Subject: [T-Tech] Tournament Report Date: 21 Jul 1998 23:26:54 GMT From: Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Last Saturday, I attended a Type II tournament at Ball Park Sportscards in San Francisco. I initially thought to play blue, either creature based (Ophidians, Man-o-Wars, Tradewind Riders), or counter-based. I tried out a couple of effective designs and determined they were viable but slow and less exciting than I was looking for at the time. I decided to try something more fun - I went Green. Well, actually, mostly green with a splash of blue. Although I had fun, I did not do well. This is my story. Deck: 2 Mirri, Cat Warrior 4 Stampeding Wildebeests 1 Maro 3 Spike Feeder 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Wall of Roots 2 Uktabi Orangutan 3 Llanowar Elves 2 Unyaro Bee Stings 2 Giant Growth 3 Creeping Mold 1 Elvish Fury 1 Survival of the Fittest 1 Hurricane 1 Phyrexian Splicer 2 Tradewind Rider 3 Power Sink 3 Quicksand 12 Forest 6 Island Sideboard: 1 Spike Feeder 2 Uktabi Orangutan 1 Creeping Mold 3 Emerald Charm 2 Scragnoth 1 Desert Twister 2 Life Force 3 Sleight of Mind Metagame Considerations: I expect to see a good number of Stupid Red Burn, maybe Sligh, Cataclysm White, Oath of Druids, Suicide Black, and probably only a single ProsBloom. Because of this expected environment, I run Quicksands instead of Wastelands. During testing, I find I am consistently looking for an Island, so I trade out a Quicksand for one more and hope I do not regret this decision. Match 1 vs. Scott: Scott is a good player, but has not played Type II for a while (I think he focuses on Extended). He played a Green Weenie deck with splashed Red. Game 1: Scott is mana-hosed early on, and the third turn Creeping Mold I use seals his fate. I drop a Wall of Blossoms, a Stampeding Wildebeest, and he is crushed quickly. Game 2: We both have moderate starts. He drops Pincher Beetles, Jolrael's Centaurs, Granger Guildmages. I drop multiple Walls, a Miri (which he incinerates), and A Spike Feeder. I am barely keeping up, although he can probably win with judicious use of his 2 Guildmages. He drops a Null Brooch, I drop an Uktabi Orangutan. He drops another Null Brooch. I drop another Orangutan. He drops a Cursed Scroll. I growl. Between the Cursed Scroll, the Guildmages, and the Pincher Beetles, I am outmatched. He wins. Game 3: Me: Forest Him: Forest Me: Forest, Wall of Roots Him: Forest, Wall of Roots Me: Forest, Wall of Blossoms Him: Forest, Granger Guildmage, Granger Guildmage, Granger Guildmage, Llanowar Elf. The next turn, he dropped a Cursed Scroll. The game does not last much longer. He wins. Analysis: Looking back over our decks, Scott agrees that I should have wrecked him. I notice only one mistake in play on my part, and it happened in the game I won. My walls appeared when I did not need them, and were absent when I did. I had no way to deal with the his creature based control besides the Tradewinds, but my fatties should have overpowered him. Match 2 vs. Colin: I know nothing about Colin except he has lost his first round. We joke a little about our "Swiss Gambit" as we shuffle, and then the match begins. Game 1: Colin plays Cities of Brass, Gemstone Mines, Undiscovered Paradises, Reflecting Pools, and pain lands. I never see him play a basic land over the course of the entire match. He plays Man-o-Wars and Nekrataals, and Tradewinds. He Tradewind locks me and I cannot recover in time. Game 2: I have a fast start and am beating him down with a Wildebeest while getting extra draws off a Wall of Blossoms. He drops a couple of Nekrataals and hesitates to kill the 'beest. I think I can tell what's coming next turn, and play Survival of the Fittest. On his turn, he plays Living Death. In response, I discard multiple fatties and draw more. He grumbles. He gets out another Tradewind lock, but I keep dropping fatties and Tradewinds myself. Given a choice between the two, he is forced to keep bouncing the Tradewind, and I rumble on to victory, although it takes a very long time. Game 3: We have 2 minutes to play. I could drop a Spike Feeder before time is up, but unfinished games are being called draws, regardless of life totals, so I play normally and we run out of time. Analysis: After the game, Colin describes his decks as being a cross between 5 Color Kastle and a Living Death/187 deck. I think I could have outplayed him again in the third game. If I had the foresight to run Wastelands I suspect the first game would have gone quite differently. My record so far is 1win, 1 draw, and 3 losses. My chances are very poor at this point, but I keep playing. Match 3 vs. Mitchell: I have seen Mitchell at the card shop before, I think, but I have never seen him play or had the opportunity to talk with him. All I really know about him is that he has drawn the first match and lost the second. Game 1: He, like my last opponent, seems to be playing an inordinate number of non-basic lands. My decision to run Quicksands instead of Wastelands was apparently a bad idea. After a few turns, it becomes evident he is playing Donais U5C. I save up Powersinks, and attempt to counter his recursion, but he never leaves less than 4 Blue untapped and always seems to have two Counterspells in hand. I lose. Game 2: I sideboard in Scragnoth, but time is called before we finish. Analysis: Mitchell played slowly, methodically, always being very careful to announce which lands he was tapping and for what kind of mana. He did not stall, but he did play slowly. I do not think he was trying to draw out the game; I think he is simply new to the game (or maybe just the deck) and did not want to make _any_ mistakes. I asked him about his deck, and he told me that since he is not much of a deck builder, he had not even tweaked Donais' creation. In retrospect, I should have conceded the first game and tried to beat him after sideboarding - I did not, though, because I thought (hoped) he'd make a mistake. He did not. Match 4 vs. Alex: Once again, all I really know about my opponent is that is record is comparable to mine. Alex is very quiet, very serious. Game 1: I quickly discover Alex is playing ProsBloom. He Impulse on turn two, and drops a Squandered Resource on turn 3. I Creeping Mold it. His drops another, and on turn 4, his deck goes off. Game 2: I side in the Emerald Charms, the Life Forces, and the Desert Twister. His deck goes off on turn 3, and I am dead again. Game 3: I get out fatties really early, and beat him down to 4. He drops his combo, and Prosperities for 8. I draw 2 Emerald Charms, and take out the Squandered and the Bloom. He sacs cards and lands, casts Abeyance, and then drops another Squandered and Bloom! He wins again. Analysis: Alex was playing (as far as I could tell) an exact copy of the ProsBloom deck Long played in the US Nationals. I did not notice any errors in play on his part, nor on mine. Either he simply had better cards, or a better deck. (And, for the record, he did not squat on his chair.) The tournament is over, at least for me. Looking around once I have dropped, I notice two Sligh (or maybe SRB) decks, a WW (saw an EmpArmor, but did not see Cataclysm), and a number of weenie shadows _I_ never encountered. Perhaps I simply had bad match-ups following my first round loss, perhaps I need more practice, or perhaps my deck needs a little work. Perhaps all three. Overall, I would say this deck needed some way to stop graveyard recursion, and (in these matches) Wasteland. About half the decks I saw and did not play against, though, seemed to be mono-colored, and versus those the Wastelands would have been, well, wasted. Heh. It could be the Tradewind/ Blue aspect of the deck is sub-optimal as splashed; either focusing more on it or dropping it entirely seem the way to go. Two odd cards I like to comment on: Phyrexian Splicer and Unyaro Bee Stings. Neither were used in the course of the matches I played, but they were strong in play-testing against shadow weenies. The Splicer was better, but the Bee Stings were more surprising. -Max Hufnagel Green Mage Wannabe drcoyote@sirius.com