Subject: [TOURNAMENT] PTQ-UT Erratic LD Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 12:13:30 -0600 (MDT) From: William Edward Guerin To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com I started off swearing that I would never play in a block format tournament to my friends, but decided to play this deck anyway ... it is a redesign of a deck by N. Durgin that I found on the dojo ... I figured, "hey, I haven't played LD in a tournament yet, so let's go have some fun." First, the deck list: Erratic LD II 1 Aftershock 4 Anarchist 4 Erratic Portal 2 Flowstone Flood 2 Mox Diamond 1 Rolling Thunder 4 Shock 1 Sphere of Resistance 2 Spike Feeder 1 Starke of Rath 4 Stone Rain 2 Torture Chamber 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Winter's Grasp 10 Forest 10 Mountain 4 Wasteland Sideboard: 1 Aftershock 4 Boil 2 Shattering Pulse 3 Sphere of Resistance 2 Spike Feeder 1 Torture Chamber 2 Tranquility Notes on the deck : In my playtesting, I came up against _a lot_ of White Weenie, so I made a 2nd Torture Chamber standard and took out the Baboons - not a lot of nonbasics expected. The other tweaks were "salt to taste" type things. The night before, I get my usual 2.5 hours sleep, and head up to the Ramada Inn in SLC by bus. I get there and hand in my decklist, and then find out, A) Sure enough, about 1/2 the field was playing WW (which led Joe Ellis to remark after he handed in his decklist ... "10 more minutes and I would have had 2 Dread of Nights standard." B) and _3_!! people were playing LD! John Dearing, one of the people that I know from tournaments (and the guy who won the US Pre-Release) showed me his version .. it was a lot more agressive with Phoenixes and Weavers. Anyway, when Registration is done, we have either 65 or 67 people (since there was a bye 1st round) and we're playing 6 rounds Swiss. I also hear that this is one of the highest turnouts for a PTQ for Rome. And now on to the 1st round pairings ... R1 Jake Scott 736987 Awakening Let's see ... the gods are mad that we drew 2 weeks ago, so they make sure we have to play today . D1 - He keeps me at 4 or less land all game, so I can't get the Portal tech started, and when he gets out the Awakening, I concede. D2 - A _very_ long game ... I get to 12+ land, but can't destroy his due to counters ... Finally, at the end of one of my turns... Him - "I Whisper with buyback"(leaving only 2 blue untapped) Me - "In response, I Boil." Him - Scoops. D3 - I get color screwed for a bit - no mountains early ... he sende Peach beatdown, and after I get the red mana, I have to Aftershock and Flood too much, and I lose. M - 0-1 D - 1-2 At the beginning of Round 2, Karl (the HJ) announces that if he hears that anybody concedes without his permission, that person will be ejected from the tournament. Of course, this is a 40k event, so he has to be that way, but ... [editorial] I really hate that rule. It seems like a completely unnecessary rule to be enforcing, especially around here. I hope that rule gets taken off the books next year. [/editorial] Anyway, on to ... R2 Matt O'Dwyer 139801 Living Death D1 - I have mana flood with no LD, he comes out like a counter-sliver deck, and I lose. D2 - I mulligan, then have a one land hand with 3 LD in hand, so I keep, hoping for 2 land on top. The top card isn't a land, so I am one turn behind, and have the 3rd land in hand (drawn with a Wall of Blossoms) when he Lobotomies me, taking out the 2 Stone Rains in my hand (and the other 2 in my deck). I don't draw a 2nd green until the end of the game, and I lose. M - 0-2 D - 1-4 .. but ask me, "Do I care?" ... "Do You care?" ... "No." We take a lunch break at this point, and I head up to the mall to get Chick-Fil-A. Enough of that, let's get back to the action. R3 JD Welsh 762171 R/W Burning Prayer .. that's the best thing I can come up with for a name for his deck. He tells me later that he tweaked one of his type 2 decks, and this is what he came up with. D1 - My deck finally starts to work, although it takes me a while to kill him as he has an Orim's Prayer out. I do have him locked with 0 land, a Torture Chamber, and 2 LD in my hand, it just takes a while. D2 - He sideboards out his Disenchants ... Big mistake, as I bring in 3 more Spheres ... I come out with a 2nd turn Stone Rain, and he only had 1 land in his opening hand. 2 Spheres lock him down until I can draw the beatdown. M - 1-2 D - 3-4 R4 Jesse Pitz 567525 Awakening D1 - Double Awakening doesn't do this deck much good. Especially when I have only 1 Forest and all 1GG casting cost stuff in my hand. D2 - Can't pull a 3rd land to start casting my 3 Stone Rains until turn 5, and he's got mana glut to boot. I take Weaver beatdown. M - 1-3 D - 3-6 Strange ... about half of the field is playing WW, and I haven't seen it yet ... R5 Geoffrey Joosten 737078 B/U Reanimating Altar D1 - I get the early mana control, and am able to remove all of his creatures. He dies to my Anarchist and Thunder. D2 - He gets a Silver Wyvern out, I kill it, he gets another out, and I die to it. D3 - I get creature control, then I get mana control. Beatdown by 3 Anarchists is good. M - 2-3 D - 5-7 3 games, 18 minutes. Strong. But still no WW ... I'm kind of glad as I don't think my deck could hold up to WW. R6 Robert Fitzgerald 737067 Sligh Oh no ... Bob, one of the most annoying Magic players in Utah ... Oh well, here we go ... D1 - Mana lockdown came quickly. The win was a little slower in coming. D2 - I again see very few critters on his side, so see D1. Final: M - 3-3 D - 7-7 All in all, this was a fun tournament. I didn't stay to see the final 8, so hopefully another player will post that. Now a couple of good words: First, about the location ... for a 67 person tournament, it was a nice big room. And I heard from Bill Graham that it didn't cost him much. I would nominate this place for all the non - pre-release events in Utah. Although the people at the front desk need to know where to send the people who say "Tournament", "Qualifier", "Magic the Gathering" or the like. Give them time, and I think they'll get used to it. Now, a little promotion (and no, Bill's not giving me anything for this ... these are my true feelings) ... Bill's tournaments are the most clean, well run, and have the most "player friendly" (personable) judging staff of any of the tournaments I've been to. The players here are, for the most part, casual, without sacrificing the desire to win. Bill gives out an ample amount of prizes at all of his events (he said he gave out _38_ boxes of product at the pre-release as prizes!). In short, if you only can attend one tournament each cycle, or even one tournament period, come to a TOL run event (UT/NV/ID). The only thing I'd change is a little more stringent penalties for rules violations, but all in all, Bill knows what he's doing and knows how to please the player. Until next time, Bill Guerin DCI#139430 (Visit the TOL website at http://www.tournorgltd.com)