Subject: Regionals Report Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 02:09:17 -0700 From: Mark Schick To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Frank: Here's my tourney report from the Northern California Regionals, held at Neutral Ground CA on May 16, 1998. First off I guess I should talk about the "road to regionals" so to speak. About three months ago, when Stronghold came in, my roommate, Ed Grubaugh (who also happens to be a bear) built a fairly quirky blue/green deck. It had 8 walls, prop/orb, a couple tradewinds (ask him, NOT me) and some waterspouts to kill among other cards. When he playtested it a bit, he lost his ass and pretty much trashed the deck. On the way to the dumpster, he passed it along to Greg Dube in LA. Well a couple months passed and a month ago Ed comes back to me with a blue/green deck. It's similar to the last one but Dube made it like 24750282421 times better. He had taken out the spouts, put in Tradewind #3, took out firewalkers and put in gaea's blessings. Ed made a few cosmetic changes, including putting in tradewind #4 and fixing up land among other things. He started playing it and realized that among other things, it beat A) necro, B) sligh, and C) pretty much everything else here in NoCal. At a $1000 tourney 2 weeks ago, we both played it. Together we went 7-4-2... unimpressive to say the least. Here was the deck as we played it then: 4 Tradewind 8 Walls 4 impulse 4 counterspell 4 mana leak 2 gaea's blessing 2 propaganda 3 winter orb 2 legacy's allure 3 man-o-war 3 uktabi orangutan 22 land (5 multis) In the 2 weeks between that tourney and regionals, ed gave up on it and started playing a WW deck that had firestorm (a common card in *good* regionals decks). Dan Clegg (you might know him as "Alatar1 from the IRC" or simply "ATM1") liked the deck so we carried it on, making a few changes. The deck at regionals: 4 Tradewind 4 wall of roots 3 wall of blossoms 4 impulse 4 counterspell 3 mana leak 3 propaganda 3 man-o-war 3 uktabi orangutan 2 winter orb 1 armageddon 1 silver wyvern 2 earthquake 2 legacy's allure 9 island, 7 forest, 4 paradise, 2 gemstone SB: 3 dread of night \ 2 light of day >Pure and utter hatred 3 chill / 3 pyroblast 1 armageddon 1 uktabi orangutan 2 Tranquil Domain In testing we figured that this deck would pretty much beat up on weenie decks, and despite what people might say, it only gets uglier after SB. One big problem was control decks but we pretty much crossed our fingers and hoped everyone would play creature decks (as they pretty much were). I'll spare the usual pre-tournament drivel (if you really crave that sort of thing, you can read Eric Campusano's report). On with the tourney: There were about 150 or 160 people at NG. 8 rounds of swiss. Round 1: Dan Dubois playing U/R Creature Dan is a decent player, but for some reason I seem to beat him every time I play him. *shrug* Game 1: He stalls out at 3 land, after playing the same cloud elemental 3 times (thanks to 2 jellyfish) and facing the prospect of recasting it 30 more times (thanks to Mr. Rider) he packs it up and we move to game 2. Game 2: I lay 3rd turn monkey to apply a little early beatdown. He lays 4th turn spout, I jellyfish and hit for 2. Next turn he recasts spout, I pyroblast. A couple turns later he casts a spindrift, I play the wyvern with sufficient U open to protect it. He unstables his spindrift to hold down the fort, I draw jellyfish, cast it, leaving 3 mana open. He leaks, I think for a while, pay the 3 and he concedes. 1-0 Round 2: Peter Constantinidis playing U/R Counterhammer Peter usually judges all the big tourneys up here, but since Don Barkauskus got level 3 he's been trying to play in tourneys. I knew his to be a problem deck since I played him 2 weeks ago and we drew on time in 3rd game. Game 1: I play 3rd turn monkey, he incinerates. I play 4th turn monkey, he plays 4th turn disk. Having played against this deck only 2 weeks ago I pretty much wet my pants. He deals with the monkey in short order and the disk gives him enough time to control the board and get the whisper going. He killed me with a fireball for 40 or something. Game 2: Similar to game 1 in that an untapped disk controls the board. I'm able to successfully cast orangutan, so he disks in response, blowing the hell out of my 2 walls of blossoms, tang and propaganda. He starts doing the whisper thing, going for about 4 turns. I draw a geddon, and feebly attempt to cast it. He thinks for a second, then says, "In response..." IN RESPONSE?!?!?!?! He whispers in response. I float 2 and he floats another 6. He whispers again, I play wall of roots and whack with the monkey. He draws next turn and says... go. I attack another couple turns with monkey, he eventually draws quicksand, then I draw my wyvern, cast it, and hit him twice with it. Game 3: He tries to kill quick with the shivan but as I'm thinking, time is called. I chump with tradewind. It turns out he had 'quake in hand so he could have killed me. *whew* 1-0-1 Round 3: Derek Lundy playing Sligh Derek is a hideously deformed mutant and also a friend of mine. He has skill with sligh, so i'm minorly worried but my deck is tuned to beat it. Game 1: So much for being tuned to beat sligh. He gets a great draw and pounds my scrawny ass into the turf. My scorecard looks something like this: 20 18 8 0. Game 2: I get 2nd and 3rd turn chill on him, he beats on me with a pup for a while until I drop wall, wall, tradewind, then impulse for the geddon, that's game. Game 3: I get 2nd and 3rd turn walls which stop his ground assault. Orb stops his scroll and slows him down, I eventually get a tradewind + chill. At about turn 15 or 20 I draw earthquake. I look at his 2 pups on the board, my life (at 17), then quake for 6 (paying the extra 2 of course). 2-0-1 Round 4: Ben Blue playing red/green creature This deck is pretty much an ideal matchup... little or no enchantment/artifact kill and all little creatures. Game 1: Paris? Where's that? I get 1 land and lose horribly. Game 2: I get a couple walls, then drop a chill, eventually double prop + orb shuts his attack down, ray of command with allure, then hit him over the head with jellyfish. Game 3: Similar to game 2. 3-0-1 Round 5: Playing Dan "4 Chills" Clegg playing... yes you guessed it, U/G Tradewind Dan wrote an extra chill on his sideboard (giving him 16) so he had to play without sideboard all day. Game 1: May he who gets the tradewind out first, win. That's me, I win. Game 2: See game 1, except I get to pyroblast his counters. Unfair, all in all, but that's an inexcusable mistake. 4-0-1 Round 6: Kenneth Chui playing black weenie Kenneth sat next to me the last 3 rounds... we started rooting for each other. Oh well life goes on. Game 1: I stabilize the board at about 5 life with prop/orb/tradewind action, eventually kill him with a man-o-war and monkey. Game 2: I keep my opening hand because it has light of day (which he had no way to deal with), but I never get up to 4 land and he crushes me with a few shadows. Game 3: Again I have the LoD in my opening hand with 2 islands, so I keep it. He strips an undiscovered, but I draw another and play the light. He picks it up, looks at it, kind of looks around and starts laughing. I play a jellyfish, then a monkey to break one of his scrolls, and lay on the beatings. He tries to kill my 2/2's with the scroll but with 6 cards in hand it's futile. 5-0-1 Round 7: John Murphy playing 5 color black Game 1: Pretty similar to game 1 last round, I establish early board control with props and kill him with a manowar and his own dauthi horror. Game 2: I get crushed in like 5 turns. I get one prop for anti-creature but he pyros it and goes straight through me. Game 3: Easily one of the most tense games of my life. I get the board control at 8 (with light of day), he incinerates me twice. I eventually get out wall, tradewind, manowar and start bouncing land with orb out. He edicts away the wall, so I go to work with dumb creatures. Turn after turn I draw LAND, while he draws and does pretty much nothing. He edicts the tradewind, I lay allure. With him at 2 he plays monkey, tapping out to kill the orb. Fine, I do remember to steal it with the allure, and kill him next turn. 6-0-1 Round 8: Brian Rovegno playing Black Ice We take the ID and I go with Eric Campusano to get some grub. We come back and they announce the top 8... after round 7. Duhhh. When they do it right I get 1st in swiss on my 3rd tiebreaker, Eric gets 8th. Ed couldn't draw a multiland for his 2 sleights in hand in round 4 (at 3-0) and has a disappointing day. Derek, who drew like a fiend in every fun game, drew like a scrub in the tournament and dropped at like 1-3-1. Dan went 5-3 without a sideboard, which is saying something. The guys in the top 8 are all pretty tired (myself included) so we decide to forgo the single elim and get our prizes and go home. Up next: Origins '98, and taking cash from Jason Opalka. The traditional end to any tourney report: Props: Ed and Greg for building the deck Eric for pulling his head out of his ass Ruth Lundy for graciously providing lodgings Weenie decks everywhere Slops: Ed for drafting the most god-awful deck i've ever seen Dan Clegg for having... sub-optimal math skills That Erica girl (Campusano is right) Eric, because giant crab over kindle is NEVER the right choice I hope this report was at least mildly informative. If you have an q's email me at mschick@uclink4.berkeley.edu. Thanks, Mark Dash Mark- on IRC