Subject: Re: MTG-STRATEGY-L Digest - 1 Dec 1998 to 2 Dec 1998 Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 20:40:54 EST From: Matt Adams To: MTG-STRATEGY-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Tournament Report- IL State Championships 11-29-98 Well I wake up at about 7:15AM, and my buddy Robert comes over about 7:30 we do some last minute mana tuning on his Sliver deck. I give my buddy Jim (our driver) a call and I woke him up… he should have been at my house by then. He reassures me he'll make it by 8:00 and he arrives at 8:02 AM and off we go to the Holiday Inn Express in Palatine, IL 9 minutes away. We arrive and register our decks, and my buddy Jim has seemed to lost a wasteland, so he buys one from a dealer and finishes registering his deck, and we get the announcement at 10:06 AM that we have the highest turnout in the country: 139 participants. 8 rounds of Swiss will be played, 70 minutes each… 9 HOURS!! Ahhh. Here's the deck: Angry Elves 4.0 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Seeker of Skybreak 4 Priest of Titania 4 Fyndhorn Elder - sided out often…. They needed rest. 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Skyshroud Elves Kill 4 Fireball 4 Coat of Arms Control/Library Manipulation 4 Winter Orb 3 Disenchant 4 Stroke of Genius Land 3 Gaea's Cradle 4 City of Brass 1 Skyshroud Forest 2 Karpulsan Forest 7 Forest 1 Thran Quarry Side: 2 Scragnoth 2 Meltdown 1 Disenchant 3 Absolute Law 3 Lifeforce 4 Pyroblast Anyway, we start off and round one begins at 10:15 AM Round One: Me vs. U Fish (forgot to write down name) Game 1 Well I see him drop an island, and I think, TB… first game? AHHH. I play my hand, elf. Next turn, elf, and a seeker. My hand flies out, and I realize he's playing fish… I try to stroke myself at the end of his turn, and because I was pretty sure he wasn't playing with counters, I was disappointed to find out he was… countered with a Forbid. Anyway I soon realize my elves out number his fish, I get aggressive with no Coat of Arms out, and sail to victory, the seekers making the most damage. I win 8 life to 0. Game 2 I side in Scragnoth for Fyndhorn, and don't worry about pyro's for now. I leave the Coats in, realizing they might have ended up useless against another theme deck. I draw a scragnoth, and he begins the beatdown on turn 4. He gets him down to 4, and I fireball with the few lands I have left. He sided in Legacy's allurn, and had 3 down by turn 6. He stole and killed my elves, but the Scrag survived to do almost all the damage… yea!!!! Snag: 2-0-0 1-0-0 Round Two: Me vs. Jim Trehas playing 'Wicked LD' (LD with wurms, burn, and scrolls) (Yes, this is my buddy Jim) Well this was weird, I knew he was playing LD, and there wasn't much I could do. He had burn and scrolls, and he just really beat the crap out of me. He wanted me to write in that I had no permanents on the table at the end of both games… so here Jim…. YOU BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF ME!! HAPPY NOW!?! :o) Snag: 2-2-0 1-1-0 Round Three: Me vs. Gary (G/R semi effective for it's lack of consistency) Game one: We both Paris twice, and I really didn't draw much. He just gave me a beat down with an Albino Troll, and I really couldn't do much because of lack of coat or fireball. Oh well. Game two; I sided in nothing. And just gave him a coatless elven beatdown, he lost a cradle guard and a troll because he didn't pay the echo. He was the one who caught it, not I. I'm glad to see honest players are still around! Game three: I drop elves in bulk, and then he drops a Priest himself, and ends up with a Child of Gaea, it's too bad I had two seekers out and a priest, and a few other elves. I fireballed him for 20… whew… I can't take a beatdown with a 7/7 trample/regenerater!!! Snag: 4-3 2-1 Round 4: Me vs. Andrew Pulley (3cWW / based around Pariah/and protection: X creatures.) Game one: First off I'd like to say this deck kept me guessing… he drops some plains and a city of brass… and you just never know what to expect. Anyway I drop a turn 4 coat of arms, with 5 elves out, and he's forced to block with two paladin en-vecs. Next turn he's finished. Game two: I don't know what he sided in, but he pulled out 6 or more cards… I'm thinking… great parish. Anyway down come the elves, and down come the pro:red shadow guys… I have to ask him what their summon type is, because he has a few knights in play… and it's in Korean. He looks to his hand and says cleric.. and I smile. I didn't drop the coat, and choose to fireball for 16. He took one from the city for something, and I end up attacking with overwhelming elves… game. He tried to top deck a wrath or an earthquake… but to now avail. He didn't draw any mass removal in either games(earthquake). His deck was based around pariah, and it just beat the pants off two sligh decks… but the elves are just over powering… hee hee. Oh and I have written down he's a friendly guy. And he was. I hope to play him again. Snag: 6-3 3-1 Round 5: Me vs. Ted (mono green beatdown) Game one- Elf, elf, elf, bird, elf, elf, cradle, forests, city, fireball….20. Game. Game two- He must have sided in Caps… cause he CAPED my ass… ( I ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT!!) he finds only two fireballs….. I wonder where the other ones are… hum… not in my graveyard… he gives me a glare, and I say in the nicest way that I'm sorry… so he pulls two fireballs and a stroke. I go on to fireball him for 16 points… twice. He tells me it was overkill, but I didn't want to screw around with he feeder and weaver and let him go to 1 life or something. Oh well. :o) Snag: 8-3 4-1 Round 6: Me vs. Larry (a well tuned version of TB) Game one- He COUNTERSPELLS (not powersink) my coat of arms on turn 4. That would have been it. He goes off on turn 5 or 6. Game two: I side in 4 pyros 2 meltdown, and another disenchant. Out with orbs and elders. He goes off on turn 2 because of 4 timespirals. Oh well. I never saw a 30 minute turn till then. Snag 8-5 4-2 Round 7: Me vs. no show (playing no show) Game one and two: I fireball for 6.02 x 10^23rd on the first turn both games. Snag 10-5 5-2 Round 8 me vs. Greg (3cWW,with worship and scrolls) Game one: I loose bad… nothing else to say, he just attacked with 2/1 shadow pro red, and I couldn't do jack! Game two: Coat of Arms, and beatdown with 4 elves. He drops a worship and a spirit linked shadow pro black guy. I dispatch both for the win. Game 3: I fireball for 1 I think. I also think I sided in the 4th disenchant in case of worship. He got mana screwed with a city and a wasteland. Oh well. All in all I end with a record of 6-2. I'm ranked somewhere in the low teens with no chance of final 8. It's really the match with Jim that killed me. He ended up 5-3… Props: Jim Trehas- for driving, and going through THREE TB decks, 2 WITHOUT SIDEBOARD! OH YEA! The dealers. The prices they had were really reasonable, and they were all pretty cool. The judges: for not disqualifying Jim because his sideboard was only 14 cards. They only forbid him to use it for the rest of the tourney instead. My opponents: All of you were really friendly, and made this tourney a lot of fun. I hope to be back next year. Robert- for reading and slightly correcting this article, it had a lot of grammatical errors… and for being there to playtest. Slops: Everyone was cool, no one to slop in this report. Well that's about it. Thanks for reading. SNAG Snag83@aol.com