I still have crabs!
14 Jan 2010 | Graham Croucher
I still have crabs!
a Standard Tournament Report for FNM at Good Games Sydney
08/01/2010
By Graham Croucher
Apologies for the length of time between my last article and this, holiday season got in the way of FNMs. My only tournament in the holidays was the Sydney 500, where I played UW Iona control and went 0-2 drop. In hindsight I really should have named Red with Iona against Grixis.
Anyway, on to tonight’s FNM: I had been reading articles from Kyle Sanchez about his “Ruel gets Crabs” deck, and thought I’d give it a shot. Here’s the decklist:
Maindeck:
4 Hedron Crab
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Wall of Reverence
4 Ranger of Eos
3 Trapmaker’s Snare
4 Archive Trap
4 Gift of Gargantuan
3 Path to Exile
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
4 Forest
3 Plains
Sideboard:
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Negate
4 Rhox War Monk
1 Path to Exile
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Trapmaker’s Snare
Round 1) vs. James (GR Eldrazi ElvesGame 1: I win the dice roll, mulligan to 5 and keep 4 land Hedron Crab. He mulligans to 6 and keeps. He plays a turn 2 Nissa’s Chosen, turn 3 Nissa’s Chosen + bash, while I play a turn 2 Hedron Crab and start the milling. His turn 5 play is a Garruk Wildspeaker, untap some lands and set up an overrun turn, while bashing me to 8.
I play an Archive Trap at end of his turn, untap into Wall of Reverence, gaining 1 and passing.
He plays an Eldrazi Monument, cracks his Garruk Wildspeaker and swings in for 12. I scoop when I see more land on top. I know he’s playing R/G because I milled a lot of Bloodbraid Elves, Mountains and Lightning Bolts.
Sideboard: I take out the mill cards, put in everything except Ravenous Trap and Trapmaker’s Snare.
Game 2: I keep a good hand and am on the play.
Turn 1 Noble Heirarch vs Turn 1 Llanowar elf
Turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary vs Turn 2 Elvish Archdruid
Turn 3 Bash for 5, Rhox War Monk vs Turn 3 Garruk Wildspeaker, untap 2, Nissa Revane, gain 4 life (the mind boggles..)
Turn 4 Bash the Garruk with the Knight of the Reliquary, Bash the Nissa with the Rhox War Monk, play a Ranger of Eos for 2 Noble Heirarchs. He plays an Eldrazi Monument and passes.
I play a wall of Reverence, bash into some lightning bolts and from there the game stalls out while I gain many life and wait for his creatures to run out. Eventually he scoops and we’re on to game 3.
Game 3: He’s on the play, mulligans, so I mulligan my 1 lander (with no green source for the 2 Birds). He keeps a 6 which he says is “something I shouldn’t keep”, so I’m happy to throw away my 4 land, Noble Heirarch, Birds of Paradise. I mulligan into 5 spells, mulligan again into 3 land and a Ranger of Eos, KEEP!
His turn 1 is Forest Llanowar Elves. I play a fetch and pass.
His turn 2 is attack for 1… pass. I’m happy with this! Crack the fetch for Forest, hoping to make my way into gas. I draw a Baneslayer (yay…) and play another fetch.
His turn 3 is, you guessed it, attack for 1…pass. Very happy! Crack the fetch for Island and untap to draw Rhox War Monk! Oh Yeah!, plains, Monk, Grin, Pass!
He draws, looks despondently at his hand and ships it back. I draw another monk, Attack with the first and slam the second.
He draws, discards and passes. I attack with 2 monks and draw a 4 mana spell, still only 3 land here.
He draws, discards and passes. I draw another 4 mana spell, attack and pass.
He draws, plays a Rootbound Crag, complains that he needs 4 mana and passes, I draw another Baneslayer, attack with 2 monks, get 1 of them blocked + bolted, and pass.
At this point he’s on 2, and facing down a War monk with 2 land. He scoops after playing the third land he finally drew, showing me a hand full of planeswalkers and bloodbraid elves, I reply by showing him a hand full of baneslayers and walls of reverence :D
Win 2-1, Total score 1-0.
On to Round 2, ) I’m playing Ivan Morel with his 4 colour cruel control monstrosity.
In the first game, he’s on the play and my crabs start the milling. My first Hedron Crab eats a Lightning Bolt. He plays 3 Ajani Vengeants this game, the first killing a Ranger of Eos (which fetched 2 Hedron Crabs) and a Hedron Crab, the second killing a Noble Heirarch then getting beat down with a Hedron Crab when I topdecked another Noble Heirarch. The third then kills the Hedron Crab to then get killed by the Noble Heirarch. He’s now on 32 and has not many cards left in his library. He plays a Cruel Ultimatum to flatten me and return a Sphinx of Lost Truths, which isn’t much help when he has 3 cards in his library. In his next turn he esper charms himself to lose gracefully.
Sideboard: + 4 Negate + 1 trapmaker’s snare + 1 Baneslayer Angel – 3 Wall of Reverence – 1 Ranger of Eos, -1 Gift of the Gargantuan -1 Path to Exile
Game 2: He’s on the play again and paths my first (and only) gas play of Knight of the Reliquary. His Ajani ties down a land while my topdecked crab gets in there for 6 cards before it dies. Around turn 6 we have plays, where he attempts to Esper Charm draw and I trap him in response. End of my Turn 7, with Negate, Baneslayer Angel, Path to Exile and Trapmaker’s Snare in hand (and 7 mana up) he plays an Esper Charm for me to Discard. I respond with Trapmaker’s Snare, then Archive Trap, which gets a Double Negative.
He untaps into Cruel Ultimatum, killing my board and hand, returning a Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which then proceeds to kill me while I draw 3 land and a Path to Exile.
Game 3: My turn 2 knight gets Path to Exile’d, but my next turn Hedron Crab gets in there for a few turns worth of land drops before he finds another Path to Exile. My Noble Heirarch starts bashing (not kidding it took him to 14!) while he’s quite manascrewed. I play a few Archive Traps and eventually he has 3 cards in his library, with 5 mana up. He makes 3 Soldier Tokens off a Martial Coup, and declares that he can win this race!
I untap and play a Baneslayer Angel (which belongs to him). He fails to draw a 6th land in the 2nd last card, and, realizing that he cannot now win the race, plays a Day of Judgement, telling me that “YOU WILL NOT BEAT ME WITH MY OWN BANESLAYER ANGELS!”. He loses the game, but keeps his pride intact.
Win 2-1, Total score 2-0
Round 3 I get paired down against Monty and his Monowhite Control deck.
Game 1: I win the roll, he mulligans once. I get the stone cold nuts mill draw, with turn 1 Birds, turn 2 crab + fetch, turn 3 fetch + Ranger for 2 crabs necessitating a Day of Judgement from him.
After the Day of Judgement, I play out 3 crabs and mill him with lands.
Sideboard: +1 Baneslayer +1 Wall of Denial +1 Path to Exile –random 4-ofs.
Game 2 I play a turn 4 Archive Trap on him, then his turn 5 he searches with a Knight of the White Orchid, which then gets him double Trapped thanks to a Trapmaker’s Snare. He’s seen me with a Baneslayer in hand from a Gift of the Gargantuan, so he’s keeping me off white with removal for my Birds and Heirarchs. I lose the game to Emeria Angel + Knight of the White Orchid beatdown on the turn he has 6 cards in library and my hand is: 2x Hedron Crab, Baneslayer Angel and Knight of the Reliquary (Hurrah for no white and no land!)
Game 3: my turn 3 ranger fetches 2 crabs after the turn 2 crab ate a Path to Exile. His turn 3 Knight of the white Orchid begets 2 Archive Traps. I am only able to play 1 crab due to blue mana restriction, and that + Ranger gets Day of Judgement. Playing my 3rd Crab and a Gift of the Gargantuan I get a 4th Hedron Crab + Fetch and mill him for lethal a turn later.
Win 2-1, Total score 3-0
Round 4 ) I get paired down against Geraldo(?) with Monowhite Aggro.
Game 1 he’s on the play and plays turn 2 Knight of the White Orchid, turn 3 Knight of the white Orchid (still 2 lands in play), turn 4 Knight of the White Orchid (finally fetching a land) and then playing his 4th plains. One of the Knights died to a poor attack into a Knight of the Reliquary (which he didn’t realize was larger than the printed size), while my turns were taken up with milling courtesy of 2 hedron crabs and the aforementioned Knight of the Reliquary.
Sideboard: +1 Wall of Reverence, +1 Baneslayer Angel, -1 Gift of the Gargantuan, -1 Ranger of Eos (maybe? Cannot remember exactly)
Game 2 he plays a turn 2 Kazandu Blademaster, and I start milling with a crab. His next play is on turn 5 with Conqueror’s Pledge, Unfortunately my turn 4 play was a Ranger of Eos fetching 2 more Hedron Crabs with a Knight of the Reliquary holding off the Blademaster. I play out the crabs and fetch to basic for 18, then activate Knight of the Reliquary for a fetch into another basic for another 18. He scoops and I’m 4-0 at FNM finally!
Win 2-0, Total score 4-0
Hurrah! My second ever 4-0 at FNM. And like my first, I have to share the prize with another 4-0, in this case Enrick (with monowhite aggro!)
My deck choice was not a meta call, it was merely born from a desire to play something new and funky. This deck certainly filled both criteria, with the majority of onlookers surprised by the deck and my opponents always just that little bit off balance. I tested it briefly against Jund before the tournament and found that it is a dog game 1, but gets much better with a 13 card sideboard (same sideboard as Round 1 above).
I would possibly play this deck again (if Ivan ever lends me his Baneslayers again after that!). The only downside to the deck was the way that opponents react to being milled out, especially when they have the win on the board. Sometimes you feel like a bit of a dog beating someone that way, and if numerous opponents react badly to losing it can temper your elation somewhat.
Still! If it wins, then it wins. And for some of us, that’s why we play magic.
For discussion.