Subject: JSSQ NY Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 01:20:08 -0400 From: Saliamma Daniel To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my first report... so please bear with me. :) It was the first time I played in a Junior Super Series Qualifier so I didn't quite know what to expect. I had decided 3 weeks earlier that I was gonna play in it, but it wasn't till a weeks ago that I decided exactly what I was going to play. Although he's more of a friend, I conceive Alex Shvartsman to be more of my teacher when it comes to Magic. He's really a great guy who's always there with help- ful advice. So naturally I turned to him when I needed a deck to play. So I went to the JSSQ with my 5CKastle deck. I did make very slight modifications on the already modified decklist that Alex gave me. I've provided a decklist purely for interest. 5CKastle Variant: 1 Vampiric Tutor 2 Recurring Nightmare 4 Living Death 4 Survival of the fittest 1 Mulch 3 Firestorm 2 Thrull Surgeon 1 Nekrataal 1 Fallen Angel 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Wall of Blossoms 2 Wall of Roots 2 Hermit Druid 2 Spike Feeder 1 Uktabi Orangutan 1 Verdant Force 1 Man-o-war 2 Tradewind Rider 1 Anarchist 1 Cloudchaser Eagle 4 City of Brass 2 Gemstone Mine 2 Undiscovered Paradise 2 Volrath's Sronghold 6 Forest 4 Swamp The deck was very fun to play and worked extremely well. It did have a lot of problems against Awakening/Bounce (3rd Round) and some with Tradewind Blossom (Quarterfinals). Well.. let's get to the report. Round 1 Random Pairings Albert Chiou (14 under)- Sligh The first thing Albert told me when I sat down was that he was a casual player. He was.I saw that he had potential, but at the moment he was still a scrub... so this should not even count as a victory. VForce beatdown went 2-0. 1-0 Round 2 Sam Stein (14 under)- T2 Deck I lost the first game to 2 Fireballs as I had no way to deal with his counterspells. The second game I sideboarded anti-counter but never got to use them as he never drew any counters. 3rd game was amazing with 3rd turn Lobotomy taking out Wraths, 4th turn Lobotomy taking out Fireball and 5th turn LD bringing 2 Tradewinds and A V.Force into play along with other little dudes. 2-0 Round 3 Nick (15 above)- Sligh Nick played my dek before the tournament started, against a friend of mine.. and crushed it. So I was kinda surprised when I wrecked him game 1. Sideboarded Feeder won game 2 putting me at... 3-0 Round 4 Asaf (14 under)- Awakening/Bounce This guy was a total ass. He started stalling from first game and I realized too late. 10 minutes left for Game 2 gave me my first loss. This was my first experience with stalling and it got me really upset that DCI doesn't have rulings about this. It was pretty obvious but the judge present couldn't do anything. Apparently, it's ok to declare each and every phase and ask for resposes to everything. :P 3-1 Round 5 Tony Rodriguez (14 under)- 5CKastle Tony's a great player... therefore I wanted him to draw. We would've both made Top 8. But he decided against it for whatever his reasons and we proceeded to play. 5CKastle mirror matches depend entirely on opening hands, and mine had everything... Bird, Survival, LD, Tradewind, mulch, 2 lands. With 2 more lands in the next 2 turns. I got Tony at 10-24 with about 14 creatures on the table and including 2 Tradewinds. I shouldn't have done it but I stalled (I'm really sorry Tony). I knew that if I left it up to hands I would get screwed. I kept it up leaving time enough for me to draw at worst. And I was pretty pissed off from that loss I had in Round 4. I could've got a win but I'm not an ass(af) contrary to popular belief. 2nd game was pretty good. I topdecked a Lobotomy just in time to prevent almost all of Tony's creatures (thanks to hermit and survival) to come into play. Eventually he Lobots my Ld's and it's a race for recurring nightmare. He gets it first and as we scoop up the cards time is called. 3-1-1 makes me 5th seed and a very happy guy :). Quarterfinals Me and Max ask some guy who's part of running the tournament if there's a time limit. "Not really" gets me in trouble later. Game 1 is mine when a LD squeezes past his counters. Game 2 is ugly with 2 phurnaces in 1st 2 turns. Game 3: Judge goes "Hurry up!". I do. And thats when I mess up. I cast a Vampiric tutor to get Nekrataal to beat him down so that I would have the higher life totals. Stupidity and a bad habit of taking shortcuts catches up with me. Instead of putting it on top of my library I put it next to my hand, shuffled, picked it up and drew another card in a hurry. Although it was a MISTAKE, I got a match loss :(. Last I heard, Udo, a pretty good player from Strike Zone in Astoria beat Max to go into the Finals with his Sligh deck. Props: John- for the snapple, the quarter and the many favors. Thanks man. Elden- for the Living Death, and helping with the Sideboard. Anthony- for taking the train in the morning and the ride back home. Sorry about the cards. Nick- providing humor and a couple of good games. Alex- thanks for the deck and all the help. Slops: For whoever stole Anthony's cards! Thank you for your patience :) -David Daniel