Victory! Second Saturday Tournament Home Edition

As I told Jerry Yang on the phone this morning, this just doesn’t seem like a weekend where Magic was meant to be played. After an already hellacious day of snow, high winds, and low temperatures yesterday, it’s actually snowing more, blowing harder, and colder today.

Since I still wanted to play Magic, though, I decided to have the Second Saturday Hero Zone tournament today, in my parents’ living room. Registration and prizes would remain the same, but the tournament would start at 2 p.m. since that’s what time I decided to start writing this. With no regard for heavy weather, I arrived and registered with plenty of time.

My parents house is a typical Colonial Revival style constructed in 1928. It’s decorated mainly with books from my dad’s War of 1812 collection, paintings reflecting the same, and my mom’s eclectic tastes that include stained glasses, hammered aluminum, wood, pottery, and plants. The table I’ll be playing at is actually a computer desk with a lack of room thanks to an ongoing photo collection and preservation project.

Since the metagame looks weak on my arrival, I decide to go with two relatively new decks for me:

4x Uba Mask
4x Smokestack
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Trinisphere

4x Goblin Welder
2x Karn, Silver Golem

4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Serum Powder

4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Barbarian Ring
3x Mountain
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Mishra’s Factory
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
5x Mox

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Duplicant
2x Viashino Heretic
2x Null Brooch
3x Powder Keg

This is Albert Kyle’s standard build of PowderStax with Uba Masks. Even though people scoff, Serum Powder gives it explosive starts and generally better mana. When Serum Powder gets in the way, it can be hardcast for extra mana off of Mishra’s Workshop, discarded to Bazaar, animated with Karn, and welded in and out.

To be properly metagamed now, it should probably have Jester’s Caps somewhere between the maindeck and sideboard. Cap tears into Oath and combo decks with a vengeance.

4x Force of Will
4x Duress
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Rebuild

4x Merchant Scroll
4x Brainstorm
2x Impulse
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens

4x Dark Ritual
1x Cabal Ritual
5x Mox
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
2x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard
3x Yixlid Jailer
2x Pithing Needle
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
2x Fire & Ice
2x Empty the Warrens
2x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroblast
1x Pyroclasm

This is the Scroll Tendrils deck that Team Meandeck called The Mean Deck, with a few of my own modifications. When this was the so-called “Best Deck,” before Gush was unrestricted, I found this deck straightforward and powerful. I’ve been testing it again recently with a little more bounce maindeck to deal with MUD and a little more control to deal with GAT and Oath. I haven’t really tried it, though.

On average, this deck wins on turn three with protection, and it’s a lot of fun to play.

I shuffle up against myself and prepare for:

Iiiiinn this corneeeeerrr! Wearing light sleeves! Weighing in at 60 cards with a 15-card sideboard! The indomitable dominator—Uuuuuuuuubaaaa Staaaaaaaaax!

And in this corneeeeerrr! Wearing the darker sleeves! Weighing in at 60 cards with a 15-card sideboard! The 10-punch combo—Scroooooolll Teeennndriiiiillls!

Uba Stax wins the die roll and will play first. Its first seven—Mountain, B-Ring, Sol Ring, Sphere, Sphere, Crucible, Bazaar—is slow for this deck but has first and second turn plays and is keepable.

Tendrils mulligans a seven card hand with a Force of Will, mana, and no gas through a hand with lands and Yawgmoth’s Bargain, into Force of Will, Lotus, Time Walk, Island, Strand. Hopefully that will do the trick.

Stax opens with Mountain, Sol Ring, Sphere, and Tendrils elects not to force. Though it will make future plays tighter for Tendrils, discarding Time Walk could hurt in the long run, and it would mean effectively mulling to three cards, all of which are mana.

Tendrils draws Impulse and plays Island into Black Lotus.

Stax draws a redundant Crucible. It can either play mana and Crucible or play Bazaar, see what that gets, and drop Sphere. I tend to play things a bit riskier and decide to see some new cards. Bazaar brings Serum Powder and Chalice of the Void, so I discard Serum Powder and two Crucibles and play Chalice at one, hoping to keep my blue opponent off of Brainstorms, Ancestral, and possibly Ponders.

The Chalice is extremely damaging for Tendrils, shutting off two tutors, six sources of mana, and two bounce spells in addition to the draw spells already mentioned. Countering would mean dumping Lotus, though, and that’s a lot of mana to be wasted. Tendrils holds its counter again. On its turn, Tendrils draws Mana Crypt, playing it and the Strand. Stax now has a win condition on board. Then Tendrils Time Walks, luckily dodging the Crypt’s Lightning Bolt. It draws Cabal Ritual and passes.

Uba Stax draws Serum Powder and Bazaars into Barbarian Ring and Mox Emerald. It discards those three cards and plays its second Sphere of Resistance. Tendrils Impulses in response and sees Underground Sea, an uncastable Duress and Sol Ring, and Mox Sapphire. It keeps Mox Sapphire to keep colored mana. Second Sphere resolves and Uba Stax passes, feeling happy and secure with its position.

Tendrils again avoids Crypt damage and draws Polluted Delta. It plays the Sapphire and the Delta and passes.

Uba Stax draws Karn! My drunken friend who instantly turns any gamestate into a party! He’s unfortunately uncastable right now, costing seven mana, but if he ever hits, he can eat so much of the blue deck’s mana. Uba Stax passes, hoping to find mana or another more immediate threat.

Crypt finally kicks in and Tendrils goes to 16. It draws Fact or Fiction and passes.

Uba Stax draws its namesake Uba Mask. Bazaaring now would let Stax keep two cards; it does so and finds a Mishra’s Workshop and a second Chalice. Right now, Chalice should be for at least three or four to shut off Yawgmoth’s Will, Tinker, and any maindeck Rebuilds. Karn is still uncastable without another mana. Uba Mask and Bazaar is a super combo, though, so Stax keeps that and the Workshop and taps out to play the Mask.

Tendrils needs something amazing in response, Rebuild or a real power card, even countering the Mask would shut off the Stax deck’s draw engine. Tendrils plays Fact or Fiction in response to the Mask, unavoidably cracking its Lotus. It finds Dark Ritual, Mana Vault, two Duresses, and Demonic Tutor—unbelievable! No blue cards to use with Force of Will. Stax splits them into mana and Tutor with Duresses on either side. The only card not shut off by Chalice of the void is the tutor, and Tendrils takes it in the smaller pile.

Uba Stax passes, and Tendrils takes another bolt and puts an Empty the Warrens into the Mask. Neat! Unfortunately, there’s no way to play the Warrens for more one copy, and that doesn’t seem worth it. Instead, Tendrils plays Polluted Delta for a Swamp and Demonic Tutors for Rebuild. Empty the Warrens is gone forever.

Uba Stax draws Crucible of Worlds into the Uba Mask and Bazaars another Crucible and a Sphere of Resistance in after it. It can only play one of those spells this turn, and if it doesn’t play Crucible now, there will be none left in the deck. Whatever gets played will likely get rebuilt next turn anyway, so Crucible goes in to get a Barbarian Ring back as well.

Tendrils takes another three from the Crypt and draws Vampiric Tutor. When Chalice is gone, it will be able to play that and get some unholy goodness. Tendrils passes, looking forward to Rebuilding.

Stax draws Smokestack and Bazaars Barbarian Ring and Serum Powder in there after it. Nothing of consequence. It’s powerless to stop the end of turn Rebuild and subsequent Vampiric Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will.

Tendrils has plenty to work with, so Uba Stax reads the writing on the Wall and concedes in the face of many, many copies of Tendrils of Agony.

1-0 in favor of Scroll Tendrils.

Uba Stax sides out a Karn, a Smokestack, and two Crucibles for two Null Brooches and two Powder Kegs (having seen Empty the Warrens and a bunch of artifact mana) and prepares to play first.

Tendrils, expecting Jester’s Caps, brings in two more Empty the Warrens to go with two Pithing Needles and two Hurkyl’s Recalls. Duresses, Bargain, and Desire come out to make room.

Stax’s first seven is three Chalice of the Void, Mox Jet, Goblin Welder, Strip Mine and Serum Powder. There’s some good in playing two Chalices early, but there’s not enough mana to work with in this hand, so it gets mulliganed. Though there are good cards in here, none of them is essential, so the Serum Powder can be used. Another seven cards shows us two Uba Masks, Trinisphere, Karn!, and two moxes. That gets mulled to Uba Mask, Crucible of Worlds, Chalice, Wasteland, B-Ring, and Powder. Powder gets used here too.

Stax keeps on Sphere of Resistance, Crucible, Mox, Mountain, Bazaar, Welder hoping to use the Bazaar-Welder combo to do broken things early and back up with Sphere of Resistance.

Tendrils keeps a risky but playable hand of Chain of Vapor, Pithing Needle, Mana Vault, two Brainstorms, Underground Sea, and a Merchant Scroll.

Stax plays Goblin Welder and passes.

Tendrils draws Dark Ritual, plays its land, and Brainstorms into Mana Crypt, Empty the Warrens and a Swamp. It puts back a Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll and plays Mana Crypt into Pithing Needle on Welder and Mana Vault. Uh oh.

With no Welder to work with, Stax changes its plan of Bazaaring into playing catchup. It draws a Mountain and plays that and Mox Emerald before playing Crucible of Worlds (Sphere of Resistance can’t compete with Mana Crypt and Vault). Then it attacks with Welder and passes.

Tendrils takes no damage from its Crypt and draws the Merchant Scroll it put back. It wants to play Empty the Warrens next turn but will need red mana. It plays Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall, which seems good.

Stax draws Wasteland. It destroys the Tendrils deck’s only source of blue and plays a Sphere of Resistance. Mons’s Goblin Welder gets in again, and Crypt takes three, sending the Tendrils player to 15.

Tendrils draws Black Lotus. Gross! Instead of gambling and trying to find a red source in the Ancestral, Tendrils plays Black Lotus and Dark Ritual into Empty the Warrens for six. It burns for one mana, crosses its fingers, and passes the turn.

Stax draws Smokestack, replays its Wasteland, and passes. The Bazaar in its hand will need one more card to be worth anything, and it can’t hardcast Smokestack. Besides, it really needs a Powder Keg now. Welder can wait and be a blocker.

Tendrils dodges the bolt again and draws Mystical Tutor. No blue mana, so it swings with six tokens (one of which gets blocked) and passes.

Stax draws another Wasteland, but Smokestack will be too slow now, so it plays Bazaar instead and Bazaars into a Barbarian Ring and another Bazaar. It discards the three lands in its hand.

Tendrils dodges again but draws an Underground Sea and Ancestrals into Polluted Delta, Tendrils of Agony, and Demonic Tutor. It swings for five and passes, burning for one mana. Stax goes to 10.

Stax draws Mox Pearl and Bazaars into Trinisphere and Uba Mask, both too late to be good. It keeps Uba Mask and discards the rest, playing Uba Mask. Things are looking decidedly grim, and Stax’s best chance is to survive one more turn to draw something good into the Uba Mask next turn.

Tendrils has other plans, though, despite taking three from Mana Crypt and going to 10. It plays Mystical Tutor for Cabal Ritual and stores it in the Uba Mask, burning for one at the end of the phase. Then it attacks for five, gets a land with Polluted Delta, plays Cabal Ritual, and kills its opponent with a Tendrils of Agony for six life.

Results are 2-0 in favor of Scroll Tendrils. Looking back, Stax should have played its opening hand in game two differently. It could have locked its opponent out with Sphere of Resistance before playing Welder and Bazaar. I’m not entirely sure how things would have gone after that, but it was probably better than what actually happened.

Oh well, this is why I don’t get paid to write articles.

I won the March Second Saturday Hero Zone tournament! Coming in both first and second out of two means I got $24 back on my $30 entry fees. I guess the venue gets to keep the remaining $6? That seems fair.

Scroll Tendrils seems really good. Having access to so much broken mana and so many broken cards (including Brainstorm, Merchant Scroll, and Dark Ritual) really makes it a threat. It can switch from defense to holding to offense quite quickly, and there are times when you draw cards and can say, “Oh, I guess I win now” without having expected it.

Honestly, I expected these games to be a lot closer. Otherwise I would have played something else, like Belcher or Fish. And maybe I will tomorrow. I might be fooling myself a little about the power of Uba Stax, but I think it’s more that Scroll Tendrils got some fortunate draws against a deck playing no counterspells. It won after a mulligan to five, after all. I might spend some more time working with this deck. I also might rebuild 5cStax.

Anyway, hopefully next weekend and subsequent weekends will be better for gaming. I’m getting bored.