From: Stephen A Schwarz Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: Dallas PTQ--Winner's Tourney Report Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 05:32:34 -0500 Howdy Netfolken, Another AustiKnight PTQ report coming at ya. Hopefully everyone is not totally bored with us at this point and still enjoys reading about us despite clogging the groups the past few months with report after report. The PTQ in Dallas was pretty much the culmination of the qualifier series for those of us living in Texas for Chicago and after having qualifiying 4 people already we hoped to get one or 2 more spots for our team since we're greedy bastards :). Pretty much the whole team traveled to Dallas Friday night staying at the Holiday Inn where the tourney was to be on Saturday. My mates Burt, Pierre, Adrian, Bill, and I(Paul Gallagher) met up with Sam, Brian, Chris, and Bryan Hubble who had driven up earlier. Sam and Pierre had been furiosly playtesting their own G/W/u sandsipoise deck with most of the rest of us leaning towards playing either B/u big fatty beatdown or monoblack fatty beatdown which we felt was the strongest of the non poise decks out there. Around 3 am, while talking with Bill the team captain I finally decided to play monoblack over the B/u for greater mana consistency since I felt that would be more important than the extra versatility the blue splash offered for getting through the swiss. I knowingly accepted that I SHOULD lose to sandsipoise but have a good shot at most of the other major deck types out there. After this I got a mighty mighty 4 whole hours of sleep before the qualifier. The next morning while finishing up the sideboard I removed the reigns of terror expecting G/W or G/W/r to be a very small portion of the field, I was totally wrong. G/W anti-black metagame decks were all over the place on the top tables. At this time I have been asked not to post the contents of our monoblack deck that I qualified with this weekend because it may be used by teammates at a qualifier in Oklahoma City next week. If they decide not to go, which is likely, then I'll post a followup with a deck listing and some extra strategy advice. However you should have a pretty good idea what I was playing after this report. The turnout for the PTQ was pretty good overall, over 150 players, which necessitated 8 rounds of swiss. I didn't take notes so this report is totally from memory. Several other strong teams were out in force, with Team Dallas and the Guildmages showing up strong. Before the first round the team hung around and shot the shit from our compadres in Dallas and wished each other luck and whatnot. I drank a coke and was pretty jittery, plus everybody was shivering from cold inside. Onto the report: Round 1 vs. David Burns playing G/r fatty beatdown with a twist Game 1: David comes out with a decent spread of quirion rangers, centaurs, walls of roots, and boas. I was manashy stalling at 2 land till turn 4 or 5 but I managed to hold him off with skulkers and a barrow ghoul until I snagged a third land to put out a necratog. I played defense for a while 'taaling a behemoth and crypt ratting alot of stuff away after awhile. Then as the game got going I drew a necromancy, mancied his behemoth and served up behemoth beatdown followed up with some drains to put me safely out of range. The behemoth finished him. I board in both the extra necromancy's, 2 banishings, 1 wand of denial, and 2 serrated biskelions. I take out sewer rats and barrow ghouls which our ineffective vs. wall of roots and elephant grass respectively. Game 2: Both of us get off too a decent start. I banish and biskelion away his first several creatures. Then David put out the twist to his deck that made it really effective, Sands of Time. He proceeded to put out multiple quirion rangers along with a llanowar behemoth. The combo of the behemoth, rangers, and sands was really nasty. His rangers acted like icys by untapping my critters which then got toggled by the sands to be tapped, plus with the behemoth his creatures were always untapped. He started administering serious beatdown before I clutch nekretaaled the behemoth and drained a ranger. He threatened again with a thundermare/vitalize combo but I had gotten a infernal tribute and with this as a mana sink I went into turbo drain life mode and eventually put out a ground defense while he had elephant grass in play and drained him to death. This game was really close, and I think his deck was really cool. I escape with a win. Dave was also very cool, thanks man. Record: 1-0 Games: 2-0 Round 2 vs. Jamie Authement playing U/W honorguard/rainbow/psychic vortex Game 1: Jamie was playing in his first major tourney and seemed fairly inexperenced, he had travelled up from Louisiana where he goes to school. He put out an honor guard but he didn't have any islands. He armoured next turn and whacked me for 7. On my turn I nekretaaled it. I then proceeded to beat him up with askari, skulkers and the taal. He drew into some islands late in the game but seemed to get very few critters. Game 2: I get out to a quick start with askari and rats and I start to bring him down pretty fast. He is drawing tons of land and it seems really bad for him till he lays psychic vortex and starts to mount somewhat of a defense but he is pitching lots of counterspells and stuff at the end of every turn with the vortex so his deck seemed counterproductive. I banished/taaled/ratted his blockers away and put him down. Record: 2-0 Games: 4-0 At this point Chris, Burt and I playing B or B/u beatdown are all 2-0, but Pierre and Sam have both taken a loss and are feeling a little down. They rally later but seemed a bit dejected now. Bryan Hubble is also 2-0 as are Brian Ogilbee and Adrian is 1-0-1. Round 3 vs. Adam Stepan playing B/u goodstuff not ertog Game 1: I get out to a raring start with first turn rat, turn 2 skulker, turn 3 skulker rat and put Adam on the defensive really fast. I assume he's got crypt rats but I just try to beat him down quick, perhaps overcomitting. He drops a turn 3 or 4 crypt rat which is his 2nd critter behind a fledgling djiin. Adam rats for 1 wiping out my side and attacks for 2 with the djiin, but he is now at 5 and I'm at 12. I've only got 3 lands in play and I'm trying to decide if I should necromancy his crypt rat now or put out an askari. If he's got a drain or man-o-war then the mancy sucks, but if not he's dead. I gamble and mancy the rat. He drains the rat and attacks with his fledgling djiin and skulker bring me down to 8. Next turn I get a land and I put out a fallen askari and skulking ghost to sort of stalemate us. He is slowly dying to his djiin and I'm not attacking. He gets out a fallen askari and is done. I sit tight and wait for the djiin to take him down. He then puts a morinfen. He's at 3 and going to 1 on his upkeep but I'll die if I don't topdeck either a drain or a crypt rat. I topdeck the drain and drain him for 2, his djiin kills him during his upkeep. I totally lucked out of this one. I side in some biskellions and whatnot. Game 2: Adam gets very unlucky and sits at 1 land till turn 3. I get a fast start and just beat him down with rats, skulkers, and askari. He died to severe manascrew. This happens way too much in this format. Record: 3-0 Games: 6-0 Round 4 vs. Kevin Benefield playing B/R fatties/fervor/lots of burn Game 1: Kevin gets out to fast start and is putting some hurting on me with a barrow ghoul and a hidden horror. I stall at 2 land til 4, but kill his horror with my own ghoul and survive the onslaugt. I then get out a necrotog with a fat graveyard and proceed to play defense. He puts a fervor and is thunderbolting me alot. He does some driveby attacks with nekretaals and other stuff to reduce my graveyard and get some minor licks in. I drain to go up to a safe 8 or 9 and finally establish a solid ground defense behind the 'tog and start attacking with my own askari and whatnot. Slowly but surely I take him down, the necratog finishes him for like 12 after I crypt rat away all of the rest of the stuff. The 'tog really pulled my butt out the game with this one. Game 2: Kevin stalls out with 2 swamps only for several turns. Both of us get out critters with 2 cc, but my swarm mounts because I have more mana and I finish him off 2 turns after he gets his undiscovered. I was at 14 life, but he showed me his hand which had multiple ghouls and 4 bolts(2 thunder/2 incinerate). Record: 4-0 Games: 8-0 I'm pretty psyched at this point and I go tell Bill that his deck is the absolute bomb. He came up just to play side tournies and support the team since he's already qualified. Burt and Hubble are also 4-0 and we're all pretty happy. Chris lost to Burt and is 3-1 along with Pierre and Sam, but he's not too upset since he is also qualified. I'm getting some serious munchies and buy some really expensive strawberry zingers and a Dr. Pepper to help tide me over through round 5. Round 5 vs. Eric Willis a friend from Houston playing G/W/r metagame deck. Game 1: Eric gets a really strong start with wall of roots and boa quickly in play. I put out a skulker and some askari but am stalled at 3 mana. Eric puts a firewhip on his wall and goes nuts blowing up my fliers while blocking my askari. He then follows up with 2 scalebanes which just crush me. I furiously sideboard in 2 mancy's, 1 banish, 3 biscuits, 1 forsaken waste, and 1 wand of denial. Game 2: Eric gets out a wall and later a llanowar behemoth but appears to have seriously overdrawn on land. I 'taal his behemoth and then mancy it and serve up behemoth beatdown. He gets out a few blockers, but the behemoth will not be denied and pile drives him all the way. Eric just keeps drawing land and doesn't get any nasty sideboard stuff like elephant grass or roots of life. I finish with his fatty. Man that llanowar behemoth seems like such a good creature, I mean he only costs B2 wow what a bargain :). Game 3: Eric again seems to have seriosly overdrawn land. He gets out an elephant grass to stop my dirtwater wraith, multiple nekretaal offense but I take control of the game with a wand of denial and a infernal tribute. I don't deny him a single card since he draws practically nothing but land and I let him have any critters which I can reasonably control. I proceed to very slowly X him out with drains and forsaken wastes damage. The wand was really cool, it made me safe from scalebanes and allowed me not be tricked. He never saw any scalebanes anyway but i was total control the whole way with it. Again a pretty terrible draw on Eric's part and a quality one from me. Record: 5-0 Games: 10-1 Bryan Hubble and I our both 5-0 and feeling good. Burt lost to go 4-1 while Pierre went to 4-1 and Sam lost and withdrew. Adrian also withdrew a round later when he lost to go 3-2-1 to go play Senor Stompy in a side tourney. We all grab some foodage from Burger King and our feeling overall fairly psyched. Round 6 vs. Charles Wolfe playing G/W/r metagame deck Charles and I have played before with him knocking me out of contention for final 8 in lubbock last month with a super lucky 3 passage draw against a monored after I had destroyed all his islands with reigns of chaos and an orcish settlers. His deck is a really tough matchup for me. He was playing a really good U/w deck then. Game 1: Charles and I josh a bit and then begin play. I serve up some early damage with some askari and skulkers and get in the early licks, but he defends himself with some pacifisms and a torch to my critters. He then gets out an uktabi efreet which I attempt to trade with my dirtwater wraith but he passages the damage to kill my wraith. I put out another wraith and block his next attack with a rat who dies to the cause. I've got a taal and a wraith on the board. He attacks again and we trade. He gets out a scalebane, then another. My 3 quicksands are sorta holding him off along with the fact that I now have 2 nekretaals plus a barrow ghoul staring him down after 'taaling a wall of roots. He gets out a third scalebane and attacks with one. I take it. At this I was getting into to drain mode and was draining for like 4 2 turns in row. I put out a crypt rat hoping to rat for 4 and then finish him with my 3rd drain next turn. He's holding just an undiscovered paradise, then he topdecks a torch counts his mana. I get scared and double quick one scalebane and take 7 from his other 2 scalebanes, but after the attack he torches me exactly to death with a 9 point torch. I knew he topdecked the torch since his hand was low, and I had seen the undiscovered. I'm a little depressed about this one. I side 2 mancy's, 2 biskelions, 1 wand, 1 waste, 2 banishings and take out sewer rats and barrow ghouls as per usual against G/W. This game is a back and forth blur. He was firmly in control with elephant grass and scalebane but he mistakenly mispaid his grass upkeep and let it go, then compounded his mistake by attacking me with scalebane before he remembered to pacify the wall of roots I had necromancied. These mistakes helped get me back into a game I should have definitely lost. I drain a boa when he taps out, and get out a necrosavant but he has more blockers and keeps attacking with his scalebane. I keep draining him to give me an extra turn and attacking for feeble damage. This is where things get ugly. After my last attack where I got in 4 damage with 2 nekretaals after he blocked my savant with his wall of roots, I drain life him for 4 again, putting him at 4 according to my bookkeeping, but he says that he is at 6. If he is at 4 then he needs to keep his scalebane back for defense otherwise I'll kill him on my next attack. We call the judges over and Hatter explains that since I've been keeping track with dice and Charles with paper, that he is supposed to defer to Charles if we disagree upon reality. I explain that I think Charles just missed some damage somewhere and I that I THINK, but do not know that I'm right, but I can't recall how all the damage was dealt to Charles. I finally agree to Charles' reality uncertain as to whether I or Charles had made the bookkeeping error. Charles attacks with scalebane to bring me to 1, and dares me to draw a nekretaal or banish since he left only 1 blocker behind. I don't draw anything I can use on the blocker and bring him to 2 and then conceed. Charles and I apologize to each other, and make it clear that there are no hard feelings about this misunderstanding. Neither of us received warnings since I finally acceeded to Charles' version of reality. Charles can draw in, I must win 1 of my last 2. Record: 5-1 Games: 10-3 Burt has lost again and is out, Hubble is 5-1 so is Pierre and Chris Herdeman, everyone else has withdrawn. Round 7 vs. Bryan Hubble We agree to draw since neither of us can afford to lose a game and since even if one of us won we might be forced to play someone who can't draw next round potentially lose there and knock both of us out. We both hope to win ourselves in next round. We then split to BK for more foodage while we've got this hour wait. Record: 5-1-1 Round 8 vs. Justin L.(I didn't write down his last name) from Houston playing monogreen beatdown I've played Justin before in the last round of the weatherlight prerelease in Houston and he is definitely a shady character. He tried to manaweave in Houston and so I called over a judge after he refused to let me shuffle it there and so I got the judge to shuffle it for him. I watched him shuffle his deck for game 1 and it seemed very peculiar. Game 1: Justin gets out 3 early quirion rangers, a few centaurs and some boas and whatnot. I've got a slow start, don't draw any crypt rats or nekretaals and finally die to a barrage of centaurs that I simply cannot stop. At this point I call over a judge, Jason Bateman, and tell him that I suspect that my opponent is stacking his deck and that I would appreciate if it he would watch Justin shuffle to make sure everything is legal. My friend Pierre is watching Justin shuffle and he tells me after the tourney that Justin was totally trying to manipulate his cards everytime the judge turned his head. Finally, I suppose Justin felt watched and he riffle about 10 times to my satisfaction. I had sided in 2 banish, 1 mancy, 2 biskelions, 1 waste and taken out some sewer rats and 1-2 barrow ghouls, plus one of my starting dirtwaters. Game 2: Justin gets an alright start but I get a bomb removal draw and just totally wreck his creatures with drains, nekretaals, and necromancy on his dead biskelions. This clears a path for my super dirtwater wraith who just quickly pummels him to death in 3 turns with whacks of 4, 7, and 7 consecutively the whole time I'm removing everthing in its path. Game 3: Jason hangs out to watch the shuffling action. Justin gets a lone forest draw while I get a fast start with askari, sewer rats, and skulkers and beat him down really fast. He doens't draw land #2 for forever and holds me off for like 2 or 3 turns with an elephant grass. However I'm still serving with a necromancied biskelion that he was forced to discard. He finally runs out of mana to pay upkeep and puts out a feeble wall of roots which I 'taal and I then I go in for the kill. I'm very glad to have beaten this sneaky young bastard. I make final 8 at 6-1-1 with the 8th and final seed. Hubble is out at 9 with the same record but worse tiebreaks, Pierre is in though and we can't meet til the finals because of the bracketing so we're psyched about final 8. My final swiss record was 6-1-1: 12-4 games Quarterfinals vs. Charles(can't remember his last name) with an exact clone of Pennock's deck that qualified in Seattle R/g. This was Charles first ever sanctioned tourney for type 2 and he said he was just ecstatic to make top 8 and didn't really care if he lost now 2 in a row to mana blow. We had some really fun converstion going in this match. I win the die roll and elect to go first. Game 1: I get kind of a crappy start vs. near monored and quickly put out 3 sewer rats. Charles though doesn't have any critters at all and so he is taking rat beatdown with me judiciously pumping and usually leaving a rat behind for viashino defense. I mistakenly attack with all 3 rats to bring him down to 5 leaving me at 13. He then attacks with a viashino, bolts me and then finally fireblasts me to take me to 2. I can't pump my rats to kill him without also dying so I attack with all 3 rats to bring him to 2 and put out crypt rat with 2 mana floating hoping that he's out of DD and that I'll win. Instead he untaps, incinerates me and I rat for the draw. We ask the judges what we do about a draw and they say we have to play till someone gets 2 wins and that we should reroll. He rolls high, but my dice truly love me and I roll a 20 to go first yet again. Game 2: This game I get a better start going and put out better critters like askari and skulkers. He's pretty much just laying land and saying done most of the game. He thunderbolts one of my skulkers and gets a bit of damage in, but really never mounts much of an offense or defense since he just drew WAY too much land. 2 later game drains which I'd been holding from the beginning put me safely out of burn range and my critters take him down. He didn't get out an elephant grass out or anything else nasty for that matter. Game 3: Just like game 2 really. Charles again underdraws burn and overdraws land and I take him out with critters and plenty of drain support. I thank him for a fun match. Semifinals vs. Trey Kerrigan from Team Dallas playing G/W/r metagame deck: Hatter has us deck checked at this point and they discover that Trey forgot to write down his sideboard while he was rushing to turn in his decklist at the last minute. Because of this Trey can't use his sideboard at all this match, which REALLY sucks for him because G/W sideboard vs. black is the bomb and I know it. I apologize about this but I know that this greatly improves my chances against him and feel less nervous than before. Trey and I have played before at regionals and we had a grueling good match which I won, he's a way cool guy. Game 1: Trey gets only 1 land for the first 4 or 5 turns and discards for awhile while I beat him down. He tells the crowd that he runs 27 land with 4 wall of roots and that he can't understand this. He's taking it really well and being funny and I tell him that its a sucky way to lose. Aside: I've been to 5 qualifiers for ChiTown now and can say that more matches our decided by mana/color screw than anything else. Hell just rereading my report I bet at least 1/3 of my games were decided by opposing manascrew. I'm really glad I went monocolor with 24 lands because this seemed to happen to me less than my opponents and is a big factor in the strength of this deck. Something really needs to be done about this. Game 2: I'm a tad manalight this game, but nothing like Trey's nightmare draw from before. He quickly neutralizes my offense with a wall and gets out a biskelion followed by a scalebane. I banish the wall, and later necromancy it but trey biskets the wall and I block his scalebane and the wall dies. I put out a crypt rat to attract another biscuit counter and he obliges and whacks me again. I mancy the wall again, Trey pacifies and continues scalebane assault. I die quickly thereafter. Game 3: I get out a really good start and we trade stuff back and forth. He puts out a biskelion which is threatening my nekretaal and skulker but I drain it and necromancy it to help take down his boas. We go back and forth but I've got a substantial life advantage. He gets out a few centaurs but I start doing some drainage. Late game when he's at like 4, he topdecks a scalebane and puts him out. I've only got a barrow ghoul and a nekretaal and the ghoul is going away next turn on upkeep so I attack and get in 2 damage. Now he's at 2 and can't attack with scalebane but I'm kinda nervous anyway. I get another attacker but he gets out another blocker. His hand is empty. We stare each other down for a few turns until I draw a drain life and drain him to death. He shows me his sideboard: 3 elephant grass, a few shadowbanes, and multiple roots of life, whew I got lucky. After the drain I tip back in my chair and just go nuts cause I'm back on the tour. My teammates are high fiving me and everything and I'm feeling great. Meanwhile, Pierre had beaten Charles Wolfe in the quarterfinals and was playing against another poise deck in the semis. He had lost game one and only drew 1 land in his opening hand game 2 and was forced to discard some key cards. He almost wins game 2 but his opponents last 3 to 4 cards were all land in his library and Pierre got decked despite having massive board and life advantage. Finals vs. some guy whose name I can't remember from Dallas playing sandsipoise. I know I should get my ass kicked by poise so I say that I'm tired and ask if he wants to split the money in his favor. Its like 2 in the morning but he says he's up to playing. I figure he knows he should beat my head in and wants the whole travel award. My teammates take me aside and tell me to crush him for not wanting to take the deal. We high five and talk shit away from my opponent. Bill tells me not to worry and just kick his ass. Game 1: I get out to a fast start and start quickly taking away life chunks with askari, sewer rats, and skulkers. He vamp tutors and puts out a poise, but he continues to not drop the lock. When my crypt rat was gonna phase out I bust it for several points of damage cause I know he can drop sands anytime. I then put out a barrow ghoul that tidal waves. A little draining and some more creatures eventually take him down because he could never draw a sands of time. I remember getting really tricky with my winding canyon and a sewer rat during his upkeep but it wasn't key cause he couldn't draw a sands of time. Feeling like I totally stole one I side in 3 forsaken wastes and both my wands plus my biskelions, I take out everything expensive like my gallowbraid, several nekretaals, and my necrosavant. Game 2: I draw one land on the draw and don't get another land til like turn 10-12 I believe. His draw is crap so he doesn't complete the lock til like turn 13 or something but by then who cares since I've gotten only 2 lands the whole long game. A second swamp and I would've gotten him because his draw was so bad. My hand was full of askari, skulkers, and barrow ghouls that I can't cast. Game 3: Finally I figure he'll get a quick lock like he deserves and stomp me. Unfortunately for him I get a really fast start with sewer rats and askari. I'm really bringing him down fast and he gets out the poise but not the sands. He puts out a soul echo and I get him to -2 on his upkeep but he doesn't die. I then damage the soul echo and he will be forced to lose it during his next upkeep. Just to make sure I put out a forsaken wastes. I say done. He casts mangara's blessing and starts to give himself 5 life to bring him above 0, but I tap on the wastes and tell him he gains a whopping 0. He then says that ya ya he responded to my wastes, but I say, " I distinctly remember you not responding to my wastes, go." He kinda shrugs, goes to his upkeep and dies. Then my whole team mobs me and we do yet some more congratulating and hatter hands me my invite and travel award stuff that I still need to mail into WOTC. Afterwards we go to Denny's grab some chow and unwind. Later that night Burt, Bill, Chris, and I drive back to Austin in Burt's car. Burt and I stay up through the drive and I just can't stop smiling the whole way down. We have a good talk and start to talk about what we like in extended and then I get back and crash til late sunday afternoon. To close I just wanted to thank all my opponents with the exception of Justin L. for being way cool and friendly and making the day a good experience no matter what and especially my teammates without whom I would not have qualified. Look out Chicago the AustiKnights are gonna bum rush the tour: Qualified teammates are: Bill Macey(the captain), Brian Ogilbee, Chris Herdeman, Adrian Sayers, and Me Paul Gallagher. Pierre and Sam both made semis twice but didn't qualify but they can expect some goodies when the team tax kicks in following this stop on the tour :). Kudos to The Mad Hatter for running this qualifier very efficiently and judiciously despite the solid 150+ attendance. I hope the ugliness that happened a few weeks ago in Austin doesn't cause him to not continue to get more events from WOTC in the future. Hatter did a swell job of subbing in for Ed Fox who I hear is experiencing some poor health, I hope you get better Ed. See y'all in Chicago everybody. Peace out, Paulagher Team AustiKnights