"Remove Lord of Extinction to Sutured Ghoul, and attach Dragon Breath. "

Lord of Extinction has power and toughness of 0 in any zone other than in play...so removing it for Ghoul won't work.

My bad -- apparently static abilities that set power and toughness do, in fact work in other zones -- this was made true as of future site.

I was thinking about different ways to deal with the Brain Freeze.  Krosan Reclamation is another trick that could be used. The huge advantage of Krosan over Gaea's Blessing is that you can try to set yourself up to win next turn by shuffling in Yawg Will.  The obvious downside is that you could get targeted with a draw spell and lose before you get a chance to win.

Don't forget that if you have DSC in the deck -- it will get shuffled back into the library repeatedly as it gets milled away -- so you'll get to draw that when it ends up in your deck next turn.

>>to all the people who put Simic Sky Swallower in the SB (myself included).  Simic was more of a goof.
It makes more sense to run Duresses\Thoughtseizes which are useful generally great cards against control and combo, as opposed to Simic which you are unlikely to get into play, and even if you do, you aren't guaranteed a win.

BTW -- There's hasn't been much discussion about LoA.  I know that the mana base is already very tight, but Library is an exceptional card in control mirrors.  It can single handedly win games -- an uncounterable, reusable, free draw each turn.  At worse it's a corlorless mana source (unlike Bazaar for instance).  If you live in a place where you don't play against any control decks at all, I could see not running it, otherwise try it out at least.

>>Chalice on 0
Yeah, if they drop Chalice on 0 -- and you are relying on the Zuran orb you can't go off.  But you can't go off if they cast Chalice on 1 either, because that stops Fastbond.  In fact, Chalice on one is a lot worse than Chalice on 0 because with it on 1, you also lose Brainstorm, Ancestral, 1 cost tutors...which will impede your ability to get ET.  You should have a couple of answers to Chalice between your MD and SB -- Echoing Truth, Hurkyl's, Oxidize, Engineered Explosives, Naturalize -- the trick is to figuring out which ones will help you the most all around.

>>Claws of Gix
It doesn't give you infiite life like Zuran Orb does -- because you only get 1 life, and you have to pay one with Fastbond.  While it may help you against some Oath builds -- it won't help if they Show and Tell a Tyrant into play, which is rapidly gaining popularity.

Stifle and Spell Snare are strong sideboard options against Flash and Oath.  Stifle can be used to counter the Brainfreeze win against Oath, or to stop Flash.  If you run black, Duress and Thoughtseize would be strong cards to bring in against control and combo.  Then again, spell snare would help a lot in the early game against Spheres and Thorns.

Against Aggro workshop -- your plan is too tinker for DSC.  They don't have any answer for it.  Hopefully you can do it before you lose control of the board.  If they manage to get a Magus down and you have no blue -- you're in trouble.  You'll have an uphill battle against spheres -- so you'll want to counter those if you can.

Against traditional Stax decks -- I agree that your goal should be to get down a Crucible as fast as you can.  I don't think the matchup is bad.  If they chalice on 1, you can still answer it with ET.  If they chalice on 1 and 2, you can still always tinker for DSC to win.

Hey -- this is Chad.  Here's the list I played for reference:

3x Island
3x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
1x Nomad Stadium
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Black Lotus
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Tinker
1x Mystical Tutor
3x Merchant Scroll
2x Intuition
1x Gifts Ungiven
4x Gush
4x Mana Drain
1x Fastbond
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Darksteel Colossus
3x Crucible of Worlds
1x Reclaim
1x Regrowth

Sideboard
3x Ray of Revelation
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Extirpate
1x Balance
2x Simic Sky Swallower
1x Hurkyl's Recall


About a week before the tournament I started playing a GWU version from earlier in this thread.  I admit that I only played about a dozen games with the deck, but  I found that I didn't like AKs (even though they work so well with intuition, you have to invest a lot of card slots and a lot of mana to get some AKs in the yard).  Also, I really liked having the alternative win condition in the main deck.  In some matchups, it's much simpler (and faster) to tinker for DSC.  I found that it was sometimes very tempo consuming to get the main combo together.  It generally meant resolving at least two intuitions.  One to get the lands, and another to get fastbond, and some ways to get fastbond back from the yard -- and this assumes you have crucible in hand.  Drain mana speeds it up a lot, but it still takes several turns to set it up.

Then on the morning of the tournament -- I arbitrarily decided to add black to the deck with out testing it.  I won a couple of my games with Tinker for DSC, and a couple of games by resolving a Yawg will.  Yes, it's true that you can't combo out the turn you play Will, but it doesn't generally matter.  It has two primary purposes: gaining massive card advantage against a control deck, or if Fastbond and/or Crucible are in your GY, then you can Will to get them back (like a super Regrowth).

How was Reclaim?  I'd say it was an adequate replacement for Argivian Find.  I would have preferred to run an Argivian Find, but it was just too unrealistic with only a couple white sources.  Obviously the nice thing about Reclaim over Find is that you can do stuff like Intuition for 'Will, Regrowth, Reclaim" and know for certain that you get Will next turn.

The mana base was treacherous at best.  I had to constantly plan, and do a lot of guesswork.  I would never fetch for Tundra unless I knew that I'd be comboing out next turn.  If I had the black tutors or will -- I'd go with Underground, otherwise I was just go for Trop -- because you know that you'll need it for Fastbond eventually.  It was stressful to say the least.  All in all, I never really got mana screwed.  I only recall one mulligan that I took because my spells and dual lands didn't match.

Oh, btw -- I added the Simic Sky Swallowers in there mainly because I thought it would be funny to play one against an Oath player that "Show and Tell"ed a Tyrant into play.  At 7 they should be playable with drain mana.  I never played against Oath though.  I suspect that they aren't great, but I knew that there would be a LOT of Tyrant Oath players at Myriad, (and there were).

Other comments:
1)Boarding in Ray of Revelation was hit or miss.  Sometimes I'd suspect that my opponent would have Leyline of Void in game two, so I'd bring in one Ray, only to have it dead in my hand the whole game.

2)There was another time when I didn't board in the Hurkyl's Recall, and I boarded out the ET, only to lose to a very unexpected Tormod's Crypt.

3) 4xLeyline + 4xEtirpate helped remarkably against Ichorid.  I think the Extirpates would help in a lot of other matches as well.

4) Balance is a very strong card -- but it was hard for me to cast, having to rely on white.


I've thought about the deck much since then -- I think I might try something like this next time:
3x Island
3x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
1x Cephalid Coliseum

1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Tinker
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Gifts Ungiven
2x Merchant Scroll
3x Gush
2x Thirst for Knowledge
4x Mana Drain
1x Fastbond
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Darksteel Colossus
3x Crucible of Worlds
2x Zuran Orb
1x Reclaim
1x Regrowth

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Extirpate
2x Simic Sky Swallower
1x Show and Tell
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Glacial Chasm


I feel that if you want to play black in this deck, you should probably just drop white all together.  Once you do that, it seems more sensible to drop Intuition -- there's no room for AKs in this deck, you have more direct tutors.

With out white, you need something like Zuran Orb to gain infinite life.

I added in a couple of Thirst for Knowledge (you can drop any extra Orb or Crucible you have) -- because early in the game, if you haven't managed to get a Fastbond down yet, Gush is pretty terrible. 

I dropped the Scrolls down to 2.  As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, getting one scroll early, means going for Ancestral, getting two early means...well you'd rather just have a draw spell in hand already.  In addition the black tutors are replacing much of your blue tutors.

Hey Cheese this is Chad.

There's basically two forking concepts of the deck that end up wokring very differently.  There's a couple questions that you have to ask yourself when you are building a hate deck.

1) What are the predominant decks in the metagame?
2) What resources will I focus on attacking?

Right now, clearly you have to deal with GAT and Flash.  Becuase these decks are so fast, you have to make sure that your deck can do something to slow them down on turn one.  Without blue (and thus FoW), that leaves you with things like Leyline of The Void, Duress, and REB for typical builds of the deck.

There was also more specialized builds with ancient tombs, and mana crypts that would try to play a Magus of the Moon, or Aven Mindcensor or even the first turn Chalice of the Void.  Being about to cast Chalice on 2 on turns one or two is a very effective way to disable flash, and slow down GAT immensely.  You've cut off Flash itself, Dryads, and the very important Merchant Scroll, as well as answers such as Echoing Truth.  Aven Mindcensor is also a great early plan because it can stop a fetch land early, or stop tutors which make the decks work.  Mindcensor also stops Flash win.  The problem with this particular build though, is it couldn't be three color and have any consistancy.  So it lacked all of the best black elements.

You'll quickly realize that you have to make choices though.  It's much better to keep the deck focused on a unified method of attack.  The more proactive the better.  This is why I prefer to have duress over REB in most situations.  But attacking the hand, and countering early draw spells can buy you enough time to win with Jotun Grunt, or Negators.  If you want to attack the manabase, you play Wastelands, and probably Null Rods.  But this approach isn't very affective against flash, which can win with two mana, or against GAT, which can gush it's land back to it's hand in response to a Wastes.  So maybe efforts are best spent elsewhere.  Crucible would go in this kind of deck only.  But for it to work, I think you'd need to play a lot of lock conditions to slow the game down to a craw -- like Stax decks do -- see the builds that have Spheres.

Things like Hide/Seek were great against gifts builds because the answered DSC whether it was in play or in the deck.  It was realistic that you could win games by removing all the opposing win conditions.  Now it's not so great anymore though, because you'll never get all of the Dryads, or Slivers or Hulks.  Bloodfire Dwarf is similar.  It was added in repsonse to Empty the Warrens, but that's no longer very popular.

If I were to play in a tourny today -- I'd probably run black/white. Off the top of my head something like:

4xDark Confidant
4xAven Mindcensor
4xNegators

4xDuress
2xUnmask
2xMindTwist
4xLeyline of the Void
4xChalice of the Void
3xSword to Plowshares
2xEdict of some kind
1xDemonic Tutor
1xVampiric Tutor

4xDark Rituals
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Lotus Petal
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
Black Lotus

4xAncient Tomb
3x Black Fetches
4x Black/White Pain Land
1x Swamp
2x Scrubland

The plan is to play Aven Mindcensor or Chalice of the Void on 2 early, or make them discard if that's not possible.  An early DC will help you ride to win as you convert your card advantage into discard and fast mana.  Anyway, I'm not trying to give you a decklist -- after all I just made this one up and it's untested.  I'm trying to tell you that you need to be use very aggressive proactive answers -- not slow, reactive ones.

This is Chad, of Team Ball and Chain.  We were bouncing around the idea of a black/white deck with lots of discard and the ability to run mindcensors.  It was pretty strong.  But the Dan thru this deck together based on the suggestions of some teamates and we have been working on it since then.

To answer some questions:
Chalice is played on 1 -- you'll notice that this deck doesn't run 1-casting cost things, and getting a chalice on one stops some of the most common and powerful cards in the format...brainstorm, tutors, duress, cabal therapy, stps, dark rituals, welders -- and answers like chain of vapor, repeal (targeting a chalice), emerald charms, etc

Chalice on 0 -- slows this deck down dramatically, but doesn't shut it off -- it's quite realistic to hardcast grunts and angels later in the game.  I'd only consider playing it on zero against storm decks, or in the mirror.

Chalice on 2 -- once you know you are playing against a fish deck, this is the way to go.  Chalice on 2 has been a problem for fish since the deck was first created -- MMs, DCs, JGs etc...  If I had a second chalice after I have one on 1, I'd put it on 2 against flash locking them out nicely.

Sphere of Resistance
The spheres were a mixed blessing this past weekend.  They definitely hurt most other decks more than this one, but there have been times when I wished that I hadn't dropped an early sphere.  It's questionable whether these should be in the SB to bring them in against any decks with a storm win condition -- when they would help the most.


Tombs do get wasted frequently, as do the Plateaus, but this deck has no problem with fish whatsoever.  Sometimes you may have to wait an extra turn to drop your morph.  All the artifact mana in the deck helps here also.  Decks that run wastelands aren't the same decks that win fast on the first couple turns (these first few turns are where ancient tomb really shines).  Getting locked out be a Stax deck is another issue entirely -- but bloodmoons and glowriders are there to help.

This deck is much more powerful when you go first.  Playing a Bloodmoon, or Magus of the Moon, on turn one is sometimes enough to win by itself -- if they don't have a basic land in hand, on color mox, or lotus.  Similarly broken -- is playing a glowrider on the first turn, or flashing a mindcensor in reposnse to a fetch.  Leaving your opponent without any on color mana is quite brutal.  It's extremely important that you consider your sideboarding, and mulligan strategy based on whether or not you are going first.

Right now, my big concern is -- can this deck and its SB be built in such a way that it can beat Ichorid consistantly?  It seems like no amount of hate is sufficient -- perhaps it's just finding the right mix of hate.

I think I played the Needle the turn after I Stped the Salvagers.  The turn after that is when he dropped chalice.  I'll take notes next time -- My memery has never been too efficient.


In most decks I don't like the one-costed tutors that put cards on top of the library because of the card disadvantage.  It's not hard to overcome that in a deck with Confidants tho.  The E Tutor was great...getting Null Rod not only to shut off artifact mana but various other problems (trisk, mindslaver), Explosives to blow up tokens or moxen (versitile in many ways itself), Jitte to win fast or control the board against aggro, Tormod's Crypt as a defense against graveyard abuse, Pithing Needle -- can be used to name wasteland, mishra's factory, bazaar (wide variety of shallow answers), and then there's always the occasion when you just want a mox.  After the board comes in, you can get Sacred Ground in against Stax, and Arcane lab against all Gifts/Combo.  The tutors help you to play less redundant cards.  You might play four of a card because you wound't mind seeing four of it -- like duress, but then there are a lot of cards that you might play four of because you just really want to see one -- chalice, null rod, jitte, etc.  Tutors help with the latter, especially if you can run a few different tutors.

Nope, never missed the mana drains.  I'd always rather have a Duress. 

Would you rather:
1) spend one mana on turn one to deal with a dangerous something and drop the MM on turn two?
2) hold back the mage untill turn four just to merely suggest the ability to deal with something?

-chad

I was quite tormented the night before.  I really wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to stick with my usual deck TMWA, which has performed admirably over the past couple years, or take a vacation from it and maintain my sanity.

I'm guessing that most players at least fret over a few side board choices till the last minute.  Whenever I don't play mountains, which is rare, I like any deck with Meddling Mage.  I love Meddling Mages so much that I actually attepted to build a monstrosity that looked something like mountains but it had MMs, Ancestral, Time Walk, and Mystical.  I would board in all red cards in games two and three -- Lavamancers, Shattering Sprees, Rebs, and Pyroblasts.  Only the deck wasn't any good, which should surprise no one.

I was still deciding when I left Sat morning from my girlfriend's place...still thinking about it while the attended filled my car with gas, still while I got my free coffee with every fill up at Heavenly Donuts next door...I think I was more or less decided as I signed the CC reciept at Myriad. 

Dan announced 15 minutes to turn in deck reg at half past the hour, so I started unsleaving the three decks where I would need to pull cards from (ending a sentence with a preposition is sometimes the best way).  I already had a good idea of what needed to be in there with a couple exceptions form previous lists I'd seen -- I really don't like Chalice of the Void (ever) or Mana Drains (in a fish style deck).  I don't like Chalice because it's too important to have on turn one, and it loses its effectiveness any later, especially in a deck that can't afford to drop them on 1 or 2.  As for Drains, they don't make sense to me in a deck that doesn't run anything costlier than Thirst -- not only that but it's too much of a pain to try to keep two blue mana open in a tempo deck-- I want to be dropping things on turn two, not keeping islands open. So I decided to toss in some tutorable artifacts and an Enlightened Tutor (also note sacred ground and arcane lab in the SB), which I took from my TMWA build.  Because I was in a big rush, I didn't manage to include a Tormod's Crypt which would have been remarkably useful several times -- against Salvagers, and even more so against Ichorid.  I sort of wanted to keep these slots as artifacts so that I could discard them to Thrist if I wanted.  I'd run a slightly different set if I did it again -- including Needle and TC.

So as I was frantically pulling cards from three decks, and resleaving -- Sara came to my rescue by counting cards and filling out my deck registration as I built the deck -- Thanks again Sara!


4x Force of Will
4x Meddling Mage
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Confidant
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Strip Mine
1x Island
3x Tundra
4x Underground Sea
3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
4x Duress
4x Jotun Grunt
2x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Null Rod
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Echoing Truth
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Enlightened Tutor
2x Stifle

Sideboard:
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Darkblast
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Disenchant
2x Orim's Chant
1x Sacred Ground
1x Arcane Laboratory
2x Pithing Needle
3x Blue Elemental Blast

I apologize for the brevity of some of the rounds.  I wrote this two days later with out any notes.  I try to leave you with a good impression of the significant information regarding the match.

Round one...Hybrid Oath/Gifts
Game 1 - He oaths out a Tidespout Tyrant  (allows you to bounce when you play spells, so a mox gives you infinite storm count) in the midgame but he can't go off or bounce enough guys to survive the rush of beaters.  My Jitte set a fast clock.

in: Stps, Seal, Disenchant
out: Explosives, Jitte, Enlightened Tutor, Stifles

Game 2 - He gets Oath operational early and gives me some tokens...gets two simics in play and a very full graveyard complete with Yawg Will and Recoup.  I Chant for a couple turns wth kicker to slow him down. My last turn he has zero cards left in his library but he has Krosan Reclamation for decking prevention.

out: all four Stps, Echoing Truths (not good against Simic)
in: stifles, Orim's Chants, Enlightened Tutor, Jitte

Game 3 - Orim's chants slow him down enough to give me time to drop threats and win the race.  It works remarkably well against Oath which always seems to lose the race by a turn or two.  Perhaps because of all the free tokens it gives you.


Round 2... Daniel Cunnigham with Salvagers
We've played a few times before, and I'm familiar with his deck and style of play.  He's a great opponent, a good salvagers player, and I always enjoy these matches.

Game 1- This game was really ugly.  He Ancestralled himself early, and he forced my Brainstorm.  Foolishy I MTed for my own Ancestral, and walked into a Misdirection.  By turn three I was so far behind in cards all hope was lost.  He dropped Chalices left (on one) and right(on two) and I was quickly locked out.  That game didn't last too long.

out: Echoing Truths, Stifles, Jitte
in: Swords, Needles

Game 2- I can't recall much about the second game: I got solid early lockdown with Mages on Repeal, and Salvagers, then rode confidant card advantage to victory.  This was the path to nearly all my victories.  Much in the same way if a control deck like slaver drops turn 1 Library of Alexandria -- you have to either deal with it in the next couple turns (or you can try to win very fast if you have that kind of explosiveness) or you lose.

Game 3- He drops early Salvagers, and Lotus, I swords salvagers when he activates to return the lotus -- he drops Chalice on one which stunts my hand severely -- Duresses, Stps, Brainstorms.  We take turns drawing off the top for a bit. Then over a few more turns, I manage to play a Null Rod, MMs and a Pithing Needle to make SURE he couldn't go off by surprise...I came close to dying to my own Dark Confidants, but survived at 6 through a couple draws then overan him.


Round 3 -- Derek blue white fish
These games whizzed by. I can only recall the most tramatic parts.

1) Whiffed on Duress twice, but saw 2 MMs and 3 NiNja
2) First I pllayed a Meddling Mage naming Mage -- and then proceeded to play a Mage on the following turn (with out white mana) thus breking several rules at once and resulting and stern warnings for everyone within 15 feet of me when it happened.
3) I had a Grunt live for a very long time, utilizing surprise upkeep Brainstorms and Thirsts, culminating in a turn where i Stifled his upkeep, and managing to find 8 cards on the following turn -- he swung 5 turns in all -- not too shabby.  I'll note here how great Thirst of Knowledge is with Grunt..Thanks to the innovator of that.


Round 4 -- Jared with Ichorid
We contemplated a draw, because we are teammates, but decided that it was a dumb idea.  We ending up making a deal that if one of us placed first or second then we'd cover the other's entree fee.

Game 1 - His first hand reveals a Serum Powder, a Shadow, and other stuff, so he free mulls it into...another hand with Serum Powder (still no Bazaar) so that free mulls into...two Serum Powders and still no Bazaar so he free mulls into...what turns out to be a pretty fast hand.  He has the Bazaar, and his graveyard is filling very quickly...he gives me one turn to play a land, and the graveyard gets even bigger...he starts swinging in with Ichorid.  My turn two I play Mage naming Dread Returns...seeing it and a bunch of large creatures in his yard.  At this point Jared's library is thinning quickly, after his draw he's left with 3 cards.  At this point I have demonic and Vampitic Tutor in my hand -- so, I go ahead and chump block with my Mage and Grunt which leaves me with 4 life.  Jared now Dread Returns a massive Ghoul, but it doesn't matter because I Vamp for Ancestral targeting him -- so he decks on his turn.

in: 3xStps, Darkblast, 2xChants, 2xNeedles  (needles are very good against any deck that relies on Bazaar)
out: 4xDuress, Explosives, Jitte, Enlightened Tutor, Null Rod (I can't remember if I took out rod, I think i did)

Game 2 - Jared is sneaky and boards in some Chain of Vapors.  He's able to board out all of his Chalices -- because he knows I didn't have any Tormod's Crypts (or any GY hate for that matter -- mental note, don't share too much information with teamates).  So even though I manage to get a MM on Dread Returns again, he manages to Chain it at my eot, and he returns a Sundering Titan from his yard -- which is pretty much spells defeat even if i could find a way to deal with it -- that's what happens when you have a bunch of dual lands in play of different types.

Game 3 - This game I dropped an early Needle on Bazaar and then Grunt.  Jared attempted to starve it out for several turns...but I kept feeding my graveyard using Brainstorms, and eventually a Thirst on my upkeep to get three extra cards.  I had my early Mage on Chain of Vapor this time.  Once he started to get low on life he had no choice but to start chump blocking with his tiny creatures.  He manages to survive by a single turn, by virtue of time being called -- resulting in a draw.


Round 5 -- Outlaw running TPS
Well, he managed to knock me out in a couple of close games at waterbury on day two after I was paired down to him.  Here I was, paired down again with an opportunity for revenge.  At Waterbury I was running mountains which has a fairly good matchup against combo now.  At myriad, running UWbfish, I felt that I had a much better matchup.  Duresses, Forces, Stifles, Meddling Mages, and even Echoing truth, offer great disruption.
 
I'll admit right now, my biggest mistake was repeatedly naming Repeal on my MMs.  I didn't really know what kind of bounce was in TPS, now I do.  I guess if I spent more time reading lists on the TMD, I'd have known.  The first game I won utilizing disruption.

in: Orim's Chants, Arcane Lab
out: Jitte, Stp, Thirst for Knowledge (I figured this was a bit slow in this match)

One game I lost after a Timetwister.  One game I won after resolving an Arcane Lab, along with other hate.  Arcane lab, is quite amazing, inspite of what people might have told you.  If you have a creature on the table, and an arcane lab, you can just sit back and draw cards, cast instants at the end of their turn.  It's a one card lock slowing down any deck that relies on casting losts of spells, and effectively requiring the TPS player to come up with an answer before they can go off.


Round 6 -- drew against Brassman, who was running gifts

Quarter Finals -- Outlaw rematch
Game 1 - After he mulled -- I Duress away a Yawg Bargain (the most threatening card in his hand) -- I dropped some beaters, and he never really drew any gas.  These games weren't much fun.  I guess when one player is playing a deck like TPS, the issue of winning and losing is usually decided in a few turns, by either going off or effectively disabling a hand.

Game 2 - He gambles on a turn one Empty the Warrens for 8 goblins.  On my turn, I drop 3 moxen and a land to Echoing Truth the tokens, and follow up with a  Confidant.  On my next turn I reveal Confidant, and draw another DC and quickly decide to play two more for a total of three.  Over the next few turns I frantically try to Brainstorm to minimize DC damage.  Massive card advantage quickly prevails.

By then everyone was pretty tired of playing -- and either wanted to do things like eat or sleep.  We had an amicable four way split, which I took partially in store credit for future soda purchases, and partly in cash for gas and rent.

Thanks to Dan for a spectacular event.
-Chad