9/11/10 Top Finishers: Extended Constructed
1. 5-0-1 Treehouse Rock by Dominic Casali
2. 4-2 Living End by Hunter Garrett
3. 3-2 UR Control by Skye Kutner
4. 2-3 UW Levelers by John Kreinbring
Some of the top contenders in the Swiss that cruised through were my Doran Treehouse deck, Michael Smith's Boom/Bust Boros, Hunter's deadly Living End combo, and two white weenie decks piloted by Ben and Kevin. However, the field was very diverse, and after two rounds of Swiss a lot of solid decks were in jeopardy of missing the top 8. You can read about one of the matches for top 8 on the post below this or by clicking here: http://fitssffmagic.blogspot.com/2010/09/extended-tournament-round-3-feature.html. Ultimately, both the reigning Standard champion (Emile) and defending Extended champion (Nikita) both missed the top 8, and it seemed pretty wide open.
It turned out that the top 8 was blown completely wide open. With 14 players, there was one 1-2 player who could advance to top 8. That was John and his leveler deck, and he took full advantage of squeaking into the top 8 as the number 8 seed, and defeated Kevin's previously undefeated White Weenies. However, that wasn't the only mono-white deck to fall in the quarterfinals, as Ben's version met its Living End. The number 2 seed also fell, as Boros was felled by Skye's somewhat under-the-radar counterburn deck. I got to face it after narrowly escaping RangerDan's really intriguing Naya planeswalker deck that you can read about in the feature match post.
The semifinals pitted me against Skye and Hunter against John. My aggressive Doran deck overwhelmed Skye in game 1, but he came back and stole my deck's namesake with Mind Control to take game 2. The same thing happened in game 3, but this time I had a timely War Priest of Thune to swing the game back in my favor and advance to the finals. I ended up facing Hunter, who lost game 1 against John to the triple Living End draw that ruined his Cascade combo, but came back to take games 2 and 3. In the finals, my hand disruption and cheap fatties did just enough to edge out two consecutive games and give me my first true event win of the semester.
The deck I played, inspired by the amazing Brian Kibler's Treehouse deck, was the type of deck I normally would be afraid of wielding, but it was actually really fun and exciting to play. The goal is basically to kill the opponent before I kill myself. Here's the list:
Treehouse Rock by Dominic Casali:
Creatures (24):
4x Treefolk Harbinger
3x Loam Lion
4x Putrid Leech
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Doran, the Siege Tower
4x Aven Riftwatcher
1x Chameleon Colossus
Other Spells (13):
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
1x Nameless Inversion
4x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Lands (23):
4x Murmuring Bosk
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Reflecting Pool
3x Treetop Village
3x Forest
1x Swamp
Sideboard (15):
4x Infest
4x Kitchen Finks
3x Path to Exile
3x War Priest of Thune
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Basically, the goal is to play cheap beaters and hand disruption and kill your opponent before your mana base and Putrid Leeches cause you to kill yourself. The ability to mana-fix by essentially playing 12 Murmuring Bosks (thanks to the 8 fetch lands) and smooth your draws with Treefolk Harbinger is huge. Treefolk Harbinger allows me to play just one copy of Nameless Inversion and Chameleon Colossus, which aren't always necessary to win, but can be great, unexpected tutor targets. Tarmogoyf is also fabulous in this deck, as the 7 cheap discard spells cause the 'Goyf to be pretty big almost every time you play it, even if it's very early in the gamem.
The sideboard primarily addresses this deck's two biggest weaknesses: burn and other fast aggro decks. Elspeth, Path, and especially Infest handle the aggro problem. Kitchen Finks and Path help with burn, along with Aven Riftwatcher, who I was so impressed with in testing that I ended up playing him main (the reasoning of playing it over Finks is that Riftwatcher interacts positively with Doran while Finks interacts negatively, but sometime you want them both in the deck). War Priest of Thune was pretty much just a metagame gut call, as I knew there would be a lot of white decks featuring cards like Honor of the Pure and Oblivion Ring. It also is useful against any Leyline (especially the red one) and apparently is also awesome against Mind Control. Thanks to the several people who lent me cards that I could play the deck, it was really a blast.
Here's the latest league standings. People are starting to spread out a bit, and it should make for an intriguing next few weeks to see how the standings develop. But even if you're pretty far from the top, don't give up! The point system makes it pretty easy to catch up. For example, Kevin went from 29th to 13th in one event, and another good showing could put him in the top 8 just like that. As always, send me an email if you want to see my points-calculation spreadsheet:
0*. 30 - Dominic Casali (7 events)
1. 23 - Michael Smith (5)
2. 20 - Emile Paul (5)
3. 17 - Skye Kutner (3)
4. 16 - Hunter Garrett (4)
5. 15 - Joe Hammond (5)
5. 15 - John Kreinbring (6)
7. 12 - Dan Hooghkirk (3)
8. 10 - Scott Record (2)
9. 9 - Bryant Benson (5)
9. 9 - Brent Kollinger (4)
11. 6 - Haren Lalchand (4)
11. 6 - Ben Monge (2)
13. 5 - Kevin Crowley (2)
13. 5 - Matt Wills (4)
15. 4 - Michael Carney (3)
15. 4 - Helen Croce (2)
15. 4 - Liz DiGangi (3)
15. 4 - Will Sturges (1)
19. 3 - Nick Catalfano (2)
19. 3 - Alycia Johnson (2)
19. 3 - Michelle Karl (3)
19. 3 - Stephen Kwokchoon (3)
19. 3 - Nikita Nikolayev (3)
19. 3 - Glen Parker (3)
25. 2 - Shawn Brabant (2)
25. 2 - John Chandler (1)
25. 2 - David Chesnutt (2)
25. 2 - Krystal Lutz (2)
25. 2 - Jennifer Mori (2)
25. 2 - Ethan Pepmiller (2)
31. 1 - Kareem Elashmawy (1)
31. 1 - Thomas Fitch (1)
31. 1 - Greg Lovell (1)
31. 1 - Mike Mooty (1)
31. 1 - Noah Senzel (1)
*I am not eligible for to play in the top 8 invitational event at the end of the semester. But I can still beat people down in casual games with Doran, the Siege Tower, so it's okay. :P
To answer a question I got from a couple people: when there is a tie in the standings, for now I'm placing the person whose last name comes first in the alphabet higher up in the standings, but if there is a tie at the end of the semester, the tiebreaker will be overall match win percentage throughout the course of all events the individual has participated in. I'll mention this again when we get closer to the end of the semester, but I wanted to get it out there in case anybody else was curious or concerned about it.
Thanks to all the people that have been coming out every week and making these events really be a lot of fun so far this semester. I'm going to tone it down for a couple weeks before Scars of Mirrodin comes out to give everyone a little breather. Next weekend there won't be an event, but there will be a casual Magic workshop sometime to give some drafting and deckbuilding help to some of the players that are fairly new to the game or have been struggling a little in the events. I'll post more about this in a few days. The week after that there also won't be a FITSSFF event, as that's Scars of Mirrodin pre-release weekend at the local gaming stores. If you're interested in going to the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release, there will be more details abouut it available on the Web site in a week or so. Thanks for reading this, check out the exciting feature match post below this one, and have a great week!
- Dom
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