Subject: bonedancers, and a type one report
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 08:06:44 -0500
From: "Jamie & Mare" <thetick@sover.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

Friday night the snow starts to come.  (this is three weeks ago – nov 13)
By morning, the entire east coast is blanketed in snow, and the woods are a
peaceful wonderland.  It’s the first day of deer hunting season, and I’m up
at 4:30 am to hit the woods. I meet my dad, head up to the woods, and I
slink up to my stand. I take two steps, stop, think about my deck. Take two
more steps, look around and think about my sideboard. I’m supposed to be
looking around every two steps, and I am, but I’m thinking magic the whole
time too. I take two more steps, and think, Should I go for kindle’s instead
of lightning blasts? Slink a little further down the path and think – you
know, I must remember to add disks to my sideboard for the morning. They
just might prove essential against those damn light of day sideboards. Take
two more steps, and wonder – Where the hell am I?
I’m afraid I’m not much of a hunter.
I go out a lot, eat the entirety of anything I get, I get up early, and I
pack a lunch so that a day in the woods is a full day – all eleven hours of
daylight. But I bring a book with me to read, just because I can’t stand to
be bored. Most days  - I’ll read a page, look around and see if anything has
wandered into my stand, read another page, look up, go back to reading.
I sit under a tree, and I wait and I wait, and I wait. But no deer come
along. I have too much to think about. I spend a good 8 hours of the day
thinking about my book, my deck, my life, and where I’m going with it. I
never crack the book I’ve brought once, and the time just flies. I blow my
nose every five minutes, and suck down Dayquill to keep me alive, cause I’ve
been sick for three days and shouldn’t even be out here. My barely stifled
coughs and nose blowings keep the deer safe. But its opening day, and I’m
already feeling guilty about missing tomorrow’s hunting to go to the tourney
at Comics and Collectibles.
But I need to win a tourney with the bone dancers. The only thing that’s
kept me from doing so, is supernaturally bad draws in the top eight. The
deck just rolls over and dies on me in the top eight, and loses to decks
that it stomps in the swiss.  Its really odd, and I seem to be under a
curse.
For those of you that hate hunters – well, I sort of agree with you. I hate
some hunters too. I hate hunters that get their wives a deer tag as well so
they can get two deer. I hate “road” hunters that cruise the back roads with
a six pack and a gun, looking into the fields instead of busting their hump
hiking into the woods and feeling like your ancestors. But I think that’s a
whole other newsgroup, so I’ll end this little tirade right here. Let me
just say that I’m a hunter because I eat meat, and its important for me to
understand where it comes from. It makes me appreciate it more, and helps me
understand that man is a predator. Watch the nature channel for a couple
months and you’ll understand what I mean.

I am exhausted by the end of the day, but I’ve done a ton of work on my deck
in my mind, and after I get home, shower, drink coffee, cuddle the dogs and
the Lovely Mare, I pull out the deck for the final tweaks to the deck.
I get up the next morning, and head into the shop. Pretty usual crowd here
today. We get twenty six and all the regulars are here.
This is two weeks ago, so this will be summarized.
The Voodoo burn deck does its usually magic, smashing opponents left and
right, and in the fourth round, KeithK offers me a draw, and I take it. I
don’t know why, probably because I am tired, and after I think about it, I
regret it. If I don’t win my next match, I probably won’t be in the top
eight. But then, just for a change of pace, I won’t be the number one or
number two seed either, and I might break my curse of losing in the first
round of the top eight.
I’m always under some curse. Its either ninth at PTQ’s or lose in the first
round of the top eight at local tourney’s.
I spank my next opponent, the Bone Dancers animating a ton of creatures, and
sneak my way into the top eight as the 4th seed, with one of the infamous
Myers twins being the 5th. Or is that backwards?
Regardless. I wonder about my odds. I have no idea what he’s playing this
tourney, as we have not played in the rounds of swiss, and I wonder if I’m
going to smoke him, or he’ll smoke me.
I’m happily surprised to see that he is playing almost an identical deck to
the one I stomped on two weeks ago. Here’s an excerpt from the last time our
two decks faced off.
First game, he mulligans, gets one land on his six, and I beat him down, I
beat him down, I beat him DOWN!
I get  a guildmage
He plays an bird. I kill the bird. Stupor next turn, play a bone dancer. He
plays a centaur, I edict it, steal his centaur. He plays a lancer I
incinerate it, run over and steal it. He plays a elf, I kill it, steal it.
He conceeds.
Second game is my turn. I sit at two mana for three tuurn, but really, that’
s all I need with edicts and incinerates in hand. I get a shadow guildmage
on the board, he kills it, I get an erg, he kills it, I edict and incinerate
some stuff of his. I draw my third land, play a bone dancer, he kills it. I
play another, he has no answer. The bone dancer works his voodoo, animates
all his creatures and I beat him down with them.

So, I’m pretty hopeful as the first game starts that I will finally break my
little curse of being the number 1 or 2 seed, and lose in the first round of
the top eight. Its only been about six months since I won a tourney. The
curse started at this years States. For those of you that don’t read my
reports much – let me reiterate (i.e. whine) that I have been number one or
number two seed for all but one of the last 7 or 9 tournaments, most of the
time undefeated in the swiss and lost out in the first round of the top
eight.
Marc and I start our match.
 He beats me down in the first game, and in the second, he ends up getting a
stick (disrupting sceptre) on the board, so I can’t hold much, but make the
best of it. I play really, really carefully, discarding land once I get high
enough on mana to run what I need, torching him whenever I am able, and
finally I get him down to four life. I use my last torch to put him at 4.
He casts a light of day.
I’m still at really high on life, and marc admits that he thought he was
done. He’s seen the amount of damage I have in the deck. I have 5 land, so I
can torch him out, or lightning blast him out.
I draw a lightning bolt, and bolt him to one.
Now, I need one torch, one mogg fanatic, one guildmage to live a turn, one
lightning blast, one incinerate or one kindle.
He plays a lancer and hits me for two.
I draw and play an abyssal specter.
Now, as well as all the cards I just listed, I need one of my three
disenchants that I have sided in, in order to end the game.
Marc plays a centaur, attacks again
I draw and edict him, and he sacs the lancer.
I draw a bone dancer
He attacks with the centaur, bolts me.
I draw a land
Then another land, then more land, then more black creatures, none of them
able to attack or do a point of damage. I die. Again in the first round of
the top eight.
I’m usually a very good sport, but this time I whine like a ten year old,
pick up my toys and leave.  I whine to marc about my bad luck. I don’t throw
my cards, or curse him out or anything, but still very childish and really
out of charcter for me. I apologize to marc and everyone who was there,  in
this report, because for some reason, I still haven’t apologized to him or
anyone else in person. Wait… I might have said sorry to keith and louise
already.
Anyway.
I head out into the woods again next weekend, and some people will be glad
to hear that I get nothing again.
Now, it’s the weekend after. Time for another tourney, and this week, it’s a
Type One tourney. Just for a change. Probably the first type one we’ve had
in a year.
I sign on to IRC and I ask the advice of the channel on what I should play.
I let them know the environment (few power cards owned by anyone in
middlebury) and let them know what I have, and they suggest a
strip/wasteland/sinkhole/abyss deck. Well, I don’t have an abyss.
I put together the deck a lot of people give me help with and take it to the
shop for tuning.
I beat up everyone but Keithk. He beats me two straight with what he calls
his “fun” deck. Let me correct him right here. Its not a “fun” deck. A fun
deck is an elf deck, or a thallid deck, or an urza’s lands artifact deck.
This is a deck that he really doesn’t think will win, requires more tuning,
has all the power cards he could fit into it without any real cohesive
theme, but continues to beat the snot out of a lot of people. See HIS report
for more details.
Also, if you read his report, he makes himself out to be more of  a whiner
than he is. Keith makes it sound like he walks around his store screaming at
the top of his lungs, “I’m better than all of you, and I wasn’t land
screwed, I’d crush you!” That is incorrect. It is true that keith hates to
lose, but he only whined to people who walked up and asked him how he did.
And he closes his report by saying “I’m just a scrub who thought he knew how
to play” which is patently false because he won the last tourney here, and I
think he won the one two times ago too!!!”
But anyway….
Turkey day was good for me, and friday The Loveley Mare (Hi Francis Keys!)
and I had the day to ourselves, and that was really nice as well.
Saturday Doug shows up and we start to playtest some type one, and I make
the startling discovery that if you are playing someone like me that plays
26 land in every deck, that Land Destruction. SUCKS!!!
We notice how many times Doug (playing another of my decks with 26 land in
it) has plenty of land despite the fact that I stomp his first four or five
with strips, wasteland, sinkholes, etc.
I dump the land destruction, and switch back to fatty speed discard mode. I
add two stupors, a sol ring, and three rituals, and I take out the strips
and the wastelands for mishra’s and quicksands.
This works, way, way better.
Rodney shows up, right after I serve the beatdown to doug enough to make him
cry mercy. My new version works much better. Regardless of whether he plays
my red black, or solid white deck, I win.
Also, I vowed not to use sheild spheres anymore, and that seems to be
working really, really well. Big surprise. No more Flores cards.
Rodney’s got a blue control deck that works o.k. but not great. It has eight
creatures. Ophidians and serendibs, with 20 counters, disks, some restricted
cards, etc etc.
I feel kinda bad. I put Rod over my knee and spank him for a full hour with
his original deck and he’s looking kinda down.
After a few games it becomes apparent that if you are playing control blue,
that serendibs are NOT a good choice. They are a beatdown creature. Rodney
sides them out for three air elementals and a fat moti. These work much
better.
We also replace his mishra’s with strip mines and quicksands. Since rod is
playing control, the strips and the quicksands work on opposing mishas that
he has trouble with. It also takes out those pesky outposts that solid blue
hates so much, if anyone is dumb enough to play them in type one.
I can’t convice him to take out two pathetic arcane denials that he insists
on running no matter how much I plead. At least I got him down to two of
them.
After we make these changes Rod beats me like a red headed step child nine
games out of ten. That’s pretty sad, but I don’t care. I was in the winning
position a while ago, and we always have sideboards for tomorrow. I’m
confidant that karma (mine) and lucky hymns will win me the day if we happen
to face off.
We work on sideboards for a while, and then decide that we are too drunk to
play magic any more and go in to see the women. The Lovely Mare has a new
friend. Rod’s new woman – Shelly, who is a godsend.
She’s bright, articulate, mature, and is in the exact same mindset as the
Lovely Mare was when she met me…
Whats fantasy?
We are introducing Shelly to Magic (she has a copy of my book), X-files,
Xena, Dungeons and Dragons, and of course the classics – Tolkein.
Mare and her end up playing computer games all day – something else shelly
never knew she loved, and Mare and her bond pretty thoroughly. We’re not
pushing any of this on her, its just a different world she’s being opened up
to, and she’s picking the pieces she likes and discarding what she doesn’t.
Shelly is thirty, like the rest of us, I’ll tell you right now – she’s going
to be Rodney’s first wife.
I don’t mean first of many, I mean first as in, at thirty, Rod has never
been married.
We watch TV for a while, and I explain the X-men to Shelly. I have a tape
full of the Saturday morning fox show’s and that’s what Mick (Rod’s 7 year
old son) likes to watch while the adults are busy. Another world  - comic
books.
It gets late, and we all crash, mick on the couch and Rod and Shelly in our
spare bedroom. At two a.m. I wake up from a half remembered dream, thinking
that a large growling dog is coming up my steps to mares and my bedroom. But
then I wake up a little more, and realize one of our two puppies must be
growling at something. Then I wake up a little more and realize the loud
noise is just rod, snoring a floor away. Luckily, Shelly must have elbowed
him, because it stopped thirty seconds later.
I wake up, suck down some coffee, some alpha bits and soda, and then Rod and
I bolt into the shop.
Small crowd today – only twenty. Kevin isn’t here. Josh and Joe Rheal, two
quiet, really cool guys from Barre aren’t here and I know they would be
fierce at this tourney, as I think Josh has all the power cards and is high
ranked in type one. Titan doesn’t make it, but he almost never ventures out
of Barre which is too bad, because he’s also really cool.
Eeyoo (alan webster) and his brother Don don’t make it either, cause its
football season, and Alan isn’t real happy with his deck, so he decides to
skip the tourney. Football over magic? Barf.
Hil and Michelle are here, with it being Hil’s turn to watch the baby, so
Michelle is playing today. She’ll be playing some slight knight white weenie
probably.
Ira’s here, playing the saphire medallion capsize control deck.
Keith is here playing his “fun” deck.

Deano is here (keith’s brother)  playing with all the moxes and a lotus.
Etc etc etc.
I’m here with my favorite deck –
Wakefield Black.
AKA Fattie black discard, consisting of most spells that go into a necro
deck, but a lot more fat, no knights, and no necro because I’m not smart
enough to figure out how to make necro work with all the fatties I like.
Usually wakefield black contains one set of four Flores cards, known as
sheild spheres. These have been replaced with diabolic edicts.
Here’s the type one version.
3 Dark Rituals
1 Sol Ring
4 hymn
2 Stupor
3 contagion
3 drain life
3 diabolic edict
3 disks
lighter on the creatures than I like, but what the hell….
4 sengir
4 hyppie
1 Juzam
1 Deralor
2 Ihsan’s Shade
The Brothers Very Grimm
Also known as
1 Morinfen
1 Gallowbraid
4 mishra
4 quicksands
18 swamps
It works great, and I love it.
First round – Ira “Wonderboy” Beaver
I spank him the first game with mad hymns.
In the second game I get ritual, swamp, swamp, swamp hymn, hymn, drain,
Ira wants me to go first, since I’m playing discard, and he wants the extra
card.
I play a swamp.
Ira plays an island and says go.
I play a swamp and think and think and think.
Should I ritual to two stupors?
Or should I just hymn him once, and then hope I get to hymn him after he
plays his second island?
Tap the swamp , ritual, hymn you.
Whats he gonna do? Force of will?
Tap the other swamp, hymn you again.
I pull cool stuff from Ira’s hand.
That’s pretty much game.
Later, I get him down to 4, have a drain in hand, a hyppie on the board, and
tap my 5 swamps and a sol ring to drain him for 4. Ira sinks me for one.
I tell him I was planning on taking mana burn from my sol ring, but, he just
saved me from that. He slumps in his chair a little bit. Damn.
He double force of wills it, and says that’ll be game, you know?
Hell it was game when I drew two hymns and a ritual against a control
player.
About time…
 I was due for a win against Ira, he’s beaten me down the last three time we
’ve faced.
Ira goes on to be 4 and 1 for the day.
(have I thrown enough magic slang into this?)
1-0
Second round I face off against Deano – The House – Kenyon. Deano is 5’8 I
think, 215 pounds and probably 5 % body fat. The man is a beast. He also has
all the jewelry.
He takes the first, gets land screwed in the second, and in the third, gets
a lot of jewelry, and no disenchant when I play the disk. I blow up his
jewelry, he doesn’t draw much more land, and I really luckily beat him down
savagely.
2-0
Michelle is also 2-0, keith is 0-2, Rodney is 1-1.
Third round I take on a yound kid that is always near the top eight, but I
don’t think he’s made it in yet. Greg Totten.
Greg’s playing frenetic elimination.
Frenetic efreets, diabolic edicts, bolts, more bolts and more bolts.
First game, one frenetic survives three elim spells before a disk blows him
away, and reduces me to ten. I drain myself out of torch range, and fatties
finish him off.
Second game, I take him again, and have no idea how. Don’t remember, but I
know it was in two.
3-0
This round I face off against michelle and her white weenie horde who is
also 3-0 of course.
In the first game, and army of allah, crusaded, band of mad lions and wolves
beate me down in 4 turns.
4 turns.
It was brutal.
Considering she only played two lands the entire 4 turns, I don’t see much
of her land. I’m sure she has some slights in there somewhere, so leave my
glooms out and just side in the dystopia.
She again beats me down with all of two land on the board, and I lose a hard
fought battle.
No worries. I’m three and one, and I ALWAYS make the top eight. Hell, I can
draw into the finals if I want.
Fifth round against, hmm, I believe it was one of the myers twins.
The lovely mare comes in with food, Merlin, and a kiss for me. What a babe.
Merlin is our new blue merle sheltie pup.
Puppy break – Update for those of you interested in my dogs, and there are
people out there that really like this part – so here it is.
The puppies are doing very well. Morganna is starting to bond with me, both
of them are sleeping on the bed with us at night, and we now have them in
obediance school.
Shelties are are wicked smart, and they’re so far ahead of the rest of the
class its laughable. Both pick up new tricks right off, walk just the left
of us, sit when told, and can stay in position when told to stay, that even
the trainer offering them a treat can’t break their stay.
Its great.
The trainer keeps yelling at me however because I kep praising my dog too
much and pet her too much, and speak to her too much. She’s doing great, but
I need a lot a work.
Morganna’s finally bonding with me, and that’s the best. We’ve found out
that sheltie females don’t start to bond until the sixth to ninth month, and
she’s starting to bond with me now. That’s the coolest thing.
Puppy update over.
Mark/Jon (no idea which twin I’m playing) is playing fattie green white,
with centaurs,  erhnams, and Autumn Willow. I keep him out of the top eight
in two. I can’t remember a single detail. Sorry.
I’m done real quick and I see the end of the Rodney’s match against Dean
“the House” kenyon. First game, which  I see the end of, Dean has a
scragnoth on the board that kills Rod.
I’m told that Dean went – Land, lotus, mox, sac tap, tap, scragnoth on the
first turn.
Dean has one scragnoth in his deck.
Rod never got a disk, a double quicksand, or his maze of ith before the damn
thing killed him.
Winner of this match gets to the top eight.
Second game.
Deano, plays a land and a mox, rod plays an island.
Deano plays another land, plays a serendib.
Rod plays a maze of ith.
Deano takes three from his serendib before he attempts to swords it.
Rod counters, liking the way this going.
Deano geddons – which rod hasn’t seen yet, and rod does not have a force of
will.
Serendib beatdown for the win.
Rodney is out of it, Deano goes to the top eight.

So, I’m second seed going into the top eight.
 Michelle has gone five and oh with her white weenie deck. The deck is
brutally fast, and most of her matches only go to two games.
She’s number one seed.

Of course Michelle has Wakefield Curse and loses in the first round of the
top eight in two quick games to deano.
I see the second game. Michelle has a horde of weeies on the board, a
mishra, and a plains. Dean has a mox, a forest, and a strip on the board. He
strips michelles mishra, then regrows his strip, then strips her plains.
She never draws another land, and in the next rounds deano plays two
erhnams, and Michelle blocks forever and can’t find another plains.
My first round opponent is a guy I’ve never played before. Never even seen
him before. He’s playing black white sengir serra angel, discard, and some
lucky draws on my part pull off a two nothing victory for me.
FINALLY!!!!
I’ve broken the curse!!! I made it out of the first round of the top
eight!!!
Awesome! Mare gives me a kiss and tells me congrats, cause she was watching.
Merlin is asleep at her feet.
Next opponent is Curtis who regularly makes top eight, and he’s playing
discard just like me. Only, he’s got a bunch of knights, and I’ve got
fatties. Knights are punk. Fatties are the one true road to victory.
He gets to the drain first with both our hands empty in the first.
Damn it.
Second game,  I get a swamp, hymn, hymn, juzam, disk, swamp, some other cool
stuff.
I hymn curtis and pull some o.k. stuff.
Curtis’s turn he hymns me, and pulls my juzam – (ARGGGGG!!!) and my other
hymn – (double ARGGGGGGG!!!!)
I play another land and say go.
He plays another land and stupors away my disk and something really fat
(triple ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!)
Damn it. Damn it Damn it! Here we go aagin, oh well, at least I made it to
the prizes this time.
He gets out a knight, I get out a quicksand.
He gets out a snakebasket and makes six snakes.
ARGGGGGGG!!!!
I have a quicksand on the board, no cards in hand.
Must… practice…. Mental….. MAGIC!!!!!!
I’m doing my best not to get discouraged.

I draw a contagion. Kill two snakes, quicksand another, and then somehow
kill the other two, I don’t remember how. A disk I think.
We bandy back and forth for a bit, him always the aggressor, and me always
top decking the solution just in time to keep from getting spanked. I’m at
about 12, when he has six land on the board, and he starts to count his
land.
He’s holding the drain damn it.
I need something NOW!!!!
Four rounds go by with him drawing more land and me doing the same – for
once in this game, I draw the first threat – a sengir. He drains it
immediately, which was the right choice. He’s far ahead of me on life now.
I draw the drain when I have 2 rituals in my hand and drain the PISS OUT OF
HIM!!!! He’s still alive but hurting Bad now.
(I don’t save my drain for anything because curtis is playing 4 hymn 4
stupor, and it’s a mistake holding a drain when you are low on life. You
lose a lot that way.)
I’m way up on life.
I draw one of the brothers very grimm, Gallowbraid, and the evil punk rocker
legend goes crazy on him, doing 5, then another 5.
HOLY FRICKIN PIKULA!!!!!!
Lets write this the Pikula/Flores way –
“Yeah he hymned me on the second turn, and stupored me on the third, taking
my disk, a hymn, my juzam, and a sengir, then he goes on to play a snake
basket, and he’s still holding a fat drain!!!”
“So you lost…”
“No I won, but….”
YES!
Damn that was great.
You know – check out last weeks report by Mike Flores. MAN,  I just about
split a gut laughing it was so funny.
Third game – winner goes to the finals.
Lets see if I can write this the way Tony Drew once said other tourney
reports are written…
“I draw all my phat 187 creatures, and serve mad janky beatdown on his punk
ass.”
I think that’s about right.
In fact, I draw a ton of fatties, and curtis draws one swamp and one strip
mine, and dies like a dog. When he gets his second swamp to hymn the last
two cards out of my hand, I already have a sengir and a hyppie on the board
and I take brutal advantage of his inability to play land.
I’m in the finals.
Felling pretty good. I shake Curtis’s hand, tell him I;m sorry, but its been
a long time since I made it to the finals. I bang my hand on the table and
shout “YES!” and get a stern look from Keith, judging the other match,
Deano, and Ron. Sorry Keith and Louise, but I know you understand.
I flex and smile and feel pretty damn good. I wonder if Ron wants to draw.
Ron, Keith and Deano’s Nephew, beats Deano in the other semi’s and I face
off against Ron and his prison deck.
Ron walks over, and sits down opposite me and we start to play. He doesn’t
offer the draw and neither do I, so we just go for it.
Ron gets a plain, plains, millstone, millstone on the board, and no more
land, while I get the swamp, swamp, ritual, ritual, ihsan’s shade draw, and
the shade kills him in 4, just as he gets to his third land.
The second game I get a third turn gloom, and start to beat him up with a
mishra before he gets arrows on the board. I attack once, he makes my mishra
a 1/1. I draw a hippie and play it, he kills it with the arrows, and then I
draw another mishra. I start to attack with both, praying for another gloom.
He continue to beat him up, and he draws a disenchant and takes out my 2/2
mishra, as it was pounding him down.
I empty his hand, and continue to beat on him. He finally disenchants the
gloom, and I draw another, and get a sengir and a hyppie on the board. I
have to play two creatures, because he’s got an icy on the board.
He draws and plays a balance. Killing my hand of two dystopia, and another
fattie, all my creatures, and leaving us balenced on land.
He draws another disenchat to get rid of the gloom, one round after I hymn
two karma’s from his hand.
I draw a drain after the 1/1 mishra continues to beat him up, while my juzam
gets tapped and tapped and tapped by the icy. – I was far ahead on life,
played the juzam and knew he would tap it, but it was the only way to get my
mishra through.
I drain him to death and we shake hands.
I am fulfilled.
I get 90 bucks worth of store credit, pay for my comics that have been
sitting at the shop for about a month and a half cause I’ve been broke, and
pick up 65 bucks worth of cards.
I’m not sure if tempest is a crap set or not.
I’m thrilled will all my commons,a nd real disappointed with all my rares.
Bellowing fiend, minion of the wastes, deadshot, static orb, the rare
buyback shallow grave and a ton of other crap not worth mentioning. It all
goes right into my trade stock, looking for Ray, who always collects
complete sets.
On the other hand, I pulled a few more diabolic edicts, mogg fanatics and
pincher beetles, all of which I needed more of – I really have been broke,
can you tell?
Another Lucky But Good Day.
Jamie C. Wakefield
Bard of My Team
King of the Fatties
Never Playing with Flores Cards again
Author of Tournament Reports –
www.wordware.com
Thetick@sover.net