Subject: V.LONG - London PTQ Ejection Report 13/09/97 or "How To Lose At Magic Without Really Trying" Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 20:09:52 GMT From: fox@scio.SPAMBLOCK.demon.co.uk (Fox) Newsgroups: uk.games.trading-cards.misc There's a story flying around the United Kingdom about a scrub who went to London to play in the PTQ this weekend. The details are a tad sketchy but apparently he was about to win the tournament when, all of a sudden, he was disqualified from play. In an effort to clear things up (and mainly because I'm sick to the eye teeth about having to repeat this every ten minutes) here's what really happened... Bit of background first. If you don't care about this then skip the next few paras. The PTQ's were coming to town. I'd been twiddling about with M:tG since around March of this year and thought it would be fun to go in for one of the bigger competitions. Now, I'm not what you might call a world class player, mainly because I don't have the experience yet, but I'd been playing in Manchester with a fairly good group of players and I thought I knew my way around a deck. Of course, nobody here plays MirVisLite. What's the point? Nobody likes the format because it's a tad too restrictive and, besides, all the tournaments are Type II, 1.5 or whatever. OK, so this is the entire point of having MirVisLite as a PTQ format but that's by the by. The point was that play testing before the matches wasn't really viable. You try playing a necratog deck when your opponent has a CoP: Black in play. Nasty! So it was time to check out the net. I really wanted to play Sandsipoise. In fact, I'd wanted to put this deck together ever since I'd pulled my first Sands of Time in my first tournament back in April, a sealed deck affair in Warrington. However, the cards were not forthcoming. Instead I decided that John Shuler's (hiya John!) "Mono Red - Beat Your Head" deck looked like fun. I mailed off to John to ask if he had any interesting additional comments I should be aware of. The response was "Add more land or play another deck". Fair enough, but in play test his deck was still kicking major backside. It is so much fun watching your opponent's face as you kill him on turn four with two incinerate's and two fireblasts. The smell of burning flesh makes you hungry though. Then, last weekend, I accidentally traded two cad. blooms for half of the cards I needed Sandsipoise deck. Well, that was it. A quick look about on the net and the SandsiPoise deck to beat all others was revealed to me. Elihu Feustel's Indy PTQ winning Black/White deck looked like an absolute killer. I put it together and tested it out and, sure enough, it kicked arse. Turbo Stasis dropped dead as soon as it looked at it (told you no-one played MirVisLite around here). Apologies to Elihu for not asking prior permission for using his deck but I didn't exactly have a lot of time to muck about. So off I toddled to London. Caught the train the night before and stayed over at my friend Ruth's pad in West Norwood (where ever the heck that is). She was most bemused about this magic card game malarkey but liked the pictures on the cards. I happened to have five of the card she most liked the look of so I gave her a copy. Hell, I figure I can survive with only four Zebra Unicorns. Got up bright and early the next morning, tubed it over to University College London and wandered into the hall. Had a little word with Carl T. Pickle about where the heck my ranking had disappeared to (still unranked, apparently due to an administrative error or something) and sat down. I got chatting with a bloke next to me, Trevor Cook, who'd travelled up that day from Brighton and we played a few of games. mana screw lead to me dropping one of the three duels but, overall, the deck seemed to be operating pretty well. Trevor made noises to the effect that he didn't want to meet me in the competition but we'd probably get drawn together for the first game. Little did he know... Only sixty seven people registered (!) so there were to be six straight rounds of Swiss with no knockout at the end. The first draw was made and the tournament began. MATCH 1 - Andy Watts - Green with black and red Game 1 Andy had a rather nice deck which seemed to be his own invention. Against any other deck I dare say it would have been damned effective. The first game was a standard SandsiPoise fast-slow kill. turn three soft lock followed by rather a few rounds until my Desolation and Miser's Cage showed up. Game 2 Down came my Equipoise on my turn 3. Down came his Null Chamber on turn 4. He calls Sands of Time and guess who hadn't sideboarded in any enchantment removal. D'oh! A few rounds later I conceded. Game 3 Again, I get a turn 3 soft lock but this time Andy wasn't going down without a fight. I had two lands in play, a Lotus Vale and a gemstone mine. I put down a second Equipoise the turn before he produced an Emerald Charm. The next turn he managed to get an Uktabi Sand's Of Death Monkey down. Most unhelpful. Well, I had no choice but to tutor for my lucky French Sables du Temps and that was the end of that. Match Record 1-0-0 Game Record 2-0-1 Match 2 - Trevor Cook - Big, Bad and Black (with a little red for good luck) Well, it had to happen I suppose. Trevor didn't want to play me and I didn't really want to play the only player I'd had a civil conversation with since I stepped in the hall. Ho well, that's the way things go I suppose. Game 1 Turn 3 soft lock. Turn 9 hard lock. Trevor conceded a couple of turns later. Game 2 - In comes the Soul Echo and Mangara's Blessings. Now this was messy. I started with a Lotus Vale, Sage Owl and a Sands in hand and that was about it. Turn 2 he Dark Ritualled for a hidden horror. I laid a Sage Owl and pulled out an Enlightened Tutor. His turn he laid another horror and chomped on my Book Bird. Time for a tutor for an Equipoise. My turn I played the Poise. His turn he hit me with both horrors and incinerated for eleven damage total. Ouch. Down came a Lotus Vale and Sands then he smacks me for eight again and Choking Sands my Vale. This is not looking good, but at least I have the soft lock down now even though all my land was plains but for one Gemstone. Luckily I still had a tutor in hand. End of his go I tutored for the Soul Echo. My go I laid the Vale, top decked a mangara's and played the Soul Echo. Next go I top deck another Mangara's and finally manage to get a Desolation and Miser's down a few turns later. The Mangara's kept me out of harm's way while the plains chomped into my life total and that was game. Phew! Match Record 2-0-0 Game Record 4-0-1 Match 3 - Ollie Schnider - Ophidibastard Oooh hell. I'm playing Ollie Schnider, ranked 4th in the country. Mr Adrenalin decided now would be a good time to turn the taps on. I informed Ollie that I was not looking forward to the match as his reputation as a good players preceded him. He asked my ranking and his head hit the table when I told him I didn't have one yet. Ho hum. Game 1 He was trash talking a fair amount and it threw me completely. I'd been playing in the tournaments in the Northern Circuit and this sort of lack of respect for your opponent doesn't happen (well, not a lot, anyway). It took me about six turns to get the soft lock down. Dissipates and Disrupts were flying around all over the place but I ran the gauntlet in the end, putting the lock down in a single turn with the aid of a Lotus, a sacked Crystal Vein and a plains. Hang on a minute though. Isn't that only six mana? Too right. I'd calculated it all correctly but the trash talking had played havoc with my concentration. I'd forgotten to put the Dark Ritual on the table even though I'd said I was playing it. Net result, I get a caution for playing a spell before tapping the mana. Ollie conceded once the lock was in play. Game 2 - In comes the anti blue stuff. CoS etc. One early boomeranged Lotus and that was me dead in the water. After that the Cloud Elementals, Ophidians and Serrated Biscuits had me for lunch. Game 3 Started with lands including a Lotus, a CoS and a tutor in hand and not a lot else. I took a gamble on turn 1 and tutored for a poise. My next three draws were the Poise, another Poise and a Sands. My Guardian Angel was looking over me after all. CoS gets dissipated allowing me to bung out one of the Equipoises the next turn. Ollie is titting around with a few creatures but isn't really doing a lot except being very loud and 'In My Face'. My Lotus was on the table by then so I put down a crystal vein. I tapped the Lotus, sacked the vein and put down the Sands. But! I'd not declared what type of mana I was drawing from the Vale. Ollie starts spouting off again, the crowds of people around start making noise as well and a Judge Matt (He Is The Law!) gets called over. I get another caution, have to state what colour I am drawing and continue. At this stage my nerves are in tatters. surely the crowd should have been told to bugger off by the judge? Anyway, I say I choose white, play the tutor in my hand and reach out a shaky hand for a Mangara's Blessing by accident. Ollie goes ballistic. I get an official warning for drawing the Sorcery, have to replay and get out a Wand Of Denial instead. The Miser's Cage comes down the turn after and Ollie, still protesting, concedes. This was the start of the end. The London players suddenly realised that I could be cowed as I hadn't been in this sort of incredibly hostile environment before. I also didn't take too kindly to Mr. Schnider's comments to the effect that people who didn't know the rules backwards had no business playing in tournaments. Ho well. At least I'd sucked a goodly 27 DCI points out of him. He actually left the tourney after that. OK, he didn't tell the organisers so he lost the next game he'd been drawn for too but I suppose he thought he had enough DCI points already and wanted to shed a couple. Very generous if you ask me. Match Record 3-0-0 Game Record 6-0-2 Match 4 - Steve Roach - Ophidibastard Game 1 Customary mana screw of the tournament. Bye bye game. Game 2 Mana flush this time. My starting hand was five lands and two Dark Rituals. Great. I finally got the lock down and that was that. Game 3 He boomeranged my early Lotus and started pummeling me with a Waterspout while I tried to recover. Luckily he forgot to pay upkeep while I got the lotus down again and then the soft lock. My turn again and I tapped the Lotus, played my Desolation and Steve called a judge. Guess who'd forgotten to draw a card first. Took the warning and mana burn but managed to get the desolation down the next turn. I played the Miser's cage, desting the Lotus at the end of the turn for the hard lock. At this point almost any other opponent would have conceded. Instead, Mr Roach decided I have to kill him with the sodding Miser's Cage after twenty turns. Afterwards he said that he was hoping I'd make another mistake and get disqualified. This is not what I call 'Playing The Game'. In the Northern tournaments -- hell, the next day in the PTQ in Doncaster even -- you'd be incredibly unlucky to come up against a rules lawyer like this. Most players would have insisted on the mana burn (which I would have agreed with immediately I hasten to add) and the judge would never have been involved. And then to force your opponent to play out the entire game on the off chance that he'd make a minor mistake and get disqualified from the tournament? Suddenly reasons behind the London players having a reputation for being complete bastards became clear. Out of interest, does anyone know if Steve should have received a caution for not burying his Waterspout during his upkeep before drawing a card? I had a feeling that he should have but I tend to play by the Northern rules of not being a git. Match Record 4-0-0 Game Record 8-0-3 Woah! Only sixty seven people turned up to the Tournament. If I win the next match I can afford to draw and still qualify for one of the two sponsorships to Chicago. Nice! Match 5 - Chris Manners - Another Ophidibastard. Everyone is playing Ophidibastard here, mainly because they're all from the same club and seem to have decided Ophidian was the best deck type. They were wrong. Chris is ranked sixth or seventh in the country. Judge Carl decided t sit by me this game to watch what happened and make sure all was above board. Game 1 What can I say? Fast soft lock followed by a slow kill. I'm murmuring "Untap, Upkeep, Draw" every sodding turn just so I have something to focus on. Meanwhile Chris was making stupid comments on almost every play. He received a caution for something from Carl along the way. I'm not certain what for. I was too busy trying to concentrate on killing him. Game 2 My second turn vampiric is memory lapsed. My third turn repeat vampiric is dissipated. Good job I had that Poise in hand all the time *8) Top deck a Sands and get the lock down a couple of turns later. Played a wand of denial, two cities of Solitude and was just waiting for a tutor for the Miser's to kill him off. I'd been wanding (whenever I remembered) to make sure he didn't get a boomerang. I knew I'd won and started getting excited. The crowd gathering around the table knew it too and the feedback was great. About turn three hundred and fifty two I passed to him and said "At the beginning of your turn I tap my wand and look at your top card ". All hell broke lose. Damned Cities of Solitude! Warning number 3 for playing out of turn and immediate ejection from the tournament. ARRGHGHHH!!! So there you have it. That's the story of how a scrub beat the top players in the country and was eventually browbeaten into submission five minutes before winning the PTQ London. I tried again in Doncaster the next day but the standard of the players and decks was three times as high. Went four and two before drawing to another black/white SandsiPoise on the final round. Still, I was probably the only person there who won a game by Sage Owl beatdown but that's a story for another day. COMMENTARY ---------- And now a word about and to the London players. You guys are pathetic. At the beginning of the tournament Carl Pickle stood up at the front and gave a rather concise speech about how the Magic game was ten times as unfriendly as the other CCGs being played in the country. I must admit that, at the time, I was surprised. Having played against some of the 'best' players you people can offer and seen the mind-f*ck tactics you employ I can see why he felt it was necessary to stand up and be heard. I thought it said a lot that the same speech was not repeated in Doncaster the next day. Players up here are interested in playing the game, not playing at gamesmanship. I heard a couple of interesting stories regarding the tactics used to boost rankings by the players in London. I'm not going to repeat them as they are completely unverified but, having spent some time amongst you and seen how you operate, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were true. Things which really pissed me off were Roach's refusal to concede once the hard lock was in place (hell, even Ollie Schnider conceded wasn't interested in playing by that point) and the attempts at breaking my concentration once it had transpired that I was effectively a newbie at the game. The lack of respect for fellow players was horrendous. But that was the first and last time. Once bitten, once inoculated. i started going to pieces once I'd realised who I was playing. Now, having beaten most of you, I know you're not quite as invulnerable as I'd first imagined. Next time, and there will be a next time, you'd better have more firepower at your disposal because otherwise I'll be coming back home with rather a lot more than the 100 DCI points I received this time. One other thing, and this is going to be possibly the most controversial thing I've said yet. Having now met and talked with the fellow, I'm not at all certain Anthony Goh is as bad-to-the-bone as everyone makes out. It seems to me that the way he plays and his general attitude to the game is simply because that's how he believes one should operate in this environment. I'd say that this is due to what he's learned from the people he regularly plays with. Of course, I could be wrong *8) Fox -- /\_/\ F \O O/ O "Some you lose, some you lose." \o/ X