Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 11:54:53 -0600 From: kmcnair Subject: PTQ Atlanta,GA Blue Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.misc Well, I'm happy to say that this tournament was my final attempt at this horrible format. Its nice to see hours and hours of playtesting pay off. We leave on Friday night at 1:00AM from Bourbon Street Comics, the place to play magic(if you're ever in Tampa) and hit the road. I am traveling with: Thomas Wells, a friend of mine whom I do most of my playtesting with; and the brothers Stead, otherwise known as Bill and Bob, a couple of the bay area's better players. Thomas decides on the way that he will attempt to make a normally 8 hour trip into a 6 hour trip and of course gets a nice ticket for doing 84 in a 70 zone. We show up in Atlanta around 7:45, register for the tournament and look for some friends from back home that we knew were heading up... So anyway on to the tourney. I decided that blue was the best overall decktype for MiViLite and run this... Deck: 4 Ophidian 4 Man-o-war 4 Vodalian Illusionists 4 Serrated Biskellion 3 Waterspout Djinn 3 Abduction 1 Ray of Command 4 Impulse 4 Dissipate 3 Powersink 2 Memory Lapse 1 Disertion 4 Quicksand 2 Winding Canyons 18 Islands Side Board: 3 Dissrupt, 2 Magma Mine(pro blue), 1 Suq'Ata Firewalker, 2 Ray of Command, 1 Boomerang, 1 Flooded Shorline, 2 Undo, 2 Floodgate, 1 Shimmer. Round 1 vs. Bryan Nagle, playing R/W with Gossomer Chains, Hammer, T. Bolt, Incinerate, Wildfire Emissary, Abeyance, Gerrards Whisdom, and disenchants(standard!?). Game 1: This game is all about ophidians, by turn 6 I'm drawing 3 cards a turn. He incinerates me a few times and lets my creatures kick his head in. Game 2: He loses to the most common flaw of this format and is screwed, I win. Match 1-0 Games 2-0 Round 2 vs. Alan St. Aunauld, playing R/G Land D. He has Savage Twister, Gaea's Blessing, Stone Rain, Orcish Settlers, Snake Basket, and Direct Damage. Game 1: Ever have one of those games where you feel like you're going card for card with someone, and when you run out of cards they still have five in hand, I still have no idea what happened this game. He finishes me off in a nice display of fireworks. Game 2(my revenge): This game is about playing a quick 'spout and protecting it. I sideboarded in the dissrupts which dealt with his turn 2 sirocco. Game 3: He landscrews, go figure. Match 2-0 Games 2-1 Round 3 vs. Brian Hubble, playing mono-blue like me. He's better at drawning land than I am. Game 1: I win, he didn't play enough land this game. Game 2: I fucking lose. I must have forgotten how to play or something. I an light on land this time... his Manta Ray bites my dick off. Game 3: I make a decent attempt to reattach my severed penis, but am light on land again. He plays 3 consecutive Manta Rays, I don't win. Note: My 3 abductions took a vacation durring this match. Match 2-1 Games 1-2 Round 4 vs. Terry Larson, playing mono-white, weenie armor. Game 1: This guy likes to play some white instant... I think he called it Abeyance, and skillfully plays them on three consecutive turns. He had played a turn 2 longbow archer and soon enough it was armored. He starts to get hurtful with me and I lose. My man-o-wars and all my counterspells took the day off. I am ashamed to lose a game to this shitty deck. Game 2: I redeem myself, flooded shorelines... floodgate... Abduction. I destroy his scrubby ass. Game 3: See game 2. Match 3-1 Games 2-1 Round 5 vs. Jerry Sunkin, playing Ertai's. Jerry is from Orlando and a regular opponent for me. He's a good player and is a member of Team Stupid. Games(3): These games were really tight, My waterspouts abductions, and top deck skills were just too good. A very good and very tough match. Match 4-1 Games 2-1 Round 6 vs. Dominic Crapuchettes of Tongo Nation, he is playing a W/U oddity. His deck is really neat and includes: Abeyance, Ophidian, Man-o-war, White flankers, Biskelions, Miraculous Recovery, Mistmoon Griffin, Winding Canyons, sacred mesa, and (the bomb!) parapet. Games 1 and 2 were very similar, his deck only has about six cards to deal with a waterspout djinn. Match 5-1 Games 2-0 Round 7 vs. Charles Wright, B/U ertai variant with necromancy and waterspout djinn. His deck is very similar to the one that I used in Orlando last week: Ertai/Control. Game 1: I go 2nd turn lapse, 3rd turn powersink, 4th turn 'spout. He has no action. I side in 2 floodgates and my ray of commands, assuming that he is playing a standard ertog deck with a really bad opening hand. Game 2: He beats me down pretty fast. I get down to 4 and clean the board with my floodgate. I recover with 2 ophidians and draw way too many cards. He concedes with good reason. Match 6-1 Games 2-0 Match 8 vs. Peter Leiher, another member of Tongo Nation. Pete is an old friend of mine from back in the day, when type 1 was what magic was all about. He used to be a regular at Bourbon Street(the store I play at), but has definately moved on to bigger and better things... After about 10 minutes of calculating, Pete offers me a draw. I accept due to the fact that playing him now would be really bad. Pete's deck is a B/U metagame deck made to destroy mono-blue. I dread the idea of playing against him. Match 6-1-1 For the next hour I sit back and begin to realize that I am still running on 0 hours of sleep. I cross my fingers and hope to get in. Top 8 Seeding: 1. Wai Cheng 2. Charles Wolf 3. Shane Cruise 4. Peter Leiher 5. Kelsey McNair(me) 6. Mike ??? 7. Lee Steht 8. Brian Hubble At this point I'm really not liking the fact that I have to play Pete. Oh well, Murphy's Law right? Two good points about the top 8 Pete and Lee already have invites for Chicago. On to the match... Me vs. Peter Leiher A little about Pete's Deck: Coercions, Stupors, Crypt Rats, Necropotence... er... Infernal Tribute, Nekrataal, Necromancy, Abduction, Winding Canyons, snake basket, Man-o-war, impulse... a blue decks worst nightmare. ---For some reason the coordinator decided to time the quarterfinals--- Game 1: Things go back and forth for several turns, and finally he deals with all my stuff. He necromancies my illusionist and has a nekrataal, I deal with nekrataal but get beaten by the illusionist. I go down to 1 life. I then make my big play... He has 1 card in hand and the illusionist is tapped, I have a ray of command in my hand. I draw an impulse. All I need is a quicksand... impulse... quicksand is 4th card down. I play the quicksand, ray of command the illusionist, attack and quicksand the illusionist. I am holding a waterspout djinn. He takes his turn and plays a land he has nothing. I play waterspout, and in five turns pete is dead. Game 2: This game was really tight, and at the last minute I fuck up. Pete plays my mind and I fall for it I concede with victory in my hand. I've never felt so bad about losing a game in all my life. I should have won this game. The disrupts I sided in kicked ass, but the mind fuck he pulled did a much better job. Oh well. At this point I ask Dave Doust(judge) how much time we have left. Dave says, "12 minutes." Several times over the course of this match I ask for how much time is remaining. Game 3:We play pretty fast and I pull 3 biskellions, for each biskellion I play he has a crypt rat. At this point he is blowing up rats to kill 1 biskellion each, and I am at a higher life total. 2 minutes left. Pete plays a nekrataal with no creatures on my side, hoping to beat me down. I play an ophidian and a quicksand. Pete attacks with the nekrataal, and I qucksand it instead of blocking w/ oph(thought he might have a crypt rat). He then man-o-wars my Ophidian. I play a winding canyon and tell Pete to go. He attacks, I play Ophidian as an instant, he banishes it, and then time was called. I'm at 11 Pete is at 8. I win. I will not even attempt to explain the diplay that Pete put on in front of everyone about how he was uninformed about the time limit. If there's one thing Pete can't deal with is a loss. He bitched and cried about the whole thing for a while, and finally got up and left. I felt kinda bad about winning this way, but after getting cheesed out of the second game against him, I was pretty happy about the win. At this point, I find out that Lee Steht, who already qualified has won his match. Since this PTQ has 3 slots, I automatically get an invite. Pressure is off. Semi-finals Brian Hubble vs. Kelsey McNair(me) Mike ??? vs. Lee Steht I play Brian again, and double mana screw. Oh well, I qualified either way. Brian ends up winning the tournament. After a long day I decide that I must get sleep. I round up the troops and head out. See ya in Chicago. Thanks for reading, Kelsey McNair P.S. It felt pretty good to step on a nation. Or at least 2/5 of one. -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet