Subject: Birmingham GP report (static orb, #70) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:30:51 +0100 From: Eric Hanuise To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Grand Prix Birmingham report - 17/18 October - rath constructed By eric hanuise - ehanuise@hebel.net Hello all :) I've been to the Birmingham grand prix this weekend, along with a bunch of other french players. The weekend began friday morning around 10, where I fetched Jean-Louis D'hondt and Domienic Symens in brussels. We drove to oostend, and met there with brassmen team's Sam Goutsmit and Jan Mortelmans. The jetfoil that should take us 'cross the channel was delayed , so the two hours cross turned in a three hours wait and cross affair. Once in dover, we had to take the train to London, the Birmingham. Of course we play and talk magic all way long :) We arrived in Birmingham at about 20:00, unpacked our stuff, and then gathered in the hotel's hall to play some more magic and wait for Carl Devos. Carl was scheduled to arrive about 21:00 but he only showed up around 23:00, his plane having been delayed as well... Jan will be playing tradeawake, while Jean-Louis eventually convinced everyone else to play his 'Manakin Skywalker' deck, of GP lisboa fame. I had read Dave Matteson's posts on the dojo about static orb, and wanted to play a deck based around that. I had tried it in Brussel's rome QT, going UW with orbs, 'gandas, humilities and disenchants, but it didn't fare well. I was decided to try it again, full blue this time. We continued playinbg and discussing 'till late friday evening, discussing minute changes to the manakin skywalker decks, and everyone trying to convince me static orb sucks. Jean louis comes out with some nice ideas, such as dominating licids in the side (see the other belgian's reports for more.) Saturday morning, we proceed to the tournament area. Our hotel is in Birmingham centre, a 10 minutes train ride to the tourney area. Registration is quickly done, and people keep pouring in the huge hall. The hall is huge and all painted black (walls, floor and roof), which makes for a quite weird feeling once inside. The tournament doesn't begin until about 12:30, which leaves us loads of time to talk, play, and meet some other magic players we don't see so often. I meet Jared Earle, who explains me he didn't play tournaments before he worked for WotC, and this will be his first major event as a player. I also meet Simeon Jones, from Birmingham magic club, who is in the judging staff. He reminds me to try a balti before I leave Birmingham (more on this later) Round 1 pairings are eventually posted. We are informed the event is 6 rounds today, cut to top 64, then 5 rounds tomorrow, cut to top 8 and then singlke elimination finals. Time limit will be 70 minutes per round, which I find really nice given the deck I play :) Now I'll post the decklist before the tournament rounds, this'll make it easier to follow : 19 island 2 stalking stones 2 wastelands 3 sapphire medaillon 4 static orb 2 grindstone 1 thumbscrews 2 silver wyvern 1 dominating licid 4 legacy's allure 2 capsize 3 mindgames 4 propaganda 3 counterspell 3 forbid 4 mana leak 4 power sink -- 63 Sideboard : 3 shifting wall (for scragnoth, thanks to dave matteson for the secret tech tip, even if it turned out that I played no green deck all day long, most green decks I saw had 1-2 maindeck scragnoths.) 4 chill (didn't play a single red deck but you need these anyway, just in case :) 1 thalakos drifters 2 thumbscrews 1 capsize 1 dismiss 1 counterspell 2 steal enchantment (proved very useful against blue : now you have 2 allures and I have 6. I stole some propagandas, too.) -- 15 Round 1 : Paul Gower UW jank Bruno Van Speyebroek informs us that we will be a feature match this round. We proceed to the feature match tables, which are near a big door. There are plenty or airleaks and it's freezing cold. I ask my opponent if he's that good a player that we have a feature match, and he tells me he was about to ask me the same question. It eventually turns out that my 'Magic in Belgium' webmaster title earned us this feature match... Whow, I'm getting famous ;) Paul was very friendly and cool to play against. Game 1 : He lays an early sky spirit and proiceeds to counter or disenchant everything I try to play. 10 turns later, i'm dead. Game 2 : I start, lay turn 2 thumbscrews which he disenchants. had to take the bet anyway :) This game is somewhat longer. He plays sky spirit, cloudchaser eagle, skyshroud falcon, and thalakos seer. We have a long control battle, but his non-tapping bird hurts me plenty in the long run. We have some interesting legacy's allure battles, but I eventually die to the damn bird. LL 0-1-0 Round 2 : Gary Dillon Gary is playing his first tournament ever. I think to myself that this might not be the best place to begin and hope he'll not have to play too many of those unfriendly and unforgiving players one can meet at major events. I enetr in tutorial mode during the round, giving him tips such as 'this is not portal, so tap your mana before you cast the spell' or 'it would be better if all your sleeve's holograms were on the same side of the card'. An amused judge watches this and appropriately fails to notice what's happening here ;-) (Now I know many people would think 'this is silly, such guys are an easy bye : call a judge and fire him out.' well, sorry but this ain't the way I play Magic.) Game 1 : Gary plays an elves deck. He lays a mirri, catwarrior. I glance at it and say OK, he later on plays a robe of mirror on it. He has not attacked yet. After a few turns, he wakes up and begins to attack. I then realize that mirri doesn't tap (I had read the card, and stopped at the forestwalk reminder text... not seeing the last line : mirri catwarrior doesn't tap wen attacking...) I lay some propagandas, but he divine offering one, and can afford to pay for the other two. He doesn't attack every turn of course, but eventually kills me anyway. morality : RTFC. Game 2 : I have control this time, and steal his mirri. Beatdown ensues and I win. Game 3 : There's only 5 minutes left, so it unsurprisingly turns out to be a draw. Once again, a very nice opponent. LWD - 0-1-1 Round 3 : Daniel Herbert, playing living dead/recurring Game 1 : I'm glad I eventually play a 'mainstream' deck. I let him play his creatures, lay a wyvern, steal his workhorse during his upkeep (he sacs it, preferring to take 4 burn than leave it to me :) then lay the dsecond wyvern and he begs for mercy. Game 2 : He starts, and paris to 6. He plays a couple feeders, whiuch I try to steal and goes up to 28. I then steal his hermit druid and apply hermit beatdown from 28 to 19 :) At that point, a wyvern comes out and I finish him 5 points at a time. WW - 1-1-1 Now I stand no chance in the event anymore, because I can finish 4-1-1 but my resistance points will suck biiiig time. (It eventually proved true, since I always was last in the list of players with same points as I.) Round 4 : Denise Wallace Denise is once again a new player, and she's all smiles. Cool :) She's however playing a cataclysmic wheenie, and this is much less cool.... Game 1 : She lays a turn 2 critter and kills me in 10 turns. yikes :( Game 2 : This is a very long battle, where she starts out very well, beats me down to 2, then I regain control, steal her critters and capsize her stuff 'till I get a Wyvern on board. Game 3 : She cataclysms twice during the game, which I allow twice,First time keeping an orb, 'ganda, wyvern and land onboard :), second time I can't counter it, but I topdeck lands and end up capsizing her. LWW - 2-1-1 Round 5 : Rui Rodriguez, playing belgian blue. Game 1 : Rui told me he's from lisbonne, and when I see him laying a 1st turn island, I expect belgian blue. I feel confident, because I tested against the deck with Domienic symens yesterday, and beat him 2-nil. I should lose to manakin skywalker, but domienic tried to play it more control than aggression, and this costed him the game. I expect Rui will make the same mistake, which he does. he starts very well, and gets me down to 7. I play my slowdown stuff, and he is trying to figure out what I'm trying to do. We go along for some time, I slow him down more and more (3 orbs and 4 'gandas) and he concedes. Game 2 : He starts well, and I'm a bit behind. This is a very interesting game, with legacy's allures battles (I didn't sided the steal enchantments in so I could keep the grindstones). He eventually kills me. Game 3 : He has two manakins, a tradewind, and a drifter onboard. I have 2 propagandas, 2 static orbs, 2 medaillons and 1 legacy's allure. He's still at 20 and wondering how he'll get out of this mess :) He tries to tradewind/capsize the propagandas during his turn, since i'm tapped out. I untap 2 islands, topdeck a third island, and lay 3 propagandas :). One turn later I play a grindstone. I'm at 8, and he can't deal damage anymore. I proceed to mill him off before the time limit. My starting hand was two islands and five counters... cool :) WLW - 3-1-1 Well, I want to finish 4-1-1. I'm like 112th now, so I can't be in anyways, but I want to win the last one just 'coz I think the deck can do it. I have a small chat with Bruno Vanspeyebroek. he explains me that there have been delays all day long (about every round, there were players having rules problems that were eventually awarded extra time. With the 70 minutes time limit this meant 1:30 per round.) and that they have a major problem : the people that rent them the hall informed them today that they must be out at 21:00. At this time, They'll shut down the power. The place being all blac, it would not be possible to go on later. WotC tried to negociate this all day long, to find some arrangment, but no way. Due to this, all players were informed that round 6 would take place sunday morning. This caused much discussions and noise, as you would expect. However, I still think given the situation they took the right decision. Let's hope they won't get screwed like that again in the future... (this happened in GP Como as well, players were asked to leave the room by italian policemens just at the end of day 1, to the point that day1 results had to be posted outside the tournament area...) The good thing is we're off quite soon, it's only 20:30. We decide to try that famous BATLI thing simeon jones told me about... (check out my website for photographs later this week :) Balti is indian food, cooked and served in a Wok (those chinese cooking bowls), which you eat by surrying some bread in the wok. The bread is like pitta bread, with spiced oil on it. We all had a good time in the restaurant, and then almost fell asleep on the tables. We then went to sleep, we had to be on the tourney area at 08:00 sunday. Of course, there were train problems sunday morning, so we crammed in a Taxi to get there. We made it in time, and informed the staff of the train problems. they delayed the event a bit to allow players to be in time. (This whole weekend was all about delays :) Round 6 : Damien Guillemard With such a name, I expect a french player. Well done Watson, he is :) We chat a bit, both pleased to meet a french speaking opponent. Game 1 : Damien is playing a weird deck, with a combo of wall of souls, dauthi trapper, dauthi cutthroat, and dauthi ghoul. (give shadow to yer critters, kill'em and it boosts the 'ghoul'.) The game is pretty fast paced, I steal the cutthroats and eventually win the game. He also plays some blue for control and lobotomy. Game 2 : He mulligans to 6 and starts. The game is quite long. I can wasteland his stronghold, and lay two medaillons, an orb and a propaganda. He gets a tradewind, and then lobotomies me. I have a drifter, wyvern, and propaganda in hand. He choses the 'ganda (i've three on the table already), figuring he'll be able to bounce the others off one at a time. It's then my turn and I eventually can play the wyvern, because he forgot entierely about the medaillons (5 mana untapped, play wyvern, have still 2 blue untapped, now you can't ever bounce it away :) The score is 13 for me, 2 for him, he has a dungeon shade out and enough black mana to kill the wyvern. However, he realises he won't ever be able to attack me anymore, and concedes. WW - 4-1-1. Now I'm quite happy, the deck proved quite efficient. Of course I've been playing several scrubs during the event, and my resistance points sucks biiig time. I end up #69 (I calculated that my only chance to be in top64 would have been that no 12 points player draw at round 6. Of course , about 10 of 'em did. Then it turns out that there was some mistake in the points, and they post updated rankings. I'm now #70. I see Kim Eikefeit crying, se was #64 and is now #65. This really sucks. I think in such cases, they should take their responsabilities and have the top 66 play. (anyway I've always tought cuts should not be x players, but a given score. Like 4-1-1 and 4-2 does it, 3-x-x doesn't. Would be happy to start a thread on the subject...) Jean-Louis D'hondt, Dominiec Symens and Jan Mortelmans are in the top 64, so they have to stay there. I and Sam Goutsmit are goin' back to belgium earlier. We both buy a box of revised boosters at a good price, and a couple Urza's Saga starters to play sealed deck during the travel back to Belgium. We open the boosters during the Birmingham-london train travel, I get a Savannah, sam gets a tindra and taiga (lucky git :). The travel back home is a no brainer and w arrive in oostende around 21:00. Props : - For all my opponents of the GP for being very nice, friendly and smiling. It's been a while I haven't played a Major event without encountering some nitpicking rules lawyer :) - Simeon Jones for pointing out the Balti local speciality - Dave matteson for the rath cycle metagame analysys. Static Orb is excellent. - To JL d'hondt for some good ideas - To Carl Devos for talking in a funny voice during the whole weekend. (he had some terrible throat-ache, but it just sounded funny ;) - To Domienic symens for the unforgettable '1,2,3...' ;-)))) Slops : - To the NEC staff for the stupid 21:00 curfew - To me for losing game 1, and thus not making it to top 64 ------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Hanuise - Living proof you don't need a DCI rating of 1800+ to become famous on the Magic scene ;-))) Magic in Belgium : http://www.hebel.net/~ehanuise/mtgbel Touchy! : http://www.hebel.net/~ehanuise/touchy ------------------------------------------------------------