[7/9] - Mox Sapphire @ Cleveland - 1st place w/ Control Slaver

[Corvel]

Two of my friends and I decided about 2 weeks prior to this tournament that we will make the trip out from Jamestown NY and play for the mox.  On the morning of the tournament our ride, Adam Thorn picks up Jeek (from the Mana Drain) and myself up at Jeek’s house at around 8:30am.  We quickly gather all of our stuff together and get on the road bound towards Cleveland.  We stop for a tasty breakfast at a Burger King in the middle of no where on our way and I pick up some yummy hash browns and a Hershey Sunday pie.  Now content we continue the rest of the way to Cleveland and arrive at Compendium's location for the tournament a bit after 11:00am.  We walk into the tournament room to find a large number of people but quickly discover that the very large majority of them are MBL Showdown Tournament Players.  Adam deliberates on whether to play Control Slaver or Meandeck Gifts and decides that he is going to play Control Slaver after changing his mind well over 10 times.  Jeek is decided on playing U/W Fish… So we all sit down and register our decks and pay the entry fee.  Slowly more people start to drift in and we have a conversation with Steve Shaw a type 1 player whose profession is a doctor.  He is playing Aggro Workshop, which we find out after Adam plays a few games with him using Meandeck Gifts instead of the deck he is actually playing.  We get up to 17 people and the tournament director from Compendium makes the announcement that everyone will have to anty-up an extra eight big ones if we want to play for the mox.  Every one is fine with this so the tournament quickly gets under way.  Here is the list I was playing for reference.

//Control Slaver: (60)

//Mana: (26)
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Seat of the Synod
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault

//Spells: (34)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Echoing Truth
1 Time Walk
4 Goblin Welder
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

// Sideboard: (15)
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Darksteel Colossus
SB: 3 Pyroclasm
SB: 3 Arcane Laboratory
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Tormod’s Crypt
SB: 3 Rack and Ruin

Round-1 – Bye

W00t! I give it a free win and get a chance to scout the field.  Then in some of my spare time I grab a couple bags of Doritos and munch away.  I pass some more time by watching Adam pull out a tight game against Land Still and in a flash it is time for round 2.

(1-0)

Round-2 – Anthony Bucchioni w/ Food Chan Goblins

Game One: Game one involves me setting up a turn three slaver lock with Crucible of Worlds and Seat of the Synod.  After a turn he realizes that he can’t get out of the lock and scoops.

Game Two: We go back and forth for a few turns and I end up hard casting a turn four Darksteel Colossus with the help of a Tolarian Academy and smashing face with it.  This match was over very quickly.

(2-0)

Round-3 – Adam Thorn w/ Control Slaver

Game One: Adam’s version of Control Slaver uses Pentavus to lock with Mindslaver instead of Crucible of Worlds.  I capitalize on the fact that my lock is easier to set up and I lock him somewhere around turn five which warrants and angry scoop from Adam.

Game Two: In this game I board in Darksteel Colossus and see a potential to Tinker it up on the second turn.  However I wait and set up a hand with triple counter back up in the form of Force of Will, Mana Drain, and Red Elemental Blast.  I then tinker out Colossus and swing him down to 3 until he can remedy the threat by getting a Welder to resolve and removing the Colossus.  He gains control and has the game on the next turn. I sadly untap and rip a Triskelion off the top and snipe away his final 3 life points.  W00t!

(3-0)

Round-4 – Nam Tram w/ Stax

Game One: He goes first turn Workshop Trinisphere.  I can do nothing on my turn and we pass back and forth a few times until he gets a threat down and I give it a scoop.

Game Two: I Tinker up a very early Darksteel Colossus and beat down with it.  He D-Tutors and realizes that he boarded out both Duplicant and Platinum Angle.  I Rack and Ruin Karn and a mox and put it in the red zone again for the win.

Game Three: Evidently Nam boarded his two answers back in for Colossus but yet again I Tinker it up early and he can't find a solution for it before I ship it his way twice for the match win.

(4-0)

Round-5 – Nick w/ 4 Color Control

Game One: In this game we both draw some cards and counter some spell until I get him in a Slaver lock he can’t break his way out of.

Game Two: This game is very hazy to me but I do remember getting beat down by some 1/1-ness off a Decree. And eventually loosing.

Game Three: We go back and forth the way control decks tend to and he forces through a Decree creating 3 4/4 angles of doom that bash me into bits.

(4-1)

Thus I make the cut to top 4.

Semi-Finals – Nick (Again) w/ 4 Color Control

Game One: Nick resolves a grand total of 3 Ancestral Recall’s between turn 3 and 4 and I loose the game badly.

Game Two: Nick gets an early Colossus out and it looks like it’s GAME OVER for me but I manage to stabilize at 9 life.  I then beat down with Welders and Triskelion for the game.

Game Three: I get Crucible Strip working early for me. (GAINED THE LEAD) Then Triskelion beings it home for the third time today.

(5-1)

Finals – Nam Tram (Again) w/ Stax

Game One: Nam does some broken Stax things and takes me right out of the game.

Game Two: I start things off with land, mox, Black Lotus.  He starts with Workshop into Trinisphere and a Mox Sapphire.  I promptly cast Rack and Ruin.  And a turn later or so I get Crucible Strip working and Triskelion brings it home yet again.

Game Three: A true display of brokeness for Control Slaver is all I have to say.  Nam only ended up drawing 1 Wasteland and 4 City of Brass for his lands during the game.  I force his turn 1 A-Recall and then go turn one… Island, Mox-U, B-Lotus, A-Recall.  I counter all of his important spells and take my second turn.  I cast the most ridiculous Fact or Fiction I have ever been witness to.  I flop up Y-Will, Mox-W, Crucible, Thirst for K, and Strip Mine.  I yank Strip Y-Will.  Cast Will with B-Lotus and recurred the Crucible.  Then I Demonic Tutor finding Force of Will and pass the turn.  He plays a Cap and I promptly Force it.  I let a Smokestack through but just keep Stripping his quad-City Wasteland down to nothing.  After I was in total control and he was left with a useless Smokestack I drop a Triskelion and red zone him a few times for the win.  GO TRISKELION! (5 Wins)

(6-1) (First Place)

Adam ended up 2-2 drop and Jeek ended up 1-3-1.

We leave the tournament location Mox Sapphire in hand and get back on the road for J-Town.  After about 25 min. or so we stop at a gas station for a Hershey’s Milkshake and gas and McDonalds for some burgers and other tastiness.  We then drive the rest of the way home returning to Jamestown victoriously.

Thanks for reading my tournament report and I hope that you enjoyed it.

[jeek]

Lies. I ended up 0-3-1, picking up the bye in round 5 that I refuse to accept as a win. :`( Owned twice by Food Chain, gah.

Congrats on the win, though, man. You got revenge against Cleveland for when we held our Mox Ruby Tournament in Jamestown and two guys from Cleveland split it.

[Smythen]

Congrats!!

Sorry I couldnt stick around to exchange info -- if you get any more news on Jamestown-area events, let me know, and I will do the same for Cleveland.  Love it when foreigners show up to our events, steal our power, and walk away muttering strange New York expressions in crazy accents!  :lol:

Anyway -- contact info sshawmd@sbcglobal.net (thats Dr. Stephen Shaw to you, folks)

Nice report, by the by -- I screwed up all over that tourney -- need a bit more in the way of practice.  Musta been that Burger King b-fast that got you pumped!