Subject: PTQ - LITTLE ROCK, AR Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 02:23:04 -0400 (EDT) From: ZZanman@aol.com To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Pro-Tour Qualifier for Mainz, Germany held at the Game Room in Little Rock Arkansas The trip was nice, the tournament was well-run, and after six preliminary rounds and three playoff rounds, Texas Guildmage teamwork carried the day, allowing the last member of our team to achieve Pro Tour credentials to go to Germany in December. THAT WOULD BE ME. But that brief statement doesn't begin to tell the whole story, which I like to call "THE WHEELS ARE OFF" by Jeff Zandi 7:00 pm, Friday evening, October 17, 1997, at the Guildhall (secretly located in Coppell, Texas, just outside of Dallas) Zanman awaits the rest of tonight's travelling members of the Texas Guildmages. No, Zanman tells Mrs. Zanman, go ahead and take the Plymouth Voyager for your weekend trip, the guys are bringing another mini-van for our trip to Little Rock. Wife splits. Phone rings. Business decision hampers team lawyer Robert Lawing from being able to join the trip. Along with his mini-van. An hour later, it's three big ol' Guildmages in an extended cab pickup truck heading to the Big Tournament in Little Rock. Three dudes in a truck? Doesn't sound too crowded to you? Maybe you don't know enough about the Texas Guildmages! Driving, that would be the flannel-loving, wise-cracking James Stroud, six foot nine and pushing 300! Passenger seat? That would be the great James Jenkins. Originally from the Baltimore area in Maryland, he was forced to move to Texas because HE'S JUST SO DAMN BIG at six foot six, and also a member of the 300 club! In the tiny cubby hole behind the front seat, that would be me, the Zanman, owner of the truck and of the Guildhall, measuring a mere six foot two and yet another member of the 300 club. Big guys. Pickup truck. Six hour drive. Wheels off! After six hours of driving and another half hour in the Whataburger drive-through in Texarkana, Texas, we arrived at the obligatory Motel 6 in Little Rock, where we spent just under five hours trying to decompress our spines and get a little rest. Saturday morning, we travelled to the gaming store called The Game Room, in Little Rock, where the tournament was held. The tournament was well-run from start to finish, starting very close to on-time with a smallish crowd of fifty-something participants. Same old story. All three of us opened decks that we would be very proud to run with. Murmuring under our breath, we fill out deck lists on these GOOD decks and turn them back in. In return for our good penmanship, we were rewarded with the decks we would actually be playing with. No bargain. James and James were forced to deal with creature-poor decks with little in the way of creature removal. I had the good fortune to have a decent red/green deck with a splash of white. Highlights included Fireball and Fireblast for removal, fatties like Durkwood Boars and Scalebane's Elite, and useful artifacts like Jayemdae Tome, Dragon Mask and Shapeshifter. After a round or two, however, I realized that I stupidly played Death Speakers over Remedy. DOH! ROUND ONE - Steve Stasvik from Memphis, TN, draws three land in two games. I draw and play a Dwarven Soldier, Ironclaw Orcs, Llanowar Elves, Warthog and King Cheetah, round over in 13:41. ROUND TWO - James (I'm only) Shuman from northern Texas rolls in with the deck that James Stroud originally opened and checked. Shuman probably under-utilizes the contents of his sealed deck, but manages to win the second game of our three game match, round over in 33:15. ROUND THREE - Kevin Jackson from Jonesboro, AR, decides to make some kind of sick science experiment out of his deck, and plays FIVE COLORS. Kevin is an experienced, skilled sealed deck player who admits that he had no good choices with his deck, and just went nuts. He had, of course, won his first two matches. I won the first two games of this match in 14:14. Halfway through the scheduled six rounds, and the Guildmages are each 3-0, life is good. ROUND FOUR begins, and the wheels fly off for the team. Stroud falls to 3-1. Jenkins and I are paired against each other. James Jenkins, a math-wiz engineer in real life, does the math and decides that we will take a draw in our match, being almost sure to make the top eight if we can each manage one win in the last two rounds. Now we're both 3-0-1. ROUND FIVE - Neil Reeves, from Nashville, ARKANSAS, is a talented pro tour veteran who looks and talks a lot like Harry Connick Jr. After listening to his rap, I ask him if he has roots in Louisiana, by any chance, and he's BUSTED when he has to admit that he does. Cajun-Man kicks my butt with a powerful deck that puts him at 4-1 and me at 3-1-1 in a mere 12:10. ROUND SIX - Bob Daniel, from Decatur, AR, squares off against me with a good deck. Having played against each other in other qualifiers, nobody's taking anything for granted. Bob wins the first game, and has me against the wall in the second game. He has the advantage, but plays out his hand and allows me to start making a comeback. The game hinges on a bad play that he makes while blocking with a Zhalfrin Crusader. Game three is all about mana, and he doesn't get his. Zanman finishes 4-1-1 with good tie-breakers. James Jenkins is 4-0-2. Both of his draws are intentional, and he didn't lose a game in his four match wins. James Stroud finishes 4-2 and is on the outside looking in for the final eight. The final eight consists of, in finishing order, John Carter, Chris Erwin, Neil Reeves, James Jenkins, Fletcher, Mike Rodrick (I'm probably WAY off on his last name, which is just plain stupid of me because I've seen this player at A HUNDRED qualifiers in the past two years), Jeff Zandi (that's me, I am the Zanman, ku-ku-kachuu), and Nathan Higgens. Instead of a standard Rochester draft, we had a "modified backwards draft", whatever that is. A lot like Rochester, it took almost two hours to draft and construct decks. THE PLAYOFFS begin, and I'm playing Chris Erwin from Hot Springs, AR. He drafted a ton of black, easily enough to play straight black, or better yet, almost straight black with a little blue for his TWO Zuran Spellcasters (not the Tim, the Jalum Tome Guy) and his one Ray of Command. He also has two Drain Life, a Howl From Beyond and a Pestilence. Instead, he plays evenly black and blue with a third color that I can't remember. It's too slow, and I beat him in about twelve minutes, 2-0. I'm playing black and blue, ten Islands and eight Swamps supporting three Reef Pirates, Air Elemental, Wall of Air, Dark Maze, counters like Counterspell, Spell Blast and Remove Soul, and black spells like Pestilence, Drain Life, Animate Dead, Terror and your heavy weight champion, Ashes to Ashes. Also Carrion Ants, Derelor, Initiates of the Ebon Hand and howl from Beyond. My final four match is a rematch against Neil "Cajun-Man" Reeves. His deck? The best in the draft. A few highlights in his red/green splash of blue deck include TWO Craw Wurms, TWO Durkwood Boars, a Disintegrate, TWO Ray of Commands and a Shivan Dragon. The first game is tough, but finally won when he plays out his hand too soon. In the second game, he gets a slow start, but rebounds well once he gets land. He has the advantage, but once again plays all of his cards, loading the table with huge creatures. I have three cards in my hand. Terror, Ashes to Ashes and Animate Dead. Two turns later, I draw Howl from Beyond and advance to the finals with a 2-0 win that takes 14 minutes to play. Multiple pro tour veteran (limited and standard) James Jenkins is taking care of business with a mostly red and blue deck. He wins 2-1 against Fletcher after losing the first game and then exchanging no less than a dozen cards from his sideboard to win the next two! In the final four, this mighty Guildmage brother sweeps the confident John Carter (probably from Mars). When I win the semi-final match, I make eye contact with James Stroud, who's watching Jenkins' match. Stroud gives me a thumbs up that tells me that Jenkins is winning. This makes me very happy because James Jenkins and I have talked earlier about this exact, very lucky, possibility. James Jenkins decided that if we were in the finals today, with only one pro tour seat to be awarded, he would happily concede the match to me in order to let the last Guildmage without a pro tour appearance a chance be the first Guildmage to represent the team overseas! His match ends, and the next thing I know, he's calling me to move my stuff over to his table. I do, and now we're shuffling decks getting ready to play the final match. I'm now a little nervous, because I didn't think we were going to play it out. The head judge comes over to ask us if we're ready to start, and James Jenkins, the most competitive Magic player you will EVER meet, tells the judge that he would like to concede the match to me. Anticlimactic? Maybe. Good teamwork? ABSOLUTELY! Winning the finals would have been exciting, but not nearly as exciting as seeing teamwork and all our combined hard work pay off with one more Guildmage heading to the pro tour. Two days later, I already have my tickets (Mrs. Zanman will be caddying for me in Germany) and permission to miss work for a few days in December! There you have it, travelling adventures (Jenkins ran out of gas during his driving shift on the way back from Arkansas, luckily, Zanman's Ford F-150 has TWO fuel tanks, unlike the DODGE truck owned by James Jenkins) , thrilling Magic tournament play, and great teamwork, not to mention a happy ending. My story's complete, all except for the credits... PROPS and SLOPS!! PROPS to David Williams, without whom I would never have heard of the idea of PROPS AND SLOPS. Big, big credit to James Jenkins. He didn't just help get me to Germany, he's greatly responsible for the sealed deck skills of our entire team. Special thanks to the rest of the Texas Guildmages, James Stroud, Scot Martin, Cortney Cunningham, James Murphy (lives in Austin, plays for Texas), David Williams, Minh Huynh, and introducing your newest Guildmage, Tim "Wakko Djinn" Stoltzfus. Thanks for the BIG-TIME Guildmage support from Princess Willa, Robert Lawing, Marcus Trevino and sponsor extraordinaire, Mike Eckrich at Games Galore in Arlington. Thanks also to the best player that Team Dallas ever had that DOESN'T write Magic books, Cary Darwin. He helped me with my deck at Weatherlight pre-release, and I haven't been the same since. Thanks also to all the cool dudes at Games Galore (Reaper and otherwise), and to Zeth Bass, wherever he is. SLOPS go out to whoever lifted Tim Stoltzfus' bag at the Tempest prerelease in Ennis, Texas. Don't let us find out who you are! SLOPS - is this where I trash talk some Magic guys that I don't like? Forget about it. I'm so happy right now, I almost wanna hug an Austin Knight! -Peace, OUT, -Jeff (Zanman) Zandi (zzanman@aol.com)