There was a small tournament at a local card store, Milwaukee Sports Cards, on Saturday, and some ICBMers, some GWSers, and a total of 32 Midwest players showed up. The field was mainly well established, with a handful of scrubs playing next to players like Roland Chang and Eric Becker.
Nothing really exciting happened on the way there, just the normal jokes, kidding, and ripping on friends. With nothing else to say about what happened before; here is the actual play report. I played 5c Chang stax, with the help of David Carhart, who loaned me two moxes so I could cut down to 10 proxies.
5 Color Chang Stax [List based on Roland’s Rochester list]
///Mana
7 SoLo Moxes
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra’s Workshop
4 City Of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
//Total Mana: 27
///Creatures
4 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
//Total Creatures: 9
///Locks
3 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Chalice Of The Void
3 Sphere Of Resistance
1 Trinisphere
//Total Locks: 15
///Tutor/Utility
1 Darkblast
1 Swords To Plowshares
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Bazaar Of Baghdad
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Crop Rotation
1 Tinker
//Total Utility: 9
////Deck Total: 60
////Sideboard
3 Mana Maze
2 Rack And Ruin
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Ray Of Revelation
1 Triskelion
2 Jester’s Cap
2 Pyroclasm
///Total: 15
The list is almost exactly Roland Chang’s latest list, with chalice of the void main decked instead of tangle wire. Chalice was a house all day, and I didn’t miss wire at all. Anyways, onto the matchups…
Round 1 Vs. Matt (Intuition Stax)
Game 1: He plays first, and drops a first turn lock piece, I think it was a smokestack. My turn I drop some mana and my own smokestack. He takes his turn, puts stack to 1, and plays mox monkey, eating everything but my stack and workshop. I sac stack, and play a city and have to pass. The only lock in my hand was 1sphere, which would backfire t this point. He takes a bolt from mana crypt, and sacs it. He plays intuition, gets strip mine, karn, and crucible. How do I deal with that intuition? I gave him Strip mine, but he dropped a city instead and played welder. I concede to stack lock and karn next turn.
I sideboard:
-1 7/10
-1 Balance
-3 1sphere
+1 Trisk
+2 Rack And Ruin
+2 T-crypt
Game 2: I savage this game hardcore. I play workshop, mox, mox, smokestack, turn. He plays a mana vault. I play a turn 2 crucible, and just stack sit at one the whole game. Eventually he just scoops to the best lock ever, the turn after I cast trisk.
Game 3: We each play some early locks, and we both end up losing most of our boards to his smokestack. We only have like 6 minutes left, when he resolves welder and juggernaut. My board is nearly empty as I couldn’t recover from the early stack battle, and juggs swings in for the win before time is called.
Games: 1-2, Matches: 0-1
After our match, which was very enjoyable, I jokingly say that now I only have to 4-0 the field, how hard could it be?…
Round 2 Vs. Maddox (Mountains Win Again)
Game 1: I win the dice roll, and lead with a first turn smokestack. He plays a land, crypt, and passes. I draw a monkey, play him, and then drop a crucible, then eat the crypt. I am now basically out of a hand, but have a clock and a hard lock. After a few turns, he scoops, and on to game 2…
I board:
-1 Swords To Plowshares
-2 Sphere Of Resistance
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Trisk
Game 2: I go first, and see Pyroclasm in my opening grip, which makes me a happy panda. I drop a first turn welder of a mine, play a mox, and pass. He plays a lavamancer first turn, and passes. I sigh, play land and a chalice at 0, and pass. He fetches again, removes both, and kills welder. Then he plays a mox monkey, and it’s my turn. I now have a choice. Do I pyroclasm now to save my mox, or do I wait and try to 3 or 4 for 1 him? I decided to play a wasteland, waste plateau, and pass. I wasn’t sure if this was the right move, but I had a feeling he might overextend. He eats my mox, swings and, awesomely, plays a vandal. YES!! On my turn strip mine, strip his other plateau, and pyroclasm. All he does for basically the rest of the game is bolt me once, as he has no outs thanks to my chalice at 2 that comes down next turn, stopping his seals and disenchants. I eventually kill him by tinkering 7/10 and blowing his entire mana base.
Games: 3-2 Matches: 1-1
After this game there was a lunch break, but no one on our team was hungry so our team and Matt from round 1 played some type 4, complete with screaming, insults, and cursing. Andy from Meandeck got in on the second game, resulting in even more yelling and friendly insults. Type 4 rocks. Team Vorpal Bunny was the only one with our stack there, so it ended up being kind of a whore all day, especially when everyone else was waiting for me while I was playing top 8 matches. Anyways, back to the vintage…
Round 3 Vs. Andy of Meandeck, playing Grimlong
Andy showed up with Roland Chang, who I had paid earlier to get my playmat from him, and I talked with Andy and he sat next to me both games before. We had actually shown each other our main decks during lunch, so we both knew exactly how to play, and we had a good time…
Game 1: I win the dice roll, and draw the absolute nuts against combo. Lotus, Workshop, Lotus for red, welder, chalice @ 0, 1sphere, chalice @ 1, go. He draws his card, plays a fetch and passes. He plays another fetch his next turn, after a little welder beat. My turn, another welder beat, his turn another land. My next turn I play bazaar and he scoops.
I sideboard:
-1 Duplicant
-1 Triskelion
-1 Darkblast
-1 Balance
-1 Swords To Plowshares
+3 Mana Maze
+2 Jester’s Cap
Game 2: He plays a bunch of broken mana and a fetch first turn. Whew, no first turn kill. I play workshop, mox, and jester’s cap. He starts sweating, draws his card, plays another land, and passes. On my turn, I draw and play wasteland, and cap. I remove tendrils, tendrils, and will. He offers the handshake and I go report my 2-0 before lots of others have barely finished shuffling.
Games: 5-2 Matches: 2-1
After this match, I did some trading, and watched the game between Roland Chang, Andy’s teammate, and Maddox, an associate of my team. Roland won.
Round 4 Vs. Rafe of ICBM playing gifts
Game 1: He wins the roll and plays mana. I keep a sketchy six-card hand with only 1 lock. That lock, a turn 1 trinisphere, gets forced away. He keeps playing mana and drawing cards, while I get flaccid top decks of land, land, land, mox. He manages to tinker for the big man, and time walks for the win. I sideboard:
+2 Rack And Ruin
-1 Darkblast
-1 Trisk
Game 2: I play a first turn gemstone, mana, welder, and chalice at zero. He kept a hand of a bunch of broken mana I guess, because he groans, plays land and passes. I use my gemstone and moxes turn 2 to play crucible, which resolves. Then I play strip mine. We each take a few turns, me stripping lands and welder beating, before he scoops to game 3.
Game 3: He mulls to 5, keeps his hand, and plays ancestral. I play a turn 1 trinisphere off shop, which resolves. He then draws his card, and discards DSC. On my turn I play a land and chalice at 2. He draws, and rips DSC off the top, practically throwing it across the room when he sees it. I then play crucible and smokestack on successive turns, and he scoops, acknowledging that there are 20 minutes left, and I will win before that.
After this game, I am starting to get really hungry, but then my savior comes. Matt walks in with a box of chicken fried rice. He lets me have 2 bites, the first food since about 8:45 that morning; it is now about 2:30. I won’t get food again until about 11, but I don’t care at this point, I am focused on my next match, where winning means drawing to top 8.
Round 5 Vs Greg from GWS with some sort of fish GWS was all playing…
Game 1: He plays first, going underground sea, pass. I draw something like… Mox for mana vault for crucible and then city for welder, which hits a daze. He then plays underground sea and says go again. I play sol ring and 1sphere. He plays an island. I play tinker for 7/10, which blows up his mana and proceeds to do a victory dance.
I don’t sideboard because all I have seen was daze, and I have heard nothing about the deck from my teammates.
Game 2: He plays a land and planar void. Ok, I play a wasteland, waste underground sea, and try to play welder off ruby, which gets forced. He plays a land. I play a land and some mana. He plays a land and Dark Confidant. I play a land, and a 1sphere. Bob Maher flips a rack and ruin for a bolt to the head, and then swings in for 2. My turn I rip Tolarian off the top, and manage to hard cast 7/10. He flips out, saying that I didn’t have 9 because of sphere, but everyone around agrees I do. Bob flips lotus, and he sits. I take my turn, swing and get the hit. Then he plays another land. I take my turn and swing, but get Bob blocked. He then plays another land, and racks sphere and titan, killing his entire dual filled board. Next turn I play a mox monkey, and beat with him for the last 5 points while he can’t draw a land.
Round 6: ID with Eric Becker.
I play some type 4 with the team and Andy and Matt, and talk with Roland about some stax tech and building hints. Top 8 pairings take forever, and it turns out Roland, who started at 0-2, made it in on breakers. Never go 0-2 drop.
TOP 8
Round 1 Vs Matt Endress playing Grimlong
Game I: I had forgotten how compulsive Endress really is, as he takes about 10 minutes just to decide whether to mull, which he does. He keeps the six, and wins the roll. He plays a fetch and passes. Seems like a common play today… I play a turn 1 chalice at zero and a wasteland. He fetches an island and brainstorms. He plays imperial seal on his turn, and passes. I think I screwed him though because I play a 1sphere and some mana. He sighs, does math in his head for about 10 minutes and passes after playing a fetch. I manage to play a smokestack, and next turn comes down crucible and 3sphere for the concession.
Game 2: I board the same as I did against Andy, and he plays a bunch of mana on the first turn. I play a turn 1 1sphere and welder off lotus, and pass. He doesn’t do anything, and I play a shop and tap out for a cap. He has to win now and he knows it. He uses all of his mana to cast memory jar, which he is now tapped out because of. Now, a play decision, another hard one, at least for him. Does he crack it now and hope for lots of broken and a land to support it and store stuff in his yard, or does he wait until my turn, trying to avoid cap but risk giving me the nuts. He passes, and breaks jar as I cap with a shop open for mana. I draw the nuts, and play tons of broken and another sphere. I weld in cap once more, just to get basically everything out of his deck, and he eventually concedes.
Quarter Finals Vs. Mike with 2 land belcher
Game 1: I win the die roll, and play welder. He manages to get a belcher into play, but next turn comes mox monkey from me to eat his mox and weld his belcher into a mox. He stalls for a while, while I cast trisk and beat him over the head with machines and monkeys.
I sideboard out swords and balance. In come 2 Rack and Ruin, all I really got.
Game 2: he draws his 7, and plays bayou, a bunch of rituals, demonic for belcher, activate, and flips exactly 10 cards before hitting taiga. Damn.
Game 3: I get a turn 1 chalice at zero, but he gets a turn 1 belcher anyways. He doesn’t have any mana though to belch, he passes. I play a 1sphere and pass. He land grants and plays living wish with his 2 lands. Uh-oh. He gets city of brass and passes. I rip wasteland and waste the bayou, then play a sol ring. He plays city and passes. I play tinker for 7/10, blowing up the taiga. He draws and says go. I rip another waste and he concedes.
After that hard fought battle, I give Roland my altered art 7/10 I have been using the whole tournament because he gave me a free trinisphere. I split with Ryan Fisher, him getting 170 cash and an Italian drain that he gives to Becker and I get 230 cash, which I use to get Asian crucibles and a near mint Bazaar. Not bad for 20 bucks and some gas $.
After I finish buying shit, we all get ready to leave, get lost for about 45 minutes in Milwaukee, and finally get back to Waukesha around 11, where we go to Taco Bell and eat in the parking lot until about midnight, and then we all go home.
Overall, here are the things I learned today about my deck:
- Chalice is a house, stopping drains, moxes, and fish dorks all day. Much better than tangle wire ever was for me, even when I had to set it at one, shutting down a lot of my own deck.
- Balance seemed OK, only getting cast once or twice, butting being a wrecking ball when it was.
- Swords and Rays were never really used, because I did not play a single match against oath all day, which is surprising.
- Crop Rotation NEVER ONCE got me bazaar. It got me shop and strip mine all day though, making me think that another bazaar could be useful, but what to cut?
- The mana base was pretty stable all day, only cutting me off my colors in like 1 game, which isn’t bad considering…
- Five color stax is still a huge threat, and one of the best decks ever, especially when it is as pimped out as Roland’s…
Now for the last obligatory section:
Props To:
- Mike, my quarter final opponent who loaned me a rack and ruin because I left mine at home by accident.
- Dave, for loaning me 2 moxes and winning a mana drain in the side event after scrubbing out of the main event, Roland Chang Chicago style.
- Team Meandeck, aka Roland and Andy, for helping me work on one of my friends drain decks, which we discovered had 61 cards. Oops.
- Our team, for being the only team there who brought our type 4 stack, turning it into a total whore.
Slops to:
- The tournament organizer, this one was pretty poorly run, no deck checks at all, etc.
- Me, for forgetting my rack and ruin spares at home and taking 10 minutes to find someone with an extra to loan me.
- Me, for giving my teammate a 61 card drain deck by accident. Damn you basic math!!
- Dealer lines, which made me wait 20 minutes to get like $35 worth of cards…
