Subject: TOURNAMENT - Oath of Life Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 13:22:49 +1000 From: Kim Brebach To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com September Kings Sydney Australia T2 Tournament report This one's for Jamie Wakefield (Prince of Tourney reports) by Kim Brebach. If you don't find this funny you shouldn't have read this. To play or not to play in the Kings points giveaway? That was the question till I remembered that this game is meant to be fun fun fun. So I went to play. Team Kings runs this monthly tournament in Sydney, Australia who's shores I will be departing soon enough. This time it was type 2, the last I could play in before I go travelling. And my last use of the much loved MIVILITE nonsense. Team Kings declines to play or draw in their tourney so you tend to see a diverse range of youthfully inspired agro beatdown decks right through to the finals. Which is fun and different but by buddha you hand over points if you falter in resolve.... I decided at 10.30pm on Friday to play the next day. I tossed around the nostalgic idea of playing a souped up version of my good old U/G tradewind machine with the usual crew of 187s & bonus hermit druids and coffin queens, oath of ghoulies, Geddons and a few forbids to really annoy those living death decks (which I also know and love so well). But of course I had to check the collective public cyber brain of magic first. So I to went to the cyberplace you are currently staring at. Hmmm... so what to play? you know that frustrating feeling churning through the mighty DOJO trying to sort the crap from the fab? I've only been interested in Rath cycle for the past few weeks so I was oblivious to new post worlds T2 stuff. I started at the "Decks to beat" and liked the Oath of Rogues/phat, it looked good and i've always had a spongy spot for combo decks with irrepressable FATNESS and never-useless counterspells. It seemed a good metachoice vs creature decks including the slow like a mountain (or should i say Krakatoa) Recurring Death 187/911 beautiful monstrosity which I knew would be in abundance... and hey its got the 2 best colours in magic which I've been playing for the past 3 years Blue and Green (no I'll never get sick of it). But of course i stupidly kept looking and looking getting lost in the metaweb of what beats what bla blah blah. what a mistake. At 2.30 i finally thought "pharque this" and chose the Oath of Rogues with a few modifications. What a good choice... Now all I have to do is find those cards, Nooooooooooooo...... By 3.30 i put this together (is that a sigh in relief?); 1 Mindless Automaton (this guy is actually a cunning stunt machine!) 1 Spirit O' the Scary Dark (most likely to induce the trucky slump, thats Aussie slang tech, remember that drink driving add with the sleepy swerving combie?) 1 Archangel (the control freak) 3 Spikey feeders 4 Oath of Druids (I'm a Greenie after all) 2 Sylvan Library (my life feeds me counterspells if you know what I mean) 2 Creeping Mold (Superfungus) 4 Counterspell 3 Mana-leak 3 Force Spike (so Cheeky) 2 Dismiss (so patronising) 2 Forbids (so demoralisingly control!) 1 Dissipate 3 Impulse 2 Brainstorm (get back into the Library you ignorant FATTY!) 1 Whispers OTM 3 Propaganda (Every good player should keep some beatdown weenies behind to hold the fort!) 2 Gaea's Blessing (Library Recursion Machines) 2 Undiscovered Paradise 1 City of Brass 1 Reflecting Pool 1 Gemstone Mine 1 Stalking stone guy 10 Islands 6 forest SB 3 Hydroballastwater 2 Disrupt 2 Dissipate 2 Lobotomy 1 Null rod 2 Phyrexian Furnace 1 Capsize 1 Legacies Allure 1 Something else Lessons about the deck are at the end. So let me stress I never played this beast until I turn up to see 50 odd players more than half of whom are less than half my age (what am I doing with my life?) having had a few hours sleep I sit down and... Round 1 vs Simon (the Angel of my death) I face up to this kid who looked like an angel. He was around 10 or 11, his twin sat next to him. They both looked at me like Midwich Cuckoos (Village of the Damned kids for the Americans). This broke my wafer thin sleep deprived concentration or cast a bewitchment on the druids in my deck because it floundered around and did nothing whatsoever without much help from me..... Twice! He played a delightful U/G beatdown machine with Mirri, Boas, Elves, Wall of cards, Llanowar Sentinels (they always came out in pairs! and stared at me in that same disconcerting way) and my favourite creature of all time Man 'O War. My cowardly Mr Black and Control Freak kept fleeing the table from the blubbery marine invertebrates. I think he had 3 Counterspells but he didn't ever need to think about them such was the Druids cowardice. The feeders were never enough. For the first time in over 18 months I was landwalked to oblivion. I took this in good humour specially when Simon the Angel reported his chunky upset of a win to the Kings guys who began my day long cheerful torment. I dont know if those 30 odd DCI points meant anything to him but I was undeterred - I came to play I came to play I came to play I came to play I came to play! The only problem was I seemed to have a deck of cowardly hippies and "allegedly" scary fatty monsters. Little was I to know that those crafty druids were simply testing my faith in Gaia as I barely lost another game in the rest of the tournament. 0-1 Round 2 vs Kenny Da Blue mage He didn't get enough mana to win a counter war and I won both games easily without even using the Oath! I think i did the old stalking stones biffo. I win 2-0 1-1 Round 3 vs Miklos the discard kid Discard didnt hurt even when i had to toss my counters i still got a good quality creature every turn from the druids and won the damage race. As usual he had no way of dealing with MR BLACK. But I think I lost a game here from his hefty recurring necrosavant. At least he could sac his own creatures somehow! He did first turn dark ritual bottomless pit on me in both the second and third games but on my first turn he had 4 cards to my 8! I win 2-1 2-1 Round 4 vs Trent Trent had the celerity red and green sliver assault thing happening with cunning onslaught tech. I always got the propagandas and creeping mold for his red lands, life recursion then Mr Black arrived for the assassination. This guy had a couple of 4th turn kills before so I think he was surprised! Mr Black was beginning to draw some attention. I win 2-0 3-1 Round 5 vs the inevitable Paul Merry Paul and I always slug it out at any tournament we are both at. We never miss each other and we are dead even. I beat him up at our regionals he beat me up at our nationals etc etc In a weird way we usually play similarly weird decks as well. This time he was playing the G/W Oath of druids deck with wraths, catacysms, geddons, tithes, scroll racks, maros and peaches. He often plays this sort of stuff and i never saw an Oath so I didnt know it was the angry twin of my deck. He admits he just loves to "blow heaps of shit up", whereas I prefer incremental and selectively demoralising denial. Anyway we play and he doesnt play any creatures so we sweat it out for a while waiting waiting then we trade peaches for a while, he tithes & scrolls for 9 again and again muttering about finding something usefull while he miraculously pulls 3 wraths and a couple of cataclysms to keep my fatties dead and countering difficult. I get the Peachy Sylvan draw engine humming, but i think I have the better of him after I successfully Force spike 3 of his Maros! He was oh so slightly livid. But anyway what with all his scroll racking, cataclysmic and geddon recovery and all our recursive cycling control nonsense we take a full 50 minutes and end up with him at 4 and me on 6 life. With both of us thinking we had control! Ha, a draw for our first time in at least a Dozen tournaments! 0-0 3-1-1 Round 6 vs Andrew Pierie Its a six pack of swiss so we both need to win for the top 8. He is playing sligh (sigh). He plays, the first game is over in a six pack of burn turns and I pause for thought, as the Fire extinguishers are put to good use, and reach for my trusty sideboard. But... In the second game he curses my deck with the bad mana vibes shuffle ON PURPOSE, MIND YOU, I play and paris to six then do it again to draw five cards with 2 lands and an Oath of saviours. He of course seems a little overconfidant of my inevitable manascrewed demise. 3 raging moggies have me quite relieved as I oath/feeder my way to the safety zone of 20 life on turn 5, force spike his Seismic Assaults and Ball lightnings, Creepily Fungify his scrolls while the hippy druids bring the Archangel to swat little red guys and kill target opponent in 4 turns. We have a competition here. He plays and I mulligan once but get the Oath in the six pack. We begin sedately and are given a totally incorrect timecall by "The (alleged) Ben Seck" of 10 minutes left. Another draw will screw us both so we go into super fast mistake mode and I particularly make a gazillion play errors in the next 8 mins. Andrew is cheerfully forgiving as I reach deep into my luck reserves to beat him up with a 4/4 mindless automaton and a Mr Black massive attack! And take the comeback underdogs rout to the top 8! 2 minutes before we finish "The (alleged) Ben Seck" says "players you have 15 MINUTES LEFT" WTF!#$*!!???? Thanks for the free defribulator heart kick start! But I'm in. I win 2-1 & my arm is brown to the elbow! 4-1-1 Top 8 Round 7 vs my unofficial team mate and good friend Daniel Turner Dan is seeded 3rd, is a multiple Kings Titlefight Champion, and is playing the above mentioned Recurring Death thingy. It sucks playing friends from a tournament point of view but we enjoy playing MtG together so resign ourselves to having FUN anyway. The Recurring Death thingy is such a beautiful creature based thing with heaps of bells and whistles, cogs, levers and wheels pushing it to multi dimensional temporal control ahhhh I love it. But it takes a while to build its control, and its all through creatures so the Oath of Rogues should always give it fits, and I proceed to do just that. You let the budgies and walls and Survivals happen and lock the door to their graveyard with counterspells whilst pounding away with His Royal Darkness etc. Dan conceded the first after 30 mins to do his anti blue 10 card sideboard. It still didn't help because there were few threats so I could counter his sideboard! I think he had unlucky draws though and we timed out with me in pseudo control. I win 1-0, Bad luck Dan. I reckon Recurring death decks benefit massively from 3 or 4 hermit druids because they get you straight to the mid game drawing 2 cards a turn, Lhurgoyfs because they provide a massive 3rd/4th turn threat (in magic parlance "an 11/12 critter for 4 mana? I hear thats good!") which must be dealt with, and main deck Oath of Ghouls for all those 187 and 911 critters, oh and Her Royal Darkness who lives in a Coffin. Every other game you end up drawing 3 or 4 cards per turn while advancing all the decks' strategies simultaneously! Thats the beautiful thing about it - so many variations to choose from. 5-1-1 Round 8 vs Ian SGD There is now a crowd obviously intrigued by the random and sudden death appearance of Mister Black and his goody goody lover The Control Freak. Ian played and dropped a vineyard and I took burn, then some Oath of feeder medicine then i fungused his scroll and he started taking the burn till I manually cast Mr Black while he sat at 3 mana plus his 2 vineyard burn per turn with his Desert Twisting Legendary Spirit killer in hand. He got a bit manascrewed in the second so I won 2-0. He made a few play errors. Maybe because he had to mentally squeeze his bladder nozzle shut for 1 hour because there are no toilets where we play. Worst of all he declined to use the Oath himself for a couple of turns! He probably just wanted to piss on it... 6-1-1 Finals vs Hoaran He has a hoard of 1 casting cost black weenies and straw golems! How ballsy. He was even playing hesitation! See what I mean about original crazy decks? Propaganda slowed it to a manageable shadow trickle while his carnophages tapped before the ever increasing feeder, Automaton beatdown and I win the race. Second game He gets out another horde and gets me to 1 life in 7 turns before the feeder/archangel brakes come on. I fungucide his single mox and his 1 swamp to seal the game, match and tournament! 7-1-1 I win. This deck is cool because it is the ultimate U/G mages dream - you get to put a stream of megafat /feederlife/card drawing into play and counterspell. You can scare the shite out of yourself by forgetting to cast Gaeas Blessing in the turn before you choose to activate the Oath when you know the other Gaeas is already in the graveyard and you only have 1 critter left in the library so you can deck yourself if it is the last card! This is good for audience participation! The Sylvan library/feeder/oath drawing engine is good when it happens but I rarely needed it. All your utility/countering is easily recursed by Gaeas and chosen via the library/impulse nonsense. The mindless automaton is cool because you can put fatties from hand to the graveyard where they sit waiting in the "come into play cue" whilst pumping him up only to draw cards when they kill him! The card drawing Oath/automaton recursion is like a free Whispers with defacto buyback for 0 which can also block critters to prevent X damage :) Like I said he is the Cunning Stunt Master! Dismisses are very viable these slow days and help prepare for the Forbidding demoralisation. Forbids also put the Fatties back in the loop. Like most decks which recursively utilise the 911 critters like Spike feeders this deck has good comeback/control power which can set you up for sudden and irrevocable victory. My defeats were never surprises - I knew I was losing already, however several games I thought I was toast when Mr Black would appear because of some nefarious druidic deal to achieve a comeback kill faster than you can say "If I could just... reach... my.. Bat Utility Belt" You can also cast everything in the deck although you don't rely on it. Weird things about the tournament; Not a single land of mine was wasted??? I only took 6 points of Scroll Damage the whole day??? I never decked myself although many times I took the risk by necessity. I didn't see a single Tradewind rider. Hesitation was in the finals!!! There were Midwich Cuckoos there - It'll be Triffids next time. And now the poops and scoops (where you get to inflict your world view on tolerant readers) Poops "The (Alleged) Ben Seck" our head judge for getting BORED while I dramatically Oath-cycled through my library for His (game winning) Royal Darkness in the Semifinals! You of all people should appreciate shameless crowd pandering shenanigans... ;) Ben again who turned my heart into a randy Chihuahua by looking at his watch upside down whilst I was performing an impossible comeback to get to the top 8. Creature removal - its overrated! People who think this report is too long, indulgent or suffers from profligate verbage! Pauline Hanson, for being a moronic racist scumbag. Whoever coined (or uses) the term "some random mexican", for being a racist scumbag. Scoops Dan Turner and Nick Smith for all the crazy combo seeking antics and testing. "The (Alleged) Ben Seck" our head judge for doing a fine job of running a fun tournament. All at Team Kings and Kings Comics for putting on a fun tournament. All the delightfully useful 187 critters from MiViLite, you know who you are. May you be Blessinged back into 6th edition. Simon the Midwich Cuckoo for smashing me with his beautiful U/G landwalking manowar deck of all things! Frank the Sensei. Anybody who was entertained (or bored) enough to read this far. Cheers Kim Brebach kbrebach@hotmail.com