Subject: Tourney Report: R/G "Scroll Beatdown" Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:22:46 +0200 From: Patrick Mello To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi! This is another report from a „german regional-championships qualifier". This time from Lübeck! (See my 5CG report for Hamburg & Kiel). I chose to play a simple red/green scroll weenie deck because it’s just fast - fun - and pure beatdown! ;-) And btw - it’s quite efficient!! My deck: 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Granger Guildmage 4 Muscle Sliver 4 River Boa 4 Suq’ Ata Lancer 3 Uktabi Orangutan 2 Jolrael’s Centaur (these 3 1 Pincher Beetle slots vary, used scalding tongs before) 4 Incinerate 4 Kindle 4 Cursed Scroll 3 Wasteland 3 Reflecting Pool 4 Karplusan Forest 6 Forest 6 Mountain Sideboard: 4 Pyroblast 3 Dwarven Miner 2 Lifeforce 2 Earthquake 2 Tranquil Grove 1 Tranquil Domain 1 Uktabi Orangutan The deck tries to do the beatdown from the first turn on. Muscle Slivers are better to play second turn then Boas ...you want to regenerate the Snakes! Usually the Centaur is the best choice for the 3CC slot. But in this deck the Lancers are just better. They have celerity and cost only one colored mana. That’s why I played 4 Lancers just 2 Centaurs and one Beetle. The Beetle is alright. I was not sure about the Beetle but he has proven himself time and time again... untargetable - and 3 points per round is much - but you have to clear the path for him. Maybe drop the Centaurs for additional Beetles. I have played with 4 Wastelands and it’s one to many - 3 is enough for the main deck! The sideboard contains two non-standard cards: Dwarven Miner and Lifeforce. The Miner is quite nice when you play against 5CB. Lifeforce is mainly because I was afraid of Corpse Dance - Bottle Gnomes doing the Twist is what my deck loses to!!! Ok - on to the report: Lübeck 29.03.98 The tourney is held in a nice place with a bistro/cafe attached. And ...lots of people show up to play! In the end 63 players arrive and this means that this is the biggest qualifier in northern germany (about 40 in Hamburg / 50 in Kiel)!! Most of the top players from Hamburg are here as well as a big group of new players from Lübeck (they received there DCI # at the tourney). We still have some time before the first round begins so Michael Nessler and me check out the white wine of the bistro across... ;-) It’s some kind of luck ritual of us to drink some wine at a good tourney - if we can get one! When we get back we are informed by the tourney organizers that we have to quit drinking - there are kids around! So we decide to change glasses - it looks like apple juice after that! ;-) 1st round Thomas Giese playing classic Necro with disks Thomas is a newbie and he just received his DCI #. He plays an old style Necro mono black with disks as only reset-button. I win two games easily scrolling all his critters and with the help of my friend the monkey I can crumble his attemps to stop the scroll... 2-0 3 points 2nd round Sven Froese playing a 100 card deck! Hm. Seems like I got lucky pairings... I win two games although Sven puts down a Circle Green in the second and I didn’t side in anything against his red/green/white deck.. an Earthquake finishes him. 2-0 6 points 3rd round Fabian Kohl playing green/blue (Ophies, Maros,10 counter...) I have played Fabian last year - same location, same reason, same round! He’s pretty depressed because he remembers our match as well and tells me before the game that he expects to lose again. That’s not a good attitude Fabian! ;-) Anyway - my deck performs very well and serves the beatdown... he gets an 8/8 Lhurgoyf on the board during the first game put he has only 2 Disenchants and no monkeys in the main deck and can’t handle my scroll. The second game is even faster. After the match he tells me that the scroll isn’t that popular in Lübeck, that’s why he only had 2 Anti-Scroll cards in the main... 2-0 9 points 4th round Michael Häffs playing „scrolling stompy" I lose two games to really bad draws. Ok - I know this sounds like whining... ;-( Some stats: during both games he had four Cursed Scrolls and one Uktabi Orangutan while I drew ONE scroll (which was immediately destroyed by his lonely monkey of course!) during two quite long games and I drew the first monkey during the second game when he already had THREE Scrolls on the board! But the worst part of this is that Michael is not even a good player... (He let me guess the right card (for me) three times while scrolling cause he didn’t shuffle his hand cards - Thanks Michael!) 0-2 9 points 5th round David Merten playing Prosbloom David is from Hamburg too. I knew that he would play Bloom and knew that I had a really good sideboard against it. But nobody likes to play against Bloom on a good day. But I had to win this match - I was so down from my depressing loss last round... I win the dice roll and start serving beatdown again! I hold two Incinerates and have a Lancer and a Boa out when he plays City of Solitude. He says turn and I think to myself that he can start the engine during his next turn. He is on 10 life when I attack for 4. After combat I play both Incinerates on him and he wants to Memory Lapse the last one! Hm. What about this little City you have there? I side in 12 cards against his deck (everything except Quakes and Utan) and am very confident winning at least one of the next two games. But I have to mulligan down to five cards and still have just a Pool as only land!!! I manage to stop him with a Blast when he tries to play a Prosperity. Later I draw enough land and Sideboard cards that he is not able to set up anything. Puh. This deck has not lost to Prosbloom in a tournament so far! 2-0 12 points 6th round Joachim Rahforth playing a green deck with 3 Torches He is one of the few local players in the top tables. I win a strange first game. We both had just two lands and I have more small critters than him. I saw an Undiscovered Paradise and a Mogg Hollows and mana screw ;-) so I decide to side in the Dwarves. What a mistake! He dominates the second game with a couple of Trained Armodons and two Lhurgoyfs while I have dumb little unemployed Miner... Stupid me! Ok - out go Dwarves in goes all beatdown. The third game is a race for life points which he wins with a well timed Overrun! 1-2 12 points 7th round Dieter Buttgereit playing Michael Nesslers „4CNesslerblue" Dieter is a friend and we think about drawing but it wouldn’t help any of us. So we play. I have a little advantage in this match because I have already played my deck against Michael’s original in a tournament and Dieter just took the deck and hasn’t got any practise with it. I serve beatdown once again during the first game and get Dieter down to one life. He gets a Derelor and an Ophidian out and gets control over the game. But anyway a Boa gets through and and finishes him in the end. I side in the 4 Blasts and 3 Miners (his deck is one reason why I have them). The second game is a massacre! I drew 3 Wastelands out of 3 plus 3 Pyros and a Miner... he can’t do anything against my lucky draws.. 2-0 15 points So I finish 5-2 in the end. It’s okay with me but round 4 should have been a win ;-) I went 5-2 (Hamburg), 4-3 (Kiel), 5-2 (Lübeck) now and that should be sufficient... The winner is Özgür Oruc (hope I got that right!) from Hamburg. He went undefeated with 6 wins and one draw playing a unique White Weenie with Puppet Strings, Wrath of God and Knight of Dawn! Congratulations! Michael Nessler finished 6-1 with his secret weapon - the „4ColorBlue". And Christoph Berg finished 6-1 with another White Weenie. Thanks to Gunnar Refsdal and Frederik Prigge for judging and organizing!! And to Gandalph (the shop) for supporting the whole thing and for for the cool pizza! (It was absolutely amazing... ultra big tuna pizza super tasty!) It was still early in the evening when the tournament was over so we (Michael Frenz and me) decided to play a little „Team Hamburg Draft" with the judges Frederik and Gunnar. There is nothing that beats a four player „Team Hamburg Draft". Each player gets 3 boosters and all boosters are shuffled together. Then each one gets seven cards. You can play the cards in your hand as a land of the specific color or as what they are. Everytime a player has to draw a card he draws one from an open pool of 15 cards which are layed out in the center of the table. When all 15 cards are drawn a new set of 15 cards is layed out. Cards like Cantrips, Dream Cache,.. are Spoilers because they help you to get the first pick of 15 fresh cards. All players share one graveyard. Cards that affect the library only affect the 15 cards in the middle. Players play clockwise in teams of two players: 1st player team 1, 1st player team 2, 2nd and so on.... each team shares 40 life points. It’s really big fun and only little luck due to the factor that each player chooses what to draw. Anyway we played for the next 5 hours or so... ;-) Games get quite complicated when four players have about ten lands, 6 critters each out and there are 15 different cards to draw.... The next report will be from the regionals in Hamburg on 10th May. Till then! Hope you enjoyed the report - mail me for questions and criticism, Patrick email: Patrick_Mello@public.uni-hamburg.de „Grigger" on IRC ICQ# 87 12 297 Bye, Patrick. eMail: [Patrick_Mello@public.uni-hamburg.de] ICQ#: [87 122 97] (icq.com)