Manic hosted and I won a 12 person mini in #bdmini.
I played The Patriot:
4 City of Brass
4 Tundra
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
2 Plateau
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
4 Savannah Lions
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Meddling Mage
3 Frenetic Efreet
2 Lightning Angel
4 Force of Will
4 Null Rod
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Disenchant
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
SB:
4 REB
3 Hydroblast
3 Honorable Passage
3 Dwarven Miner
2 Seal of Cleansing
Round 1, Manic, Keeper-esque w/ Dwarven Miner and Gaea's Blessing
Game 1 I killed a Masticore and a Morphling and knocked him to 10. I also parised to 5, had my first 4 lands Wasted, had a turn 2 LoA cast against me, and was killed by a Dwarven Miner since there were no more lands left to kill.
SB: -4 FoW, -1 Disenchant, -2 Lightning Bolt, +4 REB, +3 Hydroblast
I drop a Meddling Mage (Morphling) on turn 2. I attack him to 18 next turn. He plays a land and passes. I Mystical EOT for Ancestral. I cast Ancestral, he Drains. I drop Lotus for WWW and cast Savannah Lions and Timetwister with 1 card in hand and him with 4 or 5. He draws no land off it and I get a Wasteland and some Blasts. I beat him down fairly quickly.
Game 3 just involves me not getting Null Rod so I have to cast one Sliver or Mage at a time since he draws a few Kegs. I finish him with one eventually.
Round 2, Arex, Tax-Rack WW
Tax-Rack is a good matchup for this deck because of Null Rod. Game 1 Arex parises and keeps a not good hand. We both drop turn 1 Savannah Lions and trade them. But Arex misses a land drop. So I drop a Meddling Mage set to Land Tax. Then I drop another one set to StP. He draws no more land before he dies.
I SB nothing.
Game 2 I drop a Lion and he drops a Land Tax. I swing once or twice and don't play another land. He taps his lone Plains and sacs it for Kjeldoran Outpost to cast Scroll Rack. I drop another land and attack. Arex casts another Land Tax and Strips his Outpost. I attack, drop another land, and cast Frenetic. Next turn I cast another. He desparately is looking for Balance...although with two Frenetics and 12 cards in hand it wouldn't have helped that much. I drop Lightning Angel, yell "USA! USA!" and swing for the win.
Round 3, Mr. Bye
I get the god draw and goldfish him twice.
Finals, TomM, Wild PandeBurst
The Patriot just does well against combo. This was no exception.
Game 1 I drop a Lion and a Frenetic and Waste 2 land. But I don't get Null Rod and he Attunes the pieces in, drops 3 Moxen, and Replenishes.
SB: -4 Bolt, -3 Frenetic, -2 Angel, +4 REB, +2 Disenchant, +3 Dwarven Miner
Game 2 I get a turn 2 Meddling Mage with FoW and REB backup. He can't win around it.
SB: -3 Miner, +3 Honoarble Passage (just to try out)
Game 3 Tom plays a land, a few Moxen, and Wheels. But I draw a savage hand off it with Ancestral, REB, x2 FoW, x2 land, Meddling Mage. Then I draw Null Rods. I Waste all his land, drop Null Rod and Mage. He REB's Mage at 8 life. However, at this point I have a Lion, Seal, and Rod on the table. I get a bit scared since he has Burst and Pandemonium in graveyard. However, I topdeck Timetwister and draw 2 Disenchants and an Honorable Passage with it and win.
OK, so The Patriot won.
Congrats JP! Nice tourney report. Good to see a nice aggro-control deck win a tourney (instead of one of those combo or Keeper bullies).
well done JP 8)
Just wanted ppl to know that stompy had won a mini...4 eprson mini, though 8)
I tried another change for the next mini (I lost 2-0 to Sligh though. Not drawing a single SB card hurt.) I took out the Frenetics for 2 Morphling and another Plateau and switched the Hydros for StP. I like the Morphlings but missed the Frenetics. Any suggestions? I think I'm going to just cut 1 Frenetic for 1 Morphling unless I hear something better.
While I haven't seen the hate of Null Rod dropped against me, I am still leary of 4 Maindeck. Sure you can hate out BD, but what about elsewhere? Other than that, the deck looks wonderful. I've always liked Zoo, and really old Monkey-May-I? decks, but haven't really had the chance to build one myself (well, I could online, but IRL I lack the power blue...)
A few questions: How were the Crystallines? You didn't mention them much. Also, it didn't seem that Lightning Angel did much more than Serendib, but do your original pros and cons still weigh in favor of the Angel?
Anyway, good job on a successful aggro-prison deck 
-Eric
Every single person that has had the beating that is Null Rod, phallic superstar dropped on them doesn't think much of it at first. Then when they try to do Lotus-Will-Lotus and notice that they actually only have 4 mana and start cursing. Or drop a ton of Moxen with intent to cast something huge. All that's left to say is most Type 1 decks see Null Rod and go "OH NULL ROD, OH YEAH! RIGHT HERE!"
Crystallines are pretty good. They keep hitting when Abyss hits and avoid Plows and Bolts. I'm very happy with them. The only card I'd consider in that spot is Goblin Legionairre, which I'm currently testing.
Lightning Angel is a savage beating. So many times it swings and blocks and really surprises my opponent. And it doesn't cost me life while it blocks. I LOVE IT. The only card I might cut it for is a Morphling.
More fun with Null Rod: I was playing Smmenen. He was with Keeper. He dropped a Moat on me and I couldn't find a Disenchant for the life of me. So I dropped Null Rod. Whatever. The game ends when Null Rod and Dwarven Miner lock him and I FINALLY find the Disenchant when he has 2 cards left in HIS deck.
Yeah, null rod is a beating. It seems like post sideboard JP's deck goes into ld mode. Although I might add that was the only game JP's deck has beaten my Keeper and it was like 60 some turn game .
I'd say it was time to add more disenchants JP -- or seals or blows.
Stephen Menendian
"Crystallines are pretty good. They keep hitting when Abyss hits and avoid Plows and Bolts. I'm very happy with them. The only card I'd consider in that spot is Goblin Legionairre, which I'm currently testing."
--> I just keep wondering that if Crystallines by themselves are so good for you, would Blurred Mongoose be even better?
Mongoose would require me to add green. I am liking the Legionairres more and more in this spot. My biggest problems with this deck are other aggro decks. Legionairre gets 2-1 against most beatdown decks (whether through blocking or by them trying to remove it) and can trade with Su-Chi and Juggernaut. Also, against Keeper the Crystallines get to attack once or twice after Abyss hits and then they usually get hit with Edict or Balance. Legionairre works in a similar method, since I get an extra "attack" when I throw it at the Keeper player's dome.
I think I'll switch the Disenchants for Erase and add a lone Disenchant (bringing me to 3 Disenchant effects.) I'll probably a Plateau if I'm running 3. I'm not really scared of artifacts because of Null Rod and Erase is cheaper and prevents recursion (which was annoying when Smmenen played Yawgmoth's Will just to return a Moat that I had already Disenchanted.) They'll also be useful against PandeBurst and Parfait.
Oh, and that was a 76 turn game :-)
Sounds good. I was thinking the same thing as Rakso: Cystalline is definatly the best sliver, but is it great alone. If you've got the Legionairres working, they seem really cool. Its Mogg Fantasic times 2!
And as I said earlier, Null Rod can hate out the typical BD, online deck, where people can (almost thoughtlessly) add as many moxen as they want. Are you also going to be playing 4 Null Rod in real life, or what? I'm just curious because if I were to do such IRL, I would be sitting on 4 (almost) completely dead cards. I guess I'm asking because I'm not in a metagame similar to yours, and I generally build my online decks to test for RL, and thus your choice doesn't make sense.....
-Eric
I for one only play my IRL decks on Apprentice, mainly because I use it as another form of testing.
One thing I keep noticing though... Why do people always seem to forget the Goblin Legionairs can prevent damage, too? I've won a couple of matches now in drafts and sealed because they are so worried about thier own life totals and how it can shock them that they don't even pay any attention to the fact that they just tapped out to kill me on an attack, and I lived because I prevented 2 of it. What's up with that?