Subject: PTQ LA report -- Las Vegas, NV: WW/r Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 03:38:54 -0700 (MST) From: WAGNER JAY MICHAEL To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Well here comes yet another action packed, highly anticipated PTQ report from me. Just doing my part to keep all you Magicites out there informed of the metagame...also I'm kinda bored cause it's late and there's not much else to do. So without too much further ado... My dad had the idea to head out to Vegas for this qualifier since he didn't get a shot at the Denver one, and it sounded like a good idea. We were able to get there without too many incidents and even had a bit of time to playtest (Vegas nightlife, bah! :) ). We worked on the deck he was going to use, which was basically the deck Team Kind member Mike Mariani did well with at Denver. Meanwhile I tweaked my deck oh so slightly (for the better, as it turns out), and after a few hours of sleep we were ready. We did the IHOP breakfast thing and headed up to the Sundowner room where the days festivities were to take place. After filling out our decklists, we were set for round 1. Round 1 - Darryl Wilson : U/G Weird thing I didn't see too much of his deck, but after the match he said he had Vineyards and a few other cool cards... I was just happy not to see the Vineyard, which can do nasty thing to my deck. The deck I used was the same one as at Denver, i.e. White Weenie with bolts. Game 1: This one is over within two minutes or so. He stalls out with one land, and my weenies do their thing. A judge comes over and congratulates me on my win... yeah manascrew, big deal. Game 2: Man. He gets me down to 1 life with my own stuff. He controls two Knights that I have to deal with, plus he drops a nasty little Orangutan which does a number on my Warbeast. I top deck a Plow for my Knight, and then the Rack/Tax goes into effect. By the end of the game I have out an Order, a Longbow, two Priests, a Knight and a Lion. So I end up coming back from 22 to 1. Thank goodness he had no burn. A vineyard would have been just as bad... Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-0 Certainly a better start than Denver. I'm psyched. Round 2 - Jeff Brawley : Stasis lock w/ Chronatog and Kismet Heck, if you're going for a combo, why not fruity pebbles? Seems a bit more stable than a creature based lock... oh well though. Game 1: He opts to not go for a mulligan, then proceeds to get color screwed. My creatures do the beatdown thing and it's over. Game 2: Wow. He gets the lock out quick... it's turn 5 when the stasis and 'tog show up. I pray he won't get that lucky again. Game 3: He doesn't. He can't get the one card he needs to win (the tog), and my creatures finish him. Little did he know I had two Pyros waiting for either the Stasis or the tog. He kept complaining about how I was lucky that he didn't get the card he needed. He also kept going on about how lame it was to lose to my deck. Them's the breaks when you play a combo deck I guess, you either get it or you don't. A good start, Matches: 2-0 Games: 4-1 Round 3 - Angie Hoenes : Straight B Necro, with artifact support. Heh. This was the lady my dad lost to last round. I had to avenge him. Game 1: I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, which is so rare in Magic. Usually you make some bonehead play which give your opponent the game. Not this time, as I played one of the best games I've played in quite awhile. Here's the deal: after her Necroing/ganking all my creatures and me Scrolltaxing to replenish them, I stand at 5 life. She's at four. There is a tapped Ihsan's, and a Steel Golem and Factory in play on her side. I have a Knight and Archer. I have a bolt and plow in my hand. With her two blockers, she can hold me off and finish me with the Ihsan's next turn. So what's the play? This was something off of a Magic: the Puzzling thing. I just played hoping she'd screw up. I attack with both. She declares a block with the Golem on the knight... and then activates the Factory. Doh! She can't block with it! I score two with my Archer and the bolt does her in. I hated to get rulesy on her, but it had to done. And really, I wasn't being THAT rulesy, that's just a common sense, order of fast effects deal. Whew, I squeaked that one out. Game 2: (This is where the day's Paris Mulligan rule came back and kicked me in the ass) With no land, I mulligan not once but twice. I get Hymned on turns 2,3 and 6, and then about turn 9 or so. You figure out who won. Game 3: I remember this being a fairly close game, but I was able to pull out a victory with my injured 'Beast (2/3 from an arrow. Ow, those things hurt). She eventually ran out of answers for my creatures. Really, I had no business winning this match if I played against a seasoned player. Perhaps fate was shining upon me that day. At least until the semis. Matches: 3-0 Games: 6-2 Round 4 - Ken Kupis : Deadguy Sligh I had mentioned earlier that I wanted to try my deck against Sligh. Here's my chance. Game 1: Me: Plains, Him: Mountain, Pup. Me: Bolt him and the pup, Him: Mountain, Pup. Me: again bolt him and the Pup. Heck, that was all I needed. A six point life difference and him with no creatures on the table. Jackal Pup is questionable in an environment with so many bolts. I sure was happy to see it first turn, I will say that. They are powerful but dangerous little guys. Priests finished the beatdown that his Pups started. Game 2: He is mana hosed for just a few turns and meanwhile I drop three (! Most I've ever played!) Priests and kill his Cursed Scroll before it can kill them. After the Priests finish him off, he shows me the Anarchy in his hand he couldn't quite cast. Whew... good thing I sided in my Sleights. I didn't see one that game, and consequently would have gotten jacked by that Anarchy, but at least the chance to draw it was there. After the game we chatted a bit, and he seemed like a real good guy. He took the manascrew with grace, which is always tough to do. Matches: 4-0 Games: 8-2. Awww yeah. I've really got a good shot at top 8 now, and winning next round would really facilitate that. Round 5: Kirk Buckendorf : Sligh, but the most original Sligh that I've seen since my R/G Type 2 monstrosity (which sucked, whereas his deck worked). Game 1: I'm in trouble... he's got 3 good creatures out, one of which is a Wildfire, which is notoriously hard for bolts and plows to kill. Next round he can attack and finish me off. I've got my ace up my sleeve though: Firestorm. I tax and set aside 9, and in those 9 I manage to pull it. I clear out his stuff, which understandably shocks him (Firestorm? Who plays with that jank-ass card?), and take control from there. Good thing I didn't hear, "Bolt, Bolt, Fireblast." Sure woulda ruined my day. Game 2: More of the same, except I have two Storms in my opening hand. Things were tight, as he had a Wildfire out and I had no way to kill it. I was able to passage the damage from it after he pumped it up, and storm for the kill. That was a crazy, crazy deck... it had Mogg Conscripts, Artillery, Man-O-War, Elvish Archers, along with the usual Sligh staples, and was good enough to get him to the semis. Congrats on such an original deck. Woo hoo! Matches: 5-0 Games: 10-2 I figure at this point I can draw into the finals and do so. For the books, I finish out 5-0-2 in the regular season (Cool! I get homefield advantage!). I don't know all of the names of the Top 8, but here goes: 1) Preston Poulter (more on him later) - Tongo/Firewalker 2) Yours Truly - WW/Bolts 'n' stuff 3) Erik Landriz - Racktax Prison 4) Dunno much about the 4-6 slots, but I know there 5) was a Tongo and a Necro among them 6) 7) Joe Newman - W/R/G Similar to the Czech gun 8) Kirk Buckendorf - Coolguy Sligh By the by, I call any U/R deck with Frenetics a Tongo deck. It's an easy way to label it quickly... I'm sure there are lots of variations among the actual decks, but I'm not gonna think up names for all of em. So, screw it, I say -- any deck with red and blue in it is Tongo. Quarters - Joe Newman This was going to be interesting I could tell. Right from the get-go he dropped a Lion first turn. Game 1: We trade hits back and forth, with my Priest scoring a fair amount of damage. However when the Ernie drops, I know I'm in trouble. He takes me down to 6, then drops a Lion. Ahhh! Next turn I'll bite it! I pray... and draw a plains, and even though the Priest takes him to 1, his duo finishes me off. That's as close as it gets, folks, a photo finish. Game 2: I'm not too sure what to side in, but I knew Passages would be effective, as could some Arrows -- in they all go. I am able to attack early and score some hits, and this time my Plow is an ample answer for the Ernie he drops. Priests played a huge factor in this game, as he just wasn't able to get the cards he needed to deal with it before it was too late. Game 3: This game was all about Racktax. After trading early creatures, I started Necroing - oops I mean Racktaxing - for major card advantage. I was able to throw out too many threats for him to deal with, and, even though he was able to get rid of the rack, the card advantage eventually got the best of him. Overall, it was a well played match. Matches: 6-0-2 Games: 12-3 All right, just two more matches and I'm off to LA. Semis - Erik Landriz (who went on to win, congrats) Good guy, good deck and a great player (if a bit nervous). This was a tight match. Game 1 - I sucked it up this match. I never really was a threat and he quickly locked me up tight and threw away the key. This game lasted forever as during his turn he would do about 20 things, each involving shuffling or Scroll Racking. I finally conceded when I saw the 2nd Gaea's Blessing which would deck me (so could the Rack too, I spose) Game 2 - This was as close as it gets... I needed just ONE more thing to go my way and I woulda had him. All my good luck for the day (like all good luck in Vegas) finally came to an end. I had him down to one a couple times, but he squirmed his way out of it, and took control from there. After he Wisdomed back up to 21, things were hopeless and I gave up. Matches: 6-1-2 Games: 12-5 Another well played match, this time I just came up a little bit short. Well, bummer. My deck kicked all that butt just to lose in the semis. Like I said however, I'm gonna keep trying to qualify, and I will, it's just a matter of tweaking that sideboard just a littttlllle bit. I hope. My dad ended up 3-2-2 with our version of Prison. He attributed the losses to lack of experience with the deck, which I would tend to agree with. Prison is not easy to play. All you net-leeches out there better practice a lot before you snag your copy. Also, all you habitual Top 8'ers should prepare for Prison. There's a good chance one of your area's best players will be using it, so don't be like me and not be fully prepared for it. Know what aspect of the deck hurts you the most, so you know what to Disenchant. Also look into the Prison hosers in your appropriate colors. Keep in mind it's gotta be cheap or it's worthless. Also, pack heat so that you can eliminate those pesky Prison players before you even play them... that's the SUREST way to beat 'em. Finally, and most notably, missing from my last report were the now ubiquitous (and I believe required by Federal Law in all Dojo reports) Props and Slops. I hereby dub them Prizops and Slizops, to give my Props and Slops section something to really stick out in your mind. Prizops: my dad for the great idea to come to Vegas in the first place Thanks, dad, for all you did! Jason Heinz, for not only being a badass, but oh yeah, you helped me playtest the deck from jank to the solid deck it is now. The people I played against - in general they were all nice and great sports. ...And Kirk Buckendorf for his cool Sligh deck. Slizops: Just one -- Preston Poulter. Never have I met such a whining, temper-tantrum throwing poor loser. I heard from many people of his attitude, and well, to see them proven correct was quite the spectacle. The Magic world is worse off because of you. Well... this turned into quite the novel, but those who have made it this far, I congratulate you. Open those eyelids now, I'm signing off... Jay Wagner p.s. - To win in extended, be able to beat the following decks consistently and you should be on your way to L.A. Sligh Tongo White weenie variants Prison Necro Other contenders: Vineyard Gun variants Fruity Pebbles Stompy Pox No easy task, I will say, and nothing new. It's the whole paper/rock/scissors thing. The trick is being paper when everyone is rock (Good ol' rock, nothin' beats rock). Try not to be scissors, you'll get bashed every time. :)