Congrats on the win, and for writing the most entertaining report I've ever read.

One of these days I'll actually go to a tournament.

The first thing I immediately noticed is that you have a Plains and six fetchlands, but 3 of them don't get the Plains. Make one Delta a Strand.

Not playing with Brainstorm can only be justified if you plan on Meddling Maging it, which I enjoyed doing when I used to uw fish at vintage tournaments.

Also, for whatever reason, you have 3 Wasteland and zero Strip Mine.

Chalice of the Void is very very good with Aether Vial.

I actually wouldn't want Tarmogoyf in a deck like this, for the same reason I never played Isamaru in fish; your cards all have to be disruptive, there's no room for cards that don't actively stop the opponent from doing what they want to do. I'd either sideboard it or not play it at all.

The entry fee is $20. I was at the store a few hours ago.

In Chicago I played a list similar to the old 5 color version that you made (that I've played a couple times, here.) I had opposite results, it did very well against Gush and Storm decks, while being very soft against Tarmogoyf, Dreadnought, and Workshop. My weakness against those decks had a lot to do with the manabase (City of Brass eats a Wasteland and that is,) lack of answers to opposing onboard threats (only 4 Plow main, and some lavamen,) and lack of large beats to end the game (I, in stubborn arrogance, played Aven Mindcensor instead of a reasonable creature.) Your deck doesn't have any of these problems.

So, the deck I played was pretty good against Gush and Storm, and bad against everything else, and yours wasn't. It seems fairly easy to change the sideboard a bit of your most recent list, sideboarding something like 3 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Aven Mindcensors, and 4 Hide/Seeks. Board enough cards so that Fanatic and Plows can all come out. Aven Mindcensor probably isn't the right card either, maybe 2 Extirpate might be ok alongside 8 Duress.

I still think the best way to fight combo is to attack their mana, but Chalice of the Void and Wasteland aren't as effective at doing that as they used to be.

I have a good source of information indicating that they will not be.

So we've got this nice big thread here, but I can't seem to find the name of the winner. CTRL F didn't even help me.

Who the hell won?

I don't want to know if two people split, I want to know who's name goes next to "First Place."

Top 8 contained..

Lands vs Gamekeeper (Gamekeeper won)
crappy UGB threshold-like deck that I played vs Goblins (Goblins won)
RG aggro vs UGR threshold (not sure what won here, or if those were even the two decks)
Faerie Stompy vs I forgot what deck that guy was playing (Faerie Stompy did not win)

So that was pretty useless, I only remembered some of it. I left after I lost, was very hungry.

I played http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=159765&postcount=4

I hate Serum Visions, I'm never playing that card again.

I can't see playing this deck (or any Fish-like deck) without four Chalice of the Void. The Gush decks are very bad against a Chalice, they can't profitably play a Gush without Moxes (or Fastbond.) It's also one of a few cards in the maindeck that are good against storm decks. It turns off almost half of Flash's mana (and stops Green Pact as a bonus.) And Bazaar of Baghdad gets rids of the cards that Chalice turns off.

Inspired by Robert Vroman's creation http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=33875.0
and after watching him play it at Gencon a few matches, I decided to throw it together. After a couple of days of working with it I went with this list:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Maze of Ith

4 City of Brass
2 Badlands
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Riftstone Portal
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald

4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Dark Confidant
3 Aven Mindcensor

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress
3 Swords to Plowshares

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Balance
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sideboard:
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
3 Engineered Plague
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Oxidize
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict

Card choices:
-Caves of Koilos: Scrubland makes Massacre work.
-2nd Riftstone Portal: Cut Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for this, as I was finding myself wanting a Portal a lot.
-1 Wasteland: I cut the 4th Factory for this. I wanted more land killing effects. Pat Chapin says I need even more Wastelands.
-3rd Plowshares: Cut Darkblast on Eric Becker's recommendation.
-1 Ray of Revelation: Might play against Oath.
-Tormod's Crypt: It seems redundant with Leyline and Chalice, but I still wanted more for Ichorid.
-2 Grudge, 1 Oxidize: Stax might Chalice 2, so there's an Oxidize that can get us out of that scenario.
-Diabolic Edict: I predicted some random Oath, and the Canadians bring a UG aggro deck with Nimble Mongoose. This card wasn't very good.

Round 1: Josh Franklin playing Gushes, Psychatogs.
It's Franklin, and Gush is unrestricted, so I put him on Tog with no Dryads. He would.
Game 1: I answer his Psychatog with 2 Swords to Plowshares (first one is countered,) he Wills to replay Ancestral Recall, but can't come up with another threat.

Out: 4 Grim Lavamancers, 1 Ancestral Recall In: 1 Swords to Plowshares, 3 REB/Pyroblast, 1 Tormod's Crypt

Game 2: He opens with a first turn Quirion Dryad. Unexpected. I try to Swords to Plowshares it, he Force of Wills, and on his turn he Scrolls for Ancestral Recall and plays it, and attacks for 4. On my turn I try to Swords to Plowshares it again, this time resolving. He plays a Psychatog and passes. I topdeck Red Elemental Blast and kill his guy. He does some stuff, then DTs and passes. He probably got Fastbond, but without a Chalice or Duress I just hvae to deal with it. He indeed Fastbonds and Gushes many times, but ultimately doesn't get anything going and I win once I get the Loam online and put several threats into play.

1-0

Round 2: Paul Mastriano playing GAT.
Game 1: I start with Grim Lavamancer and Duress seeing some moderately broken stuff, some mana, some tutoring, etc. He Scrolls up a Recall and passes with U open. I topdeck a Duress and play it. He Brainstorms and shows me basically nothing. He draws and plays the Recall and starts doing things. My second Lavamancers starts attacking since I only have one Red per turn, but my clock is fairly quick. On one turn I resolve a Tutor, but out of fear of a counterspell, I obtained Maze of Ith and played it. I also resolved a Dark Confidant at some point, on one of the last turns. At 8 life he starts trying to go off, he starts with Fastbond and into Yawgmoth's Will, some Gushes, Ancestral Recall, and Empty the Warrens. To get to 2 mana to Time Walk he'd need to play 2 lands and drop to 2 (from 4,) so he plays one land down to 3 life and passes. I end step shoot him, which empties my graveyard (not too important,) and attack with Confidant and Lavamancer, which puts them into the graveyard and lets me activate the other Lavamancer.

Out: 4 Grim Lavamancers, 1 Ancestral Recall In: 3 REB/Pyro, 1 Tormod's Crypt, 1 Engineered Plague

Game 2: He Force of Wills my first Duress, I resolve a Chalice, and we both play lands for the first couple turns. I resolve a Mindcensor, and he uses Brainstorms and fetchlands to hit all of his land drops. On one turn he taps out for a Quirion Dryad. On my turn I cast an Engineered Plague. He thinks a little and lets it resolve. I name "Dryad." I continue to attack with Mindcensor, but my clock is slow. On one of my end steps he Cunning Wishes for a Rushing River, and on my next end step he Extirpates my Riftstone Portals and kicks Rushing River to remove Chalice of the Void and Aven Mindcensor (no white to replay it due to Extirpate.) On his turn he Yawgmoth's Wills, Rushing Rivers my Plague, plays a Dryad, Extirpates my Maze of Ith, and starts drawing cards. He plays a Lotus, uses it for UUU, plays Opt, then Brainstorm, then he taps his Sea and Emerald to play Time Walk. He says he is ending his turn and is discarding, I say that he mana burns for one from the Lotus' third blue mana. On my turn I finally get Loam going, and add a Factory to the board. He Merchant Scrolls for a Fire/Ice, then Mystical Tutors for a Demonic Tutor. I Duress, he Force of Wills and goes to 1 life. He draws and passes. I topdeck Duress and play it, he Ices my Factory, and I take the Demonic Tutor. Time is called at some point, but it's mostly irrelevant. On the next turn I attack with both Factories, and he laments that the mana burn on the Will turn might have cost him the game, as he couldn't use a Fetchland at the end.

2-0

Round 3: Mark Trogdon, playing his Workshop aggro deck.
Game 1: I start by activating Bazaar of Baghdad. I discard Leyline of the Void, Riftstone Portal, and another card. I play Mox Sapphire and Ancestral Recall, then Mox Ruby and Grim Lavamancer, then a Chalice of the Void for zero. Justin Droba called it the awesomest turn one he's ever seen.

He plays a Mountain and a Mana Vault and passes. My turn 2 is a Dark Confidant, and I pass with red open for Lavamancer. He plays a Workshop and a Triskelion. He shoots my Grim Lavamancer, I respond by shooting his Triskelion. This way if he wants to kill Confidant his Triskelion will die. He taps his Mountain for a Gorrilla Shaman and passes. Confidant gets me a card, I draw, but don't have much to do and pass. His next turn is even more brutal, he eats my two Moxes, shoots my Confidants, and taps his Workshop to play Trinisphere. I topdeck and land and Balance his two guys away, with each of us having 2 cards and 3 lands. His next play is a Sword of Fire and Ice and a Wasteland for my Bazaar. I draw and pass, can't play anything on two lands. His next play is Magus of the Moon. I draw a nonland and pass. He equips and attacks, and being at 12, it's exactly 2 turns. I don't draw an out and lose. My turn one was pretty good, but it all fell apart to Triskelion and Gorilla Shaman.

Out: 4 Leyline of the Void, 2 Duress. In: 2 Diabolic Edict, 2 Ancient Grudge, 1 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Oxidize.

Game 2: I play Dark Confidant on the first turn. He starts with Mana Vault. I attack for 2 and add nothing to the board except for a land. He Sudden Shocks my Confidant. I attack with Factory and pass. He plays a Gorilla Shaman and Wastelands one of my colored sources. I attack with Factory and pass. He plays a second Shaman and a Strip Mine for another colored source. He's at 14, I'm at 16, I can try to race, but I know it's not going to work. I attack, he attacks, I stop attacking once he leaves mana up for another Sudden Shock. He adds Solemn Simulacrum on one turn and Triskelion on the next. I still have nothing but 2 Factories. He attacks with everybody (I'm at 10,) I put a 4/4 Factory in front of Triskelion. He shoots me with all three counters, dropping me to 3, and plays a second Triskelion.

2-1

Round 4: Ray Kher playing Flash with Sliver kill
Game 1: I mulligan on the draw and start with Leyline (first time! Yeah!) He Brainstorms and Mystical Tutors for Ancestral Recall, and plays a Virulent Sliver. I play Confidant. He Recalls and plays Sylvan Safekeeper. I add a Factory and pass. He plays Elvish Spirit Guide, I play Aven Mindcensor. I continue to draw gas and add to the board, he hits a dead end on his Brainstorms and concedes when I play a Grim Lavamancer.

Out: 1 Ancestral Recall, 1 Crop Rotation, 1 Life from the Loam. In: 2 REB, 1 Engineered Plague

Game 2: I open with Leyline again, and attempt a first turn Engineered Plague (how lucky, a one of) with a Mox, land, and Petal. He Force of Wills it. I add a Mindcensor, and he concedes soon after, as the Leyline and Mindcensor combination is hard to get through.

3-1

Round 5: Ichorid
Game 1: He mulls twice and Serum Powders twice, and I mull to 5 looking for a Leyline. I find one and he concedes before either of us play a main phase.

Out: 4 Duress, 4 Chalice of the Void. In: 1 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Ray of Revelation, 2 Tormod's Crypt, 3 Engineered Plague, 1 Ancient Grudge (no idea why..)

Game 2: He mulls and Powders once. I don't have a Leyline, but I do have Wasteland and Tormod's Crypt. He plays a Bazaar and taps it, putting Bridge from Below and two Dredge guys in the graveyard. I Wasteland the Bazaar and Crypt his graveyard. He plays a Taiga and passes. A play Confidant and pass, he passes back. I Loam up the Wasteland and kill the Taiga. My attack force is Confidant, Mindcensor (nice 2/1 for 3, I had to leave it in...) and Factory. He Contagions down my 2/1s, making my clock much slower. He discards a Stinkweed Imp to hand size. I add a second Factory and attack with the first for three. He Dredges into no other Dredge card. I attack and pass. He draws and concedes.

4-1

Round 6: Josh Racine playing Mana Drains and Intuitions

Intentional draw

Quarterfinals: Tommy Kolowith playing Dryad-less Gush
Game 1: I keep a sketchy hand: black Mox, red Mox, Confidant, 2 Duress, Lavamancer, some blank. His turn 1 is uneventful, thank god he didn't Duress me. I don't know why I kept this hand. Anyways, I lead with Confidant and he Force of Wills. Probably should have played Duress and Lavamancer, oh well. My turn 2 is that, Duress and Lavamancer. I take his Tinker. His next turn is Scroll and Recall. I Duress again his hand is fairly strong: VT, MT, Library, Time Walk, Duress. I take Time Walk and pass. He Duresses me, takes Swords to Plowshares (seeing my Riftstone Portal I chose not to play, as well as Mindcensor and some other bad card,) and passes. I draw Swords to Plowshares and pass, he Mystical Tutors for Regrowth, and Tinkers for 11/11. He's out of cards. I don't draw a white source and pass. He draws Brainstorm and plays it, plays Volcanic Island, attacks and passes. I don't draw a white source and die. The City of Brass was on top, so it Confidant stuck and drew me one extra card, I might have won. But I made too many mistakes, didn't deserve to win.

Out: 4 Grim Lavamancer, 1 Ancestral Recall. In: 1 Engineered Plauge, 3 REB/Pyroblast, 1 Tormod's Crypt.

Game 2: I mulligan two unplayable hands into these five: City of Brass, Mox Ruby, Dark Confidant, Chalice of the Void, Demonic Tutor. Insane. Confidant resolves, Chalice resolves. He starts with Fastbond and an Island, making my DT for Strip Mine play not insane any more. I reveal artifact mana to Confidant, and draw a land. I attack, play the land, and pass. He starts doing things, Brainstorms, and Scrolls for Recall. I reveal Black Lotus and draw Mox Pearl. I DT for Bazaar of Baghdad and use it, drawing Mindcensor and REB, pitching 3 artifact mana. Attack for 2 and pass. He plays a Pithing Needle and names Bazaar. I get a Duress and see Tinker, Mana Drain, three artifact mana, and something else. I take Tinker and attack and pass. He does nothing, I attack again, play Maze of Ith and pass. The turn I find Loam he's taken himself off Mana Drain mana by Firing Confidant on his turn. I Loam up Factories and use them to win in the next couple attacks, as he's drawn no business.

First game three of the day.

Game 3: I start with a Leyline. He opens with a Tropical Island and a Pithing Needle (Wasteland.) Pretty good, as my opening hand contains Life from the Loam and the Wasteland. He Force of Wills my first Dark Confidant. He Brainstorms and Scrolls for Recall, I get Bazaar and Loam online, and resolve a Chalice on zero, and Strip Mine something. He Scrolls for a Gush and passes with a board of Mox and two tapped duals. On my turn I dredge Loam, and cast it, targeting only Strip Mine. I Strip Mine something, he Gushes. I play Balance, my last card a Riftstone Portal (the other in the yard,) so if Balance resolves, I Loam infinitely and he'll have no lands and one card. It's not that easy, he has Force of Will. He draws and plays a Fetchland and passes. I continue to Bazaar and Dredge and whatnot, and find Aven Mindcensor. He passes without playing a land. I continue to draw cards and add mana. He plays an Island, I Strip Mine it on my turn while still drawing cards. He plays a Dual and a Brainstorm, holding the same 6ish cards he's had for awhile. I Red Blast it, play Mindcensor, and eventually win.

Semifinals: Juan Rodriguez playing Goblins
Game 1: I mulligan on the draw. He starts with Mountain and a Goblin Lackey. My first turn is Black Mox, Red Mox, White Mox, Dark Confidant, Mishra's Factory. I don't play Chalice zero and pass. I figure I'd get to block with one of them, but he has Wasteland and Mogg Fanatic, then Black Lotus, Goblin Warchief, attack. He puts Gempalm Incinerator into play and passes. I topdeck Black Lotus (didn't play Chalice..) and use it to Loam up the Factory, replay it, and activate it to not burn. He plays Strip Mine, gets my Factory, attacks, and puts Siege-Gang Commander into play. I don't draw Balance or Demonic Tutor and lose.

Out: 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Duress. In: 3 Engineered Plague, 1 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Diabolic Edict, 2 Ancient Grudge

Game 2: I open with Factory, White Mox, Lotus, Demonic Tutor for Plague, play Plague. He plays a Mountain. I attack with Factory, he plays Pyrokinesis. I play a Grim Lavamancer, then another, then Mindcensor, and the Lavamancers shoot at his Ringleaders, Warchiefs, and him, while Mindcensor attacked enough times. I lament about playing into another Pyrokinesis as we shuffle up for game 3.

Game 3: I mull into Black Lotus, 2 Engineered Plagues, 2 lands, and something else. Maybe I can win. I play Lotus, Plague, land, pass. He Strip Mines me. I play a land and pass. He plays a land and passes. My plan is to find some mana, if it's green I can Loam up the Badlands. I just play a second Lavamancer and pass. His turn is a disaster, land, Mox Ruby, Blood Moon. Stuck on two lands, I start discarding to hand size to get Lavamancer working, but he starts Ringleadering and whatnot and gets some damage in a few points at a time. His Vial reaches 5 and Siege-Gang Commander enters play and trades with my Lavamancer, and I'm in bad shape. I topdeck Ancestral Recall, play my Blue Mox and play it, and draw more Mountains. His next turn is 2 Piledrivers, to go with his 2 Ringleaders, presents lethal on the board. I do not draw Lotus Petal or Mox Jet and I lose.

Spectators ask me if I could have tried to wait on the Plagues. It's possible that he might not have Strip Mined me on turn 2, and that I might have gotten to 6 mana by turn 5ish. I might have won if I hadn't slammed Plague on the table on turn 1. Definitely something to think about in the future. Also, I might want to board in Ray of Revelation and might want to leave Duress in (can hit Blood Moons, Pyrokinesis, and Aether Vial if I'm on the play.)

The top 4 finishers drafted their prize, the pool was an Ancestral Recall, a Time Walk, a Mox Sapphire, and a Timetwister. I split the 3rd/4th prize with Josh Racine, we ended up with Time Walk and Timetwister. The finals was RG beats against Goblins, a match many people thought was a joke of some variety. It was definitely real.

Props:
-Robert Vroman for making the deck. It's awesome.
-Everybody that drove a long way for our tournament.
-Everybody on GWS that drove out from forever far away.
-Mitch and Droba for lending me cards.

Slops:
-Josh Wludyka, for not winning a match day 2 of Grand Prix San Francisco.
-Diabolic Edict for not being good.
-My ridiculous fear of losing to Misdirection, such a fear that I boarded out Ancestral Recall so much.

Thanks for reading.

None of these things occurred in our second game. It looks like you switched a game from another match into the part about our match. I don't play Meddling Mage, your Confidant wasn't on turn 1, and you won with Orim's Chant into Tendrils of Agony.

Anyways, good job and nice report.

The first piece of power I obtained was from winning one of RIW's tournaments (for an unl. Time Walk) in either September or October of 2005. I was playing UW Aether Vial Fish (predates http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=14155). In the finals I played against Josh Franklin, in the third game I mulliganed to 5 into this hand:

Chalice of the Void, Aether Vial, Mishra's Factory, Tundra, Standstill

His opening hand had the capability to Tendrils me for 20 in turn one. Good thing I went first.

Since then, I've never purchased a piece of power outside of a tournament prize split.

How do I preregister?

Looks like I'm not going to US Nationals, so expect to see me at this tournament.

Having two Volcanic Islands never really helped, there should probably only be 1 of them. Lotus Petal is awesome, I would definitely play it, it enables turn 1 two mana spell (importantly, the Dryad,) makes Red, and is good with Yawgmoth's Will.

I should have played REBs, cutting them was silly. 

I haven't played much Vintage lately, the last two tournaments I played in were the two previous RIW tournaments. At both I played my trusty Aether Vial Fish deck, once to a quaterfinals loss, the other to a miserable 1-2 drop. After practically ignoring Vintage, I read Menendian's article about GAT and decided it was something I wanted to play (without Street Wraiths. Boo that guy.) Here's what I settled on...

4 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
3 tropical island
3 underground sea
2 volcanic island
1 island

1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 mox sapphire
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl

4 quirion dryad
1 psychatog

4 brainstorm
4 merchant scroll
4 gush
4 force of will
3 misdirection
4 duress

1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 demonic tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 imperial seal
1 vampiric tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 fastbond
1 cunning wish
1 echoing truth
1 regrowth

sideboard:
3 yixlid jailer
2 tormod's crypt
2 fire/ice
2 ancient grudge
1 hurkyl's recall
1 rushing river
1 berserk
2 FIRE IMP
1 snuff out

A few things:

-Mox Pearl: I boarded this out a lot because I didn't know what to board out. This might have been better as a second basic Island.
-2 Volcanic Island: I was concerned that the red cards were critical to victory when boarded in, and that many of those decks would have Wasteland.
-Regrowth: I don't remember casting this very often. I suppose it's a decent card. Might be cuttable.
-Imperial Seal: A good card to board out. It did what it does for me in game 1s, and I took it out almost every match.

The sideboard contains cards for Ichorid, Workshops, and Creatures. Unfortunately, my sideboard is missing tools for blue decks. Blah.
-Jailer/Crypt vs Leyline: Ichorid lists I saw boarded 12-15 cards to beat a Leyline. I don't want to fight that fight.
-FIRE IMP: I was complaining about Mindcensor, and Demars suggested this guy. He's pretty good.
-Snuff Out: Soly's idea. I like it for killing Auriok Salvagers. I didn't play against decks where it would have been good, though.

Main event for a Time Walk

Round 1: Ed playing Ichorid

Game 1: He has the Bazaar and has some moderately broken plays, he Therapies me a couple times but doesn't get anything good with them. I have a Dryad vs two Zombies, and I tutor up Will with Imperial Seal with Walk in hand, and I pass as I'm not ready yet. He dredges a good amount and ends up with about 10 zombie tokens. My tutoring was all wrong. I end up Willing, Sealing for Echoing Truth, then Gushing, my out being that the second Gush card is a Mox, Petal, or Lotus, as I need another mana to cast the Echoing Truth. I miss and die.

Game 2: I keep lands, a Mox, Lotus, Dryad, Scroll. I play the Dryad and Scroll for Recall and play it and pass, my hand at this point is Merchant scroll, Yixlid Jailer, and lands. He plays and taps Bazaar. He cycles Street Wraith to dredge, and gets Narcomoeba and Cabal Therapy. Unmask gets one spell, Therapy gets the other, and I'm unable to do anything to win.

Round 2: Bill, playing Oath

Game 1: A combination of disasters. He goes first and plays a land. I play a land and a Mox and Scroll up Force of Will. He plays an Oath, I Force of Will it, he Force of Wills back. I topdeck Duress and see Gaea's Blessing, Black Lotus, and the Forbidden Orchard he needs to start Oathing. I'm holding Vampiric Tutor and Echoing Truth. I decide that I can take his Blessing (to prevent him from topdecking Brainstorm and putting it back in,) and bounce his Oath targets with the Truth and Will. So I Duress away the blessing. He Oaths a Simic Sky Swallower into play. Blah. I topdeck Quirion Dryad. This will let me race with Will, or try. But he's drawn Force of Will. He uses the Lotus to cast it. I'm dumb. I pass. He Saths and gets Akroma. I Echoing Truth it. I Vamp for Will. He Muddle the Mixtures it. Dang.

Game 2: I combo out on turn 3 or 4 or so. Don't remember the details.

Game 3: I also won this game. Too many things happened, I can't remember all of them. Perhaps next time I'll take notes.

Round 3: Forgot name playing UBG intuition deck (Tog? I guess?)

Game 1: I have Lotus, I Scroll for Recall and I cast it in response to something he does. He Misdirects it and Force of Wills my Force of Will. About 7 turns later he finally wins.

Game 2: I Scroll for Force of Will, then Scroll for Recall. I play it. He Misdirects it, and Force of Wills my Force of Will. A good number of turns later he makes an Intuition pile and casts the Will that I'm pretty sure he'd tutored for two turns prior.

Scrolling for Force of Will is a waste of time. It's much easier to just have two pitch cards in the opener or Brainstorm once and have two pitch cards. Perhaps I played this wrong, I have no idea.

So 1-2, out of the main, into the side event, and very discouraged. Perhaps GAT isn't good.

Side Event for a Mox Pearl

Judge Dave explains that the side event will be run with a double-elimination bracket. Weird. Basically we keep getting paired until everybody accumulates two losses. Whoever starts x-0 will get a bye in the second to last round. Or something like that. Overall, it was an interesting way to run an event, and I'm excited to see how it plays out. Off we go.

Round 1: Belcher

Game 1: He pitches both colors of Spirit Guides to Living Wish for a Mishra's Workshop. He uses that to cast Serum Powder. I do my thing, play the Dryad, tutor up Recall, bash, etc, and it turns out he's really mana flooded and that he should have mulliganed, but he decided to keep his hand because it had Black Lotus in it.

Game 2: He leads with Taiga, Goblin Welder. I can Fire it, or play Dryad. I go for Dryad.  On his turn 2 he draws, sits, and thinks, and eventually passes without a play. I Fire his guy (and life total) and attack. I stop another Welder and continue attacking, and he shows me his hand that was just a little short of victory. He had a Red Blast for my Force of Will, but he was short on mana.

Round 2: Bill, playing Oath. Again.

Game 1: We run each other out of cards, trading Force of Wills and Duresses and whatnot, and I'm without a Dryad to win with. He draws an Oath at some point and I can't deal with it. I came either one or two turns away from victory.

Game 2: I took an exceptionally long set of two turns with Fastbond, Will, and Gushes. I had to deal with a Maze of Ith, but I boarded in one Fire/Ice and used it to tap it.

Game 3: I keep 6 containing Force of Will, Misdirection, Brainstorm, 2 other blue cards, something else, but no lands. He Duresses me and takes the Force of Will. I draw a land on turn 3 and pass. He plays an Oath. I Brainstorm and have Force of Will and Misdirection to fight it. He has a Mana Leak and a Force of Will to get his Oath to resolve, but he has no Orchard. The Brainstorm found me lands, but I've got nothing to do. I draw a Dryad after the Brainstorm cards, but don't play it. That turn he draws the Orchard. His next few cards are all really good, Crop Rotation for Maze of Ith, Wipe Away for my Dryad, and Wasteland as the final blow.

1-1, very discouraged, as I'm 2-3 on the day. But I'm still in it.

Round 3: Josh R. playing a blue deck.

Game 1: Opening hand is Force of Will, Force of Will, Misdirection, Misdirection, Time Walk, Mystical Tutor, and a land. Really good. I get Recall and win the fight over it, then successfully stop his attempts at getting somewhere. A Dryad gets it done at some point.

Game 2: I keep a greedy hand: 1 land, a Brainstorm, some other action, and a Misdirection. He Duresses my Brainstorm and I'm kind of screwed. I eventually get some mana and a Dryad, and he takes a big turn where he makes 16 goblins. I have a Vampiric Tutor, and by blocking one Goblin I live at 1 life to play Echoing Truth that I Vamp for (2/2 dryad to live through combat.) After combat he plays Tendrils of Agony.

Game 3: I have two Dryads and a hand of Force of Will, Misdirect, two blue cards. He starts doing things, and Rituals into Will. I Force of Will it, and he doesn't have defense. I search up Time Walk with Mystical Tutor and try to go lethal, he has Extirpate on my upkeep to live some more, but doesn't draw anything to do.

Round 4: Bill, playing Oath, again (apparently, in double elim events, players can play against the same opponent multiple times.) This is our third match of the day.

Game 1: I Duress him, and he plays Ancestral Recall in response. I Misdirect it and it resolves. The Duress sees Oath, Oath, Force of Will (Orchard on board.) I take one Oath and the other resolves. I complain a lot more than I should, as I'm not holding anything that will let me do anything to race. He gets Sky Swallower and passes. I topdeck Fastbond. Now I feel like a jackass for complaining. I Brainstorm and start Gushing infinite times. I Will and Gush many more times, and play lands until I'm at 1 life (I started the turn at 18 life, ended with 1 life after Sealing, and playing 13ish lands.) Two Dryads bash through the guy with Berserk.

Game 2: I again lead with Duress, he again tries Recall in response, I again Misdirect it. This time Duress gets his business and my Dryad applies pressure. I get Fastbond and Gushes going and find Will.

I definitely got some ridiculous luck this time, and I felt like a jerk for complaining as much as I did in game 1. Blah.

Round 5: Combo

Game 1: I keep a sketchy hand of two Moxes, Dryad, Scroll on the draw. He plays some Rituals, two Moxes, and a Timetwister with B floating. My new seven contain zero mana sources, he uses his B to add Sol Ring and he plays a Sea. On the board 5 mana vs no permanents after I draw and discard Fastbond. He tries Bargain, I Force of Will and Misdirect his Force of Will. I draw something that isn't a land, and he starts going again. He Rituals a few times and plays Tendrils for 10 life. I topdeck and land and Duress him. His hand is outrageous. It contained 7 cards, one was Ancestral Recall, one was Wheel of Fortune, the rest were good, don't remember. I conceded the game on the spot.

Game 2: I mull to 5 into triple Delta, Gush, and a Mox. I draw Psychatog on turn 2 and play it. On turn three I draw a Dryad, play it, and Gush. He does a short Tendrils after Sealing a card on top so that I can't go lethal on my turn. On my turn, my hand is Vamp and Gush and Force of Will and lands. I decide to Vamp for Duress and Gush into it. It was greedy because I was taking myself off Force of Will unless the second Gush card was Blue. It was Blue, and Duress showed me Echoing Truth and Wheel. I take Truth and pass, he draws Will and I Force of Will it.

I came dangerously close to losing there. I got lucky to draw a blue card after Vamping for the wrong card. I should have gotten Tormod's Crypt. Blah.

Game 3: It wasn't close, Duress got him, then Force of Will got something else, two Dryads bashed, and DT-Time Walk finished things. The deck delivered, for sure.

Round 6: Nicolae Antes, playing UBW Fishes with Counterbalance/Top. Nicolae and I tend to play against each other at these things a lot. I think we're even on matches, although last time we played he bashed me. The winner of this advances to the finals, against someone whose name I don't remember, playing the UG tempo deck the Canadians commonly play at these tournaments.

Game 1: I Duress him and take his Black Lotus, leaving him with 2 lands, a Confidant, a Trinket Mage, a Top, and a Vamp. He defies my Duress by drawing a Lotus Petal, and he leads with the Confidant. I scroll for Force of Will and I do some other stuff to move my game forward. He reveals a land with Confidant and tutors up Explosives with his Trinket Mage. Things get out of hand here. Fastbond, Gush, Will, and dozens of other things happen. I spend way too much time doing these things, as I'm trying to count it all up and plan it all out (it probably looked like a gigantic slowroll.) After it's all over, I have a Tog, and Time Walk with 2 Gushes and Cunning Wish in hand. I attack for 36 with Berserk after spending far too much time thinking about it.

Game 2: He doesn't have a good amount of business after Trinket Maging for a Top. I guess he Topped into all mana or something. I FIRE IMP his Trinket Mage down and start attacking with it. At some point I Scrolled up a Force of Will and most of the game I sat back holding it and Misdrection. He eventually found a Confidant, I topdecked Dryad that turn, played it, and Fired his Confidant and life total. He couldn't find any resistance and I won soon after.

Round 7: We agree to a prize split.

As the day went on, and I got more accustomed to how the deck worked, it seemed to get better and better. The deck is solid, it has the ability to switch roles when required to, it has flexible answers, and its power level is equal to (or perhaps greater than) all of the other decks.

And of course..

Props:
-Brian Demars, for helping make the sideboard better, and suggesting FIRE IMP in particular. That guy is so good that I'm typing it in all caps. Also, he won (split the finals) of the main event.
-Pam for having the tournaments, Dave for judging them.
-13nova and the rest of GWS for deck discussion and assistance on our forums.
-Everybody that played, especially Josh Franklin for being hilarious.
-Fastbond. Not even a little bit fair.
-The side event for redeeming my day.
-Mitch, for letting me use his Imperial Seal, and Marcel, for letting me use a Misdirection.
-A spectating Justin Droba, for suggesting that get rid of the "storm count" and replace it with the "Gush count."

Slops:
-Me, for complaining a lot more than I should have.
-My sideboard, for having too many cards for Fish/Stax, and nothing for blue decks or combo.

Until next time..

I didn't even go to the WOW event, I stayed in Michigan and worked your shift at riw. Anyways, good job at the tournament.

Eternal ratings aren't very important (but mine is really high.)

If I don't go to Grand Prix Montreal, I'll be at this.

3 Daze was the right number.

4 Stifle was good for that tournament. If Flash goes away, then 4 may not be needed.

Spell Snare was really good. High quality. I was very impressed.

Portent: I didn't test it, but it seems really weak. Every time someone I've played against has cast this it seems like a whole lot of nothing took place.
Predict: Also untested by me. It seems cute against Mystical Tutor, but against Flash I don't want to be playing any 2 mana spells. It has neat synergy with Brainstorm and Serum Visions, but it looks like it would be slow.
Magma Jet: 2 mana 2 damage spells can be played in Standard. This doesn't see much play in Extended, and this format is a million times faster.
Fledging Dragon: Seems like it would get STPd a lot, I dunno. I never really found myself wanting a big expensive guy, Quirion Dryad was the main attacker. I'd rather have Serendib Efreet than this, and Quirion Dryad is better than both.
Tarmogoyf: It's a good card. Probably worth playing in a version build to use it.
Top/Counterbalance: I was always playing to tempo them out win quickly. This is such a mana investment. It would have to go into a different deck.
Loaming Shaman: I want the Crypts against Flash to try to disrupt Karmic Guide. Loaming Shaman is probably good against 43 land deck and other threshold decks, but I don't see it being good enough against the format.

If Flash wasn't a deck, there would be a ton more Goblin hate and some cards that are good against landstill/other control decks. Also probably cards that are good against IGG/Epic Storm. But I had to plan for Fish and Flash.

I haven’t played much Legacy before this, besides the Gencon event last year and the occasional local tournament. I usually take a pet deck of some variety to those, and after the last one I started trying to make a control deck. It wasn’t very good, but it was fun to play, I guess. After the whole Flash thing appeared, I realized I had to make good decks and stop working on pet decks (bad decks.) Three weeks before the GP I built and tested UGW Threshold and UWB Fish lists I found on various forums. Since I never trust any results that aren’t my results, I battled both decks against Goblins extensively. Both were doing poorly at best against the red men (all duals all the time for Wastelands to hit, creatures all die to Incinerator, goblins wins every long game due to insane card advantage, etc.) Also, both were losing badly to Flash, despite having a bunch of cards that were supposed to be good against them. Maybe it was that the Flash list I tested against had a maindeck Massacre, maybe it was something else, but I knew I wasn’t happy with Fish or UGW Thresh.

Browsing through forums, I saw that on The Source, there was a thread for UGR Threshold that was stickied as a “deck to beat.” I was surprised as I hadn’t seen much discussion about it anywhere. Anyways, I read some threads about the deck, and was surprised again to see people talking about cards like Wee Dragonauts and Portent and Magma Jet. I took UGW’s frame and switched cards to make the splash red rather than white.

After only a few games of testing I was impressed. One game I started with Wooded Foothills and passed, and my opponent cracked a Bloodstained Mire on his first main phase, only to have it Stifled. From Wooded Foothills. Insane. And, best of all, it was actually beating Goblins! Switching Swords to Plowshares to Lightning Bolt (and the addition of Fire/Ice) was massive, they did the same job without giving the Goblin player extra life. Pyroclasm was really good out of the board against them, and my creatures were far better than Fish’s and the same as UGW’s (but Quirion Dryad was far better than Mystic Enforcer.)

Then I started playing it against Flash decks. Their plan to beat Swords to Plowshares was to use Benevolent Bodyguard to give protection from white. In the first few games I noticed that Lightning Bolt was actually stopping them! They’d save their guy with the Bodyguard, then Kiki-Jiki’s ability wouldn’t resolve. Insane! Sure, I don’t have Meddling Mage, but Flash has Massacre anyways. After winning the first few games against Flash, I really felt like I had stumbled upon the right deck. After further testing, I learned that Flash still beat me at least two thirds of the time in game 1s. I decided that I would have to deal with it. After a few dozen games, I cut the 4th Daze for a Pithing Needle, and made a sideboard. The deck went through very few changes from its initial start, I left it very plain to aim for consistency.

UGR Threshold

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Quirion Dryad

4 Brainstorm
4 Mental Note
4 Serum Visions
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fire/Ice
1 Pithing Needle

4 Wooded Foothills
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Forest

Sideboard:
3 Spell Snare
2 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
4 Pyroclasm
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast

Happy with my deck choice despite massive amounts of hate being thrown my way by everybody I knew, I entered a Grand Prix Trial on Friday night to attempt to turn my one bye into three byes.

Note: at the time of writing this the GPT has not yet processed in the DCI Rankings and Ratings thing. I won’t be able to put my opponent’s names in because I don’t know what they were, and I can’t get them from the DCI page.

Round 1: BW Pikula deck.

Game 1: His deck does what it does, makes me discard some cards and kills some of my lands. I get back into the game with Brainstorm and eventually land a Quirion Dryad and string some cantrips together. He has no way to remove it as he’s drawn lands for the last three turns.

Game 2: He makes me lose basically everything I have. I manage to get a Mongoose and a Werebear, but at this point he has two Hypnotic Specters and a Nantuko Shade that I can’t beat as I don’t have a Bolt. I attempt to race, but he obtains additional creatures from the top of his library.

Game 3: I start out ahead and stay ahead. A large Dryad attacks several times after Pyroclasm removes two of his men. Not much happened.

Round 2: Nick Eisel playing Red Deck Wins with black.

Game 1: I’m on the play. His first turn is Jackal Pup, which I Daze. He removes a Simian Spirit Guide and pays for Daze. He removes another Spirit Guide and plays a Grim Lavamancer. I do the cantrip thing and set up Threshold before I play my men. A timely Fire removes two of his guys allowing my guys to win the race.

Game 2: I once again Fire his guys and play mine. I start attacking while he burns me. I get him to 1 life, and he has a series of burn spells that are lethal.

Game 3: I have three 1/1s without Threshold beating down. The guys he plays die to my removal, and my 1/1s continue attacking. I’m holding various Bolts and Pyroclasms and Stifles at the end of the game, and he shows me about 8 or 9 lands between his hand and board.

Round 3: UBGW Landstill

Game 1: He mulls to 5, I mull to 6. He counters my first two creatures, and my third one resolves and beats for the full 20 by itself. He has stone nothing, I have almost nothing. Strange game.

Game 2: I run myself out of cards by cantripping into lands, I end up with 6 lands, 2 guys, and 2 Pithing Needles: one on Wasteland (Crucible on board,) and the other on Engineered Explosives. He Fact or Fictions into a Pernicious Deed and blows my stuff  up. Crucible easily wins from this point.

Game 3: I lead with a Pithing Needle on Wasteland as my hand contains only two non-basic lands. His mana for the game is a Tundra and 2 Wastelands. He does very little and Werebear goes the distance.

Round 4: UW aggro

Game 1: I come out way ahead with two Quirion Dryads and a Daze on his Serendib Efreet. He plays a Mother of Runes and counters my efforts to destroy it, creating a blocker for one Dryad for each turn. He then plays a Worship. I Force of Will it, he has Force of Will to get it through. I need to obtain two burn spells to remove the Mother of Runes, and before I do, he plays more men. Eventually he plays a Sky Hussar and kills me with it.

Game 2: I play two Dryads again. I attempt to Pyroclasm his guys away, but he has Force of Will to stop it. At that point the Dryads are very large and easily beat his creatures.

Game 3: He has two Mothers of Runes, I have 3 1/1s with no Threshold. I Needle his Mothers, and he plays Explosives for 2 against my Bear. Fortunately, the Explosives for 2 prevents him from playing all of his two drops profitably. He eventually kills my Bear in combat (awesome for me since the EE is still on board) and does not much of anything. I have nothing but 2 1/1 Gooses and can’t add anything to the board. I draw a Bear and play it. He draws a Jitte, plays it and passes (still stuck on 2 lands.) I do nothing and pass. He equips, I trade a Bear for the Mother. He passes. I draw and pass. He equips Jitte to the other Mother and I Krosan Grip it after he attacks. I draw a fetchland and play a spell to get Threshold and start attacking. He plays a Forbidden Watchtower. The turn it untaps I Ice it and win with my monsters.

Round 5: Epic Storm

Game 1: I mulligan to 5 cards. On his second turn, he plays Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual, then a Tomb of Urami that he activates. Awkward, I’m holding Force of Will. Anyways, I also have a Bolt and one red land, so I’ve got outs. I draw a second Bolt and pass. He hits me. I draw a blank and pass. He hits me. I draw a fetchland! How lucky! I double Bolt his Demon Token and my guys attack enough times to win.

Game 2: I mulligan to 6 cards. He leads with a Xantid Swarm, I Force of Will it leaving me with 2 lands, 2 creatures, and a Pyroclasm. He starts going off. He eventually casts a Burning Wish, and laments that he cannot get Ill-Gotten Gains because I have a Force of Will in my graveyard. I didn’t have a blue card in my hand, but he still goes for the safe play. He makes 14 Goblin Tokens, I Pyroclasm them away. Werebear gets in enough times to win as he is unable to build another hand capable of getting anywhere.

Hooray! Three byes! After some sleep and wandering about during the first three rounds, I have to play Magic.

Day 1

Round 4: Robert A. Kochis playing UBGW Landstill

Games 1: He leads with Exploration and plays out a ton of lands, including 2 Factories, but he promptly runs out of cards. After removing one Factory the hard way (attack, try to Bolt it after first pump, he Force of Wills, so combat damage has to suffice,) he topdecks Intuition. He gets Academy Ruins, Crucible of Worlds, and Life from the Loam. I’m unable to get through it and I lose.

Game 2: Pithing Needle stops Factories from blocking and my Gooses attack for a bunch. He is very far behind after Wastelanding two of my lands, I win with my two Gooses.

Game 3: My first three men are Swords’d to death and I’m not able to deploy an attacker until the midgame, where I make a big Dryad. He Dredges Life from the Loam, Dredging Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives, and Wasteland. Insane. But instead of playing Academy Ruins and Explosives every turn he simply Wastelands me a couple times, in that time my Dryad attacks enough times to win.

Round 5: Stephen M. Boggemes playing Goblins

Game 1: Two gigantic Dryads and a Werebear force him to block. Timely removal and Stifles end the game before his Vials get him to his end game.

Game 2: Two Vials make progress while I build. The game drags on, the board ends up Vial on 5, Vial on 3, five or so goblins against my Goose, Goose, Bear, and Bear. He Vials in 2 Siege Gang Commanders on the next two turns, both of which I Stifle. Still, he has a better board and is threatening lethal. He doesn't attack all in and passes. I draw Pyroclasm and kill many goblins. Skirk Prospector allows him to throw goblins at things, but after the Pyroclasm my fat men easily finish the game.

Round 6: Ian Degraff playing Slivers

Game 1: I have two large Dryads facing down his handful of Muscle/Sinew slivers. Against a board of Sinew Sliver, Muscle Sliver, and Harmonic Sliver, I make a really stupid play, Fire his Harmonic Sliver for 2. It lived, but I got Threshold and I was able to turn the team sideways to win. A very sloppy victory.

Game 2: I keep fetchland Serum Visions, and my first land is Stifled. He plays Crystaline Sliver, I Force of Will, he Force of Wills back. He adds some more Slivers to his team, and once he Stifles my second land I pack it up.

Game 3: He starts out ahead on the board. I attempt to build up a board the whole times, and he's low on cards, but still has a lead in the race. He taps out for an Essence Sliver. Damnit, I boarded Daze out. I draw and Serum Visions, leaving a Bolt on top for the Essense Sliver for the next turn. His next turn is Winged Sliver and Crystaline Sliver. I'm wrecked.

In addition to boarding stupidly, I played stupidly as well. The keep game two was exceptionally greedy, and I suppose I deserve to lose that game in the way I lost it.

Round 7: Tj Noll playing UWB Fish

Game 1: He Plows my first three men and counters two more with Force of Wills. Annoying. I Bolt down Serra Avenger and Fire a Meddling Mage after getting a Dryad into play. I let his Grunt hit me until it dies, and my Dryad gets very large and attacks several times.

Game 2: He leads with Leyline of the Void. Crap, I boarded in the second Needle instead of Krosan Grip. We trade cards until we are both topdecking. He gets a Mage and names Fire (Just Fire. Isn’t he supposed to say Fire/Ice because Meddling Mage says “card?” It probably doesn’t matter.) I am forced to put two Gooses in front of said Mage, and we continue to work off the top. He draws Jotun Grunt. His graveyard is large. Then he draws Jitte, which probably didn't matter, but it did make me die faster.

Game 3: Mother of Runes lives (problems) and my team can't do much. I have Goose and Bear. I Pyroclasm with 6 cards in the graveyard. He saved his Mother of Runes and let Confidant and Meddling Mage perish. I begin attacking.

He draws a Jitte and puts it on Mother. I attack into it. He's got 2 cards in hand. He blocks and gives it protection from green. I Fire it (and him for 1) before damage. His last two cards are Force of Will and something blue. He takes some damage, but Jitte is active. He draws and passes leaving Mother back. I start frantically cantripping digging for Krosan Grip, as I believe his next creature will beat me. I draw the Grip before he draws a creature and I win.

Round 8: Mike P. Hron playing Goblins

Game 1: He makes some Goblins. I cantrip into lands, play my creatures, and draw more lands (frowns.) With a grip of 4 lands, and 4 mana up, he doesn't attack into my board. Instead he builds his board, gets Sharpshooter, and passes turn after turn. Despite me drawing Fire/Ice on one of the last turns, he eventually sent his team in and won.

Game 2: I play Tropical Island and pass. He Wastelands it. I Stifle, untap and play a Dryad. He plays a Vial. I Cantrip once, play Goose, and attack and hold U up. He fetches and I Stifle. I untap, Bolt him, Mental Note to threshold, and attack him to almost zero.

Game 3: I have Goose and Bear against his Vial. I'm forced to Needle Wasteland rather than his Vial as I don’t have any mana in hand and won’t be able to beat a Wasteland. He makes many men, I Pyroclasm them away. I get to keep the Goose, Bear dies to Fanatics and whatnot. He Ringleaders and gets another Ringleader. I attack. He Ringleaders again into only a Ringleader. I keep attacking. The third Ringleader gets him an Incinerator and a Lackey. I Pyroclasm and attack. He cycles the Incinerator, draws, and passes. I attack and burn him out.

Hooray! I get to play in day 2!

round 9: Zohar N. Bhagat playing UWB Landstill

game 1: He Duresses and takes nothing relevant, I beat down with Goose and Bear. He blows up my first set of men with a Wrath of God, followed by Crucible of Worlds with a Wasteland. I get another Goose and Pithing Needle his Factories to try to sneak the Goose through to win. He ends that by Wrathing it away. I resolve a Bolt to his face to knock him to 2 before he Wastelands my Volcanic Island. I draw Fire/Ice and pass. He Fact or Fictions on his main phase and takes Decree of Justice. I topdeck Flooded Strand and throw my Fire/Ice on the table. Upon further inspection, my library does not contain a Volcanic Island. Lame.

Game 2: I have a Bear and a Mongoose early. I Serum Visions and leave a Pithing Needle on top. But, since I'm bad, I send my guys in and Factory eats one. Embarrassing. Not even awkward, just embarrassing. It’s been a long day. Anyways, the attacks continue and I get him down to about ten before he stabilizes with Wrath and gets Crucible online. I Krosan Grip it and the game drags on. I Pithing Needle Decree of Justice (another sketchy play) and the game continues to drag on. He draws Decree and makes two Angels with it.

7-2 after day 1. I felt like both of my losses were my fault and that I can play better. I’m in 41st place going into day 2.

Day Two begins with tax forms delivered to us by the judge staff. Fun.

Day 2

Round 10: James Hammer, playing Slivers.

Game 1: He STPs my first three men and has 4 Muscle/Sinew Slivers and a Crystaline Sliver. Beatings.

Game 2: He promptly Force of Wills my first three plays of the game, two creatures and a Brainstorm. His two Plated Slivers can't quite get it done, as he is out of cards. I get a Dryad into play and make it very large, and it wins fairly quickly.

Game 3: I counter two Crystaline Slivers with Spell Snares while building up my board. He has Muscle Sliver and Plated Sliver and Winged Sliver, after Bolting his Plated Sliver Pyroclasm removes the rest clearing the way for my monsters.

Round 11: Peter L. Akeley playing BGW control

Game 1: He Duresses, then Hymns, then Gerard’s Verdicts, then Hymns again. In response to the last one, I Brainstorm two Dryads on top, Needle his on board Pernicious Deed, and play both dryads. They become 3/3s and attack enough times to win.

Game 2: He makes me discard some cards and plays a Dark Confidant. Strange, I thought this deck had Grave Shell Scarab and a million three drops. Turns out he has a lot of three mana plays, Confidant showed them to me. He plays an Engineered Plague against my Goose. I respond with a Mental Note to get to Threshold, and he still names Mongoose. The Mongoose hits him once, for 2 damage. This is all of the damage I got in the attack step this game, as he added Troll Ascetic right afterwards. Dark Confidant knocks him down to 4. I’m empty handed at this point. He plays a fetchland and uses it and all of his mana to play Dark Confidant and Loxodon Heirarch back up to 7 life. Nimble Mongoose and 2/2 Quirion Dryad face down 2 Dark Confidants, Troll Ascetic and Loxodon Heirarch. I topdeck…. Fire/Ice. I pass the turn back. He reveals Gerard’s Verdict and Vindicate. Fire wins it. How lucky.

Round 12: Samuel P. Stoddard playing Flash

Game 1: He Serum Visions twice and Dazes my dryad. I add a Werebear and he casts LimDul’s Vault. He puts himself to 12 or so from it and starts taking long turns. I have an over abundance of lands this game, a total of 8. The bear drops him to 10 from two non-Thresholded attacks. He plays a Flash. My hand is Bolt, Bolt, Fire/Ice, land, land. Flash resolves. He says, "awkward" and passes the turn. I attack with Bear (still 1/1) and pass it back. He does some stuff, Duresses one of my Bolts away and plays Flash. It resolves. Hulk triggers and gets Karmic Guide and Benevolent Bodyguard. Guide puts Hulk back into play. He passes. I draw Lightning Bolt and pass. He attacks me with Hulk (I go to 8.) End step I Fire his bodyguard (and 1 to him.) It resolves. I fetch 3 times to get threshold and send my guy in. He takes it. I Bolt him twice to win.

Game 2: He LimDul’s Vaults on turn 2. On turns 3 and 4 he plays nothing. On my turn 4 I play Werebear with 2 up. He again plays nothing and passes. I get threshold and attack him down to 10.

He taps Tundra for Orim's Chant. I float a blue, return a Tropical Island and Daze it. He taps his other land, an Underground Sea, for blue and Dazes my Daze, picking up his Sea. I pay 1 for his Daze with the U I floated. He needs 2 mana to play Flash after the Chant, so he has to fight my Daze. He Force of Wills it, I Pyroblast. He Force of Wills again, I Red Elemental Blast. He's out of Force of Wills (thank god) and he pays 1 for my Daze, replays the land, and passes. I hit him with Bear and Bolt him twice.

Round 13: Allen S. Jackson playing RGB Zoo

Game 1: He leads with Taiga Kird Ape. I Bolt it on my first turn. He plays a dual and a Skyshroud Elite. I Force of Will it, then play Quirion Dryad on my turn. I cantrip it up to 2/2 and he Sudden Shocks it, then adds a River Boa to his board. We both stop attacking for a bit, and each turn I cantrip and play another Threshold guy. I end up with 2 Gooses and 2 Bears, and start sending them in. I win in two attacks.

Game 2: I stop his early plays again with Bolt and play some threshold men. He plays a Tormod's Crypt and a Grim Lavamancer. I get to threshold and attack. He Crypts me, I Stifle. I remove Lavamancer and pass. He plays another Tormod’s Crypt, I force of will it. I attack. He burns me for 6 and plays a Dark Confidant. I Pyroclasm it and win.

Round 4: Owen Turtenwald playing goblins

Game 1: I create large monsters and attack into his goblins repeatedly. Some burn wins it before he can stabilize.

Game 2: We trade cards for the first few turns. I end up Pyroclasming his guys away leaving me with 2 Gooses. He rips a Tormod's Crypt and stops me from killing him and wins with a couple of goblins soon after.

Game 3: He starts out ahead and has 2 Ports going. I'm making all of my land drops, up to turn 5. He adds pressure to the board, I have a Goose and a Bear, and a Needle on Port (he can double Port my two red lands for the entire game, I guess. Probably should have Needled something more relevant.) He plays a Matron and gets Tin Street Hooligan and kills my Needle with it. I Pyroclasm, he kills my Bear. I attack some. I Pyroclasm again after he rebuilds a little, which was probably greedy as he has 6 or so in the grip. The Goose takes him to 5 and I pass with a Bolt in hand. He plays three Piledrivers and passes. I draw a second Bolt and win.

Round 15: Gadiel Szleifer playing Flash

Intentional draw. I suppose this is a good way to deal with the Flash matchup.

After the top 8 photo (I’ve been described as looking “drunk” and “like a zombie” by friends. I hate pictures) I sit at the table and shuffle up.

Quarterfinals: Owen Turtenwald playing Goblins

Game 1: His opening involved a Vial, 2 Piledrivers, and 2 Warcheifs, followed by 2 Ringleaders triggering soon after. I struggle to keep up by Stifling an Incinerator trigger that attempted to remove my Werebear. I got to block with it, but it didn’t matter much. Several other bad things happen, I'm not able to do much the entire game.

Game 2: Without a long explanation, I mulligan until my hand is Serum Visions, Force of Will, Stifle, and Pyroclasm. On turn 2 I Force of Will his Piledriver. On turn 3 I play my first permanent and cast Serum Visions. I Pyroclasm three Goblins away, but can’t even begin to imagine how to play through the Goblins he revealed from the first Ringleader. Not much to see here, I pack up my two permanents before allowing the inevitable to take place.

So, Gadiel lost, putting me 3rd among Amatuers and 6th overall. $1650 for my finish, as well as the long-awaited Pro Tour invite I’ve missed out on countless times. A good weekend. Can’t have a report without…

Props:
-Whoever controls luck. The luck was with me the whole time. I only played against Flash once!
-Everybody affiliated with RIW Hobbies, especially Pam, and everybody else from Michigan.
-Everybody from TUS and GWS.
-Mike Jacob, who I "borrowed" (took from him while he was sleeping) Tropical Islands from.
 
Slops:
-Josh Wludyka, for claiming that he invented UGR Threshold a week before the GP, then demanding that I buy him dinner as a reward for "allowing me to play his creation."
-The Crown Plaza Hotel, for being on the wrong side of the convention center.
-The burger place in the food court, for running out of fish sandwiches.

Thanks for reading.

In round 12, I'm playing against Flash.

In game two, he Lim Duls Vaults on turn 2. On turn 3 he does nothing, turn 4 Duresses me and sees Pyroblast, Stifle, Lightning Bolt, and some other stuff. He takes Stifle.

Two turns later his board is still Tundra and Underground Sea. He taps Tundra to Orim's Chant me. I Daze it. He Dazes my Daze, floating a U and picking up his Sea. I pay 1. He Force of Wills my Daze. He has to have 2 mana after the Chant. I Pyroblast the Force of Will. He Force of Wills my Daze again. I Red Elemental Blast his Force of Will. He uses his U floating to pay for my Daze, replays his Sea and passes.

I attack and Bolt him twice to win.

We fought over a Daze with all of those cards. It felt strange.

Decklists.

http://professional-events.com/decks/WotC/GPTColumbus07/GPTColumbus-041507.htm

The blue deck without Standstill is the best.

I started playing Vintage because I wanted to constantly have a constructed format to play. I play Magic way more than I should, and I can't stand Sealed deck events, and "sealed season" happens to exist roughly one half of the time. One particular sealed season I decided I needed some other form of magic to think about, and there was a weekly vintage tournament that just started allowing proxies. Armed with a terrible, awful, miserable uw fish deck with proxied flying men (for one week only, those guys got cut immediately,) I played as much as possible out of a desire to win and get better at something new (to me.)

It took about a year of playing to win enough to have a deck with zero proxies, and it's been fun all the while. Even though I still play a terrible fish deck, it has changed and grown since I started probably a dozen times. Whenever something in the format changes (flame fusillade gifts, or recently empty the warrens,) instead of giving up and playing a real deck, I keep playing Fish and keep making changes to figure out how I can still play all of my favorite cards.

To me, Vintage is entirely about having fun. If I took it as seriously as I do other formats, obviously I would stop playing Aether Vial and start playing Mana Drain. But I see no reason to take Vintage too seriously, mainly because there aren't enough events to justify devoting serious time to it, and secondly because it would remove most of the fun.

Aether Vials catches splash damage from people's Null Rods. Great. Null Rod turns off Artifact mana. This isn't news.

The best creature to Vial into play is Meddling Mage.

Children of Korlis isn't playable, the strategy of "I'll let my combo opponent generate enough Storm and Mana to Tendrils me for lethal, then I'll do something cute to beat it" isn't even remotely viable. They make a bunch of mana and have a high Storm count. You have Children of Korlis. They play Empty the Warrens.

I really have to stop missing Vintage tournaments.

Good job with the split.

We never have deck registration for these events, but in case someone wants to know, this is what I played.

3 island
1 mountain
4 volcanic island
1 tropical island
1 flooded strand
1 polluted delta
2 wooded foothills

4 wasteland
3 mishra's factory
3 faerie conclave
1 academy ruins

1 meloku the clouded mirror

2 spell snare
4 counterspell
4 force of will

3 lightning bolt
4 fire ice
3 engineered explosives
2 vedalken shackles
3 crucible of worlds

4 brainstorm
4 standstill
2 fact or fiction

sideboard:
3 arcane laboratory
4 pyroclasm
2 stifle
1 spell snare
1 echoing truth
2 red elemental blast
2 energy flux

The red fetches and mountain were very bad. The lack of bounce spells was bad. The sideboard was bad (flux was for the two people playing affinity.) Everything else was really good, Academy Ruins won me several games, Vedalken Shackles was really strong, just about everything else in the deck was good.

Yeah, it's true. I boarded a bunch of Arcane Labratories. Kind of a waste.

I interperted the poll as "what are the best 5 cards in this poll?"

Anyways, Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire, Sol Ring, and Time Walk.

Mana Crypt should probably be in there, but I find Ring to be stronger (from my perspective, always playing Fish, Chalice zero stops Crypt, or if they have Crypt, it causes some damage, effectively shortening my clock, while Sol Ring costs 1 and can be played through a Chalice. I almost never win against turn 1 Sol Ring when I'm playing Fish, it produces far too much mana in a short period of time.)

Anyways, I'm surprised there's so little love for Time Walk. The card almost always leads to the end of the game. The way I evaluate this is that the bombs win the game (Yawgmoth's Will, etc.,) but Time Walk prodces the time and mana to get you there, and therefor is among the best cards in the game.

Some results (as best as I can remember them):

Top 8:

UW landstill vs. GWB control deck (forget the name of this archetype.) - Landstill wins.
UGW Threshold vs. white weenie - ww wins.
UR Landstill (me) vs. RGB Zoo-ish aggro deck - Landstill wins.
UWB Fish vs. Goblins -  Fish wins.

Top 4:

UR Landstill vs. WW - WW wins. (I lost, boo.)
UWB Fish vs. UW Landstill - As far as I could tell, Landstill won.

Not sure what happened with the finals, but I assume there was a split involved. I went home.

The turnout was very low, we had 17 people (actually 16 people.)

Who else put "Vial Fish?" I thought I was the only person that ever played that deck.

Yeah, I like Vial Fish. It's the only thing I even win with, every time I play anything else I either fall short of top 8 or lose in the quarterfinals. All of my success in Vintage has come with my trusty Aether Vials.

Whoever voted for "Vial Fish" must have accidentally did it, they must have missed when they were trying to click "Rod Fish."