Tournament: Finnish Vintage Championships
Turn-out: Disappointing 41 (still ok in Finland, I guess)
You can find results and top 8 decklists from Finnish Vintage Champs here:
http://mtg.bore.org/article.php?id=612 (a Finnish Magic site)
There was a mint UL Emerald for the winner and a not-so-mint UL Pearl for the best unpowered player (congrats to Nastaboi who clearly deserved this price!). In final standings people with * beside their name didn't have any power cards.
I think I'm THE Tog player in Finland as I've played some form of Tog in most of the tournaments I've attended (with a short excursion to a wonderful, wonderful world of Long.dec) and when I don't play Tog people seem to be surprised. Last tournament I played with Tog was a disaster but I still had a lot of faith in the deck. I think Tog is undervalued by most Finnish Players for no reason. And by vintage players at large.
"I think I'm going to play Tog in Vintage Champs."
"You did really poorly with it last time, didn't you?"
"..."
Yes, I did.
So I went to the good ol' Inttarweb to find some inspiration to improve and solidify the deck. I immediately fall in love with Italians Tinker-DSC kill and that was enough tech for this tournament as people clearly didn't see that coming. In my humble opinion you have to play these and not doing so is a big mistake:
3 Intuition (you want to play one as soon as possible, I think in a way this is your win condition)
3 Deep Analysis (get these with your first Intuition unless your Duress has revealed a hand full of Misdirections)
If you disagree, please give reasons for why you should do something else.
This deck wins with card advantage. Every game I won was because I drew 3 times more cards than my opponent.
So that leaves you with 3 Wishes instead of the South European standard of 4 IF you want to play more than 2 Duress. There just isn't anything you want to cut from the deck and I'm not a fan of 61+ card decks and neither should you. So this is what I ended up with:
T1-Tog (Sorry, I don't know if this configuration has been in use before or not)
The kill (6)
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Psychatog
3 Cunning Wish
Draw (15)
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
Protection (11)
3 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
Good Stuff (5)
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Engineed Explosives
Mana (23)
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea
3 Polluted Delta
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
Notes
Library of Alexandria: This drew me around 20 cards during the whole tournament <3 <3 <3
5 Fetch lands: This helps a lot against Wastelands as you have a steady source of Basic Islands (you don't need the black or red mana right away, be prepared to lose your Sea or Volcanic)
EE: Oath of Not-in-play
And yes, only 23 mana sources. If you are more confident with 24, cut Duress. I was happy with 23 and only had to mulligan once because I didn't have enough mana. I mulliganed for other reasons, obviously. And I also don't even count mulligans to six as one card isn't that big deal.
Sideboard:
1 Coffin Purge
1 Fling
1 Misdirection
1 Snuff Out
1 Lava Dart
1 Firestorm
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Stifle
1 Rushing River
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Fact or Fiction
Some notes about the choices I made in the Sideboard.
It is clearly a "Wish side" and most of the spells are standard stuff you want to include.
Stifle: I never used this, but it is an answer to Storm (and has other random uses) and I think it deserves a slot.
THREE REBs: If you know one thing about Finnish Magic, it is that Finns love their blue cards. I was really happy I could side in 2 and leave one in the 'board (I sided out Duress and EE or Mind Twist, depending on the opposing deck). You might be happy with just two or even one and have something better for the metagame, use time to think about the sideboard and playtest with it if possible (I didn't have time for this and went with my past knowledge).
Two bounce spells: I often sided in Rushing River and left the cheaper Chain to be Wished for and I was happy everytime I drew the River.
Some people seem to think "Duress is good against <deck>, I have to keep it in.", but IMO it depends if you are going first or not. Ripping that one key spell before they can do anything about it is good, but I feel when you're going second you've lost a lot of the advantage Duress gives you.
Matchup analysisMany other things happened in these games, but I'll try to tell what I think mattered the most.
Round 1 vs. Some Guy (Some Combo Deck)
Sorry I forgot his name. I haven't seen him before but he seemed to be fully powered and equipped with an unconventional combo deck.
In game one I see some artifact mana and a Chrome Mox imprinted with Time Spiral. I Mana Drain a couple of draw sevens and draw 7+ cards myself. DSC does all the back-breaking labor.
Sideboard: -1 Duress, -1 Mind Twist / +2 REB
I saw Misdirection with Duress so I sided Twist out and as his deck didn't seem to be lightning fast I decided REB should be better than Duress.
Game two starts with him playing a land, mox, lotus and Timetwister and yet another Mox. I play land and pass fearing the worst. He thinks for a good five minutes and plays a Mana Vault. And... passes. I drop another land and a Mox. I get to Drain his Meditate and on my next turn Intuition for Deeps and fill my hand. I even let him resolve other Meditate just get an extra turn, as my hand was filled with goodies but I needed to drop some more mana on the table to use my hand. He finally enchants his Vault with Power Artifact and tries to make me draw my deck in his upkeep with Stroke of Genius which I almost Drained but then remember what the damn card does and FoWed instead and then Drained his FoW. Broken things are about to happen when you have 11 mana available (6 mana sources in play).
1-0 (games 2-0)
Round 2 vs. Timo Helenius (V.Masque)
He plays some artifact mana on the table for no reason and I punish him for this by blowing them up with EE. He doesn't recover quickly enough for the loss of mana as his plan was to go with fast VSS combo kill but I'm not able to seal the game until after many turns.
I wasn't going to get to go first so...
Sideboard: -2 Duress / +2 REB
He gets out a quick Survival and tutors up some Meddling Mages, but names counters instead of Cunning Wish and I'm able to get rid of VSS with Lava Dart. Finally just before the time is called I get Psychatog out and he doesn't have any creatures in play. I attack him to 17. He plays a blocker and chumps the next attack. I draw a counter and there isn't going to be anymore blockers for the Tog when I attack on my last extra turn.
2-0 (games 4-0)
Round 3 vs. Antti Soininen (Mono black)
Mono black!? I guess I can use a R3 bye. Antti is actually an ok player, but this matchup is not in favor for him.
He makes me discard some cards, but with this deck you don't have to worry. He plays a Negator but it is the worst card to have when opponent plays an inf/inf guy. It is time for him to concede. In disgust.
Sideboard: -2 Duress / +1 Fact or Fiction, +1 Rushing River
I would've sided out the third one too, but couldn't decide what to bring in. I wasn't going to go first here either and I've always felt that Duress doesn't really do anything in this matchup. For a second I thought about siding out EE, but decided not to it can be useful and at least it is another card to Tinker with.
Sinkhole Drained. Hymn Drained. Negator resolves and hits me once and when he uses one of his three lands (Strip Mine) I gamble and bounce the guy in combat. He doesn't have another land in his hand and the Negator stays there. Again the game goes on forever as my deck doesn't provide me with kill cards. I play lot of lands and draw even more mana and counters. Finally he tries to play something and I Mana Drain and am prepared to hardcast Colossus, but he concedes before I get to play it. :frown:
3-0 (games 6-0)
Round 4 vs. Teppo Laine (BGu budget Oath)
Teppo has done well with his deck and I was worried about this matchup. I mulliganed and keeped an awful hand as it could turn into a win with a couple of mana cards from the top. I dropped a Jet and passed. He used a fetch and noticed a Naturalize in his deck. Failure to sideboard is worth a game loss. I DO NOT like win this way.
I'm not sure how I sideboarded here. Maybe I again took Duress out and put River in. My memory fails me here.
I'm sure I'm losing when after two Wastelands and two Duress he plays Tinker and gets Crucible . What did you say? "Why not Colossus?" He seemed to side it out. Anyway, the Crucible is almost as bad and he even Regrowths one Duress to take away my last business spell waiting for fourth mana (I have two Islands and an Emerald). After agonizing few turns of drawing nothing but four mana spells I drew Tinker. Colossus for the win. Lucky me. So lucky.
4-0 (games 8-0)
Rounds 5 and 6 are the ones where I ate pizza and played extended highlander and talked to all the friends.
4-0-2
Quarterfinals vs. Juha Niinistö (UGb Oath)
I'm third in Swiss and am paired up against Juha Niinistö, which isn't a surprise as we always play against each other eventually. Juha is playing a UGb Oath.
The first game is even until I try to make some tricky moves and somehow forget that Misdirection IS A FREAKING COUNTERSPELL. I had just played Duress and still I messed it up. I was really mad at myself for losing a game I almost had won. I also made other mistake that could've cost me the game. In one turn he had only 2 cards and only 2 mana open and I played Cunning Wish. I don't remember what I picked with it, but I should have taken a Misdirection as I had Tinker + blue card in my hand and go for the DSC.
Again, Mind Twist and one Duress goes away and River + REB team joins the army.
Games two and three are very similar. I draw more cards. Me iz win. Here I used EE to sink 7 colorless mana from the Mana Drained Platinum Angel (I'm not sure why he sided this one in, maybe because he beat me with once when I was using a Goblin Bombardment plan against Oath). (Yes, you're right, it wasn't very good plan against a deck with Cunning Wish for Naturalize.)
5-0-2 (games 10-1)
Top4 vs. Perttu Lähdesmäki (UGb Oath)
I had the pleasure to play in the "Oath bracket" and am paired up against Perttu Lähdesmäki with similar (he used more Skeletal Scryings than Juha, which to seems like a good idea; see the link in the beginning to compare the lists) Oath.
This time I don't mess up anything and my opponent is crushed under my Fat Friend when it is Flinged on him.
Sideboard: Do I even have to tell you what happens here?
In second game I don't even need a win condition from my own deck as Perttu provides me with some men I can use to beat him. I Engineer some Explosives to get rid of the first Oath and the second is bounced before it does anything. I almost finish the game with Wishing for a Lava Dart and shooting him with it, but he extends his hand before that.
In these games I countered even Brainstorms when he had no cards in his hand just to try keep him down when I had control of the game.
6-0-2 (games 12-1)
Finals vs. Max Sjöblom (Sensei Sensei)
So, I'm in the finals playing for a Mox against an excellent player with a deck that I couldn't seem to beat in my brief testing.
Game one is over when I let him resolve Ancestral and then Mind Twist his hand away. I have lots of mana, 4 cards in hand and he has very little.
I sided out Psychatog (and I think again Duress or two was taken out as well) and feel I should've tried that one earlier in the tournament.
I can't remember what happened in the last game anymore, but I won with Colossus on the table and with Force of Will in my hand.
And here I am with a minty fresh Emerald.
A day after the tournament I hear comments like "WTF was your deck about? How does it beat aggro?" (from a player who doesn't play vintage) and "Isn't StoP a bit difficult for you to handle?". My answers were something like "I don't" and "Yes". I know I was lucky to have pairings somewhat on my side, but I didn't make too awful mistakes or at least made a lot less of them than some of my opponents and feel that unexperienced player might not have made it. Had I been in the other top8 bracket or had I faced good aggro decks in the early rounds of swiss, maybe I wouldn't be writing this. This deck was nonetheless a really good metagame choice for this tournament.
Thank you for reading and hopefully you got something out of this report.
~jari
