Hadley, MA Vintage for 4x FOIL WELDERS October 11th [with top 8 Decklists]

[mdenny]

   We had 30 players show up to play for 2 foil welders, but seeing so many people excited  to play and with people coming out of retirement for this one, including Ben Kowal who placed second, I decided to up first place to Four Foil Welders. Thirty is the highest number of players I’ve ever had at one of my events and it was very gratifying to see so many people show up!
   This was definitely an interesting experience for me because our head judge had a family emergency which I found out about on the morning of the tournament. With ever other certified judge in the area out of town for the weekend (trust me I called all of them), I was put in the position of head judging the event. I definitely have gained a greater respect for judges after today, even though I only had to make a few minor calls. A big thanks to Ray, Chris and Dan for helping to advise me as I’m not the best rules person.
   I had a tough time putting together the prize pool but as those of you who were there know, I gave away about 400 dollars worth of stuff. Making first a full play-set of foil welders was important to me but I will do a better job in the future of giving out a more even prize pool that isn’t quite as top heavy. I’d rather be able to give out 20+ dollar prizes to the rest of the top 8 and a slightly lower dollar value first prize so I will be working hard to try and make this a reality for my next event.
   Running 10 dollar events has been very challenging and I’ve had a number of people approach me with either raising the price or allowing people to buy up to 5 additional proxies. I am strongly committed to running 10 dollar tournaments with 20 dollar prize support and will do my best in the future to continue the trend, however I would like your input on buying extra proxies. My initial feeling is that buying proxies makes it just like a 15 dollar event but I also know that some people cannot make a deck with less than 15 proxies so I’d like to hear what you have to say.
   I hope everyone had a blast and if you didn’t please let me know, as these events are entirely for you, and not about me making (any) money and I am always open to suggestions to improve them in the future. Making cookies was fun and I will probably do it again in the future. Hope everyone is excited to come out and play in the next one and hopefully we can keep improving our attendance! Remember you guys make the tournaments awesome; I’m just here to make sure everyone has fun and walks away with cool stuff.
   

Without further ado, on to the Results!

Top 8:
Jarad Demick def. JR (2-0)
Ben Kowal def. Chris Roberts (2-1)
Sam Best def. Chris Dirico (2-0)
Jeremiah Rudolph def. Travis Laplante (2-0)

Top 4:
Ben Kowal def. Jarad Demick (2-0)
Jeremiah Rudolph def. Sam Best (2-0)

Finals:
Jeremiah Rudolph def. Ben Kowal (2-1)


It was suggested to me that I scan the top eight deck lists so I will try to go to the library tomorrow and get them up. I didn’t get to watch many of the matches because I was too busy running around but I hope that you all can fill in with your reports or comments. Please post your reports if you feel like writing them and I will do my best to get the lists up quickly. Hope everyone got home safe and I hope to see you all at my next event!

         -Matt

[Juggernaut GO]

For what it's worth, if you're committed to the 10 dollar structure, there really isn't any reason to spread the prizes out more to the top 8. I was personally happy with what I got, and people coming to a tournament with that type of entry are not going to be money grubbing bastards who cry about prize support.

I think it would have been more then fair if you made a profit here and kept the prize at the original 2 foil welders, you should not be forced to pay for players to come to the store to have a good time for a full day. 

For your future events you could very easily offer a fair base prize support for a set number of players and then increase it accordingly with attendance.  You are giving away legitimate prizes, and people will play, just don't paint yourself into a corner and lose money on something you're doing for the vintage community.

[Juggernaut GO]

also, the 15 proxy thing should be standard by now, you can make a few extra bucks, and players can afford to proxy extra stuff they don't have.

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Thanks for another great tournament, Matt!

There's a lot a great TOs out there and I firmly believe you are one of the best and more than fair at all your events.

[Marske]

Chalk up another win for team RnD !! Go Jeremiah !!

Looks like this event was a blast.

[mdenny]

@JuggernautGO I completely see what you are saying, but honestly while I don't make any money, I also don't lose any either. I have alot of wonderful friends who help me find prizes for absurdly low prices so its a wash in the end. I take it as a matter of pride to offer similarly absurd prize support.  I had an absolute blast running the event and will hopefully get the decklists up today.

[mdenny]

Here are the decklists, let me know if you cannot read somebody's handwriting and I can type it up.
Jeremiah Rudolph 1st:

Ben Kowal 2nd:

Jarad Demick 3rd:

Sam Best 4th:

Travis Laplante 5th:

Chris Dirico 6th:

Chris Roberts 7th:

JR 8th:


It was really interesting to see two dragon lists in the top 8, definitely seems to be on the upswing. Also bens g/w beatz deck was brutal.

[TracerBullet]

Maindeck choke.  I love you, Kowal.

[TopSecret]

I would like to know why Travis played 2 Monkey Cage maindeck.
I thought the accepted, optimal number was 1.

Was this a metagame call?

[Harlequin]

Haven't you ever seen Dragon Ball Z.  Travis is now only at Travis-Level-2.  After this minor loss, the next time he plays he will be Travis-Level-3.

but this still isn't his true form...................

[JR]

It's too bad he can't run OVER NINE THOUSAND Monkey Cages.

[HungryHungryHeifer]

Haven't you ever seen Dragon Ball Z.  Travis is now only at Travis-Level-2.  After this minor loss, the next time he plays he will be Travis-Level-3.

but this still isn't his true form...................

This makes me proud to be confused by many for a relative of yours lol.

[Tobi]

I can't believe I typed all those lists up...
--> http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1150

Interesting lists. GW skips Tarmos in favor of Grunts, and has 3 Exalted Angel from the Board. I wonder if Wordly Tutor could find a way into the deck, as it clearly has a wide range of conditional disruptive creatures...

[Isaac85]

Every post I have viewed from tmd the list are either typed out or just not mentioned. I have NEVER seen them scanned before. Huge props to you sir for doing this because I lold pretty hard. Also why is it that we all have bad hand writing lol. I looked at some of the list and I was like this guy writes as shitty as I do.