Last Sunday was Victorian States. Around 65 players battling it out in a standard tournament at Melbourne High School. I ended up playing the Kithkin deck I’ve been tweaking over the last year (it only gets better with Path to Exiles!). I had spent the week before working on a couple of new deck ideas with Steve. We ended up with a pretty great black/red Rogues and Goblins deck that I played on the Saturday at the store in Frankston. This didn’t have quite the reach or aggression of the Kithkin deck though (due in large part to Windbrisk Heights), so I went with Kithkin instead.

Round 1 — Jia with 5 Colour Swans

Game one, his deck just looks like 5 Colour Control. It draws some cards, it counters some stuff, it tries to sweep the board. I have a Rustic Clachan to reinforce my Wizened Cenn in response to Volcanic Fallout, saving my team. I win that game.

Game two, I have a terrible hand of lots of land and one guy. I mulligan. I look at my subsequent seven cards. It looks fine, a couple of land and a bunch of guys, except… Anyone else notice that too—seven cards! *Damn* I notice immediately and call a judge on myself—better than a game loss for drawing extra cards. The judge tells me the procedure is to force another mulligan (effectively a one card penalty) by randomly shuffling two card back into my deck. Okay. It turns out to be the two land, so I’ve left with a landless five card hand. So I mulligan to four. I keep a hand of Plains, Figure of Destiny, Path to Exile, and Knight of the White Orchid. I don’t draw another land on the first or second turn, so I Path my own Figure at the end of his turn to get a second land, and play a Knight of the White Orchid on turn 3 to get land number 3. I do the same thing the next turn to get land number 4. I survive a few turn, but all my guys die to a red sweeper spell. Pyroclasm I think. On to game three. He kills me with a mulldrifter or a Swans, I don’t remember.

Game three goes okay at the beginning. I beat him down to 7 before he stabilises. He has played two Volcanic Fallouts, a Pyroclasm and an Incindiary command to do this, plus a couple of Incinerates. At this point I keep drawing land. I think I get up to having 15 of my 20 land on the board when the game ends, and so many answers that I don’t seem to draw, any of my Paths for the Swans, or any of my token produces to get back in the game. Instead I draw Mirrorweaves or lands for about 6-7 turns in a row, while he takes me down from 29 life to zero with a Swans for those turns. Someone standing behind me said afterwards, you were pretty unlucky with your draws. Yep! 1-2.

Losing in the first round is never a good thing either. I’m a bit annoyed with myself for the error earlier, I really felt I would have won if that hadn’t happened. Oh well, gotta put it behind you.

Match record: 0-1

Round 2 — Silas (from Frankston) with Blue/Black/White Control

It always sucks to be paired against friends. In the first game, Silas’ first four plays are all Kitchen Finks, so this really slows me down, however I manage to Mirrorweave my Cenn on an attack where I have more guys and he is blocking with two Kitchen Finks. Obviously the finks are smaller and don’t have persist when they go to the graveyard, so this is quite a turning point. I win this game on 27 life.

The next game goes longer. He sees a couple of Wrath of Gods and eventually gets an active Aethersworn Adjudicator out. I have lots of land and an 8/8 figure of Destiny, and a 24/24 Avatar token off Ajani. He destroys the token but can’t quite afford to tap out to take out the Figure since he is at 1 life. This game actually ends as a draw since I just can’t push that last point through. 1-0-1.

Match record: 1-1

Round 3 — Ben with Merfolk

I just out-race Ben both these games. Ajani and Mirrorweave help, but I just have a higher and better creature density. Rustic Clachan saves me from trading a couple of times and Thistledown Liege does similar. 2-0.

We also play another game for honour afterwards and I win that one too.

Match record: 2-1

Round 4 — Neil with Red Aggro

Neil has a very aggressive Red deck. He starts out pointing the first few burn spells at me. and I go down to 12 pretty quickly, but he’s down at 12 too and I have creatures on the board. I think he realises he needs to burn them, especially when I get a Knight of Meadowgrain down and start gaining life. He runs out of burn and I end the game back on 17 life from Meadowgrain knights.

Game two I side in Forge-Tenders since they stop Volcanic Fallout. Unfortunately he sides in the enchantment that stops damage being prevented and makes all damage wither. This makes my forge-tenders just 1/1s since it stops the prevention from protection even. Still I have such threat density that He can’t aford to just trade burn spells one for one with creatures. He runs out of steam and I kill him with creatures. I’m at 5 life. Basically I force him to a point where he has to spend every burn spell on a creature or die the following turn, so he can’t burn me! 2-0.

We play another game afterwards for fun, and I win in a similar fashion, but get Ajani out that game, and just gain life off it. He has to spend two burn spells to kill it because he can’t race, and then I play another the following turn.

Match record: 3-1

Round 5 — Bill with 5-Colour Control

My deck just hates me in the match. I mulligan both games, first too much land then no land. In the first game I put on no pressure, and deal him I think four points of damage the whole game. I die to 4/4 dragons.

Second game, I draw no land after mulliganing, and have to path my own guy to get more land. Then he gets R/W Ajani and keeps my third land (a windbrisk heights) tapped for the following five turns. I don’t draw a land in this time despite having three oblivion rings in my hand. I die to dragons a bunch of turns later with two available mana. Didn’t see a Knight of the White Orchid, or a Path to Exile. *sigh* I didn’t even put up a fight. 0-2.

We play another couple of games for fun, seeing as the others were so quick. I draw reasonable hands in these games and win both with ease. This makes the loss a little frustrating.

Match record: 3-2

Round 6 — John with Red/Green/White Planeswalkers Mana Ramp

Game one actually feels like a really hard fought battle. He gets out Treetop Villages and both Elspeth and Garruk. I kill Garruk, but I’m taking four a turn off Elspeth. He also has Finks and the R/W Ajani in his deck. He gains 7 life and searches out cloudtheasher. I have four guys (a Cloundgoat Ranger and his entourage). He is at 19 and I’m at 7. I attack my all four of my guys, saying I’m attacking him. He’s a bit surprised that I’m not attacking either of the planeswalkers. He taps out and flashes down the Cloudthreasher and blocks the Ranger, and lets the others through. I breathe a sigh of relief as this is really the only way I could win the game. I redirect the damage from cloudthreaseher to kill one of the planeswalkers and Mirrorweave to turn all of my guys into 7/7s. The three unblocked guys deal him 21. He looks startled! Hehe.

Game two I slow him somewhat by killing his treetop village with a clachaned first-stiker. A significant point comes when I attack with a 2/2 spirits (with coutners from Ajani) and he plays a volcanic fallout before blockers (he has a couple of kicthen finks). I Mirrorweave in response and make all guys vanilla 2/2s. Mine live because of the +1/+1 counters, and his finks don’t come back cause they don’t have persist. I redirect the damage from the Fallout that would go to him to kill a planeswalker. It really seems to hurt him to have Volcanic Fallout and Cloudthreasher in his Planeswalker deck. I win this one on 25 life. 2-0.

We play another for fun and I win that one too in a similar fashion, finishing on 22 life.

Match record: 4-2

Result: 15th place

(Got 16th last time, so this is a new personal best!)

If I would change one thing with my deck I would play Mark of Asylum in the sideboard. All day I was playing against sweeper red spells like volcanic Fallout, Pyroclasm and the Red Command. Mark of Asylum is a great answer to this for two mana, and might just be better than Forge-Tender, which I did have for those matchups.

I think one person with a 4-2 record made it into the top 8. I had pretty bad tiebreakers, due to losing in the first round. Sadly, I was half a percent off the record for 14th place, which would have got me 7 boosters prizes instead of two. *sigh*

Overall, a good day. I played well in all the matches, other than with the mulliganing mistake in round one. I think the loss to 5 Colour Control is always going to be a difficult matchup, but was a bit of bad luck. fourth round loss was basically just bad luck.

So, the next major event is a Honululu Pro Tour Qualifier in a couple of months. That is extended, so probably have to play Faeries, or something cheap I can get cards for. Also, the store in Frankston is doing Standard tournaments on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month (starts at midday) so come along if you’re keen on compeditive Standard!.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Tournament Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.