Despite my immense magic theorycrafting skills, this is my first actual Vintage tourney, and hence my first tourney report, be gentle.
It has been a couple months now since my friend John and I had came back into the game, right on the tail of the unrestriciton of Gush. Grow decks had been on the rise as I had last left the game and someone in at R&D had apparently decided I needed a chance to play a deck with four Gushes having missed out on it the first time around.
GAT #7562
Draw More Cards:
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
3 Opt
4 Gush
Look for Cards:
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Cunning Wish
Stop Your Cards:
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Duress
3 Stifle
Swing:
4 Quirion
1 Psychatog
Other:
1 Fastbond
1 Fire/Ice
1 Echoing Truth
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Yawg Will
1 Black Lotus
3 Mox (UBG)
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
3 Trop Island
3 USea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Trickbind
3 Oxidize
1 Rebuild
2 Pyroblast
1 Berserk
1 Submerge
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Fire/Ice
Rebuild was out of fear of Chalice @ 1 & 2, never an issue.
Trickbind was to try against Storm/Hulk tricks, never an issue.
The Fire/Ice came in last second for an Echoing Truth. I wasn't expecting Empty the warrens with Flash being "strictly better", and F/I can take out two slivers, making them need to attack twice, or take out random Mindcensors, Bobs etc. This ended up being a big mistake.
Round 1: I get paired up against Andy, who I find out after our match is aka Brassman, playing Storm EtW. We're sitting next to Rich, with whom I reminisce a bit about playing and drafting with the... unique characters of the now defunct Ground Zero during our Middle/High School days.
Game 1:
I open with Duress, seeing an opposing Duress, Volcanic, Brainstorm and 3(!) REBs. I nab the Brainstorm to keep his hand entirely reactive.
He does nothing of consequence and I duress again taking one of the REBs.
We play draw-go for a couple turns, I trot out some good blue spells for him to hit with his REBS.
Then when he tries to go offensive I Force his set-up spells leaving him to manaburn two turns in a row. Then I throw down a dryad, he never recovers.
Side: 2 Pyroblast for F/I, Stifle?
Game 2:
We both walk a Merchant Scroll into opposing REBs, I Misdirection his Ancestral and then dominate for a while, countering everything he plays that matters.... and then proceed to draw lands, Gush into more lands, and then draw
more land. At this point have every dual, used 2/5 fetches and 1/3 moxen. I'm bluffing with 3 land and a Mox in hand when he plays 8 goblins, a two turn clock. I go into topdeck mode and draw... a fetchland... a mox... Cunning Wish!! I go to my sideboard and remembered I had switched the Echoing Truth for a F/I, I lose.
Game 3:
I didn't take notes this game outside of lifetotals, but it looks like he got himself to 13 on fetches, burn and a Vamp Tutor before playing 6 goblins and beating my face.
A rather frustrating first round loss that I thought I had in the bag, but I take my lumps and move on.
Round 2: I forgot to write down the name of my amiable opponents, who played a unique BR Stax build w/Confidants, Leyline and Blood Moons post board.
Game1:
He starts with a Leyline out and throws down a Tangle Wire.
I have no first turn play, but I topdeck a Duress that looks at a Welder, Confidant and Wasteland... oh well.
He topdecks a Crucible and goes to work with the wasteland.
I get a dryad out, but it doesn't get big enough to go the distance under the Smokestack he plays next turn.
Side in 3 Leyline, 3 Oxidize for an Opt, Echoing Truth, Misd, Cunning Wish and two other cards. I never see the leylines, but that ends up being a good thing.
Game 2:
He mulls to 4 (ouch), I keep my opening grip.
I start off with a Fastbond (no brokeness to go with though).
He lays Workshop, Trinisphere, but I have the Force.
I throw down Dr. Teeth.
He plays a Crucible and tries to get a Wasteland softlock down, but I untap and Oxidize.
P-tog swings in 6 times before I have the resources to go leathal, including pitching another Oxidize I had waiting in the wings.
He says "that was the most broken 4 I could have had", without the opening Force he would have had me locked by second turn.
Game 3:
He mulls to 6, fetches out a Badlands and passes.
I Duress, he Vamp Tutors with it on the stack and I snag a Powder Keg leaving a Bloodmoon that I had a Force for.
He top decks another Powder Keg, which I Force, I topdeck a Duress to snag his Bloodmoon.
He puts down a Chalice for 1 and passes, I start to draw before I remember I had left a Fastbond on top with Brainstorm, oops.
He is unable to recover from my early disruption and I get a Dryad and a 'Tog which go the distance, this time ending the game with a Force in hand looking for a target.
I pull out the version of Stax I had almost played that day and we chat for a few minutes on various builds and strategies against GAT.
I'm feeling happier as when my deck doesn't completely hose me I can do well (although this was of course a notably tier 2 deck).
Round 3: Zack in a mirror match
The table consisted of my match, Brassman, Rich Shay and their opponents. It was a rather jovial atmosphere.
Zach mulls to 6, I'm forces to mull to 5. Brassman has taken a slice of paper to avoid writing lifetotals on a post-it note, he starts to use the extra space on the full sized sheet to draw a cartoon, slightly-unstable looking, version on his opponent.
Zach opens with Black Lotus and a land into a Demonic Tutor and a Merchant Scroll getting ancestral.
I play Mox Jet, fetchland, crack, and also Merchant Scroll for Ancestral. Brassman has duressed Nix from his opponents hand, getting a laugh from the table and a "I like Nix!" speech bubble on his cartoon opponent. Rich remarks that this has been Nix's greatest moment, sacrificing itself so that good cards may live on.
I tune out the tables shenanigans as our game gets serious. Zack drops a land and runs out the Ancestral, I force, he Brainstorms with it on the stack but doesn't find a Force of his own. "I didn't think your last two cards would be Force
and a blue card other than your Ancestral."
We draw go for 4 turns, I get lands and a mox.
He plays Psychatog and gets a couple of swing for ones in.
I Gush into another Gush and send out a Duress that he Mana Drains.
He gets in one more swing for one before I get my own Pyschatog. Due to the card advantage swing from mulligans to our Ancestrals, his unresolved and mine resolved, my graveyard and hand had more food to offer the 'Tog. I grin and proclaim, "Mine's bigger."
My next turn I draw a Merchant scroll and cost myself the match. It wasn't necessarily a play error in the fact that you can point at me resolving any particular one thing and say that's what I did wrong (although I'll do that in a moment as well), it was more of a mistake in how I approached the gamestate at this point. I immediately thought of Merchant Scroll -> Cunning Wish -> Berserk, but my 'Tog wasn't bigger than his by a margin large enough to make this lethal, so I turned to thinking of how to keep the upper hand in the game. I scrolled up a Force of Will for this purpose. Instead of going into a mode of defensive thought I should have acted as the aggressor or the match.
I could have Cunning Wished for a Pyroblast, Submerge or even a Fire/Ice, if he was going to do something silly like trigger all of his 'Tog buffs at the same time.
I could have scrolled up the Force as I did but then
attacked, anything to put pressure on, instead I just tried to keep the current state, me ahead but not winning.
Next turn I get Library of Alexandria, which would go active next turn, winning the war of attrition I had been hoping to draw out, this prompted Zack into action, he REBs my 'Tog with Force backup for my Force. This prompts me into realizing "hurr Merchant Scroll -> Cunning Wish -> REB", which I do when I draw a Merchant Scroll next turn.
He chains a bunch of draw into a Dryad, while I think of how best to set up a huge Will (both of our graveyards were larger than our libraries by a sizable margin at this point). Zack tries to beat me to the punch with Merchant Scroll -> Mystical Tutor -> Yawg Will. I respond on my turn with eot Mystical Tutor -> Regrowth -> Yawg Will (he had Duressed it @ the begining of the game), but he has the Force and I don't. I lose.
Sideboard: 2 REB, Submerge, Threads of Disloyalty for an Opt a Dryad and 2 Stifle?
Game one took 37 minutes(!!) and I had blown it, I was somewhat frazzled at this point.
Game 2:
My notes on this game aren't all that great but I opened with Volcanic. He had something insane with Mox, Mox, BLotus (agian!) Dryad, 'Tog, go.
I offer up a pathetic Brainstorm, go.
He goes for Scroll into Recall with a Force for my Force, I REB his 'Tog, but he goes lethal with Dryad next turn. I'm still thinking about where I went wrong game one.
I'm pretty firmly in the bottom half at 1-2 but I came to play. My match notes suffer the consequences.
Round 4: Corey in another mirror
Game 1:
I Duress a Gush and Stifle a fetch early, but some action with Regrowth->Ancestral keeps me out of reach.
Game 2:
He Duresses my Demonic Tutor when I Vampiric in response.
He gets a Dr. Teeth and I get a pair of Dryads and we start trading swings, he makes a game breaking mistake when he pitches his hand to make 'Tog lethal and my one card is Echoing Truth (he thought I was tapped out for some reason).
Game 3:
He duresses me early and sees a Submerge while Duressing something else.
Late game he's swinging with a 'Tog but can't go lethal because of my Submerge, despite him not having a Tropical I have the mana to hardcast it and get off a couple duress.
I attempt to REB the 'Tog, he has Force. If I could have topdecked anything that would start me on a spellchain I could have Time Walked and won, no such luck, we run out of time and draw.
Last round I'm paired up against my friend John and we joke about who's going to knock the other into last place. I let his URBana Fish Strip Mine my lands and Control Magic my guys so he'll give me a ride home.
And you didn't knock me
quite into last! Ha!
Overall I had a good time playing Magic against some good opponents. It was nice to put some faces to names of people I've been reading here on the site. I didn't too horrible for my first Vintage event, and like Arnold I'll be back.
A big thanks to ELD for putting a ton of effort into this event (and those Time Walk proxies, damn nice job there ELD) and to everyone else that showed up.
edit for clarity
