Hey guys so I'm trying to avoid studying here so why not post a quick tournament report. Feel free to correct me if my notes aren't perfect. At no point did I think I was going to win this tournament and need to post a report...hence my poor note-taking.

round 1: Jeremiah Gourtz

Game 1 He gets an early bob down which gets him a bunch of CA. I fetched out an underground then tropical island. I had a few artifacts in play and was holding onto hurkyls and tendrils for a few turns trying to get to a second (B) but could never get there. His bob eventually swings in for the win
Game 2: My opener is pretty good with FoW+blue card and sower of temptation. He gets down an early Bob and I sower it with Fow back-up. There were some worries with the bob flips for awhile because I flipped Fow right away. However, he plays Dimir cutpurse and it trades with the bob and my sower just swings in for a few turns for GG
Game 3: He gets Bob down and adds a Glen Elendra to it. The game was not close.

0-1

Round 2: Andrew

Game 1: He looks at his hand for awhile and plays first turn mountain. I assume goblins and his play of goblin guide makes me more sure. However, he is playing something more like extended zoo plus lotus petal and black lotus. I quickly assemble key-vault and explain the text of tendrils of agony.

Game 2: He plays first turn hardcast rift bolt off lotus. I quickly assemble key-vault and he scoops.

1-1

Round 3: Derek Wochinski

He explains that I have been downpaired; this combined with my first round loss doesnt look too promising for making top 8. He scoops the match to me because he has no chance at top 8. What a guy.

We play 5 casual games and I think he got me 3-2 (none sideboarded) But this was a fun few games to play.

2-1

Round 4: Mike Noble

Game 1: I force his first turn mystic remora and respond by playing my own. It gets me some card advantage and I eventually COMMANDEER his time vault, which combined with the demonic tutor in my hand to win the game. booyah play of the day.

Game 2: We exchange a couple force of wills over some cards. He gets tezzeret down and finds time vault. In response to his tezz untap of time vault I repeal his time vault. It draws me into something good and gifts for the win on my next turn.

3-1

Round 5: Jeremy Seroogy

Game 1: He gets a pretty sick opener and I try to combo on turn 2 or 3 and fizzle.

Game 2: I get a tezzeret down the turn before he would win, search up tormods crypt and get him. Next turn I find time vault and thats the game.

Game 3: I get first turn lotus+land --> demonic --> yixlid jailer
I have enough counters to back it up and the jailer gets there.

For the record, Yixlid Jailer is hands down the greatest anti-ichorid card of all time. I would consider splashing black just for this card.

4-1

I am second place going into top 8.

Top 8: John Beste

game 1: I play 2 mystic remoras and he play ancestral recall & regrowth--> ancestral recall while under remora. I then assemble key vault with some drain mana and win.

Game 2: I get stuck on one land for awhile and eventually get a remora down pretty late, but he has jace and top in play by now. He eventually sculpts the sickest hand ever and destroys me. Oh yeah and I countered one of his oaths and extirpated it this game. Booyah, second best play of the day.

Game 3: was epic. Unfortunately I don't have the notes to back it up. We exchange some nature's claims and a few force of wills and some drains. Eventually I get some cards off remora and combo him with remora in play.

5-1

Top 4: Dan Carp

Game 1:He gets an oath down and kicks my ass

Game 2: I extirpate something from him and see his hand is iona, jace top, drain. I somehow get the counters out of his hand and tinker into lotus and lotus into will. GG

Game 3: At some point he thoughtseizes me and sees a hand like tinker, will, drain, demonic, and random. He stood no chance.

6-1

Top 2: Bob Homer

Game 1: I get first turn mystic remora. He goes first turn land go. I pay for remora. He draws me 4 cards on remora. I force 2 relevant spells and hurkyls him at end step. This allows me to let mystic remora die and vampiric into time vault+key.

Game 2: He gets a first turn sphere. Then second turn solemn. he attacks me with it a couple times while I leave drain mana up. Eventually I just say fuck it and drop double tarmogoyf and its downhill for him from there.

7-1

Thanks for the time walk folks.

I don't think I'll ever play this deck again. Although mystic remora is an incredibly fun card I don't think this is the deck for it.

My goal for the tournament was to kill oath. Hence my deck name: die oath die. And it worked well. This deck plays very well against oath as the top 8 shows.

Thanks for another great tournament.

p.s. soly you always think the meta sucks

thanks for the lesson tk

Yeah not taking his yawg will was one of my infi play mistakes previously mentioned...i was incredibly lucky not to lose the match to such ritardery

I played "The Deck" last tournament, which is essentially the "blue version of tps" In other words, it runs all the insane blue spells and counters rather than all the insane black spells and rituals.

I felt rituals might have a good shot because they were unexpected and stax is HIGHLY underplayed in our meta. Plus, i had never really played rituals in a tournament before and its a really fun deck to play.

Isaac, for the record Owen and I split. And he was lucky I allowed such a thing to happen. Considering my recent mastery of dark rituals, I would have smashed his maindeck leylines and spell pierces in a quick 2 games.

In all seriousness though, I made infi play mistakes during the day too. Obviously exhibited in my failure to include a card like Yawg's Fuckin Bargain! Almost forgot memory jar too, adding it moments before the tournament started....but that was dogshit all day.

All I really have to say is I can't wait to play gush again.

@ aew, I honestly just forgot to put it into my list. TK told me it would have won me a game, but I didn't even think about it. And I'm pretty sure I won that game anyway. I put the deck together the night before and simply forgot it. In most cases when I would have wanted Yawg-Bargain, some other card (typically minds desire) had the same game winning effect. Plus, minds desire is typically a much better option considering all the spell pierces in the format.

And @ Soly, what ritual combo lists even run TV? And what aggro lists for that matter?
I have yet to see a ritual list that runs it and does well.
And since when does BUG or GW fish or Goblins run TV?

Oath isn't oath as we used to know it, its a combo deck.

Control decks in vintage have always just run the best kill condition available.

And one stax list ran it, so that means the rest of them must?

I mean come on soly, the majority of your statement is completely unwarranted.
And furthermore, since when in vintage isn't this the case? In every metagame, the best available kill condition is the one that gets played the most. How is that a surprise?

3 decks out of this top 8 ran TV.
2 of which being an oath combo list strictly dedicated to its success. If you're going to make this argument you can say tendrils of agony is a problem because there were 2 tendrils lists in the top 8.

The other list, stax, merely ran it to increase its broken draws. You can hardly say this is a "time vault deck."

Sure the metagame sucks, but TV isn't the problem. It's because wizards restricted the only good blue cards that made other control decks viable. Without TFK or Gifts or Brainstorm, the metagame has degraded into this highlander format based largely on variance and reduced the importance of playskill.

That is a pretty preposterous claim. We take the format seriously and it shouldn't be expected that you will be drawn into top 8. Drawing into top 8 is an agreement between two players and if it helps out your team to play it out and give them, or yourself, better standings so be it. We certainly aren't greedy because we help out teammates by playing it out when others would draw in. In the case of SCG, this issue has been covered several times and we don't need to revisit it.

Inflex is correct in his last post that people need to stop treating vintage like it's a "boys club" (whatever that means) and treat it like a real format. Would you talk bad about any pros for not scooping your friend in because it helped out their teammates? Certainly not, just because this is vintage doesn't give anyone the right to be scooped to or otherwise.

yeah seriously guys this isn't a fucking drug cartel!

I NEVER post on TMD....but this will cause me to simply to say that I hate you JR and your damn slice and dices....

but yeah Saturday night was great and Waterbury was a blast even though I pretty much scrubbed both days...Thanks to Ray for running a great tournament and I hope to make the next one.