Magic Club Mol

Report by Dries Van Rompaey

On the 17th of September, MCM organized another legacy tourney. I decided to take Nausea. 54 people turned up, and we played six rounds of Swiss. My list:

Nausea

4 City of Traitors
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Spoils of the Vault
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Chromatic Sphere
3 Darkwater Egg
4 Burning Wish
3 Shadowblood Egg
4 Helm of Awakening
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Meditate
3 Brainstorm

Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Night's Whisper
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Regrowth
1 Infernal Contract
1 Chain Lightning
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Duress
2 Xantid Swarm

I chose this deck because it smashes anything Aggro and most other combo. It can deal with control quite easily by either racing their counterspells or going for the double tendrils plan. The most problematic matchup is UGW Threshold, due to the fast clock and the counterspells. Their meddling mages are incredibly annoying as well. Post-board the matchup improves quite a bit, but pre-board it’s pretty bad.

Short card-by-card explanation:
Land, Rituals, Diamonds and Petals: These are the best cards for acceleration in Legacy, and this deck really needs this amount for getting those turn 1-3 kills.
The eggs are included as both fast mana fixers and cheap cantrips. While neither one is that amazing, these two combined are too strong not to run, especially considering they work amazing under a helm. They can also “store” cards to protect them from discard.

Helm of Awakening: This card is extremely strong, as it makes your eggs into free storm, and they affect a lot of your draw as well, which is pretty huge in a combo deck.

Spoils of the Vault: While risky, this deck really needs the cheap tutoring effect. I mostly used these to get my LEDs or Burning Wishes. They will kill you a small percentage of the time, but it’s pretty negligible compared to their benefits.

Infernal Tutor: While an amazing card, and probably the best addition to stormcombo yet, it being so terrible against control, seeing as you almost have to discard your hand with LED for it to be useful, made me pack 3, which proved to be enough. Another nice trick is to chain Infernals together, upping your stormcount pretty cheap.

Meditate: The lone meditate is included to get tutored up by Infernal Tutor, since sometimes you need both draw and acceleration, which no other card can give you since they are all tutors rather than draw.

Burning Wish: These are among the best cards in the deck, because of their versatility and the sheer power of the cards it can find. Burning Wish also makes sure you have an answer to most things that you can encounter in legacy.

On to the report:
First round:
Joost with mono-green LD
Joost opened with Llanowar elves, which led me to suspecting he was playing Elves, but on the second turn he started to destroy my lands, but didn’t really put any pressure until he started attacking with Treetop Villages and a Terravore. I comboed out pretty smoothly on turn 6. I didn’t board in anything, and he boarded in chalices. I kept a pretty decent hand, and he started with Forest, Elf, go.I played a brainstorm and passed the turn. He then proceeded to play a chalice on 1. Ouch. He started destroying my lands again, though I got out a Helm of Awakening using City, which got nuked. He played a Terravore and started hitting me until I got to 2 life. Using Cabal Rituals and Petals I got enough mana to combo out chaining 3 Infernal Tutors into a Tendrils for 22.

At this point I was among the first to finish so I decided to go trade and grab a sandwich, that turned out to be amazingly good.

Second round:
Sean with The Rock.
First we got a deck check, and after ten minutes we could get on with the game. He won the dieroll and started off with a Duress. I played a fetch and passed. He proceeded to play 2 Funeral Charms that didn’t help him much as I comboed two turns later. I didn’t board, and neither did he.

He lead off with Cabal Ritual naming Helm of Awakening, which I didn’t have in hand. I popped a fetch for brainstorm and passed. He played a land and passed, at which point I could combo out with double LEDs, a Helm which I just drew and Infernal Tutor shenanigans.

I’m feeling pretty confidant right now, and was actually starting to think I had a chance despite sleeping for about five hours and not preparing at all.

Third round:
Bart with Angel Stax.
I won the dieroll and began with a City into Helm. He played a Tomb and a Chalice on one. Crap. Oh well, as long as his clock wasn’t too bad, I could still win. On the second turn I played a land and passed. He played his second tomb and another chalice, this time on 2. This was going to get pretty damn hard, even if he didn’t have a threat yet and was already at 14 life. I then tried to sculpt my hand for trying to power through the chalices using Meditate and Petals. Unfortunately, he played two morphed Exalted Angels, of which he flipped one and attacked with, putting him at 16 again. I managed to Tendrils him for 12, but I couldn’t race the two Exalteds.
Game 2:
I keep a good hand, though a bit manalight. I play a fetch and pass.
During his turn, I pop the fetch and play Spoils of the Vault for Lion’s Eye Diamond.
Unfortunately, I only found it after flipping 19 other cards, so moving on to the next round.

Round four:
Dries with Goblins.
I saw him play before, so I was pretty happy as Goblins is a good matchup.
First, my second deckcheck of the day. Frown. Seven minutes later we could begin the game.
Nothing much to say here, I spoilsed myself down to 12, he played a lackey and I won on turn 2.

I didn’t get to see anything of his boarded cards, and he led off with a lackey which brought a Ringleadetr to the party. He got me down to 16 before I went off by chaining Infernal Tutors.

Still two rounds to go, and I’m hoping to get T8.

Fifth round:
Emile with Goblins.
Two goblins in a row, pretty great. I win the dieroll and keep a pretty fast hand. I spoils for Burning Wish, putting me at 18. He attacks, I go to 16. I wish for Diminishing Returns, cast it and after some eggs I play another spoils, for Lion’s Eye Diamond this time. I find it 12 cards deeper, and I play Infernal Tutor for Tendrils cracking a LED in response, and I Tendrils for 28.

The second round I keep a great hand and go off before he can play any of his chalices which he boarded in.

I’m 4-1 at the moment and I’m hoping to finish in top 8.

Round 6: Tim with UGW Stasis.
Tim opens with a Root Maze, but since my notes aren’t clear I can’t make out what happened next. I fired off a small Tendrils for six, hindered a bit by his dazes. In the following turns I tendrils him again for ten, putting him at one life, though leaving me with nothing but two Burning Wishes and an Infernal. Since my mana is very limited I can only play one per turn, so I try to bait him with Burning Wishes, which he doesn’t counter since he knows I only play a single Tendrils in the wishboard. So I go for the duress, and find out he has been bluffing with an Ensnare all along. Next turn, I duress him again, taking out a daze. I’m suspecting he doesn’t have any counters in his hand so I Infernal for Tendrils of Agony for the win.
I’m pretty happy with this win, as his clock isn’t too bad and he has a lot of countermagic, of which he didn’t see much.

I board out Petals, a LED and an Egg for 4 Duress and 2 Xantid Swarms.

I bait him a bit with Burning Wishes and Spoils, eventually resolving two Helms, which lead up to me playing and popping some eggs and playing three Tendrils, which was too much for him.
There are 3 of us with twelve points, but my resistance is a bit worse than the others, so I end up on a pretty good fourth place, winning 8 boosters.
Bart eventually won the whole thing with Angel Stax, getting the playset of Volcanics.
The rest of the top 8 consisted of:
Chris Dufour with BGR Aggro-Control
Cliff Van Damme with WR Aggro
Me, with Nausea
Julien Liesens with UR Fish
Ilja Berukov met UW Landstill
Julien Guerrero with Goblins
Tim Steurs with UGW Stasis

Props and Slops:

Props:
-Bert Milonton, for testing against Nausea and borrowing me some cards.
-Steven Geurts, for borrowing cards at the last moment.
-The amazing sandwiches.
-The smooth organization by Tim Steurs.
-Nausea, for being a great deck and letting me leave the table after ten minutes for trading.
-Me getting fourth place.
-The judges.
-Everyone at the tournament for not being uptight or rule lawyers.
-The great showing.

Slops:
-Me and Bert not finding the place at first.
-The new DCI reporter for, apparently, being incompatible with Tim Steurs.
-Getting deckchecked twice.

All in all, it was a great tournament, keep it up guys!

Dries Van Rompaey

Magic Club Mol Open elke zondag van 14:00 tot 19:00, JH Tydeeh		EN