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koxl0003
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« on: October 12, 2004, 04:10:23 am » |
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Date: October 10th, 2004
Location: Dreamers, St. Louis Park, MN
Format: Vintage, 5 Proxies allowed.
Prize for 1st: place: Mox Ruby (Unlimited)
Attendance: 43
Once again it was time for Dreamers’ monthly Vintage Power tournament, and I and Dan, my
friend and teammate made the 2 hour drive from southern MN. He’s playing 4cc, and I am once
again playing Salvagers combo, after making top 4 with it last month at Dreamers.
For reference, here’s the decklist:
Creatures (11):
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage
2 Exalted Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
Draw (8):
4 Brainstorm
3 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall (Proxy)
Utility (5)
2 Cunning Wish
1 Time Walk (Proxy)
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Tinker
Counters (8)
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
non-mana Artifacts (4):
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
Mana (24):
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Mox Pearl (Borrowed)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy)
1 Sol Ring
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
2 Plains
2 Island
Total: 60
Sideboard:
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Stifle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod’s Crypt
The change I made from last month to the maindeck are -2 Aether Spellbomb, +2 Exalted
Angel. The Exalted Angels I sided in basically every game last month, and the Aether
Spellbombs out, so this month I made the change, basically ‘presideboarding.’
I also cut Tolarian Academy.
In the Sideboard: -2 Exalted Angel -1 Misdirection, +1 Stifle, +1 Engineered Explosives,
+1 Tormod’s Crypt. The Angels moved to the main, freeing up the spots for the Explosives
and the Crypt, and I decided that the Stifle would be more useful than the Misdirection.
On to the report!
Round 1 vs. Josh, playing Workshop Aggro
Game 1 I win the roll, and keep a hand with the Salvagers a Trinket Mage, and a Pyrite
Spellbomb, meaning that all I have to do is resolve the Trinket Mage for the Lotus and I’ll
have all my combo pieces. 1st turn I play Land Mox, go. He plays Workshop, Mox, Juggernaut
go. On my next turn I play Land, Trinket Mage, which gets me the Lotus, and pass the turn. He
plays land, and attacks with the Juggernaut. I chump with the Trinket Mage and he passes the
turn. I untap, resolve the Lotus, the Salvagers, and the Spellbomb. He hasn’t seen the combo
before, but figures it out once I have it in play, and scoops.
Game 2 I side in 2 Disenchant for 1 Impulse and 1 Trinket Mage. I keep a hand with land,
Tinker, and a couple artifacts. He plays Vampiric Tutor early. I play Tinker and fetch out
the Darksteel Colossus. He scoops when he realizes his deck has no answer that will be fast
enough.
Games 2-0, Matches 1-0
Round 2 vs. Luke, playing Workshop Aggro
Game 1 I win the roll and keep a decent hand with Land, Mox Ruby, Trinket Mage and Pyrite
Spellbomb. He gets a first turn Goblin Welder, but has no other action, except for a Wasteland
or 2, slowing down my Trinket Mage enough to get in 3 attacks with the Welder, and keep me
from killing the Welder with my Spellbomb. Eventually, I kill his Welder and get my Trinket
Mage in play. I Force of Will his Juggernaught,. Eventually he resolves a Trinisphere and a
Crucible of Worlds., and has Wasted me down to no lands, Mox Ruby and the Trinket Mage. He
comments that he’s going to lose to the Trinket Mage, and it looks that way for quite some time,
as his board consists of nothing but lands and the Trinisphere and Crucible.
The combination of the Mage and Fetchlands gets him down to 6, but I still have no way
around his Trinisphere/Crucible/Wasteland lock. He manages to draw and resolve 2 Goblin
Welders and a second Trinisphere, which puzzles me, until he welds the Juggernaught back in
during my attack step to block my Mage. I scoop.
Game 2 I side in artifact kill, and out Impulse and Trinket Mage. Unfortunately, he gets
an early Trinisphere/Crucible/Wasteland lock going, and I scoop when I am forced to discard
1 of my 2 Islands to a Memory Jar.
Games 2-2 Matches 1-1
Round 3 vs. Joel, playing 4cc.
I don’t remember these games very well, so this will be brief.
Game 1 he has more counters than I do and his Exalted Angel finishes me.
Game 2 is more of the same, except this time it’s Soldiers off a Decree of Justice that do
cleanup.
Games 2-4 Matches 1-2
Round 4 vs Sean playing 4cc
Game 1 we play Fetch, fetch a land, Go for several turns, though I do draw an extra card off
a Pyrite Spellbomb, which finds a Trinket Mage, which when I play he has to read.
The Trinket Mage finds me the Lotus, and I have Salvagers in hand. He plays
Tormod’s Crypt, which is a concern, but not insurmountable.
I resolve the Lotus and go for the Salvagers. He has to read the Salvagers and appears to
understand the combo, as he plays Force of Will. I Brainstorm in response and find my own
Force, allowing the Salvagers to resolve. I have an extra White and a Blue untapped, and he
asks if that’s it for my turn. I respond “Well, I’m going to try to win now, you might stop me.�
I return the Lotus to my hand once, and he has no response. I use the Lotus for White, and he
still has no response. I return the Lotus and play it again, breaking it for White again. Finally
he gets what is going on, and uses the Crypt. At this point I have 4 White floating, and simply
respond to his Crypt by returning the Lotus and the Spellbomb to my hand, and he now
understands the combo, as he scoops.
Game 2 is a marathon game.
Now that he knows the combo, he manages to counter my Salvagers, with the Lotus and the
Spellbomb in the ‘yard. Sadly, he has Crypt again, and uses it, removing a good number of
cards. He has sided in Flametounge Kavu, which he plays, offing a Trinket Mage, and beating
me up with it until I find Cunning Wish for Swords to Plowshares, bringing him up to 14, with
me on 10. .
We are both down to topdecking with most of the lands in our decks in play. I topdeck Exalted
Angel. He has 1 card in hand, but it’s not a counter, and my Angel resolves. On his
turn he resolves another Kavu, doing the 4 damage to my Angel, and then plays Fire to finish
it off. I get attacked down to 6, then topdeck another Cunning Wish, getting my second Swords
and Swords the Kavu, bringing him up to 17. I find a Trinket Mage, getting a Pyrite. The Mage
goes unanswered for 5 turns, and he Disenchants a Pyrite, which I use to do 2 damage to him
in response, leaving him at 5.
He resolves an Angel, and I topdeck Tinker and go for it. It resolves, and I get the Colossus. He
topdecks Fact or Fiction, which he plays. This was the worst FoF I’ve ever seen from my
point of view: Demonic Tutor, Black Lotus, Exalted Angel, Decree of Justice and Time Walk.
Well folks, what would you do? Under no circumstances can Time Walk and either Decree or
Angel be in the same pile. I split it: Angel and Decree in one pile, Time Walk, Demonic and
the Lotus in the other. He takes the Angel/Decree pile, and proceeds to hardcast the Decree for
2 Angel tokens, and passes the turn. I draw land, survey the situation, and scoop. Time has
been called for the Round, so we draw.
Games 3-5 Matches 1-2-1 Blech.
Round 5 vs. Brad, brother of Luke from Round 2, playing Dragon. .
Game 1 I play Land, Pyrite Spellbomb, go. He plays land, Vampiric Tutor go. I play Land, Lotus,
Salvagers, with one land untapped, and pass the turn. He gets his combo, makes infinite mana,
and after using Bazaar of Baghdad through most of his deck, finds Ambassador Laquatus.
I ask if he wants to do it the easy way or the hard way, and he chooses the hard way. He mills
me for 3 repeatedly, until I hit my Darksteel Colossus, which I shuffle back in. At this point
I explain and he realizes that the Colossus will be left in my library no matter how many times
he mills me, and that I can then untap, draw the Colossus, and win with my combo. I explain
that I realized that the Colossus gives me some protection from Dragon by reading a thread
on a message board, themanadrain.com. He says he wishes I hadn’t, and scoops to my
combo.
Sadly, I figured this out a month too late, as last month I lost a game in Top 4 vs. Dragon that
I should have won, which would at least have meant a Game 3. C’est la vie. At least I learned
something.
Game 2 is about the same. I get my combo, he gets his, but has no way around my Colossus.
The only variation this game is that he Stifles my Salvagers to buy himself an extra turn to try
to find an answer. He doesn’t, and I win with my combo.
Games 5-5 Matches 2-2-1
Round 6 vs. Chris, playing R/G beats.
My friend and teammate, Dan, had played Chris last round so I already knew what he was
playing before the Match started. I remarked to Chris that I didn’t really want to play against
what he was playing.
Game 1 I keep a hand with the Salvagers among other cards.
he gets an early River Boa and Null Rod in play, but I have Cunning Wish for
Disenchant and a Pyrite Spellbomb to kill the Boa while he is tapped out. He seems
unconcerned, and I see why when he plays Kird Ape and adds Rancor to it. He swings twice
with the angry Ape and plays a second Kird Ape. At the end of his turn I play Cunning Wish,
grabbing Mystical Tutor, which I play, leaving me a Plains untapped with a Pyrite in play.
I grab the Enlightened Tutor, and use the Plains to draw a card off my Pyrite. I untap and
play the Enlightened Tutor at the beginning of my Upkeep, grabbing the Lotus. I play the
Lotus, break it for White and resolve the Salvagers. He is familiar with the Combo, and scoops.
Game 2 I side in 2 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Blue Elemental Blast, 1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mystical Tutor,
for 2 Cunning Wish, 1 Impulse, 1 Trinket Mage, 1 Time Walk, 1 Enlightened Tutor.
For some reason, I forgot all
about his Null Rod, my only thoughts being “It’s Aggro, side in creature kill!� So of course
He plays Null Rod on his first turn, off a Lotus, and adds a River Boa for good measure. I
realize my mistake at once, but since I have other win conditions, I’m not too concerned.
My hand includes Mystical Tutor, which I manage to resolve, grabbing Tinker. I Tinker
for the usual Darksteel Colossus, but of course I have an Island in play, so he attacks me down
to 11 anyway, and plays a second Boa. I attack him down to 10, as his Boa gets in the way and
Regenerates. On his turn he plays Land, Go. I draw a Blue Elemental Blast and attack him down
to 1. He topdecks a Forest and concedes, showing me his hand of Lightning Bolt and Blood
Moon. He asks if he had topdecked a second Bolt if I had the counter, and I flash the BEB.
Games 7-5 Matches 3-2-1
I keep my streak of above .500 finishes alive, My teammate finishes 4-2, and we stick around
long enough to find out that 4-1-1 is the cutoff for Top 8, and that he has finished in 14th. I
finish 15th. Overall, I am happy with my deck. This month’s matchups were tougher, and
I wasn’t as lucky. That’s life.
For next month, I plan on the following minor tweaks:
-2 Polluted Delta +1 Island, +1 Plains or Plateau, probably the Plains, and swapping the
Mystical Tutor into the Maindeck and the Enlightened Tutor into the Sideboard.
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