Subject: Dojo Invitational Report Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 01:03:13 -0400 (EDT) From: EDGE Collectibles To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com The Dojo Invitational #2 Report Legionnaires invited to this event were myself (Alex Shvartsman), Marc Paschover and Mike Pustilnik. Unfortunately Mike was unable to stick around and play after the finals, so we were fortunate enough to have Larry Janiec agree to take Mike's place. Although there was much talk of playtesting for this event and we occasinally managed to actually discuss the formats and strategy, we never had any time to actually build and test decks. In the end we decided to go with old, proven decks we have played in the past. I was to play the "Type C" named after Cathy Nicoloff who invented the format - this is basically type 2 without the main set (which really changes the environment - no Geddon, Orb, Disk, etc.). Marc Paschover suggested playing a MIVIWL Ertai deck with shadow creatures and Living Death. We would have probably ended up building that but I realized that my current type 2 deck is legal for this format with the exception of three Nevinyrral's Disks - so I replaced them with 2 Capsize and a Legacy Allure and got this: Time Warp Beatdown (original design by Paul Ferker) - Type C 4 Spindrift Drakes 4 Ophidian 4 Man-o-War 2 Suq'Ata Firewalker 2 Waterspout Djinn 2 Silver Wyvern 1 TIME WARP (yeah, tech baby!) 4 Counterspell 1 Dismiss 1 Forbid 1 Mana Leak 1 Dissipate 4 Legacy Allure 3 Impulse 2 Capsize 1 Phyrexian Furnace 17 Islands 2 Svyelunite Temple 4 Quicksand Sideboard 4 Chill 3 Propaganda 3 Wall of Tears 1 Suq'Ata Firewalker 1 Phyrexian Furnace 3 random cards I never got to board in and dont recall This version of the deck is also known as a "Super Scrub Special" because it has "1" of so many cards, which is not normally a good idea. Having watched the U.S.Nationals we felt that the best deck to play in the type two bracket is Prosperous Bloom. We simply copied Mike Long's and Peter Leiher's deck card for card (hey this IS the DOJO invitational) and gave it to Larry. If you want the deck list, its on the WOTC web site somewhere. Marc Paschover was to play Extended. Since we didnt know what to really make of the format right now, we simply threw together my old extended deck I playued in GP: San Francisco. It was really strong vs anything without Land Tax so we figured.... Marc, in the minor flash of clarity, added Necrologia to the sideboard - it proved to be more than amazing against pretty much everything. DARK SIDE NECRO - (original design by Bill Macey and Alex Shvartsman)- EXT 3 Necropotence 4 Disk 3 Demonic Consult 4 Hymn 2 Choking Sands 3 Rain of Tears 3 Steel Golem 2 Sengir Vampire 1 Ishan "el Ombre" Shade 2 Contagion 2 Spinning Good..Darkness 4 Dark Ritual 4 Drain Life 1 Lake of the Dead (coulnd't find the 2nd one on such short notice) 4 Wasteland 18 Swamp Sideboard 2 Necrologia (woo!) 1 SpinDarkness 1 Contagion 3 Dystopia 2 Dread of Night 3 Coercion 2 Choking Sands 1 Stench of Evil Time for the actual report itself. There were 15 teams total at the invitational including some of the better-known players such as Team CMU (Turian, Lauer, Buehler), Control Freaks (Weissman, Nicoloff, Chapin), TDC (Flores, Tran, Johnson) and many others. Frank Kusumoto paired everyone up and informed us that The Legion has a win against Team Bye. That Mr.Bye was a scrub to begin with, and I guess his teammates are no better :). We spent the hour hanging out with members of team PWL and checking out the beta version of Apprentice 1.3 (it is sweet!) as well as helping Jack Stanton open boxes upon boxes of MONTY PYTHON CCG he begged out of Andon staff (they were giving out a pack to each person signing up for Origins all weekend). Round 2 - Team Two Guys and a Sex Slave (Andrew Pacifico, Jamie, Joshua) The inquiring minds wanted to know which one of them was a sex slave. We were told Andrew Pacifico was it, as his girlfriend was hanging out on his lap throughout the match, trying to bring him good luck. Apparently it worked as Pacifico's mono-blue deck swept Larry 3-0 in the type 2 bracket. Pacifico had just lost the top 8 match playing Sligh against Finkel's mono-blue deck, so I guess he converted to the winning side. Marc faced Jamie in Extended, playing a Dreadnought/Pandemonium deck. Jamie won the PWL tournament with that deck the day before and powered it up with Demonic Consultations this time around. Marc's disruption proved to be too much for Jamie's combo deck and Marc won all three games. Of note was a play where Jamie dropped two Pandemoniums on the table and Marc killed him by playing a Sengir followed by an Ihsan Shade next turn. I played against Joshua. He mulligans down to six and I play first. I lay a land and play Spindrift drake. Joshua draws a card and says "done". I play another land and beat him down to 18. Joshua draws another card and concedes. Turn 2 kill - I am SUCH a good player! Problem is, I haven't a clue as to what Joshua is playing so I don't get to sideboard. It turns out he is playing a very similar deck to mine but with Sapphire Medallions and Tradewind Riders (come to think of it, he and Pacifico may have been playing the exact same deck). Joshua has a better draw and beats me down with a horde of Man-o-Wars (I think he drew six or seven of them that game). Game three is the total Spindrift Beatdown. The Drake serves while I hold him off with Counterspells and Man-o-Wars. I got a better start and Joshua never gets a chance to come back. Round 2: 2-0 Marc - Jamie 3-0 Alex - Joshua 2-1 Larry - Andrew 0-3 Round 3 - Team Cabal Rogue (Adrian Sullivan, Kevin McLaughlin, ---) I wasn't watching Larry vs Adrian match as I was involved in my own.. All I know is that Adrian was playing John Shuler's deck and Larry beat him either 2-1 or 3-0. Marc ran into a mono-green Stompy-ish deck with Concordant Crossroads (now THAT's tech!). It managed to overrun him game 1 due to poor speed but wasn't nearly as lucky after sideboard, with those extra removal spells brought in. Marc won 2-1 in three close games. Kevin was playing the "Spike Girls" deck - heavy spikage backed up by some utility stuff like Living Death, etc.. The deck is actually very, very good. First game I had a great start, used up the Vineyard mana easily (it actually helped me) and beat up on Kevin with several flying monstrosities. Game two and three I wasnt as fortunate. Kevin played THREE Vineyards in game two and I just couldn't use up the mana. He then dropped a Scragnoth and without the Disk it was all over. Game three he got a Scragnoth early and I was unable to win the race even though I came relatively close. Larry - Adrian 3-0 (?) Marc - 2-1 Alex - Kevin 1-2 Round 4 - FINALS - Team Discovery Channel (Al Tran, Mike Flores, Pat Johnson) Wow, finals already? Cool, free booster packs to draft with! Marc played vs Al Tran using R/b Sligh with Demonic Consultations. Early in the game Marc casts Hymn to Tourach. Al "King Consult" Tran responds by Consulting for Guerilla Tactics (I think he had another one in his hand) and managed to mill away almost all of his library. Marc beats him down with Steel Golem and a Drain Life and Al dies with ONE card left in his library. I guess he should only consult for Kaervek's Spite for his amazing consult skills to work right. Al beats up on Marc in the next two games with skillful Sligh draws. I am playing vs Mike Flores who is also playing Sligh with Boils standart. Flores gets some early beatdown in and brings me down to eight, but I establish control by than and kill him with 'Spout and Wyvern before he can draw enough burn to make me slightly crispy. Lucky for me Mike does not draw his Boils (three in the main deck!) I sideboard in TEN cards (hey, I really dislike Sligh) and we begin game two. We are in midgame when all of a sudden Mike realizes that Svylunite Temples are not legal in this format. DOH! I totally forgot about those! We call Frank over and he awards me a game loss and lets me replace them with Islands - guess I am a cheetor now :( Game three I draw my sideboard cards and beat Flores down with Chills and other annoying things in play. It is all up to Larry now as we are 1-1. Larry is playing vs Pat Johnson and both are playing Bloom. I was kind of worried because I know that Pat is one of the better Bloom players out there. Luckily Larry is no chump either and he beats up on Pat 2-0. As this is the finals they do not need to play out the third game and we win the tournament and split four boxes of product (whatever am I gonna do with almost a full box of 5th edition packs? mmmm, recycling bin) and a Mox Emerald :) Props: Frank Kusumoto and the Magic Dojo for running a great tournament and an even better web site. My teammates, both present and far removed for their support and insight. Andon for donating the boxes as well as running great tourneys all weekend long (thanks Jeff, Mike, Denise and everyone else) Cathy for inventing a really fun format. Mono-blue is way too strong in it (a lot of people were playing it that day) but if there will be more type C events I am sure other 'tech might emerge. The U.S.National team which is VERY strong this year. I gotta get Matt Linde to sign my Abeyances one of these days. The color Green that proved this weekend that it is actually a valid Magic color once more. - Alex Shvartsman (with some help from Marc sitting next to me in the airport as I type this up patient enough to read my ramblings and make suggestions).