Dreamer’s Vintage Mox Tournament
1/6/05
Prize: Unlimited Mox Jet
Participants: 27
Rounds: 5
Placing 13th
My teammate Draven has posted his report on this tournament here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21348Once again I am playing Salvagers. I made some changes this month, which I rather
liked, but most people will probably find controversial:
Creatures ( 12 ):
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage
2 Exalted Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Decree of Justice
Counters: ( 8 )
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
Draw/Search/Utility ( 12 ) :
4 Brainstorm
2 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish
1 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
Non-Mana Artifacts ( 3 ):
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
Mana ( 25 ):
4 Flooded Strand
9 Island
6 Plains
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
Sideboard: ( 15 )
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Disenchant
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Stifle
1 Control Magic
1 Energy Flux
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
Astute observers will have already noticed the lack of any Dual lands in the deck. With that
change, I found that I was not as reliably able to cast Counterspell at will, so I swapped them
out for Mana Leak. Also new this month is Intuition, which I felt is better than Impulse a lot
of the time. The re-added Aether Spellbomb turned out to be very useful as well.
Rd. 1 vs. Kevin, playing Oath
He wins the roll, and opens with Tropical Island, go. I open with regular Island, Mox go. He
plays Forbidden Orchard, and I know I am up against Oath. He attempts the Oath, but I Force,
and he lets it be countered. Not much happens for a few turns, until I catch him without a
counter for my Tinker, which gets me the Colossus. By this time I also have 2 Spirit tokens
on the board. He finally finds another Oath, and it resolves. He passes the turn.
I have had Aether Spellbomb in my hand for several turns, but hadn’t found the window to play
it. Now I find that window, and he frowns due to lack of countering on his part. I swing for 13
with my assembled army, and pass the turn. He Oaths up Akroma, which I return to his hand
before she can do any damage to me, and he concedes.
Game 2 I side in Disenchant, Swords to Plowshares, and Control Magic.
I keep a hand with Sol Ring, Lotus, Decree, Mana Leak ,and lands. I draw into
Force of Wills and other Blue stuff, while he has no action. I Cycle the Decree into 4 Soldiers
and begin the beatdown. He’s at 15 when he plays Intuition on my end of turn. I Force. He
Forces back. I Force again. He Mana Leaks my Force, and resolves the Intuition for 3 Oath
of Druids. On his turn he plays the Oath, giving me a Spirit in the process. I untap and topdeck
Aether Spellbomb. I attack him down to 9 and play the Spellbomb. He untaps and Oaths up
Spirit of the Night, which I return to his hand. I untap draw and swing for 5, leaving him at 4.
He hits me once with Akroma, and I am at 12, however my 5 1/1 dudes finish him.
2-0 games, 1-0 Matches
Rd 2 vs. Jason playing Oath
Game 1 we play land, go for a few turns. I resolve an Auriok Salvagers, and he comments
that all he has to do is stop the Lotus. How astute. Eventually he draws an Oath, Oaths up
a Spirit of the Night, while all I can muster is Salvagers + Spirit Token beatdown. Guess which
one wins?
Game 2 I sideboard the same as with the first Oath matchup.
This game I have to mulligan twice, leaving me behind the whole time, and he Oaths up
Akroma, swings and wins.
Even though I lost this match, it was my opponent that got schooled, on the rules of Magic.
He learned that targets must be declared when the spell is played, before the opponent chooses
whether or not to counter it.
It’s surprising sometimes how many tournament players don’t know the rules.
2-2 games 1-1 Matches
Rd 3 vs Lee playing Grow-Atog
Game 1 I have a hand with a Trinket Mage, Salvagers, and Force of Will. He plays an early
Dryad, which I attempt to Force, but he Forces back, and it resolves. Before it can do any
damage, I Cunning Wish for Swords to Plowshares and it goes farming. I resolve the Trinket
Mage for Black Lotus, then resolve the Salvagers. He is familiar with the combo, and I Cycle
Decree of Justice for 1,000,000 Soldiers. He untaps, plays some draw spells, finds Cunning
Wish, and realizes that he is 1 mana short of Echoing Truth.
Game 2 I side in 2 Swords to Plowshares.
He resolves an early Dryad, which beats me down to 14 before I find a Swords. He plays
Brainstorm and Impulse in response to my Swords, giving him 7 life before it finally resolves.
I have no action, as my early spells got countered. He finds another Dryad, and a Psychatog
with me on 6 life, and simply discards to the ‘Tog to finish me.
Game 3 features me mulliganing to 5, and keeping an opening hand containing Mox Sapphire
as my only mana source, along with a couple of Mana Leak. I manage to draw a Flooded Strand
and Fetch out an Island, which allows me to Mana Leak a Dryad, but he has the Force, and
proceeds to beat me up, while I draw another Island and 2 Swords to Plowshares. With me on
13, I draw Intuition, and play it on his end of turn step with me at 10. I grab 3 Plains, and
manage to resolve a Swords after the 1st one is countered, but he finds another Dryad. Luckily,
he is out of cards in hand, as am I at this point, and he doesn’t topdeck any pump for the Dryad.
I topdeck Tinker while his hand is empty, and go get Darksteel Colossus. Sadly, his life total
is now 23 from the Swords to Plowshares, giving him more turns than I like to find pump
spells for the Dryad and race the Colossus, as I am on 5 life from all the Dryad beatdown.
Fortunately for me, this doesn’t happen, and 3 swings of the DSC later the match is over.
Games 4-3, Matches 2-1
I am feeling pretty good at this point, needing only 1 more win and a Draw to make Top 8.
Rd. 4 vs Dan (Draven) playing 2 ½ Color Control or Gothic Smurf.
Dan is my teammate, and this leaves us in an awkward position. If we play it out, one of us
is virtually guaranteed top 8, and the other is basically out. If we take the Draw now, we’ll
both have to win Rd 5 to make it. After a couple of minutes discussion, we decide to take the
ID now, and hope to win Rd. 5.
We play anyway for fun, and I win 2 games in a row, one with the combo, one with
Tinker/Colossus.
Games 4-3 Matches 2-1-1
Rd 5 vs Mike, playing Crucible of Worlds combo
Mike is 2-0-2, which means the winner of this match makes top 8.
Game 1 is an epic game that takes about 25 minutes. I resolve Salvagers, but no Lotus. He
manages to Swords the Salvagers. I resolve Trinket Mage for Black Lotus, but now have no
Salvagers. I beat down with the Mage, and he plays Swords to Plowshares again. He resolves
Tinker for a Colossus, but I resolve Swords to Plowshares, returning his life total to 22. I
Resolve another Trinket Mage, this time for Aether Spellbomb, as both my Pyrites are already
in the ‘yard, and 2 of 3 Moxen are already in play. I resume the Mage beatdown. He finally finds
his combo (Crucible, Fastbond, Zuran Orb) and plays Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius.
I scoop.
Game 2 I side in Disenchant
I am behind this whole game, and never get anything going. I manage to slow the game down
with Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares, but in the end he combos me out again.
Final result: Games 4-5 Matches 2-2-1 which ends up being good enough for 13th place.
Despite this, I am not unhappy with my deck for the most part. With as many Wastelands as
are in the environment, having no lands that are vulnerable to them is a nice asset. Mana Leak is
not always as good as I would like it to be, and I may switch back to Counterspell. With the
addition of Decree of Justice, I may switch the 2nd Pyrite for an Aether Spellbomb, as Oath
is starting to be more of a factor at Dreamers than it has been. The Intuitions seem to be fine.
I may replace the lone remaining Impulse with something as well. Other than that, things are
going well, as I have now placed Top 4, 15th, Top 8, and 13th with this deck at Dreamers.
