(Note: Originally, I was going to name this report “View from the Mountaintop”, but since I didn’t finish in Top 8, I can’t really do that.)
This past weekend, at Borås Game Convention (which is kind of like GenCon but smaller), the Swedish Vintage Nationals were held. I was really excited to attend because this was my first larger Vintage tourney ever. Up until then, I had only played in one small tourney, which didn’t go too well (
here’s my report on that one).
For this tournament, I decided to play a new version of The Mountains Win Again, despite my previous failure with the deck. I felt that the additions and revisions I had made to this version would make it better than last time. My changes consisted of, mainly, adding Dark Confidant and, because of that, changing all the expensive spells in the deck to much cheaper versions. A lot of boost came from the new Lorwyn card Thoughtseize, which works wonders in a deck like this.
The metagame for this tournament seemed to include lots and lots of GAT decks, with the remaining decks being a mixture of Flash and Stax as well as one or two copies of various decks, like Ichorid and Oath. Since the GAT matchup is among my best ones, I expected a relatively good result.
This was the decklist I played:
The Mountains Win Again4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
7 Swamp
4 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Vandal
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Duress
3 Extirpate
1 Lotus Petal
2 Pyroblast
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Terminate
4 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Cruel Edict
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Shattering Spree
SB: 4 Yixlid Jailer
This was an official, sanctioned tourney, so no proxies were allowed, and therefore I couldn’t play Black Lotus, Mox Jet and Mox Ruby like I did last time. I added Lotus Petal and two Swamps instead. I do think TMWA can do rather well without power, since it only plays three of them normally, and it has Simian Spirit Guides and Lotus Petal to provide fast mana as well.
The tournament started at 9:00 AM, Saturday morning. I had gotten a good 8 hours of sleep, so I felt refreshed and well prepared to face… whatever it was that I was going to face. There were 36 people playing in this tournament, and there would be 6 rounds of Swiss followed by a Top 8. This meant that a 4-2 record probably would be good enough.
I didn’t take any notes while playing, so the recounts of my games will not be too long.
Round 1: Erik Ferm with GATrMy first opponent in this tourney was Erik. I’ve met him before, though I have not played against him. I think he placed well in a Vintage Nationals about 3-4 years ago, but that was the last I had heard about him. I was defeated in two quick games, despite Extirpating both Gush and Merchant Scroll in game two. I simply had too few threats while he had answers for the ones I did have. No really memorable plays in this round.
Record: 0-1 (0 points)
Oh well, this happens to everyone once in a while. Nothing to get sad about. Moving on to:
Round 2: Karl Nord with StifleNought GATKarl Nord is also known as
egget on StarCityGames. He’s the one who makes all those awesome alterations and proxies. He also has a lot of really cool tattoos, as well as some mean Magic playing skills. Unfortunately (for him), he was manaflooded both games, and I got Magus of the Moon online during game one, I think. In game two, he played a Dreadnought and Stifled the comes-into-play triggered ability. I had Red Elemental Blast, Siman Spirit Guide, and two Terminates in hand, as well as some other card I don’t remember. So at the end of his turn, I play Terminate targeting his Dreadnought. He plays Force of Will, I remove Simian Spirit Guide and play REB. He Forces again! Nice hand! Fortunately for me, his hand was empty by then, so on my turn, I played another Terminate, which got through. The next turn I played a Jagged Poppet, and a few turns after that, I had won.
Record: 1-1 (3 points)
Round 3: Joakim Almelund with OathJoakim seems to have a newfound liking for the Eternal formats. Previously, I had only seen him play Standard, so I didn’t think he was much of a Vintage and Legacy person. But apparently he is (which is a good thing, I think – more players to the format). Anyway, I won the first game on the backs of a pair of Jagged Poppets. In game two, he made the first-turn play of Orchard, Mox, Oath. Next turn, he put a Spirit of the Night into play, and it was over shortly thereafter. In the third game, I made a seemingly trivial but actually crucial misplay on turn two: I fetched a Badlands instead of a basic Mountain, knowing Joakim had Wastelands in his deck. This might not seem like such a big deal, but it would become deciding some turns later when I had a Badlands and a basic Swamp as my only lands. He gets Akroma, Angel of Wrath with Oath of Druids, and then Wastes my Badlands. If I had fetched that basic Mountain instead on turn two, I would have had two lands to play the two Cruel Edicts I had in hand. Apparently he didn’t have Gaea’s Blessing in his deck either, so if I had gotten his two creatures, I would have won. But, as it were, I had only one land, and therefore I lost that game.
Record: 1-2 (3 points)
I didn’t think much about the mis-fetch directly afterwards, but eventually it would become the only reason I probably didn’t get into the Top 8. Continue reading to find out.
Round 4: Rikard Johansson with Welder SurvivalRikard is a nice fellow who plays an important part in the maintenance of the main Swedish Magic: the Gathering site
SvenskaMagic. I won the first game mainly due to Magus of the Moon turning his Workshops and Taigas into Mountains, as well as me killing his Masticore with double Pyrokinesis (it regenerates). I then proceeded to lose games two and three, despite having both Goblin Vandal and Shattering Spree in both games. Juggernaut can be a real pain sometimes.
Record: 1-3 (3 points)
At this point, I knew I was out of contention for the Top 8, but I decided to continue playing anyway to at least finish decently. This was my first time playing this version of TMWA, too, so I wanted to try it out a bit more. At least I knew for sure I wasn’t going to finish last. Apparently, some guy played Wall.dec. No, that’s no joke – he really did. His main win condition consisted of blocking an attacking creature with one of his Walls, then casting Glyph of Destruction on it, and then using Fling to sacrifice it and deal 10 damage to his opponent. This he had to do twice to win one game, in a format overpopulated with Force of Will and where there’s rarely any creatures attacking unless it’s for the win (like a giant Dryad), and with him having no counters, “combo” protection, or draw engine whatsoever. Oh well, at least that meant that we had a sure contender for last place.
Round 5: Patrik Fransson with U/R Magus FishI knew Patrik from before, and we both had a 1-3 record and thus neither of us had any pressure to finish well, so this match was really friendly and fun. I won in two games with Magus of the Moon and Jagged Poppet after Extirpating his Grim Lavamancers.
Record: 2-3 (6 points)
Round 6: Roland Johansson with GATI knew this guy from before, too. I also helped him design his deck before the tournament, so I knew down to the last card exactly what he was playing. This included knowing that he didn’t play any Opts (he played 4 Mana Drains instead), and thus he would be more vulnerable to a resolved Magus of the Moon. That was exactly what happened in both games 1 and 2. He was new to playing GAT, too, so I guess he didn’t play as well as he would have done with a little more experience with the deck. Not to say that he isn’t an experienced Vintage player – he usually plays Storm Combo and has done so ever since Tendrils of Agony was first printed.
Final Record: 3-3 (9 points) - 13th PlaceNow you understand why I said that the mis-fetch in round 3 was the only reason I didn’t get into Top 8. Had I won that game, I could have had a 4-2 record, and thus probably could have placed 5th -8th. At least I learned an important lesson: Every little decision you make can eventually become the difference between success and failure, even things as seemingly trivial as choosing what land to fetch. I still finished decently at 13th place, though, so I wasn’t too disappointed after all.
I’m really happy with how the deck worked out. Even though I didn’t face any Ichorid decks, and therefore never sideboarded my Yixlid Jailers, there were still two of them in the tournament, so I would probably have been happy to have the Jailers had I faced either of them.
Oh, I almost forgot – I took some pictures during the tournament. I’ll include them here for you to view: (Note: All the pictures in this report were taken with my cell phone camera, so they may not be of the best quality. Just so you know.)
This is me, the morning before the tournament. I need a new haircut or something.
The site where the tournament took place. Really nice, bright and spacious. I study at this school (Borås Högskola) so I know the place pretty well.
Another part of the school (the library).
My deck, which I really enjoyed playing despite the meager 3-3 record.
Some early-round action. Yes, that’s an Illusion of Grandeur on the right side of the table.
One of the more interesting games in the tournament. Flash vs. Ichorid, and Flash has
triple Leyline of the Void in play. Both decks are in beatdown mode, with Ichorid’s Narcomoebas and Golgari Thug facing Flash’s Virulent Slivers. The Ichorid player is at one life while the Flash player is at twelve. Later, one of Ichorid’s Narcomoebas gets killed, and the game goes into a stalemate. Time is called, and then on the final additional turn, the Flash player topdecks a Protean Hulk. He Flashes it into play, then sacrifices it, and puts only a Heart Sliver into play (the only Hulk-able creature he had left in his library) and attacks with his three 1/1s versus Ichorid’s two.
Trygon Predator (Flash) vs. Demonic Consultation (Stifle Nought).
Quarterfinals 1: Stax vs. Keeper (!). Stax has some serious board advantage.
Quarterfinals 2: Monoblack Aggro (!) vs. GAT.
Finals: Stax vs. Flash. The deciding moment – Flash plays the deck’s namesake card for the win.
Well, that’s it for this time. This was my first real tournament report, so I hope you enjoyed it!
I’ll gladly accept any constructive criticism on how to improve my reporting skills.
