The sunken city cup was the first of series held in the city of Lelystad. This city is actually below sea-level, and would be under water if not for the dykes built around it, hence the name of the tournament. I had built a Sindbad/Sylvan Library deck a couple of weeks before, and was thinking I would play that, but while I was chatting with Johan, we were talking about how a small tournament with 26 participants might be the right setting for playing something more spicy, even though the force of Nature in my Sindbad deck could be considered somewhat Spicy. I thought about some options, and since I had been a really long time since I had played Eureka, I decided to go for that, playing a Johan in the deck to commemorate the inspiration for playing this deck on that day. While I was putting it together, I must admit it was making me happy to look at these cards.
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| My inner timmy is always happy playing multiple dragons and gold legends. |
After arriving and meeting familiar and also some new faces at a nice location I had never played cards before, it was time to start. My first round was an opponent who told me he had played a long time ago and had started in 1994. He had had the chance to actually buy legends boosters, where I was just too late to do that when I started in '94. He had sold most of the cards, but had kept some, and just started off in the OS scene. Always cool to meet a "new" old player with memories of old cardboard. My opening had was not spectacular, but it had some mana acceleration and a time walk, alongside Vaevictis Asmadi. Not a fast hand, but good enough to keep.
As it turned out, keeping a slow had might not have been the best idea against someone who opened with sprites and pendelhaven. But hey, I was off to a pretty nice start with a mox and fellwar stone on the first turn, as long as they were not destroyed, I would have a chance.
With the extra mana rocks and my time walk, I was able to play Bartel Runeaxe before everything got out of hand on the other side.
Unfortunately, Bartel was greeted by a maze ith :( and also, I was hit for 10 in the next turn.
That play might have been a bit too soon, since I was able to just continue playing big creatures with all of the mana I had.
I blocked the incoming sprites on my Shivan to make sure that my Elder Dragon would stay in play, and it was a good thing that I did.
My next opening hand was asking for it, so I used it and played a first turn mahamoti with my black lotus and moxen. I had actually sideboarded out the Eureka's in this game, since I would pretty confident that my bigger creatures would be able to make it if I got to destroy some creatures with my boarded in fireball and more mana acceleration.
My Djinn was again greeted by a maze of ith. Fortunately, this time I drew a chaos orb a couple of turns later.
But the situation was a bit dire with even more mazes coming in, and bigger creatures on the other side, so my decision to not use the orb right away turned out to be a good one.
Meanwhile, I was being hammered by berserked creatures, so I had to make sure I would not lose to that.
I just kept playing cautiously while building up more big creatures, then used the orb to take care of a maze, and my strip mine for the other, then attacked for the win.
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| Attacking with 3 dragons and a djinn. Always very satisfying |
I took some time to walk around and see some other games running. OS is a spectator sport for me, I love seeing old cardboard in action.
And, unexpectedly, I was able to do some trading, which was also nice.
My next game was against the deck, which is pretty much the worst matchup this deck has. My deck is slow, does not like counterspells, and does not like stuff like the Abyss, swords to plows and wrath of god. I have some cards to prevent those from coming in or getting rid of them,, like my concordant crossroads, but most of the time I will lose. The games were totally uninteresting, I tried to keep my self from being mind twisted, that did not work, and I lost.
The second game, I was countered even more with elemental blasts, plenty of counters and card draw on the other side, and lost again. Since I was playing a pretty slow deck, I was okay with this. The deck is just better. Boring, but very good, so one would expect it to win. I had hoped he would have removed all disenchants after game one so I could maybe fireball him to death with the power/monolith I had also boarded in, but unfortunately he had not, so no way of winning at all.
There were some games still running after I had been wiped off the board, so I did some more spectating :)
And I came alongside a game where I saw this beautiful hand.
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| Awesome! More people should play this |
The third round was against an Erhnam geddon deck, where I got the advantage of playing lots of mana artifacts, so I could play creatures just as fast before the armageddon hit.
Swords to plowshares on my Djinn and the destruction of a fellwar stone, did not prevent me from playing another big one.
Fortunately, this one stayed a bit longer, so I was able to land some big hits and win the first game pretty quickly.
The second game took a bit longer, and was a problem for me since my opponent had sideboarded in control magics.
Even though my win was just one fireball away, that did not show up and we had to go on to game number 3.
Since the city of brass was my only land I started losing life immediately in the 3rd game, but Ancestral Recall after my mulligan was enough of a reason to keep my hand.
I did not draw any big creatures, not even after a pretty big braingeyser. But I did get a mirror, and I had fireball on hand, so I could now try to win using the cities of brass together with the mirror and see if I could win that way.
I tried playing some creatures before the mirror could do enough, but these were taken away with control magic again, so I resorted to just fireball with all my mana artifacts, which was enough to win game 3, after which I was 2-1 in matches, without having played a single eureka. I had drawn one or two during some of the games, but there was never a moment which where it would have been useful.
So, on to match number 4, against white weenie. Even though I had a pretty nice opening playing Sylvan Library with a mox on turn one, and playing a pretty quick Shivan Dragon due to a sol ring, this was quickly gone.
Also, my mahamoti Djinn was quickly removed, while I was beaten with plenty of white creatures. I tried stopping the onslaught with another one, but by that time I was already down in life a lot, so there was no problem in sacrificing some creatures while going on the attack, and I lost game 1.
The second game was not really fair, with a mana screw on the other side of the table, while I had a Library of Alexandria.
That left me with plenty of time, plenty of cards, and a finish with two of my big creatures going in for the win.
The third game I managed to do the other trick my deck can do, and win with a power monolith combination, due to a black lotus. Another 2-1 win, without a single eureka played. To be fair, I had boarded them out in game 2 and 3, seeing the army of creatures my opponent was playing. Keeping Eureka in there just did not make a lot of sense to me.
Johan also knows what I am playing, so he went for his turn 2 blood moon. That would bad If I would not get another big creature for with the eureka.
I drew manamoti djinn on my turn 3, after Johan had shattered my mox emerald. And I went for it, because I did not have to fear the Abyss with the concordant crossroads I had on hand.
And it was a good decision, since that destroyed Johan's The Abyss that he put into play during the Eureka.
That means I could attack for 13 right away, which meant that even if another The Abyss was played on Johan's turn, I could still win with the shivan.
The second game I went for the mirror game, with a first turn Sylvan Library against Johan's Library of Alexandria. If he would go for the long card advantage game, i might have a chance by drawing extra cards with the Sylvan, and then go for it with the mirror and fireball.
It turns out that worked, because I got the mirror into play, and I decided to use it as quickly as possible to make sure I would not be waiting for a shatter to get it off the board. That meant I had to play 2 fireballs for the win, but that turned out to be good enough for the win. And, if had gotten to this play, I had the option to go for the power monolith, since I had the power artifact on the top of my library. Wow, I was lucky enough to win through a second turn blood moon :) it was a bit random, but still, cool. And the first time I played Eureka it was also for the win, so I was pretty happy with these games. 4-1 in matches. Since the tournament was only swiss with no top 8, and the "the deck" player had also lost 1 match, might there still be a chance for me to actually win? All of a sudden it looked like this would be within the realm of possibilities.
I did have some time to look around and see what other players were playing first though and take some pictures of games still in motion.
And there I was, in the last round on table 1. So, if I would win this, there was a very real chance I would win the tournament.
I was paired against Edwin though, who almost always plays a Erhnam/geddon deck which is fully powered and with 4 swords to plowshares, so not a great matchup here. My opening hand was not really that quick, but I would be able to play a big creature and draw cards, so definitely a keep.
Unfortunately, swords to plowshares is a real problem for my deck, and it took out my Bartel Runeaxe. This, combined with a lot of creatures on the other side, was enough to have me down 0-1.
Since I was playing against lots of Serra's and Erhnam Djinns, I decided to take out the Eureka's again, and just try to race him or win with the combo.
The second game took a while, and I managed to get out plenty of permanents, and eventually start beating with a Mahamoti Djinn, after my first one was taken out.
After two hits with a Mahamoti, I used the monoliths for a lot of mana, and then shot a big fireball for the win. I would have been able to do this with the power artifact in my hand, but I did not want Edwin to know that was also in my deck.
If I would be able to get Edwin to tap out a certain moment in the third game, I might have a chance of winning with the power monolith combo, but I would need a pretty good draw. Edwin did what he is very good at, which is playing lots of power cards on turn one, and playing Erhnam Djinn turn 2.
After being hit with the Erhnam Djinn, I missed a land drop even though I managed to play Ancestral Recall. I managed to get out a chaos orb, to slow the attacks down.
After untapping my monolith, I decided to just go for it and play the mahamoti djinn. I got in a couple of hits, but then Edwin drew a control magic. I was hoping to get something useful due to my Sylvan Library, and then still manage to get a win since Edwin was only on 8. Since I needed something after my Djinn was taken I looked at the top 3 cards, there was nothing that would help. Since I had 4 power artifacts and 4 fireballs in my deck, combined with plenty of big creatures as a backup if I would not draw that, I played timetwister. And got 7 mana sources. Nothing useful at all. A fireball would have made me able to take down the mahamoti. A blocker would have given me options also. But 7 mana sources made me lose, unfortunately. Damn! It was close but random chance decided to hand me a loss.
I was a bit disappointed with that last crap draw, but I had some time to do some more trading, and this was the first time I trades more than one card in an OS tournament for more than a year. I loved the trading.
