This was a far better experience for me than my first appearance at Nuetral Ground some month earlier. The players (and companions) were much cooler this time around. I had a blast.
So with out further ado, I give you:
TEAM SCRUB INVADES NG: Round Two

Yes, we are Team Scrub, straight out of Long Island: The big apple's little brother...who gets beat up alot...and is kinda wussy.
But no matter...we came, we saw, we starved!

I had been in Bronxville since the night before helping my friend move into her new appartment at Sarah Lawrence College. My dear friend Redman organized the boys back home into a stout-hearted troup that forged the rushing river of the Ronkonkoma Station of the LIRR. They made into the city safely and poorly fed on bagels.

Some twenty minutes north and west of them I was having an ommelette and hashbrowns in a delightful restaurant. If I could remember the name of it, I would recommend it.

I came into the city around 11:45 am and met my friends inside NG, where I quicly filled out my deck list and scanned the crowd for familiar faces. I didn't see any - I forgot that I had only been here once before.

And speaking of forgetting things, I cannot for the life of me remember my first match. (you see, I fit perfectly on Team Scrub, I won and I cannot even remember what the hell I did)

But Round 2 I recall.
I played Eric Wilkinson.
I am suicide black, he was keeper.

Game 1: I beat him down, rushing to defeat his counter spells and my carnophages eating me. Our life totals were not that far off the first game as I recall - he put up quite the fight to slow me down and let his killer hit the table.

Game 2: He sides in COP black and not only that, puts out a moat. I hit him with my negator once and then never again. I had not sideboarded correctly, otherwise I might have had a chance against the COP black. This one goes to him.

Game 3: I adjust my sideboard, pulling out a sarcomancy and a hymn for 2 dystopia. I never saw any of my side cards and likely he did not see any of his, because I beat him down before anything could really hit the table.

My impression of Eric was a serious minded individual. He stuck me on tapping lands which I did not consider tapped. I like to consolidate my lands into piles, and playing mono black gives me a few stack of four I guess for presentation's sake, and while counting one such, I did not bend my hand at an impossible pivot so in counting, they were turned at a 45 degree angle, thus making them tapped by the rules. I lost that game anyway as soon as the COP black hit the table, so I did not argue the point. After all, he had in no way been rude to me or arrogant. I would just like to point out to everyone not to be a hick like me and make a proceedural error like that when there is a prize involved.

Eric's deck was well constructed and I think my
2-1 victory was based soley on a better draw for me in that last game. He made it further in the top 8 than I did, and he deserved it.

***I would like to take this time to give an honorable mention to the newest member of Team Scrub, my friend and yours (well, Redman's anyway...) Carlo the Sliver KING. His first game was a victory also, and his only one of the evening other than a bye. He beat Negator with a deck Redman inspired and they both worked on for a good long time. He ALSO schooled anyone foolish enough to challenge him at super street fighter, as Erick W. and Josh Kramer (among others) discovered.

ROUND 3:
This one did not go well at all for me.
I was playing Josh Kramer.
Game 1: First turn, dark ritual, duress and two sarcomancy. He giggles. I soon find out why as Oath of Druids hits the table. That was game no matter how hard I tried.
Game 2: I wind up asking him to kill me before my sarcomancies do.

Josh was...energetic. I heard later that he made Sabin cry and that was uncool, but since I neither know nor have much an oppinion of either of them I just hope that the matter was resolved in the most agreeable manner. After he beat me, I thought I was out of it for sure, since everyone else was playing really tight decks.
I did not see him around later. (maybe he did not agree to the resolution)

Round 4:
I played Dennis Tsao. He was white weenie, I was suicide black.

Game 1: He puts out a plateau and a savanah lions. In my mind I see burn and little, half of them pro black, critters eating me alive. On my first turn I wasteland his plateau. He hits me with the kitties. Next turn I put out carnophage and then take it from the kittes again in his next turn. He did not play land.
Now I saw an opportunity to win, hoping to rush the clock before he drew any more land. I put out a dark ritual next turn and 2 sarcomancy and a duress. He was not holding any burn. I have a sinkhole in my hand just in case. I win this game.
Game 2: He puts out a Plateau and a Savanah lions. I put out a swamp and cast ritual, carnophage and sinkhole. He concedes. He dropped from the tournament after that.
I liked Dennis. He was polite and friendly and laughed - something I do not see alot of any more among magic players unless it is in some Derogatory manner against another player.

Round 5:
I faced mike Pustilnik and it became apparent who the master of the force was.
Game 1: I had to paris the first time around. Even so, I was still screwed. I had a sinkholes, a skittering skirge, 2 swamps, a wasteland and a hypie. I play a swamp.

Then goes. He mindtwists me for 6. He kills me with mishras and a gorilla shaman. (yes, even after the mindtwist I hung in there)

Game 2:
He sides in morphling or did not draw any in the last game and with them, he performs righteous smackdown.

so that was it for me, I finished with a 3/2 record. That was when the funniest thing happened. I did finish with a 3/2 record then and there, but along come the next round match ups and apparently so did my old pal Eddie P, the Legend himself.

He starts off by letting me know I had almost hurt his feelings with all the bad things I said about him here on BD. I meant everyone of them...then. My friend Carlo and Evan, Redman's younger brother sit down next to me. Matt tells me I have to beat him. Oddly enough, so does Negator.

Game 1: He asks me to concede. I do not. I kill him.

Game 2: He banters back and forth, mostly to himself about how I should let him win since I don't have a chance in hell about getting anything from this and he does, and it would be nice of me and how he does not like to work for anything or face any challenges and that I am being quite disagreeable. I ignored most of it, offering an ignored bit of philosophy here and there. I give up trying to have any meaningful communication. He is as set in his ways as I am. So I just play, and try not to laugh out lound as my friend Carlo (sitting next to Legend) comments on everything he says and remarks in the hallmark homestyle heckling manner I have grown to love in the 3 years of our friendship. Evan is quiet...and pleasant.
Game 2 went to Edward since I could do little against the mighty morphling with a pile of countered critters and one negator out.

Game 3: (aka the moment of truth)
This is the game where I should have popped out my binder and asked him to sign one of my Vindicates. Playing the same deck as last time (where he beat me and then pissed me off with his snide commentary) I beat him. I see now what I was doing wrong. The last time I played suicide black, I had no clue how to balance its drawbacks and speed. I am used to playing Dragon Decks, and the last deck I played in a tournament was close to 6 years ago and that was fork shahrazad.

He made one crucial mistake, and it gave me even more of a speed advantage. His openning hand had an ancestral and an island and no other mana sources. He drew too little too late, and the ancestral did not get him any more mana.

I negated him, I hypnotized him. Afterwards, I shook his hand and let him know there were no more hard feelings.

***I would like to let everyone know up front, right now, that I am cancelling, YES, cancelling my order for 50 "Legend BLEW" tee shirts. It is time to bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones. I took his post too seriously, and as I found out once I took a good look and got to know him, their is no reason whatsoever to take Legend seriously at all.***

I moved on to the top 8 after that, being the lowest man on the totem poll.

Top 8, Round 1:
I played Steven Sabin. He was keeper and I was Suicide Black.

Game 1:The first game came close with tutor and carnophage damage putting me neck and neck with him for life totals until the last few turns.

Game 2: He got out cop black, moat and abyss. I sat there with my carnophages and cried as they stared back at me with their empty sockets. I did not even pay the life to untap them, and they died in the abyss hungry and silently (no vocal cords either). I lost...in the silence...and the dark.

Game 3: Ever where flip-flops as a kid? Well then put this game on your feet and chase the ice cream man, kiddies, cause it was turn around after turn around. He puts out COP black, I put out dystopia, he puts out land, I put out two hypies, he destroys dystopia. I put out negator, he puts out moat, I put out gloom, he puts out land. I duress away his misdrection and hymn away the yawgwill. He has enough to prevent one hypie with the COP black, and is losing card steadily. I got a pile of early game tapped carnophages and one mean looking useless negator. (mean looking, useless negator...a term I should coin.)

I won, but like Negator said, I could have had it earlier if I forced him to prevent hypie damage, losing both cards in his hand anyway. He could not have destroyed the dystopia if I had attacked first. Oh well, it was fun...since I was Team Scrub's only hope...and also the only one holding us up.

top 8, Game 2: Guess who! I faced Pustilnik again and that as they say was that, I finished fourth place. It was fun.

Thanks to everyone there, and if I mispelled your name, well, I am a member of Team Scrub, forgive me.

Devin "Dragon Deck" Delgado