Subject: PTQ ROME Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 23:28:52 -0700 From: Nathan Donovan To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com 9/12/98 Pro Tour Qualifier - Rome Held at Neutral Ground - Mountain View, CA Rath Cycle Constructed 63 attending, 6 rounds of swiss, with a top 8 single elimination. Pre Tournament stuff.... Ok, well it's thursday night and I am making the final changes/modifications to my Rude Awakening deck. I am pretty certain that this is the deck I want to play, having tested it the most I feel really confident about it. I hop on the dojo real quick and scan through some of the Southern CA reports from the previous week, cause I know a lot of the players that didn't qualify there will show up here. I see pretty much what I'd expect in the top 8....sligh, hatred black, humility prayer, countershard, and rude awakening. I am looking for people's sideboard tech against this deck mainly, as I have not been in touch with my usual e-mail/playtesting group as often as I would have liked. A couple of things caught my eye, which I didn't see a lot of at worlds...helms of possession in weenie decks, scalding tongs for colorless damage, and some other annoying stuff...Ok time to modify the sideboard...a second verdigris comes in, as does a second grindstone, cause I see a lot more control decks that I would have expected. I decided not to play any propagandas, because felt that they didn't protect me from enough of the creatures in the environment to warrant 3-4 slots either maindeck or sideboarded. Beating the creature rush against black and red with the Oath of Druids was working wonderfully in playtesting, and I thought there would be enough people playing humility/prayer and trade/awakening to warrant 3 scraggies in the side. The extra countermagic was a crutch, basically. It provided a little more speed defense against fast decks with early hits like hatred and early set-up decks with hermit druid and recurring nightmare...That and the blue mage inside me never lets me attend a tournament with less than 12 counterspells =P. The legacy's allures were a defense I wish I could replace with something better, but oh well.. One mistake I made in constructing this sideboard, though, was not using torture chamber, rootwater hunter, or some other form of pinging. These cards would have helped me immensely against annoying 1/1's like hermit druid and coffin queen, which both ended up being the death of me =P On to the Tournament... My friend Doug is playing Humility/Prayer, and we discuss some finer points of strategy while filling out our decklists...I make one last minute change with 1 minute left for deck reg. Here's the deck I registered... Rude Awakening: 10 Island 8 Forest 3 Skyshroud Forest 2 Reflecting Pool 4 Counterspell 4 Forbid 1 Mana Leak 4 Whispers of the Muse 4 Capsize 3 Awakening 2 Oath of Druids 4 Tradewind Rider 4 Spike Feeder 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Spike Feeder Sideboard: 3 Mana Leak 3 Scragnoth 2 Legacy's Allure (These are useful, but I did not side them in when I should have) 2 Oath of Druids (didn't need 2 sb..1 extra sided in against sligh was enough) 2 Verdigris (could have gone down to 1) 2 Grindstone 1 Tranquility Round 1 - Table 18 Steve Kesterson, Playing Tradewind Awakening! Oh joy, First match of the day is gonna be a long one... First Game, I manage to get out my tradewind trio first, and drop awakening...he drops a legacy's the turn before I lay awakening...He attempts to steal my tradewind with one counter, and I respond by buffing up the windy beast with a spike feeder counter... A few turns later he concedes, after his land mysteriously begins to disappear. Second Game, He has 3 legacy's allures out but he doesn't see his necessary creatures early enough...I get forbid action going by the time he sees his weavers and tradewinds. He drops the big blue hating beast from hell, and I am forced to start chumping and losing walls to the allures...A few turns later I manage to capsize his last legacy's and my stolen walls in time to prevent scragnoth from killing me... Time is called and the second game is unfinished... 1-0 matches, 1-0-1 games Round 2 - Table 6 Doug Dossett, playing Humility/Prayer Oh great, my friend and I get to play each other this early in the tournament...neither of us is too pleased but we remind each other to play tight and start shuffling... Game 1, I basically get the tradewind/awakening lock before he can find humility... Game 2, He is color screwed and cannot find his blue mana..he does get an orim's prayer and grindstone on the board, so my weaver and feeder are beating him up as hard... I mana leak his desperation intuition for islands, and that is pretty much game. 2-0 matches, 3-0-1 games Round 3 - Table 3 Robin Jones, Playing ??? I am drawing a complete blank on this round, but I win it 2-1 3-0 matches, 5-1-1 games Round 4 Peter Costantinidis, playing CounterShard Game 1, This is a very long and drawn out game of counterwars, denial, selective burn, and LOTS of land laying... he shocks two early feeders, and I finally manage to get a tradewind on the board to start dealing damage... I get another weaver on the board, he has shard on the board and I put 3 counters on tradewind ... I finally draw one of my maindeck Oaths, and promptly put it into play. He has a quizical look but realizes that by doing this, I can force him to sac down to one shard each upkeep so that I don't get a second tradewind on the board... needless to say, my tradewind gets him down to 1, I am at 20, and time is called. First game unfinished!! 3-0-1 matches, 5-0-2 games. Round 5 Nathan Jeffrey (sp?), playing Sligh Game 1, I take an early beating from raging goblin, mogg flunkies, and a few burn spells. I am a little mana light, but I finally see a wall of blossoms by turn 3, and and oath of druids drops on turn 4. The game is locked up with an oathed tradewind and a spike weaver by turn 5, and a capsize/awakening follows soon thereafter. I am at 3 life and he concedes. Game 2, Pretty much the same as game 1, except that I opened my hand hand with 2 islands and 1 forest (perfect mana draw for this deck), 2 wall of blossoms, 1 counterspell, and 1 oath of druids. the lock hit a few turns earlier, but the judge would not let him concede, so I bounced up all his stuff and beat him down. 4-0-1 matches, 7-0-2 games At this point I am totally elated, as it has been a while since I have gone undefeated in such a dojo rich tournament. I am in 4th place at this point, and I can afford to draw the last round. Round 6 Huei St. Shue, playing tradewind awakening Intentional Draw. We shake hands and congratulate each other on a match well avoided =P. 4-0-2 matches, 7-0-2 games Top 8 Standings. 1) Huei St. Shue - Tradewind Awakening 2) Wayne Chiang - Sligh 3) Peter Costantinidis - CounterShard 4) Nathan Donovan (me) - Tradewind Awakening 5) Mark Shick - Suicide Black 6) Charles Voloshin - U/W/g FattyClysm 7) Eric Campusano - Recurring Death 8) Brian Foster - Sligh Quarterfinals vs. Brian Foster See Round 5...was almost identical. Semis vs. Eric Campusano game 1, 1st turn he goes land, mox diamond, hermit druid. I Frown. It was a downhill battle from there. *After game 1 I notice that some of his cards are fairly scrapped up on their sides (he was not using sleeves.) I know this was just a result of playing many rounds, and that nothing had been intentionally marked, but I felt compelled to say something nonetheless.. The attending judge goes through the first 20 or so cards, determines that none of the cards are marked in a systematic fashion (only lands, only certain creatures, etc.), hands the deck back to him, and we continue shuffling. Cool.. It would suck to make it this far and run into problems like that. I felt bad about it for a second, but then I remembered the 3 packs of deck sleeves I had gone through that day searching for just 60 sleeves that weren't bent on the side, creased along the back, or messed up in some other way. Playing sleeveless when penalty guidelines like this are so harsh is dangerous, but after today, with all the money I spent buying more sleeves, I am seriously considering the sleeveless option. Ok..enough babbling..back to the report. game 2, 1st turn land, mox diamond....no druid..ok..I might have a chance here.. NOPE.. Hermit druid/coffin queen/thrull surgeon do their dirty work on me before I can establish a lock. The game was in the back when I was forced to tap out on turn 6 to play a tradewind, his next turn he plays lobotomy and happily rips 3 spike feeders outta my hand (I had 3 islands and 1 forest in play...) I congratulate him and SCOOP after he finishes me off with a buffed up tradewind a few turns later. So I make it as far as semis...oh well. Not a bad day all in all, opened some product while I waited for the advil to kick in. then I watched the last 2 games of the finals where Eric got land screwed with only forests but still pulled out game 2 with an angry scragnoth + survival of the fittest. Game 3 Charles gets a slow start, and starts the downhill battle of chucking his hand to his forbid, trying to keep Eric's nasties off of the board. He finally gets out an oath, but Erics cloudchaser comes into play and that is pretty much game. Congratulations to Eric Campusano for qualifying for PT Rome...best of luck. Anyway, until next time, -Nathan Donovan nated@cruzio.com