April Tournament - round 2 ends 4/24

[jatill]

We have 8 people, I'm just waiting for a re-post of juzamjedi's deck, since it was illegal.

When I originally looked through the list, Mana Vault looked like the biggest omission to me, but Strip Mine is pretty brutal too.

[juzamjedi]

Strip Mine is on the list of point restricted cards (?)

Sorry about the 10-card limit. I'll resubmit a new deck later today.

[jatill]

Strip Mine is on the list of point restricted cards (?)

Sorry about the 10-card limit. I'll resubmit a new deck later today.

Phew, good thing.

[jatill]

Round 1 starts now, and ends 4/15. We'll use the normal group play scoring, where you play a best of 3 match against everyone in the group. (Play all decks in your group against all other decks, from both sides of the match. Also submit results for the group that you are not in. )
Scoring:
2-0 (3 pts for human)
2-1 (2 pts for human, 1 pts for AI)
1-2 (1 pts for human, 2 pts for AI)
0-2 (3 pts for AI)

Group A:
Alex
Aww
Ascetic Troll
Stroggoii

Group B:
Aswan Jaguar
jatill
juzamjedi
Shantak

[Aswan jaguar]

Can we safely turn rules engine off now that you have seen the decks (which is faster) than -or use Aprils fix that uses rules engine according to the cards?

[Aswan jaguar]

The best deck I built for this tournament was a burn deck and AI was good with it but I don't like burn decks so I tried smt different.I thought we were going to see such decks but you proved me wrong.

Bellow some of my ideas for a deck, I think I was quite imaginative (my tour deck ,drain deck)surprisingly comparing to the decks submitted.

I think my drain deck with little help by a more experienced player would be great.

If anyone wants to have some fun with them...

[jatill]

You can turn the engine off or use the newest version that does so for you.

[Aswan jaguar]

If anyone wants a hint on how to play better with my deck, a couple of suggestions are:

1)When you have the choice draw first.
2)Bazaar is the key card I would suggest to mulligan even to 4 cards to try and get one especially if you play first or else most probably you are dead.Of course if you draw first and have a nice hand you may want to go with 8cards, discard and go on.

[juzamjedi]

Hey all, I've been busy with work but still hoping I will get to play out my games by 4/15.

[Aswan jaguar]

From the games submitted so far I managed to have the worst results with my deck!

[aww1979]

I'm finishing up group B today, and I should have it done. Sorry for cutting it rather close :p

[Aswan jaguar]

Aww1979 the scoring system is.
Scoring:
2-0 (3 pts for human)
2-1 (2 pts for human, 1 pts for AI)
1-2 (1 pts for human, 2 pts for AI)
0-2 (3 pts for AI)

[aww1979]

Oh, I have to correct my scores then. I was counting 2-0 victories as only 2 pts for humans.

[aww1979]

Group A:
Alex: This deck worked surprisingly well, especially given that you didn't use more than 4 of anything. The only thing that bothered me here was the deserts and ebon strongholds; often I found them slowing my mana base down without providing anything in return. I also have to give mention to your Eater of the Dead, a card I haven't seen used since Fallen Empires was in print.
Aww: Well, I threw the deck together in about 2 minutes. The Wheels turned out to be the MVP of the deck; it would have been a complete disaster without them. I think my win/loss record was basically whether I had a Wheel in my opening hand or not. Too bad the AI never played Goblin War Drums or Raging River; not sure if it never will or it just never got them, since I never tested the deck.
Troll: I thought about doing a merfolk deck with unstable mutations, a cross between yours and juzamjedi's, but I didn't think the AI could play it. Turns out it does alright :p Not really sure at all why the Feldon's Cane is there, though.
Stroggoii: Small minds think alike! Kobolds ftw! Yours was more controllish with the bolts and onulets for life, and ball lightnings for more offense rather than wheels. I got the same score with both decks, so it seems to be mostly equal.

Group B:
Aswan: If I could've thought of anything worth animating, I might've tried something like this. The Instill Energy was something I would never ever have even considered, and it worked beautifully here. I think you had too many Nicol Bolas, though; they seemed to clog up my hand and were rarely even animatable due to the upkeep. Too bad so many early big creatures had (usually) almost unplayable drawbacks. I found reanimator got a big boost after Ice Age with things like Dance of the Dead (though this is less important when you can use 10 Animate Dead :p) and Polar Kraken, so it's nice to see you made it work here.
Jatill: Your deck was awesome in human hands; I don't think I lost a game with it. The AI, however, sucked with it, often missing turn 1 land drops, and using disk or triskelion stupidly.
Juzamjedi: After seeing all decks in action, I think yours is probably the strongest of the tournament. I think Unstable Mutation would have been an excellent choice here too, though Ancestral Recall worked very well. Boomerang was incredible in most matchups, though Power Sink seemed a bit weak at times.
Shantak: I thought your deck would do better, but I had some pretty bad hands with it, and it went against some very fast decks. You have 24 land so it is fine, but I swear with the number of mulligans I had to take, I was expecting to see maybe 15 total in the deckfile :p My innate hate of walls made me cringe whenever I drew one as well. The two Recalls reminded me of my first tournament, where I had two Recalls in a monoblue merfolk deck back in the mid 90s without knowing it was a restricted card at the time. (I was so n00b I didn't know there was a restricted list in type II, just thought it was 4 of anything!) Good times!

[juzamjedi]

I just played a game in which I cast 3x Ancestral Recall... in the same turn

I am pretty amused that the mono-blue aggro decks are built very differently, yet both seem very strong in this tournament. Who thought Blue was the aggro color? In fact now that I think about it I don't think I have seen Mahamoti Djinn a single time all tournament; it has been all the cheap blue aggro cards pulling their weight.

Also is anyone else noticing the AI playing badly with disk or is it just me? I had a game in round 1 where Jatill's AI had 4(!) disks in play but never used any of them.