I don't really want to wade into most of this back and forth but I will just say...


...no. I'd prefer to see CE over Revised, for example for things like Jayemdae Tome, where getting a Beta or even Unlimited playset would be very obnoxiously expensive at this point. But I'd personally rather see Unlimited over CE as it feels more "real" to me. But certainly just a personal opinion that I know is not necessarily shared by all!

Also on the general point I'll just add, kudos for starting the NY group and hope you guys have as much fun and success as we are having in Northern CA.

And since I can't help myself, to weigh in on the point of contention here, I'm glad to support CE/Revised/Chronicles in order to broaden the player base. It's hard enough even allowing those sets to get more than a handful of players together at any given time/place, so I think restricting to just the "hardcore" Swedish allowed sets would be shooting all of us, including those who have Beta everything, in the foot. I'd much rather be able to play more matches against a greater variety of decks than be beholden to the most "pure" form of throwback elitism. I take the "pimpness" factor as a personal challenge to incrementally improve the aesthetic appeal and collecting accomplishment of my own decks, but I certainly don't begrudge opponents who want to participate but have less insane spending priorities.

Thanks a ton for taking the time to write this all up! Here are a couple extra photos I had.

City in a Bottle doing good work against a third of my hand. Totally worth it though - Tim's first turn Lotus > Juzam was quickly dispatched by my first turn Lotus > City.



Mith preparing to create some chaos against Stephen's board. I think this was relatively early on in that game that wound up going on for a billion turns until Stephen finally tapped out leaving shields down and Mith came in with the infinite Fireball to end it?



Favorite board state of the day by far. Juggernaut CANNOT BE BLOCKED BY WALLS!

Will definitely be there. May or may not have just ordered 3 more Power Artifacts in response to this unrestriction

Here are photos from the event we had in January at GP Oakland. Hoping for another good turnout!

Also if you haven't already, join the Bay Area Old School Facebook group to stay in touch and see about informal get-togethers between the officially organized tournaments.

If Michael M beat Ryan R in top 8 then I think they need to be swapped in the ranking in the initial post?

Thanks for writing up all the lists Jeff.

Great event as always. Here's a report of my matches (with Grixis Therapy):

Round 1 vs. John playing my Dredge deck. John is mostly a Legacy player but is down to sling some Vintage and fielded a pretty standard Dredge list that we tinkered with a bit together during playtesting. Game 1 he keeps 7 and lays down a Bazaar. He misses the Bazaar draw on my end step turn 1 so starts off a little behind, but it doesn't make much difference. He starts dredging on his turn 2 and is off to the races. I manage to find Strip Mine on my turn 2 to get rid of his Bazaar, but by then it's too late. On turn 3 he makes a land drop with Petrified Field to bring his Bloodghasts out. I Force his Dread Return but he already has 3 Bridges in the yard so he winds up with 9 zombies anyway and I'm dead the following turn. Game 2 he keeps 7 again but I have a decent hand that can go get Cage with Demonic Tutor quickly, but he Missteps my Misstep on his Therapy and then finds a second Bazaar to totally go to town on his turn 2. 0-1.

Round 2 at the much more spacious and luxurious loser's table in the back room, vs. Adam playing UW Landstill. I don't remember too many details from this match but I believe in game 1 I got on a pretty solid roll involving Ancestral, Snapcaster back the Ancestral, etc to get way ahead and went the distance with Elemental tokens. Game 2 I Pyroblasted Adam's attempt to cast Standstill early on and he wasn't able to recover. 1-1.

Round 3 vs. Stephen playing Remora Pyromancers. Game 1 I Probed him and saw Pyromancer, Swords, Snapcaster and some other stuff, and then let Pyromancer resolve even though I clearly should have Forced it, which I realized the moment "OK" came out of my mouth, when I put together that even if I countered his Swords he could just Snap it back. I did then counter his Swords on my Pyro anyway, and then the following turn my mistake wound up not mattering because he pitched his Snapcaster to a Force. This game went relatively long with each of us having up to 3 Pyromancers out at some point but I was able to Bolt at least one of his and wound up with a superior token army to go the distance. Game 2 I had an awesome hand that included two Moxes and a Demonic Tutor but he opened with Volcanic, Lotus, sac Lotus for Blue, Mystic Remora, Pyromancer. Very fortunately for me I had Strip Mine in my opener so on my turn I just stripped his Volcanic to end the Remora right away. Unluckily for him he then didn't draw another land for quite a while and I was able to take it away. He said that he had Dack in hand and had considered playing that instead of the Pyro on turn 1 which would have been better given what wound up happening, but no real way to predict the one-of Strip Mine response - without that he would have had two turns in which I couldn't profitably cast anything and he would have gotten way ahead. 2-1.

Round 4 vs. Michael playing Sylvan Mentor. Game 1 we each played a lot of Gushes but mine found better stuff. I believe Michael took 8 to draw 3 off his Sylvan at one point, taking him down to 6. On my next turn I cast Dig Through Time and found 2 Lightning Bolts in my top 7, and had protection in my hand already, so that did it. Game 2 I Probed and saw Jace and Mentor, then decided to Therapy away the Jace on the theory that I had way more answers to a resolved Mentor. Next turn he wound up with quite a large army of Monks and I was starting to regret my decision, but I managed to get Dread of Night out, and then later got a second Dread of Night to kill the Mentor as well as the tokens, and he couldn't recover from that. 3-1.

Round 5 vs. Michael playing Painter. We ID'd and played out two unsideboarded games, both of which I lost. I was a little too excited to exile my blue Demonic Tutor to cast Force of Will when he had Painter's Servant in play but of course you can't pay the alternate cost for Force for flashback when it's in the graveyard. 3-1-1.

Top 8 vs. Ryan playing Mentor. Very swingy and interactive game 1 where I finally managed to pull ahead on tokens after dispatching his Mentor, and had lethal on the board for next turn when he cast Tinker. In play I had a Mox and two tapped lands, and in hand I had a Gush and a Dack Fayden. I considered Gushing to try to find a Force for the Tinker, but if I didn't get one, that would leave me one mana shy of being able to play Dack the next turn. Not knowing what he might get, and hoping it was Blightsteel, I decided to let Tinker resolve. Much to my dismay, he found Sphinx of the Steel Wind, the greatest unstealable artifact in the multiverse, and the game slipped from my grasp. (It turned out Force was 3 cards from the top, so I wouldn't have found it with the Gush anyway.) Game 2 I had two Dread of Nights in my opening hand so I knew I was in good shape. Managed to get them both out after he had already made some monks, and again built up my token army. I had Pyromancer and 2 tokens in play with him at 7, and attacked to bring him down to 3. I had cast Probe a few turns earlier so knew that he was holding two Flusterstorms and a Pyroblast. I tapped Ruby to cast Lightning Bolt for lethal, but unfortunately in my laziness thinking I had the game sewn up, failed to play either the land or the Black Lotus that were in my hand first, and only had 4 other untapped mana. He cast Flusterstorm twice, requiring 5 mana total, countering the Bolt. OK no big deal, I'll just attack for lethal next turn. For his final draw he topdecks Tinker, which nicely complements the Time Vault I hadn't seen which was also already in his hand. D'oh!!!! 3-2-1.

Bringing myself + 2 other players to this. Will bring some Old School decks if anyone wants to throw down on some side games

What a great event, thanks to all who showed up and participated on Sunday! Jason was the winner at 4-0 with The Deck. I believe Ryan (WW), John (Deadguy Ale) and the fellow who beat me in the last round piloting the Blue Artifacts deck whose name is escaping me at the moment all finished 3-1. If anyone else has more results details, please share.

Am I correct that we ultimately had 15 players? I didn't manage to get a copy of the pairings sheet. I have photos of 10 full decks and action shots showing three more, plus Eliot Burk's White Weenie which isn't in any of the photos, which makes 14, and we had an uneven number of players since someone had a bye each round, so I gather there must have been one other deck that I missed?

Here are photos from the event. See you all at the next one - time to brew up something new!

Blue Artifacts



Red/Black aggro control



Deadguy Ale



Goblins!



Mono Green running sans sleeves (love the Hidden Path tech!)



Red/Green zoo



Jason's winning list, featuring the prize Moss Monster



Another build of The Deck



My Underworld Dreams combo deck



Ryan's White Weenie



Decks we didn't get full photos of:

The Deck featuring Alabaster Potion (!)
Steve's Black Blue White deck
Eliot's White Weenie
Green White Blue (Erhnamgeddon?)
Another one?

Some action shots:





Alabaster Potion!



Llanowar showdown





Big Mana Drain fueled Fireball



Mr. Moss Monster

Thanks for posting. This was a fun event, although lower turnout than we had hoped for considering the GP venue. The main problem I think was that the Legacy side event conflicted - it started at 11am and this started at 3pm, so Legacy was still going on at that point.

Steel Hellkite was probably the MVP of the day for me, particularly in the first match vs. Blue Belcher (ouch).

The final match between me and Rich was surprisingly fun and interactive for a Workshops mirror. He assembled infinite mana/draw with Metalworker + Staff of Domination in game 1, but I managed to squeeze out games 2 and 3. In the second game I played Forgemaster and then he copied it with Metamorph. Unfortunately I had Blightsteel in hand so I couldn't go search for it, and I was worried that he was going to bring out Blightsteel on his next turn. I had sided in Duplicant so I considered letting him make the first move, but then I think I topdecked Greaves so I decided to go get Hellkite and attack and blow up a bunch of his stuff. Probably not the best play but it worked out because it turned out he also had Blightsteel in hand! D'oh.

In the last game we both made a play error: We both had Lightning Greaves in play, mine attached to a Lodestone Golem and his unattached. I played Revoker and named Greaves. Several turns later he played a Golem and equipped his, and the next turn I attacked and he blocked so we traded Golems, and I equipped my Greaves to my Revoker. Then on his next turn when he was about to play another creature I realized that neither of those equips had been legal since my Revoker was still in play. However since he hadn't attacked with his the turn it came into play (and neither of us had spot removal that was stymied by Shroud), the judge ruled the mistakes hadn't actually affected the game state so we just unequipped mine and proceeded with the game.

Meet at 11am at the side event registration desk. Same rules/sets/restricted list as Eudemonia.

http://www.eudogames.com/magic/160228-old-school-magic

Looks like CF has agreed to let us use space at the venue for Old School play on Sunday, but it will be a casual tournament with no buy-in/prizes. I imagine we could still all sign a Moss Monster or Giant Shark or whatever to give to the winner in true Swedish style (I'll bring one of each just in case...).

https://www.facebook.com/groups/267586756684840/permalink/786058118171032

I'm in for Vintage +1.

Also Old School casual event on Sunday! http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=48232.0

Definitely interested and have at least 3 participants. Looks like CF is still working on the side event schedule, maybe they'd host an official Old School side event?? Who do we have to lobby?  

Certainly no objection from me as this is what I advocated for when we discussed at the Vintage tournament. Excited to combine workshops with my full set of Urza's lands in Rocket Launcher.dec (or something)

Fun time and beautiful decks as usual. Here's a game state in my game 2 vs. Stephen. COP: Red was holding off Kird Ape, and then Mirror Universe came up to discourage me from continuing to attack with the factories. Stephen ultimately grinded me out that one and game 3.



Here's a shot where not much appears to be going on, except everything along the top is set aside from the real game, while players shuffle up for the Shahrazad sub-game.



My favorite Shahrazad moment obviously was when I was mana screwed holding a grip of 5 blue cards (including Time Walk and Ancestral) but no blue mana source, facing down a 3-4 turn clock from Eliot B's handful of weenies (we're both at 18 life). He then plays Shahrazad for the fun factor and/or as a potential Fireball for 9. I manage to dominate the subgame to drop him down to 9, then pull a Volcanic off the top back in the real game and take it away. Of course he won the match anyway

Not sure if others have any "action shots".

Have two decks sleeved up, still tinkering around with one of them. But have three interested players. We may try to throw a third deck together but probably have to find another playset of AQ Mishra's Factories in order to do so! It's hard to field multiple decks in this format from one collection, particularly trying to maintain a respectable level of pimpness across each.

Also anyone else try to pick up an Arabian Nights Serendib Efreet recently and find that they are out of stock at essentially every online store, and/or have quadrupled in price all of a sudden? Old School must be catching on...

Should actually be able to make this one! Time to bust out the Relic Barrier / Winter Orb combo given that errata??

I would definitely support bi-monthly events. Bummed that I missed this one.

Have folks considered putting together a mailing list that people would sign up for at the events, so that interested players would get notification/reminder of upcoming events without having to proactively check here?

I have to say I disagree about segregating discussion and announcements about Old School into a separate forum. The population of players interested in Vintage and Old School is basically the same, and there are only about two dozen threads per year in this forum; it's not like it's being spammed up with two or three Old School posts. If they were relegated to another forum I bet many people, myself included, would never see them, and turnout for these tournaments which are already hard to get many participants for would suffer.

Sorry to miss you Stephen, best wishes to your father and family.

We had 10 competitors, and played 5 rounds of Swiss with a split pool at the end based on record (payout to 2-2-1 or better). A nontrivial fraction of the Alpha and Beta dual lands that exist on earth appeared to be in the room. The vibe was very casual and I think all had a good time. Lots of pretty crazy plays, from Timetwister being cast twice on turn 3 (thanks to Verduran Enchantress engine) to Dustin's army of walls.

Here are some pics I took:

Game state Enchantress vs. Mana Vortex


Armageddon, in response, Boomerang Volcanic Island in response, with no other cards in hand, and Eliot at 2 life...


...Top deck Chain Lightning


My Time Vault/Animate Artifact/Instill Energy combo deck


Black discard/aggro deck


Heiner's Mana Vortex deck

In order to make things as confusing as possible, there were actually two players playing Dredge, both named Eliot.

The one in the top 8 was Eliot Burk. I imagine he put Adam Pierce in the "Desk Designer" spot on the deck list sheet to give credit for the Dark Depths idea (http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage).

Great time even though I didn't know how to play my deck -- will probably go back to Shops next time (I am the other Eliot who was playing Dredge). Thanks to Sam and Heiner for tolerating my ineptitude. I learned a lot, which was the goal, and actually had some really interactive, close and interesting games with Ibrahim in the last round.

Looking forward to the next Vintage and/or Old School event!

I agree with small tweaks. Most important I think though is just to try to have as many events as possible so people have more opportunity to try things out. If the B/R list and/or rules in effect change between each event I think it could get confusing and make it hard to learn and refine.

Personally from an overall vision/flavor perspective, I'd be in favor of dumping Fallen Empires since for me the last set that "feels" old school is The Dark (not for any particular game play reasons...although I'd love to see a competitive Goblin Grenade deck...).

Mana burn seems like a fun gimmick to bring back, mostly for the "feel" - with so many people playing four-of Mishra's Factory it wouldn't have that much effect anyway.

I agree that with less draw manipulation and shuffle effects available, the format is vulnerable to too many games being decided by mana screw, so keeping Strip Mine and Black Vise as one-ofs seems right.


I would find having a great variety of competitive archetypes and strategies to be desirable. I'd love to see burn, land destruction, weenie, graveyard, zoo, and wacky combo decks giving the tight blue decks a run for their money. I think one of the great things about this format is how much variety you can squeeze out of a card pool of less than 900, about half of which are garbage. The metagame at Eudo for this first event was good in this regard, but it could be better (more players would help, which of course is a tall order). It's fun to see lots of the weird forgotten cards that have no other home.

I'm definitely picking up a Chaos Orb so I can come properly equipped next time. Will have to practice with it though !

I did pretty terribly in this, winning only one match based on having Lotus in my opening hand twice due to LotusHead's poor deck cutting skills as he mentioned. Will try to do some actual play testing and tuning before the next one.

Mana Drain being restricted is a bummer. We recently put together a couple 93/94 decks but one was Workshop based so that isn't going to fly either. We'll prepare another one and do our best to field two decks in this event.

Definitely interested in playing some side games with 93/94 decks at the next event! What restricted list do you use for that? The one as of Fall 1994 (so I can play 4 Strip Mine, but only 1 Candelabra of Tawnos)??

Agreed this was a good event despite the low turnout. Glad that everyone is pretty laid back and there to have a good time.

I ran the 5C Stax deck to top 4, list below. It was a lot more fun to play than MUD. Play of the day for me was tapping Gemstone mine, which was my only land, to use its last counter to cast Balance against Michael (BUG Delver), killing his Delver and his 4/5 Tarmogoyf and all of his lands, and causing me to discard one card: Sundering Titan. Then played Welder. Honorable mention for turn 1 Tinker into Sundering Titan after opponent had played 3 duals on his turn 1 with Fastbond...ouch. But that was just dumb luck.

Steven's Dredge deck was pretty brutal. We were each undefeated after 3 rounds and ID'd when we were paired in round 4 but played it out for fun...I didn't stand a chance. I think Dredge is a pretty rare sighting at Eudemonia, something to watch out for.

5C Stax

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Balance
1 Crop Rotation
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Mental Misstep
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Goblin Welder
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland

Sideboard

2 Ancient Grudge
2 Duplicant
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Nature's Claim
1 Pithing Needle
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Indeed, I believe I'm still holding free entry and first round bye to the Lotus tournament from 2nd place in the Emerald tournament in, uh, 2009? Is that right?

Congrats on picking up the Jet. I think if I play MUD in a tournament again I'd have to put the Smokestacks back in. Definitely need to get a second Karn too - I only played 1 since I only own one and was running no proxies so didn't really want to have to proxy a $5 card

Here was my list:

Maindeck:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Juggernaut
1 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Jester's Cap
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:

4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
2 Jester's Cap
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Sculpting Steel
2 Duplicant

Missing a Mox Emerald in Jeff's list there.

There were some fun exchanges in Jeff and John's games. At one point John got Vault and Key into play but was tapped out. Jeff then oaths up Terastodon replacing Vault, Key and a land with elephants before John can get an untap step. He gets Jeff to fairly low life with the elephants but then Jeff flips the top card for Oath revealing Iona and names blue. John vamps for Edict but Jeff has Drain.

Earlier Jeff had Key in play and John, who had just tinkered for Inkwell, decides to Ice it during upkeep before Oath happens. He draws Demonic Tutor off the Ice. Jeff oaths up Darksteel and then drops Vault from his hand. Although Key is tapped, John's in trouble as he doesn't have enough mana to cast both Tutor and Time Walk the next turn. He topdecks Ancestral Recall, draws land, Mox, Magus of the Unseen, and is able to search up the Walk and resolve it for the just-in-time win.

I'm "???" with the Shops (Eliot). Top 4 was 3 Shops decks + Jeff with Oath (2 MUD decks and 1 mono-R). I left after Dylan knocked me out in the mirror match in the semis so not sure what happened after that.

Decent variety today. I saw one Charbelcher and one Painter deck along with the usuals. Patrick was playing "Tez-less Tez" (Menendian's list) and John was playing Tez.

Went Win (vs. Relando's Painter), Win (vs. Dylan's MUD), ID (vs. Patrick's Key-Vault), Win (vs. Michael's Tez?), ID (vs. Jeff's Oath). T8 beat Eric's Fish but then T4 lost to Dylan's MUD.

Game 1 I won the roll and opened with Chalice for 0 which I believe locked Relando out of a Lotus and a Mox. He forced an early Lodestone Golem and got Painter's Servant into play, but I got out another Chalice at 1 keeping him off Grindstone and was then able to get out a Lodestone and 2 Juggernauts.

In game 2 I had a first turn Trinisphere (though he'd already dropped Lotus). On turn 2 he cracked the Lotus to hard cast Force my Lodestone Golem. However he scooped after I resolved Crucible with a Wasteland in the yard (he had a Force in hand, but Trinisphere blocked it).

1-0

Round 2 was the mirror vs. Dylan and was a feature match. Apparently it was more interesting than the previous feature, which was Oath mirror. I won the roll again and started with Chalice at 0 again. Quickly establish Crucible/Waste lock and he scooped.

Game 2 went long. He was grinding me down with a Mishra's Factory, while I was holding onto a Duplicant waiting for him to drop a creature. Some early attacks plus Ancient Tombs had gotten him down to less than 10 life so once he dropped Smokestack, I figured it was time to play Duplicant as a vanilla 2/4 and see what I could do. Unfortunately Dylan had also been holding onto a Duplicant for the same reason so he dropped his the next turn exiling mine. He also found another Factory so I was in trouble. Then I topdecked Sculpting Steel so I went back to having a Duplicant after exiling his. I don't remember the exact endgame but he was able to eke it out (Ryan will have the details).

Game 3 I mill to 5 and keep a hand of Wasteland, Mox Pearl, Tolarian, Sculpting Steel and I think Sphere of Resistance. He's land short and I manage to top deck a second Waste taking out both his Factories. I then find a few more goodies and wind up with a beater with a Sword of Fire and Ice attached for the win.

2-0

Round 3 Patrick and I were matched and decided to ID since we were both 2-0 at that point. We played a friendly match which I won in game 3 after he revealed Darksteel Colossus to Dark Confidant (ouch).

2-0-1

Round 4 I had god hands against Michael who was playing some kind of RBU Vault deck although I didn't see much of it due to my brokenness. Game 1 I opened with Workshop, Lotus, Chalice for 0, Chalice for 1, Lodestone Golem, Go. Game 2 he had a first turn Ancestral, but unfortunately I again had Workshop and Lotus in the opener and laid down Chalice for 0, Juggernaut, Sphere of Resistance. Jug was able to go the distance before he could get out from under the sphere.

3-0-1

Round 5 Jeff and I ID'd and I watched some other games (including some turn 1 Tinker-Colossus nonsense with Patrick vs. Eric).

3-0-2

Top 8 I was paired with Eric who won the tiebreaker for 8th place based on opponents' win percentage. Game 1 he mulled to 6. I decided to take a risk and try to play a first turn Karn off Lotus but he had the Force. He gets a Goyf out and although I put up three Spheres, they don't block, so that was game. In retrospect I definitely should have led with a Sphere, though I was concerned I'd never be able to play Karn if I had done that.

Game 2 he mulls to 5, which he regretted (wishing he'd kept the original 7 instead). I get out a Lodestone Golem and put a Sword on it for the win. I can't recall game 3 but I managed to pull it out to make Top 4.

Top 4 facing the mirror with Dylan again we traded games and then I got gut-punched in Game 3 when I drew a decent hand of Waste, Waste, Shop, Juggernaut, Golem, Sword, something else. I started with Wasteland-Go planning to start dropping stuff the next turn but figuring I should hold the Shop in case he had an initial Waste. Unfortunately he dropped Lotus, Crucible, Wasteland, and Wasted my Wasteland. I was then never able to get 2 lands out at once (although I managed to draw another Waste and a Strip mine and a Crucible of my own), so although I was able to hold him off for a while by continuously stripping his Factory while he replayed it every turn, my only real out was to topdeck a Sol Ring or Mana Vault (since he had Chalice at 0) so that I could play Shop, Ring, creature. He found Karn before I found either of those so that was it.

Great tournament, had a lot of fun, better turnout than we've had recently.

Re: the photo of my game against Ochoa where I had Welder and Key in play, unfortunately he had Leyline out so my Vault (and everything else good in my deck) was RFG. I just had it all spread out there so I had something pretty to look at while I tried in vain to go the distance by swinging at him for 1 with Welder every turn (which got farther than I would have expected due to his being short on Mana).

I tried running 2 Spellpierces this time but don't think they did me much good. Given all the bobs, probably should have gone with mainboard darkblast and something else. I still can't really decide what those last two slots should be. Have tried Drains, Impulses, and some other weird stuff but I think there's gotta be something better out there. Maybe a mainboard REB...

Ah, duh, I was thinking he meant for removing what they tutored for for some reason...

So that's a good point, Extirpate is clearly better as a top deck tutor killer, but Natural Selection doubles as a crappy additional Ponder and as a bonus boasts a funny picture of a tiger with a bird's head.