This past weekend, I lived the dream of every Vintage tournament player: I won the Vintage World Championships. As I sat there at the final table across from The Brassman himself, I could feel the intense pressure of that match. Then it all came down to one Mana Crypt die roll. Evens, I win, odds, he goes broken and we could possibly go into sudden death tiebreaker. I called out, "Evens always" and watched the die roll on to a 6. I tapped a Gemstone Mine to produce Red mana, sacrificed my Barbarian Ring, and dealt the last bit of damage to securely the match win. An explosion of applause followed as I shook hands with Andy Probasco.
Now that's something I'll never forget. As for the rest of the tournament, here's what I played and how I did it:
ChangStax 2005
The 7 Rounds of Swiss
Round 1 vs. Josh Alvarez (U/W Metagame Hate)
The last time I saw Josh, we played a couple of matches at Origins in a few Vintage events and he ran Meandeck Gifts. My guess is that after Origins, he figured out a way to beat the tier one decks with his new creation: U/W Hate. I have to admit that having running into one of these decks in the early rounds shook up my confidence a lot. His two main threats against my deck included Kataki, War's Wage and Samurai of the Pale Curtain; two solid threats that lock down my deck. The Katakis acted as an Energy Flux beatstick, while the Samurai shut down any possibility of welding anything back in or using Crucible of Worlds.
Game 1 - I won the die roll and kept a suboptimal hand with a first turn Goblin Welder, so I went Gemstone Mine, Welder, go. After it resolved, I felt confident that I was not playing against any sort of control. To my surprise, on his first turn, he played a Black Lotus, fetchland, cracked the Lotus for White, and then removed my Welder with Swords to Plowshares. Then he used the remaining White floating mana to cast his Kataki, War's Wage. I had never dealt with Kataki before, but I knew I had my work cut out for me. The miniature Energy Flux on turn 1 required that I tap out every turn just to keep artifacts in play. I had no real answer to this new threat except Balance and my own Swords to Plowshares, none of which popped up in this game. During the next few turns, he established control by countering any possible threat I had.
Sideboard:
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Sphere of Resistance
-1 Tangle Wire
+2 Choke
+3 Red Elemental Blast
You may wonder why I took out the Thirsts. I always do this against control decks so I can cast more important spells that are reactionary or threats. Also, I took out one of each of the lesser important lock components to make space.
Game 2 - Josh mulliganed down to four cards, but I smelled a Force of Will waiting for me. It turned out that he FoW'd, removing a FoW, to counter my first turn Trinisphere. On his turn, he dropped a Black Lotus and a land, and then passed the turn. I wrecked him with a Tinker to Sundering Titan the next turn, destroying some of his vulnerable mana supply. Titan swung away for the kill.
Sideboard:
No change.
Game 3 - Josh definitely drew the nuts against my deck in this game. For the third time this match, he played his Black Lotus. His first turn play went Tundra, Lotus, Samurai, and Kataki. I just about scooped when I saw that incredible play and looked down at my hand. Here I held a Mishra's Workshop, Tangle Wire, a couple of Wastelands, a Goblin Welder, an off-color Mox, and Balance. Having that Balance kept my hopes up, but I did not have a colored source of mana to play it. I took 4 damage to the head for 5 straight turns, unable to find a Gemstone Mine or City of Brass.
My loss here revealed some threats to Stax in the future metagame. In my opinion, Josh's deck used new small White critters from Kamigawa to produce a wrecking ball for the metagame. I really wondered how he did not make it into the Top 8 with such a powerful set of answers against today's top decks. Now that I saw Kataki being played, I knew what I had to do whenever I saw it. Either I would have to bring out Tolarian Academy out to pay all of the upkeep mana, or somehow resolve a Balance.
Record: 0-1-0
Round 2 vs. CJ Inman (Control Slaver?)
Even before I sat down, CJ shocked me with some great news. He had misregistered the number of cards in his sideboard; therefore I would receive a free game win. Inside, I cheered, but like most of you spectators know, I'm not the most animated person when playing a match and I held back my emotions. I really needed that extra game win, especially having to deal with the Hate.dec in the previous round. After getting shuffled up, we rolled the die and I won the high roll, but a judge came around to tell me that CJ would be going first. I guess he deserved to go first at least.
Game 2 - I don't remember much from this match, since it was over before we even played. CJ still looked distraught from the deck registration screw up, so I hoped to put him out of his misery with a quick win. Since we did not have a clue what the other played, no sideboard switches occurred. In this game, I established an early Crucible/Strip lock followed by a Smokestack and a Sundering Titan for the kill.
I don't know how many times I heard about people losing games for messing up the deck registration process at this tournament. Seriously people, double-check the list before you turn it in! It puts yourself at an automatic disadvantage against your opponents and in a tough field like this it can really hurt your chances.
Record: 1-1-0
Round 3 vs. Greg Leonard (Deck?)
So who am I to preach about deck registering mistakes when I almost miss my next match? I think I had a legitimate excuse though. Across the room, I only needed a minute longer for Mark Tedin to sign and alter up my Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault even though I heard them announce pairings were already up. With a record of 1 win and 1 loss, the day could have gone in either direction, so at that point in the day, getting my cards signed seemed a little more important to me than my next match. My cards are looking sweeter every tournament I go to though. All I need is more Beta Power! (Don't we all?)
I sat down and immediately apologized for my tardiness and Greg said, "It's fine." I'm sure he would have loved a free game win. Then I realized I had misplaced my notebook somewhere. Luckily, Matt Morrison of GWS kindly lent me a piece of scrap paper from his notebook so I could jot down life totals. Sadly enough, that's mostly what I did for this match. I wrote down life totals and took only a few notes.
Game 1 - Greg won the die roll and chose to play first. He played a fetchland, brought out a non basic land, and then passed the turn. My first turn went completely bahroken! On this turn, I almost dropped my entire hand. I played Strip Mine, Black Lotus, an off-color Mox, Mana Crypt, played a Crucible of Worlds, stripped his land, and followed it up with a Tinker for Triskelion. He entered his scoop phase for sure after he had no lands to play around with.
Sideboard:
No changes because I still had no clue what he was playing.
Game 2 - I specifically remember that Greg almost gave me a heart attack when he also played a first turn Kataki. Inside I screamed, "Not Again!" My hand contained plenty of artifact mana that could pay for its own upkeep, but I knew this game would still be a struggle. Approximately 3 turns later and taking some beats from Kataki, I managed to resolve a Balance, neutralizing all threats and allowing my mana base to return safely. I stabilized and eventually killed him with a Triskelion in play.
After this match, I scrambled around the entire tournament room to look for my notebook. Luckily, I found it at the other end of my table and started to scribble a few basic notes. I copied over life totals from my piece of scrap paper, but I seriously could not tell what deck he was playing. It could have easily been another metagame hate deck that just did not correctly function against me. I have come to realize that Kataki is clearly a threat and I expect to see more of it maindecked to defeat the popularity of the Stax archetype.
Record: 2-1-0
Round 4 vs. Jason Smith (Keeper/Brain Freeze Combo)
At Origins, Jason beat me playing this same exact deck. Any control/combo hybrid deck gives Stax a hard time since most of the time the control stops my disruption, allowing their combo pieces to resolve. I remember from the last time we played, he used Sensei's Divining Top in combination with Future Sight to bump the storm count, and then find a Brain Freeze for the kill. Going into the match, I felt pretty apprehensive about playing against his deck.
Game 1 - I won the die roll and opted to go first. I played a first turn Goblin Welder, hoping to bait out a Force of Will, but none came. On his turn, he dropped massive amounts of mana, a Zuran Orb, and then he played a Timetwister to top it all off. It puzzled me that he played a Timetwister to end his turn. With a new hand, I had plenty of new threats, but he could still easily combo out. I threw out a Tangle Wire into play in an attempt to restrict some of his mana base. It worked, so I followed it up with a Smokestack.
I was still pretty behind in the permanent count, but I knew I had to clear the entire board to establish control. I carefully did so, ramping up the Smokestack counters up to 2 for a couple of turns, then up to 3 on the last one. On my turn after I sacrificed my Smokestack to itself, I topdecked a Crucible of Worlds which I played immediately with the Mishra's Workshop I saved in my hand. I also played a Mana Crypt before ending that turn. Jason had no mana resources to play, so he passed the turn. Being the topdecking fiend that I am, I ripped a Tinker the next turn. I replayed a Gemstone Mine with the Crucible, then Tinker'd out my Mana Crypt for Titan for the game.
Sideboard:
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Sphere of Resistance
-1 Tangle Wire
+2 Choke
+3 Red Elemental Blast
Game 2 - This game went rather quickly because I locked him down with a Trinisphere and Crucible of Worlds in play. I had a Wasteland denying him of resources, but my only threat was a Goblin Welder. I asked if he wanted to scoop, but he just wanted to play it out. My Welder swung away for the next 10 or so turns before I finally brought out Karn, Silver Golem. During all that time, I increased my board position with plenty of lock pieces, so all I had to do was animate them and swing for the kill.
Jason played well, but I still could not figure out what he planned on doing with his Zuran Orb. At one point during the match, he attempted to play his Fastbond, but with Trinisphere out there, I reminded him that he could not cast it. I gave a huge sigh of relief after this match. A few times during the first game, I felt as if I had no control of anything going on. Only after I cleared both sides of the board, I captured that game.
Record: 3-1-0
Round 5 vs. Brian Fisher of GWS (Control Slaver)
I recognized Brian from previous Chicago StarCityGames Power 9 tournaments, but I never had the chance to really meet him. Also, I believe he made Top 8 in one of those tournaments as well so I had a formidable opponent across the table from me. Either way, once I sat down, I thought I had a tough match ahead of me. To my surprise, it was just the complete opposite.
Game 1 - We rolled a 20 sided die and Brian rolled a 1. I definitely rolled higher than that, but I can't remember the last time someone rolled so low against me. On the play, I went with the classic Workshop, Trinisphere, go. I followed that up with a fatty and swung away while he struggled to play anything. The 3sphere dominated that game, to say the least.
Sideboard:
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Tangle Wire
-3 Sphere of Resistance
-2 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Choke
+3 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+2 Viashino Heretic
Game 2 - In this game, I kept a hand that included some land destruction and plenty of mana. I knew I had to topdeck some threats, but I felt like I could do it. I wasted away Brian's mana base and all he had left was a Welder. I made sure that my graveyard had no artifacts to be Welded in/out and quickly threw down a Triskelion, which took away any chance of Brian recovering from my initial onslaught on his mana base.
I guess I've been really fortunate with all of my perfect hands against Control Slaver. Usually it is a very hard matchup for me, but lately I have rolled it in large tournaments. I expected to go three games in this match, but my hand in game 2 was strong enough to wipe out any chance of that from happening.
After the match, I noticed that Brian ran Duplicant and I specifically remembered seeing artist Thomas Baxa signing cards in the dealer hall. With about 20 minutes left in the round, Brian and I left the tournament scene to seek out Baxa. Brian eventually found him, but there was a line and the round time was ending soon. I stuck around to get my playmat drawn on by John Matson and even managed to have Baxa sign my Festering Goblins and even alter the artwork on my Duplicant. I probably deserved to miss the next round.
Record: 4-1-0
Round 6 vs. Ben Allen (UbaStax)
I made it back in plenty of time because a couple of matches went past time. For my next match, my sources informed me that Ben played UbaStax. I'm sure he knew exactly what I was running because not far from where he sat, stood the deck's creator, Robert Vroman. My guess is that he belonged to that strong crew of St. Louis players.
Game 1 - I fortunately won the die roll and was ready to take advantage of that, but I did not have anything too stellar in my opening hand. For a few turns, Ben and I had a stare-down between our Goblin Welders. Then he played another one and screwed with my side of the board. The game went horribly when he dropped a Triskelion to shoot my Welder. I had no answer to his Trike.
Sideboard:
-1 Trinisphere
-3 Sphere of Resistance
-2 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Tangle Wire
+3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Seal of Cleansing
+2 Viashino Heretic
A few of you may wonder why I took out all of my "spheres." It's because they are useless in the mirror match when the other guy is playing Mishra's Workshops as well. The important card in this matchup can either be Crucible of Worlds or Goblin Welder. Whoever has their Crucible or Welder out first can usually establish control of the game.
Game 2 - This game turned out to be more in my favor, however I struggled to capture this win. We went back and forth with land destruction spells and we ended up each with at least one Welder in play. As the game dragged along, I kept an eye on the clock and tried to speed up the game as fast as possible. Ben had Solemn Simulacrums, one in play and one in the yard. He kept on welding them in and out so that he had a continuous flow of mana coming in. I had a Smokestack continually making him sacrifice permanents. Eventually I overcame his permanent generating cycle and shot his Welders with my Trike for the win.
Sideboard:
-3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Tangle Wire
Unlike a few Stax builds, I keep my Chalices of the Void out of the maindeck. The only time I like them is when I'm sure of what I'm playing against and I am on the play. Otherwise, I feel that they are suboptimal when I do not know what number to set them at. They are definitely horrible when I'm on the draw, so they came out.
Game 3 - With only 10 or so minutes left in the round, I straight out offered to Ben if he felt like making it an intentional draw. He wanted to play it out, so I went along without a fuss and shuffled up for the game. I figured that we would play until time went up. He went land, Welder, go and I mirrored him by doing the same. We both fast played everything and the match went into a dead lock once again. I thought for sure that we would get to time and I would not have a kill condition fast enough to do anything. We both had Smokestacks on each side with welders and all, but I had an additional Viashino Heretic.
About a minute before time was called, he cast a Wheel of Fortune to get his Duplicant into play as a last ditch effort. At that point, I had no threats and no real win conditions, but then the Wheel of Fortune drew me into Karn, a huge threat. Then a judge called time. This game totally fried my brain with so many possibilities or ways to kill my opponent. Now, I wanted to simply play Karn and use his ability.
I played Karn on my next turn, but then someone pointed out that I could not use his ability because on the other side of the board sat a Null Rod. Big DOH! Nevertheless, he was still a big beatstick and I could somehow kill his Null Rod and swing away for the kill. Before I could do so, Ben welded out his Null Rod for the Duplicant in his graveyard to remove my Karn from the game. Then I saw a win condition. He sat at a very low life total of 8, so I used the Viashino Heretic to destroy his Duplicant and simultaneously deal six points of damage to his head. On my following turn, I could have swung away with my two Welders and one Heretic against his lone Welder. Instead, I topdecked a Tinker and shot him with a Triskelion to go out in style! My deck loves me!
This match could have been a draw if Ben did not play the Wheel of Fortune, but apparently his lack of experience with the deck hurt him a lot. The pressure of the environment also affected our play decisions. I heard from many bystanders that I made multiple play mistakes, but dang is it hard to play when everyone is watching your every move. I saw one way to kill Ben, so I tried to do it the simplest way possible. It may have not been the most efficient way, but I won.
Record: 5-1-0
Round 7 vs. Craig Seaborn, my best friend (U/W Fish)
I expected to play against my longtime friend sooner or later, but never did I think it would be in the last round of Swiss. We planned on seeing each other at the final table. Since we sat at table 5, we could not afford to intentionally draw into the Top 8 of the tournament. Thus we wished each other best of luck and went at it. The winner of this match was guaranteed a spot in the Top 8, while the other would be lucky to make Top 16 if he had decent tiebreakers.
Game 1 - I won the die roll and proceeded to draw into a broken hand. Craig kept a one-land hand, but he had a Null Rod and Force of Will backup in hand. Later, he told me that it was probably a weak hand to keep against my deck and I agreed. As for my hand, I led with a first turn Workshop, Trinisphere, but he used his Force of Will to counter it. On his first turn, he played a Mishra's Factory, and then passed the turn. I expected him to go crazy on me or at least have an Island, but he didn't. For my second turn threat, I dropped a Crucible, then played a Wasteland and destroyed his Factory. Not drawing into any more land, he drew for his turn, and passed the turn. On my turn, I topdecked and played a Smokestack after returning the Wasteland from the graveyard. With the lock set, he scooped to save time so we would not go into a draw.
Sideboard:
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Sphere of Resistance
-1 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Choke
+3 Red Elemental Blast
This time I took out a Crucible over a Tangle Wire. After playing so many test games against Fish, I came to realize the strength of dropping a first turn Tangle Wire when I'm on the draw.
Game 2 - I should have figured that Craig had Daze in hand after he went Island, go. He dominated me by simply using Daze to counter my first turn Crucible. That started off the soft-lock Fish pulls and I could not break out of it. On his next turn, he destroyed the Workshop, my only major source of mana, with a Wasteland. As I sat there for a couple of turns, he brought out a Cloud of Faeries and a Null Rod, followed closely by a Standstill. I had no chance in this game, but I played it out a few more turns just to see how it would end up. To save time, I scooped to get onto the third game of the match.
Sideboard:
No change.
Game 3 - My first hand of seven cards contained no lands so I mulliganed down to 6 cards almost immediately. Without a Force of Will in Craig's hand, I went broken and played a Mana Crypt, Gemstone Mine, and Balance. I crippled his hand down to three cards and he never recovered. On his turn, he played an Island and passed the turn. On my turn, I drew into a Tinker and cast it immediately to bring out my Sundering Titan, smashing his weak mana base. Soon enough, Craig extended his hand to wish me luck in the Top 8.
In testing and in tournament play, I have dominated Fish in the last year and I credit Sundering Titan for all of that success. Once he hits play, rarely does Fish recover from his wrath. Craig unfortunately missed the Top 16 by 2 percentage points and finished 17th overall.
Overall Swiss Record: 6-1-0
Top 8 Rounds
Quarterfinals vs. Ashok Chitturi, my teammate on Meandeck (CronStax)
This weekend, I finally met Ashok, a.k.a. The Method on The Mana Drain.com. He's been my teammate for over 4 months now and it was nice to finally put a face with a name. I congratulated him for making Top 8 at the tournament after my last round and the last thing I wanted to do was play him in the Quarterfinals.
Game 1 - Still looking a bit frustrated about having to play against me, it did not help Ashok's mindset when he rolled a lower number than me. On the play, I kept a rather risky hand, but against another Stax deck, it turned out to be amazing. I went Workshop, Mana Crypt, and Karn. The game ended quickly as I put down another artifact threat and swung for the kill a few turns later.
Sideboard:
-1 Trinisphere
-3 Sphere of Resistance
+2 Seal of Cleansing
+2 Viashino Heretic
Game 2 - We both had rather slow hands with opposing Goblin Welders out in play, but then I broke through when I plopped down Triskelion to take out two of his Welders. The match went quickly my way and I swung in for the kill a couple of turns later with my Trike.
Once again, here's another perfect example of how important winning the die roll is when dealing with a Stax mirror match. With luck on my side, I played the initial threat that won each game. In the first game, if Ashok had a Swords to Plowshares or Balance, it could have easily swung his way. Clearly the Stax mirror is a coin-flip no matter which one of three Stax builds you are playing.
Semifinals vs. Hale Simon, Mr. Leeeeroy Jenkins himself (Dragon)
Prior to playing in the Top 8, Hale explained to me the hilarity behind the Leroy Jenkins symbolizing his deck. It is true that not many people can do so well with a hated combo deck like Dragon, so I give him props for doing so well. This matchup is one of my trickier ones and I have very little experience with it.
Game 1 - I won the die roll and knew exactly what I needed in hand to kill off Dragon. Trinisphere came out of my hand with ease as I cast it first turn. Even though I had the 3sphere down in play, it frightened me that he still had mana producing lands. I managed to pull out a Crucible lock on him and destroy his mana base. Eventually, I found my Trike to finish him off before anything broken could occur.
Sideboard:
-1 Sundering Titan
-2 Crucible of Worlds
-1 Crop Rotation
+2 Seal of Cleansing
+2 Tormod's Crypt
With only one Crucible of Worlds in the maindeck left, the Crop Rotation's effect is dampened and is a horrible topdeck, especially against Dragon.
Game 2 - All I had to disrupt him in this game included a Sphere of Resistance and some land destruction. He dropped multiple Moxen on his first turn and soon he was out of reach and my disruption had literally no effect on him. I could only just sit there and watch him use Bazaar of Baghdad to rifle through his library to put a Worldgorger Dragon into his graveyard. Soon enough, Hale played an Animate Dead on his Dragon to create the infinite loop. I told him to go through the actions, so I knew for sure he had a legitimate kill condition lined up for me. He used Bazaar to draw most of his library and finally flipped over a Shivan Hellkite. Once that dragon entered the graveyard, he produced plenty of mana then shot me down with its ability to ping me to death.
Sideboard:
-3 Tangle Wire
+3 Chalice of the Void
Game 3 - In this game, I established a super lock on him as soon as I could. This included a Chalice for 0, Sphere of Resistance, Seal of Cleansing, Tormod's Crypt, and Smokestack to clear his board of permanents. I felt confident for once against this deck. Then he somehow slipped an Animate Dead under my radar and targeted a Triskelion that got Rack and Ruined earlier. As soon as I saw that, I yelled out for a judge to make a clarification on the interactions between Animate Dead, Seal of Cleansing, and the stack. He targeted my Triskelion, but I made sure that Seal destroyed his Animate Dead before the Trike came into play. This made it so that the Triskelion would never enter play and would return to my graveyard. I even destroyed his Sol Ring he cast the Animate off of with another Seal of Cleansing. The Animate Dead play singly defined the outcome of this game. I kept him under my super lock and eventually brought a kill condition out to kill him.
I thought Hale came inches from defeating me and I'm fortunate that I remembered how to use the stack in my favor. Locking him down was like trying to catch a fish underwater with my bare hands. In this case, he was a shark that could be lethal any turn.
Finals vs. Andy Probasco, aka The Brassman (Brassman Belcher)
I played Andy the night before at the Vintage Prelims and I figured he would play the same deck. In that match, I defeated him in 3 games because I could not lock him down in the first game. In game 2 of that match, I played a savage 1-2 punch on him. First turn, Trinisphere, and second turn Jester's Cap.
Game 1 - As for the final showdown, I lost the die roll and Andy went first. He cast a Duress first turn on me and took away my possibly savage first turn Balance play. On my turn, I played out close to my entire hand, dropping plenty of mana into play. On Andy's turn, he dropped a Lotus Petal into play, and then passed the turn.
Then I played a Strip Mine, careful not to act too fast and destroy some of his mana base while restricting my own ability to cast things. I followed the land with a Tangle Wire and Thirst for Knowledge, hoping to draw out a Mana Drain or Force of Will from his hand. To my surprise he had none of either spell in hand and I ended the turn with a Sphere of Resistance.
Secretly, I was saving up mana to hardcast the Sundering Titan I received from the Thirst for Knowledge, so I did not Strip away his Island right away. I managed to draw out the FoW in his hand by casting a Crucible as bait, even though that would have probably sealed the game for me as well. On the following turn without much action from Andy, I finally stripped away his Island, but it was already tapped out from Tangle Wire. I accidentally wasted away the Strip Mine because the Sundering Titan would automatically destroy that lone Island. It turned out that I didn't need to keep the Strip Mine all that time because I topdecked a Mishra's Workshop to help cast the Titan. A few beatings later, Andy entered the scoop phase.
Sideboard:
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Triskelion
-1 Crucible of Worlds
-1 Sphere of Resistance
+2 Choke
+1 Jester's Cap
+3 Red Elemental Blast
Game 2 - Andy started off this game with an Island and a Mox Pearl. My hand looked a little more broken and I dropped a Mox Sapphire, Black Lotus, Barbarian Ring, Smokestack, and followed it with a Goblin Welder. On his turn, he played a fetchland, cracked it to find a Volcanic Island and played a Rack and Ruin targeting my Smokestack and Sapphire. I seriously thought I was royally screwed with just a Barbarian Ring and Welder in play.
My turn comes around and I hold a Red Elemental Blast in hand ready to counter the next Blue target. Before passing the turn, I remember to go and poke him with my Goblin Welder for one damage. On his turn, he cast Merchant Scroll, which I assumed was for a Gifts Ungiven or Mana Drain, so I Red Blasted it. When my next turn came around, I topdecked a Mishra's Workshop and played my Crucible of Worlds. The Crucible met a hardcast Force of Will.
On the next turn, I played a Sol Ring and Welded it into a Smokestack, but Andy played a Sacred Ground on his turn. Therefore, I could not clear out his mana base. He also had a Mana Crypt in play though. I jokingly thought to myself, there's my win condition. The Crypt turned out to be in my favor when it counted and dealt a total of 9 damage in three turns. With my Welders swinging almost every turn from the beginning of the match, I took him down far enough to put him in range of my Barbarian Ring. On his upkeep, he rolled a die for the Mana Crypt one last time which dealt that extra damage I needed to win the match with.
I expected this match to go three games, but I'll take my wins any way I get them. Congratulations to Andy Probasco for making it so far and I hope to play him again in the near future. He put out an amazing show for the crowd watching the match and he definitely showed a lot of sportsmanship before and after it.
My deck could probably use a primer, as one TMD user pointed out, but I won't be producing one of those just yet. All I know is that this deck performed very well at the last StarCityGames Power tournament and it proved itself once again at another large tournament. I only look forward to the addition of Imperial Seal in October.
And now... for Props 'N Slops!
Props:
- Mike Bomholt and Craig Seaborn for being the best friends one could only wish for. They brought me food two nights in a row when I least expected it. Also, the three of us dominated all of the Legacy side events.
- Team Meandeck (Ashok, Smmenendian, Kevin Cron, and JDizzle) for continuous support throughout the weekend.
- Kevin Cron for his amazing Barbarian Ring tech which won me countless games.
- Team Colorado for bringing their A-game to such a great event. They also seem to mysteriously attract some cute girls.
- Team GWS for bringing great competition to the event and being just all around nice guys.
- Matt Jones for supporting my obsession for foil and Asian pimp cards and for trading me my 3rd Gemstone Mine at a friendly discount.
- My random "World Champion" t-shirt that I thought would possibly give me some luck.
- Mark Poole for signing my painting and drawing the "new" Ancestral artwork on my playmat for free.
- The Judges for being dead on in most cases.
- All of the guys who had the feeling I could win it all.
Slops:
- Bob Yu of Team Colorado for doing so well all day long and not making it into the Top 8.
- The Convention Center's quality of food and the ridiculous prices. Seriously now, who pays 3 dollars for a bottle of water or pop?
- Those kids with the annoying magnets. I almost had an aneurysm listening to those magnets collide over and over and over again.
- Me for almost missing the start of a round just because I like things shiny objects, especially in my deck.
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