Subject: [Philly PTQ Report] 445 miles and runnin' Date: 11 Aug 1997 02:30:20 GMT From: jshuler@osf1.gmu.edu (John M Shuler) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Hey there kids. Here is my "Watch me burn you!" Philly PTQ report. Friday night, my pal Scott and I take off from Frederick, MD, where we just played some Type 2 (I lost horribly- gods were not with me, but I prayed for karma to kick in at the ptq). We took off at around 1:30am, and got to Scott's grandfather's house at around 4:30am. A mix of emmet swimming, Alice in Chains, Wu-Tang Clan, and Michael Penn (Sean's brother, never heard of him before friday, but Scott used to by a (be a) DJ, so I listen, it's ok) keep us awake until we get there. Neither he nor I have any idea what we are going to play. Top contenders include: U/B utility beatdown (fast creatures with good removal, you know the deck, Eric Taylor won with it) - Mine would have had guildmages, though. U/W heavy utility slow beatdown (counterlight, 'spout heavy, afterlife crap) No pacifisms, cept in the SB Mono Red Beats Your Head- What we ended up running- creature light version, all burn hits opponent unless he drops a Settler or that Ophidibastard. Also called "little kid deck" as it had 4 of everything except mindstones- 3 of em. Black weenie w/ Stairwell- *not* the familiar deck. Torch is only main deck off-color, barring an incinerate or two. Those are the top 4 decks we were considering. I wanted to run Sandsipoise *really* badly, but I never went to sleep, and new I would make scrub mistakes if I played it, so I went with Wakefield's Law- Play something simple that you understand, and don't get in your deck's way. I build the Sands deck anyway, and I can't get it to work for the life of me. I also notice that the MRBYH deck is getting turn 6 goldfish kills *every* single time. One turn 8 kill, one turn 11 kill (one land for 5 turns), and a number of turn 5 kills. Even a couple turn 4 kills. I spend 2 hours staring at my sideboard, realizing it sucks. My only good choice was to play 3 Reign of Chaos (2RR, sorcery, destroy target white creature and target plains or destroy target blue creature and target island). Don't feel bad, I had no idea what it did, either. :) This proved to *rock* against U. I will have 4 in the sideboard for D.C., if I end up playing the same deck again. Turn 3 Ophidian, you say? How about my turn 3 (mindstone) Reign? Oh, are you down to 2 land? Are you DEAD now? FIREBLASTFIREBLAST FIREBLASTFIREBLASTTORCHYOUFOR5000WHYDON'TYOUGOHOMENOW? ok, it wasn't *that* good, but I liked it. Anyhow, I'll stop messing around and get to the point- Here's the deck: 4 each of: Incinerate, Thunderbolt, Fireblast, Torch, Hammer, Suck-it-down Lancer, Viasiano "summon quicksand" Sandstalker, Talruum "turn 3 beatdown, turn 4 take 10 with stalker!" Minotaur, Honorable "sneaky bastard" Passage. Mana Base: 3 Mindstones. 17 Mountains. 4 Gemstone Mines. 1 Undiscoverd paradise Quick notes- Mana screw was almost non-existant for me, though I *really* wish I had run 22 land instead of 21. Having to wait a turn to cast a Talruum *sucks*. Mindstones worked beautifully, and 3 seems to be the right number. As I said above, if you play first, you can drop a turn 3 Minotaur, a turn 4 sandstalker, and have your opponent at 10 life when they only have 3 land out. That's WITHOUT using a single burn spell. That's WITHOUT your opponent at all mana-screwed. Can you imagine if they only had 2 or even 1 land out? It happened, and I punished them for Improper Deck Construction. I'm absolutely torn on the Settler issue. I wanted to include them very badly, but I don't want to slow the deck down at all. If I go settlers, I want to go with heavy board control, and that is an entirely different deck. God, I want to play with settlers. Give me advice. Don't laugh at my Honorables. Against red, they are (say it with me, kids!) Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaroken! Against non-red, they function as Elim. Sealed deck quality elim, but elim none the less. That's about it. There are some other changes I am definately going to make, but I'll wait until after D.C. to post them, so if they flop miserably, I can lie about them. :) Ok, here goes, then: Record: 0 match points Round 1: Philip Hoff who ran R/B quickies His Deck: Guildmages/cockroaches/nekrataals/flying forcefield guy/stock red stuff/and fire whip? Game 1: Incinerate him on turn 2, Sandstalker slaps him on turns 3-5, Incinerate and Fireblast make it a turn 5 kill. Oh, did I mention he stalled on turn 3 by not playing another land? Game 2: It's a lot slower. He puts out a guildmage, a Brood of Cockroaches with firewhip on it, a Flying Forcefield (is it mischeivious poltergeist? I think so. B2 for a 1/1 flying, pay a life to regen critter) and I slow down. Talruum Minotaur administers some Tough Lovin' and I break what Scott and I (we were playing the same deck, down to the last card) declared our cardinal rule- I killed something other than Ophidian or Settler with burn. I Incinerated that damn Forcefield so Mr. Sandstalker could deliver his present after the Cockroach went down to the talruum last turn and wasn't recast. Thoughts on this match: I got game 1- You get at all mana hosed against this deck, and you are charcoal. Unfriendly as it may sound, I built this deck to take advantage of mana-screw (that's why 4 sandstalkers instead of 3), and it does. Game 2: Those forcefield guys, both the flier and the cockroach, really aren't that bad. The cockroach is obviously not as good since his regeneration costs you mana next turn, and that one life is not an option, and he doesn't fly (damn, the flying one is *way* supierior, isn't it?) but on the plus side, he shrugs off incinerates. The thing is, these guys are good for buying time to get out your big guns, but my opponent didn't seem to have any big guns. If I were playing Forcefields, I'd play them in a tombstone/familiar deck, because they keep you alive until your graveyard is full. Then again, I could be talking out my goat ass. Record: 1-0 Round 2: Eric Kesselman Deck- B/u Ertaitombtog Game 1: Ok, this is where it shows that Saturday was my first day *ever* playing Mivilite contructed. He drops a turn 2 Ertai's. I'm holding a hammer. I let it live, remembering my creed that none shall die but Phidian and the Settlers. I think there is a third name to add, now. His graveyard gets big fast, and he drops a second Ertai's. I realize I'm in trouble, and go into even FASTER burn mode, doig stupid stuff like torching for small amounts. Net result is that I start drawing massive land, he drops the stairwell, I have *no* creatures in my graveyard and non on the table (only drew a sandstalker all game. :( ). I take 20 from his 10 stairwell tokens in one turn and die. Damn. Game 2: Eric drops 3 fast Fallen Askari. I drop 2 Fast Minotaurs and 2 fast Sandstalkers. The Askari cower in the corner while my boys get to work on Eric. Eat red hot fireblast, Eric. :) Game 3: Eric draws one land. No, I mean it. He draws *1* land. I draw *all* land. No, I mean it. I draw *all* land. The first thing (other than a mindstone by me) cast the entire game was a fireblast, at the end of Eric's 7th turn. Yes. I *cast* it. I had that much land, and *no* bolts. *no* creatures. In my hand? More land. At the end of Eric's 8th turn, I CAST fireblast again. Eric gets land number 2 on his 9th turn, and drops Shadow Guildmage. The first creauture to hit play. I Fireblast him at the end of his 10th turn, and torch him for 8 on my turn. What else was in my hand? Land. That's it. I drew the 3 Fireblasts, the torch, and LAND the entire game. Tell me that *that* game wasn't fucked up! Match Notes- After the match, Eric tells me how strong Settlers are in the mono-red deck, and tells me I need to add settlers, drop sandstalkers and mindstones, and add final fortune. I disagree with him, and he builds his version of the red deck. We play like 15 or 18 games. Eric wins 3. At then (the) end of the day, Eric tells me that maybe I am right about the sandstalkers. I don't know, there are a lot of versions that you can build of the red deck, even though it doesn't look like it. I was really thinking about the weenie version, with keepers/vandals and Infantry, but I decided that the benefit they gave of like 3 early damgage was negated by the fact that they become useless without board control (I used bolts on opponents only, for the most part, not for board control). There are a ton of faucets to the red deck that aren't that obvious until you start thinking about it. Anyway Record: 2-0 Round 3- Keith Keeling from Neutral Ground (Erik was, also) Deck- U/W Libarary manipulation/medium countering/standard 12 blue creatures plus main deck Hazeriders [uh oh] Game 1: It's all about Fireblast. He drops 2 early hazeriders, on like turns 4 and 5, but that is TOO SLOW! I have a Minotaur hit him on my third turn, cast another on my 4th turn (one is Hazeridered, the other hits) cast a sandstalker on my 5th turn, and let it die to a hazerider so i can get 3 points through with a Minotaur (blitz strategy-got balls?). The next sandstalker also gives up its life for the cause on my 7th turn, while Keith is impulsing like mad for another Hazerider (man o war wouldn't help, I've got 8 mana now), and since he's down to 8, I think long and hard about the best strategical option available to me, then I bolt him twice and Fireblast him. Game 2: I know honorables are coming in, god knows what else. I'm right about the Honorables, as he passages *3* times during the game (it's all about librarymanipulation through Impulse), but I drop a Forsaken Wastes and go into bolt mode. Incinerate-torch-what-life-are-you-at?-2?-FIREBLAST Oops, forgot to list my sidebaord: 3 Forsaken Wastes (Wisdom, or anything remotely slow) 3 Reign of Chaos (Only own 3, would have done 4. MVP of the sideboard) 4 Disenchant (Stairwell *sucks*, I was paranoid of sandsipoise) 3 Mind Harness (Stop laughing, what else can I do against green?) 2 Decomposition (Ok, you can officially call me a scrub, I chose it solely for the damage aspect, and I still stand by my decision. It's like a bolt for the creature AND the opponent. I had visions of putting this thing on Gallowbraid. Needed a way to stop black, was afraid that elephant grass wouldn't work, as they'd just build up a horde to stomp me while I drew land, and couldn't think of anything better at 5am in the morning. Actually, more like 8, come to think of it. woo-hoo, 5 color sideboard!! Match notes- Keith was really cool to play against, as was Eric. Both very friendly guys, Neutral ground must be a nice place to play at. Keith tells me later he sided his ophids out the second game. I admonish him. Believe me folks, I'm gonna get stupid now and tell you exactly how to beat this deck (stupid since I'm most lieky playing it in D.C.) drop an ophidibastard and protect it. You will CRUSH the red deck. Record: 3-0 Round 4: John Sorrentino Deck: Mono blue- every counter except Disrupt (sb), and the 12 blue creatures, with Biskellions standard. Game 1: He counters every creature I cast, or man o wars them (lancers) and then counters them, while I draw about half the land in my deck, mind stoning for more mindstones, and such. Once he realizes that I'm such a good player because I have land, he drops Ophidian, protects it via counters, and obliterates me. A man o war and a Biskellion do me in. Game 2: See game 1. Match Notes: I *hate* Ophidian. Want a good way to beat the burn deck? Play an ophidian, and protect it. Man o war your opponent's creatures and don't let them cast any. You win. This sounds difficult, but the fact that you are drawing twice as many cards per turn (or more!) than your opponent makes it QUITE possible. John is a very cool guy, fun to play against, and pretty damn good. I enjoyed playing him, and didn't mind losing to him. Until I found out that after giving me my first loss, he killed my tiebreaker by dropping his next two matches to silly pseudo-ertai decks. Arghh Record: 3-1 Round 5: Lionel Thompson Deck: R/G Ali baba and the 40 green weenies with minor burn support and tricks: natural order Game 1: 2 Sandstalker hits, incinerate, thunderbolt, incinerate, fireblast, you are dead, Lionel. See notes on sandstalker tactics below Game 2: I draw more lands than God. With 22 land and 3 Mind Stones, I thought I was running *light*, and worried about getting mana screwed. Instead, I was mana flooded. I don't know how, and it shouldn't have happened. I chalk it up to my Statistical Mana Screw of the day. But I'm worried, because whoever wins knocks the other person out of contention, now. It really was sad, I had 3 mountains and 2 mindstones in my opening hand. I had 2 torches, also. He had a green weenie swarm in no time, and here I am, laying land and saying "go." Saccing the mindstones immediately brought me- you guessed it, more land. His deck, like mine, capitalizes on bad draws. Game 3: He drops a turn 2 Quiron, calls red. He has 2 forests as his other permanents. I had just cast a mindstone the turn before, and I have 2 mountains. I lay a gemstone, and say "go", intending to thunderbolt him at the end of his turn, since I don't have a critter in hand. On his turn, he doesn't attack, but rather, drops a forest, taps the elf, and he casts Barishi. I have a Mind Harness, an Incinerate, a Honorable Passage, the thunderbolt, and some land in my hand. He says he is done. Now, what is the good move? Think about it. What does a good player do? Remember, I am a scrub, so you have to think what a good player should do. think about it have you decided? well, feel free to follow-up this post, with you answer (WITHOUT READING AHEAD) then read the rest of the post. I know I'm the only idiot who did this wrong. anyway what I did: (don't read ahead if you haven't posted damn it!) I say "ok", and thunderbolt him. Mistake. On my turn, I mind harness Barishi. Then I say go. He takes his turn, drops a forest, and says go. On my turn, I draw something, attack with Barishi. He taps the elf for red and incinerates it. I Honorable passage the damage, take *7*, Lionel! *****STRONG***** Except that it wasn't. I totally scrubbed out there. What I SHOULD have done, gentle reader, is to Incinerate the elf at the end of his turn, then Mind Harnessed Barishi, when he wouldn't have red to incinerate it. Luckily, he made a mistake, too. He made the mistake that people make against blue all the time. He let me take his creature, but waited until I attacked to do anything. People always wait until you attack them before they use their creature kill, and to SOME degree, this makes sense, because you don't want to zap the creature if your opponent might drop something more appealing. Goes along the lines of "attack first, then cast stuff" common sense sort of strategy. However, he waited, and I was able to Honorable the damage and keep Barishi alive for the 3 hits it took to kill him, with a little flame on the side. I don't know *how* many times I've Control Magiced or Binding Grasped an opponent's creature (Yes, I like blue), only to have her wait until I attack before she tries to Banish/Bolt/Plow it, at which point I have untapped and am able to counter. If she had done it at the end of the turn that I took the creature, it would have worked, but people ALWAYS seem to do this. Anyway. Maybe this only happens to me. :) Barishi administered some lovin', and took me to 4-1 Match Notes: HOW did a Natural Order deck get this far, with ManoWar, Nekrataal, countering, Banishings, and everything under the moon to stop it? Because it wasn't a NO deck, it was a green weenie deck with a couple of big guys. Sandstalkers are great, because people *never* block them. They always think "Well, I'm at 20, I can take a hit." or "I'm at 16, I can take a hit", and they do, and that's all I need. 2 Sandstalker hits, and unless I have a horrid draw, you are toasted like a marshmallow. Sandstalkers vs. Quicksand- If you are staring down a sandstalker, and quicksand is your only land, or you only have that and another land, KILL the sandstalker. Once you get in the low teens, you can be burned to death very easily. People would lay a quicksand as land 2, and I would sandstalker, and they would take it, only to lay another land next turn, because they wanted so badly to cast their flanker. Not a good idea, folks. Sandstalkers vs Quicksand, part 2- If you are playing the stalkers, and they have a quicksand out, attack anyway. You'll be pleasantly suprised at how many people don't want to lose their land early. And if they ARE smart enough to quicksand it, then just think of that as a resource advantage- You just set them back a turn, mana-development-wise, and with the burn deck, every little bit helps. Now they only have 2 land for when talruum hits the table next turn. Record: 4-1 Round 6: Michael Wolfensburger Deck: Mike only had 1 loss all day, ended at 5-1-1, and was playing a deck that was pretty much unique that day, I didn't see anything else like it. Since he ended up like 9th or 10th (out of either 114 or 140 people), I'll not say what his deck was, as he'll most likely be playing in D.C. I don't mind giving people ammunition and strategy against me, but I want Mike to be able to suprise people. Game 1 & 2: We Intentionally drew, because otherwise, one of us would knock the other out of contention. Silly? Yes, but we are buds. And you can't knock your bud out unless you absolutely have to. I.e. Final 8. We went and got Cheesesteaks (when in philly...) I beat Mike in practice, though, so I feel good. :) Record: 4-1-1 Round 7: MJ ? (didn't write down his last name) Deck: U/R standard stuff you'd expect from each, with a twist- Teferi's Veil (your creatures phase out after they attack) and fog elementals. It was good with his stalkers, too. Game 1: Turn 2 Incinerate (17), turn 3 lancer (15), turn 4 Minotaur (10), turn 5 don't even bother attacking, just incinerate fireblast fireblast muahahah red is good Game 2: He pops out a veil, slows me down with manowar and plays a sandstalker, hits me for 6 and the stalker will phase. I passage the stalker, he takes 4 and I take 2. That's fair, isn't it? :) Next turn, he attacks with both, I passage again. He's at 12, I'm at 16. This is fun! I thundrbolt/incinerate him at the end of his turn, and sac my mindstone to draw a fireblast. Good thing I had the other fireblast in my hand already. Boom, boom, you're dead. record: 5-1-1 horrible tie breaks, all my opponents except keith went like 4-2 or stuff like that. I make it in as #8, somehow. Glen is perturbed. He was hoping to get me out of there sooner, since I always get on his case when stuff goes wrong- see my D.C. Grand Prix report. :) Round of 8: Keith Keeling Deck: See round 3 Uh oh. It's Keith again. Keith, of the 4 MAIN DECK hazeriders. I was Keith's only loss, and he's out for revenge. We don't really care about qualifying, we are both just here to play, so we have fun. Game 1: My opening hand is not so hot. I want to use one of my two thunderbolts on him, but I'm a-feared of those waterspouts I know he has. Normally I wouldn't care, but I know he has passages to delay. I attempt a turn 3 critter, he memory lapses it. That *sucks*, as it delays the game, and he can develop his mana base. The longer the game goes on, the less likely the red deck is to win. He drops ophidibastard.I look at my hand- 2 thunderbolts. Uh oh. I then proceed to not draw *ANY* of my 4 Incinerates, 4 Torches, 4 Hammers, as the *second* Ophidian comes down, and any creatures I cast are countered, if I wasn't abeyanced during my upkeep. Keith got a good draw and I got a bad one, and it was painful. I knew I was going to lose the second I saw the first Ophidian and didn't draw something to kill it because I knew he'd be smart enough to protect it. He drew some insane number of cards of (off) the 'phids.. like 9 or 10, NO JOKE, and beat me down with a Hazerider and a manowar. When I was at 6, with no creatures, he attacked with all (including 'phids) and killed me. Damn. Killed by Ophidian. Should I just quit magic now? Game 2: I draw land. And more land. And MORE land. I put out mind stone on turn 2. He puts out Ophidian on his turn 3. I Reign of Chaos it on my turn 3. He only has 2 plains now. I am thinking "YES!" I have a chance! He drops a flood plain. I draw... another land. I have nothing to cast. :( He goes, and gets an island. He drops a second island, and here is Mr. Waterspout. Do I have a thunderbolt in my hand? Nope, they ran away after I admonished them last game. I have LAND!! And boy, do I put out my land! I have something like a mindstone, 2 gemstone mines, and all 17 mountains when his Waterspout kills me 5 turns after it came out. Ok, I'm kidding. It wasn't 17 mountains. It was more like 53. :( Alas. I left after that, 3 WL, 3 japanese 4e, 3 japanese VI, and 1 Italian legegende booster richer. Oh well. For building the deck 5 hours before the tourny, not playtesting at all, and having the "What a fucking scrub that guy is! he is playing with decomposition!" sideboard from hell, I'd have to say I'm still pretty pleased with my performance. Sure, it would have been nice to qualify, but I hear that Chicago is going to be Extended or something dumb like that. I went to a tournament with friends, played good magic, had ____FUN____, and got to shoot Glen from Neutral Ground in the eye with a laser pointer. I think he mumbled something about how I am banned from Gray Matter sponsored events now. Send him some email and tell him I'm a nice guy and should be allowed back in! Lie if you have too! Say you were a newbie, and I gave you a set of moxes to help you start out, or something. Tell him I give out Shivans to little kids at orphanages, and that I volunteer as a Magic tutor at the Seattle Magic Clinic. other things- - I got a cheesesteak from Pat's, which is supposedley the originator of the Philly Cheesesteak. Scott and I went there the second we arrive in Philly, at 4:30am, and we had to WAIT IN LINE to get our cheesesteaks! There were a ton of people there for it being the friggin' middle of the night! - my cheesesteak from Pat's was sooooo good, that I ate the whole thing, even though some drunk guy sitting at the bench behind me (outdoor eating benches) a foot away was vomiting really loudly the entire time. *THAT* is how good Pat's cheesesteaks are. Go to Philly NOW and get one, don't waste your time at that place next to Clairon Suites - this was the last Gray matter event at Clarion, or so Glen announced. Thank god, sardines are more comfortable than magic players in that room are. - I got to say "what are you doing with those? You don't know how to play magic!" to Jon Finkel as he walked by with a handful of boosters for draft, when I was waiting for the tiebreaks to be computed. :) I felt bad, because he just looked and walked away, Jon's a nice guy. I don't think he realized I was kidding. - I got to see some jerk pretend that he didn't know how Flooded Shoreline worked, and attempted to tap 4 mana and only return 2 islands to his hand to put 2 creatures back in his opponent's hand. That resulted in a judge call, and a judge watching the match, as this asshole stalled the second game for god knows how long (he had won the first) attempting to win by running out of time in game 2. His opponent won, however, and they ran out of time in game 3, screwed the both over. - I'm pretty sure I've memorized both emmet swimming's _Wake_, and Wu-Tang's _Enter the Wu-Tang_ now. - I learned from when I lost to Sorrentino that Mono Blue can shred the red deck if it is built properly, or if the red deck doesn't get a good draw. Need a stronger sideboard. - DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT go to that huge rest stop halfway between D.C. and Philly, the one on 95. Well, actually, *DO* go there, because they have the ****COOLEST**** gumball machine I've ever seen in my 20something years. You put your quarter in, and how to describe it.. hmmmmm... ok, here comes the ascii art, this is really bad, but it took me 5 minutes, so you had damn well better appreciate it: o o o- o g g / o o- / o o | o- o | o o- | gggo-g ggogggg / g / / / / / / / | | \ / /- g | |______ | | ---------| oo oo | | | | | | Ok, so you put your quarter in, and that circle of os at the top starts turning, it's a chain in a circle with little platforms attacked (attached) to it, and the bottom is filled with gum. a piece of gum falls on each platform, and as it gets to the top, it falls off, and down that tube (gs are gum, illustrating where it goes). At this point, a yellow dump truck drives over as music is going on, and catches the gumball as it falls. It then reverses back to the other side of the machine, the bed of the truck tilts back, and the gumball falls through the hole to your waiting hand. All that for a quarter. Isn't America great? this has gone on long enough. I haven't written a real tourny report in a while (mainly because other people have *finally* started to write them), so let me know what you thought, via email or followup. shuler -- John M. Shuler jshuler@gmu.edu