No Grand Prix in Vintage Ever

On Saturday, after scrubbing out of the GP after round five, I signed up for the Vintage side tournament, hoping to win a Mox Jet.

The only problem was that it was sanctioned, and oops, I don’t own any power. I had put Vintage No-Proxy Easter Tendrils together that morning, but I wasn’t really looking forward to playing that against a field I was sure would be holding Moxen etc.

Here’s the list I would have played, which I guess could be called Eggs 2k7, but couldn’t yet include Future Sight cards like Street Wraith:

4x Helm of Awakening
4x Darkwater Egg
4x Shadowblood Egg
4x Skycloud Egg
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere

1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Burning Wish
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Necropotence

3x Duress
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Hurkyll’s Recall

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
2x City of Traitors
1x Ancient Tomb
2x Underground Sea
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Swamp

Oh Eggies, I still love you. And as soon as people stop playing Null Rod and Chalice for one, I will start playing you again.

Seriously, though, it’s still a powerful deck, that just happens to roll to a large amount of commonly played hate. It can be built to include almost any number of proxies, and it actually got a decent amount of goodies from recent blocks, most notably Chromatic Star and the aforementioned Street Wraith.

Lucky for me, Twaun was still in contention at that point and was willing to lend me his power. Some credit is due to Randall, as well, for letting me borrow Living Wishes and to Juan for letting me borrow the Taiga in my sideboard. I should probably just buy both of those cards, two of each. Then I can give Justin back his Taiga too.

Anyway, this is what I really 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 Desperate Ritual

4x 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 Channel
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
5x Moxen
1x Taiga

Sideboard
2x Xantid Swarm
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Taiga
1x Tolarian Academy
2x Tin Street Hooligan
2x Shattering Spree
2x Gorilla Shaman
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast

I went into this tournament already pretty addled from a full day of gaming, so I really wanted a deck without too many hard decisions. Plus I still (yes, still today) feel like this is a really good list.

Also, I was really excited to play in a tournament with actual Power 9 cards.

Even after Twaun threatened to kill me if I hurt them.

Anyway, there were almost 30 people signed up for Vintage, including Mark Trogdon, Juan, and some of the ICBM guys—a fairly talented field.

I shuffled carefully and entered…

Round 1 – Chris – Gifts

Chris and Jameson (my fourth-round opponent from Becker’s tourney who killed himself with Necro and mana burn), were certainly boisterous opponents with exaggerated cries of “The Nuts!” and things like, “Mulling to five. Thoughts?!” Once they got into their games, though, they settled down.

He won the die roll in game one and mulled to five. I mulled an opening hand with everything but starter mana (even Elvish Spirit Guide would have been enough) into just a weak hand based around Living Wish, which I used turn one for Xantid Swarm. He played Mana Vault into Gifts. I thought I might get a chance when I followed up the Belcher he countered with a Goblin Welder, and I definitely thought I had a chance when he screwed up his Tendrils kill. But he audibled into Tinkering for the Big Man and beat me down with a Time Walk after bouncing my Welder.

I probably should have only brought in Blasts for this matchup, but I brought in Mox Monkies too. That probably weakens my combo aspect, which is really what I need to capitalize on.

Anyway, in game two, he had the Force for my first-turn Belcher and Duressed the Memory Jar I had backing it up. That would normally be it for me, but my opponent found a plethora of land in the next few turns to give me time to rebuild. Unfortunately, all I found was a Mox Monkey. Around his seventh turn, he Gifted with tons of mana and won the game.

I’m not sure exactly what went wrong in this match, but I should definitely have given myself a better shot in game one by mulliganning again. Game two, well, ugh.

Match – 0-1-0
Games – 0-2-0

Round 2 – Kayvan – Belcher

Kayvan was friendly and good to talk to after our match. You’ll know why when you read.

I played first and revealed my hand to Land Grant, intending to play a Welder and Empty the Warrens for 14 tokens on my first turn. “Oh, this will be interesting,” he said, but with no Magical response. I carried out my plan, leaving my hand empty. He drew his card and played Living Wish off of some acceleration for a Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, which he played.

“Seems pretty good,” I said. He ended his turn.

I kept my Welder and a token alive and swung for two. Actually, I did that twice while he took advantage of my much-reduced clock to draw cards and set thing up. He found Mana Crypt, played Belcher, and Land Granted to get the last land out of his deck. It was all over but the crying. And the revealing cards from the top of the library to determine how much damage Belcher does.

“Wow,” I said, stunned at the beating Tabernacle has now produced against me twice. “I haven’t even considered how to board for the mirror.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I know what’s coming out, but I have no idea what goes in.”

I thought about it for a while and determined it was mostly a race—who gets their win first, because neither of us will be able to stop the other without taking a turn. Blasts came out (he wasn’t running blue cards) and Monkies, Hooligans, and Skirk Prospector went in. Shattering Spree was the sixth card.

My first hand would give me a first turn Belcher but no way to fire it; I kept anyway and did that. He kept a slower hand than mine and spent a couple of turns powering up while I dug frantically (at the rate of one card per turn, as normal) for mana that would work with the Elvish Spirit Guide or Desperate Ritual I had in hand. Around turn four he played Belcher but with no way to fire it. But It was too late. My topdeck was Mana Vault and that was game.

Game three was similar to game two only I had more permanent mana sources and was able to Belch on turn two. His offense was Gorilla Shaman on turn one and Empty the Warrens for four the turn after. He let me reveal ten cards before he scooped, knowing that I had only Taigas in the deck.

It was an interesting and nerve-wracking experience, racing to the kill like that. There were so many things that could have gone worse or better for either of us in any of those games.

Kayvan and I talked about the deck afterwards, showing our sideboards and how we used them, and talking about some of the Future Sight cards we were looking forward to using. I asked him where he got his list and how many colors he was using, and when he said TMD and that it was just red and green, I knew. “I think that’s my list,” I said, so we exchanged screen-names to talk tech in the future.

Match – 1-1-0
Games – 2-3-0

Round 3 – Nick – Intuitive

Nick was a jolly guy, and we had a great series of games. I don’t know what it is about that Intuition-AK engine, but every time I face it, I lose.

Anyway, I drew a great hand for Belcher while he mulliganed. It’s always the Land Grant that tells you how things are going to go, and mine went through on turn two. Then I followed it up with Mox Ruby, Simian Spirit Guide, and Tinder Wall for a first-turn Belcher. He played a Volcanic Island and Brainstormed, apparently finding nothing. I drew Desperate Ritual and played it for the win.

Seemed pretty good.

I sideboarded like I did against Chris in round one.

In game two I played another first turn Belcher with REB backup for his Drain. Stuck on two mana, though, my Land Grant was Drained, my Belcher was Trickbound after LED, and my Mox Pearl and Mox Jet were forced. Finally, my opponent played an upkeep Mystical Tutor for Rebuild, then dropped Mox, Mox, Rebuilt, and played Tendrils for the game. Admittedly, he fought really hard for that one.

Game three was epic.

I tried for a first turn Mana Vault into Belcher, but my Vault was Forced. No doubt he was thinking Empty the Warrens—it was a good play. Anyway, I played Land Grant into Tinder Wall to be able to support Pyroblasts, which I used multiple times on his draw and tutor spells. Since my deck was serving me poop, I decided it was time for the man plan. Simian Spirit Guide and Mox Monkey hit play and flung poop at a rate of three loads a turn. Gorilla Shaman got Darkblasted. Then a second got Blasted and my Spirt Guide got bounced. While I used mana to replace them, my opponent decided he had enough mana and played Empty the Warrens for 12 and Tendrils for 16.

Match – 1-2-0
Games – 3-5-0

Oh well.

At this point, I was ready to go. I had a Thurmanburger sized hole in me that was rarin’ to be filled. There was also no cut to the final rounds in that tournament for some reason, so I was pretty much out of contention for anything anyway.

I started round four against Ralph, but I have no recollection of the games and my notes indicate only that I Emptied the Warrens against him for 18 and took damage from my Mana Crypt. So game one went to me.

Games two and three, I have no idea. I’m pretty sure I lost, though, since I remember going 1-3 in the tournament.

So yeah, regardless of what happened in round three, just pretend I dropped and went to Thurman’s. Effectively, that’s what I did.

The deck’s still pretty good. As I told Kayvan (and he agreed) there’s really no deck that can compare as far as consistent, first turn raw power goes. I really didn’t have to mulligan that often, only four times, though it probably should have been five or six.

The difficult thing is deciding when to go for it. In one game against Nick I waited a turn to play Belcher so that I had a backup REB which came in handy against that Mana Drain. Had he not had Force of Wills against two Moxen, I would have won that game easily.

I hadn’t played Belcher in a while, though, and even then I wasn’t putting the time into it that I could have been. I’m sure if I’d been playing it recently, I would have done better.

Future Sight, though. Future Sight. Wow. I’ve done some testing with Street Wraiths and Storm Entities, and let me tell you, they’re both really good. Making Living Wish into a threat is huge, since that ups the possibilities from 10 cards to play to 12. Which gives you a halfway decent chance to have two in opening hand. This could be the time to move Burning Wish into the maindeck for one of the Empties.

Honestly, Street Wraith is one of the big reasons for me to play black in the deck. First, I hate having cards that I can’t potentially play in a deck. Second, a 3/4 Swampwalker is a good sized threat. Two lands with Bayou won’t happen though. I’ve already done testing with them, and they’re really good despite being unable to hardcast them.

Storm Entity, though. That guy gets real big real fast and is a house against Fish. It’s a little bit more fragile than Empty the Warrens, but the clock is just as fast. Empty the Warrens for eight (which has been my average) takes four turns—first turn 0, second turn eight, third turn 16, fourth turn win. Storm Entity for five (also my average) also takes four turns—first turn five, second turn 10, third turn 15, fourth turn win. Wow. Plus, who cares about Stifle?

I plan on working with Belcher a lot in the next few weeks, so I’m sure I’ll have more it in the future. Until then. Yeah.