Subject: Re: Merfolk Massacre Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 15:58:20 -0400 From: Rene Hidalgo To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi Frank, After about 4 months of no magic, I've been trying to get back into it the last few weeks. The last time I was in the finals of a qualifier it was Tempest rochester draft so I didn't even bother to send you a deck copy. However since this time the format was constructed, I felt that contributing the deck to your page might actually help someone else out. Like I said before, my lack of involvement with magic means that not only am I inexperinced with exodus cards, but I basically don't have any exodus cards at all. So when I asked around to see what decks people were playing it didn't take long to realize I was going top have to come up with something cheap and simple. I visted your site on Friday night and saw that the decks people were playing were out of the question for me. So I call up Al Sousa, to see what he's playing, and of course he has no idea, although we discuss the possibilities of a weenie speed deck. I feel that White Weenie is out of the question since I only have 1 Paladin En Vec, and 1 Cataclysm. And although I have 3 Hatreds, I had no Sarcomancies, which considerably weakens the power of black weenie.So basically I'm stuck with red, and figure that If I can make my deck as cheap and fast as possible while trying to capitalize on disrupting my opponents mana development my deck might do okay. Problem is how do you disrupt your opponent in this environment, so I start looking through my cards, and find a couple of Sphere's of Resistance. I wasn't sure If these would come in handy when I traded for them way back when Exodus came out, but the premise seemed to make sense: Living death now cost SIX! :) So all I need is two more sphere's and I'm in business. I call up a good friend of mine Joe Richardson, and he luckily has a couple. So this is the deck I end up throwing together. I hope this helps someone else out. 16 Islands 4 Wastelands 4 Sphere's of reisistance(These were incredible!) 4 Jackal Pups 4 Mogg Fanatics 4 Mogg raiders 2 Duct Crawlers!(People gave me a lot of heat for these, but the looks and laughs I got from playing with them was well worth the two slots in my deck) 4 Mogg Flunkies 4 Fire Slingers 4 Maniacal Rage 4 Giant Strength(I never thought I'd play creature enchatments in constructed, let alone 8! But these were amazing all day too.) 4 Shocks 2 Sonic Burst Board: 3 Portcullis, 3 ancient tombs, 3 bottle gnomes, 3 torture chambers, and 3 Idols. I just wanna comment on how amazing this deck worked for me. The 8 creature pumpers really worked well, and gave me 2nd turn hill giant beatings almost every game. The sphere's were definitely the MVP of the deck, and people really seemed to like them. Here's the decks I played: Round 1: Mike playing another straight red deck. I mulligan down to 4 cards the first game and manage to win somehow. Game two I mulligan down to 5 cards and still manage to pull it out, as he locks himself with two spell shocks of his own. He's also playing ensnaring bridge??? 1-0 Round 2: Steve playing a red and black deck. The only time I played magic in the last 4 months was during a Qualifier back in August. Steve gave me my only loss that day which didn't hurt my coming in ninth that day :) So I'm kinda looking forward to this match. First game he starts out with a couple of cinder marshes and I'm happy to be holding a wasteland. He Thrull surgeons me, and takes out a shock or something while leaving 2 spheres. I proceed to draw a third one, and It's tough to win when Shock cost 4 mana to cast. Did I mention nothing in my deck cost more than 2 mana. =) The second game unfortunately he gets no red mana and a red hand, so I also manage a rather quick win. 2-0 Round 3: Dave with a Living Death deck Game 1 is going pretty evenly with him holding one card at the end of one of his turns. I take my turn and say I'm done when he discrds a creature to a Survival to go fetch a wall of blossoms or something. During his next turn he's somehow holding 4 cards, so I ask him to concede and call over a judge. He explains that it's his first time playing with sleeves, and that his cards are marked without them. I really hate to win this way, but unfortunately there's no excuse in my mind for drawing extra cards. Game 2: I look at my opening hand and see 1 wasteland as my only land and decide to mulligan. I then draw 6 red spells and no land, so I mulligan again to find 1 ancient tomb, and 4 red spells and figure I can't stop now. I mulligan down to 4 red spells, and figure I might as well concede the match, but when's the last time you played a game with such a blatant disadvantage =). I mulligan down to 3 CARDS! Did I mention I won this game? My opening hand is 1 Mountain, 1 slinger, and 1 crawler. I draw a tomb and play a crawler first turn. He plays a wall of blossoms. Second turn I draw a Portcullis, and play a tomb, and the slinger taking 3 damage from burn and the tomb. He casts a scroll rack during his turn. Turn 3 I draw a fanatic and cast it. Then on turn four I draw a wasteland and play the portcullis. I can't believe How LUCKY I was to win that game after mulliganing down to 3 cards. Anything is possible in Magic. 3-0 Round 4: Antonio playing WW I run into a brick wall both games! He draws enough paladins and en-kors to keep me on the ropes until he delivers a beating with Soltari Priest. As always Antonio was a real cool guy the entire match. 3-1 Round 5: Juan Juan is playing some strange prison deck with static orb and mind games. game one he locks me up and I concede. However, I manage to deliver a very fast beating in game two. Unfortunately he forgets to mulligan in game 3 with only one lowland as his only land which I waste. 4-1 Round 6: Geddes playing some living Death deck First game he wins, game two and three I get down portcullis and he can't deal with it. 5-1 Quarter Finals: Dave from round 3. Game 1: I deliver a very fast win with sphere's to back me up. Game 2 I get down portcullis and should win, but when he deaths I learn the hard way the proper order of bringing creatures back into play. Game 3 he has 8 cards in his hand before we begin and Doust rules a game loss. 6-1 Semi's: Chris playing counter phoenix. Chris is here with his friends, Team WOW, and they're all real cool guys. Game 1 get a massive beating going with a armored pup on turn 2 and he can't recover in time. Game 3 I don't see many creatures and he kills what I do see. He kills me via 2 shard phoenixes. Game 3 he has to mulligan and is mana light which helps me capitalize with a Sphere. 7-1 Finals: Zach with a humility deck Game 1 he grinds me to death after He gets down the creature lock. Game 2 I get a massive beating going and win like in 1 minute. Game 3 he gets down 2 warmth, and 1 cop red so I can't manage to outrun him with my Fireslinger. Did I mention he had down 2 orim's prayers? Anyways, Zach was a real nice guy, and I wish him the best of luck in Rome. Overall aside from a couple of sour grapes player haters, everyone was really cool all day long and I had a real good time. It's fun to be back, and it's good to see the majority of the people being nice and sportsman-like for a change. Till next time, Rene Hidalgo.