I played in and won the Grand Prix Trial held at my LGS on Sunday the 8th of June.
We played 5 rounds of Swiss with a cut to top 4.
The following is a quick breakdown of how things went and some notes about how I would like to change the deck around, possibly.
Round 1 - Played against BG Dredge.
Game 1 went very smoothly for me, exploded out of the gates and got the engine online without any issues. Multiple Eidolons and a Garruk sealed victory.
Sideboarded in my Scavenging Ooze, Unravel the Aether, and Bow of Nylea to deal w/ his Gods and graveyard.
Game 2 he had an early Lotleth Troll but never really had any action to back it up and I had a turn 3 Polukranos followed by a spewing of my hand in the form of Eidolons.
Round 2 - Played against Junk Midrange (Lifegain/Planeswalkers)
Game 1 - I don't remember a ton of what happened in this game, I do not think it went very well for me, my memory seems to indicate I had a lot of mana dorks and not a lot to do with them.
Sideboard: Added my Scavenging Ooze to combat his Scavenging Ooze, Sylvan Primordial to have an answer to a Planeswalker, Unravel the Aether for Banishing Light/Courser of Kruphix, and Setessan Tactics for the must answer creatures.
Game 2 - I did end up winning this game off the back of a very early Polukranos and again getting a card advantage engine online. Did not see any sideboard cards.
Game 3 - Lost this game mostly due to a misplay by myself over a rule I was not actually familiar with. According to the Judge on hand (we normally do not have a judge on hand at our shop), when you use Polukranos' monstrous ability and there is a legal target he must choose to deal damage to at least that target. He and I both agreed that the card was not worded well to support that ruling but he had some judge stuff on his phone I could not argue with. In any case I ended up losing my third Polukranos because of the ruling and didn't draw any gas past that point.
Round 3 - Played against Naya Hexproof
Game 1 - Pretty much the story of the day, I got early mana dorks into a card advantage engine and ended up flooding the board with permanents.
Sideboarding - Added my Nylea's Disciples to counteract his early beats and the Unravel the Aether and Sylvan Primordial to hit hopefully his lifegain enchants.
Game 2 - He got stuck on 2 lands and I played a turn 4 Garruk into a turn 5 Sylvan Primordial that killed his second land. Found out he had Boros Charm in hand so he could have given his land indestructible, but I don't think it would have mattered. Ended up using the Clan Defiance here to dome him for 17 the turn after I played Primordial.
Round 4 - Played Mono-U Devotion
Game 1 - He had the nuts and killed me turn 4 or 5, a turn before I would have killed him.
Sideboard - Added Nylea's Disciples, Mistcutter Hydras, Setessan Tactics, Arbor Colossus - Don't know if this is right, but I wanted to try it out.
Game 2 - He had 2 lands and I curved out into lots of dudes he had to block, gained a bunch of life before he was able to actually get going so that when he did it did not matter.
Game 3 - Drew all 3 of my Setessan Tactics and killed his board 3 times. This gave me enough time to get online and run him over.
Round 5 - Played Mono-Red aggro/devotion
Game 1 - He's got all the early beats, but I stick a huge Nylea's Disciple (the miser in the maindeck) and take over the board with a flood of Eidolons + Garruk.
Sideboard - Added the other Nylea's Disciples and the Setessan Tactics along with the one-of Scavenging Ooze.
Game 2 - Again he's going early, and ends up running away with it because of double Boros Reckoner and I never saw any real action that could handle it.
Game 3 - This time I get mana dorks going early and his only early action is a Firedrinker Satyr that I eat with one of my two Elves. His next play is a Boros Reckoner two turns later so I am able to solidify the board in the meantime with Courser/Eidolons and end up playing 2 Nylea's Disciples, gaining some absurd amount of life (20+) that takes the game way out of his reach.
TOP 4
My opponent this round is the BG Dredge player from round 1, he is my friend and concedes to me because he will not be going to Chicago.
Finals
Play against the Naya Hexproof player again.
Game 1 - He mulls to 5, but it's a good 5 as he played a turn 2 Fleecemane Lion, turn 3 Unflinching Courage, turn 4 Ethereal Armor, turn 5 Boros Charm double strike. I decided to only play around him having Ghor-Clan Rampager on turn 5 and only blocked w/ 5 toughness so that I would be able to kill his Lion the next turn if I lived. I could have conceivably blocked enough damage to live that turn, but would have lost almost my entire board and with it my only way to kill his Lion.
Sideboard - Same as round 2
Game 2 - I mulled to 5 in this game and feared the worst. My hand had a mana dork, 2 lands and a Courser, though so it could potentially get there. I ended up winning this game because Courser allowed me to skip 3-4 land drops and my opponent drew all lands after his opener of Courage + Courage + Gladecover + Gladecover.
Game 3 - I considered sideboarding in the Setessan Tactics here, as I did not want to lose to a turn 2 Fleecemane Lion again, but I declined doing so. I had a fairly slow opener but kept when my opponent decided to mulligan to 6. He proceeded to mulligan the game away by going to 3 before seeing a land + creature. The only thing he played was a Forest, a Stomping Ground, a Gladecover Scout and a Madcap Skills. I had 10+ devotion and a Nylea along w/ Nykthos.
All-in-all, I ran very well the entire day and have no real complaints about how the deck played. I loved the Setessan Tactics from the board and it always felt like a blow-out. I did not run into any true control decks or mono-black devotion, so it was a fairly strange meta-game. I would like to find a little more game against the early Naya Hexproof draws. Perhaps another Unravel the Aether or just a Naturalize, I have not decided. Nylea's Disciples and usually good enough to put the game out of reach, but not always.