Week 3

Dave Kaplan 2 - 1 Stormanimagus

James Saltsman 2 - 1 Brian Kelly

James Saltsman: Game 1: I win the die roll. I keep a solid hand that consists of Crucible, Shop, Revoker, Factory, Thorn, Waste, and Golem. Brian keeps a hand of Misty, Dack, Lotus, Strand, Mentor, Ojutai, and Dig. I open with Shop-Thorn-Pass. Brian cracks a Misty for Island, plays and sacs Lotus to play Mentor. I play an uncounterable Golem from Factory-Shop and pass. Brian plays Strand and passes turn to me. I attack with Golem thereby bringing Brian down to 14 life. Second Main I cast Revoker naming Dack. I play Waste and cast Sphere ending my turn. Brian cracks his Strand for an Island and taps both Islands to cast a Mana Crypt creating a Monk token. Brian ends his turn. I draw a Sapphire and cast it off Shop mana. I then play my second Waste and tap out to cast Crucible. I then proceed to attack with Golem and Revoker (no blocks) bringing Brian’s life total down to 6. Brian takes no damage to Crypt on his upkeep. He draws a Fluster and ends turn. I animate Factory and proceed to attack with Golem and Revoker again. In response to my attacks, Brian casts an A Call creating another Monk. His A Call was Tundra, Misstep, and Gush. Brian blocks my Revoker with his now 3/3 Mentor and team blocks my Golem with a 1/1 and 2/2 Monk tokens. My Factory sneaks in for 2 damage bring Brian down to 4 life. I pass turn. Brian goes to 1 life after taking damage to Crypt. He draws a FoW. He casts a Preordain that cost 2U. He buries a Probe and Fire//Ice. Brian draws a Delta off the Preordain. He plays Tundra and Gushes into a Strand and Pearl. He attacks me with his now 4/4 Mentor while leaving his two Monk tokens for blockers. Before Brian passes turn to me he must discard Delta, Strand, Misstep, and Fluster. I draw into my second Smokestack. This time I am able to cast a Smoke and pass turn. Brian loses game 1 to Mana Crypt.

Game 2: Brian keeps a solid hand of LoA, Island, Steel Sabotage, Preordain, Jace, Volc, and FoW. My seven are two wires, two Chalices, Tomb, Factory, and a Dismember. I decide to keep. Brian opens with Island and ends his turn. I draw a Golem. I open with Tomb-Chalice on 1 only to be Sabotaged. I play Chalice on zero next and pass turn. Brian draws a Lotus and casts Preordain. He finds a Tundra from Preordain. Brian plays LoA and ends turn with 5 cards in hand. I draw a Sphere. I play Factory and cast a countered Wire. Brian pitches Jace from FoW. Brian draws and casts Dack. I draw into a Chalice and cast it for 1. Brian finds Fire//Ice and Ojutai off Dack +1 but unable to cast the furious dragon yet. I draw a Shop and I cast a Wire and Sphere to buy time for to try and draw a Revoker. Life totals at this point are 17-12 in Brian’s favor. Brian +1 Dack again to find two Deltas. He discards both and plays Tundra ending his turn. I actually draw into a Revoker naming Dack. I animate and attack Brian with my Factory. On his upkeep he uses Fire on my Revoker and me. He draws a Volc. Brian +1 Dack again and draws into Tundra and Ponder. He discards Ponder and Volc. Brian plays Tundra and ends his turn. I draw into Karn. I cast Golem and pass turn. Brian draws Strand and steals my Golem with Dack. He plays Strand and ends the turn. I draw a Waste and declare GG.

Game 3: Brian’s hand has only a Jet and Mulls to 6. He keeps Preordain, Probe, Lotus, Emerald, FoW, and Dack. My hand consists of 2 Shops, Tomb, Sol Ring, Dismember, Tabernacle, and a Wire. I Mull to 6 as well. The 6 I keep are a Waste, Shop, Karn, Dismember, Golem, and Chalice. My Chalice on zero is immediately countered by FoW with Brian pitching Dack. I play Waste and end my turn. Brian Probes and draws a Ponder. He plays Lotus, Ponder (draws Dig), plays Emerald, Sol Ring, and casts Dig. Finds and plays Delta and has Sabotage and Preordain in hand. I draw a Factory and play Shop-Golem only to be Sabotaged. Brian draws a Misty and casts Preordain. He draws Fire//Ice off Preordain and plays land for turn. I draw a Lotus and cast Karn while destroying his Emerald. I play Factory and pass. Brian draws Strand and plays it for turn. Life totals are 20-16 in my favor at this point. I draw a Shop and attack with Karn. Brian ices my Shop and draws a Delta off it. I play Shop for turn. Brian draws into another land, this time a Volc. I draw a Tomb. This time I attack with Karn and Factory. Brian draws into another land. Land, land, land equals Game 3 and Match win for me.

In sum, my good fortune and Brian’s bad luck (Game 1: Mana Crypt and Game 3: 3 land draws in a row) got me there

Matthew Gottshall 2 - 1 Wappla

Matthew Gottshall: I managed to finish a very intense match with Wappla and I pulled it off 2-1. If Wappla would like to write up some notes on the match he can, I have a poor memory. I remember that both games that I was on the play I started off with Library on 7. Also noting that in Game 3 I stabilized at 1 life.

Wappla: G1 Matthew has Library into Remora into Back to Basics into Jace. I resolve Ancestral, Delver, Treasure Cruise and keep up for a while, bringing him down to 6 life. He establishes a Jace-Propaganda-Back to Basics soft lock but I have Gushes, Mox Sapphire and Basic Island to maintain hope. I Pyroblast Jace, but the fight allows Remora to draw into his second Jace. Clique eventually beats down.

G2 I have an proactive hand of 7 with 4 mana sources, Mystical Tutor, Preordain and Delver of Secrets. He has a counter for my T3 Pyromancer, and I am down to just a Scalding Tarn in hand, knowing my top card is Gush. He resolves Jace, but can’t stop Gush. Had he had a counterspell for Gush, the game was over. My Gush finds Lightning Bolt and Dig Through Time, and the subsequent Dig finds Pyroblast and Young Pyromancer. After Pyromancer resolves, I throw Bolt and Pyroblast at Jace, the latter resolving. He follows with Clique, a Tabernacle to check Pyromancer, and, a turn later, Propaganda. I draw a Pyroblast for his Clique while he finds a second Propaganda, but only mana and counterspells thereafter. I am able to maintain a small army and beat down with Pyromancer to close out the game.

G3 also looks like a blowout. He has Library on the draw, followed by T2 Time Walk. He Forces my Pyroblast, and I feel ok having taken him off Library. He takes his extra turn and resolves Back to Basics, locking down my sole tapped Volcanic Island. I have enough lands to keep playing. He resolves Jace, I resolve Pyromancer. He Strips my sole Basic. I start beating down. His life starts at 16. Jacestorm finds Tabernacle and I am forced to pay into it with Back to Basics still on board. He tries to remove Pyromancer by flashing in Clique. I respond with Pyroblast on Back to Basics. He Missteps it. I Force back. He Drains. I Misdirect. When everything resolves, I have a Bolt in hand and 5 power on board, he is hellbent with Jace and 7 life. But Jace finds Propaganda. Pyromancer gets him to 5, Bolt sends him to 2. Jace is obliged to bounce Pyromancer. With 5 mana and two tokens facing Tabernacle and Propaganda I can attack with just one. At 1 life, Jace finds Clique and a Preordain which finds Ancestral. Meanwhile I draw 3 Delvers in a row. Eventually he finds more blue stuff to lock up.

White Lotus 2 - 0 Sean Ottaway

White Lotus: I win 2-0 due to him being on the bad side of Oath’s variance against the Gush draw engine’s natural consistency g1 and me finding all 3 priests g2 (I kept a hand with Double Priest, tundra, mox in it and found third one off Dig through time).

MaximumCDawg 0 - 2 Tom Dixon

Tom Dixon: G1 I had Wasteland Double FoW double Trap Misdirection and Drain. Sketchy keep, but I got there on lands and stick a Jace, but he had 3rd Hexmage for it and he eventually closed with Death’s Shadow with 2 Misstep to protect. G2 I rolled him with Standstills despite him having a lot of threats. G3 I had to mull to 5 and he had t3 Hexmage Depths. I blanked on 20 outs (4 plow, 4 wasteland, any mana source for Verdict)

MaximumCDawg: Game one, I keep a hand with lots of mana, two Horobi, Death’s Wails, and Hexmage+Depths. I figured plan A was to stick the combo, and Plan B was to beat down with Horobis. However, the wall of countermagic came down hard. Since he was on the pitch counterspell plan, though, Tom ended up 1-for-2ing all my threats. This seemed like a losing battle for him. Eventually, I stick a Horobi (I drew a third one), but then Jace arrives, gives him a dirty look, and he explodes. I had to burn my new Hexmage to kill Jace instead of comboing out. From there, we had some topdecking to load up our hands.

While we were topdecking, Tom was reluctant to peck at me with his Mishra’s Workshop. He was afraid to put me too low on health due to Death’s Shadow (which was in my hand, but he didn’t know that). Eventually I do get lower on life, and then as he said I had two Missteps to answer his two Missteps and I ended up with a 9/9 that got the job done.

Game 2 he had two Wastelands initially and a third a few turns later. I drew 3 Dark Depths fairly quickly. I never really got rolling, as he had answers and Standstills in advance of any threat I tried. During this time, I’m getting bolted by by Mana Crypt. My client disconnects as I try to go for Death’s Shadow at 3 life, but it was about to be countered anyway. And, if it wasnt, I’d have to win the die roll 3 times against Crypt to win against a goldfish, so…

Game 3, basically I just kept trying to jam threats. Turn 2 I went for Hexmage+Depths+Urborg; countered. Turn 3 I went for Parasite+Shadow; eats Supreme Verdict. But then Tom stalls on development and I am shortly afterwards able to assemble Hexmage+Depths again. He draws no answer (unlucky) and Marit Lage arrives. This time, he doesn’t turn on me.