MTGO Power 9 Challenge 10/24/15

[ajfirecracker]

A whopping 100 players turned out today for the Power 9 Challenge online. In a world where we struggle to make 12 players for a Daily, it was absolutely wonderful to see so many Vintage mages come out of the woodwork to compete for real Vintage prizes.

Edit: Top 16 Decklists are available on the Wizards site. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/vintage-premier-2015-10-25
Congratulations to all the high finishers and thanks to Prospector for the link.

I saw a lot of streamers performing well in this event, hopefully some of them will chime in with their experiences and tournament reports.

I recorded my matches en route to an 12th/100 finish available here. I was a couple slots worth of tiebreakers out of Top 8, but fortunately did at least get my entry "refunded" by winning the prize of 250 Play Points.

edit: Standings in the event said I was 11th, WotC site says 12th. I've changed to 12th here.

[Minkar]

Is there no commentary for rounds 2 and 3, or is my Youtube just busted?

[ajfirecracker]

Pretty sure I lost the audio on those. Not sure what happened - maybe I had the mic off accidentally.

Edit: Round 2/3 I've added audio after-the-fact.

[The Atog Lord]

I made top eight. I streamed every round. They're all on my Twitch page.

Here is what I played:

1 Blightsteel Colossus
3 Painter's Servant
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mana Crypt
2 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Dig Through Time
1 Mana Drain
1 Ponder
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Force of Will
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Mental Misstep
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Brainstorm
2 Gush
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Black Lotus
1 Tinker
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Grindstone
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Dack Fayden
1 Island

2 Shattering Spree
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Thoughtseize
2 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Illness in the Ranks
1 Mountain

[Prospector]

Top 16 decklists here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/vintage-premier-2015-10-25

[desolutionist]

Every pillar is in that top 16 with even distribution

[jimmycolorado]

Man, bonkers top 8, lots of diversity all around. What a time to be alive: we got robots on Mars and Dark Times in the top 8 haha

[tito del monte]

I find it interesting that this Top 8 is more of a coming-out for Baby Jace than it is Thirst. Seems like he's popping up everywhere at the moment. I've enjoyed playing with him so far, but sometimes miss Big Jace's ability to generate cards without the need to do anything... might try a mixture in the future.

Also, apologies if this is obvious, is Sammich a TMD user? I gave the deck a quick spin last night and was curious about sideboarding. When should the Blightsteels be coming in? Also, are the Expedition Maps mainly for grabbing Academy when you're pumping out Myr?

I chatted briefly to Thiim on MTGO - must say, really like his Shops-Depths list, something I know has been talked about on these boards before. Did anyone face it/get an idea of the strengths weaknesses?

It will be interesting to see if these more aggro/combo lists are the best bet for Workshop decks going forward - or if the Terra Nova style lists do have the staying power in the new meta.

All in all, a fun tournament (I went 4-3 with LSV's list after punting very hard against Oath). Look forward to the next one!

[Thiim]

I believe that s4mmich only ran the pair of Blightsteel Colussus to troll theatoglord and brassman.

I think the biggest weakness for my deck, that was actually played during this tournament a lot was: Swords to Plowshares, that's why I ran the 2 Spellskite.

This was how my tournament went:

R1: 2-0 win vs. Uwr Mentor
R2: 2-0 win vs. Dredge(transform sb)
R3: 2-1 win vs. KellyOath
R4: 2-0 win vs. Dredge(transform sb)
R5: 2-1 win vs. Dredge
R6: 0-2 loss vs. Affinity MUD(lost to my mana crypt, the turn I had the kill in g1 & mulled to 4 in g2. but tiny robots probably isn't my best MU anyway.)
R7: 2-1 win vs. Dredge

top 8 Lost to LSV on Mentor 0-2.

I was surprised by the number of dredge decks I faced and really happy with the two main cages which helped me win three g1 vs Dredge.

[ajfirecracker]

Wow, I had the impression from playing/the little bit of streams I got to check out that there wasn't all that much Dredge, and it was just winning. It looks like maybe there was just a ton of Dredge.

For the transformative sideboard lists, were they "normal" Dredge with a Marit Lage plan, or more counterspell-heavy?

I've found the Marit Lage Dredge sideboard against a Dark Depths opponent to be a very tricky matchup. I definitely misplayed it the first time or two I played it - it's especially risky to throw out a Dark Depths and especially valuable to hold up Thespian's Stage. (so that you can avoid your opponent comboing off your Depths or do so yourself). How big of an issue was that in your matches?

[p3temangus]

Unless I miscounted...8 copies of Gush, Thirst for Knowledge and Workshop (and innovative workshop lists at that) each in the top 8 and a BUG Fish list with Bob as the primary draw engine takes the whole thing down...diversity is clearly more than an and old old wooden ship from civil war times.

[Thiim]

Wow, I had the impression from playing/the little bit of streams I got to check out that there wasn't all that much Dredge, and it was just winning. It looks like maybe there was just a ton of Dredge.

For the transformative sideboard lists, were they "normal" Dredge with a Marit Lage plan, or more counterspell-heavy?

I've found the Marit Lage Dredge sideboard against a Dark Depths opponent to be a very tricky matchup. I definitely misplayed it the first time or two I played it - it's especially risky to throw out a Dark Depths and especially valuable to hold up Thespian's Stage. (so that you can avoid your opponent comboing off your Depths or do so yourself). How big of an issue was that in your matches?

The two lists seemed identical to me, with chancellor of the annex, library, 4 fow, 4 misstep, 4 mindbreak trap. They never got to combo off in our matches, either because they lacked the one of the two lands or both, or I wastelanded them or I was faster at comboing due to mana acceleration. I boarded in Karakas in case they they would assemble the combo. Initially it's for Oath and MUD(metamorph's) but I guess it was good in these matches as well, though it didnt play a role.

[CHaPuZaS]

I've been out of playing Vintage tournaments for almost three years and I am really happy of the turnout of the Power9 Challenge event. The prize awarded weren't cool enough for the assistance, probably, but the "Power9" thing was cool enough to gather more than a hundred players from around the world. This will lead to people talking about the format and buying Vintage decks in MTGO. I've already seen a pair of friends talking about it, and that's good news for everybody.

In case you want to watch a bit of how TezzCast works, I streamed my way to the Top 8 in my Twitch account, and I uploaded the first 6 rounds to my YouTube channel. All I can say is that the deck works as nicely as when it was created 6 years ago, as I know nothing about the metagame and I was able to Top 8 twice in the only two big events I've played. Also, Rodrigo Togores was able to win the Ovino Tournament with it a few weeks ago.

[ajfirecracker]

The thing that blows my mind: Wizards just printed a digital set of P9 outside of a VMA release

[diophan]

The thing that blows my mind: Wizards just printed a digital set of P9 outside of a VMA release

And I had to use the recall to buy half a baby Jace