Subject: 1998 West Virginia State Championship
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 23:03:17 -0500
From: "Brooks Martin" estratus@email.msn.com
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org

Hello Everyone.

The 1998 West Virginia State Championships were held November 7, at the Charleston House Holiday Inn.
Due to contrary belief there were 65 people in attendance, not 64, one person was left off the original listings. Mike Guptil, head judge of the event, was pleased, and I believe suprised with the overall tournout, considering last year we had an overwhelmingly large turnout of 12 people in the master divison...oh yeah...that's sarcsm folks.

The Format was Type II, with 6 rounds of swiss then a cut to the top eight.

For those of you who want my deck list, (like we need more?)
here it is....

2 Wastelands
4 Tolarian Academy
8 Island

1 Capsize
2 Powersink
2 Meditate
3 Twiddle
3 Intuition
3 Tournabout
4 Windfall
4 Stroke of Genius
4 Time Spiral
4 Mind Over Matter

2 Urza's Bauble
2 Scroll Rack
4 Lotus Petal
4 Voltaic Key
4 Mana Vault

Sideboard:

1 Tournabout
2 Hydroblast
2 Power Sink
2 Tidal Warrior
2 Capsize
3 Energy Field
3 Propaganda

I'm very happy with the main deck, but my sideboard choices were terrible. I chose to metagame against Suicide Black variants. Energy Field and Propaganda shut it down, along with most other weenie decks, but the lack of chills came back to haunt me in the semi-finals.

Before I get to the tournament report, first some sidenotes and corrections on other reports from the WV State Championships...

Jason Hager was not playing suicide black, he played the ultra cool whale recursion tech. Also, he is not a member of Team Sea Monkey ( In case you are wondering, and I'm sure you are, Team Sea Monkey is the name given to us by the local Vampire players)

Finally, I stomped Holbrook the first game of our match, but you'll hear about that later...now on to the report.

I arrived at the hotel sometime around 8:30, only three other people were there at the time, by 9:30 though, some 65 people had shown up, a larger number then anyone expected. The tournament was supposed to have started at 10:00, but the hotel had set the tables up wrongly, it took a few minutes for that to be fixed. On a lighter note, we had some 35 new players, this can only bring about good things for the state of Magic in WV maybe one day, we'll have a PTQ scheduled in Charleston. (Note: Anyone who is reading this article and is from WV e-mail Andon telling them you want to see a PTQ down here, it could happen!) But any-hoo the tournament started half an hour late, but anyone who has been to a prior Andon event knows that this has to be a record.

I didn't write down anyone's name so forgive the inaccuracy of my report.

Round 1

She was a newer player, still in the 'Craw Wurm is god phase' I didn't see much of anything from her, just land both games.
Game: 2-0 Match: 1-0 Points: 3

Round 2

I can't remember much about this guys deck, I think it was counter burn, though I never saw much of anything.
Game 4-0 Match: 2-0 Points: 6

Round 3

Suprise, I actually remember something from this round. My opponent was Heath Baker, playing Merfolk, which I must say took some balls. But hey, he made me a believer.

Game One: He lays first turn Tidal Warrior, second turn Tidal Warrior and Wasteland. From there the game goes downhill, he quickly delivers 20 points of damage and I reach for my sideboard.

Game Two: He lays a first turn Tidal Warrior, I get a second turn Energy Field, fourth turn Propaganda, this shuts him down and I sit back and wait for my combo, which didn't want to come..I ended up going off though, some 12 turns into the game.

Game Three: He lays a first turn Tidal Warrior, notice a theme here? I get a Propaganda down turn 2, and sit back and wait. Late game I have most of the combo in my hand a MOM and an Academy out, he has three Forbids in his hand, and mana to use them, one with buyback. I cast a Turnabout on his lands at the end of his turn, he Forbids it, I cast another Tournabout, he Forbids again. I still have 5 cards in my hand, one Time Spiral, and four others I didn't need, so what do I do? Do I tap his three lands with the MOM? No, I sigh and take my turn...so now, do I tap his lands? No, I tell him to go, on his turn the judge calls time. My only play mistake of the day. I guess a draw is better then a loss though...oh well.

Game: 5-1-1 Match: 2-0-1 Points: 7

Round 4

Once again, I don't remember much about this match. My opponent was playing counter burn. I swept both games.

Game: 7-1-1 Match: 3-0-1 Points: 10

Round 5

My opponent was playing a straight burn deck, hardly any creatures, only Ball Lightning, but I don't count those. The first game goes by easily for me, I went off fourth turn, second game was much of the same.

Game: 9-1-1 Match: 4-0-1 Points: 13

At this point I was feeling pretty good about myself. I knew that barring something really bad happening, I was going to make the top eight. Secret Ballots were taken for those people that have a chance to make top eight, to decide whether that player wants to play or draw....

Round 6

My opponent was Todd Sampson. We had both chosen to Intionally Draw our match. With the two hours free time before the Finals started, I headed to Burger King.

The Final Eight

1. Greg Keen 15 pts Academy
2. Matthew Holbrook 15 pts Sligh variant
3. Jason Hager 15 pts Whale Recursion
4. Todd Sampson 14 pts Academy
5. Jeff Curry 14 pts Suicide Black
6. Brooks Martin (me) 14 pts Academy
7. James Bennett 14 pts Suicide Black
8. Heath Baker 13 pts Merfolk!

Quater Finals

Before the quater finals started, I took about 5 minutes out to psych myself up, and get in a positive mindstance. It worked.

Opponent: Jason Hager

Game One: He doesn't do much, I go off turn three.

Game Two: He doesn't do much again, I go off turn three, again.

After the second game he shows me a lobotomy in his hand, good thing I killed him before he got to cast it, I had a Stroke in my hand since my opening draw. Overall though, these two games were the most dominant and successfull I had all day.

Semi-Finals

Opponent: Matthew Holbrook

Game One: Holbrook lays some land, some creatures, and is one turn away from killing me when I go off. Note: Another article on states says I lost this game, but I actually did win.

Game Two: I'm feeling pretty confident I can beat him, if I get a good draw, and I do. Only he gets a better one, after Pyroblasting 2 Energy Fields, he kills me fourth turn.

I still feel I can beat him, but I'm starting to regret not putting chill in my sideboard. I make a mental not to myself to do so, and after shuffling, I offer my deck to cut, he does, and so starts game three.

Game Three: God draw! god draw! I can go off turn three with this hand for sure!
Or so I thought. When turn three comes around, I lay a MOM and ditch my hand to add more mana to pool, I cast a Time Spiral, he Pyroblasts it. For all intents and purposes that was game.

I ended up Fourth, not bad since States is the only tournament I have ever done well in, last year finishing second behind James Bennett, who ended up seventh this year, so I guess I redeemed myself on that point.

Final Standings

1. Matthew Holbrook
2. Todd Sampson
3. Gregory Keen
4. Brooks Martin
5. Jason Hagar
6. Jeff Curry
7. James Bennett
8. Heath Baker

A note on Matthew Holbrook and his deck: Not taking anything away from his play skill, since I did not see him make a play mistake the entire day, I believe that it was luck that won him this tournament, he has stated the same himself in another article. I don't think it matters that he only had 3 Cursed Scrolls in his deck, or that he had one Ironclaw Orc because he was a card short and needed to throw something in. He obviously built a deck that could handle the field and with a little bit of luck, could beat the Academy.
Congrats Holbrook.

Props

-First and formost to Andon Unlimited. If they hadn't taken a chance on West Virginia this year,(last year they lost thier asses) we never would have had the '98 State Championships.
-To the Judges, Mike Guptil and Sean ???? (forgot) they held the most effeciently run tournament I have ever been to .
-To Jeff Curry, For his impressions of Chris Farley. "I LIVE IN A VAN, DOWN BY THE RIVER."
-To Team Sea Monkey, for showing the rest of the state who's the boss.
-To Heath Baker, Merfolk are cool!
-To myself, for finishing 4th.
-To John Giroir, for being the coolest magic player in the state.
-To Todd Sampson, for running Ogre's Lair.
-To any Andon people reading this, because you are going to hold a PTQ here.
-To Mike Long for retiring.
-To Greg Keene, The Mike Long of West Virginia, for not going into extraneous information on his tournament report, because we _really_ didn't want to hear it.

Slops

-To Greg Keene, for _not_ realizing he is the Mike Long of West Virginia.
-Again to Greg Keene for writing a tournament report, we _really_ didn't want to hear it.

Feel free to email me at Estratus@msn.com. All comments will be answered.

Thanks For Reading.
Brooks Martin