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4:40 PM
We decided to start the blog now as this is the part of the day where things get interesting. A few of the pros have risen to the occasion and are sitting in the X-0 or X-1 bracket with only a handful out of contention for Top 8 and the draft of the Power 9. Ted was showing off the 3-D Jester's Cap that will be given out to the highest placing Shooting Star. It's pretty hot.
Looking out the window I can see the heat rising off the roofs of the cars in the parking lot, but inside the hall we're nice and cool.
I asked Adam Chambers how the event has been going for him after I found out he is undefeated he said,
"My opponents haven't done anything today. They cast Brainstorm, Impulse, Intuition and Accumulated Knowledges and then I just kill them. Well, there was one guy that played a Goblin Welder, but whatever."
Oh so true.
4:53 PM
I was walking around in the play area when I heard one Ben Kowal commenting on the quality of this tournament hall. There is tons of open space, adequate elbow room for all of the players and there is enough room between the rows that you can walk between rows of tables and watch matches. Not just one person, but two or three at a time.
Upon asking Shooting Star, Josh Rider what his record was, Josh replied:
"4-0-1. I'm not giving away any shirts today, I'm burying them all."
Something I keep noticing is that there are a ton of Fish decks everywhere. It's like Marc Perez's wet dream come true.
4:57 PM
In the Round 6 feature match between Josh Rider and Eli Kassis, Josh was staring down a Darksteel Colossus that Eli had Oathed out, but he had a decent-sized Quirion Dryad and a couple of spirit tokens, but on Eli's next turn he activated Oath and hit Eternal Witness which he used to grab a Burning Wish he had milled away that fetched a Time Walk which brought about a combo-ish kill with Eli still clinging to his last point of life.
5:11 PM
Osyp Lebedowicz was fishing yesterday on a lake in New Jersey when the Loch Ness monster made a surprise appearance and ate one of the World's best Magic players, leaving him unable to attend today's event. However, upstate New York local and Pro Tour: Atlanta runner-up Adam Chambers was available to step in on short notice, and the tournament organizers decided that rather than let Joe Black's Ebony Liespewer T-Shirts go to waste, Chambers would effectively play as Osyp for Shooting Stars purposes. Thus far, the young New Yorker has far exceeded expectations, failing to give up and cotton in spite of never having played Vintage before in his Magic career. After watching Adam "Osyp Lebedowicz" Chambers play his match, we were talking about it with him:
Chambers: "I mean, I've never played against Old Man of the Sea in my life."
Knut: "Just think of it in terms of Standard. It's not Old Man, it's Vedalken Shackles."
Chambers: "Oh okay, I know what that one does"
Random Dude: "So I equipped my Troll Ascetic with Umezawa's Jitte. I was like, DIE FISH DIE!!!"
Random Dude to Judge: "I need the Oracle text on um, I think it's called, 'Bamboozle.'"
5:19 PM
A word to all of you Vintage players out there: Think your plays through! Watching some of the pros/former pros play their games has been so invigorating. They've made some questionable plays, but I wasn't around long enough to see if they worked out. The round 6 feature match still hasn't finished, but there's no Oath of Druids on Eli Kassis's side of the table and Rider has a strong hand, so it should be a good game.
This tournament has been awesome if not for the conversations that have come about as a result of the deck running Bamboozle. No one can figure it out, not even Magic Guru, Ben Bleiweiss. Oh, wait, it seems that someone knows what it does! The final result of these debates are that Bamboozle is a three-mana sorcery that lets you look at the top four cards of target players' library, put two in their graveyard and the other two on top of their library in any order.
5:25 PM
I walked over to the Rider/Kassis match and saw a counter war over a Quirion Dryad. Josh had a Force of Will and Misdirection in his hand after Forcing Eli's counter, but Eli had a Red Blast to stop his Force. Rather than fight further, Josh let it go. On Eli's next turn he untapped, dropped a Mox Jet and cast Yawgmoth's Will, only to see it countered by the Force of Will that Josh had kept in reserve.
Eli: "God, what a c*ck tease."
Carl: "Well put."
Josh: "Agreed."
Josh topdecked a Brainstorm which will probably let him win the topdecking war. And so he did. Eli dropped his Black Lotus, tapped all of his lands and a Mana Crypt and hardcast Darksteel Colossus! Rider was pretty confident in his Meddling Mage set to Oath of Druids, but felt somewhat inadequate afterwards. However, the reason that the pros are pros became very apparent when Josh drew his card... a timely Swords to Plowshares.
5:33 PM
At the end of the Kassis/Rider match:
Krempels: "This game was such a c*ck tease. I came over, saw people like, topdecking crazy stuff, hardcasting insane spells, and then what? They look at each other! Then a draw? *frown*"
I can't believe that so much of this blog has been that one match. Chatting with one of the judges after the game ended, we agreed that it was coverage gold.
6:07 PM
The Shooting Stars shirts have been pretty popular today. Josh Rider and Adam Chambers have yet to have to pay any out today, while Craig Krempels not only paid off his two allotted shirts, but even gave away the Krempelometer shirt off his back. Chad Ellis didn't gave away his own shirt, but gave out dice and trial packs of his new games. Ben Bleiweiss has gleefully given away many more "You were pwnd by the Bleiweiss" shirts than "Today, I became a man" shirts.
6:13 PM
Andy Probasco has just informed me that Canadian coins have a duck on one side.
6:15PM
A judge issued me a ruling on the Canadian-duck-coin-issue. It is not actually a duck, but a loon and thus this coin is known as a "loonie". Furthermore, the two dollar coin maintains the "-oonie" nomenclature and is thus called a "toonie".
6:28 PM
The Round 7 feature match just finished, with Josh Rider coming out the victor, leaving Rich Shay to scramble for a spot in the Top 16 to get some of those spicy Italian Legends packs. It just started pouring rain outside as well, but luckily for all of the smokers there is an overhang that stretches over twenty feet in each direction. Unfortunately for the non-smokers, the smokers are choosing to stay within five feet of the door. Ya win some, ya lose some.
There seems to be more trading going on than playing at the moment, but I'm assuming most of the players have dropped, seeing as how anything less than a 6-2 will miss out on prizes.
In tournament new, Ben Bleiweiss just told me about his last game against Oath. Game 3, his opponent played on turn one, land, Mox, Sol Ring, Tinker, Darksteel Colossus. Ben had to play tight to get out of it, so he played some artifact mana sources and was able to get out a Morphling after he went to eight from a fetchland and Colossus attack. Ben played a Morphling with one blue open. His opponent cast Swords to Plowshares, so Ben pumped the Morphling to a 4/2 and went up to twelve. He went down to one from another hit and then on his turn cast Control Magic on the Colossus. His opponent had the Swords to Plowshares, but Ben was able to get out Chalices for both one and two, shutting his opponent out of the game, stranding two Oath of Druids and a Mana Drain in his opponent's hand.
Eli Kassis, suffering his first loss in round seven is out of contention. Gotta love unintentional draws, something that's been very common today.
7:30 PM
Liz del Cano: "So I just saw Kevin (Cron) make what Doug Linn has dubbed the "This is your train ticket to Frown Town" face. Kevin played Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl, Balance (which was effectively a Mind Twist for four) and it was awesome."
It's been a trip chasing down Pros to interview them. Most are still in the tourney, the others are drafting, and in the case of Zvi; he's disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone is very accommodating however, and they all seem to be having a good time, no matter how rough the beats. The feature matches are getting more and more attention now, though they just barely are topping the crowd surrounding the only female player in the event, Liz, when her match went to time in round four.
The rain has subsided now, so more people are willing to leave to go fetch food or whatever. Unfortunately I have been told that it is approximately 90 degrees and the humidity is at 100%. Thank Jet Li for air conditioning.
As for the tournament; the Canadians seem to be dominating, with seven of the players in the Top 16 as of Round 7, and four in the Top 8. I wasn't able to identify enough on my own, so I asked Peter Olszewski to identify them for me. He just kept checking off players and I commented that they were really kicking some ass.
Peter: "Obviously. See what happens when we start playing your decks?"
JP Meyer: "Oh those wacky Canadians. What will they think of next?"
Indeed, what will they think of next.
7:42
The mission to identify the members of the Canadian invasion took nearly ten minutes, so when I came back to the computer I saw Andy Probasco slaving away trying to edit the last match he covered. Today is Andy's first day of covering matches. He's been doing a great job and I look forward to seeing his work. Who knows, maybe he'll become a fixture on the coverage team for these events.
Oh, yeah. I just realized what that implies. Sorry about that Andy, you know you rock. You don't have to follow the path of Ben Kowal - Just keep your chin up and fight on!
7:54 PM
Josh Rider is now out of the Top 8. He was facing off against Joe Weber, a local pro, and lost, giving up his first t-shirt of the day. I think he was more disappointed about having to give up the shirt than the loss itself, though it is definitely very frustrating to get knocked out of the Top 8 after losing your only match in the last round, when even that loss was merely a concession because they ran out of time to finish game 3.
8:21 PM
Wow, that last round was intense. There were two matches that decided who would make Top 8, the Weber/Rider match and the Hoaen/Mattiuzzo. Rider scooped his match as it was going to end in a draw and his opponent had better board position, while Mattiuzo kicked the crap out of Hoaen, knocking both Stars out of the Top 8 when they looked like near locks after last round. Adam Chambers is the only Shooting Star to make Top 8 and as such is the winner of the Knutson's Jester's Cap. This Top 8 will be awesome. There are some great matchups and a lot of Fish decks present, which further proves it's dominance here in Rochester. Out of the four Fish left, three are unique, which seems to show that the type of deck doesn't matter, it's the Fish gameplan in general that's tearing up the format.
