February Tournament: Limited Shop

[aww1979]

I think 240sx is going to rock his group, based on the games I played in B. I suspect A will be fairly close, but I think shantak has the edge, as he seems to have guessed the metagame far better than I did. I haven't played group C yet.

[Salbei]

Created a first overview of the score. Wanted to do this in the evening but my schedule won´t let me, so here it is now.

There are still only a few games missing. I calculated 2 weeks for this round and am quite surprised how many reports are in after only 4 days. Just used the reports at the Report topic of the 8 people that submitted their reports yet.
Please don´t forget the side event

It is not that fancy to look at, but should do what it is supposed to do -> to get an overview and check for possible mistakes.
Please let me know what your thoughts about this score systems are.Still want "bonus" points ? Seems to work out great without them and it is much easier to re-check this way.

Been doing this in roughly 45 minutes under time pressure, so there might be mistakes in there.
Btw the added score was a huge timesaver (didn´t have to calculate it on my own then).Thank you for those.

Round 1 Summary (04.02.2011 // 9:30 - unfinished)

overview | Open

GroupA
Shantak (complete) -> 58 points
Sal 8 /ALX 8 /Jat 5 /Cog 10/Juz 7/Sha 8/
Asw 6/Aww 6/
Aww1979 (complete) -> 40 points
Sal 3 /ALX 4 /Jat 7 /Cog 5/Juz 7/Sha 4/
Asw 5/Aww 5/
Stroggoii (complete) -> 46 points
Sal 7 /ALX 6 /Jat 6 /Cog 3/Juz 4/Sha 6/
Asw 7/Aww 7/

GroupB
Jatill (2 reports missing) -> 27 points
Sal 6 /ALX 0 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 8/Juz 4/Sha 4/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 5/
Cognis (2 reports missing) -> 35 points
Sal 6 /ALX 6 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 6/Juz 6/Sha 6/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 5/
240sxforever (2 reports missing) -> 46 points
Sal 6 /ALX 12 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 4/Juz 8/Sha 8/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 8/

GroupC
Aswan jaguar (5 reports missing) -> 21 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 6/Cog 9/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 6/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/
Alex Ryugami (5 reports missing) -> 17 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 7/Cog 7/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 3/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/
Juzamjedi (5 reports missing) -> 16 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 5/Cog 2/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 9/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/

2 people haven´t submitted any reports yet, but there is still about a week left to do so.It would be great if we could start the next round earlier, but i don´t want to put pressure on you.Take your time.

[aww1979]

Finished Group C, and aswanjaguar and juzamjedi were at 8 and 7 points, and alexryugami unfortunately only got 3.

Looking at the results so far for my deck, it seems I'm not doing very well in my group. Except for cognis, who managed to get a perfect score for me (yay cognis!) my deck is failing :p

Comments/opinions on the decks:
@almost everyone: wtf, 17-18 lands in 40 card decks? Everyone except me, cognis, and aswanjaguar had 17-18. Jatill and AlexRyugami did have more high cost spells, and I could see using 16-17 in those decks, but otherwise I don't see why you would do that, unless the extra lands were filler so that more points could be spent on life instead of spending it on cards. I was also expecting more dual lands, but I guess people budgeted those out for more points elsewhere. I normally go with a 15/40 land count (works out to exactly 3/8) or in a 60 card deck, 23/60. I haven't looked at too many pro tour decks in the last few years, but I've noticed this same trend there, too, players using upwards of 25-27 lands in 60 card decks when they simply don't need that many in the majority of cases.

Shantak: I think this deck or else 240sxforever's are going to win the tournament. I think this deck will do very well given the metagame. I was expecting bolts to be useless, thinking people would pick a lot of midsize creatures like Rhox War Monk or Woolly Thoctar or Moroii, but I was dead wrong. I think this deck will win Group A.
Aww1979: I should've sent in a different deck; I guessed the metagame totally wrong. I think the white/blue control deck I had thought about submitting could've won easily in human hands, but the AI probably would've sucked with it. I doubt I'll advance out of this group.
Stroggoii: This deck is a lot like mine, except better. The only thing I'd say here is you should've made room for some Vindicates or Oblivion Rings, I think. I suspect the lack of removal beyond three paths will be this deck's undoing.
Jatill: This was one of the more interesting ideas this tournament. When the deck worked, it REALLY worked, but it was vulnerable to being overrun in the early turns, as it has very few quick spells and zero removal, as well as low life.
Cognis: This is a pretty good deck, and very easy for the AI to play, but I think 240sxforever's deck will do better; the Watchwolf and Loxodon Hierarch really added something good to the white weenie deck.
240sxforever: This deck was also easy for the AI to play. I can't tell you how many times the hierarchs either saved my ass or else pissed me off when the AI played them. That card was a champ here. I think this deck will win group B.
AswanJaguar: I've got to say, you are getting a lot better at making decks; this is much better than the first couple you sent in. The Blinding Mage worked pretty well; nobody else thought to use that. I'll predict you win group C.
Alexryugami: You've got lots of good cards in here, but unfortunately most of them cost a lot of mana to cast, and that was why I lost most of the games with it. I think I'd have cut at least one grave titan and perhaps 2-3 other cards and fit in some quicker creatures or more removal to hold the fort until your badasses like grave titan or emeria angel get played. The AI also did really poorly with Arcane Sanctum and Duress, though they were just fine in the human's hands. (Duress was key in one win that I had, as I was able to avoid playing Emeria Angels into AIs Nekrataals)
Juzamjedi: Much like stroggoii, this looks like my deck, but better :p I think I would've used Soul Warden over Solemn Simulacrum, and given up some life for more scrublands, but I have a hate relationship with basic lands; I have to have a full compliment of duals :p

[aww1979]

In your scoring, I spotted the following mistakes:

Group A: For Cognis's reports, you gave Shantak 10 points and me 5 points, and it should be the other way around.

Group B: For Cognis's reports, you gave Jatill 8 points and 240sxforever 4 points, and it should be the other way around.

Group C: For Cognis's reports, you gave Alexryugami 7 points and Juzamjedi 2 points, and it should be the other way around.

Due to posting at almost the same time, my results for group C weren't included in your tallies.

Oh, and I will play the side event, but I'm not going to figure out the rules for it right now; it's almost 3am here :p

[Salbei]

Know exactly why that happened.
I was just "seeing" the Group - then memorized the 3 numbers from top to bottom and wrote them down in the "usual" order - top to bottom without checking the names.
Didn´t realize that Cognis had changed the order.That easy.

Gonna edit that later.

Take your time for the Side Event. Since it is a very random best of 1 each game you might want to roughly figure out your strategy to go as low on hp as possible BEFORE you start the game and watch out for cards that might screw you over at that point.

Sorry for the mess.I have to play the Bunny card - THEY MADE ME DO IT!!!Look at their evil eyes!

pics | Open

(04.02.2011 // 12:30 - unfinished // missing awws updated Group C)

Round1 | Open

GroupA
Shantak (complete) -> 53 points
Sal 8 /ALX 8 /Jat 5 /Cog 5/Juz 7/Sha 8/
Asw 6/Aww 6/
Aww1979 (complete) -> 45 points
Sal 3 /ALX 4 /Jat 7 /Cog 10/Juz 7/Sha 4/
Asw 5/Aww 5/
Stroggoii (complete) -> 46 points
Sal 7 /ALX 6 /Jat 6 /Cog 3/Juz 4/Sha 6/
Asw 7/Aww 7/

GroupB
Jatill (2 reports missing) -> 23 points
Sal 6 /ALX 0 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 4/Juz 4/Sha 4/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 5/
Cognis (2 reports missing) -> 35 points
Sal 6 /ALX 6 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 6/Juz 6/Sha 6/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 5/
240sxforever (2 reports missing) -> 50 points
Sal 6 /ALX 12 /Jat -(1miss)/Cog 8/Juz 8/Sha 8/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww 8/

GroupC
Aswan jaguar (5 reports missing) -> 21 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 6/Cog 9/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 6/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/
Alex Ryugami (5 reports missing) -> 12 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 7/Cog 2/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 3/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/
Juzamjedi (5 reports missing) -> 21 points
Sal -(4miss) /ALX -(4miss) /Jat 5/Cog 7/Juz -(4miss)/Sha 9/
Asw -(miss6)/Aww -(miss3)/

Hope it is correct this time.

[jatill]

aww-
In limited you build 40 card decks, and 17 land is the norm there. You only go lower if you have an extremely low curve. Controllish decks should run 18.
Additionally, I always like to use extra lands in my manalink tournament decks, since who wants the AI to score free wins from mana screw?

[Salbei]

Since most reports are almost complete, do you mind if i set the deadline a bit earlier for Round1 ?Like Feb 9 (next Wednesday).

Just a suggestion.

Landcount:
Personally i like to use around 18 Lands as well. Depends on the average cost of my cards, additional Manafixers and cards that might use large ammounts of Mana (or Landfall triggers).Also not every land is a land - i usually treat Fetchlands and Teramorphic Expanse etc. as "fixers" not as lands.
In Jatills case keep in mind he is playing STE + Cultivate.Even with Landfall triggers you don´t want to turn too much of your deck into "bad" topdecks.

When both people just draw from the top then higher overall card quality makes up for a weaker "earlygame" - that is my usual philosophy when it comes to deckbuilding.(I prefer strong "midgame" decks)

At some point you just have to add lands to support more expensive cards, that is usually the point to stop adding those cards and try to lower your curve a bit. At least that is what i usually do.

[ALEX Ryugami]

Comments/opinions on the decks:
@almost everyone: wtf, 17-18 lands in 40 card decks? Everyone except me, cognis, and aswanjaguar had 17-18. Jatill and AlexRyugami did have more high cost spells, and I could see using 16-17 in those decks, but otherwise I don't see why you would do that, unless the extra lands were filler so that more points could be spent on life instead of spending it on cards. I was also expecting more dual lands, but I guess people budgeted those out for more points elsewhere. I normally go with a 15/40 land count (works out to exactly 3/8) or in a 60 card deck, 23/60. I haven't looked at too many pro tour decks in the last few years, but I've noticed this same trend there, too, players using upwards of 25-27 lands in 60 card decks when they simply don't need that many in the majority of cases.

I just thinking that most Limited-format decks have around 17 lands, so having one more is not a problem for me

Alexryugami: You've got lots of good cards in here, but unfortunately most of them cost a lot of mana to cast, and that was why I lost most of the games with it. I think I'd have cut at least one grave titan and perhaps 2-3 other cards and fit in some quicker creatures or more removal to hold the fort until your badasses like grave titan or emeria angel get played. The AI also did really poorly with Arcane Sanctum and Duress, though they were just fine in the human's hands. (Duress was key in one win that I had, as I was able to avoid playing Emeria Angels into AIs Nekrataals)

I was really missing the early spells other than Duress, and never got enough mana for Grave Titan. Arcane Sanctums instead of Scrublands saved some points but wasn't worth it in my opinion.

It's weird to see that you (if I'm not mistaken) suggest my deck should has 16-17 lands on it when my deck has a lot of cards with high casting cost

Too bad that AI can't handle Arcane Sanctum and Duress properly, but this is because of my lack of experience in this tournament. I guess I should learn better

[Aswan jaguar]

I have already finished the tournament games so I don't mind if the round ends earlier,still have to write down group C results though.
Aww1979 wrote:

@almost everyone: wtf, 17-18 lands in 40 card decks? Everyone except me, cognis, and aswanjaguar had 17-18. Jatill and AlexRyugami did have more high cost spells, and I could see using 16-17 in those decks, but otherwise I don't see why you would do that,

Even with fewer lands that was in my deck I lost to Juzamjedi because I drew 4 lands in consecutive turns.

[juzamjedi]

Re land counts:

The Zoo deck I built had 16 lands; only 2 of them were basics (so I could get some value from enemy Path to Exile's). If Path to Exile was not in the tournament I would have played 15 lands.

If your deck has a lot of 6+ casting cost creatures or landfall creatures with 4+ CMC then you'll want a lot of lands. 17-18 makes sense for decks like this. A couple people had the foresight to play Crystal Ball which has impressed me so far in this tournament.

As for my own deck... given the decks people played I definitely could have afforded more dual lands. I was stingy because I predicted Zoo would be a player in this metagame. Zoo can easily goldfish 17 damage by turn 4 and if you play Bitterblossom it's even worse. T1 Kird Ape, T2 Watchwolf OR Wild Nacatl + Lightning Bolt a blocker (2dmg), T3 Woolly Thoctar (7dmg), T4 removal spells to kill whatever blockers you have (17dmg on turn 4)

Soul Warden is a good creature and I playtested it. Ultimately I decided to take some dual lands out to increase my life total against Zoo. Soul Warden was one of the white cards I ended up cutting to make my mana work out OK. On a related note I believe Solemn Simulacrum is great for my deck because 1) I need to cast 6 drops (Grave Titan) and 2) the AI often wastes removal on early creatures. Sometimes you play Solemn Simulacrum on turn 4, and the AI will Path him, and suddenly you have 6 lands to cast your Grave Titans

[Salbei]

Please read Jatills report for the Side Event
Glad it wasn´t "too easy" for you.
Nr.9 made me laugh.So the AI fainted a freeze and suddenly won ?

[jatill]

Please read Jatills report for the Side Event
Glad it wasn´t "too easy" for you.
Nr.9 made me laugh.So the AI fainted a freeze and suddenly won ?

Yeah, the AI totally suckered me. So embarrassing...

[aww1979]

In limited you build 40 card decks, and 17 land is the norm there. You only go lower if you have an extremely low curve. Controllish decks should run 18.
Additionally, I always like to use extra lands in my manalink tournament decks, since who wants the AI to score free wins from mana screw?

Hmm alright. Normally I try to make decks with very low mana curves, even when they are control decks, so generally I find that I don't need such a high percentage of land.

Also not every land is a land - i usually treat Fetchlands and Teramorphic Expanse etc. as "fixers" not as lands.
In Jatills case keep in mind he is playing STE + Cultivate.Even with Landfall triggers you don´t want to turn too much of your deck into "bad" topdecks.

When both people just draw from the top then higher overall card quality makes up for a weaker "earlygame" - that is my usual philosophy when it comes to deckbuilding.(I prefer strong "midgame" decks)

Yeah, I normally treat fetchlands towards my land count, as well as moxes and sol ring, but not slower cards, like darksteel ingot.

Jatill's deck is one that I can see having a higher land count, because of the two cards you mention and the landfall and higher mana curve.

I seem to have a different deckbuilding philosophy. I like to build a deck that controls the early game and tries to keep you from getting any further, though I'll often have some stuff for the midgame. Things don't always go the way you want... and some cards are useful no matter when you draw them.

[Shantak]

It was quite unusual use for Lightning and Blightning. Does Blightning autotarget if duh mode is on? This was a good reason not to do so

I finished my side event games with jatill's deck just now. It went better than I believed, though I'm not quite sure what the side event is measuring - the deck, the skill of the player or the adaptability of the deck for strange situations. But it was pretty fun.

As for my own deck, I picked it of all the decks I did because it seemed like something AI could play reasonably well, and because discard can hurt even the best deck so that AI can win (like we discovered in the tournament where Mind Twist was unrestricted and in last tournament where Fallen Empires did good.). Hellfire Mongrel was the key to the deck I think - kudos to Salbei for including options for building so many different decks.

I figured the deck to beat of metagame would be some kind of Naya Zoo build. The good RWG colored cards were really cheap and I had pretty good build myself. Somehow I felt that AI didn't play it good enough, however. My own deck was in no way planned to beat Zoo and I didn't even think of BW Tokens deck properly.

My favorite build was probably Mono-Blue deck that would steal creatures, Negate removal on my creatures, get extra land with Solemn Simulacrum and beat enemy by flying past them with Air Servant and Roil Elemental. It was pretty nice, but AI couldn't use Vedalken Shackles properly, ruining the chances with that deck.

Here's my steal and zoo decks in case someone's interested.

[Salbei]

I need your input on this.
May i set the deadline for Round 1 to Feb 9 ? Yes / No ?
Would you like to play a 2nd Round for the Side-Event ? Yes / No ?

---
Deadline for the Main-Tournament
Do you mind if i set the deadline from Feb 13 to Feb 9 ? Seems like most reports are already done (after roughly 5 days , i had calculated ~2 weeks for Round1 lol)

---
Another Side-Event Round :
We could add another "Round" for the Side-Event if you are interested.Just if you want to of course - seems like we got enough time left to do this.
You would be able to pick one of my Side-Event decks (Deck1 till Deck10) to play that round and just your own score would be affected.Just an idea - suggestions are welcome.

---
Aswan jaguar and the Side-Event:
I forgot that i´ve changed the opponents for the side-event.Aswan jaguar currently doesn´t have a deck to play for the Side Event (and nobody is playing his deck).
Any suggestions ?

---

Shantaks Side-Event Report:
Nice report, liked how you described your thought process and strategy.Jatills deck doesn´t have removal but the Platinum Angel and the extra lifegain (mini-Baloths) sure help a bit for this thing.You did a great job adapting for this Shantak.