From: az099@lafn.org (Brian Bland)
Subject: Tournament report! L.A. Pro feeder!
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 03:48:35 GMT

      The L.A pro tourney qualifier consisted of six rounds of swiss 
format matchings.  Each round consisted of a three game match.  The first 
person to win two out of three won the match, but, nevertheless, you were 
required to play a third match for record purposes.  After you completed 
a match, your score was recorded and in the next round you were matched 
with an opponent that had a like record.  Therefore, if you did well, 
you'd wind up having to play other people that did well.  If you did not, 
you were dropped into what my friend Jeff and I called "the kiddie 
pool".  Luckily, I managed to spend most of my time outside of the kiddie 
pool.  :)
      My friend Jeff was playing a textbook g/w armageddon deck, and 
myself, not having very much time to prepare for this tourney, I was 
playing a tried and true, and completely unoriginal, Necropotence 
deck...  I figured, hey, they work... right?   Wellll....

...not when everyone's out to get you!!!

      My first match was, by far, the worst of all.  You see, I was up 
late the night before, and was still very groggy.  I mean, 10am comes 
really early when you didn't get to sleep until 4.  My deck, 
unfortunately, was very unsympathetic, It didn't see fit to give me more 
than one land for the first two games.  To make matters worse, my first 
match introduced me to my deck's nemesis: the whirling dervish.  Needless 
to say, I was utterly trounced three games in a row.  Even in the third 
game, when I actually drew mana, I was still completely slaughtered.  I 
don't want my excuses, however, to detract from the credit that my 
opponent was due.  He had a fine deck, and he was a fine player.  
Green/white with whirling dervishes, ernham djinns and FOUR armageddons 
(I know this last bit because I hymned two in the last game, and he 
nevertheless managed to get two off against me).  I was, however, happy 
to hear that my friend Jeff faired better in his first round, by sweeping 
a r/w/b deck 3-0.
      In my second match, I was paired with a rather humorous guy playing 
a u/w counterspell deck.  In the first game, I was slow to start, and he 
wound up getting ahold of one of my black knights and using it to defend 
himself against my orders.  Then, he countered pretty much everything I 
did until he got out out a djinn.  Then he did bad things to me with that 
Djinn.  Textbook counterspell deck all the way.  Then, in the second 
game, I got out a gloom and a nevinyrral's disk (in case he tried to 
sleight the gloom) and pretty much brought him to his knees with wave 
after wave of knights.  The third game went much the same.  I'd won my 
first match.  My confidence and my morale, were restored.  Reports from 
my friend Jeff indicated that he'd played and defeated a r/g speed 
creature deck 3-0.  Jealousy started to take hold of me!  :)
      My third match was very humiliating!  Game one, I am, once again, 
left to play with one mana --which my opponent promptly strip mined.  
Then, my opponent gets out an orcish spy and a millstone and starts going 
to town on my library; making very certain that I never draw land again.  
Eventually, I die to a mishra's factory.  :/  Second and third game, I DO 
draw mana, and I completely take the guy to the cleaners.  His deck 
seemed too combo oriented, and thus took too long to develop against a 
relatively quick deck like mine.  The fellow seemed to take it bad.  He 
said that he came to the tournament with hopes of 'seeing something 
original'.  I don't know about you bud, but I can think of a better way 
to spend $25!  :>
      After the third match, we took a break for lunch.  Jeff and I went 
to Jack in the Box and sat around updating one another as to what 
experiences we'd had.  It seems that while I was doing battle with the 
dreaded orcish spy, Jeff had faced his first defeat at the hands of a 
solid red direct damaged deck.  It seems that Jeff mistakenly sideboarded 
out one of his disenchants --when he should have not only left it in, but 
sideboarded in some divine offering as well.  You see, it turns out that 
the DD deck was, not surprisingly, using nevinyrral's disks, and Jeff was 
helpless to stop them.  I tried to console Jeff, but he wouldn't be 
consoled.  He vowed not to make the same mistake again.  
      My fourth match really pissed me off.  It was against a guy that 
I'd met before.  As a matter of fact, he lives out here by me.  He has a 
reputation for being a good player, but, being as how I just moved to 
where I live now, I'd never really played him.  Well, that was probably a 
good thing.  You see, this guy had a serious attitude.  He'd jump on 
every single thing I did.  You name it, he did it.  Throughtout the 
entire game, he was determined to choose the speed and method of play.  
He'd ask me every five minutes how many cards I had.  He'd tell me where 
to put my cards in play.  He'd tell me where to place my graveyard.  He'd 
constantly hover over me during the game and say 'are you done... are you 
done... are you done?'. Then, under the stress of being constantly 
questioned I'd say 'yes' reflexively and forget to necropotence.  So it 
would come out something like this.  'Are you done... are you done... are 
you done... YES!... WAIT... I forgot to necropotence, is that cool?  
NOPE!  <snicker> you SNOOZE you LOSE.'  I think you see where I'm coming 
from.
      That wasn't the worst of it though.  At one point during the game, 
he land taxed... and... I noticed that he was not only hunting for land, 
he was taking certain cards in his deck, and moving them to other areas 
in his deck.  I responded by requesting to cut his deck.  He acted put 
upon... but he allowed me to.  THEN, after I cut it, he cut it again... I 
said nothing.... but I was fuming.  In the three rounds following his 
magical land tax, this fellow drew his Ivory tower, his zuran orb and a 
balance.  Luckily, I had a trusty Nevinyrral's disk that took care of the 
first two problems.  After he lost his zuran and his ivory tower, this 
guy started to get absolutely furious. He started jumping on every little 
thing I did and I was rapidly losing my temper.  Finally, I explained to 
him that he was going to relax and that we were going to play a nice 
friendly game of magic.  This statement, said through clenched teeth, 
earned the response from him of 'there's no need to get confrontational 
over this'.  I began to play turns very carefully so that he'd have 
absolutely nothing to jump on.  In response to this he threatened to call 
a judge over and have me charged with stalling.  I shot him the most evil 
look you could possiby imagine, and he shut up.  I had had it with this 
asshole.
      I wound up winning the first game, despite this fellow's obvious 
cheating.  The following game coincided with him throwing a temper 
tantrum, but neverthless pulling out a victory.  The last game came down 
to a tie,  but it was called in his favor because he had more life (he 
sac'd all his land to his zuran orb).  In all fairness though, I 
probablly would have lost the last game anyway, as he had karma out.  He 
was playing a r/w deck almost exactly like the type II deck I usually 
play (blinking spirits etc etc) and he heavily implied that he was the 
'first person' to play such a deck and that everyone was copying him.  
Fortunately, my girlfriend managed to calm me down to a point where my 
head was clear enough to play in the next round.  Jeff too, lost that 
round, having been defeated by a black discard/pox deck.  He was very 
impressed with the design, having never seen anything like it.
      The fifth round found me matched against yet another red/white 
deck.  Sadly,  my opponent didn't live long enough in any of the three 
games for me to see what it was that his deck was supposed to do.  I saw 
an earthquake, a few bolts, a fireball... and an abbey gargoyle(?!?)... 
but that was about it.  The guy seemed very despondent.  I felt bad.  
      The sixth and final round, I was pitted against my arch enemy, a 
white weenie deck!  During the first game, he wasn't able to get through 
my prot. from white creatures and in the second two games, his problem 
was confounded by the fact that I sideboarded in Glooms.  He had sleights 
in his deck, but none of them came up.  After the game, my opponent told 
me a very sad tale of how he'd spent over a $1000 dollars trying to 
qualify for the pro tourney.  He'd already been to new york and back and 
was planning on going to every qualifier tourney he could get to.  I felt 
very bad for him, and resisted the urge to tell him that the deck he 
chose just wouldn't go the distance anymore.  Jeff had won his last two 
games, the fifth round being a 2-1 vs a r/g deck and the last being a 3-0 
against a r/g/w deck.
      Unfortunately, neither Jeff, nor myself, finished in top eight.  
And thus, we didn't get to play in the eight man single elimination that 
decided which four people would advance to the pro tourney.  
Nevertheless, Jeff and I finished in the top 15 out of 82 people --and 
that's not too shabby.  :>   Oh, by the way, there were only like 16 
people in the juniors division --with 10 slots available for 
advancement!!  Oh to be a kid again!!!
      This tournament was, by far, one of the best tournaments I've ever 
been to.  This is largely in part to do the management skills of one 
Scott Larabee of the Costa Mesa playing group. All of the matches were 
very clearly assigned and each match was timed at exactly one hour.  Very 
neat... very tidy.  I would very much like to see Scott run the LA 
regionals.  If anybody who knows Scott is reading this, ask him for me.  
Thanks.
 
 
 
                                                               .\\eanstrea]<