Subject: PTQ-IN report 'White Trash' Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 05:45:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael R Tidrick To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com This is the deck that got me to the top 8 in Pittsburgh's Rome qualifier. I was expecting another good day from it, but I soon discovered that the field at Muncie, Indiana was pretty rough. My best friend who is on Team Twisty with me came along and we both used the same deck. The only difference was he used 2 Soltari Champions in place of my 2 Paladin ev-Vecs. Unfortunately he had to play against the decks only two concerns in rounds 1 and 2 (Living Death and Mono Blue). I managed to make a run at the final 8, but came a bit short. There was 8 rounds of swiss and the field was full of former Pro Tour players, and several guys who were on their way to Pro Tour Chicago. Here is the 'White Trash' deck that I used, which is identical to the one I used in Pittsburgh. Land: 18 Plains 4 Wasteland Artifacts: 2 Scroll Rack Spells: 3 Disenchant 2 Repentance 2 Kor Chant 3 Cataclysm 2 Smite 2 Bandage Creatures: 2 Wall of Essence 3 Soul Warden 1 Soltari Monk 3 Soltari Priest 3 Soltari Visionary 2 Paladin en-Vec 2 Spirit en-Kor 1 Cloudchaser Eagle 3 Staunch Defenders 2 Master Decoy Sideboard: 3 CoP: Red 3 Light of Day 3 Tourture Chamber 2 Humility 1 Disenchant 1 Cloudchaser Eagle 1 Master Decoy 1 Winds of Rath Round 1 vs. Jason Kiernan (Hatred w/ Blue) I'm no expert on Hatred decks, but this one didn't seem to be too quick. First turn Soul Warden kept my life well into the safe range. Kor Chant took care of lots of creatures and game ve good advantage, and bandage caught him off-guard as I was able to preserve my creatures. Soltari Priest went the distance in game one. Game 2 was close. I had no creatures in the draw, which made it painfully slow. Fortunately he didn't have much land, and disenchanting his mox diamond put him in a pinch. He looked like he was setting himself up on turn 5 for a turn 6 kill, but Staunch Defenders put my life total out of range. Kor Chant wiped out his forces, and master decoys locked him the rest of the way down as my Staunch go for glory. His deck used Mox Diamonds and Rootwater Depths for blue, but the only blue I saw was Lobotomy and Thalakos Sentry. Why use Sentry when black already has great shadow creatures? Including this match 10 out of my 11 previous matches had blue in their decks. Game 2-0 Match 1-0 Round 2 vs. Dennis Brown (White Weenie) First game, 2 Wall of Essence keeps his hordes of creautes at bay. Smite, REpentance and Kor Chant devestated his shadow forces and 2 of my shadow creatures go on to victory. Game 2 Shaman en-Kor with Orim shut me down. No amount of cataclysming could shut him down. The game was a long stalemate that I eventually lost. Game 3 I had a very quick start. His land was one plains and 2 wasteland. I wiped him out early due to his lack of ability to draw the second plains. Game 4-1 Match 2-0 Round 3 vs. Andy Hicks (Mono Red) Game 1 my Walls of Essence dragged the game out, but his overwhelming burn schorched me this time. Game 2 my draw looked pretty good... 2 land, Soul Warden and CoP: Red. Too bad the third land didn't come for ages. The CoP kept me in the game. I was finally able to scrape for control. He then casts Apocolypse. I was able to rebuild more quickly and two Staunch save me as I was barely alive at 6 life. The Staunch go on to victory. Game 3 He comes on strong at the start and brings me down to 3 life. I cataclysm away his horde of goblins and my Paladin remains afther the 'clysm. He keeps up the defense until the Wall of Essense shows up. The Paladin takes him down. He might have liked to draw any sort of land after the 'clysm. Game 6-2 Match 3-0 Round 4 vs. Brian Kowal (Living Death) This was my first ever match vs. Living Death (graveyard manipulation) decks with the 'White Trash' and I thought it would be a difficult matchup for me, I didn't count on it being this lopsided, though. Game 1 I thought I could out Cataclysm him, but he used Recuring Nightmare to bring the Surveyor in and out of his graveyard. That helps him for a HUGE recovery. The Spike Weaver takes me down. Game 2 I put an extra disenchant and an eagle from my sideboard. I didn't get either to keep him from abusing Survival of the Fittest. Verdant Force rocks my world. Game 6-4 Match 3-1 Round 5 vs. Adam Minniear (Hatred) Game 1 he had the advantage most of the way. So often I was completely vulnerable to getting rocked by the Hatred. I was able to get a few creatures on the board and keep the game close. Our life totals were about the same when he went all out for the Hatred... just enough to kill me, but WAIT... Bandage won me the game, and I got to draw a card! Game 2 I had a gread draw. I got good early creatures and was able to keep him at bay until I got enough land for the Light of Day that I had in my draw. He plays it out, but his Bottle Gnomes meant nothing to me by then. Game 8-4 Match 4-1 Round 6 vs. Shawn Smith (Mono Blue) The only creatures I saw him play from this deck was Tradewinds, Thalakos Drifters, and Wall of Tears. The rest of the deck consisted of counters, capsizes, and whispers. Shawn seems like a very nice guy, but the deck seems like Turbo Nothing. Unfortunately in Game 1 Turbo Nothing wrecks me. Between the Staunch and Soul Wardens I get up to 32 life, but I can never get through for any damage. He gets capsize and tradewinds going to lock me down... I concede. Game 2 He gets me down to 4 life. He gets Tradewind and Capsize going, I manage to get him to run out of counter and get the Winds of Rath AND the Cataclysm off. (Winds was supposed to bait out the counter I THOUGHT he had. I had like 12 land in my top 16 cards. I was going nowhere fast. If I had a few creatures I could have won. After I got past the land (and used the creatures to bait out the counters to get the 'Clysm off) I couldn't get any more creatures. The only cards I could get (even with abusing the scroll rack) were smites and bandages. I was getting frustrated, but I at least got timely Cataclysms. I somehow manage to run him out of cards with 20 seconds left in the round. He could have stalled out time, but he was cooler than that and I am thankful. Humility kept him from using his tradewinds, and was the key to victory in that second game. I manage to get by this round with a draw. Game 9-5 Match 4-1-1 Round 7 vs. Rob Wagner (Trade-Wake) We both enter this round with the same record and know that anything short of a victory will keep us from advancing to the final 8. When game 1 started and his first two lands were island and forest I knew immediately what he was playing and felt pretty good about winning. Since the rest of the field was fairly living-death free and full of suicide black and the sort (I eat those for lunch!). Rob didn't make a good impression on me as far his his personality goes. He kind of had this air about him that said 'I've been on the Pro Tour before... I'm OBVIOUSLY the better player.' and 'I've got one of the most popular deck types in this format, I deserve to beat a scrub like you'. I think I'm pretty tolerant of different personalities, but he really got under my skin. It didn't help that just a few weeks earlier he coerced my best friend to draw into the final 8 at the PTQ-Chicago qualifier in Fort Wayne. That didn't bother me as much as the fact that he didn't even slightly recognize my buddy from that tournament. I'm sure if you get to know the guy he is pretty nice, but I just didn't like him. The first game I got timely Cataclysms and got enough damage in soon enough, even with his spike feeders getting lots of life for him. Game 2 I got him down to 4 life when he got a quasi-lock. I felt confident that I could break his lock (since I had in past matches vs. Trade-wake), but he denies me at every oppertunity. The game drags out for ages before I concede. In retrospect I should have conceded to get time in for game 3, but I thought at the time my chances were good that I could break his lock. The game took forever also because it took him ten minuites to make each play. He had to think everything out when all he really needed for most of his plays was a few seconds of simple thought. With time so critical that really bothered me. That type of play also carried on into game 3. Game 3 started with only 8 minuites left to play. I made a few bad mistakes in my rush to get the game in on time. He only had wall of blossoms out, I attacked with a shadow creature and paladin, then cast humility after combat (he blocked the paladin with the wall). He didn't think that his wall would die, even though the zillion spectators agreed with me that the wall then had lethal damage. It takes forever to get a judge over to confirm that fact, and we even get dirty looks from the judge for asking such an obvious question. I was pretty frustrated because the whole humility thing was a huge waste of time which was very precious at that point. The early humility that could have taken me the distance, but I used my cloudchaser eagle to destroy it so I could have done more damage sooner. It instead lets him get his tradewind out and going. As time was about to expire he started making comments like 'I guess this guy wants neither of us to have a chance at the final 8', etc. etc. At first I was thinking he wanted me to concede out of the goodness of my heart, but I am thinking now that he probably wanted me to strike some sort of deal where I'd concede and he would split any sort of prize. If that is the case my low opinion of him is even less. That is very unethical, low, dirty, and immoral. I'm not this goody goody magic player, I just think if he deserves to make the final 8 he needs to make a deck that can honestly beat me, and beat me in a timely manner. I'm very disappointed with a draw at this point, but would glady take a draw than a loss to this guy. I apologize for venting, but there are VERY few people in the world that make this poor of an impression on me. Game 10-5 Match 4-1-2 Round 8 vs. David Peterson (Living Death) Even though at this point I couldn't make the final 8 I decide to play the final round. It was slightly intimidating playing a guy with a 'What would Satan do?' patch on his playmat, but what bothered me was how he would rub the word 'beatings' into my face every time he attacked with that Verdent Force. As disappointing as it was to get crushed both games, I did like David's deck. The Shard Phoenix was more 'beatings' than that Verdent Force, but he never said beatings then. His deck was slightly different that the average Living Death deck, I thought and enjoyed getting my butt whooped. It became clear at this point that in 100 matches vs. Living Death, 'White Trash' would probably lose all 100. In game 1 I had the most perfect draw, and still lost miserably. Game two I had a terrible draw and got my butt kicked even harder. Game 10-7 Match 4-2-2 The day had a great start, but I was pretty disappointed at the end of the day. I know if you look at the decklist it looks crappy, but it has a legitimate chance of winning every time (except vs. Living Death). I played it at the qualifier in Pittsburgh and got to see how it did vs. 4 Trade-wake decks in 6 rounds, and was pretty excited to play a varied field to see how the deck really can do (I have very few people to play test with in the magic wasteland of Youngstown, Ohio). I know now that it wrecks mono red and any sort of mono black, especially hatred. Mono blue is a bad match-up, but it at least beatable. Trade-wake is a good match-up for the 'White Trash' deck as long as you play smart and don't do anything dumb. I haven't played any, but I imagine that the match-up vs. corpse dance decks is pretty favorable, especially with the cataclysms. I've only ever lost one game to a white weenie deck in tournament and non-tournament play, the few extra suprises in my deck makes it a wrecking for any creature oriented deck. The only poor match-up is vs. Living Death. I had a great time in Muncie and look forward to more qualifiers. Good luck to all in all your playing. -Michael Tidrick Team Twisty