I'll be there.

I found a new best friend in Hangarback. Draining into it is awesome, but the highlight all day was just grabbing it with Trinket Mage and assembling a small army to put pressure on the board and protect Dack and Jace.

Whereas a shop player wants to either be playing lock pieces or swinging really hard to the face, in my list, Hangarback was more of a deterrent. It came down with 1 or 2 counters, and played defense while growing slowly over the course of the midgame. After seeing Paul Mastriano and Brian DeMars playing their forgemaster lists at GenCon, I knew that Hangarback was powerful, but might need a better shell in general. I'm not much of a shop player, but it seemed to be a real fine Trinket Mage target in a deck that can afford to let it grow.


Brian DeMars and I ended up fighting for 9th place in the last round. I always try to look down the lists for anything that might be interesting because like you said, little changes in the way things worked out could have made for a very different top 8.

Keranos and Consecrated Sphinx shared the same basic slot in the list. When you need a game breaking card that provides a ton of card advantage and can help stabilize any shaky situations, 2 card slots is enough. The general Blue Moon lists don't run black for DT or VT, and no Tinker for a bot, so it was important that whatever cards I did run fit into the style of the deck:
1. Pitch to FoW
2. Are castable without needing an off color moxen or lotus
3. Are either hard to kill or provide card advantage before the opponent's first main phase.

Sphinx had been a staple of the build, but I wanted something that was easier to cast under a Blood Moon (yes, almost every game that I lost involved me not having double blue under a Blood Moon), and came out a little bit faster.

Keranos did exactly what I expected and was never a disappointment. Against shops, it snuck under thorns and went on to bolt down a whole board and draw me lands. I had a shop opponent sit there and look at his hand, questioning whether or not to call a judge. I offered the piece of wisdom that Keranos is not a creature until the correct devotion symbols are in play, and therefore cannot be Duplicanted or Metamorphed. We asked a judge anyway, but that Keranos never left play.

Against control, Keranos came down and straight up killed people. Mana Crypt rolls, Fetchland activations, pitching to FoW, getting slammed in the face by a Trinket Mage...  all these points of damage add up, and more than one control player lost a game to Keranos bolts to the face with not a single removal spell for it in their entire deck or sideboard.

As things go, new and powerful tech will sometimes be just the thing you need to take an already powerful list to the next level. I don't know how much better my list was for my spice, but Hangarback and Keranos felt great all day.

- Ritter

I'll be there.

I'll be there to battle.

No shops till first round of top 8. Tough match but not unwinnable. A series of unfortunate draws killed me. Turn 2 Kataki met a top decked Tolarian Academy. A perfectly set up mana drain on Wurmcoil was foiled by a top decked Cavern of Souls. 3sphere locked me out of my very relevant Snapcaster + Disenchant sequence after missing land drops for something like 4 turns in a row. Overall my draws lined up terribly to my opponents (Nelson), but I am a firm believer that luck is more often than not a key factor no matter how well you play.

I also played at Depot's Sunday event and split top 4 after facing and beating 3 shop matches. For that event I swapped the 2 Kataki for a Devout Witness and Hurkyls Recall. I love the Witness and usually don't run Kataki but I wanted to try something out that would let me continue to swing for 2 while slowing down the shops player.

Also, I have to tell them to fix my list. The 2 dismembers listed in my sideboard are actually 2 disenchants.

I piloted Esper Bomberman to 6th at the NYSE. I won't go through the whole list since its already posted over in that thread, but my build is an intentional balance of cheap threats that provide card advantage while threatening to go infinite at any moment. Aside from a singleton Snapcaster, each creature gets me closer to comboing while applying very relevant life total pressure.

Over the course of the event, many games were won by a turn 2 Tasigur with counter backup that just beat for 4 while the deck always threatened to go infinite. Other games started land into Crypt and Trinket Mage to get Lotus to play another Trinket Mage for a Top, which just buried opponents in card advantage and pressure. The deck had so many lines and angles of attack that most of my opponents simply didn't know which cards were going to eventually kill them.

Sideboarded games were a whole different set of problems for my opponents. I saw many games of heavy graveyard hate end with a single beater going the distance. Often my opponents afterward would admit they just had nothing else to bring in and didn't expect to get attacked to death.

My list had been a work in progress for many months and I couldn't have been happier with my maindeck 60.

Any idea exactly when each artist is going to be signing?

Pretty sure I'll be able to make it.

Sign me up.

I'll be able to make this one, previous plans have been cancelled due to bad weather =D

I'll be there.

I don't post often, but I wanted to jump in and thank everyone who made the tournament possible, especially Mr. Noble. Mike did a great job multitasking the many jobs of the day, and I had a lot of fun playing. Just to put in a quick note about the split vs. playing it out, Justin and I played for keeps, as the points mattered for both of us (I'm still looking for an invitation, and Justin made top level). I couldn't have been happier to play against Justin in the finals, as I had been looking for another shot at him after the swiss rounds (my bobs never want to come out and play when he's the guy sitting across the table).

Fun fact of that tourney - I saw Justin combo out multiple times during the tournament (yes.. several times on me), and I didn't once make infinite mana. Turns out swinging with 2/1 and 2/2 creatures is pretty good. Who said vintage is all turn 1 and 2 wins?

Finally got myself reregistered on here... haven't posted since 2002 or so. Nick ran a great tourny as always, and yes, I am the Dredge player who won. It was very humbling to lose to Mark in the swiss, and I always have fun playing vintage. Can't wait for the next one. Those PA players better watch out for us Long Islanders.