From: "John Pennock" Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.misc,rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: [REPORT] PTQ Seattle 8/16 Date: 21 Aug 1997 00:18:48 GMT Seattle PTQ Chicago MiViWl Seattle 8/16 (during Worlds) By John Pennock This is my fourth qualifier for Chicago (two others in Seattle and one in Vancouver, BC) but the first where I qualified. I built my deck to clobber the B/U ertai decks that started showing up in the last two PTQs. The deck I didn't want to see was U/W anti-red (hazerider,passage, abeyance standard). I built a tweaked mono-red fire deck by adding green with a massive sideboard against U/W. Also, when building my mono-red deck I realized that 1 cc or 2 cc critters were weak, orcish settlers being about the only good card there (goblin elite infantry, keepers of kookus, are OK but not great) So I put in Wall of Roots and River Boas. Left everything else the same in a burn deck. My deck: R/g "Green Fire" 4 River Boa 4 Wall of Roots 4 Suq-Ata Lancers 3 Viashino Sandstalker ---- 15 creatures (4 mana sources/walls) 2 Savage Twisters 4 Hammers of Bogardan 4 Incinerate 4 Thunderbolt 3 Fireblast 4 Kaevek's Torch ---- 21 fire spells (19 direct damage, 4 resusables, 3 pitches, 2 creature only sweepers) 3 Quicksand 4 Forest 4 Mountain Valley 1 Undiscovered Paradise 12 Mountains ---- 24 land (9 ways to green, 17 ways to red, 3 anti-creature) Sideboard: 3 Elephant Grass (killed B/U all day) 4 City of Solitude (anti counter,abeyance) 3 Tropical Storms (anti hazerider) 1 Phyrexian Furnace (anti graveyard) 2 Emerald charm (anti enchantment) 2 Chaos charm (anti wall roots/floodgate) Swiss Round 1 - Chris Pantages (B/u/r ertai, song of blood, necratog) Chris is from No. Cal but was up for the worlds. game 1 - He gets going fast and hits me on turn four for 10 with a song of blood for three creatures pumping up his two flying Djinns. A timely savage twister cleared his critters and I pound away with a sandstalker and river boa. I hammer anything he cast and fireblast the win. game 2 - Elephant grass. Basically after exchanging early blows I lay the grass out after he's establed creature dominance (Nekrataals, Necratog, etc.). I hold his creatures up until I get a twister. Then I bring on the sandstalkers and lancers for win. (M:1-0 G:2-0) Round 2 - Mike Thicke (U/W anti-red hazerider, abeyance, passage) Mike is young guy from Canada. He goes on to make top 8. I was hoping to avoid this deck, but the fates weren't with me this round. game 1 - Mike plays three hazeriders. He plays very cautiously and makes no mistakes. I die to 2 hazeriders. game 2 - In goes my cities and storms. None of them show up, but the hazeriders do. It's as easy as that. I'm dead even though I manage to get him very low in life. A passage of my thunderbolt on his waterspout hurt a lot. (M:1-1 G:2-2) Round 3 - Cathy Nicoloff (R/W Aetherflash, hammer, Chimeric Sphere) Cathy is from No. California up for Worlds fun. Game 1 - Cathy is late. Our table is right in front of the head judge (Matt Hyra) about 4 floor judges descend on my table the instant the match started and give her a game loss. Had we been somewhere else she might not have had the loss so quickly. She shows up about 2 minutes late. Game 2 - I draw a boatload of land, 2 hammers and a fireblast. She gets the Aetherflash on me but I don't care, I'm in recursion by turn 8, she has her own hammer but not enough to recurse. Wow, that was too easy and a big break for me. I still have a long way to go. (M:2-1 G:4-2) Round 4 - Brendon Herzog (B/U ertog) Brendon is from Oregon and is one of the best players in the Northwest. I've never played him though but have watched him numerous times. Game 1 - He gets the fallen askari on turn 2. I have a little sandstalker for him. He gets another askari so I visit him with my sandstalker and a wall of roots. He Nekrataals the wall and introduces me to the askari boys. I twister the 3 critters and bring out two lancers after losing the stalker to quicksand. He double enfeeblements them, thows down a necratog. I'm at 7 life staring at a Necratog who can grow to 7/8 (3 critters in graveyard). I have an incinerate/fireblast in hand. I pull a Rosewater and figure out that there is no way that Necratog is going to kill me. He pumps it twice, I respond with incinerate, he pumps one more, then I fireblast. Neither of us have much ammo at this point. I draw a river boa which puts him then in range of a torch. Game 2 - Elephant grass. We get into the usual creature attack/attack tit for tat with him gaining control of the theatre with Nekrataal, man-o-war. I put down the grass, wait for a while and then twister. He brings out a snake basket next and two necratogs. I twister snake tokens and put down the grass (couldn't finish the togs') Wait till I draw enough fire and put an end to it. Two twisters is a good draw for me. I also had 1 more grass in hand to hold the togs at bay since he had enough stuff in his graveyard by now to kill me with one. (M:3-1 G:6-2) Round 5 - ? (U/W waterspout, counters, no hazeriders) Game 1 - I see his floodplain and am worried. I start thinking about my sideboard. I decide to play this game recklessly. I cast fire at him every opportunity and especially when it was inopportune. If he impulsed at the end of my turn I thunderbolted. If he had two mana untapped (memory lapse) I would torch him. I drew three torches and was able to pop him with my sandstalker twice. I am able to use the torches to great effect with their extra ability of requiring two more to interrupt. I can't believe I won the first game. I suspect he'll be bringing in the ammo next (passage, hazerider). I put in my cities and storms and hope for the best.) Game 2 - I pop a third turn City of Solitude but he memory lapses. I throw it out again and he lets it go! I couldn't believe my luck. He must be out of counters. Nope. Disenchant his turn. I couldn't believe he would leave disenchant in for the 2nd game after having nothing to shoot at in the 1st. Oh well. He gets a good mana flow and is able to get a 'spout out with counters handy. I can't stop it. I think he draws all his quicksands and stops all my quick attackers. I lose this one. Game 3 - I get a handful of anti-blue spoilers. Cities and storms. 3rd turn I cast a lancer. He quicksands. next a stalker, he dissipates. Next another stalker, he dissapates again. Then I hammer, no counter (whupps shouldn't have dissapated those stalkers). I hammer again (two in my hand). He gets out a spout. I storm it (only takes four mana). I retrieve hammer and keep at it. Cities I get out are disenchanted. He passages some times. I torch him when he brings out another spout and only three mana untapped. (M:4-1 G:8-3) Round 6 - ? (R/b, my deck but with a splash of black instead of green) This guy was from Iceland, don't remember his name. I know this is going to be a crucial round. Game 1 - I win the flip! Important in burn on burn. I also have faster creatures than him and can block with my walls. He's carrying minataurs and I have lancers. I think the speedy creature base of my deck is the main reason I do well against the U/B. I get the hammer on him. Hit with some lancers. He has askari which are easily blocked. He has two minataurs and two askari when I incinerate him to win, close match. Game 2 - He goes first and proceeds to light me up. Game 3 - I go first and get the double fireblast finish. (M:5-1 G:10-4) Round 7 - Peer Kroeger (? didn't see deck) Peer is a pro-tour player and always finishes high. Like the pro-tour players we are we figure out our chances and decide to draw. We play a fun match where I bring out my fever deck and he plays one of the most innovative bloom deck I've seen. Veteran explorer, abyssal gatekeeper, nature's resurgance, etc. Pretty cool deck, too bad he didn't play this in the real tournament. We have fun. He gets seeded number 5 and I get seed 7. (M:5-1-1 G:10-4) Final 8. It's great to be in the 8! I'm feeling confident in my deck choice and its ability to handle the ertog. Only deck I fear is the U/W anti-red. I see that Mike Thicke is in the final 8, and I hope I don't see him. Final 8 was: 1 - Skylar ? (mono blue creature, 4 lapses is all) 2 - Max Suver (B/U ertog) 3 - Canadian (B/U ertog song) 4 - Mike Thicke (see Round 2, U/W anti-red) 5 - Peer Kroeger (?) 6 - don't know 7 - John Pennock (me, R/g) 8 - don't know Quarter-finals - Max Suver (B/U ertog, skulking ghost, guildmage, etc.) Max is a local and I know him well. I think he's ranked in the top 20 for type II and a PT regular. Max is a good guy but someone I needed to avenge. He knocked me out of the Vancouver PTQ just a few weeks ago. He also beat me in the finals of a Paris PTQ a few months back. It's payback time as I think he's playing B/U. He's already qualified. Game 1 - We both try to assert control with our quick creatures, with me getting some more early damage but him establishing creature dominance with man-o-war, nekrataal. But as usual I sweep the man-o-wars, guildmage, neks, with a twister toward the midgame to stop the onslaught. I pour on the fire and some hammer to win. The big weakness of the black decks is they don't carry any Drain Lifes. I could let the Barrow ghouls and company get me down to 5 and I wasn't really worried as I would see the creatures coming from a mile away. Game 2 - Max gets DQ'd. Apparently while we were playing game 1 the judging staff was pouring over his deck registration. He listed only 57 cards in the main deck. He forgot his bad rivers, I think. Another incredible weird break for me. I think I had Max well in hand but I never got a chance to prove it. I think he was rushed to register his deck and that is why he forgot the lands. (M:6-1-1 G:11-5) Semi-finals - Canadian guy (forgot his name playing ertog song). Game 1 - He has a slow mana draw (only two mana for a bit). I bust out the lancers and stalkers. He gets a barrow ghoul but can't maintain it long even though he discards vultures. He finally gets the third mana but cannot stop the torch fireblast. Game 2 - In go the elephant grass. He has an all gemstone mine draw (three). He carefully casts things to not lose land but ends up with three mines with one counter and an island. He's got vultures and barrow ghouls but can't keep them all going. He gets the Ertai out and his graveyard is filling up. He's doing better but his mana situation becomes critical when he nekrataals my wall and loses all three mines to do it. I incinerate the 'tal and burn him. He doesn't draw another land until he's dead. I believe he was playing song too but it wasn't really a factor. Finals - Skylar ? (mono U Ophids, spouts, , lapses) Skylar is from Portland and was undefeated in Swiss. He also defeated the U/W I was worried about. He doesn't want to split. I don't care, as my main objective was to qualify, but if he wanted a split I would have as it is the right thing to do. Game 1 - I have a really good draw and start the game with three consecutive river boas. He's tapping out to cast creatures like serrated biskelion, cloud elemental and stuff. The boa do some serious damage before getting serrated and quicksanded. Then I start the fire on him. With little counter magic he can't stop the torch, blast. He offers me a 70/30 split at this point with me getting the 30. Weird but gutsy. Game 2,3 - Both were really the same story. In retrospect I mis-sideboard taking out my savage twisters for tropical storms. I assumed the bulk of his creatures were flying and that he had more counters than he did. I should have keep the twisters AND the storms. His creatures were azimaet drake, cloud elemental, waterspout, fog elemental, biskellion, ophidian, man-o-war. I end up using all my fire to hold off his horde. He drew every memory lapse he has both games. His fog elementals were always a pain. He whupped me twice. Guess I should have taken the 30% he offered earlier. (M:6-2-1 G:12-7) That's it. I went home with a bid and a bunch of boosters. See you in Chicago. Anybody have any thoughts on Extended deck construction? John Pennock -- The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views and do not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.