Subject: The Colorado State Championships and DEEP BLUE. Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 17:10:29 -0700 From: "Otwell, Chris" To: "'The DOJO =-= Frank Kusumoto'" , =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-= Colorado State Championships: Nov 14. 105 People turnout to participate. I show up nearly 90 minutes before it starts. I show up and get a dozen people asking for advice on how to either beat the deck or how to play it against those that are trying to beat it. Obviously, I came with Deep Blue, and everyone that would know me, knew it. Of course, since I'm relatively well known... Well, anyway, I (or a friend) goes around asking the good players of Denver (Josh Napper, Sam G. , Eric Kirkman) for the strategy of the day, of course looking for any bit of knowledge that tells me what they are playing and planning to sideboard against. Pretty funny to see one of them looking for anyone to trade him a Twiddle. 8^) Gotta love Deep Blue. The Council of Masters, showed up with the following decks: 4 Deep Blues - Standard (Bob Bonner, Dan Layne, Chris Otwell, Mike Williams) 2 Tolarian Variants (A Creature Beatdown Variant, with Zur's Wierding and Fountains of Youths, actually pretty good) run by Jared Poole, the person that inspired me to develop the Idea of Deep Blue into a real killing machine. The other ran more artifacts and a few Gambles (I disliked this idea, but he went with it), run by Tony Dent. 2 Red/Green Land Destruction decks run by Eric Blackmore and Bob Goodfriend. 1 Mono-Green Endless Wurm (Anti-Academy) deck, running 4 Hidden Guerrillas and Titania's Songs in the main. Usually beats Deep Blue around 80% of the time, though I have seen it lose to Animated (by TSong) Scroll Racks and Mana Vaults Beat Down. Deck by Gary Aganon. 1 Fish Deck by Cory Pockat, with Annuls main deck. 6 of the 10 were Deep Blue or variants of it. Well... Steve Boeff ran the event, as Head Judge. After round 2, Steve's dislike for the "Rules Cheesing" as he called it, caused a few of the Deep Blue players some problems, but we survived. Basically, he rules against the play of Costing a MOX, and while in play, tapping a Tolarian Academy for mana (counting the MOX in play), before Dealing with the CiP cost of the Mox Diamond. I disagree with him about and give an attempt at a case for it, but no good. He was pretty sure about it. This came during the 2nd round of the event. Quick Break Down of my Rounds. Round 1: a Red/Blue control Counter Phoenix deck. Game 1: Pretty simple, I go off turn 2, after capsizing and buying it back ALL him permanents. He was rather annoyed by that. Game 2: hard fought with Permission from both sides and meltdowns, and advenutally locks me into a bad position with no artifacts in play, and a pair of phoenixes in play. Game 3: I draw 1 Lotus Petal, 1 Island, 4 pyroblasts, and 1 Windfall. I decide to keep the hand. After drawing no lands and no artifacts for the next 10 draws, I lose. Big Mistake on my part. I proceed to kick my self all day long. Record: 0-1 Round 2: A Blue/White Millstone/Arcane Laboratory deck. Give him a swift beating, twiddle a land as need be to allow me to have my way with him in both games. Record: 1-1 Round 3: A Blue/Red Phoenix Deck. Similar Results, giving him a massive beating with my Twiddles. 2 games Record: 2-1 Round 4: Hatred Deck. Both games last 3 rounds. 1st game, I go off as normal. 2nd game, I put out a first turn Light Of Day, giving me more than enough time, if I wanted it. just so happened that I didn't need it. Record: 3-1 Round 5: Mono-Red Sligh deck. Both games, my decks just falls to pieces on me, after needing to mulligan twice each game. Pretty damn sad. I'm rather pissed off, that I do easily lost a match, that I was so prepared for. After all, I ran 4 chills and 4 Hydroblasts in the sideboard. Record 3-2 Round 6: Tolarian Variant, as run by Tony Dent. Game 1: I go off on turn 2. Game 2: He goes off on Turn 2. Game 3: Was massive. Took over 20 turns before I broke through his defensive with some well timed Pyroblasts, and wastelands. I win match. Record: 4-2 Round 7: Red/Green Land Destruction by Eric Blackmore. Of course if you play your own team mates in the last 2 rounds of Swiss, in a 7 round events. Something went both Right and Wrong. Both games end on turn 2 or 3. I'm pretty happy to beat the deck 2 straight that the Council built to beat Tolarian Academy. After the match, Eric and myself play another 16 games, of which he wins 14 of them. But I got the two that matter the most. End of Swiss Record: 5-2, ranked at 11th. Not real happy with it, since I gave the match away in the first round, and my deck self destruction in the 5th round. But none the less, it did well. Only Mike Williams did not take Deep Blue to the Top 16. Bob Bonner played 9th, after getting a Time Limit drawing in the 7th round, against the Tolarian Deck that finished as Runner Up in the end. If Bob would of won the match, he would of been in the top 8, and Matt Johnson would of probably not made it. Oh well, though I still think that Matt Johnsons's version ran too many artifacts (24) and too many lands (19), he still took it to 2nd place. Tony Dent and Bob Goodfriend also made the top 24 as well. I still think that if I was given a second chance, I would of gone 7-0 with Deep Blue. damnit. Cory and Gary both finished at 3-4 overall, with the anti-academy decks. Highlight for me, Beating Land Destruction when it mattered. Regrets of the day, keeping my opening draw for the first match. Highlight for The Council of Masters, when Tony Dent pulled off 2 Turn 1 Kills through out the day, including the 3rd game of the 7th round of Swiss. Maybe the gambles do pay off.... Noting that I also played against 5 blue decks and only lost to the first one... Top 8 of Colorado consisted of: 1 Academy Deck 4 Sligh Decks 2 White Weenies 1 "Other Rogue Style" Deck. With Rob Raven coming out on top with the First Place. In his slight deck style, he ran Main Deck Nevin. Disks, as well as Scrolls and Meltdowns. The first match of the finals with Matt Johnson (Academy) and Rob Raven, was delayed as Rob proceeded to ask Steve Boeff to do everything imaginable to the Academy deck (IE: Checking for Sleeves being marked, shuffling patterns, having Steve shuffle his deck, etc.) wasting nearly 20 minutes of time, going through these worthless drills. He ended up losing the first, the won the second and third, after nearly 90 minutes of playing. Anyway: Deep Blue (A particular implementation of the Academy Deck) 4 Tolarian Academies 3 Wastelands 3 Cites of Brass 4 Islands =-= 14 Lands 4 Mox Diamonds (All the Jewelry, as needed) 4 Urza's Baubles 4 Lotus Petals 4 Mana Vaults 2 Scroll Racks =-= 18 Artifacts (Pretty standard, though I'm not sold on Keys at all) 3 Minds over Matter (Jared's MOM is gonna kick your ...) 4 Twiddles (ABSOLUTELY THE BEST CARD IN THE DECK.) 1 Capsize (Must have one, just in case) 2 Intuitions (Demonic Tutors) =-= 10 Blue Utility Cards 3 Brainstorms (The Ancestral Recall) 3 Strokes of Geniuses (The Braingeyser) 4 Meditates (The Other Ancestral Recalls) 4 Windfalls (The Wheel of Fortune) 4 Time Spirals (The Time Twister) =-= 18 Blue Card drawing Cards 60 total cards. In retrospect, I guess maybe Ancient Tombs or more Scroll Racks since they help against the Meltdowns. Sideboard: 4 Pyroblasts 4 Chills 4 Hydroblasts 2 Light of Days 1 Glooms And yet, I still lost a match to mono-red.... ARG! But in the end, I was happy with my deck. I warned everyone world wide to be prepared for it. Many tried, but many failed. Many others tried to reproduce the deck themselves, and I offered advice as I went. helping many others to make variations of it that they did well with, including a few others that placed in the top 8 in their State Championships as well, or second day in Rome. Now, I think that Academy is NOT YET A BAN-ABLE CARD. I think that WotC would relax over the next 3 months, and look for more evidence that the deck is truly as broken as many seem to believe. What I find broken, is that MONO-RED counted for more than 40% of the Top 8s in the State Championships. So far, we have had 50 State Championships running Standard, and 1 Pro Tour running Extended. Do we really think that 1) Enough Evidence exists? or 2) That everyone was really ready for the deck? I think that the answer is NO to both questions. To Mark Rosewater -- Please Don't Jump the Gun on this deck. We need more evidence, before it's banned. But coming Dec 1, many of the proponents for banning, will be looking to Mr. Rosewater, for help, only because they can't build good enough decks to solve their problems for them. We know that this deck is bearable. We have proof of this. Why it did well, was due to the lack of preparation and understanding of this deck. But if he does ban any piece of this deck, I want compensation for it!!!! I want another version of the Time Twister printed!!!! I've waited 3 years before Type II finally gave me the missing component of speed recursion!! This was the TimeTwister for Type I. We finally have the replacement for it, and I don't want to see it disappear from any format any time soon. I'll write another article in the near future on the Academy, and what will be a Nuclear Winter, until the players understand on how to stop it. Chris =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= So, who put a stop payment on my "Reality Check", anyway? Christopher E. Otwell Software Engineer ICQ # 14585768 (719)-392-6782 (Home) (719)-567-9506 (Work) otwell@worldnet.att.net otwellc@jntf.osd.mil