Subject: [REPORT] TSE Draft! Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 10:15:27 -0400 From: Dave Matteson To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com ----------------------------------------------------- 'lo all, here is my report of last night's (Tues Sep 1st, 1998) local draft. every tuesday i go draft at Campus Collectibles here in Ann Arbor, MI. it's fun, and great practise. lots of good, solid players play there. for instance, last night we had Bill Flemming, John Thomas, myself, my GF Steph, Andy Lovas (who just won a PTQ for Chi-town on Sunday, gratz again!), and others. not bad for a little 8-person draft, no? so anyway, it's 3 rounds of swiss (to allow for our bizarrre rare-drafting prize situation), and we get started sometime around 5:30 i think. when i open my tempest pack i see the following : dauthi slayer sandstone warrior dauthi mercenary dauthi ghoul (not great, but not too bad, it's shadow!) now, the chaff wasn't that bad, but it wasn't as good as the other stuff. so i had to basically choose between black and red. here's where my win was decided. i decided to take the warrior as it was the only good red in the pack, thus giving me a good chance that john thomas (on my left) would pass me good red in stronghold. i knew that if i took one of the good black shadows, i would not see either of the other two, and there was NO WAY i would get black back in stronghold. so i decided to go red. when my second pack was passed to me i realized the guy to my right was a scrub, as there was a rolling thunder staring me in the face. i knew damn well that he had not opened a cursed scroll, or he would have made some kind of exclamation about it (they always do.) so, my third pick in tempest was an overrun! deciding my second colour for me (it ended up being my primary.) i opened a bullwhip in stronghold, and was passed a spike feeder, 2 flings and other stuff. opened a mindless autonomaton in exodus (some strong), and was happy with the following (from memory).. 2 fling 2 sonic burst (some good i hear) 1 sandstone warrior 1 raging goblin 1 mage il-vec 1 rolling thunder (some good) 1 overrun 1 krakillin (like 11th or 12th pick in tempest! regen is some good) 1 charging boars (strong) 1 plated rootwalla 1 skyshroud troll 1 spike feeder 1 trained armodon 1 canopy spider 1 pygmy troll 1 rampant growth 1 bullwhip 1 scalding tongs (like 9th pick!) 1 phyrexian splicer 1 mindless autonomaton (some fat) 10 forest 8 mountain some good, don't you think? i had a bunch of stuff i didn't use, such as the spike grey ogre, and the bayou dragonfly (which i usually like just 'coz it flies and has swampwalk.) round 1 v. john thomas (G/w) now, john and i are friends and he usually beats the schlamoly out of me. of course, i have only played him non-sanctioned, bad match-up, type 2. so, i consider myself a stronger limited player (though my ranking and rating do not reflect that.) he told me the field of souls i passed him (i knew i was not going to go white) was a combo with what he took first pick. i thought a goblin bombardment, but because i found he was not playing red i wondered. game 1 : we quickly build up to a big creature stall. then i get the tongs. they ping at him for a long time, and he starts getting low. i blow away any creatures that had a chance to get through to me (thundering a spined wurm and some other stuff), and start an assault with monsieur first-strike. but then i see the mystery half of his combo. he winds of raths away all the creatures, returning his jackalope herd to his hand. unfortunately for him, however, i draw my crashing boars, and still have bullwhip to kill his herd. he's at like 2 or 3 and i draw more creatures. game. game 2 : once again we get to a creature stall, and once again i get the tongs. he doesn't wrath this game, but i do blow away key blockers allowing for mr. sandstone to take him out (pumpable first strike is some good i hear.) match: 1-0 game: 2-0 round 2 v. andy kaminski (sp?) (W/b) he had been passing me the thunder, bursts and whatnot, so i wasn't too scared. these games went quickly. game 1 : i bring out raging goblin first turn which is a harbinger of the unstoppable beatdown. third turn trained armodon is some good. eventually i see a plague bearer and a couple soul wardens, but they are all dispatched with. my beatdown destroys him. his creatures are all to scrunchy and i see no shadow from him. game 2 : no raging goblin, but third turn trained armodon again, and fourth turn skyshroud troll. the plaguebearer makes a second appearance, once again early in the game. i think that is a key mistake. you wait to play the plague guy until you have enough mana to work him, and you've used up all their removal. he's too vulnerable otherwise and you won't get use out of him. so, i blow that guy away again and beat him down hard. match : 2-0, game: 4-0. finals v. ray (don't know last name, sorry) (R/w) the first two weeks i played at Campus Collectibles, i played Ray first round. now, he says he was pretty much undefeated until then, but i went 2-0 against him those two weeks, and he stopped playing in the drafts after that until this night. so, it was revenge on his part i suppose. game 1 : i had the game locked down, my fat was crushing him, i got out a tongs, he aftershocked twice (bringing one back to his hand with anarchist), once to get rid of mr. sandstone, and once to kill the tongs. he was at 7, and i had 6 land out and a rolling thunder. i could have waited for 3 more land, but thinking (i guess) that i could beat him down before that happened, i blew away some of his key creatures instaed (mage il-vec and somebody else.) i got him down to 1, and had out mage il-vec. then he played venerable monk taking him back to 3. ok i said, only 3 turns to live. i draw a forest, he's got like 6 creatures on the board, i have mage il-vec and something else not very big (i think maybe canopy spider). so i have to chump block with the spider (or whatever it was.) then i ping him with the mage taking him to 2. then i draw overrun :( not very useful with just a mage il-vec when he has a 1/4 standing troops and a venerable monk untapped. then during his turn he decides to attack, and we count it up, 16 damage including the standing troops! as i'm at 15, there's no way i can not block, so i block the convinctioned flowstone giant, and ping him in response. i only had to do 1 more damage, but i could not top deck anything (i don't think anything in my deck could have saved me at that point.) this was a pretty long game. now i have to go 2-0! game 2 : i get a quick fattie start, begin serving up beatdown. i get him low enough with fat and then thunder him. he didn't have much to block with and i kinda just rolled right over him. bullwhip helped. game 3 : he gets mana screwed, i don't (i never did last night.) i have my bullwhip in play when i draw my overrun. he has his creature untapped, though so i don't want to do it right away. i want maximal usage, i can force the guy to attack next turn with no ill-effects. so, i do that and then on my turn i have 3 forests and 3 mountains, plus skyshroud troll (3/3), canopy spider (1/3) and sandstone warrior (1/3) ready to go at him and he has no one to block with. so i overrun, and pump the sandstone +1/+0 for 15 damage which takes him to 5. then in a few turns i thunder him to death. so i end up 3-0, 6-1. not bad. my deck was fairly unstopabble. i found out that andy kaminski was playing main deck perish (!!?), he showed it to me after our second game and i figured he had sideboarded it. but steph said she saw it when he was playing her first round. bizarre. then we do prizes by taking all the rares and uncommons in the draft and laying them out. first place gets to take 2 on his first pick, so i take cataclysm and intuition. i also end up getting an interdict later in the draft but nothing else spectacular. latres, ...dave