Monday, 21 December 2009

The day I went 2 - 4

Due to the overwhelming response of fellow cows asking me to post my matchup with the absurbly modified christmas deck that i played during the Singapore open, here I am posting my match ups.

Round 1: Vs Jund
Game 1: Owned him fast and furious with LDs. Killed him with Cruel Ultimatum
Game 2: Stuck on 2 lands with 3 harrows in hand. WTH
Game 3: Stuck on 2 lands with 2 expedetion in play and 1 harrow in hand

Round 2: Vs Bant
My opponent is a newbie to tourney. He was extremely slow despite playing an aggro deck. I was irritated esp when he took my deck and shuffled it out of the table.
Game 1: Ownage. Violent Ultimatum 3 times in a row
Game 2: Lavalanche was in my hand, however, I could not get my 7th land...
Game 3: 2 lands with 2 cobras in play and 2 harrow in my hand... My opponent killed me on the 7th turn. WTH

Round 3: Vs Eldrazi
Game 1: 2 lands with 1 cobra and 1 expedetion and 2 harrows in my hand
Game 2: 4 lands, 1 cobra and 1 expedetion with 3 hellions in my hand. My 5th land never came. Nissa casts her ultimate. GG

Round 4: Vs G/W
I played agn another newbie who took up my deck and clean my last card for me because my last card got a bee hoon. Incidentally, my last card was violent ultimatum. Wanted to call judge, but, then when you are seated at a 0-3 table, you just feel like playing for fun. =P
Game 1: 2 lands, 1 expedetion, 1 cobra, 3 harrows staring down at 4 types of elves (llanowar x3, naya sureblade x2, bant sureblade) and my opponent casting overrun didnt help.
Game 2: This is the game I kicked myself. I tried going off on the third turn but I miscalculated. Made mistake and lose. LOL

Chao Lin arrives at the tourney area and somehow he laughed too much at me. So I went on a rampaging baloth mood....

Round 5: Vs Mono Black Vampires
My opponent recieved a game loss for tardiness. He said that he was in the loo.
Game 2: Rampaging Baloth mood = 4th turn ultimatum, 5th turn cruel into cruel.Ownage

Round 6: Vs Bant
Side story: Our dear friend, Alex stood at my table and we had this conversation
Me: Why arent you playing?
Alex: Dun have my name
Me: Why dun have your name, you dropped the tourney?
Chao Lin: Why did you drop the tourney?
Alex: I never drop. Maybe someone drop for me
Me: How can someone drop for you? You got check properly or not?
Alex: Dunno.
Me: Did you tick your score sheet last round?
Alex: never tick
Me:Then shouldnt be what. Did you see your name on the pairing sheet?
Alex: dun have
Me: Sure or not? Did you see your name under the pairing sheet le?
Alex: Dun have. Just got a bye
Me: Your name beside the bye right?
Alex: Oh! You mean my name? My name is there, but, got a bye.
At this moment of time, Chao lin did his favorite move of covering his face, my opponent jaw dropped and the players on the table beside me stopped and looked at him.
I think he just owned the 5 of us.
Game 1: My opponent stalled on 2 lands, a plains and a sungrove petal. Acidic Slime aka 'Sperm Bag' loves them.
Game 2: I was too lazy to SB. He went noble, noble and noble and Thornling.WTH
Game 3: He stalled on 4 lands. There was alot of commotion as 'Sperm Bag' and Goblin Ruinblaster aka 'Balls to you' did their snacking on his lands.

At this time I have to drop the tourney as I need to attend a dinner. This is the deck that I played

2 rampant growth
4 Kalhni Heart Expedetion
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Trace of Abundance
4 Harrow
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Acidic Slime
3 Mold Shambler
4 Violent Ultimatum
4 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Voices from the void

1 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savage lands
2 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Island
4 Forest
3 Swamps
3 Mountains

SB:
4 Jund Charm
4 Lavalanche
3 Caldera Hellion
2 Flashfreeze
2 Swerve

Post Tourney Thoughts

After playing this deck, here are some general thoughts
- always read each card carefully. When I was playtesting, certain cards were being misplay

Ob Nix doesnt allow you to gain life =(
Heart Expedetion allows you ONLY to find TWO lands and put them into play TAPPED =(

Here are some reflective thoughts on the modified deck

1. Chapman and I both modified the deck because we were to power hungry for the cruel ultimatums to be played in the main deck. We really like the power of casting a cruel and drawing into a cruel as majority of our lands are already out. The life gain was also crucial.

However, in doing so, we upsetted the mana based. I was quite depressed when I was holding the cruel ultimatum in my hand and I have forests in play. My opponent was not going to give me one more turn.
Vice versa, I was holding Violent Ultimatum in my hand and I had Islands in play. Really not cool when you know the next turn will be lethal and you have answers but you cant cast it.

Morale of this point: Consistency or Power?

2. If you read this tourney report, most of the games I lost were due the number of lands I had. I really considered the hand of 2 lands, with either cobras or expedetion and multiple harrows to be good. But alas, the third land never came.

Morale of this point: better lucky than good

3. Lavalanche is awesome! Much better than the traditional earthquakes. It kills literally everything your opponent has. Planeswalkers, creatures esp Emeria Angels and her feathery friends deserve a fiery fall from grace and of course your usual weenies.

Morale of this point: Some cards dun deserve to be at the SB

4. Trace of abundance and Tri land is really good. It helps you to smooth out the mana esp for your 2 different ultimatums. However, too much tri lands reduces your basic land counts which means no legal targets for your expedetion, harrows, rampant growth. too much trance of abundance means minimum landfalling effects.

Morale of this point: Balancing act

5. After playing this deck, you just feel that other decks you are playing is VERY SLOW. I gold fished my old school G/W and I just feel that it doesnt have the raw power of this deck. A lot of modification must be made to this magical christmas deck. and hopefully I will use it in GPT KL!

May the Cows smile upon you in each tourney.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry for the late reply, just touched down yesterday and sleep till now but i think christmas tree will have a hard time going against boros and fast and furious aggro deck. zz version of christmas tree that went to final killing bant and jund but lose to boros even thought the boros person got a bad hand. top deck ranger and burns win the game.

    LAnds
    8 forest
    5 mountain
    4 swamp
    4 verdant catacombs
    2 scalding tarn
    1 misty rainforest

    spells
    4 violent ultimatum
    4 harrow
    3 mealstrom pulse
    3 terminate
    2 khalmi heart expedition

    creatures
    4 lotus cobra
    4 acidic slime
    4 rampaging baloths
    3 bloodbraid elf
    3 molder shambler
    2 ob nixilis, the fallen

    remove all non-basic lands as there are realli times that u cannot get a land from heart expeidition and harrows.

    my conclusion written in my note book, it is a decent deck but with aggro deck as bad match up, first game giving off to opponent is not the kind of deck i would like to play.

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  2. Singapore Open UW/b decklist

    Those playing GPT KL can look at my decklist. Decent matchup against aggro. Worst aggro matchup is probably boros which I didnt face any. Midrange is almost a guranteed win.

    Round 1 Vs Mono White
    Game 1: A quick win. After 2 Day of Judgement and Ioona coming in to play as early as turn 7.
    Game 2: Took out 2 esper charm and board in 2 Deathmark. Same scenario as first.

    Round 2 Vs Mono Red
    Game 1: I got of a quick start with borderpost/knight with 2 path in my hand. A 3rd turn esper charm on my opponent and a baneslayer on 4th turn seals the game.
    Game 2: Side out 4 doj for 4 celestial purge
    My opponent got 3 goblin guides on turn 2...nothing I can do about it.
    Game 3: I mulled down to 5 but my opponent have a slow start. I managed to catch up with double knights and triple baneslayer.

    Round 3 vs Jund
    Super quick games. It goes
    turn 3
    "blightning can?"
    "ok"
    turn 4
    "1 more blightning can?"
    "ok"
    turn 5
    "bloodbraid elf, blightning u"
    "next game"

    Rinse and repeat for game 2 ^^

    Round 3 vs turbo fog
    there is literally no odds for me except casting ioona which got archived trap for me.

    Round 4 vs turbo fog
    Ok lost here. I dun have any board for this matchup excpet negate and O rings. 2-3 now. no chance for top 8.

    Round 5 vs Naya light sabre
    Game 1: my opponent start of fast with hierach and a thoctar on turn 2. I followed with a knight ramming up one more land and managed to stabilised the board with day of judgement the next turn. A behemoth sledge and another thoctar came down. I had a path in hand but I didnt use it, chaolin was wondering why. I let the thoctar knock me to 3 life before I doJ with a flash freeze in hand. An angel came down, I path it and lay a kabira crossroads to get out of burn range. My opponent ran out of steam with 1 card in his hand( path to exile) I coup for 4 and start attacking with 1/1s followed my a knight with met a path. One turn later, Ioona came down and the game is sealed

    Game 2: My opponent got a slow start, but has many baneslayers.. but i have deathmark x2, path x2. he manage to get me down to 3 before I cast my baneslayers for 2 consecutive turns. Game sealed

    Round 7: GW tokens
    A very enthusiastic opponent.
    Game 1: Acclerated into Ioona.
    Game 2: Doj x 3 + 3 baneslayers

    Round 8: GW eldrazi
    Ok, I already know what deck my opponent is playing as he is Alvin's previous opponent so I got an abit unfair start.
    Game 1: Doj and coup beofre elspeth takes over the game.
    Game 2: side in 3 O rings, 2 negates for flashfreezes and 1 esper charm.
    I saw great stable stag and world quellers which got day and path. I played 2 consecutive baneslayer and seals the game.

    Thoughts
    This deck is quite good against mid range decks. Boros is the matchup that this deck do not want to face. During playtesting, it is only 50/50 and struggled to win. Playtested this deck against jund with chaolin and youwei, it is quite decent. By looking at the tourny report, turbo fog is a free bye to the opponent. This is because of improper sideboarding. The fear of boros makes me sideboard the 3 wall of denial which didnt get to see any play. Quest of ancient secrets, meddling mage may make the match up against turbo fog more convincing.

    my deck list
    4 flashfreeze
    2 essence shatter
    4 esper charm
    4 knight of the white orchid
    3 fieldmist borderpost
    4 baneslayer angel
    1 sphinx of jwar isle
    1 ioona, shield of emeria
    4 day of judgement
    2 martial coup
    3 elspeth, knight errant
    2 mind spring
    4 path to exile

    4 glacial fortress
    4 arcane sanctum
    3 marsh flats
    2 kabira crossroads
    3 island
    2 swamp
    4 plains

    s/b
    4 celestial purge
    3 oblivion ring
    3 wall of denial
    2 deathmark
    1 sphinx of steel wind
    2 negate

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