Great Britain Vintage Championships 21-Aug-2010

[luke_twigger]

So I haven’t played, or even thought very much about, Magic since I returned from Canada in the autumn of 2006. Fast forward nearly 4 years and a circular email arrives from the House Atreides traders, informing me of the dates of GB Nationals and the extensive side event schedule – which includes GB Vintage Championships. I check the dates, get a permission slip from the wife and I am in business.

But I needed a deck. Luckily decks change slowly in Vintage so most of my old cards were still very relevant. I wanted something “easy to play” as I knew I’d be rusty, so that ruled out tricksy combo stuff. Browsing around starcitygames.com and themanadrain.com, I came across the latest artefact prison variants which seemed to meet my needs. I was short a few cards and ordered them online, though sadly only half of them arrived in time so I had to substitute in some lower quality replacements.

The day of the tournament arrives, I’m up bright and early at 5.30am to get the train from Wales to London. I get to the site and registered with plenty of time for a coffee beforehand. There are 33 people registered which meant 6 rounds of Swiss followed by a top 8 playoff.

Round 1, Martin playing Oath. We had recollections of each other from back when we were both hard on the PTQ scene. Game 1 I got a couple of sphere-effects out early but then stalled and Martin was able to sneak Oath out and I had to read Terrastodon to see just how unfair it is. Game 2 another Oath found another monster. I was hoping for a Duplicant but no. Loss 0-2.

Round 2, Paul playing Tezzeret. Paul is part of the Swindon crew, who I recall from the 2004 Vintage Championships at Butlins in Minehead, when Ian won with Goblins. I didn’t see much of his deck as I drew very well and overwhelmed him. He did delay the inevitable with some bounce from the Jace planeswalker – so many new cards to read. Win 2-0.

Round 3, Rob playing Elf-Clamp (unpowered). Game 1 he made an army of 1/1s and swarmed all over me. Games 2 and 3 were harsh, I had Chalices for 1 and 2 out very early in both which much limited his options. Win 2-1.

Round 4, Nathan playing Tezzeret. Game 1 I got off to a reasonable start until he got a Trygon Predator out and I had no answer. Game 2 was much better, I had a very fast and aggressive hand and Nathan didn’t get to do much. Game 3 was ridiculous, turn 1 Trygon Predator and my health went down 2 points at a time. Loss 1-2.

Round 5, Kevin playing Tezzeret. Kevin recognised me from the 2002 Vintage Championships when I beat him in the semi-finals. He’d travelled over from Ireland just for this event so I wasn’t the only one coming a long way for the fun of Vintage. Game 1 went long with some back and forth until Kevin assembled the Time Vault + Voltaic Key combo and was able to take infinite turns. Game 2 was incredibly fast, it went Workshop, Trinisphere, concede. Game 3 also went quickly in my favour thanks to a good hand. Win 2-1.

Round 6, Nick playing Tezzeret. This was Nick’s first Vintage tournament but he had the Power and seemed knowledgeable about the format. Sorry but my mind had gone blank by this point. Win 2-1.

So I ended the Swiss on 4-2, with my losses against people who were above me in the standings. My tiebreaks meant I just squeezed into the top 8, in 8th place.

Top 8, playing Jim with Welder Stax. Jim went 5-0 in the Swiss before IDing the last round. Game 1 Jim got an early Welder and won easily, my hand was too slow. Game 2 we both mulliganed to 5 yet I managed a turn 2 Golem and took advantage of Jim’s mana screw. Game 3 more mulligans, this time to 6 and I had a promising start but stalled for threats and Jim went aggro and his Tangle Wire locked me out long enough for him. Loss 1-2.

Top 8 looked like 3 Workshop decks (2 MUD, 1 Welder), 2 Tezzeret, 2 Dredge and 1 Oath. Caught my train back to Wales rather than spectate and haven’t yet heard the final results.

I was overjoyed to make top 8 in my first tournament in 4 years. All of the other people in the Vintage Championships were friendly and pleasant to chat to and the judges were great. All in all a top day out and hopefully one I will repeat.

[LotusHead]

Thanks for the report! We like reading about tournies in different metas!

[Marske]

This is just awesome, I had no idea Vintage was even played in GB still... This probably is the first report I've seen since 07 (I think) about Vintage being played in Britain... Awesome to know you guys are still rocking it like the rest of us. Next time I'm in the UK I'll not forget any Vintage stuff to see if there's some gunslinging around!

[swooop]

Jim Underwood won the event with his 7/10 style deck beating TrygonTezz in the final 33 players lots of dredge,STAX and TEZZ very highly powered compared to previous years.

[Cyberpunker]

Would it be possible to get decklists and deck/play theory?

[luke_twigger]

Hey folks, glad you're enjoying my report. There's not much Vintage played here in UK & Ireland. We generally get one decent tournament a year, often as a side event at Nationals, or GenCon UK, or if we get to host a Grand Prix or something. A couple of people were talking about the Annecy Bazaar of Moxen to get their Vintage fix.

From what I saw, 7 out of the top 8 were fairly routine versions of the popular decks. Only Jim's welder deck seemed on the rogue side - he had Bazaar in there (didn't see Uba Mask though), Sundering Titan and Esperzoa which was really good (bounce/replay a Tangle Wire keeping it set to 4).

I've emailed the event organisers (http://thegamesclub.org/) and they generally post top 8 decklists on their website, but given this was part of GB Nationals with dozens of other events they might not get round to it.

One thing which was really nice was that everyone seemed to have come especially to play Vintage. In previous years it felt like some people had scrubbed out of Nationals and thought they'd kill time having fun in Vintage, maybe put some dual lands into a Standard deck. But this time there was lots of power, lots of proper decks and lots of Vintage fanatics.

[dalek]

The winning deck deck was;

4 Chalice of the Void
I Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Powder Keg
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
2 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Volcanic Island
1 Ancient Tomb
3 Shivan Reef
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishras Workshop
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
4 Goblin Welder
4 Esperzoa
4 Lodestone Golem
1 Razormane Masticore
2 Triskellion
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel
Sideboard
2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormods Crypt
1 Powder Keg
3 Smokestack
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Null Rod

I have been playing a version of a red/blue workshop deck for the last 4 years.  The deck centered around Mishara’s Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad and goblin welder with utility artifacts like Karn, Sundering Titan, Memory Jar, Duplicant, Triskellion and Memnarch etc.  Originally there was a heavy blue element for Force of Will.  I then went down the Metal Worker route with draw 7’s to find Staff of Domination.  More recently I have been down the aggro route with Juggernaut with a splash of blue for Ancestral Recall, Tinker and Master of Etherium along with staples such as Tangle Wire, Chalice of the Void, Sphere of resistance and Trinisphere. 

This year I wanted to pay MUD with Smokestack but thought that there would be a lot of fish type decks packing Null Rod, Trygon Predator, Kataki and Qasali Pridemage.  I didn’t like City of Traitors (seemed to have to sacrifice too often) or Ancient Tomb (too much damage) so tried Metal Worker.  This just died against Null Rod/swords so splashed back in red for Welder, which didn’t really help.  I also thought there would be a lot of graveyard hate so dropped the Bazaars.   I tried red/blue with Master of Etherium and Esperzoa.  This was good sometimes with the Master getting very big, but quite a few times it was just a dumb critter.

I thought I had  settled on 5 Color Stax using Vampiric Tutor,  Demonic Tutor, Tinker (and Ancestral Recall) to find one of’s like Null Rod, Crucible of Worlds, Pithing Needle.  This also gave me cards like REB and Natures Claim out of the sideboard.  However, I felt I was taking too much damage from City of Brass and kept losing the Gemstone Mines.  So, right at the last minute I was back to the red/blue deck, but I took out the Masters for Bazaars and put back in utilities like Sundering Titan.  As it happened, this turned out rather well.

Card choices:

Chalice and Tangle Wire seem strong at the moment, and good with Esperzoa (see below).

Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance to slow people down.  The same with Lodestone Golem, and he beats.

Powder Keg as general utility; zombie tokens, moxes, Time Vault, creatures etc.

Welder to ignore counter spells, replay Tangle Wire, Smokestack etc.

Bazaar for draw and to feed Welder.

Razormane against creatures, especially MUD.

Triskellion against creatures.

Duplicant against creatures, especially Oath.

Sundering Titan because he wins me so many games (so many people like their duel lands).

Esperzoa.  A special word for this; it was great to be able to replay Chalice, Tangle Wire and Triskellion (and presumably Duplicant had I had both at the same time).  Also, he kills and survives Trygon.

Gorilla Shaman against moxes, Time Vault etc.

Pithing Needle against Bazaar (Dredge), Qasali Pridemage, Jace etc.

Relic and Tormods against Dredge.

Powder Keg for utility.

Smokestack against Oath and possibly MUD.

Null Rod against Time Vault, Painters Servant etc.

I made some last minute changes which had I have thought about I wouldn’t have done.  I went to 61 cards to add Platinum Angel as a kind of catch all.  As there was a lot of Natures Claim around, this was not a good idea.  I also replaced 1 Crucible of Worlds, 1 Blasting Station and 1 Sculpting Steel for 3 Smokestacks in board.  Difficult to tell whether this was good or not but the Smokestacks were to be against Oath.

To the matches, which I cannot really recall much about unfortunately:

I had an easy start with a bye which is annoying as I prefer to play. 

Following that my opponent, Rob, had a first game loss because of a deck registration error.  Second game he played a forest and an elf.  I didn’t know the deck but had read something a while back that chalice for 1 is good.  And it was, he scooped as it stopped his whole deck. 2-0.

Next was MUD against Tom or Tim (sorry, can’t recall).  I won 2-0 and seem to recall an early Welder and Tangle Wire helped here.

Fourth was against Martin with Terrestedon Oath with Time Vault.  Win 2-0 again.  I seem to recall Tangle Wire, Trinisphere and Sundering Titan helping here.

Fifth was against Jim playing Two Card Monte.  An absolutely splendid deck with foils and black bordered power.  2-1.  Null rod and Pithing Needle, along with Tangle Wire and Chalice with Esperzoa helped here.

Sixth round was ID.

So, I was top going into the final 8.

First was against Luke playing MUD.  2-1, see his report above.  This was a close game but again Welder seems to be very good in this match up.

Semi was against Nathan playing Trygon Time Vault.  Again a close match at 2-1.  I don’t remember much apart from having 3 Null rods at one time but he had Trygon and I could not find blue to play my Esperzoa’s.

Final was against Martin again with Oath.  I lost the die roll but got a first turn Chalice on 2, which I think must have won that game.  Next game was very close with Terrestedon hitting the table but was removed by Duplicant into play by Welder via the graveyard from Bazaar.  Duplicant was Natures Claimed followed by Show and Tell with another Terrestedon.  Unfortunately for Martin, my Lodestone, Elephants and Orchard tokens just pipped through for the win.

It was a great and friendly tournament.  I hope to have made more friends and see them in Europe for other tournies.

I was very pleased with the deck in the end.  Tangle Wire and Chalice along with Esperzoa seemed to be very strong.  Bazaar and Welder were as always strong.  Sundering Titan helped me out again.  I did get color screwed once; not sure whether changing the Ancient Tomb for another Shivan Reef or substituting something else for the Shivan Reef is required or not at the moment.  Platinum Angel is definitely coming out, not sure about substituting the Powder Keg.  I also need more Duplicants in the board.
Hope you enjoyed the summary.

Jim

[Mr. Scragglesworthington]

Interesting deck, Jim.

Esperzoa?  Saucy!

Thanks for sharing the list & tourney report.