Hey all,It's been a month or 9 or so since I last played a Legacy budget tournament, which turned out a sad tournament with 0-5 piloting a black discard deck that, a tourney before that, proved to have potential going 3-3. So, it was back to the drawing board and after being unable to go twice, I decided the third time to be a charm.
For those of you reading this not familiair with the format, basically what the tournament organisers did was check about 10-15 Dutch online magic card shops and compared the prices of all cards available. Each card that was at least 4 times available and had a price of 0,50 Eurocents or less is Legal, all others are banned.
So, my creativity worked overtime and after some playtesting on MagicOnline and some hatemessages (OMG I can't believe you play garbage cards, you are a loser etc etc) after winning again , I decided to go with the following and surprise the hell out of everyone:
Win:
3 Door to Nothingness
1 Rude Awakening
Ramp:
4 Rampant Growth
3 Cultivate
3 Kodama's Reach
4 Explosive Vegetation
Draw/utility:
4 Worldly Counsel
3 Allied Strategies
2 Relic Ward
Buymetime.com:
4 AEtherize
4 Planar Despair
Mana:
15 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Island
SB:
4 Bound/Determined
3 Glaciers
3 Voices from the Void
1 Relic Ward
2 Dismantling Blow
2 Rude Awakening
Yes. Door. Gotta love it.
With fingers crossed I went into the (now pretty competitive) metagame, expecting a lot of decks with Mystical Teachings which is rumoured to be the most broken card available and yes, a lot of decks featured it.
Onto Match 1!
Match 1: U/R brewery of some sorts
Game 1: My opponent shuffles and is nervous as hell. His hands can't stop shaking and he looks like someone who needs daily psychological assistance (I'm not degrading here, he really did look and acted like someone who had a day off from the sanatarium, I tried to find out but he wouldn't talk much. Just shook his head. Though he did that quite frequently.
Anyway, he won the dice roll and after we both mulligan (yay) he goes first. He plays 2 Mountains in 2 turns and does nothing, while I have a T2 Rampant Growth into T3 Cultivate and T4 and T5 Explosive Vegetation. He is still locked on 2 mountains and discards Voyage's End (foil, nice) and a Lava Axe (wtf.., ok). With a T5 Worldly Counsel I find Door number 1, cast it T6 and slam it home T7. Yes! I don't care who my opponent is, I got 1 game at least!
Game 2: He doesn't sideboard while I add in Glaciers. He plays a T2 Crosstown Courier (what kind of deck is he playing..) and hits me on Turn 3. I dump the top 2 cards in the yard and... there lies a Mountain in the yard. No Doors this game! Fortunately for me my opening hand had Rude Awakening! So I play a T3 Cultivate and get 2 Swamps, as he continues to play creatures with Phantom Warrior and 2 others. T4 I play Kodama's Reach and lure him into playing another creature before, being at 8 in the meantime, hitting Planar Despair cleaning the board. He gets a Shriekgheist while I get Glaciers and by that time I have 11 land. He puts out another blockers, hits me with Gheist and I use Rude Awakening to attack him for 20 on the dome.
1-0
Yes! Though definitely no resistance here, it was a good warm-up and I chalk one up on the good side!
Match 2: U/R Dragonauts
I played this deck before, it uses critters that pump on Instants/Sorceries, so what you do is get all the 1 mana instants/sorceries with Cantrip that you can find and run.
Game 1: We both Mulligan (argh) and he opens with Faithless Looting. He gets a Cyclops (1UR, 1/4 defender, not sure on the name) into play and is able to hit me for 6 using 2 instants the next turn. I ramp away and Planar Despair the bastard but he gets a Dragonauts next turn. I have all my land available and put down the Door, but he manages to hit me for 14 the next turn. Crap, I just needed to untap..
Game 2: He mulligans and we go about our business. I AEtherize him twice before putting down Glaciers while he has Dragonauts, Cyclops and a 1/1 hybrid card with the same effect on the table. I'm at 15 and just need Planar Despair or Aetherize to win (sided out Doors for Rude Awakenings, fearing he had 1 mana artifact removal) because he can't cast anything after that. But, the previous turn he casting a U-costing Rebound spell that gives a creature +1/+0 and he is able to cast another U-costing spell the next turn, dealing exactly 15 damage to win. Next card for me to draw was Planar Despair...
1-1. So close!! I fear a slide for me..
Match 3: Kithkins
I'm playing against the girlfriend of the tournament organiser.
Game 1: A really sweet lady and she's playing Kithkins. Dangerous as the little buggers are able to grow fast. She gamles and keeps a 1-land hand playing Goldmeadow Stalwart T1 but stumbles the next 2 turns. I ramp away and she finally hits land 2 and 3 hitting me down to 10 when I Planar Despair. She gets 3 more Kithkin on the table but I hit my Door and AEtherize her assault.
Game 2: I side in Voices and some Rude Awakening (mono-white hates artifacts.
She mulligans, and there we go. She plays Kithkin after Kithkin and have a T2 Rampant Growth. On turn 3 I have 4 different land and Aetherize her 4 Kithkin. She can recast 2 of them keeping 4 cards in hand, but I use Voices from the Void to clean her hand out. She keeps hitting me hard and I Worldly Counsel into Door, but I need a Despair desparately! I go down to 1 and in topdeck mode and TopdeckModeGod is smiling on me. I Planar Despair and ride it out.
2-1 Hot dang! So far I had cool opponents, no Teachings and am up 2-1! This is looking good.
Match 4: Mono black discard
A friend of mine played him in Round 2 and lost hard. I'm afraid I'll lose harder against this guy.
Game 1: He mulligans (yay!) but plays a T2, T3, T4 Augur of Skulls saccing them each time. I somehow avoid heavy losses and ramp up nicely. He Read the Bones into Liliana's Specter and I have a Planar Despair left. I kill his troops (already at 8 now) when a Gray Merchant appears, but my Door beats his race!
Game 2: Holy cow can I make it? I side in Voices for Relic Wards.
He plays Chittering Rats, Needle Specter while I have a T4 Explosive Vegetation. I Planar Despair his troops after he casts Underworld Connection and Read the Bones. He gets double Chittering Rats and I Worldly Counsel into Door, but I need another Moutain that I don't find in time.
Game 3: He mulligans again (yay) but gets the Augur of Skulls again. I am able to cast Door and look for mana but he curves out into Liliana's Specter and hits triple!! Merchant.
2-2 Again close matches, didn't expect that against this deck
Match 5: W/G critters
Game 1: We both mulligan (see a pattern?) and he opens with some mana creatures into a Turn 3 Acidic Slime on my Island. Thankfully I play 3 Island but I fear more of them. I ramp into Swamps and another Island for a T4 Planar Despair wiping the table clean. He is out of gas and I Kodama's Reach into Allied Strategies into double Door, and with a Relic Ward on hand I call his hand leaving the first Door unprotected. It finds an Oblivion Ring and I cast Door number 2 with Relic Ward on it which means game.
Game 2: He gets a Turn 2 Sunstrike Legionnaire, T3 Presence of Gond for a million tokens and it's over on T4.
Game 3: I side in Dismantling Blow and we hit the table for the last time today. I have the Blow in my hand and ramp nicely lacking 2 mountains and an Island for my Door. Basically what I did here is have Brainfart of humongous proportions. He got the Sunstrike/Gond combo again, but I could have killed it on the first activation. Somehow I misthought that and scooped thinking I lost, only to realize my mistake seconds after (my opponent being smart enough to keep his mouth shut after signing the slip, it earned him a (my ) booster).
Scrolling through my deck reveiled the next couple of turns would have been in my favor by a mile, I would have easily beaten him (Despair to clean the board followed by double Strategies while having another Blow in hand).
Thus, I ended a relatively succesfull day on a 2-3 score. Seeing the chances I had on winning more matches I walk around quite proudly (even more so on being complimented by the organiser for having the most creative deck and still competitive, not copying the others).
After prizes are distributed several older promo/promo foils packages (3 cards each) are distributed amongst 'random' players, under which is the guy who lost everything (my first-round opponent) and last but not least, me! I know this isn't random and we shake hands, complimenting me on a good day. I tell him I will try to be as creative next time! But then win more matches.
So I hoped you enjoyed the read! And, that you post some Reports of your own someday you lazy bas... .
Let me know what you think, and see my post in the Deck Help section soon for my next deck, which will have as kill Karma in a deck with Conversion and Magical Hack / Sleight of Mind effects. Cool.
__________________
I'm a geek, you're a geek. Let's trade.Lord Flasheart: Enter the man who has no underwear. Ask me why.
Lieutenant George: Why do you have no underwear, Lord Flash?
Lord Flasheart: Because the pants haven't been built yet that'll take the job on!
[Edited 1 times, lastly by AEther Storm on November 19, 2013]