all your report are belong to us

Waterbury Last Place Report
by daboo

EDIT: I just remembered. My theme song for this Waterbury would be Montana by
Frank Zappa. If you can listen to it while reading this report, I highly
recommend it.

I've been coming to Ray's tourneys since they were type 2 events, and they are
amazing. Great people, good times, and so much fun to be had.
And hey, he even offers last place prizes! How can you go wrong?

I decided to run a w/u fishy thing. I had played something similar to it before,
and did horrible. I don't know why I played it again. I guess I'm just lazy.
Here's the list so you can know what not to play.

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Daze
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Meddling Mage
3 Rootwater Theif
4 Curiosity
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Standstill
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Exalted Angel
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 AEther Vial
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island

There was a random sideboard, but I doubt I'll bother list it.

Round 1
Justin, Playing TPS
Game 1
I start with a hand I shouldn't keep, with a mox sapphire as my only mana
source. He starts, opening with a duress, hitting the mox. Damn. Needless to
say, I'm severely mana screwed, and don't do much of anything for the rest of
the game. He starts trading life for cards and it goes downhill from there.
Game 2
While I don't remember all that much about this game, I remember it was only a
few turns long. Despite random hate I sided in, he goes off fast, I die. I only
saw one counter in these games: a Daze, which I was holding when he was floating
buttloads of mana.
0-1, 0-2

Thanks to the later start, the pizza shows up now. I down half a pizza, and move
on. (Note: the pizza was awesome this time. <3)

Round 2
Zherbus, playing that Meandeck deck
Game 1
Goes off second turn. I recall being one turn away from playing something that
may have helped me, but in retrospect, it was probably crap.
Game 2
I keep another one mana hand, and open up with a AEther Vial. Next turn I get no
more mana, so I stick a counter on my vial and wait for next turn. I'm holding a
Meddling Mage, which is nice against Tendrils, but he never sees play. I pass
turn, and die.
0-2. 0-4

Round 3
Max (I think) , playing Sui
Game 1
This game was the longest I played all day. He gets out two early hippies, and I
respond with two swords. A shade and negator come out, making my manland and
Meddling Mage look sad. These hurt - a lot. I dealt with his critters for a
while thanks to Crucible, each turn bringing back a manland to chump block a
shade. I removed a lot of random cards from his deck with Rootwater, but I end
up losing. He kegs my Crucible, and swings repeatedly.
Game 2
I didn't have a chance to do much this game, because hymn and hippies took out
my hand. I managed to STP something, but it didn't really matter.
0-3, 0-6

This is the point where I set my sites on last. Both my counters and my land are
hiding from me, so I decide it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

Round 4
?, playing Answer.dec
I don't remember all that much about this round, but I remember his deck had
answers for everything, and eventually took infinite turns with Crystal Shard,
Time Walk, and Eternal Witness.
0-4, 0-8

Round 5
?, playing Dragon
I must have been really out of it, sorry opponent, I didn't get your name
either.
Game 1
He animates the Dragon
Game 2
He animates the Dragon
We get up and hand in our match result slip five minutes into round 5.
0-5, 0-10

Round 6
Matt, playing Ravager-like-thing
Game 1
He drops a lot of junk on the table, and a couple cranial platings to make one
of his dudes huge. Thankfully, its toughness is only two, and I chump. something
else becomes big, and I die.
Game 2
Basically the same as game 1, just faster. My notes tell me at one point I took
12 to the face.
0-6, 0-12

Round 7
Mark, playing a stormy thing, Brainfreeze for the kill
Game 1
We're both going after the same last place prize, so this game was going to be
interesting.
I keep a hand with three fetch lands - score. I start manaburning myself early,
while mark sets himself up for a suicidal brainfreeze. I drop a Meddling Mage on
Brainfreeze, postponing his death. I keep hitting myself with manaburn, and he
goes and drops a Workshop. Sad It gets to hit him twice before I waste it. He
taps everything and goes down to 1. I'm at 6, I rip a Time Walk off the top,
play it, burn, and burn for the loss next turn.
Draw
Mark is a cool guy, and he's also 0-6. I had talked to him in a few rounds
before, since we were all around the lower tables. We're the only players left
without any points, so we decide to draw. (for the record, I do think I could
have lost this round if we played game two, but there was no reason).
0-6-1, 0-12

Round 8
Matt, playing Tendrils, but not quite TPS
Game 1
This game had me nervous. He tried to scoop after he grabbed the wrong land out
of his library. Seeing my perfect record on the verge of being shattered, I
stopped him, and let him go for the right land. He ended up Tendrilsing for 112.
Game 2
It took him a while to get the combo off the ground this game, but eventually he
did.
0-7-1, 0-14


I snagged some rice from some friends who got a chance to order some chinese.
Two pens I had served as chopsticks, and that was my dinner.
Awesome.

Later, after the top 16 were announced, I got my 3 foreign boosters for coming
in at 100th place.

Take the packs, play suicide with some friends.
Nemesis
An early spinal thug keeps me in the game, and it is sealed when I rip a Lin
Sivvi off the top. It really wouldn't have helped me too much, but it
intimidated my opponent into concession.
Planeshift
An unblockable Magnoth Treefolk gave me advantage early game, and an FTK sealed
the game for me.
Torment
Barbarian Outcast and Mystic Familiar couldn't hold their weight against some
craziness on the other side of the board. I ended up scooping to Mutilate.

I sorta wandered around for the rest of the night, eventually passing out in a
chair outside. I ended up leaving at about 3am, and the finals hadn't even
started yet.

Props: Ray, my opponents, Lin Sivvi, friends who actually did good
Slops: My land, counterspells, and deck in general