[Report]1v1, 57 players - 1st place with Vendilion Clique

[KevinD]

Jl'avais pas mis ici, ça peut ptet intéresser qq personnes.

Format basis: Vintage
5 rounds of 50 minutes, top 16 (cut to 3-1-1, just like with 6 rounds + top8)
Normandy Mulligan (Draw 7 cards, put X cards on the bottom of the library, then draw that many cards. Mulligan normally afterwards.)
Ban-list:

French list
* Black Lotus
* ABU Moxen
* Sol Ring
* Mana Crypt
* Time Walk
* Ancestral Recall
* Gifts Ungiven
* Necropotence
* Protean Hulk
* Tinker
* Yawgmoth's Bargain
* Crucible of Worlds
* Grindstone
* Mindslaver
* Mind Twist
* Sundering Titan
* Time Vault
* Upheaval
* Karakas
* Riftsweeper

To which the TO chose to add Sensei's Divining Top and Life from the Loam.
I won't comment the list (since I've been one of its designers). It's quite okay and various comments about it will follow during the report, I tend to agree with banning Top and disagree with the additional ban from LftL but I'll talk about that later.

I won't publish the decklist because it's way too boring to type it. My general was Vendilion Clique, not because I find it's b0rk3n (though it's debatable) but because I've got a foil one I've been given for my first GP HJing earlier this year and signed by almost all the European high level judges.
The general idea is that I should never pass the turn with a single land tapped, meaning I play only instants or spells from Urza that untap lands when they enter the battlefield. As a kill, besides the Clique, I have some Standard faeries, Meloku and a Razormane Masticore.
As for the watch-listed cards in my deck, there was a Library of Alexandria.

Round 1: Fred Michalowski, Vendilion Clique Mirror.
The way it was decided to handle General mirrors was as follows: All Generals have the General supertype. If two legendary creatures with the same name are in play at the same time, unless they both have the General supertype, the "Legend Rule" SBE applies.

I win the toss and elects to have him play first. One card seems much better than one land in that mirror. Indeed, when he has three lands, I have all my battery of 2-CMC counters ready in case he'd play his Clique. He gets screwed in game 1 so I get the early beatdown and put him quite quick low in life. The bad news for me is I'm flooded meanwhile and, as often, he eventually manages to take control of the situation because he gets spells to play at some point. Fortunately, my Maze of Ith makes his Clique useless, he can't find any LD and the game stalls a lot. I end up losing my Clique to a Hinder. He's at 7 and I manage to bring a R. Masticore into play. He draws a card and concedes, while the situation was close.
He'd tell me later he had little chances to win that game (even though he could chump a least twice with man lands) and he'd rather try to win the next two.

In Game 2, it's my turn to be screwed. and his turn to be flooded. He doesn't have a lot of threats and I discard mine since I'm already one game ahead. I once again have Maze of Ith ready for his Clique and relies on my countermagic until additional turns. During turn 2, he starts setuping a combo with Personal Tutor for Mana Severance. I Vision charm it in the graveyard and he concedes. I also had FoW and Trickbind in hand so I felt safe there.

1-0; 1-0-1


Round 2: Jérémy xxx (sorry), Radha LD
He played Mirri's Guile turn one both games. Even if he looked only once a turn, I understood why Top deserves to go out. He hasn't been playing for a long time, so he was rusty and needed time to make choices. Top is fine when you know your deck by heart but as soon as it's not the case, it's a pain.
I don't recall exactly these games but I think Voidmage husher proved to be the MVP, countering 2 activated abilities. For the record (you'll understand later on), LoA did some stuff because he never tried to destroy it.
I Disrupting shoaled his turn 2 Radha in game 2 and resolved Clique early. As often, he died 7 turns afterwards.

2-0; 3-0-1

Round 3: Claire Dupré, Isamaru
We IDed for two reasons:
1- Drawing would bring us out of the Erayo brackets since competitive Erayos were 2-0 and most likely 3-0 after this round
2- Living, together, we wouldn't get mad at each other, whatever the result is (for the record, Claire and I were paired against each other 4 times lifetime. We IDed to enter top8, I then dropped after the semis. Then I dropped again after the semis at another tournament.)

0-0; 3-0-1

During the round, an argument with a couple players start about not banning LoA. They state it's plain stupid while my point is that a player who isn't putting pressure nor playing discard spells nor any LD is similar to a goldfish so I can't see how LoA matters. I do recognize it's damn good but, to me, there are enough responses to it in the format to let it be _okay_. In addition, you don't always draw it when you've got a full hand, far from it.


Round 4: Raphael Lesieur, Vendilion Clique Mirror again.
Raphael's deck isn't oriented the way mine is. He plays some Time Warps, Bribery, etc. Sorceries ain't good in the control mirror.
I'm screwed in game one but, as I explained earlier, it's better to get screwed than flooded. I finally manage to play active spells he has to counter (certain choices of what to counter were arguable imo). I Vision charm all islands into forests to be able to attempt a R. Masticore. He ends up foiling it, which left him with a single card in hand. After a quick check with the Clique whether this is a counter or not, I Tunnel Vision him for the win.

He kept a risky hand in game 2, I resolve a Clique turn 3 (targeting him but letting him everything to maximize his screw). and steals his one with my Shackles. He's died from 27 damage of General (21 from mine and 6 from his :p)

2-0; 5-0-1


Round 5: Nicolas François, Augustin IV
We ID because we're both in and play for playtesting.
I win the toss, drop a land and he goes land/Weatherseed Wayfarer. I don't want him to fetch Library of Alexandria so I draw and pass. After a couple additional draws, he elects to play more lands, which I'm more than happy to answer to.
I get rid of his General thanks to Clique but at some point makes the mistake of dropping a useless Maze of Ith. He immediately activates his Wayfarer for LoA :/
The game lasts and lasts, I manage to copy his LoA with Vesuva to not be lost in terms of CA. My Clique is finally dealt with but he's taken 18 already. I attempt to resolve a Disk, he counters and makes Rising Waters enter play... The game lasts longer and longer and I finally end up Vensering Waters away, he's got no board anymore and I end up winning.
We don't play more since I need to rest. The fact I still won despite he had LoA first thanks to my mistake makes me think the match-up is good for me (and that LoA isn't decisive, as my playtests showed since I bought it a couple weeks ago.)

1-0; 6-0-1


Round before Quarters (there's no english word for that, is it?): Hakim Mezhoud, Vorosh
I'm playing against Good stuff.dec
He plays all the greatest cards you may fancy if you want to play aggro control. I win the toss but he goes T1 LoA. I drop my third land and pass. I draws one card, has only one Island untapped to I try to put Clique into play. I remove one removal so that the Tempo from the Clique can negate the CA from his LoA. Things go right since he's losing quite some time drawing while he drops down to 9 (6 hits from my Clique). I'm one counter short to make my Clique survive but he can't draw anymore to LoA.
I play my Clique again as a sorcery to ensure he won't counter (unless he pitches something), discover he's got pretty much nothing, remove nothing from his hand and passes. He draws Damnation. Damn... ation. He follows up by Primal Command for putting a land on top of my library and fetching a creature. He fortunately chooses to target my Factory, which I'm happy to animate in response. He tries to fetch, I tell him he can't since the whole spell's countered. I'm still alive, but not fresh.
The game stalls, he gets Teferi on a freshly topdecked Mystical Teachings. I have Sower of Temptation ready for that. I'm taking control of the game again, and he can't come back.

I don't think he's ever had a chance in Game 2. I make moves so that he can bring Vorosh into play, then plays Clique eot to check his hand, Gilded Drake his Vorosh and snap the Drake back to my hand. He'll eventually die to 24 damage by his own General.

2-0; 8-0-1

Quarter-finals: Manuel Ligny, Radha LD
He wins the toss but, fortunately, the Normandy mulligan gets me Disrupting Shoal and Merchant Scroll. I can counter his T2 Radha, he booms one land each side and ends up being screwed while I'm drawing what I need.
He resolves Radha in game 2 but can't really play a lot of threats. I let a couple lands go to my graveyard since I'm not short on them. He loses to 21 points of Clique, as often.

2-0; 10-0-1


Semi-finals: Antoine Fruscio, Rofellos
Antoine's the TO and a close friend of mine. We've played quite some time in the bar that match-up and it's heavily relying on playing first. Good news: he won the toss and plays first.
I FoW his T2 Rofellos and stays on my three lands. He Acidmosses one Island. I can't counter so I bring Clique into play to see among 4 cards Forest, Kamahl and Genesis. Such a hard choice. I have Oblivion stone but will go down to 2 lands. He'll go Kamahl next turn and I'll be unable to activate before two turns afterwards... not sexy, but still better than having to face Genesis.
Now that I think about it again, I just had to let Genesis resolve to get rid of it. Fortunately, He forgets about searching for a forest and remembers it only the turn after. Even though we're friends, I don't let him come back. The judge is called and disallows him an after-search.
As usual, he'll eventually play Cloudtresher but I'm used to it. That doesn't prevent him from finally losing to General damage.

I keep quite a risky hand in Game 2 and deserved the screw that followed. Even if I FoW the Rofellos, I take Plow Under on my Island and my Maze of Ith. I do everything that I can to come back in the game since he's got no huge threats. I manage to Mana Drain a Genesis because I need the 5 mana to Shackles his creatures. It's uneasy for me to deal with both his River Boa and Troll Ascetic, he goes on with Viridian Shaman that I counter. He brings it back with Genesis, I phase my Shackles out with Vision Charm. I'm at 4 but not too bad and my Clique is getting damn close from the sacred 21 points. He topdecks Grim Poppet, I have annul ready. He passes, goes up to 18 points of General, Genesis it out of his graveyard and I'm lacking 1 blue for playing my freshly topdecked Cryptic Command.

Game three isn't even close: I remand his Rofellos, am very afraid of the Choke he plays but topdeck Hinder. I can safely rely on it. I put Rofellos on the bottom and from that moment, he just can't race with my Clique and a couple backup counters.

2-1; 10-1-1


Finals: Nicolas François, Augustin IV
He wins the toss and goes Land Chrome Mox Coldsteel Heart. He attempts Augustin turn2 but I obviously have Force Spike (good player, good draws :p). I resolve Clique quite early and the game is quickly over.

I keep a nice hand in game 2 but ends up severely screwed. At some point I draw LoA so make some business, don't counter many things because I don't want to see Winter Orb or anything similar resolving. He manages to bring Augustin in. I draw 2 per turn for ages and keep discarding 2 cards until he resolves Weatherseed Wayfarer. If I drop a fifth land, he'll fetch Waste eot + LoA in his turn and that'll be over. I don't have access to any second blue source and end up conceding.

I play first in game 3. He attempts Augustin turn3, I cycle a Complicate. Things are kinda slow, I stop dropping lands and announce : Otherwise Balance will be too strong. He grins and plays Balance the turn after. A couple turns afterwards, I let an Armageddon resolve: I have two lands in hand but not many Counterspells so it's better is he can't play threats. We play "who's gonna draw lands for a couple turns?" It turns out he doesn't run very good.
I eventually play LoA and stick at 4 lands (including Dustbowl) until the point I go up to 7 cards or he plays a non-basic. LoA does its job for a couple turns, he attempts to play threats. I treacherize the first and play Desertion on the second. He scoops and says: "Now I know why you don't want LoA to be banned, it's because you have one."

2-1; 12-1-1

Outside of the obvious sore-loser aspect he shows, I can understand his concerns, so I'll summarize the impact of LoA in this tournament:
Round 2, game 1: does some stuff because my opp chose not to destroy it.
Round 5: he gets access to LoA several turns before I do. I still win.
Round before Quarters: he gets LoA turn 1 and still ends up losing.
Finals, game 2: LoA kept me in but proved not to be enough.
Finals, game 3: Roughly around turn 15, after he played Balance then Armageddon and I stopped playing for 5 turns, LoA started to do stuff.

Having had to face a bunch of anti-LoA arguments since we initiated the process of a 1v1 ban-list here in France, I've bought one to be able to test it in tournament conditions. I honestly cannot see after this tournament how it can be that strong. I'll stick to my original arguments: if you're opponent's taking the role of the goldfish, it's incredible. Otherwise, it's just a card that requires you a lot of efforts for a slow return over investment, like Gushing to go back to 6-7 cards in hand, which screws two turns of mana base development.
I was satisfied with the ban of LftL since it'd have been a pain for my deck. Otherwise, I'm sad it's not in the format since I really can't find it _that_ broken, even with Strip, considering the enormous number of artifact graveyard-hate available in the format.
I feel the list is extremely decent. I may be concerned with Mana Vault for the same reasons as Sol Ring and Mana Crypt but that's debatable (obviously this is to strengthen my CLique deck :p)
Finally, the last point I'd like to talk about is Erayo. It's interestingly not won this time, contrary to my predictions. Might not be that broken, although it's obviously not fun.

Props and Slops:
+ Claire, for still living with me.
+ MaxG, who's been incredibly well judging a 57-player tournament in a rather weird format he's never played or almost.
+ Antoine F, for keeping on organizing these tournaments which are the sole I can play these days.
+ DanielK, for making it to L3 and keeping listening to me ranting for weeks now.
+ Vision Charm, because it's just magic.
- Me, for being willing to keep LoA just because I have one.

Hope you liked it. Please feel free to make any comments via PM.

Kevin.

[nicofromtokyo]

Ca me rassure de voir quelqu'un qui prone le fun play en EDH jouer un deck contre  :P.

[Merk]

c bo hein ?

c comme LoA, c pas fumé, tout le monde en a... :roll: