Vintage Worlds Reports

[Godot]

I had a helluva time getting power before Champs and still had no idea what I was gonna play after I did.  Lou  wasnt going to play in the prelims so I decided to jack his stuff and play Ichorid.  I knew I'd be tired and  could just autopilot it in a lot of situations.  More importantly though I expected to play a bunch of long so consistently rolling it seemed like a strong play.

I  had printed out a bunch of deck lists before we hit the road on Thursday and I liked a lot of what I saw in the Ichorid list I had.  I dont recall whose it is, but the dude ran Ancestors Chosen and Strip Mine so credit to him.  I expected a lot Jailers so maindeck Dblast was a must, and 13 dredgers is just super sexy in general.

4 Bridge
4 Narc
4 Ichorid

4 Unmask
4 Therapy
4 Leyline
4 CotV

4 Bazaar
4 Serum Powder

3 Petrified Field
4 City of Brass

2 Dread Return
2 Flamekin Zealot

4 Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed
3 Thug
2 Darkblast

SB
4 Gemstone
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Emerald Charm
3 Contagion

Round 1 - Dave w/ burn

Its burn.  I roll him in 2.  I Serum Powder away 21 cards and mull to 5 in game 1, but it doesnt matter.  He was  even nice enough to let me play in game 2. 

Round 2 - No show!

Round 3 - Jerry Yang w/ PitchLong/TPS
So after my two byes I finally get a decent matchup.
G1 - His life total goes 20 - 14 - 0 and I roll w/ a turn 3 or 4 win.

I expect him to go w/ the Tormods Crypt + Yixlid Jailer plan so I board out the combo, Petrified Fields, 1 Thug  and maybe 1 Unmask for the Gemstones, Contagions and some Chains.

G2 - A much slower game than the first, but Jerry never really got into it.  I ripped his hand apart and slowly  whittled his life down w/ an Ichorid and token.  The tokens eventually multiply and take him out.

Round 4 - Smmenen w/ PitchLong/TPS
I get paired up against Long again, nice!, but unfortunately I have to give a teammate a loss.

G1 - I have to mulligan to 4 this game, but its a hot 4 w/ Bazaar, Chalice and a dredger.  My Chalice puts the kibosh on Steves turn 1 win and his life total goes 20-17-11-0.

I board the same as I did against Jerry.  I know Steve is bringing in 4 Jailers and 2 Crypts and Im not particularly worried by that kind of hate.

G2 - Pretty sure I start off w/ Leyline, but it doesnt do jack shit against Tinker-DSC and I lose in short order.

G3 - So this is the competitive game of the match.  I lead w/ Bazaar, obv, and a Chalice that gets FoW'd.  Steve doesnt have anything of note and I drop a key City of Brass on turn 2 so now my Darkblasts are online.  He Crypted me early in the match, but I played a careful slow game.  I didnt go nuts w/ the dredging, only drawing maybe ~12 cards a turn, and never leaving Darkblast vulnerable in the yard.  Eventually I was able to scrounge up enough offense to win.

2-0 against Long, so far so good.

Round 5 - Jesse the Proud Canadian w/ Painter

I've never played against Painter so Im excited.  I can see this matchup being kinda bad between the whole  having a creature that can block and die + the whole simple combo thing.

G1 - 1 Ichorid becomes 2 Ichorids which becomes a win.  He had an early Grindstone, but nothing to pair w/ it.  I took away his business and just beat him down.

I dont recall exactly how I SBd here, but Im pretty I just brought in the Chains+Lands for the  combo+PFields+1xThug.  I had no idea what kind of hate he might have/

G2 - He combos out here w/ relative ease.

G3 - This was a tense game where I made some awful plays.  He Brainstorms and gets the combo on board on turn 3 or 4.  Fortunately though he only has 2 land for mana.  The next turn I can finally start some serious beatdown w/ 2 Ichorids+3 Bridges.  I decide on the proper line of play(sac 1 Ich, swing w/ other), call a judge to get the oracle text on Bridge and promptly play like a bonehead after getting the info from the judge by swinging w/ both.  I give him an extra turn to draw out, but fortune smiles upon me.  This is obv the fault of Lous asian/russian cards and has nothing to do w/ me being a poor magic player.

Round 6 - Chris Nighbor w/ PitchLong/TPS

G1 - Chris spends the first turn or two setting up.  I get an Ichorid swing in and whiff on a Therapy.  Im set up for a savage turn 3 involving a possible combo win or at least tearing his hand apart so he goes the win.  He only manages to reach 9 storm though so I survive at 1.  My army of zombies inflict 35 damage over the next two turns and bring it home.

Same board plan as before.

G2 - I get some small beats in, but I believe he wrecked me w/ Extirpate and won in brutal fashion soon  thereafter.

G3 - I start off w/ Leyline and we settle in to a long tense game.  Im Bazaaring but not finding any dredge.  I find an Ichorid early, but I have to hold to it because of his Extirpates.  He spends about a third of his life total setting up Bargain while I draw through the meaningless third of my deck.  My hand is 2 Bridges, 2 Contagions and the Ichorid I've been sandbagging when he resolves Bargain.  I may be a little off on the details here, but I believe he drew 5 cards down to 8 life, Vamped/ISealed and drew the top card.  He passed w/ a bunch of land, 2 moxen and Mana Vault in play with 5 life and a fetch untapped.  I activate Bazaar on his EOT and finally rip a Grave Troll.  I pitch Troll, Ichorid and Contagion.  My yard is huge, but I have no other black creatures.  I go to activate Bazaar on my upkeep and he finally gets a chance to use Extirpate on my Troll.  I savagely rip Stinkweed Imp and Therapy off the top though.  I swing in with the horror, hardcast Therapy and hit on his only out Minds Desire.  I flashback on his bounce and a Scathe Zombie takes it home next turn.


Round 7 Mike Animnotevengonnatrytogethisla stnameright  w/ Landstill

G1 - My first Bazaar gets wasted and I get to use Petrified Field for the first time all day.  He has the Stifle  and Mutavault+Mishras Factory take me out in short order.

G2 - He gets in some beats but I manage to get an army of Zombies into play and they take it quickly.

G3 - Its a long slow game since Im only drawing like 5 cards a turn w/ no Bazaar.  I had a double Bazaar hand for the first time all day, but he had Waste and Strip.  I manage to get 1 Narc into  play.  He hangs around for a while doing nothing and I miss like 3 damage cause I didnt realize the damn thing flys.   Damn you and your foreign cards Lou!  I miss on a Therapy bc I was too lazy to write his hand down and this may  have cost me the game.  He Extirpates my Ichorids and puts me in a tough spot as I draw 3 Narcs.  I have an  outside shot at winning via Dread Returned Troll, but I cant get all the counters and bounce of his hand after  he Extirpates Bridges.  I have no way win and lose.

 I ended up winning on tiebreakers and get a box of Saga along w/ some byes for my trouble.

I was really happy w/ this list and outside of the flexible slots theres nothing I'd change for this metagame.  As for the sideboard, well, I have some ideas I want to explore.  The almost total absence of Leyline defnitely opens up some slots.


Main Event QnD

Ok, so Lou was using the Bazaars in the main event and I lacked Twister+Grim Tutors so I just ran w/ a stock(aka terribad) slaver list.  I did have the Demars sideboard Waste tech though.

Round 1 - Breakfast
Round 2 - Scounting
Round 3 - Jacob w/ some WRB Bazaar fish deck
G1 - He gets in some beats w/ a Grunt and some card quality off Bazaar+1Squee.  He StoPs my Titan but TrikeElvis shows up soon after and takes it home.
G2 - He has too many beats.
G3 - He keeps a hand w/ Bazaar and no land.  I Waste all his colored mana and eventually win.

Round 4 - Mike w/ TPS
G1 - He goes for hte win a bit early on turn 2.  He Jars and Wheels into crap then passes to me w/ a super juiced yard.  I go from 0 to Slaver lock in one turn.
G2 - I get an early Sphere and he cant win.  I Wasted a land here too.

Round 5 - TK w/ TPS
G1 - I get my mana denial on hardcore this game w/ Titan on some lands followed by Shaman on Jet and Mana Crypt.  He goes for an EOT FoF.  I debate about letting it resolve since I have some manner of control, but I decide to spend my FoW on it anyway.  He Chains my Titan on his turn and wins soon thereafter.  I still dont know how I feel about countering FoF.

G2 - I have early 2sphere, but he plays like 4 Moxen and wins with ease.

Round 6 - Smmenen w/ TPS

G1 - He wins easily via Necro->Tendrils(10)->moreNecro->moreTendrils after starting off w/ 2x FoW.
G2 - I have early 2sphere and take this one down w/out too much trouble.
G3 - I keep a good 7 w/ Recall and some other business.  He has turn 1 Duress followed by turn 2 Duress + Ancestral.  Fun.  Steve elects to bypass the easy Tinker->DSC victory and takes the risky/flashy/creative path to victory via Necro+Desire(22)+DSC.  You can read the details in next weeks installment of SO MANY INSANE PLAYS at starcitygames.com.  Be sure to buy premium boys and girls!


I had a helluva time at my first vintage worlds and Im definitely gonna try and attend next year.

Props
-Paul for winning!  Congratufuckinlations dude.
-Brennan/Misty/Scott for putting up w/ me on a roadtrip
-All the meandeckers and tmders I saw for the first time in ages
-Lou and Harry for a nice match

Slops
-Lou for scrubbing the champs w/ the best deck in the format
-Me for playing poorly when it mattered and not playing enough type 1 anymore

[JewLightning]

The Ichorid deck is sick. Did you figure out what you're going to do with that box of Saga?

Brennen

[yangtime]

Congrats on your performance with Ichorid.  It was good to meet you and play against you.  I wish I had better hands during our match so it could've been more of a game.  I look forward to playing against you again.

[Lou]

Nice finish my brother.

I wish we would have spoken more before the event so I could have played Long and you could have played Ichorid.

We both know you are a better magic player than me, so obv you did better wth Ichorid.

[Mr. Type 4]

nice work, Jim.  way to take down the prelim!

[Scott_Limoges]

Congrats on the prelim win.

[Naurion]

Hey Godot, Nice work tearing up with Ichorid.

I  had printed out a bunch of deck lists before we hit the road on Thursday and I liked a lot of what I saw in the Ichorid list I had.  I dont recall whose it is, but the dude ran Ancestors Chosen and Strip Mine so credit to him.  I expected a lot Jailers so maindeck Dblast was a must, and 13 dredgers is just super sexy in general.

I'm not sure if you grabbed my list, but I won a tourney with a similar build -2 Flame-Kin Zealot, +1 Ancestor's Chosen, +1 Strip Mine.

I've been toying around with the Zealot kill too, and I was wondering how you liked him. Do you think it sped up your kill in a lot of cases even w/o the Sage? I haven't tested much without at least a singleton copy of both Sage and Zealot, but it seems to me like its hard to get enough Bridges in your yard for the consistent turn 2/3 kills running just Zealot alone. What did you think?

[Razvan]

hey dude,
i wonder if you really need the MD darkblasts, instead of shoving them in the SB? i am wondering about your reasoning, as in the Yxilid Jailer argument. no one would ever (I hope) run them main, and although there are targets (welder, confidant, even mirror on an unsuspecting narcomoeba with no bridges if you get lucky), it might end up hurting your bridge situation.
anyway, nice performance, good to see ichorid tear it up, even though you beat my local boy Mike Antoniakis (with about 15 more letters in there )

[Naurion]

i wonder if you really need the MD darkblasts, instead of shoving them in the SB? i am wondering about your reasoning, as in the Yxilid Jailer argument. no one would ever (I hope) run them main, and although there are targets (welder, confidant, even mirror on an unsuspecting narcomoeba with no bridges if you get lucky), it might end up hurting your bridge situation.

The reasoning behind them is that you don't have the space in the SB for them, so they are basically SB cards in the MD. You could argue the same thing for City of Brass -- that they should be in the SB -- however with only 15 SB slots, some of the cards you want more post board end up main deck. This way you have access to 6-9 Jailer Removal (2 Darkblast, 4 Chain, and possibly 3 Contagion), 8-11 Leyline Removal (4 Chain, and some number of Wispmare + Emerald Charm), and 8 lands to cast all of it(4 Main Deck City of Brass, 4 SB Gemstone Mine). Darkblast just happens to be the best candidate for the Main, since they have the static ability Dredge and you really do want to take out Welders since they are the way CS beats you. Plus, they are good in game 1 in the mirror since you need to be casting guys to win, supposing you both mull to Leyline.

[Godot]

I've been toying around with the Zealot kill too, and I was wondering how you liked him. Do you think it sped up your kill in a lot of cases even w/o the Sage? I haven't tested much without at least a singleton copy of both Sage and Zealot, but it seems to me like its hard to get enough Bridges in your yard for the consistent turn 2/3 kills running just Zealot alone. What did you think?

If def was your list I jacked, nice job.

I havent played dredge since the deck ran Sutured Ghoul/Dragons Breath, but since Lou picked it up I watched/discussed it a lot w/ him.  He deemphasized the combo aspect of the deck and focused on massive disruption and Ichorid + Zombie tings which I liked.  I ran the FKZs mainly bc I want to take advantage of the win now aspect when it shows up, but really its not really that much of a concern.  If I could have found an Angel of Despair before the tournament I would have run that over one of the Zealots.  I dont think what you have in those two slots will affect your G1 winrate all that much, but I could be wrong.  In short FKZ was fine, but I think a lot of cards would have accomplished the same thing.

I really like the MD Darkblasts.  More dredge is always good, and I think the utility of Dblast outweighs the extra card draw.  Saving the SB space as Naurion said is huge too.

[DoubleDrain]

 great job on takin down the prelims. you should keep playing ichorid and help restrict bazaar

[Razvan]

i really like the angel of despair incidentally. although FKZ is often more useful, and cephalid sage lets you win games neither of those can, the angel has evasion, is generally not screwed by bridge removal and random crap like engineered explosives, and the nuking ability can come quite in handy. it's also another black creature to remove to ichorid in the worst case scenario (and i do mean worst case).

it also shines in cases you don't want to over-extend. sometimes, i got screwed by an echoing truth and then tormod's crypt after having a FKZ lethal kill on the board, and didn't see enough therapies to stop it (so... usually 0-1). this thing shines in games you have to take slowly, and nuking a land can be a time walk, which is big for this deck.

anyway, so i agree, and thanks to both of you for the darkblast explanation. i am tending towards the mana version more, so it's quite a different ballgame, but drawing the parallels helps. i am definitely including chalice of the void in that deck now.