Subject: article (1 of 3) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 08:58:17 -0600 From: "Bob Bailey" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com [TOURNAMENT REPORT] On Wednesday, July 8, 1998, Team Goats (+1) attended a weekly Type II tournament at Wargames West in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The team consists of Michael Byhoff, Ryan Lyle, and myself, Robert Bailey. My younger brother, David, attended with my mono-green StOmPy deck, Mike brought our team's Controlling Bwatdown (U/w/r/g weenie hoard, permission, theft deck), and Ryan took his seriously-tech SuiBlack, but opted for an untested, (in fact, never shuffled) Reanimator, which he titled Ryanimator. It was three rounds Swiss with top four. About fourteen people. Two bucks to get in. Enough jazz, here's the deck I took: 5CRControlStyle * Robert Bailey and Michael Byhoff 4 AEther Flash (stout:) 4 Incinerate 4 Kindle 4 Shock 1 Shattering Pulse 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Gaea's Blessing 4 Mana Leak 3 Memory Lapse 3 Cursed Scroll (these come out for Power Sink) 2 Disenchant 1 Mangara's Blessing (broken:) 4 Wasteland 4 Undiscovered Paradise 4 City of Brass 2 Gemstone Mine 9 Mountain Sideboard 3 Propaganda 2 Circle of Protection: Red 2 Circle of Protection: Black 2 Disenchant 3 Pyroblast 2 Ebony Charm 1 Allay I had not taken the deck to a tournament up until this point, so I wasn't really sure what I would have trouble against. I knew WW/x with Disenchant would be trouble for a few obvious reasons (Disenchant, Pro-Red Creatures, Shadow, Fliers, Empyrial Armor, and Armageddon). A good U/W control deck (5CDonias, Weissman-style) should be a problem only if the opponent is smart and knows what to counter/remove. Early play-testing had shown that the deck ate Sligh and SuiBlack. AEther Flash just shuts the fast decks with no removal spells. Mana Leak and Power Sink (in the post tournament version) help to deal with the Disenchant or Emerald Charm that targets the precious hoser. A good hand also beat most light-permission decks like Frozen Fish and CounterSliver although I doubted that those decks would be played at all (and they weren't). Round One * U/W weenie (an Exodus Pre-Constructed Deck with a few additions:) Game One * About midway through the game, my opponent plays a Blue Mana Battery. Andrew, head judge for the event, looks through the deck and finds a snow-covered Island too. Because the deck was 62 cards, Andrew lets him continue with a game loss, forces him to remove the Mana Battery, and exchange the snow-covered Island for a basic Island. (WotC: please reprint snow-covered Lands because this is the stupidest penalty in Type II. Besides, they look cooler.) Game Two * Opening hand looks good, but mana screw never lets me get out a Flash, as it would completely lock him down. I get beat on by some seriously pre-constructed weenies. (hmm * it seems that pre-constructed decks have a magic power over tourney decks.) Game Three * Here's where the Scrolls crap out on me (for the first time). He plays a first turn Limited Resources so I quickly race to five lands and actually manage to get six in play as he doesn't seem to get enough. I blast his early weenies and drop triple Flash (heh-heh). After Scrolling about ten times for a total of two points, I start Gaea's Engine(tm) for burn spells for the kill. (1-0, 2-1) Round Two * G/W Oath of Druids deck (my deck of doom :) (Note: Do not use Bottle Gnomes in this type of deck. They are worthless as the Spike Feeder nets you more life, more damage when you attack, and with fewer creatures, you are more likely to spring a Gaea's Blessing to recycle your good spells. Just needed to vent.) Game One * I Paris down to six and still only draw one land but I don't want to risk going any lower or drawing no lands at all. I play it out and don't draw a land for about ten turns by when I get beat down by two Spike Feeders, a Bottle Gnome, and a Warrior Angel. He cast an Armageddon to assure the victory, which gave me a strange sideboard idea. Game Two * I sideboard in the Disenchants for his Diamonds in an attempt to stop the Armageddon which is also a good card against my deck. My sideboard is good for a different reason however as he drops a turn two Oath of Druids after I have played a Wall of Blossoms to stop the Feeders. I immediately Disenchant it as the life he would gain would seriously hamper my deck. Soon after (with my wall being dead), he casts another Oath and Verdant Touches (without buyback) one of my lands. With no Disenchant in my hand I Shock my own land to prevent him from gaining life and top-deck a Flash. I immediately cast it. He appears screwed for a while until he Disenchants the Flash and casts a Spike Feeder. With no direct damage in hand, I drop a Wall of Blossoms (big MISTAKE) as he starts he Oath of Life engine and masses sick life (50+). It's time for Gaea's Blessing to shine. I recycle ALL of my burn spells and proceed to take him down in life, but he Furnaces two of my Gaea's. Again, the Cursed Scrolls suck as I don't drop my hand at all. Somehow, I get him down to three and need to top-deck an Incinerate for the kill. With a Team Goat prayer circle, I draw... INCINERATE!!! I win. Game Three * He Verdant Touches a land of mine and casts an Oath. On his upkeep he Oaths for a Warrior Angel and gets up into the mid-60's in life while the Angel cleans up as I cannot draw a second burn spell. I lose horribly. (1-1, 3-3) Round Three * Type II Zoo deck (R/G/U creatures, counters, burn spells) Game One * He drops a few early weenies, which I blast, and I then drop triple Flash. Gaea's Engine(tm) for the burn kill. This was the game I was hoping for in every round, but I faced that evil Oath of Druid deck. Game Two * He makes some nasty sideboard changes (i.e. two Lhurgoyf, hydroblast, pyroblast). I throw in CoP: Red, Propaganda, and Pyroblast. He gets screwed as I Disenchant his Mox Diamond (which is why Lotus Petal is better :) and I proceed to drop a Flash. He pitches Suq'Ata Lancers, Uktabi Orangutans, and the like. My Walls fend off the River Boas he manages to cast. Eventually he drops a Lhurgoyf (!). But I was prepared and double Kindle it (the Kindles came in handy as he used them too). Later on, I do the same to his second Lhurgoyf and he just about gives up. He has one last chance though: Hydroblast. He Hydroblasts my Flash, I Memory Lapse. Next turn he Hydroblasts my Flash, Memory Lapse. Time to top-deck: Pyroblast. He Hyroblasts my Flash and I Pyroblast his Hydroblast. He sits there while I burn him to death, hoping for the other Lhurgoyf, I assume. (2-1, 5-3) There is a faint hope to make the top 4 but I don't. Oh, well, Mike makes it (3-0) but we have to leave anyway. Ry scrubs out at 1-2 (not all that bad because he played a brand spanking new, non-shuffled deck, with the sideboard being the first fifteen cards he could find that would serve any practical purpose). David does the same, but not bad for an 11 year old playing in his first tournament. After the tournament, I evaluated the deck and decided that the Scrolls were worthless (although I had no problems with them in play-testing... strange) and the deck needed a few more permission spells that were more reliable than Memory Lapse (but the Lapse was still as strong as always). The swap of Scroll for Power Sink was the only change I made to the deck. All the other cards had served me well. The sideboard was generally useful. I had something good against everyone. I think that, although the Circles of Protection were unnecessary against the people I played, they deserve sideboard space because of the power that they have against the speed weenie decks, but I may reduce the count to one of each and add something else, perhaps Slight of Mind. Cursed Totem could also help against Bottle Gnomes and Spike Feeders which proved to be really strong against my deck, despite the Gaea's Blessings. As a general note, I think all defensive Type II decks right now need four copies of Incinerate and Wall of Blossoms, as well as some form of global removal or denial (Wrath of God, Propaganda, Firestorm, AEther Flash) at least in the sideboard. In fact, the 5CDonias deck that we use as a play-tester now runs four main deck Incinerates just to deal with the SuiBlack and Sligh decks that were so consistently good against it. It is much harder for any swarm deck to defeat a deck which incorporates both Incinerate *and* Wall of Blossoms instead of just one or the other. Both are good against creature-less (good luck finding one) because they provide a draw or three points of damage. Our team's new decks (5CRControlStyle and Controlling Bwatdown) went a combined 5-1. Not bad and we'll see how they do next week, but it looks like some new tech, black-box decks are emerging, so our regular standby's might not show up. Until next time, Robert "Bobbo" Bailey Team Goats DCI 759311