Intro: It was Thursday night, and Spring break was coming up. I was originally going to fly to Florida to see friends. At the last minute, my friend cancelled on me, so I was left sh*t out of luck. Luckily, I remembered there was a mox tourney in good ol’ Columbus. I check airfare and it was $530. I figured, why the hell not, I was gonna drop like 1K on the florida trip, and had nothing better to do, so I decided to go to Columbus for the weekend. I wake up early Friday morning and prepare for the long trek to Ohio. Steve M Menendian picks me up at the airport and shortly, we are play testing for the upcoming tournament. I meet Joe “I’m gay as crap” Bushman and we play some games, tell some jokes, and generally have a good time. After seeing his AMAZING Tog playing skillz and his savage top decking, I’m almost convinced I would play Tog at the tournament. In any case, I got to watch Joe play Steve, and EVERY SINGLE GAME Joe Top decks either a shaman or a pernicious deed for the win. I must say though, that Gorilla Shaman is SUCH a friggin’ house in strong metagames devoid of crappy aggro. It’s late and we go back to Steve’s place, where I get the distinct privilege to play Smmenen. I loose horribly. Period. I think I won one game in like 20. At this point I’m getting very nervous, and after Steve tells me the field WILL be slavery, I start to wonder if Tog is the best choice. Steve tries to convince me to play slaver, but I knew that I had much more experience in Tog, and it was like 2 AM, so I stuck with Tog. We wake up at 11:00 (9:00 my time) and stumble over to get some coffee. We arrive at the Soldiery, but see NOBODY. We get worried, but eventually, a bunch of people show up. I do some scouting and see a BUNCH of stifles running around, and a BUNCH of workshop decks. Last minute, I change my SB Naturalize to oxidize, and my 5th fetch to a single strip mine (lots of fish and landstill mean maze of ith, which I HATE to play around). After meeting some TMDer’s (Soupboy, Hi-Val, Jason Stinnet, serracollector, Michael S.) and Meandeckers (Paul M., CHA1N, Mike L.), pairings are up.
My decklist, as well as the T8 can be found at:
http://www.morphling.de/coverages/top8decks.php?id=114Round 1: Sean playing Rector-Trix
Game 1: He wins the die roll and starts with gemstone mine, cabal therapy naming force of will. Luckily, I wasn’t holding any. I was scared sh*tless, as I didn’t really have a good game vs. trix when I played it in Denver. I lead with duress and take his necropotence, leaving him with nothing but mana sources. I top decked a mana drain that turn as well. We play draw go for about 2 turns, when he tries to resolve an academy rector. I drain, then mystical tutor for mind twist, twist on my turn, pass, then intuition for 3 togs end of his turn. This was too much for him to handle, as I had the cunning wish and a drain for whatever he was going to TD.
Out: 1 Time Walk, Mystical tutor, Cunning Wish
In: 1 Pernicious Deed, 2 Coffin Purge
Game 2: Again, he plays a first turn duress naming FOW. Again, he sees nothing. I play a turn 1 duress again and nab an ancestral recall (Woooohooooo). I see bargain AND necro in his hand, but no 3rd black mana source. On his turn, plays a mox diamond pitching his only other land and plays a demonic tutor. I drain, then on my turn, I top deck mind twist and strip his hand. He is left with 1 card in hand and 2 mana sources. He draws, plays xantid swarm, and passes. I then drop deed, blow for one, and leave him with a gemstone mine with 1 counter, and 1 card in hand. Suffice to say I win that game with ease.
Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Round 2: Jason Stinnet Playing draw7.dec
Game 1: this game was soooooooooo amazing. I knew who Jason was, as he T8ed at the last Columbus tourney with Tog. I knew he was playing Draw7 with swarms, so I was a bit worried. I win the die roll and something amazing happens. My opening hand is: Lotus, Crypt, Intuition, duress, ancestral, and some other cards. I drop lotus, crypt, blow for blue, ancestral, draw into sea, duress, brainstorm, intuition for 3 AK’s, all the while holding a FoW. On the duress, I see a hand, just as strong. He was holding a mox, a lotus, a city, a wheel, a will, and something else. I take the wheel and pass. He tries to twister on his turn (that he drew). I force. My turn I draw into a gorilla shaman, drop a fetch land, and pass. On his turn, he drops a mox, and a sol ring and attempts to cast yawgmoth’s will. I drain. During my turn, I play the shaman and blow up his board. At this point he can’t recover and I simply play the waiting game till I draw into my tog.
Out: 1 Time Walk, 1 Cunning Wish
In: 2 REB
Game 2: Not much to say here. He mulls down to 4 cards. He then passes the turn to me. I duress and see Mox, Mox, Sol ring, Twister. I nab the twiser and pass. He then drops his 3 pieces of jewelry and passes. I play a land and pass. He then plays a glimmervoid (I think) and attempts to play a tinker, which I drain. My turn I play deed, blow up his board, and from that point, I proceed to find my tog and win. I really hate winning a game that way, but it was for a mox.
Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-0
Round 3: David Connor Playing Draw7
Game 1: WTF?!?! 3 combo decks in a row?!!?! Oh well. This game goes by pretty quick, as I win the die roll, duress his wheel, then force his yawgmoth’s will. Fortunately for me, he blew his wad trying to do this (he had city, mana vault, and lotus as his only mana sources). This gave me like 2 turns to setup yet another disgusting mind twist for the win.
Out: 1 Time Walk
In: 1 Pernicious Deed
Game 2: We both mull to 6 and keep. He plays a land and passes. I play a sea and duress seeing will, bargain, wheel, twister, sol ring, and mana crypt (I don’t understand why he didn’t play sol ring). I nab the mana crypt and pass. During his turn, he plays a xantid swarm and passes back to me. I TD my lonely strip mine to keep him mana less. Unfortunately, I don’t draw mana either. We play draw go for like 5 turns each until I draw a fetch. I think he eventually drew into a mox, but I answered with a gorilla shaman, and then finished him off with Mind twist.
Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-0
At this point I’m watching Cinnamon (Smmenen) play O stompy. I was amazed, as his fat just ran over green dudes. I talk with Kevin Cron (such a cool guy) and he says that I may have a chance at drawing into the T8. We also talked a bit about the Trinistax/slavery matchup. Serracollector then comes and talks with me. We disagree on the Tog vs. Trinistax matchup. His friends say that it’s heavily in favor of stax. But from my experience, tog has a good game vs. trinistax so long as the tog player has a force opening hand.
Round 4: Justin playing Gay/R
Seeing as how we were the ONLY 3-0’s and at the top table, we draw and play it out for fun. I CRUSH him games one and two. Then, he proceeds with GAY beatings and destroy me the following games.
Round 5: Cinnamon (Smmenen) playing Meandeck Slaver
We’re both guaranteed into the T8, and I’m hungry as f*ck, so Willie, Kevin, Justin, Cinnamon, and me go to Wendy’s (God I love Ohio, Wendy’s meal #6 is like $1.50 cheaper than it is in Denver).
After Round five, standings are up:
1st: Kevin Cron (CHA1N) (Meandeck Slavery)
2nd: Justin (Gay/R)
3rd: Bob Yu (4c Tog)
4th: Steve Menendian (Meandeck Slavery)
5th: Jonathon P. (soupboy) (Mint Skittles…NOT smurfs)
6th: Tim Allen ( Draw7)
7th: Paul M. (Meandeck Slavery)
8th: Doug Linn (Hi-Val) (U/R Landstill)
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Every deck in the top 8 packed 4 Force of Will. AMAZING!
Quaterfinals: Tim Allen playing Draw7
Game 1: All I could think about was how bizarre it was that I played ALL THREE Draw7 decks today. Anyways, this matchup was going to be hard as usual, seeing as how he packed MD Xantid swarms. Game 1, he overwhelmed me. He simply cast way too many threats for me to deal with. At one point he looked like he was going to fizzle. Silly me, he was just planning a huge desire. The desire showed 3 draw7’s and a tendrils. I scoop it up.
Out: 1 Time Walk, 1 Cunning Wish
In: 2 REB
Game 2: This game was GREAT. We both paris to 6. I lead with emerald, lotus, mind twist for 3. I nab ritual, lotus, and city. Jason (who was sitting next to him) laughs uncontrollably. During his turn, he draws and passes. I then duress seeing NOTHING but brokeness. Seems like that mind twist yoinked all his mana sources. He didn’t see another land that entire game.
Game 3: This game was very close. I duress and take a wheel, leaving mana sources, a force of will, burning wish, and windfall. He attempts to windfall, I ancestral, and force. During my turn, I top deck a pernicious deed. I pass. He plays out some moxes and a xantid swarm. He then burning wishes, which I let go through. To my surprise he grabs balance!!! During my turn, I drop mana crypt, and then a deed. During his turn, he declares an attack, I blow deed, but he plays hurkyl’s recall in response. He plays out his moxen, but is unable to play balance. At this point, he only has 1 card in hand (FoW). My turn, I rip a gorilla shaman and chomp up his moxes. He draws a land, attempts to balance, but it gets drained. I then go apesh*t with intuition and seal up the game.
Matches: 4-0-2
Games: 8-1-2
At this point I’m confident in getting the mox as Paul and Kevin fell to the manlands(slaver is my worst matchup). Sadly though, I had another thing coming. I get paired with Cinnamon and we begin playing.
SemiFinals: Cinnamon playing Meandeck Slavery
Game 1: This game was insane. He leads with chalice two, which I force. He plays some more broken spells, while all I do is drop a tog. Then, during his next turn, he drops welder and wheels. I let both through and draw into a god hand of: 2xFOW, 2xWish, 1xLotus, 1xBrainstorm, 1 Duress. He then drops chalice for 2 again, which gets forced. During my turn, I drop the lotus, sac for green, and go in for the kill.
Game 2: I don’t remember much about this game except that Steve got a slaver turn 2. He doesn’t slave me however, and I draw into a demonic to get a gorilla shaman. I resolve it with 1 mana open for his chalice for 3, but it didn’t matter as he welds it away for something good, slaves me, drops pentavus, and goes broken on my ass.
Game 3: I make a CRUCIAL error this game. He slave me turn 2, and I forget to blow a fetch. Had I had that 2nd land, things MAY have been different, as I sided in oxidize, R&R, and Mutation. In anycase, he taps my lonely land, fetches for nothing, and he plays Smmemnarch (HA! I came up with this one as well! Go Witty Denverites!) on his turn, seeing this I immediately scoop up my only card. Memnarch is a house!
Total Matches: 4-1-2
Total Games: 9-3-2
So I end up 4th place due to standings and walk away with nothing. Oh well, hopefully my win will show that not all Denverites are scrubs:). I have to say, it was quite a fun time in Columbus, OH and I hope to make the future tourneys as well. Me, Kevin, Steve, Guy (not his real name, but I forgot what it was), Joe, and willie end up going to Donato’s to play some type 4. WOW what a format. We played about 2 games, but they were pretty funny, as Cinnamon got excited about all the picks and called me “rude” for attacking him with a nishoba. Oh well, my bad Steve:). We get out of there at like 12:00 and that where the day ends. Like I said earlier, it was some serious fun times.
Props:
MAJOR PROPS go out to Smmenen for picking me up from the airport, letting me stay at his crib, driving me back to the airport, and building my decks for me! (On top of winning the tournament)
Doug Linn - for doing well at the tournament
Jonathon P - for doing well at the tournament
Kevin Cron - for being a funny dude and doing well at the tournament
All my opponents and everyone there for being super cool
Kent - for running the tournament
Joe Bushman for being a SAVAGE top decker
My Stitch-a-togs (done by sean cranford, who lives in where else but CO) for WOWing everyone there.
Mind twist, Pernicious deed, and Gorilla shaman for being such a good triple threat vs. combo
ME! For T4ing
Slops:
Joe “I’m gay as crap” Bushman for not making the tournament because of band camp.
Smmenen for having THE. WORST. POKER. FACE. EVAR.
Continnental Airlines for scaring the crap out of my with all that turbulence.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading the report, I had fun writing it!
-Bob
