Subject: Brazilian Rome PTQ Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:52:55 -0200 From: "Carlos Mao" To: "Frank Kusumoto" Dear Frank: Last weekend we had a Rome PTQ in Sao Paulo, with 2 spots in the line. The champion would get airfare to Rome, courtesy of Merlin Comics, the best Magic store in Brazil. Format was Rath cycle constructed. Since I have not played much recently, I built some of the main types of decks widely known and tested them. After 8-10 hours of testing, I decided to go with the Kastle recurring death deck, Birmingham GP version. I made some modifications, but they turned out to be inferior to the original version, so I gave up and used the real thing. Only slight change was a Mirri on the sideboard. There were two tournaments, one on Saturday Oct 24, 6-round Swiss qualifying 16 for direct elimination, 4 survivors going to the final 8 Sunday, joined by 4 more from a Sunday 5-round Swiss that also qualified 16 for direct elimination down to 4. Players not qualifying Saturday had a second chance Sunday. Saturday I arrive at Merlin and quickly see that this is going to be a very tough event (just the way I like!). All the Brazilian top players seem to be there, from S.Paulo, Rio, Brasilia, interior of S.Paulo. I see 3 Brazilian champs, several that played in the Brazilian Worlds teams, and a few scrubs (I think they do not like to play Rath cycle constructed). There were 100 players competing. First round: Marco from Rio, good player from Rio, very friendly guy with a Counterphoenix deck Game 1: He mulligans twice (with a 28-land deck!) and can't recover from the card disadvantage, Game 2. He starts without islands and I start with a mox. Third turn I lobotomy his phoenixes, he can't counter and that is game. Matches:1-0 Games:2-0 Second round: Alessio from S.Paulo, a new player with a blue-white deck Game 1: The first game he drops islands, propaganda, but I eagle the propaganda, living death a ton of creatures milled by the druids and win very quickly. Game 2: I see propaganda (disenchanted), then a grindstone. I worry about the humility since I only sided in 2 disenchants, but when he drops a knight of dawn I breath a sigh of relief and beat him down with Scragnoths. Matches:2-0 Games:4-0 Third round: Tiago from S.Paulo, with a sliver deck Game 1: He starts with mox, land, victual sliver, follows with muscle, then winged (after I cast a wall), counter for my death, game over. Game 2: I start with druid, activate the druid to get more land, survival 2 Scragnoths, start the Scragnoth beatdown, death when he lays down some slivers to survive and is tapped out. Game 3: Same as 2. Matches:3-0 Games:6-1 Fourth round: Kiko, a young excellent player, with a Humility deck. Lives next to the store, was qualified for Pro Tour Chicago, actually did not go there because of a foul-up in the documents needed to travel. Game 1: Surgeon one humility away, eagle the second that he intuitioned for, cast(!) a Verdant Force for the beatdown with 2 prayers on the board. Game 2: Excellent hand, I drop a surgeon, pull out his mana leak and leave the counterspell, since he had only one blue mana. Next turn I lobotomy his counterspells, establish a recurring eagle, get rid of the enchantments and win. Matches:4-0 Games:8-1 Fifth and sixth rounds: I.D.'s for the qualification. Round of 16: Sapo, from S.Paulo, with a suicide black deck Game 1: He starts with swamp, blood pet. I am happy since I have forest, swamp, Stronghold, druid, feeder and survival in hand, to get the recurring weaver for the win. I play the forest and am surprised by his next turn, swamp, sacrifice pet, rain of tears on my forest. I do not draw a forest in the next two rounds, and he gets a carnophage and a horror to beat me up. Then he forgets to pay for untapping the carnophage, and that costs him the game, as I eventually play the weaver with 1 life left to win. Game 2: He starts the attack, I death his attackers away and lay some green creatures. He perishes and lays down more attackers. I druid some creatures and death again. He perishes for the second time all my creatures (only green creatures). I cast more green creatures and he perishes for the third time.Things are looking bad, when he grafts a horror to get thru my wall and I play a feeder, but instead of targeting his horror to get rid of it (I told you I have not played much), I recur it to lose 1 life, use the druid to get more cards and get a Living Death off the scroll rack at 2 life for the win. Matches:5-0-2 Games:10-1 Round of 8: Orlando, from Jundiai with a green deck. Game 1: He beats me up while I mill away with a druid. When I get five lands, I'm at 9 life, and death for the win. Game 2: Same as game 1, except this time he lays down an altar of dementia to try and deck me. I recur a revenant for the kill, but he draws a card, says Yes! and plays the overrun and mills me for 16 cards. Since I had only 12 cards, I conceded. Later, I was told that the altar makes you put cards in the graveyard, not draw cards, and I could use my Stronghold to put a creature back on my library during my upkeep for the win, but I have not played much recently, and make dumb mistakes. Game 3: Same as game 2, except that he didn't mill enough cards, and I only attacked once in the final turn, for 28 damage. Again I made mistakes, but he also did, so I won. Matches:6-0-2 Games:12-2 Sunday: In the Sunday Swiss there were around 65 players. The four finalists from Sunday were two from S.Paulo including Boi (well, he lives and plays here but actually is from Londrina) who played in Pro Tour Paris, Colombiano from Rio and Alex Souza, the best player from Brasilia.The four finalists from Saturday were Romario, our current Brazilian champion, myself, and two other players from S.Paulo including Michel Safady, twice Brazilian champion of Magic and the Brazilian competitor at the Starwars Worlds last year. Round of 8 Alex Sousa with a Curiosity Donais deck Game 1: I start with an excellent hand and mill away 2 thirds of my library. Pretty soon things are very complicated to calculate, as Alex has mana open for countering, I have 2 druids that can mill, have living death and nightmare in hand, very few basic lands in the library, scroll rack and Stronghold in play, and a revenant in the hand. With so many options I know I have a win and don't want to screw up so I take a long time checking and rechecking my options. Alex gets nervous, he thinks I may be trying to stall for a win in the first game and not finish the second. I tell him to calm down, I realize I am taking a long time, but I'm trying not to screw up and will be happy to ask the judge to give him more time if necessary in the match. He does calm down and I eventually win the first game after attacking with a 12-12 revenant and deathing after he tapped one of his 2 islands to give flight to a manta ray to block the revenant. Game 2: I stall at 3 mana for a couple of turns, Alex drops a tradewind and locks me at 4 mana, while I have 2 Scragnoths in hand. He then curiosities an attacker, drops a Portcullis and I concede. Game 3: Alex starts with a much better hand than mine. I draw a surgeon, but do not find a Stronghold and can't recur it to draw his counters. He lays down a few creatures, counter my key spells, and slowly beats me down for the win. Matches:6-1-2 Games:13-4 Alex next played Colombiano, a player from Rio. Colombiano had an interesting deck, a blue-green deck based on the curiosity deck but with a green splash for main deck Scragnoths. Colombiano won 2-1. Boi defeated Romario in the other semifinal, Death against Death decks. In the finals, Boi beat Colombiano 2-0 to win the trip. Congratulations to our friend Boi and good luck in Rome! Best regards to all, Carlos Mao