From: jshuler@osf1.gmu.edu (Stil) Subject: [TOURNAMENT REPORT #1] Mondo Deck Date: 1 Sep 1996 05:02:36 GMT Hello folks, it's me again. I promised you another report by the end of the week, and I have not one, but *2* to give. This report will be from the Fredrick, MD, Type 2 Sanctioned tournament from friday. First, the deck! "Mondo Deck" (I did some tweaking, as some of you may notice, since the last report) Land: 4 Strip Mine 1 Soldevi Excavations 1 Thawing Glaciers (new addition) 20 Islands Artifact: 1 Zorb 1 Ivory Tower 3 Icy Manipulator 2 Jeweled Amuler (new addition, in place of two Fellwars) 2 Fellwar Stone 1 Millstone 2 Serrated Arrows (new, only had 1 in the main deck before) 1 ROD OF RUIN! 4 Nevinyrral's Disk Blue: 2 Recall 3 Force of Will 4 Counterspell 4 Arcane Denial 4 Control Magic 1 Binding Grasp (new addition) 1 Portent Sideboard: 3 Blue Elemental Blast 2 Lodestone Baubles (were steal artifacts) 1 Fountain of Youth 1 Hurkyll's Recall 3 Unsummon (against Spectres.. always trying new things. :) ) 1 Binding Grasp 1 Prodigal Sorcerer 3 Zuran Spellcasters ---- ok, on to the report! My friends Chad and Chris were with me, and when we got the the store an hour early, Chris pointed out a copy of The Great Dalmuti to me. Having heard how fun the game was, I bought it, and we and the judge played for the hour until the tournament started. The Great Dalmuti ROCKS! Play this game. It's essentially "asshole", if you play any drinking games, you know what I'm talking about.. very fun. ok. Tournament starts, pairings handed ou. out. Round 1: Bill Cagain Last week, I swept Bill, as he was playing a mono-green critter deck. He's out for payback now. :) He's playing a B/u Classic Discard with necro and zur's weirding & racks. Also sticks. I hate sticks. Game 1: I drop an island, and a jeweled amulet on my first turn. He strips my island, but I put a counter on the amulet! woo hoo! the ANTI-STRIP! mondo! I pop out a 3rd turn rod of ruin and make short work of his pump knights with it, countering all hippies & hymns I see. I end up dying, though, when I run out of counters and he blows a disk & sets a hippie. Like sucked. :( Game 2: Let me put it this way, it wasn't pretty. He casts an abyssal spectre on his 4th turn. I control it. He casts another. I control it, too. He dies to them fairly quickly. Game 3: He puts out an early rack, I disregard it. He puts out a stick when my defenses are down, and I'm only at 2 cards. He wins by continually sticking me, as I draw no disk or zorb. Like an idiot, one of the 2 cards I kept keeping was an icy, which I could have just dropped & tapped the rack. Yes, I am an idiot. :) Record: Matches:1/0/0 Games: 1/2/0 Round 2: PJ Paulus Pj is playing his "deck of a thousand land" as I named it rather quickly. Game 1: He drops a whole bunch of forests, plains, and brushlands, and that's about it. I initially had a mulligan, but when I redrew I had the glaciers in my opening hand. The glaciers won me the game, I know it. Even after he stripped the glaciers, I recalled! it, and kept thawing. He had far too slow a start, and slow starts against the mondo deck = death. I mill him to death. Game 2: I have sideboarded in my 4 pingers. shhh! I drop a Spellcaster on turn 3, then another on turn 4. Pj is not happy. Him "I took out my fucking wrath of gods!" me: "I KNOW you took out your fucking wrath of gods! muahahah" He eventually kills a tim, and drops a Lion. I Control it, and drop another Tim a turn later, and the Rod of Ruin the turn after that. He brings out Ernie when I am tapped out, but I don't really care. Why not? Mondo alert! Mondo alert! He attacks with his Ernie. I say: "ok. I block with the lions." he says "ok, they die." I say: "ok, but I'm not done. I shoot Ernie with a tim" Pj: "uh oh" I say: "and I shoot him with the OTHER tim!" Pj: "UH OH" me: "And then I BONK HIM ON THE HEAD WITH ROD OF RUIN!!" yes! ok, so obviously he dies to pinging damage. Game 3: PJ ends up conceeding after I put out the Rod early again, and show him 5 counterspells & a control in hand on turn 6. muhahahah Record: Matches: 1/1/0 Games: 4/2/0 Round 3: Mike Brown -W/G/r My deck was built to beat this stuff. :) Game 1: He drops 2 elves, a bird, and a cop:red (cop:red? huh?) I take 9 points, and blow a disk after he drops a sylvan. One card for 5. Now that's card advantage! He never recovers. I counter everything he does, and mill him to death mercilessly. :) Game 2: I have 3 disks in my opening hand. I let him play stuff, and blow up the world 3 times in a row, and when I'm at 6 life, I drop the millstone as the only non-land permanent on the board. Then I drop a zorb, and show him 5 counters in my hand. He doesn't conceed right away... takes him 4 or 5 turns. muahhahaa Game 3: We start game 3 with all of 5 minutes to go. It'll be a draw, right? Early on, I just sit and counter stuff, but then he ernies & geddons. Uh oh. 1 minute left in the game, I'm at 13 life. I draw, drop a zorb and a land. Then I'm at 9 life. Draw, drop a land. I'm at 5 life. Draw (30 seconds left! says the judge) and drop a land. He attacks, I'm at 1. He is continually telling me to hurry up. I am playing at normal speed, and I realize it will still be a draw when I draw a land and play it. he doesn't realize and keeps telling me to hurry. I say "go" with 15 seconds left. He attacks, and I sac 2 land, with 1 left. I draw. Game over. Zorb, zorb, zorb. Yep, a tie. But I should have made him conceed early anyway, because I blew a disk when he had a sylvan out, and he still used it the next two turns before someone noticed. That's how he grabbed the geddon. oh well i'm too nice. :) Record: Matches: 2/1 Games: 6/2/1 on to round 4! Round 4: Sean O'Brien (a frequent poster on this group!) hi sean. Sean is playing a U/w/g (can't remember if there was red or not) Broswer .. but with no Browse. Strange. :) Game 1: We roll, and he rolls a 20. sigh. The early game is slow, but I pop out my thawing glaciers and have out 18 islands *very* quickly. That card rocks. I wait for the creatures to hit, and I steal a Mahamoti and an Ernie from him. He conceeds. Game 2: He armageddons on turn 4, after I've just tapped out to play an icy. :( What do I draw? yep Thawing Glaciers. woo hoo! mondo! I drop the glaciers, then he drops a land. I draw a strip mine for his land, and then proceed to glacier away. I quickly get out a lot of land, and keep his tapped with the icy, as he just didn't draw very much. He eventually conceeds. Game 3: A fast game, as we don't have that much time. He pulls a suprise Titania's song out on me, and I die. I wasn't expecting it, and it nailed me. Oh well. Justin Schneider informed me that he could have won it, had he been in my shoes. Good for you, Justin. I was already in the final 8 with my wins after the 2nd game anyway. Final swiss record: Matches: 3/1 Games: 8/3/1 Final 8: Justin Schneider. great, just what I need. Justin is running The Prison, although he adamantly maintains that he thought it up himself. The only difference is that he runs with a Titania's song.. Game 1: He gets a slow start, and I drop the millstone, and don't let him cast anything. He conceeds when I show him 6 counters in hand. I got lucky, though. After sideboarding, he is going to toast me... he already has 4 divine/4 disenchant in the main deck. He adds in 2 feldon's canes, 3 jester's caps, and 2 helm of obedience. Game 2: He outplays me plain and simple. I am really not that good of a player, and I make a LOT of mistakes. For instance, I had no idea how to stop the deck. I wasn't sure if I should go after the fellwars, the icys, or the orbs. I think I should have gone after the fellwars, but I went after (countering) the orbs all 3 games. Justin later told me that I should have gone after the icys. I'm starting to thing that he is right. Anyway, he gets out a Titanias song, and I drop a Nev's Disk to block, but everyone but me thinks that it comes into play tapped, even the judge. oh well. :( then if I drop an AI sac-a-land with a blood moon out, must I still sac a land? oh well, that's how it was ruled. Justin beats me with a Titania's song. Game 3: I get out 2 early tims, and take him down to 12 fast. I have him at 6 when he jester's caps himself (he said it was to remove land, so he could get to critter kill).. anyway.. he MIRACULOUSLY draws a plowshare after he caps himself (very next card) plows the tim, and goes on to win, since I had been using all my counters protecting the tim. After the match, someone who is a reader on .strategy said that he saw Justin palm the Plowshare and place it on top of his deck beforehand, when he capped himself. This person seems really honest, and Justin.. well... justin... welll.. I didn't actually SEE him do it. And it's my fault for not cutting the deck after he capped. but then again, it's a fairly well known fact at that tournament that I never cut decks (unless I see mana-shuffling, then I just split into the three piles).. i don't know. anyone else have comments about that? BESIDES "you idiot, you should have cut!" anyway, Justin just barely beat me, so he won. Oh, did I mention that plowshare that he pulled was the ONLY one in his deck at the time? And when he capped himself, he still had over 1/2 of his deck left? hmm oh well, i should have cut. later on, another person told me that they saw him cheat, also, but since i didn't see it or cut, that's that. :( :~( yes, that one is crying. :) ok then. i went to another tournament today, but I am tired of typing, i'll write it up tomorrow after work. as always, these reports are for YOU, the reader of .strategy. I went to the tournament, i know what happened, and don't need to write it down again, but I enjoy tourny reports, so I'm trying to give something back to the group. if you liked my report, please let me know.. hell, if you like ANYONE's tourny reports, let them know. encourage them! it's a lot better than arguing about restrictions and people. :) everyone have a specTACular day! John Shuler -/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\- The contraction "You're" does not indicate possessive. It indicates a state of being, or, more commonly, a description of the person being addressed. The word "Your" does indicate possesive. It does NOT indicate a state of being, or a description. -\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-