Wednesday 14 October 2009

Tournament Report - Leeds FNM 13th October

By Jim Marlow

Harrow!,

So the first Standard event in Leeds since Zendikar became legal is firmly in the history books....and boy what a difference those wraths and fetchlands made

1st & 2nd

Jund
5 Colour control

......oh

Its no real surprise that Zendikar wasn't going to revolutionise standard, the huge effect of Zendikar becoming legal is all the cards you lose, not the cards you gain (there are about 700 of them after all)

Obviously though, and even in this very early stage, there are some interesting decks to emerge from zendikar, using most of the 28 cards in the set. This of course is the boros fetchland landfall deck, combining good weenie's with crazy landfall triggers and getting there with goblin bushwacker (who's insane btw)

So with the choice between Jund, Boros and a worse deck than those i was more than happy to oblige with the latter.....my islands, precious islands!

Here, of course, is the deck i played


4 x baneslayer angel
4 x knight of the reliquary
4 x rhox war monk
4 x wall of reverence
2 x essence scatter
3 x negate

3 x bant charm
4 x path to exile
3 x day of judgement
3 x jace beleren
1 x behemoth sledge

4 x seaside citadel
4 x misty rainforest
3 x glacial fortress
3 x sunpetal grove
2 x gargoyle castle
4 x plains
3 x island
2 x forest

Sideboard
3 x luminarch ascension
1 x day of judgement
4 x celestial purge
3 x meddling mage
2 x oblivion ring
1 x essence scatter
1 x quest for ancient secrets

Round 1 - Matt Kitchen (Landfall Zoo)

Game 1 - Matt keeps lynx, geopedo 5 lander and draws good....i keep 5 lander and draw land, and these games dont take long.

Game 2 - I keep 3 land, 2 wrath 2 path to exile (nuts amirite)......i die with 3 lands in play having drawn a 3rd path to exile, 2 bant charms and a celestial purge, with 3 wraths in hand, sigh.

I was pretty beat up about this, but i felt like i still had a strong deck. I just love how every creature in my deck is really annoying for an aggro player.

Round 2 - Wayne Cook - Vampires

Cant remember this round exactly because it was sooo tight, and i was being harassed by people asking me for the details of Game09 as if i was some kind of guru (which they were right to assume).

In the end i took the round, im fairly sure 2-1, and fairly sure because in game 3 i kept 3 celestial purges in my opener and 4th draw was celestial purge - BANG!

Round 3 - Steve Parker - Boros

Game 1 - Steve kept but it seemed risky, my hand was ok as i knew i had war monk turn 3, which is pretty nutty. Steve played turns 1 and 2 elite vanguard but had no 2nd land....i made war monk, then wall of reverence, then baneslayer......

Game 2 - Steve hit me pretty hard with bushwackered dudes, i wrathed, he rangered for goblin guide and bushwacher for a rinse repeat...putting me pretty low. I wrath again only for steve to play 2nd ranger of Eos...nice. I manage to stem the bleeding with wall of reverence, but when im all but dead i finds me a baneslayer off my last jace activation, she seems pretty good.#


Round 4 - Some noob - Archive trap Mill

Game 1 - Bye (0-1) my wall of reverences, wraths and essence scatters are dead...and im pathing hedron crabs (i kept them in for this!)

Sideboard

+3 meddling mage
+1 quest for the ancient secrets
+2 oblivion ring
+3 luminarch Ascennion

-4 wall of reverence
-3 day of judgement
-2 essence scatter

I managed to take games 2 and 3 down, a combination of opponants not finding the right mana and in game 3 luminarch ascension just getting there, even after i missed the chance at the first activation.


Overall the deck performed ok, i would almost certainly drop the essence scatters, which were god awful. I would probably play either wall of denial or adding the 4th bant charm and negate, but i am more tempted by the denials with the negate in the board, although bant charm was good all day.

I would have liked to face jund to see exactly what the deck could do against it, so i am in no illusions that this is in fact the real deal after a 3-1 at fnm, and im pretty sure just going with bant aggro could be the answer, because war monk and bant charm are so solid its unreal, then you have rafiq and finest hour to auto-win....all on turn 3 with the help of heirarch or cobra. Also, it means you still have access to wall of reverences (sick), luminarch ascension, celestial purge and meddling mage...which will probably be making up for most of my sideboards for the next few months..

Anyways, im pretty excited about the weekend, its Game09. I had a massively shit time last year, but anyone who knows why knows its more my fault for being a hilarious fool, and nothing to do with Game08.

Rumour has it that a certain R.Powell may be gracing Leeds with his presence once more, which alone is enough to make me wet my knickers.

Anyway, hopefully i will have a (winning) report up on the PTQ early next week, and probably some more incoherent babble to look like im doing something in between.


Untill then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on this article, or anything related or unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any pictures, ideas or articles to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

1 comment:

  1. Who is R. Powell? Rik P. is coming up, I know that much. Also, archive trap mill wtf??!?!? What a genius!

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