Subject: GP Austin Report (14th Place, Qualified) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 06:54:51 -0500 (CDT) From: Ben Bleiweiss To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com ----------------------------- Grand Prix Austin Report or How did I qualify? Hello from New Orleans, here's my tournament report. CONTRACTURALLY OBLIGATED FLASHBACK: Santa's Box (my affectionately known box of 4 of every type 2 card) has been a source of much joy for those of us in Tulane, as it was a standing bastion of all that is good and right in Magic. Actually, since MTG is so dead in New Orleans, I need to have some way to build decks on the fly, since there are no cards available down here. A month ago to this weekend, flooding wiped out 90% of my collection, leaving me literally only owning a bunch of fallen empire and Ice age cards (all out of print), a sligh deck, a WW deck, and random T2 rares. Of Rath cycle cards, I literally had under 250 cards (counting 4 of each over all three sets) that survived the flooding. My magic cards now rest on the third shelf of my living room, instead of on the floor of my bedroom. INTERLUDE NUMBER TWO: Seeing as how I've pretty much lost everything magic-wise, I practically quit the game (it's incredibly depressing to look at your collection and end up with like an urborg panther as your sole surviving mirage card). However, those of us at Tulane (myself, Eric "Spambob" Lewandowski (creator of Net Draft), Anthony and Chris "Yes we are Twins" Dinatale, and Brian (whose last name I don't know) decided to go to Grand Prix Austin, seeing as how it's only 9 or so hours away by car. Two days before the trip, Chris and Anthony pull out for money reasons. The day of the trip, Brian comes down sick. The day of the trip, I find out Sean Fleischman has been banned by the DCI for 6 months (but I don't really want to go into the details now, except to say that we were close friends during the year I worked at Neutral Ground). So pretty much, everything is starting on the wrong foot. INTERLUDE NUMBER THREE: The trip from New Orleans to Austin should take seven hours. It takes Eric and I nine. Why, do you ask? HOLY PEPTO BISMOL, BAT-MAN! That's right, be it appendicitis, worms, staff infection, whatever, my intestines hurt me all weekend, I have massive diarrhea (I was jumping to the bathroom 2-3 times between rounds), and I'm generally feeling miserable the whole time. Did I mention I'm going to the doctor later today to get it checked out? INTERLUDE NUMBER FOUR: Playtesting makes you do better then just asking for a deck on the day of the tournament. Trust me on this one. THE REPORT: So finally, we get to Austin, and I meet up with Lan D. Ho and Dan OMS. Then I run to my room, and sit on the toilet for about 15 minutes. Finally cleared for the time, Eric and I sign up for a sealed deck tournament. After I construct my deck, I hand it to the judge, and run back for another 10 minute session on the John. I come back, and end up matched with Eric. I lose. I go to sleep. THE GRAND PRIX: Here's my decklist: 4 Vineyard 4 Bullwhip 4 Trained Armadon 4 Endangered Armadon 4 Plated Rootwalla 3 Scragnoth 2 Constant Mists 2 Reclaim 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Jackalope Herds 4 Wastelands 2 Mirri's Guile 19 Forests Sideboard: 3 Reap 3 Bottle Gnomes 2 Helm of Possession 4 Survival of the FIttest 3 Verdigris Unfortunately, I completely misregistered 71 cards in my deck and sideboard, so I was forced to play with the following cards instead: 4 Soul Warden 4 Soltari Monk 4 Soltari Priest 4 Warrior En-Kor 4 Paladin En-Vec 4 Soltari Visionary 2 Helm of Possession 1 Gerrard's Battlecry 3 Disenchant 4 Cataclysm 4 Mox DIamond 4 Wasteland 18 Plains Sideboard: 3 Warmth 3 Light of Day 4 Sphere of Resistance 1 Allay 1 Disenchant 3 Repentance So being forced to play White Weenie instead of SUPER VINEYARD TECH, I promptly went to the bathroom, where I'm sure that the next person who walked into my stall probably dropped dead from the stench I left. ROUND ONE: I lost to Bye. You knew that had to happen SOME day. 1-0 ROUND TWO: I got matched up against Bye again, and beat him this time. 2-0 ROUND THREE: vs. some random dude playing Living Death, which is the deck I can't beat, even if I try. Game 1: I lose, cause I can't beat death. Game 2: I lose, cause I can't beat death, even after he doesn't play a second land for 2 turns. 2-1 ROUND FOUR: vs. White Weenie w/ Pacifisms instead of repentances in the sideboard. Game 1: Me have more shadows than him. Him lose. Game 2: He pacifies a warrior. I repentance his shadow guy, and drop a visionary. He drops a visionary. I drop my battle cry, and get my 3/3 visionary through to kill the pacifism. He learns that Pacifism is not some good vs. 99% of the creatures in this environment. 3-1 ROUND FIVE: vs. Timmy, Power Gamer Game 1: I get tradeawaked lock with him at 4 life. I have 2 permanents left on the board (diamond, plains). He has 2 tradewinds, 2 awakenings, weavers, feeders, 10 lands, 6 cards including forbid and capsize. I lost, right? HOLY PIKULA! During his upkeep, he taps six into his pool, untaps with awakening, forgets to capsize (like he had been doing the last 6 turns), and just draws a card. Timmy Power Gamer dies to mana burn. Game 2: I don't lose to trade-awake. 4-1 ROUND 6: vs. HOLY PIKULA himself playing the deck I can't beat. Game 1: I lose horrible living death beatings. Game 2: Chris Pikula gives up the will to win, and makes about a billion mistakes, handing me the match after double cataclysm. Game 3: Turn 2 sphere of resistance, turn 3 disenchant his mox diamond, turn 5 cataclysm, turn 10 cataclysm, game. If he had disenchanged my sphere with his diamond, he would have won. The sphere kept him from ever casting anything of note the whole match. 5-1 ROUND 7: vs. Randy Buelher playing a deck with lots of useless cards (more on this later) I offer to draw. He came to play. I thought he was playing death. He was playing counter phoenix. Game 1: Turn one priest, turn two paladin. Scoop. Game 2: Double cataclysm, scoop. Fine, these games were closer than that, but counterphoenix can't beat white weenie. 6-1 going into day 2! DAY 2: After about 3 dozen more trips to go and poop, it's time for day 2's fun. Round 8 vs. Bye I get a round 8 bye, after my opponent fails to take reading lessons and learn what time the grand prix starts on day 2. 7-1 Round 9 vs. Gary Krackower, playing a deck that I beat after I mana screwed it, then lost the next 2. Game 1: He draws 2 lands the whole game. I win. Game 2: Thalakos seer houses my 2/1 shadow creatures. I lose horribly. Game 3: See game 2. 7-2 Round 10 vs. Some random dude playing trade-awake. Game 1: He draws 182387281 weavers and awakening. I lose. Game 2: Repentenance takes care of that problem. Game 3: And cataclsym when he taps out for tradewind on turn 4 takes care of the rest. 8-2 Round 11 vs. Syddhartha, playing trade-awake too. Game 1: He taps out for awakening, assuming everything will uptap, leaving him two counterspells. I disenchant the awake during his discard, then cataclysm. He loses. Game 2: More of the same. 9-2 Round 12 vs. Tony Tsai, who makes Team Tulane his bitch. Game 1: I fail to draw a shadow creature before turn 5, and lose. Rassa frassin mofo. Game 2: Warrior en-kor instead of my shadow creatures vs. trade-awake really really really really really really really really sucks. 9-3 Round 13 vs. Pierre, who was playing suicide black, but I knew we could both draw into the top 16 and qualify at this point, and I had no chance at top 8. Game 1: I lose. Game 2: I win Game 3: Don't you pay attention? We drew already, dammit! 9-3-1. With 7 players already qualified for Rome in the top, slots slide down to 15, giving me $500 and an invite for finishing 14th. INTERESTING SIDE NOTES ON THE DAY: Randy Buelher: In round 12, he gets deckchecked. He wrote down plains in his deck instead of mountains. Game loss, mountains come out, plains come in. He loses horribly. In round 13, he lost the first game, managed to win the second, the lost horribly. Counter-phoenix just isn't that good without the phoenix part. Jon Finkel: Magic's god (the finkeltron) broke down vs. Pierre in round 11--finkel uses his oath of druids in game 3, gets a thrull surgeon, and then forgets to draw. A turn later, spectators have flagged down a judge, and Finkel is awarded a game loss for forgetting to draw. Finekl probably would have made top 8 if he hadn't screwed this up. Mike Long: Mike Long didn't show up. No one missed him. PROPS AND SLOPS: Props: To Eric Lewandowski, for playtesting with me way too much, and for making netdraft, and for bustanut. To Brian Hacker, for making me the newest member of team Hitmen. Ha ha, just kidding. Props to him for being a really cool guy in general. To David Doust and Tim Weissman and Stacy Doust for running a great tournament. Sheila Weissman too, though I think she was more behind the scenes in whatever she was doing. To Team Deadguy, for making me their newest member. Ha ha, just kidding again! All these guys were at my match cheering. David Price and Dave Barthalow, all raising their voices in encouragement, Chris Pikula rooting onwards. Too bad it was for Tony Tsai, and not me. But these guys are really cool, and why the hell not give them props? To Random people named OMS, who are good people in general. To Jon Finkel, for maturing since I first met him. To Mike Long, for quitting Magic. SLOPS: To my arse, for dropping at least 19 gallons of diarrhea in three days. I could have paved the road from New Orleans to Austin with the amount I shat. To my puppies, who just do not get the idea of "let's pee outside, not on the couch" To Flooding and Mother Nature in General. Thanks for the floods, hurricans, and generally horrible weather. To Sean Fleischman, for being an idiot while meaning well. To Brian David-Marshall, one of the co-owners of Neutral Ground NY, and if you are reading this Brian, you know exactly why. To School. Why can't I just graduate already, dammit? See y'all in Rome! Ben Bleiweiss