Subject: [Report] Grand Prix Lyon Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:24:40 +0100 From: Sam Goutsmit To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hear ye, listeners to this report from the fair city of Lyon, France. Because I finally had some time and because it was within a reasonable distance (5 hours by TGV), I decided to attend the Grand Prix Lyon. I went there with Giovanni Bazzi and we were going to meet a group of other Belgian players on the premises. DAY 0: "The magic Train" ------------------------ Short and sweet, friday afternoon, we hop on the train to Brussels, switch to the TGV in Brussel-Zuid and arrive in Lyon around 8 in the evening. We dump the bags in our hotel and go check out the place where we'll be playing tomorrow. This is always a good idea, as it saves you from frantic searches in the mornings... We find it, get back to the hotel and decide not to playtest anymore, since we did enough of that in the train, and instead just fall asleep. The deck I was playing was nothing original, it was just a PT Jank version, with the Lancers removed in favor of Man-O-Wars, which proved to be a rather good decision. 4 Savannah Lions 3 White Knights 4 Soltari Priests 1 Longbow Archer 3 Frenetic Efreets 2 Man-O-Wars 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Incinerate 4 Tithe 3 Swords to Plowshares 2 Disenchant 2 Aura of Silence 4 Cursed Scroll 4 Plateau 4 Tundra 3 Mishra's Factory 3 Wasteland 2 Flood Plains 6 Plains Sideboard: 4 Pyroblast 3 Hydroblast 2 Dwarven Miner 2 Serrated Arrows 1 Aura of Silence 3 Honorable Passages Giovanni was using a good old CounterPost deck, with heavy Serra support (4). DAY 1: "To fight the Odds" -------------------------- We get up at 7 or so, have croissants with coffee and milk (mmmm), and head off the the tourny site. Being rather cautious we get there pretty early and can register as one of the first. Then follows a period of sitting around exchanging idle-talk and trying to guess how many players are present (469 or so with a lot of big names, among which Blumke, Finkel and Buehler). After a while of this, the rest of the Belgian contingent arrive. We are now a whopping eight (8) in number. The list: Kurt Foket (Sligh - 3 bye) Werner Vanderhaeghe (W/G Prisonesque - 2 bye) Mike Coeck (R/G vineyard - 1 bye) Mats Clays (mono G - 1 bye) Freek de Backer (U/G vineyard - 1 bye) Giovanni Bazzi (U/W CounterPost - 1 bye) Frederick Dhaemer (R/G vineyard - 0 bye) Sam Goutsmit (PT Shit - as named by Freek - 0 bye) We discuss the tournament, compare our byes (I curse the fact that they took the december ratings instead of the current ones -- cost me a bye!) and come to the conclusion that 4-1-1 's are more than probably not going to make it through to the final 64, which is a scary thought for those people without byes... The bye people get comfy, while the rest of us (me and Frederick) go off to war. Before the tourny, the organisers announce that they are using the Old Mulligan rules, which brings out a lot of doh's in the crowd. Why they did it, I'll never know, but it certainly affected a lot of decks. Anyway, we get on with 6 rounds of swiss. Top 64 out of 469 will advance. Due to lack of extended ratings for most people, I've included the Standard rating. ROUND 1: Terence Merle des Isles (Standard 1743) Terence, with the nice name, is playing a classic R/U beatdown deck with Wildfires and Waterspouts. Could be a tough game, but I think I should have the edge, especially after boarding in 7 blasts. Game 1: I blaze off to a fast start with a Lion and a Priest, and I wasteland a Volcanic Island, which keeps him slowed down for a while. Then he hits the four mana mark and in three rounds dumps 2 Wildfires and a Waterspout on the table. It becomes a damage race after that, and I seem to be winning it, but then he attacks and after that casts a Time Warp! With that extra attack, he's able to outrace me. I actually lost through a Time Warp?? Oh, well, board in lots of blasts. Game 2: Fast start again from me, with a Priest and a Frenetic performing beatdown. He gets out a Wildfire, I hydroblast. Next round he gets out a Waterspout, I pyroblast. He gets out another Wildfire, it doesn't matter anymore as I easily beat him down. Game 3: I draw 7 cards and get no land. Hmm, I mulligan and draw another 7 cards and get ... no land. Great. I just love the old mulligan rule. We start to play, he builds up mana and when he sees me mana-deprived quickly puts out a Phyrexian War Beast. While the Beast is hurting me, I draw a bit of mana (a Mishra and a Wasteland - oh joy). I finally draw a plains and disenchant the Beast, he counters. Next round, I plow the Warbeast, it dies, but by then I'm so low in life he just bolts me out. Great, I seem to specialise in first-round losses, which tend to kill your resistance points. Another loooong day is in the make... Belgian Standings after Round 1: Kurt Foket 1-0 Freek de Backer 1-0 Mike Coeck 1-0 Giovanni Bazzi 1-0 Werner Vanderhaeghe 1-0 Mats Clays 1-0 Frederik Dhaemer 1-0 Sam Goutsmit 0-1 Keep in mind that only 2 have played at this point :) ROUND 2: Franck Morel (Standard 1484) He's a very nice guy and we have a good chat before the game. He's playing a classic G/W Erhnamgeddon deck, with some black for Dark Heart of the Wood. Game 1: He goes Savannah, Bird of Paradise. I go Plateau, bolt bird. The game continues with me unleashing some Lions and White Knights and occasionally killing his mana critters. He hits the four mana mark and plops down 2 Erhnams I take one hit from Ernie #1, then send him farming next round. Meanwhile, my happy little crowd has been joined by 2 Frenetic Efreets and he's losing the damage race bigtime. So, he attacks one last time with Ernie and casts a Wrath of God. My Frenetics must be atheists, because they seem completely unphased (bad pun) by the divine wrath and they continue the beatdown. Game. I side in 2 Serrated Arrows. Game 2: He starts and goes Forest, Elf. I put down a Plateau and bolt the elf. He puts down a Bayou and casts a bird. I plow the bird and Wasteland the Bayou. Weenie beatdown starts while he is struggling with his land. After a while he succeeds in getting out some Elvish Archers, but they get shot by Serrated Arrows soon enough and I steamroll over him. Belgian Standings after Round 2: Kurt Foket 2-0 Freek de Backer 2-0 Mike Coeck 2-0 Giovanni Bazzi 2-0 Mats Clays 2-0 Frederik Dhaemer 2-0 Werner Vanderhaeghe 1-0-1 Sam Goutsmit 1-1 ROUND 3: Fay Jean Noel (Standard 1648) He is playing U/W Millstone and his second round opponent didn't show up! I stop by the cellar to visit my resistance points... Game 1: Not even close. Weenie, weenie, weenie. Wrath of God. Cursed Scroll. The end. Game 2: I get two Aura of Silences out by turn 4. He's looking very pale :) My Lions do a lot of damage before they go work on the fields and after that the elite forces (Frenetics) finish the job, even with a Gerrard's on his part. Belgian Standings after Round 3: Kurt Foket 3-0 (next round he actually gets to play :) Giovanni Bazzi 3-0 Mats Clays 3-0 Werner Vanderhaeghe 2-0-1 Freek de Backer 2-1 Mike Coeck 2-1 Frederik Dhaemer 2-1 Sam Goutsmit 2-1 ROUND 4: Bruno De Carlo (1573 Standard) Bruno was playing a B/R/U/W deck, a sort of "Good Stuff" deck. It included Lancers, Sedges, Arcanes, Disenchants, Disks and lots of burn. Game 1: I start off strong, but my early weenies get burned really fast. I put out a non-burnable (Priest) and a Frenetic and they knock him down to 9. He then blows up the world with a Disk and my Frenetic fails to phase out! The game shifts slightly in his favour with a Lancer and a Sedge Troll coming out and starting to do some damage. I plow the Sedge and get out a second Cursed Scroll (first one got disenchanted). The Lancer gets scrolled, but before I get to do too much damage, he once again disks, this time taking a Savannah Lion with him. The game goes up and down furiously, and finally he is a 2 life with a Sedge Troll and a Nekrataal on the board, while I'm at 1 life with no creatures left. I check my graveyard and I notice only one Incinerate there and no Bolts. So, before my turn, I Tithe away some lands in my library and tell my deck to give me either a bolt or a Scroll. In an amazing topdeck moment, I draw a Bolt and win :) We agree that it was a really good game. Game 2: I start out with the following hand: Plateau, Lion, Priest, Wasteland, Wasteland, Tithe, Tithe. Beautiful :) Amazingly enough, he does manage to kill my weenies after intense beatdown, once again with a Disk (my Aura's didn't feel like showing up). He is pretty low on life though and has to play it defensively. After a while, he has an untapped Disk out with a Nekrataal, while I have a Longbow Archer, a Lion and a Frenetic. I attack with the Frenetic, he tries to Terror it. It phases out and I make the most of it by disenchanting the Disk. He needs to blow the disk anyway, and the next round the lone Frenetic continues the beatdown. He gets out another Sedge Troll, but it's too late as my Frenetic scores another hit and I put down my Cursed Scroll that I've been holding, along with a lone Tundra :) The long way to the top continues... :) Belgian Standings after Round 4: Kurt Foket 4-0 Mats Clays 4-0 Werner Vanderhaeghe 3-0-1 Giovanni Bazzi 3-1 Sam Goutsmit 3-1 Mike Coeck 3-1 Freek de Backer 2-2 Frederik Dhaemer 2-2 It becomes clear that a 5-1 record might actually be _required_ to get into the top 64. In between rounds, I help out an American guy who's desperately trying to order a ham sandwich and something else. Turned out to be Jon Finkel :) ROUND 5: Cyrille de Foucaud (Standard 1909, Extended 1667) As can be seen by his ratings, Cyrille is no small fish. Last week, he won the ProTour Qualifier in Brussels and he's playing the infamous monogreen land-destruction deck which a lot of the French players are using. More on this deck later. Game 1: I win the toss and choose to start. I start early with a Lion and a Frenetic; he gets an early Wall of Roots which goes farming (isn't that a strange sight? :) I get an Aura out which visibly bothers him, since he had an Icy on standby. He gets out the Icy after a while. I blow it up, taking the risk of something worse, but allowing my attack to continue. He finally blows up some of my land, but I Tithe each time and his Erhnam arrives too late. I see him board in a LOT of cards and am (rightly) guessing he's adding a lot of creatures. Therefore, I'm confident in putting in my Serrated Arrows from the side. I fake a little sideboarding with hydroblasts in and out to give him the impression that I sided in some six cards. Game 2: An early Wall of Roots has my Lions stopped and he gets land destruction going, even though he sided out his Creeping Molds. I draw enough land and Tithes to keep me operational and keep up the pressure. He lays down a disk and blows away my weenies. In my turn, I draw a Soltari Priest and put down a Cursed Scroll with 2 cards in hand. In his turn, he gets out one of my worst enemies: Serrated Arrows. Luckily, my other card was a disenchant. The Priest only gets a few licks in before succumbing, but the awesome power of the Cursed Scoll finishes him off. Belgian Standings after Round 5: Kurt Foket 5-0 Werner Vanderhaeghe 4-0-1 Mats Clays 4-1 Sam Goutsmit 4-1 Giovanni Bazzi 3-2 Mike Coeck 3-2 Freek de Backer 3-2 Frederik Dhaemer 2-3 A nice recovery, but all for naught if I cannot win the last one too... ROUND 6: Cyrille Schmidlin (Standard 1590) It's a decktype I sorely ignored in my sideboard: Buried Alive (R/B). Game 1: I get the megastart, pump out weenies and draw like 3 Wastelands, which I use to off every one of his Gemstone Mines. He does draw a City of Brass, but has to take too much damage early on and never gets his Buried Alive thing going. I finish him off with a bolt. Game 2: I'm mana shy with a Mishra and a Plains. I get out a Lion which gets burned. He gets Buried Alive, drops 3 Ashen Ghouls and when he gets a Goblin Bombardment out, drops a Mogg Fanatic in the graveyard and it's recycle time! Needless to say, I didn't last very long after that. Game 3: It's his turn to get mana shy, which gets worsened by my Wasteland. I switch to total offense, knowing that if he gets Buried Alive it's probably all over for me unless I can do a lot of damage _fast_. He does get Buried Alive going eventually, but my Frenetics combined with burn manage to finish him off before the engine really starts to hurt me. Game! Yay! I actually pulled it out after my first-round loss, and am qualified for the top 64. Belgian Standings after Day 1: Kurt Foket 6-0 Mats Clays 5-1 Sam Goutsmit 5-1 Werner Vanderhaeghe 4-0-2 Giovanni Bazzi 3-2 Mike Coeck 3-3 Freek de Backer 3-3 Frederik Dhaemer 3-3 All 5-1 records end up qualifying, although I'm nr 64 due to lousy resistance points. Poor Werner Vanderhaeghe ends up 65th, despite suffering no defeats the whole day... The day ends with much merriment for some and somewhat less for others... People who didn't make the final cut included PTQ Brugge winner Francois Fressin and Italian Andrea Redi. DAY 2: "The slings and arrows..." --------------------------------- I enter this day totally relaxed, knowing that my Grand Prix is already a success. From now on, spectators are allowed to watch the games, as long as they keep quiet :) We enter 5 rounds of swiss with final 8 direct elimination. The points from day 1 are recycled (and unfortunately the resistance points too...). ROUND 1: Berenger Jérome (Standard 1647, Extended 1648) Goblin Madness: lots of goblins, 4 grenades, 4 forks, 4 bolt, 4 incinerate, 4 Fireblast, you get the idea. Game 1: I get to start and apply fast beatdown. A lion attacks him recklessly, I burn all early goblins and soon he has to start to waste his burn on my critters, which was the general idea all along. After the early casualties (of which there were many :), the Elite Squad comes out (a duo of Frenetics), and combined with the Cursed Scroll they finish him off with me at 14 life. Note that 14 life is hardly safe against a deck such as this :) I side in 2 Arrows, 3 Passages and 3 Hydroblasts. Game 2: Of all the decks I had to be manadead against, this was not the one! Early goblins knock me down to 9 while I'm struggling with my land and from there on, death is only a Grenade/Fork away... Game 3: I start and promptly push him back. Early Lions and Knights are pushing him back bigtime and soon he's at 7 life with me holding a bolt. He then succeeds in killing my last weenie and a period of relative calm passes by. At the end of his turn, I cast a Tithe; he wonders if he can sacrifice his Wasteland to kill itself to deny me the second land from the Tithe, I tell him it's decided on announcement. He wants to hear the opinion of a judge, I tell him I'm a Judge, but I can understand it if he wants another one :). We call a judge over, he says I'm wrong. I gently ask him to get Cyrille, the head judge. Cyrille says I'm wrong. I present my argument and similar cases to Cyrille, who then starts to doubt and consults the Oracle. He returns in 3 minutes and tells me I'm right after all. I grin at my opponent and promptly cast another Tithe :). The game moves on and despite having used 3 Tithes and 2 Flood Plains I draw land, land and more land. My opponent, meanwhile, is holding a full hand of bolts, fireblasts and grenades and I'm getting mightily worried, even though I'm at 20 and am holding a Hydroblast. Finally, he goes for it: he casts a goblin and casts a Grenade. He then forks it; I hydroblast the fork, so take 5. I'm at 15. My turn, I draw Serrated Arrows and play it. His turn, he draws and plays another goblin. I could arrow it, but since he's the active player, he has priority to start a batch anyway, so he casts yet another grenade, forks it, fireblasts me and bolts me!!!!! I lose a game I should have won easily because I hit an incredible mana clump and because my opponent drew more burn than humanly possible... // Interludium Of course, the next day, I suddenly realise that I should have Hydroblasted the first Grenade, thereby getting his Fork to fizzle! For the next hour or so, I'm sooo pissed off at myself for not thinking of this. If I have one strong point, it's my knowledge of the rules and then I screw up on such a crucial moment. Rest assured, that I will not make this mistake again... // End of Interludium Anyway, I'm feeling kinda crushed by this brutal ending, especially since I should have won it easily... Kurt Foket wins his first round. Mats Clays loses his first round too; ask him about Perish next time you see him... ROUND 2: Laurent Alquier (Standard 1593, Extended 1584) Before we start, Cyrille the head judge comes up and tells me he found an errata on Tithe which says that the decision is made on resolution after all. I frown, but tell him that since he's head judge, I'll comply with it. I also go and find the other judge and tell him my decision to call the head judge for a second opinion on the Tithe thing, wasn't meant as a personal thing. He assures me it wasn't taken as one and apologises too for initially giving a shaky answer. After we stop apologising to each other, I return to my opponent :) He's playing one of the french Green land-destruction decks. Game 1: My luck has run out completely and I draw two land the entire game, which of course don't survive very long. My early weenies get Serrated and an Erhnam or two runs over me. Not really anything in my sideboard for this... Game 2: He draws a LOT of land destruction, but I respond to them with Tithes. I have a lot of land in my hand, but hardly any on the table and he gets Ernhams out FAST. I get knocked around badly, but just manage to stabilise the situation, that is until he gets out a second Erhnam. I start to chump block the Erhnam while I'm attacking every round with a forestwalking Lion. It's going to be a close race, as my Lion is going to kill him next round, while I can still sacrifice a Knight to the Ernham. He needs to draw something, and of course topdecks Serrated Arrows, which spell my doom... Oh, well. I had a few 'topdeck' moments myself, so I cannot really complain. Kurt Foket is at 2-0, while Mats Clays has stabilised at 1-1. ROUND 3: Christophe Totier (Standard 1621) He's playing a weird G/B/W deck with Squandered Resources, Land Tax, Scroll Rack and Maro. Really strange, but when it worked, it was devastating. Game 1 & Game 2: I get a fast start, hit him down to 9 or so, he then stabilises and casts a HUGE Maro. I do not draw any Plows in any of the games and get squished. Simple as that. Since I cannot get to the top 32 anymore, I drop out and go watch the other games. Some highlights from the games I watched: * Randy Buehler's Humility deck only drawing one plains for the entire game against Kurt Foket's Sligh deck. Buehler kept his sense of humour, though and said "Lets see if I can find some land in my sideboard" when he lost. * In the same game, Buehler has Foket as good as locked with a Humility, Orim's Prayer and a Conversion on the table. Foket can do absolutely nothing, but then topdecks a Disenchant, kills the Converion and blasts Buehler away with direct damage in one round. * Mats Clays scoring a 4-th turn kill with Yavimaya Ants/Giant Growth/ Giant Growth/Bounty of the hunt. Mats also inflicted more than 50 points of damage with an Overrun in one game. :) * An Italian and a French player getting into a big row on life totals and the Italian guy who loses his self-control (go figure:) and starts talking English _exactly_ like Cpt. Bertorelli from 'Allo 'Allo (Strictly European joke, I guess, and I do apologise to any Italians reading this; it was pretty funny from where I was standing though:) In the end, Kurt Foket goes 3-1-1 and qualifies as 5th seed, while Mats Clays goes 3-2 and ends up 27th, which is great. Meanwhile, Giovanni Bazzi had redeemed himself for his 3-2 of day 1, by winning a Standard side event. He did grumble somehow that he had to use my Blue deck to actually win the event though :) Freek de Backer also wins a side event. The quarterfinals start and we all line up to encourage Kurt Foket, except for Freek de Backer, who runs away in superstitious fear :) QUARTERFINALS (from memory, very scratchy:) Kurt Foket (Sligh) wins from Gabrielle Pesschino (Sligh) 3-1 Michael Debard (Bottle Dance) wins from ?? (Tradewind Geddon) Raphael Levy (Land destroyer) wins from ?? ?? (Tradewind Geddon) wins from Loic Degrou (Merfolk) SEMIFINALS Raphael Levy wins from ?? Kurt Foket wins from Michael Debard 3-1 FINALS Raphael Levy wins from Kurt Foket 3-0 The Sligh deck didn't really stand a chance against the monogreen land- destroyer. The card that actually stopped the deck were the Wall of Roots. This is a (very) rough estimate of the winning deck: 4 x Thermokarst 4 x Creeping Mold 4 x Winters Grasp 4 x Ernham 4 x Wall of Roots 4 x Llanowar Elves 4 x Jolreal's Centaur 4 x Triskelion 4 x Serrated Arrows 4 x Mishra 4 x Wasteland lots of forests Anyway, this report has gone on long enough, let me just finish up with the obligatory Props and Cons: Props to: * The belgian gang for making a fun weekend out of it. * Kurt and Mats for kicking butt. * A little bit to myself for actually getting in the top 64. * The judges for (generally) doing a good job. Cons to: * Myself for the Hydroblast stupidity. * The judges/organisers for using the Old Mulligan rule and not announcing this before the tourny. A suspicious mind could think that the fact that half the French players were playing land-destruction decks had something to do with this... End of report; collapse imminent. See you all later Sam Goutsmit