As good as it gets. A German Nationals Tournament Report
As defending national finalist (Is there a better name for the second
place finisher? In German there is...) and official deckbuilder for my
team Highway to Hell everyone was expecting me to come up with the
deck to play. My fellow team member Martin Luedecke simply told me, "I
will play what you play." Which is quite flattering but also very
disturbing, when you haven't got a clue of what your a) going to play
and b) what is good...
to play
and b) what is good...
Adding insult to injury my professor finally put a gun to my chest and
gave me a four week deadline (exactly five weeks before the nationals
btw.) to present him everything I have done for my Ph.D. in the last
six months, which was basically qualifying for LA , preparing for LA,
doing dismally in LA, requalifying for New York, preparing for New
York, doing dismally in New York., helping my team qualify for
nationals and playing in the German team league. Not something you
can write your thesis about.
So I spent one week building test decks and one week analyzing the
metagame and found: No ruling deck, just several better decks and some
not so good decks, a not very satisfying result. On the third weekend
I took a break and drove with my parents to Leipzig to see my sister
Sophia perform in the premiere of Miss Julie, a piece by Strindbergh.
Sophia studies classical singing at a university in Leipzig and every
year the university produces one oprah piece for it's students,
usually with two casts. Sophia played Julie in the first cast, which
made us very proud! So I am sitting there in the second row, proud as
hell, when my sister walks onstage with a mono-red dress... and
suddenly it hits me... I am going to play mono-red Sligh! I think
Sligh is like Necro in the early summer of 1996. It has won several
has won several
important tournaments, the top players are playing it (at least in the
States), the European players have not yet caught on, and the majority
of the field plays some sort of multi-color decks, which die to
Stripmines, I mean Wastelands... Sligh gets the same "I win"-draws
Necro used to have, instead of the Hymn, we have Fireblast (2 Hymns, I
win, 2 Fireblast, I win), Wasteland for Stripmines, Orcs and Flunkies
instead of Knights and the amazing Card advantage of Ball Lightning (2
Ball Lightning equal 4 Bottle Gnomes or X cards opponent will never
draw again because he is dead.) Infact it's all about the Ball
Lightning.
So I return to Berlin and call up my fellow team members Martin
Luedecke and Stefan Funke and tell them, "OK., listen, Sligh is the
strongest deck! Test it. I have to work on my Ph.D., see you in two
weeks!" Well, about like that basically, I also used the Necro
simile...
I gave them my test deck, which was a varient of my team member Sven
Grottke's Cursed Sligh. (Sven is our Sligh specialist and gave us
advice all through the preparation, too bad he finished 9th in the
Berlin regionals...):
Standard Cursed Sligh
17 Mountains
4 Wastelands
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
1 Goblin Vandal
4 Ironclaw Orc
4 Fireslinger
4 Ball Lightning
4 IncineratBall Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Shock
4 Fireblast
4 Cursed Scroll
2 Scalding Tongues
60 cards
Sideboard
2 Ankh of Mishra
3 Dwarven Miner
4 Pyroblast
2 Shatter
2 Rathi Dragon
2 Chaos Charm
Julie Version 1.0
17 Mountains
4 Wastelands
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
4 Ironclaw Orc
4 Mogg Flunkie (instead of Fireslingers)
4 Ball Lightning
4 Shock (better than Kindle or Hammer IMO)
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
4 Cursed Scroll
2 Viashino Sandstalker (instead of Scalding Tongues)
1 Invasion Plans
-----
60 cards
Sideboard:
2 Shatter
2 Disk
2 Scalding Tongues
4 Pyroblast
3 Dwarven Miner
2 Dwarven Traumaturgist
Two weeks later. They call back.
"Daniel, your right, Sligh is the strongest deck, it wins against all
your test decks except 5CKastle which wins about 60% against Sligh."
"What about White Weenie?" I wanted to know,
"Well it just loses the way you built it, so we put in 3 Freewind
Falcons and now it has about a 50 percent win percentage."
"Freewind Falcons? I am supposed to win with Freewind Falcons against
other decks, just to go 50/50 against Sligh? Forget it! What about
Suicide Black?"
"Well it can only win with Bad Moon early, with no Sarcomancies and
with Creath Bad Moon early, with no Sarcomancies and
with Creature Removal in the main deck."
"In other words, I also have to weaken it against other decks, and it
still loses?"
"Right!"
"Ok, so Sligh is the strongest offensive deck. Which is good, because
offensive decks usually do well in the bigger tournaments. So we have
to test Sligh more against the best control and combo decks, to refine
our sideboard."
They gave me back this version:
Julie Version 2.0
18 Mountains
4 Wastelands
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
3 Ironclaw Orcs
3 Mogg Flunkies
4 Ball Lightning
2 Viashino Sand Stalker
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
2 Hammer of Borgardan
60 cards
Sideboard
3 Earthquake
2 Disk
3 Shatter
4 Pyroblast
3 Dwarven Miner
Well I was not sure about the Earthquake and I knew I wanted
Firestorms against Kastle. I also love Dwarven Miners and Disks, so I
changed the deck to it's final configuration...
Julie, version 3.0
18 Mountains
4 Wastelands
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
3 Ironclaw Orcs
3 Mogg Flunkies
4 Ball Lightning
2 Viashino Sand Stalker
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
1 Hammer of Borgardan (useful against Suicide Black and U Control) 1
Firestorm
60 cardside Black and U Control) 1
Firestorm
60 cards
Sideboard
2 Firestorm
3 Disk
2 Shatter
4 Pyroblast
4 Dwarven Miner
So we test that version and Martin admits that the Firestorms are much
better against Kastle than the Earthquakes and I agree that the Hammer
is a great idea. I am not sure about going down with the 2 mana
creatures though. Martin and Dirk ran 3 Shatter and 2 Disk.
A few days later, I hear via my e-mail contacts, that several players
which I respect are seriously considering to play Necro. So I start
thinking, "I love Necro. Even better I can play Necro and my current
Necro beats Sligh, which is the best deck. I'll just play the deck
which beats the best deck...I qualified for 3 Pro Tours with Necro, I
should play Necro." I grab a CD at random and push play.... It's a
german group called Jeremy Days. The first chorus goes like this....
Julie through the blinds
I see something that I have never seen before
Julie through the blinds
I know there's music outside this door
Julie on my mind
If it means something to us
Julie outside
Everyday they bring us more and more
Ok. I can't ignore two omens. I know at that moment that I am going to
play Sligh. Julie will go through the blind, that can't see that Sligh
is the best deck...
Tuesday before the Championship it turns out, that my felampionship it turns out, that my fellow team
member Stefan Funke has police duty on Saturday and that he can't come
along. So we take along fellow Berliner Dirk Hein instead. Dirk wants
to play Counter Sliver. During the car ride, Martin and I talk about
our Sligh and Dirk decides that maybe he should play Sligh too. When
we arrive, he takes his Sligh and tests it against different decks and
our Sligh. Slowly his deck changes into an exact copy of Martin and my
Sligh.
Day 1. The pain of Limited....
Next day we draft. I am afraid of the draft part, because even though
I have learned a lot about drafting I am still worse in limited, than
in constructed formats (I qualified for 7 Constructed Pro Tours vs.
one limited Pro Tour and I always have to requalify as I never reach
Top 32, at least not yet... I guess that makes me at least a Prince of
Qualifiers or a Pro Tour Scrub....)
My first draft deck is quite good though...
1 Cursed Scroll (honorary green creature removal)
1 Shifting Wall
1 Spike Soldier
1 Spike Colony
1 Spike Worker
1 Trumpeting Armodon (creature removal in green)
1 Wall of Blossom (further green creature removal)
1 Heartwood Dryad
1 Elvish Fury (even more green creature removal)
1 Nurturing Licid
1 Constant Mists (green's Zuran Orb in Limited)
1 Dream Prowler
1 Whispers of tream Prowler
1 Whispers of the Muse
2 Time Ebb (soo good)
1 Legacy Allure (blue creature removal)
1 Thalakos Mistfolk
1 Gliding Licid
1 Wind Drake
1 Capsize
1 Giant Crab
1 Horned Turtle
9 Forests
9 Islands
Cards I could sideboard...
1 Dismiss
1 Powersink
1 Mana Leak (I didn't want Counters and Cursed Scroll, but perhaps I
was wrong)
1 Mnenonic Sliver
1 Muscle Sliver (perhaps better than the Nurturing Licid)
1 Winged Sliver
1 Green Drake (the 2/3 one)
1 Gaseous Form
1 Provoke
1 Thalakos Sentry
1 Sea Monster
1 Skyshroud Condor
1 Leap
1 Thalakos Seer
1 Shimmering Wings
1 Shadow Rift
1 Primal Rage
1 Crossbow Ambush
5 off-color cards
Round 1: Rosario Maij (Berlin)
Game 1: He starts with Lab Rats without Buyback, which do 2 damage.
Then comes a Dauthi Marauder. He Dark Banishes my Heartwood Dryad so I
go into beatdown mode with Spike Soldier and Spike Worker. He puts out
a Wall of Souls, which costs me another 4 Life, I Time Ebb his Dauthi
and it looks like I can win the Race anyway, when he adds a Dauthi
Slayer into the equation...
Game 2: He starts out fast and furious again with Dauthi Marauder and
Cloud Spirit. This time I draw Cursed Scroll. I have 5 lands and a
Dream Prowler out. On my hand are an and a
Dream Prowler out. On my hand are an Elvish Fury, a Constant Mists and
a Mana Leak. I am afraid to use the Constant Mists with buyback,
because I need to scroll the 3/1 unblockables, so I burn down to the
mana leak. Of course I only top deck land and die eventually to the
Mogg Canon Lab Rats combo...
Not a good start....
Round 2: Jens Kaiser (Aschaffenburg)
Game 1: Eventually I Cursed Scroll him with Capsize with 9 mana out.
He concedes.
Game 2: He has a Dungeon Shade and a Skyshroud Vampire. I have two
small shadows. I start scrolling him with Constant Mists and keep
topdecking land. He concedes...
Round 3: Thomas Lawrenz (Berlin, yes there were 4 Berliners at my
draft table.)
He offers me a draw before the round, but I decline. I don't want to
go 1:1:1 with this deck.)
Game 1: He starts with Mogg Conscript, Rats of Rath, Coiled Tinviper.
My first creature comes at four mana....
He puts down a Dauthi Marauder.
I start rueing my decision not to draw.
Game 2: He puts down Portcoulis and Canabalizes and Edicts my
creatures away. I counter with Time Ebb on his Marsh Lurker and put
out the first two new Creatures, a 2/2 Shifting Wall and a Thalakos
Mistfolk. The Mistfolk brings him down to 6 before he draws another
Canabalize and can put out a Lowland Giant. I take 3 hits from the
Lowland Giant, because the
Lowland Giant, because I don't want to trade him with the now 4/4
Shifting Wall just to have him put out two more creatures.... I go
down to 8. Then I finally draw Cursed Scroll.... I have been casting
my creatures except one in preparation and Tommy dies....
Game 3: He gets out Ensnaring Bridge, but it hurts him more than me as
I have Dream Prowler and later a Gliding Heartwood Dryad. When I show
Constant Mists he concedes...
So I go 2:1 with a 3:0 Draft deck....
2nd Draft:
I mess up my early color choice and am forced to change from U/G/R to
R/B. I still get a decent deck but it could have had at least one
Dauthi Slayer and one Disturbed Burial...
1 Flowstone Blade
1 Shock
1 Fanning of The Flames
1 Fling
1 Wall of Diffusion
1 Giant Strength
1 Seething Anger
1 Renegade Warlord
2 Craven Giants
1 Mogg Flunkie
1 Lowland Giant
1 Sandstone Warrior
1 Enfeeblement
1 Spontaneous Combustion
1 Evincar's Justice
2 Corrupting Licids
1 Darkling Stalker
1 Rats of Rath
1 Dauthi Mindripper
1 Dauthi Marauder
1 Marsh Lurker
9 Mountains
8 Swamps
Sideboardable
4 Forests
1 Rampant Growth
2 Tranquility
1 Verdigris
1 Blood Pet
1 Volrath's Servant
1 Brush with Death
1 Spinal Graft
1 Sadistic Gleh with Death
1 Spinal Graft
1 Sadistic Glee
8 other cards (2 off-color first picks among them...)
1 Shadow Storm
1 Crown of Flames
Round 4: Christian Lührs (Hamburg)
Game 1. Fanning of the Flames is broken...
Game 2. My deck can't deal with Crovax the Cursed...
Game 3. He gets early small shadows, he probably sideboarded in. I get
Corrupting Licids and remove his Serpent Warrior via Enfeeblement....
I win the damage race...
Round 5: Christian Lang
Game 1: He has Fanning of the Flames first, and it is still broken...
Game 2. I lure him into a Spontaneous Combustion which kills 4 of his
creatures and my Wall of Diffusion (sacked). Then I put out a Rat of
Rath with Giant Strength and beat him down past his Cop Red...
Game 3. I draw 2 land on the beginning hand and no third for a loooong
time. I get beatdown in time for Fanning of the Flames. How I hate
that stall-at-2-land draw!
Round 6: Sok-Yong Lee
He is playing the green Fattie Deck with red removal. I do not have
enough evasion to beat that deck, especially with another stall at two
mana in game 2 when he can put out Spike Colonies before I can put
down a Dauthi Marauder....
So I go 1:2 with a 2:1, 1:1:1 deck... Ouch.
Total record: 3:3 matches. That means, that I have to go 6:0 tomorrow
to make Top 8... Martin is in the running with 4:2 and Diartin is in the running with 4:2 and Dirk Hein is
third with 5:0:1 and only needs to go 4:2 to be in the Top 8 for sure.
2nd Day: Julie through the blinds....
Round 1: Thomas Manderscheid
Game 1: He plays 3CR with Erg Raiders and lots of basic land. I do 8
Damage with my 2nd Iron Claw Orc. Then he taps out. I shock his Mogg
Fanatic and Mr. Ball Lightning comes to play. Fireblast Range...
Game 2: I get double Mogg Flunkie. They hit once. 14 is burn range...
1:0 matches 2:0 games
Martin and Dirk both win 2:0.
Round 2: Peter Kolb (B/r Shadow Firestorm Living Death Deck)
Game 1: Early Mogg Fanatic Mogg Flunkie. He firestorms both before the
attack. I put down a new Flunkie. He taps out for a Bottle Gnome. Ball
Lightning plus Mogg Flunkie plus double Fireblast equals toast.
Game 2: An early Jackal Pup runs around. He tries to go into the
damage race with Sligh and attacks. I firestorm his creatures away.
Then come a Ball Lightning plus Jackal Pup. He is at 8 I can scroll
him and not his next creatures....
2:0 matches 4:0 games
Martin wins 2:0:1 (earthquake), Dirk wins 2:0 It seems that each of us
is cleaning up his section of the metagame. Dirk in the top position
has already killed 2 Kastle decks. Martin is killing the Bloom decks
which the 4:2 built to beat the Kastle decks and I am cleaning up the
aggressive kcleaning up the
aggressive keeping-the-hope-alive decks...
Round 3. Niels Maire (Counter Sliver Variant with Acidic Sliver and
Birds.)
Game 1: Again I get one Ball Lightning through. Then I just wait for
the right moment to burn him out. He helps by taking 4 City of Brass
damage.
Game 2. Crystaline Sliver, Muscle, Sliver, Acidic Sliver, plus Counter
backup. The Sliver "I win" draw...
Game 3: He only has Birds and Winged Sliver. I decide not to burn his
birds, because I have incinerates... I get him down to 9 with the
incinerates... I have an Orc out and a Fireblast a Firestorm, another
Fireblast and a Wasteland in hand. I only have 3 Mountains out. I
attack with the Orc he goes to 7. Next round I have maybe one or two
more rounds left. I draw Pyroblast! Shit, if I want to burn him out I
have to toss it into the Firestorm, leaving me open for Mana Leak...
So I attack with the Orc first. Even though he has 2 Birds and one
mana untapped he lets it through. I fireblast. He Mana Leaks and I
Pyroblast. Firestorm him for 1. Whew!
3:0 matches 6:1 Dirk and Martin both win 2:0.
Round 4: Sok-Yong Lee (Prosbloom)
Time for revenge! He gave me the loss which put me in the pure hope
mode...
Game 1: I draw 3 Wastelands and deny him blue mana. Round 5 kill for
me, never needed the 3rd Wasteland!
Game 2: He puts dteland!
Game 2: He puts down Elephant Grass. I topdeck my 5th land, Sand
Stalker attacks. He goes down to nine. I have a Mogg Fanatic out. He
says, and now double Fireblast... He has already played one Memory
Lapse, so I think that he is trying to lure me into giving him another
turn. So I do him the favor Fireblast, Fireblast, Mogg Fanatic. He
taps a black and a blue mana and ....... takes two mana burn...
4:0 matches 8:1 Dirk wins 2:0 and is Top 8. Martin wins 2:1 and needs
one more win. I need two. Two more rounds....
Round 5: Gottlieb Yeh (White Weenie)
This is a feature match...
Game 1: It is a short feature match. I start with round 1 Jackal Pup
Round 2 Orc. He taps out for a Soltari Priest. I cast Ball Lightning
and bring him from 18 to 8. Attack with Orc an Pup. Bring him to 4. He
concedes.
Game 2. He puts out a Soltari Monk, which I ignore. I put out an Orc
and a Flunkie. He Manowars the Orc. I cast a Ball Lightning and bring
him from 18 to 9. I put down my 4th land in preparation for Cursed
Scroll. He Armageddons... I shock his Soltari Monk. Both of us have no
land left, he because I wasted 2 of his early lands, I because I put
down my fourth land for the Scroll. The Manowar attacks 3 times
bringing me from 12 to 6. Then I draw a mountain and put out a Jackal
Pup. He doesn't attack. I put out a Mogg Fanatic. I put out a Mogg Fanatic. He draws a card and
concedes...
I am won 5:0 matches 10:1 games. Dirk and Martin are paired against
each other. As Dirk is already in the Top 8, Martin requests a Table
Judge to prevent any appearence of collusion. Martin wins 2:1.
I have to win one more round to make Top 8! Martin and Dirk have
already made it! will I share Alan Comers fate of being 9th...
Round 6: Dirk Baberowski (Köln, Team CCC)
He is playing Prosbloom.
Game 1: A Ball Lightning and an incinerate bring him to 11, so he
decides to enter the combo round 4. He Natural Balances twice. Infernal
Contracts, Meditates, Meditates, Impulses, Infernal Contracts, Abeyance
and concedes because his 4 Cadaverous Blooms are in the last 16
cards....
Game 2: I keep a one mountain draw with which I probably should have
mulliganed because of 2 Pyroblasts and 4 two mana creatures, also I
draw first. I draw no land for 2 rounds and have to discard round 3. My
first Jackal Pup gets Memory Lapsed. I eventually draw and play 2nd
Jackal Pup. I draw a third mountain and play a Mogg Flunkie and leave
1 Mountain untapped... Dirk is at 12. He has Squandered Resources out,
he has Cadaverous Bloom out, he has 6 lands and has not played a land
this turn, his hand is full... "So you lost, right?....
HOLY PIKULA! No, you see, he goes into the combo. Prosperity for 9, I
combo. Prosperity for 9, I
Pyroblast. Another Prosperity for 9. Infernal Contract, Infernal
Contract, Meditate, He puts down an Island taps it. Impulse. Gets an
Infernal Contract. He has not seen a Swamp or a Natural Balance yet. He
already has the Drain in hand. He draws: something, Natural Balance!,
Swamp.... Swamp... Dirk almost cries. He has no more card drawing. He
has 11 cards in hand, a tapped Island in play that is 21 mana or a 19
point drain life. He could Natural Balance, but that would cost him 6
black mana for the three cards he can't toss to the drain then and
because he just drew 2 Swamps he only has 2 Swamps left in the Library
which would net him exactly -2 additional black mana... He thinks for 5
minutes... Eventually I say, "I know that you are a good Bloom player,
if you could see a way to kill me, you would have already done so,
right?" "I am just thinking if I recorded my deck wrong..." He Natural
Balances looks at the deck and concedes....
"Better lucky, than good!", Dirk and Martin intentional draw. Martin
plays the intentional draw out for fun and as a feature match and wins
2:0 against a White Weenie.
6:0 matches 12:1 games
YES! I made it!, not only that... of 3 Julies there 3 made Top 8. The
only match loss the deck received was against itself. It lost two games
in non-Julie against Julie matches and drew one game! That's drew one game! That's about as
good as it gets....
The Top 8 were:
1. Dirk Hein, Julie
2. Peter Schmitz-Hueser, 3CW with Mox Diamonds and Firestorms
3. Martin Luedecke, Julie
4. Florian Dworak, 5CKastle
5. Thorsten Fehrentz, U/b Control
6. Daniel Brickwell, Julie
7. Janosh Kuehn, U/b speed Control (3 Force Spike!)
8. Martin Valkyser, Steel Necro, Bottle Gnomes sideboard.
3rd Day: "Better Lucky than good"
Quarterfinals:
For understandable reasons I couldn't watch the other Quarterfinals...
Dirk Hein (Julie) defeated Martin Valkyser (Steel-Necro) 3-0 Janosch
Kuehn (draw-go variant) defeated Peter S.-H. (3CW) 3-1 Florian Dworak
(5C-Kastle) defeated Thorsten Fehrentz (draw-go variant) 3-0
Yes, I was paired against my team member, who tested the deck, for me
in the Quarterfinals. We could have basically tossed a coin....
Martin mulligans like 5 dozen times, manages to win one game after
double mulligan, to lose 3:1...
"Better lucky than good"
Semi-finals:
I get paired with my former and new German national Team Member and
World Championship finalist, Janosh Kuehn. All I can say is, "I am not
worthy!" Janosh is one of the best players we have. I can just barely
decide, which is the right deck to play. ;) I lose the fourth partly
due to my own stupidity, let's just say that you should never try to
rey that you should never try to
retrieve a Hammer from the graveyard, before checking it. The Hammer
could have been Memory Lapsed last round....
I lose 1:3.
I arrive just in time to confess, how big a scrub I am and to watch the
fifth game between Dirk (Julie) and Florian Dworak (Kastle).
Dirk is stalled at one mountain but has two Jackal Pups out. Florian
just puts down the second Wall of Roots. He has a Firestorm in hand, 2
Undiscovered Paradises, a Underground River in play and an Fallen Angel
in hand. Florian plays the Fallen Angel... So Dirk lost, right?
Wrong!
HOLY PIKULA!, no you see he top decks the Firestorm I put in the deck
against Kastle (much better than an Earthquake in this situation!) He
Firestorms the 2 Walls, the Fallen Angel, himself and the opponent for
5 each and then attacks with the Jackal Pups. Florian goes from 16 to
7, one of the infamous 9 point life swings Julie is so capable of...
Florian gets two Undiscovered back into his hand and is staring at one
Underground River. He puts down an Undiscovered. Dirk finally draws a
Wasteland and attacks with the Jackal Pups. Florian Firestorms the
Jackal Pups and Dirk for three each, Bringing Dirk from 15 to 6. Dirk
puts out a Dwarven Miner, top decks a third land next round and that is
practically game, especially as he has another Miner as back-up, after
the first one gets Fires the first one gets Firestormed. He wins fittingly enough with Ball
Lightning.
Finals: Dirk Hein (Julie) against Janosh Kuehn (U/b speed control)
Dirk wins 3:2 and is German National Champion. I bet he was glad, he
could drive in our car.....
So my deck has a total record of:
Dirk Hein: 7:1:1 matches (only loss against Julie, one intentional
draw)
Martin Luedecke 5:1:1 matches (only loss against Julie, one intentional
draw)
Daniel Brickwell 7:1 matches (only loss against Janosh)
Not counting the matches against itself or intentional draws which were
not played out later, the total match record is:
19:1 matches
Not bad. ;)
Friendly Greetings
Daniel "It's all about the Ball Lightning" Brickwell
Team Captain, Team Highway to Hell
PS: My Ph.D. leaves me no more time for magic in the next 6-9 months,
so I will stop with magic for a while. I hope to see you all again next
year, except for those I see at Worlds, I can't miss that. Janosh will
have to build my constructed decks though....
PPS: Thanks go out to our great sponsor Frank Hassas!
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