[TO Report] Jim Hanley's Universe- May 30th

[Stormanimagus]

Hey guys. So great tourney! It was a lot of fun and we should try to set up more of them ASAP!

The tournament at Jim Hanley's Universe drew 10 people and we played 3 rounds of Swiss with a cut to Top 4.

I played my Selkie deck and here's my personal report:

Edit: Almost forgot to supply the list I played:

Selkie-Slam

Land (17):
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath (Would have been Polluted Delta, but I loaned them out)
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (8):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Null Rod

Creatures (19):
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Meddling Mage
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Instants (15):
4 Force Of Will
4 Stifle
4 Daze
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Hurkyl’s Recall

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk

SB
2 Children Of Korlis
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Relic Of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Trygon Predator
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

Round 1:

Vs. Andrew with my ANT deck:

Game 1: I wasted his land Sea and I don't think he ever really found a way to recover from that as I managed to beat with Exalted Mage (naming Chain of Vapor). I think I followed up with a Goyf FTW, but it was already pretty much over at that point. Oh yeah. Landed a Null Rod this game as well.

Game 2: Don't remember a ton about this game except that I won it in an odd fashion. He Slaughter Pacted on his turn for my Mage (naming Dark Ritual) and then I wasted his Sea on my turn and he couldn't pay the upkeep cost for Pact. GG.

This victory didn't feel amazing as I know that Andrew was inexperienced with Vintage, let alone a difficult to pilot combo deck. I think that I would have had a tough time against this deck in the hands of a skilled pilot. I DID build the deck after all so I hope it's good.

1-0

Round 2:

Vs. Curt with Old-School Drain-Control (featuring Ophidian)

Game 1: I think I won this game on the back of Null Rod and double exalted Selkie.

Game 2: All I remember is that he sided in Seasinger! Freaking SEA- mother-f-ing-Singer! He stole a Tarmogoyf of mine and I never truly recovered from that. I think he tinkered out DSC here, but I had a top-decked Hurkyl's Recall to save me. Still wasn't enough when he's stolen my Goyf.

Game 3: I lose this game right before time is called. He doesn't get Seasinger this time, but I also have to mull in to a hand with lots of disruption but no gas. I don't draw enough gas to make a difference and only slow the inevitable.

1-1

Round 3:

Vs ? (Mono-Blue Control).

I win this match pretty easily as I think he was running a very old-school mono-blue jank deck with cards like Thwart. No Remora + no early threats = no problem. There were definitely a couple players at this event that needed to be playing a slightly more optimal deck. This was one of them. I won this round in 2 pretty quick games.

so my record was 2-1 and apparently that was good enough to get me to the Top 4

Semifinals:

Vs. Justin (With Mono-Red Shops running Welders)

Game 1: He gets Trinisphere + Sphere of Resistance on me, but somehow I win this one. I get a very early Hierarch + Qasali Pridemage and I guess beating for 4 each turn was enough to get the job done. This is a big reason why Hierarch is key in this matchup. It is soo hard for a shop player to deal with Hierarch as their mana-denial elements don't do much against Hierarch.

Game 2: This game is a battle of Meddling Mages targeting Welders with me finally prevailing on the back of MM and Null Rod. Null Rod kept him from being able to use double powder keg against me and he had them set to 2 and 3 for most of the game so I lucked out that he didn't find an answer to my Null Rod.

Finals:

Vs. Curt (Mana-Drain Control with Ophidians)

Game 1: This was a rematch of my only loss on the night and I was out for revenge. Game 1 was a battle but I think Selkie drawing me 2 a turn really helped me in this one. I also recall some ridiculous Y.Will play where he got back his EE and had the mana to use them, but I then stifled one of the triggers and he didn't have enough mana to activate the other. I then proceeded to drop Null Rod (I think) and swing for the win.

Game 2: This game featured a lot of Red-Zoning. I chipped away at his life total early with Qasali (this card was a house for me all day long and here it kept him from casting explosives again) He then proceeded to Storm out a 12 token Empty The Warrens, but I had him at such a low life total (I think 6 or 7) and I had enough blockers that it didn't matter. I Islandwalked him for 3 two turns in a row and he couldn't find an answer in time. GG

So I won! I won the whole thing!

The lessons I took away from this tournament were:

*the simple power of Cold-Eyed Selkie against decks with islands. It's a flexible card that can really swing games.

*I also found Qasali Pridemage to be very strong and would never go back to MD Trygon unless I expected a field of only Shops and even then I might not.

*Null Rod hits far more than just Moxen + Vault/Key. It's still a necessary evil at the moment I think.

*Stifle was sided out a lot, and perhaps I need to reconsidered its usefulness. Especially in a deck that runs Noble Hierarch. Perhaps I should cut Stifles to 2 or 3 at least. I just found myself missing my opportunities to get the maximum utility out of Stifle time and time again.

*The mana-denial elements of this deck are key and they buy you time to win. That's how this deck wins games. Bottom line.

Side Note: I didn't face Chalice all day, but I'm a bit worried about only have Trygon x2 from the SB to handle it. Perhaps I need some other answer to it. Chalice @2 is pretty devastating to my deck.

So that's it guys! Hope we can hold another one of these soon.

-Storm

P.S- about another tournament. So here's the deal. Unfortunately my show goes in to tech this weekend, but I will, however, have Friday evening off. If people are cool with sharing the space with drafters I don't see why that would be a problem for the store. They already offered for us to share the space for Thursday nights with the Type 2 folks, but I couldn't make that time this week. So I know this is short notice, but who'd be up for a Friday evening Event this week? Please get back to me ASAP so I can ask the store. If another day works for you all you only need tell me and perhaps there can be an event hosted by another one of you that I just won't make it to (Justin I'm looking at you as you said you were almost a certified Judge).

Aight,

CYA all soon!

[xerxes]

Hey, this is Curt, 2nd place.
Nice deck, soo many synergistic creatures leave a big beating. The exaltedness of Qasali was definitely a factor. I had some seriously crazy BROKEN games racing an ANTendrills build in the top four.

I'll fill in your round 2 game 3: my first turn Library drew me six cards while you had to mulligan.

With brainstorm gone, having enough small instant draw in controllish builds is troublesome. I'd drop the two Ophidians if I found better draw cards, maybe impulse. Not to derail this thread, but I can provide my decklist if you like.

[shadow00]

can't wait until the next tournament, I hope this is a weekly thing

[ConF1ictZ]

Dude, this is Connor, that nasty Ich player lol..

whenever you have this tourney, ill come, but if we have it during T2, those guys will be having seizures when someone whoops out a Recall, lmfao

[Jostin123]

I'll be off this Thursday due to a scheduling conflict, but the best days for me are Sundays.  This Sunday we have a community venue I do every year the first Sunday of June, but other than that, I have only the SCG 5k event to assist with to get my first of 2 tournaments I need under my belt for the certification exam.  Remember that for June and July I will have my weekends off and work much earlier hours,  so if I'm needed for evenings or weekends, I can help. The tournament was a good start.  Much thanks to everyone who came out.  And yeah, I couldn't find a shattering spree in my top 20 cardsto save my life: literally.  Good top 4 match

[Yare]

Congrats on winning the whole thing!

I'm possible but not probable for Friday.

Any chance of standardizing the time from week to week? I'm not opposed to having different times every week personally, but I imagine for others it would be easier to plan in advance if it was the same time every week.

[Stormanimagus]

Congrats on winning the whole thing!

I'm possible but not probable for Friday.

Any chance of standardizing the time from week to week? I'm not opposed to having different times every week personally, but I imagine for others it would be easier to plan in advance if it was the same time every week.

You should have received an e-mail from me on what I can accommodate. I'm only really free this week on Friday Evening. I'm all for someone else getting the ball rolling on hosting the event (at least for the next 3-4 weeks as I have a show going into its final week this week before opening and then I'm going back to Vermont for a bit to do another show) and I'll try to come to the ones I can make it to, but, honestly, I'm going to be not terribly available to be a TO for a while. I wanted to get this first tournament (or first couple) going cause I live right near the venue and I knew I could be flexible on a first timing of for the event (i.e-accommodate and adapt to other people's schedules). Now I'd kinda like someone else to take the reigns for a bit on a casual weekly event and I'll see what I can do for arranging a really big one in a month and a half or so.

Anyone want to carry the torch for a bit on this one? The space is very available a lot of the time. So far they seem to have OK windows on Thursday Nights, Friday Nights, Saturday Day (and perhaps night) and Sunday Day. That's a lot of options. I'd personally agree with Roland and Josh and Yare that Thursday is a best date to settle on for a weekly event, but if there's enough demand for a different day then I'm sure many people can be flexible. A simple hierarchy like this would be helpful:

1. Thursday Night
2. Saturday Day
3. Sunday Day

That gives someone trying to schedule a tournament a simple and concise understanding of who's available when.

[shadow00]

 I speak for me and 2 buddies saying that any day of the week is fine, just hoping that we can find someone to continue running them and keep this a weekly thing. Whatever works for the majority is fine with us.

[shadow00]

any update on future tournaments?

[shadow00]

still no update with this , I hope another tournament comes around soon in NY.

[Stormanimagus]

I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you all in a while. I'm gonna be incognito for about a month due to a show I'm in in Vermont but I've asked a couple other guys to keep the ball rolling at JHU until I return. Jostin Rodriguez said he was interested in organizing some more events. Apparently he has not set anything up yet though. I'll try to be in touch with him and see if he can set something up for next week.

Peace,

Storm

[shadow00]

thanks alot noah , anyway keep us all posted

[Stormanimagus]

Anyone want to meet at JHU tonight for a little casual Vintaging? If we were just playing for fun would there be a sitting fee? If anyone's interested and gets back to me within the next hour I'll give JHU a call. As for a real tournament I'll leave that in Jostin's hands for next week as I'll still not be able to make it due to my show.

Peace Y'all

Noah

[ConF1ictZ]

i would like to play magic soon!

[shadow00]

 /agree

[Yare]

I do too. The problem is that I don't think anybody has the time to organize an event right now. I know I don't. We may have to wait until the summer is over to get things going.

[Stormanimagus]

I do too. The problem is that I don't think anybody has the time to organize an event right now. I know I don't. We may have to wait until the summer is over to get things going.

Justin Rodriguez should be doing it in my stead until the end on July. I think he had something in mind for the 28th of June and I've asked him to post it here. Perhaps he doesn't yet have TO status on TMD? I'll give him a call soon to check in.

Peace-

Storm