Legacy GPT Report?

Hello everyone!

I was supposed to go to a Standard 1K this past saturday but I wrote down the wrong time I was supposed to meet everyone at Cumby's and so I was woken up to the sound of my cell phone and a "Hey, where are you?" I had to tell them to just go without me. I REALLY wanted to play magic though, so I ran to my computer and looked at the new group I joined on facebook: Massachusetts Magic Calendar. I found a Legacy GPT for GP Atlanta (that I can't go to) that was just under 2 hours away. I decided to ignore that only 40 people were invited, of which 2 said they were coming and 38 didn't respond and set off for the trip anyways!

After working through traffic, I arrived at my destination: Lost Harbor Games in Westfield, MA. I got there just 20 minutes before the event started so I quickly grabbed my stuff and rushed in so I could register, fill out a decklist, and then hopefully order some pizza before things got started. However all that changed quickly when the guy behind the table said, "Hey, are you here for the GPT? You're the first one!"

Cool. I drove 2 hours for a cancelled event?

I wound up jamming some games with who I thought was the store owner. I was playing my trusty elves deck and he was on mono-white Stax. In case you didn't know, Stax has an incredible matchup vs any form of combo, so naturally I lost twice as often as I won (which was basically determined by whether or not he had chalice of the void). Just 5 minutes before the event was scheduled to begin, 4 of their local players meandered in, so I was no longer alone. No one else showed up, so we couldn't sanction the event, but we had a 6-man legacy event anyways. It was a 3 round swiss cut to top 4, and first place would either get an Underground Sea or $100 credit off a $10 buy-in. I played the exact same 75 from SCG Providence:

Round 1: NO RUG

I was on the play and had set myself up to go off on turn 3. However his turn 1 Hierarch allowed him to turn 2 Vendilion Clique me and steal the Glimpse. I then decided to play out my mana guys in hand and hope to draw a Green Sun's Zenith that would allow me to tutor up the Craterhoof and stomp him, but I did not have such luck, and he had multiple tarmogoyfs that easily outraced me. I put him on NO RUG solely because of the Noble Hierarch because some RUG Delver decks have been playing V Clique so I sided in the Gaddok Teeg in addition to the other stuff. For game 2 I only had 1 land, but it also had Jitte, so I kept. My GSZ x=0 was met with a Lightning Bolt. Llanowar Elves got a Fire//Ice, and then my Fynhorn Elves got the Daze. I wasn't able to get mana, so I lost, although 2 turns later he did V Clique out the Jitte from my hand too, so I was definitely not coming back.

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Round 2: USA Replenish

One of my little phrases the past few months regarding choosing what deck to play has been "do something powerful". Consider the most powerful thing your deck can do, if it all goes well, is it that powerful? An example of something that isn't powerful is taking up your second and third turns to Personal Tutor up a Temporal Mastery. After you invest 2 cards and 2 turns you get.... half your investment back. Woot? In the same way, this guys deck kinda seemed cool, but even when everything goes right, it's not all that powerful. Basically what he was trying to do is use Faithless Looting to fill up his graveyard with disruptive enchantments and then use Replenish to dump them all back into play and gain a massive advantage. He also play Opalescence which allowed him to actually win once that was all done. He played all the seals as well: Seal of Fire, Removal, and Cleansing. It also played Porphyry Nodes which led to me frequently asking rules questions when I eventually did things like use mirror entity to turn all my guys to 1/1s while controlling an Archdruid to save everyone else, etc. The big enchantments? Parallax Wave and Parallax Tide.
So after playing all of these cards that frankly all suck by themselves, he then will Replenish and return everything to play which will be creatures because of Opalescence. Which means he has a 4/4 or 2, and a couple 1/1s. Oh man! I'm going to die! He just put 14 power on board! The inherent problem with the deck is that it was literally a pile of enchantments + Replenish + Faithless Looting, so it had no real interaction with the opponent. He also had no sideboard. The fact that my deck Qasali Pridemage didn't help his case either.
To say the least I just played guys and turned them sideways until he was at 4 life and had to exile my Regal Force with his Parallax Wave to stay alive - not a winning plan when it dies the next turn and I draw 6 cards...

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Round 3: Mono-White Stax

He offered the draw as we would both be guaranteed a top 4 spot, so I obliged knowing how poorly our games when in pre-event derping.

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Round 4: USA Replenish

So now it was a top 4 bracket with winner takes all. The 6 archaetypes at the event were: Elves, Mono-White Stax, USA Replenish, Aggro-Loam, NO RUG, and Esper Control. Aggro-Loam and Esper Control were the decks that missed top 4, and I was paired against the Replenish deck again. It was a very quick victory, and I went over to the other side and started rooting for NO RUG to win because I knew I should have rolled him last time. Unfortunately though, Mono-white Stax took it, and we were off to the finals.

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2-1-1

Round 5: Mono-White Stax

Once again, he offered the draw and prize split, which I thought about but then ultimately decided it was worth doing. I knew I had a bad matchup and didn't want to risk getting nothing at all for the sake of trying to get all the gold. So we each took our share of $50 a piece and went on our merry way.

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2-1-2

I took my $50 credit and had to choose between LED and Scavenging Ooze on what to get. Ooze was $40, but I felt LED was going to be overall harder to find, so I went for that! Who would have thought that a 2-1-2 record would have netted me an LED for prize?

For anyone who is near Westfield, I highly recommend checking out Lost Harbor games! Their stock is huge, the owners are very friendly, and the store is clean, spacious, has tables available for jamming games, and best of all: free parking! If it wasn't such a long drive for me I would definitely be a frequent visitor!

In other news, here is the list I can currently playing in standard:

4x Goblin Arsonist
4x Goblin Fireslinger
4x Vexing Devil
4x Goblin Wardriver
2x Stormblood Berserker
3x Goblin Chieftan

4x Pillar of Flame
3x Goblin Grenade
4x Shrine of Burning Rage
3x Brimstone Volley
4x Thunderous Wrath

21x Mountain

Sideboard:
3x Traitorous Blood
2x Torch Fiend
2x Manic Vandel
3x Bonfire of the Damned
3x Dragon's Claw
2x Dismember

This deck is really fun and is very random! With such high powered burn spells like Thunderous Wrath and Goblin Grenade comes a little randomness, but also comes with a lot of blowouts! I have been doing well so far prizing at FAM and being 1 win short of prize at FNM, and I will probably play this deck until I leave for the summer. Torch Fiend is a card I just discovered as I was putting this deck together, and if I had known about it when I was playing Zombies I would have easily played it over the Manic Vandels in the sideboard because Zombies was so lacking on the 2-drop slot.

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack