Subject: another Philly PTQ-Mainz report...
Date: 17 Nov 1997 14:26:13 GMT
From: seanotter@aol.com (Seanotter)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

     This was only my second sanctioned tournament, the first being the Tempest
 Prerelease (where I did good...top 8). The night before the tournament, me and
 a bunch of friends took a ride up to Centralia, PA, from Manheim. We left
 Manheim at about 11, after waiting for friends who took way too long... (note:
 this is halloween night). For those who don't know, Centralia is an old mining
 town that is
burning underneath it, and is mostly abandoned, except for some stubborn people
 who don't want to leave =) It took us an hour to get there, so we stopped at
 Turkey Hill for drinks. We walked around old dirt roads for about 3 hours,
 checking out the smoke coming out of the ground in random places. We left
 Centralia at about 3 AM.
     Back in Manheim, it's 4 AM now. We sleep for about 3 1/2 hours, and get up
 to leave for Philadelphia. We all know where it's at (there are 3 of us),
 because we've been there for other tournaments. We get there a little early,
 so registration hasn't started yet. We get our chance to register, and there
 are only like 12 people at the hotel for this thing. So they let registration
 go for like an hour longer than it was supposed to, and we get up to 50
 people. We sit down to register our decks, and I'm looking at my friends,
 thinking WOW. It has a shivan, viashivan, 2 river boas, and some other stuff.
 I wanted that deck. The deck I registered had a nekrataal, Pillar tombs,
 boomerang, other okay stuff. We hand in the decks, and I get called up to get
 mine back! I'm thinking okay, I like this deck.
Major cards of deck:
Nekrataal
Pillar Tombs
Boomerang
2 Cloud Elemental
Remove Soul
Wall of Swords
A few other fliers (pegasi or something =))
I look at this deck, thinking "the only way I can kill those big guys is
 nek/boomerang or pillar tombs..."
I got approximately 4 red cards. not much green either, no boas.
I wasn't too sure what I would do if I came up against the dragon deck, so I
 just hoped for the best. The early matches, I don't really remember, it's all
 in a haze, considering I had walked about 5 miles the night before and got
 almost no sleep on my friend's floor.
     We met another friend there, Mike Fory (sp?). He's been to a lot more
 sanctioned tournaments than I have, although I don't know much about how he's
 done. I went 3-1, then played a guy that really bothered me. He was Russian or
 something, I don't really know. Real thick accent. He continually stalled, and
 we were sitting right next to Tony (the judge). He didn't understand how I
 went first, which meant I didn't draw an eighth card, played an impulse, and
 had the same number of total cards in graveyard/hand/in play as he did. I
 truly can not believe he didn't understand this, as I was winning and he
 thought about it for 20 minutes or so =(
     I mentioned it to Tony, and he said something, but that's about it =(
I ended up drawing with the guy, so I'm 3-1-1. I win the final match fairly
 easily, so I'm 4-1-1. I make it into the top 8! yay!!!!
     We draft, something I have never done before. I open the first 5th edition
 pack, and see NOTHING but a prodigal sorcerer. I think great, this could be
 bad. Next pack, nothing blue. not good. So I draft an incinerate, the only
 good card in that pack. From there it gets pretty hazy, because, of course, we
 draft a lot of cards. I end up playing straight u/r, only drafting 5 cards of
 other colors. Making my deck, I have no clue why I played 17 land. I only had
 2 cards in the deck with casting costs over 3, both being talruum champions. I
 win the first match, fairly easily. I don't think this guy drafts well, or he
 just never saw anything good. So great, I win one more match and I'm in the
 top 2, getting an invite to Mainz.
    The guy I play drafted much better than me. His name is Pat, I believe it
 was. He is playing w/b/g, from what I saw. He beats me the first game, but not
 easily. The second game, he gets out a vampire bats, which I wasn't able to
 deal with quickly. Then he casts a Divine Transformation on it. He beats me
 down, tough. =(
     So I shake his hand and congratulate him. He gets an invite, but I didn't
 stick around for the end of the match. I got an IT all hallows eve in one of
 my IT legends packs that I got for a prize =)
     Not a depressing day at all for me, considering it was only my second
 sanctioned tournament, which, by the way, was about 275 people less than my first. =)