Monday, November 1, 2010

Going for a Tumble: A Scars PTQ Top 8

After a dissapointing finish in Toronto, Kai, Kurtis, and I decided to drive down to Indianapolis for a chance to redeem ourselves at a PTQ.



The pool I registered was pretty unimpressive, with some removal but no real bombs to speak of. Then I was passed this one
Sealed Pool | The Rusty Machete









































Red is an obvious inclusion, with the Dragon, 2 Turn to Slag, Gavalnic Blast, and Shatter. After laying out several different versions, my options appeared to be playing mono-red, or playing a small amount of white or green. White gave me access to Razor Hippogriff, Glint Hawk, Origin Spellbomb, and Kemba's Skyguard, while green gave Slice in Twain, Acid Web Spider, and Alpha Tyrannax with the dual land to help fix mana along with the mox opal I was definitely playing.

I eventually settled on white, with my final build being:




























The Vulshok Replicas probably shouldn't have made the cut. Although the card is fine most of the time I ended up playing against a lot of decks that were very good at killing x/1's, and boarded both of them out in 5 of the rounds, and well as 1 game in another round. Usually 1 or 2 Snapsail Gliders came in, and the 16th land came in if I was fairly sure I was going to be on the play.

There were only about 120 people there, so 7 rounds were ahead of me.

Round 1: Vs. WB posion
My opponent is a more casual player from Indi, playing a rather unfocused deck with glint hawks and plague stingers.
Game 1, he plays a glint hawk idol on 2, which I Galv Blast after he pays to animate it the next turn. His follow up is a necropede, and I don't mind taking the infect hits while I play a Blade-Tribe Berserkers. He decides he has to arrest the 3/3 to continue attacking for 1 posion at a time, so when I play dragon on 6 he gets taught a lesson. Before he dies, he plays a plague stinger to show me that he actually cares about posion, so I keep that in mind.
Game 2, he gets stuck on 3 lands for the entire game. My dragon trades with a plague stinger and Grasp of Darkness, but Glint Hawk attacks him down to the point where I can kill with a 6/6 hasty beserkers.
This round highlights one of the key aspects of this format. Due to the high amount of artifacts, everyone gets to play almost all of their best cards, regardless of color since you only need to have ~5 cards of each color in your deck. Therefore, there are going to be a lot of bombs, and you have to save your premium removal spells (Arrest, Grasp, Turn to Slag, Shatter/Revoke Existance) for those. My 3/3 Berserkers basically could have traded for a necropede, and if my opponent had saved the arrest for my dragon game 1 would have been much closer.

Also, there was a nice water cooler located right outside the event hall, so all of us were able to stay hydrated between rounds. From round 3 on, the standard procedure was to win, get a drink, then go to the bathroom. When Brad Nelson tells you that staying hydrated is important, you should listen to the man.
Round 2: RW Metalcraft
Game 1, an early Myrsmith makes a lot of blockers to hold down the ground for several turns, but I have a late Glint Hawk and a Barrage Ogre to force through damage in chunks of 2. At one point, he attacks with everyone, obviously wanting me to attack back with my ogre+berserkers, so I play around the obvious Dispense Justice by only sending in the berserkers. He has it, but I still have a 3/3 and when the Glint Hawk shows up he eventually dies to it. Looking back, if my opponent had attacked differently I probably would have considered sending in both my guys to get blown out, but my opponent made it pretty obvious that he had it.
Game 2, He decides he has to immediately revoke a mana myr on 2. He later arrests a Golem Artisan, which was probably correct, but the Rusted Relic I have kills him in 4 attacks with the help of a metalcrafted Berserkers. Again, if my opponent had saved his revoke for an actual threat, I would have been attacking with only a 3/3 and would have been much less likely to win.

Round 3: RBu
Game 1, I have double tumble magnet to allow my Barrage Ogre and berserkers to kill him very quickly.
Game 2, he has Arc Trail and Galv Blast for my first 3 creatures, and I don't draw another for the rest of the game
Game 3, I keep 2 lands, 2 mana myr on the draw, but he has a turn 3 Embersmith which kills both myr, and I get stuck on mana. He has a Kuldotha Forgemaster, with 3 other artifacts in play including a tumble magnet for a while, while I only have a magnet and a Snapsail Glider. If my opponent had decided to Tumble my Tumble, activate forgemaster for the Steel Hellkite I knew he had in deck, then Tumble my blocker and attack, I was cold. He doesn't do this, however, deciding to waste counters on his magnet tapping things I wasn't going to use anyway. After 4 turns of my effectively being dead on board, I rip my 6th mana to play Hoard-Smelter, and he decided to pull the trigger, finding the masticore he also had in deck and dome me for 8.
Lesson from this round: Always be aware of everything that your cards can do. Tumble Magnet can tap artifacts as well as creatures, and if you have sometime like Forgemaster or Trinket mage that tutors for a specific card, know everything you can get with it, instead of just the best option in a vacuum.

Round 4: RW
I didn't keep detailed notes from game 1, but I know I played a Dragon and my opponents life total drope to 12, then 0, so I assume he didn't kill my dragon.
Game 2, he has 2 Galv Blast, a Dispense Justice, and a Revoke Existance for all of my relevent plays and I die fairly quickly.
Game 3, I keep a hand with a Mountain, Mox Opal, Silver Myr, 2 Perilous Myr, Tumble Magnet, and Horde-Smelter on the draw. I miss on lands for 4 turns, but draw a Blast to deal with his first guy, and he also doesn't do much. I eventually get a dragon into play and he dies.
I don't know what the hand he kept in game 3 was, but it was probably pretty loose if he couldn't beat my 1 land for 4 turns.

Round 5: Vs RB
Game 1, my opponent quickly assembles the combo of Darksteel Axe+Bloodshot Trainee. I don't have a Turn to Slag, and can't actually beat it. He throws in a Carnifex Demon for good measure.
Game 2, I play a turn 3 Rusted Relic, while my opponent plays 2 pieces of equipment and 2 Nihil Spellbombs. He concedes after 3 attack phases. Game 3, My opponent has an early lifestaff, but I have removal for his first 3 creatures, and only plays 2.

Round 6: Vs. RB
Game 1, He plays a Strata Scythe, equips to a metalcrafted Chrome Steed, and I die quickly.
This round, I board in my green package, since I know every relevent card in his deck is an artifact, making Slice in Twain good. Acid Web Spider gives another out to Scythe, and Tyrannaxes are bigger than Steeds. Game 2, Dragon kills him in 2 attacks.
Game 3, He has some early dudes, but I stabalize with Berserkers, Acid-Web Spider, and Tyrannax. With my dudes being much bigger than his, I eventually rip a Magnet to force through damage in chunks of 6, and Barrage Ogre gets in 6 as well.
Side note for this round: I was sitting at table 3, so I got to overhear the discussions between the 5-0's regarding ID's into top 8. There were exactly 4 5-0's, and 19 4-1's at the start of this round. Knowing that if the 5-0's draw this round, they are 100% to play another 5-0-1 and draw the next round, can you figure out what the correct decision is here?

Round 7 aka the win and in: Vs. RB
Game 1, he has a Galv Blast, Embersmith, and Skinrender to get very far ahead, but I have Dragon on 6 to win the game by itself. Sometimes you outplay your opponent to win, but this was not one of those game.
Game 2, however, was pretty tense. I have a Barrage Ogre with 3-4 artifacts in play for a while, using a perilous myr to get a 2 for 1 before returning it with Razor Hippogriff. At this point, he decides to play his Carnifex Demon with no mana up, so I get to throw the myr at his demon to get him. He can't deal with the ogre, and I eventually kill him with Hippogriff and Glint Hawk attacks with Trigon of Rage and Ogre forcing through additional damage.
If my opponent had waited until he immediately activate his demon, I was probably behind in that game, but its also possible that I simply could have killed him before he drew his 7th land. Still, his line of play was awful, so I was able to get there.

Kai was also in top 8 after ripping Carnifex Demon in game 3 of the last round to immediately go from extremely behind to "how do I lose?".

The top 8 contained myself, Kai, Gabe Walls, his roomate, and 4 unknowns, of which 2 clearly didn't know what they were doing. One of the 5-0-2's did miss, and watching his reaction when final standings were posted was pretty funny. I was seated 2 to Kai's left, with the person to my right being fairly unexperienced, and the person to my left being decent.

The plan going into a PTQ top 8 draft is somewhat different from a regular FNM or team draft. Since the only relevent place is 1st, anything other than a 3-0 is a loss. With this in mind, you want to have a plan in mind very early. Forcing a strategy can be correct, since you almost certainly win if the cards are there, and you don't want to be changing colors late unless you absolutely have to. There's also slightly more reason to hate draft than a typical 8 man, though only if you think one of the people sitting next to you is 100% to meet you in the finals (pairings work so the people across from each other meet in the first round, then play the people 2 seats away from them in the semis).

My game plan was to try to be Red. Red/x non-metalcraft is a very powerful deck, and in something like a PTQ top 8 where people are generally going to draft according to set mechanics, it is likely to be open. The deck generally involves taking the most powerful colored cards with your first few picks, while metalcraft drafters are busy taking artifacts and poison drafters need to pick infect guys. Cards like Galv Blast, Arc Trail, Embersmith, and Scrapmelter are all insane, and are better in draft then sealed. Blue pairs well with red, giving you fliers and counterspells to improve your end game, and Black and Green are also good at giving you the late game cards red is lacking.

I first picked a Cerebral Eruption over some blue cards and a Revoke Existance, cementing me in red for the most part. I then took a Necrotic Ooze over some blanks and a Perilous Myr, which may have been wrong, but the Ooze has a lot of potential to be insane and I'm not necessarily commiting to black. In the rest of pack 1 I cut Black and Red as much as possible, taking colored cards over artifacts, those of note being a Bloodshot Trainee and a Furnace Celebration that might not make the cut but I would rather not pass. In pack 2, I saw basically no red cards, despite me passing 0 playable red cards in pack 1 and the guy to my immediate left being in posion. I first picked a Sword of Body and Mind, which is pretty sick, though, and got some good black cards to round things out. Pack 3, things kinda fell apart, as the person to my right decided to move in to black after getting shipped a Carnifex Demon 4th, so instead of my deck being insane it ended up being about 3-4 cards short. Obviously he played the Demon, as well as a Skinrender and Instill Infection in his UW metalcraft deck and lost quickly in round 1.

The deck I registered was this:

























The Allergies are reletively bad in my deck since I didn't have a way to make tokens, but that could still trade up in creature quality while forcing through damage. Since the Vampires were never going to be metalcrafted I left them on the sidelines. The Trainee can be pumped by Sword or Trigon, and is a nice combo with Ooze that people might not notice.

Top 8: Vs. Gabe Walls with GR
Game 1, I play some early dudes and play+equip sword after he taps out for mindslaver. He chumps with now irrelevent myr, then slavers me when I have no cards in hand, which would effectively time walk me. The draw for my turn is of course flesh allergy, so he kills both my guys, then drops a Tower of Calamities and I'm locked out.
Game 2, I again get an early sword and get in 1 hit before turn to slag kills my myr and the sword. I manage to hit an eruption for 5 immediately, though, and after a few attacks Exsanguinate finishes him off
Game 3, I mulligan to 6, and he simply has enough removal to survive long enough to lock me out with tower.


Gabe ended up winning the event, making me feel a little better, but I still wonder if I would have gotten there if not for the Allergy. The PTQ season is a little over halfway over, and I should probably get 2 more shots at Paris, so its up to me to win one.
Posted by Matt McCullough at 5:30 PM
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1 comment:

Kmaster said...

Would've played Censor and 4/3 Vampire over 2 Flesh Allergies. I don't have the fear of bomb creatures in draft as much. And you should be able to put your opponent in a very defensive position with any bombs he does have.

November 1, 2010 at 6:01 PM

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