L[ich]D[onate] splits for 1st in Boston

Okay, well I did kinda want to go, but I was feeling like crap on Friday night and was gonna bail but Todd dragged me anyway with no regard for my personal well being.

Anyhow, cooperp asked me if I was going to post a tourney report, and I was toying with the idea to begin with so I decided what the hell, why not. Please note that I took no notes during the games, so I appologize for anything that I didn't include and it's nothing personal. And if got something wrong, lemme know so I can go fix it. This is from memory, but I think I did a pretty decent job at remembering cool plays.

I decided to play my old stand by of a deck, L[ich]D[onate]. The kill is that of Trix, but is 4 colors and has been tuned and tweaked and given my personal touches. Here's a decklist:

4 Donate
3 Illusions of Granduer
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Time Twister
2 Show and Tell
1 Hoodwink
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Impulse
3 Force of Will

3 Dark Ritual
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Nefarious Lich

3 Academy Rector
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Orim's Chant

1 City of Solitude
1 Regrowth
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

1 Scroll Rack
2 Despotic Scepter
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring

4 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
3 Scrubland
3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

SIDEBOARD
3 Compost
2 Defense Grid
1 City of Solitude
2 Aura of Silence
1 Force of Will
2 Propaganda
1 Chill
1 Sacred Ground
2 Hydroblast

A little bit about the deck: Generaly, when a Rector dies, I grab the Bargain, draw a bunch of cards, then win. The deck has a nice amount of mana acceleration and tutor magic so even if I am only drawing 10 cards, it is likely that I'll be able to drop the Illusions, and after those 2 cards it's very likely I can pop off a Donate too, with a FoW as backup.

ROUND 1 - Aaron in a red t-shirt (KerzKid11) playing OSE (with red)

Game 1: A few turns of draw-go pass by and I drop a Rector which dies a horrible death to a Mana Drain. The drained mana couldn't have been used better, as he lays a 6 point Mindtwist on me, making me drop a really nice hand (including an Illusions and Donate and some other junk). Soon after, another Rector hits play and makes him stop attacking with his Mishra's. I'm in topdeck mode, he's got a hand full of stuff and to make matters worse, he Mystical Tutors for a Sceletal Scrying and gets off 6 more cards after a Show and Tell resolves and he sees a Yawgmoth's Bargain in front of him. Once the bargain was laid down, I made quick work of him and donated an illusions for the kill. I didn't think I was going to pull that game off.

SIDEBOARD: +Defense Grid +Defense Grid +City of Solitude / -Nefarious Lich -Impulse -Donate

Game 2: My opening hand consists of land, an Elvish Spirit Guide, Show and Tell, and City of Solitude. I decide to not drop the Show & Tell 2nd turn with the guide, and instead do it on turn 3. He drops a Morphling, I drop a City of Solitude. He got the better of the deals with that one. Anyhow, with some attacking he drops me down to three life. The powers that be led me to draw the Donate I was looking for (to match the Illusions in hand) and I give it to him for the win.

ROUND 2 - Jacob (j_orlove) playing TnT

Game 1 and 2 were about the same thing. No amazingly wonderful plays that I can remember, but I finished him off by turn 4 both times, drawing into exactly what I needed at all the right times. God how I love the TnT matchup. Early Academy Rectors usually make quick work of the deck.

SIDEBOARD: +Aura of Silence +Aura of Silence +Chill +Force of Will +Hydroblast / -Nefarious Lich -Impulse -City of Solitude -Donate -Show & Tell

ROUND 3 - Keith (ctthespian) playing a red/artifact control deck*

*This deck's kinda cool. It operates much like Ducktape, in that it controls the board with a massive number of permanents, and controls with Smokestack, Tangle Wire, and Welder. There are some Stone Rains thrown in for further advantage, and it's an all around nice deck.

Game 1: This game was a quick and clean kill. He wasn't able to get board advantage, despite an early Smokestack, but that just gave him a permanent that would kill my Rector. Thanks Smokestack.

SIDEBOARD: Same as TnT but I added the Sacred Ground instead of the Hydroblast or Chill. Can't remember. Either way, Sacred Ground is THE MAN with Smokestack.

Game 2: Keith goes first and gets the best draw I've ever seen that deck have. Something like Mountain, Mox Ruby, Welder, Welder, Lotus, Tangle Wire(?). Nevertheless, I was backpeddling all game. He dropped a Memory Jar then popped it off during his upkeep. I drew up my hand and smiled at the Orim's Chant there, and proceeded to pop that off on him. Unfortunately, this small bit of joy wasn't enough for me to win, and he had everything locked up with another Tangle Wire in the 'yard to Weld away, a Smokestack with a counter on it, and two Welders giving the big middle finger to my Aura of Silence. Anyway, I scooped because I couldn't pull out from that lock.

Game 3: Nothing particularly special happened this game, except the fact that my deck moved like a well oiled machine, and I did him in quickly. Once I layed down Illusions and thwarted (the verb, not the card) his plans to stop me he scooped it up.

On a side note, between rounds I ran to a pizza place for some food. I was amazed at the fact that EVERY couple which I walked by (of which there were like thirty) every guy had a cute Asian girlfriend. Damn, where can I sign up?

ROUND 4 - Lou (mailman, i think) playing red/artifact control

Game 1: Lou is the one who made up this deck, and Keith helped him tweak it a little, so I was a little more worried going into this match because I've been told he's seen a good deal of success with it, and it's only done okay for Keith. Anyway, this game was a really good draw, and he was dead around turn 4 or 5.

SIDEBOARD: same as Keith's matchup

Game 2: This game was sad. Lou had to Paris down to 4 cards after getting NO LAND. As it was, his only land was a Tolarian with no artifacts. I felt kind of bad as I looked at my first turn Aura of Silence and second turn Chill. Needless to say, I won.

That brings us to Top 8. In it were...

Lou (my round 4 opponent)
Aaron (my round 1 opponent)
Jacob (my round 2 opponent)
Jason (also known here as leviat, playing TnT)
Todd (the bastard who dragged me to Boston, playing a cool Zombie Infest deck)
thombligh (playing UrPhid)
um... and two other people who I didn't play and didn't see their matchups.

TOP 8 - vs Jason (leviat) playing TnT

Game 1: He went first and dropped a Pearl, Tiaga, Mox Monkey. That two mana was good for him, because I dropped a Lotus, Sapphire, City of Brass, Dark Rit, Illusions, Donate. I consider that a 1st turn kill, even if it did take him til his next upkeep to die. Anyhow, that game took around 45 seconds.

SIDEBOARD: same as with j_orlove

Game 2: I draw into Force of Will, Force of Will, Hydroblast, Illusions, Donate, Underground Sea, and something else. I keep. I shouldn't have. I should learn that I am NOT a blue control player and my deck showed this to me as I got a SOUND THRASHING. It was much deserved, especially after game 1.

Game 3: Now this is where my tourney report sucks, because I can't remember the specifics of this match. Alls I know is it was WICKED close (I drew into a Yawg Bargain with 14 life and won the turn before I was gonna lose) and was one of the best games I had all day. Sorry for not giving any cool plays or anything.

TOP 4 - vs Jacob (j_orlove) playing TnT

Game 1: This match went much like the other two games I had with Jacob, as I drew into good stuff and it was over pretty quickly (although not turn 4). Sorry for not having more specifics on this match Jacob - feel free to post 'em if you got 'em, please!

SIDEBOARD: same, except I opted to throw in a Propaganda instead of a Hydro (I think). I don't know why, as Top 4 is not the place to experiment, but I'm stupid and didn't really care.

Game 2: I exploded in one turn (not turn one, more like turn 4 or 5) from a Bargain with an Illusions and Donate. Unfortunately, I'm a weiner and played too quickly and he Red Elemental Blasted my Illusions in response to it coming into play. I dropped down a Mystical Tutor, payed a life to draw the Force of Will, and countered the Blast for the win.

TOP 2 - FINALS - FOR-ALL-THE-BANANAS - vs thombligh with UrPhid

Yeah... we split and each took home $65. I'm not one that needs to go for the gold, I'm quite happy with a Gold/Silver alloy. Control is an unfavorable matchup for me, but my deck was doing real good all day, and ran me through OSE so I honestly don't know how those games would have gone.

A big thanks to Dan (cooperb) who organized this whole thing. It was a lot of fun and it was cool to meet some other fellow manadrainers (though I was sad the Brimingham crew weren't able to make their way down).

Peace.

-J:tD