Subject: Japan Regionals Report Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 13:30:26 +0900 (JST) From: Takahisa Ono To: Magic Dojo Well the time for the Regionals have come in Japan. Last year to my disbelief I went 7-1-0 with a 5cG and still didn't qualify. So I had hopes of qualifying this year. The competition is very high in the Tokyo Area and there are 6 eliminations which draw a 100 people each just to get into the the final matches of 48 people to decide the regional champion. Registration is by mail, deadline 10 days before the event. All of the tournaments for the Kanto regionals are held at the DCI center in Shibuya. I have pre-registered for the second day and after some testing decide that I like the Godzilla deck made by Alan Comer. I expected to see a lot of red sligh and blue propaganda decks which the deck does well against. The changes I made were that I believed to see more nuisance enchantments than norm cause many people like them here so replace a firestorm and mana leak with 2 disenchants main deck and replaced a Necroservant with a Silver Wyvern to reduce things to be bounced back by blue. There were 123 participants and I couldn't see very many people I would not like to play today so at this point I think I have a good chance of making top 8. Well on to the rounds. 1st Mono-Red Tsutomu Takezawa A mono-red Goblin deck with Earthquakes and Mogg Maniacs. 1st game the deck works fine and I win with a 3rd turn Sliver Queen discarded by a Merfolk Trader. 2nd game I decide not to mulligan with only 1 land in hand since I have a couple of animate dead in hand and 3 biggies. This turned out to be a mistake as I didn't draw a second land until my sixth turn and he had got out two Phyrexian Furnaces which deplated my graveyard. 3rd game he got out a first turn Phyrexian Furnace which I disenchanted when he tapped out. An animated Verdant Force next turn did major beating. 1-0-0 2nd RUW Burn Counter Mass Destruction Yutaka Takagi A deck with some counterspells and Rainbow Efreet and Bogargen Firefiends as beatdown creatures. I beleive him to be a beginner as he said it was his first time to the DCI tournament Center and he commented that he only had 1 Propaganda. I took the first game with a Living Death which was squeaked past counters. A Sliver Queen, Shivan Dragon and Silver Wyvern won the game for me 1 turn before a Disk went off. The second game was decided when I didn't draw any of the creatures to animate and had a hand full of Enchantments. 3rd game I somehow won without any animates by summoning creatures using the 3 dark rituals I drew. 2-0-0 3rd 5cB Katsuzi Hayashi A normal 5cB. I can't say much cause I was mana screwed on the 1st and 3rd games. I had mulliganed once on the 3rd game with no land and thought I had to take my second hand with one land since it contained animate dead, merfolk trader, and Verdant Force. Didn't draw a second land on the 3rd game until about the 8th turn. Second game was a charm through with a Verdant Force discarded and animated second turn. Should have won this match. 2-1-0 4th 5cW Hiroki Honda A 5cW with Tradewinds and Geddons. Funny cause it also had Ophidians. I don't think it had any Armors. Wasn't a very good sport during the game. Through when it ended in his win he really cheered up. Another Match I do not want to think about cause I didn't get the components I needed on the 1st and 3rd games. No enchants on the first and no creatures on the third. I won the second game with a Firestorm after he had out the components of the Tradewind lock with a Dark Ritual in response to a Leak. At this point I was thinking about getting out of the tournament but forgot to request to remove myself. 2-2-0 5th 3cB Necro Corpse Dance ???? Muroga It was a deck with Neckrataal, Serrated Biskelion, Bottle Gnomes and Crypt Rats as its main creatures. Using Corpse dance to Reuse. Not very many beatdown creatures so going for a slow win. Someone I knew and since we were probably not going to make the best 8 in any case had a friendly match. 1st game I was lobotomied second turn and out went 2 necromancies in my hand. I drew and cast Shivans normally but they were Copse Necrataaled with the Necrataal being killed by a Biskelion before the end of the turn. Second game he went into Necro mode and Necro Firestormed the animated Shivan. Next turn a Living Death called back all the Firestormed away creatures to decide the game. The third game was decided by his mana screw. Although I did mana leak a Disk which was Ritualed out. 3-2-0 6th Red goblin Naoto Kokubo A Goblin Deck with Goblin Kings! Whens the last time a saw one of those. To make a short story I lost by drawing only 3 lands in 2 games. No strategy attached to that. At this point throughaly discouraged I dropped. 3-3-0 I didn't take my time on checking up on todays top 8 decks so I can only say first place was a red sligh deck. Well all I can say that it wasn't my day today. I did shuffle my deck at least 5 times before a match to ensure I wouldn't be screwed since I knew it could happen easily. In my opinion the Godzilla Deck is strong it's just that I happened to have one of the worst mana screws I can remember. I believe the deck can normally operate with only 2 or 3 lands so the 19 land count may be a bit stretching it but with 4 Dark Rituals it should be enough. Maybe 20 to be on the safe side. props to: Frank Kusumoto: for the best resource on the net on Magic in my opinion Alan Comer: for this crazy deck slops to: Hobby Japan: for having the Kanto regionals extended over a month at the same place. My luck.