Vintage Event 1/2/10

I played a BUG Fish deck at a vintage event on the 2nd. I pulled the list from the internet a few months ago and only made one card change with it. The name comes from the colors it plays, Black, Blue, and Green, and from all the creatures being small guys that disrupt you. Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Vendillion Clique, and Trygon Predator are the creatures I use. There were 62 players at the event so there are 6 rounds with a cut to top 8.

Round 1 I played against my friend and testing partner, Matt Elias. We were seated at table 1 and we both knew what the other was playing. He played oath of druids. The deck uses forbidden orchard to cast oath, and at the same time give your opponent tokens that trigger oath. You then oath up a very large creature, and win the game. The best target is probably hellkite overlord, with Iona becoming more popular. This is a good matchup for me, because I have enough disruption to make sure he doesnt play oath in the first place, and if I have a trygon out, he has to remove it and then try for oath. Unfortunately for me, he is a better player than me, so this should negate any deck advantages. I beat him handily game 1, game two we both are topdecking, and he topdecks ancestral recall and yawgmoths will, so game over. Game 3 I have a very controlling hand with 2 wastelands, a vampiric tutor, underground sea, and force of will and a blue card.(I mulled this game)This hand is pretty good because waste kills forbidden orchard, and vamp gets any card I want. I play underground sea and vampiric tutor for a null rod. I just want to attack his mana sources as fast as possible. Unfortunately he plays forbidden orchard, mox emerald, oath of druids. I force of will it, he forces back, and that is the game. If he didnt have that specific opening, I could have pulled it out. Oh well

Next round I get paired against a new player playing my same deck, and I beat her with experience. Good match, but I was just the more experienced player.

Round 3 I am playing against a Tezzeret Deck. It has counterspells and wins by taking infinite turns with time vault and voltaic key. My deck is designed to beat this deck and I win game 1. Game 2 he plays a Painters servant. This means he also has grindstone and will be trying to mill me out of the game. I play dudes and a null rod. He gets a grindstone out but cant use it because of the null rod. He draws into an artifact removal spell, but I force of will it. We play draw go for 2 turns. At the end of my second turn he plays rack and ruin to kill my null rod. He has 3 dual lands and a polluted delta. He taps the duals for the rack and ruin. I have 1 card in hand and am tapped out except for a wasteland. I waste his polluted delta. He looks at me like I am an idiot, cracks his fetchland and I respond by returning an island to my hand and playing daze! He has no mana available to counter it, and I win the game a few turns later. Definately the best play of the day for me.

Round 4 I play against Nick Detwiler. He is one of the original designers of the deck called Stax, and one of the 3 best players in the room. Stax uses artifacts like tangle wire and Trinisphere to lock you out of the game. It is a very good deck and it is being played by the premier stax player in the country. I am 0-2 against Nick in tournaments lifetime. Fortunately my deck was also designed to beat this one, with the trygon predators being exceptional against them. I win game one fairly easily. Game two isn't really a game because he has to mulligan to 5 and doesn't play a land for a few turns. I saw his hand after the game and it had every card he needed to get him into the game. Since his deck is almost half mana sources, his chances were good of getting a land. If he mulled to 4, any hand even with a land is worse than his 5 card without a land.

Awesome, I am 3-1 and if I win the next round I can draw the last round and make top 8 at 4-1-1. I sit down across from my next opponent. I forget his name, but I have also played him twice previously and lost twice. Even worse, both time my losses to him have eliminated me from the top 8. Lets see what happens now. He is also playing tezz, so i hope to win game one easily. We play some spells, counter some spells, and I end up with 2 creatures in play. He has 2 cards in hand, both lands. He draws his card and passes. I draw a land, attack and pass. He draws a card, plays ponder, shuffles, draws the top card, and plays voltaic key and time vault and takes infinite turns. Damn. Game two I play land, go. He plays a black lotus and I return the land to my hand to Daze. He plays force of will, and the lotus resolves. Then he plays a land and plays empty the warrens for storm 4. He gets 8 1/1 goblins and I die three turns later. Ugg, he knocks me out of contention again. What a beating.

Round 6 I sit down against another person I know. He is playing R/G/B beats. It is kind of like the vintage version of jund. He was even playing putrid leech. His creatures are bigger than mine, and he has burn spells and red elemental blasts for all my blue creatures. This match is basically impossible for me to win, and I do lose in 2 games.

The first two opponents I lost to made the top eight and both lost in the first round of top eight. I had a fun time and got to play a really fun deck.

Nice play round 3! Force him to use the Delta. Well done.

I'm surprised Trygon Predator is in there, as it seems slow and conditional (has to wait a turn, has to hit the opponent, and to be worth paying 3 for, they have to have an artifact/enchantment worth kacking). How did he work out for you?

Nice report; better luck next time.

I was really suprised that the predator was in there as well, and its a 3 of. I started playtested it and it gets the job done very well. It is slow and conditional, but against the stax deck, once its in play, it wins the game by itself. Its only really good in the stax matchup though, and I was planning on cutting it for another card. I didnt test anything else in that spot, and I knew there were about 6 top notch stax players in the tourny, so it stayed in. I want to cut down to two in the main and 1 sideboard, but I definately need a creature to put in its place.