Well, to sum it up, the deck crapped out on me in the end, but I'm feeling fine because it wasn't through any fault of my own.
I started the day off with a very sexy 2-0, but, past this point, my deck coughed up everything BUT what I needed to see.
Deck listing at bottom.
ROUND 1:
Paul Tran playing Sligh in
white sleeves
I crack open my deck to pull five Mountains and 2 burn spells. Tossing it back, I pull up 2 Wasteland, 1 Cursed Scroll, 1 Lightning Bolt, 1 Incinerate. Not so wonderful, but better than ditching another card. We burn eachother down a bit, with me doing most of the work. My first Wasteland meets a very random Ghitu Encampment. After my PoP knocks us down to 18:3 (my lead), Cursed Scroll does the dirty work.
I sided out 1 Vise, 1 Ankh, 1 PoP, and 4 Shaman to bring in 3 Pyrokinesis and 4 Mogg Fanatic
Game 2 I kept a hand with two Ankhs and drew a third on my second turn. He had three Fanatics out by about turn four and proceded to nuke any creature I played and beat me down savagely.
At this point I realized that Ankh is far worse than PoP in the mirror, and traded 2 Ankh for 2 PoP.
Game 3 he dropped Fanatic, Pup, Encampment and attacked as soon as he could. This trio met my friend Mr. P. Kinesis and quickly took their leave. Two Chain Lightnings and a lone Cursed Scroll go all the way.
2-1
ROUND 2:
Jason Jaco playing many-colored Oath
Surprisingly, this man had very short, blonde hair. I expected it to be long and flowing, as anybody with the initials Double J should have.
He wins the roll and drops a beautiful Library of Alexandria. Despite having a hand including two Wastelands, I opt to give him a cantrip in exchange for a little tempo and drop a Shaman. LoA does its work and Jas finds nothing useful. Next turn I show him who wears the pants by nuking his LoA and slapping down a Pup. Another Shaman joins the party a turn or two later and Jason's life is quickly dwindling away. The Pup does eventually get StP'd, but my grip of FOUR Price of Progress (which I flashed to Brian B for some precious 'OMG' points) ensures that the game is MINE MINE MINE.
I wasn't aware he was playing Oath and I had assumed some sort of odd Keeper build. I pulled out 4 Incinerate, 3 Chain for 4 REB, 3 Pyroblast.
I had a pretty slow start this game, which was an omen. Jason -did- manage to balance away a land, a Shaman, and a card in my hand (which prevented me from destroying two of his moxen on my next turn), but I jumped right back out with Cadets and a Scroll, which went on to take the win whilst Jason fiddled with a Scroll Rack for several turns.
Note: This is precisely why I can't stand Scroll Rack in Oath.
ROUND 3:
Sugrim Ramsundar with Fireblast Sligh
This is where things started going downhill. This guy had Fireblast in the PoP slot, didn't know how Gorilla Shaman worked, and sideboarded APOCALYPSE (which he later used against Brian B's Parfait).
What happened here was some real misfortune. Whenever I see one of these foreign people, they always turn out to have some totally TECHED out 5 color deck. Hence what happened...
I win the die roll 5 to 2 and keep a HATE.hnd that includes a Wasteland, a Strip Mine, 2 PoPs, and a monkey. Naturally, I drop the monkey. I see him play a Mountain and a Goblin Cadets...and my jaw drops. I get the feeling my next card is going to be a 2cc non-Incinerate piece of crap...Price of Progress it is! I manage to keep the race up until the life totals hit 11-up. He looks at his Shaman and tries to figure out how to destroy my Cursed Scroll, which he eventually does. At this point, his horde slaughters me and Fireblast blows me out of the water.
Again I side out 4 Ankh, 1 Vise, 2 PoP for 4 Fanatic + 3 Kinesis
As usual, I make a prediction that is bound to come true: I predict that I will draw an opening hand including two or more Pyrokinesis. I do. HOWEVER, the man never plays a single creature, and Fireblast plus an opposing Cursed Scroll burn me to a crisp.
This was shit, as the guy and his deck were both wiener. I was in an ALRIGHT mood, though, because round 3 is usually my big loss of the day and I tend to pick myself back up afterwards.
ROUND 4:
Alexander Kwan playing Urphidian without fetches or wishes
He goes first (as I recall) and drops an Island. I open with Mountain-Shaman, which gets a really yucky facial response and a comment about how that's not nice. I spend a turn or two shooting some burn at him before he drops a Morphling off a Lotus and outraces me by two or three turns.
I did the usual anti-blue junk trading Incinerates/Chains for REBs/Pyros
Game two, here, marks the beginning of mana flood for me. I probably mulliganed once (though I didn't write it down) and still kept a hand of half land. I did nothing of significance aside from bolting a Phid before Masticore came down and ATE ME ALIVE.
Going from 2-0 to 2-2 is NOT fun.
ROUND 5:
Jimmy Cheater playing odd Oath
Obviously that's not his real name, but, according to Pat, he got it because of his tendency to, well, cheat
I had thought this was one of the Groatog players, there, but I soon learned I was wrong.
I mulled away a hand lacking any sort of speed and, in return, my deck coughed up three Price of Progress and some other stuff. At this point I'm thinking he's playing GAT and am happy that my sideboard will finally do some good. I drop an Ankh, which gets Dazed. We both play Draw-Go for a turn and then I run another Ankh into a Daze. I wasn't even picking up tempo, as both of these were HARDcast. At this point he drops Oath and I'm thankful that I hadn't seen a creature yet. I fire off all three Price of Progress (each on its own turn)--the first meets a 'You maindeck those!?!?' and a hardcast Force of Will, the second causes him to think for a -long- time before he tries to Misdirect it (then has me scold him before he takes it back and FoWs it via pitching), and the third takes him to exactly zero.
I side out 11 of my 12 creatures (leaving ONE Shaman) to bring in 7 blasts and 4 Fanatic.
I pick up my 7 and see a VERY ANGRY GORILLA SHAMAN staring back at me. Disliking his disposition, I throw him back and hope to not have to deal with him again. Drawing 6 this time, I see 4 Mountains and 1 Shaman...and my first draw shows me a 5th Mountain. He drops a 2nd turn Oath and 3rd turn Sylvan. I follow that with a Cursed Scroll which resolves and shows Fork instead of either of the 2 PoP in my hand TWICE before getting nuked by a Keg. I reach around 12 land before he finally casts a Morphling. I REB it and he Cspells. I REB that and he MisDs to MisD. I Fork the Cspell and aim it at the Morphling. He Forces that and the Morphling resolves. I'm dead in 4 turns, bringing him to 6 before dying.
Keep the sided configuration the same.
Once AGAIN, I draw Gorilla Shaman in my opening hand (and nothing else spectacular). Throwing him back finds me 2 Mountain, a Waste, an Ankh, an Incinerate, and a Bolt. My Ankh gets FoW'd. I bolt him all the way down to 6 (fetchlands helped) and then my 2nd Ankh gets countered. I have 6 land between the board and my hand and draw another Mountain...and then SHAMAN...and then another Mountain. He hardcasts a Ravenous Baloth. I check the top two cards of my library, which are Mountain and Wasteland, and concede.
Here was the deck I ran:
4 Pup
4 Cadet
4 Shaman
4 Ankh
4 PoP
4 Incinerate
4 Bolt
4 Chain
1 Fork
1 Vise
1 Strip
4 Wasteland
17 Mountain
SB: 4 Fanatic
SB: 4 REB
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Pyrokinesis
SB: 1 Rack and Ruin (all I owned)
PROPS:
-Pat (who played B/g Void) for providing a ride and whatnot. Pretty much to the whole crew I was with, as well, including OftenLost (EnchanTrix), BrianB (Parfait), Charlie (unpowered Oath), and Chris (B/g Void).
-Jason Jaco for having the 'Double J' thing I've only dreamt of
-Three trillion people for complimenting my playing skills
-My deck for being well balanced and not overly dependant on a specific threat.
-OftenLost for running EnchanTrix (as per my command!) and mising with it (hey, 3-2 is a mise for that, eh). Combo that beats control and loses to aggro is TEQ.
-THE GUY WITH THE PROXIED SCRYB SPRITES
-Charlie for piloting my BlueGreenBrokenUnpoweredOath.
dec and doing a decent job, despite a not-so-hot finishing record.
-Some guy running Sligh with 4 Pyroblasts main who defeated OftenLost and then lost to Brian B. This was funny as well as a throwback to the Academy era.
-The two old-looking ladies we drove by who Charlie (and to a lesser extent OftenLost) shouted 'HEY MILF!' at.
-Brian B for owning the world with 3c Parfait (red/black). I now, seriously, have -utmost- respect for this man as a player. He's also a really nice guy (as opposed to being arrogant to newbies and whatnot). Additionally, he said and did things similar to my friend Joe's style of play, which is the guy that really taught me to play this game. Joe was a man who could slaughter other, well built aggro AND control decks playing poorly built control featuring 4 Arcane Denial and no card draw/search. Bri can likely do what Joe can but has a better concept of environment and is likely a far better deck builder.
Brian B may not be a god to me, but his style is something I consider very dangerous. I'm proud to have met him.
-BIGGEST PROPS EVER TO THE BEANER GUY WE PASSED ON THE WAY HOME. HE WAS RIDING ONE BIKE AND DRIVING A SECOND ONE WITH A HUGE-ASS SMILE ON HIS FACE BECAUSE HE JUST STOLE THE DAMN BIKE. We waved and shouted at him and he smiled at us hardcore. Omg this was the most broken beaner ever. Chris even shouted out 'THAT GUY IS TECH!!!!!!!!!!!!1'
SLOPS:
-YouGayHo players for trying to steal out chairs
-Sugrim for playing FireblastApocalypseIDontKnowW
hatGorillaShamanDoesSligh.dec
and taking 3rd/4th overall (he took an intentional draw vs. Mask to split the $10 credit so that they could both claim they earned back exactly what they spent).
-Pat's car for losing both power steeling AND its fan belt.
Credit: OftenLost for helping with Props/Slops.
What was funny was that none of us looked like we'd really be friends. None of us looked anything alike. Pat was random long haired guy with small beard, Brian was uber tall generic white blue-collared working man, Charlie was just like...grunge dude I guess, Chris was like punk looking, OftenLost was some little kid (I don't actually mean that to be insulting) who was actually well dressed, and I am like TanSkinnedPreppy.guy.
I think I should have taken Oath, Charlie EnchanTrix, and OL should put on a purple tie and played Sligh. That would have been killer.
This was really an awesome group and I -HOPE- to see more of them in the future. Thanks so much to all of you, especially those that think they didn't do anything for me.
On a final note, I'm SERIOUSLY going to drop a Mountain for a single Urza's Bauble next time. How's THAT for Spell:Mana ratio balacing tech!?\n\n
