Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 12:17:35 -0400 From: Mike Mitchell Subject: Chicago PTQ - Atlanta report (long) Does Team Scrub have any openings? :-) I attended the 9/6 PTQ in Atlanta this weekend. Not having as much time to prepare as I'd like, I decided to do the deck crib thing and use a modified version of Ertog: 3 Circling Vultures (B) 3 Shadow Guildmage (B) 1 Skulking Ghost (1B) 3 Barrow Ghoul (1B) 4 Ertai's Familiar (1U) 2 Crypt Rats (2B) 3 Necratog (1BB) 1 Hidden Horror (1BB) 2 Ophidian (2U) 3 Fog Elemental (2U) 4 Man O' War (2U) 3 Serrated Biskelion (3) 3 Nekrataal (2BB) 1 Cloud Djinn (5U) 1 Urborg Justice (BB) 3 Gemstone Mine 3 Bad River 2 Flood Plain 10 Swamp 4 Island 1 Plains Sideboard: 3 Disenchant 2 Ray of Command 2 Mind Bend 2 Shadowbane 1 Honorable Passage 2 Odylic Wraith 2 Urborg Mindsucker 1 Drain Life I splashed white for the Disenchants and damage prevention in the sideboard, which I felt would be important based on all the reports I've been reading. I used a few larger creatures, hoping to avoid AEther Flash and to give a little more resistance to the big blue flyers. As it turned out, none of that mattered. On to the report: Round 1 vs. falcon armor w/Abeyance Game 1: He goes first, lays a land, done. I go, lay a Flood Plain, done. He goes, lays a land, done. I go, during my upkeep, he Abeyances. I lay a Bad River, done. Turn 3, he lays a land, done. I go, he Abeyances in upkeep, I sac the two fetchlands in response to get some mana going, lay another land, done. His go, Hazerider Drake. Okay, that's not too bad, as pro-red isn't a worry, since I'm not playing red. I play a couple of creatures (Shadow Guildmage and something I don't remember now) and say done. He puts Empyrial Armor on the Drake, attacks for 7. Ouch. I Man-o'-War it back in his hand and attack. He puts the Drake back down. I put down another non-flyer. He puts Armor on the Drake, attacks again. Ick. During my next upkeep, I use the Guildmage to put the Man-o'-War on top of my library. In response, he Mind Bends the Drake's protection to blue. I draw a useless jellyfish and lose when he attacks. Game 2: Don't remember too much, except I had a Serrated Biskelion in play, killing two Duskrider Falcons as he attempted to put an Armor on each. He can't stop the horde and loses. Game 3: I draw 2 Disenchants in my opening hand. I don't see a source of white mana until the turn he Abeyances and then kills me with a double-Armored Sage Owl. Geez. Matches: 0-1. Games: 1-2 Okay, I can deal. You get screwed sometimes. I grab a bite to eat. While eating, I sit next to some members of Team Stupid, who are discussing their first matches. One of them makes the statement that Ertog "blows chunks" because it can't handle blue. I'm thinking, uh oh, I thought it was good against blue? I guess I'll find out. The hard way! :-) Round 2 vs. (guess what?) blue Floodgate/Illusionist/Waterspout Game 1: I get a fairly decent draw, including a Familiar, Hidden Horror, and Barrow Ghoul. I lay down the Familiar and start milling cards. I put out the Hidden Horror. He Abducts it. I put out the Barrow Ghoul, he puts out the Serrated Biskelion. I lose the Ghoul, can't find a Man-O'-War for anything, and sit there holding a useless Nekrataal while my own critter beats me to a pulp. Game 2: He gets the Floodgate/Illusionist combo going. I have a Necratog in play, but he keeps making me pull chow out of the graveyard to keep it alive by phasing out the Floodgate. I get out a Barrow Ghoul also, but it's pointless against the Floodgate (can't draw a Nekrataal or a Biskelion for love or money). Eventually, he Ray of Commands a Cloud Djinn, blocks a Fog Elemental with it, and puts out a Waterspout. Dead. Matches: 0-2. Games: 1-4 Now I'm depressed. Off to the scrub tables for round 3. Round 3 vs. R/W DD/light creatures. Great. A deck I know I have trouble with. Oh well. Fits the way my day is going. Game 1: I get the all graveyard eaters, no graveyard fillers draw. Swell. After 3 Incinerates (one on an Ophidian), 2 Thunderbolts, and a Torch, it's over. Game 2: I side in the damage prevention and discard creatures to help draw some fire. I leave the Disenchants out, not having seen any AEther Flashes first game. Mistake. I get the all graveyard fillers, no graveyard eaters draw (geez!), and can't do much. I get out a Shadow Guildmage and a Skulking Ghost before he drops the AEther Flash. I have nothing in my hand with a toughness greater than 2, and my Disenchants are sitting happily in the sideboard. He puts out a Wildfire Emissary, kills my two creatures, and beats me to a pulp. I can't draw a Nekrataal or a creature with toughness > 2 for anything (a Fog Elemental and a Nekrataal end up in the graveyard as I cast Familiars and let them die to fill up the graveyard; my other two Nekrataals are in the bottom 4 cards of the library). Matches: 0-3. Games: 1-6. Impressions: There appeared to be very few black decks (I only saw two others while I was there). White/blue and mono-blue were everywhere. One big impression: Ertog sucks. Well, maybe not that bad, but it's certainly second-rate. Had I had more time and opportunity to practice, I'd have known that for sure. My instinct was telling me this was an inconsistent design, but I didn't listen. Here's why I think the deck is weak: 1) It's vulnerable to bad draws, moreso than most decks. You can get mana screwed just like any other deck. Overall, though, I lost only one game to mana screw, and that was really a color screw. Every other game I lost was due to not having the right cards at the right time. You can get a fistful of graveyard eaters and nothing to fill the graveyard, and you have a dead hand. Bad situation. You can also get screwed over by milling a creature you really need into the graveyard (such as the aforementioned Nekrataal and Fog Elemental). I also lost my Urborg Justice (which I could have used) twice to the milling. While it doesn't happen all the time, it happens often enough for me to question the deck design. 2) The use of heavy upkeep creatures is dangerous in MirVLite. With all the Vodalian Illusionists, Man-o'-Wars and similar stuff, you can get stuck paying a hefty upkeep and receive...nothing. In fact, the Barrow Ghouls and Circling Vultures are poor creatures (IMHO) anyway, even with the Familiars, because they screw up the Necratogs. If Ertog is to survive, it will have to become less the graveyard-eating deck. Ditch the Ghouls and Vultures for other creatures. You should also play with graveyard recovery spells (such as Necromancy and Strands of Night) to pull out that key creature when you need it. More card-drawing power is good (the Ophidians helped in the one game I won; maybe run with 4 of them). But, personally, I'd ditch the Familiars and instead just use Necratog as a supplement to a black creature deck, maybe with sacrifice cards to fill up the graveyard. It'll be much more predictable. Anyway, those are my impressions from the lower end of the field. Enjoy! Mike