Subject: Top 8 Report=> Indiana 9-20 Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:08:25 -0400 From: "Leonard Richardson" To: HI! This is another wonderful tourney report brought to you by Leonard Richarson. I only did a tourney report last time because Andon promised to send me cards. I actually enjoyed it so much, and got such positive comments, I though I would do another one. I plan on playing my sligh deck from columbus(exept I will record my deck correctly this time). My actual deck listing gets posted and so many people now have access to my deck, my surprise cards are no longer a surprise. I decide to scrap the idea and go to a different deck. I speak with Nathan for a while on IRC and he explains his deck. It is a very good deck and I play it for many hours trying to learn to use it to its fullest capacity. I decide that I am not familiar enough with it to play it this week, so Friday night before the tournament, I start brainstorming. I write down the decks I will see and look for common denominators. I decide to play a theme deck and have lots of fun. I discuss the deck with one of my friends, he likes it we change some cards and we both play the deck. My teammate decides to play the new incarnation of sly. I cannot take credit for this, as I did not build it, test it, or play it. On to the tournament. Deck listing at bottom. :) There are too many good people there. I ask many people why they did not go to detroit. Sigh, perhaps I should have gone to detroit. The field was just chalked full of big name pro-players. I will not attempt to name them all because that will take up too much space, and I am sure Adrian will take care of that for me. Round 1. Trade Awake Well, my way of beating this deck is to hope my opponent cannot play well and makes mistakes. He was a solid player and this does not happen and I lose two straight. One game was close, he got down to 17 life before I was tradewind locked. 0-1 (mental note: My mouth gets dry talking, so I should get a gum.) Round 2. Living Death In making this deck, Living Death is a bye. I end up winning this match. It was closer than I expected. I cannot belive I have played 2 people with > 1900 ratings. I am so out of my league. 1-1 Round 3. White Weenie. He does not understand why I am praising Orrim. Orrim is my hero. I want to be like her when I grow up. He comments that he thinks she sucks and I defend her honour in two straight duels. (mental note: I need more coat of arms in SB) 2-1 Round 4. B/U/W/r? I see my oppt shuffle, I do not recognize his cards. His first 3 plays are edict, banish, edict. With moxen and all non-basics. I am getting to play an original deck. I immediately thank my opponent for using creativity. I do not know what to SB, but I make a few guesses as how he will win and if I am wrong, there is always game 3. I guess write and win game 2 without much trouble. 3-1 Round 5. White Weenie Splash Blue. This is a little more difficult. I get to go first, which means I mana screw him when I blow up his diamond. I play orrim and just keep blowing up his stuff. I eventually find a cleric who can attack and win. Game two, I play a third turn Orrim and he concedes! (Mental note: Thank Trey for idea of stone rain tech) 4-1 Round 6. Living Death. I still beat this deck. I just know how to play against this deck and I metagamed totally against this deck. 5-1 Round 7. Sly First game, I am in complete control and I decide not to blow up the world. The only thing he can do is play a dragon and rage him. Umm, he does and I lose. Secong and third game not even close. I never dropped below 14 life both games. We only had 4 sb slots for sly, so we decided to start everything else main deck. 6-1 Round 8. LD I want to draw. I get paired down and have to play. I whine and complain, but to no avail. I guess I will have to play, I know my he is playing WW because deck scouting being legal. I inform what I am playing to make it fair. I procede to whop him with well timed clerics. 7-1 Top 8. 1. Leonard Richardson(Scrubby little old me) 2. Bob Maher 3. Darrel Lochtefeld 4. Ruan Nunn 5. Brandon Rutter 6. Kyle Gansert 7. Adam Donnelly 8. Eric Taylor When I see the matchups I realize that I am playing Eric and that the winner will qualify and the loser gets to play next week. I rush over to my friend and get some last minute thoughts. Thanks to all who gave me suggestions. ----====MATCH====---- I am quite nervous, I check mydeck and SB 3 times. As soon as I sit my deck down, Barret comes over and deck checks me. I was not nervous until now. He comes back and gives me a warning for failing to write the complete name of my clerics. I thankfully do not lose first game. He wins the die roll, which means I do not get an autowin. I chose not to play diamonds because the word cleric is not on them, so I could not play a non-counterable cleric. He is slightly colour hosed and I am total hosed. I needed to be more aggressive to push my advantage and I do not. I end up losing this game due to forgetting how my soldiers work. That is what I get for not playing more clerics, but I do not own any more and I am not allowed to play a 55 card deck. Game 2, I remove my disenchant completely forgetting that Eric told me earlier he does not have drifters, but rather allure. Guess it is more fair. I did not use my friendship with Eric to an unfair advantage. He ends up beating me and qualifying. Congrats to him, I am very happy for him. Bob Maher jr also qualified and I am unsure as to the others. I left shortly after that. I am a bit disapointed in not qualifying again, but atleast I still get to go to the PtQ and talk with all the cool dudes here in midwest. ----====Deck Listing====---- "The Cleric Deck"(pronounced Clerk) Some Clerics Some Lousy Soldiers Some Plains ------======End======------ Cya in Chi-town Leonard Richardson