[TPS Report] Top-shelfing the way to 2nd @ Cape Cod

Yay, 1st post.

The story, as usual, starts on Friday night as I am packing up my guitars for a show in lovely Keene, NH with my band Metallicock. I receive a call from Ben Kowal informing me that Adam Bowers (ill_dawg) is leaving for Poland (wtf?) on Sunday, and that I should come down to kick it before he goes. He also suggests I come out to Cape Cod on Saturday. I sadly inform him that Metallicock has another show on Saturday and I can’t attend.

Cut to 3 hours later, immediately after Metallicock has finished annihilating the faces of almost 20 unsuspecting high school students. Dan, the Hetfield to my Hammet, informs me that the show Saturday night has been cancelled. Given my compulsion to drive long distances to play highly questionable decks of magical cards, I decide that Cape Cod will pay. After driving back up to lovely Bellows Falls, VT (represent) to get my shit, I head south.

After getting extremely lost several times, I finally arrive in the Hadley area somewhere around 1 AM, where I proceed to the place where everyone is hanging out. After spending a few hours drinking with Team Hadley (word), I move in the direction of Kowal’s house. I get there and meet up with Kowal, and my 2 Team VT comrades Nick and Tristen.

As it’s approximately 4 AM at this point, it seems like choosing something to play (and building it) might be a good idea. I begin fiendishly assembling a straight netdecked version of TurboKobolds before I realize that the correct metagame choice is actually ICT. Sadly, I don’t own enough Serendibs or Disks, so I am forced to play TPS.

TPS (ToP Shelf.dec).

win conditions
2 Tendrils

win conditions
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Abeyance

win conditions
1 chain of vapor
1 hurkyl’s recall
1 time walk
1 Crop Rotation

win conditions
1 demonic
1 vampiric
1 mystical
1 Burning Wish

win conditions
4 Brainstorm
1 Frantic Search
1 Ancestral
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 windfall
1 timetwister
1 tinker
1 memory jar
1 yawg bargain
1 necropwntence
1 mind’s desire
1 yawg will
1 future sight

lands that lose to Null Rod
4 Dark Rit
2 Chromatic Sphere
1 emerald
1 jet
1 pearl
1 ruby
1 sapphire
1 chrome mox
1 LED
1 lotus
1 petal
1 mana crypt
1 mana vault
1 Sol Ring

lands that lose to Wasteland
2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass

lands that win
1 Tolarian Academy

SB
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils
2 Meltdown
1 Balance
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Doomsday
and some other card.

Yup, that’s Bowers’s list with 1 card different (plus my ultra-tech, “I threw this together 10 minutes before round 1” sideboard.)

After waking up at early and driving a long, long way, we arrive at Cape Cod in time to check out the store and chill before the tournament begins. And let me say, that’s a damn nice store. If it wasn’t approximately 4 hours away from my house, I could see myself being a regular there.

There are like 25 people there, and the metagame seems pretty diverse. My companions and I are all contributing to this; I’m playing TPS, Tristen is playing Control Slaver, Nick is playing Ninja Mask and Kowal is playing D4gr0n.

Round 1-Chris Hufinagle playing TPS (wtf?)

In typical fashion, I pull the Round 1 mirror. Who knew? Chris was a cool guy, and his sideboard was way better than mine.

Game 1 he plays a Gemstone Mine. Like the bad player I am, I fear the FoW and waste my Demonic Tutor to find a Xantid Swarm which sits there looking pissed off at me while he goes off turn 2.

Game 2 I go first. Combo-on-combo mirror matches rule!

Game 3 I keep a hand of 6 that includes a City of Brass, Mana Crypt and Abeyance. I play the City and Crypt and pass, figuring that I have probably lost anyways and so it couldn’t possibly hurt to try to play control with a deck that can’t play control.

He goes ahead and plays 9 spells and plays ritual. I Abeyance. He mana burns for three.

Next turn I play a bunch of spells and Wheel with nothing floating into 2 lands and 5 non-artifact spells. His 7 cards are a bit better.

0-1

Round 2-Matt Karas playing Millstone.dec

Game 1 he counters my good spells. He pulls an Edict for every one of my Swarms. I could have played my entire deck in 1 turn had the YawgWill not been in the graveyard. I lose.

Game 2 he Edicts my swarm in response to them attacking. Oops. I play a bunch of spells and then play Tendrils.

Game 3 he mills me. Then I play a lot of spells and win.

1-1

Round 3-Phil Walker playing Welder Mud

Game 1 He plays a turn 2 Blood Moon. Next turn shows why Blood Moon isn’t optimal hate for TPS. Moxes and Chromatic Spheres provide me with enough boost to combo him out.

Game 2 He plays a turn 1 Metalworker. I play a Turn 2 Desire for 6 that shows me Future Sight, Frantic Search, Timetwister, Bargain, and 2 other horribly broken cards. He scoops.

2-1

Round 4-Justin Taylor playing BlackWeenie.dec

Game 1 He plays some guys that don’t disrupt. I play Tendrils for a lot of damage.

Game 2 was awesome. I keep a hand that could be really good with a few decent draws. And it also has turn 2 Future Sight. He Hymns some of it away, and the draws don’t happen. A Mesmeric Fiend takes my Burning Wish, although it leaves me a Mind’s Desire. A few turns later I’m getting low on life, and I desire for 5 into:

Land
Land
Land
Ruby
Lotus Petal

That’s hot. Future Sight shows me Necro, which I can’t quite cast. Next turn, he swings, bringing me to 7. Then he Demonic Tutors for a Powder Keg, blowing up my entire board except for a lone City of Brass. I draw Necro and reveal Yawg Will, which I can’t cast. He swings and puts me to 1. I functionally have nothing in play at this point.

I draw Will, revealing Gemstone Mine.

I play Gemstone Mine.

…revealing Dark Ritual.

I win the prize. Replaying the stuff that Keg blew up was practically enough to get 10 spells.

3-1

Round 5-Ben Kowal’s face gets cut.

Before the tournament, Kowal and I were roleplaying. He was Rocky. I was Ivan Drago. My promise to break him would now be fulfilled.

Game 1 he attempts to animate the Dragon, unfortunately he is unable to see it because of the vast amounts of blood gushing from his face.

Game 2 he attempts to animate the Dragon, I respond by punching his balls off.

4-1

So I’m 2nd heading into T8. The T8 is:

1.   Eric Dupuis (ELD) playing ControlSlaver
2.   Patrick Hunter (me) playing TPS
3.   Mike Smalls (FireFall26) playing ControlSlaver
4.   Greg Powers playing something with Workshops
5.   James Gaffney (wicked chicken) playing MadDragon
6.   Tristen Sweet (Freddy Fury) playing ControlSlaver
7.   Mike Barstelow playing B/R Suicide-ish
8.   Mat Chamberlain playing something with Workshops

T8-Mike Barstelow, playing Sui-Red

Game 1 he plays a turn 2 Null rod. The next turn I play Chain of Vapor, followed by 9 other spells…

Game 2 I mull to six and keep a bad hand with 4 lands, Brainstorm and Frantic Search. After he Duresses and I draw land, my hand is 4 lands and a Frantic Search. After he Duresses my hand is 4 lands. I get smacked around by a Wretched Annurid and a Factory. Ow.

Game 3 I mull to 6 into this atrocity:

   Lotus
   LED
   Crypt
   Will
   Necro
   Mind’s Desire

Lotus, LED, Crypt, pop for Black, Will, respond with LED for Blue, Lotus, LED, Desire for 7, good game.

He seemed (understandably) frustrated by that. His hand was 2 moxes, some land, Duress, Null Rod, and some other cards. I’m glad I went first.

T4-Mike Smalls (FireFall26) playing ControlSlaver

Game 1 Turn 1 I play Gemstone Mine, Swarm. He forces. I drop Lotus, pop for black, Necro. He loses.

Game 2 he played a first turn Blood Moon, and then failed to draw into anything at all. Meanwhile, I played a bunch of Mountains and then played 10 spells.

Typically, this is a really, really bad match up for TPS, but I was helped a lot by some evil hands and some bad draws for Mike. Sorry, dude.

T2-Eric Dupuis (ELD) playing Control Slaver

Before the match there is talk of splitting. I decide that since I made it this far, I want to play it out even though it’s a bad match up for me.

Game 1-The moment that I stop caring whether or not I win the prize is when I mulligan into 6 non-land, non-mana producing cards. I mull to 5 and keep a hand that I should have mulliganed into 4. Turn 1 I play nothing at all. Turn 2 I crop rotate the 1 land in my hand into another land that will not die at the end of turn. I see virtually no good cards and he topdecks well. I eventually scoop.

Game 2 I don’t board in anything even though I have cards in the board that might help. I just don’t care that much. The highlight of this game for me was when some kid asked me how I win and I explained to him the sweet interaction between Parallax Tide and Ankh of Mishra. Then I manaburned for a lot and lost.

So I won a Guardian Beast, and I finally ended my long streak of scrubbing out hard in bigger tournaments. I promptly traded the Beast for a Gauntlet of Might, which will make ICT kick that much more ass despite its negative synergy with Disks.

Post tournament we went to the 99, where I drank a giant bitchdrink and ate a giant slab of beef and then tried to get some sleep in the back seat of Tristen’s car during the extremely long drive back to Hadley.

A few thoughts on this deck:
-The Chrome Mox was surprisingly good, as it frequently acted as a 2nd Sapphire.
-Frantic Search, another card that I felt questionable about, was also very good for disposing of the extra lands I was drawing all day up to the Finals. Sadly, not once did I get to untap the Academy with it.
-The Burning Wish was decent, if not spectacular-I’m tempted to say it could be cut for something else. If Portal becomes legal it could actually provide a decent Burning Wishable tutor without screwing up the main deck.
-Hurkyl’s Recall is the hotness.
-Mind’s Desire is the most fucking broken card I have ever seen. Holy fucking shit.

I’d like to take this moment to give a shout-out to:
-everyone I played against, for putting up with it/me
-everyone in the Top 8
-everyone not in the Top 8
-everyone reading this
-Eric, for winning
-Bowers, for getting a job in Poland
-Team Hadley, for not going thereby allowing me to sneak in and (almost) take one
-and my crew of Nick, Tristen and Kowal for keeping it real.

Rock on.

->Patrick
Team VT.