Subject: [TOURNAMENT] (T1.x, top 8) Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 17:53:24 +1200 From: "Simon Connell" To: "Frank Kusumoto" Tourney Report Extended, Saturday 22 August Christchurch, New Zealand 6 rounds of swiss 16 or something participants I have travelled from Dunedin...where there are now only 2 shops that sell magic, and the one with tables to play in is closing in the near future to Christchurch, the land of plenty, where magic players and tournaments abound, and people talk like cartman from south park. The tourneys for the weekend are an extended(this report) and Standard(another one) I don't really know much about extended, so I thought I would just play a fun deck that I know is vunerable to the sideboard (tormod's crypt): 3 Bayou 2 Taiga 2 Underground Sea (all dual lands borrowed - thanks Jason) 1 Undiscovered Paradise 3 City of Brass 7 Forest 2 Swamp I was expecting sligh w/ price of progress main deck, also wastelands, also you need some of these for the hermit. 1 Volrath's Stronghold 2 Living Death 3 Recurring Nightmare 3 Survival of the Fittest 2 Firestorm well I guess you see what kind of deck this is by now 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Birds of Paradise 2 Hermit Druid 2 Wall of Roots 2 Spike Feeder 2 Nekrataal 2 Uktabi Orangutan all these you can recurring nightmare for each other to continuously gain life/destroy artifacts/kill creatures 2 Sengir Vampire good for the casting cost, the deck has the mana 1 Ihsan's Shade can't be swordsded 1 Sol'kanar the Swamp King swampwalk, great with recurring nightmare 1 Verdant Force 1 Fallen Angel also anti-swords...they swords something, you sac it 1 Cloudchaser Eagle enchantment removal not as cruicial, thus only one of these 1 Man 'o' War sometimes useful, espeially after a living death 1 Thrull Surgeon 1 Tradewind Rider 1 SPIKE WEAVER The deck is basically a t2 death/nightmare deck, with a few fun extended things. Dual lands help the mana, and bayous mean you can play heavy black stuff without sacrificing green mana. I realised tormod's crypt was around, so having all the creaures castable naturally is important - the swamp king included. Ihsan's shade was chosen because i) he can't be swordsed and ii) he can't be blocked by outpost tokens and iii) he happens to be 5/5. While Sol'kanar seems a bit of a silly card it was actually really good - fairly easy to cast and also gains you life with recurring nightmare being cast all the time. So the general philosophy of the deck is usually to delay early with walls of blossoms etc. and get a big creature (Ihsan, Verdant, Sengirs, swamp king) either by casting or recurring it. you can recur nekrataals/monkeys etc. to get rid of opponents things. You can play the deck without using any of the reanimation fine, an early fat creature can go to a win, and swampwalk can also be useful. against control, recurring thrull surgeons by the nightmare or stronghold is great. This was basically an adaption of my t2 deck, but it was geared to be able to beat an environment with swords to plowshares(Ihsan) and tormod's crypt(easily castable creatures). One thing I like about this type of deck is that it is quite difficult to play...with survival of the fittest out you have many choices to make...usually getting walls of blossoms early is important, and using any spare mana to channel the bigger creatures into your graveyard. Sideboard: 1 Firestorm anti-sligh 1 spike feeder also anti-sligh, or any other deck I might need more life against 3 Pyroblast 1 Boil anti-control of course. force of will living death is not good. 2 Lobotomy anti-almost everything. I sideboarded it in quite often, but still think it doesn't belong main deck. I had a whole bunch of creatures to sideboard in. If I was expecting heavy tormod's crypt, I would side them and rely less on reanimation. 1 Deadly Insect which is good against decks relying mainly on icies/swords/bolts for removal\ this would have been one of those nonbasic-landkill baboons if I couldhave found 1, it would have kicked ass! 1 Cartographer in case of rampant wastelands/landkill decks 1 Scragnoth 1 uktabi Orangutan of course 1 Cloudchaser Eagle So that was my 1.x deck - some silly reanimator kind of thing. it's a lot of fun to play(at least more so the blue control things I often play). smacking people over the head with ihsan is also fun while they stare at the swords in their hand ;) So. Round 1 is versus Peter last time I played peter he was sligh and killed my 5cg. But I have no idea what to expect in 1.x game 1: I get some early walls/birds - hardly offensive! while peter gets sylvan libraries, brushlands, forests and plains. I get a sengir and a few other guys out. I still have no idea what he's playing when he wraths them away. I am thinking maybe ernham-geddon - green/white with wrath/swords/sylan seems to suggest that. I worry he might try the ernie-geddon thing when he hits 8 mana but no.... and I keep drawing land and playing it, always keeping some in my hand. I get a few more creatures, he wraths again. when he jsut keeps putting down more land I realise it's not geddon, and when the peace of mind and pursuit of knowledge hit I see it's slyvan pursuit. Basically the t2 deck+swords. So I sit there while he blessings back wraths, swords and wisdoms things begin to look bleak. He gets some walls of blockers (=blossoms) but they get wrathed away when I get a flyer or something.. So he keeps gaining life while time goes by, and I want to find out exactly how I kill him. So eventually he's at eighty-something life, and he finally decides to start killing me. With 2 cards left in his library (he does have blessings in hand I guess) he torches me for 12 - so that's his way to win. me: so I'm on 13 and he's on 84... and has torch recursion ready them: so you lost right. me: no... I am on 25 or something pre-torch (some swords and feeders) and my response to his tapping out for the torch: I win. Can you see it? next turn, I ask him how many walls of blossoms in his gravyard...he sees it (there are 3). So living death becomes a kill card in a whole new way and his 3 blossomwalls come back and he has to draw 3 but only has 2. game 2: we don't have much time left, though if we play fast he could win (or I could) But I lobotomy his blessings realy early. This means he canonly swords 4 times and wrath 4 times. And only torch once. The game doesn't get finished in time, so I win. Peter could have won the first game if he'd been careful, I know, but not many people would have seen it I think. I just held my breath and hoped he would tap out with not enough cards in library, and no Pursuit in play. I was also holding a firestorm to kill is 4th wall(win play) if necessary. So I am 1-0-0 Next I am to play Hamish, who came from Dunedin with me. He's playing buried alive, so my living deaths are kind of not so hot. game 1: An early sengir (cast I think) blocks an ashen ghoul, and with hamish's bad moon is 6/6, which means the game doesn't last long for him. game 2: this was _very_ close. I get a suboptimal start - just some green and a rootwall for a while while the marauding ghouls and shadows deal damage. I get a verdant force in the graveyard, and some other things...but he gets a disk when I am without monkey or survival. I force hamish to blow the disk by attacking with ihsan when he was on 7 and I had 4 mana and a feeder. . I cast some creature and recur the verdant a few times, but he perishes 3 time in a row, and my life gets lower. Eventually I get some blocker - walls, verdant, tokens, and the swamp king is gaining me some life from the recurring nightmare. I keep recurring feeders to get me out of drain life range, all the while with enough to block his things. Then I make a play which swings the game heavily in my favour. which I had been waiting to do for a while, I just needed to get some more life first: I man 'o' war an ashen ghoul, the lobotomy. There's one ghoul in play, and 2 in his graveyard, and without the ghould buried alive is not as good at all. I kill with the swamp king I think. So I am 2-0-0 Next I have to play Sam, who is also from Dunedin. Sam is playing a weird u/r/w deck with swords, bolts, wrath, earthquake, paladins, wildfires, counters, outposts, control magic and some other stuff. I know he has tormod's crypt in the side so I am not looking forward to this. I am now sitting at table #1 by the way... game 1: he fails to draw the wraths/swords when needed and gets smaceked by hyge guys. Thrull surgeon recursion helped here. game 2: I lobotomy turn 5, backed up with a pyroblast for his counterspell. I take tormod's crypt. A few turns later I lobotomy swords. Sam gets an outpost but I have a tradewind, and returning the outpost to his hand hurts him. I get ihsan and hit him down to 5. Then he topdecks control magic I have to survivial for a man 'o' war and then he topdecks control magic _again_ and I have to recur the mano for a feeder for the mano again then survivial away ihsan and recur him. 5/5 deals 5 damage, so Sam is dead. The well-timed lobotomy was key here, but Sam was right in not plaiying the crypt early...I'll just monkey it and he won't get much of my graveyard at all. So I am 3-0-0 games 6-0-0 by the way I keep my seat at table #1 and have to play Mike Whitty. I have no idea what he is playing , but I know he is a very good player and I expect to have to work hard to win even 1 game. As it turns out, today mike is sligh, the only extended I saw was bolts I think, and a few things in the sideboard I guess. game 1: I put up a fight early on, with a few walls and feeders but I get down to 7 and that is a really bad number to be against sligh. mike had 2 fireblasts... it could have been almost any combination of cheese. so out go the expendable hermits, and the uselsss eagles in go the extra feeder and monkey(for the scrolls) and also the 3rd firestoem game 2: This one mike doesn't get the greatest start and I get a alot of walls... I firestorm some big attack, next turn death for a feeder, Ihsan and some friends. If my deck gets to late or even mid-game against sligh I'm doing well, and a verdant force and fallen angel finish it. at one point during the game mike cursed scrolls me and names anarchy...which I picked. He had obviously thought I was playing CoP: red, which of course I wasn't...the extra feeder and firestorm are hopefully enough. After the game I comment that I couldn't find any of my circles, and look thru the rest of my deck...hoping mike would keep the useless anarchies in but I think he was wise enough to take them out. Mike had boarded in (or drew when he hadn't before) Goblin Bombardment which was a bit of an annoyance, as I had sideboarded out my eagle. However, the extra 1 damage a few times didn't count for much, and I never cast living death when he had it out. game 3: I get walls at the beginning again, which of course slows sligh. The game goes on for a while - I am down to 3 life at one point but mike has no cards left in hand at that point and I get feeder recursion going for a while until I feel safe, the get some offence in the form of a verdant force. So I am matches 4-0-0 games 8-1-0 Next I have to play Ray. Last time I played Ray I was mono-blue and he was Pox, and he had about a 10-card anto-blue sideboard...4 city of solitude and 4 choke in part. I still managed to win 2-1. Today Ray is sligh, with some splashed stuff(I saw plateaus and disenchants, god knows what else he had). He also had mishras...which are very blockable by walls. game 1: getting stuck at 1 mountain for a long time proves fatal to ray, while 3 mishras aren't that great defence against 5/5s and 7/7s. game 2: I find myself at 4 life with a spike feeder in play. Ray fireblasts me. I sac the feeder. Ray fireblasts me. I get burnt. game 3: I do an early key firestorm away a ball lightning pup (more damage!) and mishra, or something like that. Ray has already hit me with 1 ball lightning...I think I blocked with a wall of blockers . So next turn I living death back some walls, a verdant etc. Ray gets 2 Ball lightnings back, which don't stick round...and I hit him with fat guys. so I am matches 5-0-0 games 10-2-0 Next I am to play Jonathan, who is playing an extended version of my t2 null deck, which is basically vineyard/bridge/scroll/brooch. The extended version has icies and 1 main-deck primal order, which is quite unpleasant to some. We ID as we are both tired and know each others decks (I designed both of them). I think jonathan might have been able to win tho as he had caps, crypts in the side and various other nasty things against my deck. But still, you never know. So Finally I am 5-0-1, 10-2-0 BUT THEN You may remember the spike weaver in the decklist above was in capitals...it was in capitals there but on the decklist I hand in it wasn't there at all... So my decklist 59 cards and that i not a good thing. So I was ejected from the tournament as it was pretty obviously unintentional. But I still keep my 5-0-1 in extended (this is the first time i have played that format) and anyway I played sheryl to see what was happen who was to be my top 8 foe and she was bloom and beat me 2-1, so I don't feel bad...just stoopid ;). The finals was eventually between jonathan with my null-deck,and sean with blue-white propa-orb with serras and icies and things. Sean won, and 1/2 of the top 8 were from dunedin, and all the finalists were, which is good for Dunedin. I think one reason I was able to go 5-0-1 was no one was really expecting my deck in the main or board (expect some of my teammates, and I managed to lobo sam's crypts) because a well-timed crypt can really screw me up. The sideboard was most effective, the anti sligh (-2 hermit, -1 eagle, +1 feeder +1 monkey +1 firestorm) seemed to get the ratios just right. The anti-control (-firestomrs, +lobotomy) was also effective. I sided in lobotomy angainst 3 out of 5 opponents, but it would have been utterly useless against the sligh. I still win a pack of exodus and get...of all things... a Spike Weaver now THAT's ironic. That evening I entered a teams limited that was fun and I was tired and kept casting manakins for 3 mana and things like that. I still had fun though. The next say was t2 (see other report) and I did just about the opposite of today (2-4-0). but that's life. Hope you enjoyed the report, and remember: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, A_L_W_A_Y_S, check your decklist ;) Simon 'Spike Weaver' Connell