[Free Article] 1st Place with Tezzeret, A Vintage Tournament Report

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/18795_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Taking_It_To_The_Top_With_Tezzeret_1st.html

I spent probably more time on this report than I've ever spent on an average tournament report, mostly to try to write it in a way that promotes Vintage and dispel Vintage myths.   See what I say after the first round.  

Alot of interesting questions are raised in this article.  I'm curious to see the poll results on some of them.  

Editor's Blurb:

So Many Insane Plays – Taking It To The Top With Tezzeret *1st*
SCG Open Richmond! Monday, February 15th - In this comprehensive article, Vintage maestro Stephen Menendian brings us detailed game descriptions from his excellent performance in a recent Vintage tournament. He explains his choice of deck (Tezzeret), and provides thorough sideboarding analysis.

[Valorale]

Another enjoyable read, as always I find your detailed writeups to be entertaining and helpful.

[myw002]

Hey Steve, I found it interesting that you decided to keep that 1 land hand with a bob and counter magic.  Think it was some spur of the moment type of judgment?

[CorwinB]

I don't remember the last time I saw a plain, good ol' vanilla Bolt in a winning, full-powered Vintage deck that wasn't a Legacy deck in disguise. As usual, your report was a great reading. I really hope you manage to clear misconceptions about Vintage in the SCG readership.

[Odd mutation]

I really hope you manage to clear misconceptions about Vintage in the SCG readership.

It would help if the posters on the official website would also take this into consideration. Just this weekend I read something on Wizards.com that sounded like: "Vintage is so fast, you don't get to turn 2."

Anyway, great read Stephen!

Robrecht

[personalbackfire]

Great article, thanks!

I don't think you should have kept the one land hand against oath. I understand that your deck plays 2 more lands then the avg Tezzeret deck, making it easier for you to topdeck in this situation, but your whole hand is reliant on you doing so. You don't know what he is playing, you have identified Fish, and Shops to be a 2 of the top 4 archtypes you expected, which means wasteland is highly possible, which hits your only land. Also, your Top isn't that great the first few turns, since as you pointed out in your article, you couldn't really use it on your upkeep since you needed to topdeck to stand a chance.

Furthermore, as your article pointed out, you really needed to hit runner runner land in this game since once you played bob, he cast oath, you needed to be able to play the chain, in order for you to still be in the game, and have mana drain open.  Lets say you don't draw the second land, you draw something else, you are then forced to decide to chain his oath, to try and stall, then top and hope to find an answer since you don't have drain up.

Your hand against Staxless:
I think this might come down to if you knew it was staxless, and more particularly the contents of his deck. Unless the list you posted in the article is wrong, he only has 7 spheres to try and get there. I would be pretty excited to play against this type of stax list being as Tangle wire is one of their best cards, and its excluded, same with stax, which lets the game get locked up.

That being said, if I knew all of that, I am still on the fence. It is tough because you aren't presented with any basics, and pretty much no business, just a bunch of reactive spells. You also have Inkwell, which is terrible, and no force to be able to pitch it to. How you managed to win the game is beyond me because it seemed completely locked up. Fortunately you had the sower, which stole the welder which got you back into the game.

Lastly, why did you exculde Tezzeret? I read your step process, and see that it is excluded from all but the tezz style list. In my experience it is fine against shops, because it allows the deck to give you other "oops I win hands" and it is just so powerful. If you can get it into play, you most likely win the game.  I don't have any experience against Fish, but I can certainly see why you would exclude it. Against dredge, it is another fast way for the deck to win the game. I understand it can potentially get worse if they start dredgine and bringing back ichords, bloodghasts, and whatever else, but you are probably losing that game anyways. I just think the card is too powerful to exclude, and I have always been happy with it. I was just wondering your thoughts.

[Gekoratel]

I posted this SCG but I'm not sure if you can post there right now or not so figured I'd post it here as well.

Nice report, I also like the polls in the article because it makes you really think about how you would play the game rather than just having a general line of play and then seeing what the author does. It also makes it easier to have talking points/debates over the key points in games.

Poll1 - I'd have given Paul Mana Crypt and Oath, you already have an answer to Oath so its not that intimidating not to mention he had Mox Emerald in play so unless he has Lotus Petal in hand Oath is not going to be coming down this turn. And because he has already played a land for the turn the colorless generated from Mana Crypt won't do anything back breaking.

Poll2 - I think Paul's line of play is a little to conservative if you have a strong follow up with your Bob he could be in big trouble with just playing the Oath. Between Recall & Gifts there's good odds he could setup Vault/Key or nail down Oath with protection the next turn.

Poll3 - I think Ponder + Vault is the best line of play here.

Poll4 - I'd toss this hand back on the play but would likely keep it on the draw especially with your list that has more mana sources. There's a big difference from needing to spike a mana source in one draw step or having two attempts. I don't like having 3 Drains because odds are slim that your going to be getting much out of the 2nd & 3rd Drains as opposed to the first. Your also not going to be Draining spells until turn 3 at best.

The only different decision I would have made in game would be to attempt to Drain the Tezzeret but after he Forced back I would have let it resolve and just attack into it. I can still see your rationale though because if it resolves he likely gets Key and then Top and has an equal draw engine to you and one of the combo pieces already. Your line of play lets you keep running the advantage from Bob.

Poll5 - This is a nasty Gift's pile so as usual its the lesser of the all the evils which I'd say is Lotus and Bob. Your hand is nearly depleted so if he can somehow answer the Bob then hes not in a terrible position. Any other combination of cards leaves you with too much business.

Poll6 - One of the hardest decisions I'd say because your up a game I'd keep this hand. There's so many topdecks that you can have which will put you in business and having an answer to Welder makes the grip more appealing.

Nice article.

[Smmenen]

The poll results on some of these questions are just fascinating.  The one I'm most interested in is poll 6, which is currently a very close race, with 144 votes, 45% of people saying they'd keep the hand.  

Almost 400 people voted in the first poll, and the vast majority would give paul the same cards I gave him.  

Hey Steve, I found it interesting that you decided to keep that 1 land hand with a bob and counter magic.  Think it was some spur of the moment type of judgment?

As much as anything can be -- it's like quantum mechanical decision making.   most people according to the poll, would have thrown that hand back.  I think, interestingly, I mulligan less frequently than other Vintage players.  

Great article, thanks!

I don't think you should have kept the one land hand against oath. I understand that your deck plays 2 more lands then the avg Tezzeret deck, making it easier for you to topdeck in this situation, but your whole hand is reliant on you doing so. You don't know what he is playing, you have identified Fish, and Shops to be a 2 of the top 4 archtypes you expected, which means wasteland is highly possible, which hits your only land. Also, your Top isn't that great the first few turns, since as you pointed out in your article, you couldn't really use it on your upkeep since you needed to topdeck to stand a chance.

Those are good points.  You are probably right.

Lastly, why did you exculde Tezzeret? I read your step process, and see that it is excluded from all but the tezz style list. In my experience it is fine against shops, because it allows the deck to give you other "oops I win hands" and it is just so powerful. If you can get it into play, you most likely win the game.  I don't have any experience against Fish, but I can certainly see why you would exclude it. Against dredge, it is another fast way for the deck to win the game. I understand it can potentially get worse if they start dredgine and bringing back ichords, bloodghasts, and whatever else, but you are probably losing that game anyways. I just think the card is too powerful to exclude, and I have always been happy with it. I was just wondering your thoughts.

I think you answered your own question.   The lists in my 5step process don't include cards that are merely good, but absolutely best in those matchups.  Tez might not be bad against Shops, but it's not great.   Great cards only.  

@ Everyone.  I'm impressed that so many of you read this whole thing.   This was a monster long article.  How long did it take to read? 

[JDawg13]

@ Everyone.  I'm impressed that so many of you read this whole thing.   This was a monster long article.  How long did it take to read? 

I don't post here very much any more, but I read most of your articles and this one was exceptionally great and wanted to give you props.  It took me a little over half an hour I think, over the course of the morning, and I really enjoyed it.  Your explanation of all the decisions you made in game and regarding mulligan decisions were thorough as always.  It's always good to see the perspective of someone much better at this game than myself, so I can evaluate weaknesses in my own game.  The little note about the misconceptions about Vintage was very well said too.  Getting to see another example of your five-step deckbuilding method was great - I love how Lightning Bolt ended up in the deck, it was something I really didn't expect to see in a Vintage deck again.  Kudos, keep up the good work!

[Smmenen]

@ Everyone.  I'm impressed that so many of you read this whole thing.   This was a monster long article.  How long did it take to read? 

I don't post here very much any more, but I read most of your articles and this one was exceptionally great and wanted to give you props.  It took me a little over half an hour I think, over the course of the morning, and I really enjoyed it.  Your explanation of all the decisions you made in game and regarding mulligan decisions were thorough as always.  It's always good to see the perspective of someone much better at this game than myself, so I can evaluate weaknesses in my own game.  The little note about the misconceptions about Vintage was very well said too.  Getting to see another example of your five-step deckbuilding method was great - I love how Lightning Bolt ended up in the deck, it was something I really didn't expect to see in a Vintage deck again.  Kudos, keep up the good work!

Thanks man!

Some background on this article:

Aside from using Google Analytics, you can tell how popular an article is on SCG by looking at the articles placement on the bottom of the SCG page, where it says "previously on SCG."   The higher an article is listed, the more hits its gotten. A few weeks ago I published an article on legacy that SCG made into a free article.  It was the most popular article that week, and I've been riding that article's coattails the last few weeks.   I specifically wrote this article with one objective in mind: draw attention to Vintage, and try to dispel some silly Vintage myths in the process.   This article took me hours and hours to write and edit, but I figured it may be one of the few opportunities I get to draw in a large audience.  Fortuitously, Chapin's article wasn't up today, so I got top billing.  That helped. And miraculously, according to the placement at the bottom of the article page, it's currently more popular than Sanchez's Standard article!  That's unbelievable to me, and I've been checking it out all day and its remained true!   A bunch of you out there must be checking it out!   

I have no doubt that in a few months I'll be at the bottom of the barrel again in terms of the quantity of hits among premium writers simply because I write exclusively about Eternal formats, and mostly Vintage.    But I recognized that this was a rare opportunity from a very unique convergence of circumstances to draw attention to Vintage in a special way and I took advantage of it.   Initially, I put that little blurb about Vintage misconceptions at the beginning, then near the end of the article, but in the end I thought it would have the most effect at the end of round one.  I hoped that at least 60% of the readers would read that far into the article.   

It also helped that my first round opponent was Paul, who probably made about the most interesting round one opponent for an article like this. 

But articles like this  won't happen very often.  I've sort of burned myself out in the last month with some very , very long articles.   My article next week is also going to be very unique, but it should draw a smaller audience still.   We'll see.   

Every time folks post replys on the SCG forums or subscribe to premium to read them, you are sending SCG a message that you value Vintage, etc.   And in doing so that will help produce support for Vintage, whether that means tournament support or supporting more Vintage content like Elias and myself.   And, through SCG, Wizards sees more and hears more about Vintage.   

[voltron00x]

One thing you didn't really discuss in the article (unless I missed it) is that your metagame targets ended up being pretty well off what you actually played against in the tournament (although obviously the overall meta may have mirrored what you expected).  Did you figure out anything as far as how to predict your meta targets for the next tournament?

Regardless, great article.  Your attention to detail in these reports is really amazing.  I think you and PV are the best in the biz at the moment when it comes to these types of articles.

[jtwilkins]

Great article, I love reading play by play magic. Do you take a lot of notes during your matches or just have a good memory of what happened?

I used to be really bad at remembering duals. Now when I get home after events I make notes of each matchup and a lot comes back to memory this seems to be improving is improving my  play leading to less mistakes and opening my mind to improved plays. 

[Smmenen]

Article is now free!     Enjoy!

[LotusHead]

I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I like that you had access to most of your opponent's lists for our consideration.

Kudos!