Hello everyone! :)I promised people that I would go to more tournaments and kick some more ass. All the while posting results and reflecting on the reasons why I won and/or lost. I also reflect on why I choose to include certain unorthodox card choices as well as certain unorthodox card omissions.
So Nicofromtokyo and I again decided to try our luck at Vintage. Since Nico is already the Japanese National Vintage Champion due to a certain screwup by me
(see my Tokyo report), the pressure was on me to prove myself and my deck. We took a train for 1000 kilometers from Tokyo to Osaka in order to participate in Japan's FIRST Mox tournament (Asia in general has a lower supply of moxen to give away, thus the price inflation and the conservative shop owners do not help things either)
EDIT Tournament link. :
http://bigmagic.web.fc2.com/pg52.html Anyway enough wasting your time, let's go!!!
Round 1: Yoshiaki Yoshinaga with TPS
Game 1:
I win the dice roll and I
Duress him to see
Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Chain of Vapor, Mind's Desire, Vampiric Tutor, Grim Tutor. I take the
Vampiric Tutor. He topdecks a
Dark Confidant and I Force of Will it. We play Draw-Go for the next 2 turns while I topdeck the
Voltaic Key. I TFK on his endstep, pitching a land and a Night's Whisper. My turn, I
Demonic Tutor for Time Vault and play it. He
Force of Wills it after Brainstorming, I Mana Drain and win on my 2nd main phase. Infinite Turns.
Sideboard: -1 Inkwell Leviathan -1 Island -Echoing Truth +2 Duress +1 Sundering Titan
Game 2:
He starts off with a
Duress-->my Mana Drain. We start trading punches as I
Duress him on my turn and see:
Duress, Duress, Tendrils, Tendrils, and Time Walk. I take a Duress. He Duresses me on my turn and takes a Night's Whisper. I topdeck Mystical Tutor, play Voltaic Key, and say go. He lays down land, thinks for a while, and says go. I EOT
Mystical for Ancestral Recall. Ancestral on my turn and I draw Black Lotus, Fact or Fiction, and Yawgmoth's Will. I lay down a land and cast the
Fact with Lotus. I reveal: 2 Mox, 1 FOW, 1 Mana Crypt, 1 Land. He separates them into: FOW+Crypt and 2 Mox + Land. I take the FOW in a heartbeat. I count my mana and realize I can play my
Yawgmoth's Will with the Mana Crypt I have now and did so. I replay Lotus, the 2 Moxes, and draw/Duress all his hand away. The 2nd Ancestral nets me
Tinker. He topdecks nothing and I play
Tinker--->Time Vault. I win with Infinite Turns.
Round 2: Hiromichi Itou (
2009 Gencon "World" Vintage Champion) with Tezzeret Vault
Game 1:
Game Loss. I forgot to write down Vampiric Tutor on my deck registration.
Game 2:
I choose to play first because I lost and play a Fetch-->Land Go. He plays land and
Ancestral Recalls. I Force of Will, pitching Mana Drain. I Night's Whisper on my turn and draw into Mana Crypt + Sol Ring. Itou plays a
Dark Confidant on his turn and I say okay. On my turn, I crack another fetch, and play
Skeletal Scrying for 5. He beats me with the
Dark Confidant and I loose the Mana Crypt flip . I play
Ponder and draw into
Tinker and then
Tinker in an Inkwell Leviathan. He sighs in despair. I then
Time Walk. And he laughs out of both frustration and amusement. I attack with the
Inkwell, Merchant's Scroll for a FOW (Itou is at 11 now). He attacks me with his
Confidant and tries to
Hurkyl's Recall (Drained) and then Time Walk (Hardcast FOW). I attack with my Leviathan to get him at 3. He topdecks nothing and attacks me for 1 before scooping.
Sideboard: -1 Inkwell Leviathan -1 Island -Echoing Truth +2 Duress +1 Sundering Titan
Game 3:
He starts off with a first turn
Vampiric Tutor-->Ancestral Recall. I play land go. He plays
Ancestral Recall--->I Force of Will it. I
Night's Whisper into something and lay down a land. He plays
Sensei's Divining Top and Tolarian Academy. He gets 6 mana available somehow and casts a
Jester's Cap-->100% of my win conditions.
I was at a loss of what to do and decided to continue playing and force a draw. My gameplan changed from winning to countering all his win conditions and eventually reaching a time limit. My plan doesn't work out as eventually he sneaks a
Tezzeret the Seeker past my counter wall (after 2 big counter wars). I was not too happy afterwards but that all changed when I realized that I was on the Loser's Bracket for Top 4.
After the match Itou told me that he had anticipated facing me and prepared the special sideboard card just for me because he knew that I ran only 3 win conditions preside. And he also knew I would not side in additional Sower of Temptations in Game 3. Normally I would do exactly that but I already had a game loss.
Round 3 Takigawa-san with B/G Suicide
Game 1:I
He wins the dice roll and
Dark Ritual-->Duresses my Time Vault away-->Dark Confidant. I went Fetch-->
Thoughtseize go. He attacks with Confidant and stalls at 1 land. I play
Fetch-->Brainstorm-->Crack Fetch-->Ancestral Recall. Next turn I play
Tinker-->Inkwell Leviathan and overwhelm him with Counters + 7/11 Trample.
Sideboard:
+ 4 Sower of Temptation -1 TFK -1 Skeletal Scrying -1 Duress -1 Fact or Fiction
Game 2:
He goes first and plays
Chrome Mox-->Duress away my Mana Drain-->Lotus Petal go. I start with
Land + Mox Jet-->Night's Whisper go. He cracks his
Petal and
Sinkholes my land. No problem because my
Night's Whisper had drawn me 2 more land. I play a nonbasic in an attempt to goad him into Wasting it and so giving me more time to draw my bomb spells. He does Wasteland my Underground Sea and says go. I play another land which gets
Dark Ritual-->Sinkhole. Usually this would be very bad, but I had 3 other land in my hand so it wasn't. He stalls on mana while I play my lands. I did not take any notes on how I won but I think it was something related to Time Vault and infinite turns again.
Round 4: Nicolas Pujol (nicofromtokyo, and
2009 Japanese National Vintage Champion)
Game 1:
He mulligans to 6 while I keep a solid hand. He starts and
Mystical Tutors for an Ancestral Recall. I play land and
Mox Sapphire. He plays
Mox + Land-->Dark Confidant-->I Mana Drain-->Ancestral Recall-->I FOW. Afterwards I play a couple of draw spells and eventually assemble the combo pieces. Nico could not do anything because I had countered his bombs while resolving my own. I also drew into more bombs/answers afterwards too and made it very hard for him to catch up.
Sideboard: -1 Inkwell Leviathan -1 Island -Echoing Truth +2 Duress +1 Sundering Titan
Game 2:
He mulligans to 6 again and we both play Land go. He lays down a second land and says go. I play
Mana Crypt and then Tinker. He plays Red Elemental Blast. I Force of Will. He Force of Wills. And I Force of Will again. My hand is depleted BUT
Sundering Titan comes in and blows up both his lands. I attack twice and he eventually
Tinkers for a Sphinx of the Steel Wind. He gains a turn but is unable to find an answer to my Sundering Titan.
After the matchup he told me that he took a gamble. He sided in more hate (Duress + REB) and sided out all bounce he had. He gambled that I would not have an early Tinker and that he would overwhelm me with hate while still having bombs to set up his win. It was my day to win.
Round 5: Tomofumi Tanaka with Bloodghast Dredge w/o Ichorid
Game 1:
I scoop on turn 2 after seeing
2 Bazaars, 3 Bridges, a Dredge Return, and Iona being dredged back into life.Sideboard: -1 Yawgmoth's Will -1 Skeletal Scrying -1 Island -3 Thoughtseize -1 Gifts Ungiven -1 Fact or Fiction +3 Yixlid Jailer +3 Planar Void + 2 Duress
Game 2:
I start and he can only dump 3 cards into his graveyard before a
Jailer hits (he
Unmasked 1). And then another
Jailer. And then a
Demonic Tutor for Planar Void. He is locked down as my Jailer's pummel him to death.
Game 3:
First turn
Unmask is Forced. Then I lay a land. He is given
2 whole turns to fill his graveyard with 1 Bridge from Below, 1 Bloodghast (reanimated), a bunch of other things that cannot help him. He had
2 Bazaars too. When I finally get a chance to put down a second land, I cast a
Jailer. Then another
Jailer. And we trade swings with me winning the race.
I made Top 4 which included:
Hiromichi Itou, Syuta Hatakeyama,
Me (Stanley Chen), another Tezzeret Player.
Round 6: Syuta Hatakeyama with Selkie Strike
Game 1:
He wins the dice roll and begins with turn 1
Noble Hierarch. I
Thoughtseize him and saw
Qasali Pridemage, Null Rod, Trygon Predator, and Tundra. I had an
Echoing Truth in hand and knew I could bounce the
Null Rod later on so it was a choice between
Pridemage and Trygon Predator. I already had a
Sol Ring and Mox out and I did not relish the thought of losing them. So I picked the
Trygon Predator. Next turn he casts
Null Rod and attacks with Hierarch. I lay down a land and say go, I was now basically hoping to topdeck a black source and cast my Night's Whisper in hand. No luck and I cannot even bounce his Null Rod (mana disabled etc etc). I was simply overwhelmed in this game and was not expecting such heavy hate from his Selkie.
Sideboard: -1 Fact or Fiction -1 Duress -1 Inkwell Leviathan -1 Skeletal Scrying -1 Gifts Ungiven +4 Sower of Temptation +1 Sundering Titan.
Game 2:
I start off with
Land Mox, Sol Ring. He starts off with Land go. I topdeck
Mana Crypt and lay down my second land. He plays another land and casts
Null Rod. I float 2U in response. He ends his turn and I
bounce his Null Rod. I Brainstorm into Tinker + Land. And I cast Tinker with Mana Crypt and Land. Sundering Titan blows up both of his land and kills him.
He stalls for 3 turns by laying down 2 Goyfs and 1 Meddling Mage (naming Demonic Tutor to prevent me from tutoring for Time Walk, but I had no Demonic Tutor)
Game 3:
He sideboards back in some cards while I do not make changes.
(BIG MISTAKE). I keep a hand of
Black Lotus, Tezzeret, Mox, Land, Tinker, Land, Land. I was rejoicing at my hand and formulated a gameplan. I was to cast the
Tezzeret first while fetching Time Vault. Then if he somehow dealt with Tezzeret then I would
Tinker for Sundering Titan. He plays land,
Noble Hierarch go. I play first turn
Tezzeret-->Time Vault. He plays Null Rod. I play land, untap Vault, and pass. He attacks Tezzeret for 1 and lays down Pridemage and
Strip Mines my land. I topdeck into a
Night's Whisper that I cannot cast because of his Strip Mine. I play land go. He wastes my land and kills my Tezzeret. I play land go. He attacks me.
I topdeck into Ancestral Recall-->Mox, Sol Ring, SUNDERING TITAN. Game Over.Prize: From the Vault: Exiled for coming in 3rd place (tied with the other Tezzeret player)
1. Syuta Hatakeyama with Selkie Strike (7-0 total)
(Mox Sapphire)2. Hiromichi Itou with Confidant Tezzeret (Itou later wrote on his blog that he lost due to Confidant suicide) (5-2 total)
(English Mana Drain)3. Stanley Chen with Chronomage (4-2 total)
(From the Vault: Exiled)3. Unnamed player with Confidant Tezzeret (4-2 total)
(From the Vault: Dragons)
