Subject: CT state championship report-Derek Gallen
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 22:40:18 EST
From: SHWteeth@aol.com
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org

CT States Tournament Report

State championships were held on the seventh of November in The University of Hartford in Hartford, CT. 92 people attended the event, and it was modified swiss style, type 2( 7 rounds-the top eight move on and it becomes single elimination). My friend Mike M. and I both decided to play the deck Counterphoenix(Counterspell, Shard Phoenix) because it was what we both decided to be a versatile deck that could potentialy beat academy decks into the ground and also could beat suicide black decks and sligh decks as long as I didnt draw nothing(i.e.=i drew something good).
Here was the deck i was playing with:
4x pheonix(i called them something else...but i wont mention it here)
4x incinerate
4x counterspell
4x forbids
2x force spike
2x dismiss
3x intuitions
4x nevinyralls disk
1x stroke of genious(tech!)
2x mana leaks

2x wastelands
16x islands
12x mountains

Sideboard....
1x meltdown
1x wasteland
1x fylamarid
2x grindstone
3x pyroblasts
2x inderdict
3x wall of diffusion
2x sudden impacts

well, let me start off by saying that the day started off with a good omen! There was no soap in my shower......hmmmm.....not good. I had to rely on one of those damn liquid sud soaps with the poofy thing. Me and mike woke up at around 7:00am by the way, and we were finally out of the house and scraping off Mikes car at around 7:45. We didnt get to our buddies house that we were taking(part of the local tourny buddies:Chris and Tommy Choma) untill almost 8:30 because I will admit that I'm terrible at directions. We had to stop to get something to eat and when we FINALLY arrived at the University of Hartford, we couldnt find the place to play because the signs were this big ---> ' . Anyway, we were one of the last people to arrive so we had to sign up quickly(and I had to give my buddy Chris Bock his deck to play with..oops!). So here are my matchups:

Round one
vs. Josh Mannochi "aka" Beavis
playing Draw-Go of some sort

Damn, already starting the tournament and I had to play my buddy from Barrons Comics and Cards, so I was upset for I usually lose to him. However, he made a mistake by playing an arcane lab and me having forbid lock(i actually tried to counter the arcane lab! forgive me all you Counter Pheonix players!) Anyway, I ended up winning game 1 through pheonix beatdown and game 2 through forbid lock.
2-0-0 overall:1-0-0

Round two
vs. Dan McNeil
playing the ever popular TURBO BAD

The gods were out to hate me, for I now had to play another local, and was severly upset to have to play him. Turbo BAD was a green/red LD deck with Argothian Wurm, Raze, Stone Rain, and Desert Twisters. It was severly fast with Vineyards. I ended up losing game 1 due to the fact that I drew 4 land(with 30 land in the deck...go figure)and lost severly to an Argothian Wurm. Game 2 I couldnt handle Vineyard damage and he finally got an Argothian Wurm out. PROPS to you Dan!
0-2-0 overall:1-1-0

Round Three
vs. Jeff Lieberman
playing Draw-Go of some sort

A good player, and I happy to play him for it was someone I didnt know! He, like Josh Mannochi, made the fatal mistake of dropping arcane lab on me game one(this time not a single counter flew at it!). I said"SURE!" and proceeded with forbid lock after dropping my pheonix to kill his Ertai. Game 2 I got the most awsome draw ever created by mankind(well, it wasnt that good, but I think I was claiming a little to much because of it). A grindstone, 2 pyroblasts, 3 land, and intuition. wow. 4-5 turns later I drop my second grindstone and was laughing through the match. I need to apologize sincerely to Jeff in case I sounded too conceded. I decked him that game.
2-0-0 overall:2-1-0

Round Four
Ray something-or-other(sorry I didnt catch your last name)
playing the everdreadfull ACADEMY

I showed the fact of how bad a player I truly was in this matchup. Game 1 I was able to counter and get out pheonix's, along with the fact that he drew absolute jank for the whole matchup. Game 2 I was really badly playing, possibly had to big of a head. I had my grindstones out and had gotten him to ten cards in his library. He strokes for 10 and timespirals, and guess who intutioned for a disk, a forbid, and an INTERDICT!?!?!? Anyway, he got his groove on and stroked me for enough to kill me. Game 3 we were called for time, but he was at 5 and I was THAT close to schooling him, but I didnt ask for my 3 rounds because thats all an academy deck needs to win.
1-1-1 overall:2-1-1

Round Five
vs. Jeff Senecal
playing some weird Millstone deck

I was very aggrivated in this match, because I felt cheated out of game 2. Game 1 I get my pheonix's out and proceed to ring the beatdown alarm, and didnt see a millstone. Game 2 we played millstone/grindstone war, and this was where the contraversy came in, for he was at 10 and I attacked him with 2 pheonix's, and he said he was down to ten, and I had two witnesses that said that he was at 10 at the beginning of his turn. Unfortunately, I lost the argument and he millstoned me to death. Game 3 I took him to school with pheonix's. Thanks Jeff, I dont care if you cheated or not, but dont do it again.
2-1-0 overall:3-1-1

Round Six
vs. Brian Beyor
playing....SLIGH

This was my fatal mistake, for I didnt even expect to see sligh, since Mike convinced me that the loss of fireblast was too much for a sligh deck. Lets just say he beat me so hard I couldnt walk out of the room.
0-2-0 overall:3-2-1

At this point I dropped, because 2 losses was too much for me to handle. however, I thought I did relatively well for my first state championship.

SHOUT OUTS:
my first and main shout out goes to the man who played "turbo-congregate" or "stream-a-geddon", because that deck was so ghetto and so beat, but it beat the hell out of my buddy Mike who was playing counterpheonix.
My next shout-out goes to Chris Choma for getting third place with suicide black.
My next shout out goes to all the cute girls that play magic in connecticut...if you saw the kid with blonde streaked hair and wanna talk, E-mail me!
My next shout out is to Dan McNeil, who made it to the top eight with Turbo Bad, its such a bad deck!
My final shoutout goes to all the people who came to this tournament to play a great game, and I hope that this game gets better, not worse, and we all keep playin, and keep playin!

......no chris, I wont mention the fact that you made thirteenth with draw-go, i wont.

Derek B. Gallen
Stratford, CT
Part of Gang Devon