I had been testing Mindless Oath extensively in preparation for this tournament and felt very confident with it's chances against anything. It's ability to adapt to a situation plus it's ability to access almost any sideboard card made it my choice for the tournament. Here is the version I had been testing.

4xBirds of Paradise
4xVine Trellis
4xAcademy Rector
4xPattern of Rebirth
3xDuress
3xVampiric Tutor
1xOpposition
1xSaproling Burst
1xSeal of Cleansing
1xDiabolic Servitude
1xArcane Laboratory
1xThorn Elemental
1xPhyrexian Plaguelord
1xDeranged Hermit
1xAura Thief
4xCity of Brass
4xThran Quarry
4xBrushland
3xTreetop Village
3xHigh Market
2xForest
1xSwamp
1xPhyrexian Tower

Sideboard:
4xHarmonic Convergence
3xRapid Decay
3xMultani's Presence
1xWoodripper
1xWorship
1xSpiritual Asylum
1xLight of Day
1xContamination

I showed up at the Wide World of Sports Complex just in time to watch the last meatgrinder start. Oh well. I heard that they were run very poorly and if you played in one you usually missed the others unless you lost in the first round. I wasn't there to play in the meatgrinders anyway. I decided to look around and check out the environment to prepare for Saturday. There was an amazing amount of Trinity Green and Red Deck Wins. Replenish made its presence known as well as Accelerated Blue. I smash Trinity Green all the time but Red Deck Wins is another story. I did absolutely no preparation for it and never even playtested against it. I thought about the problem most of the night and came up with no solution. The next day I caught up with the rest of the JSS players from North Carolina. Wes Perkins, Matt Nichols, Philip Johnson, Sawyer Lucy, and Alex "Mighty Midget" Gibson. I got some of them to take a look at my deck and think about what would happen should I play against Red Deck Wins. In the case that I drew the combo he could burn the Bird or whatever I was planning on putting Pattern on in response to me sacrificing Rector or he could just burn the Ghoul straight off. If I don't the only option would be for me to find Worship relatively quickly and just pour out creatures to stay alive. Either way I'm always on defense and never in control. Then it dawned on me. . .or it dawned on Wes who told me, Ivory Mask = some good against Red Deck Wins. One made its way into my sideboard in addition to the Spiritual Asylum that would be sided in against Red Deck Wins. In playtesting I had some trouble with Accelerated Blue. This is a bad thing considering it is a very popular deck. The Multani's Presence help a lot but cannot do the job by themselves. Once again Wes came through and suggested a main deck Splinter and then some random guy sitting next to me said Confiscate in the 'board because it steals Morphlings when pulled out of the deck with Rector. I hadn't thought about that yet. Replenish is entirely up to who goes first and who gets the better hand. I can either combo or Hermit Lock by third to fourth turn or they can Replenish third to fourth turn. Either way games between our decks are usually short. Because this was JSS I made some additional changes to the deck. In the words of Josh Brewer, "Little kids only know how to read green cards!!" So I put an extra Saproling Burst in the main deck just in case I needed to use it for extra blockers or Opposition. It also helps to prevent you from drawing the only one in the deck just before you combo them. I didn't expect there to be much Bargain. And if there were I didn't expect the people piloting those decks to be any good at it. So I pulled out the Arcane Lab and put it in the 'board. I did some additional testing that night and I was satisfied with my deck. Here it is.

4xBirds of Paradise
4xVine Trellis
4xPhyrexian Ghoul
4xAcademy Rector
3xDuress
3xVampiric Tutor
2xSaproling Burst
2xOpposition
1xSeal of Cleansing
1xWorship
1xThorn Elemental
1xDeranged Hermit
1xPhyrexian Plaguelord
1xFountain Watch
1xSplinter
1xRapid Decay
4xCity of Brass
4xThran Quarry
4xBrushland
3xHigh Market
3xTreetop Village
2xForest
1xSwamp
1xPhyrexian Tower

Sideboard:
3xHarmonic Convergence
3xMultani's Presence
2xRapid Decay
1xWorship
1xSpiritual Asylum
1xLight of Day
1xIvory Mask
1xArcane Lab
1xContamination
1xConfiscate

So I went off to play in an extended side event. It was judged by some guy trying to get his judge certification. I played stompy. Something I decided to throw together at the last minute.

4xSkyshroud Elite
4xLlanowar Elf
4xGhazban Ogre
4xRiver Boa
4xRogue Elephant
4xGiant Growth
4xRancor
3xElvish Lyrist
3xWinter Orb
2xHunted Wumpus
2xAlbino Troll
2xOverrun
4xWasteland
16xForest

Sideboard:
4xBottle Gnomes
3xEmerald Charm
3xCrumble
3xTaunting Elf
2xMasticore

Round 1-CounterSliver?

I never even got a chance to see what this deck did. I top-decked 3 Wastelands in a row the first game and the only spell he ever cast was Force of Will. The second game I had a horde on turn 3 and he was Overrun on turn 4.

Round 2- Fish

This guy was cool. He scrubbed out in the meatgrinders and took his Type 2 fish deck and added Force of Will and Curiosity and did really well. In the First game I Islandwalked him to death with 2 Rancored Boas. Next game he put out a Masticore via Hunted Wumpus and pinged all my guys to death despite my attempts to regenerate my Boas then he countered my big guys and rode Masticore home. In the third game I go Forest, Elephant. Go. Forest. Rancor. Smash. He then plays port to tap my land in my upkeep which I don't really care about any more which I should since I don't draw anymore land for the next 7 turns. I smash again. Then I smash again. He hibernates in response to my next attack. Instead of playing the Llanowar Elf in my hand I play Ghazban Ogre. He plays Masticore pings it to death and still has enough to tap my land. I draw my card and scoop.

Round 3-Sligh with Ironclaw Orcs

In the first game he lays out Fanatic, Pup and 2 Scrolls by turn 3. I have out River Boa and Llanowar Elf. He taps out next turn for Ball Lightning. I eat the six and play a Winter Orb. I play out the horde of one-drops that I've been holding back while he's hoping to gain use of his scroll sometime soon. By the time he does it's too late and I kill him the next turn. I side in my Gnomes and Masticores. I play Elephant-Rancor in my first two turns and he never gets the burn to deal with it he finally gets rid of his only 2 land to Fireblast it when he's at 5. He fizzles my Rancor by Incinerating my Boa and he holds back the other with a Cursed Scroll. I play a Wumpus and administer beatings.

Round 4-Sligh

My deck has a fart and I only draw two lands with a handful of Rougue Elephants which were promptly burned to a crisp. In go the Gnomes and the Cores. I think he knew I was putting Cores cuz he had a Pillage for both of them. The 4 Skyshroud Elites I drew did very little for me.

I dropped and went to go booster draft. It was a Masques Block draft and I thought I had drafted well. I got some nice green beef like Gahrs and good Black removal. I even got 3 Plague Witches passed to me!!! It made me afraid to think what the people to my right picked. In the first game I played I went against a Blue/White deck that splashed Green for Rhox. We beat each other down to one and he was going to kill me on his next turn with some random flying creature. I draw my card. It's that land enchantment that allows you to tap the land to Pestilence for one. I play it and kill us both. On to the second game. The same thing happened except I didn't draw my Pestilence so I lost.

It was getting late so I headed back to my hotel for the night. Next day I got up at some crazy hour because the hotel mixed up my wake up call with someone who needed to be up at 6 A.M. I couldn't get back to sleep so I left for the Wide World of Sports Complex. I manage to make some money off of people there for nationals who decided to wait until the day of the tourney to make their decks. Apparently Perish was a hot commodity. I also sold some Chills. Matt sold Zvi Mowshowitz 4 Erases for a dollar and got him to sign the dollar. It would prove to be lucky later on. Wes is still deciding what to play. It's a toss up between Replenish and Trinity Green with Vampiric Tutors. I hate Replenish with a passion. I tell him repeatedly to play Trinity even though I'm not a fan of that deck either. He goes with Replenish anyway. Philip is playing that pile as well. He's been playing it since before it became a big craze so I'm not as mad about him playing it. Sawyer is playing Tangled Negator and he gets awesome draws with it all day. Matt goes with Trinity without our Vampiric tech. Alex was with Stompy. The deck he's played since the dawn of time. And then there's me with my tweaked Mindless Oath. We turn in our decklists which we wrote with my pens which I NEVER GOT BACK (sorry, I'm a little over-protective of my writing implements). Then we have to sit through an hour long speech about level three rules enforcement, cheating and whether or not you get to keep creatures taken with Bribery after the games ends. I hate stupid questions. When pairings are finally put up it becomes a feeding frenzy around the pairings board. I just hang back and wait for the dust to clear before I take a gander at my seat. I sit down at table 109 and take out my deck and begin shuffling. I'm sitting at a table where everyone has blue deck protectors except for me. I feel special. As I'm shuffling I look over at my opponents side of the table and notice he's layed his sideboard face up. I try hard not to look but it was calling me. I take a peek and staring back at me is a Hibernation. Gee...something blue, and it fears green, must be a net deck. And so begins my rounds.

Round 1-Accelerated Blue

Game 1-He goes first and plays an island followed by Brainstorm. I breathe a sigh of relief. He either doesn't know how to play the deck or he's mana screwed. Either way I know I'm gonna win. I play Brushland followed by BoP. He plays a Port and Grim Monolith. I play City then a Ghoul. He tries to play Morphling and I point out that he only has an Island and a Port on the board and he doesn't understand until I show him that he doesn't have the blue mana to play Morphling. So he plays another Monolith. I play a Rector and kill him.

Game 2-He plays first again and once again plays main phase Brainstorm. I have no complaints. I play City then BoP. He plays a Dust Bowl and a Monolith. I play a Thran Quarry and say go. He Draws and passes it over to me. In his end step I Vampiric Tutor for a Ghoul. I play a Swamp then a Ghoul. He draws again and says go. I play the Rector in my hand and kill him.

That whole match took all of 10 minutes. I looked around at what everyone else was playing for awhile. Lots of Blue, Trinity and Replenish. A couple of Ponza and Rebels, like 3 Bargain decks and assorted other stuff. It takes forever to get pairings up again. This tournament was run very poorly in my opinion.

Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-0

Round 2-Ponza

I watched this guy playing earlier and I knew what he was playing. I also knew I was not prepared at all for this match and I was going to lose.

Game 1-I paris my first hand and play an even worse 6 card hand. He plays first. He leads with port. I play Brushland then BoP. He plays Mountain and Ports me in my upkeep. I play High Market and send it over to him. He starts shooting land starting with my Brushland. I play a Tower play a Ghoul. He blows up the Market and kills my BoP. I play a City and serve. He Kills the Ghoul and shoots the Tower. I do nothing and take 7 points of City damage in my next 8 upkeeps and lose to burn. I really need to play Claws of Gix in this deck.

Game 2-I sided in the Spiritual Asylum and Ivory Mask in a futile effort to win. I paris to 6 and keep a hand of 5 land and Ivory Mask. I play Treetop Village. He plays Sandstone Needle. I play a land and send it his way. He kills my land and says go. I play a land and say go. He kills another one. I play another one. It goes back and forth like that for about 5 turns. It got to the point where he was porting my 2 cities every turn and there was no point in playing after that. I drew 2 non-land cards that game. A Vampiric Tutor and the Spiritual Asylum that I tutored for.

1-1 2-2

I have some nachos and find that almost everyone else I know is 1-1 so I don't feel as bad about losing that one. It takes forever to post pairings again. I'm not just saying that, it took them like 45 minutes to post pairings after rounds.

Round 3-Accelerated Blue

I welcomed this match up after my last experience with the deck. But of course I forgot that the last guy I played was mana screwed and relatively dense.

Game 1-I combo him on turn 3 after he plays a turn 3 Morphling and chooses not to block with it.

Game 2-He plays turn 3 Masticore which I Splinter on my next turn. I see in his hand Monolith, Treachery, Morphling, Counter. Gee Whiz, I get the feeling I'm gonna lose. Sure enough he plays Morphling next turn. I play Rector and can't find anything to sac it to (I really need to play Claws of Gix in this deck). He administers beats and counters my Ghoul and Contamination that I cast in an attempt to sac my Rector and find Worship. On to Game 3.

Game 3-I play first and lead with a City. He plays an island. I play a Vine Trellis next turn and he lays a Powder Keg. I get out a Rector and I'm hoping for a Tutor or a Ghoul so I can end this. I top deck a Tutor which he counters and he plays a Monolith. I TD a Ghoul. Counter. He plays a Morphling and puts me on a clock. He beats me down to 5. I still have my Rector that I've been sitting on and administering beats with. I finally get something to sac it to in the form of a High Market. I go get Worship. He kinda stares at it for a little bit and plays a Masticore. I Splinter. In his hand I see Treachery, Treachery, Rewind, Morphling. I Duress away Rewind and play a Rector. He casts Treachery to take my Rector, I sac it in response and I Confiscate his Morphling. He plays another one. This is when our extra turns start. He can't kill me and I can't kill him, we draw.

1-1-1 3-3-1

Round 4-Trinity Green

Game 1-He plays first and leads with a forest followed by an elf. I play a BoP. He makes a Rofellos and attacks for 1. I play a Ghoul. He makes a Poacher and a Priest and says go. I play a Rector and attack, he dies.

Game 2-He plays first again and plays a forest and says go. I play a Bird. He plays a Rofellos and sends it to me. I play a Ghoul and he makes a Hermit. I play a Rector and send it to him not even thinking about attacking he makes a Poacher and attacks. I eat 8 damage. I put pattern on Rector. He does some searching and attacks. I decide its time to do something. In response to his attack I sac my Rector to the Ghoul as well as my BoP and put Crater Hellion into play along with Worship. I play the BoP I've been holding because I knew the Hellion was coming and beat for 8. I play a Thornie and beat for 8. I activate my villages and beat for 21.

2-1-1 5-3-1

Round 5-Control Black

Game 1-He plays first. He plays swamp and says go. I play a land and a BoP. He plays double Ritual, Wumpus, Wumpus for 1. I Duress on my next turn. I see Ritual, Negator, Agonizing Memories. I look at my crappy hand and scoop.

Game 2-I play land then BoP. He plays a land with a Duress. Land, Land, Ghoul, Rector, Fountain Watch. I play a Ghoul next turn. He plays a Negator. I play a Rector and attack. considering his low amount of permanents on the board he decides not to block and it proves to be fatal.

Game 3-He plays double Ritual Wumpus (What's up with that? Who gets that twice in a row). I play a land and say go. He deals me 3 and ports me in my upkeep. I play another land. He deals me 3 more and ports again. I play trellis. He deals me 3 more and ports in my upkeep. I play a Rector and chump block for a Light of Day. Forgive me. I was getting tired. He keeps Wumpusing while I draw crap and I die.

2-2-1 6-5-1

Round 6-Trinity Green

Game 1-I mulligan, he mulligans. I play first and play forest BoP. He goes "Crap. Not another mirror." He plays his own BoP. I play a tower followed by a Trellis and he responds by giving me a confused look. He plays a Rofellos and a Priest. I play a Rector sac to Tower for Opposition, use the mana left to cast a Hermit. He doesn't untap ever again. I kill him with some Saproling Burst counters.

Game 2-I double mulligan into a crappy hand. 4 land and a BoP. I stick with it. He plays a forest and says go. I play my BoP. He plays a Priest on his turn. I play a land. He casts Hermit. I TD and cast a Rector, announcing it as a Moat. He says ok and plays a Poacher. I TD and cast another Rector. He is noticeably aggrivated. He goes searching with Poacher and plays his third Hermit. I TD and cast yet another Rector. I am laughing at this point. I leave my High Market Open just in case he feels lucky. I TD and play Pattern on a Rector. He has to read Pattern twice to understand it. He thinks about attacking for some ungodly amount of damage and I reach to my High Market ready to go search. My bluff pays off. He doesn't attack. He just casts another Hermit. I have yet another Top Deck in the form of Crater Hellion. He just stares at it a moment and says Ok. I get Fountain Watch, Worship, Saproling Burst, Saproling Burst. I send it over his way. He plays a Masticore with 2 mana to regenerate. I TD and cast Splinter. He has nothing left in the deck to kill me. I beat down with tokens and the Hellion and kill him. Talk about being lucky. 5 card hands are hard to do well with.

3-2-1 8-5-1

Round 7-Replenish

I know this guy is playing Replenish because he sat next to me last round. I also know that he thinks I'm playing Hermit-Prison because he only saw the game where I used the Hermit-Opposition lock. This guy is alright. He came all the way from Vancouver to play here, I wouldn't have.

Game 1-My opening hand is Forest, Trellis, Trellis, Rapid Decay, Worship, Rector, Fountain Watch. I'm alright if I draw a land or a BoP, right? Well, I don't and he Replenishes and kills me.

Game 2-This was a rather interesting game. He plays attunement on his third turn. I already have out Rector and a BoP. He says go. I play the Ghoul in my Hand. He knows whats going on. Instead of Replenishing the 2 Tides and a Seal out of his graveyard, he casts the Opalesence that I assume he just drew. Hmmmm. He has a blocker now. I draw a Rector and cast it. I sacrifice it to the Ghoul and go get Seal of Cleansing. I take out the Opalesence and combo him to death.

Game 3-This was the most messed up match I had played or had witnessed the entire day. He does the usual Replenish start countering my turn 2 Ghoul. He casts Attunement on his third turn. I have a window of Opportunity and take it. I cast an Academy Rector. He Attunes and puts the dream team (Tide, Wave, Opalesence) in his graveyard. He plays his Attunement and Seal of Removal. No Replenish. I untap and look at the Rapid Decay in my hand. I play a Ghoul and let it be his turn. He draws. He Attunes. Nothing of any importance is put into the graveyard except 1 Replenish. I'll never understand why he did that but I won't complain. He Frantic Searches. He discards a Tide and a Seal of Cleansing. He Replenishes. I Rapid Decay. I take out the dream team and let him have a crack at my land. He takes 3 of them. I attack with my Ghoul. He Seals it. I recast it. As well as a Vine Trellis. He Attunes. He discards Opalesence. He Replenishes. I don't attack this turn but I cast another Ghoul. And he counters another Rector. On his turn he finds it more beneficial to himself to Wrath of God. I go get Spiritual Asylum with my Rector. He reads it. He rereads it. He puts it down and reads it again. He hard casts Opalesence. I play land. He Attunes. Nothing. I play land. He Attunes. Nothing. I finally decide to attack. I attach with my 4/4 Spiritual Asylum. He takes 4. He hits me with Attunement then Attunes. Two Waves and an Opalesence hit the graveyard. I attack again. He takes 4 again. He hits me and Attunes. Nothing of interest. Somewhere along the way a spectator called a judge to watch our match. I declared Spiritual Asylum as an attacker once again and the judge stopped the game. Lets take a look at Spiritual Asylum

Spiritual Asylum-2WW
Enhantment-Nemises Rare
Creatures and Lands you control cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
When a creature you control attacks sacrifice Spiritual Asylum.

Trapped in safety is still trapped.

The flavor text really sums up the card. Since I had attacked I should have sacrificed it. I didn't even notice it until the judge stopped the game. He said that since the legality of the game was the responsibility of both players that my last 2 attacks stood, in order to preserve the present state of the game in progress, and the 3rd one would cause me to sacrifice it. That put me at 8 and him at 12. I'm fine with it. I really didn't realize that was happening. Neither did my opponent. He attunes and Replenishes, the last Replenish in the deck. He thinks he has me. He has out Seal of Removal, 3 Seal of Cleansing, Parallax Tide, 2 Parallax Wave, 2 Opalesence, 3 Attunement. He thinks he has me. He lets it be my turn. I cast Harmonic Convergence during my turn. I should have waited until his turn to cast Harmonic Convergence but I didn't want to chance him having a Counterspell. As expected he hides everything under his Waves in response and lets it resolve, but I get my land back for a brief moment. Just long enough to tap them for 6 mana and cast Crater Hellion. Burn baby burn. I wish I had a camera for the look on his face. In response he used Seal of Removal on his Opalesence and Attuned. As I write this I realize he never drew or discarded for that returned Attunement but I didn't catch it But, it doesn't matter now. That game was full of mistakes on both sides. Heck, I think he made the wrong play there as did I. He should have used Seal of Removal on one Opalesence and Seal of Cleansing on the other thus saving all of his other enchantments and I should've used Harmonic Convergence in response to his attack and Crater Hellion on my next turn. He casts Opalesence next turn and almost taps the other one to attack. I wish he would have. But he didn't I draw a Vine Trellis and cast it. He plays Parallax Wave and wins.

3-3-1 9-7-1

Round 8-Ponza

I knew I was out of contention already. I just wanted to boost my rating. I didn't know what this guy was playing til he played a Mountain. I play conservative and hold back my Birds until I already have Vine Trellis out. He starts shooting BoP's out of the sky but just can't seem to kill the Trellis. I finally get out a Ghoul and an Academy Rector and kill him. He stood in awe of the combo for a moment then went to his sideboard and didn't know what to do.

Game 2-this went a bit quicker than Game 1 because he only drew colorless mana for his first 2 lands and finally put down a Fire Diamond that he drew on 4th turn. I promptly combo him.

4-3-1 11-7-1

Not too bad. My friend Philip went on and made 28th and Matt made 24th. Wes just missed out on Top 32 in 34th place. I did the worst of us 4 and made 66th. I helped my friends open some packs and we made our way back to the hotel. Matt and I went over to the Ramada to draft. We get in on UBC draft. I draft a quick Red/Black deck with 4 Goblin Patrols and 3 Skirges. I got a lot of burn too. 2 Arc Lightnings and 3 Parches with Last-Ditch Effort and Landslide as finishers. I scrub out in the first round to a slow blue deck that drafted something like 5 Miscalculations. He Confiscated my Skirge after casting an extruder. He already had out a Brass Secretary and 2 Endoskeletons. 5/7 fliers are hard to deal with, even with burn, plus an Extruder. In te second game I beat him down to seven and duress him and see no counters so I Arc Lightning him then I Landslide for 4, In response he sacs his Brass Secretary and finds a Miscalculation. Gee, I'm tapped out. With no red mana left and nothing but burn in hand I lose to a Vigilant Drake with Sigil of Sleep on it. Having spent all of my money I don't draft again but still hang out and play some constructed and some mental magic. At around 2 I head over to a 24 hour breakfast place to eat and go back to my hotel. I went home the next day.

Props and Slops

Props:

Phil and Matt-for making Top 32
The guy playing Fish in extended-I heard he won that side event, GO FISH!
Wes-for letting me borrow his Foil Rectors
John-for letting me borrow the Tutors
Lucky-for letting me borrow foil Duresses

Slops:
The entire staff at the tournament-It took forever to get pairings up between rounds
The head judge at the JSS-you aren't funny, don't try to be
Me-for going 4-3-1

that was one of the most interesting reports ive ever read. thanks for posting it

__________________
•·.÷.·•- ----•[ im tha masta]•---- -•·.÷.·•

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target

why are these creatues in here? Utility? I mean I know for the other creature you need something to but..

1xThorn Elemental
1xDeranged Hermit
1xPhyrexian Plaguelord
1xFountain Watch