Oregon State Championships - October 22, 2005 - Report!

Apparently I can't resist the siren call of The Rock, or at least black and green together in one spicy deck. I played BG last year at States, without Death Cloud, and went 3-3-1 but that didn't prevent me from trying again this year. I reasoned that none of the "Tier 1" decks (WWr and Gifts, mainly) were decks that I wanted to play for seven rounds and I didn't see anything else out there that I liked any better. So I went with a deck that I've been tweaking for the past few months. Thanks to Mark Gebhart for loaning me the two Vinelasher Kudzu. Those were really good and the next version of this deck will have four of them. Today's version went like this:

Artifacts (4)
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4 Umezawa's Jitte

Creatures (23)
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3 Elves of Deep Shadow
2 Grave-Shell Scarab
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Nezumi Graverobber
2 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Wood Elves
2 Vinelasher Kudzu

Spells (10)
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4 Last Gasp
2 Moonlight Bargain
4 Putrefy

Land (23)
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6 Forest
3 Llanowar Wastes
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
7 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
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4 Cranial Extraction
3 Execute
4 Naturalize
4 Pithing Needle

I went for more of an aggro tilt on the deck than most lists I've seen. I didn't go for the Plague Boiler at all because it seemed too slow against WW variants and I felt like the spot removal would carry me through until the fatties arrived. I only went with two Scarabs but that probably should have been more because they really are quite good. But the deck's mana curve was very high anyway and I had to cut something out of the five or six cmc slot. I decided to go for some card drawing in Moonlight Bargain and the card was quite good, mostly at getting excess land out of the way late but sometimes it did drop a Jitte in my hand when I needed it.

I went with Wood Elves to ramp up to the necessary five or six and chose them over the Sakura-Tribe Elder because I wanted a creature which could carry a Jitte and I didn't want all my accelaration to be vulerable to Pyroclasm or opposing Jittes.

But on to the games.

Game 1 - Steve Glubetich - Wildfire

Steve said he threw the deck together at midnight the night before and rued the loss of his only Island after casting and early Wildfire. I was still staring at the Sorcery as he said that because I didn't do any preparing or even thinking about playing against Wildfire. Game one he pretty much crushed me. I had two Elves and an early Specter but lost all my permanents to the Wildfire because I didn't see it coming.

Game two I boarded in four Cranial Extractions and took out Last Gasp. I was able to get Wildfire on an early Extraction and cruised from there.

Game three I was set up for the turn three Extraction after a Llanowar Elves and Elves of Deep Shadow on the first two turns, but he got the turn two Pyroclasm to slow me down. I never got more than two land in play after that when I missed the next three land drops and he eventually found a Wildfire before I could do anything.

Great, the 0-1 start. I hate the 0-1 start because that really sets you up to play random decks for the rest of the day (like one of the two Battle of Wits decks), plus ends your chances of drawing into the Top 8 after winning early. But I tried to put it behind me and focus to avoid going 0-2.

matches: 0-1
games: 1-2

Game 2 - Josh Beck - UG Control

Josh is a great guy who recently qualified for the Pro Tour and is looking forward to PT-LA next week. He qualified playing blue green and he stuck with it at states.

Game one he mulliganed twice and was stuck on one land, a Yavimaya Coast at that, for most of the game even with a Top in play very early. I only took one point of damage. Game two I had to mulligan twice and I never was able to get off the defensive. Game three we both actually got to play our cards. I don't remember many of the details other than Cranial Extraction for Meloku and Kaiga definitely slowed him down. I didn't have many big threats but I eventually wore him down just after time was called.

matches: 1-1
games: 3-3

Game 3 - Merritt Filban - BGw control

There was a lot "Rock splashing white" or "Rock splashing red" and his was the former, splashing white to get to Loxodon Hierarch. He also played Plague Boiler main which is a problem for my permanent-based attack.

Game one he just owned. He won at 21 life after an early Plague Boiler removed my threats and big Hierarchs smashed me. Game two I brought in the Cranials again, removing Last Gasp again. I started fast with Elves and accelerated into Extraction naming Kagemaro. I eventually cast all four Extractions, also removing Kokusho, Loxodon Hierarch and Putrefy and wore him down after that. Game three was a bit of an Extraction war but I was able to get and keep enough creatures in play to win.

I must at that Svogthos, the Restless Tomb helped the beats in game three here and also did well against Josh in game two. In general that card worked out much better than I expected, especially since I had just thrown one in basically as an experiment. That experiment definitely succeeded. Also, Cranial Extraction was better today than any other tournement I've attended. For some reason many of the decks I faced had one primary threat that I could go after with the Extractions.

matches: 2-1
games: 5-4

Game 4 - Shea Malchow - Reanimator

Shea watched the end of game three of the last match so he knew what I was playing. He graciously told me he was playing Reanimator before we started but I was surprised by his build. He did have four Vigor Mortis and four Goryo's Vengeance plus an assortment of Kokushos and Kagemaros, but he also had one Razia, Boros Archangel and also played Gifts to toss cards into the graveyard. He also played Greater Good which combo'd amazingly with Goryo's Vengeance.

Game one he just crushed me with quick reanimation. Game two I went through two different runs where I drew five land in a row. I played some threats and held him off with Svogthos for awhile but I just couldn't keep up with the recursion, not even after Extracting Kokusho and Kagemaro out of the game.

matches: 2-2
games: 5-6

Game 5 - Clint Hawk - mono black aggro (but not Black Hand)

Game one was a back and forth affair. He got a couple of cards from me with an early Hippy but I was able to hang in long enough to start casting Kokusho and finally got him. Game two I boarded in my Extractions, mainly to fight off his, and boarded out Shortfang and Midnight Ritual. I figured it would get forced out of my hand before I could use it anyway. Game two I had him on the run but he had two Phyrexian Arenas in play and I couldn't keep up with his superior card drawing. He just drew more threats than I could deal with.

Game three was very very close. I beat on him with Svogthos for awhile before I found a dragon. In the meantime he had two Ravenous Rats in play, one with a Jitte with three counters. He was at one life. I attacked and he removed three counters to go to seven. I pumped the dragon for one with Okina putting him back to one. I didn't do anything else and passed the turn. As he untapped he looked at his hand, looked at his life total, and let out an anguished cry. "I had this one!" he said as he showed me the Sickening Shoal which was in his hand when I had attacked. If he had Shoaled my dragon down to a 1/1 he wouldn't have had to use all his Jitte counters and could have alpha striked me for the win. I didn't really know what to say. He was gracious about it but was clearly frustrated.

matches: 3-2
games: 7-7

Game 6 - Chris Christensen - The Rock

Chris's build was definitely on the control side, complete with multiple Plague Boilers and lots of Grave-Shell Scarab. Game one saw lots of creatures hitting the yard, which eventually worked out as I had enough mana to activate Svogthos, equip a Jitte on him and hit for a bunch. Game two I had an early Hippy and found a Jitte and he couldn't kill my creatures fast enough. He found a Scarab but I had too many flyers.

matches: 4-2
games: 9-7

OK, I figure at this point if I go 5-2 I still have a very outside shot at Top 8. It was a slim chance but a chance. Then I went to see the pairings and wasn't happy: Christopher Brandon Buker, one of the best players in Portland. I knew he was playing WWr and I felt that I could take that deck, having done much of my testing against it. But I was wrong

Game 7 - Chris Buker - White Weenie splash red

Game one I thought I had him on the ropes. I was playing creatures faster than he was and had killed his big threats with multiple Last Gasp's. He was swinging with a couple of 1/1's but I wasn't too worried. He got me down to 10, then Char'd me down to 6. I played a Scarab, then he swung for two putting me at four. Then he Char'd again. Ugh, I was really starting to build.

Game two I boarded in the Executes and boarded out Midnight Ritual and one Shortfang. I played threats, he played threats, except his held a Jitte for a couple of turns which wiped out my threats. Then I found a Jitte and blew his up. On the next turn he drew another Jitte and swung in. I found a Putrefy but I blew up the Jitte during his attack instead of during my turn. I don't know why I waited. He used the counters to pump the bird and hit me for 8 (he'd found a Glorious Anthem in there). I couldn't get blockers in time and lost again.

matches: 4-3
games: 9-9

Overall not as well as I hoped for, but not terrible either. I won three packs including another Watery Grave, so that was good. I think if I had played smarter in the last round I could have gone 5-2 and if I hadn't lost round one I might have faced different decks and done better. I felt I had good game against blue but I didn't face any blue all day. Oh well, that's better than I usually do when I'm playing rogue (or a rogue build of an established archetype as in this case).

Next week, back to Goblins for the PTQ-Honolulu!