From: tkrzywicki Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: report-NC State Championships (pretty long) Date: Sun, 03 Aug 1997 15:21:15 -0400 after a night of playtesting (and, unfortunately, not a lot of sleep), myself (mike krzywicki),my brother (tim krzywicki), shane cruise, and todd deen make the thirty-minute trek from winston-salem to high point to register for the state championships. a recap of the previous night's events: 1. shane breaks down and decides to build a carbon copy of my deck (4cg) instead of the variant on bigos' forgotten orbish deck used at nationals. 2. todd, knowing a good opportunity when he sees one, switches from the pretty bad 3 color sligh deck he had been playing earlier that day to the forgotten orbish deck after realizing that shane wouldn't be using it. unfortunately for todd and perhaps for us, he hasn't played the deck before and needs a good amount of playtesting in order to adjust to the deck (ditto for shane, but he has at least watched me play with the 4cg deck so he knows quite a bit already). 3. tim........sleeps. 4. shane gets slightly upset after getting mana screwed three games out of six against todd, who finds shane's plight quite amusing. 5. tim........sleeps. 6. four o' clock comes around, with the three of us weary and exhausted, and not much better for the wear. i look over at tim and wonder if he perhaps had the right idea all long. 7. 4:30- we all........sleep. Saturday- while everyone else is registering their deck, i, in my usual style, calmly realize that i am once again flat broke and spend 20 minutes peddling cards to nearby players, eventually getting enough to enter the tournament and get a coke (caffeine is good). on to the tourney... round 1 vs. some guy playing a r/u/b millstone augury deck the first game, i see an augury hit the board on turn three and begin to fear a revolutionary new deck type that i missed on the net. fortunately for me, i see a millstone the next turn, calm down, and proceed whip up my opponent with a 6/6 dervish. sideboard- in comes the fourth winter orb and the armageddon (don't think i'll really need them but better to be safe than sorry). the second game- three winter orbs down on turn four (he's playing with icys)...game over. 2-0 games, 1-0 matches round 2 vs. Shane Cruise we are both a little pissed at the pairings and decide to draw, despite the fact that i have more experience with the deck. 2-0 games, 1-0-1 matches round 3 vs. john murray playing mono black almost control with nightmares and glaciers i've watched john play before and know that an early dervish means nothing against his deck (disk, quicksand, necromancy on one of my green critters). game 1- winter orb shuts him down pretty hard and he is forced to nekrataal my quiron rangers, leaving my grangers ready for action and his nekrataals in the graveyard. i get the first one, but am worried about sideboard (i don't have much against his deck, he sides in 8 cards). i eventually decide to side in some manowars and a second ophidian, along with a fourth orb. the second game-he crushes me, drawing three disks and three dystopias in his first 20 cards. aarrgh! the third game- it all came down to one move- john has an lonely ihsan's shade on the board and i have a 4/4 maro, a bird, a ranger, and granger. i'm playing with japanese centaurs, grangers, and rangers, and have already predicted to shane that a couple of my opponents probably wouldn't remember the granger's second ability (w- first strike). sure enough, i attack with the maro, john blocks, and i respond by returning a forest to my hand and giving maro first strike. john then takes a closer look at the granger and proclaims "i couldn't read that...could i take that back?" i respond by saying "if you asked what the granger did, i would have told you, but, unfortunately, you didn't. sorry" john and i have known each other for a while so he didn't hold a grudge, but he was a little pissed that he didn't see it. stormbind does him in after a disk. 4-1 games, 2-0-1 matches round four vs. chuck wright playing w/u falcons, air elemental, post. the first game begins with a first turn glacier for chuck and a second turn winter orb for me. i maintain complete control over the game, eventually manowaring an air elemental that john had won a counter war (a short one, mind you, only three in my deck) over under the worb. a river boa and a manowar do him in. second game he gets manascrewed and by the time he has enough land to wrath i have two worbs on the board. we play for fun since there's plenty of time left and i beat him another three times in a row. 6-1 games, 3-0-1 matches round five vs. rick shinook playing r/u m lapse, ophidian, control we both know the rules, five rounds of swiss so we draw. 6-1 games, 3-0-2 matches the top eight: 1. james kidd (playing r/u "passive red" as he called it. james is a good player and friend and i hope not to have to play him) 2. norm albertson (playing r/u more aggressive like justin gary's deck... actually, probably a copy.) 3. chris killmeyer (playing r/g fast fatties with burn to back up) 4. dennis lee (playing finkelpost variant. dennis is another really intelligent player that i would rather not face since i would probably die to his deck if i don't draw an early worb or two.) 5. mike krzywicki (me-playing four color green with the fifth in the board for gloom) 6. chuck wright (w/u falcon, elemental, outpost) 7. rick shinook (r/u m lapse, ophidian, soul barrier???, other than that, standard r/u control) 8. bailey irwin (part of the charlotte crew, along with dennis. playing mono green with four worbs i think) ____ 9. shane cruise-NOOOOOOOOOO! shane was pretty upset, he lost out on the tie breaker by something like six thousandths of a point. me vs. dennis (finkelpost) the first game i see an early worb and work him over with a granger, a ranger, and a centaur. the second game i see another early worb but it along with a quiron ranger are my only permanents on turn four (damn one gemstone mine draw!). i win out on the marathon game that develops by forcing dennis to use counters under the orb every turn on more worbs (sided in the fourth, of course), glooms, armageddon (sided it in too), stormbind, etc. exhausted, i prepare for my next match against the mono green guy, bailey irwin. me vs. bailey irwin (mono g with lots of worb) game 1 i see two early centaurs and a stormbind (which gobbles his deck whole). i kill him with the centaurs and an ophidian. game 2 he gets a jump on me and has two serrated arrows out, devouring everything i have in play (and silly me siding out my disenchants). game 3 before this game starts i have to make the critical decision as to whether or not i should side back in my artifact destruction. i decide that the extra manowars and critter control would be generally more important. bailey draws not enough creatures in his opening hand, and the ones he does draw get eaten alive by an early stormbind. he falls prey to a 6/6 dervish. the final match... me vs. norm albertson r/u garyesque deck the first game i draw all three worbs in my first twenty cards and he dies to a maro (5/5 i believe). the second game he appears to be in control until one of my sideboard cards hits the table.....bubble matrix. norm: "so....uh....that says that all damage done to creatures is..." me: "reduced to zero. that is indeed what it says" norm: "in other words...all damage dealt to creatures is..." me: "you got it, reduced to zero" a thunderstruck norm continues to babble on deliriously as this card eats his deck alive. he dies to a centaur, a maro, a granger, and a manowar. state champ! not bad for a deck i built and tested for only a week. sppooooooooon! thanks for reading mike krzywicki p.s. that was my brother who posted incorrectly that you couldn't tithe for a tundra. he has since been instructed otherwise. :)