Monday, February 2, 2015

Report: Winning a GPT (29 Jan 2015)

Here's my round-by-round write up on the GPT this past Saturday (the 29th of January) at Sci-Fi.

Event: GPT for Auckland
Format: Modern
Deck: Junk
Deck List: DeckStats
REL: Competitive
Structure: 5 round swiss with cut to top 4.

This event is primarily advertised as a "Win-A-Goyf" event--my FLGS runs them every last Saturday of the month. It's always a Modern event and they piggyback it on a GPT to help turnout and so that it's at Competitive REL.
None of us were planning to go to Auckland (that I know of, anyway) but it's always fun to have a Win-A-Goyf event!

Round 1 - R/G Through the Breach
Result: Loss in 2.
I played against my good friend Jason in the first round. Jason is the reason I built Jund 18 months ago when we went to GP Richmond and I owe a lot of my knowledge of the Jund/Junk archetype to him.
Unfortunately, he just flat out drew me in this match! Liliana and discard spells are  my biggest weapon in this match and I drew a few of them... but not enough. I even drew the clutch removal for Primeval Titan but, unfortunately, the ETB triggers got him Valakuts... and the next turn he played another Prime Time. I died to Valakut triggers one game and to trample damage in game two.
We went and grabbed coffee after the match and I was determined to win out.

Round 2 - UWR Twin
Result: Win in 2.
One of the fun things about playing your friends/teammates is that you know their decks. Matt was  playing UWR Twin--specifically the deck two or three of us had put together to test out the white splash just the day before.
Junk is a rough matchup for any Twin deck but the UWR one seems to have a decent leg up--Path to Exile does work against Rhinos and Tarmogoyfs, after all.
I took two mulligans in game one and ground a win out of him then ran it back to win game two as well (without mulligan.)

Round 3 - RG Tron
Result: Win in 3.
I knew what deck he was playing before I walked up to the table and joked that he was probably just getting the win. Well, he won a game, at least. Game one he played Sundering Titan on turn four and I just couldn't recover.
In game two he took two mulligans and kept a decent five card hand... which I proceeded to shred with discard spells. His out was Sylvan Scrying in hand and his only green source was to crack Chromatic Sphere. Naturally, I took the Sphere with an Inquisition.
Game three wasn't much different. He had a better hand (no mulligan) but I had Fulminator Mage in my opening hand to keep him off of Tron.

Round 4 - Junk
Result: Loss in 3.
Oh the mirror match. I won game one by playing my spicy meatball one-of... Tombstalker. In game two we traded for a while until he resolved a Thrun and then we lost board state parity. Game three was tight--lots of back and forth--until he played Sigarda. Thankfully I had Tombstalker again but he drew more threats over the next couple of turns and I drew land instead of removal for his other creatures.

Round 5 - UWR Control
Result: Win in 2.
This is usually a very interesting match but Alex stalled on land in both games. In game one he really needed a second white source for the Wrath of God in hand. I even held back a couple of creatures to rebuild after the Wrath.
In game two it wasn't much better and I held a Fulminator Mage to blow up any extra land he might have played after four. He bought time with two Cryptic Commands but I took it in the end.


Cut to Top 4:
I thought I had very low odds of making top 4 after the last round but was surprised to see my tie breakers were better than the other player with 9 points. I was the bottom seed but I was in!

Semi Finals - RG Through the Breach
Result: Win in 3.
I took this in three games. Discard (when you draw it) is too good against this deck. Then in game three he kept a shaky hand and couldn't draw any green sources for his ramp spells.

Finals - Robots
Result: Win in 3.
On paper, I gave the win to my friend Chris. I have four Tarmogoyfs and he could use the trade value to finish his Robots deck (he borrows most of it for events like this. Good player.)
He won the first game as I drew no removal at all. In games two and three we traded blows but I was able to keep him from critical momentum with Creeping Corrosion and judicious use of spot removal.

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