From: jshuler@osf1.gmu.edu (John M Shuler) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: [NY PTQ Report] NO! SLEEP! TIL BROOKLYN!! Date: 8 Sep 1997 04:42:25 GMT Hello there folks Time for another tale of Mivilite. So, it's the middle of last week, and though I'm fairly certain I'll be at NY for the PTQ, I can't for the life of me decide upon a deck to play. I post "The Agony of Indecision" to the net. Many people email me and tell me mono black or mono blue are strong. I know mono blue is strong. I know I should run mono blue. I get stupid, though. I get home from work around 11pm, and my buddy Mike and I hop in his car and head on over to some party that Joel Priest is at, since we are taking his car. Mike has never played in a magic tournament. :) We arrive in Silver Spring, find Joel, who is more than a little buzzing off of some concoction made of gin and Sprite. I offer to drive. Joel thinks that is a good idea. So we all pile into the car and start the way to NYC.. Joel's car is.. well.. imagine yourself back in the early 80s, when LCD first came out, and you watched Knight Rider every Thursday night. His car is the Knight Rider car. Except that it's white. It is somewhat beat up, having been produced back in that time, but it has keyless entry (something unheard of then, except in TV), a sunroof, all the dash stuff is LCD, and the car talks to you. Yep. The car talks to you. Such as when you start the engine, but didn't shut the door all the way, this female voice says "The left door is open".. Or if you park, leave your lights on, and start to get out, you hear "the lights are on".. freaked me out the first time I heard it. :) So there we are, cruising up 95, talking about how the D.C./Balt Rave scene has taken a turn for the worse, and how everyone is into bad e now, like that nasty stuff spiced with coke. We compare Crystal Meth stories (I know 3 people who have died from it, he knows 1) and talk for a while about the similarities and differences in gabber, hardcore, jungle, hardstep, and a ton of other DB heavy music styles.. this talk eventually sees us in to Philly proper, where we stopped on the way to NYC.. if you ever come within a 100 mile radius of Philly, you *MUST* go to Pat's, which is a cheesesteak place on 9th & Wharton.. I think I can get to it now with my eyes closed. How long do you think it takes between when you ask for a cheesesteak and when the thing is in your hot little hands? If you said.... 15 seconds.. you would be correct.. this is the place that has a line at 4am in the morning. So we grab our cheesesteaks, chow down, and head on up 95.. Joel and Mike doze while I drive on.. we come in through the Holland tunnel, paying a fortune in tolls already, and enter NYC proper. Joel directs me to Neutral Ground, then he starts driving, and we go to this deli where we eat until 9am and we can get into Neutral Ground.. It is during this Deli session that I end up deciding to play Joel's deck, after helping him tune it the entire trip up. We both go 0-2. But more on that later. The deck is simply a wisdom/flash deck, with heavy anti-U in the sideboard. Green in the main deck for twisters, and the CoS and such in the sideboard.. other than that, just red and white. Flashes, tutors, afterlife (neat under the flash, neh?) and one blue card- mystical tutor.. We agree to play 4 wisdoms, as burn will cook us. We walk into Neutral Ground.. it's the first time I've ever been there.. what can I say? It has the ORIGINAL arcade version of Gauntlet.. if that isn't a badge of Ultimate Coolness, I don't know what is. We schmooze with Bruce for a while, then I build the deck that Mike will be playing.. a White weenie with armors, 16 land, and 4 tithes.. it's actually pretty nasty. Of course, it hates manowar, but that's what the ward of lights are for. :) Mike goes 0-2, but that was going to happen no matter what. He plays very rarely, and only for fun. I had to convince him not to enter the type 2 with his basilisk/lure deck... Round 1: Elaine Ferrao from Monsey, NY. Rating-1646 Deck: G/R ... green for the standard creatures and artic wolves, and red for guess what... Game 1: My mana base is as follows: 17 mountains, 3 plains, 2 undisc. paradise, and 4 gemstone mines. My opening hand consists of 2 plains. I manage to draw a gemstone before I die. Oh, did I mention that I also have 4 Fire Diamonds and a Marble Diamond in my deck, also? Game 2: She cycles a hammer twice, and draws an insane amount of early burn (3 incin, a thunder bolt), also. I never see a shadowbane (3 after sb), a wisdom (4 in md), the mystical to get one of the aforementioned 7 (1 in md), or anything else. My turn 1 land? Plains. My turn two land? Nope. No turn two land. I discard on turn 3, and draw my second land on turn 4. I lose. I was a goldfish to her burn Record: 0-1 Feeling sorta depressed about now. Hell, even the Gauntlet machine makes me mad, as I discover that all of the characters EXCEPT the elf work. What the hell? The elf is the *best* Round 2: Michael Wong, of Philly. Rating-1637 Deck: U/W heavy counters, rainbows to kill. I should be able to beat this. Nope. Game 1: He has turn 3 ophidian. I have turn 3 "at the end of your turn, incinerate it". He has turn 4 Ophidian. I have "at the end of your turn, incinerate it". He lays snake basket. I lay aether flash on my turn. I lay another Aether Flash on my next turn. Creatures don't get cast. We sit there doing nothing. I go up to 78 life from Wisdoms. He stops casting Inspiration on himself, and starts to cast it on me. I tap out to torch him like 3 times for 20+ each time, but he laspes it each time. At least I cancel out the Inspirations. Comes down to the end of the game, as he draws his last card from his library. I count mine, I have 3 left. I am going to win. After he draws, he plays.... Alert others that you may be about to require medical attention because you'll go into convulsions laughing... he plays... Alabaster Dragon yep the one that if it goes to your graveyard, shuffle it back into your library. He casts it, it dies to the now 3 Flashes, and he puts it on his library. I could just cry. I've been beaten by Alabaster Dragon I conceed immediately, of course. I naively think I have a chance against him, with my 4 City of Solitude sideboard (3 enlighteneds in the deck!).. nope Game 2: I can't beat the Alabaster Dragon deck. He comes out with turn 4 hazerider, turn 5 hazerider, turn 6 ophidian. I stare at my incinerates. I think I got him to 17 with one spiteful incinerate before I died. I drop out, and tell Bruce and Brian that I lost to Alabaster Dragon. They think I'm joking. I think they STILL think I'm joking. I only wish I were, guys. I drop life sucks **I LOST TO ALABASTER DRAGON** am I a bad player or what? anyway, I enter the Type 2 tournament. I use my Mostlychrisdeck deck. It's a White weenie bastard varient, with a lot more control than you'd expect from white weenie, except in the form of stupid stuff, not good stuff. Round 1: Neil A Juliano, from Westport, CT. Rating 1565 Deck: Buried alive, pure black as far as I saw. Game 1: Neil plays *really* stiffly, like he thinks that all of his opponents are out to cheat him. If you've ever played me before, you know that I'm extremely friendly and sociable. Neil... wasn't. Well, he was after the match, but not during. He actually COUNTED my sideboard before we began.. and asked me if I wanted to count his.. :) I said "whatever, do you have 15 there?" and he acted horrified and said "YES!" and I said "well, I don't need to count it, then." Anyway, He gets Nether shadow turn 2, I drop a Pump Knight, he Buried Alives on turn 3, grabbing 3 ghouls. I attack, drop an white knight. He Buried alives *again*, grabbing ghoul #4 and 2 more shadows. Thins are not looking good. I draw, then drop a duskrider and another pump knight. I hit him for 4 more. On his turn, he hits me, but not too hard, thanks to the duskrider and the pumper. On my turn, I hit him with everything, pumping a pumper. He will kill me next turn if I am not a good player and he has drains. Luckily, I abey him during upkeep. I get hit hard, but he conceeds because he will die next turn. Game 2: he goes- swamp, vampiric. I go- plains. he goes, swamp, ritual, gloom. I tithe in responce. I go and discard. he goes, and casts a second gloom. I go, and discard. He goes, and tutors for gloom #3. I conceed. That sucked Game 3: I play turn 2 White Knight. he plays turn 2 black knight. I hit him, he drops bad moon and hits me for 3. I play turn 3 white knight, also. His second black knight has come out, and I get hit for 6, down to 11. I disenchat the bad moon, hit him with both knights, he is at 10. he hits me with his knights from 11 to 7 after I abey him during his upkeep. On my turn, I attack with the knights and a pumper that I had summoned last turn, pumping it. He's at 2. I drop duskrider for ashen protection. His turn, he drops ashen and attacks.. I go to 3, blocking the ashen, and he conceeds. :) Record: 1-0, 1 game loss Round 2: Peter Onorato from Rockaway NY- Rating 1690 Deck: a burn heavy counterburn Game 1: He burns me from 20 to 17 to 14 to 11 to 8 and I wonder what the hell he is doing as I keep attempting to cast creatures, and can't. My first 3 are all countered, with power sink, power sink, and arcane. I finally bust out with a knight, hit him with it, cast a longbow, hit him down to 14, cast a falcon.. he earthquakes to kill the ground guys and my geddon is countered next turn, so I drop a duskrider, and he conceeds, at 2, after he draws. Game 2: I play first turn tithe, second turn freewind, peck once, peck twice, he taps out for a wildfire on his 4th turn, so I armor the freewind on my 4th turn (no force of will!.. well, one, but not another blue card in hand) and hit him for 8, down to 10. Next turn I knock him to 2 and he conceeds. :) Record: 2-0, 1 game loss Round 3: Brian Stroh, of Moriches, NY. Rating:1646 Deck: Counterpost Game 1: Crap. I'm screwed. Counterpost. I play an early (turn 2) falcon, and armor it turn 3. He has the plow, and I'm at 27. I drop a White knight, and he lets it hit him to 16. I drop a longbow, and he lets it get him to 12. I play the third creature and the Wrath hits. I have my creatures in the graveyard before he even untaps, I knew it was coming. We are having a fun time, Brian is a nice guy. Also he just wrathed (second white from dropping an outpost that turn to take out his lone plains), so he's in a good mood. I drop freewin, he drops second plains. It gets plowed. I drop white pumpknight and rep blacksmith (yes, main deck). I keep attacking, first striking the knight to kill the token he makes, and hitting him for 1 with the blacksmith. I get him from 8 to 3 this way, until he drops a second outpost. He has a ton of land, too. I realize that life sucks for me now. Now is where he loses, though. He has a wrath in hand the entire time, but thinks he is safe from blocking with outpost guys. He plows any birds I drop. What was his mistake? On my turn, I abeyance. In responce, he makes 2 tokens. I drop Ward of Lights on the pumpknight, ward it to white, and attack and pump it for 3. YES!!!!!!! Brian was really cool about losing to ward of lights, too. Later on, I was telling Brian Schneider about the match, and I said that Stroh was cool about losing to Ward of Lights and Schneider said "Ward is a good card!" which is what he always says when I tell him how I beat someone with a silly card. Schneider is the only person on the planet who doesn't ridicule me when I talk about a silly card. He always says the same thing: "(card) is a good card!". :) anyway, on to game two. Out come 3 plows, and a disenchant, in come 4 Mana Web. :) Game 2: I drop an early Mana web, he kills it. I hit him with White knight.. 20..18..16..14..12..10... finally he realizes that I'm not going to give him card advantage off of a wrath, and he plows it. I drop a freewind. Peck you to 9. Peck you to 8. Plowed. I drop a freewind. Next turn, I tithe, get 2 land. I abeyance him. He counters. I abeyance him. It goes through. I draw an abeyance from the abeyance. :) I cast Emp. Armor. I attack for 8. He dies. Thanks, tithe. Record: 3-0, 1 game loss Round 4: Eric Phillips, from Lincroft, NJ. Rating: 1987, #11 in world Deck: Pure burn, ball lightning, lava hounds, lancers, fireblast.. Game 1: I have 5 land in my opening hand, a disenchant, and a tithe. I draw, and it's a land. What the *hell*? I have only 16 land in this deck. I get him to the big 16, as he fireblasts my duskrider in responce to armoring it. He crunches me fast. Out go 2 War Beasts and a Duskrider. In go 3 honorable passage. At the last moment, out goes a disenchant, in goes a wrath. Game 2: I drop a white knight. He drops an ironclaw. I attack, he's at 18. He attacks, I'm at 18. He torches the knight, I passage it. He's at 16. I drop another knight, but he burns it. We exchange a few blows, and I have to plow a ball lightning. Of course, I also have to honorable the lava hound next turn. He anarchys when he has the hound and a lancer out. I've had a white knight and a longbow. They die, he hits me from 12 to 6. I cast Wrath on my turn. At this point, we have like no cards in our hands. He's at 8, I'm at 6. He draws a bolt and bolts be to 3. I draw a pump knight, and it hits twice before dying to anarchy.. at this point, all he needs is a bolt.. I pull another knight, but he kills it when it drops him to 2.. (tactics? Don't recall.. might have been a quicksand).. I'm at 3, he's at 1. He draws land. I draw land. He draws land. I draw land. He draws land. I draw pump knight. He draws land. :) Now is where a problem occurs. We shuffle lots. We switch decks. we shuffle some more. He puts mine in front of me. I put his in front of him, then say "no.. this top card is definately not good for you!" and put it on the bottom of the deck. Just a little fun, right? Well, the half dozen people that are watching us at this point want to know what it was.. I'm guessing it was just a land.. anyway, led by Hashim, there is assorted begging to display Eric's bottom card to the peanut gallery. To my suprise, he does. I don't *really* care, but.. the peanut gallery goes wild, and Eric starts saying "what is it? What is it?" but like good spectators, no one tells him. So. He. Picks. Up. His. Deck. And. Looks. Is that clear enough? That he's looking at the bottom card in his library, after we are about to begin? I've already drawn my frigging hand at this point. The bottom card, by the way, is Anarchy. Now, ready for something even better? Eric tells me that he's going to re-shuffle. I'm like "the HELL you are" and he loudly announces to the crowd that I "bumped" his top card, and must have seen what it was. Besides the fact that I just plain didn't do that, nor would I even consider it, he is adamant about it. I announce that if anyone saw me do ANYTHING remotely like that, or even anything at all unsportsmanlike, to please come forth. No one did. Eric was just trying to get a re-shuffle. Of course, this commotion caused Tony the judge to come over and ask what was up. We both said our pieces. I said Eric shouldn't have shown his bottom card to spectators, but that I didn't really mind. I said that Eric *definately* shouldn't have LOOKED at it himself, but that I didn't really care. I told Tony that what I DID care about was that now Eric was demanding a reshuffle because he knew Anarchy was on the bottom of his deck... Tony asks Eric if he showed the card to the bystanders. He admits he did. Tony asks Eric if he looked at the card. Eric admits he did. Tony asks me if I saw the card. I tell him I saw it when Eric decided to turn his deck upside down and look for himself, then I announce again that if anyone saw me do anything that could possibly lead to my knowledge of the card, to say something.. no one did, and a couple people said "nope..".. Tony tells Eric he can't reshuffle. And stays for the match. I say (jokingly, once again..) to Eric "Is this how you got ranked so high? By cheating?". Everyone suddenly is quiet. I meant it as a joke, but I don't know if he's had past allegations against him or what. Tony gets a very serious look on his face and starts to say something when I say "Hey, that's a joke, settle down! let's just play..".. so we start my opening hand: 2 plains freewind falcon duskrider falcon 2 emp. armor abeyance I drop freewind. Don't draw a 3rd land until turn 5, so I drop a longbow, too. I abey him the upkeep before. Put him at 16 and then he Anarchys. I lose my goods. Next turn, I drop the duskrider. Abey him during upkeep. Drop the armor. Hit him to 9. Next turn hit him to 3. He conceeds in great frustration. :) so I'm #1 after the Type 2. This puts me in some weird Neutral Ground sealed deck thing, with the top 2 type 2 people and the top 2 type 1 people. Paul Ferker was the other top type 2 playaer, but he has to leave, so Eric gets in after all. We each get 2 starters of mirage to build decks with. I have 17 duplicate commons. They all suck.. Actually, I got 2 drains, which are good, and 2 feral shadows, which are good. the other 15 pairs suck. I have no direct damage other than the drains. I have a Ray, but my 2nd best card in blue was Dream Cache.. that tell you how bad blue was? My top 3 red cards? Thicket Basilisk, (or rock basilisk, whatever.. the mulatto of r/g) a flare, and a red flanker.. top white card? a pacifism. Second best white card? that 1/4 white guy. Yep, white sucked hard, too. Brian schneider came over, looked at my card pool, and proclaimed "wow, you got absolute shit, you are going to lose hardcore". And I knew it, and I did. I play against Eric first round. Single elim. He has 2 drains and 2 pacifisms and 2 torches and MAD flankers, at least 2 red, at least one white, and at least one black i have *a* flanker i have 2 restless dead! you can see what happens, right? torched out both games. second game I was one turn away from draining him to death, after I ashenpowdered his guildmage to my side. sigh MAN, do I hate the sealed lottery.. I went 4-0 in type 2 swiss, with only 2 game losses, then played the sealed lottery and lost to my opponent's god deck. whatever then I went home got off the New Jersey Turnpike just south of Willmington, decided I wanted a Cheesesteak, and turn around the direction I had came, hopping onto 95N.. I drove for 40 minutes in the complete opposite direction, made it to Pat's without a problem, and then drove home, a happier man with a cheesesteak smile. alas... I had a blast, though. I really did have fun, so it as (was) worth it.. for the final 4 of that sealed deck thing, I wanted to play two headed giant, so did Eric and Happy John (3rd of the 4 of us).. but the person who will go unnamed since he reads the group that was the 4th of our group didn't want to, so we didn't. Two headed giant Mirage-only sealed deck would have kicked ASS.. especially for a $200 prize! alas.. and our Unnamed Friend (which to come forward, p?) would have been *MY* partner in the two headed giant!!! How, i ask you, can ANYONE turn down an offer to be my partner in a Mirage Only two headed giant $200 ante match?!~!~?!~?!~ i gotta sleep now classes tomorrow.. as always, commentary is appreciated.. I'm going to High Point this saturday with like a bazillion friends of mine (Kelly Norton, Chad Day, Chris "creator of the Mostlychrisdeck Yates, Scott McCaughy, Joel Priest, Gary Fortenberry, and a bunch of other 2nd tier players) :) hell, i've got to be -1 tier now, losing to frigging Alabaster Dragon WHAT THE HELL!~!~?!~?!~?!~?!~?!~ ALABASTER DRAGON?!??!?!?!?!!? In a ptq??? arrrrrgghh (like the new .sig?) -- John M. Shuler jshuler@gmu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -Bruce Cowley --------------------------------------------------------------------