OK! for the 2 ppl still reading this thread, here it goes (plz bear with me as remembering this event 2 weeks later is a bit of a challenge, I'm old and forgetful):
[And warning, NOTHING I do is brief]
Rd 1 - Ray Robillard - U/W Landstill?
I've known Ray since the early 2000's when I used to see him grinding all the same PTQ's as me on the East Coast. Its always a pleasure to find us playing in the same tournament over a decade later...and in the best format Magic has available.
So, I put Ray on Landstill, as he seemed to be having quite a lot of success with it lately, including his 2nd in the TD Invitational in Jan, 'grats again Ray! Landstill is generally a great matchup for Reel Fish. Landing an early guy usually deads their standstills, the counterspell threat is minimized due to Caverns plus having more threats than they have counters/removal, and probably most importantly, you present a lot of quick threats early in the game when they are at their weakest, before they can obtain their usually huge card advantage. Unfortunately for Ray, not only did the above happen as planned, but I believe in both games he was light on mana. Wastelands and null rod did happen, though, and an army of uncounterable, unblockable creatures made an appearance in both games.
Matches 1-0, Games 2-0
Rd 2 - Scott Hughes - Metalworker Shops
Since I started playing Vintage in 2012, I've played Scott a few times, and I put him on Shops, most recently I saw him with mountains in there. When my friend Matt and I were first designing this deck, we thought shops would be a decent matchup. We land guys early, their thorns are dead, and we can just overrun lodestone or even trade a cursecatcher with it if we need to, right? Boy were we wrong! Aside from Dredge, Shops is the next worst matchup for this deck. The fast mana they present can just take over, while you're stuck playing one land a turn. I also don't think I've won a single game after a Forgemaster activation, even in testing. I changed my list because of this, swapping out the spell pierces for a steel sabotage and hurkyl's recall main, borrowing a little style points from Team ECW. Spell pierces were much better when the shops decks were mostly Espresso builds, but against Martello, they're basically missteps. Martello was also one of the main reasons to switch back to Null Rods over Aether Vial for this event. This decks best chance against shops is to attack their mana base, force them to play more at your pace, and eventually overrun them with bigger guys.
Game 1 Scott on the draw plays Metalworker on turn 1 and I don't have a counter. He combos out a few turns later with Staff of Domination. Not much I could do here. You can't mulligan to a FoW or sabotage every time against shops. I was light on guys here but even if I wasn't, you usually win turn 4.5 and I needed more time. Games 2 and 3 went very similar. I resolved an early null rod, used waste effects and counterspells to control his fast mana, he missed a bunch of land drops, and I eventually drew enough guys to kill him. It took many turns to do so, maybe even 8-10 turns, but thats pretty much the only game plan I've found that works against shops consistently. Unless they get a bad draw or you have a really good one, like a Lotus start, you're not going to be able to overrun them early like in your other matchups. Your T1 1 drop, T2 2 drop, T3 3 drop plan is way worse than their T1 2.5 drop, T2 5 drop, T3 7 drop plan. Anyways, I beat shops in the swiss, its already a good day!
Matches 2-0, Games 4-1
Rd 3 - Ryan Bergeman - Landstill
Its always good to know before you sit down that you're headed into a favored matchup. I'd say 70/30 pre-board and 60/40 post-board, maybe even better. But over all the years I've been playing, I know not to get too comfortable. There are many decisions still to be made. Although its a fish deck, I feel like it has a lot of decisions similar to Landstill, where you need to pick the right answer at the right time and one wrong decision can cost you, perhaps turns later. I guess this would be the "fair deck dilemna". However, this concept is mostly relevant to your broken blue or combo matchups. Landstill usually turns into an attrition war, which you should inevitably win with average draws. Anyways, being prepared to think more than you actually need to is the right mindset to prevent the dreaded autopilot missplays.
Game 1 and 2 went pretty much the same from his perspective. I landed some early creatures. I had a lord drop almost every turn. My starting hands were good. I think one game I even had a Lotus start. He had some removal both games to offset my fast creature start. Game 1 I simply had too many creatures. The deck is pretty consistent. What Ryan didn't know is that he actually kept game 2 pretty close. He ends up having almost a hand full of cards and factories on board, while I had just a cursecatcher and 1 lord in play, but I was out of guys in hand with him at a low life. I topdecked another lord, swung in, and he didn't have another removal spell to stay alive that turn. Otherwise, he had an extra turn, maybe two and he reveals not 1 but 2 outs on the top of his deck. He was my one topdeck away from a game 3. We are, of course, playing at Top Deck Games...
Matches 3-0, Games 6-1
Rd 4 - Lance Ballester - UW Bomberstill
So I was hoping to draw to lock Top 8 this round. But I got paired down against Lance who couldn't draw. Usually this is the type of slightly poor luck that can ruin a Top 8 run, but lately I've realized having a more positive attitude in tournaments helps my results. When you're confident, not over-confident, in your deck and card choices, your preparation, your knowledge of the matchups, and your abilities, luck should really have a minimal effect on your results.
Again, games 1 and 2 went very similar. Like I said, the deck is consistent, and I seem to be playing against unbroken blue decks each round. Both these games felt like my last game against Ryan. I had quick creatures which he should have had a hard time interacting with, but he had some swords to play. In game 2, I think it was by his turn 4, 3 swords were in his graveyard and I had plenty of life to burn. Another attrition war. I probably drew a slightly above average ratio of creatures in the later turns and was able to get enough damage through while having no more threats in hand. Another Top 8 with Reel Fish!
Matches 4-0, Games 8-1
Rd 5 - Matt Elias - Burning Long
When the pairings went up, again I thought I would just draw. Matt gave me a funny look when I asked and I realized that if he won, he would jump me for 1st and guarantee being on the play in the Top 8 and if he lost, he was still a lock for Top 8, prob T4 anyways, and so he was on a free roll. No draws! Might as well play all 5 rounds then! I'm actually fine with this. As I keep myself a very busy man, I don't have the time to test vintage often nor do I get many opportunities to play games against some of Vintage's best. I end up using tournaments as playtesting, which I blame primarily for my lack of vintage tournament wins prior to this. I'm happy to "playtest" against Matt and the burning long deck, a matchup I have a grand total of 0 games played against.
Matt mentioned this match in his tournament report. From his side I think he thought he got some pretty good starting hands throughout the tournament. From my side, it felt like the matchup was just awful for me. Having no islands to walk through aside, all of his cards are broken, and although apparently inconsistent, it is consistently powerful. I need Null Rod to slow his fast mana/storm and I also can't let an oath resolve. To do both, with a deck that is over 1/3 creatures, doesn't seem too favorable. When we first started playing this deck in mid-2012, Oath decks ran things like Emrakul, Rune-Scarred Demon and Griselbrand, and with control cards instead of storm cards. I've swung through all of them after being freshly oathed up to win games many times. Burning Long is different. Once Griselbrand hits, I'm usually dead that turn. I'd want to assume a control plan against this deck but my current deck choice makes this a very hard thing to do. However, I did have a couple moral victories during these games. In response to his oath, with him floating one mana (good players remember to play around daze), the only counter I had was the daze, and all I had was a cursecatcher in play. So, I dazed the oath then sacked my catcher to counter the daze, leaving him unable to trigger his oath and buy me an extra turn, maybe more. Moral Victory #1. Well, the next turn he DT'd for not an orchard so he was prob going to Show me a Grisel next turn. I cast a silvergil into his oath, to try to drop more creatures and at least present a 2 turn clock, since the man was coming down next turn to oppress me anyways. Matt then correctly concluded that he should NOT trigger his oath in case the 2nd Grisel was too close to the bottom of his deck. Moral Victory #2. But alas, my efforts were for naught. He showed me the Grisel, and my 2 turn clock was 1 turn too many. Top 8 as 2nd seed was my consolation for my first match loss on the day.
Matches 4-1, Games 8-3
Top 8 - Brad Jarman - BUG
I've known Brad for awhile, he's one of the good guys from DE. Always very friendly, although last time we played I got pretty angry. He was on BUG then too, and had a seemingly endless supply of abrupt decays and top decks, while I drew mostly lands, to knock me out of Top 8 contention. I'm usually the first person to look at my plays, my mistakes, my deck choice, etc before blaming bad luck but in that match, that's just what it was and for some reason I got more frustrated than usual. I felt this matchup was good for me, not a blow out like other blue decks, since he has many ways to interact with resolved creatures, but definitely favored. My creatures are just bigger and unblockable, i.e. better. Yup, lord of atlantis is better than dark confidant, I said it. Buy them up! Anyways, Brad thinks his deck is favored and his last win put another notch in his side of the argument. Vengeance is sweet!
I think I got this one in 2 games. The matchup is not easy. With all the creatures and removal flying back and forth, the matchup tends to turn into a battle of topdecking. I prefer to draw into the uncounterable, unblockable, and bigger guys. I usually like imaging a confidant too but I just wasn't presented the option in this match. Maybe he sided them out
? You do have to make some decisions here, like when to play around abrupt decay, what creatures to counter/kill, what counters to use, etc.
Top 4 - Josh Potucek - Empty Gush
When I first started playing Vintage, aside from reading Mark Hornung's articles as a Vintage crash course, I read Josh's articles to learn a lot about landstill and concurrently its matchups, decision trees, etc. I feel like if you can pilot this deck properly, you will have a superior knowledge to the format. I ran landstill several times early in 2012, I think I T8'd once with it, but I realized my experience with Vintage as a whole was not quite there yet to get the results I wanted with this deck, and I was losing some crucial % points because of this. Josh doesn't have this problem, and I know I have to be at my best here. I know from scouting earlier that he is on Empty Gush this time around, another matchup I have 0 games against. Time to playtest!
In one game, I countered his fast mana, used a couple wastelands, and was still able to play a guy a turn and swing. He may have bolted once but I had enough guys. I think he drew only 3 lands total in this game, even after not fetching right away. Some disruption combined with his land screw in key turns got me this one. In the other game, I forget the order, I had the average number of threats to play against him, he removed some, but I think he saw about 12 lands and flooded out. In one game he was able to Warrens for 8 to try to stay alive while having no islands in play, but my guys were bigger and I don't think he had many outs at that time. I think the matchup is favorable since I see a lot of dead cards against me in his list, but theory and actual playtesting would be needed to prove this for sure. This match did not seem to be a good indicator of how this matchup really is. Onto the finals!
Finals - Justin Kohler - Red Deck Wins
Everyone's archnemesis and end boss, secretly collecting toilet royalties to further his evil takeover of the Northeast Vintage scene...just don't ask him about his traditional chinese trinket mage. I cut deep.
Last time I played Justin was at the MVPLS event prior to this one. We both agree the matchup is bad for him, but I think I'm 1 for 8 against him in this matchup at tournaments. In that event, I smashed him round 1 (one game he mulled to 5 = skill game), which supported our thoughts on the matchup. He proceeded to win out, Top 8 and I met him in the finals there, too. I took game one, game 2 I had him dead on board with him having no cards in hand. He topdecks a trinket mage, kills my guys, then draws a top to further the pressure and steals this game away from me. I then don't draw enough gas in game 3 where he kills me with creatures before I can do the same. Heart-breaking. My ongoing theme of this day: Vengeance is sweet!
On a side note, Glackin was recording this match on his notepad, and I think you guys missed a sweet escalator by the one and only and always entertaining John Jones. Maybe if enough people bug him, Glackin will share.
Anyways, Game 1 feels like its going to plan. I'm on the play, he has guys, I have guys, mine are unblockable. I'm one turn away from swinging in for the win. This game is mine, I have this game! What I don't have, is a counterspell for his auriok salvagers, when he has a lotus on board. Game 2, works out the way game 1 should have, I have quick guys, enough to afford to lose some to STPs, and a counterspell here and there to slow him down and swing in for the win. Onto the debacle that is game 3, for all the tofu, and sweet sweet revenge.
I start off with cavern, cursecatcher T1 on the draw. Next turn, he has two open mana that can produce blue. I know next turn he will do his usual T3 trinket mage for lotus. I put him on having mana drain in hand along with a force. I have lord, reejery, FoWx2, null rod, wasteland, island. The decision is to apply early pressure and lord, with counter backup for his spells, then rod later, maybe next turn after he taps out to mage and save a counter rather than use 2 counters now to resolve null rod OR to just play the null rod now, with 3 counter effects to back it up and shut down his deck, turning the matchup into a creature war, which I should win. So I play the lord, punt #1. He tanks, we get a laugh after I tell him I put him on having the mana drain and he's thinking of draining the caverned lord just to Jace next turn. He correctly chooses not to, since he'd need counter backup for his Jace and I have a catcher in play. He mages, I don't want to use 2 FoWs or lose my lord in hand since I want to keep applying pressure. Lotus won't do much since my next play is rod. I let mage resolve...he PLAYS Lotus...doh! Now when I finally play Rod, he cracks lotus to cast drain, I force pitching force (not reejery as again, I want to have enough pressure), he reforces, AND has one mana left if I catcher. No Rod for me, back to playing HIS game plan. He gets Jace next turn and jacestorms, then looks happy, not good for me. On my turn I cavern out reejery and swing with my lord and cursecatcher at Jace(!?!), feeling like he's close to comboing me out yet again, as I'm prob just dead to salvagers here and his Jace can dig pretty deep. Punt #2! He chump blocks lord with his mage, reejery doesn't give islandwalk...Jace lives and he takes no damage. Next turn he resolves a top and any hope I had of controlling his draws to combo me out are gone, which is fine karma as I shouldn't have had those hopes to begin with. From here, without finding 1 of 2 slavagers yet, he turns it into a creature race. Two trinket mages and a clique later, he's managed to EE and STP to clear my board with Jace still in play, having fatesealed me for a few turns...and all I have is him down to 2 life. This deck can't support 2 colors so I knew I wasn't drawing into pillar of flame (I'm not greedy)...Null Rod would have stopped him from clearing my board, ramping into Jace and topping for days. Attacking him and NOT Jace and I would have won literally 5 turns ago. Now, I have no threats in hand or on the board, just useless counters, as I get to within two swings of being dead to HIS army. I draw and play an adept for its full cost and I now have 1 creature in play. I draw a master off it but my cavern is tapped and he can counter it. On his turn, he draws, attacks for 5, leaving a mage untapped to block, to put me at 3 life...then he fateseals me again...Was this a mistake, finally, a dent in this juggernaut's armor? Or was one of his two cards in hand an STP? It HAD to be an STP, prob with mana drain backup, that's the only thing that would make sense. I was going to lose in two back to back finals to the same guy, by getting outfished...On my turn, I draw a land, not a counterspell or another lord, and now I'm really all in. I play my lord, giving my guy islandwalk and swing in for an unblockable 3. His two cards in hand are jace and mana drain and I win my first Vintage tournament! Vengeance is mine!
The deck is hard to play as much as vintage is a hard format to play. Otherwise, its a fair deck with a low power level. Any combo deck or blue deck will be harder to play than this one. The main strength to have with this deck is to know how to play the matchups with it, not really knowing how to play the deck itself. You play guys, you attack, you counter things. The ordering and targets are really all you can change. Another advantage is that not everyone has tested this matchup. Every tournament, some competent player makes a mistake against me because of this.
There's plenty of slots you can change with this deck. I'm hoping some people try out things like Thada Adel, Rootwater Thief, Sygg RC. If there's a lot of combo/storm decks, add some flusterstorms. I actually had one main this tournament before I saw a land of blue control and BUG, so I re-added the 3rd misstep. Cold-Eye was good awhile back, and could be again should the field continue to be blue heavy. 3cc is tough though, this deck is usually light on mana, which makes shops matchups that much worse. For instance, 4 reejery was too many for me as I frequently had more than 1 in hand and could not cast them all. I'd rather have had another 2 drop or spell. You could try another island or ghost quarter main, but there have been plenty of games where I flooded, even with only 20 mana sources. I had success with Aether Vial before and could bring it back, say if Espresso shops becomes more favorable than Martello for some reason. I could try to fit pithing needle in the side as well. Depends on the field you're expecting. I would not recommend this deck in a Dredge and/or Shops heavy environment (no fish in NY!). Although my buddy Jose played a similar build in NY this past weekend and Top 4'd after "smashing shops" all day. Its best matchups are islands, so far I've found them all to be favorable, obviously some more than others. People can devote sb slots to this deck, but that would probably not be correct unless someone else besides me is on this deck or there is some splash benefit of some sb cards used for other matchups. If people start running Merfolk Assassin, I think I'll just drop the mike, my influence on this format could go no higher.
Props are the same as in my earlier post. Slops on me for winning while making some embarrassing misplays. I shared them because 1) I have no shame and 2) maybe it could help
. It was great to finally win one, especially having had such great opponents. I did need some positive variance to win and some bad luck for my opponents, but I'd argue that you need some degree of this to win any competitive tournament anyways. That being said, I feel like our area has some of the best Vintage players in the world and to able to compete and learn from them every tournament is a blessing.
I apologize to my opponents if I misremembered some details, please let me know.
Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope it was worth it!
-Joel "busy at work" Lim
tl;dr - I won...yay
