T8 at Blue Bell with Old School Ubastax w/ Rods.

This was by far the best venture to Blue Bell.

I came home to PA on Tuesday of last week. I wasn't even sure I was going to attend Blue Bell, although I wanted to. I'm extremely glad I did.

I was spending the summer in Wildwood. I got to work with little kids. It was the bomb, er, man...

On Wednesay of last week (A.K.A., the day after I got home from NJ), my team takes me out to eat, and Eves pays for me. What a dominator. So we eat, and talk about Magic while talking about my summer in NJ, and I am just so relieved to be back with friends in PA. I have an absolute blast.

So Eves, Nate, and I go to my house Friday night and drink beers while drafting The Dark set, then mental magic. We didn't play mental magic. We DRAFTED mental magic. Oh man, was that ever fun. I draft combo and just straight up dominate. Then proceed to lose to Nate's mastery of mental magic, twice.

Oh, and not only does Eves pay for my dinner that week, but he gets me out of his personal collection of crap uncommons, trip Granite Shards. Insane. Karma.

We call it a night, but Eves and myself continue talking about Grimlong and how to play it against certain archetypes. Eves asks me which is better, Grimlong or Pitchlong, and I enthusiastically tell him Pitchlong. He tells me he's playing Grimlong, lol.

We get around to making a bet of $20 that Eves will lose (or win) the mirror (Pitchlong). Obviously, I tell him that he'll lose against it. He never plays it in the tournament. I'm glad though, because he was DOMINANT with Grimlong.

The Team:

Mike - Bomberman. (He won the whole sha-bang).
Me - Ubastax.
Eves - Grimlong. With Duresses.
Matt - BZK Combo-Hate.dec.
DShell - World-Championship-Belt.dec

Here's my list:

20 Land
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Barbarian Ring
3 Wasteland
3 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
0 Rishadan Port

9 Artifact Accelerants
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

17 Staples
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Goblin Welder
1 Trinisphere

14 Stuff
4 Uba Mask
4 Tangle Wire
3 Null Rod
2 Duplicant
1 Gorilla Shaman
0 Solemn Simulcrum
0 Wheel of Fortune
0 Jester's Caps
0 Mindslaver

15 Sideboard
4 Granite Shard - Activated Artifact
3 Tormod's Crypt - Activated Artifact
3 Jester's Caps - Activated Artifact
3 Pyroblast
2 Duplicant

About the build:

It was pretty wrong. I've been out of Magic for a while. Here are the cards that were pretty much completely useless:

Barbarian Ring. Seriously.
Gorilla Shaman. Never saw this guy. He still evades me. Do something dude.
Jester's Caps. I sided them in from the board only once or maybe twice, and saw it once, where it was useless.
Pyroblast. YOU SUCK PYROBLAST. I was anticipating Energy Flux. Everytime I put it in, I never see Flux. Everytime I don't have them in, I see Flux. I sided Pyroblast in every single time I could, and I only saw it once where I could use it, and the dude didn't even have a counter. Other than that, I saw it once off Ubazaar. Yeah, you are a space-waster, Pyroblast.

Absolute Game-Breakers:

TRINISPHERE. You showed up this time, buddy! How nice of you to see me. I resolved Trinisphere a few times and welded it in more. Give me 4x Trinisphere, WOTC!
GRANITE SHARD. You are the freaking man. Err, machine gun. You dominate welders. I love you.
DUPLICANT. I forgot how insane Duplicant was until I hit Slaver's Colossus and Welder with it. I love you, Dups.
CHALICE. - Thank you for continuing to win me games. I'm sorry I ever doubted you.
TANGLE WIRE. Tangle Wire is absolutely insane. It won me so many games. Retarded.

Now for some humor:

DShell, who we all make fun of, for some reason or another, brought a WWF kid's plastic/foam "championship belt" to the tournament today. We made him wear it. I told him he wouldn't have a ride home unless he wore it for the duration of the day. He bowed down in fear to my awesome seriousness of tone of void [EDIT: VOICE] and said, "Yes master, I will wear the belt in exchange for a ride home." And so DShell was granted with the title of Chumpion.

What's funnier is (I believe) the Champ went 0-2 drop. Seeing the dude interact with people with the belt on was priceless though.

Round 1. Ashok "Raj" Chitturi - Blue White Fish. 0-2.

So I get paired up with Ashok. I thought round 1 pairings were supposed to be easy?

Game 1 - I mull to 6. I think he's playing Pitchlong. I get dominated by first turn flooded strand - second turn Kataki. I had no chance at this game.
Game 2 - I mull to 6. I have an awesome opening involving Smokestack and something. He plays first turn Kataki. Even though it's a close match, he has a clock, so he wins.

Even though the games were somewhat close, they were very short, so I got to go scout for my team-mates and myself, and I know what everyone's playing, except for my next round opponent.

Matches: 0-1. Games: 0-2.

Round 2. Kevin "Oathal Deciever" Folinus - Confidant Combo or Something?

I think this dude is playing Oath because I saw him playing Oath before the tournament started. I didn't bother to go over to him in between rounds because the dude usually plays Oath.

Game 1 - I keep a stocked 7. I keep a good hand against Oath. It happens to be a good hand against him too. I forget exactly what happened, but I do remember that he conceded extremely quickly, and I had NO IDEA what I was up against, although I saw him pitch a Confidant to the GY because he ancestraled himself during his turn and had to discard three.
Game 2 - Same. I had no idea what he was playing even after we were done.

Matches: 1-1. Games 2-2.

In between rounds, Eves and myself joke about getting paired up. I tell Eves that he has little chance against me. He says that he'll rock me. We have enough time to play a game in between rounds. Eves rocks me because he TOPDECKS HURKYL'S RECALL the turn before I completely lock him down with Chalice @ 2.

Round 3. Greg "My Team Mate" Eves - Grimlong.

Yeah, we get paired up. I ask him if he wants to draw. I tell him we can still both make it in if we draw - although we would have to win out, no draws. He says no.

Game 1 - He wins the die roll and gets a first turn kill. Eh. Nothing I could do about that.
Game 2 - I love you Trinisphere.
Game 3 - Long and intense. He basically kills me through an absolutely insane Mind's Desire.

Here's the thing: If Eves Mind's Desires, he can guarantee a win. Even if it's for one. He Mind's Desires REGROWTH when he had the Desire Stifled the round before. What does he get? REGROWTH with enough mana to cast the Desire again (Academy). Retarded.

So check this out, he Mind's Desires for FIVE against me. This is his desire:

Tinker
Mox Pearl
Memory Jar
City of Brass
TIMETWISTER

He can play the jar, play his hand, then play timetwister, shuffling the jar back into his deck before he draws seven, then cast tinker on his pearl to jar again.

21 cards (FREE, not mentioning being able to replay stuff in his graveyard, particularly the Desire) off a Mind's Desire. Absolutely stupid.

However, Eves draws with a million copies of Tendrils on the stack. I'm thankful. We totally go on to both make T8.

Matches: 1-1-1. Games: 2-2 (technically), 3-4 (w/out teammate draw).

Round 4. Alan "My Favorite Opponent Ever" Dominator. - Homebrew Gifts.

This guy is one of the coolest people I have ever played. I had a BLAST playing three games of magic with this guy. For one, I love the Ubastax vs. Gifts match, because I feel it's so heavily lopsided in my favor. For two, the guy laughed at everything I said, and didn't get upset when I had broken draws. He was just all-around an awesome guy.

Game 1 - I have first turn smokey, and he can't recover. Primarily because he plays 4 lands the entire game and I have either Chalice @ 0 or Null Rod out. Or both. I forget.
Game 2 - I have first turn smokey again, but this time he can recover. However, this game made me feel awesome. I realized after I had played a Chalice @ 0 that I could have played a Chalice @ 1 (I had forgotten that I didn't tap Mana Crypt this turn), and I was just looking for a Weld Target. Instead of tapping the Mana Crypt for mana, playing the Chalice @ 1 and welding out the Crypt, I instead opted to play the Chalice @ 0 (foolishly). Immediately after I did it I said, "Wow, that should have been for 1."

[DOUBLE EDIT: After reading this, I realized that this might look a little weird, me looking for a weld target. What I didn't mention is that I had TWO active Welders, and I only had the Mana Crypt to weld out. What actually happened is that I had a Chalice on the board, with another Chalice in hand, while Mana Crypt was also on the board, and I believe I had Smokestack and maybe another lock (it might have even been Crucible, although I doubt it). What happened is I welded out the one Chalice @ 0 for a Tangle Wire, I believe, and then played Chalice @ 0, intending to keep a welder open to weld out the Mana Crypt for an additional Smokey or something (I forget exactly what) on his EOT. It was a complex situation, and I didn't think about casting Chalice at anything else other than 0, because I had previously had out a Chalice.]

He mysticals for Rack and Ruin on my Uba Mask and Null Rod. Then, he plays Pithing Needle (which he drew) naming Welder. It was awesome seeing how I could realize such a mistake (which seemed very small, or even like not a mistake to others) would cost me the game, however. You might say, "Why is that a small mistake? It seems like a huge one." At the time, I had complete board advantage and Ubazaar going. I was all but assured a victory, however, he topdecked Mystical Tutor and brainstormed into Needle and Rack and Ruin, so, yeah, not good.

I played the Chalice at 0 to assure that he didn't get moxen out to develop his manabase while I was still in the process of killing it. So yeah, definitely a learning experience.

We just finished the last game before time was called, so we made a quick agreement that whoever is in better board position advances, because we both will get knocked out if we draw.

Game 3 - Absolutely nutty hand. I've never had one like this, oddly enough, so I had to think about whether to keep it or not:

Mishra's Workshop
Mox Jet
Uba Mask
Uba Mask
Bazaar of Baghdad
Bazaar of Baghdad
Goblin Welder

I say that my hand is absolutely nutty, and show the nearby crowd. They laughingly agree. Alan did totally NOT expect first turn Uba Mask when I was talking about nutty hands, but he soon saw why. He allowed the Uba Mask, and I was off to drawing 5 cards a turn with a Shop in play which allowed me to say that I was in a better board position, and he conceded when I played Trinisphere off Ubazaar.

Matches: 2-1-1. Games: 4-3 (technically), 5-5 (w/out teammate draw).

Round 5. Shawn (or Sean) "Cool Guy Slaver" Something. - Night's Whisper Control Slaver.

This guy was awesome. This was also the only fun match of Stax vs. Slaver I have ever played. Seriously. My match with Rich Shay was great too, though.

Game 1 - I run him over with artifacts. I don't remember this exactly, but I got duplicant out on his welder and he said that I had the "perfect deck to beat his," which I thought was funny. Shawn admittedly didn't know a whole lot about Vintage.
Game 2 - I completely control the board with Granite Shards and Welders and whatever, but I make a play mistake and crypt his yard so if he casts Colossus (yes, hardcasts it), I can't weld it out. Luckily, I coax him into crypting my graveyard (because he made a misplay earlier when he should have crypted my GY but didn't), but then casts Yawgmoth's Will to replay the Crypt then hardcast Colossus.

Oh, the only mana sources I had this entire game were two barbarian rings and a Mox Pearl. I was at one point holding 4x Smokestack and nothing else (No Bazaar either).

Game 3 - Another unique hand.

Mountain
Mox Jet
Sol Ring
Duplicant
Granite Shard
Chalice
Something that made me keep the hand, I forget what though.

I forget exactly what happens, but he tinkers for Colossus extremely early, and I need a Welder or 2 mana in two turns. Well, I topdeck Academy and Duplicant his Colossus. I also get out Chalice @ 2 in the next turn to assure my victory as he can't echoing truth then. Smile

Matches: 3-1-1. Games: 6-4 (technically), 7-6 (w/out teammate draw).

TOP EIGHT. Ashok again.

I lose, again. I don't get any of my sideboard cards during any of the games. Aww well.

Props:

Blue Bell Enviroment, Always.
EVES. YOU ARE THE FREAKING MAN. WHO BUYS ME DINNER THEN GIVES ME A DRAW, THEN MAKES T8?! INSANE. Congrats on being the Mind's Desire Master.
In fact, all my opponents, you guys were awesome. Blue Bell T1 players are the best.
Joe Davis, for offering to lend me cards. You're awesome.
Team 0-2 Drop. Upstanding Gents.
Mike, for winning the Time Walk.
Alan Fulman or whatever your last name was. You were really fun to play against, seriously. I'm going to come up to Head Games one of these days.

Slops:

Fish, for beating me in the swiss then again in the Top 8. Smile

Congrats on the Twister though, Ashok.
Energy Flux, for not being at Blue Bell so I could pyroblast your ass.