Monday, November 1, 2010

Putting the Pro in Proliferate: A Scars PTQ Top 8

This past weekend Matt, Kurtis, and I headed to Indianapolis to play in a Scars sealed PTQ. Two of us Top 8'd , while Kurtis finished a bit out of the money. Matt and I had very different pools and strategies that got us through the swiss, so I felt it worthwhile to write about my experiences. Enjoy!

The pool:

Sealed Pool | The Rusty Machete












































It's a good exercise to attempt your own build of this pool since it is quite deep. There are many playables and several viable builds, each with their own temptations. This pool is stronger than an average sealed pool, but it also more diverse and thus presents an interesting challenge. In fact, every artifact except Vector Asp is playable, and that's only because of the presence of very few poison creatures.

In the interest of allowing our readers some time to build and analyze the pool, I'm going to go into a brief non sequitur. On the ride to Indy,  we discussed the two most important elements to PTQ Success. Stay hydrated, and no lax plays. For clarification, these are references to Brad Nelson's Channelfireball article on hydration and Level 3 Pro Ari Lax. As funny and annoying as it is (Hi AJ!) to constantly say "staying hydrated?" at an event, it is actually pretty important. Being dehydrated affects your play negatively, and most of the time you won't even realize you're dehydrated. As empirical proof, Matt and I top 8'd, while Kurtis 1-2 dropped. What did we do that he failed to do? Stayed hydrated before round 3.

On lax plays: avoid these as much as possible, though once one is made, just accept that you got blown out due to a play error and continue on. Re-evaluate the board position and don't dwell on the mistake. You aren' t going to get your guy back by kicking yourself.

Alright, time to get back to the pool. The primary things to notice are:
1. There are not enough infect creatures to play the infect deck.
2. There are 3 Shatters and no other relevant red cards.
3. There are Carnifex, Skinrender, and otherwise painful dearth of playables in black.
4. White is very strong with 2 Arrest, Myrsmith, Glint Hawk and 3 Idols. 2 Gold Myr make this gravy.
5. We have a strong incentive to proliferate, with multiple Trigons, Tumble Magnets, and Demon
6. Green is fat and a Sylvok Replica.

I decided the White would be played for sure, and that the Shatters would make premium splashes. That left the question of whether to play black or stick to a R/W deck, possibly splashing for Sylvok Replica. I ultimately decided on black since the red cards are all pretty bad, and in a sealed PTQ you will need bombs in the later rounds to beat your opponent's bombs, and Demon plus Contagion Engine or Contagion Clasp or Trigon of Corruption is a nearly unbeatable endgame.























I chose to run the white package with aggressive Idols rather than a slower 4 color green deck, splashing for Arrests. This decision was made with deference to stability over power since the deck as is had plenty of power and making the 4 color deck would just make me more liable to lose games to color problems. I chose to leave out Trigon of Rage and Snapsail Glider as the Glint Hawk Idols constituted more than capable beatdown force, and Rage would lead to severe tempo loss if the Idol was removed, and Glider is pretty unimpressive unless metalcrafted, which is never a certainty. I could've played it over the 17th land, but the deck had plenty of uses for extra mana, between activating Idol, Rust Tick, Trigon, Demon, and proliferating.
I planned to board in the Replica package if the matchup was a slow grind involving many artifacts, and had a plan in the back of my head to go 4 color green if my Idols were particularly vulnerable to Shatters/Revokes and the opposing deck was weak to huge green creatures.

If you had another build that you believe is superior, be sure to post a comment!

On to the tournament!

Round 1: U/x Aggro

Game 1: I kept a one lander on the draw with multiple 2 drops. I miss for a turn but hit on turn 3 and easily beat his Memnite and Neurok Invisimancer beatdown with superior card quality.

Sideboard: none

Game 2: He leads with Myrs and Invisimancers and a Golem Artisan. I am able to Idol him down while under minimal pressure after I arrest his Artisan. He plays a few more x/1's and Engine wraths him. I Skinrender his Argent Sphinx and he dies the turn before he would get to 8 for Platinum Emperion.

Round 2: R/W aggro

Game 1: I kept 2 land, Myr, 2 Idol on the draw. I draw no more lands and both Myrs I play get killed. I am soon dead to a Scrapmelter and friends.

Sideboard: I considered bringing in Glider to deal with his Idols, but I was uncertain I would  be able to keep metalcraft. So I didn't change the deck.

Game 2: We have a pretty reasonable race with my 2x Idol versus his Palladium Myr and 2/2. My Idols get removed so I just have some 1/1's left. The Demon shows up and lets me trade my 1/1's on defense, before killing my opponent in two hits.

Sideboard: -1 Idol +1 Culling Dias. He had played 4 Shatters over the first 2 games, leading me to board in Dias to mitigate its crushing power.

Game 3: His apparently kept 5 land Chrome Steed and Arc Trail. His Arc Trail is min value as he uses it to kill my Rust Tick after I blocked his 2/2 Steed. I figured the Trail was coming, which is why I played the Tick instead of Myrsmith and was fine with the trade since it allowed my follow up Myrsmith to dominate the board and eventually kill him.

Round 3: Michael Pozsgay with G/W
He's a good player from the midwest and I knew it would be a difficult round.

Game 1: He plays a Precursor Golem and I can't find any of my Shatters and die.

Sideboard: Nothing.

Game 2: This game goes super long as he is able to kill every myr and Idol I have with Rachet Bomb and Sylvok Replicas, leaving me with no offense. However I assembled Contagion Engine, Tumble Magnet, and Trigon of Corruption to lock him out of being able to deal relevant damage to me. He concedes the game to save time for game 3.

Sideboard: +1 Forest +1 Razorverge Thicket +1 Sylvok Replica -1 Perilous Myr -2 Plains
He showed me more of his deck in game 2, including 2 Sylvok Replicas and a Etched Champion, making the Sylvok more desirable.

Game 3: He gets stuck on 3 lands for a while and I have active Myrsmith. I set up a lethal attack even through  the topdecked 5th land and Precursor Golem. He is a master and does topdeck the land, so I Trigon a token EOT. On my turn I have 9 lands and if I topdeck the 10th I can play and activate Engine for all his golems, and if I miss just play Engine and activate Trigon to kill him through the two remaining blockers. Instead I topdeck an Arrest, so I don't have to show the Engine to the spectators that had gathered.

Round 4: UBR

Game 1: He gets stuck on 3 lands and I kill him with Idols through little resistance.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 2: I walked a Rust Tick into Halt Order early in the game rather than passing the turn, which was probably wrong. The game continues for a long time as he gets double Sky-Eel School while I have double Tumble Magnet. On the critical turn I have 1 last counter on my Magnet but choose not to tap the Eel, taking three from it and one from a myr to go from six life to two. My reasoning was that I have Contagion Clasp and Engine in the deck, making a Magnet on 1 counter much stronger than one on zero since it can be proliferated. Instead of topdecking either of them I rip Skinrender, which kills the Eel. He kills me with Arc Trail the next turn. I think I played correctly though any insight would be appreciated.

Game 3: I get stuck with 2 Shatters in hand and no red mana. I die pretty much singlehandedly to a Rusted Relic even though he could've killed me much more quickly by Tumbling my Tumble Magnet.

After this round I concluded -1 Plains +1 Mountain as a sideboarding variation when facing down faster metalcraft decks so as to cast Shatter more consistently on Kurtis's advice.

Kurtis was scolded by Matt for not staying hydrated between round 2 and 3, thus resulting in an inevitable 1-2 exit.

We durdle around for a while as the round is not near finished. Matt and I are both x-1 and need to win out due to the small size of the PTQ. We get hydrated.

Round 5:  R/U

Game 1: Game One goes pretty long with a very close race between my hawks and his Scrapmelter. I pull it out without any broken bombs on the back of some Arrests.

Game 2: He lands a Strata Scythe and I am unable to remove it, resulting in a swift loss.

Game 3: I have an early active Myrsmith, which creates a mass of tokens to create pressure, then later to chumpblock a 8/8 Chimeric Mass and a Strata Scythe'd guy. He plays Snapsail Glider and attempts to equip, but I see the play of killing my own Perilous Myr with Trigon of Corruption to remove his flier in response. This buys me enough time to draw and play Demon. I make the correct block against his alpha, carefully not blocking with Demon so his two Perilous Myrs can't kill it after dying in combat. The Demon takes it down a turn later.

Round 6: U/W

Game 1: He plays some guy. I don't play Engine as he has WWU up and zero pressure. He taps down to WU on his next to so I Engine his team and he can't recover.

Game 2: He plays Kemba's Skyguard on 3, which I answer with Contagion Clasp + Glint Hawk. He plays Darkslick Drake next, and I Clasp that and pass. His next play is another Skyguard, and I just pass the turn back. He plays and equips Strider Harness to Drake and bashes, I shatter the Harness for no reason instead of just taking 4 since I have Demon next turn. He has no answer to the Demon and after proliferating his team down and always attacking with 2 creatures to play around Dispense Justice, I win the game.

Chuga Chuga Choo Choo. One more to go.

Round 7: URW

Game 1: He mulligans to six on the play but still has a blazing start involving Horizon Spellbomb, Glint Hawk, and Kemba's Skyguard. I'm fine with this as I'm playing some myrs and a Rust Tick. Then he plays Venser, blinking Necrogen Censer, and I'm suddenly dead if I don't remove the Censer. I rip the Mountain for Shatter, and manage to kill venser. However I can't answer Darksteel Axe on Kemba and die to cats shortly after.

Sideboard: +1 Mountain +1 Snapsail Glider -1 Plains -1 Perilous Myr
His offense is almost entirely fliers.

Game 2: I Contagion Engine a Myr token equipped with Lifestaff and a 2/2. My Tumble Magnet continuously gets boosted by the Engine and I lock him out of combat while a motley crew of 1/x's deal lethal damage by ignoring the Venser he played the turn before his Bloodshot Trainee would've taken over the game. Careful use of Tumble Magnet and Rust Tick against his Tumble Magnet and creatures allowed me to win this game.

Game 3: I keep a reasonable hand on the play with Myr, Rust Tick, Tumble Magnet and lands. I end up super far behind to Darksteel Axe, Auriok Replica, Myr Token, Ghalma's Warden, and Glint Hawk Idol. I manage to minimize damage with 2 Tumble Magnets and Ticking down the guy that he equips every turn. I am one turn away from dying even with my Magnets and have to draw Engine or Clasp to survive by killing guys and proliferating the Magnets carefully kept at 1 counter each. Instead Demon shows up to instantly brickwall his team. Next turn, the Warden suits up with Axe and gets Tumbled since I only had one Swamp untapped. He does nothing and passes. The next turn he enters combat and I let him attack. He swings with just the Warden, and I block with Demon, activating twice. This kills his Warden, Myr token, and Replica, leaving his Idol and my Rust Tick in play. He has no followup besides Kemba. I play my own Idol and kill him two turns later. On the last turn of the game I failed to play around Metalcrafted Dispense Justice by not also attacking with the Rust Tick. However he had ripped a land, which was easy to play around.

Matt also made top 8, so we got hydrated and settled down to draft.

My p1p1 was between Razor Hippogriff and Trigon of Corruption. I took Hippo on the notion it was stronger in metalcraft whereas Trigon is overall stronger and more flexible. I get passed 3rd pick Revoke Existence and 4th pick Grand Architect so I'm all in on U/W. I see no more strong white cards besides another Revoke, and I don't get enough metal to enable the 3 Certarchs I take. Pack 3 pick 4 there is a Carnifex Demon, which I fail to take and jump into black. After this disaster I get 5th pick Skinrender and 6th pick Necrogen Scudder, both of which I have to ship. I do get a 7th pick Volition Reins, but it isn't nearly enough compensation for all the black I failed to take.

The Top 8 lists are available here: http://www.pastimes.net/news/2010/oct/31/indianapolis-ptq-paris-top-8-results-and-draft-dec/ (the page may not load correctly, if that happens, refreshing should take care of it)

My first game I revoke a Heavy Arbelest instead of Bladed Pinions, which allows his metalcrafted Auriok Sunchaser to brickwall my 3/3 Trinket Mages. Due to this error I lose the game. Though I am also stuck on 5 lands with both Reins in hand, but excuses are excuses.

The second game he plays Embersmith on 2, so I have to wait till turn 6 to drop both Invisimancers and hope he's out of artifacts. He's not, and Darksteel Juggernaut pummels me shortly after.

I have a few more chances to win PTQ in this format, and should have no problem top 8'ing. Definitely have to draft better though. Hopefully we'll be able to get a Trusty Machete on the Tour before the season closes. Stay tuned to find out!

Lessons Taught.

Posted by Kmaster at 9:16 PM
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2 comments:

Shian said...

Necropede + Proliferate seems pretty good, though I'm not sure what you'd cut for it.

Shian

November 2, 2010 at 12:48 AM
Kmaster said...

I considered it as Necropede is also a good defensive creature. Ultimately Perilous Myr was better overall and I had very little room to fit in the cute plan E.

November 3, 2010 at 5:22 AM

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