Rocky Mountain Yetis

This derby has been my most fun ever. I didn’t make the Top 16 sadly, but I ended up in 22nd place, leading the hearty 5-3 cohort with a 71% OMW%. Every single one of my games and matches was incredible with wild swings and haymakers both ways, and every opponent was fun and engaging, and a skilled player to boot. I played well, and more importantly, I hit all my chaos orb flips. Thank you so much Dave and team for putting on this great event again, and thank you to all of my opponents for being a joy to play!

For me, Magic is the most fun when we find ourselves in some weird unexplored gamestate I’ve never seen before and I have to figure out a way out. I love the twiddle vault deck because it creates incredibly interesting decisions – on both sides of the board. I like to ponder, and I like to make my opponents ponder too. This isn’t everyone’s favorite way to play Magic, and some aren’t big fans of the twiddlevault deck. Others love it, and love playing against it. I think that makes for a fun experience, so that’s what I do. The originator of Magic: The Puzzling seems to agree.

“If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail” – Mark Rosewater.

So I play a deck that some love, and some hate, because I think the game is better that way. This derby, everyone loved the games, with Xanadude exclaiming after an extremely close nailbiter of a game 3 “That was the best game of Magic I have played in a long time.”

For past derbies, I had fun writing about my experience and My Top 10 Favorite Time Travel Movies and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glasses. This time, with some particularly puzzling lines, I’m going to do something different. I will pose a scenario for each match. It will be the most interesting or most pivotal decision and I invite you to think about what you would do before I reveal what happened. Here’s my deck. Enjoy!

Batch I

Match 1 – Greg T. on Atog

Game 1
He mulligans to 6 and I mull to 6. He starts with a strip. I play volcanic, ancestral, jet. It’s a good way to come back from a mulligan. He plays a dib, which I counter. Gotta live longer than that. On my turn I get to demonic tutor for braingeyser. It’s a surprising choice but Greg is short on cards, and I already cast ancestral. Greg plays a lotus, and another dib.This one’s good. I braingeyser for 3 to dig deeper and get ahead on cards. His dibs and factories attack me to 14. I recall for 2 and get back tutor and ancestral. I hear those are good cards. Dib and 2 factories take me to 7. He cracks his lotus to psiblast me to 3, and he’s tapped out of colored mana. It’s now or never. At the end of his turn, I play ancestral again, which helps a lot. 

It’s the start of your main phase. Win without giving your opponent another turn. He’s at 20 life. You have everything you need.

Game 2
He starts with a factory and artifact mana. I answer by stripping his factory and playing my own artifact mana. I ancestral but don’t get much and discard a land. I get out a time vault. He plays 3 bolts to take me to 11.Greg goes super interesting and plays copy artifact on my time vault, then he drops atog. I’m at 11. He has 3 artifacts, so he’s 2 artifacts away from lethal. I transmute out a chaos orb and kill the atog. I untap my time vault naturally. He untaps his naturally, which makes this much more interesting. I think that’s the right call. I tap my vault and he activates his time vault. But I have a twiddle so I can stack my extra turn on top of his extra turn on top of my extra turn and go off from there. 

Match 2 – Paul DeSilva on Erhnamageddon

Game 1
We play out some lands and I play time vault. He mind twists me for two, hitting transmute and recall, and leaving me with a howling mine. I skip my turn and untap my time vault. He plays a dib. I play my howling mine, and take the extra turn with vault. I can tutor for a twiddle and go again. Another turn and a recall gives me two more turns, and I cast wheel of fortune, then I have to pass. He plays a factory and ernie and attacks me to 15. I rip ancestral, which lets me strip his untapped city of brass, taking him off interaction. I play another twiddle, two howling mines, and a recall and he concedes.

Game 2
This game starts with some gas. He starts with city, ancestral, pearl, and lions. I play library and draw on his turn. He adds pixies and attacks me to 18. I play volcanic and howling mine instead of drawing with library. I’m short on mana andI hope this helps build my board. His 3 critters attack me to 12. I draw with library and pass it back. On his fourth turn, he plays demonic tutor with 3 mana up. I think about it and tap out to counter it. I’m hoping I don’t have to play around a disenchant the whole time I’m going off. Then he plays energy flux. Drat. I have REB in hand, several lands and library, so I think I should be able to pull this off. He attacks me to 8.

Starting my turns under energy flux.

• I let howling mine die. I draw with library. Play volcanic, vault, twiddle.
• In my upkeep I play ancestral. I draw with library. I pay 2 for vault. Draw. City of brass, twiddle.
• Draw with library. Pay for vault. Land. I play time walk, taking a damage from city to go to 6, in lethal range of his board.
• I pay for vault, draw for turn, draw with library. Twiddle. I take 1 damage, pay 2, and take another turn.
• I draw with library. I let the vault die. Play tropical and I recall time walk and play it. I go to 4 from city. 
• I play recall and time walk, going to 3.
• I draw with library. I play strip mine and kill his factory and orb his lions. I should be able to take 2, go to 1, and live.

His fifth turn he attacks me to 1 and fireballs me for lethal. Nice. I didn’t expect that. Maybe I should have let the vault die sooner and REB’d the flux, but I didn’t know that I’d draw into another time vault like I did.

Game 3
He starts with lions, then factory. I play lands and strip his factory. I play a time vault and he disenchants it. He adds a second lion and they attack me to 12. I play sylvan. He attacks me to 8 and plays armageddon, clearing my mana, then plays factory. I have howling mine, sylvan, and emerald in play. On my turn I play a land and ancestral. He attacks me to 2. This is it. Paul says he loves the puzzle that this deck is. This is my last turn win or lose so as I start to draw my four cards I turn them face up. Here’s what I get.

What’s the play?

Here’s what I did.

I put back the twiddle and recall.
I play volcanic, lotus, sol ring, recall for 3. I discard island, sea, and REB. I get back lotus, twiddle, vault. Play lotus, crack for blue. Play vault, play twiddle. All I have left in my hand is wheel.
Next turn, I draw my recall, twiddle, plus regrowth and twiddle. That’s good. Probably good enough. I don’t have enough red/blue mana to cast both twiddles and wheel, so I put regrowth and recall back, and cast 2 twiddles. Wheel in hand, but banking an extra turn. End turn.
I draw the regrowth, recall, and island, mine. Nice. I put back the regrowth and recall. I play the island, mine, and wheel, leaving up just the emerald. I draw 7, play a sapphire so I can regrowth a twiddle. I get a second recall here, allowing me to take a ton of turns and win. Whew.

Match 3 – Luke J. on Deadguy Ale

Game 1
We’ll start this one off quick. Game 1 on the draw, do you keep or mulligan? This is a 4-strip format.

Here’s what happened.

I kept. And I won on turn 2. I’m probably not going to find a stronger hand, and sometimes with this deck you have to gamble. I hoped I’d see a land in my top two cards or this was going to get ugly if he stripped my library. But luckily he didn’t.

He started with a swamp, dark ritual, hippie. That’s a strong opener, especially against library. On my turn, I draw mox pearl. I play the library and wait to use it in hopes that I can activate it a few times. He plays a factory and attacks with hippie. I draw an eighth card and find an island, then the hippie takes my recall. On my second turn, I can play island, draw with library, play the mox, and time walk. Next turn I play land, vault, twiddle. I get another twiddle so I can add the howling mine. Then I cast timetwister that gives me enough to take it away. 

I don’t sideboard anything after that game.

Game 2
I keep library, braingeyser, mana vault, underground, island, and howling mine. It has all the right pieces but is fragile. I don’t think I’ll keep my hand intact long enough to play two islands and braingeyser off the mana vault. He starts with a turn one hippie. Of course. With library looking useless, I play the mox I drew and the underground and play howling mine. He disenchants it. Then he hymns me getting mana vault and braingeyser and he beats me down before I draw anything useful.

Game 3

I debate my sideboard plan a lot after that. I eventually go full ernie with 3 and take out mana vault, braingeyser, and fireball. I drew them last time and they didn’t do a lot of good.  I figured I needed strong individual cards instead of combo pieces.

I start with a vault. Then I can demonic tutor for ancestral, but that’s all the action I’ve got. I draw an ernie but he hymns it. Next turn I draw another ernie and play it. He has a black knight but adds hippie. This is an even race. I hope I draw a twiddle. Here’s the board when we’re both at 20.

I attack first to take him to 16. He attacks me to 16 and starts knocking cards out of my hand. I draw a time walk, which gets me a turn ahead. But there’s still lots of things that he could do to stop a 4/5. He doesn’t draw them and eventually he starts chump blocking before ernie finishes him off. Close.

Match 4 – Jacob D. on Atog Prison

Game 1
Jacob starts dropping lock pieces with two relic barriers and keeps my howling mines tapped down. When he adds an atog, his collection of 5 artifacts is looking scary for my 13 life. I’m thinking one more artifact or bolt will sink me, but he doesn’t have it. He attacks for 3, sacrificing the mana vault, and drops a shivan dragon. I gotta go for it. I pay 8 life to my sylvan library, strip his untapped land, and am able to chain together twiddles and recalls to do enough to kill him. 

Game 2
I start with sylvan again. Sylvan library and lands is great against his slow start and relic barriers. I sit on the two howling mines in my hand. He gets out two relic barriers. I play two howling mines. At least those keep the barriers away from my mana. And those mines will be useful one day. To his two relic barriers, he adds winter orb, two moxen, and then drops a triskelion.

What card from the four horsemen sets did I draw that will get me out of this bind?

See the card below.

Hurkyl’s recall.

At the end of his turn I can cast hurky’s recall and return 6 artifacts to his hand. I go off a good bit but stall out. But I am able to strip mine two lands and transmute for chaos orb to kill another, which keeps him off trike. I pass the turn with 6 life. He goes and has RR and could double bolt me but he doesnt have it. I have a few more turns after that and I get there. 

Batch 2

Match 5 – Brett A. on Atog

Game 1
This match had a ridiculous number of draw 7’s. He starts with a factory. I play a sylvan. He adds a sedge troll. I fireball it dead. That doesn’t come up often. On turn 3, he plays timetwister (#1), a mox and black vise. I play a land and a mox, and my own timetwister (#2). I play a sol ring, and wheel (#3). I pass to him and he attacks me with a factory and plays a troll but I counter it. I’m at 12, then 10 after vise damage. He has a single badlands untapped. I play vault, twiddle, three howling mines, another twiddle and recall and he concedes.

Game 2

He starts with underground sea, sapphire, vise. I start with an underground, pearl, sol ring, twister (#4). Pass. On turn 2, he plays and draws with library, then plays demonic tutor, which I mana drain off my lotus. Then he plays his own twister (#5). I use my floating blue from lotus to twiddle down his sea. On my turn, I strip his library and play howling mine. He strips my sea. He plays ruby and copper tablet, which he has in his sideboard just for twiddlevault. Yay. I play a land and braingeyser for 4. He plays a troll. On my turn during my upkeep with the vise and tablet triggers on the stack, I twiddle his badlands tapped. He bolts me to 7. I cast hurky’s recall onl him. Then I take 1 from vise and 1 from tablet and go to 5. I play strip, lotus, timetwister (#6). Then I strip his sea, leaving him with only a badlands for land. In response to the strip, he regenerates his troll. In response to that, I BEB his troll, leaving him with a badlands as his only permanent. I play vault, mana vault, ruby, and pass with 3 in hand. He plays his lotus again, casts sol ring and bolts me to 2 life. He’s taps out and timetwisters (#7) with a R floating from lotus. He gets the bolt, killing me. Vise would have done it too. I had counterspell, but was tapped out of blue. I would have won the next turn off a wheel. What a wild game that ended on the fifth turn.

Game 3

I start with underground sea, lotus, and two howling mines He plays ruby, emerald, badlands, vise, and shatters a mine. I drop a tropical and sylvan. He strips my sea and plays atog. I use chaos orb to hit his atog. He strips my tropical (instead of my library). He demonic tutors and passes. I keep 1 with sylvan and I play vault and twiddle, going to 16. Then I keep 2 (going to 8) and go for it. I don’t want to see whatever he tutored for. I time walk. I recall both and take 2 more turns, adding to my board. I play a second strip, and strip his badlands and pass with three cards in hand. He has emerald, vise, and badlands in play. 

This puzzle is from Brett’s perspective. He found a great line. I’m at 8 life with 3 cards in hand. What would you play?

See what Brett plays.

He plays volcanic, lotus, and copy artifacts his lotus. He sacrifices a lotus for blue and psiblasts me to 4. He sacrifices the other lotus for red and casts wheel (#8). He plays a vise off his floating red. I can’t cast any instants (I’d need 2) during my upkeep and I die. 

Match 6 – Jason Seaman on TrollDisco

Game 1
He mulligans to 5 and starts with a volcanic. I strip it. There is no mercy in 4 strip. He plays another volcanic and I play tropical, sapphire, and sylvan. Next turn I demonic tutor for ancestral to pull farther ahead. He plays a factory and a sedge troll. I fireball his troll dead. That’s twice this derby. He plays strip and disk. Phooey. I regrowth my demonic tutor. He plays a guardian beast. I have to remember what that card does. Once I do, I counter it. I briefly held dreams of tapping it with twiddle in response to him activating disk, but that seems farfetched. I use demonic tutor to get chaos orb for his disk. He blows it in response. I use braingeyser to draw more cards. He attacks with 2 factories, taking me to 9 and he strips my tropical. Turnabout is fair play I guess. I play two howling mines now that the disk is gone and the race is on. He plays another factory and attacks me to 5. I’m in a pickle, facing 6 lethal damage from factories. I recall demonic tutor and pass with UU up. I have 3 twiddles in hand. He plays strip mine, and strips my land, I float a blue and when he moves to combat, I twiddle down a factory. He uses it to pump a second factory. I use another twiddle to tap the one he pumps, I take 2 damage and go to 3. With him tapped out, I can play a land, tutor for vault, play vault, twiddle, recall, and win.

Game 2

He starts with volcanic and sapphire. He’s already got counter mana up. I play island, go. All we do for several turns is draw and make land drops. Then I play lotus, crack it for black, and cast demonic tutor. He counterspells it. I play transmute artifact, which he also counterspells. I play howling mine. He shatters it. I play another mine. He recalls for 2, getting back a counterspell and shatter. At his end of turn, I cast twiddle to tap down one of his two untapped lands. In response, he shatters my mine. On my turn, I play sol ring and wheel of fortune, making him discard his counterspell, plus another counterspell, and a power sink. I cast time walk. He REBs that, I BEB that with my last mana. I take my time walk turn, and mind twist his hand. He topdecks and casts his own transmute artifact. I have to think about this one. It resolves. He gets chaos orb. I play my own orb, and activate it, and he responds by orbing my orb. I wish I had a twiddle here. I play vault. On his next end step, I untap my vault. A few turns later, he twists me for 3, hitting 2 lands and howling mine. We play draw go for 7 turns as I fill my full grip. My 7th draw is recall, and I think about what to do. What’s the play? He has 4 cards in hand.

Here’s what happened.

I play strip mine. I cast recall for 3 with double counterspell backup and an extra turn stored in time vault. He mana drains it. I mana drain his back. He REBs it. I counter his REB. He counterspells my counterspell! With the last counterspell in his deck! Three were already in his graveyard. After tapping out, I can take another turn with vault to untap. I draw twiddle but save it for a bigger impact later. On his turn, he taps out and uses the mana drain mana to fireball me for 18 lethal damage! My next card was another recall which would have won it for me. Had I cast the twiddle to see my next card, I would have won.

If my recall resolved, I would have gotten back twiddle, time walk, and demonic tutor. I could have taken 2 turns and used one to braingeyser for at least 9 which should be enough to win.

Game 3

I start with sea, pearl, and howling mine, over a time vault. This was my greediest play of the derby and the one I second guess the most. It’s usually correct, but I’m thinking that in sideboarded games against players experienced against twiddle vault, it might be better to start with vault. It risks walking into a mind twist for hand, but whatcha gonna do. He plays badlands, sapphire, and time walk. Then ruby and factory. I half expected him to recall his time walk. I play a land. He plays lotus, attacks me to 18 with factory. My third turn, I play a land and twist him for 3. I don’t really expect it to resolve. That’s okay. He cracks his lotus to counter it. He plays a troll. I play a land and regrowth mind twist. He shatters my mine. His factory and troll attack me to 13. I play another land and mind twist him again for 5 this time. This time he uses mana drain. I ask him if he has the fireball too. He chuckles, and shows it to me, representing 13 lethal damage. 

Match 7 – Xanadude Boston on TrollDisco

Game 1

He starts with badlands, and chain lightnings me. I think he knows what I’m on. I play a land. He plays chaos orb. I play sylvan, which he kills with his orb. He casts a dib. I debate but counter it. It’s too early to take a bunch of damage. When he taps out, I transmute out a vault and twiddle it. I play mana vault and wheel of fortune. I get a twiddle, time walk, and recall, and can win.

Game 2
He starts with sea, ancestral, ruby, and jet. Pretty good. I play a land. He plays factory, sol ring, and disk. Even better. I play chaos orb. He plays a troll and factory attacks me to 18. I activate orb and he regenerates his troll. I kill disk, barely hitting it. I play time vault. He plays another factory and swings for 6. I go to 12. I untap my vault naturally, hoping not to die. He attacks me to 5 but I get another turn. I play two howling mines and take another turn. I don’t draw anything in the 3 cards and we go to game 3.

Game 3
Game 3 was the doozy. I mulligan to 3 and keep wheel, tropical island, and city of brass. None of the other hands were very good. I play my tropical. He plays strip, lotus, and disk. Oh boy. I play my city of brass. He debates and plays a chaos orb. He now has two uncounterable ways to stop my combo. Too bad I left my rusts at home. I luckily topdeck a land, play a sea, and cast wheel. We’ll have ourselves a game after all. Post-wheel, I play lotus. He plays factory. He attacks with factory me to 17. I play time vault, but he artifact blasts it. Nice tech. He bolts me to 14 and plays a second factory. He attacks me to 12 with one and psi blasts me to 8. I cast ancestral and find a strip mine for one of his factories. I play a howling mine. At end of turn, he psiblasts me to 4. He plays strip, factory attacks me to 2. He shatters my mine. He passes with 2 volcanics untapped, with the active chaos orb and disk. This looks dire. I draw regrowth. Interesting. I tank for a bit. I play ruby, jet, pearl, and regrowth the wheel. Ancestral isn’t enough with what I’m facing. I cast it. I tank some more.

What’s the play here?

Here’s my line. It involved calling a judge.

I play island, I twiddle down one of his untapped lands, which he taps for mana. I pass priority during my first main phase. He activates his chaos orb. I try to tap my 4 remaining lands and crack my lotus before orb resolves, to get out all my mana. I try to do this, and Xanadade wishes to consult a judge. This is a tricky area of the rules that has changed over the years. We get David M. on the phone. The ruling is that once orb resolves, I get priority again, and am in my first main phase and can cast sorcery speed effects since the stack is empty. So I cast recall for 2 and get back lotus and wheel, and cast wheel with UB floating. I draw my time walk (nearly my only out) and play it. On my new turn, I strip his remaining untapped land, forcing him to disk now or never. He thinks about it, and decides to blow the disk, killing my artifact mana. I tap them and play vault, twiddle, and sylvan library. After that extra turn, I can’t go again but strip his factory and play howling mine. He considers playing a factory but instead plays underground sea and mind twists for 2, hitting my mana vault and sapphire. I topdeck a recall and land with mine, and can get another turn, but he counters the twiddle. He plays a factory, and order of the ebon hand. Either will be lethal. I draw 4 cards and get land, counterspell, braingeyser, and sol ring, but can only braingeyser for 2 to see the cards I just put back. My next cards are demonic tutor and recall, which could have won it. I congratulate Xanadude on a great match and winning his win-and-in to make Top 16. He’s a great dude and I’m glad that he gets to advance.

Match 8 – Beastiebas on Atog

Game 1

I win the coin flip. I start with a turn one howling mine. He plays factory and black vise. I play a second mine. He disenchants it. I braingeyser for 2 while I have nothing better to do, still under the vise. He plays another vise and ankh of mishra. I play a land, demonic tutor for vault, and twiddle it. Next I play a sylvan. He taps out to play a dib and lion. On my turn, I play library, wheel, then time walk, and regrowth a twiddle. I can cast the recall for 3 turns, tutor for fireball, and cast it twice for the win.

Game 2
He plays a turn 1 ankh this time. I answer with a land, ruby, and sol ring. He plays another ankh and a vise. At his end of turn, I cast hurkyl’s on him. On my turn, I cast wheel, getting rid of those pesky artifacts. I play howling mine. He plays a tormod’s crypt. Yup that was for twiddle vault. I play a sylvan and a mine. He kills my mine. I recall for 2, and he activates the crypt in response. He plays a factory and a lion. Facing 4 damage a turn anyway, I keep 2 from sylvan, going to 9. I play library and should get it online next turn. Having exhausted his 4 strip mines already, he bottles my library. Lol. I get one more turn and cast ancestral, but he can attack me to 3 and bolts me.


Game 3
He thinks some about his mulligan, but then I play trop, pearl, howling line, lotus, timetwister anyway. I play ruby and manavault and pass. He plays factory, lotus, sapphire, sol ring, and black vise. Vise takes me to 19. He strips my trop. Vise takes me to 18. I regrowth my trop since I’m short on lands and play it, and chaos orb. His factory attacks me to 16. He plays an ankh.

I take 2 from vise, going to 14. It’s the start of your main phase. What’s the play?

Here’s what I played.

I cast hurkyls on him. He sacs the lotus to bolt me twice to 8. I go to combat. Inside of combat, I use my orb to take out his untapped volc, leaving him with only a tapped factory on board. After combat, I play usea, play demonic tutor, play time walk, taking mana burn to 7. Next turn my mana vault takes me to 6. Island, recall the time walk. Next turn, mana vault takes me to 5. I play mox emerald, recall for 2 getting back time walk, regrowth. Cast time walk. Next turn, untap mana vault, play usea, regrowth and recast time walk. Next turn I recall for 3, get back time walk, regrowth, tutor. I cast time walk. I regrowth the time walk. Next turn I untap vault. Time walk. I’m 2 attacks short of a deterministic win from ernie. Shoot, I still go for it and tutor for the djinn and play him. Next turn, mana vault takes me to 4. I attack him to 16. I recall for 3 get back time walk, regrowth, timetwister. Normally I’d get tutor, but with all my recalls used, my regrowth and twister in the graveyard, this is my only way to keep infinite looping alive. Maybe I didn’t need to do this. Next turn I untap mana vault. Island, regrowth, time walk, cast walk. Play time vault. Attack him to 12. Cast timetwister. Next turn, untap mana vault. I attack with djinn to 8. I really should have left this up to block the factory. I play sylvan library, howling mine, mostly to get under future vises. Play howling mine. Go.

On his fourth turn he plays lotus. The card I feared the most. He taps factory to play vise. Cracks lotus for R. Plays bolt. I BEB it, going to 5 cards in hand. He bolts me again to 1. His vise will do the last point of damage and I’m cooked. He plays tundra and ancestrals me just to make sure. Luckily, I draw hurkyl’s recall and can tap my last 2 mana to remove black vise, and live. I draw 6 cards and get time walk, regrowth, and tutor and can take it away.

I lucked out to win that last game and match, ending a respectable 5-3. My luck could have gone either way so many times on any of these games, why not end it with a bit of good luck. Beastiebas still made Top 16. Congratulations, and best of luck in the elimination rounds!
This derby was so much fun, and full of interesting lines. Writing this post was also crazy to go back through my notes and line up everything that happened. I may have gotten some details wrong, but there were a lot of details.

I learned a lot from playing so many strong opponents in tight matches back to back. I don’t believe I’ve quite reached the ceiling for twiddlevault. I have some new innovations for the decklist and play decisions, so I’ll be back with it soon 🙂