Subject: New England Regionals Report- Sun'5C-WW Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 17:28:38 EDT From: Allen Sun To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com New England Regionals Report- Sun'5C-WW The New England Regionals was ran by Your Move Games in Massachusetts. The turn out was very, very good(approximately 200 competitors) even considering that the location was at a country club in the middle of nowhere. It was approximately a 30-40 minute drive south east of Boston(where YMG usually runs their big tournaments). The turn-out was much higher than anticipated so we had to move to another building at the country club because of fire code regulations. The second location had a bunch of tables outside(under a overhang) so half the games where played outside. That was nice since it was about 70-75 degrees that day. Because of the unexpectantly high-turnout and the building change, the first round didn't begin until around 11-12. YMG did a very good job coordinating the events and things went very smoothly. They announced 8 rounds of swiss so it was going to be a long day. Even on the day of the Tournament, I was still debating between white weenie, discard-pox, and control blue. I hitched a ride with Josh and Steph(from Boston) and talked about decks on the ride to the tournament. Josh was running a B/R weenie deck and Steph decided on a white weenie deck with tradewinds. I ended not running discard-pox because I never played it before. Granted, it's not too difficult to play but I'd like to use a deck which I'm very familiar with. At the tournament, I playtested my blue control deck with Andy Koh and found that it was just too slow and couldn't handle early threats. So, I finally decided Sun'5C-WW which is a 5-color white weenie deck. The deck listing is as follows: Sun'5C-WW(white weenie) Main Deck: Sideboard: 4 White Knight 4 Pyroblast 4 Soltari Monk 2 Perish 4 Soltari Priest 2 Aura of Silence 3 Freewind Falcon 2 Honorale Passage 1 Order of the White Shield 1 Tanquil Domain 4 Empyrial Armor 2 Energy Flux 3 Disenchant 2 Karma 2 Armageddon 4 Tithe 2 Uktabi Orangutan 4 Incinerate 2 Firestorm 2 Terror 3 Sleight of Mind 4 Undiscovered Paradise 3 City of Brass 2 Gemstone 9 Plains (Deck Analysis at the end of the report) On to the tournament. (A side note, at the end of the last round, they took my player sheet so everything's from memory. Sorry, to those that I did not remember your name correctly). Match #1: ??? (from Amherst, MA) running Prosbloom Game 1: He lays down a multiland(CoB or Gemstone), so I'm thinking, okay, he's probably playing 5CU Donais or Prosbloom. The next turn, he lays a swamp. Okay, I go into overdrive and lay as many creatures to try to kill him ASAP. I get the armor on a creature and kill him a turn before he sets off. Game 2: I sideboard in all my pyroblasts and honorable passages(even though he's probably running Abeyance, but hey, I don't need terrors or sleights, right?), and the Aura of Silences. This game, I don't have armor but draw a honorable passage. He goes off turn 4 or 5 but makes a huge mistake. He accidently doesn't have blue in his mana pool when he drains for 36. I cast honorable passage and am amazed that it resolved. I think he was just very nervous because he hasn't practiced with the deck much. He was a very nice guy and we practiced a couple of games afterwards so he has a better feel for his deck. Match Record: 1-0 Match #2: ??? running R/B beatdown Game 1: I have a 1 land draw without any tithes so I paris mulligan. Unfortunately, my second hand gave me a gemstone mine. He lays a mountain and starts discarding goblins. In the meantime, all I have in my hand are 2 freewind falcons and a white knight. The knight gets shocked, and he plays a Barrow Ghoul(man, that dude is phat!). Barrow Ghoul comes knocking at my door as I draw lands and shadows(no armor). Game 2: I draw one land but have a great hand. I decide to keep it because everything in my hand only costs two and taking a mulligan against his deck really puts me at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, that was my only land the entire game. Well, it only took him about 5 turns to kill me(ball lightnings and barrow ghouls really put on the hurt). I even had freewind falcons and white knights in my hand. My fault for not taking the mulligan. Match Record: 1-1 (okay, it sucks to lose that early) Match #3: ??? running ??? Game 1 & Game 2: I really apologize to my opponent because I cannot remember, for the life of me, who I played and what the deck was. I won this match up. Match Record: 2-1 Match #4: Christian Riley running 5CU Donais Game 1: Christian has been out of the tournament scene for a bit and was just getting back into serious magic. He was running Donais' solid 5CU deck. I wasn't worried too much because of all my shadows and armor should be able to take care of him. The first game, I get him down into single digits but he wraths and gerries. I try to armageddon twice but they both get dissmissed and I conceed when he has total parity of the game. Game 2: I sideboard out the sleights, disenchants for the pyroblasts and perish(those wall of blossoms get in the way, and who needs sleights and disenchants against 5CU Donais?). I armor a shadow dude and armageddon. His deck needs lands. Game 3: He mulligans this game. I put out a shadow creature and draw armageddon. Turn 2, he puts out sacred ground. Whoops! Where are my disenchants? Oh, in my sideboard, gee whiz. Well, I only see 2 lands on his side as I armor my shadow creature and hit him 3 turns in a row for the win. Match Record: 3-1 (it's a uphill battle) Match #5: ???(from Team Dragon's Lair) playing Black Pox/discard/scroll Game 1: I'm not that worried against his deck because my disenchants and uktabi's can handle his scrolls, bottomless pits, and ensnaring bridges. I get out a white knight and shadow. He plays bottomless put but I disenchant it. The pro-black creatures go all the way. Game 2: I sideboard out terrors, firestorms, and freewinds for the auras and energy flux(strong!), and Karma. I play both the energy flux and Karma and lock him down. Match Record: 4-1 (getting more confident now) Match #6: Darwin Kastle playing Kastle-Green(G/B Living Death Monstrosity) Game 1: Okay, Darwin is one of the best players in the world so I'm thinking that this match is going to be really tough. And it was. His deck is the coolest deck I've seen in a while. It has so much synergy in it, that it's gross. The YMG team played it and had a overall game record of like 37-4 or something. It runs 8 walls, birds, spike feeders, for speedy mana and inital protection. Then it has fallen angel, maro, and tradwind for beatdown and control. The engine is from living death which works incredibly well with the fallen angels, spike feeders, firestorm, and intuition. It's an insane deck. I think Chris Manning(who made top 8 will) write a report with that deck. Well, I think the main weakness of that deck is shadow weenies and armageddon. The first game, I lay a shadow creature with does lots of damange. He plays wall, wall, fallen angel, tradewind and taps out. I have a full hand(thanks to tithe) with firestorm and armageddon. I firestorm at the end of his turn and kill all his creatures. He doesn't seem phased, probably because of the living deaths, but then I armageddon on my turn. The shadow dude brings it home. Game 2: I take out my disenchants and uktabis for pyroblast and perish. I can't remember the exact details of this game, but I perished when he had a bunch of green creatures out. I had a shadow dude which kept doing damage every turn. I pryoblasted 2 tradewinds in a row. I don't think he had a living death this game and I incinerated him to death. Game Record: 5-1 (Scoop them DCI points! woo-hoo!) Match #7: Aaron (Team YMG) also running Kastle-Green Game 1: I draw one land but keep it because of the 3 shadow dude staring me in the face. Unfortunately, they keep on staring me in the face as I can't get my second land. Maro knocks on my door to make sure I die. Oh well. Game 2: The same sideboarding as described above. As I stated earlier, Kastle-Green is a monster deck. But, shadow with firestorm or armageddon wrecks it. This game, I get out shadow, perish, armageddon. That was it. Game 3: I can't remember the exact details, but it was shadow, armor, 'geddon. Match Record: 6-1 (Almost there!) Match #8: Chris Manning also running Kastle-Green(3 in a row!!!) Okay, before the round, everyone ponders either to draw or play. Everyone is discussing the math and probabilities. Since I lost in the 2nd round, my opponents match record will suffer. And if I did ID, then to guarantee a spot in top 8, only one other pair of 6-1 can ID. That's pretty tight and a tough decision. I sit down across from Chris and he wants to draw. I have an inkling that he's playing Kastle-Green(because he's a YMG regular). The unfortunate thing is that I think Darwin discussed his match with all his teammates because my last opponent seemed to know exactly(to the card) what my deck had. Chris wanted to draw but my opponents match record was not good. I decided to play and it was a good thing because 2 other 6-1 matches drew with would have put me 9th if I had drew. Game 1: I start off with 2 white knights, with no shadow nor armor nor 'geddon. That doesn't look good. He didn't play anything turn 2-3 and played a maro. That made me very suspicious. Maybe he had a lousy hand, but I'm not so sure. I think he had consultation on what my deck ran. He firestorms my 2 knights, hits me with maro, puts another maro. I firestorm back, he living deaths. Uh oh, I incinerate one maro(he had 3 cards in hand). Goes back and forth, but the pressure of maro with an increasing hand gives him parity. He lays 2 fallen angel, birds, walls, and kills me with a angel that pumps to 15 or something. It was a very intense game! Game 2: Sideboard the goods. I get out shadow and have armor and 'geddon in my hand. I knew he sideboarded in man-o wars(because that's with Aaron sideboarded against me). So, I wait one extra turn before the armor(so don't armor until turn 4, instead of turn 3) so that I would have pyro to back up. I get him down to 8 and am holding 6 cards. One more turn and I have him. I didn't geddon him (turn 4) because he had a angel out which would have won the damage race. On turn 5, he living deaths, and sacks everything to the angel(including itself). Gulp!!! Then he attacks with angel and pumps it up to 5000 or something. It turns out that if I had armored turn 3 and geddoned turn 4, I would have won. But, I played safe for the pyro to protect the armored-shadow against man-o'war. Oh well, such is decision- making. It was a great game and we both played the best(to our knowledge) based on the situation. I congratulated Chris as he made top 8(and Nationals) with the Kastle-Green deck. Match Record: 6-2 (Bummer, one game from Nationals!!) Post-Tournament Thoughts: Well, to be truthful, I was really, really surprised that my 5C-white weenie did as well as it did. The last match against Kastle- green could easily have gone both ways. I think Sun'5C-WW is strong because it's so robust. It's different than other white weenies because every card is maximally useful. It matches well against all different types of decks. It has creature control(terror, incinerate, firestorm), artifact/enchantment control(uktabi, disenchant), and can put heavy early game pressures with the weenies plus armor. Sleights turned out to be good in the deck because many times, I could sleight my knight which would go all the way. It also works well with terror(slight the black away) and against enchantments/spells that direct against some color. And, I could always throw it away to firestorm(Tithe is also great with firestorm). It seemed like every card was maximally useful in the deck. Even the janky freewind falcons were good because of all the walls('blossoms/roots) and I could always armor him or sleight him to block fallen angels or marrows. Usually, Shadow+armor = Win. As for the other decks, Counter Silver and 5CU Donais' didn't perform close to expectations. They got smacked around in the early rounds and I didn't see any left in round 6-8. Fast black weenie did really well. I think one version(Balabon Black, created by Mark Balabon from Boston) made top8. I was suprised that the fast weenie did well because there's no recovery in the deck. I'm thinking that a propaganda will shut it down or a well timed firestorm or earthquake will end it's attacking days. I guess it just comes out too fast before the opponent can set up a defense. In one game I saw, one person playing Balabon Black got out 3 2/2 on turn one(using dark rits and that enchantment that creates a 2/2, sacromony?). Other decks that did well were Prosperous Bloom(Mike Bregoli went undefeated with it) and Kastle-Green. I think Kastle-Green is going to be the "Next-Best-Thing-Since-Sliced-Bread"(tm). I think everyone who played it was at least 5-1 (after the 6th round) and 2-3 of the top eight were Kastle Green). It works like butter and it is PHAT(tm)! I think its only weakness is shadow and armageddon. It needs 5 mana to run so if you can keep them at 4, you win. It's really hard because there are 4 birds and 4 wall of roots for quick mana. I think Chris will post the deck listing in his report so you can all make your analysis there. Kastle-Green will be the deck to beat. Watch out for it! Props and Slops(like every other tournament report) Props: All my opponents: They were all really cool and nice. There was very good sportsmanship all day at the New England regionals. Your Move Games: They ran a really smooth tournament. Very nice staff and all around very helpful. I'm really glad that they run the big tournaments in this area! Weather: 75 degrees plus a nice country club setting is really nice! Very comfortable atmosphere. Kastle-Green: The deck that he designed really, really rocks. It should be in the slops, because I lost to it in the last round, but it's just so cool! :) Sun-5'CC: Even though I missed Nationals by one match, it performed much better than expectations. Slops: $3.00 for a 3-bite sandwich: The country club was very isolated so their food-monopolize snack bar charged like a monopoly! Country Club Location: No Public transportation, isolated location. It was a wonder so many people were able to find this place. I hope you enjoyed this tournament report. Please send comments to- Allen Sun acsun@mit.edu