From: Daniel Brickwell Subject: Grand Prix London Report Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:38:43 +0100 Hi all, I am reporting to you from the beautiful town of Cambridge, were I am visiting an old friend of mine, so any mail replies will not reach me for another week or so, but you can always post them if you like... After the German nationals I had almost no time to prepare a MiVIlite Deck, especially as I had other things to do also, so I basically constructed only two decks and tested them against each other. Deck 1 was Darwin Kastle's Red/Blue deck with Fog Elementals instead of Cloud Elementals and some other small changes. It is practically a burn deck with Manowars. As I expected a lot of Burn and a lot of Manowars it made for an extremely good test deck. Deck 2 was a B/u/r Deck which I called my Weatherlite Necrodeck which ran 3 Infernal Tributes, lots of Weenies and 6 Big Guns and blue just for Manowars and Red just for Incinerates and a Torch. The Manowars were supposed to work against Falcon Armor Decks and with the life-sucking legends, but they just turned out to be strong creatures. Deck 1 beat Deck 2, but I liked Deck 2 more, so I slowly changed it to be more burn resistant. I added Drain Life, went down with the number of big creatures and took out 2 of the Infernal Tribute because they were just too slow. I added more weenies instead, among them Necratogs. Then in the last to days I checked Frank Kusumoto's netsite (the best magic resource on the net IMO) and saw the first Aetherflash Decks and the really funky Necratog Decks and built my sideboard accordingly. (Though it still sucked s**t), but the sideboard takes the longest time to test and I had no time to spare. I ended up with the: Zilatog pre-Grand Prix version 3 Sewer Rats 3 Shadow Guildmage 3 Dark Rituals 4 Fallen Askari 2 Skulking Ghosts 3 Incinerate 3 Necratog 3 Manowar 1 Infernal Tribute 4 Nekrataal 1 Morifen 2 Gallowbraid 1 Necrosavant 3 Drain Life 2 Rocky Tar Pit 2 Bad River 1 Island 1 Mountain 4 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Gemstone Mines 10 Swamps 60 cards Sideboard 2 Bubble Matrix 2 Disenchant 2 Serrated Biskelion 2 Tombstone Stairwell 2 City of Solitude 2 Crypt Rats 1 Drain Life 1 Infernal Tribute 1 Ray of Command As you can see the deck has a smooth mana curve. I put the Dark Rituals in to combat burn decks with speed, The sewer rats were supposed to work against U/W control decks. Manowar and Nekrataal synergize with the rest of the deck, so do the Shadow Guildmages. The big Legends are too good to ignore in my opinion and give the deck an additional way of victory which is not aetherflashable, so do the drain life, which were a late addition but huge in the tournament... I will post a post-Grand Prix version at the end of the report... The sideboard was mainly anti-control with some anti-weenie cards thrown in. I overlooked discard as a sideboard possibility. Day 1: I arrive 2 minutes before the official end of registration, because I missed three busses not knowing what a request stop is. (At a request stop you have to hold out your hand or the bus will not stop. ;) I meet some of the Germans there, but the big news that none of the German names have shown up. On the other hand, Olle Rade, Oliver Schneider, the new UK Champion, and Graham Thompson are there as well as several other top European players... The total turn-out is 390 players. The first day will cut to the top 64 and points scored will count towards tommorow. 3 for a win 1 for a draw. Round 1: I have one bye because of my rating, but not two yet, as the German national results are not yet in and I am still rated at 1793. Round 2: Mark Vollmann B/u/r My opponent is also from Germany and is playing the classic Zila Deck as far as I can tell. I manage to get several three to one or two to one business card trade offs due to some mistakes on his part and win easily. For instance he incinerates two of my early Askari to let my Shadow Guildmage live which then kills three of his Skulking Ghosts... 2:0 games and 2:0 matches Round 3: U/w Floodgate deck Game 1: I get an early Infernal Tribute which nets me 4 cards and I still loose because of those infernal Floodgates... a bad sign. Game 2: I get out an early City of Solitude, Nekrataal, Manowar and Disenchant (Biskelion) his early creatures and Drain him for the rest... He reveals a hand not full of counters, but land. Game 3: My opponent is mana-screwed. I am such a good player... :( Lucky win! I think my deck should have lost this match-up... 4:1 games 3:0 matches Round 4: Madog Williams G/w Llanowar Sentinel-Uktabi Efreet Deck He lets me desleeve, because I use black-backed sleeves, even though his sleeves are more marked than mine which we realize as he desleeves too. Game 1: He gets a great draw with Uktabi Efreet plus Tariffs to kill my big creatures and no Nekrataals from me.... Still he only barely wins the damage race. I think I can take him though if I start drawing Nektrataals. Game 2: I draw 2 Nekrataals.... and my fourth land the round before I die in a long drawn out game :(... 4:3 games 3:1 matches Round 5: U/R Celerity Burn This is the deck I tested against extensively and I win the necessary two games, losing once to a god draw of 3 manowars and 3 lancers plus a Talruum. 6:4 games 4:1 matches Round 6: A U/W deck but without Floodgates! My opponent lets me desleeve again. The Black Backed Sleeves seem to have a bad reputation... I win two straight, without the Floodgates U/W can't stop me in time especially not my sewer rats. Manowars and Nekrataals take care of his Hazeriders... 8:4 games 5:1 matches Round 7: Cyrille de Foucaid (Team Lotus Noir) Game 1: He plays Land, Land Diamond. I say "Ohh no, a Sandsipoise Deck". He just smiles and puts down an Equipoise and a Sands of Time in the next two rounds... I think about it for a minute or two and concede... Game 2: Again he gets out the lock fast. Then he E-tutors for two diamonds in the next two rounds... I am looking at my disenchant in my hand and think, "Go ahead..." Then I disenchant the Sands of Time, he has a second Equipoise but no second Sands of Time!!! A Shadow Guildmage pings him to death while a Fallen Askari stares down his Taniwa (the reason he tutored for the diamonds probably...). Who says Askari need to block.... :) Game 3: Cyrille is dissatisfied with his playing last round and mentions that he played too fast... So we take it a little bit slower this game especially as he Abeyances me 4 times, casts a Gerrads Wisdom for 12 life, a Magaras Blessing for 5 and a Peace Talks! I bring him down to 11 (i.e. -6) anyway but then the game stalls at a Sands of Time and an Equipoise. I am able to disenchant the Equipoise this time, then Taniwa enters the board... My life dwindles rapidly as Taniwa refuses to phase with the sands out and Toggling hinders my blockers. Yet I manage to survive for three rounds. I am at three life. I have drawn three lands and a Dark Ritual and am waiting for the Drain Life, but it will not come. He attacks once more but valiantly my Necratog steps in the way, eats two creatures (all there is) and dies... I am at two life. Mana burn for 1, Toggle, no Drain Life .... Then the judge says you have 5 seconds left, active player ends his turn... I take my turn. This is now the third time I have survived to a draw due to time out (once in a PTQ, once in the German Nationals and now at the Grand Prix). Each time I took the time left and did not let my opponent kill me and each time I felt bad about it and even worse because my opponents then accused me of not letting them win. When the same happens to me I do not ask my opponent to let me win and I certainly make no scene about it. I consider it part of professional play to be able to play with the time limit in mind. Yet the strict time limits are easily abusable. You hear a lot of accusations about stalling in the upper tournament echelons. I consider stalling to be one of the blemishes of the game and do not stall. The problem is that it is very hard to differentiate between stalling and not playing fast. In this case Cyrille admitted himself that I did not stall, yet he was dissapointed with me that I did not give him the one extra turn he needed to kill me. What do you other people out there think about this? What would you consider stalling? What is the professional or sportsmanlike thing to do in such situations? Anyway I get the draw and therefore finish the first day at: 9:5:1 games 5:1:1 matches 16 points. 16 points does get me safely into the Top 64, while 2/3 of the 15 pointers do not make it in. Infact I sneak in at place 36. Day 2: We are supposed to be there between 8:30 and 9:00. Therefore I arrange a wake-up call for 6:50 a.m. I wake up at 6:48 and decide to close my eyes until the telephone rings... I open them again at 7:10. There goes my safety time... Later I hear that there were some problems with the internal phone lines that day and that the porter tried to knock on my door instead. That simple task was complicated by the fact that my room had no room number because somebody had removed the roomnumber sign outside.... No working phone lines no wake up call, no Room number no wake-up knock... Ofcourse I miss the first bus by a few steps. With my stomach growling because breakfast starts at 8:00, I decide to cross the street to buy some blueberry muffins and some orange juice. As I leave the store the next bus passes the station... I catch the third bus and drive to Sloane Square only to find out that Circle Line is not running this of all days because of repairs.... After 5 minutes of searching I find the replacement bus station and take the next bus to South Kensington which is the nearest subway station. There I find out that there are no trains at all between South Kensington and Embankment. Too bad the Grand Prix is behind Embankment.... I should have taken the replacement bus in the other direction. My fault for playing a deck with the name Zila in it! ;) Anyway 25 minutes after I left Sloane Square I am passing it again in the other direction.... To make a long story short... I arrive at 9:30 totally out of breath. The players have already started playing .... Uh Ohhh! I tell them about the circle line and I am ready to take my loss of game, but after some discussion they just retrieve the one person who has gotten a Bye and I am allowed to play against him... Whew! Round 1: U/W with Tefris Honors Guard, Hazerider Drakes and Azimaet Drakes. Manowars, Incinerates, Nekrataals combine in a nasty mix, and I win in two straight, relieving my conscience.... 11:5:1 games, 6:1:1 matches, 19 points. Round 2: U/W with Abeyances Game 1: I run over him... Game 2: Eventhough he Abeyances twice I can still attack and do; even though an abeyed Necratog can't eat I simply overwhelm him by numbers... 13:5:1 games 7:1:1 matches 22 points. Round 3: B/u My opponent is playing a mono-black deck with Manowars and discard and Infernal Tribute. I am playing a mono-black deck with Manowars and Incinerates and Infernal Tribute... Game 1: I win eventhough I draw more land than him because of my big critters... Game 2: I lose to Drain Life. Game 3: I win due to Drain Life... In black aginst black Drain Life is a deciding card. 15:6:1 games 8:1:1 matches 25 points. I am now at 6th position and calculate that 29 points will make it in. I need a win and a draw... Round 4: Oliver Schneider (U.K. Champion) I know Oliver from the Amsterdam Grand Prix. Oliver has 27 points and needs 2 Draws to make the Top 8. I need a draw and a win, so like the Pro Tour Players we are we intentionally draw and talk Extended Strategy for the Worlds... 15:6:2 games 8:1:2 matches 26 points. Round 5: Marius, Team Green Machine from Norway U/R Hammer-Celerity. Game 1: He draws two Islands and starts discarding. I hit him for 12 with a Sewer Rat I am such a good player... :( Marius is understandably upset and starts three pile shuffling my deck. I do the same and turn around his cards so that they point in the same direction. We both do three ending riffle shuffles. I then give him the deck to cut after I cut mine. And he shuffles his again. I mention that he can only cut if I do the last shuffle, but he gets all suspicious on me and tells me that I can call a judge to shuffle if I want. I tell him that it his perogative to not trust me and let it go. Game 2: He just over runs me with Sand Stalker and Talruums.. augh! I have 2 Disenchants and two Bubble Matrix on hand because I feared Aether Flash... I sideboard them out. Game 3: He doesn't draw a second red mana but can cast everything on his hand except for two cards. I Drain for three-Shadow Guilmage two Fog Elementals and win. He has an Aetherflash and a Hammer on hand... Better Lucky than Good! 17:7:2 games 9:1:2 matches 29 points With that I make it into the Top 8 as 5th seed. The Top 8 are: 1. Robin McCandless Mono-red with Borgardan Firefiend and other creatures... 2. Graham Thompson Mono-red California Deck copied straight from the net... 3. Ben Possimiers U/W 4/4 Flier Deck... probably with 4 Abeyances... 4. Michael Sonchon U/w control with Powersinks, Desertions, Dissipates, Serrated Biskelions, Manowars plus 4 Abeyances... 5. Daniel Brickwell, Zilatog 6. Oliver Schneider U/W Waterspout without Abeyances (Which was a mistake, as Oliver admits, Quote: "I didn't know it was a Timewalk...") 7. Frederick Banach, R/W with 4 Abeyances... 8. Cyrille De Foucaid - Sandsipoise with 4 Abeyances I clearly have the rogue deck, everyone else is either playing Abeyance-Control or Burn... Quarterfinals Cyrille de Foucaid beats Robin McCandless Graham Thompson beats Frederic Banach Oliver Schneider beats Ben Possimiers Daniel Brickwell against Michael Sonchon Game 1: I draw no small critters at all just land, a Gallowbraid and a Necrossavant.... I cast the Gallowbraid...he desertions it. I cast the Necrosavant ... he desertions it. I cast a Manowar and get the Necrosavant back... I cast the Necrosavant. He Manowars it. I cast it again. He Manowars it again... I die .... Game 2: I surprise him by drawing small creatures. He manowars one. I try to Manowar something of his he desertions it. He is beating me down with the Manowars and just counters everything I try to stop it. Especially my Ray of Command. Before it is almost over I draw a City of Solitude, after he has already cast 2 Powersinks, a Desertion and 2 Dissipates of course... I die. Oh well 5th place nets me a place for Chicago and 375 Dollars and with the German Nationals and now the Grand Prix, my rating should now start breaking the 1900 mark... Semi-finals Cyrille de Foucaid beats Oliver Schneider Michael Sonchon beats Graham Thompson 1066 encore une fois. Finals: Cyrille de Foucaid concedes to Michael Sonchon, because he "doesn't like him". I don't know what was going on there at all.... For anyone stupid enough not to play a Abeyance or Burn Deck I will give you a Post-Grand-Prix Listing of the Zilatog Deck... Zilatog Version 2.0 4 Shadow Guilmages 2 Sewer Rats 4 Fallen Askari 2 Skulking Ghosts 3 Incinerates or 4 Abeyances even ??? 4 Manowar 4 Necratog 4 Nekrataal 1 Morifen 2 Gallowbraid 1 Necrosavant 4 Drain Life 11 Swamps 1 Mountain 1 Island 2 Rocky Tar Pit 2 Bad River 4 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Gemstone Mines Perhaps you should also play with Time Wa... I mean Abeyance in this deck. You can also try to put in Ertais Familiars. I just didn't have any... If you go with the familiars try out a Vampiric Tutor and a Tombstone Stairwell perhaps. I found the Tombstones to be useless as either your opponent was also playing with a lot of creatures or didn't kill yours just phase them out or take control of them... I barely had enough creatures in the graveyard for my Necratogs... Drain Life was very good in the deck as you can Drain the Manowar or the Suqata Lancer and gain back the life you lost because of him. Later on they counter burn damage and even kill the 4/4 fliers... Sideboard 2 Disenchant 1 Serenity 2 City Of Solitude 1 Ray of Command 2 Bubble Matrix 2 Ebony Charm 2 Crypt Rats 2 Serrated Biskelions 1 Infernal Tribute As you can see I dropped the Stairwells for Ebony Charms and the 4th Drain has to go in the deck. I put in an extra Serenity as you need something against Sandsipoise with this deck or you will just lose... See you at Worlds or at Chicago, though I still have to win a plane ticket for Chicago... Friendly Greetings Daniel PS: At the rewards ceremony Graham Thompson gave a little speech I want to pass on. Paraphrased: "I think Wizards made a huge mistake when they profesionalized the game. It was way too early. Now we have problems creeping up like cheating and stalling... I want to use this opportunity to remind everyone that this is still a game. We play it for FUN. So go back to your respective nations and tell the other players that this game is about FUN not money."