Date: Sun, 03 Aug 1997 10:52:21 -1000 From: Sid Subject: Hi! here's a tournament report for you from Hawaii! On Saturday, August 2nd the Hawaii Type II States was held. In the juniors division there were a total of 24 people (I think). I finished pretty high, being DQ'd because a judge broke 2 rules, let my opponent go when he broke a rule, and forgot to change something that I asked him to (more on this later when it actually became an issue). Anyway, Friday, August 1st, my friend Adam Kaneshiro came over to my house and spent the night, because we planned on tweaking our decks. I had a Red/White Sligh deck that was good that I had been working on for a while and that the people on Beyond Dominia's Deck Mill were helping me out with. It was a decent deck, nothing great to look at, but it COULD BEAT COUNTERPOST. This is the reason I liked the deck. Adam had a weird AEther Flash deck that he had built in like 1 day. He had all these combos he wanted in the deck, but he hadn't really tested it out. We work on the deck and by the time I'm through with it it is no longer the deck he had started with, it was a mean KILLER millstone deck that could deck people CONSISTENTLY. Now this was power! And he didn't even have hammers because they were in my deck but it didn't matter cuz he had a bosium strip. Anyway, we decide we need a test deck and my deck slaughters him. He sideboards and it comes close but I beat him. We change some cards and eventually he can beat my deck about half the time. Next we decide to test it out against a falcon deck. We don't have one, so I build one in like 10 minutes. It slaughters the deck. Next game he slaughters me (2 Aether flash and he has argivian finds). Anyway, he's feelin good about the deck and so am I, but I really like this falcon deck. I have a hunch that not only is nobody gonna play this deck, but nobody will bother to sideboard against it either. It's 3 a.m. and we're both beat, so we get some sleep and I decide I WILL PLAY THE FALCON DECK! I had hurriedly built an Anti-Red, Anti-Black sideboard w/ a mix of disenchants and swords and spirit links. Next Morning, we wake up, my mom drops us off to the tournament and we are a little not early. Meaning we hafta rush and write down our decks FAST. We start out on the deck lists and I decide I'll pull some SB cards like COP black for greater realm, my 5th disenchant for a divine offering, and something else for a royal decree in another language (that's cool!). As I write the deck listing, I decide I have too little mana, and pull out my only knight of valor and only master of arms (silly if u ask me) and toss in 2 more plains (which I didn't have so I had to borrow someone's and I hafta give em back next time =}). Adam grabs the pen and we run to give in the sheets, when I notice that I haven't scratched off the Knights and the Master. I mention this to the judge and ask for a pen and tell him I need to scratch the last two, he takes my sheet and says "Ok, no problem.". I figure he'll scratch em for me (NOTE: HE DIDN'T!! You'll read about this later!). Me and Adam sit down and wait for our friends Davie and Travis who by now are LATE. They show up and Davie has a copy of my R/W killer deck, but it is a bad copy w/ no disenchants main, and 0 mana-barbs and 0 winter orbs in the sideboard, along w/ no anarchy. Oh well, I help him get his deck in while the judges yell at us. Travis has a green deck that has all kinds of stuff, but only like 12 cards in his sideboard. I loan him a city and 2 dervishes and notice 4 moss diamonds in his SB. Weird, but ok. Let the first round begin! Round 1: Me Vs. Red-Black deck Game 1: I honestly could not figure this deck out. I saw suq'ata lancers, nekrataals and a main deck AEther flash. The guy had been playing for a long time tho, so i just did my best. I play a first turn benalish missionary, second turn falcon, third turn armor. He's at like 10 and nekrataals the falcon. Oh well. Next turn I bust a white knight and kj outpost. He busts out wildfire emissary (ouch). i bust out a crusade I think, he attacks w/ lava hounds, I make a token and block. Rest of the match was just me swarming him for the kill and him dying while I'm at 9 life courtesy of the emissary (he fireblasts me down to 5 too). Sideboard in the COPs, Royal Decree, Greater Realm, Swords and disenchants (flash and I saw an arrows). I pull ALL the creatures without at least some form of protection, and decide to play it safe for fear of anarchy. Game 2: His deck works fast. He plays some weenies, lancers, and I have a turn 2 COP red. He gets out a nekrataal that, for some weird reason, I cannot deal with. He brings me down to 4 with it and I bust out greater realm. Rest of the match is me waiting and then dropping a KJ outpost. He has a flash, I have 2 crusades, his creatures can't survive the flash but mine can. In the end I swarm him with a bunch of weenies, 16 get through, 48 damage. Next turn he would have drawn a firestorm (!!!!). I am such a good player =). Me: 1-0 Davie: 1-0 Adam and Travis: 0-1-0 (they both drew, against each other) Round 2: Me Vs. A copy of Dave Price's deck Game 1: 2nd turn freewind, 3rd turn armor, that's all. He attacked, blitzed me and burned me but he was dead on my 5th turn =). SB all the COP reds, I don't think the decree and greater realm will help, I also SB in the benalish knights (kill viashnos). Game 2: I have out like 2 creatures and a COP red and he anarchys. He burns me to death next turn. Ouch. Game 3: I drop early weenies, COP red. On my 4th turn I drop a mana and geddon (he had 3 lands). He's surprised and I KNOW now that he had an anarchy in his hand (after the game he showed me he had 2). I drop a land on my next turn and proceed to beat him down w/ an order of the white shield (YEAH!) Me: 2-0 Adam: 1-1-0 Travis: 0-1-1 (got spanked by big blue) Davie: 2-0 Round 3: Me vs Counter-Post Game 1: Yucky. I get him to 1, and he stays there for a while and then Gerrard's Wisdoms for 14. That sucks. He beats me down with the post, but i played it out for a long game. Game 2: I geddon on the 4th turn. He's been holding all mana (he was MANA SCREWED!! AGH!). He recovers faster than me. He wraths a couple of times, and then following one wrath he browses on my turn. He has an outpost and a island untap, so I go for the geddon even tho I expect force of will or arcane denial. IT GET'S THROUGH!! He had been glaciering like crazy and I got a glacier AND 2 outposts. SCORE!! I make a mistake tho, I rush and play a plains and a tundra wolves, so he says "Oh, in response to geddon I tap the outpost for mana" and swords my wolves. Big mistake on my part. I have him at like 3 so I'm not worried. He plays glaciers on his turn. I play either a death speakers or benalish missionary or maybe even a mana and an order, I don't know. I just know that he had 1 glacier on the table and nothing else and I beat him down. SIDE NOTE: During this game I made the play of the day. Twice. He Abeyances me during my upkeep. I benalish knight. YEAH! The crowd loved it, funny as hell. Game 3: It's a long one. I have a howling mine out and I plan to deck him. I blurt it out loud so he starts tappin the mine during my discard phase to try and deck me. Oh well, tremendous card advantage for me. We don't finish in time, draw. Me: 2-1-0 Adam: 2-1-0 Davie: 2-1 (I think) Travis: 1-1-1 Round 4: Me Vs. Adam We take a chance and intentionally draw. Cool Me: 2-2-0 Adam: 2-2-0 Davis: 2-2 Not sure Travis: 2-1-1 Round 5: Me vs. the top seed I'm in good position, I've been up against what will be 4 of the top 8. I'll have 9 points total if I draw, and then it's whoever had the roughest matches. I draw. I later find out that I faced who would be the 2 finalists. Adam was up against burn boy. He faced me and him and travis, 3 of the top 8, so he could make the draw too. Me: 2-3-0 Adam: 2-3-0 Travis: 3-1-1 (the surprise! he made top 8 and even beat out me and adam!) Davie: 3-2, alas, he came in 9th cuz he didn't match up against as hard opponents. Tough break. Anyway, after that the top 8 are (sorry, dunno order): Travis With his green Deck Me Adam with his weird R/W millstone Mr. Dave Price Xerox The Counterpost Deck The Guy I drew with in Round 5 1 Guy who left cuz he thought he wouldn't make it Some deck with a few geddons that I never saw Anyway, I'm up against the top seed, the guy I drew with. Wonderful. Round 6 (round of 8): Me Vs. COUNTERPOST AGAIN!! (from round 5) Game 1: He's mana screwed! SCORE! I have a weenie deck and I geddon when he has 3 mana and I have a howling mine on the table it gets through! No WoG! I geddon once again with 4 on my side and 3 on his (all white). IT GETS THROUGH! Eventually I geddon a 3rd time (4 turns later) and that's game. Cool huh? SB in all the Benalish Knights, out w/ disenchants, in go the swords (he had azure drakes and wall of air!). Game 2: Another game where he is mana screwed. Reasonable easy, I geddoned once i believe. That was all I needed, he had force of willed a falcon for fear it would beat him down. Round 7 (semis): Me Vs. THE OTHER COUNTERPOST (from round 3) Game 1: Long and drawn out. Eventually he gets me in the stupid digger/abeyance lock and I concede after a couple turn. NOTE: MY OPPONENT SHUFFLED FOR NO REASON THIS GAME!! He used a digger, put a force of will on the bottom and then shuffled. I assume he wanted the force of will. The judge let it go! NO FAIR! SB in the knights, pull the crusades, put in the swords and disencahnts I think. Game 2: Much better I beat him down to 7 real quick with an armored something or other. He kills it, I bust an order of the white shield. He plays an outpost. Next turn he abeyances me during my upkeep, taps out his white mana to do it. I respond by double pumping my order and I slap him down to 3 with it. Next turn he plays another outpost. He now has 2 outposts, 1 Adarkar wastes and 1 island. My turn. I draw. I geddon. Before the attack. He's in a tight spot, he needs a swords. If he counters the geddon he can't make an outpost weenie to block. If he makes an outpost weenie and lets the geddon through I'll drop a land, attack, and give my guy first strike if he blocks. He impulses, and then goes down to 2 to brainstorm. No swords. I win. YEAH! We are about to begin the 3rd game and my opponent requests a deck check. Now, this is wrong. The judge has told us to begin which means the game has begun and you CANNOT request a deck check in the middle of a game. Judge let's it go anyway. Turns out that the lower ranking judge who I gave the deck sheet to DID NOT SCRATCH the mater and the knight. So I get DQ'd and it's on my record. I think that this was a last ditch effort by my opponent and I think it was shitty. See, we had 3 minutes left for the match, adn whoever was ahead on life would have won. That means odds were VERY good that I would have won. All I had to do was attack once. Even if he swords it I still win. As long as I don't let him gerrard's which will not happen in 3 minutes as long as we take a minute to shuffle and even just 30 seconds a turn. Oh well, I left after that, but the guy in the finals was Burn-Boy who I had whooped earlier, so I'm pretty sure I could have beaten him again. Hope u guys enjoyed my tourney report, below are the decks me and adam used which I KNOW could use some definite help: Sid's Falcon Weenie! Land (20): Might need one more outpost 19 Plains 1 Kjeldoran Outpost Creatures (16): All were good, tho I would replace death speakers. Not much black, I was expecting buried alive to be more common. 1 CC (7): 2 Death Speakers 2 Benalish Missionary 3 Tundra Wolves 2 CC (9): 4 White Knights 3 Order of the White Shield 2 Freewind Falcons Artifacts (2): These were always useful. Love em. 2 Howling Mine Creature Pumps (10): 4 Crusade 4 Empyrial Armor 2 Favorable Destiny Creature Control (4): 2 Swords to Plowshares 2 Spirit Links Artifact/Enchantment Control (2): 2 Disenchant Mana Control (6): 4 Armageddon 2 TIthe My Sideboard SUCKED! here it is tho: 3 COP: Red (good) 1 Greater Realm (sucked) 1 Royal Decree (yuck) 2 Benalish Knights (AWESOME! Everybody is like "You Actually play with that card?") 2 Swords (good) 2 Disenchant 1 Divine Offering (all right, never saw it, woulda been useful. main thing is that it was in korean! So I liked it!) 2 Karma (sucked) 1 Energy Storm (sucked) My best guess for a NEW sideboard would be something with winter orbs for more mana control and perhaps more howling mines to deck opponents. That's about it tho. i didn't really need to SB that much, and the COP red is overrated. It's only good in long games, against a good red deck I would need to replace a couple of creatures w/ prot from red falcons or even repentent blacksmith. Adam's Red/White Millstone deck I give him credit and style points. Most games he just dropped the flashed, howling mine, and millstone once. That was IT. Gerrard's to make sure he lives and he decks them. They conceded more often than anything else. Me him and travis had the rogue decks that nobody expected. Davie's deck was sligh w/ white and people expected that. It's funny when adam earthquakes and he and his opponent prevent the damage and adam is like "whatever". his opponents hardly ever get it the first game =D. Land (22): 8 Mountains 3 Dwarven Ruins 1 Balduvian Trading Post 10 Plains Mana Sources (4): 2 Fire Diamond 2 Marble Diamond Library Manipulation (4): 2 Howling Mine 1 Enlighend Tutor 1 Teferi's Puzzle Box (he said this sucked) Graveyard Manipulation (4): 1 Bosium Strip (he said this sucked too) 3 Argivian Find Creature Control (17): 3 AEther Flash 2 Earthquake (burn them to death too) 3 Swords to Plowshares 2 Fireball (burn em) 4 Incinerate (burn em to death) 1 Wrath of God 2 Icy Manipulators (also worked against forgotten orb) Life Gaining Stuff (3): 2 Gerrard's Wisdom 1 Energy Bolt Millstones (3): 3 Millstones Other Stuff (4): 2 Disenchant 2 COP: Red (against earthquake if he is trying to kill them creatureless, and meta-game) Total: 61 cards. We musta lost count. Throw out a puzzle box I guess. Sideboard: 2 Honorable Passage (burn red decks to death, or if u still wanna deck em just a bluff.) 3 Shadowbane (no, not COP black. THe only black card he needed to fear was the huge drain life. Either he honorabled or shadowbaned, and that's all he needed to do.) 2 Anarchy (blast white weenie, slow down counterpost) 4 Pyroblast (counterpost) 1 Wrath of God (any heavy creature_ 1 Pillage (counterpost, don't care about thawing glaciers cuz that just helps u deck em) 2 Kaervek's Torch (burn counterpost) Well, I hope u enjoyed readin this tourney report. I honestly think that virtually any deck can do it, it's just a matter of how the deck is played. I know that there are games where I shd have lost but i took a chance and didn't run a "textbook" play. Also, my opponents made mistake, such as tapping out to soldevi digger at the end of my turn, and then I disenchant it, etc. Also, a lot of other players would not have risked it and armageddoned against against the red deck when they didn't really have a CLEAR advantage and could have COPed the damage. I don't like giving people chances, I'd much rather take the risk and hurt us both =). Also, I think that me adam and travis all had huge advantages in that we did not play "textbook" decks. For example, R/W millstone is not really thought to be strong, an nobody else even played the color combination. Everybody told me that Falcon was just cheesy and every deck would be ready for it, but none were. And green is just too unpredictable. Travis had aboroth and force of nature, and I give him credit because there was a game where he drew the FoN and even though it was close, he killed the guy while he stayed at around 10. Without playing the force. Just to gain an advantage. The next game he busted the force out on like turn 4 courtesy of elves and proceeded a quick beatdown. I don't have his deck listing, but is consisted of standard green weenies with 1 stampedign wildebeest, 1 aboroth, 1 FoN, a dense foliage, barbed foliage, etc. All 3 of us used cards that NOBODY else at the tournament played, which freaked so many opponents it wasn't even funny ("U play death speakers?"). Oh! and another play of the day! Travis actually go the stampeding wildebeest and aboroth combo. REALLY. That was funny. =D. I'll seeya all later. ---------------------------------------------------------- From: "Siddarth Savara" Subject: In regards to my tourney report.... Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 22:29:44 PDT Hi, me again (you're probabyl annoyed and thinking "Why won't he stop emailing me!??!). Well, Jason Lum emailed me and apparently there were some things I didn't know that happened and I wrote some stuff in the report that really should not have been in there because I was wrong. I was wondering if you could put this on the report, prefereably at the top so everyone reads it? It's my reply to jason lum, and it has parts of his email in it as well. It's to clear up soem stuff about ryan and the judge (mark). I didn't mean to hurt anyone or give anybody a bad rep, I just go to the tourneys to have fun, and I was pretty excited that people might read my tourney report so I thought it would be cool to post one but it didn't turn out the way I meant it too and apparently Jason and his buds weren't too happy about it (understandably) =(. ==============start=================== >Ryan asked for a deck check because he suspected something funny. HE saw >a snow-covered plains in your deck, and requested a deck check. yours >was not a random one. and, yes, what they do is check to see if your >sideboard matches the list during the match instead of breaking down your >deck during the match. It happened to me in the nationals... Oh...I had been pretty careful registering it, I mean, I wrote down how many were IA, how many MI, etc =). I guess I must have gotten a wrong ruling, I emailed some big guy at WotC and he told me that the deck checks are supposed to be done between matches and only in extreme situations between games (it's at the bottom of my tourney report, the guy's reply). >Ryan had used thawing glaciers. I was watching and asked what the fuck he >was doing when i saw him shuffling. he showed me the glaciers in his >hand. kylke was there to watching to and he also was aware that ryan was >thawing. You should have said something right then and there if you >tho9ught something was wrong. now what you've done is given Ryan a bad >reputation as a player, and Mark a bad reputation as a judge. I don't >have all the facts here, but I know what I was watching. Well, I did mention it to the judge, and he just said (and I pretty much quote) "I think it was an honest mistake, I'll let it go.". I don't think he knew it was a thawing glaciers either, I must not have noticed. What I did see was he used a browse as well as a digger, my mistake for not seeing it I guessed. Nobody told me he had used the glaciers and Mark never mentioned that. I didn't mean to give anybody a bad rep, I'll try and put up an apology soon see if the guy at the dojo (frank?) will add it on for me. > >I wrote half a page cause i was very pissed off. you disrespected my >friends and damaged their repuatations. IT really annoys me if what ryan >said is true. he said he saw you at mcdonalds or something, and you and >your buddies are going to ask everyone to desleeve, and get deck checks >for every match. This is your right do get everyone to desleeve, but it >is really dick. granted this is not type i, but some people still value >their cards highly. if you get someone to desleeve, it shows an >incredible lack of class. We were just kidding around =). We were all cool about what had happened and adam was sayign stuff like "If I meet you, I'm gonna make sure I get a deck check" =). We weren't being serious, I've never asked anyone to desleeve and unless it's pretty obvious the cards are marked I won't =). I have had the privelege (hah, right) of being forced to desleeve a few times and I didn't like it one bit (even if my cards are crap) =). And the deck checks I wouldn't request unless someone had a card in their deck which I suspected would normally be in a sideboard (like if someoneh had a main deck reign of choas, or a main deck hydroblast or something). And even then I probably wouldn't mind too much, I go to the tourney to have fun and trade (heck, I was playing an empyrial armor deck! With Death Speakers! And TITHE! And the coolest card...Favourable destiny =}). I'm sorry about what I said about Ryan and stuff, I didn't know all teh stuff that had happened, I just wrote by what I had to go on, and what my friends told me. >my final thoughts... you got slightly dicked out of a chance to finish the >match with ryan. i maintain my thoughts about your chances to beat him. >if this was a small tournament, you wouldn't need a decklist. the fact of >the matter is that you were playing in the state championships. that may >not mean much to you, but it means a lot to others like me and ryan. When >you play at a higher level, more is expected of you. you can t take back >moves. you have to register your deck and sideboard. stright floor >rules. etc etc. don't make a mistake or you will lose. remember this >for the future tournaments you play in... > Thanx, I know all that stuff. I made a mistake on the report tho, since it was rather late and I was tired I forgot that the judge had told us that the time limity wasn't going to be enforced. I was still frustrated and I only remembered that we had 3 minutes left, which, even you realize, is nowhere near enough time for a counterpost deck against a creature deck. I think that if I ever write a report again I'll try and wait till teh next morning =). I was just feeling really paranoid because it's fun to go to tournaments and I hated the idea that I might be banned from them on account of this little mistake. Sorry about what I wrote and stuff, I'll try and email Frank (?) and ask him to add this. I was just trying to see if there was even a small rulign against me, because then I was hopign somehow I could get it off my record. Guess i can't =(. I'm gonna type up a deck list ahead of time from now on and try to avoid making my decks in 15 minutes (I didn't even know until I played against Ryan that I had benalish knights in my sideboard! That was a cool card!). Well, later, hope you're not too mad anymore. If you see ryan or the judge (mark right?) could you tell em I'm sorry? I didn't mean to hurt anyone by it I was just havin fun and then all of a sudden...well, I've rambled enough. C ya Sid ==========end======== ------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 07 Aug 1997 15:09:06 -1000 From: Sid 1) My opponent can shuffle for no reason and get away with it (in the middle of a GAME!) No, he cannot. It would at least warrant an official single warning. 2) The judge can decide that time limits no longer matter after he and the other judges specifically announce that there is a time limit, that if the games are 1-1 and it's third it's by life, if life is even it's by coin flip. Judges should adhere to the time they announce. If time is called and a third, decisive match is in progress between two players, the match is a draw. There is no looking at life or flipping coins. 3) Can my opponent request a deck check in the middle of a game and can a judge allow it? Deck checks are always performed just before or after matches, or -in extreme cases- duels. It seems you were the "victim" of a judge that was not up to speed with the latest DCI rulings. Perhaps you should recommend the judge and or tournament organisor to get into the Judge Certification program, for which you/they should contact Tara McDermot at WotC US (this is WotC Belgium you're talking with). I hope I've at least helped a little... Panda-Kawaii DCI Co-ordinator WotC Belgium