|
Nomad
|
 |
« on: September 27, 2004, 02:32:18 am » |
|
I think this belongs in the tournament forum really.
I remember while flogging my cards off after the London Darksteel Pre-release, and thinking what great potential Retract might have in type 1. So finally I find it gets me somewhere, although Hurkyls Recall turns up way more often at the right time still....
The Binghampton Party weekend.
Arrived in good time, a new experience for people that usually ride with me. A call from John (Ultima) and Raj (Method) to say there are no police on the next 20 miles helped, I suppose!
Lots of people are at this place, and the venue looks pretty good. It got a little warm in there later, I bet it'd be great mid October or springtime.
There's a minor downer as the organisers get picky over what can be used as proxies; I have a nice set of photocopies of my power that have been distrubuted around the team, but the organisers want us to play shitty basic lands with marker pen on them instead. Note to organisers - I'd much rather play with cards that I can readily identify rather than additional lands in a deck. Phil played Mono-U Belcher and had problems all day with people saying "That's a land!", when, no, it's a Walk today. If my opponents are going to sit there flexing the cards to find out what they
are, I'm going to kick their ass.
Main event.
We don't seem to care much about this. I'm playing my trusty ravager affinity against the stories of massive combo presence, and my wife Harriet is sticking with her regular Goblin Sligh. Phil (dmessiah) is playing John (Ultima's) Mono-U belcher, while John is playing Gro. Raj (Method) plays Stax and goes all the way in the Swiss.
Bryce finds he's getting really screwed as a load of other tournaments have appeared since he announced this one, and attendance is 30 below break even, but this is still a big event. I guess holding out for late arrivals, the tournament starts a little past noon.
My obligatory list:
// Lands
2 Glimmervoid
1 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Vault of Whispers
2 City of Brass
// Creatures
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
3 Myr Enforcer
3 Ornithopter
// Spells
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
4 Thoughtcast
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fire/Ice - it's a spare slot, a decent utility card, and it's won me a few games.
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Goblin Welder
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Stifle
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt - these really play well in this deck, if I cared I might try testing them maindeck.
SB: 2 Duress
I haven't made any changes since I last played it, a few weeks ago now. It's fun to play, and got me a Twister at Neutral Ground in June.
Rnd 1
Drawn against my car mate Dan in the first round, his first tournament, so quite an easy run, except game 2 he plays 3 Time Stretches (!) and 2 Time Walks and goes nuts.
Rnd 2
I lose to Dragon the next round, taking the first when he mulligans to 5.
Rnd 3
My opponent doesn't show. I discover that he asked to be dropped already, but this seems to have been missed. John finds that he is 0-2-1 with Gro and drops. Phil, meanwhile, is 3-0 with John's Mono-U Belcher deck and ends up in a feature match.
Rnd 4
Auriok Salvagers. After he went infinite game 1, I drop a Crypt and ride it. To be honest, he has loads of artifact mana in play too, and he could quite happily return the lotus and return again in response to my Crypt, but fortunately he doesn't know it. Game 3 he has a Salvagers and a Crypt while I have 9 available damage to his 12 life. He drops to 3 and then wins the Crypt roll. Shit. He has a Transmute Artifact for a Lotus and goes infinite on me. I keep playing as the Twister raffle demands it, although I think Bryce would be better off encouraging people to drop and starting some smaller events to close the money gap with the lower attendance. He puts out a begging jar and starts asking people if they can spare some change instead.
Somewhere round here the pairings all go to shit, and the round gets re-paired 3 times!! Now, I'm not saying it's linked or anything, but at this very moment, Andy Stok had just packed up all his stuff, and was on his way out.
Coincidence...I assume?
Rnd 5
Unpowered Dragon.
Game 1 I smash quickly.
Game 2 he combos too early.
Game 3 I go just fast enough to kill him after he fails to animate turn 3.
Rnd 6
Pamela playing Fish. She opens Land-Mox-Null Rod. Not my favourite start, but a City and Glimmervoid and Workers and Ornithopters really help. Eventually I drop an Enforcer, and a 2/4 Ornithopter goes all the way for a revised rulebook moment...
Game 2 is better as there's no early Rod, but it takes a long time as she chumps my 4/6 Ornithopter with an endless supply of Hatchlings and Clouds.
Rnd 7
Terry with Gro. He gets ahead game 1 with 16 life, a Collussus and a growing Dryad, I put out a pair of Enforcers off a Tutored Academy, he smacks me down to 8 with the big Darksteel guy, then I get a Ravager and a Disciple out, and have enough juice to get an Enforcer through for 11, with Disciple ripping another 6 or so. I think he was a bit surprised. Next game goes slow until I clamp a Welder and a Disciple to get an Ornithopter to block with and draw enough to go nuts next turn, when I draw about 20 and his life evaporates.
At 5-2 I place 18th and win a Japanese Legions booster with a Lavaborne Muse in.
So with the top 8 going on behind, and the bar now open, we try to organise a beer draft. There are extra rules - with each round, you drink 2 beers or get a game loss. It's only 3 rounds max. Still, the only people signed up are me, Phil (who manages the bar at Princeton Graduate College), and Harriet. Seems not even the Canadians present are willing to go head to head under such conditions against my wife. Bunch of pussies, all of ya. We settle for playing multiplayer "skittles" format with Dan from Hadley (Pern). Seems Eastman and others were too lazy or scared to make the trip.
Raj bombs out of the Top 8, and he John and Dan are out of there before we blinked.
After a good number of very cheap pitchers of beer with cards, we give up and Phil breaks the sofa bed and cuts his head, and sleeps on the floor instead.
The morning brings the real deal - the Highlander tournament. Seems not everyone read Bryce's primer the same way I did - we made out "Combo is really good because there's no Force of Will". Everybody else read further.
So Phil goes nuts for this format after Waterbury, and tests for 2 full weeks a combo that goes 45%+ by turn 2, he says. He reckons he tests up to 6 hours a day. I believe Phil spends as much as 4 hours a day at work playing with himself. I go with the flow and just say whatever, I'll play your deck. We differ by one card; he plays a Tundra over a Scrubland. I have an alpha Scrubland but only revised Tundras.
The list:
land (12)
tolarian academy
city of brass
gemstone mine
flooded strand
polluted delta
bloodstained mire
underground sea
tropical island
bayou
volcanic island
glimmervoid
Scrubland
fast mana (17)
7 x SoLoMox
Mox Diamond
Lotus Petal
Mana Vault
Mana Crypt
Dark ritual
Cabal ritual
Crop rotation
Fastbond
Lion's eye diamond
Chrome Mox
tutor (7)
Demonic tutor
Vampiric tutor
Mystical tutor
Tainted pact
Regrowth
Enlightened Tutor
Rhystic Tutor
cantrips(7)
Brainstorm
Impulse
Serum vision
Chromatic sphere
Ancestral recall
Time walk
Frantic search
draw 7 (7)
Wheel of fortune
Windfall
Time twister
Time spiral
Diminishing Returns
Tinker
Memory jar
broken shit (4)
Yawg will
Yawg bargain
Necro
Mind's desire
kill (4)
Tendrils of Agony
Quirion Dryad
Darksteel Colossus
Cunning Wish
Boing (2)
Hurkyl's Recall
Retract
Side (15)
Beserk
Stifle
Xantid Swarm
Duress
Force of Will
City of Solitude
Chain of Vapor
Fact or Fiction
Tolarian Winds
Brain Freeze
Extract
Naturalize
Disenchant
Lim-Dul's Vault
Plagurize (we asked around a few other Judge types while there; what happens when we both resolve this in the same turn?)
There's an odd number and I end up with the round 1 bye.
Towards the end of the round I go to watch Harriet playing Ray (iamfishman). She beats him down to 7 in game 3, then with 4 Mountains and a Welder plays Chain lightning on him. He fucks up and Misdirects to the Welder, so she does her play of the day and just pays the RR and bounces that sucker right back. He Tainted Pacts at eot, and she responds with her Fireblast. Oh well, he still made top 4.
Round 2 - Brass Man
I tinker out a Colossus turn 1. He somehow gets a Worldgorger Dragon in the yard, and says he could do something about this situation, but is one mana short. And so the big guy goes all the way.
Game 2 I go nuts on my first turn and Tendrils.
Round 3 - Carl Winter
Game 1 I minds desire for 5 turn 1 and he cuts me Lotus and a Colossus and no answers come quick enough.
Game 2, he forces my only real business early, then gets active UU and Mana Leak, then Crucible/Waste. It's all over quickly...
Game 3 I resolve Necro, get the business. Carl Balances with alot of mana, and loses all his lands, dropping me to 3 cards. He tinkered a Mindslaver and activated it with all the floating mana, and I eventually figure out that I have a card that says "pay 1 life:..."
Round 4 - Jacob Orlove
With 4 of us on 6 behind Carl and Phil on 9, we all have to play.
Game 1 goes slowly, I Tainted Pact and remove some cards for not much gain. Then I go off, get 9 spells with the help of a Jar and will, but Jacob has Vamped in response to Jar and Forced something, while I fuck up and play a Mire from the yard and find my 4 targets are no longer in the library, and all the while I have a City of Brass in hand that would have made the difference. I end my turn. He removes some cards with Phyrexian Furnace, and kills some of my mana. Eventually I play Diminishing Returns, and end up with over half my library gone, but I am good at magic today and pull a lotus out of nowhere and drop a Bargain with 5 cards left in my library and 6 life, so I get the Tendrils for the win. Quite lucky, I suppose, given mistakes.
We have 5-10 mins for Jacob to win 2 to stay in. I talk him into playing anyway, since he runs Salvagers combo. He drops a land and is done. I snigger as with Crypt, Tinker and more in hand, I pull a Lotus off the top...
Phil, Carl, Ray and I are top 4. Harriet is 5th, I think, with 7, although Bryce just scooped as he was 0-2 already.
Semi - Carl Winter
Game 1 I mull to 6, Carl plays. My first turn is uneventful, he draws Tormod's Crypt and admits to having failed to de-sideboard, and takes the game loss. A bit unfortunate.
Game 2 I Ancestral, but am light on mana. He somehow drops a Slaver, but has to wait to activate it. I look at my hand of Windfall, Regrowth, Tainted Pact and Time Spiral with 3 mana in play figure I need to get rid of Pact right away. I keep a mystical and put something (Mind's Desire) he can't play on top. At least this way all he can do is Ancestral himself. This, however, is enough and I find myself essentially manaless (Shaman) and finding there are downsides to tutoring for cards you can't play.
Game 3 I start with a swarm, but Carl drops Explosives. Not sure why he didn't blow them immediately, instead, I walk, then get to Cabal Ritual a Necro down. He blows the Swarm away. I make a superb upkeep play having kept my cards this time of Vamp Tutor for Will, then find to get it and one other card I have to regrow my Walk. The "other card" turns out to be Ritual, and with Lotus in the yard I just go nuts for the win.
Phil has dispatched with Ray, one game saw a very early Tinker/Colossus, and Ray plays "Impulse for Swords to Ploughshares" to no avail.
We decide we'll split the prizes evenly, but we are most definitely playing for the Sword. Nobody feels much inclined to watch Combo-on-Combo, but Harriet plays faithful wife.
He wins the die roll, I win the "draw the most broken hand" race. However, I fuck up, and Ancestral with my only blue source when I meant to Tinker into Lotus first. With the 7 cards I gave him, he wins.
Game 2 I open Glimmervoid, Tinker, Crypt, Duress and some other jank. I choose to Tinker for Colossus, figuring I can Duress him to buy the time. He Windfalls, going nowhere, and I get to upkeep Mystical for Walk, and it's all over. He kept on the basis of having Extract in the opening hand, and decided pretty early that it didn't look so appealing any longer.
Game 3 He mulls to 6, and plays Tainted Pact for a Mox, then Vamp. I go land, Diamond, Duress for his Twister and then Extract the Lotus he just put on top. Helpless, he watches me Diminishing Returns into mana but no business with lots of spells on the count, but Chromatic Sphere rips me a Rhystic Tutor, and I get the Tendrils to win.
So, since turnout is low, we share a Library and not a Mox, and a foil Crucible (my half looks better), while I get the big highlander sword to go with my beer magic trophy from the UK this January.
Jacob finally starts the Trivia once we're done, and Ray and I begin our grudge match for Trivia champ. I take this too, but only by one, and Ray did send back one point he got for cycling through the months of 1995 to answer when Type 2 first came into being. He did seem to know all the card pictures, even if he did only get asked about the easy ones. Maybe I'll offer to run Trivia next Waterbury, and we can have Ray vs Jacob instead.
Great weekend for the most part. More people really should have come along, the venue was by and large great, the hotel rooms actually quite comfortable, and cheap, and the whole thing ran smoothly
Props:
Bryce (and Ben Koala) for running a great shindig, and being so blase about the ~$25x30 entry fee hit required to break even.
Everyone who turned up to play
Phil for building and testing my winning Highlander deck, and not complaining when I smashed his face with it.
Jacob for trivia, and Ray for not quite beating me at it.
Harriet for not complaining about being made to play magic all weekend. And for being a lovely wife.
Slops
Bryce's Highlander skill
Everyone who didn't show up to play
TOs who ran clashing tournaments
Poor drinking efforts of everyone not in my car
I'll be back to defend the title next year.
Simon
|
