Subject: TourneyRpt 7/19 Mountain View, CA Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 16:46:07 -0700 From: Jeb Adams To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com This is regarding the July 19th Sanctioned T2 Constructed Tourney at Neutral Ground in Mountain View, CA. The deck is 4CGeebaSlow. My friend Chris and I looked at the Neutral Ground calendar and decided to plop in on the T2 action last Sunday. Sanctioned! Whoo-hoo! My second sanctioned tourney. Soon I will actually be on the web as the worst-ranked player in Northern California (challenged for the title only by Chris).Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting to win this thing, but I wasn't looking to get pounded either. Neither happened… I just kind of "mediocred" my way through the field, to coin an awful verb. Anyway, here's my deck: Four Color Geeba (AKA, 4Cjeba) Creatures: (23) 4x Mogg Fanatic 3x Goblin Vandal (had to borrow some) 4x Mogg Flunkies 2x Fireslinger 1x Dwarven Miner 4x Suq'Ata Lancer (also borrowed 2 of these) 1x Ball Lightning 2x Viashino Sandstalker 1x Orgg (You can actually SEE beads of sweat roll down people's faces if he gets down) 1x Rathi Dragon (AKA Pre-sideboarded against Red and green) You're looking at this, thinking, "MAN ALIVE, that Jeb smokes big crack rock-that deck has the WORST mana-curve I've ever seen." Which it does, you are correct. However, this is not Deadguy red or SRB, it's a nice Red Control, which will be evinced by my Spells… Spells: (14) 3x Shock 3x Incinerate 1x Hammer of Bogarden 1x Earthquake 1x Firestorm 1x Kaervek's Torch 1x Seismic Assault (borrowed) 1x Nevinyrral's Disk 2x Invasion Plans!!! (LOVE this card. It's all about abusing Invasion Plans. Had to borrow 1.) Land: (23) 18x Mountains 2x City of Brass 3x Gemstone Mine (Borrowed!) Main deck, the idea is to keep the multi-lands hidden if I can and pound them with Invasion Plans. The Plans can seldom work against me, as my creatures either can't block (Flunkies); have celerity, and hence are tapped (Lancers); or actually PAY OFF if required to block, like Orgg (has to block that 2/2, sorry pal) or Rathi Dragon (goes 1 on 1 against anything pretty much). During MY attacks, the Vandals never get blocked if they have an artifact, the Suq'Ata's cause Rules-Triggered death's for Nomads, Freewinds, and other 1 toughness dudes, in addition to killing White Knights and such, or the walls block my fanatic while the Sandstalker goes unmolested. It's good stuff. The deck seems a little land-heavy, and it may well be, but I need to cast an Orgg, and that takes 5. Also, the Seismic Assault makes cautious land-playing a resource. The torch just pisses blue off. For whatever reason, people play other stuff, but I so seldom split the fireball up, this was just as good, and practically uncounterable. The Firestorm can also use the extra land. The Sideboard is where the deck shines: 3x Disenchant 4x Pyroblast 2x Sleight of Mind 1x Phyrexian Furnace 1x Forsaken Wastes 1x Mana Leak 1x Dread of Night 1x Light of Day During playtesting, I was POUNDED unmercifully by Chris's monogreen can of whupass. He used the WildeBlossom engine to churn through his deck, eventually laying an 8/8 Uktabi Wildcat then "One-turn Disking" for the win. This trick involves casting the disk, untapping it with an emerald charm, blowing it up, getting G from a Wall of Roots, and saccing a forest to regen the wildcats. All that's left is land and his 7/7 regenerator. Not good. His 7 Wall version routinely hammered me down and usually hurricaned for the win. Sigh. That's okay though, I can only face him once, and everyone knows how bad green is. I was pretty much pre-sided against weenie decks though, except for WW, but the Invasion plans can help there. Earthquake eats up Suicide black. My other friend, Eric, of "cheating bastard" fame, also came along. Eric is not up on his Dojo reading, plays just for fun and actually had a poison creature in his deck. Nuff said. The "cheating bastard" remark stems from his old-school 4 Hymn, 4 mind twist, 4 Hyppie, 4 Rack deck. Try and say that without following it up with "cheating bastard." It's hard, isn't it? We head off to Neutral Ground, gaming haven. Turns out, it's also construction haven, as they were installing a WALL all day. About a 0/4 if you ask me. Hmm: Wall of Sheetrock {2} Summon Wall During your opponent's turn, hammer the table and use a power saw near their ears. (Walls cannot attack-this is the expert set). The noise was UNREAL. Apparently, a bunch of folks knew this, so only 11 showed up, right? Sigh, I am destined to play only in small tourneys… ROUND 1: Nice guy, Nathan, playing WWClysm. My first sanctioned constructed draw…..ONE LAND. Man. Lots of 2cc stuff. Eh, the statistics are on my side, I go for it. Big mistake, my mountains are shy and he pounds me with an early Freewind and and a Priest. He armored it too. Lots of fun. SB: Out go fireslingers, miner, ball lightning (first strike: bad), sandstalker (what he said), in goes Dread of Night, 2 sleights, disenchant, and a mana leak. Round 2, I see my Dread of night on the draw, but NO LAND. Sigh. Now, before I start crying, let it be known that I randomize my deck. I pile-shuffle, sending cards randomly about, sometimes even putting 2 cards in a row on the same pile. This freaks people out, and Nathan told me after to not do that. He suggested that I pretty much weave my deck. This, to me, is cheating. The deck should be RANDOMIZED, and random decks get clumps. It happens, get used to it. End Rant. My mulligan sees, oh get ready, 5 lands and a Mogg Flunkies! STRONG. Dammit. I do actually draw through to some good stuff, but his priest is pounding me. I'm holding back on the Disenchant for the armor, letting his Mox Diamond go unmolested. His freewind is holding me off. I finally get a Lancer down and start poking away, and when I hammer him, he Clysms the next turn. His Mox goes out to the disenchant, but he top decks 2 more priests and rips me up. I can't stop a 3 preist/1 Freewind draw without my Dread of Night. I felt a lot of this game had to do with 1 Mountain in 14 cards worth of opening hands. Just terrible. I took it like a champ though, and slammed my through to the Round 2 bye. Round 2: Bye. Ahh. Played against this kid with a Spike/Oath deck, but my Flunkies were killing his feeders as fast as he could lay them. Had to play round three before we could see how it ended. Round 3: Loic, from France, playing Buried Alive Nether Shadows and Necrosavants These were close games, pretty neat. Both of our decks flashed around the same point. His needed to get to Necrosavant casting range, mine needed to have enough mana out to get things really going. The first round, I beat him down to 8, but a drained lancer and a slight misplay on my part really cost me. I was hoping to hold on to my hammer and not have to pitch it to firestorm the necrosavants away, but one of them lived, and I could chump block long enough to hold it off. He finished at 4 life. SB: Hmm. I know I put in the Furnace, Mana leak, and Light of Day, but I can't recall what I took out. Probably a Fireslinger and and the Invasion Plans (having small creatures and Necrosavants that must block: not a combo). Round two was wicked. I destroyed him with flunkies, lancers, and a turn 2 miner. (He played a lot of non-basic land, for disenchants, I think…). Life total: 20-0. Round three was similar to round one. This time I did actually firestorm away 3 necrosavants, a flunky and him. This did require mindtwisting myself for 6 though. Oh well. He eventually pushed enough through, and my late-game land draw just killed me. The last card I saw? Phyrexian Furnace. I sacced it for: a Gemstone mine. Sigh. Had the disk on the draw, but couldn't get to four land until after he had THREE Savants in play. My land draws were odd. He had 6 life at the end of this game. The last round of Swiss pairs me up with Chris, of course. He just BARELY lost a game against a WUG Tradewind/Geddon deck, and it's possible he may have been able to win with some careful attacks. he DEFINITELY would have won if his opponent hadn't drawn three tradewinds in 5 cards. Needless to sya, his mental state was not the greatest. Whomping on me would be sure to brighten his day, though-oh but it was not to be… *8-]. Round One: My draw, 4 Mountains, a Dwarven miner, a Rathi dragon (GAME), and a Viashino. I am crapping you negative! The invasion plans eventually came, and his wildcats kept jumping in front of the smallest guy-funny that. Scaredy cats I guess. He never got to enough mana to Hurricane the dragon away. He also never saw a charm to knock it out of the air before I had the Invasion Plans. Life: 20-0. SB: Three disenchants, out goes disk (he had four-let him play them), fireslingers. Round Two. Pretty similar, I raced him, and all he could was chump block the viashino with his wildebeests and hold off suq-ata's with his bottle gnomes. Not enough. Life: 20-0. Eesh. I had the BEST possible draws, and he didn't. A gutless way to win. He did try to say that the uktabi orangutan is errata'ed to say "bury target creature" and thus take out my Lancer. I pointed out that he wouldn't allow my Flunkies to attack during his upkeep, and hence he would get no leniency from me. *8-] Eric, with his jankity jank made the top 4. Story of my life. His deck had Slaughter in it! And a damn Poison creature! Damn damn! A real deck obliterated him. He decided that Cursed Scroll was just nasty. We agreed, and went to get odd ethnic food from the public market. Thanks to Jay Schneider for inspiring my deck, despite the fact that I can't play it like he can. Not having Cursed Scrolls will make one slow down the mana curve a little though. Also, thanks to Jamie Wakefield for keeping the world safe for main deck Orggs and Rathis. Thanks to Chris, Eric, Bart, another Eric, another Eric, and Bryan for loaning me the cards and time I needed to get this deck into shape. Also, I want to thank Chris for being my ride, and not making me accessory to murder by avoiding killing the vainglorious little shits who make Neutral ground their home without actually participating in tourneys (Case in point: Shit: "I beat Brian weissman all the time." Chris: "Okay, so?" Shit: "I do, wait 'til he comes and you can ask him, I beat his ass." Chris: "." Shit, after game he watched and coached opponent in: "Are these your cards?" Chris: "No." Shit: "Well, you're lucky, cuz if they were, you'd be in trouble." Implying that Chris cheated his way to that loss. Chris avoided actually crushing this kid. Mind you, Chris is 6'6" and 300 pounds-No joke.) No thanks to: Neutral Ground. Doing construction during the middle of a tourney is bad business. We are paying for that construction, but do we have to go deaf because of it? Also, City of Traitors is bad no matter how much the guy behind the counter thinks I should buy it. Finally, no thanks to all the kids who think beating Brian Weissman makes them cool, and need the world to know. Jeb Adams Team Jeb n' Chris Berkeley, CA