Eudemonia Jan Vintage Results! Pics! Lists!

[LotusHead]

19 people showed up to sling some vintage cards around! 5 rounds of swiss and we have our top 8:

1 Jeff Neilson (LotusHead: Forgemaster Shops)
2 Michael Lynch : 4 color Mentor Urwg
3 Ryan Reynolds : UR Landstill
4 Ryan Maddux : 4 color Mentor Urwb
5 Elliot Davidoff : Grixis Therapy
6 Michael Mekeel : Grixis Painter (Rich Shay build)
7 Eric Campusano : Grixis Control (now with 6 Jace's!)
8 Blaine Christiansen : Mono Red UbaStax

Top 4:
Jeff beat Blaine
Eric beat Michael L
Michael M Beat Ryan R
Ryan M beat Elliot
 
5-8 got $33 each, top 4 split for $85.75 each.

Pics and mini-report tomorrow.  Decks in order of top 8 standings:

 Jeff Neilson

1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Porcelain legionaire
3 Phyrexian metamorph
1 Myr Battlesphere
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 kuldatha Forgemaster
4 Lodestone Golem
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Trading Post
3 Sphere of Resistance
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Chalice of the Void
3 Tangle Wire
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Coercibe Portal
1 Trinisphere

Sideboard
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Witchbane Orb
1 Tangle Wire
3 Smokestack
1 Dismember
1 Duplicant
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Triskellion
2 Wurmcoil Engine

  Michael Lynch
1 Black lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
4 Gush
3 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Dig Through Time
2 Sylvan Library
1 Dack Fayden
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Pyroblast
1 Izzet Charm
1 Flusterstorm
1 Fire/Ice
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendillion Clique
3 Monastery Mento
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Island

Sideboard
4 Rest in Peace
3 Containment Priest
2 nature's Claim
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Sudden Shock
1 Ethersworn Cannonist

 Ryan Reynolds

4 Null Rod
1 Black lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Dack Fayden
1 Keranos, God of Storms
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Steam Vents
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Dig Through Time
1 Brainstorm
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4 Standstill
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Pierce
1 Treaure Cruise
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will

Sideboard

4 Graffdigger's Cage
3 Energy Flux
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Pyroclasm
3 Arcane Laboratory

 Ryan Maddux

3 Monestary Mento
1 Time Vault
4 Gush
1 Mox Pearl
1 dig through time
4 force of will
2 flusterstorm
2 tundra
1 swords to plowshares
1 vampiric tutor
4 Mental Mistep
1 Spell Pierce
3 Flooded Strand
1 Sol Ring
1 Pyroblast
4 Scalding tarn
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Voltaic Key
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Underground Sea
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
3 Volcanic Island
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 brainstorm
1 Black Lotus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Jace The Mind Sculptor
1 Dack Fayden
1 Island
1 Mox Jet

Sideboard

1 Mountain
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Energy Flux
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Pyroblast
3 Containment Priest
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wear/Tear

 Elliot Davidoff

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Dig through time
1 treasure Cruise
3 Gush
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Fluster Storm
2 Dack Fayden
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard

4 Ingot Chewer
2 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pulverize
1 Mountain
4 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Dread of Night

 Micheal Mekeel

3 Painter's Servant
2 Grindstone
1 Blightsteel Collossus
1 jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Dack Fayden
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Mana Drain
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Gush
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
2 Pyroblast
3 Redc Elemental Blast
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
2 island
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1 Thoughseize
1 Duress
1 Surgical Extraction
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
1 Ravenous Trap
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Illness in the ranks
1 Shattering Spree

Eric Campusano

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 yawgmoth's Will
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Time Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Voltaic Key
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Dack Fayden
4 Mental Misstep
2 mana Drain
1 Ponder
1 Dig Through Time
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Force of Will
2 Jace, The Mindsculptor
1 Brainstorm
2 Flusterstorm
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Scalding tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

Sideboard

4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
1 Illness in the Ranks
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Red Elemental Blast

Blaine Christiansen

4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Mountain
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Goblin Welder
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Uba Mask
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Trinisphere
1 Chalice of the Void

Sideboard

4 Graffdigger's Cage
2 Duplicant
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Null Rod


I leave you this pic of Blaine and I game 2 of round 2. Epic upon epic battles were had!


Me in game 1 round 1. I had awesome start, and somehow fucked it up.


Game 2 went a little better.


Aahz trying to do the shop thing (73 cards identical to BC's deck)


Elliot dies with 4 mental misstep in hand (I had Tormod's crypt/wasteland do my dirty work)


Aahz with tons of permanents vs victim.


Galen with good cards...


Galen declines to draw 7. Dustin Doomsday's next turn. Doh!


I think I'm doing good here vs BC...


Our youngest vintage player is now seasoned pro (2 years slugging it out now, I believe).


So yeah, taking out an ensnaring bridge takes patience. Blaine planned on decking me since I was drawing 2 cards to his 1 via Coersive Portal (heh)


He holds out till the very end.


Pretty sweet for Game 3, eh?


I give this 2 turns before packing it in for game 3.


Adam (left) has a DCI number with FOUR DIGITS!!!


See? Playing against Dredge is FUN! See proof on right side of pic!


Smennen braves the field with some old school tech. Between rounds, that is...


I might have survived this, I might not have. I don't remember.


BC vs Aahz round 5 win and in, vs each other.


Me vs BC in top 8. Just wanted to show off BC's bad ass altered Black Lotus!


Michael Lynch vs Eric Campusano


I fix the situation so I have the Crucible, and our Welders get revokered.


Round 1 Elliot Burk playing ???
I don't know who wins the die roll, but I keep a hand that gives me a Thorn of Amethyst and a turn 2 Forgemaster. He has Bazaar and draws and discards a Gravetroll and Stinkweed imp. I, for some reason, decide to play permanents then activate my Forgemaster on MY mainphase, getting Myr Battlesphere (I had 2 Phyrexian Metamorphs in hand, I figured that would be enough to seal the deal. I was wrong).  He unmasked on of the Metamorphed, dredged into 2 Bridge From Below (and to Narcomoebas) by the time I got around to playing Metamorph on Myr Battlesphere.  I could have done many, many other things instead. I could have killed 2 bridges by playing Metamorph, I could have turned a Factory into an Assembly Woker before I sacrified it to Forgemaster. I could have played a second sphere effect. Elliot burk pwned me with 12 Zombies and a zealot due to his now full graveyard, forcing me to chump with 8 myr tokens bringing me to 1 life. I lose next turn.
Game 2 and 3 he gets nothing going. He does play a Dark Depths which was worrisome, but my Tormod's Crypts sneaked past his Mental Missteps and I take the match.

ROund 2: Blaine playing Mono Red UbaStacks.  
Game 1: He gets smokestack out quickly, and probably a crucible or something to make me scoop quickly.
Game 2: He drops an early Ensnaring Bridge which lets us get to the game state you see in the above pick.
Game 3: I get a Smokestack and Crubile early. He has a Welder, I metamorph it. I get him to tap his welder to mess up my welding out his crucible for Null Rod (he reacts by welding out crucible for Smokestack). I then lay down my Phyrexian Revoker naming Welder and take the game from there (Duplicating both of his WurmCoil Engines in the process whoot!)

Round 3: Ryan Renolds playing UR something
Game 1: I kill him with 2 uncracked fetches and a wasteland in play. I don't know what to side in except a second crucible.
Game 2: He drops Energy Flux and I scoop a few turns later to Mishra Beats.
Game 3: He mulls to five, and I get a Smokestack to stick at 1 soot counter, and play a permanent every turn and take the match.

Round 4: Ryan Maddox playing Mentor
Game 1: I get the craziness out and he dies quickly.
Game 2: He plays an early Energy Flux and I scoop
Game 3: He answers my first 3 threats, then my spheres/wastes slow him down enough to get eaten up by factory and porcelain legionaire beats and I take the match

Round 5: ID with Michael Lynch.
I would have played it out, and he would likely make top 8 even if he lost, but I cut him some slack and ID'd with him as I am thrilled that he (probably still under 18) has been fighting his way into a Vintage Metagame, and we always need to players to enter our format.  No need to be a dick. (he's not a noob, just newish. Been in the meta 2 years now, I think.)

Top 8: Blaine
I don't remember these much (as they were a bit short), but mostly it involves my getting my singleton Crucible before his gets one of his 3 maindeck Crucibles. Or something. Blaine can fill in the details if he wants.

Now the plan is to convince my students tomorrow, that since I had 3 teeth extracted on Saturday (true), I wasn't able to grade stuff I said I'd grade. I had a terrible headache/toothache for 1 entire week, so I'm sure they'll buy it. Pics up tomorrow!

[eliotd]

Thanks for writing up all the lists Jeff.

Great event as always. Here's a report of my matches (with Grixis Therapy):

Round 1 vs. John playing my Dredge deck. John is mostly a Legacy player but is down to sling some Vintage and fielded a pretty standard Dredge list that we tinkered with a bit together during playtesting. Game 1 he keeps 7 and lays down a Bazaar. He misses the Bazaar draw on my end step turn 1 so starts off a little behind, but it doesn't make much difference. He starts dredging on his turn 2 and is off to the races. I manage to find Strip Mine on my turn 2 to get rid of his Bazaar, but by then it's too late. On turn 3 he makes a land drop with Petrified Field to bring his Bloodghasts out. I Force his Dread Return but he already has 3 Bridges in the yard so he winds up with 9 zombies anyway and I'm dead the following turn. Game 2 he keeps 7 again but I have a decent hand that can go get Cage with Demonic Tutor quickly, but he Missteps my Misstep on his Therapy and then finds a second Bazaar to totally go to town on his turn 2. 0-1.

Round 2 at the much more spacious and luxurious loser's table in the back room, vs. Adam playing UW Landstill. I don't remember too many details from this match but I believe in game 1 I got on a pretty solid roll involving Ancestral, Snapcaster back the Ancestral, etc to get way ahead and went the distance with Elemental tokens. Game 2 I Pyroblasted Adam's attempt to cast Standstill early on and he wasn't able to recover. 1-1.

Round 3 vs. Stephen playing Remora Pyromancers. Game 1 I Probed him and saw Pyromancer, Swords, Snapcaster and some other stuff, and then let Pyromancer resolve even though I clearly should have Forced it, which I realized the moment "OK" came out of my mouth, when I put together that even if I countered his Swords he could just Snap it back. I did then counter his Swords on my Pyro anyway, and then the following turn my mistake wound up not mattering because he pitched his Snapcaster to a Force. This game went relatively long with each of us having up to 3 Pyromancers out at some point but I was able to Bolt at least one of his and wound up with a superior token army to go the distance. Game 2 I had an awesome hand that included two Moxes and a Demonic Tutor but he opened with Volcanic, Lotus, sac Lotus for Blue, Mystic Remora, Pyromancer. Very fortunately for me I had Strip Mine in my opener so on my turn I just stripped his Volcanic to end the Remora right away. Unluckily for him he then didn't draw another land for quite a while and I was able to take it away. He said that he had Dack in hand and had considered playing that instead of the Pyro on turn 1 which would have been better given what wound up happening, but no real way to predict the one-of Strip Mine response - without that he would have had two turns in which I couldn't profitably cast anything and he would have gotten way ahead. 2-1.

Round 4 vs. Michael playing Sylvan Mentor. Game 1 we each played a lot of Gushes but mine found better stuff. I believe Michael took 8 to draw 3 off his Sylvan at one point, taking him down to 6. On my next turn I cast Dig Through Time and found 2 Lightning Bolts in my top 7, and had protection in my hand already, so that did it. Game 2 I Probed and saw Jace and Mentor, then decided to Therapy away the Jace on the theory that I had way more answers to a resolved Mentor. Next turn he wound up with quite a large army of Monks and I was starting to regret my decision, but I managed to get Dread of Night out, and then later got a second Dread of Night to kill the Mentor as well as the tokens, and he couldn't recover from that. 3-1.

Round 5 vs. Michael playing Painter. We ID'd and played out two unsideboarded games, both of which I lost. I was a little too excited to exile my blue Demonic Tutor to cast Force of Will when he had Painter's Servant in play but of course you can't pay the alternate cost for Force for flashback when it's in the graveyard. 3-1-1.

Top 8 vs. Ryan playing Mentor. Very swingy and interactive game 1 where I finally managed to pull ahead on tokens after dispatching his Mentor, and had lethal on the board for next turn when he cast Tinker. In play I had a Mox and two tapped lands, and in hand I had a Gush and a Dack Fayden. I considered Gushing to try to find a Force for the Tinker, but if I didn't get one, that would leave me one mana shy of being able to play Dack the next turn. Not knowing what he might get, and hoping it was Blightsteel, I decided to let Tinker resolve. Much to my dismay, he found Sphinx of the Steel Wind, the greatest unstealable artifact in the multiverse, and the game slipped from my grasp. (It turned out Force was 3 cards from the top, so I wouldn't have found it with the Gush anyway.) Game 2 I had two Dread of Nights in my opening hand so I knew I was in good shape. Managed to get them both out after he had already made some monks, and again built up my token army. I had Pyromancer and 2 tokens in play with him at 7, and attacked to bring him down to 3. I had cast Probe a few turns earlier so knew that he was holding two Flusterstorms and a Pyroblast. I tapped Ruby to cast Lightning Bolt for lethal, but unfortunately in my laziness thinking I had the game sewn up, failed to play either the land or the Black Lotus that were in my hand first, and only had 4 other untapped mana. He cast Flusterstorm twice, requiring 5 mana total, countering the Bolt. OK no big deal, I'll just attack for lethal next turn. For his final draw he topdecks Tinker, which nicely complements the Time Vault I hadn't seen which was also already in his hand. D'oh!!!! 3-2-1.

[mmmekeel]

I was on Painter.

Round 1: Eric Campusano 0-2 – Blowout

He gets an early big Jace both games, I was never really in either.

Game 1 I think he took my Grindstone with Dack to actually seal the deal, but it was a blowout.

Game 2 I was looking at a nice turn 2 Blightsteel, but he dropped turn 2 Big Jace so I had to get Grindstone instead and he won from there. We did learn that you can't have a flipped little Jace and a Big Jace out at the same time when the judge came by and noticed the strange game state, but all that flashed back Time Walk did was make it an even bigger blowout, I was nowhere close to winning either game.

Round 2: Bye. Crushed it.

Round 3: Dredge – 2-1 – Amazing match

Game 1: Turn 1 Painter, Turn 2 Grindstone, he Nature's Claims the Painter in response. Turn 3 Painter off the top, activate and win. At some point I REB'd a Bazaar in response to Fatestitcher in order to hamstring his combo.

Game 2: I have a god hand of something like Painter, Grindstone, Mox, Volcanic, REB, Sol Ring, Island. So many lines, I'd be interested to hear what others would have done here. I go mox, volcanic, tap mox for sol ring, he mental missteps. I decide NOT to REB it (saving it to force through my Grindstone, probably a mistake). He goes nuts and ends the turn with 5 zombies and a 10/10 Troll and Therapies my Painter. Turn 2 I draw Grindstone off the top, which means if I had REB'd the misstep and played Painter off my Sol Ring, he would have Therapied away the Grindstone in my hand, and I would have ripped Grindstone off the top and won. So, that decision combined with a classic turn 2 Dredge kill lost me the game, but I don't know what the probabilities really were. I guess against Dredge you probably always just jam it and protect immediately given the time frame.

Game 3: Turn 1 Grafdigger's cage with misstep backup. He EOT chain of vapors my cage, which I do NOT misstep, because after he dredges next turn (a lot of good stuff), I Ravenous Trap with Narcomoeba trigger on the stack. I replay Cage, and we grind it out for a long time with quite a few duels of Claim/CoV/Misstep/Therapy. Near the end, I draw my second Grindstone, he CoVs my Grindstone in play, which I allow, then he Therapies. Luckily, I still had one Mana Drain in the deck and could Drain the Therapy. I finally end it all on turn 3 of turns with two Grindstone activations WITHOUT Painter in play, one hitting Narcomoeba and CoV to double down, to take him to 0 cards.

Round 4: Dustin on Doomsday – 2-0
Game 1: Turn 3 Doomsday. REB the Lab Man in response to Ancestral with Force and Misstep backup.
Game 2: Turn 3 Doomsday. REB the Lab Man in response to Ancestral with Force backup. There was some confusion here over whether he had made a land drop on his fundamental turn. We sort of agreed he already had, which meant he had to expend a Force on my Demonic Tutor (which would have just gotten another Force for me). If he had been able to make another land drop, he could have won on his turn with an extra Force for my REB.

Round 5: ID with Eliot, as detailed above.

Top 8: Ryan Reynolds on Null Rod Landstill – 2-0
Game 1: He plays Faerie Conclave. I Mox, Volcanic Island, Lotus, Tinker Blightsteel with REB backup.
Game 2: He drops an early Null Rod, I'm trying to set up a sick Painter, REB the Null Rod, Grindstone type of victory, but then I just ripped Tinker off the top and Blightsteel wins. Tinker is broken.
These were two pretty non-interactive crappy games for him for sure.

Split top 4.

Great time. I'm looking forward to the next event!

[eliotd]

If Michael M beat Ryan R in top 8 then I think they need to be swapped in the ranking in the initial post?

[LotusHead]

If Michael M beat Ryan R in top 8 then I think they need to be swapped in the ranking in the initial post?

I posted the top 8 standings prior to actual top 8 happening.

[LandDestroyer]

Ryan Maddux

3 Monestary Mentor
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault

1 Jace The Mind Sculptor
1 Dack Fayden

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 tundra
1 Island
4 Scalding tarn

4 Gush
1 dig through time
4 force of will
2 flusterstorm
1 swords to plowshares
1 vampiric tutor
4 Mental Mistep
1 Spell Pierce
1 Pyroblast
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard

1 Mountain
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Energy Flux
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Pyroblast
3 Containment Priest
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wear/Tear

anyone have thoughts about his build?

also...is oath just not really showing up lately?

[LotusHead]

Pics are up in original post! Enjoy! I know I had a blast!

[Phele]

Ryan Maddux

3 Monestary Mentor
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault

1 Jace The Mind Sculptor
1 Dack Fayden

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 tundra
1 Island
4 Scalding tarn

4 Gush
1 dig through time
4 force of will
2 flusterstorm
1 swords to plowshares
1 vampiric tutor
4 Mental Mistep
1 Spell Pierce
1 Pyroblast
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard

1 Mountain
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Energy Flux
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Pyroblast
3 Containment Priest
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wear/Tear

anyone have thoughts about his build?

also...is oath just not really showing up lately?

Too many win conditions in my eyes. Could just work with two Mentors and either Tinker/Bot or Vault/Key and fill up the slots with more Planeswalkers/Snapcaster/Preordains/Probes. In general I like a mix of Mentor builds with elements of Grixis control but would use just a few key elements of both sides.

[LandDestroyer]

Ryan Maddux

3 Monestary Mentor
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault

1 Jace The Mind Sculptor
1 Dack Fayden

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 tundra
1 Island
4 Scalding tarn

4 Gush
1 dig through time
4 force of will
2 flusterstorm
1 swords to plowshares
1 vampiric tutor
4 Mental Mistep
1 Spell Pierce
1 Pyroblast
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard

1 Mountain
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Energy Flux
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Pyroblast
3 Containment Priest
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wear/Tear

anyone have thoughts about his build?

also...is oath just not really showing up lately?

Too many win conditions in my eyes. Could just work with two Mentors and either Tinker/Bot or Vault/Key and fill up the slots with more Planeswalkers/Snapcaster/Preordains/Probes. In general I like a mix of Mentor builds with elements of Grixis control but would use just a few key elements of both sides.

And see that's what usually attracts me to lists.  The ability to win on multiple axis with an autowin button

[kennypowers]

Jeff - thank you so much for posting all of this.  It was great to meet you and it was a lot of fun playing against you!

I'd also like to give a huge thanks to Elliot D for bringing a ton of old school decks so that we could jam a lot of games between rounds.

My name is Ryan and I'll go ahead and give a little tourney report and respond to a couple of comments people have made about my deck.

Pretournament: The night before, I was seriously considering playing grixis pyromancer.  I think it has OK game against shops and I liked the idea of having discard against storm.  Dread of night can really help against mentor and I've played a lot of Jeskai delver, so it seemed reasonable.  I also sleeved up a BUG deck that won a tournament in Europe because I love me a Deathrite Shaman and it seemed like wastelands wound be good against a meta that's usually heavy on shops and 4 colored decks.  Anyway, at the last minute, I decided to just play what I was comfortable with and it seemed to serve me well (I lost in the quarterfinals of a Eudo tournament a few months ago with an earlier version of this deck).

Round 1: Adam on standstill.

G1: Adam's a super nice guy and I really enjoyed my games with him.  Game 1 didn't go great.  I mulligan to 5 and lose in a grindfest to mishra's factory beats after Adam basically wasted all of my land away.  I scoop when he plays a crucible.  I showed Adam a mentor, but he was able to dispose of it pretty quickly.  However, he didn't see an underground sea, a tutor, or any of the grixis silliness in my deck.  I was a bit worried because game 1 took half an hour and I didn't want to draw.
G2: I only mulligan to 6 and win relatively quickly when I assemble vault key.  Adam was caught pretty offguard by this and re-sideboards
G3: similar to game 2.  Adam misteps my key when I'm trying to vault key, but I'm able to cast yawgmoth's will the next turn and rebuild the combo to finish the game.

Round 2: Aahz on Uba stax

G1: I keep a hand with mana crypt, a land, vault, key, and top.  I'm still nervous because I know I'm playing against shops (Aahz had looked through my deck and knew what ridiculousness I was playing, so there would be no surprises here).  I was able to get vault and key out, but not befor losing a bunch of life and before a sphere and a lodestone were in the field.  I ended up with a tinker in hand, but was a mana source away from tinkering away my mana crypt, which killed me.
G2: I had a sweet hand.  I landed dack and an energy flux.  I even stole a smokestack and put a soot counter on it.  It turned out ugly.
G3: Very similar to game 2

Round 3: Dustin on Doomsday

G1: Dustin forgets to force my turn 1 mentor and loses
G2: Dustin doomsdays.  I don't have a force, but I've got a million other counterspells and a swords to plowshares.  Dustin plays ancestral in his first draw after doomsdaying, which I counter.  I then counter a gush.  I end up landing vault key and winning.

Round 4: Jeff on Shops

G1: I got shops'd
G2: I land a turn 1 energy flux and Jeff scoops after a couple of turns
G3: I mulligan an opening hand with a land, an ancestral, and not much else out of fear that I'm just going to get sphered out.  My mulligan hand features 2 forces, a basic mountain, a chewer, and a blue card.  This draws the game out for a while. I end up landing an energy flux, but not until after Jeff has decimated my life total with a legionare and a factory.  Jeff's report spells out what happens well enough

Round 5: ID

Quarterfinals: Elliot's write up is spot on.  He didn't see the tinker coming in game 1 and I top decked the tinker to finish the combo in game 2.  I felt like I won game 2 only because Elliot made a mistake.  Still, it was a fun, interactive, and friendly game.

Deck thoughts/history:

Please keep this in mind as you read my thoughts: I'm not very good at Magic.  I make many basic deckbuilding mistakes and I don't even know if I take magic seriously enough to ever build anything really effective.  However, I do like to have fun.  One of my first decks that I really had fun with was when I starting adding Mentor to my delver list back when mentor came out (a lot of people were doing this), so I've always loved trying to cast a bunch of spells and make my mentor and tokens huge.  I also like broken stuff (because vintage is broken).  Anyway, about a month before eternal weekend last year, I put together v1 of this deck, which I have dubbed "Mentorlicious" (I've been playing it online- my handle is McNinjaSauce- since then if only because it's one of the few decks I have that I've taken the time to update after the dig restriction).  I play tested it against my friends Brian (on shops) and Eric (on Doomsday) for about 4 hours straight and just got destroyed.  So, I took BUG to eternal weekend and got destroyed playing that.

The original build had 4 mentors and the mana base was probably a little greedier than this mana base.  I just wanted to build a deck with a lot of bombs that people would want to counter and a diverse set of win conditions.  I like playing aggressively and I like doing broken stuff.  I don't think that this deck is all that innovative: it's just adding a few cards to the mentor deck to enable vault key and, if you have vault key, you may as well have a tinker bot.  Besides having fun, the other motive behind this deck was to have the possibility of a turn 1 kill because those are cool and sometimes you need something like that to win a game in an unfavorable situation (i.e. against storm).  I think I remember Rich Shay mentioning during VSL commentary that the reason why dragonlords are in the sylvan mentor decks is to go over the top in the mirrors.  I really like how sphinx does this (it really paid off vs. grixis delver in my quarterfinal) and sometimes it's just the right hay maker at just the right time.  It's also usually much cheaper to cast because of tinker.  That being said, I don't think that this deck is very good.  It's kind of hard to play because you get some weird draws (which leads to more mulligans) because the deck doesn't have one or two main game plans: it really has 3 with a Jace ultimate as plan 4.  This means that you have to be able to switch gears as cards come into your hand, which makes it tougher.  You also have to know when to pick fights and when to bait people.  There are times when I bait out a counterspell with wither a vault or a mentor to set up a win with something else.  There are times where Yawg's Will helps you put together your vault-key or it helps you build a sweet army of monks.  There are a lot of mini decisions that really influence what your game plan is at any point in time.  Anyway, the deck's multiple win conditions is a strength and it's lack of focus is a weakness.  I've been making a few tweaks here and there over the past month to make it smoother and a bit better (i.e cutting a mentor, a misdirection, a mystical tutor, and a underground sea for a spell pierce, a volcanic island, a treasure cruise, and a card that I can't remember right now).  I've also gone back and forth on the dack/jace split).  Still, it's a lot of fun to play and I've been working on foiling/beta-ing out as much of the deck as I can.

The other thing that clearly helped me was the element of surprise.  I clearly caught Adam and Elliot by surprise with tinkering.  Most people just don't splash black in their mentor lists (in part because it may not be very good).

Anyway, that's my deck and my tournament report.  Thanks for reading.

[LandDestroyer]

Jeff - thank you so much for posting all of this.  It was great to meet you and it was a lot of fun playing against you!

I'd also like to give a huge thanks to Elliot D for bringing a ton of old school decks so that we could jam a lot of games between rounds.

My name is Ryan and I'll go ahead and give a little tourney report and respond to a couple of comments people have made about my deck.

Pretournament: The night before, I was seriously considering playing grixis pyromancer.  I think it has OK game against shops and I liked the idea of having discard against storm.  Dread of night can really help against mentor and I've played a lot of Jeskai delver, so it seemed reasonable.  I also sleeved up a BUG deck that won a tournament in Europe because I love me a Deathrite Shaman and it seemed like wastelands wound be good against a meta that's usually heavy on shops and 4 colored decks.  Anyway, at the last minute, I decided to just play what I was comfortable with and it seemed to serve me well (I lost in the quarterfinals of a Eudo tournament a few months ago with an earlier version of this deck).

Round 1: Adam on standstill.

G1: Adam's a super nice guy and I really enjoyed my games with him.  Game 1 didn't go great.  I mulligan to 5 and lose in a grindfest to mishra's factory beats after Adam basically wasted all of my land away.  I scoop when he plays a crucible.  I showed Adam a mentor, but he was able to dispose of it pretty quickly.  However, he didn't see an underground sea, a tutor, or any of the grixis silliness in my deck.  I was a bit worried because game 1 took half an hour and I didn't want to draw.
G2: I only mulligan to 6 and win relatively quickly when I assemble vault key.  Adam was caught pretty offguard by this and re-sideboards
G3: similar to game 2.  Adam misteps my key when I'm trying to vault key, but I'm able to cast yawgmoth's will the next turn and rebuild the combo to finish the game.

Round 2: Aahz on Uba stax

G1: I keep a hand with mana crypt, a land, vault, key, and top.  I'm still nervous because I know I'm playing against shops (Aahz had looked through my deck and knew what ridiculousness I was playing, so there would be no surprises here).  I was able to get vault and key out, but not befor losing a bunch of life and before a sphere and a lodestone were in the field.  I ended up with a tinker in hand, but was a mana source away from tinkering away my mana crypt, which killed me.
G2: I had a sweet hand.  I landed dack and an energy flux.  I even stole a smokestack and put a soot counter on it.  It turned out ugly.
G3: Very similar to game 2

Round 3: Dustin on Doomsday

G1: Dustin forgets to force my turn 1 mentor and loses
G2: Dustin doomsdays.  I don't have a force, but I've got a million other counterspells and a swords to plowshares.  Dustin plays ancestral in his first draw after doomsdaying, which I counter.  I then counter a gush.  I end up landing vault key and winning.

Round 4: Jeff on Shops

G1: I got shops'd
G2: I land a turn 1 energy flux and Jeff scoops after a couple of turns
G3: I mulligan an opening hand with a land, an ancestral, and not much else out of fear that I'm just going to get sphered out.  My mulligan hand features 2 forces, a basic mountain, a chewer, and a blue card.  This draws the game out for a while. I end up landing an energy flux, but not until after Jeff has decimated my life total with a legionare and a factory.  Jeff's report spells out what happens well enough

Round 5: ID

Quarterfinals: Elliot's write up is spot on.  He didn't see the tinker coming in game 1 and I top decked the tinker to finish the combo in game 2.  I felt like I won game 2 only because Elliot made a mistake.  Still, it was a fun, interactive, and friendly game.

Deck thoughts/history:

Please keep this in mind as you read my thoughts: I'm not very good at Magic.  I make many basic deckbuilding mistakes and I don't even know if I take magic seriously enough to ever build anything really effective.  However, I do like to have fun.  One of my first decks that I really had fun with was when I starting adding Mentor to my delver list back when mentor came out (a lot of people were doing this), so I've always loved trying to cast a bunch of spells and make my mentor and tokens huge.  I also like broken stuff (because vintage is broken).  Anyway, about a month before eternal weekend last year, I put together v1 of this deck, which I have dubbed "Mentorlicious" (I've been playing it online- my handle is McNinjaSauce- since then if only because it's one of the few decks I have that I've taken the time to update after the dig restriction).  I play tested it against my friends Brian (on shops) and Eric (on Doomsday) for about 4 hours straight and just got destroyed.  So, I took BUG to eternal weekend and got destroyed playing that.

The original build had 4 mentors and the mana base was probably a little greedier than this mana base.  I just wanted to build a deck with a lot of bombs that people would want to counter and a diverse set of win conditions.  I like playing aggressively and I like doing broken stuff.  I don't think that this deck is all that innovative: it's just adding a few cards to the mentor deck to enable vault key and, if you have vault key, you may as well have a tinker bot.  Besides having fun, the other motive behind this deck was to have the possibility of a turn 1 kill because those are cool and sometimes you need something like that to win a game in an unfavorable situation (i.e. against storm).  I think I remember Rich Shay mentioning during VSL commentary that the reason why dragonlords are in the sylvan mentor decks is to go over the top in the mirrors.  I really like how sphinx does this (it really paid off vs. grixis delver in my quarterfinal) and sometimes it's just the right hay maker at just the right time.  It's also usually much cheaper to cast because of tinker.  That being said, I don't think that this deck is very good.  It's kind of hard to play because you get some weird draws (which leads to more mulligans) because the deck doesn't have one or two main game plans: it really has 3 with a Jace ultimate as plan 4.  This means that you have to be able to switch gears as cards come into your hand, which makes it tougher.  You also have to know when to pick fights and when to bait people.  There are times when I bait out a counterspell with wither a vault or a mentor to set up a win with something else.  There are times where Yawg's Will helps you put together your vault-key or it helps you build a sweet army of monks.  There are a lot of mini decisions that really influence what your game plan is at any point in time.  Anyway, the deck's multiple win conditions is a strength and it's lack of focus is a weakness.  I've been making a few tweaks here and there over the past month to make it smoother and a bit better (i.e cutting a mentor, a misdirection, a mystical tutor, and a underground sea for a spell pierce, a volcanic island, a treasure cruise, and a card that I can't remember right now).  I've also gone back and forth on the dack/jace split).  Still, it's a lot of fun to play and I've been working on foiling/beta-ing out as much of the deck as I can.

The other thing that clearly helped me was the element of surprise.  I clearly caught Adam and Elliot by surprise with tinkering.  Most people just don't splash black in their mentor lists (in part because it may not be very good).

Anyway, that's my deck and my tournament report.  Thanks for reading.

Thanks!  As you continue to develop this deck I'd love to read more. 

[Jeb Springfield]

Thanks to everyone for the decklists, pictures and tournament reports. I've enjoyed reading / seeing it all.