I’ve been
meaning to pen something for the Rusty Machete for quite some time,
so I’m taking a page from Basem’s book and using a tournament win
as a catalyst. In the future, you will likely see articles about my
favorite formats; Cube, Type IV and EDH or about collecting as that’s
really what I’m best at, but for now this is what I call a
tournament report.
I started thinking about what to play a
week or two before the event. I have a few Legacy decks that are in
a state of mostly built; Mono Red Burn, Imperial Grindstone and
Affinity. I actually had never taken apart old extended to Legacy
and it took just a few card changes to update it to Gandhi’s new
list. I promised a friend they could borrow Mono Red. I was hanging
with Basem thinking of what to and once he said I could use his
Vengevine, it was just a question of choosing which Survival Deck,
while agreeing to let him play Imperial.
I looked up a bunch of Survival decks
at Star City’s site and found a blue green list that I liked. It
was by Zach Strait, and can be found here;
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=35427.
I built it and play tested it on Friday
night with a whole bunch of the Rusty Crew at my house. I got a good
feel for playing the deck but certainly not enough to not make a
bunch of play mistakes, but just enough to allow my opponents to punt
to me during the first two rounds of top 8. There was also tons of
last minute issues that came up, so here it is:
Lesson 1. Build your deck and
sideboard a few days, if not a week before the event.
I realized that I didn’t have (or
couldn’t find deep in the bowels of my collection) 4 Basking
Rootwalla! Thanks to Dylan Imre (of Get Your Game On) I was saved, but it could have
been a major problem because the deck just won’t work without them.
I built the sideboard minutes before the event started and messed up
big, forgot the Spell Pierce package and accidently added two
Extirpates that I would have been fine with if I had decided to play
the Necrotic Ooze version of the deck. DOH!
Well, once things got going it was time
to play some Magic! Round 1 my opponent and I are pile shuffling and
getting ready to play when he pile shuffles a second time and I make
some mild joke about him being more of a compulsive shuffler then
myself. Turns out he noticed he didn’t actually have a 60 card
deck, we quickly got the judge explained the problem and he added a
basic land or something. Worked for me as I used the extra time to
eat my Chinese food from next door, mmmmm.
Lesson 2. Register 60 Cards
When I went to register my deck, I
wrote a little number along the page with the total deck count as I
went along; I also do this at sealed events. I’m doing it mostly
to make sure I don’t miss any cards in my deck on the list and lose
a game to a silly clerical error. It would have saved my opponent
from replacing a real card with a basic land.
He played a white / black deck that got
out a Tombstalker (that’s the delve guy right?) while playing
around Daze early, then a couple turns later did it again and I just
conceded game one. I don’t remember anything else but I won the
next two games. 1-0
Round 2 I played Chris with Zoo. As I
was getting my deck ready my opponent was commenting on / questioning
my sleeves. There were about 6 or 8 cards with ‘more bent corners’
and maybe 20 or more with slightly bent corners and some with very
little bend. Now, after the fact I could certainly see my why my
opponent would call this into question, but at the time I was a bit
miffed and didn’t even want to talk about it. I told Chris to call
a judge if he thought there was an issue and he did. It quickly got
cleared up with the judge saying the 6 cards in question were very
random and not a way of marking for information. I think part of the
reason I was miffed so much was due to the fact that I had to play
Ben Porter with the most disgusting dirty marked sleeves ever and
asked a judge at the time (after the match), they said it wasn’t an
issue so I think I took offense when my much cleaner then Ben sleeves
were questioned.
Lesson 3. Have fun!
That was two rounds in a row I was at a
table where a judge was called before any play started. For a minute
had that ‘I want to beat my opponent’ feeling, but Chris was
actually really nice to play against and I started having fun again.
Round two was fun and I won. 2-0
Lesson 4. Don’t Play loose!
Ok, this actually happened in round 1
but I forgot to put it there and I would have to re-number a bunch of
the lessons, we’ll see if this makes it through the editor (It made
it. -G). The sequencing doesn’t really matter for the article it
could have happened in any game. I play a lot of magic, mostly
casual EDH or Type 4, often under the influence of libations. I play
sloppy. I play loose. I must break this habit, as if you play loose
regularly you will play loose in tournaments.
I went to fetch a land, then use its
mana to discard a card to Survival at the end of my opponent’s
turn. Then I go to start my turn and a bunch of players watching the
match react. I could tell someone fucked up, and that usual means
me. After a short pause I point out to my opponent that I never put
the land in play and called the judge. I got so lucky that it didn’t
cost me the game. A play mistake like that with a deck that is so
dependent on the right number of green mana for Survival could easily
have cost me the game, luckily it didn’t.
Round 3 was with my good friend Basem
playing my Imperial Grindstone. Before the match started I told him
we should demand each other’s cards back and then we would just
have to draw. We had actually tested this match up the night before
and it seemed to favor Grindstone. I don’t remember the details of
the match, but it was fun to play with Basem and I won (always
helps). 3-0
Round 4 was the mirror match though
against the Ooze build. I also don’t remember much, I was playing
Craig who is a nice guy and game three went to turns, with Craig
winning on turn 3. Now there may be a lesson in pacing your play, as
I tend to often play way too quick, but with all that’s been going
on I will leave that for the real Magic writers to tackle. 3-1
Round 5 Draw in after a minute of
checking things over 3-1-1 into top 8
Top 8 Round 1 – vs Ad-Tendrils
Lesson 5. Know the format!
Ok, so keep in mind that I don’t know
the format too well. Ari Lax was over for the Friday night testing
with his version of the deck but I didn’t end up playing against
him somehow. I win game one and don’t board out anything as I just
want to beat him to comboing out really. Though this is where the
spell pierce would have been insane, tossing out a few Aquamoeba
(remember lesson 1). Now it’s my turn and I have two options,
Wasteland one of his lands, or play a fetch and have a mana up for
Stifle. If I knew the format I would certainly have known the right
choice, waste his one land to keep him from going off, or better yet
known how important Spell Pierce could be there. I waste his land
which was clearly the right choice. I did try and lay my fetch land
too at the end of my turn, revealing information that I didn’t
need to, really didn’t matter in the end, but does refer us back to
lesson 4!
Lesson. 6 Play it out!
Ok, so I don’t know how Legacy
Tendrils works, I only know Vintage so my opponent starts going crazy
and playing spells and getting a huge storm count and plays Ad
Nauseum to 2 life, with (me not knowing) all the things he needed to
win in his hand. Now many players would have conceded at this point,
but I just sit there watching him do his thing with various short
pauses before saying resolve, as I didn’t have a counter spell
anyhow. Finally he says/indicates that he is playing Thoughtseize, I
make a very short pause before starting to flip my hand to reveal
when we both look at each other in the eye’s and realize what he
has done, that being cast Thoughtseize at 2 life. I’m just going
to remember that I won game one and certainly could have taken game
three if he hadn’t punted me in to top 4! 4-1-1
Top 8 – Round 2 – vs Canadian
Thresh piloted by Ben Topping
We each won a game easily if I remember
correctly and then I mull to 5 and keep a pretty weak hand. Then I
draw a bunch of Wastelands off the top and from what people tell me my
opponent punted by not forcing my creature spells I cast. I win with
a Basking Rootwalla, Memnite and Aquamoeba vs a Nimble Mongoose and
an opponent with no land. 5-1-1
Finals – Round 3 – vs Zoo piloted
by Chris again.
I had asked Ben if he wanted to Top 4
split, it had been a long day and I would have been happy to head
home and relax. Ben wanted the Mox, I don’t blame him. I asked
Chris if he wanted to play or split and would have been happy with
either. At least it wouldn’t have taken too long with our decks.
We split, I got to claim first and the Mox with Chris choosing to
drop, rather than concede.
Lesson 7. Play Net Decks.
Look, I love cool decks and doing fun
things, and I have EDH for that. When I play Magic in a large event
I look for the best deck and play that. I split the Top 4 at another
big Legacy Event when I played Reanimator before they banned
Mystical Tutor. Actually this is where I played the mirror match
against Ben Porter with the really dirty sleeves, but that’s
another story. Ask me if you see me.
Lesson 8. Collect by winning big cards
in big tournaments
Oh, did you think I was done? No sir.
I got to put a really cool Mox in my binder after all was said and
done. I saw Brian Demars win back the set of power he needed to play
by winning big events, if you are good enough (or work to become good
enough) it can be done. We will also see more of these kind of
events held if the turnout is strong. There is another Legacy event
being held at WCC on Jan 22 (finally got the right date, sorry for
anyone I gave incorrect info), first place gets one of each dual land
and second gets a play set of Force of Wills. 5-8 get a playset of
one fetch land. I’m going to try and make sure I’m there, you
should too.
Ok, so I’m going to wrap this up.
Thanks to all the Rusty Crew for making me a much better player and
to any reader who actually made it this far.
Signing off – Amir, King of the
Scrubs
(and I got a magic card signed by
Richard Garfield to prove it)
No comments:
Post a Comment