Standard
I was at a birthday party drinking beer all day Saturday so I couldn't play Standard (terrible right?) but one of my SCG Houston opponents ended up playing a variation of mono-red after I crushed him in Houston. He said the deck worked out great all weekend and he ended up making top 8 with it. He was particularly enamored with the sideboard Prophetic Flamespeakers. :) Good Job JB!
His List:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=81024
Saturday night we got up to Dallas and grabbed a burger at the now semi-regular stop of Rodeo Goat (no fish and chips this time). Some burgers and beer were consumed and I hit the hay around Midnight. I was out like a light until ~7am. Sleeping all the way through the night with no baby crying, that is pretty crazy stuff for me these days. I woke up feeling sluggish, maybe I slept for too long and had too much uninterrupted sleep? Some people are just never happy...Sigh. A cup of tea later and things were at least looking a little better.
Legacy - RUG Delver (Get out of here Temur Delver)
I am not entirely sure how many people played in the Legacy PIQ but we played 8 rounds so ~200ish+ people.
Round 1 - Burn (Barnett, Keifer)
Red hat, red shirt and red deck box. I knew exactly what I was in for this round. Oh yeah and no playmat.
G1 - I lose game 1 because I choose to keep up spell pierce instead of deploying a nimble mongoose when I am at 11 life. My mana was quite constrained this game (1 Trop and 1 Wasteland). Eventually he gets down an Eidolon and it is too much for me to break through.
G2 - He gets me down to 12 before I just start smacking him with a giant Tarmogoyf.
G3 - I manage to leverage my dazes and spell pierces to force him to overcommit with a fireblast which I counter.
Phew. Burn is a bad matchup and it always sucks to lose to it in round 1 so i feel pretty good that i dodged the bullet.
Round 2 - Burn (Ullom, Brock)
I heard this guy playing while I was playing my round 1 opponent. What I heard as he screamed his actions at his opponent. "Sac two mountains, Fireblast you!" Ugh...
G1 - I am never in this game...his start is perfect with double goblin guide into my death. He ends the game at 20...Do the wheels start to fall off now?
G2 - This game is odd as I have enough pressure to race him with my turn 1 flipped Delver which he doesn't kill. I end that game at 4 life and he was at 3 before I deal him lethal. I think I likely lose this game if he is a little more patient.
G3 - I land a huge goyf and smack him with it.
Round 3 - RG Lands (Pierce, Stephen)
I recognize this guy so I ask him if he recognizes me. He does but doesn't want to say...I am racking my brain to try and figure out where I recognize him from. Finally I realize that it is from SCG Dallas last year (Here). I remember why our game was so funny and I ask him - "Forest?" I tell him how Forests always fail you and we proceed to play. He tells me he can play his deck better now. Good news for me to know what I am playing or just a super bluff?
G1 - We both mulligan to 6 and he is on the play. He take a long time to think about his hand. I snap keep my terrible hand of - X2 Fetch, Goose, x2 Goyf, Forked Bolt. He leads with mana bond but doesn't dump his hand (which I thought was likely after him thinking about his mulligan). I proceed to play dudes every turn and the forked bolt him to grow goose.
G2 - I counter Life From the Loam 5 or 6 times in this game and win.
Round 4 -BUG Delver (Williams, Keith H)
G1 - This is a really weird game and I am on 6 cards and on the draw. I manage to stabilize to the mid-game but I have to use a Force of Will on a Tarmogoyf putting me way behind. He lands a True-Name Nemesis and we are racing each other. He eventually draws removal for my Delver and I lose to the True Name.
G2 - I tempo him out.
G3 - This game was very interesting and I had a tough decision on turn 2/3 of the game. We have both wastelanded each other and he looks to be short of land but has a tropical island in play and a deathrite. Then he taps out to play a tarmogoyf. My board is Volcanic and Grim Lavamancer. Goyf is a 1/2 (just lands in yard). I untap and have the option to kill the Deathrite or the goyf. My instinct is to kill the Goyf and I remove the lands with the intention to do that but as I am point at which creature to kill I change my mind and select Deathrite. Honestly I think there is a good argument either way. It is also relevant that I have a Submerge in hand. So I am not too worried about getting rid of Goyf at some point. I end up losing because he manages to super charge his Goyf on the next turn and start smacking me for a lot of damage. Oh yeah and at some point in the game I get another Grim Lavamancer active and almost try to double ping his Tarmogoyf that is a 4/5. That would have been awkward.
This was a pretty frustrating game to lose.
Round 5 - RW Painter (Williams, Harold)
G1 - I have played against this deck a lot and drawing my Gitaxian probe gives me a lot of info to help navigate the game even more smoothly.
G2 - Again I slow the game down then land a Goyf. He lands a Blood Moon which I let him resolve even though I have a Force of Will in hand since I figure I can just counter his next spell.
This version is so much worse again RUG Delver since they care about their fetches a lot more than other version and also get hit by Wasteland.
Round 6 - Storm (Stanley, Kevin)
G1 - We both mull and my hand is a little mediocre but I do land a delver and attack him down to 17! My opponent goes off on turn 3 with Ad Nauseam and Cabal Rituals. He goes all the way down to 3 and stops. He then thinks for a while plays a polluted delta and fetches. He picks up his library and starts to look through it. I quickly stop him and play a stifle...he looks at me and his hand and goes in the tank. Two minutes later I am the winner.
G2 - I have quite a few cards to bring in from my sideboard and I counter his spells.
Round 7 - UWR Delver (Palmer, Austin)
G1 - This was an odd game. My opponent played 3 Swords to Plowshares making me gain 11 life this gain (killing 2 Tarmogoyfs and a Delver of Secrets). Eventually I land a Delver and start going to town. He lands a True Name and starts swinging back but I have 11 extra life...so I win.
G2 - I probe him early and proceed to play around his hand.
This is the type of Delver match that I love to play. I am physically and mentally exhausted (not to mention hungry). Oh yeah and I was paired down this round
Round 8 - Burn (Avera, Trent)
We look at standings and I know I have to play to make it to Top 8. I really just wanted to go eat and go home...My opponent says "we can draw," I tell him that I don't think we can but he just keeps saying it over and over again. I saw my opponent playing earlier that day and I know he is playing Burn. I am tired, exhausted and really don't want to play vs burn so I take the draw. Not the smarted thing in the world I know but there you go. It is worth noting that I likely would have made top 8 if the other two table that we cared about drew. One of the tables went to time and the guy did manage to kill his opponent on turn 3 of turns...
List on SCG:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=81094
Note - SCG missed the 2nd Destructive Revelry from the sideboard.
Main Deck
Creatures (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
Lands (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Spells (30)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
1 Forked Bolt
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
The Main Deck is pretty Standard with the following being the final 6 flex slots -
3 Spell Pierce - I think 2 of these are mandatory in the deck but most people don't play a third. I like spell pierce in almost every matchup and when it is good it is very, very good. I thought there was going to be a lot of miracles and a lot of burn so more spell pierces seemed good.
1 Forked Bolt - I usually run between 5 & 7 burn spells main deck. I decided to go a little lower on my main deck burn and have the extra burn/red spells in my board for this weekend.
1 Gitaxian Probe - I like the 9th cantrip for helping find lands/burn spells and the information is great.
1 Spell Snare - To name just a few things I countered this weekend - Tarmogoyf, Painter's Servant and Price of Progress. Almost every deck has a good target for spell snare and sometimes you just need a hard counter (even if it is situational).
Sideboard
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Envelop
1 Izzet Charm
1 Pyroblast
2 Submerge
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Sudden Demise
The Sideboard is where the real work came into play.
1 Grafdigger's Cage - This should probably be 2 Grafdiggers Cage but I hate graveyard hate and I changed the second Cage for a Scavenging Ooze because I like ooze in the Delver matchups as well as against burn. The second cage also helps against Elves but I felt like I had that covered with Grim Lavamancer and Sudden Demise.
2 Grim Lavamancer - This was the best card in my sideboard by far. I side boarded it in 5/8 rounds and if I had played the last round it would have been 6/8). Little lavaman did everything, he controlled the board, he shot my opponent for two and he sometimes even attacked for one.
1 Scavenging Ooze - A loose graveyard hate card that can also come in versus the delver matches as well as vs. burn.
1 Sulfuric Vortex - My favorite way to beat miracles and Batterskull that is not named Destructive Revelry.
2 Destructive Revelry - My favorite Artifact/Enchantment Hate. Sure it isn't as good as Ancient Grudge at blowing up artifacts BUT it blows up enchantments and domes your opponent for two...Also nobody play affinity...
1 Envelop - Envelop was good versus Burn and Storm but I also like it versus Miracles, Show and Tell as well as versus Elves.
1 Izzet Charm - I had a flex spot left in my list that was a miser Divert (which is prettyspicy). I felt like I needed to not be so cute though. My options were a Forked Bolt or the 4th Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm. I decided to split the difference and run the multi functional swiss army knife. I sideboarded Izzet Charm in several times and I was pretty impressed with its functionality and I countered several spells and killed a Delver of Secrets.
1 Pyroblast - I could handle having another Pyroblast in the Sideboard but space is super tight. Thankfully the main deck has a bunch of good cards versus Miracles which is the matchup where you want more Pyroblasts.
2 Submerge - This is for BUG, the mirror match and Dark Depths, as well as versus anybody with Forests. I am unsure of how good this is versus elves since you want to keep all your burn and also your counters against them...slightly awkward.
1 Vendilion Clique - This for the Combo and Control matchups.
2 Sudden Demise - I love Grim Lavamancer and I love Rough//Tumble but they don't work well together. So my solution was to run Sudden Demise. The theory is sound but I didn't get the matchups (Tribal (Merfolk, Goblins, Elves) and Death & Taxes) to see how well it would have worked. It is also worth noting that with Death and taxes going to the Skies and to Brimaz, Rough//Tumble is pretty bad versus them these days. Sudden demise can at least kill their dudes if you can get to enough mana which admittedly can be a big task in the face of Rishadan Port and Wasteland.
So yeah another 10th place finish. I should probably start making top 8 finishes instead. I only have myself to blame for this one though. On the plus side I did play pretty well all day despite how tired I was with the exception of trying to Grim Lavamancer a Goyf).
Cheers,
Simon
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