Subject: state championships Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 01:22:56 -0500 (EST) From: John Edward Slaughter To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com BTW, I won the Virginia State Championships, with the following notable elements: 1. I played an Academy deck. 2. I (and a large percentage of others) failed a random deck check (I was distracted by a need to utilize the facilities while recording) and so did my opponent in the 4th round (each of us had been undefeated), and went on to play with a significantly different deck than intended (as I had registered a 60 card deck, but different than what I had in my deck and intended to play). 3. I played Dominic Crapuchettes in the first round after giving him cards for his deck and board, including pyroblasts and meltdowns, and ironically he was Virginia's Type 2 State Champ last year (ironic that I beat him first round and then won the tournament he'd won last year). 4. I beat my quarterfinals' opponent in a duel in which he had lobotomized my strokes (and not by decking him or using a fireball, etc. in my deck). 5. I played a friend who I built a deck for the night before in the semifinals, who had just beat the only other top 8 Academy deck (Kyle Rose came in 10th with Academy). The deck was suicide black, and in playtesting the night before with it vs. Academy, he won the first 4 games, then I won 3, then he won 1 (all before boarding), indicating this is still a good deck vs. Academy (in fact, at the start of round 4, there were 10 undefeated players, 6 of which were suicide, 2 red, 1 academy, 1 counter-phoenix, and 2 others (lifeline & wurm-geddon?)) Comments on a post-Academy world: 1. Black and red speed both seem good and have sideboard options against Academy. 2. Counter decks, if they can handle the red and black speed, seem viable too. 3. Academy has been compared with bloom, and while it can win faster than bloom, that's fairly uncommon (of 9 matches played, 3 went to 3 games (I beat the only other Academy deck I played in 2 games), meaning I played 21 games, and in 2 I went off second turn, never first turn, and often pretty late as mana vaults were disenchanted, all artifacts melted down, etc.). In comparison to bloom, I think it is about the same degree of difficulty to play (1 vs 3 colors of mana but then numbers are harder to crunch at times with the Academy), can be hosed by a large # of cards (more than bloom?), and more often than bloom gets really ASS hands. 4. White weenie seemed poor against Academy, but maybe they weren't well-designed versions that I played, and WW can be good against the black & red speed, especially with pariah or worship. Slaughter, Esq.