Subject: Canadian Nationals Report - *Not Going to Worlds* Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 17:20:21 -0400 From: Duncan.McGregor@midwal.ca (Duncan McGregor) To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Warning. This is a long tourney report, in the finest tradition of Jamie Wakefield. It doesn't even end with me going to Worlds. If you only want to see the actual tourney report, I've included a gratuitous use of the word 'gazebo' just above the start. Have fun. To start: my name is Duncan McGregor, I'm a co-op student at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Co-op means that you have four-month work terms interleaved into your four-month school terms, so for the past couple years I've been alternating terms learning in Waterloo with working in Toronto, at the center of the action as far as Magic is concerned. So, at the end of April, I do my thrice-yearly move, to Toronto, and near the end of the week start thinking about attending the weekly Thursday night Type II at 401 Convenience, the best place I've found to play in Toronto. Wow, are those run-on sentences. Myself and a couple of teammates had been kicking around the idea of a 4cWW deck, and had come up with a decklist that we thought would work. There were only two problems with it. One, it got it's butt kicked on a regular basis. It just kept coming up short of it's potential. It's like the deck is actively trying to make us lose in the most insulting ways possible. My teammate Jeremy had tried it out at 401on a Saturday a few weeks before, and either came up somewhat under even. Part of that, though, is the fact that white hates him. Any deck with white in it will actively screw him over. Two, the deck ran three Armageddons main deck. I owned none, and wouldn't get a chance to get any from a friend until the weekend. So, back to the drawing board. I end up deciding that a B/R aggressive deck, using the graveyard, could do well. So, in go the Barrow Ghouls and the 'Togs, the Mogg Fanatics and the Songs of Blood. Gold cards... hey, Acidic Slivers work great! I wonder if I could put in more sliverssss... More slivers... Hmm. I remember seeing Andrew McNish's post from a few weeks before, about his Counter-Sliver deck. I wonder if I could do that. In short order, the following has emerged: 3 Crystalline Slivers 4 Muscle 3 Hibernation 4 Flying 3 Acidic 1 Mnemonic 2 Clot 3 Man-o'-war 4 Counterspell 3 Mana Leak 2 Whispers of the Muse 1 Capsize 2 Wall of Blossoms 2 Terror 1 Disenchant 1 Cursed Scroll 2 Mox Diamond 2 City of Brass 2 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 1 Volrath's Stronghold 1 Bad River 1 Swamp 9 Island Then, the next morning in the shower, I remember about sideboards: 2 Pyroblast 2 Disenchant 1 Hydroblast 2 Honourable Passage 1 Wasteland 1 Dwarven Miner 1 Disrupt 2 Kaervek's Torch 2 Perish 1 Dread of Night Now, I'm not expecting this deck to really do well, but at least I'll be getting back in shape after a four-month hiatus. I need the practice too, regionals are nine days later. So, off to 401. I win against a U/w deck, evasion critters and Unstable Mutations. I win against a mono-black deck (not weenie rush). I draw into semi-finals. I win against a 5cU deck (memorable moment: I cast Wall of Blossoms. He Dismisses. I Disrupt the Dismiss. Now that's cantrip power.) Then I win against the same mono-black deck in the finals. Wow. I'm impressed. An untuned deck doing that well? I know I was lucky at several points, but the deck has lots of potential. I tune the deck, fixing the most blatant mistakes. No buyback spells, I wasn't running nearly enough land for that. I buy another Crystalline Sliver, tighten the slivers down to the really useful ones. Then I play it to 1-2 the next Thursday, tune it more, then take it to Regionals. Since I already posted a report to the Dojo about that, I'll keep it short and say that I went 6-1 to qualify for Nationals. Now, this was on May 9th. I decided that the slivers had been fun, but I might want something different for Nationals. But then, Thursdays went by, and I kept playing the slivers. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. After going 4-0-1 and 1-2, I went 1-2 again, 5-1 (winning), 0-2, and 2-2. Some days I was on, some days I was off, and some days I drew ten land each game. In my opening hand. Almost. Also, at this point, I'm trying to learn Exodus. Nationals up here in Canada being June 26-28, Exodus is not allowed in the Type II portion of the second four rounds. However, Exodus is allowed in Limited play, so the first four rounds of Nationals, the booster draft portion, are Tempest-Stronghold-Exodus. So, I need to learn Exodus damn fast. Oh, well. At least the Type II doesn't have Exodus. I have sympathy for anyone trying to predict the metagame down there at Origins. Here I am then, looking over Exodus spoiler lists, trying to figure out what would be good to draft. One idea that I found helpful was to look at only the commons for the set and rate them. I reach the conclusion, shared by many, that white is very strong in Exodus, especially with both Kor Chant and Shackles available. A bit low on good creatures, though. After looking at the whole shebang, Te/St/Ex all together, it looks like black is the way to go. Strong stuff in all three sets. White is also good, red starts good then traiiiils off. Blue has the potential to go either way, and green, initially promising in Exodus due to looking at commons, actually bites the big one when I notice the lack of good uncommons. Not that I won't draft it if I get the right stuff, but if given a choice, green will probably end up on the short end of the stick. I have to be in Waterloo the weekend before Nationals, the only weekend when Exodus is officially on the shelves before Nats, and I can't be in Toronto to practice. Well, I end up taking my pre-ordered box of Exodus and half a box each of Stronghold and Tempest to Waterloo with me, and arrange two drafts while I'm there. Good practice, I draft B/r the first time, finishing second. Goblin Bombardment/Oath of Ghouls is good stuff. Also the only time I've ever found a good use for a Morgue Thrull. Trust me, black players, this one got a lot hotter with Exodus. You can really use critters in the graveyard now. The second draft, I draft U/r, finishing first. A lot of that was luck, though. I opened to a Silver Wyvern in the Stronghold pack, then got a second-pick Ephemeron from Exodus. The player immediately to my right was already committed away from blue, and got something else good. So, a good confidence-builder. It was on the Monday of the week leading up to Nats that I finally realized what I needed to get the sliver deck really working well. Living Death. I'd increased the land count since Regionals, with the result that I now lost games to mana-flood rather than mana-screw. I had two undecided slots, where I wasn't sure what to play, using, recently, Uktabi Orangutans and Force Spikes there in different tourneys. I'd had the Living Death recommended to me about three weeks before, but at a time when I couldn't put them in immediately, so I'd dismissed the idea. Suddenly, it all clicked. I could also run one of my Phyrexian Furnaces as a 61st card, which would also reduce my mana ratio slightly. Perfect! The Thursday before Nats, we had a team get-together of sorts. Jeremy and I were qualified from the Toronto Regionals, but another teammate in Toronto and one coming down from Ottawa (damn co-op!) were competing in the Open qualifiers the next day. Supposedly, we were doing playtesting, but the high point of the evening was actually South Park. Jeremy's friend Scrublord was over as well, and beat everyone with his 'bad black' deck. Not suicide black; weenie black with Crypt Rats. Man, do those hurt Slivers. Especially when he has two Bad Moons out and only sets the rat bombs off for two. Bye-bye Muscle, Crystalline, and Winged. I hear card advantage is good. Josh is using a version of the B/r aggro deck that Jeremy qualified with. Adam is using a 4cWW variant. Another friend, John, is trying a 5cWW variant with Hazerider Drake. Everyone was trying to scrounge Mox Diamonds. I was trying to borrow a second Living Death, and hit the jackpot when Jeremy loaned me a Korean one, as well as one Italian and one Japanese Acidic Sliver and an Italian Disrupt for my sideboard. Disturbo power! Gazebo. Friday, I head over to the tourney site after work. Adam and Josh are keeping the hope alive at 3-1-1 and 3-2 with two rounds to go, but both lose in the sixth. The second Open qualifiers, the one used to fill up empty space in the event enough people don't show up, is due to start at 9 p.m., but doesn't end up starting until around 11, so neither of them enter that. It finally finishes at 6 a.m. after five rounds and three changes of location. I go home and sleep, but I may as well not have bothered. Thirteen draft tables, and I'm sitting at a table with former Pro Tour Player of the Year Paul McCabe; Terry Tsang, also a Pro Tour playa, who would finish this in top eight; John Park, formerly the number 1 ranked Canadian Limited player; and Jim Roy, who won the Central Regionals and would finish this in ninth. I'm screwed. Through the entire draft, I see no good cards. Even with those players feeding me, that's some bad luck. I end up drafting G/b, not by choice. It turns out that the only other person at the table drafting green is John, two spots to my right, which explains why I was getting green but not good green. I'm hoping for something out of Stronghold, but don't get nearly enough. I go 0-3 to be the scrub of my pod, then am awarded a fourth-round bye. Good way. Jeremy has also gone 1-3. He drafted a good R/W deck, but he forgot one important fact. White hates him. Proven fact. His deck refused to work for him. He was also feeling rather sick during the day. So, both mathematically eliminated (minimum 6-2 with good resistance for top eight), we grab our friends and a bunch of packs and run two drafts, ending around four in the morning. I win one and come second in the other. Why couldn't I have done that before? Jeremy doesn't show up for Sunday, both from being sick and not having a chance at top eight. I decide to show up, as I may as well play the slivers one last time before Exodus. There's bound to be some good matches, too. Deck listing: 4 Crystalline Sliver 4 Muscle Sliver 4 Winged Sliver 4 Hibernation Sliver 3 Acidic Sliver 3 Man-o'-war 2 Wall of Blossoms 4 Counterspell 3 Mana Leak 2 Terror 2 Living Death 1 Cursed Scroll 1 Phyrexian Furnace 2 Mox Diamonds 2 City of Brass 2 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 2 Underground River 1 Volrath's Stronghold 2 Swamp 10 Island SB: 3 Hydroblasts 2 Pyroblasts 2 Honourable Passage 2 Disenchant 2 Lobotomy 2 Earthquake 1 Phyrexian Furnace 1 Disrupt I show up Sunday morning at 8:10. The info packet the competitors received said registration 8:00-8:30, tournament starts 9:00. Since nothing goes wrong, we start exactly on time. Lots of people didn't bother showing up; some of them, like Jeremy, told the judges this at the end of yesterday. Many didn't, so a lot of people in the 1-3 bracket with me get free wins to start the day off. Some people with better records from yesterday aren't there either, including three 3-1s. One of them shows up at 9:10, and is not allowed to play as the tournament has already started. Needless to say, he was not impressed. In round 1 for the day, round 5 total, I am facing off against a Bushwacker deck. This was one of Jay Schneider's decks from, I believe, May. Spike Feeder, Man-o'-war, Llanowar Sentinel, Viashino Sandstalker, Living Death, Intuition, Nature's Resurgence, Aluren... funky stuff. Game 1 he beats me down. I am forced to Living Death at one point while he has two Spike Feeders in play just to stay alive. Game two, I get a Phyrexian Furnace out which he can't get an Uktabi for, and the deck really needs a full graveyard to shine. Game 3, I mulligan, then get a hand of Island, Island, Volrath's Stronghold, Gemstone Mine, Undiscovered Paradise, Counterspell. He drops a City of Brass. I top-deck a land and drop an Island. He drops another City and a Quirion Ranger. I top-deck a Mana Leak. A few turns later, I've got four land on the table, he's still got two Cities and two Quirion Rangers. I took 5 points of Quirion beats before finding a sliver and starting the beats. He eventually top-decks another Cityyyy of Brass (!) and tries to drop a Spike Feeder. Mana Leak. Next turn, he drops an Undiscovered, so it hurts slightly less when I Counterspell his next Spike Feeder. It would have been a very different game if his opening hand had one City and one Forest. The first two games there were also two of the best games I had all day from a quality standpoint. Round 2, I'm facing off against a sligh deck. He gets mana-flooded, dropping six mountains and keeping one in hand for his Cursed Scroll. On his last turn, he's at 4 and I'm at 5. I have Crystalline, Crystalline, Hibernation tapped from attacking, Hibernation untapped (just cast), Wall of Blossoms. He has Cursed Scroll, Mogg Flunkies. He draws. He's already Kindled twice and Incinerated once, and I haven't seen a Fireblast yet. If he draw any of these, I'm dead. He taps three mountains... Ball Lightning. First time I can remember being glad someone top-decked a Ball Lightning against me. The Flunkies plow under the Hibernation, the Wall takes a Ball Lightning for the team, and I'm at 1 after the scroll. Whew. Game 2 is a complete rout. He starts off with a first-turn Cursed Scroll. I use Mox Diamond for first-turn Hibernation. He drops a Canyon Wildcat. I drop land, Muscle Sliver, attack for three. He drops land, Pyroblasts the Hibernation, I Hydroblast the Pyro. My turn, I drop an Acidic Slllliver, attack with the Hibernation for another three. He does nothing. I attack with everyone, the Wildcat blocks the Muscle, and an Honorable Passage means he's down to six. He drops another Wildcat. I attack, he blocks the Muscle, Pyros the Hibernation, and I counter. Game. Fifth turn kill against Sligh. I love slivers. Round 3, I'm playing Steve Wolfman, who made quarterfinals at last year's Nationals. He was playing next to me in the 0-2 bracket yesterday, so I figure he hasn't been quite so successful this year. He's also in dire need of sleep, but I fail to see any obvious mistakes he makes while playing. He's playing Tradewind-Awakening, though, not a good deck when your higher brain functions are shutting down. Game 1, I get no Crystallines and lose. Game 2, I get a Crystalline and win. Game 3, I get a Crystalline and win. Other stuff happened, but that about sums up the games. Game 1, I counter the first Tradewind Rider, so he drops numbers 2 and 3. However, he hasn't drawn any other critters, so I take 2 damage a turn from Tradewind Rider beatdown before he finds a wall. The other games, I drop Crystallines and deny him the Awakenings, and win. Crystallines stop Capsize, Legacy's Allure, Tradewind effects, and Quicksands. Round 4, I'm facing off against 5cB, with Winter Orb, Firestorm, and lots of multiland. He beats me game 1 with a Volrath's Stronghold. Game 2, I squeak out a victory. Game 3, I play badly for the first time today. I have a Hibernation and a Muscle in play. He has a Black Knight and a Shadow Guildmage. I attack with the Hibernation, because, after all, the Shadow Guildmage has no special ability whatsoever. He, of course, pings the Hibernation Sliver with the Guildmage and blocks it. I return the Hibernation to my hand, paying two life and two mana to his one life and one mana. He gets a WOrb out, but my Mox Diamond lets me keep going, and he just keeps topdecking land. I drop a second Muscle, and start beating on him with a 4/4 Hibernation. The turn before he is going to die, he taps an Undiscovered, and drops the three land in his hand on my three slivers. Unfortunately, he didn't actually have a Firestorm, but it was enough to make me really worried for a while. A good way to finish the day. One of my friends, in the draft the previous night, had been using Necrologia as a method of concession ("So, I'm at eight, and you have twelve damage coming my way next turn. During my discard phase, I'll Necrologia for eight. Go ahead. Oops.") So. No wins Saturday, no losses Sunday. I've done better, but hey, I'm not complaining. 5-3, with the worst tie-breaker's I've ever seen. Opponent's Match Percentage was 0.37. I guess that's what I get for starting with the losses, but I had to go down the list to someone with only 9 points before I found someone with worse tie-breakers. Most of them beat me too. In the end, only one person with 6-2 makes top eight. Then they run into problems. The single 6-2 made a mistake when filling out his decklist, probably due to the fact that he got here at around 8:45. He wrote down '4 Tradewind Riders' twice. As such, he registered an illegal deck, and in accordance with DCI Floor Rules was ejected from the tourney. Obviously unintentional, 64 cards on the sheet and 60 in the deck, but the rules don't leave any room for leniency. So, they call the ninth place person up. He doesn't come. He's left already, as he has a long way to go to get back home to Alberta. They call the tenth place person, and peeeeople think he's around, but not sure where. The eleventh place person is nearby, and they tell him to stay put just in case. The tenth place finisher, Ryan Fuller, does show, though, and passes his deck-check. For finals, they were doing a hybrid double-elimination for the top eight. Basically three rounds of Swiss (except for the two who start 0-2) with the single 3-0 being the Canadian National Champion and the three 2-1s being the other members of the team. Rather ideal for this setting, as one bad matchup won't knock you out entirely. I stayed around to watch the end of the match between Ryan Fuller's Humility-Orim's Prayer deck and Elijah Pollock's 5cG Tradewind deck. Gross over-simplifications of the decks, I'm sure. Game three (best two of three), Elijah uses either Lobotomy or Jester's Cap (I'm not sure which, I didn't see this) to get all three of Ryan's Gaia's Blessings out of the game. Ryan has three Scroll Racks in the deck, though. He gets down to no cards in library, uses a Rack to put his hand on top of the library. On Elijah's turn, he drops a Monkey and breaks the Rack. This repeats twice, and gives Ryan the win by two cards. At this point, I'd already played in a full booster draft since the main tourney ended, splitting the win with another player. I went home and slept. Congrats to the Canadian National Team, Nick Chen, Terry Tsang, Ryan Kirk, and champ Peter Radonij. Thanks also to head judge Seyil Yoon for a well-run tourney. Some aspects of the weekend could have been better organized, though (referring back to the three changes of location for the second Open qualifier). Overall, a very fun weekend. I can't wait to do it again. Next week: Exodus becomes Type II legal. I eagerly await news of what sick and degenerate decks will be played at Origins. Remember: have fun, and always wear your seatbelt. -- Duncan McGregor