Pastimes Midwest Type 1 Arabian Nights Set for First Prize DONT MISS THIS

Here's my mini-report. I didn't take notes, so some of the details might be wrong; if so, please correct me.

Creatures
1 Triskelion
1 Darksteel Colossus
3 Goblin Welder

Spells
4 Force of Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Mindslaver
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mana Crypt
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Walk
1 Memory Jar
1 Tinker
3 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor

Lands
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Fire/Ice
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pyroblast
1 Lava Dart
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Pyroclasm
1 Volcanic Island
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin

Round one: Mike (13NoVa) playing URBana Fish. Game one, he mana floods pretty hard after getting two Gorilla Shamen and a Waterfront Bouncer on the table. I eventually get Triskelion onto the table and it goes all the way. Game two, some random early game stuff happens, I have a Flametongue Kavu smash a Ninja and swing for a couple turns; he eventually plays a Waterfront Bouncer. He bounces my FtK thinking he had cut me off red mana by using Wasteland on my Volcanic Island, not realizing that I had a Ruby on the table. I forget exactly how, but he eventually gets rid of FtK. I soon get Triskelion down and it goes all the way with the help of a Fire/Ice to the dome. 1-0 matches, 2-0 games.

Round two: Josh Rayden playing MDG with Duress main. Game one, we have some various early exchanges that result in him resolving an early Tinker for Colossus. I Mystical for Chain of Vapor which runs into a counter and I lose. Game two, I drop Tormod's Crypt early, forcing a long, protracted battle in which I eventually end up on top, sealing the deal when a Memory Jar activation sends all of the remaining broken cards in his deck into the graveyard. Game three involved me getting Welder + Mindslaver going in rather short order after some early skirmishes and winning. 2-0 matches, 4-1 games.

Round three: Dave from ICBM, playing Control Slaver. Game one, I have a pretty stupid opening that went something like Lotus, Mana Crypt, Thirst (discarding Mindslaver), Mox, Thirst, land, Goblin Welder. Game two, my hand is kinda iffy and he outdraws me by a million, eventually resolving Yawgmoth's Will for the win. Game three, I open with a Duress and manage to press the advantage it provided into a victory. 3-0 matches, 6-2 games.

Round four: TK with Pitch Long. In game one, I'm on the draw, and keep a hand with Library, Lotus, Thirst, and some other decent cards. I had gotten Duressed though, so Library wasn't active right away. I dig around for a bit with Brainstorms, Thirsts, and Library, but don't manage to find any counters or Duresses. On turn three or so, TK goes off, but was only able to manage to Tendrils with seven storm, leaving me at four life. I untap and *still* don't manage to find any counters or Duresses; TK casts Timetwister and kills me. Game two, I open with land, Sapphire, go. TK opens with Petal, Ritual, Necropotence, which meets Mana Drain. It's a couple turns before he gets another playable mana source, and by then I had more or less built myself up to safety. It's a little scary when he eventually drops Xantid Swarm and (omg) Thrashing Wumpus, but eventually I Tinker for DSC and cast Yawgmoth's Will with a juicy graveyard all in the same turn. Game three, I look at my hand of seven. It contained double Force and Tormod's Crypt, but no mana source. I mull to six and keep an iffy hand containing something like two lands, Drain, Mindslaver, Mystical, and REB. I am blown out. Maybe I should have gone to five? 3-1 matches, 7-4 games.

Round five: Dan Carp playing something kind of like MDG but "better," according to him. Game one, he keeps a hand with Sol Ring as the only mana source, but containing Ancestral, Force, and Misdirection. I had kept a hand with three mana sources, Brainstorm, Thirst, Drain, and Vamp. The only additional card I see for the entire game that isn't a mana source is Mystical Tutor, and eventually he draws a mana source and blows me out with that powerful hand. Game two, he opens with a Duress and from there proceeds to smash me. 3-2 matches, 7-6 games.

After losing that round, I figured I still had a good chance at making top8. When the round six pairings went up, I was tied for ninth/tenth place, paired against Donovan of GWS, who also had nine points but with better tiebreakers due to some bye shenanigans. It didn't matter, however; the entire top eight players at that point all had twelve or more points and were all paired with each other, so they were all locked in by drawing.

I liked this list a lot; it performed quite well, only really losing to a couple of what I consider to be improbably bad draws. Also, the two matches I lost were the matchups that made me want to maindeck three Duresses, but I never drew them. If I had to go to another tournament tomorrow, I would play the exact same list card for card, with possibly the exception of the sideboarded Leylines, which I only sided in once all day (against TK) and it never showed up. Overall, it was a fun tournament, as they usually are.

Props:
The Midwest Vintage community for being awesome.

Slops:
My shuffling, apparently.