Subject: Tournament Report Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 20:15:53 -0000 From: cgaros@derryfield.com (Garos, Chris '00) To: Dear Mr. Kusomoto, This is my first tournament report, and I'd appreciate it if you would publish it. I played in a 25-person Type 2 tournament on April 4th. It was 4 rounds of swiss, followed by top 8, with packes as prizes for top 4. I built the following deck for the occasion: 3 Aether Flash 2 Fireball 4 Incinerate 2 Searing Touch 2 Earthquake 3 Wildfire Emissary 2 Mogg Bombers 4 Trained Armodon 2 Endangered Armodon 4 Rampant Growth 2 Elven Rite 3 Wall of Roots 2 Wall of Blossoms 4 Spike Colony 1 Sylvan Library 11 Forest 9 Mountain I first built this deck because I wanted to try using Endangered Armodon in a deck similar to Ernham n' Burn-'em. However, I couldnt use lots of good stuff like River Boa, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, and Jolrael's Centaur. I worked around this using the walls and rampant growth, so that I can get some fast mana and fast defense. The deck basically demolishes any kind of small creature deck, but I foresaw problems with heavy white or blue control decks. These decks can ignore my walls, counter or wrath away my creatures, and dominate me with flyers. Therefore, I built a sideboard to beat counterspells. However, I didnt play against any, and the sideboard sucked anyways, so I won't bother including it. On to the games: Round 1: Against Karl ?(like most magic players, I'm bad with names) Game 1: I figure out relatively quickly that my opponent is playing a living death deck, as he was running around trading for Hidden Horrors and Buried Alives before the tournament. Fortunately, he draws way too much mana, and I smack him with an Endangered Armodon that gets 'taal'ed, burn the taal, hit him with a spike colony, and finish him with burn. I got a surprising amount of burn, which was nice, as this deck hadn't really shown it's cheesy burn potential before. Don't underestimate Earthquake as a finisher........ Game 2: He's mana screwed again, only this time he doesnt have enough. I take advantage and inflict massive damage with trained armodons. He manages to get a dark ritual-living death, and pulls out about 5 creatures. Fortunately, I double incinerate him for the win. We play 3 more games after this, for fun. He only wins one, and appears to be on the verge of going into a homicidal rage. I get away after he finally wins one. Games: 2-0 Rounds: 1-0 Round 2: Against ?(friend of 1st round opponent, lost first round) Game 1: I'm the odd man out who gets to play a loser in a swiss tournament :) I get a bad starting hand, mulligan down to 6. I have one mana and a couple walls and growths. I stick, but can't pull my second mana. He smacks me with Mogg Flunkies and various other weenies, backed with burn. Game 2: Once again I mulligan down to 6, stay with it, and get destroyed. I am close to getting control of the game by the time he has me at 8 life, but he double fire-blasts me. I'm a little down about the loss, to mana screw both times, but I can still make the finals with a 3-1 performance. Games: 2-2 Rounds: 1-1 Round 3: Against Ben Jarmak Game 1: He's playing a green weenie, just the deck I hoped to match up against. He draws a ton of mana, and I smack down with burn and armodons. The one scary moment is when he gets a huge Lhurgoyf, but I am able to block and bolt it. Game 2: This game, he gets a better draw, but burn and walls combine to prevent any early damage. I get an Aether Flash, which hoses him pretty effectively. He finally pulls a Lhurgoyf, but I have enough burn to finish him at this point. I win. Games: 4-2 Rounds: 2-1 Round 4: Against ? Game 1: My opponent is using a predominately W/G deck with a third color splashed and some off-color SB cards. He gets some weenies, then geddons, screwing me completely. He wins. Game 2: This is a long game, where he wears me down to 6 or so before I quake away two jolrael's centaurs. I have control at this point, but I have to survive several geddons and 2 extinctions (against elephants and efreets) to pull it out. Thankfully, he doesnt have the burn to finish me. Game 3: He is mana-screwed, and I bolt and touch any elves that hit the table. I eventually get a couple dons out and win. Games: 6-3 Rounds: 3-1 I make final 8! Here's as much of the final 8 as I can remember: Me Chris Trachy, playing a Hermit Druid/Revenant/Haunting Misery deck Chris Jarmak, playing a white weenie David Rhys, playing another white weenie My first round opponent, playing living death Final 8, Agains Chris Trachy Game 1: I didn't know he was playing Hermit Druid, so I just see a bunch of non basic lands and birds of paradise, and figure he's using 5cG. However, when he drops the Hermit Druid, and I ask to read it, he says "oh, he's just the little land-fetching dude". Yeah, right. I haven't played against this deck before, but I am vaguely aware of some sort of combo with this guy. A couple turns later, he intuitions for a shallow grave, uses the druid to mill his whole library, and shallow graves a Revenant, then attacks for 24. Ouch Game 2: Ok, this time I'm prepared. I figure I'll just hold my burn for that !@#$% druid, and never let him use it. I side in Pyroblasts, as he has mana leak, noble benefactor(a weird card, but it works), and intuition. I draw my hand, and see burn, burn, and burn. Yeah, I'm invincible! He plays the druid, I burn it. I attack with some dons, getting him down to 9. Then, he shallow graves the druid! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!! Nothing I can do about that. I watch him play out his combo, and get smacked with another massive revenant. After these games, I wonder how his deck can beat any deck other than mine. It would appear that it gets screwed by counters, discard, anything with a flying blocker, cop: black, honorable passage, the list goes on. However, he made it to the final 8, so I can't argue with his deck. In any case, I'm out of the tournament, but I think my deck has potential. Don't just dismiss me as some scrub playing with Mogg Bombers; besides mana-screw and combo decks, there is very little this deck can't handle. It is VERY reminiscent of the late Ernham-Burn 'em decks. Now, for props and slops: Props: Bob Jarmak, for runnning these tournaments Me, just for being me and using Endangered Armodons Karl, for overcoming going 1-4 against me to at least make it to the final 4( I left before the final 4 started) WoTC, for making walls cool again Slops: All of the people who exhibit unsportsmanlike conduct, such as harassing their opponents about unimportant rules(e.g. yelling at me for forgetting to untap my wildfire emissary before drawing). This is understandable at the PT level, but c'mon, this is New Hampshire. It doesnt really matter, just have fun. Chris Garos