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vroman
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« on: October 31, 2005, 05:12:43 am » |
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Starcity Games Power 9 Report 10-29-05
by Vroman
at long last its time for another starcity. unfortunately team ogre lieutenant Jim "Flux" Erlinger couldnt get off work so we were denied both his scintillating charisma and his badass vehicle as our usual means of arriving in style at Pastimes. I had to borrow my mom's grocery getter and force trusted employee Josh Smith to drive the whole way while I slept off a hang over. Also representing Team Ogre were Caleb Scherer, Ben Allen, Jacob Riehm and limited pro/vintage newcomer Aaron "Darth" Haupman. most of us slept further in Haupmans spacious yet unheated pad. since I was too exhausted to function at that point I waited until the next morning to give yet another impromptu ubastax lesson. so the next morning team ogre arrived and filled out decklists like thus:
r vroman - ubastax
j riehm - ubastax
a haupman - ubastax
b allen - ubastax
c scherer - belcher, jdizzle style
j smith - control slaver, flux style
making that many ubastax stretched our power completely, though we did end up proxying wheel of fortune and null rod for darth.
the 4 uba decks had some slight variations in the number of each lock component but nothing radicaly noteworthy, except they all made their own sideboards which were a lot different. my list:
4 workshop
4 waste
4 bring
3 mtn
1 academy
1 strip
5 mox
1 blotus
1 sring
1 mcrypt
1 mvault
4 bazaar
1 wheel
1 trisphere
4 uba
4 smoky
4 chalice
4 crucible
4 welder
3 nrod
2 dup
2 monkey
1 jens
side
4 pblast
3 heretic
2 dup
2 maze
2 tormod
2 stoneshaker shaman
the only thing that might have been new and exciting was the possibility of running goblin lore out of portal. I tested that card forever and it had the capacity to be very synergistic and even broken, but there were times when the random discard completely fucked me. I decided that I didnt want to play a card that could backfire in a serious tournament, so kept the list conservative and tried and true and good.
the maindeck looks basicaly like what Ive been running for months. Im up to 4 b-rings, which is wonderful, to squeeze vital removal utility out of the mana base. I decided to bring it back up to 4 ubas, bc I only took it to 3 to try to lower the mana curve awhile back, but decided I really wanted to try for the ubalock more often instead of just the soot lock. I cut down to 1 jens bc theres only 3 mtns now, so multiples would probably be wasted.
sideboard I was worried about an explosion in draingifts popularity, though clearly I should have been more concerned about oath, which was like 20% of the field or something awful like that. I threw in tormod crypt despite the anti-synergy w null rod, just as a quick answer to gifts, independent of lock pieces. stoneshaker shaman was my one far fetched experiment as anti-drain tech. it never got into play in chicago, though tested very well against gifts, unless they ran darkblast. I was hoping that not everyone would have caught the darkblast craze yet and gifts players would still be relying on pithing needle for welder control and not actual removal. this was proven flatly wrong as my welder got d-blasted round 1 by a gifts player. aparently its a very bad time to be a 1/1 creature in vintage. so long stoneshaker, your window of opportunity has closed.
all my pre-tournament time at pastimes was monopolized by organizing the compilation of a 4th ubastax for haupman in a very short amount of time, when I hadnt thought to bring a single card for it except power. fortunately between the other 4 guys we found an entire obscure stax deck. way to go team. so then the tournament starts at its usual liesurely pace.
Round 1
Gifts w Tundra. win 2-0
game 1
I am not a nice man. win the roll, turn 1 chalices @ 0-1. he plays some lands, I draw blanks for a few turns, and then draw 3 smokestacks in a row, the first two are forced. I ramp smoky and draw uba and go broken.
I saw tundra game 1 and I imediately was worried about sacred ground for game 2 or perhaps even main if he was really angling for a stax meta. I dont really have any answer to that card besides chalice @ 2, or to abandon the smoky plan and just win w ubas.
game 2
packed hand of [mtn, welder, shop, sol ring, smoky, pblast, pblast] I really want the smokestack to resolve here, so I drop mtn, welder as bait, in order to play the smoky w counter back up turn 2. welder resolves but is promptly darkblasted. way to go new tech! next turn I play out the big mana and smoky, but get to keep my pblasts for now. smoky pumps out soot, his lands start dropping, then I rip crucible and resolve it on the back of a pblast. smoky clears his board and he scoops before I even have to use the 2nd pblast.
Round 2
Oath. lose 0-2
game 1
I kept a weak hand w welder and 1-mana lands and turn 2 null rod and such. the hand was revealed to be more than just weak when the oath hit the table, I think turn 3, after we trade some wastelands. I didnt have a chance that game.
game 2
great hand of 3xchalice, workshop, waste, smoky, blank. I gambled this game that a chalice wall would be better than smoky. he drew double waste so I lost. I was worried that if I played conservatively w only chalice @ 0 hed blow me out w turn 2 oath before I could hit chalice @ 2. I really disapointed myself when I drew crucible next, and then zero lands the rest of the game until a hardcast woodripper sealed it. I cant exactly remember the sequence of my first few turns or what I drew, but I may have punted this game.
losing this round didnt really unsettle me, though I knew it would now be a long day of not drawing into top 8 at any point. the oath matchup is one of the more random ones that v muchso depends on sideboard cards. I have to study this more closely if oath is doing so well again. since Im ditching stoneshakers, and tormod and redblasts are ultra-solid by themselves against gifts, I might go back to the 4xmaze plan. I find it hard to believe oath could win games 2 and 3 against quads dup and maze.
Round 3
Cunning wish.dec? win 2-1
game 1
Josh Smith had played against this guy round 1 and I watched him d-tutor once and saw a completely random collection of cards like zuran orb + fastbond + crucible; tinker + colosus, w no other big artifacts; 4xcunning wish, force of will, mana drain; and a 5c mana base. so anyway I kept a hand of 6 mana and smoky, which got forced and I sat around w not much to do. then I got a welder, then he tinkered up dsteel on a mercifuly short yawg will turn. I was setting up to bazaar away a duplicant but he cunning wished for starstorm against my welder, and dealt 22 trample. darkblast seems like a better wish target for spot removal.
I boarded in pblasts and duplicants. I brought in maze too just bc I didnt know if he had any other win condition besides iron giant. he in fact did have a shocking alternate win, that actually wasnt just infinite life. I can definitely beat infinite life.
game 2
I dont remember much of the early stuff except we threw our hands at each other and both were left w basicaly lands and empty grips after turn 3. I drew 2 pblasts in a row which were fing golden to counter his energy flux when I had 3 artifact mana out, and then to counter his tinker that he elaborately wished for vamp to retrieve. lets see, you pay 4BUU, skip a draw and sack a mox, then I pay R and nothing happens. then I started topdecking locks against his empty hand and soon had ubazaar ridiculousness swamping the board w permanents.
game 3
I resolved turn 1 smoky but no crucible in sight, so had to keep feeding the soot w top decks for awhile, but this kept his board completely clear and he skipped to discard phase over and over. Im playing it really conservatively and time goes by until I get ubazaar again. finaly he starts to make something happen off some moxes and a lotus, which turns out to be FlameVault! I didnt bother to check if he had correct oracle wording on his time vault proxy, but it didnt matter bc he had no chance of getting back up to 4 mana before smoky crumbled his board away again. I get b-ring recursion for the distance.
Round 4
UB Fish win 2-1
game 1
I actually knew ahead of time this guy was playing fish bc his teammate had tried to convince me it was viable during a smoke break earlier in the day. UB fish may be better than UX fish, or maybe its not, I dont really care to debate the point, its still fish and rolls to stax.
enemy wins the roll, mulls to 6 and then gets a nonsense opening of factory + withered wretch off a lotus. wretch is pretty disruptive to my deck, but I read him as probably mana screwed so dont really care. I get bashed w wretch a few times, but I dropped turn 2 smoky and lock him easily.
game 2
he kills me w a team of wretch and some mesmiric fiends, which was cute. I drew very dead.
game 3
dont remember too closely. he definitely had zero permeanents when he scooped, smoky and welder action was involved
Round 5
5C stax win 2-1
game 1
guy drops turn 1 trike off shop + lotus. not too shabby. Ive got [shop, 2xbring, jet, 2xduplicant, crucible]. this is definitely managable. I drop the crucible and pass. he bashes for 4 and then tinkers up titan. now my chances actually improve since I can dup titan first and have an infi tall blocker. but then he taps shop for tanglewire. cry. Im not a big fan of tanglewire, but I guess when you drop 11 pts of combat damage by turn 2 it helps close off answers. Im not able to play out enough permanents to get 6 mana under tangle wire before he kills me.
game 2
turn 1 shaman I think goes plowsharing to gain me back the life I spent on b-ring to cast it. he plays crucible strip off lotus. I play welder and my own shop+crucible. however I stupidly give him an extra turn of strip recursion by forgetting his plains in the yard was a black lotus proxy. fortunately he didnt draw any bombs in the extra turns of mana before I got rid of his crucible and wasted all his lands. I drop null rod and then monkey to keep his board harmless.
game 3
I seem to recall early crucible action and welder superiority. he played smokies that he never ramped and eventually his mana disapeared. sorry some of these games are so vague.
Round 6
Control Slaver win 2-0
game 1
this match was an intense battle of skill. I led w strip, jet, nrod. he played island and passed. I didnt have any red mana so used my Goblin Spirit Guide to play a welder. although my opponent didnt have any black mana, he was able to remove a Cabal Spirit Guide to pay for his Darkblast on my welder. he did some shit and passed back. I was bored w my hand, so Marvel mulliganed it to the bottom of the deck and drew a fresh 7. I played lotus on top of null rod and cracked for red mana while the rod was hidden. this let me recast my original welder I had dredged for free back into my hand, and then the moxmonkey I Cheater Tutored for. I passed again and the enemy played pentavus off the 7+i mana he had from his i-mana drain. uh, dont care. I activated bazaar to draw some cards and promised to discard later. This found me ol smoky, which enemy futiley countered, but luckily I had pre-boarded in all 15 of my sideboard bombs and had drawn a pyroblast from my 75 card library. enemy played a welder and drew some cards for no apparent reason. I untapped, carefully counted the permanents, realised I had 7 including a crucible, and enemy had 6. at this point I elected to put 6 soot counters on my smokestack and passed back, so confident I didnt even bother to draw for turn. he lost his board and cried about it. A lot. I kept my crucible and then declared my Fastbond Phase and replayed all my lands. I told enemy to concede and he refused. Then I said it louder in German and he obeyed.
game 2
sadly, enemy mindslavered me turn 1 and screwed my hand over w my own bazaar. fortunately I was somehow mysteriously able to mindslaver him during the same turn. I made him crack lotus for TFK and pitch mindtwist and racknruin. ha, no brokenness for you. then he slavered me again and cast Stoneshaker Shaman and made me lose my bazaar. my slaver was apparently stuck in automatic bc it wouldnt let go control of his turns. I made him crack a fetchland to find stripmine and then kill itself. then he forced me to attack w the stoneshaker against himself, which only made sense if he was running Pulse of the Forge. I see here I have written in my notes that chalice @ 3 would be ideal at this juncture if I ever got out of the slaver lock. by the way I didn't take any notes. with me controlling his turn, enemy ripped ancestral which has been errated to "U, Instant, Draw as many card as you want". I drew a half inch stack and put his pentavus into play via academy tapping for infinite during the "between turns" step. My opponent clearly had no idea what I was planning, bc then when he attempted to auto-slaver me again, I Booster Tutored an Italian Legends pack I found on the floor among other worthless trash. Amazingly I cracked a Rust, and a Pendelhaven to pay for it, finaly letting me take that damn green chrome hat off. Now back in charge, I ripped Fat Man Jens and accidently misreading the rules text, put every land from my deck into play untapped. Enemy threatened to call the judge when he read the card more carefully, and I admitted he might have a point. however I disallowed this on the basis of the loaded gun in my pants and the fact that if I were to see a judge within 10 feet of my table I would kill my opponent and his entire family. enemy counter offers if perhaps I could just kill his family. now listen here, sport. Im not going to let you externalize the consequences of your decisions around me. when I make wild, extortionist threats, I do it against the man himself. threatening the family is just to prove how psychotically vindictive I am, so lets put all this behind us and get on with this game of magical cards. and remember, judge = dead family, seriously. we had a good chuckle about that one and continued the game w my 20 lands in play.
Then I cast a asian foil Viashino Heretic and told the enemy it was actually a Grab the Reigns and he believed me. Sucker. I stole his pentavus I had "helpfully" cast for him last turn, and then paid 15 mana to create 15 pentavites, which were all imbued w haste by the Mama Bus. Serve for lethal!
Poor Josh Smith, he never had a chance. control slaver just cant compete against a competent ubastax pilot, brandishing a firearm. Then the gun accidently went off in my belt and I had to have a testicle re-attached before the start of the next round.
Round 7
TPS. win 2-1
game 1
by far my most ridiculous opening hand of the tournament. I mulled to 6: [workshop, mcrypt, mvault, null rod, smokestack]. dropped my whole hand, ramped smoky once and kept throwing crap away until I ripped crucible. formalities of killing him ensued.
I sided in redblasts, which were marginal, and tormod only bc I had more stuff to drop than I had to bring in. these were never a factor.
game 2
very iffy hand, but I kept and Im certain I played it right, though his combo simply went off. [shaman, welder, bring, pblast, tormod, null rod, blank]. he mulled to 6 and played out a land and 2 artifact mana. I played tormod and shaman. he forced shaman which was exactly what I wanted, bc unless I started ripping mana it would take me two (ie infinite) turns to kill his moxen, but instead he nuked himself down to 1 card, making me feel much safer about leaving him w 3 mana turn 2. sadly for me that card was a land and he ripped necro w the trip B to cast it. I drew mtn which gave me the option of either null rod, or welder w pblast back up. I figured he probably kept a force in the 10 cards he necroed for, so null rod would be countered and leave me defenselss. so better to hopefuly draw out a counterspell by baiting the welder which really was irrelevent. I hope to blow him out by countering some vital blue thing and bashing w welder to cut out his draws. I played the welder and passed. sadly he was able to lethal tendrils me the next turn sans anything blue. pblast = not the hotness against TPS.
game 3
I threw the pblasts back in the board for the regular locks Id taken out (I think chalice, which seems horrible to ever take out against combo, even on the draw). I slapped down a threat and a draw engine of monkey, crucible, and bazaar, off jet and lotus. I draw many, many cards off bazaar and get a steady smoke lock going right away so he never has more than 1 land out.
Making top 8 a 3rd time was very satisfying. I was slightly worried about the high percentage of Oath but I lucked out and didnt face any of the 3 oath players.
Top 8
Round 1
Droba Belcher. win 2-0
Game 1
Im on the draw, and my hand is [null rod, 3xbring, welder, uba, uba]. while droba was resolving his muligan I thought about this hand. first of all ideally I rip one of the 13 cards in the deck that will give me 2 mana turn 1 and lead w the n-rod. at worst though I play turn 1 welder, turn 2 nrod. I keep. Droba plays lotus, sol ring, ESG, and casts living wish, floating 2B. I look at my hand again and think, great, negator, Im dead in 4 turns, no chance. but instead he plays exciting new ravnica tech, Dark Confidant. I rip mox jet, hooray, turn 1 null rod. this is amazing for me bc droba has no mana at all now and will kill himself w his walking phyrexian arena. I speed things along drawing workshop to pump out ubas, and the smoky to lock him.
Game 2
A much stronger hand w [shop, sol ring, chalice, null rod, 3xblank]. I have the amzing play here of turn 1 chalice @ 1 + nrod. droba land grants revealing not much action, except a naturalize. he consults for ritual and loses what I learned later to be all of his artifact destruction. I rip mana vault and now have SIX mana turn 1 and can play n-rod + chalice @ 2 instead to shut off natty lite. so thats basicaly an auto-win right there. droba makes things interesting when I start drawing smokies, but am afraid to ramp them bc he has welder which could get rid of my nrod. then he lands yawgmoths bargain off ritual and tinder wall. he spends a few turns drawing down to 2 life, and hardcasts ESG which bashes me to 7. while Ive crucible+stripped both his land. I have b-ring in play but zero cards in the yard. I think real hard and ramp my smokies to a combined 3, sacking afterwards, including n-rod, then stripping my own shop, cracking lotus, welding blank out for lotus, cracking lotus again and exactly achieving threshold to deal 2 to the dome, w 5 red in pool.
Round 2
UW Fish. win 2-1
game 1
I drew completely dead this game. I won the roll and play mtn, welder, who gets plowed. then he plays chalice @ 0 on the draw? which paid off masterfully when I draw 4 moxes in a row. I am afraid I might have given a tell that the chalice was hurting me, bc he played Kataki Half Flux, and always paid for the chalice unless he drew another chalice and never played it for a different number.
I got hit 10 times in the face by War Wage w no other pressure on board. I drew absolutely no gas even after ripping bazaar w a full grip.
game 2
he muls to a bad 6, I get a gorilla shaman and eat both his vials and chalice @ 0. eventually he gets some guys, but I get a smoky. I ramp and he scoops to a resolved crucible against his zero permanents.
game 3
long battle. my opening hand is not stellar, and he plays an early energy flux which keeps me from developing. I have bazaar and a few lands and draw about 10 land in a row, which bazaar really helps me filter through. I get maze out to cripple his attack step w little guys. I draw some brings to kill his largest guys and then hes down to zero cards. finaly I draw a pyroblast to take out the flux and then explode w mana vault, uba. ubazaar buries him, and I draw very, very well the next few turns and take out his board w smoky, duplicant and redblasts.
Finals
5C stax. win 2-0
game 1
I propose the same split I offered Matt Morrison, such that the winner gets his choice between 1st pick or 2nd+9th pick. this knocks the prize difference from ~$600 to ~$100, assuming all equal condition. Im not willing to gamble a half grand+ on 3 games of magic. so we get down to it wo much production.
I lose the roll and theres a flurry of activity in the early turns mainly centering around us both having moxmonkeys and trying to kill each others board. I get crucible and start waste recursion and am able to keep him under 7 mana. he has welder to threaten the welder+shaman trick, but my cheapest artifact is sol ring and I knock him down to only 2 mana. however hes able to kill mr. sol once and weld out a smoky before it doesn much damage. then he attacks w shaman, giving me the choice to trade. I think this was a mistake, as I decided Id rather skip eating his sol ring next turn than risk him ripping academy or something and knocking out my now 2x crucible. now he has just welder and sol ring, and I have lots of mana and crucible+waste. I rip duplicant and then a smokestack and lock him. I finish the game at I think 5 life from constant use of bring and him swinging in w welder throughout the early turns.
game 2
he has an explosive opening of lotus, d-tutor for tinker hed cast later, waste, sol ring, crucible. I am looking at shop, smoky, jet, vault, shaman, bring, waste and then I rip heretic. Id love to play heretic, but my red mana will be dead next turn. so I drop the monkey and use my vault to kill his sol ring. he plays academy and chalice @ 0 to tinker the chalice for trike and kill my shaman. I masterfully rip ruby and drop heretic against his 2 shot trike. 1/3 body is so good. Im still holding back the workshop. he wastes my bring, fails to replay waste, and drops gemstone. bashes for 3, dont care. I untap, kill his crucible, waste the gemstone. he hits me for 3 again. I untap, kill his trike, and he takes the 6 damage instead of shooting itself in response. I finaly drop shop+smoky. He rips waste against my shop and I ramp smoky. he vamp tutors and I think for awhile and decide to finally drop the chalice Ive been too busy to cast the whole game. I tell him Im guessing he got ancestral and play chalice @ 1. when he passes the turn wo doing anything Im sure I was right, though plowshares is a posibility, since heretic is a huge obstacle to rebuilding. its pretty much over at this point. I drop uba and watch his sideboard bombs disapear. eventually he scoops and I just won two starcities in a row, even losing the roll against combo and stax in single elim. I took the lotus and went the hell home.
This tournament was actually harder than the last one. I lost a lot more games overall this time a around. Even the easy match ups felt a little more challenging and it shows in the games I dropped. Maybe the overall caliber of the starcity attendee is improving. I really like coming to these besides just winning, so I definitely hope they continue. its good for the format and for magic in general.
unfortunately for this tournament I have a fairly long slops column
- whatever staff member is responsible for entering match results, who screwed up multiple times according to reports and definitely cost Josh Smith top 16 prize. sloppy work for you guys.
- Deleted
- pastimes new location is way smaller, and lacks amenities like more space to trade and those chinese ppl selling pizza. Im sure you cant help it due to whatever deal is being worked out behind your back, but I miss the old place.
- why give up on coverage?
- chicago's fucking tollways under construction costing me 90 minutes of stop and go and still charging me $1.90 both ways for the privelege of crawling along.
-rumor has it stax pioneer kevin cron got banned from pastimes until 2006 for walking in with an open beer. fascists. Attention vintage community: come play at my power tournaments and I will GIVE you cans of Ice House.
props to the russian market and their cheap apples. and to Darth for finishing 10th in his first vintage tourney ever. thanks Josh for scooping to me. good job mindtwisting ppl for their entire hand over and over, and then giving smennen a hard time.
good job team ogre.
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