics, and a Snapcaster Mage. I nab Snapcaster and pass the turn; Esper plays his Wasteland, passes, and I drop a Sinkhole on his Underground Sea. Esper plays a fetch on his third turn, gets a Scrubland, and plays a Stoneforge, with which he grabs Batterskull. I waste his Scrub, play an Innocent Blood, and Esper misses a land drop. I play a Swamp, pass the turn, and Esper plays an Island. He says go. I draw Nether Void and play it. From here, the game is all mine, though it lasts quite a while. He ends up wasting a Mutavault before it can kill him, but I have plenty of lands to cast Sinkholes and Smallpoxes. Eventually I draw Mishra’s Factory, which beats into him for a couple of turns, putting him at one life. He draws Wasteland to destroy the Factory, but I’ve got Smallpox in hand and kill him with it on my turn.
I board out: 4 Innocent Blood, 1 Pox
I board in: 3 Pithing Needle, 1 The Abyss, 1 Chains of Mephistopheles
Game Two: I keep a good seven again, similar to my first seven, but instead of an Innocent Blood I’ve got a Pithing Needle. Esper drops a land on his turn and passes. I Inquistion him, Esper casts a Brainstorm, and when my Inquisition resolves I see lands, a Force of Will, a Brainstorm, and a Ponder. I nab Brainstorm and pass. Esper drops a land and passes. I drop a land and pass. Eventually, Esper plays Stoneforge, grabbing a Batterskull. I’m worried, because I don’t have a way to kill the Stoneforge. Batterskull lands and begins to crunch up my face. Esper shoots up to 32 life, while I go down to 8. I draw into Factories and a Mutavault, allowing me to block Batterskull and kill it. I lose a Factory in this exchange. Meanwhile, though, I get a first and then a second Cursed Scroll on line. After Smallpoxes and Sinkholes (and a devastating attempt to cast The Abyss that ended in the tragedy of a counterspell), Esper only has three lands in play. He returns the empty Batterskull to his hand, and I control his small creatures with my two Cursed Scrolls. Esper sculpts with Brainstorm and Ponder; with four lands, he plays the only two cards in his hand: a Deathrite Shaman and a Dark Confidant. I think for a moment and decide to kill Dark Confidant first, thinking I do not want Esper to gain card advantage. This was his plan all along. After I kill Dark Confidant, I pass and Esper, using his Shaman to produce mana, plays the Batterskull that was on top of his deck. I kill it with two Cursed Scrolls, and on his turn, he equips the Batterskull to his Deathrite Shaman. Fortunately, he has to tap the Shaman to do so and cannot attack. On my turn, I Smallpox, getting rid of his Shaman and a land. By this time, a Factory and a Mutavault have beaten him down to nine life. I’m at seven. The manlands finish him off after a grueling match.
1-0
Round Two: Goblins
Game One: I keep a seven-card hand with Liliana, Sinkhole, Wasteland, two Swamps, a Cursed Scroll, and a Hymn to Tourach. Goblins plays a Mountain and a Goblin Lackey, in my heart I weep with elation because I can crush Goblins, and I begin to control the game with land destruction, Lily, and Cursed Scroll. Eventually, he’s got no lands and no creatures; his only hope is a recently played Aether Vial. I cast Nether Void, thinking that his one-creature-per-turn-with-vial is no match for Cursed Scroll and Void together. It isn’t, and I win.
I board out: 4 Hymn to Tourach, 3 Inquisition of Kozilek, 2 Nether Void
I board in: 4 Engineered Plague, 3 Pithing Needle, 2 The Abyss
Game Two: I keep a reasonable seven: Cursed Scroll, 1 Swamp, 1 Urborg, Wasteland, Tabernacle, Liliana of the Veil, and big Pox. Goblins plays Mountain and Lackey on his first turn, so I play Tabernacle on mine. He pays for Lackey, plays a land, puts a Goblin into play. I waste one of his lands on my turn, so he has to sac a goblin on his upkeep; he doesn’t sac Lackey. Gradually, he builds up lands and creatures and I can’t get Cursed Scroll active. Eventually, he has four lands and five creatures, after I’ve played Lily and watched her become murdered by green-skinned brutes. So on my turn I play big Pox. He sacs two lands and two creatures, and on his turn sacs a third because he can’t pay for all three Tabernacle triggers. I feel like I’m in good shape because I’m going to have Scroll active on my next turn, but Goblins plays Tin-Street Hooligan to destroy my Scroll, and so I lose.
Game Three: Nothing much to tell with this one. I have the god-hand against him: first turn Engineered Plague, a Pithining Needle, a Mishra’s, and a Tabernacle, among other things. I play the Plague on my first turn and the Needle on my second. Land destruction keeps him from playing any of his Goblins that have two toughness, and without seeing a single goblin land on the board, he concedes when I drop Cursed Scroll.
(As a side note: during this round, I noticed that Goblins was playing with all white-bordered cards, even ones that should have been black-bordered, like Rishadan Port. When I noticed this, I asked him what edition his Port was. He said that it was Masques, but that he’d taken acetone to the black borders. Incredulous, I said, “Why?!” He said, with a face as straight as a sober priest, “Because it looks really nice.” You be the judge on that one, readers.)
2-0
Round Three: B/W Stoneblade
Game One: I keep a decent seven, with Smallpox, Innocent Blood, two Swamps, a Lily, a Sinkhole, and a Wasteland. Stoneblade plays a Tidehollow Sculler on his second turn, putting my Smallpox in limbo. I play Innocent Blood and get my Smallpox back. Stoneblade plays Stoneforge to get Batterskull, and on my turn, I cast Dark Ritual and Hymn to Tourach. The Tourach is lucky enough to find Batterskull for me, and I then cast Smallpox to kill the Mystic—but Stoneblade sees two Factories and a Jitte, beating me down to six life. I finally see a Wasteland to kill one Factory, and my Cursed Scroll keeps the other one from killing me with an equipped Jitte. (He activates Factory, tries to equip, I respond with Scroll, he taps the Factory to keep it alive, can’t attack and has to reequip on his next turn.) I then drop a Nether Void to keep him from landing multiple threats. Cursed Scroll handles what he can land, and my second Wasteland paves the way for my two Factories to come in for the win.
Feeling like my maindeck served me pretty well in the first game, and not really knowing what would be better from the sideboard, I board in nothing.
Game Two: I mull to decent six, with Swamps, a Smallpox, a Scroll, a Sinkhole, and a Wasteland. Stoneblade nabs the Smallpox with Tidehollow Sculler, but this time I don’t see any additional creature destruction. He drops a bunch of creatures that murder me, including two spirit tokens from a flashbacked Lingering Souls.
I board out: 2 Nether Void, 1 Pox, 1 Inquisition
I board in: 2 The Abyss, 2 Engineered Plague
Game Three: This was a grindy match; we almost drew. After a lot of back and forth and two topdecks in a row that were just phenomenal, I come out ahead. The first topdeck is an Innocent Blood that kills the last of his spirit tokens, which had been equipped to a Jitte. If I hadn’t seen that Innocent Blood, I wouldn’t have been able to kill the spirit with my Scroll, and Stoneblade would have brought death to me via a flying apparition holding a legendary Japanese weapon—but, as I said, I topdecked the Blood. Next, I topdeck The Abyss, which kills the Stoneforge he has just played. His Jitte has two counters on it, which Stoneblade uses to go up to six life on turn two of the last five turns. On turn three, I take him back to two with two activated Scrolls, on turn four Stoneblade can’t do anything, and on turn five, I kill him with Mishra’s Factory. This epic win at the final moment brought a great sense of relief.
Round Four: The guy in second place and I decide to split the tournament winnings, so we draw without playing. I would have been okay with playing, but I had to get home before 8pm.
So that’s that. Another first place win. Sounds good to me.
Analysis: In my second game with Esper Stoneblade, I made a major mistake when I chose to kill Confidant over Deathrite Shaman. That could have cost me the game. If I’d have killed Shaman, Esper would have lost five life to the Batterskull on the top of his library and might not have even been able to play it. It turned out all right, but it could have been much worse. Additionally, though people have told me to drop down to two Scrolls, having two online on the board at this tournament saved me time and time again. To other Poxers: play three Scrolls! Having a second one on the board won't hurt you. Finally, though it did not win me my second game against Goblins, I feel justified in continuing to play big Pox as a one of in my deck. Lots of Pox players have taken it out, citing its life loss as too harmful to us. However, in the game two scenario with Goblins, what would have happened if I hadn't Poxed? He would have annihilated me with three extra creatures, and my Scroll would have been Tin-Street Hooliganed anyways. Play big Pox; just make sure you use it properly.
Overall Results:
Maverick: 1-1
Storm: 1-0
Esper Stoneblade: 2-2
Fish: 0-1
Counterburn: 1-1
Rug Delver: 1-1
Miracles: 0-1
Nic Fit: 1-0
Elves: 1-0
Goblins: 1-0
B/W Stoneblade: 1-0
(I'm not including here the final round draw and split with the guy in second place, who was playing Esper Stoneblade also.)
So now I'm at .588. Starting to look better.
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Posted Jun 2, 2013