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By: walkerdog, Tyler Walker
Apr 03 2009 10:15am
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I luckily qualified for the big MED/MED2 sealed event.  This format was absurdly good: For $0 investment (other than the qualifier), you got to open six packs, three of MED, and three of MED2, keep the cards, and then play in a sealed tourney with those cards that payed out to the top 64 players AND the top two players got a Foil set of each (for first), and a non-foil set (for second).  Raddman and I were both playing from Magic Eternal, so we wished each other luck, went to the bathroom (I assume that is what his "afk"  message meant) and then anxiously waited the last few minutes to see what kind of loot we'd get, if any.  Here is my pool:

I'd just started moving playables down from each color (I added more, and had Green to start with) in this picture.  As you can probably see, I have a bajillion removal and pseudo-removal spells.  I also got the mega-bomby Skull Catapult.  I cut Green first, reasoning that I didn't quite get enough fat or Aurochs from it to play it.  My Blue was depressing.  Red, Black and White though... man, those were good.  Red jumped out to me at first as a VERY strong color, but then I realized it wasn't very deep.  I went with Black and White, cutting the Red.  Almost all of the Red cards that I wanted to play wanted RR or RRR to bother with.  It seemed like a pain, so I set it aside.  Here is what I went with.  It's not perfect, but has a few ways to abuse Skull Catapult, and plenty of removal to let me control the game (in theory at least) while even including a way to dig for it.

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't had the Icatian Scout in my Maindeck, instead preferring a Foul Familiar and probably cutting something else (maybe the Sextant?) for the (Krovikian Fetish).  In round one, I was paired with someone who apparently joined for their product and dropped.  That works for me!  Raddman got a bye too.  DillonKBase from the ClassicQuarter forums PMed me, and from what and Radd said, I probably got the best pool of the three of us, and definitely the best pull (the Taiga).

Round two, I was match with Migacz.  I do not have a clue how to say his name.  He's Polish.  Anyway, I opened with Icatian Scount, which he quickly laughed at with Knight of Stromgald.  Then even more with Cuombajj Witches.  Now I remember why I didn't want to run a bunch of X/1s... I had Aeolpile for his Knights that kept swinging, but that just let him Witch my men with impunity.  I began to stablize with a couple of X/2s, and then he blew me out with his Red splash... Dwarven Catapult, the Skull Catapult equivalent from MED. 

Game two, I have some lands, while he has early beaters, taking me down to around 10 fairly quickly.  I stablized off of a first-striker, then Skull Catapult, followed by Lemure... and he had the Catapult to wipe all of my guy except the Lemure.  I did get to Catapult a man at one of his men at least, and now we're facing off, Witches against Lemure!  He has the lead in life, but I have the fatter man, AND the power of the Skull on my side.  I kept swinging in the air, and he dropped a couple of men.  I was able to drop a Phyrexian Boon on the Lemure though, and swing for lethal.

Game three, he had more early beatdown.  I struggled to stablize, but he keeps dropping more dudes and removing mine with Oubliette.  I stick a couple of Knights... right into his Catapult.  For the third time in the match!  Uggggggg.  I died soon after.

So, my deck is alright, but my X/1s kind of suck.

In round three, I was matched with hyphon68450.  He led with Forests while I had Plains.  He had Scryb Sprites, then Aeolpile.  I played out Black Knight hoping to bait his Aeo.  He attacked me, and saved the Aeo... but didn't have land.  I attacked him with my Knights, then had the Order of the Ebon Hand I'd been hoping he wouldn't use his Pile on.  He didn't kill either though, and untapped, missed land, attacked, and did nothing.  I hit him, then played land.  He didn't pop a guy until my EoT, taking the Knight down.  Sitting at fourteen, he dropped (Wooly Mammoths).  I swung past them, then had Lemure, looking very demure.  He dropped an enormous Johtull Wurm.  My Lemure swung over, and I had Oubliette for his big fella.  He had nothing, and my bomby 3/3 flyer (yes, the format is that bad) won me the game.

Game two was all first-strike.  Icatian Scout, Black Knight, and Foul Familiar formed a grinding machine that he could neither block or attack into with his smaller two and three-power men.  Then he dropped a big fat bomb.  Clockwork Beast joined the table, too fat for me to swing past, and big enough that I couldn't block him very profitably.  I drew into Lemure and played him.  He swung, and I blocked with Scout, regenerating him with Death Ward.  I untapped, and put a (Krovikian Fetish) on my Foul Familiar, suddenly owning two men that could swing into his forces.  He took seven, then dropped Tinder Wall.  When he went to block the next turn... he clicked to soon and his wall became two mana, burning him.  That pretty much wrapped it up.

Round four was a match against PUPPET.  I had Scout to start, then lands.  He dropped lands into Phantasmal Fiend.  I drop Lemure, and he Bolts him, then ntaps, hits me for five, and brings the Lemure back with Dance of the Dead.  I died soon after to flying beats.  How special.  Part of the problem with the format is how some cards values change so much.  If he doesn't have the Bolt, or I don't have a target for him, he loses that game, probably with a somewhat dead Dance in-hand...  The way it worked out though, Dance turned out to be an All-Star for him.

 

Game two was more of the same... this time he is able to hit four colors of lands, while I die, drawing two lands in eight turns.  Not much to say here, except that I DEFINITELY should have either mulled, or just drawn.  Drawing would have been wise as I knew he was at least three colors, and I'm not so agressive that going first mattered very much.  Always mull that 2-land junk.  I didn't and payed for it.

Round Five, I got Scarzam.  He was GBR.  This ended up just being a case of mana-screw and my deck being pretty strong both games.  I curved out first-strikers and Lemure with removal to back it up game one.  He had the Dark Banishing for Petra Sphinx but that was about the only thing he was able to do.  Game two was more of the same.  He had a solid board, but Lemure with Phyrexian Boon is broken when everything else is a one or two-power dude on the ground.  He showed me a hand of double Incinerate and Lightning Bolt afterwards, bemoaning his poor draw of no Red, and I felt for him.

Round Six was Yunhao_Wu_CHN, a member of Team China.  I'm surpised the goverment over there ALLOWS a team playing MTGO, but who knows.  I guess they're getting more liberal.  He had a GW concoction.  He went 1/1 flyer on turn one, two 1/1s on turn two, and then a (Wooly Mammoth) on turn three, curving right now.  I got rolled.  I sided my Red cards in and my White cards out, hoping double Death Spark would keep his jank under control.  It probably would have been amazing... but I only drew one land the first four turns.  I had no red until turn 8 or so, and by then I was at three life.  I died from a swarm of small men with him at eight, and well within reach.

At this point, I want to say: the format has actually been a little fun.  Each set helps to give you a bigger pool of tricks, and the extra pack helped, I think give a lot of decks that last playable or three that they needed.  If they would do a nix-packs sealed format for MED/MED2, I might play it.

Round Seven, I had sebastianpozzo.  I rolled him G1.  I didn't realize he had a HUGE deck.  As in, he didn't get to submit to start the tourney (woke up late) and was winning games off his sideboarded games.  Game two was tight. I started off with the early aggro, but he got Ashnod's Transmogrant on an (Armored Griffen) and suddenly I was in trouble. I realized here that I REALLY should have played my Transmogrant.  It was really good for him.  Imagine the boost on my first-strikers.

Game three, I loaded had the early aggro again, going double Pro: White men... which was all it took.  He couldn't find a single answer, and I crushed him.  The only play he made the whole game was Transmogrant, and Errand of Duty to match up with it, which took out my Icatian Scout.  Other than that, he couldn't put up a fight.

Round EIGHT!  I've never played an eight-round PE.  I THINK six was the most I'd done, but seven might have occured once.  My opponent here was delphium 209.  He had a slightly weak GRx deck.  I say slightly weak, but it may have been fine, this was just my impression.  I curved out fairly well the first game, running Icatian Javelleniers out to start things, then a White Order.  He had Chub Toad, the original Bushido card.

Interlude time:  Kamigawa was a stupid block.  First, they start off with a slightly weak, but fairly fun and flavorful set.  Spirits, Samurai, Bushido, Dragons (That were Spirits too, probably my favorite cycle of dragons in fact).  Good stuff.  They followed up with a set that had awesome Ninjas (which have my favorite mechanic of all-time to boot), but surrounded it with a broken equipment (that has since been banned in almost every casual-competitive format; Singleton, Tribal, etc), and then.. WHAT THE HELL WAS SAVIOURS!  WHERE THE HELL ARE MY NINJA!

Also, look at Green in that block.  While the power-level of the Green cards was probably alright, the flavor was awful.  One Samurai (with a cool ability), no Ninja, and mostly boring cards.  An AWFUL Dragon (what kind of Wrath resistance is +1/+1 counters, and why aren't they 1/1 saporling, snake, or squirrel tokens?  Seriously, errata that garbage).

Back on track.  His Chub Toad (I love saying that, try it) was no match for my fat 2/2s and then big daddy JUZAM! came down to clean up.  He was still swinging back, chipping me lower, but KA-BLAM! Skull Catapult starting throwing domes at domes, and suddenly he had no shot.  For game two, I was on the draw of course.  He had early men, but nothing very spicy.  He dropped me into the low teens, and WHAMMY!  my removal starting cleaning up.  Lemure came down to end his world, and BOOM!  Exile ate up his Ball Lightning that attempted to drop me to 5.  Honestly, his deck didn't have any bombs that I saw, and his removal wasn't particularly inspiring.

I finished at 5-3, somewhere better than 32rd, although I know not how much better.  Once T8 occured, it wiped the standings.  I got 4 Packs and two avatars for my trouble, along with the super-awesome Taiga.  I won a couple of queues during the tourny and between that and packs had enough to pick up another Underground Sea, so it was a good day.

Last, I want to talk about two cards that seem slightly underplayed in Classic right now.  The first is Annul.  It is probably not a main-deck card, but it solves a LOT of problems from the sideboard for U-based decks.  Blue decks usually have two hard counters in their pile:  Counterbalance and Force of Will.  There are a lot of irritating artifacts and enchantments that get around that:  Engineered Explosives (for a lot), Chalice before you get set up, Skullclamp (also early), Necropotence (pretty game-winning), Myr Enforcer, etc.  This card can come in and give you and answer from turn one that DOESN'T require you to stomp on your own tempo with Daze while still hitting a lot of scary cards.  Try it and see what you think.  It is really strong.

The second card I'd like to mention is Relic of Progenitus.  This can be a singleton to fetch with Trinket Mage, or a full set in a random deck.  Why is it good?  It pressures virtually any deck that wants to use its graveyard, and is almost never dead.  Against the more controlling decks (think Loam-based), you can eat a card at a time, chipping into all that valuable development they're attempting while always sitting ready to blow it up at the sign of a big dredge or draw.  Against more explosive decks like Dragon or Dredge, you can pop it as soon as you need, and still recoup a card.  This card has been very solid for me, and I hope more people will start using it, as it is highly functional.

Thanks for reading, catch everyone later!

4 Comments

Nice stuff.....Good job by Gimlicolby (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:03
Gimlicolby's picture
5

Nice stuff.....Good job clannie

Fun read. At first I was by Bazaar of Baghdad at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 12:27
Bazaar of Baghdad's picture
5

Fun read. At first I was going to comment about putting Petra Sphinx and Fire Dragon in the same deck, lol, but glad I read on. I qualified, wish I could have played with you guys.

Thanks guys by walkerdog at Sun, 04/05/2009 - 21:55
walkerdog's picture
5

Appreciate the kind words.

Thanks guys by walkerdog at Sun, 04/05/2009 - 21:55
walkerdog's picture
5

Appreciate the kind words.