The List
So, as per the PTQ norm, I am sick as a dog Friday and get about two hours of sleep after finishing picking up the cards for the list, having never shuffled it at all. Some of the changes were to let Paul Bennett on seat C run Osyp Ghost Husk side by side with Friggin' Flyin' Plants, with Steve Young running Bracht Heartbeat on our seat A.
Quick thoughts on the changes to Rizzo's list:
1. Evasion plus Ninjas is good.
2. Friggin' Flyin' Plants are a lot more fun to hit people with than perverts.
3. Smiling Bob wants to grace both this deck, and the Husk. Phyrexian Arena is only slightly more difficult to cast in either deck, is only vulnerable to half of the removal in the format instead of damn-near-all-of-it, and while it doesn't make your land draws painless, makes drawing Putrefy and Ink-Eyes a hell of a lot less painful.
4. Two Birds, two Elves, balance the “I can wear Jitte profitably” with the “I can make turn 2 Hyppie happen off of Okina or Forest, Swamp,” to make it even harder to have a slower start.
5. Late in the day, I realized that playing this deck feels very nostalgic. Very. As in, hey, I remember trying to qualify back in Ice Age-era Standard, playing Summer of Black Necro... and this deck feels very similar.
The Mystery Sideboard Slots from Rizzo's list went to 2 Hideous Laughter (small help versus Husk, big help versus Flores Ghazi-Chord) and 2 Cranial Extraction (put nails in the Heartbeat coffin, and keeps those North Side Bashers away from my face!). Rizzo, it turns out, ran 2 Hideous Laughter, 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal, and 1 Dimir House Guard in his version of the list.
We finalize the deck on the feels-long-ass drive from Albany out to Brighton, register, and run into some other of our Flights of Fantasy regulars... and some folks I recognize from scrubbing around the PTQs and pre-releases in the Connecticut/Brighton area. When we're talking about what people are playing, I'll give up that I'm Green/Black, but they think it's the Dredging Boilers deck that I fooled around with at FNM a few weeks ago. Cute, but inconsistent and vulnerable... I shrug, tell them it's not that deck, and that the only way I'm going to have to play a mirror match, or a scripted match, is if I sit down across from John Friggin' Rizzo (which gets, I'm sad to say, a lot of "Who?" responses. "The guy that designed the deck. Writes for StarCityGames.com. Invented Ichorid.dec for Extended," got a lot of very "oh..." responses)
Rizzo was Friggin' Right Again... at least for Teams.
So, in my inimitable ability to fail in nailing down a good note-taking format, on to the rounds!
Round 1 versus Team Fat Head
Their Lineup:
A: Wafo-Tapa
B. GW Good-Chord
C. Ghost Dad
Game 1 sees my acceleration come out beautifully, with a turn 1 Overgrown Tomb plus Llanowar Elf, turn 2 Hypnotic Specter, into Ink-Eyes for the smash a few turns later. We both go to the side, where I send away the Shoals and Yukora in favor of Eradicate and 3 of the Naturalizes.
Game 2 starts slowly for me, with acceleration into Bob and removal, while my opponent accelerates much better... Into a turn 4 or 5 Yosei, with his team looking very happy about his position as he shows them his hand. Untap, lay a land, Eradicate your Yosei with Birdies up to chump your Hierarch.... Oh, was that another Yosei in your hand to rip me to shreds next turn? So sad.
He found another Hierarch and some dudes, but Bob found me an Arena and then jumped in front of an attacker, slowing the life loss to an acceptable level and letting me find enough gas to put away Good at six life.
Meanwhile, Paul went 2-1 versus Ghost Dad and Steve drew in 3 games versus Wafo-Tapa (running Rewind from the side as good tech versus Gigadrowse). I think their good player was on their A seat with Wafo, whereas we shook up our seating when we moved me to the middle from the wings (all three of us play at similar levels of skill, but I whore around the netdeck lists enough to be able to advise both of them...)
Round 2 versus Beats 2.0
A. Mirror Heartbeat
B. Gruul Beats
C. Ghost Husk
Gruul Beats is still fast. Game 1 it's less clear as I draw enough removal to keep ahead of the pain from the Gruul, but the Char eventually finds my dome. Game 2... No gas, and the Kird Apes take over my planet.
Fortunately, both Paul and Steve are good at dealing with outplaying their respective mirror matches, winning their tables 2-1 each. I'm a little shaken in my confidence in the deck, as I've now shuffled the deck for games exactly four times, and it's 50%, but comforted by the fact that Gruul Beats is a “too old for this metagame” deck choice by this end of the season.
Round 3 versus The Impenetrable Tony Dan(za, but the Reporter team strips don't say that, and I forgot to ask).
A. Vore
B. wtfthemirror?
C. Zoo/Glare
Hmm, what's this, Crossroads Games score sheet in front of my older, confident-looking large-wedding-ring-wearing opponent.... I wasn't sitting across from Rizzo, was I? (Yes, I forget to look at my opponent's name when I'm looking at the pairings... not a great habit, but there it is). I get to listen to Rizzo give his team commentary on what I'm playing, as I bash him down to two life before his deck hands him the gas to put me away in two big swings.
Game 2, not much to change in from the board for the mirror... We get into a standoff with, if I remember right, an Elf and a Hypnotic Specter on Rizzo's team versus Elf, Bird, Bird on mine, with six mana up... Rizzo thinks, starts to set up blockers, thinks, says, "He doesn't have ninjas...", and lets the birds through... "He does have ninjas..." as Ink-eyes comes down to pull back his already dead Elf, and our boards trade off. I make another Elf, pass the turn, hammer for seven more, and get the scoop when he finds a single Vulturous Zombie at eight life.
Game 3 I find Hyppie, gas, and Big Ink and put him down while I'm sitting at nineteen life.
After we finish, I ask and confirm that yes, it really is Rizzo, and he's surprised that I'm one of the few people who believed him when he said the deck was good. I tell him about my results so far, and the changes we made (and the fact that this is games five, six, and seven with the deck... good times). Meanwhile, Steve puts Vore away in two, and Paul bashes Zoo, with a Glare transformational sideboard, to death in three. We're already on table 4 (well, tables 10-12, sounds like Team Table 4 to me), oh my god...
Round 4 versus Straight Thuggin. At table 1. I lose at table 1. (well, I'm at 2, but it's the first teams...)
A. GW Glare-Chord
B. Heartbeat
C. Ghost Husk
Glare-Chord is the wrong deck versus Heartbeat.... that's one reason I am running Friggin' Flyin' Plants... because my Glare-Chord matchup versus Steve was terrible... but it also meant that he had lots of practice beating Glare-Chord from our testing!
My game 1 I couldn't find enough disruption and gas to keep Heartbeat from going off when I had him at four life. The infamous one-turn-too-slow. Game 2, and out goes the creature kill, in comes Distress and Cranial Extractions. I wind up holding a Putrefy and cursing myself, as my opponent fires off an empty board Weird Harvest for five, while I sit stuck at Swamp, Swamp, Llanowar Waste with a Cranial in my hand... I pull out Rats and Okibas. He finds 4 Drift, Maga, as any good Heartbeat player would... and passes the turn, tapped out.
Oops, youlosenow.
Untap my pitiful little pile of land... slowroll a swamp, Cranial naming Drift of Phantasms to check which mode his deck is in, and put him away in two swings.
Game 3, and Distress and Hyppie do their work. I bash him to death in short order.
The Husk match goes long, ending in a draw, while Heartbeat wins 2-1.
Round 5 versus Easter Egg Hunt
A. Heartbeat
B. Gruul Beats
C. Husk
I lose horrifically in game 1 to a nice curve out of Apes and multiple Burning-Tree Shamans, while I find a Bird and a Jitte and not a heck of a lot else. It looks like this is a Beats / Glare or something, because he's running Llanowar Elves. Shrug, that means Laughter is the best medicine...
Game 2, in come the Laughters and Eradicates for the hated Tree... I get hurt for a bit until the removal shows up, then the Friggin' Flyin' Plant lets me put him away in four swings.
Game 3 ends with him at nineteen, bashing me to death and burning me out... I think. Bad notes this round, but we'd been playing since 1030 and I was a little tired.... Okay, a lot tired...
Steve and Paul came through in the mirrors for sure. How am I'm 5-0 at a PTQ?
Round 6 versus TWW Avengers
ID, so no idea what they were playing...
Okay, we need a break. We're the only 5-0 team. We're paired against three young but savvy lads, one of whom will be joining us in Albany in the near future as a student at RPI. Damn, they're young.
We offer the draw, and discuss the mathematics of their chances, and the fact that they'll have the best chance of getting paired down for an easier match by drawing now, because they might not be able to draw into the top 8 in round 7, especially if we continue our undefeated streak by crushing them. We record the ID, and wish them well in the next round so we can play our match in the top 4, and take a much-needed break. The hall was starting to get really warm, with 120 players thinking Very Hard and Urgent thoughts. We sit up front where it's cooler, after deciding the sidewalk outside isn't a comfortable place to sit (and we can't see the clock from there....), and talk over the question of whether we are going to go to Charleston if we win, or if we want the product for second, because the prize structure gives packs only from second down to eighth place teams.... Yep, no packs for first.
Round 7 versus Mostly Retired
A. MUC with a side of Cranial
B. GW Glare-Chord
C. Heartbeat
We go down 2-1 as Glare proves that it's really good against decks that kill by turning creatures sideways. North Side is hard to deal with in the maindeck of this Flying Plant Thing...
Game 2 I get some Friggin' Flyin' Plant mojo going, then removal, and he scoops from thirteen after I smash his board, his face, and his hand.
Game 3... North Side kicks my tail up between my ears.
Paul loses in bad draws to Heartbeat, and MUC is great against Heartbeat... no surprise there, right?
We wait, because while we have a very fine 5-1-1 record, there are five teams on 13 points going into this round, and the team at 15... is Easter Egg Hunt, so we can't draw in with the 5-1 team. TWW Avengers were paired down against the 12, and the games went to time. And past. And had a cluster of judges... Eventually, that went down to a draw, and we were guaranteed a top 4 slot. How am I'm in the single elimination rounds of a PTQ?
Semi-finals versus Spanking Tim (recorded by the judges as Sparking Tim)
A. Husk
B. GW Glare-Chord
C. Heartbeat
Hey, I recognize their center-seater... He goes to RPI. Albany players on two teams in the Top 4... nice.
Glare-Chord is good against me, no question. I go down in three fairly quick games, after winning the first, then turn my attention to Paul and Steve's positions. The wings are reversed mirrors... and Steve manages to win versus Husk, which was a surprise. The Vinelasher Man Plan, plus Steve's relentless practice against Paul to find ways to survive to go off versus Husk pay off as he puts it away in 3. Paul wins his first game eventually, after a record-keeping failure requires warnings about tracking game state carefully (Heartbeat player at four, or at two?).
Paul's opponent is... slow. He's also playing a variant of Heartbeat with Compulsive Research. Research does not belong in that list at all. His sideboard apparently runs Rending Vines as artifact/enchantment kill...
After an agonizingly slow turn of accomplishing nothing with lethal damage coming next turn, the Heartbeat player scoops and we're on to the finals.
"Holy crap gentlemen, we might be going to Charleston..."
Finals versus Mostly Retired "for the empire"
Game 1 is all about North Side smashing my face.
Game 2 is all about turn 2 Arena feeding me gas enough to smash past two Hierarchs, until I can bring out the rat-faced-hottie-of-the-night and bring a Hierarch back to life on my side of the board. Near the end of game 2, I look over and see a huge mess starting as the MUC player removes Hinder for a Disrupting Shoal, then continue paying attention to my game, figuring Steve is in trouble and we'll have to carry him because that matchup is terrible for Heartbeat.
I go for game 3, as Paul wins his first neatly, and smash face with Hypnotic, Big Ink, gg.
Steve was very late in the game, playing tight combo-versus-control magic, and that Force of Will... err, Disrupting Shoal was the start of a counter war.... his opponent has two Islands up and a full grip...
Steve: Heartbeat of Spring.
Opp: Disrupting Shoal, removing Hinder.
Steve: Muddle that Shoal.
Opp: Disrupting Shoal the Muddle, removing something.
Steve: Muddle that Shoal.
Opponent: [Sees Steve is out of Blue sources] Remand that Muddle.
Steve: Early Harvest. Remand resolves. Muddle that Shoal.
He has another Harvest, and a Drift, counts life... transmutes, and drops a lethal Maga for game 1. They're still working on getting going in game two by the time Paul puts his opponent away in two straight, and...
Holy crap, we won a PTQ.
Now we have to come up with Block Constructed lists in a month?
All hail John Friggin' Rizzo. His Friggin' Flyin' Plant is Friggin Good Enough — not brilliant against everything, but it got the job done!
Jonathan Choy
Tetsujin no Oni
Scrubbing around PTQs since 96.
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