3rd at Game Universe 1/10

This past Saturday they had a tourney for a Beta Emerald at the local store here, Game Universe. I planned on playing Tez as usual, although I was gonna give the Oath board a try as people here are really into Fish and I was tired of losing to null rods. I was feeling tired and lazy Friday night so rather than build my sideboard then, I waited until morning. I spent some time looking around at other lists and finally settled on this list and board:

Meandeck Tezzeret
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Sundering Titan
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
2 Thoughtseize
1 Regrowth
1 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
2 Tezzeret The Seeker
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
1 mystical tutor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Brainstorm
------
1 Trinisphere
1 Duress
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Tormods Crypt
1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids
2 Empyrial Archangel

So ya, that’s right, there are two REB’s in that board and no way to cast them. That is the punishment I get for building the sideboard in a hurry and forgetting that everyone else seems to play 4 colors. I realized this in the middle of round 1, as I was looking for cards to bring in. Anyway, I arrive to find most of the usual suspects, with the only notables missing being Ryan Spindler and Mat Endress of GWS and Dan Carp of ICBM. Otherwise, all the real competition was there so it looked to be a tough fight ahead.

Round 1: Nathan with UW Arti-fish

Game 1: My opponent is playing some UW artifact fish deck with Canonists, Master of Etherium, Etherium Sculptor and Mishra’s Factories, but no wasteland and no Null Rod. Game 1, I duress him on turn 1 and see Force, Fact or Fiction, Top, Brain Freeze (seriously), a mox, and lands. I am thoroughly confused and put him on some bad bomberman build, and then after taking his force, I play Lotus, Ancestral, and Time Walk. Turn 2, I play a land and a mox and cast Thirst for Knowledge. He plays top-go. I take my turn and play like Vault or something, setting up to go infinite next turn with the Tez in hand. He plays a canonist, I counter it (since I have Drain and Force active and want to be able to protect my Tez) and then he scoops on my turn. I’m still kinda sketchy on what he is playing, but I assume some sort of Trinket Mage aggro deck or something with Sensei, Sensei combo maybe and board like he’ll have dudes. I bring in the Oath package and the Krosan Grips, and then look at the REBs and realize I’ve made a big mistake.

Game 2: I have an OK hand, but its pretty slow. I set up a turn 3 Duress into Oath, but he has a Master and Factory or something out and is beating my down. He manages to play enough dudes to kill my angel, and I had to pitch the 2nd to Force earlier, so it’s looking bad. I play out a second Oath and he plays Mystical for Tinker with no cards in hand and gets DSC. I am thinking I should be stabilized, as I can just Oath twice each turn, once to shuffle the angel back in (when DSC kills it) and once to bring it out. I just need to draw Time Walk or Echoing Truth or Key-Vault or any tutor and it’s basically over. Thing’s don’t go according to plan though, as his next draw after playing Tinker is Disenchant to kill an Oath and I am all but dead. I don’t draw Time Walk next turn and die.

Game 3: I don’t really do much early. I counter a spell or two and he hits me with factory a couple times. Eventually he taps out for something (Master + factory attack maybe?) and I counter it, as my hand at that point was FoW, FoW, FoW, FoW, Sapphire with Lotus, Sol Ring, and 3 lands out. He has just one card, so any action and I should crush him, although his Seal of Cleansing makes Oath pretty bad. Of course, I just draw Archangel. I tap all my stuff and play out my 5/8, and then just attack him 4 times (forgetting once because I’m awful) and kill him as he plays nothing I care about.

Round 2: David Carhart with Oath (with chalices, duresses, etc, the really hateful one)

Game 1: He plays land, mox go, and my hand is Scroll, Demonic, Vampiric, a mox, some lands and maybe a thirst or something. I think for a bit and scroll up ancestral, and sadly he has a duress which he didn’t play turn 1 followed by an orchard and Oath. I try to stay in it with tutoring for my combo, but he has a Negate for the last piece and kills me instead. Game 2, we both don’t do much. He scrolls for recall and holds it. On my turn, I go for Tezzeret with Drain backup. He responds with Ancestral, so I drain it. He then casts MisD on my drain and I reply “That’s pretty strong”. I sit and look at him for a second, hoping he won’t see the obvious play in front of him. He goes “Ok, Ancestral resolves, Tez still on the stack” and I gladly agree. He forces my Tez pitching Wipe Away and is left with like 3 cards to my hand of like something junky. He plays duress on his turn and takes my spell, and I draw a duress and take a mox, leaving him with 2 lands. At this point, I mention how I would have played that MisD and he suddenly realizes what a mistake it was. He draws a blank and passes. I look at my board and yard, and think ‘Man, Will would be nice.’ I tap the top of my deck and say “Will”, trying to pull it to the top. I look at the card and then immediately windmill it down and begin playing things from by yard, as I most definitely got there. He scoops.

Game 3: David mulls to 5 and plays Sapphire-go. My hand is good but a little slow and I have Demonic for Ancestral and pass. He draws and brainstorms, which I Force but he counters back and it resolves. He has a land or something and passes. I Ancestral and set up Tinker for Titan (which should have been DSC, but I had a theory that Titan is better in the mirror by far and Oath should be good enough against everyone else that I can afford to be worse game 1, but I had not counted and playing against actual Oath where Titan sucks). It blows up the world and he plays wasteland, scroll for Wipe Away, go, with only the bounce in hand and a board of Sapphire-Waste. I untap, attack (my board is Jet, Titan, Island) and pass and he slams the top card Lightning-Helix style. It is an island and so he bounces my titan and we start over with him on 3 life. He forces a card a turn or two later and then has to break Lotus to negate something and goes to 1. My hand has like 2 Thirsts and more action though and he scoops them up a turn or two later.

Round 3: Bobby Hill with RGW Zoo (Jamison’s deck)

Bobby is a local player here and does not play any vintage, and showed up today because Alex Franson called him at like 9am and asked if he wanted to come along. He still made top 8 even after this match.

Game 1: I win the roll and play a bunch of broken stuff. I get out Tez and tutor for Key with Vault in hand. He has a Nacatl and 2 non-red lands. If he hits the red source, he can attack and kill Tez and then Hooligan my key, putting me in a much tougher spot, but he misses and I go infinite.

Game 2: He starts with Plateau, needle Vault. I play like 3 artifacts and academy and cast Recall and Time Walk and maybe a Thirst. He plays a Mogg Fanatic. I set up for a Will next turn and duress him, seeing a bunch of useless animals and an uncastable Ancient Grudge. He has skullclamp and still no land. I play Will, get Lotus, Hardcast and Angel and Time Walk with a full hand. I think just attack him 4 times, casting a duress or two along the way in case of god knows what, just because I can.

I draw the next 2 rounds with Alex Franson and Jamison Bryant, along the way watching Soly play and commenting on all the misplays and then talking over Tez strategy with Fisher (whose list is like 2 cards off mine plus a slightly different manabse). Eventually, we get to top 8 time and I have gotten Owen (who beat out Nighbor on tiebreakers by .7%)

Top 8: Owen T. with TPS

Game 1: Owen starts on the play and throws out Ancestral. My hand is 2 Drains, 2 Duresses, a Force and 2 lands, so I counter it. I draw Tezz, duress him and see Ruby, Mystical, DSC, Jar, Will, and think that I should be in good shape, taking will. He draws a Delta and plays it. I draw Lotus, so I just run Tezzeret out there and give him one turn. He mysticals for dark ritual, casts jar, and duresses me and then scoops.

Game 2: Both of us have slow starts here. He duresses me and takes something random, and I duress back and see 2 lands, Grim Tutor, and Gifts with just a land on his side (he had mulled once). I take Gifts. I get out academy and play out Time Vault, and am on 4 mana with Tez in hand. I play out my 3sphere just so that Academy makes an extra mana and I can cast Tez, but he duresses me and takes him. Instead, this game takes forever and I don’t really play well but never have less than 3 counters in hand. I eventually draw literally every card in my deck and beat him to death with Sundering Titan with no card in my library. I played really awful this game and just was not seeing the game state well (at once point, I let him duress out my Key because I only had 5 mana and was scared of Hurkyl’s into Will, not thinking that if he bounces 3sphere my double Force is back online), but he drew pretty much every land in his deck so it didn’t matter.

Top 4: Jamison Bryant with Mana Ichorid

Game 1, I have Mox, Academy, Top, pass. I think I need to get like an energy bar or something mid tournament because I played like an idiot all match, constantly miscounting how much mana Academy gave me (due to flipping Top back and forth) and other stupid things. Anyway, he bazaars, then plays lotus, plays Careful Study (which I drain, as he has found no dredgers), and the breakthroughs for 1 (still no dredgers), keeping one card in hand (which I later learn was bazaar). I set up probably my best play of the day and end step Mystical for Vamp. I take my turn, draw the Vamp, then Vamp for Needle, draw it with Top, and play it on Bazzar. He can’t do anything and I get my combo up in a few more turns as he just draws and passes. This was pretty unlucky for him, and he was unhappy that I had Needle main.

Game 2: I keep 5 lands, Oath, Jailer, and he has a therapy on turn 2 for Oath, which hits. He had discarded his darkblast to bazaar that turn, and I play Jailer but he already has a Moeba and 2 Zombies. He attacks me a few times and I get out Key with Mana Vault and mystical on the end of turn. However, keeping with the theme of being dumb, I had boarded out Tinker (which normally seems fine, but here I like the idea of finding Crypt or Needle with it in addition to combo pieces) so I have to get DT. Where Tinker would have won the game (I have 1 life and mana vault) by sacking Vault for TV and going infinite, DT is not good enough since I only have 3 lands out. I take 1 turn but have to untap Mana Vault on the next and do not draw Time Walk to go off, so I lose. I thought about blocking with my Jailer a turn or two earlier, but he had Grudge in the yard so I couldn’t do that either.

Game 3: My hand is Needle, Regrowth, Vamp, Gaea’s Blessing, Lotus, and 2 lands. I start with Needle on Bazaar and lotus and pass. He has City of Brass and sends it back. I vamp for Key on my upkeep, then draw it and play it and ship it back. I Chains my Needle endstep and then plays Bazaar and discards 2 dredgers on his turn. I then cast Blessing to shuffle them back in, then Regrow my Vampiric Tutor, replay needle, and ship it back. He has a second real land, which makes me sad because if he has one of his 2 ancient grudges I am in trouble. I Vamp and consider going for a draw spell, but decide that the odds are low that he has Grudge given there are only 2 and he has only seen like 11 cards, and go for Vault (although not directly, because I was playing awful) The end result is that I go for Vault with no cards and 1 mana open, and he Grudges it in response to the untap. He then grudges my needle on the upkeep, uses bazaar, then plays a second bazaar. I draw a 3ball and play it and pass. He makes a pile of dudes (including all 4 moebas) and I have one draw step and just get a land so I die. Afterwards, I ponder the wisdom of going for TV but it seemed like the odds were greatly on my side (Chain didn’t even matter, because he couldn’t chain Needle and TV and I could just replay Vault the next turn if he bounced it). I would probably do the same thing in the future unless someone has a better way to play that opener.

So, I end up with $50 in credit and Jamison rolls Fisher, who had basically no chance in the matchup. We head out to the Olive Garden for an after-tournament feast and everyone shares their favorite stories about horrible beats happening to Owen. It is a good time, and reminds me a lot of Thurman’s, as the crowd was Me, Seroogy, Owen, Ben Carp, Nighbor, Soly, Jaco, Matt Frywald, TK, Danny Friedman, and ~~someone else I am not thinking of at the moment~~ Jamison.

Props:
Jamison for winning the whole thing with a deck he only recently picked up
Fisher for playing a good Tez list (although he was still 2 slots plus the manabase away from a great list)
My teammates for coming up with that Oath board, that thing is nasty
Archangel for being insane
Everyone who went to dinner, it reminded me of being back in OH where the dinner is more fun than the tourney

Slops:
Oath for never actually winning me a game (vs. 2 wins from hardcast angels)
REB. Screw red cards
Endress for wussing out
Derek for not buying my store credit when he was going to spend the money on a card either way. I'll have my revenge for that, just wait.