Subject: PA PTQ Tourney Report Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 03:36:33 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert S. Hahn" To: Frank Kusumoto The saga begins about a week before the Harrisburg PTQ -- the only one in the country over Christmas break. I know that I have to start my Bar Exam review course come Dec. 29th, so I know that the last chance I have to play Magic seriously is the Harrisburg PTQ. But I know jack about Extended format -- even though I wrote an article in the Duelist about it. :) So a part of me wanted to just play to see if my predictions had been borne out. I can't say I was disappointed -- as you'll see. In any case, my friend and teammate Eric Kesselman really wants to qualify, so about a week before Harrisburg and after his exams are fairly finished, we get together and playtest with proxies -- since I basically don't own any Type 1 cards. I build Dojo copies of Sligh, Necro, 4CW with Priests and whatnots, and Tongo. We play. We have a blast, and I come up with what I think is the ultimate Extended combo until I read the actual card (remember that I don't own many/any cards) and realize that it doesn't work barrings some significant bribing of the judge. For those interested, it was Intuition/Guerilla Tactics (I thought maybe Intuition is discard from the hand, silly me, until I read the card). At the end of a few days of playtesting, Eric is thinking of playing B/g Necro with Knights, land destruction, and Erhnams/Scragnoth standard. It's a solid deck, or so we think, until we take it to Neutral Ground one evening and get beat by everything from Sligh to Mono-Green Land Destruction to R/U CounterHammer to T2 Mono-blue Capsize. In the meantime, because the only playtest deck we had built with counters was the Tongo deck, I get stuck playing with Tongo (I can't play a deck without counterspells -- it's just one of those things). I play a lot, I win a lot, and it's a lot of fun. Eric gets tired of his B/G Pile-O-Garbage and plays my Tongo deck. He likes it a lot. I like it less because I think it kinda sucks in the Dojo version. On Christmas Eve, Eric decides to play Tongo, so I sit down with him and modify it to take account of the changed environment (i.e., Wasteland) and my bad luck (3 Outposts? I would draw double Outpost every game!). We play that version, and like it a lot, but we have no sideboard whatsoever. Even after Christmas, I don't know if I'm going to Harrisburg and the deck is far from finished. Somewhere, Eric heard from someone that the Outpost is very important to the Tongo deck so he wants to put them back in and play with Interdict to stop Wastelands. We make changes. We make more changes. Sometime between the 26th and the 27th (day of the tournament), I decide to go and play for fun. By this time, we've settled on the deck we're going to play -- it looks like Tongo, but it plays nothing like it. If the Tongo deck is a R/U/W control deck, then our final product is more like a R/U beatdown deck with Tithes in it. :) On the whole ride down, with Andrew Rifkind, Little Tony Rodriguez (who's in 8th grade), Eric, and Ben Bleiweiss, we just talk shit about Extended. Andrew has an amusingly bad R/G/W Centaur/Erhnam/Geddon deck that doesn't know what it wants to do. During the 4 hours drive down, we convince him to play something else. I promise to build him something once we get to Harrisburg. We drive the entire freaking night, and I have to stay up to keep Andrew the driver awake. The quality of conversation can be surmised from the following deck idea that we came up with near Philadephia: Necro-Whispers of the Muse-Scorched Earth-Orcish Squatters. In any case, we get to Harrisburg near five in the morning, stumble in to the hotel, get breakfast where I drink about four cups of coffee and then we meander over to the tournament center. We make amusingly bad trades. Tony trades his Polar Kraken ("Why the hell are you carrying that card with you, Tony?") and Living Death ("Gee, I wonder what deck he's playing?") for a Hammer and an Armageddon. I trade my Nekrataal for an Interdict (!!!!), and we just go crazy building shit. I build Andrew a killer Necrodeck based around my Type 2 Necrodeck, but Extendified -- based on what I saw the previous night at Neutral Ground. I run around looking for Stupors and Bottle Gnomes, while Andrew and Eric play a game. When I get back, Eric looks at me worried: "Rob, I think our deck sucks." What's wrong with it, I ask. "Interdict sucks ass." By now, people are lining up to register. I survey the room. Hundreds of people, and I mean hundreds. "Let me think about it," I say and wander outside to smoke. While there, I catch drifts of conversation among some of the players and I gather that Interdict is too high tech for the field. I rush back and rebuild the deck, taking out Outposts here and there, out with Interdicts, put in better cards, make the sideboard, etc. We finally end up with something we're happy with and register. I'm so tired that I'm seriously thinking about playing mono-red Sligh just so I could afford not to think at all. Then the tournament begins. Oh well! Round 1 -- 10 year old kid playing Buried Alive Didn't see a Necro in his deck at all. All I remember is that the first game, I play a Tundra. He plays Swamp. I'm thinking, Necro! but have a Counterspell in hand. So I play a Volcanic Island. He plays a Swamp and... Nether Shadow? Where's the Hymn? I'll take 1, thanks, and I guess you're playing Buried Alive. I draw, play a Mishra, and I'm done. He plays Buried Alive, which I counter, play land, bolt something here or there, take 1 from Nether Shadow, and turn six drop Diesel. He has a Black Knight, 2 Nether Shadows, an Ashen Ghoul in graveyard, another one plowed, an Order in the graveyard, and maybe two cards in hand. I have a land untapped and Diesel, so he Edicts me. I make the Mishra a critter, and sac it. He's sad. I attack with Orgg-Diesel, and he blocks??? with a Nether Shadow. Okay, take five. A 5 point fireball ends that game. Second game goes something like counter the Buried Alive, plow the Shadow, Mishra, Mishra, beatdown, control the Black Knight, beatdown some more, bolt, bolt, game. Next match. 1-0 Round 2 -- Eric Phillips: Necro I saw Eric the night before, and I had built Andrew's deck templated after his. Our games were kinda split, and I don't want to play him second round. He doesn't want to play me second round; besides, he's already qualified. So we ID. 1-0-1 Round 3 -- Dave Wynn: Tongo/PropOrb Game 1 -- This is actually a bad matchup for me, as I discover. I get out a Frenetic and a Mishra and beatdown for a bit, but he drops Propaganda. I Disenchant, but he has Force of Will. So I pay 2 mana to attack with Frenetic to get him to 12. He drops another Propaganda. I tap 4 mana to attack and get him to 10. He drops Winter Orb. My jaw hits the floor -- either because he has some new inventive deck like TongoPrison or because his deck is so bad (Tongo is fairly mana intensive). But he doesn't play anything else except a Sky Diamond and yet another Propaganda for about six turns, so I untap all my mana, play all my lands, and fireball him for 10, fully expecting a counter-war. To my surprise, it just goes through. Game 2 -- I draw no blue mana and get beatdown by a sudden flood of Frenetics and Wildfires. He bolts me three times to kill me turn six or so, when I have 2 Plateaus and a Mishra on the table. Where are my Tithes? Game 3 -- This is the most amusing and the best played game of Magic in a while for me. I get color screwed again, but draw three Mishra's Factories. The first one gets in for 2. The second one gets bolted. The third one gets Disenchanted, and I sit there with 1 Mishra because he plays third-turn Propaganda, fourth-turn Propaganda, and fifth-turn Winter orb with a Diamond on the table. Of course, I don't see any of my Auras or SuperSecretPrisonHoser (Energy Flux). Then we both stall, because of the Worb, and I have to bolt him or discard, so i bolt him. Next turn, I have to bolt him or discard, so I bolt him. He bolts me for the same reason. We both Tithe and get land on the table. Eventually, I lay an Aura. I decide to kill a Propaganda, since I had Diesel in hand. He plays a Wildfire Emissary, which I consider Hydroblasting, but he has a Worb on the table -- I don't care if he pumps it. Next turn, I have 8 cards in hand that look like: Counter, Force, Disrupt, Pyro, Disenchant, Disenchant, Fireball, Diesel. I also have maybe 16 mana, but only 10 untapped. He's holding 6 cards with about 10 lands untapped. I cast Diesel. His eyes bulge. "That's so... BIG!" and he counters. I counter, he Dissipates, I Pyro, he Force of Wills. I consider Disrupting, but decide against it. He untaps a bit, draws, then Impulses, going down to 4 untapped lands. Attack with Wildfire, I take 2, then Disenchant the Worb. He Force of Wills with a Frenetic. I take a couple of turns untapping land, while drawing Counterspell, Fireball. I get smacked by the Wildfire for about 6 more. I Disenchant the Worb again? It goes through! But I'm thinking he let me do that so his Wildfire could do more damage. On the other hand, I can't wait anymore, even if he's got 3 cards in hand. I untap my lands, count the mana. Count again. Count his cards. Count his untapped lands. Then, "Fireball for 12?" leaving Island, Island, and Volcanic open. To my GREAT surprise, it goes through untouched. I heard later that when he impulsed, he grabbed another Wildfire instead of a Counterspell. So I get by this one, having done all of 2 damage with a first turn Mishra for creature damage. I feel like some kind of a weird burn player. 2-0-1 Round 4 -- Nate Fischer: Buried Alive/Necro Another Buried Alive deck... without Hymns? But at least he had Bad Moon... I guess. First game, I tithe my way to mana plenty, then Disrupt his Buried Alive, while killing every creature he puts into play. But I'm not doing much else either. He then plays Necro. Oops, I think to myself. I draw and play Outpost, which starts blocking Nether Shadows and Ashen Ghouls. Out of frustration, or trying to find his Wasteland, he Necro's for 7 cards, dropping to 6. I have 6 mana on the table, and fireball in hand, with Tithe. I tithe for a land, and fireball him dead. Second game, he gets mana screwed with one swamp, and my Frenetics and Mishras make quick work of him. 3-0-1 Round 5 -- Ben Farkas: Fruity Pebbles Ben's a Pro Tour player, I gather, by his strange play tactics and his sullen manner. Whatever -- I say this is still just a game, but his attitude does not make me angry. Instead, it only makes me play VERY VERY carefully. Game 1 -- He mulligans, and I see all dual lands, a bombardment, and a Me (Enlightened Tutor). I call for milk. But my hand looks very good, with a Disenchant, a Plow, and a couple of Counterspells, along with a Tithe. Basically, we both do nothing, while his first Bombardment gets Disenchanted, and he plays another one. All I care about is how many cards he has and how much land he has in play of what type. I attack with Mishras to draw out plows or Shield Spheres and he does play a Shield Sphere. About three turns later, after playing more land, he goes for the combo and plays the Renewal. I plow the SS in response. He lets it through with 3 cards in hand and I see them once the Renewal hits: Arcane, Intuition, Bombardment. He plays the Intuition for 3 Shield Spheres, which works since Intuition puts the card into hand, instead of "drawing". I counter the SS and that's game. The first game where I didn't burn my opponent dead. Game 2 -- I side in 3 Auras, Pyroblasts, and Swords (can't bolt a SS dead). I play a turn three Aura, then a turn five Aura. He can't believe it. A SS costs 4 to cast. :) Having slowed him down to a crawl, I play Diesel a couple of turns later which a SS can't hold off for long. He Arcanes it, so i draw two cards: Dismiss, Pyroblast. he taps 8 mana to play Enduring Renewal, i guess attempting to draw an Aura on it, with a Walker in play. I counter the Renewal, which he arcanes. I draw two cards, while he draws a Shield Sphere until I remind him what the Renewal does. I fireball his Walker, which pops back into his hand, where he has Disrupt, Memory Lapse, and a Bombardment. I think he's dead, but he taps 6 mana to play Bombardment, which is okay with me, then 2 mana to cast Walker, which gets Dismissed, and his Memory Lapse is Pyroblasted, and I easily pay the Disrupt mana. Game. So I get by that deck without fireballing my opponent dead even once. But Ben's already qualified, so whatever. 4-0-1 Round 6 -- John Sorrentino: Alatar variant At 4-0-1, I'm at the head table, and I'm feeling okay. I think my deck could handle anything. That's the secret: it's not great against anything, but it's okay against everything. :) The one thing it is NOT great against is mana screw, which I'm about to learn. Game 1 -- John seems to be playing nothing but a cursed scroll/land deck, as he lays a Cursed Scroll (which promptly gets Disenchanted) and about 10 lands (and a Longbow Archer, which promptly meets Mr. Bolt). I house him with Frenetics, and discover that he's playing Honorable Passage standard. Game 2 -- I draw a Mishra, an Outpost, and 2 tithes. By the time I get out of that mana screw, a Priest and a Lancer has me down to about 6 and he has bolts. I've already used 2 Force of Will to try and slow down the weenie rush a bit, and not having enough cards in hand, I lose the contest. Game 3 -- Critical game 3. I feel okay about the contest, since I have 4 Swords and 2 Control Magics for his Priests. I draw a Volcanic Island and Wasteland. I sit there for about six turns while getting beatdown by a Black Knight. He Pyroblasts my Control Magic, and I'm dying. Eventually, I get Diesel out, which gives me 6 life: back up to 16 from 10. Meanwhile, I have drawn NO plows and one Bolt, which got Passaged back to me from his Black Knight. I drop another Diesel, and we're suddenly in a race. He has 2 cards in hand, a Scroll on the table, an Outpost and 2 other lands, with a Priest and a Black Knight. I'm at 14. He's at 14. I have Diesel and a Mishra, a Disrupt, and a Tithe. He attacks with everything, so I block with Diesel, which gets Passaged to me. Ouch! I take 8 and am at 6. I attack with Diesel and drop him to 8, play a Frenetic. He attacks, so block with Frenetic which fails the coin flip, take 2. I'm at 4. I've drawn one Bolt and NO Fireballs. I Tithe, and Disrupt my own Tithe to draw: Counterspell, thin out 1 land, and shuffle for a dramatic pause. I draw.... an Outpost! I put him down to 2 and die. Next card: Fireball. If he Scrolled the Frenetic, I win, since then he can't make an Outpost token to block my Mishra. If my Frenetic survives, I win. If I draw one of 5 burn spells left in the deck, I win. It was that close from that bad a position of manascrew. Anyhow, I congratulate John and move on. It was fun at least. 4-1-1 Round 7: I have to win two straight now to make it to final eight. I have confidence in my deck, and in Darth Vader (my good luck charm). I play Mike, playing U/W/G Prison/Gaea's Blessing/etc. Game 1 -- He gets out the fastest Prison lock I've ever seen. 3 Diamonds, 2 Icy, and a Winter Orb by turn five or so. I can't do squat, because I draw squat. Concede quickly and go to the sideboard, which is geared to deal with his deck. Game 2 -- I play a turn three Energy Flux, Frenetic him down to 14, 3 Bolts and a Fireball to win. That's how it's SUPPOSED to work, I say. Game 3 -- This is it. If I win this, I think I make it in, because the decks left in contention are the ones I prepared heavily for with main deck and sideboard. I draw my initial 7. Disenchant, Aura, Aura, Counter, Force, Bolt, Outpost. I draw: not land. I draw: not land. I draw: not land. I draw: not land. Meanwhile, I'm discarding Diesel, Serra, Bolt, everything, while he's playing Diamonds, Sylvan Library, Aura of Silence of his own, etc. I draw: tithe! I wish I had a plains, of course. I draw: Wasteland. I draw: Plateau, so i Tithe. By this time, he has Icy out, and I'm sure he's stacked Worbs in the Sylvan Library. He's getting so bold, he's paying 8 life. Let me not go through the agony of playing this game. I had what was almost the perfect hand against him, going first. Then I get the Outpost draw. I only have ONE Outpost to prevent this sort of thing. I have 28 mana sources in the deck. But whatever. It took a long time for him to do anything to me, so I almost, ALMOST pull it out at the end once my land situation is better, but then he Armageddons repeatedly. I didn't notice how much time was left, so when Tony came over to call for time "Active player, finish your turn" I conceded at faster-than-mana-source speed. I could have drawn. People could have said I was stalling, though I wasn't, since he didn't have complete mana lock on me, and I was holding damage in hand, and he wasn't that high in life. But I could have drawn for more points or whatever. But I figured that doesn't help anybody. You need six wins to get in. If we draw, both of us are knocked out. It sucks that I got manascrewed, but Mike played a decent game, and I felt he deserved the win. So I let him have the match, and he makes it to Top 8. 4-2-1 Round 8 -- Don't remember from anger at Round 7: CounterPost I don't really remember this game that well, except that Diesel came to play ball a couple of times, and Frenetic v. Diesel is not a good contest, and Outpost tokens can't stop 6/6 Trample. Win easily and end the day at 5-2-1. I do feel good about the deck and the sideboard calls for that day. Adding extra Swords was such a right call with all the WW and Buried Alive decks that were there that day. Shaq-Diesel is such house, especially since so few people played with Erhnams there for some reason. Aura of Silence was key in beating Fruity Pebbles and i should have beaten Prison with my sideboard. But mana screw happens, and Magic is not now, has never been, and never will be an intellectual sport like Chess or Go. It's much too late, and this is much too long. Peace, out. -The Sophist Props -- Team Gimp (Eric, Tony, Andrew, Me) for doing reasonably well under extreme fatigue. Especially in booster draft for ante. ;) Gray Matter for a well-run tournament Radisson for having an awesome hotel/convention center The couple who got married in the ballroom next door and forced their well-dressed guests to mingle with Magic freaks all night. Jean-Luc Park and the Pittsburgh crew for being a good sport. All the non-prick Magic players I played that day. John Shuler for his Mogg Fanatic competition. Eric Phillips and the rest of the Jersey crew for being good and being civilized, sociable human beings. The one guy with multicolored hair who put scorecards on his Frenetics. To our waitress at the restaurant who was the peppiest, happiest person at three in the morning. Slops: To mana screw, that decider of every Magic game ever played. To all the self-important Magic freaks whose self-respect depends on this fucking game. To my Lightning Bolts which hid from me game 3 against John. To long-ass drives through the Pennsylvania countryside where the only radio station choices were country, western, and country. To Team Gimp anti-smoking nazis whose womanly bitching is unbecoming. To the ignorant asshole who stole my bag in front of Penn Station last week with SIX constructed decks in it. You don't even know what those cards do, I bet. Robert S. Hahn hahn@bway.net http://www.bway.net/~hahn Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man - Polonius, to his son Laertes Hamlet, Act I, Scene III.