Subject: Team Asskicker Reigns Supreme (TOURNEY REPORT - SMK PT5 QUALIFIER) From: majesk@aol.com (Majesk) Date: 1996/09/24 Message-Id: <52a0f5$pj4@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Okay, maybe I was the only Asskicker who made it to the tourney, but it was worth it . . . The Date: Saturday, September 21st, 1996 The Place: Knights of Columbas Hall, Brighton, MA The Event: Pro Tour V Qualifier - IA/AL Constucted Deck It was time. Time to win, that is. Since being unable to afford airfare to Long Beach for Pro Tour II, this Asskicker had run into a string of horrible luck and circumstances preventing my inclusion in the Pro Tour circuit. Since placing 30th at the first PT, I'd been unable to make my way into the winning position of any of the qualifiers I'd played in; all 2. The Boston qualifier for PT3? Shut down in the quarterfinals by lack of sleep, a dick for an opponent, and mistakenly land taxing. The NJ qualifer for PT4? Mana screwed before the swiss rounds even started; I had 2 swamps in my starter deck, and all my good cards were black. But now was the time for the Junior world championships, and this Asskicker, at least, was ready to show the world a thing or two about Magic. I didn't have much time to prepare. Having just moved into school the week before, I didn't exactly have three solid weeks of training time like Mr. Justice for the worlds. I didn't have the cards I needed, I didn't have the deck made, I didn't have anyone to playtest against and it was only a week until the tournament. I sat in Chemistry making and remaking decks, changing the preliminary configuration hundreds of times down to the land proportions between the major and minor colors. I knew what had to be done, and I did it. IA/AL centers around about a half dozen cards; Jokulhaups, Thawing Glaciers, Kjeldoran Outpost, Deadly Insect, Stormbind, Mind Warp, and Browse. If you can't beat them you can't win. Use and abuse them, or be able to beat them. I chose a combination of the options. I am a control freak; if my opponent is able to do something I don't want them to, something has gone wrong. I took this philosophy and applied it to what was one of the most feared monstrocities in Brighton on Saturday. I played 4 games with the deck against Rick Warfield's Browse/Outpost deck and built the sideboard. I played about 3 or 4 more games the night before and left for the tournament. I got there a little late (meaning early) and none of the other Asskickers were to be found. That's our biggest problem as a team; getting to tournaments. The general situation is that we decide to bus it the night before when everyone else has planned their trip weeks in advance. But that's just part of being an Asskicker. I hook up with Jim Allen and Pete Guevin and we joke about our decks. I'm finishing my sideboard and getting cards for the deck as we talk, as well as scribbling down the decklist. Tom (who is the head judge for the tourney) comes over and laughs at my decks, telling me arcane denials suck. Yeah, right. I get the Shapeshifters out of my deck and borrow some ivory gargoyles to replace the proxies. The Lim Dul's Vault that was holding the place of a lava burst I couldn't find goes into my box. I debate the land distribution up until I turn in my list, and wait. I fool around with Mike Bregoli as he's testing his browse deck out. He's the person who knocked me from the top 16 at PT1. I couldn't draw a Pyroclasm, Fireball, Bolt, or Incinerate, OR anarchy as his orders walked on past my hippy and vamp. That's the last big tourney I played Hymn to Tourach, the broken piece of shit. Anyway, I was taking his turns for him as he played and making fun of his sideboarded Illusionary Forces, showing his a Pyroblast in my Sideboard. Right. The first round pairing go up. I look at the sheet and can't find my name. I look at the top of the sheet and it says "Master Division Qualifier". Oh, great, where's the juniors!?! Maybe I'm blind, not just color blind. My name's right there, and I find it and go to my seat. Who's across from me but Jon Boyd. Jon was a PT3 participant and did really well with the SMK necro deck. I ask "You playing necro?" and he shakes his head and says "No, you?" I grin and show him the one swamp in my deck. The match gets underway, with him playing first and me glaciering first. He throws down a swamp. My glacier hits. His next swamp and knight. No necro, huh? I pump up the mana and blow away everything he gets out with incinerates, pyroclasms, and plowshares. My signed mind warp hits him for a glacier and ritual, and my unsigned one comes in 3 turns later. I garglehaups when he gets high on mana, fearing soul burn, and he comes back quick to throw a lava burst my way. The standard hydroblasts deal with that. Game. Next game, in comes outpost #3 and mr exile. Both work out and he dies trying to dystopia me with the dude ranch on the table. I nearly fall asleep before the next round. I read the duelist'sideboard and wonder how Tom Chenpheng got away with 15 land. I get mana screwed with 18-19 in a 40 card deck. Hmm . . . Anyway, I get paired up with a senior who eventually made the final 8. First game, I'm mana screwed and get my glacier pillaged. A jotull wurm runs me over and I haups, but elves get him out of the hole and he kills me. Next 2, I bring in the 3rd post and Cop Green & Exile. He dies to circlejerk game 2, as everything stops when it hits the Circulo dec Protection: Verde. I eat a strider with exile, and gargoyle/blinker him to death. Game 3, hydroblast and arcanes protect the outpost and dudes eat him for lunch. For some reason I forget my next round. I don't recall what happened, but I won. Hmm . . . 4th round I run into the timing rules from hell deck. Recursive critters and inheritance and skull catapult and outpost and nastiness everywhere. Game 1, I'm afraid to haups for fear of ashen ghouls eating me up. I win with blinkers. Game 2, I draw everything I need. 3 Plows and Mr Exile. I knock those ghouls out of the game, never letting a Krovican Horror stay on the board. Lodestones let him thin out the land I get stuck between his critters, and again it is close, but blinkers and a COP White win the day. 5th round - my nightmare. I'm paired against Pete Guevin, who saw my deck earlier. Needless to say, he has the advantage. First game - I draw nothing. He gets 2 glaciers, I get none and no pillage. He haups when I start to do something, and mind warps the shit out of me. I lose. Game 2 - In goes 2 caps and a helm, plus assorted goodies. He drops a cap the turn before I can counter. Ugh. I lose stuff. He drop another cap. Ugh. My helm hits the table, and I helm for a bunch. Like 16 total. I hit a cap (!!!), mind warp, and more good stuff. I finally get a blinker, which immediately goes farming. Mind warp hits me and I have no way to win left in my deck. I'm hoping to deck him. Another cap hits the table. I concede. I find our decks to be nearly identical, except I play arcanes, he has sinks, he had more glaciers, I have more outposts, and he has, obviously, far more caps in his sideboard. Round 6 is possibly my most draining round of the tournament. I am paired against Brian Burns, who is (from what I can tell) an SMK regular. I've played against him before, in type 2 however, where my Energy Fluxes ripped his Worb deck to shreds. This time, there was no Death-by-Flux, but a long, drawn out match that had my heart pounding till the last draw. Game 1, he dies horribly to blinkers, gargoyles, and haups. Game 2 is the opposite. He annhialates me with a swarm of knights and dude ranchers. Game 3 was possibly the closest game of magic I have ever played. It began pretty normally, with him summoning critters and me blowing them up. I couldn't find any creatures and pretty soon I was low on life - like bolt range low. I was forced to plow the blinky I'd finally gotten out, and next draw; the miracle Zorb. Now I was on the offensive. I slapped a COP: White down and, with the Zorb, he was totally shut down. I was low on cards left in my deck, as I was glaciering like mad. I drew Lava Burst, but was uncertain as to what he had in his hand, because I knew he played with Scars of the Veteran. I decided, if nothing else, it would draw the card from his hand and bring him low, so I fired. 16 points put him at zero. He pumped his knight to 3, and plowed it. Damn. Just waiting for an incinerate, he drew. His turn for a miracle; zuran orb. Damn. I FINALLY drew some real offence, and had him sacking lands to stay alive under my blinky/gargoyle/dude ranch onslaught. I pillaged his zorb, and about 20 lands went flying off the table as he slurped them down. Soon, I had a pair of Outposts churning away, and my dude count skyrocketed. He finally succumbed to the horde of cowboys with 2 minutes left in the round and one card left in my library. Whew. Round 7 was nothing interesting. My opponent was playing dude ranch/protection. Game 1 - my dudes came out faster, backed with blinkers. I win. Game 2 - His dudes come out faster. He wins. Game 3 - I administer the massive beatdown with The Cap. I haups one digger and a ranch, and when the game is called on time, he has one digger left in his deck to with. Stalling . . . such bullshit. So I finished 5-1-1; a record that would have gotten me into the senior division finals, if I had chosen that bracket. Instead, I was so easily locked in the top 8 juniors that it wasn't funny. I was seeded second going in , and paired up against a kid who I played next to first round of the swiss. He was playing R/G LD with Stormbind, Bugs, and Hordes. I have 29 land in my deck, plus 2 baubles. I was not afraid. Game 1 - I draw a fistful of land and pillages, with no disenchant in sight. He slaps me with LD, and I lay a zorb. He throws enough DD at me to nuke a small city, and has me soft locked under stormbind, sacking a land every turn. Still no disenchant. Finally, I draw - Hydroblast! I will never regret playing these standard, as he gives me a "what the hell?!?!" look as I blast the bind. Trusty blinky comes out next, and I draw counters and more. The smackdown was delivered by mr blinky and a dude ranch - dat's game! Next game - I make a stupid mistake and attack with all my dudes when he has a bug, thinking I can stop his bug with my ranches. He attacks, I make 2 dudes, he icys one and bolts the other and I take 6, dropping me to 1. He draws and nukes me next round. Game 3- Garglehaups cannot be beaten without plows or counters. End of story. Next was Mike Bregoli in the semifinals. As I already explained, we'd joked around beforehand about his sideboard, and I was ready. Game 1 - Browse/Digger/Cap. I drew plowshares and pyroclasms in my opening hand. I lose. Game 2 - We were starting to get wacky from lack of sleep, playing all day, and the fact that he was already qualified, so we probably don't take this game as seriously as we could. We notice really late that he never payed upkeep for his binding grasp on my blinker, so I get it back and start pounding. I end up getting him at a point where he has no counters and I break his digger. Game 3- Never happened. Mike was tired and decided to pack it in and go home, so he conceeded. Hey, I can't blame him. I'd been up since 8:00 that morning, and it was nearing 2 AM. He had to drive home to western mass, so it made sense to me. So I was in the finals! AND GOING TO DALLAS! Finals were against the #1 seed overall - not just juniors, but the entire tournament. I'd seen his deck, and was not that impressed. Bug-Gargoyle-Ranch-Stormbind. Wow. Original deck. First game he had all goyles and blinkers and I had all heat. I lose. Game 2 - I got haups off at a key point, and recovered faster. Double dude ranch/blinky kick his ass. Game 3 - I have nothing. I draw no buisness cards except a cap, and pull his haups and a pillage. He has one card in his hand and all his gargoyles are in his deck. He draws and plays a gargoyle. No plow in sight. He draws, plays a gargoyle. Ugh. I draw, no plow in sight. I lose to a massive lava burst with a zorb in my hand. I'd have died 2 turns later to goyles, with nothing else but a haups in my hand. Wow. Good game, huh? Anyway, I'm going to dallas. That's the point of this whole tirade, I guess. I'll be there to represent the Asskickers, along with Mark Lepine (who finished 12th in Atlanta). It's gonna be an all Asskicker final, baby! We're coming down there to beat down everyone who's willing to play. Chances are, though, that everyone's going to chicken out again. Nate and Lepine were feared by all in Atlanta, and Finkel and Bentley wouldn't play me in New Jersey. Hmm . . . and that was before the T shirt. . . . hehehehe. See you in Texas! Nothing but the ramblings of a raving lunatic, Brian Kibler Member Team ASSKICKER 1064th Rated Type II Player Designer of "That Thing" - The Best Type 2 deck in the World