Dr. Nataz’s Sing Along-Blog
NPH - Swoon!or
Top 4 w/ Ichorid At Myriad’s August Vintage Event
Greetings and salutations my Mana Drain friends! Hola. Yea, so – it’s been a while. My bad. A triple threat of rock climbing, surfing, and beach parties have left me incommunicado for most of the summer. But never you fear fellow spell slingers, I do live in Maine after all, and now that labor day has past us by I expect it to snow any moment now.
Course this period of seclusion in the wilds of the north has left me a little behind the times. After confirming attendance, post much Chinese beer, with a timely 11:59 post the night before, I find my deck box slightly lacking. Option the first, flash dies at birth. Arms, legs, and brainstorms all amputated by the DCI. Ooohkay, option the second, Dragon. Ha,ha,ha. *wipes tear from eye* - no really, moving on. This only leaves our plucky anti-hero with one choice. It’s a choice I swore I’d never make again. It’s the deck you wake up to in the morning, your right arm locked under their body, and suddenly it’s all you can do to stop yourself from chewing your arm off. Yes, that’s right, I’m of course referring to
Darcy Ichorid (un-cha-cha).
(1)
/Darcy, Darcy darling dear,
You left me dying, crying there
In whiskey, gin, and pints of beer
I fell for you my darling dear/
First off the decklist;
“Darcy” – AKA Ichorid, AKA “the Dream Crusher”, AKA Attack of the Zombie Sharks!
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Golgari Thug
1x Darkblast
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Ichorid
4x Bridge from Below
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Serum Powder
4x Narcomoeba
4x Unmask
4x City of Brass
2x Dread Return
1x Angel of Dispair
1x Strip Mine
2x Flame-Kin Zealot
2x Petrified Field
Sideboard
4x Emerald Charm
3x Contagion
4x Chain of Vapor
4x Gemstone Mine
57 Hammerhead “2/2 zombie” Shark tokens
Fairly standard, not too much new to report. It’s “mana-less”, which is to say that it runs very little, but not quite none at all in the way of mana. City of Brass and Darkblast maindeck to save sideboard space. Stripper is there because a) I have a tit Chinese one that Dan gave me, and b) with the fields there I actually have a chance to bring it back on turn 3 for a little extra disruption. I figure if things have gone wrong, I replay a bazaar, however if things have gone right I prob don’t need the bazaar, since I’ll deck myself, but I may need to buy a “timewalk” so that I can swing for the win next turn. Its also peachy in the mirror.
I ran light on the dread return package (2 returns, 2 Flame-kin, and 1 angel) since I was looking for more disruption slots. I have no problems killing with redic huge Grave Trolls, or Zombie (hammerhead) hoards, and I still keep the insta-wins if I need them. Angel is my catch-all game 1 to things like platz, forcing early crypt activations, killing welders, or backing up strip mine in the LD division. Think of it like a chain of vapor that you can play game 1. Oh and she’s a 5/5 brick house of a flyer, HEART the angel.
Sideboard is the standard add mana and answers, take out dread combo, strip, and fields as needed.
Onward to the report! As my old rescue captain used to say –“No fear in these eyes guy, run it”
P.S. – This things a little dated, its been weeks since the last Myriad. I make no promises as to the accuracy of the report. Really, lets be honest, it’s all about the pictures and video. Show me that smile and I’ll make you famous baby.
(2)
/why can't I get just one fuck
why can't I get just one fuck
I guess it's got something to do with luck/
or
Round 1 – Guy who’s never played modern vintage w/ mill.dec - ouch
Game 1: I sit down across the table from, as my boy Bob Marley would say, a freakn’ huge guy. Except, I’m not talking huge as in too many waffle house trips huge, more like I like to weight lift and might have a roid-rage (jk) huge. He’s also wearing a superman shirt. I’m pretty sure he could bench me. Turns out this is the poor guys first tournament and he has to play me with, Mr. “most fun deck of all time – welcome to vintage – did you like being my bitch?” of a deck.
When he wins the die roll and asks if it’s better to play or draw, I think he’s trying to sucker me. When he lays a sea, mox -> some hybrid mill card and mills me for four I realize that I probably have a free win here. I kept a hand of 7 with a bazaar, some dredge, bridges, and ichorids. He flips over two grave-trolls to my graveyard before I take a turn.
Yea, gg. I apologize, walk him thought the entire “combo”, and we move to board. I start to swap things in, have a change of heart, and just shuffle up for game 2.
Game 2:
He lays a land and passes. I think he’s looking for a big turn two. That’s unfortunate since I have chalice for zero, unmask (seeing 3 0cc artifacts and redic high cost draw spells), and bazaar on turn 1. His turn 2 is draw go. My turn 2 is empty his hand with therp, and run the board with hasty zombie sharks.
We chat for a while afterwards, and play out a couple of “fun” games to show him how to play against the deck. He actually has a decent board of crypts and cheap blue bounce that might have given me trouble with a slow start, or if he caught me with my pants down un-sideboarded. Hey, better to be lucky then good I guess.
Seriously though, my opponent was a really nice guy who happened to have some shit luck. I think I heard that he played 3 matches with his mill deck, all against dredge before dropping out to meet his wife and kids. He had a great attitude, with an unfortunate deck choice, and I hope we see him again at Myriad.
(3)
/And Penny will see the evil in me
Not a joke not a dork not a failure
And she may cry but her tears will dry
When I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia/
Round 2 Aggro 5 color stax
Game 1: I know I get a decent start, and with in a turn I get to throw out a blind therp. I know for a fact that he was sitting next to me round 1, but for the life of me I can’t remember what he was playing. Shit. I call out some random card (leyline maybe) miss like a cross-eyed Irish man peeing after last call, and perk up when I realize he’s playing 5 color stacker (ish). I’ll give 5 points to anyone who remembers what stacker actually was. A bunch of stuff happens (I think there were some poor attacks made by my ichorids into bridge destroying 5/3’s) and I win.
Game 2: I remember a long standoff with trisk being a pain in the ass. Again the game goes long due to the destruction of my bridges, and stupid blockers getting in the way. Eventually I’m able to work the stack so that I get zombies, bounce trisk back to my opponents hand, and somehow win. I remember this match to be a nail biter, meh – oh well.
Yea, so sue me. It’s been forever and I can’t find the notes for this match. Be distracted by pretty pictures!
Mmmmm, so good!
HI jeff,
And sarah
And Fox
And Oli
Ohhh, pretty, moving on…
Round 3: David w/ control slaver
Game 1: I win the roll and do my thing. I take a ping from an attacking welder, but a quick combo into a big green troll ensures that crypt won’t be an issue.
Game 2: I’m pretty sure this is my only loss of the day. My notes show David taking early dmg from a polluted delta, and I’m pretty sure that I managed to deal with tinker via discard, but can’t stop a will. With recall, and crypt already in the gy, and tutors (not to mention tinker) to find all sorts of nasty, the game is over in short order.
Game 3: Oh snap. This game is crazy close. I manage a decent start, but fail to stop a wicked early tinker –> DSC. Things look good for our hero (him of course), but the wicked, immoral, and adulterous dredge player (me – duh) manages to combo out a just big enough Troll with regeneration mana on the board. The villainous troll blocks two swings of the iron giant, and I take it home with a massive shark attack before a) I deck myself, and b) he finds e-truth. Like all games that go past turn 3 with dredge, I found myself doing a lot of counting and simple stats to figure out what I should dredge (3,4,5,6) in order to maximize my chances of finding answers while not losing due to decking since I need multiple attack phases. Man, type 1 is hard.
Round 4:
ID
nothing to see here...cept a video of Jeff “I like long walks on the beach” CarpenterRound 5:
ID
ummm, yea, it was epic*sorry about not getting this up sooner!
(4)
/ "Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said/
or
The Top 8 Show
I find myself in a pretty positive top 8 with nothing I’m terribly worried about. That said, it’s been a long day and since I’m pretty sure the top 4 will split, I offer a 60/40 split to my round 6 opponent. Just running the numbers gets the loser almost 70 dollars in Myriad cash, which is way better then the standard 5-8th prize. I figure at the very least with this deal I’ve paid for entry, gas, and dinner out no matter what. Time spent with friends = bonus!
Jason takes the deal, and in conversation I come to find out he shares a similar racial background to me (don’t ask how we got there). Who would have thought that I’d meet another half Asian, quarter Irish vintage magic player in NE?
Game 1: I go for broke and mull to 5. I have to admit I was getting worried, that mull to 5 took at least 3 serum powders to get there, and I was starting to sweat. That said, it was a sweat Abe Lincoln, and I’m able to drop plenty of gas into the grave before I get wasted. After a gemstone played from hand and multiple darkblasts on his confidants to shut down his draws, a hoard of zombie sharks, ichorids, and trolls takes my Asian brother from another mother down. I sideboard in my mana, 3 charms, and 4 chains and get to work shuffling.
Game 2: My brother brings out a nasty 5 going first. Leyline, Jet, Pearl, Thorn, Waste, and I think he kicked me in the nuts after he slept with my mom. Darkness triumphs again however, since my first draw yields a second bazaar. Lay the first, watch it get wasted. Lay the mana, snag another off another draw, pop the leyline with a chain and therp it away. He has pressure on the board in the form of a goyf, and a confidant on the board drawing more answers then I can handle. Thankfully all of this is moot as my first real bazaar activation (dredging instead of looking for mana) yields multiple bridges, followed in quick succession by just the right numbers of ichorids and black creatures to steal the game, and the match.
Like predicted, the top 4 splits, I take the cash, and we beat a quick retreat to some strange burger joint. Life was good, the food was tasty, and the company was grand. Tyler ate a burger the size of his head, and I very much enjoyed the conversations about everything from fishing to magic.
And so, I bid thee a found farewell my fellow spell slingers and magicians extraordinaire. Peace out and Love my brothers, hope to see you all in September.
Oh, almost forgot. I’ll award 100 vintage bonus points to the first person to identify all four songs in my sing along report. Remember kids, Fear Dr. Horrible!
-Nataz
