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Gencon Mox Tourney 2nd
by vroman

I played this

4 workshop
4 bazaar
4 badland
4 wasteland
stripmine
tomb yawg
5 mox
black lotus
sol ring
mana crypt
academy
blood mire
cabal pit
barbarian ring
trisphere
4 dark conf
4 welder
4 tangle
4 chalice
3 null
3 smoky
3 crucible
dtutor
vtutor
imp seal
d consultation
side
2 heretic
2 maze ith
2 darkblast
3 tormod
3 jester
3 ensnaring

I opted for the black splash over straight red uba, for several reasons.
dconf + bazaar is effectively a free strategic planning 4 deep every turn which
turns out to be better than just drawing 3/turn from ubazaar, bc usually only
one of those cards will be relevant anyway and the rest are extra lands and
redundant locks. so digging 1 deeper is more useful, and w welder/crucible on
board, the discards become assets as well.
also w the prevalent artifact destuction/bounce options available I wanted to
diversify my draw engine. dconf also attacks for 2/turn which is a revolutionary
upgrade in the stax clock of my experience. the other thing black offers is of
course tutors. I have trinisphere in play so much more often now. thats nice.
basically this list was taken from what Twaun played 6 weeks or so ago, w -4
resistor and +4 tutor.
Im quite happy w how the main deck performed. Im on the fence about finding room
for a darkblast main, possibly over imperial seal.
sideboard, I was expecting more fish/hate/ichorid. I faced one ichorid deck all
weekend and zero fish. other than the icky round, I never sided in tormod or
maze, and sometimes boarded in maybe 1of ensnaring as tutor option vs inkwell.
so my board was basicaly jester and darkblast, both of which were quite helpful.
Im definitely reconstructing this as
2 heretic
2 ensnaring
2 tormod
2 darkblast
3 jester
4 amethyst

brief comments about worlds. it was a clusterfuck. due to some sloppy planning
our car showed up late and we werent registered until about 11:15, so we got
paired against each other. I was working on about 4hrs sleep and was stressed
and on tilt. I made some stupid mistakes and lost the stax mirror of all things
to become 2-2, and out.
I slept for 11 hours in the best hotel Ive ever had for a magic trip, which
colin wu subletted to us at half price, bc he got two free rooms from Sony for
winning a legends of norath qualifier.
for the saturday tourney I was feeling a lot better.

round 1 vs David Williams w drain-storm

I like to think having a celebrity poker player enter a vintage event gives some
cred to our format/game, and despite being at geek-mecca, inflated my sense of
superiority.
things start out quite rosy. I win the roll and lead w chalice@0 and a land.
Williams frowns at this for awhile and then just plays tolarian academy go. Win.
formalities of locking him take some turns, but I get welder and smoky, etc and
he doesnt cast a single spell.
game 2 Williams plays island, ponder, emerald, mana crypt. I have decent hand
but then get happy topdecking null rod w badlands+mox. he starts building up
lands and playing draw spells, I get turn 2 dconf. I have yet to draw a
wasteland, but have trinisphere and chalice@1, vs his 4 lands. he has 2xcity
brass and is losing crypt rolls and being attacked by dconf, life dropping fast.
finally he hurkyls end-step going to 3, but wins the roll, and twisters.
Williams plays some more spells going to 1 from brass, but ends the turn w 13
goblins in play, 1 of which has an activated ability which swaps out artifacts.
so he still has to win 1 more crypt roll in order to stabilize. however I dont
give him the chance. Im holding b-ring I drew off twister, but empty yard. I end
step bazaar, then mainphase bazaar, then attack w my welder+dconf into his
warrens crowd. williams obv blocks being at 1, and now I have 8 cards in yard
and 2nd main land-drop him to death. also noteworthy is after b-ring ability is
on the stack, Williams makes me justify that each land I have was played on a
previous turn, which I am easily able to recall and convince him, but Ive since
been informed its unreasonable for me to have do this.

round 2 vs ritual tendrils
enemy mulls to 5 and plays u-sea go. I have lotus in hand which allows turn 1
dconf+chalice@1. enemy makes land drop and dtutors. I get crucible or something.
enemy casts recall into my chalice and then concedes.
game 2 he plays land->go again. I get turn 1 workshop->trisphere on the draw,
forced. enemy misses land drop and passes back. I draw some cards w bazaar and
play mana. enemy vamps end step and then recalls main phase to play a land+mox
d-conf. I play null rod and pass. he reveals land off dconf and attacks 2. I
play something but doesnt matter bc he rebuild end step and proceeds to twister.
however this just ends up getting him another dconf and diving top. meanwhile my
7 has workshop and jester and he scoops.

round 3 vs ritual tendrils
this guy made top8
I win the roll and lead w chalice@0 again. enemy gets turn 1 ritual necro and
draws many cards. he plays mana vault and tinkers up inkwell. but he has only 3
permanents, and Im holding tangle, which resolves. enemy draws down to 2 life,
and I dtutor for stripmine. I luck into crucible and his permanent count is
keeping pace w my fading. he draws his last card and then just passes over and
over when I get another tangle. finally I vamp for welder and just attack once
ftw, wo taking a single inkwell swing over the course of 8 turns. this is why I
still play 4xtangle and went down to 3 of most the other locks.
game 2
these games start to run together since I played vs storm 6 out of 8 matches
this tourney. enemy on the play and won turn 2-3. I think I had turn 1 null rod
to turn off his mana vault but he got a endstep rebuild and yawgwinned.
game 3
I lead w chalice@0. I get turn 2 dconf, enemy is playing lands. I cast turn 3
chalice@1, he vamps in response, obv for rebuild. next turn I dtutor for
stripmine, and he commits to the mainphase rebuild rather than try to draw more
land later. this was a clear misplay since chalice@0 had stunted him so bad. I
replay chalice@0 and its forced, then play the other chalice@0. he has an
uneventful turn and I draw more locks off dconf and strangle him out.

round 4 vs giani francesco tournament winner w ritual tendrils
game 1
I lose roll. giani plays land go. I drop turn 1 trinisphere, followed by maybe
tangle and other stuff. he doesnt play any spells.
game 2
giani plays land go. I get turn 1 jester activated. I take tendrils, inkwell,
and then have to think awhile for the last card. I see 4xdconf, which are
conceivably his last wincons unless hes holding another tendrils in hand. I take
one of the dconfs which is clearly terrible since the reduced utility of 3 vs 4
dconfs in library is pretty small compared to the utility of yawgwill if he
still has a tendrils in hand. I should have gambled on removing the much bigger
unknown threat, over the minor known threat. anyway the details of the game dont
matter much bc Im drawing from dconfs and giani is doing the usual combo game
plan to stay alive until he can rebuild, tutor for yawgwill and go nuts w the
tendrils he does indeed still have in hand. so the obvious lesson here is always
take yawgwill if there are less than 3 wincons available or you will look like a
jackass when you squander a turn 1 jester ftl.
game 3
I mul and am stuck w waste+mox->null. I have bazaar to draw, but being down a
card on the play I will only get one activation before Im stuck topdecking w
minimal mana. giani has dconf which reveals a force at one point and he just
waltzes around my null until he tinkers inkwell. I take a dead drawstep and then
just concede to his counter in hand.

the tournament takes a fun break for awhile when a fire alarm goes off after
this round and 25,000 people are evacuated from gencon. I suck down another
cigarette and eat half a plate of chinese food, well out of sight of Colin.

round 5 vs jimmy mccarthy w ritual tendrils
game 1
I lose roll and I think he mulled to 5. I have mad cutting skillz. he plays
land+petal. I have turn 1 trisphere. I tutor for crucible+strip while mccarthy
is building up lands, and he has one chance to do something w 3 mana but opts
not to rebuild on his mainphase, which apparently would have gotten him sol ring
in play, but not a win right then. it wouldnt have mattered bc I drew null rod
next turn.
game 2
he says u-sea go. I waste it. he vamps in response. then he does nothing on his
turn and passes w no permanents. I have to think for a minute as to what this
implies. I assume its some kind of explosive hand that is one mana or storm
short, most likely centered on black lotus. mccarthy takes an awful risk giving
that kind of information to stax and passing the turn. I d-consult for chalice
and play it at zero. then next turn play blank and he scoops.

round 6
draw w mike solymossy

top 8 vs dan carp w tezeret
I cant recall ever playing against this carp brother before, though Ive faced
Ben like 6 times.
game 1 I win the roll maybe and have chalice@0-1-3 by turn 3. carp merchant
scrolls on like turn 8 to confirm he is not maindecking either hurkyls or
echoing truth and concedes.
game 2 carp mulls to 5 (this is my secret apparently). he gets turn 1 fetch. I
play dconf off mana crypt and chalice@0. he plays turn 2 planar void. note:
planar void is terrible vs stax bc its a trigger which welder can respond to. I
of course completely forgot this bc I havent played against planar void since
the 80s. anyway this causes me to bazaar away my welder which I mistakenly
thought was humilitied. I jester carp like 3 times, and am quite sure hes left w
a pile of draw and counterspells hes more than welcome to cycle through. however
I am hemohraging life to dconf and crypt. I try to darkblast bob the traitor,
but carp counters, and again Im shamed for not remembering I could bazaar in
response to planar void and dredge back my blast. I get smoky the next turn
which ends the threat represented by my own board, stabilizing at 4 life. carp
scoops rather than wait for me to draw a welder to bash him with.

top 4 vs Itou Himonichi World Champion w tezeret
game 1 I lose roll. Itou mulls to 5. he is the most stereotypically japanese
person Ive ever met, w the L and R transposition and such. ie when he said "No
land" I thought he said "Null Rod". He has giddy japanese monolouges at almost
every priority pass. anyway his 5 results in turn 1 island, diving top, lotus. I
have turn 1 trisphere. he looks w top to make a land drop. I play turn 2 tangle.
I develop some mana while he is temporarily out of the game, and play welder,
which he breaks lotus to darkblast. I have drawn waste and then resolve
smokestack confirming the hard lock. this is untimed round so Itou wisely makes
me play it out to see my deck.
game 2
I get turn 1 dconf off mana crypt again, the card advantage from which
establishes a pretty good soft lock of some kind. I get smoky to quench the
bleeding, but Itou rack-ruins it before I can back-soot. Itou has basically no
board and I have total control of the game. I manage to dblast my dconf and
resolve welder, but I am one crypt roll away from welding it out, and lose. at
one point Itou evoked an ingot chewer on something.
game 3
I get turn 1 dconf off a painless mana source this time, and Itou matches it.
his first dconf reveal is rack and ruin, but then I get darkblast and kill his
dconf. I draw jester and hit his primary wins, and weirdly only find 3 force of
will. I also see zero ingot chewer, and he has 4 cards in hand, which I conclude
are [force, ingot, ingot, rack-ruin], explaining why he didnt force jester. so I
assume that now that he has no tinker targets or infi-turn plan, he is going to
hardcast ingot as soon as he has 5 mana and hill giant me to death. I further
assume this means Im going to need to keep dconf alive to block+dblast. I draw a
tutor and get another jester bc he has endless destruction in hand. I take out 2
darkblast and pyroclasm. he still has 3 dconf and more removal. Im unconcerned
by dconf since I have dblast. he tinkers for diving top. then I draw another
tutor, while clocking him 2/turn. I of course get another jester since his same
3 anti-artifact spells are in hand. I take more removal, but he still had 1 more
pyroclasm left. I draw welder, but slowroll it for additional beats in case he
gets pclasm. my bob is very kind to me this game after shatting on me game 2.
Itou finally gets to 5 mana, bc Ive drawn a lot of wastes, and I brace for the
3/3 on my lone mox, but it doesnt come. eventually I kill him anti-climactically
bc he really has zero outs and explains he boarded out ingot for game 3. wtf?

finals vs francesco again
I wanted to arrange a split, but the complications of negotiating relative price
of a ftv:exile box vs played emerald w non-native english speaker, especially
since I was afraid he would be under the impression I was just trying to avoid a
bad matchup seeing as I lost to him earlier. the matchup is irrelevent, I just
dont like to gamble $100+ on best 2 out of 3 games of magic. anyway I faced
tendrils all day and got this far.
game 1 I lose the roll. francesco mulls to five. ALL DAY Im getting free hymn to
tourachs on ppl. however, this time it doesnt help me, bc he gets turn 1 dconf
and turn 2 twister to erase the muls. my twister hand is godawful w 2xsmoky, 2x
crucible, 3xland 0xanything relevant vs tendrils. he wins the next turn off
naturally drawn yawgwill.
game 2 I mul to 6 and have turn 1 badland->welder+chalice@0 w [academy, tangle,
blank] in hand. gianni plays island+sol ring. I draw lotus. so my options are to
either deal w the mana I know about or continue to hold off unknown amount of
mana in hand. I take probably an idiotic gamble and play lotus into my chalice,
weld out chalice for lotus and play tangle. he of course is holding lotus and
rituals, and bounces my welder and sets up a ton of artifacts and dtutors. I
draw dconsult and try for another chalice, just to make his yawgwill worse, but
giani forces chalice, and then wins the next turn handily.

its 2am and I immediately flip the ftv box for $90 and get on the road. Id have
to say honestly of the pool of like 30 vintage players who all cycle through the
top8s of every event, Im playing at maybe average level. 3-4yrs ago I am not too
humble to say I was perfect. I knew every play every time wo hesitation. despite
testing pretty seriously the last month or so I have not gotten back to that
level yet. there are times when I move too fast, or just dont really know whats
the best option.
despite the disaster day one, gencon was worth the trip, and after selling some
unplayable old junk I finished well in the black. also, I beat a millionaire and
the world champion. vintage is picking up in stl again and I will probably try
to regain a set of power, so life is good. lastly, good job to greg keithley who
rode w me and started playing vintage about 3 weeks ago and went 4-2 in his
first tourney w his rigorously tested rogue ichorid-reanimator deck. and of
course congrats to colin who Im proud to know.