Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 09:34:15 PDT From: Chris Warren Subject: My Gencon report -- Part 2 (The Magic Stuff) Saturday morning we grab a quick bite at the hotel and my wife drops me off at the Arena about 7:20 before driving home. I run across Robert Castro, the Wisconsin T2 champ, who I'd run into Friday morning. We discuss our decks and make some sideboard decisions along with a couple of his friends. We all help out some guy who's going to play a 5CG deck in T2 but is kind of lost with it. I test against Robert and one of the other guys and go 5-0. I'm feeling good about my deck. It's basically a medium-blue deck with enough green for 4 Boa, 2 Centaur, and 2 Maro. I've decided to go back to 24 land, because I'm really hosed if I can't get the 3 for the bulk of my critters. Besides, this lets me go to the 4 Undiscovereds in the main deck to support the one torch and assorted goodness in the side (Odyllic Wraith... yummy anti-black card). All watching agree the individual cards in my deck don't look more than solid, and there really aren't any combos, but everything works very well together. I have all my cards with me, and do some trading to give people stuff that they need. I pick up a Hammer and something silly for a pair of Lhurgoyfs, and say "you know, I won't have this for more than 15 minutes." I can NEVER hold a Hammer. About 15 minutes later, someone comes around asking if anyone has any Hammers. Figures. He just wants to buy it, but I'd really rather trade so I say I'd kind of like to keep it. He offers me $20. Sold. I'll mention here Abeyances were still VERY hot, it was the #1 card people were looking for, but I don't think it got to the insane $25 level it hit during Origins. I spend the $20 later on 2 Forks, and later trade one for something else. Busy day, my trade binder is in shambles, and now needs more pages. A couple of people want Howling Mines for some reason. I've played enough Stasis for now and don't mind getting rid of them. There's some discussion over ophidian with a couple of doubters and one person who says his team tells him it sucks. Obviously he hasn't used it. I'm on the pro-Ophie side. The actual event starts pretty close to on time. Hansen's/Great Lakes Games Assn. tends to do a good job with that. Round I: Mike mono-R burn Mike says he's never been to a PTQ before (this is my third) and just decided to give it a shot while in town. This is just sick. Remember how I went to 24 land because I was afraid of mana hose? In game 1, I draw one island and sit there with two impulses in hand as he beats me to a bloody pulp. Terrific. In game 2, I draw a forest and a quicksand as I look at a hand of 6 blue cards (including an impulse) and a centaur. I eventually quicksand a creature out of desperation, but it doesn't matter. I ask him to play a third for the hell of it, and he agrees. This time, I draw land, I stabilize around 10 life and then just beat the stuffing out of him. I should have won this match. 0-1/0-2 Round II: Dunno (mono-W falcon/armor w/Benalish Knights) I like those Benalish Knights, but falcon=armor just isn't that terrific a deck. In game one, I cast a Maro, Man-o-War his armored knight and go to town. I don't side in a single card. In game 2, I phase out a falcon (via Vodalian Illusionist) to beat one Mind Bend and counter another, then memory lapse a Gerrard's as I coast to victory. 1-1/2-2 Round III: ??? Sands/Poise Gack! Well, I knew there'd be a hole somewhere, and this was it. I had a couple of Orangutangs in the side and a Tranquil Grove, but that was about it. Game 1, I pull out a Maro, let him throw a tidal wave at it once, but Memory Lapse the spell to save him. 3 hits from the big Maro and he's dead. Game 2, I Orangutan a Wand of Denial, which is probably a bad move. I get him to 8 when he drops the lock, but I have a Centaur out which he can't Equipoise away. However, Tidal Wave works just fine on it. Game 3, he drops an early sands which slows down my new critters for a turn and goofs with my mana until I can monkey it away, then he drops the poise and phases land to let a Sands get down. I have 2 lands unphased and a dissipate... but no memory lapse. I concede the game. 1-2/3-4 Bleh. Mana screw and just a bad deck for me ruins my PTQ. Despite that, I still think my deck was solid as the guys I just creamed in testing did ok by themselves, so I may stick with it. Between rounds (70 minutes!) I decided to sign up for Arena because, hey, it was only $5 and I was bored. I'd traded for every card in my suicide green weenie except for one Fallow Wurm, so I tossed in a nature's resurgence and called it my arena deck. To make a long story short, playing with Tangharth (and a couple of games with Gerrard) I went 5-1, creaming everything I played. I lost a total of 4 games, 2 to the deck that beat me, a standard G/R Mirri deck (which I did take out once -- he won one game via Fog -- d'oh!), one game to a peacekeeper I had no way to deal with (whoops! Superior Numbers went into the side after that), and one game to a first turn kill. The guy was playing Squee and drew all 4 Elvish Spirit Guides in his 10 card hand, dropped them all, then natural balanced, squandered resources, cadaverous bloom, and you know the rest of the story. I also played the deck without Vanguard against a T2 stasis deck and won 3 of 4, only losing the game I drew 3 Harvest Wurms in my opening hand. Yech. After round 3 of the PTQ, Todd Hansen asks me if I'm going to play in the side sealed deck. Well, hell, why not. I run around and get $20 of tickets to enter the thing, then find out it's Alice. Haven't done that in a while. So I drop the PTQ at 1-2 and enter this. It's a weird sealed I pull -- FIVE red dd spells: Death Spark, Flare, Guerilla Tactics, Meteor Shower, and Lava Burst. However, apart from a Glaciers and a Wind Spirit, the rest of my stuff is complete garbage. I play R/u/w with my creatures including Tor Giant, Balduvian Barbarian, Bone Shaman, Storm Shaman (actually not bad), Gorilla Shaman (I actually drew Balduvian Shaman too, but that woula just been too many) and some really BAD stuff (Carrier Pidgeon was in there, if that gives you a clue). White basically gave me Reinforcements and a Disenchant. Gorilla Shaman raged round 3, taking out an Arcum's Whistle and a Vexing Arcanix. 5 rounds of swiss. I zip through the first 3, sweeping all the games, then hit another undefeated player in round 4 and lose to his much much better creatures 2-1. I sweep round 5 ... in game 1, I pop my barbed sextant (no islands yet) to powersink his Jokulhaups. Never saw it coming, and I make the final 8. Here we get new decks, and this one is considerably better than my original set. Features are a Tim, Skeleton Ship, Krovikan Vampire, and Norrit (! See any combinations, folks?), along with a Tactics, Incinerate, Walking Wall, Glider, a pestilence Zombie, and some other random stuff including a Pillage, Counterspell and Fire Covenant (sweet!). I also draw an Urza's Bauble. I really didn't see any chaff to pull (except maybe False Demise, and I really really wanted that in there) so I keep it. With 2 colors, I probably would have used it. What would you do? I play B/r/u. Green was actually decent, but skeleton ship and tim (with the Norrit especially) made blue a little too good to pass up. In the quaterfinals, I roll the guy twice. In game 1, I pull the Norrit/Krovikan out. He manages to counter my counter and blow away the Vampire as it takes out a Trap Door Spider with a Tactics. But the Norrit's still there and it teams up with Walking Wall to eat his creatures one by one until I can run through for a win. After the counter-battle, I'd played a Mind Ravel on him and eaten his Deflection. Sweet. In game 2, I have the Skeleton Ship and Tim out and then pull the Wall and start in on him. He drops a Zuran Orb, but it's too little too late and I do about 34 points to kill him. In the semis, I face a G/R deck. I roll him in game one, but in games 2 and 3, 17 land isn't enough as I can get up to about 3, but he manages to kill any 3-mana threats I can muster and in both games, hits me with a Stunted Growth. Game, set, and match. The haul for 3rd/4th is a handful of boosters, with nothing amazing, but including a couple Japanese Mirage (including an uncommon Griffin I don't recognize by sight, so I guess I didn't have it, and a Gemstone Mine) and a couple Italian Visions (nothing terrific, but I like the Italian River Boa). And, hey, my original sealed got me a Thawing Glaciers, and the second got me a Sulfurous Springs (love that little demon fella). After that, I cabbed back to the hotel and started back home, getting in early Sunday morning (about 12:45 am) and collapsed to sleep. Enough for this year, but I can't wait for the next time. As always, I welcome questions, ideas, and comments. See you next year! --Chris ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com