Subject: Texas Semi PT Report Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 19:41:42 EST From: BlackKnght@aol.com To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com --------------------------------------------- Well I just got back from Lubbock from the first Texas Semi-Pro Tour. It was a pretty fun experience, although it was kinda annoying being on a Sunday and all. Lubbock is about a 12 hour drive from Houston, unless you're going 100 with no stops...so I decided to fly. After the tickets were purchased from Southwest airlines I heard Continental was having some deal where it was $79 round trip to Lubbock from Houston, but I had to thank god for getting non- refundable tickets and take crappy Southwest. I got to The Mad Hatter's (yes, this is his real name) place at about 4 in the evening on Saturday. Hatter was running four 2-spot qualifiers for the Semi-PT the next day. I was already qualified but I needed to make sure my deck would work tomorrow, so I jumped into the second qualifier. Not much to this one, but I did go 5-0 and I got a good feel for the Type II metagame. I'd been sitting on my ranking for a while to qualify for LA, so I needed to make sure I wasn't rusty. I worked the kinks out of my deck and sideboard and playtested with my fellow AustiKnights, then went back to the hotel to get some sleep. I wake the next day and go resgister my deck. Adrian Sayers and Chris Herdeman decide on 5 color Living Death, Sam Nam and Pierre Tsai play white/blue control, Brian Ogilbee plays Propaganda, and Paul Gallegher plays 5 Color Gallegher. Sometime before the tournament starts the Dallas guys show up. Jeremy Baca, Cary Darwin, Bryan Sammon, and David Williams all walk in the door and we exchange greetings. Jeremy then starts messing with people names. "Whoa, if you switched around the B and H in your name, you'd be Hryan Bubble. Hey David, you'd be Wavid Dilliams," and so on. It was pretty disturbing but amusing in the way only Jeremy can say stuff. Some of the best players in Texas and some of the surrounding states have come and I'm ready to play. Anyway, I settle on the following deck. We played it at Regionals but it's made some changes since Alliances went out and Tempest came in: Frozen Fish 4 Manta Riders 4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Sea Scryer 4 Counterspell 4 Winter Orb 4 Man-o'-War 3 Waterspout Djinn 3 Suq'Ata Firewalker 2 Nevinyrral's Disk 2 Propaganda 2 Memory Lapse 2 Rootwater Diver 2 Undiscovered Paradise 20 Island Sideboard: 4 Legacy's Allure 3 Steal Enchantment 3 Disrupt 3 Hydroblast 1 Seasinger 1 Propaganda Hatter announces there will be 6 rounds of swiss to top 8 single elimination. 63 people showed up and probably 60% of them are good to respectable players. It's *almost* like a pro tour, guess the name does it justice... First Round vs. Mason Peatross playing Black/Red I know Mason from Houston. He's on the new team that sprung up around here. I don't know if they have a name yet but they used to be Team Book Browser until the Browser stopped sponsoring them. A similar thing happened to the AustiKnights since Showtime Comics went out of business. Kinda sucks. Game One: I start out with some early fish. He burns and edicts away most of my stuff and drop a Bone Dancer. I Man-o-War it and he plays it next turn. He attacks, I block, both die. I drop Disk, blow up a Cursed Scroll, play Waterspout. Eventually I get him to one before he kills it, and I finally slip a fish through his wall of removal and kill him. I side in Legacy's Allures, Hydroblasts, and I think one Disrupt. Game Two: He gets mana screwed with a Gemstone and a Swamp, but manages to kill lots of my stuff. I control a Shadow Guildmage with an Allure and I even have a Undiscovered to use the plink ability. Eventually the Gemstone dies and he's stuck with a swamp. I put out a Waterspout and the game's over. Match Record: 1-0 Game Record: 2-0 Round Two vs. Joe Oxford playing Blue He may have been playing Bounce but I wasn't sure. It had weird stuff like Syluvenite Temple and it also had disks and whispers, so I think it was just a blue control style deck Ophidians for card drawing. Game One I don't see any early fish, but I do I get a Winter Orb out after he plays a Firewalker. He then plays Ophidian, attacks me and draws a card before I can Man-o-War the Phid. I draw a Fish King and start to play all the fish in my hand. Eventually he gets a disk out and blows up the world when he's at two. I play Waterspout and say go. His turn he has like 5 cards in his hand. He goes Whisper, no buyback, Whisper, no buyback...and concedes. I sideboard in Legacy's Allures, Disrupts, Seasinger, and a Steal Enchantment or two in case of Propaganda. Game Two He's mana screwed and I get the fish draw. I attack for 2, 4, 6, and 10. I fell kinda bad for the guy because of the mana screw, but even he admits my deck should beat his every time. Fish just beats bounce. Match Record: 2-0 Game Record: 4-0 Chris and Adrian are both 2-0 with Living Death, and so is Paul. I think Sam went 0-2 with a really bad start and Pierre is 1-1 while Brian is 1-0-1. Round 3 vs. Burn Boy So far all I could hear about this entire tournament was Burn Boy. He beat like 2 GOOD players in a row with random burn and now I have to play him. Earlier I heard him saying he had his 4 Cursed Scroll in the *sideboard* and other stuff. We sit down and he's like "Hey, I remember you, you beat me in Austin in the MirVLite qualifier." Me: "Uhh..yeah, you were playing red/green weren't you? Red/Green sucks in that format. That deck was pretty bad." Him: "Yeah I had like 4 Viashivans those were so cool and..." Me: "Viashivans suck dude." Game One Him: "Ha ha burn you to death I'm so good at Maaaaaaagic!" Game Two Me: "Ha ha beat you down with fish I'm so good at Maaaaaagic." Game Three He starts off with lots of random burn. I drop an orb, he taps out for a Furnace of Wrath. I play Lord, he plays Mogg Fanatic and kills it (thanks to the furnace). I play a Waterspout and I'm gonna kill him next turn. Next turn he untaps, draws, plays a land, Hammers me. I'm was at 2, so I disrupt it. Fireblast me..I'm dead. If only blue got some card where you could sack to island to do something insanely cool. Now I get to thank god I didn't play with Chill, and also got matched up with the only random burn deck not 0-2. It sucks how people just keep playing burn, because 90+% of the time it dies horribly. Sometimes though scrubs just win with it. Now I have to listen to this random kid the whole tournament about how good his deck is. "If I beat you, it has to be good." Sigh..I didn't put Chills in the sideboard and I payed the price. 32 points....*FLUSH!* Match Record: 2-1 Game Record: 5-2 Now I have to go 5-1 to make top 8. We did the math and if everyone drew last round there'd be about 8-10 people who were 4-1-1 with only 4 making the top 8. Not a risk I want to take. Round Four vs. James Webb playing White/Blue Control w/ Green for Gaea's Blessing Game One I drop fish or two, he goes third turn Teferi's Honor Guard. I drop Winter Orb, next turn he Spirit Links it and starts attacking. He makes up the damage from my fish for a few turns until I draw a King and start doing more damage. He drops a Scroll Rack and starts scrolling like crazy for Wraths, Disks, or Wisdoms. He gets up to 4 mana a few times to cast a disk or wrath, but I either counter it or Lapse it and make him start over. Eventually I drop him to 0. I SB Disrupts and 2 Steal Enchantments. Game Two I get a good fish draw and start attacking. He manages to wrath and I drop worb. I put out a Fish King but get no other fish so I jst attack with the King. He casts a Disk and I can't counter it. he also casts Gerrard's Wisdom and goes up to 20. A turn before I had Man-O-Wared my King after he cast the disk, so I attack w/ Man-O-war next turn. He's makes the mistake that probably cost him the game. he blows the disk during my attack with his last open mana. I guess he wants to be at 20 instead of 18...I have 7 mana open and I tap six and drop Fish King, Fish King, and Winter Orb. He tries to cast a Wrath a few turns later but I disrupt it and send Fish Kings in for the kill. Match Record: 3-1 Game Record: 7-2 Adrian is 3-1, Chris is 3-1, Paul is 3-1, getting matched up with a teammate is getting closer and closer... Round Five vs. Ryan Greene playing an Overrunner deck I didn't get a very good look at this deck, but it was basically mono-green with blue and white for Geddons and Man-O-Wars. He also had Winter Orbs, maros, boas, Elvish Archers, and tons of mana producing creatures. He had a pretty weird combo...Earthcraft/Winter Orb. Tap all my stuff before your turn to untap all my land. Game One He plays a turn on elf and I follow it up with a Fish. He plays third turn Maro and I counter it. I play Fish King and attack. He plays a boa and starts attacking me. I get out another Fish King and start dropping 3/3 Fish. He gets out Wall of Roots to stop some of my stuff until I get Manta Riders and start to fly over. I play a Firewalker and two turns later he casts Overrun. This is quite a surprise. I kill off his boa in response to the overrun since he's out of mana, and he whales on me for 11. Luckily I was at 14 and I kill him next turn. I SB in Legacy's Allures and an extra Propaganda. Game Two He goes first turn elf. Second turn Wall of Roots and River Boa. I play a second turn Sea Scryer..so slooooow. Third turn he plays another Boa and attacks me for 2. I play third turn Disk, but he has 2 Boas out. Hopefully he'll make a mistake. Next turn he taps out and casts Overrun. I go from 18 to 4. Next turn I disk, he regens one boa w/ Wall of Roots, and I cast a Firewalker. Next turn he attacks and I'm at two. I play Waterspout and attack while Firewalker holds off the boa. Eventually I get into a safe position and he can't kill me. Waterspout goes all the way. Match Record: 4-1 Game Record: 9-2 Paul ran out of time and is now 3-1-1. Adrian lost, Chris won, Brian Ogilbee is 3-1-1 too. Round Six vs. Bob Coonce playing Black weenie with tons of non-black SB cards Bob is also from Houston, but not on the Houston team. We know each other well and we both know this will be a hard game. Bob was 4-0-1 because there were five people with a 4-0-1 record. Bob remarks that we're playing a "$825 ante game," but Bob will probably make the top 8 even if he loses because he's number 4 right now. If I lose, I'm out. I'm also number 7 before this round so I can't draw in and be safe. Game One Bob casts lots of black weenies and follows them up with Barrow Ghouls later in the game. I have to block the Ghouls with my Spouts to stay alive, and eventually he runs over me with more effective weenies. I side in Legacy's Allures, and extra Propaganda, and a Hydroblast or two. Game Two I start out with some fish while Bob plays an Askari and Black Knight. I manage to block a Black Knight with 3 creatures and kill it, and also play a Propaganda to slow him down. I play a Spout and he 'Taals it, which means he won't be attacking me that turn, and I play another Spout after that. At this point he has Circling Vultures and Fallen Askari and Nekrataal in play, and they are too scared of the Spout to attack. My Legacy's Allure builds to 3 counters and I control the Vultures. Thanks to Bob's early offensive I have plenty of Man-O-Wars and fish to feed to the vultures, and I start attacking for 3 a turn and kill him. Game Three He starts off with a second turn Dauthi Slayer, and another the third turn. He only has City of Brass and Swamp in play though, and I drop second turn Lord, third turn Man-O-war, fourth turn Man-O-War, and 5th turn Lord/Legacy's Allure. It's too fast of an offense for Bob and I swarm him for the kill. Match Record: 5-1 Game Record: 11-3 Now I'm 5-1 and guaranteed into the top 8. There's talk of splitting the 6,600 purse for the top 8, where everyone gets $825. This is a good deal because 3-4th place only gets $800, and the only person who would get much more money would be that guy that got $3,000 for winning it. The competition's pretty stiff for the top 8 so I agree to split with everyone. Top 8 breaks down something like this (NOT in order of cede, just off the top of my head): Me (Fish) Bob Coonce (Black Weenie w/ non-black sb cards) James Jenkins (either Living Death or Necratog) Ted Dickerson (ProsBloom) Jeremy Baca (ProsBloom) Andrew Johnson (Blue Bounce w/ black in SB for Perish) Burn Boy (grrr..) Cary Darwin (Necropotence) Brian Ogilbee got 9th. Chirs lost his round and Paul "lost" to Cary. Hatter says we have to play it out since he wants a winner, and since the top 4 get to go to the next Semi-PT. I get paired up against Andrew Johnson, the best possible deck for me to play against. Not only am I like 40-1 in santioned play against Andrew, he's also playing bounce! All day he's been saying he wants to play me so he can beat me down and I'm like "What are you on crack? Fish destroys bounce!" We sit down for a friendly and casual game since we both already have the money. Game One My opening hand sucks. No Fish, no Fish Kings, one island. I draw 3 land in a row though, and he tries to cast a thrid turn Ophidian. I look at him funny and counter it. next turn I drop a Winter Orb. Oops, that kinda hurts bounce. At this point I start singing "Fish beats bounce. La la la" and dropping fish and fish Kings. I let him play a Sapphire Medallion and two propagandas and he starts talking like he's going to win. Next turn I drop a disk and start singing again. "Fish beats bounce. La la la." I blow up the world before the end of his turn and use a Rootwater Diver to get back an Orb I had discarded earlier. I untap everything and lay the Worb. Andrew counters, I lay another Worb plus a Waterspout. I play Sea Scryer next turn and attack him. He taps out to Man-O-War my Spout and I'm like "ooooh, that saved you ONE turn" and cast it again next turn. I run over him with the Spout. I SB sooooooo many cards. Legacy's Allures, Disrupts, Steal Enchantments, Seasinger..it was 11 I think. While Andrew is sideboarding he's like "ooooh..I know how to beat you! Ha ha you're going to lose" and starts sideboarding real fast. I laugh at him and sing some more. "Fish beats bounce. La la la...." Game Two I play a Fish and start attacking. He Impulses a bit and taps out to try and cast something..I forgot what. I counter and drop Fish King/Worb next turn. I cast more fish next turn and start beating the hell out of him. I'm singing "Fish beats bounce. La la la" the whole time too, and it's some great fun. He starts complaining "Aw man, if I had one more mana I'd cast Propaganda and you couldn;t attack." Me: "Steal Enchantment haha." Him: "I have a Steal Enchantment too" Me: "Doesn't work when you're dead. Fish beats bounce. La la la!" Match Record: 6-1 Game Record: 13-3 Bob Coonce beat Burn Boy Cary Darwin beat James Jenkins Both the ProsBloom deck played each other..I forgot who won but I think Jeremy did After our round everyone got all excited at the table with Burn Boy and Bob. I asked what happened, and Bob had just Honorable Passaged a Fireblast....while a Furnace was out. Take 16! Amazing. This report's getting kinda long so I'll be breif with the rest of the games. Next Round: Cary Darwin beats Me 2-1 Bob beats the ProsBloom deck 2-0 Bob's opponent had 16 cards in their SB when he was deck checked so Bob got a free win game one. Game two the guy got mana screwed. I beat Cary game one, next two games his Mind Stones overcome my Winter Orb while my steal enchantments and disrupts never show up. Cary played great and we had alot of fun joking around. Finals Cary Darwin beats Bob Coonce Overall it was a good tournament. I split some of the money I won with the rest of my teammates as we had agreed before the tournament and come out with about $600. I love it when people pay me to play Magic. I also get an invite to the next Semi-PT a few months from now, which will have 128 seats instead of 64. I was the only AustiKnight in the top 8, which sucked alot since we had expected to make a much better showing. With 5 people qualified for LA we should do better there. That's it for the first Semi-PT. Maybe next time it will be on a Saturday. I'll end it with the notorious Props and Slops. Props: Hatter for playing me to play Magic. Cary Darwin for winning it and being a cool guy. Jeremy Baca for his name-switching antics. My teammates because they're just cool. Bryan Sammon and David Williams for playing the most origional deck there. Slops: Hatter for holding a tournament on Sunday. BURN BOY Andrew Johnson for thinking Bounce can beat Fish Southwest airlines because it took me 5 hours to get back to Houston Tim Dickerson for suggesting the AustiKnights recruit Jeff Clark See you in LA. Bryan Hubble AustiKnights See you in LA. Bryan Hubble AustiKnights