Subject: Midwest Regionals Report (Chicago) Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 18:31:43 -0400 From: "Theron L. Martin" To: The Dojo M I D W E S T R E G I O N A L R E P O R T: THE FULL STORY by Theron "I'm Not *Really* A PT Player" Martin On Saturday May 15th I left Indianapolis and the Indy 500 Time Trials behind and headed to Chicago for the U.S. Midwest Regionals. The event was held in a Republican Party center in the Olympia Plaza shopping center in Chicago Heights, at the farthest southern reach of what can still be called Chicago. The weather outside was sunny, clear and breezy, with temperatures in the lower 80s. This made for pleasant conditions outside but a hot, sticky, and smelly (to put it mildly) environment inside. Total attendance for the Main Event was 390, resulting in nine rounds. Several teams were present - among them, major Midwest forces Team ACD and Team C&C Collectibles - but I'll let Adrian Sullivan try to name them all in his report, since I believe he kept better notes on that. After some confusion, head judge Ken Roth finally and unequivocally declared at the beginning of the fifth round that the cut for single elim would be to 8, instead of the 16 as previously advertised. (Apparently, they took heat from DCI for doing a Top 16 cut and playoff last year, and had to change it in accordance with DCI rules.) After more than two months of analyzing, discussing, building, and playtesting decks, I still found myself undecided on what deck to use the night before Regionals. I had finally become dissatisfied with the Awakenings deck I had been developing since early March, and of the other decks I tried - Pox, TurboSliver, R/G LD, 5CB - none of them suited because I either wasn't comfortable with them, or they seemed weak against certain decks, or they just didn't seemed developed enough for serious tournament play (as in the case of the Sliver deck). In the last few days I started looking at 4CW, because I felt that was the best metagame option, but wasn't satisfied with a couple of different versions. Frustrated, in the last hour before going to bed I decided to go with the deck but skew it away from its control focus and towards beatdown - I dumped the Scrolls and Tradewinds and focused the deck more around Empyrial Armors. To help ease the mana trouble I'd been having (and, hopefully, stave off expected LD), I upped the land count and added three Tithes - two of which I had to scramble to get on-sight! This gave me a deck with turn 5 kill potential and enough elements to protect the power combo that could also side very heavily against artifact and enchantment-based decks. Though unplaytested, I figured that with some luck in the pairings and intelligent play on my part I could potentially go the distance. My choice almost proved to be the right call, though not for the reasons I expected. I have listed the deck at the end of the report - which is not, by the way, copied off of The Dojo! As for the play environment? Following a trend seen in English regionals last month, sligh and red blitz decks barely had a presence in the field (but see the Top 8 report below). This is still unusual, given that the Chicago area tends to be Burn Central in Standard formats. Also, the proliferation of fancy combo decks and Tradewind-centered decks that I and many others expected to see just did not happen, either - they were in evidence and a couple were successful (see Top 8, below), but they weren't present in big numbers. Prosbloom, for example, was only played by two or three people out of the entire field, and I believe only one or two people tried TurboZvi (and Ken Roth implied that the 5-minute limit on finishing your turn at the end of the round was focused on that deck specifically). Also largely absent were Big Blue-type decks. I didn't see or hear about any Awakenings, blue bouncy, Stasis, or Hermit Druid decks. What was the main force in the field? A huge number of mono- or near mono-white and black decks, particularly various versions of Suicide Black. The former is the other Chicago-area standard besides burn, but not the latter! Necro and Pox decks also had significant appearances in the field, as did Sliver decks in three basic forms - Counter-Sliver, R/G Sliver, and the crossover NecroSliver. (Don't laugh! Both of the NecroSliver decks I knew about made it to at least 6-2.) 5CU, 5CG, 5CB, and 3-4CW appeared in significant numbers, but didn't have much of an impact in the late rounds. Mana-control decks (LD, Orb-based, Armageddon- based) were present but not in large numbers and, again, few were successful in the late rounds. Generally, it seemed that players were eschewing more complicated multi-color and combo decks for simpler, more direct approaches with high reliability and low chance of mana-screw (albeit fewer tricks if someone stopped their base strategy). That, and speed. If your deck couldn't realiably stop or beat at its own game a fast, brutal creature attack, you didn't succeed in the Midwest Regional. Perhaps that's why few control decks - particularly 5CU - did well. Curiously, given that, Propagandas didn't seem to play a major role, with one exception. Were people just not using them, or were they just not reliably fast enough? On to the round reports, followed by the Top 8 breakdown (I stayed until 1 a.m. to watch the finals, so it is complete). ROUND 1 - vs. Brandon playing mono-black Pox disruption I have this deck built at home, so I know how to beat it: control the artifacts!. First duel my lands came heavy and my creatures and anti-artifact didn't, so he got control of the game. The second and third duels were all about Tithe saving my ass while I pulled enough anti-artifact spells (I have eight after sideboarding) to allow my creatures to overwhelm him. Record: 1-0, 2-1 After the round, Todd Hansen and Ken Roth announced some awards and mentioned various significant people in the room, including myself for tourney reporting. However, they erroneously announced me as a PT Player. I've never even made the Top 8 of a PQ, much less an actual PT! ROUND 2 - vs. Josh playing WW with a little red Although we had a nice, fast little creature war, he ultimately couldn't deal with the Empyrial Armored creatures backed by Man-O'Wars, and my sideboarding of Knights of the Mists tore him up the second duel. His looked to be a solid, Dojo-type WW, not just a scrub deck, but mine was stronger. Record: 2-0, 4-1 ROUND 3 - vs. Jake playing Pox A second Pox deck in three rounds??? As I said before, I know how to beat this deck and should be able to - emphasis on *should.* After losing the first duel the same way I lost the first duel in Round 1, I again sideboarded in my extra anti-artifact spells, only to watch him draw more Cursed Scrolls and Steel Golems than I did anti-artifact (and I had as many anti-artifact spells as he did significant artifacts!). No accounting for luck, I guess. Both duels were still close, but I should have been able to do better. Record: 2-1, 4-3 ROUND 4 - vs. Joe playing monoblack Joe was a young kid - 12, 13, maybe? - playing a kid's deck. It used heavy shadow creatures and swampwalkers - when was the last time you had someone play a turn one Evil Presence on you? Unfortunately for him, my deck just shouldn't lose to something like this, and it didn't. He simply had no answer for an Armored Soltari Monk or Black Knight, and although he hit me for a lot of damage, I killed him in a mere three attacks in both duels. Record: 3-1, 6-3 ROUND 5 - vs. Mike playing WW This was not a standard WW deck, although it heavily used 1CC creatures. It used Humility to take control of games, Smite to kill opposition, and as often as not killed with Scalding Tongs. That's exactly how I died in the first duel, unable to draw any anti-artifact or anti-enchantment (on a couple of different occasions, I could have killed him the same turn had I drawn an Aura or Disenchant). The second duel we spent in a Tithe face-off at two mana, which was fine with me, since all I was drawing besides Tithe was WW cc creatures. I finally broke it by dropping a third land to cast Empyrial Armor on a shadow creature, and killed him quickly. He also learned this game how much of an advantage Warrior en-Kors have against a white deck that doesn't use them. In the third duel, Mike learned that, when Humility comes out, the deck which pulls Empyrial Armors will win. This was, by a half-hour, my longest match of the day; the rest of the time I was done in 20 minutes or less. Record: 4-1, 8-4 After this round I go over to Burger King and sit and talk with Ken Roth and a couple of other players for a while. Talk of Andon Unlimited's methods for scheduling and running major tournaments comes up, as always. Neither of us agree with Andon's recent antics surrounding the short-notice scheduling of Extended and Team Tournament championships, and both of us feel that Andon is doing a disservice to the general MTG public by the way they're conducting the upcoming Grand Prix: Indy (but that's another posting). Andon is the arch-rival of Todd Hansen and Ken Roth's Great Lakes Games in the market for major MTG tournaments in the central U.S., and one of my best on-line friends is a top Andon official, but I agreed with Ken on all points. The MTG side of Andon is much, much better since Jeff Donais arrived on the scene, but they are rubbing a lot of people (in the Midwest at least) the wrong way with some of their tactics. ROUND SIX - vs. Enrique playing Steel Necro This deck was a straight Dojo copy, as near as I could tell. In both duels I kept him on the defensive, never allowing him to mount an offense - between both games, he only did 3 damage to me, in the form of a single Drain Life. Record: 5-1, 10-4 ROUND SEVEN - vs. Troy playing 5C NecroSliver This is the first deck I've played against today that hasn't been basically mono-colored. Sliver decks worried me a bit; I have to rely on Armored speed or sideboarded Wraths against them. All three duels were close, with him dropping Necro early in the first and third. I won the second by surviving just long enough to pull off a Winds of Rath/Empyrial Armored creature combo - my play of the day! In the first and third, though, timely Firestorms stalled me long enough to win the game. A couple of times I was a hair's breadth from pulling the first and last games out, but it was not to be. In possibly my only mistake of the day, I did not sideboard in Honorable Passages against the Firestorms. Might have made the difference. Record: 5-2, 11-6 There's now no chance of me making the Top 8, but good prizes go down to 16th, so I decide to play out. ROUND 8 - vs. Dan playing 5CU In both games, the back-up spells in my deck - most specifically, the Mana Leaks - really came to the forefront. It's been said that 5CU has problems with a fast-creature approach backed by minimal countering spells, and I proved that true in both duels. I played cagey and defensively, playing only one or two creatures at a time and countering his Gerrard's, and he never got anything going against me. The second duel he did pull a Disenchant for the Armored Priest, but not until it had landed a solid hit that took him down to striking range. Record: 6-2, 13-6 ROUND 9 - vs. Robert playing 5CU? (didn't see enough of it to confirm this) Robert offered to play only for a sweep, since we were playing for tiebraker position as well as record, but I refused. Either this or my insistence that he reshuffle when he drew his hand without allowing a cut apparently really ticked him off, but he was the most unfriendly player I ran into the whole day. It didn't help matters, either, when he became the first person today that I caught with my sole starting Pyroblast. In both duels I played cautiously and intelligently, waited for an opportunity to drop a Soltari Priest, then when he tapped out his blue to reply with a Legacy's Allure I dropped an Armor on the Priest (a *great* Allure defense!) and defended it with Pyroblasts and Mana Leaks. Both duels took only three hits from the Armor Priest to finish (my deck working to perfection!), and we finished in only 9 minutes of play. As we went up to the scoring table, he fired off a comment to me about how I should use more manners next time. This really irked me at the time - I can be rude and the way I say things sometimes gets my intent misinterpreted, but I felt he was the one without manners in this case, not me! Of note about the last round is that the top two seeds - the 8-0 and the top 7-0-1 - played off. It's my understanding that the 8-0 wanted to finished undefeated and untied, but he lost in three tight duels. So I finish at 7-2 matches and 15-6 duels - very respectable, but only good enough for 18th place (7th out of the 16 7-2 finishers, only .4% on tiebraker behind 16th). Still, it was a solid enough performance with a solid enough deck that Leonard Richardson (whose opinion I do respect) told me I may finally be breaking into a higher level of tournament play. Another good player also reminded me that the only difference between a top 20 finish and a top 8 finish is usually a single card draw. That was certainly true in my case. Despite my near-miss, I still felt better about my performance than I have in a long time in major constructed tournaments; I never lost a duel to mana-screw or major mistake, which is usually how I lose. Watch for me in the U.S. Open, folks! I'm not going to be a scrub this year! THE TOP EIGHT The cut-off after nine rounds was a tiebraker at 7-1-1 (22 points), once again proving Theron's MTG Tournament Rule to be true: most of the time, the cut-off for a Top 8 in a major tournament is 5 points less than the maximum possible score. The Top 8 are listed below, with commentary about the decks and the elimination rounds breakdown following. Those winning seeds in the U.S. Nationals from the Midwest Regional, with elimination-round seedings, are: 1. James Baker, 8-0-1, Suicide Black variant 2. Bob Allbright, 8-1, W/G/U Tradewind-Geddon 3. David Petersen, 8-1, Cursed Red Blitz 4. Herbie Lukes, 8-1, monoblack Necroweenie 5. Sean Zloch, 7-1-1, WW 6. Derek Rank, 7-1-1, Prosbloom 7. William Genich, 7-1-1, R/G/B Good Stuff (see below) 8. Jacob Janoska, 7-1-1, Counter-Sliver Defending champion Leonard Richardson finished 16th at 7-2. I was assigned to check a couple of these decks, saw the deck lists for others and watched all the elimination matches carefully, so I can personally confirm all details above and below. Baker's Suicide Black did not use Rituals or Unholy Strengths, but did use Fledgling Djinns and Choking Sands. Allbright's deck was standard for its type, as was Rank's Prosbloom and Janoska's Counter-Sliver. Lukes' Necroweenie used Sewer Rats, Paralyzes, and Wall of Souls, but otherwise also seemed typical. Petersen's Red Blitz was simplicity incarnate - I don't think he had more than 10 different spells and 12 different cards total in his deck. It used Fanatics, Vandals, Digging Teams, Flunkies, Ball Lightnings, Cursed Scrolls, and a standard burn complement, with no side tricks that I saw. Jay Schneider may claim to have the strongest Sligh-type design ever, but I have not seen a nastier red deck than this in Standard format. Zloch's WW had an unusual creature balance that included Benalish Missionaries, Soltari Champions, and Orim, Samite Healers (don't underestimate the value of this one; it should be in every WW deck). William Genich's deck deserves special mention as the most unusual deck in the Top 8. It used an unusual mix of big creatures - Orggs, Derelors, Nettletooth Djinns, Wildfire Emissaries - together with Birds, Skyshroud Elves, Wall of Blossoms, Fanatics, and Mind Stones, with Incinerates, Hammers, and Earthquakes for burn and Goblin Bombardment, Serenity, Shard Phoenix, and Living Death for special tricks. Basically, it's an old-style BFC deck with a couple of new tricks. More effective than you might think, it executed superbly well the couple of times I watched it. A couple of important observations can be made about the above list. The first is that there are eight distinctly different decks among the Top 8 - a dramatic change from last year, when a single design took six of the top eight spots - and not even a dominant or excluded color. Four decks were 3+ colors, but the other four were mono-colored. Most significantly, of these eight decks, only one can even remotely be considered a control deck - the Tradewind-Geddon - and that one's more of a proactive control. As stated before, you either had to stop a strong creature attack or beat it at its own game to make the Top 8. All of these decks qualify. QUARTERFINALS Lukes (Necroweenie) beats Zloch (WW) 2-1 in a classic W/B weenie match-up. Baker (Suicide Black) beat Janoska (Countersliver) 2-1 when Janoska had colored mana problems in the third duel. This was otherwise a very competitive match-up. Petersen defeated Rank 2-1 in the only quarterfinal match-up proclaimed an upset. Petersen was mana-screwed, but Rank had a hand full of card-drawing and no crucial enchantments or means to get them. When he tried a desparation Meditate *without* the engine running, Petersen won with a timely Pyroblast. Had Petersen not had the Pyroblast, Rank would have drawn the Squandered off the Meditate (3rd card down - he looked afterwards) and started the engine. This was the only possible match-up in the top 8 that observers felt Petersen would lose, but luck was on his side today. Genich defeats Allbright 2-1 in a face-off that took as long as the other three quarterfinal matches combined (and then some). This match featured Genich doing 5 or 6 point of damage in the third duel with a lowly Skyshroud Elf against COP: Red and 2 Propagandas on the other side. SEMIFINALS Lukes defeats Baker 2-1 in a weenie race. Petersen quickly and brutally blasts Genich 2-0, drawing consecutive Ball Lightnings early in both duels while Genich suffered from decidedly subpar draws. FINALS Lukes steals the first when mana-screw combined with Lukes' Paralyzes slows Petersen down. Petersen draws better in the second, and Lukes never mounts much of a defense. In the third, Lukes drops three early Wall of Souls but not much offense, and Petersen works around them for the win. Thus, the Midwest Regional Champion for 1997 is David Petersen using Red Blitz. A rather remarkable result, given the general lack of red-based decks in the field. WRAP-UP Though only one made the Top 8, the deck of the tournament was Suicide Black - at least two, and possibly three, appeared in the 9th-16th places - and the card of the tournament was Sarcomancy, a statement I never imagined I would once say! Control is out, assault is in, ladies and gentlemen! Unless Exodus changes things dramatically, be prepared for that come U.S. Nationals time. PROPS AND SLOPS I don't normally do these, but Props go to: *David Petersen, for winning it all. *William Genich, for succeeding with Orgg in his deck. (One of my favorite big creatures and a strong metagame choice) *Sean Zloch, for doing so well despite having first learned to play only four months ago. *the player using the Sliver deck who pulled off a turn three kill *against* a Prosbloom deck! *the sole dealer out of the six or seven present who had the Tithes I needed. *The Burger King across the street, for having air conditioning and putting up with so many of us. *Ken Roth, for just being Ken Roth. Slops go to: *Todd Hansen, who forgot to stop by Olympia Plaza and turn on the air conditioning the night before. *Great Lakes Games, who ran a pretty good tournament (last year's was better, though) but neglected to mention in their instructions for how to get there that Olympia Plaza is more than four miles off the interstate. *the two players at the adjacent position to mine in the eighth round, who kept calling the judge over in a stupid ongoing dispute about deck shuffling and cutting. *the jerk I played in the last round. I know I'm not normally a very good loser, and I did soundly thrash him, but I hope I'm not *this* bad. Finally, I'll conclude with a list of the deck I used. It tended to run a bit heavy on lands (which isn't necessarily a bad thing when you're using Empyrial Armors), and I found myself often sideboarding out the Wastelands, which I didn't figure into my land count, to no ill effect. They had only been included to deal with Volrath's Strongholds and help against LD anyways. When I revise the deck, I'll probably drop one Wasteland and maybe one of the Plains, replacing them with a fourth Mana Leak - those did prove to be *very* useful - and probably another creature. The Pyroblast turned out to be a poor pre-sideboarding choice and usually got promptly sided out. The Shaman only appeared once the whole day, so I'm not sure about its usefulness. Same with the Volrath's Stronghold. The Tithes worked beautifully, as did the Warrior en-Kors and the colored mana balance - only once or twice in 21 duels did I find myself lacking a color I needed for more than a couple of turns. As for sideboard, the Disenchants, Furnaces, Pyroblasts, and Knights of Mists proved good choices, but I never used the Honorable Passages. If I had to do it again, I'd probably include something else that's specifically anti-black. JYHAD (4CWW) --------------------- 4 Soltari Priests 4 Soltari Monks 3 Warrior en-Kor 1 Shaman en-Kor 4 White Knight 2 Uktabi Orangutan 2 Man-O'War 4 Empyrial Armor 4 Incinerate 3 Mana Leak 3 Tithe 2 Aura of Silence 1 Disenchant 1 Pyroblast 2 Wasteland 1 Volrath's Stronghold 3 Ardarkar Wastes 1 Scrubland 2 Gemstone Mine 2 City of Brass 2 Undiscovered Paradise 2 Reflecting Pool 7 Plains SIDEBOARD: 3 Honorable Passage 3 Disenchant 3 Pyroblast 2 Knights of the Mist 2 Phyrexian Furnace 1 Wrath of God 1 Winds of Rath - The "Big T"