Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:55:44 PDT From: Lance Conrad Subject: PTQ report/bitching (again) Part 1 I had no deck for this format, but I haven't been to a tournament in a month and a half and I began to feel the competitive fever rise. I had to go. So what do I do? I copy the mono-blue deck Tom Guevin posted, make a few changes, and head off to Seattle. I hate to go to a tournament unprepared, but I'm comfortable with the stlye of this deck and I think I can play it without too many blunders. Some changes I made were to replace the memory lapse with powersinks, putting the lapses in the sideboard for other blue decks, put two rainbow efreet in the main deck, take out the foreshadows, and add another island. The deck looks something like this: 20 Island, 4 Quicksand 4 Waterspout Djinns, 4 Cloud Elementals, 4 Man-o-war, 2 Rainbow Efreet, 3 Floodgate, 3 Knight of the Mists, 2 Serrated Biskelion 4 Dissapate, 4 Powersink, 2 Bommerang, 4 Impulse Sideboard: 4 Undo, 4 Memory Lapse, 2 Serrated Biskelion, 2 Dream Tides, 1 Floodgate, 2 Suq'Ata Firewalkers I see Justin Rider before the tournament starts and he's debating on what deck to play. He goes with blue/white, basically the deck I'm playing with honerable passages and hazerider drakes. In retrospect, this is what I should have done. There were a number of good players going mono-red. I played against Wyatt Wettland for fun and he crushed me four games in a row with it. Torches, man. Five mana to counter one is a lot and fireblast is just plain wrong. They can tap out and still kill you. You tap out and they will kill you. Justin made it to the top eight, by the way, by metagaming correctly. I had already turned my deck list in, so all I could do is pray that I wouldn't run into the speed burn. Away we go!!! Round 1 vs. mono-blue I don't want to say this, but my deck was just better. They are pretty similar, but he uses phantom warriors with mystic veil and teferi's veil. A bunch of fun cards, but when his three cards are only doing two to me a turn and my two cloud elementals and waterspout are doing eight, I'd say my deck is a little more efficient. After I board in the four memory lapses, I win the counter wars enough to establish and maintain control. 1-0 Round 2 vs. green/red/ with a splash of white for ???? I go first and get the blue slight thing going. Cloud elementals and man-o-wars go crazy and a waterspout pounds him into submission. Bull Elephants are not the best creature to have when I draw a couple man-o-wars. I board out the knights a rainbow for biskelions and dream tides. He gets some creatures going, but I fend them off with quicksand and a biskelion. I see Scalebane's Elite (ah, now I remember what the white was for), but it gets man-o-wared and countered. This game is kind of sad. I kill him with a man-o-war and a biskelion with a counter on it. He can't seem to pull anything but land and a couple torches. Counters keep me safe and I win. 2-0 Round 3 vs. red/green I go first and go crazy again. Two cloud elementals, a rainbow, and a waterspout take him down in a hurry. A river boa or two get on the table, but I win the race no contest. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's pretty scary when a mono-blue deck can out race a red/green deck. Game two is lame. He starts out with two stone rain and two creeping mold. I start with six islands and a rainbow. I lay my land out, he kills it, repeat until I get stuck at two land and nothing to stop the three lanowar sentilils coming to KICK MY ASS!!!! ARGHHHH!!!! Game three is worse. I draw one quicksand. That is my land for the next five turns. Any questions on who won this game? 2-1 Round 4 vs. Blue/red/white good stuff deck He gets mana screwed game one. I hate these games, don't you? It's like beating up an old lady. Game two he stays one step ahead of me with creatures, counters, and incinerates. A waterspout and a lancer do most of the damage, his man-o-war slows me down, and an incinerate finishes me off. Game three he stumbles. He has three islands and a gemstone mine. He burns the mine up casting a rainbow efreet three times when I man-o-war it twice, then can't pull anymore land from his deck. I run him over with cloud elementals and a waterspout before he can recover. I win by mana screw and feel pretty shitty about it. Oh, well. I tell myself that he wouldn't apologize and go on. 3-1 Round 5 vs. Red/green AGAIN!!!!! Game one he gets medival on my ass. I hate River Boa's, really I do. I have to burn quicksands up to get rid of them and this leaves me short of mana. I have no counters in my hand and a waterspout on the table and another in my hand. I only have four islands and he's sitting over there licking his lips like the torch holding fiend he is, waiting for his third god-damn river boa to get me in striking distance. I can't dissapate a torch without letting go of the waterspout. If I do that, I won't be able to kill him before he kills me. I have no choice but to lay out the second waterspout and go for it. I cast the second waterspout. I await in suspense as an incinerate lowers me in torch range, but he does nothing yet. Two turns away from victory and those waterspouts keep pulling my land back. He gets me to three. Nothing yet. One turn away from victory. He gets me to one. Nothing yet, although he is sitting there taking an awful long time thinking about what to do. Upkeep on the turn of victory. My last islands come back. In response to my draw, be incinerates me. LAME!!!!!! I board out the knights, rainbows and some other card I don't remember and board in the firewalkers (he had a ton of 1 toughness guys), biskelions, and dream tides. I get a firewalker out game 2. The floodgate holds his be creatures back and clears the board on his side when I man-o-war it. The firewalker and a cloud elemental do him in. Game three was the best game of the weekend. It would have been better if I won. He gets a fast start, but his worst nightmare is realized: DREAM TIDES!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE MINE, SUCKER!!!!! AHHH, HAHAHAHAHHA!!! The only problem is that I can't seem to get any offense going (what the hell happened to the blue sligh deck I was playing earlier today?) And he gets all these one-hits in with his creatures, bringing me down to torch range. Ten years later, I get a cloud elemental out. I start hitting him with it. He keeps laying out his land as he gets it, keeping one card which is most certainly a torch because he's looking at my life total, counting his mana every two seconds, and waiting for me to get impatient, which I am beginning to get as my cloud elemental seems to take forever to serve the beatdown. To make a long story somewhat shorter, he draws a second torch one turn ( I am not making this up, he honest to God drew it the next turn. You could ask him if I could remember his name. Damon Deleni?@# something or other-sorry I can't remember!) away from his death and it is at this point I wish I had honerable passage because I just didn't have ten mana available to dissapate both torches, ya know?!?!!? 3-2 I'm out because there are 125 people here, seven rounds and 5-2 pretty much has no chance in hell of getting into the top eight with all the ineveitable intentoinal draws. BUT, they are giving prizes to the top sixteen, I don't have anything better to do but lower my already pathetic rating some more, so WHAT THE HELL!!! I stay and play. Round 6 vs. mono-green I outswarm a mono-green deck. Only in Mirage/Vissions/Weatherlight, I tell you. Game one is a return to the high geared cloud elemental, rainbow, waterspout high flyin' damge machine!!!!! YEAH!!! GOD IT FEELS SO GOOD TO OUTRACE A MONO-GREEN DECK!!!! Try it sometime, I highly recommend it. He boards in about eight cards against me. I board in the seven against his. Neither of us see any of them so they don't matter. I use up some quicksands against river boas and merkats. I get a waterspout on the board. I am a little worried because I have only three land on the table at this point, but I have enough counters to slow him down and the waterspout does the trick in five turns. 4-2 Round 7 vs. another mono-blue He draws his floodgates and knight of the mists. Real useful and I feel for him, but hey, this is a tournament. I draw four creatures and go aggressive. He abducts a waterspout, which does nothing because I man-o-war it, put it back out, and kill him with it. Out go the floodgates and knight of the mists, in go the four memory lapse and biskelions. His deck simply isn't constucted that well. Cloud Djinns?!?!? A flier that costs a ton and can still be thunderbolted and blocked by waterspouts?!?!?!?! Late in the game he gives me control by tapping six of his eight lands to put out a cloud djinn. I counter it, he memory lapses it, I memory lapse his memory lapse, he's tapped out and I know I'm going to win at this point. I lay out a rainbow with enough mana to phase it out and memory lapse something. Eventually I get a waterspout out. His undo's and ray of commands only annoy me, as I phase my rainbow out to prevent serious setbacks. I win the counter wars with memory lapse long enough to do him in. I finish 5-2. Not bad considering I haven't played in a month and a half I guess. Guess what place I finished???? If you guess 17th, just out of the prize place, you were close! I get 18th and am pissed about it. ARGHHH!!!!! In retrospect, the knights were not that useful, and I really didn't see anyone using knights enough to warrant them in the deck or sideboard. Abduction sucks. Don't play with it. I never boarded in the undo's, although I did see enough mono-black and big creature decks to warrant them in the sideboard. I never ran into the mono-red deck, which is good because I really didn't have much of a chance without the passages. Two mana to counter a torch rather than five is a huge difference. Memory lapse was better in the sideboard. I'm sorry, but when someone torches you or lays out a huge creature, I'd rather sink it and be done with it rather than memory lapse it and pray to God that you can do something about it next turn. They are awesome against other blue decks because whoever can get something on the table will have the advantage. Memory lapse is a great, cheap way to counter a counter, have your waterspout on the table, and have them tap their mana on their turn trying to find an answer. And if you are in control, the lapse slows them down long enough to strengthen your hold. I would add three passages standard, maybe a hazerider drake or two, and pretty much copy Justin Rider's deck, who made it into the top eight. There were at least three blue/white decks in the top eight along with a couple mono-red, and I thing one green/red fatty creature deck. I didn't stick around to watch because I had a bit of a drive home, but blue white is pretty much the shit for this format. It can keep up in creature develpment, shut down direct damage with counters and honerable passage, and generally has the best chance to beat any deck, before and after sideboarding. I am eager to hear if anyone can make a deck to beat blue-white and mono-red and still be able to hold it's own in the field. I'll be working on it, although I believe that blue-white is the only real choice. I did hear of a necratog deck that sounds evil and a blast to play. Any info on this would be appreciated. Thanks for listening and I'm sure you'll hear from me again. Later, Lance _______________________________________________________ Get Private Web-Based Email Free http://www.hotmail.com