The Top Eight-fold Path

I guess I’ve cooled on this tournament thing. I mean, I can chill out now and not hype Vintage like it’s some kind of rock god. Type 1 is nothing special now, just second nature…

Especially since I have a top 8 credit to my name!

Yeah, so probably everybody reading this either already knew that or was there or both. I’ll try not to look like a complete n00b and brag about it or be irrationally exuberant.

Anyway, the story of this tournament begins the night before.

Already tired from going to bed at 2 a.m. and waking up at 7:30 for the past week, I probably shouldn’t be drinking and should be sleeping instead. But after a spur of the moment drive to Waldo, Ohio for dinner (they have world famous fried bologna, not to mention pizza steak), seriously, who could resist. So on our way back from Waldo, my flatmates and I acquire beers and commence consuming.

While watching West Wing.

We’re so awesome!

So I consume a non-prime number of beers and shots of Old Crow and at 3 a.m. or so, it’s suggested that we go outside and play Frisbee.

Okay!

So I play Frisbee with my flatmates and don’t end up getting to sleep until 4 a.m. I figure that sleeping until 11 is seven hours and should be good enough, right? Except that it’s ungodly hot out and I sleep only fitfully, waking up finally at ten feeling already sweaty and smelly.

I get my shower, a glass of water, and a bowl of Cheerios to wake myself up and quell the hangover headache I can feel brewing. Then I sit down and make what I feel are the minor necessary changes to my deck. I drop Repeal, Echoing Truth and Diabolic Edict from the mainboard for three Chains of Vapors and I take out one swamp for an Underground Sea. I shuffle up, feel ready to go, eat an apple, and catch almost a half hour of the KITT versus Goliath Knight Rider Marathon on Sleuth.

Friends from up north call for directions but I can only give them the exit name without seeing the area myself. My best suggestion is to “follow signs for the Columbus Rose Garden” until they get to High Street, and that seems to work out since everyone I know makes it to the Soldiery on time.

I register my deck, being careful to not reveal any card before its time:

4x Dark Confidant
3x Withered Wretch
3x Ninja of Deep Hours
2x Carnophage

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
3x Chain of Vapor
3x Stifle
3x Duress
3x Null Rod
2x Remand
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet

4x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
3x Island
3x Swamp

Sideboard

4x Chalice of the Void
3x Energy Flux
3x Planar Void
3x Diabolic Edict
2x Propaganda

In retrospect, my sideboard for this tournament was a lot stronger than those from previous tournaments. I had a plan of consistency going in, and that worked much better than other times when I had a mishmash of one- and two-ofs. Chalices were for combo. Energy Flux is for Workshops. Planar Voids were for Welder and Ichorid. Edicts were for Oath and Colossus. Propaganda was for aggro. Plus, even when I played against Control Slaver (which uses artifacts, Welders, and Tinkerlossus and could merit a sideboard of thirteen cards), I stuck with my plan and only brought in two Planar Voids and three Diabolic Edicts.

I tried the same theory in my maindeck too. The only one-ofs I have are restricted, and the only two-ofs I have (Carnophage and Remand) might get changed to one four-of for the next tournament. (I just have to figure out which ones).

Anyway, registration finishes, pairings go up, and everyone gets prepared for

Round 1

I get paired up against Jeff, a kid from Sheffield Lake that I’ve gamed with before but never played against one-on-one. I know he’s playing mono-blue control since we sat across from each other to register (Adam and I convinced him to add Null Rods to his sideboard). He has a reputation of being very good at Magic, and when that fails he’ll just go Han Solo Better Lucky than Good and win anyway.

In game one I had trouble drawing effective mana. Wastelands aren’t any good against basic Islands, and they’re very not good once Back to Basics hits either. When my only colored mana source was a Mox Sapphire, I drop a Null Rod because I’m retarded, and three Ophidians took the game out from under me. Morphling showed up too, I think, but he just hastened my departure.

I side out a Wasteland, Stifle, and Chain of Vapor for three Diabolic Edicts.

In game two he had trouble drawing effective mana, and Fish loves that. I dropped Bob Confident and a Carnophage, and he scooped.

My notes for game three say only that nothing happened, and that’s about what I remember. The game ended with our lives at 11 and 7. He may also have ended the game with Morphling on the board, so I may have been well on my way to losing that one when the fifth extra turn was up.

Matches 0-0-1 (I’m not losing!)
Games 1-1-1

Round 2

So after one round I’m still at the middle tables. This is the most auspicious start I’ve ever had, sadly enough.

My opponent for round two is Aaron who lives in Fairfield or Fairborn (I always get them confused). I swear I played against him in the first round of the Bell, Book & Candle tournament in Dayton a few months ago, but I remember him playing Stax and he vehemently denies that and my tournament report says that kid’s name was Matt. Anyway, now Aaron is playing the Sullivan Solution.

In game one he dropped a first turn Dimir Cutpurse off of a Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal, and land. I responded on my turn with Black Lotus into Ninja. We traded our creatures in combat and I recovered first with Carnophage into Ninja, Carnophage. With only two lands on the board, he’s mana screwed, and when he tries to cast Ancestral Recall out of it I respond with Wasteland on his Underground Sea. He floats black, I Remand his Recall, and he burns for one. Next turn I do it again. Before he gets a chance to cast it again, he’s dead.

In come the Edicts and Propagandas; out go a Chain, two Stifles, and a Duress.

He forces my first turn Dark Confidant in game two and gets down Erayo. Between the flying blue Legend, fetchlands, and Forces of Will, my life went down to 8, but it stayed there. He was stuck without mana, though, again, and without a draw engine he wasn’t going anywhere. He dropped Sword of Fire and Ice without the mana to equip it (giving me another free turn to attack), and when he did try to equip, I Stifled the activation and hit him with a Diabolic Edict. He didn’t see another creature and lost to more Ninja action.

This was my first experience with the Sullivan Solution. It seemed okay. I definitely see the power of Cutpurse, and the lock with Erayo is novel and cute, but I don’t think that deck will beat a good Fish deck. My creatures trade with his, and I have more of them. Plus, Ninja of the Deep Hours is as effective as Cutpurse a lot of times and comes down uncounterably a turn earlier. The Sullivan Solution is very good, but it’s nothing special.

Matches 1-0-1
Games 3-1-1

I think this was about when the heat really started getting to me. The Soldiery, apparently, either doesn’t have air conditioning or doesn’t have very good air conditioning, and it was well into the 90s on Sunday. To keep the hot air out (and the warm air in?) all the doors were closed. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

The way I figure it, I sat inside and sweated constantly for about six hours. When we got to dinner, I drank five glasses of water and didn’t pee until Monday morning.

Anyway, the heat was bordering on oppressive and it certainly wasn’t helping my concentration or my headache. I persevered as I perspired.

Round 3

My round three opponent, Sam, and I have squared off against each other before as well. Last time I think he was playing Stax, but this time he’s playing Ichorid. Poor Sam. My matchup against Ichorid is amazing because, well, Withered Wretch maindeck and I have more experience against this deck than any two or three others combined.

In game one I Duressed his Black Lotus (the only thing I could, luckily enough) and he dropped Bazaar of Baghdad and passed the turn. I dropped a Mox Sapphire and a Wasteland for his Bazaar. He Bazaared (that there’s a funny lookin’ word) in response so I figure I mise well Stifle. That catches him off guard and its downhill from there. From my notes, it looks like he hit me four times with creatures and never more than one at a time. I ended the game at two life, but Carnophage, Ninja and Bobby make short work of him.

Duresses, a Stifle, and a Chain come out on this one, even though they still have some utility, and Planar Voids and Propagandas come in.

The most surprising play of game two was a first turn hardcast Ichorid off of Black Lotus. I thought I saw the Lotus cry a little. I got an early Propaganda, though, and a Withered Wretch to take away his dredgers and he was pretty much done. The biggest attack he made was for nine, and after that the only damage I took was from Carnophage.

Ichorid’s a rough match, no doubt, but I usually have the upper hand. The problem is that you can’t really cede them any points. It’s like facing Oath where cracking two fetchlands or Forcing a couple of spells puts your eventual clock from three turns to two. With Ichorid those same two life points mean the difference between surviving six successful attacks and dying to them. In either game, one more creature through the breach and I was toast.

Matches 2-0-1
Games 5-1-1

Round 4

This is where it gets tough. I actually got to play at table one, though, which I guess is exciting. My opponent was Paul, a.k.a. Mr. Type 4, playing Grim Long.

In game one he navigated a sea of Stifles and Forces of Will to kill me. My downfall was his Mind’s Desire for four that I elected not to Stifle figuring, hey, it’s only four spells. His first three Desires turned out to be Mox Ruby, Mana Vault, and City of Brass. His fourth one was the Duress for my Stifle. It only got easier for him after that and he made fun of my Ninjas, which hurt me inside.

I side out Carnophages, Remands, and two Chains of Vapor for all of my Chalices of the Void and two Planar Voids.

My elite fighting force of Ninjas takes him to school in game two and my Chalice for one ends him since he brought in Chain of Vapor but no Hurkyll’s Recall. This game also marked the start of some excellent Mana Crypt calls on my part since I got two out of three here.

The third game was definitely odd. His first turn Xantid Swarm still makes me cry, but I figured that when the time was right I could Stifle it’s ability and surprise him with the second Stifle and the Force of Will in my hand. Unfortunately, he drew nothing. I Chaliced for one (and mistakenly Duressed through that apparently, which neither of us noticed. My bad, but I’m not sure it would have mattered. Sorry anyway.) At some point, “Time” was called, but I didn’t notice. He blocked with the Xantid Swarm to stay at one life and the game was suddenly over.

It was entertaining to say the least.

Or just weird.

Yeah, I’ll go with that. It was weird. Weird enough to make me stop taking decent notes.

Matches 2-0-2
Games 6-2-2

Round 5

Round five was against Lyle playing Control Slaver, which, thanks to its graveyard strategies and need for mana fixing, my deck has a pretty good game against.

In game one I’m pretty sure I got out a Carnophage into Ninja with a Withered Wretch on the board and that’s how I won. Since my life goes from 18 to 14 at one point, I think this is also when he got out a Triskelion that totally would have wrecked me. I remember doing something fairly tricky with it involving a Chain of Vapor to get him to kill one of my creatures and bring it down to a reasonable 2/2 size. Then I let it trade with another of my creatures and started trashing his graveyard with Wretch.

I sided in Diabolic Edicts to plan for Tinkerlossus, but I don’t remember what I took out or if I brought in anything else.

It really didn’t matter though since I hit Force of Will off of Bob and took a few other points of damage before he went right ahead and Tinkered up Darksteel Colossus for a one-attack win.

Game three was unfair. Neither of us was really doing much of anything until he dropped a Mana Crypt to fuel up another Tinker that I countered with a hardcast Force of Will and a Force of Will cast in the normal way. Then he rolled six straight even numbers to his Mana Crypt, took 18 damage to it, and died. I think I hit him once with a Ninja that got Red Elemental Blasted.

Matches 3-0-2
Games 8-3-2

Holy crap. I’m in the top 8.

I didn’t look to see whom I’m paired up against (or more appropriately, up against whom I am paired), so when David sat across from me I thought nothing of it. We went through the pregame motions of rolling, shuffling, etc. When he started calling me Nam, though, we went to look at the parings. David was indeed to play Nam, another Cleveland player. I was to play Stephen Menendian, Vintage Legend.

Ppht. Whatever.

He ain’t got nothing on me.

He ain’t even here yet. Probably too scared.

Oh, crap, there he is.

We shuffled up and drew. Or rather, I shuffled up and drew. Then he pointed out that I didn’t present my deck, so I shuffled again and presented. He shuffled and pointed out that some of my cards were upside down. My hand from last game. So I flipped them around, shuffled a third time, and presented a second time. This time everything was okeydokey, so we drew our hands.

He dropped a first turn Xantid Swarm and won on the second turn.

Sweet.

His irrational exuberance was annoying for a while, but after a while I shrug it off. It’s Grim Long; he’s either going to win or not.

I sideboarded for this like I did for the last match against Grim Long—four Chalices and two Planar Voids.

In game two, I felt like I have a chance. I dropped a first turn Planar Void and continued drawing threats like a champ. Menendian set himself up to go off and I Stifled a Mind’s Desire for some ungodly number in the double digits. His one Desire turned out to be City of Brass, of which he already had three and had also already played a land. His later Memory Jar was surprisingly good for me since he didn’t go off that turn; I saw a bunch of lands that were nice to get out of the way and a Brainstorm that I used to put Chalice of the Void and Duress back on top of my library. He passes the turn.

I drew Chalice of the Void and set it for one since that seems to be the strongest play against Grim Long. He passed his turn. I drew Duress and played it straight into my Chalice of the Void.

Ka-Bonk!

COUN’TARD!

Yep. I suck at Magic.

His lands and my Withered Wretches got him down to three. If he hadn’t gone off next turn I would have won. As it was he played Hurkyll’s Recall targeting me then Chain of Vapor Targeting himself, then a bunch of artifacts, then Ancestral Recall for fun, then Tendrils of Agony with Force of Will backup.

After the game he told me that if I hadn’t run that Duress into Chalice, if I had stacked my Brainstorm differently, I would have won by Duressing his lone Tendrils out of his hand to get RFG’d to Planar Void.

Oh well.

For the day:

Matches 3-1-2
Games 8-5-2

I’ll say that’s pretty good. Certainly better than I have been doing.

My deck did me proud, which is good since I’ve been working on it for almost a year now. The Chain of Vapors were key, and I was rarely sorry to see them. Lotus Petal was great as an extra way to get an early creature or Null Rod. And Doug Linn complimented me on my Asian Portal Three Kingdoms basic lands (Thanks Al!).

Next time no Remands and no Carnophages (even though Carnophage has been awesome). I’ve got something much better than either of them. I just need to figure out whether I want three of my new secret sauce and an extra Stifle or Duress, or straight up four of my new secret sauce.

We’ll save that for another time.

After the tournament, we tried to go to Thurman’s, but, unfortunately, it was too busy for us, who were all starving. Instead we ate at the Easy Street Grille, which is, like, two doors up the street from Thurman’s. They had amazing gyros, and I already want to go back. Also, the water was superb after six hours in a sweltering Magic tournament filled with smelly nerds.

In the end, I’m glad I didn’t play Gifts. My girlfriend was proud of me for doing well (this has been the best month of Magic I think I’ve ever had, even though I can’t seem to beat her at it), even though I didn’t get the $75 prize to take her out to dinner. I also got to write more than 3,000 words on the subject, and if you’re reading this, that’s even better. My deck even vindicated itself against all the decks it should beat, pretty much.

I just have to figure out that Grim Long matchup. There may not be a lot I can do except move Chalices to the maindeck and draw better in general. I won one game out of five against Grim Long at the tournament, and I would have won two more had I gotten one more attack phase in either game.

Anyway, I feel more confident for next time and validated that my hobby isn’t just me throwing money away. Well, I guess it is, technically, but I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time anymore.

Next time, I just want to do better.

Wish me luck!