all your report are belong to us

Venue: Dülmen with a dwindling attendance of 67. As usual, the report is from
memory, thus probably totally inaccurate.

You know me, I always had a soft spot for Illusionary Mask and Puff Daddy so
after failing miserably to do anything with 4CC of FCG I went back to my roots.

Autocard

// Lands
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
4 Savannah
1 Windswept Heath

// Creatures
2 Meddling Mage
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Volrath's Shapeshifter
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Phage the Untouchable
2 Quirion Ranger
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Gilded Drake
1 Uktabi Orangutan

// Spells
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Mox Pearl
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Enlightened Tutor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Meddling Mage
SB: 2 Gilded Drake
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3 Ground Seal
SB: 1 Devout Witness
SB: 1 Kami of Ancient Law
SB: 2 Oxidize
SB: 1 Viridian Shaman
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm


Nothing really spectacular in the decklist as you can see. The only deviation
from Max Mallys build is the maindeck Gilded Drake which makes sense with Oath
still rampant. Sadly, I forgot Sacred Ground for the sideboard.

As I sit down on table 30-something for the first round, a kid two seats to the
left is frantically sleeving his deck. And because he's nice, he does it
face-up. I see Dwarven Bloodboiler and shudder. So let's see what's on my right.
An Elf deck with such greats as Wellwisher and Strength of Cedars beating the
snot out of a very embarassed Reanimator player. Eek. Another two tables away,
one of the Goeth brothers (full-power stax) notices that his opponents library
is just a wee bit too small, explains to the kid that the minimum card limit is
60, not 50. And because he's nice, he patiently waits while the kid grabs
another 10 cards to make his deck legal. Scrubland here we come!

Fortunately, my first-round opponent can actually play and has a semi-decent
deck.

Round 1: Mark (?) Kammer playing Landstill (?)

Is it Landstill? Is it U/r/w fish? I can never really tell these apart, they
share way too many elements. He had no power and no drains though.

Game 1: I lose to screw, simple as that. When your one land gets wasted and you
stall on a single bird for 3 turns, you kinda lose.

Game 2: This one gets more interesting. Shapeshifter gets some early beats in
(well, ok, he beats ONCE) but my opponent manages to find swords. A masked
dreadnought goes farming soon after and I go up to a very healthy 43 life.
Meanwhile, a maze keeps my face-down nought at home.

But then, tech, I play another face-down creature, swing with both on the next
turn. He looks really sad as he makes me untap the face-down bird of paradise
and takes 12 from the real Puff Daddy.

Game 3: Kind of anti-climatic but resolved survival means FEB-style Akroma into
Phage, oops, you're dead.

1-0-0 (2-1)

Round 2: Joachim Freitag playing Gay/r (?)

See above, those decks all look the same to me. Funnily enough, the round is
almost a mirror of the previous one.

Game 1 sees me taking a mulligan to 5 and settling on a hand with birds, ranger,
mask, nought, brainstorm. Naturally, I draw no land whatsoever and his faeries
and mishra-men beat me to death.

Game 2: On the plus side, he has no idea what I'm playing so he doesn't really
board. Good thing too since he finds himself on the wrong end of Puff Daddy.

Game 3: It's a repeat of the last round I tell you. Phage does him in. IIRC, I
play Meddling Mage for Force (because I can and because I think I only had 3
cards in hand), Time Walk, Shapeshifter, Akroma/Phage. Moral of the story,
Akroma is good.

For both of the above matches, add in random forces going off here and there and
mages trading with factories and whatnot to get the full picture. I really
should take more notes.

2-0-0 (4-1)

Round 3: G. Vogelsang playing WTF (Quirion Dryad style)

Remember how everybody said that Landstill and Dryads have bad synergy? Well,
no, they don't. He went 6-1 losing only to tendrils-combo in the last round.

Game 1: I have masks, I have shapeshifters. Two of each to be precise. What I
don't have is Survival or Dreadnoughts. Result: I die. Ok, so I do try to put up
a fight with recurring Squee (through mask, which I had to free from a null rod
via sex-monkey) to perma-chump a huge dryad but a second one seals the deal once
it's eaten my meddling mage (which, like an idiot, I'd set to landstill instead
of Dryad).

Game 2: I plop down Shapeshifter turn 1, tutor for nought, discard Puff Daddy on
turn 2, swing for 12. He finds wasteland. I'm not happy. I should have tutored
for survival but my reasoning was that I couldn't play it turn 1, thus I'd run
the risk of having it countered whereas I was guaranteed to swing for 12 on turn
2 if I tutored the nought. Ah well.

2-1-0 (4-3)

Round 4 : Mark Martschat (?, calssic case of me not being able to read my own
handwriting) playing Sui

Suicide isn't as bad as people think, it's just that most people build the damn
thing wrong. Case in point: my opponent. [card]Planar Void[card] is essential in
the current meta. He wasn't running it.

Game 1: He's happy, he's got Null Rod. I've got Force. I've got 12/12. He's got
dead.

Game 2: I think he boarded in Powder Keg and Wretch. Be that as it may, the
casting cost of a face-down dreadnought confuses him and he fails to blow the
keg at the correct time. That's 12 then. (oh, insert some stuff with moxen,
bird, ranger etc on my first turns while his Nether Void meets FoW). Meddling
Mage on my side gets set to wretch while he has Maze to stop my face-down
mystery creature. Ranger and Mage swing for a few but the mage eventually trades
with a hippy. I play yet another face-down creature. Unfortunately for him, he
too fails to pick the right one and choses to untap my bird. Gotta love the
masks.

3-1-0 (6-3)

Round 4: Lennart Freitag (not related to the other Freitag I played against)
playing powered Stax (actually, come to think of it, Stax is always powered,
duh).

Game 1:

I have a nice hand of Forest, Savannah, BoP, Survival, Squee, blue card and
Force. Naturally, I keep. He tries turn 1 sphere, I force. Good times. I proceed
to survival out a fleet of birds and a sex monkey to deal with his newly played
Smokestack. Seems like there's bugger-all he can do since tangle-wires prove to
be woefully inadequate. Sadly, they do mean that I'm one mana short of playing
shifter and survivaling Akroma/Phage for the kill. So it's just Akroma, he has
wasteland. Next turn then. Very annoyingly, he's got a welder out in the
meantime and topdecks a darned Mindlsaver. Bizrokenness ensues.

Game 2: Ground Seals come in and do their job. Still, the game is close because
his smokestack eventually acquires 2 counters with a wire on the table so I'm
starting to be a bit short on mana and permanents. At the end of it all, I have
a shapeshifter on the table, surival in play, some mana free and desperately
need to topdeck a creature. Squee to the rescue! By my calculations he was on 14
with no blockers but an untapped wasteland. Kudos to him for pointing out that
I'd missed one Ancient Tomb activation. Since he's on 12, he has to waste in
response to me survivaling nought, which allows me to discard Phage for the win.

Game 3: I draw a completely bizroken hand with Walk, ancestral, moxen, mask,
nought and, to add insult to injury, Ground Seal. I furiously topdeck two Forces
to stop his Rack&Ruin and Tinker. Bystanders marvel at such terrific mising.

4-1-0 (8-4) Hey hey, do I smell a top 8? I think I do!

Round 6 vs Peter Matyssek playing TPS

Mulliganed to 5 in both games.

If I'd mised beautifully the round before, Peter more than balances out my karma
in this one. Gifts Ungiven for Mox, Mox, Sol Ring, Mana Vault = Minds Desire for
3 into Duress, something, yawgmoths will = NOT teh funny. Oh, and Wheel handing
me FoW, FoW, Meddling Mage, Brainstorm. That should allow me to stop him, right?
Cabal Therapy. One FoW left, which I can then chose to use on Yawgmoths Will or
Yawgmoths Bargain. Ahem.

Short but not sweet, I lose 2-0.

4-2-0 (8-6) Ok, so no top 8 then.

Round 7 vs Simon Badura playing Iso-Keeper

Game 1: He wins the coin toss and has first turn Crucible, I have no force. Not
too bad, I can kinda play around that. I have land, bird.

Turn 2 he has nothing. I try shapeshifter (nought in hand, natch). He responds
with FoF and peels the following from the top: FoW, FoW, Cunning Wish, Mana
Drain, Wasteland. Absolutely spiffin, regardless of what I do, he can force and
has waste in the yard, ready to screw me hard.

To add insult to injury, next turn he has Scepter with Mana Drain and the mana
to use it. Angels and stuff = Scoopage.

Game 2: For some reason (I'll blame it on the late hour and me being tired), I
don't board in Oxidizes. Actually, forget the late hour, I'm a moron, go ahead,
kick me.

Be that as it may, I keep the following: Savannah, Lotus, Bird, Shapeshifter,
Phage, Brainstorm. Turn 1, pop Lotus for blue, cast shapeshifter, Brainstorm.
All I need is a damned mana source in the top 3 cards and he's dead on turn 2.
Guess what. No mana. So I spend an extremely productive turn 2 casting a bird.
He has wasteland, sets up Scepter with Orim's Chant. I still draw no mana. Did I
mention I didn't board in Oxidize?

4-3-0 (8-8)

Ah well, not too bad I suppose, just not brilliant either.

Suggestions welcome, natch.