After registering the players that are there with the help of Richard, our local gamestore owner, who is really a great guy, I fired off all the normal details to the players like number of rounds, prizes, when lunch would be served, etc., and then we were off for round 1. The random pairing paired me against Frederik, who was playing a bit less of a spicy deck, he was playing Liondibbolt with Ironclaw orcs. A really fast and very solid build, which I thought would probably be in the top at the end of the swiss. A fortunate quick sol ring made me able to stop off the attacks from orcs and factories, while bolts and lightnings were flying in my fase.
And there I ran into the problem a deck like this has, because I did not assemble tron very quickly, and even though I was able to keep off the Serra with a maze, I was basically doing nothing while I was waiting for tron and a big fireball to show up. Meanwhile, I got shot with lightning and fireballs.
The weird thing was that I was able to hold out that long. Eventually, I had to use a disintegrate without tron to at least do something to fire at my opponents life total. If I got another one eventually, than I would be able to win. That that was even a possibility was also a really weird experience against a deck that is very powerful.
Eventually, a disenchant got rid of my Moat, and I was really scrambling to keep alive, but with the 2 candelabra's and the 2 mazes I was able to hold out one turn longer. I would just have to topdeck an X spell.
Which I didn't, so I was dead.
That was a bit disappointing. It would have been really nice to get a win out of this game against a deck that good. The next game was not much better, alas, so I was down 2 games and the match. 0-1. It was over pretty quickly, so I was able to take some pictures of games around the tables.
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| Kobus showing me his plans against the Rukhs. |
As it happens, I was paired against Kobus in the next round, since his Colossus plan did not really work against a Rukh valley kind of deck. That was just a lot quicker. Against my deck, he would have plenty of time.
He played second turn chaos orb. I played third turn chaos orb. If something would hit the table on either side, it would take a while before something would hit something.
As it turns out, the orbs would take out each other, after which Kobus showed that his deck was not only about colussus, because he also had Su-Chi's, of which 2 hit the board pretty quickly. I was able to stop off a bit of the onslaught with a maze, then took out both with swords to plowshares and fork.
Which was when Kobus triumphantly found out there was another use of the saddlebags in his deck :) Activate the mishra's factory, attack, then untap it and pump itself. Cool!
A bit later, while I was keeping away 2 Su-Chi's with 2 mazes of ith and bolted the mishra's factory, I played mirror universe, just to be sure.
After which I played mana flare, because tron wasn't showing anywhere, and eventually I would have to win one way or another. Kobus used the mana well and played another 2 Su-Chi's.
Which he followed up with a Colossus of Sardia! Cool!
I was able to hold off long enough with the mazes to eventually draw into a fireball, and that won me the game. On to game 2. Kobus was off to a quick start. I was a bit less quic,, but at least I had tron and some backup in my hand for the chaos orb.
The orb was used on the moat, but I was able to follow up with another moat. That gave Kobus the idea he would not be able to win, until I pointed out that winning was still very possible with a sacrifice on a colussus with a fireball. He decided to keep playing and I was still not anywhere near a fireball. Which would help, because of tron and the candelabra, but I was pretty much drawing nothing, all the while having the sacrifice scenario hanging over me.
That worked out long enough to finish just before Kobus could use his sword of the ages, which while it would not have killed me, taken me down to a point where a sacrifice would not even be necessary.
Whic gave me time to lookg at some great matchups, on the right, there is Rob with his artifact/angelic voices deck, with archeologists in it. That was really nice to see!
And, fortunately, there were others who had heeded the call to play something original. Kobolds with gravity sphere! if that it is not cool, I don't know what is :)
And being able to play fireball thanks to untamed wilds must also be a wonderful feeling :)
For my next opponent, I met Johan. We knew what we were playing and he had a strong opening with a Sol ring. I decided to quickly go for a chaos orb, but Johan had one of his shatters ready.
Turns out, that was not the only thing he had ready, with Ancestral, strip mine, time walk he took a really big lead.
In fact, too big a lead. I was not able to recover from the quick damage his deck also did with lightning and ball lightning. My deck is just to slow to handle that. For the next game, I had to mulligan but then kept a hand with COP red, hoping that would at least give me a chance to do something. Which would have been perfectly possible with my complete tron, exept for the fact I did not draw anything useful to do with it :)
I was able to slow him down some more with a moat. This did not mean I was in de safe zone though, there were trikes that could be reanimated and bounced, so I could still take a lot of damage and if Johan drew into chaos orb, he would also be able to attack with the trikes. So not there yet. In the meantime, my deck was stil content in delivering absolutely nothing offensive. Or even one of the tomes, I mean, what good is tron if you have nothing to do with it :P
Before I could do anything useful though, Johan stripped my tower so I would have no tron advantage after all if something showed up.
I was momentarily called away to take a picture of this boardstate. Everyone here knows I love weird boardstates and this was definitely one worth to behold or take a picture of.
In the end, it took quite a while but I managed to win the second game against Johan, so it was 1-1. That meant on to the third game of this match. Would this be the time where my deck would make some tempo to fend off the bouncing balls? Johan his first turn was not very hopeful for me..
In the meantime, on the stream, a strange game was happening with lots of ivory towers.
Johan continued his really quick start with a bolt on me, then the turn after that timewalk and strip mine, meaning I was at 1 land while he was ahead in cards and damage.
Because not much was happening on my side, I played a tome on turn 4, with an incomplete tron. So not much going on on my side, while Johan was doing great with ball lightning.
Oh, and unsummon. Which is cool, but really bad news for me. I had a tome, no tron, and was at 2 life at the time. So it was just a short wait before everything was over. This was just too quick to do anything about and without sideboard or defense I could not handle it. 1-2.
Which gave me time to see an attack with enormous dragons at one of the other tables. Go shivans!
In round 4 I was paired against Remko, who was playing a living plane deck. After I had won game one because it took too long for him to destroy my lands and I was also able to destroy some of his with my fire, I boarded in a card with beautiful artwork that I love looking at.
Unfortunately, that did not prevent him from destroying my land with his chaos orb. Too bad, no milage for the Equinox there. I did manage to complete tron a couple of turns later, and played Serra Angel. Remco played drop of honey.
Fortunately, I was able to disenchant that, and attack with the Serra. After Remco played Ancestral Recall and Ifh-Biff efreet, I figured Serra would leave to board soon, and she would have, if not for Swords to plowshares. And that meant I could use Serra to full effect and win. 2-0, and 2-2 in matches.
Meanwhile, something really cool was happening with Kobus his colossus deck :)
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| Awesome!!! |
A play worth celebrating if you ask me! On to round 5, where I was paired against Rob, who had the one of the coolest of decks, artifacts with archeologists! And while I thought that might be a easy matchup with my tron if I could get to that quickly, Rob showed me what quickly meant. After I had played my tower on turn one, he played this on his turn 2. Wow!
Fortunately, I was able to hold off the Tetravus with a maze for a while, and then was able to destroy the tetravites some turns later with a fireball and complete tron.
My deck did what it had done earlier, assemble great amounts of mana, but nothing to do with it. Fortunately, Rob was also not going really fast. He went for a great bottle of suleiman play while I had played mirror universe and jayemdae tome.
The game dragged on for a really long time, while Rob was recycling his bottle.
Before he was able to kill me though, I finally drew demonic tutor, and was able to finish it off. Phew.
The second game also took a really long time, where Rob was trying to kill me with a 2/2 archeologist due to Ashnod's transmogrant, and then played blessing on it. This was so cool to behold.
The game took forever again, but I was able to complete gron in the end, and finish the game with a fireball. 3-2 in matches.
Which gave me some more time for pictures around the tournament.
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| Infernal Medusa!! |
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| And cosmic horror! |
In round 6 I was paired against Tim, with mono green. I figured I would be able to take him with my moats, fireballs, swords and mirror, but I was wrong. He was off to a blazing start and before I could do something, I was 0-1.
The second game was not much better. Even with wraths of god boarded in, I still made no chance. That the wraths and moats never showed up was not helping. 3-3 in matches. I was okay with that, seeing that Tron is not exactly a tier 1 deck. Anyway, enough time to make some more pictures.
Then it was time for a raffle and top 8, with Charley in seat 1 in his first top 8. There were some nice and original decks you don't always see in T8, with Johan squeezing in at no 8 with his bouncing balls deck, wouter with a white/green copper tablet/ivory tower creation and gideon with a deck containing no less than 4 air elementals and 4 serra angels and a benalish hero. That's how I like it on the Camel, not a Top 8 with just standard decklists.
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| Kobolds for the win! |
Unfortunately for Charley, he lost against the bouncing balls. In the meantime, Wouter was waiting for his opponent to die while he was in his ivory tower. Unfortunately for him, Peter Bonthuis. I don't know what he was playing because even though he promised to send a deck pic, he didn't. So I have no idea of his deck exactly.
Bonthuis also won against Johan, which meant the final was between him and Martijn, who had beaten the green deck of Tim. Martijn was playing an UW deck with a strong robots resemblance, but with tomes instead of some of the artifact creatures.
After Martijn had beaten Peter, we went for pizza with a group, which was, even though we were outside in the middle of winter, pretty nice with the heater standing close to us. The food was great and we talked until after the tiramisu and ice cream, and then we all went our ways. Even though running a tournament is pretty intense if you also play, I had a really great day seeing everyone enjoying themselves greatly.
I was sent these pictures of the winner after the tournament, congrats on winning the Camel!
Thanks to all who came, as always I am very thankful for the OS community. I love seeing you all and sharing in this hobby together. Till next time!
