From: edt@admin.lsa.umich.edu (Eric Taylor) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: Detroit PTQ report: Bill's Big Beef Beatdown Date: 27 Aug 1997 20:38:57 GMT I was at the pro tour qualifier for a single slot in Detroit this weekend, hanging out and playing draft. I'm pleased to report my ex-housemate Bill Fleming was able to qualify using his big fat stick of beef. I remember Mike Donais sidling up to me during the finals and asking, "You mean to say he does nothing for 4 turns? Nothing at all? And then tap tap tap out comes a big fatty. And another and another?" Mike had to laugh when I told him it was exactly like that. In the tournament hall in force were Canadian ertai's deck, quite a few copies of the deck I used to qualify with, and also Canadian sands-a-poise. It seems there's almost always a sob story to tell when there's sands-a-poise involved. If you hit a bad deck in the first round, it can be very sad. One of the Canadians hit a first round land destruction/disenchant deck. This would be the only win for ld/disenchant deck but this weak deck's multiple disenchants proved too annoying for the sand's strong deck. However, this win by the land/disenchant deck would be more than this particular sands deck would get because once he hit the loser's bracket he got paired up against yet another very weak deck with main deck disenchants that spelled doom. I watched my old deck get beat up by every sort of deck, but at least it did well against the ertai's deck in the head-to-heads, almost always winning, which was better than I expected. I can only ascribe this to the fact that players using ertai's are typically stupider than player's who have to figure out how to play a 10 counterspell deck. The surprise of the tournament to me was watching Paul Carmouche once again romp through the swiss. He won the ptq lansing and while the deck doesn't look like much, apparently it's very strong in the mirvis-lite environment. There were a few copies of Paul's deck which also did fairly well. Paul's deck: creatures 4 Quiron Ranger, 4 Quiron Elves, 3 Wall of Roots, 4 River Boa, 4 Llanowar Sentinel, 4 Llanowar Behomoth, 2 Arctic Wolves, 2 Stameding Wildebeests, 2 Thundermare, 2 Uktabi Orangutan, stuff 2 Emerald Charm, 2 Incinerate, 2 Kaervek's Torch, 2 Pacifism land 14 Forest, 3 Mountain, 2 Gemstone Mine, 2 Undiscovered Paradise Unlike East Lansing he was severely prepared for the sands-a-poise by putting in more emerald charm's, 187 uktabi butt-monkeys and joreal's centaurs in his sideboard. This would be at a price, however, because to destroy sands-a-poise, he neglected his elephant grass and scalebane elites. His experiences at Lansing had convinced him he could demolish tiny little weenie black easily, however, when the big fat black came thundering out, he wasn't very ready. The final eight consisted of Gary Krackower playing sands-a-poise, Bill Fleming with Bill's Beef, Paul with his Behemoth, Greg Mosley with a blue/black control, and some other people, one ertai's, a mono-blue I think and some creature decks. The first round Bill took out an ertai's in a nail biting affair, where Bill would consistantly go down to 1 or 2 life and then bring on the fat, turning the tide once he was able to do the huge drain life. Bill's deck is very control orientated. The swamp walkers were very good against the ertai's deck, mainly just swamp walking for damage. The third game he was sitting at just a couple points of life beating down with a crypt rat and an urborg stalker, and his opponent top decked two land in a row. Strong pro move by Bill. If his opponent had just drawn an incinerate the game would have been his. But guess what? Canadian Donais ertai doesn't even run incinerates, so this win was less lucky than it looked at first as Bill had plenty of creature control in hand and was only building up mana for the final cheese whiz to put on top of that big fat beef stick he was hitting his opponent with. Once he reached critical mana, Bill burnt him out. His opponent used 4 necratogs instead of the standard Donais 2 necratog. Canadian Donais Ertai creatures 4 Skulking Ghost, 2 Fledgeling Djinn, 4 Circling Vultures, 4 Man O war, 3 Nekrataal, 4 Fallen Askari, 4 Shadow Guildmage, 4 Ertai's Familiar, 2 Necratog, 4 Barrow Ghouls, stuff 4 Song of Blood land 1 Rocky Tar pit, 1 Bad River, 3 Gemstone Mine, 3 Undiscovered Paradise, 1 Mountain, 2 Island, 10 Swamps Gary Krackower outplayed his opponent for an easy win with his sands-a-poise, Greg Mosley also won easily playing very solid card advantage/control 'fid magic. I remember at one point in the tournament a light sort of turned on in Gary's head when he figured out that if he only one land in play, that he could drop the lotus vale, activate the cip cost and thus destroy not only his single land but also the lotus vale, so I have to assume this was Gary's first venture in the world of sands-a-poise. At this point in the tournament, there was a huge deck check and 3 people were knocked out of the tournament by disqualification by having bad deck lists. I think this was much too severe of a penalty. Gary then had to face Paul. Paul was ready for sands-a-poise. In a huge way. Gary lost. The emerald charms were big, and the uktabi butt monkeys were going crazy all over Gary's deck. Gary is a two time Canadian national champion, but he's not a pro. I on the other hand, am a 5 time pro tour player, who admits to being somewhat of a scrub, while my ex-housemate Bill Fleming is a 3 time pro tour player, who has only gone to I think only 4 pro tour qualifiers ever. Gary's not a scrub. But he's not a pro tour player. It takes a certain amount of luck to make the pro tour. If Gary had been paired up with Bill, it would have been a slaughter, because Bill had absolutely no defense other than a builder's bane and two wildfires against sands-a-poise and the possibility of a lucky stupor. To be a pro you have to take certain risks. One of them is to think to yourself really really hard, "I won't face sands-a-poise, I won't face sands-a-poise, sands-a-poise doesn't exists. . ." kick your heels three times, and then voila, you're in. In the finals with Bill vs Paul, Bill took a first game beatdown loss. Then in the 2nd game, he came back. When your opponent has to block with a quirion ranger and then incinerate your urborg stalker, it's pure card advantage. In the third game, Paul had kept his sand golems in and the entire game he had a sand golem in his hand, waiting and waiting for Bill to stupor him. Bill had taken the stupors out. Bill's the master of the "double-think" sideboard action. He somehow always manages to take out the stupors when you put in the golems and then put back in the stupors just when you decide he has taken his stupors out and you take out your sand golems in response. Paul had his fat action going with the beefy llanower behemoth's, but in the end the big black fat was bigger and fatter, while the green fat died too often to this scary man with a big hat. The final play was when Bill did a fine move by necromancing his urborg stalker to cause Paul to have to take stalker action and die in his upkeep. Poor Gary Krackower, he just always seems to come up short in the luck department. A better pairing and it might have been him, instead of Bill going to Chicago, but of course I'm very happy Bill qualified. anyway on with Bill's Big Beef deck list. . . I'm pretty sure this list is right. main deck creatures 20 4 urborg stalker 3 shadow guildmage 4 nekratal 2 necrosavant 4 crypt rat 2 gallowbraid 1 bone dancer (this should have been another necromancy) stuff 16 4 stupor 4 drain life 3 kaevek's torch 4 incinerate 1 necromancy land 24 17 swamp 3 mountain 4 rocky tar pit sideboard 15 3 phrexian furance 2 oddylic wraith (these should have been dirtwaters) 4 sirroco 2 wildfire emissary 1 infernal harvest 2 reign of terror 1 builder's bane I would also try to find room for a couple enfeeblements which are so good against necrotog and perhaps room for one kaervek's spite, and last to figure out some sideboard cards against sands-a-poise. By the way if you haven't yet voted for this invitational thing, I'd like to urge you to vote for my other ex-housemate, Andrew Wills, a true gentleman. --- Eric