Subject: PTQ LA Report: Vineyard Fattie Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 02:12:21 GMT From: ddubois@adknowledge.com (Daniel DuBois) To: fkusumot@IX.NETCOM.COM Ok, this is going to be one long ass tourney report, because I like blabbering. However, on the up side, it will be completely about MTG, and nothing about what I ate for dinner the night before, or how many people were in the car on the way there, or other BS. Not even props or slops. I made this deck with the intention of kicking Sligh's butt, abusing Cursed Scroll, and smacking down anyone who tried to use Cursed Scroll against me. I felt horrible the night before the tournament. I had a Richmond Gun/PT Jank deck I didn't feel comfortable with because everyone would be expecting it. I wasn't happy with my old U/r/w Ophidiobastard deck because it had a proven history of bad mana draws and mediocre results. My Stompy deck got regularly crushed by U/G Shears/Munz Beatnick beatdown, even though it ran over Jank. James Wise was nice enough to give me a listing of a cool B/R/U Randall/Frenetic/Disk deck he made, but I felt it was seriously slow against sligh/jank (although I really should have playtested against those decks after SBing before making that conclusion). I made this deck at 1am the night before the tournament, and in a little quick latenight playtesting it seemed to do pretty well, and I was too tired to try to do anything else. It turns out playing a deck I made with individual quirks of my own choosing made my day much more enjoyable. Dan's Behemoth Vineyard: 14 pure-beatdown cards were not enough, unfortunately. 4 Stampeding Wildebeests 4 Llanowar Behemoth 3 Erhnam Djinn 3 Jolrael's Centaur Cursed Scrolls showed up with very little frequency and were removed too quickly to be a consistent mana dump. 4 Cursed Scrolls 2 Earthquake 4 Creeping Mold (No Mishra's, No Controls, No Way) 3 Uktabi Orangutan (No Scrolls, No Disks, No Arrows, No Way) 1 Phyrexian Grimore 1 Dense Foilage Yeah, this is 30 mana sources. You probably think that was too much. It was, but not by much, this deck needs lots of mana, especially mana acceleration, and over half of the mana sources serve other, extremely useful, functions. Walls of Roots are the power card of this deck. I did have to Paris a couple of times on the four non-land mana sources/no green land draw. 4 Wall of Roots 4 Eladamri's Vineyard 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Mishra's Factory 8 Forest 4 Taiga 2 Karplusan Forest Sideboard wasn't very good: 3 Pyroblasts 2 Crumble 3 Emerald Charm 2 Sandstorm I thought this combo would be the World's Most Hilarious Vineyard dump: 3 Dwarven Miner 2 Dense Foilage Unfortunately I didn't take notes, so you're getting my sketchy memory, and not the important strategic details of what I sideboarded, etc. Round 1: Gabe Kut I've played this kid before: He's not a horrible player, but he's not very good either. He was playing what looked like W/r PT Jank, but apparently was more just WW/r with Land's Edge that I never saw. I believe the first game went as designed: Big fast unboltable green creatures came out, and although one was swords, more came out later. I don't remember what I sided: Might have gone with Sandstorms for preists/lions, and might have brought in a Foilage or two figuring he'd bring in more swords. My sideboard wasn't an issue though, but his SB Miners were. The second game was a little scarier: He played a Dwarven Miner, and it slowed me up quite a bit. I had a bird for mana, but only one forest, and drew lots of non-basics. Twice I dropped a nonbasic, and attempted to go for a lucky (2 of 6) cursed scroll to remove it, failing each time. He wasn't doing much in the way of beatdown however, and while he was bolting me and putting me on the ropes, I eventually got a Vineyard out and had all the mana I needed. He Aured my scroll, and then started mining his own lands for a mana sink: At that point I knew I was in control. He got out a SuqAta, I got out a Behemoth. He shouted out to his friend he was about to win, because I was at low life, which I thought was a little class-less, but he's a kid, so you expect a little immaturity. He kept incinerating me to clear colorless mana, when he should have taken the manaburn, and incinerated my Behemoth if I blocked his SuqAta Lancer, or waited for double incinerate on the Behemoth. The Behemoth eventually killed, with maybe a little help from a Centaur. Round 2: I play the annoying Roger kid, you'll hear about in other Match Play tournament reports. He's always shouting out stupid stuff, as well as constantly trying to chatter at you, asking you "Are you done, you're done right? I think you're done". He's a complete ass, but for the most part I didn't let it faze me. I might have been a little rattled by the third game: but I think that was more because I was losing to a deck I should beat, than because of his annoyance-tactics. Game one I did what my deck does to sligh. Introduced him to Turn 1 bird, Turn 2 Wall, turn 3 Ernie, turn 4 Centaur. Blocked a Ball Lightning (one of like 7 I would see this match, the lucky bastard) with a Wall of Roots and cruised to victory at about 16 life. Game two I saw too much utility: Uktabi Orangutans, Creeping Molds, etc., no beefy blockers, and he saw I believe 3 Ball Lightnings and lots of burn. I had an Earthquake, which would normally rock Sligh for a 3 or 4 for one fairly easily, but he only dropped one Firesligner and 3 Balls this game, the rest of his draw was burn. Ok, I lost to a god draw. My friend Ben likes telling people Sligh is a combo deck, like Fruity Pebbles: You draw Fanatic, Ball, Ball, Bolt, Fireblast to win. Game three I had a good draw, including Vineyard, and Wall, but he took my Vineyard mana and brought out a horde: 2 Fireslingers, 1 SuqAta, 1 Ironclaw, and a Mogg Fanatic. The double Fireslingers hurt me considerably. Even though I had a wall, I couldn't block the SuqAta for three turns because of the double sling, Fanatic action. Finally I got a Behemoth. He attacked with a SuqAta and a IronClaw. I blocked SuqAta with Wall, and IronClaw with Behemoth. I asked him to tell me when he's ready to move to damage prevention. He said yes. I said wait, I'm not: I tap wall to pump Behemoth. He says ok, we move to DP, and Ironclaw dies. Then he slings Behemoth twice and throws the Fanatic at it. I say: OK, I tap behemoth, it's a 6/6 with 5 damage on it. Netting me a two-for-one. Yay Dan: You're a good player, and you thought everyone would laugh at your Behemoth! Then he Ball(lose Wall)/Bolt/Bolt/Fireblasts me. Fuck. Anyway, this kid would go on to win the tournament... BTW, it was mono-red, no Forsaken Wastes, Disenchants, or Sleights in the sideboard. I have no idea how he won against Gerrard's Wisdom/Chill. He either didn't face any, or had the same luck against everyone else that he had against me. Round 3 James Parker He goes first turn Vineyard. I laugh, and stuff starts pouring out of my hand: Bird, Scroll, Wall, Wildebeests, Behemoth. I start fearing the Wrath, so I don't replay the bird or Wall: He Wraths, but more stuff comes out, Centaurs, etc. and it's over fast. Second game he's mana screwed: Worse, I Cursed Scroll his bird and get the Dwarven Miner/Dense Foilage combo going. The only card in my hand when he dies with no permanent in play is a Vineyard that I didn't play because he was mana screwed. Round 4 Aezed something? He's playing the Shears/Munz U/G Beatnick deck, which my deck handles pretty fairly well (Wall of Roots is a power card. It's hilarious when people Control Magic them so they can get a Pincher Beetle through). I had answers for everything, Creeping Molds for the Controls, Uktabi's for the Cursed Scrolls. It was a great draw, and he was never really in it. I think he made quite a few play mistakes, in particular Forcing stupid stuff like creatures, when he should have saved them to protect the Cursed Scroll or the Control Magic. Game two never happens; my day of comedies or errors begin. He finds and Ernie in his deck that apparently he wasn't playing with, that was owned by a previous opponent. This results in him getting a game loss, and me the match. While we're waiting for the judges to come back, I find out he's 1-2, which I thought sucked since it was bad for my tie breakers to be playing someone with a low record. The judge said "Well, sometimes that happens". Oh well. I figured I wouldn't get anywhere with my self-made fattie deck anyway, I just figured I was getting lucky to this point. We did spend quite a bit of time trying to decide what to SB for the next match while waiting for the judge to come back. It was annoying from my perspective: All of my cards would be useful against him. Crumbles for Mishras & Scrolls, Pyroblasts obviously, and Dwarven Miners would be useful as he was running lots of non basics and I really want to kill Mishras to stop the sinking. But I'm supposed to be equipped to handle all those things main deck. I eventually came to the conclusion I should just bring in Pyroblasts to force through my key Uktabis, Earthquakes, and Creeping Molds, relying on my main deck methods to defeat his deck. It never mattered as we didn't play. Part of me still wonders what the right thing to do is. (Take out Vineyards maybe? for Crumbles and Miners?) Round 5 M.P. (something like Mark or Matt) He's playing Goblin Recruiter/Song of Blood, which is way cute, but seriously uncompetitive IMO. I mulligan TWICE in the first game , but have an earthquake and a red mana, source, then draw another earthquake. Stopping his initial onslaught getting about 6 goblin kills out of two cards saved my butt. Since he had to restart twice, his recruited goblins were almost all gone. When he finally Songed he only got +2/+0. By them I had a Wall and a Behemoth out and I smacked him around. Game two was Him: Goblin Recruiter/Song of Blood, attack; Me: OK, Sandstorm. He also made Behemoth mistake, where I tapped it on blocking and he wasted a bolt and a fanatic trying to kill it. Behemoths are great cards. We were talking a bit afterwards when he told me he was 2-2, and I suddenly realized I never really paid attention to my score, I was listed as having 6 points, even though I was 3-1 before entering this round. It turns out my round against James Parker was mis-recorded as 0-2 instead of 2-0. James started talking a little smack (like he always does), but fessed up when the judge came over to ask him about the results of our match. My tie breakers will probably be a little screwed, but I'll be paired with a 4-1 next round. Round 6: Ben Ruebin Ben Ruebin is already qualified. He and Daniel Clegg made the Alatar deck listed in Decks To Beat on the Dojo, so I'm a little nervous. (I can't handle a Empirical Armored priest with a Creeping Mold, in fact, I can't handle a Priest other than outracing it.) I figure I've been playing bad players all day since my pairings were screwed, and now I'll get beatdown. Game one he plays well, gets out a horde of black weenies, hymns alot. He made one nice play of note, which I didn't know if he'd see: He had two pumpknights, no creature in graveyard, and a Necrotog. I attack with a Centaur, curious if he'll make the right pay: He does, block with Tog and Pumpknight, Knight dies as a triggered effect, and he feeds it to tog to make a 3/4 tog in fast effects after blocking to keep his tog alive. Anyways, he takes alot of early damage from a fast fattie, and necros alot. He also takes 4 from Erg Raiders, two because I had a fattie blocker, and two he made a mistake. He summoned a horde of double Bad Mooned weenie. I play tight, and said he was necroing for 2, and started drawing, I said take an additional 2 for not attacking with Erg Raiders (even though I had no blockers that could kill it). He went down to two at some point soon thereafter, and I'm chump blocking with birds/centaurs taking some major beatdown. I top deck a Cursed Scroll with my empty hand, but I won't have a card in my hand to use it. So I don't play it. I figure I don't want him to know I have it, I'll use it next turn for the kill, as it might affect his play: Draining sooner, attacking for more, consulting for some kind of permanent removal, etc. Huge mistake, next turn he hymns it away and I die fast. I scream at myself for being so incredibly dumb. Game two he consults for a Hymn and loses about 30 cards out of his library, including most nekrataals and disks. I get out a Vineyard, and then Creeping Mold his Mishra so he has no mana sink. He's force to Consult again, to get his other Mishra, and Necros down to zero cards in library. I SBed in Emerald Charms for Bad Moons: bye bye Necro, he dies in draw phase. Third game I don't remember. I think it was close, and know I Emerald Charmed a Bad Moon to be able to trade my Stampeding Wildebeest for his Necrotog - I think that was game 3 anyway. Anyways, I squeak it out and I'm 5-1, and things are looking good. Round 7 Mark Shick Mark is a very good player. I keep losing to him at tournaments, and it's really annoying. He's playing U/G Vineyard, which I believe I should beat handily. I look at it like this: He basically has pretty much all the same cards as Beatnick, which I beat, but he has these four Vineyards which are doing me a favor, therefore I should beat it easier than Beatnick. Game one I have the Wall/Wall/Bird/Creeping/Beef/Beef/Centaur draw, and have to mulligan. (Little did I know I should have kept this hand: I probably would have won.) He goes 1st turn Vineyard, I smile, then he goes Ernie, Ernie, Centaur, Triskelion and I'm no longer smiling. I drew crap. Birds, Centaurs, and Uktabis and land. I may have had one Wildebeests get countered. He rushed me and fast. Game two was closer, but this time he had 3 Ernies to my one Behemoth. I managed to get him down to 5 with a combination of mana burn and Behemoth while he built up a horde. I ended the game chump blocking like crazy, and dying to mana burn on my last turn. There was some discussion afterwards that I could have played a little differently, suicide blocking my birds earlier to get a forest walking Behemoth, but I think it would have resulted in me taking more damage since then there'd be no point in leaving blockers. Anyways, he was in control most of the game. He Uktabied the only reliable mana sink I drew (Cursed Scroll), and AGAIN out-fattied me. That would be the whining-mantra of the night. Against a deck with 4 fatties (ernies), I would get outfattied. ME! With the fattie deck! I have 4 Behemoths, 4 Wildebeests, 3 Ernies, and 4 Walls of roots, and I got out fattied. I believe if I had drawn a Wall of Roots in game 2 I would have won. I was pretty depressed after that round. Round 8 some guy who didn't show, I get a match win, oh yay I ended up 13th, Mark Shick IDed with his 8th round opponent and ended up 10th. dOh! I hoped for 5 DQes/bad deck checks, but it didn't happen :) My best performance yet at a PTQ, and it felt yucky knowing how close I had come only to get out-fattied. Worse, the Extended format will probably be left for dead after this, and I really enjoy the format. I'm spent alot of money getting the good old cards so I could play the format, and I like the huge variety of cards (duals are cool) available for building decks. I'll miss it alot. What would I change about the deck? I'd definitely find room for some more Earthquakes (they were insanely good... I might have won either game of round 7 if I had drawn one), and try to find some room for a little more beef, or some library manipulation to insure I get the beef when I need it, or to avoid drawing mana later in the game. I felt the games I lost went that way because I drew way too many mana sources. On the one hand I need the mana acceleration, but on the other hand, drawing a 7th turn BoP kind of sucks if I don't have a Behemoth to tap it to, or a Wildebeests to upkeep it with. Maybe Gaea's Blessings and Sylvan Libraries are the answer, but that would slow the deck down. I just don't know. All in all the deck performed very well, much better than my expectations, given that I was so hopelessly lost about what to play the night before. I'm disappointed about not qualifying, because I think I'm a good enough player that I should be there, but I'll try again for the next round I guess. (Not NY, I hate limited.) Comments welcomed.... ----- Daniel DuBois (650) 842-6540 AdKnowledge, Inc. ddubois@pobox.com