Subject: Rome PTQ and Urza's Prerelease Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 20:29:39 -0400 From: David DeMichele To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Author's Note: Long Report on 3 days of playing Magic Hello everyone, I guess I'm feeling kinda bored right now and since no one else has written a report about the Atlanta PTQ and Urza's Prerelease and the fact that I haven't written a report in a loooooooooooong time so I'll throw in my two cents worth. I guess I'll start off with the ususal going on's about all the stuff that went on before hand so... At the first qualifier for Rome, at DragonCon in Atlanta I ended up playing Hatred, as did alot of people, but just missed top 8 by coming in something like 10th and went back to Tallahassee feeling pretty good with the deck. But as the next few weeks went by I watched the tourney results and the weenie decks weren't doing so hot anymore so eventually I decided to change over to the Awakening deck basically that Zvi played in one of those Grand Prix thingies with just a few minor tweaks.(Side Note: A few weeks before all this I finally decided to stop trying to build my own decks from scratch and just use the decks that the guys here in Tally came up with or other peoples, I finally came to the realization that no matter how hard I tried to build original tourney decks my expertise seems to be in the fact that I could usually take pre-existing tourney decks and make them better by tweaking.) So I did the usual playtesting thing at or normal Monday night get together for about two weeks. (Side Note: On the monday before the qualifier/pre-release I was still playtesting the deck for Grand Prix Texas because I was going to go to that and not the qualifier.) That monday Mark(aka Paul Wilkens, aka innovator of the now famous Fruity Pebbles) comes in with one of his decks as usual just all proxies and surprisingly(not) it is a combo deck thats pretty damn nasty if you ask me and we playtest and he beats me most of the time although the deck needs a little more defense against fast weenies. So the next night I do tweaking to it and add more defense and make the kill a little more secure and talk to a friend that offers me a ride to Atlanta if I want it but I decline because I was saving my money for Austin. Oh well, flash forward to Thursday just before the pre-release and all of a sudden my plans fall through for Austin and I end up accepting a ride with Frank and Geoff who offered me the one before. Just about everyone from town here ends up heading up to Atlanta this weekend except Kyle who for some reason got left out. We leave for Atlanta about 6:00 pm on Friday after I get done with work and classes, knowing we should get there in time for the first Urza's drafts at midnight. Heh, I shoulda known better than to think a 4 1/2 hour trip would actually only take that long. We head out for Atlanta and make the usual Tally stop in Tifton for Arbys, we have no Arby's in town so this is always a mandatory stop. The trip wasn't very exiciting except for some ummmm, how should I put it, colorful conversation in the car. Frank did manage to almost get us lost when he wasnt paying attention in Atlanta when we were supposed to get on 400 north and he missed the exit so we spent a while trying to loop around and find our way back on the interstate with the three of us in the car all yelling at each other about which way we should be going. Eventually we find our way onto 400 and get to Neutral Ground at about 11:55. They weren't doing any drafts but they were going to start up a sealed deck and everyone jumped into that, I wanted to go get some sleep in the car because no one had a hotel room but for some reason I ended up joining the sealed deck thinking I'd get some cards and get knocked out early and then take a nap. Boy, was I wrong... I know a little about whats going on with the whole scrub controversy, and I'll tell you now I didn't take notes and I remember a few things about the actual playing but I am defintiely the worst person when it comes to names, I can be introduced face to face to someone two or three time and still forget their name less than a week later. The tourneys all happened in an empty Revco in the same plaza as Neutral Ground that David Doust had rented out and thankfully it had plenty of room to play and move around in. Urza's Midnight Sealed Deck, 70 or so participants, single elimination A little info on the deck I opened, we ended up playing with what we opened I think and the one I opening has this broken combo and other cards to back it up with in multiple colors: Serra Avatar, Phyrexian Processor, and Angelic Chorus. The largest I got the Avatar was only 150/150, I was hoping to hit 1000, but my opponent conceded. My deck ended up being red/white with a touch of black for 2 Expunges and a Phrexian ghoul. Other highlights were Thran Quary, Fire Ants, 2 Arc Lightning, 2 Retromancer, 2 Pegasus charger, Waylay(great sealed deck card) A buncha people get byes, but I'm not one of them, or am I... Round 1 My opponent I guess had decided to just enter, take his cards, and leave so i get and easy win and some free DCI points after about 10 minutes. 1-0, 2-0 In between rounds I play some games for fun with Mark who had a great deck but he just couldn't beat my broken one. Round 2 I end up having to play Mark who I just finished playtesting with, I expect to lose because i spanked him around the hour before. Contrary to my expectations I actually do come off with the win pretty easily. 2 straight. sucks for Mark because he got a bye first round. 2-0, 4-0 Round 3 I have absolutly no recolection of this round, sorry, won it. 3-0, 6-0 I think Round 4 Some guy with a pretty strong deck but obviosly wasn't a hardened tourney player as he forgot a lot of things including paying echo 3 times in one game. Game 1 I win easy with turn four Processor for 8 life then start pumping. Game 2 I'm mana short at two and never get off the ground. Game 3 I remember everything about, color screwed at the begining but I hold off and eventually I have 7 cards in my library to his ten, I'm at 56 life with the Avatar and Chorus on the board and 2 expunges, Processor and some other stuff left in library. I'm being held off by a fog bank and a big 6/6 beastie. The judge comes over and says time has been over for a while and he has already givin us an extension. Instead of calling the game on life, the other guy says that he will deck me in seven turns, but I say that I have at least two more ways to get rid of the fog bank, the other guy points out he has a counterspell in hand and one more in his last ten cards. The judge looks through our decks and my first expunge is the next card but it will be countered and my second expunge is the turn after he gets his second counter and the judge is about to give him the game when I remember my Processor and the 40/40 tokens it can make and whisper it to the judge who looks and sees it is coming as my second card down and the judge reads it and says that I will win the game because eventually I will get one of the tokens through and he is only at 16 life. 4-0, 8-1 Round 5 Game 1 I'm color srewed AGAIN with my only 3 swamps and a handfull of white cards, he goldfishes me with an amazingly fast deck with tons of black weenies. Game 2 I get a normal draw and beat him down with 10/10 Processor tokens and a 75/75 Avatar. Funny thing with this game was a the begining he had a quick swampwalker and I had my Thran Quary and 2 swamps in hand a 2 black cards so I play a white creature and then the quary and eventually just discard the swamps, he never got to attack with the swampwalker, heh. It probably would've killed me early if he had. Game 3, arghhhhh, I'm color scrwewed again this time I get all white land and all red cards, I manage to hold on but eventually he killd me with a creature that had the Sengir enchantment on it. I had my Chorus out but couldn't get the Processor or the Avatar for some massive life. 4-1, 9-3 Well, i end up 5th and get nothing for it as the winner only gets prizes I guess. I only also then realize that its 8 am and there is already a big line for the real pre-release. I end up going to crash in the car until the sun starts baking me like a ham at about 10 am. 2 hours sleep so far from 7 am on Friday morning when I got up for classes. I go inside and after a while find Mark(he played in the pre-release and still hasn't won a match yet this weekend :/) who says he found a hotel that we can watch the FSU game in a get some nap time. We get food then go to the hotel about 12:30 and Alex McConnell is alredy passed out there and we crash until 3:30, watch the FSU game(62-13 over Duke) then Alex is moving to Atlanta soon so he calls Josh Bradford looking for a place to stay and ends up telling him that the qualifier is at 10 pm so Josh says he'll stop by and probably play. Alex and I leave and, get food then go back to the tourney. Marks stays to sleep more. At about 8pm Josh arrives and we end up giving him the Hatred deck that I played at DragonCon and we tweak it a bit. Frank, who I came up with ends up playing Marks new combo deck which I'm sure more people will get experienced to in Orlando in a few weeks. I prepare to try my luck by playing Awakening for the first time in a tourney. 5 hours sleep so far It ends up being about 70 people with 6 rounds of swiss. Round 1 - Hatred Game 1: He gets 2 creatures on the first turn and beats me pretty easily Game 2: Second turn Oath of Druids, I mill away a Propaganda but get Wall, Wall, Tradewind, Feeder, Weaver in the next five turns, game. Game 3: Third turn I get Oath, plus I draw 3 Legacy's to stop all his shadow 1-0, 2-1 Round 2 - Living Death Game 1: I think he is a little mana-short and concedes when I get a soft lock at about turn 10. Game 2: He is totally man-screwed this game but I am color screwed with no green and 3 Awakenings in my hand. I just concentrate on keeping his mana low by Alluring 2 hermit druids, countered a harrow and rampant growth and capsizing with no buyback a land he got with a rampant growth that went through. Eventually he conceded when i get my 2nd green and started playing Awakenings. 2-0, 4-1 Round 3 - CounterPheonix, Geoff(One of the guys that I rode up with and in playtesting beat him almost every time, so as usual I expect to lose this one) Game 1: I play a little aggressive, and twice in this game I could've had the lock, yet twice he top-decked the counterspell at the exact time he needed it. Game 2: I start off mana-shorted and he gets a jump on me and right when i about have a lock again, he top-decks a capsize which ends up screwing me over. I know he top-decked the cards needed because all three times he had no other cards in hand. As a note, my top-deck skills are and always have been non-existent. 2-1, 4-3 Round 4 - Living Death Game 1: Fourth turn I'm feeling a little aggressive so I play Awakening and end up making him concede 2 turns later I think. Game 2: I think he was a little mana short I end up getting a soft lock and he gets mad and throws his cards down and concedes. He ended up sideboarding capsizes and mana leak but when he used my Awakening to capsize my only Island I used it to Capsize it to me, heh, heh, fizzle. 3-1, 6-3 Round 5 - CounterPheonix Game 1: He plays first turn Mogg Fanatic and that hits for about 10 points until i start drawing lots of creatures, I countered 3 Intuitions and he never drew a Pheonix, eventually the only creatures on board were a Spike Weaver and Feeder for me and instead of playing defense and trying the combo I go into Juzam beatdown mode. Game 2: He gets a first turn fanatic again but I get second turn Wall of Blossoms and he plays 4th turn Portculllis while i had no counterspells, then in the next like 15 turns I playsome Walls and Tradewinds which get set aside, he doesn't counter, then my hand becomes 6 counters, 2 capsize, I capsize(no buyback) Portcullis, goes through after counter war, i get a buncha creatures then finally draw and play Awakening backed up by a few more counters and win with other capsize. 4-1, 8-3 Me and a buncha others spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out the situation to get into top 8, there are 4, 4-0-1 who will draw in and 4 of us at 4-1 and 3 people that were 3-1-1. When pairings are out I play Josh Bradford and we decide to draw because if we play, one of us makes it in and if we draw, both of us have a chance, same goes with my man Frank who gets matched up against my opponent from round 2. Round 6 - Hatred - Josh Bradford ID - whew, that was quick Seeds are finally called out after a long ass time and are something like this: 1. Matt I think his name was(I should remember I hung out with him between rounds, but like I said, I suck with names.) - Really cool white/blue control thingie 2. Jodi Duneville - CounterPheonix 3. ? - CounterPheonix 4. ? - MonoBlue 5. ? - Living Death 6. ? - Living Death 7. David De Michele(me!) - Tradewind Awakening 8. Frank - Super Secret Combo Tech :) The guy I played in second round was 9th seed, Josh was 10th(second time in a row for my black deck) and the other guys that made top 8 were the 3-1-1 that won their matches. Well, there was some controversy in the top 8 because Matt??, was deckchecked just before top 8 and on his decklist put down 15 Plains instead of 15 Islands and forgot to write down Tradewinds. He could've substituted the Islans for Plains and filled the Tradewinds with sideboard cards but he conceded his match to Frank because there was the possibility that he could win the tourney still and that would be unfair. Also the num 3 seed I think had earlier been deck-checked and had a mistake and got warnings for illegal deck and miswritten decklist and then just before top 8 he yelled obscenities at someone in the tourney really loud and was given unsportsmanlike I think and look 3 warnings, thats a DQ. As far as i know thats what happened but its all I could really piece together from seeing and hearing random things. ???????? Quaterfinals - Jodi - CounterPheonix Game 1: I had probaly the best possible hand my deck could get yet he also ended up having a great hand and even drew more capsizes than me Game 2: He's mana-shorted, but I'm color scewed and I start to get beat down by a Mirozel, :/ ,until I make a nice comeback and the turn before I take control, I had 2 straight counterspell coming and Capsize in hand plus other goodies, he draws his second Fanning the Flames that he boarded and takes me out with it with his last Forbid or something. ***Anyone who wants to improve their top-deck skill, just call me up and we'll play*** :P Anyway, It was a good showing, ended up fifth place for the second time again, got about 10 packs and I had fun. Death got a bye against the DQ'ed counter Pheonix, Death beat Mono Blue, Then one Death beat the other Death, then Jodi beat the last Death in the finals. In the semi's when Frank played Jodi, Frank should've spanked him but first game he kept searching and searching for the last part of the combo but could never find it finally died and in second or third game i think, Frank got stuck at 3 land and couldn't draw any until Jodi started Capsizing the land back to his hand. By this time it was 9:30 am and then Frank and I went to the hotel for 2 hours of sleep before checkout at noon. 7 hours sleep so far! Later I played in a booster draft that had a total of 4 players from Tally in it and I lost to Alex in first round, which guess what place that puts me in if you think about it ......... yep 5th. Alex ended up wining it. Mark finally won a match that day for the first time that weekend as he went 5-0 in the Sunday Pre-release and got a box of Saga. He came up to me later and said that next time we all want to come out for a big tourney we should just stay home and play each other. He ended up playing other Tally players like 5 times that weekend and there were only like 7 or 8 of us. Total hours of sleep in something like three days when we got back to Tally at 2:30 am Monday morning...7 hours, yay! Anyone who wants a decklist, just check out Zvi's Awakening deck I guess, it's not much diferent. WHOEVER HAS A WAY THAT LETS AWAKENING BEAT COUNTERPHEONIX VERY CONSISTENTLY PLEASE E-MAIL ME. 1-2 against it this weekend is not good enough for my tastes. See everyone in Orlando I guess, if my pattern continues I'll win it, so until later Tallyho! David De Michele P.S. If you don't get the above statement its in referece to improving 5 places every time I go to a qualifier recently.