Subject: Birmingham PTQ Report Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 00:40:32 -0500 From: Michael Bowen Just to got back to Montgomery from the Birmingham PTQ and thought I'd let you guys know what went down from my viewpoint. I've had very little time to build decks or playtest anything for this environment. The decks that I knew how to play and thought could be competitive were White Weenie, Geeba and old-school Necro. I wound up playing the third on the advice of John Dearman and it paid off reasonably well. I wound up 5-0-2 after the Swiss rounds, making the top eight. Unfortunately I lost in the first round of eliminations. :( Rich Pierce, also from Montgomery, made top eight with a Geeba like burn deck splashed with a touch of white. Here's what the others played: Bin Chen - Pox/Triskelion David Leader - Senior Stompyish Jay Schneider - Fruity Pebbles Eric Ewald - "Randal" (heh!) Sean Lestrade - B/w Necro ??? - Fruity Pebbles I don't have any info on the finals as I left after losing to Eric Ewald. Here's a round by round summary of what I played against: R1: I won 2-1 vs. a newbie playing a weak Necrotog deck. He didn't make any obvious playing mistakes and did manage to take one game from me with a weenie swarm but my deck just really overmatched his from the start. Even though I won, I didn't feel like I'd played very well in this round. Not a great start to the day and it looked like it was going to get worse... R2: Somehow I always manage to get paired up with my buddy Dwayne High early in any tournament we both attend. Dwayne is playing W/r/u and is very well set up to take me down with Pro-Black critters, burn and AURA OF SILENCE. (Okay...so it costs six for me to cast a Disk and then you just pop it off the board right? This sux!) I won the match because of sheer luck and a blunder by Dwayne. He was going to over run me next turn with two Orders, a Savannah Lion and a Factory when I top deck a Consult and then consult for a Drain. I have just enough mana to Drain him to zero. Dwayne tries to 'plow his Savannah Lions but I Contagion the Lions in response and get the win. If Dwayne had tried to plow an Order instead he would have gone on to win the game and the match! A lucky 2-1 escape for me! R3: I win 2-0 vs. Pox/Trike. I hate playing Necro against Pox/Trike. Charlie Arnold taught me all I ever wanted to know about the deck last summer...the *hard* way. As such, I'm afraid to even think of letting a Necro hit the board against it because its such an explosive deck. I get lucky and draw early Hymns though in game one and in game two side in Icequakes to keep my opponent as mana screwed as I am. It manages to work and I win a long match. He dies with my Sengir Vampire on his side of the board thanx to a Dance of the Dead...but he can't untap the darn thing! :P R4: I get to play Eric Ewald and his "Randal" deck. It's B/r with lots of Pro-White critters, Sedge Trolls, bolts, hymns, and fun things like Dance of the Dead. Sedge Trolls are so *huge* against mono-black Necro. The Disk doesn't kill them and Contagion simply slows them down. Fortunately for me he never draws them! I play very agressively (1st turn Dark Ritual, Hymn and then Consult for a Hymn) and manage a 2-1 win. It was a good tough match that I once again felt lucky to win. This becomes the joke of the day, BTW. After every match Jay Schnieder asks how I'm doing and I always say something to the effect that I really shouldn't have won the last match but I got lucky and did. I won't even bother quoting Chris Cade at this point. R5: Fruity Pebbles. I sorta have a strategy against this deck but don't like my odds. Turn one I Dark Ritual then Hymn and then Consult for another Hymn. Turn two I try to Hymn again but this one gets Disrupted. But that's okay 'cos I draw another one. :> Then I drop a Disk and work on whittling him down with critters. He occasionally has to waste countermagic on things like Dark Banishing and more Disks. Even with a Disk in play he finally goes for the combo - casts the Bombardment and then the Enduring Renewal. In response to the Renewal, I Disk. Then he *has* to show me his hand and either he has the combo or he doesn't. He doesn't and no countermagic either and a Drain finishes him off next turn. Game two I side in Icequakes and Infernal Darknesses hoping that I can mana screw him long enough to win. Turns out he's mana screwed anyway and a Wasteland and two 'quakes don't help out. I'm beating him up with an Order when he conceeds. R6 and R7 were intentional draws of course. I get a bite to eat with Jay Schneider and we talk about Fruity Pebbles. Jay says that this could be "Fruity Pebbles Winter" much as we had "Black Summer" back in '96. Geeze...I wish he were wrong but he's probably not. In the first round of elims I draw Eric again. This time he draws as many Hymns as I do then he draws those *phat* Trolls too. I fought gamely but he really just beat me down hard this time. I love his deck though. It's just a basic B/r critter deck with lots of nice little personal touches that distinguishes it from any other deck in the field. Oh well...not a bad run for a scrub like myself. I win a few boosters and a starter pack and get a few pats on the back from my friends. Not a bad day really. Here's my deck. It's a fairly stock mono-black Necrodeck. I think I really wound up with favorable pairings today though (no burn!) and I'm not at all confident that the deck is tweaked as well as it should be. But here it is, warts and all: 4 Nevinyrral's Disk 1 Serrated Arrows 3 Necropotence 4 Drain Life 4 Demonic Consultation 4 Dark Ritual 4 Hymn to Tourach 3 Contagion 2 Dark Banishing (Should probably have been Edicts) 3 Sengir Vampire 4 Order of the Ebon Hand 2 Mishra's Factory 4 Wastelands 18 Swamps Sideboard: 1 Contagion 1 Serrated Arrows 4 Dystopia 2 Spinning Darkness (Never sided them in!) 4 Icequake 3 Infernal Darkness I thought the 'quakes and the Infernal Darkesses would be the answer to Fruity Pebbles but they really weren't. I really was lucky to take a match from that deck. And I definitely need more Dark Banishing or maybe Terror for those pesky Trolls! Anyway, that's all for now. I'll probably be in Atlanta in two weeks from now so if you go I'll see you there! - Michael Bowen mbowen@l-a-net.net