Subject: PTQ-Rome Report (Cherry Hill, NJ, 9-19-98) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 00:56:27 -0700 From: To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com PTQ-ROME TOURNAMENT REPORT (Cherry Hill, NJ, 9-19-98) Mike Pustilnik (Winner) seemore@idt.mail.net Several weeks ago, Alex Shvartsman asked me if I was going to Shorecon for a one-slot qualifier for Rome (he had a dealer table reserved, and he needed a ride). I said no way, I need to get some rest for PT-Chicago. But knowing how weak-willed I am, Alex kept asking, and each time my negation became fainter. When Pat Johnson indicated that he wanted to go also, the last remnant of my feeble resolve withered away, and I agreed to play chauffer for Alex and his infinitely heavy suitcase of cards for sale. Choosing a deck was not a problem- I would play tradewind-awakening. I played Zvi Moshowitz' tradewind-awakening deck at Grand Prix-Boston (23rd place) and at a New York PTQ (3rd-4th place), and each time my understanding of the deck grew. This time, I felt confident enough to tinker with the deck a little, and to make a couple metagame- oriented changes. Zvi's Grand Prix Boston deck: 4 Tradewinds 4 Legacy's Allure 4 Counterspell 4 Forbid 4 Whispers 4 Capsize 4 Awakening 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Spike Feeder 2 Spike Weaver 10 Islands 7 Forests 3 Skyshroud Forests 4 Reflecting Pool (61 cards total) Sideboard: 2 Spike Weaver, 4 Oath of Druids, 3 Dominating Licid, 2 Tranquility, 3 Mana Leak, 1 Portcullis My Cherry Hill version: 4 Tradewinds 4 Legacy's Allure 4 Counterspell 4 Forbid 4 Whispers 4 Capsize 2 Dominating Licids 2 Hammerhead Shark 3 Awakening 4 Wall of Blossoms 2 Spike Weaver 10 Islands 6 Forests 4 Skyshroud Forests 4 Reflecting Pool (61 cards total) Sideboard: 2 Spike Weaver, 4 Oath of Druids, 1 Dominating Licid, 2 Tranquility, 2 Mana Leak, 2 Bottle Gnomes, 2 Treasure Trove I had found that at my previous two qualifiers that I was getting into quite a few "mirror matchups" (i.e., against other awakening decks), so I felt justified in removing the fourth awakening. Awakening is also a risky card to play against Prayer/Humility or Counter-Phoenix; if they have a hand full of permission and whispers/capsizes, Awakening will soon be the only permenant that you have in play! Awakening IS good against Death decks, but so are Dominating Licids. Dominating Licids are fantastic in the mirror matchup, and are also good against black and white weenie decks. I have found the Spike Feeder to be a disappointing card in an Awakening deck. It is supposed to be good against red decks, but it kind of sucks against everything else, and in my opinion, it isn't even all that great against red. You won't always have GG1 to cast it on turn three. It doesn't win a battle against any red creature except a 1/1. If you use it to chump block and sac, you will save maybe 6 points of damage, but at the cost of allowing your red opponent to build up his army even further. I have found the Hammerhead Shark (I saw it in another Awakening deck in a New York PTQ) to be an outstanding substitute. You ALWAYS have the U1 to cast it on turn 2, and when it blocks, it kills most red weenies and survives. Finally, it doesn't die to a single Shock. To support the extra blue cards, I turned a Forest into a Skyshroud Forest. It is better to risk getting wastelanded than to color screw yourself without any help from your opponent. I almost lost when another Awakening deck played Treasure Trove against me in the New York PTQ. It is an incredibly strong card to have in play in the mirror matchup, or against counter-phoenix. I therefore put two in my sideboard. Sideboarding Strategy: Vs. Red: +4 Oath of Druids, +2 Bottle Gnomes, +1 Spike Weaver, +1 Mana Leak -4 Legacy's Allure, -2 Dominating Licids, -1 Capsize, -1 Forbid Vs. Black: +4 Oath of Druids, +2 Spike Weaver, +1 Mana Leak -4 Legacy's Allure, -1 Capsize, -2 Forbid Vs. White Weenie: +2 Spike Weaver, +1 Dominating Licid -2 Hammerhead Shark, -1 Capsize Vs. Death: +2 Tranquility, +1 Dominating Licid -2 Hammerhead Shark, -1 Capsize Vs. Awakening: +1 Dominating Licid, +2 Mana Leak, +2 Treasure Trove -2 Hammerhead Shark, -3 Awakening Vs. Counter-phoenix: +2 Mana Leak, +2 Treasure Trove, +1 Spike Weaver -3 Awakening, -2 Dominating Licids Vs. Prayer/Humility: +2 Mana Leak, +2 Tranquility, +2 Treasure Trove, +2 Weaver -2 Awakening, -2 Dominating Licids, -4 Legacy's Allure Notes: 1. Counter-phoenix decks will often sideboard in Allures (or even start them), so it is risky to take yours out. 2. This deck is favored against a Death deck (unless your opponent happens to be a Finkel), so I did not want to include an ultra-specific sideboard card such as Portcullis. Tournament Report: Round 1 (Fred Foure, Awakening): Game 1 I draw more "good cards" (whatever those are) than Fred. When the time seems to be right, I drop an awakening, and Whispers carries me to victory. Game 2 Fred draws more permission, but I draw more land. He also has an Allure out, and soon he gets an active Tradewind. I draw 3 Whispers, and I use them to pull out his couterspells. I play two Dominating Licids, and Fred steals one with his Allure, and uses it to dominate the other. I capsize the allured licid; Fred uses his Tradewind to fizzle my capsize, but the point is that I get both licids back. I eventually dominate Fred's tradewind, and play one of my own. Time runs out, and Fred concedes. The mirror matchup is a very difficult one, requiring a great deal of skill from both players. Nevertheless, I believe that this match was decided by luck; I simply drew the right card at the right time more often than Fred did. 1-0 Round 2 (Brian Joyce, Death): Game 1 my hand truly sucks, with no blue mana in sight. Brian plays a scroll rack and I prepare to get spanked. The spanking does not occur, however, since somehow Brian manages to look through maybe 20 cards without finding a Hermit Druid. I finally draw an island and play Legacy's Allure to threaten to steal any Druids that show up. I then establish control and win. In game 2, Brian does not draw anything that I need to counter, and I drop an early Awakening. The Whispers/Forbid combo wins it for me. 2-0 Round 3 (David Willams, Death): Game 1 Dave has Survival of the Fittest and two Hermit Druids in his hand, but he can't find a forest. I drop an early awakening and win. In game 2, Dave plays first and mulligans. Then he goes land, mox, thrull surgeon. I stare at the playing field in shock, and play a Skyshroud Forest. Turn 2, Dave plays a Hermit Druid. I play an island, and now I have my two blue mana available, just in the nick of time-NOT! Turn 3 Dave uses his Druid, plays his newly-found land, and surgeons me- "The doctor will see me now". In my hand is a counterspell, three forbids, a skyshroud forest, and two islands. The contents of my hand appear to bother Dave a bit. Dave takes the Skyshroud Forest to deny me my second green mana. I draw and play a . . . Legacy's Allure! Dave glares at me in naked anger. "What's the matter?", I yell. "You mulliganed, then played first turn surgeon, second turn druid. Amn't I allowed to draw a good card now and then?". Turn 4 I steal Dave's druid. Turn 5 and after I use the stolen druid- not because I need the mana, but because I want to pitch the extra land to Forbid. Not surprisingly, I win this game too. By the way, Dave didn't actually glare at me in naked anger, nor did I yell back. I was "elaborating" to give more color to this report. 3-0 The Awakening vs. Death matchup is a very interesting one. The Death deck has a great many spells that need to be countered. I believe that the matchup favors the Awakening deck, but only slightly. If the Death deck can play a Scroll Rack or Survival before the Awakening deck can counter, then Death has evened the scales. The key card in this matchup is the Hermit Druid, which is the source of much of the Death deck's card advantage. Steal your opponent's druid at any cost, and use it for extra mana or cards for forbid buyback. This will also fill your graveyard with creatures to discourage a Living Death. Important spells to counter are Survival, Lobotomy, Scroll Rack, Recurring Nightmare, and (of course) Living Death. Yeah, I know, that's practically everything. The Awakening deck can often win by dropping a turn 4 Awakening, and Capsize or Whisper to victory. Whispers might be preferable, since some Death decks (like Dave's) use Harrow and Constant Mists to fizzle Capsize. Round 4 (Brandon ?, Red) While shuffling for game 1, Brandon accidentally exposes a Mogg Flunkie, so I get a little nervous (I am 0-2 in PTQ's against red decks). I draw my hand and look with joy at two HAMMERHEAD SHARKS! I breath a sigh of relief. Brandon plays turn 1 Mogg Conscripts. I play a land. Turn 2, Brandon plays a second conscript and attacks. I play land, shark! Turn 3, Brandon plays a fanatic and attacks (actually, a Mogg Raider would have hurt me here). I block, and Brandon pings the shark with his fanatic. I play my second shark. I stabilize with the help of some mid-game creature stealers, and win at 7 life. Game 2 Brandon plays a horde of goblins, but I get a second turn Oath of Druids, and it cranks out Tradewinds for me. I play Awakening, and once I have more creatures, in play, I capsize the oath back to my hand. I capsize Brandon to zero land. He bravely plays it out to the bitter end, but I win. 4-0 The Awakening vs. Red match up is more luck dependent than the Awakening vs. Death matchup or the Awakening mirror matchup. The Oath of Druids sideboard (designed by Alex Shvartsman and Zvi Moshowitz) is effective, but it can also backfire if the red deck sideboards in Jinxed Idol, and draws them and a lot of burn. The Awakening deck IS favored against red, but not by as much as most people think. If you expect to see a lot of red, then play four sharks in your starting deck. Rounds 5 and 6 I intentionally draw twice to make the final eight. Yes, I know, I am a 1/1 creature that counts as a chicken. 4-0-2 Quarterfinals (Oliver Rothschild, Red) In game 1, I get a Wall of Blossoms and a shark in my opening hand. I stabilize and win with my bigger creatures. In game 2, Oliver sideboards in Stone Rain and Jinxed Idols. Oaths are not that great when an idol is in play. So I use my Oaths to buyback Forbid. I fortunately draw two capsizes, and capsize an idol twice without taking any damage from it. This game is closer, and Oliver burns me down to 4 life before I finally win by attacking with a Weaver and a Tradewind. 5-0-2 Semifinals (Mark "Buck" Frey, White Weenie) Game 1: Turn 1: Buck plays land, Sally (a Soul Warden). I play a land. Turn 2: Buck plays land, priest, attacks for 1. I play land, allure. Turn 3: Buck plays land, visionary, attacks for 3. I panic. Then I look at my hand and a capsize smiles back at me. I am so relieved that I almost forget to put a counter on my allure. That would have been poor. I capsize the visionary Turn 4: Buck replays the visionary and brings me down to 13 life, but I now have enough time to get the second counter on the allure. Turn 5 and after: I steal the visionary, and it trades with the priest. The immediate danger is over. I counter several threats, establish control, and win. Game 2: Turn 1: Buck plays land, Sally. I play a land. Turn 2: Buck plays land, priest, attacks for 1. I play land, allure (deja vu!) Turn 3: Buck does NOT play a land, disenchants the allure, and attacks for 3. I play land, Wall of Blossoms. Turn 4: Buck plays land, Hero's Resolve on the priest, attacks for 3. Since Buck cleary just drew his third land, it is unlikely that he will be able to go land, cataclysm on turn 5. I therefore tap out to play a tradewind. Turn 5: Actually, Buck simply forgot to lay a land on turn 3, and he had the Cataclysm and the mana to play it all along. Buck clasms. Since I have two Wall of Blossoms in my hand, I keep the tradewind and a forest. All I need is to draw a land, and I can play my walls and bounce the priest. Turn 6 and after: I never draw the land. Buck plays a second resolve on the priest, which goes all the way. Game 3: I get a really good draw this game. I play a second turn allure. Buck gives he a Jinxed Idol ("here") and I take two for a turn (despite having a Wall in play) just to keep Buck's creatures off the table (I don't want him to give me the idol back in RESPONSE to me using the allure). I play two early Awakenings, and use Capsize to keep Buck below 4 land (he had a Cataclysm, but no Disenchant). Buck concedes. 6-0-2 Finals (Roger Sorino, Humility/Prayer) Game 1: Dominating Licid Beatdown Roger plays a turn 1 grindstone. I draw a lot of permission, but the only creature I manage to find is a Dominating Licid. I counter prayers, I counter humilities, I counter whispers. I draw allures, I draw awakenings. I don't draw more creatures. I continue beating down Roger with my licid, and he continues to grind away at my library. Even without double grinds, it does not take a mathematical genius to figure out that I am not going to win this race. I get Roger down to 9 life. Finally a tradewind shows up (more beatdown???) and I pummel Roger down to 7. Then he gets a triple grind, and my library is exhausted. My valiant Dominating Licid delivered 12 points of beatdown. At least he showed up when no one else did. Game 2: Bungling my way to Victory I sideboard in eight cards (as described at the beginning of this report). I chose to draw. Roger and I both mulligan. He plays turn 1 Rootwater Depths (uh-oh, I think, he's brought in lobotomy). I also can't find an Island. Before I find any blue, I get lobotomized. Roger had hoped to get my capsizes, but since I have two mana leaks in hand, he takes those. THEN I draw an island (Hallelulah, I mutter). I was lucky that I had nothing really good in my hand at the time. But a sideboarded game against Humility/Prayer is very different from a game one. Taking out eight pieces of junk for eight good cards really helps, and Whispers, Capsize, Treasure Trove, Tradewinds, and Tranquility are all threats that Roger must counter. I am undaunted by the unwanted brain operation, and I eventually exhaust Roger's permission and start whispering. But I can't find any more permission either, and I am down to about 15 cards left in my library (WITHOUT getting grinded). I have 19 land (9 untapped) 2 tradewinds, 2 walls, a shark and a weaver in play. Roger has 11 land and a mox, with 2 humilities and a prayer in play. He is at 13 life. He taps out to lobotomize me, and to his amazement, despite my whispering, I don't have a counter. Here I where I start bungling the game. In my hand I have 2 whispers, 2 capsizes, and 2 weavers. I forget to check my graveyard (which contains the other 2 capsizes), so I decide to capsize twice without buyback to prevent Roger from getting the last capsize that I think is in my library. I am also under the delusion that it only takes 16 mana to play two weavers and move six spikes. Finally, I forget that even if 16 mana were enough, Roger could simply lobotomize my weavers instead, and by burning my last capsize, I am effectively giving Roger two lobotomies for the price of one. So I capsize both humilities without buyback (I could have and should have bought back the second capsize, forcing Roger to chose capsize). Roger lobotomizes my two whispers away. During Roger's discard phase, I tradewind his prayer back to his hand. Roger says "done", and I untap. I draw my fourth weaver. Roger is at 13 life, and the total power of my creatures on the table is 7. I need to play both weavers and move six spikes to kill Roger, but I realize to my horror that it takes 20 mana to do this. I count my land again and again, but no amount of willpower can cause the count to come to anything other than 19. Finally I start playing well. The wrong play here is to bring Roger down to 1 life. Instead I tradewind a wall to my hand and play it. I draw another wall. I play it, and draw a land. I play land #20, use my second tradewind to bounce another wall, and play it. I draw a treasure trove. I play it. I use it once, and draw crap. I use it again, and draw a forbid. Of course, I now have exactly 2 mana left untapped. I attack with the weaver, bringing Roger down to 10. I say "done". Roger plays one humility and one prayer, and says "done", leaving 5 mana untapped. I untap, and draw another useless card. I treasure trove and draw- tranquility! I play it, Roger dismisses, I forbid. With 10 mana left, I play a weaver, move three spikes, and attack for 10! Game 3: The Anticlimax This game, I draw a lot of creatures, and Roger gets a poor mana draw. Roger is forced to counter my creatures, and he eventually plays a humility. But even damage by 1/1 creatures can kill. Roger, with a scroll rack in play, uses his grindstone on himself (an intelligent combo), but his poor initial mana draw prevents him from fighting an effective counterspell war. I cast tranquility and soon win. I praise Roger for playing a great match. 7-0-2 In conclusion, the deck performed very well. I was especially happy with the sharks. I would like to find room for another shark or two, but there really isn't anything to take out. Props: Alex Shvartsman, for making me go to Cherry Hill Zvi Moshowitz, for teaching me to play Awakening. I consider my changes to his deck to be minor. His deck is really great. Pat Johnson, for helping me to tune the deck and the sideboard. Elaine, head judge of the tournament. ALL my opponents, for being friendly, courteous, and sportsmanlike. Mike Pustilnik Pro-Tour Scrub PT Chicago Day Two Urza's Saga Pre-Release Player