SCG Boston Day 2 - 2nd Place

A few weeks before Boston, my good friend Adam (Mr. Nightmare) informed me that he would be going to the tournament in a company car because of business training just outside the city on Monday. Being extremely short on cash and having no one else in the area interested in going with which to carpool, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity for a free ride so I decided to tag along without an established plan to get back. I travelled light in case I needed to hitchhike my way home.

Day one of the tournament was rather disheartening. I ran five color Grim Long, the deck I used to top 8 at Rochester as well as place 9th at the vintage preliminary at gencon. Despite the common concensus that Pitch Long is better and easier to play I felt that my experience with the former would outweigh this. I got completely blown out of the water, losing round one to a five color oath deck with maindeck Blasts, Chants, and Stifles. How that deck would beat anything else is beyond me but it sure did a number on combo. I then coasted along a few rounds before losing to Ben Kowal playing URphidian, which completely wrecked me with Blood Moon. I dropped shortly after.

After a short love affair with Meandeck Gifts, which Brassman had proxied to test with (along with every other good deck in the format?!) I decided instead to stick with straight ritual combo for day two, although I ran that pitch deck everyones been talking about, since Nightmare decided to play Stax and didn't need his Misdirections.

I went in cold, as I have with every top 8 I've made thus far, without having played a game against a real opponent. Who needs testing anyways? If you divide the amount of time spent testing by the amount you gain from tournaments you're making what like $1 and hour, seriously. My memory of events has diminished within the past week, but this is about how it went down:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Enchantments
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Chain Of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Force Of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Windfall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Tropical Island
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Chain Of Vapor
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
3 Duress

Round 1: 2-1 vs Mountains win occasionally
Hey man, I give him credit. I used to play Sligh back in the day, with Ironclaw Orcs and Deathspark, and it won me a tournament for $20 store credit. Then I read the Duelist and switched to Necro, but Sligh never died did it? Game one he won off an early null rod where I had Lotus and Tinker clogging my hand. Game 2 involved Massacring a board of 2x Believer and a Savannah Lions. Game 3 was kind of tricky, after I jarred I had the option of either tutoring for Will for the win, which would leave me at 3 life, or casting Timetwister for a new hand. I had just given him 7 news cards and didn't want to lose to umm... Lightning Bolt. After much debate I went for Will and it turns out he didn't play Bolt, although he did side in Crusades after seeing Massacre.

The order of rounds 2-4 are completely lost from memory. I do know that I played against a blue/black/white Fish deck where again Massacre saved the day. He also gave me flawless directions to get to the bus station through the subway system so thanks man. I beat Demonic Attorney, although I don't remember what he was playing, and lost to the most atrocious Slaver player I have ever seen.

Round 5: 2-0-1 vs Evenpence playing Ubastax
Oh these were fun games. Game one he gets a quick Chalice/Uba Mask and politely asks me to concede. I think it out and decide to go with no, since my clever deck design includes outs to multiple artifacts. I'd also like to see what kind of cards hes got in there, since I'm still relatively new to the format and don't know all of the tricks he could have. A few turns later a judge comes over behind Colby and he draws a card, shuffles his hand around, then says "oh yeah I have uba mask in play" and lays a Bazaar. Game loss. I side in two Spirit Guides and some more bounce spells. He gets an early Chalice/Uba Mask on me and politely asks me to concede. I decide to play this one out as well, since now I have even more cards that deal with multiple artifacts. In the absence of anything better I play turn two Spirit Guide, pitching Spirit Guide. The Spirit Guide, along with 6 points from Mana Crypt eventually bring him down to 3, at which point he stabilizes, saccing Crypt to Smokestack after winning a fateful coinflip, and Ringing my little champion after a race to gain threshold by letting his Chalices counter stuff. With no more chance to win facing down Chalices at 1,2, and 3 and a bunch of other stuff he again asks me to concede and seems dismayed when I decline. "I can't get decked because of Uba Mask," he says, but hey neither can I. It gets down to the last few cards in his library and he goes for the Crucible win, which I politely inform him is countered. I then play the rest of my deck out, card by card, removing it to Uba Mask and saying go. Game 3 he is again on the play and I open a first turn Ritual/Tutor hand, provided he doesn't do anything dumb. He plays Mountain, Tormod's Crypt, a bit upsetting, so I go for a 7 point Mind's Desire instead, flipping Bargain and some other fun stuff.

Round 6: ID with Ashok playing Goblins
Both of us need to win another round to make top 8, but Ashok is my new teammate, so while we're getting deck checked we decide to draw now and win next round and catch each other in the top 8. A good plan, but then I would have had an amazingly easy shot at top 8 had I played. He is playing goblins after all.

Round 7: 2-1 vs Nate Pease playing Gifts
Round 7 I get to play against a previous Starcitygames champion! While at the urinal between rounds he says I should scoop to him. Not the place for that man. I don't remember the details much but he is playing Gifts and I go 2-1, and win a pack for beating a previous champ, which I donate to him as a gesture of friendship. Man Coldsnap is trash.

Top 8:

Quarterfinals: 2-1 vs sonataofthecathedral playing Bomberman
Hes already beat a Pitch Long player today and hes got Meddling Mages in there right? So I'm kind of nervous, plus I haven't gotten past first round of a top 8 in Vintage yet. I've had the pleasure of playing Elias a few times, most notably killing him twice on turn one at the infamous Baldwinsville tournament. He laughed when I played around Stifle, cracking a fetch in response to his, hey man I don't know what you have in there. He never got to combo me out but we did go to game 3 but eventually I prevailed!

Semifinals: 2-1 vs Ashok playing Goblins
Me and Ashok get to finally duke it out. Game one I have to mulligan to 5 and keep a manaless hand because it has Mana Vault and Tinker. I'm playing first and say go. I don't top deck a land until my 3rd turn and when I finally get to Tinker he is going to kill me if I pass the turn so I get a new hand of 7 with one colorless floating. My new hand has nothing but mox, mox, petal, Timetwister, so I again get a new hand with one colorless available. I finally draw another land from the Timetwister but make a mistake that costs me the game. I drop Academy and Lion's Eye and have Recall and Brainstorm in hand with a Cabal Ritual but no black mana. I Recall and then Brainstorm, drawing into Tendrils but have no black mana source. What I should have done, as noted by TK, was Brainstorm, Recall, crack LED and I would have won but alas I did not. Game 2 was fast, with a turn one necro, Force his Null Rod, Tenrils turn 2. And game 3 was more of the same, although I did have to bounce a null rod or something.

Finals: 0-2 vs Mike Pise playing Gifts
Finally my run has come to an end. Not much to say except that my deck delivered some of the most terrible draw 7 hands I've ever seen. In game 2 I had turn one Bargain off reusable artifacts with Memory Jar in hand. He had Force for Bargain and it took me a turn to find another source for five mana to cast the jar. The next turn I jarred into 2 Rituals, Mana Crypt, land, a Force of Will, and two Xantid Swarms and hardcast Force on the second swarm to avoid taking 5 manaburn. That left me in a superb position to top deck something amazing, which was Brainstorm into land, land, Mind's Desire. A Desire for two netted me a land and a Force of Will and by then I was done.

And thats where the fun really started. Both days I had been asking around about a ride back, but it seems there was noone going that way, except for the Rochester crew and they were leaving Monday morning. I really wanted to get back in time for class that day so I declined their offer and decided to take my chances with the bus station. After meandering through the subway system to the Train/Bus station I learned that the earliest ride out didn't leave until 7am. With no money except the $50 it would take to get home, I hung out in the bus station for 7 hours drinking coffee and doing math homework until I could catch a bus. I could elaborate on all of the crazy people you meet at 3 am in Boston but no one wants to hear about that.

A few thoughts on the deck: Massacre is amazing. I'm a big fan of 5 color Long but this card may be a huge reason to run swamps. It won me both rounds that I played against plains, aside from the top 8, where I didn't see a Mage come out anyways. I would probably run more of them were I to play this again. Xantid Swarm helped a lot, being able to combo against control unhindered is the best feeling in the world, although I hated siding a land. Maindecking Tropical Island would be silly though and ruin the suprise factor. Duress was in my board for combo matchups but I didn't have any of those all day so I never got to use them. I faced 3 or 4 decks with Wasteland and never had an issue.

"Props"
Mr. Nightmare for the ride/place to crash.
My new teammates from Meandeck, especially Roland for his support and Ashok for being a cool guy.
Vintage, for being my new format of choice. Legacy will always remain a hobby.
The fine citizens of Boston for helping me along my subway adventure.
Ancestral Recall, which will go into every casual deck I play henceforth.
Dave Feinstein, no reason.
Starcitygames for supporting such a fun and exciting format

"Not so props"
Boston, for not having a bus where I want to go, when I want to go there.
Ben Kowal, for sleeping through day 2

This tournament was a lot of fun and I met a ton of cool and interesting people who I look forward to beating again. I really enjoy all of the personalities that make up the vintage scene and I'm glad to count everyone among my friends. Thanks a lot, I'm out,

Mike