GP Oakland: Part 3: Day 1 (Part 1 of 2)

My list was more or less Gerry's version from channel fireball's newsletter -1 Extripate main for a duress. I liked being able to turn 1 thoughtseize into turn 2 extripate, without having it in my opening it felt like a dead card pre-board. The extripate went into the board as an answer to scapeshift, usually forcing them to have to draw into rude awakening. Before I go further on choices...

MAIN
* 4 Dark Confidant
* 4 Vampire Hexmage
* 4 Thoughtseize
* 4 Muddle the Mixture
* 4 Thirst for Knowledge
* 3 Thopter Foundry
* 2 Sword of the Meek
* 1 Engineered Explosives
* 2 Beseech the Queen
* 2 Duress
* 3 Repeal
* 4 Chrome Mox
* 4 River of Tears
* 4 Sunken Ruins
* 4 Dark Depths
* 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
* 3 Island
* 1 Swamp
* 3 Tolaria West
* 1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard

* 1 Slaughter Pact
* 1 Echoing Truth
* 3 Deathmark
* 2 Sower of Temptation
* 4 Leyline of the Void
* 1 Duress
* 1 Dark Blast
* 1 Chalice of the Void
* 1 Extripate

The third tolarian west was crucial as reseting the combo and tutoring for ee or ruins made or broke games. And the basic land 2-2 was changed to 3-1 to help reach the double blue. For the board 4 leylines were an obvious answer to dread and thopter, so the extripate would of been overkill to say the least. Dark Blast for elves which got alot of attention the week prior. Chalice for hypergen, living end, elves, anything where 1 or 0 would do more harm to my opponent than me. Echoing truth was more of a hurkyl's recall that could do more than just shut down a wave a thopter tokens. Deathmark, slaughter pact, and sower's for zoo. Sower for the mirror as well. The Duress was more of anti-sideboard sideboard card.

Prior to signing up I went over to the channelfireball booth to go pick up a free t-shirt that they were offering when you purchased $20 worth of merchandise. The motivation behind it was that if you were in a feature match or if you won and wrote an article you would get paid. I got some dice and a binder. I had trouble trying to figure out what else to get, and then I saw the box of future sight, I saw it as a free gamble at goyf so I bought 3. I don't remember what was in the first 2, but the over priced creature himself came out of pack 3. It was mine for all of 2 minutes as I sold it back to them for 65. Looking back at that now since goyf's over inflated price dropped back down, it was a good decision. Seating went up for introductions. And the first of many mobs of people at different corners of the building began.

GP Oakland: Part 2: Grind

I wake up from floor with about 3 hours of sleep on me. We all get ready and go across the street to Marie Calendars. Unable to eat due to being overly anxious I spend my time at the table re-sleeving. From there we head to the hotel. Parking at 26 a night, joy. We check in and head to our room where we find no fridge, I received a phone call while the guys bickered about something, turned out to be "who has to wait for the fridge to show up", me not paying any attention got suckered into doing so. Luckily it didn't take more than 10 minutes at most. I really wished I knew where I was suppose to go. I met a really nice girl on the elevator who shared my predicament, she turned out to being Blaine Rybacki's girl friend, I think...I didn't invest any time trying to verify that, the only thing I could think about was trying to get some quick byes.

My list was fairly close to my previous post, side board looked something like:
3 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Duress
1 Extripate
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Vendilion Clique

Grinder 2 Round 1
My opponent was a nice guy, he seemed really relaxed and could care less how he did in our match, I wish I could of said the same. His tiny green men started doing what they did and I lose turn 3 both games, signing the result sheet I prayed to not see another of these at all over the weekend.
Grinder 4
I had some solid matches against plenty of decks I didn't expect. 2-0 Gabe Walls round 1 not even knowing who he was til yesterday. 2-1 against a living end deck thanks to my leylines. 2-1 to a heavy control version of AIR, when bloodmoon and magus isn't enough its time to call in the chalices and pithing needles. End up going 2nd only to lose to Doran agro. I win 18 packs of worldwake and rip a Jace, I sell that along with most of my loose cards and compensate for most of my travel expenses for the weekend.

I'm not sure which grinder it was but Alex managed to knock out Matt Nass with his hypergen deck. If you go through the interviews he whines about it briefly, I got a good laugh.