Hi there!,

Here’s my report of a local T1 tournament I attended in Castricum, The Netherlands.

First I will discuss the deck I played. Here’s the list:

//NAME: Pox
// Discard
     4 Duress
     2 Funeral Charm
     4 Hymn to Tourach
     1 Mind Twist
     4 Pox
// Artifacts
     4 The Rack
     4 Cursed Scroll
     4 Chimeric Idol
// Restricted Spells
     1 Demonic Consultation
     1 Yawgmoth's Will
     1 Demonic Tutor
// Accel
     1 Black Lotus
     1 Mox Jet
     4 Dark Ritual
// Land
     1 Strip Mine
     4 Wasteland
     4 Mishra's Factory
    15 Swamp
// Sideboard
SB:  3 Perish
SB:  2 Funeral Charm
SB:  4 Steel Golem
SB:  2 Flesh Reaver
SB:  4 Phyrexian Negator

Click here to view Pox full screen
The deck has 30 mana sources, which seems too much when you just look at the decklist at a glance. It has that much mana sources to: 1. Scroll effectively 2. Use the alternative goals of the lands (Wastelands and Mishra’s) 3. Making up for losing lands from Poxing.

Further the Chimiric Idol is most of the times considered to be less good than Steel Golem. I play with Idols because Lightning Bolts are hardly played here and because they make it possible to sideboard extra creatures in, like the devastating Phyrexian Negator Vs control decks, and Steel Golem Vs sligh or a weenie deck where an extra blocker comes in handy.

Then the Funeral Charm is there to kill Elves and Jackal Pups most of the time, or just to assist the discard some more when having a Rack in play. I chose it over Spinning Darkness as there ain’t that much black cards in this deck to remove. There are 20 black cards in this deck, not counting Funeral Charm, which is one third of the deck. So normally you would have 3 black cards in 9 cards, which is at the 2nd or 3rd turn and you need to have cast them all. I thought this is all too circumstancial and too slow to use so I chose for the versatile Funeral Charm.

I gave the deck much more thought than what I’ve described here, but well, this is a tourney report, so I figure I’d better start writing about the tourney itself. Many people showed up for the tournament (56), there even were too few tables, so some people had to play near the bar next to the hall where we played. Note that this is a Type 1 tournament, so 56 people is really a lot. There were also lots of familiar faces for me, so it seemed like it was going to be fun.


1st round Vs Turboland

Game 1:
When I looked at my opening hand I wasn’t that happy. It contained no discard-spells at all. So first turn I opened with Mishra’s Factory and a Cursed Scroll. This turned out to be quite good Vs an Oath deck. He played an Island. I decided I should bring his life total down as soon as possible, so I kept a Strip Mine in hand 2nd turn and just played a swamp and attacked with Mishra. 3rd turn I again didn’t play the Strip Mine as I just topdecked a Duress, which discarded a Fact or Fiction out of his hand. His 3rd turn he played a forest and he passed. My patience with the Strip Mine was now rewarded as now I could Strip his forest, so he couldn’t play a topdecked Exploration, which I should be most afraid of, especially when it is combined with a Horn of Greed. The Mishra’s Factory got assisted by another Mishra’s Factory and they soon brought him down to 0.

Game 2:
I was wondering whether I should bring in the Phyrexian Negators or not. He saw no creatures at all 1st game, so I figured I could side in some Negators hoping he would side out some Oaths. And this was exactly what happened :D Later he told me he sided 1 Oath out. I went 1st turn Duress, 2nd turn Hymn, 3rd turn Phyrexian Negator. He got the Exploration – Horn of Greed thing going, but it was too late, as the Phyrexian Negator had no mercy with my defenseless opponent.

After the game he told me that he was caught by surprise by the Negators after sideboarding and that my deck was too good for his extended deck. So I challenged him after this fast victory to play him with my extended White Weenie deck which splashes green for Hunted Wumpus. My deck, to my pleasant surprise, gave me 2 Seal of Cleansings in my opening hand. So I was like: You won’t beat me today my friend :D But his hand wasn’t bad either, as he Force of Willed my 2nd Seal of Cleansing, and bounced the other with the single Capsize in his deck! When I desperately played a Seal for the 3rd time it got counterspelled and soon I got to meet an Oathed up Morphling, which got bigger and bigger every turn with Feeder and Weaver counters :P


2nd round Vs White Weenie

Game 1:
I duressed some Crusades as those are crucial in this matchup, Crusade means no Scrolling, no Chimiric Idol superiority (3/3 Vs 2/2’s.) He played some Knights and Archers, like his deck is supposed to supply him with. But my Demonic intentions soon appeared when I demonically tutored for a Curse that would destroy his entire army. But my opponent showed he was a true magician too and casted a disenchanting spell that destroyed my Cursed Scroll. So I just desperately looked at his smiling face and started to lose faith in a victory.

But then I topdecked another Cursed Scroll!!! And then it was my turn to smile :D Cursed Scroll cleared the table and I topdecked a Chimiric Idol which is just too big for him to handle and I won soon.

Game 2:
I sided in some Steel Golems as those are good weenie blockers. I got 2 Duress’s in opening hand and 2 Cursed Scroll and a Chimiric Idol and 2 Swamps. Not bad. The 2 Duress’s got a Howling Mine and a Karma and while I played out all the goodness I had in my hand, I topdecked some needed land, a 3rd Cursed Scroll and a Steel Golem! :D Neglecting the possibility he might run techish stuff like Null Rod and Serenity, I calmly let my artifacts ride me to a victory.


3rd round Vs sort of a Fires deck

Game 1:
This is a really tough matchup because of the early accel he can soon play Blastoderms, which are really hard to deal with. 1st game he got 2 River Boa’s and a Chimiric Idol. He tricked me once with a Wax/Wane into losing my Mishra’s Factory when it was blocking a River Boa. But soon I had another Mishra and I had gotten a Chimiric Idol too. He stopped attacking for a while, because he probably thought I could block with both Mishra and Idol, while I obviously can’t because I have to tap all lands, including Mishra when I activate Idol, which of course has to be done before declare blockers, so Mishra cannot block. During all this I had a Rack in play which ate his life total away, when I could stall his offense. I also topdecked a Cursed Scroll, which caught the River Boa, because he tapped all his lands to activate Idol. So with Scroll and Rack I just managed to win the damage race.

Game 2:
I saw no Perishes to give me some needed board advantage. I managed to kill a Blastoderm with 2 blocking Mishra’s Factories, both making them 3/3 right before damage goes on stack. (If you didn’t notice it yet: Mishra’s Factories are savage wicked tight beatdown animals!) But when all our creatures died in combat and I was at 1 life, he topdecked an Earthquake. He used that card to generate an Earthquake that would go unnoticed in California in the United States, but here in Castricum, in the Netherlands it was lethal to me as I was standing very weak on 1 leg and because of all the beats I received yet, I slowly dropped to the floor and didn’t regain my strength in 10 seconds, so my opponent got awarded the game win. After some freshing up I was just in time to start game 3 to commence with my ruthless vendetta.

Game 3:
I opened with a strong hand. I think he didn’t get much accel and I got to set up a savage Mind Twist when I could quietly Demonic Tutor for a Black Lotus second turn and 3rd turn I discarded his entire hand :D. I played a Scroll which slowly killed him, while holding all my 3 Perishes in hand. Vendetta accomplished, onward to the next mission! :D


Round 4 Vs Deck Parfait (Mono White control with much enchantments and artifacts)

Game 1:
I got an opening hand comparable to the hand I got in the 1st game in the 1st round. I opened with Mishra’s Factory, Cursed Scroll, which generally is a weak start compared to Swamp, Ritual, Hymn, Duress. My opponent made me pay for this weak start by playing Land Tax, Enlightened Tutoring for Ivory Mask and later on Moat to ensure his victory. I promptly conceded.

Game 2:
My Phyrexian Negators caught him by surprise, I love that :D I went 1st turn: Ritual Negator, 2nd turn: Strip your plains, 3rd turn: Flesh Reaver. Opponent: Ok, ok, concede already :D

Game 3:
Opponent goes 1st turn Meekstone! Whooaaaa! :P. Then I make the mistake of not tutoring for a Cursed Scroll, but for a 2nd Mishra to speed up the beatings. Cursed Scroll would have been better. This soon became apparent when he played a Moat and used a Jester’s Cap to remove my 3 remaining Cursed Scrolls (1 removed due to Demonic Consultation). It wouldn’t have mattered anyway as he had Tax-Rack going and promptly found his Ivory Mask. Now all I could hope was that he wouldn’t finish me in time, but he soon got Sacred Mesa and I conceded because I knew he would make it in time, and I didn’t feel like being beaten by lots of 1/1 flying tokens :P. This is like the 1st time I conceded too early in the 1st game, as when I would have played on game 1, we definitely would not have been able to finish game 3, but well, most of the times it’s the right decision to concede when you know you will lose. I could have won game 3 too.


Round 5 Vs Black Weenie with discard.

Game 1:
He starts and goes 1st turn Ritual, Hypnotic Specter while I get stuck on 1 land for a couple of turns after a Wasteland or something, ‘nuff said, I lose :P

Game 2:
He is stuck on 1 land, and I get discard and Pox and I win with an Idol and a Scroll.

Game 3:
I get too much land, too few action cards, and he beats me with a 2nd turn ritualed-out Phyrexian Scuta, which got Unholy Strengthened 3rd turn. I desperately Demonic Tutor for a Pox 2nd turn, but he plays a weenie next to his Scuta, so I lose.


6th Round Vs Blue/Black Cool creatures + Counter Backup.

Game 1:
I get the broken draws which I desperately needed last 2 rounds, but couldn’t get enough. Now I get it Vs a guy who needs to read Duress :P I finally went Ritual, Hymn, Duress 1st turn, and got a Strip Mine and a Wasteland. Then my opponent did the following: He tapped some land, then read The Rack, then said: "Hmmm, can I take that back?" I was like "Ok, sure" and in my turn I promptly played the Hymn I held in my hand and got him killed by The Rack next turn. That is just so cool.

Game 2:
Again I get Ritual and multiple Hymns and Racks now too. 4th turn I Demonic Tutor AND Yawgmoth’s Will AND Lotus AND Ritual, and manage to get 2 other Racks into play and to Pox in 1 turn. He lost in his turn after that to Rack damage. That sure felt like a combo deck :D I only got it Vs the wrong opponent :P

So I lost 2 matches and won 4. Not that bad, but also not that good either. I have been doing better with this deck before and although I feel I start playing this deck better and better it doesn’t pay off in better results. But well, it was a fun tournament to play in and I think a made something like 8th or 9th place and I got 1 booster for that, which is worth about equal to the attendance fee. So I made even :D Oh well, not when you take all the food and drinks into account that I bought. Those were almost at the same price I normally buy my drinks when I go out on Saturday nights to a disco. Although I won’t do props and slops, that definatly is a slops.

I also saw some cool stuff in other matches when I finished playing early. One person played a Time Walk in the last 5 turns after time was called. I also saw a white weenie player playing a Serenity Vs the Deck Parfait, which destroyed about 11 permanents :D And there was a huge cool stack when a PandeBurst played Vs a control deck. The PandeBurst player had a Mana Maze in play, so he could cast Replenish, Brainstorm in response and win. Unfortunately, that didn’t work this time, the Brainstorm got Pyroblasted and the Replenish Countered, but this certainly was not where it finished, as the Counterspell meet an Enlightened Tutor in response and got Countered! I believe there were even more plays in response, including Pyroblasts and Misdirections to make it even more complicated.

Another unpleasant happening was the huge amount of birds flying over our heads when we walked to the railway station after the tournament on our way home. We had to hide multiple times to prevent getting cacked over by them. I’m happy I don’t live there, if you have a black jacket you would look like a zebra in no time if you walk there often, with all those white spots you get from it.

Ok, that’s about it, I hoped you enjoyed reading and maybe I will write another report soon.

Greetings,

Koen Moerman
Koen on irc
From the We-are-from-NL-and-we-mise-department

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