RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
03-12-2012, 10:52 PM
We leave Honey Creek, Iowa, at 5 a.m. to leave for Indianapolis.
Here’s the car:
Me (RaNDoMxGeSTuReS)
Tim “Willis” Wilson (HoneyT)
And his girlfriend who didn’t want to play Affinity.
We spend the some nine hour drive talking about sideboard cards for Nic Fit like Duress versus Mindbreak Trap and the like. Nothing too exciting here, but we discuss the merits of being Asian and that anyone who doesn’t marry a white girl is probably within question.
We arrive at Lucas Oil Stadium at 7 p.m. due to a time zone change we forgot about.
Now this city is goofy. The parking garages smell of urine, the streets make no sense and a homeless person ended up being our tour guide. Long story short, the same hooded homeless guy asked us for cigarettes at some point.
We pondered for 10 minutes. Ten minutes to realize that none of us smoked. We missed our elevator.
Anyway.
Tim and I preregister and receive our GP Indy playmats with Havengul Lich. Tim was on GBW Nic Fit, and I was on TES. I walked over to the Starcity Games vendor and picked up a foil Scalding Tarn and foil Bloodstained Mire to finish pimping my deck.
I find Mark Sun (Morbid-) on Friday during the grinders and ask him if he has a foil Pyroclasm on him. He didn’t have it on him because he left it at the hotel, but Tim surprises me with one he found at a vendor.
I find a playset of Japanese Lotus Petals at the Hot Sauce Games vendor. I noticed Jupiter Games was one of the sponsoring companies on the GP playmat. I looked for their vendor booth. I bought a Jupiter Games hoodie that I’ve tried ordering over the phone with Mindi on several occasions.
After a long debate over Silent Departure versus Pyroclasm, here’s what I registered.
The E.P.I.C. Storm 3/10/2012
13 Land
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Undergound Sea
1 Volcanic Island
47 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 Duress
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Silence
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
15 Sideboard
3 Pyroblast
2 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Duress
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
Round 1 – Bye
2-0
1-0
Round 2 – Greg (ImpinAintEasy) with RUG Tempo
Game 1: I open an OK hand with some business, fast mana and chant. I face lethal on board the next turn and he’s at 19. I storm off and tendrils him town to 1 life. He swings next turn. I draw LED on my turn. He swings again. I draw Burning Wish. Play LED, wish for Grapeshot, and we’re onto game 2.
Game 2: He plays a Counterbalance on turn 2. He Brainstorms and Ponders to keep a 1 and 2 on top. He never locks me out with Sensei’s Divining Top, but my hand can’t get through his soft lock.
Game 3: He opens on a fast clock, and has too much Daze/Spell Pierce.
3-1
1-1
Round 2 – David with Mono Black Pox
Game 1: He talks about how he works for a shop and couldn’t build any other deck. Cool. So he opens on turn 1 Inquisition of Kozilek, Small Pox and Liliana of the Veil. I’m out.
Game 2: I lead with Duress and see: Swamp, Swamp, Swamp, Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory, Smallpox and Sinkhole. I take Smallpox and pass the turn. Next turn I untap and kill him with an Iggyloop. We consult a judge for the oracle text on a Korean Ill-Gotten Gains.
Game 3: I keep an opening hand with Gemstone Mine, Duress, Burning Wish, Ad Nauseam, Ad Nauseam, Brainstorm, and Lotus Petal. His discard isn’t enough to disrupt my hand. I Diminishing Returns into the nuts.
5-2
2-1
Round 3 – Stewart with UB ANT
Game 1: He wins the die roll and leads with Preordain. I lead with Duress and see Diabolic Tutor, Infernal Tutor, LED, Dark Ritual, Ponder, Swamp and Lotus Petal. I take LED and pass the turn. We play draw go for a while. I have the win in hand, but he kills me the turn prior.
Game 2: Long story short, he attempts to combo off and walks right into an Orim’s Chant. He reads the card, and frowns. Next turn he lands a Dark Confidant. He takes a ton of damage from it, and ends up at 14. He plays a second Dark Confidant. I untap and Burning Wish for Diminishing Returns. I look at the flop. It gets there. My opponent starts calling me out for luck sacking.
Game 3: Not much happens here. We sculpt hands. My hand is better. I cast Ad Nauseam from 20.
7-3
3-1
Round 4 – Kevin Long (Sourcer, forgot this one) with Junk Elves
Game 1: I like Kevin. He has a pimped deck. Kevin wins the die roll and leads with Savannah, Llanowar Elves. I cast Ad Nauseam on my turn 1. And we’re off to game 2!
Game 2: Kevin leads with turn 1 Savannah into Llanowar Elves. I draw Chrome Mox. My hand is now Gemstone Mine, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, LED, LED, Chome Mox, Ponder, Infernal Tutor. I lay it on the table, and Kevin asks if I have Ill-Gotten Gains in my sideboard. I do, and he extends his hand. He reveals a hand filled with foil Thoughtseizes and other disruption.
9-3
4-1
Round 5 – Damian with GW/u Punishing Maverick
Game 1: He talks about how he’s been taking massive shits in the bathroom all day. Poor guy. I easily dispatch him with an Ad Nauseam from 20.
Game 2: He opens on turn 2 Gaddock Teeg with double Mother of Runes. Pyroclasm didn’t save me.
Game 3: He opens on turn 2 Gaddock Teeg, and I don’t draw bounce or Burning Wish. He starts chaining Wastelands with Knight of the Reliquary.
10-5
4-2
After this round, we run into Jacob Kory (Rukcus). I introduce myself. I mention Rukcus, then he mentions RaNDoMxGeSTuReS. At this point Jacob is 6-0, and we start talking about how he popularized Maverick in North America. It’s his fault that Maverick is everywhere. He talked about how everyone is trying to make the deck their own and change about 10 different cards.
Jacob also needed to take a shit. He said there weren’t any toilet liners in the bathrooms so he’d have to wait to go back to his hotel to poop. Either way we talked about the weather, the locals of Indy and some other fun stuff. He left my group with a very good message:
"There is no win more. You haven't won until they're dead.”
The next round is about to begin.
Round 6 – Shinpei Toyota with RUG Tempo
Game 1: I get Wasted out of this game, and don’t come back.
Game 2: I take Tarmogoyf beats for several turns and attempt to resolve and Orim’s Chant (1). My original plan was to Burning Wish for a Diminishing Returns. I have three fetches in play. He Dazes (2), I pay for. I fetch, he Stifles (3). I fetch again, and pay for Daze. He Dazes (4) again. In response, I Dark Ritual (5). He Brainstorms (6) and finds nothing. Orim’s Chant Resolves. I play Chrome Mox (7), imprinting Duress, LED (8), Burning Wish (9) for tendrils.
Game 3: I mull to 6 cards. He plays Surgical Extraction on Lotus Petal. I’m never really in this game.
11-7
4-3
After this game, Justin Uppal (juppal) who just lost to Imperial Painter next to me asks if I’m Bryant Cook. That’s awkward. I go over to the Jupiter Games booth and tell Dan Rae (rocketrae21) what happened, and get free Starburst. Apparently he doesn’t like the yellow ones.
Round 7 – Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) with TES
Game 1: Before the game Bryant lays out his Tendrils of Agony playmat over his Jupiter Games mat. He wins the die roll. I can’t believe I lost the fucking die roll. How could I lose the die roll? He plays a turn 1 Diminishing Returns and kills me. “It wasn’t even that good,” he said of the flop. I joke about Grapeshotting him, and he responds with, “I won’t let you Grapeshot me.”
Game 2: He Duresses me and takes my Orim’s Chant. I have the win and hand, but don’t play it out because I don’t walk into chant. He chant’s me, and casts Ad Nauseam.
11-9
4-4
After the match, I ask Bryant to sign one of my foil Grapeshots (excess from GP Lincoln), and he asks to look at my trade binder. It was lackluster, and I flash him some foil Exodia cards (it’s a personal thing because I love to play combo).
Bryant than tells me Colin Chilbert (Di) was 7-0. During one of the last rounds I saw Colin smashing the shit out of 43lands.dec, which was pretty cool.
I drop from the main event after this round, while Tim grinds to 5-2 from a 1-2 start. He doesn’t make it the round after, but earned a concession from Bronson Magnon playing 43land.dec. Bronson was an absolute douche. Tim ends up 5-3, and he drops, too.
We walk around and watch Mark play as well as some other Sourcers. Probably the most depressing thing was watching Mark play against Alix Hatfield. Mark had an active countertop online. Alix casts Time Spiral. There are three Force of Wills on the stack. Alix casts a Flusterstorm.
“That’s unfortunate,” Mark said.
As the last two rounds were about two end, I bought some nachos. They had the best cheese and red peppers ever. They cost $5, which is way too much.
Caleb Durward (CalebD) walks over, and says he’s almost a lock for top 8. He doesn’t buy any food, but picks up a Monster energy drink. He asks us for a chip, and I insist he try a pepper because they’re really good.
He says, “Not necessary.”
Thanks for reading. (If there’s any inaccuracies let me know, and I’ll change it.)
P.S. One more name drop. During the entire tournament I kept running into Brandon Adams (Emidln) and talked about Doomsday combo. Pretty rad. Karakas in storm is pretty damn cool.
Props
Tim for letting me crash at his house the night before and letting us take his car.
The hotel for having toastable French Toast.
Getting raped by Bryant Cook, and him signing my foil Grapeshot.
Finding Tomoharu Saito during day two and having him sign a foil Tendrils of Agony.
Slops
Maverick nut drawing me two games in a row.
Mother of Runes.
Pyroclasm for not being Infest or Virtue’s Ruin.
Here’s the car:
Me (RaNDoMxGeSTuReS)
Tim “Willis” Wilson (HoneyT)
And his girlfriend who didn’t want to play Affinity.
We spend the some nine hour drive talking about sideboard cards for Nic Fit like Duress versus Mindbreak Trap and the like. Nothing too exciting here, but we discuss the merits of being Asian and that anyone who doesn’t marry a white girl is probably within question.
We arrive at Lucas Oil Stadium at 7 p.m. due to a time zone change we forgot about.
Now this city is goofy. The parking garages smell of urine, the streets make no sense and a homeless person ended up being our tour guide. Long story short, the same hooded homeless guy asked us for cigarettes at some point.
We pondered for 10 minutes. Ten minutes to realize that none of us smoked. We missed our elevator.
Anyway.
Tim and I preregister and receive our GP Indy playmats with Havengul Lich. Tim was on GBW Nic Fit, and I was on TES. I walked over to the Starcity Games vendor and picked up a foil Scalding Tarn and foil Bloodstained Mire to finish pimping my deck.
I find Mark Sun (Morbid-) on Friday during the grinders and ask him if he has a foil Pyroclasm on him. He didn’t have it on him because he left it at the hotel, but Tim surprises me with one he found at a vendor.
I find a playset of Japanese Lotus Petals at the Hot Sauce Games vendor. I noticed Jupiter Games was one of the sponsoring companies on the GP playmat. I looked for their vendor booth. I bought a Jupiter Games hoodie that I’ve tried ordering over the phone with Mindi on several occasions.
After a long debate over Silent Departure versus Pyroclasm, here’s what I registered.
The E.P.I.C. Storm 3/10/2012
13 Land
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Undergound Sea
1 Volcanic Island
47 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 Duress
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Silence
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
15 Sideboard
3 Pyroblast
2 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Duress
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
Round 1 – Bye
2-0
1-0
Round 2 – Greg (ImpinAintEasy) with RUG Tempo
Game 1: I open an OK hand with some business, fast mana and chant. I face lethal on board the next turn and he’s at 19. I storm off and tendrils him town to 1 life. He swings next turn. I draw LED on my turn. He swings again. I draw Burning Wish. Play LED, wish for Grapeshot, and we’re onto game 2.
Game 2: He plays a Counterbalance on turn 2. He Brainstorms and Ponders to keep a 1 and 2 on top. He never locks me out with Sensei’s Divining Top, but my hand can’t get through his soft lock.
Game 3: He opens on a fast clock, and has too much Daze/Spell Pierce.
3-1
1-1
Round 2 – David with Mono Black Pox
Game 1: He talks about how he works for a shop and couldn’t build any other deck. Cool. So he opens on turn 1 Inquisition of Kozilek, Small Pox and Liliana of the Veil. I’m out.
Game 2: I lead with Duress and see: Swamp, Swamp, Swamp, Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory, Smallpox and Sinkhole. I take Smallpox and pass the turn. Next turn I untap and kill him with an Iggyloop. We consult a judge for the oracle text on a Korean Ill-Gotten Gains.
Game 3: I keep an opening hand with Gemstone Mine, Duress, Burning Wish, Ad Nauseam, Ad Nauseam, Brainstorm, and Lotus Petal. His discard isn’t enough to disrupt my hand. I Diminishing Returns into the nuts.
5-2
2-1
Round 3 – Stewart with UB ANT
Game 1: He wins the die roll and leads with Preordain. I lead with Duress and see Diabolic Tutor, Infernal Tutor, LED, Dark Ritual, Ponder, Swamp and Lotus Petal. I take LED and pass the turn. We play draw go for a while. I have the win in hand, but he kills me the turn prior.
Game 2: Long story short, he attempts to combo off and walks right into an Orim’s Chant. He reads the card, and frowns. Next turn he lands a Dark Confidant. He takes a ton of damage from it, and ends up at 14. He plays a second Dark Confidant. I untap and Burning Wish for Diminishing Returns. I look at the flop. It gets there. My opponent starts calling me out for luck sacking.
Game 3: Not much happens here. We sculpt hands. My hand is better. I cast Ad Nauseam from 20.
7-3
3-1
Round 4 – Kevin Long (Sourcer, forgot this one) with Junk Elves
Game 1: I like Kevin. He has a pimped deck. Kevin wins the die roll and leads with Savannah, Llanowar Elves. I cast Ad Nauseam on my turn 1. And we’re off to game 2!
Game 2: Kevin leads with turn 1 Savannah into Llanowar Elves. I draw Chrome Mox. My hand is now Gemstone Mine, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, LED, LED, Chome Mox, Ponder, Infernal Tutor. I lay it on the table, and Kevin asks if I have Ill-Gotten Gains in my sideboard. I do, and he extends his hand. He reveals a hand filled with foil Thoughtseizes and other disruption.
9-3
4-1
Round 5 – Damian with GW/u Punishing Maverick
Game 1: He talks about how he’s been taking massive shits in the bathroom all day. Poor guy. I easily dispatch him with an Ad Nauseam from 20.
Game 2: He opens on turn 2 Gaddock Teeg with double Mother of Runes. Pyroclasm didn’t save me.
Game 3: He opens on turn 2 Gaddock Teeg, and I don’t draw bounce or Burning Wish. He starts chaining Wastelands with Knight of the Reliquary.
10-5
4-2
After this round, we run into Jacob Kory (Rukcus). I introduce myself. I mention Rukcus, then he mentions RaNDoMxGeSTuReS. At this point Jacob is 6-0, and we start talking about how he popularized Maverick in North America. It’s his fault that Maverick is everywhere. He talked about how everyone is trying to make the deck their own and change about 10 different cards.
Jacob also needed to take a shit. He said there weren’t any toilet liners in the bathrooms so he’d have to wait to go back to his hotel to poop. Either way we talked about the weather, the locals of Indy and some other fun stuff. He left my group with a very good message:
"There is no win more. You haven't won until they're dead.”
The next round is about to begin.
Round 6 – Shinpei Toyota with RUG Tempo
Game 1: I get Wasted out of this game, and don’t come back.
Game 2: I take Tarmogoyf beats for several turns and attempt to resolve and Orim’s Chant (1). My original plan was to Burning Wish for a Diminishing Returns. I have three fetches in play. He Dazes (2), I pay for. I fetch, he Stifles (3). I fetch again, and pay for Daze. He Dazes (4) again. In response, I Dark Ritual (5). He Brainstorms (6) and finds nothing. Orim’s Chant Resolves. I play Chrome Mox (7), imprinting Duress, LED (8), Burning Wish (9) for tendrils.
Game 3: I mull to 6 cards. He plays Surgical Extraction on Lotus Petal. I’m never really in this game.
11-7
4-3
After this game, Justin Uppal (juppal) who just lost to Imperial Painter next to me asks if I’m Bryant Cook. That’s awkward. I go over to the Jupiter Games booth and tell Dan Rae (rocketrae21) what happened, and get free Starburst. Apparently he doesn’t like the yellow ones.
Round 7 – Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) with TES
Game 1: Before the game Bryant lays out his Tendrils of Agony playmat over his Jupiter Games mat. He wins the die roll. I can’t believe I lost the fucking die roll. How could I lose the die roll? He plays a turn 1 Diminishing Returns and kills me. “It wasn’t even that good,” he said of the flop. I joke about Grapeshotting him, and he responds with, “I won’t let you Grapeshot me.”
Game 2: He Duresses me and takes my Orim’s Chant. I have the win and hand, but don’t play it out because I don’t walk into chant. He chant’s me, and casts Ad Nauseam.
11-9
4-4
After the match, I ask Bryant to sign one of my foil Grapeshots (excess from GP Lincoln), and he asks to look at my trade binder. It was lackluster, and I flash him some foil Exodia cards (it’s a personal thing because I love to play combo).
Bryant than tells me Colin Chilbert (Di) was 7-0. During one of the last rounds I saw Colin smashing the shit out of 43lands.dec, which was pretty cool.
I drop from the main event after this round, while Tim grinds to 5-2 from a 1-2 start. He doesn’t make it the round after, but earned a concession from Bronson Magnon playing 43land.dec. Bronson was an absolute douche. Tim ends up 5-3, and he drops, too.
We walk around and watch Mark play as well as some other Sourcers. Probably the most depressing thing was watching Mark play against Alix Hatfield. Mark had an active countertop online. Alix casts Time Spiral. There are three Force of Wills on the stack. Alix casts a Flusterstorm.
“That’s unfortunate,” Mark said.
As the last two rounds were about two end, I bought some nachos. They had the best cheese and red peppers ever. They cost $5, which is way too much.
Caleb Durward (CalebD) walks over, and says he’s almost a lock for top 8. He doesn’t buy any food, but picks up a Monster energy drink. He asks us for a chip, and I insist he try a pepper because they’re really good.
He says, “Not necessary.”
Thanks for reading. (If there’s any inaccuracies let me know, and I’ll change it.)
P.S. One more name drop. During the entire tournament I kept running into Brandon Adams (Emidln) and talked about Doomsday combo. Pretty rad. Karakas in storm is pretty damn cool.
Props
Tim for letting me crash at his house the night before and letting us take his car.
The hotel for having toastable French Toast.
Getting raped by Bryant Cook, and him signing my foil Grapeshot.
Finding Tomoharu Saito during day two and having him sign a foil Tendrils of Agony.
Slops
Maverick nut drawing me two games in a row.
Mother of Runes.
Pyroclasm for not being Infest or Virtue’s Ruin.