Life Outside PLT1

Regionals 2008

May 17, 2008 on 11:43 pm | In Magic | | Balinor

Two decks were made for this regionals, one was Rev-combo, the other was GR Snow Ramp with an edition of Torrent of Souls over Garruk because I could not get a hold of any Garruks for cheap. Thanks to Zak Holdaway for letting me borrow your goyfs that you got at the $1 rare stage and thanks for Jin Koo Niersbach for the testing. After some discussions, Mathew Roger talked me out of playing Rev-combo, which I was more in favour of playing, to playing GR Mana Ramp as it was a good all around deck with no really bad match ups. After a few games I found the torrents are really useful I found and actually became a game winner in Round 4. Especially useful when the GR Ramp deck ran a potential 7 spot removal and 3 mass removal, to cast after the sweep targetting Siege Gang with B and R and swing for 12 off the bat. Deck I was running was:

1 Squall Line
1 Void
2 Torrent of Souls
2 Fire Spout
3 Incinerate
3 Cloudthresher
3 Harmonize
4 Seige-Gang Commander
4 Skred
4 Tarmogoyfs
4 Into the North
4 Wall of Roots

1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Snow Swamp
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow Mountain
7 Snow Forest
4 Treetop Village
4 Highland Weald

SB
1 Firespout
2 Primal Command
3 Raking Canopy
3 Krosan Grip
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Extirpate

The deck I find very solid and it has been built, main deck, to have a better match up vs faeries. The sideboard was made to make it even worse for faeries. Since the deck is made to be pretty good vs most of the aggro decks, only 2 Primal Command was needed just for that extra life gain. People would put these over the torrent of souls main, but I find torrent very very handy, especially since siege gangs and threshers don’t last very long with all the spot removals out.

Round 1 vs Dragonstorm (2-1)
Game 1 was a usual affair of mana ramping and him storage counter hoarding. After I figured out he was playing Dragonstorm I was feeling a bit stupid holding 2 Firespouts in hand. However the turn after I thought that he went rite of flame dragonstorm moving all counters of the storage lands to get 2 Kites dealing 10 damage to me. Turn passed back to me and I was quite happy to cast both Firespouts to clear the board. After more storage counter was stacked, he casted pyromancer’s swarth and graped shot me for the win

Game 2 and 3 put in 3 Extirpates, 2 Magus of the Moon, 1 Primal Command. Game 2 saw magus hit the board but lasted 1 turn before getting shocked was thinking ok well at least he has to waste shocks to get rid of the magus so he can work his storage lands. Extirpates was cast on a shock, I was thinking at this point this was a bad move but I had to know what he had in hand to plan next moves. After he revealed his hand of 2 Dragonstorms, 1 kite, 1 swarth, 1 shock, and rite of flame, was thinking ok maybe an ok play. In the end thresher and treetop villages swung for the win. Game 3 was more of the same except come the closing turns when I extirpated his Keldon Mauraders to see what was left in his hand, he revealed 3 grapeshots. All he needed was a swarth to win but lucky for me he did not draw one and my creatures won.

Round 2 vs TarmoRack (1-2)
This was a fair standard discard vs any deck game. Game 3 was quite interesting as Augur of Skulls finally hit the board in which I quickly skred and instantly regretted it as I remember skulls can regen. Last in the game, skulls were on the board and and skreded thinking he had no black mana to regen but did not see half hidden llanowar wastes. I wasted unneccessary skreds in the game when I really needed them in the late game as we were at a stand off with 2 goyfs on my side at 5/6 vs his 1 goyf and 1 raveneous rats. Removal any sort to his goyf would make me victorious but he ended damnationing then we were in a top decking war until he cast a tarmogoyf and I drew and extirpate and 5 land in hand nothing on board and on 1 life.

Round 3 vs Elementals (1-2)
Games here we really and a bit of a blur for me. Lucky for me I kept Incandescent Soulstoke at bay and Siege Gang held the fort until I won 1 game. All I remember of this round was the last game and probably one of my worse bad beats story ever. He cast vigor with 3 Elementals and 1 soulstoke on the table. When I read what vigor did, I had a one track, tunnel vision, mind set to kill it with my skred in hand. Unfortunitely I only had 5 snow permanents in play and could not skred it. I had no other removal but did have the 6th snow permanent in hand if he passes the turn to me. He then cast pyroclasm which it resolve. He then attacks and I had 2 goyfs on board at 2/3, so I decided to double block the soulstoke (4/4 at the time) thinking at least if I could take that out it’ll be a little bit easier for me. Of course I forgot the ability of vigor and instead of dying it just got bigger and I had no more board. I skreded the vigor on my turn then lost to the massive elementals.

One thing that was pointed out to me and didn’t even think of it at all was when he pyroclasmed I could of skreded the vigor taking it out and the pyroclasm would of cleared his board. This mistake could have possibily cost me a top 8 slot

Round 4 vs +1 -1 infinit combo (2-1)
This round was vs Eddy Kim who I knew. Game 1 he went off with Juniper Order Druid + Murderous Redcap + Greater Gargadon combo but not without me questioning how the combo actually worked using the Greater Gargadon. Also Eddy let me off on a lot of play mistakes so thanks.

Game 2 saw magus of the moon come out turn 3 and eddy then drew nothing but non-basic land and no redcap. Game 3 I had to mull to 6 trying to get the magus which it did but my hand was, magus, 3 forests, torrent of souls and a few other spells. I was thinking if I can get a red then Eddy will be coloured screwed again. After the 4th turn I got another forest and drew a Harmonize a turn earlier. I cast Harmonize and the 3rd card drawn was a mountain. Once the turn was past back to me I played a mountain and cast Magus. Eddy promptly cast redcap getting rid of the magus. Luckly for me I had a swamp in hand and played it on my turn, cast skred of the redcap just in case, then cast Torrent of Souls on magus and past the turn. Eddy did not get any more redcaps and drew more mountains.

Round 5 (2-0) RDW
This round was vs Gareth a former limited time Whangarian. He was playing wins. Siege Gang Commanders saved me first game and then he said to me that primal command was bane of this tournament, so I said to him I’m siding 2 in and on game 2 that bane came again which put him out of range to beat me.

On the whole I did enjoy myself at Regionals 2008. Congratulations for Matt Rogers and Zak Holdaway representing Whangarei in Auckland Regionals top 8. The meta was quite different to what I expected which was Faeries. However it was quite diverse and good to see a few decks not that commonly seen around the net. I came in 13th which is one worse than last year’s 12th. No top 8 for me this year. I will try again come next year.