My deck list:
Round 1: Bill, playing WW / Rack Tax. First game, he plays a first turn land tax backed up with weenies. I die. Ugh. Second and third games, I play Gloom and Ankh and he just has no answer at all. Matches: 1-0, Games: 2-1
Round 2: Trevor Blackwell, playing Fruity Pebbles. Land Destruction is so bad against Fruity, I almost didn't need the Glooms. First game, I destroyed everything he put out one by one, and eventually I killed him with my Steel Golems. Second game, I played a gloom and it was all over. Matches: 2-0 Games: 4-1
Round 3: Jeff Simoneau (where have I seen this guy's name before?) playing deadguy. I just couldn't beat him, not with the draws I got. My land destruction was slow, and my creatures didn't find me, and I generally drew too many wastelands and not enough swamps. Lost not only 2 but three in a row. Of course only the first two counted. Matches: 2-1 Games: 4-3
Round 4: Ray something playing (?) looked like a 'geddon deck. He was playing walls of roots, stuff like that. First game he manages to get up to 3 mana, and Uktabi's my cursed scroll which was killing him fast. But the next two games, after glooms, and he writhes in discomfort. I really loved the look he got on his face when I layed my Ankhs. :) :) Good sport. Matches: 3-1 Games: 6-4
Round 5: Casey McCarrel playing Necro. Note: I found out later this guy is ranked #6 in the world in Extended. His rating is 1804. Game 1, he consults away about (no joke) 40 cards trying to get a necropotence. After he plays it, I pox and LD his ass. It hurts him bad. I think I have the game locked up with him at 4 life, 2 swamps, and an Ankh out after a pox. I had discarded my Contagion and my Edict in favor of the Ankh and a Steel Golem - I didn't think there'd be anything he could put out that my Golem couldn't deal with. But he plays a lake of the dead, sacking both swamps, and lays an Ihsan's Shade!!! :( He's at 2 life and I have a steel golem, though so I think I'm okay. He attacks and I take it, putting me at 1, but with him at no blockers and 2 life. Next turn I hymn him, and he contagions my Golem. Argh. Fortunately I didn't attack, so I block his shade, draw a dark ritual (thanks, deck) and lose. Boy did Casey pull that one out of his ass. Games 2 and 3 are less memorable. Quality LD/pox should beat necro every time, and these prove the first game was a fluke. Casey's a very good player, but the match up was really bad for him. Matches: 4-1 Games: 8-5
Now I'm starting to get really excited. Standings were posted, and there were 4 people at 5-0, and 17 at 4-1. However, my Opponent match record is bad, so I'm relatively low on the tiebreak scale, so I'm a little worried.
Round 6: Eric something, playing Sligh with Cursed Scroll and no off-colors. His lack of nonbasics made my Wastelands a bit irritating, but he did have mishra's and wastelands, so it wasn't too bad. Game 1, I won thanks to a well-placed Contagion (killed a fireslinger and a ball lightning). Also, with his mishras, my edicts became mana-efficient Land Destruction. He managed a bit of burn, but he couldn't keep up with my Land D., and he eventually stopped doing stuff. Game 2, I got too many Steel golems for him to handle, and I made a play I was particularly happy with.. He had 2 mountains, a wasteland, and a mishra's factory with a contagion counter on it. I have a Choking sands to cast, and he has a cursed scroll in play. Here's the problem - how do I do damage to him with the sands? Well... :) I target the mishra's factory. If I tried to hit the wasteland, he'd respond by sacking it to destroy itself, making the sands fizzle. But this way, he'd have had to kill an extra land for me, so the 2 damage was worth it to him. (Of course I proceeded to play a wasteland next.) :) With his reliance on Cursed Scrolls, my LD disrupted him far too much. Matches: 5-1, Games: 10-5
Standings go up again, there are 4 at 5-0-1, and 8 at 5-1. That means if I win I at least make the top 8.
Round 7. Seth something, who sat next to me round 5, and I know he's playing fruity pebbles with Crystal Vein for mana acceleration. He knows what I'm playing too. And, thanks to the fact that he didn't have lotus petals, this was a *hopeless* battle for him. I won 3 straight. Matches: 6-1 Games: 12-5.
Top 8: First round, I'm paired against Ed Grubagh, who qualified, playing a high quality counterpost deck I'm thinking of copying. A bad pairing for me, since he has not only the 4 counters, 4 forces, and 3 disenchants that make Tongo bad news for me, but also 3 dismiss and 3 thawing glaciers. We play, I lose two straight.
However, this didn't matter because I was ejected before the round started. Apparently I didn't write down the Hymns on my deck list. Ick. But anyway, losing made me feel a lot better.
Incidentally, the report on the Dojo lists my deck as "Pox/Necro" which I'm happy with as it should throw the copycats off the trail for a bit.
I won half a box of tempest. Starters.
So overall, it was a good day but I'm still pissed at myself for misregistering. Also, I never really got to test out the Necros... it was my theory that they'd help against decks like Tongo and Counterpost, but the fact of the matter was, I only sided them in in the second fun game with Ed, and all of them got counterspelled. I think they would've been pretty strong. This requires testing. My thoughts now are that Stupor would have been better; a more straightforward choice. Necro has bad synergy with Ankh, but surprisingly good synergy with Cursed Scroll, since you can stop drawing cards.
Talk to you all later. -Moses
Oh yeah, almost forgot.
Props: Match Play, for running the smoothest large tournament I've ever been to. I'm sorry, but all you people who think Neutral Ground runs good tournaments, get a clue. They take forever to get started, they make pairings without computers and they always have mistakes, rounds take 25 minutes to get started. Neutral Ground has good judges but they're a little too disorganized. Also, props to everyone who didn't play control. Lastly, thanks to the guys who were willing to respect me after only one day worth of performance! :)
Slops: To the opponent I had who wore headphones throughout the match. I'm sorry, but that's just rude.