Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 09:50:32 +0000 From: Scott Wills Subject: Euro-GenCon Report Hi all. Having just got back from Euro-GenCon and having played in 6 various M:tG tournaments in 4 days I thought I'd post a report on some of the more interesting games. First, for those who don't know, a little about Euro-GenCon. It is an annual convention that takes place in England, one of the largest conventions we have over here. It's normally organised by TSR but now Wizards have bought them out, it was the WotC crew who were mainly responsible for the organisation of the various events. >From my experiences over the 4 days they did a commendable job. There was plenty to do, with hundreds of participation games and tournaments running across a variety of areas. I personally enjoyed my time there immensely and will certainly attend next year. For the first 3 days Wizards were holding various qualifier tournaments (Sealed, Type II and Extended) for a Revised/Legends/Dark sealed deck on the last day - top two from each event go through. In addition, the winner of any of the side events would also get a place. Fortunately, two of my 'team' (Rob Salmon, Nick Butterworth, Brian Herring and myself) qualified through the big events, and the other two both won a side event so all four of us were playing in Sundays big sealed event. Anyways, onto the Magic reports. Some will be longer than others but I'll try to post a little about all of them as they're all in different formats. Day 1 - Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight sealed deck. My Cards: Artifact: Sisay's Ring, Ersatz Gnomes, Mangara's Tome. Black: Restless Dead, Barrow Ghoul, Razortooth Rats, Urborg Panther, Cadaverous Knight, Abyssal Gatekeeper, Dark Banishing, Wicked Reward, Binding Agony, Painful Memories, Reign Of Terror, Funeral Charm. Blue: Shrieking Drake, Merfolk Raiders, Kukemesa Serpent, Dream Fighter, Knights Of The Mist, Wave Elemental, Shaper Guildmage, Fog Elemental, Time And Tide, Relearn, Soar, Undo, Dissipate, Reality Ripple. Green: Jungle Wurm, Mwonvuli Ooze, Brushwagg, Giant Mantis, River Boa, Harvest Wurm, Briar Shield, Armor Of Throns, Rampant growth, Seedling Charm, Choking Vines, Nature's Kiss, Feral Instinct, Natural Order. Gold: Haunting Apparition, Circle Of Despair. Red: Talruum Minotaur, Sawtooth Ogre, Goblin Tinkerer, Dwarven Vigilantes, Dwarven Miner, Reign Of Chaos, Chaos Charm, Firebreathing, Fit Of Rage. White: Longbow Archer, Civic Guildmage, Iron Tusk Elephant, Femeref Healer, Wall Of Resistance, Benevolent Unicorn, Righteous Aura, Disenchant, Healing Salve, Serra's Blessing, Hope Charm. Non-basic land: Quick Sand, Gemstone Mine. Analysis: Blue is an obvious first choice. Some solid creatures, some average creatures but no real fliers. Good Spells though. Red and Green are both poor. The few decent creatures require double colour CC. Spells are poor at best. Black is good, has average creatures, but no killer cards except the Banish. White is nothing but weenies. I decided to play (more or less) two colours: Black/Blue with just a small splash of white to power the Guildmage's First striking ability, and for the Circle, the Hope Charm and Wall of Resistance as I was so short on fliers. My Deck: Creatures (16): Restless Dead, Barrow Ghoul, Razortooth Rats, Urborg Panther, Cadaverous Knight, Abyssal Gatekeeper (a mistake), Shrieking Drake, Merfolk Raiders, Kukemesa Serpent, Dream Fighter, Mist Knights, Wave Elemental, Shaper Guildmage, Fog Elemental, Wall Of Resistance, Haunting Apparition. Spells (7): Dissipate, Undo, Soar, Circle Of Despair, Hope Charm, Dark Banishing, Funeral Charm. Land (17): Gemstone Mine, Quicksand, 3 x Plains, 6 x Swamp, 6 x Island. I was not that happy with the deck I pulled out here - my only good cards appeared to be the Dark Banishing and the Dissipate. I thought carefully about actually playing as this is not a deck that would get me into the top two, and there was plenty of other stuff top do. However, I decided to play a couple of rounds and see what happened. Round 1: Dean Johnson Game 1: A wonderful start. 12 land 5 spells and *zero* creatures! I Dissipate a Jungle Worm (The first of many..) and maybe Banish something else but I get smacked around big time. Game 2: This is a little better. He's playing Islands, and a Flying 4/4 Costa Mesa smacks him down to 12 before it's burned. We reach a bit of a standoff although I'm on only 8 life by now. The Razortooth Rats hit the deck, and he has no answer as they beat him down to 0. Game 3: We trade a little hurt, then I dispose of one of his flankers with my Knights, and start attacking with Merfolk Raiders and the Shrieking Drake, He concedes when he's on 6 which I find a little strange but his deck obviously has no anser to the islandwalkers. Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-1 Round 2: ........ Don't know who I played here as I lost my pen. :-) I won 2-0 though. Matches: 2-0 Games: 4-1 I go find another pen. :-) Round 3: Gordon Benson Game 1: We both start off O.K. I dispose of a Flanker with my Knight and get out the Wave Serpent also. We both trade a little damage. I'm able to block with my Kukemesa I think so I don't take much. He Phantom Wings it, then returns it to my hand and smacks me a bit more taking me to 13. I summon it again next turn, but he Undo's the following turn and takes me down to 8. I am able to get rid of his main attacker with my Banish, and it starts to look like I have the advantage. He empties his hand for a 3 pt Firestorm, on my two Serpents and me taking me to 5. I respond by Soaring the Mesa and after some sacrificing of islands takes him down from 12 to 0. Long game. Game 2: He has 2nd turn Boa, 3rd turn Armor Of Thorns. I Undo it. He Undo's me. I'm down to 7, he's on 13, and the board is fairly clear. My Barrow Ghoul hits and steamrolls over. Key play: Sacrificing my Wave Serpent when I had no creatures left in my graveyard to pay the upkeep, and tapping all his blockers so the Barrow Ghoul could finish it. Matches: 3-0 Games: 6-1 My deck is obviously not as janky as I first thought. Either that or I'm just that good a player. Personally I tend to go with the former... :-) Round 4: Dave Stevens Game 1: A first turn Roc Hatchling gives me some grief when it hits 3/3 on turn four, but I top-deck the Banish to get rid of it. I'd taken him to 14 with some Restless Dead and the awesome (not) Haunting Apparition, when he Twisters and clears the board. It's O.K. as my Barrow Ghoul then comes down and munches it's way through my graveyard, his blockers and, eventually, his life total. Game 2: Weird game. I dispose of his first turn Hatchling again, and he has a Downdraft that halts my Haunting Apparition in it's tracks. I have nothing in my deck that can kill the Dowandraft and we stall. I have my Circle Of Despair out which makes attacking very difficult for him. Neither of us can break the stalemate, but as we approach the end of the round he desperately attacks, and follows with a 3 pt Twister. Careful use of the Circle means I don't lose much from either, and we get timed out. Matches: 4-0 Games: 7-1 Round 5: Nick Butterworth I hate playing team members at times like this, as a draw would probably knock both of us out of contention. We play. Game 1: A Boa does me a lot of early damage, but Razor Ramon (rats) returns the favour. We are about level when my Costa Mesa Serpent lands, and next turn it gets Soared and takes him from 8 to 0. Game 2: He gets a lot of fatties out that I can't deal with at all (Treefolk and such) and the only damage I do is with my Shrieking Drake. I die. Game 3: He has a lot of creatures that I have no answer for at all. I Dissipate the Jungle Worm, but can't deal with everything else. Ouch. Matches: 4-1 Games: 8-3 Round 6: Peter Kolb Game 1: First turn Guildmage and second turn Merfolk Raiders hurt a little, as he's playing Blue. When the 'Mage can't attack it just pumps the Raiders. Once he's been softened up a little the MVP Flying Costa Mesa takes him from 12 to 0. Gotta love that fella. :-) Game 2: We trade hurt. I'm on 10 he's on around 14, but a Soared 2/2 is beating him down. He's holding two cards, and playing red so I'm fearing a Torch (He could Torch me for 8 I think) or Fireblast. When he's on 6 he attacks me with everything he has. I can make some sacrificial blocks but can't stay above 8 so I let a little through and risk being on 6 life. He shows me two land. Nice. Matches: 5-1 Games: 11-3 That's enough for 5th place (64 players total) which I'm really happy with as I still don't think the deck was a 5-1 deck (All my team-mates berated me for complaining that the deck was pants whilst I just kept on winning with it). I'm happy with the deck I made, and I think going with (mostly) two colours was the right way to go. Nick eventually finishes 2nd. Day 2: Extended Format. I have no clue about extended. I know Fork and Hymn are broken so I'm determined to play with 4 of either of these. :-) The only Dual Land that I have more than one of is Bayou (I have 3) so I go with B/G and toss in some Rocky Tar Pits so I can fetch my Duals. :-) I don't have any of my play cards with me so make the deck up the night before from stuff I had in my trade folder and what I could scrounge from others. :-) Here's the deck: Creatures: 2 x PumpKnight, 4 x Hypno, 2 x Sengir, 3 x Erhnam, 1 x Ihsan 2 x Black Knight, 2 x Erg Raiders, 2 x Nekrataal Stuff: 4 x Hymn, 2 x Aeolipile, 4 x Ritual, 2 x Contagion, 2 x Simulacrum 1 x Consultation, 3 x Drain Life Land: 3 x Bayou, 2 x Rocky Tar Pit, 2 x Lake Of The Dead, 2 x Mishra 2 x Quicksand, 13 x Swamp Rogue Card: 1 x Snake Basket (Just for the hell of it). Sideboard: 4 x Sand Golem, 4 x Gloom (Big Mistake), 2 x Quicksand, 2 x Simulacrum 2 x Nev's Disk, 1 x Phyrexian Furnace. This has got to be one of the worst sideboards I've ever constructed I think. Overall, it's your typical B/G with no tuning whatsoever. Round 1: James Waller. W/u Weenie Armor. Game 1: Him: 2nd turn White Knight. Me: 2nd turn Hymn. Him: 3rd turn Armor. Me: Oh sh!t. :-) I sac both land to a Lake + Ritual to get Hyppie, Erg's and a Pump Knight out on turn three, but he's able to Swords the Hyppie so I go down in flames four turns later. He's playing Blue so my Glooms are useless (Why aren't they Dystopia?!?). I need 4 'Piles also. I side in Quicksand, Disk, Simulacrum. Game 2: He get's land and Mishra and beats me up with it for a while. I don't know what I drew but I could do jack about it. He then get's a White Knight and Geddon's the turn after, and plays a land. My turn, I have a Swamp luckily, but have nothing on the board and can do squat. He follows with a Second Knight, but I'm able to Ritual out a Disk, and next turn pop it, but I'm still on only 4 life. Things improve. I get a Lake, I get a Pump Knight. He gets a couple of Falcons though which I can't touch (But they can't block either). He'll be dead in 3 turns, I'm gone in two. Luckily I Simulacrum both the Falcons onto my Pump Knight ("No, it doesn't target your creatures, and yes the damage is still from a white source") for a couple of turns and Ihsan arrives to save the day! Game 3. It comes down to this: He's low on life, but I'm dead next turn from an armoured Duskrider. He Arcanes my Simulacrum that I cast in his discard phase that would've given me an extra turn to live. I have one card in hand (a swamp) and I need to top-deck something to kill the falcon, or do him 6 damage. From the three cards I draw a get two more Swamps and a Ritual. :-) I die, but it was a great game with a dozen or so spectators. Matches: 0-1 Games: 1-2 Round 2: The Gods take pity on me and I get a Bye. Matches: 1-1 Games: 3-2 Round 3: David Lewis - G/W Game 1: He Armors an early elf and hits me for 6. He plays a land so I Drain it for 5 next turn. He follows with a Rabid Wombat and slaps an Armor and a Briar Shield on it! (It's 7/8 right there!). I am flying over with a Sengir, but am getting smacked by the Wombat, with no Nekrataal in sight. Fortunately I top-deck my 'Basket and pop 4 Snakes via a Lake. They jump in front of the Wombat for the next couple of turns as the Sengir finishes things. Game 2: My deck is just rude. First turn Hyppie, Second turn Hymn, third turn Hyppie. My opponent has zero cards in his hand on turn 4. I apologise lots but I don't think it helped. Matches: 2-1 Games 5-2 Round 4: Brian Herring (For those that aren't paying attention - a fellow team member). He's playing similar to me, but with White for Swords/Serra. Game 1: I get more creatures than he does, and beat him down with Knights, Mishra, Erhnam, and finally an Aeolipile. Game 2: My opening hand has Ritual, Knights, 2 x Sand Golem, and some land. I Ritual the Knights on turn 2, and have 2 Land and Golems. He Hymns me next turn when I have the two Golems and two land in hand. I shuffle my hand, and he pulls both land!! Jammy Bastich! :-) I'm mana-screwed for the rest of the game and finally die to an attack from 2 Erhnams, Serra, Sengir and Knight. :-) Game 3: This time it's worse. I get a Ritualed Hyppie. He gets Savannah and Swords. I'm holding three (Count 'em.. 1..2..3!) Sand Golems and have just land on the table and his deck absoulutely refuses to give him a Hyppie or a Hymn. I die to fat 4/4 flying beat down. Sand Golems suck! :-) Matches: 2-2 Games: 6-4 Well it's two very close losses, but I call it a day here as I know my deck is missing some crucial elements. To make the deck viable: Swap Glooms for Dystopias. Add two Aeolipile to the main deck, probably in place of Erg Raiders. Add Serrated Arrows to the sideboard in place of Sand Golems. Add another Ihsan, in place of a Sengir, or swap both and run three main deck Ihsans. Put Necrosavants in the side for other black decks, not Sand Golems, swap these in for Ihsan. Optional: Find some Forsaken Wastes if you're metagame includes a lot of Wisdom. Other highlights of Friday and Saturday: - Taking the above extended deck through to the final of a side tournament only to get beaten down by White Knight + Armor *again*. (Where are my Dystopia!?!) :-) - Going 3-0/6-0 in a 12 player Portal booster draft. I hadn't ever seen Portal cards until this point. - Winning a Type II side event with my Senor Stompy, taking only 11 damage over the course of the tournament. Unseen Walkers in the sideboard won me a game. :-) This qualified me for Sundays Revised/Leg/Dark sealed. - Game of Stash. (Monopoly on drugs - I was getting bad trips from Pot, Coke, Methodone, and damn near everything!) :-) Day 4 (Sunday): Sealed (Revised Starter + Legends + Dark Boosters). This was a *lot* of fun. My cards: Revised: Throne Of Bone, Helm Of Chatzuk, Black Vise, Juggernaut. Wall Of Bone, Black Knight, Drudge Skeletons, Plague rats, Animate Dead, Demonic Tutor, Terror, Paralyze, Cursed Land, Unholy Strength, Dark Ritual. Sea Serpent, Prodigal Sorcerer, Power Leak, Jump, Flight. Wall Of Brambles, Ironroot Treefolk, Scryb Sprites, Llanowar Elves, Giant Growth, Tranquility. Kird Ape, Mijae Djinn, Hurloon Minotaur, Gray Ogre, Mons's Goblin Raiders, Atog, Stone Giant, Red Elemental Blast, Stone Rain, Disintegrate, Fireball, Fork (!), Mesa Pegasus, Holy Armor, Guardian Angel, CoP: Blue. Legends: Sword Of The Ages (!), Wall Of Shadows, Ghosts Of The Damned, Transmutation, Flash Counter, Reset, Fire Sprites, Durkwood Boars, Raging Bull, Crimson Kobolds, Crookshank Kobolds, Kobold Drill Sergeant, Amrou Kithkin, D'Avenant Archer, Righteous Avengers. Dark: Curse Artifact, Inquisition, Bog Rats, Marsh Viper, Goblin Rock Sled, Goblin Wizard, Pikemen, Brainwash. Analysis: Blue and White are clearly non-starters. Red is just so God-like it's untrue! Fireball, Disintegrate *and* Fork. Some reasonable creatures there also. Black has some O.K. creatures but is a little short - the Tutor and Terror make up for it though. I decide to go with Black/Red, but debate for ages as to whether to include a splash of Green for extra creatures as 40 cards in just R/B would probably be mean I have to include sub-standard cards. In the end I splash it for three creatures. Wall Of Brambles as a great staller, Fire Sprites to give me extra Red for Mijae and Fork, and the Boars for the beatdown. My deck: Creatures (16): Juggernaut, Wall Of Bone, Black Knight, Drudge Skeletons, Wall Of Brambles, Kird Ape, Mijae Djinn, Hurloon minotaur, Gray Ogre, Stone Giant, Wall Of Shadows, Fire Sprites, Durkwood Boars, Raging Bull, Bog Rats, Goblin Rock Sled. Spells (8): Fireball, Disintegrate, Fork, Demonic Tutor, Terror, Animate Dead, Sword Of The Ages, Land (18) 7 x Swamp, 7 x Mountain, 4 x Forest. As you might imagine I was fairly satisfied with that lot. The spells simply could not be better, and I had a lot of creatures that could stall games. It was clear from the start that I was not going to be killing many people with critters though. It was all about the cheese. I think that I maybe should've evened out the Black and Green a little more, and included the Treefolk, the Giant Growth. Round 1: David Bailey. Game 1: We trade a couple of early points then I get down my stallers and hold the game up until I drop the Sword. Next turn, Fireball you for 8. Next turn, Disintegrate you for 9, Sword you for 13. ;-) Game 2: I get the Mijae out turn 3. he Terrors it next turn, and I Fork his Terror onto something big. We're level again. I stall some more. He has a 4/4 Legend and a couple of 2/2's, and a Wall of Stone. I slap down the almighty Sword, and the next turn he Steal Artifacts it!!! :-) I call the Judge over as this is clearly not a legal move! :-) So next turn, I Tutor for my Terror and Terror his 4/4, Fireball both his 2/2's and start slapping him with my horde of crappy 2/2's and 1/1's. He drops from 19 to 0 in three turns and doesn't get another creature to pop my Sword with. Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-0 Round 2: Phil Boorman. Game 1: I get a turn 3 Mijae, he gets a turn 4 Bog Wraith. He Swords' my Mijae, I Fork it onto his Bog Wraith. I love Fork! :-) I don't take another point of damage, and my Kird Ape and Minotaur beat on him, with my Juggernaut jumping in for the final attack. Game 2: He get's a little mana screwed and my deck comes out like it's on Steroids. When he finally gets to four mana, he's getting slapped by my Minotaur, Juggernaut and Durkwood Boars. The word "steamroller" is oh so appropriate. Matches: 2-0 Games: 4-0 Round 3: Rob Salmon (Yet another Team member). Game 1: I'm manascrewed. I have to Demonic Tutor for a Mountain. :-( I get slapped big time, but my Minotaur takes him to 10 somehow. I drop the Sword and need to kill him next turn. I cock up and tap the wrong mana for an upkeep cost, so I can't play the last 1/1 in my hand for 10 power through the Sword. I lose. Game 2: *Big time* manascrew. I see only 5 Mountains and despite casting 5 creatures I get hit for 18 by a Beasts Of Bogardan despite having the Tutor in hand (fetch Terror). I am able to Sword the Beasts but he DD's for the last 2 points. Next two cards were Swamp, Terror. I decide I am cursed when it comes to playing fellow team members. Matches: 2-1 Games: 5-2 Round 4: Brian Herring (Yet again!! This is getting silly). Game 1: I take a little from a Bog Imp and Scryb Sprite until Stone Giant arrives and the Judge confirms that my Wall Of Brambles can regenerate from the Giants end of turn 'kill' effect. I don't know how I killed him but cheese was present. Game 2: I get my Mijae and my Juggernaut early but Brian has a 1/1 regenerator. Mijae fails to attack 6 times in a row (From now on I side *with* Tom Guevin on any and all coin flip arguments! ;-) ), so Brian takes a sum total of *zero* damage from these two, although he's down to ten from Kird Apes and such. Brian Disks! I get slapped by an Air Elemental. Game 3: We trade life for a bit. I'm on 12 and am blocking an Azure Drake with the Stone Giant + Wall again. He's on 4 but has a Dark Heart of the Wood and 4 Forests. I Cheese him to -1, he loses a couple of forests to be on 5 (Ok I forgot about the Heart, so sue me.. ;-) ). He get's his Disk again and follows up with the faithul Air Elemental. I Red Blast it. A couple of turns later I get the Tutor to get the burn to do the damage to win the game. Matches: 3-1 Games: 7-3 I decide maybe I'm not that cursed after all. ;-) Round 5: Guy Brew. Game 1: I think he was a little short on Mana. I get turn 4 Juggernaut. He chump blocks next turn with a 2/2 and howls it for 1. I Animate the Juggernaut that same turn. That and the Stone Giant seal the game. Game 2: He's mana-screwed again. He's getting beat on hard by Boars, Kird Ape and the Stone Giant before he has a chance to recover. A bad way to win. Matches: 4-1 Games: 9-3 Round 6: Dave Fry. Game 1: I get some early damage from my little guys, and the cheese turns up on cue to finish things. Game 2: A fair bit of creature trading goes on, but he has a lot more creature removal than me. He Ashes to Ashes two of my critters, Terrors a third, Pyrotechnics two more, and Giant growths a sixth. He has barely a scratch on him. Game 3: A great game. We both know what's in each others decks now and play accordingly. Dave saves his Ashes for my regenerators, and I save my stuff for his big guys. After a long battle I get him to 15, he gets me down to 7. We both know we have Burn left (Both have X-spells) so it's a race to the finish. Dave casts a 12 Point Stream of Life and I Fork it on to me. It starts looking like it might go down to the wire. We both have exactly the same number of cards in our library (down to 8 by now) but Dave is drawing ahead of me. It does mean that I can't use the Tutor I'm holding though. Even though I'm on 19, Dave only needs to get a couple of points to bring me in Fireball range. He get's out some more creatures and I'm forced to take 2 damage. He burns me for the full 17 when we both have only 3 cards left in our library. An awesome game that we both enjoyed playing a lot. Dave's deck was certainly better than mine overall, and he deserved to win. Matches: 4-2 Games: 10-5 This gets me 9th spot apparently (I thought my tie-breakers would've been better but a couple of other 4-2's beat me in) which is not that bad. I think it's weird that I go 4-2 with a great deck like this, and yet go 5-1 with the dodgy MVW deck. That's Magic I guess. Overall I scored 19-6 in matches over the 4 days which is a fairly credible performance given the variety of formats. My team took home around 400 pounds ($600) worth of Magic as prizes which is good going really considering the level of prizes available here in the UK. Well that's the end of this little (!) report, hope you enjoyed it. See you at GenCon in '98! Scott. ****************************************************************** Scott Wills Nene College Of Higher Education APS Faculty IT Advisor Boughton Green Road E-mail: scott.wills@nene.ac.uk Northampton, NN2 7AL Tel: +44 01 604 735500 (ext 2557) Fax: +44 01 604 719465