[TMD Open Report] Rage with Kicker to top 32

Pretourney

I get a PM from Ray a few days prior to the event. Apparently he was not planning on having a party, because he had to set up the tables for the event that night and wouldn't be around. But after he found out we were willing to help him set up, his girlfriend Theresa volunteered to feed us to get a party started.

I meet my girl Shalane at around 4:30 on Friday, and we begin the journey to the beautiful land of Connecticut. Thankfully, unlike Wu and SpecialK, I'm only like an hour away. Unfortunately, we meet the shittiest friday afternoon traffic ever, and we're both so burned out by the stop and go that we stop to have lunch at a Denny's. After brief team consumption of a salad and a turkey club, we go out to resume the journey... And her car says no. She hits the steering wheel a couple times, tries the key once again, and the car manages to limp out on to traffic and resume functioning. She informs me that she plans to drop me off in front of the Courtyard by Marriot without shutting off the car, followed by driving home, so if her starter completely dies she'll be close enough to get the car fixed with minimum difficulty. I'm disappointed but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I hop out of the car, grab my stuff, and say goodbye.

Stumbling in to the hotel, everything looks dark. It's only like 6 at this point, but the lights are very dim and after standing outside for a while, it's very difficult to see a damn thing. I bumble to the counter, ask where Ray Robillard is, and wander in to help him set up tables. Apparently Phil, Grand Inquisitor's car, is in MA still, and Ray's been doing the work with Theresa for an hour with little progress. Ray and I tagteam the tablecloth carrying duty, and then he sets up chairs with Theresa while I put the clothes on the tables. We're done about 5 minutes before a small detachment of Team Hadley arrives. After a brief three player game of mental magic (Jayemdae Tome and Sylvan Library both in play on my side, GG bitches!) with Diakonov and Sympathy4theDevil (both unreg) we begin the journey to Ray's apartment in downtown Torrington.

A couple of attempts to contact the Binghamton crew later, we're eating sloppy Joes, playing drinking games, and generally being retarded. I polish off some pale ale, and realize around 2 that I need to get some sleep or I'll feel like shit in the morning. I crash on Ray's bedroom floor, and wake up around 6:45, ten minutes before the alarm goes off.

Oops. I probably should have built a deck that night. Oh well.

I shower, wake up the lads in the livingroom, and begin conspiring to play workshop slaver since I had been letting people test against it that night. I get some help from wicketsnatcher because I'm too lazy to put the deck together myself, but in hindsight I probably should have just done it anyway since
A) the deck was fun and I'll probably play it again sometime
B) it was a test deck and therefore mostly proxied anyway

We travel to the hotel and I label Ray's tables for him. I loan Ninja Mask to a friend, sans the masks, of which get loaned to a different friend. Then I borrow some much needed gilded lotus action from Ashok (The M.E.T.H.O.D) and put together my deck with the Cape Cod crew (Rob the Swordsman and Firefallsomenumbers) I compare lists with kl0wn before turning in my deck reg, and we both run some awesome secret tech that would come in to play a couple times over the course of the day.

Workshop Slaver

4x Joblin Weldar
3x Mindslaver

1x Pentavus
1x Triskelion

4x Chalice of the Void

2x Brainstorm
2x Cunning Wish
4x Force of Will

1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Timetwister
1x Windfall
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker
1x Memory Jar
4x Thirst for Knowledge

3x Jilded Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal

4x Volcanic Island
4x Shivan Reef
4x Mishra's Workshop
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Tolarian Academy

SB:
3x Triskelion
2x Blood Moon
2x Gorilla Shaman
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Stifle
1x Urza's Rage

Reflections:
I detested seeing Brainstorm all day. I would have preferred another cunning wish, and another broken card. Even something stupid and bad like Stroke of Genius would have been better appreciated. Also, I wanted to fit a fourth gilded lotus maindeck, but I figured I'd rather not replace business with mana. Also, cutting the sideboard Rack and Ruin turned out to be not a mistake. I was content to just bounce problem artifacts and win that turn, or just burn out people with Rage. OMG Rage is the sex.

After a couple announcements ("Here at Waterbury, we favor only one round two") the pairings are up, and we swarm to see where we're headed.

Round One: An oddly familiar friendly face, with a rogueish SuperGro style deck
I win the die roll, and he mulligans to six. Good sign for me. I go Shivan, Welder, and pass the turn, looking at a second turn Memory Jar and theoretically second turn win. He drops Trop, Lotus, Damping Matrix. UGH. I swing for a couple turns and keep him from putting threats on the table, and when he's at 16 another welder joins the fun and starts beating down. He gets down to 8 when I find a THIRD welder, and though I figure I'm walking in to Balance, I play him and keep on swinging. When he hits 5, he wishes eot, BEBs a welder, and passes. I swing to bring him to three, and he rips the balance to clear away the goblins. I force it, he drains, and I wish while he's tapped out. He mulls over forcing it, and decides not to. I grab Urza's Rage and his brain explodes.
Game two his brain is exploded, and thus he doesn't put up much of a fight. I take his turns and then hit him with a pentavus a few times.

1-0-0, 2-0-0

Round two: Ray Clavette with Control Slaver
Game one I smash his face hard. I establish slaver recursion with his welders by turn three or four.
Game two I get a first turn Gorilla Shaman to stick, and he starts beating down. I forget to swing for a turn, and I make a joke about how that one point counts. Little did I know, it was a sinister foreshadowing. When he resolves yawgmoth's will, my board is nothing but 15 mana, and my hand is nothing but Cunning Wish. He's at 11, not 10. 11, not 10. As it turns out, his only counter in hand was a force he couldn't hardcast. 11, not 10. Fuck.
Game three he sees all his rack and ruins, and I see all my mana sources. Frown.

1-1-0, 3-2-0

Round three: some dude with U/W control
Game one he drops a Tundra and a mox, and starts counterspelling/mana leaking/draining/forcing my junk. I get mildly annoyed and begin the longest string of mindslaver welding I've ever seen. I clean up with Pentavus beatings with a mere six minutes left in the round. Game two I'm in a winning position, and then time is called.

2-1-0, 4-2-1

Round four: Terrevaune with Workshop Slaver
This was fun. Game one was very swingy, and when it looked like I was in control he resolved a Jar and popped it. He gets a lot of juicy stuff for his yard, but the only immediate benefit he receives is a mox jet. I tinker later for Triskelion to wipe out his welder, and we move on to game two.
He resolves some good spells, but seems to have difficulty getting useful permanents out of them. He sees a Wheel and some thirsts, but I don't let anything terribly dangerous come of them thanks to both REB and BEB. When I point out I have the mana to wish for Rage and kill him, he wisely picks up his cards rather than invoke the wrath of Urza. Definately a class act and a great opponent.

3-1-0, 6-2-1

Round five: Caleb Rozwenc (MadManiacsomenumbers) with 7/10 Split
Game one he resolves a welder, and I don't care. I use his welder to make my mindslavers recur, and I cast his timetwister to get some moxen to weld.
Game two he drops a pearl, a tormod's crypt, and a shivan, and then a welder. I tinker for Triskelion and he scoops. He tells me he wants to find out what would happen if he made what he thinks to be the optimal play, and I say I don't mind. He drops a first turn chalice for 1 instead of his welder, and I ask him what the hell he's thinking. Apparently he feels since his deck is all beatdown, without welders to abuse he can win much easier. So I tinker for Pentavus and kill him before it matters.

4-1-0, 8-2-1

Round six: A friendly guy with Workshop Slaver
Game one is a blowout. I resolve all the key card advantage spells and stomp him too early.
Game two I see three of my four triskelions, and he sees a graveyard of dead welders. I beat for the win on turn three or four.

5-1-0, 10-2-1

Round seven: Tom Penza with Food Chain Goblins
Game one he combos me out on turn two or three.
Game two we're trading blows, and he goes to cast Blood Moon with one card in hand. I make some jokes about bringing in Blood Moon against a workshop slaver build, but my hand contains Tinker, Ancestral, Force, and Tolarian Academy. I figure assloads of mana and tinker is a combo, so I force pitching ancestral. It turns out his one card is Red Elemental Blast. For seven turns, his prospector and warchief beat my face, and I topdeck blue spells. I wasn't aware I had that many blue spells.

5-2-0, 10-4-1

Round eight: Dan Richardson (Pernicious Dude) with One Fish Left
Game one he hoses me with a maindeck gorilla shaman. I try to put up a fight but his waste keeps me from colored mana, and I don't get to resolve a gilded until he's got the lethal damage on the table.
Game two I resolve early chalices at 2 and 3 after finally getting a Viashino Heretic off the table. Unfortunately, the way it left was an Echoing Truth of Dan's, so when his Gorilla Shaman comes out to play, I try to fight the counter war to keep my chalices. Unfortunately, I'm retarded. If I had let him kill the chalice and drop the Viashino Heretic, I could have wished for Rage for the kill. He boarded out Misdirection.
These games were brutal. I took 12 points from my crypt game one and 15 from the crypt game two. I think I'm going to start boarding it out against Fish from now on, despite the mana denial aspect.

5-3-0, 10-6-1

After this is all said and done, Ray leaves me to organize the T16 while he does Magic Trivia. I contentedly oblige and smoke some cigars with Binghamton after the players are paired.

When the tournament is complete, we all head to Dennys. Among us were, Carl, kl0wn, Derek, Ray, Theresa, Liz, SpecialK, Wuaffiliate, Jarad, Dave M, and Ross. My milkshake arrives five minutes after everyone's food does, and I'm pissed. So I cast death targeting their bathroom, and return to the hotel to crash with Binghamton people. In the morning I wake up and get a ride from Sam Antill's folks back to my hometown. Mise.

Obligatory Props/Slops

Props:
Dan Richardson and Steve Houdlette, for bringing Hadley back in to the results where we belong.
Carl Winter, for having the testicular fortitude to bring Keeper to the T4
Bryce Reynolds, for also killing people with Urza's Rage
Rayamfishman, for a well organized and professional event
Ashok Chitturi (METHOD) for loaning me gilded lotii, and wicketsnatcher for letting me be lazy as well as mise workshop usage
Tom Penza, for doing a McDonalds run for me
Shalane, for driving me up
Sam Antill and co, for driving me back
and Matrix, for hookin a brotha up with an asian foil Urza's Rage.

Slops:
Gorilla Shaman, for not having Juggernaut's rules text
Goat. Where were you guys?
Denny's, for taking 30 minutes to get me a damn milkshake, which ended up sucking, and forgetting to get my water. Bastards.
Shalane's car's starter, for shitting the bed
Me, for forgetting to pay GI for the beer.

EDIT: Added a prop.