Subject: WylieOats in the final 8! Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 21:23:23 EDT From: WylieBlows@aol.com To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com My deck, WylieOats: 11 Forests 11 Islands 4 Intuition 4 Power Sink 4 Canopy Spider 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Evacuation 3 Earthcraft 3 Scrivner 3 Overgrowth 3 Counterspell 2 Rampant Growth 2 Scroll Rack 1 Hammerhead Shark 1 Reclaim 1 Capsize Sideboard: 3 Tradewind Riders 3 Bottle Gnomes 2 Reap 2 Capsize 2 Respite 1 Constant Mists 1 Counterspell 1 Evacuation This much maligned deck has been the subject of talk amongst many of the people I play with. Originally, it had a Harrow, and more sharks, but I took them out for land and more Counterspells. The deck has been called RATH Cylce Pros-Bloom. And that fact has been argued by people who didn't understand the deck, and by people waiting for it do actually do something significant. “I will bet you 2:1, your $10 to my $20, that this deck never makes it to final eight the WHOLE SEASON.” -Bob Maher So, if I make final eight with the deck, its as if The Bomber himself sponsored me for that tournament, the entry fee being $20. So I submit to you, a WylieBlows deck, sponsored by Bob Maher, a WylieBlows Tournament Report. Rome PTQ in Palatine Chicago. The format is Rath Cycle Constructed. There were approximately 82 people in attendance, the tournament was 7 rounds long. It was a Steve Port tournament. Why do I love Steve Port tournaments? Let me count the ways: Prizes: 1st 56 packs 2nd 36 packs 3rd 27 packs 4th 27 packs 5th 18 packs 6th 18 packs 7th 18 packs 8th 18 packs Amazing price structure! Side Tournaments, which I unfortunately was unable to play in: They ran 11 or 12 side tournaments! That means they had 88-96 people play in their sides, which is more than the main tournament. Why? Because these are some of the smoothest ran tournaments anywhere. Also giving out half a box of packs to each side tournament helps! So for the day, Port gave out over 400 packs in prizes. Did I mention that a lot of it is hard-to-get Asian Product? The deck was head judged by Darrell Wyatt, and was Task-Mastered by Teresa Wyatt. Both of them did an excellent job. No one even noticed the delay when the computers were down and they had to make pairings and adjustments by hand... The Tournament Report: Round 1: I win the randomization and go first. In the first round I played against Joe M____, the Human Beat Box, from Milwaukee. We’ve talked and traded many times. He knew exactly what I was playing, which is something I was hoping to use as a tactic for this crowd. The surprise aspect of the deck is a huge advantage. He was playing an experimental blue deck. I was relatively afraid, I don’t like seeing blue. But I let most of his stuff build up as I slowly built up my combo. Around turn 7 or 8, I went off. Let me explain at this point how I go off. With an Earthcraft on the table, an Overgrowth on an Island, some small green creatures out, (like spiders and walls,) and a Scrivner and Evacuation in my hand or on the table, I am ready. It seems like a lot of set up, but it works. Rath Cycle can be nice and slow and tolerant sometimes. Lets say I have Scrivner out, two walls, a spider and a Scrivner. I tap the land, (land gives UGG,) I then tap the Scrivner, the walls and the spider, which gives me a total of UUUUUGGGGGGGGGG, or 5 and 10. Cast Evac, I am at 3 and 7, cast wall, draw, (3,5) cast wall, draw, (3,3) cast spider, (3,1) tap green guys, (6,7) cast Scrivner, get back Evac, (5,3) tap Scriv, (6,5) cast Evac, (4,4) There is a slight mana loss at this stage in the game [(3,7)->(4,4)] fortunately, with the walls, you are drawing cards, some of which will be creatures. Each extra creature you draw nets you one extra mana. Eventually you will draw into an Overgrowth, or a reclaim to get an Overgrowth in the graveyard, or a Scroll Rack to turn your huge hand into many cards in your library, 1 of which will get you to an Overgrowth. Looking at the situation if you had 2 Overgrowths on the land: tap land, tap 4 creatures -> (5,20) evac -> (3,17) cast green creatures -> (3,11) Scrivner -> (2,7) tap 4 creatures -> (6,23) Evac -> (4,20) cast green creatures -> (4,14) Scrivner -> (3,10) tap 4 creatures -> (7,26) Each repetition NETS you UGGG Eventually you draw into a Capsize. I hear infinite mana with Capsize can be useful. Capsize all of their goods. Manipulate until you have at least one Scrivner in play. Now whenever each repetition, you will get back the Evac and one other thing. Like say, a Power Sink or three. Say done. They go land, random spell. You say “Power sink for 20,” or something. They say “Go.” You attack with the spiders and the Scriveners. You Evacuate, get mana, get the Power Sinks back, Capsize their land and any diamonds or whatever they have laid. Cast your spiders and Scriveners, say done. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. So that was what happened twice in a row in my first two games against Joe. His Hammerheads did me 6 points of damage in game 2 though. 1-0, 2-0 Onto Round 2: I win the randomization and go first. I played against Ray, who was running a sligh deck. This is my first EVER sanctioned match against Red Blitz. This deck loves pseudo-sligh decks like this. Canopy Spider and Hammerhead Sharks EAT sligh creatures alive. Jackal Pup, Canyon Wildcat, Mogg Conscripts, Raging Goblin, Mogg Fanatic, can any of them stand up to the mighty Spider? One of the few creatures that can is the Mogg Flunkies, and I am running just as many 0/4 walls as they are running Flunkies. How about those 1-2 Rathi Dragons they are running? Canopy can throw itself in front of it one turn, but I hear my Evac is a combo with their Rathi Dragon. Game 1, He hits me with a Raging Goblin, next turn I get out a Canopy Spider, shutting down 80% of his non-burn offense. I build up the combo, and barring a single insanely irritating Stone Rain, I kill him while I am at 19 life. Game 2 is a little more impressive, He casts two Stone Rains and two Scorched Earths. I countered some of them, but not all. He got me down to 10 with some very unique attacking. But I slowly regained control. I even hit him for 4 with a Bottle Gnome I side-boarded in before I killed him. It took me a while to draw an Evac even though I sided my 4th in. 2-0, 4-0 Onto Round 3: I win the randomization and go first. I am playing Dan Thomas who is running a Humble Prayer Variant. The First game we played was the most insane complex game of the entire day. He gets out a first Grindstone. Having not seen my deck before, Even as he had Grindstoned every component of the deck into my graveyard, he still didn’t know what was going on. The deck isn’t intuitive just looking at the components. So when he had me down to about 15 cards in my library, he laid a Static Orb. Hmmm. I thought it was an interesting call on his part, since it takes him two turns to Grindstone me (Untap grindstone, 1 land, untap 2 lands.) Now I know that he could save up mana, but that isn’t the point. Especially, since at this point I had two Overgrowths on one of my Islands, I get 6 mana a turn, he gets 2. I’m down to one card in my library, I capsize with buyback his Static Orb at the end of his turn. He loses on mine. It is tricky because I have to get back the Reclaim so I don’t deck myself with the Walls of Blossoms! I have to tap out to win, and it takes me about 2 full minutes to realize that I can survive. Game 2: He now has a better understanding of what is going on. So I switch into Canopy Spider beat down. He can’t successfully cast a humility or an Orim’s Prayer. His life total 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, I cast another spider, 11, I cast a Scrivner, 7, He cast a Static Orb, 4, 2, He casts an Orim’s Prayer, 1, He casts a Humility. Hmmmm, this is not cool. But time is running out, I’m not stalling here, but when he was at 4 life, we had about 5 minutes left, I didn’t even realize it. All I need to do is get back a Capsize to take care of either the Prayer or the Humility. By the time I have him down to 1 there are about 2 minutes left. I know there is a way I can do this. I have 1 card left in my library again, I have a Scroll Rack out, but EVERY card in my hand is blue, (Grindstone you, trigger, trigger, trigger, I lose,) So I do what I had to do. Evacuate during my upkeep, getting back lots of green creatures. Declare my draw in my draw phase, in response to drawing I Scroll Rack for 12 lacing my hand so that it alternates Green card, Blue Card, Green Card.... etc. By the time the Head Judge can explain to him why I can Scroll for 12 with one card in my library, time runs out. Pity, I was so close. I don’t like drawing even a single match, but whatever. 3-0, 5-0-1 Round 4: I am playing against Matt who is running Big Blue. You all remember Big Blue? Mahamoti Djinn, Wall of Air, Counterspells and so on. Well, this was the Rath Cycle version. I have no clue how he beat swarm, as I saw no Wall-of-Air-esque cards. He was running Ephemerons, and Silver Wyverns, both of which are a pain in the ass to Capsize. Game one, I quickly, quickly set up the combo. He didn’t really see any threats, so he didn’t counter anything until the combo was going. By then I was ready to Power Sink him. Game 2: This was an odd game, and one of the more fun ones I had all day. For turns 3-6 I hit him with a Canopy Spider, (20, 19, 18, 17), turn 7 I hit him with 2 spiders, (15,) turn 8, 3 spiders. Then his Big Blue Fat hits the table, my spiders are forced to go on defensive, and I am forced to sac a couple of them, but I get some Scriveners out, which are much more efficient attackers 8) It is 12 to 12. I make a slight miscalculation, and he hits me for 4 with an Ephemeron. I then Counterspell his Silver Wyvern. I hit him for 4, score is 8-8. I evacuate, get it back, manipulate some stuff. Eventually we repeat, he hits me for 4, I hit him for 4. Then I make a mistake. Legacy’s Allure is a pretty bad card against my deck, so I had been ignoring his. at the end of my turn he steals my Scrivener and hits me with it, (4-2) I evacuate, get it back, and counter his fat. I hit him for 2, (2-2) cast a second Scrivner, and say “Go.” He has 2 cards in his hand, he is at 2, and I have 2 Scriveners on the table. I counter his first fattie, and he shows my the land which is the other card in his hand. Good game. 4-0, 7-0-1 Round 5: I win the randomization and go first. I am playing against Kevin, who drove me to this tournament. So I owed him. Of course from his point of view, I supplied him with most of the cards in his deck! Suffice it to say, we knew each others decks. Either I would get quickly beaten down by white shadow, or I would set up the combo and he would quickly concede to get to the next game. Game 1: He gets a first turn diamond, land, 2/1 shadow. I cast an Earthcraft. He casts another 2/1 shadow, I am at 18. I cast an Wall of Blossoms and an Overgrowth. He goes, I am at 14. I draw a Counterspell. His turn I’m at 10. My turn, I draw a Scrivener I don’t yet need. His turn I’m at 6. My turn, land. His turn I am at 2. My turn, I don’t draw again. When I lose, the top card in my deck is an Evacuation. Kevin takes a game from me. First one all day. Game 2, I combo very quickly off his mana screw. I love this game. Game 3 we have ourselves a battle. He has a single first turn creature which is pretty much going to go the whole way. He gets me down to 8 before I think I have a chance. I manipulate my deck until the only card that I am missing is an Evacuation. I mana burn down to 7 which I didn’t think mattered. Having Scroll Racked the previous turn after Intuitioning for a Scrivener, I had new cards on my deck, and 2 cards in my hand. Kevin knocks me down to 5. I draw, 3 cards in my hand. None of them Evacs. I Scroll Rack for 3. The top three cards in my library: Evac Evac Evac Onto Round 6. 5-0, 9-1-1 Round 6, I play against another 5-0, we draw. But we decide to play one for fun. He is playing Trade-Awakening. And after we officially draw I realize that I have very little testing against Trade-Awake. I win the randomization and go first. Scott’s deck is pretty impressive, it seems to be straight from The Dojo. We go back and forth, he irritatingly Capsizes my Overgrowthed Islands... Then I get my Capsize, out counter him, and Capsize lock him in his upkeep. heh. 5-0-1, 9-1-3, (I think) Round 7: I am paired against my teammate, Brian Kowal we draw. Finals: Spot Name Deck 1st WylieBlows WylieOats 2nd Scott V___ Trade-Awake 3rd Kevin Mergin WW+ (counters and goods) 4th Slappy Some Crazy Slappy Deck 5th Brian Kowal 6th Dan Thomas Humble Prayer 7th Yuan Jiang Trade-Awake 8th Bob Castro A modified Shuler deck. Modified so it was good, that is 1 vs 8 2 vs 7 3 vs 6 4 vs 5 Bob beats me, (I never had a chance....) one of the Trade-Awake decks wins 8) I think Scott. Kevin wins Slappy wins Kevin loose to Trade-Awake Slappy wins again, despite some, um, interesting plays So of the two people in the finals, neither of them wanted to go to Rome.... Ah well. WylieBlows@aol.com Team Rogue