Casual Beats

On Wednesday (9/12/12) I went to Xanadu Games in Baltimore, MD because I heard that they had an unsanctioned, proxies-allowed, Legacy event.

I did not know what time the event began so I got there early.  I got in two practice games of Legacy (0-2), two practice games of Standard (2-0), and two practice games of 1v1 EDH (2-0).

In Legacy practice, I faced a Pod deck that used a lot of core Maverick cards, but was able to pod to infinity with Kiki-Jiki.  So, I did not win these games.

In Standard, I faced a mono-white Trading Post deck with Sun Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, and Elesh Norn as kill-cards.  In one game, I took two Day of Judgments and a Terminus to the face, in another, I took two Terminus and one Day of Judgment, lol.  Because my deck is so creature heavy, I was able to fight through three (or more) wrath effects per game and come out ahead.

In EDH I played against an Child of Alara (5-color) creatureless (except for Child of Alara) control deck.
(Same opponent I played against in Standard)
In game one, he could not really get going and I got out Grave Titan and Frost Titan; then I cast Rite of Replication with kicker to seal the deal.
In game two, I was able to Counterspell his Genesis Wave (x = 13), I had a Frost Titan, Crosis, the Purger, Sheoldred, Whispering one, and Nicol Bolas (Elder Dragon Legend) in play but he had a Solitary Confinement out.  I drew into Capsize and finally ended it.

Onto the event, which started at 7:30ish.  This tournament allowed unlimited proxies.  I did not realize that this meant that you could take a stack of 60 commons, write a card name on the back (not the front) in sharpie and play unsleeved so that your deck looks like face-up commons. (luckily only one person did this, my first opponent)

Round 1: Matt with Ramp.
This deck was unfamiliar to me and he may have just made it up.  It involved a Maverick core of Knight of the Reliquary, Noble Hierarch, and Green Sun's Zenith.  What he did was Ramp up to Cast Primeval Titan who would then fetch Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.  He would then crack fetch lands and use Primeval Titans land fetch to get mountains once he had 4 Valakuts in play and kill me.  Our games one and two were blowouts.  Our game three saw him drop a second Primeval Titan and Valakut me out while he was at one life. (1-2)

Round 2: Keith with Seismic Assault/Land Tax control.
Keith played a deck that relied on Seismic Assault coupled with multiples of Land Tax and Tithe.  He filled the rest out with control cards and a copy of Thrun, the Last Troll.

In game one he got a mana screw and I beat him down with Knight.  I did not sideboard for game two because I had no idea what he was playing.  In game two he got out multiple Land Taxes and killed me with Seismic Assault.  In game three I sided in some things and got out an early Batterskull.  I did make some mistakes in this (as casting a Knight of the Reliquary into a Counterbalance when I knew a CMC 3 cards was on top of his library)  I got to a big life lead before he stabilized with Thrun and Krosan Grip on my Batterskull.  We went to time and drew out on turns. (1-1-1)

Round 3: Bill with UB Control.
I won game one by virtue of a turn 1 Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor, turn 2 Knight and turn 3 Umezwas Jitte.  In game two he got control with a lot of discard and removal before finally killing me with Jace, the Mind Sculptor.  In game three I was unable to weather early discard cards that removed key pieces and all of my Green Sun's Zeniths were countered. Jace and Liliana came out and decimated my hand and my draws. Jace's ultimate finally killed me.

So, in the end I went 1-2, 1-1-1, 1-2.  I enjoyed the practice and was definitely outplayed as the only games I won seemed to be when I got a good draw and my opponents got a bad draw.  There were many times when I thought to myself, "I have nothing in my deck to get me out of this particular situation".  I also felt that my opponents had all the answers to play against me (or more specifically, Maverick).  Is this a "popular deck gets hated and people know how to beat it" thing?  Time will tell.

Until next time.