Subject: Santa's Army: Tournament Report Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 01:27:44 -0400 From: PETER To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com David Salgo dsalgo@ic.sunysb.edu Hi Dojo people. This report comes from a tournament that is held every Monday at around 5:30 at the Smithhaven Mall on Long Island, in America, in the Northern Hemisphere, on Earth, ....um... This report takes place on May 25, 1998 A.D.. Anyway, I call this deck Santa's Army because of its massive amount of elves (4), and because it is red and green (Christmas colors). Let's get it on: Santa's Army: Birds of Paradise (1) Granger Guildmage (2) Llanowar Elf (2) Elvish Archers (2) River Boa (4) Uktabi Orangutan (2) Jolrael's Centaur (2) Lhurgoyf (2) Mogg Flunkies (4) (Great with Suq'Ata, Boa, Jolrael, The Goyf, and BIRDS!) Suq'Ata Lancer (4) Goblin Bombardment (1) (The Goyf chow) Shock (4) (The bolt of the 90's) Incinerate (4) Cursed Scroll (4) Forest (7) Karpulsan Forest (4) Mogg Hollows (1) Mountain (5) Mountain Valley (2) Undiscovered Paradise (1) Wasteland (2) Da Board: Dwarven Miner (1) Uktabi Ornagutan (2) Lhurgoyf (1) Goblin War Drums (2) Tranquil Domain (2) Final Fortune (1) (Scroll and attack with Goyf twice?) Simoon (1) Pyroblast (4) Torture Chamber (1) Da Report: Match 1 vs. Greg Bole's 3-6CW As this tournament turned out, I played four members of "Team: I'm not quite sure what their team name is right now." They used to be "Team: Power House" and they have been changing it lately. It might be "Team: Administers of Anal Justice," but I'm iffy on that. Anyway, they are all great players, fun guys, and they are the mall's best competition. By the way, Greg Bole is the first member of the team that I faced. The first game starts out with good ol' fashioned Mox Diamond/Tithe action on Greg's part. The game proceeded with a back and forth battle with his knights and my critters. I took over the creature war with good ol' fashioned Cursed Scroll. After a few lucky hits from the scroll, Greg plays a Winter Orb, which my scroll isn't too fond of. But by that time I was able to attack a little more and Shock him. Game 2 was much harder to win. We do the creature battle as usual until Greg plays Propaganda! Dingus!!! I left the Tranquil Domains in the sideboard. This did slow me down and so did the second one that showed up. On the plus side, I did eventually get a 4/5 Lhurgoyf to attack a few times. I was pretty lucky that Greg did not draw his Geddons or Orbs though. Also the Granger Guildmage was pretty helpful during that game. Match 2 vs. Jon Ho's ProsperBloom Jon is a cool guy that recently came back to Long Island, so he might be unfamiliar with the field of decks at the mall. Before the tournament I joked that last week, 90% of the field played ProsperBloom. He then said; "Do you have psychic abilities?". I thought he was joking, because I never saw him play Bloom. So guess what Jon plays! BTW, Jon convinced me to write this report (my first). Game 1 starts off with a nice start on my part and Jon manages to get a little combo screwed with Squandered resources missing. He tried to go for IT, but ended up with me having a Meditated turn. Jon had an unlucky draw. I've heard Bloom doesn't like unlucky draws. I ended that game with an attack followed by Goblin Bombardment. Game 2 I sideboard out the Goyfs, couple of shocks, and even the Goblin Bombardment that won me the first game. I replace the Bombardment with the Final Fortune, which should deal much more damage than the Bomb. Also Tranquil Domains came in and the Bomb doesn't like those. Dwarven Miner and Pyroblast came in too. I usually do not expect Bloom at the mall, but I happen to have a convinient sideboard today. My opening hand was pretty good that game, with me starting out with a second turn Dwarven Miner. Jon pauses to say "Uh Oh," and we then proceed to his turn. I then cast a Mogg Flunky after attacking with the Dwarven Miner (No $5-$10 lands to kill). On the turn after that, A Wasteland meets Jon's City O' Brass, I cast another Mogg Flunky + attack. Jon does not get the combo off in time. Match 3 vs. Erik Rodriguez's 5CG Tradewind-Geddon Uh, Oh. Attack of the TEAM. Erik is a cool guy on the team who has lately been calling me GQ. Game 1 Erik get's manascrewed with an Undiscovered Paradise, and a soon to be roasted Bird of Paradise. BTW, "You gotta respect the Mana Screw." Game 2 is a much better game. Having nearly gotten my ass kicked last week by his deck, I was prepared this time for his sideboard of 4 Winter Orbs and 4 Propagandas. If I studied the Dojo better, I might have known to expect that. Anyway, in comes 4 Pyroblast (Die, Tradewing, Die), Simoon, Tranquil Domain (friggin' Prop-Orb), and Goblin War Drums. Let me explain why the War Drums rock the house. They screw over walls (much better than Chaos Charm IMHO), Screw Steel Golem (You need two Steel Golems to block, which I heard is kind of hard to do), get passed Boa's, First strikers, big dudes (such as the ever popular Leviathan), and protection creatures. The Walls are my main concern. Anyway, this game has me throwing perfectly good Suq'Atas (via Bombardment) at Tradewinds followed by Incinerates... TWICE!! And the loss of Incinerates screws me because boa's are holding of my Goyf, and Propaganda is out. After a long stand-still I am able to recover from geddons and avoid the Orb, and scroll him to death. Match 4 vs. Sergio Castanza's Mono-Blue Beatdown Sergio is the third member of the team, the first member that I have ever played (back in the glory days of "Type 1.5", or as it is now called, "Type not played any more"). Sergio, like every one I have faced today, is very smart, and rarely makes any playing errors. Game 1 Legacy's Allure and Quicksands cause me some trouble, but I manage to smack Sergio around until good ol' fashioned scroll can do its dirty work. Game 2 I put in Pyroblasts and Tranquil Domains from the sideboard. A nice play by Sergio went like this: I play first turn Mountain Valley, I sac it after I draw and Sergio said I must need the land. I cast Boa and say "me done." Because of this slight mana problem, Sergio decides to sac the Svyelunite Temple to bring out Suq'Ata Firewalker. Nice play. That little 0/1, really slowed me down. Eventually Sergio beat the Primordeal Ooze out of me with one attack consisting of Waterspout, my Lancer, and Cloud Elemental. Yummy. Game 3 I was on fire! Boas and Archers all in a row. Which was very hard to stop. His last ditch effort was to blow the disk which was like a fog to my boas. Match 5 vs. Carl La Bassi's Godzilla Carl is the ring leader of the team and we had to split the prize because of the lack of time (the mall closed 30 minutes earlier). He is pretty lucky that he chose to split because my deck would have gotten the beating of its life. Carl wouldn't want that! His monstrosity that he used would have basically neutered my Lhurgoyf! We played a game for fun, and I got smacked around by animated Verdant Forces and the like. For some reason, his creatures were SLIGHTLY out of scroll range! Thanks a lot for reading the report, and If you can make it to this tournament, it is really worth playing. Only $3 to enter. Props: The Team formerly known as Power House The letter "R" The Tri-County posse The Smithhaven posse Even the Comic Book Depot posse and everyone who plays Magic Slops: The letter "Q" just gets my panty's in a bunch! Bah Bye.