Subject: Rome Pro Tour Qualifier - Houston, TX 9/5/98 Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 14:16:15 -0500 From: "Eric Knipp" To: I drove to Houston for the PTQ on Saturday 9/5. The 250 miles from the area near Dallas where I live to Houston were traversed in just over three hours due to oversleeping. Fortunately I was not pulled over for speeding or I would not have made it there. The format for Rome's PTQ is of course Rath Block Constructed - Tempest, Exodus, Stronghold. I had tried a number of different designs and strategies, but after recently talking with David Williams about 2 weeks ago when he was playing Horsecraft quite heavily, I decided to play Counter/Phoenix. Counter/Phoenix has some problems in the early game against very fast decks; you basically have to make sure you are able to play a Shard Phoenix no later than turn 5 or you will probably die. What support spells are available in the form of burn are really not numerous enough to hold off a weenie horde. However, if you survive the early game and your draw doesn't go to pot, with good playing skills you are almost always going to win in the late game, because of the incredibly powerful Forbid/Shard Phoenix counterspell lock. Here's the deck, as I played it - 4 Shard Phoenix 4 Shock 4 Counterspell 4 Mana Leak 4 Forbid 2 Dismiss 2 Capsize 4 Whispers of the Muse 4 Intuition 2 Mox Diamond 2 Scabland 2 Thalakos Lowlands 2 Wasteland 4 Reflecting Pool 6 Mountain 10 Island Sideboard: 3 COP Green 3 COP Red 3 Light of Day 3 Disenchant 3 Legacy's Allure I added white solely for the purpose of the sideboard, as scragnoth is an incredibly bad problem for this deck to deal with. By adding COP Green, you can basically handle any living death threat that comes along if you play it smart, since most of their sources of damage are green, and since I was playing white anyway, I decided to add COP Red which you can intuition for since you have 3 of them, giving you 7 ways to get the card, and 3 Light of Day, since it gives you a free win against a black deck. Disenchant of course should not be left out of any white sideboard, and Legacy's Allure was my choice for White Weenie. I had a very light board where white weenie was concerned, simply because I did not anticipate seeing much of it. Well, I was right, I did not see much of it, but unfortunately I did see some of it. On to the report. Round 1 I am paired against a girl playing a red/blue burn/bridge/tongs deck. I win game 1 at 2 life, game 2 she beats me as I draw an opening hand of 6 lands and 1 Phoenix, and see 6 more lands in the next 8 turns, and game 3 I win easily after my COP red hits the board (she concedes). Round 2 I am paired against Daniel Pechon, a guy from my area who is playing white weenie, and I know that this will probably result in a match loss. I'm right, it does. He drops more than 8 pro red creatures during the course of 2 games, draws 4 catacylsms and just beats the pulp out of me. I see of course ZERO sideboard cards and he disenchants my mox diamond. Oh well. The only real problem with losing this early is that I have to win out, and of course that I'll get stuck in the lower bracket. They call it the funny bracket for a reason. Round 3 I play against a funny deck in the funny bracket. Blue/white with limited resources, tradewinds, capsize, 16 counters, basically a very janky deck that shouldn't beat anything but another control deck on a good day. Both games an early uncounterable limited resources takes me down. The player of this deck claimed that it worked well against anything, but I really don't see how that thing beats a burn deck, a mono black deck, a living death deck, hell anything that can handle its mana being played with should pound the hell out of that thing. Still, it was exactly the wrong matchup for me, and she drew hella counters, winning every counter battle we had with a 3rd mana leak or a 4th counterspell. Bummer. At this point I could have dropped, but I figured I made the drive, I might as well play (especially since block constructed has a new set of ratings to go with it). Round 4 I play against a mono blue bouncy deck with medallions, stalking stones, etc. I beat him in 2 easy games as should be the case when Phoenix recursion begins. Highlight of the match was me getting first turn island, mox diamond, second turn island and bounce his land back to his hand. Round 5 I play against another mono blue deck, this one also gives me no trouble and I win easily 2-0 with Phoenix recursion. Round 6 my opponent doesn't show up, I'm 4-2, oh boy. So I decided now to play in the Grand Prix trials .. Round 1 Played against a mono black rage deck, he eats my lunch first game with turn 1 sarcomancy, turn 2 sarcomancy and carnophage, turn 3 something else. Second game I intuition for a white source 3rd turn so I can play the light of day in my opening hand, from that point on its all about dealing with his jinxed idols which wasn't too much trouble. Game 3 was more of the same as I slap down light of day 4th turn after intuitioning for it and end his game. Round 2 Played against some Austinknight guy running a Humility/Prayer deck, beat him in 2 games with recurring Phoenix technology. Second game was a bit tougher as I had to keep Humility off the board and protect my one capsize and forbid, but really I had control most of the game. Round 3 Played against Daniel Pechon again, as he didn't make top 8 in the main tournament (big surprise as white weenie loses to half the field in rath), once again he beats me, but this time its because he drops 4 pro red creatures in game 3 and gets off a cataclysm when I only draw 2 counters the whole game. Oh well. Round 4 Played against Rob from the Guildmages who is playing black rage, figured no problem as I lose game one when drawing no red mana (with a Phoenix and 2 shocks in hand), then game 2 I draw 5 land in my opening hand, including a mox diamond, but never see a light of day, phoenix, shock, or intuition, and a single spinal grafted dauthi horror kills me. Oh well sometimes you just lose, that was my second loss so I'm done and I drive home. Some things I noticed were that I did not see as many living death decks as I expected. Additionally, a lot of the living death decks were really odd, with stuff like Shard Phoenix, etc. I think James Stroud won for the day with a mono red burn deck, going undefeated in the swiss and then winning the top 8. The mono red decks, even a really bad one featuring the horrible Cinder Crawler (it made top 8), were incredibly consistent and did well throughout the course of the day, from what I saw. Mono black didn't do so well simply because it loses to White Weenie and burn, as well as countermagic, and Counter/Phoenix did well also (I believe Adrian Sayers also qualified, and he was playing it as well). From what I saw, most of the Austinknights were playing Counter/Phoenix, although a few may have played other things. The environment still isn't set in any way and it will change again for the next qualifier in Dallas, but I expect to see a lot more burn in the near future as it is very easy to play and very consistent. Also control will probably make a recurrance as it seems to knock out just about everything and even keeps the playing field level with burn after sideboarding. I have to give mad props to the tech sideboard that the Austinknights had for their Counter/Phoenix. Also to David Williams for confirming with me that Counter/Phoenix was a good strategy; although in hindsight I think he was wrong in saying that I should drop from 18 to 12 counters. Even 14 was probably not enough. See you in Dallas.