so i went to two headed giant states on saturday, i was playing with AJ Fields, one of the few decent players ive met since moving to SC. i did little practice with the format, just some magic workstation sealeds and kinda looked just to get a feel for the number of playable cards you could expect to get. as for the 2HG format, last week we did 2HG type 2 which i played heartbeat in, so i didnt really learn anything.
anyway we leave early saturday get some breakfast and go to columbia. register etc. build decks. key cards from our decks:
AJ's deck had mostly fat green stuff (siege wurm, guardian of vhitu ghazi) and combat tricks (wildsize, seeds of strength). had 2 black tapper guys, and 2 restless bones. all in all it was kinda mediocre, had Angel of Despair and Birds of Paradise though!
My deck was a crazy aura deck. here are the cards:
Fists of Ironwood
Galvanic Arc
Flight of Fancy
Mark of Eviction
Stasis Cell
Auratouched Mage
Drake Familiar
2 Ogre Savant
and the bomb of all bombs, Cloudstone Curio.
Round 1
we get kinda unlucky and have to play against one of the 4 best teams there, but we are also in that group. we get some early tempo and get them down to about 15 before they stabilize, but i get skyrider trainee enchated with blue magemark and get them down to 3 before they answer and then AJ's ledgewalker does the last point on the last extra turn.
1-0
Round 2
another good team, but i get the curio and arc and drake and fists and ogre savant, so like every turn i kill a guy, bounce a guy, bounce their faiths fetters so we can attack, and we get 2 1/1s. few turns later they had nothing left.
2-0
round 3
the other good team from charleston, we draw with them to get some lunch! i win the die roll and pick mexican food, but the service was total shit, no like poor tippng occurs.
2-0-1
round 4
some really bad team that has 3x runeboggle. well we play around it and crush them, even though they had smash for my cuiro.
3-0-1
round 5
paired up against the team with the "best" "player" in SC, but since we already drew once we have to play here. they get some really good draws, and we lose. they gained somelthing like 20 lilfe this game from fetters, douse in gloom, mourning thrull, and ribbons of night.
3-1-1
round 6
have to play this round to make top 4, these guys apparently have good decks, we get a good start however as i get mark of eviction and galvanic arc on partners ledgewalker, but they have orzhov pontiff to stop it! soon we are in a bad position facing down a ghost council, an evangel, and a skysweaper that looks like its going to kill all of our evasion. knowing we dont have long, we start swinging with most everyone, and droning buerocrats makes it so they cant block effectivly and they get too low on life to counter attack, and we somehow pull it out.
4-1-1
top 4! the 4 best teams there made top 4, showing that its a skill testing format, and i like it for that. only problem is the games take way too long. anyway our top 4 decks were pretty nuts, aj has 2 pillory and mortify and moldervine cloak. i have hammerfist giant, double leap of flame, and living inferno.
top 4:
we lose the die roll and have to play first for the first time all day, but we get a decent curve with aj getting 1 drop 2 drop and me with 2 drop 3 drop. they have some tricks but i get hammerfist giant on turn 6. turn 7 i leap of flame our team and activate giant, they have to wildsize and withdstand to save their guys, but we swing in for 6 + 8 from giant. next turn i draw anohter leap, but aj draws chant of vhitu ghazi, so we just swing iwth everyone, combat damage on, use giant, in response chant, gain 71 life. at that point they are at 18 or so, we pillory a guy, my giant does 8 and regens with gaze from aj and hten finishes them off one turn later.
after this we watch the other top 4 match where our good friends are facing the evil empire which has the "best" "cheater" in the state. even though runyon played pretty bad at times, he makes the plays when he needs to, and they pull out a leap of flame victory for just enough when they are at 1. how lucky.
so finals we get to play runyon and chi, the guys we drew with round 3. their decks are apparently garbage, but they get some early beats... and then overwhelm, but we chump enough and stabilize at 6 while aj's vinelasher kudzu with moldervine cloak and flight of fancy get through for the win.
so we win and aj finally gets a state championship titile after coming so close so many times before.
