Congratulations to Joe Brennan (why do we bother since he wont touch social media Joe!!) for taking down the April Deal Me In Games event, beating Stephen Nowakowski in the finals match 2-1. The rest of the top 8 was rounded out by Keith Grim, Josh Barkon, Dan Barkon, Greg Hoover, William Dayton and Jeremy Beaver.
Top 8 quarter-finals:
Stephen Nowakowski defeats Greg Hoover 2-1
Dan Barkon defeats Josh Barkon in the battle of the brothers
Joe Brennan defeats Jeremy Beaver
Keith Grim defeats William Dayton
Semi-finals:
Joe Brennan defeats Keith Grim
Stephen Nowakowski defeats Dan Barkon
Finals:
Joe "1st turn library" Brennan defeats Stephen Nowakowski
Will have a more complete write up as well as leaderboard standings updated in the coming days. Thanks again to Deal Me In Games and Jason for hosting another fantastic tournament.
Below is my report:
Round 1 vs Josh Barkon 0-2 0-1
Game 1 Josh wins the die roll by 1. I open my first 7 and see mox jet, voltaic key, mana vault, tolarian academy, paradoxical outcome, mindbreak trap, flusterstorm. I know Josh is on shops. Josh is always on shops. But I decide to give this a go anyway because if I can just get my 1st turn going this hand is gas. Josh opens chalice on 0. It doesn't really get better from there. I draw dead a turn or two but Josh actually doesn't do much his next 2 turns. Then he drops a revoker. He thinks for a moment and blind-names. . . mana vault Ok, I'm screwed. Scoop, go to game 2.
I forget my opening for game 2 but it just doesn't matter. Josh draws well and plays well and I fold like a cheap suit under shops being shops.
Round 2 vs Carson Shup 2-1 1-1
Carson is a new player. Not just new to vintage but new to magic. He and 2 of his friends saw the tournament posting, are local and decided to show up for their first ever vintage tournament. I'm not sure where they got their card pools from but it was basically just random stuff with a few random proxied things thrown in.
Game 1 I cannot keep my opening hand. Even against a deck I know is slapped together with cards he just opened from aether revolt I can't keep it. I mulligan, he mulligans. I got to 6 but offer to let him draw 7 again. I have a decent hand with some mix of mana and draw but no real business. By about turn 8 he had a board with aether herder (with a token he made from it), borderland marauder, and another 1/2 creature and 1 other creature. I was at 11 life he was at 20. I hard cast blightsteel colossus and passed the turn. He passed his turn. On my next turn I attacked. He considered and said he'd block with his 1/1 token. I explained infect and trample so he threw all but 1 creature at it. I looked over his board and talked with him about his options, pointing out that just has to stop 2 infect counters from hitting him. If he block with all everything dies and the next turn I win anyway. If he blocks with just the marauder he survives and has some options for his turn. He agreed to do that. I passed the turn. He drew his card and played his spell for the turn (hand was empty except for his draw). It was a mistcutter hydra (cannot be countered, pro blue, haste XG for the casting cost where it enters play w/ X 1/1 counters on it). He plays it for 5 and says pass. I'm at 11, he's at 9 poison counters. I ask him to look at the life totals and look at the board. He does and hesitantly says, "I attack?" I nod and he hits me for 13. We move to game 2 which doesn't go quite as well. I get a turn 2 mentor down and make 3 tokens. On turn 3 I have nothing to do but attack. On turn 4 I play a spell but am just short of killing him so I STP my new token and misstep it for lethal. Game 3 is much the same as I have an opening hand with lotus, 2 mentors and some land and draw spells. Knowing he has no counters and can't deal with even 1 mentor I keep and its over shortly after.
Round 3 vs Stephen Ganter 2-1 2-1
This is a mentor mirror and I also didn't take notes today so I dont remember much from this one. But Stephen and I have played a few times and always have close matches. I'm pretty sure he got game 1. But game 2 I had an early library and think I drew into tinker/colossus. Game 3 I got vault/key. Despite it being a mirror match it didn't play out like one.
Round 4 vs Jeremy Beaver 2-1 3-1
Game 1 was rough as he got leovold and 2 deathrite shamans and just hammered me. I put up a bit of a fight but he pretty much had this one from about turn 5 on. Game 2 I had a bit of gas early and got an early mentor. He had some pretty dead draws, though he did get a leovold out. But I was too far ahead at that point.
Game 3 was pretty good. I had a turn 1 mentor and turn 2 had 2 tokens out (I think a mox and pithing needle that I did blind name of pernicious deed on not knowing if was even in his deck). I beat him down to 14 and he got an abrupt decay on my mentor. My next turn I took him to 10 but he had a managorger hydra out. From here he got a null rod to shut down most of my mana and I couldn't attack thru his gorger. He started to mount a comeback. On one turn he got his gorger up to a 5/5 and attacked bringing me down to 3. I had a tapped mana vault in play. He passed and put me at 2. I then played a land, mox, mox, pithing needle and gush for exactly 10 damage. We talked about the final 2 turns after and if he had played 2 cards differently he would have crushed me. I had a few turns while we stalled where I draw a spell and wanted to play and push more damage thru but just held it hoping for that 1 big turn and luckily I got it.
Round 5 - Keith Seals Draw 3-1-1
Just a note on this draw. My lifetime record against Keith now stands at 1-1-4. This was our first intentional draw. We joked that we might as well play it out because we'll have the same end result.
Top 8 quarterfinals as noted above I lost 2-1
Game 1 started with me keeping 7 and having a generally decent hand. Stephen had a bit more than generally decent. It wasn't a blow out, but in the mirror he managed to grab the early lead on card advantage which gave him the win.
Game 2 was kind of the same but went my way. I took a mulligan down to 6 and had a very keepable hand with 2 lands, gush, ancestral a mox and I think a flusterstorm. On turn 2 or 3 we were both low on mana, I drew into a probe and saw his hand was 3 pyroblasts, gush and fow. He had a tundra and a fetch in play. My plan was to gush and ancestral until I saw this. Then I gushed into his force, flusterstormed his force and took off from there. He tapped out next turn for something (I think baby jace) which I was fine with as I had a STP from the gush. Since he was tapped out I ancestraled myself. I got a top and a dack in play and just filtered cards until I overwhelmed him with card advantage.
Game 3 I had a great opening it. It had everything in it I could have wanted - ancestral, mentor, fow, top, brainstorm. Everything that is except for mana. I mulled to 6 and had 5 good cards and a library. I mulled to 5 and got 2 lands and 3 so-so cards. He hit some early card draw and again just buried me in card advantage to close out the win.
