After not having seen the Oddball Roundup by iceage4life for the past weeks, I decided to carry on coverage of Singleton events but I am not extending into any other formats previously covered by iceage4life. I apologise if I am intruding into iceage4life's area of coverage.

#1143158 Singleton 2X (30 players) 1st March 2008 (actually 2nd in my timezone but that's not important)

1st Place
Alan_Glen piloting a RGB aggressive deck with many unusual selections highly advantageous against control builds

2nd Place
Paendragoth piloting UGW control

3rd & 4th Places
SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK piloting a UWB control deck 
RotStore piloting a UG deck built for a stronger midgame

5th-8th Places
renappel piloting Monoblack control
slearch piloting a GW aggresive deck including many "untargetable" creatures
Kengur piloting a UGW based storm deck spotting tendrils kill
prolepsis9 piloting UB control

Alan_Glen, SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK, renappel and slearch went 3-0 and drew their way into top 8.

By the end of round 4, there were five 9 pointers vying for the remainding 4 slots. Player Sti was the unfortunate 9 pointer who got paired down in round 5 with so many trolls piloting the Worldgorger Dragon deck similar to the build suggested by ynohtna123456 in his article here. Paendragoth and Kengur immediately drew in round 5 prolepsis9 and RotStore were fighting it out with , going 1-0 when so many trolls kicked Sti out of direct contention. That news allowed both players secure to their slots with an intentional draw, snatching away all hope from the three leftover 9 pointers at the end of the swiss.

Kengur (storm) vs SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK (UWB control)

The first player to be down a game was Kengur in his match against SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK. Immediately going to 6 cards and seeing the 5 5 5 5 from the chat, Kengur kept a hand with a lone Polluted Delta and hoped to get lucky with Brainstorm but luck was not on his side. The next land for Kengur came turn 4 in the form of Flooded Strand and his Sunscape Familiar met with Mana Tithe. Not good at all. He scooped after seeing a Fact or Fiction revealing a Mindslaver with Academy Ruins in play on SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK's side of the board. 

Their game 2 saw SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK attacking the acceleration cards and stealing a Wild Growthed plains via Annex. An Exalted Angel forced Kengur to combo off with a clock ticking away and by the time he actually managed to get a decent number of lands, it was already too late.

Alan_Glen (RGB aggro) vs prolepsis9 (UB control)

The match of Alan_Glen vs prolepsis9 favored the eventual winner because he spotted problematic cards against the UB control deck which ran out of gas quickly in game one, without seeing any form of card advantage in either Fact or Fiction or Damnation throughout the game while facing continuous strings of threats from the other side.

Game 2 was an uphill battle for prolepsis9 who had to face the raw power of a staying Dark Confidant after losing his Smother Cabal Therapy, which was revealed during when a turn 2 spot discard took away a Condescend, while also not having a reliable blue mana source early. Even doctor teeth (Psychatog) and Venser, Shaper Savant could not hold the ground against a legion of monsters without any help from the black wrath.

renappel (MBC) vs Paendragoth (UGW control)

Game 1 initially looked good for the MBC player with Nantuko Shade leading the beats early. However, the UGW control managed to deal with the insect shade by Cunning Wishing for Wing Shards. It looked like renappel stumbled on land drops and Paendragoth slowly stablized on 5 life after renappel decided to block a Helldozer stolen via Bribery with his Graveborn Muse. The big black spells met counter magic but it looked promising for renappel when he casted his Tombstalker ready to end the game. No sooner than the next turn, Paendragoth matched it with his own Eternal Dragon, which was a 6/6 because of Mirari's Wake in play, robbing away the glimmer of hope from renappel. Moment's Peace secured the first game.

Game 2 saw renappel not having land drops and having the dilema of choosing between casting disruption spells and activating his Thawing Glaciers. He chose path A and fell behind in development for too long. Paendragoth managed to apply pressure and prompt a concession with a Mindslaver activation.

slearch (GW aggro) vs RotStore (UG midrange)

slearch and RotStore were the only pair to play into game 3. Game 1 saw both trade beats but RotStore didn't get another blue source after his turn 2 Yavimaya Coast and he had to continuously ping himself thoughout the course of the game. Garruk Wildspeaker came down for RotStore but slearch had Oblivion Ring for the planeswalker. The game heavily favored slearch when he played Silvos, Rogue Elemental (not a rogue by the way) especially when RotStore wasn't showing any form of hard counters. Man-o'-War bounced the Elephant Guided Silvos but it only delayed the inevitable.

Game 2 began with RotStore developing the board with a Coiling Oracle hitting an Island after a turn 1 suspend Search for Tomorrow. Ravenous Baloth and Solemn Simulacrum came down against a board of River Boa and Wild Mongrel. Vedalken Shackles stole the hound before getting destroyed by the green Seal of Primordium. Persuasion from RotStore stole Tarmogoyf and Exalted Angel (morph) met Condescend, X=1. With 8 lands in play, RotStore Braingeysered for 6 cards and slearch thought that he was open for his green planeswalker to come down, never expecting it to fall prey to a Take Possession which gave RotStore's team Overrun which sealed the second game.

Game 3 saw slearch accelerate into a turn 2 Troll Ascetic courtesy of a Chrome Mox (removing Llanowar Elves, most likely topdecked) followed by a turn 3 Armadillo Cloak and a turn 4 Moldervine Cloak. Rotstore was in for a beating. He destroyed Temple Garden, slearch's only white source, with Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and he had Temporal Spring for the gold cloak. If slearch had a white source, Rotstore would be in lots of trouble especially at 8 life. Fortunately for him, slearch didn't and RotStore went down to a dangerous 2 life next turn. Thankfully, he managed to muster Meloku the Clouded Mirror and could start blocking the troll with illusion tokens. Vedalken Shackles stole a morphed down Exalted Angel to block the troll and Wild Mongrel was blocked by the blue legend (while slearch had 2 cards in hand) even though he could simply make a token. Not wanting to risk losing everything to a timely bounce or maybe to save the 2 cards, he let Wild Mongrel die. slearch didn't cast any creatures and kept beating with Troll Ascetic while RotStore built up a defence team of bears from Grizzly Fate and managed to steal a Silvos, Rogue Elemental via Bribery. Finally white mana came in the form of Selesnya Sanctuary for slearch. A Memory Lapse bought a turn enough for Rude Awakening  to seal the match which put so much pressure on RotStore who would have lost easily to a white source. A truly epic game.

Alan_Glen (RGB aggro) vs RotStore (UG midrange)

Game 1 looked bad for Alan_Glen facing Carven Caryatid as early as turn 3 and his blind Cabal Therapy (naming Meloku) missed. He recast it to snag Sensei's Divining Top out of RotStore's hand. Garruk Wildspeaker came down for Alan_Glen and he immediately cast Marsh Flitter which he used to block a Solemn Simulacrum, although at a healthy 20. RotStore cast Braingeyser for 6, letting Alan_Glen drop his Dark Confidant and Chandra Nalaar which upped a counter. RotStore followed up the next turn with Take Possession (!!!!) stealing the red planewalker and setting the counters at "Searing Wind your board" mode. That was totally sick and Alan_Glen had no intentions of watching his own planeswalker betray him, giving Rotstore his 1-0 lead.

Game 2, Alan_Glen began the beats with turn 1 Kird Ape with a basic Forest in play. (Chrome Mox set to red, removing Tin Street Hooligan helped) A blind Cabal Therapy naming Threads of Disloyalty missed but the annoying enchantment came down soon enough (that's quite unlucky you have to admit) to steal Kird Ape away. Pyroblast dealt with that but RotStore used Bribery to steal Shriekmaw (killing Hearth Kami) which later on was used to block Kird Ape. RotStore eventually built his board with Genesis,Vedalken Shackles, Mulldrifter and Garruk Wildspeaker. Alan_Glen had only Troll Ascetic on his side and managed to Terror away Genesis. Finally, Alan_Glen managed to get Liliana Vess, planeswalker no. 3, into play which used the tutor ability for Lightning Bolt since RotStore was at 2. After a flashback Cabal Therapy cleared the way, Alan_Glen showed RotStore the classic burn spell hoping there wasn't anything relevant from the top 3 cards of RotStore as he had Sensei's Divining Top in play. On to game 3.

Game 3 begins with Alen_Glen starting with Oona's Prowler and RotStore showing Werebear and Solemn Simulacrum but he became inactive and lost the game because of that. A rather anti-climatic end for that match.

SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK (UBW control) vs Paendragoth (UGW control)

Paendragoth starts with a mulligan to 6 and no real action until turn 3 end of turn Thirst for Knowledge and turn 4 Fact or Fiction from Paendragoth both resolving. Turn 5 sees end turn Decree of Justice for 2 soldiers and suspend Aeon Chronicler (for 2) from Paendragoth, still no action from SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK until turn 6 when he casts Mindslaver against the tapped out mage on his own turn. Paendragoth doesn't seem to be bothered by the legendary artifact as he casts Mirari's Wake to pump up the soldiers. SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK goes for the activation and plays the following turn for his foe. Compulsion comes down and discards both Garruk Wildspeaker and Bribery. Gifts Ungiven dumps Eternal Witness into the yard and gives him Wrath of God to settle the 2 tokens and the blue Maro. Engineered Explosives comes down set to kill tokens and moxen. 
After getting back his own turn, SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK proceeds to play Oblivion Ring eating Compulsion and casts Pithing Needle naming Academy Ruins. Paendragoth proceeds to beat with Nantuko Monastery after casting Sakura-Tribe Elder but the manland meets Swords to Plowshares which resolves after an exchange of Remand from both players. Solemn Simulacrum sneaks into play next. Mana advantage is so powerful in the control matchup. SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK then transmutes Tolaria West into Cephalid Coliseum, obviously wanting to find more business cards. He then drops Crucible of Worlds and ends the turn. Paendragoth swings with the land loving creatures (Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum) and follows up with Eternal Dragon which prompts the search for answer via Cephalid Coliseum. Spell Snare and 2 lands go into the bin. Conditional counter magic are so bad against UW based decks with lots of mana. Looks like there wasn't any answers from the 3 cards and SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK tries again next turn. Brainstorm tried to dig further but there were no answers in the next 3 cards either.

Game 2 begins and Paendragoth sneakily kills Polluted Delta with a Stifle on turn 2. SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK retaliates on the next turn with a Thoughtseize taking Trinket Mage, revealing Snow-Covered Forest, Counterspell, Absorb, Decree of JusticeSakura-Tribe Elder. This doesn't look good at all especially while not spotting any blue mana on his side of the board. The next turn can be easily predicted and Sakura-Tribe Elder comes down together with Temple Garden (topdecked). Upkeep Vampiric Tutor meant that he was desperate for lands and Azorius Chancery came down to return Godless Shrine back to hand. He was already at 13 life. Paendragoth sacrifices the Rampant Growth on feet at the end of turn and lays Windswept Heath. A Nimbus Maze (that cannot produce colored mana) comes down for the mana screwed control player and Paendragoth simply activates the fetchland with nothing to follow up. I wonder why he sacrificed Sakura-Tribe Elder in the first place when he had mana up for Counterspell anyway. At the end of turn, SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK casts Mystical Teachings for Tithe and follows up his turn by taking 2 from Godless Shrine, going down to 11. 

3 soldier tokens come down and gets responded by Tithe finding 2 Snow-Covered Plains. The soldiers swing and Garruk Wildspeaker comes down without any resistance and sets itself at 4 counters. Fact or Fiction from SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK shows that he is looking for answers fast. Oblivion Ring turns up and he grabs it together with a land. At this point, Paendragoth can produce a maximum of 4 mana, 3 of which can be blue, indicating that SICK(X7) would have a chance at resolving Oblivion Ring is he has counter magic of his own. He did, and Gainsay put Absorb into the bin. Oblivion Ring settled the Planeswalker and Enlightened Tutor fetched Engineered Explosives. SICK(x7) simply passed the turn after drawing it, probably because he had no counter magic to back up his explosives which he knew would meet the Counterspell revealed from the start of the game. The soldeirs beat him down to 2 and he flashbacked Mystical Teachings for Remand. Engineered Explosives (x=0 of course) came down, met the Counterspell but got Remanded back. A very good play indeed. 

The artifact came down again and cleared the threats away. Trinket Mage and Sensei's Divining Top joined the board to put SICK(x7) in a relatively safe position. Paendragoth uses the next turn to cast Fact or Fiction and a Harmonize that was picked up. SICK(x7) cast Deep Analysis in hopes of digging into more business. Eternal Witness from Paendragoth meets zero resistance and picks up Decree of Justice. Things don't look at all good for SICK(x7) now.

A topdecked Mindslaver meets Gifts Ungiven from Paendragoth for Remand, Memory Lapse, Syncopate and Circular Logic. SICK(x7) hands Memory Lapse and Syncopate and Memory Lapse puts the legendary artifact on the top of the library. Eternal Witness trades with Trinket Mage and the turn goes back. Mindslaver returns and meets with Syncopate, x=2 which would allow the artifact to resolve but put it out of immediate activation range. Sensei's Divining Top looks for something and SICK(x7) pays the 2 mana to let Mindslaver sit in play but Paendragoth has enough mana to drop 5 soldiers against the mage holding on to his last point of life. Only a few cards can save him now but...

SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK scoops and Paendragoth makes it into the finals. 

Paendragoth (UGW control) vs Alan_Glen (RGB aggro)

Paendragoth starts the game with a mulligan to 5 declaring a 5 land hand. Not at all good for him especially against a deck, tuned to beat his, holding a full suite of 7 cards. Alan_Glen churns out turn 2 Imperious Perfect following a turn 1 Birds of Paradise.

Paendragoth could only watch as Alan_Glen proceeded to spit out a bear and lay Oona's Prowler which further scorned the mulligan to 5. With no action from the control player, Alan_Glen proceeded to go nuts with a turn 4 that goes like this: Duress eats Decree of Justice and reveals Akroma's Vengeance, Academy Ruins and a Snow-Covered Island. Garruk Wildspeaker comes down, untaps two lands, one of which is Golgari Rot Farm and ends the turn by casting Call of the Herd. Totally savage. Paendragoth cycles the only non-land card in hopes of finding something he can do. With only one snow basic land of each type and a colorless mana source, he would need to topdeck a white mana source and a Wrath of God to have any chance of staying in the game. Unfortunately for him, one of the 2 cards included a Living Wish which he cast before giving in to the fact that Overrun (from the green planeswalker) and 5 creatures on the other side of the board was more than any one land or creature could handle. Totally one-sided.

Game 2 sees Paendragoth keep his full 7 and lead the game with a promising Sensei's Divining Top on turn 1. Not much action except for turn 2 Gruul Guildmage from the aggro mage. On turn 4, Alan_Glen cast Cabal Therapy naming Cunning Wish and followed up with a Chrome Mox and Garruk Wildspeaker. Obviously, there wasn't any counter magic in his hand. Sensei's Divining Top didn't help and Alan_Glen followed up by untapping 2 lands and recasting the Gruul Guildmage that met with Repulse the previous turn.

Again with no action but a land drop from Paendragoth, the turn went back to Alan_Glen who beat with Gruul Guildmage. A cycled Decree of Justice made 2 tokens and declined to block. Not a good move at all. With the control player tapped out, Phantom Centaur and Imperious Perfect came crashing down, leaving Alan_Glen with a bare hand. Garruk Wildspeaker is just so sick. The following turn saw Ancestral Vision suspend and the remaining lands could spit out no more than 2WG. Only Moment's Peace could be relevant and Alan_Glen didn't give a second glance when he went for the green "ulti" and turned the entire team sideways. No Moment's Peace meant GG and the end of the tournament.

-Aggro decks

Alan_Glen's winning deck seems to be more of a "goodstuff" deck with card choices that heavily favor him in his control matchups. If I were to comment on it, I would say that it had quite a few classes of cards mentioned in my article "How To Deal With Counterspells in Singleton". Namely, "must counter" planeswalkers, Dark Confidant, the untargetable Troll Ascetic, token dropping Marsh Flitter and Imperious Perfect (which of course look like very wierd choices for a deck), the persistant Call of the Herd, manlands and discard. These choices allowed him to make life tough for his control opponents who couldn't keep up easily, also backed up by the absence of the massive card advantage cards during the top 8 matches. 

I am not trying to claim any credit to his deck but I'm just pointing out that the cards he played lean towards the control-hate side. I wouldn't have been able to make a deck as bold as his. 
Another thing to take note is the subtle "mana ramp" styled acceleration possible because of Garruk Wildspeaker and the conscious effort made to play the "karoo" lands from the Ravnica block. This allowed him to cast more of his "higher" casting cost cards efficiently. A rather well made deck but I'm still curious about how effective some card choices are because I'm less of a beatdown player which might give me false impressions on certain cards.

On the other hand, slearch's GW deck is a deck that really punishes decks that go for the "soft" strategies. With "untargetable" creatures, once you fail to stop them, they will go all the way unless you have mass removal. The creature choices made by slearch allow him to fight aggressive decks very well by having multiple creatures with regeneration and main deck +x/+x enchantments. Usually in aggro vs aggro matchups, the one with the fatter monsters win.  

slearch's deck lives on the mana curve concept and can be backfire from having the wrong drops at the wrong time or by the opponent using strategies that jump up the mana curve as seen from RotStore's game 2 against slearch where he accelerates and casts "bigger" spells.
The upside to the mana curve concept is that it is able to maximise the advantage from mana stumbles from the control decks which by the time they stabilize, might be too late in the face of "curved out" threats. It's a good long run strategy that might give some hiccups every now and then.

On hindsight, if slearch advanced and faced off with Alan_Glen, it would have favored slearch but slearch would probably have fallen have prey to Paendragoth's control deck because of the very nature of the choices made in the GW deck which might expose itself to multiple cards for 1 tradeoffs from the control side.

RotStore's UG deck is one contructed for a strong mid-game and can forcefully bring up the mana curve by having mana acceleration at the 1 mana and 2 mana slots. The downside to his deck is that it is a very mana consuming deck and "soft counters" or plain disruption are more than sufficient to steal a large tempo gain against his deck. However, once you let it do its things, you will be in for one bad beating. As you can see, RotStore went for the "steal" plan against Alan_Glen, trying to wear him out with his own cards. 
The deck is rather fragile in some areas (I suppose if you manage to land Molten Rain in on turn 3, it will set RotStore's deck back quite abit) but it tries to maximize the raw power of the good blue and green cards.

-Combo decks

Kengur was down in luck in a matchup that should have been in his favor due to the resilient nature of his deck and the fact that there would be a relatively decent number of dead cards from the control deck. SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK managed to get away by actively attacking the development of the storm deck and capitalizing on the stumble by going proactive with a clock.

The ways to beat combo decks are:

1) Disruption to development
This is normally the more difficult plan to do because not all decks are capable of doing so. Especially with the inconsistency problem in Singleton, such strategies are slightly more difficult to implement unless the deck is dedicated. However, if the deck allows, it would be in your favor to do so but do note that you have to be able to win within the time you manage to buy or it would be delaying the inevitable.

2) Disruption to the "going off"

Most combos require something going in and out from the graveyard so I recommend attacking that zone with Tormod's Crypt. This usually buys you the time you need. If the combo involves creatures, a Swords to Plowshares can easily disrupt the combo somewhere.

3) Winning fast

Combo decks need some time to set up their combo, no matter how easy it might be to do so. So you can win some decks by just being faster than them. This means that aggressive decks have a chance at beating combo decks because in Singleton, consistency is more of an issue and that makes combo decks slightly slower than they normally would be. 

-Control decks

renappel's MBC has the usual downside to MBC which is the fact that MBC works optimally with loads of mana and having its big business spells resolve. MBC is the favorite against aggressive strategies because of mass removals and big chunks of life gain peppered in the deck. The control matchup isn't too poor if it manages to get spells like Mind Sludge or Persecute to resolve early on. It is a deck that punishes decks without any form of disruption and maximizes the raw power of strong black cards.

From the quarterfinals, one can tell what the important factors going into a control vs control matchup.

1) Mana advantage

This allowed Paendragoth to be able to cast more spells than SICK(x7) in game 1. Even after a counter war, Paendragoth could simply cast his spells because he had Mirari's Wake and he could do much more than SICK(x7). 

In game 2, the fact that Paendragoth had 2 pieces of counter magic didn't matter when he didn't have mana to cast both. So that allowed SICK(x7) to capitalize on that fact and force a spell in. 

2) Counter Magic Advantage

As you can see, counter magic can be played around as seen from the good plays of SICK(x7), including Remanding his own Engineered Explosives. These simple tricks go a long way in ensuring that one has more resources to battle with. Knowing what to counter matters alot too. As you can tell, both control decks had a considerable amount of counter magic but both players didn't simply counter every spell. They countered the spells that mattered. Both players were very good.

3) Card Drawing

Card drawing is important in the control vs control matchup. As games tend to go long, card drawing becomes more important to fight through attrition. When you look at their matches, you can tell that Paendragoth in both games, managed to draw more cards than SICK(x7) and SICK(x7) used more cards that traded at 1 for 1 value (Pithing Needle and Oblivion Ring are the more obvious examples).

Paendragoth's deck was more suited to the control mirror because of:

Krosan Verge - allows a super mana fixing and a shuffle effect
Aeon Chronicler - allows uncounterable card drawing combined with a big body that comes into play with mana totally open
Decree of Justice - uncounterable multiple threats
Compulsion - allows unwanted lands to turn into spells
Ancestral Vision - draw 3 for 1 mana with a 3 turn lag but is easily negated by the length of the control matches
Cunning Wish - good but mana consuming

However, these choices main deck bring inconsistencies to developing the board early, as seen from many of his games not having double blue mana up on turn 2 while playing Counterspell. Many times, the deck's colorless sources come down early and they compromise on the availability of his spells as seen from his final match where he had UGW2 available on his last turn which means no Counterspell, no Wrath of God.

SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK on the other hand, utilized Crucible of Worlds's advantage combined with Academy Ruins for a Mindslaver lock which is rather powerful but his mana grows at a slower pace which makes the above (and Mystical Teachings) less effective. The board develops the similar to a "solar flare" deck. The cards he plays trades "card disadvantage" for power, as seen by the Enlightened Tutor or Vampiric Tutor based silver bullets which can wreck a wider range of strategies but lose out in the control vs control matchup where the number of cards do matter. To sum it up, SICK(x7)'s deck will be clunky in the process of playing it out because of the natural mana development of the deck but has cards that allow him to condense his threats well enough that even with gaps in between turns, he will be able to surmount a comeback based on the raw power of his card choices. His is a deck that is designed to catch multiple strategies at their weak spots.

Last Words

In general, decks that try to abuse the raw power of cards, rather than synnergy, will suffer when the powerful cards are disrupted. This applies to the mana base as well. Decks that try to go for synnergy are more difficult to beat straight up but they normally suffer because of the lack of flexibility. Decks that are tilted to beating a strategy would tend to suffer against other strategies. It is best to either be focused at what you want to do because you would tend to win more that way.

For all you people out there interested in playing the Singleton PE, just go for it. As you saw, getting into top 8 is not too tough if you have a decent deck. Going 3-0 secures a top 8 slot and going 3-1-1 gives you a rather high chance at making it into the money. Personally, I will try to get into one Singleton PE in the near future but I will have to alter my usual plans to do so. There will not be any Singleton PEs during the Release Week so do try to stock up on the Morningtide cards then. The Singleton world is going to go through another phase of changes.

PS: Sorry to SICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICKSICK for shortening your handle to SICK(x7) for obvious reasons. No offense at all.