By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 02:46 pm: Ok, so right off the bat, this is the list I ran at a T1 just this past Saturday:
OSC
Mana Sources:
1 Black Lotus
3 City of Brass
5 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
4 Underground Sea
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Wasteland
Green:
1 Regrowth
White:
1 Balance
1 Dismantling Blow
Black:
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Mind Twist
1 The Abyss
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Blue:
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Misdirection
1 Morphling
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
Artifacts:
2 Masticore
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Powder Keg
1 Zuran Orb
SB:
2 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Dodecapod
3 Duress
2 Flash Counter
3 Phyrexian Negator
1 Scrying Glass
1 Teferi's Response
Ok, so I ended up having to boot the Scrying Glass I loved just so much to the SB for a Merchant Scroll. Bottom line is I just needed a little more consistancy and this fit the bill. For the same reason I just had to move to Dismantling Blow, even though I'd rather have Disenchant in that slot (ARG!), but I'll just have to suffer with it for now... The reason for the increased search and card drawing abilities was the removal of the 4th City of Brass in favor of a 4th Mishra's Factory. This seemed like a pretty big jump, but it worked out pretty good in the end, actually it worked out better then that. 
I'm very happy with the current build as it proves to be not only very consistant in it's playing, but also quite affective at producing answers to any situation. The Regrowth was perfect, Balance was a machine, and the ability to side in CoP: Red just kick ass. The only real issue I'm working now is wether or not I really need 2 Edicts main deck now. Quite honestly I just haven't been sure about this one, and my testing on Saturday didn't help very much, over all it went about 50/50 so... At any rate! A little information on the tournament...
So I went into it as usual for me with a whole 4 hours of sleep, and I managed to show up about 20 minutes late. Lucky for me I squeezed in right at the last second, so I ended up making it in just under thr wire. We had 22 people show up for the T1, and around here that's a pretty damn good turnout for a Vintage, so I'm pretty happy over all.
First round I run into Sligh with Goblins and Ball Lightnings. He starts off with a Goblin Lackey or some such thing hitting the board and trying to beat my head in while playing Cadets and Fanatics for free. This was kinda interesting, but didn't prove to be a match for my moxxen enhanced Balance, which was matched with a Strip Mine the same turn. On my next shot I dropped a Masticore with a Sol Ring untapped, to which he laid his 3rd land finally and grumbled at me for a while before passing the turn. I'd later learn that he was holding 3 Ball Lightnings and some burn so this made me more then a little happy. Masticore took the Machine home pretty quickly and we went onto game 2. Here I sided in my CoP: Reds for the Dismantling Blow and an Edict. He went and dropped a Fanatic and said go, I went and dropped Undiscovered Paradise, Mox Sapphire, Sol Ring, CoP: Red, used the floating to prevent the damage from the Fanatic rather then taking burn. At this point he actually looked over and read the CoP for a second then kinda looked at me funny. I guess he didn't recognize the Beta picture or something, I dunno... Once I untapped and started leaving mana open he just kinda gave up. From the way the first game laid out he didn't think I was playing anything but straight black and blue, so he wasn't expecting anything in the way of CoP's at all, so with no way to dodge the enchantment and him not running Cursed Scroll it was pretty much over.
Round 2 looked very simular to round 1... Game one revealed my deck to be nothing but two colors, only to be fooled the second game and get killed by CoP: Red. I made it a point in both rounds not to drop a mana source like the Undiscovered, a City of Brass, or the Pearl unless I had to. I didn't want my opponent to know I could play white and the strategy worked perfectly. This guy actually had a few Scrolls to plink with, but after I zappee one with a DB, Kegged away another one, and Countered a third he gave up aswell. Bot games started out slower for me then round 1, but this fella wasn't playing any Ball Lightnings that I saw, so no big deal.
The next round I run smack into a mono-black sporting a nice array of shadows. He beats on my head for a while but never managed to get me below 4 life, I dropped a ZOrb on turn 2 but never had to sack any land. 90% of his creature base cost 2 mana so Kegs just chewed him up and spit him out pretty quickly. What the Kegs didn't take care of I finished off with the Masticore that beat his head in both games. I didn't even SB for this one, since all I saw were a bunch of Shadows and if he had discard the first game I never saw it. The second game didn't prove to be any more informative as he apparently had a crappy draw and the ONLY thing he ever cast were creatures, all of which cost exactly 2 mana... Yea, I wondered why I kept that opening hand with both Kegs in it...
Well, it's round 4 now and I haven't lost a single game yet, much less a match, and things are going my way. The deck is working perfectly I'm pretty happy, though quite skeptical as to wether or not I can actually finish up without any game losses. I'm fairly confident in my playing, but when it comes to luck, well, I just kinda throw the towl in on that one... So here I run into a little stompy face beating deck. We do some dancing when I go first and I get to see a 1st turn Vine Dryad in my end step that gets Rancor'ed up and starts pounding on me right off the bat. That little sucker eats an Edict the next turn when he tries to attack and I've got my 2nd mana out now. He goes on to drop several elves that get really big pretty fast a few times on me, but I managed to hold my life total up enough until I wrestled control of the ground with an angry Masticore and The Abyss. A Misdirected Rancor on my Masticore might have made a small impression on his army too, but I can't be sure. Game 2 turned sour right off the bat when he dropped a Cradle and tried to Land Grant, and when I noticed the Cradle was his only land I promptly Forced it, only to waste the Cradle the next turn. After that my Strip Mine showed up and baited out his next land while I beat his head in with Mishra's, all 4 of them made a showing and this one didn't last too long either.
Well hell, now I'm in round 5 and I haven't lost a game yet... This is a bad sign. When you do good all through the swiss like this bad luck is bound to pop up, so we'll see... I'm up against a mono-black land destruction beatstick deck sporting the Duress, Hymn, Sinkholes, Icequake, and of all things Demonic Hordes. I risk it with a 1st turn Morphling in game 1 only to have it meet a Ritual/Duress leading into an Edict. Oh well, easy come easy go... I pull a Strip Mine right after I Misdirect a sinkhole and slow his mana down, people walking by know it's control vs. LD and they assume I'm playing the LD at a glance. -Heh.- We trade hits for a little while and I get a Masticore to stick. He chews him up and finishes the deal and it's on to game 2. It doesn't look good for me here as he gets a hoard out 3rd turn after a Duress/Hymn start and a second turn Sinkhole. I lay a land every turn as he eats it up with no hope in sight, but he can't get my artifact mana and the topdecked Pearl is waiting. I lead into an Abyss and hit my Strip Mine again (man that thing has been popping up all day, if I didn't know better I'd think I was playing 4) which lets me Balance and wreck his whole day, only to Strip his land next turn when I untap. The next land he does draw tries to kill a Mishra that I'd just started beating him with, but my sided in Response sends it packing and leads me into Force backup so I can swing a bit safer. We finish up fairly quickly now and I think him for being a good sport, since he was the store owner and all that stuff. A really nice guy all in all.
So there I am going into the finals at 10-0 in games, this is going to suck, I just know it...
Round 1 of the finals I go up against a pretty good T1 style Orb/Opposition deck. He gets mana screwed and I don't, so we go on to game 2, it really is that bad... Game 2 is a little bit of a fight as I can't find a damn counter 1 despite resolving 2 FoF's and an Ancestral. I do however manage to get a Masticore out that sticks and he wins it for me. Apparently he wasn't drawing any counters either, and when we both looked they were all on the last 15-20 cards for both of us. Now that's some hellish cutting!
Hey, maybe I'm not jinxed after all, I mean I'm 12-0 in games now right?
Now I'm up against a Keeperish deck sporting a crapload of artifacts, tinker, and trying to abuse Academy for mana to power rather large Wills. It's neat and it's being played by a good friend of mine, so while the match is serious we just hate having to play each other like this. Game 1 I take a big gamble and keep a no-land hand. Of course it's a hand that happens to be sporting a Lotus, Balance, and to Forces with a FoF and a Mystical to throw out. He plays his land and says go, I draw, drop the Lotus and say go. He lays his second land and thinks for a while and says go. I draw, sack the Lotus and cast Balance. He taps both land to Mana Drain, which I Force then he... Lets it resolve. Huh? No Force? Ah crap... I was really hoping he'd Force so I could double Force and get our hands down low. See here's the thing. I knew I had all 21 land sitting in my deck with only the Lotus for a mana source. While on the other hand he had 2 in play and maybe 1 in hand at this point. I mean he's only looked at 8 cards now, and 2 of them are land on the board. Well, we fight it out back and forth for quite a while, I Edict away his Morphling and a Moat stops both our Masticore's and my Mishra's. Not pretty... Still, I can handle it. The game goes back and forth with me hitting the mana pocket just as I suspected I would. The good news is that the top 6 land I hit held all my Wastelands and the Strip, so I raped his mana supply as quickly as he dropped it. The bad news is that my Mishra's were in there, too. No colored mana for me yet... He ends up drawing out just enough mana to resolve a Will though that I can't do anything about, and gets a really nice lead. I force him into countering a lot of cards and resolve my regrowth, pull back an Edict and kill Morphling. Then I proceed to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. Yea... In case you missed that one let me reveal a small fact you may now have known, we both had a ZOrb out. What's this mean? The correct play was this... Balance, sac all land. Why? Because a Morphling was going to kill me anyway, forcing me to eat my land anyway to live, at the same time the Balance was going to kill it just as good as an Edict would have, but he only had 5 or 6 mana sources left in his deck, most of which were moxxen, while I had 11 left in mine, only 1 of which was a mox. That's right I had 2 moxxen on the board. So so stupid... The game was mine right there and I blew it. He used his Regrowth to get the Morphling back and recast it which eventually put me on a clock I couldn't beat. I had the game right there and I pissed it away! Bad luck indeed, bad skill really... I knew something bad was going to happen after having been 12-0 so far, I knew it. Well, now I'm 12-1, but I get to SB... You know I really can't say anything about game 2 cept the fact that he got a lot of moxxen on the draw, and tried to run a turn 3 Timetwister. I had to Force this one, which he Mana Drained, leaving me screwed in more ways then 1... When the Twister resolved his Lotus showed it's face... Right next to his damned Mind Twist, so I loose. Yeap, he used the Drain mana with the Lotus to take my hand easily leaving me dead in the water. Morphling landed the next turn and my Balance or Edicts were too far down. The sad thing is I topdecked 2 Duress in a row, and I knew I could have resolved a Balance or Edict were they one of the next 2 cards after, but no such luck. ARG!!! I HATE going undefeated in games!!! It's ALWAYS bad luck! Damn damn damn...
I have to play for third now because we have cash prizes comming, so I do and I have to face a Squirrel Prison deck that's been kicking ass so far. I don't remember too much about this one as I was still busy kicking myself in the ass over the recent loss, and slaughter on my rating, but I know I rolled over him very badly. I remember at one point he actually had a lock but I was able to Drain an EOT FoF he tried to cast from an Island/Sapphire I threw down and I used that mana to drop a Disk the very next turn with Force backup. Naturally the disk went off and cleared that whole messy 'lock' stuff up before it got out of hand. The next game involves a 1st turn Abyss with Force backup and counters that take care of the few Lyrists he's able to throw around. I chew him up and beat his head in with Mishra's... Apparently he wasn't packing Wastelands because he was running a prison deck anyway, so oh well.
In the end I finished up 7-1-0 at exactly 14-2 in games... I'll be lucky if I gained a single point during the whole tournament on my rating, and most likely I lost a couple in the end, but that's what I get for being a moron and not looking at the first damned card I tried to resolve in a certain game... BLAH! -Grumble.-
On a lighter note, my friend played the Land Grant Sligh deck I worked on with Azhrei and it ended up winning. I built it out of my extra cards and actually had everything for it cept the Wastelands, but my fiend had those himself. He played it exactly the way I had built it and piloted it to 1st place, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I still ended up taking $40.00 in store credit for 3rd place home, and that's not half bad.
All in all the deck worked perfectly... I liked the Merchant Scroll a lot with the mana base, and the only thing I was missing was the main deck Response. I'm not really used to not playing with it yet and a couple of times I forgot it wasn't in the deck. I went through the deck twice in round 2 after lunch before I realized it was in the SB now. -lol- Oh well...
I'll add some more to this later, but for now I have to get back to work...
By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 04:58 pm: Some more notes about my second round in the finals loss... I was also reminded by my buddy that was playing my other deck that I actually had a chance at one point to still recover from my stupid Edict/Balance mistake. See I had a Keg out with 2 counters on it at one point, but during the match my opponent and I were adjusting some cards as we had a little counter war at one point, and my Keg got pushed to the side. A kid just happened along and bumped the table enough that I didn't notice my die slide off the Keg, and since it was partially in the graveyard I forgot it was out there. It wasn't until I had only a turn left the I recalled having the Keg out in the first place, and me and my opponent/friend were trying to figure out just how it made it's way to the graveyard to begin with. Since we both agreed that this had been a mistake from our messy playing we both also agreed that I could put it back into play, but the judge stepped in and though he allowed this he wouldn't let me put the appropriate counters on it to rid myself of the Morphling. The funny thing is my main man was willing to go with it since it he thinks it was partially his fault aswell by moving it, and was puting his Morphling in the graveyard when it was stopped. So much for a friendly game, darn judge... It was just an RL1 event anyway, so technically it wasn't a big deal, but a judges ruling is a ruling so it stood. Once again bad luck felt added faul to the fire and exagerated the stupidity of my earlier mistake with Balance. I guess I was just destined to loose that first game no matter what. Still, I'm not usually one to try and pass blame, and when it comes down to it I should have won, were it not for my own brain fighting against me. On the up side, I'm not likely to make that mistake again, what with the level of shame I truly felt afterwards... -Heh.- Game 2 was, well, it was just game 2... What could I do against a Twist for 6 off a Timetwister?
I think the thing that sperates a given players level of skill from another player is thier ability to see a 'play' that could have been made to acheive a greater advantage in a situation. Normally this is something of a specialty for me, but in this case my performance was less then perfect. On the other hand I've learned from this mistake, and I'm a lot more likely to spot this sort of thing in the future now, I think. Of course this isn't the first time I've done this sort of thing. Often times when I loose a match it has a pretty drastic affect on me, and I sit around sometimes even days later thinking about that specific mistake and wondering what I could have done at the time differently.
I wonder how many of you have done the same thing... I wonder how many others have sat back even that night after a match you lost and wondered how something so simple slipped right past you. Do you mill over things like that for a while, or can you just forget about it overnight? Does it ever bother you, or do you think maybe I'm taking the game too seriously? I'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks about this sort of thing now that I'm rambling on about it. Welp, that's enough for now anyway!
By Spin13 (Spin13) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 06:07 pm: Did the switch from Disenchant to Dismantling Blow make a difference at any time? And was the Regrowth worth it? I mean, it might sound silly to not play it, since you have the sources of green anyway, but it didn't get much notice, and thats room for your Response. And you didn't seem to make much light of your transformational sideboard. Was it just not needed because of matches, or was it less optimal in a more defensive deck? Nice report.
-Eric
By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 07:38 pm: Welp, the Dismantling Blow I kicked a whole one time when I was beating the guy senseless anyway, I just needed it to get rid of a pesky Opposition, just in case he actually got a creature or two out. Otherwise I cast DB quite a lot unkicked, though it got sided out against Sligh for a CoP every time. I should point out though that I did zap two Sylvan Libraries, a Cursed Scroll, hrm... Oh yea, and my own Masticore once, too. I was kinda mana shafted the opposite way and I figured hell I needed the cards, hrm I guess I did kick DB twice now that I think about it. 6WU for 2 cards EOT isn't exactly a power house card, but hey it got the job done.
Regrowth was a fraggin' machine bar none! That damn card turned into my 3rd Keg, my 3rd Edict, my 2nd Balance (oh wait, not my 2nd Balance, because I'm an idiot), and my 5th Mishra's Factory more then a couple times. Not to mention being a nice touch as a 2nd Morphling and a 3rd Masticore. I mean the best part was that I didn't have to counter thier removal of my kill, I could just Regrowth it or Will it back out, sometimes both. Thus saving my counters for real control issues. I LOVED Regrowth, just in case I didn't make myself clear.
As for the SB, well I didn't need to transform any with the matches I had. The only one really might have been against the LD deck or the funky Opposition deck, but certainly not against a Squirrel Prison deck... Dude, those damn squirrels get BIG! I watched him pummel the crap out of a guy with like 11 squirrels in play, backed up by 3 Squirrel Wranglers and a fraggin' Coat of Arms for pete's sake! His whole damn deck was nothing but elves and squirrels... Heh, it was kinda like Christmas or something... Hrm.
I'd hardly call the deck defensive though. Yes, it is MORE defensive without a doubt, but it's still very very aggro-control to be sure. I really loved not having to rely on Will to dig in my graveyard, or a Disk to stop pesky enchantments, and I loved being able to Balance to no land a couple of times with a ZOrb. Plus, siding in the CoP's, as I said, was just incredible. Hell, Balance and Regrowth pretty much ran neck and neck as the MVP's of the deck all day long. Even that stupid ass game shifting play I ALMOST made was powered by Regrowth. Good stuff, really good stuff.
The Merchant Scroll was just an unfortunate requirement, since I may have mentioned that I really needed just a little more access to my card drawing, mainly so I could tutor chain into a Balance/Regrowth/Will or grab an Ancestral/FoF to dig for mana sources. My favorite though was when I Scrolled for Mystical, then Mysticaled for Demonic, then cast Demonic for The Abyss, and dropped The Abyss out against the stompy guy.
By Liam (Liam) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 08:09 pm: hehe. Isn't DBlow 4WU (6 total?) Nice report. Props for 3rd place. Too bad about the Balance thing.
-Liam
By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 08:11 pm: Nah, I had to regenerate the Masticore. -lol-
By Liam (Liam) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 08:20 pm: true.
By Dante (Dante) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 09:16 pm: Nameless - Nice report....a few things:
1. Was 4 permanent sources of green (3 city, 1 UP, plus 1 lotus) enough to cast Regrowth when you needed it? I find that even when I run 5-6 (4 city, 1up, sometimes mox emerald), sometimes I don't have green when I really want to cast Regrowth. Was there any times in the tourney that you wanted to cast it but had to wait?
2. Some sideboard questions - against the LD/Discard, I assumed you sided in the 'pods and the response. What did you take out? Same question against keeper (in Scrying Glass and 3 Duress...what's out). When would you side in the flash counters? The Negators? The only tourneys I've played my control-ish decks in have been at small shops with no sideboarding, so my control sideboard skills have gotten weak.
3. I used to really dig into my losses and probably for the most part over-analyzed them. I'd say I paid more attention to game/match losses in bigger tournaments than little ones. I really mellowed out between high school and college, so I tend to not beat myself up too much anymore (although I still believe that I should be able to win every game I play, even if I choose to play my Zoo deck!).
4. This is a tip for all. I've had a bad cold lately, so I've been trying to drink OJ with every meal. Let me tell you, Mac N Cheese may be easy to make when you're sick, but it does NOT go well with orange juice! (I think I just set my stomach back 2 days).
5. I can see the judges point about not allowing the counters on the Keg, since it isn't a mandatory counter and both players forgot, that was the correct ruling ACCORDING TO THE RULES. However, at a small event like that, if both players agreed on it and I was the judge, I probably would have let it slide, since I'm more of a spirit of the game guy than a letter of the law guy.
Dante
By Elrond, the High Priest & Pokemon Slayer (Elrond) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 09:24 pm: That's not too bad, Dante. When I was little and had the flu, my parents forgot to tell me not to eat dairy products. I proceded to eat wheaties for breakfast (with lots of milk, of course), some ice cream, and a grilled cheese sandwich. At one point, I couldn't hold the vomit in and spewed off of our deck-about 15 feet in the air
By Dante (Dante) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 09:30 pm: Hah - my parents always told me not to drink too much Coke, that I'd get bad stomach aches, but I thought they were full of it. Until one day when I was about 7 or 8 I decided to drink two, 2-liter bottles of Coke in about a half-hour. Boy, did I learn what gas was...thought my stomach/intestines were going to explode and I was going to die..
Dante
By Elrond, the High Priest & Pokemon Slayer (Elrond) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 09:57 pm: LOL, that would suck....
By Azhrei (Azhrei) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 10:01 pm: Congratulations! Your mana base is uglier than every, but whatever man. :P
And a big SCREW YOU to anyone who ever mocked Rubefacere!
By Azhrei (Azhrei) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 10:41 pm: Just as a sidebar:
COKE:
1. In many states (in the
USA) the highway patrol
carries two gallons of Coke in the truck
to remove blood from the
highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak
in a bowl of coke and it
will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a
can of Coca-Cola into the
toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit
for one hour, then flush
clean. The Citric acid in Coke
removes stains from vitreous china.
4. To remove rust spots from
chrome car bumpers: Rub the
bumper with a crumpled-up
piece of Reynolds Wrap
aluminum foil dipped in
Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from
car battery terminals: Pour a
can of Coca-Cola over the
terminals to bubble away the
corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt:
Apply a cloth soaked in
Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several
minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty
a can of Coca-Cola into
the baking pan, wrap the ham in
aluminum foil, and bake.
Thirty minutes before the ham
is finished, remove the foil,
allowing the drippings to mix
with the Coke for a
sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from
clothes: Empty a can of coke
into a load of greasy clothes, add
detergent, and run through a
regular cycle. The
Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains.
It will also clean road haze
from your windshield.
For Your Info:
1. The active ingredient in
Coke is phosphoric acid. Its
pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in
about 4 days. Phosphoric acid
also leaches calcium from
bones and is a major contributor
to the rising increase in
osteoporosis.
2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup
(the concentrate) the
commercial truck must use the
Hazardous material place
cards reserved for Highly
corrosive materials.
3. The distributors of coke
have been using it to clean
the engines of their trucks for about
20 years!
By Spin13 (Spin13) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 11:58 pm: Damn, you got that too? My mom sent that crep my way....stupid chain letter junkamabobs.
Anyway, so Balance and Regrowth are superstars. Was the 4th Factory worth it? Did you have the right mana when you needed it? Would you go back to Disenchant after this tournament? Are you still going to keep the transformational SB, or are you going to cut the Negators? Did the Scrying Glass come into play and do as much as you expected it to? Is it still far superior to Sylvan or Response? Thanks.
-Eric
By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 09:09 am: Dante -
1. There was only one or two times all day that I was sitting with Regrowth in my hand and no source to play it with. As I mentioned before that's one of the reasons for the increased tutoring and card drawing access... I tutored in some way or another for FoF quite a lot, just to dig through my deck looking for a G or W source to hold onto. Usually I got a City or the UP in the first 10-12 cards though, so I just held onto it until I needed it.
2. I just sided in the Response for a FoF and nothing else, we were in a hurry and SB'ing one card real quick was all I wanted to slow down to do. As I mentioned, he was the store owner and a friend of mine so I just wanted to hurry up and get playing rather then goofing off with other stuff. Against the only Keeper-ish deck I played I went super-aggro by siding in 3 Negators, 3 Duress, 1 Scying Glass, and 2 Flash Counters; out came Mystical, Time Walk, The Abyss, 1 Powder Keg, 1 FoF, Vampiric, 1 Mana Drain, and the Merchant Scroll. Basically I made same odd choices, even for me, and I just wanted to see how they would work out. In most cases I would side in the Flash Counters in a control matchup, and I'd side in the Negator's in these same situations for sure. If nothing else at leaste drop in a Negator for The Abyss, since it'll be a dead card anyway.
Azhrei -
It's more consistant then it looks, 5 sources for one green spell, 6 sources for two white spells, hell that's always been enough for me in the past... I never got color screwed Saturday anyway, hell just the opposite I always seemed to have a City or the UP when I needed it.
Spin13 -
The 4th Factory was pretty helpful actually, and like I mentioned before I really never had any problems getting mana screwed. Right now I'm going to have to stick with Dismantling Blow until I figure out some other way of searching more consistantly with the deck. Hrm... Impulse? Yes, I love the SB too, since I think the main deck is strong enough to allow for it. As far as Scrying Glass goes I really only sided it in during the last match, as I didn't want to run it vs. Sligh or Stompy type decks that I really expected to not have much in the way of a hand. I never even drew it the 2nd game when I did side it in though, so I really couldn't say anything about its usefulness Saturday, that's just the way it happened to work out. Had I played against more control decks likely it would have seen more use.
By Nameless, the Mysterious Man of Signed Anonymous Posts (Nameless) on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 03:47 pm: When I reread my post I realized I may not have been clear on one answer... There were a couple of times when I had Regrowth in my hand with no green source in sight, but it was too early in the game to cast it anyway. I've always used Regrowth as a mid-late game 'must counter' myself, as it's just so much more affective to use it like that and still have Will waiting in the sidelines. Hell, sometimes a Will is just overkill when you only need 1 card from the graveyard to win you the game. -Cough.- Balance. -Cough.-