TappedOut in Atlanta: Part 2

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crossclimber

31 January 2011

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Table of Contents

Saturday Morning Switch-a-roo
I’ve Had Better Swiss
The Punt!
Final Thoughts on the Day

Saturday Morning Switch-a-roo

Anytime you’re getting ready for a big event, there are a few preparatory details that you make sure to cover. Number one is you get a good night’s sleep. You want to be sharp all day long and double espresso induced hyper alertness is not the way to go, not to mention the inevitable crash soon to follow. Number two is a good breakfast. When playing in these events it can be a challenge to get in regular meals so you need to be satisfied from breakfast with small snacks until at least 2 or 3 by which time you should have been able to run for a quick bite at least once in between rounds. Thirdly get to the event in plenty of time. Fourth, trust your testing and stick to what you know, no matter how many people disagree with your opinion. You will always play better with a deck you know than one you don’t; and, it's always more fun to play a strategy you like more than one you don’t. So on Saturday morning well I got to the event an hour early and broke the rest of these rules.

While there is only so much I can say about my sleep and breakfast I’ll at least talk you through my deck selection decision. As I was testing I was looking online at recent events in the extended format to see which decks were winning and which were popular. Deck:Faeries seemed like the most popular deck and was turning in consistent results. deck:Jund was there but was not really performing all that well in the two weeks leading up to Atlanta so I figured its moment in the sun was fading and people would be playing deck:Naya and the GW Hideaway deck which were both gaining in popularity and were decks that beat Jund soundly. mythic was in the mix but was relatively overlooked and not a big percentage of the field. Elves also looked strong and could be the most explosive deck in the format. So as I prepared I was looking at a deck that could handle the swarm to some degree and was versatile and adaptable. What I came up with was the Rock Omen list. This deck was a coin flip with faeries, which was acceptable because the decks that had better a match up there were generally worse against the field, and it had a good match up against the other decks I expected to be popular. Except for Jund. Jund was a horrible match up and even with Chameleon Colossus and Kitchen Finks and Obstinate Baloth in the sideboard it didn’t improve much. However in the current Extended metagame it seemed impossible to have a deck that was favored against the entire field. You had to choose one or two decks that were a bad match up and go for it hoping they wouldn’t be popular and you could avoid them. Jund was what I chose to be my bad match up and while I figured it might be there it wouldn’t be too popular and if I could get a few early wins I would be playing decks that beat Jund and were better match ups for my deck.
Unfortunately I has severely underestimated the popularity of Jund. When I arrived in Atlanta it was everywhere making up easily 40% of the grinder fields with the 2nd most popular decks being a tie between Faeries and Naya both of which were a coin flip for my deck. So now I was faced with the unenviable position of having at best a coin flip match up against what I expected to be 60% or more of the field. That is not where you want to be for sure. As I tested a bit Saturday morning my deck was getting hosed by the Jund and Naya builds of my friends. I knew I should stick to my guns and go for it anyway but at the last second I grabbed a new deck registration sheet and with just minutes to go before seatings went up I registered a Mythic list. You might ask why Mythic as opposed to any other list? The simple answer was because I had just traded for my playset of Jace, the Mind Sculptor the previous day and was itching to play a deck using him. The only other decks he was in was Faeries which I hate and will not play and UW Control which is a strategy that I’m not super good at and I certainly prefer smashing face with creatures. I also thought that Mythic was a powerful strategy that was being slightly over looked by the field at the time so why not go for it. Here is the list I registered for GP Atlanta.

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I’ve Had Better Swiss

Round 1 – Brian playing a non-Fauna Shaman Jund list which was full of Boggart Ram-Gangs and Blightning. Brian had made the trip all the way from California and showed his experience at playing the game in the way he carried himself and chatted in a relaxed manor as we shuffled up and exchanged the common pre-match dialogue. As I drew my starting seven cards I realized just how big a mistake I had made in switching decks. As I looked at my hand I became aware of how little I had played this deck and as such, really had no idea what was an acceptable starting hand. I had some ramp and a Jace, the Mind Sculptor so I figured “How bad could this be?” As it turned out I got straight crushed in game one. He was curving out nicely with his creatures and really bringing the beats while I was sitting back just trying to figure out how in the world to maximize the cards in my hand. Other than drawing the nuts with my deck I think I was going to be outclassed in pretty much anything I tried. After game one I was faced with another ridiculous challenge in figuring out how to sideboard without ever testing much. The sideboard was also mostly theory anyway. I took out the Jaces and brought in Meddling Mage and Spell Pierce. It didn’t matter much as again I was unsure of my starting hand but it looked aggressive and I could cast Sovereigns of Lost Alara on turn 3 if I drew just one land so that seemed like it could be good. Brian took out my ramp on his second turn with Arc Trail and I was again crushed by his subsequent swarm.

0-1
Round 2 – Alex playing a Pyromancer Ascension deck. It’s a very cool deck that runs lots of card draw and burn spells trying to find and turn on its namesake card and then goes off taking extra turns and burning the opponent for tons of damage. Alex loved his deck and said he even played it in Standard. Its always great to play against guys who are there to have fun and in that sense Alex was one of the best. Game one he kept me off of my ramp spells and got an early Ascension to stick when I tapped out to play Knight of the Reliquary. From there he quickly turned on the Ascension and started to go off. Now here was where I made another mistake and it was two fold. As he started to go off I should have watched him play for a bit and then scooped up my cards and gone on to game 2 because he is going to be drawing so many cards and making so many plays that I have no good way to interact with him. I didn’t do that because he said he’d only been playing for under a year and the deck he was playing is a very complicated deck so I thought he might make a mistake. But the longer I watched the more I realized he certainly knew what he was doing so I should have given up and scooped. The second reason that I regret not moving on is because I really don’t want to win by calling a guy on some technicality and giving him a game loss. That’s such a punk way to play and I hate myself for even thinking about it. So as I made him play out game one it took almost 30 mins of our time. I sided in all my counter magic and enchantment removal as well as the Runed Halos. Game two went relatively quickly as I had a 3rd turn Jace and brought the beats with Cobras and kept a full grip of counter magic. Time was called before we were very far into game 3 and while I was in a dominating position with a grip of counter magic I couldn’t get enough damage through in time to get the win.
0-1-1
I was encouraged by that because it wasn’t a loss, rare for the weekend so far, and because in Nashville I had an inauspicious start and came back to just barely missing day 2.

Round 3 – Justin who was playing Steel Artifact. Justin was a soft spoken guy from Georgia and while I try to be complimentary about each opponent I face, Justin was a guy that I think I could admire for more than just his table manor and play. I was sitting under some sort of air conditioner and it was pretty stinking cold. Justin noticed I was shivering and asked if I was okay and needed some food or water. When I said I was cold he offered to go get me a jacket! That sort of compassion and care from a complete stranger is rare these days and simply admirable. The games were decidedly in my favor as my opinion of Steel Artifact hasn’t changed much. I still call it quite weak even after reading Pascal Maynard’s article about how everyone is playing it incorrectly. Game one he got out a bit of a swarm but was stopped cold by my creatures of higher quality namely my ever growing Knights of the Reliquary. Elspeth, Knight-Errant gave me the game by getting my attackers in the air to deliver the fatal blow. Game two I sided in all my artifact removal and kept a solid opener of removal and ramp. It didn’t matter much though because he mulled to 6 and drew nothing but land. I caught up with Justin in the subway that night as I was leaving the game center and he told me he played all 9 rounds despite being technically eliminated early on. Again props to another player simply there for the enjoyment of the game.

1-1-1
My First Win of the weekend!!! Watch out world here I come.

Before the next round I met up with Tim Snow a local who is familiar with the Tapped Out site and who wanted to cheer me on for a round. Tim had come to watch the GP and play in some of the side events. We had been in conversation leading up to the weekend and he had been really helpful to me even offering to let me borrow cards if needed.

Round 4 – Jared playing Elves, a jovial guy who had a good laugh as we shuffled up. Jared’s other defining characteristic is being able to cut my deck to the precise spot where I draw a completely useless hand each time. It’s kind of wild when you draw 5 cards and see no land and you have to make the decision of whether or not to go down to four. As it was my 5 were all three drops and higher. He graciously cut me into a reasonable 4 card hand then he promptly played land, Arbor Elf. I almost scooped right then and there. I didn’t but I did ask Tim to hold off on any pictures until game 2. It didn’t take us long to get there either as Jared swarmed me to death by turn 4 or 5. My only hope in this match up is ramping into a turn 3 Linvala, Keeper of Silence after sideboarding. I drew my 7 and was faced with a tough decision that in hindsight was pretty easy. I had ramp and good creatures but I didn’t have Linvala so I’d be at his mercy and it would be a race to see who could beat who down first. Long story short I couldn’t out race his swarm and never drew Linvala. In hindsight I very clearly should have mulliganed but it’s so hard to do that after you feel you just mulliganed away game one. A selective memory is key when playing this silly game and I got caught in a very common trap.

1-2-1

um nevermind I’m looking at a ridiculous win-my-next-5-games scenario just to make day 2. But stranger things have happened. Since that round went so quick I wandered over to some of the outer tables and found David Ochoa and Matt Sperling playing vintage! It was kinda fun to see guys slinging moxes, Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and tons of duals around. Interestingly enough they were both playing a Tinker deck and the main target for both of them was Myr Battlesphere. I’d love to hear their arguments for why that is the best artifact in the game to fetch up.

Round 5 – Josh playing 5 Color Control. At this point in the day I’m starting to feel pretty blessed by the people I’ve been paired to play against. Josh was another stand out guy having fun. Game one went my way as I brought the beats with Lotus Cobras and Dauntless Escorts. He kept me off bigger things but those guys did the job just fine. The problem with 5cc is it’s chameleon nature and how it morphs to fit the match up. In the next couple of games I got my board cleared by a Hallowed Burial and a Volcanic Fallout respectively. The morning’s espressos were wearing off by this time and I found myself unable to do math and made several mistakes with my mana and even once tried to counter the Volcanic Fallout, I say this not to take away from my opponent but to express just how little of a fight I was managing to put up. After each wiping of my board he proceeded to beat down with man-lands and there wasn’t much I could do. Creeping Tar Pit being unblockable is certainly relevant as he used it to takeout my Jace’s more than once. All in all it was a pretty quick three games which is unusual for a control deck.

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Officially eliminated, defeated, and almost demoralized. I decided to play another round just to see if it was possible to get a Sovereigns of Alara to fetch up an Eldrazi Conscription. As I was walking to the table I considered offering a concession if my next opponent allowed it to happen just once!

Round 6 – Wes who was playing Jund. I think everyone who was sitting in that area of tables had been eliminated already and just playing for fun so the vibe was really relaxed and people were laughing and telling stories of bad beats and making excuses for their decks. If misery loves company we were all pretty much sharing the love. I drew my starting seven and was delighted to see a turn 3 Soverigns staring back at me and I got excited and decided not to offer the concession just yet. I was on the play and started off with Razorverge Thicket into Noble Heirarch. Turn two Lotus Cobra, Celestial Colonnade floating a green for another Noble Heirarch. Turn three Forest floating one mana, tap out for Sovereigns, swing with Cobra equipping Eldrazi Conscription, get in for 15 damage. Wes flips out declaring my starting seven was a "god hand" but I confided that I had lost earlier in the day with the same starting 7. He draws his card for the turn and says, “I’m tapping one red and two green to play the Day of Judgment which is not in my hand” and then scoops to move on to game two. Game two wasn’t nearly as ridiculous but I did curve out pretty well and ended up with a ridiculous board of Cobra, 2 Knight of the Reliquary, Jace, tMS, and Elspeth which overwhelmed pretty much everything he could try to do.

2-3-1
My second win of the weekend. I should have stopped right there and ended on a good note. But then I was hit by the pride bug and told myself that at this point I’d be playing against weaker decks and I could maybe try to help my rating a bit. Who really cares about their rating? I mean sure if its going to get you into a Pro Tour or you need just a couple of points to earn a few buys in the next big event but I’m not one of those guys. Thankfully I was given the humble pie I needed in the next round.

Round 7 – Billy playing Elves. Billy had an infectious smile and a quick laugh and seemingly no ego as he was playing in his first event using borrowed cards and with a less than impressive record. I could not have imagined a better attitude from a player and I’d sit across the table from him any day. He really made me self conscious of my own attitude coming into the match. Game one went to the elf player and his Vengevines. Game 2 was probably my single favorite game of the weekend. I sided in all the Runed Halos, Meddling Mage, and Linvala, Keeper of Silences and had 2 Halo’s and a Linvala in my opening 7. As the game got going Billy would play a threat and then I’d play a Halo and name the threat. Meddling Mage kept him from playing Maelstrom Pulse and it was a very humorous first 5 or 6 turns as he built a huge board but I had protection from most of it. The problem was I got stuck on 3 mana and couldn't get Linvala out in time to keep him from building up a massive swarm. He eventually played a few lords and then his little 1/1 mana elves turned into an army of 3/3’s and I couldn’t hold off such an army nor did I have enough mana to go over the top. So in a humorous game of elf hate from my side it was the elf love that proved the greater force and came out on top. Good triumphs over evil if I can overstate the case.

2-4-1
And that was the last game I played. Humbling to say the least. I did have fun though and really couldn’t have asked for better opponents all day so all in all I was feeling pretty good even if I didn’t want to play another game of Extended for a while.

The Punt!

I watched some of the pros playing in the next round and feeling I still had some gaming left in me I went over to the public events area and asked which event was closest to firing. It turns out it was a draft and while I was fairly burnt out on drafting triple Scars of Mirrodin I wanted to play so I signed up. This was one of the wildest drafts I’ve ever been a part of in the format because of the cards I passed and also the cards that got passed to me. Pack one was something like Elspeth Tirel, Myrsmith, Skinrender, Slice in Twain, Galvanic Blast, Revoke Existance, Sylvok Replica, Grasp of Darkness and a couple other playables. I’ve honestly first picked each one of those cards before and been excited to do so in most cases. For this draft though I took the Elspeth because I thought she really could do a lot for me and win me a lot of games if I drafted some token producing cards and because I needed one more for a Soul Sisters deck I was building. I drafted a white and blue deck and ended up with like four rares and two mythics, Elspeth Tirel, foil Lux Cannon something like 8th pick, Sunblast Angel, Tempered Steel, True Conviction fifth pick, and Grand Architect. The rest of the deck was filled out with some sweet action cards. I did end up passing on some really good cards though like Canifex Demon, Kuldotha Phoenix, and more than just that first Skinrender. I still liked my chances in this one.

I was paired against a guy who had drafted poison. Game one I won pretty easily racing out a turn four True Conviction and turn five Tempered Steel and brought the beats. Game two I got stuck on four mana and couldn’t get any traction and ended up with no way to handle a Cystbearer saddled up with a Strata Scythe. Then comes game 3 where I am absolutely dominating and keeping his board mostly clear. I did end up taking two poison from a swarm attack but then cleared the board with my Sunblast Angel, threatening lethal in two turns against an empty board. On his next turn he plays Trigon of Corruption and passes the turn. On my turn I play a land and declare attacks with the Angel. Now kudos to my opponent for this next part, he asks “And the token (referring to the one left over Elspeth token that survived his big attack)?” I say sure why not and committed both of my creatures to attack, because I was in such a dominating position and the token would bring him down to just one life. PUNT!! There it was my worst play of the day, month, year and I didn’t even realize it at the time which made it so much worse. At the end of my turn he makes an insect with his Trigon. Then on his turn drops a Strata Scythe, equips it, and equips his token with a Darksteel Axe and smashes for 8 poison! Had I left the token back I could have blocked and won the game on my next turn. I was playing over confidently, allowed myself to be goaded, and simply ignored the question “How can I lose this game?” Everything was on the board, his play was in no way subtle because the Trigon was on the board and I had seen the Scythe in the previous game and it just as easily could have been an Untamed Might that did me in. It was at this point in the day that I realized just how far off my game I was. I laughed pretty hard, shook the guy’s hand, wished him well and scooped up my cards and headed out to get some rest and clear my head. There are times when it’s best to just walk away and I realized I was way past that point in the day.

Final Thoughts on the Day

As I left the game center my head was spinning in all kinds of directions as I asked myself, “where did it all go wrong?” I certainly made some big mistakes coming into today from miscalculating which decks would be popular, to not getting near enough rest last night and not being at all sharp and on my game, to switching decks to something I hadn’t tested with hardly at all and simply because I had heard that it was good and it gave me a chance to play my Jaces, to being over confident, to not eating well, to Then it hit me. I could complain and make excuses all I wanted but it wouldn’t change how the day turned out. In fact when I took a step back I was 12 hours from home in an awesome city I’ve never visited which was really beautiful, and for the simple purpose of playing a game I love. I had just met and played against some really cool guys, laughed a lot, and learned some new things about the game from them. Even more than that, I was on my way to see my friend Andrew, a college buddy who lived in Atlanta and who had graciously opened up his home to me for the weekend. Then there was tomorrow when I could return to the game center with no pressure and simply watch others playing at the absolute highest level the game can be played at, meet more folks, trade, and maybe even get in another game or two. In the two blocks walk from the tournament center to the subway I had gone from walking head down and heels dragging to an upbeat and confident stride full of gratefulness and hope. To quote Brian Regan, “Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!”