Subject: PTQ Rome Pittsburgh Tourney Rpt (Nathan Heiss) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 14:33:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Nathan Heiss To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com PTQ Rome Pittsburgh, 9/12/98 Attendance: 53 6 Rounds Head Judge(s): Mike Guptil, Jeff Donais Winner: Nathan Heiss (hey, that’s me!), playing Turbo Tradewind Well, all the rumors are true, some guy qualified with Manikins, Here is how it happened. Way back when CMU was testing Rath for worlds (they ended up playing the infamous “Horsecraft deck”) I decided to make up a Rath deck outside of the gauntlet, something somewhat new for them to test against. I based the deck on our old Tempest only “Big Blue” that used Mawcors as one of its beatdown creatures. Now the environment had Thalakos Drifters and Curiosity, two cards that I found to be excellent. Originally, the deck was more of a Mind over Matter Deck (MoM) that had Rootwater hunters and multiple MoMs; eventually I was forced to cut them in order to make the deck faster. The deck gets its name (Turbo Tradewind) from the blinding speed it is capable of. With the utilization of Manikins combined with Mox Diamond, Tradewind lock can be set up by turn three, granted, this may be a rarity, but if any of the 7 accelerators are drawn initially, the results are apparent. Fast Cows (Mawcor) are pretty good I hear. Decklist: (The Andon guys better know this by heart, they deck checked me 4 times!) 4 Tradewind 4 Mawcor 3 Thalakos Drifter 4 Manikin (yay!) 3 Counterspell 4 Forbid 3 Mox Diamond 4 Curiosity 2 Legacy’s Allure 3 Keeper of the Mind 1 Mind over Matter 2 Capsize 19 Island 2 Stalking Stones 2 Maze of Shadows (decided during the tourney that these should have been Stones as well) Round 1: Fight! (Unfortunately I cannot remember all the names, but ill give as much info as I can) Opponent:?, playing ReccurDeath w/ Hermies Game 1: He starts by dropping surgeon (pulling Tradewind), Weaver, and Scrag. I drop a Drifter and a Cow, he Deaths, killing his Weaver in response, and I Capsize buyback my Cow in response. He gets a Weaver and a Surgeon, I get Tradewind. He surgeons my Capsize and I eventually win by bouncing stuff strategically. Game 2: He drops Survival early, I cant counter. He survives for Scrag, I had no blue interrupt for him (oh, to have a slight!). Scrag goes all the way. Game 3: He hermies half his resources away, I drop some fat and pound on him as he fails to draw a Death. I win the match 2-1 Record 1-0-0 Round 2: Incoming! Opponent: Herbert? Burning Bridges Game 1: I drop fat, he burns it. I drop more, he runs out of burn, and a mighty BTINGS commence. Game2: (note: I still cant believe I won this game, he got really unlucky) Starts of like Game 1, but he has a Tongs on me and I’m looking for a Capsize by serving with a Curious Keeper. I tap out to drop a Cow, and he Boils me for 6! Ouch. The next turn, I've got an Island and an Allure in my hand, I serve and draw a Diamond off the Keeper. I play land Diamond Allure, not bad the turn after Boil. He blasts by Cow and I keep serving w/ the keeper while getting beat down by tongs. I am able to Capsize/Forbid w/ buyback just in the nick of time, I was at 1. Well, being at one against Burning Bridges is quite a messy situation, every time he drew a card, I prepared to scoop (my Forbid eventually ran out) but all he ever did was play land, Gnomes, Bridge, or Wall of Razors. I was able to fend off the Gnome with my Keeper (She's so fat!) and dropped out a manikin and one more keeper (that also had curiosity on it). About 10 turns after my Forbid ran out, I drew another capsize and started Capsizing his Defence, and getting the keepers through. I won, but barely. I win the match 2-0 Record 2-0-0 Round 3: Hello? Calling Mr. Tings? Opponent: Pat? U/R Forbidden Phoenix (my worst matchup!) Game 1: Deck check #1, he gets a game loss, whew! Game 2: Hello? Calling Mr. Tings! I get the super B-Ting draw...the first few turns went as such. T1-him-He plays an Island T1-me- I play Island...oh, and Mox Diamond and a Manikin too! T2-him-uhhh...Island T2-me-Island, Drifter T3-him-Island.... T3-me-Island, Drifter (countered), beat for 4! T4-him-....Mountain T4-me-In comes the Cow! As you can see, this game was a complete Ting. However, it could not have happened at a better time, seeing as how Forbidden Phoenix is my worst matchup. I win the match 2-0 Record 3-0-0 Round 4: WW you say? Opponent: Mike, playing WW. Mike (I forget his last name) and I went to lunch earlier and we both vaguely knew what each other were playing. He indicated to me that there seemed to be an unusually large amount of Tradeawake running around, and he has played them for the past 3 rounds. This is a big change from last weeks PTQ in Columbus, where WW was rampant. Game 1: Deck check #2, all is well. We play, and seeing as I am able to beat WW 85% of the time, this is no different Game 2: He sideboards in humility, which was something new at least. It worked well vs. my Tradewinds, but horrid vs. my Capsize. I was able to get card advantage through it by capsizing during the attack phase and blocking a smaller creature, when he didn’t have the mana to recast it. I win the match 2-0 Record 4-0-0 Round 5: WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CANT DRAW IN!?! Opponent: Denvia Laugel, Forbidden Phoenix Del's record was 3-0-1, so she couldn’t draw, which was really bad for me considering she was playing Forbidden Pheonix. I have played this exact matchup many times, and save a miracle (like mana screw) she was gonna pound my Manikins into the ground. Game 1: Deck check #3....ok guys, isn’t this supposed to be random?!? All is well. I get a draw that would beat any deck besides this one (and maybe Hatred Cull). I drop threat after threat to no avail. Eventually I get Forbid locked and get beat down by 4 angry Phoenixes. Maybe my sideboard will help. Game 2: My draw is sub-optimal, and hers is good enough. I go down after putting up a small fight with a shark. I lose the match 0-2 Record 4-1-0 Round 6: Well, I might as well play all of them... Opponent: Mike Magby, Trade Awake Mike had low tiebreakers, so we were forced to play. Game 1: I Tradewind lock him turn 3, Manikin is pretty good I hear. Game 2: We get into this situation where all he is doing is dropping the same 2 things, and all I’m doing is bouncing them. I end up winning it with Legacy’s Allure. Top 8 The top 8 consisted of 1 Hatred deck, 2 Forbidden Phoenix, 1 White Weenie, 1 Trade Awake, 1 sligh, 1 Finkledeath, and 1 Turbo Tradewind. 2.Turbo Tradewind---- ----Turbo Tradewind----- 7.White Weenie-------- -----Turbo Tradewind----- 6.Forbidden Phoenix--- ----Forbidden Phoenix----- 3.Sligh------------------ ----Turbo Tradewind 8.Finlkledeath--------- -----Finkledeath---------- 1.Hatred---------------- -----Trade Awake------------ 4.Forbidden Phoenix-- ---Trade Awake--------- 5.Trade Awake--------- Deck check #4!! Ok, this is standard procedure....but Jake Hillman and I have both been deckchecked 4 times!! Then again, we both also made it to the finals..... Round of 8 Opponent: Mike ? From round 4, still playing WW Game 1: He drops some shadows, I drop a Cow. He Clysms, I keep the Cow, I win. Game 2: He drops Humility against me, I let it through, knowing that I have Capsize. He Clysyms. Game is at a stand still with me at 1 and a second Clysm occurs. If I could have drawn my second land I could have busted out a few Manikins, but it never came. Eventually he finds a creature and kills me. Game 3: Starts to look similar to Game 2, but this time I get the second land after the Clysm and start to go berserk. The game ends with Cow B-Tings. I win the match 2-1 Record 6-1-0 Round of 4 Opponent: Denvia Laugel, playing Forbidden Phoenix Ok, this is bad. I know what happened in our last matchup (Round 5) and I didn’t like what I saw. I couldn’t help myself from predicting the outcome of the match. I don’t like it when people whine about that kinda thing, but I guess I’m a hypocrite sometimes. Sorry bout that guys. Game 1: I feel like I’m banging my head into a wall every time I cast something, because nothing ever resolves. I get thwomped by some phoenixes and go to game 2. Game 2: In comes the 4 Sharks, 2 Whispers, and the last Drifter. Out go my MoM, 2 allures, 2 Mox Diamonds, and my 2 Capsizes. As I drew my initial hand, I almost leapt out of my seat! The draw was SOME good, as an anonymous spectator (Ahem! You know who you are) shouted, “Id like you to meet Mr. Tings!”. T1-me- Island T1-her-Island T2-me-Island, Shark T2- her-Island T3-me-Island, 2nd Shark (countered), Curiosity my first Shark, beat for 2, draw. After that, the game was pretty much a sealed victory for me. I cross my fingers and go into game 3. Game 3: Well, I lucked out here. I managed to get 2 Keepers in play, due to the fact that she would just Phoenix them later. But she had 7 in her hand and I had 5. I activated one Keeper, and in response activated the other. She cast Capsize (no buyback) in response, thinking it would fizzle the Keeper ability, but it doesn’t (because they check on activation). This combined with the fact that she was mana screwed* allowed me to win the game. *She only drew 5 out of 29 land, including both Caldera Lakes in the deck. It may not sound like it, but that is severe mana screw. I win 2-1 Record 7-1-0 Finals: Opponent: Jason (Jake) Hillman, playing Trade Awake We decide to split 150-winner, 100-loser. Jeff Donais tries to bribe whoever the loser will be to come to Detroit next week, its quite amusing. Jake and I are Friends so we are happy that at least one of us will qualify, because there are only a few Pitt guys on the tour, even if Randy Bhueler is one of them ( ya, you heard me right, he goes to Pitt!). The Match will be out of 5. Game 1: We both mulligan once. He wins the game through a quasi Tradewind lock. I just sat there and got my head pounded in. Game 2: I mulligan 3 times!!! My first hand had only a Stalking stone, the second had no land, and neither did the third. I put up a good fight with my 4 cards....even dropped a tradewind! Then I got my head pounded into the ground some more...Things are looking bad for me. I gotta win 3 in a row. Game 3: Now were talkin! He mulligan and I get a turn two manikin...the rest is history! With the blinding speed of my Manikin, I am able to start up my Tradewind before he can. I win this one. Game 4: No Manikin this game...Jake drops a Bottle Gnome on me turn 3. I don't counter. He beats with the Gnome for awhile, while we wait for each other to drop something so the other can counter/retaliate. I break this cycle by dropping Stalking Stones. He is forced to try and drop something (Tradewind) I counter, then drop my own horde. The game goes downhill for him the rest of the way Game 5!: Well, it all comes down to this. We start the game off with a turn 2 Manikin! Raahhh! I get some Tradewind/Capsize action going, with a little Whispers added in. I can’t go for his land because he keeps dropping threats like Tradewind and Dominating Licid. Eventually I draw a Legacy’s Allure, take his stuff and proceed to win the game. I win 3-2 Final Record 8-1-0 Well folks, looks like I’m going to Rome! But first some Props and Slops. Props to Jake for making the finals! And to Andon for checking our decks o so well. (Seriously, the tourney ran quite smoothly and on time) Props to all the Wrestling fans cheering and booing below us! (ECW was there) Props to all the people who helped me make Turbo Tradewind, you know who you are, but I’ll list you anyways...The whole CMU crew, not just the team...Austin, Nick, and Lowell for helping me tune it....and to my overseas friend Dylan Chan, who also helped me out a bit. Props to the fortune cookie that I got with my dinner that said “Take a vacation, you will have unexpected gains” Now for the Slops...... Slops to Blimpies for being closed Slops to Nick for ripping up the Grollub (the Grollub is your friend) That’s all for now, I hope to see you all in Rome!