Hi-Val's Hilarious Hijinks Have Hrichmond Howling!

[Hi-Val]

Oooooh, so I went to SCG: Richmond as well as every other cool Magic player in the world.

Our story begins when I meet with Rian Litchard and Steve Menendian (you might have heard of these men) at Steve's apartment on Wednesday night. We throw some cards down, obv. I am testing Dragon, but quickly realize that there are an abounding number of Pithing Needles and Tormod's Crypts that will show up at the event, bound to tear me up if I play the deck. Steve and Tom Lapille are both testing Ichorid. I figured a while back that I wasn't going to be playing the newest creation cooked up in the Meandeck Meth Lab because... it lost to Pithing Needle and Tormod's Crypt.

I settle on Gifts featuring Bob Maher Jr., the eyeshadowed, coiffeured card drawer. I've got the maindeck and sideboard built.

Bob sucks in Gifts, I'll just say that right now. He's an awful midgame topdeck and I wish he were something else all the time. Most of all, it makes it pretty hard to run Kevin Cron, the 11/11 Trampler in my deck with Bob. I skipped out on running Kevin, frown.

Tom, Rian, LyleH, Willie "The Stilt" Milton and I pile into Lyle's fresh Ford Focus. This is not a car meant for five people, especially when two of them are over six feet tall, especially when those two are always sitting up front. I manage to avoid sitting bitch the whole way so who am I to complain? We rip out of Columbus at 8AM and go to The South.

We drove.

We stopped for food.

There were these tight ruins of buildings by the gas station we were at, so we went exploring them. They were built upon a rail line so they were obviously there for transporting tortured souls of Thetans to Xenu's volcanoes.

We drove more.

We arrive in Richmond in the late afternoon, looking for Kevin and Randy Buehler. Neither are answering phones. Neither are in their rooms. So we drive around, kill some time, call them again, check out the beautiful suburbs ghettoes of Richmond and then finally get in contact with them. We test. We go to a diner a few blocks away, where a cute hipster girl takes our orders. This hipster girl has a prominent tattoo of a lotus on her arm. I comment on how it has this hilarious significance that she wouldn't realize. At the end of the night, I get a picture with her (in which Steve decides he wants to butt in on as well) and she gives me her contact info. Kids call that "mising".

I get too little sleep.

I go to the tourney site from my hotel ACROSS THE STREET (Aside)

HOLY SHIT, that hotel was dope. We had feather pillows and comforters. We were on the fifteenth floor with a giant picture window overlooking downtown Richmond. If you were on the town and looked at my window, you would have seen my chalk white ass in upwards of two times, pressed on glass. The desire to moon was unquenchable.

Aside over

aside: they had walkways over the road connecting the hotel to the convention center. It was like Star Trek and my companion and life partner Kevin Cron was my handsome Mr. Spock.

-THE STREET and sell my Kokushos for tournament entry to the fine folks at SCG. Who needs T2 rares anyway? I don't play with rares, I got me a meeeeaaaan deck! We have a team photo, I whore for some cards, I whore out some cards, I fix my list and sit down for player pairings. Rian and Tom have names suspiciously close to mine in the alphabet, so we take time to talk trash and get megapumped for the event.

I played magic and did poorly, then I dropped.

I killed Jacob Orlove with a Captain's Maneuver in Skittles and later on, I killed another person in Type Four with a Quanar'd Captain's Maneuver. Best card ever. Did I mention that Paul "Inventor of Type Four" Mastriano was there? He invented Type Four.

That night, I take the crap out of my deck and try to find teammates to test with or talk with, but many have been lost to the scourge of marijuana. Time to go to bed instead.

Holy shit did I do poorly the next day. Talk about walking the upside-down smile mile.

Luckily after dropping, I sold yet more cards to SCG to pay for my trip and worked with Josh, who is relatively new to SCG and a very fine person to sell to. Here's to free vacations.

Did I mention how ludicrous this hotel was? We were on the concierge floor, so Lyle and I ate an arbitrarily large number of chicken wings and delicious foodstuffs in the exclusive lounge. They had muffins that made even Justin Droba hit the table and exclaim "there are so many savage tastes in my mouth!".

After watching Steve do some damage with Grimlong, we go to this great restaurant and get sandwiches and brews.

Aside: why were people complaining about no food in the area? Walk out of the doors you came in, turn left, go down a block, turn right, walk a block until you see a food court on the left. I had a philly cheese steak combo which included BEER FOR LUNCH at no extra charge. Such are the benefits of scrub-a-dubbing out both days.

Bedtime, back on the road. At this gas station there was a game where you could put a quarter in (why isn't that word spelled "courter" instead? it'd make so much more sense) and knock other quarters (omg, Paul Mastriano has this wild way of pronouncing "tournament" where the first syllable sounds like "torn") off a ledge and then you get those. I put a quarter in, won three, then promptly lost those and four more quarters (that word will piss me off for another ten minutes) in the machine. I could have used that money to buy Vitamin Water : (

I got home at 10PM, skipped all my classes the next day and picked up laundry that I gave to a friend to bring back.

PRAWPS:
-sweet concrete ruins
-Team Meandeck, for showing up with so many people: JD, Steve, Rian, Tom, Willie, Lyle, Myself, Kevin, Randy, Ashok, Jim and JORLOVE.
-Chipotle: though I didn't eat you on the trip, I thought about it and it made me really happy.
-Captain's Maneuver!
-Lotus tattoos
-gambling devices

SLAWPS:
-gambling devices
-Ben Kowal, for stealing Jacob and making a confusing ten minutes of waiting for Lyle and I when we went to get him at his hotel.
-Kevin Cron, for stealing a T4 game from me with a Mindslaver
-Kevin Cron, for stealing my heart.
-Rich Shay, for hiding his Tinker on the floor so he could lose a game to me and make me play a third game against him. You're a tricky one, Shay!
-Me for forgetting Ashok in the original iteration of this report!

SUPARPRAWPS:
-ULLLLLLLLLTRA COMBO! Killer Instinct for providing moments of brilliant quotations throughout the weekend.
-Tom Lapille for introducing me to the phrase "R U J/K?"
-The amazing Shakespearean pronounciation of "LOL!" that everyone ended up saying all weekend.
-The origin of the name Meandeck, for hybridizing two or more stories and passing into mythology
-Whoever was standing on their chairs and saying "First turn kill!" on the second day. Don't listen to people calling you a tool; I lol'd.
-Mat Endress, who may be involved with the previous suparprawp.

[Machinus]

Thanks for the report. I think I sat next to you at some point on day two, but I can't remember who I was losing to at the time.

[Phele]

Bob sucks in Gifts, I'll just say that right now. He's an awful midgame topdeck and I wish he were something else all the time. Most of all, it makes it pretty hard to run Kevin Cron, the 11/11 Trampler in my deck with Bob. I skipped out on running Kevin, frown.

I totally disagree. You say Confidant is a bad midgame draw (and there are worse after a big counter duell), but he is a perfect start hand draw. Its a great addition for drawing cards without investing mana later on and play Gifts instead of crap like Thirst for Knowledge, which I never understood, how it took over places in Gifts. You throw atrtifacts to the grave which I would much prefer to play and its such a lousy fealing that Thirst is so much more powerfull in Slaver. But back to Confidant: Just the little chance of flipping over Colossus is in my eyes no arument against it. I cant remember games where the rare case of flipping Colossus occured and I didn't win, but anyway, I would take this risk all the time. And Confidant is a perfect addition to the Tendrils kill. 2-3 little Beats and its much easier to get a deadly Tendrils and so it also decreases the need for going over Yawgmoths Will to get the Tendrils going. Sorry to say so, but I would play Confidant every time over Misdirection, Thirst, Merchant Scrolls #4. With the addition of on basic Swamp you even avoid any mana base problems with it.

[Machinus]

If you are playing confidant to generate the tendrils kill, why even play gifts at all? You could play something like intuition/ak and just go with 2-3 copies of tendrils maindeck. Or just drop the drains altogether and play bob combo.

Were you the player that flipped colossus/force/force?

[Phele]

No, I wasnt. And I prefer to let results speak:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=369
http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=357
http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=370
http://www.eudemonia.net/p9/
http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=359

We allready do play Tendrils main. But by adding AK/Intuition and cutting Colossus/Recoup  you just rely too much on the Tendrils kill. Colossus is the perfect Null-Rod-proofed kill and by adding 3-4 Confidants you dont lose anything of the original power of the Gifts builds.

[The Atog Lord]

Hilarious report.

-Rich Shay, for hiding his Tinker on the floor so he could lose a game to me and make me play a third game against him. You're a tricky one, Shay!

Next time I'll just run Manipulate Fate so I can cut Tinker, Yawgwill, and Ancestral mid-game. And draw a card.

[Hi-Val]

I totally disagree.

I disagree with your disagreement. I ran basic swamp even. Bob is ass after turn 1. On turn 2 I want to Mana Drain, on turn 3 I want to Brainstorm and then Mana Drain, on turn 4 I want to win. Bob is a crazy good turn 1 play, no doubt. So is Merchant Scroll for FOW or Ancestral, and yay, those don't lose me the game!

Anyway, I think Rich was trying new Ring of Ma'Ruf tech so that he could "conveniently" find his Tinker out of the game.

[Evenpence]

I too am not a fan of Dark Confidant, for most of the reasons Hi-Val has mentioned.  Sure, he's a beater, but he's a huge investment, especially when the format is gunning for Welders, Bob gets the shaft.  He's a card-drawing engine on a stick, but he deals you damage as well, and requires two full mana and your first turn.  You need to run 4 of him in order to optimize getting him in your opening hand, because no one wants to cast a draw spell and see Bob as one of the cards.  I would much rather see mana or something that actually does something, like Night's Whisper.  He has horrible synergy with every card in a blue deck, as you can't put drain mana up AND have Bob out there.

Did I mention the format is gunning for X/1's?

[The Atog Lord]

I think Rich was trying new Ring of Ma'Ruf tech so that he could "conveniently" find his Tinker out of the game.

It's like a better Burning Wish -- you can Weld it in every turn! And it gets around BEB and Hydroblast! And Steve can't prohibit it!

[Lyle H]

I better go buy some right now.

Anywho. Great report.  Savage awesome weekend even though I had a complete scrubout day 2. 

Yes it was quite a scourge.

Had I realized the hotel room was going to cost 250 bucks on sunday night, I would have eaten more chicken.

[PucktheCat]

I have come down against Bob in Gifts, partly for the reasons mentioned, and also for some of my own.  One major weakness of Confidant is that he costs black mana first turn.  I run a swamp in my deck, but I always want it to be the 3rd land I fetch out, because I want Drain second turn.  Fetching out a swamp right away makes me sad.

I also think that Thirst is really good in Gifts.  I don't view it as a consolation prize that is weaker than Bob but "safer," I think it is usually stronger than Bob.  Thirst digs three deep the turn you cast it.  It takes Confidant until at least turn 4 to dig that deep for you.  In faster matchups, Confidant is just too slow.

The discard effect of Thirst ranges from somewhat annoying, to irrelevant, to a positive beneft.  It is a benefit, obviously, when you discard Colossus to Thirst.  It is irrelevant when you discard a dead card (Pithing Needle in the mirror, moxes against Null Rod/Chalice).  It is annoying when your hand is depleted or when you have Academy in play, but that isn't much more common than the situations where Confidant's damage is annoying.  Since one of the major strategies of Gifts.dec is to stock the graveyard with fast mana, Thirst's discard effect is substantially less costly than it appears.

Also, Darkblast owns Confidant.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I lol'd.  This is an amazing report, even if there isn't any Magical information or decklists.  Thanks for making me laugh.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

There was even more hillarity than can be captured in that report.

After simultaneously entering the Type Four Bracket with Doug on the second day, we went to the aforementioned beer-providing establishment. We were thunderstruck at the bargain of the inclusion of a 14 oz beer with the combo. Upon ordering, we are presented with the opportunity to upgrade to a 32 OZ BEER. Lyle is convinced by the chef's appetizing review of it as "very good". Now here's the crucial part. Because I am not yet 21, I give my friends money and go to the bathroom after placing the order. I stand around the corner and observe via the reflection in the window of a closed store. That's the one play I made that I can be sure was correct. I later added some Jack from the "Honor Bar" in the concierge lounge to my pepsi. I didn't fill out a tab. Mise.

Steve got a very fancy imported beer that came with instructions on how to pour it. "Down my throat" was much more simple than what the label had advised.

Doug jammed up our toilet TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. For such a little man, he certainly has a generous sphincter. On the morning of the second such night (Monday), I awoke and had to urinate. So I used my generous height and length to make peepee in the sink without making a mess.

[Moxlotus]

Doug jammed up our toilet TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. For such a little man, he certainly has a generous sphincter. On the morning of the second such night (Monday), I awoke and had to urinate. So I used my generous height and length to make peepee in the sink without making a mess.

Does it make me extremely immature that I laughed my ass off at this?

[Hi-Val]

Doug jammed up our toilet TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. For such a little man, he certainly has a generous sphincter. On the morning of the second such night (Monday), I awoke and had to urinate. So I used my generous height and length to make peepee in the sink without making a mess.

Does it make me extremely immature that I laughed my ass off at this?

I pwned that fucker HARD. It was a 2-0 match for sure.

[Lost In Admiration]

-Whoever was standing on their chairs and saying "First turn kill!" on the second day. Don't listen to people calling you a tool; I lol'd.
-Mat Endress, who may be involved with the previous suparprawp.

Yeah, that was me.  They told me not to do it again because I might break the chair.

[Meddling Mike]

Kevin Cron, the 11/11 Trampler

I'm gonna have to go ahead and dispute referring to Darksteel Colossus as "Kevin Cron" here, if Kevin Cron is going to be any kind of card it'll have to be a large male vampire, personally thinking Sengir Vampire.

quarter in (why isn't that word spelled "courter" instead? it'd make so much more sense)

Yeah you're right, now if you'll excuse me I need to go buy a court of milk.

[Dante]

-Whoever was standing on their chairs and saying "First turn kill!" on the second day. Don't listen to people calling you a tool; I lol'd.
-Mat Endress, who may be involved with the previous suparprawp.

Yeah, that was me.  They told me not to do it again because I might break the chair.

You are quite a large man.

[Jacob Orlove]

Speaking of hilarious hijinks, was I the only one who couldn't help but remember "I put on my robe and wizard hat" each time I saw a certain member of ICBM and his, um, wizard hat?

[forests failed you]

Oh Mana!  You didn't even mention any of our Type four games???  EOT, Grinning Totem for Ashoks "Chord of Calling" for a Morphling !?  How is that not amazing in the face of the Memnarch that you put into play Via your Debtors Knell??

That is good stuff right there... Report worthy good stuff!!!

It was nice seeing you again at the event Doug!!! 

[Razvan]

I honestly love reports like this more than actual game reports. Especially since there's two kinds of game reports:

v1: I started with this impossible-to-lose-with hand, and played everything, and won. My opponent did nothing.

v2: A 200-sentences block of text that is missing key information, so it's utterly senseless, and involves complicated series of plays and 17-spell stacks (non-storm-version, of course) that have at least 3 errors in them.

Nicely done, Hi-val.

[Hi-Val]

Razvan, thanks : ) My goal was to not mention playing in the actual tournament at all, because it's pretty boring to read "I'm Hi-Val and I am terrible at this game. Got any jacks? Go fish."

Brian, that was an AMAZING game. BTW, to all T4 players: Play Debtor's Knell only when you have sooooo much to protect it or you end up eating a lot of Searing Winds and Urza's Rages and Greater Morphlings. Frowntown.

[Manpriest]

Great report, thanks for the entertainment.