Vintage Experience 1.0, or how to win power at your first Vintage Tournament

I had never competed in a vintage tournament before yesterday. I had no idea what to expect. I’ve been reading TMD for about 4 months, so I have a good idea of what the “Name” players are doing, but in the little town of Shit, NY (aka Baldwinsville) who knows what’s going to show up? So, after testing Control Slaver for a while, I decided I hated the deck, and went for another deck that runs Drains and doesn’t suck, ruling out Oath. I found this thread. Here’s the list I played to T8.

4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Leak
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Confidant
3x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Tinker
1x Darksteel Colossus
1x Platinum Angel
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Pithing Needle
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Yawgmoth’s Will

7x SoLoMoxen

1x Library of Alexandria
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
6x Island
1x Swamp

SB:
2x Pithing Needle
3x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Null Rod
2x Energy Flux
3x Annul
2x Darkblast
1x Engineered Plague

Notes on the build:

- I cut the Misdirection for the 4th Confidant, and didn’t miss it at all. The 4 Confidants is nuts, and with 4 in the deck I was comfortable siding 1 out in some matches. It would have been much more difficult to side without 4.

- I was thoroughly unimpressed with Strip Mine in testing, so I replaced it with Academy. This was a giant bonus all day long. It has the option of acting like a Strip occasionally, as well, when you want to take out an opposing Academy.

- Sensei’s Divining Top is the best card in the deck.

- Platinum Angel gets you out of situations you have no business getting out of, and lets you win when you have no business winning.

- I expected to play more Oath and FCG, which explains the Plague in the Board. I didn’t use it once. I also was a master of dodging Stax (minus rd.1) so I hardly used Flux at all.

Here’s the report.

Round 1: Travis LaPlante (JuggernautGo) - 5c Stax

What a way to start off your Vintage career, huh?

Game 1 – After getting my head beat in a bit by 1/1 dudes, I counter some junk, bounce Welder, and Tinker in Darksteel Kevin. He wins the game. It’s what he does.

Game 2 – I get crapped out, and he sets me up in savage Lockery.

Game 3 – My hand is nuts and I keep. I fetch basics, because Wasteland is for suckers. I end up with no Black sources on the table for 6 turns, while my hand consists of Vamp, Demonic, Confidant, Will. Good Game, n00b. He locks me out and I scoop.

So I start out my tournament, and my career, at 0-1. Normally I would be disheartened, but for some reason, I really don’t care.

Round 2: Eli Kasis – Control Slaver

Game 1 – Eli almost dies to his own rolls on Mana Crypt before Slavering me out. I swear, he hit himself literally 5 times out of 5 in the game. The die we used was my best friend this match.

Game 2 – See Tinker. Go, Colossus, Go.

Game 3 – Best die ever strikes again. He rolls himself down to 7. Confidants are trying to keep up with him and the 7/10 he dropped on my face. He asks the judge for a new die to roll, and he wins his first roll of the match. He beats me at 2 life. DAMN. But Eli is a friend, and he was a dealer at the event, so he scooped to me and dropped so he could go deal through the day. So the die roll ended up in my favor after all.
1-1

Round 3: Joe (Mr_rogers) – Gro I think, It may have been GAT but I never saw Tog.

Game 1 – His Dryad managed to race me into finding an answer. He basically grew some little dude huge.

Game 2 – Tinker turn 1. I only wrote down 9 for his life.

Game 3 – I make the stupidest play of the day. I remember it vividly. I go turn 1 Island, Brainstorm. The cards I see are: Confidant, Confidant, Mox, Lotus, Colossus, Land. I put Colossus under Land and go Mox, Lotus, crack for Black, Confidant, Confidant. As soon as I play the second Confidant, I say “SHIT!” My opponent understands next turn as I reveal Colossus off the second Confidant. However, even with my stupid play, and taking 11 on turn 2, I still managed to win this game at 1 life! It was the worst and best plays of the day all in 1 game!
Confidant beats get him to 12. He has a Dryad at 2/2 on the table, and little to nothing in hand. I have a Top on the table, and a full grip. I am at 1. I swing, he lets it through, because if I can’t win now, I’m dead. Go to 8. I time walk. I brainstorm. I top. I draw the 2 land I put on top off Confidant and swing in for 4 again. He has to let it in. Goes to 4. I top again, and find Mystical. I draw Mystical with Top. I Mystical for Echoing Truth, and Brainstorm into it, and 2 land! I Yawg for Time walk and during my end step I bounce Dryad. Reveal the 2 land off the top, and swing in for the win.
2-1

Round 4: Matt(Slack) – Deathlong

Game 1 – We battle back and forth until he combos out.

Game 2 – Turn 1 Tinker FTW.

Game 3 – Early on, he Consults for Xantid Swarm (a 4of) and loses over 1/3 of his library to get to it. He then proceeds to draw two more over the next two turns, but I have recurring Darkblast, and he has nothing. He grabs Necro and draws 10, but basically cant get anything with it, since it’s either in his RFG from Consultation or from my Crypt in response to Yawg Will. Eventually Bob Maher takes it home.
3-1

Round 5: Stephen(MoxMonkey) – Playing Slaver

Game 1 – A long game of Draw, Go, followed by a counterbattle over my end step Thirst, followed by him dropping 7/10 on my head, yet again.

Game 2 - Early Tinker into Colossus, he can't find Welder.

Game 3 – From Stephen's post below, I Tinker into Colossus again, he can't find an answer.
4-1

At this point, I think I’m set, and can draw in. Unfortunately, there’s infinite 4-1s, and I have the worst tie breakers. I’m sitting in tenth seed going into round 5 and have to play it. It actually is better this way, since one of the pair from table 3 got knocked out after they drew. There was a 3-1-1 who played against JuggernautGo round 6, but Travis had left already, so he got the win and made it in over one of the table 3s.

Round 6: Josh from RIT – Togless Tog

Game 1 – He gets the control battle over with when he tinkers into Colossus late game. We counter war, and I lose. But his hand is depleted, and I have Platz in mine. Bob and The Sensei give me Mana Drain backup, and I hardcast Angel. She ends up winning me the game at -10 life.

Game 2 – CONTROVERSY. I went turn 1 fetch, go. He went turn 1 nuts mana. I went fetch eot, land, go. He went turn 2 Colossus. On his turn 3, he got excited, and accidentally took 2 cards off the top. The judge (a known hardass) was sitting right next to us, and saw it. It was REL3, and that’s considered an automatic game loss. He had turn 2 Colossus, I had shit. He lost on a stupid accident. My friends told me that its his fault for sloppy play, but Jesus, what a terrible way to win. Still feel bad about it Josh.
5-1

Made top 8 as 5 seed.

T8: Mike from RIT – Belcher Gifts

Game 1 – A mid game Tinker-> Colossus wins

Game 2 – A hard fought, drawn out game ends when I have Angel beating him down. On his last opportunity, he finally gets Belcher active, which up until this point, I didn’t even know he was playing. He kills angel, then Demonics for his last land to belch me out.

Game 3 – He Tinkers up Colossus and wins it in Turns. I guess it’s a fitting way to end my tournament, since I did it so many times all day.

Changes I would make – None MD, I loved it all day long. SB, I would probably cut Rod and Plague for more control. I had a friend running Shadow of a Doubt, he said it was nutty all day, maybe I would try that.

Props:
- TMD for giving me an ice cube’s shot in hell.
- Thug. SOLID DECK. It was incredibly easy to play all day long. A bystander said “I love his deck. I does NOTHING. Except win.”
- Eli for scooping
- Hot wings for being good 2 hours after I bought them.
- Bob and the Sensei
- Clarkson University

Slops:
- Stupid play mistakes, on both sides of the table
- Belcher
- Dead cell phones
- Not getting power yet, but I’m not getting into that.
- South Henrietta Institute of Technology