Subject: GA States Report Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:15:02 -0500 (EST) From: Sol To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com GA States Report, by Sol Malka (ahem) HEY YO! Here's what went down at the Georgia State Championships this past Saturday, 11/21, in Atlanta. It actually bears a striking similarity to the regionals in which Alan Comer built and played Comer'Zilla and a few friends played it into the top 8--while Comer himself finished 9th. Preliminary nonsense: I was up all night playtesting with Eric Ewald, Joey Leake, and David Hsu from GA Tech, as well as Chris Donahoe. I had a solid deck (list to follos) featuring Tradewind and Survival which I planned to use, and David wanted to go WW/x, but the rest were looking for a deck. I threw out an idea for a G/r weenie/utility deck (below) which would be able to support Root Maze, which I thought would be strong vs. academy. Then we tested it vs. Donahoe's version of Academy and it won so handily we scrapped the Root Mazes! Joey was the first to get together all the cards and build it, but Chris was impressed enough to build it for himself. Eric liked it better than his B/u weenie/Worb deck but we only had the cards to build 2 versions of the G/r so he stuck with that. I "boldly" declare that one of us 5 will make top 8. After a full night of playtesting (yup...no sleep for me), we headed for the event. I played the aforementioned tradewind/survival deck shown here: "RogueRiderX" (if you've got a better name--shoot) 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Wall of Blossoms 1 Gilded Drake 4 Tradewind Rider 1 Morphling (friggin' amazing) 1 Monk Realist 1 Monk Idealist 1 Gravedigger 1 Shard Phoenix 4 Bottle Gnomes 4 Survival of the Fittest 4 Legacy's Allure 4 Disenchant 2 Armageddon 2 Scroll Rack (really good) 6 Island 2 Adarkar Wastes 4 Forest 2 Brushland 2 Karplusan Forest 3 City of Brass 1 Thran Quarry 2 Reflecting Pool Joey Leake and Chris Donahoe played (more or less) the G/r Weenie/Utility: "Big Poppa Pump" 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Scavenger Folk 4 Elvish Lyrist 4 Albino Troll 4 Spike Feeder 2 Lhurgoyf 4 Fireslinger 3 Symbiosis (Eric's--I originally had 4 scrolls and 2 Overruns) 4 Incinerate 3 Cursed Scroll 2 Hurricane (Eric's anti-Rider tech...I originally had Mirris) 7 forest 1 Gaea's Cradle (Chris played 2) 2 Mountain 4 Karplusan Forest 3 City of Brass 1 Thran Quarry 4 Wasteland The G/r is named for WCW Wrestling's Scott Steiner of NWO Hollywood (of course). The nickname is also given (by Chris Donahoe) to the amazing Albino Troll itself. Eric played the B/u Weenie/Worb: "The Cure" 4 Carnophage 4 Sarcomancy 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Dauthi Slayer 3 Black Knight 3 Skittering Skirge 4 Duress 4 Sicken (all me baby) 4 Mana Leak 4 Winter Orb 3 Mox Diamond 4 Underground River 15 Swamp So what's with the tech, and the name? Sicken is really good vs. birds, soul wardens, pups, slingers, shadows, and the like. How many decks will drop one of those on the first or second turn? A lot. And vs. creatureless, sicken is about as good as wall of blossoms (actually better, it cycles as an instant). The name comes from the fact that the deck uses Sicken, and Sick Boy (a WCW wrestling scrub) uses as his finisher a move called the Cure (I am about the only person who's ever seen it). But on to the tournament. turnout was in the 80s, double last year's. Format was seven rounds of swiss cutting to top 8. I'll leave the other guys to describe their matches if they so choose--here's mine. Round 1: Del Parker, WW Game 1 I draw 5 lands, a legacy, and a phoenix and keep drawing land. He is running WW and gets 2 or 3 2-power critters in play, and chants the allure. I idealist it but he chants that too. I drop the phoenix and kill *1* creature (pro-red and en-kor). I die having drawn 9 lands and 4 action spells in my favorite matchup. Game 2 I get enough land and set up behind a tradewind. Eventually I survival for the drake and steal all his creatures that I don't kill with phoenix buyback. Game 3 I keep an island/pool/birdx2/wall hand and get the allure out turns 2 and 3 but don't get any green. He gets out 2 warriors en-kor and a soul warden, and spirit links one of the warriors. With 2 and 1 counters on the allures he declares the attack and I steal the linked one. He attacks with the other; I steal the warden, block with the warrior, and redirect to the warden. He gets out a white knight and geddons next turn. this kills 4 of his lands, and my 2. I promptly draw the Forest I'm due for and get out a bird, then a wall. Finally I realist the link, get a tradewind out and lock him before he gets 2 land. 1-0, 2-1. Round 2: Darren Summerville, Academy Game 1 I get first turn birdage (going second) and chant a vault. I also lay a wall and get a turn 3 tradewind. Turn 5 Darren tries to go off with 2 islands and an academy in play; I have a bird, rider, wall, and adarkar untapped w/ another disenchant in hand. He spirals and I forget to shuffle my hand (3 cards) into my deck. I get a warning but the game continues and I finish resolving the spiral, to which I had responded by tradewinding his academy. Darren draws another academy and vomits forth some artifacts and goes off. Game 2 I get good mana early plus a Scroll Rack. I have 2 caps and 2 pyros in the stack, plus a chant. When I get 4 land and 2 birds I lay a cap successfully. I cap on the end of his turn and get 3 spirals. A couple turns later I get the other one through and get 2 MoMa's and a stroke, leaving no MoMas, strokes, or spirals in his library (all in his hand, or sided out). Meanwhile Darren lays island after island, probably saving the artifacts for the academy. I finally lay enough land to fetch the Morphling to end the madness (bottle gnome beatdown just doesn't cut it) and it's over in 3 attacks. Game 3--we have 2 minutes left after game 2 and don't start game 3. 1-0-1, 3-2. Round 3: Jason Hillman, C-Phoenix Game 1 is all Jason's. He blows a disk removing birds, survival, and a gnome. I fetch my phoenix in response but he lays *3* phoenixes over the next 3 turns, and I need to suffer 2 damage from cities to recur my 1. Game 2 I get good early birdage and something gets forbidden. I get out the morphling unchallenged. He lays a disk after chumping with his phoenix; has 2 islands open. I chant and he has no basic counterspell. the disk was his only hope vs. the morphling as he has no RRR to recur the chump blocker. Morphling goes all the way at 5 a clip. Game 3 I get out a tradewind early with 2 friends (wall/gnome), and that is huge as he can't disk. He attacks once with a phoenix and I take it since the rider is sick. I get out thalakos drifters for some beat; he blows the phoenix and tries to kindle the drifter but I rider it and he doesn't respond (no pyro for the rider). I cast it again and beat down for the win. 2-0-1, 5-3. Round 4: Jeremy McCoy, Academy Game 1 he parises once and never gets it going. I tradewind lock him. Game 2 he parises twice, and I counter the card drawing I think, and cap him as well. 3-0-1, 7-3. Round 5: Robert Caggiano, Sligh-tech Game 1 he doesn't get any beat going (just a flunky) but he does kill all my nonbasics and birds leaving only 2 forests and a wall. Finally he puts Destructive Urge (standard) on the flunkies and maybe ball lightnings me; I take the ball rather than losing land. I eventually draw into some land and get the tradewind lock on with the assistance of HIS flunkies :-) He concedes. Game 2 he petals out a 3rd turn rathi dragon and pyros my tradewind. I got propaganda but he drew more land. Game 3 he bolted me a few times but I just had too many gnomes and he conceded when I had the tradewind lock on. 4-0-1, 9-3. Round 6: Jody Dunville, Academy Game 1 he stalls out at 2 or 3 mana. Thankfully I didn't draw too many dead cards (creature theft) and was able to get a tradewind set up I think. Game 2 I drew a good deal of pyros and counters after he windfalled (for only a few cards, as I was able to cast stuff early like a tradewind). I get out a cap and take 3 MoMas; the 4th is in the graveyard so he has to spiral to win. The tradewind keeps him under 4 mana needed to untap the vaults, as he had used them to try to spiral (pyro) earlier. The vaults do most of the damage, and when Jody is under 10 I survival for the idealist for some beatdown (morphling was discarded to windfall, and gravedigger was sided out). Jody makes a last-ditch attempt to spiral but my last card in hand is a counterspell. 5-0-1, 11-3. Round 7: Bart Edwards, Sligh Intentional draw. 5-0-2, 11-3, into top 8. Meanwhile Joey has won his first five matches and done 2 intentional draws to make top 8 with my green/red! Chris has also made top 8, losing to a B/u necro but winning 6 times with the same green/red! Together they were 3-0 vs. academy in the swiss. Cool...3 of my decks in the top 8. Looks like the sleepless night paid off. Eric dropped at 2-2. He is an excellent player and the deck is solid, but it just hated him. Quarterfinals: Bart Edwards, Sligh Game 1 I get a couple walls, 1 of which lives. I get a gnome too to keep him from attacking with a pup and flunky. Finally he drops 2 mogg raiders. I survival for a phoenix and kill 3 of his creatures (can you say "stabilize"?) Then I get out a tradewind and geddon. Game 2 I get some early propagandas (1 of which gets pyro'd) but take a considerable amount of damage nonetheless. I go down to 7 with a wall and gnome in play and him reduced to a flunky thanks to a legacy's on his mogg raider (he blocked it w/ pup). He TDs a ball w/ no cards in hand; I block the flunky with the wall and go to 1. I survival for a gnome and start beating down with 2 gnomes. I think I get out a tradewind too to keep him land-light. He manages only a pup, and I somehow got rid of the flunky. When he's at 2 and I have 2 gnomes (good enough for the win) I draw my phoenix and instead of attacking I cast it and sac it to kill the pup and hit him for 2! The crowd gets a laugh out of that but wait...in response he goes to wasteland my Adarkar out of spite! I respond by popping it back to my hand! I win and make top 4. Chris and Joey also win. I now have 3 of the top 4 decks! Chris is paired with Jody Dunville. Semifinals: Joey Leake, Big Poppa Pump (feel free to shorten that if you feel silly saying it :-) ) Game 1: I draw ass, with only a wall out early, and a useless geddon and 2 disenchants in hand. Joey mulligans to a solid elf/slinger/feeder start followed by a 3/4 goyf after one of my walls dies along with some other stuff. In desperation I put out my morphling, tapping out. I think about racing him but decide to just block and hope to draw something helpful (I don't), forgetting about the morphling's ability to UNTAP (realized this later, oh well, I had been awake for 36 hours at that point). I'm not sure if it would have mattered, since he had the feeder, but he wins. Game 2 I start with wall, gnome, rider, and 4 lands. Joey mulligans again I think but doesn't suffer for it as he starts strong including 2 slingers and a troll. He pyros my first tradewind; I draw another and that gets pyro'd too. the scav folk eat my gnomes (3 life) so the third tradewind only had a wall to work with, and by then Joey had a slinger, feeder, goyf, and troll out. I got a gnome, but was too low to really stabilize (blocked 3 creatures, sacced the gnomes after bouncing the wall) and didn't draw anything to save me (maybe the drake would have done it). I lose and settle for top 4. Chris Donahoe (the only other person besides me to make top 8 at last year's T2 states and this year's) defeats Jody 2-0...making it Poppa Pump vs. Poppa Pump in the finals! Both want to split since it's basically a coin toss, but they can't. they play it out and Chris wins 2-0, due to Cradle speed in the first and earlier fat in the second. So, from our playtest group, Chris Donahoe wins the title of State Champion. Joey Leake places second. I make top 4. Not too shabby. Comments: Morphling--Just put this card in your deck. It's that good. It's clearly better than Silver Wyvern (virtually all the time) and it makes Zephid look silly. It can be a 5/1 attacking flyer and untap to be a 0/10 blocker, untouchable all the way. And it's a combo with Tradewind too. Gilded Drake--Control Magic with buyback. Beats other tradewind decks since you survival for it when they cast one, take their tradewind, then next turn use their tradewind to bounce back the drake. Ridiculous vs. WW. Props/Shout-outs: Chris Donahoe--for winning it all (adding to a fine year that already includes top 8s at Regionals and GP-Atlanta), and for naming the deck Big Poppa Pump ("Holler if ya hear me") Joey Leake--for making the finals and together with Donahoe going 4-0 vs. the enemy (academy) Eric Ewald--for sticking with The Cure even though it hates him Jay "The Great" Campbell from GA Tech--for showing up on the magic scene again after, what, 2 years?!?! (this dude is best known for taking several turns in a row, fireballing you for 100 and showing you a hand of counterspell, mana drain, mana drain) Dan Baker--for going 5-2 with his own W/b Darkest WW Sleep Slops: No one in particular Peace out Sol Malka nWo Hollywood (FL) -- Still Black & White "4 Life" gs11slm@panther.gsu.edu