Subject: Syracuse Qualifer From: freedomtwo@baka.com (Graham Free) Date: 1996/08/20 A report: well, around 8:00 on sunday; me, jonah, and jacob were on our way to the pro tournament qualifier in syracuse. We got there at 9:20. We all decided to play in the Ice Age/Alliances Qualifier (there were sanctioned japanese sealed deck and a type 1 tournament). We all decided to play in the juniors (but it doesn't make a difference until the finals). They didn't hand out the decks until about 10:30. Then we recorded them and gave them back to the judges. around 11:30, we started making our decks after we had been handing out different decks (they don't want anyone to cheat). My deck turns out to be: 1 Glaciers 1 Diabolic Vision 1 Phantasmal Fiend 1 Lim-Dul's Cohort 1 Moor Fiend 1 Phyrexian Boon 1 Dark Banishing 1 Wild Aesthir 1 Carrier Pigeons 1 Kjeldoran Skynight 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Soldevi Sage 1 Storm Crow 1 Spiny Starfish 1 Glacial Wall 1 Sibilant Spirit 1 Force of Will 1 Power Sink 1 Ray of Command 1 Soldevi Sentry 1 Phyrexian Warbeast 1 Wall of Shields 1 Whalebone Glider 1 Mystic Compass 1 Sol Grail 6 Island 5 Swamp 4 Plains Sideboard: (cards I am not using) Veteran's Voice Storm Shaman Wall of Lava Enslaved Scout Sabertooth Tiger Orcish Conscripts Orcish Lumberjack Panic Melting Battle Frenzy Barbarian Guides Essence Filter (this should have been an essence flare but it was recorded wrong and the judge made me use essence filter) Taste of Paradise Bounty of the Hunt Deadly Insects Gorilla Pack Fydhorn Brownie Freylaise's Charm Elder Druid Aurochs Stench of Decay Seizures Pestilence Rats Burnt Offering Royal Herbalist Kjeldoran Warrior Martyrdom Prismatic Ward Rally Death Ward CoP: Blue Storm Cauldron Viscerid Armor Illusionary Wall Clairvoyance Suffocation Hydroblast 1 Snow Covered Island 2 Snow Covered Swamp 1 Snow Covered Plains 1 Snow Covered Mountain 3 Mountain 1 Snow Covered Forest 3 Forest My deck isn't using a lot of mana, but it doesn't have too many spells costing 2 of one color and I think with the Sol Grail and Mystic Compass I can get away with it. I am upset about not have the Essence Flare, it would have been useful for killing x/1 things. Round 1: I win the first two games easily with his mana problems and a fast phantasmal fiend on my part. His deck is W/G/U and I sideboard clairvoyance (for counterspells), cop:blue, and stench of decay. In the last game he hits me early with a wild aesthir, then I get out the Skycaptain but puts a White Scarab on his Aesthir and kills me! 1-0 matches, 2-1 games. Round 2: Once again I win the first two games easily, but in the last one he gets off to a fast start with gorilla shaman, rime dryad, and fydorn elf followed by a lim-dul's paladin. He hammers me down to one, but then I draw a Sibilant Spirit which I can band with my shield wall to stop the paladin, and I win! 2-0 matches 5-1 games. Round 3: He has a fast deck, but I am able to defend easily and swat him with fliers. He makes a mistake by saying damn, I didn't draw any mountains after the first game, so I sideboarded in all my anti red stuff. I sweep him. 3-0 matches 8-1 games. Round 4: Wow, I am on board two out of 140 players! I sweep him. In all the games I stop his offensive and kill him with flyers, although in the second game he gets out cop: black and cop: white and I do 15 points of damage with a whalebone glidered soldevi sentry, killing him. 4-0 matches 11-1 games. Round 5: He is playing R/W/G. The first game I win. The second he wins when he suprises me with a howl from beyond off a barbed sextant, but I win the third. I was playing on first board. 5-0 matches 13-2 games. Round 6: In the first game we both get mana screwed, but he draws land first and kills me with his paladin. In the second I use mystic compass to turn his school of the unseen into a forest and glaciers to keep him from casting any red spells, and a sibilant spirit snacks on him (I win). In the third I get mana screwed again, and lose to the paladin. 5-1 matches 14-4 games. Now it is time for the finals, I tied for 3rd out of 140 players. I think I have a good chance to win the junior section. Right now it is 8:00 I am informed that the finals don't start until 9:20 because the are giving us a dinner break. Jonah and Jacob both finish 3-3 and won't make the finals. We go eat dinner. It was 9:30 and the finals hadn't started so I call my parents to tell them I will be late, but since it takes over an hour to get back my dad makes me come home since I am getting a ride with Jacob and he doesn't think they should have to wait for me. So I have to drop out and don't get any prizes. Oh well. Looking back on my deck, I wouldn't really have made any changes, It might have been smarter to have used the stench of decay instead of the glaciers in the main deck because I didn't encounter quite as many red decks as I thought I would, but It didn't cost me any games. I think against Lim Dul's paladin (a big problem for my deck) I should have sideboarded in 2 forests and the elder druid. Basically I think the reason I did well because my deck had a lot of good solid permanent removal/creature defense and flyers, plus counterspells and some quick offensive creatures, as well as A LOT of anti red stuff. The sibilant spirit and the whalebone glider/small flyers won me more games than I played. The phantasmal fiend was nice too. I thought about including some of the small white creatures, but they mainly wouldn't just sat there not attacking and not blocking because the would have been killed. Viscerid Armor is nice but doesn't do anything vs an attacking creature if it is the only card you have. Clairvoyance and Stench of Decay were strong enough to use in the main deck, and I sideboarded them in a lot, but I didn't have enough space in the main deck Graham