Date: Mon, 04 Nov 96 17:59:51 gmt From: BRICK@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de Subject: Betr.:[3]: IA/AL-Cons 1/3 Hi, I thought I would repay you with this report: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ my E-mail has been down for 5 days, so I have visited two qualifiers since my last post. I will only report about the Sprendlingen Qualifier though, as there is an extensive report about the Berlin qualifier by Frank Schacherer. Who won the Berlin Qualifier with his version of Black Widow to which I was glad to contribute some small alterations. After the Essen and Berlin qualifiers I was essentially in a quandry. My Browse deck had turned out as too slow for 55 minute swiss. In Berlin I missed qualification by one round, because I lost to a big creature Rade, played by Claudia, a Laymember of Team Istari. She killed me with my own Lhurgoyf btw, which I had lent to her just before the tournament. The U/X Browse decks are too slow, but beat Rade, the Black decks beat the U/X decks but lose to Rade. Rock-Paper Scissors. I decide to go with black as I have the combined experience of Frank and my playing the Berlin Qualifier behind it and I know that I am good necro player. I decide to call the deck Josh, after my (in)famous Necro deck Joshua. Josh (Necro Wisp) 4 Abyssmal Spectres (flying is really important in necro decks and the discard is added bonus. Frank first wanted to use Foul Familiars instead, but I quickly convinced him otherwise.) 4 Legions of Lim Dul 3 Lim-Dul's Cohorts (Zombies! in a tourney deck, you gotta love Alice!) 4 Knights of Stormgald (very evil, if they survive) 4 Soul Burn (You need life with this deck. They worked great!) 2 Necro (Not so good as I would have thought really as they can work really against you in Alice with lots of people playing 30 creature decks, but still good enough) 2 Withering Wisp (The Wisp of God, the Withering Disk, my extra Lavabursts, I should have had three!) 1 Dance of the Dead (presideboard against Rade-Jokulhaups) 1 Mindwarp (This card is an absolute kller in Alice) 1 Infernal Darkness (This thing is just unabriged evil, but I expected more black decks than I saw.) 1 Demonic Consultation (Some would use two or three, but I seem to always consult for the wrong thing. They just don't work for me.) 4 Icequake 4 Contagion (presideboarded against Rade and other black decks) 4 Thawing Glaciers (Yes 4! All my Alice Decks have 4 now, even my Rade and I never ever think about going back to three. I only curse when I do not get one on the opening hand.) 21 Sc Swamps 60 cards plus 1 Zuran Orb (as always) Sideboard 3 Plains 3 Cop Black 2 Infernal Darkness 3 Dystopia 2 Dark Banishing 1 Dance of the Dead 1 Mindwarp There were 109 people at the Sprendlingen Qualifier and it was a high ranking field. 3 of 4 members of the German Team were there (The german champion already qualified in Essen) atleast 2 members of the Swiss Team, atleast 2 members of the French Team, no one from England, but hey they finished behind Mexico at the worlds right? :) Round 1: (U/W Outpost Deck played by a Newbie) The first thing he does is to drop an outpost without a plains out. I had wanted to play hard at this qualifier and not let people take things back, but one look at his shaking hands tells me that I would probably win this match with a sealed deck and I let him take it back. He later tries to sword one of my Knights, enough said ... 2:0, 1:0 Round 2: My opponent is playing a U/W/r Browse deck, which was Baubled with Clairvoyance and Portent. Somehow he never likes what he sees with Clairvoyance though and I win the first game easily. In game two I mindwarp his hand go into Necro and proceed to draw only one soulburn as sole damage source in the next 8 cards. He draws consecutively one counter (for the soul burn) and one lavaburst for my 8 remaining life :(. In game three he puts down a fourth turn Browse, but not much more as I waltz over him, before he can Browse more than once. 2:1 2:0 Round Three: I am playing against Oliver Krebs, German Vicechampion, 33. at Worlds. He is playing a W/G/r Gorgohaups deck. First Game: My early creatures get fried or sworded. Then he puts down a Gargoyle. I have Wisp and two Icequake on hand, as well as two abyssals I have been saving. I take the Gargoyle Damage and go after his two plains with my icequakes, trying to eliminate his white mana. He puts down a Jeweled Amulet and saves a white mana Argh!. I put down an abyssal. Sword. I put down the second Abyssal, Incinerate!. I put down a Zombie I drew and the Wisp. The Zombie stays! He puts down Zuran Orb! HATE HATE HATE that card. My life total looks worse for wear. I soul burn for a few, but the wisp wears me out. Luckily him too. In the round before he can finish me I draw my 8 SC Swamp and can force the draw. He goes down to exactly 0, including the Orb I am at -7 or so. Draw! Game 2: We trade off Creature for Creature elimniation, but again I can get his Gargoyle into the Wisp Lock. But he puts down a Zuran Orb again!!!! Finally it comes to the wire. I am at two life. I can wisp for the draw or I can draw something to kill him. I draw an Abyssal! Quandry time. The Abyssal can keep his Ivory Gargoyle at bay while my one Zombie pounds him. But I can not Wisp anymore. If I play the Abyssal I can not force a draw in that round and would lose, if he draws any creature removal. I look through his graveyard. He has drawn no incinrates yet, no Lavaburst, no Stormbind. Let's say he has 4:2:3. Then he has a 33 percent chance to kill me with the next draw and i need atleast six rounds to finish him. I wisp for 11. DRAW! We look through the Libraries I would have pounded him oh, well on to game three. Game three: I draw Infernal Darkness!!!! MUHAHAHA! I wait for him to tap out for a Blinking or Gargoyle or some such useless critter and play the darkness. The I drop three Zombies and a knight in the next three rounds. That's game! 1:0:2, 3:0 Oliver will make the Top 8. Round 4: Against a player from CCC the Cologne Team with Frank Adler. We have a little grudge Match going as he beat me in the Team Challenge at Essen under let's say dubious circumstances. He is playing a B/U/r Deck with Zombies, Abyssals, Fiends, Balduvian Dead. He runs over me in game one as I draw only land. I do my secret-sideboard-switch(TM)! but we are both mana screwed in the beginning. I draw the Glacier first! And it wins me the game, the advantage of having 4! I ofcourse show him no plains. Game 3: I start out with 2 Glaciers and a COP BLACK! He starts out with a creature horde which would have killed me in short order. I glacier for a plains. He quips that he kept his LD for my Outposts. I smile and put down the CoP. He has nothing in his deck against it! The game suddenly turned 180 degrees. It is now only a question if I can win, no longer a question if I can lose or not. Atleast if I make no playing mistakes! He insists that it is a draw as he can counter my Wisps. I say, we will see about that. (I also have 4 Soul Burn and a Mind Warp, he will have to deal with.) A few rounds later the time limit is drawing nearer. I am reminded of my Browse games. I can beat him, but can I beat him in time? Here the six hour drive from 3 to 9 am probably takes it's toll. I play too slowly and he can eke out a draw, one round before I wisp him to death. (Somehow drawing 3 soul burns made the wisp go through quite easily!) Ofcourse he has to sack 15 lands to the Zorb! HATE HATE HATE that card! Funny sidestory. Next to us sits Markus Bell, also from team CCC at Table one. He is playing an unbeaten big creature Rade, which he was also playing in Essen. In Essen he did not do so well, but the metagame has shifted and he is cruising along today. In Essen we met up in Round 4 or 5 and I totally turned around game two with a Cop Green and 2 Glaciers, after he stomped me in game one. We never have time for game three. When I play the COp Black out of my "mono-colored" Black deck against his team mate, he says "I warned you, watch out for Cops from this guy!" ;) 1:1:1 3.5:0.5 Round 5: I play against a French player, Philippe. Philippe has a 4:0 match record and has not lost a game sofar. He is playing W/G/U/r good Stuff deck, but without Pheldagriff. Game 1: He puts down mostly land. I can wisp an Insect and then get some Zombies out. I draw my Warp and warp 4 cards out of his hand, amongst them a stormbind! I realize that he has drawn no red mana! Next round he draws and put's down a Timberline Ridge with a frustrated look on his face. The Warp is game. Game 2: I draw 2 Infernal Darkness! MUHAHAHA! I bait a counter with the first one, bait another counter with an abyssal and drop the second one! That's game! as I have glaciered and can Soul Burn at leisure. 2:0 4.5:0.5 Philippe will make the top 8. Round six: Bernd Swillus from our strategy group. I offer him a draw as that will most probably put us both in the top 8, but he declines as his first draw came in Round 1. Bernd is playing a Big Blue Flier deck with Counterspell protection, white destruction and Zuran Spellcasters against Outposts. He has no illusions that his deck will lose to a real Outpost Deck, but it is a much faster and therefore better version for swiss than a standard outpost deck. It is the toughest blue deck I will face all day. Game 1: Is a total heart breaker. I can beat him down to 8 then 2 Outpost tokens and a Gargoyle plus a Blinking start making mince meat of me. I Icequake his Outpost, no counter. I warp him, counter. I Soul Drain for his last 8 life points, counter. I soul Drain for 8 again. Counter! I put down the Zuran Orb. He doesn't counter as he fears another soul burn. If he had watched my hand more he would have known though, that both of my cards must be thawing glaciers. I have to sack lands, draw a Soul Burn. Count my lands. It fits. Soul Burn for 8, counter!!! Arghh! I only have one more card in my Library which can save me. I draw it: WISP OF GOD! I kill him with three lands remaining out on my side! Without the Orb I would have lost ofcourse ... I also think he could have removed the Gargoyle somewhere in there to win the game with the Blinking, but I must have used the force well. Game 2: Starts out ugly with COP Black, but I can get rid of it with my second Dystopia covered by an infernal darkness. Then Drought hits the table! Have you tried wisping with Drought. "Das ist kein Spass!" (That is no fun) as Mighty one of the better Hamburger players would say. But My Thawing Glaciers (TM) keep me in the game. The first Ivory Gargoyle gets a Contagion Counter my useless knight (Icy on the other side) gets the second counter. He finds no way to kill his own gargoyle and I survive for a bit. Then a second Gargoyle hits the table. I reluctantly play the wisp. He removes all of his gargoyles from the game, once twice just not to lose a draw phase! I have to discard swamps like they are going out of style. Then an Infernal Darkness finally gets rid of the drought. I am back in the game with four lands and a hand full of creatures and the mighty Thawing Glaciers. But low on life. He can probably kill me with onbe of his big fliers. But none come up, before the time limit and while I do not stall I also refuse to play recklessly fast. Draw! 1:0:1, 5.5 to 0.5 I am unbeaten!!! The only other undefeated player is Markus Bell with his Green/Red Horde with Kaysa, Goblin Mutants, Lhugoyf and Spiders galore. I get 2nd seed and will not have to play him to my great relief unless we meet in the finals. Single Elimnination: Round 1: I have to play against Thorben, who is a member of my german Mailing Group. He is playing a big blue flier, Zuran Spellcaster, deck with one Thunder wall, 1-2 Ardarkar Sentinells, 4 Illusionary Forces, two Silbant Spirits, a little red and some newly added white. Like Bernd's Deck from round, this version is much more offensive than the standard blue deck and therefore better for the swiss system. As there is no time limit we decide to have dinner first and joke around. I played against Thorben in Essen and squaked out a 1:0 win because of the time limit. I was losing badly in game two because of sideboarding mistakes, but Zuran Spellcasters kill slowly. Game 1: I am mana screwed for only the second time in the tourney, but this time I draw no Glacier in Round 2. Throrben get's to Glacier though! Arghhh! You have to see, that my mailing group does not quite share my enthusiam for the glaciers. The others all use 2-3. I use 4. As life is unfair, I meet Christian Ermentrud from my mailing group in Essen and lose a close match 2:1 because he draws two glaciers out of two and I none out of 4 in the deciding third game Even a seven card mind warp did not win me that game. In Essen it was my only match loss and here it loses me game 1. Game 2: No Glacier on the beginning hand again! But 11 of my 21 lands in only eight rounds. Mana Flood Arghh! 0:2 :( I am out! Round 2: Thorben has to play against a R/W/U Gorgohaups deck, which is played by an uninspired player who nonetheless crushes Thorben 2:0, as Thorben now suffers twice from Manascrew having to discard 4 times in one game and three times in the other game. I think my deck would have easily crushed him, barring manascrew ofcourse as should have Thorben's deck. Henning Rimkus (Team Germany) and the other player qualify. The astounding thing is that both players I beat, Oliver Krebs and Philippe have to forfeit their first game, because their decklisting was wrong! Philippe had 5 Insects even! (Well they didn't help him against my deck!) Oliver forgot to note down 2 cards. Oh well, but I saw similar things happen at the american nationals. Friendly Greetings, Daniel