Subject: SA Urzas Saga Prerelease Report - Mike Doecke **TOP 32** ;) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 15:32:04 +950 From: Michael Troy Doecke To: DCIA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM SA Urza’s Saga Prerelease Report- Mike Doecke **TOP 32** ;) Well folks, it’s been quite a while since I actually bothered to write a tourney report if not in light my greatest ever triumph, at least to prove that all South Australians aren’t as illiterate as Russell Barlow ;) - I warn you though, it's long - ENJOY! :) Or as Russell would say :- " I hop you like my tournament I would like to write my tournament now because I’m not sure wheter every one is too slack too do it but if theyre not then Im always the one who has to it because theyre slack and by the way thw way does anyone know the adress of the wizards website and because why haven’t I got my 8000 points for winning all 140 matches at the states - oops I mean my mum won them - better delete that out before I send this message????? See I even took; the time actually to spel and puntuate it all correctly?" All right enough Russell bashing for one E-mail and on with the report. :- Coming into the event I was marginally confident to say the least. People who didn’t know me better might even think arrogant - my record over the Rath pre-releases of 21-3 is second in Oz behind John "Force Spike" Ou and the magical ability of your average Adelaidian falls way behind their ability to drink beer or watch the footy. I stumbled into the tournament venue amidst 78 players, on Sunday a little after the preposed start time feeling uncharacteristically fresh for a tournament. I even deliberately passed up the opportunity to party all night with the other 1.4 million Crows fans who spent Saturday night hugging each other all over the city. It was madness! The formalities of rego took a while but eventually we get a chance to check out the new cards - Here’s the deck I built :- 6 Forest 6 Swamps + 1 Cycling Swamp 4 Mountains + 1 Cycling Mountain Interestingly enough I think I cycled my cycling land practiaclly every time apart from when I really needed land when I just didn’t draw it. (18 Land) Wild Dogs - Sit Ghazban, sit. Pouncing Jaguar - Fine Cave Tiger - I’m afraid 3 for a 2/2 flanker just doesn’t cut it any more Gorilla Warrior - Can anyone say "mirage quality" 2 Argothian Swine - Look a lot like a wild elephant with a fancy name to me. Blanchwood Treefolk - It’s just not a spike! War Dance - Great when played 1stturn ....... Apparently (ask my opponents) Sybiosis - get ahead - stay ahead. Strong Bog Raiders - I thought a 2/2 swampwalker would be good - I was wrong! Blood Vassal - Hey, this guy would be strong in a "Fallen Empires" draft! Crazed Skirge - Expensive Spined Fluke - About the only creature that actually impressed me Expunge - A real stud probably cast it about 20 times! Despondency - Cycle a banishing vs 3 colour decks - YEAH RIGHT! ;) 2 Vampiric Embrace - My elephants would rather become Serra Angels but I told them that Sengir Vampires would just have to do. Viashino Outrider - FAT! As I found out, echo creatures ROCK! Arc Lightning - Cast this twice all day - never got 2 for 1. Shivan Raptor - This guy had a little trouble squeezing past all the 2/4’s for 1G Goblin War Buggy - Ditto. Dragon Blood - Cast it - wait a few turns - WIN! What a combo. (22 Spells) Some cards that didn’t quite make it included :- 2 Retromancers - too hard to cast and hell, I didn’t have any targeted removal. Smokestack - Great card if used right- sided in against anyone without bouncing enchantments. Hush (tranquillity)- Could probably have been main deck. 2 Raze, 1 Lay waste - Secret SB tech vs echo - actually worked once ;). In white I had a few playable card including 2 Pegusus Chargers, both cycling protection creatures, a brilliant halo, a healing salve and 2 disenchants. Despite having like 20 plus blue cards all but 2 of them were totally unplayable (although I could use one of my 3 tolarian winds to discard the 2 annuls in my hand and hopefully draw some of my 3 curfews and 3 sandbar merfolk which I could in turn cycle to find one of my 2 hibernations which would allow me to return all MY green permanents to my hand J) At first glance the deck looks solid but as I was to find out over the course of the day it would have been solid for a MIRAGE sealed ;). I’m afraid 3 cost 2/2s just don’t cut it any more. On with the report - Round One - Jake Hart - Green/White/Blue I can’t say that I was particularly pleased to be paired with Jake who is without a doubt among the top 5 SA players. He does have a habit of trying to cram several BBBBB spells into a deck which only has 4 swamps though, so I felt he had a fair risk of at least getting slowed down by mana screw J. As it turns out this sort of happened in game one. Despite drawing 6 total land he didn’t seem to be able to cast any of the spells in his hand and I applied beat down on the big guy. I Had him guaranteed dead both from what was on the table and from both my hit the ground running creatures which I had held back so I was confident that even the wrath/geddon I had heard about wouldn’t say his ass. Then he played it - WORSHIP. Without a doubt the most stupid card yet in all of magic sealed. It’s an enchantment W3 - As long as you have creatures in play damage cannot reduce your life below 1. Insanity in T2 , TOTALLY BROKEN in sealed. Needless to say that I lost despite trying to cycling through about 6 cards for a removal spell to kill his only creature. I did do about 180 damage to him though before he killed me with a flier which made me feel a little better. Game 2&3 I sided in white for 2 Disenchants and took him down without even having to use them because he didn’t draw the insanity card in either of the games. I later found out that he just saving up so that he could draw it in EVERY other game for the rest of the day ;). Match Score 1-0 DCI Rating +4 (WOW) Round 2 - forgotten the name - nice guy though. Green/White/Black It was back to the good old days as I applied trampling beat down with Pooky, the War Elephant Vampire for a quick win over a slightly mana-screwed opponent. Game 2 I slipped out a 4th turn smokestack (sack a permanent for each counter) with recursive buy-back enchantment and killed about a million of his permanents - and a fair few of my own before having to step up destruction to suicidal level to wipe out some of his big threats. I ended up totally clearing the board and his hand apart from two of my land. As I have come to expect I was discarding in 8 turns while he proceeded to wipe me with creatures that he had cast with the 4 land he top-decked. L. Not that I’m complaining - he looked guenuinely upset at top-decking to beat me. Game 3 I went first but stalled at 3 land while he proceeded to pay G3 on 4th turn for a 6/6 trampler. Fortunately for me It did have the HUGE disadvantage of letting me sack a land every turn to return it to the top of his library. As if that card isn’t going to be as popular as an Ernham. After taking 12 I did draw a banishing though and managed to last just long enough for the OTHER 6/6 green creature that he cast for G4 the very next turn to get a piece of me too! Match Score 1-1 DCI points -341 million ;). There goes any chance of me gaining points today - maybe if I go 8-0 from here on in I won’t lose too many though. Round 3 - Jon Yong - Green/Red/White A friend of mine and a really cool guy (I have a LOT of respect for anyone who has dreams of a T2 viable fade-away deck ;) ) - Despite this his record against me in sealed isn’t great - and with fade-away not being reprinted in Urza’s I felt particularly confident. Anyway, both games went pretty much the same - we both played mirage quality creatures then he played the +0/+3 armour artifact so I played the "dragon blood" which does permanent +1/+1 counters. Needless to say I won the war. My war effort was certainly helped by the fact that he didn’t play any creatures that make Ernhams look bad. As I found afterwards he DID have creatures that were up there with Ernhams (where are my GG1 4/4 trample/echo) but just didn’t draw them - or the instant earthquake or indeed any of his other 5 insanely broken cards. Gulp. My War Elephants were just about ready to take their new-found vampiric habits back to mirage to crush some four cost 2/2 griffins and frankly so was I ;). Match Score 2-1 DCI Ranking around -18 Round 4 - Natalie Leno. Green/Red/White This match-up brought back memories of the tempest pre-prerelease where she proceeded to beat everyone except me and then taunt them by giving them "beaten by a girl" signed cards. My fears from the previous round were confirmed in game 1 as she proceeded to fry a couple of my poor elephants and make the rest feel all "warm and fuzzy inside" before crushing me with a GGG3 7/7 trampling, regenerating upkeep-GG Force of Nature which she cast on the 5th turn. Hmmmmm, I remember when GGG3 used to buy you a 4/4 Geas Leige which couldn’t even attack for the next 5 turns. When I offered her the option of changing it for one I even got laughed at! Game 2 went pretty much the same except that this time I was able to get out smokestack by itself and cunningly clear the board apart from my 4/4 dragon blooded Pouncing Jaguar. Just for a change my opponent recovered slightly better than me after the global removal effect, 4 lands to 0 at one point. The sad thing is that could still save the match with any of the 3 unsummoning sickness creatures in my hand that I couldn’t cast with the 2 swamps and a forest that I eventually drew. Match Score 2-2 - Out of the finals and down about 45 DCI points Well i'm running low on time now although you wouldn't know it from the length of this message. I scraped a win in round 5 only to be crushed in the last round by Andrew Bishop whose deck contained 4 one-cost 2 power creatures, 3 goblin buggies, 3 2/4 green echo insects for 2 mana which he proceeded to continually cast and beat me to death with. In all three games although I did manage to scrape a win in one when he forgot to pay echo cost. I ended up 3/3 in 29th place and down about 70 odd DCI points. Not a great day at the office success wise but still a lot of fun. In the finals I had the pleasure of scoring in the semi-final between Jake Hart(or should I say the player who recieved worship) and Steven "Fish" Finney. Despite the fact that Jake managed to cast worship 4th turn on EVERY game they played Fish still managed to scrape a win - solely due to the broken "steal target perminent" card and an arsenal of countermagic. Never the less worship made this matchup one of the most tedious I have ever seen. The Two finalists Smilin' Mike Kazantzis and Fish Finney deserve much praise for their efforts, despite the fact that Mike addmittedly playing nothing but scrubs all day. The tournament was run well by Dale Aitkin, although the prize support of a box split between the top two was a little dissapoining. Other than that a great day was had by all. Future Urza's Saga sealed event should prove interesting to say the least ;). If you got this far you certainly deserve some sort of reward - I guess if you ask Russell nicely enough his mum could fix you up with a few hundred DCI points. :) Thats all folks. A final standings posting should be on the way sometime soon. Thanks for reading. Mike Doecke