Subject: 10/18 UT Amateur Qualifier (5th/VI Sealed) Date: 18 Oct 1997 22:33:50 GMT From: "Lord Daroki" Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy - Foreward - Ok, as a note, if The Dojo decides to pull this report they might want to consider it in the Meinz Qualifier section (under other articles) since the type is the same as the upcoming PT Qualifiers. Another day, another tournament. I continue on the quest to get my sealed deck rating up above the scrub line by playing in an Amateur qualifier for the Summer '98 championships. If I win the trip to Chicago, I'll take it, but if not, I just wanted to do well and try to push myself a little bit higher in the ratings. I also figured this would be good practice for the upcoming Meinz qualifier, although I have no intention of going to Germany even if I win. I just don't have that kind of cash. The night before did not bode well for me, as I worked an extra 4 hours and since it takes another 4 hours for me to completely unwind from work, that meant that unlike usual, I run on little to no sleep for this tournament going to sleep at 2:30am. The Chemical Brothers try to wake me up at 7:30am. I shut them up. They start up again at 7:40 with the same result. I finally realize at 8am that since I'm bussing it to the site that I had better get up and ready. I pop open the playstation, turn it on, get the CD player on it going, close the hatch, set it to track 2 and let Pop Will Eat Itself come screaming through the TV as I try to get my act together. BTW, "Loaded" has killer music. *grin* I hop the bus and finally get a move on at 8:30 and transfer a half hour later. I make it to Mind Games in Salt Lake about 5 minutes before registration ends and get my way into the tournament. 17 players, 4 rounds of swiss, no break to single elimination. Basically, the last one standing wins. There's also only the no-land all-land mulligan in effect for this tournament, prizes for the top four, and NO DECK SWITCH either. This one will be played by the honor system. Anywhere else I would be furious, but in Utah, you can get away with things like that and not worry. With the deck I ended up getting, you know I didn't switch any cards. - The Deck - Land : 5 Mountains, 1 Dormant Volcano, 6 Forest, 5 Plains, 1 Undiscovered Paradise. (18) (MVP in Land? You could have guessed it, the Undiscovered was huge.) Artifacts : 1 Clay Statue, 1 Jalum Tome (20) (MVP for Artifacts? I bet you guessed wrong. The Jalum Tome was on the table only once during a duel I lost. It converted extra land into creatures and allowed for a relentless pounding on my opponents.) Gold : 1 Scalebane's Elite (21) (Not bad, definately scared the living hell out of anyone playing Black and it was a relative "fatty" which is something my deck sorely lacked.) Red : 1 Hill Giant, 1 Suq'ata Lancer, 1 Dwarven Vigilantes, 1 Rock Slide, 1 Sabertooth Tiger, 1 Dwarven Soldier, 1 Goblin Digging Team, 1 Raging Gorilla (29) (MVP : Definately the Rock Slide, followed by the Suq'ata. Baby Drive By is a 2 point direct damage spell that only targets the opposing player and can stay around for a while. The Rock Slide often took down 2 or 3 creatures.) Green : 1 Giant Caterpillar, 1 Kyscu Drake, 1 River Boa, 1 Scavenger Folk, 1 Shanodin Dryad, 1 Giant Spider, 1 Elvish Archers, 1 Elven Cache (37) (MVP : Believe it or not, it was the Shanodin Dryad. A lot of green about and this critter was always near the top of the deck, if not in my hand in the beginning. Probably did more damage than any other creature during the tournament except for the runner up, the River Boa which served faithfully as a defensive stalwart except against blue where he was an unholy terror.) White : 1 Knight of Valor, 1 Pearled Unicorn, 1 Daraja Griffin, 1 Sun Clasp, 1 COP : Green (In the MAIN deck), 1 Remedy, 1 Aysen Bureaucrats (44 total cards) (MVP : Another shocker, the Aysen Bureaucrats allowed a lot of damage to be done and saved as it kept tapping creatures that could have stood in my way. The Bureaucrat also was directly responsible for one of my wins that sealed a match for me.) Cards of Value in the Sideboard : Some vicious hosers out here, including COP : Blue, Greater Realms of Preservation, and Tsunami. Cards that you wouldn't believe gathered dust : Seasinger, Ray of Command, Impulse, Man-O-War in blue (and there wasn't much more there, not going to die by Boa just for that) Animate Dead, Crypt Rats, Coercion in black (Again, great bomb cards, but nothing else of merit in black) And would others have played the Bull Elephant? This bad boy found his way deep onto the bench quickly as with Man-O-War, Undo, and Unsummon, there was no way in hell I was going to allow him on the board. As an afterthought this might have been a mistake as he could have continued to fuel the Jalum Tome after I had more forests than were necessary, but I wasn't going to chance it. - The Tournament - Round 1 vs. Myron Willow This turned out to be a far stranger match than expected and the results seemed very strange. Duel 1 : He gets out a Rod of Ruin and starts plinking away at the 1 toughness creatures. he then turns on me with the Rod and does me in. Drilled him down to 6 but just couldn't put the finishing touches on him. This is what I was afraid of with this deck. Duel 2 : Don't call it a comeback! (Ok, you can) I tie him up quickly by getting out a lot of creatures and eventually wear him down. He did get up to drop a Scaled Wurm, which quickly died, along with 3 other creatures, in a game swinging Rock Slide. Duel 3 : He just jumps all over me this duel, I had quick advantage pounding him with small creatures, but once his bigger creatures come to the party, my little ones hide in the bathroom for a while. LWL - 1-2 Duels : 0-1 Matches Gee, this doesn't look promising. I knew the deck was bad, but I was hoping that I could finesse it to a few wins. Not good... Round 2 vs. Spencer Hopper Duel 1 : It's an early landwalking assault that never slows down, I use the Remedy and Rock Slide to keep him on his heels and overrun him. Duel 2 : A few mistakes on both of our parts, but again, it's landwalk and destroy. Big mistake was him draining the Archers which allowed me to continue to pressure him with the Boa. If he hit the boa instead, I was tapped out in green and it would have died and stopped harassing him. Sloppy play on my part, but I got away with it thankfully. WW - 3-2 Duels : 1-1 Matches - It's time for an intermission. This intermission brought to you by Mind Games, at the corner of Redwood Rd. and 39th South in Salt Lake City, UT. and the Utah DCI - Round 3 vs. Nathan Magro Duel 1 : Ok, so I'm a fiend, he's talking about the power that he got in his deck and unfortuantely, he puts a name to it. Nevy's disk, WaterSpout Djinn. Ut oh, there's the happy little Djinn now. Huge mistake comes when the River Boa's pounding him and he's using the Waterspout to suck all of his islands up. Sure the little guy can't Islandwalk anymore, but that Djinn just died. It's a walk from there. Duel 2 : Ow, pain, Breezekeeper and Djinn, hurt me, I wanna go home. Duel 3 : The Disk is such a wonderful little toy, but I've been saving up creatures anyway since I know he has it and I don't want to overextend myself. He sets the disk off and I regenerate the Boa then drop a small army. He recovers, but the Committee from Aysen hold his Grapeshot Catapult at bay while I turn my Caterpillar into a Butterfly and give it a Sun Clasp. Nice 2/4 token that I can return to my hand (Hey, wait a minute!) Oh well, it got the job done. *grin* WLW - 5-3 Duels : 2-1 Matches Round 4 vs. Todd Weber I get the feeling by this point I'm out of it. Todd is wondering if I'd be so kind but to concede to him so that he can make the top 4 and pick up some prizes. I'm too close to getting over that scrub line to lose without at least putting up a fight, however. I know he'll probably kick my backside, but I have to give it a chance anyway. This isn't about prizes, it's about pride damnit! Duel 1 : He seems to be drawing an awful lot of swamps. I seem to be drawing my Daraja Griffin and my Elite however, and his black creatures bow before Serra's Special Friends. Granted, they get Fireblasted, but by that point, the swarm is in full gear. Duel 2 : I'm pummeling him early and things are looking bad until he starts drawing up his mana and drops an Ogre Enforcer. (That's not good.) He follows this up with a Thicket Basilisk. (Ut oh.) He then pulls out the Trifecta with a Shivan Dragon (LOOK OUT BELOW!) I get crushed as I rush at him too late to try to put the final damage onto him and the Shivan gives me death from above. He again asks if I'd like to concede. After seeing Mommy Dragon, I think about it. For about 2 seconds that is. Duel 3 : It's the fast and furious beating again, all of my creatures have under 2 power, but they all just flank, islandwalk, or forestwalk. He starts pulling out the biggies, but I have the Rock Slide and the Remedy for the offensive and defensive stops that I need to make to finish him off. Boa and Dryad are just mean in sealed against a U/G/anything player. This guy had a Ogre, Thicket, Shivan, Relentless Assault, etc; and I still beat him? "Better Lucky than Good" -- Chris Cade I agree. WLW Duels : 7-4 : Matches 3-1 - Afterthought - So I'm at 3-1, there are 17 people, where do you think I placed? Nope, I placed *sixth*. SIXTH? I'm in a bit of disbelief at how a first round loss can just terrorize you in such a small tournament, and it was a match that I thought I should have won, although I probably would have faced far more brutal decks if I had done so. I was surprised at the power and versitility of a lot of the 5th Ed. cards, especially the Jalum Tome and the Bureaucrats which were completely sick. Folks, those guys from Aysen are a 1W casting cost Icy Manipulator in sealed. The Jalum Tome is great for two reasons. You hold those extra land in your hand knowing that you can convert them later, and your opponent thinks that you're up to something. Very nice indeed! COP : Green never came to me when I needed it. Well, it did hold off a Elephant for a while, but I was receiving beatings from too much other stuff for that to matter much. It seemed my opponents were making a TON of mistakes, and with a better deck, I should have been able to cash in on them. I think I got junk for the most part and was surprised at being able to string off the three victories I needed to make this respectable. It was a good warm up for the qualifier though, which I'm playing for experience and rating, not for a trip to the tour. I've already decided that if I somehow make the finals, I'll concede. I don't like the way that 5th and Visions mesh together for sealed either. I think that both have far too many overpowered cards which there isn't many sufficient ways to deal with. Shivan is Ugly, and the Enforcer is difficult to deal with. The Disk gives so much board control it's incredible. Those nasty 4cc blue fliers (Djinn of Waterspout, and Djinn of Breeze) from Visions when added with Man O War, Undo, Puffy, and the armada of blue flying in 5th edition makes it so that you can build a near unstoppable deck with some luck, but River Boas do work as a check/balance. Again, not a bad tournament, but I don't know if I'll go up any from it... so I guess I still hang around that Scrub line, waiting for the opportunity to break through to the other side... Special Thanks to the people at Mind Games and to Karl Batdorff for another great tournament. Thanks also to the opponents I played who were very cool, as usual. :) [Lord Daroki the Itchogunsa]