Modern FNM - 18/1/2013, Farewell to a friend.

In case you were wondering about the title, nope, nobody died. However, Elmo is goinIg on haitus for 5 months to study for his university exams so he won't be joining us for any more Modern FNMs or tournaments. So, this was sorta like a farewell tournament/party to him? And as usual, I was playing my trusty Tron, though I'm considering borrowing decks from people to play around with, but we'll see how it goes.

Round 1: UW Control (Kelvin Chew, yes THAT Kelvin Chew) 

When the pairing for round 1 was announced, I went over to look at it and felt my balls shrink. I mean, I was playing THE Kelvin Chew. He was really cool and humble though. 

Game 1: I kept a one lander, and prayed for insane top decks and my trusty deck responded. He destroyed my Tower with a Tectonic Edge, but my godly top decking skills pulled me another one when I drew. After baiting out his counter spells until I could freely search for my cards and eventually Emrakul.

Game 2: I kept yet another one lander, but I wasn't so lucky this time. I got beat down by Celestial Colonnade. It was a painful death.

Game 3: I resolved to not keep another one lander after the disaster that was Game 2. I managed to pull out a Turn 3/4 Tron, but I had nothing to do with it seeing as the only card I could really use was Emrakul, and I had no mana for it. He destroyed my land yet again with another Tectonic Edge, and then I drew a Karn. (OTL) The game was pretty much over when he played Stony Silence, and then slowly made sure I wouldn't be able to get Tron up by using Spreading Seas on my Tron lands. This game was hilarious since the game ended up with him having 3 Stony Silence on the board while casting one Spreading Seas after another.

I think at some point during game 3, he commented that I seemed to have the ability to top deck any Tron land that gets destroyed.

Results: OXX

Round 2: Jund (Mike)

I felt so scared when I realised I was up against another Jund player since I don't have the best records against them. (CURSE YOU SOWING SALTS)

Game 1: He managed to flood the field with 2 Bloodbraid Elves, 2 Dark Confidants around mid-game, but a Wurmcoil Engine ensured that he couldn't attack while I slowly gained advantage. He casted Lingering Souls when he realised I could cast Emrakul and flashbacked the Lingering Souls when I casted Emrakul. I searched and brought out another Wurmcoil Engine to make sure that I wouldn't die to his attacks since I was somewhere around 8 life. Emrakul wiped out all but one of his lands, and he tried to go all in on me but my two Wurmcoils made sure he couldn't. He scooped after his attack failed.

Game 2: A Path to Exile on my Wurmcoil, followed by a Tarmogoyf and Liliana made short work of me.

Game 3: I wasn't really able to defend myself as he beat my face in with 2 Bloodbraid Elves, a Dark Confidant and 2 Spirit Tokens. But, while taking all those hits, I was able to set  my up board with my Tron Lands. I believe I had 4 Towers, 1 Mine, 1 Powerplants, Eye of Ugin and a Forest. I was down to 3 life when I drew a Chromatic Star. Seeing as I was about to lose, I went for broke and cracked it for 1 Red Mana, and a draw. My draw ended up to be another Star, so I declared Red again and drew. LO AND BEHOLD, THE GODS OF TOP DECK SMILED UPON ME AND GRANTED ME A PYROCLASM. I wiped his entire board out with a Pyroclasm passed. He summoned a Deathrite Shaman which I Pyroclasmed yet again with the help of another Star. He summoned a Dark Confidant and ended his turn, which was when I searched out Emrakul and casted it. 

Results: OXO

Mark was discussing the game with Elmo after the matches and mentioned my top deck, and Elmo said something like "He has the ability to top deck like a god, give you the worst possible hands and draw the best hands for himself." I hereby nickname myself "THE GOD HAND"

\

Round 3: Epic Goblinstorm (Joshua)

Game 1: I pulled out a Karn, but I misplayed with it and targeted his hand instead of his land. He eventually went started Storming and went into Epic Experiment, though it didn't net him anything noteworthy. He tried to use Past In Flames to try again but Relic of Progenitus removed his entire graveyard. He scooped after that.

Game 2: He was able to get out 8 Goblin Tokens thanks to a 4 Storm count Empty The Warrens on Turn 3 or 4, while I was still trying to set up my Tron. He beat me down swiftly with those tokens.

Game 3: I was able to get Tron up on Turn 4, but I wasn't able to pull out a Karn because my Powerplant was tapped out. With the help of a Goblin Guildmage from his second turn, he played Seething Song into 2 Manamorphose, into another Seething Song before he played a 6 Storm count Empty the Warrens for 12 Goblin Tokens before finishing me off by playing a Goblin Bushwacker and paying for the kicker.

Results: OXX

Going 1-2 isn't that bad, but it's not exactly good either I guess. I might borrow somebody else's deck if they're willing to lend it to me for the next FNM. We'll see how things go, I guess.

Friday Night Modern 4/1/2013

Well, well, well, well, well.

What do we have here? A tournament report? After so long? Impossible! And yet it's true. Yesterday, Games Haven hosted the first ever Friday Night Modern and we showed up to show our support for it! There was a whooping 11 players, which is a lot more than the people we usually get on Sundays. And, we even managed to get Ryan to finally play after a long time.

Let's get right down to the tournament report.

As usual, I was piloting my trusty GR Tron deck.

Round 1: Zoo (My opponent was known as Raccoon, I think)

Game 1: A turn 3 Karn ensured I was able to get the advantage on him though it got killed off the next turn by a Bloodbraid Elf. A Wurmcoil Engine ensured I could stall long enough until I could pull off an Emrakul and win the game. I did make a misplay when he used a Path to Exile on my Wurmcoil and I forgot to search out a basic land. Thankfully, I had a land in my hand which made sure I could pull out my Emrakul.

Game 2: I drew a godly hand of all 3 Tron pieces, an Oblivion Stone and a Karn. He pulled off a Thalia on Turn 2, and swung me for 3 damage since he also had Hierarch. I had to pull out Oblivion Stone on Turn 3, and then a Karn on Turn 4 ensured that he scooped.

Results: OO

Round 2: Planeswalker Control (Elmo)
I love playing against Elmo, it's always so fun. While we were playing our match, we kept pausing to look over at Ryan play against a Matyr/Soul Sisters deck, his worst matchup since he was playing RDW. It was so funny to watch.

Game 1: Elmo had to mulligan down to 6, and he scooped when I pulled off a Turn 4 Karn.

I sided in some enchantment hate since I heard him talking to the others about not drawing Spreading Seas.

Game 2: I honestly can't remember much of this game until he pulled out an Ajani Vengeant, controlling my mana since I couldn't untap one Tower. He managed to get it up to 6 counters and then I drew an Ulamog to destroy it. He pulled another one out though, and I started panicking until I drew a Wurmcoil Engine to deal with it, which got hit by a Path to Exile. I was eventually able to pull out an Emrakul with the help of Gruul Signet when his Ajani Vengeant was at 6 counters.

Results: OO

Round 3: Jund (Jun Hao)
He offered to give me the win since I was 2-0 and he was 1-1 and I would get the FNM foil and he gets a pack. We decided to play for fun. I don't remember the details of the games except that I got hit by a Sowing Salts in Game 3 after I got a Wurmcoil out and then I slowly died to his Goyfs and Liliana.

Results OXX

Afterwards, we played a round of Pack Wars with amongst the group of us. Ryan and Mizuki pulled a Blood Crypt from their pack while Con pulled a Sphinx Revealations. I was unable to draw any lands but Swamps, Forests and Plains throughout the entire game though I was the third last survivor.

so i herd u liek FNMs

So, our local gameshop has decided to start hosting FNMs (Friday Night Moderns)!
Today's was the first run since the new year so we felt it was abit of a special occasion!

anyways, 'eres a pic of the tableflippers in all our packwar-ing glory! :D
Happy new years y'all!

Deck tech Wednesdays- Con's Return!

Is this thing working? XD

Finally back up, after the month of settling into the new place (and waiting for my internet provider to come over and set up the network)

Missed me? XD

Anyways, this week, i'll be looking at a fun Rogue deck i've been thinking of recently. Doubt it'll ever be a viable deck in the metagame, seeing how competitive it's getting recently.

Here's my list for this week:

Lolwhut?

First one to guess what this deck does gets a cookie!

No seriously. I've been thinking about Death's Shadow and how to maximize it's huge P/T. Then i read an article from years back about such a deck. So after some testing, i've devised this little number out.

This deck was actually played by me back in Zendikar block (of course, in standard at the time so it was pretty different)

So let's take a look at the cards:

Creatures:

Death's Shadow- 

This guy gets bigger and bigger as the game goes on. You'll find that taking some damage in the earlier portion of the game is no big deal, because the opponent is just contributing to the cause.

For obvious reasons, he'll only be 12/12. but for 1 mana, thats freaking amazing.

Kiln fiend-

This deck plays loads of cheap burn spells, making Kiln Fiend an offensive powerhouse. He helps make it worth your mana burning creatures rather than face.

Goblin Bushwhacker-

Enables haste on your shadows, makes swinging for lethal that much easier

Other spells:

Ad Nauseam-

The main combo piece of this deck.

So let's imagine (with aid from Cockatrice XD)

So it's your opponent's End step. and you throw out the Nauseam.

And you draw loads of stuff

Then you draw yourself down to about. 4-ish life. (I KNOW. ITS A RISK)

At one point the field may look like this:

No, Goblins don't speak Hokkien

No seriously, on an empty Field, thats game.

Burn spells:

pretty much any burn package of about 20-22 burn spells work here. I personally prefer not to use too many board wipes such as pyroclasm, preferring to leave them in the side board. Instead, Electrickery does a pretty good job nailing the small fry. (and Thalia ^^||)

The lands:

Nothing special here. Loads more Red sources for obvious reasons, the list does get it's double black quite consistently.



And that's it for this week!
Instead of posting another sorry monkey, i would like to apologize for being inactive these last few weeks. Until next week!

-Constantine!

Grand Prix Trial Modern -3/11/2012 (Elmo's POV)

Not sure where i can post this, since i m pretty sure no one on the forums wanna read a 2-0-2 report so I will just post it here.

Anw it was drizzling as I was walking towards CMG beauty world. I guess that was the sign, the sign that THE EPIC STORM IS COMING.

The epic storm

3 Goblin Electromancer

2 Pyromancer Ascension

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Grapeshot

4 Pyretic Ritual

4 Desperate Ritual

4 Seething Song

4 Serum Visions

4 Manamorphose

4 Sleight of Hand

3 Past in Flames

4 Scalding Tarn

3 Misty Rainforest

3 Steam Vents

2 Island

1 Mountain

3 Sulfur Falls

2 Epic Experiment

1 Increasing Vengeance

1 Empty the Warrens

SB: 3 Empty the WarrensSB: 4 Lightning BoltSB: 1 Pyromancer AscensionSB: 3 Pyromancer's SwathSB: Increasing vengeance SB:2 hurkyl's recall 1 slagstorm.

Round 1 vs Jund (Jason)

Dammit, just gotta bump into the only 2 person in the whole room that knows I m running storm.

Game 1: Nothing much really, couldnt get a decent draw and Jason quickly put me on clock b4 i tried to tried to storm off.. couldn't draw a past in flames nor 2nd grapeshot.

Board in 3 Empty, 4 bolts took out 2 Epic, 1 increasing vengeance, 2 ascension, 1 grapes shot ( Cos i know jason runs surgical extraction) 1 electromancer.

Game 2: Mull to 6, and kept a hand that storm off with empty the warren for 5 on turn 2. Jund couldnt keep up with that =)

Game 3 was a bit tricky, i choose to keep a 1 land hand since i m on draw and it has a serum vision and a electormancer, past in flames , a couple of rituals and a grape shot.

Draw. grapeshot. Damnit

Land, serum vision. Draw. !@#%@#$@#. 2 lands on top. hmmm.

decided to scry away 1 land since i have a electromancer in hand..

Draw, land, cast electromancer end.

by then opp has a goyf and a treetop villager waiting to pound on me.

Draw another land, play it and play some draw spell.

He cast a lotv and +1, i discard a past in flame (cos i need the rituals)

Turn 5 i tried to do a 'blind storm', drew nothing but lands and since i m on clock , i have to storm off for 7 damage to kill off his goyf.

He swung with his bbe and dark confidant. to put me to 1 life.

Turn 6. It's now or never. With electromancer in play, I just need 1 seething song and i can flashback my past in flames and storm for lethal.

1 seething...

1 seething song...

and it was a bolt......=(

Round 1 lost 1-2

Round 2 was against a Infect deck. At this point, I was thinking about my lunch cos it's most prob the worst match up for a storm deck.

Game 1 i mull to 5 due to land screwed, nothing much to talk about since he end my miserable life by turn 4.

Board in 4 bolt, 3 pyromancer swath and a slagstorm, out goes 1x empty 2 epic, 1 increasing, 3 past in flames and 1 electormancer.

Game 2, I drew 1 bolts 1ritual 1 seething 1 gape shot 1 pyromancer swath 2 sulfur falls (yes gerald this is y i should play shivan reef.)

me: falls tapped.go

opp: inkmoth. Go

I draw into 1 into a probe.

Me: falls tapped. go

Opp cracked a breeding pool and activate his inkmoth and attack for 1 poision.

Draw another bolt, hell yeah!

Me: probe u

Opp reveal nothing but pump spell.

draw into another probe.

At this point, i was pretty certain i can win since i have 2 bolts in hand and my grapshot+swath is pretty much lethal to him.

End.

Opp drop another misty rainforest and swing for another posion.

EOT: i threw 2 bolt in his face.17 -> 11

I drew a land and play it.

Me: probe.

Opp reveal his hand and i proceed on to stor....

WAIT!

He has something blue in his hand... BLUE instant TT_TT

HE TOP DECKED A MOFUKING SPELL PIERCE!

and things went downhill from there. Tried to play past the pierce, but opp was pro enough not to get tricked. and so GG

Round 2 lost 0-2

At this point life was meaningless until i saw a sadder face, Zane! He had a bad round 1 lost due to some error which was spotted and reported by another player, the other tron player no less.. and round 2 he lost to sowing salt.

So when i was paired against him i decided to joke around abit, cheer him up or something.

Round 3 Vs GR TRON (winner of 2nd monthly modern tourney at gh, ZANE)

Okay game 1, so as to cheer him up, I let him have the win ;). Besides that, he had a mb relic of progenitus, which stopped my past in flames combo. And besides the fact that i empty the warren for 6 storm counts, and he has a pyroclasm in hand. Yup, I let him have that win. ;)

Sbed in 4 bolts, 3 pyromancer swath. out 2 epic (notice the trend?), 1 empty the warren, 1 increasing vegeance 1 past in flames and 2 pyromancer ascension.

G2, Can't rmbed what happened but i storm off with a couple of bolts and finished off 2 grape shots.

G3, drew a 2 land hand, a bolt 1 swath, 1 grape shot and 1 ritual and 1 seeething song.

Keepable i guess.

Zane drop a tron tower and cast a expedition map like a boss.

I drew another swath, played the land and go

He played his tron mine and end.

I drew another bolt and at this point i was thinking hard. mr karn will pretty much disrupt my game, but nothing much can be done at this point. so i just end my turn.

He crack his map eot and cast a wurmcoil during his turn.

Should i bolt his wurmcoil? hmmm.. i should have lethal damage as long as i top deck another ritual if i bolt him now.. The gambler inside me took over and shot him with 2 bolts (20->14)

But life's a bitch and gave me another bolt, causing me to be 2 damage short from lethal.

End.

Next turn, Zane cast a couple of cromatics and attacked with his hungry wurmcoil. (14->20)

It's now or never!Just need another land or ritual..

land or ritual..

And it is a landl!!!

hell yeah, I played the land, cast ritual seething song swath bolt for 5 damage and grapeshot for the lethal 20 damage =)

Me and Zane was about to drop g4 since there's no point in playing, but suddenly we heard a voice.

"round 4 pairing!'

and Johnson, another regular at GH's modern tourney came over to me and ask You are Jia leong right?

Darn, not another jund player~~and the worst part is he refused to let me drop. =( and since Zane was paired against his new arch enemey, the other tron guy, i thought what the heck.

It was a damn funny game 1 cos, he cast bbe 2 twice, both cascading into abrupt decay, while i cast my 1st epic expt of the day for 3 and hit 1 land 1 ascension 1 serum vision. lol. g1 lost for me

Pretty much the same sb as when i play against Jason, Board in 3 Empty, 4 bolts took out 2 Epic, 1 increasing vengeance, 2 ascension, 2 electromancer.

G2 ended quickly when i cast a turn 2 empty the warren for 5 counts.

G3 ended on turn 3-4 where he cast his bbe into a dc or something and i storm off with 2 grapeshot.

and that marks the end of my first gpt. The storm may be weak and disappointing this turn, but just you wait. THE EPIC STORM WILL BE BACK

Modern Grand Prix Trial Nagoya Report - 3/11/2012

It's been awhile since I've done a tournament report since I haven't been to any tournaments. As usual, I'm piloting my RG Tron deck since I don't have the funds to make new decks (If anybody wants to donate to the "Build Zane a deck" fund, please do so.

So anyway, the venue for the Grand Prix Trial(GPT) was at Card Master Games(CMG) at Beauty World, Bukit Timah. Registration was at 10, but I met up with Con at 9 to chill for a bit and while I had breakfast at MacDonalds. We went up to the level the card shop was on and ran into Ben(one of the co-owners of Games Haven) and we headed back down to MacDonalds where it was Ben's turn to have his breakfast while we waited for Dan and his cousin Amir to show up.

We headed back up to CMG at 10 and waited for one of the owners; Wind to open up the shop. Once in, we registered, paid our registration fee and started filling up our deck lists. While waiting for people to show up, Con helped Amir fix up his deck and playtested against him.

The tournament started some time around 11, with 15 people playing. And without further ado, let's jump right into the report!

Round 1: Jake(Merfolk)

Game 1: A turn 4 Karn allowed me to control him while he was land stuck on 2 lands and he scooped once I exiled his land.

Game 2: I dropped a Wurmcoil while he had a Merrow Reejerey and a Silvergill Adept. A top deck-ed Lord allowed him to win the game with his Islandwalk and constant beating.

Game 3: I got a game loss here because I missed out my graveyard from the previous game and didn't shuffle it back into the deck. Jake pointed it out, and when we were deciding what to do, one of the spectators called for the judge and pointed out the situation. Wind, who was the judge gave a game loss as I was playing with a deck that had less than 60 cards in it.

Jake didn't want to win like this though, but there's no way that he could possibly surrender so he took the match. It sucks to lose like this, but rules are rules.

Results: OXX

Right after that first round, Wind got me to go over and talked to me. Then he went through my decklist with me and it turns out that I missed out a card from my side board when I submitted my deck list. So I was awarded with yet another game loss.

Round 2: Johnson(Jund)

Since I had a game loss, all he had to do was take 1 game off me. But, since I have a game loss, that meant that I decided whether to be on the play or the draw.

Game 1: I chose to play first, and dropped a Karn on Turn 3 while he was stuck on 1 land without being able to do anything. He scooped when I exiled his land.

Game 2: Only 2 Sowing Salts in his deck, and he draws one. He exiles my Mine, which means I won't be able to get Tron online. Meanwhile I got land stuck on 4 lands, and he kept beating my face in with a Dark Confidant and some 3/2 creature. A Sylvan Scrying allowed me to get to 5 lands but it was futile as he killed me since I wasn't able to defend myself. By the way, I ended the game with Ulamog, 3 Karns, All is Dust and Wurmcoil Engine in my hand.

Result: XOX

As Elmo and I were both 0-2 at this point, we both considered dropping to play Pack Wars, but we ended up being paired against each other so we played it out.

Round 3: Elmo(Storm)

Round 1: I use Relic of Progenitus on him to stop his Storm combo, and wiped his board with a Pyroclasm and he scooped when I dropped the Karn on him.

Round 2: He drops Pryomancer's Swath and bolts me for 5 damage and then he finishes me off with two Grapeshots; one for 7 damage, and one for 8 from the Storm count.

Round 3: I can't remember what happened here, but he won because he managed to Storm off.

Results OXX

Round 4: Andrew(RG Tron)

He was playing a Tooth and Nail variant of Tron, which was...interesting.

Game 1: I think an early Karn won me the game while he was busy trying to assemble his things.

Game 2: He wins by using Tooth and Nail, searching Iona and some Conscript creature, entwining for the Conscript and Emrakul giving Emrakul haste, which meant it was game for me.

Game 3: We were both destroying each others' lands, making small plays until he Oblivion Stones' my Karn, while I had my own Oblivion Stone up with 4 mana open. However, I did not realise that I could actually place a Fate counter on Karn to prevent it's destruction(I only realised this after Wind told me about it after the round ended)., so Karn died. Finally, he used Mind Slaver on me, drawing a Karn and revealing the All is Dust in my hand. He actually made several misplays here, but seeing as I didn't realise anything, Wind kept quiet about it. He exiles my Urza Mine using my own Karn, and tapped me out intending to use the All is Dust in my hand. But seeing as he didn't declare it, Wind judged that it wasn't valid. According to JY, he didn't actually untap his lands during his untap step, and only untapped it after he ended his turn. Once again, as I didn't realise this, everyone kept quiet about it until the round ended. He pulled off the same combo as he did in Round 2 to end the game.

Results: OXX

After the matches, we all dropped and played pack wars where I pulled a Mythic Rare vampire from the pack I got for participating. I bought a pack and managed to pull a Blood Crypt. After that, we all went to lunch where we also decided to do a draft. Unfortunately, Con and Dan had to go back down to school so they were unable to join us.

I can't exactly remember how the matches went, but I went 2-2, pulling a Steam Vent from one of my packs. It was my first ever Draft, so I wasn't sure how well I would do, but it turns out I did pretty well. I made a Selesnya Populate deck, which turned out pretty decent. Elmo made an Izzet deck, Jake an UWR deck, Jason a Rakdos deck and for JY, a Golgari deck seeing as he pulled a Vraska. Both Elmo and JY went 3-1, Jake and myself went 2-2, and JY went 1-3, managing to only beat me.

While I may have failed at the GPT today, it was certainly a learning experience, and I'm glad I went for it. I may also start to go to CMG at Beauty World more often, as the people there were pretty friendly. On that note, I bid you adieu.

Peace out,
Zane

Better late than never.. No Deck tech this week

Like the title says, there ain't gonna be a deck tech this week. Its because Con is in the process of moving house so this week he is rather busy... Sorry y'all!