Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 09:59:10 -0500 From: Michelle-Renee Lahoff Subject: Standard Tournament Report (Sligh) Ever have one of those days where your deck decides it hates you? I did. Although based on the winning Sligh variant I used for a tournament last April, the loss of Lightning Bolt and Dragon Whelp was too much. I didn't like the idea of using thunderbolt since its targets are too limited. I should have had more burn and less land destruction. There were four rounds of Swiss followed by single elimination. Decks I saw: Mono green beatdown - Tons of creatures, including Rogue Elephant, Harvest or Fallow Wurms, Llurgoyf. BUR Man-o-war, Nekrataal, Necratog, Incinerate, lots of creatures. UW Prison. Sligh. RGW Titania's song. Mono blue Vision Charm (used the change land type effect), Illusionary Terrain, Phantasmal Terrain, Snowfall, Manta Ray, Man-o-war. I now live in Austin, Texas, and this tournament was at Showtime on Far West. I wasn't impressed with the environment - the tables sagged, an employee started smoking around 3pm, and since their bathroom was broken you had to sneak into one of the restaurants next door. The players were good people, however. If anyone on the list knows good places to play here, please let me know. I nominate Incinerate for the most seen card of the day, if you don't count the Gemstone Mines and Undiscovered Paradises. Lesson of the day - If you have a pillage early in the game, destroy a land! Match 1 - Mono-R Sligh with burn and ball lightnings, sandstalkers, lava hounds, ironclaw orcs, vandals, and dwarven soldiers, but didn't see Artillery, Cannoneers or the Librarian. Only saw two lands in the first game :-(. Took the second game easily with Final Fortune, but in the third I hit a land glut midgame which cost me the match. He had sideboarded in pyrokenesis which really hurt my weanies. It would have been good to have keepers against this guy. 0-1-2 Match 2 - BUR Man-o-war, Nekrataal, Necratog, Shadow Guildmage, Arcane Denial, Incinerate, lots of creatures. He had two land the first game, too many the second. I won both, and the Furnace kept his graveyard safely empty the second. 1-3-2 Match 3 RGW Titania's song with winter orb, icy manipulator, diamonds, fellwars, serrated arrows, incinerate, disenchant, arcane denial. When Titania sang, I died. If he got out an Icy the Worb soon followed, and that was nasty. I did win one game where I was able to finish him off with two incinerates and a fireblast - if only I'd had more burn! 1-4-4 Match 4 RGW Jolraels Centaur, Granger Guildmage, Incinerate, Earthquake, Disenchant. I just didn't see much of this deck. Centuars were hard to deal with, and my Warbeasts got the disenchant. I really screwed up the second game when I chose to cast a creature on my third turn instead of pillaging his Karplusan. Slow death to two Centaurs, which wouldn't have happened if I'd pillaged since he was stuck at three mana for a while. 1-4-6 :-( 4 Goblin Vandal - a good idea, but opponents with artifacts would immediately incinerate 3 Dwarven Miner 2 Orcish Librarian - he ate the chapter of my spellbook with burn. 3 Ironclaw Orcs 4 Phyrexian War Beast 2 Orcish Artillery 4 Orcish Cannoneers 22 4 Death Spark 4 Incinerate 2 Lightning Cloud 4 Pillage - move two to SB, add thunderbolts/fireblast 1 Final Fortune 1 Fireblast 16 13 Mountains 4 Undiscovered Paradise 2 Gemstone Mines 3 Sheltered Valley 22 60 Sideboard: 2 Winter Orb 1 Mana Web 3 Meekstone 3 Phyrexian Furnace 4 Disenchant - I feared armored falcons 2 Swords to Plowshares - vs. armored falcons or buried alive Michelle Renee (who's happily programming computer games for a living)