I was really excited about this last weekend. Not only was the monthly tournament at Dreamers hosting a Mox Ruby on Sunday, but The Monster Den was having one too, for an Emerald, on Saturday. Since these are the only two pieces of power nine that I actually need, one could say that I was especially super-pumped.
Saturday, November 12, I wake up at some obscene hour in the morning and call my brother, Tim, to see if he is going to join me. He can't, which sucks, because I really wanted him to run his Rich Shay inspired Ravager list. Tim always plays Ravager, and this deck would have fit in perfectly to our meta, in my opinion. Incidentally, I saw zero Null Rods, save the few that I saw while I was walking around and noticed a FCG player blatantly siding them in against someone. Bummer, that Ravager deck would have done well.
So my brother can't come along. Oh well. Off I go.  I arrive and there doesn't appear to be many people signed up for the Vintage event. : / The place is packed full of dirty looking teenagers playing X-box and D&D or something, but nothing for Vintage. Turns out, we didn't get enough people to support the prize of a Mox Emerald. At this point, I'm going to have to give major slops/minor flame to the Monster Den. They consistently fail to promote their Vintage events. It's nice when they do get enough players, but when you know that they know about places like TMD or SCG and they STILL don't even mention their own tournament, you have to wonder wtf is going on. Boo to you mister.
I don't remember how many people there were exactly, but it was like 18. So this tourny is just an appetizer for the Dreamer's event tomorrow, apparently.
Okay, moving on to the list. I have dubbed this wreck as "Behold, the TRI Laser" which was begat from the name Rich Shay used at GP Philly, "The Quad Glacier" begat from Josh Silvestri's "The Quad Laser." Yea, I know that it is just another Flame Vault deck, but whatever, this is my report, and I like saying 'laser.'Â
The Team Reflection Inc. Laser (aka Vintage Flame Vault)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Recoup
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Burning Wish
1 Time Vault
1 Flame Fusillade
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
5 Moxes
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3 Claws of Gix
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Duress
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Rack and Ruin
There are a few strange things in this list, in my opinion. First, there are 24 permanent based mana sources plus the four Mana Drains. This seems almost archaic European in it's manabase to me. It seems like so few, but I'm not sure. It seems to work out just fine if you play basics and fetches right. One question/comment I often get is regarding the Claws of Gix. I dunno, they have never let me down. I just feel that they are the best reactive solution to the Oath Matchup because they come down on your first turn.
Maindeck singletons such as Needle, Shaman, and Duress are so good, and so good together with Gifts Ungiven. I have found that my opponent will give me broken cards like Ancestral and Demonic Tutor over Pithing Needle or often, Gorilla Shaman. I noticed that when I would grab Needle, Shaman, Demonic with Gifts, I would almost always get the Demonic to hand. When I would pick a Gifts pile of say, Demonic, Ancestral, Walk, Gifts, I would almost always not get Demonic. This tells me that they usually fear my disruption much more than Demonic, which often equates to fetching a bomb when Demonic is acquired through a Gifts. I'm not sure if this logic makes sense or if it just happened to work out that way this time around.
~~Day 1. The Monster Den~~
Round 1. I cannot recall this kid's name, unfortunately, playing something with artifact lands and Forces.
Game 1, he gets a single land and a turn 3 Lotus Petal, which he uses to cast Demonic Tutor. He searches his library for a Mox Ruby and puts it directly into play. Seeing this, I Force it and proceed to nuke him from orbit with the TRI Laz0r shortly thereafter.
Game 2 is comical. I keep a hand with no land. Knowing that he is playing with artifact lands, I side in the second Gorilla Shaman. My opening hand contains one of said Shamans, Lotus, Mana Crypt, no land, and a bunch of blue spells. We play the Draw-Go game with each other the first 5-6 turns. I end up drawing Emerald and Pearl, and play them. At some point, when he has a couple of artifact lands, a Lotus, and a Glimmervoid, I make my move. I cast Shaman off lotus with double Force backup. He Mana Leaks the Shaman. Knowing I could have just paid for it having double red still floating and two Moxen, but I Force the Leak instead, totally unaware that he is playing with counters. He Forces targeting my Force, pitching something, I Force his Force pitching Brainstorm, then shockingly, he Forces targeting my Force, pitching ... a Force! Holy Cow!. By now, he has forgotten that Lotus adds three mana, so I use the remaining red and a Mox to pay for the mana leak. heh. I drop Mana Crypt, eat all his artifact lands and his Lotus. His Glimmervoid dies and he decides to scoop.
1-0. I have nothing to comment on this matchup because I really have no idea what I faced.
Round 2. Again I forget the name of this gentleman. He's playing Meandeck Gifts with Merchant Scrolls, Misdirections, and all.
Game 1.  This is a long drawn out battle with lots of topdecking. I would topdeck a bomb, he would use his last card to counter it. He would draw a bomb, I'd use my last card in hand to counter it.  Very interesting game. He should have won, and I should have scooped before calling the judge over at the end to inspect his power nine proxies which were clearly thicker than the rest of his cards. During the game, I questioned him about these proxies and he said it was fine. I also remember him mentioning at the end of the match that he asked the judge beforehand. Whatever. So, the judge comes over at the end of the game and I question him about cards being thicker and how this is not good. To my dismay, the judge gives him a game loss. Ugg, this game is really ugly sometimes. I despise being unsportsmanlike, and it really felt like it this time.
Game 2. Not much stands out in this game. I remember dropping Library on the draw, tapping it and playing a Jet. That's never bad. I remember casting 2 gifts and setting up 1 of the 2 Tendrils victories that I would get this weekend, and notably it was
without Yawgmoth's Will. I remember that it was Turn 1 of 5 when it happened and that I was glad to get a legitimate win out of this match.
2-0. I'm not sure if he had Library in his deck as I did in mine, I may have had the mirror advantage, but then again, he was running Misdirections and Merchant Scrolls. Obviously Rebuild can really wreck me unless I'm going for the Tendrils win and he had the better means to get it and protect it. I'm going to take the liberty of saying that I probably outplayed him as well. He just wasn't playing optimally either. Not optimizing Brainstorm with Fetches correctly and not waiting to cast spells during my end of turn. This is just so critical to any blue based deck. I don't get it.
Round 3 Dan Moeckly (sp?) playing what I may call OSEternal Witness. Dan is a pretty cool guy. He's got a crazy ass homebrew deck. By watching Dan play other matches, I can see that he is fairly adept at Vintage, though he plays other formats for the most part, I think. This deck is packed full of bounce spells in Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth. Other spells include Eternal Witness, Recollect, and other recursion effects. Recurring Ancestral, Time Walk, and sometimes Psi Blast 2 to 3 times a turn is maddening. I fear the deck would lose to stax as it is very mana hungry. Dan knows this too according to our conversations. This fact would prove itself in the Top 4 at Dreamers the following day.
Game 1. I'm not sure how to beat this deck, but it was his turn 1 Merchant Scroll for Ancestral that won him this game. Sure, my first turn involved duressing the Ancestral, and I even managed to counter it the next 2-3 recursion spells, but dang, when the draw engine (the Witnesses) swings for beats, you only get to live for so long before inevitability owns you.
Game 2. More of the same. Eventually he starts to slowly beat on me with a Witness and Xantid Swarm!?. I scoop when I have no hand and he has lots of open mana and begins to discard down to 7 tossing Mana Drain for crying out loud.Â
2-1 Control-combo hates the aggro-control matchup, right? Well, that's what this is essentially. Add the fact that I'm facing something that I have never tested against. The odds are against me, I think. My sideboard only had 1 Tormod's Crypt at the time and really no other cards to board in.
Round 4Â Derek E., playing 5c Stax.
Game 1, I keep an insane hand of like Ancestral, 2 basics, a Mana Drain, Thirst and other goodies, but no Force. He wins the roll and leads with Workshop, Trinisphere. I draw a Force.
 He plays Crucible next turn. I scoop.
Game 2. Honestly, I don't really remember how he won, but he won. That's fine though, because this is the last one out of the SIX total games I would play him in this weekend that he would win!Â
2-2. Derek's a good player, playing stax. He got a nuts draw and I noticed no mistakes. This matchup could easily be a whole article of theory beyond "cast Mana Drain".
I don't make the Top 4, obviously.
I go home and consult my 4 year old as to what to changes I should make for the next day's event. He only wants to play cars and toss the ball around though. But I think he told me indirectly. Those balls were bouncing and perhaps, just maybe, it was that activity that influenced me to make the following changes, which led me to the list above.Â
Maindeck changes:
-1 Lotus Petal
-1 Duress
+1 Rebuild
+1 Echoing Truth
~~Day 2. Dreamers.~~
I'm excited to get back to Dreamers after missing last month's event. The prize then was a Mana Drain and a Bazaar for 1st/2nd, if I recall correctly. I really wanted to support this type of prize structure because I believe that this is far more practical. People need expensive four-ofs and also, people seem to like splitting in the finals. This prize structure really endorces this. I had a decision to make for October, Waterbury or Dreamers. 'Nuff said. Okay, the matches.
Round 1. Travis? playing Pandeburst combo. Travis is very new to the store and Vintage but seems to play other formats. He is very happy to be playing and realizes that his chances are slim to begin with, being new and all. That doesn't keep him down and I tell him that I hope to see him regularly at these events. He is eager to comply.
Game 1. I roll a 6 on a 6 sided die and go first. Tinker-Colossus wins this one. His critical mistake, besides choosing that deck was to play Careful Study and discard a Pandemonium. This told me exactly how to board against him. In comes 3 crypts.
Game 2. He leads with Mana Crypt and Tundra, casting Careful Study pitching Saproling Burst and Pandemonium. On my turn, I lead with Tormod's Crypt (which is Forced) I play Sea and Pearl, Demonic for Crypt and play the Crypt. Force again! Alright, now I'm generally concerned as all he needs is one more mana and Replenish. Fortunately for me, I am able to protect my life total and find the laser. Or maybe it was Colossus, I cannot recall.  Anyway, I wish him lots of luck. Please make my tiebreakers good.
1-0 Pandeburst is absofuckinglutely fun to play. But then again, winning is also fun.
Round 2. Matt Jendro. Uba Stax. Matt's an awesome player who always plays good decks.
Game 1. I roll a 6 on a 6 sided die and go first. I am able to avoid lock pieces until I have 2 basic Islands on the board, untapped. Which is good, because his Uba Mask runs into my Mana Drain. Which is always a nice setup for a next turn Ancestral-Gifts-TFK, walk play into a Yawgmoth's Will explosion leading to a lethal Tendrils of Agony. That's roughly how it went.
Game 2. I believe a Needle naming Welder before casting Tinker was involved in this victory.
2-0Â That was easy, too easy.Â
Round 3Â Derek E. 5cStax. Yep, same Derek from yesterday.
Game 1. I roll a 6 on a 6 sided die and go first. Needle + Tinker out of the gates = win.
Game 2. I am able to Gifts Ungiven multiple times for Moxen and permanents. I allow Tangle Wire to resolve, because I have plenty of permanents to tap when I swing with Metal Elvis.
3-0
I go over to see how my first round opponent is doing. He's 0-3, I was hoping for better, but oh well. I get paired down in round 4.
Round 4. Sheldon(?) with FCG.
Game 1. I roll a 6 on a 6 sided die and he also rolls a 6. I think for a minute, then roll a 1. He gets to go first.
He leads with a non-Lackey, non-Warchief goblin and I let it resolve. I counter everything after that, mainly to get Drain mana so that I can set up a Mystical Tutor for Tinker. Which does him in. Incidentally, it was the Flame Fusillade which allowed me to ping off a Goblin Matron so that he would not be able to block with everything and be at one life point. That was kind of cool.
Game 2. The aggro deck swarms me! I cannot keep up and 3 Piledrivers beat me to death.
Game 3. Sheldon has answers this time. He has Maze of Ith, which he drops the turn after I Tinker. Well, two turns later, I tutor again for Pithing Needle and that's all she wrote.
4-0
So I lead the swiss with 12 points, with the next two peeps having 10. There is no reason not to draw into the Top 8, much less play at all as the next round for me is inconsequential. I end up taking first seed. YaY, go me. My 5th round opponent was playing a UW deck sporting StP, Meddling Mages, Wastes, and more. He claimed that my deck would be able to crush his, but I have done the testing on this matchup, and believe me, it is not exactly as lopsided as he made it out to be.
4-0-1
I think the Top 8 looked something like the following. I'm not sure.
Flame Vault (me)
FCG
5cStaxÂ
Gifts-Belcher
OSEternal Witness
Oath (not sure on the version)
Uba Stax
UW Standstill type of deck.
Top 8 Sheldon AGAIN with FCG. This time, Sheldon knows my 11/11 trampler all too well.
Game 1. End of his first turn I cast Vampiric with an Underground Sea and Mox in play, he rolls his eyes. Beats with DSC ensue.
Game 2. I Mystical, or was it Vampiric, for Tinker and do the same thing. Except this time, he drops Maze of Ith and I cannot find a Needle fast enough. An Engineered Plague shows up to play, one of my 2 SB cards, because I really have nothing for this matchup, but then again, why should I? Well, anyway, he is able to resolve Food Chain then combos out in a following turn, slowing explaining to me how the deck works. I have to laugh on the inside as my own teammate Josh wrote the book on this Vintage deck. Sheldon did not know this, nor should he, but it was still humorous. Well, to me it was.
Game 3. Believe it or not, I get the same setup. I Mysitical for Tinker very early. While I'm searching with Mystical, he says aloud "Gee, I think I have a pretty good guess as to what this is for." Or something like that. I cast Tinker, He REBs it! Uh-oh. Sheldon is able to play and swing with a few goblins before I rip a Yawgmoth's Will off the top. So, at his end of turn, with 1 Taiga untapped, I am able to cast Gifts Ungiven. As soon as it resolves I know I have won because I will play no more blue spells for him to counter. I Gifts for the laser pieces, Lotus, and Demonic Tutor. Next turn, I sac Lotus, play Will, tutor for Academy, play Vault and fire with Fusillade. He didn't even see it coming.Â
Top 4 Derek E., Episode 3. with 5cStax.
Game 1. I do alot of thinking in this round. At one point, I set up for Needle + Tinker, but the turn I plan on casting Tinker I end up drawing Colossus! Eventually, Yawgmoth's Will reveals itself and the TRI laser finishes him.
Game 2. Very close game. He gets out 3 Welders and I drop a Needle naming Welder. Crucible, Sphere of Resistance both come out to play.  He's got an active Crucible-Strip Mine going but I have artifacts and Tolarian Academy in hand. At some point I end up with Colossus and Tinker in hand again! Tinker ends up being pitched to a Force at some point while I set up my board to hardcast Colossus with Sphere of Resistance in play and OMG it worked. He casts Karn. My next turn after I get Colossus in play, I somehow still have Academy. I tap out, noticing his 2 Cities and PRAY that he doesn't have a Swords to Plowshares, cast Thirst for Knowledge, and rip a Hurkyl's Recall! His next play would have been to cast Triskelion, animate the Needle, ping the Needle, and weld Colossus. Whew.
Finals. Matt Jendro AGAIN with Uba Stax. I avoid watching him and Dan, with the recursion deck, duke it out in their Top 4 matchup because I know that it will be tough battle either way. If anything, I hope Dan wins because his deck attacks in small increments, doesn't hurt my mana production and Uba Stax can just crash the proverbial yogurt truck all over your face in a totally random fashion. Plus, I've added 2 Tormod's Crypts to my sideboard since yesterday.  So this makes it 4 total opponents played on the day and 7 matches played. Freaky. We debate as to whether we should split or play. I had no cards with me other than my deck and didn't want to spend money, so a split seemed out of the realm of possibilities. So, like real men do, we played it out.
Game 1.  Matt wins the die roll and gets a decent draw. I get some basics going and a little bit of draw, but get locked out quickly. Karn lets Smokestack attack and soon I die.
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Game 2. I get some Drains, a couple of basics and things don't look too bad in my opening 6. Matt plays a Heretic on his opening turn. I drain a Smokestack then proceed to cast Fusillade, killing his Heretic! Beat that Mana Severance. He continues to drop bombs, including Cruicble (I think) and Orb of Dreams. I Mystical for Rebuild with Will in hand, but he rips a Red Elemental Blast beforehand, just in time. Because of the Orb, and the lack of another tutor effect, I am unable to do anything to save myself.  I did have one play mistake in this game in not fetching in response to Orb, but really, I was out of it by then.
So I got the 30 in store credit and Matt got the Ruby and I don't regret for one second playing it out. Congratulations to Matt for winning!
I was kind of shocked by the meta. I was really expecting there to be alot of Oath decks but there were none. Also, where are the Dragon and Grimlong decks? Maybe I was just too busy all day playing versus Workshops to be bothered by Akroma and her bitches. I really have no idea what the meta will be like next month so I will have to wait for advances in netdecking and make a guess a week or so before the next tournament. As far as the list goes, I am still very happy with it and wouldn't change anything right now except for the expected sideboard tweaks. I'm definitely going to keep that same die that wouldn't quit coughing up sixes for me.Â
Props and Slops go at the end of a report and I shall not fail to deliver.
Props
-Teammates.
-To Jason at Dreamers for continually hosting power events every month and also other Eternal tournaments all the time.
-To Travis, my first round opponent on day 2 for totally sucking and still loving it.
-Dutch Championships, for showing the world that Flame Vault is serious business.
-The bathroom at The Monster Den. You haven't reached shatting nirvana unless you have donned the graces of this glorious poop receptacle.
Slops
-The troll who kept shouting that "T1 is so gay!" whenever things got too swingy for him and when he lost. Which was often, apparently.
-A certain MN "Vintage Adept" who "plays bad decks" that made me proxy a Yawgmoth's Will because I let him borrow mine 3 months ago and he has no inclination to return it unless it is at his own convienience.
-Idiots. You know who you are.
-People watching other matches who say "I hope you lose."Â Not very classy, dude.
-Jeff
