The Duels Community 2013 tournament [finals]
Anyone can jump online and beat up random noobs. But who’s capable of jumping online and beating up random famous noobs?
May I be so bold as to offer a candidate? Me.
All jokes aside, the 2013 Duels Community invitational tournament has begun, and I’m hankering to claim the series’ literal win-pants. Yes, that’s right: whoever takes home the gold also takes home a pair of ceremonial jeans. What would I do with these godforesaken slacks? Maybe I’ll burn them, I don’t know.
If this sounds at all familiar to you, you are probably suffering from dementia. But a second, less likely scenario is that you recall my participation in a previous Duels Community tournament. It was none other than Daisho who kicked my ass last time, and going into this event I was resolute I would at least make it out of the first round and, if possible, avenge myself by beating our on-again, off-again guest writer.
Alas, Daisho was tragically eliminated in his first matchup against WMG Chris. As for my own fate? Well, why don’t you just watch for yourself. The games may not be at the best resolution, but the happenings therein are absolutely gripping. If you haven’t already, check them out, cheer me on, and stick your needles extra hard into voodoo dolls fashioned after my opponents.
You know, if you happen to have something like that lying around.
I love your videos. I’ve been playing magic since it came out and love duels of the planeswalkers. IT makes games competitive instead of the vertern crushing the newer players. Anyway, a little advice which you could take or leave…wait to play sleight of hand. I noticed that you always play it as soon as you can and I find that playing it when you don’t know what you are looking for can be costly. For example, in the first game, you could have saved that sllight of hand until you absolutely needed a land for a kicked rite of replication. I know you like to test random theories, so humor me and test waiting on slieght until you are actualy looking for a specific answer and let me know how you like it.
Very good point. Thanks!
I’m surprised at how well Obedient Dead worked as a MBC deck.
Something that I realized when you said that the deck had no answer to Panoptic Mirror is that in the physical game I believe that an Icy Manipulator might have worked. If you can tap the Mirror in response to the person trying to tap it to imprint something on it you can prevent the imprinting I believe.
Of course with the more simplified approach this game takes you don’t really get to do that trick. I’m not even sure that you can do the Icy Mine trick, which is pretty much the same thing but targeting a Howling Mine so that either your opponent or in certain cases you yourself don’t get the extra draws.
I know it didn’t make much of a difference in the end, but there were a couple of times when you tapped down to two mana without a Sapphire Medallion out. That could have been dangerous because it indicated that you’re keeping the mana open for a Mana Leak. This meant that if he rode out and waited until he had more land — a dangerous proposition in and of itself, but control vs. control games are often slow — then he could have powered through the counter.
I’m not sure if he didn’t notice, or whether it simply wouldn’t have made a difference to begin with. You did bluff him quite a bit, so I think it was more the mindgame at that point than anything else.
Anyways, that was quite the series of well played and nerve-wracking matches. Kudos to you and WMG JT for some excellent playing.
Actually, Grahf, the Manipulator wouldn’t work that way. As with all abilities and spells, once the activation costs are paid, the effect will always resolve unless it is “countered” or the effect’s legal targets are removed. In this case, using Icy Manipulator on the Mirror would have no effect.
There is a way Icy could be used to soft counter the manipulator, which would be trying to tap it before the imprint at a time that would be inconvenient to the Crosswinds player. For instance, if you were playing OD and wanted to ensure CW couldn’t Cancel a Corrupt, you could use Icy to tap the Mirror first. At that point, the CW player would be forced to decide if the Mirror would be tapped out, or if he/she would like to Imprint a card in response. If that player chose to Imprint something, he/she may not have enough lands left to cast Cancel on your Corrupt. However, such a situation would be quite rare.
Leaving 2 lands open definitely affected JT, after watching his side of things. He kind of forgot about other options, like Disperse or Twincast at certain points. Again, not that I had them either. Playing blue is always so hard because there is often no obvious “correct play.” The correct play is sometimes bluffing, but only if your opponent buys it!
Thanks for the compliments though. I look forward to facing down MetalChris next.
I guess there really is no counter in that deck to a Panoptic Mirror then. The stack is somewhat tricky at times, but aside from being mildly inconvenient a Manipulator wouldn’t have really stopped anything in the long run anyways. I don’t believe he was running them either. They are a decent choice, but I guess they can only do so much.
If I were him, I would have used Icies. They can shut down mana supply, they can make Fog Bank a joke, they can remove the option to counter by locking out lands at end of turn. Then again if I were him I would have run the otherwise terrible recurring zombies since blue has no way to stop them other than Fog Bank.
More more more! You rock WiNGSPANTT!
Thanks! I’m working with WMG MetlaChris to set up the next match but so far no response…
do you play xbox or ps3? If ps3, why are none of you guys ranked..
PC
Ahh ok, what is the player base like on pc.I’m new to magic and am ranked 986out of like 22000.but I dont feel like I should be that highly ranked lol
It’s a little more than double that
I tried watching Metal Chris’s commentary of the match. Probably the most annoying commentary I’ve ever seen.
What, not a fan of tits? Tiiiiiiiits!?!?
Only the first two videos from the finals are up (but they are awesome).
I’m looking forward to the CL decklist, and also your reasons for it being the one of the weakest decks in the game. For me, my experience has been exactly the opposite – it has great removal, and lifegain allows plenty of stall to compensate for its slower speed. I think Exalted Darkness is my most feared matchup with the deck because of protection from white creatures, but the fact that CL has board wipes means it can answer everything.
Yeah YouTube is being a bitch about the rest of the series right now. Might have to restart the upload.
they’re working now and are fantastic
Great matches, educational and entertaining as always! Looking forward to your Celestial Light build.
A couple comments I could offer about playing against obedient dead, never commit more to the board than you need to win vs. what the obedient dead player has. If the OD player is playing control than he will not have many threats to actually kill you with. I usually play OD and find that long games favor Cross Winds most of the time, all the Cross Winds player has to do is find the Mirror and then it is most likely game over. I also run 2x Blatant Thievery, the reason being that you do not have anyway of dealing with the majority of his threats post board. Massacre Wurm? Sure you can bounce it, but then you are just going to be getting hit with it twice. Grave Titan? Same thing. Also if the OD player is running Raise from the Grave then countering the Grave Titan is probably not the way you want to go anyway. I run nearly complete control for both decks and have managed to get into the top 250 on the ps3 online. The 3 decks I use are Born in Flame, OD, and Crosswinds.
As an afterward wards, I’ve actually won a game by placing a Blatent Thievery on a Mirror and starting stealing his lands. Then was able to kick Rite of Replication turn after turn, then started stealing two lands (twin cast). Sure there was other ways I could have won it but since I had that setup before others I found it was more fun to win that way. Oh yes also the Blanet Threviory can steal Panotic Mirror to prevent an opposing Cross Winds from going infinite.
Good points all around. I probably should have sideboarded all creatures except Archeomancer out if the deck. More control and card draw would have been great for the long game.
Congratulations on your win mate! I have watched loads of your plays, and I really enjoy your commentaries. Are you aware if there are any tournaments on the PS3?