Blue Bell Game Day #1 T.O. Report including Top 8 Decklists, Metagame, and more!

[MirariKnight]

To my first round opponent, Josh?: I'm sorry I Mind-Punched you. Making The Deck storm me out game 2 was a savage repayment, however.

Haha despite the little "inconvenience" I do have to say out match was quite enjoyable.


Thanks to Nick for running such an awesome event; I'll definitely be at as many of these as my school schedule permits.
And congrats again to Max for winning, and for extending my "being in the car with the eventual winner" streak

[KingSquee]

It's been a while since I've written a tourney report (probably would be my '07 Nats experience on a long-dead forum), so I figure while waiting for my car to get done at the shop I'll give it a whirl.

I piloted my usual RBG Beats deck to a 4-2 record, good for 15th place.

Deck:

4 Dark Confidant
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Putrid Leech
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
3 Null Rod
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
2 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
2 Swamp
2 Taiga
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

3 Extirpate
4 Ravenous Trap
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Emerald Charm

I epic-ly fail at taking notes so these are my best recollections from each match.

Round 1 vs Austin Pollack (Oath)

Game 1 I am able to beat him down to 1 before he stabilizes, and wins, with an Oath. Game 2 I have an Emerald Charm to answer his first two Oaths. He lands a third a turn too late. Game 3 I put him on a relatively fast clock with a turn 1 Goyf but he is able to assemble Vault/Key and go infy on me.

0-1

Round 2 vs Brendan (Keeper)

I don't remember too much from this match except that I was spotted Game 1 due to a deck reg error. I win an unsideboarded Game 2 fairly easily, as I should. We sideboard and play a hypothetical Game 3 which I win as well.

1-1

Round 3 vs John (Oath)

These were two very close, hard-fought games. I thought I had Game 1 in the bag when he assembled Vault/Key with no cards left in library, one card in hand, and a Null Rod in play on my side that he apparently forgot about. Naturally the one card in hand was Timetwister so we shuffle up. I draw a hand full of blanks and he eventually Oaths into Iona and wins. Game 2 he finds Iona and I Vamp Tutor for Maze of Ith which holds her off for a while. I play a Goyf which grows to 7/8 thanks to a Tezz in his graveyard so I think I'm in good shape. He eventually Regrows the Strip Mine that got FOF'd to the graveyard a couple turns ago and takes out my Maze of Ith. Iona plus Hellkite Overlord I think finishes me off.

1-2

Round 4 vs Don (Parfait)

I imagine Parfait with its maindeck Aura of Silences is a pretty good matchup against many decks in the format. Not so much against mine. I win both games fairly easily, with all the damage I took in the match being self-inflicted I'm pretty sure. Game 2 was notable in that several of my creatures were Path'd, and I ended up with all 5 basic lands in my deck in play. Doesn't happen very often.

2-2

Round 5 vs The Beav (Tezz)

Game 1 I win on the back of three Goyfs. Game 2 I lose to Tinker/Sphinx, as I can't find an Edict or Maze of Ith. Game 3 we went draw-go for a long time and I eventually land a Goyf and smash for the win. Jeremy shows me a handful of blanks.

3-2

Round 6 vs John (BUG Fish)

Game 1 I lose to his massive Goyf that I can't find an answer for. Game 2 I am stuck with two Goyfs in hand and no green to play them with. I land two Bobs and hope to get there before his Trygon Predator or my Bobs kill me. I have a great run of luck with Bobs, one turn finding exactly what I needed: a REB for the Predator and an Emerald to play a Goyf. Game 3 goes back and forth until I play runner runner Type 2 superstar Putrid Leech (suggested by one Chas Hinkle) and beat for the win.

4-2

All in all, not too bad. I don't think I made too many mistakes. I won the games I was supposed to win, and, well, lost the ones I wasn't. No epic punts like at NJ Open 4.

Afterwards I break out the Reaper King deck for a little EDH league action. We have six players total: me (Reaper King), Tim (Rofellos), Brian (Rofellos), Dick Burns (Sliver Queen), Leigh (Momir Vig), and Don (I forget his general). I got off to a fairly explosive start, landing turn 2 Mind's Eye and Reaper King by turn 4 I think. No matter, we're not able to stop Tim from going infinite with Staff of Domination. While he's playing out his deck to rack up as many points as possible under the league structure, one of us discovers a Fastbond in his deck, which is a no-no. While it was not relevant to the outcome of the game we are able to guilt-trip him into forfeiting and starting a game anew. Dick Burns switches from Sliver Queen to Nick's crazy busted Azami deck for the second game. Initially we call shenanigans but it's good at stopping combo so we eventually allow it. Dick Burns knocks Momir Vig out of the game by bouncing her Karoo land, thus making her unable to pay for a Pact of Negation. Don is next to go in the face of relentless attacks from Brian. After it's down to the four of us the game quickly shifts focus to accumulating as many league points as possible. While none of our decks were specifically built with that goal in mind, it turns out Brian's deck is pretty good at it. He assembles a Straight Flush and Blackjack thanks to a Wurmcalling, among many other techy plays, and amasses 34 points I think. Dick Burns doesn't do that bad either, accumulating 21 points I think. I can only amass 4 points. (It would have been 5 had Dick Burns not given me an extra turn with Beacon of Tomorrows, the rat bastard!) Tim only amasses 4 or 5 points as well. Brian ends up winning the game as well with massive amounts of Wurm and Saproling tokens.

I'm going to get to work making a deck specifically geared for league play. Mono-red Ashling might work...

After that I finally learn how to play Tichu. I team up with my round 6 opponent John vs. Nick and Dick Burns. As one would expect I suck at the game initially, calling Tichu a few too many times and as such we end the game with negative points. I can't wait to play again.

To conclude, a few props and slops:

Props

• Nick Coss for running another amazing event
• The Thai place we ordered dinner from, it was amazing!
• My boss for giving me off for the event without me requesting it (and for the Legacy showdown on the 16th as well, sweet!)

Slops

• Matt Elias for not sticking around to play Catch Phrase, or at the very least leaving us his copy of the game.
• Burger King for taking the Angry Whopper off the menu, which made me angry.

Thanks for reading, Ryan "Rustic" Glackin
Team NotGoodEnoughForD3G

Oh yeah, I may as well explain the genesis of that team name. One of my New Year's resolutions (the only one I'm likely to keep) was to work on improving my Vintage game. So I inquired with D3G member Chas Hinkle about possibly joining, maybe just as an apprentice or something. He shot me down, saying "you're not good enough." I don't doubt it, hence the reason for my resolution. So I gathered a loose collection of fellow Vintage scrubs including Mike Smith and the Carey brothers and formed Team NGEFD3G. So how'd we do compared to D3G, Nick?

[Ravager Sam]

Elias' decklist has only 58 cards.  I would venture to guess that the list is missiing a blue card (gifts, fof, or mystical tutor) and something else like a sol ring, krosan reclamation, or regrowth.

[Iron_Chef]

Thanks Sam,

That's what I get for trying to organize decklists in a way that makes sense.  I updates his list to include Mystical Tutor and Fire/Ice.

-Nick

[sassfactor4]

This was my second vintage tournament, with the first being the last NYSE event.  Its been a pleasure interacting with everyone in these tournaments, there is a lot more of a community fun feel than I had expected.

I had an excellent time and am excited to come back for future Blue Bell events, my fellow Brooklyn denizens couldn't make it this time but when the events are so close to the holidays it will be easier for sure.

Disappointing performance on my part, I ran BUG fish with a quick addition of 4 leylines from Nick before the event started, I went 2-0 vs another BUG fish deck, then an Oath deck, went up against Sam and his dredge deck and mispresented my deck (messed with the sideboard the second time and miscounted, handing over 62 cards) and took a game 3 loss, throwing me into another dredge match which I couldn't mulligan to graveyard hate till I had 4 cards and just a leyline, ate it there, then went up against goblins, punted and decided I needed a nap more than a 6th round.

Thanks to Nick and the Alternate Universes store for hosting! 

[Prospero]

Thanks Sam,

That's what I get for trying to organize decklists in a way that makes sense.  I updates his list to include Mystical Tutor and Fire/Ice.

-Nick

I think I did 3 decklists like that for N.Y.S.E. I.  It's a thankless task - you're (obviously) just better off typing them up as you got them.  Even if you have a semi-serious case of OCD...

[voltron00x]

Glackin, Catchphrase is available from amazon.com for a reasonable price and was on sale most of the Christmas season.  It is not an epically mythical Legendary item as you seem to believe.  However, you have effectively guilted me and I promise we'll play the next time we're all together.

[Will]

Doesn't Craig have one too?  Also, wasn't he at AU when you guys wanted to play?  On another note, great tournament Nick, should be lots of fun in the future especially if I break my streak of going X-0 then 0-X in most of the recent tournaments I've played in, in fact most I've played in lifetime come to think of it. 

[KingSquee]

Glackin, Catchphrase is available from amazon.com for a reasonable price and was on sale most of the Christmas season.  It is not an epically mythical Legendary item as you seem to believe.

O RLY Elias?



And while I'm in Photobucket misewell post this, we just need some art:

Doesn't Craig have one too?  Also, wasn't he at AU when you guys wanted to play?

Craig forgot his and Chas didn't bring his because it had dead batteries. I was still willing to drive to Wally World and pick up another one, but instead we played Tichu.

[rpf5029]

Hey everyone, I've been scrounging through my cards and I seem to be missing an Underground Sea.  I'm fairly sure that I had this after leaving last weekend, but just in case I dropped it there, did anyone pick up a good condition Underground Sea in a dark blue, glossy Ultra Pro Deck Protector?  (The kind that have the rough back).  Again, I'm not sure where I left it, but I thought I'd ask anyway.  Thanks! 

[voltron00x]

Glackin, Catchphrase is available from amazon.com for a reasonable price and was on sale most of the Christmas season.  It is not an epically mythical Legendary item as you seem to believe.

O RLY Elias?



And while I'm in Photobucket misewell post this, we just need some art:

Doesn't Craig have one too?  Also, wasn't he at AU when you guys wanted to play?

Craig forgot his and Chas didn't bring his because it had dead batteries. I was still willing to drive to Wally World and pick up another one, but instead we played Tichu.

Just saw this, and... well-played, sir.

[Hagrid]

Nick another great tournament keep up the good work !!