PTQ Rochester - the Aftermath

Well, I almost got there.  Almost.  Which counts for exactly dick, in the long run.  Here's the dig:

I played Elves at the PTQ, for two reasons.  1) It is an absolute blast to play, and I've been itching to play it since LSV won with it months ago.  Unfortunately, Extended is a format wholely unsupported in Syracuse, and its been impossible for me to do more than test with it, so I knew no matter how bad a choice it was, I was playing this fucking deck.  2) It was actually a pretty excellent metagame choice, since its kinda fallen off everyone's radar, since Fae has sprung up and become the top dog of the format.  Plus, I had a sick sideboard.

the list - Extended Elves (By Adam Barnello)

4 Nettle Sentinel

4 Heritage Druid

4 Birchlore Ranger

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Elvish Visionary

4 Wirewood Hivemaster

4 Wirewood Symbiote

4 Glimpse of Nature

3 Chord of Calling

3 Summoner's Pact

2 Thoughtseize

1 Mirror Entity

1 Viridian Shaman

1 Regal Force

3 Windswept Heath

2 Wooded Foothills

3 Gilt-Leaf Palace

3 Horizon Canopy

3 Forest

1 Temple Garden

1 Overgrown Tomb

1 Pendelhaven

Sideboard:

4 Elvish Champion

3 Imperious Perfect

2 Patriarch's Bidding

2 Burrenton Forge-Tender

2 Choke

1 Harmonic Sliver

1 Kataki, War's Wage

There you have it.  It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.  The PTQ was 8 rounds, and I went 6-2, for a disappointing 9th place finish - mere tiebreaks away from making top 8.  A real heartbreaker.  All in all, the deck ran solid.  I lost two matchups (one to BG Aggro, one to Naya), both of which were when my opponent got an early active Jitte, and I had no answer availible in time.  That's the biggest weakness the deck has, I believe.  If not for that card, the rest of the matchups were pretty easy wins.  It helped that I managed to dodge Fae the entire tournament, of course.  Still, I firmly believe that extended, perhaps even moreso than Legacy, is a format completely defined by what you can and can't dodge in your matchups in the swiss.  If you simply get paired against unfavorable matchups all day, even the most powerful of decks can put up poor numbers.  Meanwhile, TEPS could be playing against Slide all day, and skate to the top 8 with barely any resistance at all.  I'm not blaming that, of course, but it is an observation I've made on the format in general as I've been prepping for this event.

Speaking of which:

Round 1 - Bant Aggro

Game 1 finds us in a stalemate, as he has a few guys in play, but I've got double Hivemaster and a pair of Symbiotes, so I can nullify his attacks with both Jitte and War Monk.  We match threats for a few turns until I finally get to the point where an Alpha Strike is lethal.  I swing, he blocks correctly, and goes for a Bant Charm on one of my (11!) tokens.  This would put him to one, but the Pendelhaven wins it for me.

Game 2, I muster the nutty Turn 1 Llanowar, turn 2 Choke, Turn 3 Lord plan, and he's never even in the game.

1-0

Round 2 - TEPS

Game 1 - I have an inkling on what he's playing before the match begins, because he's a Rochester local that I've played in Legacy a few times, and his style is most definitely combo.  He opens with a tapped Steam Vents to confirm my suspicions.  We both manage to combo early in the game, to little success.  He Desires for 4 into garbage, and I make some mana and tutor up a Regal Force and play it, drawing six, but emptying my mana.  He attempts another Desire for 3, hitting garbage, and we move to game 2.

Game 2, he manages to go off successfully, well before I've established any kind of pressure.  Eventually he hits Tendrils on Desire, and I scoop.

Game 3, I come out of the gates much faster than previously, along with a Thoughtseize on a Desire.  He Magma Jets a Symbiote that I was planning to break open with, which sets me back.  He desparately Desires for 2, into a Rite and second Desire, but the second one whiffs, and we sign the slip.

2-0

Round 3 - Affinity

This poor bastard.  Another Rochester player whom I've had plenty of great matches with across a number of formats, I'm always pleased to play the RIT guys.  However, today was not his day.

Game 1, after a bit of talk on how I didn't really expect much Affinity (savage mental play, Mike), he mulls to 5 on the play and opens with land, Springleaf Drum.  I play land, Llanowar.  He drops land, Worker, Frog, Ravager.  Nice mull, dude!  I go infinite on turn 2, and win Turn 3, after attacking and killing his Frog with Llanowar.  Whoops.

Game 2, he mulls his opener again, with land, Chrome Star, go; followed again by my land, Llanowar opener.  His turn two is Plating, triple Ornithopter, go.  I play Kataki, and pass.  He saves his Plating and a Thopter, and rips a land to equip and hit for three.  Next turn he loses his board, and the match.

I actually kinda felt bad about that one, but shit, my plan came together.

3-0

Round 4 - BG Aggro Rock

Game 1, my opponent leads with birds, while I lead with some non-Llanowar elf.  Turn two, he plays a Troll Ascetic.  I play some more guys.  Turn 3, he plays and equips Jitte.  That's fun.  He uses the counters to kill men, and I lose.

Game 2, my opponent leads with Darkblast on my one drop.  I play Pendelhaven turn 2, and it slows the killing somewhat, but he eventually gets more removal than I can deal with, and I never see the Bidding that would have saved me the game, and likely the match (three lords were in the yard).

3-1

So, I can't beat the turn 3 active Jitte.  Noted.

Round 5 - BWG Loam control

This match, I expect much of the same crap I saw from last round, but it wasn't quite the same.  Apparently this deck is much more focused on the Loam engine with Raven's Crime, which I expected to be a beating, but wasn't.

Game 1 - He leads with a Crime, and I pitch a Chord.  I play an elf.  He Crimes me twice, and I pitch an extra land and an elf.  Turn 2 I play Visionary, and play Symbiote.  From then on, his Crimes took the worst cards in my hand, while I drew cards with bounced Visionaries.  I eventually made some dudes and attacked, while he played with Loam.  It wasn't really pretty, but the 1/1 beatdown plan was super effective against him.

Game 2, he again opened with Raven's Crime, and I again opened with 1/1s.  This time, Elvish Champion entered the fray, and my unblockable army trounced all over his Overgrown Tombs.

4-1

Round 6 - BWG Loam control

Rematch?

Game 1, he leads with Overgrown Tomb and Raven's Crime, when I expected to see Stomping Grounds, Wild Nacatl.  Well, I do a happy dance in my head, and discard some crap.  It goes a lot like the last round, where I make guys with varied mana costs, and attack, while he tears my irrelevant hand apart and tries to find Damnation.  He doesn't, and I win.

Game 2, I do the same thing that I did in game 2 of the last match, only this time, after he casts Punishment for 1 (see: Crime//Punishment), I get to go "Patriarch's Bidding?"  He moves to call the judge to see if the card is legal (OMG! so BROKEN!), but I remind him that the expansion symbol is the same as the fetchlands in his yard, and he takes his football and goes home.

Round 7 - Naya Aggro

This round I'm playing Chris Trembly, another RIT guy.  Chris and I have a long history of shit matches, where one of us gets blown out by the other.  In all the times we've played, I don't think we've played two actual games of Magic in a row, ever.  And we've never seen game three.

Game 1 - Chris opens three removal spells, and a couple of Thoctars that are far too much for me to handle.  My deck got the "I'm a 1/1 that doesn't do anything" draw, which was not the draw I needed from it here.  I crap out.

Game 2 - I mull to 5 before I see a single land.  He plays Jitte on turn 4, and equips, while I have a board of Nettle Sentinel.  The streak of shitty magic between us continues.

5-2

At this point, I'm resolved to basically be out of contention, but there's some disparity in the rumor mills on how the tournament will end up.  The undefeated player in first played round 7 out, to help out teammates on the fence.  If that keeps up, one X-2 may sneak into the top 8.  I figure I've come this far, I may as well secure a top 16 slot (half a box), and maybe get lucky and make it.

Round 8 - BWG Loam Control

We chit chat idly, and he tells me he was higher in the standings than me.  That's a good sign if I win, but who knows.  It's all about where the tiebreakers end after this round, so either of us can potentially make it.  He lets me know the guy in first is his teammate, and is dream crushing this round, too, to help him out.  I say 'thank him for me if I beat you' and we play.

Game 1 - He opens with tapped Godless Shrine, and I can barely contain my excitement.  How lucky, I get paired against a basically unloseable matchup THREE TIMES in the swiss!  My deck does its thing, and I make a shit-ton of men and swarm him.

Game 2 - He Thoughtseizes me on turn 1, and takes Glimpse.  On turn 2, he hits me with two Raven's Crimes.  He continues to Crime me, until he Punishments me (hahahaha, get it?), and I manage to draw Bidding with no guys and 4 lands in play.  If he only knew...

Game 3 - I open the nuts.  Turn 1 Llanowar, Turn 2 Lord, Turn 3 Lord, Turn 4 Lord...

6-2

So, that's how it went.  After the match, I sat around and chatted with some people, waited for the frigging Slide mirror to get done (paint dries), and then nervously watched as they printed the final standings... to be disappointed as my name stood in the only single digit standing that doesn't matter.  The kid that made eighth was playing RGW Aggro Loam, and his two losses were to both the TEPS players in the Top 8.  While one of my losses made top 8, the other managed to go X-2-1.  Thanks for the help there, bud.

I got half a box for my efforts, and I got to eat a Garbage Plate (google it) while the top 8 was grinding it out all night.  I went home and passed the hell out.

I can't decide if it would have been more disappointing to make the top 8 and lose, or to miss out like I did.  I think either would have sucked, but at least I'd be able to say I made top 8, you know?  Oh well.  Better luck next time.

Before I sign off, I just want to let you guys know - the board wasn't a fluke.  It was amazingly strong all day, and I think it solves a lot of the problems the deck has anyway.  It's a super strong backup plan, and if you elf players out there test it, I know you're gonna find it's as good as I've been saying.  Let me know if you test it, and what your thoughts are on it!