Unfortunately, it was a bit too long ago to remember all of my opponents, my first opponent who is in the pairings as undead horde, was playing a red/green deck and started off with some weenies, of which I took the first 2 off the board with a fireball, with the help of my early sol ring.
I was able to follow that up with one of the big legends, Sol'kanar in this instance.
Sol'kanar was eventually blocked to death by a bunch of weenies, while I was looking for an alternative. Some of my lands were destroyed, but that did not prevent me from getting Jayemdae tome and prodigal sorcerer on the table, which is very handy against weenies. He was eventually joined by Jerrard of the closed fist.
I was able to add Rubinia to the board a couple turns later, but she was not adding much to the hard hitting Jerrard, and game one was over in my advantage.
The second game, I got to play a turn 4 mind twist, after playing time walk and swords to plowsharing one of the weenies.
This was followed up by strip mine, ancestral recall, another swords to plowshares, Bartel Runeaxe and Sol'Kanar again.
My opponent played an icy, which is pretty effective against decks with just a couple of big creatures. Fortunately for me, I was able to add Jerrard to the board, to keep going.
Even though there were all kinds of small blockers, the hard hitting legends were too much and we ended the game 2-0.
Since the game was over pretty quickly, this was good time to hand over the card Johan had lended me to try out. Maybe, if I have time somewhere, I will write about this. I was happy to be able to scratch "play several chains of mephistopholes decks" from my oldschool bucket list.
The second match was against Tim, I think. He destroyed the icy I played, and I mind twisted him to thank him for that.
After which he topdecked mind twist and I was left with no hand. Only fair I guess, but we might as well have played without that card in our decks, it would have been more interesting.
I played a tome, which he disenchanted after he topdecked it.
I was drawing nothing but lands after that, so I thought I might was well surprise my opponent with armageddon, and see where it would lead from there.
I was able to get a tome and draw a card with that a turn later, while I was attacked by a Sage of Lat-nam.
my opponent recovered while I was not drawing that much interesting things, so I was attacked by a Su-Chi, before I could play Bartel Runeaxe a turn later.
We landed in a standoff, with my opponent playing an ancestral and a copy artifact to copy my tome. That did not look good.
After Bartel was removed, things were looking grim. I tried to take one of his creatures, but that did not last long.
I was able to stall a bit by blocking his Su-Chi with weenies.
I was able to take out one Sage with a swords to plowshares, and landed Shivan Dragon on the board.
I then did something I had not expected to do. I was holding black lotus for a surprise extra damage from the dragon. When my opponent played another copy artifact, copying Su-Chi, I was looking at his life total. I could do 14 damage with the mana on the board and the lotus together. So I played the lotus, made 3 red mana, then played regrowth, and did that again. I then attacked with the dragon for 17.
Unfortunately for me, my opponent had just drawn divine offering, after already destroying my tome with a disenchant. He played that on his own Su-Chi, leaving him at 2 life. Damn, that would have been such a cool win.
I played prodigal sorcerer afterwards, just to maximize my chances. I was attacked by Su-Chi after all, so I was not exactly safe if my opponent would draw another swords to plowshares.
He also played Serra Angel, which he used to block my Dragon. I was able to play time walk though, and after a looooong grindy match, I took the first game.
The second game was more as one would expect from TripleS, with a first turn sage, second turn Mishra's factory, while in the meantime my Sylvan Library and Mox emerald were destroyed. I had started with 2 birds of paradise though, so I had some mana left.
The situation quickly got worse after he copied his factory twice. Even though I had a maze of ith, that was not enough to keep the onslaught away from me. By this time, time was called, but I was playing quickly to give my opponent a chance and not to stall.
Even with a second maze and after played two of my huge creatures, which were both quickly removed, it was not enough. Every time you maze a factory, it ends up pumping another, so I lost game 2 very soon. It would have been interesting if either Jerrard or the Shivan Dragon would have lasted, unfortunately however, they did not. We did not have time for a third game, so we ended in a draw.
My third game was against Henk, who almost always plays tier 1 decks or something close to that in powerlevel, which meant I was expecting a lot of power and good cards. I had this as an opening hand. That should work even though it was slow, right?
Unfortunately, my first draw was another city of brass, which was not exactly what I was hoping for.
I was left guessing a bit what kind of deck Henk was playing, but he was already doing damage with the factories.
Henk however, played a city in a bottle, destroying both my library and 2 of my cities, all the while I still had not played that much. Henk was already playing a workshop, so I could see where that was going.
Soon after, 2 trikes showed up in the form of a trike and a copy.
Although I had a tome, I had not much to play and had to use balance to get rid of the trikes, or I would be dead in no-time.
That was not enough though, they were just followed up with more artifacts, and the balance had not hurt Henk his manabase that much, due to the workshop. So I lost that game. The second Henk opened with a factory and 2 moxen, then volcanic island and ancestral recall. Ouch.
I tried to slow down Henk a bit, while he as playing another factory, mox and an workshop, but I was not drawing much lands and had to make due with the birds and played a tome after I was able to get rid of 2 Su-Chi's with swords to plowshares and disenchant. Not bad, but the lack of land would be a problem.
Henk then played the Abyss, and mind twisted me.
I lost swords to plowshares, tropical island, control magic, regrowth and balance. That was enough to destroy me utterly, so it was over and lost 0-2. As expected against a tier 1 deck with a good player behind it.
Round number 4, I was on the draw and I had this hand against Sjoerd. I thought it was good enough to keep, even though there was no pressure in it, the card advantage should give me a chance, right?
However, I was quickly given 3 damage before I could do anything, so all I could do is empty my hand as fast as I could.
Then my opponent played ancestral recall, followed by a library of Alexandria.
This was followed up by a Serendib Efreet and a time walk, all the while drawing extra cards with the library. I could not keep up, since my deck is not fast enough to handle something like this.
The second game, he opened with a lotus, Serendib efreet. Second turn Ironclaw orcs. So it was just too fast again.
I tried to keep the damage away with COP red, but he played 2 Serendib efreets in short order.
Although I was able to take one with control magic, he just played another. Which I could have handled, had I had any red mana. I might even have won that game if I had, but as it turned out, I did not, and lost with 2 red elemental blasts in my hand.
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| the only picture I took of the last match. It is on camera though, so maybe it will show up on Timmy talks. Who knows? |
I ended up 2-2-1, which is okay I guess, but I thought the deck would do a bit better when I started the day. It is not top 8 material by a longshot, I know, but I did manage to get into a final with a deck like it, so i was hoping for a bit better than 50/50, but hey, I also won a game against Triple S, which is kind of a miracle by itself.
I did take a look at the top 8 before I played some games with my low budget deck and took some more pictures to capture the atmosphere, which was great, as always with these events.
Playing the low budget reprints deck is always okay, especially if you play against full powered decks. If you win, it's great. If you lose, it's okay. I managed to give a fully powered Robots deck a hard time with this deck though.
I even managed to win 2 games, showing that not playing power does not mean your deck has no chance of winning against a powered deck.
I stayed until most of the people had left, taking a picture of the fortress venue before I went home. Another day of Oldschool, with great people, great food, great atmosphere. Thanks to the organizers for making this great day possible, and thanks to all that came to play. I hope to see you all soon!
