wyattdanger · March 14, 2025 18:28
diff --git a/john stevens tournament report b/john stevens tournament report
 Here’s the deck so I won’t bore anyone with details that don’t want them (:
 Angry Hermit-Less
 4 Arc Lightning
 2 Sowing Salt (gee you play with 4 ports, how nice)
 2 Earthquake (hermit, rebel, etc)
 4 Avalanche Riders
 4 Plow Under
 4 Birds of Paradise
 2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
 3 Yavimaya Elder (amazing how much damage he can do)
 3 Blastoderm (try to kill it, I dare u)
 4 Tanglewire
 3 Masticore
 2 Mountain
 10 Forest
 4 Karplusan Forest
 2 Treetop Village
 2 Gaea’s Cradle
 1 Rhystic Cave (aka the fifth port)
 4 Rishadan Port

 Sideboard:
 2 Boil
 1 Earthquake
 2 Viashino Heretic
 2 Compost
 2 Harmonic Convergence
 2 Refreshing Rain
 2 Thran Lens
 2 Phyrexian Processor

 Basically it’s Angry Hermit, minus the elves.

 Several weeks out I started emailing more on our distribution list asking for deck ideas. I also continued to check out the various Nationals decks to see the current metagame. After the US Nationals, with Finkel winning with black control, I figured what black control would be it. However I was wrong, over the next several weeks I saw the emergence of many green decks, trinity, angry hermit, stompy, etc and began doing the major playtesting vs those. After several weeks of emails and testing here with my teammate and the local area players we had the black deck going about 50% vs. angry hermit and doing better than 60% vs. the other major decks. When sideboard kicked in however we got stronger vs. angry hermit, however weaker vs the field. I was helping my teammate tune his version of angry hermit when he mentioned that he needed a card to really mess with Rishadan Port, my answer: Sowing Salt. We hashed it out and determined that almost every deck
 on the current environment runs either Rishadan Port or is stompy. I quickly put together my version of hermit however I wanted a big fat creature so I put in blastoderm instead of hermit druid and with that the deck is born. With blastoderm in the deck instead of hermit we didn’t need
 the poacher so out they went in favor of earthquake, nice vs. the hermit deck and a great finisher. After only three games Brent dropped his deck in favor of this one. We played a little longer and I felt that with the increased red in the deck that we needed at least one more source of red
 mana, but that it also had to be able to produce green. With ports everywhere I was not about to play city of brass so I looked at my other options: Thran Quarry and Rhystic Cave. I cannot stand it when creature removal can also be LD so in went Rhystic. Brent convinced me that it could
 also be used as a port, which I did several times through out the day. I would tap the rhystic naming, usually red, have it get denied and then drop a mountain and cast what I needed. This allowed me sometimes to avoid getting a spell countered or to “force” my opponent into not using a land
 during his turn in order to deny me mana. On Friday we travel up to Lexington, pick up Pnut and his girlfriend and head up to Columbus. That night I’m still torn between black and the red/green deck. I look at pnut
 and say which one he says what he usually says, LD is some good, play red/green, so I do. With that we finish up the sideboard and get some sleep.

 On to the tournament:

 Round 1 vs. Nick Babbitt
 Nick was a really nice guy. He had only been playing magic for a short while and this was one of his first tournaments ever. He said that he had showed up with a 40 card deck and had to add commons and some lands in order to bring it up to 60 for the tournament. First and second game I won
 handily, only taking 4 points of damage the entire match.
 Match 1-0, Games 2-0

 Round 2 vs. Matt Nawal
 Matt was playing a version of the Flores black control deck that splashed white for ‘geddon, spirit link and disenchant. Probably not a bad metagame call. Our first game me gets a little mana screwed and I help out my sowing out his ports. He does get a negator on the board but can do little with it since I then cast blockers to prevent him from attacking and losing all his
 permanents. He doesn’t draw another land for a few turns and the blastoderm comes out and finishes him off. Second game he gets a better start but the plow unders are a bit much for him to handle.
 Match 2-0, Games 4-0

 Round 3 vs. Scott Au
 Scott was playing a deck that I did not want to face. Pretty much a standard sexy rector deck, tho seemed to have fewer counterspells than most, only 4 miscalcs? I don’t remember much of this match other than at one
 point he has out the Rector Moat and I go ahead and attack with my masticore, he blocks gets a treachery to get my masticore and its all down hill for him from there. I then cast a blastoderm and let the masticore eat of his hand away. i'm then am able to force through several avalanche riders and plow unders, putting him in masticore lock and thereby ending the game.
 Match 3-0, Games 6-0

 Round 4 vs. Chris Woltereck
 Chris is playing a pretty standard ponza deck. First game he toasts me, shocks my bird and then proceeded to stone rain, pillage and avalanche rider my lands away. I’m a little humbled at this point finally getting my first game loss and looking at a good fight to get this match back and that’s when my deck loves me. Second game I paris down to 5 cards and then proceeded to topdeck every answer I need when I need them, I’ll take luck over skill. The third game chris is a little rattled as he can’t see how I was able to win like that. His draw is suboptimal third game and my deck punishes him for it. I get way ahead in land count with most of my ports coming out and denying him mana. He conceded after I plow under him 3 times in a row and then drop a blastoderm.
 Match 4-0, Games 8-1

 Round 5 vs. Casey Munn
 Casey was playing the standard accelerated blue deck which has trouble with our deck. First game I get an early elder and he goes all the way with a little help from an avalanche riders for the last 4 points of damage. Second game is much like the first only get does get out his powder keg, but
 that does little versus a blastoderm when he’s not putting on the counters in fear of a hermit.
 Match 5-0, Games 10-1

 Round 6 vs. Ben Valentine
 This round causes me mucho pain and I lost. Ben is playing a good version of stompy and plays it well. I start off with a rishadan port as I’ve got no rofellos and no bird and say done. He lays wild dogs and says done I
 then drop a forest and say done, tapping his forest during in response to his draw. He says hope you not playing angry hermit attacks for two and drops another wild dogs. I’ve got the arc lightning in hand and pray for a mountain, no luck. I drop a karplusan forest and do one to everything not
 me, clearing the board. But no luck he drops a river boa with a forest backup for regen. We finally get down to 5 life each. I’ve got 4 forests, 1 port, 1 karplusan and an elder and something else on the table. I’ve got an earthquake in hand and I attack to bring him down to 3 life. He activates his treetop to block and I port it, however I screw up the port by tapping my karplusan for the port (why I have no idea) and then lose next turn because I can’t quake for the win. The second game he drops a cursed
 totem and turn 2 and then proceeded to beat me down. We trade licks for a while, but to no avail and I get pounded.
 Match 5-1, Games 10-3

 Round 7 vs. Chris Sharpe
 I know at this point I’ve got win all the way out to be in the final eight so I cannot afford mistakes like the last round. Chris played blue black control, duresses and counterspells, good deck. However my deck is all about threats as I roll him first game by just casting a threat every turn.
 Second game he gets first turn duress and can choose between tanglewire and a processor, he choose the wire (good call on his part as he was a little land light). A few turns later I top deck a wire and cast it getting most of his mana tied up which allows me to cast masticore and stop his that had put out a little before. We trade off for a while, me casting threat after
 threat to wittle his hand and masticore lock him and then I drop the processor naming 10 life. After that it’s over. Chris was a great player, he had me convinced that even with a 10/10 processor token and a masticore and the ability to make another token that if I attacked with the ‘core and processor token I would end up losing to something in his wittled down hand. Tough match.
 Match 6-1, Games: 12-3

 Round 8 vs. Lin Rice
 Feature match in the sideboard, check out the following URL http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=939fm8
 they can tell the story better than I.
 Only thing is, as you can see from above this is not really Angry Hermit
 Match 7-1, Games 14-4

 Round 9 vs. Eli Kassis
 Eli wants to draw, however I feel that with the large number of people, 464, this being only a few people from 10 rounds that not every 8-1 would make it, and therefore no chance of 7-1-1, so I wanted to play (I was actually wrong, all the 8-1’s made it along with only one 7-1-1). Eli was playing
 Ponza. He gets a slow start first game and I roll him with the elders getting me mucho mana and the masticore and quake being the kill. Second game he’s right on now. Shocking my bird, destroy land third turn, rider land fourth turn, lightning dragon fifth turn and major beats from then on.
 Third and deciding game. I’m right on, he misses his third turn land drop and that’s it. I’m able to keep him land light and get out the heretic in order to clear out those pesky diamonds. The elder goes most of the way with a masticore and blastoderm as the finisher.
 Match 8-1, Games 16-4

 Top 8 vs. Tanis Tramontin
 Nice guy, though seemed a little nervous in the match. We had Mike Guptil (sp?) as our judge for this one so that was cool. He was the first opponent who wanted a judge to shuffle his deck instead of me, no worries there. First game my deck works great deny him mana, quake away rebels and send in
 with elder and blastoderm. Second game he has to paris down to 4 cards and I beat him pretty handily since I’ve just got more cards and more threats.

 Semi-finals vs. Brian Dudley
 Brian was a really great opponent. Knew his deck really well (flores black) and just a nice guy. Check out the sideboard report for this one also: http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=934fmsf

 Finals vs. Matt Idoux
 Another fantastic opponent who came in the field with a deck that I didn’t think had a chance and just walked it all the way up. Again check out the
 sideboard for the play by play on this match: http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=933fmfinals

 Overall I loved the tournament. There were a few complaints of it starting late, but when you plan for about 300 and 464 show up and the max occupancy that the room is 395 something needs to be done. They were great in keeping us informed on about how long we had and what was going on. Once it started
 running every round was like clock work, amazing to see a tournament of that size run that smoothly.

 One other thing if anyone reads the ccgprime.com interview with me. I don’t
 want rishadan port banned, I love that card.

 Props:
 My wife (sorry fellas she comes first) for letting me play (:
 My teammates (the Village Idiots) for the playtesting and ideas
 The friends of idiots for more playtesting and ideas
 Creators of the Angry Hermit deck (Forsythe and Turian?)
 My opponents, all great players
 Origins crew, great convention
 WOTC crew for amateurs, very smooth tourney
 WOTC again for magic for life

 Slops:
 Nah, I’m to happy to be mad at anything (:

 lates,
 -john
	Here’s the deck so I won’t bore anyone with details that don’t want them (:
	Angry Hermit-Less
	4 Arc Lightning
	2 Sowing Salt (gee you play with 4 ports, how nice)
	2 Earthquake (hermit, rebel, etc)
	4 Avalanche Riders
	4 Plow Under
	4 Birds of Paradise
	2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
	3 Yavimaya Elder (amazing how much damage he can do)
	3 Blastoderm (try to kill it, I dare u)
	4 Tanglewire
	3 Masticore
	2 Mountain
	10 Forest
	4 Karplusan Forest
	2 Treetop Village
	2 Gaea’s Cradle
	1 Rhystic Cave (aka the fifth port)
	4 Rishadan Port

	Sideboard:
	2 Boil
	1 Earthquake
	2 Viashino Heretic
	2 Compost
	2 Harmonic Convergence
	2 Refreshing Rain
	2 Thran Lens
	2 Phyrexian Processor

	Basically it’s Angry Hermit, minus the elves.

	Several weeks out I started emailing more on our distribution list asking for deck ideas. I also continued to check out the various Nationals decks to see the current metagame. After the US Nationals, with Finkel winning with black control, I figured what black control would be it. However I was wrong, over the next several weeks I saw the emergence of many green decks, trinity, angry hermit, stompy, etc and began doing the major playtesting vs those. After several weeks of emails and testing here with my teammate and the local area players we had the black deck going about 50% vs. angry hermit and doing better than 60% vs. the other major decks. When sideboard kicked in however we got stronger vs. angry hermit, however weaker vs the field. I was helping my teammate tune his version of angry hermit when he mentioned that he needed a card to really mess with Rishadan Port, my answer: Sowing Salt. We hashed it out and determined that almost every deck
	on the current environment runs either Rishadan Port or is stompy. I quickly put together my version of hermit however I wanted a big fat creature so I put in blastoderm instead of hermit druid and with that the deck is born. With blastoderm in the deck instead of hermit we didn’t need
	the poacher so out they went in favor of earthquake, nice vs. the hermit deck and a great finisher. After only three games Brent dropped his deck in favor of this one. We played a little longer and I felt that with the increased red in the deck that we needed at least one more source of red
	mana, but that it also had to be able to produce green. With ports everywhere I was not about to play city of brass so I looked at my other options: Thran Quarry and Rhystic Cave. I cannot stand it when creature removal can also be LD so in went Rhystic. Brent convinced me that it could
	also be used as a port, which I did several times through out the day. I would tap the rhystic naming, usually red, have it get denied and then drop a mountain and cast what I needed. This allowed me sometimes to avoid getting a spell countered or to “force” my opponent into not using a land
	during his turn in order to deny me mana. On Friday we travel up to Lexington, pick up Pnut and his girlfriend and head up to Columbus. That night I’m still torn between black and the red/green deck. I look at pnut
	and say which one he says what he usually says, LD is some good, play red/green, so I do. With that we finish up the sideboard and get some sleep.

	On to the tournament:

	Round 1 vs. Nick Babbitt
	Nick was a really nice guy. He had only been playing magic for a short while and this was one of his first tournaments ever. He said that he had showed up with a 40 card deck and had to add commons and some lands in order to bring it up to 60 for the tournament. First and second game I won
	handily, only taking 4 points of damage the entire match.
	Match 1-0, Games 2-0

	Round 2 vs. Matt Nawal
	Matt was playing a version of the Flores black control deck that splashed white for ‘geddon, spirit link and disenchant. Probably not a bad metagame call. Our first game me gets a little mana screwed and I help out my sowing out his ports. He does get a negator on the board but can do little with it since I then cast blockers to prevent him from attacking and losing all his
	permanents. He doesn’t draw another land for a few turns and the blastoderm comes out and finishes him off. Second game he gets a better start but the plow unders are a bit much for him to handle.
	Match 2-0, Games 4-0

	Round 3 vs. Scott Au
	Scott was playing a deck that I did not want to face. Pretty much a standard sexy rector deck, tho seemed to have fewer counterspells than most, only 4 miscalcs? I don’t remember much of this match other than at one
	point he has out the Rector Moat and I go ahead and attack with my masticore, he blocks gets a treachery to get my masticore and its all down hill for him from there. I then cast a blastoderm and let the masticore eat of his hand away. i'm then am able to force through several avalanche riders and plow unders, putting him in masticore lock and thereby ending the game.
	Match 3-0, Games 6-0

	Round 4 vs. Chris Woltereck
	Chris is playing a pretty standard ponza deck. First game he toasts me, shocks my bird and then proceeded to stone rain, pillage and avalanche rider my lands away. I’m a little humbled at this point finally getting my first game loss and looking at a good fight to get this match back and that’s when my deck loves me. Second game I paris down to 5 cards and then proceeded to topdeck every answer I need when I need them, I’ll take luck over skill. The third game chris is a little rattled as he can’t see how I was able to win like that. His draw is suboptimal third game and my deck punishes him for it. I get way ahead in land count with most of my ports coming out and denying him mana. He conceded after I plow under him 3 times in a row and then drop a blastoderm.
	Match 4-0, Games 8-1

	Round 5 vs. Casey Munn
	Casey was playing the standard accelerated blue deck which has trouble with our deck. First game I get an early elder and he goes all the way with a little help from an avalanche riders for the last 4 points of damage. Second game is much like the first only get does get out his powder keg, but
	that does little versus a blastoderm when he’s not putting on the counters in fear of a hermit.
	Match 5-0, Games 10-1

	Round 6 vs. Ben Valentine
	This round causes me mucho pain and I lost. Ben is playing a good version of stompy and plays it well. I start off with a rishadan port as I’ve got no rofellos and no bird and say done. He lays wild dogs and says done I
	then drop a forest and say done, tapping his forest during in response to his draw. He says hope you not playing angry hermit attacks for two and drops another wild dogs. I’ve got the arc lightning in hand and pray for a mountain, no luck. I drop a karplusan forest and do one to everything not
	me, clearing the board. But no luck he drops a river boa with a forest backup for regen. We finally get down to 5 life each. I’ve got 4 forests, 1 port, 1 karplusan and an elder and something else on the table. I’ve got an earthquake in hand and I attack to bring him down to 3 life. He activates his treetop to block and I port it, however I screw up the port by tapping my karplusan for the port (why I have no idea) and then lose next turn because I can’t quake for the win. The second game he drops a cursed
	totem and turn 2 and then proceeded to beat me down. We trade licks for a while, but to no avail and I get pounded.
	Match 5-1, Games 10-3

	Round 7 vs. Chris Sharpe
	I know at this point I’ve got win all the way out to be in the final eight so I cannot afford mistakes like the last round. Chris played blue black control, duresses and counterspells, good deck. However my deck is all about threats as I roll him first game by just casting a threat every turn.
	Second game he gets first turn duress and can choose between tanglewire and a processor, he choose the wire (good call on his part as he was a little land light). A few turns later I top deck a wire and cast it getting most of his mana tied up which allows me to cast masticore and stop his that had put out a little before. We trade off for a while, me casting threat after
	threat to wittle his hand and masticore lock him and then I drop the processor naming 10 life. After that it’s over. Chris was a great player, he had me convinced that even with a 10/10 processor token and a masticore and the ability to make another token that if I attacked with the ‘core and processor token I would end up losing to something in his wittled down hand. Tough match.
	Match 6-1, Games: 12-3

	Round 8 vs. Lin Rice
	Feature match in the sideboard, check out the following URL http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=939fm8
	they can tell the story better than I.
	Only thing is, as you can see from above this is not really Angry Hermit
	Match 7-1, Games 14-4

	Round 9 vs. Eli Kassis
	Eli wants to draw, however I feel that with the large number of people, 464, this being only a few people from 10 rounds that not every 8-1 would make it, and therefore no chance of 7-1-1, so I wanted to play (I was actually wrong, all the 8-1’s made it along with only one 7-1-1). Eli was playing
	Ponza. He gets a slow start first game and I roll him with the elders getting me mucho mana and the masticore and quake being the kill. Second game he’s right on now. Shocking my bird, destroy land third turn, rider land fourth turn, lightning dragon fifth turn and major beats from then on.
	Third and deciding game. I’m right on, he misses his third turn land drop and that’s it. I’m able to keep him land light and get out the heretic in order to clear out those pesky diamonds. The elder goes most of the way with a masticore and blastoderm as the finisher.
	Match 8-1, Games 16-4

	Top 8 vs. Tanis Tramontin
	Nice guy, though seemed a little nervous in the match. We had Mike Guptil (sp?) as our judge for this one so that was cool. He was the first opponent who wanted a judge to shuffle his deck instead of me, no worries there. First game my deck works great deny him mana, quake away rebels and send in
	with elder and blastoderm. Second game he has to paris down to 4 cards and I beat him pretty handily since I’ve just got more cards and more threats.

	Semi-finals vs. Brian Dudley
	Brian was a really great opponent. Knew his deck really well (flores black) and just a nice guy. Check out the sideboard report for this one also: http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=934fmsf

	Finals vs. Matt Idoux
	Another fantastic opponent who came in the field with a deck that I didn’t think had a chance and just walked it all the way up. Again check out the
	sideboard for the play by play on this match: http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/eventarticle.asp?event=AMCHAMP00&name;=933fmfinals

	Overall I loved the tournament. There were a few complaints of it starting late, but when you plan for about 300 and 464 show up and the max occupancy that the room is 395 something needs to be done. They were great in keeping us informed on about how long we had and what was going on. Once it started
	running every round was like clock work, amazing to see a tournament of that size run that smoothly.

	One other thing if anyone reads the ccgprime.com interview with me. I don’t
	want rishadan port banned, I love that card.

	Props:
	My wife (sorry fellas she comes first) for letting me play (:
	My teammates (the Village Idiots) for the playtesting and ideas
	The friends of idiots for more playtesting and ideas
	Creators of the Angry Hermit deck (Forsythe and Turian?)
	My opponents, all great players
	Origins crew, great convention
	WOTC crew for amateurs, very smooth tourney
	WOTC again for magic for life

	Slops:
	Nah, I’m to happy to be mad at anything (:

	lates,
	-john