Legendary Fishliveroil

Hey all – i hope you started well into autumn

Last week the legendary Fishliveroilcup took place in Genova, Italy. I will tell you more about that exciting weekend later in this post. But first of all, some Magic advertisement 🙂

Next year in January, we will start with the fantastic communitour – a year packed with excellent tournaments, delicious beer tasting and meeting amazing persons lies ahead. The Communitour will start in Switzerland, where there will be the Mountain of Madness! Enjoy a great time on top of the Rigi, queen of the Mountains in central Switzerland. We booked a Lodge (space up to 80 Persons) just for us. Delicious Swiss meals, homecrafted beer (gniamgniam 😉 ) and exciting company. And we also play Magic of course. Friday afternoon/evening is “free for all” – there will be an Oldschool Cube, an Ice Age Cube and Two Headed Singleton. Or just play whatever you like – maybe some Ante40K?

Don’t miss this great opportunity. As the Rigi is also a Skiing-location, you can even stay longer and take some days off in a beautiful mountain panorama.

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So everybody was really excited about this years Fishliveroil Cup (as every year). We decided to go by train with the Urborg Gang, Team Chaos Horb and bibedibabedibubedi Ratavuloira Drinking Team. We left at friday morning to reach Genova for the great Lanterna tournament.

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During the whole travel we played Magic, discussed Sideboards, talked about “the Naked Gun” 1 to 33 1/3 and had a lot of fun and a good time. We even arrived on time in Genova – this is quite impressing for Italian trains haha 😉

We decided to find some restaurant to eat something and to prepare ourself for the biggest EC-tournament outside of the USA. We arrived at the Lanterna and felt instantly at the right place. So many great people, laughter and fun. Everybody welcomed the other and it was like a big familiy reunion 🙂 great stuff!

After some thinking and going back and forth, i decided to enroll with this pile of cards (yeah i putted it together quite in a hurry finally, so i missed out to include a regrowth haha):

Retrospectively i would maybe change one Fellwar for one regrowth. The Psychic Purges where incredible – i blow away 4 Lions, 4 Orders and 3 Pixies during the tournament and dealt 35 Damage out of Discard effects 🙂 I think this card deserves more attention in this format (it also triggers with Balance and Wheel of Fortune obviously 😉 )

It was a five-Round tournament followed by Top 16 (which will be played back in Columbus Hotel) I try to rememeber as much as possible of the games as i did not take any notes of them… (Sorry for not knowing the Names of my opponents).

The tournament started on time (haha, no, it didn’t) and we found our seats within the Lanterna. The first match was against an UR Burn variant. We played 3 games, first one went to me, second to him and in third, it was ultra grindy… I was sitting on 9 life with one Erhnam and one Serendib + Silvan Library in play. He sits on 13 life. I move to upkeep and go to 8 due to Serendib. He double Psi-Blasts me in response. I play offering into my Sol Ring to go to one. Draw cards, attack and play a Balance to get rid of my two creatures. Then i hoped that he will not draw any additional burn and i can land a non-Serendib creature on the Battlefield. I found an Erhnam and won… Wow – quite intense. 1-0

Second match was against Workshop Aggro. First game was quite fast – i lost to multiple Su-Chis and Trikes with fully fuelled double Workshop Power 😉 Not a lot to say against massive Robot Attack! The second one was more tight but i lost due to a massive misplay on my side followed by another one… (i played a City of Brass, completely unnecessarily and my opponent found Icy – then i misplayed Psi Blast-Swords to Plowshares-City of Brass Stack which would give me the win => i was on two with one Pixie out. He sits on 3 Life, i am on one. i could Psi Blast, keep priority and Sword away the Pixie with the damage of City on the Stack and seal the deal). But i didn’t and lost. 1-1

Third match was against a member of the Ratavuloria Drinking Team and we had a fun Mirror-Match. We played 3 Games in which i went away as the victor. We had quite a flooding-championship as both drew more lands than useful spells… I went to full aggro after Sideboarding and won with one unresponded Derwish 🙂 2-1

The fourth Opponent i faced was on Mono Black – beautiful Deck, also Single Sleeved as myself, playing Erg Raiders, Jun’un Efreet, Bad Moon and the Latter 🙂 First game went to him. We reached one point in the match where he had two Underworld Dreams out VS a Silvan Library on my side. I had a CoP: Black in Play and payed each Draw phase 6 to look at the top 3 Cards of my Library. It was hilarious. Unfortunately for him, i managed in both games i won to slam a Derwish on the table. His Nev Disks where to slow to stop him resp. got Disenchanted before they could unleash their devastating power. So i went away with 3-1

Final Match was against a UWr Midrange Deck. I was never more glad to play the Psychic Purges than i was in this Matchup. In 3 Games i killed 3 Lions on the spot and dealt 5 Damage out of a Wheel-Discard. Overall it was a really grindy game and thanks to Armageddon i brought home this victory in the final match before Top 16. I was 4-1 and ready to enter the Thunderdome of the final rounds.

Standings Lanterna

I got to play against the undefeated Nacho Barrachina of the Famous Fellwar Stones of Valencia on his BW Aggro. Both with a really impressive Beer-Intoxication haha. I managed to win the first match due to 10 Damage out of discarded psychic purges and an unresponded Serra Angel. Second Game he has to mulligan to 5, i have to go down to six. He starts with Land, Ritual, Hypnotic. I cannot respond but have a Psi Blast and a Chaos Orb in my hand. He Hymns me and finds the exact two cards… Good Game… Third one was tough. We played for about 30 Minutes and finally he managed to push-through a CoP: Black, a Derwish, an Icy and a Maze of ith (push through means he removed all the threads one by one in his turns 😉 )

So my adventure of the Lanterna ended in a really nice game within Top 16. It was about 1.30 in the morning the time i lost and i decided to walk downstairs for a smoke and a beer and call it a day. But wait – who will you meet normally at the front door of a Hotel? Exactly – the Dutch Crew. So we decided to expand this nice Saturday morning until 5.30 with talks, laughter, Beer, Cigarettes and a lot of fun 🙂 Thank you Erwin, Wilfred, Jason and the others for this amazing time.

Oh yes, in between 1.30 and 5.30 we also managed to play 3 matches of Ante40K 🙂 (the badlands was on stake but i managed to sneak it away with the Bird. I won the game anyway but better to save it early…)

So the next day begun early… I missed the breakfast (as usual) and went straight into a black coffee and some Cigarettes to enjoy the new and sunny day in Genova 🙂 i knew i want to play my beloved Trolls, but i did not know which variant. I decided to pull this Deck together:

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I played 2 Shatter and the Icy main and moved Recall and one CiaB to the Sideboard. I banned Mind Twist completely out of my Decks so i have one additional Slot for the second Shatter. I experienced that in this Deck, the more powerful Artifacts, the better. So this is why i play Icy – mostly to draw the Disenchant/Shatter/Offering attention into something ex Disk. The Recall is very nice for Grindy matchups. I thought that there will be more Aggro Decks around so i moved it straight to SB. The Force of Nature by the way is for the Beer, not to play. And yes, i need obviously two Blackbordered Mana Vaults – this is the Next big thing.

So the tournament started again in time as the Day before (haha, never gets old…) and we found our tables for the first Match.

I faced an unpowered URw Burning Lions Deck with Lions, Black Vise and Burn. My opponent was Christian Lieb from Germany so we did talk in German which was nice 🙂 The first Game was tight but i lost to many lives after Mulliganing to 6 and Kept a slow Hand with 3 Lands and other Stuff (no Moxen/Vault etc.). The Opponents starts with a Black Vise and a took 6 Damage until i landed a Troll in turn 3 (which got bolted stright away). It was a Gamble on my side as the only lands i saw until then where Plains and Mishras on his side. Due the Lack of life and a very aggressive Kittycat on the other side of the table, i lost the first Game. Second Game was more in my favour and i even did Land and activate a Disk – yeah, exactly what my Deck should do. I won and we moved to game 3. We run out of time and ended up with a Draw in first Match. Not a very good starting position but well, let’s see. 0-0-1

Second Match a got paired against a 4 Color midrange Deck with Lions, Serendibs, Bolts, Blasts and black Splash. It was a mixed Match with a lot of flooding around and we played for 3 Games – finally i managed to Tutor for a lethal Fireball in his face. So i was 1-0-1.

Third Game was against Nicolas Imwinkelried, a Swiss guy from the “Team Geissgrind Community” of Valais. He plays a Blue Green Berserk-Aggro Deck and promptly Berserke’d me in game one with a huge and really mean Mishra’s Factory (as a matter of fact, it was even worse as the factory was Double-Berserke’d 😉 ) My Troll blocked bravely but then the Trample Damage killed me off. Also nice: a maindeck Avoid Fate prevented his Serendib from a headache (Psi Blast). Second Game was more in my favour as i drew Bolts and Disks which is pure poison for such a Deck filled with Small Creatures (which outgrow my trolls paired with Unstable Mutations). I won the second one and we moved to Game 3. This was also an intese one which i managed to win finally due to two Maze of Ith on the Board. Its a pain to watch the own creatures die with an active Unstable Mutation 😦 My Mahamoti gave the final Blow to Nicolas and i moved on with 2-0-1.

Fourth Game was against my Nemesis – Ehrnamgeddon, piloted by Riccardo Bongiovanni. I play this Deck also a lot of times and i know exactly, how devastating a well timed Geddon is. Especially against a Mana hungry Deck as Troll Disko. Therefore all Counters have to be saved exactly for this spell – avoid Armageddon hitting the Table. This is exactly what i did. I did not counter any Swords to Plowshares on my Trolls nor did i counter a Disenchant on the Disk if not absolutely Necessary. This was exactly the proper Strategy which gave me the win in both Games and i took down the Ernies 2-0. Of course there was also luck involved in drawing the counterspells respectively holding them off for the proper moment. Finally i moved away with a 3-0-1.

Next in the Line was Robbert Valkeneers, a really nice Gentlemen with Moustache from Belgium. We talked about a Gentlemen Game in which he stated that he don’t own a Library at all and that he would love to win the Raffle for the Library of Alexandria – now you can guess who won 😉 Exactly. Congrats for this Raffle-Luck Robbert 🙂

The Match was not so exciting for him as i am a very bad Matchup for a Mono Red Artifacts Deck which includes Juggernauts. Therefore i took away this Match 2-0. 4-0-1

So final Match against another Belgium Gentleman – Antoine Rottiers. Antoine is a very well known player within Europe and has a lot of experience and also has an impressive track record. He took down the “Saturday Smash” tournament in Gothenburg with 48 participants. I did not know what he is bringing to the table and kept a mediocre Hand. He played Mono Blue Monolith (no Fireball but Artifact Creatures) and we fought a nice game one. He managed to Tutor for the Rocket Launcher (with an active Power Monolith) which i did not respond so we moved to game two. I boarded obviously the Fluxen to give him a hard time and this was exactly the best card which brought me the win in Game two and three. The third one was a real nailbiter as we played for about 30 Minutes the final game (no time limits in Round 5+6). My final standing is 5-0-1 which brings me at position 3 at the ranking. Antoine got the “Unlucky 17.” but the team “Stonethrowing Devils” won the Community Brawl – congratulations.

Standings Fisch

A quick one for the Community Brawl: We (Legion Urborg) decided to sponsor a “Community Brawl” price which shall honor the most fearful community among all communities. We decided to hand it over to the community with the highest weightet points over all (Points/Players of the Community = Score). We as Legion Urborg took ourself out of competition this year as we did sponsor the Tablet 😉 (Leo Bruder is also Part of the Legion, you know what i want to say hihi).

There was also a second competition ongoing – who brings the best Chocolate to Genova? Unfortunately, the Belgium’s did “forget” about it (or was it just the fear of loosing 😉 ) therefore the Swiss Chocolate won without any competition.

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So back to the topic – Top 16 at Fishliveroil:

I faced Andrè Brunet as Opponent for the final round(s). I don’t know what he is playing but after the first turn, i saw a Tundra followed up by an angry Cat – i assume Lauter.dec (and i was right). Without any Bolt in my hand i tried to hold off with Summoned Trolls – but those nice and helpful creatures got sworded away immediately. Also i drew about 8 playables (including the playables of my starting hand) for the whole game… move to second. Second Game was very interesting and intense. Both brought out the best of their Decks and finally i managed to push-through with a Mahamoti Dijnn and deliver the final 5 damage. 1-1- and on to game three. Game 3 is a short story as it was more or less the same as game 1 – 6-7 playables the whole Game outside of Mana Sources. That’s also part of Magic so i took my loss and moved on into some Ante 40k action 😉

So overall it was again an amazing event with lots of fun, laughter and nice Oldschool Magic. I enjoyed every second i was with all the people in Genova. Thank you very much Megu, Lorenzo, Francesco and the whole Team! You pull off an amazing weekend and i cannot wait to join WinC0n in 2020. A big Thank you also to Gordon and Svante for the streaming and commenting at the whole Saturday! Great Job guys!

Here are some other impressions from the weekend. Special Thanks to Erwin and his whole dutch crew for the honor of giving me the limited Edition Dutch Patch! Thank you veeeeery much my friend!