Subject: german nationals report (LONG!) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:22:37 -0800 From: Kai Budde To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi! Last weekend I played the german nationals. All of the top players were there with the exception of Henning Rimkus. After he missed last years nationals (he thought the event was one week later ...) he just couldn't spare the time to play this year. Only 5 members of the Colonge Conjurer Circle were qualified, Dirk Baberowski, Markus Bell, Frank Adler, Felix Siehoff and me. The format was 6 rounds rochester on the first day and 6 rounds ST on day 2. Day 1: Draft I tested and discussed TE, TE, ST-Draft a lot with my team and some other german top players (Stephan Valkyser, Gregor Wollny and Martin Luedecke to name some of them). In the end most of us were convinced that Blue was the color to go. Normally only few players in TE take blue and you get REALLY good picks in stronghold. With some evasion along with something to slow down your opponent (TIME EBB, mind games, gaseous form) you can draft pretty fast decks that should beat the fat green and red creatues most of the time (and thats what people around here prefer ...). I like white or black as the 2nd color but red does also quite well. My first draft table was pretty strong. I was a little bit disappointed about that because there were quite a lot -hmm, let me call them unexperienced- drafters around. At my table were David Liersch, Michael Nessler, Christian Luhrs (spelling?) and Khanh Tran (spelling again, sorry ...). Michael and Christian were feeding me. Michael was player 1 and I number 2. He opened a thunder and went for it. There were quite a few good red pickes and only one good white card (soltari lancer). I took it and tried to block white. In the end that wasn't that good because Khanh sat down at the table and wanted to have red/white (2 seats to my left) but I couldn't know that. I couldn't draft blue because 4 players at my table were drafting it. Including both my neighbours. Once David made a strange move drafting a wind drake over a banishing. I went with black even though I don't like black/white but I got about 10 good black cards in the 2nd booser including 2 slayers, kezzerdrix and corpse dance (3rd pick). This was my deck: 11 swamps (gonna cast that slayer on turn 2!) 6 plains 2CC (8): 2 slayer, rats of rath, 2 clot sliver, foul imp, soltari trooper, scout (the one that has and gives first strike) 3CC (4): 2 serpent warrior (I needed the creatures ...), Corrupting Licid, Soltari Lancer 4CC: Kezzi-baby, Marsh Lurker, Darkling Stalker 6CC: Warrior Angel -16 creatures 2 Anoint (IMHO one of the best buybacks: very fast, if you are mana-shy usefull without buyback, and only black and blue can get rid of it!!!) Corpse Dance Puppet Strings Convction Spinal Graft (Scout, Licid, Puppet strings and BEATDOWN) Smite -7 1. round, XXX, forgot his name He was one of these unexperienced drafters. Once he powersinked a serpent warrior for two while I had two lands untapped. Strong! 1-0-0, 2-0 2. round, Khanh Tran In the first duel I stalled for a VERY long time on 5 lands (quite annoying with disco and 2 anoints in hand). He beat me down for a while but I established control. When I was in control he finished me with chump-blocking/bombardement and searing touch ... I won the 2nd duel with slayer, lancer, kezzi, anoint, warrior angel. In the third duel I stalled on 3 lands for too long and could cast my kezzerdrix only on turn 7. 2 Flunkies were applying the beatdown and one turn before I got my 4th land, he played a healer and a raider (the kezzerdrix wasn't that strong any longer ...). 1-1-0, 3-2 3. round, Michael Nessler I was afraid of his deck because he had 2 thunders and 3 pingers. In the first duel he went 2nd turn heart sliver and 3rd turn stone rain. I wasn't that impressed and beat him down. He played a 6 turn thunder in the 2nd duel but anoint with and without buyback counter it. He started drawind lands like crazy and I won easily. 2-1-0, 5-2 The 2nd draft table was about as strong as the first. My teammate Markus Bell is there along with Uwe Stroinsky, Bjoern Falensky, Holger Meinecke, Otmar Jatsch and Oliver Heedinger. This time I got the blue/white deck: 9 Island, 8 plains 1CC: Spindrift Drake 2CC: Soltari Trooper, 2 Wall of Tears 3CC(8): Soltari Lancer, Soltari Crusader, Thalakos Mistfolk, Cloud Spirit, Rootwater Shaman, Knight of Dawn, Elite Javelineer, Horned Turtle 4CC: Mounted Archers -13 creaures 2 Counterspell, 2 Conviction, 2 Time ebb, Anoint, Mind Games, Mana Severance, Smite -9 Spells I got too few creatures but the good spells made up for that. I just had to play one creature with evasion, enchant with conviction or protect with buyback, countermagic and stop the opponent. I won't explain the power of mana severance. My board was: Sift, Pegasus Refugee (was thinking very long whether this was worth it but I couldn't find the spot for it ...), Disenchant, 2 cop: green, cop: shadow, warmth 1. round, Otmar Jatsch My nemesis. He had 3 pingers, thunder and overrun. In the first duel he didn't show any tims. I would die during his next turn. He was on 5. I had a cloud spirit with conviction. I returned my 2nd conviction, casted it on the spirit and tapped his flowstone wyvern with mind games. Game. In the 2nd duel he had a good start and I had no counterspell, mind games or anoint to stop his overrun. This time he played some islands and one of his two rootwater hunters. I started in the first duel and I was slightly faster thanks to a good start with trooper/lancer. When I attacked with a 3/5 javelineer (conviction) and he didn't block with his lightning elemental (he had a tim in play) I could smell his overrun. I didn't cast another creature and casted sift instead (boarded for one of my thoughness 1 creatures). I got the counterspell, got rid of his overrun and won on my next turn. 3-1-0, 7-3 2. round , Holger Meincke He was playing green/white. He had only one really good card and that was puppet strings. I countered it in the first duel and he didn't see it in duel 2. Game. 4-1-0, 9-3 3. round, Markus Bell Two members of our team in the draft and we met in the finals. Okay, that was what I expected because he had thunder, shadows, giants, flowstone hellion, bombardement, burial, gravedigger and some removal. He won the toss and went first. He had to mulligan but went like 2nd turn shadow, shambler, giant, hellion. I couldn't handle that and died. I won the 2nd duel with mana severance. He couldn't keep up with my draws. We both had good starts in duel 3. The following situation was the deciding moment: He had bombardement, a 4/4 revenant and 2 other creatures. I had 2 plains untapped, rootwater shaman and cloud spirit in play and anoint, conviction and smite in hand. He had seen the conviction and the anoint before but he never saw the smite before. If he had pinged the spirit (bombardement) twice, the spirit would have died and a 6/6 revenant would have killed me (I had only mind games left in my deck) but he chose to attack and I smited. I untapped and had two attackers, anoint and a counterspell against his empty hand. Game! 5-1-0, 11-4 At this point were two guys (Gunnar Refsdal, Dirk Hein) with 5-0-1 and 8 players with 5-1. One of them was Dirk Baberowski. Markus Bell and Frank Adler were at 4-2 and Felix Siehoff was at 3-2-1. He went 2-0-1 with an impressive blue/white deck in draft one (mana severance, silver wyvern, time warp and great creatures with decent removal ...) and drafted reg/green in draft 2. With the green deck he went 1-2 ... Dirk and me asked Gregor Wollny if we could spent the night at his flat. His wife wasn't that lucky but he invited us. We weren't sure at that point what we were going to play in ST. I have had some trouble during the last week and couldn't prepare as much as I would have wanted. The decks we brought were sligh, bloom, necro, godzilla and 5CU. Dirk and I didn't like the necro because it doesn't draw constantly enough (too many expensive spells) and we thought the same of the godzilla. All we needed to make top 8 was 4-2. We prefered the sligh but were afraid of 8 walls, 4 spike feeder, 4 firestorm kastles (maybe it would be better to write it with c(astle) cause with a good draw sligh doesn't get the chance to do any creature damage). Then Gregor told us that that wasn't a real problem because living death would work toegether with mogg bombers. He told us that it the bombers were in the graveyard and living death it casted the bombers are triggered. We couldn't believe this but he told us that he had phoned amigo (german distributor of mtg, organisator of the german, austria and swiss nationals) THREE times and that they told him every time that this would work. Dirk and I immediatly knew that in this case sligh was the way to go. We build the board and went to bed soon after because I slept the night before for about 3 hours. When we arrived at the tournament location on the next day we wanted to ask the headjudge and verify that decision. But he was in a meeting with the other judges (great organisation, guys, just before the tournament starts when he is needed for questions like that ...) and came back 5 minutes before we had to register our decks. He told us that this wouldn't work (which is absolutely correct IMHO, but I was to tired the evening before to realize that). Dirk told me that in this case the sligh wasn't good enough. I was about to play it anyway but Dirk said that bloom was the way to go. I thought for a moment. Bloom should beat 5C-Kastle, sligh about 50/50, 90% against other defensive decks without countermagic and with 4 pyros, 4 abeyance, 5 counters and 2 final fortunes (you whisper during my discard? no interrupts! Wait a moment, I have a fast effect ....) it should win against permission. I wrote the deck-listing and build the deck. This is what I played (Dirk had one prosperity less and one meditate more): 4 City of Brass, 4 Gemstone Mine, 4 Swamps, 5 Islands, 1 Plains, 6 Forest -24 4 squander, 4 bloom, 4 balance, 4 contract, 3 meditate, 3 prosperity -22 4 impulse, 3 powersink, 2 memory lapse, 2 vampiric tutor, 1 drain life, 2 abeyance -14 Board: 4 pyros, 4 wall of blossoms, 2 abeyance, 2 final fortune, 3 tranquil domain (multiple auras, imho way better than the charm ...) The sideboard wasn't that good but consider that we build it 5 minutes before the tourney. We should have played with more cards against sligh, probably elephant grass ... 1. round, Jim Herold I didn't know him but when I saw that he is from hamburg I knew that he is probably a good player as are most players from there. I won the toss and decided to go first. My initial hand was gemstone mine, squander, bloom, balance, contract, prosperity, Impulse. I needed one more land to start and didn't mulligan. He immediatly wasted the mine. I didn't topdeck a land and said go. Luckily he wasn't playing sligh, he was playing burn, mana-shy burn. For the next turns he casted 2 point earthquakes while I was discarding like crazy. At one point I had an island and two forest in play. I was on 5 and he had 5 mountains, a scroll and a blast in hand. During his main phase he scrolled, down to 3 and blasted. I lapsed. I didn't topdeck the black mana I needed and said go. He drew the blast, scroll me to 1 and was to scary of another counter to play the blast!!! I had no more countermagic and topdecked a city. Game. I won duel 2 despite a rules-mistake that I don't want to mention. We both didn't realize it and I really didn't want to win the game this way. Sorry, Jim ... 6-1-0, 13-4 2. round, Dirk Baberowski Great, he was playing the same bloom and they even made this a FEATURE match. Smart guys!!! We calculated before that you need 9-3 to make top 8 and so we didn't draw. I won the coin too, went first, played a 2nd turn resource. On my fourth turn I had drawn both abeyances. I casted one and he couldn't do anything. I killed Dirk. Duel 2, see duel 1, just switch our names. In duel 3 my opening hand wasn't that good but I didn't mulligan. The situation changed when Dirk started to discard after he played 1 swamp and 1 plains. But I could start because I had only 2 balance, resource, bloom, abeyance and 2 pyroblast. The I topdecked the prosperity and killed him. Great match, esspecially for the spectators ... 7-1-0, 15-5 3. round, Stefan Leppert He was playing 5c-Kastle. I killed him in the first duel easily and thought that I should win that match because even after boarding 5C-Kastle isn't that good prepared for bloom. But it went the other way. In the 2nd duel he casted a 4th of 5th turn lobotomy without counterbackup (he tapped all colored mana he had at that moment). The problem was that I had only 9 ways to counter it after sideboarding. He chose the bloom and I conceded. In the 2nd duel he casted a lobotomy again on his 4th turn. I lapsed and started the engine with balance, contract, contract. In those 8 cards was no bloom, no balance and no impulse (after a balance!!!). I had to discard and he geddoned (oh, in those 8 cards wasn't a counter too ...). I didn't draw any more black mana from then on and couldn't cast the 2 blooms I drew during my next 2 draw phases ... 7-2-0, 16-7 4. round, Martin Luedecke Martin was playing sligh, like everybody from Berlin. In the first duel I had the combo in my hand but only 2 Islands. I topdecked a gemstone Mine but played the 2nd island because I hoped to find a basic swamp or forest with my impulse in order to avoid wastelands. I got only a city and had to play the nonbasics. They were both wasted and I never got the necessairy green and black mana into play ... My starting hand in duel 2 was like 5 lands, wall of blossoms and impulse. My next 5 draws including the cantrip-wall were 4 lands and a contract ... 7-3, 16-9 5. round, Dominik (Sorry, can't remember the full name) He was also playing bloom. I won the toss again and won the first and third duel. I was screwed in the 2nd and mana-shy in the third but at one point he casted natural balance. I fetched the plains, casted abeyance during his turn. During my turn the 2nd abeyance. He couldn't do anything about it and I killed him. 8-3, 18-10 6. round, Florian Dworak Florian played the same 5C-Kastle I faced in round 3. Dirk Baberoski playing the same bloom played three times against that deck (Florian Dworak, Stefan Leppert, Gregor Wernet) and won every matchup and so I thought that that would be a good matchup for me but I didn't realize that Florian had a quite good sideboard against me. He had the normal lobotomys and OONNNEEEE Hall of Gemstones. I won the first duel easily. In the 2nd duel Florian mulliganed. By turn 4 he had much colored mana on the table and I had only one powersink to counter a lobotomy. I casted the only bloom in my hand to be sure that he couldn't remove it. That didn't matter that much because I had 2 balances, contract and prosperity. If I would finally draw a squander I would probably win. He leaked the bloom, untapped and casted hall of gemstones. I thought for a moment and conceded. I brought in both vampirics (I boarded them because you need mainly against aggressive decks and 5C-Kaslte gives you usually much time to set up the combo ...) and 1 tranquil domain. I boarded only one because I expected that he had only one hall, in any case not more than 2. My initial hand was okay: Forest, Island, Squander, balance, balance, bloom, prosperity. He mulliganed once and I went first. I drew pyroblast and a third balance. My next draw was a powersink so I had to discard the balance. Then I drew a land, a 2nd forest. Florian topdecked a colored mana and casted his SINGLE hall of gemstones on turn 4. I sinked and he blasted. My next card was city of brass. With only one colored mana he would have lost if I had got the city one turn before. But at that point I thought that I could still win because the hall was florians only permanent. I blasted 2 tradewinds but didn't find impulse, vampiric, tranquil domain or even a contract to draw some cards. He geddoned twice put I didn't care because I had enough land. Then he casted an utan. So I had about 8 turns left ( city damage ...) to draw something. Eight turns later I was dead .... 8-4, 19-12 So I missed the top 8 again. With that loss a series of about 8 single matches continues. If I had won only one of these matches I would be back on the PT (okay, this time 'only' top 8 in nationals, but that would have been good enough ...). Any way, this time 8 good players were in the single elimination: Daniel Brickwell, Martin Luedecke and Dirk Hein from Berlin, Florian Dworak, Karlsruhe, Thorsten Fehrentz, Zweibruecken, Janosch Kuehn, Hannover, Martin Valkyser, Voerde and Peter Schmitz-Hueser from Aachen. Quarterfinals: Daniel Brickwell (Flunky-Sligh) defeated Martin Luedecke (Flunky-Sligh) 3-1 Dirk Hein (Flunky-Sligh) defeated Martin Valkyser (Steel-necro) 3-0 Janosch Kuehn (draw-go variant) defeated Peter S.-H. (3CW) 3-1 Florian Dworak (5C-Kaslte) defeated Thorsten Fehrentz (draw-go variant) 3-0 The finals could be watched through a video-link and everybody had much fun, esspecially to watsch the useless flunkies in the sligh the guys from Berlin were playing. At one point Stephan Valkyser said that one of them should put his flunky on another table because he was absoultey useless in almost any matchup (except against WW and bloom probably). Somebody else suggested that Janosch should be fair and allow Dirk to keep the Flunky after he disked some other things including some scrolls ... The german champion is Dirk Hein and Janosch came in 2nd. Congratulations esspecially for Janosch and Daniel who made the german-team again ... Janosch, as last years worlds-finalist, was already qualified for this years worlds and Peter will be invited as fifth. Kai * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = Kai Budde Tel: 0221-9416070 = = Petersbergstr. 77 e-mail: budde2@borneo.gmd.de = = 50939 Koeln = = Germany = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *