Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 09:00:19 -0700 From: Arne Bister To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Subject: PTQ Chicago Dortmund Dortmund, August 31st, PTQ Chicago in Germany. The location was the basement of a local brewery, complete with bar, draft beer and a puke bowl in the restroom. Never needed it. Although the tournament's organisation rested in the usually quite capable hands of Gordon and Tim, this time their computer turned out to be quite unreliable. It screwed up three times and had us redo pairings, reenter match results or generally wait around for the new round to start. Nevertheless the whole tournament (including finals) did not take longer than from 9:00 a.m. until 11 p.m., featuring seven 60 minute rounds of swiss in the MVL constructed format. Team Aachen Fantastics arrived with mixed feelings, some not knowing what to expect or whether we had called the metagame correctly (still heavy with Ertaitog and also Big Blue, some Burn). As it turned out, for David Liersch it should be his fourth PTQ win in two seasons (he just returned from worlds placed at 47th). He was the only one with the guts to play the colors we thought might make the cut, and play them correctly: green and blue, 26 creature beatdown with 4 Undo, 2 Ray of Command and a Sideboard of among other things 4 Elephant Grass. He played Monoblack in the Semifinals. Never needed the Elephant Grass, even. I had scrapped my U/G deck (an inferior version of the winning deck) in favor of a rather original concept, a Creature Bloom modified from a deck by Peer Kroeger (Ex German Champion). A team mate added Infernal Tribute and I added Crypt Rats, which turned out to make all the difference. Despite my showing of 4:3 I am very confident of the potential of this deck in the MVL environment and since getting it to run is so much fun, I thought I would share the listing and a short tournament report: Creature Bloom "The Machine" 3 Crypt Rats 4 Abyssal Gatekeeper 4 Veteran Explorer 4 Striped Bears 2 Arctic Wolves 4 Cadaverous Bloom 4 Nature's Resurgence 4 Infernal Contract 3 Vampiric Tutor 2 City of Solitude 2 Drain Life 2 Infernal Tribute 10 Forests 12 Swamps The amount of creatures is just about right and everything else turns out to be in right amounts to get the machine started. So sideboard options are limited. Nevertheless, in the sideboard I needed: 2 Drain Life, 2 City of Solitude, 3 Emerald Charms, 2 River Boas (main board, that's where I'll put them), 2 Blossoming Wreath, 2 Seeds of Innocence, 2 Coercion. In hindsight I would have wished for more Coercion against Monoblue and could have cut the Blossoming Wreath. Four Drain Lifes must give me the edge against burn. If they don't, I would have lost anyway. Round 1 vs. Big Blue with a touch of white In the first duel he counters an Abyssal Gatekeeper with a Memory Lapse in turn two, only to follow up with a Foreshadow in his main phase. I then knew this would be easy - and lost. Second try, him having no clue what I play, I got the machine running and basically sucked him dry. Third try he was very wary, even boomeranged my Cadaverous Bloom when the machine ran (so I had to cast it again). Eventually I had to concede because I could not topdeck another card drawer and could only drain him for his life total minus one, meaning I had no clue yet how to really play this deck. 0:1 1:2 Round 2 vs. R/W Burn Wisdom Enforcer Crusader Deck I played it Weenie and when I ran out of critters, engaged the machine for a finishing drain, never forgetting to lay down a City (baaad shadow bane, bad!). River Boa was a god card, Rats of God were beyond divinity. He even wisdomed twice before taking a drain for 42 (!) life. Having nine creatures in my graveyard helped a lot. 1:1 2:1 Round 3 vs. Tog Breakfast. He never really caught on to what my deck was all about. Turned out he could not sideboard at all against a deck which did not care about going down to -x life for a while. 2:1 2:1 Round 4 vs. R/G mondo combo deck Ooph! This was hard. First duel he torched me for 15 with just 5 forests on the table. Ok, he _did_ have 2 Llanowar Druids and Quirion Elves and I am a scrub for not switching on the machine during my turn. I did not forget it the next two rounds, him showing me torches, Snake Baskets and everything you can cast with 2 zillion red and green mana. 3:1 2:1 Round 5 vs. Monoblue with 12 counters, 4 Boomerangs Aargh! My aaarch enemy! He was whining and wimpering when I was finished and the dust settled, though. Never could counter my City of Solitude when it came (because I usually led something else such as a Coercion or a River Boa). Once tried to Powersink me with a Cadaverous Bloom out. Did not really help him, though. I simply refused to pay and instead thanked him for tapping out, threw on the machine and happily drained for the remaining 18. 4:1 2:1 Round 6 vs. U/R Aether Flash/Counterburn With a confident stride I went into this match and smoked my opponent in the first duel. Aether Flashes help my deck with no end. He complained about my third turn City of Solitude, wanting to have a judge check my sideboard. Well, I clicked the "on" button, sucked him dry and then he did not bother anymore. Turned out he had 15 cards in his sideboard especially geared against all kinds of bloom decks. I lost royally the next two duels and was 4:2 1:2 Round 7 vs. Song of Blood Ertaitog I tried to save an honorable 5:2 but he was faster in the first duel, I showed him the machine in the second and he drew one of two lucky disenchants in the third duel to kill my Bloom in the middle of things. That blew my record for the day and let me end at 4:3 1:2 We stayed to watch David smoke a monoblack deck in semis and win a flight against a hopeless armor/falcon deck (why do people continue building these things?). David had Ray of Command, Undo, Biskelion and a huge armada of 2/x critters plus 4 Waterspouts, Man'o'War and Phids to take care of his opponents. Still boggles me how he fit it all into one deck. All in all I do hope for more tournaments in this format. The sky is the limit. Arne Bister Team Aachen Fantastics