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Always The Bridesmaid, Or How Ghettocon Tourney Was The Awesome

Many feel that the tournament report as it once existed is dead, but Carl Winter is here to soundly refute that. Even if you aren’t a Vintage fan, Carl’s reports are excellent, amusing reads that are fun for the whole family, though parental guidance is suggested.

By

The planning for the Endicott Power 9 tourney (a.k.a. GhettoCon 04) started a few months ago when some of the Binghamton guys were bitching about how large tournaments (Waterbury and the like) are always two+ hours away.  It’s not that long, especially after the twelve-hour drive home from GenCon, but it still sucks to have to get up mad early or secure someplace to stay the night before the event.  It cramps my style.


There was a bit more complaining before Bryce (kl0wn on TMD) decided we were going to have a power event.  I suggested the idea of a championship belt, and everything just kind of flowed from there.  By flowed, I meant that there were weeks of frantic planning, advertising, and general anxiety from the organizers (a.k.a. Bryce and Josh O).  Josh, who was planning on dealing at the event, had nothing to display his wares in and was afraid he’d have to resort to binders.  If there’s anything that cramps the style of a dealer, it’s being ghetto enough to not have display cases to show off all them razzle-dazzle shiny cards.  Eventually he phoned in a favor to some retired cop and the dude made Josh three amazing cases.  How lucky.


The prizes were another story.  As most of you have probably heard by now, we didn’t have nearly the turnout we were expecting.  The event was possibly a bit ambitious for the first of it’s kind: Power Nine to the Top 8 while maintaining a low entry fee coupled with getting a venue for two days so that another day of merriment could occur, though said merriment was very, very enjoyable.  Bryce took a big hit, but took it like a man and provided the promised prizes with prizes still extending to the Top 32*.


Anyhow, the cast of characters for reference:


Carl: The most awesome of awesomes


Eli: The Host


Josh O: The dealer


Anson: The token Pharmacist**


Larger than the average Joe Charles: The token out of town kid


The Elmira Guys: The guys who live in the South but not


Liz: The token gamer-girl


Ross: The token… Rossecptical


Jaques: The token Frenchman


Tyrone: The token black guy


Robert Leroy: The token hobag


Will: The token… Will


Jesse Gwyn and Eli Schism: The hired-but-unpaid help (Props boys)


Aaron Kerzner and Scott Limoges: My guests


The other TMD people who made things awesome: The token TMD people who made things awesome


The token people who I’ve forgotten to mention that will yell at me: Self centered punks 


Lindsey: Because it takes a mention of her to get her to read my stuff


My weekend begins with a rough day of school… all two hours of classes, plus an exhausting three hour shift of playing The Sims and chatting with some counting at the end of my work study job (love the SA Cafe).  Myself, Ross, Will, Robert Leroy and Tyrone hang out at my house for a few hours, doing some deck tweaking on Will’s Underworld Dreams/Megrim/Psychatog/Death Wish/Casual deck and Robert Leroy’s White Supremacy deck.


White Supremacy by Tyrone Heppard (Yes, that Tyrone) as played by Robert Leroy Denney III

Endicott GhettoCon 04 09/25/2004


4 Exalted Angel

3 White Knight

3 Goblin Charbelcher


4 Land Tax

3 Scroll Rack

1 Enlightened Tutor



3 Isochron Scepter

4 Orim’s Chant

3 Abeyance


4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Wrath of God

4 Disenchant

1 Aura of Silence


1 Chrome Mox

1 Mox Diamond

1 Mox Pearl

1 Black Lotus

14 Plains


 Sideboard

2 Circle of Protection: Red

1 Aegis of Honor (What’s that Burninator? No lube? Sure)

1 Abeyance

3 Rule of Law

3 True Believer

2 Plains

2 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Mystic Crusader


I’m not gonna lie, this deck is saucier than a Denny’s BBQ Chicken Sandwich.  And that’s damn saucy (more on Denny’s later!)  The deck originated as a joke stemming from how Rob’s a Republican and how they “hate black people.” [This is Carl, folks… he’s practically the Osyp of Type One. – Knut, pre-empting forum freakouts] Tyrone came up with the skeleton for the casual version of the deck and it was built on from there.  The casual version played some awesome stuff like Mageta The Lion (look at its picture), White Knights with a little creative altering from myself, Angry Mob, Scour (with the picture of the guy colored in black), along with other assorted random Black hate cards.  It also had a made-up card to go along with the mana base, which at the time was the artifact mana and 13 basic lands, each with “of X” written on the card, with X being the name of a confederate state:


Name: The Confederacy United

CC: WWWWW

Type: Enchantment


Text: All White creatures have +1/+1


For every 4 of the Confederate states you control, white creatures get an additional +1/+1.

When you control 13 Confederate states, all creatures gain protection from Black.


Flavor text: We never added this, it would have probably been going over the edge.


So Rob, having played this deck for months at school, decided to adapt it to tournament play.  Rob has a long history of hating combo decks {“I Hate Combo Decks!” – Rob) along as random burn decks, which he is known for playing (see earlier tournament reports of mine and Bryce’s), and as such added the appropriate cards to win those matchups.


Short aside:


White Supremacy tournament report

By Robert Leroy Denney III


Round 1: Joblins

Game 1: I win by Swordsing a guy who sacs gobs to make mana and Disenchanting Mox Ruby


Game 2: Win by playing two Exalted Angels


Round 2: D4GRON

Game 1:  I cast turn 2 Aura of Silence.  My opponent proceeds to Necromancy a dragon giving me a free win.


Game 2: He combos out and wins turn 2.


Game 3: I use Orim’s Chant to Disenchant Animate Dead on ‘Gorger twice and swing for eleven turns to kill with White Knight.




Round 3: Fish

Mulligan to five both games and lose.


Round 4

Lose to Land Tax and drop.


Riveting.


Anyway.


We had a lot of fun, then I had to go to Eli’s.  Frown.  Myself, Liz, the Elmira Guys***, along with Rory and probably some other people are guests at the Kassis Manor.  We play a very long game of Type 4 featuring Memnarch being passed around the table like a skinny white boy at Strikers, being under the control of every player save the one poor Elmira Guy that was eliminated first.  Eli ended up with Memnarch a second time and proceeded to win.


Now seems as good a time as ever to post what I played:


MeanDeath

By Stephen Menendian and crew


4 Gemstone Mine

4 City of Brass

1 Glimmervoid

1 Underground Sea

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Black Lotus

1 Chrome Mox

1 Lion’s Eye Diamond

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Diamond

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Sol Ring 

4 Dark Ritual

2 Elvish Spirit Guide



4 Death Wish

1 Burning Wish

4 Duress 

2 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Tinker

1 Timetwister

1 Memory Jar

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Windfall

4 Brainstorm

1 Necropotence

1 Mind’s Desire

1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Demonic Consultation

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Time Walk



Sideboard

4 Xantid Swarm

1 Diminishing Returns

1 Time Spiral

1 Balance

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Primitive Justice

1 Oxidize

1 Regrowth

1 Simplify

1 Darksteel COLOSSUS

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

1 Tendrils of Agony


More in depth discussion can be found in my Waterbury, CT finals report.


Chuck shows up at around 11 and much merriment is had.  By merriment, I mean we ate pizza and watched TV till like, 1.  I end up going to bed a few hours before everyone else because I’m a sleepy girly-man (I make Arnold cry) and get sleep, unlike everyone else.  I wake up fairly early, retrieve my phone, do hygiene things, then pack up and head out.  Myself and Chuck follow the Elmira Guys, Eli, Rory, and Anson.  Everyone makes a stop at Dunkin Donuts to grab a healthy, balanced breakfast.  By the time myself and Charles have had time to order, everyone else is long gone. 


I think we got owned.


Anyhoo.  Chuck uses his remote control to turn on his car (maaaaaaaaaad pimp) and we clamber inside and try to catch up.  I phone Eli and find out they’re up the road waiting for us.  Uh… k.  Mise well not wait for us. 


Soooo yeah, we make it to the site thanks to some… um, following Eli (e-lee).  We were also greeted at the entrance to the parking lot by Eli (pronounced El-eye) Schism and Jesse Gwyn, both of whom I hadn’t seen for like, a few months.  Yay for gatherings!  I putz around for a bit and yak it up.  I also take a moment to buy fabulous purple sleeves from Andystok so as to be as spiffy as possible for the event.


A little bird told me around one hour til start time, that there was going to be a lot of combo.  Hmm.  Don’t really feel like playing combo mirrors.  So I actually played:


Meandeck Stax

By Kevin Cron and co.


2 Sundering Titan

4 Goblin Welder



4 Smokestack

4 Tangle Wire

4 Trinisphere

4 Crucible of Worlds



1 Ancestral Recall

3 Meditate

1 Tinker

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Balance

1 Hurkyl’s Recall



1 Black Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Grim Monolith

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Sol Ring

1 Lotus Petal

1 Darksteel Ingot



3 Gemstone Mine

4 City of Brass

4 Mishra’s Workshop

1 Strip Mine

1 Tolarian Academy

4 Wasteland


Sideboard:

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Triskelion

1 Duplicant

1 Mindslaver

3 Red Elemental Blast

2 Blue Elemental Blast

2 Tormod’s Crypt

3 Rack and Ruin


and of course…


1 Darksteel COLOSSUS!


Oh boy am I ever tricky!  There was a slight problem however… I didn’t own a good 60% of the deck.  Luckily I have awesome friends and thanks to Jeff Anand, Josh O, Anson, and a few others who elude my memory at the moment.  Without them I might have done better playing MeanDeath.  It takes me around twenty minutes to gather all the cards, then another fifteen trying to remember the decklist.  Seeing as how I haven’t ever played a Workshop deck in a tournament, much less ever used a Mishra’s Workshop, it was a bit of a challenge.  I pulled it off though, because I memory so good.


When I hand in my decklist Liz and Ross get into a giggling fit, making one Ben Kowal very curious.  I divulge no information and my switch remains a secret…


Round 1: Tom playing TPS

Game 1:  I start off strong, opening with a Goblin Welder and a Trinisphere, eventually getting some Tangle Wire action going.  I decide to go for the kill and summon Sundering Titan.  Things look good, as he’s going to be locked down for a few turns except for one where I swing with Sundering Titan.  I get in one hit, but he’s got the Rebuild to reset my board, leaving him open to combo me out on his turn.


Game 2:  I drop a turn 1 Trinisphere, which he counters with Force of Will.  On his turn he drops Underground Sea, hitting me with Duress, then follows up with Black Lotus, Necropotence.


Right.


He sets aside ten cards, but doesn’t have any business.  He drops a land and an artifact or two, setting aside another four cards and passing the turn.  I’m stuck with three Meditates in hand, so I’m a sitting duck.  Baby Jesus begins to cry, but wait!


On his turn he drops Lion’s Eye Diamond, casts Yawgmoth’s Will, in response sacrificing his Diamond.  He goes to drop his hand into his graveyard, but on the way there he sees his Necropotence and makes a funny face and scoops.  Apparently he had Mind’s Desire in his hand. 


Mise.


He didn’t notice the fact that he could avoid the mana burn from LED by casting a Dark Ritual then casting Force of Will, leaving him with three life, able to draw two cards and possibly get out of it.  Buuut he didn’t.  Oh well.


Game 3: I keep a poor hand because it contains a turn 1 Trinisphere, but he has the Force of Will, and I’m left sitting around twiddling my thumbs while he plays a turn 2 Time Spiral off of his Tolarian Academy and then says “go.”


No, you didn’t miss the part where he untapped his Tolarian Academy because it didn’t happen.


I lost.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many tears come out of Baby Jesus.  Poor kid.


0-1 (1-2)


That round kind of made me sad.  I don’t mind losing, but I don’t like losing when there are a lot of potentially game ending mistakes on the other side of the board and I’m kinda left holding my Bone Flute.  Sigh.  But Tom was a nice guy


I don’t let the loss get me down and head into…


Round 2: John playing D4GRON… Sorry, channeling my teammates.  He was playing Dragon.


Game 1: He Force of Wills a turn 1 Trinisphere, but I get Crucible of Worlds/Strip Mine going and then a Welder comes down to clean up.


Game 2: He’s stuck on one, which isn’t helped out by my Trinisphere, eventually followed up with a Crucible.


1-1 (3-2)


This was a fairly quick match, providing me time to go grab some watah, some snacky food and still watch some Magack.


Note of interest: At the table next to me I witness the following:


False Cure in the graveyard.  The caster of the False Cure then casts Skyshroud Cutter (yeah, click the link) followed by another Skyshroud Cutter and lays down the coup de grace by summoning forth not one, but two Refreshing Rains!  That gets my Biggest Beating of the Day award.


Round 3: Jeremy playing… Reclaim.dec?


Game 1:  He casts and Reclaims Nevinyrral’s Disk a few times, sweeping my board of lock components each time.  I get some more out after the third time and they stick, which I follow up with a Sundering Titan, but he Naturalizes it.  By now I’ve drawn into the other one however, and follow up with some smashing of lands and eventually him.


Game 2:  I drop out Trinisphere before he gets to three lands and follow it with Crucible of Worlds.  I get Wasteland recursion going, but he draws into basics.  Being the lucksack that I am, I draw into Strip Mine to lock him down.  He doesn’t scoop, so I Tinker out Darksteel COLOSSUS and bash him.


2-1(5-2)


That match got the WTF Award for the day.  Liz stops by to watch at some point and looks even more confused than I was.


Anyway.


Round 4: Josh Skinner, Binghamton local playing Metalworker/Staff of Domination/MaskNought


Game 1:  I start off with a mulligan to six, but he’s on the play, which takes a bit of the sting out of it.  We both have out random lock components which really aren’t doing a whole lot, but our artifact mana (his Mana Crypt and my Mana Vault) are doing some damage to us, establishing a clock with no threats on the board.


He drops out Metalworker and Staff of Domination in one turn, threatening a kill next turn.  I untap and try to decide what to Demonic Tutor for.  I have a Goblin Welder in play, which makes Balancing impossible, so I think a bit harder.  Eventually I cast it and one of the first cards I see is Hurkyl’s Recall!  I Hurkyl’s Recall him and put out enough lock components to keep him from casting any threats on his turn, allowing me to play a few more and a Sundering Titan to put the pressure on.  He’s taken so much damage from his Mana Crypt that one hit is sufficient to get the job done.


Game 2:  He drops first turn Illusionary Mask/Phyrexian Dreadnought off of a Black Lotus.  Uhh, right.  I figure it’s a transformational sideboard, but after the game he informs me it’s in his maindeck.  Okeydoke.  So anyways, I drop a Goblin Welder on my turn.  He gets in a solid hit on the chin and ships it over.  On my turn I Weld out the Dreadnought, and proceed to do so for many more turns prompting a concession.


3-1 (7-2)


Josh is a bit sad about the loss, but I guess he’s used to losing to me and takes it like a man.  Good man.  He ends up dropping, but seemed to have a good time overall which is good.


Round 5: Aaron Kerzner playing Three-Color Tog


Game 1:  We sit down at the feature match table and start shuffling up.  Right after we draw our opening seven, Ben Kowal announces a re-pair.  Mise.


Round 5b: Jim playing Landstill


Game 1: He Stifles some Wastelands to gain some tempo advantage while beating down with Mishra’s Factory.  He Fires the Goblin Welder I put out, but I follow it up with Trinisphere, which he has no answer for.  I’m able to get out Crucible of Worlds and, combined with Wastelands, he’s forced to scoop.


Game 2:  He rips an early Ancestral Recall and starts serving with Mishra’s Factory.  At some point I realize he’s playing Landstill.  I guess it was the Nevinyrral’s Disk that tipped me off.


Heh.  I know the metagame so good.


In Soviet Russia, metagame knows you!


Sorry about that.


His Stifles and Strip effects keep me down enough to give him time to finish me off with manlands.


Game 3:  I drop Trinisphere when I probably should have dropped Tangle Wire, or not done anything at all.  He gets out Crucible and obviously has the Wasteland to go with it.  I had Demonic Tutored for the Workshop to get it out and planned on using it along with my Mox Sapphire to get my lock thang going.  His Crucible really cramps my style.  He starts attacking with man lands, but only leaving two mana open each turn, giving me many openings to use the Tinker I topdecked to grab a Darksteel Colossus.  All I have in play is a random land, Mox Sapphire and Trinisphere at any given time, but if I drew Mishra’s Workshop, I could drop the Sol Ring in my hand to play the Tinker, or my Tolarian Academy to straight up cast it.  I don’t and eventually lose on my last turn after I draw Tolarian Academy.


3-2 (8-4)


Rock.


The fact that he left me openings to kill him and I was unable to capitalize on them combined with my play mistake kind of irritate me, but only briefly because I’m cool like that.  I hop off and play some slap ass with Kerz, Liz, Ross, Jaques and Tyrone.  We start randomly bumping into things and decide to stop.  It was probably a good idea because it was raining outside and as a result the floor in front of the door that we were playing on was getting a mite slippery.


Round 6:  Dustin playing Food Chain Goblins


Game 1: He drops a land, but I get out Trinisphere and follow it up with Crucible.  He’s forced to scoop.


Game 2:  He is able to get out a Goblin Piledriver and Rack and Ruin to rid me of two lock components.  I cast Wheel of Fortune and drop two more lock components, which he (again) Rack and Ruins.  I get out Triskelion and Goblin Welder and end up shutting him down.


4-2 (10-4 good buddy)


It’s games like those I felt dirty playing Prison, because there was literally nothing he could do at any point in the game.  Mmmm, player interaction.


I have a lot of time, so I bounce around talking to people.  I eventually get into a conversation with Jeff and the subject of Dyannah comes up.  Dyannah is really scary.  Like, she frightens me a lot.  The girl wrapped me up in duct tape and violated me on the TO’s desk at Waterbury for Jet Li’s sake.  I told Jeff that I would fight her the next time I saw her.  He doubts my ninja skills (for good reason, seeing as how they’re non-existent) and for some reason the subject of Rich Shay being a ninja pops up.  Jeff tells me that Rich is a total ninja because of some martial arts classes he takes/took.


Random.


Anyway, the follow up to that was Rich Shay is an insane neat freak.  Jeff said that Rich would freak out if people walked on his floors barefoot.  That’s pretty neat-freaky.  To illustrate his point further, Jeff said he would at any time lick Rich’s floor.  Pfffft, that’s no big deal.  I tell Jeff as such and that hell, I’d lick the floor we were standing on.  I was quite unimpressed.  Jeff asks me to lick the floor, and I decline.  He tries to use a pack of foreign Legions to tempt me further, and that was all the incentive I needed.  Jeff decided that licking the floor didn’t warrant a kung-pow Legions pack.  He did however think that grabbing Aaron Kerzner’s ass would earn me a pack.


Fair enough.


Who am I to pass up the opportunity to violate the youth of America in a violent, uncaring way?  And for Magic product no less.  I turn around and, lo and behold, there stands an unsuspecting Aaron Kerzner, bending over a table looking at someone’s binder.  I turn and look at Jeff who has this weird, “Oh crap” look on his face.  I turn back around, ninja up to Kerz and then grab his ass and squish it really hard.  I stand up and look at Jeff.  Jeff hands me my pack.  Mise.  Aaron seemed to enjoy it a bit too much, asking me if I wanted to go get drinks later on.  I decline.


The rest of the round is spent slapping asses and getting in people’s way.


Round 7:  Rob playing Burninator


Game 1:  I drop a turn 1 Trinisphere after his turn 1 Chain Lightning.  I get off a Meditate and lock him down with Tanglewire, following it up with Smokestack and then Sundering Titan.


Game 2:  He fires off a turn 1 Chain Lightning yet again, and I don’t have the Trinisphere, so he’s free to drop Mox Monkey along with some more burn.  He poops out a Price of Progress for eight and then plays a Pyrostatic Pillar.  He keeps attacking with his Monkey and I eventually get eaten alive by the Joblin Shaman.


Game 3:  I play turn 1 Sol Ring.  He lays land, go.  I play Workshop and Mana Vault.  He plays Pyrostatic Pillar.  I play Tolarian Academy, random Mox, and summon Darksteel COLOSSUS.  He kinda sits there with a very amused grin on his face and sends the turn back.  I untap and Mindslaver him and attack.  He untaps and I have him do nothing.  I then send with the COLOSSUS and the game’s over.


End result


5-2 (12-5)


Goooo me.  My efforts get me a pack of kung-pow some random language pack that I end up giving to Jaques because his mom won’t let him buy cahds anymore.  Poor kid.  He’s been given more cards than anyone else I’ve ever met.  Oh well, he’s French, and I guess that means people pity him.  Little do they know of the French conspiracy to…


Oops, sorry Toaddy.  Didn’t mean to tip off les chiens de cochon Américains****.


So the day ends on a rather sad note, but not to fear.  Some guy that isn’t me gets the belt and plans are made to make an exodus to Denny’s to celebrate the good times and carry them on a bit further.  And by make plans, I mean people run around in circles trying to figure out what to do.  I eventually grab Aaron Kerzner and Scott Limoges (who are to be guests at the Winter Manor that night) and leave.  People are forced to follow and we get to Denny’s with ease.  I navigator so good.


Denny’s was amazing.  We get there and there are literally twenty people ahead of us.  Seeing as how I’m a sketchy Binghamton teenager, I know the manager and tell her I brought lots of business.  Seeing as how she works for Denny’s, she obviously doesn’t care how the business does, but is amused nevertheless.


After sitting around for a while, the fourteen person sketchy Magic group consisting of at least five people I don’t know sit down and begin the fun.  Seeing as how I’m a sketchy Binghamton teenager, I know our server and apologize to her for such a large group.  Seeing as how she’s a waitress and she should get tipped a lot for such a large table, she obviously doesn’t care about how many people are there, but is amused nevertheless.


Liz and Kerzner have camera phones and they snap picture after picture.  I eventually steal both and exhibit my awesome photographic talent, which was mad fun.  I tried at some point to have each camera take a picture of the other lens-to-lens.  I was unsuccessful and decided to get some interesting angles, one being from the floor and another being from on top of a table.  We putz around for a bit and I end up buying Jaques and Tyrone dinnar.  Tough but fair.


Everyone ends up dispersing and I guide Scott and Aaron to my house, whereupon after showing them inside I show them the famed Black Lotus painting that has recently been sold to one Jason Jaco of Oceanside, California for two spring pigs and a couple of magic beans.  Mmmm, ham.  I tuck the boys in and pass out.


I wake up Sunday morning at around 11:30 AM.  I persade Jaques, Liz and Tyrone to come fetch me so that I can participate in the Highlander tourney.  I gather all of my loose cards and attempt to piece together a deck.  Once we get to the tourney site, I try to adhere to the guidelines to which Jeff Anand set to me the previous night.  I eventually throw most of the rules out of the window and collaborate with The Brass Man and whoever was around me to construct this:


Highlander of Champions:

Tropical Island

Volcanic Island

Dust Bowl

Mishra’s Factory

Tolarian Academy

Strip Mine

Library of Alexandria

Wasteland

2 Island (mwahahaha)

1 Plains

1 Swamp

Sol Ring

Mana Vault

Mana Crypt

Mox Jet

Mox Ruby

Mox Pearl

Mox Emerald

Mox Sapphire

Black Lotus

Underground Sea

Tundra

Flooded Strand

Polluted Delta

Undiscovered Paradise

City of Brass

Crucible of Worlds

Gorilla Shaman

Mystical Tutor

Swords To Plowshares

Brainstorm

Duress

Tinker

Time Walk

Mindslaver

Yawgmoth’s Will

Ancestral Recall

Fact or Fiction

Decree of Justice

Engineered Explosives

Dismantling Blow

Future Sight

Vampiric Tutor

Mind Twist

Mana Drain

Force of Will

Thirst For Knowledge

Demonic Tutor

Skeletal Scrying

Fire / Ice

Deep Analysis

Isochron Scepter

Cunning Wish

Dromar’s a.k.a.: Rakso’s Charm

Joblin Trenches

Morphling

Impulse

Counterspell

Mana Leak



Sideboard of Awesomes:

Planar Void

Cremate

Coffin Purge

Rack and Ruin

Disenchant

Diabolic Edict

Chainer’s Edict

Balance

Tormod’s Crypt

Duplicant

Joblin Welder

Dwarven Miner

Dwarven Blastminer

Red Elemental Blast

Pulse of The Fields(!!!)


I was a bit constrained by a lack of awesome casual cards to use, but I did well with what’s available.


Round 1: Andy a.k.a. The Brass Man playing Dragon.


This round is lost to history, but we do lots of awesome stuff.  I do some crazy things to him with Engineered Explosives and during one game, we just kind of swing back and forth which was awesome.


Round 2: Eventual Champion, Simon Cooper playing combo


Game 1:  I contain his threats long enough to finish him off with a Mishra’s Factory.


Game 2:  He goes ridiculously broken on me, dropping artifact mana out the wazoo and finishes off with a Yawgmoth’s Bargain into Mind’s Desire, which yields him Darksteel COLOSSUS.  He Vampiric Tutors for and draws Time Walk and ends up beating me in the skull.  That was all on turn 1.


Game 3: He gets out Necropotence, but runs out of gas and needs to pass the turn back to me.  I end up tapping three lands, Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl and Tolarian Academy.  I Use Balance to knock us down to two cards.  One of my cards was Tinker, which I used to grab Mindslaver.  I slave him and make him eat his Necropotence for lunch.


2-0 (4-2)


Round 3: Dave playing Mono-Blue


Game 1:  I play a very early Gorilla Shaman and he’s very, very mana screwed, allowing me to do pretty much anything I want to.  I hit him for twenty turns with Gorilla Shaman.  I’m hardcore like that.


Game 2:  He’s kept down but eventually plays Tinker and gets Darksteel COLOSSUS.  I take a hit, but then cast Future Sight, which shows me the Swords to Plowshares.  Tight.  I finish him off with Joblin Trenches guys combined with a few Decree of Justice Soldiers.


3-0 (6-2)


Round 4: Phil playing combo


Game 1:  He combos out very early and there isn’t a whole lot I’m able to do.  Combo is really, really good in Highlander.


Game 2:  I play Library of Alexandria/Mox Sapphire turn 1, planning on completely wrecking him on my next turn which will allow me to draw with Library and counter any threat he plays.  These plans are dashed to the curb by his Windfall, which makes me discard Time Walk and a counter.  Frown.  I get out Morphling and start to smash him, but am one turn short of killing him.  I got him down to six, but had a Decree of Justice in my hand.  Frowns.


3-1 (6-4)


Quarterfinals:  Simon, yet again, still playing combo.


My notes are spotty at best for this match, but we spit the first two.  Game 3 was insane though.  He got out Necro, ran out of gas, Necroed again, ran out of gas again.  He then Vampiric Tutors at random, but is able to get out of it by grabbing it with Necropotence after a Time Walk.  It was Yawgmoth’s Will and with it he’s able to crush me, ending my dreams of being the Highlander champion.


3-2 (7-5)


Another day of being one match short of winning anything.  Someday I’ll be the bride.  Until then…


The rest of the day is spent screwing around, playing Type 4, and running the Trivia hotness.  I end up winning some foils and foreign cards which I give to Jaques.  A few other people donate stuff to the Jaques Magic Fund.  Very random.


GhettoCon ’04 was, in my opinion, a great success.  It was wonderful that the people who could make it, did.  Well, at least the people willing to make it did.  All of the good times were well worth the wait we all had to endure.  Slap-ass, Type 4, Highlander, Denny’s, Trivia and the general hanging out rocked hardcore.  I don’t think I’ve seen Baby Jesus this happy for some time.  He missed the convention season this year that was so awesome.  Mmmmm, GenCon.  Mmmm Mini-pos GenCon a.k.a. Origins.


I thank everyone, especially Bryce, who made this weekend such a success and a pleasure to attend.  The hugest of props go out to Bryce who stuck to his prize structure, making another such event possible by showing that the prize structure will be adhered to, unlike some other tournaments.  It sucks to lose money on a tournament, but it’s the TO’s responsibility to make sure to keep up their promises.  Bryce knew he was losing money from the get go, but he didn’t let that get in the way of running a great tournament.  Thanks a lot Bryce.


And, as per usual, I will leave you all with my latest Revenge list:


Revenge of 1997 v. 6.328.21.1183.7

4 Mana Drain

4 Force of Will

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Time Walk

1 Timetwister

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Braingeyser (Unrestricted, woot!)

1 Future Sight

1 Tinker

1 Fire / Ice

1 Burning Wish

1 Dismantling Blow

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Balance

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Mind Twist

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

1 Mindslaver

1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Zuran Orb

1 Regrowth

1 Sylvan Library

1 Holistic Wisdom

1 Fastbond



4 Polluted Delta

3 City of Brass

3 Tropical Island

1 Tundra

1 Volcanic Island

1 Underground Sea

1 Strip Mine

1 Wasteland

1 Library of Alexandria

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Undiscovered Paradise

1 Black Lotus

1 Sol Ring

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Sapphire


Burning Wish friendly Sideboard; Don’t leave home without it!


1 Amnesia

1 Kaervek’s Torch

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Chainer’s Edict

1 All Sun’s Dawn (What now Ben?)

1 Vindicate

1 Decree of Justice

1 Artifact Mutation

1 Disenchant

1 Pernicious Deed

1 Jorilla Shaman

1 Joblin Welder

1 Smmemnarch

1 Platinum Angel



And of course…


1 Darksteel COLOSSUS!


Carl Winter

Member of Team Meandeck

Member of Team Paragons(Yep, we’re still around)

Love Incarnate

The one who Carls so good

I Fight So Good on Magic Online


* Props go out to all those who donated to the donation jar as well as the prize pool.  We ended up being able to give out at least a pack to each Top 32er as well as supply prizes for Trivia on Sunday.  How lauky!


** What, your group of friends doesn’t have a token pharmacist?  I bet you don’t have a token French guy either.  n00bs.


*** Elmira is one of the worst towns I’ve ever seen.  It reminds me a great deal of the poorer parts of North Carolina, where I grew up.  Their leading industry is drug dealing.  The cops are also really random.


**** I babblefish.com so good.