Last Night, I was Blown Out by a Casual Player
There's a couple of guys who come in to play casual games on the same night as our legacy tournaments. Last night, they decided to sign up for the tournament to try it out. I had the extreme pleasure of getting absolutely destroyed by one of them.
Round four, the final round, I was paired against one of these players. Jayson was playing a mono-green Elves deck. Game one I saw the usual cards: Elvish Mystic, Arbor Elf, and Elvish Archdruid. After a quick game one victory, I went to sideboard and brought in the usual suspects for a horde deck: Moat, Dueling Grounds (I know!), and Enlightened Tutor to find either one of them. I expected to either get one of these or execute my usual game plan and take another quick game to finish the night.
I mulliganed my initial hand due to lack of mana. My six was a fetch, Noble Hierarch, some deck manipulation, and a Moat. I kept, figuring I'd find Moat mana relatively quickly and figure out a win condition after assuring that he couldn't damage me.
My plan worked, albeit slowly. I played a number of manipulation spells trying to find that fourth mana producer rather than playing win conditions. I finally tapped out to play my Moat on turn six.
"Hmm, that's pretty good against me," Jayson remarked as I told him what my Italian Moat did. I passed the turn, confident that the game and match were all but over. Jayson untapped, drew s card, tapped his two Elvish Archdruids and a couple forests, and put onto the stack a...
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I had one turn to deal with his Ulamog. Even if I did, his two Elf lords threatened to bring death in another couple of turns. I drew my card for the turn, looked sadly at my hand and my board, and told him good game. We both laughed a bit and he told me about some of the other pieces of cool tech he had in his deck.
Game three went more my way. I played Moat turn three, Elspeth, Knight Errant turn four, and finished him off quickly with a variety of exalted flying creatures. We thanked each other for the games and I encouraged him to come play in another Legacy tournament again soon.
Lesson of the day: Never underestimate the power of a casual deck, especially one that ramps like crazy.