Tournament Report – August 9th, 2014
Star City Games Open // Syracuse, NY
Record: 7-3-0
Final Standing: 37th place
Now that I live in Syracuse, I was excited to be in town for the SCG Open. I made sure months in advance to get the Saturday off. Going into the tournament, I was trying to decide between the Jund Planeswalkers or the Jund Monsters decks. I have a whole lot of experience with Monsters, but the Planeswalker deck seemed pretty good too. In the end, I made a quick decision to play what I was familiar with rather than just the deck of the moment.
Here's my list:
Planeswalkers (7): 1x Chandra, Pyromaster; 3x Domri Rade; 3x Xenagos, the Reveler
Creatures (24): 4x Elvish Mystic; 4x Sylvan Caryatid; 3x Scavenging Ooze; 3x Courser of Kruphix; 2x Ghor-Clan Rampager; 4x Polukranos, World-Eater; 4x Stormbreath Dragon
Instants (4): 2x Golgari Charm; 2x Ultimate Price
Sorcery (2): 2x Mizzium Mortars
Lands (23): 3x Forest; 1x Llanowar Wastes; 4x Stomping Ground; 4x Overgrown Tomb; 4x Blood Crypt; 4x Temple of Abandon; 1x Temple of Malice
2x Mutavault
*
Sideboard (15): 1x Abrupt Decay; 2x Dreadbore
2x Rakdos's Return; 3x Mistcutter Hydra; 2x Putrefy; 1x Vraska, the Unseen; 1x Garruk, Apex Predator; 1x Setessan Tactics; 1x Whip of Erebos; 1x Mizzium Mortars*
Round 1 vs. Benjamin K. (Mono-Blue Devotion) 2-0: I won the dice roll and was off to a good start, even with a mull-to-6. I saw the Turn 1 Cloudfin Raptor, I knew not to drop my Turn 1 Elvish Mystic. I just played removal and Sylvan Caryatid until I was sure he wasn't holding a Tidebinder Mage anymore. After that point, my Scavenging Ooze came down and began eating up his graveyard. I shut Thassa down and put him to bed. In Game 2 it was a lot of the same. I kept a very greedy hand with 3 removal spells, 1 land, 2 Caryatid, and an Ooze. I drew a land on my first turn and knew I was okay. My removal was enough to keep him off Nightveil Specter and Master of Waves, even though I was rather limited on mana at first. Polukranos and Mistcutter Hydra came down as finishers, and that was that.
Round 2 vs. Brian H. (Generator Jund) 2-1: I found myself playing against another Syracuse local, someone who I'd played at FNM a few weeks prior. He was on a Generator Servant sort of deck, which ramped out very quickly. He'd talked about it before and had mentioned Underworld Cerberus, so I knew it was an issue. He took Game 1 pretty solidly off of a Stormbreath Dragon. Game 2, however, ended with me ramping into Polukranos and 2 consecutive Rakdos's Return (for 2 and 3). All he had left were Caryatids, and my Hydra proved superior. Game 3 really wasn't a game. He was forced to mulligan to 3, and that was really all it took.
Round 3 vs. Timothy D. (Rabble-Red) 2-0: This was my first experience playing against the Rabble Red deck. I knew I had to rely on things like Sylvan Caryatid, Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix, and Polukranos if I was going to win. Both games boiled down to the Ooze and the Courser. In the second game, my opponent knocked me to 1 life 3 times! But because of my plethora of removal, there were lots of creatures in the graveyard for me to eat. Eidolon of the Great Revel almost cost me the match, but I was able to kill it with Polukranos before it forced me to take too much damage. At the end of game 2 I was at 4 life and he was left with only a Rabblemaster on the field against my Poly, Courser, Ooze, and Caryatid. I had considered killing the rabblemaster with an Ultimate Price on my turn, but I decided to leave mana up for one last Ooze activation. It's a good thing I did, because he ripped a Stoke the Flames off the top. I scrambled and used my ooze once more to survive at 1! And that was all she wrote.
Round 4 vs. Jared Boettcher (B/u Devotion) 2-0 [FEATURE MATCH]: This round was probably my favorite round of magic I've ever played, for a number of reasons. One, it was my first feature match and round on camera. Two, I was 4-0 and playing against the Pro Tour Rookie of the Year in Jared. Three, I got to represent TCGplayer.com (who I work for) wearing the bright blue. Four, I and all my friend watching had an absolute blast. Five: I won. I'm not going to post the details of the match here. Instead I'll just link to the coverage video of it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-9iFQZAUPg&index=4&list=PL5d1KNNFArSMFyPdxXUqFP6DC_0mfZ5ar)
Round 5 vs. Paolo C. (UW Cleansing Control) 2-0: Neither of the games were very difficult for me. A lot of fighting against UW (especially the Cleansing route) is simply not running all your threats into a sweeper. In game 1, I attacked with Oozes, Mutavaults, and Satyrs, and finally Bloodrushed for exactly lethal. Game 2 was a lot more of the same, with me holding back threats until I could protect them with Golgari Charm. Even when my board was wiped, I managed to snag a Stormbreath Dragon off the top and finish him off.
Round 6 vs. Jeremy S. (Mono-Black Devotion) 1-2: My first loss of the night was not a fun one. I took the first game pretty handily, but games 2 and 3 were much more difficult. And I found myself dying to combinations of Pack Rats and Grey Merchant.
Round 7 vs. Jacob B. (BW Midrange) 1-2: As with the last round, I took the first game pretty handily. Though Game 2 ended with me being beaten down by an Obzedat. Game 3 might have ended differently if I'd drawn a red source, but I was a bit stuck on mana for quite some time, and I drew all my Polukranos, leaving me with cards stranded in hand and Pack Rats bearing down.
Round 8 vs. Scott C. (Mono-Black Devotion) 2-1: Finally I got my revenge. As with the other rounds, I took the first game without much difficulty. Grey Merchant got me in the second game, but Dragons and continuous pressure let me take the second game without much difficulty at all.
Round 9 vs. Andrew Y. (Naya Hexproof) 0-2: These were some of the fastest games of Magic I've ever played, and my opponent clobbered me. Without a way to deal with his hexproof creatures, I was overrun in game 1. In game 2, I was stuck on 1 mana for too long and was unable to get my defenses going.
Round 10 vs. Michael G. (GW Aggro) 2-1: I put up a valiant struggle game 1, but a quick Advent of the Wurm and Selesnya Char sealed it for him. In games 2 and 3, double Stormbreath Dragons made short work of whatever he tried to send my way. The best part about this match, however, wasn't that I won. It was the fact that my opponent said he'd been following my progress throughout the day. That was insane. It felt great.
There were some standout all-stars for the day. Stormbreath Dragon, Scavenging Ooze, and Golgari Charm were the real deal, as expected. Xenagos is fantastic, obvi. I never actually got to play Vraska or Garruk, so I can't really comment there. Though I imagine there are better options for me over big daddy-G. In the future, I'd like to try and play some number of Nissa, Worldwaker or Liliana Vess in the deck, and I think Devour Flesh really shores up a miserable hexproof match for me. I'm not sure what else I could play (other than Glaring Spotlight), but devoting whole sideboard slots for JUST that matchup seems bad.
In the end though, I finished 37th, high enough to cash $50. I got to be on SCGLive and represent TCGplayer.com (the company I work for), and I beat the Pro-Tour Rookie of the Year on camera. All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend.
