[Announcement] ELD's Mox Tournament IV April 28th East Wareham, MA

[ELD]

I am pleased to announce the date for my fourth Mox Tournament.  At my last event, 25 of New England's best braved the treacherous conditions to test their might.  In the end, there could be only.....4.  With Team TPS landing three members in the top 4, a split was called for.  Daniel Gacioch, Ray Robillard, James Burlison and Dan Cunningham all walked home with a piece of immortality, and some well deserved swag.  Daniel Gacioch of TPS made the top for for his second time in as many events.  Ray Robillard, also of Team TPS, has managed top 8'd every one of my Mox Tournaments to date.   James Burlison a Type 2 member player and TPS member, made winning look easy in his first Vintage event ever.  Dan Cunningham, the only non-TPS member of the top 4 showed that his split at TempleCon was no fluke - Bomberman can get the job done in the hands of a skilled player. With Team TPS taking up 3 out of 4 slots in the top 4, will people start calling for the restriction of TPS members?  Perhaps just the banning of Ray Robillard?  Are they really that broken, or can the metagame adapt to stop the menace known as The Perfect Scrubs? 

First place prize will be a Mox Sapphire.



Here's the details:
ELD's Mox Tournament IV
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
$20 Entry Fee

at:
Gateway Comics Etc.
3103 Cranberry Highway
East Wareham, MA
www.GatewayComicsETC.com
774-269-6799
Parking in rear (no parking in front of the building)

Due to fire codes, the attendance cap is 45 people.  The only way to guarantee a spot is to pre-register.  You can do this by sending me an PM or e-mailing me at EricELD@comcast.net  You do not need to pay ahead of time, this is just to get a head count.  Everyone who pre-registers will be entered into a drawing for a Revised Taiga! 

Prizes (based on 29 people - everything but the Mox Sapphire will be adjusted based on attendance)
1st Place - UL Mox Sapphire shown above
2nd Place – Playset of 4x Beta Dark Rituals or 4x Foil FNM Brainstorms
3rd Place – Choice of Foil Darksteel Colossus or Foil Extirpate
4th Place – Card 3rd place does not pick
5th-8th   - Choice from Type 1 goodness such as Foil Rack and Ruin, Foil Rebuild, Foil Pyroclasm, Foil Eternal Witness, Foil Trinisphere, one of my previous proxies and much more.

I am going to give away the Mox Sapphire regardless of attendance.  Other places will be adjusted down if there are less than 29 players.  Prizes will be adjusted up if we have more than 29.  100% of the entry fees will be put towards the prizes.  That's what to expect out of all of my tournaments.

A Limited Edition hand-made Mox Sapphire Proxy will be given to every participant.  These proxies will not count towards your proxy count for all my future events.  I will only be making 45 of these.  Players may reserve specific numbered proxies when they pre-register.  Making these proxies is a month long process.  I will add updates to this thread as I complete each phase of production.  Below are proxies from my previous events. 



Cost
$20 for up to 10 proxies.  Additional proxies at $1 each. The Proxy Power cards from my previous events do not count towards your proxy count.

Registration will begin at 11:00.  The tournament will begin promptly at 12 pm.
Swiss rounds based on attendance.  Cut to top 8.

Proxy rules
10 Proxies with up to 5 additional proxies at $1 each (up to 15 total proxies)

Proxies must contain all oracle text including the full name of the card.  Proxies from my previous tournaments do not count as proxies.  For those of you who are familiar with SCG tournaments, I will be following their policy.  If you have any questions regarding proxies, be sure to ask before the start of the tournament.

Also -
Pizza will be available by the slice, as well as snacks and soda.
Side Drafts will take be available all day with discounted draft sets.
I will have singles for trade/sale
I will be buying cards.
      Commons/Uncommons/Lands mixed (at least 10% uncommon) @ $5 per 1000
      Bulk rares @ $0.10 each
      Bulk Foils @ $0.05 each
      Bulk Foil Rares @ $0.25 each
      I'll be buying any and all cards – turn your unwanted cards into cash!

Look forward to seeing you all there.

[Myriad Games]

Hooray!

[iamfishman]

Consider this to be me preregistering and requesting proxy #20 again.

Oh yeah...and my prediction for the other 7 spots(hey...trash talking is good for the game)

Dan Gagooch
Rich Meyst
Jim Burlison
Travis LaPlante
Sam Best
Dan Yarrington
Random Fish Player

[Demonic Attorney]

Might want to adjust those predictions just slightly, Ray.  I'm done with law school and this event should fall inside that precious window of time before the bar exam review starts. 

[The Atog Lord]

Man. I sure miss New England and its awesome Magic scene. I really hope to be around for one of these someday. In the meantime, go get 'em Chris.

[Kowal]

<--

Retirement is for suckers.  Now I just need to acquire some more Volrath's Shapeshifters. . .

[Myriad Games]

Looking forward to this, in a little under two weeks.

[ELD]

With Myriad getting 45 for their last event, we could definitely reach the attendance limit.  Once you're sure you can make it, please pre-register by PMing me or sending me an e-mail at EricELD@comcast.net  I'm going to get back to work on the proxies.  Only 10 days left.  I'll be posting pictures of the stages of development as we count down to the event. 

[Dxfiler]

I will be there.  This should be a good time.  Not going to be surprised if it hits the maximum of 45 people.  The NE vintage scene has been stacked lately.  With that said, please pre-reg me  =)

- Dave Feinstein

[ELD]

I will not have time to show the stages of development this time around.  I am happy with how the proxies are progressing, but they are going to take up all my spare time this week to finish by Saturday.  I keep making the design more complicated.  The end result is a better looking proxy, but the time required is exorbitant.  There are currently 27 players pre-registered, with several who have posted interest in this thread yet to sign up.  If you are sure you are going, please send me an e-mail at EricELD@comcast.net or a PM here on TMD.  EDIT If we hit more than 45 pre-registered, then we will try and find a way to accommodate.  I have spoken with the owner of Gateway Comics, and the 45 player limit is set in stone.  The only way to guarantee a seat is to pre-register.  

EDIT:

I will not have time to show the stages of development this time around.

I lied.  I can only draw for so many hours at a time. 



EDIT 3: From the owner of Gateway Comics

Can you also stress that the parking is along the BACK FENCE, so they don't take up all of the back parking spaces since its an all day thing.

They do not want to create any issues with the other stores.  This will be particularly important this time, as we are very likely to reach the player limit.  We already have 33 36 pre-registered players. 

[Myriad Games]

Rockin'

Sounds like a great time. Looking forward to it!

[Marek]

Like always I'll be there.  Should have a few coming up with me depending who doesn't already have plans for the 28th.  I'll most likely be tweaking my gifter-man build, I was quite pleased how it played last tournament at Myriad, even though it missed top 8.  As always, should be an excellent tournament.

See everyone there!

Marek

[ELD]

The final count for Pre-registered players is 40.  I'll see you all later today.

[ELD]

Thank you to everyone who made my fourth Mox Tournament a success.  We had 33 players and the competition was intense over 6 rounds of swiss.  I will have decklists of the Top 8 and final standings up later today. 

EDIT 1: Here is a scan of one of my favorite Proxy Mox Sapphire.  Everyone received one for entering. 
 

EDIT 2: You can find the tournament report here. 

[hulk3rules]

Hey ELD, I am just curious about what you do if people preregister but don't show up.  With the entrance capped at 45 and you saying there were 40 people preregistered already it may have prevented some people that were on the fence from going thinking they wouldn't get a seat.  Then I see only 33 players entered.  Just wondering

[ELD]

Hey ELD, I am just curious about what you do if people preregister but don't show up.  With the entrance capped at 45 and you saying there were 40 people preregistered already it may have prevented some people that were on the fence from going thinking they wouldn't get a seat.  Then I see only 33 players entered.  Just wondering

I have spoken to my lawyer, and apparently it is illegal to hunt down and eliminate those who pre-registered and no-showed.  I'm not sure what else you had in mind.  In all seriousness, pre-registration is only a tool to help estimate the turn out.  I totally understand that sometimes things come up, or people sleep in, or just don't feel up to the competition.  In the future, I would appreciate it if anyone who has pre-registered and will not be attending, would contact me to let me know.  I give away all the entry fees in prizes, so as long as I cover the guaranteed Mox it's pretty much all the same. 

I am not going to have an attendance cap on my next few events.  If we start getting over 45, then I will come up with a way to better deal with the space constraints of smaller venues.  I'll see you all on the 19th.

[Dxfiler]

I agree with the no attendance cap.  It lets people not worry about if they're going to get a spot or not.  My friend Chris was seriously concerned about being turned away.  I assured him this would not be the case.  We had two decks built the night before... the uw fish and the ss.  I wanted to play the ss, but gave Chris the choice.

He chose the SS.

He ends up splitting in the finals.

I did not :p (although another uw fish did...congrats to chad)

Here's the SS list Chris Thoms ran:

// Lands
    1  Swamp
    2  Flooded Strand
    4  Polluted Delta
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Underground Sea
    3  Wasteland
    2  Island

// Creatures
    4  Dark Confidant
    4  Dimir Cutpurse
    3  Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
    1  Psychatog

// Spells
    1  Ancestral Recall
    3  Stifle
    4  Duress
    1  Echoing Truth
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Time Walk
    4  Force of Will
    4  Brainstorm
    2  Engineered Explosives
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Shadow of Doubt
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Tormod's Crypt

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3  Diabolic Edict
SB: 1  Darkblast
SB: 3  Energy Flux
SB: 2  Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3  Threads of Disloyalty

It's a modified SS list given to me by my teammates on ICBM.  I did little tweaks to where I wanted the deck to be.  They had a maindeck sword of F/I main and mystical over demonic.  The sword is interesting but I can't picture this thing without a DT.  It won Chris a couple games, including game 3 against Brassman.

Speaking of HIM, this deck was tested at the brass residence and put up nice numbers.  Although they held their 'secret tech' from me, when I found out they ran rector/flash I told Chris I felt he had a good match.  Certain individuals in the Brass camp denied this, but the deck ended up more than holding its own in the top 4 against that Brass contraption. 

This isn't to say that I feel flash/rector isn't good... just the opposite.  It was a great surprise deck and if the oracle text on flash holds the deck will be a contender for some time to come.  Brassman had not lost a game up until top 4.  He had ample sideboard hate for perceived bad matchups such as 4 leyline in the board for ichorid (undoubtedly picking up tempo post future sight legality) and had a form of the dragon, the abyss and THREE massacres for UW fish (I wonder if he was specifically gunning for anyone :p). 

Bomberman showed up in force for this tourney and confidant tempo decks did as well.  Post FS legality I wonder if Aven Mindcensor will push both of these decks to the next level.  I had thought mindcensor was weak, but after seeing it in action I think it can be scary.

I'm pretty sure Ichorid is the deck to beat come future sight legality.  Everyone and their mother will probably be taking credit for versions of it stating theirs is 'the best,' but the fact of the matter is that you can completely screw up the maindeck and still probably have a great shot at top 8 with this archtype post future sight.  There's just too many good cards for this archtype now.

These are the general Feinsteinian musings of the tourney and upcoming format changes.  I am curious to see how the new format shapes up at next month's ELD and Myriad tourneys. 

See you in May.

- Dave Feinstein

[Zherbus]

Man. I sure miss New England and its awesome Magic scene. I really hope to be around for one of these someday. In the meantime, go get 'em Chris.

I miss it too.

Looks like I got some good peeps to toss cards at in the south now, at least. I'm just hankerin' for a post-Myriad stack of pancakes.