Subject: report GP-Birmingham (2nd) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:02:37 -0800 From: Kai Budde To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi! This is my report from the GP in Birmingham, england. I went there toegether with my friend and teammate Dirk Baberowski. We were both qualified (top 32 in chicago) and I just came to have some fun and Dirk tried to get some pt-points. We didn't prepare that much and chose to play trade/awakening because it's in our opinion the strongest deck. By now I also like the mono-blue deck used by Randy Buehler (and some other guys but Randy had mindless automatons which are VERY important imho). Our flight was scheduled to leave the airport at 16.30 but at about 16.40 we were still in a traffic jam! Great ... We had to take a plane later and waited for about 3 hours at the airport. We arrived in Birmingham in the evening and met there two friends from Hamburg, Marco Blume and Patrick Mello. Marco showed us the blue deck that won in austin and we imagined that there would be MANY of those decks (at least when you have 3 byes ...). We designed the deck to beat other blue decks and IMHO we did that pretty well. The main problem against other blue-decks are allures/licids. Most people just play the same amount to counter their opponents spells but we chose to go with NO allures/licids and instead sideboard all 4 tradewinds and the two main-deck sharks. We used 11 counters along with 2 scragnoth maindeck to be prepared in the first duel and in the 2nd and 3rd we just switched to scragnoth-beatdown or a millstone deck with 4 3/4 walls that mono-blue usually can't remove. This is the deck Marco, Patrick, Dirk and I played: 11 Island 4 Reflecting Pool 3 Skyshroud Forest 6 Forest -24 lands (probably one too less. at least we should have had wastelands in the board ...) 4 counterspell 2 mana leak 4 forbid 1 dismiss (just draw it when you need it!) -11 4 whisper 3 capsize 3 awakening -10 4 tradewind 4 walls 2 hammerheads 2 scragnoth 3 spike weaver -15 -60 Sideboard: 1 awakening (desperately needed against death!) 2 scragnoth 3 grindstone (if I should ever play rath-constr. again a 4th!) 2 ertai's meddling 2 Hammerhead shark (also great against sligh) 3 torture chamber (imho superior to drifters because they are GOD against mono-blue manta rider, manakin, rootwater hunter ...) 1 Capsize 1 Spike Weaver -15 We took a taxi to the tournament location. It was a big hall and the temperature was about 15°C ... As usual the tourney started some time later, I had 3 byes and so I did a urzas saga booster-draft with some friends and some other guys from ?sweden?. I got a good U/R-deck with drifting djinn and shivan hellkite along with 3 tim-enchantments. But I saw only ONE crab! I got passed THREE hermetic studies but got only a single horseshoe crab. I lost to Patrick Mello who won the draft with a g/w-deck in the end against one of the 2 guys from sweden. During that time we discoverd that the usual amount of americans had showed up. Jon Finkel and Randy Buehler were there, along with Darwin Kastle and one of his friends. Many of the european top players showed up, Tommi Hovi, Michael Sochon and Andre Konstanczer to name a few. On to the report: I'm sorry that I didn't take notes but after I lost the first round I played I didn't think that I could end up in a good position. 1., 2., 3. round, byes 3-0, 0-0 4. round, Giovanne, WWr, from Rome, Italy In the first duel I had only 3 islands, 2 pools, a tradewind and a hammerhead while he was killing me with 2 shadows. I was at 4 when I finally saw a forest. I played a weaver and bounced one of his three plains to prevent cataclysm. When he attacked I tappen one of my remaining two lands fog and he went mox, sonix burst! I boarded two chambers and the weaver. In the 2nd duel I got in the first 15 cards 1 island, 1 forest, 1 skyshroud forest and a pool. Not that bad if he weren't playing two colors with 4 wastelands. He drew 2 of them and I died to some shadows. 3-1, 0-2 5. round, Phil, death, from england He used scragnoths to bring me down to 4 in the first duel and 5 in the 2nd. I stopped them with the wall/tradewind-kombo and my deck did what awakening does against death. Win! 4-1, 2-2 At this point it was about 20.30 and the organizers told us that we couldn't go on playing in the location because the whole area it was part of was closed at 21.00 and that they would disable the light at that time. We had to play the last round on Sunday! Great organisation guys! We left to get some food. 6. round, Paul, tradeawakening In the first duel he looked at my mid-game scragnoth desperately and when a weaver joined him on my next turn his walls suddenly shrinked. I countered every tradewind and capsize and won easily. In the 2nd duel I removed all awakenings and tradewinds and brought in the grindstones, the meddlings and the capsize. I completely controlled that duel. He dealed one damage to me while I grinded him to death ... Oh, I forgot. He had some 'outstanding assistance'. His 4 dominatings licids were watching the whole duel ... 5-1, 4-2 After this round the top 64 were posted. Almost all germans had made it. Most of the top players were in as well. Only Andre didn't make the cut with 4-2. Kim Eikefet was 64th, until they posted a new version of the standings with some corrected opponent-scores and suddenly she was 65th ... Bad luck, Kim! 7. round, Steven, Sligh He went first and played a mountain and said done. I thought that he played counterphoenix and was happy with this matchup until he played a 2nd turn bombardement. Okay, just a sligh with a crappy draw. He dealt 7 damage to until I locked him ... In the 2nd duel I was slightly screwed and couldn't find any green to cast walls. I died with three of them in my hand. The 3rd duel was really amazing. He apllied some early beatdown but I got out some walls and sharks and stopped him with 14 life left. Then he played a spellshock that I couldn't counter. We both drew and said done for some turns. Then he played flunky, flunky, pup, taking 6 damage. I capsized the spellshock during his discard and played three more blockers during my turn. Then he played some DD and I didn't counter. I went to 10. At some point I was still at ten and he went down to 4. During his main phase he casted boil. I had a skyshroud forest and two pools along with a forest and 3 islands. I didn't counter and he went to 2. On my next turn I played another island from my hand and casted a tradewind. I was on 8 and the tradewind attacked during my two next turns to finish him off. He took 18 damage from the spellshock and an early fireslinger!!! 6-1, 6-3 8. round, Paul, tradeawakening In the first duel I played 4th turn awakening with 3 counters, a whisper, a capsize and a land in my hand. He countered the whisper but couldn't deal with the capsize backed up with 2 counterspells. I locked him on turn 8! I removed the riders and the awakenings and brought the grindstones, the capsize, the meddlings and a scragnoth in. In the 3rd duel he attacked with a tradewind 20 times. In the end I had two 50% chances to win. Before his last draw phase I milled him down to 3 cards with a grindstone untapped. There were 2 blue and a green. I failed to double mill. In my previous draw phase three were two cards left and one of them was a capsize that would have won the duel immediatly. I failed again and it was a draw. 6-1-1, 7-4 9. round, Marc Hernandez, french death Some guys from france (Marc, Michael Sochon and probably someone else) were playing death with forbid, merfolk looters and 3 verdant forces. The first and 3rd duel were pretty uninteresting. In the first I was screwed and in the third he was flooded. In the 2nd duel I got 2 awakenings into play pretty fast but had no counter left to protect the capsize against surgeon or lobotomy. So I had to bounce as fast I could. When I wanted to use mana-sources before the awakenings resolved during his turn he said that I couldn't and quoted the d'Angelo-rulings with something like: in a series of triggered effects only the active player can use mana-sourced. We found that passage in the d'angelo rulings and the judges discussed for 20 minutes whether multiple awakenings are a series of triggered effects or not. In the end they ruled it in my favor and I bounced his lands before he got a surgeon or a lobotomy. 7-1-1, 9-5 10. round, Randy Buehler, mono-blue In the first duel Randy played some spells and I countered and he countered back. Then I got an awakening into play and started capsizing his lands on my 6th turn. He tried to counter but I managed to back it up and bounced his islands in two turns. He failed to draw a counter other then leak in that time and he conceded. In the 2nd duel my initial hand was like skyshroud forest, 2 whisper, wall, XXX. He went first and I didn't mulligan. Even the whispers didn't help me and he got an active tradewind before I got the mana to counter. I conceded. In the 3rd duel Randy mulliganed and stalled with 3 lands. I got rid of 2 curiosities and played a fifth turn scragnoth followed by some friends on my 6th and 8th turn. Randy didn't draw a 4th island in the turn I tapped out to cast the 2nd scragnoth and everything else was too late. I had 2 capsize and 2 counters in my hand to get rid of pumped mindless automatons ... So I finally revenged the mana-screw I had against him in GP-Antwerp! 8-1-1, 11-6 11. round I looked at the standings and realized that I 8-1-2 wouldn't be enough so I had to play: Gael de Robien (spelling probably wrong, sorry!), mono-blue I won in two rather fast duels. In the first duel a tradewind won the game by bouncing a helm that controlled my 6/7 scargnoth and in the 2nd duel I just outcountered him and controlled the duel with capsize and whisper. 9-1-1, 13-6 After failing by one match each to reach the top 8 in two of the 3 GPs I played up to know, I finally reached the top 8. And of course when I'm already qaulified. The quarterfinals were the following: CMU-Workhorse against Cunterphoenix Jean-Louis D'Hondt (mono-blue/ against Darwin Kastle (Kastle) Arho Toikka (Trade/awakening) against Craig Jones (Sligh) Andreas Johnson (mono-blue) against me (awakening) The CMU deck won after over 2 hours against phoenix 3-2, Kastle walked over Jean-Louis 3-0, Artho lost surprisingly against the sligh he easily beat in the swiss even though he had 4 oathes and feeder 3-0. Quarterfinals against Andreas Jonsson, mono blue: In the first duel he went first and played 2nd turn hammerhead. I answered with a wall and he tapped 3 to cast ertai. I couldn't beat that. In the end that guy was too much for me. I transformed to the millstone variant again and won the next three duels pretty easily. Two times I milled him and once the scragnoth rolled over his screw. I have to say that he got really poor draws. In the third duel he didn't draw more than 4 lands (compared to my 10 I had at that point) and I was grinding him. I usually grinded TWO islands and he drew a spell (no joke ...). 3-1 In the semifinals the sligh won against phoenix and I had to play Darwin Kastle: In the first duel I stalled at 4 to 5 lands while he beat me down with a scragnoth. I couldn't handle it because of his carrionette. My tradewind was usless without 8 lands ... I boarded the hammerheads and the scragnoths. In came the awakening, the weaver, the capsize and one meddling (because it was better then a creature ...). When I shuffled his deck before the 2nd duel I scrubbed and two cards turned over. I immediatly got a game loss and a double warnung. I thought that this was over by now. 0-2 against a good player, that should end my dream of the finals. Boy, should I be wrong. In the 3rd duel I played a 4th turn awakening and counced his lands back by turn 7. He was chanceless. We had a long fight in e 4th duel. I got tradewind with a wall and a weaver but used the tradewind just to draw some cards with the wall and to recycle the weaver which hold off his scragnoths. Meanwhile I was whispering and he was using his stronghold to play a surgeon every turn. But he had only one card in his hand and I was drawing multiple each turn. At some time I just had everything I needed and started the weaver beatdown which killed him in the end. In the 5th duel he went first and mulliganed. He didn't get early green and stalled with a stronghold, a pool and a rootwater depths. I played a 4th turn tradewind and two more creatures on my fifth turn. I kept him down at 3 mana and started to draw some cards with a whisper while countering his important spells. Then I finally found a 2nd tradewind and one turn before it got active he found a mox and played his only 4CC spells in that duel: lobotomy. I counterspelled and proceeded to bounce his lands. Later in the game I got awakening/capsize/whisper going and he conceded. WHEW! That was a close comeback from 0-2 to 3-2!!! In the finals I played Craig Jones with his sligh. I didn't imagine that sligh could make it that far and so I wasn't that prepared for it. But our deck had 4 walls and 4 sharks and in that GP it was 5-0 against sligh, until the very end. I could just sit there in amazement and look how a sligh beats you down if it gets the perfect draw. Almost always when I had nonbasics he had wastelands and I never could capsize a creature with pants before turn 5. Only in duel 3 I got a chance. He didn't start that well and I cast a 4th turn awakening. I started drawing cards like a madman and established a good defense before I bounced his lands and permanents. In the other duels I couldn't do anything. Except for the slingers his attacker were all at least 3/3, an attack with two flunkies and a manical raged pub was nothing unusual for turn 4. I lost in a hurry 3-1. Congrats to Craig for winning the first major turnament he played in! With my 2nd place I was also VERY content, I elminated two of the top american players (Buehler and Kastle) on my way up, earned 1.600$ and some pt-points. The gravy train comes another step closer! CU in Rome Kai Team CCC * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = Kai Budde Tel: 0221-9416070 = = Petersbergstr. 77 e-mail: budde2@borneo.gmd.de = = 50939 Koeln = = Germany = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *