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| |  My G-U-R(grr) Tourney Report
by
Chris
"the Taco Prince" Shumard
First off, do note how messed up I can be and take into careful consideration
before reading this that I do swear, curse, etc. Well, off again I go. You see,
I had previously typed a great deal of this out before, copied and pasted it in
an email to myself, verified that the email was properly sent, and was awfully
disgusted whence I discovered computers are gay at times and don't feel like
working. The email wasn't sent properly after all, I'm guessing. 2 hours down
the drain, but I suppose I have time to spare. (no job, no car, no college,
etc.) Well, I've seen a great many tournaments before, and none quite of this
caliber. It was solid, do note that I also didn't anticipate there to be a
tournament, and was one of those days for really close games for me. I've had my
deck for a while, however, I used proxies (Wooded Foothill, you know, the pay
one lifey, searchey, gettey a mountainey or foresty, yeah, that one, and I also
lacked Naturalize, the common it seems noone will trade!!!) With this, I had to alter my land a bit, which would really harm my
mana base, and extract some Naturalize from some unsuspecting saps, or maybe
they lent them to me, but whatever. Last time I tried typing this, I was 2 hours
in and barely into my first match up. It was probably because of my analysis on
each of my cards AND lands. Yalza! I work hard on my reports(all 1 one of them).
Anywho, since Adam's report came first, you may have already known the players
decks, etc. Here's what I saw.
Here are the decks, in no particular order:
Will Walters?-with Monoblack Reanimator
Shane Sutton-with Blue Green aggro control
Justin Kanthak-with Trinity Green with LD base
Eric Hoffman-with Suck Cock, I mean, The Rock
Adam Cherington-with I guess Erhnam-Geddon with more LD
Andrew Whitlatch-with a variant of Suicide(Monoblack beats)
Adam Whitlatch(no relation to Adam Cherington)-with Cogoath(Cognivore kill)
Destan Hoots-with Black Red Reanimator
Paul Wang-with Sir Pumps-a-lot(monogreen creature and plenty o' pump)
and of course me Chris Shumard-with G-U-R(grr) control
Even with the lack of 4 REGULARS, Rudy Martinez, Robert Luken, Cory Helvick, AND
Zach Totten, we managed to pull a good 10 person show-up out of our asses, with
a wide variety of decks. Well, here's what took me forever last time, my deck
and the analysis. You may want to get a pillow and blankey, oops, blanket for
your viewing pleasure. My deck is beyond human comprehension, that is, if you
are drooling and sitting in your own your own feces.
My Green Blue Red Control:
Blue
4 Merfolk Looter-the engine of my deck, goes well with madness(obviously),
loots things, blah blah blah, 2 of them are foil!
3 Mana Leak-very solid counter, most of the time it is a counter and is
rarely "useless", even in late game, you can play games with your
opponent too, making them tap more land is good! and because I only have 3
3 Miscalculation-good solid counter, lacks strength of Mana Leak, but
cycles when necessary, I figured with the early threats of this environment,
early counters are good
3 Circular Logic-my "hardest" counter in the deck, makes
opponent PAY for their spells, ahaha, get it? Pay? No? Okay. Great with Looter
or Wild Mongrel, and plenty of cards in my graveyard
4 Accumulated Knowledge-a solid card drawer, lets me see more of my deck,
I do, however, hate playing against a deck with these as well because of the
importance of casting the last one(hence, drawing a ridiculous amount of cards
for cheap)
3 Fact or Fiction-the coolest card drawer around, great in many
situations, against control, drawing off the top of your deck, etc., a great
boost
1 Cunning Wish-my personal vote for most powerful wish, I have lots o'
instants in my sideboard, however, my sideboard was a 1 minute deally ( I was
pressed for time, see),
Green
4 Wild Mongrel-one of the best creatures printed in a while, some may
disagree, but a grizzly bear with an excellent ability tacked on is damn good,
great with madness and beatdown, one of my kills
2 Naturalize-one thing my deck lacks is control for enchantments or
artifacts that slip by my counter wall, one way of dealing with them is
destroying the shit out of them with green's Disenchant, awesome card
2 Roar of the Wurm-I wanted this to be my prime kill, however, 4 mana is
kinda a lot for a deck that rarely goes aggressive, nonetheless, the fat of my
deck
Red
2 Flametongue Kavu-it had it's time in Type 2 for quite a while, and with
a Casey's Party Creations following, I decided destroying random creatures would
be super, ultra-efficient at times, but lacks in many match-ups
3 Fiery Temper-some random burn spells that I really like, who doesn't
like card advantage Lighning Bolts? You? Well, fuck you. Great with Looter and
Mongrel, also one of the few ways my deck deals with Treetop Village
Others
4 Fire/Ice-my favorite split card for a long time now, Fire can kill 2
little guys, finish the opponent, yadda yadda, I use Ice just as much, it cycles
itself with a decent ability tacked on and can buy you a turn
So thats(in a more readable way):
4 Merfolk Looter
3 Mana Leak
3 Miscalculation
3 Circular Logic
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Cunning Wish
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Naturalize
2 Roar of the Wurm
2 Flametongue Kavu
3 Fiery Temper
4 Fire/Ice Karplusan
38 cards, leaving room for 22 land:
4 Shivan Oasis-this with an Island opening hand is almost always a keeper, this
is slower than Karplusan obviously, however, this is a slower deck with no first
turn plays
3 Karplusan Forest-these were my proxies for Wooded Foothills previously,
however, I decide to run a few for approximately the right amount of Red and
Green I thought I needed
1 Forest-low count because of the search lands and also because of the lack of
aggression
1 Mountain-same excuse as Forest, 'cept this bad boy produces red mana
1 Yavimaya Coast-little more green was needed, the pain never hurt, blah blah
blah, figure it out
1 Shivan Reef-same as the aforementioned (I felt like using a big word) Yavimaya
Coast
11 Island-originally my only source of blue, but once I figured out that nobody
had Wooded Foothills for my borrowing pleasure, I would need more Red and Green
producers, hence me going with painlands
The crap sideboard(keep in mind I had no time left):
1 Naturalize(duh, can randomly wish for it and the next few cards as well)
1 Urza's Rage
1 Prophetic Bolt
1 Hibernation (awesome, it can return THEIR green permanents too!!!)
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Annul (if you'd like some hot Annul action)
2 Disrupt (randomly there for cheap graveyard stuff, you know, exhume,
reanimate)
2 Earthquake (excellent creature control, rarely hurts me)
2 Treachery (I stole these from Adam the previous night)
Good lord this has taken a while!!! Anyways, on to the matchups (finally).
Round 1. Fight. Oh wait. I played against Paul Wang with his Mono-green Pump
After playfully double mulliganning after seeing no land into a one land hand of
the wrong color, I almost mulliganned again for kicks. I notice that Paul and
his friend are kinda antsy about Paul's hand, saying how perfect it was. I was
so excited, I nearly wet myself. This was going to be a gay game. He wins the
roll, of course, and wants to go first. On a side note, I'm about 1 to 5 on die
rolls. Yes, I am that "bad" at die rolls. I stare at my hand of Shivan
Oasis and 4 blue cards. He plays Forest and says go. Me, well I am blessed with
yet another blue card. I lay the Oasis and proceed to cry, and pass the turn.
Him: Forest, Mongrel. Me: uh, another blue card. Him: attack with Mongrel
pumping it with Brawn and Basking Rootwalla. He lays another forest and lays
Narcissism, another pump card that I was unaware of. I made note before of his
pump spells: Giant Growths, Muscle Bursts, and Seal of Strength. To boot, every
card in his deck had something to do with pumping up,from Werebear and threshold to Basking Rootwallas ability as well as Wild
Mongrel, ALONG with Squirrel Nest to pump out more shit!!! Damn him!!! He
proceed to beat me down to about 9, then I get a Mongrel of my own, and this
game actually goes on for about 10 more turns, with me peaking at 2 land. I do
get several Fire/Ice, however, I fall to about 3 life whilst he has about 5
squirrel tokens, a Mongrel, a Werebear. Great. I succumb to Paul "small
wang" Wang and his squirrel friends. Awesome game!!! I board in 2
Earthquake and 2 Treachery for his bigger "baddies". I, being blessed
with another gay hand in which I cannot cast anything until fourth turn, don't
reach that fourth land that I could really use(2 Flametongue, 2 Fact or Fiction,
Treachery). I feel great after this and proceed to crack my knuckles and grunt
at Paul. I lose again. Wow. Wow. Great.
I lose 0-2
currently 0-1
Second Round goes much better
Will Walters with Monoblack Reanimator
I lose the die roll, just what I need to boost my confidence. He Duresses and
nabs one of my two targets, Circular Logic, and my other target was Fiery
Temper. I go and lay Shivan Reef. He goes, and goes swamp, go. Cool, now I can
hopefully get a counter to thwart him. No. I get a land, but play Looter. He
goes swamp Nether Spirit, which I obviously don't bother with. I get another
land. That makes 6 thus far. Lay land and go. He Entombs a Petradon during his
turn, and procedes to Reanimate it, nabbing 2 land. Great. I looted into another
land anyways. I build up on cards for 2 turns, while he beats with Nether and
Petradon. I do get a Roar in the graveyard and flash it back. Good for me. I
block his Petradon with my Roar token, and his dies. Unfortunately for me, he
Exhumes his Petradon out, nabbing my best 2 land again. Cool. I get a
Mongrel out and swing with my Roar token, he blocks with his Spirit. Rats. I
forget by now what my hand was, but I still had lots of land to!
spare. He is at 8 and kills my token somehow (been a week, sue me), but since I
have a lot of cards to spill on my Mongrel, I somehow draw into all 4
Accumulated Knowledges and dump my excess cards on a well timed unblocked
Mongrel. Very close game. Too close. It came to a well placed Fiery Temper on a
Stronghold Taskmaster and his Nether Spirit, I think. The next game wasn't too
exciting, except when I see a Planar Void hit play on his side. This confused
me, it does kinda hurt my deck, but not quite as much as his deck, you know, his
graveyard based deck. I proceed to burn him out and beat with a Roar token and
Mongrel after Flametongueing his Nether Spirit into the Nether world from which
it never returned. Two good games.
Round 2 I go 2-0
currently 1-1 with matches
Round 3 goes much smoother as I face:
Eric Hoffman with The Rock
We have actually had this matchup before, and I lost
approximately 2/3's of the time. Sideboard doesn't matter a whole lot for me.
This matchup can also get very lopsided, as I can get awesome hand with no
counters as he turbos up a Spiritmonger, or Duresses or Edicts away like a mad
man or woman. I don't think I won the die roll, so he goes first. I keep a well
rounded hand that can handle anything, with cards like Fire/Ice for his Elves
and Birds, and Miscalculations for his Elders and Deeds, etc. It stays good
until I get Duressed twice (go figure). I do burn 2 targets of his, slowing him
down. I get Looters going, or so I thought, until both are Edicted away. We
battle with our hips until I stabilize with the likes of countering spells, Fact
or Fiction, and Accumulated Knowledges. It looks down for him as he poops out
more Birds and Elves while I have burn for all of them. I beat down with
Mongrels and a Roar token. The second goes similarly, but less amazing cards a!
re cast. Looter and Mongrel for me, however he gets his Deed out while we are
both empty on cards. I have more land however. This is where it got good for me.
He has 4 land, and taps 3 for Deed. I go and hope for the best. I did get
Naturalize, which he claims I topdecked, and blow up his Pernicious Deed. I
could have looted, or Fact or Fictioned into one, or Accumulated Knowledge for
3, or cycled Miscalculation, or Iced something, etc. until I got a Naturalize.
Oh well. I gain serious card advantage and cave his groin in with more burn for
his little guys. I win, if you didn't get the hint. He gets rather miffed at his
loss and claims it to be a good matchup for him. He did get well rounded hands,
as did I. So we did play good games, for once.
Round 3 I go 2-0
with matches being 2-1
Ah, lunch break. Super. I go to get a chef salad at Little King to match my
Slim-fast I had earlier in the morning. I eat the salad very slowly, as I savor
the ranch dressing and the croutons. The crunch of the lettuce rings through my
ears like a sweet melody. The cheese caresses my tongue like a butterfly does to
a flower. My hips are surging with enjoyment. I feel every taste bud tingling.
And then your mother comes out from under the table. She's a cheap whore!!!
Round 4 is a bit too close, but I manage as I engage
Adam Whitlatch with Cognivore Oath ( or Coggie 1 if you will )
You can read his report on this. However, game one was gay when he Dust Bowled
my green sources and left me with the 1 Mountain and tons of Islands. He is
beating down with Treetop, but is taking a large amount of pain from Yavimaya
Coast doing so. He has an Oath out to rub things in and I at one time have all 4
Wild Mongrels and 2 of 3 Fiery Tempers in my hand, and thats it. Neat. As I draw
land after land and play them, I also build up 2 or 3 counters and draw a
Cunning Wish, which I cast to get the lone Urza's Rage from my sideboard, and a
headgame ensues. If he goes with the Treetop beats, I will Rage it and he will
lose his only threat. I can't Rage him out, as I am lacking a few land (go
figure) and I have abused the Accumulated Knowledges in my deck after he has
cast his(1 or 2 maybe). I have Fire/Ices, Fiery Tempers, Merfolk Looter,
Circular Logic, and maybe a Mana Leak or 2. He is hovering around 2 life after I
Rage HIM at the end of his turn, because he needed a counter and couldn't take the risk of getting burned out during my turn, however,
thats how it happens. I untap the Shivan Oasis I played the previous turn,
giving me a whole 2 red sources to work with. Feeling a little underconfident, I
have 4 cards left in my library, knowing 3 of the 4 are what I want. I do have a
Looter out, since I played my Gambling Man routine with him, and he gets to Oath
out his precious Cognivore, who's size is irrelevant since I am at 1. Okay, this
may be confusing, but I attempt to Fire Adam, like a boss who fires an
unsuspecting employee, and he Counterspells it, in which I loot in response,
ditching my Fiery Temper and madnessing it right at him. I believe he
Brainstormed and tried to get both Foil and an Island, but no. That was the
closest game of the day, and I felt very uneasy the whole round, since I
couldn't cast any of my hand and couldn't go the creature route anyways because
of Oath. Fuck. The next game sucks donkey balls for me as I decide to side in 4 Annul, 1 Fact or Fiction, and 1 Treachery for kicks, and get
stuck with the awesome draw of 6 land and a Circular Logic. Eric and I both look
at each other for comfort, unfortunately his is looking for comfort for being a
homosexual, and I am looking for pity. I keep it unfortunately and he goes
first. I draw another land. Wow. He procedes to lay another second turn Oath,
which he does quite often. Great! Next turn I draw Annul. FUCK YOU DECK!!!
Things look grim as I draw a Naturalize AFTER my green sources are knocked out
and the 1 Treachery, so my cards are Annul(useless), Naturalize(can't cast), and
Treachery(no target) and the rest land. I'm lucky!!! It actually comes down to
me attempting to Treachery his Cognivore, you see, I was pressured into laying
something because of 3 Treetop Village AND more Oath of Druids (3 total as
well). I lose because of lack of counters, land, AND cards I can cast.
Whoopee!!! We have 2 minutes left to finish up. We can't. !
So we tie. Better than a loss I suppose.
So, Round 4 I go 1-1-1
with matches being 2-1-1
Well, I know I should win this next one to have the best chance at top 2, with
Adam at a comfy 1st if I win. I get to play Andrew. Oh boy. I don't know how
this one will go.
Round 5 I'm comfy as I endure the wrath of
Andrew Whitlatch with Monoblack beatdown
Hmm. This could be really bad, but my starting hand is ok. He busts
out the gates with 2 2/2's that I can't handle for a while. I lay Looters and
Mongrels like a maniac, but he Edicts every one away. I do get a Roar token,
which he promptly Edicts away. I never get a red source for my anxious
Flametongue Kavu. Good game though. I board in 2 Earthquakes, which may or may
not be that great of a choice, judging that he can Duress them away, or he could
hold back and slowly ebb away at my life gauge(my dice). Well. 2nd game I lead
with Looter, which he Edicts away. Then a Mongrel, which is Edicted away. I Fire
a couple guys, while being kicked in the groin. I actually get to keep a Mongrel
in play with an Earthquake and a Roar in hand. I Quake while pitching Roar to
save my Mongrel, and that kills his Sarcomancy token, and he takes 3 from
Mongrel and 2 Quake damage, and 1 for a few turns during his upkeep due to not
having any Zombies. Whaaaa. Poor baby. Good game of course, a!
nd also quite close. Game 3 is pretty much the same, he makes a couple small
mistakes, like not laying a land before playing a Negator that I Miscalculation
as he only has 1 land in play. Before that some time, he Duresses to see I have
Fire/Ice and Fact or Fiction. He chose Fact or Fiction. Not a dumb play, but he
tries to Unholy Strength his Dauthi Horror, which I have a Fire for. So, 2 cards
down the drain for him while knowing that he shouldn't have done that. Oh well.
Sometime, he lays a Grinning Demon in defense from my Wurm token, but it ends up
eating too much of his life and I end up swinging with a Mongrel, Looter, and a
Wurm token. Another good and perhaps close game for the day.
Well, for the final round I went 2-1
which left matches at 3-1-1
Very close. It ends up with myself and Adam tied at 10 points, but because of a
slightly better opponent match win percentage, I am fucked into getting 2nd
place. Better than nothing, well, slightly better. You only really make your
money back if you place 1st, and with the difference in prizes being what they
are, yeah, I got screwed. $30 store credit for 1st, yet 15 for 2nd, 10 for 3rd,
and a whole 5 for 4th. The standings: Adam-1st, Me-2nd, Eric-3rd, and
Andrew-4th. I unfortunately purchase some Onslaught because I lack cards from
the set. I'll tell you what they got first. Eric, the asshole, got a Flooded
Strand and another decent rare, Adam got some decent rares, but chose not to
keep most of his cards, Andrew got a couple packs with nothing to brag about,
however, I, being the luckiest bastard ever, pull a good rare, Ravenous Baloth,
sure, but I also get a Biorhythm, a Krosan Colossus, and get this, yes, 2
Kabooms. 2 Kabooms. Oops. I forgot the exclamation points that
are actually in the name of the card. Kabooms! There. That better? What has
happened to Magic? For God's sake, I was blessed with 2 Kaboom!. It sucks. DAMN
IT ALL TO HELL!!! Well, I feel that it was a very good tournament, and I thank
the people who showed up from out of nowhere. Ugh. Well, here goes my
"Props and Slops" yo. It may be a little awkward. Here goes.
Props:
-hmm, can't think of too many, uh, the people who showed up?
-the Mechwarrior clan, no wait, never mind
-I told you I couldn't really think of any
-damn
-I'm done with this now
Slops:
-The Hives for making me laugh and get distracted when I play Eric
-some of those smelly and gross Mechwarrior dudes
-the chick at Little King who gave me double the regular amount of ranch
dressing and it still wasn't enough(I had half of my freaking salad left!!!!!)
-Phil ( no particular reason )
-the regulars who failed to show (Zach, Robert, Cory, and Rudy who wanted this
tournament anyways)
-my computer for failing to send the email to myself and ended up being gay and
had to be shut down, which really sucked because I had the whole report copied
after right clicking
-Austin Powers in Goldmember
-Episode II
-Carpel Tunnel, yeeouch
-time, for going by so fast, since this took about 4 hours to do, well, wait
just a second, is time really moving? Should I blame time for something it is
actually incapable of? Well how should you know? Oh. You're Jesus Christ. Well.
I don't have a fixed religion, so take that you big know it all!!!
That all being said. I'll do my "regular" thing and confuse the hell
out of you. But how, you ask? Oh, you're still Jesus Christ I see. Well, people
claim to have visions of you, so how in the devil do I know if you're real? Oh
sure. Ease my mind and soothe my soul. Like thats gonna do me any good. Heal my
wounds and purify me? Riiiiight. How is that possible?GYAAH. By touching my
special area? That just took care of my extreme case of herpes. You're so
special, shyah right. You know, I never thought you'd be as muscular as you are.
I guess you are our saviour an' all. Didn't know you'd have such slow sounding
english. You are a lot darker than I anticipated as well, but that doesn't mean
you're a bad person. Hey, wait, don't I know you from somewhere else? Hey, and
my herpes aren't gone!!! You just put fairy dust all over my genitals. I know
now. You're Michael Clarke Duncan, the big black guy from The Green Mile movie
adaptation of Steven King's novel. With that said, I have decided you aren't Christ after all, but just some freak who likes my
genitals. Now, wait. I didn't say you should stop. Get back here. Hey! Damn.
Thats the 3rd movie star who has posed as an important figure in society and has
touched my genitals and ran away this week. How am I ever going to get a date?
Only time will tell. Now wait. Not again. Time can't really do anything. I
wouldn't even consider it an inanimate object. But, in turn, aren't I
contradicting myself? You see, I said it wasn't inanimate, and also said that it
doesn't do anything. Now how does that work out? Yes? You know? I'm Chris, and
you are? Mohatma who?
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