Dadbodcon is a tournament invented by David in Utrecht, the center of our country. It is hosted in the "denksportcenter" which also hosts chess, checkers and bridge tournaments. Its central location and the focus on people playing al kinds of games makes this a perfect venue for a game of OS. This year, it would be with a twist, playing OS93, meaning only ABU+AN cards, with 10 reprints max allowed.
Thinking this format would be great to play enchantress, I immediately started thinking about how to replace the different legends cards in one of my enchantress builds (see the deckpics from Camel Trophy for a picture of this deck), until somebody disappointingly pointed out to me I could play only one control magic because it is restricted in this format. That makes the deck very vulnerable so that idea went down the drain fast. I am not sure that restricting control magic is really necessary in this format. It is not that different from swedish os, and there you very rarely see decks with multiple control magic in the finals. Also, it kills the chance of playing my enchantress deck to any degree of success, so I can only be against that decision :).
That meant having to make some choices. Go for a deck with all the usual suspects? White support with 4 disenchant en 4 swords and a balance? With Serra's, Erhnams, Serendibs, or maybe Lions. Or lion/dib/bolt/counter. So with either counterspells or burn. That would probably make a pretty good deck, even though I figured that disenchant would probably less necessary in this format, with less factories and stuff like Robots and Abyss and the like. Making a control deck was pretty tempting, or something resembling an Erhnamgeddon or Erhnam Burnem. But all of these options felt a bit stale.
I thought of playing a Juzam/Troll deck, but since most of the parts of that deck are revised with me (my revised only deck is a troll disco) that would not be possible. Mono black with Juzams (even with the 3 I have pretty good) also did not wake my enthusiasm. Even though OS93 is a "new" format, a break from the normal Swedish OS, it still felt like I would be playing the same sort of decks.
So with playsets of Serra's and swords en Erhnams on the table, I decided to go for something else. Figuring there would be bolts and deserts and lots of Serra's and Juzams, I wanted to have something that would be reasonably quick, but with more heavy hitters and decided to start the curve with Serendib efreet (well, actually llanowar Elves, but they are only there for acceleration.
I ended up with a with 30 manasources, lands, artifacts, a playset of birds of paradise and 2 elves. I thought that would make it possible to pretty quickly play serendib efreet, Erhnam Djinn, mahamoti djinn, shivan dragon and force of nature. I chose one of the first 2, and 2 of the forces, since I would need to hit harder than other decks to win. To either supplement my creatures or do something against quick Juzams, I added 2 clones. The day of the tournament, I would face exactly 0 Juzams, but I did not know that when I build this deck. I added some power, 1 disintegrate, one control magic and 2 disenchants and 2 swords to plowshares. And an armageddon. And 1 King Suleiman. That should do something in this format, right?
On the day of the tournament, it was good to see all the familiar faces. And I could make myself useful by helping David with the interface of the tournament program, which I had used a couple of times before.
On round one, I played Tristan. He played a troll/disco/beast deck. I Mulligan'd, he started off with time walk and ancestral recall and beat me quickly because I could not come back from that. I tried, but he also played a quick disk with a mana vault, and with a permanent heavy deck like mine, I could not get back from that. The next game, I managed to draw a hand with both the Shivan and the Mahamoti, but only 2 lands, and no acceleration whatsoever. So, I Mulligan'd again, and was again unable to cope with the disadvantage. He had a cabal ghoul and a troll quickly; I had nothing worth noting. I managed to get rid of the troll, but drew no mana for a couple of turns, which left me too late to do something against the ghoul. The game was over so quickly I didn't take any pictures. It did leave me time to witness something great that you don't see often enough in OS:
This format gives Kird ape a time to shine. I was really hoping for a Kird ape deck winning. I was also noting that more people had thought of Troll disco with eggs.
My next match was against Thomas "Timmy the sorcerer" Meddens. He was playing mono blue flyers. Not his signature Timmy deck, but he is an expert mono blue player, so that would be a challenge. Knowing he had only one control magic, that eased me a bit. Also, playing against Thomas is always a pleasure. He's just one of those really great OS guys to hang out with.
In the first game, my quick Serendib was countered. Understandable move.
I then played King Suleiman, thinking he would probably have Serendibs as well. That stayed and played a Timetwister after Thomas was playing his book, after I played another Serendib. The Timetwister gave me another Serendib, and things were looking bad for Thomas.
But, he tapped 4 mana, and went for my King Suleiman. That was a really great move.
Fortunately for me, I could get rid of it with swords to plowshares and then the Efreets made the game finish quickly. The next game, I got a pretty unfair start. Thomas played a 3rd turn Serendib, which I was able to swords to plowshare, followed by ancestral recall.
Then, Thomas played a lifetap from his sideboard. Yes, lifetap. I had not thought to see that today. But it works great against my deck. Most of my duals in this deck are also forests.
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| good move, Thomas! |
Looking at the lifetap and taking damage from my Serendib efreets, I could only keep playing more stuff and hope to beat through it. In the process, Thomas gained at least 11 life from his lifetap, so not too shabby, that card. But in the end, my creatures came to fast in a row and I was lucky enough to get my control magic to take his phantom monster. That meant the Serendib's came trough a bit later, with a Djinn, and that made for 2-0.
In the meantime, I noticed some games where the expected Juzam Djinns were present.
Round 3, I opened with a King Suleiman. You never know when that would come in handy. I did 1 damage, before my opponent played a Sedge Troll.
And then I got stuck on 3 mana, and drew 2 forces of nature in 2 consecutive turns. Great :P
After my mox was disenchanted, and still no Serendib's were showing up, or something else that could work, I had to balance in turn 6 to prevent myself from losing against the troll.
Then, my opponent played mana flare a couple of turns later. I had drawn one extra land. That was a though decision. Leave the flare and hope to get a bigger creature than he would draw, or disenchant it? I went for leave it, played timetwister on the next turn and that gave me a force of nature. Unfortunately, no other big ones.
The force was quickly disintegrated, leaving me with pretty much only mana. Well, with one 1/1 mana elf, but since my opponent had played a Sengir, that would not do much.
Helpfully, my deck provided another land.
That did not do much, so I was behind 1-0. Next game, my deck did its best a bit more, and it was 1-1.
We were not able to finish the third game, which was a shame because I was pretty confident I would win that game with 1 or 2 more turns. Then I was paired against Koen. I mean, how does that happen, with a 1-1-1 standing. Knowing koen he was playing something with black, with Juzams, and this really should be his format. How did he end up on table 11? I would need to work really hard here to get something done.
Koen was off pretty quickly, with quick tutor and Ancestral recall on turn one and 2.
I was not really getting my quick mana I was counting on with this deck so I was a bit stuck with my hand, which gave Koen time.
Then, when the mana did show up, with an Ancestral recall from my side, I could get to work.
Or not. Because as soon as I had my creatures out, Koen had balance. This felt a bit like earlier games. I think it was Tristan who did the same thing, not sure. Could also have been in match 3.
Fortunately, I could get Koens Rukh (he had bolted the egg before the balance), but Koen played a disk to get rid of it.
After a really, really long and grindy game, I just could not find the big creatures to beat his Trolls and Rukhs. A Shivan or a Force of nature would have really shined here, but Koen countered my Shivan and neither force nor Mahamoti Djinn showed up. After this first game, Koen really hit the ground running with a first turn troll. I played a turn 2 Serendib.
After a timetwister in which Koen had drawn 2 counterspells (I lured him in to countering one card, then played a better one and he had another) and an Armageddon which Koen had not seen coming but proceeded to draw 3 lands and a sol ring in a row made it no problem for him. My creatures were again balanced away. There was no playing against these draws, so in the end I lost 2-0. Koen said something along the lines of that my plays were good; he just had the answers every time. So, 1-2-1 it was.
On round 5, I was feeling a bit grumpy, then drew this had. I could have mulligan'd again, or drawn 3 cards with the braingeyser. Instead, hopeing that I would be finally playing against someone who did not play white, I went for the agro option and played a first turn Erhnam Djinn. The odds were I would draw another land, I had white for the swords to plowshares, why not?
Well, that is why not.
After the balance got my Djinn, I did not drew land or another source. I got swords to plowshares, and Mahamoti Djinn.
That was too slow. To make a long story short, I boarded in a disenchant and another plow + another armageddon, figuring I would be facing COP green and Serra's. I just hoped to be quicker. Unfortunately, none of the 3 disenchants showed up any time soon, it took too long to win the second game.
The third game was the same story, with another circle, but it took too long to get going after a quick COP green.
I played braingeyser for 4, hopeling for more pressure in the form of a mahamoti or shivan, or even one of the 4 serendibs. Helpfully, I got a diamond valley, and 3 mana sources. This took too long, and the match ended in a draw. I was pretty sure that with a disenchant or armageddon on the way, would have won, but then again, that did not happen, so it was a moot point.
Round 5, I was up against Frank, and thought I would have a reasonable chance with 3 lands, a birds, and a timewalk. All I had to do was draw a Efreet or Djinn, and I would be in business pretty quickly.
But no. I got another force of nature and clone, and no extra mana. So I was stuck with not enough mana to play the force, and the clone was pretty much useless.
After I had clone Frank his Serendib efreet, he psionic blasted that. Pretty desperate, I played timetwister, but that did not bring me much, except another bird to block. One Erhnam was not going to cut it against 2 efreets. Not enough big creatures in play here.
The second game, the Djinn did show up pretty quickly, and I was able to do a round of damage before Frank tapped out to play a Juggernaut. I was able to control magic that (which was in my hand) and had the extreme luck to have the best topdeck in that situation, a time walk. Frank was very sportsmanlike about it. Thanks for that, Frank! That game was over quick so 1-1.
The third game, I got this pretty weird opening hand. I could play everything there, and Frank was not playing disks. So, risky, but with the COP and the swords, I would have time. Even a juggernaut was covered. So I opted to keep it, because in time, my creatures would be bigger than his.
The strategy paid off, my first draw was a land, then Serendib. From there, I could get rid of his creatures and play another djinn, which finished the game. Again, not with a really big creature.
The last round of the day was against Wouter, where my deck did what I had in mind when I built it. It produced a couple of big creatures, and I was pretty quickly at 1-0. The second game I had boarded in COP green, an extra swords to plowshares, and I got the cop pretty quickly. It also looked like the King Suleiman would finally do something here, but it was not meant to be.
The king was disintegrated, but that left me with a forestwalking Erhnam Djinn, so not a bad deal. But, my opponent Wouter was going for a stiff solution there and took his only forest with an Ice Storm.
Naturally, that is not a great position to be in. I managed to keep his creatures behind the circle and had no problem with the sprites. In the end, I got some more pressure and that did it and I was 2-0.
So, after 7 rounds, I had done no damage with either force of nature, mahamoti djinn or shivan dragon. And no djinn was killed with King Suleiman. The conclusion was obvious, had I wanted to win, I should gone for a more hardcore approach. But since the balance was (even though barely) positive with a 3-2-2 record, with one of the draws and one of the losses giving the feeling they could have gone my way with a bit more luck (or in Koens case, a bit less on his side :)) I was feeling pretty okay about how the deck had done, even though the fast mana approach had failed in most games.
Looking around at the higher tables, I noticed that trolls would not have been a bad idea, neither would have been control.
The game Koen against "broodjesboer" ended in Koen being decked! I had not expected that in this creature heavy format.
In the end, Gideon won with a deck with Serra's, Erhnams, juggernauts, 4 plows, 3 disenchant and 4 bolts, so I was not far off in that expectation. Also, Gideon is an excellent player with a lot experience in playing GWR with a couple of blue power cards, so a well-deserved win for him.
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| The spoils of the day |
So, not a top 3 finish like last Dadbodcon, but a positive result with a lot of great people to hang out with. What is not to like :) Well, I suppose some of the draws this day. But that comes with this game, and in the end, meeting all of you and staring at old cardboard never gets old. Thanks to David for organizing this great day and hope to see you all soon!
