[Report] MTGChicago – Mox Ruby

MTGChicago.com – Mox Ruby – 3rd/4th Place

This was my third vintage event since my re-entry into the world of competitive magic. Several years ago I used to try and go to as many PTQs, GPTs, States, and Regionals I could. I had a blast all the way from Odyssey to Fifth Dawn. But around the time of Kamigawa, something changed. The game just wasn’t the same. Affinity was king, and any random scrub with some artifacts could win a tournament. It was dumb. So I dipped out of that scene and focused mostly on casual Magic. I played the occasional Legacy tournament and went to pre-releases, but that was it. That is until now.

I got back into vintage (as it was one of my favorite formats previously), and went to the first tournament I had a chance to go to. That happened to be Day One of SCG P9. I ended up going 5-0 with Mask Naught, but then lost the following two rounds, which dropped me to a final standing of 12th. Pretty good for my first competitive tournament in years. Last week, I went to Pastimes for their Arabian Nights Set tournament. I didn’t do as hot at that one (went 3-2 and got 10th out of 26 players).

After that, me and my fellow friends from in town decided it was about time we make our vintage team. We named it Team GBAR. And to get it started, we decided to try our hand at making a new deck. We had seen someone (Soly at Pastimes – and if I’m not wrong, Team GWS) playing an Angel Control deck that looked incredibly fun. We took his list and thought of ways in which we could change it, and maybe improve upon it. After some thought, one of my team members, Chris B, decided to throw in black for Dark Confidants, Vamp Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Yawg’s Will.

After a bit of testing, we felt it was fairly solid. We wanted to add Duress, but weren’t sure what to cut, the list just felt so tight. Dark Confidants may seem bad with 7 and 5 casting cost spells, but it was a really nice draw engine in testing, as well as being a way to shave off a turn or two from your opponent for when Angel hits play. Anywho, let me get the deck list out of the way.

GBAR Control
Mana (24)
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Library of Alexandria
5x Mox
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring

Restricted Cards (8)
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Tinker

The Rest (28)
1x Echoing Truth
1x Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2x Platinum Angel
4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
4x Pact of Negation
4x Dark Confidant
4x Brainstorm
4x Merchant Scroll

Sideboard (15)
3x Trickbind
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
3x Arcane Laboratory
3x Pithing Needle
4x Control Magic

I know, not the finest tuned deck around, and definitely has room to improve. As for the sideboard, I liked it. Laboratory and Trickbind are for Long and Gush decks. Hurkyl’s Recall is for Stax or Shop Agro. Needle is for Ichorid and in general is a nice sideboard option. Control Magic is for TK DeezNaughtz and Shop Agro.

As for the tournament itself.

Travel was half the day. Getting there took roughly 3 hours. It was snowing heavily and the roads were icy, but we bear through it and got there in one piece. We knew exactly were to go and got to registering.

(Excuse me for my lack of remembering your names, let me know and I can update)

Round 1 – (don’t remember) – Stax Variant
I go 2-0 against this guy. Game one was pretty standard, I got out the Angel, and he didn’t have an answer handy. Game two was a big more eventful, but I had enough counter backup to keep his threats off the table. This guy was a very friendly player and mentioned that he had flown in from San Diego. He was staying in Chicago for a bit and then going to Japan for military duty, if I recall correctly.

1-0

Round 2 – Owen Turtenwald – Affinity
Cool! I get paired against a pro. He opened up the game with a turn 1 chalice for 0 as well as some fast mana. I was able to keep a pretty active Library of Alexandria on the table, but I drew into many of my 0cc spells (Moxes and Pacts). He got a Chalice for 3 out, which stopped my Tinker and Yawg’s Will. I was eventually able to ramp up the mana for Angel and drop it. He didn’t have an answer, and a few turns later he was dead.
Game 2 went pretty well for me. I led off the first couple of turns with a few Moxes, Ancestral Recall, and a Library. But Owen had a turn one Chalice for 2. There goes my Merchant Scrolls and Mana Drains, but the tempo that Library gave me was good enough to get out a fast Tinker and Counter Spell backup. Several swings later, the game was mine.

Owen was none to happy about this, and was very vocal about the fact for the rest of the day. Whatever, he failed to top 8 and I got 3rd/4th.

2-0

Round 3 – Soly from GWS – Becker Control (UW)
Soly is a guy that once you meat you don’t forget. He was great to play against. He played a UW control deck with Jotun Grunts, Aven Mindcensors, Swords to Plowshares, and a slew of draw spells and counter spells. This was a tough match for me. I got game one after some struggle.

Game two I sided in 4x Control Magics to nab his Grunts (his damage and combo card) as well as his Mindcensors (his backup beats). Game was looking good. He played some stuff, I countered some stuff. He droped Mindcensor, and I Control Magic’d it. He had nothing important on the board. Then he cast Tinker. I Mana Drain it, he counters my Drain. I had another counter in my hand, but didn’t want to spend it at the moment. I let the Tinker resolve. He searched and got Darksteel Colossus. He said “pass” after getting the Colossus, and at that moment I was like “hey, wait, I have your Mindcensor.”

We both realized we had made a mistake and called a judge. Both Stasch (TO) and Judge said that he would just keep the Colossus, but Soly and I argued that he should shuffle it back in and search his top 4 (as his deck was previously completely random and not a thing changed in the game after the tinker). Stasch called up another judge friend of his for a second opinion. The judge that he had called told Stasch that a recent rule was added/changed to make it so that if you could rewind a game state error (and it was within the same turn) that you should rewind the game state and fix it. Stasch agreed and Soly was happy with the fair ruling. He shuffled it up and tinkered out a Mox Emerald from his top four cards. Unfortunately for me, Soly was able to still pull out a win in this game through means of bouncing the Aven and playing a Grunt. I didn’t have a fast enough answer and died.

Game 3 went much worse for me. It started off good enough (early turn Library), but I feel behind in cards in hand, and Soly got some insane card advantage off his Intuition + AK. I tried to slowly build up my hand, but it just didn’t work. I ended up loosing the game.

2-1

Round 4 – Jeremy Seroogy – EmptyGush
Game 1 was pretty fast. I get a quick Tinker with about 3 Counterspells to back it up. Game 2 was really interesting. I get a quick Library on the table. I am able to sculpt my hand into raw power. I have like 5 castable counterspells, a Demonic Tutor, and a Fact or Fiction. I get to the point that I don’t want to use the Library anymore, but how can I ignore the card draw? At the same time, my opponent was crafting his hand a bit. After the standoff, I pulls the trigger and tries to cast Yawg’s will. We counter back and forth, but he didn’t have enough to keep the Will. The following turn I drop Angel. A few turns of Angel beat down later, he is dead. This was a fun match.

3-1

Round 5 – Ben – TK DeezNaughtz
I wanted to draw, but Ben said that if he could beat me, his teammate had a better chance to top 8, I understood and we played it out. Game one I resolved a Tinker. He scooped a turn later after double checking his deck (with a fetch land) for any sort of answer. Game two was pretty standard (I also don’t remember much more of the match), and I ended up winning.

4-1

Going into Top 8, I was in first.

Quarter Finals – John Donovan – Play Mistakes Get There
Gotta lead this off by saying that I love the idea behind this deck. Zombie Infestation + Bazaar of Baghdad is so cool. Game 1 I can’t get my Angel out, and he wins with Zombie beat down. I get a fast Angel out game 2, and he doesn’t get a fast answer. Game 3 goes back and forth a bit, but was leaning more and more in his favor. He has Bazaar and Dark Confidant in play and is getting some crazy card advantage. But he gets greedy and starts to pitch Swords to Plowshares to his Bazaar. The turn before I die, I get an insane Yawgmoth’s will. It throws me back in the game. I have a turn or two to craft my hand a bit. He then casts a Thoughtseize to see my hand with 2x Pact, Force of Will, and Brainstorm, with enough untapped mana to hard cast both Force and Brainstorm. He simply doesn’t have the removal needed to prevent me from keeping the Angel in play. I end up winning.

He wasn’t the happiest about this. He claims that I didn’t win the game, but rather he gave me the win by making a pile of play mistakes. Even so, if it weren’t for my Yawg’s Will, I think he would have won.

Semi-Finals – Ben (again) – TK DeezNaughts
Game 1 is interesting, a few waste lands on his part. But once I get my third land in play, I drop Mox, Lotus, and Angel with about two counterspells to back it up. He scoops again with no game one answers. Game 2, he leads off with several Duress effects. My play situation ends up something like Island + Sea in play with 4 Dark Confidants in my hand. I play two Confidants and begin the swings. I counter his important stuff and keep his creatures off the board. He is at 7, and I’m at 11. My turn I flip Angel off a Confidant bringing me to 4. I fetch (3). And then time walk. The following turn I flip Force of Will off a Confidant and lose the game. First game I lost all day to Confidant, but it was bound to happen. Game three doesn’t go well for me. I don’t get much gas, and he gets plenty. He smashes me into the ground, and continues to prize split in the finals. I happily walk away winning an Italian Mana Drain.

Props: Isaac S, for Driving us through horrible whether in order for me to win, and him to go 0-3-2. Chris B, for letting me bower 3 of his power and meeting the 10 proxy limit. All the people at the tournament who weren’t Owen Turtenwald.

Slops: Owen Turntenwald, for complaining all day about losing to me. Snow, for making the return drive home 5+ hours long and messing up our visibility of the freeway.

TEAM GBAR – Tapping Moxes under Null Rod since 2006.