Subject: Secret Force Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 21:22:55 -0400 From: "David Montgomery" To: Tournament Report for Sunday July 5, 1998 After a long, long month of non-Standard tournaments at my local Magic store, the well-lit Big City, the tournament organizer, John Scheel, finally decided to let us play some Type II. Having won a tournament at another local Magic parlor with Deadguy Sligh by the skin of my teeth (4 chills on the board, and opponent still at nine life in the final game... 1 Scroll and a fanatic on the table, and enough land to not be able to cast anything.. Can you say scroll with FIVE cards in hand - only TWO of which are Ball Lightnings - and get extremely lucky?) I was sorely tempted to play Sligh again. But with all of the Sligh hating cards - Gnomes, Feeders, Wall of Draw, Steel Golem, and not to mention all the white life gaining cards in Exodus, I decided to wait and see what happens in the environment before I play Sligh again. So I considered playing a deck I had tested with that Mike Donais created in the Exodus opinion area of the Dojo based on Oath of Druids. The R/G version of the deck mauls sligh and black weenie, and can win against some blue decks, and probably many others as well. However, after playing this deck against my cousin, Randy - planning on playing Suicide Black.. he decided that he would take it, and I'm stuck about a week from the tournament without a deck. So I start looking at the other decks I have built.. Deadguy Sligh, Flores Suicide Black, Bonedancer Deck of Death (BDD), Tradewind/Stasis - nice in principle, but sucks in play... ; and this funky deck Jamie Wakefield created called Secret Force. Having played it a few times on Thursday nights, and at home I liked the deck but it seemed to lack an early offense. Sure Llanowar Elves can serve, if you call one point of damage a turn serving... "19 more turns and you're dead Sligh boy!" but I thought the deck needed a little more work. Well since that time Jamie revised Secret Force at least two times to my knowledge, and I'm sure the deck list can be found somewhere on the Dojo. I didn't have a sideboard listing so I sideboarded on what I thought the deck was weak against and took it to the tournament. I arrive a little early, and Jim Orr asks if I have some Caps he can borrow. I say sure, and let him borrow them, and as luck would have it, he's my first opponent. Round 1 - Jim Orr - Grindstone/Prop/Pendrell/Orb deck. Not a particularly great match for my deck as I'm with mono green and grindstones do have a chance of being quite nasty against mono-anything, but I have eight anti-artifact cards in my deck, four of which double as enchantment kill. Mirri the Thundercat (Ho!) serves the first game, and the second game many green creatures attack and win. Lowlights of the game saw Natural Orders countered as I lost two cards for one (creature still sac'ed as well as countered) No Verdant Forces this game if I recall correctly, and Pendrell Mists were a bit of a pain with Orb out, but a well timed Monkey made things much better. Games 2 - 0 Matches 1 - 0. Round 2 - Bert Henson - 5 Color Albatross Not a good matchup at all. Tradewinds suck against this deck, and I haven't practiced against much blue yet. Game one starts with low mana, but I manage to get him down to 16 before he geddon's with tradewind lock in place. I might have been able to get mana on the table with elves in the deck, but decide against it and scoop to get on with game two. Game two shows me an early Needlestorm, but by the time the Tradewind comes out, he's got a Feeder on the board. I go ahead and attempt to kill the bird, and a tradewind, but fail to as he moves a counter from the feeder to save the tradewind. After much bouncing of Mirri and other creatures, He offers beatdown, and I offer little resistance. Games 2 - 2 Matches 1 - 1 At this point I begin to see just how strong blue is against this deck, especially three particular blue cards - Tradewind, Man-o-war, and Capsize. And I had hoped for some black weenie or sligh to play, but it's not to be.. Round 3 - Jess Creak (sp?) Mono green Cool. Another green deck. This should be an interesting match. I fear little as I have Mirri, and fat green... I get a pretty quick start with an elf first turn... She also plays an elf. I play land, Mirri. She plays land done. I attack, she plays Honky Don.. Hmm. No way to tap Mirri either.. And I thought no tapping to attack was a benefit... Argh. She attacks, and forces Mirri and elf-boy to block, then elvish furies, or some such nonsense. Another Honky on the table, and me with my feeder. She forces the feeder to block again, not letting me get a creature in play to dump tokens on, and I sac for 4. I end up at 28 life from two feeders, but I can't keep a creature out to Natural Order, as she makes whatever I put out block. Chump block with Sex Monkey and I'm down to 25. Then 22. Then no blockers, and I'm smacked for 11, then it's game over.. Ok. Take a deep breath. I just lost to a mono green deck, that I should have wrecked. What happened? Let's try this again.. Second game I drop a Feeder, sac a token for two life, and then sac the feeder for the Verdant. Game Over, despite a couple of respites. Third game, more of the same... I ended third game at 20 life, and second game at 22 life.. I feel much better about the deck now, having finally been able to drop an early Force, and serve.. Games 4 - 3 Matches 2 - 1 Round 4 - Chris Johns - Mono blue Tradewind deck. So much for making the finals, I think as I sit down knowing I'm going against another blue deck this one all blue.. Unreal.. Game 1 I paris down to six cards as I had something like two Verdants in my hand. Hmm. I won the roll so I'm playing first and will be at a slight card disadvantage. Fortunately he's a little mana hosed, but kept it, and I start dropping creatures before his mana kicks in. I win at 20 life. Mirri and Barishi served game one.. I sideboard in only my Chokes as I didn't think it would be right to side in my Needlestorms since I didn't see a Tradewind game 1. I knew he had them because I played next to him earlier, but didn't want to play unfairly.. He plays first and drops and Island, I drop forest and perhaps elf. He drops island and drops a Medallion. I drop forest, Choke.. He goes and drops another forest. I Monkey/creep the Medallion and a creature. At this point it looks promising as I'm able to keep him mana deprived... I win both games at 20 life. Second game was more enjoyable than the first because he was very mana lacking first game. Games 6 - 3 Matches 3 - 1 With the four rounds of Swiss over, I'm a shoe-in for the top eight. I get in third seed, and I think the top eight were as follows. Bert Henson - 5 Color Albatross Randy Rawson - Oath of Druids R/G Myself - Secret Force Steve - Mono blue Chris Johns - Mono blue Mark Yetter - Counter Sliver Rick Weathers - ?? U/G Woodsage/Tradewind Can't recall 8th person, but I'm sure it was probably some damn blue deck.. Round 1 of Finals - Rick Weathers Oh yeah.. I'm up against yet another freakin' deck with Tradewinds.. Hoo-stinkin-rah... He has creatures o - plenty out this game, and wall of draw to keep me from attacking with anything other than Mirri. I'm at 14 life, and he's at 3 when he establishes control, and locks me down. This was the best game I've played today, but still manage to lose when Tradewinds abound.. Game two a timely Needlestorm kills a tapped bird and a tradewind after he taps out for the tradewind. Game three is close, but I believe I stung/needlestormed a bird, and won. All three games were great, the first one was the best of the three, even though I lost. The second he was a bit mana screwed if I recall correctly, and in the third he made a rules error or else I may have lost. I cast something key, and he responded by tapping bird for blue, returning forest to untap the bird, and tapping the bird again for another blue, and tried to counter.. Other than that, he played flawlessly, but his deck didn't stack very well, and when he Woodsaged for Tradewind he'd mill everything but.. Same with Lhurgoyf, etc.. Games 8 - 4 Matches 4 - 1 Round 2 of Finals - Randy Rawson - my Cousin in law playing R/G Oath of Druids.. This deck beat mine about 50% in testing without sideboarding, and I was fortunate he didn't see an Oath either game. The deck is quite strong and capable of serving with Ball Lightnings and Sandstalkers, but he didn't see an Oath, and I was able to keep him without green mana early with wastelands and creeps. (Always holding a creep for the inevitable Oath.) Second game I sided in Tranquilities and got a Tranq and a Creep on the draw. Needless to say, I kept both in hand, not even bothering to creep the Sylvan as I know I need as many enchantment kills for the Oaths as possible. Games 10 - 4 Matches 5 - 1 Final Round - Mark Yetter - Counter Sliver.. I never really considered Counter Sliver to be a strong deck until a few weeks ago when Yetter beat down my Bonedancer deck which is chock full of creature kill... All that creature kill became quite useless when Crystalline came out though.. Then I realized that perhaps CS is not a bad deck at all. After all didn't Brian Weissman have one in the Decks to Beat at some point? Game 1 I get a non-optimum draw, and get beat down by Slivers. I think I had a Force in play, but with several first striking, muscled, slivers that I couldn't target on the other side of the board, Attacking was futile, and he couldn't attack right away.. He dropped a Soltari Crusader, and beat me down with Birds of Paradise. How shameful!! The second game I made poor sideboarding decisions, but I honestly don't think it would have mattered. I had Natural Orders on the draw, but had sided out too many creatures and didn't see one that I could cast to sac to the Order. On top of that the Choke I sided in (for a Monkey) and played was useless. But the worst part was the two muscle sliver and another sliver beat down I received. (Attack for nine - Um... Decline to block as I have no creatures..) That hurt... So I end up with a 10 - 6 record, but went 5 - 2 and came in second. For my troubles I received eight packs of Exodus - all from the same box, and received a whopping three Spike Weavers. Talk about a well distributed box!! The deck was designed by Jamie Wakefield, and I signed an NDA so I can't list the ingredients here. If you want the deck read his report as I can't remember it off the top of my head. It's mainly just a bunch of forests, elves, Verdant Forces and a creeping mold or two. Oh, and some sex monkeys. Maybe a wasteland and/or quicksand here or there. The sideboard is where the real tech was.. 4 Spike Drones, 4 Spike Soldiers, 2 Spike Breeders, 3 Spike Workers, and 2 BA-ROKEN!! Spike Monkeys... David "Monty" Montgomery Props: My wonderful wife, for being with child and still not minding me going to play tournaments. Jamie Wakefield for his deck, his ideas, and his friendship. Assboy - for being my draft/sealed tutor, and giving me general advice.. And doing well at GP Indy and Nationals Pacifico - for making top 8 at Nationals, and representing Northeast Florida... All my opponents - for playing well. Slops: Whoever printed Exodus... 3 Spike Weavers in 8 packs?? What the heck??