Pearls Before Swine

When we last left our heroes—at this point just Jeff playing Ichorid, Justin with BlackStax, and Adam with UW Fish—they had just entered the top eight of the Columbus tournament.

Jeff squares off against the Reigning Vintage World Champeen, Roland Chang! Chang is, as usual, playing 5-Color ChangStax. Stax normally has a terrible matchup against Ichorid because Ichorid can keep so few permanents on the board and will still win by just recurring Ichorids for free. Sacrificing Ichorids to Cabal Therapy, then, gives Ichorid a very good chance to out-control the Stax player. Usually. Chang is the preeminent 5c Stax player and is obviously very, very in-tune with his deck and its capabilities and strengths; if anyone could turn this matchup around, it’d be him.

Justin takes the hit this round as he’ll play against GrimLong. It’s not that combo is an auto-loss for the deck since Chalice of the Void and extra mana to drop it early with one counter is very good against GrimLong. So is Chalice at 0. So are Duress, Hypnotic Specter, and Cabal Therapy. However, this is where Justin’s unfamiliarity with both his and his opponent’s deck will hurt him. He knows MBC very, very well, but BlackStax shouldn’t play like that, and should usually go for complete control instead of a beatdown under control.

Adam will play against my third round opponent, Michael Simister, and his Old-School 2-Land Belcher with Tropical Island instead of Taiga. This matchup should just be a speedbump for Adam since the overwhelming control of Fish, especially UW Fish, should come into play. Essentially, if he can stop him from winning in the first three turns, victory will be inevitable. The only thing that would possibly save Simister would be a major misplay by Adam, really good luck on his part, or some amazing play based on his knowledge of the Belcher philosophy.

Here, my game reports will be somewhat sketchy as I tried as best I could to watch all three matches at once and couldn’t possibly have watched every play or seen every gamestate. Plus, since that was now three days ago and I didn’t take notes, I really don’t know what happened at all except for major plays and the overall gestalt of the games.

Surprisingly, Jeff and Roland’s game was watched seriously only by me. I’m not sure whether everyone just expected Jeff to roll him with the superior matchup or whether they expected Roland to crush Jeff as the superior player, but there was no interest, which was a shame.

Chang is an amazing player. He was obviously invested in his match but never really lost emotional control to elation or depression at any time. Whenever something went wrong for him, it was just a challenge to handle efficiently and quickly. Good luck was recognized by a stifled smile but little else. The only thing he really reacted to was a Tormod's Crypt, and with good reason.

He and Jeff had already played a match earlier that day and Jeff had absolutely creamed him. As confident as Chang was about his deck and his abilities, he was clearly not optimistic about his chances. However, this just shows how adaptable he is. Obviously his previous tactic of letting Stax control the board and then going to town with a relatively inflexible Sundering Titan wasn’t working, so he went for the unconventionally aggressive route of letting Karn control the board. Karn can block Ichorid or Ashen Ghoul all day long, and his ability to turn other artifacts into creatures helps that as well.

Why try to stop Ichorid when you can slow them down and play a better aggro game?

Granted, Jeff got weak draws and a number of weak dredges. He was light on land and useable mana as Chang quickly gained a board presence while using Tanglewire and Wasteland to keep Jeff off of the few mana he needed to do, well, anything. Jeff took damage from tapping down his Cities of Brass to Tanglewire for a few turns, and then Chang got Karn down and flat out won. Attacking with Karn and Smokestacks is a fast clock when your opponent can’t do anything.

In the last game, where Jeff managed to gain some advantage, Chang drew both of his sideboarded Tormod’s Crypts in rapid succession to wreck his day. Again Karn came down and won the day.

Jeff noted afterwards that his deck can deal with Sundering Titan because Titan attacks for only seven and can block only one creature. Karn and his artifact friends (which would be a good name for a band, or a kids show) can block multiple creatures and can even attack for more each turn. Even though he was obviously unfamiliar with both Ichorid and Ashen Ghoul (blocking the Horror over the Ghoul and even having to ask about the abilities of each), Chang recognized that Karn was the best tool for the job and made the change from Titan seamlessly.

I still think Jeff would have won had he gotten normal draws and dredges, not even spectacular ones, but it was not to be. He took a rough beat from card quality and playskill.

Justin’s match I tried to follow, but it was on the sun porch, far away from the other two matches. The only thing I remember seeing was him keeping a hand of three moxes, one Chalice of the Void, and one Wasteland. Though that would be a strong hand against a lot of decks, and could have been such against GrimLong. He also decided to drop Chalice for zero, which was his downfall. His opponent spent a few turns sculpting his hand, while Justin drew very little that would help him and nothing he could play with his boardful of colorless sources.

Justin drops Braids and they play draw-go for another turn. When his opponent is ready, he Chain of Vapors Justin’s Chalice back to his hand and takes his opportunity for victory. It’s true that Chalice at zero is strong against GrimLong; it keeps them off of all the moxes and the two best mana spells in a deck that relies on Yawgmoth’s Will, Black Lotus and Lion’s Eye Diamond. Chalice at one is better, though, as it stops Dark Ritual, minor tutors, Brainstorm and Recall, and most, if not all, of their protection, which is usually Duress, Chain of Vapor and some other cheap spells.

Unless Justin started drawing playable heat in the next turn or two, he probably would have lost that game anyway. This time, unfamiliarity with the metagame kept him from knowing the best play rather than just a good one, and he lost the match in three games. Next time, he’ll know better and will win.

Adam played against Simister’s Belcher and had only one major miscue: He didn’t counter the Memory Jar Simister played even though Force of Will was staring him in the face along with two, TWO!, blue cards. I’m not sure if Adam even noticed this when it happened, but Anthony and I standing behind him sure did. Luckily for him, Simister had about the worst Memory Jar hand possible and ran out of gas right there. (He may even have manaburned for one, I don’t remember).

Beyond that, UW Fish should pretty much eat Belcher for breakfast, especially after the sideboard when you know you can have slower aggro and still win as long as you prevent Belcher from firing and Darksteel Colossus from staying on the board. This is exactly what happened.

So out of three players in the top eight, our group had one player go all the way to the top four. Adam and the rest of the semi-finalists decided that, since everyone was starving and nobody particularly wanted to keep the Mox Pearl, a four-way, $80 split for first was amicable.

Parts of semifinal matches were played for fun and money was distributed, but after that and some post-Magic hanging out, our group headed out and gorged ourselves at Thurman’s.

It was wonderful. I think it may have been the best Thurman Burger I’ve ever had. It was just so well constructed, with all the right ingredient ratios.

Adam bought a celebratory pitcher of Leinenkugel with his winnings.

It also was wonderful, so cold and good.

If you have the chance, ever, get to Thurmans’s Café in Columbus. It’s infinitely better than anything else.

After burgers and another couple of pitchers, we headed back to my apartment so my friends could gather themselves for the drive back.

There, we went over Jeff Till’s StarCity Games Magic Quiz. We figured out most of the combos and got some more of the answers than I had, but ultimately it was too hard for us. Everyone left, and I turned in my answers with three minutes left to go.

I didn’t win.

But tournaments are still awesome!