Hello, it's been a while since I've written one of these. I haven't been around the magic scene much since having children, and now that I have some time again - I've take up the good fight of actually playing when I get some time.
That out of the way, I realized a few weeks ago that I would be able to play at this event and decided it was time to sleeve up landstill to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the women. I decided after a bit of online testing that the second EE should be a gorilla shaman, and was trying to fit more in the maindeck as well. My guess on the metagame was lots of shops, and vault-key bob decks. I actually was considering eschewing dredge hate in the board completely, but then decided that if I was wrong and paired against it, I wanted at least one free match.
The night before, the person I was going to ride down with was called in to work, and I was almost going to abandon the tournament. However, I sent a quick message to Oli B. asking if he was going, and if so would he mind one more. As an aside, I'd like to mention that there are three incredibly nice people in the world that you should go out of your way to meet. The first is Mila Kunis, whose beauty is surpassed by her unerring want to help those around her. The second is Matt Damon. He has a thicker boston accent than I do, and works his ass off to give the little guy a shot. The third is Oliver Beaumont, who once tore off his own leg to use as a replacement railroad track to save a bunch of children traveling to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in his native country of England. Bill Copes was so impressed with Oli's feat of strength, he granted Oli a new leg.
Of course, Oli said there was room, and I fell asleep thinking my ability to attend the tournament was solidified. Until 1/2 hour later, when my son started crying. And then an hour after that, my daughter woke up.
I decided at dawn's first light, that I would attend anyway. So, I collected all the items I thought I would need, did the breakfast thing, and set off to the well-known whereabouts of Hudson, NH. Arriving, I meet up with Oli, Jeff, John, and Kyle. We cram into Oli's car, and set off to the Massachusetts public transportation portal known as Alewife. Alewife sounds like it should be the most incredible station in the history of stations. It combines two things everyone should enjoy - booze and women - in one enticing word promising a night of unabashed, unbridled glory that leads to a morning of no regrets. Instead, it's a subway station of unremarkable quality, and that includes the few homeless dudes who loiter about looking for a conversation, but without the promise of booze. I blame this confusion solely on Bill Copes, who probably had an instrumental hand in the naming of this particular trolley gate to confuse and confound.
We board the train, with very little magic talk occurring. When we get to Pandemonium, the store is closed. It's 10:30am, and I am Jack's Icy Nipples of Rage. We run into more magic playing folks, and decide to accost the local convenience store where I purchase a bottle of water, a banana, a notebook, and a pen. Providence protects me once again, as I forgot these essential tournament accessories. We head back to Pandemonium after a barely intelligible, toothless man informs us, by way of sounding like he just exited a fight with the force, that Bill Copes is on his way. We instantly know that we are playing for 2nd place.
The store opens, and we rush the entrance to escape the frozen wastes of Cambridge, MA. Piling into the basement of this store, we stumble upon the tournament area and start waiting for NY to come tear us a new one, since clearly the Boston vintage scene is as terrible as NY sports teams. Alas, they fail to show. However, the hall is now filled with some of the mightiest warriors of Vintage that Boston ever saw. Mike Lydon, Demonic Attorney, Andrew Probasco, Stefan Ellsworth, Bill Copes, Jesse Martin, and others all representing a Vintage tournament full of skilled pilots and powerful mages. I mentally prepared myself for 0-2 drop, and a drive home to see my wife and kids.
My list:
4 Standstill
4 Wasteland
1 Nevinyrall's Disk
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Izzet Charm
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Mana Drain
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Misdirection
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Misstep
1 Strip Mine
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing Truth
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Black Lotus
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gorilla Shaman
Side Board
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Ingot Chewer
2 Red Elemental Blast
Round 1 - Mike Lukas (Lucas?) w/ Bomberman
G1 - I slip out an early Jace, but my failure to play correctly allows him to land his own Jace on the board. From there I make misplay after misplay and we eat up most of the round with board parity. He ends up winning this one...
And then I notice a card with a paper proxy slip on the floor. My opponent had one of these for a tundra. Wait, it's coming back, the judges said not to use these as proxies, and my opponent was making a fuss at the beginning of about a weird number of cards/sleeves/whatnot. I call the judge, since I'm now wary that my opponent has presented an illegal deck. After a whole lot of shuffling and scurrying, my opponent gets a gameloss since the "bad proxy" tundra was supposed to be a polluted delta.
At this point, the time in the round is almost over, and I ask my opponent if he wants to just draw so that we get some downtime between rounds. He's obviously incredibly flustered after the deck reg errors, and I want to get the scouting report. He decides that he'd rather play it out, which probably makes sense for him with his 2/2 beaters.
I ask the judge if I can use the entire 3 minutes I have to shuffle, but the judge says he'll rule it as slowplay, so I just play it out. Of course, he wins with a few seconds to spare after rushing out 2/2s. I boarded in crypts and rebs, and boarded out Hurkyl's, spell pierce, and I believe Echoing Truth.
Round 2 - Mike M. w/Strix Control
NOTE: My opponent this round was awesome. We just played magic, and I had lots of fun. This is quite possibly my favorite round in terms of how awesome the Magic games played out.
G1 - He lands an early bob, but we counter war over some of his accelerants and force him to go down on life and cards. He flips a force to Bob, and I'm now acutely aware that I can probably race him on damage. I dropped a faerie conclave and his response was to mock conclave with a well timed "What does THAT do?" Internally, I commented to myself that it goes the distance. Then externally, I spent a few turns turning the conclave sidewards and chip him to 0.
Out: Hurkyl's and 1 Spell Pierce, In: Rebs
G2 - I'll double check my notes at home, but I believe we played this game, and that it ended with me scooping after he's way ahead on card advantage and I don't have any gas. During this game, I see him resolve Mystic Remora.
G3 - This game looks similar to the first. I end up hold fists full of countermagic and resolve ancestral and the IDW Comics version of standstill which gets lots of looks and comments. Even Bill Copes fakes mild interest. I get there in turns, while using a shaman to keep him off recurring Mystic Remora.
Round 3 - U/W Bomberman vs. Yong
We get deck checked.
G1 - We go back and forth on parity, but I force a disk through, and clear his board. After that I resolve a standstill and go the distance with two mishra's.
Out: Hurkyl's, and spell pierces; In: Rebs and a tormod's.
G2 - This looks similar, only I win faster after I get a crucible-waste lock on him by draining a trinket mage. Shaman eats his board, and double mishra's seals the deal quickly.
Round 4 - "Meddling Mike" Lydon w/ Dredge
G1 - I know he's on dredge, since I saw him playing previously. I keep a hand with an echoing truth because I try to get him to overcommit, but he gets off three therapies and my hand is destroyed. I know I'm, going to lose, but I try and hang on as long as I can to see his deck.
Out: Disk, 2 Jace, Steel Sabotage, Hurkyl's, bolts, and misd.
Mike is a great trashtalker, and the banter was pretty hilarious. He kept riffling my deck when I presented, so after I presented and he riffled, I cut it, thinking that was allowed. In my defense it WAS allowed in 1996-1997 tournament floor rules (and you can google that, person who said "That's never been allowed"). But sometime in the last 17 years they changed it - my bad. The judge gives me a warning and Mike re-riffles. I felt bad about this for the rest of the day, so thanks idiot who claimed that what I did has never been allowed...
G2 - I draw and see two leylines and a force in my opener. I didn't even care what the rest of the cards were (there was an island and a factory), since dredge folds to multiple hate pieces plus backup. I draw a cage soon after that, and my mishra's beats down while he can't get an answer to the hate.
G3 - I mulligan what would normally be a keepable hand, because I want to find leyline. I have a leyline and a cage in my opener, along with, I believe force backup. Again, dredge does it's thing where a prepared opponent who is terrible can beat a skilled opponent who is amazing.
Round 5 - Taylor Pratt playing Terra Nova (I forget your name)
G1 - I counter his crucible, but let him get down three sphere of resistance (two are metamorphs) while I slow-roll double waste. He locks himself out of the game and I beat down with conclaves to win it.
Out: 2 misd, and 2 misstep; In: 4 Chewer
G2 - I mulligan a hand with waste, double force, and nothing else, into a hand with no answers at all. I decide to ancestral my opponent by going to 5, but my 5 is keepable with two mana sources, a force, a drain, and a jace. This game takes a while, but I get Jace online, and ultimate him while holding two standstills. I had a disk on the board as an emergency, but didn't need it.
Side Note: During this event, my opponent is trying to remove my mox sapphire from the sleeve - I am Jack's Nervous Stomach.
Round 6 - Stefan (T00L), w/ Shops
ID
At this point, I get a round to hang out. I get to talk to DA, Brassy, T00L, AbdullahTheButcher aka Bill Copes, and the folks with whom I rode down. We talk about tea sipping, and how a deck with Phyrexian Dreadnaught and Reality Ripple must be amazing. I even remark about DA playing Mind Twist and how happy that makes me (HINT: A LOT!).
We spend some time doing math and decide on a split where 1st place gets a Mox, and everyone else gets roughly $80. We all find this agreeable, and since I'm CLEARLY not super interested in a sapphire, I decide to play against my instincts in top8 (sarcasm).
T8 - T00L w/ Shops
G1 - I keep a not-so-incredible hand, but it has force, and I figure I can get there. NOTE: Always trust your instincts to mulligan if you know a deck well. Stefan crushes me.
Boarding - same as shops before
G2 - I reflex keep a hand with library but no gas even though I'm on the play. Then I see him open with sapphire -> Sol Ring, and my gut says "Force the ring", but my brain says "He's not crazy enough to keep a hand that rolls to force, so a workshop is coming." No workshop hits the field. He rides sapphire-sol ring to victory once he gets crucible strip lock.
Overall, I enjoyed the tournament. The judges were great, the facility was awesome, and I walked away with a top8 slot amongst some amazing players. A+! We ride home discussing Oath, Bomberman, and how good Landstill happens to be at the moment.
-Aaron
