ROAD TO PTQ 1: City Championship Bari (Ext) - almost a disaster

Yesterday I had just decided to begin testing my BDW but I was forced to give my deck to my bro (he and our friend Davide could have played UW Tron but it was discarded for the lack of Hallowed Fountains). Then my bro played BDW, Davide played Goblins and I decided to take my old classic, with the list I came up top8 in a previous CC tourney, but it didn't work as usual...

UBR AFFINITY
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Darksteel Citadel
1 City of Brass
1 Glimmervoid

4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
3 Atog

4 Cranial Plating
4 Chromatic Star
4 Thoughtcast
3 Shrapnel Blast
2 Welding Jar

Sideboard:
4 Darkblast
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pithing Needle
3 Overload
2 Tormod's Crypt

The tourney started at 4.30 pm. Almost 30 participants (usually it’s more crowded).

1st round: Goblins
Ouch, against Davide (together with my bro travelled 50 kms to play here!!!). First game it's tough for him, Ravager and a couple of Frogmites kill him in a few turns without relevant goblins on the field. After sideboard goblins take advantage (I haven't Plague, he sides in 4 Sprees). After an early Spree for a Seat of the Synod, he takes the lead thanks to a fearsome Empty the Warrens that makes 8 goblins on the field and a Sharpshooted tutored by Matron to finish me off. The third game is even short, I begin with a Seat, he begins with Mountain, Rite of Flame x2, Prospector, sacrifice it for an Empty the Warrens of 4 = 8 goblins in play turn 1, nuff said. I play defensively and the deck seems to help me with ravager, frogmite, thopter, thopter, I remained alive to 2 but a Ringleader reveals Warchief and a War Marshall, I can't block so many goblins and lost.
(Davide did 3-1-1 swiss, losing against UW Cloudpost in the Quarter Finals)
1-2

2nd round: WG Haterator
Sitting at the table I remember him at the previous CC, we played a mirror Affinity matchup (win 2-0), but just seeing a Flooded Strand I thought that it would be slightly different from a mirror. I begin swinging heavily at turn 3 with a 2 frogmites and a Enforcer, he stays with a Soltari Priest and an Anurid Brushopper but nothing red mana...he is at 1 life. His turn 5: plains, tap 4 lands, WORSHIP. Damn. My first concern about this deck is that it can't manage to deal with enchantments, and the most terrible are Worship and Solitary Confinement. I can't ABSOLUTELY win this matchup, and I'm prepared for the worst, because every deck with white mana has the most dangerous anti-affinity card in the sideboard. In fact, the second match begin with an excellent start (Ravager + Worker + Frogmite) annulled by a second turn Kataki that destroys all. Priest and Troll Ascetic finish the job very soon, kinda sad but I could never win this matchup...
(Finish in the Top8, losing against my bro's BDW in the Quarter Finals)
0-2

3rd round: UW Cloudpost
At the "0-2 tables" there're the weakest decks I thought, but it's not always true...First game it's so much easy (since then I had found only poor matchups), control in general is way much slower than my deck except some Wrath of God, and with Cloudpost/Vesuva engine compared to the most common Urzatron engine is even more slower, I have all the time to win with a flying Plated Nexus 6/1 that is hell for that famous sorcery-speed removal. The second match it's a bit weird, I have a mistake to side in Darkblasts for Kataki (he sided in instead only Disenchants) and a manascrew hand with 2 Therapies without blackmana finish him to 4 but not much further...after stabilizing the field with Wraths and Condescends, 4 Cloudposts/Vesuva give a huge Decree and with 6 Angels it's 1-1 even. The last game is worse, I decide not to mulligan with a near-bad hand that it won't manage to explode and it repeats as the second match, with a different checkmate (Mindslaver + Academy Ruins infinite combo) that takes me to the little honorable 0-3.
1-2

4rd round: BGR Flow
After I have seen the guy (3rd in the current CC Standings) I was thinking to drop but only for a moment, I sat at the table and the match began. The first game is the most amazing of my tourney: he plays a BG aggro that uses also Stomping Ground and other /r lands, I think it's the Flow list played by Marco Cammilluzzi, the famous Italian player that won PTQ Florence for Yokohama 1 week ago (but he plays Flow in the Side as I can see in the next match). Thanks to his “experience”, his Confidant reveals land, land, land and builds up a fierce army of Troll Ascetic and Baloths without losing life. I have also a lot of Frogmites, Enforcers etc. but in the mid-late game he has so much advantage. When all was lost (he was at 12), I draw Thoughtcast. With that I put into play an artifact land and another Star, then start doing math. I decide then to attack with all my creatures (5) and he has 4 blockers (1 Baloth). After blocking 4 creatures leaving an Enforcer unblocked I start to sacrifice ALL artifacts to the Ravager before damage on the stack modularizing then the 12/12 ravager on the enforcer that becomes 16/16 that swings for the win even though a +4 of a Baloth. The second match he sided in almost 10 cards I think, I side Therapies and Needles, but it’s a lot much easier than the previous one. He went slowly but he managed to stop my offensive with a Putrefy on a Plating, I miss Troll Ascetic with a Cabal Therapy (he mindtricked me saying I would sacrifice Thopter to call Ascetic after my first mistake…too naive :) ) but a Needle on a Sword of Fire and Ice (he was forced to sacrifice a Baloth) dismantle all his attack power and my Enforcers and Frogmites finish him in a few turns. After the match, he made me saw what he sided in: 4 Flows, 3 Krosan Grips, 3 Ancient Grudges…
2-0

5rd round: UBR Affinity (mirror match)
Against a sad boy that seemed to have found the typical unlucky day as me...the mirror always is decided by who draws best, but seems that I found in the end all the luck that missed me during the whole day. First game, he screw so badly with a Glimmervoid against a perfect start (land-worker, land-ravager-frogmite, land-enforcer-frogmite), second game another ridiculous start finish him in a blink of an eye. At the end of the game we discuss about how fixing his deck.
2-0

In the end a very poor 2-3 with a deck so much played in Bari and therefore so much hated out by all the decks. Great news instead from Davide with Goblins (top8) and my bro that with BDW made a 3-1-1 swiss, defeats 2-1 the WG Haterator in the Quarter Finals and 2-0 a Goblin-Fecundity in the Semifinals to split the final (tourney ended almost at 11.00 pm) !!
See you next week in Turi where we’re going to continue testing for the upcoming PTQ (I’ll write the report asap).