From: U Stroinski Subject: Scarborough - Team Swindon and Birmingham dominate day I; Assassins strike back on day II - Nottingham: the Official Rumors Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 16:29:03 GMT Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances ... Last week I did not speculate about the reasons why WotC cancelled the Nottingham ProQualifier since the rumors were contradictory and my usual sources were ... ok, they didn't tell me anything! Now, the situation is much clearer and I go to rumor mode: Rumor I Police shut Nottingham ProQualifier down since it needed a gambling license. Pounds 15 (dollar 25) entry fee and the chance to win ten thousands of dolars (in Dallas) is considered gambling. WotC solicitors are working on that problem. Wizards! That would not be completly unforeseen! What are you going to do about this? Rumor II Every entrant gets a box of Mirage Boosters as "compensation". Would be a nice move, especially after Mike Bainbridge showed me the power of Mirage only decks by completly destroying my Battering Ram deck. Why didn't WotC post the facts to the net? Rumor III WotC solicitors advised them not to publish statements about this ongoing matter. OK. Sounds reasonable. Will the event be resceduled? Rumor IV There was not enough interest. That is rubish. 70 players signed up. Wizards! We really hope you can solve the problems and rescedule the event. And a rumor which is completly unrelated to the above Rumor V Uwe Stroinski dismisses John Garrett's tournaments. Utter nonsense. In the contrary. TV events are the main events (besides Swindon, ProQualifiers and Nationals) for me. I put a lot of effort in the preparation for this tournaments and I am very disappointed when I don't get a reasonable result. Last week I was surprised that John used game score instead of match score. That is a bit like counting single points in tennis (and not games and sets). Nobody does that. I first have to get used to that. Scarborough - the tournament report This weekend we had the "Coastal Challenge" at the Ambassador hotel in Scarborogh. Venue with view of the sea . Day one was type 1.V and Booster Draft followed by a "pub crawl" , day II we played type II. Organizer Jeff Crowe (he beat me at the nationals) and his team (Ben, Nigel and head judge Carl Crook) organized a superb event. Day I I decided to go Mirage/Alliances Booster Draft and drafted a R/B/w Whirling Catapult/Rayal Herbalist/lot's of creatures deck. No DD but the 3 Catapults. Got slaughtered and ended up with a 2:3 match score . That gave me time to watch the real experts. Mike Bainbridge U/W/r Permission, creature control, first striking flyers, Torch deck vs Mark "Taxman" Wittaker U/G Big critter deck 2 Reprisals, Afterlife, Thirst, Pacifism ... gave Marks Crash of the Rhino, Needletooth Djinn, Jungle Wurms a hard time and Mike could delay the games long enough to Torch his opponent. Remarkably, Taxman was the only player in the semis without a Torch. Well done both of you. Winner Booster draft Mike Bainbridge 20 (team Birmingham), maths student (after what I have seen so far I would not be surprised if he ended up as UK#1 sealed deck/booster draft). Meanwhile the type I.5 was completly dominated by the Swindon team. Martin Steed, Dave Fry, Chris Sands in the semis. Only Andy Lyles (Birmingham) could match them. Actually, after loosing his 3! opening rounds Andy only squeezed into the ko finals. Don't ask me how that is possible, but Andy is renowned for his "no surrender" philosophy ("Keep going"). The final was Andy Lyles R/W/u/b permission, serendib, lim dul's vault deck vs Dave Fry B/U Abyss/Triskelion deck and was won by Andy Lyles 32 (team Birmingham), mathematician Loosing 3 matches and then winning the tournament. Nothing is sacred anymore :-) After the tournament I went out with Andy and Mike (we stayed at the same hotel) for a beer or two or three ... in any case we ended up constructing the WW I wanted to play in the type II tournament. Unfortunately it didn't win a single game until 2 am and so I had to reconstruct it until 4 am. Still I wasn't satisfied. What to do? 6 hours until tournament start and I had no deck. I decided to field one of my established decks and went to bed. Breakfast! What deck? Necro? Nah! W/G/R? has problems with Outpost decks. What other decks do I have? PowerStasis U/W Stasis deck with all restricted cards (but Hymn and Strip), tons of counters and W staple spells. When I told Andy (W/G) and Mike (great R/G Storm Seeker deck) I could see in their face that this was the right choice. They completly forgot about Stasis (which got hammered the last 6 weeks). I forgot my notes at home so can't give details. ? W/U anti-Millstone permission deck 80 card deck 2:0 Game 1 was the Vise and game 2 I killed him with a Serra ;-) Simon Gregg U/W permission 2:0 Simon won Doncaster the week before against Taxman. (The weekend I lost in Reading. Had 5.5/7 matches, but only 57.9% of the games). Andy Lyles W/G 2:0 Was a very close match, even if the score indicates otherwise. Martin Jordo Sweden DCI#186 1753 Goblins 1:2 Since I only field DCI#218 1745 Martin was clearly the favorite. I won the first, but after sideboarding he killed me quickly. ? W/U/b Turbo-stasis intentional draw (now that rule is funny) We played a friendly game which I won. ? Necro HD with lot's of Specters 2:1 He won the first with a quick Hippie which took Howling Mine and Balance. Game 2 was mine with a fast Vise. He played Necro to prevent the Vise damage and waited until I had the combo going. One Disenchant later he gave up. Game 3 I faced a first turn Hippie. It missed the Howling Mine. It missed the Balance. My game. Martin Jordo Sweden DCI#186 Goblins 2:1 Again Martin, but this time it was knock out. Again I won the first and he won the second. In game 3 he was utterly mana screwed. Kismet, Stasis, end. In the 6 (very intense) games I played with him he declared 2 Mulligans. He was very low on land. Deliberately. He will stay in UK for 3 months and I am sure we will hear more of him :-) Dave Fry W/G 2:0 He played Carl Crooks deck (the deck which nearly beat my Necro the week before in Reading). This deck is heavily playtested against TurboStasis (Mike Tingay, Steve Easton), but unlucky draws gave Dave problems. Game 2 was very close since he had 2 Cane's going and would have decked me. Lucky me. I found the Black Vise before I ran out of cards . Final vs Chris Sands W/G 2:0 He had lot's of Serras and Geddons. In game 1 I was on 3 land for quite a few turns, but could remove all the threads he posed. That was actually a very close game. One wrong decision would have cost me the game. Winner type II Uwe Stroinski 30 (the Assassin), mathematician At least I could give back the resin box Dave Fry lend me after he won the final in Worthing against me. "Man of the weekend" prize went to Chris Sands (Swindon) finalist type II, semifinalist type I.5 IMHO Dave Fry (Swindon) semifinals type II, final type I.5 would have equally deserved it. See you next weekend in Swindon Uwe Stroinski uwst@maths.bath.ac.uk