Subject: Swedish Nationals Tourney Report Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 18:52:57 +0200 From: Daniel To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Industrial Oranges and Team Qirf at the Swedish Nationals The 21st of May it was time for the Swedish Nationals held in Linkoping and me and a friend of mine managed to do relatively well. I had qualified for the nationals at Gothcon in April playing a 5 color U/W deck containing Orim's Prayers and Staunch Defenders to beat the sligh decks that dominated the field. My friend was qualified by PT points. The nationals was divided up in two days: t2 day one and rochester day two for the top 64. Me and my friend Richard Nilsson prepared a black weenie we thought would do well. We playtested and tweaked it and were ready to go. Daniel Mansson, another friend of mine played the same deck he had used to qualify two days before: a mono blue control deck. Match 1 vs Kim Svedberg playing Donais? Kim had won the qualifier two days ago, Round one all I saw of his deck were a Gemstone, a Wasteland and a Dismiss (he had to discard) ... I figured he was playing Donais and Sided in glooms and a single Edict for walls. Round two I got my LD running and my weenie horde did their job. When Kim was at 3 mana I got a Gloom out, and I figure that was game. 1-0 (2-0 in duels) Match 2 vs Jocke Falck playing Bloom. Graa! This is my worst matchup, Bloom should be able to humiliate black weenie 7 days a week! Round one I manage to get some fast weenies out. Both he and I knew my horde would kill him by round 5, so he had to go at round 4. He fizzled ... Round 2 is all about my LD. I waste, I choking sands, and ritual out 3 weenies that go all the way. I beat Bloom 2-0, this is unreal! 2-0 (4-0 in duels) Match 3 vs Vikiet Chung playing sligh. Sligh is my second worst matchup. Bad Moon beats sligh, scroll is generally to slow. Round one i get the dream draw vs sligh. Swamp Dark Ritual x2, 2 slayers on the table. Turn 2 I topdeck a Bad Moon, and Turn 3 sees Bad Moon number 2. I win the race. Round two I ritual out Bad Moon and Cursed Scroll. Turn 2 I play a Wall of Souls that gets Chaos Charmed. Turn 3 I play an Erg he chooses to kill. By now both he and I have scrolls out. I play my second Erg Raider and Vikiet kills this one to. I Spinning Darkness his Ball Lightning, and from now on Sligh is on the defensive. I play Erg number 3, and he goes all the way, while i Scroll Vikiet and his Suq'Atas. 3-0 (6-0 in duels) Match 4 vs Per Danngarde playing Bloom. We know eachother and the decks we play and trashtalk a little. I am kind enough to offer him a draw but he declines, as he knows Bloom beats Black Weenie. Round one I manage to win by LD again. I Rain of Tears a swamp and it buys me enough time to kill him. Round two is even worse (better?) than turn 1. I manage to waste 2 of his lands, and choke another. He prosps for 1 in hope to get to 3 lands ... I topdeck my 3rd Wasteland ... 4-0 (8-0 in duels) Richard met Micke Magnusson playing Castle this round ... First round Richard Manages to get out a decent horde on the table. And when Micke is at four mana Richard chooses not to use his mana. As expected Micke Intuitions for 3 Tradwind Riders. Micke plays his fifth mana and casts Living Death. Richard declares he has a response to that and casts his Kaervek's SPITE! Micke was at 8 life, but thanks to Spite and the 5 weenies on the table he is now dead. Round two Richard beats Micke before he had a chance to build up his mana. Match 5 vs Ihab Asad playing 5cB Round 1 is really fast with Sarcomancy and LD ... It's over in 2 minutes. Round 2 I get Ritual x2 and 2 critters but fail to draw more land. Ihab gets 2 Shadow Guildmages out, and casts Giant Growth on one to kill one of my critters. >From here and on he leads the race. Round 3 One key LD spells game. I draw 4 shadows he is able to block 2 of them, but from there I am able to scroll all of his blockers. Richard met Jocke Falck with bloom this round. Amazingly Richard beats him up. Round one Jocke fizzles and round two Richard LDs Jocke to death with moons and critters on the table ... 5-0 (10-1 in duels) Match 6 vs Mattias Jorstedt playing Bloom This is the third bloom i am paired up against. And I figure I can't possibly beat it again. Round 1 LD beatdown, and I win! I drew a lot of LD again, this is unreal. Round 2 I have to mulligan as I have only a wasteland and 6 2cc critters in hand. I draw 6 new cards and see a Wasteland, a Choking Sands, a Ritual and 3 2cc critters. I choose to keep the hand, if I draw a swamp I will be able to kill 2 lands ... I never see that swamp and lose horribly. Round 3 I am about to win when Mattias tells me things are going to get tough for me and plays Elephant Grass. Game. At last Bloom beat me as it should. 5-1 (10-3 in duels) This Match Richard was paired against Olle Rade playing castle. The first round Olle plays Gemstone. Richard knows Olle might be playing castle but chooses to do the play that beats anything but castle. Swamp, Ritual x2, Sarco, Sarco, Sarco, Black Knight. Olle: Firestorm. Graa! Match 7 vs Someone (I lost my notes from this match) playing 5c Tradewind I cant remember the first two duels, but we're at 1-1 and ready for Round 3. Someone gets the lock quite fast, and is at 4 life. I have a scroll and a swamp in play and a ritual in hand ... If I scroll I have a 50% chance of picking swamp ... But I fear I will pick incorrectly adn be unable to topdeck a second ritual. Even if I were to topdeck this ritual I only had 25 % chance to deal 4 damage. So I chose to gamble in another way ... I Spinning Darknessed his Suq'Ata firewalker, leaving him with Tradewind, Birds and a Wall of Blossoms ... I pray and cast Perish. Counterspell. Game. I am 9th seed going in to day 2. Richard drew with Carl Thille round 7 ensuring they both would go on to day 2. I really screw up the rochester making two major mistakes. First I pick a Sudden Impact as second pick. It was across the table so I couldn't read it and thought it was a Deadshot. Then I passed a Fireslinger in favour for a Mogg Fanatic ... I don't know what I was thinking ... At least I got a Grave Pact. My deck was B/R but I had very few decent creatures. This would prove to be my downfall. Richard drafted a W/r/g deck ... Much better than mine. I went 1-3 this day, only winning against Kim Svedberg. I made a major playing mistake in the first round, forgetting to attack. Forgetting to attack in nationals means death. I must say I felt quite crappy the whole day, making mistakes both in the draft and in the games. One memorable duel was the last one vs Kim. By turn 5 he had CoP Red, Black and Light of Day on the table. I play Gravepact with Searing Touch in hand ... Now I have 22 critter removal in my deck :) I eventually deck him. I ended up 26th or 27th overall. I am satisfied with the result as I was 90th the year before. I am especially satisfied with the result day 1. It proves playtesting and tweaking really pays off. The deck went an amazingly 7-2 in duels against bloom and beat the only sligh deck it met. Generally it should beat Tradewind but failed to do so in nationals. In the qualifier it beat 2 Tradewind decks. It stands a chance against castle, and beats classic alive. Props: Daniel Mansson for placing second in the qualifier. The first sanctioned event he played in. Carl Thille for enrichening our vocabulary with words like "Gnussa" Everyone I went with for picking up all the things I kept leaving behind for me. Slops: Micke Hedberg for posing out. Karl Jansson for placing 51st in the qualifier where 50th would have made nationals. Daniel Mansson for crapping out in day 1. Industrial Oranges: 16 Swamp 4 Wasteland 4 Dark Ritual 2 Choking Sands 1 Rain of Tears 3 Cursed Scroll 4 Bad Moon 4 Unholy Strength 1 Kaervek’s Spite 4 Erg Raiders 4 Black Knight 4 Sarcomancy 4 Dauthi Slayer 4 Dauthi Horror 1 Barrow Ghoul SB 3 Wall of Souls 3 Ebony Charm 3 Spinning Darkness 3 Gloom 2 Perish 1 Diabolic Edict //Daniel Wärn Fragdude on IRC