The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1851

I mull to Icy Manipulator + 5 lands on the play, figure I'll get something anyway and Manip will open things up, scry a land bottom and end up with 5 spells 12 lands, only one creature. RIP.
Game 2 is curving out Adeliz, bounce-mage, arcane flight on it + fight with fire on Shalai and hit for 8 in the air. He gets rid of the journeymage but from there it's about finishing him as he doesn't draw another flyer and I can pretty much force trades even with random 3/2s since he's low.
Match 3 is a grind fest as I don't have evasion and don't draw much removal. He drops a Serra Angel (thanks to Llanowar Elf as pseudo-land #5), but doesn't attack with it, maybe he forgot it has vigilance and was afraid of Adeliz randomly bursting him again, so firefist mage kills it instead (didn't expect to deal 4 with that thing). He gets a 6/6 Sisay tho, but I draw my 7th land and kick Keldon Overseer, stealing a bear to bait him to block Adeliz with Ancestor's Apostle (he'll grind me out if he topdecks historic spells otherwise). After blocks it turns out he loses enough stuff that Sisay shrinks and dies to SBA, yay. He's left with random shit but draws 2 removal while I draw lands, the last removal allowing him to drop me to 1 and he's got a flyer... counting my lands, I figure there are a couple cards that give me the game, and I topdeck Fight with Fire which I kick.

I'd have lost that game had he attacked with the Serra Angel, so even putting aside our topdeck war at the end I should have lost the match and was simply very lucky.
My first thought with Keldon Overseer was actually to steal Sisay but I forgot about her hexproof.
In game 3 I had Forebear's Blade in play but he destroyed it, RIP.

Game 1 is 2-drop, 2-drop, journeymage bouncing his only creature, firefist mage killing it when he replays it, something else, then Adeliz + Blink of an Eye to bounce a blocker and buff my wizards. Opp is a bit blase but I know that's close to the absolute best case my deck can encounter.

Game 2 we both mull and he still plays 2 creatures o 3 and 5, with the Manip on 4 and Belzenlok on 6. The first revealed card is the modal R spell that can destroy artifacts. He proceeds to draw his only mountain the following turn and without my own Manipulator I can scoop.
My plan otherwise would have been to try and ping him somehow till I can dome him for 10 if I can stall to 9 lands (Fight with Fire in hand).
Not much of a choice, because I realised R can't do shit to Belzenlok, nothing hits for 6+ in the colour. Literally the only thing able to get him killed aside from kicked Fight with Fire (which kills the player instead) and Jaya's Immolating Inferno (ditto) is praying RNGesus with Haphazard Bombardment. Even Zahid and Lyra can't stand up to his statline, and G needs Piercing Skies or a big Multani to compete, U only has the freezing aura or Syncopate...
Seal Away, Blessed Light, Eviscera and Settle the Score are pretty much the only non-rare non-sideboard ways to get rid of him.

Game 3 see the line above the spoiler, and that's with me mulling on the play and him not. He also proceeds to exile 3 lands with Belzenlok so RIP my chances of him having a slow hand.
I end up bouncing Belzenlok a couple times hoping for him to hit himself again for 2-3 and get in Fight with Fire range (had it in hand again), but the sub-CMC 4 card revealed was the druid. He had so much mana at that point that he kicked it for giggles just because he could, rather than double spells, and he randomly shot back above 20 (he didn't know about Fight with Fire in my deck).
I had to fire Radiating Light once I had targets (put it in for his saprolings, he's got the pseudo-pioneer dude and the uncommon that makes 3) since he dropped 2 Llanowar Elves, 'cept he also had the thallid that can sac to draw, so he just cycled them and I paid 4 to dome it for 3, yay.
Then I countered the "make 3 saprolings" rather than Belzenlok 'cause with his own Manipulator and me only having 3 creatures I figured he wouldn't even need to cast Belzenlok otherwise, he'd just tap my shit and go-wide/race me.
Worse case scenario I could use Merfolk Trickster to remove flying, multi-block and 1-for-2 myself just to get rid of him. Hopefully I wanted to use it to tap Belzenlok instead and use my manipulator to remove a blocker, in case I could somehow launch a massive attack to try and get him under 10 again. 'cept he drew his only mountain (man I wish he'd have exiled it with Belzenlok, woulda punished the greed) and he also had the Sengir vampire, so he just activated it in response to Trickster, killed a dude, and for a 3-for-1 total as I couldn't double-block with 5-toughness anymore.
Then he screwed up with Slimefoot, since that read "6 mana: draw a card, drain 1 life" and he could use it to just make a bunch of tokens and block my creature with Forebear's Blade and offset trample with the drains, but he used it for an alpha strike, I blocked and he cycled it. Didn't matter 'cause he drew his anti-artifact spell again, removed Manip, I drew my 7th land and kicked Keldon Overseer using his alpha strike... but that only dropped him to 1.
We were in turns but he could simply attack with Belzenlok twice to kill me and he had all the blockers in the world to not die to anything but a sudden Arcane Flight (I put it out because of Manipulator) or Tetsuko (then unequip my Ghitu Chronicler to make it unblockable). I didn't, he won, 8 lands and I had Fight with Fire waiting.

I'm pretty miffed that he played 4 more CMC 4+ spells 'cause any of them revealed by Belzenlok at any point rather than drawn normally and he'd have lost. Exiling his only mountain and he'd have lost too.
I spent the entire match somehow trying not to just scoop to "gain 10 life, with Belzenlok in play", sneaking damage here and there, managing mana and removal...

What I could have done differently was use Fight with Fire to kill his drawing Thallid so maybe he wouldn't have destroyed the Manipulator 'cause he wouldn't have drawn the destruction spell before end of turns (he got it somewhat late and drew 3-4 cards with the Thallid), but then finishing him would have been hard.

Playing tempo and facing on-curve Manipulator + a card nothing in your pool's colours can deal with (that doesn't just win the game instead) is frustrating.