UB My One True Love

It was another good tournament for UB Fish. I’m so proud of it.

I woke up psyched. I packed my bags to prepare for the drive from Sandusky to Columbus, packed my lunch to prepare for the drive to the top-8, and packed myself full of cake because cake is good.

See, I had this weird dream on Saturday morning that I was eating plain white cake on the patio portion of an indoor-outdoor kitchen in a giant house, and when I told my mom about it, she decided to make me cake. How good.

After cakefast, I left for the Gamers Lounge. The weather was clear and surprisingly warm for the season, and certainly in comparison to the previous and subsequent days.

Essentially, if you weren’t there, you’d better not freakin’ blame it on the weather, pansy.

Before the tournament started, Dave and I played a few hands of the newly modified land game, now themed with the power of Asgaard! It’s pretty good. Really a lot of fun and intuitive. Ask me to play sometime, because I have a set of cards. I’ll probably have more on it later.

Anyway, that took some time, so when that was done, it was time to register:

4x Martyr of Frost
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
2x Echoing Truth
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
4x Duress
4x Dark Confidant
3x Extirpate (so good)
3x Dimir Cutpurse
3x Null Rod
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
2x Bloostained Mire
1x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Swamp
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
2x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Daze
3x Black Knight
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Energy Flux
1x Echoing Truth

You’ve probably all seen it before, and I’m very happy with it. The only question was Dimir Cutpurse, but even that turned out to be strong. I would change none of the deck except, maybe, those last three spots. Essentially, I want them to be blue creatures, 1/2 or bigger, and with a decently disruptive ability. It could be anything. Anyway, I’ll probably have a writeup on the deck before the next tournament I plan on using it.

The best part of the tournament was that I saw the kid sitting across from me, who had also played a couple of the new land game against me, was sleeving up the store’s copy of Easter Tendrils. If I get time, I’ll write about that deck in the coming weeks too. It’s so much fun and such a cool deck. I was really hoping he would win and was thrilled that he won a couple of matches.

We ended up with 15 players. It’s not a bad turnout, but I know we can do better. The nice thing was that we had an exceptionally diverse metagame with lots of decks, like the one above, that you hardly ever see. Plus, we had lots of new and nearly new players.

Good times, good times.

Round 1 – Jerry Yang, Dread Returns Mana Ichorid

Jerry’s a heck of a nice guy who makes it to lots of tournaments in the greater Ohio area. He seems to switch decks a lot; I’ve seen him play Workshops, Drains, and Bazaars now, and he reported having played UB Fish before as well. He suggested that we had never played, but I pointed out that we had at the first Mox tournament I ever attended. Anyway, I thought he was playing UW Fish (a traditionally bad matchup for me) because he was fiddling with it before the tournament, but it didn’t matter. Ichorid is way better for me.

In game one, Jerry opened the play with a Duress that I had to Force of Will to protect the Extirpate in my hand. He never even got to attack with Ichorid before I Extirpated them and the Nether Shadows that would allow him to Dread Returns his Sutured Ghoul for the combo win. In fact, without those creatures he would have been hard-pressed to do much of anything. Bob and a Martyr of Frost were already hanging out ready to take him down, so he scooped.

Duresses, Null Rods, Chain of Vapor, and a Force of Will came out for Black Knights, Tormod’s Crypts, Umezawa’s Jittes, and Echoing Truth.

Game two, I Forced his Duress again, but I don’t remember why. I may have been protecting the Stifle-Wasteland combo. He Pithing Needled Tormod’s Crypt (which I did have) and Withered Wretch (which I didn’t). Unfortunately for him, he never got to use a Bazaar and had no discard outlet. I certainly didn’t want to give him one and played Martyr of Frost and Black Knight instead of Cutpurse. They got their hits in, so I dropped Dimir Cutpurse, Time Walked, and dropped a second Cutpurse on my second turn for the concession.

Ichorid’s got some good games against a lot of the Vintage field, especially game one, but it’s got nothing on UB Fish.

Also, Extirpate—really, really good against Ichorid. But I’m not sure if that was in question.

Matches – 1-0-0
Games – 2-0-0

Good thing my metagame deck’s staying in the middle of the metagame.

Round 2 – Juan Rodriguez, UW Fish

Juan plays at the Dungeon in Sheffield sometimes, so he and I had met before, but informally. I don’t know much about him as a player, but this tournament, we shook hands and sat down as friends. I don’t remember knowing at the time that he was playing UW Fish, but whether I did or not, that’s a shaky matchup for me. It all depends on the creatures I get in play, and whether the Ninja and Cutpurse can get in for damage.

My game opened with land-go, and I Stifled his Flooded Strand. I continued keeping him off his white mana and, therefore, his creatures. In the meantime, Dark Confidant and Ninja were feeding me the sweet, sweet answers to everything he wanted to do. I’m pretty sure this was the game I Extirpated his Tundras as well, which didn’t help, I’m sure. Double Bob, Ninja, Martyr of Frost sounds like enough to take him down, right?

Duresses, Null Rods, and a Stifle came out for Martin Lawrence, Jittes, and Daze.

In game two, Juan opened with Tundra and Dazed my opening Martyr. Unfortunately, I put it back into my hand instead of the graveyard. My theory was, hey, he bounces the land, I bounce the creature. No. No. No. Daze counters. Anyway, I replayed the Martyr on my next turn and swung with it the turn after, which is when Juan noticed my cheatyfaced hijinks. We settled things amicably with the combat being negated and the Martyr being sent to the graveyard forever.

Soon, he played a Jitte and the Jotun Grunt to wield it. I swung past the tapped Grunt with a Ninja and baited counters by Ninjutsuing out another Ninja! Those guys sure are tricky. He dropped a Force of Will on my Dimir Cutpurse, while I Extirpated to keep his Grunt from dealing me the lethal blows. A second Ninja and a Time Walk and victory was mine.

The victory was electrifying.

Matches 2-0-0
Games 4-0-0

At this point, things are going swimmingly. I haven’t even lost a game, and my second match should really have gone much worse.

Looking at the standings and talking to people, Mark Trogdon and I are hoping that, once again, we’ll face each other in the swiss rounds of a tournament. With mixed emotions, though, I saw that I was paired with one of the newer players.

Round 3 – Norm White, Gifts Slaver

Norm-o plays up at the Dungeon too. One time I traded him Birds of Paradise in a three-way trade to acquire Meddling Mages. Apparently he’s a pretty good Standard player, and since I’m meeting him in the 2-0 bracket, he must be doing pretty well in Vintage too. Seems friendly enough, so we shuffle up for the intentional draw.

Now, I’m not an expert in how these intentional draw things work out, so when Norm told me we were in if we just drew the next two rounds, I believed him. Unfortunately, there was the chance that one or both of us would not make it with a 2-0-2 record, especially since we could have gotten paired with someone who could not draw into the brackets and would have to play. Since we had already agreed, though, it was too late.

We played anyway.

In game one, I hated lands like it was my job—Stifles, Wastelands, and Extirpated fetches. All the while, Martyr of Frost was serving the mad beats, before finally revealing himself to be, in fact, a Ninja! I had to Force his Welder too, to make sure the rest of my counterspells would be good and his discards would be worthless. Ninja and Martyr finished the job.

Tormod’s Crypts and two Energy Fluxes came in for some things. I don’t even remember what. Probably Stifle, Daze, Chalice, Time Walk, and, uh, Lotus Petal (no Welding my Null Rods, thanks).

Game two, we played draw-go for a while until he Tinkered up the little big man, Sundering Titan. That eventually killed me, but I could have Stifled one of his late-game fetches to make my sideboard Energy Flux into a removal spell. It was a bonk on my part in a game I could have ended up winning.

Regardless, in game three, he never saw lands and I resolved a Dimir Cutpurse. Once that happened, it was pretty much over.

Sigh. If I’d played the Stifle in my hand, I could still be effectively undefeated. In this match that didn’t matter, though, I was 2-1.

Matches – 2-0-1
Games – 6-1-0, still really 4-0-0 in the tournament, though.

After three rounds, even with my draw, I was still one of the top contenders.

Round 4 – Ray Kehr, Long with Empty the Warrens

Being paired this highly, Ray and I were able to intentionally draw.

So I played Mark Trogdon instead for fun.

Holy crap. That guy’s good, and his decks are creative and impressive. It wasn’t the deck he was playing in this tournament, but it should have been. I was whomped.

Hardcore.

Buttwise.

Seriously, it was bad, and he’s bringing that deck to Columbus, so watch out.

I promised him I wouldn’t tell people about his deck though, so I won’t.

Matches – 2-0-2
Games – 6-6-0 or so, again still 4-0-0 in the tournament.

Top 8 – Juan Rodriguez, UW Fish

I entered the top 8 as the third seed despite playing only four real tournament games. I’d say that’s pretty good. That means I beat two quality opponents, had good tiebreakers, and still hadn’t lost a tournament game. In fact, lo and behold, here’s one of my previous opponents now, also in the top 8.

It’s Juan again, and he looks pissed.

Not really. In game one he opened with Isamaru and commenced the beats while I sat back and tried to play control by keeping him off of lands and colors. When he played Black Lotus and passed the turn, I responded by bouncing his Hound with Echoing Truth and attempting to drop Null Rod next turn. He Forced and used the Lotus next turn to replay the Hound and a new Savannah Lions. By that time, though, I was drawing into creatures and beat him back, trading Martyr for Lions and building a force of Ninja, Cutpurse, and double Martyrs, all backed up with another Time Walk.

This time, I sided out Forces and some other stuff for Dazes, Jittes, and Black Knights. It was probably a mistake. I took out Forces because I was scared of two-for-oneing myself to stop a fish creature and of finding one with Bob. Unfortunately, I needed them.

Oh well. I are an idiot.

Game two was going well until my Dark Confidant turned traitor with Threads of Disloyalty. The card advantage and the extra creature was plenty for Juan as Bob and Isamaru smashed my face in pretty quickly.

Unfortunately for me, game three went similarly. I Duressed him and found a fistful of creatures and Mox Pearl, so I took the trinket. His creatures ganged up on me to deal damage a turn between Jotun Grunt, Isamaru, Meddling Mage, and Savanah Lions, but I found my secret weapon, the Whopper, BK, Black Knight, who held them off singlehandedly for a turn or three. Unfortunately, the little bastard was also infected with Threads of Disloyalty and I was stabbed in the back.

Et tu, Martin?

Game over.

Pictures will be up in just a few minutes, along with the results of the tournament. In fact, here they are!

Still, it was a successful tournament. UB Fish has now made top 8 two tournaments in a row, and it just makes me more and more happy every time. I’ll have some more commentary on it, but it’s getting to the point where I really want to keep some of it secret so I can have some surprises.

Long story short: Stifle and Wasteland are really good together. Extirpate is really powerful, but it’s sometimes a challenge to know when to use it and what to use it on. It’s a skilltester. Drawing many cards a turn is amazing, especially when it comes attached to creatures who do damage. Ninjas are tricky, and I was underutilizing Martyr of Frost. More things will get countered, I guarantee.

I’ll probably take it to Columbus, but honestly, I’m scared of facing Trogdon. I’m not sure if I want to go into the tournament knowing that there’s one matchup I just won’t win.