Subject: PTQ BC Report: quarter finalist Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 02:54:32 -0800 From: Peter Grauer To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Second PTQ in two weeks, here at home in Vancouver. Got a good sleep, and showed up bright and early. Spent an hour agonizing over the last card in the deck, finally went with an abeyance. Round One: Cursed Sligh w/pillage Game One: Not looking good for the home team. I have 3 lands on the draw, but my oponent opens with cursed scroll, wasteland, wasteland, pillage, pillage. A couple of ball lightnings get plowed, but it's over quick. Not the way you like ot start a ptq. Game Two: Things are looking good. I get plenty of quick removal, wrath away 3 creatures, and follow that with meditate/gerrard for 14. Hammer recursion begins, and he can't play creatures fast enough. My four wisdoms propell me over 50 life before this one is over. Game Three: I tap out to wrath of god with 3 Gerrards in hand. Game right? Wrong. He drops Forsaken Wastes, and I struggle to deal with it. 2 impulses bring nothing, but I finally top deck a disenchant at 4 life. Disenchant the wastes to drop to -1 life. My opponent starts packing up, but I reveal my wisdom. Gain 12, up to 11. Still no countermagic though, and he soon drops another wastes. I passage a ball lightning, and fireball him for 10. He's at 11, and dies during his upkeep after dropping me to 3 life with fireblast/fireblast. No bolts? Aw, too bad. Games: 2-1 Matches 1-0 Round Two: Cursed Sligh Game One: FUCK! I hate red! Even though my deck is pretty well optimized to survive red cheese, It's still all about draws and has nothing to do with skill. Anyways, this game I get the meditate/gerrard turn 3&4, followed by a wrath. I keep hammering his pups, and eventually he runs out of targets and the hammer turns on him. I gerrard again late, and finish at 12 life. Game Two: More of the same, this is so fun. Meditate/gerrard, gain life. Begin hammer recursion, starting with creatures, and moving on to him in the late game. I gerrard a few more times. Games: 4-1 Matches: 2-0 Round Three: Greg Gilkes (Sligh) Game One: What the fuck? three sligh decks in a row? Jesus christ. I take this game with a meditate/gerrard (11-27) and Hammer him down to 7, after which I fireball him. This is monotonous and stupid. Christ people, are you really this lame? Game Two: I plow his opening critter, but he slighs me. No gerrards this game. I lose Game Three: See game two, but no plow. I lose. Games: 5-3 Matches 2-1 Round Four: Matt Hakamura (Sligh with Green) Game One: WHAT THE FUCK? More sligh. I'm freaking out. He goes ape shit on me, winning the first game like sligh always seems to. I'm really not having fun. Game Two: I get slighed down to 6, but gerry shows up care of his friend the meditate. Up to 18. He beats me down to 9, but Gerry shows up and saves the day. Up to 25. Hits me again, I impuse... grab Gerry. I'm fucking loving this. I begin hammer recursion and beat him into a paste. Game Three: See game two Games: 7-4 Matches 3-1 Round Five: Guess who? Sligh again. Game One: Ah fuck, you know what happened. Game Two: I sideboard, and win Game Three: I sieboard and win. This so stupid. Games: 9-5 Matches 4-1 Round Six: WW/r Maroarmor Game One: Unbelievable, I'm not playing against sligh. Anyways, I gotta win this one OR the next one and draw one of the games. I come out strong, wrathing away two creatures, and following up with a meditate/wisdom. Start the hammer recursion, plowing the priests. That deck has trouble with control. I never see any scroll racks or taxes. Game Two: I catch him on turn 4 with 3 creatures in play and WOG them away. Nice day! 3 for 1. Ummm, no. He drops the blood moon and I don't have the answer. He swiftly plays 3 creatures and beats me down. Whoah, that was fucked. Game Three: We take a look around, and notice most of the players at the top tables are total scrubs. I mean, it's embarassing. Looks like the 23rd table or something. I see monogreen on my left with a scragnoth in play, shit like that. We decide not to swing our day on one game, and end in a draw. We'll take our chances with the rest of the top 12. Games: 10-5-1 Matches: 4-1-1 Round Seven: WHATEVER! Mono-Red Land destruction Game One: He wins the flip and puts out a turn 2 Dwarven Miner I have no plow for. I force of will and stall on 2 mana (Plateau and Tundra). He plays... Stone Rain. Whoah. I wasn't really expecting that. Ummm, sure. Nect turn he plays orcish settlers, followed by an icy. Ummm, that's bad. I lose to a big wildfire. Game Two: Hammers leave the deck, in come Serras, the fourth Force of Will, and the blue blasts. He's killing lands, but I'm tithing and keeping pace. It's a game of 3 mana, play the fourth, kill it... 3 mana, play the fourth, kill it. I'm holding Serra when he drops the Icy. I have no answer, but very skillfully top deck a disenchant. I pass the turn, and he plays... Jester's Cap??? Turns out he played Radjonic in the last round (Who was playing my deck as well) and knew all about the deck. He caps me, winces, and takes out my 2 standard Gerrards and the second Serra. The serra in my hand is now my sole road to victory, barring a huge fireball (Only one in the deck now). I disenchant the icy, and he seems to draw land. I cast a desperation meditate, which he blasts. I'm getting a little worried now, as he casts a cursed scroll. I draw a tithe and a counterspell, and make it to 7 mana. Bust out angel. Yeah. He's scrolling me, and I'm beating him, but angel is bigger than scroll, and my countermagic shows up later than I liked, but not too late to seal the win. Close game. Game Three: We're chatting it up between games, and he's forgiven me for being a dick after losing the first game. I casually remark that I really need the luck of the magic gods to beat his deck. THE MAGIC GODS HEAR ME! My opening hand is 3 tithe, 3 land, and a hydroblast. I'll take that. He mulligans. Sweet, I need this win, so I'm not gonna be picky. It's not like that though. He busts out like a madman, and manages a 5th turn boil. I respond with a tithe, and there's a big argument about what mana I had tapped. The head judge was right there though, and it's soon settled. He has 5 mountains. I have... a wasteland. Ummm, this is not good. I draw a serra, and the road to victory is clear. I diddle away some time, casting my fourth tithe for 2 at some point, and build up to 5 mana with 2 Force of Wills, a counterspell, and a meditate. I briefly consider meditating, but decide to just bust out the angel. He plows it at the end of my turn, which I force. He untaps, plows it again. WHOAH. What the fuck. I force again, leaving me with only a swords to plowshares in hand. He plays plateau.... and PLOWS THE SERRA. I'm like.... dude. I guess my hand was pretty good too though. Anyways, I draw a land, play it, and draw another one. Play it. 7 mana on the table now, and he's got a mountain. I know this because he's been playing land and cursed scrolling me. I top deck.... impulse. Well, that's a good start. I impulse. My choices are: Serra Angel, Counterspell, Impulse, and disenchant. I'm sitting there for like 5 minutes with the 4 cards, and he's wondering what the hell is going on. I gram the serra and throw it on the table, tapping out. No counterspells. "Whatever! Bust out Serra!". He stares at it for a minute. Then untaps, draws... and says.... go. I'm so fucking happy. I untap, draw... dismiss. I can hardly control myself. From boil away all your lands to this. I pound on the serra with my fist. "Beat you for 4". He takes 4 and scrolls me. 4 turns to go. He untaps, draws... plays orcish settlers. I'm sitting with 5 islands, and he had the mana to kill 4 of them. I sit there for a while. He's at 16. The serra is my only way to win. I let it go. Untap... draw.... fireball. Wow. "Beat you". I waste a land. Now he can't kill my second blue. He draws, blows the settlers. Kills all my islands. plays... nothing. Untap, beat you... go. Untap, beat you... ball you.... game. I don't think I've made a comeback like that since T1 days... Christ... capping my serras. The old days indeed. Games: 12-6-1 Matches: 5-1-1 5-1-1 is good enough for the top 8 with 80 people. Thank god. I squeeze in at #8, and my quarterfinal opponent is.... Bryan playing Sligh of course, but you knew that. Game One: Draw 2 lands, he wastes one, beats me down Game Two: Mulligan, get only one land, he wastes it, beats me down. [BEGIN BITTER RANT] That's all she wrote. I've never had so little fun playing magic in my life. With the exception of my seventh round matchup, the entire day was totally based on luck. If I drew the gerrard before I died, I won. If he killed me before I got 4 mana, or I didn't get wisdom, I lost. I can't understand why WOTC would print cards such as fireblast, jackal pup, cursed scroll, and mogg fanatic. Why do we encourage the play of the least skill intensive deck by giving it the most borken cards? How much more abusive is fireblast than force of will? Yet we allow fireblast in type-2 and not FOW. I have not played a T2 tournament since tempest was released, and I really don't think I am missing much. People may argue that red decks take just as much skill as any other, but they are ignorant. Such stupidity is what keeps Magic from becoming a real intelectual game on par with Go or Chess. Are the R&D staff so ignorant that they think decks like this are actually skill testing, or entertaining? Enough is enough. Have some sense when you release Stronghold, and stop the madness. No more red cards. Print some green ones for fuck's sakes. [END BITTER RANT] The Deck, or "What more can you do about red?" 4 Counterspells 4 Impulse 3 Dismiss 3 Force of Will 3 Meditate 4 Wrath of God 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Tithe 3 Disenchant 2 Gerrard's Wisdom 1 Abeyance * 2 Hammer of Bogardan ** 2 Fireball 4 Tundra 4 Plateau 4 Volcanic Islands 3 Islands 3 Wastelands 2 Flood Plain 1 Plains 4 Pyroblast 3 Hydroblast 2 Gerrard's Wisdom 2 Serra Angels *** 1 Honorable Passage **** 1 Force of Will 1 Feldon's Cane Notes: * Boarded it out every time, but I'm sure it fits the deck. Stops anything disasterous from going on during a skipped turn. Used to be a fork. Funky. ** Most efficient kill card in UWR. It's removal, it's kill, It's card advantage. *** These were so good I might move them to the main deck if I play this style again **** Never underestimate this card, even in creatureless. Think of it as a counterspell just for ball lightnings. 'Nuff said. General Notes: Basically the deck is just Counterpost with hammers and meditates. No permanents usualy give this deck an advantage, but of course sligh don't give a fuck what you have in play. If you haven't played meditates in a control deck yet, try them. "How can a card that says draw 4 cards be bad" - Radonjic Props: Glen Mckay, our head Judge for getting his level 3. Radonjic, for having the balls to play something I designed. John from Mishra's, for understanding the bank holding my cheque. Jon Finkel for playtest help on IRC and general advice. Song Ly, who made top 4 with necro in a sea of Red. Good Job. Yer still a dork though. Slops: The fucker who stole Roger's cards. Vancouver, for being such a scrub town to have a 60% sligh field. The Atrium Inn, for not having tables big enough for 6'5" 250 pounders. Pete Grauer Vancouver, BC Canada