From: "J. Hagerty" <jeffhag@cris.com>
Subject: Re: Necro Again: From the CA Regionals
Date: 28 May 1996 00:57:17 GMT

dgray@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Daniel Gray) wrote:
>
>	If two words can describe the California Regional Championship
>tournament this year, they are, "Santa Barbara." For those of you unfamiliar
>with California geography, Santa Barbara is a town of some 80,000 located
>about 100 miles up the coast from Los Angeles. It's best known for the number
>of rich people who live there, the University of California at Santa Barbara,
>and for having the highest gasoline prices in the U.S.A. What it hasn't been
>known, for the most part and until now, is for its Magic players.
>	Probably the best known players are last year's Southwest Regional champ
>Joel Unger and former Bay Area resident turned UCSB student Brian Weissman,
>but this year's regional proved that they are far from the only great Santa
>Barbara players. Prior to the tournament, several locals formed their own
>team, Pacific Coast Karakas(a half-joking response to the name of LA's Pacific
>Coast Legends), but, unfortunately, most of us found out about it too late to
>get our name on the t-shirts :) On to the tournaments...
>	This year's California Regional was held at the LAX Wyndham Hotel in
>Los Angeles as part of Gamex XI, LA's largest gaming con(held every Memorial
>and Labor Day weekends). It was big, with 274 participants, quite possibly the
>largest tournament ever held in California. It was run with the usual
>efficiency by organizer Paul Matsumoto and head judge Scott Larabee, with the
>as ever fantastic assistance of memebers of the South Coast Gamers'
>Association(Thanks guys and gals!). 
>	We were scheduled to start at 10 am, but, as with all large events,
>being on-time was not in the cards. Due to a backup in registration from the
>convention, which saw a line that rivalled anything Disneyland can produce,
>the tournament was not to commence until almost 11:30. The format, as with all
>the other U.S. Regionals, was six round Swiss, with the top 32 placers
>advancing to a single elimination tournament. 
>	The Necrodecks were out in force, and by my estimate gathered from
>some word-of-mouth data, just under half of all players were playing some
>variant of monoblack, with white/green a distant second. Not surprisingly,
>Necrodecks were to once again show their dominance. 
>
>Round 1: vs. Ariel Sosa playing G/W Erhnageddon
>
>	This is one of the fastest matches I've ever played. Game 1 I drew
>three Hymns, and then nailed every good card out of Ariel's hand. He died a
>couple turns later to a Specter and Knight of Stromgald. Game 2 he got mana
>screwed, and I just kept drawing Knights while he drew useless stuff. Game 3 I
>got mana screwed, and two very fast Whirling Dervishes killed me. 2-1 in about
>9 minutes. 
>
>Round 2: vs. Paul Thomas playing monowhite weenie
>	Paul admitted to me that he had only been playing about three months
>and that this was his first tournament. He was playing a good white weenie
>deck with Savannah Lions, Tundra Wolves, Javelineers, and White Knights, baced
>up by Crusades, StP, and Disenchant. Game 1 I drew 2 Swamps, 2 Specters, 2
>Dark Rituals, and a Knight. Despite getting out a Savannah Lions and two White
>Knights, the Specters simply aired him to death. Game 2 I won due only to
>Paul's inexperience. We had a battle of the unblockable creatures, with his
>Knights squaring off against mine. He had me down to 5 and could kill me next
>turn. He was at 8, and while I could do 8 damage to him on my turn, he had a
>Zuran Orb out. I attacked anyways, and Paul, unfortunately, forgot his Orb,
>and said "I'm dead." Game 3 was bad as I Hymned him twice in the first two
>turns, and then just started drawing knights, he couldn't really do anything,
>and I won. 5-1
>
>Round 3: vs. some guy named John whose last name I forgot playing a Necrodeck
>	This was the usual battle of "who draws better." He outdrew the first
>game, Hymning first, and then drawing the Necropotence/Ivory Tower combo.
>Ouch. Game 2 I got mana screwed, and he simply ran me over. Game 3 I won
>simply because I just kept drawing creatures(in 5 turns I drew 3 Knights, a
>Specter, and a Vampire), and all he drew was land. 6-3
>
>Round 4: vs. Henry Johnson playing G/W(it looked to me like a nearly exact
>copy of Bertand Lestree's PT1 deck, but one of Henry's firends later assured
>me this is not the case).
>	Game 1 is probably the most incrediblely stupid mistake I've ever
>made. I think this game and one screwup cost me the game and probably the
>chance of advancing in the tournament. Henry was almost dead, but he had his
>Zuran Orb out. I had 2 Dark Rituals and a Drain Life in my hand, but I
>miscounted my total mana supply, thinking I would fail to kill him by 1 point,
>and he would simply Land Tax for another land, and I had no further way to
>kill him. So I did nothing, which was probably the exact WRONG thing to do. He
>then cast Armageddon, I drew no land, and I got smacked to death by a Dervish.
>Sometimes I'm quite the idiot. Apparently, my deck knew I had screwed up, and
>decided to turn on me. Game 2 I got manascrewed, and got crunched by an
>Erhnam. Game 3 was closer, but Henry got the Protection from Black armada out,
>and I couldn't draw a Disk, Factory, or Aeolipile to save me. Ugh. 6-6
>
>Round 5: vs. Henry's friend Mike playing Necro
>	I was pissed and somewhat annoyed at this point, so I wasn't exactly
>playing at my best. I won the third game, but lost the first two, thus
>knocking both of us out of any possible hope for making top 32. Oh well, c'est
>la vie. As it was to turn out, my help wasn't needed to complete a Santa
>Barbara dominance of the tournament.
>
>	Because they had no computer, it took Paul and Scott, with the help of
>Henry Stern and Mario Robaina, over an hour to figure out the top 32. MANY
>people were on the cusp with 36 points(a 12-6 record for the tournament). It
>was to turn out that 9 of the top 32 were to be Santa Barbara people,
>including Joel Unger(playing Necro), Kent McClard(playing B/R), Ryan
>Stubblefield(playing W/u), Sam Beavers(playing Necro), Todd Miller(playing
>Necro), Nathan Cullen(playing Necro), and others who my incredibly frazzled
>memory has somehow forgotten(I'm sure I'll hear about it :). 


Other Santa Barbara Players in the final 32 were Scott Sennif (sp?) and Scott 
McCord (who stole my spot in 0-3 sweep third round) ;)... I think they both got 
bumped in the first round of 32, but even getting that far is an accomplishment 
to be proud of.


>As Scot Larabee
>commentend, "This Santa Barbara thing has got to stop." Strangely, very few LA
>players made the top 32, including none of the 6 present members of Pacific
>Coast Legends.
>	The round of 32 was fairly uneventful, as almost all the SB people
>advanced except Joel, who had an encounter with Alan Comer's monored
>anti-Necro/LD deck(which ran Stone Rain, Fissure, bolts, Pyroclasm, and Kormus
>Bell). Alan admitted the deck had been put together as a joke, and that
>somehow he had managed to play six Necrodecks in the Swiss rounds. In the
>round of 16, Sam knocked Todd into the losers' bracket, Nate, Kent, and Ryan
>all won, but the main event for this round was the marathon match between
>Scott Johns(playing R/W Jokulhaups/Blinkie/big creatures) and Cory
>Jones(playing Willowgeddon). Their first game took half an hour, including a
>simultaneous use of Feldon's Canes with no cards left in either library after
>Scott had just cast Jokulhaups. Talk about a colorful way to duplicate the
>effects of SHahrazad. The second game took almost as long, with Scott
>eventually decking Cory with 35 seconds to go in the round. Scott Larabee
>decided there would be a 15 minute time extension for the third game, and if
>they didn't finish they'd adjucate in the usual life total manner. Cory came
>out ahead and advanced.
>	On to the quarter finals, which were Nate Cullen(with myself acting as
>"Official Moral Supporter") vs. Cory Jones, Ryan Stubblefield against Henry
>Jonhson, Sam vs. Kent, and Kurt Burgner vs. John(who had beat me in the
>Swiss rounds). Nate was on a hot streak all day, with his only match loss of
>the day being against Mike Dove in the 4th round of the Swiss. It seemed he
>could do no wrong, and he attributed victory in at least four games to his
>inclusion of Withering Wisps in his main deck(everyone wondered why he was
>playing with Snow-Covered Swamps until he dropped the Wisps). The match versus
>Cory was two incredibly close games, with Nate saving himself from certain
>death at the hands of a Dervish by drawing a Disk in the first game(to come
>back and win it with a Vampire), and in the second Nate had to fend off a COP:
>Black until he managed to Disk it away(he had Cory at 5 life with 2 Aeolipiles
>in play for at least six turns). Cory finally drew and played a Dervish, which
>Nate chucked the grenade at. Nate then drew...another Aeolipile. If he had
>waited until after he drew to shoot the Dervish he could have won right then.
>Oh, well. He now had a Swamp, a Necropotence, and a Specter in hand, and was
>at about 7 life. I sat there with fellow Santa Barbaran Ernest Alexander
>standing next to me, chanting in my head, "Play the Necro." Apparently my
>telepathy was working or something as Nate, after hesitating for a minute,
>played the Necro and drew his hand back full. He drew an Ivory Tower. That was
>it, as Nate just kept drawing until he got a Drain Life to kill Cory.
>	The Final Four were to be Nate against Sam, and Ryan against John.
>Nate was, of course, completely thrilled and completely nervous, as was I.
>After each round, as Nate got closer and closer, we had to keep sitting down
>and talking about irrelevant things in order to keep him calm. Luckily,
>thanks to the speed of the Dominos' Pizza guy, our friend Allan McComb came up
>from the lobby with our "dinner"(it was now 1:15 am) about 10 seconds after
>Nate defeated Cory. Nate chowed, and I think it made the difference. In the
>semis, due to some serious drawing on Nate's part, he beat Sam, but not before
>Sam won the second game, breaking Nate's 8-game winning streak. The match was
>what one tends to expect from Necro on Necro, with the drawing making all the
>difference in the first two games(as Sam drew nothing useful in the first
>game, and Nate got manascrewed in the second), and game three being the
>ultimate fulfilling of the adage "He who Necros first wins," as Nate drew
>everything in site to win. Ryan, whose deck was antiblack(running COP: Black,
>Sleight of Mind, and Walking Wall standard) beat John.
>	Nate was so nervous it was beyond belief. He kept running around the
>room, knocking on wood(the only available wood being the moldings of the
>ballroom we were in). This was, Nate admitted, only the fifth tournament he
>had ever played in outside of our "little" tournaments here at a local comic
>store(the other 4 being the 3 LA PT2 qualifiers and one week in Costa Mesa).
>He never expected to get this far. The finals were not a pretty picture. Ryan
>made a mistake in the frist game, casting Balance while Nate had no creatures
>out(in order to make Nate discard about 5 cards), but forgetting about his own
>Walking Wall. Nate kept a Specter and Vampire in his hand, played the Specter,
>and then started drawing knights. There was little Ryan could do. Second game,
>Nate Hymned Ryan several time, then Necroed and drew everything in world. He
>cast a Specter(Plowed), a knight(blocked by a Walking Wall), and then
>Withering Wisps(Disenchanted). Nate, starting to run a little low on life,
>finally drew a Disk, blew away the mess, and then, next turn, drew a Drain
>Life which he killed Ryan with. Nate Cullen was the California Regional
>Champion, winning half a box of Ice Age, 10 English Legends packs, a really
>heavy trophy, and a free plane ticket to Columbus. Santa Barbara had gone
>1-2-3 in the tournament(Sam beat John for third), which finally ended at 2:25
>am. As we sat around afterwards, Nate was so nervous that he couldn't even
>open booster packs. We opened the Ice Age packs(the Legends packs were saved,
>due to an idea of Joel's, to be used in a booster draft the next day).
>Amusingly enough, one of the rares in those packs was Illusions of Grandeur,
>which caused Allan to remark, "Is that some kind of sign?" Not hardly. The
>Regional trophy stays in Santa Barbara. Joel and Nate decided that next year
>the Regionals will be held at Rusty's Pizza Parlor where we all play every
>Wednesday and Thursday night. The only thing we have to decide is which Santa
>Barbaran is going to win it :) Congrats of the greatest kind to my friend
>Nate, and to all the other SB people who kicked some serious ass. Seeya
>Wednesday night.
>			Dan Gray
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Daniel M. Gray
>Department of History
>University of California, Santa Barbara

Excellent post Dan... I want to give my own congratulations to all Santa Barbara 
player who went down... Especially to Nathan... The trophy couldn't have gone to a nicer 
guy.  Way to go, amigo.  Also, one thing to note: Even those SB who did not make it into 
the final all had scores above .500, which I think is also a testament to the level of 
play in Santa Barbara.  As for my tournement results, they went something like this...

I was playing an all-black Pox deck, with Hymns, Knights, Spectres, and Mishras etc... 

Round 1: R/G/W - Land Tax Bolt Deck - 1-2 (1-2)
Round 2: Black - Necro Deck         - 3-0 (4-2)
Round 3: G/W   - Erniegeddon Deck   - 0-3 (4-5)
Round 4: G/W   - Erniegeddon        - 2-1 (6-6)
Round 5: W/U   - Knights & Sleights - 2-1 (8-7)
Round 6: W/U   - Land Tax & Stasis  - 2-1 (10-8)

Not good enough to make the final 32... Ah well, there's always next time ;)

I knew I was taking a risk playing a Pox deck.  I was hoping to run againt more black decks, since Pox seems to work fairly well against Necro. My only match sweep was 
against the one Necro Deck I came against.  Unfortunately, I seemed to be in the wierd deck bracket.  I knew I'd have trouble with direct damage, and that's what I got first round.  The third round games were sad.  I was playing Scott McCord who I had played 
two days earlier and beaten something like 5 times in a row without a loss.  This time 
he sweeps me 3 in a row... Oww.. I was depressed.  I just tried to hang on from that point, hoping for a miracle that wasn't meant to be.  All in all, I had a blast.

Jeff Hagerty