Subject: tournament report(s) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:59:06 + 100 From: ep96lokl@ihh.hj.se (KLAS LOFSTROM) To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hello This is a tournament report from Stockholm open at the Stockholm gaming convention StockCon. It was a very special tournament style. First three tounaments were played over three days; classic, standard (witch was also a qualifier for the swedish championships) and extended. then the top 16 from those three tournaments played a final that consisted of 5 round swiss, 2 rounds standard, two rounds extended and then 1 round classic. and then semi finals and finals in classic. My name is Klas Lofstrom. I'm don't have a DCI ranking cause Sweden sucks at reporting. It seems better now cause over the summer wizards changed their representative in Sweden to one that gives a really good impression. The second event was standard. 8 round of swiss and no finals. i think that just over 50 people perticipated. here is my deck: 15 Swamps 2 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Dark Ritual 1 Infernal Tribute 1 Kaervek's Spite 1 Spinning Darkness 4 Bad Moon 1 Necratog 4 Black Knight 4 Fallen Askari 2 Knights of Stromgald 4 Dauti Slayer 4 Dauti Horror 4 Sarcomancy 4 Sewer Rats 2 Shadow Guildmage 4 Cursed Scroll Sideboard 4 Forsaken Wastes 3 Spinning Darkness 2 Gloom 1 Perish 3 Urborg Justice 2 Winter Orb The deck worked very well and won against just about everything but there are two cards that just about kill it and thats Propaganda and Light of Day. I kind of forgot about propaganda when I built the sideboard and deck and I would recomend having some enchantment denial in the sideboard. Also the Infernal Tribute was pretty useless and always got sided out. If I were to tweak the deck I would add 1 Undiscovered Paradise 1 Underground River and 1 Sulphurous Springs in the deck and 1-2 each of the painlands in the sideboard so that I could play Sleight of Mind and Pyroblast in the sideboard. 2 Winter Orb, 2 Gloom, and 2 Forsaken Wastes would Have to go for 3 Pyroblast and 3 Sleight of Mind. 1 Perish and 1 Urborg Justice would have to go for the painduals. another alterantive is aother undiscovered in the deck and 3 city of brass and disenchant in the sideboard Well on to the tournament: round 1 against Kjell Hensman he played a very slow mono? green heavy creature deck. 1: I got three shadow guys out early and he had no defence against them. His offence was limited to a Llanowar until round 4 but by then he was as good as dead. 2: Same story as in the first duel only yhis time the guys didn't have shadow and one of them died by walking into a 4/4 fatty guy that came on turn 4. 2-0 and 1-0-0 round 2 against Andreas Cermak playing red blue burn, ophidians, man-o-wars counters and nevinyrral's disks. He's one of the players who usually do quite well and he was in the semifinals in the classic yesterday. 1: I play a lot more creatures than he can handle and he dies quickly 2: I take a mulligan and draw 7 new cards only it happends to be the paris mulligan that is in effect so I get a warning and get really mad at myself for making such a dumb mistake. well on my new mulligan I get only 1 land but I don't want to take another cause I have 1 creature I can play and a dark ritual in my hand. Also I don't want ot start with even less cards in my hand. Well I don't get another land for 3 turns and he draws 2 Man-o-wars and 1 Knights of the mists so I die pretty quickly. 3: I play some fast creatures he quakes 2. I play some more creatures one of witch is a necratog that he never get's rid of. 4-1 and 2-0-0 round 3 I play Carl Thille who is playing a white weenie with a lot of splashfor Man-o-wars and bolts. he did quite well and was among them who could draw to qualify for the swedish championships (top 20%) but he got to play someone with less points and I think he lost. 1: I play lots of creatures as usual some get man-o-wared or bolted but that wasn't enough to stop the onslaught. He was tapped down to one white with 4 lives left and teh Kaervek's Spite won the day. 2: I played 3 Protection white guys and he drew no off-color mana for his bolt his 2 man-o-wars and his Derelor. There is no time to wait for such things aggainst my deck. 6-1 and 3-0-0 round 4 against Markus Angelin who played a red black weenie with bolts and lots of small creatures He qualified for the finals on day 4 1: I played 2 2/2 guys on turn 1 and another on turn 2. He bolts and kills them off but never gets into the game. He's on the defence all the time with an offensive deck. 2: About the same story as game 1 only he was the one who flooded out creatures and I was the one on the defence. I only had two mana and couldn't keep up with his casting pace. 3: I started with only one land but otherwise terrific hand and played a Sewer Rat on turn 1. He countered with a sewer rat of his own so on my turn 2 when I drew a land :) I decided to play a Bad moon so that he couldn't block my creature without his dying!! When he told me that mine died too I just stareed at him in disbelief. Then he said that bad moon affects all players and I looked again at his creature and yes his sewer rat was black too :( at that time it struck me that it is a good idea to sleep more than 2 hours per night when you have magic tournaments all day so the following two nights I slept 4 hours :) On his next turn he played a creature but forgot to play a land. I can't recall if he ever got another land but in any case my deck was much too fast to allow even a bit of mana problems and he died in about 3 turns. 8-2 and 4-0-0 round 5 against Andreas Cadelin who is playing an Unstable merfolk deck with 4 Legacy's alured that he calls belgian blue after the mutated belgian cows. 1: I draw 7 mana and 5 other cards and he just playes lots of creatures and a legacy and i die in about 5 turns 2: He draws about the same amount of land as I did in game 1 and he dies about as fast as I did. 3: he draws only 1 land and dies about as fast as game 2 10-3 and 5-0-0 and I'm going to play against Mike Magnusson who is the only other player who is 5-0-0. round 6 against Mike Magnusson playing an almost mono blue deck that features man-o-war, tradewind riders , sage owls, counters,impulse, force spike and armagedddon. 1: on turn 1 I play 3 creatures and he never recoveres from that. 2: I hit him down to 7 lives and he is going to die on his next turn when he top decks one of his two Light of Day. on the turn before that he disenchanted my Scroll Rack and I never draw a new one so I die. around here i realise that my sideboarding is about as bad as they come. I didn't sideboard in my Forsaken. Normally I sideboard quite well but at this stage I'm not really thinking straight due to lack of sleep. I mean what was I afraid of. he didn't have very many damage dealers in his deck and a forseken would have been able to win me the game had I gotten it into play. :( 3: I get off to a reall slow start. Only one land after a mulligan and I never go for another mulligan after that if I have a land. he playes light of day on turn 4 and I'm cursing the fact that I didn't get a dark ritual so that I could play a first turn gloom or enough lands to play a turn 3 or 4 gloom. After a few round I concede with him having 2 Ophidians in play. 11-5 and 5-1-0 round 7 against Håkan Karlsson who is playing a propageddon with frenetics and bolts and was one of the 16 to make the finals on day 4. 1: he playes a turn 3 wrath of god cleaning the board of three creatures. bad play from me letting him get such a big card advantage. He then playes a propaganda followed by an armageddon that takes 4 lands. one more than it should have taken if I had been smart enough to anticipate it witch wasn't really very hard. so two mistakes already and they probably cost me the game. 1 get two mana and start beating him down but his two fretics are beating faster. I get him to 4 and he gets me to 4 but I don't draw a land so I can Spite him to death so his frenetics kill me. 2: 1 ritual out a rat and a black knight on turn 1, he plays land, I play land rat pump rat and attack for 4. he plays land. I play land and attack for 7. he plays land. i attack and play dark ritual to pump 5 and 9 points of damage. he has no instant creature denial and dies. 3: I knew what to expect and he played a propaganda a frenetic and a geddon by turn 5. I had saved mana for the geddon but he playes another geddon 2 turns later with the help of a diamond and I draw new land just a bit too late to kill him. He's at 1 when I die. I lost 2 close games but my play was far from optimal and he had two good draws when he won. I feel that I should have won against this deck as my deck felt quite a lot better than his but that's life and if you only sleep 2 hours you can't expect your play to be optimal. so I'm 12-7 and 5-2-0 going into the last round. I have nothing to play for as I can't win anyhow and I'm relly getting tired almost falling asleep when my opponent thought for too long during the last game. round 8 against Peter Lund who I know from past convensions isn't a very fast player. if we draw both of us get qualified for the nationals and when he proposes it I agree. so 5-2-1 was my total score and I ended up 6th. The deck felt solid and I felt that I could have won had I drawn better against the top players and done less mistakes in the last rounds of play. It would gain from better sideboard however and some encantment removal would be nice to be able to sideboard in. Mike Magnusson won with the blue tradewind geddon deck at 7-0-1.