My expectations were low heading into Crazy Con 2. Last year, I managed to place 30th out of 90 with Keeper in a field full of GroATogs with a 4-3 record losing to 2 GroATogs and 1 monoblack. Since then, I have become happily married and hate to spend time away from my wife. I haven't played Magic in over 3 months, but still have a very high interest in the game. Although I have kept up with all the new good decks such as Long, Dragon, and Mud, I haven't nearly had the amount of practice that I needed. I spent a lot of time tuning the deck and the sideboard and finalizing my sideboarding strategy, but unfortunately, left little time for playtesting matchups. My end goal was to have a good time and break even as I didn't think I prepared enough to actually win. My wife wanted to come along to observe despite knowing that it could be up to 12 hours of pure boredom. Here is the deck that I took. Mana (26) 1 Strip Mine 4 Wasteland 2 Flooded Strand 2 Polluted Delta 2 City of Brass 3 Underground Sea 2 Tundra 2 Volcanic Island 1 Island 1 Library of Alexandria 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Ruby 1 Black Lotus 1 Sol Ring Creatures (4) 1 Morphling 1 Meddling Mage 1 Withered Wretch 1 Gorilla Shaman Counters (8) 4 Mana Drain 4 Force of Will Draw (5) 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Teferi's Response 1 Fact or Fiction 2 Skeletal Scrying Search (5) 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Mystical Tutor 2 Cunning Wish Filters (4) 4 Brainstorm Bombs (3) 1 Mind Twist 1 Time Walk 1 Yawgmoth's Will Bullets (5) 3 Chalice of the Void 1 Balance 1 Starstorm Sideboard (15) 3 Red Elemental Blast 1 Blue Elemental Blast 1 Lim Dul's Vault 1 Rule of Law 2 Swords to Plowshares 1 The Abyss 1 Coffin Purge 1 Planar Void 1 Disenchant 1 Rack and Ruin 2 Serenity Card Choice Explanations The strategy is simply find your bullets, drop some creatures and stay in control. Sideboarding strategy would be to replace bullets with better bullets and then dig into the search (Mystical Tutor and Cunning Wishes) pool if I need to remove more cards. Note that I basically metagamed for Long, Mud, Tog, and Suicide. I wasn't too far off the mark. The sideboard offers help to artifacts and enchantment, creatures, graveyard, and combo, some in the form of instant, wishable answers, and permanent answers to be sided in. Of course, the oddball tech of mine was using Serenity over Energy Flux or Rack and Ruin or Shattering Pulse. I wanted a permanent answer for Workshop decks. I figured Rack and Ruin is decent, but only gets rid of a couple components, while I wanted them all gone. Energy Flux is good, but can be played around if they have enough mana and can be REB'ed. Shattering Pulse is not very likely to get online against prison decks. Serenity seem like the answer as the enchantment would be near impossible to be answered and the delay didn't seem so bad as long as it got rid of everything. It worked once last tournament, but I wasn't able to capitalize that time. It also failed once as a Chalice at 2 prevented me from casting it. The creature choices offer answers to the threats I expected as well as some pressure offensively. Gorilla Shaman is good against artifact-based decks, Withered Wretch is good against graveyard-based decks, Meddling Mage is good against combo-based decks, and Morphling is good against creature-based decks. Teferi's Response was something that I added when I heard about NeoTog running Strips and Wastes. With all the Strips/Wastes and some Sinkholes I was expecting from the mirror matches, Mud, monoblack, and now Tog, it seemed like a logical addition especially since Gush slows you down so much. Starstorm used to be a Fire/Ice. However, I wanted a better bullet than Fire especially since I wasn't running maindeck Swords. I also figured it might surprise a few mirror matchups clearing Soldiers and Goblins. Starstorm is also the reason why a Tundra became a second City. I don't believe much else of the deck needs explanations. Round 1 - Welder Mud If there was one matchup that I wasn't truely prepared for, this was it. Game 1 saw me beat down by a Solemn Simulacrum as I drew no broken stuff and mostly just lands. There really wasn't even a lock until near the end of the game. Me - 20,19,18,16,14,12,11,9,7,5,2,0 Him - 20 Sideboard: +1 Disenchant, +1 Rack and Ruin, +2 Serenity, +2 Swords, -3 Chalice, -2 Wish, -1 Mystical? The second game was a little better. I dropped an Island, Sapphire, and Pearl. He dropped a workshop, mox, mox, chalice for 2. I drained it into a Morphling. He cast a Trisk. I made Morphling flying and attacked. His turn, he REB'ed it, I made it untargetable, and he pinged it to death. I'm sure I made a mistake here somewhere, but I can't think of it right now (and it's not that I shouldn't have attacked). In the next few turns, nothing eventful happened except I wasted his workshop and he was killing himself with Mana Crypt. With 2 cards in hand, he cast a Metalworker to join his 1/1 Trisk. I drew a Rack and Ruin, but like a fool didn't cast it. He drew, used the Metalworker to cast Memory Jar into Academy, Solemn Simulacrum, Shaman, and maybe something else. I Rack and Ruined end of turn, but it was too late as I got beat down by a 1/1 Trisk, Gorilla Shaman and Metalworker. Me - 20-16-15-13-10-8-6-3-0 Him - 20-17-12-9-6-3 Round 2 - Welder Mud Game 1 - Nothing interesting here. He eventually got a lock and took a while with Grafted Skullcap to find a win condition. Me - 20-19-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-3-0 Him - 20-17-14-12 Sideboard: Same as before Game 2 - Not much to say here. In the middle of the game, he had a chalice for two. I drew a Serenity but couldn't cast it. 2 Welders and a Metalworker were doing the beatdown until a Karn came much later. Me - 20-19-18-16-13-12-10-5-0 Him - 20-21 Round 3 - Scepter Keeper Game 1 - Turn one, he Mystical's for Ancestral and doesn't cast it because he doesn't have the protection. Later, I Chalice for 1, he drains it with his only 2 blue mana, I cast my Ancestral, get a Force, and leave him with an Ancestral in hand and no mana to cast it. I resolve a Mage naming Wish that gets removed somehow (Fire?). A Wretch comes and continues the beatdown. At some point he forces something pitching the useless Ancestral. Me - 20-19-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-6 Him - 20-19-18-17-15-14-12-11-9-8-6-5-3-1-0 Sideboard: +3 REB, -1 Mystical, -2 Wish (I probably made sideboarding mistakes by keeping a Wish in for a REB and a Mystical for a Chalice in the second game.) Game 2 - He eventually resolves a Scepter imprinting Brainstorm and a Scepter imprinting Mana Drain. He takes too long to find a win condition and I take too long to concede. I concede much later when he gets a Yawgmoth's Will and casts a Goblin Trenches. Me - 20-19-18-17-16-15-17-concede Him - 20-19-18-16-15-14-13 Game 3 - Not much here except I believe I am in control with a Shaman beatdown and card advantage, but time gets called and I end up with a draw. It would have been interesting to see if I could have pulled this game off. Me - 20-19-18-16-15 Him - 20-19-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9 Round 4 - Nether Void Game 1 - Early on, he gets a Factory and a Shade against my Shaman. He just cast the Shade so he has no black mana. I figured I would get an attack with the Shaman but forget he has a Wasteland for to activate his Factory. This is probably for the best as I have a Starstorm in hand and play it for 4 to clear the board. He gets a Nether Void which I pretty much have no answer for so I am forced to play under it. I answer his threats fairly effectively despite the Void. I think I have an advantage with a Meddling Mage naming Shade, but he uses a Contagion to remove it. At some point, he resolves a Necropotence. I have a Wretch to prevent his Factory from attacking and I feel that he is digging for a second Factory. I get a Strip but he gets a Shade on his last card that he could have played. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that last creature or he would have been in a Necro-lock that I could have easily won the game from. I had a Will in hand, but couldn't effectively cast it and another spell. At one point, I considering Willing to get a Waste to kill the Factory, but I was able to topdeck one instead. I am sure if I was on top of my game I could have pulled this game out. Me - 20-18-16-14-12-10-8-7-5-3-2-1-0 Him - 20-22-16-10-7-4 Sideboard: +2 Swords, +1 Abyss, -2 Wish, -1 Chalice (because I only want to Chalice for 2, so I don't need 1 as early) Game 2 - I pretty much dominated this game. I even got an early Response. As time was running short, I went to hurry-up mode as I scryed aggressively to get Morphling and hope to beat him in time. In the end, I was two attacks short, and missed a Vamp and Will chance with the aggressive scrying as I would need to use cities to cast the time walk from the graveyard. The purposely stalling for a minute didn't help either as he asked his friend for how much time was left, looked through his graveyard, then my graveyard and although he didn't take much time (probably not even a minute), it ended up being just enough as I missed an attack and couldn't set up the winning Will for a Time Walk. Me - 20-19-18-17-12-11-4-3 Him - 20-19-18-13-8 Wrap-up At this point, my wife was asleep and I was really hungry and really disappointed. I didn't feel like playing the last two rounds and didn't like the possibility of play the Goblin Game deck, so I just dropped. I guess it turned out that I got last place, but hopefully, it has less to do with the deck, and more with my lack of preparation. I had as much fun as one could get without getting a victory so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Overall, I was disappointed in the turnout for this Crazy Con. I think we had 36 players and it took people from Minnesota, Milwaukee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois to make it to that number. I would be curious of the total number of players that would have come, but didn't because of the holidays (although I don't want this thread to become that). There hasn't been much of a turnout at the local Chicago tournaments lately either. Unfortunately, this might be my last tournament report for quite a while as I probably won't be playing in tournaments again until GenCon. Hopefully, I will be better prepared for then. As a sidenote, with Long neutered by the December restrictions, now might be the chance to sideboard those Chalices and fix the deck accordingly.