Subject: European Championship Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 01:45:03 -0800 From: Kai Budde To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi! This weekend (10 - 12 of July) I played in the european championship in Bruessels, Belgium. There were about 210 players. Almost all good german players were qualified. The week before the tournament I was on holiday and so I wasn't that good prepared for the ST part of the tournament. ST was the first day and the top 128 advanced to the 2nd day (rath-cycle rochester draft). I tested the pandemonium/dreadnaught deck but had not enough time to build a really good version. WW was also strong but it won the US nationals and so I expected a lot of them and WW against WW is not a matchup I like. I had also two versions of the mono-blue deck build by Jon Finkel. Version 1 with 4 waterspouts, 4 lapses and 4 leaks (Finkel gave this Version to Andre Konstanczer during GP-Zurich) and the deck that Finkel used during the US-nationals. Again I didn't playtest this and I don't like to play with decks I'm not familiar with. So I went with my standard sligh-deck I have since the time before the german nationals: 18 mountains 3 Wasteland (the metagame was WW, sligh and blue. Against these decks wastelands are usells and I like being able to cast my balls lightnings and fireblasts ...) -21 4 fanatics 4 pubs 1 goblin vandal (mainly to have one more 1CC creature and great against draw-go (which was played by MANY of the german players) and the mono-blue deck (mono-blue really needs the medallions against sligh)) 4 ironclaws 3 fireslinger 3 ball lightning 3 sandstalker 1 rathi dragon (good against sligh and GREAT against mono-white weenie) -23 4 shock 4 incinerate 4 fireblast 4 scroll -16 -60 Sideboard: 4 pyros, 3 disks (WW), 2 shatter (the better version of course), 2 dwarven miner, 2 firestorm, 2 boil (again most of the germans were playing blue and the mono-blue finkel-thing was also quite popular ...) -15 day 1: 6 rounds standard 1. round, Tim Gloeckner, draw-go Great. There were TWO players from cologne and we had to play in the FIRST round! We didn't draw and played. He won the first duel because the first creature I could play was a third turn sandstalker. He could counter almost everything and had the corpse dance along with bottle gnomes soon. I won the 2nd duel with a top-decked shatter when he tapped out during my discard phase for a corpse dance. I destroyed a tapped disk and a stalking stone, both with buyback. Tim couldn't handle my 2 scrolls. In the third duel he went first and had only one island in his hand. He didn't mulligan. My hand was 3 lands, pub, pub, fanatic, miner. He force spiked and blasted the three things I casted first and topdecked enough land to cast all 4 gnomes by turn 10 and he got corpse dance with a basic swamp soon. I lost... 0-1-0, 1-2 2. round, Benedikt Klauser, Bloom In the first duel I was too slow and he killed me. In the 2nd and 3rd duel he had 2nd turn chills. I won the 2nd because he couldn't get the engine working. In the third duel he casted a prosperity for 8 and if I had drawn one pyro in those 8 cards I would probably have won but I didn't and lost ... 0-2-0, 2-4 3. round, Fergus XXX, sligh I got the better draw in the first duel and killed him. I boarded the shatters and two firestorms. He boarded the same + 4 gnomes. He won the 2nd by topdecking something to handle my rathi. He was at nine and I had a blast. One more attack would have been enough. In the third duel my starting hand was 1 mountain and 6 expensive spells. I mulliganed. My new hand was 1 mountain, shock, firestorm and 3 other cards. I kept it and didn't draw a land for 6-7 rounds. I lost again ... 0-3-0, 3-6 After I lost three matches 1-2 I was really disappointed and was about to drop but chose to play at least one more match. 4. round, Oliver Bertell, WWu, armor-weenie The first duel was VERY strange. My staring hand was 2 fireblast, incinerate and 4 lands. He got no prot. red and I bolted his creatures while I kept drawing lands. He screwed himself with cataclysm and I killed him with a stalker. In the 2nd duel a paladin with an armor outraced my rathi one turn. In the third duel I had 5th turn rathi again. After sideboarding he had at least 4 ways to get rid of it (spirit link and tariff) but the only removal he got was cataclysm. Not that strong in that situation. He died to the rathi ... 1-3-0, 5-7 5. round, Yusuf XXX, stompy (survival of the fittest, winter orb) I took a mulligan in the first duel and got only one land. He protected his two muscles and his rogue elephant with 2 giant growth and that was game. The 2nd and 3rd duel were decided by firestorm. He played the orb in both duels. I had two or three attackers and everytime he tapped out to cast another creature I casted firestorm to get rid of them all. In duel 3 I had only 1 mountain until the very end, but both firestorms and 2 jackal pubs ... 2-3-0, 7-8 6. round, Pavel XXX, WW The winner would make it to the 2nd day. In the first duel it was a close race but a ball lightning and a fireblast decided it in my favor. In the 2nd duel he had an armored paladin with spirit link. I disked it away but he gained about 8 life from it. In the end he was on 6 and I had a blast but couldn't do those two points. I died to another paladin with another armor. The third duel was a good example how stupid the current typ II environment is. IMHO not the player or the skill decides who wins. It's all about the matchup and the first 7-8 cards each player draws. I went first and mulliganed. My new hand was 3 lands, fanatic, scroll, incinerate. I casted the fanatic. He played a plains. I attacked and couldn't cast anything else. He tithed for two plains, untapped, drew, played a land and discarded a plains. I incinerated him, drew a sandstalker and attacked. He casted a paladin. I played my fourth land and the scroll with only the stalker in hand, scrolled the paladin. He couldn't handle the scroll and he had no mana-denial. I won ... 3-3, 9-9 I made the 2nd day as 122th. My opponent percentage was really bad. I started with 0-3 and some of my opponents, for example Oliver Bertell, dropped after loosing against me because they had no chance to make the 2nd day. Benedikt Klauser was ejected in round 4 because of multiple warnings for different reasons. At my first draft table was nobody I knew (and I know almost every known european player because I usually play in all big tournaments in europe ...) and I was afraid of some unexperienced drafter changing the colors all the time. IMHO it's much easier to draft with good players. My favorite colors in TeStEx are blue and white. The color I wanted to avoid was green. IMHO most of the time green decks are crap. I was player 1 at the table and I had to take a rootwalla as first pick! The next playable card was hero's resolve. That never happened to me in a tempest booster before. There was no good red/blue/black or white creature. Not even a time ebb or enfeeblement. Just nothing ... My 8th and 9th pick were also good green creatures (seeker, heartwood dryad) and I got some more green. And then the guy that fed me suddenly started drafting green and took a skyshroud troll without having any other green card and two players to his right weren't drafting his colors. There was just no reason to switch ... I had no secondary color in te and got in the last te booster a kindle so I went with red. In the first stronghold booster the player to my right started drafting red with a shard phoenix. Then the guy two seats to my left started also drafting red with a flowstone mauler as 2nd or 3rd pick. Great! He got the flunkies and I opened nothing I could really use. In EX I didn't get any red or green 4CC and so my deck ended up quite crappy. At least I got two of those 3/2 first striking flyers in EX. I won't list my deck at this point because it was just a bunch of crap and a good reason why you shouldn't draft green ... 7. round, the french player that fed me In the end he didn't play the white and red cards he took and ended up blue/green. I lost the first duel thanks to a nice mana screw, won the 2nd with flame wave and the third with one of my sabertooth wyverns. 4-3-0, 11-10 8. round, a guy from Rome, Italy He was the one who switched to red with the flowstone mauler. He was also playing red/green. The first duel was quite close but I drew some lands when I had to topdeck some spells and he won. In the 2nd duel I took a mulligan but was screwed again. In the end I was about to be in control but he played the mauler and I couldn't handle a 9/1 trampler with 3 life left ... 4-4-0, 11-12 9. round, a rare drafter from france He took a sliver queen as 5th pick because he needed it for his collection. He was playing a pretty crappy green/black deck and I won two straight. 5-4-0, 13-12 At my next draft table were some more familiar faces. To my right was Peer Kroeger and to my left Jeremie Lagarde (spelling?). Next to Jeremie was Kim XXX (Sorry, forgot the complete name ...) from norway. The other players also drafted quite well. I was player 1 AGAIN. I opened a thunder and went for it. But this time I didn't want to have green as secondary color for sure. I wanted to have blue or white. I got a late anoint, a 2nd anoint and a soltari monk and my colors were set. I got some good creatures in ST and then there were two boosters left, Jeremies and mine. Jeremie had up to now green, blue and black. He opened spirit en-kor and shard phoenix. In my deck I preferred the spirit because it's cheaper and there was only 1 banishing in the draft. But I would haven picked the phoenix because it killed me entire deck. But luckily Jeremie went for the phoenix (defensively, his only red card in the draft imho) and I took the spirit. Then I opened a shaman en-kor! Up to now no draft went as good for me as this one did ... My deck: 9 mountain, 8 plains 1CC: fanatic, 2 conscripts, 2 mogg raider, soltari foot soldier 2CC: shaman en-kor, soltari trooper, soltari monk, youthful knight, skyshroud falcon (not that good, but I needed evasion ...) 3CC: starke of rath, mage il-vec, flowstone shambler, convulsing licid 4CC: spirit en-kor, flowstone giant, furnace brood -18 creatures spells: thunder, 2 anoint, maniacal rage, seething anger The only thing this deck misses is probably one or maybe even two convictions but there was only one in the draft and it was toegether with the shaman en-kor ... 10. round, a feature match against Peer Kroeger, playing BR (as always ...) I got a pretty brutal draw in duel 1. I took notes of our life totals. His were like this: 20, 18, 16, 11, 6, 0. He couldn't deal with my fast creatures backed up with anoint. In the 2nd duel my start wasn't that good and he played a 2nd turn fireslinger (he had two of these guys). Luckily I topdecked a mogg fanatic and brought him down to 3. Then we both started to draw land for about 6 turns. I had a 5/5 furnace brood in play (he cannibalized my spirit en-kor) and he had to waste a blocker each turn. That wasn't a problem because along with his 12 lands he had a burial. He was about to gain control when I topdecked the soltari monk. He tapped out during his turn, I showed him the seething anger in my hand and he conceded ... 6-4-0, 15-12 11. round, Christian from switzerland He was playing three colors, BUR. In the first duel I was ways too fast for him. Then he went first and casted a 3rd turn horned turtle. I got no evasion and had to attack with everything and use my shaman en-kor to protect the blocked creatures but I didn't deal that much damage and he played a land every turn. He was at 7 life when his X4B appeared and killed three creatures, including the shaman. I drew some lands from there on and he was beating me down while I kept drawing lands. In the last duel I went first again. My start was pretty good and he was color-screwed (three color-decks usually suck in draft). His first blocker was a sabertooth wyvern on turn 5. He didn't get a chance to cast another blocker ... 7-4-0, 17-13 12. round, Kim Eikefet from norway, URb (splased acidic, banishing, with a mox) In the first duel she stalled at 3 lands. Unfortunately for her a shambler with maniacal rage assured that she didn't stall that long ... She went first in duel 2. She had to take a mulligan and her first 12 cards were 8 lands, 3 creatures and a mox diamond. If she wasn't screwed in those duels she might have won. Her deck was okay and she had some spoilers as well (that stormbind shaman for example ...). 8-4-0, 19-13 After a 0-3 start I made a good comeback. I had 24 points and 27 was for some players enough for top 8 (not with my opponent percentage of course). I finished 28th and got 600$. Not too shabby for the 1 hour ride from Cologne to Bruessels. My teammate Tim Gloeckner finished 22th, one more matchwin and he would have been top 8 for sure. The stupid thing about this was that he could have won one more match. In the deciding duel of a match in the 2nd draft he would die next turn and his opponent was at 11. He had a furnace brood, rootwater hunter and fling in his hand, with 7 lands on the table. His oppoent had a rootbreaker and some more good creatures. Tim was nervous because he thought he would have lost. He had no direct damage left and was about to concede. He forgot to ping with the hunter and drew a card. And there it was, SEETHING ANGER. One time with buyback then without and there was a 9/3 giant ready to be flinged along with a rootwater hunter to deal the final damage. Strong play, Tim ... In the end Sturla Bingen (draw-go) won against Jakub Slemr (draw-go) in the finals. There were 3 blooms, a white-weenie, a oath of druids-control-deck and a standard 5CG in the finals. I didn't watch the finals because I drove home Saturday night ... CU, Kai * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = Kai Budde Tel: 0221-9416070 = = Petersbergstr. 77 e-mail: budde2@borneo.gmd.de = = 50939 Koeln = = Germany = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *