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August 20, 2008 | mtg, strategy
GP Denver Report - Kithkin Yu
by llarack
After doing virtually no playtesting the week before, and playing in 2 GPTS with Faeries going 0-1 and 1-1, I decided it was time to switch decks. Looking at the Kobe coverage, the kithkin deck seemed to be a very solid beatdown deck with its only fault being a lack of reach.
The Japanese kithkin deck's maindeck seemed fine, but the sideboard seemed to be suspect (with my 0 playtesting, of course).
So I decided to change the deck to the following list:
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[deck]
Maindeck
//26
3 Mutavault
4 Rustic Clachan
4 Windbrisk Heights
15 Plains
//27
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Wizened Cenn
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Spectral Procession
//7
4 Unmake
1 Mirrorweave
2 Ajani Goldmane
Sideboard
1 Mirrorweave
2 Oversoul of Dusk
3 Moonglove Extract
3 Wispmare
1 Ajani Goldmane
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Reveillark[/deck] |  |
Rounds 1-2: Byes (or rather, me walking around watching Imnion, Falco, and various other people battal)
Round 3: Clifton H. Hinton, Kithkin, (2-1)
Game 1: We both clog up the board pretty well, but I eventually bite it to a Mirrorweave on my Cenn when he gets ahead by 2 creatures.
Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane
During game 2, I call a judge to watch him for slow play, because game 1 ate a lot of time, and he seemed to be taking 1-2 minutes for turns 1-4, and the judge gives him a slowplay warning. Eventually he gets to a point where he makes an attack that is not lethal even with Mirrorweave, but my crackback is.
Game 3, he mulligans to 6, but accidentally draws 7. The judge is still sitting nearby watching him for slowplay and so forces him to mulligan to 5. Then he mulligans to 4. He goes Plains, Plains, Plains, Stillmoon, Stillmoon. I go, Plains, Heights, Plains, Spectral, activate Heights for Cloudgoat, Cenn, Cenn. He really doesn't have a shot after that.
 Round 4: Nathan J. Bertelsen, Kithkin, (2-1)
Also of note, this guy top 8ed the PTQ the very next day, which Falco top 4ed. He had maindeck Barkshell Blessing, and a much lower curve.
Game 1: I'm pretty sure I get Spectral/Heights into Cloudgoat, so he's behind the whole game.
Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane
Game 2: He gets Thistledown Liege when I wasn't expecting it, so I lose most of my team while he's way ahead on board and eventually succumb.
Game 3: I have an insane draw with Stalwart into Cenn into Procession into Ajani.
Round 5: Jeremy W. Manthei, Unknown, (2-0)
I don't remember what this guy was playing, I just remember mauling him with insane draws. Sorry.
Round 6: Josh C. Wludyka, Red Deck, (2-1)
Game 1: I mulligan to 5 on the play, but lead with Figure, Procession, then Cloudgoat. He still loses because of all of the tokens just swarming him.
Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark
Game 2: I throw this game by attacking Forge-tender into Soul Snuffers, and so his 8/8 Figure kills me when I'm at 8, and my top card is Unmake.
Game 3: I drop turn 1 Stalwart, turn 2 Cenn, then turn 5 and 6 Oversoul of Dusk, which barely manage to outrace Demigod + burn.
 Round 7: Michael Jacob, Red Deck, (2-0)
Game 1: He's making snide comments about my topdecks during this whole game, but eventually he dies to my massive amount of token makers when I am at 5 life, and I suspect he was holding a Flame Javelin, but did not have enough time to deploy his burn.
Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark
Game 2: We get into a board state where he can't kill my Reveillark because it will regrow 2 Forge-Tenders, so I just start swinging with Reveillark into his face, and I Unmake his Demigods that he plays as blockers.
Oh and yeah, this guy won US Nationals the weekend before. So beating him felt good.
 Round 8: Conley L. Woods, Kelpie, (2-0)
Game 1: He leads with Secluded Glen and a bunch of lands, so I think he is playing Faeries, but by turn 6, he hasn't done anything except play a Soul Snuffers, I suspect he is playing River Kelpie which I had tested with a lot on MWS. He eventually dies to more token makers, because apparently all he has drawn were a bunch of maindeck Snakeforms.
Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier (seems very poor vs Soul Snuffers), +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Reveillark
Game 2: I get stuck on 2 lands, but keep playing guys so I can attack. Eventually we get to a point where if I topdeck a 3rd land for my Unmake, he loses, because he is playing extremely aggressively, and I do finally topdeck the plains.
Round 9: Mark S. Hendrickson, Kithkin, (2-1)
Game 1: Don't recall what happens here, I think I just get ahead with a bunch of token makers and Ajani Goldmane.
Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane
Game 2: He gets ahead with token makers and Ajani Goldmane.
Game 3: We both clog the board up, but eventually I just attack him with Stillmoon Cavalier for 5 damage 4 times in a row.
Round 10: Walter Shatford, Kithkin, (2-1)
Honestly, Bill Stark does a pretty good job of writing about it here.
 Round 11: Scott D. Barrentine, Merfolk, (1-2)
Game 1: He plays a turn 3 Plumeveil after I attack with a stalwart into it, so I play a Stillmoon Cavalier, which eventually gains flying and attacks him a bunch of times.
Sideboarding: -1 Mirrorweave, -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk
Game 2: It's a very close race, but his Sygg + Mutavault hold off my Oversoul of Dusk with a +1/+1 counter long enough so that I die to his other guys.
Game 3: He has Stonybrook Banneret into Sower of Temptation into Sower of Temptation into Merrow Rejereey.
This match left a bad taste in my mouth, because I'm pretty sure my deck is a heavy favorite vs him.
Round 12: Paulo Vitor D. da Rosa, Faeries, (2-0)
This match was in the Feature Match area, but the games were very uneventful.
Game 1: He gets stuck on Swamp + Mutavault + Bitterblossom while I curve out with Stalwart, Cenn, Procession and just beat him down.
Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk
Game 2: He only has 1 blue source for most of the game, so I run my unimportant spells into Spellstutter Sprites and resolve my Cenns and Figures and crush him.
Round 13: AJ Sacher, Faeries, (0-2)
Game 1: I remember getting crushed by Bitterblossom, Scion of Oona into Mistbind Clique in game 1. Nothing I can really say about this, except I did attack a 4/4 Knight of Meadowgrain into his 5/5 Mistbind Clique.
Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk
Game 2: I think he has Scion into Sower this game which is very difficult for me to beat :(
Round 14: Antonino De Rosa, 5 Color Control, (0-2)
I'll go out on an limb and say that this matchup is basically the worst possible for Kithkin, and your oppt needs to mulligan a lot for you to have a shot. The games were uninteresting, since he would just play a sweeper and reload with Mulldrifter :(
Round 15: Gerry Thompson, 5 Color Control, (0-2)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/gpden08/welcome#16
I guess it was a decent tournament for me, but it just feels so disappointing to miss Top 8 when all I had to do was go 3-3 on Day 2.
I am pretty sure that my sideboard was incorrect.
In the future, if you want to run Kithkin, Falco's list from the PTQ the next day seems more correct to me.
However, I would modify the decklist slightly to be:
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[deck]
Maindeck
3 Mutavault
4 Rustic Clachan
4 Windbrisk Heights
14 Plains
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Wizened Cenn
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Unmake
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Spectral Procession
2 Mirrorweave
Sideboard
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Oversoul of Dusk
4 Wispmare
4 Moonglove Extract
1 Unmake
[/deck] |  |
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