GenCon 2007 Updates

[The Atog Lord]

Well done, Steve. Well done.

It was a fun event. I had heart-breaking finishes in the other major events I played in: the Block Championship and the Legacy Championship. Both times I went x-1-1, and missed Top Eight on very close tiebreakers (9th and 10th). The Vintage Championship was full of great players, and each round was a real challenge. However, being able to hang out with so many players from the US and from Canada made the entire experience worthwhile.
And again, Steve, congratulations.

[cheddercaveman]

Ah, sorry I completely forgot about Legacy for a moment, but how many sanctioned Legacy tournaments are there a year?

There are at least goign to be 55 this year.  Legacy Champs @ GenCon.  Worlds in December.  Columbus earlier this year.  And every week in my area we have a sanctioned legacy even that gets approximately 18-25 people.  I'm assuming that there are lots of other sanctioned legacy tourney's too because the cards are more attainable than power and pseudo-power.

[NodFreak]

Congrats to Stephen Menendian!
You are made from pure win dude!

[Lou]

Congrats Steve. I wanted to be there to throw you around, but I forgot my badge after going back to the hotel for a swim.

As always, Gencon was a super fun time. Great to see everyone and I am already looking forward to next year.

[Klep]

Good job to everyone, especially Ray, who's been long overdue a top 8 at a major event.

Don't you know that Ray is a huge noob?  I mean, he's never even played in a Waterbury, and he lives there!


Congrats to Rich and Steve.

[Razvan]

fucking eh, can't believe i had to miss it. great job to everyone, great job to steve and rich, and let's hope this will springboard into more awesomeness in the future. i am very happy with everyone's confidence and excitement about it.

[Green Knight]

Way to win the prelims and the world championship Steve. Well done. You are the face of Type One. SMM not only a member but also the world champion!
Also props to Scotty for giving Steve his only loss.

[Shock Wave]

Also props to Scotty for giving Steve his only loss.

Not that it matters, but Steve also lost to Dave Caplan (Goobafish) in the first Vintage event on Thursday, so that amounts to a total of 2 match losses. That's still rather impressive.

[SyntheticAngel]

Mad props to Steve for taking it home. I watched the match I wasn't that coherent, but it was intense nonetheless. I do have pictures of the match on my camera that I will post when I do my 3-2 drop report. I will also list off some props on that page and I have some serious props to give out.

Brennen Cook

[v4ino]

Hi All,

Gencon was a great time - I enjoyed the competition and looking forward to taking a little brake from playing. I hope the DCI doesn't restrict anything (aside from perhaps Flash which promotes an "unfun" deck) - the T8 showed that the format is very balanced - it was 1 life away from only having 4 merchant scrolls and 4 brainstorms in the finals.

MoxLotus - why would you make a statement such as "Did Goblins show up--if so that's why Tendrils could cruise." - I didn't run into one Goblins or elf deck the whole tournament? Are you eluding to flash having a killer match vs. Storm decks?

Fienstien - thanks for making everyone look at our ages and seeing that I was the oldest contestant in the T8   

[nartman99]

Congrats to the Top 8, as well as Rich and Steve. I can't wait to see the coverage and read the tournament reports and such!

[sorcutt]

Good job to everyone, especially Ray, who's been long overdue a top 8 at a major event.

congrats ray! good job at proving the only purpose to smokestack is to provide a healthy shredded dietary supplement to jeff! 

[Smmenen]

Gencon was an amazing experience, from start to finish.   The Type Four game with Mr. Type Four, FFY, Mark Biller, Hazard and myself on Sunday was worth the trip itself.   

I’ll share this story from our T4 Game Sunday at Gencon.

Here’s the board state: It’s about fourth turn.   

There are five of us.   

Brian Demars has in play Glarecaster and the Dragonsword (the equipment thingie) and has a full grip.   Brian is at 20.   

To his left, Mark Biller has in play an Illusionary Mask, Jushi Apprentice (flipped and active), a face down creature with a million mask counters on it, and two Blast From the Bast tokens (Biller has been drawing with Blast From the Past and Jushi Apprentice).   Mark is at 18.

To his left, Matt Hazard has the Green Myojin and Privileged Position in play.  Matt is at 20.

Paul Mastriano has in play: Bringer of the Black Dawn, Survival of the Fittest, and has just cast Metathran Aerostat.  Paul is at 12 life.   Paul has been using his Bringer.  Paul has also Survivaled Genesis and Glory into his graveyard. 

To his left, I am sitting in play with a flipped Root Elemental which put into play a Crowd Favorites.  I have a morphed Krosan Colossus.  I am at 20 life.

It’s my turn. 

I untap draw Mindslaver and play it.  I want to kill Paul with it.

Now the crap hits the fan.

Brian plays Commandeer. 

In response, Paul activates Metathran Aerostat, returning it to his hand and putting into play Riptide Shapeshifter.

He Survivals the Aerostat to find Phage.   

Paul sacrifices Riptide Shapeshifter naming “minion.”   He flips into Chainer.

Paul uses Chainer to bring back Riptide Shapeshifter and names “Beast.” 

Paul flips over Mischievious Quanar with the intent of copying Commondeer to take the Mindslaver.

Paul activates it to turn it over.   In response, Mark Biller plays the Split Second red card that steals a creature.   

Mark activates the Quanar.

In response, Brian plays the red Channel card that cycles to deal X damage to all non-flying creatures.   

Mark flips over Protean Hulk!!!!!

Mark finds: Dimir Doppleganger and Voidmage Apprentice.   

Mark uses the Doppleganger to remove the Incarnations from Paul’s GY and then uses the Voidmage Apprentice to counter Brian’s Commondeer, still on the stack.   

Finally, my turn ends. 

Soon afterward, we were told to clear out because gencon was over.   Still, we had a good time playing while we did. 


Mr. Shay is a true class act and an excellent opponent.   It was great to see so many friends and acquaintances once more.   

My only regret is that I didn’t get to prepare to compete in the Legacy Champs.   I intend to continue to play Legacy, a great format.   

My report is complete and will be up tomorrow.  Play-by-play of the final match is up http://www.freewebs.com/txmagic/tournamentreports.htm

Til Then!

Stephen

[Hell of a Hat]

Seems as if Mark would have had to have stolen the Shapeshifter rather than the Quanar to 'flip a Protean Hulk' unless I'm missing something there, none the less a rather amusing anecdote. 


The play by play of the Vintage Finals was a bit of a letdown compared to the epic struggle I had pictured in my mind.

Seems as if the die roll pretty much translated into a game one win, and the game 2 was sealed steve's on the draw first turn brokeness (buy 2 first turn duresses, get a second turn duress free!).  Such is Vintage I suppose.

[someone_unimportan]

I think the flipped protean hulk was from the Illusionary Mask

[hazard]

The Hulk was in play via the Illusionary Mask...it was flipped due to taking damage from Brian's channelling Jiwari, which then sent it to Mark's graveyard.  Now if I had only played the Shunt in my hand targeting either copy of Commandeer...

[SyntheticAngel]

I played Type4 for the first time down at Gen Con with Ray Robillard's modified deck, and that format is retardedly fun. I enjoyed the three games we played plus the cards were so cool modified. Is there anywhere else I can get more information on Type4?

Brennen Cook

[Smmenen]

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/198

[SyntheticAngel]

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/198

Thanks Steve for the link the article was cool, and I think I will build my own Type4 stack when I have the chance. Also let me know if you want any pictures from your's and Rich Shay's final match, I took a bunch.

[Wobbles]

I’ll share this story from our T4 Game Sunday at Gencon.

Things like this and your report on Starcity were the reason why I was utterly baffled by some of the comments about Steve on the Storyteller Ballot.

Congratulations!

[Moxlotus]

MoxLotus - why would you make a statement such as "Did Goblins show up--if so that's why Tendrils could cruise." - I didn't run into one Goblins or elf deck the whole tournament? Are you eluding to flash having a killer match vs. Storm decks?
 

First, I did not mean any disrespect.  I don't know why you lumped Elf deck in with Goblins as Goblins was a good choice for the metagame--or at least it was at Waterbury.  I was referring to the fact that Goblins's worst matchup is Tendrils and that Tendrils would be able to blow past goblins any day of the week, while it has a much harder time against GAT and Flash (especially Flash).

[v4ino]

Moxlotus,

I agree that Goblins/aggro should be Storm's best matchup however I don't understand why everyone thinks Flash has such an advantage head to head? Any properly Meta'd deck with  should be able to hold it's own vs. Flash - 4 FOW is the only protection it has. GAT because of it's versatility is a much tougher match in my experience.