Subject: More Mirage-block :-)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:45:30 +0900
From: David Low <dlow@KURASC.KYOTO-U.AC.JP>

Hi all,

     For those still interested in Wilma-format deck-technology, here's an
     brief report of the "PTQ Warmup" tournament held in Osaka on Monday,
     September 15th.

     There was a long weekend game party in Takamatsu (Shikoku Island)
     starting from Friday night, so after sixty-odd hours of gaming, udon,
     beer, onsen, plum wine, yakitori, and interesting sleeping arrangements
     ("Excuse me, Miss, if I can just shift a little here...."), I raced
     Typhoon #19 of the season - which closed off the island from the rest of
     the world for a day - to cross the 12km-long Seto-Ohashi Bridge and make
     the three-hour train journey to Osaka for the tourney.

     Sidenote: Talisman with all the expansions and full roleplaying and
     mega-death rules (no healing, just life gain/loss; enter a square with
     a player you encounter player [depending on alignment] *and* square;
     etc, etc, etc...) and a horde of players is slow - damn slow - but *fun*.
     We started before midnight, and finished just after 7am (an hour before
     I made the above journey), with the biggest challenge being the player
     fights *inside* the Dragon King's Tower, not the Dragon King himself :-)

     Six 1-hour Swiss rounds, from 12:30pm to 8pm, once again organised
     perfectly by WGG volunteer judge Muneo Shibata.  Just on 64 people from
     memory.

     Lots of Ertog, lots of black in general, and red burn starting to make
     more of an appearance (hey, maybe I've started something :-)).  Other
     major decktypes included the major-G stuff (Gr, Gw, etc...).  I intended
     playing a substantial variant on the "spectral Red" deck (dubbed as
     such by James Jenkins, who took [better versions of :-)] it to a couple
     of PTQ top-8's in the last month), but ended up having to play pretty
     much the old version due to not taking the right cards to Takamatsu with
     me :-/  Kaervek's Purges are one of James' signature cards in this
     deck-type, and are bloody effective (Barrow Ghouls, etc...).

R: Incinerate(4), Thunderbolt(4), Hammer of Bogardan(4), Fireblast(4),
   Kaervek's Torch(3), Viashino Sandstalker(3);
W: Abeyance(3), Afterlife(1);
Multi: Kaervek's Purge(2), Delirium(2);
Artifact: Mindstone(4), Snake Basket(2), Bosium Strip(1);
Land: Undiscovered Paradise(3), Gemstone Mine(3), Rocky Tar Pit(4),
      Mountain(11), Swamp(2);
Sideboard: Cursed Totem(2), Delirium(1), Savage Twister(2),
           Forsaken Wastes(2), City of Solitude(2), Elephant Grass(2),
           Afterlife(1), Honorable Passage(3).

      I liked the Mindstones, and they enabled Hammer recursion much earlier
      and easier, as well as paying for the Purges (the other thought was
      for Baskets/Strip).  If I wasn't so convinced of the value of Abeyance
      and Passage here, I'd try to drop them and prune to a tighter Rbg
      version to avoid the spectral problems (I seemed to be drawing multiple
      Gemstones all day, which is a hassle).  Didn't draw the Strip all day,
      but I don't think I'd keep it (it oscillates in and out every iteration
      of this deck :-)).  The Baskets were funny, but ultimately ineffective -
      it needs more basics/less-spectrals to work properly (ah, the things you
      find out when you do your playtesting *during* the tournament :-)),
      and they're too slow to act as effective blockers.

      So, the final version (since Osaka next weekend is the very last Wilma
      event for a while, I imagine) will take out the Basket and Strip, and
      probably replace them with Twisters again versus the RG stuff.  That
      deck-type really is the killer for me, though, since without critters
      of my own I can't block the speed 2-damage, since they're casting a
      new critter a turn the Sandstalkers are ineffective, and they've got
      the burn to finish me before I can finish them.  Very bad matchup, but
      I refuse to go for the standard Shuler celerity-burn, or the Jenkins
      celerity&discard-burn version, on originality grounds, even if they're
      better decks :-)

      Prayer does seems to be a good option, doesn't it? :-)

     1) Jun Kataoka, a fellow WGG member, and ranked somewhere in the top-3
     in western Japan :-)   After the mandatory wailing and expressions of
     disgust at Shibata-san pairing us in round one ("Sumo pairings!!"), we
     got to business.  Interesting note: not even the suggestion of taking a
     draw, which might not be general behaviour in the rest of the world :-)
     Of course, some might suggest he liked his chances against me too much
     to even consider a draw :-)  Kataoka was playing Ertog, with Firestorm,
     Crypt Rats and Song of Blood.  Unfortunately, he was sideboarding Bubble
     Matrix rather than Passage, so I managed to top-deck a couple of wins
     the turn before he would have killed me each time, thanks to Kaervek's
     Purge, Delirium, and general burn.

     2) Matoki-san, playing fast RG (Boa, Centaur, Lancer, Burn).  This deck
     type is a bit of a nightmare matchup for me because the critters deal
     damage faster than I can, with the burn as a finisher :-)  The only
     concession I make to it is Twister, and as it turned out I had lots of
     mana and nothing to do with it once too often :-)

     3) Kazuhiro Ando, playing mono-R celerity-burn, featuring Pyric
     Salamanders and Fire Whip, plus Bone Mask in the sideboard.  Against
     expectation I won the first one, then couldn't draw a Passage to save
     my life (literally) :-)

     4) Wada Yuta, playing mono-B weenie/discard (Shadow Rider, Crypt Rats,
     Coercion/Stupor, Drain Life).  He relied a lot on the Drains, and
     Forsaken Wastes proved to be a bit of a problem after I was fortunate
     enough to draw one early in each of games 2 and 3.

     5) Nakai Kouichi, playing a five-colour Black weenie/Stairwell.  This
     was a nice deck, with U for Man O' War and Power Sink, R for Firestorm,
     G for Tropical Storm, and W for Disenchant and Serenity (most stuff
     interchanged through the sideboard as required).  Main deck featured
     Abyssal Gatekeepers, which he rapidly took out :-)  Game one was about
     Stairwell, game two about Elephant Grass, and game three about a
     starting hand of Abeyance(3), Gemstone(3), Swamp, followed by draws of
     Undiscovered, Tar Pit, Tar Pit, while a first-turn Hidden Horror ate me
     alive :-(

     6) Kawashimo-san, playing GUW (Ranger, Wall of Roots, Briar Shield; Man
     O' War, Abjure, Phantom Wings; Empyrial Armor, Gerrard's Wisdom,
     Abeyance).  Game one was about eight turns of discarding with one
     Mountain in play (and me accusing him of toying with me by nibbling me
     to death with a Shielded Ranger - he wasn't willing to Armor it until
     the last minute, because he'd seen me playing Delirium and Purge
     earlier in the day :-)); game two was a Wastes/Burn-fest on my part; and
     game three saw me facing down the Flying Armored Wildebeest (this was
     scary...) but I managed to Abeyance/Delirium/Afterlife it and burn for
     the finish.

           Maybe I'll just play mono-U on Saturday :-)  Of course, if I do
      that, I'll meet all the Tokyo players using Gw anti-BU (Boa, Meerkat,
      Centaur, Scalebane, etc.)....!! :-)

        Regards,

             David.

--
{ David J. Low                     |             dlow@kurasc.kyoto-u.ac.jp }
{ JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow         | http://www.kurasc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~dlow }
{ Radio Atmospheric Science Center |    "The words of the Prophets are     }
{ Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 611 |    written on the subway walls...."   }