Subject: Virginia State Championship
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 11:39:59 EST
From: Carleric@aol.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

the Virginia State Championship, or
Why Is It That The Virginians Can't Do Decklists?

so i find myself at don gallitz's house friday night.  i've brought a blue
disk deck with expunges and lobotomies that has been performing very well and
that i really think i'm going to play tomorrow in States.  gary fortenberry is
also there (not just judge and player, but fort is a chef, too, as it turns
out..) and the three of us play the many decks that donnie has built,
including a mr. stompy that was unusually successful.  obviously, the academy
deck is winning a lot of games, but the mono-red deck is going very nearly
50-50 in unsideboarded games against it.

so, i abandon my plans to play the deck that came with me and go with the red
deck.  (those of you who know me know how uncharacteristic it is of me to play
mono-red).  it's pretty much standard; balls, pups, echo pups, incinerates,
shocks, scrolls, etc.

once in richmond.........

(um, why is it that the top tier magic players seem to never arrive at
tourneys with decks fully made?)

anyway, on to the swiss rounds.  there will be seven, with 6o or 70 players.
we're playing for italian legends packs (woo-hoo) in a black magic bag (woo-
hoo) and a plaque (woo-hoo).  oh, and points, i guess.

ROUND ONE vs. Kyle Rose, playing the Academy (twiddle version)
obviously, Kyle's an excellent player.  we've only played a couple of times
and we've split the last two.
game one - on the second turn, when i have a pup and flunkies in play, HE GOES
OFF!  fucky.
k.  in go the blasts and pulses (wish i had had meltdown or even shatterstorm
in the sb)
game two - wow.  he's at like 7 or 8 when he goes off on the fifth turn.  ugh.
0-1/0-2

ROUND TWO vs. Bret Jones, playing U/W
bret's not feeling well; he's running a fever.  his deck doesn't help him by
giving extremely suboptimal draws.
game one - a brutal beating.  all he casts are a legacy's allure and a
counterspell.
game two - another beating, aided by my drawing 3 of my 4 blasts.  i take one
point of damage in two games.
1-1/2-2

ROUND THREE vs. Eric Jordan (my notes seem to not tell me what Eric played.
bad me.)
games one and two - pure sligh-style beatdown, with me taking no damage, not
even from a fireslinger.
2-1/4-2

ROUND FOUR vs. Tak Elmore playing mono-black.  we've played once or twice over
the years, having both been around for awhile.  tak's a great guy and this
match, while very competitive, was a lot of fun, too.
game one - red weenie outruns black weenie in this game, with me killing him
the turn before he would have killed me.
game two - this game deserves a brief play-by play.
him go swamp, ritual black knight black knight.
me go mountain, no one drop.
him go apply beats.
me suck up beats.
game three - this was the best game of the day for me.  we both get good
draws, him with a bad moon in play (which is pretty bad for me).  eventually i
clear the board, after careful use of a slinger and scroll.  i'm at two life
for like five or six turns, until mr. rathi comes calling and wins it for me.
3-1/6-3

(interesting note - somewhere in here both Ken Russell and his opponent John
Slaughter fail deck checks in the same match.  are they both given losses?
nah.  it's ruled a draw.  WTF?)

ROUND FIVE vs. Chris Griffin playing ???
we're deck-checked.  takes seemingly forever, but is actually pretty fast.
they bring mine back (it's ok) but ask to talk to chris.  uh-oh.
he fails the check.
4-1/8-3

ROUND SIX vs. David Williams playing black.
game one - he comes out like gangbusters, and i parised a no land draw to a
one wasteland draw, and never drew a mountain.
game two - this time, i do get mountains but he wins the race easily again.
well, there go my thoughts of top eight.
4-2/8-5

ROUND SEVEN vs. Mark Styles playing black
game one - i take no damage, as the weenie horde plus DD do him in.
game two - he draws less than ideally and i draw three out of four balls.
beatings.
so i finish 5-2/10-5

note - we virginians are shitty deck list writers.  at one point, SIX OUT OF
SIXTEEN PEOPLE CHECKED FAILED!!!!  that's bad.  but why weren't ken and john
each given a loss?

eric turnquist
Team NoPros
"we don't need no shtinkin' nopros"