Alright. Tournament report time!
Oh and I managed to borrow an Obzedat at the last minute so in stead of the Far // Away I played Obzedat. Which I will say now was f****** superb all day.
Round 1 vs Mono Blue:
Game 1 was pretty simple. I started on a mulligan to 5 but with a Divination, Doom Blade, Last Breath and 2 scry lands, which is basically the perfect 5 in the matchup. After killing all his creatures I ultimated a Jace down to 1 counter, getting his Thassa and my AEtherling, which kill very quickly.
Game 2 was a lot of the same, although with me drawing Gainsay to push things more in my favour, and me not mulliganing. Mono Blue just has a lot of awkward cards in the matchup even post board due to their low creature quality, so overall it was a nice warm up game for the day.
Round 2 vs Boros Burn
Game 1 my opponent mulligan'd to a horrible 5 but was too stubborn to go to 4. Makes sense given his deck a little, but a mountain with a bunch of multicolour spells including 2 Warleader's Helix doesn't seem reasonable at all to me. I ultimated a Jace really quickly, grabbing my AEtherling and his Spark Trooper and ended it quickly.
Game 2 saw me getting hit on turn 3 with a Toil for 7. That pretty much sums that up...
Game 3 I was playing around Skullcrack the whole time. Turns out he had 3 in his hand the whole game, and I was able to play around 2, but not 3 and the 3rd one let him untap and kill me with Warleader's Helix plus Shock.
I didn't enjoy this match at all. My opponent spent the whole of game 1 complaining that his 23 land deck wasn't giving him enough lands, while all of game 2 and 3 I was very clearly drawing the wrong cards for the matchup given he drew no creatures and I drew ALL my removal spells.
Round 3 vs Jund Monsters
Game 1 I turn 2 Thoughtseize after he's played Forest + Mystic + Mutavault, and see 2 Stormbreath, 2 Mortars and a Stomping Ground. Naturally I took the Stormbreath. Eventually a Jace forces him to overextend into a Verdict, and the next turn I landed an Elspeth which went unanswered and won the game in one swing.
Game 2 he opens with Mutavault into turn 2 Mystic. I turn 2 Thoughtseize to see Abrupt Decay, Stormbreath Dragon, 2 Mistcutter Hydras, a Courser of Kruphix and no 3rd land. I get a bit greedy and take the Courser since I have a Doom Blade and an Ultimate Price at this point. He stumbles on mana for a turn because of this and it gives me time to hit land drops and keep my lige total somewhat high. I eventually end up getting hit down to 3, but a Rev keeps me in it quite nicely, and eventually he gets blown out by one of two Fated Retributions in my hand and he conceded without me even having to find a win condition.
Round 4 vs Esper Control
This guy's deck was massively pimped out. I'm talking foil Unhinged basics, all foil lands, foil Elspeths and Ashioks. This deck was shiny as f***.
Game 1 goes quickly in my favour. We both kept rather interactive hands. At least in terms of interacting with creatures. This proved unfavourable for both of us, but he soon landed an Ashiok. I D-Sphere the Ashiok and he plays Renounce the Guilds, which I will point out makes no sense when Ashiok was one of his only ways to win, and he wasn't playing D-Spheres because of it, which really seems poor. Eventually I land an Obzedat after a small counter war forced him to tap out, which I started to have to chance of resolving Obzedat. Eventually my Thoughtseize sees a hand of Rev, 2 Dissolve and 2 Verdict. I have an AEtherling and Obzedat in play at this point, so I take the Rev and ride the 2 creatures to a rather drawn out victory.
Game 2 goes less smoothly, with some very, very, very awkward playing around counters and his currently active Elspeth. He gets very close to ultimating her while my Jace was holding the tokens back when I draw my 3rd D-Sphere to deal with her. Eventually Jace goes ultimate finding another of his Elspeths and my own Jace to keep his Elspeth tokens back even longer. Eventually Elspeth goes ultimate for game.
Round 5 vs UW Elixir feat. AEtherling
Game 1 I keep a rather sketchy 2 land hand with a lot of creature interaction. I normally assume my female opponents are on control since I've literally never seen otherwise, but decide not to this time since it's just a coincidence in reality. Naturally she's on control and Syncopates my turn 3 Divination which I apparently really needed to resolve since I didn't have land for another 2 turns. Eventually I almost caught up, but in having to deal with an Elspeth and a resolved AEtherling I just didn't have the resources to win.
Game 2 was very, very back-and-forth, with a lot of counter magic and Thoughtseize being awesome as f***. Eventually got down to a grind with Obzedat which eventually ended in me winning by the skin of my teeth. Turns out Obzedat races AEtherling pretty decently. This game actually involved a really weird Pithing Needle fight where my opponent eventually lost because she Sphere'd my Needle, which I find hilarious.
Game 3 was... weird? She started off Syncopating my first Memory Adept, Dissolving my second, Dissolving a Rev then Dissolving Obzedat. Finally an AEtherling stuck, but she got to fire off a Rev since I'd seen zero counter magic at this point. Eventually it comes down to AEtherling vs Elspeth, since I finally found my countermagic to keep her AEtherling away, and eventually a super value Fated Retribution clears up her side of the board. Time is called and she's at 23, I'm at 5. My life total is entirely inconsequential here, but I figured I'd mention it to emphasise how important the Retribution was. Fortunately, I'm turn number 1, and 3 AEtherling swings is just enough damage to kill. I Needled naming Elixir, to prevent anything stupid happening, and ended the game with Gainsay and 3 Dissolves to keep her from doing anything to bring the game to a draw.
Round 6 vs GR Monsters
Game 1 I mulligan to 5, and keep a super super sketchy 1 lander, but the cards interact well with his. The hand itself was Plains, Doom Blade, Last Breath, Supreme Verdict, Jace. That's a keepable 5 imo, since no 4 can beat monsters. My first 5 turns went like this:
Plains, go.
No land, go.
Plains, go.
Plains, go.
Temple of Silence, go.
Yeah, onto game 2.
Game 2 I end up getting stuck on five lands doing everything I can to try to find a 6th and 7th land for the Retribution in my hand. After digging 6 cards with Jace and finding no lands my next 3 draw steps are Fated Retribution, AEtherling, Sphinx's Revelation. Damn.
So at this point I'm 4-2, with no way to top 8, since to top 8 one had to go 6-1. I think maybe one player got in on 5-1-1, but I don't think so.
Round 7 vs Orzhov
Game 1 he Thoughtseizes my hand of D-Sphere, Jace, Verdict and 4 lands on turn 1, taking Sphere. Turn 2 he plays Pack Rat. Turn 3 he plays a drawn Thoughtseize, taking Verdict and casting another Rat. Turn 4 he plays another drawn Thoughtseize taking a drawn Verdict from me. Eventually I cast Jace and tick him up. He forgets about Jace's trigger and attacks me for 2 and Jace for 3. I untap and draw. I currently have 4 lands as my only cards in hand. (Either that or 3 lands, idr if I had 3 or 4 cards in hand is all.) I minus Jace and hit 3 more lands. Unlikely occurrences like that suck.
Game 2 was just stupid. I hadn't seen him even play a B/W land in game 1, so I had no idea that he was Orzhov. I just figured he was mono black, and since the siding is very different for each that really screwed me over. e.g. Ultimate Price is utter bollocks vs B/W and naturally I drew both of those. Eventually he landed Elspeth and killed me with her since I got mana screwed, which left Obzedat stranded in my hand through 4 different discard spells.
So ended 4-3, because the deck had a mana meltdown in the last 2 rounds. Overall I still had a nice day, and I feel the deck is really, really well positioned.
Of note, Divination was bollocks in this deck. Too many tapped lands to play it, for sure, and I'd rather they just be other cards a lot of the time. Probably a 27th land and another Elspeth.
Obzedat was just amazing all day. A lot of the decks I played against just couldn't deal with him and the lifegain every turn was very very appreciated. Not to mention it makes AEtherling races significantly easier.
AEtherling is an amazing win condition but is ludicrously harder to win with than it should be.
Doom Blade and Last Breath are an amazing removal package. Azorius Charm is really bad in Esper. It's a card I sided out in every matchup bar mono blue and it's not even that good there. it's good in UW Elixir, where I'm used to using it, because that decks just wants broad answers. Esper just wants it to be real removal, since it does nothing anyway.
I got 3 prize packs, pulling a Gild, a Chromanticore and some other garbage.
I managed to trade my Brimaz and a foil Underworld Cerberus for a Crucible of Worlds, an Engineered Explosives, a Relic of Progenitus and a playset of Deceiver Exarch, which was pretty sweet.
And that's my day.
Pros:
-Felt great trying out a new flavour of control and Esper felt really powerful
-Win conditions that meant losing game 1 didn't mean I couldn't win the match in time
-Almost all my opponents were awesome to talk to before, during and after the games
-Getting to play Thoughtseize
-114 person GPT. Not sure if a new record worldwide, but definitely the most in the UK, smashing the old record set at the same place of 99 players.
Cons:
-Azorius Charm is so so so bad here
-Having to play a card as difficult as Thoughtseize
-Local shop didn't have chicken salad sandwiches so I had to settle for tuna
-Mana meltdown at the end of the day
-Having 114 players makes getting top 8 super difficult.
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