Tournament Report: Spreading Seas Took Me to the Top

There would always be a big question about playing this card in the main board. But for me this card has a lot of potential in todays metagame. Since there are lots of multicoloured deck as of now, and to think of JUND is the deck to beat. I’ve made some weird decks in the past but none of them made it in the Finals. Neither top 8 or top 4. The competition here in Iloilo is really tough, knowing that there are lots of good players here.

What made me think to build this deck is because of the growing numbers of jund decks not only in the Philippines but all over the world. Who would expect that this deck would find its way up to beat a top calibre deck like jund.

I didn’t made it to the number 1 seat but what makes me happy is that this deck has a record of 3-0 vs Jund match up I had in the early 4 rounder elimination match ups.

The Deck List

Spreading Seas v.1 (WUB Seas)
by: Carl Jason Lira
2nd Place last October 24,2009

Planeswalkers
Jace Beleren 3 - Draw engine, extra life for me coz players tend to attack jace.
Elspeth, Knight–Errant 2 - Tokken serves as a blocker, players would spend spot removals to kill this.

Instants
Path to Exile 2 - Removal for creatures like Sprouting Thrinax or bloodghast.
Negate 2 - Counter spell just as I needed to protect my board and my hand.

Sorcery
Day of Judgement 4 - Decent Sweeper since Warth of God is no where to be found.
Identity Crisis 2 - Since players cant cast spell coz of their lands messed up.” d’BOMB!”

Enchantments
Journey to Nowhere 2 - For creatures like Sprouting Thrinax.
Oblivion Ring 3 - Answer for Planeswalker and Enchantments of the Enemy.
Spreading Seas 4 - Card advantage coz messing up players land plus additional draw.
Convincing Mirage 4 - this goes like the Spreading Seas messing up players lands.

Creatures
Sphinx of the Lost Truth 2 - I Love the draw ability. Refreshes my hand in late games
Sphinx of Jwar Isle 2 - this would be a Big problem for the opponent if it goes turn 6.
World Queller 3 - This would eat players alive if they are messed up with their lands.

Lands
Arcane Sanctum – 2
Drowned Catacomb – 3
Glacial Fortress – 4
Island – 5
Plains – 5
Swamp – 1
Gargoyle Castle – 1

Artifacts
Fieldmist Borderpost 4 - for additional mana fixing.

Sideboard
Tidehollow Sculler 4 - For control Decks
Negate 2 - also for control decks
Journey to Nowhere 2 - for decks like vampires
Path to Exile 2 - additional kill for fast and aggressive decks
Esper Charm 4 - Not yet sure about this. Serves as a drawer, disenchant and discarder
Jace Beleren 1 - to fill up the slot

The Tournament Report

Saturday’s tournament was 4 rounds on the preliminary and the top 4 players will advance to battle it out to the finals.

Round 1 vs Rei Coo (Jund) WIN

This is the match that I thought Rei has the advantage over me; luckily I had all the disruption in my hand. This turned out good for me since Rei mulled to 6 in Gm1 and I had made his lands into islands, he misses some couple of land drops and I casted my Queller and that was it. All of my game here had a starting hand of Spreading Seas. Luckily I had surpassed the Jund match up in Round1.

Round2 vs Marco “Mao” Gonzales (Jund) WIN

This one is not an easy opponent. A tough player to beat and I respect his top decking skills! This guy is for real. hehehe. Mao beat me up Badly in game one. But I did manage take the win in game 2 and 3 by disrupting his lands and casting Sphinx of Jwar of isle.

Round3 vs Rylan “Jheg Anderson” Minerva (Naya Agro) LOSS

Good friend of mine who is also in my Card pool here in Iloilo. But when it comes into tournaments, no more mister nice guy. This guy kicked my ass and sweeps me 2 games to none. What makes me crazy is that he had the Dauntless Escort with a bunch of creatures in the battlefield. My Day of Judgement is a mess when Dauntless Escort is in the battlefield.

Round4 vs Peter Franz Yap (Cruel Sphinxes) WIN

Franz was the top favourite of last Saturday’s tournament because of his deck ideas and deck modifications of his own versions. Since his Deck was anti for vampires and Jund, he had tons of dead cards for our match up in game one. I had limited creatures in my deck. I’ve sabotaged his land just to keep me safe from his CRUEL ULTIMATUM. I casted 2 Identity Crisis, he disrupted my 1st attempt, but the next turn luckily he ran out of Counter Spell in his hand that made my way to wrap up game 1 with a next turn Sphinx Jwar of Isle. Gm2 I’ve put up TideHollow Sculler early in the game and Elspeth on the battlefield. I made my deck aggro since I knew he would board out his Creature kills and put out more counter spells. He managed to cast Cruel Ultimatum but I manage to counter it with my Negate. That wraps our match up.

I’ve manage to make it up to the top four with the 3-1 record. The decks were two Jund, one Naya and mine as the only Blue mage to get on top.

The Top 4

Rylan “Jheg Anderson” Minerva (Naya) vs Marco “Mao” Gonzales (Jund)

Mao Had his “A” Game here and had beaten jheg 2-1 making his way up in the finals.

Carl Jason Lira (WUB Seas) vs Gian Carlo “Mojo” Occeña (Jund)

I’ve manage to do what I do best in the early round. Disrupting my opponent’s lands and messing up his hand by playing Identity Crisis and TideHollow Sculler. I was so lucky to cast early Identity Crisis to Gian. The game turned out good for me and that was my Golden ticket to the top 2 seat in the finals.

The Finals

Carl Jason Lira (WUB seas) vs Marco “Mao” Gonzales (Jund)

Oh man! MAO again… for sure MAO had one thing in mind and that is to Beat me down to death since we’ve meet in the Early Rounds and I had won the game from him.

Game 1

Not much as good as I played in game one. Mao put early pressure on me putting in the Leech. My starting hand was 3 lands, 1 borderpost, 1 identity crisis and 1 spreading seas, 1 Convincing Mirage.
I did not stop the early push of Mao on game one. I’ve no answers to that and that made me pay.

Game 2

This is quite exciting game coz we had made some good hand here. I manage to stop the early push of Mao. We had no more hands in the long run but Mao had creatures in the battlefield but I manage to live another turn by drawing “DOJ” Day of Judgement. The next turn I drew Elspeth and played it. Giving me hopes to hold his creatures. But guess what, Mao manage to Top Deck Maesltrom Pulse and that my friend is the end of Elspeth. He Drew couple of creature Runners and it’s time to “Pi-Od – Pi-oD tyan Mode” Mao manage to avenge all the Jund I had beaten in earlier. But that was a good experience for me already. I did not expect my deck to reach as far as this.

Special Thanks to Mao’s ”Identity Crisis” and Gian’s ”Convincing Mirage” for selling some cards. My deck components was completed because of them. Also to Rei and Tonx2 for a couple playtests before the tournament and some advice before the tournament. Maybe I’ll fix this deck and improve it. I’m thinking of adding cards, thinking of some Marsh Flats and Into the Roil. Until next post.