[Report] Waterbury - Day 2 is where it's at

[Nomad]

Shoring up the Sword

And so Waterbury comes around, and this time it's bigger.

So much bigger it spills over into an extra day.  Which is probably a good idea, since Phil didn't get home until 7am last time.

I've figured out that I never bother playtesting much, and as a likely consequence I have very little real chance of winning much.  But it's the taking part that counts, so my wife Harriet and I show up, bringing Phil and Dan.

I've built some Janky Stasis deck in the previous month, and testing suggests it should cope fine with a combo heavy meta, with 4 FoW, and 4 maindeck Root Maze, and Null Rod.  I'm wrong.

Here's the list anyway:
4 FoW
4 Daze
5 Fetch
Sapphire
Emerald
4 Brainstorm
Lotus
4 Stasis
4 Root Maze
Ancestral
2 Null Rod
4 Forsaken City
2 Misdirection
Black Vise
2 Carpet of Flowers (These were new, and look like the way to go)
4 Tropical
4 Island
2 Mirri's Guile (cheaper than Sylvan, with reshuffle it's fine)
Seal of Removal (I suspect the fact this was some use indicates what a lost cause this list is)
3 Chronatog
Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
Mystical Tutor
Gush
Impulse

The deck is just bad at finding all the bits.  Enlightened might run from a city, I'd have thought there might be someone interested in tinkering around.  Feldon's cane has promise, and I can't think of a card that says U, instant, shuffle your library, draw a card.

Harriet decides the night before that she wants to play Doomsday, so I stay up 'til about 3 building it for her.  Phil _is_ Jonny Combo Player and sticks with his usual TPS and does OK, while Dan plays a somewhat unstable Fastbond/Crucible/Zuran Orb deck and drops pretty early.  John (Ultima) went up the night before, with some other Jersey detritus.

I offer to judge, and Ray takes me up on it after one of his regulars doesn't show.

I sit down and find some people recognise me from the Endicott pics, which is nice.
Lose round 1 to Control Slaver (I think I could have taken game 2, but I'm not going to claim game 3 would be mine...)
Then Brass Man beats me with his TPS.
Finally I get into what must be a TO's nightmare pairing - Stasis vs Landstill.  Minutes pass between either of us doing anything...
I win, as both Game 2 and 3 my Black Vise shows up.  I'm pleased to make him break his own Standstill at some point.
And at 1-3, I get to play Kevin from Meandeck, who loses badly game 2 to first turn Root Maze, but burns me out first turn game 3, answering all my questions about how the deck can win.  I can now drop and run some side events.

We get through 2 free sanctioned type 1 side events of mostly the same 8 players each time.  I do some trading, and don't do very well in the trivia and Phil and Harriet get some beers.  We finally head out at 12:30 or so to about the only bar in Waterbury, which closes 15 mins after we arrive.  Back at the hotel the finals are not yet underway, but Ultima has secured his place, while Jeff Tussi has to fight through 2 more people to get his place.  So we get the all Jersey final of Jeff and John, which is good, and these are good guys.  Jeff wins, after John mulligans to 5 after doing nothing game 1.  As far as I know, Jeff hardly playtests at all, and yet this is his second power win in the past year.  John's win means he now has a Sapphire to trade to get a replacement for his Ruby that he sold on the understanding I'd sell him my spare.  My spare actually belonged to Jeff, and when Jeff wanted it back at the start of Saturday, things were looking down for him...

Meanwhile, the little boys from Meandeck weren't allowed in to the local strip club, not without a note from Mommy or something.

We finally crash at about 4am, and Ultima foolishly drives home bitching about inability to keep his eyes open.

Sunday we have the main attraction - Highlander.  Last time I went for a day 2, Phil basically built my deck, this means I have some slight conscience about my rights to the big sword (which I have brought along, to have on the table for additional intimidation value during the match).  This time, we get advance warning that Tendrils is banned.  No matter, we think, there must be other win conditions, and Brain Freeze isn't bad.  Really.

OK.  Brain Freeze sucks.  So I add an Auriok Salvagers, Pyrite Spellbomb and Grim Monolith and a Power Artifact to the deck, and find it playtests really well, Maybe as well as the original.

The list:
land (12)
Tolarian Academy
city of Brass
Gemstone Mine
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Bloodstained Mire
Underground Sea
Tropical Island
Bayou
Volcanic Island
Forbidden Orchard (I know Phil's testing Oath)
Tundra (sadly not Alpha either, but there's more blue cards now)

fast mana (17)
7 x SoLoMox
Mox Diamond
Lotus Petal
Mana Vault
Mana Crypt
Dark ritual
Cabal ritual
Grim Monolith
Power Artifact
Lion's Eye Diamond
Chrome Mox

tutor (8)
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Tainted Pact
Regrowth
Enlightened Tutor
Rhystic Tutor
Trinket Mage (Should be Fabricate, as this guy can't fetch the Monolith.  But I like him.)

cantrips(7)
Brainstorm
Impulse
Serum Visions
Chromatic Sphere
Ancestral Recall
Time walk
Frantic Search

draw 7 (7)
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Timetwister
Time Spiral
Diminishing Returns
Tinker
Memory jar

broken shit (4)
Yawg Will
Yawg Bargain
Necro
Mind's Desire

kill (5)
Darksteel Colossus
Auriok Salvagers
Pyrite Spellbomb
Braingeyser
Stroke

Side (15)
Stifle
Xantid Swarm
Duress
Force of Will
Chain of Vapor
Extract
Naturalize
Disenchant
Mana Drain
Sunbeam Spellbomb
Balance
Swords
Welder
Zuran Orb
Heretic

Round 1 - Kowal (psuedo keeper)
Ben's deck just does nothing.  He wins the roll and goes first, despite my Sword rattling.  I keep a hand with lots of mana and no card drawing.  I think this was because of some supreme overconfidence.  When I draw into Bargain about turn 6 after he's Vamped, I am amazed to see it resolve.  He apparently grabbed Stifle, still thinking Tendrils would kill.  It all ends there.
Game 2 he manages to Stifle my Jar, and I don't find a quick way out, and he slowly gets some things to hit me with on the table.  Rootwater Theif, first and foremost of these.
Game 3 I get a Colussus, he has dropped Swords in boarding.  But he topdecks Tinker and gets an Angel in extra turns.  I get a Welder turn 5...

Round 2 - Harriet (mono red goblin based)
This is bad, because it's a fairly easy match, and she doesn't like me beating her.
I get a funtastic opening hand of Colussus, Sapphire, LED, Tinker, Land and draw into Crypt.  I get to drop the artifacts, play Tinker, sac the LED in response, and put the newly reshuffled big guy into play.  Red doesn't do RFG for artifacts, so I take some burn and she dies.
Game 2, I hardcast a Colussus off Salvagers or Monolith.  She leaves the room in tears, and I will doubtless be on the wrong end of an expensive shopping trip to put it right.

Round 3 - Pern (Mono white, heavy anti-combo sideboard)
Pern has just beaten Phil, who has admittedly suggested he played like a muppet.  So I am slightly wary.
We also fix the pairings so that Harriet gets to play Dianna rather than another round of Phil's Combo.  She loses but with smiles this time.
Game 1 he doesn't have enough maindeck answers to the questions I ask.
Game 2 goes on a while.  I mulligan to 5, and get an early Colussus.  He is distracted by Kitar's Desire (~Pacifism) and sits around for the Academy's experiments.  Then I drop a Power Aftifact on my (tapped) Monolith, with Braingeyser in hand, and I can't find both 2 to untap the monolith and UU to power the Geyser.  Passing the turn just gets a Seal of Removal on the table.  I still have Salvagers in the deck.  I have to choose when they show up to get them out and risk a win there and then, or to Duress first.  I duress and find he's holding a Humility, which isn't part of the plan.  The Orim's chant there measn I need to take care around my next turn.  I drop the Salvagers next turn, and he chants when I return some stuff.  His turn, he clamps his Mother to read her runes for 2 cards, and finds the Swords right there.  They die as soon as they're activated.  I finally find Tainted pact and just ride it for Will, with Monolith, Duress, Power Artifact and Geyser all in the yard.

Round 4 - Phil (Combo, with Oath and Brain Freeze)
Game 1 - I win the roll, and open up Fetch, Sapphire, Crypt, Tinker, Vamp, Land.  Out comes the big shiny one, and I Vamp up Walk at the end of his uneventful first turn.
Game 2 - He mulligans to 5.  I have to Vamp for Duress, draw with Pyrite Spellbomb (find he's holding FoW and it's all worth it), then Enlightened for Monolith, Brainstorm, drop the Power on it, and Stroke him to finish.

I get an Italian Drain for my efforts.

We stop in NYC on the way home and have a superb evening's drinking at the Blind Tiger on 10th and Hudson with some old friends.  We get back at 5am, which I'd though wasn't supposed to happen with a day 2.  And then the phone starts ringing with a vengeance at 8:30 the next morning...


Props:
Ray.
Jersey players for owning the final.

Slops:
Opening hours of hotel bar.
Nobody wanting to play free side events.

[Kowal]

Congrats on the finish!  You obviously earned the sword.

In regards to our game one, I didn't actually vamp for stifle.  I went in for Brainstorm, because I had both Tinker and Mindslaver in my hand.  If you didn't win that turn, I could have brainstormed Mindslaver away, and tinkered in to a slave activation that same turn, which probably would have killed you.

Instead, I got a whole bunch of draws.  Next time I'm going to add a Psychatog.