[report] 2-3-2 @ Waterbury

Pre-tourney

Ok, so me and some of the lads decided to head down to Waterbury for the big magic tourney in the hopes of winning glory and power. Unfortunately none of my party was able to walk away with anything unless you count Jacob winning a number of random foils from the Trivia contest. So, I got my car and headed down to Brandeis to pick up Jacob Orlove who initially was supposed to ride with Jeff Anand but was sentenced....I mean had to go with me. Also joining our party was Ted from MIT (Panda Pokemon Unreg) and Mark from BC. Myself and Jacob managed to get lost on the way back to BC from Brandeis, but eventually find our way back to BC, get a meal, get in a little playtesting amongst some slack jawed gawking BC students. We decide to retire early in order to get a little sleep advantage on the competition and when Ted gets in around midnight we call it quits and head to bed for the night......until Jeff decides that we're due for a little visit. Just as the crew of Chevy 205 was asleep somebody begins kicking on the door, I initially hope it's some random drunkard, but it's Jeff, Mike O'Neill, Jeff's gf Dyannah and kerz. Jeff makes sure to jump on top of Jacob and then push him out of the bed. I use the opportunity to find out some directions and about how long the drive would be. (note to self, never trust self with verbal directions). After Jeff heads back to his own dorm myself and the lads return to sleep and get a solid 6 to 7 hours of sleep, sleep pwned! After a quick breakfast we head to the car and start on our journey to Waterbury. Needless to say I once again became horribly lost and eventually we extrapolated to go down to RI via 95 then switching to some highway going to CT would be the right play. Well, we certainly took the scenic route through wanker county CT for the slim price of only one extra driving hour. Mark entertains us all by making fun of the various local businesses. Upon arriving we get inside, get the hand stamps (I had to scrub off a few layers of skin in the shower to get it off this morning, unfortunately the stench of failure doesn't come off so easily) and we spring through deck registration as well as loaning and borrowing cards from various sources. I laugh a little on the inside to see Memnarch is playing Ostompy and loan out some Null Rods to the Memnarch and ask The Atog Lord to fix my sideboard for me. I hurry through deck reg and make it just in time.

Tourney

Round 1 vs. Sam Atill with GAT variant

Game 1: I'm still not entirely sure of what he was playing, I think it was some sort of GAT deck although I never saw any tog action in two rather long games. Normally I consider matchups vs. Tog based decks to be the nutz, but unfortunately none of my slavers get through game one and I'm kinda light on the welders as well. Dryads swing for the win.

Game 2: We make it a sufficient way through the game before I set up a soft slaver lock, platinum angel beats for the win dealing the last four points of damage on turn 5.

We draw, oh well, at least I'll get control decks all day now.

Games (1-1) Matches (0-0-1)

Round 2: Andy(Brassman) with GAT
Andy's a rather likeable fellow from Scholars, his shirt proudly proclaims him as a member of team brass man "kicking brass since 19XX" or something to that extent, he's amused by my excellent Moobius custom proxies, I'm amused by his excellent series of rook cases, everybody's happy. I don't sign a brass man due to a dead sharpie and assure him I'll be on the lookout for Christopher Rush signed brass men.

Game 1:
My draw's pretty decent, quite a bit of fast mana and some decent spells to cast. After I've established a decent amount of counters I force through a platinum angel, he thinks for a few moments then concedes as his deck has not way to deal with Platinum Angel.

Game 2:
My draw's not so hot, but not mulligan worthy, I actually go welder aggro on him and kick some brass of my own, welders go all the way.
Games (3-1) Matches (1-0-1)

Round 3 vs. Mike Playing Ninja Mask

Game 1:
Mike goes ahead and drops illusionary mask, and the game is afoot, fortunately his excellent artifact creatures have to face down my goblin welders and get traded in for such excellent artifacts as things that are not Phyrexian Dreadnoughts. While he attempts to play around my red men I do a little work of my own and establish a hard slaver lock. I explain the situation to him, and he concedes.

Game 2:
Mike decides to be the best and drop the turn one ground seal...this makes me a very sad panda. Fortunately I had a little sb tech of my own, Mike confidently flips over his face down creature, which, much to my surprise is none other than a phyrexian dreadnought with only my teeeny tiny goblin welder to stare him down, fortunately my untapped volcanic and sol ring have something to say about it, I rack and ruin his only mask as well as his dreadnought, now who's the sad panda? I work my way towards a position where I can echoing truth his ground seal and set up a slaver lock for a few turns. I do so, I find he has three ground seal in hand and periodically eliminate them by having him play them then counter them, I establish a hard lock and pentavus and his buddies take care of business.

My draw was the absolute nutz both games, I had everything I needed exactly when I needed it, my deck must really hate ninja mask.

Games (5-1) Matches (2-0-1)

Round 4 vs. Paul playing GAT

Game 1:
The simple story is that welder beat down is not as good as Dryad beat down, I'm able to get off a few random slavers, but miss out on the togs, his large men keep me in some trouble.

Game 2:
See game 1

Games (5-3) Matches (2-1-1)

Round 5 vs. Rich Playing Landstill

Game 1:
Yeah, this matchup isn't so good, I don't draw any Fire/Ice, and this deck doesn't have strip effects. I get rolled over. It's starting to look more and more like I'm not going to be able to pay the cumulative upkeep on my Illusions of Grandeur, and there's no donate in this game.

Game 2:
See Game 1....at this point I'd settle for delusions of mediocrity.

Games (5-5) Matches (2-2-1)

Round 6 vs Corey w/Tog

Game 1:
I've been statistically eliminated from t16 and I'm pretty down in the dumps after a reasonably promising start. My draw's not the best, but I keep regardless. My hand gets destroyed, this too makes me a sad panda, with my Yawg will duressed away and him with a full grip it's looking pretty terrible and it's only a matter of time before I'm scooping up the cards.

Myself and Corey chat for a bit about the merits and weaknesses of Fire/Ice over other cards such as mystical tutor and such. I think he took my comments about being fairly happy with Fire Ice as adversarial.

Game 2:
This game was actually kind of hazy, I forget what happened, I checked my score sheet, apparently I won with some wierd life total intervals in his loss of life.

Game 3:
We play some game, time is called, on turn 5 he topdecks will but is unable to kill me, hooray for draws.

Games (6-6) Matches (2-2-2)

Round 7 vs Guy with random Combo off with skullclamp genesis chamber ravager deck

Game 1:
I was a little surprised to see this guys deck, he basically plays a ton of mana sources, genesis chamber, some other 1/1's and skullclamp and ravager. Game 1 it doesn't go down, I mindslave him and leave him with no permanents, he concedes.

Game 2:
This time his deck does get to go off, he nets huge card advantage, sacs a million guys to ravager, swings with a ton of guys, moves the counters and wins the game.

Game 3:
Like Game 1 with two Disciple of the Vault on the table.

Games (7-8) Matches (2-3-2)

I totally suck, everybody in my car managed to not make t16 despite some excellent starting records, we stay for the trivia tournament where I know exactly 2 questions out of the dozens he asked, Jacob distributes his random foils, I keep them as memoirs of the trip. I watch Memnarch play out his second match vs. FCG where he just gets overrun and get my null rods back. On the Ride home Mark rolls down the window which summarily decided not to roll back up, at least we make it back early. Mark sells his lotus to Ted for a shitload of money and some chrome moxen.

Obligatory Props:
Jeff Anand (Samite Healer) for loaning me cards I need.
Jacob Orlove for loaning me cards I need and getting directions back and handing out random foils.
Ted (Panda Pokemon) for chipping in for gas, you can have the bed instead of the air mattress next time.
Rich Shay (The Atog Lord) for making my deck and helping me make a sideboard.
Dave Fienstein (Dxfiler) for getting SOMETHING of mine into glory, to be discarded to bazaar of baghdad then sideboarded out.
Ray for only haviing ONE round two and cleverly killing stok's tourney.
Ray for bringing my backpack to the tourney for me.
Andy, for having cool rook boxes and the largest collection of brass men I've ever seen
Mark for making a deck comprised nearly entirely of Mountain goats and Cabrito....the zorro of goats.

Obligatory Slops:
Jeff for waking me up.
Mark for breaking my car window.
Jacob for bringing fruit despite my insistence that he not do as such.
Rich Shay for not playing Control Slaver and choosing Norwood over BC.
Everybody who forgot to give the Meddling Mage props, you know who you are.