Subject: PTQ Maintz in Edmonton Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 02:59:27 -0600 From: Jim Roy Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Well, I was going to wait until I got my score sheet back so I could be more accurate, but it got tossed somehow. Anyways, I get to Beyond Fantasy (awsome store) and the place is packed to the nuts. I think around 75 people played in this qualifier. This was my first PTQ. I used to never play sealed deck but I've had a bit of practice lately so I'm feeling good about it. Anyway we get our packs (2 visions boosters and 1 fifth starter) and write down the decklist. Looked OK but I didn't care cause we had to hand it in anyways. Then we all get a different (sometimes the same) deck back and that is the one we use. This helps prevent morons from bringing in their own cards. As Ivan told you before, some fool hid a bunch of cards in a plastic bag in the shitter tank. Smart, smart, smart, ... So I look at my cards and cringe. I look around me and everyone seems to have a god deck. Lots of Snakebaskets, Jokulhaups, and so on. Didn't see many (any) Wraths, Disks, or Armageddons. Buddy of mine got a breezkeeper and Jokulhaups and other good stuff. One guy got 2 Firestorm Hellkites, I wonder what colors he's playing eh? Anyways, here are the cards, judge for yourself if I got the SHAFT: Red was a definite no go: Goblin Digging Team, Pyroblast, 2 Keeper of Kookus, Detonate, The Brute!, Shatter, Hurloon Minotaur, Goblin Swine-Rider. Blue was my powerhouse color (seriously): Time and Tide, Flooded Shoreline, Portent, Man-o'-War (so glad to have one of these), Shimmering Efreet, Glacial Wall (meat and potatoes of deck), Vanishing (basically only creature removal of all the cards!), Impulse, Zur's Weirding, Inspiration, Reef Pirates, Segovian Leviathan (powerful), Voldalian Soldiers, Unstable Mutation, Mystic Veil. White, my second favorite choice: Infantry Veteran, D'Avenant Archer, Benalish Hero, Freewind Falcon, Mesa Pegasus, Rightousness, Brainwash, COP Artifact, COP Blue, Disenchant, Divine Offering, Justice, Hope Charm, Peace Talks, Equipoise, Warrior's Honour. Green: 2 Bull Elephant, Giant Caterpillar, Durkwood Boars, Pradesh Gypsies, Llanowar Elves, Elven Cache, Carapace, Venom, Primal Order, Craw Giant. Black: Raise Dead, Python, Tar Pit Warrior, Fallen Askari, Funeral Charm, Fallen Angel, Touch of Death, Mind Ravel, Unholy Strength, Torture (oh yeah the other creature removal). Multicolor: Simoon (not playing red) Artifact: Iron Star, Juju Bubble, Wall of Spears (excellent), Dragon Mask. So I got ok creatures but my definition of a game breaker was Dragon Mask! And I had virtually no creature removal. I chose blue and white as my main colors. The white is tough though because it was all good weenies, but weenies none the less. They aren't as effective as the big creatures with a one color casting cost (like Durkwood Boars and stuff). I had a tough choice between black and green, but chose green due to the seemingly easy splashability. Anyways, here's the cards I used: Blue: Portent, Manowar, Shimmering Efreet, Glacial Wall, Vanishing, Impulse, Zur's Weirding (see below), Inspiration, Reef Pirates, Segovian Leviathan, Vodalian Soldiers. White: Infantry Veteran, D'Avenant Archer, Benalish Hero, Freewind Falcon, Mesa Pegasus, Rightousness. Green: 2 Bull Elephant, Giant Caterpillar, Durkwood Boars, Llanowar Elves. Artifact: Dragon Mask (with Manowar), Wall of Spears. I was feeling kind of crappy about the cards, so I build the deck with the idea of swarming the opponent when he had nothing out. In other words, I felt my only hope of winning was if the opponent had mana-screw. I threw in the Zur's Weirding in the hopes that I could strip my opponent of a color if he got a bad draw. Besides, the Zur's doesn't screw me as much I figured because I had crappy cards and I could deny my opponents' better cards. In retrospect, playing with Zur's Weirding was not the best idea. The reason I didn't play with Flooded Shoreline was because I figured the bull elephants would be enough land in my hand. Also a mistake. I added about 16 land to make it 42 or 43 cards. Think it was like 7 islands, 5 Plains, 4 Forests. I thought I might be able to get away with the low land count because of Impulse and Portent and the white weenies, and I was right. However, I didn't realize that I had made a foolish mistake in building my deck until the first game... Round 1 vs I. Dunno All I remember is that we split the first two games. I mana screwed him one of the games, just according to plan. In the first game I realized the stupidity of my deck. With a plains, couple islands, and a forest I calmly casted a bull elephant. I guess I'll just take a couple lands back. Excuse me? Only forests? AAAAAaaaaaaargh! Bull elephant is buried. I was so sure it was "return two basic lands" that I never bothered to read the card. That sucks, especially considering I had very little forests in the deck (4). Third game was very interesting. I had been telling him that my decked sucked and the only way I could beat him was if I mana screwed him. So I did my fancy cut and he drew his hand. "Well, you did it again!" he says to me. He looked a bit angry with his one land draw. Problem was I had a one land draw too (only serious mana screw of tourney). I played the forest and we proceded to start tossing cards. I finally drew another land: forest. Grrr. Then I drew the Island and cast shimmering efreet. Next turn he got his 3rd mana and stone rained my island. I was stuck without a blue for a while but managed to get my green and white creatures out. He unloaded his hand. So here's the situation: He's got about 5 creatures and I've got 3 (Shimmering E phased out). I'm at 2, he's at 16. He attacks, I block his 5/5 pro green with a D'Avenent, ping his vampire bats, block another 3/3 with my durkwood, and a 3/2 with my 2/2. His freewind gets through, I'm at 1. I somehow got my flooded shoreline out and I returned the 5/5 to his hand and he lost two enchantments. I also got a pegasaus out to stop his freewind. Well, anyways, I was just waiting for his fireblast to finish me. Somehow he didn't draw it and my boars killed him! I would never have thought I could win that game, I owe it all to flooded shoreline. Whew. Round 2 Dave Brown Dave is an awsome player and had a good deck. First game I mana screwed him and beat him down with manowar-dragon mask. Second game he got his deck humming and clobbered me. Third game he got mana flooded and I won. I showed him my deck and he just says "How can this beat me?" Oh well, those are the breaks. By the way, I started siding out green in favor of black after every first game of each match onward. It messed a lot of people up, Dave casted Deathgrip second game but my green was gone :) Also, a couple other people put in Cop Green later in the tournament but to no avail. Round 3 vs Tall kid (must be 6'4 and he's 15) This guy was a pretty good player. First game I played a Zur's Weirding: M I S T A K E ! He had all his colors and good stuff in hand and I lost horribly. I got to see his deck and it looked pretty good. I mention that the only way I can probably win is if he get's mana screwed and he agrees. Second game I mana screwed him. Third game I mana screwed him. All according to plan. Round 4 vs Rob Bede (hope last name is right) Rob takes a long time to do stuff but he generally plays flawlessly. First game was pretty cool, I got out the Weirding and found him with a few green cards but no forests. "Yes, the Weirding worked!" I thought. I had a shimmering efreet out and I was hitting him for 2 every second turn. The ground was locked. He had an updraft and manowar in hand so it meant he could manowar my D'Avenant and throw his Clay Statue at me for a turn. But as we went along, I seemed to draw a lot of land. I had to make him toss his forests and when I was at 6 he drew a ray of command, which I promptly made him toss, otherwise I was toast. I was toast anyways though. He beat me down with the statue and other critters, he was at 4. Doh! Neither of us made any mistakes that game we thought, it was a good game. That game lasted half an hour. The second game we locked up the ground with walls and it was close. I had a couple 1/1 fliers and he was at 3 with an amulet of kroog and a bigger flier. I was at 16. I also had the flooded shoreline out, so I could hit him for 1 every once in a while, but I only had 5 cards in the deck. The game was getting really good when he got his time elemental and I got my segovian leviathon. I figured if he didn't return islands to my hand I could return his elemental and cast the leviathon. When he recasted it I could play an island and return it again and I would probably do him in before I ran out of cards. I had a disenchant in my deck so I could have toasted his amulet. We were called on time though, so we never got a chance to finish it. That sucks. So I lost my first match. About time though. Round 5 vs Kant Remember He roasted and toasted me with manowars and teferi's honor gaurds and good fliers. I had the manowar, but it sucked playing it because he would phase out his guard and I would have to return my manowar or his. I did manage to sneak in one game though, mana screw I think. Round 6 vs Noah Dea-who Beside me were a few of the guys I had mana screwed earlier, they were all warning him to be careful. So I did my special cut (take out 4 cards from middle and throw on top) and sure enough, he had a one land draw. Second game I drew 4 of my 5 plains and an island. I was doing great until he cast flash-fucking-fires. Third game was close, I got out a glacial wall and we both had weenies. I disenchanted his millstone also. He earthquaked all weenies away (mistake, he could have attacked and dealt damage to my wall but he didn't so the wall lived). He put out a hulking cyclops which just sat there and sucked. I killed him with a single fallen askari. Round 7 vs the God Deck Something like Ray of Command, Binding Grasp, Rock Slide, Shivan, incinerate, disintegrate, undo, boomerang, unsummon, suq'ata lancer, and big ass fatties. Don't know how but I managed to win the first game. Second game I tried casting my D'avanent and Wall of Spears so many times but he Undoed them, boomeranged, ect. He got me down to 8 with his stupid Suq'ata and roasted me for 8. I had about 5 or 6 creatures in hand. Third game, that's right, mana screw I win. Round 8 vs Pete Tsidiridus Pete is a very good player and one of the best in the world at constructed decks. Our games were VERY good and extremely intense. It was either me or him going to the final 8, 6-2 made it (with a good tiebreak) and 5-3 didn't. I won the first game, which was long. We had to think cause of the ovinomancers, dragon masks, manowars, and that card that swithches permanents. He had a good defense going but eventually collapsed. Second game he totally clobbered me. By the way, I think his deck was as bad as mine. He had some ok creatures but virtually no elimination or game breakers. Third game was really good too. We got called on time. I was at 2 and he was at 5, and I had to finish my turn. Excluding a significant top deck, I think I could have won if I didn't attack and blocked his elven riders with my freewind, then phasing out a blocker of his and attacking with everything. It would have been very close anyways. But I looked up and attacked him, he had one untapped creature, a quirion ranger. He "forgot" to untap a creature and took 5 damage (he was at 5). There was a big controversy about this because he is a good player and it looked like he was throwing me the game. This is a shady area though, you can't DQ anyone for something like that. Besides, I figure draws due to time are bullshit. It would have knocked both of us out. One of us deserved to go the the finals and it would have sucked if both of us were gone. You may not agree with me, but I think it was a reasonably ethical thing to do. And I respect him a lot for that. I know I would have done the same thing, I was going concede if he didn't die that turn (not sure if it's legal to concede though). I dunno. Finals The final 8 consisted of: Jim Roy (me) Mike Hanfield (one of the most amazing sealed players ever, qualified for an earlier PTQ in Seattle) JP Sohi (went to PT in France) Mike Reilly (excellent player, one of the top juniors) Jason Yorgenson (finished top in swiss) Rob Bede (awsome player from Calgary) another guy (sorry man, I just don't remember your name!) Chuck Mousseau (some guy from Calgary) I didn't like my cards at all. I drafted the best cards regardless of color for the first 5th edition booster, and drafted only red/white/blue for my second. Blue was my strongest color, I thought, red & white I couldn't decide. You may think it's silly, but I drafted a millstone and 2 vision charms. When it came time to build the deck, I had just not enough for 2 colours optimized. I didn't want 3 because my red and white both seemed to have mana intensive cards (fireblast, red 1/1's, gossamer chains, order of white shield, ect.). So I put together a deck with red and blue weenies + a winter orb + millstone + 2 vision charms. My first game went ok, I smoked him down with the red weenies. Second game I got to see Chuck's deck, NEVY'S DISK, SERAPH, ARCHANGEL, 2 CLOUD ELEMENTALS, MANOWAR, COUNTERSPELL, ect. I got totally man-handled the second and third game. Wish I had a disk, oh well. No mana screw this time to win it for me. I had fun though. It's getting late, so I'll cut to the chase: Mike Hanfield is an amazing player. He beat Chuck with an inferior deck. The games were super intense, and after one incident it became super anal as well. Mike eventually spirit linked the archangel, then divine transformed a creature of his own for the kill. JP Sohi made it to the finals as well. JP took the pass to PT Maintz and Mike took home the extra cash. Gotta say that Beyond Fantasy did an exellent job of hosting this PTQ for the first time in Alberta. An awsome store and great staff. Gotta sleep now.... ------------------------------------- | Jim Roy | | 4th Year Computer Engineering | | mailto:jproy@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca | | http://www.ualberta.ca/~jproy/ | | Irc nick: Misto | -------------------------------------