Tournament Report - Good Old, Boring 5CW

I gave up. I've ruined my rating just about every way except throwing matches, playing a Rath cycle deck that everyone can see could really use 4 Birds (and a lot of other stuff) just to test it out and because it was fun. So today I decided I'd just borrow whatever I could get my hands on, preferably Bloom. Rob showed up with both 5CW and SGD, and agreed to let me use whichever he decided not to. I ended up with the 5CW, short four Cursed Scrolls. But since I never liked them anyway, I didn't try too hard to find them and made a few more changes. He also didn't have Paladin En-Vec, and I decided to go without those too. He was proxying them with 4 Visionary, and I used those instead. So what I played was:

Round 1: Oliver Rothchild, B/R Necro Game 1: He draws all 4 Springs, I gamble and don't drop the Armor, he has the Edict. He kills my creatures, I Geddon, he doesn't recover. Game 2: I cast a few creatures, he takes 8 or so and then he kills them. I draw Armageddon (again), so I cast it and he sits there with 2 Quicksands while I draw two Priests. 1-0, 2-0

Round 2: Eugene, B/U Game 1: I play a land, He playes Underground River, rituals out a Slayer. I play a land, he unstables the Slayer and attacks for 5! Wow. I play a Visionary, which was SST (Super Secret Tech) the whole day - killed a Bad Moon, then the Unstable to kill the Slayer. By then I had a Monk and his creatures were either useless (slayers) or worthless (Carnophage, Sacromancy tokens). Game 2: He plays 2 Dread of Night I can't remove, but I draw all 4 Firestorms and sit there using them on 2 creatures at a time until I drew both Slights in a row, used them both and played a Visionary and Knight. He could Slight one back but I kill it and play my creatures. I win. 2-0, 4-0

Round 3: Ross Ryan, 5CU mana base with 2 Howling Mine, Stasis, MoMa along with more standard control. Not even Ross knows why this deck works, and he built it. Game 1: I keep playing creatures. He Wraths twice but can't keep it up forever. I kill him with Firestorm. Game 2: He's so dead he doesn't even sideboard. He casts MoMa and I can't kill it, and I mulliganed twice, but he has only 2 cards so I cast Armageddon and it works. He drops two lands and Stasis with only 1 card in hand! "You know you can't win. Eventually I'll just Disenchant it." "We'll see." About ten to fifteen turns later…I cast a Visionary, and he's pitched 15 cards to MoMa. Oops. And THAT'S why without a Howling Mine or Kismet, MoMa/Stasis ISN'T a combo. Not really. 3-0, 6-0

Round 4: Rob, SGD. ID. 3-0-1, Final 4

Semi-Finals: Rob, SGD. Damn. I should lose, and I know it. Game 1: I get a little damage in with Shadow, then he gets Weaver/Wilderbeasts out. I use an En-Kor with an Armor to stall his attack, then draw Firestorm, clear his side and win a few turns later. Game 2: He gets the lock, I get him one point out of Firestorm range (because I don't have a multiland out), but I'm at 2 and feeding him creatures so the Wilderbeast won't kill me. Finally, I draw Firestorm, make the big mistake of not killing his last elf and letting the Wilderbeast stay on the table, but he has Survival and could get a Weaver so it doesn't matter. He immedietly draws Cursed Scroll and kills me anyway. I get a big laugh by saying one turn "Tithe, Tithe, Tithe, Firestorm, you're dead." It was possible! Game 3: I play Shadow, he gets no Weaver. I win!

Finals: Manuel's version of Seth's Pile (monoblue, counter/disk). We split, get 18 packs each, and go home happy.

What did I learn from this? First, I believe that Armageddon is better than Cataclysm for 5CW. Cataclysm looks really good, because of your ability to take full advantage of it - for example, Plains, Mox Diamond, Creatre, Armor. But that's really missing the point. Your problems include big creatures, one of which can shut off your non-shadow creatures. Tradewind Rider is an even bigger problem. Cataclysm is asking for a Tradewind lock, and I remember killing a WW that kept leaving me with 1 land and a 2/5 Tradewind (Spike counter). If you want to remove creatures, Wrath of God and Perish are good SB cards. Armageddon's ability to kill that last land is more important than it looks. Second, I don't like Cursed Scroll in the deck, partly because I like keeping a hand for Firestorm/Armor. With 7 (I want the 8th) cards that make every card in hand a good card, I don't want to worry about whether to empty my hand or not, plus they aren't needed. Makes Vineyard really annoying, though.

Type II is about what it's always been about: Finding the overpowered cards (WotC even makes 20% of each set that way on purpose nowadays), then getting them to work together. A fast, short list right now would be: Empyrial Armor, Tithe, Mox Diamond, Armageddon, Cataclysm, Wrath of God, Counterspell, Forbid, Impulse, Whispers of the Muse, Legacy's Allure, Spike Weaver, Spike Feeder, Wall of Blossoms, Necropotence, Tradewind Rider, Living Death, Firestorm, Fireblast, Ball Lightning, Intuition, Shard Pheonix, Aura of Silence, Propoganda, Winter Orb, Birds of Paradise, Lobotomy, Nevinyrral's Disk, Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, Oath of Druids. Doubtless I missed a few, and this excludes the combo decks of ProsperBloom, Pandernaught and TurboZvi (top 8 in French championships! It lives!) But other than that, the key is using mass removal, incidental control, undercosted mana sources and solid creatures. Start with Nevinyrral's Disk and you end up with a Monoblue deck. Start with Mox Diamond and you add Tithe, leading into 5CW. Fireblast gives you Sligh. Living Death and Tradewind Rider gives you Kastle decks and basic Tradewind decks. Cursed Scroll and Spike Weaver lead into SGD. I'd say that most non-combo decks are direct decendants of 2 or 3 cards that are undercosted and interact well. Looking back, most new deck ideas come from looking at a card and deciding that it is worth playing, or worth emphasising and fetching. Dream Halls, Pandemonium, Oath of Druids. In the past, Armageddon, Land Tax, Necropotence, Balance, Winter Orb, Jokulhaups. In extended, Bueler and Finkel (the finalists in the Extended championship) both started with Tithe and Land Tax, then put in Mox Diamond. That leaves a base of white but a 3 to 5-color deck, since the Diamond is worthwhile anyway and both Tax and Tithe can get any color mana, and duallands were available. Scroll Rack is another good card that mixes with Tax and Tithe. Etc.

I just don't see a card out there that can radically change Type II, and after worlds it will stay static until Urza's Saga, anyway. One interesting thing I received was the idea of Goblin Bombardment/Oath of Druids/Anarchist/TimeWarp/5 Lands. Wow.

I haven't been posting as much because I'm on Team Legion and can't give away Rath cycle tech. And Rath cycle is what I've been working on. My deck is ready for Boston.