Subject: Standard Tourny Report by Dominik Kofert Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 16:06:07 +0200 From: X_Wizard_X@t-online.de (X_Wizard_X) To: Hi all, last saturday i attended the standard tourny in Dülmen, Germany, organized by the "Traders"(well-known card dealers around here). It was seven rounds of swiss without final 8. Doing the metagame i assumed that there would be lots of Kastle style decks. Since Kastle is so popular i also expected lots of Draw-Go. Then there are the all time favorite sligh deck and Oath, which is supposed to beat sligh and Kastle most of the time. Because only one of these decks has a reasonable chance to beat a well played Draw-Go i chose to play it and use most of the sideboard for sligh. I basically used the CMU-Blue and exchanged one main deck and a few sideboard cards: 4 Counterspell 2 Dissipate 3 Forbid 4 Force Spike 2 Mana Leak 2 Memory Lapse 4 Dismiss 1 Rainbow Efreet 4 Impulse 4 Whispers of the Muse 4 Nevinyrral's Disk 18 Island 4 Quicksand 4 Stalking Stones Sb: 4 Hydroblast 4 Chill 4 Sea Sprite 3 Wasteland In the first game i have a 40% chance to win against sligh. With this sideboard i have a 70% chance to win against sligh in the 2nd and 3rd game. With some calculation the total chance to win a match vs sligh is about 63%. With this deck i felt quite ready for the metagame. Round 1 against Frank Schünke, playing 5c Oath In the first game i just wait until i can counter my whispers through. When he runs out of counters i cast a disk to kill his already played Oaths(never counter an Oath of Druids) and kill him via Stones. After we have sideboarded there are only about 25 minutes left. In the second game i make a very strategical mistake: Instead of just waiting and countering everything threatening until the 25 minutes are over, I cast a Rainbow when my opponent is tapped out, but with an oath on the table. Since i can let it phase out after each attack the oath is not a problem. Then he casts Winter Orb, which i do not counter since i have enough Islands untapped to kill him with my efreet and since i fear that he can force it through with several blasts and countermagic. But i don't consider that he already uses Verdant Toch wich i have to counter. I win the counterwar with only 2 untapped islands and that's not enough to kill him with my rainbow before he can Oath and kill me wich an Archangel. Draw. 1-1 1-1 0-0-1 Round 2 against Andreas Bosbach, CMU-Blue I win in about 20 minutes. I counter each of his Impulses to avoid that he draws his special lands earlier than me. I waste each of his Stalking Stones and kill him with mine. 2-0 3-1 1-0-1 Round 3 against Michael Hüllecremer, U/G Oath It is always the same against Oath: let them play everything except scroll rack and sylvan library, wait until you can protect your Whispers with countermagic, cast Rainbow or Disk followed by Stones. And counter Impulse if possible and not to risky. 2-0 5-1 2-0-1 Round 4 against Tobias Röbig, Kastle I counter everything except walls and birds. I manage to counter his vampiric two times with memory lapse, which quite annoyed him. After the usual Disk beatdown with Stalking Stones. Second game I am a bit afraid of Scragnoth, which nearly everybody uses in his sideboard.Therefore I try to get my two Quicksands and some Disks via Impulse and are never in a situation where Scragnoth would hurt me. Stones beatdown. 2-0 7-1 3-0-1 Round 5 against Felix Siehoff, Kastle In the first game I use the same tactic as in game 4. However, there is still a quite tensious situation when he casts 3 Living Deaht and an Anarchist in a row when i have already started to whisper in my own turn for additional countermagic. The second game i lose to Hall of Gemstone in combination with Tradewind Rider(no more Disk). The third game I win without bigger problems, also time was nearly called. 2-1 9-2 4-0-1 Round 6 against Falk Bernhardt, 5c Oath This match is similar to that from Round 1. I win the first game quite easily after 30 minutes. But with only 20 minutes left i decide to remove the Rainbow and just play defense untill the time is called. My opponent is unable to put any threats into play so we don't finish the second game. 1-0 10-2 5-0-1 Round 7 against Markus Lim, Sligh Markus is the reason why i chose to play with 12 anti-red cards in the sideboard. The last time i played him i lost without a chance. In the first game i get slaughtered as expected. In the second game he sides out his scrolls and I am able to lock him with two sea sprites and about 3 or 4 chills. But I made very scrubbish mistake that could have costed me the game: I didn't recognize his Wasteland when i had a Quicksand and attacked with all my sea sprites. However, I win with two life left. In the third game i take control more easily and win 4 minutes before time is called. 2-1 12-3 6-0-1 After all I win this tourny with a total of 19 points with 1 point difference to the second. Since there were 67 players and the K-Value was 40, i hope that my rating of only 1730 will increase a bit. My teammates finished 8th and 9th. Regards' Dominik Kofert Team "Wizards of Coesfeld"