SCG Chicago Update

[vroman]

I still havent faced the grimlong deck,

That's not true.  A couple of weeks ago we played five games on MWS and if I recall I went either 4-1 or 5-0 against you. 

You played Uba Mask and it permitted me to  play multiple draw7s while having access to all of the cards I had seen in prior draw7s. 

Uba Mask helps Grim Long out alot - Brainstorm becomes Ancestral. 

what the hell are you talking about. Ive never played on MWS in my life. if someone is using my name they are an imposter.

[DameonHv]

I was the Gifts-Oath player.  I played the build that Randy played.  The sideboard was terrible all day.  White is unnecessary and that tundra should be another island.  The weakest cards all day were Mana Drain and Krosan Reclamation.  Other than that, I was very happy with the deck and especially the duress and regrowth.  The list is incredibly powerful.  It's disturbingly easy to take 3+ turns in a row with it very early in the game.

I lost 6 games out of 19.  4 of those were to the same stax player (once in round 4 and once in the T8).  Stax is the only problematic deck as it has the best tools to attack the mana base.  I played and beat another 5color stax and uba stax during the swiss, however.  I also played against belcher gifts, FCG, Dragon, and workshop aggro.  My other 2 game loses were to the other 5color stax and dragon.  3 of the 6 games I lost were on double mulligans.  Three games ended with me having taken 5-6 turns to my opponent's 2.

The most prominent decks were stax and oath, I believe.  There was a lot of dragon as well.

Congrats to JD and Steve for T8ing with combo.

Congrats to Vroman on the win.

Was nice seeing all you guys again.  Except the kids from the Colorado crew.  You guys are punks.   

Props to Demars for completing my set of foil japanese brainstorms.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Congrats to Vroman on his win.

One question, can Top finally replace Impulse in Oath? Or is Impulse still the better card?

I want to try Top in Oath, but I don't see a reason to run Impulse when you can run Thirst, especially since Chalice for 2 (which is what they'll play it at) chops down Impulse.

[Roxas]

Thirst also lets you discard your creatures in the event that they get bounced, allowing you to Oath them again.

Ben: I was irked that I lost that game 2 to you in round three, but good to see that you made top 8.  Congrats 

[M.Solymossy]

The main thing I see that makes Top inferior and also makes thirst a very strong point in ICBM oath is this:

We play chalices. 
In a LOT of matchups you can really rely on your own chalices to 1 in order to stop a lot of really ridiculous things, like in my matchup to UG fish where my opponent had stifles, Chain of Vapor, Brainstorm, vials, and agaisnt landstill where you also shut off stuff like Swords.  Top is very inferior to chalice for 1.

Also, Thirst is much better to discard our creatures when we have chalice for 1 out, which shuts off our brainstorms.

Congrats to all top 8's, and congrats to my boy Ben, the Gunslinga!  Congrats!

[Bauerkrieg]

 I was the player playing the 5 color stax in the top eight. My name is Sean Bauer and i represent team BC from the Kalamazoo/ Battle Creek area of Michigan. It was a lot of fun playing in my first top eight after going x-3 drop in my last two Star City Chicago tournaments.
The philosophy of chalice being bad if you go second was not entirely true on saturday. I was on the draw 40% of the time saturday and it allowed me to properly set my chalice to the best number. Mox monkeys were house at the tournament, cleaning all stray moxes that somehow got through and ending games using the attack step.
Props to the guys from RIW, it was great to represent from Michigan. Props to all the guys playing in the top eight, it was great to see it be so well balanced. I am working on a tournamnet report right now and will post it soon once I catch up with school.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

My name is Sean Bauer and i represent team BC from the Kalamazoo/ Battle Creek area of Michigan.

Hell yes Bauermaster! Great job! Told you adding Tormod's Crypt and Viashino Heretic among other things was house. Should listen to your Sensei more... 

Great Job to all! Smenenen was a frustrating player to watch... Such a flamboyant actor! Props on SLAUGHTERING via Trinisphere/ Stax power Bauer- savage!

Also, congrats to Nicolo!

[forests failed you]

sorry paul! 

You should change your last name it sounds much more savage with the ko at the end.  Its like, paul just fucking K.O.ed you.

[cryolyte]

I wish I could have attended to see this bauer, great job. Good thing there wasn't much CS eh? Just kidding

cryolyte

[CapitanJon]

Paul you were amazing, Im so glad you decided to start playing this format....

Congratz to jdizzle, steve, sean, and voroman

I will be posting match reports for the steve/sean quarterfinals match and the voroman/sean finals match, here and at scg.com so stay tuned....

Michigan brought home 3  top 8 slots this time thats Amazing!

[Revvik]

I was the player playing the 5 color stax in the top eight. My name is Sean Bauer and i represent team BC from the Kalamazoo/ Battle Creek area of Michigan. It was a lot of fun playing in my first top eight after going x-3 drop in my last two Star City Chicago tournaments.
The philosophy of chalice being bad if you go second was not entirely true on saturday. I was on the draw 40% of the time saturday and it allowed me to properly set my chalice to the best number. Mox monkeys were house at the tournament, cleaning all stary moxes that somehow got through and ending games using the attack step.
Props to the guys from RIW, it was great to represent from Michigan. Props to all the guys playing in the top eight, it was great to see it be so well balanced. I am working on a tournamnet report right now and will post it soon once I catch up with school.

Congratulations again, Sean.

[Moxlotus]

Congrats to Vroman on his win.

One question, can Top finally replace Impulse in Oath? Or is Impulse still the better card?

I want to try Top in Oath, but I don't see a reason to run Impulse when you can run Thirst, especially since Chalice for 2 (which is what they'll play it at) chops down Impulse.

If you can get 3 mana consistantly against Stax with Oath, you are seriously the champion of magic.  Chalice for 2 gets rocked by Oxidizes and your numerous 1cc tutors to find them.  Who needs card advantage in Oath?  Just find your combo and win.

If we go back to Chalices, we definitely aren't cutting the tops.

[PacmanXSA]

Oh yeah baby!

Nicolo fishalo rocks house!

Congrats to all the Michiganders and those others guys too

Pac

[Komatteru]

Congrats to everyone in the T8! It was nice to share my success with some familiar Michigan faces.  I guess Michigan has a pretty good claim to strongest metagame in the nation no?  2 T8 at Gencon, 3 at Chicago.  Seems pretty good to me. 

[Whatever Works]

I still havent faced the grimlong deck,

That's not true.  A couple of weeks ago we played five games on MWS and if I recall I went either 4-1 or 5-0 against you. 

You played Uba Mask and it permitted me to  play multiple draw7s while having access to all of the cards I had seen in prior draw7s. 

Uba Mask helps Grim Long out alot - Brainstorm becomes Ancestral. 

what the hell are you talking about. Ive never played on MWS in my life. if someone is using my name they are an imposter.

He doesnt play MWS. I PM'ed him for a game, and I recieved a lecture on his dislike for it.

However, Grim Long (in my experiences) beats ubastax.

[fromm2020]

well it was my first big tourney and it was awesome, even though i scrubbed out i met a bunch of cool peeps, and much congrats to steve, jd and vroman, finally we see combo rise again!

[TK]

ive been trying to find the list vroman played at this time because i myself played a version very similar tothe won he won the last chicago with so i was trying to figure out if he ran the identical list and if not what changes he made. so if vroman or someone could post his list that would be great.

[Polynomial P]

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=25265.0

Next time look for lists in the tournament reports. I think Starcity is planning on posting all lists by the end of this week.

[Disburden]

Also, here's this to tide you guys over:

JD-Land Belcher

1 Taiga
1 Bayou
4 Land Grant
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxes
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 LED
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Channel
4 ESG
4 Tinder Wall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
2 Living Wish
1 Memory Jar
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
3 Duress
4 Joblin Welder
4 Joblin Charbelcher

Board:
1 Artifact Mutation
1 City of Brass
1 City of Traitors
1 Dark Confidant (Holy Fuck! this is amazing)
1 Elvish Scrapper
1 Eternal Witness
2 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Xantid Swarm

Details will be in the primer.

I , personally, can't wait for this article or the article on Steve's version of Grim Tutor.

[policehq]

I read somewhere that Vroman got owned by a pair of Wastelands one game, and I really start to doubt the arguments toward Uba Stax being a one-colored deck with three to four basic lands.

I think this argument has been tried and tried again, but I feel after reading that tournament report that Vroman must agree by now.

[vroman]

this is true. the basic lands are not a major reason I am staying mono red anymore. the 2 key points are:
-ratio of colored spells to color mana sources. if I go 5c I substantially up the # of colored spells, but have no room for extra colored mana. I am really comfortable w my manabase rgiht now, and 5c would totaly disrupt it
-barbarian ring synergy is just so solid. having mana slots double as removal slots makes the deck operate much more robustly

[luckymartyr]

Paul,

Congrats on your finish. 

Vivek

[Silvios]

All in all it seems like a pretty diverse field of play this time around.  It's quite pleasing that the format has so many options, especially in Chicago, with its notorious history of over-stocking Mishra's Workshop.

[forests failed you]

I was really surprised at the lack of Gifts decks at this event.  I think I only really saw one or two of Vintage's premier players playing it at SCG Chicago.

[Komatteru]

Well, if you look at the lists, you'll see that more people played it than Slaver (which is quite shocking, in my opinion), but it didn't do very well.  GWS and ICBM both opted for Oath, and my team went for Combo and Stax.

[doylehancock]

Well, if you look at the lists, you'll see that more people played it than Slaver (which is quite shocking, in my opinion), but it didn't do very well.  GWS and ICBM both opted for Oath, and my team went for Combo and Stax.

I think gifts is still a great deck and it just needs more premier players to play with it.

on a side note Dizzle I like how you used my quote for your tag.  that rocks

[Jacob Orlove]

Thread closed.