On January the 5th 2003, a vintage tournament was held in Castricum (near Amsterdam) in the Netherlands, which is about a 2 hour drive from where I live. For the Eindhoven crew, this is our ‘regular’ tourney, so 9 of us decided to attend yet again. It was freezing cold and it actually started snowing on the way there. In spite of bad weather conditions we arrived safely and much too early once more. Almost 60 people attented, which is slightly less than usual. The power level appeared to be fairly high, but a little tour of the room also showed me much random crap. The first prize was a ticked to the PS Masters (plus the obligatory load of boosters). Three of us decided to play Blood Moon Parfait, as they expected much mono black and non-basics. I chose to run Devil’s Bile, Zherbus’ Nether Void build. My main concern was obviously running into a lot of T’n’T. Fortunately, a group of Germans who also occasionally visit Castricum and who also frequent the more famous Dülmen tourney) decided to attend as well. The Germans are always fun to play against, and are regular visitors of TheManaDrain.com as well (hi there, Womprax
Even more fortunately, they decided not to bring any T’n’T with them. With the only other T’n’T player being someone from our local playgroup who wasn’t attending, things were looking less and less bleak for me.
I’ll start off with this, though: my experience with Nether Void is very limited. I have copied Steve’s build more or less to the letter and slightly tuned the SB to the metagame I expected. This was my first Nether Void tourney, and had not even heavily playtested it; I had tested the deck against Keeper solely, but was willing to give it a shot anyway. This is what I went with:
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Devil's Bile, by Zherbus
Creatures (12)
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Mishra's Factory
Disruption (15)
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress
3 Nether Void
Removal (3)
3 Powder Keg
Broken (4)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoths Will
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Necropotence
Mana (26):
4 Dark Ritual
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
15 Swamps
SB (15):
4 Contagion
3 Masticore
3 Diabolic Edic
2 Dystopia
1 Powder Keg
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Zuran Orb
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Round 1: Edwin Bak playing Ponza
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Game 1: standard Nether Void procedure. I disrupt his hand, crap out a Hippy and play a Void. I took no damage at all whereas he justifiably concedes when at 10.
Game 2: I sided in Zuran Orb in case he’d actually be able to kill my lands, but forgot to side out Necro. Naturally, I have it, and a Ritual, in my opening hand. I decide to play it anyway, which is a mistake even though the deck isn’t anywhere near as burn-intensive as Sligh. At one point, I even made the mistake of not saccing a land he targeted for destruction to my Zuran Orb (which, with Necro out, effectively costs me 2 cards...I guess I wasn’t really awake yet). I slam down a Void but he still magages to kill my threats. Eventually, I go down from 5 to 1 life with Necro to dig up my very last Factory, with which I manage to *just* beat him to death, while keeping myself from dying with The Zuran Orb I decided to add 5 minutes before the tourney commenced. Go orb!
Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Round 2: Carsten Kötter playing Keeper
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Game 1: We both mulligan to 6, but he doesn’t look too happy. I disrupt his ability to counter, play a Nantuko Shade (I think) and a Nether Void, and start applying the beating. He concedes when at 5.
Game 2: I keep my hand, which has no accelleration, but enough swamps, a hymn and a sinkhole. He mulligans twice, and still appears less than happy with his 5-card hand. He quickly recovers from his predicament however by playing an Ancestral and appears to be back in the saddle. He plays a Moat, which my deck does *not* appreciate. Out of desperation, I attempt to play a Necro without being able to Duress or Hymn him first. I was rather amazed to see it hit play. I payed 10 life all at once, taking myself from 15 to 5, which turned out to be a good decision since card #10 was a Hypnotic Specter. I played it next turn, Consulted for a second Hyppie, and played a Nether Void. Apparently, I was so extatic from the fact that I was winning that I played a second Nether Void. Riii-iiight. It went through, killed the one already on the board, tied up 7 mana I didn’t need anyway and made me feel like a complete n00b. Oh well. I still won.
Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-0
Round 3: Hero ’t Mannetje playing Keeper
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Game 1: Hero is part of our local playgroup and an experienced Keeper player. As a matter of fact, his deck was the only deck I had playtested mine against. During testing, we each won about 50% of the games, so I was keeping my spirits up. Hero joked that, since he drove us to the tourney, I could walk home if I beat him. I prepared for a long walk, because game 1 was over before we both knew it. Like in round 1, standard Void procedure. Some disruption, some threats and a Void were all I needed.
Game 2: My hand was really good, with 2 swamps, a Factory, a Ritual, a Sinkhole, a Hymn, and a Void. Unfortunately, he started the game, and his hand was nothing short of perfect. And I think we all know what a perfect Keeper hand does to you...the only thing I ever got to do was play a Hymn, which was Misdirected. After that, he topdecked a Yawgmoth’s Will, played his Grim Monolith / Power Artifact combo and stroked me to death.
Game 3: This game saw an early Hyppie he couldn’t counter. He wasnt able to get rid of it due to a sucky hand, so the Specter went all the way. Sorry ‘bout that, Hero. Oh well, you still ended up doing 5-1.
Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-1
Round 4: Koos Cramer playing Sui
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Game 1: I took a mulligan, he did not. Oh dear. A first turn Negator is not a good thing. I dropped a Shade, but it was Contagion’ed away. The thing beat me to 15 before I dropped another Shade which chump blocked the beast, making him sack some land. Unfortunately, he played a Necro, took himself to 11 life, and played another Negator on his next turn. Not a chance in hell.
Game 2: My first hand contained 6 lands and a Duress. Right. Mulligan number one. Second hand: 5 lands and a Ritual. Even bleedin’ worse! Mulligan number two. Third hand: 1 Strip mine and 4 black spells, 3 of which had a double black casting cost. I was pretty pissed off about this, but decided (wrongly) to keep the hand of 5, reasoning that if I just topdecked a swamp next turn, I could play a Demonic Tutor for another and get back in the game. Unfortunately, two consecutive Hymns by him and an Order of the Ebon Hand kinda wrecked that plan. I didn’t do a single point of damage before I died.
Matches: 3-1
Games: 6-3
Round 5: Matthijs de Wilde, playing B/G Control
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Game 1: I quickly dropped a Shade, killed some of his land, and played a Void. His deck refused to give him land, so he just sat there watchin gthe Shade beat him. He conceded.
Game 2: He managed to play a Necropotence early on in the game, and follow it up with a Pernicious Deed. He took control of the game and brought himself down to 6. At that point, I had a Shade and a Hyppie on hand. I played the Hyppie, eventually forcing him to blow it up (and his Necro along with it). Next turn, I dropped the Shade, which he Edicted. The turn after, I drew a Factory, which was all I needed. I had 3 swamps on the board and a Void on hand. I decided to take a chance (after all, he could’ve had a Wasteland), played the Factory and the Void, and was able to beat him to deat with my trusty Assembly Worker.
Matches: 4-1
Games: 8-3
Round 6: Gijsbert Hoogendijk, playing Keeper.
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Game 1: This was the Big One. I calculated that I could still make second place if I beat him two nil. Gijs is a well-known level 3 judge and a nice person as well. He knew what I was playing since he was sitting next to me in Round 4 when I got mana screwed. He asked if I had seen many Keeper decks today. I just grinned and answered ‘yes’. Now people had told me that Gijs doesn’t usually play Type 1 at all, and just wanted to check it out or something. This was his first vintage tourney, apparently. Well, you wouldn’t know from watching him play, though. Ofcourse, being immersed in the magic community as he is, will make you a good player. He was playing Rakso’s Keeper build, if I’m not mistaken. He played very defensively, which won him the 1st game. He killed my critters with The Abyss, which I ended up removing with a Nether Void (at first, they were in play side by side...we only figured out that the Abyss should have died a turn or so later, but since it had not affected any decisions or board positions on either side, we decided to just put in in his ‘yard now and leave it at that. Hey, it’s REL-1 tourney...who cares?). When I ran out ouf steam, he played Superman right through my Nether Void to seal my fate.
Game 2: Things were looking okay for me. I believe he either mulligan'ed, or was not too pleased with his opening hand. I was kinda happy with mine: a Sinkhole and a Hymn, a Diabolic Edict, a swamp and a wasteland. I also had a Necroptence on hand, and a Demonic Consultation. I started, dropped a swamp and passed the turn. At the end of his first turn, I Consulted for a Ritual in order to play Necro next turn and get get it on. There were 4 Rituals still in my deck. Good. There were *none* in the first 6 cards. Good. There were also none in the following 32(!) cards. My heart sank when I took my second turn with a library of 15 cards. Naturally, the Necro was countered and it was hell from there on on. He Fact or Fictioned, which I split horribly. I still managed to do some damage and bring him to 9 before he dropped a Morphling as a chump blocker. He refused to attack for the win, decking me a few turns later. For a first-time Type 1 player, this guy really makes very, very few playing errors. Gijs made 2nd, and I (just) made top 8.
Matches: 4-2
Games: 8-5
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Result: 8th place, 12 pnts.
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PROPS:
- Hero and Mike, for driving us safely all the way to Castricum through shitty conditions yet again.
- All my opponents for being nice and conversational. Vintage tourneys are som much more pleasant than Standard ones...
- Teun, for running a good tourney.
- Whatever force was responsible for the fact that my MANY mistakes that day didn’t influence my match outcomes.
SLOPS:
- Demonic Consultation, which I now temporarily hate, for losing me Round 6.
- McDonalds for making us wait in line for 45 mins. for their crappy food.
- My digital camera’s battery pack for being empty way too soon.
The pictures I took at the tourney, by the way, are located here.\n\n
