Like all great stories, I'm going to start this one from the very beginning. It's August 11th, 1992 and my mom starts going into labor... Ew, too early.... Fast forward 18 years, 8 months, and 11 days... It's Saturday 1am, and I'm still chilling at Toys and Things thinking about the Open that would be starting in just 9 hours. Wait, just 9 hours!?!?! I need to sleep! I quickly wrapped up plans with Henry for driving down in the morning, told 2 people I would trade with them at the event so I could get an extra 5 minutes of sleep, and I drove off into the night. The guys in the neighboring apartment thought no one was home at my house, or they didn't care, and scheduled that night to be a rockband party/rave night. Guess where my bed is? Right over their living room.... So after an hour of soft pulsating bass tones rippled through my head, I managed to finally ignore it and get a precious 5 hours of sleep. Pre-registration for the event started at 8am, with nothing happening until 10, so Henry and I shot for the middle and planned on arriving at 9. We took my car, which if you have never seen it, it is just a rustbucket on wheels. Windsheild wipers? They work everywhere except in the middle of the left side of the windsheild (aka right in front of my face). Cadalitic Converter? Nearly fell completely off 2 weeks ago. Stereo volume control? Remember up is down and down is up, and if you try to game it the dial will spin and do nothing. Spedometer? You feel like a badass tearing up the highway until you look at the GPS and realize you're reading 8 over.... But I digress.... We went headfirst into heavy rain and blindly passed many 18 wheelers (remember, the wipers barely work and the 18 wheelers kicking up water doesn't help), getting faulty GPS readings (taking 4 exits in a row to draw a 4 leaf clover pattern before carrying on just as we were going before), and undergoing other various shenanegans before finally arriving to the holy land.
His Ryan senses must have been tickling/I called him as we got out of the car, but I saw Mark when I got to the actual event within 3 seconds of walking in. As it turns out his school is only 20 minutes away, so he arrived promptly at 8am and immediatly engaged in everything SCG had to offer. After a brief tour of the venders and checking out the 3-D cards, we got down to business.
Quick Aside
{
I am really glad SCG decided to let other Vendors set up at their open. One big problem I had with the last one was feeling monopolized if I wanted to buy/sell cards. Now with multiple venders, a mini-capitalistic system blooms and players can avoid getting skrewed. I went to all the venders when I wanted to sell cards out of my binder, and only sold to the one that gave me fair prices which was Troll and Toad. Also, I compared selling prices across the Venders and saw CoolStuffInc had Tezzeret at 33 while the other venders had him for as much as 40. Brendan promptly bought the last 2 when he saw this, selling Knight of the Reliquary and Noble Hierarchs for them. Having multiple vendors keeps them all honest which is huge for all players!
}
End Aside
Here is the deck I registered for the event:
4x Goblin Guide
4x Spikeshot Elder
3x Ember Hauler
3x Goblin Bushwacker
3x Goblin Wardriver
4x Goblin Chieftan
3x Koth of the Hammer
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
4x Searing Blaze
3x Arc Trail
2x Teetering Peaks
4x Arid Mesa
4x Scalding Tarn
11x Mountain
Sideboard:
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Perilous Myr
4x Mark of Mutiny
3x Cyclops Gladiator
3x Tumble Magnet
1x Hero of Oxid Ridge
The previous night I had played a far worse version of the deck that had +1 mountain, Bushwacker, Wardriver, and Ember Hauler. And I also had Plated Geopede instead of Goblin Chieftan. To say the least I greatly improved the deck by dropping it from 64 cards to 60 and replacing the awkward Geopedes with the Cheiftan that is dripping with synergy.
Round 1: Dominic, Junk
My opponent for this round was playing an innovative GWB deck that I feel could be strong if it was more refined, although it kinda felt like a GW Zoo deck that splashed black for spot removal and Inquisition of Kozelik. I did what my deck does best game 1 and exploded out of the gates with Goblin Guides and crushed all his blockers with Searing Blazes and Bolts and quickly killed him while being at 19 life, thanks to my own Scalding Tarn. Game 2 was a little slower, and things went poorly for me as he hit me twice with Sword of Body and Mind, providing a few extra essential blockers to stabelize at 9 life and kill me.
Game 3 however, was insane! As he was also a creature based beatdown deck, he didn't bring in any Day of Judgements. He lead a lot of creatures, including a Fauna Shaman into Bolts, Staggershocks, and Searing Blazes until I ran out of burn and he stuck a Fauna Shaman. At this point I swung in with a Spikeshot Elder and a Goblin Chieftan dropping him to 6 life. On his turn he uses Fauna Shaman to tutor an Obstinate Baloth and plays it bringing himself up to 10 life. A couple shots from my 2 power Spikeshot drops him back to 6 again, and once again he tutors up and drops a Baloth. At this point his board is far superior to mine, so I forgoe getting random damage in with the Spikeshot and instead opt for playing a Tumble Magnet. Here comes a Baneslayer! More grinding damage, and all of a sudden I'm staring down a Baneslayer AND a Wurmcoil Engine! I drop another Tumble Magnet and another Goblin Chieftan to make my Spikeshot deal a little more damage per shot, and that was enough to grind out a victory with 0 and 1 counters left on my Tumble Magnets.
2-1
1-0
Round 2: Igor, UW Caw-Blade
Like I said, I did minimal/no testing for this event, and if I did, the first deck on my radar would have been Caw-Blade. Had I tested this matchup I would have had Manic Vandal or Crush in the Sideboard as this matchup is a breeze as long as they don't have Mortarpod or Sylvok Lifestaff. Regardless, I did not have that and instead focused too much on the Kor Firewalker. I lost the key game 1 by having my team get eaten apart by Mortarpod + Squadren Hawk. However, I managed to rebound on game 2 with an explosive start. Game 3 was sad as I got killed by a Jace -12....
1-2
1-1
Round 3: Brian, UW Caw-Blade
Man, what's up with all this Caw-Blade? I just want to play against fair decks... Theres not much to say, you know how it goes... Gideon Jura, a flock of Hawks chumb blocking/trading... Jace TMS taking control.... Sun Titan to nail the coffin shut...
0-2
1-2
Round 4: Jerry, Goblins Mirror
The Goblins mirror match is one of the coolest games that play out, if you have never seen it. I had a solid game 1 while he was stuck on one land all game. Despite that, he did manage to eventually find land and bring me down to 8, but that's not quite 0. Thinking of that timeless article from Flores, I decided I would be the control deck in this matchup bringing in the Gladiators and Perilous Myrs, and it worked very well. I had the strange realization later in that game that I was playing mono-red and I was the one with 5 cards in hand while my opponent had exhausted all resources. I stabelized at 8 life and cleaned house from there.
2-0
2-2
Round 5: Melanie, BG Infect
This was a really sketchy round for me. I really like to chat and be casual with my opponent, and make everyone around us laugh a little to lighten the tournament mood. That's really hard to do when your opponent is an emotional sinkhole. I didn't hear her say a word during either of our games, and I don't even think I saw her smile. Creepy.... But game 1 I had 1 land all game, but had the nuts for just 1 land in the form of 3 Spikeshot Elders, 2 Goblin Guides, and a Lightning Bolt. I did draw a second land, but that was on the turn I killed her, and I didn't even tap it for mana. Her deck at times felt like a BSS draft deck as it was all the 2 mana infect dorks and pump spells. Game 1 she only had forests all game, and I would have considered her mono-green had she not revealed Skittles from my Goblin Guide. Game 2 went pretty much the same way with me killing her while at 4 poison myself. She did have all the mana she needed this game, but thankfully no Crusader came down. I did board in Perilious Myr for them, but I didn't draw the Myr either.
2-0
3-2
Round 6: Jeremy, UW Caw-Blade
Who would have guessed? 50% of my matches are Caw-Blade! I didn't test for Caw-Blade, but this guy apparently never tested for Red Deck. This brings the balance of who is unprepared back to a medium, which leaves that I should have a good game 1 let me kill him while at 22 life. I don't remember a lot of Game 2, except I hit the turn 2 Ratchet Bomb, kicked it up to 2, and just waited with it. Post Mortem I learned that he was unprepared for the mono-red matchup and didn't even bring Kor Firewalkers in his board. I sustained 2 swings from an equipped Inkmoth Nexus to go up to 6 poison, but in the end I managed to pull this one out.
2-0
4-2
Round 7: Ben, Naya
Game 1 I was simply flattened by 2 Vengevines before I could put him at 10 life... It was bad.... But Game 2 I got my mojo back on by clearing his board of creatures with Searing Blazes, and killed him only taking damage from my fetchlands. Game 3 was another grinder. According to my notes, he gained life on 4 occasions, first just 1 life, and 3 life the other times, but I can't remember how... To say the least, That extra 10 life saved him as I ran out of gas with him at 8 life and he took over with all of his beasts. I honestly felt like I had that game in hand the whole time, but sadly it didn't work out... After a minute or 2 of discerning what to do, I ultimately dropped.
1-2
4-3 drop
So as it turned out, I dropped just after the Legacy event started, which I was really hoping to get into if things didn't turn out well, so instead I just did what I do best: trading. At this point there was no real trading hive formed yet, but I found 4 guys trading right next to the SCG Vendor booth, so I plopped myself down, pulled out the binder, and got to work! At this point it was 5 or 6 o'clock and i didn't tap another land for mana until I got back to Toys at 1am, spending the entire time trading (read: not eating) so I dont' remember much. However, I did have some goals for what I wanted to trade for/get rid of. After 6 hours of traing, here were some notable changes to my trade binder:
-4 Eldrazi Monument
-2 Tropical Island
-4 Massacre Wurm
-3 Indomitable Archangel
+5 Noble Hierarch (1 painted)
+3 Lion's Eye Diamond
+1 Dark Confidant
+4 Painted Brainstorm
+1 Painted Inkmoth Nexus
+2 Italian Infernal Tutor
+1 FNM Tendrils of Agony
+2 Japanese Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
+1 Foil Steam Vents
+1 Painted Firespout
+1 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 SwagStorm (translated by a real Japanese guy)
I know there were a ton of other trades that happened, but I really can't remember what they were. I do kno that I bulked off 100 cards to SCG for a crisp $10 bill, and sold another $50 to Troll and Toad, but I don't really remember the contents of those that much either.... What I do remember is that after I went back to Toys N Things at 1am, I traded the 2 Japanese Tezzerets and a set of Reanimate for a Tropical Island, which I realized I needed after trading both of mine for the LEDs.
Overall, I had a fantastic time at the SCG Open, and i can't wait to come back to it again! Until next time, stay classy!
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