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EaterOfDreams
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« on: March 20, 2006, 08:07:03 pm » |
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Scrubdom is something we all go through at one point in time, some more than others. Is it always because of play mistakes? No. Is it always because of poor metagame prediction? No, it's a combination of the said factors as well as countless non-game decisions that can turn a good day bad. And this tale is going to help you NOT to repeat a lot of mine.
Thursday night, I was sitting playing on the computer, talking to friends, looking at decks. Which normally at one in the morning is perfectly fine, however when you're still only half packed for a six hour drive and have yet to decide a deck to play for a tournament in less than thirty-six hours it shifts to the dark side of the proverbial "Magic Force”.
Tip # 1 - Do NOT wait until the last minute to pack since this both hinders the ability for a good night's rest AND takes away time from making sure you're 100 percent confident in your deck selection.
I hit the sack around three of four and was woken up and around by six or seven. The trip itself was fine and we got to the Hotel in less than five hours which was a welcome advantage to start off the day, that is UNTIL I saw the hotel.
Tip # 2 - No matter how cheap you are, please make sure to avoid the hotels that blatantly try to persuade you to reside in them directly IN the hotel name.
I'm not going to name names here but let's just say the "Best Value" isn't always such. Despite the room's location however, we did meet a few players from Team ICBM which was a plus to the day. My bud Charlie traded for some cards that I then bought and borrowed so all was well.
Tip # 3 - Find hotels where you can randomly meet up with members of uberly awesome teams and get your FRIENDS to trade for stuff and let you borrow it. I guess YOU could trade for it, but that's not quite as smooth.
Friday night I was sitting there sleeving up my newly bought fourth Chalice Of The Void and third Crucible Of Worlds as well as other goodies such as Jesters Cap when it hit me. "Why not pull a Jon Finkel and change from a deck I've been playing for years to a deck I've never played the night before a major Tournament with no prior play testing?"
Tip # 4 - Unless you've seen a deck in action enough to really feel confident piloting it. Don't play something you've had no play testing experience with. You may eek out a few wins but simple mistakes cost games in "Competitive" Vintage Magic.
Flash forward to Saturday morning following yet another night of two to three hour sleeps and an early morning of being practically forced out of the door.
Tip # 5 - No matter how much you are rushed in the morning, Get a shower, Wash your hair AND Brush your teeth. A mere ten minute delay is nothing compared to feeling like crap all day and regretting having packed and brought no gum.
Arriving at the Power 9 after a five or ten mile trek through a wilderness of buildings that I each swore to be the Convention Center, I arrived and quickly enough filled out the registration form and the deck list sheet and then paid so I'd have time to pee and buy a drink before the tournament started.
Tips # 6 & 7 - Make sure you KNOW where you're heading before you exit the car: And also DO remember to pee before each round and limit the Amount of liquid intake, I had to urinate before half of the rounds were over and every thought of my kidney's bursting made the decisions of things such as "Do I remove the only blue card in my hand 'Brainstorm' from the game for 'Force Of Will' or do I play the 'Brainstorm' hoping to hit another blue card AND getting to un-waste the stormage of the brain." even harder than they already are.
Time to get more serious now with the oh so enjoyed deck list and slight tourney report.
Bob-O Supreme-O Version 1.0
4 Force Of Will
4 Mana Leak
4 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rushing River
1 Time Walk
2 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Dark Confidant
2 Pithing Needle
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
6 Island
4 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
SideBoard
3 Energy Flux
3 Arcane Laboratory
2 Echoing Truth
2 Annul
2 Duress
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
On some individual card choices:
Mana Leak - I actually got laughed for playing this card Day Two. I don't care what anyone says, right now I'd much rather this over Mana Drain in a deck like this. An Island and an off color moxen is much easier to get first turn than an Island and a Sapphire to get Drain on-line. I can't think of many times, if any, when I would have rather had Drain over Leak.
Thirst For Knowledge - Flame me right now if you feel the need to but to me, TfK is one of the best draw spells ever printed. Being able to play more than one makes me smile because getting three new cards and pitching a stuck in hand Colossus for three mana, only one of which having to be blue is amazing. I do feel though that three is the correct number of TfK in this deck and being times I side down to two.
Rushing River - This card was utterly HORRIBLE for me. The few times I DID see something worth bouncing, River was nowhere in sight and other times I'd see it opening hand and cringe. It's best for simply pitching to a Force.
Duress - This was hit or miss, against decks like Stax it was horrible for me and often times against Combo it did no better. As much as I love Duress, I don't think it has a place main deck so I truly hope I just hit it at bad times.
Yawgmoth's Will - This card honestly did nothing for me, I may have played it once or twice all day and then it was just to maybe replay Duress and tutor up something. With the format so full of storm combo decks, even if you get enough to do anything, The Will more than likely will just be countered or your graveyard will be ripped by a Crypt in response.
Dark Confidant - Please PLEASE: Any deck that plays this man, this BEAST, plays four. This is one of the best cards printed in years, and an amazing engine of card advantage. I cut down to three copies of Bob on day 2 and it was horrible. Then again that entire day was. Bleh!!
Pithing Needle - Truly an MVP of this deck. These were simply amazing against Stax (Especially those playing Bazaar and things like Sideboard Null brooch” but didn't really do much against Storm Decks outside of shutting down Memory Jar. Then again Rebuild makes that insignificant anyway.
Sensei's Divining Top - I lost countless games to turning over Force after Force after even Colossus to Bob. I simply prayed to see Top. I cut down to uno on Day Two and that put the nail in the coffin for my deck in over half the games I played that day. I'd seriously consider upping this slot to three if I play this deck again.
The Win Conditions - Colossus day one felt like it wasn't enough but adding Platinum Angel the second day didn't help. This is the part of the deck that worries me. Here I feel that a storm based Tendrils engine is superior to this version.
The Mana Base - The mana was solid for the most part. The base of it is a staggering TEN "Suck on this Wasteland" basic lands. However, the mana WAS off and inconsistent enough in parts to make me slightly wish I would have added two more Seas for an Island and a Swamp.
The SideBoard - Eww, here's what cost me ninety percent of my game losses both days. I did not have all of my cards with me so switching decks last minute made it really hard to get a good sideboard. Energy Flux should have mopped up Workshop decks but many times, it would back-fire because of my sheer amount of artifacts. Laboratories were good against Tendrils when I could draw it and get to the mana to cast it without it being countered. I practically won the games when it hit play but I'm not sure if it's a good enough answer. Echoing Truth and Annul were my solutions to Oath which I luckily only played against once in the days of thrashing I took. Truths were utter jank and should be cut. Bounce spells did nothing for me nine games out of ten. Annuls however, should be main-decked because they're too good against Stax and often times countering a Black Lotus against something Gifts can buy you the slight advantage you need to pull something out. Duress should come out, possibly leaving in one sideboard or pulling the two from the main deck and putting them in the side. Explosives were garbage, The one or two aggro decks I DID face, they did nothing for me. These should much rather be Darkblast. Pithing Needle is great, enough said.
I'll preface this next section now by saying that both days due to lack of sleep, lack of food and slight dehydration Day, I can't remember a lot of my matches but I'm going to get through this none-the-less. Keep in mind I'm not being "Emo" here, I got plain out trashed day two. But Day 1 I had a good run until I got sick. I just didn’t want to drop after starting out so well, So here are some of the decks I played against throughout the two day period.
Uba Stax - I had two or three of these and this match-up was a fairly easy one. Outside of the Mask and occasional lock pieces, there wasn't much in the ways of disruption in the versions I played against. Sideboard Ensnaring Bridge and Null Broach were bad times, but Echoing Truth and Needle took care of those respectively and Energy Flux mopped up the rest.
5 Color Stax - Harder by FAR than Uba-Stax. Sideboard Duresses on his part popped counter after Energy Flux and an insane amount of lock pieces with Swords and Balance for Colossus didn't make things any easier. Luckily I only saw this match-up once.
Other Shop Decks - I lost Day 1 to a match I shouldn't have when my deck decided to crap out on me against someone playing Shop-Less Shop. Second or Third turn Metalworker activations for 12+ mana and me with few counters and practically no Fluxes both games didn't help any. I also lost day 2 to a Shop deck main decking Pyrostatic Pillars. I Duressed one but a 2nd was just bad as I had no way of getting rid of it and that long with Confidants had me lead to my own demise. And yes knowing he played Pillars I forgot to side in Echoing Truth. I just didn’t care much as I already had two losses at that point.
Oath - I also lost to the one Oath deck I played day 1. I knew it was a bad match-up from the start but they were actually good games with him just getting insane draws and top-decks and me sitting there fearing sideboard Extract.
Grim Long Tendrils - I beat a few of these, there wasn't as much counters and disruption as other versions of Tendrils so mulling down until I saw Force and Arcane Laboratory was usually enough.
Gifts - I hadn't played much against Gifts and assumed it'd be just like other Tendrils decks. I was wrong. Eight counters and four Duresses along with me forgetting to put Tormod's Crypt sideboard was enough to cost me a few matches.
Goblins - Yes, I lost to Goblins. I did not have Darkblast, Massacre, Chill OR Blue Elemental Blast sideboard. I scrounged for Massacres that morning and couldn't find any. Just grand. Just grand indeed.
Pretty much that's it, I played countless Stax and Tendrils decks as well as Oath, Goblins and the total "Timmy" combo deck of Fastbond, Crucible Of Worlds and Barbarian Ring. I went 4 - 4 or 5 - 3 Day 1, I can't recall exactly. But I remember enough to know that if I wasn't dizzy rounds two through five I could have gone at LEAST 6 - 2. But it's ok. Day 2 I got thrashed, I changed three or four cards the night before and tweaked the sideboard. But it failed to ever get mixed up well and I, being too arrogant and lazy to pile-shuffle dropped after going 1 - 3 - 1.
All in all, it was a good weekend. I met a lot of randomly awesome people and won a few packs in a side event booster draft. So for now I am going to leave you with a few more tips.
Tip # 8 - Please make sure to keep yourself hydrated and nourished. If you start to feel flushed, don't shrug it off like I did. Stop, concede the match if you have to, get some water and sit outside for a few minutes. And make sure to eat throughout the day, it's hard to think when you can barely hear yourself and your own brain over the rumbling of your own stomach.
Tip # 9 - Pile shuffle your deck after each and EVERY game. At least 2 or 3 matches out of the day were garbage. Against Gifts once I drew no blue land the first game and no land period the second game, After Mulling down to five or six cards in hand.
Tip #10 - Lastly, just make sure to have a good time playing. If you get frustrated, Drop and play some casual games, trade or even play in the Side Events present. Don't keep playing just because you feel you have to. I know I kept going day 1 but that's because I was doing well. Day 2 when I hit three losses I knew if I didn't drop out then I'd just complain about it the whole night. So I did the aforementioned draft and picked up a Life From The Loam. Good trading material around here!!
I know the article fizzles out towards the results section. And I know that it would have been easier to divide the article into “Day 1” and “Day 2” rather than have to constantly refer back to the former and the latter off and on, but that's really about the best I could do, because I can only remember a few of the matches fully and it'd be pointless to just mention those and then leave gaps everywhere. All the same, I advise anyone wanting to play this deck or anything similar to really work on the board, because that's where games are won, with this deck more than others.
Cary T. (EaterOfDreams on StarCityGames)
Cary Tittle At Yahoo Dot Com
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