Madison wins!
unfortunately it wasn't me. fortunately it was gaudenis. he won the biggest ptq ive been to in a while. it was also the biggest one in the world for this extended season at 218 people or something. he played loam which was and is the best deck in the format. the only things that ever beat it were directly hateful decks like trinkettog. it got chased out of the metagame by one deck and a domain zoo deck managing to somehow beat it twice at a gp. gau went 8-1 in the swiss, playing tron four times and affinity twice. he did lose to domain zoo. in t8 we all got to witness the horror of gaudenis playing a slow deck with a lot of decisions in untimed matches. let me tell you, i never want to go there again! there was a shattering spree that actually took 15 minutes to resolve i think because his opponent played gifts ungiven. gau played a chapin zoo deck followed by two tron decks. they all seemed like ridiculous matchups. i dont know loam as well as gau, but i think he chucked two different games to tron. but hey, who's got the money?
shapiro made t8 too. he was playing TEPS. i thought it was a bad deck choice, but it actually turned out to be just short of genius. it was very good against every major deck choice at the tournament. the major decks being domain zoo, gifts tron and loam. shapiro managed to lose to tron in the t4. otherwise it would have been a gau/shapiro final.
my deck choice might not have been the most optimal, but i decided to play the deck i've been working on. its a green/blue aggro deck with trinket mages. i think its only bad matchup right now is tron. although im still not sure how bad it actually is. loam and domain zoo can also be pretty tight, but the more i play them i think its slightly in your favor. the upside of the deck is practically every other relevant deck is an insanely good matchup.
here's my list...
1 tormod's crypt
4 bird
1 elf
3 top
1 pithing needle
4 fire//ice
3 wall of roots
3 counterbalance
3 umezawa's jitte
4 troll ascetic
3 trygon predator
3 trinket mage
4 phantom centaur
1 engineered explosives
4 wooded foothills
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
1 steam vents
1 stomping grounds
2 island
2 forest
1 seat of synod
1 tree of tales
3 ghost quarter
1 academy ruins
sb
4 ftk
4 ancient grudge
4 dwarven blastminer
1 ghost quarter
1 tormod's crypt
1 engineered explosives
i might write a report later. i ended up going 5-2-1, losing in the last round.
shapiro made t8 too. he was playing TEPS. i thought it was a bad deck choice, but it actually turned out to be just short of genius. it was very good against every major deck choice at the tournament. the major decks being domain zoo, gifts tron and loam. shapiro managed to lose to tron in the t4. otherwise it would have been a gau/shapiro final.
my deck choice might not have been the most optimal, but i decided to play the deck i've been working on. its a green/blue aggro deck with trinket mages. i think its only bad matchup right now is tron. although im still not sure how bad it actually is. loam and domain zoo can also be pretty tight, but the more i play them i think its slightly in your favor. the upside of the deck is practically every other relevant deck is an insanely good matchup.
here's my list...
1 tormod's crypt
4 bird
1 elf
3 top
1 pithing needle
4 fire//ice
3 wall of roots
3 counterbalance
3 umezawa's jitte
4 troll ascetic
3 trygon predator
3 trinket mage
4 phantom centaur
1 engineered explosives
4 wooded foothills
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
1 steam vents
1 stomping grounds
2 island
2 forest
1 seat of synod
1 tree of tales
3 ghost quarter
1 academy ruins
sb
4 ftk
4 ancient grudge
4 dwarven blastminer
1 ghost quarter
1 tormod's crypt
1 engineered explosives
i might write a report later. i ended up going 5-2-1, losing in the last round.