From: David Goodnuff Subject: OK Chicago PTQ 7/5 Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 00:01:47 -0400 We had tested a fair bit for MiViWl so we all felt that we had a good grasp of the environment. Of course the environment is rock-paper-scissors of course. We had mentally labelled control as rock, fast offensive as paper and fatty type decks as scissors. We ended up having basically 2 decks an abeyance 'rock' deck and a burnburnburnIkillyounowyoudie *fast* mono-red burn/weenie 'paper' deck. I ended up playing the mono-red deck that Red built that was basically "I'm going to hit you with these really crappy little 1/1s and 2/2s until you start casting stuff then burn you to death". Round 1 vs r/g fatty deck Ugh... I'm playing paper and hit scissors first round. Well to be honest I don't really recall the first two games much due to how the third ended. I do remember I made some *horrible* mistakes though and was rather embarrassed. Anyways, in the 3rd game I'm at 11, he's at 19, its my main phase. I have 2 keeper or poopus, 3 mountain, and 1 quicksand in play. He has 2 5/5 guys, a wildfire and a 6/6 maro. I have 2 hammers, a torch, a final fortune, and 2 fireblasts in my hand. After calculating for a bit I decide that if the top 2 cards of my deck are land, I can still win. So I hammer him. He attacks and brings me to 4 (he was 1 land short of torching me to death). My turn I draw the mountain, hammer him again and cast final fortune. I draw the 2nd mountain (Red was watching so some of his top-decking must have rubbed off I guess :) torch-fireblast-fireblast I win. This was to become the theme of the day...burnburnburnyoudie. 2-1, 1-0 match Round 2 vs r/b land destruction Well he was playing LD with burn. I burned him quickly first game, he burned me quickly 2nd game, I burned him very quickly 3rd game. Pretty boring and luck based...gee who can draw the fireblasts first? One interesting thing. Every time he cast an LD spell the entire match, my next draw was a land. :) 2-1, 2-0 match Round 3 vs R/g creature/burn with savage twister He had mana problems 2 games in a row. Vs a burn deck with 14 creatures that can be cast in the 1st 2 turns and 15 burn it wasn't pretty. We finished before the people next to us finished shuffling for their game 1! 2-0, 3-0 match Round 4 vs Bill Macey's necratog deck Hmm...burn cannot deal with the necratog decks B( Well game 1 I didn't know what he was playing and wasted a *ton* of burn on his creatures. I think I had a decent shot of winning if I'd known what he was playing and just tried burning him out. Game 2 I drew 2 incinerate as my only burn and died pretty hard. We played a 3rd game for fun and I was able to burn him out in a close game. I even had phyrexian furnace in my SB but never drew any of my SB cards for him (not that it really mattered) 0-2, 3-1 match Round 5 vs mono-black control He had the standard black control creatures, stupors and coercions and a few of the big cum.life upkeep guys. Game 1 I had the game won the next turn with burn, I think I was at 7 and he was at 1 or 2. He casts a crypt rats and rats for a tie. Game 2 I get him down pretty low while I'm still at 20. He casts a gallowbraid and hits me for 3 turns. He's at 5 and I've been holding a fireblast. He lets the gallowbraid go and I fireblast him to 1. He draws and casts a crypt rat and again we tie. *sigh* Game 3 he goes first. On my 2nd turn I cast a gob.elite infantry. His 3rd turn he stupors a quicksand out of my hand and I put my now 4/4 sand golem into play and watch as his eyes pop out of his head. My turn I cast a lancer and attack for 8. Next turn, attack for 8 more and fireblast him. 4th turn kill :) 1-0-2, 4-1 match Round 6 vs James Stroud's mono-blue (w/ white in SB) Similar to Gordon's PTParis deck. 1st game I hit him early with creatures, he gets out the floodgates and stops my ground attack so I start burning him and manage to win. Game 2 he gets out floodgates and firewalkers pretty early so my weenies are pretty useless. I knock him down to 7 and I'm at 9. He has 2 waterspouts and 2 firewalkers out so I'm kinda in trouble. I have 8 land and he only has an island, a plains and a quicksand in play so if I draw the torch *and* he doesn't have an honorable passage, I win. I draw...a final fortune...ok, cast it. I draw...a mountain. Game three I draw 2 land and have to fireblast his waterspout so I lose. 1-2, 4-2 match Round 7 vs mono-red I'm not sure what the point to his deck was to be honest. I saw rock hatchlings and dormant volcanos and lancers and a bit of burn, however. Well I was playing fast mono-red and he was playing slow mono-red...it wasn't pretty, I swept him. 2-0, 5-2 match So I ended up 5-2 and 11th. Except for the necratog decks I could have beaten any deck on the day with the way my luck was running. Unfortunately I just couldn't beat the 'tog. Well here was the top 8: (my appologies for any name mis-spellings...) 1. Cortney Cunningham (b/r with 4 of each card in the deck) 2. Bill Macey (necratog deck) 3. Roy Roberts (necratog deck) James Stroud (mono-blue w/ white SB) 5. James Murphy (blue-red) Jason Page (black-red beatdown) Patrick Lynch (blue-white abeyance) David Williams (mono-blue w/ white SB) Wotc advertised the tourney as having 2 slots...once we started playing we were told it was only *one* slot, however! We were all rather upset to say the least. I think Bill is planning on complaining ot wotc about it so we'll see if he gets the 2nd slot or not. -David Goodnuff Nuff on Irc #mtg dgoodnuff@ix.netcom.com