Played in a PTQ this weekend with Josh Silvestri's Affinity list from his CFB article with a single illness in the ranks over hurkyls recall(was not spending 9 dollars on the third copy) and a singal glimmerpost cause why would anyone bring underground rivers to sell? For Reference:
[deck]4 Ornithopter
2 Memnite
4 Signal Pest
1 Steel Overseer
1 Spellskite
4 Vault Skirge
4 Arcbound Ravager
2 Master of Etherium
2 Etched Champion
4 Cranial Plating
3 Springleaf Drum
3 Ensoul Artifact
4 Mox Opal
3 Thoughtcast
2 Dismember
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Underground River
1 Glimmervoid
SB:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Illness in the Ranks
1 Etched Champion
1 Master of Etherium
1 Spellskite
2 Welding Jar
1 Dismember
1 Doom Blade
2 Gut Shot[/deck]
This was my first time really playing in a competitive modern tournament and with arguably the
hardest deck to play in the format(definitely number one based on technical factors), but luckily cranial plating's a fucked up magic card. Before I get into the matchups, lets start with things I learned over the course of the event:
Sandbagging cranial plating is the surest way to kill people with it. Often in the early game, I'd be bottlenecked on mana and have choices between signal pest attacks+man land activations, playing multiple dorky guys, or dropping either a plating or some other bomb. I decided to always default to adding board presence. The majority of the decks in the format are trying to fuck with your board, so if you go all in on plating from the get go, you generally end up getting time walked twice and then are stuck rebuilding your board while the other guy kills you. When done the other way, you play small ball and chip away for a couple turns until you get to a point where you drop a plating and have the mana to equip it at instant speed and they're just dead.
Secondly, I was
mulling fairly aggressively and I feel like I should've mulled more aggressively. The deck generally mulls very poorly, but your payoff cards are SO good, that they generally undo all the CA you lose by virtue of being broken as shit. My two losses where I got knocked out of top 8, I definitely could have made informed mulligans to give me a better chance of winning those games.
And lastly, with less then 20 games under my belt, I played off of 3 hours of sleep while hung over and started the event 6-1 before being eliminated from Top 8 contention. Imagine if I was actually hydrated and new what I was doing! Having a thorough understanding of matchups and sideboarding in modern will win you many games and was scraping by on the brokeness of my cards and with a conservative/flawed boarding plan. Now, for the actual report.
Round 1: Talore on 8 Rack.
My opponent was a nice kid(probably between 17-19) and was a great opponent to start the day with. I promptly mulled to a 5 land ensoul artifact draw.
He leads with ravens crime, I play a land. His next turn, he plays more discard, I ensoul a darksteel citadel and start bashing. I get him to 8 between 2 attacks and his phyrexian arena before he litterally obliterates me with small pox leaving me with a mox opal in play and zero cards in hand. Luckily, he doesn't draw a rack affect for several turns and dies to his phyrexian arena with me at 2 life and only an opal in play and in hand. G2, he misplays be playing small pox before liliana, whiffs on a second black source and dies to mediocre beats. This matchup with any reasonable draw should be virtually unlosable. Dump your hand, laugh at discard?
Round 2: David on Reanimator.
David recognized my name as he judged a standard tourney I won at his store a short while back and we chatted briefly about the joys of competitive magic. Then he killed me on turn 2
One of the only matchups where you don't board out memnite as
you MUST race. Game 2, a big vault skirge was applying pressure, He combo's off at 3 life, then whiffs on 14 draws from griselbrand. I'll take it. Game 3, he mulled and I played thoughtsezie. Murder was the case that they gave me. At this point in the tourney, I love modern. I've been killed on turn 2 and won with essential zero permanents on play. I AM ENTERTAINED! THIS IS WHAT I CAME TO SEE!
Round 3: Bobby on Jund.
Shout out to Shuffle and Cuts lifepads. They have a spot for your opponents name and the round making this reporting shit really easy. Regardless, this was a non-match. My opponent mulled to 5 game 1 playing only blackcleave cliffs and inquisition which is enough for me to put him on jund. In come the etched champions, welding jars, and spellskite. Lets grind. Unfortunately, he plays maybe one discard spells and a bunch of goyfs and scoozes, none of which block flyers while whiffing on removal. Turn 4 kill.
Round 4: Denis on Junk.
Denis is surprisingly russian with that name and
I've played him before(and lost) at SCG Vegas last December in additon to seeing him at every event I attend. I knew I was in for a hell of a match. Game 1, he didn't apply much resistance outside of a thoughtseize and an abrupt decay, but it's affinity and he's playing removal so my brain was still melting. He didn't have anything though so it basically amounted to a massive slow roll game 1. Game 2, he mulls to 6 and plays turn 2 stony silence. I have a double signal pest draw and keep playing. He goes on tilt and says I should scoop to which I respond with he'd be super dead if he didn't have a stirring wildwood in play. A couple turns go by while I amass a board that can win with 2 alpha's assuming he has nothing. Of course he 6-4-1s me with golgari charm then kills me with lingering souls+garruk ultimate. Game 3, I dodge some hate, then he plays a lingering souls against my board of signal pest, double ravager, and triple manland. On one turn, I attack, he blocks 2 guys and I sac ravager to
ravager making distrubuting counters to my ravager and signal pest so that the one survives combat and I get in an extra point of damage. He was also holding up path this turn and didn't cast it which I took note of. On the next turn, I swing with pest, ravager and 2 inkmoth nexii. He edges on nexus when I pass priority but lets one through holding up path mana. Combined with him not pathing last turn and making such a big deal about me not scooping to his silence before blowing me out with charm, I've got him on "weak means strong, strong means weak" and flip him the proverbial bird while going all in on inkmoth. He of course didn't have it.
Get rekt.
Round 5: Mark playing Pod.
Mark asked me if I was the guy who opened the door before we started our match. In Oakland at the WMCQ, he came to the convention center at around 11:30 to try and catch his buddy's top 8 match, but the door was closed. I have supersonic hearing or something and heard them banging on the door from across the
convention center. What can I say, my situational awareness is perfect. Anyways, he leads off on junk lands+spellskite so I put him on pod right away. I develop some amount of board state and shit gets interesting. I have my own spellskite, cranial plating, and ensoul artifact. We decided to lead with skite>plating>ensoul. This goes well until I play my ensoul. He pays two life to redirect to his skite. I redirect to mine. He casts abrupt decay on my plating. I fuck up by not redirecting to my skite. Sure 5/5 spellskite is good and getting 2-4-1'd is bad, but flying plating ornithopter is the shit. The play would be ok to play around future removal except for the fact that I'm redirecting shit to spellskite with ensoul on it so I'm STILL getting 2-for-1'd while missing out on some evasive damage. FML. So I have this big as spellskite, but he has pod and gums up the board and eventually combo's me. There was a funny situatuion that came up where he pods for a pontiff which kills 2 signal pests and
through the arguing about him taken 2 damage from ornithopters, we forget about a memnite I had that is immune to -1/-1. Judge call takes 9 mins as 2 turns passed before a spectator noticed. It ends up not getting binned, but thankefully wasn't relevant as that'd be a shitty way to win. Game 2, we donkey stomp him according to this lifepad. Don't remember the game, but robots get there. Game 3, I keep a fine hand and draw perfectly for the rest of the game in ridiculous fashion. It's like, I would like a drum, draw drum, 3 drop bomb, draw master of etherium, etc. Meanwhile, my opponent has a hand that wraths my board, but fails to draw second black or a creature when he has literally 30 live draws for 3 turns. He plays like turn 3 pod, and just needs a black source to cast pontiff, trigger, pod pontiff, recap my guy, wrath my board with pontiff haunt trigger. I assuaged his feel bads by showing him the dismember I had which is about the only thing that counters creature+pod since pontiffs trigger passes
priority letting me kill it before he pods.
5-0, sweet.
After this game I ask him and his buddy(guy top 8'd both the WMCQ and PTQ in oakland) stuff about pod and wether or not the deck boards lingering souls as I have this one illness in the ranks I thought about boarding in. He responds Lingering Souls is AIDS in pod and only bad players play it.
Round 6: Brian, Melira Pod.
My buddy is appalled by the hand I keep on the draw and walks away. It was ensoul artifact, plating, quad manland, darksteel citadel. I have no moral justification for this hand other then I was on some out of body next level shit that said we got this. I win an 11 turn game where he had pod in play since turn 3 that culminated in my playing the plating from my opener on the last turn where I draw underground river for flash attachment purposes and just merced him.
Games 2 and 3, I lost to lingering souls both times and also creeping corrosion in game 3 which was very funny. I didn't board in illness either game
because I figured it was a 2-of that wasn't worth diluting my deck for. After the tourney I talked to my friend who was vending at the event about this game and we concluded that lingering souls is virtually unbeatable and thus boarding in illness is fine, since it also shrinks voice tokens. It's also reasonable to board in maybe a single hurkyls recall as an answer to creeping corrosion. Daddy like.
Round 7: Ethan on Scapeshift.
We new what each other was on because we where playing next to each other the previous round. He was 16 and a nice kid who was a pleasure to play against. Game 1 I win because he's scapeshift and I'm affinity. Game 2 he has a bunch of interaction but floods for several turns. I have somethink like quad blinkmoth and have him on a 4 turn clock. He topdecks scapeshift on the last possible turn to the amuesment of us both. Game 3, I thoughtseize him after he'd mulled and take his scapeshift. He whiffs on his 4th land the whole game, but had a ton of cheap interaction so the
game drug out for 8ish turns Before I killed him. Math is hard when your opponenets at 4 life and 5 poison and harder when they're at 2 and 8.
Round 8 and 9 weren't recorded as we got turn 4'd by twin, then had him bounce my illness in the ranks before twining me eliminationg me from top 8. This was tough to swallow because we where repaired at the start of the round and I was previously paired against the mirror(never used my recall's in this tourney
)Round 9, I was mentally done and played against burn. He killed my turn 4 almost entirely due to being on the play(which is fine), I win game 2, then game 3, I keep something like a 1 lander with plating, spellskite, and ravager as my 2 mana plays along with vault skirge, signal pest, and something else, AKA the nut so long as I hat my 22/23 outer over the first 2/3 draws. We don't and die horribly to double goblin guide, double eidolon, searing blaze.
Overall
tourney was great aside from 1 complaint:
Scott Gerhardt Top 4'd and talked his way into getting a last round concession into top 8. For those that don't know, he's a so-call player that used to own shuffle and cut and is also an assehole and notorious scumbag cheater. Everything from stalling, to intimidating his opponents into not calling judges, to blatant cheating and he did all of these things in the tourney. I don't mine not top 8ing a tourney, but when I know that someone's who's actively cheating does, it illegitimizes the tourney somewhat and leaves you feeling aweful. Luckily, there was some justice as one of the players he cheated in the swiss took him down in top 4. Unfortunately after a long conversation on facebook with judges involved, there's little to nothing that can be done to preempt his bullshit aside from calling judges during the match as cheating occurs. If you know scumbags in your area(and make sure you have hard evidence as nobody likes a witch hunt) LET OTHER PLAYERS
KNOW. The community is big and word of mouth travels fast. We WANT tourney's to be hostile to cheaters. Fight the good fight.
And with that said, if you like aggro, complex situations, aren't risk adverse, love match, and have a level of cockiness(you have to if you're gonna play a deck that everyone hates losing to and actually prepares to beat), then affinity is the deck for you. I've found my modern deck for at least the near future(as the modern PTQ season ends). Happy bro-botting.
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