Magic to the Nth Degree

RUGBurn Belcher at the Philadelphia Open IV

2009-12-01T10:42:00.004-05:00

Saturday (well, two Saturdays ago) was a very, very long day. The Philadelphia Open, held this time in scenic Edison, NJ, was a fun tournament with great post-tournament food (thanks, Jerry). I would definitely recommend making the trip out if you ever get the chance.

Tournament Organizer, Nick Coss, did a great job, and attracted more than double what he expected for the combined Standard and Vintage events. More than 70 people showed up to turn the most expensive cardboard sideways, and there were twice as many Standard players too.

A couple criticisms of the venue:

1. It was too small. Bigger events are better (and a 70-person Vintage tournament was great), but the school cafeteria we were in was just a little overcrowded. I was surprised the bathroom survived the experience.

2. Terrible, terrible acoustics and organization. A lot of people didn't hear the announcement for the Vintage tournament, but despite this obvious problem, they handed out game-one losses for tardiness anyway. Obviously they can't do much about the noise or the lack of speakers, but they could have handled the situation with a little more sympathy.

Still, the tables were clean and the chairs weren't too bad. I think if there had been like 30 fewer people in the room it would have been amazing.

After hanging out for a while, this is what I sleeved up and played:

RUGBurn 4-Color, 0-Land Belcher

4x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Timetwister
1x Windfall
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Necropotence
1x Tinker
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation

4x Street Wraith
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Tinder Wall
3x Goblin Welder
2x Wild Cantor

4x Manamorphose
4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual
4x Chrome Mox
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Channel

Sideboard
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Ravenous Trap
2x Cabal Ritual
1x Goblin Welder
3x Sadistic Sacrament

The maindeck was really good. For a four-color build, I don’t want to make any changes.

The sideboard is still tricky. Many times I was just bringing in and taking out a random mix of cards. Empty the Warrens is always solid and a good answer to Pithing Needle and Null Rod, neither of which I saw. Sadistic Sacrament got countered both times I faced it, and a couple of opponents said, "Yeah, that would have wrecked me." Sacrament and Cabal Ritual always went in together, and Ritual also went in against Stax. I never faced Ichorid and probably don't need cards against it anyway. I feel like Pyroblast, a longtime staple, is just unnecessary anymore. I can bring in enough threats that if one gets countered I play the next one and win with that.

Sample board strategy could have been something like this:
-1 Goblin Welder
-1 Windfall
-1 Timetwister
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Wheel of Fortune
-1 Manamorphose
+2 Sadistic Sacrament
+2 Empty the Warrens
+2 Cabal Ritual

But looking at it on paper, that seems not that good.

All day, boarding felt really awkward as I was doing it, but I never felt like things were that bad in playing. I really have to practice more and figure out what this sideboard is trying to do and how to work with it.

Anyway, after showing up to my round-one pairing a few minutes late (I was lucky to avoid a penalty) we got started.

Round 1 - Stephen "personalbackfire" Nowakowski - TPS

This match was a lot of fun. He went on to top eight.

In game one, I was on the play and he mulliganed to five. I Consulted for Belcher and played it on turn one. Then with a red mox in play, I couldn't draw another usable mana source for five turns. I played a Welder on turn four. He played a Bargain and won.

In game two, he mulliganed to six. I cycled Street Wraith into Mana Crypt and killed him on turn one.

I mulliganed to five in game three but had a turn one Necropotence that he Forced. Then he tutored for and cast his own ‘Potence, drawing nine cards that he seemed unhappy with. I cast Belcher and he countered. He did a mini-Tendrils, drew more cards with Necro, and won on his next turn.

Round 2 - Rich Shay - Shay.dec

Rich and I introduced ourselves and he said he had "Heard good things" about me, which I thought was nice. He also said that he hadn't played Vintage in a while and didn't know how his deck was. It was mostly blue (I didn't see Rituals or anything like that) and it had Spell Pierce and won with Tendrils. Anyway, getting paired up against Rich Shay in the 0-1 bracket didn't help.

He was on the play in game one and led with an Island. I could have played around Spell Pierce but didn't, and had my Wheel of Fortune countered with an unused Rite of Flame and an ESG in hand. I got some Welder beats in, but Mana Crypt hit me three times and allowed him to storm up fairly easily after five turns or so.

On the play in game two, I led with Sadistic Sacrament, but Rich Forced it. I had mana, but didn't draw another threat and lost to Tendrils again on turn three or four.

I think I may have been his only win all day.

Round 3 - Visna - "Not Your Typical Tez"

Visna was an awesome opponent. He said that, since he didn't get a lot of chances to play regularly, he mostly just played for fun. His deck, which was (I think) fully powered Tezzeret, also included things like Commandeer, Transmute Artifact, and Nevinyrral's Disk.

Game one was bad for both of us. He was on the play and played Demonic Tutor for, I'm pretty sure, Tinker. I played a Tinker of my own for Memory Jar, just to get black mana or a Welder in play. I got a Wild Cantor but no Welder, and my Jar did dump his Inkwell Leviathan and Time Vault into the graveyard. He Tinkered for Nevinyrral's Disk instead. He countered Demonic Consultation (the reason I wanted black mana in the first place), and I went into beatdown mode with Wild Cantor and Street Wraith, knocking him to one life before he blew the Disk. (Apparently he didn't realize I didn't have any non-artifact mana in play).

I knew he had Mana Drain in hand and was trying to play around that. On the turn he blew the disk, I had a hand of Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Belcher, Belcher and decided I was ready to go. Anyway, I played Lotus, Ritual, Belcher and his three card hand turned out to be Mana Drain, blue card, Commandeer! Instead of Draining, he Commandeered Belcher. I played the second Belcher and passed the turn with two mana in the pool. He drew and played Magus of the Unseen. I played draw-go for several turns, trying to get activation mana, while he took control of my Belcher with Magus during my upkeep. He didn't have enough mana to both take control of my Belcher and use the Commandeered one in the same turn. Finally I had the mana and targeted him on his turn. His response fire didn't kill me.

In game two he opened with Time Vault and passed the turn. I Emptied for 12 and played a Welder. He played Transmute Artifact for Key, but didn't have the activation mana. I attacked for 12 and welded out Time Vault in response to the next turn's untapping. He had no response and lost to Goblins.

Round 4 - Joe Davis - Iona Oath

Joe is always fun to play against even though I have a bad career record against him. I was surprised to see him in the 1-2 bracket with me. He seemed disappointed with that as well, and it only got worse for him.

In game one, I played LED, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Belcher and killed him.

I'm not sure what happened in game two since my notes indicate that he both Mystical Tutored for ACall and Oathed before I did anything. Basically, I don't know what I did on my first turn. He played Oath on his second turn and then had both Spell Pierce and Force for Belcher on my second turn. I had nine mana and would have been able to play Belcher, pay for Spell Pierce, and activate for the win, had he not had Force as well. Dragons got me.

On the play in game three, I mulled to six and kept Welder, Chrome Mox, SSG, Manamorphose, Sadistic Sacrament, and Memory Jar. I opened with Welder (off of Chrome Mox-SSG) and hoped to draw well enough to bait a counter if he had it. I drew Lotus for turn and played it, saccing for red, figuring I could bait with Manamorphose, draw mana, bait with Memory Jar, and if that got countered, weld in Lotus to play Sadistic Sacrament. This would have been fine except that Joe didn't have any counters to bait and I drew Belcher off the Manamorphose. I played Belcher then welded in Lotus for the activation and the win.

Round 5 - Jim - Blue Vintage Cards

I don't know what Jim was playing, but he was very understanding of losing a match in three turns. Turns out he's in Richmond and is interested in trying to do some Baltimore-DC-Richmond area events. We exchanged email addressess.

Anyway, he was on the play and mulliganed in game one. I opened with Welder and Demonic Tutored for LED, since I had Belcher in hand and could use that to win without playing another spell. I topdecked Dark Ritual on turn two and cast Belcher instead. When it resolved, I cracked LED for the win.

In game two, I had Lotus and Belcher in my hand and he did not have a counter. I actually Demonic Tutored for LED a second time to get the activation mana.

Round 6 - Brad - 5c Stax

There were several good Stax players in the room, and I would have loved to have played more of them, but I guess I didn't even take advantage of the one I did get to play. Brad was friendly and turned out to be from Baltimore. We also talked about trying to get Vintage going in Maryland and Virginia.

On the play in game one, I opened with Belcher off of two moxes. He played a Sphere of Resistance and I drew Sol Ring and played it. He played Crucible, and I activated Belcher on my turn for the win.

He opened with nothing on the play in game two, making me sad that I had kept a strong mana hand without a threat, figuring I’d be playing against Stax and wanted to stabilize early. I played a Welder, two Moxes, Mana Vault, and Sol Ring. He played Mox Monkey and ate my moxes. We played a very long game that involved his Mana Crypt dealing him 12 damage and City of Brass and Barbarian Ring dealing him another seven. I, unfortunately, was never in the position to attack with Welder. I hung around for several turns waiting for an opening (I don't think he ever played a Sphere effect), but couldn't do anything. I don't think I ever drew a Belcher or Empty the Warrens. He got there with Welder, Mox Monkey, and, finally, Triskelion.

Game three, I Tom Tupa’d like a complete idiot.

Instead of making the right play and almost certainly winning the game, I decided to make the exact wrong play, gift wrap victory, and hand it to my opponent.

My hand was Street Wraith, Empty the Warrens, Chrome Mox, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Simian Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall. The best play here is to imprint Street Wraith on Chrome Mox, play Dark Ritual, remove SSG to play Rite of Flame, and then Empty the Warrens for eight guys. This maximizes storm, and while it’s not an instant win, it’s a very strong opening against Stax. I recognized this before the game. Then, as I went to imprint Chrome Mox, I thought, "Wait, if I imprint SSG instead, I can play Welder if I draw it. Welder is good against Stax; I'll do that instead." I did that, looked at my hand again, and thought, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." I was unable to play Dark Ritual without black mana and could not play Empty the Warrens without a god-like topdeck from Street Wraith, which I did not get. It was pretty much downhill from there.

There was no guarantee that a 5-2 player would make it into the top eight, but since I was suddenly 3-3 it was irrelevant anyway. I’ll try to have a more complete writeup of RUGBurn Belcher in a few days for those who are interested. I might have to learn to sideboard a little better for one thing.

I was the last hope for our car, so we packed up and went to Stuff Yer Face for dinner. It was amazing! They have about 25 different stromboli's to choose from and a make-your-own that includes 30 different stuffings. They also have a nice selection of beers. I had a liter of beer and half of an 18-inch Original Stromboli (cappicola, onions, green peppers, salami, and mozzarela). Then I took the other half home and Elizabeth and I finished it for lunch. I would definitely recommend this place.

Mindbreak Blog: A Zendikar Vintage Set Review

2009-11-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a good, long break.

For those of you who don’t know, last few month’s hiatus from “Magic to the Nth Degree” was thanks to my getting married.

The Game of Life makes this seem really easy. You just put the little pink peg next to the little blue peg (or vice versa, or as otherwise fits your sexual preference), collect presents, and go.

In real life, though, this took more time than I expected, since it also involved several arts-and-crafts projects (making save-the-date cards and programs), getting to and from the wedding (which was in scenic Springfield, Ohio), and moving into a shared apartment. Not to mention all the sorting, storing, sometimes returning, and thank-you’ing that go along with receiving wedding presents. And the honeymoon! If you ever get the chance to visit Jekyll Island, Georgia, I highly recommend it.

Marriage so far has been great, and I highly recommend that as well.

Not right away, of course—when you and your significant other are ready. You’ve got plenty of time.

One thing to be sure of before you get married is that you’ll still be able to play Magic, of course. Though I didn’t think to get anything in writing beforehand, I do have several verbal agreements from my lovely bride that, under normal circumstances, I will be able to maintain my usual schedule of Magic a couple times a week and several tournaments a year.

For example, did you hear that Columbus is getting another Legacy GP, summer 2010? I am very excited about this. The last Columbus GP, in 2007, was an incredible amount of fun. I had very high hopes going into it, having top-two’d and top-four’d the two Soldiery tournaments leading up to it, but my performance didn’t live up to those expectations. This year I’d like to do better.

Also, I would like to eat at Thurman’s.

My chances of making it to this are higher than usual because, hey, my new wife is from Columbus. She gets to spend the weekend with her family; I get to spend the weekend gaming with my friends. It’s a total win-win, and so is exactly what marriage should be.

Anyway, Vintage.

I had really wanted to write up a Zendikar set review like everyone else, because that’s the cool thing to do when a new set comes out, but I ran out of time. You’ll just have to bear with me as I run through them anyway. In brief: Zendikar has some neat cards! I don’t think any of them will throw Vintage for a loop (i.e. none of them sounds the death knell for Time Vault), but there are plenty that will almost certainly see play between maindecks and sideboards.

Unfortunately for you (and me) the only Zendikar cards I really have any experience with or against are Spell Pierce and Iona, Shield of Emeria.

I guess Mindbreak Trap is somewhere in our testing sideboards, but it hasn’t come up yet. Mindbreak Trap is exciting, especially because it gives some of the slower control decks like Oath and Tezzeret a solid all-round answer for the fastest combo decks like Grim Long and Ad Nauseam. However, since fast combo isn’t really a relevant threat in the current metagame (despite my best efforts), I don’t expect to see the Trap in any significant numbers anytime soon.

Iona Oath, however, is everywhere. It seems any idiot can win with Iona on the table, especially when most opposing decks are significantly blue. Plus, shutting off counterspells allows Oath to combo with impunity on their second Oath by putting their library in the graveyard and recurring Yawgmoth’s Will and Time Vault (or Timetwister or any number of other combo cards) for the win.

(I might have more on this deck later since I’ve been playing against it quite a bit recently. Personally, I don’t think that Oath is a better Time Vault deck than Tezzeret, and I’m not sure that Iona Oath is better than a similarly equipped version of agro Oath).

Handily, the Oath combo is supported very well by Spell Pierce.

Actually, Spell Pierce is the real new tech to come out of Zendikar. Because the Spell Pierce tax is two rather than just one, it’s often effectively a hard counter on non-creature spells through the first two or three turns of the game, and after that you can still catch the random big spell or, ahem, pitch it to Force. Robert Vroman recently said Spell Pierce is better than Mana Drain simply for its being able to win counter battles more efficiently, and he could very well be right.

In Oath, for example, Spell Pierce can back up your namesake spell on turn two with a Mox draw, and you might still have a Force of Will to back up even that. Likewise, Tezzeret can support early tutors and draw spells with Spell Pierce or use it to knock down its opponent’s spells and keep their game in check.

As a Belcher player, I am very afraid of Spell Pierce. My opponent might have Force of Will for my first big threat on turn zero, and then won’t have to dig very far to find a second counter for the next one. Thank goodness for Goblin Welder.

Thank goodness, also, for Sadistic Sacrament. “Sad Sack,” as it’s being called, is a Jester’s Cap and activation rolled into one easy-to-Dark-Ritual-out package. It provides a new, potentially game-ending threat against the most dominant decks in the format, Tezzeret and Oath, since neither one runs more than three cards that win the game pre-board. Tendrils of Agony combo decks like TPS and Ad Nauseam take splash damage, and many Stax decks can be reduced to just Welders with which to win, forcing the game to go significantly longer.

Of course, TPS and Ad Nauseam run Dark Ritual and can use Sad Sack for themselves. Whether that’s better than just winning the game via combo still remains to be seen.

One card that hasn’t shown up in Vintage as much as I expected is Bloodghast. The little recurring vampire was supposed to be an undead godsend for Ichorid, but nobody has been able to quite make the numbers work. You end up adding lands to trigger landfall to a deck that runs better with fewer lands in it. Seems awkward.

Bloodghast also made appearances in theoretical Stax and Mono-Black Aggro and Control decks It hasn’t shown much promise there either, however. Stax would rather have another cheap lock-piece and win on the slow side, and Mono-Black would rather disrupt the opponent than play silly tricks with Bloodghast and Skullclamp.

I still think there’s a chance for Bloodghast, though. Getting free creatures with your land drop seems like a strong play, and it may be that the right mix of Bloodghasts and other cards is out there and hasn’t been found.

Anyway, it’s probably too little, too late, and too unoriginal, but that’s my take on Zendikar. Several of the cards have obvious applications in vintage, a few are already making waves, and the landfall and trap mechanics are exciting enough to make me look forward to the rest of the block. It should be good.

And I waited long enough to write this up that it’s almost here!

As it is, I’m on my way to the Philadelphia Open IV to play a little Vintage today. In fact, I’m crossing into New Jersey riiiight… now. (I know that Philadelphia isn’t in New Jersey, but apparently its Opens are. Whatever).

Hopefully, I’ll be able to write a report on the way back home

It's Banned and Restricted List Time!

2009-09-12T10:36:00.002-04:00

“Buffalo Bob” Smith: Hey, kids, what time is it?

Peanut Gallery: IT’S BANNED AND RESTRICTED LIST TIME!

(There should be nobody playing Magic right now who gets that reference firsthand. Okay, well, maybe Mark Trogdon.)

That’s right, now that B&R changes happen on the 20th of months divisible by three, we’re just a week away from September’s sweeping changes to the Vintage format. I always look forward to B&R time with great apprehension, since there’s always the possibility for new archetypes to be created or old ones to die to the loss of a key card.

We actually got a preview of this with the recent Oracle update that changed the function of Illusionary Mask. As Mark Gottlieb says in his updates article, “What a weird, weird card.”

Illusionary Mask
2
Artifact
X: You may choose a creature card in your hand whose mana cost could be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on X. If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. If the creature that spell becomes as it resolves is face down and would assign or deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, instead it's turned face up then assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

Previously, Ol’ Googly Eyes let players sneak creatures into play without casting them as an activated ability. As with Aether Vial, the Masked-in creatures couldn’t be countered. Now, however, the Mask simply allows players the opportunity to cast creatures face down, and since they’re cast, they can be countered. Plus, now the face down creatures are 2/2 blanks, just like face-down morph creatures.

This was disappointing news for the players of the Illusionary Mask-Phyrexian Dreadnaught combo. Whereas it used to be once they resolved Mask, the Dreadnaught was home free; now the Dreadnaught is in danger of being countered as well (thought it does still avoid the comes-into-play trigger). There’s also less control over when the face-down creature gets flipped, since it only happens when the creature assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped, rather than at the Masker’s discretion.

The combo’s losing some resiliency is a shame. The deck was a fairly popular fringe deck, and was one of those builds a player was likely to get hooked on and play for several months at a time, trying to perfect it. However, the changes did align the wording more closely with the original, and I can’t fault them for that. Frankly, this wording makes a lot of sense to me, especially since it can be grokked just by reading the actual card.

Oh, and in a widely overlooked Oracle change, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale no longer kills Darksteel Colossus (or any indestructible creature).

Tabernacle, as printed, gives all creatures an upkeep of one, and reads, “If the upkeep cost for a creature is not paid, the creature is destroyed.” Fair enough. That was errata’d previously to be “sacrificed” instead of “destroyed,” and now it’s being changed back. I don’t know who would have brought in a Tabernacle against the Tin Man, but they shouldn’t anymore. It won’t do anything because Darksteel Colossus cannot be destroyed!

Anyway, it’s banned and restricted list time!

In July, Wizards unrestricted four cards (Crop Rotation, Enlightened Tutor, Entomb, and Grim Monolith) and restricted Thirst for Knowledge. The unrestrictions have proven, so far, to be uneventful. The monster Stax deck that was projected with unrestricted Crop Rotation has failed to emerge, as have the second-turn Time Vault deck with four Enlightened Tutors and the degenerate Dragon combo list with four Entombs.

I, myself, attempted a Grim Monolith Belcher list with several Voltaic Keys and Time Vault, but was disappointed with the results and eventually discarded the idea.

Thirst for Knowledge’s restriction has been subtly effective: Tezzeret is still the best deck in the format (despite a recent scare by the Steel City Vault combo list), but it isn’t as dominant as before. In fact, it’s weak enough now that a non-blue deck is making waves in the form of a GWB Beats disruption deck. If that isn’t a successful restriction, I don’t know what is.

So, really, the July restricted list changes were excellent. The removed cards are safe and are probably, in fact, underused. The lone restricted card has hindered the dominant strategy, but hasn’t killed it. Hooray!

Of course the question now is, “What can we change next?”

I don’t think there are any cards that need to be restricted at the current time. Some cards are making questionable advances—Impulse, I’m looking in your direction, you naughty blue instant, you—but nothing is dominating the metagame beyond the normal powerhouses we’re already used to.

And we know they’re not thinking about restricting Mana Drain or Force of Will or Mishra’s Workshop or Dark Ritual, right?

However, there are cards that could stand to come off the restricted list. At least six by my count, though I’ll only argue for three most likely candidates here. I figure Wizards is more likely to do things in small batches to see how they turn out rather that doing a major purge and trying to pick up the pieces should anything serious go wrong.

And, no, not one of the six is Ponder. That card is stupid good. Stop asking.

Burning Wish

This card’s time has come. The Wishes all took a major hit with the M10 rulings since they can now only tutor for cards in the sideboard, rather than for cards that were removed from the game by, say Yawgmoth’s Will or Demonic Consultation. Basically, there’s nothing threatening left to get with this, because you want all of the threatening cards in your deck, not languishing in your sideboard.

Look at it this way: the most degenerate card you can get with this is the most degenerate card ever, Yawgmoth’s Will. So you’re going to put Yawgmoth’s Will in your sideboard, so you can grab it with your Burning Wish? That makes Yawgmoth’s Will cost 3BR, and gives your opponent two chances to counter it. That seems terrible! Put Yawgmoth’s Will in your deck son you can grab it with your Demonic Tutor, and so if Demonic Tutor gets countered, you can topdeck Will like a champ and win the game anyway!
Burning Wish is largely off-the-radar for Vintage deckbuilders as a one-of right now.

If it gets unrestricted, it might get some consideration in a fringe combo deck like Belcher (but not by me). Or maybe it will lead to a Burning Wish-powered control deck, because, you know, control decks love doing stuff at sorcery speed.

Flash (Ah-aaaahhh!)

I remember playing against Flash and hating it. It was the most annoying deck since it would either kill you on turn one or build up a handful of counters and kill you on turn three with quadruple back up.

However, that wasn’t a function of Flash so much as it was a function of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll, each of which happens to work really well in a deck where you have combo pieces you don’t want to draw and a blue instant that you want to find and play as soon as possible.

Flash is probably safe now without its li’l blue helpers. If it draws one of its combo creatures, it will have more trouble putting it back into the deck. It will also have slightly more trouble finding a Flash or counter backup for it.

It will still be annoying, no doubt, but I think the format will be able to handle it. A stronger blue-based combo deck will be a natural predator for Tezzeret and similar control decks, while the Flash combo itself is fragile enough that Fish and Stax won’t have too much trouble adapting to keep it down.

Balance

Let’s just try this out, okay? Just a little. Just to see how it feels.

Unrestricted Balance could, I’m not going to lie, be ridiculous. It might, like Gush, be a candidate for immediate re-restriction. (Though I question Gush’s re-restriction as well, which might give astute readers a hint to another one of my six possible unrestrictions).

At the same time, Balance would probably create an entirely new archetype—a non-blue, non-aggro based control deck. I say non-blue because Drain decks love their mana, don’t they? And Balance sort of puts the kybosh on that by, you know, blowing up a bunch of lands. Likewise, non-aggro because Balance neuters creature superiority.

Too much? Maybe. But I’m willing to take a chance on one of these.

So that’s it. Burning Wish should come off because it’s decidedly not broken anymore. Flash and Balance can come off because they could lead to new archetypes, possible contenders against Drain decks like Tezzeret.

I think they will be powerful, but Vintage is filled with the most powerful cards already. If a format with Black Lotus, Tinker, Ancestral Recall, Mana Drain, Mishra’s Workshop, and Goblin Charbelcher (ha!) can’t handle these cards, I will eat this blog.

For the record, I think Library of Alexandria, Frantic Search, and Gush could all be unrestricted as well, for similar reasons. I would be thrilled to see any of the six cards I’ve mentioned come off the restricted list.

Like I said, just for a try.

Stuff needs to happen.

M10 Too Black, Too Strong

2009-09-08T01:16:00.002-04:00

Howdy, folks! We did another M10 draft last Wednesday night at our weekly meetup, and at the request of some friends, I tried to do a better job of recording my picks and how things went down. I still didn’t record game or match notes, but I think I’ll do okay at remembering. The short of it is that I drafted mono-black, came in second (out of six), and felt like most of my games were blowouts for one side or the other.

Pack 1:

Act of Treason
Doom Blade
Tendrils of Corruption
Warpath Ghoul
Sign in Blood
Wall of Bone
Vampire Aristocrat
Unholy Strength
Demon’s Horn
Enormous Baloth
Entangling Vines
Fog
Relentless Rats
Naturalize
Mountain

I actually passed a pack one, pick one Nightmare because I began with no intentions of going mono-black and didn’t really want to necessarily push myself into that path so early. Of course, I also never considered that an X/X flyer is pretty good by itself in limited. As it was, I picked a solid uncommon that didn’t end up making it into my deck, or even my sideboard considerations really.

Pick two had a bunch of removal like Pacifism, Ice Cage

When the Enormous Baloth came around late, I considered doing a black-green build (hence the Baloth, Vines, Fog, Naturalize package from this pack), but there were plenty of black cards coming later that allowed me to really maximize things like Tendrils of Corruption and Demon’s Horn.

That’s right, Demon’s Horn. Respect the Horn.

Pack 2:

Enormous Baloth
Gravedigger
Assassinate
Vampire Aristocrat
Dread Warlock
Rampant Growth
Emerald Oryx
Nature’s Spiral
Lava Axe
Yawning Fissure
Disentomb
Yawning Fissure
Island

The green theme continued in pack two as I chose a second Enormous Baloth over Jace and Divination but no decent black cards. I passed another Divination when I took Gravedigger and knew that Abe, sitting to my right, would be happy to take the blue cards.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many good black cards beyond the first few I picked up. I mean, Yawning Fissure, really? I have no defense for that pick.

I was happy to pick the Gravedigger, however, as the eventual pair of those I would get kept me in many games, returning each other for extra card advantage.

Pack 3:

Doom Blade
Assassinate
Rise from the Grave
Howling Banshee
Tendrils of Corruption
Child of Night
Duress
Gravedigger
Unholy Strength
Looming Shade
Regenerate
Demon’s Horn
Swamp
Plains

Pack three was obviously huge for me, and was what really allowed me to go mono-black without looking back. Second Doom Blades, Assassinates, and Tendrils of Corruption gave me a six-pack of strong removal spells, and Rise from the Grave gave me something to do with all of those creatures I was killing. Child of Night and the two Unholy Strengths were huge for me, especially alongside the two Demon’s Horns and Tendrils of Corruption. I bought several turns and finished several games above 30 life.

I put together this pile:

2x Doom Blade
2x Assassinate
2x Tendrils of Corruption
2x Unholy Strength
2x Demon’s Horn
1x Rise from the Grave
1x Sign in Blood

2x Gravedigger
2x Vampire Aristocrat
1x Dread Warlock
1x Warpath Ghoul
1x Howling Banshee
1x Child of Night
1x Wall of Bone
1x Relentless Rats
1x Looming Shade

17x Swamp

I probably could have splashed for some big ol’ green fat and an extra removal spell in Entangling Vines, but I decided I’d rather maximize Tendrils of Corruption and eliminate my chances of color screw. I did pick up some Forests, just in case I wanted to make some switches between games, but everything worked out pretty well.

Unfortunately, I’d be hard pressed to give any actual details. One thing about draft decks is that, since I’m less familiar with the cards than those of my favorite format, Vintage, it’s harder for me to recall the sequences of plays.

I will, however, make the attempt—for you.

Round 1 – Josh

Josh played a white, red, and green deck with a fairly solid soldier subtheme, a bunch of green color fixers, and some red removal. His notable cards included Rhox Pikemaster, Veteran Swordsmith, and Blinding Mage.

For game one, he had an abundance of lands, to the point where, even though I had near 20 life, I was worried about a game-ending Fireball wrecking my day. He had held off an early Unholy Strong Child of Night with the Blinding Mage and a later Pacifism, but Dread Warlock was giving him fits, especially since I recurred it a couple of times with Grave Digger. I expended enough removal that we had a bit of a creature stall toward the end, but Howling Banshee dropped to bring death from the skies.

Game two, he got color screwed, not finding a second white source for too long. My three-drop 2/2s were supported by enough removal to get in for the win.

Round 2 – Abe

Abe was the one picking up those great blue cards I was passing. He ended up with a strong blue- and red-based deck with a white splash.

For all three games, I leaned heavily on lifegain from Child of Night, Demon’s Horn, and Tendrils of Corruption to keep me in it.

They were good back-and-forth affairs, and the two games I won relied on me playing a critical Rise from the Grave. First I was able to deal with a pesky Prodigal Pyromancer long enough to bring back one of Abe’s Lightning Elementals for a hasty four to the dome. Another time, one attack away from death, I was able to bring back Howling Banshee to take advantage of my opponent’s low life and win on the spot.

The game I lost was due to my 2/2s not being able to keep up with his big red machine. Inferno Elemental was just too much in too many attacks.

Round 3 – Doug

Doug also played red, white, and green, but played a more tempo-oriented deck with fast white attackers and red removal. He ended up placing first in the draft, and certainly stomped me.

The two games we played were over quickly. In the first, I mulliganed to six with two Swamps in hand but never saw the third one. Since the bulk of my creatures cost three, I was only able to Doom Blade one attacker and cast and block with a Child of Night to stay alive.

Doug was able to swarm me in the second game. Our creatures were similarly sized, but since most of his were two-drops he had three in play to my two on turn three. Soon he had a Serra Angel, and the only answer I had was Assassinate that couldn’t cut the mustard. It was a ridiculous drubbing.

Round 4 – Ryan

Ryan and I played mostly for fun since there were only six players and the results would be determined by the outcome of Doug vs. Abe. Ryan had a terrible draft and knew it: no removal, weak creatures, and no good finisher. He did have some decent card selection in Merfolk Looter and Sage Owl, but in his other games he just wasn’t living long enough to see it pan out.

In game one, I had answers for everything he played and was gaining life continuously from a pair of Demon’s Horns. I could have won with any single creature, but several ended it quickly.

I mulliganed again to start game two, and again got stuck on two lands for a long time. However, since Ryan’s deck was so slow, I was able to draw into lands and start making a slow but steady comeback fueled by the Rise from the Grave getting Gravedigger, getting Gravedigger, getting another creature card advantage engine. It was tenuous and our game finally got called due to time, but I think I could have won it.

The cards that really surprised me all night were the Demon's Horns. This is the second week that I've drafted and played the new "Lucky Charms" in an appropriately mono-colored deck, having used Kraken's Eye in mono-blue a couple of weeks ago. They're surprisingly potent in a format largely defined by smallish creatures and removal.

You buy so many turns, just by doing stuff you'd normally do. "Assassinate your guy, gain a life." "Tendrils your guy for 8, gain 9." "Make a ghoul, gain a life." Etc.

My first opponent, Josh, recognized this right away, saying, "We're in for the long game, huh?" Counting it up last time, Kraken's Eye bought me two full turns against a Cudgel Troll, enough to let me win by decking. So, yes, we're in for the long game.

Obviously this is a small sample size, and going mono-colored isn't always easy, convenient, or the right play, but I might try this again, just to see what happens. I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's results as well.

Anyway, that was pretty much it. I’ve had a good time drafting M10, and have tried several different archetypes, included the vaunted Tome Scour deck. Though I’m not a huge fan of paying for packs (mostly because I have zero use for the cards afterwards), I hope we’ll continue to do this every once in a while.

For my second place finish, I got to take home the Jace Beleren, a Haunting Echoes (to go with another Haunting Echoes and two Traumatize), and some other random okayness.

Hopefully next week, I’ll start getting into some of the Zendikar stuff. Or maybe some Vintage! I’ve been playing a lot of Oath and have played against the Steel City Vault Deck and GWB Beats deck recently, so maybe I’ll put together some discussion.

Until then, I recommend you play whatever format is available. Magic of any kind is fun.

Vintage is Back in Virginia - 2nd at Richmond Comix

2009-08-30T16:16:00.002-04:00

Vintage is back in Virginia!

A few weeks ago, Abe "Katzby" Corson alerted the few of us Vintage players in Northern Virginia to a tournament at Richmond Comix in Midlothian, VA. As an attempt to revitalize the format, th e tournament was expected to be small, and even up to the day before the tournament nobody was sure what the prize support would be, but that didn’t matter. It was a Vintage tournament two hours away.

So we made plans to head out and support a burgeoning local Vintage scene. Abe, Ryan Seeley, and I would be playing, and Abe’s wife filled in the all-important fourth as chauffer, runner, and cheerleader. On the way, we learned from Abe the history of Magic in Virginia as the one-time hotbed of Vintage activity. We also did the usual metagame discussion and our expectations for the success of the tournament.

Richmond Comix had a really good setup—clean, lots of light, plenty of space, good prize support, and a great group of local players. At 12 players, turnout was a little low, but it was a lot of fun. The store is planning on holding events at least quarterly in the future, and I expect with a little more notice and better defined prize support, they could easily draw more than 20 gamers from Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Virginia Beach. As it was, they still gave out a box of M10 to first, an Unlimited Berserk to second, and some FNM Foils to third and fourth.

All in all, a great tournament, so I’m definitely looking forward to the next one. If you have the opportunity, definitely try to make it out.

14249 Midlothian Turnpike
Midlothian, VA 23113
(804)594-2845
richmix@richmondcomix.com

Here’s what I packed:

RUGBurn 4-Color, 0-Land Belcher

4x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Timetwister
1x Windfall
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Necropotence
1x Tinker
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation

4x Street Wraith
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Tinder Wall
3x Goblin Welder
2x Wild Cantor

4x Manamorphose
4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual
4x Chrome Mox
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Channel

Sideboard
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Pyroblast
3x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Cabal Ritual
1x Goblin Welder
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Gaea’s Blessing
1x Vampiric Tutor

I had played a RUGBurn list at a previous tournament in Baltimore earlier this year. That list was also explosively fast, but it lacked a certain amount of resiliency. The card I wanted most and sided in for almost every round in Baltimore was Goblin Welder, so I wanted to run those maindeck.

I also ran Windfall maindeck. It’s a good card in the opening hand and helps recover from mulligans. Plus it gained modicum of respectability after having shown up in the Steel City Vault deck. I boarded it out in every match against Force of Wills, but I also used it on the way to a first-turn win.

The list played well, had little trouble getting the right colors, and, except from some poor sideboarding decisions, I never felt like there were cards I wanted and didn’t have. Having the extra mana-fixing capabilities of Wild Cantor was key.

Part of the color fixing included a last minute change of three Cabal Rituals for three Tinder Walls in the maindeck. Cabal Ritual definitely wins games, especially after a draw-seven has filled my graveyard, but it’s much harder to cast. Tinder Wall actually facilitates other colors, being castable off of Elvish Spirit Guide and providing convenient Manamorphose mana. Not to mention that Tinder Wall blocks and can be cast on one turn and used later.

The tournament was well run, including starting on time.

Round 1 – Abe Corson – Steel City Vault

So Abe and I drove two hours to play against each other in round one. Abe would also play Ryan in round two—seems like a successful tournament for him!

I mulliganed to five in game one and had an understandably slow start, while Abe played a bunch of artifact mana, several draw spells, and Tolarian Academy. Lucky for me that was the only land he had for a looong time. So we played draw-go for several turns. Finally I had mana make some plays, but he countered my initial Tinder Wall. I passed and he tutored for Ancestral but also passed. I topdecked Lotus and used that to play and activate Belcher.

I boarded out Welders for Pyroblasts, and learned something new: Don’t ever board out all your answers to Pithing Needle and Null Rod. I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway, Abe played Pithing Needle on turn one, and my Demonic Tutor hand went from amazing to terrible. I tried to figure out how to play a Street Wraith, but was one mana short and had to go with Wild Cantor instead. Still the little druid that could got in for five damage. Abe Fired us both, but I had Twister and Tinker for Jar on the next turn to get a Street Wraith and Simian Spirit Guide into play. Unfortunately my draw sevens gave him the means to complete the Time Vault combo.

I boarded Welders back in.

Abe mulliganed to five but had a Force of Will for my turn-one Belcher and an Ancestral Recall to refill his hand. “That was a good mulligan,” I said. It was not enough, however, as my in play mana was very stable and I topdecked and played another Belcher on turn two, activating for the win on turn three.

Match – 1-0; Games – 2-1

I was happy to start out with a match win and stay out of the losers’ bracket. Abe successfully managed Operation Clean Sweep and ended up in the top four as well.

Round 2 – Nathan Groves – BG Aggro

This was a fun match. Nathan was playing in his first Vintage tournament and was very friendly. Hopefully it won’t be his last.

I was on the play in game one, led with Necropotence, drew 10 cards and left myself a solid hand with a few redundancies. Nathan Duressed me, taking a Charbelcher. I played Welder on turn two and Welded for the win on turn three, after receiving a warning for looking at extra cards when I drew with Necropotence in play.

I boarded in Empty the Warrens for Windfall, Twister, and Necropotence.

Nathan mulliganed to five for game two and made me mull to four by opening with Dark Ritual, Duress, and Hymn to Tourach. We both played draw-go until he found a second land and played Tarmogoyf. I took two attacks from a 5/6 Goofus until I played Empty the Warrens for eight tokens. I think I could have won with just that, but I topdecked Belcher two turns after and won with that instead.

Match – 2-0; Games – 4-1

Nathan must have had an okay time at the tournament, because I know he was still in the store watching the finals.

Round 3 – Chris Adcock – Manaless Ichorid

This match finished up awkwardly, but was actually a pretty good back and forth competition. Chris was a good sport.

We both shuffled up, and started mulliganing for game one. I was happy to keep on seven with a turn two Belcher activation in play. Chris mulliganed to oblivion. It wasn’t much of a game. He did draw Bazaar on his first and only turn, though.

I boarded in Tormod’s Crypts and two Empty the Warrens for Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Memory Jar, a Goblin Welder, and a Manamorphose, I think.

My game-two opening hand would have been a turn-one goldfish, but Chris was no goldfish, opening with Chalice of the Void at zero. Fortunately he didn’t have a Bazaar, so I had some time to draw out of it, but Chris eventually discarded Dredgers and started doing stuff. Like Winning. I faced a couple of Cabal Therapies, and an Ichorid and a Zombie token took me down.

We both mulliganed to six for game three, and I opened with a Mox Ruby, Tormod’s Crypt, and Street Wraith, hoping to draw one more mana. That plan didn’t work out, however, and I was forced to pass. Chris played a Chalice and whiffed with a Therapy, but had no Bazaar. I played Twister and drew awesome cards like Lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Mox Jet, which of course were useless with Chalice in play. A few more turns and this happened:

Chris tapped City of Brass and said “Red.” Then he tried to flashback Ancient Grudge.

“You just added red mana to your pool. Very clearly.”

I felt like an asshole, especially because he admitted he hadn’t played with Ancient Grudge much before, but I held my ground. If he had just tapped City of Brass and tried to flashback Ancient Grudge, no problem. But he undeniably added red to his pool.

The next turn I topdecked a Spirit Guide and used that and my Mox Ruby to cast Manamorphose into Channel into Belcher for the win.

Match – 3-0; Games 6-2

Afterward, I apologized again, and Chris said he would have Grudged the Tormod’s Crypt anyway so I still would have won. It wasn’t a fun way to win, and I usually think of Vintage as a fairly casual, friendly format. Oh well. He’ll never try to flashback Ancient Grudge with red again.

Round 4 – Eric Debrosky – Ad Nauseam

Eric and I have been in contact by email for a few months now about trying to get Vintage restarted in Virginia. There are Magic communities in Richmond, Virginia Beach, and Northern Virginia that are clustered enough to organize some pretty large tournaments. Hopefully we get that done. Eric was definitely excited about getting to play Vintage and was a great “host” for the tournament.

Plus, the Ad Nauseam versus Belcher matchup is one of the dumbest in Vintage. Not quite a complete coin-flip, but it’s definitely a race.

We both kept seven in game one, and he Duressed me on the play taking Dark Ritual. Next turn he Thoughtseized my Tinker. Then he Duressed my Manamorphose. I was crippled. He played Demonic Consultation for a Dark Ritual and launched Ad Nauseam. He drew, in order, Ad Nauseam, Cabal Ritual, Ad Nauseam, Mox Diamond, and Tendrils of Agony, sending himself to one life. With no available mana, he passed the turn. I attacked with Wild Cantor for the win.

He probably should have just kept drawing off Ad Nauseam.

On the play in game two, he mulliganed to six and won on turn one with Ad Nauseam. Yay, Vintage!

Game three, Eric mulliganed to six, and I went to five on the play. His action came first, though, as he played Necropotence and drew a bunch of cards. I did not draw the win in the meantime. Eric won by chaining Necropotence to his hand, playing Mystical Tutor for Ad Nauseam, and winning with Yawgmoth’s Will. That’s a lot of heat.

Match – 3-1; Games – 7-4

Someday I’d get my revenge. That day was the same day.

Top 4 – Eric Debrosky – Ad Nauseam

Okay, this time I was ready.

He mulliganed to five on the play and passed the turn. I played Twister with three Moxes in play but couldn’t put anything together. Instead, he got seven new cards that included an Ad Nauseam win.

Oops!

On the play in game two, I used Demonic Tutor to play Windfall with Black Lotus in play. I found Belcher and had plenty of mana to play and activate without his doing anything about it.

We both kept seven for game three, and when he Duressed my Charbelcher instead of allowing me to play and win with it on turn one it seemed like it would be an actual game. Instead after drawing my card for turn and cycling two Street Wraiths, I found another Charbelcher and won with that instead.

It was real good.

Match – 4-1; Games – 9-5

Eric, of course, was a good sport about everything. Playing Ad Nauseam means he’s well used to the sometimes turn-one nature of the format. Plus he got some FNM foils for his top-four performance.

Finals – Daniel Sale – GW Aggro

Daniel battled through six or so GWx Beats decks to make it to the finals. I think he was surprised to be there, though. I knew I couldn’t take him for granted, though.

I opened with a turn one Belcher on the play in game one. Unfortunately, I had removed six of eight Spirit Guides to Demonic Consultation to do so. I did not draw activation mana, and he played Null Rod on turn three to shut me down. Ethersworn Canonist, Kataki, and Qasali Pridemage teamed up to win the game.

For game two, I mulled to four and kept a hand of Elvish Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall, and two Street Wraiths. I didn’t draw anything useful, and lost again to Null Rod and some 2/2 guys.

Match – 4-2; Games – 9-7

I guess the luck had to run out sooner or later.

I still got to take home an Unlimited Berserk for my troubles—pretty good second-place prize for a 12-man tournament.

Afterward we headed to a nearby Captial Ale House, for an excellent post-tournament meal. Some initial slow service earned us a free appetizer, and the food (and beer selection) were excellent. I had the bacon grilled-cheese burger on a dare. It was essentially a burger built into a grilled-cheese sandwich, with bacon. Niiiiice… No Thurmanburger, of course, but still really good, and not nearly as heavy as I would have expected.

Next time, I’ll play even better, so I can enjoy my dinner even more.

Tome Scour and Some Thoughts on Limited

2009-08-22T23:14:00.005-04:00

I don’t get a lot of opportunities to draft. Or at least I didn’t used to get a lot of opportunities to draft. Recently the group of us who play out here in the D.C. area has grown to the point where we can fairly regularly get eight people to draft once a week, so we do. We’ve done a couple of M10 drafts so far, with apparently pretty good results.

Even my fiancée is participating! I plan on having a primer in the next few weeks on how to get your significant other to play Magic. Hopefully that will be interesting, since a few people have asked my advice on the subject. I’d like to get my fiancée’s help to write it too, if she’s willing.

We’ll see.

Anyway, semi-regular drafting: For me, it’s probably a good thing. Drafting definitely tests different skills than my usual diet of Vintage. Creature combat is far more important, card advantage isn’t as simple as “Target player draws three cards,” and I’ve found it very difficult to combo turn one.

Unfortunately for me, I still don’t take drafting very seriously. When making my picks, I’m often tempted by “the danger of cool things.” I want to try new things. I’ve attacked with creatures before and used removal on my opponent’s mob. It’s old hat. Boooooring.

Take this nifty little deck, for example:

1x Ponder
2x Divination
1x Mind Control
1x Air Elemental
1x Rod of Ruin
1x Kraken’s Eye
1x Wall of Frost
1x Sleep
2x Ice Cage
2x Essence Scatter
2x Negate
2x Cancel
2x Traumatize
4x Tome Scour
17x Island

That’s right, I drafted TomeScour.dec, and I liked it.

The idea is that since everyone (well, the good players anyway) plays with 40 card decks and draw almost a quarter of their deck for their opening hand, in limited, milling becomes a viable path to victory. Tome Scour is a relatively large chunk of the remaining deck. The goal essentially becomes survival against your opponent's unquestionably better aggro capabilities. You're playing combo: mill before they run you over with dudes.

I hadn’t gone into the draft with this strategy in mind. I mean, I had heard about the possibility of this deck after M10 was released, and the prospect of creating it arose at our previous draft, but it wasn’t a strategy I was about to force.

Then Traumatize was passed to me for pick number five. Seeing nothing else in the pack that piqued my interest, I figured why not. Then I saw a Tome Scour. Then another. So by the end of the first pack I already had a pair of Tome Scours and a Traumatize. When the player five seats ahead of me table-talked about a second Traumatize that I later picked up, I knew I was in.

The deck seemed really good to me. I wish I’d had one more Sleep or maybe one more counter, but I wasn’t having problems with the deck’s contents.

Kraken’s Eye kept me alive for several turns against the more aggressive decks, and made me glad I hadn’t splashed red for the few extra removal cards and single Burning Inquiry.

Mind Control and Air Elemental were excellent answers to the aggro scourge. Mind Control even won me a game, taking control of a late-game Enormous Baloth that I rode to victory a few turns sooner than I would have been able to deck my opponent.

I would have loved to have drafted more Ponders. I don’t know where most players would rank Ponder, but I figure if it’s good enough to be restricted in Vintage it’s good enough to be played in my draft deck. In the previous week’s draft, I had three Ponders and was happy to draw them and have them in my opening hand.

Actually, the card I was most disappointed with, and remember having been disappointed with in previous limited events, was Ice Cage. It’s so fragile! And there are times where its fragility is just comically bad. For example, when the Cudgel Troll you’ve Iced breaks out because it’s been zapped by Oakenform. You went from taking zero damage to a shot in the face for seven, followed by several prospective fours, which kinda sucks!

Oh, I also feel like I had a relevant sideboard that wasn’t just the random artifact or enchantment removal card. Against the really aggressive decks, I could bring in three of those white cards that gain me seven life. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of that card, and I never brought it in, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course, the real problem with this deck (and, in fact, with most decks that I play) is that I play like a complete donkey 90% of the time.

In the pivotal game three of my first match, the situation was thus: My opponent, Josh, had several creatures in play with power equal to seven, including a 2/1 Coral Merfolk. I had seven life and had just drawn a Tome Scour to go with my in-hand Traumatize and six mana. I also had a Rod of Ruin in play.

“How many cards in your library?” I asked.

Josh counted them out in front of me. “Eleven,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Traumatize you.”

“That’s five right?”

And as soon as he said it, I knew I had lost. Actually, as soon as I’d announced and paid for Traumatize I knew I had lost. “Oh, no!” I said. “What am I doing?! I just lost.” My opponent readily agreed.

Because I’m an idiot.

Traumatize and Tome Scour against eleven cards left one card in my opponent’s library, just enough for him to draw one card and smash my face.

Of course, the proper play was to knock out his Coral Merfolk with my Rod of Ruin, pass the turn (I think with Negate in hand), let him draw a card down to 10, Traumatize and Tome Scour him next turn, and win the game.

Oh well. Next time I’ll be better.

The problem with playing so poorly, of course, is that I have this really cool draft deck that I want to play more. First, it was fun to win without attacking in a limited format. Second, I want to prove to myself that I drafted as well as I hope.

It’s sort of like that time during Time Spiral block when I drafted six Gathan Raiders and four Edge of Autumn (strictly for deck thinning, obviously) and absolutely dominated the dojo. I wanted to play that deck over and over because, well, hey, it seemed really good! Winning is fun!

What I’m left with is yet another draft deck that I think was a rousing success yet have no way to prove that and no opportunity to try again. It’s so disappointing.

Is this a common feeling for drafters?

Anyway, I’ll probably have a few more draft reports going forward. They won’t really be of any practical use to anyone, but it will be fun for me, and hopefully they’ll be entertaining enough to make reading them worthwhile.

Sound good?

Good.

Friends Don't Let Friends Play Bad Decks

2009-08-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

It’s taken me a while to figure out something coherent to write about the past couple of Vintage tournaments I attended. Making the trips to Chicago and Pittsburgh for a total of four days of card slinging, hanging out with friends, and eating some good food was totally worth it.

Worth it even though my overall record for these tournaments was something like 5-16—4-12 with Belcher and 1-4 with mono-red shop aggro.

Yeah.

Pretty bad.

Highlights include 38 mulligans (including 12 games mulling to five or fewer), having Jushi Apprentice flipped against me, seeing Channel meet Arcane Denial, and losing outright to Sen Triplets.

Tallying things up like this is really depressing.

Obviously it’s not worth writing a report about, let alone four separate reports about each day. But what did I learn from all this?

Well, nothing. I’m still going to argue that Belcher is a playable deck. It’s a high-variance deck, sure—high risk and high reward—but it’s playable. The red-green version that I’ve been playing still has the same advantages it always has. It’s very, very fast and has some resiliency against counters thanks to maindeck Guttural Responses and Welders.

Ben Carp told me at day one of Chicago (which, thanks for hosting, Ben) that he has my list put together on Magic Workstation and goldfishes it sometimes. “It’s terrifying,” he says, and I agree. He also thanked me for daring to play and win without using blue or Yawgmoth’s Will.

When I had more success, including a top eight in Pittsburgh, a top four in Baltimore, and a top 16 in Connecticut, the opening hands I was drawing were unbeatable. Black Lotus was everywhere, I had counter or Welder backup for everything, and I was never at a loss for a win condition.

It was great.

And it really helped validate Belcher as a deck choice for me. Mostly I play Belcher because I enjoy it. It’s fun to activate Belcher or to run an opponent over with a horde of goblin tokens.

However, I also have some strategic advantages with the deck: having played for so long, I know Belcher thoroughly, often better than my opponents know their decks and certainly better than my opponents know Belcher. The deck is surprisingly complex, far more so than most people give it credit. The combination presents me with frequent opportunities to outplay my opponents as they underestimate or misunderstand my plans.

So despite my recent lackluster efforts, Belcher is still worth playing. I don’t think this is simple pig-headedness on my part, though that does enter into it.

I still want to play the fastest deck in the format, to make my opponents react to my opening plays, and to have 10-minute rounds that let me relax and watch other people play Vintage. Belcher still offers these opportunities.

In fact, it’s because of this that I’m most upset with my play on day two in Pittsburgh.

The idea, developed over some breakfast testing at McDonald’s was that we should get as many people as possible to play Workshops and wear the United Mishra’s Workshop t-shirts, a fitting tribute to the Mishra-themed prize package and a full-on representation of the Workshop Capital of the World, Cleveland, Ohio.

It was a good thought. I’m all in favor of team-unity, and Workshops are fun to play.

Unfortunately, I had left my Workshop deck and Stax components at home. For me to participate in the mono-brownout, so to speak, we had to throw together a list from the leftovers of Trogdon, Twaun, Yang, and Witherell. So not only was I playing a deck that I wouldn’t normally have played, but I was playing a suboptimal list as well. It was not a good combination.

All day, I was miserable. I was constantly wondering why I wasn’t playing Belcher, and not only because I wanted to prey on the Force-of-Will-less Workshop-infused metagame. It’s entirely likely that I would have gone 1-4 with Belcher as well, but at least I would have been losing with the deck I wanted to play.

Hanging out with everyone was still fun, for sure, and at least I was playing Magic, but the overall tournament experience wasn’t quite complete for me. As Workshop Maestro, Nam Q. Tran said when I voiced my concerns to him, “Friends don’t let friends play bad decks.”

(Obviously no slight to the Pittsburgh tournaments’ hosts Brian Kiel and Mr. Nice Guy Games. They had a great setup that was unfortunately and unfairly beset with low turnout.)

I could, at least, gain some hope from meeting a couple of up-and-coming Belcher players at each tournament. In Chicago, one young man whose name I didn’t get was playing my list card for card. He was positive about his experience and finished day one with a 3-4 record, after having started his day 1-0 against Mark Trogdon.

Likewise Jason Blawas, against whom I squared off day two in Pittsburgh, and who soundly defeated me in three games. Jason suckled at the turn-one teat even before I did, having picked up Belcher just after Michael Simister debuted it, but he only recently started playing Vintage again and picked up my list on the recommendation of the rest of the Cleveland gamers.

I hope players continue to pick up and enjoy Belcher. It’s a difficult deck to live with at times, and many people give up on it before they have time to learn its nuances (which do exist, I swear) or to let the variance swing around to their favor. Not that I’m worried about the deck dying out, of course. There will always be some idiot (me) playing the deck, and it always warms the cockles of my heart to see a Belcher player (especially me) do well.

So from these two awesome weekends of tournaments I guess I learned that I will be linked to Belcher for a long time. It’s the only deck I want to play. There are turn one kills and Goblin Welders and tokens and no lands, so you get to make a whole bunch of jokes about getting manascrewed… again.

Jerry Yang can tell me all he wants that I’m ruining Vintage with my turn-one-kill deck, but I don’t care. People need that sort of terror in their lives. It gives them purpose, makes the heart beat strong, and pumps them full of adrenaline for the next round.

Plus, for as often as it’s just not my day, sometimes it’s just not yours—deal with it. I’ve lost to you Drain-playing slack-jaws long enough. My opponents for the next few tournaments should just expect it. There’s a change in the wind; I can feel it…

Go to Prereleases - They're Fun

2009-07-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

There’s something about prereleases that make them really appealing tournaments to attend. All kinds of players show up—veteran and new, young and old, serious and casual—and everyone’s there just to see some new cards and have the fun of sharing something fresh and exciting. The new cards aspect is key, and I think I can say that I’ve never been compelled to play in a Core Set prerelease like I was for the M10 event this weekend.

It was a lot of fun.

Fellow Vintage Virginian Abe and I drove up to Dream Wizards in Maryland on Sunday to see how the new set looked and maybe get some practice in on the new rules (I’ll get to those in a little bit). On the way, we talked about how both of us were excited and intrigued by the new set, which had some cards that really harkened back to the early days of Magic and its “traditional” fantasy roots.

There’s also the lighthearted casualness of prereleases. It’s like the first day of school. Everyone is anticipating something, whether it’s opening that big splashy rare or being able to complain about how their favorite aspect of the game was ruined. (Seriously, I think some people really enjoy complaining about things and look forward to doing that. Then they play and have fun anyway). Plus, people get to think about how the coming year will look with the new cards in their favorite format. It’s a very forward-looking time.

When we arrived at Dream Wizards there was a line outside the door. Though this turned out to be because the store was still setting up the tournament area, there were still 78 gamers ready to get their cardboard on. That’s a lot of people! Especially for a four-round event run at a local store.

After the normal waiting for people to register and pay and find their places, they passed out our packs and we got cracking.

The packs I got were, I don’t know, lackluster at first glance. I got no mythic rares, few of my creatures were very big, and I didn’t get any of the awesome red burn like Lightning Bolt or Fireball. I opened a Mirror of Fate, which is unplayable, and two rares which must have been utterly forgettable as I can’t remember what they are right now. I did get a Twincast, which is kind of cool but isn’t exactly something that makes me want to play blue. So I decided to go with Kalonian Behemoth and Magma Phoenix as the basis for an RG deck, which as far as I can tell is normal for a core set.

I never had the opportunity to do any limited events with Alpha, Beta, or Unlimited cards. I’m willing to bet that most of you never had that opportunity either. However, I have done “sealed” events using those cards in the immensely powerful engine that is Shandalar. There, I usually end up playing red and green because they’re simply the best; red has Lightning Bolt and Fireball and green has big creatures like War Mammoth and Craw Wurm. There’s a good curve and cards like Llanowar Elves help make sure you stick to it.

In M10, red has Lightning Bolt and Fireball and green has big creatures like Cudgel Troll and Craw Wurm. There’s a good curve and cards like Llanowar Elves and Rampant Growth help make sure you hit it.

Plus, Abe said that at the big Star City Games prerelease on Saturday, most of the flights were being won by the green players. It seemed like a sound strategy.

Here’s what I played:

1x Kalonian Behemoth
1x Borderland Ranger
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Centaur Courser
1x Deadly Recluse
1x Cudgel Troll
1x Mist Leopard
1x Magma Phoenix
1x Inferno Elemental
1x Sparkmage Apprentice
1x Canyon Minotaur
1x Gravedigger

1x Rampant Growth
1x Entangling Vines
1x Fog
1x Nature’s Spiral
1x Pyroclasm
1x Lava Axe
1x Act of Treason
1x Weakness
1x Doom Blade
1x Assassinate
1x Gorgon Flail

Terramorphic Expanse
3x Swamp
6x Mountain
7x Forest

Looking at the list on paper, I feel like I have too few creatures, but things played out well for the most part, so it’s hard to say. I didn’t really feel like I had other options in my chosen colors, and none of my other colors had much to offer either.

Plus, I never really got swarmed. More often I just ran into bigger things and either died to them or was able to get rid of or neutralize them with my black removal. Opposing Cudgel Trolls and Emerald Oryxes were the things that gave me the most trouble. Other times there would be great stalls on the ground and we would stare at each other until one of us found something to break the stalemate. For me, that was usually Magma Phoenix, which I’m pretty sure won four of the five games I won all day.

I won’t go into the actual games here, because they were mostly of the attack, remove, dude, go variety, but here are some notable events from each match.

Against my first opponent, I lost game one very quickly, never seeing a second green source to cast the Behemoth or Cudgel Troll in my hand. Game two started out much the same and I was soon fighting frantically against his Wall of Frost and dual Cudgel Trolls. At one life I had finally stabilized by removing his creatures, enchanting his last troll with Entangling Vines, and casting my Behemoth. Then, with two turns to live, he topdecked Emerald Oryx. I could remove neither the antelope nor my Forests and lost the game.

That was also the game where we learned that Entangling Vines falls off a creature if that creature becomes untapped. This ruling was brought to our awareness by Abe, who used the new floor rules to pause our game while he got a judge.

In the first game of round two, I Doom Bladed my own Magma Phoenix to finish off my opponent. It was neat, but Doom Blade is still a dumb name for a card, especially one that’s not an artifact. Wizards, you guys need some better creative writers. I’ll send you my resume.

Round three, my opponent finished me off with Fireball in the second and third games. At the end of the third game, my opponent was at eight and I was attacking with Magma Phoenix into his Giant Spider. I needed to get him to take three damage either by not blocking or by killing the Phoenix, so I give him the ol’ Davy Crockett grin like to kill a b’ar. Unfortunately, he blocked as he should have and the Lava Axe I had in hand couldn’t finish the job.

Magma Phoenix won game one of round four and Kalonian Behemoth won game two. My opponent was a woman, probably in her late 30s or early 40s, and would certainly have won had I not topdecked answers like a champ all game both games.

“Gravedigger getting back Mist Leopard?” “Pyroclasm.”

“Enormous Baloth?” “Deadly Recluse.”

“Elvish Piper?” “Sparkmage Apprentice.”

In the end I finished at 2-2, which, though not spectacular or even “good,” was enough to earn me a free pack. I haven’t opened it yet in the hopes that I can get five more and do another draft with my fiancée.

All in all, like I said, it was a good event and M10 was surprisingly fun to play, for a Core Set. I wish I had seen a little bit more variation in colors since everyone seemed to be playing at least one of green, red, and white. I did play against each color at least once during the day, though, and there’s something to be said for that. It was also a little refreshing to not play against blue for four rounds in a row, as would be usual in Vintage.

Speaking of Vintage, Abe and I also did some testing of the BR Belcher list I posted previously. I had cut Yawgmoth’s Will, Spoils of the Vault, and Tendrils for three Empty the Warrens. I wanted more actual win conditions (rather than tutors to get to win conditions), and Yawgmoth’s Will and Tendrils have just not performed well in testing. They’re bad in the opening hand, which is Belcher’s bread and butter, so they got cut, plain and simple.

Anyway, after testing the Belcher vs. Workshops match for a while, I realized a fatal flaw in the new design: two-drop mana sources. All of RG Belcher’s mana producers cost zero or one mana, and there is a great deal of redundancy. Elvish Spirit Guide into Tinder Wall is functionally equivalent as Simian Spirit Guide into Rite of Flame, for example. Very few hands are mulliganed trying to get the mana to work.

With BR Belcher, though Dark Ritual is many times stronger than the acceleration in RG, transitioning between Simian Spirit Guide and Grim Monolith and Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual is surprisingly difficult. You have to get to two mana to play Monolith and Cabal Ritual, which would indicate playing all eight spirit guides to help. That also means playing Manamorphose or Wild Cantor to go from Spirit Guides to black rituals. You’re left with 4x Elvish Spirit Guide, 4x Simian Spirit Guide, 4x Manamorphose, an awkward way to start off your mostly black deck, but a great way to start off a red and green one!

My guess is that I’ll be back to RGu Belcher by next weekend, which is good because I’ll be in Chicago trying to blow the Windy City down and win some Power. http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37870.0

We’ll see what happens. You should go too.

What Grim Monolith Did for Belcher

2009-07-11T13:55:00.001-04:00

Since Wizards so kindly gifted us with four unrestrictions this month, I’ve been kicking around ideas of using them in various decks. Entomb, Enlightened Tutor, and Crop Rotation all have their champions in Dragon, Turn-Two TVKey, and 5c Stax. The runt of the litter, Grim Monolith—good ol’ Grimmy—has so far been ignored.

What, colorless, painless mana acceleration isn’t good enough for Vintage anymore?

I’ve gotten several inquiries from people about how I would be working Grim Monolith into RG 0-Land Belcher, now that I can run the full playset. The answer is always that I’m not. It wasn’t even really a consideration. One of the benefits of RG Belcher is that all of the acceleration costs zero or one mana and can all be played off of one Spirit Guide or another. Grimmy doesn’t fit that profile. It’s awkward to play, and I’ve never wanted the extra mana source anyway.

However, Grim Monolith will likely find a place in the sideboard:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Timetwister
1x Tinker

4x Rite of Flame
4x Chrome Mox
4x Manamorphose
4x Tinder Wall
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Channel

4x Goblin Welder
4x Street Wraith
3x Guttural Response
1x Pyroblast

Sideboard:
1x Gaea’s Blessing
2x Pyroblast
4x Tormod’s Crypt
4x Storm Entity
4x Grim Monolith

The previous sideboards were either 4x Storm Entity and 4x Desperate Ritual or 4x Deus of Calamity and 4x Seething Song.

Since the maindeck is already prepared for a blue-based metagame with four red blasts and four Goblin Welders, the sideboard is mainly meant to get dead cards out against other opponents. Tormod’s Crypts are obviously for Ichorid (removing the red blasts). The Storm Entity and Grim Monoliths are for Stax, Ad Nauseam, and other decks that don’t play Force of Will. Against Stax, red blasts come out because they’re dead cards, and Manamorphoses come out because they’re terrible under Sphere of Resistance. Against Ad Nauseam, blasts come out again, but so does Goblin Welder because it’s slow.

Grim Monolith will be especially effective against Stax as it has a several advantages over the red acceleration spells that previously held the spot:

It is a permanent – Grimmy can be put into play and saved for later, and once used it can be sacrificed to Smokestack. Unfortunately, this also makes it weaker against Tangle Wire.
It is an artifact – Welder is already primo against Stax, and Welder works particularly well with Grim Monolith. Having another thing to Weld in for three mana is big.
It is, uh, grim – Opponents, uh, don’t like to look at unhappy scenes. I’ve had people scoop to resolved Grim Monolith because it’s so dang grim.

Okay, well, it’s got two advantages anyway. And those advantages shouldn’t be discounted. For the Stax matchup, Grim Monolith, as a permanent artifact that makes three mana, is better than any one-shot red acceleration. It’s certainly a better sideboard option than running artifact destruction.

Brainstorming about Grim Monolith also made me wonder about a mostly mono-black version of Belcher.

Three-color Belcher lists with black have usually be more explosive but much more fragile than the two-color versions I normally use. At the same time, it’s hard to argue that Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame are even comparable as foundation acceleration spells. Dark Ritual just produces better results; one mana gets you three that can be used for some of the most broken spells in the game. Unfortunately, Rites and Rituals rarely played well together.

With unrestricted Grim Monolith, though, we can skip running red rituals and go with a pared-down two-color manabase that focuses on black and brokenness.

4x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Imperial Seal
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Spoils of the Vault

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Grim Monolith
4x Chrome Mox
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Manamorphose
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire

4x Goblin Welder
4x Street Wraith

This deck is about as fast as the RG version and is more consistent than other black-based and black-containing Belcher lists I’ve tried. I feel like you can still mulligan aggressively and hope to come up with a winning hand.

Counting Time Vault and Key as one win condition, the deck has 16 win conditions. Unfortunately five of those are tutors. I’ve never really liked this aspect of Black Belcher as it’s one more hurdle before winning—at best, my win condition costs more; at worst, my opponent counters my tutor, making me waste resources. Still, it is nice having more access to Black Lotus and to be able to put the Vault kill together pretty regularly.

Two other new win conditions, Necropotence and Yawgmoth’s Bargain, are great. I feel like I can play them fairly easily, and when I do, they win the game. This is not the feeling I get from Yawgmoth’s Will or Tendrils of Agony, however. Will has always been a dog in Belcher because it’s harder to maximize the card’s power here than in Grim Long, for example. It functions best in decks that combine lots of tutors and draw and can play all of those early with mana acceleration. This list of Belcher has tutors and acceleration, but not a lot of draw, so it can’t refill its hand to play more cards. That means Yawgmoth’s Will is more of a backup win for when Belcher or another big threat gets countered, which is less than optimal.

Tendrils of Agony runs into the same problem; without draw spells, a good Belcher hand can storm up to, well, seven. Not quite enough to get the job done. It’s nice to have for the times it is the easier win condition, like after a Wheel of Fortune or Memory Jar or during Yawgmoth’s Will, but I feel like I wouldn’t miss it.

As for Time Vault and Voltaic Key—well, obviously! They’re like bread and butter! Peas and carrots! Sex and grape jelly!

Seriously though, you can look at it this way: Goblin Charbelcher is one card and seven mana; Vault-Key is two cards and four mana, and I’m running five tutors. Does that compare? I think so. Plus, since the unrestriction of Grim Monolith, Key has additional benefits, functioning now as an additional mana spell when combined with Mana Vault or the four Monoliths.

Really, I think if you’re running a bunch of tutors but not Vault-Key, you’re doing it wrong.

There are still some other questions about the last group of cards, the ones that seem out of place because they’re the wrong color:

4x Goblin Welder
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Manamorphose

I’m unsure of these in the long term, but I’ll share my reasoning now.

First Goblin Welder is amazing in Belcher. When I played RGB Belcher in tournaments, I had Welders in the sideboard and was bringing them in for every matchup. When that happens, it seems like they’re probably a maindeck card. They answer counterspells from blue decks and Stax’s lock pieces, and they work within the deck alongside Black Lotus, Memory Jar, Wheel of Fortune, and Lion’s Eye Diamond. I made it a point to keep them in this build of the deck.

Of course, after deciding to keep Welder, Simian Spirit Guide was a no-brainer. Not only do they allow me to keep Welder and Wheel of Fortune, they’re uncounterable free mana that helps cast Grim Monolith. Keep!

Elvish Spirit Guide and Manamorphose are there mostly in support of each other, oddly enough—once you have one you need the other. Elvish Spirit Guide is necessary as an extra free, uncounterable mana source and because it helps play Manamorphose to get black mana. Manamorphose is necessary as a cantrip mana converter and helps get utility out of Elvish Spirit Guide. They do their jobs well and screw nothing up too badly, so for now, they’re staying.

I look forward to testing this deck more, perhaps putting it through the paces for real at the ICBM Xtreme Open in Chicago next weekend: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37870.0. I’ve already gotten my ticket and ready to dominate the dojo, eat some deepdish pizza and steak sandwich, and hang out with the Ohio crew. It should be a blast. You should come too.

Until then, think about this: Does Yawgmoth’s Will’s underperformance in Belcher automatically make Belcher a bad deck?

Magic, Fantasy Baseball, and How David Beats Goliath

2009-07-06T18:08:00.002-04:00

This article will have a lot of information on fantasy baseball, some of which some of you might just not care about. If you really want to pass on it, search for “how awesome I am at fantasy baseball” and start reading there.

I’ve been mulling this topic over for a while, but I haven’t yet figured out where to begin. I’d like to be able to say that playing Magic made me better at fantasy baseball, but it still seems like a chicken-and-egg proposition to me because the developments happened at around the same time.

Actually, it’s hard to say that fantasy baseball made me better at Magic because I’m still playing with the same cruddy decks because I enjoy them, rather than winning with the tier-one powerhouses because they win.

Anyway, I’ve been in the same ESPN fantasy baseball league for three seasons now. It’s currently known as “The League of Dorks,” nee “Barry Bonds Cheats,” and is managed by my friend Matt. There are 14 teams (up from 12 at the league’s inception) each captained by one of Matt’s friends from high school, college, or law school. As it goes, I’m friends with most of Matt’s college friends, and we tend to agree that his high-school and law-school friends are douches. I’m sure they say the same about us.

There are several different scoring systems used in fantasy baseball, but we use a strict points-based performance style. Each team has 24 players on it and can choose from them every day to start nine position players—catcher, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, three outfield, and a utility slot equivalent to a DH—and seven pitchers, divided as four starters and three relievers. Players then earn points based on performance, which are tallied at the end of the week to determine the winner between two teams.

Most of the nitty-gritty scoring details will be unimportant for this blog, but for example, a solo home run earns a player and his team seven points: one for each total base (four), one for an RBI, one for a run, and one for a home run. A closer who gives up a hit and strikes out two on his way to a save earns nine points: one for each third of an inning (three), one for each strikeout (two), five for the save, and minus one for the hit.

Playing Magic has taught me to look for every weakness in a system and exploit it to your advantage as much as possible. For Vintage, that means playing as much brokenness as possible: Moxes, Lotus, Yawgmoth’s Will, Tinker, and as many restricted cards as you can cram into a 60-card deck. This power is inherent to the format; it’s programmed in; everyone can use it. Essentially, anyone who doesn’t use these broken cards is only hurting himself.

Moreover, anyone who doesn’t use these broken cards has no room to complain about getting blown-out by them. If you wrecked your opponent’s hand only to have them topdeck Yawgmoth’s Will two turns later and win the game, why didn’t you give yourself the same opportunity to crush them with a game-ending Yawgmoth’s Will. Why aren’t you playing all five Moxes to keep up with their broken mana development. And for the love of Mike, why aren’t you playing Force of Will? Idiot.

This basic idea of exploiting the system has also worked for me in fantasy baseball. Last season was marked (some would say marred) by my “cycling” pitchers. We had no limit on pickups and drops for the year, so players could change their team rosters around as much as they wanted during the week. We also had no limit on the number of starts our pitchers could make. Seven days a week times four starting pitcher slots a day meant gaining points for 28 pitchers every week if you picked up the day’s starters every morning.

I made sure I got all 28 starts. Every week.

The pitchers I had drafted were, for the most part, untalented journeymen who were at best decent in 2002. I was getting killed by my opponents pitchers, and realized that my best strategy was just to overwhelm them with points. Every morning, I would look at the pitchers scheduled to pitch for that day and pick the best of them for my team. There were several remaining viable starters available in the free-agent pool, and I would pick them up for their turn in the rotation and drop them again the next day. It turns out that 28 pitchers earning seven points per win is almost fifty points better than seven pitchers earning 20 points per win.

A good team might earn 300 points in a week. I was regularly getting 400 points, and had more than 500 points in four weeks. There was never a week where my victory was even in question.

My tactics were, however.

Everyone complained that I was somehow cheating, despite my working within the rules and despite those rules being open to everyone’s use.

My reaction was generally one of nonchalant self defense. “I’m doing this completely within the rules,” I would say. “It’s a competition, and I’m competing to win,” I would say. “You could all be doing this too,” I would say. Actually the best way to combat it would have been to have more people using the strategy. There were a limited number of pitchers starting every day, obviously, so first-come-first-serve on getting the best ones to play for you.

In the end, I lost three games all season—two at the beginning before I started cycling pitchers, and one to our league manager in the playoffs (top four) because I promised him I would play that series straight as a favor to him. I also knew that if I cycled pitchers and steamrolled through the finals, there would be enough complaints against me and my purportedly hollow victory that it might kill the league. Vintage Magic has enough players that it will survive through dominant decks and restrictions. I didn’t share that confidence in our 14-team fantasy league.

I did cycle pitchers in the third-place playoff game, to which my opponent said, “You got it. I hope third place is that important to you.” It was.

After the season, my strategy was deemed “broken” and was “restricted” as we were limited from unlimited starts per week to 10. So for the 2009 season, I had to find a new way to rack up the points fantasy points. Again I examined the format to see the tools at my disposal and the weaknesses I could exploit.

Everyone had nine position player slots, four starting pitcher slots, and three relief pitcher slots to work with every day. Obviously, you fill up your positions and your relievers and have as many starters as you can; those are the points that everyone gets. However, we have 28 starting pitcher slots per week (four per day for seven days) and are only allowed to have 10 starts. That’s 18 points-earning possibilities that go unused every week. I immediately picked up two relief pitchers that had eligibility as starters as well.

You see, in our league, there’s a distinction between relievers (RP) and starters (SP). Most pitchers start as one or the other, but players earn eligibility at a particular position by playing 10 games at that position, and that eligibility carries over from the previous year as well. So a player who might have been a starter in 2008 but got demoted to the bullpen would still have SP eligibility despite playing most of his games as an RP.

The mechanics aren’t all that important. The key to understand is that my team has five relief pitchers every day, where most teams have three. I also use 15 out of 17 available points-earning slots per day, where most people are using only 13. This might not sound like a big difference, but when my two extra relievers earn about four points per game and pitch three times per week, that’s an extra 24 points on my side of the scoreboard, almost 10% more than my opponents earn.

This strategy has so far earned me a 12-game undefeated streak, which ended, sadly and coincidentally, last night. I have been waiting for my opponents to catch on and start using a similar tactic, but so far none has.

(If you’re wondering what happened this week that caused my defeat, the reasons were myriad and mostly stemmed from fantasy baseball’s biggest fault, which is that fantasy managers have no real hand in the outcome of any particular player’s performance and are subject to the whims of the real-world baseball schedule. Basically, I guessed wrong about who would perform well and left more than 80 points sitting on my bench between Friday and Sunday. Oops!)

Anyway, the point is not how awesome I am at fantasy baseball (though I am awesome at fantasy baseball – recognize). The point is that fantasy baseball, like Magic, like other games, has areas built into its rules and structure that can be examined and exploited to maximize your gain. Playing Magic taught me to look for these areas when I really want to compete with people.

From my experience, the key is to not fall into the trap of believing the status quo. Last fantasy baseball season, I could have followed the crowd and not cycled pitchers. This fantasy baseball season I could follow the norm of carrying two extra position players on my team as insurance against injuries. They’re perfectly serviceable strategies, but they don’t give you any advantages.

One example of this is the stubborn acceptance of Null Rod as the base of the Vintage Fish strategy. For years, Null Rod has been the go-to card for hosing artifact acceleration, and it’s gotten even more attention since Time Vault and Key became the win condition of choice for pretty much everyone. Not to mention that Null Rod also shuts down the random Mindslaver, Triskelion, Sword of Fire and Ice, Goblin Charbelcher, and Memory Jar. This is established success (never mind that Fish rarely performs very well).

I sometimes get the suspicion that Drain and combo players like to say that Null Rod is such a backbreaking card against them, “the card they dread the most from Fish,” just so that opponents will continue playing them, only to see them bounced and won through at every turn.

Today the Tezzeret deck is fast and resilient enough to ignore Null Rod. When the restricted-list deck du jour was Gifts, for example, the win condition cost at least seven mana – four for Gifts Ungiven and three for Yawgmoth’s Will. Now, the win condition costs four mana – two for Time Vault, one for Voltaic Key, and one to activate. The lengthy set-up process isn’t there, so there’s not enough time to play Null Rod, especially when Fish decks are eschewing Moxes in favor of cards that won’t get shut off by their own disruption.

I’m just not convinced that Null Rod is that good anymore. As such, I present this Fish list which passes on Null Rod in favor of being able to play more answers early:

4x Force of Will
1x Ponder
1x Brainstorm
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Sensei’s Divining Top

4x Chalice of the Void
4x Aether Vial
3x Pithing Needle
3x Standstill

4x Meddling Mage
4x Cursecatcher
4x Voidmage Prodigy
3x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3x Rootwater Thief

4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Strip Mine
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus

This deck is built specifically to combat Tezzeret. Running cheap artifacts like Pithing Needle and Chalice of the Void alongside Moxes allow more disruptive pieces to hit play sooner. This list also attacks Tezzeret from several different angles – negating the utility of Mana Drain with Aether Vial and Voidmage Prodigy, stealing the deck’s few win conditions, and of course the traditional Fish arenas of countering and mana denial. With this list, it’s not uncommon to open with multiple avenues on attack on turn one, and still have Force backup.

I don’t believe this deck is cure-all for the Tezzeret-fueled Vault-Key metagame (actually, I don’t think any Fish deck will ever be better than Restricted.dec), but I do think it has some legs. It remains to be seen whether those legs hold up under a Staxier metagame, should one develop from the unrestriction of Crop Rotation. In the meantime, don’t forget Stax in your sideboarding plans, right?

Anyway, if you’re interested in the theory, if not the practice of exploiting a system’s weaknesses for fun and profit, I still have to recommend reading “How David Beats Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell, printed in the May 11 issue of the New Yorker. I will conveniently link to it for you. Right. Now:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell

The article explains several factors that go into a weaker combatant’s triumph over a stronger opponent: flexibility and speed, changing the rules, even changing the definition of victory. These factors, and the historical and real-world examples that support them, have applications in Magic for sure. You may even come to completely different conclusions than I did. Who knows? Maybe you’ll lay the foundation for the next great Vintage innovation.

Farewell Thirst for Knowledge - The June 2009 Vintage B&R

2009-06-20T10:42:00.001-04:00

Well, the long anticipated Vintage banned and restricted list update finally happened. Grim Monolith and the recently crippled Burning Wish were expected to leave restricted list for good, and restriction rumors abounded, though most of them were expected to have little effect on the current metagame. The Mana Drain was abuzz for several months with speculation ranging from the unrestriction of Gush, Balance, and Channel to the restriction of Mana Drain.

This time last year, of course, had been called “The Day Vintage Died,” among other things. Wizards of the Coast hamstrung blue by taking away Brainstorm, Ponder, Gush, Flash, and Merchant Scroll. The metagame changed from one of GAT to one of Tezzeret, but the premiere deck maintained its “Restricted List + Force of Will + Win Condition” composition, and blue decks still reigned. Many complained about the loss of Brainstorm; others were confused by the restriction of the innocuous Ponder; and the general feeling seemed to be that Wizards had completely lost touch with the format.

Still, Vintage lumbered on. “We played games. We had fun,” as the saying goes.
This summer’s restricted list announcement continues the theme of giving blue the finger. This time, Wizards tried a new tack of raising up other decks.

Oh, and they restricted Thirst for Knowledge. That came as a surprise to me. I’ll get to the unrestrictions in a minute.

Yes, as a blue instant starting with “Draw three cards,” Thirst for Knowledge is guilty by association with such Vintage one-hit-wonders as Ancestral Recall and Brainstorm. Plus, it has the added bonus of fuelling the caster’s graveyard for future exploitation by Yawgmoth’s Will or Goblin Welder. And it had a handy complement of colorless mana, perfect for Mana Drain’s delayed trigger. Thirst was an engine—a powerful one, if not a broken one.

My only question is where this process will stop. It’s a slippery slope argument, for sure, but it seems to be coming true. Wizards neuters the dominant blue draw engine as soon as it establishes itself. The next best spell takes its place, establishes dominance, and is restricted in turn. Does anybody want to predict the next card to go? Smart money’s probably on Mystic Remora, but I’ll take a flyer on Strategic Planning. If things keep up, they’ll both be gone in another couple of cycles.

This sequence is playing out similarly to the same one that happened during Black Summer in 1995. Wizards restricted everything except the problem. Cards like Dark Ritual, Ivory Tower, and Hymn to Tourach had to go before they smartened up and nuked the real problem: Necropotence itself.

Stop fiddle-farting about, as my mom would say. If Wizards is going to continue to restrict things that play well with Mana Drain, maybe they should just go ahead, bite the bullet, restrict Mana Drain, face the firing squad, and apologize profusely. Having one card replace several on the list seems like a fair trade to me.

Of course, what do I know? I’m only a blogger. I can’t remember ever even having cast a Mana Drain in tournament play.

Anyway, so, unrestrictions.

Unrestrictions are good. We like unrestrictions. And this time four cards came off the restricted the list: Grim Monolith, Entomb, Enlightened Tutor, and Crop Rotation. Quadruple your flavor! Quadruple your fun!

Thank goodness Grim Monolith finally got unrestricted so that we can stop complaining about it’s being ranked among the Vintage power-level elites. It’s significantly worse than Dark Ritual and only slightly better than Desperate Ritual as a one-shot mana source. It combos with Power Artifact, but why play a three-card game-winning combo when you can just play Vault-Key, right? Workshop decks might test Grimmy, but if it’s not getting used as a one-of, I can’t really see it getting used in multiples. I might be surprised, though; maybe turn-one Smokestack is that important.

Actually, I, Belcher Innovator, expect to use Grim Monolith in a future tournament near you. It’s a better sideboard answer to Stax than the Desperate Rituals and Seething Songs I’ve been using. Though they’re all effectively one-shot mana, Grim Monolith has the added benefit of being able to be cast and saved for later. Plus, it has excellent synergy with Goblin Welder. I will also test Grimmy maindeck, but I expect it to once again make a valiant effort but, alas, ride the bench for another season.

Here’s the sideboard I would run currently, for reference:

4x Grim Monolith
4x Storm Entity
4x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Pyroblast
1x Gaea’s Blessing

The other unrestriction expected to cause few ripples is Entomb. The only developed deck that can use Entomb is Worldgorger Dragon combo, and previous iterations of that deck eschewed even the single restricted copy. Whether there is another, as-yet undeveloped deck that will use quad-laser Entomb remains to be seen, of course. There could be a budget reanimator deck that would rather bring back a hasty fatty than a Dragon with a singular disposition. And of course there’s the prospect of Entombing Black Lotus to be brought back with Yawgmoth’s Will. That doesn’t seem unnecessarily complicated.

Did I mention that 90% of the cards sideboarded against Ichorid will also hose Entomb by default? I won’t argue that Entomb’s champions will be unable to play around the various Crypts, Leylines, Relics, and Extirpates. I’m just saying it will be a tough row to hoe.

So Grim Monolith and Entomb will likely go unnoticed. Not so Enlightened Tutor and Crop Rotation.

Enlightened Tutor is not just the backbone of the Words of Weirding deck that combines Zur’s Weirding with Words of Worship to lock the opponent out of effectual draws. It is also now likely to see play as part of a near-guaranteed turn-two Vault-Key deck.

4x Enlightened Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
51x Vintage Staples

Seems like a completely playable deck, one I definitely expect to see across the table in the coming weeks.

Of course Enlightened Tutor has some other, more conventional uses. In mono-white Parfait control it can be used as a toolbox, setting up the deck’s Tax-Rack draw engine as well as fetching answers from Engineered Explosives and Tormod’s Crypt to Suppression Field and Seal of Cleansing. Combo players could also potentially use Enlightened Tutor to get Yawgmoth’s Bargain, still as fine a win condition as ever there was.

Unfortunately for Enlightened Tutor, those uses seem completely fair and utterly inappropriate for Vintage. If you want to use Enlightened Tutor, I recommend you start by fetching either Time Vault or Voltaic Key and go from there.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I wasn’t kidding about that Words of Weirding deck. It’s a lot of fun to play, and will work significantly better with a full set of ETs. Plus, Howling Mine is such a fun card. Everybody has a friend with a Howling Mine in play. Here’s a basic list if you’re interested:

4x Zur’s Weirding
4x Words of Worship
4x Howling Mine
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
4x Arcane Denial
3x Negate
1x Misdirection
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Plains
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Island
4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand

Crop Rotation was another surprise. During the discussion about possible unrestriction candidates, it didn’t get a lot of attention, and most of the opinion it did draw was negative. Unrestricted Crop Rotation equates to unrestricted Strip Mine for a lot of people.

Unlike other restricted cards, the singular Crop Rotation did find a home in Five-Color Stax decks and others that wanted fast access to Strip Mine and a host of other broken and utility lands including Workshop, Academy, Bazaar, and Barbarian Ring. Whenever the card was cast the opponent had to consider the implications, and it was always a deceptively powerful must-counter. And it’s even better with Crucible of Worlds in play.

Stax is likely the first home that unrestricted Crop Rotation will find as well. Five-Color Stax was already making a resurgence in the Vintage metagame as a foil to the mana-hungry Tezzeret. Crop Rotation only improves the matchup as it makes the possibility of second-turn Strip Mine lock a very real possibility.

If Wizards was looking for a way to keep Drain decks in check, they may have just done it. The question is whether they elevated Workshops too much in the process. Right now it’s hard to say, but that’s likely not the case as blue decks still have Force of Will as the ultimate trump. Still, even if Workshops do make a significant resurgence, Vintage will at least be fresh for a few months. New decks and strategies will have to arise on both sides of the fight, which will help keep things interesting.

I won’t speculate on a Stax deck here, but I’m looking forward to seeing what the United Mishra’s Workshops will come up with.

Of course, Wizards isn’t done cleaning the restricted list, even if they think they are for now. There are still cards to come off, starting with the newly nerfed Burning Wish and including such archetype-creators as Balance, Flash, and Gush.

I expect at least Burning Wish to be released in September. Wizards may not have recognized the implications of the M10 changes on Burning Wish and will likely test the card over the summer. Burning Wish was already one of the weaker cards on the list, and its no longer being able to access exiled cards hampers it even further.

Balance and Flash are questionable, but I’d like to see other potentially game-shaking cards see freedom, if just for interest’s sake. And if Stax indeed makes a resurgence over the Summer, I think Gush could realistically and safely be unrestricted as well. Spheres of Resistance are already natural predators of Gush, and there would be little sense in keeping a viable deck on the shelf when the tools exist to keep it in check.

Of course, we won’t know what happens for another three months. The waiting and speculation is all part of the fun, isn’t it? We get to play tournaments and build decks to see what effects the changes have while Wizards is busy suggesting and testing the next round. I’m excited to see what happens next from these changes, and I’ll be looking forward to the next round.

Hello Again and My Perspective on M10

2009-06-15T02:13:00.000-04:00

Hello again, World!

After a lot of encouragement and a surprisingly strong inner desire, I’m once again picking up keyboard to continue sharing my thoughts on the ol’ Magic: the Gathering.

And of course, there’s a lot to talk about right now. M10’s rules changes are at the top of the list, but there’s an upcoming B&R change and several awesome summer tournaments as well. Plus, I’ve been trying out more Vintage decks lately and have even started dabbling in other formats thanks to a new testing group in Virginia. In short, I should have no shortage of subjects or motivation for the next few months.

I’m not sure I could avoid talking about the new rules and terminology that will debut alongside M10 in another month or so. If you haven’t seen them, please come out from under your rock and log on to the Intersphere with the rest of us: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/42a. You’ll have to understand (and love?) these changes sooner or later, so you might as well dig in now so you can follow along.

I’ll go in order and start with simultaneous mulligans. This is already a fairly timesaving device around the kitchen table and even comes up in some low-REL tournament games. Mulligans are an undeniably strategic part of the game, and I don’t think the new rule takes too much away from that. As a potential mulliganer, one must consider sooner and more often the implications of throwing back a hand against an opponent. No longer will a player be able to keep a marginal hand knowing that an opponent has already mulliganed to four.

By the way, this is actually huge for Manaless Ichorid in Vintage. If your coin-flip winning opponent mulligans to two on the play, you might put them on Ichorid early and keep that in mind for your own mulligans. Now you don’t have that option.

The next group of changes are totally cosmetic. “Battlefield,” “Cast, Play, and Activate,” “Exile,” and “Beginning of the End Step,” should ultimately make very little difference to gameplay. Even considering that Living Wish, Cunning Wish, and the rest of the Wish clan are reported now to be limited to sideboard access only (i.e., you won’t be able to get back cards exiled by Leyline of the Void or Psychatog or Yawgmoth’s Will), nothing is so drastically nerfed that it will be apparent in even a fraction of games played.

More importantly, the marginally weakened Burning Wish should be a shoo-in for coming off the Vintage restricted list now. You can’t get back a maindecked Yawgmoth’s Will for another go-round and you can’t get something removed by Demonic Consultation. Are you really going to run your Yawgmoth’s Will sideboard, where it can’t be topdecked or tutored for otherwise? Seems bad.

Sure, there’s the added embarrassment of “Exiling” someone’s recently “Cast” creature from the “Battlefield,” but is that any worse than removing a creature from play? Magic, in the eyes of the average bystander, is a dorky game, easier to relate to Dungeons & Dragons or Yu-Gi-Oh! than it is to poker or chess, no matter how much we’d like to proclaim otherwise. I (and I’m sure many people) will continue using the same terminology I’m used to, and if the new flavorful language helps entice more people into learning the game, consider me a fan.

The loss of manaburn is tragic, but also relatively harmless to gameplay. This change was a long time coming (or a long time rumored, at least), which left a long time for peoples’ ire to rankle. To be frank, when I first heard of this, I thought it was ludicrous. “Can people not count? It’s simple addition!” I argued. “You match the colors and the numbers and your spells get cast.” How could something so easy to calculate as manaburn be keeping people from playing Magic?

Now, with a little time to consider, I don’t think it’s going to matter much. People are still going to have to manage their mana wisely, so none of the “I’ma tap all my mana at the start of my turn and just figure everything works out right” scenarios. And the number of games decided by manaburn damage must be small, especially in slower formats based on the regulated buildup of mana over several turns. There will be a few less damage taken from Mishra’s Workshops and Mana Drains, but does that really make those cards any more broken? Manaburn didn’t seem to be a big concern for the players of those cards before. Most of the time, nobody will notice this change.

Token ownership—these rules make so much more sense now. When I first heard about the Brand-Hunted Creature combo, I thought that couldn’t possibly be how it works. First instincts should be right about this from now on. And for all you Brand-Hunted Creature combo players, I’m sorry. Thankfully, there are countless other combos in Magic for you to try out.

The last changes, all related to the combat phase, are the most controversial. I too am admittedly apprehensive, but based on the comments I’ve seen, I know I’m also more optimistic than most. Wizards of the Coast didn’t make these changes lightly. Even if the simplification was done to attract new players to Magic, there would be no sense in undermining the strategy of the game at the cost of long-term enjoyment. I tend to trust entities that I’ve worked with for a long time, so it’s trust I’m putting in Wizards right now. The things they do for Magic, they do for the long-term benefit of the game, which in the end is what I want too.

Anyway, combat damage doesn’t stack, deathtouch and lifelink are both static abilities. The implications of combat damage not stacking are numerous and too far reaching to go into here, but the major problem is that there’s one fewer opportunity to play effects during the combat phase; players’ last opportunity to affect combat is during the declare blockers step. Attacking players will also have to arrange multiple blockers in the order damage will be dealt, so that effects can also be arranged appropriately.

This severely limits the strategy with things like bounce, damage prevention, and creature abilities. A creature such as the oft-cited Mogg Fantastic can now no longer block, put its damage on the stack, and then sacrifice itself to deal damage, thus dealing two damage in the combat phase. Instead it can block and either deal combat damage or damage from its effect. This is weaker but simpler, more appropriate for newer players.

To me, this limitation makes sense from a flavor perspective. Why should a creature in the heat of battle also have time to concentrate on other things? At the same time, from a gaming perspective, the loss of options is disappointing. I like strategy; I like feeling smart when I play Magic; and I like the opportunity to outplay my opponent. Fortunately, there are still ample opportunities to make the decision between the right and wrong play. I also suspect that there will be new strategies to learn, developed in light of the new combat rules.

It’s hard to argue from the perspective of a long-time Magic player that the combat changes have not detrimentally changed the game.

At the same time, though, I don’t think these changes are quite as drastic as they appear. Like I said, Wizards has a definite interest in making Magic a continuous, long-term source of income, and I don’t think these changes quite smack of “fire-sale.”

The changes, then, are a mixed-blessing for experienced Magic players. On the one hand we lose some elements of the strategy we love; on the other, more players are likely to find and play the game. This is a good thing. More players mean more money for Wizards, which means they’ll make more cards, especially cards that will work with these new rules (M10 will be the first Core Set with new cards—coincidence?!). More cards and more players make Magic better: new ideas are introduced, tournaments get bigger, and the system perpetuates.

I suspect that a lot of players have already drawn their conclusions and my essay on convincing people to relax, trust Wizards, and continue enjoying Magic won’t change any opinions. Luckily, I’m also confident that Magic is just to appealing for long-term players to pass on for long. Even those who do take a couple months’ hiatus in protest of the new rules will return, sooner or later, I suspect. I hope that when they do they find a more vibrant and active Magic scene than when they left. I’ll be waiting for them.

Blowing up the Vault

2009-02-23T01:47:00.002-05:00

I made it up to The Vault in Greensburg, PA, this Saturday for the first of a personal two-in-a-row Vintage event. Suffice to say that everything was excellent, made only better by my top-8’ing and taking home a foil Tinker for the trip.

The Vault Comics and Games
5274 Route 30
Westmoreland Crossing
Suite 16
Greensburg, PA 15601

I headed out after work on Friday and spent a good four hours and $12 in tolls over four states and several wrong turns before arriving at the humble abode of Brian and Abby NecroWin. There I rendezvoused with Twaun and Isaac (a relative newcomer to the Vintage scene who made the trip all the way from Illinois), Vintage Champ “Mr. Type 4” Mastriano, Herr NecroWin, and Mike, a Pittsburgh player once mentioned in a Star City article as having showing up to a tournament not to play, but carrying a backpack full of beer).

Within five minutes we were drafting for Type 4 on teams—Brian, Isaac, and myself versus Twaun, Mastriano, and Mike. I picked up every blue card that came my way and soon had a 45 card deck with 25 cards that countered spells or changed targets. My other cards were all amazing because, let’s face it, we were playing Type 4. Type 4 doesn’t have unamazing cards.

We played two games before our RFG piles got shuffled together. The play was good and the games were fun except for one grievous mistake by Isaac to not counter Twaun’s first-play of Gleemax with Induce Paranoia, which would have turned game one to our favor immediately. Oh well. From beyond the grave I got Twaun to activate Double Deal by reminiscing about Bogardan Hellkite and its role in the Belcher sideboard. That guy didn’t even see it coming.

After our team had been soundly defeated in two games, the Type 4 broke up and the players headed their separate ways. Twaun and I stayed up another couple of hours testing Vintage, his BR Stax deck against TPS. However, either his opening hands or his deck were awful, so we quit without much having been learned.

This segues nicely into my deck choice for the next day’s tournament, of course, because as usual, having learned nothing, I would be playing Belcher.

The maindeck is the same as it has been for recent past tournaments, but I included some sideboard tricks to shore up the Tezzeret matchup a little.

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
4x Goblin Welder
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Timetwister
1x Memory Jar
1x Tinker

4x Tinder Wall
4x Rite of Flame
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Chrome Mox
1x Channel
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring

4x Guttural Response
4x Manamorphose
4x Street Wraith

Sideboard
4x Jester’s Cap
4x Storm Entity
4x Desperate Ritual
2x Pyroblast
1x Gaea’s Blessing

I thought Jester’s Caps would be good against Tezzeret. Empty the Warrens has some drawbacks against Tezzeret because the deck is relatively fast; they can goldfish a bunch of goblin tokens. Caps on the other hand, immediately make my opponent unable to win. They’re cheaper to activate than Charbelcher but have its same synergies with Goblin Welder. Nabbing Tezzeret, Colossus, and Voltaic Key from my opponent should shut that deck down nicely.

The problem is the possibility of losing game one, in which case Jester’s Cap seems like a ticket to Drawsville, first class, or to the dreaded 0-1 match loss. I can’t make my opponent concede, they may still have a win condition in hand, and it could still take a while to win around my opponent’s disruption. I boarded them in once against Oath after having won game one, but the rest of the time they stayed on the bench. I don’t think I’ll be running them again.

Anyway, after getting impeccable directions from Mrs. NecroWin and spending another $1 in tolls, we found the venue and registered for the tournament.

Then, and this is why I’ll dedicate this weekend’s performance to my mom, on the way to lunch at a nearby mall food court, I saw the most beaten up penny I’ve ever seen nestled in some parking lot rocks. I picked it up immediately because “Penny, penny, bring me luck, ‘cause I’m the one that picked you up.” My mom always says that when she sees a penny, and I figured any Magic tournament is worthy of a little extra luck. It must have worked because my opening hands up until round four were disgustingly good. Thanks, penny! Thanks, Mom!

Round 1 – “Angry Ginger” – Angel Oath

My opponent was certainly ginger (in the red-haired, freckled sense) but he was a nice guy, despite his name. He didn’t have much experience with Vintage, but that’s no reason for me to go easy on him.

He led off game one with a turn one Oath off a Mox Emerald. Not a bad opening. I played Belcher (which got Forced) but still had enough mana to Tinker for a second one because my hand was amazing. If he hadn’t Forced, I would have won on my first turn. As it was, he passed his second turn and I drew Mox Pearl to activate and win on turn two.

I brought in four Jester’s Caps in place of four Empty the Warrens.

Game two was a little more balanced. He led off with two Moxen and a ponder, while I opened with a first turn Belcher. It got countered again, but I had mana left over to play Timetwister. My Twister hand was weak, and my opponent found Oath. We played a few turns as he looked for a Forbidden Orchard and I looked for another win condition. Finally he found Demonic Tutor and got his Orchard. He made the mistake of playing a land, though, giving me another precious turn, which I used to play Goblin Welder. He Oathed up Akroma and smacked me, then played Thoughtseize to get the Tinder Wall I needed to activate the Belcher I had in my graveyard. He Negated my Manamorphose and I was left a mana short of winning. Another Angel and I was dead.

On the play in game three I opened with Wheel of Fortune, which went through. I was only able to play a Goblin Welder off the Wheel, but that worked nicely with the Belcher I had dumped to the yard. His opening hand was wrecked of course, and he scooped to my being able to weld in Belcher and win.

Games – 2-1-0; Matches – 1-0-0

That was it; games one and three were quick and easy and I was close to winning game two. My opening hands in games one and two were amazing—Belcher with a second win-condition backup? Okay! And I probably would have been able to take game two as well if I hadn’t been so worried about him Oathing something more threatening than a 6/6 beater or Oathing and Time Walking. He mentioned afterward that he must have kept bad hands, but I told him his hands were pretty good against me (Force of Will can seal the deal most of the time). He just needed to go for control rather than focusing on his own win condition.

Round 2 – Ellis – Tezzeret

I knew what my opponent was playing because he had sat next to me in the previous round. I also remembered that Ellis did well at the Mr. Nice Guy tournament I attended back in November and was looking forward to a good match.

I won the roll and played in game one. My notes for this game say, “T1 Belch, No Counter,” and I think that pretty much says it all. Kaboom!

I boarded in Jester’s Caps and Pyroblasts for Empty the Warrens, a Guttural Response, and a Chrome Mox. Pyroblasts are better than Guttural against a blue planeswalker before and after it’s cast. For the last card, the choice is between Chrome Mox, which is card disadvantage, and Manamorphose, which doesn’t do anything on its own. I’m not sure which is better to cut.

Anyway, in game two, we both mulled to five, but Ellis negated his with a turn one Ancestral Recall. I got Goblin Welder into play but lacked a game winning artifact in my graveyard or a way to get one there. As such I was digging. Ellis countered a few feeble attempts at business and drew cards with Ponder and Brainstorm, finally playing Yawgmoth’s Will to set up a Demonic Tutor for Vault and Key. I scooped.

I mulled to five to start game three and opened with a Mox Ruby to hold up the Pyroblast I had in hand along with a Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal and Belcher. I remember thinking that what I really needed was Channel to go with my two green mana and Pyroblast backup. Ellis mulled to six and played Thorn of Amethyst. Thorn slowed me down, but I played Mox Emerald, Mox Sapphire, and Lotus Petal. Soon, I had drawn Tinker but knew that I’d have to get through a counter. Then Ellis tapped out to play Trinisphere. Then I drew Channel! Thanks to Trinisphere my path to victory was clear; I Channeled out Belcher and its activation.

Games – 4-2-0; Matches – 2-0-0

After game three, my opponent said Trinisphere was a mistake and that he’d forgotten about Channel. It’s true. He had lots of time already thanks to Thorn and the fact that I hadn’t done anything to make him waste a counter. I really did have to draw Channel right there to win, though; so maybe it was just bad luck!

Round 3 – Zohar – Ichorid

Zohar also did well at the last Pittsburgh tournament I attended. Talking before the match I found out that he’s actually from Fairfax, VA, and used to play regularly at the weekly Legacy tournament in Gainesville, that I’ve been thinking about attending. Small world.

He won the die roll in game one and mulliganed, then he Serum Powdered, and I said, “I know what you’re playing!” In the end he had Serum Powdered twice and Paris’d four times down to three cards before keeping. All of that took around 10 minutes. I kept my opener and killed him turn one with Belcher activation off an LED.

I sided out Guttural Responses for Desperate Rituals.

Game two was a grave disappointment for me. Zohar kept a defensive hand and opened with Chalice for zero that shut me down pretty well. I played Goblin Welder off a Spirit Guide hoping to either weld in Belcher at some point or to weld out my opponent’s Chalice. Zohar played Chalice for one on his next turn and started digging with Bazaar on turn three. Finally he put a Serum Powder in the grave and I lost focus. I correctly welded out Chalice for zero on his endstep, then welded out the other Chalice on my turn rather than simply playing my artifacts and welding in the Belcher! Instead of winning the game on the spot, I gave my opponent another turn, which he used to kill me.

Also, he played Cabal Therapy through his own Chalice. It didn’t end up mattering, but it’s definitely something one of us should have noticed, especially me.

It was very frustrating.

I kept my opener for game three and made 12 goblins with Empty the Warrens. My opponent also kept, opened with Bazaar, and was soon making zombies. Neither of us was quite sure how to handle that many creatures. I wanted to force him to block so that his Bridges would go away, but my goblins were the only things saving me from zombie tokens. I swung through his open board, sending him to eight, then forced him to block my second attack removing three Bridges and sending him to two. Unfortunately, too many of my Goblins had died to defend me, and he was able to Darkblast and Chain enough more to get lethal damage through.

Games – 5-4-0; Matches – 2-1-0

Fortunately, game three’s epic feel made up a little for my blunder in game two, and in the end I felt good about the match. Granted, I would have felt a lot better if I had won game two and ended it there rather than losing game three and the match. Oh well. The match did a lot to help my confidence against Ichorid, and I’m no longer sure that I need Tormod’s Crypt in the board. They may be like Xantid Swarms are against drains: a distraction and unnecessary.

Round 4 – Shockey – Tezzeret

Shockey was a fun opponent as well as one of the employees of the store. We had a great time bantering back and forth.

I won the roll and kept a six card hand that made a Belcher on turn one. Unfortunately, Shockey had the Force and followed on his turn with Thirst for Knowledge and Divining Top. I drew and cast Simian Spirit Guide, deciding that I had mana enough in play to cast an actual threat when I drew it. I got the beats in for a few turns, eventually getting him down to nine life. He hardcast Tezzeret but couldn’t get Time Vault because I would attack and kill the planeswalker, so he used it to untap his mana and hardcast Darksteel Colossus. Awesome. In another turn I was dead, having taken damage from two Street Wraiths and Mana Vault since turn one.

I sided out a Guttural Response and a Chrome Mox for two Pyroblasts.

I kept my opener in game two and Emptied the Warrens for eight tokens, knocking him to three over two attacks before he found Echoing Truth. My goblins disappeared, except for one loyal Welder that I had cast the previous turn. He went the distance over the next three turns.

Shockey mulled once in game three and went first with a Thirst for Knowledge, I think. I had a hand that could Wheel of Fortune with Guttural Response backup or Empty the Warrens for four. Obviously, I was going toWheel, but when my opponent went to counter Manamorphose, I Guttural Responsed and drew into Mana Crypt. I was suddenly able to Empty the Warrens for 10 instead! I did that and won in another two turns.

Games – 7-5-0; Matches – 3-1-0

Anyone who says Goblin Welder is slow or unnecessary in Belcher is crazy. That guy is amazing. I won two of seven games with Welder, and would have won an additional one if I hadn’t been struck with the galloping dumbs. Even when Welder has to put down his torch and pick up a beatin’ stick, he just gets the job done. He’s just too good not to run.

Anyway, that was it. I drew in round five against another Angel Oath player and was locked in for the top eight at 3-1-1.

Top 8 – Paul Mastriano – Tezzeret

My luck had been good for the previous rounds, but I still wasn’t much looking forward to meeting Paul in the top eight. Paul is an excellent player, is hard to read, and always seems to have the most broken of his cards in his opening hand, earning him the nickname “Sculptini.” He’s a great guy and one of my favorite players to watch play, but his win record (cf. Vintage World Champion) makes him one I didn’t want to face in the first round of a top eight.

I won the die roll for game one and opened with a first turn Memory Jar, passing the turn. Paul opened with Ancestral. I cracked Jar on my upkeep but found only an Empty the Warrens for six goblins, all of whom I would have traded for one Goblin Welder at that point. Paul was unfazed. “I have you,” he said, and cast Tezzeret off a Dark Ritual, tutored for Time Vault, and Time Walked to set up the combo before I even got an attack phase.

Hmph. I boarded as before for Tezzeret, bringing in Pyroblasts for a Guttural Response and a Chrome Mox.

I kept an opening hand for game two that had the option of either playing Wheel of Fortune or Tinker on turn one. I opted for Tinker. If successful, Tinker leads directly to a win, whereas Wheel leads to seven random cards; plus Wheel is easier to cast later, even if I do have to sacrifice an artifact. Tinker got countered, and Paul Thoughtseized Wheel on his turn and Time Walked on the next. I countered his Gifts Ungiven with Guttural Response, but couldn’t stop Fact or Fiction. The facts were good enough to win the game for him and my day was over.

Still, I took home a foil Tinker for my troubles. Neat!

Actually, it was great to get something for making top eight. For other tournament organizers out there, it doesn’t have to be much, but having prizes extend to the top eight is a great policy. Making top eight is a nice accomplishment, and it’s great to get something to commemorate it with. In my opinion, at least.

After the tournament (Paul made second, losing to GAT) we headed to Primanti Brothers for some awesome sandwiches. They were excellent as usual and make me that much more likely to show up to Pittsburgh tournaments in the future.

Anyway, thanks to The Vault for having the tournament, Mr. and Mrs. NecroWin for opening their house to a trio of nerdy gamers, and to all of my opponents for the great games of Magic. Thanks also to my mom and that penny for being there and bringing me luck.

I’m headed to Baltimore next weekend for another Vintage extravaganza, and will likely report from there as well. Until then, counter Gleemax!

Thanksgiving Back to Back - Day 1 - The Hero Zone

2008-12-03T23:59:00.001-05:00

This Thanksgiving was one of the more awesome Thanksgiving weekends, and not just because of the back-to-back Vintage tournaments on Saturday and Sunday.

First, I got to take five days off from a job that I don’t enjoy. That was huge.

Then I got to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family. That was also huge.

Then I got to treat my parents and my fiancée and her family to a celebratory engagement lunch. The bill was huge. (Actually, it was quite reasonable. We ended up going to the Cap City Diner in Gahanna. I had the blackened tilapia po’ boy, which was excellent.)

Then there was a tournament at the Hero Zone in Sandusky, Ohio. That was small, (I’d like to say “intimate”) but it was still fun hanging out with everyone.

On Friday night, before the tournament, I asked my parents what deck I should play and gave them four choices: MUD, Belcher, Ichorid, or BUG Fish.

“BUG Fish?” said my Dad. “I’d play that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was going to say too,” said my Mom.

So that’s how I decided my deck for the Saturday tournament at the Hero Zone. In the future I will likely not let my parents decide my deck for me. They know nothing about the metagame or indeed anything about Magic at all. Mama Moes did send a few dozen cookies to the tournament, though, so that made up for their misguidance.

Anyway, I played this because my parents told me to:

4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
1x Raven’s Crime
1x Extirpate
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Life from the Loam
2x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Engineered Explosives

4x Dark Confidant
3x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3x Dimir Cutpurse
3x Tarmogoyf

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
3x Faerie Macabre
3x Trygon Predator
3x Yixlid Jailer
2x Umezawa’s Jitte
2x Control Magic
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Echoing Truth

Actually, this isn’t really BUG Fish because there aren’t any Null Rods or Cursecatchers. It would probably be more properly named SS Goyf, but, honestly, the distinction is not really worth quibbling over. To me, any Force of Will based deck that disrupts the opponent long enough to win with small creatures is Fish.

I was actually looking forward to playing this since I haven’t played with blue cards in a tournament in more than a year. Stifle is still one of my favorite cards, flipped Erayo is quite a beating, attacking with Cutpurse is like playing Ancestral every turn, and the Raven’s Crime-Life from the Loam combo is one I’ve been wanting to test.

So after I arrived at the Hero Zone, bought some sleeves and some dice in an effort to keep them in business, and chatted with Dave for a while, I was ready for the tournament to get underway. When round one started there were 14 players, including some from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Round 1 – Owen Turtenwald – Elves Combo

Owen has a reputation in the Midwest (and the rest of the country, I suppose) as being one of the up-and-coming greats, if not already one of the greats. He has a reputation around Northeast Ohio for being like two peas in a pod with Jeff Blystone. It’s wasn’t the right attitude to go into the match with, but I was looking forward to the drubbing I was about to receive. Losing to better clearly better players than oneself is at least educational. Plus, I hadn’t seen the Elves Combo deck yet, and it seemed real neat.

In game one, I countered a Birchlore Rangers and played an Erayo on my turn but never got the chance to flip it of my own accord. Nettle Sentinels hit play on Owen’s side and started the beats until he could combo me on turn four or so. There was a lot of mana made and cards drawn, and then he played Grapeshot for a bunch to finish me off.

I suspect I brought in Jittes, Explosives, and Echoing Truth.

For game two, I had the broken opener with Black Lotus, Brainstorm, Goyf, and Engineered Explosives on turn one and Ancestral and Time Walk not too much later if I remember correctly. Owen played Summoner’s Pact and comboed a little while I didn’t have activation mana available for Engineered Explosives, but he couldn’t finish me past a Force of Will and died to Pact when I Wastelanded a Gaea’s Cradle.

I probably could have won game three (or at least been closer) if I had saved the Stifle in my hand for the coup de Grapeshot instead of the Skullclamp trigger I used it on. Oh well. I believe I mulliganed to six, and Thoughtseized a Glimpse of Nature to survive until turn three.

Matches 0-1-0; Games 1-2-0

I like this Elves deck. It doesn’t even play many cards exclusive to Vintage. I think the only one I saw was a Mox Emerald in game one. It was also nice to see Fyndhorn Elves get played again.

Round 2 – Jason Jaco – BUG Fish

As I said, any Force of Will based deck that wins with dudesweats is Fish in my book, so this wasn’t much of a mirror match. Jaco had Counterbalance to go with his Tops, and had a Faerie package that included Mutavaults and Spellstutter Sprites. Regardless, I think his deck pooped out on him this round.

In game one, we had a couple turns of nothing except me Thoughtseizing a Tarmogoyf and countering a pair of Spellstutters. Mutavaults got in for him until I found Wastelands for them, and I got a Tarmogoyf to stick. Things started to turn for my favor when I played Life from the Loam and started recurring Wasteland and Strip Mine, but I missed a dredge for one turn, allowing him to Vampiric Tutor for Ancestral and get himself back into the game with Dark Confidant and Top. Fortunately, by that point, Jaco was already too low on life and died to fetchland activations, a Force of Will, and Bob.

I decided to go with the man plan for game two and brought in Jittes, Explosives, Echoing Truths, Control Magics, Trygon Predators, and Jailers.

Jaco and I both opened game two with Thoughtseiezes for opposing dudes. I had the good fortune to draw three Dark Confidants, though, which gave me the luxury of baiting Force of Will with one and trading another with a Mutavault before playing the third and sticking a Jitte to him. Between a Jitte-wielding Bob and depleted mana, Jaco decided to scoop.

Matches 1-1-0; Games 3-2-0

I was happy that someone was playing Spellstutter Sprite and told Jaco how I felt about the card, but he pretty much said that it sucked. I don’t know. I still think it’s a good way to open a game and grows incrementally with the opponent’s spells, especially if it’s paired with Mutavault or other Faeries.

Round 3 – Jeff “The Brain” Blystone – Manaless Ichorid

Jeff’s deck seemed eerily familiar, perhaps because it was mostly my cards with just a few changes. I knew I was in for trouble, especially game one, unless I got lucky and he mulled to oblivion. Unfortunately for me, that didn’t happen. Stupid Ichorid.

I opened the play with a Dark Confidant that got in for an attack while Jeff did his Bazaaring and dredging and stuff. The next turn I was being beaten down by a couple of Ichorids and a Narcomoeba. The turn after that, I was dead.

I brought in Echoing Truth and Explosives, Jailers, and Faerie Macabres. Silly me, thinking I had a chance.

I played a land and hoped to Stifle a Bazaar activation, but Jeff only drew and discarded a Golgari Grave-Troll, which I summarily Faeried away. Unfortunately, I drew no black mana and was unable to play the Yixlid Jailers that would save me. The Wastelands I was drawing did no good as my opponent never played Bazaar. It was a depressing but quick loss to Ichorids.

Matches 1-2-0; Games 3-4-0

Ugh. What a beating. I thought eight cards were supposed to be enough against Ichorid, and I even had Extirpate and Explosives maindeck.

Round 4 – Jimmy McCarthy – Tezzeret

Jimmy and I haven’t played I think since a previous Hero Zone tournament where he played Goblins and I played UW Fish, before he moved back to Wisconsin and I moved to Virginia. I believe I’m 0-X against him lifetime, and I saw no reason to change that now and scooped in an attempt to get him into the final rounds of the tournament.

We played anyway.

In game one, I opened with Erayo and flipped it pretty early. I may be getting my games crossed but it was either flipped by a counter-war or by a Chain of Vapor on a Mox; I think the latter. Anyway, from there, I got Cutpurse going and took a commanding control of the game. Jimmy scooped at 15 life to the Erayo-Cutpurse lock.

I don’t think I sideboarded much. I think I just brought in a Control Magic for the likely Tinker for Colossus ending.

In game two, Jimmy Tinkered for Colossus on turn two.

Yeah. That’s pretty much it. Good thing I sideboarded.

Jimmy mulliganed twice in game three and kept a hand with Mox Jet and Sensei’s Divining Top. That was not good enough. I flipped Erayo again and soon had two Dark Confidants and a Tarmogoyf to finish the game.

Matches 1-3-0; Games 5-5-0

Of course, with my concession, Jimmy’s opponents had a combined record of something like 2-5-1, so his tiebreakers were terrible and he still had no chance of making top four. Oh well. I was happy just to play the games.

So that was it, my triumphant-ish return to the aggro-control world of Fish.

It was fun. An experiment and not one I’m likely to try again soon, but fun nonetheless.

After the tournament, Mike Smar and I played some more of the Tezzeret vs. Fish matchup and I won the majority of the games, something like 5-2. Basically, unless he got a really broken start, I was bound to win the game one way or another. There were just too many areas where I could get the advantage—extra cards from Bob or Cutpurse, extra mana from Wasteland and Life from the Loam, and spells from Erayo and Raven’s Crime. If the game went long enough, I was just toying with him.

Anyway, I think Juan Rodriguez, Jeff Blystone, Anthony Michaels, and Nam Tran top-foured with TPS, Ichorid, Ichorid, and 5c Stax, respectively. They split the money, but played it out with Juan meeting Jeff in the finals and winning the bye (and the honor) for the next day’s Warzone tournament.

Like I said, it was a lot of fun. Maybe next time there will be some more players.

Pooping Out in Pittsburgh

2008-11-23T22:28:00.002-05:00

Playing in the Philadelphia tournament at the beginning of the month got me really excited about playing Vintage again semi-regularly, and since the price of gas is dropping like Jose Canseco in right field, I made the decision to take a little drive to the other end of Pennsylvania to check out the Pittsburgh tourney scene.

There was much hype about this tournament on the Neohgamers boards. At one point, there were 18 Ohioans planning on showing up, and even though that number was down to 11 by gameday I was still looking forward to hanging out with the old crew.

I toyed around with the idea of taking Workshops to the tournament. The MUD list I built for my fiancée had been serving up some pretty disgusting opening hands lately, and it seemed like it could be an interesting choice. There was also some talk of trying to get as many Ohioans as possible to take Ichorid, but one-by-one people pooped out on that idea.

Anyway, when it came down to it, I of course sleeved up Belcher again.

At heart, I just really enjoy incinerating people and running them down with hordes of goblins. More importantly, I feel like Belcher and I are on the cusp of greatness. The list runs really smooth, and my sideboard felt perfect. Here they are:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Tinker
1x Timetwister

4x Goblin Welder
4x Guttural Response
4x Street Wraith
4x Manamorphose

4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
3x Chrome Mox
1x Channel
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Grim Monolith

Sideboard
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Tormod’s Crypt
4x Storm Entity
2x Pyroblast
1x Gaea’s Blessing

The maindeck is self explanatory: play Belcher or some goblins and win the game as fast as possible. The sideboard is a little different from last time, but worked great in Pittsburgh. Desperate Rituals and Storm Entities came in against Stax and Ad Nauseam; Pyroblast helped against Tezzeret and Trinket Mage; and Gaea’s Blessing came in against the inevitable Painter combo. The only cards I didn’t use were the Crypts since I never played Ichorid.

I woke up early on Saturday morning and made myself some breakfast and some sandwiches for the road. It’s a four hour drive to Pittsburgh. I knew I’d have a long day ahead of me and wanted to be prepared.

Most of the drive I spent searching for NPR. There’s a lot of static across the Appalachians.

The store, Mr. Nice Guy Games, was well managed by owners Ron and Holly Kotwica. It was clean and mostly well-lit, which are surprisingly often problems with game stores for some reason. My only complaint was that it was almost too small for the 41 people who showed up to play, and this was exacerbated by it being on two levels. The stairs were especially crowded at the beginnings of matches until people started dropping and going home.

Still any problem that appears only because there are too many people in your tournament doesn’t really seem like that much of a problem. Mr. Nice Guy was a great place to game.

Plus, Christopher Moeller, artist for such hits as Meddling Mage, Umezawa’s Jitte, and Isamaru was there! I got him to make a Mox Ruby proxy for me and sign my Triskelions!

Anyway, I’m about to hit page three here, so we’d best get this tournament started.

Round 1 – Tom – Sensei-Sensei

Tom was pretty quiet during our first few turns, but he loosened up as we played, probably because he was winning. I’m not sure if his deck was necessarily Sensei-Sensei, but he did have Magus of the Future, Tringet Magi, and Sensei’s Divining Tops. In the end, all that mattered was that he had a Drain deck with a combo finish. I should have had the advantage.

In game one, I mulled to four on the play and kept a hand with a couple of mana and a Belcher. It wasn’t pretty. Tom took the opportunity to launch a turn two Tinker for Platinum Angel, so I was on a clock in a hurry. I got Belcher into play on turn three, but my opponent had Hurkyl’s Recall for that and my Chrome Mox. Ugh. He played a Trinket Mage for Top on his next turn and maintained control as the Angel went the distance.

I boarded out a Guttural Response and a Manamorphose for the pair of Pyroblasts. Trinket Mage is a nightmare for Belcher, and Guttural Response doesn’t cut it.

I allowed my opponent to play first and he took the opportunity to get Top into play. I hoped to sneak a Tinker through, but Tom had the Force left in hand and pitched Echoing Truth to play it. Pretty good—I guess he was set for whatever I led with. The Welder in my hand hit play; it couldn’t Weld Tinker back in, but it did answer a Tinkered-for Platinum Angel. And though I Pyroblasted a Magus of the Future, I couldn’t stop Counterbalance. Counterbalance and Top are pretty good against combo, I guess, and Tom took his time setting up an infinite combo with Etherium Sculptor, Top, and another Magus played off Yawgmoth’s Will.

Matches 0-1 / Games – 0-2

Oh well. It happens. I’m not sure I can pinpoint anything I did overtly wrong. My hands in game one weren’t keepable, and I don’t think giving him the play in game two torpedoed my chances as much as that first turn Force of Will, Echoing Truth hand did.

Round 2 – Vince – RB Stax

Vince was an easy-going local player. I didn’t get to see much of his deck, but when I asked he said it was an RB Stax list with just Welders and Tutors. He won the die roll.

In game one, Vince led with an Emerald and a Badlands. A reprieve for me, I guess. I played Belcher with mana available to Belch next turn, and that’s what happened. “I kept a baaad hand,” said Vince.

Having seen an Emerald and a Badlands, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t expect blue. I was thinking maybe a TMWA build, and took out Guttural Responses for Desperate Rituals.

Vince opened game two with a Lotus, Urborg, and Chalice for zero. Chalice was ineffective, though, as I played a Wheel of Fortune with plenty of mana and dropped a Welder and Emptied the Warrens for 20 dudes. Vince played a Mox Monkey, ate his Chalice, dropped a couple of Moxes, and played a Juggernaut and a second Chalice. I Welded out the Juggs for a discarded Sphere of Resistance, and swung. Monkey blocked of course, but the extra turn wasn’t enough to get Vince back in the game. It was over on turn three.

Matches – 1-1 / Games 2-2

That’s better. Who wanted to actually play Magic anyway?

Round 3 – Dave Daugherty – Ad Nauseam

Matt Hazard also brought Belcher, and he and I joked about getting paired up since the Belcher mirror is just so much fun. Instead, I got paired with Matt’s passenger, Dave, playing the second fastest combo deck in the format, Ad Nauseam. Poor Dave. He never knew what was coming.

Dave was on the play in game one (not by my choice), and I mulliganed. Dave played an Underground Sea and Ancestral’d during my upkeep. We got back to even, though, as I played Wheel of Fortune and then Timetwistered into an insanely large Empty the Warrens. We hadn’t been keeping track of storm, so we agreed that it would be 22 tokens. Dave took his turn, stormed up a little, and played Tendrils for 10 life. Now at 30, Dave survived the first goblin attack but not the second.

Ad Nauseam doesn’t have counterspells and is weak to damage, so I sided out Guttural Responses and Goblin Welders for Desperate Rituals and Storm Entities.

Dave played first but mulliganed four times to open and passed on turn one, doing nothing. I mulliganed once and Emptied the Warrens for 12. That was pretty much game. I think he Thoughtseized me once and got one of two Desperate Rituals.

Matches – 2-1 / Games 4-2

Dave’s mistake was that he continued playing combo when he should have been playing control. After game one he said his choice was either to Duress me or play Ancestral. He played Ancestral and lost. Game two he showed me four of the cards in his first mulligan: Thoughtseize, Thoughtseize, Duress, Black Lotus. That would definitely have nuked my hand. Next time, he’ll know.

Round 4 – Nam Q. Tran – Transtax II: The Return

Sweet, I get the chance to knock another friend out of the tournament. Nam was doing okay with his classic five-color Stax build, but didn’t seem thrilled about it. He definitely wasn’t thrilled to lose the die roll against me.

On the play in game one, I played Tinker for Belcher but didn’t have activation mana on hand, just a Mox on board and an ESG in hand. So Nam got a turn and played Mana Vault and a Sphere of Resistance. Then I drew Lion’s Eye Diamond and won. Sorry Nam!

Guttural Response is out for sure, and Manamorphose is awful against a Sphere of Resistance, so they got dropped for Desperate Rituals and Storm Entities. Storm Entity can go the distance against Stax, and Desperate Rituals are an extra mana source for the possible first turn win.

In game two, Nam mulliganed but opened with a Sphere of Resistance. I played a Welder off a Mox Ruby and a couple of Spirit Guides. Welder got in for a damage but died to a Smokestack. A second Sphere of Resistance and a Triskelion sealed my fate and I scooped.

Good thing I won that die roll! I’m on the play in game three and mulligan into an ugly six-card hand of ESG, Vault, Belcher and three Street Wraiths. Ugh. Too good to pitch, but it’s super shaky. Nam mulliganed twice as well.

I drew another ESG, Mox Jet, and Welder off my Street Wraiths and gratefully dropped Jar. I considered waiting until next turn to crack it, but realized Nam could do any number of things to stop me on his turn and busted it ASAP. Good thing too—Rite, Rite, Lotus, SSG, Welder, Sapphire, Belcher. That’s Belcher, Welder, and activation in one hand. Sorry Nam!

Matches – 3-1 / Games 6-3

The Stax matchup is generally pretty good for Belcher as long as you win the die roll. Your turn one percentage is sufficiently good, and they don’t run counterspells. My recommendation: win the die roll.

Also, Nam hates Belcher.

Round 5 – Angel Rivera – Uba Stax

What?! Another Ohio gamer? There were 41 people here. Can’t I play people from Pittsburgh or something?

Angel and I were both possibilities for top eight but weren’t in a position to draw. He was playing an old-school Uba Stax list but passed up Sphere of Resistance and Null Rod in favor of Chalice of the Void and Kaaaaarn! I didn’t know this at the offset, but that really cuts down the cards that hurt me.

Angel won the die roll and led with an Uba Mask. The Lotus Petal I found in the Mask went directly into play and allowed me to Tinker for Belcher on turn one and activate: Lotus Petal, LED, Lotus, SSG, Rite of Flame, Tinker LED for Tinker, activate with Lotus. A play I would have almost certainly missed had Angel not asked if I would win that turn. My original plan was just to Empty the Warrens for 10 guys.

I sided as I did against Nam: Guttural and Morphose out for Desperate Ritual and Storm Entity.

Angel opened the play in game two with a more aggressive Workshop, Sol Ring, Powder Keg and Chalice for one. I still managed to play a Storm Entity for four, which got in for damage, but a Tangle Wire slowed it down and it died from smoke inhalation. Angel’s clock was still limited to a single Goblin Welder, though, so I kept drawing cards hoping to luck into Channel or Tinker or something good. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Angel found Karn fourteen turns later and finished me off.

On the play again in game three I mulliganed into a hand that made a Welder and a Storm Entity for five off a Lotus and some other mana. My hope was to keep some control with the Welder long enough to get Welder in for damage. Angel played a Powder Keg but used it to prevent an attempted Weld of a Mox for Lotus. That was good since he wouldn’t be Kegging my Welder or Storm Entity. All I wanted to do was play a Spirit Guide. Angel dug frantically for a Karn or a Tangle Wire, anything to slow me down, but couldn’t quite get there. I finally got a Spirit Guide into play and Angel conceded to seven damage on the table.

Matches – 4-1 / Games 8-4

That last game was intense. I was glad Angel busted that Keg early. Otherwise I was likely sunk. If he’d knocked out my Storm Entity and followed up with any kind of pressure, there was no way I was coming back.

Round 6 – Chris – Blue-Red Tezzeret with Painter and Time Vault

Chris was a good local opponent. Unfortunately, at 3-1-1 he wouldn’t be able to draw into the finals with me. Crud.

I won the roll and played in game one but mulled to five and kept a slow hand, hoping to draw mana to complement my Mox and Sol Ring and play Belcher. Unfortunately, Chris had some good draws and was able to play Trinket Mage for Grindstone and complete the Painter combo on turn three. I conceded, hoping he might not know what I was playing.

I didn’t know exactly what he was playing, having seen a Workshop and a Volcanic Island, but I sided in two Pyroblasts and Gaea’s Blessing for a Guttural Response, a Chrome Mox, and Grim Monolith. I wasn’t sure what to take out here, but those seemed good. In retrospect, I should have left the Chrome Mox in.

Game two was quick but merciless. I opened with an unhindered Twister but drew utter garbage, no starter mana, and Gaea’s Blessing. It was a kick in the junk to be sure. Chris Twistered into Lotus and Tinker and topdecked the Mana Crypt that allowed him to get the Big Guy and take it home.

Matches – 4-2 / Games 8-6

Nothing quite like opening a Twister hand and feeling like crying. I could have done nothing to prevent these losses. Game one was a necessary mull to oblivion, and game two was a fizzle off a Twister that resolved. What's a Care Bear to do?

I stuck around, hoping that I might be the one 4-2 that would get into the finals, but it was not to be. My tiebreakers just weren’t good enough. There was a chance I might get a free cookie cake for coming in ninth too, but no there too. I might also have won the door prize foreign black-bordered Demonic Tutor, but, well, no.

Sigh.

It was a good run that ended for naught. I knocked three friends out of competition and walked away with nothing to show for it. At least I got to have a fun day of gaming with my friends! I guess that’s worth it.

Yeah!

Ooh, plus, I got to eat at Primanti Brothers with Matt Hazard and Dave. I had the Pitt’s Burger, which was lovely. My one complaint with that place is that the fries they put on every sandwich make it dry. I always have to put hot sauce or ketchup on every bite, just to, you know, lubricate things. Still, super good sandwiches.

The tournament ended up being dominated by Meandeckers and Pittsburghers, except for the one shining beacon of hope for Ohio: Twaun P. Pownerton. After all the talk of all the Ohioans taking Ichorid, he was the only one who did, and he ended up going home in third place with a minty Grim Tutor in tow. Not bad!

Anyway, we’ll be gaming over Thanksgiving weekend for sure. There’s a tournament for cash at the Hero Zone on Saturday and a Mox tournament at the Warzone on Sunday!

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36643.0
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36644.0

So much Zonage! There’s rumor of turkey dinner on Saturday and there will definitely be much hanging out and hot card-slinging action between the two tournaments. Come out and do it up right! See you there.

The Cheese-steak Open

2008-11-05T23:36:00.001-05:00

So this is my official second foray into a resurgence of typing out a blog semi-regularly.

Let’s see… it’s November 4 (I hope you remembered to vote!) and it’s been three weeks since my last confession. I mean tournament report. Though I did commit several grievous sins as far as playing Belcher goes.

The tournament in question was the New Jersey Open, held in Philadelphia on November 2 and featuring a sizable Standard tournament and a Vintage tournament for a Black Lotus. I was looking forward to this since some of the Ohio gamers were planning on making the trip out to play, led by Jerry Yang in the Malice of Retribution, who made plans after gaming in Baltimore last month.

Plus, Philadelphia equals cheese steak!

Anyway, there was a significant development in the Belcher department between the previous tournament in Baltimore and the most recent one in Philly: Tinker and Twister.

I had ignored these two powerful cards in previous incarnations of the deck because they’re out of the red-green color base; essentially they can’t be played off of Spirit Guides. However, Jason Jaco pointed out that I have a decent amount of color fixing. With Manamorphose, I have seven blue sources in the deck: Lotus, Petal, Sapphire and Morphose, and that’s not too bad.

I did some testing with Tinker and Twister over the past couple of weeks, and they proved themselves solid in goldfishing. They’re not perfect—I still wish they were red or green—but they’re still very strong. Tinker serves as a fifth, cheaper Belcher, but requires an artifact to play, which doesn’t always happen. Twister is another draw-seven; it’s cheap and swingy, but it lacks the synergy with Welder that Wheel of Fortune has.

Still if something is going to get countered, I’d rather it be one of those than Storm Entity. And I’d rather have more power-cards in my deck than utility like an extra Chrome Mox or some Pyroblasts.

So, when I packed up my car Saturday morning and began the drive up I-95 from our nation’s capital to the City of Brotherly Love, this is what I was packing with the hopes of dominating my opponents and destroying my fellow spell slingers:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Memory Jar
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Tinker
1x Time Twister

4x Goblin Welder
4x Guttural Response
4x Manamorphose

4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
3x Chrome Mox
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Channel
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Grim Monolith

Sideboard
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x Tormod’s Crypt
3x Storm Entity

The sideboard is meant to work with Belcher’s strategies. They’re cheap, effective against their targets, and won’t reduce the turn one potential of the deck. There’s no sense in bringing in one- and two-ofs because you have to see them in your opening hand. The only card I would have wanted in Philly was Gaea’s Blessing, but I’m not sure I’d cut something for it.

Anyway, three hours up the interstate from home, I parked my car at the soonest opportunity and wandered into the lobby of the Philadelphia Mariott to find Jerry, Eric, Randal, and Ben. Ben doesn’t count because he’s a Standard player and had to get to the venue early, but the rest of us headed to breakfast at the nearby Reading Terminal Market and the Down Home Diner.

Though we had some issues with food mysteriously not being available (“I’d like the corned-beef hash.” “We don’t have that.” “Uhh… okay.”) and a waitress who was seemingly near tears, the food we did order was excellent. My multigrain pancakes were nicely spiced and kept me going all day.

After breakfast, we went back through the hotel to the Pennsylvania Convention Center and walked a long, long way to the venue via the Space Atrium, which was amazing with it’s towering turrets, starry ceiling, and indoor planets. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of this because PCC employees are asses.

The tournament hall itself was large, so of course they had people crammed into two sides of it, eight to a table. Awesome. At least there was a good turnout—64 gamers were there to play Vintage.

After a while of the usual paper shuffling, grace period, and late registrants, we got settled in and shuffled up for:

Round 1 – Scott Hughes – Mono-Red Workshops

This round was an out-and-out travesty for me, though Scott was his usual genial self and I was able to make it through without too much egg on my face, I hope.

Though I had played against Scott before and knew him to be a New England Workshop player, I nonetheless allowed him to play first in game one despite winning the die roll and he led with a Thorn of Amethyst. I played through as best I could, luckily drawing an Elvish Sprit Guide that allowed me to play a Tinder Wall into Welder and Black Lotus on turn one and Wheel of Fortune on turn two. The Wheel only refilled my opponent’s hand, though, and he dropped a devastating Trinisphere. I was able to throw off one more desperate Timetwister, just in case, but I read the writing on the wall and conceded.

I played first in game two, passing the turn in another epic misplay as I counted four mana where only three existed. Needless to say, artifact locks hit the board and I was done for much like the previous game. The only bright spot was that Scott nearly died to his own manabase of Ancient Tombs and Mana Crypts.

Honestly this was awful. I can’t say that I would have won since playing against Workshops is no treat, but I was set up with a good-sized Empty on turn one, and that would have gone a long way to winning the match.

Games – 0-2; Matches – 0-1

Round 2 – Andrew – UW Fish

I can’t really comment too much on Andrew’s deck since I didn’t see much of it despite playing several turns against him. He was a friendly player, though, who seemed to have kept some unfortunate hands against me.

I won the roll and chose to play, and both Andrew and I mulled to six, which is coincidentally the number of goblin tokens I made on turn one as well. Andrew played a Null Rod on his first turn, took some beats, and Tinkered on his second turn. Unfortunately for him, Darksteel was in-hand, and he got Aethersworn Canonist instead. The blockers slowed me down, but not enough; it was over quickly.

Andrew mulliganed again in game two but couldn’t stop my Empty for eight tokens. He played an Energy Flux that had me sacrificing some mana, but couldn’t put anything else together.

I generally worry about the speed of an Empty the Warrens for six and eight tokens, since most opponents can get something going in that time, but it worked out here. Of course, Andrew told me after the match that he had nothing in his deck or sideboard to deal with Empty the Warrens, so that might have something to do with it. Is Empty becoming a forgotten win condition, one that’s not being respected or defended against as it should be?

Games – 2-2; Matches – 1-1

Round 3 – Garret – UW Fish

I meet another Fish player crawling out of the basement—hm… interesting. Generally Fish should be a matchup that I fear since it’s easy for me to fall behind and get swamped in the variety of disruption spells. One thing to notice is that Null Rod Fish decks are slower than the Fish decks that were played against GAT because they don’t run their own moxen. They’re fairly easy for Belcher to race because they can’t apply enough pressure early.

Garret won the die roll and elected to play first, leading with a Cursecatcher. Unfortunately for him, my hand was Catcher-proof as I laid Mox Jet, Mox Sapphire, Vault and Belcher on turn one and drew a third Mox on my next turn. He had a Stifle to slow me down a turn, but I cratered him in the end.

Standstill surprised me on turn one of game two, and I told my opponent that he was definitely going to be drawing some cards. Luckily my hand was amazing. I ran a Tinder Wall into Daze, and then used Mana Crypt to accelerate into an Empty the Warrens for 14 dudes. It was pretty quick from there on out.

Games were starting to play out as they should. Garret was gracious in defeat, and we wished each other well.

Games 4-2; Matches 2-1

Round 4 – Kurt – Painter

This match was a blowout. Eric was watching the games, having already dropped, and said that my opponent’s draws were unholy in their luck. Sure it was frustrating as I don’t think there was anything I could do, but, hey, that’s Vintage!

In game one my opponent won the roll and played first, and I mulliganed to six. He opened with Mox, Grindstone, Tolarian Academy, and then played Ponder into Ancestral. I played a turn one Belcher off of Lotus with Welder backup and definite turn two activation—off a mull to six, don’t forget! Unfortunately, my opponent had also found Painter’s Servant with Ancestral and had the mana to activate.

I played first in game two, and had to mull again but made six Goblin tokens on turn two with Guttural Response backup. My opponent’s start was a little slower this time, but he played Fact or Fiction on turn three and Forced it past my counter. Fact amazingly revealed Yawgmoth’s Will, Time Walk, Trinket Mage (which would certainly get Engineered Explosives), a mox, and Pithing Needle. There’s no good way to split that, especially after finding out that my opponent also had Black Lotus in hand.

Oh, by the way, Eric said afterward that my opponent’s opening hand in game one started as land, land, land, Tolarian, Mox, Grindstone, Ponder. Sigh.

It must be nice living in Christmasland.

Games 4-4; Matches 2-2

Round 5 – Jerry O’Yang – Bruce Campbell and the Army of Darkness

As soon as we sat down, Jerry launched into this huge tirade about how clever he is and how awesome his deck is and how there’s no way I’ll beat him because I have no idea what he’s hiding in his sideboard. I replied that I had read all about his deck on da Innanet and that he was planning on sideboarding from Ichorid into Oath.

Then we high-fived because it’s always cool playing your friends in a tournament!

Anyway, we were sort of playing for a spot in the final rounds since a 4-2 record could, theoretically, make it into the top eight.

In game one, Jerry won the roll and hit me with a Duress on turn one that took Belcher but couldn’t stop the 10 goblins I made with the Empty the Warrens in my hand. I started the beats on the quick, and Jerry’s best measures against me fell short as he could only play Careful Study once and Darkblast a Welder.

Game two seemed really awkward. Jerry had sideboarded into Oath and spent his first turn doing some digging for Oath or control components. My first turn was impressive but not effectual, as I played Memory Jar into Timetwister and then had to pass the turn with a couple of Spirit Guides in play. I got some beats in, but it was nothing compared to the pair of Woodfall Primuses that hit play on Jerry’s side. It was close but ultimately for naught.

And so we entered a pivotal game three situation. I’m fairly sure I went first (though you never know with me) and played Tinker into Jar into an Empty the Warrens for 18 goblins. Pretty good. In fact, plenty good. Jerry couldn’t overcome the furious hordes.

I asked Jerry if I could mark 2-0 on the match slip, just in case it made the difference in a possible top eight situation, and he was cool with it. Like I said, it’s always fun playing against friends, especially for me since most of the folks I play with are now seven hours away.

Games – 6-4; Matches 3-2

Round 6 – Eric – Firebomber-man

Eric was a pretty cool opponent, even though he pointed out early on that there was nothing real at stake in this match. We were both far enough down in the ranks that even a win here wouldn’t push us into the top eight. Oh well. Magic is fun!

Game one started out pretty well as Eric won the roll and gave me the play, allowing me to Empty the Warrens for eight goblins. My opponent drew some cards with Repeal and then attempted Ancestral Recall. I could have countered it, holding Guttural Response and an Elvish Spirit Guide, but I elected not to. I was still unsure what my opponent was playing, and my opponent drawing three cards was less frightening to me than the prospect of Echoing Truth returning me to zero.

Unfortunately, the three extra cards propelled my opponent into Trinket Mage for Engineered Explosives to stop me and gave him enough time to find Auriok Salvagers for the combo win with Lotus and Pyrite Spellbomb.

Anyway, in game two, I let Eric have the play and he squandered it by playing some mana or something else dumb. I cycled four Street Wraiths, played three Manamorphoses, played Timetwister, baited a counter with Tinderwall, and Emptied the Warrens for well more than 20 goblins. My opponent did not survive.

My opponent played first for the third time this match, but my card advantage was mitigated by a double mulligan. I still had the resources to drop a turn one Belcher, but Eric had the counter. Though I thought my hand and board were solid enough to get back in the game (I had Sol Ring and a Mox in play and more red accelerants and extra win conditions in hand), I drew poorly for several turns. It was plenty of time for Eric to put a win together with Tezzeret into the Salvagers combo.

Why I chose to counter Fact or Fiction against my fourth round apartment but let Ancestral resolve here is a mystery to me. There’s no guarantee that I would have been able to stop Recall or that stopping it would save the match for me, but this is something that has bitten me before. I wonder when I’ll learn.

Games – 7-6; Matches – 3-3

A fine end to a fun but frustrating day. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, I was pleased with the deck, even though I was disappointed with my own play in rounds one and six. I’m not sure if this was a getting into and out of tournament mode problem or what, but I’m confident that I could have won at least one of those matches.

Oh well. Next time.

After the tournament, the Ohioans and I (can I really continue to call myself an Ohioan?) spent an entertaining evening in Philadelphia. We walked a couple of miles from the hotel to Jim’s steak sandwich shop for some classically delicious cheese steak sandwiches that we spent a well-worth-it hour in line for.

Back at the hotel we did some drafting of Randal’s new Type 4 stack. I had never played the format before, but it was good times! I probably played too aggressively, attracting too much attention with my infinite bat tokens thanks to Skeletal Vampire, and lost quickly in the two games we played, but it was a ton of fun regardless. I look forward to my next go-round with the format.

The next morning we headed back to the Reading Terminal Market and the Down Home Diner, which was again delicious. We then took the time (since we had already paid for parking) to tour a little of the city. We looked around the rest of the Market, then walked up to Independence Hall and saw the Liberty Bell (in Chinese, I might add), and then walked through Chinatown!

Chinatown was pretty interesting as we sought steamy pork buns at Chinese bakeries and looked for Asian treats at the local grocery store.

Plus, Randal found the least genuine Magic cards I’ve ever seen at an Asia Bazaar. They came in packs of 30 with no basic lands or instructions, and contained mixed colors and sets despite having the box text of a red-green beatdown deck from, I think, Fifth Dawn. Seriously, they were bad. They were smaller than actual Magic cards by about 20%, had a laminated sheen to them, and weren’t even scanned or typeset properly.

Anyway, it was an all-around awesome weekend. I got to play some Magic, hang out with friends, and get some useful testing in on my favorite deck. In fact, it was so fun that I’ll likely be heading to Pittsburgh in another week and a half to throw some more cardboard down. Hopefully, I’ll see you there!

Blue Moon Belching in Baltimore

2008-09-21T22:51:00.001-04:00

I played Zero-Land Belcher in Baltimore on Saturday. And after testing versions with black earlier in the week, I had gone back to my personally favored red-green version. Black and red, it seems, just don’t play well together: Rite of Flame doesn’t lead into Dark Ritual, which can’t be played off of Elvish Spirit Guide or play Manamorphose in return, and there aren’t any worthwhile red and black hybrid or multicolor cards to imprint on Chrome Mox. On the other hand, the mana in the red-green version seems made for each other, and that stability makes up for not running Yawgmoth’s Will and Demonic Tutor.

My list follows:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
4x Goblin Welder
2x Storm Entity
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar

4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Manamorphose
3x Chrome Mox
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Channel
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith

4x Guttural Response
4x Street Wraith

Sideboard
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Storm Entity
1x Gaea’s Blessing

There are some pretty significant changes. Dropping Land Grant for the newly unrestricted Chrome Mox means that, hey, you don’t have to show your opponent all your plans anymore! That’s kind of neat. I played three Chrome Moxes, simply because having more than one in an opener is quite a hit to the ol’ hand size.

Manamorphose and Storm Entity are still a bit questionable for me. Manamorphose is good for Empty the Warrens, iffy for Goblin Charbelcher. I think it’s keepable—the other choice for me would be Desperate Ritual.

Storm Entity is a win-condition, but it’s the weakest by far. I like having it there and have won games with it, but it’s never quite as certain as playing Empty the Warrens or Goblin Charbelcher. All in all, I was pleased with it, and in testing, it’s proven valuable as something to tack onto a Belcher or Empty the Warrens turn. Plus, it’s a nice, easy to cast off-the-top win condition.

Yahoo! founder and million-dollar poker player Jerry “Yangtime” Yang” had visited to play in the tournament and sample the culinary delights of Baltimore’s Blue Moon Café. We set out from my apartment at 9 a.m., planning on finding lunch in Towson, after the hour-and-a-half long drive. After walking around the block, nothing tasty looking was open, so we ate at a bagel place. It was pretty good (I had liverwurst, lettuce, and tomato with cheese), though mine took forever to cook for some reason.

Whatever.

Team We Always Show Up Early struck again, and Jerry and I waited around after lunch for the tournament to get going. We passed the time after the usual registration tasks by playing my MUD deck against its own sideboard, splitting the series 1-1.

The tournament got underway promptly with 26 players playing for a Mox Emerald.

Round – Michael – Scroll Rack Oath

Michael was a local, judging by his Ravens polo and his telling me that he came from 10 minutes away. His deck was pretty neat looking; Scroll Rack seemed appropriate for the strategy.

I won the die roll and elected to go first, leading with a Storm Entity that ran into Force of Will. He played some setup for a while including Scroll Rack to fix his hand. The pressure I applied with a hardcast Elvish Spirit Guide and a Storm Entity wasn’t enough, however, when he cast Oath of Druids, put Hellkite Overlord into play, and Time Walked. Meh.

I did not sideboard.

I allowed Michael to go first in game two. Again he countered my Storm Entity. Ugh. We played draw-go for a while, and he tried to keep me out of the game with Chalice of the Void and an Arcane Lab. Finally, I played Belcher with two Simian Spirit Guides in hand to activate later. It resolved. In another turn, I drew a Chrome Mox, played it and pitched my Spirit Guides to activate. “Echoing Truth Belcher in response,” he said.

“Okay, the ability’s still on the stack.”

“But it says, ‘Goblin Charbelcher deals damage,’ on the card. How can it deal damage if it’s not in play?”

This led to him calling a judge and us waiting 10 minutes for resolution. Of course, there was no actual judge on hand. My opponent searched the Star City database with his iPhone and offered to call his “friend who’s a level three judge” (I declined). Finally a judge playing in the tournament revealed that, duh, the ability uses last-known information and kills you. I flipped my deck over, and my opponent died, still protesting.

My opponent mulliganed to five to find Chalice of the Void in game three and successfully shut off my first-turn kill that relied on Mox Ruby and Mana Crypt. We each drew cards for a few turns. He played Oath, and I played Belcher. It was too late for me, though, as I got run down by a Dragon and an Angel before I could fire.

Yeah. What a fun way to begin a tournament.

Round 2 – Paul Mastriano – Meandeck Keeper

Paul’s always a fun opponent and is definitely a challenge. I was looking forward to this match to make up for the last one. His deck is a Drain-based control deck with green to allow Tarmogoyfs, Krosan Grips, and Regrowth-optimized Gifts Ungivens.

I won the die roll and let Paul go first. He seemed surprised, but took it in stride. He opened with a fetch and Ancestral—pretty good start. I played Belcher off of three moxes, and met Force of Will. Goblin Welder resolved, though, and won the game for me on turn two when I welded out Mox Pearl for Belcher.

I did not sideboard.

Paul chose to go first in game two. “Are you sure?” I asked. “It didn’t work out that well for you last time. He said he was sure and proved it by playing a Pithing Needle for Belcher. Pretty good. I opened with 12 goblin tokens instead, but only got in one attack before he found Engineered Explosives. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Still, he was at eight at that point and was forced to counter Elvish Spirit Guide. From there, he destroyed my mana, took control of the game, and won with Tarmogoyf and Triskelion.

Game three was pretty straight forward. I’m pretty sure I let Paul go first again, and then I Emptied the Warrens for ten guys with Guttural Response backup. That was enough. He couldn’t deal with the goblin hordes and died.

Round 3 – Robert – TPS

This was a frustrating match. My opponent was friendly but seemed nervous and apparently hadn’t seen much of Belcher before. I felt like I played poorly and gambled myself out of the match.

I won the die roll and let him go first. Unfortunately, I had miscounted my mana when deciding to keep my hand and could only launch a Storm Entity for three. Whoopee. He fetched and played Vampiric Tutor at the end of my turn for, I assume, Yawgmoth’s Will. Luckily for me, he had miscounted his storm and left me at two life. Plus, he’d removed his Yawgmoth’s Will and Tendrils from the game. He played Vampiric again, and I guessed he’d gotten Tinker. My suspicions were correct when he conceded to my Welder.

I did not sideboard and maybe should have. I think I should have taken out Goblin Welders and Guttural Responses for Pyrostatic Pillars, Storm Entities, and Desperate Rituals.

My opponent played first in game two, opening with Ponder. I kept a hand containing a Channel, Street Wraith, and two Manamorphose and hoped to draw a win condition. I didn’t and lost as a result. I played Welder instead. On his turn two, my opponent played Yawgmoth’s Bargain and won from there.

I let my opponent play first in game, and he led with Sol Ring. I opened with Lion’s Eye Diamond, and he Forced. Then I manaed up and played Belcher. We were both stuck for mana. I decided he was playing Yawgmoth’s Bargain and needed double black; I needed activation mana. We drew cards singly for several turns. Finally I built myself up to Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, and Manamorphose. I could play Manamorphose and hope to draw a mana source; almost any would do. I passed. Next turn I drew Guttural Response—not a mana source. I passed again, and my opponent drew his second black to play Bargain and win.

The top card of my library was Tinder Wall. Had I played Rite of Flame into Manamorphose, I would have won the game and the match.

I’m not sure how to judge that at all. What kind of strategy am I supposed to get from that? Don’t be too aggressive with Manamorphose. Also, don’t wait too long to draw the card if it means the game. Good luck!

Round 4 – Juan – Slaver

Juan was very low key and relaxed during the match, which is a little disconcerting. He was listening to music, though, so maybe that did it. Otherwise he seemed cool.

Unfortunately for him, this is about when my deck started handing me wins.

I don’t remember who won the die roll, but I emptied the warrens for 10 goblins on my first turn and had mana up to Guttural Response his Thirst for Knowledge, which leads me to believe he probably played first. He scooped soon after.

I did not sideboard.

He played first in game two, but I had a pretty good hand. I played Mana Crypt into Sol Ring and Mana Vault, then played Belcher with either Welder or Guttural Response backup. Belcher resolved, so I played Rite of Flame and fired for the win.

Round 5 – Joe – Dream Salvage Combo

This match was a great way to end the day. Joe was friendly and obviously about having had a decent day with his deck, a unique homebrew balls-to-the-walls combo that relied on the synergy between Dream Salvage and draw-7s. Afterward, I asked to see his deck, and we talked about it a bit. It was awesome.

I won the die roll and, unsuspecting, allowed my opponent to play first. He played Wheel of Fortune and stripped a first-turn Channel win out of my hand. He passed, and I made six goblins and a Welder that would have given me a win on my next turn. That never came, though, as he started his combo and went off, Gambling for Ill-Gotten Gains before drawing a bunch of cards with Dream Salvage and killing me with Tendrils.

I brought in Desperate Rituals and Pyrostatic Pillars for Guttural Response and Goblin Welder. His combo seemed to take more than even the normal 10 storm spells, and I didn’t want Goblin Welder or Guttural Response slowing me down.

I played first in game two and dropped Memory Jar with a red floating and Lotus Petal in play. Cracking Memory Jar revealed a Belcher and the mana to play and activate it for the win. Not too shabby.

My sideboard never came into play, but I switched out Pyrostatic Pillars for Tormod’s Crypts in game two. If he didn’t win on turn one, I figured he might already have emptied some cheaper spells from his hand. I wanted the disruption of Tormod’s Crypt to stop any possible second-turn wins.

Joe mulliganed twice going into game three and played Gamble, but I plucked the prize of Wheel of Fortune from his hand. I made eight Goblins and played an LED. My opponent Vampiric Tutored on his main phase and passed. On his next turn he played Summoner’s Pact for Elvish Spirit Guide and played Tinder Wall, tapping Gemstone Mine to play Windfall with an empty hand. I sacrificed LED in response, and we drew zero cards. He scooped to the inevitable Summoner’s Pact trigger.

Joe’s deck was pretty cool, but still had a lot of work to be done. Jerry and I worked on our own version after the tournament, but that’s a blog for another day.

I ended my tournament with a match record of 3-2 and a game record of 8-6. That seems pretty good.

You may have noticed that I was letting my opponents go first in some matches. This is a strategy we’ve come up with against blue decks. Pitch Long, TPS, and even Grim Long aren’t as likely to win on turn one as Belcher, and the extra card in hand makes things extra easy. Belcher is more likely to activate Belcher, to have protection, or to be able to play multiple threats with eight cards in hand.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell from my notes how successful the strategy was. Plus, I’m not sure that 14 games is a large enough sample to really say anyway. I can really only say that, my gut feeling about the strategy is positive. I probably shouldn’t have let the Oath player with Chalices go first, but I should have maybe mulliganed Storm Entity against him. And except against Dream Salvage, I don’t feel like I was ever out of a game after one turn.

It was an interesting experiment, one I look forward to working with more in the future.

As for the fabled Blue Moon Café, I’ll have to go back. They were opened for the late-night crowd, and Jerry and I got there relatively early at 11:15. Their night crew wasn’t fully prepared, though, and the legendary goodies like breakfast rolls and Cap’n Crunch French Toast weren’t available. The “Universal Omelet” I had (made with ham, bacon, two kinds of cheese, tomato, mushrooms, broccoli and some other stuff) was good. It wasn’t super awesome, but it was enough to make me want to give the place another chance.

I guess that’s it. Good tournament, good food, and less than two hours away. Seems good!

I should also point out that Jerry Yang is the most dedicated gamer ever. He made the seven hour trip solo. It was awesome hanging out with him, there are already plans in the works for a trip to Philadelphia on November 1, and anyone who wants to come to Northern Virginia to game and go to Baltimore is more than welcome. Let me know.

Until then, I choose to draw.

Mox Sapphire

2008-08-20T22:26:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone! Sorry to make such a utilitarian comeback post, but I needed a quick place to host some photos of my Mox Sapphire. I'm in the process of selling it, and I hope to have it used in an upcoming tournament soon.

I've also been thinking about writing the blog again. There was a request for me to do so on TMD, and I've started thinking about Vintage more now that Flash is gone and I'm not quite so frustrated.

No guarantees yet, but I'm sure I'll get back here soon enough.

Victory! Second Saturday Tournament Home Edition

2008-03-08T20:37:00.004-05:00

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.

Turn-One Tendrils 2008

2008-03-01T00:41:00.002-05:00

I’ve had an updated version of Turn-One Tendrils, better known as Meandeck Tendrils, sitting on my coffee table for the past week. Whenever I have a few minutes to spare—before work, after brushing my teeth, between dinner and dishes, etc.—I’ll goldfish it. The deck is ridiculous, but I’m not sure if that’s in a good, powerful, broken way or just in an unreliable way.

Here’s the list I have put together:

4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Spoils of the Vault
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Repeal
4x Land Grant
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Tendrils of Agony
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Polluted Delta
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl’s Recall

You might notice that it consists of 40 four-of unrestricted cards and 20 other, mostly restricted cards. With Ponder, Brainstorm, and especially Spoils of the Vault in the deck, this seems to be about the way to go; you want to have the basic tools of your deck readily available when you need them. Even within those four-ofs there are redundancies. Ponder and Brainstorm provide similar functions, as does Chromatic Sphere with Star and Dark Ritual with Cabal.

Repeal is probably my favorite card in the Tendrils. It seems like it was made specifically for the deck. With a mox in play, it simply trades mana colors, then it draws a card and increases storm by two. Fantastic! Actually, with any of the permanent artifact mana, it nets mana or is at least mana neutral.

Ponder is another huge boost; there are so many times where it acts like a tutor with all the redundant four-ofs in the deck. I’d like to say that I wish I could run eight Ponders and no Brainstorms, but that’s not quite true. Though Ponder can look at four cards, Brainstorm can fix an entire hand, letting you hold on to all but the two worst cards in your hand. Together, Ponder and Brainstorm let you look at seven new cards, and for only two blue mana, that seems retarded good.

Spoils of the Vault is another fun one. It’s a card that you just have to believe in, even when you look at your situation and realize the only card you can use at the moment is restricted. Spoiling for Yawgmoth’s Will or Black Lotus is just good fun. I’ve even Spoiled for Mox Sapphire if I have a handful of Repeals in hand. Admittedly, the most Spoiled for cards are probably Dark or Cabal Ritual, Ponder or Brainstorm, and Tendrils of Agony.

Oh, and once again, Demonic Consultation proves just how insane it is at getting what you need when you need it. When you need to win the game right now, and there’s only one card that will save you, Demonic Consultation is your best friend.

Actually, the only problem I’ve had with the deck is that, in the infrequent cases I get to play Yawgmoth’s Will and am on my way to victory anyway, Chromatic Star won’t draw a card. It just gets removed from the game instead. It could be replaced with Darkwater Egg to alleviate the issue, but the situation comes up infrequently enough and the Star is so much easier to play and activate, that it’s probably not worth it. I guess it’s more a minor annoyance than a problem.

As for playing the deck through hate, I just don’t see how it can be done. Well, okay, I see how it can be done, but it seems like more of that would be luck and chutzpa than the deck’s ability to cope. Playing against UW Fish, I’ve played through Force of Will and Meddling Mage on Tendrils, but it’s definitely a tricky deal. Usually with Force of Will you expend your first hand, your opponent Forces, then you hope to draw or dig into something broken (Ancestral Recall, Yawgmoth’s Will, or Black Lotus and some draw spells) to start the process again.

Something like Meddling Mage basically just means trying to get Chain of Vapor through, which relies on lots of things, like them not having a counter, you having not already lost, and having all the mana available without tipping your hand to Land Grant.

Playing around Sphere of Resistance and its kin seems next to impossible. The deck is very mana tight most times; usually you’re able to Tendrils with just the right amount of mana. Hurkyl’s Recall and Chain of Vapor are amazing, but you have to be able to cast them as well, which is a chore in itself. My recommendation: win the die roll, then win the game.

Post sideboard, your deck will look exactly the same. Who cares about the sideboard? You’re winning the die roll, then winning the game, right?

Okay, the sideboard that got played about this time two years ago was—

1x Necropotence
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
2x Chain of Vapor
4x Force of Will
1x Bayou
3x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Black Vise
1x Chrome Mox

Unfortunately, I can find nothing that explains how to play this deck post sideboard, but most of this sideboard makes sense. Necropotence can be played off of Dark Ritual or a mox and a Cabal Ritual and should beat any control deck if it resolves. Force of Will, or possibly Pact of Negation now, can come in to bolster that matchup as well. Hurkyl’s Recall and Chain of Vapor should come in against Stax to bounce pesky spheres and other troublesome artifacts. Bayou should come in too, so you can cast them.

Tormod’s Crypt I’m not sure about. Sure it doesn’t clog up your hand when you’re trying to go off, but I can’t see it doing much now except against Ichorid, which I would plan on just racing. If you want to keep them, you would bring them in against other, slower Tendrils combo and Ichorid.

Chrome Mox and Black Vise won’t hurt your ability to combo off either. Black Vise gives you an extra threat against control decks since they’ll certainly take some damage while they store up counterspells. Plus, you can now play up to four Vises. Chrome Mox will give you the precious colored mana you need to win. The drawback is that you’ll have to pitch a threat or business card to power it up.

If I were to make up a sideboard based on this, it would be like so:

1x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
1x Necropotence
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
2x Force of Will
3x Pact of Negation
3x Elvish Spirit Guide

That would give you another big threat against Control in Necropotence, plus some efficient counterspells to back up your plays. Just make sure you win when you cast Pact of Negation!

Against Stax, especially on the draw, and especially against decks with nine Spheres, you’ll have to bring in a few more cards. Nine to be exact—the two lands, all the bounce, and the three Spirit Guides. I have a feeling the Spirit Guides will help you cast your bounce at the end of turn.

As for what to take out, I would start with the Chromatic Stars. They seem to be the weakest link. You’ll be bringing in extra on-colored mana against Stax, and against control you’ll want all the blue cards you have to support Force of Will. Beyond the Stars, you can probably take out some Spoils of the Vault against Stax since you’ll be waiting longer and will be able to sculpt a hand somewhat. And against control, you can drop Hurkyl’s Recall.

Any time you’re on the play, though, you’ll want your combo to remain mostly fast and lean.

You may wonder where Street Wraith is in all this. I haven’t tested it, but it doesn’t seem to fit. Unlike other combo decks, question marks in your opening hand are bad because you’ll have to play mana, cards, and storm count very tight all the way through. The two life lost will also be a hindrance since you’ll be tutoring with Spoils of the Vault, which already has a high enough potentiality for death.

Anyway, I think Turn-One Tendrils has some potential in the current metagame. If you’re not afraid, that is. Except for Flash, there are no decks that you can’t race. Statistically, this deck should go of first turn 65% of the time, and your opponent will only have first turn Force of Will or first turn Sphere of Resistance around 45% of the time. That’s a sizable gap that you can take advantage of.

Plus, it’s been out of the format long enough that people will be unsure how to play against it. It’s not as though people are testing this matchup regularly, and if you can bait them into the wrong counter target or just catch them unawares, you win right away.

For more information on playing Turn-One Tendrils, check out these primers written for the 2005 version of the deck. Most of the primer is still relevant, since the strategy is still stable.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/8929.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/8825.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/8884.html

Check it out! And may fortune smile while you Ponder.

Opening the Vault on Belcher

2008-02-27T00:39:00.002-05:00

I realized the other day that, while playing Belcher constantly has been excellent for my won-loss record, it’s really stifling to my desire to write anything but tournament reports. I only think about Belcher now, and my thought is usually to not change anything because the deck is perfectly fine how it is.

Essentially, I could write a 20-page treatise on how to play Belcher, but I’m not brainstorming anything new to write about.

Oh well. At the Columbus Meandeck tournament this past weekend, Belcher proved itself again to me, as I again took it to a top four place and some prize money.

Juan had come down the night before to Columbus to do some playtesting and to sleep, since he wanted to get up early and go to the Soldiery’s $400 Standard tournament going on at the same venue. We played a few games, decided that the Belcher vs. Ichorid matchup is a tossup, and prepared our decks for the following morning. I was trying to figure out the last two cards in my sideboard:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Channel
4x Goblin Welder
2x Living Wish
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
1x Chrome Mox
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Grim Monolith
1x Taiga
4x Street Wraith

Sideboard:
4x Caustic Wasp
3x Jester's Cap
1x Ingot Chewer
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Taiga
1x Storm Entity
2x ???

Basically, sideboarding goes like this:

Against blue control like Slaver, something with a normally slower, non-combo finish, I leave my deck exactly as it is. Welders are already amazing, so I leave things up to the red blasts, Living Wishes, and inherent speed. Slaver should be a good matchup, though it has historically not been for me, and I may be wrong.

Oath and opposing combo are where the Jester’s Caps come in, usually for two Living Wishes and Wheel of Fortune. Jester’s Cap is an equally viable answer to these types of decks with few win conditions, and it usually doesn’t get Pithing Needled. Living Wish is slow and mostly a utility card, while Wheel of Fortune refills my opponent’s hand, making it less desirable.

Seven cards come out against Stax, MUD and other artifact based concoctions though. Red blasts, so handy against the Vintage blue horde is generally dead, and the aforementioned Living Wishes are hard to cast under Spheres and would only get me Wastelandable land. Since winning against Stax is often either immediate or long-term, it’s easy to bring in an extra Taiga and four Caustic Wasps. Though it’s doubtful that the bug will go all the way, it will hopefully buy enough time to build a hand and win.

There’s still room for two more cards, though.

At the Sandusky tournament, these slots were for two Tarmogoyfs. Then I realized that I find Tarmogoyf merely distracting. It’s not always a 5/6 or even a 4/5 for two between Belcher and Stax, and it doesn’t usually go the distance without some other additional pressure.

In Michigan, these slots were Seething Songs, but I really don’t like them for a number of reasons, and it’s not for lack of trying. First, they’re really only good on the play. Second they require a huge initial investment, and if something goes wrong they leave me with nothing. Third, they’re almost as hard to cast as Belcher or Warrens, so there’s never a guarantee that I’ll be able to cast them or that, if I can cast them, I can’t already cast Belcher or Warrens anyway.

In the end, I decided on adding another Ingot Chewer to bring in against Stax and any decks that bring in artifact-based control. Since that would leave me still with one question mark, I put an Eternal Witness in the board too, for fun. My thinking on that was that it would be a good mid-game Wish target against control.

My sideboard ended up looked like this:

4x Caustic Wasp
3x Jester's Cap
2x Ingot Chewer
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Taiga
1x Storm Entity
1x Eternal Witness

Anything that I couldn’t answer with that, I just planned to race.

Anyway, after sleeping, breakfasting, and otherwise getting ready for the tournament, Juan and I found ourselves at The Vault. It was a relatively nice-looking old bank that could have used some touchups but must have been awesome back in the day. Juan prepared for his Standard tournament while I bought new Magic sleeves, resleeved, and proceeded to work on crossword puzzles for a couple hours before the Vintage tournament started.

Finally people arrived and we all went into meet-and-greet mode and then into tournament mode. Even Juan would get to play, since his deck didn’t live up to the hype in the Standard tournament. Unfortunately, the cash bar we were promised would open by 2 p.m. did not open until 3, just before round two would start.

Oh well…

Round 1 – Don Juan Diego de la Vega Rodriguez – Breakthrough Dredge

Like some kind of joke, the exact same matchup we had tested the night before ended up in the round one pairings. Playing against friends in round one is poop.

I won the die roll opened game one by mulliganing twice and keeping a hand with no threats but some Tinder Wall blockers and lots of mana. I made a couple of Tinder Walls and passed the turn. Juan had a fine opening draw and soon had the Dredge machine running. I sacced some Walls to remove his Bridges, but never found the threat I was looking for. Juan ran me over on turn four or five.

No sideboard happened for me.

Game two went a lot like that only I mulliganed to four instead of five. The one thing of note that happened was when I Living Wished for Bazaar of Baghdad for the first time ever in tournament play. It was meh, mostly because Juan emptied my hand with Cabal Therapies and rendered my Bazaar useless.

Games – 0-2-0; Matches – 0-1-0

Yay!

I dreaded this might be the beginning of a day similar to my recent 1-4 performance in Sandusky and headed to the bar for a tequila shot and a beer.

Round 2 – Lyle Hawkyard – Control Slaver

Crazy Lyle and his crazy white bordered decks. Lyle’s always fun to play against, even though we were a the very last table in the losers’ bracket. He told me when I played my Taiga that he has one signed “To Laura: Best wishes, Rob Alexander,” and that sounds insanely pimp.

Lyle won the die roll and opened with available drain mana, which he used on my first spell, Lion’s Eye Diamond, since he suspected I was playing a Dredge deck. I followed up with Welder. Lyle then had to try to keep artifacts off the board and try to remove Welder, since the game can end quickly for him if I can weld in LED and pitch Belcher to the grave to be welded in. Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what happened.

Game two was actually very similar. I opened with a Rite of Flame and Welder, which Lyle Forced. Unfortunately I had a backup Welder, which came in handy when he Drained my Belcher two turns later. Though he kept me off of Welder targets for a while with a Rack and Ruin, I was able to weld in a Grim Monolith for a Lotus Petal at his end of turn, then tap it and weld it out for Belcher on my upkeep for the win.

Games – 2-2-0; Matches – 1-1-0

Lyle was under the unfortunate impression that Belcher cost five to cast and four to activate and thought I would still need another mana to activate the Belcher, even if I could weld it in. Unfortunately, explosions happen to those who wait. Welder won the game for me twice, easily, and this is why he’s such an integral part of the Belcher gameplan.

Round 3 – Mark Trogdon – UR Landstill

I have a long way to go to stay in this tournament, and it doesn’t look good. Historically, Mark Trogdon is a tough competitor for me, and I can’t remember ever having beaten a UR Landstill deck. Still, Mark is always a fun and classy opponent, so I relish the challenge and mulligan my first hand.

I won the die roll and elected to go first in game one, mulliganing my first hand. I got a Belcher into play but without activation mana in play, and played a Welder. Mark killed the Welder with a Fire & Ice split between my loyal artificer and myself, and Stifled my first Belcher activation. After that things went downhill as he wasted my Taiga, started attacking with Mishra’s Factory, and locked me under Standstill. It was over pretty quickly from there.

I don’t imagine I sideboarded in this matchup, but I can't say for sure.

In game two, I Emptied the Warrens for eight goblins on turn one. Mark Ancestral’d himself into three lands and scooped, saying he hadn’t even seen the tokens coming.

Mark took advantage of turn zero in game three to put a Leyline of Singularity into play. I cycled my Street Wraith into Black Lotus, hardcast and activated Belcher on turn one. I know I was exceptionally nervous about running head on into some sort of countermagic, but it never materialized.

Games – 4-3-0; Matches – 2-1-0

In game one, Mark played the Morningtide counter Negate against me. I don’t know about you all, but that seems like one heck of a counter in Vintage. I certainly expect to see it more often in the future. A hard counter for 1U is really pretty good, even if it is limited to only non-creature spells. Even with the more creature-centric metagame right now, more of Vintage’s cast spells are non-creatures.

Round 4 – Josh Morford – Drain Tendrils

This match really left me with a sour feeling. I know Josh was pretty well into his cups and, though normally a nice guy and a noble competitor, was not as tactful as he normally is. As we shuffled up, he declared that he had a 97 to three advantage in the matchup and that we shouldn’t even be playing because the pairing was so lopsided. I mostly tried to smile and nod and said he was probably right.

I won the die roll and opened with a pair of moxen and a Welder, planning on drawing more mana and casting Belcher next turn. Josh had an amazing opener, though, and Ancestral’d himself, playing some mana, including Black Lotus. I drew, attacked, and passed. He Scrolled for Force of Will. After a couple more turns, the only mana I had found was Land Grant, which was countered. That was long after Josh had taken control of the game, and he soon Tinkered up Darksteel Colossus and won in another turn.

The Living Wishes and Wheel of Fortune hit the sideboard in favor of Jester’s Caps.

I had to mulligan before we got underway and kept a near awesome hand without quite enough mana. I passed the turn to him with no action on my part. Josh Duressed and Extirpated my Belchers. Fortunately, I drew the mana I needed to cast my backup plan Jester’s Cap, which hit play. A quick dig for Josh on his turn, and he conceded in response to my Cap activation.

Josh opened game three with Library of Alexandria before I had declared my mulligan choices, and continued with that plan after I mulliganed to six. The Warrens Emptied for eight tokens on my turn, off of a Black Lotus that I drew off of Street Wraith and that went uncountered. Josh drew three cards off of Library over the next turns, but couldn’t find the blue mana he needed to get going. My eight goblins got there and I had Force of Ape backup the entire game.

Games – 6-4-0; Matches – 3-1-0

Josh was harangued by his teammates after the match for not attempting to counter the Warrens fuelling Black Lotus I opened with in game three. Though he probably should have made the attempt to counter it, in his defense, I did have a ready counter in hand, and would have merely Emptied for 12 tokens unless he had two counters.

Afterward, Josh came up to me and told me that my beating him had made him quit Magic. I just said that I hoped that wasn’t true.

Round 5 – Paul Mastriano – Drain Tendrils

Paul and I signed papers and prepared for the top eight.

When the smoke had cleared after round five, four of the Cleveland gamers had made the top eight: Nam Q. Tran, Coffee J. Cup, Angel Rivera, and myself. Justin Dewey (also playing Belcher!) and Nam were paired in the final round, but Justin scooped to Nam, owing him a win from a previous meeting.

This Belcher deck seems to be for real, eh?

Top 8 – Francis Hart – Mono-Red Workshop Aggro

Fran rode in from Pittsburgh with Paul and the Morford Brothers. I faced him previously in the same matchup at the Meandeck Columbus tournament in December. He’s a quiet but competent player, but his inexperience in the Belcher matchup would show here. As a Nine-Sphere deck, he should have had an advantage on the play.

I lost the die roll and prepared for the worst; luckily my opening hand was full of permanent mana and a Spirit Guide to play through at least one Sphere. My opponent opened with a Black Lotus, Mox Pearl, Magus of the Moon, and Goblin Welder. Though I would have to be careful of what artifacts went into my graveyard, that wasn’t a threatening opening to me. On my turn, I played a Land Grant for Taiga and play Grim Monolith off of that and a Mox. Fran dropped a Sphere of Resistance on his next turn, but I had enough mana to play Belcher.

After that, the race was on! Fran attacked with Magus every turn while I tried to draw a third mana that would work under Sphere of Resistance to activate Belcher. I eventually found two Welders to counter his lone guy and that could buy me turns against the Magus, should they decide to sacrifice themselves for me. Finally, at four life, I drew Street Wraith and cycled it into… Lion’s Eye Diamond. For the win!

I sideboarded the full Stax plan: four Caustic Wasps, two Ingot Chewers, and a Taiga for two Living Wishes and five red blasts.

In game two, Fran started with an opening similar to game one with a Lotus into Magus of the Moon. I took the opportunity to win the game with Belcher off an amazing hand that included a Lotus of my own.

Games – 8-4-0; Matches – 4-1-1

At this point, I was paired against Stephen Menendian in the top four bracket. Though I might have had the tactical advantage over his deck choice of Tyrant Oath, the burger-sized hole in my belly was aching to be filled, and I suggested we split instead. The day had been long enough for me, and the other top four match (between Mastriano and The Cup) was already well into game two by the time Steve finished up against Kyle Paster playing Flash.

Steve and I agreed to split half of the pot, giving us $50 each, plenty of money to make up for my dame of gaming and drinking and eating dinner at Thurman’s.

Unfortunately for Coffee Cup, his slivers couldn’t go the distance against Mastriano’s control and ability to combo out. As agreed, Mastriano took home the remainder of the money, totaling $100.

So that’s it. Belcher did pretty well again. The maindeck still feels strong, and the sideboard is coming closer and closer together with each outing.

There are two—no, three!—tournaments coming up in the next couple weeks that I’m planning on blowing up as well:

The first is next Sunday, March 2, in Livonia, Michigan at the storied halls of RIW:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35366.0

The second is two Saturdays from now, March 8, in Sandusky, Ohio, home of David P. Baum:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35232.0

The third is two Sundays from now, March 9, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35223.0

The Pittsburgh tournament is actually a two-day event, but the Cleveland crew is graciously skipping Saturday to attend the Sandusky tournament out of loyalty to the Hero Zone (not to mention a much shorter drive).

I hope to see you all there!

Yotian Soldier For the Win!

2008-02-10T14:25:00.000-05:00

This weekend’s tournament was supposed to be a big deal.

Coming off of my recent success at RIW, I was riding high into Sandusky, expecting a performance similar to my previous ones. My maindeck still felt perfect, and I had some new sideboard technology that I was itching to try out. Plus, I had a brand new shiny red Goblin Charbelcher Association shirt to model.

Plus, and this is more important: I’d be able to hang out with my friends and play Magic for an entire day. And then enjoy some good food with those friends afterward.

I was planning on playing Belcher, which has become my usual choice in the past three months. It’s a strong deck that forces opponents to interact on turn one or lose. Generally, it’s not as fragile as people expect, though it does have some Achilles heels—namely Spheres out of Workshops and combo decks that field lots of counterspells.

Here’s the list I ran, the same maindeck as always:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Memory Jar
1x Wheel of Fortune
2x Living Wish
4x Goblin Welder
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast

5x Moxen
4x Tinder Wall
4x Rite of Flame
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Channel
1x Taiga

4x Street Wraith

It’s a great feeling to go into a match feeling like you’re pre-sideboarded against it. And that’s why I leave the red blasts maindeck. Being able to play through a Force of Will or an Echoing Truth because you have extra mana and a red blast or a Welder is just awesome.

Also, never ever cut Channel. Ever.

Here’s the sideboard; it’s something special too:

4x Caustic Wasp
3x Jester’s Cap
2x Tarmogoyf
1x Storm Entity
1x Ingot Chewer
1x Taiga
1x Mishra’s Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Bazaar of Baghdad

Though I wonder about the utility of Bazaar since I’ve never Wished for it, the only underperformers in that sideboard right now are Tarmogoyfs. They seem slow against combo and control; they’re awkward to Wish for; and they aren’t powerful enough against Workshops. Tarmogoyf will likely not be in my sideboard for the next event.

Likely it will be replaced with more mana, which is helpful against both Stax and Combo. Probably Seething Song, though I’d like to find something better.

Caustic Wasp was immensely pleasing (as you’ll see), and I still have high hopes for Jester’s Cap as an answer to combo.

I arrived at the Hero Zone around 11:30 to find other players already there. I hung out, wrote up my deck list, and waited for others. Unfortunately we didn’t start play until almost two, but we did have 21 people by then. Pretty good!

Round 1 – Justin Morford – MUD

Justin has been kicking ass and taking names with MUD, recently, all over the Ohio and Pennsylvania region. Since his deck runs Spheres and Chalices and lots of big, scary creatures, I was not looking forward to this matchup. Still, he’s a fun opponent, so losing to him would be a pleasure nonetheless.

He won the die roll (a trend for this tournament) and opened with a couple of lands and a Chalice at zero. Unfortunately, my super gassy hand started with Lotus and a Mox. I drew a Mox for my turn and played two Goblin Welders, sometimes a trump against the Workshop archetype. I got a couple attacks in before he shut me down with Tangle Wires and began making gigantor artifact dudes. Okay, he made a Juggernaut and stuck a Sword to its head. I died in short order.

I mulled, then he mulled to start game two. The hand I threw back had the ability to cast two Tarmogoyfs on turn one, but those are weak against Workshop aggro. I wanted something better and got a first-turn version of my super-secret tech: Caustic Wasps.

Caustic Wasp – 2G
Creature – Insect
Flying
Whenever Caustic Wasps deals combat damage to a player, you may destroy target artifact that player controls.
1/1

Justin was stunned. Play stopped all around as everyone came to gaze upon the little insect that could. In fact, he did. Caustic Wasp got in for six damage and completely foiled my opponent’s ability to play his deck. Unfortunately, my deck did not take advantage of this opening and could only draw non-mana, nothing that would allow me to play the Memory Jar (or any of the other threats) in my hand and win.

Justin finally drew the mana he needed in the form of three lands, a Mox, and a Mana Crypt, and made a Triskelion to shoot my Wasps and my Welder and take control from there.

Angel was watching over our game and missed the sudden change in the game, so we replayed it for him. I had to watch my trump card get shot down twice. Aww…

Games – 0-2-0
Matches – 0-1-0

Round 2 – Josh Carney – Platinum Oath

Josh is from Sandusky and is now studying at OSU after a hitch in the Navy. He and I rode up to the last Hero Zone tournament, and he’s a good guy. As soon as he gets back into the swing of things Vintage Magic-wise, he’ll be pretty good. Today he was playing a version of Paul Kim’s Platinum Oath deck from the previous tournament.

Josh won the die roll and opened with a Brainstorm. On my turn, I made a 5/5 Storm Entity off of a Living Wish and held a Force of Ape in my hand. In another two turns I made a Belcher and attacked him down to nine after a Fetchland. I countered an Intuition on his turn, then swung again and fired Belcher for the win.

I boarded out a Goblin Welder and two Empty the Warrens and brought in three Jester’s Caps. The idea was that I could activate Cap, get all his angels, and leave him helpless while I found a win condition. Plus, Empty the Warrens can’t help but turn on Oath.

I mulliganed to six for game two, and Josh opened with a first turn Null Rod off of a Strip Mine and a Mox. Sometimes Null Rod is crippling to Belcher; sometimes it’s not. Today it was, especially since I foolishly sided out Empty the Warrens. The starter mana in my hand was Chrome Mox, and my finisher was a choice between Belcher or Jester’s Cap. Josh ran this game. After Intuitioning for AKs and for Oaths, he made a Platinum Angel. I scooped when he Duressed my Living Wish.

I sided back in the Empty the Warrens for the two Living Wishes, I think.

On turn one I Emptied the Warrens for eight tokens and never looked back. Josh did some digging for an answer, but couldn’t produce one in time. On his third turn, before my lethal attack, he Demonic Tutored for an Engineered Explosives that he wouldn’t be able to activate. He scooped.

Don’t side out Empty the Warrens, I guess.

Games – 2-3-0
Matches – 1-1-0

Round 3 – Paul Mastriano – Drain Tendrils

Paul Mastriano is just so damn proficient at playing combo decks in general, and it’s a rare case that he doesn’t take his deck to the top. I was surprised to be playing against him in the 1-1 bracket, in fact. Unfortunately, what I’ve discovered is that playing against Tendrils decks that also run Force and Duress is quite a challenge. If they stop my early play, they can usually win fairly undisrupted.

Paul won the die roll and opened with a Mana Vault off an Underground Sea. I played Mana Vault and Rite of Flame to make a Belcher with a red mana open. He Forced Belcher, but I backed it up with a Welder and would be able to win next turn if Welder went active. Paul drew a lot of cards with a Thirst for Knowledge and Scrolled for Chain of Vapor, but he lacked the mana to play it. I Welded in Belcher and won during my next main phase.

I sided out Living Wishes and a Welder for three Jester’s Caps. Generally, Living Wish for a Storm Entity would be weak against a deck with such disruption and a quick clock, so Jester’s Caps can come in as another, slightly easier to activate win condition.

Paul opened with a Mana Crypt and a Mox Sapphire into Thirst for Knowledge and Duressed my Land Grant off an Underground Sea. Land Grant was my starter mana, so things looked bad until I drew Black Lotus with the Street Wraith in my hand. Lotus led to Belcher, but I wouldn’t be able to activate it in the foreseeable future. Paul stormed to six and Mind’s Desired into garbage, giving me, somehow, another turn. Unfortunately, the mana that was supposed to be there, was not. Paul Scrolled for Gifts, Time Walked, and had plenty of resources to kill me.

Game three was similar. My mana going into Belcher was tight, and Paul countered the Mox Jet that would keep me off of it for at least a turn. It’s likely he got lucky in this case, since he could have Forced the Land Grant or the resulting Rite of Flame to really drain my early mana. Anyway, I built up for a little while. He drew some cards and Drained my Goblin Welder. Then he was able to Drain Belcher and launch a game-winning Gifts.

Games – 3-3-0
Matches – 1-2-0

Round 3 – Josh “Elfman” Weber – Doomsday Combo

Perhaps I am just not meant to beat Elfman ever. I think I’ve only played against him twice, and each time he was able to beat me in the most humiliating way possible. Whatever. Jerk.

I won the die roll! My elation did not last, however, as my beautiful hand that could play through Force of Will by dropping a follow-up Goblin Welder was immediately shot down by not one but two Force of Wills. I was left with essentially nothing, while Elfman played a land and Brainstorms, and then played Necropotence on turn two. He drew 15 cards and Doomsday’d into a Gush-fueled win.

When he Doomsday’d, I looked through his deck and saw that I could take enough cards with Jester’s Caps to make the combo not work. As such, Caps came in like they did last round against Paul.

Going first in game two, I played a Memory Jar planning to crack it with red and green mana floating. He elected not to Force even though I knew he had it, and I drew absolute trash, nothing but Red Blasts. I was forced to pass the turn. Some turns later I played an Empty the Warrens for four, which he Echoing Truthed. Then I played Jester’s Cap without the mana to activate it. He won with Doomsday in the meantime.

There’s usually a point where the deeply tragic becomes comic. That never happened in this match.

Games – 3-5-0
Matches – 1-3-0

Round 5 – Paul Kim – Slaver

Yet another Paul. There were two Pauls and four Joshes at this tournament, and I played two of each. Not important at all, but interesting, I guess. Anyway, I have never seen Mr. Kim play anything but Drain decks. I know he’s always trying to get Slaver to work, and he dabbles in Oath and Bomberman as well. He’s a good guy, and we were joking about playing for the last place spot.

In game one, Paul opened with a Black Lotus and an Island (did I mention I lost another die roll?) and Drained my opening Belcher. Then he played a Mox and Tinkered for Darksteel Colossus, thus caving my nads in on turn four.

Game two as pretty much the same thing. Only he let my Storm Entity for four through. Honestly if I’d counted things up and realized that my Storm Entity would have been so weak, I would not have gone that route. Paul Mystical Tutored for Yawgmoth’s Will, drew a bunch of cards, and Mystical’d again for Tinker. Then he killed me.

To not lose the battle for last place, Paul declared that I won. I considered that a slap in the face.

I am the more pathetic loser!

Games – 3-7-0
Matches – 1-4-0

Oh well. I guess that’s how the game is played sometimes. One time I went 1-5-0 at an RIW tournament.

Granted there were a few plays I could have made differently, but I still lost one game to drawing nothing relevant for six turns and lost another to a hand with double Force of Will. There’s really not too much I can do about that.

Going into the Memory Jar against Elfman, I could have played one more mana out, but I wanted to have two colors instead. That kept me from making a play, but the Jar was weak anyway. And Paul Mastriano could have countered better choices and really kept me off the game.

Really, it just felt like not my day.

Perhaps the next one will be better. If work gets really busy when my boss’s wife goes on maternity leave, that next one will be a side event at the $400 Soldiery Standard Open:

February 24, 2008
Registration will be 12:30 p.m., Start time will be 1 p.m.
Cash Bar
Entry is $15, full proxy
Prizes will be $120 to first, $60 to second, and $20 to third
Cash Bar
Prizes will scale upward after 15 players are entered
Parking, food, and cash bar on site

The Vault
35 East Gay St.
Columbus, OH 43215

If work does not pile up and I’m able to, I will be in Washington, DC that weekend and my next tournament will be the March Hero Zone Second Saturday Tournament.

Second Saturday Vintage Tournaments

The Hero Zone
127 E. Market St.
Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium or signed card or proxy just for signing up!

February 9, 2008
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

I expect to see people and blow them up at at least one of these tournaments. Have fun!

Belcher in the Sky with Sapphires

2008-01-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

This weekend was an absolute blast, and anyone who missed it or who wasn’t able to make it should be kicking themselves pretty hard right about now.

I started things off Friday afternoon by leaving work at 3 a.m. and making $30 (entry fee? how convenient!) by driving 650 pounds of clay and glazes home to mom. When I got there, we had meatloaf for dinner, which also means, that’s right, meatloaf sandwiches for lunch on Saturday. Yes!

Saturday started off with the aforementioned sandwiches—sometimes it’s the simple pleasures. When Jerry arrived in the Malice of Retribution with Nam, Juan, and Angel as crewmen, it was off to the Toledo System and the homeworld of Twaun P. Pownerton. On the way, we stopped at waypoint Hero Zone. I bought Caustic Wasps with gift certificates because Caustic Wasps are secret tech and gift certificates are like money but free.

An hour later in Toledo the games started, and Anthony and I started a Master Lock Challenge match for the ages, with a toast of Jameson Irish Whiskey. Another game and another toast and we were off to J. Alexanders for some fine steaks. I had mine with bleu cheese and a side of baked potato, all followed up with a gigantor slice of chocolate cake.

Back at Twaun’s apartment, he and I finished up our Master Lock match while others playtested or took tests for online networking classes. Though the match ended at 3-2 in Twaun’s favor, I feel it was a valiant effort. He is a worthy competitor and retained the belt even after a subsequent match with Angel with a surprising 4-0 record.

A few more games of testing and some Jameson and Coke (also Hypnotiq, which even Twaun now admits tastes like dog bath) and it was time for sleeping.

In the morning, once everyone was awake and ready, we headed to Livonia, Michigan and the Bob Evans Restaurant there, where I wrote out my decklist on the back of my placemat, in crayon—color coded. This time the card I forgot was Lotus Petal, which would come back to haunt me. Remember that.

After breakfast, we made it to RIW on time, registered, greeted friends and got ready to play.

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Memory Jar
1x Wheel of Fortune
2x Living Wish
4x Goblin Welder
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast

5x Moxen
4x Tinder Wall
4x Rite of Flame
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Channel
1x Taiga

4x Street Wraith

Sideboard
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Seething Song
1x Mishra’s Workshop
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Taiga
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Storm Entity
1x Gorilla Shaman
1x Ingot Chewer

As always, RIW was great. My only complaint is that it was so cold in the tournament room all day. Though I didn’t get a chance to have any, the mostacholi and chicken they served smelled awesome. And they gave me my dollar back after I lost one in the pop machine!

Round 1 – Dan – UG Canada Fish

I think I usually get paired up against a Canadian in round one in Michigan, either that or Mark Trogdon. Since Trogdon wasn’t there today, it had to be a Canadian. I didn’t get much time to talk to my opponent, but I’d seen him at previous RIW tournaments before. He was a nice guy, but I could tell he was disappointed at having this matchup afterward.

We started off game one with him on the play, and he led with Tropical Island and a Nimble Mongoose. I knew that since he was playing Fish I had to be wary of Force of Will, but I had Welder as a possible bait spell. So I played Welder, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, and Emptied the Warrens for eight tokens. He drew his card for turn and scooped.

I shuffled in 15 cards and sideboard out the same 15, leaving me with the same maindeck.

When I received my deck from him after cutting, I accidentally knocked over the top few cards, clearly revealing Mox Ruby. Dan was nice enough to let me shuffle again and re-present, no problem.

He mulliganed in game two and opened unhappily with a Mishra’s Factory. I opened with Ruby, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Sol Ring, Belcher and Welder, all of which he allowed. He drew, played a blue source and passed. I drew my card for turn (in case I pulled Taiga or Land Grant) and activated Belcher, which elicited a Stifle from my opponent. He drew his card for turn and scooped.

Games – 2-0-0; Matches – 1-0-0

Round 2 – Bruce Dow – Long Combo

Bruce and I seem to play each other at every tournament we both attend. As such, we know each other pretty well, and the matches are friendly and fun. The last time was Chicago SCG Day 1 when he was playing Trinket Fish with Dreadnaughts and I made a couple of game-killing mistakes with my own fish build. I have a feeling this might be the first time I’ve beaten him (oops, spoiled a surprise!).

I won the die roll and elected to go first, leading with Black Lotus as a bait spell, which resolved. The subsequent Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, Mox Emerald resolved as well, and I pitched Elvish Spirit Guide from my hand to play Belcher and activated with Lotus for the win.

“That was not how this was supposed to go,” said Bruce.

I shuffled in my sideboard and took out all of it plus two Living Wishes and a Goblin Welder, leaving in the three Seething Songs.

On the play, he Thoughtseized me and took Lotus Petal, keeping me off the red mana I need to play a threatening Empty the Warrens (or Empty the Warrens at all). I drew and passed, and he got a setup turn that led to Yawgmoth’s Bargain. Realizing I’m on the ropes and drawing a red-source, I Emptied the Warrens for eight guys. It was too late, however, and Bruce’s insane card-advantage engine gave him the game at two life.

Game three saw me play a turn one Belcher with plenty of activation mana for turn two and a Welder in my hand. My opponent, knowing the fix he’s in Tinkered away a Mana Crypt and deliberated a while over what to get. We both knew his two options were Platinum Angel, which would buy him a turn but probably wouldn’t get him past the inevitable Belcher activation or the Welder in my hand, or Memory Jar, which gave him the possibility to win right now. He went for Jar and whiffed. I got the game.

Games – 4-1-0; Matches – 2-0-0

Round 3 – Nam Q. Tram – Mono Red Shop Aggro

Nam and I both wanted to win this since whoever did would be 3-0-0 and woould be able to draw into the Top 8. That meant we both wanted to win the die roll real bad. Deciding on two 20-siders and the high roll, I got a 17 and an 18, easily beating him.

We were friends. We played games. We had fun.

Games – 6-2-0; Matches 3-0-0

Round 4 – Just kidding, just kidding… I can’t not tell about this match.

I opened game one on the play and Emptied the Warrens for 10 guys off of three moxes (Jet, Emerald, and Sapphire), which was pretty cool, especially considering I still had Wheel of Fortune in my hand and the mana to play it. Nam went with the blocker route and played Black Lotus for a Mox Monkey and two Welders. Then he played a Mana Crypt and ate my moxes. I attacked for 10 and he blocked two (losing Monkey and a Welder), going to 12. He played another Mox Monkey and passed.

Next turn I drew Black Lotus, which would allow me to cast Wheel once again. I attacked and he blocked another token with his sacrificial simian, going to five. I stupidly played the Lotus and Wheel with some mana floating, attempting to end the game now. Unfortunately, my Wheel came up bankrupt, and I’d basically just refilled my opponent’s hand. How good.

Luckily, the pressure of my original Goblin horde was still enough, and Nam packed it in after another two attacks.

I sideboarded, shuffling the whole thing in as before, this time taking out the red blasts and Living Wishes for four Tarmogoyfs, two Seething Songs, and an extra Taiga.

On the play, Nam made a Thorn of Amethyst and passed the turn. Though this is the weakest Sphere against me, it was good enough to limit my decision to either waiting two turns on an Empty the Warrens hand (and subsequently getting a miniscule Warrens) or pitching two Spirit Guides and playing Tarmogoyf. I played the Goyf as a 0/1 powerhouse of pain. Nam played a Magus of the Moon, then a Solemn Simulacrum, then a Solemn Simulacrum, then another Magus. In the meantime, after a few turns of draw-go, I’d seen nothing that would let me put an offense together. Nam won the attacker race eleventybillion to one and ran me down.

Game three, on the play, I opened with Taiga, ESG, Channeled into Belcher. If that didn’t kill him (it did), I had another Belcher in my hand.

That is how you beat 9-Sphere decks with Belcher: win the die roll, then Channel the living piss out of them.

Unfortunately, my win didn’t work out for either of us as we both ended up having to play next round.

Games – 6-2-0; Matches 3-0-0

Round 4 – Ben Perry – Long Combo

Ben Perry and I used to talk about Belcher all the time until he turned traitor and started running Dark Rituals and Tendrils. He’s a good guy and one of my favorite people to talk to about Magic. Plus, he’s planning on going to Sandusky in February, and that makes him a-okay in my book.

On the play in game one, I played Living Wish for Storm Entity, cast it off of two moxes, and attacked for six. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite fast enough, as Ben opened with Lotus and Time Walk, then Pondered and played Imperial Seal into Ancestral. On his Time Walk turn (already at 11 life) he played Vampiric Tutor, likely for Yawgmoth’s Will, and Ancestrals. He passed the turn. I attacked him down to three and, knowing I had to win now, played Memory Jar and cracked it. I found nothing and he won on his next turn with a huge Yawgmoth’s Will.

As before I sided in the Seething Songs for Living Wishes and Goblin Welder.

Again, I’m on the play, but I mulliganed to five and only cycled Street Wraith before passing the turn. Our hands turned out to both be slow, and his got slower when his Memory Jar whiffed. Next turn, I was able to make six goblin tokens, but couldn’t fight through his Echoing Truth backed up by double Force of Will. I was hoping to get a Welder to Weld in Jar and win, but I didn’t. He hardcast Platinum Angel and went all the way with it.

Games – 6-4-0; Matches 3-1-0

I was able to draw intentionally into the Top 8 from there.

By this time I was super tired and hungry. I had a water and tried to relax, but it was too noisy and I was still hungry.

I made it into the Top 8 at eighth place.

Games – 6-4-0; Matches 3-1-1

Top 8 – Josh Franklin – Tog

Though he didn’t remember it, Josh Franklin and I had played each other before, and a somewhat similar matchup to boot. It was back in the summer, just after Gush’s unrestriction, and I was playing Belcher versus his GAT deck. I beat him in two games, and showed him this with my trusty Moleskine—intimidation tactics? Josh is a nice guy and a definite challenge in the first round of Top 8.

Josh was on the play in game one, mulliganed, and led with an Underground Sea and some mana artifacts. I played a turn one Belcher after he Forced (pitching Time Walk) my Land Grant to shut off the Red Elemental Blast in my hand. At the end of my turn he played Intuition and got Accumulated Knowledges. He AK’d on his turn and drew a bunch of cards, then played Merchant Scroll for Cunning Wish, passing the turn. I drew the mana source I needed and fired Belcher for the win.

My deck stayed the same for game two.

This game was fairly epic. He played a blue source and a Mox Ruby, while I was able to Empty the Warrens for 16 goblins after my opponent played Force of Will and Accumulated Knowledge to boost my storm count. Unfortunately, he had Echoing Truth. That pretty much emptied his hand, however, and my next draw was Pyroblast, l’esprit de l’escalier that countered his Ancestral Recall.

We played draw-go for a while, and he took some damage from his Mana Crypt before he killed it with Ancient Grudge. I Welded it back in, but he Grudged it again, removing it permanently from the game with Psychatog. His draw engine wasn’t working, though, and even when he Merchant Scrolled for Intuition for his last three Accumulated Knowledges, his Tog wasn’t lethal.

Finally, I drew Goblin Charbelcher, and, though he countered it, I was able to Weld it back in and win a turn later.

Games – 8-4-0; Matches 4-1-1

Top 4 – Charley – Slaver

Charley seemed friendly, though I can’t remember having seen him before at RIW or anywhere else. It was a pleasure meeting him, and even better meeting him in the top four. Unfortunately for me, Slaver is one of the harder matchups to face, and Charley was the 411 Answer Man all day apparently, having beaten Twaun and knocked him out of the Top 8.

He was on the draw in game one and mulliganed to four while I played a turn one uncountered Belcher with two moxes (Sapphire and Emerald) as potential mana. He drew, played a land, and passed on his first turn. I drew not a useable mana source. He drew, played another land, and played Engineered Explosives, blowing up my moxes.

What a kick in the junk. Literally half of the cards in my deck would have been useable to fire Belcher with those two moxes on the table, and I could not find one of them.

Oh well. We continue to play draw-go and eventually he played Welder, Welded in Slaver and Slaved me, killing me with my own Belcher.

I did not sideboard.

For game two I keep a hand that relied on Land Grant resolving to play Empty the Warrens, and that didn’t happen. A couple of turns later, I was able to Empty the Warrens for six, but they only got one attack before Charley Slaved me and Echoing Truthed them. We continued playing draw-go as he waited for another artifact to weld, but Slaver got there when he was able to make me cast Channel (off the treacherous Lotus Petal I drew as a second green source!) and kill myself.

Games – 8-6-0; Matches 4-2-1

Third Place – Ben Perry, Epic Rematch – Long Combo

I have decided it is always a pleasure to play friends when you’re both guaranteed a piece of power no matter what the outcome.

The die fell my way and I kept a risky hand of two Empty the Warrens, three Street Wraith, and a Simian Spirit Guide figuring that two of the cyclers at least should get me mana sources, and I might be able to get there. Unfortunately, no. I started the game at 14 life and passed the turn. Ben Duressed my Lotus Petal and Force of Will’d the Tinder Wall I tried to play on turn two that would have let me play Empty the Warrens.

Fortunately for me, all of the countermeasures my opponent used emptied his hand and slowed him down. I managed to Empty the Warrens for four tokens, got in for 12 damage, then emptied them again for six to put lethal on the board.

“I guess I have to win now,” said Ben. He drew his card and looked at it, tapped a Swamp and windmill slammed it into play—Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Black Lotus, Hurkyl’s Recalled himself, Black Lotus, Chain of Vapor Black Lotus, Black Lotus, sac Black Lotus, pass the turn. Nice!

I sideboarded in the Seething Songs for a Welder and two Living Wishes.

I mulliganed twice in game two and Ben mulliganed once, opening with a Needle on Belcher versus my Welder. Though it took him a while to set up, he got Bargain into play. That was pretty much it. I don’t think I did much except for attack with Welder a couple of times and get Duressed.

In game three, I started off with two more mulligans, and was forced to pass with no action on turn on. Ben’s hand was good enough to Thoughtseize any action I had (Elvish Spirit Guide in this case) and play Ancestral Recall. Then he Duressed my Empty the Warrens and played Pithing Needle on Belcher on turn two. I was dead in the water when he topdecked Yawgmoth’s Will and blew me away.

Games – 9-7-0; Matches 4-3-1

Ben wanted the Time Walk, so I took home a Mox Sapphire for my troubles. That seems pretty good. That probably puts me $250 ahead on the weekend, at least. Speaking of which, anyone want to buy a lightly used Mox Sapphire?

From my notes, the numbers read like this:

Successful Belches or scoops in the face of imminent combustion: 6
Empty the Warrens tokens created: 64
Storm Entities: 6/6
Mulligans: 8 (All against Ben Perry? That can’t possibly be right.)
Die rolls won: 5
First games won: 5
Second games won: 2 (Both two game matches.)
Third games won: 2
Games won by Goblin Welder: 1

I’ll write up some thoughts on the matchups and sideboarding later. For right now, I still don’t think Seething Song is right. I’m not sure what’s better, but there was never really a time where I necessarily wanted Song in my hand or had to topdeck that to win.

For now, I think I’ll just say that it feels great. I’m sorry I was too tired to really enjoy it last night, but it is an awesome feeling to actually take home power. I wish it had been from first place, but, oh well. I’ve still got some time.

Thanks to everyone who was there, Twaun for hosting, and Jerry for driving and telling me repeatedly to play Belcher. I’m really glad all my friends play Stax and not counterspells, hah!

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll see all of you at the Hero Zone in another week and a half, right?

Second Saturday Vintage Tournaments

The Hero Zone
127 E. Market St.
Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium or signed card or proxy just for signing up!

February 9, 2008
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

How awesome is that? Everyone who goes to one of these tournaments ends up becoming a rock star and being elected to major political office, by the way. You’ll have more sex and more money than ever before, too.

You should come; it’ll be fun.

Feeling Mono-Blue about Fish

2008-01-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

Okay, everyone should know by now that I’m done playing Fish for a while. Everyone at the Northeast Ohio boards is going serious mode, and I figure I’d better do so too or risk getting blown out in every single tournament ever.

I’m not sure how this is too much different from the way things are now, but it is. I’m only playing real or semi-real decks from now on.

At the same time, why can’t I stop thinking about Fish?

Lorwyn block is a creature-centric format based on race and class names—creature types for all those idiots who were too stupid to realize it’s the same thing in Magic terms. Sorry. Anyway, putting the focus on creatures means that a lot of the good, or at least interesting, cards in the set either are creatures or promote them somehow.

Look at Lorwyn’s Thorn of Amethyst, for example. That card does nothing but promote the use of creatures in all formats, even the instant obsessed Vintage.

Morningtide is chock full of “interesting” Fish creatures, which I define as creatures from one to three mana who have a useful function other than attacking for one to three damage. It’s preferable that these creatures cost between one and two mana, because paying three mana for something in Vintage is often just asking for trouble, but exceptions can be made.

Look at these two, for example:

Sage of Fables
2U
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
Each other Wizard creature you control comes into play with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.
2, Remove a +1/+1 counter from a creature you control: Draw a card.
2/2

Most of the cards played in blue-based Fish type decks right now are Wizards: Dark Confidant, Trinket Mage, Spellstutter Sprite, Meddling Mage, etc. Sage of Fables makes all of those creatures into bigger threats, and when necessary allows you to trade them for a card. It’s unfortunate that this ability costs mana, because it means you’ll sometimes have to spend mana when your creatures die, rather than waiting until end of turn like a blue deck should.

Sigil Tracer
1UU
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
1U, Tap two untapped Wizards you control: Copy target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
2/2

This is another fun card that unfortunately gets limited by how much tapping has to go on to make it work. Sigil Tracer and two other guys make Fork on a stick. Imagine copying your opponent’s Ancestral Recall or Time Walk, or taking a critical Force of Will and making it your own. In a format filled with such powerful spells, copying two or three of them a game can be backbreaking.

At the same time, why all the tapping? What’s the point of having a guy that you can’t attack with because you’re waiting for your opponent to run a game-breaking spell into it? I guess that’s what tokens are for.

Maybe we do something a little cheaper, that does something useful whenever it taps, that has a cheap ability, and that has the same, solid 2/2 body…

Grimoire Thief
UU
Creature - Merfolk Rogue
Whenever Grimoire Thief becomes tapped, remove the top three cards of target opponent's library from the game face down.
You may look at cards removed from the game with Grimoire Thief.
U, Sacrifice Grimoire Thief: Turn all cards removed from the game with Grimoire Thief face up. Counter all spells with those names.
2/2

Neat! It’s like an updated Voidmage Prodigy that does something disruptive every turn while countering spells, rather than just attacking for two or dying.

It’s always fun to come upon a Vintage game and see someone’s Yawgmoth’s Will in the graveyard. There are lots of places that Yawgmoth’s Will wants to be, but the graveyard is just not one of them. Nine times out of ten it means that something has gone or is going terribly wrong. Grimoire Thief has the potential to make that happen, and your opponent won’t even know about it until it’s too late.

Imagine attacking with this after a first mainphase Duress is foiled by a Brainstorm.

The mechanic might be a little clunky (since it has to attack before it can counter anything), but it gets more powerful over time as Grimoire Thief racks up the damage and the stolen loot.

Here’s a mono-blue Fish list that I think could be pretty neat.

4x Grimoire Thief
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will
3x Standstill
3x Aether Vial
2x Umezawa’s Jitte
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Echoing Truth
1x Repeal

5x Mox
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
3x Faerie Conclave
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
5x Island

The main goal with this list is obviously the primary Fish strategy of controlling the opponent until you win with tiny creatures. Secondary goals include locking someone under a Standstill they don’t want to break and getting Erayo into play and flipped.

If you were to get some Riptide Pilferers into the deck, you could lock opponents with that under Erayo’s Essence, just as SS locked things up with Dimir Cutpurse.

I really feel like there are enough good mono-blue cards that Fish can start going in that direction. Sure other colors have useful splashes for different problems, but I think blue at this point can handle just about anything from artifacts (Hurkyl’s Recall, Energy Flux) to creatures (bounce, artifact equipment) to combo (Arcane Lab, Stifle). Still, the deck will have a maindeck problem with Workshop Aggro unless it finds and plays Umezawa’s Jitte early.

Unfortunately, this deck only lives in my head and on the testing table. Even though it pains me a little to say so, I won’t play Fish anymore without a good reason. People are right that it’s underpowered. Why try to play fair in the format that invites you to play as unfair as possible.

It’s very sad to me, though. I feel like Fish was a big part of my identity. I might never again cripple someone’s mana development with a well-timed Stifle or start drawing ridiculous amounts of cards with Ninja to keep my opponent down. I don’t’ even feel like I totally explored the possibilities of Spellstutter Sprite or Martyr of Frost.

Oh well.

(Martyr of Frost would probably be pretty good in the above deck, by the way. He likes mono-blue).

8 Belches to the Top 8

2008-01-14T19:04:00.000-05:00

Just as I think this “Play Belcher All the Time” plan is starting to pan out, the metagame goes and changes on me. Whereas GAT and other Gush decks were the taste du jour during the summer and into late fall, people are coming around to the fact that 9-Sphere MUD and Aggro are terrifically powerful decks. Spheres of Resistance are terrible for Belcher—worse than Force of Will; worse than Duress.

Right now, most of Belcher’s mana producing spells net one mana at a time: Tinder Wall, the first Rite of Flame, Moxen, Lotus Petal, etc. That means that to play around Sphere of Resistance you have to play in stages, use Spirit Guides, blow them out with Channel, or try your hardest to do all three. Winning the die roll helps, but even then you might be stuck with a Belcher and no mana to activate until you’re dead.

Chalice of the Void is no walk in the park either, at times.

In the Eye of Chaos is okay, though.

Anyway, if things keep trending towards more and more Workshops being played, Belcher as it is now just becomes a worse and worse choice. There are some ideas that will help, I think, and I’ll share them towards the end of this report or perhaps in another post.

Around the beginning of the week, I always start looking forward to the following weekend’s tournament. This time was no different as the Hero Zone is my absolute favorite place to play. I seriously feel like I have home-field advantage there. Plus, I had already locked in on Belcher and was looking forward to playing such a fun, powerful deck all afternoon.

There would also be two exciting newcomers to the Hero Zone tournaments—David P. Baum and Stephen Menendian. Dave was coming out of retirement after handing over control of the store and was really looking forward to playing in tournaments again. (I hope he still is). Steve was done being Scrooge and had time in his schedule to attend. Plus, he’s been following this metagame shift pretty closely, so he might have wanted to get some more work done on that.

Steve and a returning newcomer to the Ohio Vintage scene, former Sanduskian Josh Carney, would be riding up with me from Columbus. The most interesting part of that drive was when I turned the wrong way down a one-way street, but that was before anyone else was in the car yet.

We also learned that there have only been 40 black players in the NHL. The first, Boston’s Willie O’Ree, an African-Canadian, is being celebrated this year as having broken the color barrier 50 years ago. Best part is that O’Ree played despite being blind in one eye. Though his time in the NHL was short and unremarkable, he had many great years in WHL, and the San Diego Gulls retired his number there.

Oh, also, my mom brought cookies for everyone, so suddenly and for one brief, shining moment, I was the popular kid.

Here’s what I registered and played:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
1x Memory Jar
1x Wheel of Fortune
2x Living Wish
4x Goblin Welder
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast

5x Moxen
4x Tinder Wall
4x Rite of Flame
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Channel
1x Taiga

4x Street Wraith

Sideboard
4x Ingot Chewer
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Taiga
1x Bazzar of Baghdad
1x Storm Entity
2x Ancient Grudge

At this point I’ve eaten some cookies and the first of two hardboiled eggs I brought with me, so I’m ready to rock and roll. Pairings go up and I hope I’m not paired against one of my friends, whom I’ll no doubt end up crippling before the tournament even starts.

Round 1 – David P. Baooom! – Baoomfinity 2k8

“Hey, guys, I got the bye!”

Oh, no, no. Dave and I go way back. This was the first tournament Dave had played in nearly five years, which is a long time to be out of competitive Magic. He had been talking Goblins beforehand and was on the edge of a fairly novel, if slightly underpowered, deck. Then he went and took his extended Affinity deck, threw power into it, and played that instead.

Long story short—Dave’s a nice guy, I look forward to him participating in future tournaments, and I hated to crush him like I did. Plus, I know he was looking forward to reading this and hoped he would get more than a few sentences. Here’s another one.

Game one, Dave opens with a Seat of the Synod and Ancestral Recall into a pair of Ornithopters, passing the turn. Unfortunately, my opening hand let me play Lotus Petal into Tinder Wall into two Rites of Flame into Sol Ring into Grim Monolith into Emptying the Warrens seven times. Though Dave was able to throw up some creatures to block, my horde was too sizeable and he scooped on his third turn.

REBs came out for three Ingot Chewers and two Ancient Grudges.

Dave mulliganed in game two and played a land and Phyrexian Walker. I played Memory Jar with Taiga still untapped and a Street Wraith in my hand. I put the cycle on the stack, then broke the jar to draw an extra card. The Jar gave me a Living Wish for a 10/10 Storm Entity off of Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Dave elected not to block. Dave did nothing more of consequence, and I evoked Ingot Chewer to kill his Walker and attack for the win next turn.

Sorry, Dave. I can’t imagine a more difficult matchup for you first turn.

Matches 1-0-0; Games 2-0-0

Round 2 – Josh “The Late JC” Chapple – Mono Red Worshop Aggro

Josh is still looking for his deck, I think, the deck he should play regularly. Right now, he can only win when the tournament isn’t on the line, so I wasn’t worried.

Okay, I lied. Workshop Aggro is a tough matchup since it can run nine Spheres and has a fast enough clock to finish me off. Josh is capable enough to do it too; he crushes me all the time in playtesting.

Game one starts of encouragingly as Josh as mulliganed down to four and I have an opening hand that makes a first turn Belcher off of permanent mana including two Moxes (Pearl and Emerald, if it matters) and a Taiga. My opponent responded with a Wasteland, some mana, and a Mox Monkey. He knocked out my Taiga and I had to find mana or risk losing my activation mana. So, I draw Simian Spirit Guide and win.

The entirety of the anti-Artifact sideboard came in—Goyfs, Chewers, Grudges, and a Taiga for REBs, Wraiths, and Wishes.

Game two Josh started with a mulligan again, this time to find Sphere of Resistance. It wasn’t quite enough, though. My hand began as a first turn win, but with no non-spell mana. Obviously I drew Simian Spirit Guide again, allowing me to play Mana Crypt into Sol Ring into Chrome Mox and Land Grant. Second turn I played Belcher, and I fired on turn three for the win.

Matches 2-0-0; Games 4-0-0

Round 3 – Twaun P. Pwnerton – 5c TwaunStax

Honestly, TwaunStax is just regular Stax only cut a random card for In the Eye of Chaos. It’s still pretty good. At least Twaun is finally playing good cards like Goblin Welder in Stax. Honestly, though, I have a terrible record against Twaun except for when I can knock him out of contention accidentally. I’m not sure what it is.

Game one Twaun opens with a Welder and an In the Eye of Chaos. That buys me a whole turn as long as I don’t let my Belcher get Welded out! The only thing In the Eye of Chaos stops in my deck is Red Blasts, and those are dead anyway. I respond with a Belcher off of Mana Vault, Mox Pearl, and Elvish Spirit Guide. Unfortunately, I’m soon locked out of the game as Tangle Wire keeps me from being able to fire Belcher during my mainphase, and Sphere of Resistance locks me out of playing permanent mana. Smokestack then removes all my stuff and I scoop.

Stax is so, so hard to beat. In testing, it takes an amazing draw by me or a bad draw by my opponent. I bring in the same cards as I did against Josh: Goyfs, Chewers, Grudges and the second Taiga.

I’m on the play in game two and keep a solid opener while Twaun mulligans, deliberating for quite a while. I make it all irrelevant by playing Black Lotus, Land Grant, Elvish Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall and Lotus Petal. Then I sacrifice Tinder Wall, and tap Taiga to play Wheel of Fortune. My Wheel hand, combined with the Lotus and Petal I have from before, is Godlike. I play Belcher and Mana Crypt, removing two Simian Spirit Guides for the win. Welder was in my hand, just in case anything went wrong.

I guess that’s how you beat Stax—kill them before they get a turn.

Game three, things don’t work work out quite that way. I mulligan twice to Empty the Warrens and Tarmogoyf, while Twaun goes to six and opens with Duress (taking Empty) and Chalice at zero. It was the Chalice that clinched it, shutting off the Mox and Black Lotus I have in my hand (it was one hell of a mulligan to five). I am still able to play Goyf but two Welders and a Powder Keg have that plan shut down with a quickness. After that, Welders beat me down and kill me.

Honestly, there’s not a much worse matchup for me.

Matches 2-1-0; Games 5-2-0

Round 4 – Rick Carson – Control Slaver

Michiganders have become a pretty regular sight at the Hero Zone Vintage tournaments, and Rick was one of this month’s crew. He was quiet but friendly, and those are the ones you have to watch out for, eh? He made top eight this time around, and I hope we see him again.

Rick opens game one with Volcanic Island. I lead with Lion’s Eye Diamond, then play Taiga, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Belcher, and sacrifice Diamond for the activation mana and the win. Lion’s Eye Diamond is really good.

I do not sideboard.

We both start game two with mulligans. I play Belcher turn one and have Force of Monkey for his Force of Will. Unfortunately, removing the Spirit Guide also takes me from three activation mana next turn to the two from Sol Ring. I draw no free mana or mana off a colorless source for six or seven turns. Between him Forcing Land Grant, playing Vampiric Tutor, and taking fifteen damage to Mana Crypt, my opponent goes to two life, relying on the Platinum Angel he hardcast and has used to knock me to two life.
Finally, finally, finally, I get a Land Grant through and immediately activate Belcher targeting the Angel.

The bonk might have cost me the game. I realized this during while watching the Metropolitan Opera performance of Macbeth.

Here’s what I should have done: Land Grant resolves, pass the turn.

I needed to shoot the Angel on his turn, after resolving the Mana Crypt trigger. If he loses the flip, he loses the game. If he wins the flip, he can’t attack, so at least I buy another turn. Next turn I shoot the Welder. Turn after that I shoot him. Right? I think that’s right.

Didn’t see it. Maybe next time.

Game three, I’m forced to mulligan twice and count on Street Wraith to get me a mana source. It doesn’t, so I play Taiga and pass with REB in hand. My opponent does not play blue spells, and opens with Welder and Duress. Nuts. He takes his time, increasing control on me, and the only thing I can do is draw one card a turn. He plays Thirst for Knowledge, Slavers me, plays Yawgmoth’s Will and Vampiric Tutor Twice. That sounds like a winning combination. He beats me down with Platinum Angel, though I think he might have been able to win with Welder and a Belcher in my graveyard a turn or two earlier.

Matches 2-2-0; Games 6-4-0

Round 5 – Stephen “The Voice of Vintage” Menendian – Tog 2k3

There was a poll before the tournament trying to determine what Smmenen would be playing, and nobody guessed the five year old control deck. He chose the deck expecting a Workshop metagame and was not disappointed. My deck comes pre-sideboarded against blue control, but I’ll need all the luck in the world to beat Steve. I should also mention that Twaun graciously retrieved a pen for me, so I could take notes.

Did I mention this match would determine a top eight berth?

I open game one on the play with Memory Jar but wait a turn to break it, so I can have the mana from Taiga and, I think, a Mox to work with as well. Steve plays a land. Next turn, I crack the Jar and make a Belcher with a Lotus Petal to spare. I expect a counter, but there is none. I’m not sure why. Steve may have been hoping to counter my activation mana and bounce the Belcher, so it would be discarded with the Jar. Instead, I use the two Spirit Guides in my hand and the Lotus Petal to make uncounterable mana and activate for the win.

Steve opens game one with a surprisingly crippling Mox Monkey. My hand had a first turn Belcher possibility with permanent activation mana off of three Moxen and a Tinder Wall. I also had Living Wish. Steve Forced Tinder Wall and Drained my third turn Living Wish. Then he started drawing cards—Ancestral, AK for three, AK for four, whatever. As Justin Morford said, “Nat Moes does not scoop in the face of overwhelming card advantage.” He Trickbound a relatively small Empty the Warrens and used Psychatog to kill me.

Game three I open a saucy hand that will be really nice if the two Street Wraiths in my hand can turn into two more mana somehow. Unfortunately they don’t, and Steve plays Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, and Mystical Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will. Somehow I get Welder to stick with Lion’s Eye Diamond and Belcher in hand. I have a plan—all I need is a mana to play the Sol Ring in my hand. Steve plays Psychatog and Ancestral, leaving himself off of Drain mana, and I draw the mana I need. Unfortunately it’s Land Grant, so Steve will see everything.

Oh well. Land Grant resolves. I play Tinder Wall so as to have REB backup for Sol Ring, but it wouldn’t matter; Steve would have countered the Land Grant or the Tinder Wall after looking at my hand. I play Sol Ring and LED, crack LED for activation mana, Weld Ring for Belcher, and win.

Steve handed me that one. I just happened to be in the position to take advantage.

Matches 3-2-0; Games 8-5-0

That’s good enough for top eight. Unfortunately, I’d have to face my old nemesis—Twaun P. Pwnerton.

Top 8 – Twaun P. Pwnerton – 5c TwaunStax

Frankly, the top eight was going to be bad for me. There were three Workshop decks playing at least 20 Spheres between them. The other options were the Slaver deck I lost to earlier, an Oath deck with Null Rods in the side, a Super Long combo deck, and an Ichorid deck that would probably have been my preferred pairing. Oh well.

Twaun wins the die roll and elects to play first.

He opens with turn one Sphere of Resistance. How good for him. Since he has no clock as yet and my hand has been reduced to nothing, I’m forced to pray for Channel and a combination of Spirit Guides or Taiga to play it. No dice. He makes a rapidly increasing number of Welders and Gorillas to take me down, when I would have had to pay five for Channel and eight life for Belcher. Oh well.

I mulligan game two into a hand of five that makes six Goblins off of Lotus and a Chrome Mox. Twaun keeps his hand of seven and is able to play a Lotus of his own, Mox Pearl, and Tolarian Academy. He taps Academy for two blue and sacs Lotus for black, Duressing me (he sees Tarmogoyf and Ingot Chewer) and playing Demonic Tutor for Powder Keg. He plays Powder Keg and kills my guys, leaving me with nothing in play. Then the game proceeds very much like game one.

My hand of seven in game two could make a first turn belcher but would have nothing else in play and no mana to fire it without drawing something. Is that a keepable hand when Stax is focusing everything on preventing you from making mana? I’m not sure.

Anyway, that was my tournament.

I lucked into the top eight after my own play mistake maybe kept me from doing it a turn early. I fired Belcher eight times for the win, made a total of only 22 goblins (not including Welders), and summoned a 10/10 hasty beater from outside my deck. Pretty good, I’d say.

Two of the matches I lost were just about the hardest one I can envision, and Twaun got great hands against me, getting Sphere of Resistance early and being able to Tutor up and play Powder Keg first turn. Not too much I can do about that. I should have noticed the chance I had against Platinum Angel, but at least I’ll see that next time.

Next time is coming up actually. There’s a tournament at RIW in Livonia, Michigan on January 29, and it’s for a Black Lotus!

For more information contact:

RIW Hobbies
29116 Five Mile Road, Livonia MI
(734) 261-7233
www.riwhobbies.net

Hopefully I’ll be able to make it up to that.

Gassy Again? That's Like 3 Tourneys in a Row!

2008-01-07T18:37:00.000-05:00

Good thing there are Magic tournaments to report on or I might never have updated this site ever again. Even now I realize that, not only did I take terribly sparse notes, but I also left my notebook at work so I don’t even have those to work off of. Oh well, I guess.

Plus, my roommate is playing Guitar Hero III, and really all I can think about are bright colors! Cool songs! Yeah! I wanna rock and roll all night and not really write this report!

So, right, last Sunday Team Meandeck and the Soldiery decided to close out the Vintage year with a full-proxy tournament, here in lovely Columbus. The weather cooperated and we had 24 players show up to play for the cash. It was a good turnout for Columbus recently, probably because so many people were home from school or otherwise had vacation time for the holiday. Excellent as usual.

I played Belcher again, on the recommendation of Jerry Yang, who continues to proclaim its awesomeness against the current metagame. It was a fine choice, and if I’d had more practice with the sideboard I went in with, I would have done better.

Here’s the list. The maindeck is the same as I’ve been playing in tournaments, though the sideboard has some significant changes I’ll go into:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
4x Street Wraith
4x Goblin Welder
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast
2x Living Wish
1x Channel
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Grim Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Taiga

Sideboard
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Ingot Chewer
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Storm Entity
1x Taiga
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Mishra’s Workshop
1x Bazaar of Baghdad

The only change that got made to the maindeck from my build in Chicago was to drop a Pyroblast in favor of the fourth Goblin Welder. That change seems to be correct since Welder is powerful against both blue and workshop decks and has awesome synergy with Lion’s Eye Diamond, Wheel of Fortune, and Memory Jar.

In the constant quest to give Belcher some life against Stax and 9-Sphere Workshop Aggro, the sideboard changed quite a bit. While it used to be a mishmash of artifact disruption, I decided that could be cut down to the best options, which currently happen to be Ingot Chewer and Ancient Grudge. Ingot Chewer is great because it’s cheap and unaffected by Thorn of Amethyst.

In future builds, Ancient Grudge may get cut in favor of something cheaper, like Oxidize or Shattering Spree, or something more threatening like Artifact Mutation. The benefit to Ancient Grudge is that it doesn’t take up space in the hand before you have to cast it since it works out of the graveyard and you can discard it at end of turn. We’ll see.

Tarmogoyf gets the nod as well, as a threat that doesn’t take quite as much effort to cast or protect as Warrens or Belcher. In testing so far, Goyf has proved more than admirable against Stax and Fish as it provides a fast enough clock against the generally slower decks. Plus, why would I not want to have a $300 sideboard?

Anyway, the other glaring omission to the sideboard is, no doubt, Tolarian Academy. It’s gone for a couple of reasons: First, now that there are eight pretty well set cards in the board, there’s not enough room for it. Second, there are really very few times that it’s better than or even equal to either Workshop or Tomb.

Currently there are 18 artifacts maindeck meaning there are 2.1 artifacts in every seven cards, and an average about that in every opening hand. Discounting the Charbelchers and the Memory Jar that we’d generally like to accelerate into, there are only 1.5 artifacts in an opening hand. Without more than three artifacts, Academy is generally worse than Workshop (though there is something to be said for being able to fire Belcher), and without more than two artifacts, Academy is worse than Ancient Tomb. Plus, remember that it takes two mana to even get to Academy. Basically, it’s poop.

Finally, after I arrived late and described my deck and sideboard to everyone in attendance, the tournament was ready to begin.

Round 1 – Willie Milton – Control Slaver

I don’t remember ever having played Willie in a tournament setting before, though we did play a few test games on day one in Chicago when my regularly scheduled opponent didn’t show up for our match. Though a good Magic player, he’s probably better known for being extremely tall, a feature enhanced further by the height of his hair.

This is one of two matches that I have extensive game notes on, and since I’m writing this now more than a week after the event things might be somewhat sketchy elsewhere. I apologize in advance for anything I get wrong.

I’m fairly sure he wins the roll and opens game one with land, mox, Lotus, go. I Empty the Warrens to the tune of 10 goblins through hardcast Force of Will and the race is on. Willie tries to dig with Thirst for Knowledge but it’s too late. He scoops at eight life with no answers to the teeming horde.

For games two and three I mistakenly side in Tarmogoyfs. Against a deck like Slaver, I should have remained as combo as possible and probably sided in nothing. The mistake ended up costing me games two and three as my opening-play Tarmogoyfs (Tarmogoyves?) weren’t a fast enough clock to keep Slaver from winning.

In game two, I play Tarmogoyf and try to Wheel my opponent into garbage and myself into some more gas (powering Goyf in the process). A few Goyf attacks knock Willie down to four life, but he has Pyroclasm for my second-turn Empty and is able to go broken with Yawgmoth’s Will, Ancestral Recall and Tinker for Slaver to end my chances. The Welder he gets is able to Weld my Belcher in under Slaverlock to kill me.

Game three played out similarly. I played Memory Jar with some mana floating, but the only thing that came out of it was a 5/6 Tarmogoyf—very unfortunate; I would much have preferred a Goblin Welder. Again, the little Lhurgoyf that could got down to one hit away, but on the back of four Thirst for Knowledge and Yawgmoth’s Will, my opponent found his win. I guess I should have countered one of them, eh?

So yes, errors on my part—a big one and a little one. Jerry Yang had to remind me to play like a combo deck, not like a Fish deck, and I knew not to side in Tarmogoyfs against everything.

Match 0-1-0; Game 1-2-0

Round 2 – Justin Morford – GATr

I don’t think I’ve played against Justin in a tournament before either, but I hear good things about him coming out of the Pittsburgh metagame. GAT is a tough but interesting matchup. The scariest part of the deck is the Duress effects, since I actually have more opportunities to have Red Blasts in hand than they do to have Force of Will.

My notes page on this match is blank except for the header. From what I can recall, I Emptied the Warrens once again for the win in game one.

Interesting Tidbit 1: Most wins with Belcher come off Empty the Warrens rather than Belcher, which is kind of disappointing.

Interesting Tidbit 2: I did not lose game one all day. Woot.

I sided in Ancient Grudges, expecting Pithing Needle, but it was ineffective. He had Pithing Needle first turn to lock me out of my early Belcher and was able to ride card advantage to victory. My only out towards the end was to use my Lion’s Eye Diamond and Welder to get Memory Jar from my hand into play and perhaps get rid of his needle. Unfortunately it was too late in the game to get that done, and he countered the Grim Monolith I would have Welded anyway. I’m not sure I would have been able to do anything from the position I was in, but that was a wisely spent Force of Will on his part.

Game three saw my favorite combo of Channel and Lotus in hand with Belcher, but I had to Land Grant to get there and he saw he could stop me. It also didn’t help that Justin only had to mulligan to five to find a working Force of Will. I frantically tried to rebuild as he tried to find a first land to work with, and he got there first. From there, it was GAT all the way.

In the future, Ancient Grudges will probably not come in against GAT. As Jerry pointed out, “You’re bringing in two cards to combat the two cards [Pithing Needles] they bring in. You’re the more threatening deck.” Touché.

Match 0-2-0; Game 2-4-0

All right, let’s get this train back on the tracks.

Round 3 – Josh “The Late JC” Chapple – UR Phid

I remember when Josh Chapple owned the only Forces of Will I’d ever seen and he’d play them all the time in the only really synergistic deck I’d ever seen, UG Madness. How far we’ve come, eh, Josh Chapple? Anyway, with the amount of control in Phid and the access to it via the eponymous one-eyed snake, this should be a challenging match.

Good thing I won it in two games.

I have no recollection of how that happened. I think one game I got to Weld in Belcher and win that way, but I can’t be sure. Either way, total drubbing—sent Josh Chapple to 0-6 in games on the day.

Interesting Tidbit 3: The chances of having a Welder, Lion’s Eye Diamond, a Weldable cheap artifact, and Belcher in your opening hand of seven cards is approximately 0.8%.

We played some fun games after that since we still had another forty minutes or so, and I think he won three out of four there, including playing a crippling Chalice of the Void with four counters in one game. That deck always seems so good; I can’t believe it doesn’t show up more often.

Oh, I’m pretty sure I didn’t side in Tarmogoyfs for game two. I may have not sideboarded at all.

Match – 1-2-0; Game 4-4-0

Round 4 – Francis Hart – Stax MUD

I’m pretty sure Francis came in with the Pittsburgh crew, but I’m not sure. He was a newcomer to the Soldiery in that I don’t remember having ever seen him before. This was my first and only Workshop matchup of the day and it was very encouraging, especially for the sideboard games.

In game one, on the play, I keep a seven card hand with Living Wish on the hope that my opponent isn’t playing blue. Turns out he’s not, and a 7/7 Storm Entity hits play with a couple of moxes on board as well. My opponent drops Tangle Wire, but I play around it (by which I mean I wait for enough counters to fade off) and get in the other two hits to win.

Interesting Tidbit 4: That’s the first game that Storm Entity has won me in a tournament.

Four Ingot Chewers, four Tarmogoyfs and both Ancient Grudges come in. I may have put in the extra Taiga as well, but I don’t remember for sure. With the Taiga, I think it would have been five Red Blasts, four Street Wraiths, and two Living Wishes that went out.

In game two, I have a turn one Belcher, but I have sorcery speed activation mana and he plays a Tangle Wire to cut me off of it. By the time the Wire is gone, Null Rod is in play making my board worth approximately nothing. Two Juggernauts show up a couple of turns later to do a ten-ton jig on my face.

My opening hand in game three has two Tarmogoyfs and the permanent mana to play both of them, barring Null Rod. I drop the first Goyf alongside a Welder and wait. Of course Null Rod enters. Tangle Wire comes next turn, but it’s not enough to slow me down with the permanents I have. Tarmogoyf and Ancient Tomb damage finish off my opponent in a squeaker.

As he explained the loss afterward to one of his friends, “He played Belcher; he won the die roll.”

Match – 2-2-0; Game 6-5-0

Round 5 – Jerry Yang – Mono-R Sligh

Though I built my Belcher list pretty much by myself and have learned much on my own about how to play it, I should give some thanks to my round five opponent for helping me think better about playing it. I always seem to realize the lesson one game or match too late, but still, I’m better at Belcher because of Jerry Yang.

I suppose I should also give him some thanks for playing a deck that has almost nothing to stop me.

Anyway, at 2-2, before anyone checked the standings, I thought I might have a chance to get in to the top eight by winning this match. However, that turned out to be not true as the top eight was already decided after round four. Oh well. For honor then, Jerry?

I open game one with a Belcher but no activation mana for it. Jerry tries to help his situation with a Wasteland or something, but my topdeck is Mana Vault, so I win.

Suspecting him to be playing Shop Aggro, I think I brought in the whole gamut of anti-artifact cards, like I did against Francis in the previous round. Probably in the exact same way too, except I know for sure there was no second Taiga.

I won game two off of Belcher again, but I don’t remember exactly how that came about. The answer “through Pyrostatic Pillar” comes to mind, but that’s not very telling. I just know that when I belched I had to worry about whether there was one Taiga or two left in my deck. Turns out, just one.

Match – 3-2-0; Game 8-5-0

Looking back, if I had won just one more game in either of my first two rounds, I would have been in the top eight. That seems pretty good. I was pleased.

Anyway, I bring this all up because there’s another tournament next week in Sandusky, Ohio at the newly rechristened Hero Zone.

Second Saturday Vintage Tournaments

The Hero Zone (was Gamers Lounge)
127 E. Market St.
Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium or signed card or proxy just for signing up!

January 12, 2008
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Seriously, these are the best tournaments. Ever. I recommend that you all come out and have fun and meet the enviable David P. Baum, who joins the ranks of the players this time since he gave up running the store. Afterwards, enjoy poopcake or punch a sandwich.

I’ll be there. You should too.

Lastly, I’m still waiting to find out for sure, but I may have the opportunity to play in the Morningtide prerelease events on Saturday or Sunday two weeks from now. If I can, would anyone like to be my partner in some Two-Headed Giant awesomeness? It might be a tough fight to beat out my girlfriend (currently ranked 26th in the Columbus area in 2HG), but I’ll ask her permission for you if you’re interested.

See you this weekend!

Sidegored in Sandusky

2007-12-10T12:57:00.000-05:00

I’m trying to figure out how to go about writing this tournament report. I did pretty poorly, 2-2-1 to spoil a surprise, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.

Usually I expect the metagame at the Gamers Lounge to be pretty well filled with Workshops and randomness. Jerry Yang put it best, I think: “Consider the metagame at Sandusky: Nam, Twaun and Mark are all card carrying members of the Mishra's Workshop Club. At the last Sandusky tournament, there were at least 6 decks (out of 18 plus right?) packing 4 Mishra's Workshops.” As such, I didn’t want to play Belcher, the deck people (well, mostly Jerry again) have been clamoring for me to play. Turns out lock pieces are really hard to play through when the combo is so non-permanent and mana intensive.

I also didn’t want to play Fish. The little guys have taken a lot of heat recently for being so easy to beat up on. Personally, I still think they’re viable, but I just don’t care about standing up for them anymore beyond saying that Spellstutter Sprite, Cloud of Faeries, Aether Vial, and Ninja of the Deep Hours have awesome synergy.

Anyway, my two usual choices for decks out of the way, I decided to go with something new. A few months ago—well, almost a year ago—I played Uba Caps in the Gifts and Long filled metagame. It worked out well for me in the couple of tournaments I used it, but I never really felt like I got into the deck and learned my way around it. I decided to try it again, though, with some changes.

The list I chose to play was Albert “meadbert” Kyle’s Uba Stax with Serum Powders:

4x Barbarian Ring
3x Mountain
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Workshop
4x Bazaar of Baghdad

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
4x Serum Powder
1x Sol Ring

4x Smokestack
4x Uba Mask
4x Crucible of Worlds
1x Trinisphere
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Karn, Silver Golem
4x Goblin Welder

SB:
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Powder Keg
2x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Duplicant
3x Viashino Heretic

Albert really said some convincing things about the utility of Serum Powder in a deck like this. These can all be found at the most recent Uba Stax thread at The Mana Drain, but I think the most succinct reason for being able to mulligan better in Stax is this from Albert:

What is the difference between opening with Shop versus opening with Wasteland, Mox, Mox? I would argue that opening with Shop is FAR better. The reason is that Shop basically serves the same purpose as the second group but leaves two additional cards in your hand. In a world where your opponent does not play Wasteland, having Workshop in your opening hand is equivalent to beginning the game by searching for two off color Moxen and adding them to your hand. Shop is that broken.

That was enough for me. I put the deck together, and changed the sideboard to the one you see above, mimicking Albert’s in most cases (4x Leyline, 4x Kegerator, 2x Thorn) but trying also to fit the expected metagame in Sandusky (2x Dups, 3x Heretic).

After running some errands (like looking for a Kitten Crusher Championship Belt), getting to the store early, buying some cards, registering myself, and handing out some decks to some local players, I was psyched and ready to get started.

Unfortunately my notes get sketchy as the days go on, so I’m not going to do the usual play-by-play I have and instead will just try to give a detailed overall recount of the matches.

Round 1 – Nam Q. Tran – Slaver

The last time I played against Nam with Uba Stax at the Hero Zone, Nam was playing 5c Stax and trounced me handily. It ended up being a useful experience, though, as I was able to ask him about my mistakes and thereby improve my play for next time. I learned a lot about the Stax vs. Stax matchup and about playing against Stax in general.

Game one I won quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t have my mulligans marked in my notes like I usually do, but I don’t rememember mulliganing and ended up with Chalice 0, Chalice 1, and Cruci-Strip relatively quickly. That’s good enough for jazz, and Nam scooped to Welder tricks and inevitable destruction.

I sided in Leylines, Thorns, and Powder Kegs—ten cards that absolutely destroyed my already solid gameplan. Probably not siding at all would have been a better answer. I don’t remember what I took out, but it was ugly, no doubt.

Nam played a first turn Mox Monkey in game two, and soon had enough mana from lands and artifact sources to eat any threat I played. Bad News Bears, er… Baboons. When he got Goblin Welder online, it was enough for me to scoop.

Game three I thought started well as I had two Leylines (it’s like mulling to five!) and a first-turn Trinisphere. Unfortunately, Trinisphere stranded the Welder in my hand and, Nam was able to play his first. When I shut my own Welder off by attacking, he bounced my Trinisphere and things went downhill quickly. Triskelavus entered to dramatic music and impressive pyrotechnics and sounded my deathknell, sending me into the losers bracket early.

Round 2 – Jerry Yang – Mostly Monoblue avec Guile

For all the verbal harassment I had to endure, this was still a fun match to play. My cousin Geoff had the bye and was watching along, and he and Jerry took turns bashing my use of Serum Powder and my constant slowplay. I’m sure it was all in good fun. Right?

We rolled six six-sided dice (6d6 for you role-players out there) to the first prime number to see who would go first. He rolled an 18; I rolled an 11 and would be on the play.

Game one I opened with Black Lotus, Workshop, Welder (which met Force of Will), second Welder, and Smokestack. A solid opener, right? Soon he was locked under Welder-Mask. It was dominant.

I don’t remember what I sideboarded in this match, but it was Jerry’s sideboard that wrecked me. Obviously Energy Flux is a common tactic against Stax decks, and I had no way of dealing with that either in the cards or in my head. As such, games two and three were similar: Jerry held off my early threats and played Energy Flux. In game three, it was two Energy Fluxes and a Back to Basics. Ugh. As for kill conditions, it was Guile in game two and Tinker for Darksteel in game three.

Again it was the sideboard that killed me. I wasn’t prepared for the threat I actually had to face.

Round 3 – Phil Garza – Gush Tinker

Phil is a player from Sandusky, and I’m glad he came to play. He didn’t do very well, but I think that’s mostly because he proxied most of his deck the morning before the tournament. It’s not exactly a recipe for success to have some of your first opening hands come in the first match of the tournament. Still, I hope he’ll keep playing, and he did show some interest in getting better at the format.

Game one was going well for me as I had a first turn Welder and a Sphere of Resistance on the play. Welder was like insurance for all of my artifacts and was able to set things right when Phil countered one of my Smokestacks. Phil played a Pithing Needle and conceded, realizing that he didn’t desideboard from his last match. Whoops.

So this was the first match where sideboarding hurt my opponent and not me. I brought in only Powder Kegs in place of a Smokestack, a Crucible, and a Chalice of the Void and Duplicants in place of Karn. In similar matchups, Albert Kyle takes out two Crucibles and brings in two Powder Kegs.

We played two more games and I beat him pretty handily. My gameplan did not feel as disrupted as when I brought in 10 cards against Nam in my first match.

This was the first match where I really felt like I knew what I was supposed to be doing in the sideboard department, and I think it showed. Ironically, the match was still largely decided by the sideboard, as Phil’s mistake was costly in game one, which was our closest game.

Round 4 – Josh – Land Tax Seismic Assault

Josh drove up all the way from Lexington, Kentucky, quite a trek. He was excited about the resurgence of Workshop decks since Gush’s unrestriction and felt his unconventional deck choice gave him a leg-up on the competition. It certainly didn’t hurt against me.

Game one was slow as we both struggled early, but I established Ubazaar and Smokestack to start whittling away his permanent base. As Uba Mask made his Sylvan Libraries better, he still misplayed at one point, Enlightened Tutoring for a Seismic Assault that he couldn’t play and that got removed in the Mask. He scooped to my inevitable lock, but we still used more than half the match time.

Unfortunately, with such a unique opponent, I had no idea how to sideboard. I think I brought in Leylines even though I saw no graveyard tricks and sided out most of my Ubazaar combo. I also brought in two Thorns of Amethyst and maybe Powder Kegs.

I mulliganed in game two down to five or six cards, despite using Serum Powder. I felt I needed something fairly explosive since he was playing seemingly hundreds of lands and good colors against artifacts. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. I was able to slow him down for a few turns, but he eventually put his combo together and had enough lands available to blow me away.

Our first two games had taken long enough that we were very short on time for game three. My slow deck versus his slow deck smelled like Drawsville to me, but we had to start just in case something happened. I sided Leylines back out because I wouldn’t mull to them in this case and they hadn’t been useful in either of the first two games.

Though he was able to get Land Tax and Seismic Assault into play, I still had far too much life to be threatened and we did, indeed, draw. There was no real reason for either of us to scoop to the other, so we didn’t. Still, he was a friendly, interesting, and interested opponent, so I hope he comes back to future tournaments.

Round 5 – Eric – GAT

This guy needs to come to more tournaments. It was like I met my soulmate when we started reciting the theme from the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire as only two honkies from the Midwest suburbs can. Plus, round five when you’re already clearly out of contention is always a blast.

Game one was an unadulterated plundering. His broken start included Black Lotus into Ancestral, and mine was more broken than that. I opened with Smokestack, Crucible, and Karn, though I don’t remember in exactly what order. An attack for seven and an attack for 12 were all that I needed to seal the deal.

I did not sideboard for game two. Consider it an experiment.

He played a first- or second-turn Dryad and was able to stop the first threat of my medium-speed opening hand. From there it was downhill and as Dryad grew my life total shrank.

I commented that now that I’ve had my broken start and he’s had his, we’d play a real game three. For the third game I switched out Karns for Duplicants and let it ride.

Then I won handily again in game three, even through Energy Flux thanks to my active Goblin Welder. We traded creatures in one attack after he made a mistake (growing his Dryad to 3/3 in the face of my 3/3 Mishra’s Factory), and I was able to capitalize and lock him out with Uba Masks. Solid.

This was the match that felt right. My testing of Albert Kyle’s Uba Stax suggested that it could mulligan into solid and explosive starts without trouble and, regardless of what the opponent did, could put together a synergistic lock. Once I stopped trying to sideboard my opponent into oblivion and let my deck work as it should, things went relatively well. I talked to Nam (being my go-to guy for Stax information) about sideboarding and he said sometimes you just have to change out one or two cards, a skill I think I need to learn for all of my decks.

I finished with a paltry 2-2-1 record, but the tournament was a lot more valuable to me than the record indicates. Sideboarding in general is one of my weaker areas (among many, let’s be honest), and I learned a lot in that direction this time around.

As for the deck itself, despite the ribbing I took from Jerry and Geoff in round three, Serum Powder was never a dog. There was never a point where I had a keepable hand and said, “Wow, I wish this Serum Powder was a Tangle Wire.” There were more times where I said, “Wow, I wish this hand I was mulliganing had a Serum Powder in it.” When it wasn’t letting me Wheel of Fortune myself into gas, I was able to play Serum Powder as a non-Workshop mana source, use it as an attacker with Karn, and Bazaar and Weld it away for something better. Honestly, between this tournament and my testing, I am convinced on Serum Powder in this deck.

I’ll probably continue using the deck at least in testing and as a possible tournament choice because Uba Stax really is one of the more entertaining decks I’ve played, what with all its interactions and craziness.

It’s times like this that I really just want to play more Vintage. What a fun format!

Luckily, my holiday break is coming up, when I’ll get some free time, and after that there’s another Gamers Lounge Second Saturday tournament. This will be the inaugural tournament of the 2008 Season in Sandusky. There were 23 players in December, and we should have just as many in January!

Second Saturday Vintage Tournaments
The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium or signed card or proxy just for signing up!

January 12, 2008
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Future tournaments will be scheduled for February 9, March 8, and April 12.

As a special bonus, if you are a new player or you bring a new player with you to the tournament, you'll get a bonus premium card or proxy. This is definitely the tournament I expect to see Dave Daugherty's grandmother come out for.

Anyway, good luck going into the holiday season. If anyone has any tips on buying for their gamer friends, let us all know here!

The Cube is Broooooken...

2007-11-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

Channel is the most broken card ever printed.

There’s actually a story behind this.

Last night I finally got to experience the fun, hilarity, and power of drafting The Cube at the Blystone’s house. We had six players—Twaun, Guhstin, Jeff, TK (later replaced by the Late JC), Budweg, and myself—and so decided to play the best six-player format ever, Generals. And we built decks for that by Winston drafting from The Cube.

In my first draft, with TK and Guhstin on my team against Jeff, Twaun, and Budweg, I was starting to draft mostly black. I had picked up Demonic Tutor some removal cards like Nekrataal, and topdecked a Hypnotic Specter. I had Dark Ritual and Cabal Coffers too. Then Darksteel Colossus came around and my goal became getting that into play with mana acceleration. Then Channel came around. Then Vampiric Tutor. Then Sylvan Tutor.

Suddenly my deck became combo-avec-jank. I had six cards to combo with: three tutors, Channel, the Iron Giant, and Recollect in case something went wrong. In a 40-card format, I like my odds. The rest of my cards were pretty inconsequential, though I had some removal and some guys.

We shuffled up for the first game, me across from Budweg’s right-flank, Twaun. My opening hand has Forest, Llanowar Elf, Demonic Tutor, Channel, Swamp, Swamp, Lotus Petal. Undisrupted, that is a second turn Darksteel.

I showed my hand to my teammates, and Guhstin started freaking out! If this were to work, it would be the most amazing thing ever in Cube draft.

I played a Llanowar Elf and passed, trying to be casual. Twaun sent a Lightning Bolt at its head, trying to slow my development. I thought my clock had been pushed back to third turn, but Guhstin gesticulates wildly to show that it wasn’t. Finally I realized what he was talking about, played another land and Lotus Petal, then Channeled into Demonic Tutor for Darksteel, sending myself to eight life.

Darksteel romped all over Twaun’s life total, then got a healthy 11 in on Budweg before it was Duplicated. We still had enough juice to finish them off, though, and a Ravenous Baloth from me punched through for the victory.

Game two was pretty much the same story, though I didn’t have to tutor for Darksteel.

Twaun was real emo after that. I guess he hasn’t won a game of Magic in, like, three years or something. Sorry, dude. Attack for 11, I guess.

Later, after the Late JC tagged out TK, I drafted Channel again, in a deck that included Fireball and Demonfire. And opened my first hand to find them both! How good!

It would have been shaky since I was at four life and my right flank was at three, but I think we were on our way to victory there. They scooped anyway.

Thinking about it, I think Winston drafting means generally more coherent but less powerful decks from The Cube. Since the entire Cube is divided up into 45-card chunks, which are then shuffled together in pairs to make 90-card drafting piles, a player can’t plan ahead on looking for certain cards because there’s a good chance they’ll be in someone else’s pile. Or not in the drafted cards at all.

What this indicates to me is that, in that situation, the most broken card that can be played (actually cast) and supported (cast in a deck that can use it) will win the game. This also means that if you find an exceptionally broken card (Tinker, Channel, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Will, et al.), you darn well better pick it up, pretty much regardless of whether you can use it or not.

Whenever a Wizards know-it-all talks about broken cards and combo, they usually mention the concept of an “engine,” a card or series of cards that turns one resource into another.

In my opinion, the best examples of these cards are, in order, Channel, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, and Necropotence. These are the most broken cards in Magic; if they were differently costed, every deck would play them. These cards are the best at taking your top early-game resource, life, and turning it into a more useful resource, either mana or cards.

Channel is super, super cheap for what it does. Two green mana and some life is a pittance to make 19 mana. If it cost UU or BB, it would be played in every Vintage deck that could support it, probably for exactly the same thing I used it for—playing some massive artifact with which to beat face.

Also, it’s the best card in Belcher; anyone who cuts it is an idiot and I hate them.

Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Necropotence change life into cards, and everybody knows that card-drawing is where it’s at. The problem with these cards that keeps them from being more broken than Channel is that the former is too expensive for the early game (usually, Dark Rituals aside), and the second has an awkward clause about not giving you the cards until next turn and before you discard.

Yawgmoth’s Will is probably fourth. It’s undercosted and has an amazing effect on your hand-size, but it loses some strength based on it needing some buildup to be really good. Obviously there are decks (GrimLong and other tendrils-based combo) that can abuse this, but for most decks it’s a game-breaking mid-game card, rather than a game-winning early-game card, like Channel.

Anyway, I’m sure everybody knows and has their opinions about broken cards in Magic. I don’t really want to get into a debate. I’m just saying that, in my opinion, Channel is the most amazing card ever printed and you would be loath to let it pass you in a Cube draft. From there, any big spells you can play off of it (Demonfire anyone?) will win you the game.

I Have No Standards

2007-11-19T21:27:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I played Standard for the first time in a long time. It was a fun experience. I mean, it didn’t go well, and I’m not sure I’d be eager to take it on in the future, but, still, it was a fun time.

I found out about the tournament last Wednesday, when Nam posted it on the Northeast Ohio Gaming forums. By Friday, I had a deck to play, Adam Budweg’s UB Faeries:

4x Cloud Sprite
4x Nightshade Stinger
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Oona’s Prowler
4x Scion of Oona
2x Mistbind Clique
2x Sower of Temptation
1x Loxodon Warhammer
4x Faerie Trickery
4x Familiar’s Ruse
4x Secluded Glen
2x River of Tears
Xx Islands
Xx Swamps

Sideboard
4x Pithing Needle
2x Sower of Temptation
2x Mistbind Clique
3x Extirpate

And, uh, some other cards. I’ll probably get that updated later. Maybe. I’m sure there were some other things in there. Cards seem good in a Magic deck, you know? Plus, I’m pretty sure it’s required that there be at least 60 cards in the maindeck and 15 cards in the sideboard.

Anyway, I really liked the look of the deck. In fact, I still do. I’m about three drinks away from trying to put that together in Vintage. Okay, four drinks.

Nam told me that Budweg told him that it’s more of a tempo deck than Josh Silvestri’s list, which can be found here. That sounds about right. Most of that tempo seems to come from the hands you start out with, though. I mean, there were a lot of games where I just had to play beatdown and hope to draw into something useful.

Maybe.

I could actually just be really bad.

I did have to be told after the tournament that Pithing Needle comes in against decks running Desert because Desert kills this deck. That little tidbit I learned myself.

Right.

So the tournament was at a new store in Shelby, Ohio called Realm Comics. It was a pretty okay store housed in half of the bottom half of a Masonic Temple. There was bolted door that I assume went either to the vault of jewels and dead bodies or to the parking lot. Shelby is in the middle of nowhere, but is surprisingly conveniently located between Toledo, Cleveland, and Columbus. Plus it’s not excruciatingly far off of I-71. Basically the one complaint I heard about the venue was that the tables were really dirty, and they were.

Oh, well, the other problem people had was that the three guys running the store played in their own tournament. One of them even split top-two, an Ancestral Recall and a box of Lorwyn boosters. How good for him. And the store, since they can have a tournament for it next month too.

Anyway, thirty-one people showed up to play. Pretty good.

Round 1 – Josh – MBC

Who am I kidding? I played against Elfman, and was extremely disappointed to find out he wasn’t playing Elves. He seemed cool though, and I’m glad to have met him, though I was upset that he didn’t want to roll two six-sided dice, add them, multiply by another sixer, then subtract a twenty-sider, looking for the lower result. Oh well.

Game one opened with me playing some lands and Oona’s Prowler, while he raped my hand with two or three Skull Augurs. After being hit by Standard’s version of Hymn to Tourach, my hand was none too hot, so Elfman was able to stabilize with Graveborn Muse followed by Korlash the Magnificent and killing my Prowler with Tendrils of Corruption to gain six life. Pretty good. I was holding Psi-Blast in hand but he only went down to six from the Muse before he attacked for lethal.

I had Oona’s Prowler again and Scion of Oona to start game two, but he 2-for-1’d me when I tried to make a Mistbind Clique during his upkeep. I thought things were still going okay for me when I countered his first Korlash and had a Sower for his second, but he had removal for my Scion then the Sower. Liliana Vess kept my hand-size down and then I died.

Yep, pretty bad. He ended the second game at 24 life. I told him afterward that I was disappointed that he didn’t go on to win the tournament after beating me in the first round. I was half kidding.

Round 2 – Caleb – MUC

I’m pretty sure Caleb was playing Counterspell.dec. It seemed pretty neat, and, as he pointed out, it really didn’t do anything but draw cards and counter things.

Game one was going great as I had Cloud Sprite then Oona’s Prower to beat down and he, umm, drew some cards and countered some things. Things looked bleak when he transmuted Tolaria West for Desert, but I topdecked Scion of Oona like a champ and won the game anyway. Scion of Oona was definitely a card I wanted to see more of every game.

The second and third games were surprisingly similar, so I think I’ll just combine them into one paragraph with double the stakes. I play some little beater guys; he plays Guile and smashes my face. The difference is that in game two he played Teferi, and in game three, I Extirpated Teferi and Razormane Masticore. In neither case was it particularly close. Well, I guess in game two I knocked him down to one life before he won. Whatever.

Round 3 – Randal – Vintage

When I played against the third person I knew, I decided that was it for me.

“Randal, you want to just play Vintage for this instead?”

“Sure, I don’t care.”

“Me either!”

So we played two Vintage matches in the time everyone else took to play one Standard match, if that tells you anything. Randal was testing his new WBG Gaddock Teeg list:

4x Dark Confidant
3x Jotun Grunt
3x Gaddock Teeg
3x Aven Mindcensor
4x Glowrider
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Kataki, War's Wage
4x Thorn of Amethyst
4x Duress
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vamp. Tutor
1x Regrowth
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Rudy
1x Black Lotus

4x Mishra's Factory
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
1x Windswept Heath
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
4x Waste

SB
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Disenchant
3x Engineered Plague
2x Sword of fire and Ice
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Balance

It’s a pretty good list, I think. I think it needs a couple more Duress effects, though, or something else that lets it interact a little bit more on turn one. Especially since that’s when he lost two games against Belcher. There are lots of good plays to make against Belcher in that deck (not the least of which is Gaddock “Your Win Conditions All Cost 4” Teeg), but most of them are two drops, which means Belcher gets three free turns on the play.

Against TranStax, Gaddock Teeg went 1-2 again, losing to a crazy draw with Ancestral that ended with Tinker for Sundering Titan and the win and scooping to a board filled with artifact hate. I think he should have waited that game out, though.

He did, however, go 3-1, if not better, against Fish. He’s got some big dudes in that deck.

It could be okay against Gush strategies, though I don’t remember how he did against Jerry Yang’s GAT deck. It’s so crazy, it just might work.

Of course, all the talk among the Cleveland gamers was the December 8 Gamers Lounge tournament:

Second Saturday Vintage Tournaments

The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium card just for signing up!

December 8, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Yeah, Vintage sounds awesome right now. Everyone who is anyone will be there. I think I even heard Elfman say he’d be interested, since it’s full proxy. Yeah!

50 Goblins and 5 Smoking Craters - 19th at SCG Day 2

2007-11-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

After a difficult though well done (in my opinion anyway) Star City day one, Saturday night was again spent testing and reconstructing decks. People were rebuilding GAT to take into consideration the metagame from the day’s event, so now the ‘T’ in GAT would stand for Tarmogoyf, for example, and everyone was telling me not to play Fish again.

My plan going into Star City was to play Fish day one and either reward myself with playing Belcher day two if I won power or to punish myself by playing GAT if I didn’t. Instead, at the near insistence of Jerry Yang, I decided to console myself by playing Belcher instead. He and I spent a few hours testing it in the atrium of the hotel.

Odd sidenote: The atrium had a sign outside that said it closed at 10 p.m. We went in and tested there anyway. While we’re there, a gaggle of small children is out roaming the halls and riding the elevators, not being especially noisy for children, but still louder than a hotel after 11 p.m. should be. So we’re sitting in the atrium, testing quietly, when the security guard comes up and tells us the area is closed and we have to move. Then he points us to another table, just outside the atrium apparently—the distinction wasn’t very clear, and the new table was right outside a couple of rooms. While he’s escorting us to this new table, the gaggle of children runs by and he ignores them.

I think that guy might be focusing on the wrong parts of his job. It just struck me as odd. Also, he kept pointing out this other table that we could move to, as though we didn't see it the first time he indicated it. I still don't know how it was outside the atrium.

So anyway, I was happy enough in testing that I decided Belcher would be a fine deck for day two, and nobody really steered me away from it this time. Here’s what I played:

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
4x Street Wraith
3x Goblin Welder
3x Pyroblast
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Living Wish
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Grim Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Taiga

Sideboard
2x Tarmogoyf
1x Storm Entity
1x Goblin Welder
1x Ingot Chewer
2x Gorilla Shaman
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Shattering Spree
1x Taiga
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Mishra’s Workshop
1x Bazaar of Baghdad

That’s right; Tarmogoyf proved his dominance again by showing up in the sideboard of my list. I can’t remember any games where he didn’t come in, either. Probably, I wanted three in the board, but I’m not sure what I would have dropped for the third. Ancient Tomb and Mox Monkey number three sat out for the two I got in there.

The maindeck is largely the same as the one I’ve been playing, though I cut Serum Powders a while ago and put everything back in that I had taken out. After extensive testing (I goldfish this deck all the dang time and play against it when I want to test against combo), I realized that Jerry had been right all along about Serum Powder being the worst topdeck ever. I’ve not looked back.

Also, I should probably play more Ingot Chewers between the main and the side, or at least test them more. He seems good against a lot of different things, especially Thorn of Amethyst. I could see cutting a maindeck Red Blast or two for some sort of artifact destruction, and Chewer might make the cut there.

Anyway, pre-tournament was largely the same as last time, except that as I was filling out my decklist at Denny’s, I had to show it to Jerry to see what restricted card I was missing. He looked over the list for a few minutes, then gave me an are-you-kidding look and said, “You’re missing the best card in here!”

“What?” I ask.

“The green one that’s part of all the really easy wins in the deck!”

Oh yeah! The brokenest card ever if its cost were blue or black—1x Channel. Please add that to the list above.

Ninety people shuffled up and dealt for day two, which was unfortunate because Mystic Gaming (who was supplying the prizes) refused to give out prizes through the top 16 for some reason. I guess $2,700 wasn’t quite good enough for them. Whatever.

Anyway...

Round 1 – Zak – GAT

Zak was a fine opponent who took some pre-game hits from a friend of his who implied that he was a bad player. This gave me some hope of winning round one, though since I hadn’t realized my own problem yet (which I’ll explain before round three) I was also a bad player. Zak was polite and friendly, though, and we both laughed at our inabilities to win.

In game one I used the power of Lotus and Mana Vault to power 12 goblin tokens out of the Warrens. My last card in hand was Pyroblast, but my opponent scooped before I could get a chance to use it.

Game two, Zak got a great start by playing Fastbond and Demonic Tutoring for Ancestral. Unfortunately, his draw spells must have chained into more lands, and when he Gushed with one card in hand, I Blasted it in hopes of crippling him there. Later he told me that the one card in hand was Yawgmoth’s Will, which allowed him to do everything over again, still finding no action, and putting Zak to eleven life. With no action myself, I decided to cast an Elvish Spirit Guide and start beating. I think If I had played two Guides I could have pulled this one out, but my opponent found Goyf and Time Walk and won instead.

I made some mana on turn one of game three, but nothing else. Zak Ancestralled and played Needle for Belcher and Tutored for Trickbind. Unfortunately, that’s where it ended. Five turns came and went, so we drew.

Match 0-0-1; Games 1-1-1; Goblins 12

Who draws with Belcher? Honestly! Neither one of us should do that. Belcher should win or lose, never draw.

Round 2 – Steve – Trinket Fish

I don’t remember whether Steve’s deck had Tarmogoyfs in it or not. I think it was more like Bruce’s deck from round one the day before. Either way, Trinket Mage for Pithing Needle hurts Belcher bad.

Steve won the roll and made a first turn Dark Confidant. Then he Drained the Welder I was hoping to use to get Belcher into play. Then he played Trinket Mage, going to get Pithing Needle. From there it was pretty much over. Confidant and Trinket Mage stomped me flat in six turns.

The second game was pretty much the same story except I actually got Goblin Welder into play and blocked a Dark Confidant with it. Unfortunately, he had the backup Confidant and the Trinket Mage for Needle, and I lost in short order.

Match 0-1-1; Games 1-3-1; Goblins 12

At this point the tournament broke for a forty-five minute lunch, and the Trogvan adjourned to Potbelly Sandwich Works for lunch. There, like Juan finally correctly punching Jimmy McCarthy’s sub sandwich, the realization hit me like a fist from the heavens: Belcher is not Fish!

Why this concept took so long to hit me, I don’t know. The last four hands I kept were terrible, terrible Belcher hands. Mana, Welders, and Red Blasts are totally weak in a deck that’s meant to win on turn one. I need at least one threat, possibly two, and it’s even better if the mana’s there to play one or both of them. This version of Belcher is meant to be consistent and to mulligan well—so, mulligan! My opponent shouldn’t even have time to Trinket Mage for Pithing Needle because he should be lying dead in a smoking crater!

Armed with this newfound knowledge and a belly full of meatball sub and mocha shake, I went back with the Ohio Crew, determined to win out! Raaawrrr!

Round 3 – Bob – GAT

Bob was friendly, but I really don’t remember too much about this match. I think I'm getting it and the next one confused.

Bob mulliganed in game one, and I opened with Street Wraith and won. I assume I made Belcher and activated it since I don’t have him taking any damage from goblins, but I’m not sure. My life total went from 20 to 18; his stayed at 20, then game two started.

I kept a good opener in game two that unfortunately folded to Bob’s turn one Duress. Then he played Tarmogoyf and began the beats, resolving Needle on Belcher and Welder along the way. Though I kept plugging away and gave myself some turns by throwing out must-counter threats, my opponent took this one fairly quickly after Vamping for Fastbond.

I opened game three with 10 goblin tokens. This was too fast for my opponent to deal with and after drawing for his turn and playing some land, he scooped, unable to get Engineered Explosives and the activation mana to save himself.

Match 1-1-1; Games 3-4-1; Goblins 22

I’d add some insight here, but I just don’t remember having any. Stupid Belcher players.

Round 4 – Brennan - GAT

Brennan was a quiet opponent who seemed very tired, probably in part because he drove more than 1,000 miles from his home in Colorado. Our games were fairly long and, like I said, I can’t distinguish this match from my previous one except that I know afterward we both admitted to having made play mistakes.

Game one was overkill. My opponent Thoughtseized Goblin Welder out of my hand, leaving me with mana and Empty the Warrens. Obviously, since he left Empty, he had easy access to Echoing Truth, but I had to do it anyway. I made eight goblins, and he played Echoing Truth into my Red Elemental Blast, a card he knew I had from the Thoughtseize. I attacked for eight and was able to make Belcher. I finished him off on my next upkeep with the blast.

We both mulliganed in game two—him to six, me to five—and that slowed us down a bit. He was fortunate to open the game with a Pithing Needle on Belcher, and things went downhill for me from there. My notes indicate he played Ancestral, Dryad, and time Walk, then Goyf, then Vampiric Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will. I’m not sure how I beat that short of immediate combo.

I mulliganed to six in game three, keeping a slower hand with an early Goyf and a Wheel of Fortune for later. He Duressed my REB and saw my plans, but has no counter for the Wheel. Goyf got some beats in (though I should have played Wheel before I attacked, so he’d be bigger), and my opponent had no counter for my draw-7. I made a mistake by not playing Empty the Warrens to finish him off, and Brennan capitalized by ripping the card from my hand next turn. Fortunately he could only delay losing by playing Echoing Truth out of his graveyard with Yawgmoth’s Will, and I win with Vintage’s new hot creature card.

Match 2-1-1; Games 5-5-1; Goblins 30

There were serious mistakes on both sides of these games, starting with him allowing me to counter the Echoing Truth and ending with me not breaking game three wide open with Empty the Warrens. If it weren’t for those, I’d say this was my best match of the day.

Round 5 – Keith – Goblins

Poor Keith. He had no idea what was coming. Still he was a friendly competitor and seemed interested in the deck afterward.

Game one, since I didn’t know what he was playing, I kept a weak Empty the Warrens hand and made six goblins. Usually this would enough pressure to win turn three, though it’s iffy. His opening play was Lotus, Goblin Sharpshooter, go. How good for him! He shot my goblins, drew lands before I could rebuild, and killed me.

Game two I played, Lotus, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, Sol Ring, Simian Spirit Guide, Belcher. Belch?

Game three he played Mountain, Goblin Welder. I answered with Land Grant, Taiga, Simian Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, Wheel of Fortune with one red floating. Then I continued with Rite of Flame, Petal, Tinder Wall, Black Lotus, Belcher. Belch?

Match 3-1-1; Games 7-6-1; Goblins 36

Dang. Sorry, Keith. I guess next time play Force of Will? I had tested some games against Goblins before day one and could not win. Jimmy kept telling me, “Win on turn one!” and I was keeping stupid hands with Welders. I’m glad I finally listened to him.

Round 6 – Stephen – GAT

Stephen Menendian. Of course. Thank you, computer, for pairing me against a friend I rode up with, the most famous Vintage player today, the guy who invented and reinvented the deck he’s playing. Oh, and at a time where one of us has to win and the other has to go home. Weak.

I’m not saying that I couldn’t win; I’m just saying this pairing was about the most unfortunate one either of us could have. GAT is not a lock against Belcher.

In game one, I mulliganed twice while Steve mulliganed once. I played Mox Ruby and Goblin Welder, which Steve does not counter. When Steve Duressed me he saw a handful of gasoline, including Belcher. “I have to prevent you from getting to four mana,” he said, and took my Chrome Mox. My best chance to win was Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Steve’s hand was slow enough that I have time to do it. Three or four turns after being Duressed, my hand is perfect—Lotus Petal, REB, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Force of Ape. I played Lotus Petal; Steve thinks about it, then counters. I played LED. “Oh God!” said Steve. “Do I lose? I think I lose!” He did. I discarded my hand, Welded in Belcher, and cratered him.

Game two, Thoughtseize took my Mox Emerald, crippling my mana and preventing me from playing the Tarmogoyf in my hand. For my draw, I get Land Grant to find Taiga, cast Goyf and begin the beats. Steve matched with a Goyf of his own, and our beaters stared each other down. I was drawing awesome cards, though—Memory Jar, Channel, Living Wish for my second Taiga. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish it. Steve goes combo mode and I scooped since we’re running low on time.

As we shuffled and resolved mulligans for game three, a judge came up and asked us if the game had started yet. We said no, but we’re about to. He said we couldn’t start because we’re already past time. What a gyp. I had mulliganed to Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Belcher, Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame. Steve had mulliganed to Force of Will. A battle of the titans was about to commence, and the stupid judge came in and wrecked it.

Match 2-1-2; Games 8-7-2; Goblins 36 (I think I missed some somewhere)

I scooped Steve past me. One of us was in contention, and the other was out. We both assumed he had the better chance.

Match 2-2-1; Games 8-8-2; Goblins 36

This all would have been okay had Steve won his next match. Oops! Oh well. I guess we can’t win them all.

Round 7 – Don Juan Diego de la Vega Rodriguez – GAT

At this point, Juan and I were playing pretty much for fun, as evidenced by the fact that Juan blatantly cheated in game one and then blatantly punted in game two. Juan told me beforehand that he was going to dreamcrush me, “Just like you dreamcrushed Twaun!” Then he said later that he was going to scoop to me anyway.

I’m not sure why he would scoop to me, though, since my last round loss would have put me too far out of contention to matter. Like I said, prizes did not go down to 16th day two, and there was no way I would make top 8.

Oh well. The game notes for game one are good enough to type.

I opened game one with Empty the Warrens for ten and get in a swing. Juan Mystical Tutored on turn two, revealing Echoing Truth. “I hope you have Lotus to cast it,” I said. “I do,” he replied, playing Mox Jet and Sapphire from his hand. Ouch. I played Empty the Warrens for six next turn, and he matched it; our guys stare at each other. I hardcast Street Wraith off of Lotus, he Forced it and comboed off.

The key thing to realize here is that Juan’s Mystical Tutors are better than other people’s. When he Tutored, not only could he put an instant or sorcery on the top of his deck, he could also pick any two 0cc artifacts and put them in his hand. Man, that card is such a beating against Empty the Warrens.

Watching game two, Jerry Yang was going into convulsions over the plays Juan is making. After Juan put multiple lands in play on one turn without the use of Fastbond, he shuffled Fastbond and YawgWill into his library with Brainstorm and a fetchland. Then he tutored for Yawgmoth’s Will. Funny thing was, he still might have won that game. I only had Goyf on board.

We must have ended the day there, because I don’t have notes for game three. Like I said, I think Juan and I should have played it out. He loses game one (probably), wins game two (probably), and we let game three decide it for real.

Match 3-2-1; Games 10-8-2; Goblins 52

Next time, I guess.

So that’s it. Jimmy McCarthy and Jerry Yang made top eight on day one playing GAT and Workshop Aggro respectively. Congratulations, guys! Unfortunately, nobody made it in on day two.

I finished 43rd on day one and 19th on day two. I feel that’s respectable. Certainly I would have liked to do better, but I didn’t wake up this morning crying into my Cheerios. The highs and lows of this weekend were dispersed throughout a generally awesome time, hanging out with friends, eating awesome pizza, and playing Magic. The only way that could get better is winning, but I don’t need a Mox to feel better.

Plus, Vintage was a lot of fun this weekend (even though Tarmogoyf was all over the place and is now one of the best cards in any format ever). The metagame feels wide-open right now, a far cry from July, when everyone was playing Gush so that seemed like all you faced.

Out of fourteen matches, I played seven different decks. That doesn’t seem too bad. And most of the others were GAT decks that I faced day two at the higher tables. There’s obviously some reason for concern over Gush, but it seems like people have adapted to beat it enough that it’s just a solid choice, not the only choice.

We’ll see what happens, I guess. The December B&R list could be pretty interesting if the people in charge take any of Menendian’s recommendations from the Invitational.

For now, I’ll just be waiting for the next tournament, and I hope you’ll all be there. It will be awesome. Here’s the December Gamers Lounge tournament!

The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium card just for signing up!

December 8, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Mistaking Myself for Granted - 43rd at SCG Day 1

2007-11-13T01:43:00.000-05:00

Star City puts on some fantastic events. If I weren’t so exhausted, I’m sure there would have been an exclamation point after that sentence, but the extra button pushing just wouldn’t happen.

Oh man. Forty-eight hours of Magic extravaganza. Extravaganza!

There we go.

Everything started off great, as I got to take a half-day on Friday to drive Dave Daugherty, Stephen Menendian, and myself to Toledo, where we met Yangtime, Snoop Trogg Don Juan Diego de la Vega Rodriguez, and Jimmy McCarthy at Twaun’s apartment to consolidate cars and ate some hot extruded pork and beef. Thanks, Twaun!

Oh, also, Steve apparently trapped the cat Twaun and the Late JC have been trying to trap for a while.

Six hours later...

In the hotel room, most of us set ourselves to building and perfecting decks, gathering cards, writing out lists, and testing. The only major action came with the delivered pizza, as Jimmy almost lost a panini to Juan’s fist of doom. Juan was stymied by his own indecisiveness, though, as he couldn’t remember whether Jimmy was “in” on Sandwich Punch, and Jimmy was able to dive back and save his food from flattening.

The next day was down to business. Star City registered 123 players and would indeed be giving out the Power Nine for first through ninth and some impressive cards through the top 16, including Juzam Djinn and a string of black-bordered Dual Lands. The convention hall at the College of DuPage was large, clean, well-lit, and spacious. Plus, the sound-damping walls kept the noise from getting out of hand and produced some interesting dead areas.

Here’s the deck I registered for Day 1.

4x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Meddling Mage
3x Jotun Grunt
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Stormscape Apprentice
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Stifle
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
3x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
2x Island
1x Plains
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
4x Kataki, War's Wage
4x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Pithing Needle
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa's Jitte

The change from Hapless Researcher to Stormscape Apprentice was absolutely correct. First, there was no Ichorid that I saw, and that’s the only deck Happy is defensive against. Second, the amount of huge creatures was astonishing. To spoil a bit of the surprise, by my count there were 15 Tarmogoyfs and 12 Gushes in the top 8 day one.

Putting the Apprentices maindeck, I felt meant I could drop Bouncers from the sideboard. That gave me room for the four Thorns to bring in against combo and Gushes.

Long story short, I was really pleased with the deck and really annoyed at how many opportunities I missed to play better. There were at least two games I think I would have won, had I just paid attention. They might not have led to more match wins, but still.

Anyway, after the player meeting, the spit hit the pan, so to speak—

Round 1 – Bruce – URB Mask Naught

Bruce is a good opponent that I usually run into at the RIW tournaments in Michigan. He’s serious when it comes to the game, but is willing to talk and joke about the little things. All in all, a fun match up, but a challenging first round.

I opened game one by Wasting his Volcanic Island and sending one of his Mishra’s Factories farming (at this point, I was suspecting UR Landstill). I applied some pressure, taking him down in small increments with the Moxie Crew and in larger increments with Jotun Grunt. He got Phyrexian Dreadnaught into play with Stifle, but I had Stormscape Apprentice the following turn and took only one hit, sending me to 8. Stormy held the board for me, and I won from that.

Game two he Stifled my first fetchland, which would have set me back had I not had Mox Pearl. I played Pithing Needle on Illusionary Mask, but he Repealed a first turn Explosives to reset them at one and blow up my Needle. I played Aven Mindcensor to hopefully shut off his fetchlands, but he continually found lands in the top four—how nice. Finally, he Pyroclasm'd one Bird and Drained a second to empty my board. Illusionary Mask hit, and Bruce put two upside-down Dreadnaughts into play. I drew three Swords to Plowshares, two of which got through to give my opponent 24 life and send him to 37—ouch. Sword of Fire and Ice hit play on my side of the board, but he keeps me off creatures long enough to finish me off with his own Fishy guys.

Bruce got three Mishra’s Factories in game three to block my second turn Ninja. Those lands proved to be a constant pain for me, and he kept me off my fliers. We traded beats periodically, and he took enough damage from Dark Confidant (eventually he had two in play) to put himself even with me. I was attacked by two Confidants and two Factories at eight life with; he was at four. Looking at the situation, I knew I had to leave his Dark Confidants alive so that he could die to them next turn; instead, I blocked one factory and a Bob, going to four. He does not reveal Force of Will and lived to attack me to death next turn.

Matches 0-1-0; Games 1-2-0

It was a significant mistake. I had no options to kill him myself in game three, and he probably had tricks, but I definitely missed an opportunity there. On the other hand, I feel like I played adeptly around a Trickbind he never had in game one. Why play around the imagined threats and ignore the very present ones? I don’t know.

Round 2 – Brandon – Mono-Red Shop Aggro

I don’t remember my opponent very well other than that he was quiet and seemed discouraged, even though he had the upper hand.

We both mulliganed to open game one and started with one drops—Mox Monkey versus Stormy. Soon he had a Magus of the Moon (against my Island and Plains) and I had a Jotun Grunt that could live for two turns. I won the damage race until he found and played Juggernaut. While Stormy held off Big Juggs, his other creatures got in and kill me. I could have kept Jotun Grunt alive to block his Juggernaut, but didn’t. I don’t remember the specifics of that, though.

Kataki hit play in game two and hampered his development, but he found enough Mountains before I found enough creatures to kill him. I can’t swing with Kataki, since his opening play was Goblin Welder. When he played Sword of Fire and Ice, it was pretty much over. Though he was locked down for multiple turns, I only hit him to 12.

Matches 0-2-0; Games 1-4-0

The note I wrote at the end of this game emotes, “Where are my dudes?!” This game was eminently winnable, if I could have found things to deal damage in all the turns he was stuck. Reason for running Brainstorm? Possibly. It certainly made for a very unhealthy start, and with 23 creatures, I would have thought it unlikely as well.

Round 3 – Matt Hazard – Mono Black

It’s never fun to meet friends at the tournament tables; though meeting them this far down in the casual circuit makes it a little better. Or worse. Depending on your point of view. I guess. Matt’s deck was interesting—a lot of discard, four Dark Confidant, four Nantuko Shade, and a Tendrils finish if he could get there. Plus, Dash Hopes was a total surprise.

Matt opened game one with a Dark Ritual, then Duress and Dark Confidant. Pretty good. I had creatures too, though, and he was short on lands. Bob was not helping him in the damage race, and wasn’t helping him find lands either, as he had to Imperial Seal for a Swamp. When I tried to play Grunt as a finisher, with plenty of cards in both graveyards thanks to all the discard, Matt tried to Dash my Hopes. Unfortunately for him, I still had plenty of life to pay, and the game ended quickly from there.

Game two was surprisingly similar—Matt opened with a turn one Hymn to Tourach and followed with Demonic Tutor. The Nantuko Shade he played would have been a threat, but he was so low on mana that I was able to double block and kill it. Dark Confidant showed me two Dash Hopes on consecutive turns, so when I played Meddling Mage that was the most reasonable call against my opponent’s three-card hand. So, yes, I put Meddling Mage on Dash Hopes. Matt Vampiric Tutored for Swamp (again!), and double Grunts hit him hard before finishing him off.

Matches 1-2-0; Games 3-4-0

So, yeah. Matt, you’re always a pleasure to play against, but next time, let’s do it a little higher up in the standings, or at kitchen table arena. Matt had the consolation prize, though, of going to the Bulls game after dropping. Apparently the game was terrible, but still, sounded fun.

Round 4 – Quinn – Stasis

Quinn seemed like one of the younger players there, and Stasis, wow, what a bold choice. I looked through his deck afterwards because I was curious about it; seemed interesting. Frozen Aether allows it to be mono-blue, and it might just take one or two more cards to make that deck a consideration.

The story behind this match, however, is that between some earlier rounds, I overheard Juan say that he had two “byes,” including Stasis. Because of that comment, I knew there was Stasis in the room and was far too prepared to face it.

In game one, Quinn opened with Island, Black Vise, go and effectively Lightning Bolted me on my first and second turn upkeeps. My opening hand had enough lands to keep up, though, and I played Mage on Brainstorm on turn two, turning that into a Ninja (Ninja and Vise are a combo, let me tell you) next turn. Mage came down again just in the nick of time naming Stasis, and it was all pretty much over from there. I took eight damage from Vise all game.

I brought in Thorn of Amethyst for game two, though I’m not sure I had to. Seemed like it would hobble him if he gets Stasis down. Anyway, he Spell Snared one Thorn on turn one. Ninja came down again, along with another Mage on Stasis, and an Aven Mindcensor, so the game looked to be locked up until he played Energy Field. That is a card I did not know existed! I was wondering how to get out of this, but realized it wouldn’t be hard. We got into a counter war over Black Vise, a card he would have had to discard anyway, and Energy Field powered down. I swung in for the win.

Matches 2-2-0; Games 5-4-0

Like I said, I was more than prepared for this. Putting a Mage on Stasis both games really hurt his gameplan, since, well, that was his gameplan. I think he was playing his Gushes too early too; in Stasis it seems more like a lock piece and an emergency draw-spell than a free draw-spell early in the game.

Round 5 – Brian – GAT

Brian was a fun opponent to play against, and he knew GAT pretty well, which is bad for me. We had some good back-and-forth games, though, and Stormscape Apprentice again showed his worth, and Empty the Warrens showed its power.

The shorthand of game one is that Brian opened with Fastbond. His double Gushes must have been incredibly weak, though, as he seemed to take a while to put anything together. First turn Stormy held back his Tarmogoyf until he Cunning Wished for Fire & Ice. By then, I had multiple Swords to Plowshares and nailed the Goyf. He played a desperate Empty the Warrens for four guys to stay alive and comboed into a Quirion Dryad that finished me off.

Game two was odd. Both of us spent a long time drawing completely irrelevant cards, which for me meant mana and for him meant more draw spells. He countered two Birdmen and took damage from two Grunts, but he finally got a respectably large Dryad and Strom Goyfman into play to finish me off. I’m just not sure why it took so long.

Matches 2-3-0; Games 5-6-0

That loss officially put me out of contention, even though I would have been a longshot up until that point anyway. I think I could have won the second game because my other first turn play was a Mox Jet. All those times we were just drawing cards, doing nothing I could have been shooting him with Stormscape Apprentice. It might just have put him down far enough to finish off since I only needed a few more points. Ouch.

Round 6 – no show – Success!

My round six opponent doesn’t show, so I play some games against Willy Milton and his Staxless Stax deck. We went 1-1, but I didn’t take notes.

Round 7 – Frank – Turbo Titan Gilded Aggro

Frank was a cool opponent, and his deck seemed neat and fun to play too. Workshops and Drains in the same deck? Awesome! I saw him playing at the same tables with the same deck on day two, so it seems like they must be pretty good together.

In game one, Frank mulliganed, and I opened with Stormscape Apprentice. He played Island and passed, attempting to play a Brainstorm on my end step. I play Spellstutter Sprite, and he has to Force of Will it. Yes! Unfortunately for him, that meant he really didn’t have much gas. He took some damage from his pain lands (i.e. ones that don’t die to Sundering Titan); I Forced a 7/10; and he died to beats. The last note I have on this game is “Draws desperately TT, MD” but I’m not sure what those abbreviations are for.

Game two he played a second-turn Triskelion. I gave that enough targets that I’m able to make it trade with my guys, but my resources are depleted after I countered Tinker. He draws and casts a second Triskelion, a Welder, and a Platinum Angel for the win.

Goblin Welder meets Pithing Needle in game three, and Kataki meets Force of Will. Frank never saw a land beyond the first one, though, and I found a Strip Mine for that a few turns into the game. Academic—Ninja, two Stormy, Grunt, Mage on Brainstorm, and Kataki versus Mox Ruby.

Matches 3-3-0; Games 7-7-0

My sixth-round bye gave me a 4-3-0 record and 43rd place overall. It would be nice to say I made the top third of players, but unfortunately I’m just out of that particular tier

Still, the deck was pleasing. It could probably stand a little more draw power to find spells, which means I should probably figure out how to get four Brainstorms in there. Also, where were my Stifles? I saw so few of them all day! I consider that a strong weapon against a lot of decks, including GAT, and I can’t even remember holding one in my hand or pitching one to Force.

My two little guys—Stormy and Essie—were solid all day. Stormscape Apprentice was definitely right over Hapless Researcher, and Spellstutter Sprites countered multiple spells, and when they didn’t, they turned into Ninjas or flew over defenses.

Aven Mindcensor must be viewed as a huge deterrent by some players. The only one I played that didn’t get countered was the one against Bruce in round one, who Pyroclasm’d it away a couple turns later, so he could fetch. I know his effect is strong, but I never saw it as being that much of a threat!

I think I should have put in a few more hours at the practice tables for this tournament. There were multiple times—many of which I marked—where I made the blatantly wrong play and possibly cost myself the game. Clearly Fish was not going to be the best deck in the format, but I should really have played it better to make it come even close. I spent a large part of the day being frustrated with myself at obvious mistakes, starting with that missed block in round one.

Anyway, still a total blast.

That night, Juan, Steve, Willy, Trogdon, and I got pizza at Giardano’s. My pepperoni and mushroom Chicago-style deep dish romped through the top eight and came home with the prize easily, no sideboarding. I consider being able to go to that dinner a match win.

Plus, in bigger news, that’s also where we found out that Stephen Menendian is in on Sandwich Punch. Look out world!

Why Winston Draft

2007-11-08T01:25:00.000-05:00

I’m sure for most Vintage players, all the real action will be coming up this weekend. The first two-day Star City event in almost a year is coming up in Chicago, and everyone will be watching closely. Not only is this expected to be a big draw for players all around the North-Central US, but also this is one of the last major events before the December 1 restriction (or unrestriction!) announcement, and it will be the first major event using Lorwyn cards.

Basically, it’s a big deal. Though it’s coming down to the wire if you want to go and haven’t made plans, I encourage you to at least take a look at the results when it’s all over. Lots could happen.

Of course, if you won’t be weekending in the Windy City, you should visit beautiful Sandusky, Ohio instead! The Gamers Lounge is hosting a special Vintage event as an introduction to the format. Players who attend will be able to enjoy a little freedom, since some of the area’s big names will, of course, be in Chicago. Players will also have the special opportunity to earn some proxies (usable in the tournament; it’s full-proxy, after all) made by yours truly.

Plus, Gamers Lounge events are always a huge blast. There’s lots of room for players, lots of singles for last-minute purchases and trade, and the opponents aren’t jerks! Check it out!

November 10, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium card just for signing up!

So yeah, there’s a lot going on this weekend, whether you’re heading out of town or staying in.

I went out of town last weekend, to Washington, DC to see my girlfriend, Elizabeth. We had our regular bit of fun, touring, hiking, and generally hanging out, but she also agreed (surprisingly readily, I might add) to try out a Magic format new to me: Winston Draft, one of the featured formats at this year’s Invitational.

My girlfriend likes limited formats, I think, because things feel a bit more even. There aren’t especially good matchups or bad matchups from the outset, even though there are good strategies and worse. Plus, the decks play out a little more simply—synergy is mostly inherent and there’s not really a bad time to play a creature and attempt to beat face. The games are fast, creature-based, and filled with action.

In the past, we’ve used the packs we’ve won as Two-Headed Giant partners at prereleases and used them as sealed-deck components. This time, I actually had to buy some packs of Lorwyn, which was fine with me since I didn’t make it to the prerelease and didn’t have any packs of my own.

Winston Draft works like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_H4WDrhD5Y

If for some reason you don’t have audio or visual on your computer—do they still make monochrome monitors?—the basics are that two players shuffle their packs together (a total of 90 cards) then make three piles of one card each. Whoever drafts first looks at the first pile. If she wants that, she takes it, and puts a new card on each of the piles. If she doesn’t, she moves on to the second, then the third. If none of the piles is any good, the drafter takes the top card of the remaining cards. Then the second player repeats the process.

It’s a much easier process to understand if you watch. So upgrade your computer and watch the dang video.

Anyway, Elizabeth and I ended up going through the draft process twice with the same 90 cards Oddly enough, it turned out about the same each time; we just switched colors. We actually looked through the cards before going into the draft, just so Elizabeth could get more familiar with some of the cards and strategies available. Plus, I had to explain that whole planeswalker thing.

(As a side note, does anyone think some of the planeswalkers will have some place in Vintage. Jace Beleren is fairly cheap and a great source of long-term card advantage, for example. Especially if you can somehow mitigate his drawback ability, say, with Standstill? And all of the other ones can wreck house if they stay out long enough. If only their costs weren’t so prohibitive.)

I still have the decks together from the second time through, but I think I can remember enough of my own deck to piece the rest of the first draft together. However, since I’m no draft expert and (as far as I know, anyway) neither is my girlfriend, that won’t really be worthwhile to anybody. Also, I really don’t want to type out all 90 cards right now. Mostly I just wanted to try out this Winston Draft thing.

After seeing the cards (which I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t normally do), the one major bomb we had was planeswalker Ajani Goldmane. After that, it was mostly just solid cards, especially since two of our rares were tribal duals. We also had Hamletback Goliath and Wanderwine Prophets, but neither of those seemed like super goals for drafting. I wanted to win before Goliath would come down, and the Prophets seemed clunky.

I don’t know, I guess that like usual, I just wanted to draft Fish.

The first round of drafting saw me starting taking all the white cards I could find, but I quickly realized Elizabeth was doing the same. She had the same sense of Ajani that I had and got to him first. Oh well.

There were two Battlewand Oaks and two Elvish Handservants that I had my eye on, though, and I got those along with a handful of giants, elves, and shapeshifters. One of my favorite cards in Lorwyn (draft and otherwise) is Changeling Berserker, and one of those made my deck, along with one of two Nameless Inversions.

Elizabeth, as might be inferred from me drafting green, red, and black, drafted blue and white. Unfortunately, I had unintentionally snatched two of the better blue cards—both Faerie Trickeries. For a while I thought I might go blue; turned out no.

It turned out pretty well. We played three games, and I won two of them by just playing more creatures than she could. The third game, my girlfriend’s mana worked out perfectly and I drew trees. Turns out we had both kept hands of five lands and two spells, and hers cards had worked themselves out faster.

The Handservants and Battlewand Oaks made their way to me again in the second draft, alongside one of the Nameless Inversions again. This time, though, I upped the quality of white cards, including Ajani Goldmane. Like last time, Elizabeth played the colors I didn’t—this time blue and red.

It’s a fun format, and was great for two people. Plus, there’s some interesting new strategic considerations as well.

Cards that would normally be merely solid are terrific. Take Hillcomber Giant, for example. Normally a four-drop 3/3 is solid but not amazing. That it has mountainwalk is irrelevant four times out of five. When you see that there are no red cards in any of the piles and are sure that your opponent is drafting red, however, Hillcomber Giant becomes a top pick. In each of the drafts we did, the deck with red ended up opposing the deck with white, and we had some epic struggles over those Giants.

Of course, trying to figure out what you and your opponent will be playing can be quite a chore in the first round. When there was no clear good card in the initial piles in the second draft, for example, Elizabeth and I both ended up taking the random top card of the stack. In fact, our first four or five rounds in the second draft were terribly unexciting. One of the piles got to six cards before I took it, and I was only picking up two mediocre cards.

Winston Draft is tricky and fun. I’d really like to try it again at some point, because I’m sure I didn’t get to experience everything. I tend to draft more on intuit than actual strategy, so if I see a janky card that I think has a chance to be good, I’m liable to take it and try it for no other reasons. Sometimes that ends up lucky; other times it means I have lots of dead cards. Usually what happens is that I end up missing things.

If you’ve got six packs (or just 90 cards in the usual 1-3-12 configuration), you should try a two-player Winston Draft. Justin even pointed out to me (after Eddie P. Brain drunkenly expounded it to him) that two players could reasonably Winston Cube Draft. Sounds like fun to me!

Still, the best part for me was being able to play Magic with my girlfriend. Clearly, she's a very special woman. For those of you who haven't had this experience (or who have had actual negative experiences), I'm fairly certain I win this round.

See you this weekend in Chicago!

Fish on the Brain

2007-10-30T12:36:00.000-04:00

Up until Friday I was actually pretty excited to be going to Michigan for some Vintage tourney action, but come Saturday my attitude had gone from Whoo! to Meh.

Sounds like it wasn’t too big a loss, actually. According to Brian Demars, RIW only had 12 people show up. Even he didn’t go. Paul Nicolo (big surprise) won it with some non-blue aggro control. I’m sure it would have been fun, but, still, disappointing. Thanks to Randal oversleeping, I’m convinced we made the right choice.

The reason I really wanted to go was to test a few cards in my deck in preparation for SCG Chicago, which is coming up in, holy crap, two weeks!

Here’s the list I would have played:

4x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Meddling Mage
3x Jotun Grunt
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Hapless Researcher
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Misdirection
2x Echoing Truth
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
3x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
2x Island
1x Plains
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
4x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Jotun Grunt
3x Pithing Needle
3x Waterfront Bouncer
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa's Jitte

Those of you with a keen eye—or more knowledge of me and my game than I think I’m comfortable with—would notice one maindeck change immediately: -4 Stifle, +2 Echoing Truth, +2 Misdirection.

Stifle is probably my favorite card of all time. Some people call it limited, but I’ve always found a use for it. It’s great against Stax and Combo for sure, but I even leave it in against aggro a lot of times, especially if I expect a lot of CIP effects. Obviously, it’s not for every deck, but I think it’s terrific in Fish.

I felt like I was limiting myself, though, by following that card choice blindly. Eric Becker made some interesting arguments for Misdirection in one of his posts on either UW Gush Fish or URBana Fish, and I wanted to try it out. There are a lot of decks whose gameplan is to get and play Ancestral, and Misdirection fits into that perfectly. Unfortunately, it’s all but dead against Stax. Echoing Truth was meant to shore up that eventuality along with giving me some answer to Empty the Warrens and Meloku tokens, to which I’ve recently lost multiple games.

Echoing Truth probably isn’t the best answer to Stax for me since it gets shut off by Chalice of the Void at two, but it’s still one of the better all-around bounce cards.

Oh, and I also cut Grand Arbiter Augustin IV for the fourth Ninja. I knew I wanted to have the fourth Ninja in the deck because it’s amazing. Like Dark Confidant in UB Fish, there’s a definite correlation between having active Ninja and winning the game. If GAAIV goes in the deck, he goes in place of one of the Aven Mindcensors, for sure.

Augustin I just can’t be too sure about. His effect is pretty good, but it’s pretty good before turn three, which is the earliest time I can expect to reasonably play him. Plus, he does nothing for a lot of my cards since I either don’t pay for them (Force of Will, Misdirection, Ninja) or they don’t have colorless manacosts (Swords, Stifle, Meddling Mage). My guess is that Augustin doesn’t make the cut. He gets credit for picking up a Sword of Fire and Ice and a Jitte and beating face on turn three, but that’s not going to be a regular occurrence.

As for Hapless Researcher, well, just deal with it. My feeling right now is that creatures are king. If I could put more in, I would. The competition for this spot right now is Sage of Epityr, and my testing has shown that guy sucks. Also, Happy sacrifices himself to blow up Bridges from Below.

Spellstutter Sprite is amazing. That is all.

I had some changes for the sideboard as well. Dropping the Echoing Truths seemed natural since they made the starting lineup. Those two spots opened me up for an extra Pithing Needle against some problem decks like Goblins, Stax, and Ichorid and the fourth Jotun Grunt, which seems like it could be good against aggro of all kinds and Ichorid.

I’ve actually wanted the extra Grunt in a lot of matches, even if he just comes in to block a Juggernaut and die. Plus, I play Grunts pretty aggressively, they might only be able to get a swing or two in before they die for sure, but that’s still a good chunk of life from an opponent. It’s like white Ball Lightning that blocks and doesn’t have haste, or something.

So that, or something like it, is what I’m playing. What about you?

If you want a chance to test your stuff before Star City, I recommend the Meandeck Open:

Prizes: Depends on the turnout, but generally $120 to first, $60 to second, and $20 to third with an upward distribution over 15 players.

Entry: $15 for unlimited proxies!

Where:
The Soldiery
4256 N. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

When: Sunday, November 4, 2007

Registration starts at 12:30 p.m. Tournament begins at 1 p.m., sharp.

I, unfortunately, can’t be there, but these are usually excellent tournaments with lots of good players and quite possibly the best post-tournament meal ever. Seriously, even though I really want to test for Star City, the thing I’ll miss most is a Thurmanbuger. That’s just how awesome these tournaments are.

Actually, you should go and play my deck. Let me know how it is and if I need to make any changes. I’d prefer you try it with the MisD-EchoingT configuration so I can hear how that goes, but if you’d rather have the Stifles, I understand completely. I’ll leave it up to you whether you play the Grand Arbiter or not and how many.

Seriously, I think this deck is solid, and I think my recent results have shown that.

Check it out! I think once you hit a first turn Brainstorm with a Spellstutter Sprite, you’ll be convinced.

And if not, you should at least go to play in Columbus.
 And if not that, maybe I’ll see you in Chicago, at the College of DuPage.

If you're not going there, you should go to Sandusky and play in the Vintage tournament there. Dave and the Gamers Lounge are trying to build the local Vintage scene while all of the regular players are out of town, so anyone who shows up will be a great boon to them. Plus, I think you could have the opportunity to get some proxies and altered cards handmade by me and other artists. It could be really cool!

The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium card just for signing up!

November 10, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Yeah! Vintage is the best because fun tournaments happen all the time.

Essie and Happy in the Top 8

2007-10-14T19:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first Gamers Lounge Vintage tournament in many months, and it was about time. I’ll cut to the chase right now and say they’re still as fun as ever. I always look forward to them.

I’ll choose to truncate my usual pre-tournament routine description and will cut it down to three things:

1. Friday night, the night before the tournament, I played in a Lorwyn draft and went 2-2. I also picked up playsets of Ponders and Spellstutter Sprites and a two-pack of Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, just in case.

2. While I ate breakfast, I worked on a sudoku—just a second-level puzzle. My usual strategy is to roll through the puzzle and complete it in a few minutes, but this one I got stuck on for almost fifteen minutes before finally figuring it out in a flash of insight. It was frustrating and then strangely fulfilling.

3. Before the tournament started, I was playtesting Belcher against all comers. And pwning the crap out of them. Black Lotus in every hand, don’t Duress me because I have backup everything, here’s 16 goblins and a 7/7 hasty Storm Entity for you to deal with. It was awesome, and it’s how I immediately knew I wouldn’t be playing Belcher in the tournament. Stupid karma.

The Gamers lounge is located in sunny Sandusky, Ohio at 127 E. Market Street, in a slowly but steadily rebuilding downtown harbor area. It’s nice even on non-tournament days; there are pleasant restaurants, shops, and parks, and easy access to Cedar Point and the Lake Erie islands. If you’ve never been to Sandusky, check it out!

3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
1x Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Meddling Mage
3x Jotun Grunt
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Hapless Researcher
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Stifle
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
3x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
2x Island
1x Plains
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
4x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Echoing Truth
2x Pithing Needle
3x Waterfront Bouncer
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa's Jitte

It may look like this list is quite different from the last one that I posted, but actually there were only three changes:

First, Brainstorms went out for Hapless Researcher. I’m not sure when Hapless Researcher became such a pet card for me, but somehow he did. Brainstorm was, for the most part, not missed. I would have liked the extra draw power against Mike Smar’s Empty Gush in round four and against Jimmy McCarthy’s Goblins in the top eight, but in every other match, the extra creature was huge.

Then, one Ninja turned out to be Grand Arbiter Augustin IV in disguise! I’m not really sure how this worked out. I only saw Augustin in two games. In the first, he pitched to Force of Will and could have been any blue creature. In the second, he wielded a Sword of Fire and Ice and a Jitte to victory over Goblins and could have been any creature. I’m going to do more testing, since with five moxes it’s not unthinkable that I’d get him into play second or third turn when he can do some good. At the same time, I think in the future, I’d stick with four ninjas, especially if I keep the other creatures the way they are.

Finally, Marty McFrost rode the bench in lieu of Essie, more commonly known as Spellstutter Sprite. Sprite was awesome. With five moxes, I had Sprite or the threat of it first turn in many games, and I was tagging key cards all day. Definitely try this card out if you’re at all interested because it sure convinced me.

So with my deck decided, I ponied up my $15 and collected my free, signed, Urza’s Saga Island with lightning bolt. Nice!

Round 1 – Justin Dewey – Affinity

After I collected the decklists from Dave after the tournament, I saw that Justin had titled his deck “Poopfinity 2k7,” but since he made his first top four yesterday, I think he may have underestimated either his prowess or the deck’s, but probably both. Justin and I chatted for a bit while we shuffled about how cruddy it is to have to play against friends, especially in the first round. Regardless, someone had to die, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t going to be me.

In game one, I won the die roll and opened with a fetchland and a Mox, keeping mana up to play Spellstutter Sprite. Justin opened with Vault of Whispers, Mox Emerald, Disciple of the Vault, and Disciple drew the first Sprite of the weekend. From that point on, I was bent on keeping his hand-size low and his creatures off the board. When he attacked with a Cranial Plated Ornithopter, I flashed in Mindcensor as a blocker. Then I played Swords to Plowshares on an Arcbound Ravager and a Myr Enforcer, and Essie took down an Ancestral Recall and an Ornithopter. Score! The game took a while, but Justin ran out of gas and was run down quickly by Ninjas and Sprites.

Obviously Kataki came in, and I also brought in Jittes and Pithing Needle for Cranial Plating and Ravager. Aven Mindcensor and Stifle sat out game two.

Justin opened game two with a Disciple but had nothing else. I quickly had Pithing Needles on Plating and Ravager and was keeping him off of lands (and therefore artifacts) with two Wastelands and a Strip Mine. Jotun Grunt came in for an attack, but I stupidly forgot to pay for his upkeep. Kataki followed him and Justin was quickly locked out of the game. Ninjas and Kataki took him down in a heap.

Match 1-0-0, Games 2-0-0

I always feel bad about taking down a friend, but as I said, Justin turned his defeat into determination, got the power up, and won the game. By which I mean he finished in the money. Congrats, dude!

Round 3 – Jerry Yang – Workshop Aggro

Jerry and I haven’t played each other in a while. My records say it was back in February, so a break of almost eight months. Still, Jerry is one of my favorite opponents, so this would be a fun match. Except for the fact that he’s playing Workshop Aggro with maindeck Triskelion, Juggernaut, Duplicant, and Sword of Fire and Ice. Dang.

We roll six dice to the higher Yahtzee roll, and his triple threes with five kicker beat my triple ones with a six. As a side note, it’s a lot easier to remember who goes first in a particular match if you do something interesting to determine it. For example, Justin and I rolled 2D6 and multiplied, then subtracted a D20, aiming for the lower score. I got -4; Justin got 2, so I played first.

So, Jerry opened with a Mishra’s Workshop and a Sphere of Resistance, burning for one. I played a Mox. Then Jerry played Thorn of Amethyst. When I tried to Wasteland him into submission by taking out his Workshop, he played another, then a Triskelion and a Sword of Fire and Ice and another Triskelion. It was bad. I lost. Real bad. In increments of eight starting on the fourth turn.

Kataki came in again for Aven Mindcensor, and I think I tried to rectify my earlier play of bringing in Kataki and a bunch of artifacts by bringing in Waterfront Bouncers and Echoing Truths instead.

In game two, I was able to play a first turn Meddling Mage for Triskelion, but I should have named Juggernaut, since that quickly became the elephant in the game. I had two Meddling Mages on board but didn’t want to block with them without some other tangible threat to back them up with, but all I did was draw lands and die.

Round 2 – Eric Paull – Workshop Aggro

Eric was an awesome opponent who made the drive down from Michigan with Paul, Kyle, and my round four opponent, Mike Smar. My opponent looked young, so I was expecting something “Small Child.dec,” but quickly turned out to be no Vintage noob, and except for a few play mistakes on both our parts, the match was a lot of fun. Plus, Eric also made top eight, and good for him.

He won the roll for game one but his high-cost deck fell behind quickly as he Bazaared too eagerly and Magus of the Moon locked him to three basic Mountains. I had plenty of creatures, including Ninja refilling my hand, and he conceded when I put a Meddling Mage on Juggernaut. Adding the extra Island in place of Tundra to my deck really showed here as I had one Island opening hand, an opening I would see all day.

This time it was definitely Kataki and equipment that came in. Aven Mindcensor and Stifle went out.

Game two went far worse for me. He started with Mox, Land, Thorn of Amethyst and tried to play Black Lotus. I pointed out that it cost one more, and he took it back. Next turn I was able to Spellstutter Sprite it. Yes! Unfortunately, he was still able to play Magus of the Moon, which was soon followed by Goblin Welder, Solemn Simulacrum, and Chalice for two. When I commented that Chalice for two is pretty bad, he sounded my death knell by playing and equipping Sword of Fire and Ice. Dang.

Game three saw us both go to five cards from the start. He drew an opening hand of eight and was forced to mull twice; I just had to mull twice because my hands were crappy. Both of us were short on land, obviously, so the game took a while to get going. He played a Welder and got in a good number of hits. I played Jitte and gazed at its unwielded beauty. Then we had this conversation:

Eric: Chalice for zero.
Me: Ugh, sure.
Eric: You know, just in case you get some Moxes. Swing. Pass turn.
Me: Untap, upkeep, draw. Mox, Mox?
Eric: Countered.
Me: What? I thought you said Chalice for two.
Eric: No! I don’t even have the mana for that!

I looked at his board and saw the following: Mountain, Welder. Huh, I guess he’s right. I totally thought he said, “Chalice for two,” then there was that whole thing about Moxes. I must have been out of it. Anyway, he was cool enough to understand and let me take back one of the moxes. Since I probably wouldn’t have played the second one after my first one got countered. It mattered for both of us later as he was able to Weld out my Jitte when I finally got a Jotun Grunt to pick it up, and I was later able to use the Welded Mox to play Sword of Fire and Ice and go to town for the win.

Match 2-1-0, Games 4-3-0

Oh, those crazy games of Magic. Eric also went on to top eight. I hope we meet again at future tournaments. (Also, after seeing Jerry Yang’s top four Workshop Aggro list, I think Eric might have to add more creatures and less Magus. Magus doesn’t seem to be that awesome when you need the mana boost of Workshop. Just a thought.)

Round 4 – Mike Smar – Empty Gush

Mike and I had this exchange at one point in our match:

Mike: I’m kind of a spaz.
Me: I can tell.

That’s pretty much it. Mike is an active opponent whose pregame ritual (and I do mean ritual) included setting up a pentagon of the five full-frame art cards from Future Sight on the board as a good-luck charm. The match was quickly over for me.

In game one, he gets past my mana disruption efforts and plays a Black Lotus, leading into Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall. That seems pretty good. I put a Meddling Mage on Brainstorm, but it’s too late. With the card advantage he has, I should have named a win condition. He played Tinker through a Force of Will to get Darksteel and smash my face in.

For some reason, I decide not to sideboard. I am good at Magic.

My hand isn’t terrific for game two, but I have to keep because it’s playable. We play land-go for a while until he plays Ancestral and is forced to save it from Spellstutter Sprite. Ninja hits play, but it’s too late. He baits my Stifle with a fetchland, draws a bunch of cards, and the Warrens Empty for 16 guys. When I lose, he shows me his handful of Force of Wills.

Match 2-2-0, Games 4-5-0

Mike also went on to play in the top eight. Nice job. It’s nice to know that everyone I played in the Swiss rounds also played in the final rounds. I mean, I guess that should be a comfort, right?

Round 5 – Lyle Hawkyard – GATr

Lyle and I also haven’t played against each other in a while, since December, by my reckoning. I’ve known him mostly to play Fish of some color combination, but he’s playing GAT today and has been since Gush’s unrestriction. His deck registration sheet comments on that in the Deck Designer slot, where he entered, “idiots in the DCI.” Nice.

Anyway, Lyle and I find out while we’re shuffling that the winner of this match will make it into the top eight. We wish each other luck and joke about drawing.

In game one, my hand has a lot of control, but not a lot of creature action. He takes some damage from fetchlands and baits a counter from me to get Fastbond into play. He doesn’t really have a lot of action either, though. I get a couple of hits in with Jotun Grunt, but that dies soon enough since nothing else is happening. Finally, he says, something to the effect of, “Okay, you’re gonna love this,” and plays Mox Jet, Mana Drains it, Spell Snares the Drain, Gush, Empty the Warrens for 10 guys. Not bad. His horde is able to get around my defenders for the win.

Waterfront Bouncers, Jittes, and Echoing Truths come in for Hapless Researcher, Time Walk, and something else that I can’t recall.

I take an early advantage in the second game, when Lyle mulligans to five. I play a fetchland and a Mox, and put Essie into play at the end of his first turn when he does nothing but play a land. I play a Mindcensor at the end of his next turn and he allows it. When I attack and he attempts to Fire both of my one-toughness fliers, I make the incredibly techy play of Spellstuttering the Fire! Instead of going from two creatures to none, I went from two creatures to three! Yes! After that, things go downhill quickly for him as Ninja joins the fray and takes him down.

Between games two and three, I again wished my opponent luck and said I was glad that at least one of us would make it into the top eight. Then I added, “That said, you know I also hope you mulligan to five.” He laughed.

Game three is just bizarre. After a flurry of activity at the beginning including Stifling his first fetchland, putting a Mage on Gush, and sending a Dryad and a Goyf farming, we’re both looking for something to put the opponent away. Early in the game, we both had tons of land in play, enough that a hardcast Ninja met a hardcast force of Force of Will. Luckily for me the Meddling Mage I played early went all the way, helped along by a Mana Drained Ninja that led to four damage for my opponent.

Match 3-2-0, Games 6-6-0

Luckily, that rather sickly 50% win percentage is enough to get me into the top eight. My opponents all did well before and after our matches, so they’re all in as well, and my tiebreakers might even have been good enough to get me in at 3-1-1. Still, it’s been a battle all day, and will not likely let up.

Top 8 – Jimmy McCarthy – Goblins

I realized yesterday that Fish loses to any deck whose name is a creature type: Goblins, Slivers, Beasts, Elves, Thallids, doesn’t matter. And Jimmy has beaten me many times with Goblins before, once with an opening hand that went Black Lotus, Strip Mine, Lackey, Goblin Warchief, attack. I think I died on turn three in that game. At least here now I’ll have blockers. Come on, Hapless Researcher!

In game one, I Force Aether Vial, essentially mulliganning to four on the play. Not a good start. It gets worse too, even though I’m keeping the really good goblins like Piledrivers off the board with Swords to Plowshares. Lackey and Goblin Matron are hitting me just fine on their own and I die pretty quickly. I maintain that the most powerful cards in Goblins aren’t the Piledrivers, they’re Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader.

I look at my sideboard and see that it could easily be 15 cards in. Finally I settle on Sword, Jitte, Pithing Needle, and Waterfront Bouncer. I remove Force of Will (reluctantly, let me tell you), Stifle, and something else.

Game two, I open a hand that has land, land, Mox, Lotus Petal, Augustin, Jitte, Sword. This hand flies really far on the hope that my opponent doesn’t have Red Elemental Blast or some other removal between me getting Augustin in play and me equipping him with Sword of Fire and Ice. Thank goodness he didn’t. Turn one Jitte. Turn two Augustin. Turn three draw Black Lotus, equip Jitte, play and equip Sword, win the game. Augustin was pissed! Take that, Red Menace!

Game three is another weird one as we both spent a lot of time doing not much of anything. He brought in tons of artifact kill for my troublesome equipment and ended up with most of it in his hand; I ended up with lots of mana and no threats. His Mogg Fanatics and my Happy (but very nervous) Researcher stared at each other across a battlefield filled with charred bodies from our two previous games. We turns finding a threat and removing it, or vice versa. And in the mean time, he’s taking some damage from his Tormod’s Crypt, my best threat until he plays Goblin Tinkerer. Finally he makes his move, and has run me out of creatures. I die with a hand full of mana and no thing to do with it.

Match 3-3-0, Games 7-8-0

Ugh.

Making top eight sounded so nice in my head until I saw my final record at the end. Oh well. I was knocked from the final rounds, and my day of Magic ended there. I took home a signed Lotus Petal for my trouble. Seems okay.

The November and December tournaments are already scheduled at the Gamers Lounge, so be sure to check those out:

November 10, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

I know, I know - this is the same weekend as Star City Chicago. Dave is planning
on marketing this tournament more specifically to more local gamers and novice
Vintage players. This means that there maybe more information and special deals
like reduced entry fee or entry bonuses. The idea is that new Vintage players
will be able to play and experience the format without feeling threatened by
Vintage "pros." So if you're not going to SCG Chicago or if you (or someone you
know) wants to get started in Vintage, this could be your big break!

December 8, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

I’m already looking forward to the December tournament; it makes me feel all Christmassy.

Anyway, I feel like I played well, and I’ll continue to test and develop Fish because, like always, it’s a deck that gives you a chance in almost any environment, as long as you’re prepared. I just have to figure out how to predict an environment better, and I am getting better. Promise!

Until then, I’ll just hope to open up with Augustin and two swords by turn three. That sounds pretty good.

Reserving a Teeg-time

2007-10-11T01:14:00.000-04:00

When Gaddock Teeg made his first appearance, lots of people in lots of formats were excited. “It stops Wrath of God!” “It stops Force of Will!” “It stops Tendrils!” “It stops Fireball!” “It stops Tarmogoyf!”

Okay, well, not so much that last one. I mean, I guess Teeg is probably a speedbump or like a squirrel in the path of the barreling semi that is Tarmogoyf since he can block once by himself, but yeah he really doesn’t do a thing to the best new beef in Magic. Tarmogoyf is a creature, most importantly, and he neither costs four or more nor has X in his casting cost.

For the same reason, Teeg won’t do anything to Vintage’s favorite creatures, Quirion Dryad and Psychatog.

He won’t stop Yawgmoth’s Will or Tinker either.

He won’t stop Flash, Pact of Negation, or Summoner’s Pact.

Or Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll.

Or Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, or any Moxen. And those Moxen are handy when Tinker doesn’t work.

Most of the really good Stax artifacts survive the Teeging. The only thing that can’t be played is the eponymous Smokestack, which can be Welded in.

He will, however, stop Force of Will, Misdirection, and Gush. Tendrils can’t be cast anymore, but Tendril’s isn’t used anymore anyway. He prevents Mind’s Desire from being played and Yawgmoth’s Bargain, unless it’s slipped into play with Academy Rector.

And, man, Gaddock Teeg hates Belcher with a passion: no Belcher or Empty the Warrens will ever work in this town again.

Basically, there’s an extensive list of pros and cons. Is Gaddock Teeg any good?

I think, yes. The Mayor of Munchkinland is like a Meddling Mage for multiple spells, and those spells are some of the most-played, most-powerful spells in Vintage.

Leaving GAT with only Duress to protect itself puts a huge hitch in its windup, and not the good kind of hitch like Paul Byrd has. Plus, it can’t combo with Fastbond-Gush or even draw cards (except for that whole Brainstorm-Merchant Scroll tag team, which is the real seat of power for the deck).

Of course, that only happens once Teeg hits the board, and this can be a problem.

Gaddock Teeg is green and white. Ugh. Most people aren’t too keen on playing those colors in general, and more people would be even more averse to playing those colors in Vintage, and now you’re telling me we have to play them at the same time?! Gross!

Being two colors hampers his ability to be effective in the first two turns of the game. To play him before turn two, you have to have an appropriately colored land and an appropriate colored Mox. The odds on that are pretty rough—15% on the play if you have four Teegs, Mox Pearl, Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal and Black Lotus, and only 11% if you short yourself a shorty because of his Legendary stat.

Still, most of the cards you’re trying to stop (Empty the Warrens, Gush, et al.) are mid- and late-game cards that get played on turn three or four when the late game starts in Vintage. As such, you should be able to play a little Munchkin Fu by then, even if you’re playing from the topdeck.

So you have to make sure Gaddock Teeg hits play. That means protection, and that means you’re probably playing blue or black, unless you’re playing Xantid Swarm to protect, uh, just Gaddock Teeg really, maybe something big like Tarmogoyf.

Actually, you should be playing blue or black just because that way your deck doesn’t consist of just the two worst colors in all of Magic ever.

If you go for the blue route, you’re probably going to run a three-color Fish list of sorts, mostly blue with splashes of white and green. Something like this perhaps:

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Spell Snare
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

4x Meddling Mage
4x Gaddock Teeg
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Stormscape Apprentice
3x Jotun Grunt

3x Tundra
2x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Flooded Strand
3x Windswept Heath
3x Mishra’s Factory
1x Strip Mine
3x Mox
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus

That looks fairly playable.

Once Gaddock Teeg hits play, the only card you’ll lose use of is Force of Will, and I think that’s okay. You’ll be able to hoard them while you take control and prevent your opponent from winning. If your opponent tells Teeg to take a long walk of a short pier, then, you’ll have a fistful of counters to get them with.

If you’re anti-dead cards, I’d run Daze in place of Force and Wastelands in place of Mishra’s Factory. You’ll want to have a fairly heavy mana denial contingent if you want Daze to be effective before and after Teeg hits play. You might run something like Stifle too, in place of the Spell Snares.

Plus, this deck gives you Tarmogoyf, which I hear nice things about. Actually, decks with Gaddock Teeg should give you Tarmogoyf since they’re both green and, uh, pretty good.

4x Duress
4x Thorn of Amethyst
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Extirpate
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

4x Dark Confidant
4x Gaddock Teeg
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Aven Mindcensor
3x Jotun Grunt

2x Scrubland
2x Bayou
1x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Forest
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Windswept Heath
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
5x Mox
1x Black Lotus

Man, that doesn’t actually look half bad!

Duress could be replaced, in whole or in part, with Thoughtseize, clearly, though I’ve already expressed my reservations about that card. It might help a bit in the aggro matchup.

This deck runs the full suite of moxen because it also runs a full suite of Dark Confidants and Aven Mindcensors. Having a first turn Dark Confidant is excellent, and sets any deck on track to victory. It’s one of the key plays that made the Sullivan Solution so successful back in the Tendrils combo era. Having a second turn Aven Mindcensor isn’t too bad either, since that happens to be the time that Merchant Scroll really becomes active.

Leyline of the Void’s power is down overall, I think, but it still deserves a spot maindeck. There’s always the chance you get the turn zero concession out of an unprepared Ichorid deck, and it’s probably the best defense this deck has against Flash. Against GAT and Stax it’s marginal, though sometimes amazing, and it probably deserves a spot just for that.

One selection I’ve really been hyping (at least in my own mind) lately is Smallpox. Smallpox seems like a GAT hater to me, and not bad against other decks either. Since GAT is so light on creatures and lands, having them sacrifice one of each plus discard a card seems pretty good. All for the bargain price of two mana, and you get a damage in for free! The fact that you have to do all of this too makes it merely fair.

I really think the black version is the more interesting version of the two decks, and it may be the more viable one too, mostly since it has a consistent draw engine in Dark Confidant. The blue version, however, has Force of Will, and I am loath to give up my blue cards. (They’re so pretty!)

Anyway, it seems to me that Gaddock Teeg, Tarmogoyf, and Jotun Grunt are a powerful trio, so they’re the three I would look to when making a deck around the new Little Prince of Lorwyn.

Any one of those creatures would be as happy delivering a beating as they are hanging back and playing disruption for a while. Ah, who am I kidding, those three are all about offence. Even wee Gaddock has his tiny shillelagh raised with a defiant gleam in his eye.

His name is Gaddock, and he loves to fight!

Barry is Dumb and I Hate Risk Too

2007-10-05T16:17:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, next weekend, at last, is the Hero Zone tournament. I have been looking forward to this for two months now. Here’s the info for all you lucky, lucky people:

When:
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Registration starts at noon
Tournament starts at 1 pm

Where:
The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Sandusky, OH 44870
(419) 621-0282

Cost:
$15 gets infinite proxies

First through fourth place will split cash (50-30-10-10 if you play it out)! 100% of the entry will be redistributed, which means the more people who show up, the better the prize support will be!

Lorwyn will be legal for this tournament, so make sure you come prepared with Thoughtseizes and Thorns of Amethyst and Shriekmaws and whatever else you think you might need to be competitive in a post-Lorwyn Vintage environment. Will anyone try out Jace Beleren as a free card-drawing engine or Liliana Vess as additional Vampiric Tutors? We’ll just have to see!

Also, everyone who participates in the tournament will get a free card from the premium giveaway cards binder as a token of appreciation. Plus, top finishers outside the top four will also receive prizes And remember that anyone who writes a good tournament report that includes the name of the store, address, and phone number will get to pick another card as well at a later date!

Tchotchkes! So many tchotchkes!

Anyway, you should be there and bring your friends and relatives because it will be a lot of Vintage fun, now with eight tribes and black goblins.

Last night, after mowing down Geoff’s TMWA list with my Fish, while watching the Indians stomp the Yankees a new mudhole, I had the rare opportunity to play Risk with a couple of friends. I haven’t played Risk in probably three years, and now that I think about it, probably the last time I played was with those same friends too.

It was an idyllic, hungover time, some Saturday morning, and we appropriately listened to the band War (you may be familiar with their hit, “Low Rider”) while we played.

I guess that doesn’t really matter, though.

What I’m getting at is this: Have you ever had one of those friends who just doesn’t get it when it comes to some game that everyone else enjoys playing?

I’m not thinking of a specific Magic-related item right now, but I was thinking about this last night as I realized one of the friends I was battling for world domination just didn’t know how Risk was supposed to be played.

Here are the basics of what happened—my friends will be named Archie and Barry to avoid confusion and also incrimination.

Instead of starting off by strategically picking our starting countries, we used the house-rule of assigning them at random by shuffling and dealing the country cards. The result of this is that Archie had a good foothold in South America, I had a good presence in North America and a defensible position in Europe, and Barry started with half of the stronghold that is Australia. Asia and Africa were a mishmash of possessions that would take a long time to sort out.

Barry went first and had Australia locked up by the end of his turn.

I started booting people out of North America and took Venezuela to secure my southern border.

Archie skirmished in Asia and Africa, while increasing his presence in South America.

Actually, this is pretty much how things went for a while. Barry’s strength in Australia grew every turn, and he began encroaching on Southern and South East Asia. Archie eventually took and held South America for a number of turns while playing a defensive role against Barry in Africa and Asia. And I, having given up everything in Asia and Africa, eventually controlled all of North America and was defending my borders with an increased offensive across the Arctic in to Europe.

It was a fair stalemate. We would each trade one or two countries every turn just to get another country card and hope to break the Cold War by turning in a completed set.

Barry and Archie each had more countries than I, but my North American stronghold gave me more armies per turn than both of them combined. Still, Barry’s Fortress of Australia was the obvious launch site for a push to take over the world. To stop Barry, Archie and I would have had to actively work together, and we obviously weren’t going to do that as dictators hell-bent on controlling the world. As such, all Barry had to do was be patient and wait for one of us to screw up.

Unfortunately for Barry, he blinked first. Like a complete idiot he waited until he had turned in two sets of country cards for a total of 35 armies, and then he attempted to wipe me out.

One more quick background story: The last time I played Risk with these two, back in college, Archie convinced Barry to push all his troops in against me, saying, “Dude, I got your back,” when Barry hesitated initially.

Quick tip: Whenever someone says, “I got your back,” in a game of Risk, that person is lying.

Barry did destroy my forces in that game, but in doing so completely crippled himself in the face of Archie’s already superior strength. The game was over in two more turns.

For those of you who don’t know or remember, the defending player holds a slight advantage in Risk because he or she wins all ties. The attacking player gets to roll more dice (generally three to the defender’s two), but that’s not enough to turn the fact that every six a defender rolls is an automatic win. On defense, when trying to wear down the attacker’s forces to halt a long campaign, defenders have a 63% chance of winning at least one roll.

As such, it takes a massive force to wipe someone out while maintaining enough presence that a third player doesn’t kill you in return.

Barry was sending an army of 50 men into my territories, which, together were held by a combined force of similar size.

Good luck.

To make a long story short, after protracted battles in Iceland (where I rolled four sixes in a row) and the Western United States (where I rolled double sixes or five-six three times), all Barry could do was push me back into only Alaska (where I still had 14 units), leaving single units in each territory he’d just conquered.

Already annoyed that Barry had ruined both of our chances with a half-thought out, ham-fisted strategy, I turned in my set for 25 armies and plunked them in Alaska. I retook the Northwest Territories and drew my card, ending my turn. I had to be prepared for Archie’s follow-up, if necessary, and couldn’t attack much farther without spreading myself too thin.

Archie, now in the blatantly superior position—especially aided by the extra 30 armies he got at the beginning of his turn—stormed through Europe and Asia, stopping only at Siam, Australia’s doorstep, to gather forces.

It was over in just a few more turns as Archie wiped out Barry decisively and I retook my position in North America and Europe, and we agreed to draw and co-rule the world.

I’m sure that was far more detail than you really cared to read since nobody cast Lightning Bolt or Counterspelled anything.

My point is this: It really annoyed me that, twice now, Barry has ruined my perfectly good game of Risk—not to mention his own—simply because he sucks at strategy.

Does anyone else feel this way sometimes? Maybe in a multiplayer Magic game or even in some other game? Someone feels like their red zone has been actionless for too long, so they alpha strike, killing someone else and leaving themselves open for attack in the process? Or in a Rainbow Six or Counter Strike game someone decides that they’re bored so they run out with guns blazing, revealing everyone’s positions and gets the team killed.

Maybe it’s not even that.

Have any of you played Apples to Apples? It’s a game where the object is to match cards of nouns and adjectives together based on a judge’s ruling. So if the adjective “Evil” came up and you had a hand of “Elvis,” “Diamonds,” “New York City,” “Saddam Hussein,” and “Earthworms,” you’d probably put down “Saddam Hussein.” Your opponents might put down “China,” “The JFK Assassination,” “Oranges,” and “Hillary Clinton,” then you would argue for your noun or against other nouns to a judge, who has a completely subjective final say in the end.

Most of the time this game is tons of fun. You might get someone in the above example that, yes, “Oranges” really are evil compared to the other choices because one time she was eating an orange and it squirted her in the eye with juice, leaving her with an infection and partial blindness.

I have a friend, though, who forcefully makes up his own rules regarding what should be matched, how, and why. All the creativity is sapped from the game because he insists that, no, “Oranges” cannot be evil ever because they aren’t conscious.

Oh well, I guess I should learn to lighten up. Risk and Magic and Apples to Apples are all still games after all. Everybody has their own theories and strategies and sense of fun. Some people like to do their own thing, and sometimes even that thing can be pretty cool and fun. Maybe I just wanted the excuse to tell the “Dude, I got your back” story and the story of my friend who refuses to be open minded when he plays Apples to Apples. Maybe I just wanted to rant a little about losing at Risk the same way twice for no good reason.

Anyway, it’s nice out; I’m going to the batting cages.