Hey everybody, it's me again. This week was supposed to be extended week, but when we got to the store, there had been a mixup and this was now a second legacy week due to issues with the website and what various people had been told over the phone. This was very bad for me, as I only brought my extended deck! I was able to throw some swords to plowshares and crusades into my girlfriend's boros deck, but for myself, I was sunk, as I'd left the shattered remains of my Aluren deck at home. Well, let's take a look at the decks...
Alarmallama by Cyke
9 Forest
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Breeding Pool
9 Island
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21 Lands
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Essence Warden
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Imperious Perfect
1 Eternal Witness
1 Mystic Snake
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20 Creatures
4 Intruder Alarm
3 Sprout Swarm
3 Echoing Truth
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Memory Lapse
1 Overrun
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19 Spells
3 Spell Snare
3 Trickbind
4 Naturalize
1 Krosan Grip
1 Temporal Spring
1 Sprout Swarm
2 Essence Warden
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15 Sideboard Cards
Few notes about this deck. Obviously it's a rather run-of-the-mill intruder alarm/elf deck from the middle of this extended season. I was unfortunately not able to score any oppositions despite trying unbelievably hard to.
Anyway, I really like this deck. It's more stable than a lot of combo decks since it can just play like a tempo-elves deck if I don't get the combo, so it's less likely to just flop on its side and die. However, it's a lot less powerful than other combos, since it can be wrathed away or disrupted a lot easier. Still, it wasn't that expensive to make, and it's fun to play, so I ran with it.
The sideboard sucks, this I know. I don't have any good dredge hate, though dredge isn't much of a factor at my local shop usually. I just grabbed some stuff I thought might come in handy and went with it.
This is the boros deck I built for my girlfriend:
Yahtzee by Cyke
9 Plains
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Battlefield Forge
2 Mountain
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20 Land
4 Savannah Lions
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Silver Knight
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Serra Avenger
3 Boros Swiftblade
2 Paladin En-Vec
2 Calciderm
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24 Creatures
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Helix
2 Bonesplitter
2 Sword or Light and Shadow
2 Crusade
2 Oblivion Ring
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16 Spells
2 Glowrider
2 Ancient Grudge
2 White Knight
2 Paladin En-Vec
2 Disenchant
4 Angel's Grace
1 Oblivion Ring
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15 Cards
This deck is pretty good for the metagame at my store since there's a lot of bad aggro decks that this pretty much eats for breakfast. One thing that I should have done was throw the conversions on the sideboard over the flowriders and grudges, but the thought didn't occur to me.
Anyway, this is how it went.
Round One:Brad playing Goblins
So, let me restate that I was playing an extended deck at a legacy tournament. This means that my round one was against a legacy goblin deck; the same legacy goblin deck that won the tournament last week. Sheesh.
Game one he gets a lackey down and I have no 1 drop to block with. He proceeds to drop a number of goblins very quickly and I die. Game two is even shorter, as Piledriver's pro-blue makes me want to throttle myself since I can't bounce it, and I die in approx. five turns.
0-1/0-2
Awesome start.
Round Two:Bye
Weeeeeeeee
Round Three:Burduckz playing some mishmash of black and green
Alright, First thing to establish here is that Burduckz(It's a nickname) is horrendous at magic. I mean, absolutely horrendous. This was essentially a bye. Anyway, let's go to the game.
Game one I get down a llany, he drops an uktabi drake, I memory lapse his groundbreaker, and I make infinite elves on turn 6.
Game two he pushes through for some damage early with a blanchwood armor'd silhana ledgewalker, but I amass 5 guys by the time I get to 4 life and topdeck overrun for the win.
Not much to say about those games, really, as they were short and easy wins.
2-1/2-2
Round Four:Jackie playing Boros
Aaaaaaaaaand I went up against my own deck. I'd tested the extended version of Yahtzee versus my deck a ton of times and my deck definitely had the better matchup, but I didn't know if the crusades and swords to plowshares would push it in her favor. Time to find out!
Game one she gets a savannah lion, I get an essence warden, we trade, she gets some more creatures down and beats me down to 8 before I manage to get a perfect to stick and topdeck intruder alarm to go infinite. Game two she mulls to five and has one savannah lion to play. I draw three wren's run vanquishers and a perfect and beat her down very quickly.
3-1/4-2
Well, I went 3-1 for the day (this was total bull!@#$ that I had managed to do this, as my deck was playing horribly today. I essentially got 2 byes due to burduckz.). The standings came out aaaaaand....
I'd snuck in at 4th place! top 4 time!
Semifinals:Dave playing Dredge-a-Tog
This looked to be a bad matchup, but I figured if his deck fizzled, I'd have a shot.
Game one he plays a second turn tolaria winds and dredges up about half his deck, revives some ichorids, and kills me with fliers due to a wonder in his graveyard.
For game two I put in my spellsnares and Trickbinds, hoping it'd be enough to hold him off long enough to win.
Game two he tries a second turn tolarian winds again, but I spellsnare it. He gets some minor action but whiffs on most of his dredges, and I assemble my combo. I memory lapse his pyroblast targetting my alarm and then make infinite saprolings. He dredges on his turn and then scoops.
Game three he has to mull to five. After looking at his cards, he says "go". I say "oh, I'm going first?" He says "No, Go." It took me a moment to get what it was he was saying. I draw my card and play an elf. It takes him three turns to get a land, and by then I've got two vanquishers beating him down. He gets a second land and sacs his ancient spring to play a psychatog, but I memory lapse it, sealing the game as he doesn't draw another land and I kill him with elves.
So, somehow I managed to slide through that with EXTREME luck. I probably had no business winning that match, but hey, I'm not gonna complain.
Finals:Joe playing Thresh
As you can imagine, this is probably one of the worst matchups I could have. A fully-built thresh deck with 4 force of wills? yeah, just kill me now.
Game one I get a wirewood Savage down to trade with a goyf and bounce it back to my hand with echoing truth with damage on the stack. I play it again and this time he smothers it then extirpates it, taking the one in my hand out too. He gets two goyfs down and I drop an intruder alarm and memory lapse the creatures he tries to play to stop him from untapping his goyfs. However, this doesn't last, as I have to mystic snake a mongoose to get him not to kill me, and I'm only at 8 life with two 4/5 goyfs across the table. He ghastly demises my snake and swings, killing me.
I forget exactly what I did for my sideboarding here, but I think I put in the spellsnares and the extra sproutswarm. Doesn't matter, as I didn't see any of my sideboard in the next game.
Game two I keep forest, island, llanowar elf, breeding pool, imperious perfect, intruder alarm, coiling oracle. This means I can make a million elves turn 3 and swing for win turn 4. However, when I play the second turn perfect, he forces it and then extirpates them. I can stil go off if I draw a sprout swarm, but I don't have enough creatures on the board. He drops some goyfs and I'm stuck with two coiling oracles for defense. I equip one with a sword of fire and ice and drop an intruder alarm, but he uses his nimble mongooses to keep his goyfs untapped and I can't get in for any damage. His goyfs make short work of my life total, and I'd be hard pressed to say it was an interesting end game.
So, that was the day. Second place with a below-tier extended deck in a legacy tournament? Hell, I'll take it! I got two packs of morningtide for my prize, opening a kinsbail borderguard and a Chameleon Colossus! w00t! It'll join the countryside crusher and murmuring bosk in my binder as being the only cards I have that are worth anything! :D
So, that about wraps it up. In retrospect, Coiling Oracle was amazing in pretty much every matchup, and I wish I could run 8 of them. I feel kinda dirty having played so awfully all day and then managing to squeak into 2nd place despite the many better decks that were there today, but that's the dci's fault, not mine. ;p I'm definitely looking forward to next week when it will actually be extended so I can give this deck a proper run, because it's a lot of fun to play and should do much better in a format without force of will.
Tags: Magic Constructed Extended Legacy
