Quick Meandeck Open Report (top4 split)

So last Wednesday I was looking on the Drain and saw that someone had posted in the Tourney Announcement forum and bumped the latest Meandeck Open thread to the top. I had completely forgotten, but apparently there was a tourney in like 4 days so I should probably get ready. I'll spare the boring details, basically I spent a couple days trying to get ahold of Lyle H, took out my trusty GAT deck and fiddled with some sideboard slots, and eventually got everything set. There ended up being 16 people there, with a breakdown of at least 5 GAT, 2 Flash, 2 Stax, 1 Oath, 1 Buehler-Blue (masticore and disk and all), 1 UrPhid w/ black, and some other decks that I can't remember off the top of my head. I ended up playing this:

GAT

1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria

4 Quirion Dryad
1 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
2 Opt
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Cunning Wish
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fire/Ice

1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond

3 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Berserk
2 REB
1 Pyroblast
1 Submerge
1 Smother
2 Oxidize
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Artifact Mutation

The sideboard was OK, the smother was an open slot up until we were about to start, and I figured another kill spell for the mirror seemed good, but I didn't actually cast it ever so who knows for sure, maybe it should have been another bounce spell or something for Oath.

Round 1: Josh with Oath

Game 1 I played some random stuff, he didn't do much, and when I duressed him, he vamped in response (strip mine in the yard) and showed me Land, Akroma, Razia. I drained the Life from the Loam he tutored up and killed him on my turn.
Game 2 and 3 he actually drew Oath at some point early and I was unable to muster any sort of defense against it. At least once I was able to bounce it and stall him a turn bluffing drain mana, but then he drew Duress the next turn and I was sunk, and I got beat down by giant monsters with no broken cards to try and race.

Round 2: Matt Hazard with Flash

Game 1 Matt deliberates for a while and keeps on either 7 or 6, I have to mull to 6 to find Force but keep a very strong hand, and by the third or fourth turn I have built up a ton of counters. I eventually play a dryad and go nuts with Will/Fastbond.
Game 2 Matt mulligans again, and I keep LOA, Ancestral, Duress, Drain, and Islands, since I don't expect he mulliganed into a first turn win. He didn't, I duress him and he has nothing special, after a few turns I again have a ton of answers in the form of Drain, Force, Echoing Truth, Fire/Ice, and other blue cards. He eventually casts flash, I let it resolve (I know he has one poison sliver in hand already and no green sources out), and bounce the poison slivers. I duress him the next turn and his hand is ESG, 4 Virulent Sliver. Ouch. He casts a sliver the next turn and I fire both his dudes, and do unfair things and kill him with giant dryads.

Round 3: Exton (sp?) with 3color GAT

Game 1 my opponent states that he has not really played vintage in about 2.5 years, and just moved back here from Arizona. He is playing 3color GAT, and is probably a bit overmatched given the room full of relatively experienced GAT players. Game 1 I am on the play and mulligan once, keeping Island, Lotus, Dryad, Dryad, Ancestral, Misdirection. I start out with Lotus, Dryad, Dryad, and he is very scared. He starts with Fetch, go, and I make what turns out to be a pretty poor play. I draw Force, and toss my Ancestral out there (since he had no counters for my dryads and was very upset to see two, and would have def. countered one if he could). He fetches, brainstorms, and apparently drew Force, Force, MisD off his brainstorm. Long story short, I have 2 3/3's but he draws 3 more cards. On his turn he scrolls for E Truth and passes. I draw brainstorm, cast it (4/4 dudes), finding Trop, Trop, Opt. I keep a trop and play it, and attack for 8. His turn consists of bouncing my dryads, so I untap, draw, replay a dryad and I do nothing. After a turn or two, he is out of options and gets beat to death by my dudes. Hooray, who needs ancestral anyway?
Game 2 He basically doesn's resolve a non-mox spell the whole game, and in fact plays about 10 mana sources (I believe on one of my turns, he hardcast both force and gush). I, however, drew Library on about the 3rd turn to go with my already-insane hand of blue control cards and calmly drew 2 or more cards a turn, duressed away anything remotely scary, and eventually cast will when I had more counters than he had cards in hand.

Round 4: Lyle H with Urphid w/ black

Game 1 Lyle is my main test partner (which means we've tested once in the last 3 months or so, heh), so we both knew what was up. He has some strange Urphid style deck with Magus of the Moon and Skeletal Scryings and Phids main. Game 1, I duress him and see Volc, Mox, Basic Swamp, Phid, Drain, BS, Force. I take his brainstorm, so of course he draws another off the top. I have a second duress, but only one land (and 2 moxes), so I take his force and Force his phid. We both spend a couple turns playing brainstorms and not finding lands or shuffle effects, and he plays some random stuff. I have Island, Emerald, Jet, and draw and play Psychatog to get some beats going. He plays Magus the turn before I draw a fetch. I think for a minute, and play Yawg Will off Mox, Mox, Fetch/mountain, play my ancestral from hand (I wanted Force backup, which was in the yard), maybe do something else, and start the psychatog beatings. He repeals it at one point, so I just replay him. A turn later I find him a friend in Dryad, and they start to go to work. Pretty soon, he is at 4 and both dudes are lethal (and he swung with Magus for some reason, leaving him with only a spare Phid to block). He tried repeal, I have force, and thats game.
Game 2 I honestly don't recall what happened, chances are I did broken things and he was unable to prevent them or destroy my manabase with his Magus. I do know that I won.

So, 3-1, top4 ends up being me, Mark Trogdon with Uba Stax, Steve with Gatr, and Paul with Gatr. We talk about a split, Steve and Paul discuss the difference if they play it out (teammates and all that), decide it is not worth $10 each, and we split. 8 of us then go out to dinner at a local German place and good times are had by all. I spend the time talking about Goblins with Jerry Yang and Trogdon and I think I've convinced myself it's the best deck in the format (I do that a lot, it seems, though not as much as Lyle does). After a lot of sausage and other German sausage-like products, Lyle and I head back to lovely (cough) Dayton.

Props:
All those who showed up, particularly those who made the trip from Cleveland and newcomers from places like AZ
Gush for being ridiculous
Lyle for valuable testing and being a good person to bounce ideas off and get recommendations from
The Soldiery for continuing to host these awesome tourneys

Slops:
Those from Cleveland who wussed out (personal obligations excepted)
Doug Linn for skipping to go to a concert he could have seen the night before
WOTC R&D for unrestricting such an utterly absurd card in Gush
Oath, for being a deck I've played against twice in my life now and still not knowing what I'm even supposed to be doing against it