Subject: Random thoughts (Side, BBCounter, GP Zuerich....) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:09:05 +0200 From: Nestor Rodriguez Hi all out there! After an intensive Mtg weekend in Zuerich (GP) I come back, open my mailbox, and what do I find? Trillions of mails about Buback Counterspells and sideboard things....C`mon, this is supposed to be strategy list, and there is not even a sign of strategy in that. This are my only three sentences to those issues. On BBCounterspell: Please be serious this card hasn`t even been printed jet, and you are already considering it as a strategic card. Why don`t you talk as intensively about cards that are already in the set? Like Torture chamber, or any other ramdom card????? On Sideboards: If you don`t like the sideboard, don`t play them, you are not forced to...Please stop that i this forum or keep it private, at least. Now to the GP and something more strategical....:) Ok, my team (See signature for name) decided to drive to Zuerich (About 2 hours) and take place in the GP which qualifies for chicago, I think. To be honest, I did not expect to do well, and was thinking from the very beginning on dropping for the side events. After arriving about two hours in advance (we had to wait!) we finnally checked in, and started playing T2 (everybody is testing for the nationals). Looking arround the area you could see a lot of familiar faces (Finkel, Blumke, the Tchecks The O'Mahoney-Schwartzs ...) so I could imagine that I would go even faster to the side events (no byes for me...:( ) The sealed session started and I had a quite crappy starter, but I had Grave Pact (you have to sac a creature for each of my creatures that goes to the graveyard) and it rocked all over the tournament. I had a few good green fatties (spikes and stuff) some good white and black things, so I went with these colours. I won the first match, and lost the second, so I though....Let`s go to the sides..:) However, I won three games in a row...and was there with a 4-1-0 with possibilities to get into the second day, amagazing, isn`t it? Well I knew that normally you get in with a 4-1-1...So I ID, and that was my biggest mistake of the tournament. I did not consider that byes count as 6 opponent score points, and as I had non of them I became 67th...:( Maybe it`s just me, but that byes story looks like a bit unfair, as you will have the same players winning over and over again (they only need one win and one draw and they are in...) So I skipped this part and went for the side events the second day. I started with standard, with a new Blue/White creation, thinking that everybody would play red or at least weenie. How wrong I was!!! I went into a grop with 3 Blue/White, 1 vineyard, one Living death, and the rest was Deep bounce...I skipped this tournament because it took too long (the ones beside me took 2 hours to finnish the first game!!!!!). Due to this, I missed al the chinese japanese Tempest stronghold booster drafts, so I went to just english in this format... I played two and won two of them undefeated (maybe I`m good at this). The best thing is the colours I drafted. On the first tournament I had the most powerfull draft deck I`ve ever seen. I had soooo much powerfull stuff that I did not have room for it. A small sample of what I had: Humility (6th pick), Helm of Possesion (1st Pick), Torture Chamber (1st pick), Capsize, Counterspell, power sink, legacy`s allure, 3 Smite!!!, 2 shadows, some fliers, Mind Games, Wisper`s of the muse, 2 Anoint, Knight of Dawn, some encores, and and and.... It was incredible, dor the first time I made a dream become true, a Blue/white control deck in draft!!!! I think it is obvious that black and red are usually better for this format, but believe me, white is stronger because there will be nobody drafting it.... For the second draft, I constructed again an amagazing deck, composed of 2 masters of decoy, 11 fliers!!!!, 5 Shadows!!!!, 5 Removal cards, the only flacker in weatherlight (it was tempest, tempest, weatherlight), and invulnerability... I won again undefeated... Here I`d like to add some ramdom comments to limited. It seems like everybody drafts the same things in the current formats, Red/Black/Green... The thing is in stronghold there are many powerfull white cards (the best colour?) with the en-cores, conviction, smites... But noone seems to like that. Besides blue has a lot of powerfull stall cards and fliers... Why does noone dare to draft this? Another thought s why does noone play hero`s resolve (the trousers) or conviction (the pampers). This card is usually 2-4th pick for me, especially in this format, but everybody out there seems to underestimate it... Just put it on a shadow, and it`s almost a game... Well this were just a few things on the GP, etc... I did not write a report, because I lost my sheet with the names of the players... Now I`ll go for answering the few mails that don`t talk about BBCounters or sideboard stuff. Best regards to everyone... Read'ya! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nestor Rodriguez Vilanova-Team: UPS United Pipistrelli Syndicate "We all make mistakes...;-)" "Magic is like life, many people play, few get to master it" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------