Subject: WV State Championships
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 13:07:33 -0500
From: Carl M Jarrell <JARREL19@MARSHALL.EDU>
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

[Tournament]
Charleston House Holiday Inn, Charleston, WV, November 7th, 6 rounds of
Standard Swiss, 64 people competing

First off, yeah, West Virginia is a state, and yes, we actually did have
state championships, so this is a legitimate tourney report, and is not
to be put under the humor section (some of the people, however, are a
different story :P).

WARNING: This report IS a bit long, but I tried to make it as
interesting as possible...c'mon, try it, you'll like it...

The State Championships, Sleep Deprivation, and a Van Down By The River

November 7th, 2:09 AM: My day begins. A friend of mine from back home
was supposed (and I stress, SUPPOSED) to be getting off a Greyhound here
in Huntington at 2:40, so I napped all day long so I would be juiced for
the duration of the night. Hopped out of bed and headed down the hallway
to the shower, where a fraternity brother of mine quickly noted that it
was "2 AM in the mo'nin, you taking a shower?". "Um, yeah," I said.

2:40 AM: Begin walking down to the bus depot. It's officially Freezing
Balls Cold outside, which, for you non-meteorologists, is
self-explanatory. Buses never show on time anyways, so I have a few
minutes.

3:00 AM: Greyhound pulls up. I brush the icicles off my nose and wait
for my bud to get off the bus. One person gets off, two people get
off...damn him, he didn't show AGAIN. This is the second time he's left
me hanging now like this (The first time was for a PTQ at Columbus, said
he couldn't find me, even though he had a street address, directions,
AND my phone number to call). Hell with him, if I knew he wasn't going
to show I could've gotten a few more hours of sleep. Walked back to the
house. My bus leaves at 5.

5:00 AM: In the two hours inbetween I managed to get something to eat at
the closest SuperAmerica (breakfast of champions, lemme tell you), did
some last-minute playtesting, and agonized over a few quick sideboard
tweaks. If there's one cool thing about the Mirage block rotating out
(and this is probably the only cool thing), it's that for the first time
in a while, I figured Standard would be fairly wide-open, as far as
there being no real metagame yet. I knew what individual CARDS to look
for moreso than established deck types. Seeing as how I was playing
mono-black, Pariah and Worship terrified me, although I figured I could
beat White Weenie to the punch with Gloom as far as Worship went. I also
was concerned about Arcane Laboratory and Energy Field, the latter to a
lesser extent. And of course, there's the Juggernaut that is The
Academy. I figured there would at least be 1 or 2 people packing The
Academy, but I wasn't for sure if it would be out in full force, being
so damn rares intensive. So, time to pull out some semi-secret tech.
Here's the deck I took to State Championships, which I dubbed SigEp
Suicide (in honor of the tailgate party I was missing to attend the
event *sigh*):

4 Sarcomancy
4 Carnophage
4 Black Knight
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Horror (almost became Skittering Skirges, decided to lean more
towards anti-white)
2 Lurking Evil (TECH! TECH! Yeah, I played with Lurking Evil. At first
glance, the activation cost looks HUGE, which it is. But think of it
this way, big deal if I lose 10 life my first turn, on the SECOND turn
you've got a 4/4 black flier headed your way, and you ARE going to
either have to deal with it or die for sure. During playtest I was
undefeated every game I dropped an Evil first turn, even with a couple
games versus New Sligh, and more often than not the 10 life I paid was
the only life I lost)
3 Rain of Tears (Again, tech...I figured my best defense against
big-mana enchantments and sorceries that would crush my deck was to keep
them under the Golden Amount of Four...worked surprisingly well against
other weenie decks, too)
4 Cursed Scroll
2 Scalding Tongs (TECH! TECH! I was so scared of Pariah that I made it a
point to have as much colorless damage as I could cram into the
deck...also helps even more during stall-outs)
1 Hatred (went with just one...anyways, the simple fact that I'm playing
mono-black will give me a small psychological advantage, since in the
back of my opponent's mind he'll always be thinking about Hatred)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bad Moon (anti-Scroll tech...no Monkeys, figured they'd be as rampant
as ever)
16 Swamp
3 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard:
3 Gloom
2 Dread of Night
2 Bottomless Pit (heh, there's one way around Energy Field to start
with...)
4 Bottle Gnomes
2 Ashes to Ashes
2 Nevinyrral's Disk

And on the 'Hound I went...

7:45 AM: Goofed off at the bus depot in Charleston for a few before
calling a cab to take me to the event. There were already about 5 or 6
people there, in the meantime I had to find a couple cards to complete
my deck...namely, 2 Lurking Evils and a Tongs. Nothing like
procrastination...I work better under pressure anyways.
I'm able to get one Evil off some guy with a suitcase of cards that for
reference purposes, I'll call "Friendly," since he was. About a
half-hour later a kid with a ponytail sells me the other one I need. I
check back with Friendly for the other Tongs I need, and he scrounges
one up for me right before decklists are to be filled out *cha-CHING*.
So for the remainder I sit (by myself, for the most part) and watch the
room rapidly fill up...wow, pleasant surprise. The highlight of the
pre-tourney activities though, were a group of guys I'll call Team Down
By The River, with a guy I'm assuming was their ringleader. For
reference purposes, I'll call him "Farley", since at least three times
before the event, I heard him say, "I'll be in a van, DOWN BY THE
RIVER!" If you could've only seen what this guy looks like....he better
be good.

10:00 AM: Showtime.
Round one: Travis Wager, White Weenie
First turn, he plays land and a Lotus Petal, plays a Crusade. Well, here
we go, White Weenie, let's see what happens. He gets a few en-Kor, a
Soltari Champion and Pegasus Charger, I take some quick damage before
stabilizing the en-Kor attack with a couple Black Knights. A Scroll
comes my way and I'm able to pick off the Pegasus and another Pegasus he
plays later, and then I used a Dauthi Horror and Scroll to off the
Champion. Whew, it's 17-5 him, but it's looking better. I send one
Black  Knight across, then play one of my Tongs. TONGS! TONGS! Game
stalls, all of a sudden my Tongs have him down to 11, when he plays a
Soltari Priest. I Scroll it away during his discard, but next turn he
plays a Lifeline, then another Priest. I'm doing all I can to keep
killing his Priest so he doesn't get the last 3 points in on me, but
then he plays ANOTHER one. Realizing I have to draw a shadow blocker or
kill him shortly, I go for the throat-rip: Scroll him during his
discard, 9 life, during my upkeep, play the Tongs ability, 8 life,
Scroll him again during my upkeep (since I have one card in hand), 6
life, draw my card, send both Black Knights across for 6 (Bad Moon in
play). Phew. Tongs did crazy damage that game.
Second game I Ritual out a Dauthi Horror and a Dread...woo-hah. My swarm
shows up faster than his, but he plays Congregation (the new Wisdom,
perhaps?). I'm still winning the damage race when I finally get Gloom
out on the table. His deck is pretty much locked up, and I go into
cruise control for the win. No visible Pariahs....phew.
2-0, 1-0 overall

As I'm walking around waiting for the second round to start, looking for
people to play, I notice Farley introduces himself to one person as "the
1999 Magic U.S. Champion." Hehehe, if anything, he's got a sack.

Round 2: Greg Miller, Modified Sligh
I happened to notice a Mogg Fanatic while Greg was shuffling...great,
that's all I needed, a Sligh match-up. Well, I know what's getting
boarded 2nd game...
Things get off to a pretty darn decent start for me...two Black Knights
for blockers, a Sarco, and a Dauthi Slayer. I get some good damage in on
him, he burns me for a few and Scraps my Scroll when a key play comes
up. He plays a Viashino Outrider, tapping out. I have a Hatred in hand,
mana to play it, and the life to survive, so on the outside I'm all
stoic and stuff, on the inside I hear choir music and "Haaaaaallelujah!
Haaaaallelujah!" This lasted all of three seconds though, as he looked
at his land, looked at mine, then played a mountain. Decisions,
decisions. Does he have a Shock, and played that mountain as insurance?
I can't risk it, I just attack normally. Next turn, he plays
a....Scalding Salamander. Um, ok....BUT, next turn, he plays MOGG
INFESTATION ON MY CREATURES?! WTF?! Infestation? Salamander? I thought
this wasn't sealed deck?! In any case, I get 8 1/1 tokens, which
promptly get WRECKED by the Salamander...sheesh. Couple more smacks by
the Outrider and the Salamander, and a Sonic Burst finishes me off. Wow,
now THAT'S SOME SECRET TECH.
Game 2, I'm all about the Bottle Gnomes, as I draw two. He gets another
Outrider, and rolling Thunders away a couple Carnophages. I draw my
Stronghold...maybe, just MAYBE, I can recycle Gnomes like a madman,
which I do, but I can't get anything to stop him. Eventually, he starts
burning me for more than I can sac life for, and another Burst closes
the deal. After the match, I asked him about the one mountain situation
and if he had any direct damage, which he didn't. Oh well, I think I
made the right decision given the situation.
0-2, 1-1 overall

Between rounds I hear someone comment that, "Yeah, one of the judges
actually ruled that it's officially legal to yell, 'I'll be in a van,
DOWN BY THE RIVER!' during a match." Allllllllrighty then.

Round 3: Nic Daugherty, Elf-a-Clysm (for lack of a better term)
First game I get a Knight and Horror early. He manages to get a
Skyshroud Elf and a couple Muscle Slivers (not on the board at the same
time, just 2/2's), but the Knight eats them up. He uses the Elf for
white mana and Cataclysm's the turn after I get a Scroll out. Slows me
down, but I recovered better and took the first game.
Second game, oooooooh, look at this, first turn Lurking Evil. I activate
it during his discard, play Bad Moon on my turn, fly over his Wall of
Blossoms for 5. I manage to get a couple Carnos out before he gets a
Lifeforce. He doesn't have the mana to activate it the turn it comes
out, so I play ANOTHER Lurking Evil for insurance, not activating it.
The Evil beats him down, he plays a couple persistant Killer Bees to
stay alive, which promptly get Scrolled away, Evil finishes him off.
Afterwards he says something to the effect of, "I thought that card
(Evil) wasn't very good, but I think I've changed my mind."
2-0, 2-1 overall

Between rounds, oddly, I had my toughest match of the day in the
bathroom...
Me v.s. Roll of Toilet Paper
I'm stressing out as I see some cardboard begin to show, but I manage to
make a clean getwaway right before the roll runs out, and make it back
for round 4 with 10 minutes to spare. Phew....

Well, here's the match that will probably make or break me...
Round 4: Brian Ragan, Supa Secret Sneak Attack Tech (read on)
I go first, lookie here, first turn Lurking Evil, to which Brian
replies, "Certainly." Hmmm....
Evil and Carno beatdown commences, he plays a Vineyard...hate those
stupid things. I take a couple points of burn, but I'm able to dump mana
into a Scroll. I get him down to 6 life, WHEN....he plays an Endless
Wurm. Here's where "Marilyn" (he had on a Manson shirt) starts to really
act like an ass. A few times already, when I was debating on how to
spend the Vineyard mana, he would go, "Are you attacking, are you taking
burn, what?" in a deadpan voice, like he was getting bored. One thing
you don't do to me is rush me, especially when it means the difference
between 2-2 and 3-1. So anyways, I need two turns to kill him with the
Evil, but he needs one turn to kill me with the Wurm, since I'm at 7
life. So I'm sitting there for probably 20-30 seconds doing the math in
my head, when he flops backwards into his chair and sighs. At this point
I felt like getting up and getting a Coke for spite, but I make the only
decision I have, hold up on the attack, gang-block the Wurm, hope he
runs out of enchantments. He sacs the Vineyard during his upkeep and
attacks. Since I have a Bad Moon, the Wurm only tramples through for 1
(you know, that new rule might not be half-bad :P) but I lose both
creatures. Please don't let him play an enchantment, please don't let
him play an enchan...he plays Greater Good. Wurm squishes me next turn.
Second turn starts out fairly good for me again, when he plays Sneak
Attack. Couldn't remember exactly what that did, but after looking at
the first line of text, I remembered and spun it back around at him.
Next turn he taps one red and plays Crater Hellion! Before I even reach
to scoop up my creatures, Marilyn reminds me that the Sarcomancy
enchantment stays in play (I use the enchantment itself for a token
before it dies, then I move it to its proper place if the token does
die). I look at him for a second, and say, "Yeah, I know." He then taps
another red and plays...Phyrexian Colossus?! Blitzes me for 14
damage...Dear God!!!!! Next turn I get hit with a blitzing Wurm, Christ
alive, that was crazy. I offer my hand, and it takes Marilyn a second
before looking up from his cards and shaking it. I'm tempted to ask if
he can suck his own...anyways, that was cool tech, I was pretty
flabbergasted.
0-2, 2-2 overall

Farley and crew head towards the exit, but before leaving, Farley sucks
his chin into his neck and yells, "I'll be in a van, DOWN BY THE
RIVER!!!!" one more time. Couple people laugh, couple people say,
"whatever." Guess the novelty was wearing off.

Ok, 'nuff playing around, time to start applying smackdowns with extreme
prejudice if I want to make top 8...

Round 5: David Barth, Counterburn
First game I get off to a pretty quick start, but a couple turns before
he dies he manages to Disk everything away. Of course, I didn't play
EVERYTHING I had and plopped a few more creatures. Somehow he turns the
tides, and before I know it, it's 13-5 my favor, but things begin to go
downhill. Key play number one is when he uses his Dominating Licid to
steal my Horror and block my Slayer. As he hands me back my Slayer, he
taps one blue and says, "I'm ending the effect of the Licid." I sit
there and look for a sec. I think he thought maybe I didn't understand
how the Licid worked, so he spun the card around. I looked up and asked
him, "Are you ending the effect before or after damage is dealt?" He
replies, "Um, after, I suppose." I then tell him that after damage is
dealt, it's too late to end the effect, and the enchantment goes down
with the ship. He looks visibly disappointed, almost like someone shot
his dog. Hey, I gave him a chance to say "before" and take his play
back...sorry man, I've got to play to win. Anyways, I get 3, count em, 3
Bad Moons into play, with a lone 5/5 Sarco-token in play. He has an Air
Elemental and a Killer Whale. He attacks with the Elemental, and my
Sarco crushes his Whale. He plays another Whale, attacks again with the
Elemental, dropping me to 5. On the subsequent turn he's forced to block
my Steroid-Sarco with his other Whale or die. During his next turn he's
forced to leave his Elemental back, and I Stronghold for a dead Slayer
during his discard. During my turn his Elem gets crushed by the Sarco,
and I play the Slayer. Key play number two: Next turn he plays
Equilibrium, and he's got crazy mana out. Of course, on the outside I'm
stoic, on the inside I'm more nervous than a teenager getting laid in a
Friday the 13th movie. He plays another Air Elemental, but get this,
bounces my token instead. He says "Done." I shrug, take one damage from
the Sarcomancy during my upkeep, and send my Slayer over for 5 and the
game. By bouncing my shadow instead he could've stayed alive at least
one more turn. Oh well.
Second game....BROKEN HAND!!! First turn Sarco, second turn I ritual out
3 Carnophages. He plays Legacy's Allure, so next turn I play Bad Moon.
His lone defensive play was to use Contempt to bounce my token before
the Zombie beatdown got him. Only damage I took was 6 points of
Carno-damage. Funny, he had mountains, but I never saw a single burn
spell, and only marginal countermagic. Like I'm complaining, of course.
2-0, 3-2 overall

Looking at the standings, there's a few people with 3 points (one match
win) more than me, so if I sweep out the last round, something funny
might just happen. I pity the foo who I have to play next, I'm all
about  being focused at this juncture.

Round 6: Casey Miller, White Weenie
White Weenie? *choir music* Haaaaallelujah! Haaaaaaallelujah! The Gods
of Andon must be smiling down upon me this day. Weird, just a few hours
before I was concerned about White Weenie, but my first match-up went
well enough...
Stand-off happens early, I get a Sarco, Black Knight, Carno and Slayer
out, he gets two Warrior en-Kor, a White Knight, a Priest and a Monk.
Monk kills the Slayer (as always *grumble*), but he keeps everyone back,
content to hit me with the Priest. I manage to finally get a Scroll and
Tongs out before things get too lopsided, and as I get the momentum
back, he 'Clysms. He had to do what he had to do, but I came out of the
situation better, since he had the Monk, and I had a Black Knight and
the Tongs (TONGS! TONGS!). I'm trading him damage 3-2, I get a few more
creatures out, Tongs finish him off during my upkeep.
Second game I get off to a flying start, and he's forced to 'Clysm to
stay in it. Guess what I got to keep again? Black Knight and TONGS!
TONGS! In response to his 'Clysm though, I Strongholded for a Slayer,
and hoped that I'd topdeck some land after that (swamp in my hand). Two
turns later, I did just that, played the Slayer. He managed to get a
Monk and a Knight out before I was able to play Gloom, jamming his gears
bigger than crap since he was at two lands. I attack with Knight and
Slayer, Monk cacks the Slayer again. He hits me for 4 next turn,
dropping me to 6, but I'm not concerned, because I play Bottle Gnomes
the next two turns to hold his Knight off and give me the victory.
2-0, 4-2 final overall

Well, at least I broke the streak of sweep/get swept/sweep.
Unfortunately, 4-2 was just barely not enough to make top 8 (the 8th
seed had 13 points, to my 12). There was a big log-jam of people at 9th
place with 12 points, so tie-breakers knocked me down to 14th out of 64
overall. Respectable definitely, I just wanted that last point so
friggin' bad.
By the way, Farley made top 8. Apparently he didn't drop after all.
I couldn't stay to see the results though, my bus was leaving in 45
minutes.

Overall, there were 3 Academy decks on hand, and two made the top 8. The
only insight I really had about the deck was that the only things that
seemed to remotely come close to wrecking the deck were Energy Flux,
Arcane Lab, Rebound (although you don't Rebound the killing Stroke, you
Rebound the first or second one), and especially, ESPECIALLY Meltdown.
Bad thing about that is, though, I didn't see hardly anyone packing
Meltdown, and even so, Chill eliminates that threat.

I guess I have to do a mandatory Props and Slops, eh?

Props-
-Andon, for putting on a surprisingly cool tourney (my only other
experience with them was a state championship sealed deck tourney that
wasn't exactly stellar);
-Friendly, for hooking me up with an Evil and a Tongs, AND, for not
stalling for time during a game in which he played against
Academy...Academy player had 3 Chills out, but was running out of
time...seeing how Friendly had one mountain for most of it, he would
draw and say "done", and was actually cheering the Academy player (also
his friend) on to find the MoM, which he did with 2 minutes left on his
last turn (active player gets 5 minutes after regulation is up) to win
the match 2-1;
-Farley, for making the top 8;
-The eighth seed, for making top 8 with a Merfolk deck (again, now
THAT'S SOME SECRET TECH!);
-The dude who sat beside me when I played Marilyn, that played Recurring
Nightmare, who used it with Great Whale and Wall of Blossoms to draw his
whole deck, then used the Whale and a creature to generate enough mana
to kill his Sligh opponent with the single Stroke of Genius in his deck.
Wow, now THAT was a cool way for Nightmare to win. Nice tech, whoever
you are.
-Greg Miller (the Sligh player) for being just a hell of a guy, and even
letting me bum a couple of pizza slices off him.

Slops-
-Marilyn, for not only trying to rush me and psyche me out, but for
wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt;
-My friend, for standing me up for the second damn time;
-The janitor at the Holiday Inn for not keeping a fresh roll of toilet
paper in the stall at all times.

In any case, I would've liked to made top 8, but wouldn't we all? In any
case, WOTC, we need more events in WV...enough of this "screw you grits,
you guys can drive to Columbus" attitude I seem to be seeing. Hell, the
time and place wasn't even announced until a week or so beforehand, and
the kid with the ponytail that sold me an Evil said for a while, the DCI
didn't even have any friggin' records of plans for the event.
Anyways, I had fun, although next time i think two Terrors and an
Expunge will replace the Rains of Tears...heheh. Thanks for reading this
far.

Carl Jarrell
jarrel19@marshall.edu