Subject: Scottish Regionals Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 20:20:16 +0100 From: David Hughes To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Scottish Championships, May 17th 1998 After a 7 month lay off from competitive Magic (no Tempest no Stonghold) it's back in harness for the Scottish Championship. I haven't got a clue what to play, and drive through to Edinburgh with 6 decks made up - sligh, fish, big blue with red splash for earthquake, dead horse pox with earthquake, steel bottle necro and tradewind geddon - and lots of other ideas. It's impossible to know what to play if you don't know the decks, the cards or the environment. We pick up Doug Nelson who says that the decks to watch will be Donais 5CU, heavy burn sligh and U/R counter toast. As usual I'm starting to panic and so fall back on instinct - counterspells, board control and mana denial - and decide on the tradewinds. Mark chooses the necro and Doug is going Donais with 2 furnace main, but is struggling for reflecting pools. The talk in the car is about 5-2 decks, which is the score we guess will qualify - I'm almost tempted to ditch the tradewinds and go for a white weenie - how can you not go 5-2 with white weenie? - but sanity prevails. It's a new venue, in Leith, and as usual Edinburgh is the coldest place on earth - it's summer when we left Glasgow, and winter an hour later in Edinburgh. We get lost as always, but see Stuart and the judging crew on the way. It's a nice venue, spacious, bright, airy with a bar - a big improvement on the usual smoky misery of the Tron! It's a disappointing turnout - just over 60 - , but the gang's all here, lots of decent players and few easy rides or new faces from what I can see. So there's good news and bad news - it'll be mainly good competitive games against friends, but my lack of practice is bound to hurt against such a strong field. Just before the start, Mark Wootton shows me his deck - slivers, counters, firestorms - and I'm ready to pull out. I also learn of the existence of the crystalline sliver for the first time - what were they thinking about in R&D? - but it's too late to do anything about my sideboard because I've already deck listed. Deck List 4 Tradewinds - the best creature in magic? 4 Man o War 4 Oranutangs - the best crumble in magic? 4 Bird of Paradise 3 Queer Ranger 3 Wall of Roots 3 Wall of Blossoms - the best wall in magic ? 3 Impulse - the best card in magic ! 4 Counterspell - the best card in existence ? 2 Disrupt - the best cantrip in magic ? 1 Disenchant 4 Armageddon - the best card in the deck ! 3 Winter Orb 1 City of Brass - and its Arabians, too 2 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 7 Forest 6 Island Sideboard 2 Hydroblast 3 Chill 1 Mana Leak 2 Disrupt 3 Propaganda 1 Winter Orb 1 Cloudchaser 2 Disenchant The tournament Round 1vs Bob Horne - sligh I'm less than pleased by this draw - Bob is a strong player who usually plays something fast - just what I don't need in my first match in half a year. We both mulligan and then he lays a mountain and a fanatic , looks at me and goes 'sorry', which I thought was a nice and appropriate touch! I get some stuff, but not enough to stop him toasting me despite a slight mana screw - oh well. 2nd duel Bob mulligans again, then hits me a couple of times with an orc, but I get an early tradewind, and the inevitable geddon finishes it. Bob has to mulligan for the 3rd consecutive duel and gets some early orc action going, but I get bouncy on him in time. He then shows me fireblast for the first time in the match on the tradewind but I disrupt it and draw another tradewind!, next turn he toasts a manabird and fireblasts the tradewind again and I can't bounce it. But he's basically geddoned himself by now and I go ranger, tradewind next turn and its over. All in all, this match comes down to Bob's poor mana draws 1-0-0 2-1 Round 2 vs Andrew double barreled something (sorry) - living death I don't have a clue what's going on in the first duel. I just do my thing, start hitting him with creatures while waiting for the tradewind, he does nothing but lay odd coloured land, then a thrull I've never seen before, then mulch 2 or 3 times - what is that all about?? Then natures resurgence with like 17 creatures in his graveyard. Well I'm not having that so I counter and then he goes living death and I'm gobsmacked - I didn't know it existed - and over 50 points of damage are aiming for my head. Time for a graceful concession. However, I know what to do now - let him do whatever he wants but counter the living death, and I side in the extra counters. Second duel I basically sucker him into tapping out to cast living death which I disrupt and draw the geddon, 3rd duel is a carbon copy, 2-1 to me. 2-0-0 4-2 Round 3 vs Doug Nelson - Donais 5CU For those of you who don't know it, Doug is the guy for whom the phrase 'better lucky than good' was invented. Unfortunately, he is also a good player. Doug claims that his luck only works the day after he's been out with an ugly woman - well he's got the ugly woman look today so we decide to intentionally draw. This turns out to be my best play of the day because it means I get a rest. We play a couple of friendly games and go 1-1 - in effect he only has to counter the geddon and I only have to counter the wrath. 2-0-1 4-2 Round 4 vs Orlando Richards - 5CU It just keeps getting tougher - Orlando knows how to play and he knows this deck - he's tuned it since his tourney report last month. But my deck really comes through, with a series of God draws. 1st duel, I've got a 3rd turn tradewind, some counters and the time to wait for the classic - geddon, counter, disrupt your counter routine. 2nd duel, its 5th turn tradewind with enough creature mana left to counter his wrath, then next turn geddon. Orlando had 2 more wraths in hand too! 3-0-1 6-2 Round 5 vs Alison Grant? - Slivers I don't know Alison who tells me she has only been playing for 3 months, so she has done amazingly well to be 3 and 1. 1st duel she lays an island, a metallic sliver and says go. I lay an island and say go. She lays a forest and goes crystalline sliver - let me look at that again - oh ****!!!, and hits me with the metallic. My 2 monkeys, 1 man o war and 1 disenchant don't look so clever now. You can guess the rest - muscle sliver, winged sliver, muscle sliver and its over in seconds. I rush for the propagandas and hope for the best, and there it is - 2 props in my opening draw. But......she just goes crystalline, muscle, winged again and disenchants - where did that come from??? - the first propaganda, and then mana leaks - where did that come from??? - my geddon and I'm toast. 3-1-1 6-4 Round 6 vs David Englebright - some kind of stompy I think All talk about ID'ing to the nationals is out the window now - I need to win the next 2 to be sure of qualifying. I get a slightly faster start in duel one and am coasting along fat dumb and happy with 2 walls and a tradewind in play, 2 counters and an orb in hand, plenty mana, just waiting for the geddon when he taps out -yay - to play a scragnoth - what??? - and immediately pops a spike counter on it so it can stomp over my wall of roots. I drop the orb anyway and start to block the scraggie with wall of blossoms which I bounce and recast about 10 times till I get geddon. At this point he has to concede, but no, he just keeps on attacking and I just keep on blocking and bouncing. It looks like he thinks he's going to run me out of cards so I drop a second tradewind and start to pick him off with this, but not quickly because I'm not in a hurry - 1-0 is as good as 2-0. Second duel he needs a fast start because there's only about 10 minutes left and he goes forest, vineyard and gives me a look, so I go gemstone, propaganda, then forest, tradewind then island manabird, ranger, orb, bounce the vineyard and time runs out before he can concede! - you can't play vineyards against this deck!! 4-1-1 7-4 Round 7 vs Alistair Jorgensen (Flynn) - white weenie Flynn has been playing a sleight / white weenie for years and he knows how it works. However, this has got to be the dream match up for my deck - I can man o war his armoured falcons, disenchant or bounce the armour if he sleights them, disrupt his sleights, and propaganda his shadow bugs. As always, Graham Thomson has things calculated to a T and tells me that a draw will qualify me for the nationals, but not for top 8. Since this match wont finish till 8.30 and three rounds of knockout then a hour and a half drive to follow, I'm happy with this but Flynn wants to play - oh well. I don't remember much about this match, it was very quick though. I get early tradewinds both duels, I think. In the first, Flynn tries to sleight a white knight in reponse to my geddon, and luckily I wake up just in time to remember that interrupts targeting permanents are instants - duh!! - and bounce it. In the 2nd, I manage to make my second worst mistake of a mistake-filled day. After I had geddoned with the lock, I'm bouncing his land each turn. He's got lots of creatures out, but I've got a propaganda down. As usual, Flynn is playing really fast and he goes plains, mox diamond, and I forget that you can counter moxes! I remember next turn after I bounce it, but if he had had 2 disenchants then it would have lost me the duel. 5-1-1 9-4 Top 8 knockout So, I qualify for the nationals, and for the top 8, as 3rd seed. At this point, it's 8.30 and I'm thinking seriously of pulling out, but Doug has qualified too and he'll be stranded if I go, so I stay. An hour later, the tournament officials are still calculating the exact final placings, and I'm regretting my decision - I have to be up at 5 AM the next morning. It's an unusual top 8 - noone from Dundee or Aberdeen. Graham Thomson is the clear favourite, playing black weenie with tricks, but I have a feeling that Doug could sneak it. I'm feeling pretty confident too - the deck has been flawless, and very tolerant of my playing errors. Eventually, the pairings are made and I sit down to play Reynolt. Quarter final vs Reynolt de Vos van Steenwijk - pros bloom I don't have a scooby what Reynolt is playing but after he goes island go, forest go, gemstone go I've got a pretty good idea. This should be toffee for me - just counter the big spells - but although I've got a hand full counters I can't find a second blue mana source. Fortunately, Reynolt's having problems finding what he needs too, and I'm gradually beating him down with a monkey. But it can't last forever and eventually he goes abeyance. I disrupt it in the hope that he needs the one mana, and of course draw the island I would have needed. Too late, and he polishes me off in the approved manner. I sideboard in the counters, and get a good start against his mana screw in game two. This makes him too slow and by the time he's got the works, I've got all the counters I need. Third duel, I get a geddon, a disenchant and some counters in my opening draw, and so I wait until he tries to cast something with 3 open mana, (meditate I think), mana leak it and disrupt when he pays the 3, then geddon next turn. 2-1 for me. 5-1-1 11-5 Semi final vs Eric Fulford - heavy burn sligh The game plan against Eric is easy - get toasted quickly in game 1, and then run for the sideboard. But it doesn't work out like that - I get a dream start in game one, early walls that he can't kill slow his creatures, and I get tradewind geddon before he can burn me down. All I have to worry about now is shock and fanatics, and since I'm on 9 life with 3 counters I don't have to worry very hard! Disrupt is brutal vs sligh!! The second duel is similar except that I see most of my sideboard - 2 blasts and 2 chills. An early chill slows him down and eventually I get tradewind geddon, only to make the worst mistake I can remember. With 2 counterspells in hand, I use a gemstone instead of a forest to pay for the armageddon, and so have only 1 blue left, and can't counter his fireblast of my tradewind. It gets worse - I'm so demoralised by this mistake I forget to bounce the tradewind. All that saves me is that I was hoarding land for the geddon, and recover faster than him with the chill on the table. So I make it to the final more by luck than judgement. 6-1-1 13-5 Final vs Sylvain Lauriol - 5CG We finished the semi final at about 11.30, and the judges quite reasonably wouldn't let me watch what turned out to be an epic match between Sylvain and Doug. It went on till 12.30, and included a classic sequence where Doug drew about 8 wraths in a row (from Gaea's, dismisses and whispers) to stop Sylvain killing him with the same River Boa which he was recycling with a Stronghold. True to form, Doug eventually drew the one wasteland in his deck. Sylvain rolled him in the third, though, to prevent an all Glasgow final. I was pretty confident going into this one - 5CG should be a good match up for me, especially after I get the propagandas from the sideboard. But........1st duel, my opening draw is 4 land, a mana bird, a disenchant and a disrupt.....mulligan?....no, what an idiot!!! I draw 4 lands a ranger and a manabird in the next 6 turns and get blown away by centaurs. OK, chalk that down to lack of Paris mulligan experience, and take him with the gandas in the next two. My opening draw in the 2nd duel has only one land and no mana creatures and so I mulligan. 2nd draw has one land and 3 armageddons - too much of a good thing and so I've got to mulligan again. I'm starting to get a bit worried by now! 3rd draw - 5 cards - has no lands, and I don't know what to do - with 19 lands, 4 birds, 3 wall of roots and 3 rangers I'm calculating the odds of getting 2 mana sources in a 4 card draw as about 50-50. So, I decide to mulligan, and my 4th draw has........no lands, but a wall of roots. What to do??? After about 5 minutes thought I decide to keep it. I had chosen to play first and could only say 'go'. It was almost worth it to see the look on Sylvain's face - he needed an interpreter. Needless to say, although I drew a land on turn 3 and another on turn 6, it was not enough and Sylvain won easily to deservedly take the Scottish title. So - all in all a great tournament, where my deck played better than I did and my luck held out until the last match. Props Julian Haigh for the trophy - gone but not forgotten, Jules!! The organisers - slow but thorough and it's a thankless task Ralph Martin - guest judge from Ireland, relaxed but firm, just the way a judge should be, and good crack too Slops Double mana screw in the final!!!! Getting home at 2.30 AM, and up again at 5.00 WOTC - Scotland's a country, not a region - you were based in Glasgow, guys, so you shouldn't need to be told!! David Hughes - the oldest player in magic