Subject: Doncaster Report/Counter-sliver Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 20:51:39 GMT From: andy@mcnish.demon.co.uk (andy mcnish) Newsgroups: uk.games.trading-cards.misc a sunny easter sunday saw the biggest event of the year to date at the monthly doncaster tourney - english national qualifiers 107 players turned up fighting for the 22 slots (hardly anyone was pre-qualified from the reading tourney - not surprising as the northerners also have blackpool next sunday and brum the week after to get through, so not many of us will have travelled down to reading last week) 9 rounds swiss - long day ahead.... deck a new expansion always throws the net-deck copiers into some disarray - the new net-decks haven't really come out yet - tough - think for yourself for a change ! after our former colleague fox had such success with vorpal dreadshifter last week it was up to me to prove that i too could design an unusual deck that got the job done....it was time to try to have my cake and eat it - it was time for counter-sliver :) Land: 7 islands 4 adarkars 2 undiscovereds 2 cities brass 2 gemstones 2 brushlands (left over from when i had sex monkeys in - these could go now - i'd like to find room for wastelands but i'm not sure i could justify them really) 2 reflecting pools 1 stronghold (any creature deck that can produce black should have one) (22) 1cc 4 portents - i need something in the 1cc slot and didn't think metallic slivers did enough - these are very underated cards - can be used to take a 1 land start rather than paris (as you effectively get 5 chances to find/draw a land to lay next turn), they are also perfectly good one shot cantrip mirri's guiles and can be used to disrupt your opponents draw (so he stays mana screwed or doesn't pull that burn/ mass destruction) - all for 1 mana :) - i don't care if you think impulse is better - for this deck you're wrong .... 2 cursed scrolls - didn't want to run 4 as i was expecting a lot of anti-scroll stuff - orbs, geddons,null rods -also just forces me to lay out all my land and increases my vulnerability to disk/geddon...on the other hand i haven't taken any slivers that need mana to use so i may as well pump mana into killing my opponent... 2 disrupts - i was expecting more discard and counter decks - didn't actually get much use out of these - probably swap for brainstorms... 1 phyrexian furnace - it's a nice card against bottle gnome dance, strongholds (incl. dreadshifter), and the 14 decks (no - it isn't 'too slow' when backed up with counters - see below). it's also 1 cc and can be blown off for a draw if it's not needed.... [9] 2cc 4 counterspells 3 disenchants 2 mana leaks (unless you're playing orb/geddon i think 2 is about the right number- however you could always replace the disrupts with 2 more of these if you really like them) 2 legacies allures (very useful all day - might find room for a third -or put a couple in the bord) 4 crystalline slivers (core - how blue decks and any decks with targetted removal hate them - once they're down all your critters are immune to bolts,banishings,legacies,scrolls,quicksands,tradewinds etc. - and the only thing in the deck your opponents can bounce with his men-o-war will be your men-o-war - which isn't really very useful to him :) 4 muscle slivers - play this after the crystalline is down.. 4 winged slivers - get damage through much better than talon etc. (sigh if only there was a shadow sliver :) - play this after crystalline and muscle for 7 points/round of untargetable flying beatdown (protected by counters and bounce) -also play to avoid earthquakes and to jump over all those nice new (ground-based) walls 2 hibernation slivers - mass removal decks tend to be slow at dealing damage - so take back your favourite slivers and have another go (or block something huge and recast for 2 damage/round) - NB takes no mana to use this ability... all but the winged are 2/2 for 2 mana anyway - perfectly acceptable creatures... (25 2cc incl.14 slivers) 3cc 4 men-o-war (this card is crucial in buying time against weenie swarm. as a fun bonus it takes emp. armor or big critter decks to pieces...with stronghold it also locks out any single ground based critter - block,it dies to whatever,recast,bounce,he recasts, attacks next turn, you block,man-o-war dies -repeat until your flying slivers have killed him...) [4] 4 cc we don't have anything that costs more than 3 :) sideboard - well you can generate any colour so put in whatever you like - i'd recommend some hydroblasts,a couple of null rods/orbs, some more removal -legacies/banishings/undo/wraths/,a cursed totem,an ebony charm,a cop red and black,some more enchantment removal,a couple of propagandas and one botomy - but as cilla says 'the choice is yours' i didn't really think about the bord much (as i'd only finalised the main deck on saturday) so i just threw in a complete mess (one of each) cop red cop black wall of essence wall of souls (these last two for sligh and green) hon passage disenchant tranq domain null rod cursed totem phyrexian furnace lobotomy wrath scragnoth winter orb mangara's blessing ready to go.... round one - paul sweeting - counter-burn with steel golems and stalking stones i contrived to lose the first,win the second and lost the third by being hammered whilst i drew 6 consecutive land and his golem held of my wingless slivers...at the end of the third game i'd drawn 28 cards of which 15 had been land (leaving only 6 left in the deck as i'd borded out 1) - great start ! paul seemed to do ok for the first few rounds but he's not listed in the finishers so he must have dropped out later in the day... 0-1 zero points -it was 3 for a win,1 for a draw and zilch for a loss -games didn't count... round 2 darren stevens -black weenie erg raiders,black knights,vamp bats,dauthis,unholy strengths,rituals,crovax;no sarcomancies... i lost the first to black rush (the day's low point 3 out of 4 round lost :( - i reminded myself to book for blackpool after this round..) the second i had to paris, but then managed a muscle sliver, man-o war rush that left him dead whilst i was on about nineteen life.. 1-1 he looked at his hand- he thought- he looked again -sucked hard and played it..gemstone ritual raider unholy (first turn 4/4) - i was please to see a man-o -war and a couple of slivers in my hand took one hit whilst he went undiscovered + second erg raider (16 life) played a crystalline sliver took another hit (down to 10) played man-o war to bounce the raider and chump blocked the other one (still 10) he recast raider as his gemstone died (undiscovered his only mana) i play 4th land and cast muscle sliver (hah 3/3 blocker and 2/3 raiders must attack) he tried ritualling out crovax -i countered -game over 2-1 phew! 1-1 3 points darren eventually went 4/9 round 3 andy holmes - cursed merfolk this was funny because i'd built this deck a couple of months back before deciding that frozen fish was better (in fact i'd lent my frozen fish to dave glendenning last doncaster and never having seen it he took it to 11th place) again it was 2-1 to me of crucial importance was that my critters were scroll-proof and his lords of atlantis weren't - and they could get bounced too.... andy also dropped out later... 2-1 6 points nicholas clarke '14' '14' is the volcanic dragon/spirit of the night/staunch defender (last one optional) buried alive/ living death deck . i think there were 9 in the tourney and 2 qualified 1st game i see 2 counters 1 mana leak and he sees no living deaths (i disenchanted his mox diamond as it was the only source of red mana in case of main deck pyros) 1-0 second game i see one counter and he sees 1 living death and 1 vamp tutor ie second living death 1-1 third game i played the worst i have ever played and yet still won - my opponent played equally badly i had one mana only but did have a furnace in my opening hand -i went with it -'too slow' he said - of course -if you counter the first living death he hasn't got long to find another before he's back to square one... my mistakes included using a disenchant on a mox diamond rather than his city of solitude when i had cop black in hand and a mana leak (and my furnace had eaten the 2 volcanics he'd buried earlier leaving him with only the spirit in the yard) , not taking out his spirit from the game with my furnace by blowing it in my turn (i couldn't in his because of the city) so he living deathed it back - i bounced it with a man-o-war forgetting the 2nd 3rd and 4th times he living deathed to retrieve my sliver hordes from my graveyard (which would have beaten him down much earlier:) and once using hibernation sliver abilities in response to a living death although the city was out... i then got worried sick about the spirit in his hand (forgetting that his land would kill him as he was on 2 life) i also had about 3-4 cards in hand and a scroll out and hadn't been even trying to scroll him ... thinking he was going to cast the spirit i finally noticed the scoll - went for it with a one in three - 'cop black' i said - he picked it 'YES' i shouted - realising that i'd won despite my best attempts to lose a game i should have finished 15 minutes earlier....mind you if a judge had been watching i'd probably have been DQ'd for crap play !! 'ssshh' said ellis :) 3-1 9 points (all matches went to best of 3 so far) nicholas clarke ended up on five wins...but i think his nerves were shot after this match :) round 5 - simon gregg -blue control the two decks i'd playtested counter-sliver thoroughly against were blue control and black weenie - i knew simon would be in big trouble if i could drop a crystalline both games he cast a second turn legacy - both games i duly obliged with a crystalline whilst he was tapped out - ouch 2-0 in about 6 minutes (i also managed 4th turn muscle backed up with a counter in both games) this was only fair from a karma point of view - simon had won doncaster the first time he ever entered it (and i was his first opponent) and he also knocked me out of the weatherlite sealed luck tourney in the quarters by managing 2 3rd turn falcon-armors !! (this was sealed remember) i needed an easy match up to calm down after the '14' fiasco- i got one and an hour break to grab some bacon and egg sarnies from the kitchen... simon managed 5 wins in the end, coming 29th... 4-1 12 points round 6 allen connell -white weenie (shadow/cursed scroll) this could have gone either way - it went his 2-1 moronically i didn't bother to board in either the orb or the null rod - either of which would have shut him down completely in the third - i also couldn't find a crystalline sliver at all - which meant i just sat and scrolled his critters whilst i couldn't cast mine because of his scrolls.. never mind -i was bound to go 4/6 - i always do :):) allen didn't win another after this and came 28th on 5 wins...i'm surprised the people on 5-1 didn't all id for the next 3 rounds as 18 points was a sure qualification -maybe they didn't trust their maths.. i one the other hand knew i had to raise my game or bust... 4-2 12 points round 7 martin waterfield 5 colour-green martin was a londoner and had already pre-qualified in reading - his team was up and he was here for support - apparently everyone playing 5cg had qualified in reading and so their entire team were playing it up here - as only 2 out of 13 4/5 colour decks qualified i'd say someone overestimated it badly.... this was another 8 minute match i legacied his budgies, countered or bounced his maros and flew over his walls with the 3 sliver 7 point untargetable beatdown thingie - two games running i did have god draws though - in the second game he managed,1st turn budgie,2nd turn orangutan,3rd turn maro (bounced),recast maro,5th turn another maro,6th turn another maro-that's not a bad start for him .. unfortunately - slivers aside i had a wrath, three counters and a man-o war - so he hit me for two points and then died....he was pretty gobsmacked and i thought that it just might be my day... martin also didn't win again and came 33rd - i think his team all failed to qualify too although they all said they'd had a good day and enjoyed it immensely 5-2 15 points ('one more win,one more win') round 8 - mark whittaker (aka 'taxman') creatureless red burn with scrolls,tongs etc. taxman is a bogeyman for the manchester crew - i think we're about 1-7 against him (he's 1 or 2 - 0 against me over the years) - but i wasn't scared of bogeymen, not even if they work for the inland revenue... first game was - kinda short - creatureless burn vs crystaliine sliver,muscle sliver,muscle sliver - his ensnaring bridge might have saved him if i didn't have a disenchant handy... 1-0 second game was harder - took longer -but i'd borded in orb,null rod,cop red and honorable passage and found them all as any burn deck will tell you - a deck with cop red + null rod + counters in hand + untargettable critter (one 2/2 crystalline sliver) is not a fun thing to try to deal with.... 2-0 taxman won the next (i'd wished him luck ) and qualified 17th on 18 points... 6-2 18 points unbelievable - i was through !!! (i had a look at the scores and rechecked - but it was true - everyone who'd seen the decklist laughed at it - 'bizarre' - now they were copying it down or asking me to mail my suitcase file of it to they for playtesting...) several well known faces were struggling to qualify ben martin,nigel jefferson (both went with white shadow weenie -there were lots around),mark wraith (all on 15 i think) and my manchester crew colleague paul watson on 16 points (if he'd ID'd he'd have been sure to qualify but him and his opponent worked out the maths wrong and played it out - and paul lost - he took it very well but as he'd only thrown the deck (a green weenie) together the day before it went very well...) round 9 paul grogan - 5 cg he knew my deck - i'd shown him a listing a couple of rounds back. i knew his but we'd already agreed if we drew each other we'd ID and play for fun -we did - it was a re-run of my last 5cg massacre - 2-0 in about 6 minutes to the counter-sliver... so i ended up on 19 points qualifying 12th (7th equal on points) and the deck in reality went 7-2 despite some truly dreadful play on my part a new deck archetype ?- well it's not as revolutionary a dreadshifter but it's certainly playable, combining a flying untargetable weenie rush with blue bounce and control - it's fast and fun to play - and handles blue control especially well -no more 1 hour bounce marathons...the only deck that i can think of that will hammer for certain is the 5 colour 30 sliver deck - ironic .... also according to cid the success\entry ratios of deck types were: control 3/18 4/5 colour 2/13 weenie 9/28 reanimator 2/9 counter-burn 2/8 sliver 2/4 (winner :) big critter 1/11 pb 0/1 discard 0/5 burn 1/10 (taxman i assume) a good mix - what will happen at blackpool ? i may well turn up and find out... ben martin and mark wraith just missed - i think they'll retry and brum in 2 weeks the tourney was won by the ever impressive Kevin Gething and the big blue flying deck he's been playing for 2 years (and he was penalised a round when his opponent took umbrage at his old islands - and the judge agreed) - although anyone who knows kevin knows he beats you bown fair and square well i played kevin for fun afterwards and he really does have a jinx on me -the first game i just couldn't handle his flying horde- couldn't get through - the next five draws i was mana screwed each time - i then gave up in disgust - he looked at my decklist - 'if anything' he said ' with the portents in you have too much land' -' i know' i sighed 'i expected a lot of wastelands in the mono decks' and i went off to beat up ellis and his 5c black deck for some light relief - i might design fun decks but beating kevin gething ? - my luck isn't that good yet ... :) anyway good luck to everyone in ther attempts to qualify in blackpool and brum i'll see you at the nationals later andy