[Report] 1st Chicago SCG

I'd been looking forward to this tournament for quite awhile. My performance at Origins convinced me that my 7th place finish at the April Chicago tournament wasn't a fluke. I was confident I would make the cut again. Our party of 4 driving up from St. Louis consisted of myself, Jim Erlinger, Nick Cantrell and Ben Allen, in Jim's big jeep. Some of those names should sound familiar, because 75% of us made top 8. This record is slightly averaged out by Ben Allen coming in dead last with Rector Trix. Oh Ben, when will you learn Trix are for n00bs...
Upon our arrival, we debated whether to shell out money for a motel or just park in the Pastimes lot and sleep in the jeep. I'm known as a cheapskate, but was finally convinced to trade some cash for comfort. For some unknown reason everyone else insisted on watching some godawful horror movie "Ghost in the Machine" until 1am. Nick directly attributes this inspirational peice of film to his unexpected success. I'm skeptical.
Waiting for the tournament to start, I wandered over to the international Farmer's market and bought apples bigger than my stomach for a quarter, from a produce clerk who looked like he gave discounts to Russian gangsters.

Heres my list from the tournament

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
3 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod
4 Smokestack
1 Sol Ring
1 Trinisphere
3 Uba Mask

Artifact Creatures
2 Duplicant
2 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sundering Titan

Creatures
4 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman

Legendary Artifact Creatures
1 Karn, Silver Golem

Sorceries
1 Wheel Of Fortune

Basic Lands
5 Mountain

Lands
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Null Rod
2 Orb Of Dreams
1 Uba Mask
2 Duplicant
3 Viashino Heretic
2 Price Of Glory
2 Lava Dart
2 Maze Of Ith

The major changes from my list in April are fairly clear. I wanted to streamline the deck with slightly less utility, but a more focused strategy and less vulnerability to hosers. Cutting to mono red helped the mana base substantially, and upped the permanent count to 59/60. Running moutains eliminated non-basic hate as an easy answer for opponents. The transition to a null rod deck was actually inspired by a Phillip Stanton article, when he described Vintage archetypes as being defined by 5 cards: Workshop, mana drain, dark ritual, bazaar, and null rod. This simple categorization system had not occured to me, and helped clarify my thinking on what constitutes a good deck. I was already running workshops and bazaars in the same deck, with uba mask as the link between them, so I was gaining all the strengths of both archetypes. I added null rods to dominate a 3rd archetpye as well, and do what fish does, but better. The strength of null rod as a mana denial element is far more powerful than the activated artifacts I was running before, keeping only Karn as an overpowering win condition.
Im still fiddling with a few of the sideboard slots, but I will probably keep this list until Portal is legalized.

Round 1 - food chain goblins

Game 1
I lose the roll, my opponent plays turn 1 lackey. Im setting up my mana for turn 2 Karn. He lackeys in piledriver. I cast Karn, aka Wall of Stone, which is soon joined by crucible and trisphere to bat away pesky goblins. I play chalice @ 1 and he ringleaders into 2xnon-goblin, 2x 1-cost goblin. That was his last chance so scoops.

Game 2
for some reason this game and this game alone I decided to take notes. E= enemy, V= vroman

Turn 1
E: mtn > lackey
V: mtn > welder
2
E: waste. swing, trade
v: workshop > trisphere
3
E: waste shop
v: play waste
4
E: taiga
V: waste taiga
5
E: nothing
V: mtn
6
E: waste
V: waste > crucible
I stop taking notes after that but eventually draw something to finish him off.

Round 2 UR fish
game 1
I get an eary karn and waste recursion and uba mask

game 2
Im overconfident and keep a dogshit hand that goes nowhere. I had mtn, shaman, and 5x 4+ cost artifacts. I didnt draw a workshop and got run over by ninjas and factories.

game 3
savage him out w the turn 1 crucible, turn 2 smoky play that resolves everything. I dart his lavamancer, and lock him down.

Round 3 UW fish
game 1
I keep a questionable hand that has no broken plays. Im stting on lots of red cards w no red mana. then I rip workshop and play solemn, which resolves, giving me the mana to serve up threats for the rest of the game. once welder gets through, wheel + bazaar fattens up the yard and welding abuses him. Thats the power of jens. no one wants to waste a counter on him, but then between the red mana and some breathing room for smoky, he opens up a lot of other plays.

Game 2
opponent gets turn 2 energy flux. not scary. I resolve welder, and get smokestack + crucible + solemn recursion, which fills up my board w mountains to pay for flux and eventually forces him to lose the flux if he wants any mana. Solemn beats for the win.

Round 4 Foodchain goblins
opponent is big skinhead guy who moans about my draws constantly
game 1
I dont remember the early game, but I ended up w chalice @ 1 and 2, and he drew a ton of land, forcing me to give up on my smokestack when, for once, I couldnt keep up the permanent race. seriously this guy drew like 8 land in a row, and I eventualy hardcast titan and a fresh smoky which kill his goblins and win.

game 2
I drew 2x solemn, workshop, mox, which were perfect this game to counter his turn 1 lackey, turn 2 vandal. he cant get past dubs jens, and then I start ramping up smoky.

Round 5 Control Slaver
I dont remember this match very well. I got uba to resolve both games and darted welders.

Round 6 5C Stax - Roland Chang
My only loss of the tournament.
Game 1
I keep an ok hand that has mtn, sol ring, mana vault, plus some threats, but he lays turn 1 resistor, meaning I can cast nothing. by the time I draw shop, roland's board is overwhelming

Game 2
another not so great hand, w mtn + welder the only opening play. not muliganing this hand was probably my worst play of the tournament. he gets smoky and procedes to wipe my board, since I dont have the mana to get anything else going.

Round 7 5C Stax
Game 1
Opp gets wild opening hand that puts out I think 8 mana and crucible, but then runs out of gas. Soon we both have crucible + smoky, but his permanents outnumber me 7 to 5. I have a slight advantage w wasteland in the yard, so I have more control over our relative permanent counts. we both add 1 soot counter, meaning the numbers are slowly dropping, but then he punts bad by playing mana vault into my chalice @ 1 and forgetting his crucible land drop. Im able to re-waste his land, ramp my smoky to 2 and clear his board, leaving me w crucible and sol ring when the dust clears. he doesnt recover.

Game 2
he gets turn 1 resistor, but I have shop + sol ring, so can play through it easily. I dart his welders, duplicant his karn, and basicaly answer everything he puts out before its a problem, and just smash.

Round 8 ID
During this round, Jim Erlinger and I watched the other matches intensely to see how the tie breaks would go down and whether or not Nick Cantrell would make the cut. Somehow the rules of math were twisted and Nick ended up in 8th, in his 1st vintage tournament of more than 8 players.

Quarters - Drain Gifts - Jim Gafney

Game 1
I keep an iffy hand w mtn + shaman as my only opening play. my oponent goes wild w lotus, ancestral, walk, land, petal, scroll for gifts. at that point I had almost surrendered this game in my head. but somehow next turn I resolved a crucible, then drew bazaar which found me strip. A few turns later all his lands disapeared and he scooped.

Game 2
Gafney muls to 5. This is extremely promising, bc now he cant afford to force of will more than one spell, and I will almost surely resolve a turn 2 lock. My hand is not terrific, but its looking at crucible/waste recursion and a bazaar for draw. The crucible resolves while Jim is playing lands and topdecking. I bazaar into a smoky, and cast it not really fearing a drain, since I doubt he can use the extra 4 to win right then, and I will draw into something equally nasty w bazaar next turn. Sure enough he drains, and uses the mana to play double pithing needle, which was surprising. He shut off my bazaars and any future welders. This is fine, bc he goes down to zero cards and Im holding uba mask, which wins it when he cant rack and ruin for lack of red mana. I draw Karn and win.

Semis - 5C stax - Roland Chang
This match was almost the exact reverse of our meeting in the swiss. I win the roll and get a ridic opening of strip, crypt, chalice @ 0, trisphere. My only fear at this point is turn 1 shop > crucible. Instead he wastes my land and I know hes stuck. I rip academy and plop down Karn, which wins fast.

Game 2
my fear this game was a turn 1 resistor, as again I kept a hand w minimal acceleration, consisting of 2xmtn and vault. Roland led w waste, mox, tormod, chalice @ 0. considering I didnt have any zeros or nonbasics in hand, I dodged a bullet there, especially since Roland 2nd land drop was also wasteland. My second draw was welder, so turn 2 I had smoky + welder. next I drew n-rod which shut off his mox and protected my welder from potential trike bullets. roland made land drops but no action. I lucked into crucible and prepared to go aggro w smoky. Roland played welder, which I darted, which I think ended the game. He lost a lot of permanents then played a gambit of 2 more welders. I went up to 3 soots, flashbacked dart, and cleared his board.

Finals - Kronstax - Matt Morrison
Before the match we agreed to a more equitable prize distribution where 1st place would choose between 1st pick or 2nd and 9th. Once we got to see the cards, the Lotus was revealed to be in fairly terrible condition and I had a buyer already lined up for a Twister so I took the latter option.
I win the roll again, which was key, as I get another savage draw, erecting a chalice wall from 0 to 1. Matt skips from draw to discard phase fairly frequently, while it takes me forever to draw something that deals damage.

Game 2
I get a strange opening hand consisting of [mox, mtn, vault, n-rod, 3xchalice]. my plan is to lead w null + chalice @ 1, but Morrison plays chalice @ 0 after mulliganing. Instead I draw welder and eagerly play that. Then I draw shop and play vault + chalice @ 1 to cut him off swords. At this point I still don't know Morrison's actually playing welders, assuming hes running the published kronstax list exactly. Then I draw sideboard bomb viashino heretic, and get it in there + chalice @ 2. Strangely enough Matt untaps and plays his own heretic. Now I really wished I had those duplicants I boarded out. Im convinced Morrison is inexperienced with Heretics bc he underplayed it, I suppose fearing my welder tricks. He missed multiple opportunities to pick off my artifacts. Then he cast a smoky, gambling Id be unable to find the 2nd mana to operate my heretic. A little end of turn welding fixed that. I drew bazaar and started digging for mana, ditching big artifacts that would just die to heretic. I didn't draw anything significant but my heretic and welder won the game handily.

I was really surprised to win the whole thing. However as soon as 3 of our group made top 8, I predicted either Erlinger or I would make the finals. It was a pretty exhausting day, and then I slept for like 2 hours on the ride home, and discovered I had to be at Ogrecon at 9am, so didnt sleep at all before going on to win the Lotus tournament. When I finally crashed sunday night I slept for 16 hours. Looking forward to GenCon!

Props:
Chaz Littlejohn, another St. Louisan, winning the Mana Drain side tournament
Matt Morrison for taking the split, and stomping my version 1.0 uba stax back at SCG III.
Roland Chang for showing me what Im missing by playing mono red
St. Louis Vintagers who helped me playtest constantly, ie Wes, Grosses, Bopp, Caleb, Mangners, Chad, Jacob, etc
Everyone around the world winning power on a regular basis with ubastax.

Slops:
Roland Chang for taking the saphire, leaving Erlinger w a crappy time walk. I need a saphire for Gencon, dammit! J/k you earned it.