TSI: The Land - 2019.06.15

Originally posted to The Mana Drain on 19 June 2019. The forum has since reorganised and the thread is gone; this is ported from the archived copy.

We had a few last minute cancellations but 15 players came out to battle some vintage with London Mulligan and no draws allowed.

The Land!

Koi fish

The Drinks!

The Barn Play area

Prizes donated by all the players!

Custom top 8 bags and tokens!

We also asked for $20 a person for charity and donated $350 to the Second Harvest Foodback of the Mahoning Valley.

https://mahoningvalleysecondharvest.org/

You can see these pictures and some tournament action pictures here.

After 4 rounds of swiss, the top 8 played out as follows:

Jason Jaco - Survival (1st) versus Frank Singel - Survival (8th) - Frank Wins!

Steve McGrew - Jeskai (2nd) versus Kevin Poenisch - Dredge (7th) - Kevin Wins!

Duane Haddix - Karn Eldrazi (3rd) versus Andy Probasco - Survival (6th) - Andy Wins!

Sullivan Brophy - Dredge (4th) versus Rajah James - Dredge (5th) - Sullivan wins!

Top 4

Sullivan Brophy versus Frank Singel - Sullivan Wins!

Andy Probasco versus Kevin Poenisch - Andy Wins!

Finals

Andy Probasco versus Sullivan Brophy - Andy Wins!

Congrats to Andy for his first TSI win!

Top 8 decklists based on final standings:

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Death's Shadow
3 Collector Ouphe
4 Hollow One
4 Vengevine
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Street Wraith
3 Mental Misstep
4 Thoughtseize
2 Force of Vigor
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Forest
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Nurturing Peatland

1 Dismember
1 Collector Ouphe
2 Force of Vigor
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Yixlid Jailer
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Tormod's Crypt

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
4 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Hollow One
4 Bridge from Below
4 Unmask
4 Force of Vigor
3 Petrified Field
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Dread Return
1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide

4 Mana Confluence
4 Nature's Claim
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Chalice of the Void

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Land Grant
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Hollow One
4 Commandeer
4 Force of Will
4 Force of Vigor
4 Nature's Claim
2 Bane of Progress
2 Dread Return
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Narcomoeba

1 Black Lotus
1 Platinum Emperion
1 Memnite
1 Hoverguard Sweepers
1 Collector Ouphe
1 It That Betrays
1 Dread Return
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Unmask

4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Collector Ouphe
1 Containment Priest
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Hollow One
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Manglehorn
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Vengevine
1 Wonder
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
3 Bayou
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Assassin's Trophy
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

1 Containment Priest
1 Flusterstorm
3 Force of Vigor
2 Infernal Reckoning
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Wispmare

1 Ancestral Recall
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Bayou
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Collector Ouphe
1 Containment Priest
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Deputy of Detention
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Forest
4 Hollow One
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Savannah
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Taiga
1 Time Walk
2 Tropical Island
4 Vengevine
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wonder
1 Wooded Foothills

3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Containment Priest
1 Deputy of Detention
3 Energy Flux
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Yixlid Jailer

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mental Misstep
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pyroblast
1 Spell Pierce
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Fiery Islet
2 Dack Fayden
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Shattering Spree
1 Treasure Cruise
​

3 Containment Priest
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
3 Pyroblast
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Force of Negation
3 Shattering Spree

0 Mishra's Workshop
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
1 City of Traitors
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Grim Monolith
3 Voltaic Key
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Walking Ballista
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Karn, the Great Creator

1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Walking Ballista
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pithing Needle
2 Dismember

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
2 Dread Return
4 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Hollow One
4 Ichorid
4 Mental Misstep
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Creeping Chill
2 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Terastodon

1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Force of Vigor
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Spinning Darkness

Thanks to everyone that came out! Hope you had a blast at this Team Serious Invitational! Special thanks to Scott, Dennis and Granny for opening up their home to us and for all the cooking, cleaning and prepping they did for us! Much appreciated!

Metagame breakdown:

Blue decks (4):

Tyrant Oath

(2) Jeskai

U/R Landstill

Bazaar decks (6):

(3) Survival

(3) Dredge

Shop decks (2):

Karn Shops

2 Karn Monte

Misc (3):

Karn Eldrazi

BR Hatebears

JacoEldrazi

Replies and relevant bits

Reply from Brass Man:

Reply from ajfirecracker:

Hey that’s weird… it looks like you don’t have a lot of ways to activate your own Death’s Shadow - it seems like most decks could play around them if they knew and wanted to. Is that a potential issue in your view?

(But obviously congrats dude that’s an awesome result)

Reply from Brass Man:

@ajfirecracker It’s really a Survival deck first, with [[Death’s Shadow]]s as a hedge. My gameplan is to quickly win with [[Vengevine]]s and [[Hollow One]]s, backed by disruption. The [[Death’s Shadow]]s shine when your opponent brings in a bunch of graveyard hate and needle effects and tries to cut you off from using Bazaars and Survivals. Between [[Thoughtseize]], [[Street Wraith]], [[Mental Misstep]] and my manabase, it really wasn’t too hard to get [[Death’s Shadow]] live. I tapped [[Nurturing Peatlands]] just to float mana and take a damage several times.

Opponent’s playing around Death’s Shadow is a feature, not a bug! Several of the games I won involved a 1/1 Death’s Shadow that prevented my opponent from having any favorable attacks. A deck that need to attack to win, like Ravager Shops, Eldrazi, and Survival, can’t really play around it without giving you a bunch of extra time to set up a lethal Survival. Because Shadow keys off of your life total, no matter where the damage came from, they may have to play around it whether it’s in your hand or not. In games where you can’t get your life total down, they’re not as dead as they would be in something like a Modern Death’s Shadow deck - Survival decks needs a critical mass of creatures to pitch to Survival, and you can trigger [[Vengevine]] with with [[Death’s Shadow]] even if you’re above 13 life, and of course, [[Bazaar of Baghdad]]’s filtering rewards you for playing with conditionally powerful cards.

Damaging myself was never really a problem, but I could imagine running a handful of additional damage cards making it more consistent. I think the next best cards would be additional [[Street Wraiths]], [[Mental Misstep]], [[Dismember]], but I didn’t think any of them were good enough to make the cut over something else. I think [[Basking Rootwalla]] is a little less necessary in this list because of the high creature count, so I could maybe see going to 3 Rootwalla in favor of one of those cards. I thought about making the list BUG, but I didn’t have enough testing time to figure out how to make the mana work. If I managed to work an [[Ancestral Recall]] and a [[Time Walk]] into the deck, then [[Vampiric Tutor]] and similar cards would be pretty appealing.

Reply from ajfirecracker:

Awesome, thanks for the explanation!

Reply from Montolio:

Congratulations Andy! My favorite part of your post was the venue. It looked amazing and reminds me of Muskoka here in Canada! Your list looks baller to boot!

Reply from engwar:

I’m playing in my very first Vintage casual tournament this Saturday. Was a bit short notice so not an awful lot of time to prepare. Thought of bringing your list @Brass-Man since I’m a die hard fan of modern Grixis Death’s Shadow and the survival shell looks really fun. That and the land base being easier to build

What are your thoughts on this list for a completely unknown meta? Thought of bringing in one Squee replacing a deathrite or rootwalla. Had no issues getting down to 12 life at least turn 2 when playing against a buddy so I’m keeping the DS enablers as is. Did you have the chance to work on it further?

Reply from brianpk80:

Congratulations, Andy. And that venue looks great; the koi fish too.

Reply from Brass Man:

@engwar I haven’t looked at the deck much since this tournament, but know that @The-Atog-Lord recently played it to a strong finish in the MTGO Vintage Playoff here. I believe the only changes were:

-1 [[Elvish Spirit Guide]]

-1 [[Collector Ouphe]]

+1 Fetchland

+1 [[Mental Misstep]]

Which seems fine to me, though I probably still like Ouphe over Misstep. I built the list without any particular plan for Oath decks, and I believe @The-Atog-Lord lost to an Oath deck, so there could be some concern there, maybe an additional [[Abrupt Decay]] in the sideboard could help? I haven’t thought about it too much.

• *Survival** is a good deck for a general field I think. It’s linear, but the [[Death’s Shadows]] make it hard to hate out with any one card. It had a weakness to fast combo decks which are less common now, and has been improved a lot by [[Collector Ouphe]]. It has a naturally weak Dredge matchup, but I think you can overcome it by dedicating lots of sideboard space, which Survival can afford to do by having so many generally-applicable cards in the maindeck.

I personally find that [[Squee, Goblin Nabob]] is a bit slow for Vintage Survival. You’re so constricted on green mana that getting a Squee almost always means getting one less [[Vengevine]] in play. In situations where [[Vengevine]] is bad, Squee is usually also bad (e.g. against graveyard hate). I do know some very good Survival players disagree with me on this point, so feel free to differ. If you had your heart set on cutting a [[Basking Rootwalla]] or a [[Deathrite Shaman]] to run it, I think I would cut the Rootwalla.

In the short time since this event, it looks like BUG Midrange decks and Dreadhorde Arcanist decks have gotten a bit more popular, which could make an additional [[Dismember]] or [[Abrupt Decay]] nice, but I wouldn’t go overboard on that kind of thing, you’re not going to out-long-game the blue decks, so cutting threats for removal spells will eventually bite you. Your local meta will of course be defined by the preferences of the people in your area, and might not end up lining up with MtGGoldfish at all!

I hope you enjoy the deck, and I hope you do well with it! Make sure you let us know how you perform, and welcome to TheManaDrain!

Reply from engwar:

@brass-man thanks! I bit the bullet and got a manatraders subscription to try it out. Have to say I am definitely impressed! I took your list with:

-1 Elvish Spirit Guide

+1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

The squee was never really relevant in any of the matches, but went 4-1. On my first league ever! Lucky with the opponents I got: won 3x xerox, 1x BUG, and lost 2-1 to PO. That last one was in part due to my complete ignorance of the deck, and got the wrong cards using thoughtseize.

I was often lacking a mana or two, so will try with an additional fetch next time. I agree on the ouphes, they were essential in my match win against PO.

Very enjoyable format, I think I’ll stick around for a little bit