Subject: PQ-LA Report - Indianapolis Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 12:30:26 -0500 From: "Theron L. Martin" To: The Dojo NOTE: This report is pretty long. Skip to the end if you just wnat to see the deck listing, top eight, and overview. But do read the sidebars below first! On Saturday Dec. 6th Indianapolis saw the first of its unprecedented three PQs for this cycle. 114 players attended the event at the Indiana Convention Center, which is (literally) next door to the RCA Dome, where Indiana was playing Kentucky in college basketball that same afternoon - this made for an unusually expensive parking situation. This event was run by The Goal Line, a local store that has, to date, run all the major MTG tournies in the area - though this will soon change, as Great Lakes Games (GLG) will be running one of the two next month. SIDEBAR: Attendance was low because GLG was running a two-slot PQ only 200 miles away in Chicago at the same time. There are claims that Todd Hansen, operater of GLG, did this bit of scheduling wizardry deliberately, despite an effort specifically to discourage him from doing this (another PQ was also being run in central Wisconsin, also only 200 miles from Chicago, at the same time). I've been to Todd Hansen-run tournaments several times before, and respect him and his organization for their ability to put on some of the most efficiently and professionally-run tournaments you will see anywhere in the world. However, there's been increasing displeasure towards Mr. Hansen and his organization because of personaility conflicts and an apparent effort by GLG to seize absolute control of all major MTG tournaments in the Midwest. It's suspected that today's scheduling and their running of two PQs in Indiana next month is an effort to drive The Goal Line out of the business of running major MTG tournaments. Why doesn't DCI put some controls on the timing of conflicting PQs to prevent this? If they can't, why can't they? SIDEBAR #2: For those who haven't heard, there is an increasing trend to move away from two-slot qualifiers towards one-slot qualifiers. LA is the last cycle where two-slotters will be commonplace; there will only be 19 such events in the continental U.S. for the NY cycle, and two-slotters will become rare after that. An increase in the fee for two- slotters is partly responsible; DCI isn't outright advocating this, but it seems clear they are encouraging it. If you don't like this trend, protest it to the DCI before it's too late! The overall field was hard to decipher. Red-based decks seemed the most common, although there were a lot more decks with significant blue components than I would have expected and, very surprisingly, less Wastelands than I had expected. Tithe was, I think, the single biggest card of the tournament. I chose to play a control deck I call Police State (essentially an updated Prison deck with some nasty new tricks; it's practically a theme deck also!). I was prepared for a field heavy with creature-oriented decks, but my match-ups did not reflect that, instead heavily consisting of combo decks. Partly as a result, I had many long, grueling matches. Fortunately, I live less than 25 minutes away and was, for a rare change, well-rested for this one. ROUND 1 - vs. mono-B weenie deck with Fosaken Wastes and Static Orbs Even with Hymns, this deck is at a serious disadvantage against Police State; short of mana screw, I simply shouldn't lose to it, and I didn't. He conceded the first duel when I Prison-locked him. The second duel he made an ill-advised casting of a Static Orb on the third turn - which might have been okay had I not dropped a Propaganda the next turn. He ended up taking several points damage from his own Erg Raiders because he couldn't attack with them, and lost most of the rest when I took control of the Erg. His own Forsaken Wastes finished him off. Record: 1-0 match, 2-0 duels ROUND 2 - vs. Toby Tamber, using "Fruity Pebbles" First, an explanation: "Fruity Pebbles" is the name given early in the tournament to the W/R/U Enduring Renewal/Goblin Bombardment deck. I'm not exactly sure about the rationale for the name, but the name stuck, to the annoyance of some and joy of others (I rather like it myself). Toby Tamber is a player I know personally from a previous group trip to Origins. He's one of the better MTG players in Indiana, so I knew this match would be tough no matter what deck he had. I figured out by the third turn of the first duel what he was up to, and carefully timed my Winter Orb and conserved my counters - one Enduring Renewal got Capsized when he tried to start the combo, the others got countered. He eventually conceded when I Prison-locked him. The second duel came down to me realizing a second too late that I should have countered a Disenchant against my Winter Orb. Had the Orb stayed, it would've taken a LOT longer for him to pull the combo, if he could have at all. This single error here may have cost me a slot in the elimination rounds. In the third duel he successfully got down his first Aura of Silence (he had them standard). I kept drawing artifacts after that, and thus didn't have a big enough countering spell pool to stop the combo. While waiting for the elimination rounds to play out much later, we played another match and he again beat me 2-1. I concluded that achieving countering spell superiority will usually decide such duels, since we both had the same number of countering spells. Record: 1-1, 3-2 ROUND 3: vs. Leonard Richardson playing W/G/R/U Gaea's Blessing/Gerrard's Wisdom Leonard was the other person present that I least wanted to meet; he's a sly and cunning player (he said he liked it the last time I called him that in a report, so I will again!) who's one of two or three certain people that I *always* get mana-screwed against, so I knew this match would be a battle. It was. The first duel he was a little slow to start with his mana, allowing me to drop an early Dancing Scimitar. I tenaciously protected the Scimitar and countered Gerrard's, but he finally stopped it with 3 life left (all damage from the Scimitar!). His Armaggedons and Gaea's Blessings made trouble for me, while my Propagandas and Pendrell Mists assured that his Outpost token would chew up a lot of mana (he had 7 Diamonds out at one point). The game finally came down to me using the last countering spell in my deck on his last Gaea's Blessing, then dropping my long-held Grindstone. I had only eight cards left in library, but he had only six and no way to stop the Grindstone. This duel took almost 50 tense minutes. The second duel I pulled my second mulligan of the day, which save Leonard from an Outpost-only land-screw. This duel developed more or less like the last, with both of us desperately racing towards deck depletion in the last couple of minutes. Despite both our efforts to push the pace as fast as possible (I really wanted the satisfaction of a 2-0 win over Leonard after two past 0-2 losses to him), we ran out of time. I think I was up one or two cards and probably would have won, but against Leonard it's hard to be sure of anything except a tough match - he's the reigning Midwest Regional champ, after all. It was a very satisfying, if curtailed, win. Record: 2-1, 4-2 ROUND 4: vs. W/R/U deck This deck I couldn't figure out at first - he cast a COP: Green on the second turn of the first duel! He conceded the first duel relatively early when I Prison-locked him. Not knowing what he was playing for sure but not seeing any creatures the first duel, I did my standard low-creature sideboard, removing some creature control in favor of extra counters, creatures, and a Jester's Cap. The second duel he drops a COP: White early - and then, a couple of turns later, a Karma! He had these standard! A Scimitar and Mishra's were beating him up, but I was also taking two damage each turn from Karma. Before I could find a Capsize, a Bolt put me too far behind (I hardly saw my countering spells this game, either).. Now thoroughly annoyed at losing a duel to such a cheesy approach, I added in the Chllls and extra Capsize. In the third duel, he started with only a Plateau for the first four turns but managed to top-deck three Bolts - this unbelievable luck later made the difference in the game. A couple of turns later I drop a Chill, then force through my Cap. I look through his deck and see that it consists of. . . four Bolts, a Fireball, two Serras, some counters, some removal, a couple of COPs, FOUR KARMAS, and TWO MIND BENDS! Egad, it's a Karma/Bend deck! Of course, I remove three Karmas, and I play canny with my Underground Seas the rest of the game, just in case. He then draws one Bend and sleights the Chill to blue, but I counter. Later, after I get out a second Chill, he draws his other Mind Bend and sleights one Chill to blue. This proved to be the games other critical play. The next turn, while he's mostly tapped out, I cast a second Icy and try to force through my Orbs (I now have three in my hand). He counter the first two, leaving my one mana short to cast the third. This was my other elimination round-costing mistake of the tournament, casting the Icy instead of concentrating solely on the Orbs, because he couldn't have stopped the third one. Did I forget that we both also forgot that he had to pay two extra for his Forces? The next turn, even with one Chill out, he had exactly enough mana to Fireball me out. This one really, really annoyed me the rest of the day, because 1) it was such a cheesy deck, and 2) I made some crucial mistakes in the third duel, and he got very, very lucky about drawing exactly what he needed despite an early mana screw. Record: 2-2-0, 5-4 ROUND FIVE: vs. Eric playing W/G/U TitaniaGeddon deck I'm now out of contention but decide to play it out anyways because 1) I want more Extended points, 2) I want more practice with this deck, and 3) since I live so close, I'm not facing a long drive. The deck Eric is playing is a complicated update of the one George Baxter played at '96 Nationals, only Eric wasn't using Factories. Basically, he dumps out a lot of artifacts (including the elements of a Prison lock) and either locks you out or rushes you all at once with a Titania's Song. Gaea's Blessings assure that he won't run out of cards. Great! Another slow, combo-oriented deck! The first duel I pull my third mulligan draw of the day. Before I can declare mine, though, he drops his hand and shows me his! I think this has maybe happened once before in the 3+ years I have been playing MTG tournaments. Me redrawing off his mulligan instead of the other way around proved to be critical, because he double-mulliganed. He took four turns to find his first land, so I Lobotomied him and removed his Dissipates (his primary type of countering spells) and saw that he had three or four Diamonds in his hand. How frustrating! He concedes not long after when he is still mana-screwed and I am clearly heading towards a prison lock. The second duel was much more lively. We struggled back and forth the whole game over Winter Orbs and Icys (both of us) and his Titania's Songs. I Lobotomied and Capped him, removing his Armageddons, Aura of Silences, and one of his Blessings, and he Capped out two of my Capsizes and my second Icy. He slammed me twice with Titania's Song before I Capsized it and later countered it, then we proceeded to have a 20-turn struggle over his Icy Manipulator with an Orb out on his side - he'd cast it, I'd Capsize it before it could do any good, he'd repeat, I'd Capsize, we'd both spend a couple of turns rejuvenating our mana before repeating it again. Finally I draw another counter, then we repeat the process with another Icy. He finally gets the Capsize out of my hand when I try to Capsize his Orb to untap and he Disenchants it in response. I get to untap, but don't have a counter for his Gaea's Blessing. He puts one back in his library. I am holding a Grindstone but getting very low on cards. With three cards left I cast the Grindstone. With one card left in my library and six in his it's time to act. I know I have at least two activations before I lose to deck depletion. If he has drawn the last Gaea's but is holding it against need, I will win with a single repeat. If the Gaea's is still in his library, I will lose. The Gaea's turns out to be his top card. This duel took over 50 minutes. With only four minutes left and us being the only remaining match, we both declare to the nearby judge that we're taking five minutes to sideboard and shuffle and draw the match. There's really no point in trying, since neither of us can win in four minutes. Record: 2-2-1, 6-5 ROUND SIX: vs. Robert with a U/G/W counter/big fattie deck Finally, a creature deck! His creatures were big green and white ones (Maros, Ehrnams, Serras), with the blue there solely for Arcanes and Forces. Oh, he had Armageddons, too. The first duel he got a Maro down early and beat me up with it. I had to put a Serrated counter on it to put it at one life, then put Control Magic on it the next turn and beat him down to one life with it (I would've killed him had he not cast an Ehrnam as a one-turn delay) before he pulled a Plow. He then Armageddoned, but I recovered faster and dropped a Dancing Scimitar. He tried to Force it, then realized he had only one life left! Didn't matter, he would have died the next turn anyways, as I had counters to protect it. The second duel he again got an early Maro and Elf out, but he got into a situation (with an Armageddon?) where he had only one forest and a Thawing Glacier out. I had a Propaganda out preventing the Maro from attacking, then laid a Pendrell Mists. Keeping both alive kept his mana tied up so much that he couldn't Glacier. When he didn't draw lands for a couple of turns, he let them both go and Glaciered. Meanwhile, I Lobotomied his Arcanes away, got out an Orb and two Icys and, with a Capsize and three Perishes in hand, went into a long cycle of prison-locking him. He chose to play it out, so I had an amusing time repeatedly Capsizing an Elf he kept trying to get out and locking down his lands. When I got a Mishra's out and started hitting him with it, he finally accepted that the match was pointless and conceded. Record: 3-2-1, 8-5 ROUND SEVEN: vs. Dave with mono-black weenie (not one of the better ones) The first duel was a fun one both ways, even though he was losing badly. He seemed terribly amused by his utter failure to cope with a mostly-useless Lobotomy, Pendrell Mists, Propaganda, both my Serrated Arrows, and my counters, and somehow found it funny when I controlled one of his shadow creatures and proceed to smack him with it and a Mishra's. He even found it funny that I let him fire off two Hymns - I had an unbreakable creature defense already and more counters in hand than he could remove, so they didn't matter. When I got an Orb and Icy out and his last big attempt - three Dark Rituals feeding into a Drain Life - was countered, he conceded. As the second duel began he got a beeper call. He decided he couldn't win against me anyways (likely true) and the game had no real significance in terms of standings, so he mana-burned himself out so he could respond to the call. Note on the last round: I was sitting at a table directly behind the head one for this match. In a rarely-seen occurrence, the top two players actually played out the seventh round instead of drawing - there was some discussion about wanting the top seed in the top eight, which is mostly irrelevant except for prestige value. FINAL RECORD: 4-2-1, 10-5 The top eight broke down as follows: 1. Chris Goettee, R/U with Efreets and Miners 2. Robert Trimble, W/R/U Tongoesque (Mishras instead of Outposts) 3. Paul Sheller, a simple and VERY traditional W/G fattie-Armaggedon (see below) 4. Glen Ellerbe, 3CB? 5. Walter Scott, WW with enough R for Bolts and sideboarding 6. Sam King, R-based deck with a touch of B for Consults and sideboarding? 7. Steve Micich - pure Sligh 8. Parnelli Baker - some type of R/U, didn't see much of it. NOTE: Paul Sheller plays at The Goal Line along with me, so I know his deck well. It's about as simple and straightforward an Armageddon deck as you will ever see - four each Birds, Walls of Roots, Maros, Ehrnams, Serras, Armageddons, two Serrated Biskelions, two Icy Manipulators, the rest a mix of Plows, Wraths, and Disenchants. He doesn't use Land Tax, Sylvan Library, Centaurs, or anything else you commonly see in such decks - he even had Brushlands instead of Savannahs. Yet, despite its simplicity, he made it to the semis and put up a good effort there. Even with all the complex, tuned decks out there now, never underestimate the effectiveness of a very traditional deck like this. In the quarterfinals, Chris beat Parnelli, Walter won 2-0 over Glen, Robert beat Steve 2-1 in a LONG match, and Paul beat Sam 2-1. In the semifinals, Walter beat Chris 2-1 when Chris got mana-screwed in the deciding duel. Paul lost 2-1 to Robert, although I thought for a while that Paul would take it; he got color-screwed after an Armageddon in the second duel and Robert drew a Wrath just in time in the third. Thus, the qualifying decks were a W/R/U Tongoesque deck and a WW with Bolts deck. I would have favored the WW deck in a playoff, but they decided to draw instead. WRAP-UP THOUGHTS: *As you can see, neither Necro nor any of the predominant combo decks made the top eight; it was all pretty standard stuff. R/U decks were the most prominent, but I'm not convinced that's an accurate indicator of the Extended format's power corner; had Paul been sideboarding Scragnoths or had Wastelands in his deck, for example, I doubt he would have lost a duel to Robert in the semifinal, much less lost the match. *Combo decks must be prepared for, particularly "Fruity Pebbles"; everyone should have some way to either counter or interfere with enchantments or remove them at instant speed in either their deck or sideboard. *Anyone who's playing a predominately-red deck and not using Blood Moons is just being stupid. *Anyone who can afford the space for four Wastelands but isn't playing them is just being stupid. So many decks now are running so low on lands (and depending so heavily on Tithe) that a single early Wasteland can be crippling. *Anyone who's playing a major white component and does not use Aura of Silences standard is just being stupid. Anyone who disdains Aura of Silence in favor of Serenity is also being stupid. *Vineyard decks were present, but I don't think any finished higher than 4-3. *Which is better to counter, the Goblin Bombardment or Enduring Renewal? The Renewal is easier to counter and more costly if Disenchanted or bounced, but I think stopping the Goblin Bombardment hurts more. *Concerning my deck, the experimental Dancing Scimitars did not work well at all. They will be replaced with Steel Golems or perhaps big blue flyers. The Capsizes absolutely rocked, though; no blue-based deck should be without a couple. Lobotomy also proved its value. Yeah, there were a couple of times its use produced less than stellar results, but it has surprise value the first time, can't be defended against except with counters, you always get to look through your opponent's deck, and with a little luck it can cripple some decks. Also, it usually removes a couple of extra cards from their library, which is critical for a depletion-based deck. A deck based around them may not be feasible, but as a complement to other control elements they're very effective. My sideboard, I think, also needs a little more anti-combo deck emphasis. There's nothing I saw that I couldn't handle, though, so I'll probably tune this one a little and stick with it for future PQs. *The day didn't turn out all bad. I'm glad I played my last two rounds, beause I had a fun time with those. I also visited a mall restaurant and was surprised with a free meal, courtesy of one my students (I'm a high school teacher by trade) who happened to work there, and I got in some good discussion about the previously- mentioned tactics of PQ scheduling. *Finally, and I can't emphasize this enough, I DID NOT GET MANA-SCREWED THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT!!! I did mulligan four times in 19 draws but never got stuck with an opening one-land draw. This is such a refreshing change of pace for me; normally I am the King of Mana-Screw (ask anyone in Indiana who know me, they can attest to this). The deck is listed below. If you don't care about it, you're done here. If you do, think about how most of the cards are not only effective, but very appropriate to the theme name. POLICE STATE 4 Propaganda 2 Pendrell Mists 2 Serrated Arrows 2 Control Magic 4 Winter Orb 2 Icy Manipulator 2 Capsize 2 Lobotomy 3 Counterspell 3 Force of Will 2 Power Sink 2 Force Spike (more versatile than Disrupts, useful under an Orb, and nobody expects them) 2 Dancing Scimitars (will be changed) 3 Impulse 1 Grindstone (wasn't very useful today because I didn't see it much) 2 Fellwar Stone 2 Sky Diamond 4 Underground Sea 2 Undiscovered Paradise 1 Mishra's Factory (should be 2?) 3 Quicksand (should be 2?) 10 Islands SIDEBOARD: 4 Chill, 3 Perish, 2 Dread of Night, 1 Jester's Cap, 1 Capsize, 1 FOW, 1 Counterspell, 2 Sand Golems (may be dumped, sideboarded them more against the combo decks and Hymns haven't proved a major threat so far) If anyone else tries this deck, I suggest experimenting with different creature types, possibly Steel Golems, Air Elementals, or even Mahamotis. I don't like Waterspouts for this deck, because their upkeep can be burdensome, or Rainbow Efreets (because of Serrated) but they could be experimented with, too. There's too many creatureless decks out there to just dump the creatures entirely in favor of more Control Magics, and I've not been impressed with that approach in play-testing. Adding just enough white mana to allow Disenchants out of the sideboard might be another idea (or Aura of Silences if you are willing to go to four Tundras). I feel that keeping non-basic lands to a minimum is important, though, because of the threat of Wastelands and Blood Moons (and Primal Orders, too).