Uh, so I guess I'll do a quick mini-report.  My name's Brendan, not Breandan btw.

Round 1, Aggro/Burn (Brian Lane)

Game 1 I'm on the play, so I drop island and recall myself on his upkeep.  He plays black vice and I take 4, which is okay because I have a strong but slower hand (will, tinker, etc).  However, no counters and he wheel of fortunes.  I repeal the vice, and draw a new 7, drop key and top and pass, he burns me a bit and then I top into vault and win cause I'm good at magic.
Game 2 I'm on the draw and do things and eventually get vault key with triple counter backup (I didn't want him to blow it up and reb in response, and I was at a comfortable 10 life or so.

1-0

Round 2, Painter/Grindstone (Domonick Festagallo)
Game 1 he plays things like Underground River and I counter painter and he dies to sphinx.
Game 2 I mull to 6 with needle, he gets out painter and then grindstone, then he blasts needle, I counter, he blasts and I lose a turn before I'd have time vault/key
Game 3 I mull to 6 with lands and mana and draw 6 mana sources in a row while he casts painter, painter, grindstone, grindstone, reconstructe, grindstone and gets there through my counters.

1-1

Round 3, Reanimator (Maxim Ivantsov)
Game 1: On the play, he goes Jet, Lotus, thoutseize me, swamp, entomb, exhume iona, on blue.  Turn 2 he plays painter.  Yeah, thats game.  Also this guy has a thick russian accent which is awesome.
Game 2: He says he's keeping a risky hand.  By risky he meant no land, and I kill him by draining his ritual when he finally sees his first swamp into vault key.
Game 3: I have leyline and he loses.

2-1

Round 4: Ichorid (forget who this was, sorry)
Game 1: He's ichorid and wins.
Game 2: I have leyline and he doesn't have the kill for it, so I win.
Game 3: I have leyline again (must be nice, right?), however, my hand is this: Leyline, Ingot Chewer, Sol Ring, Academy, Pithing Needle, Yawgmoth's Will, Top.  He turn one casts unmask on my top, gemstone into charm on my leyline and I'm pretty dejected.  I draw time walk, he casts bazaar, bazaars, fatestitchers, but doesn't hit much.  He passes and I wiff again, drawing ingot chewer, he dredges hits 3 narcs now, although misses an ichoird.  He therapies me on force, then tries to dread return iona, but notices that dread return is not in his yard.  Annoyed, but confidant, he passes the turn.  I draw land.  I cast ring, needle, walk.  I draw another land, I cast it, cast will, recast walk, cast top and look at the top 3.  I see ravenous trap and act dejected.  I draw and top 3 again, frustratedly putting the cards down again.  He dredges on his draw step and I trap away something like 40+ cards.  He chains needle and bazaars, throwing troll into the yard and swinging in.  I draw and pass he does the same again and passes, having finally put his dread returns in the yard.  A bit annoyed that he might still get there I ask how many cards are left in his deck, and the answer is 6, at which I know I have it and I hardcast chewer blowing up my sol ring for a blocker on his one zombie.  I draw into tezzeret and he scoops, as he will deck himself before he can win at this point.

3-1

Round 5: ID (Ici Li)

3-1-1

Top 8: UR Phid without the phids and with painter... so it was like, magus and shaman and painter and impulses and spell pierces (Sean Robbins)
Game 1: He gets out an early shaman and keeps up the pressure with that followed by magus and I eventually lose.
Game 2: He has early painter out, on blue, but I'm sitting on reb.  I eventually get a FoF off endstep and reveal something like, dt, tinker, lotus, 2 other completely broken things.  Also I have will in hand.  So I move to my turn and scroll for another force.  I have confidant in play and am at 7 life now, so I cast will and lotus and decide instead of going for infinite turns to go for sphinx so that confidant can't kill me, since I have 3 counters in hand. I have 1rBB in pool, and an untapped volc afater fetching, which puts me at 6.  I cast tinker saying "with 1 r in pool", now I remember, but it was heard as "with 1 r", I may have mumbled.  The judge was called and I was uncertain so he gave me back BB and a warning, and I just cast smother on servant instead of the original reb on servant.  I have sphinx out and go to town with no way to lose.
Game 3: He leads off with turn 1 magus off crypt.  Crypt deals 9 damage to him and he compliments with with some monkeys, eventually, killing his crypt and my jet and shutting me off mana.  I eventually topdeck lotus and am able to dt into will into lotus into recasting dt for tinker tinker off a recast jet with counter backup, I'm at 2 life at this point.  I win 2 turns later.  If sphinx was anything else I'd have lost.

Top 4: Remora Confidant (Mike Lupo)
Game 1:  I'm on the play and duress him, I take his duress and he has turn one confidant but no protection so I end of turn mystical for tinker, with key in play.  He topdeked force and proceeds to win with confidant beats, almost killing himself but not quite.
Game 2:  He duresses and I have counters, and I counter his confidant.  I then thoughtseize him and he has 3 land and an inkwell.  He then draws something like 7 or 8 lands in a row and loses.
Game 3:  He leads with confidant.  I try to copy that on my turn 2 but he has repeal for it.  He's drawing and lands a top, and things don't look good, I have vamp and key in hand, and I know he has spell peirce. He then taps for goyf with his tropical isalnd and emerald, and passes, and I cast eot vamp, and he asks if he can take back the goyf play tapping swamp instead, and I say no, since its kind of do or die for me and I'd not have vamped if he had.  I then take that opportunity to cast time vault and key and infinite turns winning a game I shouldn't have without considerable more luck on my part.

Finals: Vincent Forino (G/W Beats)
Game 1:  He casts beats, I cast key, h casts vial and beats, with 1 open, I dt for vault and win (seriously this combo is stupid)
Game 2:  He wins with 4/4 Figure of Destinies and races me, keeping me out of the game with an early seal of cleansing.
Game 3:  My turn one is sapphire, mana vault, academy, tezzeret for key.  His turn one was land, my turn 2 was winning the game.

Aight, as for the decklist:
2 Island
1 snow-covered Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Mox
1 Lotus
1 Ring
1 Vault
1 Crypt

1 Tezzeret, the Seeker
3 Dark Confidant
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress

2 Repeal
1 Rebuild
1 Fire/Ice
1 Thirst for Knowlege
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sb:
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Hurkl's Recall
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Smother

The recalls never came in, but I never played against stax, Chewer is a bit clunky but for a body and for versatility it proved worth it.

Also, because Ici is banned on TMD, here's his list:

4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Mountain
4 Barbarian Ring
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Mox
1 Vault
1 Crypt
1 Lotus
1 Ring

4 Goblin Welder

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Tanglewire
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Trinisphere
1 Memory Jar

Sb:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Shattering Spree
3 The Tabernacle at Pendral Vale

Thanks Noah for a great event, and thanks to King's Games for supporting the prizes even with only 19 players.  It was a good day all around, and has resulted in me having discovered an excellent Vietnamese place a block away from me.

I suppose Breandan is less bad than the Brandon Llord I was last event.

The decks Mith missed:

Workshop vs Ad Nausium

Tez (with slaver) vs Oath (I should note that by tez with slaver, we litterally mean UB Tez with the singleton card slaver)

As for the weenie deck, it basically was just white/black weenie as designed by a standard player, you're talking confidants, sammy p, whipcorder, figure of destiny, grunts, powered by vial.  Kinda ridiculous, I love it.

I think 5c shops and 4c fish split first, with tez and painter playing a brutal pseudo-mirror for 3/4th (no sure who won).

I think there were only 50 people or so, turnout was disappointingly low, I have to say.

Overall, a good day though, although I ended up only going 3-2-1 (I drew against my last round opponent once we determined that no 4-2s could possibly make it).

Not wanting to nit-pick, but, considering you play a basic swamp, any particular reason you run a 4 strand - 1 delta split and not the inverse?  (I'm assuming it was a transcription error)

I like this direction of the deck, by the way, the simplification of the strategy and the removal of cute "tricks" seems like a more optimal direction, particularly in a meta where duress effects seem a lot stronger than blast effects when painter isn't down.

A few questions:

What are your thoughts on Thoughtseize vs Duress?

Is truth better than EE?  I mention this because you have academy ruins, and late game ee could do some nasty things with that, I would speculate, while early game they perform relatively similar functions.

Would another draw engine have been more or less powerful than vault?  How significant was vault, that is, and how often would it have been better/worse than other given options, would you speculate?

Congrats on the finish man.

What would happen if the player in error knew what was on his top (by sensei's divining top or some other means)?

I don't think that its hogwash at all, as I've been hearing a lot of that talk as well.

The problem is that the format is sort of balanced, from an r&d perspective, but its just not fun, for me, anymore.  I mean, you have this sort of dichotomy of dryad/flash on one side (scroll-based decks) and everything else on the other (anti-scroll decks).

I mean, there are a lot of decks, but strategically they aren't very dirverse.  More than that, I, personally, don't have fun playing with or against gat, and there is a lot of gat out there.  I should rephrase that: I don't have fun palying with 4-gush gat.  The deck is just so... "meh", I guess, at least for me.

Obviously this transcends a magical theory argument, and is much more a mater of sociology.  The main decks out there right now, for the most part, are very much non-interactive, often actively seeking to isolate themselves from their opponent.  The gush base of GaT allows the deck to go off in a very non-skill-demanding manner, when that happens, of course, flash just wants to win before an opponent can do anything and uses counterspells a screen against disruption, Ichorid just ignores all but 1 or two cards in the game, and so devout its entire sb just dealing with those, which leaves you with the anti-tier 1 decks, which would be interactive, but since they are forcing interaction upon decks that seek non-interaction, the resulting games tend to lose interest.

Ideally, and this is just my opinion, you want two interactive decks in magic to be playing against each other.  We had just left an era of decks like gifts, which despite its power was a pretty interactive deck.  It changes its game plan based on what an opponent does, it provides the operator choices.  Modern tier one decks lack this, and they minimize the necessity of skill.

Perhaps my argument didn't come out like I intended, so I hope someone else can better convey my emotions and thoughts.  Regardless, I will say that my evidence is that I don't like vintage atm, and it might have nothing to do with the format, but I think it does.  I doubt I'll be playing much if any vintage for a while though, the format is just completely disinteresting to me.  I have been interested in and played almost exclusively vintage in my entire magic career (albeit this is relatively short compared to many other tmders), and this is the first time since I've played competitively that I don't like vintage as a format, and I started in the era of trinisphere.

If you really want to hide it, it is possible, but the templating would be kinda annoying, and probably not worth it, as you'd have to word it like illusionary mask and necro combined.

Something like this:

Vicious Tutor 
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Vicious Tutor, pay X life.
Search your library for a card with a converted mana cost of X or less and remove it from the game face down with X mask counters on it.  You may play that card as if it were in your hand by removing all mask counters from it and turning it face up.

However, revealing seems like a much more simple solution.

Griffin Mount 
Creature – Griffin Equipment.
Flying
~this~ may be equipped as if it wasn’t a creature.
Equip 
Equipped creature gets +0/+1 and gains flying and first strike.
~this~ and equipped creature must attack and block together.

I'm not sure if I've got the wording correct, but the basic idea is a top down design of what the card is.

That is the counter-argument, however.  Yes, yes I would rather see it become a staple.  And there is reason for that.  First of all, you can't just ban/restrict cards because "they're useless" but they "might someday become broken".  Should we ban every card that doesn't see competitive play?  I get your point, from the collector standpoint, however you must understand that we can't just ban every worthless (price and play wise) card out there to anticipate future brokenness.  Should be ban Despotic Scepter because someday it might combo with some imaginary card?  Should be ban Imperial Mask because it "wasn't intended for vintage play".  No, I don't think so.  I know that my statements are steeped in hyperbole, but it is to accentuate my point.  I also realize that Shaharazad has a higher threshold of danger than Despotic Scepter or Elder Land Wurm, but that shouldn't matter.



Once again, he was indeed using hyperbole.  However, think about Shaharazad as a punisher card.  "pay half your life or go into a subgame"  You don't have to do the subgame, just concede.  "WW, sorcery: target player loses half" is hardly broken, and if you want to win a match then you should just concede.  Honestly, this card can never really be broken simply because you can just pay life to counter it.  Its in the worst color of vintage, and its just a mediocre burn spell really.  Should we ban Time Vault and Mizzium Translequat because they can stall a game indefinitely?  Obviously not.  Playing Shaharazad as a strategic burn spell should be an acceptable move.  Do you honestly, honestly, believe that 4 Wish/4 Shaharazad would ever see vintage play?  He might cast one, and ouch, but then any real vintage deck should be able to take that hit and win.

As a community, we cannot simply "Consider the banned list ante cards, dexterity cards, and subgame cards".  To change the rules like that sets a dangerous precedent.  Next we'll be considering other random singular abilities.  Just because a card is useless, just because it has the potential to do something, and I severely doubt this card even has that, is no reason to ban it.  We have a format where we get 3 mana for nothing and 3 cards for U, is a WW sorcery speed burn spell really a threat?  If a card is impractical, it won't see competetive play.  The problem will solve itself.  If it was a problem, I'd accept action, but it simply isn't.

The real reason for the argument is that proponents of the ban are claiming that impracticality in tourament play justifies denying the creative space of the card existing.  However, this directly clashes with the ideology of vintage, which I believe should be our first concern, and that is that players get to "play with all of their cards", and only banning those which honestly do not work at all with current game rules, which is what we had.

Unfortunately I won't be able to play either, I'll be away all next week, and vacation > magic.  Have fun to those left .

Burning Wish the 3rd weakest?

The following are far more tame than that card:
Entomb
Time Spiral
Enlightened Tutor
Mox Diamond

Hell, the latter two are barely played in legacy.

Also up for contention of "stronger than burning wish", I would put FoF, Chrome Mox, and maybe Mana Vault.  I mean, those cards really aren't that great (although I've never seen 4 FoF in vintage, so I'm not really an expert).

However, I will definitely assert that I have far more faith in Vroman's ability to make b/r changes for vintage than wotc at this point.  Anyone willing to step up and axe gush?  You can hit flash and merchant scroll too if you are really ambitious.

More on topic: In all seriousness, this doesn't matter.  It would be like what would happen if wotc decided to restrict Adventurer's Guildhouse and then someone unrestricted it.  That being said, yeah, its unrestricted, no problem.

Water Torture, flavor wise, seems like it should be black or blue black.  Furthermore, in actuality you don't die from water torture, you lose your mind.

I might try something like this:

Water Torture  UB
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, target opponent removes the top (some number, I'm thinking like 2 or 3) cards of their library from their game unless that player removes a card in their hand from the game.

I think that that captures the flavor of water torture, is in a better color for the concept, and doesn't step on too many card's toes (unless I'm mistaken).  It is a similar card, it just attacks different resources slowly.

You could do the sorcery with suspend thing, but I think that that just over complicates things as that is essentially an over complication of an enchantment.

That last suggestion makes sense, but is it really a blue card even?  Your life becoming 5 seems more like a white or perhaps a black ability, considering the modern color pie.  The only precedent for blue getting this kind of effect I can think of is its illusions of grandeur and mediocrity effects.

The original card was poorly designed, but that life becoming effect is interesting.

Sounds good, I'll give it a spin.

Slogan: "Hungry?  Why wait?  Grab a Glix!"

Quote: "Glix, for lack of a better word, is good."

Hey!  I can alter cards too!

http://community.webshots.com/user/Glixy

Let me know what you guys think or w/e.

Furthermore, I'm trying to generate a little extra revenue, so if anyone wants anything done for them, feel free to ask.

Oh man, I never knew about this place.  Its only like half an hour from me, I've got to stop by some time.

Why does WotC actively seek to destroy all of Andy's dreams?

This actually happened to a friend of mine, we were driving and he looked at the road and shouted "omg!" because "Main Drain, Flow" was written on the street, but he had read it as "Mana Drain, fow".

14) ...when completely innocuous words and anagrams become inexplicably amusing.

I'm undecided at the moment, so many good choices.

First off, I love cool formats, so I wouldn't want vintage or legacy.  Type 4 is always good, though.  As for duplicate sealed, I'm for it, but on two conditions: 1) we don't know what the cards are before hand, it takes a lot of the skill out, and 2) we do something with a theme a lot cooler than "Legacy Commons".  That last one was kind of boring because it violated both rules.  Everyone had the same three decks, and the decks were pretty much boring, imo.

As for alternative formats, I'm a huge fan of the Rotisserie Draft of the first sets we did for the finals of TMC.  That was a lot of fun, and though I'm not sure we could accommodate a large number of players with one pool, I really loved the games that resulted from that.  It was great.  I would be all for another one of those.

As for the "create your own card", that seems awesome.  I think that the winner of the side event should do that, actually, to add some spice.  You would have to make a sort of council of 10 people or something to alter/vote on it to make sure its not stupid, and it would add even more spice to an already awesome tournament.

Whatever you do, this TMD is looking to be one of the best yet, I'm pretty excited about it.

Man, that Glix guy seems like a total ass, double burning you out of the top 8 and all.

You know, you could always just cut Dragon Breath.  You didn't seem to be using it a whole lot  .

Thanks for the games, they were pretty good and you played tight.  I kept 2 drains in simply because I had better stuff to take out.  Hell, I have to say all of my "bad" sideboarding strategies actually directly won me games... which is kind of weird.... whatever...

Pictures = Good, but get a better camera!  You're phone just isn't cutting it on some of them, esspecially the travis video.

I'm not going to lie, I honestly don't fear Ichorid that much, since more than any other deck it can lose to dumb luck (a la game 3).  I think one thing to note is that certain hate DOES work against Ichorid, and that is a well defended crypt, leyline, etc.  Certain hate DOESN'T work against Ichorid, and that includes extirpate, which, from my observations, didn't even phase you.  Told y'all extirpate wasn't that good.

Time for some attempts at minigames:
1: Putrid IMP, I would assume, which was replaced by Phanta as an alternate to bazaar to evade needle, etc.
2: See alternate title.
3: Seven, unless you're being all tricky and counting the die as "counters", but don't be like that
4: Don't know this game, ima throw out a guess: +2?
5: Last I checked, Travis's amazing 6 in the x4 zone was knocked off, leaving him with very little.  I guess I'll guess 4th
6: iamfisherman, ELD, englishmaninNH, cunningham (don't know the tmd name), the FUTURE, whateverworks, abdulahthebutcher or something to that effect, and me

...Okay, didn't realize you had posted answers before I did those.  Looks like I missed on 4, w/e.  Serriously though, why post the answers so soon?  It would have been more fun if you waited like a week to see some answers.  Anyway, nice job, you played tight, and you had a strong deck for the field.

-Glix, Crusher of Hopes and Dreams

Klep was only talking on the most base of strategies.

When taking that basic strategy into account, it becomes a sort of prisoner's game.  Since if you play lotus first, then its critical, but if you know its critical, and I know that you know that its critical, perhaps it isn't critical, etc etc.

A lot of times, this is about reading your opponant a la poker, probabilities of whats in his hand, what you have personally available, and the neccessity of lotus given conditions.

That being said, I was actually posed this question at Myriad last weekend by Kyle in the semi-finals.  He had mulled, and led with Lotus.  I had force, and a solid hand.  I thought for a second.  Now, considering he was playing pitch long, I knew his threat density was moderate.  I also knew he had mulled, which meant less options.  I hadn't seen him play duress all tourament, so I figured that the likelyhood of him playing something I couldn't force was low enough.  I also had a Mystical in hand, and I wanted to tutor recall.  Considering he had Mis-Ds in his deck, I knew I would want a counter up.  Furthermore, he had played lotus very casually.  This, of course, could be a pschycological ploy, however, taking everything into account, I allowed the lotus.  He proceded to go mox, land, go.  That force would go on to win me the game, essentially, 2 turns later.

The proper play when playing lotus is simply to be consistant.  Always a) act like it means everything, or b) act like it means nothing.  As long as you give no tells, you cannot be read, and you deny that aspect of the decission.

I would like to note that, when playing combo, playing lotus first should not, at least in my eyes, be any more indicative of a counter.  This is simply because for the most part, there is no reason to drop an early land when the deck is capable of using that card in hand for brainstoming purposes, and that land drop for a more important land (such as an Academy at some later point, post desire, etc, etc.).

The "counter lotus" decission, for me, is usually met with "no" unless a few conditions are met: It is past turn 1, my opponant is mana-lite; my opponant is playing duresses; my opponant is playing a very fast deck and suicidal deck; my opponant is comboing off, and seems to require one type of mana.

Congrats on the finish with an actually innovative list.  I have to say, this deck was suprisingly effective.

I want to note a realization I came to durring the tourament, that no deck in vintage has a way to kill Troll Ascetic.  I just think that's funny.

Mire Boa seems kind of weak, isn't there something better?

Really nice deck design, and good job at the tourament, especially with something this off the wall.  Very Nice.

There's no way you're 3-0 vs. me considering I think I've only played in three touraments with you even being in the same state, and I've beaten you before at least once (remember gifts to oath ^^).  In total, I've only been to about six or seven touraments, so that statistic seems unreasonable.

That being said, I can totally understand your decission, I was only kidding with the slops part, if I were you I probably would have done exactly the same thing.  Considering you had to pay for gas, you really needed to get up there to make it worth it, and playing the game is kinda what its all about.  Hell, without you I would have been down 200 bucks, its not like I'm complaining  .  Not to metion the shear entertainment value of our match.  Hell, I had a lot of fun with all my matches, except against draft.deq and sarah (where I just drew the shit, it wasn't even close like with kyle, I mean I'm talking FoF into eot Recall into Will stupid).

I have to say that this has got to be the best run tourament I've been to just in fluidity.  Dan keeps a really tight shop, and organizes these things suprisingly well.  It was very pleasent being able to sit down with a little bit of elbow space and some breathing room.

I definilty wish I could get out to more touraments, and I'm definitly going to try and get down to Myriad in the future.  We'll see how things are after Crew season, Travis was talking about some enfield mox tournys, and thats only about an hour away.

Ah, someone said that you wouldn't want to split either.  Either way, it didn't matter because Kyle wasn't going to split at any level.

I have no idea who the other top eighter was, now that I rember, because Oliver finished his match first.  Oh well, we'll just have to wait for the Myriad results.

The English accent wins games, what can I say, I'm just glad I didn't have to deal with it this time.

The top 8 was:
1/2 Me and Oliver w/ CS
3/4 Kyle w/ Pitch Long and ELD w/ "aggravated" gifts
5-8 Copes w/ BW Stax, Ray w/ Staxless Stax, "The Future of Magic" w/ b-man, and someone else playing some control that ELD took down in the top 8, but I don't remember his name.

So I haven’t picked up a magical card since January, mostly since I live in the magic void of Connecticut, can’t drive myself yet, and have a ton of extra stuff to do (Crew, pit band, to name a few).  However, on Monday I was plesently surprised to find out I actually had nothing to do on Saturday.  Crazy talk, any vintage touraments?  Myriad you say?  Probably can’t get a ride, but might as well ask.  After a quick talk with pops, turns out I get to play and he’ll go with my brother to Boston for the day.  Sweet deal.

First tournament in 4 months, haven’t really payed attention to vintage for that time…  What should I play?  Gifts?  Been there, done that.  Combo?  Too much thinking, especially for not having played in a while.  It also can be very demanding on playing well throughout a tournament.  So what then?  To the tourney report forums!  Lets check the meta:  Fish, Gifts, Fish, Gifts, other random stuff.  What beats fish and gifts?  Scroll down a bit, some top eights with bps?  Interesting.  Hey, wasn’t there some terrible deck that won SCG a while back?  Hey, that looks interesting.  Lets check how CODY’s been doing.  Top eighting you say?  Good games against fish and gifts you say?  Hmmz.  Open up PM to Mr. Vinci; quick summary of my pm:  “You’ve been doing good, tell me what you think of various card choices and my sb or die!”  After about two pms with him, he gives me some helpful advice and some links to decklists for me to try out.  I build the deck the night before the tournament, goldfish with it a few times, seemed fun, to say the least.  I ended up with the following list:

UBR Control
Teh Win (2)
1 Tendrils
1 Empty the f’in Warrens

Broken shiznat (6)
1 ban Yawgmoth’s Will
1 D-Tutor
1 M-Tutor
1 V-Tutor
1 No, you don't get to call it that. Try calling it "Timewalk."
1 Ancestral Denial

Cards for Me = Good (15)
4 Storm of the Brain
4 Accumlated “lol, who runs that” Knowledge
2 Intuition
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gush

Cards for You = Bad (11)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor

Supa Fast Manaz (11)
1 D-Rit
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus

Regular Manaz (15)
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 S-C Island
1 Island

SB:
2 Tink/Big Man
2 T-Crypt
3 Blast (1 Reb/2 Pyro)
3 Duress
1 Darkblast
2 FTK
1 Clasm
1 Massacre

Quick Deck Analysis:
I’ll spare you guys a long introduction, as Cody has written literal pages on this archetype, and my deck is pretty similar to his last builds.  I just want to reiterate, this deck really is NOT gifts.  It looks similar, but plays a very different game.  This basically plays end of turn, draws cards, and just tries lots of times to win small while keeping up defenses and recuperation, as opposed to the all out Gifts “all in” strategy.  This really pays off in the Gifts matchup.  The deck has tons of little tools, that all add up.
Some card specific comments:
The Ak Engine:  This is often scoffed, but was very good for me all day.  Worst case, AKs cycle.  But much more than that, they attract grave hate that really should be attracted elsewhere.  Fear of AK drawage cost Laplante a match, in fact, and extirpating AK let me will for the win antoher time.  This also allows, unlike gifts, to go for a very slow and reliable, and very well deafened win.  Furthermore, the engine is much more flexible, with both parts being useful elsewhere.
The FoF slot: Honestly, I don’t know what should go here.  The card was pretty good, although I’m still not sold on it.  Should it stay FoF, become scrying, scroll, something else?  I have no idea.  Cody told me to run it, but I wasn’t convinced.  I eventually just had my dad (who had no idea how magic works at all) to tell me what to run, and he said FoF, so FoF it was.
Merchant Scroll: This was advised against by Cody, but I liked it almost every time I drew it.  It pitched to fow once, got me ancestral twice, and AK number 4 once.  I usually board it out, because its not amazing game 2, but it was very versatile games 1.
The wins: I would never switch.  I used both about evenly, and both were very strong.

The Board: Amazing all day.  The clasm/massacre never came into play, but I want them in case of tmwa or whatever.  The rest was great, especially colossus games 2, and the duress/blast split.

The name: Brassy had been talking about how stupid all the arguments over deck names was, so I just called it the most generic defining name I could think of.  Whatever anyone says, whatever anyone calls it, it IS URB Control.  The funny part was that Dan read off the names of the top 8 decklists, so basically everyone knew what everyone was playing by the descriptive names but me.  Kyle, in fact, was convinced I was playing Gifts, despite me informing him I wasn’t, so he asked Dan, who confirmed I wasn’t.  Ironically, this led him not sideboarding in truth, which lead to him dying game 2.

Round 1 (Brassy w/ Aggro Scroll)
Well, this is disappointing.  On the upside, I know his list almost it its entirety, despite its “Super Secret Tech” status, as he essentially discussed every slot on the IRC over the last few days, especially last night.  On the down side, it should have a good matchup against my type of deck.  We shuffle up for game one.
Game 1:  I keep an okay hand, and force an early confidant, but he eventually gets a grunt down and does his little merchant scroll/infy recall shenanigans with multiple counterage backing it up and takes the game.
Boarding: IN: Tinker/Bigman, 2 Blasts, 2 Duress, 2 FTK, 1 D-Blast, 1 Massacre; OUT: Disadvantage tutors, scroll, fof, gush, rebuilds, ritual
Game 2: He gets me down to 4 with grunt BEATZ, when I desperation brainstorm into… ETW?!?!  LOL BRASSMAN, EAT YOUR OWN TECH.  He drops some confidants, I beat him down to 3 with tokens, leaving enough up to block confidants, and he flips up 3 cc’s with of creatures, despite extirpateing HIMSELF twice on daze and grunt.  Srsly, that card sucks.
Game 3: See game 1.
Matches: 0-1, Games: 1-2
Not a good way to start off the day, but what the hell, I didn’t drive two and half hours not to have fun!

Round 2 (Some Kid with Draft.deq)
Oh man, I felt bad.  My opponent wasn’t even playing with sleaves, it was a bad b/g draft deck.  Honestly, it was a buy, except I had to demoralize a newcomer to the format.  Sad faces =(.  I really hate doing this, cause it just feels mean.  I don’t even counter any of his spells, and I just etw for a billion and drop the big man game 2.  This doesn’t make me satisfied, but I go around, see some shenanigans like tarpan beating the shit out of gifts (sorry Jeff)!  What an awesome format.  Jank Golem, you rock.

Round 3 (Sarah with Belcher)
Hey, a Yarrington!  TMWA?  Belcher?  Who knows.
Game 1: She wins the roll and goes turn 1 mox, sphere.  Blecher, eh?  I lucksack like a NOOB in this game though.  My hand becomes almost perfect, I draw into FoF, which draws into the NUTZ, and eventually I push through for the win.
Boarding: IN: Bigman Plan, 1 Crypt, 1 D-Blast, x Duresses; OUT: Gush, FoF, slow blue cards.
Game 2: Mox, sphere.  Hey, this seems familiar.  I get an early colossus out though, and back it with some gobo tokens to which she scoops, despite having like 8 herself.
I drew PERFECTLY in that match, and Sarah knew it.  That FoF, especially, was amazing.

Round 4 (Stefan with Gifts)
Uh-oh… Brassy’s disciple.  Can he live up to his master?
Game 1: He plays some stuff, I counter some stuff, and eventually drop some goblin tokens.  I eventually win with a barely lethal tendrils, however.
Boarding: IN: Tinker/Bigman, 3 Blasts, 3 Duress, 1 Crypt; OUT: Disadd Tutors, Gush, FoF, Rebuilds, Scroll, Ritual, something else (bs I think, not sure).
Game 2: This plays perfectly into my game plan against gifts.  I do an early colossus, he bounces it, I tfk it away.  I counter some early stuff, we both counter business (we both missed drain mana, actually, and burned like nubs) but I have infy counters and eventually go eot intuition, ak, ak, drain infinite cards, cast some shit on my turn, will, and reveal triple counter backup in my 16 card hand, and he scoops.  At one poing he almost went off, but he was relying on a post will mystical into tendrils, brainstorm for the win.  I blast the bs, and he’s done.
This matchup is exactly as Cody described it.  Early game, you can lose to it going off, but once you last a few turns, you just exist in the eot step, draw a trillion cards and slow play them.  The best part is that, unlike gifts, you do NOT have to go all out to win.  For instance, my game 2 I was able to tinker with fow backup, and even though he stoped that, I was no way out of it, and was able to draw myself to a win.

Round 5 (nataz w/ ICHOROID)
I had watched two of his games so far, so I knew exactly what he was playing.  Ichorid, without breath (or might as well have been because he didn’t see the god damned card in his yard, which gave him instant wins in both matches I saw for some reason, although he still one both through completely unnecessary shenanigans).
Game 1: His game goes perfect, unmasking my shit and ripping my hand to shreds while smashing my face in.
Boarding: IN: 2 Crypt, 2 Tinker/Bigman, Darkblast; OUT: FoF, 1 Rebuild, 2 Drains
Game 2: Turn one crypt.  Draw some cards.  Drain ancient grudge.  Win with something eventually (tendrils by the look of it).
Game 3: He drops some early disruption, but has NO DREDGERS for the first like 4 turns.  It was depressing.  Because of this, he gets a really slow start, and in the meantime I tinker up the big buy and generate around 12 gobos to go with him.  He concedes.

Wow, 4-1!  I can just draw into the top 8.  This is going pretty god damn well.  I watch some other games, talk to various TMDers.  My dad shows up and want to know if I want to go to dinner.  I say sure, I’ll just id with my opponent, and we can go...

All of a sudden the wall is smashed to pieces as an unstoppable force smashes through them, leaving only ruble and dust.
Juggernaut: “GOTCHA' BITCH!!!!!”

Round 6: (Laplante w/… f’in awesome.deq)
Now I have to settle for microwaved pizza for dinner.  DAMN YOU JUGGERNAUT!  (juggs: he he)
Game 1: He plays shit, I counter for a while, but eventually he drops some stupid crap.  I’m pretty sure I’m screwed, but when I AK for 2, he crypts a bit early, allowing me to pull a will-induced win out of my ASS (for exactly lethal tendrils).  I guess he wasted all of his luck on those absolutely stupid desire’s he pulled last round.
Boarding: IN: Tinker/Bigman, 1 Crypt, 2 Blasts, 2 Duresses (he jugged me last time we played with a t-bind out of NOWHERE, I was not about to let that happen), D-Blast; OUT: 1 FoF, 1 Gush, 2 Disadd tutors, 1 Scroll, 1 TfK, 1 something else (maybe bs?)
Game 2: I am basically in complete control after a HUGE misplay on his part (which wasn’t obvious until the next turn).  He played land and mox or something and passed, and I duressed.  He reveals tinker, force, welder, shop, mana crypt.  If he had played turn 1 tinker, I likely woud have lost.  However, he wanted to steal one of my lands with a titan.  Not sure what the right play was from his position, but his choice cost him.  I stole tinker, established complete control, drew 16 million cards off intuition/ak/recall/ak, and went off (making sure to intuition for duress/tendrils/will w/ the win in hand.  I won’t die to t-bind ever again!).
I seriously love Travis’s deck, and despite anything else, he really is very good ad the psychology of the game, particularly in the carrying out of a bluff, which is very scary when playing against him, as more so than anyone else he can look like he’s done, and then drop a t-bind, and pound a hole in it with his index finger while I cry.

I leave to check out some vintage draft SHENANIGANS, I go back over to the top tables to check out the brassy/oliver match when all of a sudden Kyle shouts: “Hey, kid with glasses! Take my place!”  And I end up in a type 4 game, which apparently Travis won despite me having like 4 creatures, forbid and number crunch in hand, and orrery in play vs about nothing, and with one player dead.

We talk about a top 8 split, which at over 100 each seems good to me, but Kyle and Eric want to play it out.

Top 8 (Billiam Copes, w/ his trademark w/b stax)
Hey, I’ve heard of this guy.  He seems like a really cool guy, and we talk a bit before a pretty casual top 8 match, imo.
Game 1: He gets turn 1 sphere, follows up with some more lock pieces.  I don’t draw lands, and scoop to masticore of the razormane variety.
Looks like I’ll be going home early is what’s flashing in my hand after a rather disappointing game 1 from a purely strategical point.  Ironically, he had hoped for an interesting match which resulted in like a stax at 2, a sphere and rod down, which seemed quite boring from where I was.  However, I figured I’d give him a run for his money.
Boarding: IN: Tinker/Bigman, D-Blast, 2 Duress; OUT: FOF, Gush, Disadd Tutors, Scroll
I figured that aginst his deck, I really want to get rid of some of those big artifacts, and he didn’t have stuff like welder, so duress seemed alright.
Game 2: I play island, he goes turn 1 grid, forced, sphere (damn it, this seems familiar).  I drop some lands, he plays some locks, eventually I set up for a rebuild combo, but he wastes my land, I rebuild in response (a play error on my part, I should have floated, and seen if he had played anything I could drain (which was in my hand).  Regardless, the field goes up, and he makes a HUGE play error in casing confidant instead of sphere.  Ecstatic, I untap, do some lotus/tutor/will shenanigans and tendrils his face.  He comments that he noticed the error immediately, and had only dropped the confidant because that’s what he had been planning, pre-rebuild.  Ah, well.
Game 3: I play a few early mana, but don’t draw much else.  However, I’m sitting on like 3 drains and infinite draw.  Eventually I eot discard b-s.  He comments on how strange that seems, but when he duresses me he changes that comment to how screwed he is.  I eot bs into the NUTS, however, allowing for tinker w/ double force backup.  He lets a grunt die, hoping to draw balance.  No such luck.

Oliver is done, and asks about top 4 splits.  195 dollars seems damn good.  I go over to tell Kyle, who is on the phone, and I overhear the following: “I’ve got two more rounds to win.  I didn’t drive this far to split.”  Ah well, I tell him the split, and he immediately refuses.  Meh, I’ll still get 75 “myriad money (lol)”.

Top 4 (Kyle w/ Pitch Long)
I’m not too happy.  Kyle has been playing really well all day long, is really good with the deck, and has been commenting on his good control game.  Oh well.
Game 1: He mulls twice, tries to go off, but I am able to counter his bomb and tendrils him out after some ak shenanigans.
Boarding: IN: 3 Duress, 2 Blast, 1 Crypt; OUT: 1 Scroll, Vamp, Gush, FoF, Scroll, TFK.
Perhaps leaving mystical in was a mistake, but it did win me the game.
Game 2: He mulls, plays some early mana, which meant force or something.  I drop a land and pass, he drops land and passes, I end of turn mystical into recall.  I draw recall and maihphase target myself.  He hardcasts mis-d.  I force, draw perfectly off recall, and pull of a complex series of weird shit involving d-tutoring for will, casting it, pyroblasting a land, and ETW with a storm of 9, with a mana left over even!  I’m sitting with 20 goblins, and pass the turn.  Kyle comment how that was “so much pulled out of my ass, it was like ripping open my asshole with the f’in jaw’s of life!”  Dan seems to disapprove of such talk, but it was funny as hell.  He draws and grim tutors with B floating.  He searches his deck, and states blatantly: “Damn, I didn’t board truth in.”  He gets recall, recalls himself, and reveals a hand of Ritual, Necro, Tendrils, with one black floating.  If he had had one more mana, he could have won with tutor into will.  I think the proper play was to play necro and necro for 16, and after some contemplation, he just scoops.  Have to say, this was one of the most interesting matches, as in the middle he decided to quietly start singing “bitches ain’t nothin’ but hoes with tricks.”  He seems a bit disgruntled at how much out of my ass that win was pulled, but hell, WhateverWorks!  Honestly, I didn’t even realize it for a second.  I went recall, we had the counter war, it resolves, I think, and just state: “storm of three, right?” and he just goes: “you have to be shitting me.” Awesome.

Anyways, I check out various side events going on, come back at various point to check on oliver/eld’s match.  Eventually, while watching brassy’s team draft event, oliver just shouts: “hey, split?”  And I just immediately spin around and responed: “sure.”

We both get around 320ish “Myriad Money”, which I convert directly, into a bunch of various pimpage, random cards I needed, and obviously, Super Secret Tech.  My dad is waiting outside at this point, so we leave, stop to fill up our gas tank, where I bought a congratulatory Monster and bag of Yorks, and we make the 2.5 hour trek back home listing to Muse.

Overall, this was a great tournament, and apparently on the larger side for Myriad.  I really wish I could get out more for Magic; it’s really a ton of fun.

Props:
Cody for all the last-minute advice, half of which I ignored, and half of which was true (tfk = really good adivce, gush really wasn't all that good for me)
Brassy for playing SUPER SECRET TECH
Travis for playing awesome.deq... again
Dan for the awesome tourny
Oliver for not making me play anymore
AK for being better than gifts
Ray for brining type 4 and coming through with another staxless stax top 8 (he's a damn wigger, white rigger that is)
Future Sight spoilers for being insane

Slops:
Car accidents on highways for making me almost late
Kyle for making me beat him
ELD for making Oliver beat him [EDIT: apparently I was misinformed, people just THOUGHT ELD wouldn't want to split, not the case, meaning me doing well rests soley on Kyle!  Sry about blemishin' your rep lol!]
Jotun Grunt for smashing my face in mercililessly (and then having the audacity to not even top 8)
Me, for crushing the hopes and dreams of draft.deq players =(

Verbal Warning for using language we don't welcome here at TMD.

Apparently although you can vote for mine, Technogeek thought it was too hideous to ever look at again, but I defy thee!

Um... Why hasn't anyone mentioned it hosed f'in ban Yawgmoth's Will?

Regardless, it will likely see limited play.  2/1 creatures for 1B aren't terribly hard to get rid of, and things like lelyine, grunt, and wretch are usually better.  It does devestate Ichorid, though, so if you have a lot in your meta, consider it.

RAWR I IS BACK!

Shattering Spree... can... hit chalice for 1...

Due to the speed of the format, I feel the lack of rod is a serrious problem.  It doesn't hurt you at all, and it can serriously hinder your opponant's strategies.  Perhaps above rod I would run chalice even.  It has long been established that Chalice + Shaman = Awesome.  One or the other is a neccessity, imo.

I agree with Firewalker, I would run it over blood knight, at least main.

Chain Lightning seems almost strictly better than reckless abandon.

Fetches should be run, as there is no reason not to run them.

Don't cut fireblasts, though, thats just ridiculous.  Fireblast is what gives this deck any teeth at all.