Manalink Tournament (May) (tournament complete)

[Stroggoii]

Did a 5 round, best of three gauntlet

If a deck wins a game, but you win the other two, in a best of three gauntlet, there is no five point bonus for the deck. If it wins two games (and thus ends the gauntlet) then there is a five point bonus given.

Ok, then vampires and swift get +5 each for the victories but no-one else get's points from those gauntlets?

Can we make a leaderboard? I'm quite confused with the whole luck factor of the gauntlets and all.

[aww1979]

Stroggoi: Yes, that's correct. And it is a bit confusing, but once the whole thing is done, I'll post all the numbers. I haven't added it up yet, but it looks like Yggdrasil has first by a landslide, and Salbei has second.

[aww1979]

I guess Team Discard needed some better cheerleading...

1) salbei 2-1
2) jatill 2-0
3) scherbchen 1-2 LOSS

Match 1 Game 1: I'm not sure if this matchup is favourable or not. If I can get a good hand, I should win, but if the game lasts more than about 5 or 6 turns without me in the lead, I'm doomed. My opening hand is great, and I go Turn 1 The Rack, Turn 2 Hym to Tourach. Turn 3 I play a Nulls, which dies, and then Mind Twist for 3 on Turn 4. I weigh the merits of playing the second Nulls now; if it sticks, it's gonna own, but if not, I have nothing left but a bolt in hand. I play it, and it dies. (maybe should've waited for another discard spell, but I couldn't resist the opportunity) AI keeps a couple cards in hand against The Rack, I Blightning them and get a second rack. The AI uses a fetchland at 4 life, and I bolt him for the win. 1-0
Game 2: Opening hand looks good again, but AI got a mox, and that acceleration is bad news in this matchup, where my main advantage is the slow start. I play Dark Ritual and Mind Twist for 3 on turn 2, and get, among other cards, a Mulldrifter the AI should have evoked. Nulls #1 goes farming, and Wall of Reverence comes down. I play a 6/6 Nyxathid, but he gets immediately hit with Control Magic. Nyxathid #2 comes down, and I foolishly play The Rack, making his Nyx bigger than mine, but since mine gets Pathed, it doesn't really matter. Nulls come out just to chump. I topdeck a second Lightning Bolt, and foolishly play a land without thinking; now I can't double-bolt the nyxathid until next turn. (that one does matter, though not in the long run) Nyxathid #2 has no way past a Wall of Denial, and gets farmed anyway. I Mind Twist AIs hand, but he has 45 life, those walls, and so The Rack doesn't do much. I've clearly lost at this point. Eventually, AI gets a Baneslayer. I could drag it out several turns with Volrath's Stronghold on Hypnotic Specter to chump, but I have no way out once AI topdecks a creature, so I concede to save time. (anywhere from 2-30 turns, probably about 10, depending how they got seeded) 1-1
Game 3: Turn 1 I play Mox/Slavering Nulls; he's Pathed. Turn 2 I play another Nulls. AI plays Ancestral Recall, but has no removal. I topdeck Blightning and attack, three cards discarded, including, peculiarly, a Wall of Denial that had to be the best card in its hand, since it had no plow/path. Nyxathid comes down and finishes it. 2-1

Match 2 Game 1: 2x Badlands, The Rack, Sol Ring, Hypnotic Specter and Blightning against jatill, and I draw Mind Twist Turn 1 ring/rack, turn 2 Mind Twist for 3, manascrewing the AI, and Hypnotic Specter x2 and The Rack are looking deadly.. AI gets Ancestral Recall, and I get Mind Twist. I get Hypnos 3 and 4 after the first two die, and get the win. 1-0
Match 2 Game 2: Turn 1 Black Lotus, Swamp, Hymn, Hymn :D:D AI loses 3 lands, and plays none on his turn 1! pwnd. Turn 2 Slavering Nulls. Then we see an exercise in ultimate stupidity, as AI begins to discard land after land to the Nulls and it has *no land in play!* I get a second Nulls, and see about 5 lands discarded without being played over the next few turns, and I'm just shaking my head in disbelief. (I don't even have a Rack or Nyxathid out to scare it into hoarding them) AI finally plays a Mox Emerald, but as the only card in play on its side, big deal. I quickly win. Thanks for trying... oh, wait, it wasn't trying. 2-0

Match 3 Game 1: I've done okay up to now, but I had probably the best two matchups in the gauntlet, (the two slowest decks) not to mention the AI screwups. Now I'm against scherbchen, and I have to test my mettle against a weenie deck. Game 1 goes well, as my discard catches a Savannah, and that stalls him long enough for my other discard to get his green spells. My Nyxathid chokes on removal, but I have two more in hand, and they smash for the win. 1-0
Game 2: 4 land, Sol Ring, Blightning, Mind Twist. I think this is great. I foolishly lead with Blightning before Mind Twist, and just get two lands; AI gets out Tarmogoyf. I can't handle it, and quickly get beaten up. 1-1
Game 3: I have Black Lotus and Cao Cao, Lord of Wei in opening hand, but I know AI has tons of removal, so I don't do that on turn 2, instead playing Hymn to Tourach. An enemy Figure of Destiny quickly grows to 4/4, and it's looking bad already. Cao comes out with black lotus, but gets Pathed, as expected, and Figure is beating me. I have 4 land in play, 3 in hand, and nothing else. AI *shrinks* his FoD to 2/2, attacks, then plays a 5/6 Tarmogoyf and another FoD. I draw yet another land, and I'm dead. 1-2

http://rapidshare.com/files/389841254/aww1979.zip.html

[aww1979]

Shantak's deck performed as follows:

1) aww1979 2-0
2) thedrigo 2-0
3) stroggoi 2-1
4) juzamjedi 2-1
5) salbei 0-2 LOSS

Summary: I'm not going to do summaries for these games. All the games consisted of: 1) hopefully play Oath 2) play hasted dudes 3) play power boosters 4) end game. The deck pretty much plays itself; there are no real decisions to make. Surprisingly, though, I still managed to lose one game (not against salbei, it was one of the 2-1 matches) because I made a poor decision; I took a Mountain instead of a Forest when a creature got Pathed. This resulted in later being unable to play Groundbreaker + Giant Growth + Berserk, and I lost, because just GB+Berserk was not enough to make the kill. The video of these matches is probably more boring than watching paint dry, but I'll put it up anyway.

http://rapidshare.com/files/389917065/shantak.zip.html

[aww1979]

Played my final deck, Brandon's Redforce, and performed as follows:

1) salbei 2-0
2) stroggoi 1-2 LOSS

Match 1 Game 1: Opening hand has Wheel of Fortune, which is absolute gold in a direct damage deck, so I keep the hand for sure. AI draws Black Lotus and Baneslayer Angel off it, and gets one hit on me, before I Char+Incinerate it next turn, when I play my fifth mountain. The next couple turns are boring, until the AI gets up to 8 cards in hand and then discards a Baneslayer Angel! (It has 8 mana in play...) I sigh inwardly, and get enough mana to point a lethal Disintegrate at the head two turns later. 1-0
Game 2: I've got both Mox Ruby and Sol Ring in my opening hand, but my spells are rather weak. I keep it anyway, hoping I'll draw some more serious threats. AI stalls a couple turns with only one Island and Mox Jet, but then gets a Plains and starts putting out walls. I debate killing Wall of Reverence with two bolts, but I spare it, hoping to get enough direct damage to just point everything at the head. When Baneslayer comes down, I point my bolts at that, instead, and then Disintegrate Wall of Reverence while AI is at 13 life. I have a bolt in hand, and am hoping for Hidetsugu's Second Rite. I play Shatterstorm to get rid of AI's mox (and two coffins and my mox/sol ring, which I no longer really need) in the hopes of delaying baneslayers long enough to win. AI gets a mox and a land (strip mine) but immediately sacs it, and I breathe a sigh of relief as the AI stays at 4 mana for another couple turns. Flooded Strand fetches that fifth land, but as usual, AI does it during his discard phase, and thus doesn't play a baneslayer. With that fifth land out, I have no problem playing the Mana Flare I then topdeck; also, that fetch ruin my Hidetsugu plans, as the AI is now at 9. AI then discards a Sol Ring at 8 cards, and then a mulldrifter is discarded next turn. I draw Disintegrate, and throw it for 13 for the win. 2-0

Match 2 Game 1: My hand is mountain mox lavamancer and direct damage, nice against a weenie deck like stroggoi. When I draw Hidetsugu's Second Rite, I immediately plan the finish with that, even though I still need 2 more lands. I draw one, and refuse to use or attack with lavamancer, to keep AI at 10. I draw another mountain, and Hidetsugu dishes out sweet revenge. 1-0
Game 2: I end up mulliganing down to four cards, and the AI plays lots of weenies. Smoke slows things down, but the end result is inevitable. I cast a last ditch Wheel of Fortune, hoping for a miracle, since all my other cards cannot save me, but it doesn't come. 1-1
Game 3: My opening hand is a bit weak, but I keep it anyway, remembering how badly things went last time. I get Blood Moon out turn 3, and that keeps white spells away for the rest of the game. A kicked bushwhacker hurts with dragon fodder, and I Disintegrate AI for 7. Then I questionably play a Shatterstorm to kill a mox; I could have used Wheel of Fortune, but don't until next turn. I get Smoke and some burn, and am able to survive a few more turns. I end up being one single mana point short of a lethal Disintegrate, so instead I point it at the untapped FoD, and Lava Axe the AI to 7. Next turn I get hit for 1, and I draw another Mountain, which is all I have in hand, and I've lost. 1-2

http://rapidshare.com/files/390234136/brandon.zip.html

[aww1979]

The final scores for my personal testing:

stroggoi 25 (10 + 3 AI wins)
enigma 13 (8 + 1 AI win)
jatill 11 (1 + 2 AI wins)
yggdrasil, cognis, juzamjedi, thedrigo 10 (all 10 in gauntlet and no AI wins)
nyktorion 8 (no AI wins)
salbei 7 (2 + 1 AI win)
scherbchen 5 (1 AI win)
shantak 4
brandon 1

[Nyktorion]

I just played a 10-0 with juzamjedi's deck:

1) Brandon (2-0)
2) Nyktorion (2-1)
3) thedrigo (2-0)
4) thedrigo (2-0)
5) karodrilo (2-0)
6) Salbei (2-0)
7) Cognis (2-0)
8) karodrilo (2-0)
9) enigma73 (2-0)
10) thedrigo (2-0)

Elspeth was a win condition most of the time I could play her, and Baneslayer was of course a win condition whenever it did not get removed (it did eat removal often, though). Tokens from Spectral Procession and Elspeth were very useful at eating up the AI's burn spells to free the path for Baneslayers. Last, Skullclamp was also very nice with al those tokens.

- The game I lost against my deck went as follows: my first threat was a Spectral Procession, which was countered. The AI brought out Kitchen Finks, and later a Goyf, and more Kitchen Finks, and soon overran the chumpblocking tokens created by Elspeth. I save my last token to use it with together Worship, but it is immediately Plowshared. I got overrun then.

- The first game of the last round (against thedrigo) was very interesting. First, both of us play a Figure of Destiny, which get hit by removal on both sides. The next creatures are a Spectral Procession by me, and a Knight of Meadowgrain by the AI, leaving the AI with a slight advantage. I finally get two Baneslayer Angels, but both of them are removed by Oblivion Rings. I finally cast my Wrath of God against his remaining creatures. However, the AI recovers from the Wrath quicker than I do: I get flooded, and only draw a few removal spells apart from land, while the AI gets many new creatures. I get beaten down to one life, when I finally get a Skullclamp, and then a Spectral Procession in the next turn. The cards drawn from the tokens gave me enough removal to deal with all of his remaining threats, and then win the game myself using Elspeth.

Current scores for my games:

jatill 10+5+5
Nyktorion, juzamjedi 10+5
stroggoi 3+5+5
scherbchen 10
Yggdrasil 6
karodrilo 2
enigma73, Salbei 1
everybody else 0

[juzamjedi]

strogoii goes 10-0

1 vs: thedrigo
game 1 lots of burn and I race Soltari Priest + Honor of the Pure
game 2 land light, but lots of threats gets there

2 vs: salbei
game 1 4x early StP's, then 3x Wall of Denial + Keiga, but Blood Knight beats 3x Wall of Denial
game 2 this time he has control magic instead and Blood Knights get stolen. Walls + Baneslayer follow.
game 3 AI uses early removal on goblin tokens. Tawnos' Coffin comes online, but apparently it prefers Bushwackers instead of Figures of Destiny

Human Salbei would have won, but bad AI play in long game and eventually game crashed.

2a vs: Yggdrasil
game 1 I hit enter too fast and lose 1 turn before I could have raced Demigod of Revenge
game 2 early Hexmage + Marit Lage! But I path and go on to win.
game 3 trade early, Demigod of Revenge hits the table, but I race it with 2x Goblin Bushwackers.

3 vs: shantak
game 1 2x Kor Firewalkers; 1 blocks hasty red guys and eventually I hit for 20
game 2 super slow start with some removal. I beat down with 1/1's because Groundbreaker fears 1/1's.

4 vs: Yggdrasil
game 1 good start and win with an ultimate Figure of Destiny
game 2 T3 Marit Lage, but I path it and continue beating down with dorks and finish with burn

4 vs: Mirror
game 1 AI wastes Lotus on Bushwacker kicked, but no attack into my tokens. I get Kor Firewalker and
game 2 Mull to 6 - T2 Firewalker, T3 Firewalker, T4 Firewalker.

5 vs: scherbchen
game 1 Goblin Bushwacker kicked on a pair of Blood Knights squeak past Baneslayer.
game 2 AI topdecks Path to take out Figure of Destiny right before he goes ultimate.
game 3 Trade removal early and it's Figure + Skyknight vs. Tarmogoyf. Bushwacker kicks another enemy to the curb.

6 vs: Mirror
game 1 win an incredibly close game because AI trades away Figure of Destiny early.
game 2 T1 2x Kor Firewalker, T2 Blood Knight, T3 Skyknight and take it down.

7 vs: Mirror (seriously, 3rd time)
game 1 T2 Firewalker, T3 Firewalker + Figure, end with more than 20 life.
game 2 Beat Kor Firewalker from Ai because he plays terribly

8 vs: Cognis
game 1 Mull to 6, T1 Firewalker, T2 Firewalker, AI stuck on Swamps win at 30+ life
game 2 Figure of Destiny goes ultimate for an easy win.

9 vs: Mirror (seriously, 4th time)
game 1 we are both flooded with lands and I flood longer. I end up with every land in the deck in play before I lose.
game 2 I am all gas opening hand and play pro-bears. Win 19-0
game 3 T2 Kor Firewalker which is usually the deciding card in mirror.

10 vs: thedrigo
game 1 quick kill with blood knight
game 2 awesome 1 land hand, rip mana #2 off the top and get there

[Stroggoii]

My game just crashed, along with firefox and my whole record after almost an hour of countering, removing and downright boring, stressfull game between Nyctorion's Bant and Jatill's Zookiller.

And I must heavily object against the gauntlet style matchups, I played 5 round, best of three gauntlets and had Zookiller and Tarmogeddon occupying more than 60% of the matchups, that's downright unfair to the other decks.

My results from tonight (without the crashed record )

thedrigo VS
Jatill 1/2 LOSE
Highlight: AI tinkered for a sphinx, if that's not fucking cheating I don't know what it is.
Jatill +5

scherbchen VS
Enigma73 2/1 WIN
Raced both times.

Enigma73 (again) 2/0 WIN
Raced, the second one I almost lost but for some reason the AI, while facing two tapped 4/4 FoD's and me at 10 life with it's 4 life and 12/12 terravore, decided it was a good idea to sword one of my FoD's.

Shantak 2/0 WIN
Played deffensive, bringing my kavu to 20/20 with swords on the ball lightnings.
The second round I just raced in damage, the AI seemed manascrewed as it only played berserks in my creatures.

Jatill 0/2 LOSE
Two back to back sphinxes on turn 3 and 4, and on the second round Baneslayer, then Inkwell while I had notthing in play cause it kept removing everything I could play.
Scherbchen +3
Jatill +5

[aww1979]

Recorded all scores up to this point.

Players finished the gauntlet:
aww1979, scherbchen, brandon, jatill, cognis, salbei

Players partially finished the gauntlet:
juzamjedi, nyktorion, yggdrasil, stroggoi

Others: haven't started, I'm assuming they either didn't have time or will submit everything at once at the end. The deadline is Wednesday for tournament results. Then I'll figure out the winner, and we'll spend a few days discussing whether we should change the format, and hopefully start another tournament in early June.

[aww1979]

Added the results for all players *finished* the gauntlet. Yggdrasil has a small lead over Salbei, and Juzamjedi is in third. Stroggoi is in 4th, then most others are all within a few points of each other after that; seven players have between 40 and 50 points so far, and the last three players have less than that.

[Nyktorion]

I just finished my gauntlets, these are the results.

Wweenie by thedrigo went 1-1:

1) stroggoi (2-0)
2) enigma73 (1-2)

- Against stroggoi, Paladin en-Vec was very useful, while Blood Knight could still be blocked by Wall of Blossoms. In the first game, I won with Ajani's ultimate, and the second game I won with a Paladin and a Soltari Priest.

- In the first game against enigma, my first wave of creatures was killed by a Wrath of God. Then a Knight of the Reliquary, powered up to 9/9 by an Armageddon, wins the game for the AI.

- I the second game, my first wave again ets destroyed by a Wrath of God. After the Wrath, I play a Paladin and a Figure of Destiny, backed by Honor of the Pure. These two creatures then bat him down before he could mount any defense.

- Two early big Goyfs (5/6, and even 6/7 in the end) quickly kill me in the third game.

aww1979's deck went 0-1:

1) aww1979 (0-2)

In both games, I had to mulligan due to mana light starting hands. I was then hit by discard, and he had a big Nyxathid then, which quickly ended the games.

Shantk's trampling deck went 4-1:

1) enigma73 (2-1)
2) thedrigo (2-1)
3) shantak (2-0)
4) Cognis (2-0)
5) juzamjedi (1-2)

There were several routes to victory for this deck. Sometimes I just got enough Ball Lightning style creatures into my hand to bring down the AI's life. Sometimes, one absurdly big attack involving several booseers (i.e. Primal Forcemage, Giant Growth, Blood Lust and Berserk) ended the game. Other times, Oath of Druids was the clear gamewinner.

- I lost the second game against enigma: his 4/4 Terravore and my tramplers were racing. However, when he cast Armageddon, which made his Terravore into a 10/10 monster, I lost with him at 3 life.

- In the first game against thedrigo, two Knights of Meadowgrain with Honor of the Pure dominated the game, and additionally, I was light on mana (only 2 red sources). First Strike and Lifelink are definitely good weapons against this trampler deck.

- The first game against juzamjedi looked very good, with Forbidden Orchard and Oath of Druids in my starting hand. However, he got out Elspeth and a Baneslayer Angel. I could keep the Baneslayer in check with a Wished Maze of Ith, until a Hellspark Elemental with two Giant Growth killed it. Still, he gained too many 1/1 tokens from Elspeth and my Orchard in the meantime, so I lose.

- In the second game against juzamjedi, I won with two early Oaths in play.

- In the third game, I did not gget any more mana sources than the two lands in my starting hand. I lose with little resistance.

Finally, Brandon's Redforce went 6-1:

1) Nyktorion (2-1)
2) Brandon (2-0)
3) jatill (2-0)
4) Brandon (2-0)
5) Cognis (2-0)
6) Salbei (2-0)
7) aww1979 (2-1)
8) Cognis (2-0)
9) Yggdrasil (0-2)

Mostly, I just won by burning the opponent quickly (a few times, Hidetsugu's Second Rite was even usable; by the way, the AI does not bring its life down below 10 to defend against a Second Rite on stack stack, not even with a Mogg Fanatic or a Goblin Sharpshooter). Sometimes, I just burned all enemy creatures, and then threw a big Disintegrate or a Searing WInd to the AI's face.

- The first game against my deck I lost due to an early big Goyf that I could not answer.

- In the first game against Salbei's deck, I thought that I would surely lose. For some time, I only had two mana, and the AI quickly brought a Baneslayer Angel to the table, bringing my life total very low. Together with two Walls of Reverence, the AI's life total got up very high (to around 70) at the same time, so winning by just burning him down was very difficult now. Luckily, I got a Mana Flare in time, and could Disintegrate the Baneslayer when I had the last chance to do so. One turn later, I Incinerated his Mulldrifter, which brought me down to one life point. Luckily for me, Salbei's deck is rather light on win conditions for matches with no opportunity to use control spells (4 Baneslayers, 4 Mulldrifters, and Keiga), and has nothing (like shroud, discard, or countermagic) to protect them, so I could burn away all threats that were dropped. At some point, the AI's tendency to just play nothing but lands when the game lasts too long kicked in. Eventually, I AI lost by getting decked; due it its draw effects, it had 4 or 5 cards less than me in the library at the end.

- In the first game against aww, I had to mulligan to 5 due to mana-light-ness. I can burn dow his first threat (a Nyxathid), but after that, Slavering Nulls and The Rack defeat me.

- In both games against Yggdrasil, the AI lays down more threats than I can handle. In the first game, a Demigod of Revenge remains to finish me, and in the second game, he has too many small Vampires, which overrun me.

Edit: my final scores are as follows

Zookiller (jatill) 10+5+5
Monowhite (JuzamJedi) 10+5+5
Bant (nyktorian) 10+5
Swift (stroggoi) 3+5+5
Vampire (Yggdrasil) 6+5
TinyAngryMen (scherbchen) 10
Redforce (Brandon) 8
Tarmogeddon (enigma73) 1+5
BR discard (aww1979) 0+5
Tramp (shantak) 4
Burn (Kakodrilo) 2
Stall Salbei 1
Wweenie thedrigo 1
BR Aggro Cognis 0

[juzamjedi]

Yggdrasil - 0 wins

1 vs: jatill
game 1 lots of removal on my guys. I put up a good fight against Wall of Denial, but lose once Inkwell Leviathan hits the table.
game 2 long grind that I win with Demigods
game 3 AI gets a T2 Tinker for Inkwell and beats me down

[juzamjedi]

Kakodrilo - 0 wins Argh, maybe I should stop playing today

1 vs. Stroggoii
game 1 2x Price of Progress opening hand. Should be awesome here, but Kor Firewalker proves me wrong.
game 2 Steal the win. 3-5, I cast Chain Lightning (3-2) AI copies killing Magus of the Moon. My Barbarian Ring is no longer mountain and I kill for exactsies.
game 3 Kor Firewalker early again. I get Barbarian Ring when I'm at 2 life and attack a couple turns until AI topdecks burn.

[aww1979]

Recorded all scores up to here.
@nyktorion: my scores agree with yours. And at least my deck beat itself, so I still get 5 points for your testing (my goal is that whatever format we decide on for June will make mirror matches impossible, because I don't like the way the current scoring system treats them)

@all: Added nyktorion's complete gauntlet to my previous post. The leaderboard is still the same, except yggdrasil's lead increased a bit, and juzamjedi caught up a lot, but is still in 3rd. stroggoi and jatill are now tied for 4th, but are 20 pts behind juzamjedi. Still, they could catch up quite easily, and nyktorion in 5th is close enough I could see him getting into top 3 as well. I think the top 3 will end up being some selection out of those five players, and that the winner will be one of yggdrasil, salbei or juzamjedi.