Subject: Florida State Championships 2nd Place Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 19:45:22 -0500 From: Alvaro Sousa To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- Deck Name: Sousa's "Gohaac Red" Florida State Championship Tournament Report by Al Sousa I am usually a blue player in type 2 but seeing the Acadamy Deck just made my control feeling go sour. I did not think that a well balanced counter spell could stop the acadamy and the thought of not having Impulses, Man-o-War, and quicksand made me sour. A 20 counter spell blue deck would be clobbered by weenie and red decks, well at least lose the first game. They would be able to stop The Acadamy. With 20 counters and Arcane Lab. it should not be a problem. Now my style control deck relies on offense deception and control. Heavy creature based with 8 to 12 counters. I can beat red, and any other weenie, although an excellent black draw will hose me anytime. The problem was I would lose to this super speed combo deck, yuk. Prosbloom was easy, this is a pain in the butt with counters. So I examined the field and came up within a week of the states my red deck. I generally don't like red but I do like mine :) I made a non standard deck that the whole key was Goblin Lackeys and Sphere of Resistance. That was the trick. I had my control and was super fast to beat the other decks. Everything was cheap and I should beat blue every first game. I tested on Friday at Giant Comic Book Warehouse in Orlando and went 5-0-1 drawing for the prize. It was so-so players but I generally housed them, I didn't lose one game. Hmm maybe it has potential. I created my standard blue deck and it was well balanced but the lack of key cards made it vulnerable. I stuck with the red. The morning of the tournament a one of my friends was playing Living Death saw my deck and dropped his in favor of my red. I didn't come up with a name for my deck till I wrote this report. Gohaac Red means the following "GOblins that HAte the ACadamy". My skills in magic are not constructing new and brilliant deck ideas but analyzing the field and creating something solid and strongly metagamed. Gohaac Red had the spheres first game for the slow down against any decks even other weenies. vs suicide black any red deck should win vs white weenie I have less of a chance then the Sligh decks I have 4 slots that are sort of useless but I did not figure on seeing a WW today but I am afraid of it vs blue I should beat easy first game with the delay factor sphere and the speed of the lackey 2nd and 3rd games the lackey helps get around counters and chill vs living death the spheres kill and I can win quick. Killin birds and land is the key as is the sphere vs sligh I have a disadvantage with the sphere but an advantage because my creatures are a little beefier vs academy the sphere should delay the enough where I can kill them is 4 to 5 turns after side board I should win game 2 or 3 since its almost 50/50 vs yogmoth KILL the druid and win vs tradewind its the same as living death Match 1 vs R/B weenie Both games came down to me double scrolling him to death Match 1-0 Game 2-0 Match 2 vs Yogmoth/Druid Game 1: saw the druid, killed it, killed him, did not know what he was playing Game 2: he got the combo turn 3 Game 3: Pro red druid comes out, smartly I held my scroll till I saw him, game Match 2-0, game 4-1 Match 3 vs Living Death Game 1: overran him and the spheres assisted a lot Game 2: he saw 4 walls and stalled me long enough to pound me with a whale, I was close though Game 3: wall/survival/feeder combo came down but again the wastelands and spheres allowed me enough time to overpower him Match 3-0, Game 6-2 Match 4 vs The Academy Game 1: he got a bad draw I win Game 2: he went off and friend my brain Game 3: key pyroblast wins it Match 4-0, Game 8-3 Match 5 vs Blue Whale Control Game 1: sphere did him in as rushing goblins came to embrace him Game 2: delayed him long enough to where his life was low and I top decked the winning incinerate it was close though he almost capsized all my lands Match 5-0, Game 10-3 Draw the next 2 Finals Round 1 vs The Academy (Andrew Pacifico) Game 1 sever lackey power beat him by turn 5 before he could set up Game 2 slow draw he brained me Game 3 sever lackey power draw almost kills him both he and I forget a meditate he cast but the judge catches it and my extra turn beats him Match 6-0-2, Game 12-4 Finals Round 2 vs The Academy (Richard Meyer) Game 1 goblin power beatsz down opponent fast, he had a poor draw Game 2 he MoMas early and makes me a genius Game 3 he fireballs 2 opening draw pups and puts me at 16 2 minutes left and I go for broke playing creatures and I drew a defensive draw of pyros, beat him to 12 and say done, as he draws his card the timer goes off, he must dig for the fireball to win, the sphere slowes his mand down and I win on life Match 7-0-2, Game 14-5 Finals were boring vs Sligh Game 1 he beat me Game 2 I beat him Game 3 I draw too many lands, he beats me Match 7-1-2, Game 15-7 The key to the whole deck is the sphere and when to drop it. The luck is getting that first turn against your opponent. It all simple math. Dropping a sphere and delaying that disk for one more turn allows red fast creature to do the extra "X" points of damage. With any manipulation deck that used lots of mana it works better then land destruct because every spell costs one more. Living Death really suffers to the sphere unless they get a super anti red draw. With the oinging of the birds, wastelands and the sphere this deck does not have that big a problem with it. In Florida these were the top 8 decks not in any order. 3 Acadamy decks 2 Sligh type decks (me being one) 1 Blue deck (this one was a grindstone deck wit 21 counters) 1 Tradewind deck 1 Suicide Black deck I played 2 of the acadamy decks and one of them played the other. my sligh counterpart got the easy end of the pyramid playing trade wind then black. Any questions.... winky51@gate.net Al Sousa (#2 in Florida State Championships)