Subject: tournament report
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:30:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: mflores@sas.upenn.edu (Michael J Flores)
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com (frank kusumoto)

REALITY RECESS TOURNAMENT REPORT

I had a boatload of Reality Recess store credit after my expenditures at
Origins, so I decided to hit the Tuesday Type II, and spend some of it.

I played a post-Exodus version of Cuneo Blue.  It wasn't much different
than the 'net versions, except that I had 4 copies of the best card in Magic
in my deck, unlike the 0-2 copies that most people think are adequate.
Also, I started 2 Legacy's Allures.

Oh yeah, my counter configuration was a little different as well (4
Counterspell, 4 Dismiss, 3 Dissipate, 3 Forbid, 0 Force Spike) because I
think that is optimal.  You want both Dissipate and Forbid, because they
are both extremely good against certain decks, for example, Sligh and
control respectively.  Power Sink is all right, but suboptimal with the
environment's current options.

Here is the sideboard I played:

2 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Chill
2 Disrupt
1 Force Spike
2 Hydroblast
2 Legacy's Allure
2 Rainbow Efreet

Phyrexian Furnace was pretty useful.  I almost played a third one, but
decided I could defeat most of the decks against which Furnace would be
useful.

I had 7 cards against Sligh, but never played against a Sligh deck.  I
thought that I would generally lose to Sligh in the first game, so I would
need a number of cards to beat them in games 2-3.

I sided in Force Spike a surprising amount of times.  In a faster
environment, I would have wanted some in the main deck, though.  I
might up the count to 2, or even put some in the base.

The biggest dilemma was with regards to the numbers and selections of
cards that I would play against other blue decks.  My choices were:

Cursed Totem
Disrupt
Legacy's Allure
Seasinger

In the end, I opted to go with no Cursed Totems, even though they are
*amazing* against Ophidians, Tradewind Riders, and many other
creatures;  Legacy's Allure seemed a better choice, but I am not 100%
positive about that.

Disrupt and Seasinger are both really good, but it came down to Disrupt
being useful against Bloom and Seasinger not being useful against Bloom,
so I went with the former.  I played against a black discard deck
(unexpectedly) and Disrupt is of course welcome in that matchup.  (I think
in hindsight, I would have liked to have 1 Seasinger).

Anyway, on to the tournament report:

        Round 1, vs. Tim Aten (also known as Younger Taten, ta, t&a, or
goodaten).  Tim is playing the mono-green deck.

Game 1:

I have to mulligan down to 6 cards, and I am also going first, I think.
Nonetheless, I am able to seize control and win in a largely unspectacular
fashion.

Game 2:

Tim gets out that awful artifact.  You know the one.  For some reason, I
think that it sacrifices itself when it counters a spell, the devil
thing, and choose to ignore it.  Oh well, game 3.

Game 3:

This game is silly, in my opinion.  I detonate a Nevinyrral's Disk, wiping
away a good chunk of Tim's power cards.  He Scrolls and uses the
Survival of the Fittest in response, so I know that his last card in hand
is a Scragnoth.  Whatever.  I Argivan Restoration out another Disk (with one
mana open) and tell Tim it's his turn.  He top-decks a Creeping Mold, and
destroys my Disk.

Although I have 5 draws to find an answer, Scragnoth does me in.

Poppycock!

0-1.

        Round 2, vs. Justin.  Justin is a newcomer to Reality Recess, playing
a mono-black discard deck.

Game 1:

Justin stalls at 2 mana long enough for me to start serving with Steel
Golem.  He never recovers against my Capsizes and countermagic.

Game 2:

I sideboard in the Disrupts and Force Spike.

I get knocked down to no cards in hand with a Megrim on the board.  I
draw broken buyback spells, though, and am able to utterly Capsize-lock
Justin and finish him off with some creature.

1-1.

        Round 3, vs. Joe.  Joe is playing a g5c variant with Sally, Derelor,
and Islands.

Game 1:

Joe has an excellent draw, including FOUR Uktabi Orangutans in the first
10 turns.  That is excellent against my deck.

However, I am able to ward off most of the assault to stabilize my position
with some defensive artifacts...  but no countermagic.

Joe comes back himself, largely from life gained from multiple copies of
Sally on the board, and begins to mount a comeback with Derelor and
other creatures.  I chump-block Derelor with my Steel Golem, intending to
Disk soon after.

Joe successfully busts Armageddon, so I blow the two Whispers of the
Muse in my hand to try to get land.

Luckily, I play successive land, a Mind Stone, and a Disk 3 turns later.

After this Disk goes off, I am able to eventually regain total control at 6
life, thanks to a Sally borrowed via Legacy's Allure.

Game 2:

Joe only draws 3 Uktabi Orangutans in the first 10 turns this time, but
shows me his trump card, Volrath's Stronghold.  I do him one better, and
Dismiss 4 times before having to cast any additional countermagic.

Eventually I reach more than 12 mana;  Joe's whole side mysteriously
disappears due to my Capsize-buyback routine, and he is vanquished.

2-1.

        Round 4, vs. Jason Opalka (also known as Opalkat2k, the t2k,
'palka, Oompa, or the Type II King).  Jason is playing a Living Prison
variant with Birds of Paradise, Walls, Tradewind Riders, jellyfish, and the
like.

Game 1:

I mulligan with the Quicksand draw.  I mulligan into the Island draw.  I
top-deck a Winding Canyons, and play a Mind Stone.  Jason drops a
monkey on my Mind Stone, and follows it up with a Tradewind Rider
while I have only 1 Island.

At this point I ask him to say "Big Sexy" when he plays Silver Wyvern.

A few turns later, he says "Big Sexy?"

I lose that one.

Game 2:

I Disrupt Jason's Impulse.  That is the sweetest feeling on earth!

A couple of turns go by, and I achieve Whisper-buyback.  Jason concedes
shortly after.

Game 3:

I have Whisper-buyback going before Jason casts any cards of
consequence.  When backed up by a 5-counter Legacy's Allure and a
3-counter Legacy's Allure, I play a Golem and go for the kill (Jason has no
non-land permanents in play at this point).  He puts out a Suq'ata
Firewalker the next turn, perhaps to advance his own strategy or just to
chump-block.  I play a third Legacy's Allure and steal the wizard with the
no-counters Allure.  Steel Golem serves, but is soon Disenchanted.

A few turns of poking Jason with his own wizard and Whispering on his
discard phase go by and he concedes.

3-1.

I make the elimination rounds, while my first round vanquisher, Tim Aten,
is given a thankless 9th place.

        Quarterfinals, vs. Worth Wollpert (also known as Wortho,
Worthomatic, the Wollpert, Aloicious, or Worthless Wallingford).  Worth
is playing a slightly altered version of Jon Finkel's "Forbidian" from this
year's United States National Championships.

Game 1:

Worth comes out packing, and is able to snake-draw on me 4 times
without any real response on my part.  He plays a Tradewind Rider soon
afterward.

I play a Nevinyrral's Disk and protect it.  At this point, Worth has 2 cards
in his hand.  If either of them is a creature, or if he top-decks any
creature, he will likely win.

He doesn't.

I Disk away a Sapphire Medallion and the mighty Ophidian and
Tradewind Rider.  In the next 4 turns, Worth draws many Islands, while I
draw 3 permission spells and a Whispers of the Muse, I think.

Holy Pikula!

Game 2:

Worth Disrupts my Impulse in this game.  Oh no!  (That is the sourest
feeling of all, next to manascrew).

A few turns later, Worth makes a critical gamble.  While I have a
1-counter Legacy's Allure on the table, he plays an Ophidian.  I of course
steal it before the end of his turn.

On the next three turns, I play land and counter every one of Worth's
volley of additional jellyfish and snakes.

Worth concedes a few turns later after I show him some Counterspells and
Forbid-buyback while attacking with his Ophidian and a Rainbow Efreet.

I know he wanted to cast Big Sexy!  But he didn't.

I am accused by both Worth and the t2k of "drawing out of my ass."  I
actually remember drawing off of the top of my deck...  many, many,
times!

;)

5-1.

        Semifinals, vs. Jason Marks (younger brother of John Marks,
sometimes called John Starks or Merc).  Jason is playing the G/W Oath of
Druids deck.

Game 1:

I play an excruciatingly-slow game, as there are no time limits in the
elimination rounds.

I Capsize all of Jason's permanents except for non-basic land (as he had 2
Wastelands in play) and eventually serve with Steel Golem.

I animate successive Stalking Stones to force Jason to Wasteland them,
and then put him in the total lock, winning with 4 cards left in my library.

Game 2:

Jason is able to exploit my poor mana draw with Abeyance + Jester's Cap.
He Wastelands one of my Stalking Stones, and removes the other and 2
Rainbow Efreets from the game...  as I had sided out all of my Steel
Golems, I had the arduous task of decking Jason ahead of me.

Using Phyrexian Furnace and Argivan Restoration I was able to remove all
of Jason's Gaea's Blessings from the game.  When he had no permanents in
play, but 8 cards left in his library, I eventually decked out.

Game 3:

Jason was able to Cataclysm successfully against me, but I had a Mind
Stone, and some other good post-Cataclysm cards in my hand.  I quickly
reached 3 mana, and blew a Capsize on Jason's third land during his
discard phase.

I then played my fourth mana and a Rainbow Efreet.  As Jason at this
point had only 2 land in play, I theorized that he would not be able to
destroy the Rainbow Efreet before I could get my next untap phase.  I was
right.

The Rainbow Efreet served for several turns, until Jason played a Choke
as a scare tactic.  I constantly allowed him to have the Choke, and
Capsized it during his discard phase.

Jason was somehow able to get both a Choke and an Archangel on the
same turn.  I was forced to Dismiss the Archangel, leaving only 2 Islands
open to save the Rainbow if need be.

I untapped my Quicksand, and had 3 mana open for a Forbid or Dismiss,
and attacked Jason down to 2.

On Jason's turn, he Wastelanded my Quicksand and played his second
Archangel.  As I had no Counterspell in my hand, 2 mana was not enough
to stop this burly monster.

At this point, I stared at my deck and commanded it to give me a land.

I drew a land, Capsized the Archangel, and won the game the next turn.

Beatings!

5-1.

This match took 2 hours.  About 1 hour later, John Lee (also playing the
G/W CMU deck) defeated Jason Opalka in the other semifinal match.
John proclaimed Erik Lauer not only the "mad genius of Magic," but "the
creator of the slowest deck ever!"

As neither of us wanted to play another exhausting control vs. control
matchup, John and I gladly shared the big pile of store credit in common
Reality Recess fashion.

        Analysis:

The most interesting match of the night was my last one.  Most of the
others had to do with bad or good top-decking and deck
advantage/matchups.

I learned that if you are playing a counter-heavy or mono-blue deck
against the CMU Oath deck, you only really have to counter cards that
will destroy your permanents (Cataclysm, Aura of Silence, etc.) in the first
game.  Let them Mulch.  Who cares?  Let them cast Gaea's Blessing, even
if it means they get threat cards back.

Once you get to 6 or more mana, they are yours.  You start Whispering at
6, and you can discard stupid Legacy's Allures or even roads to victory to
Forbid.  This is really demoralizing for the G/W deck.  You just want to
draw more land.  That is it.

Once you get to 12 mana, the game is over.  Just don't let the G/W deck
fool you into making a bad play that you think is a Hymn to Tourach, and
you should be able to defeat them with damage.  Keep your Capsize, and
you should be able to keep the game.

On that note, for God's sake COUNT YOUR LIBRARY.  It might become
necessary to counter Gerrard's Wisdom if it looks like you will deck
before you can kill the other guy with damage.

        Cheers and Jeers:

Cheers:

Big Sexy: You so sexy.  This is what Sligh says when Big Sexy hits the
board: "I hope I draw enough direct damage to kill you before that big
sexy old monster kills me!"

The Abyss: I mean the Oath of Druids.  It's like the Abyss.  Many
individuals misplay against the Oath.

Everyone: Everyone is nice!

Jeers:

No one this time.

Happy Beatings,

Flores
Cabal Rogue
TDC
www.mtgpost.com/tdc