Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy
From: c s i v i l s @ h o t m a i l . c o m (Craig Sivils (csivils@hotmail.com))
Subject: Austin PTQ Report
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 20:43:09 GMT

I wanted to play something other than tog for this ptq.  IMO, tog is
the necro of this format.  It's the most consistant deck type and it's
slowly becomming one that you can be sure that every opponent will be
ready for.

I play tested 3 other deck types and did a lot of refinning on many
of them.  One red/green was really strong, but I didn't have the guts
to play green in mivilite (turns out a large portion of the better 
records did play green).

On the Thursday before the tournament, Roy came over to play test with
his necratog deck and waxed all three versions of my new decks.  Sigh,
I went with a tog deck.

Of course, never being one to blend in deck wise I took Roy's deck OK
City deck as the base, and tweaked it by adding borrowed ghouls (so so
strong), 2 vultures and (Drum roll.....) a Freaky effreet!  I figured
the deck had both red and blue and I went of the meta-game assumption
that if you only put one of something in your deck you'll never see
it, and thus I would be playing a 59 card deck (sorta).

My sideboard I went really wild with putting some stuff in that people
either told me was silly, or stuff that just never occured to people
as belonging in a tog deck.  If I go to another qualifier I'll take an
even crazier sideboard since it was my crazy ideas that turned out to
win me matches.

I took the wife and kids with me to the Austin convention center.  I
had taken some of the deck regestration sheets home from the last
tournament so I showed up with my deck list written out and ready to
register.  As I'm standing in line all of the lights in the room fade
to black.  It seems that the lights in the room were controlled by
this elaborate keypad that was strategically placed about 3 feet off
the ground.  Just the right height for my 4 year old daughter who
defty used the hit a bunch of keys approach to shut the lighting
system down.  Amber did a much better job of shutting the lights
off than any of the adults could at turning them back on, it took
about 10 minutes to get the lights back to full intensity and then the
convention center staff proceeded to make ample use of their
yellow/black duct tape-like tape and made an effort to kid proof the
control pad (but I knew if we let my kids back that they could get
past that easily, fortunatly we did not put my theory to the test).

The tournament began and the room was very very cold, if only Amber
could find the air conditioning control box...

Round 1 Jay playing black/blue bubble matrix/crypt rat.
Game 1 my deck is quick out of the blocks and Jay is quickly pushed
back into defensive mode where he's throwing creatures in front of
my ghouls.  I roll over him and only see islands.
Game 2 Jay's playing swamps, wow... a 2 color deck!  Jay tutors for
something and plays a bubble matrix.  I'm just sure that there is some
insane combo that's about to drop and put me into some kind of weird
lock, but it never drops.  After man-o-waring a dirtwater twice, I
abduct it and use it to help finish him off.  Turns out the combo was
bubble matrix/crypt rat and the assumption that he would have more
creatures.  Invalid assumption :)

Round 2 Lan playing mono-black
Lan is one of the better Houston players, I wasn't keen on hitting him
this soon in the tournament.
Game 1 Lan outplays me using crypt rats to net some key card
advantage.   In the end it's a crypt rat that finishes me off.
Game 2 I have a beautiful draw getting 4 of the 8 cards I sideboarded
in, unfortunatly I get 1 land... 3 turns later... still one land...
two turns to live, I draw a fetch land.  One turn to live, I play a
borrowed ghoul who watches the weenies run around him to finish me
off.

Little did I know that game 2 started a cruel string of horrid mana
for me.

Round 3 Mat playing red/green weenie/burn.
Mat is a young kid playing a straightforward green/red deck.
Game 1 I draw 5 land, an askari and two song of blood.  The askari
got bolted, I proceeded to draw mostly mana.
Game 2 Yet another one land draw.  Mat gets a slow start, but better
than mine.  Over time I get a red/black fetch land and then a gemstone

mine.  But I have to use the mine up to stay alive, as I use the last 
counter on the mine I have drawn my 4th land.  I use one of the two or
three nekretaals in my hand to tall a critter.  I had 2 man-o-wars,
the stairwell, an abduction.  In short I died holding the cards to
just wipe the board clear and keep it that way :(

I was pretty shook up after this loss since my deck should have won
this matchup.  It took some time, but I stayed in the tournament since
1. Hatter said there was a slim chance for 6-2's and I expected Lan to

help give me a good opponent win % and 2. I wanted to play a good game
after having gotten shaken up over horendous luck.

Round 4 Viki playing red/black weenies
Viki and I pretty much agreed that we were fighting it out at the
bottom of the food chain.

Game 1  I let Viki go first to increase the odds of a good draw, my
plan does not work as I get my one land opening draw.  I inform Viki
that she is hopelessly in trouble since I've gotten my 1 mana draw for
this match in game 1 and now I'll have mana when I get my awsome
sideboard into the deck!  Viki seems amused as she crushes me.  This
game, I actually did see freaky!!!  It flew right on into the
graveyard as Ertai phased out.
Game 2  Sure enough, sideboard kicks in and I win (Viki's mana
problems had nothing to do with it (wink wink)).  I attacked and did
21 points of damage with an ertai and a tog in one hit (thank you song
of blood).  This game I actually drew freaky!  But my only red mana
was a gemstone and I ended up using it for other more pressing issues
(such as it was also my only blue mana) and ended up holding onto
freaky the whole game. 
Game 3  A close game, but my graveyard was filling much faster than
Viki's. The key moment was when Viki necromancied my man-o-war to
clear a path for her ghoul.  I topdecked a man-o-war when I had 6 mana
to cast both of my man-o-wars after using the first one to reclaim the
2nd.

Round 5 Bryan Sammons (Red from team Dallas) playing mono-red
Game 1 Why am I hitting people like this in the loosers bracket?  I
get my opening hand and guess what.... YES, ONE MANA!!!  Fortunatly
Bryan also has mana trouble.  Discarding a creature or two meant that
my deck could recover low mana via barrow ghoul much better than the
red deck could, I win.
Game 2 The heat is pouring on, but slows off when I'm in the 10-13
life range.  My creatures keep comming, but no fireblast for Bryan....
When your at 4 life, your opponent (playing burn) is trying to
think.....  It's a really good sign :)

Round 6 Mike?  Playing green/red aether flash
Game 1 I've come to just accept the fact I'll have a one mana open and
I just figure I'll have to endure.  I manage to topdeck some mana and
carry on as if I had just a peachy draw.  After some cruel metenda
lion beatdown I get control of the board, but then forget the upkeep
on my ghoul!  Next turn Mike playes an aether flash!!!  I manage to
coast in with the creatures I had.  Close win.

After this game and for the rest of the day I went from my normal
"idiot" counter approach to reminding me of upkeeps to my new improved
"SUPER IDIOT" (tm) counter.  I would place about 8-12 dice/coins on
top of my library when I had something with an upkeep in play.  I
physically could not draw a card without moving most of them.  Didn't
miss any more upkeeps.

Game 2 I don't have any bubble matrix's in sideboard. I don't have my
typical amount of fat in deck. This could be rough. I also have mana
trouble. An early wall of roots means that there is an aetherflash out
before I've played a single creature. Argh. I get a sage owl and line
up my land. I cast my only barrow ghoul in hand and plan to feed it
via aetherflash. The game then proceeded to become a ghoulfest as I
would feed the goul by casting creatures such as
man-o-wars/ertai's/nekretaals as expensive versions of their utility
spells. Mike thought he was in good shape when he finally threw down a
wall of roots with no counters. Did I mention that I had a crazy
sideboard? I've never seen a tog player side in 4 incinerates
before.... Neither had mike :) One dead wall of roots and one toasty
jungle troll later Mike is getting low on life, he plays a tundermare
to block, killing his wall of roots.  I man-o-war and bring him down
to 4.  Next turn he torches the ghoul and I have no idea how long till
I find another ghoul to cast.  Mike draws land, plays his thundermare
and attacks.  I'm looking at the abduction in my hand wondering, does
this work how I think it does?  I call a judge over and ask if this
works pointing at the mare and showing him the abduction.  The judge
says, the thundermare is unaffected by summoning sickness.  DOH!  I
kinda like this.  I abduct/untap the mare and finish mike off.

Round 7 vs Alex playing red/white burn.
Game 1 I HAVE MANA!!  I get a good start, putting out some sacrifical
tog's to get the burn off my back so the deck could kick in and
overwhelm Alex. 
Game 2 Alex sides in 12 cards....  Bad news.  As the game progresses,
Alex plays a turn 3 lotus vale (transformative sideboard, oh dear).
Alex tries to thunderbolt me/enlighten tutor.  But realized he only
has red mana.  Next turn he tithes and tutors as he's receiving
damage.  Then he plays a equipoise and I attack bringing him down to 3
life.  Alex would play the sands next turn and lock me up.  Good thing
I had that incinerate I sideboarded in or it might have been a rough
game :)  Since I like elagant transformative sidebaords, I must say
that Alex had a cool concept going.  It was during this match that Mat
from round 3 had his dad show up and remove him from the tournament
with a 4-2 record because it was time to go home.

Round 8 vs David Yo playing blue/white.
I wasn't paired up against David Yo at the start of this round.  David
said "Give me someone playing black", and Hatter came and switched my
card with David's opponent (seems they'd already played before).
Not the best of ways to start a match.

Game 1, I get the early ertai, the early borrowed ghouls and some
man-o-war support. I'm at 8 and David is around 10ish. I song of blood
for 3 and then attack with everything (ghoul/2 man-o-wars). David has
a tapped potatohead, a tapped spout and an untapped sac to kill a
black critter griffon. David's only untapped mana is a quicksand and a
plains. As far as I can tell, David's only way to live is do two out
of the following three: Quicksand a man-o-war, block the ghoul, sac
the griffon to bury the ghoul or as a long shot if he's packing main
deck shadowbanes then I loose. Instead David blocks a man-o-war and
taps both of his mana to honorable passage the damage. My response
was... "so we're in damage prevention?" David realizes whats happened
and to his credit says, "I screwed up", and did not even ask to take
it back. I'd let several players take back moves even as late in the
tourney as Round 7, but this was a fight for the possibility of
breaking.  The ghoul/man-o-war delt 12 damage to David and finished
him off.
Game 2, My deck delivered up the goods.  I played a tight game, had
TWO early ertai's pumping the graveyard and David knew he was in bad
shape when I started going kamakazi with the ertai's and attacking to
get some extra pump on the graveyard.  I kept man-o-waring the spouts
to tap his blue so I could cast stuff and when I landed a tombstone
and he didn't have a disenchant... that was a wrap :)

Oh, I can't remember which of the generic tourney report BA-ROKEN
phrases that I've forgotten to use, whatever.....

As it turns out, a 6-1-1 record was required to break so I was out of
luck by definition.  Something like 5 or 6 of the final 8 were Austin
knights.  As a team, they ran a beautiful show that day.  They were 
mostly running green/white decks to hose blue/black.  They had a
couple members running anti-blue/white decks to stop the decks that
could hose them (and the anti-blue/white decks seemed to hit nothing
but blue/white).  They also seemed to have some kind of pact with the
former team Dallas on trying to get their unqualified members to
qualify.  The Austin Knights seemed to have gotten the better end of
that deal.  About the only question in my mind is if the Austin
Knights got one or two of their members qualified.  The Austin Knights
are a team of nice guy's, and have recently stepped up a notch to
become the best team in Texas.  But they are a young team and they're
having growing pains, they don't yet know how to deal with their
success and sometimes it can make quite a bad impression.  Learning to
be a gracious winner is one thing and a different skill from learning
how to dominate with class.  But I want my last words on this to be
positive, so I'm going to once again say that they showed
up with a game plan, executed the game plan and had things go down
according to plan. In short, they owned this qualifier. 

Hatter ran a good tournament although I was a bit disturbed with a
couple
things.

1. The enforced no-sleeve policy: My mana luck was much worse than
usual
where I had five consecutive matches containing a one land opening
draw.
Since I can't riffle shuffle, I tend to rely on a lot of hand over
hand
shuffles. Since I almost always play a qualifier with brand new
sleeves,
they are usually very slick and shuffle well. I can't help but wonder.


2. Since a 6-1-1 record was required to break, they didn't calculate
the
position's of the 6-2's since they do it by hand. Usually I wouldn't
care but for some reason I cared this time. I had fought back from a
lousy start and had beat some excellent players. I wanted to know what
it meant, I wanted to see a number for my finish. But all I know is
I'm
somewhere between 9 and 20.

3. And finally, there is the issue of a wrong ruling's call against
one of the lady members of team Fruity Ass.  It seems that equipoise
managed to phase a centaur with the equipoise's controller at 4 life.
While Hatter did appologize when he recognized the ruling was wrong
and
did provide some foreign packs as a compensation prize, I've seen my
wife
done wrong by rulings during tournaments in the past (NOT HATTERS) and
so I really felt for her husband/boyfriend/friend/whoever the guy was
who had to just sit there and hold her as she cried and couldn't do a
!@#$*^ thing to help change what had happened.

Team Fruity Ass has always been the friendliest team I've ever met in
magic
and every single member is a "PRO" in my book.


And of course, the deck :)
Please note the 23 land of which I quite often managed to only get one
of
in my opening draw.

1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Gemstone Mine
3 Rocky Tar Pits
3 Bad Rivers
7 Swamps
6 Islands
2 Mountains
4 Necratog's
4 Ertai's Familiar
4 Man-o-War's
4 Nekrataals
3 Song of Blood
3 Borrowed Ghouls
3 Sage Owl's
3 Fallen Askari
2 Tombstone Stairwell
2 Circling Vultures
1 Frenetic Effreet

Sideboard
1 Knight of Mist
1 Abduction
1 Delerium
2 Mind Bend
3 Mind Harness
3 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Incincerate

This may be sacralige but I wouldn't run the mind bends next time.
The
bolts handle dirtwaters, the mind harness take care of scalebanes and
both are useful against a large number of opponents creatures.  

I think I liked the deck with a bit more 3 toughness creatures in it,
but
trying to get there without slowing the deck down can be quite a
challenge.

And any no-barrow ghoul ErtaiTog deck can be improved by adding 3
ghouls. I've said it before and this is just one more tournament to
convince me. Ghoul's don't live to the next upkeep 50% of the time
(often at card disadvantage to your opponent), Ghouls are key to
beating
burn, Ghouls put your opponent on the defensive and Ghouls get a
2.666666 on the Sivils critter price index which puts it at an even
better
deal than a kird ape (2.5). 

Craig