Sidegored in Sandusky

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!