I'm going to try to keep this concise, since my memory has left town and zany antics were kept to a minimum.
On day one, I scrubbed out of the main event. Hard. I lost round one for being late to my match, and lost round two to Kevin Cron who got some ridiculous love from his Chalice of the Voids against me in the third game. Undaunted, I smashed someone in round three, and headed up to punk some side events and rethink my plans for the following day.
This is my list from day two. Changes from my regular list are in
italics.
FlameVault Gifts4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Darkblast1 Flame Fusillade
1 Recoup
1 Rack and Ruin
2 Pithing Needle1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Time Vault
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
SB:
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Chalice of the Void2 Rushing River2 Rack and Ruin
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pyroclasm
About the changes:
One of my maindeck Pithing Needles warmed the bench for my maindeck Darkblast, which I decided to run expecting a pile of Xantid Swarms and Dark Confidants. It turned out to be the right call since most of the room was combo, and much of it was that GWS deck that boards in Confidant for game two.
The sideboard also changed, as Chalice of the Void was necessary for the high concentration of storm decks in the room. Between BeckerDeckWins, Grimlong, and Belcher, these easily earned their slots as just plan necessary protection. Engineered Explosives moved from the sideboard to my stockbox as it was definitely my weakest sideboard slot. I haven't missed it.
Round One: Alana (Canadia!) playing Oath
I've borrowed Drains from Alana before, so I'm kind of familiar with her, but not really what she likes to pilot. I assumed it would be a blue deck given that the drains I was playing with that day were not hers.
Game one I get slapped around. She resolves early Ancestral Recall, and draws in to Library and starts crushing me with card advantage. I try to keep up by casting a couple broken spells, but she consistantly has answers for them. A desperation Tinker gets Mana Drained, and she combos out with Yawgmoth's Will after Oathing up her deck.
Game two is pretty tight, until she starts a counterwar I know I can win. I get her to Force my Force, to which I respond with Drain on her Force. I untap and cast Gifts and you know how that goes.
Game three I find my Library, and it draws absurd card after absurd card. I let her resolve Oath eventually, and then I Tinker in Colossus. She oaths up Akroma, and I Rushing River with kicker to put Akroma and Oath back in her hand. Colossus swings for lethal.
Round Two: U/B Psychatog
I don't remember much about this matchup. I never see any Mana Drains, and the only relevant card he plays in either game is Psychatog. I drain something in both games and turn it in to a bunch of thirsts, which assemble Flame/Vault without too much effort.
Round Three: OMG IT'S KLEP with Belcher
I don't give Klep enough credit. He's a pretty solid Belcher player. Figures, since it's his casual vintage deck of choice.
Game one he keeps a pretty slow and steady hand, preferring to err on the side of overcautiousness rather than foolishness. Unfortunately for him, I have Mystical Tutor, which digs up my Darkblast and provides a solid solution to his gameplan which involves casting Xantid Swarm and Goblin Welder to protect his investment. He wrecks his mana to get a Belcher in to play the turn I tinkered for Colossus, but since he has only Taiga, I'm not too worried about him ramping to three before I kill him. He gets his chance to rip gold, and instead rips another Xantid or something. I tutor for Walk and smack him for 22 to the noggin.
Game two Klep goes off insanely early. Could have been turn one, I don't remember.
Game three I have a Chalice on the play, and I set it at zero, buying me enough time to ramp up for Drain. I counter a Land Grant, but Klep topdecks the Bayou he wanted, and starts setting up a breakout hand. Unfortunately for him, I get myself a Pithing Needle off Thirst for Knowledge, and play it naming Goblin Charbelcher. For several turns we go back and forth, I topdeck nothing but mana and Klep topdecks nothing but business he can't use. Eventually, Klep resolves Xantid Swarm and decides to go for it. He drops some rituals on the table, along with an ESG and a Tinder Wall, to cast Wheel of Fortune. I have to let it resolve, and he wheels me in to a hand with Yawgmoth's Will in it. He has enough mana to remove my pithing needle, but not quite enough to set up the belcher kill this turn. My Will is by far lethal at this point, so I flash it to him and we end the match to get some beverages.
Round Four: Angry Phelddagryf with Control Slaver
Carp is surprisingly decent with Slaver. He's got some things to learn about Drain mirrors, but this match was certainly less cut and dry than when I smashed him in
Chicago.
Game one I play some tricks like Thirst for Knowledge with his fetch activation on the stack, and generate quite a bit more card advantage than he can. Eventually I Gifts for Will, Recoup, Tinker, and Time Walk, and then kill him with Flame/Vault anyway.
Game two my hand is pretty mediocre, and Dan is able to start catching up to my card advantage. The deciding point of the game was when he had multiple REB to back up his Tinker for Platinum Angel. I am unable to locate Fusillade before she swings for lethal.
Game three I work him over with early Ancestral and multiple red blasts. Lots of Thirst for Knowledges get cast, but mine resolve more than his do. Eventually I tinker for Colossus with Mystical Tutor in hand.
Round Five: Tom Lapille with Meandeck Gifts
I love Gifts mirrors. Evidently Tom does too.
Game one goes back and forth a lot. Tom has an outrageous amount of artifact mana and very few colored sources, while I have black, red, and double blue available, but very little in terms of colorless mana to use. Eventually I draw Thirsts while his hand is gummed up with Merchant Scrolls, and my stuff starts resolving. I strip his land, and it takes him a while to start finding lands again. By the time he does I've assembled a really solid control hand, and when his Mana Crypt brings him down to 11, I decide to go for Tinker, and bonk him with a Colossus.
Game two Tom has a really broken artifact mana hand again, and he tutors for Lotus to get the necessary blue he needs to start doing things. I keep drawing black cards with red sources, and I can only hold out for so long. Eventually he Gifts for Recoup, Burning Wish, Yawgmoth's Will, and something. He's got more than enough mana to go off, so I scoop it up as time is beginning to run out.
Game three we fight over some junk for a while, and I let him win a counter war over my endstep Thirst for Knowledge. I untap and Gifts Ungiven for ways to get Time Vault because I'm already holding the Fusillade. I burn him out and suddenly, I'm a lock for top eight.
Round Six: Intentional Draw with Stephen (I think) playing some Stax variant
Round Seven: Intentional Draw with Eric Becker playing BeckerDeck
Top Eight: Mike Jones with Control Slaver
I don't think Mike is used to getting this far, because he seems really nervous and makes a couple really big mistakes involving floating mana. Over the course of our match, he misses mana floating in his pool like three times. Once, he taps academy for three blue, announces the mana in his pool, looks at his hand, and then moves to his second main phase. He forgets he already used academy, burns on the mana, and passes because he can no longer tinker with Drain backup.
The match goes on like this for a while. He just keeps getting jittery or something, and I keep drawing cards that don't suck. Eventually I lock him out in game two, and it's time for the semis.
Top Four: NefariousAndy, Andy Farias, The Walking Sponge and Wizard-at-large, playing Control Slaver
I really, really don't remember much about this one. I only remember that in game two, I won with Pithing Needle naming Goblin Welder and a Colossus beating down past two of the little bastards.
On the other side of the bracket, the top eight match between Fisher and Stephen is just entering game two. I wander around and play type four, and then offer a prize split to Fisher when he beats Becker in the top four. We agree to play out a finals just so that Starcity has someone to put on the front page, but I warn him I'm going to play foolish since it's late, I haven't slept or eaten since the previous day, and we have to leave that night so the sooner we duck out, the better.
Finals: Brian Fisher with Control Slaver
Game one is just Brian watching me go broken. I cast every draw spell the planet has ever seen while Brian thinks about how to sideboard.
Game two I have the win in my hand (according to Outlaw) but it's a little complicated and I'm really tired, so I don't see it right away. Instead I opt to go for Tinker-Colossus with protection, but he breaks through my protection to get his own colossus in to play. I've almost got Flame-Vault set up, but Brian wins the topdeck war with a Goblin Welder while I sit there helplessly holding Vampiric Tutor, Darkblast, and no black source.
Game three we deplete our hands very quickly, and I draw ridiculous amounts of mana. After Brainstorm, Fetch, Thirst, Brainstorm, Fetch, I've seen every mana source in my deck. I take a look at my mana and realize even though I've been doing stuff, I still have enough mana to hardcast Colossus with Drain backup. Fisher has Drain and Red Blast, and ends up choking for 11 on the drain mana. Eventually I find Fusillade, and just cast it with exactly enough permanents to burn him out. Brian has the Force for it, and I Force back, but I have to hardcast it, leaving me 2 points shy of killing Brian. I try to cast Tinker, and it gets countered, and I recoup Tinker, and it gets a colossus again, but Brian has brainstormed in to Welder, Walk, and Tinker, and I scoop when I see all three hit the table.
Props
Ray Mitchell for hookin' it up with Drains
Marc Perez for hookin' it up with some random power cards the day before
BrassMan for spotting me a Jet (omgz so much borrowzor)
Klep because OMG IT'S KLEP
Smmenen, Becker, and Evenpence for double t8
Shay and Fisher for winning
Tim for driving even though he doesn't play Magic
Slops
Perez for showing up late, making me late as well since he had the components to make my deck legal
BrassMan for being a big scrub
Kyle Leith for getting anally violated by 80 card unsleeved sui-black in the side event
Mongolian Barbecue for no longer existing
Denny's for being a retarded idea in the first place and being even more worthless in execution
