rctan9
01-15-2007, 02:55 AM
This is from my first City Champs standard tournament last Wednesday at Games of Berkeley (located in Berkeley, CA), and I’d have to say I did pretty well. I finished 3-1 (no top 8 because there were only 12 people), so I basically tied for 2nd-3rd, with only one person finishing at a perfect 4-0.
Location: Games of Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
Tournament Name: City Champs (Standard)
Format: Standard Constructed, 4 Swiss Rounds, No Top 8
Number of Players: 12
Enterance: $5
Prize: 9-5-5-2 (packs)
So here was the breakdown of decks:
Out of twelve players:
R/W/U Angel Control – 4 (Only my variant had no Firemanes)
Boros/ WhiteWeenie-Red – 3
U/W Tron - 1
Panda Connection – 1
Empty the Storm – 1
B/R Land Destruction Rogue – 1
U/B Control Rogue – 1
And here’s my deck:
R/W/U Angelfire
Lands: 22
[4] Steam Vents
[3] Hallowed Fountain
[2] Shivan Reef
[2] Flagstones of Trokair
[2] Azorius Chancery
[1] Boros Garrison
[1] Calciform Pools
[1] Urza’s Factory
[1] Prahv, Spires of Order
[2] Island
[2] Plains
[1] Mountain
Creatures: 10
[4] Lightning Angel
[4] Court Hussar
[2] Bogardan Hellkite
Enchantments: 1
[1] Sacred Mesa
Instants: 11
[4] Remand
[1] Careful Consideration
[2] Condemn
[4] Lightning Helix
Sorceries: 11
[4] Wrath of God
[3] Demonfire
[3] Compulsive Research
[1] Tidings
Artifacts: 5
[2] Boros Signet
[3] Azorius Signet
Total: 60
Sideboard: 15
[3] Annex
[1] Trickbind
[2] Faith's Fetters
[2] Disenchant
[1] Ignorant Bliss
[2] Repeal
[1] Condemn
[2] Jester's Scepter
[1] Spell Snare
I gotta thank my friend Dave for letting me borrow a last minute Hallowed Fountain to give me even more duals. I feel bad because he needed an en-Vec and Phyrexian Arena for his Panda Connection deck, and I have them both at my house and I was unable to help him back.
Anyways, moving on, I made some changes very last minute. I originally had Mana Leaks in the deck, but I took them out for more Signets, a Sacred Mesa Maindeck, and a fourth Wrath of God, making my Angel build the only build with ONLY Remand as a counter lol... You can see my original deck here: http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=384381 (Oh, and might I add, thanks for the overwhelming help people of pojo[/sarcasm]). Lol… but honestly, thanks for everyone who put in sooome imput…
As for SB, I was honestly just terrified of the matchup against Boros and Teferi, so I adjusted accordingly. While on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, basically Bay Area California’s subway system), my friend told me that a bad match-up for my deck was Tron. I realized it and it freaked me out so I found room for Annex in my sideboard asap (which I should’ve already been using for the mirror, stupid me). So with that all said and done, I was ready to play in my first standard City Champs!
With Angels being a third of the metagame, everbody was bound to face it at some point haha. Anyways, on with the report!
Round 1 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Andy (B/R Land Destruction Rogue)
Andy was a great guy. He was very friendly so it was very pleasant playing against him. His deck is a Black/Red Snow-Land Destruction Rogue deck, with its main land destruction spell being Icefall. Then use Thoughtpicker Witch to reoccur Icefall via Recover engine. He also had land destruction in the form of Smallpox and Stone Rain. The rest of his deck was just creatures and other miscellaneous spells, very rogue indeed.
Game 1: First game started out slow. I was on the play, and we were playing draw-go for the first three turns. On turn three I drop a Court Hussar and just start setting up for a Lightning Angel next turn. On his next turn, he drops a Stone Rain straight on my Shivan Reef, my only red source. We continue to play draw-go, and I just kept drawing cards and he strategically only plays LD on my red sources. He has no threats of his own at this point, but due to my lack of Red I can’t cast any of my threats lol… Then I finally play out a Tidings and drop a Boros Signet AND Garrison on the same turn. The next turn I play a Lightning Angel which goes in for 3 before he plays a Mouth of Ronom, poor Angel. A couple of turns later, I draw and pass the turn. On his turn he plays an Icefall, and I immediately respond by dropping a Hellkite. I still have one red source open (via Signet), so on my turn I swing in for 5 and drop a Demonfire ftw!
Record: 1-0
Sideboard: -2 Wrath of God, -1 Bogardan Hellkite, -1 Condemn
+2 Jester’s Scepter, +2 Repeal
Game 2: Poor Andy didn’t have a sideboard! I felt bad but I didn’t SB in much so I figured the game wouldn’t be too different. This time he was on the play, and he couldn’t pull off as much LD as his last game. On turn 3 I drop a Jester’s Scepter ripping a Rakdos Guildmage, Land, Land, Stone Rain, Icefall. SCORE! By about turn 5, I had a Shivan Reef, Steam Vents and Boros Signet out, so he was unable to deny me of red sources. I had 2 Lightning Angels come in eventually to take him down to Demonfire range, and before you knew it the game was over.
Record: 2-0 games, 1-0 matches
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Round 2 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Morgan (U/W TriscuitTron)
Morgan is a guy I really respect. I’m relatively new to the store (about my 4th/5th visit), and usually we always draft for City Champs/FNM, and he usually always goes 3-0/2-1 in drafts, and I’ve had my butt handed to me by him in drafts before. I also know that he is one of the few avid Vintage, Extended and Standard Players in the store, so he’s very familiar with all of M:TG. For this tournament he brought in a U/W Tron deck, (no Martry Tron thank god lol…). U/W (splash red) for control aspects, with his win condition was Triskelavus and Demonfire. My main worry for this matchup was Teferi and maindeck Faith’s Fetters. (a little bit of info about me, I frickin’ HATE playing against Faith’s Fetters lol…). Anyways, I lost the die roll (I always do…), and I was on the draw…
Game 1: We both keep, and he remands my turn 2 signet giving him a huge tempo boost, and he was able to drop the signet on his third turn with 2 mana available (via signet). I wanted to test his hand, so I try the signet again. Once again, Remand… so I drop a land and pass. The rest of the game were just dropping lands, and thankfully he did not Hit Tron for awhile. I managed to slip in an Angel before he started his Tron shenanigans… Once he hit Tron, he starts by playing Faith’s Fetters on my Angel and passes. On my turn I try playing Compulsive Research, when he flashed his Spell Burst lock. Still, I did not give up, I had an Urza’s Factory in play and I had the Demonfire, so my plan was to empty my hand and get him down to Demonfire range via Urza tokens. Everything went fine until he dropped another Fetters…. On my Factory. Then a couple of turns later a Teferi… I wanted to scoop but there was hope that my Demonfire could come through. He then ripped his own Demonfire off the top and that was the end of it.
Record: 2-1
Sideboard: -2 Condemn, -2 Wrath of God, -1 Lightning Angel, -1 Tidings. -1 Court Hussar
+2 Jester’s Scepter, +3 Annex, +1 Spell Snare, +1 Disenchant
So I had my gameplan set. Knock off enough life early on via Helix/Angel, and hopefully get the Demonfire in. Jester’s Scepter to rip off any powerful singletons/threats (Teferi, Demonfire, Trisk, Fetters), Annex to ruin Tron, Spell Snare for his Remand/Mana Leak, and a Disenchant for the important Fetters targets.
Game 2: Ok, let me make this short. I got pwned. BAD. I kept a two land hand hoping to draw into the third because my hand was so amazing. Let’s just say, I did not hit that third land until turn four, and he was already way ahead with triple remands on each one of my Court Hussar Attempts. My last attempt before I scooped was Annex on his Urza’s Tower, which got Commandeer’d… He had a Triskelavus in play, and two cards in hand. It just HAD to be Commandeer…with a Tron setup and my karoo, it was just over haha. I scooped and shook hands. GG, I got pwned. Bad.
Record: 2-2 Games, 1-1 matches
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With two rounds left, I wasn’t feeling too good. I knew Tron was a bad matchup, but man that matchup just sucked haha. Oh well, I quickly got over it because I knew I needed a good attitude to attempt to finish at 3-1.
Game 3 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Mike (Boros Deck Wins)
No0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o!!!! BOROS! I just recovered from a bad matchup, and here comes another risky one. I felt a little better because I can deal with some of the Boros threats where as he could only either kill me early or not kill me at all. My only goal was to stabilize my playing field. I met Mike during my 2nd visit to Games of Berkley, and I’ve sat next to him during drafts so we were very friendly around each other. We’ve played each other casually in standard a week before the tournament, so we both knew what we were up against. I always lost to him when we played casually, but that’s because we’ve never sideboarded against each other. I must admit though, I was pretty nervous going in against him, I knew my game 1 chances were slim, but of course I had nothing to lose for just trying to win game 1.
Game 1 – I lost the roll… again… I mulled once before I kept a hand of Plains, Condemn, Condemn, Steam Vents, Demonfire, Signet. I know it’s risky, but the Condemns and Demonfire can stall out his first few creature drops, which IMO are the most important. He mulled down to five before he began, and his play was the oh so famous Sacred Foundry into Savannah Lions. Of course I draw, Plains, go. The remainder of the game was a bur, but lets just say he had enough to burn me out of game before I could do anything.
Record: 2-3
Sideboard: -1 Bogardan Hellkite, -1 Lightning Angel, -1 Prahv, -1 Azorius Signet, -1 Boros Signet
+2 Repeal, +2 Faith’s Fetters, +1 Spell Snare
I wish I found room for one more Fetters in the SB, but oh well, what’s done is done. I just hoped for a good draw going into game 2.
Game 2: I’m on the play, and he gets his early beats before I cast my Wrath of God. I then start playing Court Hussar to get some cards in my hand, and he seems to be stuck on lands and burn spells. He then drops a Knight of the Holy Nimbus and a Cryoclasm, bringing my life lower and lower. I drop another Hussar and he drops another Knight and another Cryoclasm. Basically we just repeated the last turn. I then drop and Angel and begin swinging. He in turn drops a 3rd Knight and a Soltari priest. On the next turn I drop one more Angel and swing in for 6, and he Chars one away. On his turn he alpha strikes bringing me down to low (I believe 4 or 6 life). He was basically going to win next turn, but I had him. I swing with the Angel in which he takes because he needs the Burn spell in his hand to take me out next turn, and I happily Demonfire away the rest. Whew that was close!
Record: 3-3
Game 3: This game was NO doubt, the closest game I’ve played all night. He swamps me with creatures and I have to compulsive research, leaving myself COMPLETELY vulnerable in order to HOPEFULLY draw WoG. Luckily, and I mean luckily I drew the WoG and I cleared the board. Only problem being I was down to about 8 life while he was at about a healthy 15 or so only because he pained from Duals/Painlands. It appears he has no creatures left BUT he then Hammers and Chars me bringing him to hellbent and me to all but one life… On my play, I drop a Court Hussar, and on the top of my library I grab the first card I see, LIGHTNING HELIX!!! I proceed very calmly and pass the turn. He topdecks….. and it’s a SOLIFUGE. He thinks he’s got it in the bag, but as he casts it I give him a quick Remand, forcing him to pass the turn. I draw into a SECOND Court Hussar, which makes his Solifuge worthless. I play the Hussar and grab yet ANOTHER Helix. Oh man things were turning AROUND! He draws, casts the Solifuge and takes out one of my Hussars. Then he drops a Boros Garrison! WOW was it my lucky day. At the end of his turn I play out a Helix to his face just in case he pulls any shenanigans. I draw and I stab for 1 via Court Hussar and pass. On his turn he has two karoos, a Flagstones and a Battlefied Forge. He pains 1 via forge and taps flagstones for a Soltari Priest, which I remand immediately. He then contemplates whether or not to burn 2 via karoos to recast his Priest. Seeing as how we’re already into late game and he needs to take me out asap, he does it and it resolves. As soon as he gives the sigh of relief I Repeal that sucker, oh man did I feel like a grade A jerk. On my turn, I rip a Lightning Angel, swing in for 4 with Angel and Hussar. That brings him down to about 7 or so, and when he asked if it was his turn, I counted my mana and flashed the Demonfire. Best. Comeback. Ever.
Record: 4-3 Games, 2-1 Matches
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So now I was back to my cheerful mood, and I only needed one more win to reach my goal of 3-1.
Final Round – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Ralph (R/W/U Angel Fire) – Mirror Match
Ralph actually works at Games of Berkley, and not only does he judge and host the tournament, he also plays whenever there is an odd number of players at the tournament so that nobody has to receive a bye. Nobody at the store cares though, in fact, we encourage him to play every tournament because he’s a very cool person to be around. I’ve only drafted against him, but before the tournament started I showed him my deck and he told me he was basically running the same thing. The main difference was that he used both Lightning and Firemane Angel, and I only used Lightning Angel.
Game 1: Game one ran pretty smoothly on my part. My Angel Fire runs a lot like Tiago Chan’s, in fact, the decklists are almost Identical, but knowing Ralph I knew his deck would run more mainstream counter-control (Rune Snag, Mana Leak, Cancel, etc.) unlike my deck, which just relied on WoG and Demonfire to take out main threats. My assumptions were correct, and he was attempting to counter a lot of my draw spells. He did so, and he had an early game Compulsive Research dropping double Firemane’s, which were giving me a problem. Once he emptied his hand though, he made one huge mistake. He tapped out his blue mana for double Compulsive Research’s. Once he passed, I slipped in a Sacred Mesa. I was surprised since Ralph had no idea what it did, and after reading the card he just yelled “HOLY *****”, which made the whole store uproar into laughter. It wasn’t long before I had 7+ Pegasus tokens smashing face while his +3 life a turn did nothing. He scooped after he realized he had no answer.
Sideboard: -3 Wrath of God, -1 Lightning Angel, -2 Condemn
+3 Annex, +2 Faith’s Fetters, +1 Jester’s Scepter
Game 2: Ralph decided to let me play first, because he likes to draw first all the time. I played turn one land, turn two signet while he played turn one land, turn 2 karoo. However, my topdeck spelled his doom. I ripped A-N-N-E-X. I dropped my 3rd land, tapped the 3 and my signet and took his Karoo. He was speechless. I had access to 6 mana while he had access to none. He attempted to recover and did quite well because aside from that play I was drawing nothing but lands. He started pulling some Angel shenanigans with Compulsive Research and Ressurection, but it wasn’t long before I played my own Compulsive and drew into Double Dragons. I played the dragons and attacked, but he had the Fetters for them. Nonetheless, the Dragons got him to Demonfire Range and it was over.
Record: 6-3 Games, 3-1 Matches
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So there it is. My first City Champs standard tournament. At 3-1 I tied with Morgan (the U/W Tron player) who was the only other person to finish at 3-1. The only person who went 4-0 was another person who ran Angel Fire with Firemane Angels, and I really wanted to play against him to see how I would’ve done. I scored 5 packs of Time Spiral in which I pull a Teferi, so my night just got topped off. Overall the matches were fun and filled with tons of friendly interactions. I was very surprised at the Angel turnout though, but one thing that changed for the better is that Boros got “hated out”. The best Boros finish was 2-1-1, so next tournament people won’t be running that. I also think that Angel’s won’t have as high of an appearance, so now what used to be a closed metagame has now been determined by the local players.
I think I’m going to run Martyr Tron on the next tournament. I overheard that a lot of players are coming in with Dragonstorm/Empty the Warrens decks to deal with the Angel turnouts, so I’m hoping that Martyr Tron will help me fend that off.
I want to thank everyone who reads this long report, and please feel free to give me any suggestions. Did I make any bad plays? Did I sideboard incorrectly? How was my deck? Let me know and thanks for the responses!
Location: Games of Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
Tournament Name: City Champs (Standard)
Format: Standard Constructed, 4 Swiss Rounds, No Top 8
Number of Players: 12
Enterance: $5
Prize: 9-5-5-2 (packs)
So here was the breakdown of decks:
Out of twelve players:
R/W/U Angel Control – 4 (Only my variant had no Firemanes)
Boros/ WhiteWeenie-Red – 3
U/W Tron - 1
Panda Connection – 1
Empty the Storm – 1
B/R Land Destruction Rogue – 1
U/B Control Rogue – 1
And here’s my deck:
R/W/U Angelfire
Lands: 22
[4] Steam Vents
[3] Hallowed Fountain
[2] Shivan Reef
[2] Flagstones of Trokair
[2] Azorius Chancery
[1] Boros Garrison
[1] Calciform Pools
[1] Urza’s Factory
[1] Prahv, Spires of Order
[2] Island
[2] Plains
[1] Mountain
Creatures: 10
[4] Lightning Angel
[4] Court Hussar
[2] Bogardan Hellkite
Enchantments: 1
[1] Sacred Mesa
Instants: 11
[4] Remand
[1] Careful Consideration
[2] Condemn
[4] Lightning Helix
Sorceries: 11
[4] Wrath of God
[3] Demonfire
[3] Compulsive Research
[1] Tidings
Artifacts: 5
[2] Boros Signet
[3] Azorius Signet
Total: 60
Sideboard: 15
[3] Annex
[1] Trickbind
[2] Faith's Fetters
[2] Disenchant
[1] Ignorant Bliss
[2] Repeal
[1] Condemn
[2] Jester's Scepter
[1] Spell Snare
I gotta thank my friend Dave for letting me borrow a last minute Hallowed Fountain to give me even more duals. I feel bad because he needed an en-Vec and Phyrexian Arena for his Panda Connection deck, and I have them both at my house and I was unable to help him back.
Anyways, moving on, I made some changes very last minute. I originally had Mana Leaks in the deck, but I took them out for more Signets, a Sacred Mesa Maindeck, and a fourth Wrath of God, making my Angel build the only build with ONLY Remand as a counter lol... You can see my original deck here: http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=384381 (Oh, and might I add, thanks for the overwhelming help people of pojo[/sarcasm]). Lol… but honestly, thanks for everyone who put in sooome imput…
As for SB, I was honestly just terrified of the matchup against Boros and Teferi, so I adjusted accordingly. While on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, basically Bay Area California’s subway system), my friend told me that a bad match-up for my deck was Tron. I realized it and it freaked me out so I found room for Annex in my sideboard asap (which I should’ve already been using for the mirror, stupid me). So with that all said and done, I was ready to play in my first standard City Champs!
With Angels being a third of the metagame, everbody was bound to face it at some point haha. Anyways, on with the report!
Round 1 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Andy (B/R Land Destruction Rogue)
Andy was a great guy. He was very friendly so it was very pleasant playing against him. His deck is a Black/Red Snow-Land Destruction Rogue deck, with its main land destruction spell being Icefall. Then use Thoughtpicker Witch to reoccur Icefall via Recover engine. He also had land destruction in the form of Smallpox and Stone Rain. The rest of his deck was just creatures and other miscellaneous spells, very rogue indeed.
Game 1: First game started out slow. I was on the play, and we were playing draw-go for the first three turns. On turn three I drop a Court Hussar and just start setting up for a Lightning Angel next turn. On his next turn, he drops a Stone Rain straight on my Shivan Reef, my only red source. We continue to play draw-go, and I just kept drawing cards and he strategically only plays LD on my red sources. He has no threats of his own at this point, but due to my lack of Red I can’t cast any of my threats lol… Then I finally play out a Tidings and drop a Boros Signet AND Garrison on the same turn. The next turn I play a Lightning Angel which goes in for 3 before he plays a Mouth of Ronom, poor Angel. A couple of turns later, I draw and pass the turn. On his turn he plays an Icefall, and I immediately respond by dropping a Hellkite. I still have one red source open (via Signet), so on my turn I swing in for 5 and drop a Demonfire ftw!
Record: 1-0
Sideboard: -2 Wrath of God, -1 Bogardan Hellkite, -1 Condemn
+2 Jester’s Scepter, +2 Repeal
Game 2: Poor Andy didn’t have a sideboard! I felt bad but I didn’t SB in much so I figured the game wouldn’t be too different. This time he was on the play, and he couldn’t pull off as much LD as his last game. On turn 3 I drop a Jester’s Scepter ripping a Rakdos Guildmage, Land, Land, Stone Rain, Icefall. SCORE! By about turn 5, I had a Shivan Reef, Steam Vents and Boros Signet out, so he was unable to deny me of red sources. I had 2 Lightning Angels come in eventually to take him down to Demonfire range, and before you knew it the game was over.
Record: 2-0 games, 1-0 matches
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Round 2 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Morgan (U/W TriscuitTron)
Morgan is a guy I really respect. I’m relatively new to the store (about my 4th/5th visit), and usually we always draft for City Champs/FNM, and he usually always goes 3-0/2-1 in drafts, and I’ve had my butt handed to me by him in drafts before. I also know that he is one of the few avid Vintage, Extended and Standard Players in the store, so he’s very familiar with all of M:TG. For this tournament he brought in a U/W Tron deck, (no Martry Tron thank god lol…). U/W (splash red) for control aspects, with his win condition was Triskelavus and Demonfire. My main worry for this matchup was Teferi and maindeck Faith’s Fetters. (a little bit of info about me, I frickin’ HATE playing against Faith’s Fetters lol…). Anyways, I lost the die roll (I always do…), and I was on the draw…
Game 1: We both keep, and he remands my turn 2 signet giving him a huge tempo boost, and he was able to drop the signet on his third turn with 2 mana available (via signet). I wanted to test his hand, so I try the signet again. Once again, Remand… so I drop a land and pass. The rest of the game were just dropping lands, and thankfully he did not Hit Tron for awhile. I managed to slip in an Angel before he started his Tron shenanigans… Once he hit Tron, he starts by playing Faith’s Fetters on my Angel and passes. On my turn I try playing Compulsive Research, when he flashed his Spell Burst lock. Still, I did not give up, I had an Urza’s Factory in play and I had the Demonfire, so my plan was to empty my hand and get him down to Demonfire range via Urza tokens. Everything went fine until he dropped another Fetters…. On my Factory. Then a couple of turns later a Teferi… I wanted to scoop but there was hope that my Demonfire could come through. He then ripped his own Demonfire off the top and that was the end of it.
Record: 2-1
Sideboard: -2 Condemn, -2 Wrath of God, -1 Lightning Angel, -1 Tidings. -1 Court Hussar
+2 Jester’s Scepter, +3 Annex, +1 Spell Snare, +1 Disenchant
So I had my gameplan set. Knock off enough life early on via Helix/Angel, and hopefully get the Demonfire in. Jester’s Scepter to rip off any powerful singletons/threats (Teferi, Demonfire, Trisk, Fetters), Annex to ruin Tron, Spell Snare for his Remand/Mana Leak, and a Disenchant for the important Fetters targets.
Game 2: Ok, let me make this short. I got pwned. BAD. I kept a two land hand hoping to draw into the third because my hand was so amazing. Let’s just say, I did not hit that third land until turn four, and he was already way ahead with triple remands on each one of my Court Hussar Attempts. My last attempt before I scooped was Annex on his Urza’s Tower, which got Commandeer’d… He had a Triskelavus in play, and two cards in hand. It just HAD to be Commandeer…with a Tron setup and my karoo, it was just over haha. I scooped and shook hands. GG, I got pwned. Bad.
Record: 2-2 Games, 1-1 matches
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With two rounds left, I wasn’t feeling too good. I knew Tron was a bad matchup, but man that matchup just sucked haha. Oh well, I quickly got over it because I knew I needed a good attitude to attempt to finish at 3-1.
Game 3 – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Mike (Boros Deck Wins)
No0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o!!!! BOROS! I just recovered from a bad matchup, and here comes another risky one. I felt a little better because I can deal with some of the Boros threats where as he could only either kill me early or not kill me at all. My only goal was to stabilize my playing field. I met Mike during my 2nd visit to Games of Berkley, and I’ve sat next to him during drafts so we were very friendly around each other. We’ve played each other casually in standard a week before the tournament, so we both knew what we were up against. I always lost to him when we played casually, but that’s because we’ve never sideboarded against each other. I must admit though, I was pretty nervous going in against him, I knew my game 1 chances were slim, but of course I had nothing to lose for just trying to win game 1.
Game 1 – I lost the roll… again… I mulled once before I kept a hand of Plains, Condemn, Condemn, Steam Vents, Demonfire, Signet. I know it’s risky, but the Condemns and Demonfire can stall out his first few creature drops, which IMO are the most important. He mulled down to five before he began, and his play was the oh so famous Sacred Foundry into Savannah Lions. Of course I draw, Plains, go. The remainder of the game was a bur, but lets just say he had enough to burn me out of game before I could do anything.
Record: 2-3
Sideboard: -1 Bogardan Hellkite, -1 Lightning Angel, -1 Prahv, -1 Azorius Signet, -1 Boros Signet
+2 Repeal, +2 Faith’s Fetters, +1 Spell Snare
I wish I found room for one more Fetters in the SB, but oh well, what’s done is done. I just hoped for a good draw going into game 2.
Game 2: I’m on the play, and he gets his early beats before I cast my Wrath of God. I then start playing Court Hussar to get some cards in my hand, and he seems to be stuck on lands and burn spells. He then drops a Knight of the Holy Nimbus and a Cryoclasm, bringing my life lower and lower. I drop another Hussar and he drops another Knight and another Cryoclasm. Basically we just repeated the last turn. I then drop and Angel and begin swinging. He in turn drops a 3rd Knight and a Soltari priest. On the next turn I drop one more Angel and swing in for 6, and he Chars one away. On his turn he alpha strikes bringing me down to low (I believe 4 or 6 life). He was basically going to win next turn, but I had him. I swing with the Angel in which he takes because he needs the Burn spell in his hand to take me out next turn, and I happily Demonfire away the rest. Whew that was close!
Record: 3-3
Game 3: This game was NO doubt, the closest game I’ve played all night. He swamps me with creatures and I have to compulsive research, leaving myself COMPLETELY vulnerable in order to HOPEFULLY draw WoG. Luckily, and I mean luckily I drew the WoG and I cleared the board. Only problem being I was down to about 8 life while he was at about a healthy 15 or so only because he pained from Duals/Painlands. It appears he has no creatures left BUT he then Hammers and Chars me bringing him to hellbent and me to all but one life… On my play, I drop a Court Hussar, and on the top of my library I grab the first card I see, LIGHTNING HELIX!!! I proceed very calmly and pass the turn. He topdecks….. and it’s a SOLIFUGE. He thinks he’s got it in the bag, but as he casts it I give him a quick Remand, forcing him to pass the turn. I draw into a SECOND Court Hussar, which makes his Solifuge worthless. I play the Hussar and grab yet ANOTHER Helix. Oh man things were turning AROUND! He draws, casts the Solifuge and takes out one of my Hussars. Then he drops a Boros Garrison! WOW was it my lucky day. At the end of his turn I play out a Helix to his face just in case he pulls any shenanigans. I draw and I stab for 1 via Court Hussar and pass. On his turn he has two karoos, a Flagstones and a Battlefied Forge. He pains 1 via forge and taps flagstones for a Soltari Priest, which I remand immediately. He then contemplates whether or not to burn 2 via karoos to recast his Priest. Seeing as how we’re already into late game and he needs to take me out asap, he does it and it resolves. As soon as he gives the sigh of relief I Repeal that sucker, oh man did I feel like a grade A jerk. On my turn, I rip a Lightning Angel, swing in for 4 with Angel and Hussar. That brings him down to about 7 or so, and when he asked if it was his turn, I counted my mana and flashed the Demonfire. Best. Comeback. Ever.
Record: 4-3 Games, 2-1 Matches
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So now I was back to my cheerful mood, and I only needed one more win to reach my goal of 3-1.
Final Round – Me (R/W/U Angel Fire) vs. Ralph (R/W/U Angel Fire) – Mirror Match
Ralph actually works at Games of Berkley, and not only does he judge and host the tournament, he also plays whenever there is an odd number of players at the tournament so that nobody has to receive a bye. Nobody at the store cares though, in fact, we encourage him to play every tournament because he’s a very cool person to be around. I’ve only drafted against him, but before the tournament started I showed him my deck and he told me he was basically running the same thing. The main difference was that he used both Lightning and Firemane Angel, and I only used Lightning Angel.
Game 1: Game one ran pretty smoothly on my part. My Angel Fire runs a lot like Tiago Chan’s, in fact, the decklists are almost Identical, but knowing Ralph I knew his deck would run more mainstream counter-control (Rune Snag, Mana Leak, Cancel, etc.) unlike my deck, which just relied on WoG and Demonfire to take out main threats. My assumptions were correct, and he was attempting to counter a lot of my draw spells. He did so, and he had an early game Compulsive Research dropping double Firemane’s, which were giving me a problem. Once he emptied his hand though, he made one huge mistake. He tapped out his blue mana for double Compulsive Research’s. Once he passed, I slipped in a Sacred Mesa. I was surprised since Ralph had no idea what it did, and after reading the card he just yelled “HOLY *****”, which made the whole store uproar into laughter. It wasn’t long before I had 7+ Pegasus tokens smashing face while his +3 life a turn did nothing. He scooped after he realized he had no answer.
Sideboard: -3 Wrath of God, -1 Lightning Angel, -2 Condemn
+3 Annex, +2 Faith’s Fetters, +1 Jester’s Scepter
Game 2: Ralph decided to let me play first, because he likes to draw first all the time. I played turn one land, turn two signet while he played turn one land, turn 2 karoo. However, my topdeck spelled his doom. I ripped A-N-N-E-X. I dropped my 3rd land, tapped the 3 and my signet and took his Karoo. He was speechless. I had access to 6 mana while he had access to none. He attempted to recover and did quite well because aside from that play I was drawing nothing but lands. He started pulling some Angel shenanigans with Compulsive Research and Ressurection, but it wasn’t long before I played my own Compulsive and drew into Double Dragons. I played the dragons and attacked, but he had the Fetters for them. Nonetheless, the Dragons got him to Demonfire Range and it was over.
Record: 6-3 Games, 3-1 Matches
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So there it is. My first City Champs standard tournament. At 3-1 I tied with Morgan (the U/W Tron player) who was the only other person to finish at 3-1. The only person who went 4-0 was another person who ran Angel Fire with Firemane Angels, and I really wanted to play against him to see how I would’ve done. I scored 5 packs of Time Spiral in which I pull a Teferi, so my night just got topped off. Overall the matches were fun and filled with tons of friendly interactions. I was very surprised at the Angel turnout though, but one thing that changed for the better is that Boros got “hated out”. The best Boros finish was 2-1-1, so next tournament people won’t be running that. I also think that Angel’s won’t have as high of an appearance, so now what used to be a closed metagame has now been determined by the local players.
I think I’m going to run Martyr Tron on the next tournament. I overheard that a lot of players are coming in with Dragonstorm/Empty the Warrens decks to deal with the Angel turnouts, so I’m hoping that Martyr Tron will help me fend that off.
I want to thank everyone who reads this long report, and please feel free to give me any suggestions. Did I make any bad plays? Did I sideboard incorrectly? How was my deck? Let me know and thanks for the responses!