Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Bastille #2 - Attacking from all angles, and faxing questions. Part 1. (PTQ winner’s report)

Welcome friends and perusers to my second article.  I had been meaning to write one for some time now but could not think of anything interesting to write about.  I mentioned in my last article that I would write about a blue/white do-nothing standard deck, but I decided that I would rather not shame myself by writing about an untested deck that featured Archive Traps and Rest for the Weary.  So…winning this last Detroit PTQ came just in time to give me something to write about, and I would have done it sooner but I’m lazy (I also thought that seeing the pool I was gifted would discredit my win, but I still had to play 8 rounds and draft in the top 8).

Well, let’s get to it; here’s the pool I opened and the deck I built out of it: 

 
Sealed Pool | The Rusty Machete








































And the build:























Pretty ridiculous right?  The stupid part is that after I built the deck I was complaining that it had no mana myr.  I felt that it really hurt the deck since I had expensive spells and mana sinks, which was the reason I excluded the 2nd Turn to Slag.  I’m still not sure if that was right because Turn to Slag is a great removal spell mainly because it kills a lot of the insane rares and also because it allows you to x-for-1 your opponent sometimes (I hear card advantage is pretty important in this format). 

I went back and forth during the building process on whether I wanted to play blue or not: Trinket mage is great when you have 3 targets and one of those is a Chimeric Mass.  Riddlesmith is much better in sealed than in draft and Darkslick Drake and stoic rebuttal are also very good.  I debated U/W, then U/W/r, but ultimately went with power/consistency and played W/R.  In retrospect I believe that this is the correct deck to build out of this pool and is, at most, 1 or 2 cards off.

About having no mana myr:  I didn’t miss them at all.  It’s strange how much emphasis were put on them at the beginning of scars limited (I believe LSV made a statement at one point that the number of mana myrs in your deck equates to how good it is, although that might’ve been for draft decks).  The one good thing they do is that they allow you to assume an aggressive role even if your deck isn’t very aggressive.  Knowing this my game plan was always to answer big threats and play the role of control until I play a game ender (to which I hope they have no answer for, and if they do…well, I had plenty of game enders).

Onto the report:
Round 1 vs. Bryan J. Fontenot with GB infect/not infect?
My opponent was someone whom I’ve played against locally and is a cool guy.  He didn’t really do a whole lot game 1 (I believe he kept a sketchy hand), and game 2 I had removal for his relevant cards and he had nothing for my dragon.
1-0 (2-0 in games)

Round 2 vs. Michael S. Hodgins with R/W
My opponent this round was a solid player with a not so solid pool.  He built his deck well though as he compensated for lack of power/removal with sheer speed/aggression.  He couldn’t answer any of my game enders and I had enough to draw at least 1 every game.  I can’t remember for sure, but I think he got a game off me.
2-0 (4-1 in games)

Round 3 vs. William Richardson with W/X/g
I can’t remember what his second color was, but game 1 was same as the first 2 rounds (good sealed pool is good).  Game 2 was much more interesting:  he played 2 Wall of Tanglecords and I couldn’t get through at all for a long time.  I drew a ludicrous amount of land which also didn’t help.  No joke, turn 25 or so I have a myr battlesphere, a couple of flyers, myrsmith, some tokens, a tumble magnet or 2 and he also has a ton of stuff.  I draw a Glint Hawk, play it, bounce the battlesphere, replay the battlesphere.  On my next turn I untap and, without putting too much thought into it (there really was too much going on, time was running out and the worst case was a draw),  I tap his walls and swing pumping the battlesphere fully (9 or 10 to the dome), and also sent in 2 flyers and a Vulshok Replica leaving the Myrsmith back.  This was a mistake as I got blown out by dispense justice (if I sent in the myrsmith, then my 2 flyers would’ve been able to get through for lethal).  Afterwards I realize that I’m dead, but instead he untaps, looks at his board and scoops (didn’t see his token I guess).  I’ll take it!
3-0 (6-1 in games)

Round 4 vs.  Chris J. Cuyar with R/B
This opponent’s deck was the only one I played against whose card quality was as good, if not better, than what I had.  Game 1 I fell behind and had to use my 2 Revoke Existence on his Darksteel Axe and Livewire Lash, then proceeded to lose to a Mimic Vat.  He also had 2 Trigon of Corruptions, Carnifax Demon, Skinrender, Galvanic Blast, Shatter, and a Contagion Clasp.  This game was very long, so after I won the next game, we only had a minute to finish the match and thus elected to call it a draw.  I can’t remember exactly, but I think I top decked a very timely and fortunate Myr Battlesphere where that was one of my 2 outs (Angel being the other) to not die and then went on to win the game.
Draw
3-0-1 (7-2-1 in games)

Rounds 5 and 6 I don’t recall very well, but I’m pretty sure I drew lots of gas both games and they just couldn’t handle the quality of my deck.

I’ll stop here for now.  Next week I’ll round out the swiss portion of the tournament and then talk about the draft and my plans for the pro tour in Paris.

Until Next time
Not mising wins, just winning it all.
-Basem
Posted by Gandhi at 11:31 AM

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the win

December 16, 2010 at 3:36 AM

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