Subject: Tournament Report - Prosperous Bloom a.k.a. 'Contract BEATDOWN' Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 17:48:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Patrick Lennon Johnson To: Frank Kusumoto I played in a little type two tournament at Neutral Ground. Here is how it went: I decided to play my ProspBloom deck because 1) It is a very solid deck. 2) It doesn't lose to Wall of Blossoms like the other decks I try. Reason enough for me. I believe that the bad rap that the combo decks in type two have received are a product of fundamental misunderstandings of these decks by the people badmouthing them. Basically, you can't just pick up the deck without testing and expect to do well. With bloom especially, my experience is that the deck performs almost exactly proportional to the expertise of the player. Anyway, the real report... Round 1 vs Jamal playing black buried alive. Game 1: He buried alives for sliver queen, sliver queen, and necrosavant on turn 3. I show him my turn 4 kill. Game 2: My draw isn't quite as spectacular this time. He buried alives sliver queen, sliver queen, and necrosavant again. I'm impulsing to find combo pieces. He necromancies sliver queen. Fine, I'm on a clock now. He attacks and necromancies the other queen. I inform him that it would bury one of the queens because she is a legend. I allow him to take it back because he didn't know and I can win next turn anyway. And I do. 1-0; 2-0 Round 2 vs Robert Hahn playing Donais 5 color blue. Game 1: A classic bloom on control matchup. Here's the board after 6 turns: His Side My Side -------- ------- 7 cards in hand 7 cards in hand 2 impulse in graveyard 3 impulse in graveyard 6 land in play 6 land in play Some people might think this match up is boring, but I love playing bloom against control. It's a welcome break for me from "pup, incinerate, ball lightning, fireblast" or "knight, knight, crusade, geddon". I'm not saying that beatdown decks aren't good or fun to play. Just that I appreciate the subtle, mental game more. Anyway, we go back and forth like this for a lot of turns. I test him by throwing out spells that I can afford to get countered like superfluous squandereds. Eventually, he beats me down to 1 with an uktabi orangutang. Knowing I have to go off next turn, he impulses and whispers with buyback on his own turn, searching for counters. I think it was a mistake to buyback the whisper, because it leaves him less mana up on my turn for the counterspells. Anyway, I outmana him and go off rather easily once I get him tapped out. Game 2: I see an opening relatively early and get him to have only three mana open on my turn. Me: Abeyance you. Him: counter it. Me: Aha! You only have a city of brass untapped. Bloom, pitch, pitch pitch, Prosperity for 11. Him: Pyroblast it. Me: D'oh. I was hoping he didn't have it and I figured I would take a risk since I won the first game. Game 3: He draws too many of his colorless lands and doesn't have enough colored mana for counters, lobotomy, pyroblast, or anything. That is why I don't like Donais five color blue. Whenever I try it I get 2 quicksands and a wasteland and lose. Anyway, charm his Aura of Silence during his discard phase he counters, I go off cause he only has colorless up. 2-0; 4-1 Round 3 vs Gus playing multicolor white Game 1 he plays mox diamond, tithe, plains first turn but doesn't have enough beatdown to put any pressure on me. I abeyance him and go into the combo easily. Game 2 More of the same. He never saw his auras or charms or pyroblasts fast enough, and I just abeyanced him before going off anyway. 3-0; 6-1 Round 4 vs Brook North with white weenie splashing blue. Game 1: I draw Island, Balance, Balance, Balance, Tutor, Bloom, Meditate. now there is no question that I mulligan this hand. *Maybe* if I had a swamp and a tutor, or an impulse and an island, but as it was there was no question I couldn't keep that janky hand. I paris and get: Contract, contract, bloom, drain life, prosperity, squandered. No land. Paris again. I actually get a halfway decent hand but after allowing Brook to hymn me twice there was no way I was going to win. Game 2: My draw sucks, but not bad enough to mulligan. The play: He has 4 creatures out and I'm at like 10. He casts a crusade that would kill me, I sink him out. He attacks me so I'm dead next turn. Now, I have a squandered out, and my hand is two blooms and a balance. I haven't seen a f*$#(@* card drawer all game though. I bang on my deck and it rewards me with a prosperity. I think I win. Here is what happens. Balance, play bloom, prosperity for 11, draw crap, crap, crap, crap, tutor which I can't cast because I'm at 1, crap, crap, crap, crap, abeyance, abeyance. Play a gemstone, abeyance him just to get a card, abeyance him again just to get a card, draw a contract. Contract, draw: crap, crap, crap, crap. There were 22 cards left in my library before that contract, including 3 prosperities, 4 impulse, 1 meditate, and 2 more contracts. Whatever. So I am one mana short of draining him to death. Oh well. 3-1; 6-3 I still really love the deck even though it crapped out on me there. That has only happened twice in many, many tournaments so I can't complain too much. Patrick Johnson plj9@columbia.edu