I don’t have access to the tournament forum, so I’m hoping the mods can move this there and maybe merge it with the july 24th dual mox Pittsfield tournament.
This was the first serious tournament I’ve ever been to, so I was pretty shocked to get second place, never mind getting into the top eight out of 47 some odd players. I got up way too early on a Saturday and drove up with Sam B. We missed our entrance onto the pike and wound up stuck behind slow bastards on route 20, which meant that we got there at 11:45, just in time to get registered and do my final tuning. On the way up I decided to cut the chalice of the voids for 2 artifact mutation and 2 mox monkeys. I figured that with ten proxies, there would be workshop decks everywhere, so I admit I planned for it. I expected more bloodmoon and rack and ruin, which explains the BeB’s in sideboard instead of ReB’s. Here’s the final list:
Sloppy7/10.dec (last minute name)
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana crypt
1 Mana vault
4 Mishra’s workshop
4 Wastelands
3 City of brass
2 gemstone mine
2 glimmervoid
2 ancient tomb
1 Strip mine
1 Tolarian academy
(28)
3 gilded lotus
4 Trinisphere
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Goblin welder
2 sundering titan
2 gorilla shaman
1 Memnarch
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
(48)
4 Thirst for knowledge
1 Memory jar
1 Demonic tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Time walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 artifact mutation
(59?)
I’m trying to remember what was in that 60th slot, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was…I’ll check when I get home from work and update the list.
Edited in here: The 60th card is Tinker, as pointed out below
Sideboard:
4 Blue elemental blasts (bad call on the meta)
3 tormod’s crypt
2 artifact mutation
2 rack and ruin
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
Ok, now on to the matches:
Round 1 vs. Chris playing Draw 7
Game 1:
I think I may have won the roll and went first, tossing out a first turn time walk off a mox pearl and gemstone mine. Next turn I dropped a mox monkey off the city of brass I drew, knocking my life to 19. This is important, because he went nuts next turn but stalled his spell count at eight right before doing tendrils for 9, and 18 damage. I’m left at 1. My monkey ate his mox diamond and then pearl, and startd some beatings. I locked him down with trinisphere and crucible and he scooped. I remember tossing out ancestral on turn 2 (well, 3, since I time walked) which gave me a serious advantage.
+1 platinum angel/-1 duplicant
Game 2: I got a platinum angel opening hand, and the stuff to cast it. He mulligans down to 5. I think he dropped a land, then I dropped a land, then he went berserk on his second turn with memory jar into timetwister into….a hand full of crap. He showed it to me, lots of expensive blue spells like diminishing returns, and not a single acceleration card. I dropped an angel and then a trike and beat him down after locking the game with a trinisphere again. I think I DT’d for memnarch to steal his permanents, but there was no need.
Round 2 vs. Doug playing Gro-a-tog
Game 1: He won the coin flip. I was pretty nervous at this point, since I didn’t even expect to win my first round, and I made some mistakes, like trying to do a timewalk with 2 mana under my own trinisphere. I tried to do an early duplicant to hit his psychatog, but he countered it. I did resolve a 7/10 after a while, which held of his tog. Eventually I got welder, swapped duplicant in to remove his tog, and beat him down.
+3 crypt, +1 angel
-1 crucible, -3 something else? My notes fall apart here. I think I may have ditched a gilded lotus and artifact mutation.
Game 2: I was even more nervous now, and I mulligan to 6, draw 7 anyhow like a retard, and have to mulligan to 5. Ouch. We do a lot of draw-go, both of us played crypts to hose the other guy, but eventually a tog hits me berserked for 18 damage, which happened to be my life total.
Game 3: I get an early mox monkey. He counters a welder. A psychatog hits play, and he starts the 1 hit beats. Eventually his graveyard + hand gets big enough to be scary, and I have to block with monkey, and then drop a welder to chump block. I had to sit with no lands for a while (damn no artifact glimmervoid) until I draw black lotus. He nails my lotus with naturalize, and I vamp for a workshop that I would have drawn next turn anyhow. The workshop allows me to power out a gilded lotus. I think I may have crypted him to stall the tog of doom. He countered a titan, but then wasn’t able to stop my platinum angel. He knocks me to 0 life and starts looking for a way to kill the angel. I start beating him, and get a trinisphere, which stalls him. He uses cunning wish to get berserk to kill my angel (he was at 9) but it was a turn to late, and I knock him to 5 before he can berserk it. It was a really tight game, and he was a good sport about the loss, and I appreciate him kind of cheering me on as I ground through the following matches.
Round 3 vs. Crossman playing U/R fish
Game 1:
I forget who went first (I think it was him). I tinkered in an early titan, with 1 mana free to avoid daze. The titan stomps on man land chump blockers, but eventually he runs out and titan beats him down.
+2 artifact mutate ( I fear null rod)
-1 memnarch, -1 duplicant
Game 2:
I mulligan to 6, but it’s still crap. I think he wasted one of my lands, I got a welder out with no artifacts in play. He gets a grim lavamancer, so my welder hits for one before getting fried. I lose to man land beatdown/grim beatings.
Game 3: I got a first turn trinisphere off wasteland/sol ring/manavault. I wasted a mishra’s factory and then strip his volcanic. I drop a crucible and lock his lands down, and he never gets a chance to play as my mox monkey and welder beat him down. I finally tinker in another 7/10 and he scoops.
Round 4 vs. Kent playing Stax
Game 1:
He mulligans to 6, and I get the best hand ever. Mox ruby -> Mox monkey -> workshop -> Manavault -> gilded lotus -> crucible. Next turn I DT for a strip mine and eat a mox, and lock him down. I remember my mox monkey actually ate his crucible, so he never was able to recover. I think he scooped.
+2 artifact mutation. For some reason I didn’t think I needed rack and ruin.
-1 titan, -1 duplicant
Game 2:
I mulligan to 6, thinking I have a great hand, until he drops a trinisphere first turn and stops both of my moxen. Then comes a smoke stack, and eventually I lose to his 7/10 with no permanents in play.
Game 3:
I got out 2 welders and a mox monkey within the first two or three turns. My welders start messing with his stax and tangle wires. It looked like he’d be able to win the permanent race with a stack in play, until I kill a gemstone mine and sack a black lotus to cast an artifact mutation on his stack during my upkeep. I burn for 2, but the saprolings take the hits from the smoke stack and tanglewire, and I’m able to cast stuff.
My monkey eats a big meal again by chomping a tanglewire at one point, and I art. Mutated another stack and eventually win by beating him with 4 surviving saprolings a turn.
Round 5 vs. Sam playing Miracle Gro?
We take a draw, since we’re both a lock into top 8, and I take a break. We play three games casually without SB. I beat him game one by stealing his dryad with memnarch, he stomps me game two, and I rolled him game 3. I manage to find time to get some lunch, so I’m starting to relax a bit (finally)
Round 6 vs. Steve playing….something
After lengthy discussion I concede to him to let him into top 8, since I’m the rank 1 player at that point and there’s pretty much no way I can’t get into top 8. Then someone tells me that I may not make it, but I’m to tired to be really disturbed, and I’m still pretty sure I’m in. I sat around for a bit, not sure if I’m in or out of top 8 until Hale comes over and says we’re playing for top 4 slots.
Finals, round 1, vs. Hale (purple hat) playing Monobrown workshop affinity
Game 1:
He has a stronger start than I, getting out arcbound crusher and genesis chamber, and a frogmite, and hits me pretty hard one round with a cranial plating on the crusher. I realize that I need a miracle, and pray for something…and draw an artifact mutation. He attacks, thinking he’s got me, and I mutate his crusher, and then swap his new 7/7 frogmite for the crusher to stop all attackers. He hadn’t had a single artifact in the graveyard up till that point so my welder couldn’t do much to him. I turned the game around and beat for the win. I remember him saying something like “What?!? Maindeck artifact mutation?!?! What the hell is that!?!?� but he took it well and had a great sense of humor over the whole thing.
+2 artifact mutation, +2 rack and ruin
-1 titan, -1 trinisphere (not too bright, in retrospect), -1 memnarch, -1 thirst
Game 2:
I’ll just say that 17/1 ornithopters win games. I did manage to hit his myr enforcer with my duplicant, but that’s about as impressive as game 2 got from my side. I finally realized that he was playing mono-brown at this point.
+1 pentavus (I need flyers, damnit), -1 duplicant
Game 3:
First turn crucible, second turn wasteland locks him out. I took some hits from my mana crypt, and I shot a wimpy 2/2 crusher with my triskelion. I beat him for 2 for a while, until I got a pentavus into play and he scooped.
Finals, round 2, vs. Dave playing 4cc.
I watched Dave playing another 4cc for top 4 to get some intel on what I might be facing, so for once I knew exactly what I was facing before we even started.
Game 1:
I think I won the die roll. He counters a 1st turn trinisphere, only to have me cast a crucible the next round, powering through a standstill. He has no counters, and I start wasting his lands, and he scoops almost immediately, to my great surprise.
+1 sundering titan, +1 pentavus (flyers are good!)
-1 memnarch, -1 artifact mutation
Game 2:
This game goes almost exactly the same. He counters an early trinisphere, I punch through a standstill with crucible again, he can’t counter it, but seems to want to play it out, until I waste both of his lands. He made a big mistake in going for standstill instead of wasting my workshop, which allowed me to hammer both of his lands. He scoops soon, without either one of us having dealt even one point of damage to each other.
My respect for crucible is huge now.
Top 2, vs. Sam (again) playing Miracle Gro (I think)
We just split, since he wanted the emerald to trade for a jet, and I was going to sell whichever mox I got back to the store.
We played it out anyways; I locked him with crucible/strip first game, followed by a welder and memory jar into two titans. Second game he shut me down with back to basics and beat me with a dryad. Third game he got the best hand I’ve ever seen, with a fast back to basics + null rod. I sat there doing nothing while he beat me down with dryad, again.
Back to basics + null rod = me scooping from now on. I’m going to have to find an answer for those cards. At this point I show him my 4 BeB’s in SB that were completely useless the whole tournament, and we both had a pretty good laugh about it.
Not too bad for my first serious tournament ever, I think I’m still in shock over getting 2nd place. Everyone seems to do a props/slops section in their reports at the end, so here’s mine:
Props:
Sam B. for keeping me awake on the drive home, getting me to run with the monkeys/mutations over chalice, and trading me a null rod.
Everyone else at T&T collectibles for being nice, friendly, and completely non-cutthroat.
The owner of T&T collectibles for buying back a mox ruby that he really didn’t want.
CoW for winning me 6 matches alone.
The little deli across the street for making me a damn good turkey grinder fast enough for me to eat it between matches.
Slops:
The state of Connecticut, because the f***ing gas tax is way more here than it is in Mass.
BeB, because damnit, you were a useless to me, and I wish you were red.
Back to basics and null rod. That’s just dirty.
