all your report are belong to us

OK, this is a small tournament, but 1) it's a new store, 2) I haven't posted a
report in a long time, and 3) all the rounds were against strong players - so
it's all wheat, no chaff.

Also, I think I'll post this in the Open Forum, rather than the Tournament Forum
so that the other people who attended but don't have full memberships can
respond.



"Who's on First" used to be an institution here in the Bay Area, but it closed
up several years back and the MTG world moved on; or at least my little corner
of it did. However, last week a friend said to me "Are you going to the T1 this
Saturday? It's in Dublin." Me: "A new store? What's it called?" Him: "Who's on
First." Me: "Well, well."

So, I show up a little before 2pm with 7/10 Split in hand. I've been playing
7/10 for the last couple weeks. I was thinking of going back to Tog, or trying
that ridiculous Exalted Angel Keeper, but 7/10 has a bit the TnT feel that I
like so much. Besides, what's more fun than to play huge creatures and
Armageddon your opponent at the same time? The store is full of T1'ers from C&Js
and some old "Who's on First" friends. Indeed, it is the same owner, back from a
4 year hiatus. Cool. Here's what I played:

Decklist: 7/10 Split

3 Sundering Titans
2 Trike
1 Memnarch
3 Chalice (not 4.)
1 Jar
3 Gilded Lotus
7 SoLoMox
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

4 FoW
4 Thirst
4 Brainstorm
1 Twister
1 Ancestral
1 Tinker
1 FoF
1 Time Walk (Out of fashion? Bah. Was great all day.)
1 Mystical

4 Welder
1 Wheel

4 Workshops
1 Tolarian
4 Shivan Reef
2 City of Brass
2 Ancient Tombs
2 Volcanic Island (I own no Glimmervoid. But I am willing to lose a land to cast
Titan anyway.)

Round 1: Ken with wMUD w/Slaver.
It was Ken who told me about the tournament, so karma dictates we must play each
other. Titan is sort of poopy in this matchup, since Ken has fewer "basics" than
I do.
Game 1: He wins the die roll and dumps a monster hand on the table, Wasteland,
4x Mox, and Shaman. I brace myself, but Ken passes the turn. Hrm. Things are
still sketchy for me as I kept a solo Shivan Reef hand with Brainstorm and
Mystical. The Wasteland could be bad news, but I Brainstorm into another Reef
and then play Mystical for Ancestral in my upkeep. I resolve a Welder shortly,
then a Gilded Lotus. I Thirst off the Lotus pitching Memnarch and figure I have
the game in the bag. However, Ken drops Tolarian and a Mana Vault and is able to
eat the Gilded in response to my Welding (!). Hrm. Despite my mistake, I manage
to play enough artifacts to force through a weld for Memnarch and a Trike that
kills Monkey before it can eat the artifacts Memnarch is trying to steal.
Game 2: I Cap him once quickly (using Mana Crypt) seeing only one Slaver and a
Trike. I figure he's got another dangerous win condition in hand. He's at 5 mana
due to Workshop, so I take Slaver and two Welders and brace myself for a
Pentavus or 2nd Slaver. Instead he plays a Chalice for 1, hosing my Welders as I
have hosed his. Hrm. I drop a second Cap and take Trike, Ancestral, Smokestack,
which is a bit random of me. We go back and forth, he takes his big turn off a
Jar I cannot counter, but I have a Rack and Ruin to solve my problems
afterwards. I Tinker away my Mana Crypt for a Karn and eat much of his board to
win from there. Afterwards, Ken notes that I had won 4 Crypt flips in a row and
that I finished the game at 4 life while he seen 3 Fire/Ice during the game but
had always thought he had better plays than just burning me. That would have
been harsh, to be burned out by wMUD.

Match 2: Brent with rTog
Brent is very highly rated, and it's been a long time since I have beaten him.
People have touted his "mystery deck" and I vaguely hope he is playing something
crappy. But no, it's Tog.
Game 1: He plays Underground, I play Reef, Mox, Mox, Time Walk, Ancestral. The
Walk and Ancestral accelerate me enough to hardcast Titan on the Walk turn, I
smash the Underground and say go. Brent plays Fetch (for Volcanic) and Sol Ring,
telegraphing a plan to Wish for Rack and Ruin, but I have the FoW to defend
with. ( I think about it a bit actually, if Titan dies he destroys Brent's
board. Ultimately I decide that Titan just wins if he is not destroyed, so "just
winning" must be better. )
Game 2: Brent gets a decent start, I use a Black Lotus and a Vault to power out
a quick Gilded as I am light on land. I get a second Gilded out and am set to
cast Memnarch or Trike when Rack and Ruin ends my dreams. After some sad
"draw-go" action and several points of Shaman beatdown Brent flashes me 4
counterspells. I frown, Brainstorm, find nothing and scoop.
Game 3: Brent must mull to 6, but he has the FoW for my Workshop, Vault, Jar
play. Still, that cripples the remains of his hand and a few turns later I
launch a Brainstorm to set myself up. "Hmmm, let me think," says Brent.
Brainstorm resolves and then I try Ancestral. "That's OK," says Brent, frowning
mightly and giving up pretense of having a counterspell. I slow play 3 more
turns during which I resolve Welder, FoF and Memnarch with a REB sitting unused
as backup. Brent scoops after drawing his 4th consecutive mana source while I
steal his Sapphire. Note: I win 2-of-2 Mana Crypt flips in this match, 6-0 on
the day.

Match 3: Christiaan with Draw7
I was going to say that Christiaan is another highly rated player, but I just
checked the California ratings and all my opponents are California Top 10, which
I guess is not surprising. (Hey, look at my rating! What happened to me!? I'm
like 5 places behind Brian Woo! ) In any case we played this match on Thursday
and I lost 2-0. I won a couple fun games afterwards, and I gave the matchup some
thought so hopefully this will go better. Again, Titan is poopy since Draw7
plays about 4 "basic" lands.
Game 1: I win the die roll and start ramping up. Christiaan comes within an inch
of going off on turn 2, and when he fails we have a mega FoW fight over my
attempt to stack my deck with Brainstorm. I lose that battle, but next turn I
resolve a creature and start the clock. I swing once or twice. I have a Wheel in
my hand and I agonize over it; I really don't want to give him 7 fresh cards,
but I also don't want to just hope he doesn't draw anything in the next 4 turns
before I kill him. I decide to Wheel, which dumps his lone MD Hurkyl's into the
graveyard and gives me the FoW I need to spike his attempt to go off next turn.
Game 2: He plays Land-Mox-Lotus-Twister and I am drawing a new hand before
having played a permanent. I get to draw another 7, dumping another hand. I
believe this is the game where I FoW his Lotus after two Draw 7s (I assumed this
mattered at the time, I mean why play the Lotus if you aren't going off this
turn?) and he fizzles. A turn or two later I get an active Welder and I am able
to respond to my Tendrils death by welding Platinum Angel back into play. (I
have a moment of confusion where I think he has Hurkyl'ed me, but he
unfortunately needs to Hurkyl himself to get his spellcount high enough.) I have
only 3 cards in my hand, but one of them is a Chalice which resolves for 2,
blocking the 4x Hurkyl's Christiaan likely sided in. Christiaan takes another
huge turn (hoping to find Chain of Vapor or Rack and Ruin) and settles for
Tendril'ing me twice for about 46 points to buy even more time. (Several people
hear him say "So I have 54 and you are at -54," and come over to watch.) The
rest of the game is nerve-wracking as he could win with Chain or Rack and Ruin
and I have 2 Brainstorms and a ReB as my hand. I begin swinging with Memnarch
and Angel for 8 each turn and try to steal as much of his board as I can. Late
in the game I have two Mana Crypts and big stack of Moxes due to Memnarch's
efforts. Christiaan tries a desperation Chain as I threaten to steal the rest of
his stuff and I am able to ReB it for the win. Somewhere in here I win another 4
Crypt rolls, before Angel makes them irrelevant. That's at least 10-0 on the
day, which may be a bit above average.

Random thoughts: 1) Memnarch is very good. For something that looks like such a
huge piece of crap he sure does a lot of wrecking. I don't think I could play
two though. 2) Time Walk was great all day. When you play 7/10 (or at least when
I play 7/10!) you end up taking big turns, tapping all your mana to drop things
that cost 5, 6, 7 or 8 on the board. There are so many good synergies to Time
Walk in this deck since you often get bottlenecked with all these high CC cards
- Gilded, Time Walk sure is sweeter than Gilded, go for instance. Sure, Time
Walk has fallen out of fashion, but whatever. It did more than fine. 3) FoW was
also great all day. I supposed MD'ing Trinisphere shores up your game against
Combo but, as Christiaan demonstrated, a good Combo deck has a rock solid
workaround for this strategy. Bang, your Trinisphere is back in your hand. 4) I
played 3 Chalice with the 4th in the side. To me, Chalice is good in some
matchups, but rough in others. I sided them out in the first two matches, then
all-in for the Draw7 match.