Subject: Tourney Report PTQ Mainz in Berlin (11.10): Chimera Day Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 17:47:01 +0200 (MEST) From: Andreas Pischner To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi again! There were 96 people competing, most of them Berliners, but also a few guys from Hamburg, and some even more exotic people from exotic places like Luebeck, Schladen (?) and the Czech Republic, who thought they'd be able to snatch away our PT slots... When we were opening our Visions boosters, the bomb dropped: About one sixth of the opened boosters (almost 1 Display!) held 1 rare, 13 uncommons and only 1 common! Now it's disastrous to have to play without Suq'Atas, Rock Slides, Fireblasts, Man-O-Wars, Knights-of-the-Mists, Cloud Elementals, River Boas, Warthogs, Knights of Valor, Infernal Harvests and so on... but OTOH it's hard to feel pity for guys who get 2 Nekrataals, 2 Quicksands, and 2 Magma Mines, or (in one extreme case) 3 Waterspout Djinns and 6 Chimeras!! We were all switching decks, so I could be sure not to see the deck I registered again. What I got was one of the "uncommon-decks", and I didn't like it at all. I figured, I would have to be EXTREMELY lucky to make top 8 with this deck, so I decided just to go for a positive score. (But if you read my Tempest prerelease report, you know I don't like reports from the middle of the field - so I must have BEEN extremely lucky! 8-) ) This was the deck: 1 Magma Mine 2 Matopi Golem 1 Brass-Talon Chimera 1 Ironheart Chimera 1 Lead-Belly Chimera 1 Torture 1 Raise Dead 2 Necromancy 1 Fallen Angel 1 Knight of Stromgald 1 Talruum Piper 1 Cave People 1 Dwarven Soldier 1 Mountain Goat 1 Hurloon Minotaur 1 Spitting Drake 1 Man-O-War 1 Prodigal Sorcerer 1 Segovian Leviathan 1 Unsummon 7 Swamp 6 Mountain 5 Island 40 cards While I would have preferred playing 7 Swamp, 7 Mountain, 4 Island, my basic lands just didn't work out that way. Cards not played: 1 Urza's Mine 1 Icatian Store 1 Jungle Basin 1 Dormant Volcano 1 Karoo 1 Phyrexian Walker 1 Iron Star 1 Disenchant 1 Divine Offering 1 Pearled Unicorn 1 Brainwash 1 C.o.P.: Blue 1 Tundra Wolves 1 Justice 1 C.o.P.: Artifacts 1 Daraja Griffin 1 Peace Talks 1 Scaled Wurm 1 Shrink 1 Titania's Song 1 Aspect of Wolf 1 Creeping Mold 1 Llanowar Elves 1 Kyscu Drake 1 Stampeding Wildebeests 1 Aku Djinn 1 Mind Ravel 1 Krovikan Fetish 1 Dark Ritual 1 Touch of Death 1 Forbidden Ritual 1 Vampirism 1 Desolation 1 Prosperity 1 Foreshadow 1 Dream Tides 1 Reef Pirates 1 Flight 1 Unstable Mutation 1 Pyroblast 1 Mob Mentality 1 Imposing Visage 1 Detonate 1 Goblin Digging Team 1 Viashino Sandstalker 1 Army Ants And the rest of the basic lands, of course. Comments: While this deck has some nice power cards (Fallen Angel, Tim) and a lot of in-built fun with 3 Chimeras and 3 ways to retrieve them, it still just sucks in my opinion, because of the following weaknesses: 1. It's much too expensive and thus very susceptible to mana screw. 2. It has too few direct creature removal cards. (Torture, Magma Mine, Tim) 3. It has only 2 flyers. 4. Even if it's not mana screwed, it is very likely to die against good beatdown decks. About my deck-building choices: I felt I had few alternatives. I thought about the Sandstalker, because everybody around me seemed to consider it a power card, but thinking rationally about it, I decided to leave it out. In retrospect, my choice was perfectly right: I can not remember a single situation where I had wanted a Sandstalker in my hand. Another candidate was the Army Ants, which I considered a lot more seriously than the Sandstalker. But I decided against it because: 1. Except for Ice Floe, there was no land really worth destroying it. 2. Yes, they can seal the game if my opponent is mana-screwed and I am not, but I prefer cards which are useful both when I'm about to win and when I'm about to lose. 3. And, of course, my deck was expensive anyway. I ended up siding them in one time against a deck with Ice Floe. The only other card I sided in was the Pyroblast, and I did so every match - ALL my opponents played Blue. 1st match vs. Dirk Konrad (blue/white/?) Not much to say: My opponent was a newbie who wanted to use his Resistance Fighter twice and his Gossamer Chains once one my Knight of Stromgald. One game, a Fallen Angel and my islandwalking Leviathan beat him down, the other game a mountainwalking Hurloon Minotaur had to do... because my deck seemed to deliver nothing else. 2:0 (1:0:0) 2nd match vs. David Höller (blue/?/? - sorry, lost my notes) Another - well, BEGINNING player who misread my Talruum Piper thinking it could block flyers (which made it a LOT easier for me to kill his flyers 8-) ). Although his play was astonishingly bad, he couldn't help but beatdown me one game, but then that was it. 2:1 (2:0:0) 'til then, I was quite happy with my opponents, but I expected trouble if I started to run into opponents who did NOT play their first big tournament... 3rd match vs. Tom Huber (blue/white/green) He was not too bad an opponent. 1st game he opened with Gossamer Chains, Flood, Righteous Aura and an increasing amount of blue and white mana... Though this looked bad for me, those things ate his mana and I had ample time to put a bunch of high-CC critters out. So I was able to deliver the Matopi Golem Beatdown. Also, the fact that I had time to get enough mana for all my spells allowed me to use the little tricks inherent in my cards, and thus to outplay him. Still it took me an eternity to win that one. Before the next game I shuffled thorougly, and he was concerned about me stalling (well, there was really no reason, he was just nervous). I explained to him that I just did not want to die to mana screw, if I could prevent it, and then proved to him that I would play faster than him. This time he didn't get enough defense out and I was even able to overwhelm him in time. 2:0 (3:0:0) At this point I thought I just COULDN'T get another easy win... 4th match against Maria Hirthe (blue/white/red) Maria is a girl-friend of a friend of mine, and only plays MAGIC once in a while with him. Her boy-friend, OTOH was playing his first tournament today himself... She stood 3:0:0 due to the fact that she had drawn a god deck far superior to mine (well, about every person I compared decks with agreed his/her deck was superior to mine) and that she played it, if not exactly without mistakes, at least without being nervous. 1st game she started with laying an Ice Floe. VERY BAD choice, of course, because this slowed down her mana development a lot. I was able to put her under pressure with my high-CC critters, and due to her not-too-clever use of her Ice Floe and her Gossamer Chains (my 3rd opponent with those §$!"& Chains!), I was able to kill her with landwalkers and flyers. 2nd game she just gave me the Cloud Elemental/Suq'Ata Lancer beatdown while I was staring at 2 lands and a Magma Mine. I got to 4 mana just in time to kill a careless Rainbow Efreet with it, but it was too late. She finished me with her Fireball. 3rd game we both got into the game. Two mistakes of hers decided it: At one time, she tried to Fireball my Leviathan and my Mountain Goat with 6 mana (having misread the card), before, she had tried to Spell Blast my Talruum Piper with only 5 lands on the table. I was still more than happy to have beaten THIS deck. 2:1 (4:0:0) At that point I knew that, no matter how bad my deck was, I HAD to try to make final 8! I figured I would only have to win one more match and could then try to draw in. 5th match vs. Martin Langfeld (blue/black/green) Martin is a top player and will possibly soon become a teammate, so I asked him for a draw, preferring to try to pull out the win against someone else. He objected, knowing his deck was superior to mine (where's the news?). So I had to play. 1st game, I am mana-screwed and get beaten down by a lone Knight of Stromgald. But I realize he's screwed, too, and I could slow him a bit down by Unsummoning his Knight when he was carelessly pumping it, although he KNEW (due to a Coercion) what I held, so he had even to discard, and I took 4 points of damage less. Then I got a Tim on the table - well, twice (Necromancy) because it was killed somehow first. Martin still couldn't empty his hand when I started to draw lands. When I had several cool creatures out, he exchanged his Clay Statue with a Talruum Piper to be able to play smaller flyers. But I was able to use my second Necromancy on the Piper. Suddenly the tide had turned, and I played Matopi Golem beatdown again. When he played a poor Ray of Command, chosing to block the Brass-Talon Chimera with my Dwarven Soldier instead of the Man-O-War, his fate was sealed. I was at 3 life, though! 2nd game our decks performed as they should and he crushed me beneath his feet. 3rd game we're both mana-shy again! He plays an early Tim which paralyzes me since I have both of my 3 only left toughness-1 critters in hand and can't play anything else. But then I'm able to Pyroblast the sucker and get into the game. After I Necromancied his Tim and started playing "fun with Chimeras" while he still didn't get enough land, I actually won this one! We both agreed that he SHOULD have won, but hey, he'd better have agreed to the draw! 8-) 2:1 (5:0:0) At this point I swore I would NOT test my exceeding amount of luck which I had had with this deck so far anymore if I could help it and draw in, and if I wouldn't be in with 5:0:2, I wouldn't complain - EVERYTHING was better then playing with that deck! 6th match vs. Thomas Lawrenz Thomas is a good friend, and we ID 7th match vs. Boris Buschardt Boris is a teammate, and we ID. Made it!!! When I had nothing to do except eating some fast food in the last rounds, a few people looked at my deck and shook their heads. Granted, it is not REALLY bad, but there were at least 30 decks in the competition which were HUGELY superior! Top 8 were comprised of: 1. Markus Hoerner 2. Andreas Pischner (That's me, folks!) 3. Gunnar Refsdahl 4. Boris Buschardt 5. Thomas Lawrenz 6. Sven Grottke 7. Markus Damann 8. Martin Langfeld Except for Gunnar and Markus Damann, 2 Hamburgish players, all those people were Berliners. Boris and Sven are teammates from team Istari, and Martin will possibly become one soon. Martin Luedecke, another Istari, went unexpectedly 5:1:1 with a god deck due to bad draws and missed final 8 by 2 Buchholtz-points. The 2 other Istaris (Stefan Funke and Claudia Loroff) went not too bad with 12 to 15 points each, and both having had to play against teammates at least once. The Rochester draft was MUCH tougher than the one I had observed in Braunschweig. Martin and Markus H., my neighbors to the right, early drove me to Blue/White because they took almost everything worthful in the other colors. When with the second booster the direction was changed, Gunnar always seemed to snatch away from me the last playable card from each booster. Also I noticed with frustration that there were 3 or 4 Fireballs/Disintegrates around plus one Earthquake, and I got none of them. The Visions boosters, of course, were the hit: Uncommon Boosters each and every one! Chimera day... I managed to get 2 of the 5 or 6 Waterspouts around and started early to draft Chimeras. But the others weren't stupid either, so I only got three. At least I could make sure I got the Passage ( 8-) )! Everybody laughed when Martin took a Suleiman's Legacy as first pick, but hey, somehow he was right... And Thomas ended up with 3 Mob Mentality! VERY strange draft, this... This was the deck I drafted: 6 Plains 7 Island 5 Forest 1 Karoo 1 Lead-Belly Chimera 1 Iron-Heart Chimera 1 Tin-Wing Chimera 1 Serpent Generator 1 Battering Ram 1 Pikemen 1 Repentant Blacksmith 1 Aysen Bureaucrats 1 Honorable Passage 1 Shield Wall 1 Benalish Hero 1 Healing Salve 1 Seraph 2 Waterspout Djinn 1 Dandan 1 Ray of Command 1 Ironroot Treefolk 1 Kyscu drake 1 Radjan Spirit 1 Tempest Drake 40 cards Not used: 1 Karoo 1 Urza's Power Plant 1 Helm of Awakening 1 C.o.P.: Blue 1 C.o.P.: White 1 Death Speakers 1 Divine Offering 2 Relic Ward 1 Prismatic Ward 1 Gloom 1 Weakness 1 Shrink 1 Stream of Life 1 Seasinger 1 Dream Tides 1 Force Spike 1 Gaseous Form 1 Sleight of Mind 1 Juxtapose 1 Phantasmal Terrain 1 Sabretooth Tiger 1 Simoon As it turned out, my mana distribution was excellent. Quarter-finals vs. Markus Damann (Blue/White/Red) Well, I just wasn't going to let a Hamburgish player take one of our PT slots away. My Karoo (strong card! Believe it or not!) allowed me to play early fatties (Treefolk, Seraph). Then a Waterspout hit the table and my Bureaucrats controlled his smaller critters. Soon the first game was over. 2nd game I sided in both C.o.P.s and the Seasinger. Poor guy. An early Seasinger controlled the game. My Karoo helped get big critters out (I could almost always play it third round - you'd notice my deck has almost no 3-mana spells) earlier than they should have been. He played a Pegasus when he had a Grapeshot Catapult out and I had the Seasinger untapped... These games weren't pretty for him... In the other matches, Martin defeated Markus Hoerner, Boris defeated Thomas Lawrenz, and Gunnar defeated Sven. To the last match a short note: Key play to the 1:1 that kept Sven in the match was the following: Gunnar played Miraculous Recovery on a Scalebane's Elite in his graveyard. Sven responded with Necromancy on the same Elite. Of course, the following happened: The Elite, being a legal target for the Necromancy, because critters in the graveyard don't have any Protection abilities, is brought into play on Sven's side and Necromancy is put in it. At rules-triggered speed, the Necromancy is buried and then, at triggered speed, the Elite goes back to Gunnar's graveyard. Now the Recovery resolves AND CAN'T FIND THE ELITE ANYMORE, BECAUSE IT HAS SWITCHED ZONES IN BETWEEN. As I use to say: A little rules knowledge goes a long way... Semi-Finals vs. Gunnar Refsdahl (Red/Green/White/Black) I was very excited to play against Gunnar for the PT slot. I know Gunnar is a better player than I, and I expected his deck to be better than mine as well. Still, I felt it was my duty to clear the PTQ in Berlin from Hamburgers 8-) 1st game we both played some small banders to stall ground combat. Then, once again, my Karoo hit the table and I was able to bring out a quite early Seraph, which he had to Fireball (had the Passage in my hand, but naturally no free mana). Later he Earthquaked for 2, clearing the whole table... with the exception of my now 4/4 Tin-Wing Chimera. I didn't have Shield Wall in my hand, or this wouldn't have been funny for him... He then tried to kill my Chimera by surprisingly blocking with my Necromancied Seraph, but I Passaged the damage. Then I got a Waterspout out and it was over for him. Sideboarding revealed I did... nothing. 2nd game I again get my early Karoo (loved that card that evening), playing some Chimeras. When he was at 16 or so he played a C.o.P.: Artifacts to stop any Chimera damage. Hmmm... didn't even remember that Circle in the draft... I'm obviously not quite so good a drafter... I reinforced my air attacks with a Waterspout and a Seraph (Love that Karoo...). The ground combat was stalling again with banders and fatties on both sides. When he was already at 6 life, Gunnar played Ashes to Ashes on my flyers! So i took the opportunity to lay more lands (which my Waterspout had prevented beforehand) and got to enough mana to untap my paralyzed Kyscu Drake and then play my second Waterspout. Gunnar had a Kyscu Drake himself, so the Waterspout was his main concern. He used his Pradesh Gypsies on the Drake and blocked the Waterspout with his Drake. Then, he Miracolously Recovered the Drake. Because he also had a Resistance Fighter and a D'Avenant Archer out, this stopped my offense. Until I drew my Radjan Spirit, that is. So, with his Kyscu Drake on the ground when it would have been more useful in the air, he had to use the Gypsies on the drake and the Resistance Fighter on the 'Spout. Then he played Animate Dead on the fighter and did the same again. Then he played Necromancy on the fighter and did the same again. All in all he had given me about 10 rounds time to forget a Waterspout's upkeep... Then, when his Resistance Fighter wasn't going to come back a 3rd time, he tried to Fireball my Radjan and my Kyscu for three each. I responded with a Shield Wall to make sure my critters survived... just in case he could somehow survive the Passage, which I also played. Which he didn't. So... SEE YOU IN MAINZ! This must have been my most lucky tournament ever, but I still think I deserve it, having made almost no mistakes and been playing, drafting and (intentionally) drawing quite clever. Even better was the fact that my teammate Boris took the other slot, defeating Martin. Good day for team Istari! And sorry for Gunnar and the other players from Hamburg, but you've got your own PTQ, right? One last word about the organization: I know it's difficult to organize such a tournament all alone for the first time, but I still have to say: Things can and have to be done better. Still this tournament was not a tenth as bad as the PTQ for Chicago in Hannover. Alright, that was it. If you'd like to comment on anything I said, go ahead and mail me! ANDREAS PISCHNER magician@zedat.fu-berlin.de "The Garfield should never have cross-bred Timid Drakes with Nekrataals..."