Subject: (very late)italian nationals report Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 16:25:44 +0200 From: Patrick Stephen Colgan To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com italian nationals 1998 -open tournament with 1 bye to best dci composite and 2 byes to top 4 1997- 6th/7th June in the heat of Florence type 2...278 players playing for 4 invites to worlds and 8 invites to the euro championships... The Twin Towers Team of Bologna, Italy (site under construction at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/8043/tttteam.html ) decided to play a deck originally created by Claudio Negrini, nicknamed "the coach" the creative mind of the team...the deck was then developed, refined and tuned by the rest of the team... the team included me (Patrick Colgan), Alessandro betti, Riccardo Pizzirani, Silvio Vitali, Claudio Negrini, Norberto Giusti at the last possible moment former italian national champion Andrea Paselli (semi-retired from tournament play) decided to join the team...we built a copy of the deck for him (we rushed to find the many rare cards used in the deck) everyone played a slightly different version of the deck Twin Towers Tradweind 4-Tradewind Rider 4-Walls of Blossoms 1-Wall of Roots 1-Quirion Ranger 4-Birds of Paradise 1-Fellwar Stone (decided for it over the less reliable mox diamond) 3-legacy's allure 3-mana leak 3-counterspell 3-armageddon 1-winter orb 1-earthquake 1-fire whip (!) 2-man'o-war (I should have played at least 3 of these) 3-derelor 2-suq'ata firewalker 2-spike feeder 3-undiscovered 3-gemstone mine 2-ciy of brass 1-skyshroud forest 6-forest 6-islands SIDE 4-pyroblast 3-hydroblast 2-disenchant 2-uktabi 3-propa 1-firestorm ROUND 1 Mr.Bye ------ I easily get three points from mr.Bye ...I am the only one in the team with a bye...I get a coffee and talk for a while with other players 3 pts 1-0-0 ROUND 2 -Domenico De Dato ------ww horde He is a young guy playing a very simple and straightforwasrd white weenie...hordes of protected creatures...nothing more than hordes of creatures. I easily establish a board control thanks to suq'ata firewalkers and legacy's allures...the second game goes even better thanks to propagandas from the sideboard. I think this ww can do pretty well against suicide blacks and sligh but that has no chances against well built control decks. 6 pts 2-0-0 ROUND 3 -??? ------suicide black Two hard fought duels..he brings me really down on life in both games. In the second game i kill two horrors and a sarcomancy with the firestorm (from the sideboard)...this leads me to the final victory. uh..I am on fire! 9 pts 3-0-0 two more wins and I am in top 64...I have 4 rounds to get 6 points..I can do it... all the team is doing great with the deck ROUND 4 -Alessandro Betti ------tttradewind damn...! my only team mate at 9 pts among about sixty 9 points players...this is really bad luck. We decide to play rather than id because a draw would be really useless. He draws both games the upper hand...he draws two legacy's allure in the first game and three in the second (it s all about who draws more lagacy's allures...). :( 9 pts 3-1-0 ROUND 5 -Emiliano Galli ------ww with a splash of red First game he goes trough really early in the game with a huge white knight with empyrial armor (where are the man'o-wars?)...I am dead in like 4 minutes. Second game I lock twice with tradewind rider (and armageddon ready to be cast the following turn) but he pyroblasts twice. 9 pts 3-2-0 ROUND 6 -??? ------5cg He is playing a very aggressive 5cg full of guildmages and with many firestorms... This is really bad since firestrom is the only card that can break the tradewind rider's partial lock ..and with only one red mana! We play three great games...I don' t remember very well the details...but it was really tough and the games were amazing. 12 pts 4-2-0 ROUND 7 -Daniele Montini ------g/r/u/w control/big creatures (???) I win the first game thanks to two suq'ata firewalkers. But he creates big troubles for my deck. He plays endangered armodon (kills the walls of blossoms and dies if I control it with legacy's allure) and maro...he also plays a lot of removal and counterspells....and destroys nearly everything I play...strange deck He cannot use the sideboard because he has done a mistake in the decklist. Ok..I have to win one game against a sideboardless opponent with a strange deck...c mon I side in 4 pyroblasts (It is very difficult to sideboard against him because he has an original deck with a littlòe bit of everything) In the second game he lays down a big maro very early..and..needless to say he counters everything I try to cast...no man'o-wars...nothing Third game starts pretty well for me with a wall and a legacy's allure (I can control his fatties later)..but he then destroys my wall and lays a SCRAGNOTH!!!!!!!!!!! (he wa s playing it in the main deck!!!) god...I play dderelor...he plays kaervek's torch(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) on it...I lay another one dwon and he kills it again!!!. I have an earthquake but when I reach five mana is too late because i am too low on life. Here end my adventure at 1998 italian nationals 12 points 4-3-0 4 of my teammates are in top 64... Two teammates playing the same exact deck made top 8 (Negrini and Paselli)....one of them makes 2nd place (1996 national champion Andrea Paselli) I go back home because I am too depressed to play in the exodus preview the following day).... WOTC ITALY ran a great tournament...I also really appreciated the fact that there was no admission fee but a compulsory charity donation ----- you can find complete coverage of italian nationals (top 8 decks and more reports) in the italian unofficial Magic: the gathering web page at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/8043/nazion.html ----- Patrick Stephen Colgan -------> Patrick Stephen Colgan - hymn@geocities.com >>>>>>>>Twin Towers MTG Team the unofficial italian MTG web site: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/8043