From: rsh9395@is.nyu.edu (Robert S. Hahn) Subject: Tourney Report: NYC Pro Tour Qualifier Date: 21 Apr 1996 11:00:14 GMT Okay, so it's five in the morning and I'm up because... well, I'm alternatively tired beyond belief and filled with adrenalin. It's a weird state of existence. I just thought I would post a little report on my experience earlier tonight (actually, last night by now) as it was my first time winning a large (250+) tournament. This may get long, so bear with me, or skip on to the next thread. -- First of all, we have to backtrack to two weeks before the tournament when I was practicing and practicing with the Necromnipotence deck. It's a pretty standard version of Necro, so there isn't much to say about that. Then, at a weekly tournament at Neutral Ground (a gaming place in NYC) I got killed so badly by a R/G deck featuring 4 Dervishes standard that I began to wonder about its effectiveness. So then, I watch the games and watch the games all around me for two weeks and decide that in fact there will be two types of decks at the qualifier: Necro and anti-Necro G/W or R/G. With one day to go, I decide that I would bet on the anti-Necro forces winning out and play an anti-anti-Necro deck. It's the whole rock-paper-scissors thing again. Therefore, I pull out my old trusty U/W control deck, sub out Angels for Triskelions, put in more Arrows standard, etc. etc. With one night to go, my friend Josh comes down from New Haven to play in the qualifier. He has the idea of playing a R/W/g Justice-style deck in the tournament, which features tons of creature removal & direct damage, with Stormbind, 4 Howling Mines, Winter Orbs, 4 Icy's, etc. So I lend him my Ice Age duals, etc. etc. and we start playtesting. Unfortunately, he can't seem to buy a win with the deck; it just won't work for him. So around midnight, he tells me that he's going to play G/W Willowgeddon because it's strong and he's comfortable with that style. In the meantime, I'm trying to play this U/W "Do Nothing" deck against Necromnipotence. No chance. Not even a squeak of a chance. Dead in four turns. Dead in seven turns. Dead in six turns. No chance at all. So... I decided to take the cards that Josh was no longer using and build a deck which might lose to others but will not lose to Necro. That was my one and only goal: do not lose to Necro. It was about three in the morning by now, and the tournament begins at noon. I didn't yet have a sideboard, and I hadn't really playtested, but I knew that I wanted to kill everything that Necro puts out, then burn it, then lock it down hard. I put in other cards to neutralize the effects of the Howling Mine for them: namely, Winter Orb. I had no idea how powerful and effective that combo really is: Justice had the correct idea. The deck ended up being four colors: R/W/g/u and 64 cards. The contents of the deck were: 4 Adarkar Wastes 2 Karplusan Forests 2 Brushlands 1 Forest 1 Ruins of Trokair 5 Mountains 3 Plains 3 Land Tax 3 Mishra's Factory 4 Fellwar Stone 4 Howling Mines 3 Winter Orbs 4 Icy Manipulators 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Fireball 1 Earthquake 4 Disenchant 2 Shatter 2 Wrath of God 3 Stormbind 1 Ivory Tower 1 Black Vise 1 Recall 1 Zuran Orb 1 Balance 1 Feldon's Cane 2 Deflection 64 in the main deck. Sideboard was 4 Serrated Arrows, 1 An-Zerrin Ruins (I couldn't find another Homeland card in 5 minutes I had), 2 Tormod's Crypt, 2 Stormseekers, 2 Library of Leng, 1 Aeolipile, and 3 Orggs. The tough decisions were whether to include Kismet in the main deck or not, whether to put Library of Leng in the main deck for the Stormbind/Library trick, etc. But ultimately, the above was the lineup. Having played one quick tune-up game, I go to sleep at six in the morning and argue in my dream about putting in Kismet or not, etc. :) -- First Round: Unfortunately, I was paired up against a wee-lad of about seven who showed up with his sideboard face-up. As I'm forced to look upon his Mammoth Harness and Shrink, he tells me that he didn't have any other Homelands cards. It's a R/B/U with storage lands from FE for big fireballs. I locked him down pretty quickly with the Icy/Winter Orb combo and locked him down for good when I got three Icy's out. Second game was more of the same, and the third game, I put down a third turn Stormbind and started binding him for 4 per turn. So much for the early stuff. I move on 1-0 (9 pts). Second Round: This was one of my toughest matches, as well as the stupidest error I made during the whole day. My opponent was Pat Fleischman, whose brother Sean was a Top 16 qualifier in Pro Tour 1 -- I first learned about G/W's power from Sean's deck. Well, Pat was playing Sean's deck -- all the familiar sights: Blinking Spirit, Erhnam Djinn, Autumn Willow, Elves, etc. etc. No Armageddon, however, which may have hurt him. First game went back and forth, back and forth. He put out an Elf, I bolt it. He puts out a Dervish and whacks me a couple of times before putting out an Archer. I fireball them. He puts out an Erhnam and a Blinkie; I keep the Erhnam occupied for a while with an Icy while setting things up. Eventually, though, I got the lock down, the whole time holding off his evil forces. He finally puts out Autumn, tapping out to do so. Seizing the opportunity, I put down the Winter Orb, then I Wrath all his creatures away. Since I had two Icy's, I start tapping what he untaps, and the land he puts into play. In the meantime, we're both drawing four cards per turn from multiple Howling Mines, and I have him under a Vise. So I start hitting him with Mishras and bolting him. I finished off with a large fireball, ending control with cheeze. Second game, he gets out a creature rush and pounds me with Erhnams and I die quickly, wishing I had Swords to Plowshares. The third game is where I made the mistake. He quickly overwhelmed me once again with a creature horde and I'm suddenly fighting for my life. With about six life to go, I get the Ivory Tower, which he subsequently disenchants when his mana untaps. By this time, I've Wrathed away a whole bunch of Erhnams, I have Icy's which make his Blinking Spirits useless, and we don't have much time to play. He then puts out his other Autumn Willow. Argh! I have nothing to hurt her with. Then I draw the Orgg and play it. We're both at 10 life but he can't attack me because the Orgg would be able to attack; since I have the direct damage, he doesn't want to do that. Then, I draw Earthquake. This is where I made the mistake. For some reason, I saw "Earthquake" but thought "Fireball" -- if I had quaked for 4, killing the Willow, I could have attacked with the Orgg and finished him up. Instead, it's Disrupting Sceptred out of my hand. Ouch. So that ends in a draw, and neither of us gets any points or anything, which upsets me because I would have been glad to flip a coin to see who should concede to the other one. Anyway, I move on to the loser's bracket with a 1-0(12) record. The Third Round: I played against another guy who I knew: Mark Lim from Columbia who was playing... yes, you guessed it, G/W Willowgeddon. I was expecting Necrodecks out of my neck, but I play against nothing but G/W.... Anyhow, typical of my games against G/W, I quickly go down to 6 life from a barrage of Lions, Orders, Mishras, Elves, etc. I bolt as many as I can to keep from dying in four turns, but they just keep coming. Finally, he plays a Serra to go with his Erhnam which I had been keeping busy with an Icy. I drop the Winter Orb, then Wrath (sound familiar). From there, I rebuild, using the 3 Howling Mines I had in play to go up to 2 Icy Manipulators -- mana-lock. I get the Ivory Tower, and play it. He untaps a Ruins, and when I try to tap it, sacs it for WW and Disenchants my Ivory Tower. Or, he would have had I not been holding a Deflection for the better part of the game, and I kill his Zuran Orb instead. I put him under the Vise, then start gnawing away at his life and finally kill him with Stormbind. The second game was more of the same. I was down to 1 life for about 11 turns, eating land to stay alive. He finally makes the big move, and I Balance, eating all my lands. I had the Land Tax in play so I figured I was okay. I also had a number of Fellwar Stones, which was comforting. Soon thereafter, I drop the Mines, I drop the Icys, etc. etc. and he conceded when I killed his Icy. He was also extremely generous in conceding the third game as well -- or perhaps my deck is just extremely annoying to play against. :) In any case, I move on, with a 2-0 match record (21 points). Fourth Round, I faced a U/W deck who seemed to be having extreme trouble drawing the cards he needed. It was a fairly standard Serra/Sceptre/Book deck but two early Icy Manipulators and 2 Howling Mines eventually led to a mana lockdown. The second game was even more brutal as I put down a fairly early Stormbind, then three Howling Mines in play. After he drew four cards, I Stormseekered him down to 9 life, then bolted and Stormbound him to death. It was almost too easy, and I felt like he must have drawn nothing but useless stuff while my draws were beyond belief. I move on, now 3-0 with 30 points. I need to win the next match, or I don't make it into the single-elimination rounds. But if I win, then I'm guaranteed a spot in the playoffs since I'll have 36 points with 4 match wins. Nervous tension sets in big-time. I have an idea of what it felt like to be playing in Pro Tour 1 -- though on a much smaller scale. Fifth Round... the nailbiter. This was the closest match by far of the ones I played. My opponent was Justin Schneider who had placed in the Juniors at Pro Tour 1. He was playing a R/W deck with a lot of small dangerous creatures and direct damage. As was typical for the tournament, I went down below 10 life quickly from Lions and Mishras, but then the machinery kicked in: Mines, Winter Orb, Stormbind, Icys, etc. Justin saw the writing on the wall when I disenchanted his Zuran Orb and conceded. The second game was just as uneven for him: a seemingly endless supply of Mishras, Lions, Orders, and Disenchants for anything of mine that could interrupt the defense, just pounded me into the ground. So there we were, tied at one a piece. The next game would decide whether I move on or I go home. The third game, however, was a classic. I couldn't get the machinery working fast enough, and I took some early hits from Mishras and Orders before stopping them with Bolts. We went back and forth for a while, with him playing two Felwars to get out from the Winter Orb fairly easily. My mistake was in not killing the Felwars earlier. Nonetheless, he eventually put out an Angel and a Shivan after killing my one Icy. I needed a Balance or a Wrath, and I had only one card in hand which was neither. He said, "You need a Wrath." I said, "Yup." With no Howling Mines in play, I drew... the Wrath. With the game reset, we kept going for a while drawing four cards per turn. I got my machinery set up again and started to get my game in gear. But he was at over 40 life at this point; I had to win by running him out of cards, since another Howling Mine (4 total) meant both of us were drawing 5 cards per turn. With but a few cards left in the library, he made his move. He sacrificed a Ruins of Trokair for a Millstone, then milled me with the Felwars. Two cards went down -- if one was a Feldon's Cane, I would have lost. It was not. So it's my turn, and there are just a few cards left. I have to draw five. I draw -- land. I draw -- Land Tax. I draw -- land. I DRAW, picking at the edges of my card, hoping it's not the last card -- a Bolt. The last card, and the fifth I had to draw: Feldon's Cane. I play it immediately, and that pretty much sealed it. Justin played for a couple more turns -- he was under the Vise and looking at a Stormbind as well -- before conceding. If my deck had been any smaller or any larger, I would have lost because of the Howling Mines. Justin could not believe what had happened. He went over the scenario against and again -- if he had played the Winter Orb just one round earlier, he would have won. If I had Land Taxed one fewer times, he would have won, etc. etc. And I immediately resolved to put in more Feldon's Canes.... But I was in the playoffs. Playoffs: Sixteen players made the playoffs, which were single-elimination 2 out of 3 games with no time limits -- which makes me happy since I came close to having matches called on time during the Swiss rounds. Among them were four players who had already qualified at NY Pro Tour, including Aaron Kline who came in second in the Juniors. Some were playing for airfare, others were playing for a slot in the Seniors at Long Beach, other were just playing. In any case, I got matched up in the first round with my first Necrodeck. A quiet, serious player by the name of Paul Chang who had gone 5-0 in the Swiss rounds. A real nice guy with a very solid deck, but of course, my deck was geared to kill Necro. Nonetheless, he got me down to 8 life or so with Orders and Mishras and Bolts before I locked him down with the Winter Orb. The Howling Mines now going in full effect, he never dropped the Necropotence. A Vampire was threatening, but I kept it busy with the Icy until he dropped another creature, at which point God Frowned (Wrath). He put out two Disks to have them Shattered or Disenchanted, since I was holding all of them for the Disks. I finally got him under the Vise while drawing three cards per turn, then started bolting him, keeping him solidly locked down with the Winter Orb. Ultimately, the Stormbind and continuous Mishra assaults proved too much in the first game. Second game went poorly for him. He was playing R/B Necro and drew no black lands for the first six or seven turns. I played two Howling Mines thinking he would eventually draw the Swamp -- I didn't really want to win that way if I could help it -- but I had too much of an advantage by then: Library of Leng, Stormbind, 2 Fellwar Stones, Icy , Winter Orb, etc. I'm not proud of that win, especially since I sealed his fate with a 10-point Stormseeker, dropping him to 9 life with the Stormbind in play and 12 cards in hand (Leng). However, Paul was extremely gracious and I appreciated the high level of sportsmanship. I move on to the next round; one more. ONE more match, and I go to California.... FINALS: I was matched up against another tournament champion who was playing a Serrageddon deck. Again, Lions, Orders, etc. would come out, then he woudl Armageddon for the lock. He had already qualified, with air fare, so I didn't really understand why he was playing -- but such is not mine to question. It is merely mine to try my best. The first game took a long time as we were both considering every move. He was a very deliberate player and brought out the most deliberate style in me as well -- nothing was overlooked. I began to assemble my machinery when he tried to Divine Offering my Winter Orb; I deflected it to his Felwar Stone which... to say the least, surprised him. Eventually, he put out two Angels and Armageddoned; fortunately, I had the Zuran Orb in play so I went up to 30+ life. Drawing three cards per turn, I found my Ivory Tower and played it, along with a land to use my Icy on one of the Angels. Again, after numerous back and forth with Disechants and such, I finally drew a Wrath and played it. The Winter Orb/Icy combo was now safe, and I eventually got him in a mana-lock. He realized that I would never give him enough mana to cast a Disenchant, so conceded. Second game... another nailbiter. Again, a horde of weenies dragged me down to 2 life in a hurry before I played the Icy Manipulator and the Winter Orb. As expected, the Serra made her appearance, then Armageddon followed. I drew the land I needed and played it, knowing I could hold Serra off for a while, but not he mishra. THEN he forgot to untap his Mishra, untapping a white mana instead. With the Mishra, he could have done enough damage for me to lose another land, dropping below the 4 mana needed for most of my stuff. Because he didn't, I survived until I pulled a Wrath or a Balance and got out for a while. At this point, he was put under the Winter Orb and I started controlling the game. A Lion got bolted, and I tapped the land he untapped. Eventually, the machine kicked into gear and he conceded under the Vise. It was as close you can get in terms of life, since all he needed was 2 point of damage.... And I was IN! California, Long Beach -- the slot and airfare are mine. I finished in the top 4 of the field with this weird 4-color monstrosity which might have been the one non-Necro deck qualifying. I know I faced Erhnams and Willow with equal fortitude, and Necro was not effective against so much removal (supported by the Library of Leng) and direct damage. I feel like I've been drained of all vitality and that sleep is impossible as much as it is necessary. I'm a Magic zombie. :) In any case, if you've read this far, I guess I need to decide whether I'm going to Long Beach -- and I DEFINITELY need to practice booster draft if in fact I am heading that way. -- Anyhow, that was my trip through the maze. It was fun, though tense, and I can honestly say that there is a viable deck type besides Necromnipotence and Willowgeddon Djinns 'R' Us decks. And now, I'm off to bed. May your mana be plentiful and right! -The Sophist -- Robert S. Hahn rsh9395@is.nyu.edu NYU Law School, '97 http://pages.nyu.edu/~rsh9395/index.html "They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters." -- Sir Thomas More, Utopia