Hadley the Jan 11th for a Unlim Sapphire

[BillTheDuck]

Nope, Chuck is wrong.
More fuel for purpose #2 of this thread.

[spin13]

Just want to say that the tournament was excellent.  There were upwards of 40 people (I heard both 39 and 42, not sure which is correct) and the prize ended up being your choice between a Beta or Alpha Sapphire due to mix up.  Apparently, the Alpha was still in the mail, so the store owner offered up a Beta from his own deck, apparently more mint than the incoming Alpha, because he didn't want to stiff somebody who might not be coming back around anytime soon.  Though the winner didn't take it, opting for the Alpha to turn around and hook friends up, I must say that its at least a very honorable thing to do.

It was a solid turn out with a solid array of decks, though the metagame did seem skewed with the allowance of proxies.  Top Eight was as such:

1. Nick (BilltheDuck) - OSE
2. Bryan Phelan (Hulk3Rules) - Mask
3. Jarad Demick (Wicketsnatcher) - Lich Donate [CT Crew]
4. Eric Spinelli (spin13) - ReapLace [CT Crew]
5. Dan (Pernicious Dude) - U/r Fish
6. Ray Robillard (IAmFishMan) - Anhk Sligh [two time defending champion, CT Crew]
7. ?? - SquirrelCraft
8. Scott - TnT

If I messed up any of the rankings, oh well, because thats how the intial pairings went [1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc] (I only know that Nick and Bryan were in first and second in some order, and Dan and I were 4th/5th though I'm not sure what order, though I think my tie breakers were better by a game or two).

Thats fairly spread with 4 Aggro, 3 Combo, 1 Control.  The field, however, was lacking in control as far as I saw.  Beyond Nick with OSE there were only two control decks that I saw, one being BigChuck ("A metagame deck" U/g Oath (1-3 drop)) and some odd U/b Millstone deck.  It was great to see not a single duplicated deck in the T8 and as much as a few of the creative decks disappeared (so I hear) with the proxies, so did the reign of mono-Black (which had 3 or 4 in the last T8).  I think thats still a good thing for proxies.

It finished as follows:

Jarad in first, Dan in second, Nick and Phelan splitting for 3rd.  The entire Top4 was TMD members.  I can think of at least 14 TMDers in total there, so a good showing overall.

CT Crew put in a good showing with eight (nine?) attendees, three in the top eight, and winning it all for the third time in a row.  A good day of Magic.  Now for a 4 month retirement for me....

 -Eric\n\n

[Saucemaster]

Spin13, are you going to post a tourney report?  I'd be very interested to read a ReapLace report!

Actually, I'm looking forward to tourney reports from everyone in the top 8.  That's a great field.

[Skelbo14]

I am interested to hear from Hulk3rules about why mask keeps doing so well, but then not performing in the semis.  I think he may have mentioned it to me, but i always forget to listen so this is a good way to have it as a reference.  I'm sure everyone else is interested in why exactly this once-was constant tournament winner has been running a little dry lately.
(personally I think it's because of the stopping playing mono blue and starting playing mask, but that's just me)

[pernicious dude]

He lost both games to Null Rod, top-decked after multiple Duress and Unmask.
He had one Recoil to get it off the table with.
First game he got the Recoil too late to matter.
Second game Rootwater Thief got the Recoil before he did.

Against Mask, I would actually mulligan a hand that included Null Rod, unless I was going first and had a way to play it first turn.
He'll take it out of your hand.
You must top-deck it.