From: schen@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Sean Chen)
Subject: NE Regionals: Results & Observations
Date: 29 May 1995 16:36:47 GMT

Well after recovering from a full weekend full of MtG I think I can more
or less report what happened in NY this weekend at WoTC's NE Regionals.

There were a total of two different qualifying rounds on Saturday, a Type
II in the morning and a Type I later in the day.  People who qualified
for the semi-final tournament through the Type II would not be allowed to
compete in the Type I.  Deck construction for the Type II was limited to
4E, DK, FE.  No discontinued RV was allowed in your deck for the qualifiers
and for the rest of the tournament.  Also you were not bound to use the same 
deck as you used in the qualifier for the semi-final modified round-robin.
The qualifiers were single elimination, with the top 32 from each qualifier
getting into the semi-finals.

The semi-final was the next day and was an all day even, with ten rounds
of play planned, five Type III and five Type II.  It would be a modified
round-robin with people randomly assigned new pairings after every round.

I planned to enter the Type II qualifier, and get too the semis through
that, but luck was not smiling on me and my Type II deck was not tourney
legal since construction from 4E DK and FE was only permitted.  That crushed
the deck that I was about to play and forced me too make a silly two color
deck, based around Strip Mine, Fissure, Desert Twister and Stone Rain.

Of course my first round opponent was Bill, who promptly crushed me in the
first duel when he managed to Dark Ritual out a Sengir Vampire on his second
turn, and protect him and his land with countermagic from his simple Black-
Blue deck.  The second duel was even worse for me when he somehow managed
too draw six lands and my puny land destroyer couldn't keep up with him
playing lands and a Hypnotic Spectre.  The Spectre killed me along with The
Rack, and that tossed me into the Type I qualifier.  Bill went on to qualify
and in the semi-finals finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.

For that entire tournement there were only about a 100 people competeting,
which meant you only had to get through three rounds, two with a bye, not
very rigorous, IMHO as the semi-finals would prove later.

I then played an open Type I side-tournament, in order to get ready for
the qualifier later that night.  There were around sixty people playing in
this one and I slid through the tournament w/o my BUGRW deck never really 
facing any problems until I ran into a guy with Blue-White-Black-Artifact
deck based around The Abyss, Triskelions, Juggernaughts, Transmute Artifacts,
Counterspell, and Mana Drain.  I picked up the first game handily when I 
played a first-turn Library of Alexandria, and just out drew him.  Eventually
out came my Serra Angels and I took him out.  The next two games were a 
nightmare for me when he just out drew me with his Library of Alexandria and
killed me with 'Skelions and Juggernaughts. That was the round of 4 in that
tourney and it was all looking good.

The actual qualifier was around ninty people, which meant that all you had
to do was get through one round with a bye, two if you were unlucky and had
to play the first round.  I get a bye and played Jason for the right too
get into the semi-finals of the regionals.  Unfortunatly he was playing a 
Type II deck in a Type I tournament and my deck just kicked in and crushed
him after he took the first game through a quick Sedge Troll and Juggernaught,
actually three Juggernaughts.

So I was in, but the problem was that I hadn't a clue as too what would 
work for a Type II deck in the semi-finals.  I knew everyone would be playing
some sort of card-denial strategy, with Black-White, Black-Blue, being the
color combination of choice.  Hypnotic Spectre, Hymn to Tourach, Dark Ritual, 
and The Rack being the cards of choice.  I said screw it and made a Blue-White
deck based around card-denial, but essentially built too get a third-turn 
Amnesia.  With countermagic and white's full suite of card-removal hoped that
I could handle the black denial decks.

There was a late night Type II though and I thought it would be a good idea
to try out that deck.  There were 32 people in the tournament, and I cruised
through the first three rounds pretty handily, even though I had no RV-discont.
cards in my deck, and multis and all those bad-ass cards were allowed.

My round of four opponent was John Kim, a top player in the Tri-state area
and playing a Black-White card-denial/card-remocal deck, with an emphasis
on small efficient creatures with the occassional Sengir and Angel thrown
in.  Mishra's Factories and Strip Mines were also part of the deck.  I
won the first game when I managed to get an Angel down on the board and
protect her with countermagic.  However John promptly hit the sideboard, and
grabbed some Mishra's Factories and promptly Hymned, Hippied and Factoried me
too death.  The third game was even more lopsided when he manged too put down
an Order of the Ebon Hand, and killed me in five point chunks as I was
completely frustrated by the single Swords to Plowshares left in my hand,
almost leering at me because of the Protection from White on the clerics.

It was getting really late, (3:00AM), and I couldn't come up with a deck
which could reliably take out card-denial, under the current deck construction
rules.  So I followed that motto, if you can't beat them join them.  I
found some people here and there (Including John Kim), traded for the cards
I needed and made that deck.  I hadn't a clue as too what I could do about
card-denial on my own (something which I now know) with this deck, so I looked
at some cards and decided too throw two Northern Paladins on the sideboard.

I got a bit a shut-eye and got up to play the first round of the sealed deck
portion of the semi-final rounds early in the morning.  Miracuously we started
more or less on time, and we were given 4E Starter Decks and three Fallen 
Empire boosters.  I opened up my deck and found a decent deck, with Goblin
King, Living Artifact, Venduran Enchantress being my rares, and a Serra Angel
being my best uncommon.  I had some decent commons, including Disenchant, 
Disentigrate, Stone Rain, Vampire Bats, Mesa Pegasus, and Unholy Strength
being the more memorable ones. My  mana distribution was 5B,4U,4G,5R,4W.  My
FE though was stellar, with me getting an Implements of Sacrifice, Aeoleopile,
two Hymns to Tourach, Mindstab Thrull, two Combat Medics, and two Farrel's 
Zealots.  It was looking pretty good.

My sealed deck preformance was pretty awesome.  My basic strategy was too
get an early lead with the Hymns and the Mindstab Thrull, and eventually,
get a Combat Medic on the board too keep me alive until, Serra Angel hit
the board.  By then, my Zealots would keep the board clear of fliers and
Angel would clean up the game.  The key too a good sealed deck preformance
was speed, not the speed of ytour deck, but the speed of your play.  Since
strict time keeping was in effect the key was too either win or lose as fast 
as  possible and too avoid creature stalemates.  Most of my opponents 
obliged me when I offered to exchange creatures, but my general rule was to
exchange creatures if I could so the games wouldn't drag out.  

Also another thing with the sealed decks was the surprising amount of 
unfamiliarty with the cards.  When I played Implements of Sacrifice most of my
opponents would have too look at the card.  The same for the Farrel's Zealots
and the other obscure FE cards.  Obviously, even experience players need
to see some cards a second time, but the unfamiliarty doomed many players
even before they played.  If anything we'll see the same thing with Ice Ages.
The moral of the story is too study your cards and never discount any card
as being completyely useless, with the exception of Sorrow's Path.

Because of the nature of Type III and the fact that many people also couldn't
calculate creature combat fast enough many games were incomplete and because
of the scoring system, (2 for a win, 0 for a loss, 1 for a draw, 0 for an
imcomplete), many people ended up with less than average scores.  In fact
the TD had too curtail the s-d portion of the tournament to four rounds and
make the c-d portion also four, in order too finish on time, since the
organizers needed to turn the rooms back too the hotel.

I finished with 7 wins in that time, with my only flaw being an incomplete
game which I would have won if we had five more minutes since I had a
Serra Angel on the board, and a Disentigrate coming up and my life was at
20.  That placed me third overall, with two other people having 8 wins by
this point.  Many people were disgusted with the s-d, and it surprising at
the amount of hostility too future events of this format.   I understand 
what these people were saying.  There were so many variables which a player
couldn't control, especially the composition of the original deck.  And
with a bad ante such as two lands in a row, a deck could easily be rendered
unplayable, in the fine margins that sealed decks alow.  IMHO I believe that
land wich has been anted in s-d should be reshuffled and a new ante should be
taken.

Going into the constructed-deck portion of the tournament I fealt confident.
However alot of people, especially the people with six wins so far and the
others on the border line weere out for blood in the part.  My first
round opponent was Dave Humphreys, who won Encounters '95 early this year.
He was playing an odd anti-denial deck. It had Sinbad, Millstones, Orchish
Spies, direct damage, Control Magic, and countermagic.  It was a good deck
and all three games we played were crucial in deciding who would get too 
play in the final rounds of the tournament.  Since Dave was on the edge,
and since I was doing well, I needed at least one win, and Dave would need
one win also to stay at equilibrium, and another too gain some ground on
the leaders.  

All three games were on the edge, with our life totals always being in the 
single digits whenever we took out our opponents.  Duel one was highlighted
by me getting Millstoned too death.  It was pure agony watching my last 
Disenchant getting Millstoned.  The second game was also a hair raiser with
Dave being under the Rack at one life and having a Sinbad and an Orchish Spy
on the board getting him cards to get him above the Rack.  Eventually I was
forced to disenchant one of my three racks and Balance down too two cards
and killing his Sinbad.  It was a sweet game.  Our third game was nutty 
when I managed too Strip Mine his red mana source, and he couldn't find 
another red mana to power a lightning bolt too kill a Hippie.  

The rest of my duels were against average players, and I won six more games.
That placed me at a score of 30 out of 32, with only one guy, Dana, beating
me out on points.  Qualifying were Dana, John Kim, Dave Humpreys, Brad, Ralph,
and a couple other people including me.

We started the round of eight and I found myself playing John Kim.  It was
ironic since I pretty much copied his deck the previous night.  I managed to
fend off his his Order of the Ebon Hand by playing a Northern Paladin,
and eventually following up with a Serra Angel.  The second game was worse 
from John's view when he couldn't find a way too take out any of my creatures
as he was Derelored and Angeled too death.

I then played Brad who managed too squeek past Dave and his anti-denial deck. 
Brad won the die roll and promptly Hippied, Racked and Hymned med to oblivion.
I won the second game in I managed to get down a Hippie and killed him off.
Our third game was over when I couldn't seem too find a white mana too get 
off a critical Balance, which could have stopped his creature attack.  Gloom
was on the board and that didn't help when he was also Stripping and Blighting
my lands away.

Brad was a finalist and he got a free trip too Origins, along with the other
finalish, Dana.  Both guys duked it out in the final round with Brad taking
two games too Dana's one.   Dana probably made a crucial mistake in his 
first game when he was under the Disrupting Sceptre, and two Racks.  He had
CoP: Artifact in play, and no cards bin hand.  He tapped out too prevent the
Rack damage, and then drew a Disenchant which was then promptly sceptered
away. *shrug*  It probably didn't matter since both players were already going
to Origins for free but who knows who is really keeping score.

Anyways in retrospect I 'dprobably include some other cards which could have
done something against denial.  Land Tax is something which could have been
obviously poweful against those random discards and Racks.  Will-O-the Wisps
may have been also another creature I could have used. But it now really 
doesn't matter since Ice Ages is going to screw us all again for Origins.

I'd like to than all those people who went to the NE regionals and I thank
the organizers of the event and WotC for sponsoring the whole shindig.  I
hope too see these people again at Origins, and maybe we'll see something
really really new and creative.

Sean " really has to stop playing MtG" Chen

-- 
Sean Chen                            
schen@CSUA.berkeley.edu