Subject: PTQ LA report -- WW/r Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 15:28:46 -0700 (MST) From: WAGNER JAY MICHAEL To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi... This is Jay Wagner, and I normally don't write in stuff to the dojo, but this time I figured, "What the hey... I've read so many reports there, might as well give one back." So here goes... Well, after munching down some Egg McMuffins we drove on down to DJ's Cards and Comics, the site for one of Denver's 2 PTQ slots. We get there a bit early, so we register and buy a few cards we are missing. After going over the deck and sideboard one last time, it looks like the members of Team Kind (Me - Jay Wagner, Mike Mariani, and Heath Kennel, so named because we were kind to our opponents at PT - Chicago) and the Team Kind groupies were ready to go. First off, I gotta say that I'm not putting a decklist here because I probably will try to qualify with it in future tournaments... and I don't want to contribute to the hosing of a deck I took so long to build (and is now fairly common). But by reading the report, you can get an okay idea of what the deck is like, basically White Weenie with bolts 'n other good stuff to back it up. Speaking of good stuff, let's get down to it. Round 1 - Jason Heinz Well, what can I say? Jason and I come to this tourney with weeks of playtesting behind this deck we made and what happens? We play first round! Of the 70 or so people that were there, I face up with my own &^*@$! deck. We contemplate the draw and figure that one of us would need to go undefeated and the other only get one loss to be in. We decide against it... Game 1 - Man I get beat down. Early Lions lay on the hits and my blockers get bolted. He is able to tax on me and it's all over... Game 2 - Again he gets the early beat down. I'm down to 10 when the Cursed Scroll from the sideboard does into effect, and it works beautifully when I have 6 Plains in my hand out of 7 cards. After killing his creatures, my Knights move in. Game 3 - Beatdown supreme. 2 early Lions backed by bolts and a knight slaughtering FIrestorm kill me in 2 minutes. Well... what a crappy start. It can only go uphill from here... or so I thought. Matches 0-1 Games 1-2 Match 2 - Hoang Dang He is playing U/W control with like 1 counterspell. I don't see how I can lose... Game 1 - Me: Lion, Him: Plow. Me: Knight, Him: Plow. Me: 'Beast, Him: (you guessed it) Plow. CHRIST! Any hope for an early beatdown are shattered. His 4th Plow comes a few turns later and then Icies and Phat Motis (!) start hitting the table. I curl up and die. This game takes 30 minutes at least. Game 2 - Again with the early plows. However, this time my sideboard and top deck skillz came through. The Motis and Serras get pyro'ed and plowed, and my Outpost eventually generates enough tokens to win, even through about what seemed 8 Wraths of God. He was trying to deck me when I had a Scroll Rack out... heh, silly him. This guy made LOTS of playing errors, and was even warned for playing sloppily when he forgot to untap before drawing for like the 2,109th time. This game took all but 3 minutes of the allotted time. GREAT! Given enough time, I know I could beat this deck, however it was not to be.....later my teammate Jason would avenge this draw by applying some serious beatdown. Matches 0-1-1 Games: 2-3-1 Hmmm, well to make top 8 now I can't lose. However, at this point I was pissed off and determined to win. Match 3 - Robert Montes This guy was playing some 3 color jank deck. I don't really know what was in it, as I was too busy killing him. Game 1 - Lion, Knight and Bolt beatdown. He complains of mana-screw after using a Lotus Petal and after I bolt 2 elves. What do you expect? Game 2 - More of the same, Priest style. Again with the mana screw... again with 2 petals this time. Bout time something went my way! Matches 1-1-1 Games: 4-3-1 At this point, Jason was 2-1 and I was really rooting for him to get top 8, Mike Mariani (original Team Kind member), playing bitch-you-up Prison (which was the day's PERFECT metagame), was 3-0, and Heath Kennel (founder of Team Kind) was sitting with me at 1-1-1. I figured with my luck I'd play him next round. Nope. Match 4 - Matthew Meachem. Whew! Don't have to play Heath...this was the guy Heath just drew against. Playing R/G/w I think. I didn't see a whole lot of his deck. Game 1 - With him having only a Gemstone Mine on the board, I gank his Bird O' Paradise with a swords and manascrew him to victory. Game 2 - I get out 2 early 'Beasts (which were just BESTIAL for me in this tourney) and get him down to 6. I attack with both beasts and he blocks the one with an arrow counter on it with his Wildfire, pumping for the kill. The other scores 3 and my bolt finishes him off. His next draw is a Gemstone, which really upsets him as he shows me the two Plows in his hand. Yipes. Matches: 2-1-1 Games: 6-3-1. All right, just need to keep winnin'. Match 5 - Travis Taylor Oh man.... OH MAN!!! He's playing Land Destruction! Just guess how this match will go, I dare you. Game 1: First turn tax, baby. That's all I need, all other cards are almost irrelevant. My knights apply some pro-black beatdown as his land d spells are strangely ineffective. Game 2: More of the same. Tax, knight, priest, yadda yadda yadda. The guy was really nice about this match. Unforunately, it was just a bad matchup for him. Matches 3-1-1 Games 8-3-1. Match 6 - Doug Heisel He is playing R/U Frenetic/Cspell. Tongo style I would guess. This deck can give me trouble, so I'm a bit worried. Like I said, I NEED to win. Game 1 - I get out a 1st turn Lion and it almost goes the distance. He just didn't get the cards this game. No bolts or Wildfires, and a fistful of blue (I would guess) with no blue mana on the table. He Forces my Scroll Racks, but the Lions just beat him down. Game 2 - This was a better game. In go my sideboard cards: Pyros, a Fireslinger and Legacies for all the nasty Efreets this type of deck can pump out. I get out some early creatures and a tax. Then the rack hits the table and I draw MAD cards. He drops a disk for which I have no answers and he scores a 3 to 1 cards advantage. However, next turn more creatures drop and he can't come up with bolts or a quake to save himself. A good player and sport with a tough deck, but I had a killer draw, especially the second game. Matches: 4-1-1 Games: 10-3-1 Awww yeah baby, I was lookin' at top 8 for sure. I was pumped, as I knew I had as good of a shot as anybody. Mike went 5-1 and scored 3rd slot in the top 8. Jason faltered against some TOUGH decks, losing by just the narrowest of margins, and went 3-3 (this came to haunt me a little in the tiebrakers I think). Heath, who couldn't figure out WHAT the hell went wrong, ended up 3-2-1 with a deck that, given a better metagame environment, could have rolled over the field. Top 8 - 1) Jason Schickli - W/R Bolt, Priest and Beast smackdown 2) Ryan Cole - R/w/g Fattie-Geddon 3) Mike Mariani - "Smack my bitch up" (TM) Prison 4) Jeanette Napper - Pure burn/sligh 5) Kelvin Tang - U/R Frenetic control 6) Sam Gutierrez - Fruity Pebbles, funky style 7) Dan Kerber - WW/r I think 8) Josh Napper - Necro 9) Jay Wagner - ME! Arggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!! 9th! How dissapointing! Out of 8th by .06 in opponent's match wins. And the guy who got 8th had the person who he was playing against concede even though he could have won easily (he's at 2 life, while the guy he's playing against has 2 bolts in hand and a creature in play). Oh well, at least I could watch my teammate Mike beat up on a field which I know he could waste, except for possibly that Necro deck. Early Hymns can just DESTROY prison. Round o' 8: Cole beats Kerber - Fatties too much too handle Mariani beats Gutierrez - an interesting and well played match Schickli beats Napper - Napper gets his just desserts for cheesing into the final 8 Tang beats the other Napper - didn't watch this one Semis: Schickli beats Tang - also didn't watch Cole beats Mariani - Prison loses to fatties? Well when you draw 3 lands in two games, it's tough to win. Finals Cole beats Schickli and goes to LA - good match, well played, but Cole's big boys like the Serra and Erhnam were too much for Schickli to handle. Armageddon proved to be a deciding factor as well. Overall, it was a dissapointing day, I got screwed out of the final 8, and Mike not only got mana hosed, but mana ganked, drenched, and raped. I guess it happens, but it's such a shame, becuase that Prison deck was by far the most original deck in the final 8. Now everyone in the Denver area will copy it. Despite this setback, the members of TK will continue in their tireless efforts to qualify...and rest assured, all you PT-LA participants, we will see you there! Jay Wagner