2nd at Bellefonte Legacy

Here's what I sleeved up for the Bellefonte event (a few changes from my previous list):

4 Delver of Secrets
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fire / Ice

4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Spell Pierce

4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Mind Harness
3 Counterbalance
2 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Pyroblast
2 Sensei's Divining Top

A brief report, based mostly on what I can remember (no notes involved):

Round 1: GWB Treefolk Rock

Game 1: He opens with Murmuring Bosk, so I know I'm in for an interesting and untested game. Turn two he throws out a Skinshifter, which I Snare. I throw down a couple Mongeese and a Delver, which get to work. Eventually I see Treefolk Harbinger into Doran. Interesting deck, bro. The rest of the Junk shell was the same (Vindicates, Swords to Plowshares, etc). Eventually I end up Snapcasting a Lightning Bolt for the win. I think I Forced a Deed in there somewhere as well.

Sideboarding: +2 Mind Harness, +2 Submerge, -3 Fire/Ice, -1 Spell Pierce.

Game 2: This game is more of the same, except with more Treefolk Harbingers. Fortunately I'm able to keep Doran off the table, so he's got a bunch of stupid 0/3s, and on one turn he taps out for an Elspeth, which I counter, and then the next turn kill his unprotected Skinshifter with a Lightning Bolt. I get there a few turns later.

Thoughts: Just play junk, bro. This deck with neither Green Sun's Zenith nor Stoneforge Mystic is just way worse. Also you play Treefolk Harbinger. In general, though, I'd say that this was an interesting enough match-up. Just protect a Delver or keep the path clear for a Mongoose, and the rest is pie.

1-0.

Round 2: UW/r Thopter Sword (red for sideboard options and Engineered Explosives, it seems).

Game 1: Things just mostly go my way this game. I don't remember exactly what happened, I know that Spell Pierce was a boss and Wasteland was worthless.

Sideboarding: +3 Counterbalance, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Sensei's Divining Top, -2 Ponder, -2 Force of Will, -3 Fire/Ice, -1 Lightning Bolt.

Game 2: Everything this game went right, then everything went wrong. I fan open a sweet hand with Top, Counterbalance, Force, blue card, and 2 lands. I'm golden. Turn 1 Top, Turn 2 CB which goes unopposed, except that in response he plays Enlightened Tutor for Blood Moon. He goes land, pass. I untap and pass. He plays a land and Blood Moon. I Force (with zero 3 cmc cards in the deck), and he fires back with Flusterstorm. What a freaking beating. I sit there with Counterbalance looking like a chump, and a couple turns later I scoop it up to his Jace.

Game 3: He's stuck on only blue lands, and I make pretty short work of him. I beat him down with Delvers, and at the end of the game he fans open a hand with double Swords and Firespout.

Thoughts: If he had used any combination of cards besides Blood Moon and Flusterstorm game 2, I'm quite confident I would have ridden CB-Top to victory. I feel much better about the match-up against other blue decks with Counterbalance in my sideboard.

2-0

Round 3: Nic Fit (GWB Veteran Explorer)

Game 1: It's pretty even for a while, and at one point he plays Therapy out of the bin, sacrificing Veteran Explorer. The triggers happen too fast for me (I was pretty much just not ready for it), and when I move to Spell Pierce, he just taps his two fresh new untapped lands. He rips out the two Delvers of Secrets that he knows I have, and ends up killing me 10 turns later. I'm pretty mad about the misplay, but am determined not to let it get to me.

Sideboarding: +2 Mind Harness, +2 Submerge, -1 Spell Pierce, -3 Fire/Ice

Game 2: We go back and forth for a while, both ending up relatively low on cards. Eventually he lands a Phyrexian Arena, which turns out to be huge trouble. 20 turns down the road, he has me fully buried in card advantage. I try to mount a counterattack, but Academy Rector into Moat is enough to seal it up.

Thoughts: This is the only match-up of the day which I feel was made worse by my lack of Stifle. And by "made worse," I mean in this case that it went from probably positive to incredibly negative. This deck is nothing without its triggers and activated abilities.

2-1

Round 4: Alex with Reanimator. (Epic team kills)

Game 1: I keep a hand full of countermagic and pretty much nothing else. He goes for it on turn two, but Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, *and* Force of Will turn out to just be too much. He draws another reanimation spell a few turns later, which I again counter, and I finish him off a few turns later.

Sideboarding: +3 Counterbalance, +3 Surgical Extraction, +2 Sensei's Divining Top, -2 Ponder, -2 Nimble Mongoose, -4 Lightning Bolt

Game 2: I keep a hand which gets me to double counter in time for his reanimation attempt on turn 2 or 3. He later tries again, but I have Surgical while tapped out. Good stuff.

Thoughts: Counterbalance would have been a ridiculous beating against this deck if I had ever drawn it. Otherwise, it's probably not the greatest of match-ups because of his high density of threats.

3-1

Round 5: ID.

3-1-1

Top 8: Merfolk

Game 1: He gets turn 1 Aether Vial, which is bad news. I'm able to hold his board down with some well placed burn spells (including two-for-ones by bolting a Lord of Atlantis during combat). Eventually we stall out, and he has 2x Reejerey, 1x Phantasmal Image on Tarmogoyf. I have 2x Tarmogoyf, 1x Nimble Mongoose. Neither of us can really get through, but eventually he just throws a Reejerey in there assuming he had a Lord of Atlantis in play. I block for an easy kill and finish him off 2 turns later.

Sideboarding: +3 Couterbalance, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Sensei's Divining Top, -3 Ponder, -2 Nimble Mongoose, -2 Spell Pierce, -1 Spell Snare

Game 2: This is a pretty brutal beating. Suffice to say, he had the Wasteland tri-laser, so I could never get a chance to Fire/Ice his dudes or even chump with Snapcaster.

Game 3: I keep a hand with Counterbalance and some form of counterspell, probably Spell Pierce. I play a land and pass, and he goes for the turn 1 Aether Vial, which I'm able to counter. At this point, life is pretty good. I toss out Counterbalance with no protection, knowing that if he had a counter he would have used it for his Vial. I draw Top soon enough, and get to work countering every spell he plays for about 10 turns. By that time, I have enough burn to deal with his 3-drop merfolk as well, and I ride on to easy victory.

Thoughts: I hear Counterbalance is pretty good when your opponent can't resolve an Aether Vial. Normally in this match-up I would side out some or all of my Forces of Will, but since I'm on the Counterbalance plan, I think I have to keep them in to fight Vial.

Top 4: Pat with TES (another epic team kill).

Game 1: He keeps a turn 2 hand with Silence and Rit, Rit, Ad Nauseam, but I had Spell Pierce for the Silence and Force of Will for the Ad Nauseam. At this point, he has no cards in hand, and the Delvers go to work. He concedes with 4 Gemstone Mines in play.

Sideboarding: +3 Counterbalance, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Sensei's Divining Top, -2 Ponder, -2 Nimble Mongoose, -4 Lightning Bolt.

Game 2: Not much of a game. He mulls to 5, whereas I keep a 6 with turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Counterbalance.

Thoughts: Counterbalance is a complete shalacking against TES, but blue already had a pretty reasonable match-up there.

Finals: Tempo RUG pseudo-mirror.

I say pseudo-mirror, because he was playing Stifles and no Counterbalance. I've seen what I'm up against since his previous round took probably 80 minutes, and I'm pretty sure I'm an underdog in this match-up. The Dazes and Stifles could turn out to be a big problem.

Game 1: He gets a couple Delvers online more quickly than I can deal with them. He had a counter for my Fire/Ice on one of them, and a burn spell for my chump blocker.

Sideboarding: +3 Counterbalance, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Sensei's Divining Top, -2 Ponder, -4 Force of Will, -2 Spell Snare.

Game 2: I keep a hand with a Counterbalance and a few other spells which I figure should be roughly relevant, although no usable counters. I play Delver on turn 1, Counterbalance on turn 2. He only had one Tropical Island on the field, and having seen his play style, put him on no responses but a Brainstorm. I was right, but believe he drew the Force of Will. Regardless, Counterbalance hits the bin, and he has a couple Wastelands waiting for me. He has my mana-base beaten, and so he has me beaten.

Thoughts: I should have been a little pickier about my opening hands, especially game one. I knew going in that this was the kind of match-up where if I had 5 lands in my hand, I would probably keep. Hell, if I had 6 I would consider it. Instead, he Wasted my face off and I didn't have a thing to say about it. Game two, I was super excited about resolving Counterbalance, but didn't have any action if it didn't resolve. Also I was again open to Wastelands. Without Stifle and Daze to protect myself, I think I'm at a pretty reasonable disadvantage. As I said, Counterbalance would have been awesome if it had resolved, but I wasn't so fortunate. Also, if my plan was just to resolve one card and ride it home, I probably should have left some or all of my Forces of Will in my 60.

All in all, I'm very happy with how I did and how my deck performed. Having Spell Pierce maindeck was excellent, and I'm not sorry at all that I cut the Stifles. I didn't particularly miss Daze either, which is probably largely a factor of my opponents not getting their fetch lands Stifled. Cutting the Stifles also made Wasteland a lot worse.

These factors all lead me to believe that what I actually wanted to be playing today was Next Level Thresh. I wanted basics instead of Wastelands, I wanted Counterbalance in the main, and I didn't want stifle or Daze. Maybe it's time to make a change and test it out.

I should also say that even though I was excited about playing Fire/Ice again, it didn't really do anything all day. It would have been sweet to flip one to counter a Jace or Elspeth or something, but really it could have been better. Perhaps Dismember to have a 3-cost to flip to CB.

I'm really confused about how that Blood Moon Resolved. You had two lands untapped, right?

So it goes:

Him: Blood Moon (Storm 1)
You: Force of Will (Storm 2)
Him: Flusterstorm (Storm 3)
You: Draw off top, counter original Flusterstorm, pay 2.

What did I miss?

I don't remember exactly what happened, but I only had one untapped land when he cast Flusterstorm. Maybe I played a Delver or something.

No before tourney info? No shenanigans the night before? Who went/played what? How many people total? Prizes?

i played MUD and top 8ed(i think technically 6th). it was pretty sweet to not suck hard at legacy(my normal MO)

Hmmm, let's see...

The pre-tourney was mostly just that the night before, Rob and I tested the UW Blade match-up for forever. Those matches ground out so long, it was preposterous. We were like "3 more, then we're done." It took over an hour.

Alex played Reanimator, Legacy Guy played Maverick, Mason played Shops, Pat played Storm. He took home 5 packs for 4th place, and I got 15 for 2nd. I believe first was 30.

i guess i should add that i did a little testing, with fish blowing me out twelve ways to sunday with high tide and i also tested against sean and learned a lot(with rob stepping in with helpful commentary)

There's a deck named Maverick? Turn one Jason Kidd, turn two Dirk Nowitzki, turn three win the game?

I guess with five rounds, I should have deduced that it was between 16 and 32 people.

Lol yeah, it's a G/W(/r) beats deck, which generally trounces the good blue decks in the format.

I felt really bad for you for the finals :<

And yeah, maverick preys on a blue meta but as a product of being so meta dependent, it has a tough time with random decks sadly.

by which he means losing a match to wolfbriar elemental

Eh, don't feel bad for me. I wouldn't say I made a series of horrendous errors, but I would say that I didn't fully maximize my chances of winning. I made some key mistakes. I didn't place enough importance on a stable mana base, especially since he has Stifles and I don't. I also shouldn't have sided out all of my Forces of Will.

Yeah but I was watching you draw and it was extremely unlucky. Like it was so anticlimactic to watch you draw all the draw spells with without a single land to use them. :<

I still wanna play that deck lol.


@Mason

wolfbriar very strung, he hung like horse.