MobsterCon 2024 - *1st place*

MobsterCon 2 finally happened! 

Periodically prodding Mano to run the Team Unified Scryings event in central New Jersey finally paid off. I helped behind the scenes in the planning process. By "helped" I mean I visited several restaurants and breweries in the area to scout for the right location. Eventually I remembered that Village Brewing Company had extra space, including a downstairs area, that might be able to host. Once Mano vetted the place, he finalized the location and my part of the planning was over.

The second step for me was to find some teammates. In the past, I've had the fortune of plenty of players I'm happy to team with. I've always said that teammate selection is the most important part of a team event. At first, I tried to get Simon Christie to team with me, but he had too much other travel planned. I also asked Wheel, but he refuses to play Scryings. 

It was also a given that I would be trying hard to win, or at least develop decks that gave me the best shot. For me, half of the fun of Magic is the process of getting a deck ready for the event. Even without playing any games, I'll spend probably four times the amount of time just thinking about all the cards I could play and what the best strategy would be.

For those reasons, I was hoping to find teammates that would want to try to win close to a similar amount, and also would either be willing to put up with my non-stop tinkering, or just leave me to make the deck building decisions. At the very least, I can always use my network of collaborators in the brewing process and have different people play the games with me.

At the recent Spike Summit, it came up that Will Parshall did not have a team yet either. I told him he could team with me, which gets a great player on my team while simultaneously removing a great player from the opposing player pool. We spent a week trying to find a third and eventually his friend Dan Miller agreed to join us. I had the cards to build most anything so I would provide the cardboard. 

On Scryings

Just three quick notes on Scryings:

1. I still love Scyrings. The games are way more interesting and less frequently decided by whoever draws more power or factories. This is even more so in team unified.

2. Scryings does struggle to get people in the door because its so hard to remember which cards are in and which are out. This is probably the biggest turnoff, but I think its worth the effort.

3. Specific to team unified, a lot of the cards in Scryings seem to operate under the assumption your opponents will be playing fully powered decks, or have the option to. The amount of Moxes you play against in team unified is reduced by 1/3, so many of the cards lose their potency. I think there could be a better designed set of cards for team unified, and I understand this wasn't designed necessarily to support that.  This is an extremely minor complaint.

Building Decks

Two main constraints in building team unified decks:

1.    How to divide the restricted power cards

2.    How to divide the dual lands / City of Brass / Mishra's Factories / etc

Additional for MobsterCon, you had to consider if having access to as many Savannah as you wanted to play actually mattered for anything.

Both issues can be solved at "level 1" by just dividing up the colors, splitting the Moxes and power cards by what can be cast, and avoiding overlapping colors between decks. This is similar to the "basic" strategy in Atlantic or Swedish unified where the colors don't have enough depth to support multiple players. However in Scryings all the colors have much more depth and can easily support two players if you are building decks not just piles of good cards.

The other issue with dividing the power cards, and the Moxes in particular, is that they are much better the more you have. A single Mox in your deck doesn't increase your deck's power by all that much. Ancestral is probably the strongest in this regard, but still represents a small power increase over 225 cards played. Cards like Mind Twist, Timetwister, and Balance are much better with all of the Moxes, and Demonic Tutor is better with those particular cards in your deck as well as with Time Walk and Ancestral. 

This leads to the conclusion that most, if not all, of the restricted cards should be in one deck. Which deck that should be felt obvious to me. The difference between Twiddle Vault and other fully powered decks is that your best draws actually win you the game, and 4x Recall let you abuse the fact that you have all of the power. 

I started thinking about how decks without 7 SoLoMox could compete with the acceleration those cards provide. If a deck can compete on that level, it will have a leg up against decks that do not have acceleration. With a mind to the color distribution, I centered on Dark Ritual and mana creatures. 

For Dark Ritual, we were drawn to Reanimator right away. Replacing Moxes with Rituals is not quite the same for the plan B, but the plan A was very strong. Bazaar with Krovikan Horror and Ashen Ghoul make up for whatever clunkiness you could otherwise experience. There is only one Strip Mine available, and other land destruction is too slow to stop Bazaar from doing its thing. I did not expect as many City in a Bottle as the power level of creatures is improved enough that the Arabian creatures don't necessarily outclass everything.

For mana creatures, we first looked at a GW only list. Even with only 4 Savannah, there was enough intriguing to me with Tithe, Empyrial Armor, and Quirion Ranger. Then maybe combine it with Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves to power out an early Armor and Berserk to finish the job. Our spikey nature though prevented us from playing things that would too easily lose to single removal spells, and we were back looking at options with just good creatures. RGW Aggro was an option, but the creatures like Wildfire Emissary and trump cards like Stormbind didn't play well with what we thought was the best disruptive card in Armageddon. We really wanted a solid 3-drop creature to play off of turn 1 Birds, but nothing was exciting compared to Serendib Efreet. With Tropical Island tied up in the Twiddle Vault deck, I wasn't sure it was possible to play GWu. However, with 4 Tundra, 4 Tithe, and 4 Birds of Paradise, that in theory should be enough sources. Undiscovered Paradise could also play a role.

With these starting points, it then became a matter of adjusting the cards that multiple decks wanted in order to maximize the impacts, while also considering what decks we expected to face. A list of decks we thought people would play:

Twiddle Vault

Power Artifact

Reanimator

MaskNought

TaxTower Control

Various Tithe Aggro, Midrange, and Control decks

MonoGreen aggo

MonoRed Goblins

Various RG Jokulhaups decks

Other

I did not think much into how the lineups would exist, but just about which decks would be good or bad matchups for our decks. The biggest takeaway is that the top two decks both played City of Solitude, so whatever card we wanted for that matchup needed to work well as a sorcery. I had already earmarked Energy Flux for the Reanimator sideboard, but decided it would be more potent with Birds to accelerate and Armageddon to back it up.

It was also around this time I discovered that through Dan we had access to four copies of Chains of Mephistopheles. This card is a very potent sideboard card, and even has some maindeck potential with Anvil of Bogardan. I spent maybe a few days iterating all sorts of Chains/Anvil lists, but nothing that was as exciting as our current configuration. If deck choice was solely on my and not my teammates, I would have played Twiddle Vault, White Weenie, and Jund Chains/Anvil Aggro. However, this was banking a lot on people actually bringing the decks we expect.

In the end, we stuck with the original lineup and put the Chains in the Reanimator sideboard, even though its not the best with Bazaar. We had versions with a couple of Anvil in the maindeck to set up a lock after board, but it sacrificed too much of the explosiveness. 

The Reanimator deck was the hardest to build. There are so many options for discard outlets and large creatures, as well as plan Bs. It also doesn't work like a normal Magic deck, so balancing mana and spell ratios was tricky. Without playing any games, just some goldfishing, I think we did a solid job. There was room for improvement and I think Tom Swindell had a better strategy for it in Team Unified. A last minute debate about Mishra's Factory vs Thawing Glaciers meant we ended up without any Factories in our 225. A sad situation for me as it is my favorite card. However, I was getting to pilot the deck with all the power so I can't really complain.

Here are our decks:

Twiddle Vault

Derelor in the sideboard since Erhnam in the GWu deck, but it does have some upside (and some downside).

GWu Tempo

8 Savannahs. Not the most in the room, but it feels like 12 with Tithe. (*edit* actually we have the most in the room!) Sideboard is almost entirely blue cards. Two Lat-Nam's Legacy were cut for the 2nd Sylvan and 3rd Memory Lapse near the last minute. We played zero Lat-Nam's Legacy in our 225.

Reanimator

Shivan and Deep Spawn so that REB/BEB don't hit both targets. All Hallow's Eve is a good plan C. Played as many duals as we could afford, but not enough to support other colors much. Glaciers good in that regard.

So I would play Twiddle Vault, since I've only lost one match with it to this point. Will would play the GWu deck that is very similar to other decks he plays in OS. Dan would play Reanimator.

Pregame

Friday before the event, eight of us played round of golf at Makefield Highlands Golf Club. It was a lot of fun. Mano, Flint, Jeff Liu, and Will Larson crushed the team of Dom, Katz, Cliff, and myself. Personal injury and property damage was kept to a (non-zero) minimum. Afterwards we had a BBQ at Mano's house as more out-of-towners rolled in. The food and drink was great, the pool was refreshing, and the people were awesome. I was too exhausted from being in the sun all day so I left just as the draft was starting to go home and sleep.

The nice thing about local events is being able to sleep in. I made the 25 minute drive to the site to meet up with the team and finalize our decks. More importantly, we finalized our team name. After a week of brainstorming, we could do no better than the first team name that Will came up with:

Zur's Weirdos.

We even won prizes for having the second best team name!

Main Event

I'm seat A, Will is seat B, and Dan is seat C. Because of this, I don't see much of Dan's matches and can't recap them as well as the others.

Round One - Illuminati (Michael Scheffenacker, Seth Roncoroni, Tom Swindell)

Me vs Scheff on Twiddle Vault- He plays turn one Island. I play turn one land Mox Howling Mine, Lotus, Wheel. I can't do much else, and since he's also on Twiddle Vault he easily wins turn two.

Dan vs Tom (reanimator)- Dan gets game one after Tom uses Bazaar turn two and didn't know Dan also on reanimator. Dan Animate Dead it and the tempo was too much. Games two and three looked like terrible messes and I don't know what actually happened, but Dan ended up losing. 

Will vs Seth (RWG Jokulhaups) - Game one is very close. Seth does enough early damage with Wildfire Emissary that when Will finally stabilizes with an Armageddon, he can Chain Lightning his Rukh Egg to fly over for the last damage. Game two Will is on the offensive and both players have Sylvan when Seth has to Jokulhaups. Will pays 8 life in order to recover faster and a few Savannah Lions and River Boas off the top finish it off. Game three they do not finish, but it was a spot where Seth was probably 90% to win (he thought only 60% since he didn't know Will boarded out the Armageddon). Either way, Mano decides to give the win to the Illuminati

0-1

Round Two - Don's Goblin Raiders (Don Perrien, Ian Hendry, Ben Katz)

Me vs Don (UW Flyer Control)

Will vs Ian (UB Robots) - Game one Ian has a turn two Triskelion and Will can't really do much. Game two Ian has Icy and Maze shutting down Will's army, but Armageddon lets Will breakthrough. Will races a Juggernaut after using Disenchant on The Abyss. Man-o-War turns the tempo up while also providing body for the second Abyss, and Erhnam plus Serendib do enough damage to win.

Dan vs Ben (Simoon Living Plane) - Dan is in a losing position in game three when we win the other two matches.

1-1

Round Three - Murder of Stormcrows (Geoff Zeiger, Joel Lopez, JeanPaul Bascelli)

Me vs Goblins - He plays a turn one Goblin Vandal, so I have to delay my setup. I play draw go with a Library while taking 3 damage a turn, but eventually have enough to go off in one turn when I'm at 8 life. Game two I use Falling Star and Derelor to win easily.

Will vs Mono Black - Will is never really in trouble. Serendib keeps the Hypnotic Specter from doing any damage until Erhnam can win the game. Game two is similar, but with Man-o-War to help out.

Dan vs UW Control - They don't finish game one.

2-1

Round Four - Scry Me A River (Jonathan Lai, Brian Popkin, Darin Wiesner)

Me vs Jonathan (Mono Green)- Game one I force him to use Scavenger Folk on a Time Vault since I have a second one. He gets multiple Whirling Dervish and I never find a source of card advantage to combo with and lose. Game two I miss with a Falling Star, but do kill three River Boas with a Fireball a few turns later. I finally stabilize at 5 life. He then draws River Boa with plenty of mana to regenerate and I cannot race it.

Will vs BrianP (WW with Land Tax and Armor) - Will is able to win games one and three with some flyers and River Boa blocking the first strike army. Man-o-War keeps Empyrial Armor from doing anything dangerous. Brian does steal game two with a surprise Wrath of God. 

Dan vs Darin (UR Counterspell) - Game three Dan is able to resolve Animate Dead through Counterspell thanks to REB and the opponent's Blood Moon. A second and third animation spell end the game quickly. 

4-1

Round Five - Hamburgers of Bogardan (with awesome diner themed playmats) (Billy Jannen, Bryce Menard, Mark Tocco)

Me vs WBR Underworld Dreams - Game one he leads on turn one Mana Vault. I Twiddle it to buy some time. He never finds triple black, so when I Twister plus Mind Twist a few turns later he concedes without showing me the Dreams. Game two he has turn three Dreams, but I have to just take 7 and play Wheel. He plays another Dreams, but I manage to find Emerald Charm and Recall to take them out and combo off.

Will vs UWG TaxTowerOrb control - Will loses game one, but wins game two and three easily with Disenchants and Armageddons. 

Dan vs RUG Aggro- I don't remember if they finished match or not.

4-1

This is so good

Round Six - Scrybabies (Jeremy Marcus, Nick Christie, and Jordan Rosales)

Me vs Jer (RG Aggro) - Game one I have explosive start but somehow only one blue source. He turn four Creeping Mold it, and I'm forced to Regrowth it. He hits it again with a Strip Mine, and I draw another one. Eventually I find Emerald Charm to take some extra turns without spending blue mana, and find second blue source to Transmute for Howling Mine and win, but it was close. Game two he does not have much interaction at all.

Will vs Nick (MonoBlack) - Game one winds up as a race of Erhnam Djinn vs Black Knight (with Forestwalk) and Underworld Dreams. Will makes an attack to put Nick to 1 life, but on the backswing Nick takes Will also to 1 life. Will's plan of using Swords to Plowshares on his freshly played Llanowar Elves to stay alive is thwarted by Funeral Charm. Game two Nick assembles several Juzams and Hypnotic Specters while Will has dead Disenchants in hand.

Dan vs Jordan (UWR Control) - Going into game three, we tell Dan to bring back in Deep Spawn and take out Shivan since we think my opponent would have REB and his opponent therefore would have more BEB. Jordan keeps a hand with just lands, Library, and Disenchant, but that gets disrupted by the turn two Hypnotic Specter. The Hyppie also gets rid of a Balance, and the coast is clear for Dan to reanimate Deep Spawn. Time is running out, but Mano says to keep playing to natural conclusion. Jordan plays Circle of Protection: Red and we internally high-five at taking out Shivan. A Buried Alive for Ashen Ghouls makes enough attackers to kill Jordan before he finds his second white source for Wrath of God.

5-1

CoP: Red

Top 4 Teams after Swiss:

1. Impossible Burger (featuring Jon Finkel)

2. Zur's Weirdos

3. Scrybabies

4. Boomer and the B Dots

Semifinals - Scrybabies - Jer, Nick, and Jordan (rematch from round 6)

Me vs Jer (RG Aggro) - Same as previous round, though he does win game two when we both mulligan to five cards. Game three he also mulligans to five and I have Mana Drain on his Primal Order and win easily.

Will vs Nick (MonoBlack) - Will recovers from the loss in previous round and wins with some well timed Armageddons in two games.

Dan vs Jordan (UWR Control) - Dan I think won game one before the match was over but Will and I finished before it mattered.

6-1

Finals - Boomer and the B Dots (Ben Farkas, Jeff White, Chris Manning)

Will vs Jeff (Mesa Control) - This match isn't close. Jeff counters / removes everything and plays Sacred Mesa to cleanup. Game two he gets the Abyss out and Will cannot recover.

Me vs Chris (Goblins) - Game one I start with Sapphire Island into Mana Drain his one drop. Then turn two I play two more Mox and a Timetwister and win easily from there. Game two he has turn one Vise and it does 10 or 12 damage. I burn some Twiddles trying to get below the Vise before deploying two Derelor. They have to block until I draw a Twiddle and attack with one. He still doesn't attack so I attack with two, but I'm dead to any burn spell and he finishes me with Goblin Grenade. Game three I play Mox Time Vault on turn one. He has Goblin Vandal. I decide to Falling Star, but hit a corner and bounce of the table. He destroys the Time Vault. The next turn he plays a Goblin King and attacks for two damage. I have a second Falling Star and this time I hit both. He has Blood Moon but my Mox Jet lets me cast Derelor. I draw another Time Vault and some Twiddles to attack him down to 7. He plays a blocker but doesn't block and goes to 3 life. He then plays another Goblin King and one drop. I draw Island which lets me cast Recall for Falling Star and I can win if I hit all three. I only hit one, and then trade with the two goblins. His only follow up is a Black Vise which does nothing. I draw Ancestral Recall and he uses Fork. I eventually draw a Lotus and two Emerald Charms which I use to take an extra turn and blow up Blood Moon. He has the REB for my Braingeyser so I don't get very far. He has a Goblin Tinkerer which he uses to trade with my Time Vault.  He builds up to six cards in hand threatening to get his Library of Alexandria online. I draw Regrowth and have three choices: Derelor and hope he can't kill it to attack for the win, Mind Twist to buy some more time, or Ancestral Recall to dig for Lightning Bolt or Fireball or other good stuff. Ancestral would lose to REB so I decide against that, and also decide Mind Twist won't hit many good cards as I assume his hand is mostly REBs, Vises, or land. I grab Derelor, play it, he doesn't find an answer and I win! Crazy last game.

Dan vs Ben (Mono Blue Flyers) - Game one Dan wins easily. Game two he gets a lot of creatures in play but cannot race the flying army and loses. Game three I'm not sure how it ended up there but a Zur's Weirding that attempted to cut Dan off of mana backfires as he has Thawing Glaciers to play out his hand. Ben meanwhile draws too much land and can't attack through Shivan Dragon. Eventually Dan casts Buried Alive to get four Ashen Ghoul in the yard and win!

7-1 

1st Place

Best

We did it! The Zur's Weirdos defeated actual Zur's Weirding in the final game of the finals to win MobsterCon!

Zur's Weirdos

After

I ordered some food since eight rounds of Twiddle Vault taxes you mentally, even the easy games. I played on game of 40k vs Jeff Liu and won a Birds, helping him on his retirement mission. I stuck around to watch the draft, but once again was too tired to go all night. I stopped by the LGS across the street to buy a box of the new set for some future endeavors, and headed home uneventfully.

I had a great time at this event and hope that something like it happens again at some point in the future.

Props:

Mano and Family for great event

Village Brewing Company for good food and drink

Team Unified Scryings and everyone who showed up to play

Dan and Will for being great teammates and putting up with my constant tinkering and brewing

Man-O-War - probably our surprise MVP all day

Thawing Glaciers, I guess

Beth for all the love and support as always

Slops:

People who don't like Scryings

My Falling Star flips. I've got to practice more or they'll kick me out of the club.