(and Cedric doesn't think it's too hot either)
I split the top 4 of the TDG on the 19th, and I figured I'd write up a tournament report.
I was on U/W Stoneforge.
Round 1, Chris Pau: Game 1, I have the maindecked Disenchant for his Oath of Druids. Stoneforge fetches up a Sword of Feast and Famine, and we're soon in "you have no cards, I have 3 counterspells...you want to give up"? Game 2 is a comedy. Chris smartly casts Oath with Force backup on turn 2. I Disenchant, he Forces, and I'm short a blue card to cast my own Force of Will. I look at the board dejectedly, and pass the turn to him. He resolves his Oath trigger...and whaddaya know, Griselbrand is 3 cards from the bottom. Chris has, in a tragic turn of events, boarded out his Memory's Journey, and scoops his cards up. Sometimes, Vintage happens?
Round 2, I forget (though I've played him before--nice guy): He's on Merfolk. Game 1, he keeps an awkward 6, strips me, Wastes me, the discards for 3 turns waiting for a 4th mana source. In the mean time, I assemble Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, and he taps out to the might of the Skull. Game 2, I stumble a little bit, and am swiftly overrun by Fishes. Game 3, I play out a line where I cast Jace as bait...and it resolves. I Brainstorm, kill a man with Swords to keep my Jace, and resolve Moat the next turn. So long, farewell, merfolk.
Round 3, Nick DiJohn: Game 1 is a long drawn out affair, where Nick has a million sphere effects, but is a little low on mana, and I've got all the lands in the world. He eventually resolves a Forgemaster via Cavern of Souls, and activates it. I've been on the Snapcaster beatdown plan, so he's a little low on life. He decides that Staff of Nin to clear my board is correct. Unfortunately, he's sac'd a sphere, revoker, and his Forgemaster to forge, and gives me an opening to reosolve a Jace, now that I'm 1 Spheres and and extra mana source clear. I bounce a Lodestone, and while the Staff deals with Jace, restoration angel+Time Walk is enough for lethal. Game 2 lasts all of 15 seconds, when I keep a sketchy 6 with Swords and Steel Sabotage as my interaction, he casts thorn, I play an Island, he plays strip Mine+Lodestone Golem, and I concede. Game 3 he mulls to 5, does nothing, and dies. That was unfortunate for him.
Round 4, Joel Lim: Fish Fish Fish! Game 1, I have double Swords+Stoneforge Mystic+Jace. This ends the game in short order, and we're off to game 2. Game 2 is a sad one, because I lose to the judge staff (and myself). I, somewhere along the line, accidentally drop a card, and neither Joel nor I notice. Long story short I cast Stoneforge, it gets Dismembered, he casts True-Name, I cast Humility. Then I cast Batterskull. Then I cast Jace. Game should be over (or some very reasonable facsimile of over), but a judge is called over for a question about Humility, and notices the card. I get game lossed, and lose game 3 in a very short "I mulled to 5, he had Lotus+Lord+Lord" affair.
Round 5, Vincent Pau: Game 1, he casts Oath, I have the maindeck Disenchant, and Stoneforge Mystic and Sword of Feast and Famine put him out of the game in short order. Sound familiar?
. Game 2, He resolves oath, but Sensei's Top allows me to find the appropriate answers (Council's Judgment, in this case), and I Jace him out.
Round 6, Tom Dixon: It just wouldn't be a Vintage event if I didn't get paired against Tom, would it? I convince Tom that we're very low odds to get knocked out on breakers, and that works out for both of us. (Basically, the math was that we both had better breakers than the 10 pointers. I reasoned that we'd both improve our breakers by playing each other, while the 10 pointers went down in breakers because they were paired down, so barring some super weird results outside of the relevant matches, we were fine).
QF, Rob (?): Game 1, he has an awkward mull to 5, Strips me, then dies to Stoneforge Mystic. Game 2, I mull to 5, and am put out of the game in short order. Game 3, I'm on 8 life, and this is the second to last real turn to do something, even though he's mulled to 5. Cast Jace with 1 up, hoping to find a white source. There's Black Lotus. Here's Moat. Ballgame.
Top 4 splits.
Some commentary on the deck: to those who want to cut Jace entirely, without him being a non-bo with some other part of your deck, you are, respectfully, wrong. I think the days of 4 Jace are over, but he does too much against too many decks. He's clunky, but you can cast this card in the early turns without too much help (unlike, e.g., Magus of the Future, which is better in play, but harder to cast), and is the empty board threat I find I sometimes need (anyone who thinks the average Fact or Fiction just ends the game from parity is kidding themselves. It's very good, but it's percentage of bricking off is higher than people would admit. Jace *ends* the game).
Moat is the bee's knees when you play Merfolk 3 times. Humility is also very good. Despite the argument of "4 mana is a lot", I think that the right way to approach the matchup is to slam game winners and hope. Pieces like Moat, once they stick, are virtually unbeatable, so if I'm going to hope and pray, Moat's that I'm going to slam down.
Shops matchup is very, very 50/50. I beat Nick because my draw (all the lands) matched up with his (all the spheres). If he had a bunch of threats, I would have lost...but the threat hand loses to me having interaction (see: Nick and my match at the NYSE). I think it's largely a case of "does my draw match up?", and as a rule, that only happens some of the time.
Oath of Druids is shockingly positive for the deck. My last 4 sanctioned matches against Oath are all wins--against Fenton, John Grudzina, and the Pau bros--hardly a group of incompetents. I admittedly have gotten a bit lucky, but in my humble estimation, it looks like game 1 is centered around the singleton disenchant and early creature based pressure (the Feast and Famine helps here--if you get them low, Griselbrand is often irrelevant, and Feast and Famine puts them into topdeck mode), and games 2 and 3 are ones where your disruption is much better than their anti-disruption. Again, grain of salt, since it's small sample size, but I no longer dread getting matched up against Oath. It's not super positive, but I think it's better than the "miserable" I had it pegged at.
For those interested in my deck, here's what I played:
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Batterskull
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Misstep
3 Mana Drain
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Disenchant
1 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
5 Mox
3 Lotus/Crypt/Ring
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
