Check out NicotineJones’ Shadowmoor constructed review here.
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Check out NicotineJones’ Shadowmoor constructed review here.
The story of an FNM with B/G elves!
First a decklist:
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This is going to be a significantly shorter report than my last one, and I apologize for this (but, what can you expect from a 3 hour tournament on Fridays?)
Round 1: Steven Gorrie (U/B Faeries)
This guy kind of plays slow in general, but is an OK player.
Game 1: He gets stuck on 3 mana, I get turn 2 perfect, turn 3 perfect, turn 4 Colossus, and the game ends veryyyyyyyyyyyyyy quickly!
Game 2: He mulligans to 6 on the play, misses his 4th land drop, so I don’t play stuff until I can deploy 2 threats per turn to play around counters.
Round 2: Yoel Iszak (G/B/W Doran)
I knew what he was playing beforehand, because we talk a decent amount online…;_;
Game 1: I keep the following opening hand which is slightly suspect: Forest, Forest, Pendelhaven, Llanowar*2, Boreal, Perfect. My first few topdecks are all black cards, then I finally draw a palace, when my hand is 2 profane commands.
I proceed to lose the the massive amount of faerie tokens being produced by bitterblossom.
Game 2: Turn 1: Palace, Llanowar. Turn 2: Treetop, play goyf. Turn 3: Play Goyf, thoughtseize his inversion, attack. Turn 4: Garruk, untap 2 lands, play vanquisher. The game ends pretty quickly after that.
Game 3: I get a fairly good draw, turn 1 llanowar, turn 2 vanquisher, but he gets a draw with turn 2 doran, turn 3 bitterblossom, turn 4 inversion. He eventually lets me overcommit into a damnation, where he can recover by attacking with 2 treetops and faerie tokens :[
Round 3: Chris Denault (Mono-red burn).
Game 1: I keep a kind of slow hand after mulliganing to 6, and get promptly destroyed by turn 1 suspend gargs, turn 2 marauders, turn 3 crusher, turn 4 burn my guy, turn 5 burn my guy.
Game 2: I side in the 3rd colossus, both primal commands, and the 3rd terror for 4 imperious perfect, and 1 wayfinder. My draw involves a turn 3 colossus, turn 4 primal command, finding another colossus, turn 5, kill his martyr of ashes and play another colossus. He loses pretty quickly to 8/8s after that.
Game 3: He mulligans to 5, and I play a colossus which does not die.
Kind of a short report, I know, so a bonus decklist!
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For a month or two, I had been playtesting Goblins extensively (for the PTQ season, obviously).
After 0-2ing the Richmond PTQ, and winning the GPT that started after round 2 (lol 0-2 drop!),
I come up with a pretty optimal list of Goblins after talking to Brad Taulbee (who managed to make
it to two PTQ finals, losing to Aggro Loam both times).
Of course, what would any good Magic article be without a decklist?
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The Sparksmith got added in to beat Tarmogoyfs/Myr Enforcers/Dorans, etc. I felt having 4 Goblin Matron
was too slow many a time, especially with the number of Cabal Therapies running around (see Dredge/Doran).
Before the tournament arrives, about a week in advance, I ship Tristal a Domain Zoo list, which he proceeds
to smash face with! {e}
Round 1-3: Byes,
walking around the venue, meeting up with various Maryland players, and Tristal and RobRoy.
Round 4: Christopher R. Schaut.
I recognize this guy from the last Rockville PTQ, where he played my friend Hans Mahler in an Ideal mirror, so I auto-put him on Ideal.
Game 1: He wins the die roll, and casts a turn 2 Form of the Dragon off a sacland and double Seething Song. I proceed to sharpshooter him for 5 damage on turn 4 (while being at 5!)
Sideboarding: -4 Gempalm, -1 Ringleader, -1 Sparksmith, +3 Therapy, +3 grip
Game 2: He keeps a weird hand (i think, 3 sacland, wish, 2*prism, star). I therapy him for Sensei Top, because his first play is a sacland, and I don’t really want him recovering from my Therapies. On my turn 2, I lay a Mogg War Marshal, flashback therapy to hit both his prisms, in the meantime, he has drawn another burning wish. The next turn, I Earwig Squad him for 2 confinements and a form, and note that he doesn’t play top, instead playing insidious dreams/draco/explosion.
However, the game ends pretty quickly after that since he is taking 6 per turn.
Round 5: Robert E. Moore.
He is playing some sort of dumb Leaf-Crowned Elder deck (apparently he only had 1 bye, so he managed to win 3 rounds in a row!).
Game 1: He triggers Elder about 6 times, getting Eternal Witness, Doran, Troll Ascetic, but multiple ringleaders just bash him in combo with a pyromancer.
Sideboarding: +3 grip, -3 Fanatic
Game 2: The same thing happens, but he Engineered Plagues for goblin, but I have a goblin king in play, so he still dies to pyromancer.
Round 6: Christian Calcano.
He is playing Doran with maindeck Jitte ;_;
Game 1: It is a fairly tense game that goes back and forth. I Gempalm two early goyfs, and have a bunch of 1/1s in play, but he eventually gets Doran/Shizo/Jitte, and I lose.
Sideboarding: +3 therapy, -1 Matron, -2 piledriver
Game 2: I keep his Jitte in check with Skirk Prospector, so he bites it to a lot of 1/1 tokens.
Game 3: He gets turn 2 doran, turn 3 vindicate, turn 4 witness ;_;
I was pretty pissed after this match, because I don’t think he could have won game 1 without drawing his singleton Shizo.
Round 7: BENJI ASHMAN (AKA FAKEHAT!)
Game 1: Fakehat obvobvobv draws it afgain, and combos me on turn 4.
Sideboarding: +3 therapy, +2 Grip, -4 gempalm, -1 sparksmith
Game 2: I threaten lethal on my turn 4, so he has to wish on turn 3 for pyroclasm, then later fizzles on a desire for 6.
Game 3: He mulligans to 5 and puts up no fight.
Round 8: Jason Imperiale
Dredge idiot, and I know this from reading mtg.com :-p He is also kind of a douche.
Game 1: I obvobvobv lose because he has early darkblast and dredging.
Sideboarding: +4 Extirpate, +3 Earwig, -2 Piledriver, -1 Matron, -2 Ringleader, -1 Pyromancer, -1 Tin Street
Game 2: He mulls to 5, and I just roll him on turn 4 with the 2 piledrivers I left in.
Game 3: He keeps a 7 card hand, but does nothing for the first few turns. I correctly put him on darkblast, when all he does is fetch up 2 watery graves. I finally play into his darkblast so I can extirpate it, and earwig him for 3 narcs, then 2 dread return and an ichorid.
He starts bitching and whining about how lucky and terrible I am to not do anything early and he eventually decks when he can’t make it past my fanatics.
Round 9: Nicolas J. Cuenca
Goblins mirror!
Game 1: He gets stuck on 3 mana, whereas I don’t miss land drops and resolve several ringleaders which end the game in short order.
Game 2: He gets stuck on 3 mana again, but my hand is kind of slow, so I start cabal therapying him to try to stay alive, and eventually draw my one goblin king to lethal him with my mogg tokens.
End of day 1.
I am pretty excited because I am 8-1, so I am in relatively good shape to at least money, if not top 8.
Round 10: Zack Hall
U/W tron. I put this guy on a tron strategy, since he obviously did well in Vancouver with it.
Game 1: He wins the die roll, and leads with a power plant, and chrome mox imprinting condescend. I play a fanatic into his represented counterspell, and sure enough it gets remanded.
He trons up on turn 3, so I get slavered on turn 4, and he gets the lock on turn 5 by a transmuted tolaria west.
Sideboarding: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -1 Sparksmith, -2 Gempalm, +3 Cabal Therapy, +3 Krosan Grip (I leave in 2 gempalms, for triskelion so I can attack past it).
Game 2: He mulligans to 5, and my draw involves: turn 1, land mox, imprint gempalm, piledriver, turn 2, warchief, turn 3 ringleader. That doesn’t last long, even though he plays a sphere of law on turn 3 from a turn 3 signet.
Game 3: He keeps a slow hand, and I get early pressure. He eventually taps low to oblivion ring a piledriver, so I sneak out a warchief. The next turn, he lays a sphere of law, then I untap and pyromancer him for exactly enough through the sphere.
Round 11: Joshua Schneier
Blue Counterbalance variant with Engineered Plagues.
Game 1: I win the dieroll, lay turn 1 prospector, turn 2 sparksmith. He reads the card carefully and slumps back in his chair as he starts laying tarmogoyfs only to see them sparksmithed to death. Not close at all.
Sideboarding: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -1 Pyromancer, +3 Krosan Grip, +2 Dralnu’s Crusade
Game 2: He force spikes my prospector, counterspells my piledriver, then lays a plague. I die to tarmogoyfs shortly after.
Game 3: My hand is ok, I resolve a piledrive ron turn 2, then start laying some small guys like moggs, and he draws 7 fetchlands in a row and dies.
At this point, I’m extremely psyched, since I only need to 2-1 the next 3 rounds to top 8.
Round 12: Matt Hansen.
Cymbro #2, obvobvobv.
Game 1: I draw a tonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn of lands, like 6 after I keep an opener of 3 lands, mogg fanatic, prospector, piledriver.
Sideboarding: -1 Tin Street Hooligan, -2 SKirk Prospector, +3 Krosan Grip
Game 2: I get an early sparksmith, which contains his guys long enough for me to piledriver him to death.
Game 3: I commit the WORST blunder ever, which probably costs me the game. My board is, goblin king, sparksmith, prospector, piledriver, his board is only a chameleon colossus, and he is tapped out.
All I need to do is sparksmith his colossus (since it would take 5 damage since it counts all goblins in play). Instead, I convince myself that I need to sparksmith it and fanatic it. So I lose a fanatic for no reason
which would have been instrumental in keeping his 2nd phantom centaur under control so it would not get cloaked*2.
Instead I lose to that centaur, and Hansen goes on to top 8.
Round 13: Michael Mushaty.
Counterbalance idiot #2
Game 1: I get a fast draw, and roll him, while he does dumb stuff like repeal my chrome mox 3 times.
Sideboarding: –
Game 2: He plays an early goyf, then a forge-tender, then another goyf. I can’t really do anything through his forge-tenders and goyfs, because gempalm incinerator is basically dead.
Game 3: I draw all of my chrome moxen, after keeping a hand with land, land, mox, piledriver, warchief, prospector. He then repeals my mox on his turn 1. After which, he proceeds to go goyf, forge-tender, shackles. At some point, he shackles my mogg war marshal, and chooses to untap his shackles and STEAL THE SAME MOGG WAR MARSHAL AGAIN.
Round 14: Dean C. Bilz
TEPS guy #2.
Game 1: Comboed on turn 4, when he was gonna die on my turn 4, but he won the die roll ;[
Game 2: I am pretty sure that I can’t dodge the bullet again and win this matchup, but in game 2, I decide to matron for a ringleader, whereas if I matron for a mogg fanatic, he just dies.
Round 15: Daniel OMahoney-Schwartz
I recognize his name, since he is one of the 3 people part of Team Antarctica, so I know he is probably pretty good.
He is playing Domain Zoo.
Game 1: I clog the board with 3 mogg war marshals, then ghost quarter his temple garden, which strands his hand full of lightning helixes and vindicates, and shrinks his kird ape to a 1/1.
Game 2: He gets turn 1 ape, turn 2 goyf, turn 3 jitte/tarfire a guy of mine. I lose this one pretty handily.
Game 3: I get turn 1 prospector, turn 2 mogg war marshal which keeps his jitte in check while I build up a critical mass of goblins to goblin king him to death.
All-in all, it’s a pretty good tournament for me, and playtesting paid off in spades, giving me 2 pro points, and 400 dollars.
If I had won one more match, I would have qualified for hollywood, but this is not too bad of a performance for my 3rd GP ever.
Looking at the pre-rotation decklist, we can see that a few cards are lost for the next season of extended.
In particular, Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader disappear from the maindeck, as well as Dralnu’s Crusade and Cabal Therapy from the sideboard.
Looking from Onslaught/MDF type 2 for goblins, we can either run clickslither, or siege-gang commander.
In particular, I would restructure the deck in the following way:
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My gut-feeling is that post rotation, Affinity and Tron will be HUGE. You need sprees vs affinity and maindeck sparksmith as a 4-of helps a lot vs them. Grip is an uncounterable way of killing their titans or platinums. Clickslither is a hasty trampling threat that is hard to deal with.
Doping with Dolphins II: The Terrible Trinket
These days, it seems like sensei’s divining top is an auto-include in a lot of decks, and sometimes it makes sense. You want it in Aggro Red for shrapnel blast, and in TEPS because of its amazing interaction with mind’s desire. However, I am constantly stunned by its inclusion in 4, 5, or more-colour concoctions which attempt to combine it with counterbalance.
Let’s take a look at one of these decks:
Do not go gentle into that good night, as suggested by Remi Fortier
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Now I’m not going to claim that there aren’t worse decks to put SDT into, and this deck actually has some good synergies with the card. Let’s look at some of them:
1. Can be fetched by trinket mage
2. Can be shuffled away by trinket mage
3. Can be shuffled away by a fetchland
4. Can find you a fetchland or trinket mage with which to shuffle it away
5. Artifact in graveyard for tarmogoyf if you destroy it with your engineered explosives
6. Allows stifle to cantrip by countering the put on top of library ability
7. Fills in the crucial 3-drop in the number of words in each card name curve
8. Easy to take out for sideboard bullets
That said, these are far outweighed by its detriments. The lesser offenses first:
1. Pumps other player’s tarmogoyfs if in graveyard
2. Low CC-card makes you less likely to cut to higher converted mana cost in a format where going first is crucial
3. You play kataki, retard
4. Risk of being shut down by your own pithing needle, especially under mindslaver (more problematic on modo, where you often need to turn off sensei golden-tail when you get paired against the first round random, and when you get paired against the guys in the 0-x bracket in later rounds).
5. Burning-tree shaman
6. Can’t be copied by vesuvan shapeshifter
Far and away though, the problem is tempo. The ablative singular form of the latin noun tempus, English for storm (tempest, temper, and New Orleans through French), tempo plays a crucial role in Magic: The Gathering as a mechanic from OLS block. Some decks can use tempo to kill you as soon as turn two with a flurry of rituals, artifacts, and then a large mind’s desire or tendrils of corruption.
Now this deck is seeking to not create tempo, as it can be used by your opponent to kill you, and yet tempo is the exact thing that SDT creates. With a low mana cost, SDT threatens to create one storm as early as your first turn, and considering that you can put it on top of your library to play it again the next turn, pretty quickly you can wind up with rains washing out the first day of the pro tour due to excessive testing, as happened in Valencia.
In contrast, you could be playing another threat in SDT’s place. One of the deck’s weaknesses is the difficulty it has in finding a win condition, and if SDT was simply replaced with Sundering Titan this problem would surely be averted.
When in doubt during deck building, just remember the rhyme: if it begins with Sensei, you’d rather have plenty. Of cabbage.
The year of magic ended earlier this month when the Jews and Swiss took time out from taking our money and using it to make very precise watches to destroy us at Worlds in New York. And let me tell you, the snow outside didn’t stop the event from being hotter than a beach in Brazil. The finals came down to Uri Peleg, who once upon a time provided Nick Eisel with a rough list which Eisel fine-tuned into a killing machine that we look back on as Food Chain Goblins, defeating Patrick Chapin, the grouchy American boasting a decade of mediocrity, by a very prominent nose.
Peleg piloted an innovative black-green-white deck which stood with history on its side as it vividly recreated the trope of a black caddy carrying a white man’s clubs on a golf course. Let’s take a look at the list:
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As you can see the deck runs the time-tested white:other proportion used by the British throughout their empire. Cards like Doran, Oblivion Ring, and Riftsweeper can provide guidance for the other, more powerful but less organized cards, as well as providing specialized services to pull the most possible out of an economy burgeoning with slave labor. Apparently Peleg went to the forest so that he could test deliberately prior to the tournament, and I’m going to give 10:1 odds that he did it on a raft in the Congo.
Now let’s take a look at the deck he beat. Chapin showed up with the buzz of the tournament, a 75-card number with a plummeting neck-line bringing attention to mountains that could kill at a moment’s notice. Here she is, in all her glory:
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Chapin said that he based the deck on his ex-girlfriend, which is probably the best explanation for the snow-covered lands. And let me tell you, it made from some awkward chit-chat when he met Gabriel Nassif, who he had been quite close to leading up to the tournament, in the semi-finals only to find that Nassif was running the same deck with an up-to-date sideboard, although his maindeck looked like it’d put on a few pounds. The tension escalated further as Nassif made it evident that he’d been fucking all night with his abysmal play.
The deck seeks to lure you into complacency with slow foreplay using the game’s most sexually enticing manabase, and then freak the hell out on you, throw your favorite models at the wall, and put four dragons into play. Unfortunately for Chapin, he returned home in the finals to find that Uri had had his friends over and they’d killed the cat with a shotgun.
It was a great tournament, with plenty of celebrities attending and no crashes. But it was the exception for the year. MODO has gotten worse and one of the PTs was hosted in Spain.
Take a moment to look back and be thankful for what we’ve had, and what we’re promised. Version 3.0 will probably be out sometime next year, and the next PT is in Kuala Lumpur.
I mean, what could go wrong?