#710: Oh god Extended...
I went up to Portland yesterday to play in the PTQ, against my better judgment. It went better than I thought. I didn't do any play-testing and I didn't want to mutilate my wallet to build my deck, I went with Mono-Red Burn, against my better judgment. I actually didn't really know if I was going until Saturday morning. I had even stayed up playing Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl with a bunch of friends. Anyway, when Danny called saying they were about to come over to pick me up, I decided to drag my ass out of bed.
The Deck
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Spark Elemental
3 Shard Volley
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Incinerate
4 Shrapnel Blast
3 Magma Jet
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Teetering Peaks
4 Great Furnace
1 Darksteel Citadel
9 Snow-Covered Mountain
SB:
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Smash to Smithereens
3 Dragon's Claw
3 Pithing Needle
1 Dead/Gone
The Matches
Red Burn with Black Splash (2-1)
All-in-Red (2-1)
Zoo (1-2)
Thopter/Lage (1-2)
Thopter/Lage (0-2)
Boros Landfall (2-0)
Fae/Thopter (2-0)
Faeries (2-0)
I ended up going 5-3 and was 34th out of 170. I won three packs. One of the packs had Abyssal Persecutor. Woo $25 card.
Some highlights:
The Deck
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Spark Elemental
3 Shard Volley
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Incinerate
4 Shrapnel Blast
3 Magma Jet
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Teetering Peaks
4 Great Furnace
1 Darksteel Citadel
9 Snow-Covered Mountain
SB:
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Smash to Smithereens
3 Dragon's Claw
3 Pithing Needle
1 Dead/Gone
The Matches
Red Burn with Black Splash (2-1)
All-in-Red (2-1)
Zoo (1-2)
Thopter/Lage (1-2)
Thopter/Lage (0-2)
Boros Landfall (2-0)
Fae/Thopter (2-0)
Faeries (2-0)
I ended up going 5-3 and was 34th out of 170. I won three packs. One of the packs had Abyssal Persecutor. Woo $25 card.
Some highlights:
- In the Fae/Thopter match, he sided in Bottle Gnomes and started to recur them with Academy Ruins. I eventually had a Pithing Needle and named Bottle Gnomes. Yes. Pithing Needle naming Bottle Gnomes.
- James, the guy piloting the RB Burn, had a bunch of Japanese Eevee evolution cards. Flareon, Vaporeon, Jolteon rock. Also, he was a pleasure to play with. We joked around. It's sucked that in our first game, he had to mulligan to four.
- Thomas Huteson is the bane of my tournament existence. First with Naya sealed deck, now with Zoo...
- Thopter/Lage is a really bad match-up, it seems. Losing to it back-to-back really sucks. I learned some tricks I could pull, but all of them are "last-chance", desperate moves. Seems really awful. I learned of an awesome sideboard later in the day: Damping Matrix. It shuts down both combos the deck can do. I traded for two on-site (but could not add them to my deck...) and will probably need more...