Subject: CT States Report Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 22:32:37 -0500 From: "Len Blado" To: This really isn't a tournament report, more than a summary of the actual data from CT States. Running about 12 hours, the Standard event had 93 players participating in 260 matches over 7 rounds followed by a 3 round single elimination to determine the winner. Ultimately, Duncan Sanford of Middletown, a member of a coterie that includes many of the more successful players in CT beat out Brian Beyor of Willington in an extremely close match- the third game being decided by a single point of life- to become Connecticut's new Type II champion. We look forward to his continued participation not only in the CT Tournament Scene, but at PTQs and Pro Tours. The rest of this posting is an endless list of statistics, and my props & slops (had to) from the tournament. Note that most of these statistics aren't really that great for prediction, since the numbers simply aren't large enough, and the quality of players/decks is not taken into account. Anyhoo... Final 8 (pairings listed in order of higher-ranking player after 7 rounds): Brian Beyor (Burn) beats Bob Fusco (Burn) Duncan Sanford (Counter-Phoenix) beats Dan McNeill (Land Destruction) Bob Beverly (Tolarian Blue) beats Eric Mason Jr. (Burn) Chris Choma (Suicide Black) beats Chris Savaria (Suicide Black*) Brian Beyor (Burn) beats Chris Choma (Suicide Black) Duncan Sanford (Counter-Phoenix) beats Bob Beverly (Tolarian Blue) Duncan Sanford (Counter-Phoenix) beats Brian Beyor (Burn) * Chris Savaria's deck could only be loosely classified as 'Suicide Black', and is really more of a rogue deck based off of Suicide Black. Definition of Decks: LD: Any deck with 8+ Land Destruction spells out of R/G, and Argothian Wurms. WW: Any primarily white deck with at least 16 white creatures of power 2 or less. Burn: Any exclusively red deck with all but 2-4 spells costing less than 4 mana, designed for a quick kill. DrawGo: Any exclusively blue deck with 16+ countermagic, Nevinyrral's Disk, and less than 4 non-land roads to victory. Phoenix:Any blue/red deck mounting 12+ countermagic and 3+ Shard Phoenix. Suicide:Any primarily black deck mountain 16+ creatures and designed for fast kills. Tolaria:Mono-blue combo deck based around Tolarian Academy. Recur: Decks that mounted both Recurring Nightmare and Survival of the Fittest. Rogue: Any deck that does not fit into the above categories. Note that these decks either do not have any sort of identifiable category, or are such severe modifications of the above archetypes that they cannot truly be considered representative. In any case, no deck was placed in this category unless there were no two other decks that had at least a 75% similarity (in other words, I would have made a new category if more than 3 of that type of deck had shown up). The breakdown (decks listed in order of best percentage of wins): Recur 3 (69%) LD 4 (68%) Burn 10 (66%) Tolaria 5 (61%) Phoenix 6 (59%) Suicide 13 (58%) DrawGo 6 (48%) Rogue 34 (41%) WW 12 (38%) Quickie Analysis: The top two decks (LD and Recurring Nightmare) probably received high marks more from the players who played them than the intrinsic quality of the deck, since these are fairly esoteric decks with a limited number of players. White Weenie wins out as the 'deck of fools', since it's marks are even worse than the 'Rogue' category- a category that includes decks that are little more than glorified starters. Of the remaining decks, both Draw/Go and Suicide Black receive low marks- this is likely due to these decks not being very playable in the environment. This leaves a troika of Counter-Phoenix, Tolarian Blue, and Red Burn, or, as we'll call them, Rock, Scissors, and Paper. The win/loss matrix: Read this table across. Example: Of 3 matches LD vs. WW, LD won all three. LD WW Burn Rogue DG CP SB TB N/S Total Win% LD 1/2 3/3 3/3 4/6 2/2 1/3 0/2 1/1 0/0 15/22 68% WW 0/3 4/8 1/4 15/27 1/4 2/3 1/3 0/2 0/3 24/57 42% Burn 0/3 3/4 6/12 8/12 3/3 5/6 10/14 2/5 2/2 39/61 64% Rogue 2/6 12/27 4/12 39/78 3/11 3/15 6/25 0/6 0/4 69/184 38% Draw/Go 0/2 3/4 0/3 8/11 1/2 1/1 3/4 0/1 1/2 17/30 57% CounterPhoenix 2/3 1/3 1/6 12/15 0/1 0/0 1/4 2/3 1/1 20/36 56% Suicide Black 2/2 2/3 4/14 19/25 1/4 3/4 8/16 5/9 0/0 44/77 57% Tolarian Blue 0/1 2/2 3/5 6/6 1/1 1/3 4/9 0/0 0/1 17/28 61% Nightmare/Surv 0/0 3/3 0/2 4/4 1/2 0/1 0/0 1/1 0/0 9/13 69% The Road to the Finals: Duncan Sanford (Counter-Phoenix) Won vs.: 3xRogue, Tolarian Bluex2, LDx2 ID: Suicide Black Lost vs.: Burn Brian Beyor (Burn) Won vs.: Rogue, Burnx3, Suicide Blackx2, Counter-Phoenix ID: Burn Lost vs.: Tolarian Blue Top 10 non-basic Land cards in the Final 8 decks (including sideboard): 1. Wasteland (22) 2. Pyroblast (20) 3. Meltdown (20) 4. Shock (19) 6. Incinerate (18) 6. Cursed Scroll (18) 8. Mogg Flunkies (12) 8. Mogg Fanatic (12) 10. Bottle Gnomes (11) 10. Ball Lightning (11) General Comments: A good deal of Duncan Sanford's success can probably be attributed to successful sideboarding; he was well prepared for any of the decks that would prove to be foils. In fact, the above figures don't really represent the capability of Counter-Phoenix well, since Duncan's performance skews the numbers considerably upwards. Probably the big two 'unsung heroes' amongst cards were Pariah and Goblin Lackey. In general, the better WW (inasmuch as there was a 'better' variant of this largely unsucessful deck) and Red Burn mounted these cards. I'll leave it to the reader to speculate as to why. Dumbest choice of a sideboard card has to be Perish- about the only major green creature visible was Argothian Wurm. Props: To Dragon's Lair (South), Sigma Nu Fraternity, Nat Fairbanks & Dave Cacchiotti for judging, and everyone who showed up to play or visit. To Duncan Sanford and Brian Beyor, who played a tense match without once losing a sense of sportsmanship and style that all of the audience appreciated. Special Prop: To Mike Cassella, who had the courage to play a mere 2 Congregates in his 'Turbo-Congregate' deck. Slops: To Ken Lignelli and Chris Pikula, two of CT's leading citizens of Magic, who didn't deign to attend. Also, slops to the University of Hartford for retarring their roof and shutting down the ventilation for the day without telling us. -Len Blado