23 players?! That's awesome, I need to start showing up again!

I mean, Balance would kill it, for starters.

Yeah, it does all come down to matchups. I just didn't appreciate hurkyll's because I didn't play shops all day.

The tweak was taking one jailer out for one grudge in the SB, as Mike pointed out. In retrospect I might have liked taking out the hurkyll's for another grudge, I wasn't excited about hurkyll's all day. But I didn't want to change the maindeck without having played the deck at least a little first, since I was sure you had good reasons to put it exactly the way it was. Now that I've given it a spin, I'll probably change one or two cards if I run it again.

It was a great turnout! Sadly for me, I lost on the bubble in the last round, finishing 3-2 and didn't make top 8. It was a good 3-game match in which I stumbled at the last minute due to a little unfamiliarity with my deck.

I was playing Stephen's Pyromancer Gush list, with one tweak because I was expecting to face The Sea Of Shops (though I wound up not playing any the whole day):

4 Gush
4 Preordain
3 Mental Misstep
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Regrowth
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard

2 Thoughtseize
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Yixlid Jailor
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Mountain
3 Nature's Claim
3 Ingot Chewer

I didn't play dredge either, so the 2nd jailer was not missed in the sideboard.

My notes on the day are mainly that the two matches I lost, I lost to Dark Confidants that I couldn't do anything about. I'd really like to have some Lightning Bolts in the main I think. Or like a Fire/Ice or something. Or maybe Spell Snare, since the counters in here are pretty weak at trying to stop bob.

Sweet, you put it on a day I can make it! I'll definitely be there!

Hey, this looks fun! I'll probably be there

I would much prefer 10/20, since I'll be out of town until then.

Sounds like a very successful event! I regret deeply that I wasn't able to make it this time, as my job is making me travel a lot and I was on an airplane while it was going on.

It was great to see that the turnout was respectable, and the field was diverse. I'll definitely try to participate as often as possible in the future.

BC: I thought you were in the habit of playing multiple Triskelions main? When did you stop running those?

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. It was a pretty bad weekend to pick for a good turnout though

Looking forward to the next one in Vacaville! I'll definitely be there. Eudo events would be great, if they were scheduled better...

Well you'll have at least 2 people from the berkeley area, probably 3-4.

I will certainly play at a vintage event on worlds weekend, especially if it's anywhere geographically near worlds itself!

I am disappointed.

I'm bringing at least 2, probably 3, possibly 4!

There wasn't a Mox this weekend btw - I think because there were only 9 people, and you weren't there to reinforce the plan.

Disappointingly, we got only 9. Nobody from the Campee crew, nobody from your area, none of the new folks who showed up last time.

I agree completely. Workshops, bazaars, mana drains, sets of FoW, Imperial Seal, whatever - the point is to get a kickin' rad prize in there, not that the prize be "in this particular set of 9 rare cards from A/B/U that at some point became known as the 'Power 9'." Don't be afraid to be creative if that's what it takes.

Eudo is going to be running Legacy, btw, early September. I understand cool prizes may be involved there too - ask Ryan for more info on that.

I'm coming with 3 others. Looking forward to playing for a mox again!

I would've like to preregister to get in the cool prize drawing, but the store site showed registrations as "out of stock" - is that because you can't determine exactly what it would cost? Is there another way to handle that?

Yeah, I'm disappointed in the way this is turning out too. Props to Superstars for keeping their monthlies going though!

Yeah, he oathed out emrakul. His previous turn, he got Blightsteel, but I duplicanted it. So he oathed again, and emrakul was literally the bottom card of his deck.

I feel like this deck would be improved with 1 Bazaar of Baghdad to go with your bloodghasts.

Also, against Dredge you could use some sweet black hate like Yixlid Jailer or Planar Void if you don't mind losing the bloodghast synergy. Worth considering maybe?

Neat deck. Did you consider Gorilla Shaman possibly?

That game in the semis was insane. I've never actually seen that happen.

For those who weren't there, LSD had the misfortune of Oathing for his second creature, which was the bottom card of his deck...

My notes from this event:
Culling Scales is just not a good idea. Shoulda went with either Relic of Progenitus or Razormane Masticore.
Serum Powder is insane insane insane. The best serum powder though is when you get like 3 serum powders in a hand

I think this tournament demonstrated all the problems with my deck quite well. I played an updated version of my deck from the last event:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Myr Battlesphere
4 Goblin Welder
1 Mindslaver
1 Tinker
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Spell Snare
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Frantic Search
1 Rebuild

Sideboard:
6 Misc. Dredge Hate
4 Sower of Temptation
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Blast
1 Darkblast

I turned the spell pierces into snares and a Ponder into a 4th Jace, which seemed like changes I could have made originally. I expected spell snare to be great against Dark Confidant, Quirion Dryad and Lotus Cobra which I expected to make a strong showing today. That proved to be correct, and the snares were an excellent choice, making themselves useful in every one of my matchups.

My problem was ultimately that since this deck is a pretty straightforward multi-part control/combo deck, one part of which has summoning sickness, I was very vulnerable to opposing duresses, and if I lost a counterwar I had very few long-term advantage cards to get me back into the game.

I fared extremely poorly against Jeff Huang with neo-grow in round 1, partially due to his very, very strong draws, but partially due to my inability to deal with getting thoughtsiezed twice each game.

In round 2, I completely skunked a Lotus Cobra Tendrils deck, thanks partly to his very poor draws in game 1 and partly to the strength of my choice of Spell Snare, along with getting somewhat lucky in finding vault/key without too much trouble in game 2.

In round 3, I encountered Blaine Christiansen's similarly rogue painter/grindstone concoction. Game 1 went very long and he ultimately conceded to my hardcast Mindslaver. Library of Alexandria went the distance in this one, keeping me ahead on cards. Game 2 saw him get an early Confidant and Remora, followed by Jace, and his card advantage helped him find a very very powerful Yawgmoth's Will. In game 3, we both ran out of gas early and I topdecked  Tinker, with which I found Myr Battlesphere (Inkwell was my one card in hand at that point). He stumbled into another Yawgmoth's Will, with which he tutored for a painter and red blasted my battlesphere and a land. I got a Goblin Welder online the next turn though, welded back in the battlesphere, and went the distance that way.

Round 4, I put away Josh Stein thanks to a very powerful draw in game 1 and a very serious Marit Lage timing blunder from him in game 2 with allowed me to steal the 20/20 with a Sower of Temptation. He destroyed it by making a second Marit Lage, and his last card was a Dark Confidant, which wouldn't have been bad but I had a second Sower lined up ready to go.

In round 5, I got paired down against Alex Keleman, who scooped me into the top 4 when I explained that due to the very unusual mechanics of this tournament, he would be unable to make it if he won, and I would be guaranteed in if I won. After we agreed to that, he proceeded to completely skunk me 8 or 9 games to 0 when we were playing for funsies, demonstrating my deck's extreme vulnerability to a resilient "hate bear" based deck. His aces in this matchup were definitely a combination of Null Rod and Magus of the Moon, which combined to frequently make me completely unable to play any spells at all due to my deck's lack of a second basic island or a single basic swamp. Alex definitely showed me that the time for Control Slaver has passed in this metagame. I definitely plan on making a change of technology for the next one.

Interestingly, every single deck in this tournament except Ryan Reynold's Sun Titan Oath played at least 4 early creatures in the maindeck, and most played 8 or more. Had I gone back to Oath of Druids, my old standby, I believe that I would have completely dominated my matchups. If I were to play this deck again, I would like to find a way to add a 4th robot, most likely a second mindslaver or a sundering titan. I would also definitely add a second basic island and most likely a basic swamp, increasing my total number of lands by at least 1. I would remove 1 Jace, because 4 actually seems a little much in this deck (heresy!), and I would probably remove 1 Mana Drain because I was quite underwhelmed by drain throughout the day. I never seemed to have the mana to play drain when I had it.

Muahahaha, despite my refined Control Slaver deck being absolutely terrible in this metagame, I was not stopped.

Not really, but I'll bring it up with Dean and see what we can make happen.

I'm pretty sure this marks 8 top-4 finishes for me in a row. Quite the streak!

Admittedly, it's not hard to top-4 when only 11 people show up. The gloomy weather, unexpected rain, and associated car accidents on the freeways probably contributed to that, but it was disappointing, given that past events have drawn 30+ participants.

The fact that a PTQ was yesterday might also be part of that.

Anyways, I played a homebrew control slaver list with Frantic Search in the place of Thirst For Knowledge #2-4.

Overall, I liked the Frantic Searches. They came in handy many times when I drew way too many lands.

If I were to play my deck again, I would swap out my Spell Pierces for Thoughtsieze or possibly Lightning Bolt. I just found myself stuck with them waaaaaaaay too many times when my opponents had no shortage of lands. This was really a pretty slow deck, and so the tempo advantage from the spell pierce early probably isn't worth it anyways.

My list:

7 Fetchlands
3 Volcanic  Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Sensei's Top
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Tinker
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Mindslaver
4 Goblin Welder
1 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Frantic Search
4 Mana Drain
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
3 Jace, TMS

Side:
2 Rack and Ruin
1 REB
1 Pyroblast
1 Darkblast
4 Sower of Temptation
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Extirpate
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ravenous Trap

I played Riddlesmith shop aggro, goblins, red stax, U/B/W Jace, and intentional draw, in that order. My deck served very well against the shop decks thanks to Goblin Welder and good sideboard cards, but faltered against the U/B/W Jace deck, partially due to his good draws, partially due to discarding the wrong cards to my frantic searches, and partially due to spell pierce being awful at countering Dark Confidant.

I do miss confidants, I've gotten so used to being able to go all-in on a random early game guy who will get there through the mid and late game thanks to card advantage. Perhaps I should do a hybrid goblin welder/confidant build for the future...

Anyways, thanks to the people who did come out, and thanks to Superstars for running an event at a loss in order to represent consistency and stick-to-it-iveness. I certainly plan on continuing to come out for each and every one of these tournaments, and I hope that future turnouts improve.

Props:
Myr Battlesphere (he attacks for 12! more than Darksteel Colossus! And he only costs 7!)
Darkblast
Mike, who drove our carpool to the event so I didn't have to drive myself for once
Everyone who came out, for making the event happen

Slops:
Spell Pierce for getting stuck in my hand
Me for fucking up my Frantic Searches
Everyone who didn't come out

If you just show up, I'm sure people will be willing to help you out with loans or whatever since you've been a staple of this metagame for so long.

I, for one, will definitely loan you some stuff if it's the difference between an extra player and no extra player. I'll run proxies, whatever.

Hey everybody, I don't know about scheduling these events, but I'm sure they're on the agenda for the future.

However, if you'll head on over to http://eudemonia.net, you might notice that Eudemonia has radically altered their singles selling system, and re-arranged their buy and sell prices on singles to be way more competitive. I'm very excited about this change!

Those of you with some store credit banked would do well to give them a call and get your credit moved over to the new system.

With this change accomplished, I am optimistic about prospects for increased turnouts in future events. This was somewhat of a hurdle to accomplish before putting them on the calendar, so I think we'll be seeing some more power tournaments scheduled soon.

here's the tournament reports/results thread, wherein you may find my mini-report:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41222.0