12/12 Dreamers Vintage Mox Tournament Report, 3 and half CC

[Draven]

Dreamer’s Vintage Mox Tournament
12/12/04
Prize: Mox Jet
Participants: 21
Placing: 5-8 (not sure exactly where I came out at the end)
Deck Played: 3 ½ CC

I was just in Eau Claire the day before at The Fountain of Youth Mox Emerald Tournament. My friend Nick and I went down and had a pretty good time. I went 3-2, taking a really bad beat by trinisphere.deck played by Justin Myer. Nick was playing R/G beats and went 2-3, we both had fun though and that’s all that counts.

Sunday, my team mate (any suggestions for a team name would be greatly appreciated) Alan and I arrived at Dreamers with an uneventful trip making only one pit-stop at McDonalds to carb up on double cheeseburgers. I picked up my last needed Flooded Strand from Jason, did a little switch a-roo and Alan and I play tested a couple of games. Before I get into the tourney, here is a deck list of what I played

3 ½ CC (again, any suggestions for a cuter name are appreciated)
Mana Source
1 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

Counter
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Utility
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance
1 Timewalk
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

Draw/Search
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Accumulated Knowledge

Kill
2 Decree of Justice
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

Sideboard
1 Tormads Crypt
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fire/Ice
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Disenchant
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Gaea’s Blessing

Round 1
I played against Thomas (sorry I didn’t get your last name) who was playing some kind of /W/B jank. Nothing really eventful happened game one. I StP’d about every creature he put in play and swarmed him with soldier dudes. Game two, I Tinkered out an early DSC and he didn’t have an answer. Interestingly enough, Game two, he had a Meddling Mage with StP named. When the DSC came out, he had an StP in his hand, that was rough.

Game: 2-0
Match 1-0

Round 2
Round two had me playing against Jesse River playing TPS. Game one, he mulled down to five and played Mox-Sol Ring. He went draw go a few turns and finally played a land. I Cunning Wished for a R&R, broke his artifact mana and Wasted his land. I played a DSC and he scooped. Game two was pretty uneventful, I countered just about everything he tried to do and cracked him in the dome with a DSC.

Game: 4-0
Match: 2-0

Round 3
I played against Nate Siftar in Round three, he was playing FCG. There was really nothing special this round; he beat the holy tar out of me. Just to give his deck props, game two, I was at 3 life before I had my second turn. His draw was two Moxen, Lotus, Land, Warchief, Piledriver x 2 and the Recruiter. Needless to say, he dropped everything and broke me into little pieces.

Game: 4-2
Match: 2-1

Round 4
I got to play Brian Cox who was playing his AnimalFarm.deck. I have played and been beaten by this deck several times, so after my huge beats I took by FCG, I was a little worried.  Game one had me countering everything he tried to cast and resolving my Tinker for the win. Game two, he comboed off on me and he won. Let me say something to Brian, the Platinum Angel was a great addition to your deck. Game three was long, it was tense and the game swung when Brian tried to Living Wish with only one card in his hand and I Drained the wish. Next turn a hardcast the DSC (for the second time that day mind you) and he scooped due to Fastbonding himself down to 12 life.

Just one more little blurb, I had six basic lands in play and I stared at a CoW and Wasteland across the board most of all the games. It felt pretty good to be able to feel pretty safe against the Waste-lock.

Game: 6-3
Match: 3-1

Round 5
Round five was the most boring round of the tourney. Alan and I were paired together; we both did well enough to ID in. We did some math to ensure our placing in the Top 8 and realized we were good to go. We took a break, watched some football and rehydrated ourselves with some H20 to prepare ourselves for Round one of the Top 8.

Game: 6-3-2
Match: 3-1-1

Round 1, Top 8
I played against Nate Siftar again in Round one. See Round three, rinse, repeat.

Game: 6-5-2
Match: 3-2-1

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the performance of my deck. I was really happy with the Accumulated Knowledges and cutting most of the black really helped solidify my mana base. The six basic lands were also golden the times I was staring down first turn Wastes. I never missed the Scryings.

A note about the name of the deck. I call it 3 ½ CC because I cute the Black down to 2 cards maindeck total and there are exactly zero Red cards maindeck. With the addition of Tinker, the deck doesn’t even function like 4CC anymore. Like I said, any suggestions for deck ideas/name are welcome. I encourage feed back. Thanks for reading.

[M.Solymossy]

hmm how about  ILoseToAnythingGood.dec?


Seriously, i see several problems with this deck.

first off, you STILL lose severely to a sundering titan in the lategame.  you play 5 basics, which makes it stronger than 4cc, but you still need to fetch your duals in order to do exciting things.  a Titan should slag 3 to 4 of your lands, which is enough to save all of theirs (if they're playing slaver, if they're playing stacks or something else, they won't have to worry)

4 AK's with no intuition is decent, but seriously, when my opponent says something like "I will AK for 1 card" i can't help but laugh.  it's only good at 3 and 4, sometimes 2 depending on the deck.

I don't see tinker-colossus being that strong anymore.  It really only beats down madness, fish, and food chains, and food chains should have you dead before you get the chance to cast tinker.   anything with a welder will just weld it for whatever you tinkered out, and any other good deck will have answers to it.

why only one tormOd's in the sideboard?  It's not worth it unless there is 2.
3 fire/ice in the sideboard seams extremely heavy.  Yes i know that like, 90% of decks have welders in them, but there are better ways to deal with a welder.
3 rack and ruin with your ability to draw is a little heavy.  why not cut that to 2?

I could see energy flux helping SEVERELY in games against stax.

[Frost]

Congratulations on your Top Eight finish.  I have not yet received the final standings from Jason but if I remember right there were 23 people playing.  The top eight was:

Brian Cox (Browser) with Animal Farm vs. Nick Jacquet with Gay Red; Brian wins
Nate Siftar with FCG vs. (Draven) with 3 1/2 CC; Nate wins
Me (Frost) with 2 Land Belcher vs. Alan with Salvagers; I win
Jesse River (jesseriver) with TPS vs. Jon with U/W Landstill; Jon wins

Top four:
Nate vs. Brian; Nate wins
Me vs. Jon; I win

Finals Nate and I opted to split the Mox.  I took the artwork while Nate wanted the text box.  Thankfully Jason had a scissors handy so we could get a clean cut.

For those interested next month on the second sunday will be Dreamer's next Vintage tournament.  The prize will again be a Mox Jet.  Hope to see you all there.

[andrewpate]

How good is Tinker when the only thing it really gets is Darksteel Colossus?  Without Memory Jar in there as well (which I am by no means suggesting you add), it seems very suboptimal.  My first suggestion would be to cut them both for a couple of Intuitions.

Of course, that leaves you with only Decree of Justice as a kill condition, and that, obviously, is very bad.  Cut one of them and a Swords to Plowshares for 2 Exalted Angels.  You can still Mystical Tutor for Decree if you need to, and in most games you'd rather have Exalted.

I agree with 13NoVa in that 3 Rack and Ruins is probably too many, as is 3 Fire and Ice.  I would recommend a second Tormod's Crypt and a Vampiric Tutor as their replacements.  Cunning Wish for Vamp is really just a bad Diabolic Tutor, but since you don't have it maindeck it could be one more way to find a crucial Balance or Yawgmoth's Will.  I have seen several lists packing Cunning Wish for Vampiric Tutor, and although I have not tried it personally, it seems good on theoretical grounds and is something I'd test in this deck.

Of course, all of these suggestions hinge on you actually facing good decks.  Based on your tournament report, it seems like your metagame sees a lot of Random.dec.  If that's the case, 3 StP maindeck/1 sb might not be the bad call it seems to be.  Still, any Type 2 Goblin Bidding player from last year will tell you that random aggro hates seeing Exalted across the table much more than it does Decree.  If you expect a lot of Food Chain, packing a kill that doesn't scoop to Goblin Sharpshooter is savage tech.

On a side note, when the guy had a Meddling Mage for StP and you dropped Colossus, couldn't he just block, take 9, and then cast StP?  Or was he already too low to survive that for some reason?  Just a little unclear.

[M.Solymossy]

wow, now that i really look at my post, i sound like an asshole.

i wasn't trying to cut on you or your deck, because you obviously placed decently enough, but i mean, you did play a lot of  "AutoLose.dec".   Maybe finetune this deck and it would be very optimal.

[Draven]

Cut one of them and a Swords to Plowshares for 2 Exalted Angels.  

On a side note, when the guy had a Meddling Mage for StP and you dropped Colossus, couldn't he just block, take 9, and then cast StP?  Or was he already too low to survive that for some reason?  Just a little unclear.

1. The reason I cut the Exalted Angels was the two white requirement. I was trying to minimize all double colored mana (except for blue obviosuly.)

2. About the blocking with the Mage, he probably could have. I guess niether of us thought about it