[Tournament] THE PHILLY OPEN V - 2/27 & 2/28! T1 & Extended! $4,000+ in prizes!

[T00L]

As long as the main highways between ri and philly are clear I won't be too worried

[GrandpaBelcher]

A few questions:
How much snow is on the ground?
Is it still snowing?
Are streets clear?
Are sidewalks clear?

Thanks!  I'm still looking forward to this tournament.  Let's do this!

[Iron_Chef]

A few questions:
1) How much snow is on the ground?
2) Is it still snowing?
3) Are streets clear?
4) Are sidewalks clear?

Thanks!  I'm still looking forward to this tournament.  Let's do this!

1) About 3" of new snow
2) Nope
3) My street hasn't been plowed yet, but there isn't really a need since it's driveable (tire tracks go right down to the road)
4) My sidewalk isn't clear because I'm a lazy bitch.  In Philly I'm assuming people get paid to not be lazy bitches.

It's on like DONKEY KONG!  Sam, you'd be happy to know that I'm picking up dredge foils.  You should definitely come.

I'm also happy because this thread is on it's way to crushing all of those in recent memory, even the ones that have been going for two years

-Nick

[personalbackfire]

This is going to be an awesome time, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it.  I know that there is a very large contingent of players who will be making the trip from the Long Island area.

Im looken foward to seeing you guys again, since apparently I suck and haven't made it to the Island for the past two months. Cya guys tomorrow!

[psyburat]

This event is going to be better than sitting sideways on a swing.

[Iron_Chef]

I've been informed that Nick Detwiler is + 2 Dutchies

[Prospero]

This is going to be an awesome time, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it.  I know that there is a very large contingent of players who will be making the trip from the Long Island area.

Im looken foward to seeing you guys again, since apparently I suck and haven't made it to the Island for the past two months. Cya guys tomorrow!

I'm one of your fans and have never said you sucked, so no worries.

[psyburat]

Im looken foward to seeing you guys again, since apparently I suck and haven't made it to the Island for the past two months. Cya guys tomorrow!

Year of the Tiger!  Year of the Tiger!

This event is going to be cooler than the Norweigan Curling Team's pants.

[T00L]

I've been informed that Nick Detwiler is + 2 Dutchies

Wait 2? Marius multiplied?

[Iron_Chef]

Marius + Girlfriend, on a trip to the US of A

[Hagrid]

TOMORROW WOOOHOOOO!!!!

Let's hear some trash talk who's gonna take this one down ???

[InfectedMushroom]

Our county is a mess here and it's still snowing lol. Hopefully it will be cool in the morning though.

[Iron_Chef]

Roads are plowed and dry here; this thing is now 110% in gear!  See everyone tomorrow!

[FAVO!!!!1]

I'll be there to win that delicious wolf shirt so I can cure my aids!

[Iron_Chef]

I have just been reminded.

THERE WILL BE TEAM TRIVIA!

Details to follow...

[The Atog Lord]

The snow is accumulating quickly. And the roads are awful. It seems that I'm not going to be able to get to Nick's tournament. I'm really not happy about that, and I wish I would get to see all my friends there. Guys, be safe and take care. I'll post again if anything changes.

[Iron_Chef]

Damn you Pittsburgh!!!! FFFFFFFUUUUUUUU lol it just won't be the same

[myw002]

Looking for a ride to Philadelphia from Lewisburg, PA area. 

[KingSquee]

OK here is my trivia announcement from earlier in the thread, brought up-to-date:

We plan to start around when the Top 8 of the main Extended event begins. I will be playing in the Vintage event. Should my mad Vintage skills necessitate pushing back the start time, we'll let everybody know.

The entry fee will be $0 per team (that's right, FREE!) and Nick and I will determine the prize structure sometime tomorrow.

It will be a three-man team event run similar to Maro's Question Mark events. We'll have a number of swiss rounds based on the number of entrants. Each round your team will be competing against one other team. If your team wins, you get three points. A tie is good for 1 point, and a loss is 0 points obv. Then we'll re-pair for the next round.

Each Swiss round will present a unique challenge. For example, for the event that didn't go off at the last Philly Open I had the following challenges ready:

• Creatures with printed power 9 or greater
• Cards you can fetch with a Misty Rainforest
• Guess the card art (I can assure you we'll have this one again, with different cards obv...)
• All cards with mana cost  
• All legendary Goblins

After the Swiss rounds we'll cut to the Top 8 teams and play Creature Type Scattergories to decide the Top 4! What's that, you'll ask? You'll have to find out...

Once we cut to top 4 we will be running my patented Gatherer Showdown to decide the winning team. It works similar to a grade-school spelling bee. I will click the "random card" link in Gatherer and read all the details of the card I can without giving it away. You have one guess to tell me what the card is. If you're right, you're still alive! If you're wrong, sit down, you're out! Last man standing wins for their team!

For example I just clicked the link right now, and here's what I would say for the card that appeared: "Artifact from Chronicles, 3 to cast, 2 and tap to draw a card then discard a card."

Whoever said Jalum Tome, go get yourself a Girl Scout cookie!

If a basic land pops up I'll skip it. Also if all top 4 teams agree, I will skip Unglued, Unhinged, Portal 1,2,3, and the Starter sets. If one team objects, be prepared to know what Borrowing 100,000 Arrows does!

[Ravager Sam]

It's on like DONKEY KONG!  Sam, you'd be happy to know that I'm picking up dredge foils.  You should definitely come.

It wasn't enough snow to enable me to come 

However, I will see you on April 3!!  If you want to mail me the cards, however, that's always cool

[Iron_Chef]

82 people for vintage!!!  65 for extended... 

Logic tells me that vintage > extended!

[hazard]

And how is this event turning out?

[Prospero]

Top 4 was TPS, TPS, Dredge, Dredge from what I understand, with Jake Gans (Dredge) playing against Jesse Martin (TPS) in the finals.  TPS won in 3.

[Nomad]

Event turned out pretty well, good turnout as Nick mentions above, but disappointing for the Extended.

As we left, Jake Gans was a game up in the final against TPS, having beaten Matt Elias in some kind of Ichorid mirror in semis.  Elias put Brassman out of the top 8.  Another RI guy, Jesse made the semis (having beaten out Chris with Tezz) and was embroiled in an all TPS semifinal matchup with Dominic, who knocked out Penn Stater Sean Robbins.  I've no idea who Jake Gans' Quarterfinal victim was, it didn't take long.  Props to the girls at Club Risque in Bristol for brightening up our journey back...

I plan on beating Nick Detwilers brains in with a terrible deck playing terribly overpriced ( in both value and casting cost).  Look out nick here comes jokulmorder!

Let it be know that Hangley's 58/17 card decklist (no, not 2 maindeck cards listed in the sideboard), didn't ever get the opportunity to hand Detweiler anything really, and after dropping early, Jimmy proceeded to drink a couple of random bottles of tart fuel and start behaving like most of the other Philly street residents around the Greyhound station.  At least he behaved reasonably well in the HRC afterwards.

[The Atog Lord]

Congratulations Jesse!

[FAVO!!!!1]

This was a wicked awesome event! Even though I scrubbed out from play mistakes, I still had a blast hanging out with friends and just relaxing. I can't wait till the 13th (as work gave me off that day ^.^)

[voltron00x]

This was probably the best Vintage event I've ever played in.  The people were all awesome and the quality of the field was very high.  The metagame also seems to be diversifying nicely.  Two Noble Fish players were in the top 10 of the Swiss standings after round 7, with one in top 8, and there was even a Two Card Monte MIRROR MATCH at this tournament, which is freaking awesome; one TCM player made top 8 also at 5-0-2. 

As far as I know, the top 8 was:  1 Tezz, 2 TPS, 2 Dredge, 1 Noble Fish, 1 Two Card Monte, 1 Oath (although I could be off on the Oath, it may have been a 2nd Tezz)

The big loser on the day had to be Workshops, which made up a big chunk of the field but just couldn't crack into the top 8.  As strong as Lodestone Golem is, he's still going to need the right shell to get there in this diverse meta.

I'm going to write up a tournament report for SCG, and then hopefully get all the decklists from Nick for further analysis.  I think the metagame from this one can go a long way towards helping us frame our understanding of Vintage at the moment.

This is what I played:

"Turtle Dredge"

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 City of Brass
2 Petrified Field
4 Serum Powder
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
2 Ichorid
2 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void

Sideboard:

2 Nature's Claim
4 Chain of Vapor
1 Ichorid
1 Darkblast
2 City of Brass
3 Unmask
2 Pithing Needle

For once, I actually felt like I was playing one of the best decks in the tournament.  I was 8-0 in game 1s, with a final match record of 6-2-1 and game record of 14-6 (in other words, even when hate came in, my deck was winning 50% of its games, after winning 100% of games pre-hate).

The idea behind this deck was that I wanted to take a different look at Dredge and play something that was slow, steady, and consistent.  Something that would have a good game 1 % in the mirror and have game against a wider field, especially Workshop and Fish decks with Wastelands.  To that end, I cut out Fatestitcher, added Chalice and Leyline for disruption (with Leyline obviously giving a huge edge in the mirror), played Woodfall Primus and 2x Nature's Claim main to combat quick Key/Vaults on the opponents side and to have outs to MD Leyline (as far as Nature's Claim).  I cut Fatestitcher as the card is poor against decks with Wasteland and played max Paradise and 2 Petrified Field to get value out of Bloodghast and have resistance to Wasteland.

On the day, by round:

Win 2-0 vs Tezz
Win 2-0 vs Oath
Lose 1-2 vs Noble Fish
Win 2-1 vs Shop Aggro
Win 2-0 vs Tezz
Win 2-1 vs Tezz
ID
Win 2-0 vs Tezz
Lose 1-2 vs Ichorid

The match record vs Tezz is pretty impressive, IMO.  I went 3-1 in game TWO vs Tezz, which is outstanding.  Chalice of the Void was extremely good for me in the match-up, as it was last May when I played Dredge at Blue Bell.

The semi-finals match was disappointing.  I dominated game 1, then lost games 2 & 3 because my deck crapped out on me, while Gans drew what he needed both games... without Serum Powders.  I feel like I should have a huge advantage finding Leylines given that my deck has Powders and his does not, but... what can you do.  I also feel like my deck is better-prepared to battle TPS as I have Chalice of the Void and 4 Leyline (Gans ran 3 Leyline main). 

In any case, awesome tournament, I had a great time, can't wait until the next one.  I took today's off due to illness - good luck to my teammates that are there battling at the moment.

And, thanks to everyone that came and made this likely to be one of the bigger Vintage events this year - tell your friends and let's see if the next Philly Open Vintage can crack 100 players!

[myw002]

Just out of curiosity, was it standard TPS or some other variation?  Pitch long? Grim Long? ANT? GWSX?

[Cunningbeaver]

Another wicked event. Really impressed with the solid turnout, hopefully the trend keeps strong going forward.

Over all pretty solid day. After losing in round 1 to Chris who then made top 8 and then going to time in round 3 vs hexmage depths (Having Sadistic Sacrement cast 4 times between games 2-3 puts a hamper on things)  I ended up stuck in 9th at 5-1-1 with some pretty bad breakers.
 
This is the list I tossed. Misdirection and Jace were both huge when I saw them. Pretty similar to the list that Dominic played to his top 4 spot. ( I think he played 2 dark rituals over pearl/emerald and a 3rd duress effect over Academy).

Thanks for the hard work Nick and the continued support that you give to our format.

   Land
2- Island
1- Library of Alexandria
3- Polluted Delta
2- Scalding Tarn
1- Swamp
1- Tolarian Academy
3- Undergroud Sea
2- Volcanic Island

   Total: 15

   Artifacts
1- Black Lotus
1- Lotus Petal
1- Mana Crypt
1- Mox Emerald
1- Mox Jet
1- Mox Pearl
1- Mox Ruby
1- Mox Sapphire
1- Sol Ring
1- Time Vault
1- Voltaic Key

   Total: 11

   Instants
1- Ancestral Recall
1- Brainstorm
1- Chain of Vapor
1- Fact or Fiction
4- Force of will
1- Gifts Ungiven
1- Hurkyl's Recall
4- Mana Drain
1- Misdirection
1- Mystical Tutor
2- Spell Pierce
1- Vampiric Tutor

   Total: 19
    
   Sorceries
1- Demonic Tutor
1- Merchant Scroll
1- Ponder
1- Tendrils of Agony
2- Thoughtseize
1- Time Walk
1- Tinker
1- Yawgmoth's Will

   Total: 9

   Creatures/Planeswalkers
3- Dark Confidant
1- Inkwell Leviathan
1- Jace,the Mind Sculptor
1- Tezzeret the Seeker  

   Total: 6
         Total: 60

[FAVO!!!!1]

I'm going to write up a tournament report for SCG, and then hopefully get all the decklists from Nick for further analysis.  I think the metagame from this one can go a long way towards helping us frame our understanding of Vintage at the moment.

I have a few questions, mainly pertaining to your sideboard, but I will wait to see the article. Congrats on another good finish and on your string of good articles. And lastly, congrats to Nick Coss for hosting these amazing events.