Thursday 16 July 2009

Tournament Report - WNM at Runik Games, Bury St Edmunds

By Jim Marlow

Hey Everyone,

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable release week. I am very excited about the changes M10 will bring to Standard, because i have been finding standard a bit stale for the past couple of months, with the decks that seem to be performing being the ones i would rather not play, or when i play something else, i crap out to the aforementioned decks.

I didnt come prepared for this week because there isnt really a scheduled series of events in Bury like in Leeds, but i was really hoping to be drafting. Sadly, my plans fell at the first hurdle when i found out the shop had 0 (zero) boosters in stock......o any expansion or core set, i guess Yu-Gi-Oh really is doing that well then.

It turns out it was another T2 Standard Constructed event, which is ok, but i still had my jund deck from last week probably would have done ok, but i felt like playing something different, so i knocked together this list.

4 x figure of destiny
4 x knight of the white orchid
3 x ethersworn canonist
4 x stillmoon cavalir
4 x kitchen finks
2 x ranger of eos
3 x wall of reverence

4 x path to exile
2 x oblivion ring
4 x ajani vengeant
2 x martial coup

4 x ancient ampitheatre
2 x moutain
18 x plains

S/B
3 x wrath of god
4 x burrenton forge tender
3 x celestial purge
3 x reveillark
1 x loxodon warhammer
1 x ethersworn canonist


I know what your thinking, this deck is a little bit poo. Well, i guess your right, but if you know me you know i carry round a folder with a load of good cards should i need them for a deck or to lend to someone. I sort this folder by colour, and this deck was basically made up by taking out the first page and a half of white cards, and adding a lot of plains....done.


Round 1 - A nice man who lent me a D20 then left later on - jund aggro

My opponant was playing the hackblade/colossal might aggro, which as i was sitting down (when he was wished good luck by the store owner....yeah i strike fear into the hearts of men) he professed to 'go off' by turn 5.

Game 1 - Turn 5 came and went, and im pretty certain i was still on a sizeable amount of like, like 10 or something. I had a stillmoon cavalier and my opponant has a jund hackblade left after some battling. He attacks, i block, and he reveals the surprise colossal might..... +1/+0 then first strike i guess....

Game 2 - On turn 4 my opponant finds his 3rd land for a ram gang, i take 3 and make mi figure 4/4, then make a turn 4 wall of reverence....he races?

Round 2 - Grant - kithkin.

I guess this is an ok matchup post board as i have more wraths and the stillmoon cavaliers, but i need to survive to find the cards i need first.

Game 1 - I get a pretty killer draw and get early beats on with triple figure of destiny...nom. Grant finds some land and makes a couple guys but i can still get round for damaghe, and my stillmoon cavalier only needs to swing once to finish him off.

Game 2 - Grant finds all 4 of his path to exiles, 2 celestial purges for my ajani's, an unmake and wraths my stillmoon. I am finding all my removal too, and despite finding another stillmoon grant has too many guys for me. I get an ajani up some counters to keep his guys tapped, but his forge tender stops me a helix, and then i make a mistake pathing the forge tender and not the figure he has. In the end i decide to armageddon and then wrath, take 8 leaving me on 8 then next turn i can play a creature from my hand, and hopefully draw something. I draw a plains, play my knight of the white orchid but grant draws plains and plays his last card in hand, his 4th path to exile...shame.

Game 3 - I bring in the noobhammer, which i mistakenly leave out of game 2 in this match which is essentially a race. Grant gets ahead on the board but i wrath, then i mistakenly play out a second stillmoon cavalier as i think i can beat for the win but this time grant wraths, leaving him a figure in hand courtesy of ranger of eos. The figure bites it and luckily i find another stillmoon cavalier after we both draw dead, and finally i have something to equip my noobhammer onto, especially since i have been drawing land. I smash in for 9 twice, putting me to 42 life i think, grant finds a mirror entity, with an equally large mass of land, but misses a chance to crack back when he forgets to tap my kitchen finks at end of turn, meaning his attack in turn 3 of extra turns for 27 doesnt get there, as he has no way to stop the cavalier.

Great Games.

Round 3 - Meo - Combo Elves

Meo asked me what to play today between a jund deck which didnt look to exciting and a really nice build of combo elves, but his uses banefire as a finisher. I love it because it uses gilt leaf archdruid and the druid accelerant package, which is awesome, although i think he would be better off using the primal command and mirror entity package to just bash through, with banefire as backup.

Game 1 - I resolve turn 2 ethersworn canonist, and Meo plays a birds of paradise, then a llanowar elves, then another birds of paradise in the next three turns. I make big men and smash.

Game 2 - Meo thoughtseizes my canonist, which is annoying, but despite finding the right mana generators he cant find either a regal force or primal command, and so has to start chumping. He keeps finding useless mana dorks and can banefire me for 10 simply from the mana his guys can make, but i an getting in with my guys and this is not enough.

3-0 is obviously a great result, and winning is good, especially with a deck i know little about and that i made 5 minutes before the event (played my first round unsleeved) My rating has finally decided its had enough of going south and has begun the long and painful journey back to where i was at a few months ago...although i must say that i am doing better than ever at limited so Finkel watch out.

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I hope you enjoyed this, the draft i promised will finally go up tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that.

Nats is getting very close now, i hope everyone is excited about it.

See you there


Until then,


Jim


As always,feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

2 comments:

  1. Proof that bad decks win games!

    I doubt they would have been prepared for a deck of that nature though, in seriousness.

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  2. yeah i think its very true. Ethersworn canonist was basically the undoing of the elf combo deck, and i only reallyincluded it because it seesm every man and his dog are playing some sort of cascade deck at the moment.

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