Subject: [TOURNAMENT] PTQ Indy, 10-10-98 Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 18:33:51 +0000 From: Aaron M Huntsman To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com There's one more week of qualifiers, so I hope this is a benefit to anyone still interested in PT Rome or Rath Cycle, or who just wants to read a report of something other than Death, TradeAwake, Sligh, WW or CounterPhoenix. The event: PT Rome Qualifier Format: Rath constructed The place: Indianapolis Convention Center The date: 10/10/98 Attendance: 52 The deck: "Lowspark's Pile O' Slivers" 4 Crystalline Sliver 4 Muscle Sliver 3 Winged Sliver 3 Talon Sliver 2 Victual Sliver 4 Soul Warden 4 Merfolk Looter 3 Rootwater Hunter 2 Tradewind Rider 4 Counterspell 3 Legacy's Allure 2 Disenchant 1 Equilibrium 2 Reflecting Pool 4 Thalakos Lowlands 3 Vec Townships 1 Skyshroud Forest 6 Island 4 Plains 1 Forest 'Board: 3 CoP: Red 2 Disenchant 1 Rootwater Hunter 1 Victual Sliver 1 Legacy's Allure 2 Interdict 2 Mana Leak 3 Mana Breach Okay, interesting stuff is over with. Now I get to babble. I determined well before the tournament that I wished to play something semi-original. I'm not a master deckbuilder by any means, but I had become sick of the same old Rath fare, and my experience playing Living Death in Muncie was horridly, excrutiatingly boring. My first thought was to put together a Humility/Nature's Revolt lock deck. In testing, it worked quite well, but had significant problems against WW, which I felt would be a fairly prevalent deck type. So I shelved that particular deck and put together a counter-Sliver deck. Again, in testing, it fell flat against very fast decks, so I shelved that one as well. So it's now the day before the tournament, I've done no further testing, and I gotta pick one. I start to rebuild the Sliver deck, and it just feels right. I found out at the tournament that some very good Sliver decks had come out of Dallas. I didn't know about them, nor do I now, but I'd be interested to see them. I tried to build this one based on the old T2 CounterSliver decks from months back. I did make a couple of discoveries while building/playing the deck: - Merfolk Looter is really, really good. Rath has nothing like Impulse, and Whispers and Treasure Trove are too mana-intensive for my purposes. Looter is cheap, it does damage and it can get you a much-needed Disenchant in a pinch. And no one wants to bother to get rid of it. It was put to very good use in all the slow matches I played. - The three maindeck Hunters seemed like decent utility creatures, good defense against shadow critters. Unfortunately, they didn't see much use. Could have to do with the fact that I played against _3_ TradeAwake decks. - Mana Breach is wonderful. It would have been more wonderful if I'd run Mox Diamonds, but it served its purpose well enough. Multiple Mana Breaches wreak havoc on Death and CounterPhoenix, or at least slow them down enough for me to get some damage through. - Equilibrium was funny. I had intended to leave it out, only because I was worried about color screw. When I registered my deck, I was one card shy of 60. In goes Equilibrium. It turned out to do me more good than harm. Unrespondable creature bounce is some good. - Sideboarding is a lost art. I should have dropped the Hunter and Victual and played 3 Leaks and 4 Breaches, but I was really paranoid about shadow and didn't have a 4th Breath at the time. - The land situation is iffy. Again, Diamonds help, but I'm too lazy to trade for them. Lots of Wasteland equals death for me, but this situation fortunately did not come up today. - "Victual" is indeed pronounced "vittle." English sucks. It's Saturday morning. On to the tournament. Me and Judah Alt make the trek from Terre Haute, representing the highly unofficial Team Hautian Soldiers, which probably consists of anyone who plays Magic in Terre Haute. I doubt they'd all want to be on the same team, which is why it's unofficial. I just like saying "Hautian Soldiers." Judah decides also to play an original deck, which uses the Survival/Nightmare engine with Slivers, and a single Coat of Arms - major style points. I nearly considered it, but decided against it because of its cost, and was glad I did. As Judah would discover, though, Coat of Arms isn't good when three 4/4 Phoenixes are beating you down. The Indianapolis Convention center was abuzz with activity, as it typically is on the weekends. The Indianapolis Colts would play the next day, so there was a rally going on in the room across the hall, with plenty of festivity, music and Colts cheerleaders (chrrrrrrrrr...). I make it a personal goal to finish each tournament with a better record than the Colts - that hasn't been too difficult this year. The total turnout for the tournament was 52. Gack. Good because we don't have to stick around all night, bad in just about every other way imagineable. ROUND 1: Chance Sellers - WW/r Game 1: My deck should beat WW...in theory. Of course, in theory, my deck beats everything, I go to Rome and win, buy WotC and order that walls can attack. So I just play and see what happens. We start out playing lots of creatures. Him, Warrior. Me, Muscle. Him, Paladin, Me, Crystalline, Him, Soul Warden. Me, Talon. Him, Emissary. Me, Winged. Commence beating. -W- Game 2: Similar start to Game 1, but I don't get as good a Sliver draw. He lays a Fireslinger which kills off my Looter, hitting me with a shadow guy in the meantime. I manage to steal the shadow guy and finally build up the Sliver army again. -W- (1-0/2-0) ROUND 2: Leonard Richardson - TradeAwake Game 1: I cannot beat TradeAwake, regardless of what deck I'm playing. I don't know what the deal is. I go up to 46 with multiple Sally, with a small army of untargettalbe Slivers. Meanwhile, I'm being kept at bay by two Tradewinds, while Leonard goes through most of his deck looking for a means of winning, which he eventually finds. With 12 cards left in his deck, he steals my Soul Warden and proceeds to put 23857182939583 Spike counters on it. I chump block a few times and then die. Beat me, Sally! Beat me hard! -L- Game 2: In goes most of my sideboard. Doesn't help. I get locked and concede. -L- (1-1/2-2) ROUND 3: Yogi Alvarez - TradeAwake (aaaaaaaaargh!) Game 1: Hmmm...this deck is almost identical to Leonard's. I wonder what will happen? ... -L- *note: between games, Yogi begs the TO to allow him to use the bathroom between duels. He does so very loudly, and describes his condition very graphically. This was probably the most entertaining thing to occur all day, although I'm inwardly hoping that he has some kind of massive kidney failure and dies, because that's the only way I'm going to win this match. Game 2: A much refreshed Yogi locks me down again. -L- (1-2/2-4) Things aren't as much fun anymore. With a crowd of 52, though, strangeness is bound to occur, so I move forward. ROUND 4: Bedford Crenshaw - Sligh Game 1: He puts out a Maniacal Mogg Raider and hits me. I Disenchant it so it's not so Maniacal anymore, and counter early Flunkies. Then he starts hitting me with burn. I slowly build up the untargettable army, stem the bleeding and charge over for the victory. -W- Game 2: Sligh has a disturbing tendency to beat you down hard regardless of what you do. -L- Game 3: Let's hope that doesn't happen again. He gets a good creature start, with Flunkies and a maniacal puppy. I can only chump block for a while, then draw a CoP: Red, which pretty much stopped him from doing anything. He couldn't draw an Apocalypse, and no Anarchy in Rath = I win. -W- (2-2/4-5) ROUND 5: Paul Givens - TradeAwake (Stop the insanity!) Game 1: Hmmm...this deck is almost identical to Leonard's. I wonder what will happen? ... ... I play Equilibrium! It doesn't get countered! Woo! I'd been bleeding him with a couple of Slivers after stealing a wall, using a Tradewind to keep Awakening in his hand. With him at 3 and a Spike Feeder out, he drops a Spike Weaver. Crud - I can't handle Weavers. With a medium sized army of Slivers and a Tradewind out, I plop down Equilibrium, drop a Sliver and bounce the Weaver. He tries to respond by fogging, and after a brief explanation of why he can't, I bounce his Tradewind and attack for the final 7. -W- Game 2: Paul hangs around for a while with only blue mana available, while I amass the Sliver mob. When he does get some green, I counter a Weaver, and then Awakening, and then the boys rough him up. -W- (3-2/6-5) I wander over to check the standings. I'm in 9th, with a kick-arse tiebreaker. It seems the strangeness came through for me today - I've still got a shot. Unfortunately, I get paired up against a 3-1-1. ROUND 6: Tom Wethington - CounterPhoenix Game 1: This is how dense I am - I'm not even sure what he's playing until he Intuitions for the poultry. I wear him down to 4, but he keeps the Winged Slivers and Tradewinds off the board and keeps me land-locked with Capsize. -L- Game 2: In goes most of my sideboard. He gets an amazing opening draw of Scroll Rack and 2 Grindstones. Even with the Rack, he can't find _anything_ and I win quickly. -W- Game 3: Starts similar to Game 1, but I _finally_ get the Mana Breach and drop it. Hmm. He looks at it for a while, then proceeds. I drop a second one. It's slowing him down significantly, but I can't draw enough low-cost stuff to beat him up with. With me at 19 and him at 8, time is called. Yuck. (3-2-1/7-6) I end up at 16th. One player with 12 points made the top 8, and his tiebreaker was better than mine. I should take some small comfort in knowing that I wouldn't have made it if I'd won, but regardless, not winning sucks. On the other hand, the deck was a lot of fun to play, and caught a lot of opponents by surprise. I think there's a lot of room for improvement - there's got to be a way to deal with Awakening other than hoping for a bad draw. The top 8 broke down like this: 2 Death, 2 TradeAwake, 1 WW, 1 mono-U, 1 R/B rogue thing, and 1 of something else that I didn't see, but it probably wasn't CounterPhoenix since his match was over quickly. Okay, I think I'm done with this part. Praaaaaaaaaaaaaps: Judah, for playing Coat of Arms Leonard Richardson, for understanding the power of Merfolk Looter, and for having a hat the Colts cheerleaders, possibly the closest thing we've ever had to hot babes at Magic tournaments Everyone who plays original decks - it's just more fun that way Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaps: Judah, for playing Coat of Arms Me for mispronouncing my Victual Slivers all day and not realizing it Yogi's bowels The Indianapolis Colts - since they lost on Sunday, they'll have to settle for a lousy record of 11-5 ------------------------------------------------------ Aaron "Lowspark" Huntsman /\~"~/\ WilliamsRandall/MC \=.=.=/ "Chirp!" =\ T /= aaronhun@willran.com ''' ------------------------------------------------------