Hello!
When I last left you, I was 9-0 going onto the second day in Barcelona. I was pretty excited with the deck, and I had big hopes for that tournament.
For some reason, the tournament started at 8am. Since I was staying at Joel’s house, in Sabadel and not in Barcelona, I had to wake up at around 6am to get there in time, catching the train at 6:40 or something. Since it was so early in the morning, we ended up catching the train with the people who were coming back from Saturday parties. At some point, two guys started arguing for some reason (which I didn’t really understand because my Spanish is a little limited), and soon enough they were trying to hit each other. This proved to be a problem because they were the guys in front of me and behind me, which meant they were trying to do that through me. Their friends kept them apart for the whole trip though, so I survived the struggle. Looking back, I’m not sure why I did not move instantly as soon as it started happening. I guess I thought it was a pretty normal thing, since my local friends didn’t express any reaction whatsoever and showed no intention of moving, so I just stayed where I was hoping everything would turn out okay and I’d not get any splash damage from them.
Round 10: Kithkin
My first match of the day was against Kithkin, and it was a feature match. I did something very close to killing him turn 4 both games (I got A LOT of turn 4 kills on Day 2 – on Day 1 I mostly had to fight hard for all my wins, but on Day 2 everything went smoothly). Once I was done, I went to watch the other feature match, looking for my next round opponent. It was a BW mirror, and there would be only two 10-0s at that point, so I knew I’d get a good matchup regardless. It’s interesting to note that he had Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender against me, and tried to stop the combo, but that doesn’t really work. Since I’m the controller of the Swans, I get to choose which prevention shield I’m going to apply, so I’m obviously going to choose mine and draw the two cards anyway. If I only have one Assault in play and do not have another land to respond to the Burrenton, it does stop me from killing them or their guys this very turn, but then I’ll just pass with something like Command/Assault/Swans/4 lands and kill everything anyway.
2-0
10-0
Round 11: Swans
Oh well, maybe not. It turned out the BW players managed to draw, which was good because it made me the only 10-0 in the entire tournament, but bad because I dodged the good matchup and went straight to the one I did not want to play – the mirror. I had played exactly zero mirror games, and I didn’t really know how it worked out, but I was learning as I went.
Game 1 I had a turn 4 kill, but he had his own Assault so I did not go for it. The key play of the game was when he had a turn 4 Bloodbraid Elf and I did not kill it with my own Assault, because I had Bituminous Blast that I wanted to cast. Then, on the following turn, I didn’t kill it pre-combat, instead taking three, so I could cast the Blast at the end of the turn. That proved to be a mistake that I could have avoided if I knew what was really important in the mirror (mostly staying ahead in life totals), but at that point I didn’t know that and the “play it at the end of the turn” thing was carved on my mind from years of playing, so I just took three. I killed it and got a new Assault, took a hit from Treetop Village and then when he activated it again (I was at 15 because of Sunlight) I had to decide between attempting to kill him the following turn or killing the Treetop when he had seven cards in hand. I decided to try to kill him, and he had six lands in hand to kill me.
Game 2 was pretty anticlimactic, because I mulliganed into a two-lander and missed my third land drop. Missing land drops with a 41 land deck seems pretty ridiculous, and in this deck it pretty much means you are dead because even when you get to cast your spells they are not going to do anything unless you draw even more lands, and especially in the mirror, but it is bound to happen at some point in the tournament just like flooding with Zoo happens from time to time. He had an early Anathemancer and then Cascaded into Assault, which prevented me from Assault-Swans’ing him when I drew the lands. I don’t really like his sideboard plan – the most important card is Assault, and I don’t think it’s worth it to cascade into something that is either not Assault or interacts with it in some way (unless it’s the LD plan, which is a different thing entirely). I would have won this game if he had Cascaded into one of the cards he sided in (Finks or Anathemancer) instead of the Assault, even though I missed land drops. At least I was glad that the land drop thing happened in the mirror, and not in an easy matchup.
My sideboard plan was -2 Blast +2 Aura of Silence since I was on the play, and would have been -2 Blast -2 Ad Nauseam +2 Aura +2 Maelstrom Pulse on the draw if we had played a third game, but honestly I now think this plan is terrible. Nowadays what I would do is take out some Swans (leaving one to Command for in situations where they don’t have Assault) and just board in Auras and Elders, since Swans only works if you have Assault and they don’t, but if you have Assault and they don’t you have already won regardless. I got lured by the prospect of an easy win turn 4 unopposed, but a hard win is worth as many points as an easy one, so there was no reason for that.
Another direction you can take is the LD Plan, but I honestly don’t like that. I’ll accept that it’s the best plan in the mirror, but I don’t like the way your deck has to go for it to be effective, and I don’t really like the plan against many other things. Against Faeries, for example, I think it’s just bad, yet everyone I saw was morphing against that. It seems to be common wisdom that when you have a transformational sideboard you just have to go for it every match, but that’s not true – Against something like BW, playing Rain of Tears has no merit, whether on the play or on the draw, yet I see people who board it in. This is one of the reasons I did not want to play Swans in Seattle – I’d like to play my main deck, which I think is better, but then I’d lose the mirror because people were playing that sideboard.
0-2
10-1
Round 12 I played against BW, and he never had really a chance as my hand was really good both games. Game 2 he missed his third land drop and then attacked with Mutavault into my Seismic Assault one turn later, which was very awkward since I just Wastelanded him from hand, but I doubt it would have mattered as I had a Primal Command next and he didn’t have anything.
2-0
11-1
Round 13 I played against Elves. Game 1 I killed him pretty easily pretty early, and Game 2 I kept a bad hand of Wrath and six lands, two Treetops. I did that because he mulliganed to six and pulled some weird faces, and for some reason I thought he had a hand with one land and a lot of mana creatures and I’d just get him with the Wrath – I should know better than to try to read people from their expressions, as I’m just terrible at that. Even if that was the case, it’s still a bad keep. I ended up drawing a second Wrath and nothing else, and died to his Colossus which got past my manlands. Game 3 I kept Bloodbraid and six lands and got Thoughtseized turn 1, and then drew six more lands after that and did not play a single spell – I guess that is also bound to happen at some point.
1-2
11-2
Round 14 – BW
This was also a feature match, against a Portuguese player, which was nice because there was a big crowd. We heard the announcement and started playing – he Scullered my Assault, leaving me with like Primal Command and Swans, and then on his third turn the judge arrives and says that the announcement was not for us to start playing, and we’d have to restart the game because time was not counting. Then in the next game I just went ahead and killed him turn 4 unopposed… Pretty convenient.
Game 2 he also never much stood a chance, much like the BW versus Swans matchup should be when they aren’t heavily prepared. I had to go through two Primal Commands to kill him, but the second was not really necessary – I could have done it with Swans and Elves, it just made things easier.
2-0
12-2
Round 15 – BW
At this point I could draw in, since I had the best tiebreaks in the entire tournament, but my opponent would probably have finished 9th so we had to play it out. He was playing BW, so I wasn’t much worried.
Game 1 started fine, and though he had double Sculler I still had a Primal Command in hand and if I managed to get Assault in play I’d be able to kill his Sculler that had my Swans and combo him. He played a Glorious Anthem, which made things harder but still doable, and then I got to five lands and had to choose between gaining 7 life or putting one of his four lands on top of his library. I figured putting the land on top would be better, since he probably had Cloudgoat Ranger in hand, and if he does and has the fifth land, he is killing me next turn anyway through Assault, Elf, and seven life if he has anything else such as a removal or a pump spell. It turned out he had Spectral Procession though, which meant I’d have survived by gaining 7. It just didn’t occur to me that he could have the Procession, since he played Anthem on turn 4 instead of that, but looking back the right play is probably to just gain the life, because even if he has the Cloudgoat he also needs a removal for my Bloodbraid Elf.
So, I was down one game against my best matchup. 10-0 in games until that point, and I was going to lose right the one that mattered (of course, they all mattered as much, since they are all three points, but you know that I mean).
Game 2 he had a kind of slow hand, with Redcap for my Elf but not much else. At some point he played Everlasting Torment, which meant I only needed one land to kill his Persist guys, and I just Elved him to death.
Game 3 he played a Kitchen Finks turn 3 and then Pathed my Elf when I was trying to race. His lands were two Fetid Heath, so he effectively tapped out for the Path, so I played Swans and killed him. Later I found out he had kept a one-lander on the play, and just gotten there with the next two.
2-1
13-2
I had made it! Usually I think I deserve to do well, since I know I’m good and I practice a lot, but I also know there are people who are as good or better, and who practice as hard or harder. I know there are a lot of people who deserve to do well, and only so many slots for that, which means people who deserve to do well often do not do well, and I’m included in that. However, in this tournament, it felt like screaming JUSTICE like never before. It was really good to see that the leakage thing had not really harmed me as I thought it would. Before this tournament, I was rather upset with my Magic results that year, and I believe this tournament brought me back in some way.
It turned out I was going to be playing against BW in the quarters, which was good. He didn’t really have anything other than Identity Crisis, so I did not board in the Pulses (if I recall… maybe I boarded in one).
Game 1 I killed him turn 4. I like this deck.
Game 2 was a little tougher. I had Assault in play and he attacked with his Sculler. I activated my Treetop Village, expecting Path, but he let me block. I blocked, and he played Zealous Persecution, so I had to discard a land to kill the Sculler, which left me without lands to kill him. He had five lands and I Swans, so I just played the Swans – I figured that if he had a removal spell he would have gotten rid of my Treetop when I activated it, and since he had not played anything he could very well have the Identity Crisis. If anything, I had a backup spell (not another Swans, maybe a Primal Command or Ad Nauseam). Sure enough, he draws a land and plays the Crisis, and then I draw a land and combo him.
It turned out I was going to play against Joel, with the same 75, in the semis. We both didn’t really know how the match was going to turn out, as we had not played the mirror, or even talked much about it.
Game 1 he played two Captured Sunlights, and then when I attacked he played Bituminous Blast and cascaded into Swans. After much thought, he decided to play it and discard a land. I had five lands in hand to his one, so if he doesn’t cascade into the Swans or decides not to play it, there is no way he is winning this game, but I ended up not having enough lands to kill him since the last three cards in my deck were lands, so he killed me even though I had the ability to draw my whole deck.
Game 2 I mulliganed to five and he had Aura of Silence, so I was pretty much conceding defeat at that point. He didn’t have Assault though, and he played Swans to try to finish me off before I was able to recover, but then I just played a cascade spell into Assault when I had six mana and killed him with his Swans.
Game 3 he had turn 3 Aura of Silence and I had Pulse, but then he had turn 4 backup Aura of Silence. Two turns later I played Assault and killed his Bloodbraid, and then he played Wickerbough Elder to kill my Assault, so I discarded two more lands to leave him without creatures when I had a Treetop. He played a Primal Command to get a creature and put a land on top, which would be an immediate loss for me (since he would get his one Swans and I wouldn’t draw the Assault), but he decided to target the Treetop, so I activated it and the “non creature” clause fizzled the entire spell – I was back in the game.
He had Spinerock Knoll, his own Treetop (tapped), and one card in hand. I attacked with my Treetop, he took three and next turn he activated his, discarded two Lands and flipped Ad Nauseam of the Knoll, killing me at three life (though he was at 14 when he played it and I was at 10, so it would be very unlucky for him not to kill me at this point). I could have not attacked and left my Treetop to block his, but if he had two lands he would just kill it and keep hitting me with his Treetop – it seemed at that point waiting was just bad, and it would just get my Treetop killed anyway without me having hit him for three, and there was always the chance there was a bad card under the Knoll. I think my play of attacking there was correct.
Still, I lost. For a moment I thought maybe I had a chance to win, that he would fizzle with Command and then kill himself with Ad Nauseam, but it was not to be. In retrospect, I think his sideboard plan was a lot better than mine – I lost Game 3 with two Swans in hand, and that should never happen – maybe if they were the cards I sided out, or the Elders I didn’t side in, I would have won, so I have no one to blame but myself.
I was very happy with my result, and with the deck’s result overall, since Joel ended up winning the whole thing and it was clearly the deck with the best Top 8 and Day 2 ratio.
The future of the deck is uncertain to me – as I said last week, it’s certainly still a powerful deck, probably the strongest in terms of raw power in years. Still, I did not play it in Seattle – as you know, I played Faeries. There are many reasons for that, on which I will elaborate further next week. The environment in Seattle was very hostile to the deck, with a lot of people playing Dredge-level hate, so it did not perform as well as it could have, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the deck because of that. I’d not be surprised if it started winning tournaments again soon.
If I had to change anything to the deck, I’d probably take out two Knolls for two Encampments. Though I died to them in the semis and Joel activated them three times for very good value throughout the tournament, I did not activate them at least once. Other than that, the main deck is pretty good, though I would probably replace a Blast with another Primal Command, which proved to be much better than I expected.
In the sideboard, I would probably play a third Vexing Shusher – I didn’t board it in the entire tournament, but that was because I didn’t play against Faeries or any dedicated counter deck, and after Seattle Faeries should really be more popular. I’m not sure what I’d cut for it, though. I would also replace the Primal in the Sideboard with the Blast I removed from the main deck, since it’s also good against Faeries.
…
Before I leave, I’d like to tell people that, if you are looking forward to going to Sao Paulo, you might need a visa. Americans, Canadians, and Japanese all need a visa, among others, and I know all the members from the European Union do not. I would have mentioned it earlier, but it’s just second nature to me that people need visas to go to places, since I need them to go everywhere, so it didn’t really occur to me to talk to anyone about it. The Japanese and the Americans learned in Seattle that they needed visas, and as a result they are not going because there is no time to get it. If you planned on going, make sure you do not need a visa. Also make sure you book your hotel as soon as possible, because the GP is at the same day as what is probably the biggest Gay Parade in the world, so hotels should be pretty full.
I hope you enjoyed my report, and I’ll see you in Hawaii. If not, I’ll see you here next week.
Paulo