From: cday3@mason2.gmu.edu (Chad J Day) Subject: [TOURNY REPORT] Washington DC, Gray Matter $1k. Turbo-Prison Date: 11 Nov 1996 07:40:56 GMT Where: Washington D.C. What: Grey Matter $1,000 tournament. Why: To hopefully play and beat Justin Schneider, and to try to get $1,000. Who: Me, John Shuler, and Joel Priest of Team Island Fish were all there. Non-team members but still cool guys Don Phillips and Rob make cameo apperances. John sets his alarm for 8:30 a.m. Unfortunately, we stayed up till about 5 a.m. talking strategy. I manage to wake him up, and we drive to Clarendon, and take the metro the rest of the way. Getting out of the Metro we see cool guys Don and Rob. Whee.. I get to the tournament, searching for a friend who said he would lend me the money to get in, but he never shows. Uh oh. Joel is able to get one of the judges to buy some cards for me to pay the entry fee. Thanks to whoever that was, I really appreciate that. :) John notices only about 10 people have signed up for Type 1, while already 60+ are signed up for T2. He decides to stay type 2 in the end. Anyway, we both went with TKitty (new name for tprison). His version was a bit different (he plays with a cane), but here's what I used. Turbo-Kitty (Turbo-Prison, whatever. It's more catchy. :) ) White ----- 3 Wrath of God 3 Swords to Plowshares 3 Disenchants 2 Enlightened Tutors 2 Island Sanctuarys 1 Balance 1 Land Tax Blue ---- 4 Arcane Denials 2 Counterspells 1 Myst. Tutor 1 Recall Artifact -------- 3 Fellwar Stones 4 Howling Mines 4 Icy's 2 Winter Orbs 1 Zuran Orb 1 Ivory Tower 1 Serrated Arrows Land ---- 7 Plains 6 Islands 1 Ruins of Trokair 4 Adarkar Wastes 4 Mishras 1 Strip Mine 62 Cards. Sideboard --------- 4 Control Magics 1 Winter Orb 1 Jester's Cap 1 Disenchant 2 Divine Offerings 2 Counterspells 1 Serrated Arrows 1 Island Sanctuary 2 Feldon's Canes. I took notes, and lost them. So this is on memory. 1st round: (forget name) White Weenie. Well, I play a white weenie first round. yay. :) First game: I get out a couple early icy's due to tutors, he disenchants those, I drop a sanc and a couple mines, game over. Second game: I control magic his creatures, he plows them. (surprised he kept them in). Later in the game, he balances with a zorb out. I have an icy and a worb. I wonder if this is some sort of trick. I don't counter it, he sacs all his land. He starts playing land. I keep tapping it. I deal with his creatures and soon he concedes. Matches: 1-0, Games 2-0 Round 2: (forget name) B/R LD Game 1: The only permanent he casts is a dingus egg. I end up killing him with a balance/zorb when he has 10+ land out. That was cool. :) Game 2: He taps out for a 3rd turn LD spell, I play a Worb, and he never recovers. I never went under 20 life in either of these games, I think. Matches: 2-0, Games 4-0 Round 3: (forget) B/R necroweenie/bolt Game 1: My first turn. Plains. His first turn. Swamp, double ritual, order, shadow, attack. I panic. I draw a balance next turn. :) I cast it (maybe too soon, in retrospect). Later in the game, he's about to die to my mishra's next turn. I am at 7. I have a fellwar, adarkar, and an island out. He has a city i don't see. He tries to Pillage a mishra. I counterspell it with the adarkar and island, and go to 6. He double bolts me. I die. Game 2: He dark rituals something relatively insane, and this time I have no balance, or land for that matter, to get out of it. :( Matches: 2-1, Games: 4-2 Round Four: Don Phillips (balance) Woo! Don is really cool, and fun to play. Game 1: I'm able to control the racks with my howling mines, so I never am really in danger of dying.. he concedes when I lock him. Game 2: Ack. I cap him early, but the 2 diggers he has are already in his hand. I pull a balance and 2 canes. He gets the diggers out, I try to disenchant/divine, he counter, i counter, etc.. I never actually do get rid of the diggers. One of the disenchants he kept diggering got used against me 8 times, and he was diggering 8 cards a turn at some points. He dug his entire deck 2-3 times against me. I pull a balance/zorb mid game, saccing all my land. I have no non-land mana, and he has 4 diamonds, but I need to slow the digging. I float mana in my pool, and drop the 3rd and 4th howlers on the table. The game proceeds.. I have 4 cards left in my deck, he has 3. I tap a mine on my upkeep, draw my 4, and tell Don to take his turn. At the end of my turn, he disenchants a mine. I counterspell it. He arcane denials it. Don draws his 3 cards, then I remind him about the card from the arcane denial. I let him back up, but there wasn't a way he could get out of it. This was probably the most fun I have had playing in a long time. :) what a game.. you had to be there, or hear my screams of frustration. Games: 3-1, Matches: 6-2 Round 5: Jonathan Becker (w/g erhnammarogeddon) John is really cool, he's also at Game Parlor (local store) a lot.. John just came from beating Justin Schneider. He boasts of his anti-prison before the match. I'm actually pretty worried... Game 1: He doesn't draw a single creature for around 20 rounds, and when he draws one, it's a wall of roots. He never really gets going, and I get set up really fast, and he decks himself.. Game 2: I KNOW he's gonna side in seeds.. so I take out a winter orb, tower, and a couple other artifacts. I side in 4 controls. I'm able to control his creatures, and make him deal with them. He casts a seeds, it goes through, but he loses like 3 diamonds in the process. We got called on time, but I had a pretty good handle on the game, and felt like I was gonna win (I had 2 plows, was holding land for geddons, and a counter, wrath, disenchant). So, I'm 4-1 after 5 rounds. Sadly, they only break top 4, and 3 people are 5-0, and there are a LOT of 4-1's. apparently my early opponents didn't have that great of match records, and I miss the cut. :( Ohwell. It happens, I'm just upset at myself for my playing error. The deck did REALLY well, I'm glad it's proven that it can handle other decks well, especially the popular ones. The 4 controls in the SB won be so many games, just because they HAVE to deal with them, and normally most people side out creature kill, or if they don't, they don't side in enough to deal with it. I think I need a mystical tutor in SB, and maybe even a Soul Echo or Null Chamber, if forsaken wastes gets popular. Also, the fellwars should be diamonds; I nearly lost a game to Jonathan because of that. I just didn't have any. :) Note: Joel Priest went 5-0 with a R/W/G removal deck, with outposts and vexing arcanixes. Impressive. Way to go Joel!... Joel lost first round in the final 8 though. :( John Shuler went 2-2, then dropped out, went to play in the type 1 2 headed-giant, and won that (him and his teammate played vise/ankh/goblin decks).. congrats. :) This tournament was surprisingly well run.. I'm quite impressed, this being the first gray matter event I attended.. Kudos to the judging staff, even Ben Bleiswess, who made a wrong call on a sylvan/mine ruling. (saying that he could use the sylvan, draw, and use the sylvan again. I'm pretty damn sure you can't use it more than once, otherwise I could activate a IS more than once, and I know I can't.) Thanks for reading.. -- _ ___/| \ O.o =(___)= U - pthth.