Second with UBG Landstill in Legacy (Cambrils 8/08/2010)

Few days ago we heard from this Legacy tournament being held in Cambrils (about 100km from Barcelona) and organized by a couple of “oldies” that nowadays own a bar called “Rock Star“. The winner of the tournament would win 2 FBB Scrublands, the finalist 2 Revised Dual Lands and the semifinalists some Fetchlands. In the end, the turn out wasn’t that impressive (20+) and they decided to keep the prizes for the 1st and 2nd and remove the top4 fetchlands. Fair enough! (The entrance fee was 14€ and that included a HUGE sandwich and a drink).

The following report explains my tournament performance playing UBG Landstill and How I met GOD playing from the inside of Toni Calero’s body.

Ok, maybe I exagerated a little bit there, but it surely made you click the (more…) button.

I picked up my friend Roger Riera (the one that elaborates those freaking awesome metagame breakdowns from the LCV & LCL) at 8:15 in Barcelona and we got to Cambrils around 10:00. Our GPS kinda fooled us and made us a nice tour through local roads instead of using the highways.

The tournament starts with a little delay due to the organizers trying to wait for more people to arrive, but it was clear it wasn’t gonna happen.

The list I played is based on the list JACO presented in his article: Focus on Legacy: Constructing UBG Landstill. It looked like this:

UBG

I don’t keep an exact record or notes of what happened during most of the rounds. I’ll try to explain what I can remember, and will focus on the final match.

Round 1: Andreu Sintas playing Belcher

The first game of my first tournament ever playing Landstill and it took about 20 seconds to resolve! He Land Grants and seconds after I observe how he casts 2 Rite of Flame + Seething Song + Goblin Charbelcher + Lion’s Eye Diamond, activates and I die.

Seems like Belcher is making a comeback now that Mystical Tutor is banned. We saw Jason’s team mate Matt, reach the finals of the GENCON Legacy Championship. Do you guys think Belcher is a good deck in the current metagame? I don’t!

Game 2, I force a mulligan to either: Force of Will, Thoughtseize or Land + Spell Pierce. Well, after mulligan to 5, I decide to stop with Land + Brainstorm, to try see more cards to find Force of Will. I play land and pass, he Land Grants and shows me a hand with lots of Rituals, a LED and Burning Wish. I cast Brainstorm in response to Land Grant to try find FoW but… I don’t. No way on earth I could find my Echoing Truth due to Brainstorm bringing shit and no fetchland xD BUT THEN, he starts casting his rituals, plays the LED and then Burning Wish, and he asks “It resolves?” To which I answer with a clear “YES PLEASE”. After me, he then says “Ok, In response to Burning Wish I sacrifice the LED”. And I let him know that Burning Wish isn’t resolved yet, so he can’t sacrifice his LED. I also tell him that, in a normal situation, casual game or any other situation with a minor mistake I would let him redo the play, but this mistake I couldn’t because I would lose straight away. He understands his mistake and then searches his SB for Empty the Warrens and passes the turn.

I play my second land and hold Counterspell, so I feel lot better now 😛 On my third turn I cast a Pernicious Deed that clears his Chrome Mox and LED. Jace on turn 4 and I control his topdeck FTW.

Game 3 is even more surreal than first one. I, once again, force a mullingan to something useful BUT, i find no real shit and my 4 card hand is: Tropical Island, Polluted Delta, Echoing Truth, Wasteland. My only real option to win this game happens if my opponent goes for an Empty the Warrens. I open with land and pass and he actually had a hand to cast Empty the Warrens + Burning Wish for Goblin War Strike, but he misses the land to actually cast it. I draw (Standstill) and play my second land + Echoing Truth. Few turns after, when I’m under the Standstill effect and with 2 Mishra’s Factory in play they call the end of the round, and I’m missing 1 attack to actually win the game. So I managed to tie a match that I saw quite complicated.

1 point ( 1-1 | 0-0-1) Mental note: I should buy a couple of Foil Japanese Mindbreak Trap.

Round 2: David Barguello with Vial Kithkins

Game 1: Pernicius Deed kills 6 Kithkins + 1 Vial.

Game 2: I Force of Will his Vial and he gets mana screwed… Jace wins the game.

4 points ( 3-1 | 1-0-1)

Round 3: Jose Pleguezuelos (something playing Eternal Witness)

Don’t remember much from this match but my notes tell me he didn’t even hurt me once (only my fetchlands) and that I killed him twice with Jace, as his health points went also down only twice from his fetchlands.

7 points ( 5-1 | 2-0-1)

Round 4: Jordi Franquet with CounterTop

I lose game 1 due to a turn 2 Counterbalance that… without any kind of manipulation will counter:

Turn 3 Pernicious Deed revealing Firespout.
Turn 4 Standstill revealing Tarmogoyf
Turn 5 Innocent Blood (to kill his Tarmogoyf) revealing Swords to Plowshares

Not bad eh?

So what you do when you lose game 1 with Standstill and you actually need to win? YOU RUSH!

Game 2 I had Jace the mindsculptor, 2 Mishra’s Factory, Life from the Loam, Force of Will, Brainstorm and a Polluted Delta. My plan was clear: Play jace and kill with while I defend him with the Mishra’s and recovering them with Life from the Loam. It actually worked quite well and I won the game without wasting lot of time.

Game 3 was even more of a rush. I don’t have the exact details of the game, but what I wrote down is that I could have won in the 5th turn of the extra turns attacking with 2 Mishra’s Factory + pumping one with a 3rd Mishra’s Factory (had s.sickness) when he was exactly at 5 lives left. What happened? His only card in hand was Krosan Grip… So it’s a tie.

8 points ( 6-2 | 2-0-2)

Round 5: David Herruzo with Zoo

I lose game 1, again! Some of his creatures did enough damage to bring me down to 9 lives left. I managed to clear the table with a Pernicious Deed and play a Standstill hoping he wouldn’t draw many bolts. Silly me…

Game 2 I win by just killing every creature he plays with Innocent Blood/Ghastly Demise/Pernicious Deed and attacking with 1 Mishra’s Factory.

So… we are starting game 3, and I ask how much time there’s left. He says 10 minutes. A tie won’t be that useful as he’s got 7 points and I got 8. He can’t get in with a tie, and I might miss the top8 with 9… He’s not that kind to concede so I wouldn’t miss the top8, so I put the TURBO LANDSTILL to work again.

You remember the game 3 of the last round when I was gonna win in the last turn of the extra turns? Well, this game goes exactly the same way, but with the difference that this time I DO WIN. He was at 9 HP when they call for turns, I top deck my second Mishra’s Factory and play it on the first extra turn, attack for 2. On the 3rd extra turn, I attack for 4, then on the 4th extra turn he plays a Tarmogoyf to block, but on the 5th extra turn I cast Pernicious Deed to kill his Goyf and swing for the win.

11 points (8-3 | 3-0-2)

Quarterfinal: Oscar López with Naya Zoo.

I win game 1 with an amazing comeback when I was at 3 lives left. When you have Jace in play and he has no cards in hand, there’s absolutely no way he can win.

I lose game 2 against a Tarmagoyf + Wild Nacatl without being able to find any solutions on time.

Game 3 is quite interesting due to my opponent accidentally dropping a Volcanic Fallout from his hand. I would have probably lost that game without that information because I had triple Mishra’s Factory and I was gonna go for a fast kill there after killing all his creatures. So I decided to swing with 1 Mishra’s at a time to protect it from Lightning Bolt or Volcanic Fallout.

Semifinal: Roger Riera with GRIM NAUSEAM (the version that went undefeated at the day 1 of GP)

Well, with such a small tournament it would have been weird to not meet with my friend roger at some point. We would have loved to meet at the finals but destiny choose the semis.

Game 1 I can’t do much as my only Counterspell gets his Duress and then he goes off with a lethal Ad Nauseam.

Game 2 I open with Thoughtseize that gets his only Tendrils of Agony and he scoops a couple of turns after when I cast a Standstill.

Between game 2 and 3 I adjust my sideboard strategy. I took my Innocent blood/Ghastly Demise out for game 2, but I felt Innocent blood could be more useful than Pernicious Deed. Pernicious is good to stop the LED plan, but that’s a slow solution. On the other hand, I knew Roger was playing Dark Confidant and Pernicious Deed wasn’t fast enough to stop that. So I took my 4 Innocent Blood back in and took the Pernicious Deed out.

Roger opens game 3 with… (DRUMS, PLEASE!): Land + Lotus Petal + (DRUMS AGAIN) Dark Confidant! I tell him “Ok, Roger, please don’t get upset if I topdeck the card I need”. I draw and by the noise from the people at my back, Roger could sense the disaster. YES! I topdeck’d Innocent Blood xD

I won the game once my Jace started controlling his top decks and a couple of Mishra’s bleeding him slowly.

Final: Toni Calero playing ProBant with CounterTop

Probant shouldn’t be a difficult match up for UBG Landstill. You’ve got the elements to neuter every single strategy from Probant. Game 1 is the perfect example of that. I had the absolute control of the game since turn 1. I single kill every creature he casts and then Jace finished the job.

Game 2 is a total different story. I kept a risky hand with Tropical Island, Force of Will, 2 Standstill, Jace the Mindsculptor, Spell Snare and Brainstorm. He opens with Forest + Noble Hierarch. After thinking for a while, I decided to counter it with Force of Will (pitching Jace 2.0). The reasons behind the Force of will are different:

He could have kept a hand with a basic Forest + Noble. Countering Noble could deny the access to blue.
I had Spell Snare in hand, so I could get the chance to play land and pass and probably get to use my Spell Snare on turn 2.
If I get to draw my 2nd land, I would play Standstill on my 2nd turn.

On turn 2 Toni casts Qasali Pridemage, and I’m forced to use my Spell Snare. I would have loved him to cast Counterbalance 1st, but he choose to go for Qasali. I topdeck my second Tropical Island and I play Standstill on turn 2! My plan worked as intended and now I’m in a winning position with still, another Standstill, Brainstorm and Pernicious Deed (that I draw on turn 1).

On his third turn he decides that it was a good time for me to draw, and he casts Counterbalance. I don’t get any Force of Will nor a black source (Fetchland, Swamp or Underground Sea). With the remaining land he had, he casts Sensei’s Divining Top. He’s tapped out, so I feel I should play my second Standstill and force him to make me draw because I draw a Mishra’s Factory out of the first Standstill. Standstill resolves and on his 4th turn he casts Tarmogoyf. I draw 3 more cards: 2 Innocent Blood + Perish. No black source yet… I draw my turn card and it’s not a black source yet.

I lose to Tarmagoyf because I never saw a freaking fetchland or a Underground sea in the whole game, after drawing 6-7 turn cards + 2 Standstill + 1 Brainstorm. That’s simply bad luck. That game was supposed to fall to my side if only I would have drawn that black source but you know… that’s Magic folks!

Game 3… OH MY GOD! His opening hand was probably the 7 cards he would have chosen if they would have asked him to pick his best 7 card hand. I open with land and pass. He goes land + Noble Hierarch. I counter his Noble again, following the same reasoning as in game 2. Turn 2 he plays Sensei’s Divining Top, Turn 3 he plays Counterbalance that I try to counter with Counterspell but he protects it with Force of Will. Turn 4 he casts Tarmogoyf and turn 5 Trygorn Predator. On my 6th turn I cast Pernicious Deed and it resolves, and destroy Goyf, CB and Trygon Predator (he draws with Top in response). I pass turn, and he casts Counterbalance + Sensei’s Divining Top… again. I topdeck another Pernicious Deed and he tries to counter it revealing with CB, he shows: Daze. He draws with Top, and out of the 2 cards he had left, one was Force of Will (pitching Daze). So Pernicious doesn’t resolve 🙁

Then he casts top again and pass, he finds Rhox War Monk the turn after and I can’t kill it with my Innocent Blood because of CB. Rhox kills me. Congratulations to Toni Calero for taking hom the 2 Scrubland FBB!

So this is the story of my 1st tournament playing Landstill. 1 Savannah + 1 Badlands were rewarded for my efforts 😀 It was so much fun to play a total different deck than ANT in legacy. I’ve been playing combo for ages and this archetype is totally undiscovered for me. Good sensations, total control of the games and you can only lose if either you fuck it up badly or you got some bad beats. Props to the organization of the event and the people who attended. Will return anytime soon!

Do you guys think I did wrong by countering his first turn Noble Hierarch? I got a lot to learn and I’m not sure that was the right play.