Subject: [Report] Sanctioned T2 Malmoe, Sweden (long) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 22:21:59 +0100 From: "Lindohf, Tomas" Here's my report from Malmoe's first sanctioned tournament. The place was Fantasy World, the date was 6/12 -97 and the format was Standard (T2). For the last couple of weeks I'd been planning on playing Schneider Pox on this tournament, but after letting a friend use it in last weekends tournament, which I couldn't attend, and him failing miserably I wasn't so sure. Anyway I got some useful feedback from that tournament and after some tweaking I had a deck that I felt would be able to handle the things that had been it's bane last week, i.e. Winter Orb and Armageddon. I also wanted to play it simply bacause it's one of the most fun decks to play at the moment. Anyway this is the version of the deck I used. 4 Pox 4 Stupor 4 Diabolic Edict 4 Funeral Charm 3 Drain Life 3 Evincar's Justice 3 Spinning Darkness 4 Cursed Scroll 3 Steel Golem 2 Chimeric Sphere 2 Charcoal Diamond 2 Mind Stone 1 Stalking Stones 3 Quicksand 2 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 13 Swamp Sideboard: 2 Dread of Night, 3 Perish, 2 Pillar Tombs of Aku, 3 Lobotomy, 2 Warmth, 3 Disenchant I've since changed both the main deck and the sideboard. In the main deck I've replaced one Spinning Darkness with a Disenchant, replaced the Mind Stones with Diamonds replaced one Swamp with another Undiscovered Paradise. The sideboard looks like this now: 2 Disrupting Scepter, 2 Phyrexian Furnace, 3 Dread of Night, 2 Perish, 1 Spinning Darkness, 3 Disenchant, 2 Honorable Passage. When I get down to the store and starts registering my deck it turns out that two other people are playing Pox as well, my friend who played my deck last weekend, Peyman Salehi, who's playing with Breathstealers Crypt and Pillar Tombs and no Cursed Scrolls, and Martin "Marv" Svensson, one of the members of Team Fantasy World, who's playing another version of the Schneider Pox. Round 1: The pairings for the first round comes up and it turns out I'm playing Anti Andersson, one of the youngsters, who's playing R/W Humility/Burn. Game 1: We start playing and I'm sitting with a fist full of creature removal, but Anti isn't playing any creatures, and then Humility hits the table and it dawns to me that this is a creatureless deck with burn, not a good time to only draw creature removal and land. I think I Poxed once this game, but he already had some Diamonds out, so it didn't hurt him. I died to a recycled Hammer. Hmm... maybe I should have kept those Phyrexian Furnaces in the sideboard. Out goes the Editcs and Spinning Darknesses and in goes Lobotomy and Warmth. Game 2: No early discard or Pox in this game either allows him to set up his artifact mana supply and start recylcling his Hammers. in the endgame I had two Lobotomy in hand, but no blue mana. Maybe I should have used another Undiscovered. 0-2 games; 0-1 matches. Not a good way to start the day. It later turns out that this was the only game Anti won all day. The other two Pox decks also lost their first games, so it's not looking good for Pox at the moment. When we discuss our games between the round we all wish for a nice green deck to sink our teeth in next round. Round 2: My next opponent is Joakim Andersson, one of our best Limited players, fortunately this is constructed though. He's playing... 5CG (yesss!!). Game 1 and 2 pretty much looks the same, except in game 2 I have Perish intead of Justice. He starts putting out his creature hoard, I Justice/Perish and then Pox/Edict any creatures that are left or comes out later. I then beat him down with Golem/Sphere/Scroll. 2-2 games; 1-1 matches. Things are starting to look a bit brighter now. I think both Peyman and Marv lost with their Pox decks though. Round 3: When the pairings come up I see that my next opponent is Martin Cedercrantz, one of the better constructed players in this area, this could be tough. Martin's brother Johan was in Mainz at this time and after the first day he was 13th I think, so Martin was in a good mood. Johan ended up 58th though. Anyway, Martin was playing a W/G/r/b Vinyard/Discard/Life deck. Game 1 and 2 where very similar, I started putting pressure on him with Golem/Sphere, he would then use Wisdom to gain some life and I would then Pox them away. When he cast Wisdom the first time I was a bit worried at first since I didn't have any Forsaken Wastes in the sideboard, but Pox+Stupor works amazingly well against Wisdom. I beat him in two drawnout games. 4-2 games; 2-1 matches. Round 4: Seems the pairings didn't match up for this round, because my opponent this time had 1-2 matches. It was Marv with his Pox deck, this could be interesting. Game 1: Marv win the flip and chooses to begin. He Stupors me turn 3 and gets my third land, and when I don't play a land turn four he wastes my Quicksand and that's a game, since I don't get above two mana after that. In comes Pillar Tombs and two Disenchant. Game 2: This game is similar to game one in that we both put out a Scroll on turn one, and since I get to three mana first I get to Stupor him first. I don't get lucky though, so he's not screwed. I get my Scroll going first though, so I win the game. Game 3: I had an amazing starting hand this game, both my Pillar Tombs, and three land, so I should be able to get them going. Marv Stupors first, but misses the Pillar Tombs, so he he get a taste of them the two consecutive turns. Even though he has first one and then two Fountain of youth out that pretty much does him in. 6-3 games; 3-1 matches. If I win the next match I should be able to draw into the elimination rounds. After this round they did a deck check on some of the players, and two(!) player where evicted due to illegal decks, one had five(!) Man-O'-Wars and the other had missed to record four of his cards. I guess they have learned the hard way to double check their deck listing and deck. Round 5: Cristopher Cutlip with PropaOrb. I guess this is it then, this was the deck Peyman had most trouble with last weekend, so I'll find out now if my modifications worked. Game 1: I put out an early Sphere, but Propaganda neutralize it. An Avenging Angel makes an appearance, and is quite annoying for a while, until I two of them with a Stupor. Since they are the only creatures in his deck he will have to deck me now, and a Cane makes sure this will happend unless I do something about it. I finally manage to Pox him to death, when he's at one life. At the end of this game I have all my artifact mana out, and Christopher have both a Worb out and have 'Geddoned a couple of times, so I guess my modifications worked. We'll have to see in the next game though. Game 2: He don't get his Angels or Wisdoms, so Pox folloed by Scroll serves a quick beatdown. 8-3 games; 4-1 matches. Round 6: This is the final game of Swiss, and we're four players at 12 points, so we all draw into the finals. My opponent this round was Kristian Hellman, who's ranked 2nd in southern Sweden after me. We decide to play a few games for fun, and I feel I was fortunate to draw this round, since I have to reshuffle three times before I get a hand with any land. When we finally start playing I beat him three straight games, so I'm confident for the elimination rounds. What I saw of his deck was WW with some burn. 8-3 games; 4-1-1 matches. Quarter finals: Against Gustaf Joensson, who's playing NecroWeenie. Game 1: Gustaf starts by putting down a Sewer Rat, followed by a pump-knight and some other weenie after which he casts Necro and necro for 6. I look down at my hand and what do I see there starting back at me if not Pox. I decide that now is a good time to Pox, meaning Gustaf just payed 11 life for three cards :-) I follow up with a Steel Golem, so he has to clear the board with a disk. I then put down a Scroll and that's the game. Game 2: The creature rush starts again, but this time I don't get enough creature removal to keep up, so I bite the dust. Game 3: An early Scroll followed by a Pox puts me in control of the board, and this game's mine. 10-4 games; 5-1-1 matches. Semi finals: The semi finals and finals are played best of five. I'm playing Ken Asp, one of the other players who drew into the elimination rounds. He's playing R/G Vinyard/Burn. Game 1: This is a close game, but a torch is enough to finish me. Game 2: After sideboarding we start playing, and Ken gets an early Deathgrip out. This could be tricky. I'm very focused on the game when Ken suddenly concedes and I have no idea what's going on. It turns out one of his sideboard cards wasn't sleaved. Game 3: I get my Warmth out early in this game, but it doesn't help, since he's got a Rootwalla I can't get rid of. Game 4: Like the two previous games, he get's an early Deathgrip, but since he taps out most of the time I can still play pretty unhampered. Scroll and Golem does their stuff and I manage to take this game. Game 5: A first turn Vinyard (the first one this match) means a first turn Chimeric Sphere for me. It also means that I can make it into a creature for free every turn :-) He tries to make the best of a bad situation, but my creature removal keeps his side of the board clear while he takes three from the Sphere every turn. 13-6 games; 6-1-1 matches, and I'm in the finals :-) Finals: My opponent in the finals is Kristian Hellman again. I offer him to split the prize and play for the points and he accepts. It turns out he's playing 4CW. I lose the first two games, take the next two and loses a close fifth game. Better sideboarding would probably have swung things in my favor, but Kristian is one of the best constructed players in these parts, so he deserves the victory. This probably means that he passes me in ranking as well, so now he's number one around here. Congratulations Kristian, I'll beat you next time :-) 14-9 games; 6-2-1 matches. -- // Tomas Lindohf // tol@hermes.prog.se // http://hermes.prog.se/~tol/Magic/index.html