Subject: [TOURNAMENT] IN State Championships Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 16:32:09 +0000 From: Aaron M Huntsman To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Location: Indianapolis Convention Center Format: Standard (Type II) Players: ~120, 7 rounds of Swiss God, I love Magic. True, it's not a game for everyone. It's particularly not a game for the intellectually challenged or the financially struggling. But few games in life are. It is, however, a game for me, and I love it. I don't care how badly they decide to screw with the rules. I don't care if they print stupid cards like Academy. It's *my* game, dammit. Ah, well. That's my inspirational speech for the moment. If I've kept one Magic player from committing hara-kiri in the face of Magic's current chaotic state, my work is done. Now, on to the report. God bless Indianapolis. In the face of a zillion Academy, Sligh and suicide decks, the Indiana State Championships managed to place 3 white weenie decks in the top 8. Yes, three. Unexpected? Perhaps not entirely, but it just goes to establish the city of Indianapolis as the WW capitol of the world. Who knows...maybe someday we'll have a decent football team. But I digress. Anyway, there were 3 WW decks in the top 8, of which I was one. I could break down the rest, but that's not why I write these reports (my decreasing stamina and short attention span could also be contributing factors). I'm concerned with the experience, because playing Magic is much more interesting than reading about playing Magic. I've been a big WW afficionado for some time now. I read Sean McKeown's states report on the Dojo, and heeded his call for players to try it out. Now, I'm normally not one to copy decks from the Dojo, I have to give Sean credit - this deck is very strong. Lots of prot-red and prot-black creatures plus a handful of Pariahs usually spells horrible messy death for mono red or black. And while it doesn't beat Academy outright, it has the weapons to keep it from going off before you can do 20. I give the field in Indianapolis credit, too - while a lot of folks did play Academy and Sligh, I knew at least one off-the-wall deck would do well. And there would certainly be some good players with WW. So I was sitting around thinking how to tweak the deck in preparation for a diverse field. The core of the deck is more or less optimal - variations were most often using Mana Leaks instead of Tradewinds, or a couple of both. Other differences were usually trivial. The deck wins the same way: smack your opponent with hard-to-kill creatures while keeping him/her from doing anything funny. So here's the deck: 4 Paladin en-Vec 4 White Knight 4 Soltari Priest 3 Soltari Monk 4 Warrior en-Kor 3 Aramgeddon 4 Disenchant 4 Incinerate 2 Earthquake 3 Mana Leak 3 Mox Diamond 4 City of Brass 3 Wasteland 1 Reflecting Pool 11 Plains 2 Mountain 1 Island And here is a very bad sideboard: 4 Pyroblast 3 Sleight of Mind 1 Meltdown 2 Dust to Dust 2 Wrath of God 1 Pariah 2 CoP: Red Nobody wants to hear how I actually obtained most of the cards at the last minute, so I shan't elaborate. I will give special mention to Leonard Richardson, from whom I obtained most of my Mox Diamonds and Paladins 5 minutes before the match started. Leonard, it turns out, is not only a fine player and judge, but a fine dealer as well. Suffice to say, the CoP: Reds should be Pariahs, and the Dust to Dusts should be Meltdowns. The fourth Diamond ended up being a third Monk, but three Diamonds worked out just fine. I sit down and wait for the pairings. George Pratt, our glorious and celebrated TO, shows us the grand prize: a State Championship plaque, and most importantly... the Indiana State Champion TOTE BAG *trumpet fanfare* Because you can't carry around your State Championship prize money, cards and plaque without... the State Championship TOTE BAG *trumpet fanfare* On to the tournament. 120 players, 7 rounds of Swiss. I have few notes on actual game details, and none of them are very important, so I'll just wrap it up and give the highlights. Here are the decks I was pitted against, in order: Turbo-Stasis Hot Buttered Elves Sligh Academy WW/r/b Academy Academy WW/r/u Now, I'll restate that WW doesn't beat anything outright. It can beat Sligh, but Sligh can beat it just as easily with THE DRAW that Sligh has a tendency to get. And again, it's very flaky against Academy. Even the games against Turbo-Stasis were tight. I also had no experienct playing against Academy - I personally subscribe to the Eric Taylor School of Playtesting (i.e. I don't). Of course, I've heard just about everything from everyone about it - it's broken and it isn't, it's unbeatable and it isn't, etc. I was fortunate, I think, not to have one go off on turn 3 on me. But I won't say anything else about it, since in a month it might not even exist in T2. The elf deck is interesting as well. If WW gets a poor land start, a quick Wurm can end the game. Again, the prot-red creatures give it fits. So, to make a long story short, I amass a record of 5-0 over five rounds. With two other 5-0's at that point, I get paired down to a 4-1 player, who is playing.... Academy. Crud. This being only my second match against Academy, and me basically getting a lucky win in the first, I make a lot of mistakes and lost hard. Double crud. That puts me at 5-1. The Tote Bag is slipping away. I must pull my act together. There is good news, though. Being ranked 8th at that point, I get paired against the number one player, me having already played almost everyone in between. Never having been in the position of almost making top 8 before, I don't bother to do the numbers. I take the intentional draw, figuring that even making 9th place would be an accomplishment for me. So I contemplate my navel for 60 agonizing minutes. Then I discover that I'm seeded... Eighth! The Tote Bag is once again in sight! My next opponent is Andrew Sandler! Who just beat me in Swiss with Academy! AAAAAARRRRRGH! Well, no sense in complaining now. I plow forward and see what fate has in store. Again, I don't have a lot of details. Suffice to say I got lucky again. Game 1, I come down hard and fast, even after taking a double-Paris, keeping my hand size down so he can't Windfall to victory. Game 2, I get an amazing draw, wasting a turn 1 Academy, Pyroblasting an Intuition and Disenchanting his Mana Vault while I wreck him with kannnniggits. Whew. That was inspiring. On to the semifinals. I face Tom Wethington, who is also playing one of the three all-American WW decks in the top eight. The other one already went down, and another will fall after this match. Game 1 is just too stupid to recount. It starts off with him taking a Paris, and me taking yet another double-Paris. He starts with a City, and I start by wasting it. Neither of us draw a land for eight turns or so. Finally, he finds a Plains, and starts playing creatures. Finally, I find a Plains, and I start playing creatures. Several turns later, we've both got a small army of creatures out, but I've been burning a path for my Monk to get through. I finish him off with an Earthquake. In go the Wraths - this was specifically what they were in the sideboard for (although they might have helped out against green). Game 2 starts with me taking a Paris. Sheesh! I decide to keep my six-card hand which contains one Plains and one Wasteland. Big mistake. It was a gamble, and it resulted in my quick demise. You have to actively mulligan with a deck like this - it needs a fast start, because it doesn't need that much mana in the midgame. Game 3 is just what WW vs. WW should be - somebody draws more creatures and wins. In this case, Tom won. I was holding Wrath, but never had the mana to cast it. That's it. No tote bag for me. But, of course, it's not all about the tote bag. The state championships should be about fun. Magic is too screwed up right now to be taken seriously. I suppose that's the real reason I'm writing this report. As I said at the beginning of the report, I love Magic. I love Magic because it's a game of social interaction. But most of all, I love playing Magic, because playing Magic is a lot more fun than reading about playing Magic. That's my message to everybody. Anyone who's fed up with the troubles Magic is going through right now, I beseech you to take your face out of the Dojo for a moment and actually _play_ Magic. Magic is a game of social interaction. Somehow, I have to believe that this amounts to more than just playing the same decks that everyone else is playing. I have to believe that it amounts to more than complaining about the same things that everyone else is complaining about. I believe that it amounts to actually playing the game, deciding what it is they *like* about the game and what they've learned in playing it, and relating it to others. That makes Magic positive. That makes Magic a *game* instead of just a cash cow. Prizzops: All the friends and folks in Indy who make playing Magic in Indy fun and exciting: George Pratt, Leonard "Part Six" Richardson, Sam King, Yogi Alvarez, Paul "That Boy Ain't Right" Givens, Theron Martin, Ryan Roe, all the Goal Line crew, Mitch and the crack judging staff, anyone else I forgot, and everyone who actually read through this whole report. The tote bag shall someday be mine... ------------------------------------------------------ Aaron Huntsman /\~"~/\ KaiFerret on IRC \=.=.=/ "Chirp!" Team FAL member =\ T /= aaronhun@willran.com ''' ------------------------------------------------------