all your report are belong to us

This tournament weekend began as have many others, with me getting out of work
at about 2 in the morning and enjoying the fringe benefits of working at a bar
(read: free beer. Our Half in the Bagpipe Scotch Ale [8.5% abv] just came in,
and it happened to be on cask on the night in question). Several beers later, I
made my way to Ben (SummenSaugen)'s place to crash for the evening in
preparation for the full day of cardboard slingin' fun the next day. I was
ecstatic to find out that the tournament would not begin until 2 o'clock in the
afternoon. Although this would most likely mean remaining at the store in Cape
Cod until the wee hours of the morning, I put lack of concern on the stack. They
have incredibly comfortable chairs, and free pizza is always involved in their
tournaments.
I spent the first few hours, as one of only a few Team Hadley members with
access to both vehicular transportation and a license to drive, trying to figure
out exactly who I would be dragging along with me to the cape the following day.
The general consensus, however, was that most of the team would be going to
Milford, CT; to the scrubtastic store that Hadley savagely owned on our last
appearance. More on that later.
With 3-4 hours of sleep in me, I somehow woke up and managed to figure out how
to rotate the metal stick that opens my car doors in such a way as to appease
the gods that live under my hood; this makes my car move. 2 hours later I find
myself in the cape, having thoroughly convinced Ben that The Cure, if properly
mixed, can make excellent driving music even in the morning. With an hour to
spare before the tournament, the trading frenzy begins. Most notably, I picked
up 4 Asian foil Wild Mongrels for the deck I had no idea Wizards would restrict
a week later. Instead of ranting, I'll just move on to my matchups. For
reference, here's what I was playing:

D4gr0n
By: iLL_DaWg

4 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Ambassador Laquatus

3 Necromancy
3 Dance of the Dead
2 Animate Dead

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee
2 Compulsion
1 Ancestral

2 Intuition
2 Lim Dûl's Vault
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

4 FoW
3 Duress
3 Stifle

7 SoLoMoxen
4 Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Trop
1 Swamp

SB:
3 Verdant Force
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Reanimate
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sliver Queen
1 Mind Twist
(and a Phat Stack of Thallids to use as Saproling Tokens)

Round 1: Pat Broderich (the guy I always play round 1) playing Keeper (same as
in Waterbury)

Game 1: I win the die roll. He does the control thing, I do the combo thing. I
animate the dragon without too much of a struggle. I believe I even had
unnecessary force backup.

SB:
-2 Compulsion
-1 dragon
-1 vault
-1 ambassador
-1 duress

+3 swarm
+3 Force

Game 2: He sides in the stuff that hates me, I side in the stuff that doesn't
care. The dragon bounces in and out of play a bunch of times and he loses the
game. I think I had to remind him that I still needed to find a win condition
while he was scooping, I went through how I was going to intuition for
laquatus/double squee (no bazaar in play) and either animate or hardcast for the
win. I had thought about it, so I wanted to at least have someone else
appreciate the win.

2-0; 1-0

Round 2: Aaron Kerzner (KerzKid11) playing Keeper
Game 1: he sets up a bunch of stuff on sticks, so I bazaar/squee my way into the
perfect hand, then win 5 times in one turn with duress / force backup.

SB:
-2 Compulsion
-1 dragon
-1 vault
-1 ambassador
-1 duress

+3 swarm
+3 Force

Game 2: I resolve a turn 1 swarm. He reads it, then lets it swing. He blocks it
with an angel token. He seems a little surprised when he isn't able to force my
turn 2 win. Reading cards is tech.

Round 3: Ben Kowal (SummerSausage) playing Ninja Mask

Game 1: I animate the dragon and win. He makes me walk through it, even though
he is tapped out and I show him double force backup (this was, like, turn 3).

Game 2: I keep a crap hand, and let some stuff happen on his side of the board.
At this point, I'm just having fun. I drop a deed to clear his board, he drops a
shifter with phage in hand. I set myself up for the uber-cool play of the day:
He has a gilded drake in his yard, and I have a necromancy in hand. When he
swings with the shifter, my plan is to wait for him to pitch phage, then
necromancy his gilded drake. I trade the drake for the shifter, necromancy falls
off EOT and he loses the drake, while I pitch a verdant to my shiny new shifter
and beat for the win. I ended up phrasing it wrong, so he is able to stack the
effects in such a way that the drake gets eaten by a shifter that is a withered
wretch when the trigger goes on the stack. I lose to phage.

Game 3: Pernicious Deed (P-Diddy) owns his hate, then an animated dragon owns
the rest of the cards in his deck.

Round 4: Derek playing Urphid

Game 1: I lose through blood moon and double drain on a stick.

SB:
-1 Dragon
-1 Ambassador
-2 Compulsion
-1 Pearl
-1 Vault

+3 Deed
+3 Swarm

Game 2: The swarm turns sideways, then the dragon gets animated fairly early.

Game 3: This one took a long time, but I was unable to deal with blood moon, I
was short 1 black to necromancy EOT, then drop double deed on my turn to get rid
of the moons and do some damage with bazaar/squee (he played 2 moons off of
drain mana, discarded 1, then lost 1 to a deed early on; 1 resolved deed would
have killed the rest of them).

Round 5: playing Hulk

Game 1: I duress turn 1 and then win on turn 2 with force backup. I didn't see
enough to know if he was playing keeper or hulk.

SB:
-1 Ambassador
-2Compulsion

+3 Swarm

Game 2: I almost win turn 1, off of a lotus, I end up waiting until turn 5 to
find a black mana source with bazaar/double squee. I end up seeing the black and
then winning with double force backup.


T8: Ben Kowal (SummerSausage) still playing Ninja Mask

Game 1: My dragon comes back from the dead!!!! It decides it hates life, so it
runs back to the graveyard. Then I make it come back!!! We go on like this for a
while, then I hire a merfolk to take all of my opponent's cards from him and
pass the turn.

Game 2 (aka the reach-around): I keep a shit hand, then let him beat me down
with a 12/12 trampling shifter.

Game 3: I get bazaar / squee online, and animate for the win without much of a
fight.

T4: The Guy I Drew With in RI last weekend (Matrix) playing Keeper

Game 1: I screw up going for the early win, forgetting to throw away a second
dragon before walking into STP. I end up going down to 4 cards left in my deck,
with ancestral in hand to draw 3 of them, setting up the perfect hand. I do 4
animate effects with double force backup on one turn.

SB:
-1 Dragon
-1 Ambassador
-2 Compulsion
-3 Duress

+3 Force
+3 Deed
+1 Mind Twist

Game 2: I remember losing the Ambassador early, then going Verdant Force
beatdown for the win. His soldier tokens just can't keep up with double verdant
action, I end up resolving a swarm and going to town with tons of tokens and
some big green fatties.

Finals: Aaron Kerzner (KerzKid11) still playing Keeper

He offers me half of the $200 the store put up in lieu of the Mox plus the
second place prize as a split, I accept on the condition that I can trade in my
old ruby for the cash and leave with the signed one. The store gives me the
thumbs up, and I leave with the first and second place prizes, as well as $100
cash money. Dayum; pimpin' ain't easy.

So I end up splitting (Kerzner's butt cheeks) in the finals and pulling off the
hat trick.

Sorry it took me so long to get this up here, it's been sitting for a week on my
ancient laptop, waiting for internet access.

Props:

Corey, for making T8 with Madness
Kerzner, for making the split in the finals
The store, for paying me to upgrade my ruby and for hosting another great
tournament

Slops:
Me, for never posting my reports on time
Blood moon, for owning my ass
Dragon, for being so damned good.