5th place at Modern PPTQ with TitanShift
Hello everyone, tonight I am writing up my tourney report for you. So, for those interested, it was hosted at Madness Games and Comics in Plano, TX on 7/22/17. Great turnout of 100 players, the meta out here is primarily Burn, TitanShift, Shadow variants, and Living End, so I planned my sideboard accordingly with the help of my teammates and the great staff at Madness. I ended the day at 6-2, coming in 5th,after losing in the Quarterfinals. Very stressful day, I can feel it in my muscles and neck lol but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. A little preface, I was on the draw every single game except for Top 8. So without further ado, let's begin! (Excuse my poor sentence structure, and me skipping boring parts by jumping straight to the end game. I also typed out the simplified names of the cards, and for those of you wondering why Wood Elves came out in almost every matchup, the second copy is my flex slot for the mainboard so it’s super easy to cut down to just one copy of the card.)
Round 1: BW Eldrazi Taxes 2-0
Game 1: My opponent starts off with Concealed Courtyard, and passes. I draw, fetch Stomping Ground, suspend Search. He proceeds by playing taxing creatures, me making land drops and playing ramp, but in the end Scapeshift for the win.
Game 2: He plays Eldrazi Temples, but doesn’t cast anything other than Wasteland Strangler the game, and I just get there with Volcanoes again.
+1 Rec Sage, +1 EE, +1 Anger of the Gods
-1 Explore, -1 Scapeshift, -1 Wood Elves
Round 2: Affinity 2-1
Game 1: He gets the nuts and kills me by T4 with 2 Steel Overseers, Vault Skirge, and Signal Pest. GG.
Game 2: He loads up his board and has me at 4 on T4, I top deck Scapeshift for game with him at 18.
Game 3: This is the fun game. So he starts off by playing Inkmoth, Ornithopter, Memnite, Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, and Cranial Plating. I kept a REAL SKETCH hand of 7 consisting of 2 Search for Tomorrow, 1 Wood Elves, 1 Scapeshift, 2 Sakura Tribe Elder, and 1 Stomping Ground, and INSTANTLY regret keeping the hand. I draw Explore, shock Stomping, suspend Search, pass. He draws and plays Darksteel Citadel, activates Inkmoth, equips Plating, swings for 7 infect. I literally needed a miracle, and I drew a Nature's Claim. I kept my cool, and passed. He draws, does the same thing, swings in and I Nature’s Claim the Inkmoth. He plays an artifact, and passes. Suspend comes off, I get a Mountain, and draw Ancient Grudge. I grudge the Plating, pass, and from there I AotG once, then Scapeshift for game after Bolting him. Really scary moment haha.
+1 Rec Sage, +1 Anger of the Gods, +1 Ancient Grudge, +2 Nature's Claim
-2 Khalni Heart, -1 Wood Elves, -2 Explore
Round 3: Eldrazi Tron 2-1
Game 1: He starts off by playing Tower into map. And for those of you who aren’t too familiar with the matchup, let me just say this: Make land drops, Scapeshift, Volcanoes explode. GG.
Game 2: He manages to get Tron active, and lands an early Wurmcoil Engine on T3 with me missing some ramp spells, and can’t seem to find a Valakut.
Game 3: I suspend a search, he plays another map, and then it just comes down to me killing with Primeval Titan triggers. Not much too this matchup.
+2 Tireless Tracker, +1 Rec Sage
-1 Explore, -1 Wood Elves, -1 Anger of the Gods
Round 4: Esper Shadow 1-2
Game 1: At first I thought he was on some sort of Esper control build, when he Seized my Thoughts and took our KHE. Come my turn, land, Search, pass. He double Street Wraithed at the end of my turn, and I knew exactly what was about to happen. He starts his turn by playing Delta, and then following it up with another Thoughtseize, taking my Elder, and sticks a Death’s Shadow as a 3/3. Things got real hard after that, and I died shortly after when I couldn’t make ramp spells work.
Game 2: I get a Search going on T1, followed by another land drop into Sakura. He doesn’t seem to have any more discard past the first turn, and I quickly leveled him with Scapeshift.
Game 3: I have a strong start to my turns that consist of ramp into ramp. He has lots of discard this game, and when I land Primeval Titan, I thought that I would be in the clear as he has only 2 cards in hand. He Paths the Titan, I get a mountain, hit him for 3, and pass to him. He draws and plays Gurmag, and passes. I draw Primal Command, and attempt to make him gain 7 and put a Titan into my hand, but it’s met by a Stubborn Denial. He plays DS, shocks a land, and passes. I draw a Pact for turn, get Colossus from the deck and put it into play, and at my end step, he Paths it again, and then I died to a DS and Gurmag beats.
+1 Engineered Explosives, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Obstinate Baloth, +1 Chameleon Colossus, +1 Primal Command
-2 Khalni Heart Expedition, -1 Scapeshift, -1 Explore, -2 Farseek, -1 Wood Elves, -1 Primeval Titan
Round 5: Living End 2-0
Game 1: He starts off by going double Street Wraith, into shock land, pass turn. I play a Search, and pass, he cycles at my end step. My turns follow as such: Sakura, Wood Elves, land Scapeshift.
Game 2: Ramp, ramp, and hella ramp when he casts Demonic Dread on my Sakura, I sac in response, and when he casts Living End, I get back the one Elder I just sacked, and the one from a turn earlier. He passes, I sac both at end step, and shoot him down for 36 on my turn. This is a matchup we should not lose.
+2 Relic of Progenitus
-2 Anger of the Gods
Round 6: Grixis Shadow 2-1
Game 1: He starts off with a Thoughtseize and proceeds to rip my hand apart from that turn forward, ultimately leaving me with nothing on T4, with only 3 lands. He kills me with DS.
Game 2: I start with a Search, and pass. He plays Wraith, into shockland, into Thoughtseize, and takes my Khalni I had in hand. I draw a Khalni for turn, and slam it down, and pass. He gives me a look like “Are you f*****g kidding me?” He draws and IoK’s me, and takes an Explore, plays a fetch and passes. Search comes off, land comes in, and triggers Khalni, I draw, play a fetch, trigger, cast Wood Elves, trigger again, and I don’t pop it yet. I pop at his end step, and cast Titan on my turn, and get the beats going. Games over in 2 turns.
Game 3: He leads off with an IoK and repeats the game plan from Game 1, except that this time I’m able to draw into my ramp, and come T5, I’m at 2, he’s at 6, I have no cards in hand, with 7 lands down, draw my card for turn, and it’s a Scapeshift. I ask what mana he has open, and he mutters something and I look and he’s tapped out. Cast Scapeshift, he extends the hand.
+1 Engineered Explosives, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Obstinate Baloth, +1 Chameleon Colossus, +1 Primal Command
-2 Khalni Heart Expedition, -1 Scapeshift, -1 Explore, -2 Farseek, -1 Wood Elves, -1 Primeval Titan
(Same as the previous Shadow matchup)
Round 7: Elves 2-1
He initially asked for a draw because that’s all he needed to get into Top 8, because he was 6th. I was 7th going into the last round, so I had to play. I declined his offer, and at the end of Game 1, he asked again, and I politely declined. So we played out the remainder of the round.
Game 1: His starting turns are pretty slow and his creatures are met by my bolts, and AotG. Mountains do him in eventually.
Game 2: He has a normal Elves start, and is able to hit me for lethal on T4 when I’m at 15.
Game 3: I start off with an untapped red source with a bolt in hand, because my turns from then till T3 were super slow, but I had a bolt, and an AotG in hand, with lands, so I would be ok. He plays a dork, and passes then I bolt it. I untap, draw Elder and pass. He draws and plays a Devoted Druid. I slam AotG because I know what kind of sick shit that card can do. He plays another dork, and a Visionary, and passes. The game gets a little stale for a couple turns, and then I find myself at 7, and he’s at 19. I need another one of them great miracles, and with 8 lands in play, I draw a Scapeshift, I cast the Scapeshift, and in response, he Chords for X=2, and I nearly shit myself and I really didn’t want to lose this way, because I have no idea what he could be getting. He grabs a Spellskite, let’s me proceed and when the Valakuts and Mountains come into play, he asks where the triggers will go. I say all to him, and so he redirects 9 of them to Skite, and extends the hand. Scariest moment of the day.
+1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Reclamation Sage, +1 Anger of the Gods
-2 Khalni Heart Expedition, -1 Wood Elves
Quarters: UWr Control 0-2
Game 1: Counters, counters, and more counters followed by me drawing all lands. Ironic.
Game 2: Counters, counters, counters, and an early Blood Moon kill me dead.
RIP.
+1 Reclamation Sage, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tireless Tracker
-2 Farseek, -1 Scapeshift, -1 Wood Elves, -1 Explore
Overall, I had a great experience with the deck, and this makes my second Top 8 out of three events in the last month with TitanShift. I look forward to playing this hot pile in future events and hope to do well. Thanks for taking the time to read this! List is below. Sorry for the write up a few days later. Had to work and boring adult stuff. As far as I can remember, this is what happened. So if you’re reading this, and I played you, please feel free to message me and we can fix the write up!
List:
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Cinder glade
2 Stomping Ground
7 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Wooded foothills
3 Windswept Heath
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Scapeshift
3 Explore
2 Farseek
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Summoners Pact
2 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
2 Wood elves
SIDEBOARD
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Rec Sage
1 Primal Command
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Natures Claim
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Obstinate Baloth
