Subject: a tourney report Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 14:46:24 +0200 From: dos Santos To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi, everybody. This is my report of how things were going at my post-exodus T2 tourney My deck: PandeNaught About three days before the tourney, I made up this deck that was way better than any other pandenaught deck I've ever seen. I decide to play it at the next tourney. To my surprise (NOT), I don't have 4 dreadnaughts ready... only three, so I order one more for about $3. I built the deck, went for some playtesting, and found out that there were only a few decks out there that could be faster. Win/loss ratio during playtesting was 28/3. Not bad. It lost to a mono blue all-out counterdeck, not surprisingly, and after sideboarding even that was no problem. With the playtesting done, I wanted to optimize my sidedeck. I had no clue whatsoever what my opponent would try to do to stop me. (exept for counters) So, I guessed a bit, and my deck came out as following: PandeNaught (ultraspeed edition) 4x Pandemonium 4x Phyrexian Dreadnaught 4x Reanimate 3x Argivian Find 4x Mana Vault 4x Dark Ritual 4x Abeyance 4x Lotus Petal 4x Vampiric Tutor 4x Enlightened Tutor 1x Impulse 2x Undiscovered Paradise 4x City of Brass 4x Gemstone Mine 4x Swamp 3x Mountain 3x Plains Sideboard 3x City of Solitude (against counters) 3x Cursed Totem (aka 'I HATE TRADEWIND') 3x COP: red (I expected a lot of sligh) 3x Mana Leak (counter the countermagic) 3x Sleight of Mind (anti-sideboard card, pretty cool) So, that was the plan. But I still only had 3 dreadnaughts. The day before the tourney, I checked my mail. No dreadnaught. Hmmmm, time to come up with a backup plan. I playtested it with one dreadnaught less and an extra impulse, but found it became way worse. WAY WORSE. Suddenly, no more 3-turn kills. Horrible, just horrible. My backup was to make a standard sligh deck, boosted with the new Sonic Burst and Raging Goblin. On the tourney, I managed to get a hold of a fourth dreadnaught and praised the gods for it. We played seven rounds First round vs monowhite token deck? I drew a terrible hand, just couldn't be any worse. All mana sources, not one card either combo or tutor. He drew land. Lotsa land. Suddenly, he casted Icatian town. "You what?". I actually got beaten to death by 8 Icatian town tokens. Second game I drew 3 dreadnaughts and 3 pandemoniums, but not enough mana to cast it. By the time I could do it, he already had played 3 Aura's of Silence. Jeez,could it get any worse? Second round vs Awakening/Capsize deck We drew land. Only land. Then, came Awakening. Then came capsize. Then came my combo. Then came Mana Leak. Killed because of Awakening/Firewalker. Second game: I actually drew a good hand. I got the combo 3rd turn and whipped his ass clean. Third game: He got an awakening out in the second turn, and proceeded to capsize me from the third turn onwards. I actually could play my combo, but didn't have enough mana to play abeyance. The combo got mana leaked. Third round - the judges took pity on me and gave me a bye... I got a chance to look around and look at the decks around me. Mono black suicide decks everywhere! I had gotten extremely unlucky by playing against the only two decks at the tourney that could screw up my combo. Actually, I was the only person at the tourney to play a combo deck. Weird, I expected a lot more combo, and a lot more sligh. Oh well. Fourth round vs ExoSligh I got to play against the only sligh deck at the tourney, and boy was I happy! No counter deck, no way was it fast enough to beat me. First turn- (me) Plains-Mana Vault (he) Mountain-Jackal Pup Second Turn- (me) Enlightened Tutor during upkeep-Mountain (he) Mountain-Mogg Flunkies, attack! Third turn - play pandemonium, lotus petal, dreadnaught, reanimate. game. He was totally blown away. Second game the same. Fifth round vs Stompy Virtually the same like the fourth round, only now the second game I drew a God Hand...thank you, thank you lord. First turn, Gemstone mine-Mana Vault. Second Turn, City of brass, Pandemonium, Lotus petal, dreadnaught, dreadnaught. game. Ohmygodigottoplayasecondturnkill! YES! Sixth round vs Some Swamp Gas Deck My sixth opponent had been out of the loop for about seven months, and this was his first tourney, so I was merciful with him... I just can't help feeling sorry for him, playing mono-black with bog rats instead of sarcomancy. Oh, well, I delayed myself about three turns, but I still busted his ass. Too bad. Second game virtually the same. Seventh round vs A good Swamp Gas Deck My seventh opponent actually had a good swamp gas deck, that could kill me in the fourth turn if I didn't do anything. Unfortunately for him, PandeNaught busted his ass in the third turn. Second game he wasn't sure what to sideboard against a combo deck. He saw some enlightened tutors, so in came the glooms. Hehehe! BOOM! another third turn kill. So my tourney ended in 9-4-0, not too bad, but I expected better. It really was the strongest deck at the tourney, I just got VERY unlucky, playing against both the anti-combo decks that were present. Afterwards, I reckon I should have played with a slightly tweaked version of my deck and I completely rewrote my sideboard. PandeNaught (afterwards) 4x Pandemonium 4x Phyrexian Dreadnaught 4x Reanimate 4x Lotus Petal 4x Argivian Find 4x Mana Vault 4x Dark Ritual 4x Vampiric Tutor 4x Enlightened Tutor 4x Impulse 4x Abeyance 4x Sulfurous Springs 4x Gemstone Mine 4x City of Brass 2x Undiscovered Paradise 2x Plains Sideboard 4x Pyroblast 3x Elephant Grass 4x Memory Lapse 4x Disenchant Any Suggestions are welcome. For some weird reason, I'm always the only one playing weird combo decks at the tourney. I've played 14, ProsBloom, PandeNaught and now I'm considering three decks for my next tourney. They are: UltraMoMa, an Oath of Druids deck, or the weirdest of them all, ReapLace. here come the decklists: UltraMoMa Oath of Druids deck ReapLace 4x Mind over Matter 4x Oath of Druids 4x Prismatic Lace 4x Prosperity 2x Creeping Mold 4x Reap 4x Barbed Sextant 1x Archangel 4x Wall of Blossoms 4x Mana Vault 1x Spirit of the Night 3x Lion's Eye Diamond 4x Lotus Vale 4x Mulch 3x Intuition 4x Portent 4x Gaea's Blessing 4x Memory Lapse/Mana Leak (not so sure) 4x Abeyance 1x Rootbreaker Wurm 4x Impulse 4x Meditate 4x Wrath of God 4x Mystical Tutor 4x Vampiric Tutor 3x Gerrard's Wisdom 4x Lotus Petal 4x Impulse 3x Cataclysm 2x Propaganda 1x Kaervek's Torch 4x Scroll Rack 3x Incinerate 2x City of Brass 4x Enlightened Tutor 4x Skyshroud Forest 4x Svyelunite Temple 4x Quicksand 4x City of Brass 4x Gemstone Mine 4x Brushland 1x Gemstone Mine 10x Island 7x Forest 4x Forest 7x Plains 4x Quicksand 4x City of Brass I think I'm going to let other people vote which one is the best for the current environment. Can somebody send me a decklist of Secret Green Force? I've lost mine. Also, can anyone please send me a decklist of TurboZvi plus a description on how to play it. I have one decklist, but I don't get the idea. I hate it when I see a combo deck I don't understand. Gijsbert dos Santos gsantos1@xs4all.nl