After winning the last NYSE with Remora Gro I decide to make only minor changes to the deck prior to the Grudge Match. I take one Remora and the Preordain out of the deck and add a Mana Crypt to bring it down to 60 cards. In the sideboard I replace three Jailers with three Grafdigger’s Cages, and the Nihil Spellbomb with a second Dismember.
My morning gets off to a rather salty start when after clearing a light coating of snow off my car I find my driver’s side mirror smashed. I initially chalk it up as a weather-related incident, as I was parked curbside and the roads were slippery Friday night into Saturday morning. The driver left no note, which sucked, but what can I say, shit happens. However I find out today there were SIX other car window/mirror smashings reported in my neighborhood Friday night. Simply un-fucking-believable. That’s now the third time my car has been vandalized in my own neighborhood. And supposedly I live in the good part of Croydon now, and before then, a good part of Philly.
Now, on to the report…
After my round 1 bye courtesy of winning the last NYSE (the gift that keeps on giving!), in round 2 I get paired against Jeff Anand running his latest Slaver incarnation. In Game 1 I'm able to Tinker with Force backup early in the game, but then Jace comes down and sends Blighty packing. I had Flusterstorm in my hand, which makes me think if I had waited one extra turn I could have protected Tinker with the Flusterstorm and countered Jace with the Force. Then again, maybe not, as he had a shit-ton of mana available with three Moxes, Sol Ring, and a Tolarian Academy to boot. Oh well. I eventually lose that game to a hardcast Inkwell Leviathan. In the second game I have to mull to 5 on the play and lose to a quick Key/Vault.
I win round 3 fairly easily against an Oath player. He goes Orchard into Oath game 1, then I respond next turn by setting up Key/Vault. Game 2 he leads with an Orchard into a Recall I think, but nothing broken after that. My token starts beating down. On turn 2 he See Beyonds, giving me another token. On my turn 2 I beat down for 2 and land a Trygon Predator off that beautiful, beautiful Mox Sapphire I won at the last NYSE. On his turn 3 he casts Channel, which I Force but he Forces back, bringing him down to 16 and giving me a third Spirit in the process. I'm assuming he's going to pay 15 life and cast Emrakul. Instead he pays 12 life and casts Blighty, bringing him down to 4. My tokens and Trygon swarm around Blighty for the win.
Round 4 I get paired against my Vintage kryptonite, affectionately known in these areas as womba. I'm something like 0-6 lifetime against womba in Vintage tournaments. I know womba is on Dredge today. I mull to a 6-card hand that has a very real shot of stealing Game 1. It's something like Trop, double Gush, Fastbond, a Force, and a Misstep I think. The only thing missing: another Island. I never do find a second Island thus womba wins game 1.
Game 2 I decide to mulligan very aggressively. Eventually I settle on a hand of 5 with a land, Goyf, Cage, Emerald, and Ponder. Not bad. Meanwhile, womba has to mull to 3. I think I'm in good shape. I lead with land, Emerald, Cage. womba, like the World Phucking Champion he is, naturally has a Mental Misstep. So I Ponder and luckily find another Cage, but it has to wait until next turn to be cast. Luckily womba can't go that broken, and I resolve a Cage. Next turn Goyf comes down as a 6/7 thanks to womba discarding all the right card types, and over the next couple turns I draw a couple of Missteps for backup while Goyf beats womba's face in.
Game 3 I draw an EXTREMELY agonizing 7. Something like double Jace, Lotus, Trop, Recall, Voltaic Key, and Gush I think. womba is on the play, and after Powdering away 2 7-card hands, sending a couple Bridges packing in the process, he keeps his 7. After thinking about it for a couple of minutes, hoping the two Bridges in exile might buy me the turn or two I need, I decide to go big or go home and keep. womba plays Bazaar and passes. I go land, Lotus, Jace, Jacestorm, and pass. I actually draw Time Vault in the Jacestorm, but no more lands or other mana sources.
EOT womba activates Bazaar. "Don't worry Glackin, my hand doesn't have much gas," says womba as he discards Grave-Troll, Stinky, and Ichorid. Sure, whatever you say, womba...
womba dredges into a Narcomoeba (which he does not forget this time) and a Bloodghast or two. Ichorid comes back and takes out Jace. I draw then Ancestral. I think I drew a second Gush, Blighty (naturally), and a Vamp Tutor. Still no land. I pass and womba beats for 7. I forget the exact sequence of plays over the next couple of turns but I know I eventually am at 4 life due to more beats and casting Vamp Tutor. I have to float a green, cast Gush, and pray for a miracle Fastbond, which does not come.
For the record, I still have the same amount of wins lifetime against womba as Eli Manning does against the Eagles in the playoffs.So, should I have mulled that hand against Dredge? Yes. No need for extensive post-game analysis here. Though, if I had led with Recall and not Jace I may have gotten a natural Key/Vault turn 2, a Mental Misstep from womba notwithstanding. Still, for the most part, this deck is not going to beat Dredge post-sideboard without drawing some real hate, no matter how busted your hand may be.
So I'm dejected, but manage to stay off full-blown tilt.
Round 5 I'm paired against Dan Mason in a rematch of the NYSE finals. This time Dan gets me. I make a couple dumb mulligan decisions (Note to self: DO NOT EVER, EVER keep a 1-land, no power 7-card hand against Shops) and even dumber plays, like 1) tutoring for a Black Lotus in an attempt to set up a broken Yawg's Will turn in Game 1, completely oblivious to that shiny Chalice @ 0 on Dan's side, even though I discarded that beautiful, beautiful Mox Sapphire earlier in that game knowing it was useless, and 2) not Forcing Dan's Turn 1 Sphere after keeping the aforementioned 1-land, no power 7 card hand in Game 2. I almost steal Game 2 despite So Many Insane (-ly Dumb) Plays because Dan has to get most of his mana from Ancient Tomb and Mana Crypt that game. He survived a roll to stay at 3 then draws Karn to kill the Crypt and any chance I had of winning.
So while I think I may not have been on tilt, undoubtedly something was going on in that cranium of mine. I had had only one beer up to that point, so it couldn't have been that. I drop at 2-3 and sign up for a side event. While waiting for the side event to start, I kick Detwiler out of his feature-match seat and play a little heads-up EDH/Commander against Elias, streamed over the interwebs. Though my Reaper King deck is thoroughly unsuitable for heads-up play I'm told viewership of our game-and-a-half was more than that of Elias' and Detwiler's feature match.
Once the side event starts I promptly lose to Jack Impink in two boring but still somewhat-interesting games. (Say WHAT?!?) Game 1 he is able to resolve Gifts, and wastes no time finding Recall, Time Walk, Tinker, and Black Lotus. Obviously this means he has Yawg's Will in his hand so it really doesn't matter what I give him. I give him Recall and Walk, and he promptly Yawg Wills into Tinker/Blighty/Time Walk/Jace/GG/MBN. Game 2 I land a Mystic Remora and some jewelry. We play land-go for many, many turns. Remora finally has to go after getting up to 8 age counters (!) on it. I only get to draw two cards off it after my Goyf and Jace meet counterspells from Jack. He eventually lands a Jace and primarily fateseals himself after he realizes I can fetch away anything he says I can keep. I have Tinker and Blighty in my hand, naturally. Once Jace hits 13 counters I go a little Tyrant Oath and Hurkyl's back all my jewelry to my hand, replay it, and hardcast Blighty, just for the LOLs.
After that travesty, me, Elias, Allen, Josh, and Chas go over to the bar to order some dinner to go so we can watch the Top 8 play out.
Me, after one beer: OK guys, no more for me, I have to drive home eventually.
Then Simon Cooper wanders over with a full pitcher of beer and offers to fill us up. I enthusiastically oblige. Chas' head almost explodes. But seriously, how do you turn down a free beer? It's a local microbrew that has a grapefruity-taste to it, and apparently more alcohol than the Yuengling I was drinking before that...
Of the five of us, my food comes out last. It's also not wrapped to go. As the other four have already left, I just say screw it and dig in. Around that time two good-looking ladies (they really were, no beer goggles here!) come up to me and tell me I can get a free T-shirt (that asks, "what's my O-face?") if I order a drink with any Three Olives vodka in it. As has been previously established, I'm a sucker for free stuff, even if this “free” shirt will actually cost me $6 plus tax and tip. So I order a Froot Loops vodka and Sprite and get my T-shirt. At size XL it is about 2X's smaller than I need it to be, but I manage to put it on over my Chicago Bears #33 Bundy jersey anyway.
Once the novelty (and some of the alcohol) wears off, I give it to Brienne, on the condition that she wears it to next week's NYSE. Since she has already committed to wearing a NY Hockey Rangers jersey to that tournament (traitor!), I simply ask her to take a picture of herself wearing the shirt and post it on Facebook. That’s an innocent enough request, right? Judging by her (and Elias’) reactions you’d think I just asked her if she ever had a problem with sand in her vagina*. I now find myself having to convince everybody within earshot that I am not some kind of closet pervert. I actually tend to be quite upfront with my perversions, thank you very much!
After that travesty, we sit down to play a spy game called The Resistance. The group consists of myself, Elias, Jake and Dave Gans, Mr. Coss, and Chas. Little does everybody else know, but Jake and I have conspired to play a second game called "Who Sucks the Most at The Resistance?" I win hands-down. Then we play one last game of Cards Against Humanity which I win going away. Something about Miley Cyrus struggling with impotence for the first time? (I’m pretty sure I’ve won every round that card has comes up.) Then we are told by hotel staff that they need to prep the room for a Sunday morning meeting at 6:30 AM. Wha-wha-what? So that wraps up the day's festivities. Meanwhile, it's been snowing outside most of the day, which makes for a fun drive home. The roads were mostly just wet until I got to about Exit 43 on I-295, at which point lane markers became merely a suggestion. Still, I manage to make it the rest of the way home without incident, smashed driver’s side mirror and all.
* To get that reference, read Elias’ mini-article
here.
