Tuesday 12 January 2010

Extendedable Youth - a Tournament Report

By Wagz

With the PTQ season coming up a few of us got together last weekend for a proxies-allowed Extended tournament to aid our preparation and help filter out the good decks. I brought LSV’s Tezzeret deck to battle and the mix of players would hopefully ensure we had a lot of variety but not too much Rogue (because playtesting against these decks is basically useless).

Round 1 I faced Martin, who was playing Dredge. Not sure how good a matchup this is because Dredge has the nuts most game 1s and then games 2 and 3 depend on the opponent’s hate. I lost game 1 after a couple of misplays but that’s why we’re here - to practice. Game 2 I kept a hand with Meddling Mage, Spell Snare, Path to Exile, Thirst for Knowledge and Engineered Explosives in but only 1 land – Mystic Gate. I kept it because any 1 coloured mana source and I’ve won already with Mage naming Dread Return and Protection to go the distance. Predictably I drew all spells but it was an interesting keep. I dread the return of this matchup because it’s not really like playing Magic™.

Round 2 was against Danny with Affinity, also known as “a real deck”. Game 1 I stabilized on 3 life before Thoptering off but game 2 I couldn’t get there in time and his little robots beat mine. He did draw all 4 Master of Etheriums though, tough breaks. This is the one matchup where you’d want more Wraths over Engineered Explosives, but you have lots of card draw to fetch them up and EE for 2 kills Ravager and Plating, two very key cards. Game 3 I kept a 2 land and mox hand but didn’t draw a third land. I used my 3 mana to make Vedalken Shackles and stole his Blinkmoth Nexus when he activated it to swing the next turn, upping my mana count to Blue Mox, Hallowed Fountain, Island and Nexus. This gave me enough mana to chain Cryptic Commands while at 4 life, hoping to find a White mana source to cast the Wrath in hand. I saw a Hallowed Fountain and wasted his team before getting a Baneslayer to smash in for 4 turns with all the skill required to do that.

Round 3 was a relatively bad match-up, Scapeshift (piloted by Andy Edwards). Game 1 I got my combo going but 23 life isn’t enough when they just 36 you in one turn, thanks for playing. Luckily games 2 and 3 I was able to counter the right spells at the right time and pulled it through to win. Sorry for not discussing this matchup more but it is one I prepared specific sideboard tech for and don’t wanna splash it all across the internets.

Round 4 I sat opposite Kier, with Deathcloud Rock, aka Tarmogoyf and cards. I think this is a good matchup for me but don’t know for sure. Game 1 I took a small amount of damage but got the Roflthopters going and protected the combo. Game 2 he landed a couple of guys and although I was battling to begin with, tapping out for my last card – Baneslayer Angel – and having it Putrefied put me on topdeck mode. My subsequent lands didn’t get anywhere against a creature on board. I’m pretty sure he still had all those though ;). Game 3 was a bit more back and forth but he didn’t have an answer for Vedalken Shackles and then he really didn’t have one for Baneslayer until it was too late.

3-1 felt pretty good for the deck, including that loss to manascrew against Dredge (which still could have gone either way if I could have cast my spells and there was always game 3 to lose). I’m tweaking it slightly for the PTQs but it’s nice to feel comfortable piloting a good deck rather than some homebrew again (loved my Realm Razer Zoo deck for Nats Qualifiers last year). I’m going to take PTQing more seriously this year, but as a result I might play even more random decks at WNM to make up for it (I’ve played combo since Zendikar came out, can’t stand swinging with dudes until necessary). For those into results and statistics, here’s the full breakdown of the results:









Round 1
PlayaDeckScorePlaya“Deck”
John(Sullivan Burn)2-0Rob C(Living End)
Steve(Landfall Zoo)1-2Kenny(Kiki-Jiki)
Andy E(Scapeshift)2-0Kier(Deathcloud)
Paul(All-in Red)2-1Danny(Affinity)
Craig(Domain Zoo)2-1Andy D(Living End)
Rob W(Tezzeret)0-2Martin(Dredge)








Round 2
John2-1Martin
Paul0-2Craig
Kenny0-2Andy E
Rob W2-1Danny
Steve0-2Andy D
Rob C2-1Kier








Round 3
John1-2Craig
Andy E1-2Rob W
Martin0-2Kenny
Paul2-0Andy D
Rob C2-0Danny
Steve0-2Kier








Round 4
Craig2-1Rob C
John2-1Andy E
Kenny2-0Paul
Rob W2-1Kier
Steve1-2Danny
Andy D0-2Martin















Final Standings
PlaceNameDeckPtsOMW%GW% (calculated manually, good times)
1CraigDomain Zoo12
2JohnSullivan Burn90.625
3KennyKik-Jiki Combo90.458
4Rob WTezzeret90.417
5Andy EScapeshift60.6460.75
6MartinDredge60.6460.556
7Rob CLiving End60.6040.5
8PaulAll-in Red60.6040.444
9Andy DLiving End30.583
10KierDeathcloud30.4
11DannyAffinity30.333
12SteveLandfall Zoo0

3 comments:

  1. Manual tie breakers!?
    Use Wizards event reporter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. um, yeah, my round one was 2-0 me
    john

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oops, I changed the order of some of the names in round 1 but forgot to change the scores with them, round 2-4 and the final standings are correct. The manual tiebreakers are because I didn't have a computer with me.

    ReplyDelete