Scrubs can have fun too! - A Richmond Report

[Roxas]

        My plane landed in Richmond at around 2:30 Friday afternoon.  I happened to choose a rather overpriced cab to drive me over to the Super 8 where we would be staying, but I guess I was in too mellow a mood to really care very much.  Needing something other than look forward to being able to talk and test with the likes of Ben Kowal, Andy Probasco, Justin Timoney, and Rich Shay the night before the event, I access the motel's wireless intarweb with my laptop and fire up IRC to pass the time.
   Soon enough, Kowal's car shows up, and he, Justin, Jacob Orlove, and myself head over to find a place to eat.  After some roundabout detours, peeking into a super-shady Chinese place, and being confronted by a strange black male claiming to have the best chicken wings in Virginia, we end up in KFC.  We eat, leave, and arrive at the motel just after some Meandeckers arrive to pick up Orlove and bring him to Meandeck territory.
   Meanwhile, apparently Andy had managed to get lost and was somewhere in Delaware.  Kowal,  Justin, and myself started testing while awaiting their arrival.  Upon their arrival, a half dozen or so of us basically tested and discussed our decks until around 2AM the next morning, I imagine much to the ire of the three or four others in our room trying to sleep.  It was clear that much of this was unproductive, as after a while we were considering running some terrible cards like Predict.
   The next morning, after hitting McDonald's for breakfast, we head over to the convention center, where I barn the maindeck Shay had come up with that morning and help crank out a sideboard.  I failed to convince him that Lava Dart was wrong, and we both ended up running it.  I had left many of my cards at home, so I had to borrow some cards from JD and some ICBM guys.  Rich, being a savagely nice guy, then helps me resleeve my deck in shiny new KMC sleeves quickly, since the player meeting seatings had been called.

I didn't take notes, so these will be short and probably have a couple things wrong.  Even who I played in which round.

Round one, some guy I don't know playing B/w Confidant Fish or something

   I lose game one due to turn one Ritual, Duress taking my Thirst, and Null Rod nailing the several artifact mana in my hand.  I could probably have drawn out of it and recovered anyway since his clock was slow, but the combination of me only drawing duals and him having three Wastelands knocked out that possibility.  I proceed to blow him out games two and three; one particularly amusing part was when, at one point, he had four lands, Phyrexian Negator, and True Believer on the table.  I untap, fetch an Underground Sea, cast Massacre, Tinker up Triskelion, and mash his Negator to reduce his board to a single Scrubland.

Round two, Lyle (A Meandeck member, or at least friend) playing Meandeck Ichorid

   Lyle and I had met a couple times before and were pretty good acquaintances, so I wasn't particularly happy to be playing against him this early.  He takes game one because my hand was mostly full of counters, which are useless in this matchup.  I take games two and three, partly because he seemed to mulligan a lot.  Welder recurring Tormod's Crypt probably wasn't great for him either.

Round three, Kyle Leith playing Dragon

   Basically, he wins game one, I win game two, and game three goes to time.  I activate Mindslaver multiple times game three, but he has no gas so I couldn't kill him and we draw on time.

Round four, someone I don't know playing Flame Vault Gifts.

   I lose game one yet again rather soundly, and win game two equally soundly.  At one point in game three, we both had a Colossus on the table and draw-go for a bit.  I was at 2 life, from an earlier Colossus swing and some lost Mana Crypt rolls or something.  Eventually, he casts Darkblast during his upkeep, dredges, and tries to cast it again; I have the Mana Drain.  He swings me down to one.  I untap and Merchant Scroll for Echoing Truth, bouncing the big guys.  A couple turns or so later, he casts Time Vault, and time is called. 

Extra turn one: I untap, play Academy, cast Mindslaver and activate it.
Extra turn two: I make him skip a bajillion turns with Time Vault.  Or maybe eight.  Same difference.
Extra turn three: I hardcast Colossus.
Extra turn four: I swing.
Extra turn five: I swing for lethal damage.

Sooooo close.

Round five, Eric Becker playing GWS IT.

   We've played this matchup numerous times and are good buddies, so I was really unhappy to have gotten paired up against him (especially knowing that it is in his favor).  I do end up winning game one by stalling him with an early Tormod's Crypt, eventually going Time Walk, Tinker -> Colossus, swing, Will, Time Walk.  I lose game two to a first-turn Lotus, Duress, Therapy Confidant, soon followed by a second Therapy.  Game three, I manage to rip a Chalice after getting my hand stripped and play it for one, but I get super low on life from a Mana Crypt.  I activate Mindslaver on him a couple times, but since my Chalice stranded many of his cards, that didn't do a whole lot.  Losing flips plus a couple Confidant swings do me in.

Round six, Marc Perez playing U/b/w Fish.

   I had been looking forward to meeting Marc Perez, since Kowal and others had constantly told me how awesome a guy he is.  They were right.  Anyway, I just got crushed by the combined force of Duress, Null Rod, Kataki, Wasteland, and whatever else was in his deck.


   3-2-1 drop isn't the worst that could've happened, but doesn't win me anything.  Not to be discouraged, I go sign up for a Vintage side event.  I split the prize box with Ray (iamfishman) in the finals, after a very, very interesting match in which I went turn one Tinker -> Colossus on turn one both games (including activating Tormod's Crypt myself game one since he had an active Welder on the table), but with him finding a solution briefly and proceeding to lock me out of the game.
   Eventually, I follow Kowal out the door, and we went with all the Meandeckers not in the top eight to go out for dinner, eleven people in all.  We walk around looking for food and eventually end up at some diner, where some talk combo with Randy while the rest played type four.  The diner had nice food and service, and it was a good time.
   The Denny's that I accompanied Justin and Shay to after the event wasn't quite so nice, however.  Overpriced mediocre milkshakes followed by an excessive wait for our food was highly unpleasant.  Justin and Kowal left sooner than Rich and the others did, and I went with them since I was in their car and didn't order any real food, but apparently Shay managed to get the store management to let them have their food for free.
   Day two, I just don't play well.  I win round one, but then get raped by Stax round two and Madness (yeah, yeah, you can stop laughing now) round three.  I go sign up for another side event, smash Wild Zombies round one, beat Andy Probasco in two really close games round two, and split the box with Travis Laplante (another really cool guy) in the finals.  I also play some Skittles with Kevin Binswanger and Jacob Orlove, as well as search in vain for a place to eat lunch with Andy and end up eating vending machine food after walking in a mile-long circle. After the event, Rich, Andy, the others in their car, and myself meet up  with Jim Gaffney, Randy Buehler, Rian (kirdape3), and another Meandecker or two to go to another diner for dinner.  Jim had the biggest burger ever, and I had an awesome chicken teriyaki with OMG RICE dish. 
   After that, Jim left to go to bed and the rest of us went to have an 8-man draft in the basement of the Mariott.  It was an amusing draft in which I get the pleasure of getting smashed by Randy and Shay winning the whole thing with one of the worst draft decks I have ever seen.  Andy Probasco, Rich Shay, the other Andy, the other guy whose name I forget, and myself head over to Andy's car to drive back to our Super 8.  After first checking the wrong parking garage, we find that the garage that he did park in had been locked up for the night.  We end up having to sleep in the lobby of the Mariott for roughly an hour and a half until the garage reopened.  I eventually awaken to find Andy gone and everyone else dead.  I wake Rich up to ask if he knew where Andy went, but he didn't know, so I called  him up and found that he was already on the way here with his vehicle.  We head to the hotel and drop into bed, though Rich had to be driven back to the Mariott to meet up with JD in less than two hours.  At around 11AM, I exchange goodbyes with Andy and his crew, then call up the taxi to drive me to the airport. 
   Overall, it was a very fun weekend.  It was fun meeting many people I had never met before, and getting to re-meet Andy, Kowal, and Rich.  Clearly I was barning off the right people, since two of those three did super well in the main events.

Props:
-Andy Probasco and Ben Kowal for getting enough people for us to be able to get nice splits in paying for the motel, as well as making sure everyone who stayed paid me back since I footed the $500 bill.
-Rich Shay for being an awesome teammate and letting me barn his awesome list
-JD and team ICBM for lending me some cards
-SCG for running a great event
-The good diners we ate at Saturday and Sunday night
-Everyone else I met for being awesome people

Slops:
-Denny's
-Overpriced taxis
-Me for being bad at Magic

Hope I didn't bore you too much.  No list, because you can just go look up Rich's.  Mine was exactly the same.
 

[ErkBek]

Jesus, sorry about basically knocking you out of contention in round 5. What did you think of the chalices on your SB? Did they hurt you as much as they hurted me? 12-15 points of mana crypt damage = tech.

What's the deal with you winning every single side event (not just Richmond's) and scrubbing out in large tourneys? jk

-Eric

[Machinus]

Thanks for the report. It seems like most people had a really good time at this event.

[Roxas]

Jesus, sorry about basically knocking you out of contention in round 5. What did you think of the chalices on your SB? Did they hurt you as much as they hurted me? 12-15 points of mana crypt damage = tech.

No need to apologize.  You got a Mox and got to prove your previously underestimated deck worthy - I have no regrets.  ^_^

Anyway, I think the Chalices are excellent.  While being able to cast my own Welders and Ancestral would probably have been nice, not losing to those multiple Dark Rituals in your hand was also quite nice    I'll definitely continue running them in the future.  It was wonderful of Rich to consider them.

[Nefarias]

It was great meeting you, Reb-! Thanks for the hotel accomodations and great company.

[The Atog Lord]

Great hanging out with you.

Shay winning the whole thing with one of the worst draft decks I have ever seen.

This happens a lot. Just ask Dave Feinstein.

[UniversalSnip]

I proceed to blow him out games two and three; one particularly amusing part was when, at one point, he had four lands, Phyrexian Negator, and True Believer on the table.  I untap, fetch an Underground Sea, cast Massacre, Tinker up Triskelion, and mash his Negator to reduce his board to a single Scrubland.

Not to be holier than thou, but in that case you both played terribly . You failed to shoot negator with one counter at a time, and he failed to punish you by just sacrificing negator to the first one.

[w00t3n4t0r]

Sorry to here that you got paired against Eric. For shame for shame, but it sounds like you had an awesome time. Good luck next time and I hope to see you in St. Louis again. Good job on that side event as well.

[Nefarias]

I proceed to blow him out games two and three; one particularly amusing part was when, at one point, he had four lands, Phyrexian Negator, and True Believer on the table.  I untap, fetch an Underground Sea, cast Massacre, Tinker up Triskelion, and mash his Negator to reduce his board to a single Scrubland.

Not to be holier than thou, but in that case you both played terribly . You failed to shoot negator with one counter at a time, and he failed to punish you by just sacrificing negator to the first one.

Not to be holier than thou, but Reb- may have played sloppily, but it was clearly the correct play, considering the result. Shooting it one at a time would likely have resulted in his opponent still having four lands. Tricking your opponent into making poor plays, intentional or not, is solely the fault of your opponent. Sometimes assuming your opponent will play poorly, if there is reasonable evidence to suggest that he will,  should alter your own decisions.

During the draft, Randy B. was telling us about how his opponent knew that he had a Hurkyl's Recall from a previous Duress and, instead of developing his board, Randy passed the turn, assuming his opponent would go for the FlameVault kill that turn. He did, Randy Hurkyled, and won because of it.

[Machinus]

During the draft, Randy B. was telling us about how his opponent knew that he had a Hurkyl's Recall from a previous Duress and, instead of developing his board, Randy passed the turn, assuming his opponent would go for the FlameVault kill that turn. He did, Randy Hurkyled, and won because of it.

I don't think he had the bounce spell in hand when I duressed him. If I had known I would have probably waited to get a blue card for the force in my hand.

There were two duresses that game, but they were both early, and I only remember seeing black cards.

[UniversalSnip]

I proceed to blow him out games two and three; one particularly amusing part was when, at one point, he had four lands, Phyrexian Negator, and True Believer on the table.  I untap, fetch an Underground Sea, cast Massacre, Tinker up Triskelion, and mash his Negator to reduce his board to a single Scrubland.

Not to be holier than thou, but in that case you both played terribly . You failed to shoot negator with one counter at a time, and he failed to punish you by just sacrificing negator to the first one.

Not to be holier than thou, but Reb- may have played sloppily, but it was clearly the correct play, considering the result. Shooting it one at a time would likely have resulted in his opponent still having four lands. Tricking your opponent into making poor plays, intentional or not, is solely the fault of your opponent. Sometimes assuming your opponent will play poorly, if there is reasonable evidence to suggest that he will,  should alter your own decisions.

During the draft, Randy B. was telling us about how his opponent knew that he had a Hurkyl's Recall from a previous Duress and, instead of developing his board, Randy passed the turn, assuming his opponent would go for the FlameVault kill that turn. He did, Randy Hurkyled, and won because of it.

With all due respect,

1) An embarassingly high proportion of the time, the wrong play wins you the game. The correct play is the one that gives you highest probability of getting the win.

2) If he was already being "blown out" as the report suggests, it seems unlikely Reb- would have lost the game in any case. He is not describing a deck that will realistically beat a developed slaver postion with a two counter trike. Going for a stylish but inferior win indicates disrespect for the possiblity of losing, a crucial mental error.

3) In all probability, Reb- just didn't consider the interaction. Not a problem, not a diss on Reb-. Nobody is perfect.

4) The randy example isn't related to the question in hand at all. In that case, if Randy tapped out he risked losing on the spot. "Leave mana open or die" isn't all the same as a win-more play.

5) There are a million ways it could go wrong. What if the opponent just sacs negator first? What if, in his slow pondering, he picks up each permanent and puts it in the graveyard seperately? You'd have to correct him on every perm past the negator or resign yourself to being the svg cheatz. What if he rips darkblast and you rip welders? Bet that 3/3 would have been handy now. etc

[Kowal]

Alright guys, this thread is for the report.  You've both made your opinions clear; if you want to pursue the argument please start a thread for it elsewhere.[/color]