Subject: Tournament Report: 6314 Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 16:55:24 -0500 From: Jon Yurek To: Frank Kusumoto Well, this has been one of my most successful decks. Tricks in the Sideboard, and speed in the main... God I love green! :) Anyway, here's this week's version: The 6 Threes and a Four ------------------------ 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Pincher Beetles 4 Jolreal's Centaur 4 Rootwalla 4 Trained Armodon (The Tiny 'Don) 4 Llanowar Sentinel 2 Uktabi Orangutan 4 Crazed Armodon (The Crazy 'Don) 1 Aluren 1 Nature's Resurgance 4 Overrun 2 Cursed Scroll 18 Forest Sideboard: 3 Tranquil Grove 2 City of Solitude 3 Serrated Biskelion 2 Lifeforce 1 Primal Order 2 Uktabi Orangutan 2 Reap The sideboard only sort of helped it... I'll be changing it, definately. Well, there's no big story to tell this week... except for the fact that I couldn't get a 2nd Aluren to replace the Resurgance beforehand, and Nick went Christmas shopping, so he didn't attend. So, on to the report: Round 1. Eric. WW. Game 1, he has pretty much nothing out.. He's manascrewed enough so that he's discarding Soltari guys. I get him to about 4 when I cast Aluren to give him a chance. He casts 4 or 5 creatures, but I saw my enemy by looking at my feet as while I trampled him. :) Game 2, he's got much more mana and starts casting stuff. He forgets to draw a couple of times, and apologizes and says he's new. Oh well. I didn't fear a wrath in the least by the way he was overextending, and so some biskies pick off a few 3/3 birds eventually and a Scroll does him in (1st game where Tranquil Grove didn't show up, but would have been extreeemly useful - CoP:Green and 2 Crusades). Round 2. Mark Charette. Burn. Game 1: I don't remeber this game much... I think it was over quick though. He must not have drawn enough burn to take down every creature I put out. I remeber holding a Resurge at the end. I would have drawn 4 off it, him none. Game 2, I get slightly manascrewed (i.e. No elves) and can't cast a thing until turn 3, by which time he's got me at 10 or so. Eventually I pick him down to 5, I'm at 7. I have a centaur out, so I Overrun and walk in. His next card = Earthquake. :P :) Round 3. Scott Verill. Burn also. Yippeee! Scott and I have been paired up for the past 3 weeks. He's a great guy to play against, too. Game 1. I manage to get him to 1 in the same manner I did to Mark... pecks and nips, until I Overrun the turn he played a disk. I have no creatures left, and he's at 1... he puts down an AEther flash... wonderful. I draw a centaur, then land, land, land, etc... then I get a Sentinel! Drop 3 Sentinels and tell him I'm done. He debates wether to Incin me of the Elf, and he goes for me. Next turn, he realizes that he should have gone for an elf, and after about 5 minutes of thought he proclaims "One more mana..." and picks up his cards. :) Game 2. Very much similar to the first game, but the Groves show up, so the Flashes are useless. He might have disked, because I don't remeber how he killed all my creatures. The finish was severe, though: He is at 1 life, and has out a Quicksand, and 3 mountain (Now those of you who looked at my sideboard, try to guess what happened) when I drew a Primal Order. :) I drop it, he trys to remeber if it's in 5th edition or not (Damn Homelands cards :)) and goes through his upkeep just to see if there's something he can do to me. Nope. That was just such a cheesy win, I shake his hand tiwce. :) Round 4. Ashok. U/b. Always Black with this guy. :) Well, it was mostly Blue at least. :) Game 1: Propaganda hurts. Especially two of them. I have this great array of creatures out, and can't attack with a damn one of them (well, I could, but it wouldn't accomplish anything). Ahh well... at least I know what's going in the side. Game 2... guess what I don't draw!? :) 2nd game where Tranquil Grove has screwed me. He's got another 2 Props out, and he's at about 5 because of a small manascrew. If it was only 1 Prop, I could have attacked with 3 Sentinels and removed his weenie blockers, but he had 2... I go under. Incidentally, both times that I went for Sentinel Buddies, I noticed that a Grove was 2 or 3 cards from the top... Joy to me, huh? :) Round 5. Loren. WW. Game 1: Damn fast. Turn 2 - Soltari Monk. Turn 3 - Armor, in for 6. Turn 4 - Spirit Link... Ouch... But at least I could sort of side against it. Game 2: It looks shaky at first, but a Scroll manages to control the game, with 2 Overruns and a Monkey in my hand... thank God he didn't pick the monkey at all. :) Game 3: This hurts. It takes him an extra turn to get the Priest and Armor out, so I have a Beetle, a Tiny Don, and a Rootwalla out... 10 damage a turn, right? well, that Priest now has a spirit link on him. He's doing 8 to me, I'm doing 2 to him. You don't win games like that. And yes, this is the 3rd game where the Grove didn't show up in time, although it was the Link that killed me. Round 6. Chris Chiofrita. Geddon Recursion. Some many weeks ago, this guy would play weird lifeforce/slight or Titania's Song decks, but always with tons of artifact mana... now he's found a good use for it. Game 1: I get manascrewed, and can't cast stuff until turn 5 or so. He gets 2 Beetles out, which get stopped by my beetles. His Ophie to my Tiny Don. Then he geddons... and uses Sylvan and Scroll Rack and Gaea;s Blessing... and geddons again, and again, and again, and again... eventually, it gets to 1-1 LD with Geddons... I just concede after the 6th or so geddon. Gee, if he survives the early game, it's a really mean deck. Really the epitome of Geddon Early, Geddon Often. Game 2: Hardcore beatdown. Didn't go past turn 5, with a 14 point Overrun. Game 3: See game 2, but forget the Overrun. :) So, all in all... it's still a strong deck. 4-2, with Ashok splitting the win with a R/U deck. The lifeforces and Reaps were worthless... not enough Black. The Cities went unused. The Biskies and Groves saw a *lot* of action though. There wasn't much non-basic land, at least not as much as previous weeks, so Primal Order wasn't as useful (except in that one game). The sideboard needs major retooling... but the main deck is the most fun one I've ever played... probably because it wins more than I'm used to... total record so far, 12-1-7. Oh yeah... depressing side note: I stuck around for the draft afterwards... I reeeaaly suck at draft.... :) -- Jonathan Yurek The Happy Blues Man "Lovely weather today, don't you think?"