Subject: PQ-Rome Report: Columbus, OH Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 13:05:12 -0400 From: "Theron L. Martin" To: The Dojo Before I begin, I want to state for the record that I would be writing this report even if Andon Unlimited wasn't offering a bonus prize to anyone who writes a report about one of their events - although the bonus will certainly be accepted! :-) On Sunday September 6th I traveled from Indy to Columbus, OH for my first PQ-Rome of the season, avoiding one of the biggest horde of Ohio State Troopers I have ever seen on I-70 along the way. Because this was the Sunday of a holiday weekend and the event was competing with GP-Boston and Dragon Con, I expected a low turn-out, but not the mere 48 people that actually showed up! This makes it the smallest PQ event by far that I have ever attended. It also meant a mere six rounds, which meant that the elimination rounds began around 6 p.m. locally - you won't often see that at a PQ! Mike Guptil [sp?] was the head judge, and IMO he is one of the best (and friendliest) head judges around these days. The field was heavy with white weenie decks of varying qualities, many of them direct copies from the version on The Dojo. This surprised a lot of people I talked to, but not me; as you will see if you read my Pre-Season Analysis (which should be posted about the same time as this - there were technical delays or it would have been up before this first weekend), I predicted that white weenie would be very popular, and Columbus has traditionally been a stronghold for WW in constructed formats. Living Death decks, as also expected, were the second most popular deck type, and several Sligh and Suicide Black were around, though not in the numbers of WW. As I also expected, there was very little monoblue present, but don't expect that to be a lasting trend. The overall quality of deck design was not high, but the strongest versions of each deck type quickly distinguished themselves. In a quandry over what deck to use, I took an experimental U/G design with a splash of white for sideboarding. Since I will probably be using it at the mega-PQ in Muncie, IN in two weeks, I won't give a full listing at this time, but astute players should be able to figure out most of it from the report below. The deck baffled a lot of people at first, because it's basically a hybrid of two other deck types and can look like something entirely different from what it is if I can beat you without showing a couple of key cards (which is certainly possible; the deck has three distinctly different ways it can win). Both play in the PQ and a couple of suggestions from friendly fellow players indicates that it needs a little tuning, most specifically the addition of an extra land or two, but it appears to be workable. The sideboard also needs a major adjustment; Chills are a counter-productive thing to sideboard when you are playing with Vineyards! ROUND 1: vs. Alex Borteh, Survival/Death with Scroll Racks Alex's is the only name I remember, since he made it to the Top Eight. He has a very careful, disciplined, and deliberate play style for one so young (I doubt if he was more than 16), much like "Turbo Bob" Wagner. Some might have said he was excessively slow, but I never felt he was stalling on me, even when we started to run towards the time limit. Our first game stalled out horribly while he tried to set something up to get a Living Death around my Null Brooch. Normally this is good for my deck, but I never could pull a lock card - Tradewind, Grindstone, or a second Null Brooch - during this time, and eventually he got his big Living Death off. A few turns later I conceded when he got a Tradewind/recursed Thrull Surgeon loop going. With 50 minutes already gone, I had little hope for finishing a second duel. I did try; I got a Grindstone and quick defense up and quickly milled him down while he was able to do little or nothing effective. Even though we both sped up our play, we got timed out with him still having a dozen cards left in his library. Ugh! I needed about two minutes more. The match should have been a draw, but as I said before, I didn't feel he was ever stalling on me and so didn't complain. That's just one of the risks of playing a milling deck. Record: 0-1 matches, 0-1 duels ROUND 2: vs. R/W beatdown This deck was supposedly designed around a R/W Sligh-type mana curve, and it did work properly in the first game when I was having mana problems. The second and third duels, though, I didn't have mana problems. One of those duels saw him lose to Vineyard burn while locked down by a Bridge, the other saw him beaten down by the fastest creature pull my deck can muster. Record: 1-1, 2-2 ROUND 3: vs. Suicide Black In the first duel, he was able to pull off the turn 4 Hatred because I had taken one damage from a pain land to cast a Legacy's Allure. (Had it not been for that one damage, he could not have used Hatred that turn, and never could have killed me with it past that turn.) The second and third duels saw my deck work the way it was supposed to, although I spent most of one duel with only one land. Record: 2-1, 4-3 ROUND 4: vs. WW This was a more traditional WW deck, almost an exact duplicate of the one on The Dojo under "TSE Decks to Beat". His Soul Wardens kept him from ever even coming close to dying from Vineyard burn, but he had trouble getting around the Bridge and could not deal with the Grindstones (which between both duels milled away 7 Cataclysms and 6 Disenchants). He never got me below 10 life, not counting life-gainers. Record: 3-1, 6-3 ROUND 5: vs. Survival/Death This deck had a very different land and creature mix from Alex Borteh's, including a Stronghold Assassin, Warrior Angel, Benthic Behemoth, and Starke of Rath. One player I talked to (I promised I wouldn't say who) told me that he'd been recommending Starke to Survival/Death players as a joke, and was utterly amazed when I told him that it had actually been damn effective against me. Granted, you have to have an active Tradewind and two other creatures out for Starke to be effective (you use him, then bounce him back to your hand before your opponent can his him), but that's not a hard combo for a good Survival/Death deck to set up. The first duel here went precisely the same was as it did in the first round (only I believe I was also mana-screwed early), but I recovered strongly in the second duel. The third duel started with him having only a Vec Township for a green mana source, which slowed him down tremendously. When he tried to cast a Skyshroud Elf, I used a 4-counter Legacy's Allure on it to try to keep him mana-screw. This proved to be the correct decision, and he conceded when it appeared that I was going to crush him with creatures before he could do anything about it. He looked at his next draw - a Forest - and regretted it, although I think I still had enough damage on him to kill him before he could muster an adequate defense. Record: 4-1, 8-4 I should have been able to draw in at this point, but because the 4-0 who was paired down in the 5th round lost, there were 9 players at 13 or 12 points, and I was 9th. This left me paired down, so I had to play. I was very trepidatious about this, since I have had a poor track record when it comes to having to play in the final round with a win getting me into the Top Eight and a tie or loss kicking me out. ROUND 6: vs. U/G deck Although very similar to my deck (he even used Vineyards), I'm not exactly clear on what the point of his deck was. It appeared to be a Rude Awakenings deck, but he didn't use Awakenings or Legacy's Allures, and he didn't use my Bridges or Grindstones. What the match did come down to was mana screws and Tradewind action. In the first duel he never saw a green mana source of his own, but my unfortunate early playing of two Vineyards gave him all the green he needed and I never saw a blue spell of my own the whole duel - and I held the sole Skyshroud Forest I drew, so he wouldn't know I even had blue. The second duel I am not color-screwed, and draw and lay a Legacy's Allure early. This proves necessary as we get into a nasty back-and-forth Tradewind war. At one point I was tapping three Tradewinds together for one effect because Tradewinds composed three of my four creatures, and at other points I controlled as many as four Tradewinds (including one of his). I had difficulty getting the critical sixth creature I needed, though, so he eventually got out two Tradewinds himself, one active, and we started bouncing each other's Tradewinds. Unfortunately for him, I also had a Grindstone churning away, which ran him out of cards before he could establish control. And the third duel? I get three mana sources out by turn two, and with a Null Brooch, Spike Weaver, and Tradewind in my hand I know I have only to get another land in the next two or three turns to seal the game. Unfortunately, I go about six turns before that happens, and by then it's too late. Like the previous two duels, it comes down to who establishes Tradewinds first and stronger. Record: 4-2, 9-6 Thus for the second time in my last four PQs I lose out on making the Top Eight by losing in a final round that I was forced to play. Very frustrating! Even worse, the guy I played this time was just a spolier; he couldn't possibly make it into the Top Eight. Arrgh! Mana-screw was my main enemy this day, which has convinced me to add at least one more land to the deck. As for the Vineyards, they are a killer against some decks, but a partial detriment against others. I'm going to have to reconsider using them standard. TOP EIGHT: 1. Leonard Richardson, 14 points, Sligh 2. Jason Means, 14, WW 3. Alex Borteh, 13, Survival/Death 4. Jess Means (Jason's brother), 13, the same WW deck as his brother 5. Nathan Heiss, 13, monoblue 6. Aaron Forsythe, 13, Counter-Phoenix 7. Anthony Justice, 13, WW 8. Ed Porter, 13 points, slight "Workhorse" variant DECK NOTES: Leonard's deck was a 20-land Sligh using Seismic Assault (basically a cross between Long's Worlds deck and Rod Ho's Worlds deck). It had a very interesting - and, once you thought about it, amazingly sensible - bit of Secret Sideboard Tech. I find the idea of someone getting screwed by it so amusing that I won't reveal what it is, other than to say that it's a spell most players would never even consider using. The WW decks of the Means brothers used Torture Chambers and Orim, Samite Healer (a card I have advocated for use in these decks) standard, which is what gave them the edge against the other weenie decks in the format, but they did not use Moxes. They also, interestingly, either used standard or sideboarded Gallantry. Anthony Justice also did not use Moxes in his WW; his special tech was Master Decoys and Convictions. Aaron Forsythe's Counter-Phoenix was fairly standard for its type, and Ed Porter's deck used Spike Breeders to set up a massive creature rush in addition to the normal Workhorse tricks. Nathan Heiss's deck was the most distinctive and original, and thus deserves special comment. It little resembles the monoblue decks posted on The Dojo or the versions I suggested might be around in my Pre-Season Analysis. The deck was designed around achieving card advantage from one of two opposite diections; either directly via Curiosity or indirectly via using discard effects (Thalakos Deceiver, Mind over Matter) to set up Keeper of the Minds. It of course used Tradewinds, Allures, counters, and Capsizes, but also used Manakins as an accelerator and additional creature and Mawcors, which combined with the Deceivers and Allures to make a devastating shadow defense. Since the field was weenie-heavy, it must have performed competently enough against them to get him this far. I don't have an exact deck listing, but look for it if it gets posted in another report. QUARTERFINALS: Due to a deck-listing error, Leonard automatically loses the first duel. This puts him at a disadvantage, and he must watch as Ed executes the Workhorse machine. To Leonard's credit, he did not budge an inch on the engine and forced Ed to run it completely, which caused Ed to make mistakes that prevented him from proving that an infinite loop was possible without the Wall of Blossoms (Leonard's criteria for accepting the loop). After a half-hour, though, Ed had gathered enough spike token creatures to completely overrun Leonard the next turn. Because of Ed's mistakes in execution and Leonard's Secret Sideboard Tech, I believe Leonard would have won a best-of-three match against the Workhorse, but because of the penalty he succumbs 2-0. Aaron Forsythe beat Alex Borteh 2-0 in a match that saw a long, tight first duel but a second duel that saw Alex mana-screwed at three mana (and with a Lobotomy in hand and his opponent tapped out!). Nathan Heiss beats Jess Means 2-0(?) in the match that proves that Nathan's odd monoblue is fast enough to deal with white speed. This was the fastest match by about a half-hour. In an epic WW-WW struggle, Jason Means ultimately prevails against Anthony Justice 2-1 as all three duels come down to back-and-forth battles of Cataclysms and Soul Wardens (in the second duel, six Cataclysms were cast). The win in the third duel finally came when Jason recovered better from his own Cataclysm than Anthony did, because Anthony drew Wastelands as his next two lands and could not draw the second Plains to cast his life-saving Cataclysm. (Until Jason drew the land for that Cataclysm, I was sure he was going to lose, because he had recovered poorly from an earlier Cataclysm by Anthony.) This match took over an hour and a half, making it the longest, most competitive, and most tedious WW-WW match I have ever seen. SEMIFINALS Because most of the quarterfinal matches had been long and tedious to watch, I did not stay for the semis. When I left, Ed Porter and Nathan Heiss were just starting their third and deciding duel, but barring a terrible draw I expect that Nathan won (although his deck does seem to have a problem dealing with Mindless Automatons). In the other semifinal match-up, I fully expect yhat Jason Means beat Aaron Forsythe, because WW is one of the toughest possible match-ups for Counter-Phoenix and Aaron himself admitted that WW was his greatest concern. If the Finals did come down to Nathan and Jason, I expect that Nathan beat Jason for the qualifying slot. With the exception of the form of Nathan's monoblue, it appears that most of my pre-season predictions have been borne out so far. Until next time, folks. . . - The "Big T"