Since I never wrote any match reports, I figured I'd sum it all up with some thoughts here. Blame any inaccuracies on me never taking notes.
Round 1 - I take out TurboSpaz. I wasn't expecting him to side out combo for Negators against me game 2 so I got 2-1. (1-0-0)
Round 2 - Mono-blue Tubbies kills me as any tubbies should. I change my SB sround and win game 2, and game 3 stay stuck at 2 Swamps. (1-1-0)
Round 3 - I kill Army of Squirrels. Land kill and disruption really do a number on this game 1. Game 2 he sides in the Oath Engine and I side in Dystopia. I hit with Mishra's and kill Oath with Dystopia and ride a Shade to Victory. (2-1-0)
Round 4 - If Zoo and Miracle Gro had a love child, my opponent played it. Kegs are good against grow and Zoo alike. Although my discard could randomly be bad for all his madness spells, I win the matchup 2-1. (3-1-0)
Round 5 - CF's Mask - another lovely matchup, like tubbies. We play disruption war but his search proves to good and my kegs prove nothing. I win game 2 by racing him with a Shade, and on to game 3, a 12/12 appears that I cant handle quickly enough. (3-2-0)
Round 6 - ShockWave - Land Destruction. I have so much confidence in this match as all my cards are good against him, yet many of his cards are bad or marginal against me (Miner, Masticore, Shaman, Pardic Miner, etc). Unfortunatly, the times I checked on efnet to see if he was alive, he was not. So...I tied. (3-2-1) Oh well.
Here is my list for reference followed by commentary:
36.
stillb0rn@hotmail.com //NAME: Devil's Bile
// Mana
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
14 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
1 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
// Utility
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
// Removal
3 Powder Keg
// Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Hypnotic Specter
// Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
3 Nether Void
SB: 1 Powder Keg
SB: 3 Phyrexian Negator
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Dystopia
SB: 4 Spinning Darkness
SB: 3 Masticore
The maindeck, to this day, is unchanged though the SB is much different. Basically -3 Negators +1 Edict, +1 Dystopia, +1 Crypt. This way it works better demonic consultation.
On poor metagaming:Looking at the overall decklists for the T1ToC, you can clearly see I didn't make the slightest metagaming decision. I played this because it is the deck that I have the most attachment to. I wrote the new primer, and have tweaked various versions for years. From what I remember from earlier T1ToC's, the decks people played were also their brainchilds.
Noone wins anything from the T1ToC, so it was usually about being the representative for the deck you champion on the boards the most. For example I would expect Nevyn to to play TurboNevyn, Smmenen to play mono-blue, JP to play RDK or Stacker2 (pre-tnt), Burning Ice to play Ice Blue Zoo, and CF to play Keep the Oath or his Mask deck.
So, though the field ended up with 32 Workshops, I still played Void. Had I been able to play (and I'll go on a limb here and assume I would win) round 6, I would have been happy with the results (4-2-0). I played well, my opponents played well, and I lost to what I would generally lose to (Tubbies and to a bit lesser extent, Mask).
Card MVP's:#1 - Necropotence. Thanks for giving me autowins and letting me steal some games I should not have.
#2 - Mishra's Factory. Putting people on a clock, getting around Oath, and taking out Juggernaut was pretty rad of you.
#3 - Dystopia - You were a plain wrecking ball against anything running green. Taking out Oath and Dryads is rad too.
#4 - Hymn to Tourach - Never getting Misdirected and using the aspect of magic called luck and tweaking it so its no longer balanced.
Cards that weren't so hot:#1 - Phyrexian Negator - Turning into psuedo-suicide black isnt all that great. I love you dearly, but not in this deck. (Its been cut from the SB altogether)
#2 - Duress - Oh, king of kings. You would have been the bomb...if I could only ever draw you.
