Posts Tagged ‘LLBL’

The Legacy tournaments at the Black Lotus Store in Barcelona are probably the biggest weekly events in the world. With an average turn out that might hit the 35 players, Black Lotus has become an excellent place to practice Legacy at a real high level. You might find there players like Lluis Restoy (GP Madrid Top8), Ricard Tudurí (GP Winner) or Adrià Romero (who recently made top9 at the BOM4).

In the past I used to go every Saturday to the Legacy tournaments, but now, due to my job I can’t hardly get any Saturdays off. And those that I can, I usually make them match with the Vintage tournaments from the LCV6.

Anyways, so this past Saturday I managed to go and I won! Well, even though I really wanted to play because I felt I could defeat easily any of the top4 decks (Reanimator, Zoo and Survi-Auriok) I agreed on splitting the Top4 because the other 3 guys really wanted to, and I was a bit tired.

I expected the following metagame: Zoo, Reanimator, ANT, Merfolks and Countertop (thopters, progenitus, etc). That’s what the usual players play around there. Then there’s always some people with random decks like Belcher, White Staxx, etc… My predictions were almost perfect since there were a lot of combo decks (ANT, Reanimator), some Zoo, and also some Thopter/CounterTop decks.

The night before the tournament I prepared my ANT deck to fight that metagame. I can advance you that this is probably the best sideboard I’ve brought to a tournament. I’m really satisfied with the result and I felt I had answers for absolutely all the matchups that I could face. So this is the list:

Main deck: 4cANT by Jordi Amat
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Ponder
3 Duress
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Flooded Strand
2 City of Traitors
2 Chrome Mox
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Island

Sideboard:
4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Path to Exile
2 Nature’s Claim
1 Reverent Silence
1 Krosan Grip
1 Angel’s Grace
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

I’m not gonna talk about the main deck choices because the list is pretty standard (15 lands – including 2 City of Traitors, 6 protection spells – including Orim’s Chant, 1 Tendrils, 1 bouncer, etc…). But I do wanna talk about the sideboard.

Path to Exile (3): This card proved to be the MVP of the tournament. And that’s the second time I performed excellent thanks to them. Let’s see it’s advantages:

• It kills Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, Iona, Shielf of Emeria, as well as Tarmogoyf (BANPLZ!), Wild Nacatl, etc…
• It’s white, so you’ll probably kill Ioona 100% of the times with it.
• We run more than 1 copy, so we can use it more aggressively to kill an early menace that will save us some health points. Killing a turn 1 Wild Nacatl with a Path to Exile, if your game plan is slow, can turn into a huge advantage.
• Nobody expects Path to Exile.

Disadvantages:

• It’s white, so you’ll need to fetch for white. That usually isn’t a problem, but it’s not the same as playing Slaughter Pact (which I also run).
• It’s more sensible to Daze/Spell Pierce since it costs more than Slaughter Pact.

Carpet of Flowers (4): In a metagame where blue is everywhere, this card seems the right call. Merfolks disruption is based on the “pay X more or counter this spell” (aka, Daze, Spell Pierce and Curse Catcher), and Carpet of Flowers brings lots of extra mana for free every turn. The only spell you should care about when playing against Merfolks is Force of Will.

The other reason why I run Carpet of Flowers nowadays is because control players expect you to play Dark Confidant Side Board, and they won’t side out their removal. Like this we achieve:

1. We accelerate for free everyturn
2. Opponent is playing with dead cards

Due to this version being 4 colors, Carpet of Flowers will fix our mana base pretty nicely. You’ll have the white, the green, blue or black whenever you’ll need it.

Nature’s Claim (2) + Reverent Silence (1) + Krosan Grip (1): Our worst match up is obviously anything running CounterTop. We can’t have our silver bullets all with the same mana cost, and that’s why I opted to have Nature’s Claim, Krosan Grip and Reverent Silence.

Chalice @1 hurts us a lot, but you should be able to Mystical Tutor for Krosan Grip in response to his Chalice, and get rid of it quite easily. Else, just try to combo out with the double LED + Infernal Tutor Kill.

Angel’s Grace (1) + Tendrils of Agony (1): Since I expected some Zoo decks, Angel’s Grace was a must include! I can’t play combo decks without 2 Tendrils of Agony but it didn’t fit in the main deck, so I finally opted to add it to the SB.

Against Zoo/Aggro decks, my usual sideboard plan is: +1 Angel’s Grace, +1 Tendrils of Agony, +3 Path to Exile, +1 Slaughter Pact (and if I expect Thorn of Amethyst like from Affinity, then I add the 2 Nature’s Claim + Krosan Grip), -2 Duress (I always leave 1 Duress, just in case you need to check for a trap ), -3 Ponder, -1 Tropical Island (unless I have to add the green sideboard spells).

So this was more or less my sideboard strategy. My main game strategy was always to go for the double LED + Infernal Tutor Kill passing through Ill-Gotten Gains. I believe I killed like that around 90% of the times. I’ve been playing Iggy Pop/ iPop Negation / ANT for such a long time, that when I need to combo, I have it so clear that I know exactly what is needed to execute a certain amount of storm at any given situation. The fact that I reduced the amount of Ad Nauseam to 1 makes this plan my primary choice of kill.

I won’t explain my rounds with detail as I didn’t take accurate notes from the games. I’ll try to write about certain plays that were relevant during the tournament.

Round 1: Gonzalo Balot with random deck. 2-0

• Gonzalo was a new player in the scene and he actually didn’t know how to play at all. I helped him understand the game a bit better after I won him 2-0 in less than 10 minutes. I tried to make him understand the phases, construction of the decks, etc… He took notes and I think he’ll be better prepared next time.

Round 2: Alex Mateu with Survi/Auriok. 2-1

• Alex is actually one of the best players of the national Legacy scene. If you search him on deckcheck, you’ll discover a certain amount of good results.
• Game one I cast a turn 2 Ad Nauseam for the win. Game 2 he casts 3 Meddling Mage in 5 turns without any deck manipulation… I killed his first one with Path to Exile, then the second one named Ad Nauseam and the 3rd named Path to Exile, so my only chance was to find Mystical Tutor, for Slaughter Pact and then combo (I had Nauseam and mana enough). I never found the Mystical nor the Pact. Game 3 I believe I combo him on first turn with a Infernal Tutor Kill.

Round 3: Oscar Mesegué with Reanimator. 2-1

• Yet another excellent player with a lot of wins at the LCL/Black Lotus Store tournaments.
• He managed to get Ioona (naming black) into play game 1. I didn’t had many chances since she would kill me before I could actually bounce Ioona. But, I insisted and didn’t surrender, as I wanted to make him believe I could actually bounce Ioona. So I tried to Mystical Tutor at some point, which he obviously countered with FoW (+ Blue card when he only had 2 cards left) fearing a Wipe Away. I told him he did well countering my Mystical as I would have probably won So he actually believed me, and in second game, he put Ioona into play again naming blue! But I had Path to Exile to remove her I won the same turn I played the Path to Exile. Game 3, he had turn 1 Entomb, and he placed on his GY… Inkwell Leviathan, fearing my Path to Exile again. It was obviously a bad choice, as the squid never got to attack (I had a Path in my hand, anyways)

Round 4: My friend, and ex-team mate, Oliver Satizabal aka Owli with Zoo. ID

Round 5: Daniel Sanchez with Spring Tide. ID

Top8: Pedro Grati with ANT. 2-1

• I don’t know him that much. I know he’s performing well in pokemon formats, so I guess he’s a good player. BUT, I actually saw him play at round 5 (scouting FTW!), and I saw him play terribly bad. Misplays, wrong choices, etc… He told me after his last round, he’s not used to play combo. O RLY?
• Anyways, so Game one he casts DOUBLE duress on his first turn, and I win on my first turn! How? Check this out kids! My hand was: LED + Dark Ritual + Ancient Tomb + Lotus Petal + Cabal Ritual + Brainstorm + Sensei’s Divining Top. His double duress hits my Brainstorm and Sensei’s Divining Top. My topdeck was Infernal Tutor, and you know how the story ends
• On game 2, he had a strong play, but I slow him down with an Orim’s Chant in response to his Infernal Tutor. He searches Ad Nauseam (Mistake) which he can’t cast. I eot Mystical Tutor for Duress and take his Nauseam away. We both were at top deck but I had Sensei’s Divining Top. He drew a bomb before I found anything with the Top on 4 turns… He played Sadistic Sacrament so we moved onto game 3.
• Last game was a normal game, I Duress him turn 1 and comb on turn 3 via Ritual + LED + Infernal Tutor -> Ill-Gotten Infernal Tutor for Infernal Tutor for Tendrils for a total Storm of 10.
• As Pedro said “It happened what it should have happened”.

In the end, I accepted splitting the Top4 prizes.

The rest of the top8 went like this:

Sergi Herrero (Reanimator) VS Oscar Mesegué (Reanimator)

Àlex Mateu (Survi/Auriok) VS Daniel Sanchez (High Tide)

Jordi Amat (ANT) VS Pedro Grati (ANT)

Aldo Fernandez (Landstill) VS Oliver Satizabal (Zoo)

I’ll post the Top8 decks as soon as possible. Meanwhile, this is how the metagame looked like:

• 3 ANT (Top8 + Top4)
• 1 Landstill (Top8)
• 1 High Tide (Top8)
• 2 Merfolks
• 2 Dredge
• 2 Dark Depths (1 Countertop, 1 BG Hate)
• 3 Zoo (Top4)
• 2 Reanimator (Top8 + Top4)
• 2 Rogue deck
• 1 Alluren
• 1 Survival (Auriok Combo) (Top4)
• 1 Thopter/CounterTop
• 1 Fatestalker
• 1 Belcher
• 1 Canadian Threshold
• And a couple of lost lists

So, to conclude with something, let me just say…

REAL MEN PLAY COMBO!

This Saturday I’m finally gonna be able to play the weekly Legacy tournament that is being held at the Black Lotus Shop in Barcelona. To be honest, I expect this tournament to be really crowded. Most students are off from school (Easter holidays) and that, in the past, has made the attendance to go sky rockets. I’m guessing we’ll hit a turn out of 60 players, maybe more.

I’ll probably be playing Affinity or ANT. Both decks are really fun to play while being very different. Affinity is like playing Pokemon (you know, standard and that kind of sh*t. R.E.S.T.E.C.P!). Kids play Pokemon, and even though I’m almost 30, I still consider myself a kid so I do have an excuse (not to mention kids don’t play full foil japanese). On the other side, playing ANT is more stylish. Real men play combo and winning with Storm is lot more satisfying than beating with insignificant creeps.

The deck I’ve sleeved up is this one:

I ain’t 100% sure about the sideboard! At the last Black Lotus tournament, two decks with the Thopter/Sword combo reached the Top8, and that added to the amount of dredge players and other decks playing Life from the Loam has made me wonder if I should play Leyline of the Void again (with the obvious 2nd Ill-Gotten Gains). Adding Leyline will also mean I could add a Helm of Obedience as an alternative win condition to storm. Winning with da Helm is even more stylish!

The other sideboard I was thinking about would be like this:

4 Dak Confidant
4 Tombstalker
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Tendrils of Agony

This sideboard ala “french-style” is awesome against Counterbalance decks or any kind of deck packing blue. But the obvious downside is that once you’ve won few people, everybody knows what your secret tech is…

Anyways, I’ll give it some thoughts and playtest a little bit. If you also want to play this Saturday at the Black Lotus Shop, you gotta be there at 10:30. This is where:

Bigger map!

I hope you all passed the new year’s eve hangover and are ready again for some hardcore playing. 2009 was an awesome year for the youngest of the eternal formats, Legacy. 2009 proved WotC that Legacy is huge and they’ve, wisely, realized about that and already taken some actions.

2010 couldn’t start better for the Legacy european fans:

Dates	City	Country	Format	Feeds PT
Feb. 27-28	Madrid	Spain	Legacy	San Juan

That’s great news for a country like Spain. As you may already know, Spain holds the biggest eternal leagues in the world: LCL ( Catalan Legacy League), LML (Madrid Legacy League), LLBL (Black Lotus Legacy League), etc…

Spain, somehow, creates trendies in Legacy, therefor the expected metagame for GP Madrid shouldn’t be that different from what we can find in our leagues. I’d totally recommend you taking a close look at deckcheck.net and search for the events listed before. Other events you should take in considerations are the past tournaments like Bazaar of Moxen, Eurovino3 or the recently played German Magic 1.

Personally, I’ve already decided what list I’ll be playing at GP Madrid. No secrets, I’ll be playing combo. What version? ANT. People tend to say that in a GP, where it’s gonna be loaded with CounterTop and AggroJunk decks, playing combo is kinda a suicide. Not really when you got a hidden Ace in your sideboard (and no, it’s not Thrashing Wumpus LOL).

By the way, changing a bit the topic, but still Legacy related, I’ve recently contacted Mr. Iggy Pop, and sent him my playset of japanese Ill-Gotten Gains for him to sign. MAN, THAT’S PIMP! Scanns as soon as the cards come back, if they ever do!.

Talking about pimp, I’m soon done with my 2nd legacy deck to be 100% foil japanese. When I say 100% I really mean it. Legacy’s Affinity allowed me to complete a deck with 75 out 75 cards in foil japanese. Right now I’m only missing 2 Cranial Platting (got those located already), 2 Ancient Den and 1 Vault of Whispers. If it happens that you own some and are willing to trade/sell, please contact me at jordi.amat@gmail.com.

Back to topic, the following weekends, starting Saturday 9th,  at the Black Lotus shop there’s gonna be a series of tournaments that will provide byes for GP Madrid. If I were you, I wouldn’t miss the chance of playing those. Unluckily for me, I’m working on Saturdays and won’t be able to attend those.

You might have noticed that I placed a video player on the top of the right sidebar and in there it says there’s a broadcast planned for this Saturday. Guys, that won’t be possible. Even tho, I promise to be LIVE broadcasting all the events I’ll attend in 2010. Stay tunned to my USTREAM channel if you wanna watch some games.

One last thing you should never forget:

Real men play combo!

(Ladies play countertop+goyfs and kids play pikachus+bolts)

Esta es la (breve) historia de cómo se puede ganar un Lotacy de casi 50 personas con perros, gatos y un par de chispas a la cabeza. Con ella me dirijo a todos aquellos que disfrutan haciendo Mana-Gatusso, a los que sueñan con lanzar rayos de 5, a los que no aspiran a hacer jugadas maestras para ganar, a los que están convencidos que un Confidant comba mejor con una baraja llena de costes bajos que con un Top…. A todos vosotros os digo: SI, PODEMOS!!!

No voy a entrar muy en detalle a narrar los enfrentamientos, ya que es totalmente irrelevante dado lo malos que somos todos los que jugamos en el Loto. Simplemente resaltaré las jugadas más lamentables y los errores más tremendos tanto míos como de mis rivales para ver si aprendemos algo todos de una vez por todas… y si no aprendemos, pues al menos alguien se consolará viendo que siempre se puede encontrar a alguien mas tremendo que uno mismo.

Escogí Zoo por un motivo obvio e inapelable: tiré el dado y salió el 19, que equivalía a esta deck. Nada más que añadir. Le metí las cartas que más me gustaron y quedó tal como así:

ZOOLANDER 1.0
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda  aka “Perro”
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Kird Ape   aka “Mono”
4 Wild Nacatl   aka “Gatusso”
2 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaea’s Might
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Vindicate
SB:
1 Gaea’s Blessing
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Krosan Grip

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El calendario de torneos de Eternal está realmente apretado últimamente. Si la semana pasada tocó jugar Vintage (LCV5), esta toca Legacy. Mañana se celebra el primer torneo de la LCL2 (2ª Liga Catalana de Legacy) y a su vez, se celebra también el torneo de Legacy de la tienda Black Lotus.

Personalmente, este año me he propuesto jugar tantos torneos como pueda de la LLBL (Liga de Legacy Black Lotus, que empieza el 7 de Febrero), y es por este motivo que veo un poco absurdo ir a jugar el primer torneo de la LCL2. No por que no me parecezca atractivo (que lo son, y mucho), sino por por que prefiero los torneos de Legacy del Loto. El ambiente, las risas, la comida del mariona, Cortijo Wars, etc…

Dicho esto, ayer quedé con Owli y Paquito para testear un poquillo Legacy. Me monté una nueva versión de mi deck de Painter’s Servant, con bastante cambios al respeto. Vamos a ver la lista y a continuación explico un poco cómo me fue la cosa:

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