Summer Derby 23 No Attax

This is my Summer Derby report.

Deck

After playing Land Tax in Premodern at Lobstercon, I wanted to give it a try in Old School. At first, I was going to play the Randy Buehler TaxTowerLibrary list. However, I've also wanted to try playing a deck where the only win condition is Timetwister and Tormod's Crypt. Untimed Derby rounds would be the perfect time to give that a go. 

After playing the deck for seven rounds, I have some notes. There is fundamental tension with Land Tax and Counterspell. Turn one Tax is awkward when you have to play a second land to turn on Counterspell turn two. I knew this going in, but I felt I needed Counterspell to ensure my win condition actually worked. These decks should have four copies of Swords to Plowshares. Ivory Tower goes a long way against aggro, but you can still be overwhelmed. Swords is a way to slow the assault without having to play out any extra cards from hand like you would for Abyss, Moat, or Wrath. Speaking of the four mana cards, Abyss and Moat were only just okay. I never drew Wrath, but I think it might be better than either of the other two. You do overload the opposing Disenchants, but you also give the opponents a chance to play perfectly against whichever enchantment or artifact is most problematic for them. Wrath of God does not provide them that counterplay. Final note - Rainbow Vale is not good at all in this list. It might be fine still in more traditional Buehler style, but there is too much tension with Counterspell yet again.

The Matches

Round One - Billy Jannen - Disco Troll

Game one I go Land Tax into Sylvan into Tower into Moat. He doesn't have much besides a Troll and a Factory. Eventually I Braingeyser to turn on Library of Alexandria and then hold Counterspell for his Disks. After the first Disk is Countered he conceded. Game two he has turn one Serendib followed by Mind Twist for two to turn off my Tower. I can only Mind Twist for two back. He finds Demonic Tutor for Time Walk but I find Swords for the Dib before he can resolve it. He then finds a Factory and a Troll, but I have Moat. I still haven't hit enough cards to turn on Tower but I do have Sylvan working. He finds a Disk and I Demonic Tutor for Disenchant. He gets another Disk off the top and I don't have an answer. Game three I have turn one Tower and he has turn two Serendib with Mishra's Factory in play. I have no second land but just Mox Sapphire. He has Time Walk to attack for 10. I have a second Tower and start gaining 2 then 4 then 6 but he finds two Lightning Bolt to finish me off with Mana Drain backup for my Mana Drain and I die right before I stabilize.

0-1

Sided out Land Tax and Counterspell to use Moat and Abyss with 4 Disenchant 2 Divine Offering to stop his Disk but I'm not sure it was right.

Chris Mason - Mono Green

Game one I have early Tower but he has a Strip Mine to take me off UU for Counterspell on his Chaos Orb. Orb takes care of Tower and I'm too far behind on mana I'm forced to Timetwister. I find Balance off the Twister and use it to almost stabilize, but a Mishra's Factory finishes me off. Game two is very similar including a key Strip Mine. He has Tranquility for Land Tax but that lets me resolve The Abyss. I take care of all his creatures except Factories and then he finishes me off with Hurricane.

0-2

Joel Bowers - UR Atog

Game one I have turn one Land Tax but he has turn one Disenchant. I have no other land and start taking some beats from a Serendib Efreet. I'm also facing Black Vise and Ankh of Mishra after a Wheel of Fortune. I do have Lotus into Recall for Lotus and Balance to stabilize. The Abyss takes care of his Atog and I have Swords for a Factory. I'm at 1 life but he has Black Vise so I can't use Tower to gain any. I don't find any further advantage or removal for the Vise so I die when he draws burn. Game two i have a turn three Abyss for his Serendib. Eventually he uses Huyrkyll's plus Balance to restrict my resources. He finds a Factory to attack and when I Disenchant he has Fork to take out The Abyss. Two more Serendib and another Factory kill me as I draw only mana.

0-3

Jaime Cano - MonoBlue Stasis Vault

Game one has some good back and forth. He has Stasis going but no Howling Mine or Black Vise. I'm content to play draw go with plenty of land in my hand thanks to Land Tax. Eventually he comes off Stasis but loses the counter battle over Twiddle on his Time Vault. This opens the door for me to Mind Twist his hand away. I set up Tower plus Library and start drawing tons of cards. He does manage to resolve a Timetwister, but I already had Tormod's Crypt a bunch of his good stuff. I had four Tower in play and he can't quite Braingeyser me for enough to kill me. A second Mind Twist and he concedes. Game two he has early Library. A few turns go by before I find Chaos Orb to answer it. He neglects to Hurkyll's in response, but does Twiddle his Library for some extra cards. He then uses the Hurkyll's with Timetwister to set me back on mana. I play out a Tower and Library of Leng to start gaining life. He has Howling Mine and Stasis though. There are another few turns of draw-go as the Stasis slowly constrains his mana. Eventually he decides to go for it. He casts Time Walk which I let resolve. He then hits me with Hurkyll's. I counter, he counters, I counter, he counters. Hurkyll's resolves, but he's now left without two mana to Boomerang the Stasis. The extra turn he just plays an Island and passes. I take 10 from Vise but can play some Mox and Sol Ring to redeploy my Tower. He has to let Stasis die and when I untap I Regrowth a Counterspell, Mind Twist his hand, then Divine Offering the Howling Mine. He concedes.

1-3

I get paired for batch two, but then see that my round one opponent has messaged me saying he had two Mana Drain in his deck. I retroactively get the win from that round. Also, one of my batch two opponents intended to drop and we did not get to play.

2-2

Round 5 - Will Parshall

He dropped.

3-2

Round 6 - Raja James on GW Prison with Living Plane and Tabernacle

He has early Icy Manipulator to keep me off Counterspell mana. Winter Orb joins and I'm in a tough spot. I do have Ivory Tower though so he isn't threatening to kill me. Many turns go by and eventually I find enough Disenchant to get out of the soft lock. A Sylvan Library when I'm at 50 life lets me close the door. Game two I'm never under much pressure. I have Disenchant for his first Winter Orb, and Counterspell for his Serra Angel (thankfully, as I boarded out all my creature removal). I Crypt and Timetwister early and he draws all lands and concedes.

4-2

Round 7 - Marc Flore on 4 Color Black

I don't remember these last two matches very well. I know in game two he had Golgothian Sylex to remove three of my Ivory Tower and then had Disenchant for my Moat to win.

4-3

Golgothian Sylex!

Round 8 - Ross Olson on UR Burn

Game one I have early Ivory Tower but he gets a lot of creatures in play to swarm. I draw only lands and lose. Game two he has two Energy Flux and I can't remove it so I'm unable to really do anything.

4-4

Conclusion

A 4-4 record would feel about right with this deck, but in reality it was 2-5. I'm glad I got this near-zero win condition idea out of my system and I promise I will actively try to win games going forward. 

The Lady of the Mountain II

At the beginning of May, the Sisters of the Flame held a retreat in the Poconos full Old School Magic fun. It was a 16-person, invite-only event. There were five different competitions throughout the weekend. Players were competing in groups of two for the weekend totals.

I didn't write this report until six weeks later or so. Mainly because the formats were not something that are widely played, but also due to the exclusive nature of the event. However, for my own records I've decided to write up this synopsis.

The Events

Two constructed formats: Swedish69 and Sisterton 2HG

Swedish69 is like Swedish rules, but you need at least nine cards from each of Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark in your deck at all times. Additionally, you must have at least three from each set in your sideboard. We played with modified rules that banned Blood Moon, Black Vise, and City in a Bottle. There was some confusion as the intention was for Mind Twist and Library of Alexandria to also be banned, but this was not communicated to the players. It's a bit weird to have cards banned while others are restricted, but for such a casual event it was fine.

Sisterton is the Sisters variation on Singleton. It is a 100 card singleton format with most of the powerful cards banned. It is quite popular at meetups as the games are quite varied and interesting. The banned list is Black Lotus, The Moxen, Ancestral, Time Walk, Library of Alexandria, Mind Twist, Sol Ring, Braingeyser, Fireball, Disintegrate, All Ante Cards. It is popular to play pick-up Two-Headed Giant with the decks, but for this event players could build the decks with their partners deck in mind. 

Cube draft. There were two cubes. Paul had his Urza's Chalice cube, and Andy had his modified Legends cube. Each member of the team would play in a different cube.

Card design contest. Teams were tasked with designing a card and then everyone voted for their two favorite cards. The two winning cards will be printed out in the future and made legal in Sisterton.

Magic Art Trivia. I think it was about 30 images in a slide show and you had to identify the card. The art was modified by Claudia and focused on some of the smaller details of the cards.

Deckbuilding

I managed to convince Will Magrann to be my partner. We decided early on that the 2HG decks should most likely be identical to increase the chances of drawing the strongest cards. I looked for cards that would benefit both players and found Mightstone, Crusade, Army of Allah, Jihad, etc. So then it was trying to find the best 40-ish White or Artifact creatures to put in the deck. Here is what we ended up on:

(The facedown card is Jihad proxy)

For Swedish69, it was clear pretty early that The Dark didn't have a lot of good cards at all. Maze of Ith and Fellwar Stone could go in every deck though. Maze probably ended up being too good and would need further restriction if you play this format again. I went back and forth on several ideas before realizing that Pendelhaven in my 1/1 Flyer deck also let me play Argothian Pixies. Here is the deck I played:

I Love Sunken City

Will decided to play a Blue White tempo deck with Su-Chi and Serendibs. 

The Weekend

I had planned on being in Delaware to help watch my niece and nephew for the week and driving up from there. Those plans fell through however, so I was able to meet up with Jared and carpool from Clinton. After we had some lobster rolls at Metropolitan Seafood, we hit the road and arrived around 4pm. 

 First things first: Andy was making margaritas for Cinco De Mayo. The Aerathi Berserker one was incredible.

As more people began to arrive, an issue came up. One player bailed at the last minute, meaning there would only be 15 players. This left Jelani without a partner. There was some discussions about it, and in the end we decided to pair Will with Jelani. I would participate the weekend as a solo player, but my results would count double. I could manage to play the 2HG event easily enough, and I think this was the deciding factor for how to solve the problem. My team would be the Scryb Sprites, and I would play alone.

Swedish 69

We started play with Swedish69 either during or after dinner. I don't remember much about the matches six weeks later, but I'll do my best.

Round One - Ian

He was playing a Red aggressive deck with Ball Lightning I think. I think he may have mulligan or had mana issues, but I won.

1-0

Round Two - Phil

I don't remember this at all. I probably won with flyers.

2-0

Round Three - Dom on Living Plane

I do remember this one. Game one I was able to get Sunken City to protect my flyers from his Brothers of Fire. Game two he destroyed me with Living Plane plus Falling Star. Game three I had a good start. I then got to destroy his Living Plane with Concordant Crossroads followed by Mana Drain on his second Plane. He didn't have any additional interaction and the flyers got there.

3-0

Sunken City > Brothers of Fire

Round Four - Will on UW Tempo

He easily beats me game one with his more controlling build. Game two I manage to Control Magic his Serra Angel when he's empty handed, but he topdecks Braingeyser and finds a Disenchant and I get crushed.

3-1

Swedish69 Finals

The rest of the evening is a blur of margaritas and beer. I know I had fun.

Card Design

Saturday morning they presented the task of designing a card. I submitted this:

Cavalry Tactics - XXW

Sorcery

Put into play X horse tokens. Treat these as 2/2 creatures. They have banding with Knights and Soldiers

Card designs filtered in throughout the day. I was the first one done since I didn't have to design by committee. I'm happy with the card design and flavor, but compared to other cards it was maybe too straightforward as a "good" card. I don't think it's too strong or anything but it doesn't do much besides advance you board state. 

When votes were tallied, I was in a tie for second place with Andy's team. I got crushed in the runoff vote however.

Two-Headed Giant

This took place right after lunch. Once again, I don't remember much.

Round One - Electric Eels (Ian and Seth)

They had both Earthquake and a Wrath of God to stop my assault.

0-1

Round Two - Uthden Trolls (Andy and Adam)

I think this game I had a fast start followed by Winter Orb to lock the game up. 

1-1

POV: You are playing two decks at once

Round Three - Spitting Slugs (Jared and Vince)

Jared never drew a third land and I won easily.

2-1

Round Four - Merfolk of the Pearl Trident (Will and Jelani)

I start off strong but draw nothing but lands in the midgame and they win from there.

2-2

I love playing Two-Headed Giant and wish I got to play more than just four games with the decks I built. They are a bit too strong and boring for the casual fun games though.

Art Trivia

I'm not very good at noticing art on Magic cards. It's just a blur of color in my head until I take time to look closely. I also am playing by myself, which is a big disadvantage here. Not surprisingly, I finish DFL.

Played from up here, nice view

Cube Draft

After dinner it was time to cube draft. I don't have any photos of deck or games. I only vaguely remember pairings. The White Russians Jared kept making finally catching up. I chose to play in the Legends cube because I love what Andy has done with the Legends.

Round One - Vince

I don't remember.

1-0

Round Two - Jelani? Adam? Not sure

I don't remember

2-0

Round Three - Matt

He beats me. I don't remember how.

2-1

Prizes and Final Standings

Picture of all the prizes

I end up 2nd place Swedish69. I finish 3rd or 4th on breakers in the cube, 3rd in 2HG, 3rd in Card Design, and DFL in Art Trivia. I'm not sure how Paul tallied the scores, but that did put me tied with Will for the most points overall. That also meant when my score was doubled, I was far and away the best "team". Maybe playing alone was an advantage? It would be a big disadvantage on the other side of 50%.

My prizes and swag

Weekend thoughts

I had a great time participating in this event. I'd love to do this again. I know people say these kinds of events are the best part of Old School. I can see the appeal, but I do still greatly enjoy actual Magic tournaments. This will never replace that, but it doesn't need to or want to. I had a great time hanging out with all the people there. I got to meet some new faces and make some lasting memories. It was great

Props:

Paul and Andy for putting the whole thing on

Will for helping me make decks

Jared for the ride to the place

Claudia for making the Art Quiz

Slops:

Whoever it was that didn't show up leaving Jelani without a partner. You know who you are and you should feel bad

The Lady of the Mountain II

RB Blood Moon in X-Point

I did not participate in the X-Point side event at LobsterCon, choosing instead to play PreModern. In fact, I've never played X-Point before, or even considered it. However, I talked with several of the participants in Boston and it kind of got the creative juices flowing. As luck would have it, there was going to be an X-Point get-together in New Jersey the following week. 

Deckbuilding

I wasn't sure I'd get to participate, but I did think about what I might choose to play. Examining the point list for the first time and I keyed on Red Black. I thought an Atog list with The Rack, Hymn to Tourach, and maybe Storm World would be a cool direction. However, I couldn't decide what to spend the last two points on after Hymn and Factory. I kept that in the back of my mind during the week.

I decided on Saturday afternoon that I would go. I realized that not playing Mishra's Factory would free up some points for some better cards. I just needed a way to neutralize the threat of opposing Factories. Once again, Blood Moon has come to the rescue. I had an Atlantic BR Moon list I made a few years back and never got to play with. I updated it to reflect some experience as a deck builder and to remove the point cards I couldn't play. I ended up on this:

A few updates I would make going forward: I absolutely wanted the fourth Shatter against Black Vise and Ankh of Mishra. I would probably play a second City in a Bottle in the sideboard. I don't know if Gloom is good or not, but wanted to beat any Circle of Protection. Maybe a few more cards to bring in when Blood Moon comes out. 

The Games

Twelve people showed up. Three rounds of Swiss, plus a match at the end with the two undefeateds to avoid tiebreakers.

Round One vs Matt Cutbirth on GW Armageddon

Game one I Hymn him twice, hitting two Ernham Djinn in the process. A Chaos Orb takes care of the third Erhnam while a Hypnotic Specter goes all the way. Game two I think he mulligans to five or six and I kill his mana elves and he's never really in it.

1-0

Round Two vs Rich Arevalo on URW Atog

Game one we trade cards back and forth. I resolve Blood Moon twice, but he has Plains and Disenchant twice. Eventually the board is empty and both empty handed while both at about 15 life. He draws and plays Timetwister into two Black Vise, but I'm able to Shatter one and Bolt him to avoid taking a lot of damage. I follow up with a couple of Blood Moons to lock him out then bury him with Jayemdae Tome advantage. Game two he leads on Vise into Ankh and I don't have Shatter and just die. Game three I Hymn him and he puts his hand face down on the table. Two card sleeves look slightly less worn or more shiny than the others so I grab them. They were two sideboard cards, Karma (!!!!) and Falling Star. I'm able to manage the remainder of his threats and beat him with Troll. 

2-0

Round Three vs Elizabeth on MonoBlack 

Her deck has all the angles of attack: Sinkhole, Hymn, The Rack, Underworld Dreams, and Juzam and Sengir. Hard to blank all the threats, especially when Blood Moon is a dead card. I'm winning game one after a Hymn and she's stuck on three land while a Specter is getting in. She plays Underworld Dreams to race and follows up with Dark Ritual into Juzam. I don't have a great answer to Juzam, so I take some extra damage from Jayemdae Tome digging for a solution. After taking one hit, I find Sedge Troll to stop the Djinn and the Hyppie goes the rest of the way before Dreams can kill me. Game two we each trade Hymns. I have a Sedge Troll but she has two Royal Assassin. I draw Demonic Tutor for Fireball to take care of the Assassins. Troll and Order present a clock while she just draws Swamps the rest of the game.

3-0

Round Four vs Jer on RG Aggro

He mulligans to five cards but has a reasonable start with Factory into Kird Ape. I had to spend turn two using Sol Ring and Swamp to Tutor for a Badlands. He has a second Factory so I'm looking at 6 a turn soon. I draw the perfect card in Blood Moon, which not only turns off his Factories, it makes his Kird Ape a 1/1 so I can tap my now-Mountain City of Brass to Fireball it for one. He doesn't have any follow up plays and I'm able to win easily after resolving a Triskelion. Game two I have Lightning Bolt for his first creature followed by a Hymn. He only has green mana. I resolve a couple of Sedge Trolls for attacks. He finally gets to four mana and plays Ifh-Biff Efreet. He can't survive the three additional Lightning Bolts I've drawn at this point though.

4-0

Somehow ended with all these prizes picking 1st, 24th and 25th

Thoughts

X-Point seems like a fun time, but it does feel like "Atlantic-Light". It's still mostly the same strategies, just slightly worse. I'm sure there are cool brews out there, including the sweet Stasis list that won Lobstercon. I didn't look at any of the metagame before the event, but apparently BlackRed is a popular strategy and I can see why. I'll likely participate again in the future, but I don't know if I want to spent a lot of time in the space. 

Props:

Nick for putting on the event

Time Warp Cards for hosting

Jared for recording matches (hopefully coming to YouTube soon!)

The guy who came just to donate a card to the prize pool

Lobstercon 2023

This is my Lobstercon report.

Thursday

I take the train into Boston. Only slightly longer than driving, plus I'm able to get some work done while travelling. I get to the AirBNB which is a two minute walk from the venue (props to Will for booking!). I meet Svante for the first time. We discuss our decks while I take my deck photos. Will and Lucy show up and we then Uber over to DFB's house for the evening. It was a lot of fun, but not much to report besides some photos. 

Photo credit to DFB's daughter

When the sun goes down, the ante decks come out

My cube draft deck with the full Opposition plus Blinding Angel lock to deck Aaron Dicks through his Worship

The Uber ride back featured an extremely cute copilot

Friday

For Premodern, I did not do as much preparation as I would have liked. In the end, I decided to play Land Tax before it gets banned. I also have these sweet Land Tax from [redacted] event that I wanted to use. I didn't have any practice with it, so my main goal was to avoid any draws. Here is my list:

CounterParfaitOath

After playing four rounds, I think that the Counterspells were there worst part of the deck. Gush and Foil are great, should have played more Foil. I don't know what the best way to build the Parfait deck is but I think it has Oath and probably fewer counters, if not zero like Lanny's top 8 list.

Round 1 - Joshua Nyer on Mono Blue StifleNought

Game one he has an early Dreadnought that I cannot answer. I have Oath of Druids into Ancestor's Chosen for enough life to make it interesting when combined with my Ivory Tower. He has a second Dreadnought and I don't find an answer to either and die. Game two I have Annul for the first Dreadnought and Swords to Plowshares for the second one. I then resolve two Meddling Mage on Dreadnought and Boomerang and he concedes. Game three goes very long. I answer a the first Dreadnought with Annul and resolve a Meddling Mage. He has Null Rod to stop my Scroll Rack and Mox Diamond. I have Land Tax plus Sylvan but he's avoiding the Tax. Eventually he uses Powder Keg along with Vision Charm on his Null Rod to remove the Meddling Mage. I find another Meddling Mage after Swords on his Dreadnought. Time is running low when I find second Mage. He's at 16 life when time is called on his turn. I need to find third Mage to play on turn one of extra turns to kill him exactly. He tries to tell me his turn was turn one, but I don't fall for the trick (weird angle shoot?). I do find the third mage and my hand of three Counterspell plus Foil is able to stop his last ditch effort to mill me with two Vision Charm plus Stifle on my Blessing trigger. I attack for exactly lethal on turn five of extra turns. 

1-0

Round one at table one.

Round Two - Roland Chang on Mono Blue Dreadnought

Game one he has Foil for my Land Tax but I resolve a Scroll Rack. A Gush on my turn after I Rack end of his turn was going to let me play Swords on his Dreadnought with Counterspell backup, but I somehow dexterity errored the Mox Diamond I needed to the wrong part of the top of my library. Game two my deck did not do much and he was able to stick a 12/12 before I had Counterspell up.

1-1

Round Three - Tino Galizio on MonoRed Goblins

Game one I have turn two Oath of Druids that hits Ancestor's Chosen for 31 extra life. Eventually I'm able to win. Game two he has no plays until turn three Sulfuric Vortex. I have hard cast Shard Phoenix and Ancestor's Chosen to try to get aggressive. He uses Pyrokinesis plus Lightning Bolt to clear my board. I have an Engineered Plague and a Hydroblast for the Vortex. Eventually I find Oath of Druids for Akroma and win in short order.

2-1

Round Four - Joel Bowers on Sligh

Game one I mulligan to six and bottom Shard Phoenix. I have turn one Oath if I draw a land but I miss. I play the Flooded Strand in my hand. Turn two I draw an Island for the Mox Diamond but have to shuffle in order to play Oath. This means I'm no longer guaranteed to hit Ancestor's Chosen and indeed I hit Phoenix. It is useful but not enough against his follow up Ball Lightnings and Browbeats. Game two I keep a very bad hand in retrospect with Island, Ivory Tower, Land Tax, Oath of Druids but no other mana. I play turn one Tower but he has Black Vise. I don't find any more mana and he has turn three Sulfuric Vortex to lock up the game.

2-2

Me with my round four opponent, aka Coach Beard and Trent Crimm

After the poor play of round four, I decide to drop from the event. I think Premodern is in a weird spot and I wasn't convinced on playing any deck in particular. Maybe by next Lobstercon I'll have a better idea about what I want to do.

The rest of Friday involved a cube draft where I went 3-0 6-0, but my team lost so I had to ship Mano $20. Then there was excitement in birding the ante 40k matches where a Savannah, Taiga, Chaos Orb, and Mishra's Workshop all exchanged hands. Finally there was the Old School themed Cards Against Humanity that was a great time. Plus the bartenders made an extra extra strong Jack and Coke that made the night better.

Much better than normal CAH

Saturday

I had a particular deck in mind for several weeks, but I realized last week that the deck I wanted to play was Swedish legal so I decided to hold off on it for a different time. Instead I switched to Shops, since I've only played with my Shops one other time since acquiring them. I wanted to play Atog but I didn't want to play White for Armageddon, Swords, or Disenchant. I was going to play Winter Orb instead of Armageddon but a last minute conversation with Will Magrann convinced me to play Blood Moon instead. In the end, my deck looked like this:

AtogMoonShops

I think this deck is very good. I really like playing impactful permanents like The Abyss, City in a Bottle, and Blood Moon instead of reactive cards like Swords to Plowshares and Red Elemental Blast. The Atogs were only okay throughout the day. I think I would want to play another mana source over Braingeyser and a Shatter over an Atog. The extra artifact creatures were also only okay. They were nice to have when playing both Blood Moon and The Abyss but I don't know if all four were necessary or what the correct mix is. I could also see reworking the manabase to fit some basic Islands in as I was siding out Copy Artifact in almost every matchup where I brought in Blood Moon. 

Round One - Nicky Scars on LionDibBolt

Game one I keep a hand with Black Lotus, Fellwar Stone, Su-Chi, Chaos Orb, Blood Moon, City in a Bottle and Mishra's Workshop. Except when I start my turn one, I realize the Shop was instead a Factory. I play turn one Su-Chi but never find another mana source and die. Game two I have a turn two Timetwister and then plays multiple Su-Chi plus an Ancestral Recall. He tries to race with Serendib and Serra, but I also have Time Walk and win with the Su-Chis plus three Factory. Game three I have The Abyss for his Serendib and then Blood Moon. I Wheel of Fortune into Black Lotus to Demonic Tutor for Mox Sapphire and Timetwister. He can't really beat the Blood Moon

1-0

This Shatterstorm was not enough for my opponent

Round Two - Ryan Rudolph on MotiSummer

Game one I have two early Su-Chi that attack him to 8 life before he resolves Balance. After the Balance, I resolve an Icy Manipulator which lets me resolve a Triskelion. He has a Serra and a Moti but misses the lethal line of Recall on Time Walk because he didn't realize I had taken 8 mana burn from the Su-Chis. I'm able to win exactly with two Factory and Triskelion damage before he can kill me. Game two I have turn one Blood Moon but he has Plains and Disenchant. My Clay Statue is met with Swords to Plowshares but I have Mana for his Jayemdae Tome. I then Timetwister and pass with four mana up. He tries to Mind Twist my hand, but I have Mana Drain along with Ancestral Recall and Red Elemental Blast to stop it. I then play another Blood Moon and some Su-Chi and win. I had Abyss in play most of the game which he never could answer because he has to hit the Blood Moon instead.

2-0

Round Three - Tim Atwood on Siren's Call

Game one he has a Will-O'-The-Wisp but light on mana. My Icy plus Relic Barrier for his Factory let me get some beats in and a Copy Artifact on Icy taps his Sengir and he never does much of anything. Game two I have him mostly locked out with Mind Twist and The Abyss but my hand doesn't have a way to win. I decide to go for Blood Moon + Timetwister to close the game out. He plays a Disk but I have Chaos Orb. His second Disk clears the board and he has Library active. I'm running out of time when I topdeck Disintegrate for exactly lethal.

3-0

Round Four - Will Setzer on The Deck with Serra

Game one I'm firmly in the lead but struggling to close the game out against his Serra Angel and Factories. My Icy can hold off the damage but not making any progress. Eventually I find Copy for the Icy and get him in range. He plays out two more Serra and I'm still short. The next turn I have lethal but instead I Mind Twist him, which doesn't leave me enough mana to activate all my Factory and kill him. After my attack he finds Time Walk after using Tome in upkeep and Sylvan in draw step and I die to the Serra Angels. Game two I have Blood Moon early but he has Disenchant. The Abyss takes out a Serra but he has Moat to stop me from attacking. I play a Wheel discarding Time Walk and Timetwister to try to get something going but he has a second Moat. We play draw go for several turns while he has Counterspell for my Icy's and Blood Moon. We end up at a spot where he has two cards left in his deck and he goes for Timetwister. I have Red Elemental Blast, but he has the last Counterspell. If I could have found another Blood Moon, Mana Drain, Braingeyser, or Ancestral by this point I would have decked him. I concede as we head into turns since I'm down a game. Punished for throwing away game one.

3-1

Round Five - Phillip Keffer on LionDibBolt

Game one he has turn one Lion and I have turn one Library. He attacks and plays Time Walk turn two but no follow up threat or third mana source. I play a Workshop and a Mox and go for a Triskelion on my turn three, but he has Power Sink! He still has no follow up mana so my second Triskelion resolved. He plays Swords to Plowshares on it, so I shoot the Lion and gain 3 life back to 15. I then resolve a Su-Chi and he finally gets third mana for Serendib. I Copy the Su-Chi and start attacking. He tries to race with two more Serendib but I have Triskelion and another Copy to win the game. Game two I have turn two Icy and then a Su-Chi which is countered then a Clay Statue which is Swords. He has no threat besides a Factory which I keep locked down with Icy. He Mind Twists me for three cards when my hand is Ancestral, Icy, The Abyss, and City in a Bottle. I'm left with the Bottle, which I use to take out his two City of Brass. He is lacking red mana at this point and I draw Strip Mine for his Plateau when he draws it. I chip in damage with a Factory for several turns before eventually resolving a Triskelion. He has a Serendib to make it interesting but I finally draw the red source I need for Blood Moon and he concedes.

4-1

Round Six - Andres Hojman on Four Color Black

Game one he has Mind Twist for six on turn two. I resolve a Su-Chi but then misplay by not using Strip Mine on his only white source, allowing him to Swords it and beat with a Troll and two Factory. I wanted to save my sixth mana in case I drew Triskelion but I don't think that was correct. I can't recover and lose. Game two my first hand has no mana, my second hand is Workshop, Workshop, Badlands, Time Walk, Icy, Blood Moon, and The Abyss. I think for a while and decide to mulligan but I'm still not sure. My five card hand is Workshop, Workshop, Library, Factory, Lotus, Mind Twist, Tetravus. I decide to put the Library and Factory on the bottom and Twist for two on turn one. I then play a turn two Tetravus but he has a Disenchant I can't really recover.

4-2

Round Seven - Simon Christie on Green Aggro with Black and Blue

Game one he has some early beats with Scryb Sprite but I resolve a Timetwister and then a Time Walk. There is some confusion about whether his Scavenger Folk was active on my second turn in response to a Blood Moon, but we play it as it wasn't active. This ends up doing additional four damage to me from mana burn as he uses it to kill my Su-Chi on his turn instead of my. However, I have two Triskelion by this point and an Icy for his Pixies and I win. Game two he has Library turn one so I get aggressive and play Factory Copy and Atog turn one. A second Atog lets me stay aggressive but he gets several Pixies. At some point I'm flooding out and I draw Demonic Tutor and search up The Abyss, but I'm too far behind and he has Whirling Dervish plus Crumble for my Icy to win. Game three I keep him off blue mana with Chaos Orb and Copy Artifact. Eventually I resolve a Blood Moon and some Atogs do enough damage to win.

5-2

The 2HG team must face each other

Round Eight - Colin Smith on MonoRed Goblins

Game one he has turn one Black Vise but my turn one is Lotus Workshop Triskelion. I Copy the Trike on turn three to wipe his board and avoid any Goblin Grenades and win easily. Game two he has turn one Vise once again. My turn one is Factory, Lotus, Copy the Factory, Copy the Factory. Turn two I play another Factory and a Su-Chi so I have four Factory in play on turn two. He does have Blood Moon to somewhat mitigate this. He then goes for a Wheel of Fortune but I have more Su-Chi and Atog plus Falling Star for his Goblins. A Disintegrate plus Atog finishes him off.

6-2

Four Factories on turn two

I finished 21st place. Misplays in round four hurt me, but the misplays in round six probably didn't matter. I really like this deck and continue to think that Workshops is the best thing you can do in Atlantic. I might play it again for Summer Derby with a few updates. I learned that Shatter is really good in conjunction with Blood Moon. I also think I need at least one more REB.

After the event, we found some tacos at the only place that was still open. We ran into the central PA crew there and joined tables for a nice dinner. Afterwards, everyone went to State Park bar for shenanigans and ante matches. However, my foot was in extreme pain somehow so I went home early to sleep it off. I'm sorry I didn't get to hang out with everyone after the fact but I had a blast all weekend.

Props / Slops

Props:

Everyone involve for putting on the event.

Will Magrann for setting up the lodging and helping me with my list

Simon for everything despite the confusion in round seven

Andy Baquero for finally getting me a Sisters of the Flame shirt

Andy Blaufarb for getting me a Philadelphia Old School shirt

Money drafting still rules, even if I had to pay while going 3-0

The Houston Falling Stars

The Sisters of the Flame

Alter Ante Report

I recently played in the Alter Ante Tournament hosted by Old Order Old School in York, PA. The format and event were fantastic and I wanted to share some stories from the weekend.

Format Overview

Quick summary: Build a deck between $4k and $7k according to the official values posted. Reprints are okay. Matches will be best of one for ante. You don't lose cards from your deck, but you make a proxy card for the winner that can be added to their deck. 

The cost restrictions made for an interesting brewing process. Black Lotus was banned as it was over $7k by itself. Other cards like Time Walk and Timetwister cost more money than they were probably worth. Deciding to include Ancestral Recall, or Mishra's Workshop, or any Mox would significantly restrict the rest of the deck.

Brewing Process

I built a spreadsheet that would auto-calculate the value of various decks. In preparation I made about 15 tabs on the sheet of different decks. Most of these weren't serious contenders, just thought experiments to see what was possible. A few truths emerged almost immediately: every deck would probably play the three restricted Black cards (Demonic Tutor, Contract from Below, and Mind Twist), and Fellwar Stone was a reasonable replacement for Moxen and would also usually count as a Black source.

I don't have any experience with regular ante formats, but my impression was that they are somewhat slow and grindy in nature. With that in mind, I identified Braingeyser as the potential "most valuable card" at only $60. Wheel of Fortune and Library of Alexandria also stood out as being undercosted. Overcosted cards like Serendib Efreet and Juzam Djinn would not be making an impact.

The other major constriction was dual lands. The cheapest dual lands were still over $300, and deciding to try to play a three-color mana base would take up the entire budget. Undergroud Sea cost twice the amount of City of Brass. I also decided that playing any Moxen was probably not worth it, but this may have been a mistake.

There were two lists I seriously considered. The first was a RW Atog list with Black Vise and Ankh of Mishra to exploit the lack of Moxen, and Savannah Lions plus Armageddon to close out games as fast as possible. I've played Atog a lot recently and decided to skip it this time. Instead, I ended up on a UW Skies list with Serra Angel, Mahamoti Djinn, and Control Magic. It was designed to be a tap-out style of control deck and I wanted to minimize targets for Disenchant and Divine Offering by not playing Jayemdae Tome.

Here is the deck I started the event with ($6927): 

The Weekend

My wife and I went down to York early Friday evening. We had dinner and some beer at Collusion Tap Works. I had one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten. The Ghost Pepper Burger:

The next morning, we checked out the market where the event would take place later in the day. I had a delicious Crab Cake Grilled Cheese for lunch:

The rest of the afternoon before the event we spent walking around York and seeing some of the historic spots. It's a small enough town that it didn't take too long and soon it was time to begin the tournament.

The Event

Each player was assigned a pod. You had to play everyone else in the pod plus five wild card games from outside the pod in order to get a final record. The best record in each pod would make the top four. I figured a 9-2 record would be a lock for top four, 8-3 would be mostly safe, and 7-4 may come down to tiebreakers if you made it at all.

I was in the Balance pod and you can see my scorecard here:

It is a lot harder to remember details from matches when they are single games. I played sixteen games total on the day, but each was against a different opponent. My brain is not used to that, so the best I can do is maybe remember what deck each player was on. I didn't play these in the order here either.

Geoff was on a RW Tax/Edge deck. I think I stuck a Mahamoti and had Counterspell for his Wheel of Fortune for the win. I won a Planes.

Nate Shue I don't remember this one. Maybe this was the game he tried to double Giant Growth plus Berserk into my Swords to Plowshares.  I won a Demonic Tutor I think.

Jason Beaupre was on a RG deck with Channel and Fireball. I had Mind Twist for five on turn four and it wasn't really a game. I won a Taiga.

Chris Zach beat me with turn two Sinkhole and turn three Hypnotic Specter and I never found a white mana source. I gave him a Mahamoti Djinn.

Don was on UW and had turn one Library of Alexandria, but I was able to play enough big fliers to kill him before he could recover from a slight mana stumble. I won a Recall.

Mike R was on a UW deck with Copy Artifact and Su-Chi. My fliers won the race against his artifact army. I won a Jayemdae Tome.

I don't remember what Jeremy played, but I think I won Sedge Troll. *edit - this was the game I won Pixies and also the game where opponent went for double Giant Growth plus Berserk*

I don't remember how I lost to Ryan but I lost another Mahamoti Djinn.

Stephanie was on GW Enchantress and never drew more than two mana. I won a Strip Mine fittingly.

Mike M was on RG and I think I won Argothian Pixies. I won Sedge Troll but don't remember the game. 

Nate G beat me with multiple Fireballs on my Serra Angels and I lost an Island.

My record was 8-3, but I could still play games to try to win more cards. Also, at three losses you could donate $10 to add a Mox to your deck so I added a Mox Sapphire.

I beat Mark with Serra plus Spirit Link on turn five. He made a sweet Armageddon for me: 

Mike the third - I don't remember but I lost a Serra Angel I think.

I beat Dan but don't remember the game. He made an Italian Wheel of Fortune for me.

Mase beat me with Mind Twist into Contract and had Fireball before I could finish him off with my Factories. I think I gave him an Island.

Ian beat me with Atog and Black Vise. I didn't have double blue mana for Counterspell when he had Contract. I don't remember which card I drew for him.

Somewhere in there, dinner was served. Excellent food from the Italian place in the market. The macaroni and cheese was delicious.

Here are all the cards I "won" in ante:

After all was said and done, I won the Balance pod with the 8-3 record. The other pod winners were Ian on Red Atog, Levi on UW Aggro (with three Sol Ring, six Mishra's Factories, and five Su-Chi), and Mano on mono-white Howling Mine deck. Mano and I had the same record and hadn't played each other, so we high rolled to see who would be third seed vs fourth seed. I lost and had to play against Levi in the top four. At this point, my deck looks like this:

Levi made short work of me in the top four with a never ending stream of Factory beats. He won a Balance from me that he would want to use in the finals against Ian. Mano lost almost as quickly as I did, but then claimed that we didn't need to play for third place since he already won the die roll. I had already played the most games of anyone on the day but wouldn't have minded playing one more, but I guess the small amount of value for picking third on the prize cards was not something Mano wanted to risk in a game of "Ante".

Ian won over Levi in the finals after some mistakes were made despite being Mind Twisted for four on turn three. Congrats to Ian!

The patch is great. Erg Raiders for most games played was a nice bonus!

Thoughts on Things

The venue was great. The hosts were great. The tournament structure was good until I couldn't play a game to try to win third place. The format was a lot of fun. I don't think it makes me want to play actual ante though. 

Some tweaks I would consider for the format: 

1. Make Chaos Orb $1. I felt bad for not playing Orb in an Old School event, but didn't think I would miss it that much compared to it's $840 price tag when I had Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares and Counterspell in my deck. I think everyone should be playing Orb whenever possible and this would make it so.

2. Un-restrict the non-Contract ante cards. The best part of the event was seeing which cards you could get. Since no one is losing the cards for real, there isn't any feel-bad from Darkpact or Tempest Efreet, and I'd love to see people trying to use them more often.

3. Un-restrict Mishra's Workshop. The base format is Swedish so its restricted, but the price could be prohibitively expensive and it isn't possible to play more than two anyway. The same argument could be made for the Moxen as well.

4. Originally, I thought putting all dual lands to the same price would be a good change. I was worried that the best deck would be RWB that could utilize the cheaper dual lands. I no longer think this should be the case, but could be worth considering.

My deck was fine. I misidentified how good the blue cards would be. The mana was a bit rough even though I went to great lengths to make it better. Maybe I didn't need Factory since it rarely won me any games and didn't do much blocking. Land Tax and Ivory Tower would have been better than Control Magic and Factory I think. The format was a bit faster than expected as people were more willing to play expensive cards than in normal ante.

Overall, it was an A-plus event. I'm always excited to brew a new format.

Props and Slops

Props:

Mike Frantz for everything he did to put on the event.

Levi and rest of Old Order Old School for being great hosts.

Ian for winning the event.

All the opponents for making fun proxy cards.

All the great food.

My wife Beth for coming along and exploring York with me.

Slops:

Levi for punting in the finals.

Mano for not battling me for third place.

Me for not remembering match details like I normally would.