To: Frank Kusumoto From: Sean McKeown Subject: Rath Cyce Constructed Grand Prix Trial #1 [TSE-C] Well, in case you didn't know, this run of the Grand Prix, for GP: Boston, is having pre- qualifier tournaments at which the winner is awarded two Byes at said GP. Being a New York-type person, I am planning to go to the first GP "in my own backyard" since I've been majorly interested in tourney Magic. And I have a big backyard, since it seems that my teammate/captain Seth Burn might just be able to provide transportation to this GP from our humble abodes in NYC. So, I got some Rath Cycle Constructed work to do! Yes, this is going to be a ramble. First thing I did was check in with Seth and Rob, my teammates. Seth's giving me ideas for TSE-C I hadn't quite considered, such as a deck based entirely around abusing Mana Breach and the real Multilands in the environment, Mox Diamond and Skyshroud Elves. I'm a big fan of Mana Breach, but I know a quality deck around it will take me more than the three days I still have left to seriously contemplate deck themes. I considered Tradewind-Awakening, but didn't want to enter the unknown field with an untried control deck. Instead, I entered the field with an untried-except-on-Apprentice Gandalfian Janky Deck (TM). B/G Living Death/Recurring Nightmare crap with the ability to infinite-Weaver, infinite-Discard, and do a whole lot of other nifty things infinitely. infinite-Cloudchaser is definitely needed for the SB, at least as a contemplation... and Chants would be appreciated as well. But enough hindsight for the moment. Alex Shvartsman and his crowd is hush-hush about deck-tech after the "extended incedent", which I can understand and respect; this is my attempt at paying back in part some of the borrowed tech to the NGround Crew. I find out later that O Captain My Captain agreed for our team to {officially??} share deck-tech with the CMU guys after Nationals, which might have helped but whatever, I haven't actually met any of y'all so I can't just randomly email you. If you're reading, enjoy and feel free to mail me :o) Here's the decklist... no silly names this time, use your imagination Sensei Pooh. 4x Recurring Nightmare 4x Eladamri's Vineyard 3x Living Death 2x Survival of the Fittest 2x Reflecting Pool 2x Pine Barrens 1x Skyshroud Forest 1x Rootwater Depths 11x Forests 5x Swamps 4x Spike Feeder 4x Spike Weaver 4x Wall of Blossoms 4x THE MIGHTY GODZILLA!!! 2x Tradewind Rider 4x Thrull Surgeon 3x Mindless Automaton ::SB:: (The jankiest part of the deck.. but you try to call a metagame cold!! I missed :o) 2x Grindstone Tech! (Against other B/G Recurring Weaver decks.. which I didn't see. Rats.) 2x Tranquility Rules! 2x Verdigris Sucks! 2x Bottomless Pit Tech! (Against control... too bad I didn't realize Control was Trade-Awake, period.) 3x Choke REAAAAALLY BLOWS! (See previous.. but a loooot worse.) 1x Tradewind Rider Is Unneccesary! 1x Survival of the Fittest Should Be Maindeck! 2x Extinction Is Mediocre! (Saw the use of it, just didn't need it) Now, here's what the decklist REALLY is. 4x Recurring Nightmare 4x Eladamri's Vineyard 3x Living Death 2x Survival of the Fittest 2x Reflecting Pool 2x Pine Barrens 11x Forests 7x Swamps 4x Spike Feeder 4x Spike Weaver 4x Wall of Blossoms 4x THE MIGHTY GODZILLA!!! 1x Tradewind Rider 2x Rats of Rath 3x Thrull Surgeon 3x Mindless Automaton {SB} 4x Dark Banishing That Goddamn Tradewind! 1x Survival of the Fittest 2x Rats of Rath 3x Tranquility 2x Bottomless Pit 3x Coercion That Awakening, Capsize, Whispers, Tradewind...! I am currently debating Rampant Growths over Eladamri's Vineyard.. I have to test, since the Vineyard gives me total speed vs. the fast decks that currently give me NO problems, but really suck the big one vs. Trade-Awakening. The new SB is higly untuned, but there is one deck this deck DOESN'T beat. Capsize-Awakening. Blech. SoOoOo.. if you can't beat them, you make sure you get the time to at least try. Don't take my word for it, I lost 0-4 against one Trade-Awake deck and won 2-0 against another with lucky draws and sheer dumb luck with my patented "Screw You!" deck-hex. Which is cool, because I am _still_ Team Bad Mojo.. although I have a real team now ;) Now, the tourney report... I didn't bother with names, and I don't know yours unless I know you :o) Round One: vs. a scrub with an Alur-Cycle deck. How yesterday. He wins game one because I take lethal damage the turn before I can recover my lethal manascrew to plant the infinite Weaver trick.. no Green mana makes that hard, I hear. I get a little scared, because I have just been unmanned by a ten-year-old packing Soltari Trooper Tech. Game two I play first-turn Vineyard, and he plays a second-turn Aluren. With no critters. I instant out a Feeder and two Surgeons at the end of his turn, and plant some more nice critters before he does anything. He plays a Recycle and discards down to two, at which point I would CRY if I finally drew a Swamp, as I had a Pool and two Surgeons on the board. I still kill him before I have to do something rude, and having never drawn a Black land. Cool. Game three, I milk a Living Death with some Infinite Weaver Stupid Undead Pet Tricks, until I finally let it die so I can Living Death his dozen or so critters away and get back some used-up Spikes. I show him more Recurring Nightmare tricks with a Verdant Force, and serve. I didn't sideboard a single card. 2-1-0 games; 1-0 matches. Round Two: vs. Richard Fein, Tradewind-Awakening I lose the first thanks to my oh-so-spiffy Vineyards allowing him to get Capsize going much sooner than is healthier than me. A pair of countered Thrull Surgeons don't quite do their job at ripping cards I don't like from his hand... I lose when he counters the Living Death, basically. SB out 2x Vineyards, Wall of Blossoms, Spike Weaver to add 2x Pit, 2x Tranq. Game two, I am low on mana from lack of Vineyards, and he plants some creatures and a Tradewind. Beatdown commences. Again, the Thrull Surgeons are countered, when I'd much rather take a Capsize or Whispers off of his hands. I do a Tranquility, but he bounces the Awakening so that was pretty damn ineffective :o) 2-3-0 games; 1-1 matches. Not cool for a start, neh? Round Three: vs. Brook North, Suicide Black Tech I liked his deck; I was genuinely surprised at how effective the concept was. I'd tell you his trademarked secret to maximum timewalkage, but then it wouldn't be a secret and I'd much rather pull it off on you if I could ;) I lose the first game because I never keep enough Land in play to cast a Weaver; I had Survival out and running, and was casting Blossoms as much as I could searching for the land, but I couldn't deal with a pair of Shadows beating on me. Sigh. He SB's in 4x Perish, I SB in Survival of the Fittest #3. Somehow that doesn't seem so fair to me..... However, I win games two and three by going infinite-Weaver and dodging the Perishes. He Wastelands etc. my Black sources, but every once in a while I get the Nightmare off for a recharge of a Weaver. One game I killed him entirely with mana-burn from an Eladamri's Vineyard, and maybe a point off of a early Surgeon. 4-4-0 games; 2-1 matches. Round Four: vs. John Onorato, WW w/ splashes. The match was a bit vague.. my deck did exactly what it was supposed to, and I beat him in two straight. Both games I get to infinite Weaver while still above ten, so I don't have to worry about the Shadow creatures that are popping out of his ass left and right. An eventual Living Death gets things real nasty for him, and beatdown commences. An interesting thing to note is that he played a CoP: Green against me the second game, and I didn't care... found the Tradewind, returned it to his hand, Thrull Surgeoned it away. Smackdown with a Verdant Force or three. I SB'd one card, putting the second Tradewind out to pasture for the third Survival. Might just have to be a permanent change, IMHO... 6-4-0 games; 3-1 matches. Round Five: vs. some kid, WW. See previous. Weaver till I Living Death away over a dozen creatures; game two I Tradewind the circle:Green and Surgeon it away, after I do the same to the two Soul Wardens that were gaining him !!16!! life per turn off of my four Verdant Forces. I ran out of counters to keep track of Saproling tokens this matchup, and I had like twenty beads on me. Beatdown. 8-4-0 games; 4-1 matches. I make top eight, and get paired vs. Zvi Mowshevits, who is playing the OTHER Trade-Awake deck at the tourney. Game one I get to be a lucky prick, playing the oh-so-BALLSY! first-turn Vineyard even though I *know* he's playing Trade-Awake. He takes a bit of Burn early, that's how bad his hand was... I get out a Living Death after taking a few Counterspells with the Surgeons, and get myself a pair of Zillas, Tradewind, and some Spikes and Automatons. He concedes when he realizes that two Zillas are just going to be too fast for him. Game two, my evil hex cut works again, although his draw was great if he could get a counter off when he needed it. First-turn Allure, second-turn Allure, are met with one of my two Tranquilities. We both agree that should never happen :o) and since he has no counters, I go wierd, playing a Vineyard and Spike, followed by a Bottomless Pit and Wall of Awesome. I lock down creature combat, since I can win the race there at least... eventually I get Weaver, and the game ends because he has no hopes of racing me anymore. If he owned the 3rd and 4th Weaver he would have kept in his SB, I am sure I wouldn't have been able to luck out of this matchup.... This deck beats mine mercilessly. But somehow, just somehow, I won. I think I should credit it to the Stabbing Westward lyrics on my card box, and the random Witch Hunters I taped on the sides. BTW, Stabbing Westwards rocks.. I went to their concert last night and it kicked so much ass. Maybe I'll tell you about it when my ears stop ringing ;) 10-4-0 games; 5-1 matches. Semifinals I get paired up against Rich again, and lose two straight like I should have to Zvi. Sigh. I get foreign WL, SH and VI packs. Whoopdedoo! Sigh. The deck is strong; the environment seriously IS centered around the existence of Spike Weaver, as well as I can notice. Which means that anyone who CAN run four Perishes, SHOULD run four Perishes. Consider *MAINDECK* Perishes! Whoever says Green sucks in TSE is obviously too small-minded to actually realize it's almost the best color in the set... definitely one of the top two. Red is nonexistent, Black is there to keep the Weaver going unless you hit on something oddly effective, like Brook's Suicide Black variant, and White is not nearly so strong as it looks on paper unless you're running 4 Cataclysms and 4 Disenchants, and maybe splash for Perish in the SB... No, that is NOT a joke! Until next time... Enjoy the deck, thrash and burn as you will. --Sean McKeown --Gandalf@BDominia.com Dogbert's Minister of Uselessly Useless Information Mennenite on IRC; ICQ# 14324255 "i know that you've been damaged your soul has suffered such abuse but i am not your savior i am just as fucked as you i cannot save you, i can't even save myself" --Stabbing Westward, "Save Yourself"