From: Hugerfax@aol.com Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 02:10:28 -0400 (EDT) To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Subject: PTQ DC, Toronto Grand Prix Report in case anyone is interested... the 3 founding members of the lamest team in magic, Team Nobody, made their way to ROCKVILLE, maryland (why was this called the DC qualifier?) for the 2nd of their 3 qualifying attempts. me, my brother steve cowley, and mike katz stayed overnight friday at my sister's place outside baltimore. no, we didn't stay up all night making decks, we were playing big black and after a good showing in toronto 2 weeks before we were pretty confident. breakfast at shoney's the next morning (good lord could there be a bigger dive than that place? feel free to clean a plate every now and then, or maybe stick to things that are hard to fuck up like toast) and we are off to the q. this isn't going to be typical report, i'm not going to mention round by round pairings etc.. we register our decks at dc, see tony tsai and dave price from team deadguy. me and my brother put together this deck when mvw first came out but the first tourney report we read that actually mentioned a mono black deck was from origins telling about tony being 6-1 with his. tony decided to splash blue with his deck which i think weakens the deck... he didn't make that mistake in toronto for the grand prix as i'm sure people will find out soon enough. here is our deck as all 3 of us played it: 2 coercion 4 drain life 4 necromancy (people who dismiss this card need to play it, so good in this 3 dark ritual environment) 1 nekrosavaant 1 gallowbraid 1 barrow ghoul 4 nekrataal 4 urborg stalker 3 crypt rats 2 bone dancer 1 serrated biskellion 4 fallen askari 3 fledgling djinn 1 skulking ghost 4 quicksand 19 swamps this deck just rules blue-white or green decks. sorry to anyone who thinks differently but green cannot compete with nekrataals and necromancied taals. blue? unless blue gets a great draw, say good night. rats, taals, stalkers beat the hell out of blue. ertai decks can cause problems, but biskellion and crypt rats are tough. sands of time (a good one) kicks the shit out of this deck. oh well pray to the gods above that you don't see a lotus vale ever hit the table... in dc i went 6-2, all 6 decks i beat were BLUE. against 5 i swept. the one guy i didn't sweep beat me the first game with a phantom warrior with empryic armor... katz goes 6-1-1 but loses out on tie-break. he lost in the first round to a guy playing straw golems and teferi's veil. our deck doesn't function well on 2 mana. my brother was 5-1 and had to play mike long (pt paris winner for those 2 who might not know). earlier in the day long cried out for people to begin when in actuality the round hadn't started yet and the judge got so mad he had to stand on a chair and tell everyone to stop and start over. long was pretty loud and boisterous all day, but i guess that is just his style. before the game started my brother says to long, "are you going to talk all match or can we just play?" long looks at my brother and says "are you always this abrasive?" pretty funny, my brother discards cards early and dies to mana screw harsh. 2nd and 3rd game go differently, with long dieing to an abducted urborg stalker (with another on the table) in the 3rd game. long must have stared at the stalker for a good 5-10 minutes trying to figure out if he had to take damage from BOTH stalkers. my brother wins and then beats mono red next round to get in as 3rd seed in final 8. semi's of final 8 he beats an ertai deck running firestorm (cool) standard. next he plays off against mono red and beats him down due to severe mana screw in game 2. best line, mono red guy (sorry about names) says to my brother after a stalker hits the table: "i counter that with harsh language". in finals my brother takes draw against sandipoise, doubt we could beat that deck even though we run 3 touchstone in sideboard. unfortunately, good sandipoise run coercion and disenchant against black but even better is city of solitude which nullifies touchstone. so my bro qualifies here. PS note on long, we talked to him afterwards, he was a more than gracious loser and a funny and nice guy. on to the grand prix. same deck. in dc we go 6-2,6-1-1,9-1 decide that is a good thing. people talk about how elephant grass beats a black deck. please clarify that: it beats the ertai deck. our deck doesn't have problems with grass, drain life and stalker handles things nicely. in toronto not as big a tournout as expected, maybe 200 people playing? all of team deadguy is there, as are most of the big canadians, matt place, other assorted good people. dennis bentley and pat albro up from rochester (where we are all from). pat is running our black deck, dennis is stubborn and goes green red, and stubbornly beats people up with that deck to make top 16! team deadguy is running their version of mono black, extremely strong version. they run more beef and quicker shit like sewer rat, more barrow ghoul, hidden horror, and tog. ouch. black on black (theirs vs ours) i would say they had the better deck. day 1 sees me, steve, and katz all going 5-1 to qualify for day 2. day 2 we all lose in 2nd round to go 6-2. i lose to a mono black deck with enfeeblement standard. 3rd game i get the awesome 1 quicksand draw. please, everyone who has ever lost with just quicksands on the table, a show of hands? ahhh, i thought so. only thing worse: a 1 winding canyon draw (i think i saw worth wollpert die with that on the table...) after that steve has to play katz next rd and loses and then never sees a 3rd land the rest of the day. katz and i win to go 7-2 and then we are paired against each other. damn, too bad, i hate playing my own teammate but i guess shit happens. first game he beats me up drawing 3 drain lifes, i draw none. 2nd game is STUPID. check this shit out. my opening hand: 2 hidden horror, 1 dark ritual, 1 bone dancer, 1 biskellion, 1 drain life, 1 swamp. now i know what katz has sided in: 4 enfeeblement, 2 hidden horror, just like me. i figure a first turn hidden horror is so FAT but by turn 2 he is going to be 2/2 and if i don't draw mana i will die horribly. so i go, dark ritual out the horror and toss a biskellion. he goes, rituals out a coercion and laughs at my hand. no land to yank so he takes the other hidden horror. i go, draw a swamp, yes! play swamp hit for 4. he goes lays land done. i go, draw... fallen askari! hit for 4, play askari. katz goes, coercions again, takes out bone dancer. i know have drain life in hand, 2 swamps on table, 3 creatures in graveyard. i draw.... BARROW GHOUL. my only one. this game was so stupid. katz just laughs and concedes. game 3, how could i top that? oh i know... i'll cut katz to a (all at once now) "1 quicksand draw". sorry bud... next round i beat (wait, a name i remember!) ben farkas playing beefy version of ertai. draw in the last round to a sandipoise deck and at 9-2-1 i am the 8th seed. i don't know everyone in the final 8 but went something like this: 1) erik lauer (someone called this guy mad genius of magic, i like that name: he looks like a mad genius, and his deck was certainly original.) 2) dan silberman? sandipoise 3) brian kibler 4) tony tsai - mono black, congrats tony. tony is a nice guy as all of team deadguy are. some FUCK stole his cards the night before (about $2000 worth) and i hope he went on to win the grand prix to at least partially make up for that 5) one of the o'mahoney shwarz brothers (ugh sorry about the names) - was playing song o blood ertai with cloud elementals 6) nice guy from carnegai mellon, damn i SUCK with names somebody please cast amnesia on me again already, this guy had another original deck: trust me, his deck relied on mistmoon griffon and striped bears. honest. p.s. 4 scalesban elite standard was nice too. 7) matt place, mono blue 8) me, mono black semis i play the mad genius. his deck was mono black... with savaants, cad knights, snake baskets, and agonizing memories. and stupors. .... and agonizing memories. and stupors. oh i'm sorry did i repeat myself? its because i just DREW those same damn two cards again. first game i only draw 2 mana, then i get to draw a bunch of cards i have already seen. i needed to get a fast start (ie askari, ghost, djinn) but that didn't happen. erik would agonize me, put my crappy cards on top of my deck, then stupor the good cards out of my hand. oh joy. i lose this game to 2 savaants that were brought back after i killed them by eating 2 of the 7 snake basket tokens on the table. game 2 i draw 5 land in my opening hand, he dark rituals out a agonizing memory on 2nd turn and i draw some land... again. where are my askari? damn you askari you run and hide and don't block and now when i need you, you run and hide somewhere else in my deck. this game is a bit better, a couple of clutch crypt rats and some fledgling damage and i have a shot. i have a djinn on the table, a rats on the board, 2 untapped mana, he is at 7 life. i have 5 swamps on the table. he has a savaant, and an enfeebled dirtwater. i am at 14. his turn, he attacks for 5. i am at 9. he plays crypt rats, and rats for 2. shit! i am dead. if i dont rats, i die in 2 turns. if i rats, i can top deck a drain to win. i rats for 2 in response. he is at 3. i am at 5. i have 5 swamps. i draw... swamp. no suspense here, i die to the savaant. congrats to erik last i saw, tony was playing erik, place won his game, not sure of the rest. random notes: funny to see katz wandering around the hotel, drunk, smoking a stogie. he played gary krakower and beat him in ante after downing a lot of beer and shots! one of our buddies, a local dj here in rochester, played our deck in the sunday regular ptq and went 4-1 before getting dq'd in the finals. this guy is a blast but not the greatest player in the world, seems he ended up with 5 nekrataals in his deck, must have mancied one. too bad, he would have been one of the funniest guys on the pro tour. of course, him qualifying for the pro tour would be like hulk hogan on jeopardy: a big blank stare as the people to either side buzz in. magic is a fucked up game, gary krakower (2 time canadien national champ, very good magic player) goes 0-2 in this qualifer (play sandipoise first round of all the stupid luck) but BJ the DJ goes 4-1... yup, makes sense to me. also a friend of ours, todd, would like alex schvartsman to know: he could GIVE a SHIT if you work for inquest or not. hey tell me who goes around bragging that they work for inquest? personally i wipe my ass with that magazine.... (of course, todd does own a subscription) thank god football has started... anyone reading this in knoxville, tenn (or nearby) please email me at hugerfax@aol.com .... i am moving down there towards the end of september to head back to school and live with my beautiful girlfriend and i would love to meet good players i could get together with and playtest etc etc have fun everyone... bruce cowley