Subject: PQ-Rome Report: Muncie, IN Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 16:17:55 -0400 From: "Theron L. Martin" To: The Dojo THE 4-SLOT MUNCIE EVENT: A PQ-ROME REPORT NOTE: This report does not have any details of the Top 8 action, though I have given a breakdown of the top decks in the later rounds. You'll have to see someone else's report (Adrian Sullivan was still there when I left, so undoubtedly he will have the details) for that. Instead, I will focus mostly on the environment. Rumors were flying in the U.S. Midwest during the late spring and early summer that T.O. and Level 3 judge Barret Moy had not only obtained four qualifier slots for PT-Rome, but was planning to offer them all up in a single qualifier. These rumors were met with incredulity and even outright disbelief by many of the PQ and PT regulars in the Midwest, partly because we couldn't see how Barret could avoid taking a bath financially in the deal and partly because he had chosen to hold it in Muncie, IN, of all places. (For the uninformed, Muncie is a medium-size city located about 45 miles NE of Indianapolis that is best known for being the home of Ball State University. Although Ball State does have a respectable role-playing community, the area has never been noteworthy for its Magic play and is not centrally located among the MTG hot spots in the Midwest.) The rumors proved true, however, and on September 19th the collaborative Legion/Simply Magic effort - with Barret as head judge and George Pratt as T.O. - drew 140 players from across the Midwest to the Horizon Convention Center in downtown Muncie. Although this is only an average attendance by central Indiana standards, it is far bigger than anything else I've seen or read about so far (short of the Grand Prix events) in the Rome qualifying cycle. Name players present in one capacity or another included Randy Beuhler and Bob Maher, and a very significant portion of the field had high-level (PT or Nationals) tournament experience. Barret Moy announced just before the first of eight rounds began that, to up the K-value for the event, Level 4 rules enforcement would be instituted. The single biggest result of this was the requirement to call a judge to concede in a duel, a circumstance that Barret came to hate by the third round. The other major rules issue was players not putting counters on their spike creatures, which resulted in the vast majority of the warnings handed out for rules infractions. Each time one of the judges saw a player without counters on their spike creature, that player was given a warning and forced to lose their spike creatures (since, as we all know, spike creatures without counters on them die). Some people grumbled about this, but they don't really have any grounds for complaining; it is a standard floor rule now that anything which is supposed to be marked with counters is actually marked with counters or the equivalent, just like it's a standard rule that life count must be recorded by some means. Anyone who does not mark their spike creatures with counters at a serious tournament is either being clumsy, careless, or is trying to cheat their opponent, and in any case does deserve a warning for it. The problem this did raise, though, was people deliberately "forgetting" to put counters on their spike creatures so that they could claim that they should be dead already when a Living Death comes up. Another big rules fuss came up in the sixth round when Brandon Rutter and Brian Fox, between being deck-checked and getting into fine rules arguments that involved calling the judge several times, got started nearly 20 minutes late. As I understand it, the biggest argument came about when Brandon, who had declared his intention to play, asked Brian if he wished to take a mulligan, and when Brian declined, Brandon took one himself (which is a violation of the rules, since the player going first must make all mulligan declarations first). I don't know exactly how Brandon got penalized for this, but I do know that this led to bad feelings which resulted in one player calling a judge to have his deck shuffled rather than let his opponent do it. Brandon ultimately won the match. The field at Muncie was, not surprisingly, very heavy with Living Death decks, most commonly the version which uses Anarchist, Stronghold Assassin, and Lobotomy standard. Awakenings decks were also around in numbers, although only one remained in contention past the fifth round. Sligh and Counter-Phoenix also had significant showings, as did the monoblue card advantage deck (the Mawcor deck, as many people were calling it), but Humility/Prayer and Suicide Black decks were few and far between. I did not see or hear about any Workhorse decks, but there was a U/G/W Counter-Sliver deck present, as well as at least one R/B Pandemonium deck (it used Flunkies, Wall of Razors, and Wild Wurms - think about it!). The most significant new deck type was a U/B Pit deck which played with Tradewinds and ultra-heavy discard elements that a couple of players from Illinois were using. I also heard a couple of great stories about a fabulous new combo deck centered around Corpse Dance, Anarchist, Goblin Bombardment, and Time Warp. Probably too fragile and mana-intensive to worry about (without Jet Medallions or Memory Crystal, you need 10 mana to do it), but interesting and inventive nonetheless! The most important deck of the tournament, though, was White Weenie. Several different versions were present, some monocolored and using Helms standard (like The Dojo posted version), some using Torture Chambers and Orim, Samite Healer standard (like the deck that qualified in Columbus two weeks earlier), and some multicolored. Of the multicolor versions, the two most successful were a W/U version that worked in Tradewinds and Mana Leaks and a W/R/U version that used Fireslingers, Sonic Bursts, and Mana Leaks. They matched Living Death as the single most heavily used deck type, and far more of them were in contention late than any other deck type (see below). I went with a slightly updated version of the primarily U/G Bridge/Grindstone deck that I had nearly made the Top Eight with in Columbus two weeks earlier. It has a creature base nearly identical to Rude Awakenings, even including the Legacy's Allures, but this time I dumped the Bottle Gnomes and Vineyards in favor of more mana sources, a standard Disenchant, and two standard Lobotomies. I also sided Portcullises and additional Lobotomies this time, in addition to a block of Counterspells that could replace the Bridges against certain decks. I had done these changes to make the deck stronger against Awakenings and Living Death, against which the deck runs only 50-50 (it dominates against weenie-based decks and usually beats Counter-Phoenix and Humility/Prayer). Unfortunately, I got a chance to test this early and heavily, as my first three opponents were Awakenings, Death, Awakenings. Although I dominated the first Awakenings opponent, not being able to draw a creature, Reclaim, or Bridge for six straight turns (I was in the middle of a 15-card mana bubble, I later discovered) cost me a draw in the second match. Failure to get an 8th mana source before my opponent got his 9th cost me the match against the Death deck - I had an active Ertai out and a Portcullis in my hand, and only needed enough mana to use both to essentially lock him down - or so I believed at the time. I realized, much, much later, that casting the Portcullis without four extra mana would have cost me the Ertai (it would have allowed him to cast Living Death), but that would not necessarily have cost me the game and probably would have led to a draw instead, since we were very short on time. Ah, well; at least I had the consolation that my opponent was in contention for a Top Eight spot when I left during the 8th round. Leonard Richardson continues to claim that my bad luck is due to me not wearing a hat, but most of the other top players weren't wearing one, either, so I have trouble giving this belief any credence. I went on to beat up a young girl playing a monogreen deck (I hated playing her, because I knew she had no chance), then dropped out to play side tournaments, where my horrible drawing luck - a total of four lands in three opening draws for a deck with 17/40 lands - followed. By the time the later rounds came around, the contenders looked like a cross-section of what has been working elsewhere, with the exception that WW was far more popular and Rude Awakenings was far less popular. Going into the sixth round, the 21 decks still in contention consisted of 6 WW, 5 Death, 3 Sligh, 2 Counter-Phoenix, 2 Mawcor blue, 1 Awakenings (barely hanging on in 21st place), 1 Suicide Black, and one I don't remember that was one of the standard deck types (another WW, I think). In the seventh round, the Suicide Black and, I believe, one of the WW remained the only undefeated decks and drew in. The Counter- Phoenix decks got stuck playing each other, eliminating one. Others with 16 or more points after seven rounds included two WW, two Death, the Awakenings deck, and one other one I'm not remembering. Due to some oddities with unintentional draws and having a very small field for eight rounds, only two players sat at 19 points going into the final round, only three were at 18, and four were at 16. This meant that only the top two tables could draw, everyone else in the Top Eight had to play, and at least one person with two losses was *guaranteed* to make the Top Eight (and two could possibly have done it, if the 5-1-1 player paired down lost). To my best recollection, this has only happened once before in all the PQs I have ever attended. Tired from a long week, several hours of having stood around watching matches, and having skipped a couple of meals, I left during the eighth round, so I can't offer an exact list of the Top Eight or the four who qualified. I did have several interesting side conversations, though, including one with Bob Maher about some of the questionable practices concerning provoking warnings that French players were doing at Worlds and one with George Pratt and Barret Moy about PQ attendance and how the real money in gaming events anymore is not in MTG tournaments, but in conducting role-play based gaming conventions. Why is this true, even though MTG is still the hottest game around? Partly it's because a lot of PQs recently have seen decreased attendance and are thus not being financially successful. George Pratt's organization only breaks even, he said, because of prerelease events. The real money profit-wise is not in the main event, but in the side tournaments instead. Also, MTG is very much a youth-dominated event, whereas convention play for traditional role-play games like AD&D has shifted to an older, more established and thus more prosperous base of players (I'm 27, but it's still not unusual for me to run an RPGA AD&D event where I'm the youngest person at the table). PQ attendance, the driving factor behind PQs being financially successful, has decreased significantly across the U.S. Rome qualifiers are particularly low simply because it's in Europe and thus out of many people's expense range to attend even if they do qualify. Attendance for Chicago PQs was generally lower than it had been the previous year, too, though. This may be partially because of a greater number of PQs, but the prevailing theory I heard at Muncie is that, at any given PQ, there's only a minority percentage of players who have any realistic chance to make the Top Eight. Those players who are not in that category are finally starting to realize that and are thus passing up wasting their money on the PQs. Interestingly, the only PQs for Chicago that I attended that had enough numbers to hit eight rounds (beside Grand Prixes, of course) were paired up with major gaming conventions. What does this all mean for MTG? It means that, in the future, for PQs to be successful, they may have to start making a more concentrated effort to pair up with role-play game days and conventions to help cover costs. One particular role-play format - the RPGA's Living Campaigns - are so popular right now that I'm sure a T.O. could get role-players to flock to his event if he advertised in the right circles that a Living City game day was being held in conjunction with the PQ. Off my soapbox for now. I don't do the Props and Slops thing but I will wrap up with one interesting additional anecdote. In one of the first side booster drafts, a young kid (perhaps 8 years old?) by the name of Christopher beat Randy Beuhler in the second round - and quite brutally, from what I understand. This was not a fluke, either; this is the same kid that had a 6-1 start at Indy's Stronghold prerelease and has had respectable showings at many other major Indy MTG events. If you watch him play or play against him (I did once), you can quickly see that he has an excellent understanding not only of MTG rules, but how to take advantage of card combos and how to draft a solid, balanced deck. Given another couple of years of aging and development, he could potentially be the next young star on the MTG scene. See ya next week, folks, when I do my Urza's Saga Prerelease report. Look for my Mid-Season Breakdown report the week after that. - The "Big T"