Howdy folks, it's Joe again here with another recap of this past week's TEAM VINTAGE SUPER LEAGUE!
This past week's episode is the HOME TEAM! Team Cardsphere (consisting of Reid Duke, Randy Buehler, and Eric Froehlich) vs The Hornet Queens (consisting of Athena Froehlich, Rachel Agnes, and Erin Campbell)!
As always, you can find this week's decklists right over here.
Week 8 Recap - Team CS vs Hornet Queens
You can watch the vod for this week here:
Right off the bat we've got Reid Duke on Yawgmoth's Bargain Storm vs Athena Froehlich on Survival Salad!
Athena kicks things off right off the bat with a Turn 1 Basking Rootwalla and passes turn. Reid goes with a Turn 1 Brainstorm off a Mox Sapphire and kicks double Dark Ritual into Yawgmoth's Bargain. Reid's Bargain draws pull him into several mana sources and a Vampiric Tutor to Tendrils of Agony for a TURN ONE KILL.
Athena starts on the play with Survival of the Fittest on Turn 1. Reid opens on a Turn 1 Preordain followed by Black Lotus for a second Preordain and Time Walk. He manages to cast Yawgmoth's Bargain on his extra turn and starts drawing. Unfortunately he does not find a kill, and discards 8 cards. Athena windmill slams a Kambal, Consul of Allocation. Reid lives through his Mana Crypt trigger and casts a Dark Ritual to kill himself with Kambal trigger.
Game 3 shows Reid keeping a sketchy keep on 7 and Athena mulling to 6. Reid starts with a Brainstorm off a Lotus Petal with intent to be able to Vampiric Tutor on Athena's end step. Athena casts a Turn 1 Stony Silence and Reid casts the Tutor as planned on the end step, getting a Tolarian Academy to cast Time Walk out of sheer desperation. Athena Bazaar of Baghdad's into a Survival of the Fittest to cast a free Basking Rootwalla and a Deathrite Shaman. Reid gets an Ancestral Recall on board to go Dark Ritual into Necropotence. Reid draws 7 cards off Necropotence and draws 7 mana sources straight. Athena activates Bazaar once more, finding a Ravenous Trap and a Wonder. Reid casts a mini Tendrils of Agony to buy him some time and life to continue to gain value off Necropotence into Timetwister. The Timetwister draws Reid into a Vampiric Tutor and a Brainstorm giving him the win off a second Tendrils of Agony to take the match!
Team Cardsphere up 1-0!
Erin Campbell, our much beloved Dredge Queen, takes the stage on her most favorite of decks: DREDGE. She kicks off things off with a mulligan to 6 and then Serum Powder aways her 6, then mulligans again to 5 to find a Bazaar of Baghdad. Reid's hand has a lot of mana sources and a Gitaxian Probe but a dead Duress and no good action. He dumps a Black Lotus and a Sol Ring, while Erin spins up the Dredge action. She hits up a Narcomoeba and an Ichorid, as well as managing to establish triple Bloodghast. She flashes back a Cabal Therapy to try to hit Dark Ritual but doesn't hit. Reid draws and casts Necropotence, drawing three cards off of it at end step. He finds no action and loses to combat the following turn.
Reid mulls to 6 with a decent opener. Erin mulligans to 4 and finds a keepable hand with Bazaar of Baghdad. Reid leads on Preordain, finding a second Dark Ritual. Erin plays a Bazaar and passes. Reid goes through a Yawgmoth's Will chain and finds a Tendrils of Agony off of a Demonic Tutor and storms out.
Erin's opener is an immediate mull to 6, but she finds a Bazaar of Baghdad in it. Reid makes a Turn 1 Demonic Tutor to hit a Tormod's Crypt. Erin activates Bazaar and manages to dump into two Bloodghast, using Cabal Therapy to probe at Reid's hand. She casts Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall to simply draw 3 cards. Reid casts Timetwister finding a hand with a ton of mana and a Tormod's Crypt. Erin bashes in with a Bloodghast and casts some mana rocks in the form of Mox Sapphire and Lion's Eye Diamond. She throws another Therapy at Reid, naming Dark Ritual hitting nothing. Reid hits an Empty the Warrens and casts it for Storm count 6 to make 12 Goblin tokens. Erin dumps some more cards into the graveyard, making another Bloodghast. She tries to make some more cards in the graveyard, and Reid responds by activating the first of his two Tormod's Crypt. Reid swings for the fences, leaving up a singlular Goblin. Reid takes the win!
Team Cardsphere up 2-0!
Rachel Agnes gets things rolling with "Wut in Karnation"! She kicks things right off with a Turn 1 Sphere of Resistance followed by a Turn 2 Phyrexian Revoker naming Yawgmoth's Bargain. Reid end step Vampiric Tutor's for Hurkyl's Recall. Rachel forces Reid's hand in controlling him to keep him from casting it, and gets in with some beats and makes a Walking Ballista. She pushes through some attacks, with Reid being forced to play the Recall to live. Reid tries to dig for answers with a Preordain, finding enough mana to cast a Bargain the following turn. Rachel leads on Phyrexian Revoker naming Mana Vault, followed with Steel Overseer. Reid draws into a Tolarian Academy to be able to cast Yawgmoth's Bargain but passes drawing nothing. Rachel gets in with some damage but Reid draws into a Tendrils of Agony to kill Rachel from 4 life.
Rachel on the play once more opens on Mishra's Workshop into Sphere of Resistance on Turn 1. Reid makes a land drop, while Rachel makes a Turn 2 Foundry Inspector. She drops a Sorcerous Spyglass naming Bargain into Phyrexian Revoker naming Lotus Petal, all the while carrying land destruction with Strip Mine and Wasteland. Combat damage happens and Reid scoops to Game 3.
Reid starts things off with a Dark Ritual into Demonic Tutor, getting a Black Lotus and casting Dark Petition to get Yawgmoth's Will, with Dark Petition's Spell Mastery to cast it and go off into a Turn 1 Storm kill.
Team Cardsphere taking a definitive lead at 3-0!
Rachel jumps back into the fray with a deck called "Jhoira Goes Tinkering"! Reid starts off with a Duress, taking Rachel's Ancestral Recall. Rachel plays out a Library of Alexandria, but with the Duress is far off the Library plan. Reid tries for his own Ancestral Recall, but gets it countered by Force of Will. Both players dig for a bit, trying to find some action. This continues for a few turns until Reid goes off to cast Timetwister finding a Tolarian Academy and casting Demonic Tutor. Rachel draws off Library, but finds no action and dies to a lethal Tendrils of Agony.
Rachel starts off with a fetchland, while Reid starts of with Preordain. Rachel casts Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall, that gets promptly slapped by a surprise Pyroblast from Reid off a Simian Spirit Guide. Reid casts Duress taking a Treasure Cruise. Both players spin their wheels on action until Reid finds a Yawgmoth Bargain to try to jam it into play, getting Force of Will'ed. Rachel never sees an artifact to sacrifice to Tinker while Reid makes a Vampiric Tutor to go get a second Yawgmoth's Bargain. The Bargain resolves, drawing Reid a million cards. He makes the Storm count happen to take the game and the team series!
Reid Duke slams the door, eliminating the Hornet Queens in 4-0!
Notable Decklists - Team Cardsphere
While the home team brought some great lists to the table, it was Reid Duke's Bargain Storm deck that made the grade. Let's take a look at it and another deck we didn't get to see this week.
Reid Duke's Bargain Storm | Team Vintage Super League
1 Dark Petition
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
2 Defense Grid
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Necropotence
3 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Badlands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Swamp
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Island
2 Pyroblast
2 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
4 Tormod's Crypt
Reid's deck really showcased how powerful of a deck this really is and how it can often scrape wins from seemingly nowhere. The spicy inclusions here were the sideboard Bontu's Last Reckoning's, which never came up during the night but look pretty powerful in a format with lots of mana rocks.
Team Cardsphere's Helm Rip | Team Vintage Super League
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Balance
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
1 Brainstorm
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
4 Rest in Peace
4 Energy Field
1 Humility
1 Detention Sphere
1 Back to Basics
1 Propaganda
1 Moat
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Moat
2 Energy Flux
3 Containment Priest
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Mental Misstep
One of the decks we did not get to see, but certainly one of the more interesting ones is Helm Rip. This deck takes its name from the namesake combo of Helm of Obedience and Rest in Peace, but also includes the additional combo of Energy Field (which with Rest in Peace in play basically puts the opponent in a position of being unable to actually damage its opponent in any way shape or form.
Notable Decklists - The Hornet Queens
If we had to assign style points however for this week, the Hornet Queens would win all day long. Some of their deck names were the best, from Survival Salad to Wut in Karnation 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Erin Campbell's "Stitch Please" | Team Vintage Super League
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Bloodghast
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Fatestitcher
2 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Sun Titan
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Serum Powder
4 Bridge from Below
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Dakmor Salvage
3 Mana Confluence
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Serenity
3 Wispmare
4 Ingot Chewer
4 Barbarian Ring
I obviously couldn't write this article without mentioning Erin's Dredge list, because it is in fact basically the same list that I myself play on Magic Online (as well as close to the list that I played at SCG Con this past weekend). Erin and I converse a fair amount on the Dredge Discord Server, so it was great to see "Sunny Dredge" (or Fatestitcher Dredge) get some play time, even if we didn't get to see the true power of the Fatestitcher plan. (Hint hint: It can go off Turn 1 through disruption. Super fun!)
Athena Froehlich's "Survival Salad" | Team Vintage Super League
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
4 Basking Rootwalla
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Anger
1 Wonder
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Manglehorn
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Dark Confidant
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Manglehorn
2 Stony Silence
1 Wispmare
2 Energy Flux
1 Gilded Drake
3 Ravenous Trap
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Alright, not gonna lie. This deck is super sweet and looks pretty amazing to play. Getting to play cards like Vengevine and Hollow One with some sweet Survival of the Fittest action? Sign me up.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Going forward we'll be looking to the playoffs! The Top 4! Four Teams will enter, and only one will emerge victorious.
Furthermore, I just recently got back from SCG Con in Roanoke, VA where I played sanctioned paper Vintage for the very first time! I played in the SCG Power 9 Series, where I managed to make Day 2, but ended up placing 40th overall.
I am currently working on piecing together something about my experience there, which I am hoping will be submitting to Eternal Central (the guys behind So Many Insane Plays) to have posted there. Regardless, I had a wonderful time, and not only that I actually got to sit down and meet with a few of the big Vintage guys like Stephen Menendian, Kevin, Cron, Jason Jaco, and the Power 9 Series Winner Andy Markiton! It was an incredible weekend, and I had so much fun playing one of the best formats in existence.
Until next time, may all your Magic be eternal!
