Subject: PTQ - Columbus 10/17 Tourney Report Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:27:04 -0400 From: Robert Rosenbach To: "'fkusumot@ix.netcom.com'" I figured that the 10/17 PTQ would be the last chance to take advantage of my practice for PTQ-Andcon, where I went a disappointing 2 - 2. Although there's no way I'd be able to go to Rome, $250 would be nice. I'd even settle for top eight and a box of boosters. After some inner debate over playing WW over TradeAwakening, I decided to stick with the deck I practiced with, TradeAwakening. After some last-minute tweaking of the sideboard, I had your basic vanilla TradeAwakening deck, as follows: 4 Awakening 4 Tradewind Rider 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Spike Feeder 3 Spike Weaver 2 Hammerhead Shark 4 Capsize 4 Counterspell 3 Forbid 3 Mana Leak 2 Whispers of the Muse 11 Islands 10 Forest 4 Skyshroud Forest Sideboard 4 Legacy's Allure 1 Torture Chamber 3 Scragnoth 3 Chill 2 Wasteland 2 Tranquility So after gulping down a cup of coffee, I tear off down the road, running about twenty minutes late. I get to the tourney five minutes before it begins, and dash off my deck list. They're running right on schedule, so before I have a chance to catch my breath, the pairings go up, and we're off; 60 players, for six rounds of Swiss. Top eight win a box of product and play off for the $250 and the slot. Match 1 - Doug Lipps, DCI 738913, playing Orim's Prayer / Humility I thought the name looked familiar; it turns out Doug runs a card shop here in town that I've played at before. We chat for a couple of minutes, wish each other luck, and off we go. Game 1: The Awakening / Capsize lock comes down quickly, while he's tapped out from playing a Humility. After I bounce up all his permanents, he concedes. Game 2: I side in the Tranquilities, and we get started. He gets a Humility and a Prayer down, but can't seem to draw a Grindstone. In the meantime, I get a Feeder down, and start hitting him for two points a turn. His Grindstone finally appears, and after a small counter war, it stays. I manage to get a Weaver down, and even with another Prayer on the table, the two finish him off. Matches: 1 - 0, Games: 2 - 0 Match 2 - Jason Limoco, DCI 146005, playing Burning Bridge with Scalding Tongs and Blue support. This didn't look like any Burning Bridge I'd ever practiced against; it had Seismic Assault and Scalding Tongs for damage, and used the blue Oath to empty his hand. Game 1: Tradewinds and Hammerheads beat him down. I never get the Capsize lock, but never really needed it. Game 2: In go the Scragnoths for more beat. As we shuffled, we talked about mana screw being the most frustrating part of the game. Big mistake, as this sent all my Forests diving for the bottom of the deck. While I'm dying for any source of green mana, his Tongs and his Assault are wearing me down. I finally get two green sources to put an Awakening out, but by then he has THREE Tongs going, and I'm at six life. I thrash around a little bit, but he finishes me off with Shocks and Kindles. Game 3: After shuffling the crap out of my deck, the Forests once again dive to the bottom, but this time they don't quite make it. He Tongs and burns me down to five life before I get my second green source, but this time the Capsize lock takes hold before he kills me, and it's his turn to thrash around to no avail. Matches: 2 - 0, Games 4 - 1 Match 3 - Chris Faesi, DCI 649602, Blue Control with Black good stuff. Chris was playing yet another deck that I hadn't seen before, a counter-heavy deck with Stalking Stones being the major beatdown creature, and black for creature removal and Lobotomy. Game 1: I pulled a relatively creature-heavy draw, and Spikes and sharks beat him down. Game 2: In go Scragnoths and Wastelands. Those Forests still remember that mana screw conversation, and dive once more to the bottom of the deck. I was also a little counter-thin, and he manages to push three Lobotomies through at various points in the game, relieving me of every one of my counters. Finally, I manage to get a Spike and a Hammerhead down, only to have him drop a Legacy's Allure. Between his Stalking Stones and my own Hammerhead, I get squished. Game 3: I look in the deck and find about seven Forests in a clump, about three cards from the bottom. Cowardly bastards. My opening draw looks like Scrag, Island, Forest, Forest, Forest, Forbid, Capsize. After a little bit of draw-go, I pull another land and another Scraggy. I get the Scragnoth down as soon as possible, and it starts serving. He manages to Dark Banish it away, but I then drop his twin brother, who finishes the job. Matches: 3 - 0, Games 6 - 2. Match 4 - Chuck Horn, DCI 701204, WW I'm at table #2 now; a fairly new experience. Mike Guptil's wife comes along and takes our decks off for a deck check. Chuck and I chat for a few minutes, and then Mike Guptil comes along and asks me to come with him. It turns out that instead of Wheaties, I had Dumbass for breakfast; I wrote down 9 Forests instead of 10, and 3 Legacy's instead of 4. Fantastic. I get a game loss for each mistake, which equals a match loss, I have to remove the tenth Forest from my main deck, and I lose the use of my sideboard for the remainder of the tournament. Chuck gets a match win without drawing a card. I've lost some matches doing stupid stuff in my short Magic career, but I ought to be able to read, write, and count well enough to make out a decklist. The moral of the story: double check your decklist, even if you don't think you have the time. Matches: 3 - 1, Games 6 - 4. Match 5 - Randy Wright, DCI 783176, Living Death So after kicking myself for an hour, I go check the standings after the round. My tiebreakers are pretty high, and nothing exciting is going on in the way of side tournaments, so I figure I'll stick it out. Game 1: I win the die roll, but have to Mulligan. My six cards look like crap, but there's an Island and a Skyshroud Forest, so I figure I might pull out of it. No such luck. Randy gets down all the Living Death essentials just about as fast as possible, while I draw crap. I concede around turn six so as not to show him a lot of my deck. Not that he's fooled - he knows Island + Skyshroud Forest = TradeAwake. Game 2: No sideboard for me, thank you very much. However, I get a quick Capsize lock, and he concedes when all of his permanents go away. Game 3: I get two quick Tradewinds out, plus enough stuff to get the bounce going, but can't seem to find an Awakening, a Capsize, or a counter. I end up bouncing his Tradewinds with my Tradewinds for about eight turns, all the meantime pulling nothing but land. He's land glutted too, but recovers first and gets more Tradewinds down. He soon gets the initiative, and gets Volrath's Stronghold / Thrull Surgeon recursion going against me. I scoop. Matches: 3 - 2, Games: 7 - 6 Match 6 - Tracy McCoy, DCI 120829, Big Green Stuff with Vineyards After checking the standings again, I see that my tiebreakers are still fairly good; I'm the highest 3 - 2, and am higher than a lot of 4 - 1s. I figure that if any 4 -2 gets in, it'll be me, so I stick it out. Game 1: It's pretty amazing what free green mana does for TradeAwake. He gets three Vineyards down, and I Capsize lock him in record time. Since I leave his Vineyards, he doesn't concede, and a beefed-up Tradewind serves for the game. Game 2: Sideboard? None for me, thanks. However, Tracy leaves the Vineyards in and I get Tradewinds out and bouncing by the third turn. A couple of Awakenings and a Capsize join in, and pretty soon he has no permanents except for two Walls of Blossoms, which I graciously let him keep. Once again, he doesn't concede, and beefed-up Tradewinds fly in to finish the job. Matches: 4 - 2, Games: 9 - 6 So I hang around for a bit, waiting for the final postings. They go up and...ninth place with 12 points. The top eight had thirteen or more points; most 4 - 1's drew out. Top eight get a box of product, ninth gets a box of JACK. Talk about a kick in the ass; I don't know if I'd have won that fourth match, but I'd have had a better chance than I did with an automatic match loss. By this time, it was around six in the evening, so I left for home without watching the top eight. Since everyone does their props and slops at this point, here goes: Props: - To Alan, John, Jon, and Scott for all the playtesting. We never did find the killer non-Dojo deck that we were looking for, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. - Mike Guptil and Andcon, for running the tournament about as smoothly as I've ever seen one ran. Every match went off on time, with no hassles. Facilities were excellent, with no crowding, adequate lighting, and plenty of water to drink. - To all the other players in the tournament, for the friendly, relaxed atmosphere. I don't know why, but everyone was much more relaxed and light-hearted at this tournament than at the PTQ at Andcon that I attended a couple of weeks before. - To all my opponents. Everyone I played was cordial and courteous. Slops: - Andcon, for not bringing enough Urza's Saga to hold US booster drafts. I think the demand for booster drafts would have been higher, had there been US booster drafts. - Myself, for dicking up my decklist. It's not that hard to double-check your decklist, but my perceived hurry kept me from doing so. Consider this a lesson learned - ALWAYS CHECK YOUR DECKLIST. Robert Rosenbach, DCI 772644 rrosenbach@earthlink.net