[Tourney Report] February 8th, 2004

In the state of Michigan, there is a small city between Flint and Detroit. This city is called Clawson, but to me, its no-decks-land. Allow me to explain. About a year and a half ago, Warp 9 a store located within Clawson, started hosting tournaments. The first were complete unpowered casual tournaments, I won the first 3 or so with decks composed of Psychatog, Masticore, and my feature card, counterspell. This is pre-FoW. I knew of good decks, good cards and such, but there was no reason to invest, there was no challenge. My BU Tog/Control builds were fine, and they did what I wanted them to do, win.
It started with a man named Brian I believe. He came to the shop with something he called: “The Deck” The deck was definitely for the most part, better then my rogue deck. I played him several rounds.. Losing all of them. Several later I figured out exactly how to win and continued playing. I began letting him try to win, I would stock my hand with counters and board removal, wait for one of his two morphlings.. Counter til he used his last counter countering mine, then I would edict him. This was the first taste of true decks. Only me and one other person ever played him. He left as fast as he came, leaving behind this horrible meta-game of newbies and there Lord of the Pits.
   However, me and this other kid were very competitive, and we began trying to outdo each other. I bought a playset of Force of Wills. He got himself the same. We began a Morphling race, who could get them first. We found that although this control style was what we could do, we needed more. And the people around us were angry that one of the two of us always won.
   Next came the true rush. A kid named John came. John told me of a place called, “TheManaDrain.” What an interesting concept, I thought, an online community for vintage. I don’t remember the exact time we joined, but I eventually changed my deck into a workshop deck, minus workshops. I’m sure I’ve skipped some transition steps, but you get the idea. I decided the idea of a workshop deck without workshops was a bad idea.. After about 3 months of hating my deck. I made TnT, which is where I am today.
   And don’t think this is two or three good decks against rogue. Everyone else adapted to us. We gained players who run power, and those who don’t found and run budget decks as good as any on the net. Making this pretty competitive for its small size.

Lets begin with the decklist.

//NAME: “Cute” TnT
// Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Goblin Welder
// Tricks
1 Gorilla Shaman
2 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Memory Jar
1 Genesis
1 Anger
// Tubbies
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Masticore
1 Platinum Angel
2 Triskelion
// Hate
2 Blood Moon
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Trinisphere
// Manabase
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Taiga
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Workshop
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Forest
2 Mountain

This deck build is made to be able to handle combo as good as the best of ‘em. Here’s how it went.

Round 1: vs. ?
2-0
Game 1
Perfection, Started with a fast survival and non-stop wastelands.. He didn’t really DO anything.

Game 2
Early Bloodmoon against a non red deck running two basic plains and all the rest non-basic.. It didn’t help I also did 3sphere-go.

Round 2: vs. Madness
2-1
Game 1
Ok, I drew a wasteland, a welder, a mountain, and a survival. I figured I’d be set for life because no matter what land I drew I could start forking out pain.. Well the problem with that was, I didn’t draw a land, and got taken by the slowest mongrel/wurm rush ever.

Game 2
My hand: Workshop, mox diamond, wasteland, forest, survival, anger, juggernaut. I went first.. That was over before it started.

Game 3
Ok, lets put it this way, second turn jugg, third turn jugg, forth turn platinum gets countered so I play a welder.. He Got two mongrels out, but he had nothing he could do once I combo’d out and trisk’d em’ with 9 a turn. I loved angry welders!

Round 3: vs. Suicide Black
2-0
Game 1
This is the worst set of two games ever.. I never will speak of them again after this. First I mulligan down to five, he goes first. I witness a first turn duress/hymn. I’m down to a juggie and a workshop.. I topdeck the following in the listed order. Taiga, trinisphere, wasteland. He drops to one land, with a sphere in play and a juggie. And scoops 4 turns later.

Game 2
I am just not lucky on my first 7 versus this guy, I mulligan down to six. I decide I guess I will keep if I can draw something. My hand: 2x Chalice, 2x Welder, 1x Mountain, 1x Mana Vault. He plays duress hitting my vault. I play first turn welder. (No chalice for zero due to lack of his power) I draw nothing but land for 3 turns. He beats me down to two life with a hippie, destroying my hand. He plays a nefarious lich to taunt me (plus he combos it with drain life for mega draw) I have the following cards in play: Taiga, 2x Forest, Wasteland. No cards in my hand. I’m as good as gone. And I top deck a viridian zealot. He scoops. I laugh; an uneasy, undeserving laugh.

Round 4: vs. Not-So WW
2-0
Game 1
Nothing but rogue and aggro this tourney. How disgruntling. He plays several savannah lions, I respond with several hardcast trisks. And I also nudge him into conceding with A survival combo out into a platinum angel.

Game 2
Theres nothing more disgruntling then land screw. I didn’t draw any survivals. And I didn’t draw any workshops. Clearly a shuffling error on my part (clumpage) He plays some random nameless en-cor weenies, shadow weenies, and a jareth! I draw a 6th land, (my third wasteland, he runs all basic lands) Hardcast a trisk, (already a welder in play) ping weenies, chump block with trisk, second trisk resolves next turn, along with another welder, after a much delayed game I end up pinging jareth to death and ending the night with the 3rd worst game ever.

Ok yea, so I did terrible, but you guys said to post tourney reports.. Heh, the first place deck was fully powered RT, and hell, I watched him bring a person down to 12 just by swinging with a rector because he just couldn’t draw any therapies and the other person refused to bolt the thing. (his opponent was running bloodie-sui-hate variant.)
Yea yea, a good deck runs bad, I know, just gimme input.

It was a round robin tourney, I got second because minus the one game where the recter trix player swang his opponent down to twelve, he went no slower then second turn kill each game. He went undefeated. I went
8-1.